#once again getting distracted

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x09 - “The Dirt Under Your Nails.”

[choccy-milky]

seb and clora working on baby #1 👶 🔞🔞!! NSFW !!🔞🔞

[poipiku]

[twitter]

[aheathen-conceivably]

Siri, play something for when you inherit your estranged family’s crumbling and most certainly haunted Romanian castle... 🎶

[emergingghost]

this is the show where julien opened for touché amoré in 2015, and the origin of the "honesty transcends genre" encounter she had which she refers to often. it's a beautiful performance and you can also see jeremy bolm watching side stage in awe :)

[hermit-frog]

my personal delusion, that i'm not ready to let go yet, is that Armand was behind it all in order to get Louis all for himself (like in the book). Santiago is predicable, narcissistic, jealous, and greedy, very easy to manipulate. the rest would follow for obvious reasons.

[shiresome]

EMOTIONAL SUPPORT PYRO!

Always ALWAYS take time out to bother my team's poor Sniper!!! Sniper mains have only ever been sweet to me but oh my goddd he looks SOO miserable. I LOVE IT. Thank you Sniper mains for playing Sniper voicelines for me it boosts my morale

[formulaonedirection]

Sometimes Quadrant is just about being goofy with your best friend

[gomzdrawfr]

obsessed with my new animated wallpaper heh

this is from Steam - wallpape engine, link here

[spaciebabie]

i try to get away from the sims 4 but shes like a toxic ex who i yearn to make love to one last time

[vonlipvig]

infinitely delighted by this still. look at them.

gay judging. muppet old men swag.

[yusiyomogi]

decided to watch promare to learn more about trigger studio. love how they made it gay as hell for no reason.

[elvenbeard]

I like him a normal amount.

[aheathen-conceivably]

Did someone say new Titanic CC? ✨

[machiavellli]

also. I would like to make a post about the weirdest procedures or products that people are desperately trying to get in order to remain young. so scary. salmon sperm on your face. are we fucking fr. when was the last time you got your moles checked for cancer instead. but I mean- we have people using diabete medicines without a second thought to get skinny, so I wouldn’t say that health is the main concern here.

and I have to tell you people. I don’t give a fuck about sunscreen if I’m not at the beach. bye.

[bonefall]

For Riverstar’s Heir, do you have any idea where you want to land themeatically? Because from my reading of the possible themeatic directions, with the whole story being about this crisis of politics and succession, it feels like the character who “should” become the next leader of RiverClan narratively should be the Most ruthless/aggressive/willing to resort to dishonorable methods of dealing with rivals (reinforcing RiverClan’s entry into/building up of the early Clans’ emerging systems of battle society)

The alternative “most interesting” option I can imagine would be one that is least likely/least aggressive/some otherwise sort of underdog candidate (maybe not even technically “legal” depending on what qualifications there are for heirship?), but I’m not sure exactly what themes that would play into, other than maybe how the pursuit of power can change someone?

That said, your themeatic instincts are strong enough that I can see you having a strong idea for a “middle-of-the-pack” candidate winning out over the others just as much, so— I am genuinely curious what your thoughts are for where you Want this crisis of succession to end, narratively, even if you don’t have an exact cat picked yet.

Good ask because I'd not been clear about the theme yet, I think. What Riverstar's Heir is trying to get at, at the heart of the issue, is that this is a bloodbath caused by naiive optimism and greed.

The commandments to establish borders and prevent killing are nice, but not enough. You can't just have a society on good will, not when POWER is up for grabs in the scramble. It's about collapse, and how innocent, well-meaning people get caught up in the devastation. Not JUST the troublemakers.

Riverstar was an EXCELLENT king, beloved and wise, but if you don't prepare a proper successor, everything you worked hard to build might crumble to ruin.

Something unique is lost in this shuffle. It's no longer the River Kingdom, and the Wind Coalition also becomes WindClan at this point. For better, and for worse, they both lose a bit of what made them special. Redscar's choice at the end also solidifies the early political power of Clerics, which is eventually broken many generations later with Larkwing's Strike.

So, fragment time,

At LEAST three "heirs" end up getting killed.

So, because these ones are gonna die, I have Three Heir "Slots" that I'm committed to and just need to fill;

The Eldest, Riverstar's oldest living biological child.

The Chosen, Riverstar's adopted heir, a rather meek prince easily pressured into backing off his rightful claim. This one is likely going to be the BB! version of Mossfire.

The Firstblood, directly descended from Riverstar's FIRSTborn child. This one is likely going to be the BB! version of Jumpfoot.

I also have two tentative slots.

The Accomplished... who is a blood relative of Riverstar, but more of a "puppet" for WindCo. Someone they're intentionally propping up hoping for power.

The Diplomat, from WindClan, who is a lot like WindCo's puppet but this one is more subtle about it. Poetic. Happy to purr and remind the world of the wonderful, deep ties that had existed between King Riverstar and Thunderstar.

And, LASTLY, there's The Deputy. The most qualified choice, who served Riverstar, but was no relative.

It feels right that the Deputy is the one who is chosen in the end... hm.

Anyway

After a smaller conflict near the start of the story, either The Eldest or The Firstblood seems to be the favorite to win... but decides to wait for the morning to set out for the Moonstone and take their lives.

In this time period, without selecting a successor, this heir is assassinated.

In fact it might be VERY fun if this heir, being so much like King Riverstar himself, decided to throw a pre-emptive celebration.

Meat! Merriment! MURDER!!!

Having them go out via poison would be a fun way to send a character off.

This is going to be why the "DEPUTY BEFORE MOONHIGH" rule is established, but it's also what kicks off the bloodier parts of the plot.

Thinking about it... a cleric and/or the deputy should probably tell this heir, "Hey, buddy, you should really get going" and they're ignored.

With Eldest Heir gone, the small conflict from earlier becomes an LARGE conflict.

And, like they did back in DOTC, families start to rally together. Especially Eldest's offspring, who think they're just as entitled to the Throne as The Firstblood/Jumpfoot

King Riverstar used to encourage cats to enter the River Kingdom freely. The borders were essentially open, and everyone was allowed in, as long as they were willing to cross the river.

(maybe I'll even have him pull down the tree from Riverstar's Home intentionally, happy to accept other cats into his Kingdom. Then he defends it from Skystar, specifically, but refuses to destroy what he built.)

This had allowed River Kingdom to grow large and powerful, but it also meant everyone in River Kingdom had connections to the other Clans.

Which meant there were cats supporting OTHER bids to the Throne, like the one from WindCo and the one from ThunderClan.

Smelling a way to grab power, Duststar supports his favorite heir, and Whitestar of ThunderClan also begins to stick his nose in.

Each Heir tries to run the River Kingdom, and things start to get hostile. If there's more than just the three heirs, even more of them start to get openly attacked, chased out, killed, until there's only The Chosen and The Firstblood left.

Somewhere around here, River Kingdom is invaded. Probably by the leader of SkyClan at the time, claiming that they don't even NEED an heir to take what these cats clearly don't deserve.

And that's when the internal conflict becomes a FULL-BLOWN WAR between four Clans.

In those days, the camp was at Sunningrocks, right in the middle of the river.

ThunderClan jumps in to help its "Ally" against SkyClan, just like historical precedent, but they have NO IDEA who they're fighting against, because the whole Kingdom is divided. It's not as simple as it was in DOTC anymore.

WindCo came to support its favorite heir, but its cats don't obey Duststar's orders when it comes down to fighting their own friends and family, meaning they're functionally fighting EVERYONE and losing a TON of cats

SkyClan is getting pummeled because EVERY group is pissed at them as well as each other, getting a painful awakening that they are NOT being run by Skystar the War God anymore and they're no longer the biggest, baddest bananas in the bunch

(shadowclan is watching all of this and eating popcorn. moisturized. in their lane. unbothered.)

The climax here, between The Chosen and The Firstblood, is a battle that matches the chapter from COTC. They launch at each other, in a battle to the death.

The first Sunningrocks Battle.

They both wear "crowns" on their head, one custom made for Mossfire's short-furred head, and traditional, braided into Jumpfoot's long, lush fur.

As they claw, bite, and tumble, they plunge into the river.

Fighting and hissing, they try to pull apart to rise up for air-- and can't.

They're STUCK

The crowns became tangled in their skirmish, and neither one can work with the other to bring them both to shore, against the current.

Both heirs, the last with a proper claim to the throne, drown together in the river.

At the end of the bloodbath, the tone is very somber. The rules were meant to prevent The First Battle from ever happening again... but The Second Battle had just taken place.

The body count wasn't AS high as the First Battle, but it was still a bloody loss. Every Clan lost warriors. Even ShadowClan, who hadn't even been IN the conflict, checked its ranks to find that powerful warriors had run off to go fight with their Kin.

Now they could be buried with them, too.

And now, there was no proper heir. If any descendants were still kicking around, they were refusing to take a throne that so many cats had died for. Jumpfoot and Mossfire never emerged from the River, their bodies, and their legendary crowns, were never found.

At first I'd been considering Redscar being swapped to become a RiverClan Cleric, but now I'm thinking it actually makes sense he's still from ShadowClan. ShadowClan was the ONLY neutral group-- it's reasonable for the clans to turn and request their partiality.

So, Redscar peruses the options, having followed the situation from afar.

His choice, in the end, was The Deputy. The most experienced advisor who knew Riverstar, and probably tried to stay at his adopted daughter's side as well. The closest thing they'd had to a leader all along.

(Thought: Maybe this character will be the POV. Make it like a bit of a fake-out title, you THINK Riverstar's heir is Mossfire. But it's actually been this one all along.)

He creates his famous false sign, and from there, the five groups discussed how they could prevent this from ever happening again.

They create the Law of the Deputy, commanding that ALL Clans have a single Deputy who will inherit the Clan after the leader passes away, ending dynasties in WindCo and River Kingdom and centralizing power in the other 3.

With the massive losses that WindCo and River Kingdom experienced, they also restructure, forced to accept a lot of help from ThunderClan and ShadowClan.

The borders began to close up, leading to the sentiment that would lead to Commandment 4, the Law of Loyalty, in just one more generation.

[sunsetsover]

im finally rewatching ep 3 and i remembered that i meant to make a post abt how captain christ is sus as hell. as in this whole scheme he's got going with kant to me feels less like a legitimate (or as close to legit as it can be given the circumstances) investigation into a string of high profile murders and more like some kind of personal vendetta he has, maybe even w lilly specifically. and i have no basis for that other than how odd christ's reaction was when kant told him fadel and bison have different dads. idk the vibes are just off. there's something not right abt him. the whole situation stinks.

speaking of lilly tho i don't believe for one minute she's got her sons out there ridding the streets of bad men in some act of vigilante justice. bison literally calls it out in the first scene, saying that he'd seen their next target helping poor kids on the news or whatever. and yeah ok bad men often do good deeds, and ofc lilly uses that to try to belittle bison by saying that he's always been easily fooled by appearances. which is a little on the nose given the whole kant thing, but i think that actually the point was that she's referring to herself. as in she's the one doing the fooling this whole time w her conditional kindness and her weaponised warmth. helping poor kids while doing bad things behind the scenes. yknow. a common modus operandi in these circles i'm sure.

anyways my original point is that she tries to make out bison is naive and silly for even asking but at the same time the reasoning she offers them for why that guy has to die is vague as fuck. 'he's the man behind corruptions, drugs, human trafficking, and so much more'??? she might as well have said he steals food straight out of the mouths of the kids he claims to be helping too seeing as tho we're just saying shit. like girl cmon. you're an entrepreneur. i know you've trained those boys not to question you at all but lets try a little bit harder queen <3

i also do think lilly had smth to do w whatever happened to fadel's ex and that that might be why he lied to her when she asked if bison is seeing someone. at least partially. if he knows what she's capable of in that sense then he'd want to keep that shit under wraps, not for kant's sake but for bison's. i've said it before but bison's ignorance only exists bc fadel has worked his ass off to keep it that way. i feel like fadel knows, or at least suspects, that lilly isn't the woman she wants them to believe she is. but ofc fadel isn't gonna tell bison that. ignorance is bliss, and even if it wasn't that's their mother. her and bison clearly have a (relatively) warm relationship. fadel wouldn't want to ruin that with the truth.

also i don't trust style's dad either. why include a character in the intro that is seemingly so unimportant? what the fuck is up with the whole 'boonterm' thing? style's dad is obviously at LEAST mechanic running in these 'bad guy' circles considering style had to drop off the secretary's car to her. which like. idk what kinda bougie ass mechanics rich ppl be having but having your car dropped off to you - by the mechanic's son no less - at some random host bar instead of having to go pick it up seems like special treatment. like maybe it's not just a simple mechanic/customer relationship yk

and u know what as i'm typing this i'm thinking about the spiderweb motif that occurs in the show, first in kant's tattoo and then with keen in the intro (and he has spiderweb tattoos too i think?) and how everyone speculated they may be exes and maybe they are. but like. i also think it's more than that. like i just think that in this show there are a lot of people caught in a lot of webs who haven't yet realised they're the fly, not the spider. yknow.