#pertaining to this specifically

[halflifebutawesome]

I am a good person. I am a powerful person, I don't believe in evil. I think that evil is an idea created by others to avoid dealing with their own nature. I understand my own nature, good and evil have nothing to do with it.

[blueskittlesart]

I see you refer to Kris and Noelle as besties a lot. I haven't played the weird routes yet and I certainly don't know the normal route dialogue like the back of my hand, but I thought that Noelle and Kris were estranged family friends, not super close anymore, before the events of chapter 1. That view is specifically because of Noelle's private blog post about Kris from Spamton Sweepstakes (https://deltarune.com/kris_dreemurr_kris/). Noelle wrote, "Even then, with my eyes open, there were times when I wasn't even sure if we were friends." What do you think about this blog post?

well ok first of all when I called kris and noelle 'best friends' in my noelle post which im assuming is what this is about it was after about 3 paragraphs about how significantly they had drifted apart after dess's disappearance. I'd certainly not call them besties as things currently stand, but i think that BEFORE dess's disappearance and the player's takeover of kris they were at minimum the most consistent friend in each other's lives. the real point of that post was that i think they were probably significantly closer than noelle leads the player to believe based on her dialog alone, and that she is an unreliable narrator when it comes to she and kris's relationship. If I listed out every piece of evidence I can think of off the top of my head that she and kris were close this post would get insanely long, but literally just walking around her room in chapter 4 will paint you a pretty clear picture. she had a cactus named after them. and when she mentions that berdly renamed it kris gets pissed off about it in the flavor text afterwards.

as for that blog post, I kind of think taking that one line out of context does a disservice to the picture that is actually being painted here, because honestly I'd argue that the full text supports my point even more. full text of the post for context:

It's funny... there was a time when they were coming over almost every day. We'd play, and we'd play... then after a while, they would suddenly get very still, like they were remembering something. They'd go into the dining room to "get a snack," then after a few moments, I'd hear the piano. The first few times, I went into watch them play, but when they realized I was looking, they'd always shut the piano and come back. So over time, I just started staying on the couch in the living room. I'd lie there, listening to them play, sometimes for hours, sometimes even until I fell asleep. Even then, what were they thinking about me? Maybe they weren't thinking about me at all. They didn't have a piano at their house, so they probably just came over to use mine. Even then, with my eyes open, there were times when I wasn't even sure if we were friends. But when I closed my eyes, it felt like a concert just for me.

Yes, there's a level of removal going on here. Noelle doesn't quite understand kris's motivations and is struggling to contextualize their actions because of this. But I think it's important to remember that this blog post is recounting the memories of a young child, and written from the perspective of a teenager, so it would probably be a miracle if nothing got lost in translation. This is Noelle reflecting on a relationship which has very clearly changed drastically in recent years, and if there's one thing we know about noelle it's that she's avoidant as shit. It's nowhere near above her to recontextualize memories in her own head in order to make her previous relationship to kris feel less personal, so she won't have to feel as sad about losing a close friend. We literally watch her do this in real time in snowgrave--painting over and/or blocking out memories that scare and upset her in order to avoid reckoning with those feelings. I think she likely finds this easier to do with kris because kris seems to have been pretty introverted and kind of. weird in the ways they expressed affection towards her as a child (particularly the pranks she so often mentions) which makes it easier for her to spin their relationship as something obligational rather than true closeness. But because Kris was such a big part of her life for so long, her altered memories are still imperfect. In the same post where she says kris probably wasn't thinking about her at all she also mentions that kris was at her house every day and that she felt an intense personal connection to their music. And for what it's worth, there are at least two other pianos in town that kris easily could have used if all they wanted was to practice--one in the church's choir room and one in the hospital. They weren't at the holiday house purely to use that piano. more likely than not they really were playing for her.

[serpentface]

A typical example of a kulimane hunting dog, a prized animal in Imperial Wardin. They represent the most positive feelings towards dogs in this cultural sphere, an animal that otherwise has an often ambiguous or even disdained status.

Kulimane are the 'hybrid' offspring of domesticated sighthound breeds and the kuliku (colloquially called 'salt wolves'). Kuliku are not actual wolves, but rather the feral descendants of VERY ancient domesticated dogs that have been living wild for millennia in grassland, savannahs, and semi-desert, and are fully functional and efficient predators. Kuliku have slender builds, huge lungs, and long legs, and use bursts of tremendous speed to chase down prey. They mostly take small game, like rabbits, hares, birds, and hippegalga, though pairs are capable of bringing down mid-sized ungulates. They do not readily mate with fully domesticated dogs, but can be encouraged to do so in captivity, thus producing the kulimane.

The production of kulimane was introduced by the third Burri empire and has been fully adopted into contemporary Imperial Wardin. Kulimane are commonly seen as the best and most ideal of hunting dogs, combining the speed, power, and heat resistance and predatory instincts of their wild parents, and the loyalty and tameness, and other bred-in qualities of their sighthound parents. In practice, most Kulimane used in hunting will have been the product of several generations of breeding to produce an ideal animal (initial 'hybrid' generations are often still too wild). Their appearance can vary wildly, but the ideal form for a kulimane is to have a domestic-type coat (fully solid colors are preferred, but rare) and to retain the pointed ears and black tail tip of their wild ancestors.

Most kulimane are independent, intelligent animals that will form close and protective bonds with their handlers, but will be shy and wary of strangers. They usually retain strong territorial instincts from their wild ancestors, and can double as excellent guard dogs. Their disposition towards other dogs can vary- a well socialized kulimane can usually be introduced to new dogs with few issues, but some have striking tendencies to aggression towards strange dogs, and are often muzzled in public. Most are kept in same-sex sibling pairs, and away from unfamiliar or unrelated dogs. They are rarely outright cuddly, often preferring to sit at a distance than to sit on one's lap, but are appreciative of praise and affection from their owners.

Well trained kulimane make for truly excellent sighthounds. They can quickly adapt to changing situations in the field with little to no input from handlers, and quickly and instinctively dispatch most small prey. Their high prey drives Can be a problem for owners. They are frequently known to kill livestock and sacrificial stock, and have a tendency towards surplus killing. You don't want a kulimane to get in with your poultry.

Good kulimane stock is very difficult to produce and takes several generations of breeding, and the animals can be very costly to maintain and keep in good hunting conditions. As such they are VERY expensive animals, and function as status symbols. Sighthounds in of themselves have associations with wealth, and kulimane are specifically associated with royalty and the social elite. They represent the most venerated and beloved end of a very, very wide spectrum of cultural opinions towards dogs in the Imperial Wardi sphere.

The status of dogs in the cultural schema mostly depends on their perceived role. Working dogs tend to have positive cultural connotations- guard dogs and especially hunting dogs are seen as noble animals and symbols of loyalty, and herding and livestock guardian dogs are of great practical value in the rural sphere. Keeping dogs for pure companionship is fairly uncommon, though there are a few established companion breeds in the region. The practice of raising livestock dog breeds has decreased or become obsolete in parts of the region, largely due to Burri influence (which regards the meat of predators and scavengers as wholly unsuitable for consumption), but meat specific breeds like the salutachin are still valued in the city-state of Wardin as providers of an excellent, delicacy meat. The commonality between all valued dogs in Imperial Wardin is their utility, well-established roles, and sharp distinction from feral dogs.

Feral dogs are a fact of life around most settlements. Imperial Wardi cultural outlooks on them tend to be highly negative, characterizing these as uniquely greedy, cowardly, lowly pest animals at best and depraved corpse eaters at worst. Exact attitudes vary throughout the Imperial Wardi cultural sphere, but one near-ubiquitous element is regarding the excrement of feral dogs (and corpses of feral dogs) as potent sources of spiritual pollution that should never be touched with bare skin, and should ideally be removed and buried in barren ground (or their polluting influence should at least be mitigated with a blessing of the tainted location). Superstition holds that stepping in the feces of feral dogs can inflict curses, and the word for 'dogshit' is one of the most insulting terms available in the language.

Hatred of feral dogs is particularly acute in the city-state of Godsmouth. The core city experienced a collective cultural trauma as a result of a siege during the formation of the Wardi empire, in which civilians starved en-masse and descriptions of bodies being eaten in the streets by feral dogs (which were, in turn, eaten by starving civilians) dominate historical records of the event. Feral dogs are by and large hated in this part of the region and seen as outright vile animals and acute sources of spiritual pollution via their very presence. They are actively culled on a routine basis. The outskirts of the city of Godsmouth and some of the city-state's towns have unique practices of allowing semi-tame hyenas free movement through settlements, where they fulfill the dogs' function as refuse cleaners and keep dog populations in check.

While the keeping of feral dogs is generally frowned upon throughout the region, individuals caring for their local feral populations or adopting feral puppies is not unknown, and the distinction between feral and kept dogs (and stigma towards the former) is MUCH less pronounced in many rural communities, where semi-feral dogs may be valued as likable or useful village animals.

No dog breeds are standardized (or even technically 'breeds' in any modern sense), but there is usually great effort to keep working, livestock, and companion dog stocks wholly separate from feral dogs. The word that roughly means ‘mutt’ in this language does not refer to mixed dog breeds as a whole (or even crosses between different types of working dog), but specifically crosses between kept breeds and feral dogs, which is generally regarded as unfavorable (though not uncommon, both due to inevitability in a world without spaying, and practicality- these crosses may produce perfectly good working or companion dogs, and introduction of feral stock reduces inbreeding).

The dog is one of the constellations in the Wardi zodiac, found at the heel of the Hunter constellation and variously interpreted as either being a noble hunting dog trailing its master, or a lowly scavenger looking for scraps. The latter characterization tends to win out in terms of the characterization of its associated birthsign. Being born under the sign of the dog is mostly regarded as inauspicious, and a potential indication of a cowardly, stupid, lustful, and greedy character (though some positive qualities are ascribed, chiefly loyalty).

‘Chinops’ (literally ‘dog-born’) refers neutrally to the dog birth sign, while ‘chinmachen’ (‘dog-faced’) is an epithet given to those considered to have the associated personality traits, which is rarely anything BUT an insult. (These also spawn the purely derogatory phrases of ‘chisnops’, ‘chismachen’, and ‘chismache’, which have functional meanings closest to ‘son of a bitch’ ‘bitch/slut’ and ‘cunt’ respectively)

[turtleblogatlast]

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is that small moment in “Air Turtle” where immediately after the Daves lose yet another game, Leo says how sorry he is and how he’s doing his best as the mascot. This moment is so short but it’s honestly jam-packed with a whole heap of characterization.

His need to apologize for things clearly not his fault - especially when it feels like he messes up the job he was given despite doing the best he can (the phrase “it’s not about you” takes a new meaning when this is one of the lessons to be learned from that - that he is not always solely responsible for things going wrong), his need to save face and make a connection with an older adult man in his life (something he consistently does throughout the series - he’s got a few daddy issues, always collecting potential father figures, it’s no wonder he jumps at the bit to keep rapport), and the way he sounds and looks and the words he chooses really pushes how he is just a kid (“Mr. the Dunk, I’m so sorry”).

Like I know it’s a one off moment that doesn’t truly mean much, but when put against the rest of the series it works really well with the rest of Leo’s established character and helps in solidifying later concepts as well.

[ouroblorbos]

[smash bros splash screen] eridan joins the fight! aka a friend of mine registered him to my rp server. mfs loudly facetiming karkat in public just to complain about petty bullshit (“kar its awwful the barista got my order wwrong and then some asshole stepped on my cape and didnt evven apologize” etc.)

also ft. karkat infodumping about troll rocky horror picture show. do you guys think troll frank n furter’s name is just frankn furter

[butwhatifidothis]

I think the main thing that makes Edelstans' version of Edelgard so annoying is that she ultimately has every ounce of agency stripped out of her, by people who insist that they're "making her grow" into a character they already made her out to be from the start. We get told that Edelgard has this amazing character arc, and then are presented with a Mary Sue with no discernable flaws and/or who makes no substantial mistakes.

This Edelgard is perfect out the box, no discolorations or tears to be seen. She just has a bit of dust, but the doll itself is flawless. And that is, in the end, what ruins her. She’s not prideful and arrogant, she’s not stubborn and narrow-minded, she’s not manipulative and deceitful, she’s not violent and abrasive, she’s not nationalistic and imperialistic, but nor is she fearless and confident, she’s not ambitious and resolute - she has none of her character flaws or boons, because they make her too full of agency. They drive her to choose to do anything; they're not forces outside of her control that make her do things that she would just never, ever do were the WORLD not so broken and flawed.

The few "flaws" Edelstans begrudgingly allow her are only meant to further endear her to the player. She’s childish, but only because she’s oh so traumatized and that should be accepted as who she is and not something to grow out of (nor something that is truly wrong of her to be even in her 20's). She’s self-unaware, but only because the world made her unsure of who she really is, which is a perfect little angel. The only "mistakes" she makes are because others failed her; Byleth and the Black Eagles fail Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, that wasn't her fault, they didn't ensure her that they could be trusted, for example.

Claude and Rhea have flaws - real flaws, that aren't "they just don't wove themselves enuff." Dimitri makes mistakes - real mistakes, that aren't "he twusted the wrong people and got hurt fwom them." They are allowed to misstep and stumble, to steer off of a purely good path due to actions that they chose to make, they get to grow as characters. But any imperfection found in the Edelstan Edelgard is only due to her environment, not her own nature. Narratively, she never does any wrong; anything bad she ever does is really someone else's fault.

She’s just a little flower plucked of all her thorns, safe and easy to pick up and admire, weak, meek and too innocent and pure for this dirty dirty world, coveted by all for her perfection and beauty.

Which is just so... boring? And annoying? That literally no matter what happens to her or what she herself does, it's never a result of Edelgard doing something but something being done to Edelgard? UNLESS it's a purely good action, then suddenly she has all the agency in the world and should be responsible for it? It's so clear that this Edelgard is one that is sanitized of any pesky little flaw that could make people dislike her or like her in the "wrong" way (because liking villains for being villains Is Wrong), and that is ironically the exact reason why she's so insufferable.

Like, it's almost kinda hard to explain why having a character choose to be an asshole is so much more engaging to watch than having a character be entirely reactive UNTIL they can get Good Noodle Stars because.... yeah? Of course? Because there's more meat to bite into whenever a character makes a choice - whether kind or spiteful, whether good or bad - over someone else forcing a character to do something.

"Edelgard believes in imperialism because she has been raised in and agrees with a culture that believes itself to be the rightful 'owner' of the continent due to it being the progenitor country, and she genuinely believes Fodlan would be better if back under this 'glorious' reign of Adrestia, even despite her being around those outside of Adrestia for almost a year" says so much about her AND Adrestia. "Edelgard DOESN'T believe in imperialism, it's just that everyone else is doing so badly that they FORCE her to kill them or otherwise get rid of them" says things about the ones DOING things badly, MAYBE, but all it says about Edelgard is that she Doesn't Like Bad Things. Or, oh so much deeper, it says she likes *gasp* Good Things! How brave, how stunning! And before you can try to say "Well maybe Edelgard went to violence so quickly because she views fear and control to be the best way to force a society into being 'good' over trying to convince people peacefully," the Edelstan Edelgard is already packaged with "Edelgard went to war first because literally everyone MADE her go to war because THEY wouldn't let anything else work."

"Edelgard tried to assassinate Dimitri and Claude at the very beginning of the game because she wanted to make her eventual war go way easier" turns into the infamous "Edelgard was just trying to scare THE TEACHER away to get JERITZA installed in their place, and CLAUDE ruined it by running away; she wasn't ACTUALLY trying to hurt anyone." "Edelgard let Remire be massacred because - like she literally said she would - she was willing to sacrifice her people's lives in service of her higher cause" turns into one of "TWS forced her to be compliant" or "Edelgard definitely didn't know anything because she would have stopped it had she known." "Edelgard directly assisted in Flayn's kidnapping because TWS having more tools to work with means she gets more weapons to fight with" turns into "She was forced to do that." "Edelgard helped hide Kronya among the student populace even as she kidnapped students and mutated them into Demonic Beasts because it will help in giving her Demonic Beasts to work with in the war" turns into, you guessed it, "Edelgard was forced to do that." "Edelgard sent her army and Demonic Beasts onto either her direct Black Eagle classmates or otherwise innocent students to stop them from stopping her from getting Crest Stones to use in her upcoming war"? Oh, a surprise! "She HAD to do that, because OTHER PEOPLE were going to take the Crest Stones if she didn't!"

She was forced to, she wasn't hurting/trying to hurt anyone, she didn't do anything wrong - if her actions lead to people getting hurt and/or killed, those are the exclusive reasons allowed as to why she did it. These reasons being excuses to alleviate her of any accountability, not genuine explanations that still demand her to take accountability.

Meanwhile, Rhea distorted history to keep her and her family safe - which in verse is said to be something she was still wrong to do, and which in verse she ADMITS was wrong of her to do. Dimitri was absolutely willing to torture Randolph because he viewed the guy as less than human and felt him getting such inhumane treatment was justice - which he directly takes accountability for to Randolph's remaining family. Claude weaseled up to Byleth because he felt he could use them for his own ambitions - which he owns up to and grows out of doing. Regardless of context explaining why they did this or that, they did this and that. They own their actions and are responsible for them, no one else. And, you know, because they own their actions, they can, uh. Grow from said actions? Look back on what they did and go "huh, shouldn't have done that, I will choose to not choose to do those actions again"?

Like I'm sorry but you can't choose to not get fucked by literally the entire damn world and that's what makes Edelsue so fucking boring and uninteresting and annoying. All of that meticulous planning Edelgard did for years to enact this war, in this interpretation, boils down to "she didn't do shit, everyone else did, she was just forced to be the fall guy." Any action that isn't squeaky clean in moral whiteness has nothing to do with her agency and that sucks ass

[greymantledlady]

My theory is that Chester and Norris are our Jon and Martin, but when the explosion happened their paired souls/consciousness was shattered into many parallel versions of themselves. Chester and Norris are just one set of many Jons and Martins yeeted out into all the different universes, but in this one they had the misfortune to end up trapped in FR3-D1. Maybe instead of just one 'somewhere else', there are thousands of them. Maybe all the somewhere else fics are correct, each representing a different version of our original Jon and Martin.

[lonelyroommp3]

oh and another thing. i would love for fandom as a whole to stop acting as if suzanne collins is a perfect unimpeachable pillar of Good Progressive Author Who Never Sells Out. "suzanne collins only writes when she has something to say, she doesn't write for the sake of it" and the fact that a movie got announced on the same day the book was doesn't mean anything? "suzanne collins would be so mad at the whitewashing of her characters" really? bc in this book she is very vague about haymitch's appearance outside of his build. i don't think she describes anyone from the seam at ALL, actually. like and that's fine and whatever, but writing essentially fanfiction about how she'd be SO MAD about this movie inevitably casting a white haymitch is crazy. i don't doubt she had limited control over the original movie's casting, but at this point it's pretty clear that they're going to defer to her on a lot of matters. which is FINE, but people are insistent on holding her up as a pillar of progressiveness and it's wild to me.

no literally!! i think people are very very keen to cling to her as this image of the anti-jkr like "wait we still have a beloved YA franchise where the author never sold out or had any problematic views ever and writes actually effective political allegories" and that's simply... making a really black and white dichotomy where there is none. at the end of the day she's a wildly successful author responsible for one of the biggest franchises of the century thus far, which says absolutely nothing about her other than she wrote one really solid trilogy. it does not make her immune to flawed writing & worldbuilding, or to selling out or fanservice, or to really half arsed depictions of issues pertaining to race, sexuality, and gender (and the intersection between those things, as per my previous critiques on the way covey girls are presented as love interests - it's really funny how snow's stereotyping of lenore dove based on his experience with lucy gray is clearly meant to be viewed in a bad light but sc doesn't really make it any better by writing lenore dove to fit many of the same ethnic stereotypes that applied to lucy gray but she's also really romantically devoted to haymitch and would never ever betray him because she's literally nice)

and i think if a few more hunger games fans were willing to a) admit this and b) by extension admit that these flaws do not mean they are not allowed to enjoy aspects of (or even the majority of) her writing and storytelling it would be far easier to have normal and sensible and critically grounded discussions of the series

[citnamora]

So we're all kinda familiar with the idea trolls don't let just anyone touch their hair, right? That letting another troll brush or braid or simply take care of your hair is a huge sign of trust? And entwining your hair is something reserved for close relationships considering how sensitive it is?

I raise this- woven bracelets with strands of troll hair braided into them are the ultimate gift. Like, the troll equivalent of a proposal for any type of relationship. The act of weaving in a strand of your own hair, and one of the troll receiving it, would be like tying the strings of fate. Essentially, gifting one to someone is asking, "Will you spend the rest of your life with me?"

I'd like to think troll hair is a very versatile material considering pop trolls constructed their pods with it. It probably wouldn't be near as itchy as human hair would be in a bracelet, lol.

[bartlebyarea2]

*switches wizards and plays way of the ninja pig until my energy runs out* *switches wizards and plays way of the ninja pig until my energy runs out* *switches wizards and plays way of the ninja pig until my energy runs out* *switches wizards and plays way of the ninja pig until my energy runs out* *switches wizards and plays way of the ninja pig until my energy runs out* *switches wizards and plays way of the ninj-*

[mapofyourstars]

.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

idk I say jokingly that I'm intent on being the most boring person alive bc I've never done a drug, never gone on a date, never stayed out all night, etc etc. I don't swear. the one time I've ever had alcohol was a mouthful at communion bc I didn't realize they had real wine and I did not enjoy it. I'm sure that does make me very boring in some aspects but I've just got plenty of other stuff to do with my one short life. you know?

[thegreatyin]

all i know about fallout is like. i watched rtgame's fnv playthrough and i thought the amazon show was actually pretty bangin. that's about it

[starryluminary]

Your fingers foxtrot on my skin

If you like what you see, my commissions are open!

[xiakeponz]

can people please not get butthurt if a Chinese person tells you that they personally have a "Chinese New Year" dinner or event on or are celebrating Chinese New Year in some way, I mean like, they are Chinese ... what the fuck else are they going to be celebrating?????? don't correct them and say "Lunar New Year", i mean- they are Chinese so they are celebrating Chinese New Year. The Chinese Way. With their Chinese customs. Is this very controversial???

[jimplekins]

wanted to draw lust in a silly Y2K/bimbo type outfit

(he's slaying the day away)