#i use a character theme so

[thefakehedgehogaroundhere]

fan made trailer intro music for sonic 4

[anghraine]

It's interesting (if often frustrating) to see the renewed Orc Discourse after the last few episodes of ROP. I've seen arguments that orcs have to be personifications of evil rather than people as such or else the ethics of our heroes' approach to them becomes much more fraught. Tolkien's work, as written, seems an odd choice to me for not wrangling with difficult questions, and of course, more diehard fans are going to immediately bring up Shagrat and Gorbag.

If you haven't read LOTR recently, Shagrat and Gorbag are two orcs who briefly have a conversation about how they're being screwed over by Sauron but have no other real options, about their opinions of mistakes that have been made, that they think Sauron himself has made one, but it's not safe to discuss because Sauron has spies in their own ranks. They reminisce about better times when they had more freedom and fantasize about a future when they can go elsewhere and set up a small-scale banditry operation rather than being involved in this huge-scale war. Eventually, however, they end up turning on each other.

Basically any time that someone brings up the "humanity" of this conversation, someone else will point out that they're still bad people. They're not at all guilty about what they're part of. They just resent the dangers to themselves, the pressure from above, failures of competence, the surveillance they're under, and their lack of realistic alternative options. The dream of another life mentioned in the conversation is still one of preying on innocent people, just on a much smaller and more immediate scale, etc.

I think this misses the reason it keeps getting brought up, though. The point is not that Shagrat and Gorbag are good people. The point is that they are people.

There's something very normal and recognizable about their resentment of their superiors, their fears of reprisal and betrayal that ultimately are realized, their dislike of this kind of industrial war machine that erases their individual work and contributions, the tinge of wistfulness in their hope of escape into a different kind of life. Their dialect is deliberately "common"—and there's a lot more to say about that and the fact that it's another commoner, Sam, who outwits them—but one of the main effects is to make them sound familiar and ordinary. And it's interesting that one of the points they specifically raise is that they're not going to get better treatment from "the good guys" so they can't defect, either.

This is self-interested, yes, but it's not the self-interest of some mystical being or spirit or whatnot, but of people.

Tolkien's later remarks tend to back this up. He said that female orcs do exist, but are rarely seen in the story because the characters only interact with the all-male warrior class of orcs. Whatever female orcs "do," it isn't going to war. Maybe they do a lot of the agricultural work that is apparently happening in distant parts of Mordor, maybe they are chiefly responsible for young orcs, maybe both and/or something else, we don't know. But we know they're out there and we know that they reproduce sexually and we know that they're not part of the orcish warrior class.

Regardless of all the problems with this, the idea that orcs have a gender-restricted warrior class at all and we're just not seeing any of their other classes because of where the story is set doesn't sound like automatons of evil. It sounds like an actual culture of people that we only see along the fringes.

And this whole matter of "but if they're people, we have to think about ethics, so they can't be people" is a weird circular argument that cannot account for what's in LOTR or for much of what Tolkien said afterwards. Yes, he struggled with The Problem of Orcs and how to reconcile it with his world building and his ethical system, but "maybe they're not people" is ultimately not a workable solution as far as LOTR goes and can't even account for much of the later evolution of his ideas, including explicit statements in his letters.

And in the end, the real response that comes to mind to that circular argument is "maybe you should think about ethics more."

[lucabyte]

Happy PMD Red is on NSO day. Sadly I don't think King the Skitty and Muse the Cyndaquil will be returning to finish up their adventure regardless.

[dittydipity]

going INSANE. what is he thinking. why did he say this. why does he do all of this. i am thinking so hard.

we know he's seeking arceus to recreate the world bc in his eyes the world is cruel and unjust and it needs to be destroyed and remade. he's set himself on a mission to create the better reality he's envisioned for his whole life.

but everything else he does. the way he spends his time on pasio making people smile with togepi. even if he justifies it as something purely transactional to get more customers, we know he doesn't really take his merchant job seriously. the way he loves his pokemon so much that they will pop out of their pokeball to excitedly tell whoever will listen how much they love volo back. him trying to capture these moments of happiness tangibly because they never last long and can be wiped away any second.

he still hangs onto hope so much despite what's implied to have happened to him. in spite of all the anger and bitterness that's festered in him, he doesn't really want to destroy everything as he says.

it all started with a wish for the world to be a better place, for the good in the world to outweigh all the cruelty. he's still trying to spread what happiness he can.

but at the same time his past drags behind him and reminds him that he can't afford to trust in the goodness of the world.

that self-assigned mission to usurp arceus's power and rewrite everything.. to him, it's his duty now. he has to do it for himself and, as he rationalizes to himself, for the world.

so he ignores the flaws and holes he finds in his own reasoning. he can't help but seek out the brightness and happiness and goodness that does exist in the world, yet he has to dismiss it to justify his goals.

... all this to try and explain to myself why volo's asking all these questions and making all these comments that seem to go against what we'd expect given his ulterior motive and plans. and it's like he's asking the few friends he has to remember him as the one who seeks joy, even when he does the worst to fulfill his dreams

[the-meme-monarch]

look that tumblr ad had nice colors and i wanted to do something w it but i couldn’t think of a proper Illustration to do it with. so here’s just a bunch of deltarune characters just standing there (last two are my little ideas of ut frisk being the strange someone and dr chara being the knight)

if you ship scc and/or kr/alsei go away

[ganondoodle]

(OC Lore and design time!)

(it got longer again ... sorry ... idk how to make things short, i just need to talk, but i guess if you can read the written stuff in the pic thats the barest bare bones of what i wrote here)

i was asked what new lore story stuff i had thought about that made me sad which i mentioned a bit ago, and while that is too hard to explain given all the missing context i thought i could at least talk about lore having to do with it :D

so, (Lord) Eadrya is one of my fav OCs (big blue lad, here a rough sketch in humanoid form) they are both one of if not THE most powerful demon alive and the most battle trained;

at the mid point of the story the demon world gets invaded by the celestials (the angel inspired things i talked about in the previous lore post with Xaror) and Shargon, as the king, should be their first and only frontline, but at this point his life is only being sustained by maschinery after being mortally wounded, he cannot fight (he realizes what is going on, rips himself off the maschinery to get at least his youngest child to safety, barely managing it before dying- the guardian, the demons god, takes over his body to attempt to fight against the celestials but cant keep itself alive long enough since its host is already dead) Eadrya takes the role of the frontline fighter (despite being very full of themselves and aggressive they care about their 'job' of protecting their own, also giving them the chance to show off just how strong they are); the fight was going well for them all things considered, but when the guardian activates it drains the power of all elemental lords (which Eadrya is one of, and since they have the most strength it also takes the most from them), so much so that they lose the fight and suffer deadly wounds (the worst being a spear through the chest made of a material that grows hard, root-like formations when in contact with demonic blood like a fungus but worse, also stopping any self healing processes) after the guardian falls apart it creates a huge shockwave of energy that stuns every living thing within a certain distance and possibly more-

Eadrya (in true demon form, so like a blue whale in size at least) was likely taken through an active gateway to the human world in a large tidal wave also created by the guardians fall; they wash up in the harbor of a small secluded village, the head of which is 'lady 13'; although never having seen a demon before and everyone being afraid (largely thinking its a strange hurt animal, only she suspected otherwise), they still gather all villagers to pull out the celestial spear, which is diffcult and brutal given that its already taken root, but the village lacked both knowledge and means to help any other way- doing so damaged their heart which is how they were able to collect samples of all three demonic blood types ('normal' -red like humans-, energy -essentially purely magic- and heartblood -highly concentrated energy only found within the heart of a demon and the only one to contain genetic material) (this is the start of Eadryas character arc, having to deal with the fact that their world is likely destroyed, them failing what they didnt think they could fail, having lost a battle so badly (even if not really their fault) for the first time and not knowing if literally anyone else has survived .. also being now stuck in the human world, which they dont like)

Lady 13 (placeholder name? stands for experiment 13) is a human that was tricked by demon hunters to enroll into a series of experiments trying to create hybrids of demons and humans, which they hoped would be powerful and easily controllable tools for their endeavours, though the two are inherently not compatible, they tried grafting body parts of demons on humans to make them compatible- all experiments failed except for her, more or less, though she never got to see the hybrid she carried and was then told it had died too, they threw her out believing she wouldnt survive much longer either and all such experiments were cancelled due to the high cost of human life, research material (demons are still rare) and upkeep with no successful results Lady 13 survived though (perhaps even via the pirates picking her up?) and she ended up living in said small village far away, hiding her half demonic body, though most know there soemthing 'wrong' with her (her being this tall when it doesnt fit the rest for one), only few know the full extent; she enjoys the life she has now, perhaps on the more poor side but safer and more loved than ever before; she largely lead the efforts to try and help Eadrya when they ended up in the harbor, though there wasnt that much anyone could do it was still enough- they leave immediately after waking up, but return after really having nowhere to go and struggling to deal with everything that has happened; over time (probably years) they start to open up towards the people there (though not .. very much) enough to get rather close with Lady 13 too- she actually falls madly in love but after Eadrya (extremely aro/ace) rejects all her attempts quite clearly she respects their boundaries

However, after hearing news of potential demon sightings Eadrya decides to leave in hopes of not being the last demon left after all; Lady 13 then decides to reveal her secret to them (though hearing and seeing what lengths hunters would go to for their experiments makes them absolutely seething with rage- she insists on not being out for revenge) and asks if they would be willing to donate a small amount of heartblood; shes always wanted to be a mother but is now incompatible with humans too- through things she picked up back at the experiments facillity, hers and her doctors research she is sure that is all that is needed, she dares to ask since she does not know when, if ever, she will meet another demon, much less one she could actually trust enough for this though Eadrya hesitates (why would she want to go through the same thing again that didnt work and threatened her life, if it does work, do they want to be involved with any of this? what if hunters find out it worked after all?) but after her ensuring that they would have no part in it other than giving up a little blood and would not be considered a parent in any way, nor made responsible for anything that might happen to her, but considering it all in the end they agree to it

only for her to reveal shes had a small bottle of it already, along with multiple samples of the other types, which she collected when Eadrya was bleeding out into the harbor not knowing if they will survive, though not wanting to make use of it without their consent either way (they are actuallly rather touched by this)

alot later the main group returns here and it turns out to have worked (though she is unable to walk/bedridden for a long while bc it did alot of damage to her body, which can heal since its demons parts, but only really slowly bc she does not have a full functioning system and no demonic blood of her own -she uses the other samples for the healing process-) though its a little awkward to explain, especially considering that 13.1 took alot after Eadrya xD (their theory as to why it worked so "well" that time is that even though the sample was already taken, them giving their consent for it still made it less likely to be rejected; demons dont need partners to have offspring, and all can do it, they just have to decide to- so them agreeing to it, even though its long been outside their body, still had an effect on the blood sample)

[sukibenders]

Hear me out: you can ship JayVik without falling into or using rhetoric that fits the disposable black girlfriend trope. You can ship JayVik without using Mel as some conceived ploy or antagonistic plot device that makes her out of character. You can ship JayVik without falling into misogynistic rhetoric (eg. viewing female characters as disposable or stepping tools, amongst other things). You can ship JayVik without erasing the impact Mel has had on Jayce and their relationship because, whether you shipped it or not or even gave it the time of day, Mel and Jayce did care for each other, and to deny that or say Viktor held more importance/impact than her in Jayce's life to where she's viewed as "unnecessary" just to further your ship is so wrong and, whether you intended for it or not, does carry undertones where black characters, especially black female characters, emotional impact on others is ignored or downplayed even though there's context to support just how important it is/they are. Lastly, you can ship JayVik without using anti-black and misogynoir type rhetoric because the amount that has flooded this fandom, but especially from some fans of this ship, is atrocious. Ship what you like, but be respectful and careful with certain things you say, is all I'm saying.

[shsl-analyzer-guy]

got a totally random rush of Emotions about Chihiro's gender so hi let's talk about how the entire account of Chihiro 'totally being a cis dude guys' is told by Monokuma, the guy that later goes on to fake a suicide note and falsify an entire class trial just to be pissy. Ah yes top 10 most reliable narrators ever of all time, yes, yes, very convincing

Not to mention in the exact same fucking motive he's very obviously purposefully warping the truth and lying to the cast's faces?? Within the 'embarrassing memories' motive Mondo's is a warped version of the truth. "Mondo killed his own brother" but he didn't, and just about everyone is able to grasp that one. He indirectly led to the accident, but Daiya made his own choices. So wouldn't the same logic apply to Chihiro's motive? "He dresses like a girl but actually is a boy" sounds like you're actively warping her own life experience to send her into Despair.... which is Monokuma's primary character motive.... crazy how that works........

And now, a compilation of every line Chihiro delivers in her own backstory, without the narrative padding from Monokuma explaining to you why this is totally her hating being a woman and wanting to be a man

"Now nobody will be able to say anything about 'even though you're a boy'..."

"I'm... weak... Weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak...!"

"Now's my chance..."

"I'm going to get stronger... and accept who I am..."

"Strong enough so that when someone says 'even though you're a boy' it'll be okay. I'll get better!"

"Maybe talking to Mondo about it will help give me some courage..."

So yeah, once you pull out the unreliable narrator. You get like, 6 lines total. 1/3 of which specify that she IS AFRAID of people saying "even though you're a boy". Now, call me crazy, but if we're genuinely arguing that Chihiro is a cisgendered man, why the hell would she say the equivalent of "I need to accept being a boy. Gee, I sure hope no one calls me a boy while I do so!" That's. That's inherently contradictory. More than anything, looking at Chihiro's lines as the most reliable source of Chihiro's thoughts about herself, it starts to look less and less like a man who wants to rise above being gnc and be a true manly man, and more like someone who's about to get fucking outed and mocked by Monokuma and trying to do damage control, steeling herself to be called a man and strengthening her mind and body to prepare for said outing.

Earlier in chapter 2, Chihiro is already thinking of starting to try working out, but is too afraid to enter the lockers because she's well-aware she can only enter the boys' locker rooms. The inference that Makoto comes to is that Chihiro is an individual trapped in a killing game that couldn't defend herself verbally in the library the morning prior, and is visibly the physically weakest in the class. Ergo, perhaps she wants to be able to defend herself better? Well, neither of those facts that lead to said inference magically change after the discovery of her dick, so perchance, the reason she wanted to get stronger was still so she could defend herself both verbally and physically?? The ONLY reason you'd have to come to the conclusion she wants to reconnect with her assigned sex is because she is being actively threatened into it by Monokuma's motive, or if you take Monokuma's story at his word, that he'd speak respectfully of the dead. Just like he did with every other character in that game, right?

Also, it's worth noting that in the actual conversation-turned-spiral between Chihiro and Mondo before Chihiro's death, neither Chihiro nor Mondo actually talk about Chihiro's gender, only her strength and desire to destroy her weakness. Yes, Mondo is using he/him in the voiceover, but the entire class is atp, and again. Using that as genuine evidence falls flat because we see in that very same scene that Mondo WAS NOT completely present for that conversation. He saw Chihiro's willpower and spiraled, conflating Chihiro with his brother and lashing out in a ptsd-induced blackout.

Also also, if you're gonna argue Chihiro has no reason to need to get physically stronger unless it's to be more masculine, A) Sakura exists in the same game, and B) please god look up any statistics on the amount of violence trans teens receive. That alone is a perfectly reasonable justification for a trans woman to want to be able to defend herself, especially when locked in a place where you cannot escape your potential aggressors.

TLDR Chihiro is legitimately more believable as a trans woman, and every intervention attempting to explain otherwise comes from a character defined by his love of twisting the truth for the sake of causing suffering. Hi hello does anyone hear me

[aro-aizawa]

i like to think everyone has a colour associated with them, whether its just your fave colour or what you generally wear most of or what colour your bedroom walls are. i always associate the name sophie with dark blue, my mum is always a nice turquoise, i like to think my colour is a bright sunflower yellow.

if you have a specific shade pls tell me i adore when ppl have associated colours and tell me them, bc i think of them when i see that colour

[soop-jpg]

cissie + the people who feel some kinda way about her being arrowette + the fear of being pressured to fit a part youve outgrown

[lesbianherald]

kind of feel like 'write for yourself, nobody else' is bad advice. like i get where its coming from. but idk. it just feels too general. at least for me writing is about connecting with others and good writing knows how to do that. not connecting with everyone - not writing to please - but still connecting with others you know. you have to know what questions people might ask and how you might be able to get them invested etc etc.

[drakkonyan]

The future never forgets the events that shaped it The past awaits for better times to come

[starrysharks]

hotel manager

[autisticandroids]

FAMINE: That's one deep, dark nothing you've got there, Dean.

[youtube with closed captions]

dean and his father. dean and his family. dean and how bad it is.

(via @closetoyou1970)

[baristabomb]

dungeon meshi characters taking care of each other

:’)

bonus:

[icewindandboringhorror]

Little bright colored outfit with a fun vest ~

(shoes from ebay like 10 years ago. everything else is thrifted)