#i mean ah. ag!

[dayurno]

still thinking about it. she threw riko a peace sign 🥹

[egophiliac]

still absolutely losing my mind over Lilia

[randomwriteronline]

woe/rejoice. agori (and by extension glatorian) hcs be upon you

Agori exhibit subtle sexual dimorphism differently depending on which tribe they belong to (i.e. lebori males have brighter plumage, fezeri females are larger), while their bone structures are essentially identical. Gaquri are the only tribe able to naturally alter their bodies' production of their estrogen and testosterone equivalents. Actively transitioning and/or intersex individuals of any tribe can present dimorphic traits of one sex, traits of both sexes, muddled traits, or none at all

Their breasts are placed in the pelvic area, like horses, and the nips are the only visible part. To prevent chafing, lower garments have soft reinforcements at hip-height

They have short, nubby tails which have survived across their evolution despite having lost their original size and purpose. their movement is very limited and usually unconscious; since they remain the same length during all stages of life, they appear to "shrink" the more a person grows. children use them to better balance themselves when learning to walk

With the exception of Basari's and Fezeri's, Agori ears are very flexible despite their small size and can lean in almost all directions. Their shape varies across tribes

Their senses aside from touch are generally keener than humans'

Agori clothing tends to prefer function to form and does not have significant differences between masculine and feminine styles, although it wasn't always the case before the Shattering

Together with hugs, kisses and handshakes, each tribe has a unique display of affection or greeting pertaining to the head and/or face: Lebori preen each other, Gaquri rub cheeks together, Koniri gently nip ears, Fezeri butt the top of their heads, Basari scratch each other's nape, Potori shove temples against one another and Tapyri press the other's hand to their forehead. The gesture's intensity is usually toned down when done to someone of a different tribe to avoid discomfort or pain

If an object is in an enclosed space like a house, a vehicle or a box, Agori will point to it with their chins instead of their fingers

Vorox and Zesk still communicate in an extremely simplified version of a strict Basari dialect, although the phonetics had to be heavily changed to adapt to the shape of their mutated mouths. Malum has learned it and is currently the only fully sapient being somewhat fluent in Bara Magna Basari

Other tribes tend not to know Tapyri have hair

Koniri fur keeps warm, but becomes stiff in great quantities; Lebori down feathers are very soft, but struggle to retain heat on their own; Potori wool offers great insulation in most climates, but risks growing mold easily when humidity increases

After they (almost) went extinct, the sturdy carapaces of dead Bara Magna Fezeri were pillaged to make very durable high quality armor. because of this there are no intact pieces or Fezeri remains left, and the few plates that have survived since, no matter how worn or outright broken, are either made into family heirlooms or sold at exhorbitant prices. Sahmad has a large number of them (almost all buried) as he made a habit of targetting and capturing anybody who wore them specifically

Tapyri are unique when it comes to cleaning since their protective mucus naturally catches dirt and other particles for easy removal, meaning they only need to scrub or peel it off. Gaquri, Koniri and Potori take water baths while Basari, Fezeri and Lebori take dust or sand baths

Agori children are addressed with the pronouns ti/tir until they choose their own. its highly unusual for someone to use ti/tir for tir whole life, and the set is often used as a playful jab when a person exhibits childish behavior

Pregnancy is a very taxing endeavour: the process takes around a year and a half, but the parent's body will additionally need two or three years to recover from the strain of the experience as a whole, during which it will be physically unable to produce the necessary material to make another child. sudden spikes in stress or a constant stream of it during pregnancy is almost sure to produce a stillborn, and its very easy for older individuals to simply not have the energy to make it through childbirth once the time comes. this used to not be a problem, since Agori are very long lived and the whole planet was full of them, but the Core War drastically reduced their numbers and the hazardous conditions produced by the Shattering all over the planet made for a very dangerous environment to attempt having a child in, so births became extremely rare in the 100 thousand years before Mata Nui's return. the so called "children of Bara Magna" (which include Gresh and Berix) are few and far between, commonly having significant age gaps from one to the other

A wide number of male MU beings is perceived as feminine or adjacent by Agori, partly due to sexual dimorphism not being A Thing for most species, partly due to voice and countenance: Tahu, for example, is considered to be very lady-like. in his specific case this perception might however be also affected by the fact that he was modeled after Ackar, who used to be much more overtly femme in his youth* (check tags)

this is what ive got so far. peace and love on spherus magna.

[bimbosupreme]

I’ve been playing…pizza tower…

(adding a tag I saw that made me burst laughing) “MAMA MIA LIMBO WE’RE REALLY IN IT NOW”

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Listen, Carver should be allowed to lockpick.

You think he didn't teach himself how to pick locks at some point as a kid or teen just in case Bethany and/or Hawke got caught by templars and he needed to plan a prison break? C'mon now.

I don't care if he's a warrior and that's not allowed, give him a lockpick and let him open chests for me damn it.

Or y'know... he could just bust the chests open with his sword.

That would work, too.

[mydaylight]

Deleted Russell scenes of s2 you will always be famous

[batsplat]

I saw the post about assen 2016 and Marc cutting the chicane and was wondering if Marc did that a lot to his competitors like the imitation of mind games. Cause I’ve always thought of Vale as the one who used the mind games more. Did Marc use mind games a lot and was just more subtle?

(assen '16)

if you're interested in reading more about marc marquez mind games, then boy do I have a post for you

anyway, I can't really think of anything that's all that similar to assen 2016 because that's such a specific situation... not every day that you have something as memorable and as easy to visibly imitate and as controversial as cutting the final chicane. of course, if we're talking about imitation, it's pretty hard to avoid mentioning how marc did infamously copy two out of valentino's three most well known career overtakes within half a year of joining the premier class, and was also pretty shameless about the whole thing. but at least there you can say it's all about the race situation marc happened to find himself in - and there will only have been so much premeditation possible with both incidents

more broadly speaking, then, targeted behaviour where he's trying to send a message to one of his competitors during non-race sessions... well, that's fairly common. he loves using non-race sessions to study and stalk and at times deliberately harass his competitors. I'll give a little more details on one specific incident here to demonstrate what I'm talking about. it's related to towing, as it so often is with marc, and I ended up only briefly mentioning it in the post linked above. for context, marc spent a fair bit of time in 2019 trying to mess with the rookie revelation fabio quartararo, sometimes during the races themselves and sometimes outside of them. nothing wrong with hazing your young challengers, right? so one of the more widely discussed incidents took place in sepang 2019 qualifying (tw crash):

big fan of how the article very strongly implies that when marc says the words "honestly speaking", he was not, in fact, honestly speaking. did a single person on this planet believe marc when he said he just happened to end up right behind fabio? who knows, maybe there's someone out there, who knows...

obviously, marc and his team weren't really trying to hide what they were doing, which makes it even funnier that marc just goes for this completely shameless 'oh it was all just a coincidence' routine. and of course, this entire episode ended on a pretty sour note for marc. even though he tried to shrug it off in the moment, this incident did come with consequences for him:

which, yeah. lot's to be said here, lots to be said. but let's return to the actual point of the post, the mind games

in the end marc did do a rather nice salvage job in the race, p11 to p2 - and fabio didn't win the race, which I'm sure was appreciated. here's a nicely in-depth description of the incident that I'm going to liberally steal excerpts from. it's a good bit of extra insight on both the episode itself and what it represented in the broader context of the dynamic between the pair of them

it's part of the established playbook when it comes to dealing with promising young talent: you try to rough them up in the races and you try to rough them up outside of them. you try to make them nervous, maybe you even try to scare them. and so the cycle continues

this is the thing, right, marc really does view all on-track sessions as time to 'work' on his rivals. he's never been focused solely on himself during these sessions - and the towing thing has never just been a matter of practicality for him. 'the race doesn't just happen on sunday' 'great riders, champions, are bullies' 'they don't just want to win, they want to rub the rest of the world's noses in it'... marc has always adopted that philosophy in his racing (and he learnt from the best). he's never been shy in his tactics of intimidation - in his efforts to undermine his rivals' confidence and make them suffer. it's all part of the game

and then, of course, there's the bit of insight we get about how marc was reportedly worried about fabio because of his talent and fearlessness... a rookie who hadn't even won a race yet. and yet marc's "been doing his best to instil fear" into fabio. unfortunately it's not always easy to spook young talent, especially when they're so very brave... it's a tricky line to toe - by marking out your rivals like that, you are also letting them implicitly know you see them as a threat. which if anything can help motivate them and make them more confident. inconvenient

anyway, l'll include some more of the description of the incident, which helps illustrate just how little effort marc was going to in attempting to hide his underhanded behaviour (and how that may have been the whole point):

inherently, right, this 'battle of nerves' is a really important element of the whole towing strategy. it's about your read of the other rider, your analysis of their character, how you think they will play the situation... how much you think they're willing to risk, how much you think they'd be motivated to just fuck you over regardless, how prepared they will be to call your bluff. and in the context of sepang 2019, with that year's title very much sealed up, marc decided that he was prepared to play this game for as long as he had to. marc had won the last five races, fabio was still searching for his first ever win... marc knew young and hungry fabio would blink before he did

which, yeah. less than ideal to engage in mind games in a way that ends up getting you injured. this whole incident does serve as a good illustration of marc's overall approach, but obviously this specific episode wasn't particularly successful or indeed wise from marc's side. all in all, it probably wasn't all that intimidating for fabio when marc crashed behind him

anyway, here's some more bits talking about how marc was perhaps not being 100% honest in his post-qualifying interview:

even though in this specific example marc did admittedly fuck it, a lot of this kind of behaviour isn't bad long-term investment because it's meant to be cumulative, where you're just consistently putting pressure on someone... as it says above, "every ounce of energy spent worrying about you is one which can't be spent on trying to go faster". so you're hoping to distract your opponents, you're hoping that this constant tension will eventually unsettle them - or that you've spent so much time studying and analysing them that you can figure out how to bother them more effectively (*coughs* 2008 *coughs again*). or maybe you just can't help yourself in messing with your opponents and sometimes it is counterproductive because you've shown them how seriously you take them as a rival. maybe sometimes it's a bit of all of those things!

on fabio's reaction:

which is a pretty friendly response, it has to be said! but anyway, of course 'if he wants to follow us we are doing a good job' is probably the most healthy and useful takeaway from the whole thing. that's the thing with bullies, isn't it, you do have to figure out a way to stand up to them. fabio might have been annoyed while marc was picking on him, but he's not picking a fight with marc after the fact. he's just making it clear that he's not been intimidated - and has bagged himself pole in the process while marc started from eleventh place. as fabio says, "it's a little bit part of the game". but it is a game, and it's one that marc has always been more than happy to play

[teddybeartoji]

damn so many of you are like 18 and 19... like yeah good luck with that okay that's a horrible age to be you literally know nothing,, but alas fret not fret not my beloved younglings the second you hit twenty it's like your brain finally grows and then you'll be okay

[batwynn]

All the advertising I saw for Elemental:

Check out this wacky adventure between a fire person and a water person! A Tree Child Flirts with her! LOL! HEY LOOK CLOUD PEOPLE! *cartoon spring and honking noises*

Me: I don’t… want to watch that. Oh well, that’s fine.

Me actually watching it:

Oh wait, it’s a story of an immigrant family who come with nothing and build a community for themselves and their people and the weight of debt you feel to your parents who sacrificed for you to succeed but the way that that success sometimes isn’t what you want and how parental love can feel conditional when there’s a lack of clear communication and—

Me getting to the end: SHE BOWED AND HE BOWED BACK 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💦💧💦💧💦💧💦💧💦🌊🌊🌊🌊🚿🚿🚿

[mourn-and-watch]

one thing that especially irks me about cullen's so-called redemption is the attempts to redeem him through cole's words.

templars' abuses affected cole so badly it damaged his connection to the fade and his own nature. he was a spirit of compassion and witnessing what was happening in white spire turned him into a killer. he murdered lord seeker lambert in cold blood for what he did and most of the time he doesn't regret it — and then he just. drops the "he's not like the other girls" lines about cullen.

and this is such a lazy and annoying move. another thing that is established about cole is that you particularly can't lie to him — about your real feelings and intentions at least. whatever he states about other characters must be true and it is often used as a tool to deepen the characterizations of the main cast and in cullen's case it is just. blatant apologism. there's literally a banter where cole talks about atrocities commited by the templars and then he adds "oh no but cassandra and cullen aren't like that" and never elaborates. the game itself doesn't elaborate either.

like please don't tell me that the spirit who was shaken by knowledge that an innocent boy can die from starving because his jailors simply forgot about him would look in the eyes of a person who used to be meredith fucking stannard's right hand and still thinks that her methods were just a little too harsh but necessary and justified and say yeah. this guy is such a friend of mages. if only there were more templars like him

[rivilu]

Highly recommend bringing Anders as the sole mage with you when recruiting Fenris at least once, because MAN the dialogue he has in that situation lives in my mind rent free

edit: here it is

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

Man i always forget just how much Liam's entire way of thinking and making decisions is centered around Bethany in Act 1

[sysig]

What if baby VUX (Patreon)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

a little Welcome Home theory that's probably me looking entirely too much into a single line <3

-

so i was clicking through the site for the thousandth time and this line caught my eye. maybe its 4 am and i haven't slept, maybe i'm onto something. who knows!

but this little thing... "and lively sets unlike anything seen before!". yeah, it could just be them propping up the show. OR maybe the puppets have been alive the whole time, fully autonomous but entirely unaware that they are puppets on a show. maybe to them, the neighborhood is real, and they simply cannot comprehend the presence of humans so their puppet minds don't register them. this could make for a "cosmic horror but for puppets" spin, which would be sick as fuck

their daytime is when the studio lights are on and people are around. idk how the people would teach them the scripts - maybe they did it at "night"? or maybe there was no script, and the puppets would automatically come up with their own shenanigans, dialogue, and segments that aligned with the show, bc that's what they were made for.

bc its not like the whrp team have physical puppets, or much other than art & reports, right? any information on the puppets - like Howdy being rotated between live-hand and walk-around - could've easily been a lie by the creators of the Welcome Home show. i mean, i don't think it would've gone down well if they came out and said "yeah the puppets are alive"

and now that i'm wondering how they could have living puppets, weren't the 60s/70s chock full of cults? could the WH creators have dipped into the occult to create living puppets for a ground breaking, popular, lucrative show, using minimal effort because "the show writes itself"? all they have to do is film and maybe change the puppets' costumes. if that - they could have set up hidden cameras or something.

and this is gonna sound even more far-fetched, but what if creating the puppets required human souls to power them? im not suggesting that the puppets have locked away memories from a "human life", bc that would be uh... a lot. but it's enough that given time and the right prompts, they could gain awareness, and maybe the soul does influence them in minor ways - in likes and dislikes etc.

and Wally being aware means that he fully saw the humans running the show. and maybe the occult thing is what's under Home - the source of black magic that brought the puppets to life seeping out. and he's aware because he looked into that source and it flipped a switch in his lil cotton brain

maybex2 this is what caused the show to not only shut down, but be wiped from existence. the magic seeped into Home, maybe killing someone in the process, and Wally was revealed as aware. maybe on live television. so the creators panicked and shut it all down, tried to destroy everything and gaslight the country into forgetting it ever existed. maybe in the hopes that once no one remembers the puppets, the magic will leech out of them and leave them lifeless

and that loops back into Wally being the only one referred to in present tense in the neighborhood bios. he's still aware, maybe trapped in the studio, alone. i mean, i sure hope he's not alone - i hope he has his friends with him. unless they're all decommissioned (dead)... maybe Wally is trying to bring them all back or "fix" them?

but then there's the case of all of this currently going down online. have the puppets' consciousness somehow been transferred to the internet? or has Wally gotten his little felt mittens on a computer? something else? and then there's the whrp team... could they be fake, and its really just Wally trying to cobble together the remains of his life/friends? i mean, the Question-Answerer sounds like a title a kid or naive puppet would come up with. people would've called them the Curator or somethin?

i have too many thoughts

[pictureswithboxes]

I love Trans Franziska headcanons because there’s a lot of subtext there. And one of those subtexts is that Manfred von Karma is supportive as FUCK about it.

[mishy-mashy]

Given the way BNHA genetics work, where the kids look the most similar to their mothers, Shinomori might have been Bruce's nephew

Y'know, I didn't think about that, but yeah- a lot of characters look like their moms (Midoriya, Bakugo, Uraraka, Jiro, Koda, etc)

I actually think they might've been cousins. Subscribing to the idea of [most kids take after their mothers], maybe they're cousins through their mothers?

Having OFA for 18 years and dying at 40 means Shinomori received it when he was 22. Shinomori being 22 years old seems close to how old Bruce actually could've been when he was alive himself.

Shinomori being Bruce's nephew is a cute idea though. I still think they'd be close in age, but Hikage can call Bruce "Uncle" to mess with him

Hikage: Uncle-

Bruce: Please don't make me feel old.

An adult that's a few years younger than you, calling you uncle. So like. Bruce could've been the babysitter / older cousin / uncle to weirdo Shinomori and he's just so used to babysitting that it automatically translates over to patiently dealing with Kudo and being protective over him (+ anyone in his care)

(Bruce gave OFA away before he went to go fight, so he really was protecting what was put in his care [Yoichi + Kudo] so they didn't disappear with him. Even if it was just a responsibility and basically their last organ that happened to manifest consciousnesses)

Bruce has Kudo. Shinomori has Banjo. Both are shorter, more risk-taking people that lead the way, but need someone level-headed by their side because they might charge in otherwise.

If they're related, that means Bruce probably also ages well too. And it means Bruce also might have a baby face like Shinomori-

(They look alike. They're also very so cute)