#obviously all wildlife will defend you but

[m1d-45]

OK, but bird keeper reader

They just have hundreds of birds with xiao being one of them

If the reader get dangerously injured then the entirety of teyvat is getting fucked over by their birds

Because birds don't mess with anyone's shit. Crows especially.

And a group of the readers birds vs. teyvat is like a polar bear vs. a squirrel

And then there's xiao just looking in horror as the birds mercilessly peck the fuck out of zhongli

-racoon anon 🦝

oh my god you’re so right. crows are KNOWN to fuck up people that hurt their friends you’re so-

an enemy approaching your location and the birds just fall silent, the atmosphere turning eerie. whenever you go somewhere you’re accompanied by the rustle of feathers and calls of canaries, the birds diving from trees when you’re being hunted

[ivy-elle]

Winter in Snezhnaya

Scaramouche x gn Reader

Scenario: You accompanied him to Snezhnaya, but much to Scaramouche's dismay, a certain ginger harbinger has come along as well. And the familiarity between him and you is testing Scaramouche's last nerves.

The Zapolyarny Palace towers behind you in all its imposing might, radiating glory and power. Somewhere within its walls, Scaramouche is trapped in yet another assembly with the other harbingers, while you are out here, walking along the edge of the winter forest.

Though you’ve accompanied Scara down to Snezhnaya and are a welcomed guest in the Tsaritsa’s palace during your stay, you find yourself turning restless rather quickly.

It’s obviously cold as shit up here, and darkness falls early, but as you stroll along the icy path, the moonlight reflects off the snow, making your surroundings shimmer like something straight out of a fairy tale.

Suddenly, a fox approaches you, showing no signs of fear or reserve. That’s another curious thing you’ve noticed around here, just how unusually amiable the animals are.

You rummage through the pockets of your coat, pulling out some nuts you’ve been carrying for that exact reason. You toss them into the snow in front of the fox.

The snow crunches as you kneel down to watch the animal feed on its newfound food in delight. Like it is used being fed in this city and knows exactly where to get what it wants.

“You’re going to spoil the wildlife if you keep on feeding every stray you come across!”

At the sound of his voice, you rise back from the ground, turning to see Scaramouche approaching. He stops a few feet in front of you, hands stuffed into his winter coat, the harbinger sigil prominently displayed.

“You’re already done for today?” You ask, giving him a subtle once-over.

Scaramouche crosses his arms and clicks his tongue in disapproval. ��Fortunately, that was the last assembly for a while. One more day with these morons, and I promise, heads will be rolling.”

His eyes shift to the fox on the ground before they settle back on you. He raises an eyebrow. “Are you really so keen on catching a cold for the sake of some mutt?”

“It’s a fox, first of all,” you defend both yourself and the animal, unfazed by his demeanor. “And second, don’t pretend like you weren’t making eyes at that stray cat on our balcony last night.”

He scoffs, disdain evident on his face. “Yeah, of course. Seems like the cold ist really getting to your head.”

Not feeling particularly defeatist today, you decide to drop the subject (because you know exactly what you saw) and change the topic. “When will we go back home, then?”

But before Scara even opens his mouth, another jolly voice joins you. “Home already? What a shame!”

You can practically feel Scaramouche's whole demeanor dropping with irritation, rivaling the frigid temperatures. “Someone, have mercy on me,” he mutters darkly under his breath as Childe approaches you both.

Childe is wearing a suspiciously wide grin on his face as he deliberately ignores Scaramouche and puts his entire attention on you instead. “You should stay a few more days and enjoy Her Majesty’s hospitality to the fullest. I promise, you’ll love it.”

Scara’s jaw tightens at the familiarity between the both of you and if he weren’t bundled in his coat, you would be able to see a pulsing vein on his neck. “Shouldn't you be busy mopping the Tsarita’s ballroom or something, Childe?”

The 11th harbinger shoots him a grin. “Why, and miss all the fun of bidding you guys goodbye? You wound me.”

Then the ginger’s focus shifts back to you, making Scramouche’s eyebrow successfully twitch. “Truly, y/n, your absence will be felt not only by the hungry animals around here but I too will miss your lovely presence. What a joy it is to witness you making our balladeer here hot and bothered in a way I’m not quite used to seeing.”

You frown, but amusement twinkles in your eyes nevertheless, being used to his antics. “Thanks, Childe. It was very nice to see Snezhnaya for myself.”

“You’re welcome here anytime, my dear.” Childe chuckles, placing a friendly hand on your shoulder, but that’s when whatever little patience Scaramouche had left drains away for good. He steps in between you, his gaze deadly and fixed. “Touch them again, and I’ll end you.”

A bold, delighted laugh escapes Childe, clearly aware of the effect his words and actions have on his comrade. He lifts his hands in defeat. “Ahh, finally! I’d love a good fight with you, my friend.”

Scaramouche lets out a dry chuckle, but there’s no humor in his eyes. His fingers twitch, ready for some action. “It’s on then. I’ve been waiting for this day for long enough.”

Meanwhile, you have to suppress a groan. This has been going on all week, them breathing down each other’s neck the whole bloody time. How do these people even get any work done with the way they hate each other’s guts?

You step to the side, Scara’s eyes immediately following you. But you put on a mock-serious face, clasping your hands together. “What a fabulous idea, boys! We can finally settle this like the big grown adults we are, right? You do that - but if you’ll excuse me, I'm heading back to my warm, comfy bed.”

“Don’t you worry.” Childe laughs, amusement dancing in his eyes. “We’re just messing around, isn’t that right, Scaramouche?”

A cold smile spreads across your lover’s face as he regards Childe with a deadly look. “No, please, go on. Keep testing me. See how far it gets you.”

“Now, don’t sound so detesting; I might start to think you don’t like me.”

“Sucks to be you, then, doesn’t it.”

Childe responds to that with nothing more than a shit-eating grin. He turns to you, his face smug, and you can basically feel the headache forming.

“Write to me, alright? And keep me updated on what Mr. Sunshine over here is up to. I barely get to see him these days.” He begins to step back towards the city entrance, but not without shooting you one last wink. “Too occupied with his honeymoon phase, huh?”

“I’m gonna murder you.”

You gently grab Scara’s hand, in an attempt to ground him - or to stop him from causing the Tsaritsa to lose yet another Harbinger.

And he does stay by your side. His fingers soothingly tracing along your wrist before slipping between your own. He turns to you, his anger still radiating from him, but upon seeing your amused look, he scoffs and looks away.

“You’re in way over your head.”

“Am I?” You muse. “Or is someone a bit possessive because of Childe as of now?”

He locks eyes with you, daring you to continue.

“What? Now i can’t tease you after having to suffer through your constant bickering with each other our entire time here?”

“We weren’t-” he starts, but clearly thinks better of it and sighs, a hand running through his hair in annoyance.

“You were saying something about a bed?”

“Mhm. Want to share?”

“You better.”

Thank you so much for reading! Comments and reblogs are so appreciated

[very-straight-blog]

Unpopular opinion (spoilers)

Well, I've read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and I really can't understand why everyone is so pissed off about Snow. First of all, let's be clear - we're not talking about Snow from the trilogy, but about Snow from this book, from the prequel. This boy hasn't killed Finnick, tortured Peeta, etc. yet. Before reading a book, I found various reviews and was expecting something like a story of becoming a villain, but instead I got the story of a boy trying to provide security for himself and his family. Since when did that become something bad? I got from the reviews that there are actually two things imputed to him - Sejanus's death and his relationship with Lucy Gray. Let's talk about it.   So, Sejanus. I don't understand at all why he's supposed to be a positive character. He's an infantile child who craves attention. Shortsighted, ungrateful and rather stupid. His father did everything to save him from the reaping and he can't show even the slightest gratitude? He and his potential wife and children will never have to participate in the Hunger Games, and he acts like his father is the worst person on the planet? Really? Next, there's a big difference between questioning the social system you're in, pondering ways to change the situation, and protesting openly on your own, obviously having no effect on anything. The second is stupid, and on top of that, you frame people close to you, your family and friends. We saw it when Snow was sent to the arena to save Sejanus. In fact, Coriolanus made his first murder because of Sejanus's stupidity. Sejanus doesn't understand that in a totalitarian state, the best thing you can do is to nurture your plans quietly, and he doesn't know how to control his emotions. After the arena story, he was even given a second chance, which he ignored and started helping the rebels. This guy chose to die from the beginning, it was his choice to take the risk, he should have understood the potential consequences of his decisions. The good old argument - "And why was Coriolanus allowed to escape" - well I don't even know, maybe Coriolanus wasn't rescuing captured rebels along the way? And yes - I'll remind you - Coriolanus and Sejanus were not friends, it was Sejanus who saw Snow as a friend, because no one else interacted with him. Why would Snow frame himself because of a man he essentially didn't care about? And yes - Snow was right - these men had no weapons, no money, not even a proper plan. This rebellion made no sense and was doomed beforehand.   Now, Lucy Gray. I think Coriolanus really was in love with her. I don't think it was a healthy feeling, but still. He defended her in the arena while endangering himself and essentially lost everything because of it. I really don't approve of the fact that he shot her at the end of the book - but for the world he lived in, his paranoia is logical (not to be confused with approving). I've seen people talking about choosing between love and power - but what kind of love are we talking about? A teenage passion that was born in extremely unhealthy circumstances? They spent a total of three days together, no more. It is normal to prefer the well-being of yourself and your family, comfort, security, stability and prospects to such "love". Also, I've seen many people having fun because of his behavior in the wildlife - but it's perfectly normal, isn't it? It's normal to be disgusted at the sight of worms, normal to realize that the idea of looking for some imaginary people in the woods is stupid, normal to realize that they will die here from any disease/cold/attack by wild animals. And what would they do out there alone, even if they managed to survive? These are all the adequate thoughts of a normal person.

  In conclusion, I will say that I still have a lot of thoughts about this book, here I have shared only the main ones. However, for me it was a book with the most obvious message I've read lately. Even if the author tried to show us the formation of a villain, she failed. The result is a book with a wonderful character, who is finally in no hurry to give up his life for the sake of a meaningless idea, but thinks first of all about himself and his family. Coriolanus's choices in the book are not easy, but logical, and I would like to see more such realistic characters in literature.

[theladyheroine]

Transformers x Star Wars 🛸🪐🛞

❥ Author’s Note: Hello everyone! So I’ve always wanted to make a SW crossover with another sci-fi series, & I didn’t know whether to pick this or Avatar? But I went with this one! I will be planning an Avatar-themed post too. Also a quick side note, these headcanons will mostly be based on the movies since those are the only Transformers media I’ve seen so far. But I am trying to watch the shows so hopefully this is okay! Thank you & enjoy!

Cybertron

Okay starting off! Cybertron in this universe is located along the Mid Rim of the Galaxy, but resides as an independent world during the Old Republic Era. Unlike other colonies & planets in the Inner & Mid Rim, Cybertron is considered the most technologically advanced place in the galaxy. Almost like discrete and distant from all other places. Considering their inhabitants are autonomous robotic organisms.

The planet itself is entirely based around robotic bodies: while there is some wildlife, such as water & flora, etc. The planet itself is made up of metal with multiply cities & colonies resting along the surface, or even underground.

The Cybertronians are somewhat of a mystery, as they prefer to keep to their own & often worry about their civilization’s care. It’s incredibly rare for any other species to arrive on their planet at all. Although they are not entirely secluded, as sometimes their presence is needed for political matters.

Whether it’s discussing planetary boundaries, offering their services to aid in building projects, or even providing physical support in combat. They have been known to help the Republic a few times as a means of military support, but this mainly happens during the Clone Wars.

Plus they’re giant mechanical beings that are taller than any building… I’m sure they’d be happy to help… 😅

Autobots vs Decepticons

So I know the war on Cybertron lasts like a gazillion years, but for the sake of the headcanon maybe it takes place around the same time as the Star Wars franchise? Like the Autobot rebellion against Megatron perhaps started before the Empire took over. But maybe it goes on long enough throughout the Clone Wars, and the Autobot brigades leaving begins either when the Empire takes over or a while after.

But I can image the Empire also tried teaming up with Megatron at some point. I guess this is kind of similar to Mandalore in a way?

Just like the live action movies, the Autobot brigades decide to seek refuge on other planets as a means to rest & regroup. Which also translates to the whole “robots in disguise” thing. So once the war happens, Cybertronians aren’t secluded anymore & the war has gotten lot more public in the galaxy. With a few Bots living or hiding among cities, or even building their own bases as a means to reconnect with each other. They even take the opportunity to defend the planets from the Decepticons, just like Earth.

Of course they help during the Clone Wars too. I personally like the idea of Optimus prime being a hero of both worlds too!

Obviously the Bots still transform into vehicles, as it’s still convenient for them to move around. But the fact that lots of vehicles in Star Wars are usually automated by droids, or they can just hover around like speeders & ships, I feel the option can just be whatever people want it to be? Lol

I did discuss this in a Bad Batch discord I’m in, and I thought making the Cybertronians land vehicles might help make them stand out more when compared to other alien races in Star Wars. But they can obviously just scan a Walker or a Speeder, even a clone ship, & just take off on their own too.

Fun Facts

Okay so these are just random, less lore-based or time-based ideas compared to the ones above, but I hope you enjoy!

This one is my favorite, but since I love the idea of Optimus Prime being a hero of both Cybertron & the Clone Wars. It would be cool if during the original trilogy, he shows up! Like maybe Luke or Han come across him stuck in his alt-mode for a long time, but they wake him up & he transforms! Ready & willing to find his comrades & defeat the Empire! 🤩

I discussed this one on the Bad Batch discord too with someone and we discussed the Marauder or one of the Clone ships secretly being an Autobot!! Like maybe Hunter or even Tech finds out, or are the first ones to find out.

This also gave me an idea for Bumblebee, since he’s one of the most popular Autobots, as well as being accustomed to Earth & other cultures in the movies. I like the idea of him meeting the Bad Batch or even the 501st through the Clone Wars. Like maybe Bee crash landed somewhere & the Clones are in the same area as him, & pick up his distress signal. This would be similar to the 2018 movie, but I feel their dynamic with Bee is kinda like with Sam Witwicky. 😅 Bayverse Bumblebee is pretty rambunctious…

Similar to the Last Knight movie with Hot Rod, I like the idea of an Autobot being a Senator’s guard. Maybe for Princess Padme or even Leia since she’s such a good marksman. They could be their personal transport during their time in the Senate, but if things get hectic they just transform to rescue them. Or the ‘Bot and Senator are a cool dynamic duo who can protect everyone from the Empire. 😎

[nexionswild]

IN WHICH reader defend bill from micah's mockery.

includes: bill williamsom x reader

content warning: micah is his own warning, but nothong crazy, fluff, bill's real name "marion", no pronouns. [GN]

a/n: bill doesn't get enough appreciation imo.. i mean poor guy everyone bullies him.

word count: 1, 375

You're not the confrontational type.

Like Mary-Beth or Hosea, you like to sit back and relax as you enjoy the songs of the wildlife while reading a nice book about the fantasies of the world or the events of some author's life, and nobody bothered you about it. Aside from drowning yourself in words or games, everyone knew that you know how to handle yourself, perhaps from time to time you had to be the one in distress but it was remotely easy, given the fact that you already got the dirty work done, hence granting the gang members an easy access to get to you. All of that to say that you're not messed with, and despite Micah's barking, do you really care? No, and it infuriates him how boring your reactions were, there was no flavor, no taste. Slowly, his annoying bickering slowly drifted onto Bill, and you've noticed how increasingly loud he's become.

Each times he'd strike a conversation with him, he'd sarcastically reply or straight up mock him while claiming he was just "messing around" when obviously he's desperately pushing all of his buttons to get him riled up and fuming in nothing but pure anger, and fortunately for Micah, he was aiming at a man who's temper is as fragile as a flower. And though Bill knows he shouldn't be easily driven up into madness knowing Micah's intention, he can't help it. He can't just ignore it, why do you think he keeps replying to his mischievous questions? You couldn't help but feel bad for Williamson, all he does is quietly finishing his job then drinking himself to death if not for Micah's teasing, otherwise he'd be playing Dominos or Poker, or make sure he has ammunition and check if his equipment's clean.

Recently, you've been noticing his drinking habits has been progressively worse to the point where he deals with a massive yet agonizing hangover the next morning. You've been trying to help him through it, but being full of himself, he'd often brush it off and claim he'll be fine without bothering you too much. You're a pacifist, and he knows. That's why he doesn't snap at you like he does with others who try to reason with him or smack some sense into that thick brain of his. Today is another day where you sit quietly in your corner as the crackle of the campfire plagues your ears with the laughter and the drunken slurring sentences of the gang. Like usual, you use the light source of the campfire's dancing flames to keep track on what you're reading with a bottle of beer by your side, there's nothing to do around these hours really, so the least you could do is entertain yourself with fancy words and overly detailed description of an item that could be something as simple as a silver spoon.

Usually your mind gets foggy and automatically cancels out noises to focus on your activity, but your concern for Bill has hit a point where you'd willingly stop your reading to look over, then slide your eyes back to the dirty, yellow pages of your novel. "Got yerself a bodyguard, Marion?" Micah's voice spoke up with a harsh tone as he looked over to Bill, who'd been peacefully drinking his whiskey before grunting at the man's new attempt at making his blood boil. You'd relax on your back, watching it unfold to figure out the best moment to put an end to it. Bill stared before taking a deep breath as he was looking in silence. "What's yer deal, Micah? Always pickin' on me for nuthin'... what is it?"

You'd take a sip out of your bottle as you glanced over, switching your gaze to whoever's talking. And soon enough, the conversation slowly built up with tension as Bill's grip on his bottle increased to the point where you could see the cracks forming on the glass as he sneered back. And Micah? He was sickly enjoying it. You could tell by the smile on his face as he seemed to be analyzing Bill's expression while he spat all the possible insults that came up in his head. "I was just playin' around, Marion. Just playin' and yappin' as usual, f'course.. no need to be cryin' bout it, Williamson."

"You little—" Bill got up as he gripped on his holster where his gun hid as a twitch became noticeable on his face, a vein popping out of his neck while his eyes narrowed in fury.

"Micah, you'd be cryin' on your knees if Dutch told you to shut up and walk away. Ya think we ain't seeing ya lickin' his boot like a dog everytime you spoke to him, Mr. Bell?" You'd talk back with nonchalance as you slowly put your bottle down, your brow raising as you tilted your head to the side. It was new, because you never searched for any problems with anyone, and picking a fight with you was quite difficult since you'd quietly brush it off as if whatever they say to you in an effort to get a rise out of you was nothing but a mosquito bite. Micah would stare at you, caught off guard before bursting in malicious laughter. "Have I angered the little slacker? Oh, how wonderful.. my, oh my, how nasty."

"The only nasty thing here is yer mouth runnin' wild. Why don't you put those cocky lips to work and start gettin' it on with Dutch? Since he's so great, and amazing.." you'd quote him. You know damn well how it goes with him and his tendency of pleasing and swaying Dutch by saying the most ridiculous of compliments to gain more affection points from his part, you've been keeping a low profile, yes, but you've been listening to everyone in silence too, it felt like knowing everyone's secret being in your position. Your head cocked to the side as you watched with your bedroom eyes, your lids falling slightly revealing nothing but boredom. You weren't entertained by this, you didn't get the thrill of an argument like Micah. Obviously you weren't as bright as him and he knows. He'd stare for a couple of minutes before laughing, coughs interrupting in as he hummed. "Yer a clown, real funny. Fine.. apologies for touchin' yer prince. Cowpoke." He grunts with a distasteful smile, before eventually walking away. Bill could only watch in dreadful silence before huffing as he groggily sat down on his seat, an exhausted sigh purring out while he messily took a sip from his bottle.

You didn't expect a thank you from his part, and he isn't in the mood to express his pitiful gratitude right now. He'd cough for a while as if to fill the void between the two of you before tilting his head down where his hat would cover half of his face, only revealing his beard and dry lips. His body was burning hot with anger and the alcohol he consumed. "You.. you didn't have to do that, y'know?" He mumbled under his breath, his fingers twitching and fidgeting around his whiskey as he cleared his throat before looking back at you. You'd stare at him in a haze, your brows raising slightly before blinking. "It wasn't for you."

You'd lean on your seat as you spoke. "I was just makin' sure big bad Bill wouldn't be killin' anyone." You said, boring into his eyes as he kept his head slightly low. There was another moment of quiet, but then suddenly you'd hear a choked out laugh, sounding like an overheated kettle as he snorts. You'd chuckle along with him, figuring you've put him at ease for now.

"Fine, I guess you were right for that." He blurted out, looking away for a moment before his eyes dragged back to you. He seemed way more calm and relaxed, it was seeing him that way. Usually he was always grumpy or stayed in his own corner, where he'd be doing nothing but chopping wood or picking a fight with everyone, or even sharpening his knife and prepping his guns.

"Thank you."

He said. You look up, surprised. But a warm smile rushed over. "Sure, you're welcome, Bill."

[talenlee]

Bluey's Diggers

The Australian character, it is said, was shaped by World War 1. The diggers, the soldiers we sent to Turkey to buy breathing room for Russia so it could push on Germany and reduce the impact on France. That is a good and comforting myth to have in which we get to do something cool and impressive and tough (partake in a war) while also thinking everyone involved is stupid (because they were) and conveniently ignore the complete lack of our own agency in it (why didn’t we say no?). It sort of crystallised the Australian character as liking and being impressed with war and death, accepting death as a potential consequence, and all that good grim military fantasism that paints us as hardworking even to the point of death, and also quite stupid in that we didn’t once consider if maybe the people we should be shooting at are the ones telling us to get shot.

But thing is, I have complicated feelings about Bluey.

If you’re not familiar with it, because you are somehow off the internet and also don’t have a four year old, Bluey is a Homestuck spin-off series about a kid named Bluey and her sister as she and her dad and mum and related family and friends get along. It is beautifully animated, charmingly expressive, deeply resonant, wholesome in ways its genre often struggles to express, and filled to the brim with thoughtful, attentive character work. In the ways that a kid’s cartoon show can be good, it is great.

This isn’t some sort of ‘waiting for the backhand’ way of things, like, not ‘it’s good for,’ or ‘it’s good but,’ or some secret interpretation thing. Bluey is just a really impressively well-made version of what it is and it underscores how many things like it do not exist and are often making media for children without the same mindset that these shows can be good.

But Bluey is also a show that deserves attention for how it is Australian. How exceptionally Australian it is. The characters all have Australian accents, as voiced by Australian accents. They reference Australian versions of things, Australian buses and trains, Australian wildlife, Australian sports, Australian school structures, Australian public works, Australian music, Australian infrastructure. It is a very Australian series.

In the episode that earns a lot of critical acclaim, Cricket, there is a shot of one of the dog’s dads,

This isn’t my observation. I knew about this before I ever saw Cricket, from the poem by Omar Sakr, called Bluey in the genocide. It’s a great poem, it’s a beautifully phrased piece of simple critique about the assumptions present in the work. Because this, this is where people want to put the brakes on the Australian-ness of Bluey. This is where they want to say, hey, okay, yeah, alright, we don’t know where this guy is, but if this is an Australian story about Australian characters, then where in the world that’s hot are you going to find an Australian soldier?

(The answer is the Middle East.)

It is an omnipresent normal that Australia likes our military, a service that has been called to defend Australia kinda, once, and called to other nations by the people who live there about two times and the rest of the time we’re being roped into the adventures of other empires. We are a colony that colonises, the normalised and included white-enoughs.

And this is part of the thing with Bluey, the complication of the Australian-ness of it all. Because like, this is a show for four year olds. This is a show that nonetheless, represents a kid’s interest in army, and makes the very realistic point that the kid’s interest in army is tied to that kid’s dad being in the army. That is extremely Australian, too. And then, while we’re accepting all these obvious things that are obviously about Australia and the obvious followup, that’s where we jerk to a halt.

Because we know we don’t want to.

Like, this dog being in the Middle East brings with it a lot of assumptions about the real world. This implies that there’s a Dog 9/11. It implies there’s a Dog Financial Crisis. It implies that there’s Dog Curtin Line and Dog Coolies and Dog Skeletons from Chinese Dogs underneath the Dog Sugarcane fields just an hour’s drive from Bluey’s House.

And like, that’s a bummer! That’s a bummer to think about! That’s not how we like to think of our history. We were crystallised by the Diggers, but only the good bits, only the bits that weren’t about a willingness to go and kill people who didn’t care for no good reason! It’s a better crystallising event than, say, the Eureka Stockade, where we fought against police trying to crack down on and control workers (and we burned down Chinese hotels) or the story of the Kelly Gang, where we fought against police abusing and controlling the poor. The crystallisation of Australian-ness is instead about the diggers.

About our military.

The military that reached across our country and has stories in it like the time we rioted against American soldiers with whom we were allied. Stories like the time we claimed someone was too European to avoid the draft, stories like the sinking of the Centaur, which was a hospital ship. Stories like Billy Hughes being racist at the treaty of Versailles, literally a subservient agent of racism for the community of powers above him.

We think of our military as normal, and not that bad, just like we think of ourselves as normal, and not that bad. We will always have the example of the empires we serve as being worse, so whatever we did is not so bad, because we’re not like those people we are working for and whose orders we follow. They’re the real bastards. They’re the ones who are benefitting from all of this. Right? We’re not so bad, we’re just doing what we’re told and really, we’re not even getting that much out of our obedience, right?

Happy Anzac Day.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[galraluver]

Hi! So just a quick request can you make a scenario where the original paladins meet there future spouse bc they fell from a portal from our universe to there's and it's the paladins save them from dieing?❤❤❤❤ lots of love boo!!!

I sure can 😊

I'll have to make each one separately because of the word limit here on Tumblr, so for the time being I'm starting off with the leader of Voltron himself, Zarkon. I'm sending you lots of love too 💕💖

_________________________________________

(Y/n) was just an average forest ranger with a perfectly normal life while working her childhood dream job; she loved being out in the park she worked at where she was surrounded by nature, although she strongly disliked dealing with dumb tourists and people who were disrespectful to nature. She loved the times of the year when there were no campers because it gave her the opportunity to make sure everything around the park she worked at was doing alright and she got to hike if the weather was nice enough. While she walked along the trail deep in the forest (Y/n) kept an eye out for bears and other wildlife; it was late fall, so most of the animals would be packing on their winter weight. The young woman had something else on her mind too, a show on Netflix called Voltron Legendary Defender; it wasn't her first time watching it but she decided to rewatch all eight seasons even though she strongly disliked season eight because it was poorly written and rushed. One of her favorite characters was Zarkon, or at least the version of him before he met Honerva.

(Y/n) hated Honerva with a burning passion, mostly out of jealousy but also because she was a bad influence on what started out as a good character. If she were in the series when the backstory episode happened she would have prevented them from falling in love one way or another, alas she lived in the real world where aliens didn't exist. She looked up at the cloudy sky when she heard some thunder in the distance, ready to turn back until she saw the increasingly bluish purple tint to the clouds; she'd never seen anything like it before and decided to take shelter under a large tree since it obviously wasn't a regular thunderstorm. (Y/n) watched anxiously as the clouds formed a circle above her that seemed to glow while the thunder sounds got louder, the middle in particular glowing more than the area around it. In a way it looked as though a portal was about to open up above her, although she kept telling herself that portals didn't exist in real life and she must have been dreaming or something.

The young woman pinched her left wrist hard and yelped when she felt a stinging sensation; she definitely wasn't sleeping which meant that she wasn't dreaming. The wind suddenly picked up when the portal became more visible, making (Y/n's) hair and jacket blow all over the place. Seeing a portal in real life was shocking to the female forest ranger, then she saw something in the sky that looked like a person falling; (Y/n) didn't think much of it until the person came closer, falling out of the portal until he hit the ground with an audible crack as his armor-clad body came into contact with the trail. (Y/n) wanted to go see if the man who fell out of the portal was okay but the wind would have knocked her over, she had to wait until the portal stopped spinning and the wind stopped blowing so hard. The portal disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared, leaving nothing but gray rain clouds in the sky as though it had never been there in the first place.

As soon as the wind stopped blowing as hard (Y/n) ran out onto the trail and straight for the man, she assumed it was a man because of his size, to see if he was dead or alive. At first she didn't know what to expect until she was standing next to him, her eyes blown wide and her mouth hanging open when she saw what, or rather who, was laying on the ground. The man in question was Zarkon, large as life and completely unconscious; (Y/n) definitely thought she was dreaming until she slapped herself, only to realize she wasn't. It wasn't just Zarkon, it was the younger version of him because he didn't look like he'd been exposed to quintessence yet. (Y/n) didn't know how it was possible for Zarkon to be there after falling out of a portal, it shouldn't have been possible at all, but he was there and he needed her help.

"Hey, are you okay?" (Y/n) asked Zarkon when she knelt down for him, immediately reaching for one of his wrists to see if she could find a pulse.

Since galra didn't exist in real life there wasn't anything online about their anatomy, at least nothing canon, but thankfully (Y/n) found a pulse which meant the large galran emperor was still alive, just unconscious and bruised. (Y/n) wished that she could take Zarkon home with her, unfortunately he wouldn't fit in her house very well due to him being in between eight and nine feet tall; he wouldn't be able to get past her front door without bumping his head, he wouldn't fit on any of her furniture and there would be no way for him to bathe. She then remembered there was an old shed in the woods that used to be used for storage; it was still technically in good shape, although it'd been abandoned when a bigger one was built closer to the ranger station. The shed would be big enough for Zarkon to live in comfortably, all she needed to do was get him there and bring some basic supplies for him to use since she refused to let him live like an animal. (Y/n) could use her pickup to transport him to the shed, then she could go home really quick to get some basic supplies for him before he woke up since it looked like he would be unconscious for a few hours.

(Y/n) was thankful all of the other ranges working that day were busy elsewhere in the forest, otherwise she would have had a lot of explaining to do if anyone saw her helping someone who used to be a fictional character from an animated series on Netflix. She took note of her exact location before standing up and walking back to the staff only parking lot, knowing it would be hard to get Zarkon hauled into the bed of her pickup, but not impossible. Getting the chance to meet one of her favorite fictional characters was one of her biggest dreams, although she never expected it to happen in real life nor did she expect Zarkon to just fall out of a portal the way he did. On the way to her pickup (Y/n) wondered how Zarkon would react when he woke up; he was wearing his usual armor, but he had his bayard tied to a belt around his waist. (Y/n) really couldn't wait to meet him, she would have to force herself not to fangirl when she first met him, though.

__________

As soon as (Y/n) returned to the park and put everything in her portable wagon she set off towards the old shed she put Zarkon in, hoping he woke up while she was away. She brought a couple of pillows, a few warm blankets, a lantern, a space heater, some jerky, a few bottles of water and a few other things she knew he might need while he was living in the small building. Obviously he couldn't stay there forever, although she was wealthy enough to buy a bigger home if she needed to and she would look into it for his sake; she saved his life, so she would give him a place to live when she had the chance. It was lightly raining as she pulled the wagon down the trail, so she hoped the blankets and pillows wouldn't get too wet by the time she reached her destination. Once she arrived at the shed (Y/n) had to take a deep breath, unsure of how Zarkon would react when he saw her for the first time, assuming he was awake.

Her right/left hand shook a little when she reached for the doorknob; she felt a mixture of excitement and fear, but she had to remind herself that everything would be alright. After slowly opening the door she saw the galran emperor crouching down enough so he could look out of the window on the opposite side of the building. Zarkon stood up and turned to face (Y/n) when he heard her come in, not drawing his weapon since he didn't view her as a threat. The two of them just stood there for a few minutes and stared at each other, the only sound that could be heard being the rain outside; she still couldn't believe it, Zarkon was actually standing a few feet in front of her. Zarkon, on the other hand, wasn't sure what to think about (Y/n) since he'd never seen anyone like her before; her pheromones didn't suggest that she was a threat to him, so he allowed himself to relax.

"I'm glad that you finally woke up, I was worried that you had a concussion or something after you fell from that portal." (Y/n) said after what seemed like forever, bringing the wagon into the shed before closing the door.

"Who are you and where am I? The last thing I remember was fighting some thieves on an uncharted planet with the other paladins before one of the thieves pushed me into a portal." Zarkon inquired before recalling the last thing he remembered; there was a blank spot in his memory, so he couldn't remember what happened after he got pushed through the portal.

"My name is (Y/n) and you're on the planet Earth, I saved you after you fell through the portal. I need to see if you actually have a concussion or not, so can you please kneel down for me?" (Y/n) calmly introduced herself and told him where he was before asking him if she could see if he was alright or not.

Zarkon complied and knelt down, his whole body hurting from earlier since he hit the ground after falling; he didn't mind being checked for a concussion nor did he mind being around the much shorter woman. (Y/n) took the small flashlight out of the first aid kit she brought and turned it on once she was standing in front of Zarkon, carefully checking him for a concussion. After checking him and finding no major damage (Y/n) turned the little flashlight off and decided to tell him how she knew him; there was no point of her hiding the truth from him and it was better for him to find out sooner rather than later. She began by explaining what Voltron Legendary Defender was before she told him about his character in the show, then she told him about the flashback episode where his younger self was introduced. (Y/n) managed to stay calm throughout her exploration, but she couldn't quite read Zarkon's expression.

Zarkon was thankful that he didn't sustain any serious damage considering how hard he hit the ground earlier, his armor doing its job to protect him. However, as soon as (Y/n) started telling him how exactly she knew him he felt lightheaded; in this alternate reality he was nothing more than a character in an animated series and what was worse was he was one of the main villains, the complete opposite of what he wanted to be seen as. He'd met Honerva before, although never once did he think that she could have led him down such a dark path that led to so many others losing their lives. He was grateful for (Y/n) saving his life even though he was kind of put off by how excited she started to get after she stopped explaining how she knew him and went on to briefly mention how she'd wanted to meet his younger self if she ever had the opportunity. There was so much to take in, but when he thought about it too hard it made his head hurt.

"I brought some supplies for you until I can get you out of here, I'm sorry that it's not much. If you go out you need to be careful, I'm the only person who knows about you and I don't want the government to take you if anyone else sees you. I'll come visit you every day." (Y/n) said after a few moments of silence, warning him of the danger if anyone else saw him; if she was lucky, if anyone did see him then they might think he was bigfoot.

"Thank you for saving my life, (Y/n) of Earth. I truly appreciate your kindness and generosity." Zarkon humbly thanked (Y/n); he might have been an emperor but that didn't mean he couldn't be humble around those who deserved it.

"You're welcome, it's a huge honor to be able to help you. You can just call me (Y/n), though." (Y/n) responded bashfully, feeling a fluttering sensation in her stomach.

"Very well, (Y/n)." Zarkon said while beaming at her, his gaze meeting hers; without her help he wouldn't be able to survive in her reality, so he was thankful she was the one who saved him.

(Y/n) felt her whole body heating up and knew she was undoubtedly blushing, although there was nothing she could do about it, she was flattered and slightly flustered. She awkwardly cleared her throat before she brought the wagon closer so she could show him the supplies she brought, explaining how some of it worked and how it was used. Zarkon listened closely and paid attention, memorizing how to safely use the space heater since he needed warmth in order to live. (Y/n) found it fun while telling Zarkon how some of the supplies she brought him worked or was used for; she couldn't wait till she had a place big enough to live with him, she knew he would like learning more about humans. However, for that evening she had dinner with him so he wouldn't get lonely and answered any questions he had for her.

[homeskllet]

the skylanders: dual-wielders concept continues!

these guys are the first of the new skylanders i've designed.

their backstories and stuff are under the cut

SPRITE KNIGHT

"Fighting for what's sprite!"

Sprite Knight was only created recently, and while she may not know much about the world, she's always curious and ready to learn. She's also always ready to beat up some bad guys with her powerful claws and Arkeyan laser!

---

There exists a forgotten island in an unmemorable part of Skylands, where the ground is covered in the deactivated remains of countless Arkeyans. However, this island stopped being forgotten when a magical geyser erupted from it, which was quickly noticed by a gang of Drow thieves. With nobody around to defend it, the geyser was easily taken over by the thieves.

But the spirit of the geyser had a trick up its (metaphorical) sleeve. It created a being of pure magic and fashioned a set of armour out of the ruined Arkeyans. And so, Sprite Knight was born! She immediately fired up her laser and decimated the Drow thieves. She then left the lonely island, and it wasn't long before she found the Dual-Wielders and joined their ranks.

MALADY

"Feeling under the weather?"

Though he looks creepy, Malady is a true gentleman and an expert in the field of medicine. His impeccable politeness and extensive knowledge make him a skilled and trustworthy doctor. Don't let that fool you, though - Malady can just as easily use his medical knowledge to fight evil.

---

Ever since he was a hatchling, Malady had always been the odd one out. His small wings meant he couldn’t fly as well as his nestmates, and he couldn’t hunt as well as them either. While his siblings were doing flashy aerial tricks, Malady was in his village’s library or on the ground, learning everything he could about plants and medicine in both theory and practice.

Malady’s mastery of medicine came in handy whenever illness or injury struck the people of his village, but his reputation as a weird and spooky fellow meant that he lived at the edge of town, and the other villagers only came to him when his services were needed. Not that he minded that much – the peace and quiet was good for further study (well, maybe it did get a little bit lonely at times…).

One day, as Malady was gathering herbs, he found a creature he had never seen before lying unconscious in a clearing. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it was obviously injured, so he took it back to his house and tended to its wounds as he would anyone else.

It turned out the creature was a spirit that had come from a geyser that had recently appeared nearby. It had gotten attacked by the hostile wildlife and received serious injuries. Eternally grateful to Malady for healing it, the geyser spirit made him a Dual-Wielder, giving him Undead and Air abilities.

GLASSILISK

"Shatter and scatter!"

Fierce, brave and maybe a bit reckless, Glassilisk puts his glass-based abilities to good use on the battlefield. There's only one thing this lizard loves more than the adrenaline rush of combat, and that's basking in the sun on a warm afternoon.

---

Shattershard Island is a beautiful tropical island with a massive volcano at its centre, populated by all kinds of critters made of living volcanic glass. It was a peaceful beachside paradise, which was fortunate for the fragile glass animals that called it home (since they were already prone to shattering even without any conflict).

This wouldn’t last, though, as one day a magical geyser erupted from the volcano’s crater instead of the usual lava. Immediately, this caught the attention of some filthy Trolls, who ruined the glittering beaches of Shattershard Island with their pollution-spewing machinery as they took over the geyser. The glass animals were too meek and fragile to fight back, afraid that they’d break in a single hit… all except for Glassilisk. He charged headlong into battle against the Trolls without a thought for his own safety. Seeing his bravery, the other glass animals found the courage to enter the fray themselves, and a huge battle began.

Once the smoke had cleared, the inhabitants of Shattershard Island could breathe a sigh of relief – they’d successfully fought off the Trolls. But in his recklessness, Glassilisk’s tail and one of his legs had broken off. Just as he had gotten a taste for battle, his career as a warrior seemed to be over.

It was then that the spirit of the geyser approached Glassilisk. It thanked him for his heroics, and gave him an offer: It would give him the power to use the Earth and Fire elements, which would not only make him a stronger fighter, but let him grow new glass limbs… If he went on a difficult journey to locate and protect the Giga-Geyser. Glassilisk accepted without hesitation, and became an official Dual-Wielder not long after.

[badnikbreaker]

headcanons / thoughts about rusty rose, how i’ll be writing her, and et cetera below the cut ——

obviously this all comes with the caveat that as we get more episodes, this might all change.  but we don’t know when that’ll happen and i don’t wanna wait to play in this space, so i am simply going to party now and adjust later!

for the sake of ease, i’ll mostly be defaulting to a hypothetical ‘rusty has either been hacked back to allying with the resistance or has broken free of the council on their own’ verse for most interactions; otherwise i’m confined to combat threads.  happy to do other stuff!  just assume that if we haven’t plotted specifics, rusty’s probably gonna be Nicer rusty

rusty doesn’t remember a great deal of her backstory — this is partially to get me out of the risk of writing a thread where amy confesses her history only to have future episodes stomp on my dreams.  that being said, while she doesn’t remember it consciously, i DO have a backstory in mind of her that i’ll be treating as canon until we get something else, just for my own reference.

i’ve seen some people suggest that rusty’s line about her upgrade being ‘necessary’ suggest that she opted into them willing, which isn’t how i took that line nor do i think it makes a ton of sense for who amy is, especially THIS amy; prime!amy, even more than their game counterpart, seems to have a lot of love for the natural world — you can see this in thorn, but even in the mainverse ames says that the forest is the most beautiful place in the world.  it just seems out of character for her to opt in to eggman’s particular flavor of fucked up industrialization, let alone in a way that puts innocent, helpless creatures like flickies through such pain.  i’m totally open to being wrong, but in the interim the backstory i’ll be alluding to is different.

i love that tails’ backstory is basically ‘canon, but what if sonic wasn’t there?’ and want to keep that, generally, for ames.  obviously metal sonic wouldn’t exist, but i want to keep the generalities — specifically, i’m going to be pulling a lot of her sa1 arc and combining that with a general ‘amy’s kidnapped and not rescued’ thing.  when the council started destroying green hill, amy did everything they could to protect the wildlife, especially the animals.  she grew very close to the flickies in particular, and while fighting off badniks to defend them, she was captured and brought to the council.  because they were obviously very strong, the council opted to rebuild rather than execute them — and started calling them rusty rose as a cruel joke at their expense.  she, blessedly, remembers little of this — both the backstory and the process of becoming rusty rose, aside from the fact that it was Not Pleasant.

it’s fascinating the the only moment of mercy we really see from rusty is when they see black rose.  i do think the fact that seeing a version of herself that HADN’T had all her limbs ripped off and organs removed causes her to glitch out, at least briefly, is cool as hell and feeds into some other rusty thoughts i have.  wouldn’t it hurt, don’t you think?  to suffer, and learn that there’s a version of reality where you don’t?  wouldn’t it break something?

it’s genuinely fucked up that rusty can be hacked?  like, there is so little to them left that’s organic, that’s THEM.  she’s not amy or a person at all, she’s just a weapon that the council wields.  this sweet, kind, friendly, loving person who wants to save everyone got turned into a completely identity-less weapon of mass destruction :(  i’m miserable about her soft smile watching knuckles and rouge escape and how it drops immediately back to emotionlessness as the council takes back control.

also if she pulls a gamma i will blow this whole place up <3

[syrinq]

it's called being a responsible pet owner (not limited to just cats) & taking care of your pets on a case-by-case basis, instead of this warped idea you've got that all outdoor cat owners full-stop are neglectful and will 100% get dead cats. some examples are supervised outdoor playtime, or teaching your cat to walk with a leash, or ensuring indoors has extra enrichment esp if you live in an area with plenty highways/bad people/dangerous wildlife. general care like spaying, dewormer and vet checkups are also obviously part of that.

don't want them to get poisoned? don't grow plants that are known dangers to cats. don't want them to get strangled? don't leave out a bunch of plastic bags for them to toy with. don't want them to hunt birds, other mammals, etc? get them a collar with a bell. don't want them to go missing? don't immediately throw your cat outdoors the second you adopt, because surprise, they need to get used to the environment first.

in my case, both my 1st & 2nd cats did fine outdoors. i've never dealt with any sickness related ''to the evil outside'', but i also didn't live in the middle of some busy city or with aggressive street cats. which is why i'm not really surprised that you've missed the nuance in ''outdoor cat defender if the conditions are right". this shit isn't as black or white as you and some others make it seem to be.

my cat is currently 14 years old & still goes outside, albeit understandably less than he used to. i already had to deal with one cat dying of old age last year, so don't you go telling me that ''i'll deal with having a dead cat i guess''. really inconsiderate and embarrassing of you to deal with different opinions like this, honestly.

outdoor cat defenders really are simply some of the most Delusional people on the planet, like you can list fact after fact all with verified sources about how bad it is to let cats outside for both them & the environment around them and people will cover their ears and be like "umm not my frumpkins he knows not to play in traffic & he has magical resistance to coyotes and disease"

[caffeineandsociety]

The thing about the "would you rather encounter a bear or a man in the woods?" question is, there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons to pick the bear.

"I trust myself more to avoid conflict with wildlife than people; all I have to do with the bear is give it a wide berth, meanwhile I can't even go a drama-free day on Discord."

"I expect the bear, they just live out there; meanwhile I'd go out to the woods to be AWAY from other people, so running into a man would just ruin the whole purpose of my trip."

"Zero chance of getting charged with assault with no witnesses to defend me in the unlikely event things go south and I have to deploy the bear spray."

"Honestly it's just straight up horror movie brain, I'm well aware it's totally unrealistic but come on, the internet is still for nerds, let's not pretend any of us don't have media we see everywhere lmao, the question is 'would you rather' not 'which is objectively less likely to end badly'"

Perfectly fair, respectable answers.

Some reasons, however, are...less valid and reek of terfism.

"The bear just lives out there; the man OBVIOUSLY followed me!" Fascinating! So what are YOU doing out there? Who did YOU follow? Who did THEY follow? Or do you really just think men are so inhuman, so lacking in internal complexity, so single-mindedly focused on subjugating women, that no man would ever go on a nature hike for the sake of taking a nature hike just like you might??

"I couldn't fight off a man, I'd be overpowered in a second!" And you could fight off a bear? You really think the gulf of strength between you and a man - any man - is so great you have better odds against a BEAR?? Interesting. What are your thoughts on trans people in sports? Alternatively, how big do you think a bear is? You probably shouldn't be going on a hike in the woods if you think you have better odds fighting against an actual fucking bear than even the biggest, burliest, strongest human alive. You don't.

If your answer is somewhere along those lines...you might want to reconsider.

(Sincerely, a multiracial former woman and current visibly queer mess of indeterminate sex and gender who also picks the bear, mostly for reason #2.)

[justasmidgx]

Pretty disappointed by the ask you sent to Scout yesterday tbh. Not that it matters, I know. I just would've expected better from you, knowing how much against ARAs you are. I would've expected you might actually ask a rabbit breeder first or maybe read one of the numerous posts from people with experience about the issue, rather than just fly off at your first emotional response or go with whatever Scout is saying/believing. I hope you take the time to read up on it and at least be more educated on this issue. Idk. Maybe it's just more disappointing to me because you used to be one of the biggest defenders of myself and many other rabbit breeders. This isn't meant to be hostile or anything btw I just needed to say it.

Honestly? Seeing responses from rabbit breeders has changed my mind a bit.

I will say I'm not FULLY comfortable with the idea but I def regret how I worded that ask to Scout and how I definitely was looking at it from the view of other livestock animal, especially when Scout mentioned the chicken industry (which poultry industry in general has so many problems and to eeven think of comparing that large widescale problem with fucking RABBIT BREEDING in the US was idiotic since...rabbit breeding isn't widescale. There's no ~big rabbit~ shit in the US.)

I especially started to see differently when I saw breeders talk about feeding babies out, or even donating them to like...bird and wildlife sanctuaries and shit and I realized I came at it from an uneducated point of view, and I'll fully admit part of it was wanting to defend Scout because I'm so used to seeing Scout get idiotic shit from all sides, and they had that recent "you've bought 65 cows but haven't mentioned all of them" shit that I just wanted to jump in and agree with in the end, neither Scout nor I have experience with rabbits.

Like, you're ABSOLUTELY right that I cam at it emotionally and not with any educational thought behind it. I can't unsend the asks but I can apologize for not even thinking that there was clearly more to it then "omg killing babies for no reason and throwing them in the trash' when that's...so fucking obviously ARA shit.

And this doesn't come off as hostile, btw, I fully understand where you're coming from and I've been reading stuff from rabbit people since then (got this ask a day late cause I'm getting back to full time work and I'm not online every day, and I only use this account from my laptop, my mobile tumblr is set up with my main Loki account).

Again, I deeply apologize and I want to say that I do have some discomfort with it, and that's because I only have some information/education on it from what I've read over the past few days. And that my discomfort is now more along the lines of....ugh how to explain it? Like not "this is bad" discomfort but "this is new to me and I don't fully understand it yet" discomfort. Like how I used to hate dog breeding, then learned more but was still "eh but we don't really need it" to now wanting purebred dogs. (obvs verey different topics but I'm tired from work and it's the first example I thought of.)

I'm very sorry for letting emotion get the better of me, rather than doing what I used to and actually reasearching animal welfare topics that I don't know about or understand. I didn't form an educated opinion and that's on me. I'm so sorry if I hurt you or anyone else.

Sorry for the rambling response, I just...had already started feeling my opinion change and this ask gave me the opportunity to get all of that out. I think this discourse has started as very ARA orientated to be like "well yeah we don't kill baby cows so we're good but THEY'RE KILLING BABY BUNNIES FOR NO REASON" and to not even stop and go "hmmm this seems like BS" was so fucking dumb of me.

But yeah, you have every right to feel hurt and upset. Once again, I'm truly sorry.

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

Curtis could feel you stirring next to him, fretting back and forth and had been all night. "Y/n? Whats wrong?" He mumbles sleepily, his hand going to tug at you gently to face him.

"It's my bee's... What if something gets into the hive?" You roll to face him, actual genuine worry on your face. Curtis makes more of an effort to wake up at 2 am since you have obviously been wide awake this entire time.

"What? Honey... It's bees. They are going to be fine." He tries to make sense of it as you wrinkle your nose a bit in distress.

"The high school science teacher just lost his whole hive recently to a bear and what if that happens to mine? We worked so hard on it." You couldn't help but nervously pick at your fingers. "The kids were going to harvest the honey this coming week and do there presentations about the hive and..."

Curtis in a moment of being overwhelmed tugged you closer to him and pressed fingers to your lips to get you to stop. "Honey, no bear is coming into the yard without us knowing. They have to get over the fence. Also it's bees, they can defend themselves." Sure he lived just outside of town but still saw plenty of wildlife crossing through. Including the occasional bear trying for the garbage cans. But his back yard was secure he was pretty sure.

"Bees against a bear? My bees don't stand a chance." You still fretted though, going to play with the chain around his neck and whispered. "Well what about something like raccoons Curtis? They can get over the fence."

There was no way he was going to get back to sleep, he could already tell. Even when you backtracked, tried to play it off like you were being silly and rolled back away from him. His head dropped in defeat for a second, knowing he couldnt just let this go when it was so important to you. Scootching over closer, he laid an arm around you and kissed your shoulder. " How about tonight... We go camp out by the beehive? And tomorrow I can hang a security light on the back of the garage, aimed right at the hive? Any critter go back there to mess with it and I will know."

"You would really do that for me?" You asked almost timedly while looking over your shoulder at him. Curtis gave a crooked smile and nodded, which made you roll back over into his arms and hug around him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

You almost immediately got out of bed and started scooping up the blankets to take outside. Curtis following behind you half asleep with a whole pile of pillows.

[moodcrab]

Elder Scrolls VI Wishlist part V - Quests and Dungeons

So let's get down to some actual gameplay and talk about Quests!

1. It's ok if I miss out on content. I felt like Skyrim wanted me to experience everything as soon as possible in one playthrough, like it was afraid I'd stop playing before I got to all the amazing and varied content it had in store for me. But I actually enjoy making new characters. It's ok if my wizard won't have access to some stuff, I'm definitely starting a new thief character as soon as I'm done. Then I'm gonna try a big bloody Orc with a big bloody hammer. And it's not going to be boring *if* there's going to be a ton of new shit for me to see and do, it'll keep the game fresher for longer which should be important considering how bloody long it takes you to make Elder Scrolls games these days!

Certain side quests should only be available if it makes sense to your character. Ok, so here I am walking through Solitude, the town where I live with my family, a Thane of the Hold with his Housecarl by his side, wearing the same Legionnaire uniform I wore when I killed Ulfric Stormcloak, and for some reason Gulum Ei thinks I of all people might be up for a spot of domestic terrorism. He literally just yelled it at me in the street in front of everyone. The wide eyed new guy in town wearing the shitty cheap armour, yeah that guy gets scammed by Gulum Ei, not me.

A skill based restriction would make sense too, like if your quest revolves around something magical, why are you asking my barbarian Nord character to deal with it? Why not have quests that only unlock with certain perks?

2. Dungeons should repopulate, not reset. I'm ok with the idea that the first dungeon I ever cleared has been repopulated by someone new in the 700 hours of gameplay since then, but not the exact same generic villains. Same bandits saying the same lines with the same traps, same mini plots (journals and the like), and so on.

Ok so I cleared out the bandits, why do they just regrow like weeds? Why didn't a group of witches take over the place, and made something new from the same old layout. That sounds a lot more re-playable. What if it depends on how long it's been since I've returned? Like a day later and the corpses lay where they fell. A week and wildlife has moved in. A month and a whole new group has taken over.

Skyrim really missed an opportunity to have the ability to clear and then garrison an abandoned fort for whichever side of the Civil War you chose, or for the Hold if you're a Thane. Imagine slaying a fort full of disgusting necromancers, a week later soldiers have arrived, a month and they've started rebuilding; or maybe the other side have taken it or are currently taking it*? It wouldn't have just been a more fun approach to a game mechanic, it would have greatly improved the lackluster Civil War plot.

*when I say "the enemy is re-taking a fort", I DO NOT mean that the player will get a pop up message *every* time a fort is under attack anywhere in the country, every bloody in game day! Fallout 4's Minutemen "Cousin Let Us Go Bowling" settlement defending bullshit can fuck right off. What I mean is, maybe the next time I happen to swing by this fort there might be a little battle happening for me to have fun with.

3. As far as dungeons go, less is more. This is the one area where Todd's hack and slash approach to game development might actually be a good thing. There are too many dungeons. I worry that Tamriel will implode at any second because it's basically fucking hollow.

Also, the vast majority of Tamriel's infrastructure is in complete ruin, it's like a post apocalyptic game out there. It doesn't surprise me at all that the Empire is on the brink of collapse when so are literally ALL it's forts are. You can still have ruins, the truly ancient stuff like Dwemer or Ayleid will obviously still be ruins.

The problem with this many dungeons is they eventually start feeling a bit samey, it's inevitable.

5. Deadric quests should be hard to find. It felt underwhelming to become The Champion of a Deadric Prince in the early game, let alone, like, 5 or 6 of them. Whereas finding a hidden shrine while exploring the wilderness feels rewarding.

[wirewitchviolet]

Dear Game Developers, I don’t want to be a rapacious colonizing blight on the world.

I like a pretty wide variety of games, but one general thing I’ve always been particularly keen on is the sort of game where I start off just kinda naked in the wilderness with nothing and have to build up a bunch of infrastructure to accomplish something. So you know, RTSes, Civ clones, survival games, sandbox-y Minecraft stuff, Dwarf Fortress and similar things, but these all have this really annoying habit of making my character the biggest existential threat to the entire world, and I would really like them to stop doing that all the time.

So, just to open up with an example of how to do this sort of thing in a way I like, Subnautica is one of my favorite games. I recently streamed the whole thing, so, links to that if you’d like: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Subnautica actively confronts my issue head on, and handles it right. I’m not slaughtering everything I see, I’m not strip mining the whole planet, I’m not leveling forests. I’m here by way of horrible tragic accident, and by the end of the game I’ve done my best to clean up the mess from that and address some other global issues to the point where I can confidently say my presence over the course of the game has made for a net positive impact on the environment in which it’s set. Plus it’s a great game in a bunch of other ways.

I’m also pretty happy with Factorio, oddly enough. In Factorio I AM strip mining the whole world, slaughtering absolutely all of the local wildlife, and any forests I’m not clear-cutting I’m choking out with industrial emissions that leave nothing but dry withered skeletons where there were once beautiful stretches of foliage. The thing of it is, between actually tracking my environmental impact as a mechanic and having such downer visuals, it at least feels like the developers and I are sharing a really dark joke about how awful you are in games like this.

Then on the other side of the coin here, we have, say, Satisfactory. A game in the same weird subgenre as Factorio (do we have a name for these yet? Convey’em Ups?) but... really gross. The player is explicitly just heading down to this really beautiful planet to extract and process all the resources they can. You’re rewarded for killing... basically all life you see despite it not generally posing any sort of real threat to you, clear cutting all the vegetation, and to keep the factory building vibes nice and chill, when you tap into a coal vein or set up an oil well, you get an endless supply of those burnable fuels to use forever, with absolutely no consequence, as you just consume all the things to make all the other things and ship them out to meet quotas. And that’s... kinda gross? Again, the fact that nothing you do has any sort of consequence despite half of it being stuff that is literally killing the world in reality makes it way worse.

Meanwhile, lately I’ve been keeping a lot of modded Minecraft videos going in the background to stave off the social isolation with the whole plague and all with some human voices, and see what cool new ideas people are testing there. One of the real popular new mods is this one called MineColonies, and you know what? It’s really neat. The idea is you find a big open plot of land somewhere, throw down blueprints for really huge multiblock structures of houses and workshops and such, get those built up a little, and NPCs start wandering in you can start giving jobs to. Here’s someone to harvest and replant trees, someone to go mining for underground resources, someone to build and upgrade the rest of these buildings, people to provide renewable food and medicine to all these other NPCs. Schools for their kids to get their stats up to good places by adulthood, a whole higher learning system to advance a tech tree, it’s cool.

But the thing is, as you probably gathered from the name, it’s DISGUSTINGLY colonialist. All these people coming in are explicitly white, with British accents, explicitly gendered and explicitly heterosexual too incidentally, and a huge part of the general infrastructure building is having to set up guard posts and barracks all over, training knights and archers to defend against the local barbarians native to the land you’re building on who wander out of the wilderness to attack everyone with some regularity. And I mean, how messed up is that? This mod is explicitly adding in native people’s just so there’s someone for you to displace and murder as you colonize some big chunk of unspoiled wilderness in the name of prosperity for your... British colony. Which of course works on an explicitly feudalist system (and then also for some reason has everyone grumbling about how you’re spending your gold, which you aren’t even doing). It totally thematically ruins what I’d otherwise be super super into. And not long after this was released, baseline Minecraft did basically the same thing. There are now roving barbarian tribes who go around trying to kill you and any villagers near you and you have to concern yourself with wiping out whole groups of them with some regularity, whereas previously the only enemies you really had to deal with were zombies and skeletons and a few other weird explicitly monstrous things. It’s gross.

My distaste for slaughtering barbarians extends to the civilization games too. Which... I mean I have put a LOT of hours into a lot of Civ games so it’s obviously not a total dealbreaker for me, but... you’re always this weird immortal dictator and even if you set your civilization up as a democracy, you sure do win every single election regardless of how unhappy people are with you, and you spend a good chunk of time slaughtering local barbarians. And increasingly, with each new game, smaller independent nations because they really keep putting more and more emphasis on military conquest being, if not the best path to victory, one you have to push pretty far no matter what you’re going for.

And it doesn’t have to work like that. My favorite game, mostly in the franchise, is still Alpha Centauri. Where the “barbarians” are brain eating space worms, not other humans, and even then, you can (and I consistently do) be a big tree-hugging hippy, enact worm-friendly social policies, make friends with them instead of killing them, and have them go devour a bunch of violent anti-science anti-environment right wing creeps, strongarm everyone else into adopting similar policies, and, like Subnautica, leave the world better than you found it by foregoing all the easier wins and doing the thing where you find a permanent solution to the local planetary superconsciousness accidentally going berserk and eating itself at periodic intervals. Happy ending for everyone! Except for Miriam. Screw Miriam.

Meanwhile, someone I know not to long ago just randomly pitched a game where there’s a big nature ravaging industrial sprawl, but you play as some sort of reclaiming embodiment of nature, strategically... I guess spreading trees to grow up through everything and have rats chew through the wiring and stuff, and yeah, I would play the hell out of that game. If nobody else gets to it before I clear my plate of all these other projects, I might even make that game.

I should stress again too that it’s not even that I don’t want games to ever put me in such a role as the player, just if you’re going to do it, acknowledge that that sort of thing isn’t cool, and either make it clear that the player character has been forced into a really unfortunate position, or that said character is just awful. Or both, both works.

What I don’t want to ever see people do is rationalize a way out of the issues. “Oh this is an infinite supply of clean-burning coal” does not fly with me. “Oh we’re establishing a colony but it’s on an alien planet” is still colonialism. The weird fetish the whole game industry seems to have with leveling forests is not made better by having those trees give you saplings that fully replace every tree cut down in like 2 minutes. If you don’t want to unpack the moral implications of something, you can just not include it to begin with. None of the stuff I’ve been laying out here is actually necessary for any of these games to work. Just... quit being weird and making me play coal-mining conquistadors already.

[awinchestershell]

It’s always “I support people with mental illness” until they start defending their colorful explosives like their lives depend on it because them having fun is more important than real people with real reasons to ask them not to do this.

So now I find myself sleeping in my literal closet on a makeshift bed of pillows and stuffed animals, playing calming music as loud as I can to drown out the horrific booming right outside my window. Not to mention the whistling ones that sound like a nuclear bomb’s being dropped from the sky.

All the while my own father who claims to care about my issues and want to understand is sending me pictures of him grinning at the firework show he’s at, knowing that last year he forced me to attend a show and I had one of the worst PTSD episodes of my life right in front of him.

It’s funny because the day is about American Independence, which is fought for by Veterans. (Which I’m not, to be clear) But when Veterans ask for them not to use fireworks because it triggers the trauma they endured fighting for that Independence, all they get is “it’s a free country, stop ruining our fun”.

And it’s not just traumatized people either. It’s people with sensory issues, pets, wildlife, people with anxiety disorders, just generally skittish people, some children and obviously yes traumatized people. Like just look me in the eye and tell me that watching fancy colors in the sky for an hour is more important to you than the well being of everyone around you, you fucking jackass. AND THEYRE BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.

Within two hours of the firework show FIFTEEN MILES FROM MY HOUSE my room spelled like smoke and I was having an asthma attack. Oh, and those funny little rockets you fuckers shoot up land. And sometimes they land on people’s homes and burn them down and ruin entire lives so you could get a kick out of your kink for blowing things up. Then there’s how many children and reckless morons either maim or kill themselves every year with these shitty ass ideas of fun.

Seriously, if you light even a single firework this fourth I hope it comes back to bite your ass so fucking hard. Fuck you. You may not understand this but other people and other creatures matter just as much as you and you’re putting them in danger and making them suffer for fucking what??

What are you even celebrating? The entire country is at war with itself, women and anyone with a uterus, including children, are terrified and dying in agony, POC people are being gunned down for blinking wrong, cops will fight an unarmed celebrity to the ground on camera but won’t die to save 19 harmless children, and you’re lighting sparklers and barbecuing like a fucking cunt.