#mmm. said

[fieriframes]

[WONDERFUL. MMM. CUT. (slurping) MMM. SAID... THE DUMPLINGS ARE MY FAVORITE PART--JUST SUPER YUMMY. THE CHICKEN'S REALLY FRESH.]

[butdaddyilovehimmm]

Okay, but can we talk about how intimate this scene is?

[sasdavvero]

tempurafied team kindness because i needed to cheer myself up

[mmm-eta]

unpopular opinion: I don't like Viktor's appearance in LOL and I don't fancy him being mechanized (like that) in Arcane.

I know I'll suck some dick with it so i'm just glad I came to this fandom before s2 so I can live in my wet dreams (on the picture) for a little. riot please say his design will be cooler than the game's one.

[hooked-on-elvis]

[chexparty]

SUNNY!

art block is killing me but here is pizza delivery sunny… hes doing his very best 🍕

[jaypentaghast]

Did Armand pin him against the wall in calculated anger? Or did he walk slowly, sat them down, spoke soft words again about death and futility? Did he bite the scar he left behind all those years ago? 

Did Daniel resist at all?

Did Armand press his wrist to Daniel's lips or did he let the blood flow downwards to his mouth? Detached. Could Daniel taste the grief then? Could he taste the centuries of solitude and learned helplessness? Could he hear their hearts when they synchronized?

Did Armand guide him after it was done, when the pain came or when the high happened, or did he leave instantly? Angry, embarrassed, heart-broken.

[bonefall]

while i do agree with the sentiment that bloodclan should be more nuanced as an entity i still believe it is wrong to portray them as the necessary "response" to clan injustice (haven't read the books in years but i am pretty sure that bloodclan started with no connection to the clans) / an opposition to the clan's flaws. some of the thing scourge did was out of selfishness and bloodclan isn't the other colour of the black and white debacle with the clans. the clans are heavily flawed yes, but it isn't realistic to completely say that their structure had no redeeming qualities altogether and that all outsider groups is fundamentally better than the clans.

all clans and groups are flawed in their own way and i believe we shouldnt brush past the things that other groups (the sisters and what they do with their toms *cough cough*) did solely to be able to degrade the clans and their culture.

Buddy, you're setting up a strawman. I promise you that if you look into the reduxes I've made of BloodClan, Guardians, The Sisters, and the Tribe, you will see that I don't make any of them a "flawless" alternative to Clan life.

Nor do I say that the Clans have no redeeming qualities. In fact, you can browse the "Clan Culture" tag to see the various expansions I've made to show how these traditions, values, and technological advances make Clan life so alluring.

The overarching theme of BB is that the nature of culture is change. For better AND for worse.

With respect, I think there's something insidious in the wording of "the things the other groups did." We're talking about fan responses to a work that consistently demonizes and degrades foreigners to make the Clans look like the "best way to live," justifying xenophobia. These are not real groups, they are writing choices.

In the franchise with some pretty extreme examples of misogyny, the authors said "What if bizarro world where women rule and have no men... woag..." and only includes a single Clan-alligned member of this culture, with a BAD opinion of them, who can't even do his diplomatic job because he HATES them so much.

In the same franchise that shows Fireheart getting bullied, facing prejudice, and fighting a murderous tyrant who publically executes a mixed-race character, their endgame villain is an outsider, like him, but this one IS a godless heathen who HATES love and friendship and banned families.

In the VERY same franchise which made its first non-malicious group barely able to get through an arc without needing to be saved by Clan cats, totally unable to defend themselves, framed as "whiny" for not wanting their clearly 'inferior' culture to be forcefully changed.

And I'm re-stating all this because, again, no offense to you in particular Anon, but I've been seeing a few people with a sentiment like yours lately. Complaints into a vacuum that don't make targeted critique of anyone's fanworks, gesturing at this broad "woobification" which is apparently out there somewhere over the rainbow, saying things like "well Scourge is selfish" or "well Moonlight abandoned her 13 year old" as if we haven't BEEN knew.

As if we're not all directly responding to these choices. As if I haven't written ESSAYS on this topic.

Since this was about BloodClan in particular though, and you admit you haven't read the books in years, please go back and actually read Rise of Scourge before trying to make critique of the ways fanon rewrites its origin. It's EXPLICITLY a response to the Clans, in the text, that the Erins wrote, it is canon that fanon is working with.

And you want people to take that out and approach it a different way... why? Because it's so incredulous to you that a nation forms in response to a threatening neighbor? That a common enemy through invasions is a way that people might choose to unite, and encourage their new culture to value brutality? Because you don't like the idea of Clan Culture's XENOPHOBIC BATTLE CULTURE affecting surrounding communities??

Could YOU, maybe, be doing this "woobification" thing I keep hearing about? Can I play this stupid game too? What's our stupid prize? Can it be a lollipop? Do we get stickers

TL;DR, ok.

[risuwu]

fuit gummy

[calbee-add1ct]

i love drawing my babygirl in situations :3

[badbugbotblood]

A gift for @king-candybug-backup and their WIP but already amazing fic called Kill Switch! This is my personal interpretation of the Sinistar antagonist who appears in it, which is why I've put this beneath a spoiler if you haven't read Kill Switch yet. :)

Some notes about the design!

Like some other fan-art pieces I saw, I chose not to incorporate the mishmash of weaponry Cy-Sinistar has added on to himself, as it would have been too complicated to fit into the bodyplan.

The arm blades and wings are fully retractable and made of hard-light.

The blocky, purple cerci were inspired from the purple pixels that blast off into space when Sinistar catches up to the player's ship and bites it to dust!

Each of Cynistar's walking limbs contains a built-in rocket booster. Cynistar can achieve VTOL either through the use of it's cybug wings or the four booster jets, but it's limbs are much heavier and more sluggish due to the added machinery.

When grounded, Cynistar is slightly slower than the average cybug when running and not well-suited to evasive maneuvers, but is hard to push around due to his increased weight and low center of mass. Kind of Ankylosaurus-esque.

Very snapping turtle-like mouth, but with his face being as flat as it is he doesn't have much reach when biting. Relatively easy to avoid getting chomped if you don't allow him to get in range, but the pressure his jaws can put out is devastating.

Much less whip-like when compared to KCB, and not capable of turning on a dime or tightly coiling up his body like KCB can.

Lacks graspers entirely (Sinistar never had thumb privileges) so is forced to perform pins with the ends of his limbs or pure body mass.

Not good at quick recovery from being turned turtle. The boosters can be rotated such to topple him back right-side-up with controlled thrust, but that process takes some time and luck depending on how accommodating the geometry of the terrain he landed on is.

Yes, he screams. Loudly. After all, he IS SINISTAR, AND BEWARE, HE LIVES!

primary inspirations include Porcellio laevis (smooth isopod, the kind that can't curl up on itself), Ankylosaurus (mass distribution and armor plating), tarantulas (gait), Cybugs (basic body plan and limb distribution), and naturally Sinistar himself (color scheme, head design, plate exterior).

[gingermintpepper]

hi, i haven't read the iliad and the odyssey but want to - do u have a specific translation you recommend? the emily wilson one has been going around bc, y'know, first female translator of the iliad and odyssey into english, but i was wondering on if you had Thoughts

Hi anon! Sorry for the somewhat late response and I'm glad you trust me with recommendations! Full, disclosure, I am somewhat of a traditionalist when it comes to translations of the source text of the Iliad + Odyssey combo wombo, which means I tend to prefer closeness in literal verbiage over interpretation of the poetic form of these epics - for that reason, my personal preferred versions of the Odyssey and Iliad both are Robert Fitzgerald's. Because both of these translations (and his Aeneid!) were done some 50+ years ago (63 for his original Odyssey tl, 50 flat for his Iliad and 40 for his Aeneid) the English itself can be a bit difficult to read and the syntax can get confusing in a lot of places, so despite my personal preferences, I wouldn't recommend it for someone who is looking to experience the Iliad + Odyssey for the very first time.

For an absolute beginner, someone who has tried to read one or both of these epics but couldn't get into it or someone who has a lot of difficulty with concentrating on poetry or long, winding bits of prose, I fully and wholeheartedly recommend Wilson's translation! See, the genius of Emily Wilson's Iliad + Odyssey isn't that she's a woman who's translated these classics, it's that she's a poet who's adapted the greek traditional poetic form of dactylic hexameter into the english traditional poetic form of iambic pentameter. That alone goes a very very long way to making these poems feel more digestible and approachable - iambic pentameter is simply extremely comfortable and natural for native english speakers' brains and the general briskness of her verbiage helps a lot in getting through a lot of the problem books that people usually drop the Iliad or Odyssey in like Book 2 of the Iliad or Book 4 of the Odyssey. I think it's a wonderful starting point that allows people to familiarise themselves with the source text before deciding if they want to dig deeper - personally, researching Wilson's translation choices alone is a massive rabbit hole that is worth getting into LOL.

The happy medium between Fitzgerald's somewhat archaic but precise syntax and Wilson's comfortable meter but occasionally less detailled account is Robert Fagles' Iliad + Odyssey. Now, full disclosure, I detest how Fagles handles epithets in both of his versions, I think they're far too subtle which is something he himself has talked at length about in his translation notes, but for everything else - I'd consider his translations the most well rounded of english adaptations of this text in recent memory. They're accurate but written in plain English, they're descriptive and detailled without sacrificing a comfortable meter and, perhaps most importantly, they're very accessible for native english speaking audiences to approach and interact with. I've annotated my Fagles' volumes of these books to heaven and back because I'm deeply interested in a lot of the translation decisions made, but I also have to specifically compliment his ability to capture nuance in the characters' of these poems in a way I don't often see. He managed to adapt the ambivalence of ancient greek morality in a way I scarcely see and that probably has a hand in why I keep coming back to his translations.

Now, I know this wasn't much of a direct recommendation but as I do not know you personally, dear anon, I can't much make a direct recommendation to a version that would best appeal to your style of reading. Ideally, I'd recommend that you read and enjoy all three! But, presuming that you are a normal person, I suggest picking which one is most applicable for you. I hope this helps! 🥰

[cmorris-art]

🥚EGG IN THE SHELL🥚

[reflection-s-of-stars]

You’ve heard of god’s favorite princess, now get ready for Eurydice Hadestown, the fates’s favorite chew toy

[riddles-n-games]

Gray may currently give off black cat energy but as soon as he falls for his Queen of Hearts, he's gonna be the golden retriever in the relationship no matter how much he downplays it. And Lyra ain't a black cat, no, she's a straight up calico.

[aroaceleovaldez]

the Riordans: the show will highlight more Annabeth and Percy’s dyslexia.

The show: taking the mentions of dyslexia from it (them not really being able to read Auntie M’s sign, the zoo truck etc..) kinda giving up about it after one episode

"the show will highlight Percy and Annabeth's dyslexia"