#let us do battle

[hmmahdihasan1]

This man saving a turtle that got stuck between the rocks..😣

[keferon]

OKAY OH MY GOD THIS FIC IS GREAT I HAVE ONLY READ THREE AND A HALF CHAPTERS AND IM ALREADY IN LOVE

I originally wanted to make both of these pieces in color but I’m gonna be honest I have no fucking idea how to draw Ricochet…he is described as black and red and…mmhhmmm does he have canonical (canonical for this fic I mean) design? Do I need to design him myself? Idk I’ll figure this out later

[unforth]

Young queers.

I know you're scared.

But take it from an older queer who grew up in New York City in the 80s - we do not go quiet into this night. Queer people aren't a funeral dirge, we are a community, a celebration, a riot.

Be loud.

Get angry.

Take up space.

Fight with whatever weapons you have, with honesty and integrity and determination and hand-in-hand with other oppressed targeted groups.

I'm scared too, and I have been fighting for as long as I can remember, and I will keep fighting, and you can join us and fight too.

Endure.

We will not go quietly.

We are gonna be *huge* bitches about it.

[demigods-posts]

me personally. i wouldn't have gone after all the olympians at once. you're biting off more than you can chew here. all you would need to do is take each olympian out one by one. and then convince demigods that once enough people stop believing in a diety, that diety ceases to exist. which is not a lie. and you could use the death of pan to back yourself up. sure, you'd be in it for the long haul. but chess isn't meant to be a quick game.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dungeon Meshi: The RPG

[stillfruit]

happy october 31st, shibuya incident / gojo sealing day

[zwoftt]

ok i know we're all panicking about last episode but LISTEN. LISTEN. if people are getting concerned over orym and dorian's relationship because of orym's actions/the way he seemed to be responding to everything afterwards, then we needa take a breath for a moment cuz that man had one kiss with dorian and all of his stress from previous battles- all of the pain- all of the trauma- disappeared. they are GOING TO BE OK (kind of). and even then, i have a feeling dorian would be the ONLY person orym would want to talk to. liam has acted out orym going over to dorian during stressful situations, using dorian as a coping mechanism; as orym's personal form of comfort- orym FINDS comfort, light and solace in dorian. when all of his hope is lost, with all of his emotions duller, i think i know where orym will go. right to dorian's side.

[luna-loveboop]

Maybe I should do. Linktober? A bit? I would post egg carvings on some days

Egg carvings! :D it's an area of art I do a lot and would want to grow in... it's wierd tho ':D I hollow eggshells and engrave on them or carve them into shapes... I did this one quick today for examples

If yall want me to do it a bit I will... and that top photo would count for day one- mirror. The reflection setting in the sksw final boss is so cool to me and also I love drawing lightning, tho this isn't my favourite egg I've ever done. Anyways. I could do some days? What do y'all think?

.

Edit: well I guess I'm doing it then! Happy October yall, this should be fun :D

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 210

The battle had been long. Long and destructive, power rolling from both combatants as they launched at each other and tore through armor and flesh alike. 

Islands fell from the skies with every clash, swaths of utter annihilation following as they fought long after their armies had finished. Wings swept great gales of wind that shadows raced to block, fire meeting fire and claws meeting blade as two beasts brawled. 

Finess was no longer a thing needed- this was all about who could last longer now. One who fought for itself, for its legacy of tyranny, and another who fought together, as one. 

The battle was long, no one quite sure how long but enough to be called as such. It could have been hours, it could have been days, it could have even been centuries in this mauling of what was and what could be.  

And finally, the One-That-Was-Many rose victorious over the king before it, dead once more at its talons, wings spread to usher in a new era for the realms. 

Or at least, that was how the tale went, according to Marvel. Even he wasn’t sure what parts of it were true or simply legend, but it was an interesting story all the same. It kept the kids entertained at least, and caught the others attention so there was that.

[kelbunny]

Denam speaking to most people vs Denam speaking to Catiua.

Love these siblings

[therantingsage]

Ok so the body sharing part of this Too Close AU is like. Integral. So I did some more amateur sprite edits. In-universe they probably don't look any different aside from how each of them emote but it's fun to see what more explicit variation would look like.

Isa's is my favorite of the batch. Bonnie's is the one I'm least confident about.

I imagine though that Bonnie is the one who's the least hesitant about asking to have control of the body. For multiple reasons but mainly because Siffrin is strong and they like how it feels to be powerful.

Meanwhile all the adults are like "oooohhhhh Siffrin this sucks I don't wanna make this worse for you" so most of them don't really ask.

After a certain point though Sif gets progressively more and more tired and freely offers the others the wheel. Just to have a break. You wish for rest etc.

[redbean-nom]

fascinated by the implied fennec-ventress-phee friend group in tbb. even more interesting (funny) when you add boba in there during the tbobf era.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Wait WHAT?!

FUCKING WHAT?!

*SCREAMING*

*SCREECHING*

OH MY GOD IT'S FATHER GLOWWORM! HE'S BACK HE'S BACK! THIS GLORIOUS BITCH IS FUCKING BACK!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! WORMY BOI IS HERE! DOES THAT MEAN WE GET KURUK????? YUN?????????????

DOES THAT MEAN WE ALSO MIGHT GET KURUK'S GANG????! ARE WE GETTING OFFICIAL DESIGNS OF THE FLYING OPERA COMPANY?!

RANGI?! DOES THIS REALLY MEAN I MIGHT SEE RANGI????!!!

DON'T PLAY WITH MY HEART LIKES THIS! JUST LET ME SEE THEM!!!! TT0TT

[blood-orange-juice]

So far Natlan seems to be a nation of surprisingly mentally healthy and well-adjusted people

This is amazing. I am amazed

[whumpbby]

TBH I do think some Jiang disciples did survive the Lotus Pier massacre, if only because they had been elsewhere when it happened/too old or too young to fight so they ran (<-which could be a fun thing to grapple with for both the potential run-aways and newly recruiting Jiang Cheng, who was sent away), but it still wasn't enough people to be called Great Sect. So I think as you say they recruited anyone they could, including some rouge cultivators and some from smaller sects that were destroyed or taken over by the Wen Sect. I don't think they tried to recruit - while the Sunshot campaign was going - a lot of people without active golden core, because they would simply have little time to train them between the battles. Some probably did manage to join the Sect like that, and these would probably grow quite close to people who taught them between the fights.

Also Jiang Cheng having to be at least one of these teachers, because they are short on the disciples but shorter in those trained in Jiang style even more so. And how after the war he must've been doing that still, on top of having the sect to run as both Leader and Head Discipline (because Wei Wuxian was going through things he chose to neither explain or acknowledge) (1/2)

(2/2) Also Jiang Cheng, who almost had to watch his brother get caught by the Wen soldiers when he went off alone in the streets, WOULD try and make his disciples work in big enough groups to protect themselves. Also also Jiang Cheng that seems to go off alone rather often.

Oh, and Jiang Cheng throwing his weight around when his disciples get into some sort of disagreement/scuffle every time, and being harsh on the other party (totally not because of finally being able to shield someone he cares for) and never satisfying the questions about the punishment (totally not because of his mother and Zidian and Wei Wuxian). Even when Jiang disciples were in the wrong. Not meaning there was no disciplinary action, just that it never went outside the sect.

Also taking in some non-cultivators that are good at other things (like Jiang Yanli!) or people who lost their golden cores but can still fight and teach (because he remembers not having a golden core and how that felt like; and maybe he realises somewhere along the way that he might've been able to live without one too; which would certainly add even more flavour to learning whose golden core really was inside him all along).

The latter headcanon is also so amazing because resurrected Wei Wuxian would have to confront how he dealt with the loss of his core and finally stop saying he is fine and reflect on his feelings about all this, including Jiang Cheng

____________________________________________________

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me :D I am so absolutely taken over by this subject!

This is why I'm writing these things, I love to discuss them with other peeps:)

Your message pushed me onto another path of wild speculation via the mention of the other smaller sects that JC would approach to recruit - and that pushed me into the economics of Jinaghu and their influence on the post-war lay of the landXD

Which I am putting under the cut, because it's a lot of rambling to get to a point, but that's how it is in these parts;]

Also, the map I will be using, because it's as good as any other:

From the beginning - smaller sects yes, there was probably not a shortage of them that were destroyed by the Wen passing through and by the blowback of the war happening at all. I imagine that anyone from lone survivors to whole families was displaced…

But I am unsure if inviting them in would be a good idea in JC's position, because, going back to the main point - the Jiang were decimated. I can only go by what the story tells us when it doesn't mention any extra survivors - the Wen banning other sects from night-hunts was a nifty set-up for everyone being stuck at home after all - even if, logically, some of the disciples could be in other locations… however, even if they were, these wouldn't be the meat of Yunmeng Jiang. Because…

…random tangent no 1, because this is a low-fantasy setting (thinking of Game of Thrones I am), I am structuring the Sects as Just Gentry. Maybe not kingdoms outright - because there doesn't seem to be enough land between them to cover for their economic statuses - but city-states ruled by aristocratic bloodlines with the actual political power in their hands. Thus, even if the book doesn't really go into it, I'd wager that the region of Yunmeng was run by the extended Jiang family that was living in the capital of Lotus Pier. That's where the disciples were trained - but that was most likely also where the taxes were being collected, where the trade arrangements happened, where the law was being written, higher education took place, it had the best restaurants, etc.

When the Wen destroyed Lotus Pier, they did away with the whole socio-economic and political setup of the region, which is a smart move for someone who wants to set up their own shop.

…And that circles me back to JC and recruiting - he wasn't just gathering disciples to fight, he was rebuilding a whole intricate system of governance from scratch. A system that used to be run by the extended family that he could trust - now was something he was staffing with strangers.

And, from the example of Su Minshan, we know how jumping sects was considered to be in bad taste - it stands to reason that whatever decimated sect showed up on JC's doorstep, they wouldn't want to give up their own name. Just like JC wasn't going to give up his name. These people would be looking for an alliance and revenge, and, most likely, economic help in their own rebuilding, but most of them weren't looking to join the Jiang. And if they were - what was the guarantee that they'd stay? Or that they wouldn't use JC to meet their own ends and leave him worse for it? Or simply take over due to sheer numbers? A valid fear for a clan of 1 that had to seem ripe for picking.

I think JC would be very careful about accepting disciples from existing sects as his own, and instead build alliances with them. A rogue cultivator or a promising youth looking for a place to settle were a safer bet to build the core of his new sect with. Not to say that some of these alliances wouldn't result in the smaller sects merging into the Jiang later on by osmosis, but not at the outset…

Which leads me to believe that JC would want to start taking in and training coreless youths as soon as humanly possible - just to have someone at his back who was OF Yunmeng Jiang and not just allied with them. Maybe not during the beginning of the war, but by the time Lotus Pier was reclaimed things were probably going this way. If you think about it, Jiang Cheng was a fucking powerhouse of a leader. I have no idea when he slept. Probably not at all.

Probably why he was so cranky XD

That's why I am of firm opinion that the alliance by marriage with the Jin sect was a double-edged sword JC wasn't in a position to refuse, but also wasn't in a position to wholeheartedly accept. (And everyone who thinks that JC 'sold' Yanli to JGS for all these doubloons is just plain old wrong). Because now they're family. Only family he has. And that family can slowly find their way into the important positions of his own 'kingdom', because that's how gentry/aristocracy tends to work in a setting putting that much value on bloodlines, and he doesn't have his own family to plug these positions with ahead of time.

And even if JGS wasn't super eager to marry his son to JYL and the marriage was mostly pushed by Madame Jin and Jin Zixuan - it was in JGS's best interests for Yunmeng Jiang to remain weakened and/or under his control. Because….

…tangent nr 2- economics! :D

The plot doesn't go into it, but I like to know, so I was thinking of the actual economics of the magical land of magical peopleXD I don't need them to be detailed, but just realistic enough to make some sense, and serve as a believable background. I'm not going to question the existence of potatoes or other anachronisms, but one thing I needed to answer for myself was - where is all the money coming from???

Like, for real, where is the cash coming from for all the silks, fancy furniture, houses, swords and so on. How are the gentry sects making money?

Again, the genre, like many others, waves away monetary concerns in general - aristocrats are just wealthy, commoners are poor, and Bilbo Baggins is a landlord. OK.

So, taxes. What makes sect a Great one? Land, mostly, it would seem. The amount of land they own. Which means taxes - if we consider the Gentry sects local aristocracy. That tracks, because ain't no way they'd earn that much dosh via night-hunts from a population that isn't really that large. If you look at the approximate map of the whole realm and consider how fast people are moving from one region to another (even including flying swords and donkey-travel) that ain't a lot of land/people to feed all these sects fleeting about between the 5 Majors.

So, my idea is that the small sects do support themselves mostly via night-hunting and general spiritual upkeep of their locals, but the Greats are just aristocracy and live off of taxes and trade.

And that makes me wonder how Yunmeng Jiang managed to recover their wealth in such a record time, and why was the Jin so wealthy for apparently doing so little.

I propose that Lanling Jin grew out of a port-city and made its money on sea-trade. Sea trade was always The Shit if you wanted to, dunno, gild your palace in gold or something.

Yunmeng - with its access to lakes and rivers - was another trade hub of the realm with the additional bonus of lotus, fish and all other crops a well-watered land can give you.

Qishan - being the most West-ward placed of the Great sects we know of, had to have access to - or even monopoly over - the intercontinental trade routes, or a lot of raw materials available. But at the same time, being a mountainous region, it wasn't rich in water and water-intensive crops. I think that once the material appetite of the Wen upper echelon grew, the more they needed to look towards consuming other regions to sustain it.

Annexing Yunmeng was a good strategy from that point of view - it fixed the water issue and also opened new trade routes towards the South and East via the rivers.

But then the Wen were defeated - and all that West-ward trade potential suddenly was left unattended, and JGS would be a fool to let it slip through his fingers. And the only 'large' clan placed close enough to was Yunmeng.

Stands to reason that, somehow, JC managed to wrestle some of that for his own people to refill the coffers. Gusu was too far and not a trade hub by any means, and Nie Mingjue/Huaisang seemed uninterested in reaching out for it, so the only serious competition on that front were the Jin… Which, again, JC somehow managed to outsmart there, because I do not believe for even a moment that a fierce economic battle wasn't fought as soon as the military operations ended.