#little blazing heart

[maigo-san]

Headcanon but I really like the idea of Tanjirou disciplining his siblings. He doesn't really need to try despite the numbers, but they're good kids anyway. But he knows Shigeru and Hanako always fight, Shigeru often bullies Hanako despite her being older than him, because he saw how Hanako acts around Tanjirou or Nezuko, or even Takeo who was a bit way older than them. Not to mention Shigeru and Hanako were born nearest to each other.

On the other hand, the older Takeo gets, he's starting to rebel a lot. Being the second oldest son will make you feel like you sort of have the same responsibility as the oldest two yet Tanjirou sometimes still treated him like a kid.

Rokuta is quite different because Tanjirou and Nezuko literally raised him. I like to think he grew quiet, as a response to the already rowdy crowd, and he's more mature for his age. He gets it a lot from Tanjirou and it ironically reminds Tanjirou of his dad.

Nezuko has always been Tanjirou's pillar. She keeps him afloat when he's about to sink. But at the same time, she's still his younger sister, so he's also worried about her. He feels bad whenever she has to take a part of his responsibility and it takes so much time and a lot of opening up with each other for him to unpack that.

Ugh, I love them so much.

I like to imagine it's Hanako's birthday and they were filming a docu, everyone was sitting at the table and Shigeru kept trying to blow the candle, so Tanjirou carried him to the side and wrapped his shoulders around him since he knew he was bigger and stronger, but he was essentially hugging him and it was gentle. He had to whisper, "Shigeru, it's Hanako-neechan's turn, okay?"

and Shigeru felt bad for teasing.

Also, imagine Takeo and Shigeru tried to take a swipe at the frosting, but Tanjirou only smiled and flicked their ears. "Haha... that's enough. Aren't you two too old for this?" he used his big brother voice but with his Concerned Brows 🥺

[aethersea]

I do think Blazing Saddles handled its one depiction of native americans very poorly, and the full extent of its representation of chinese workers on the railroad is they were literally just there. not even one single speaking line. unclear if this is worse or better than the redface.

it's fucking phenomenal at lampooning antiblack racism though. extremely blatant, extremely funny satire, which is constantly and loudly saying "racism is the philosophy of the terminally stupid at best and morally depraved at worst, and we should all be pointing and laughing at them 24/7"

plus the main character is a heroic black man who has to navigate a whole lot of bullshit but is constantly smirking at the extraordinarily stupid racists and inviting the audience into the joke. the one heroic white character is a guy who was suicidally depressed until he met the protagonist and they just instantly became buds, and he's firmly in a supporting role the whole time and happy to be there. the protagonist saves the day with the help of his black friends from the railroad, and uses the position of power he was given to uplift not only those friends, but all the railroad workers of other minorities too, in an explicit show of solidarity.

anyone saying "Blazing Saddles is racist" had better be talking about its treatment of non-black minorities. it had better not be such superficial takes as "oh but they say the n-word all the time" or "they have nazis and the kkk in there!" because goddamn if that's the full extent of your critique I very seriously suggest you read up on media analysis. there is too much going over your head, you need to learn to recognize satire.

[royalarchivist]

Pac: Do you think there's other way to find some sharestones over here? Nah, no, right?

Fit: Probably not.

Pac: Maybe. Ah– Fitch! Fitch! [Fit's name with an accent]

Fit: Oh– OH– Pac Pac Pac!

Pac: [In a panicked voice] FITCH!

Fit: Ok, you're good, I got you, I got you. Yeah, just stay over here, stay over here. Behind me, behind me.

Pac: Yeah, I'm good, I'm good, oh my god. [Laughs] I even changed language, you know? [Laughs]

Fit: [Laughs] All right, we got this.

Pac: I start screaming your name in Portuguese.

Fit: [Laughs] As soon as I hear "Fitch", I'm like, "Ohhh boy, sht's about to get real." [Checking his chat messages] Oh, Phil says it's important–

[lain-at-the-gay-bar]

HI @sapnapstummy !!! im your secret santa for @dtblrsecretsanta !! I decided to draw george and dream squishing their beloved boyfriend :D i hope you like it!!!

[blazingjackdaw]

People seemed to like the steampunk design I did for the Coffee Man for that one shitpost, so I figured I'd clean up the full outfit I originally sketched.

Also a few of my discarded mask designs because why not :d

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Nog

By Ames

After some great blogposts on Quark and Rom, we’ve got one Ferengi left to shine the spotlight on, and that’s another of our fan favorites: Nog! Similarly to his father, Nog’s character arc over the seasons of Deep Space Nine is captivating to watch, as he grows from a little punk ne’er-do-well into a fully realized, complex person full of nuance and opportunities to learn. Which is pretty much DS9 in a nutshell.

So get prepared for some character whiplash, as we’ve got both childish pranks and severe post-traumatic stress disorder to explore in our blogpost below as we applaud the impressive versatility and range of the late Aron Eisenberg. Check out what your A Star to Steer Her By hosts have assembled as some of the young Ferengi’s best and worst moments, and check out our discussion on this week’s podcast episode (jump to 1:15:10 for Nog!). And there’ll be no running on the promenade!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Vulcans stole my homework As usual, we’re starting off with the good moments, and early on in “The Nagus” we see Nog get pulled from Keiko’s school out of Rom’s sheer racism. But what’s most commendable in the young Ferengi is that he sticks with it, secretly learning to read in the cargo bay with Jake and entirely subverting Sisko’s expectations and systematic racism against the Ferengi!

Maybe this isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity. While we gripe about how the Ferengi can be cartoonishly one-dimensional at times, there are times when their obsession with profit makes for good character and plot moments. When Nog encourages Varis Sul, Tetrarch of the Paqu, to view her land-rights situation in “The Storyteller” as a business negotiation, she finds a compromise everyone enjoys!

Say that five times fast Speaking of Nog’s business acumen, he’s clearly still learning some of the basics in “Progress” but we still enjoy watching as he and Jake create their own Milo Minderbinder–like syndicate to sell yamok sauce and self-sealing stem bolts for what will turn out to be great running gags for years to come… not to mention tongue-twisters that frequently plague us on the podcast.

Because I don’t want to end up like my father From what we know about Nog by the midpoint of season three (including some of the bad moments you’ll see below), it seems entirely random for him to want to join Starfleet as he says in “Heart of Stone.” But when he exposes to Sisko that he has dreams outside of making profit, of being something greater than his father, you really root for the guy and know he’s really going to do it!

Best friends in subspace When old man Jake Sisko is ready to embark on some outlandish quest to find his father, lost in subspace for decades, in “The Visitor,” there is absolutely no surprise that Nog is right there at his side in the Defiant, ready to do whatever it takes for his old friend. Sure, it’s an alternate future version of Nog, but the connection he has with Jake is as real as ever.

On Wednesday we wear red Of course, Starfleet Academy is a challenge for Nog, who has set his sights on getting into the elite and extremely cliquey Red Squad to make a name for himself. But when it turns out that Red Squad is just a bunch of cadets being used by Admiral Leyton for his coup in “Paradise Lost,” Nog helps Sisko to find the truth of the matter, even if it is reluctantly at first.

Not quite a Vulcan Hello The B-plot in “Blaze of Glory” may not entirely gel with the A-plot of watching Eddington’s sacrifice, but it’s still some cute stuff for Nog. When he stands up to Martok after a whole episode of getting walked all over by the Klingons, you’ve got to respect the guy. As Martok says, “Courage comes in all sizes,” and it’s great to watch Nog tackle his problems head on.

Have a good day! There’s just something about “In the Cards” that makes you feel good. Nog, being the best friend a kid could ask for, agrees to help Jake win his dad a baseball card, going so far as to loan all his money to Jake (I can hear every Ferengi screaming at that). And then the rest of the episode is them going around the station, making everyone have a genuinely nice day. It’s so cute!

Boogie woogie woogie Okay, Nog might only have one line in all of “You Are Cordially Invited,” but I just find him dancing with Jadzia at her bachelorette party just so endearing that I had to include it. Aron Eisenberg came up with the little Ferengi frog dance himself, and when Terry Farrell joins in, I find myself smiling every time. Thank you, Aron, for creating this adorable moment.

Have faith in the Great Material Continuum So the whole Rube Goldberg device that is the chain events of schemes in “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” may be kind of a repeat of the deals from “Progress” but it’s still very clever. After he joined Starfleet, you could almost forget that Nog is a Ferengi under the ensign uniform, but he pulls off deal after deal after deal to get the chief the stabilizer he needs.

We have a casino to build While it is painful to watch Nog struggle with PTSD in “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” the way he knuckles down to assist Vic with his finances and to work on expanding the lounge into a casino is simply fascinating. It’s helping him cope, so that by the end of a brilliantly acted episode, he doesn’t even realize that he’s put himself on the road to recovery that is right for him.

He’s not just a hologram, he’s my friend Speaking of Vic’s casino, Nog is quick to pay back his holographic crooner friend for helping him recover by participating in the big heist in “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang.” Nog’s part is to crack the safe in the countroom, and when he learns that it has an auto-relock tumbler that no one was expecting, he keeps his cool, gets to work, and helps the whole crew save the day!

—

Worst moments

You never get a second chance to make a first impression The very first glimpse we get of Nog in “Emissary” is him stealing shit (almost certainly at Quark’s bidding) and getting locked in the brig by Odo. He has all of two lines in the episode – “Hurry up!” and “Now!” –  but he is immediately cemented as a bad seed under the thumb of his uncle. The show literally starts Nog off with such a bad reputation there’s nowhere to go but up!

What this place needs is a school Nog’s delinquent behavior doesn’t stop there. When he and Jake strike up a friendship in “A Man Alone,” it’s by sharing the experience of pranking a couple of civilians on the promenade with some Garanian bolites, which cause them to itch terribly and turn colors in a scene that legitimately looks like torture. It’s no wonder Keiko steps in by starting up her little school.

Buckets of fun! We see another of Nog’s juvenile pranks in “The Storyteller” when he fills Odo’s bucket with oatmeal and dumps it on Jake who, utterly mortified, believes for a second that they’ve somehow killed Odo. It’s a little funny in hindsight, but at the moment it just seems cruel. Jake’s reaction of terror certainly helps that along, cementing Nog’s station status as a nuisance.

No running on the promenade! There’s one more Nog prank to make the list! When he sprays some foul-smelling fluid on Tumak in “Sanctuary,” it causes a big fight to break out with the various Skrrean kids. Nog just can’t help himself. As if these refugee kids haven’t been through enough, they have this short, big-eared, froglike nuisance wreaking havoc for them. What a brat.

No one’s asking you to think, my dear As we’ve discussed in Quark’s and Rom’s respective spotlight posts before, Ferengi culture is garbage, especially how they treat females. We see some of that come through in Nog in “Life Support” when he goes on a double date with Jake and acts like a complete asshole to Riska. He’s demeaning to her, he requests she cuts his food for him, and somehow Jake’s the one apologizing!

I’ve been looking for it for two years Even when Nog has matured and joined Starfleet Academy, we get little reminders of the miscreant that he was from the start. At his coming-of-age yardsale, Kira discovers that Nog has had her lost springball racket all along and was attempting to sell it in “Little Green Men.” Sure, that was two-years-ago Nog, but he could have returned it in all that time!

Could you massage it some more? Across so many of these posts, every time oo-mox comes up it automatically makes the worst moments lists. So when Nog tricks Faith Garland into giving him oo-mox in “Little Green Men,” and not for the first time evidently, I find it abhorrent. Here’s hoping I don’t have to bring up such rapey behavior again for a while (at least until that one Ferengi episode of Enterprise).

Healthy body, healthy mind After a season or so at Starfleet Academy, Nog suddenly becomes a tightass. The conflict with Jake, now his roommate, in “The Ascent” is manufactured and trite – the kind of odd-couple antics of eponymous sitcoms. Nog is now a neatfreak. He constantly works out. He corrects Jake’s stories without permission. It’s like his character has been rewritten to fit a punchline, and an old one at that.

I won’t turn my back on you again This one’s just a little silly peeve. After the events of “Empok Nor” when Garak’s little murder spree on the titular station, Nog vows to never turn his back on Garak when they’re out searching for supplies in “Rocks and Shoals.” But then after they get hostage-handoff’ed, he immediately turns his back on Garak as they cross the levy. Dude! What did you just say?

Red Squad, Red Squad, Red Squad! Nog got tempted by the allure of the corrupt Red Squad in “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost,” but it’s in “Valiant” that he gets thoroughly taken in. Acting Captain Watters offers Nog everything he’s ever wanted: respect, rank, and some semblance of power, in exchange for his unquestioning obedience when the utterly impossible plan goes swiftly sideways. Gee, who’da thunk?

And you find that impressive? The Dominion War sure brings out the worst in a lot of people. Sisko commits some war crimes. O’Brien is typically racist about the Jem’Hadar. And Nog starts to fancy himself a soldier, bent on killing the enemy. In “The Siege of AR-558,” he blatantly admires the Ketracel-white tubes that Reese has collected as war trophies, and Quark is all of us, displaying utter disgust at this.

You don’t come into my club and start hitting customers While we totally get that recovery from the loss of his leg is a struggle, that’s no excuse for how Nog treats his friends in “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Living in a holodeck starts off as a way to not only avoid the people he thinks are staring at him, but to avoid helping himself get better through therapy and rehabilitation. And when Jake visits, Nog is rude to Jake’s date, and then outright attacks Jake in the middle of Vic’s set. Pally!

— You’ve got a deal! That’s the end of the Ferengi spotlights (for now?), but we’ve got more great DS9 recurring characters to examine for the next couple weeks, so make sure you’re following along here. We’re also still plodding through the Xindi arc over on our watchthrough of Enterprise, so join us on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, and hail us over on Facebook and Twitter. Now say it with me: self-stealing stem– dammit!

[i-less-olivia]

Was rewatching Blazing Saddles the other day. I love the bromance Bart and Jim develop over the course of the movie, their chemistry is so wholesome and unique!

However, I was watching the scene where the loveable mess that is Jim gets introduced to us, when something hit me like a ton of bricks

When Bart asks him if he has a name, he answers as seen above:

“My name is Jim. But most people call me... Jim“

It’s meant as a humorous and absurd line, surely. But look at him more closely while he’s saying it. Especially that little pause. What if there was more underneath it all?

That slight shudder. That thousand yard stare his piercing, watery eyes are expressing.

I’m sure he, at that point, was about to reveal to Bart he was the Waco Kid, but backtracked at the last second because then he’d have to recount his backstory. And, as much as he immediately liked the Sheriff, he still didn’t know anything about him, he was in a vulnerable position and was scared he’d be judged.

Bart however, being the wonderful, kind human being that he is, never belittled him, never judged him, never talked down to him. He showed genuine concern and treated him like an equal from the get go, making sure he was comfortable. He even said Jim was a “guest” and he was a “host”, despite him being a prisoner. Who would do that in the Old West? Not many people

Which is why I think the gunslinger was putting Bart to the test when he finally trusted him enough to share the source of his troubles.

And I’m willing to bet Bart was the first person who didn’t laugh when he recounted how a 6 year old kid shot him in the backside. What does he do instead? Face completely serious, he offers him another drink. Ok, maybe not the wisest choice for someone who’s just gulped down half a bottle in one swig. But it’s more about what it meant for them. I viewed it as him saying: “I see you. That shit would be traumatizing for anyone. I don’t judge you for turning to the drink. In fact, let’s have a last one”.

And it WORKS. If you notice, the Kid starts to drink much less practically immediately. He’s sober in a few days’ time. He has a new friend he knows he can trust. He has hope in the world again. His hand is steady. And he’d follow Bart to hell and back.

[sparksechidna]

Since Today is Cat Day, Here's Happy Skies' little dancer, Blaze!

It feels so good to draw again after being sick 🥺

[lilaccatholic]

how do i do it though. how do i let go of the bitterness and the hardness when they kept me "okay" for so long? does it come when i finally leave? can it ever?

[bonesjaunst]

Yippiieee it's Banou! And Sakina!! Nothing else is going on here it's just horsies and pretty ladies don't worry. trust me haha

@longlostlorian your guys as promised >:3

[maigo-san]

🔥🎴 text domestic au

Koujurou is very into dad jokes lately

[tellmeomuse]

Patreon Changes

Hi! Now that I'm almost a month into this experiment, I've decided to make a few changes to my Patreon tiers.

(This shouldn't be a negative change for any of my current patrons, don't worry!)

When I first started all this, I was sort of thinking to myself "oh, the lowest tier is sort of a tip tier, I shouldn't put too many benefits in there" and "wow, $5 is so much to ask, just the historical blogs aren't worth that, I should put writer commentary in that tier!"

But as I continue, I realize that there's a lot of writer commentary (specifically things about how I designed the way the characters and settings look) that I wanted all of my readers to be able to access. So I put those on the free tier.

I've also come to realize that $5 a month for like 5-10 short historical articles isn't that much to ask. It's probably going to be 5k-15k words of additional content each month, plus illustrative photos. While hip-deep in some really dense books about the origins of Daidalos, I realized that I may be underselling my own time and research here. Even if most of this information can be found in a few books, the time it takes to read those books and summarize the information isn't worthless.

So I've decided to make my writer commentary more accessible and let the historical blogs stand on their own.

Going forward, all writer commentary will be available to my Wanderers ($2 tier) and not just my Explorers ($5 tier). The free tier and tiers above $5 will be unchanged.

I'm going to be posting some more writer commentary tonight, as well as a post about Daidalos (talk about a freaking labyrinth full of yarn to untangle), and I'm going to go back to my older writer commentary and make that available to Explorers.

So to be clear now:

Free tier: basic commentary on character designs, announcements Wanderer ($2): early chapters, writer commentary Explorer ($5): historical blog posts Adventurer ($7): additional supplemental scenes Hero ($10): free ebook access once it is released

Plus, obviously, everything that previous tiers have access to.

Also, an announcement for Adventurers: now that both of the main characters have been introduced, supplemental scenes will start soon. There are four stories total and they'll be popping up roughly once a month.

Finally, one more announcement! I got a couple people asking if the book would be made available in hard copy. I was initially hesitant, but I've found some services online that should make that doable. Once the story is complete, I'll put out some interest surveys to figure out which option would be best.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who's supported me thus far, whether by reading, commenting, reblogging, or becoming a Patron. I appreciate all of you very much. 💜

[tzufcallsmeshomps]

What, you’re fighting too?

[mnstcrbnll]

"We're now at twelve hours into our contest, and things started heating up! We didn't get answers from everyone just yet, but people started getting a little daring! And you people at home want a spoiler?

At least one of them answered correctly~ How many? I shan't tell!"

"But once again, I can!

Only three of you got that right!"

[torturedpoetdean]

exactly one month until i see taylor again 😌