#single questions is one thing

[contrastparadoxx]

If you're drinking soup instead of eating it with a spoon, it's a beverage

>He has decided to ignore you

[poppyberry]

Everybody NEEDS to listen to the new Wild Life retrospective on Imp and Skizz's podcast. They got Grian called in and they give so many cool insights into the series (and honestly say so many things I think people need to hear)

Highlights for me:

Grian designed each wild card to be weaponized and wanted everyone to take advantage of them. He goes over each individually and all the thought he put into them and all the work the backend team put into their execution. He's rightfully really proud of them. Him gushing about Trivia Bot and how excited he was to show his friends the "coolest snail ever" is particularly sweet.

Skizz says discovering each wild card was a LOT of fun. He says something like "I can't believe as an adult I get to have so much fun." Impulse is really impressed with the execution of each, citing stuff like making it rain when the time one activated and the passive mobs spawning in before being replaced, and how the little details like that built excitement and tension.

Grian says how he understands that some viewers maybe just want more seasons of the essentially the same series, ie six seasons of just Third Life, but it's more important to him that the Lifers get to experience something new and fresh. He also doesn't like comparing each series, preferring to consider each one as its own thing.

Impulse can't wait to do another Life series, Skizz is equally excited but tries to hold discussion about it back since he doesn't want anyone pressuring Grian, who is palpably burned out. Like, you can hear how tired this man is. Grian says there will probably be more series since everyone is still enjoying it, but he's not trying to outdo himself and not to expect him to keep escalating.

Skizz always tries to do something new each season yet feels like he always falls back into the same habits and dynamics, but not this time: he feels like he got to explore a new dynamic with the Spanners and had a blast doing it. He and Grian gush about how much fun they had with their "big brother trying to keep his little brothers alive" routine.

They have a grand time making fun of Impulse and his "Sweats". Impulse is unabashedly still hungry to win a series.

Impulse didn't want to kill zombie Skizz, because of the five minute cooldown, but Skizz makes clear that he was really happy with being a zombie, even if there was a lot of doing nothing in between summons. He says it means a lot to him that he got to help with the burden of facilitating the series, even just a little bit.

Grian gives good insight into his personal life strategy: he does some things to deliberately test his relationship with other players. Standing in the Danger Zone was a trust exercise, testing Jimmy and Scar. Jimmy and Scar failed.

Despite Scar failing the trust exercise, Grian heard the disappointment in Scar's voice about the Snail Bot thing and immediately caved, but he's really happy that it led them to in-canon reconciling and becoming strong allies again.

Grian's favorite moment was making Jimmy pay for the failed trust exercise by blowing up the bunker, particularly pleased with his one liner of "it was always gonna be like this". He says Wild Life as a whole has been the most enjoyable series for him, even though he didn't get to have as much fun as the other players due to knowing all the wild cards.

All three of them gush over the scene of everybody failing to kill Joel as he teleports around, laughing about how it was straight out of a movie or an anime. Impulse feels like Joel took his superpower to a new level, but Grian reminds him the he didn't have an army chasing him around trying to kill him. They're all super impressed with how the finale turned out.

Some of the powers were assigned (Cleo, BigB, BDubs, Scar, Lizzie), some were random (Impulse, Martyn). Some were based on players' names, others on their personal narratives, but coming up with ~16 different powers without including any that would just be exploited for cheap instakills was really difficult, which is why there were so many espionage ones. Hilariously, Grian was hoping Scar would accidentally kill Jimmy by punching him off a cliff because of their ritual of trying punching in the earlier episodes. He also gave Scar that power because he knew Scar wouldn't feel bad about killing people with it.

Grian chose to give himself the mimic so he could show people how their powers worked if he needed to, and so that it wasn't given to somebody else who'd have to spend the whole session figuring out the mechanics of 15 separate superpowers and potentially dying because of it. And because he thinks its the coolest one and he wanted it (lol)

All around there's tons of fun details and stuff in this episode of the podcast and absolutely everybody should listen to it all the way through.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[chalkrub]

art trade w/ thrak800 on twit - love this fella !

[proselles]

Getting older is realizing bill cipher was sexier as a triangle anyway.

[fluentisonus]

(typing this as I walk to work so this is not articulate but) thinking a lot abt how les mis w javert sort of. hm. questions? problematizes? the Idea of dogs & the domestication of dogs (metaphorically ofc) like it sort of looks past the 'man's best friend' angle entirely & makes you think things like. kind of fucked up of humans [the social order] to domesticate the wolf [person outside of society for whatever reason] expressly to turn against & cause harm to other wolves in order to keep them out [away from respectable society] & keep themselves safe but never truly consider it an equal [it'll always just be a dog]. kind of fucked up that the dog finds enjoyment & life's purpose in this

[buttered-toasty]

Might as well write this post while I wait on the bus

“What the hell do you need photos of the inside of a van for” -my roommate, one month ago

Also colors for this one were picked from the palette of this song’s album cover

[hellcifrogs]

Yes

[itsabouttimex2]

man I NEED to hear what you think about Bakugo

Alright I dropped MHA (because of Mineta, Bakugo, and Aizawa, mostly), so I’m going with maybe half the series in mind, but I’ll try to compose my thoughts on this pretty quickly, going of my own watching and some general pop-culture osmosis.

Katsuki Bakugo’s very existence in the story of My Hero Academia breaks an extremely important core message that the show tries to send- “You should intervene in situations when wrongdoing is occuring, even if the victim is “good” (eg: stoic, strong, handling it well, Shouto being extremely composed and powerful, Bakugo being attacked by the slime monster, Eri holding herself together in spite of everything she’s gone through) or “bad” (eg: unattractive, poor, manic, Shigaraki being turned up by the old lady, Toga being forced suppress herself), because even trying and failing or just reaching will at least make an impact or offer a light in that dark tunnel (All Might selecting Izuku after he saves Bakugo, Shouto accepting the fire half of his Quirk after Deku reaches out to him)-

In other words, “Meddling when you don't need to is the essence of being a hero!”

So when MHA shows me this whole cast of children who are supposed to be “the next generation of heroes” and expect me to root for them, I can’t help but note that none of them ever try and stop the violent bully in their midst. They might disapprove or refuse to engage, but there’s never a moment that any of these “heroes-to-be” say “Hmm. Maybe if someone is threatening the life of my kindly classmate- especially in a form as immediate as unleashing literal explosions at him and needed to be physically restrained, I should intervene.”

They, and almost all of the faculty and staff, ignore this legitimately unhinged and violent child running amok, are not “true heroes” by the messaging and morals of the narrative itself, because they sit on their asses and allow a bully (and Mineta, the rat fuck) to do as he pleases- when a reaction does occur, it’s more along the lines of scolding/laughing at a toddler for cursing/throwing a fit than “holy shit, this kid is a violent threat to at least one of our other students, we need to intervene now”.

I don’t know, maybe this is addressed later in the series, maybe Horikoshi pulls some crazy shit to justify it, that could be what happens by the end.

I just couldn’t watch to that point, if it does exist.

TLDR: Katsuki Bakugo you will never be Cristopher Skyline

[virgothozul]

I-

hum.

[fyodorsushankaaa]

ALL OF MY EXAMS ARE FINISHED AND WE HAVE A WHOLE WEEK OFF YEPPIIEW

[sonderfairy]

I really need webtoon to add comment notifications for creators. Im tired of spending 1.5 hours skimming every single episode to look for new comments.

“But sonderfairy you dont have to do that—”

Shut up i wanna know what my readers think

Shit i accidentally put too much of my take in the tags

[demaparbat-hp]

Even if zuko has a plan to end the war, making katara work amongst people who likely hold racism towards her and aided and supported the genocide of her people is still weird, especially since zuko benefits from the fire nations oppression of people throughout s1 when hunting the Avatar. Not good choices to make in a zutara au :/

Believe me, I've made these arguments against myself over and over again.

I know I'm putting Katara in an extremely difficult and unjust position in this AU with—from an outsider's point of view—little to no reason other than "I just wanted to see her in Fire Nation armor and kicking ass" and no consideration for the context. I'm not trying to somehow forgive nor redeem the Fire Nation's actions in war just because...well...just because. Not at all. People who've read Soundless (or any other of my wips, really) know that's not the case. On the contrary—I always do my best to see the war through a realistic, mature lense. And that includes everything that makes the Fire Nation so terrible in the first place.

That being said, there are some things I considered when deciding to make Katara side with them (even if her true motives lie elsewhere) in this AU. And they are not excuses. Just, different layers of context.

First of all, she was desperate. By this point in her life, her mother was dead, her father had left to fight the war, her brother followed behind a few years after, and she was left filling the empty spaces when, by all means, she wasn't ready for the responsibility. She had been feeling helpless and hopeless for years, and ached to do anything to help her people beyond doing chores and taking care for the children.

Let it be known that Aang's apparent betrayal comes from a place of trauma and misplaced anger on Katara's part. Much like how she put the Fire Nation's sins on Zuko's shoulders in S3. She is not on the right here, but this is her natural way to process and understand grief. There are many different aspects of her development as a child involved in how she views the Avatar—and, by extension, Aang—but more on this later.

Katara was young, and reckless, and she had just been "betrayed" by the first person who ever looked at her and saw more than the perfect caretaker she was forced to be. She was not in the right state of mind to make a decision like that and, to be honest, she couldn't have predicted the consequences. She saw a clear path to contribute to the end of the war, and by La she would take it.

On Zuko's end, you might argue that he should have known better than to let her join him and, well, you would be right. But there were many things about Katara's trauma response and state of mind that—unless he had known her for a long time—he couldn't have known. He will definitely blame himself later on, when the racism and cruelty towards Katara begins, and especially when word reaches her family at sea.

It's Katara's job to smack some sense into him from time to time and tell him that, yes, he should have tried harder to stop her (and she would probably be better off because of it) but what's done is done. And, by all means, the decision was hers to make. If anything, it's their fault, not his alone.

Now, Katara doesn't suffer the entire AU. That would just be cruel.

Zuko's crew was handpicked by Uncle Iroh, so you can expect dissidents, traitors and a few White Lotus agents who were smart enough to keep their true opinions quiet. There are...mixed opinions in that bunch, of course, but that's expected and, to be honest, rather easily dealt with. They are mostly honourable people just doing their best to end the war from the inside.

The real problem comes when they cross paths with, say, Zhao's fleet (or Hakoda's, let's be real).

And you may ask why Zuko is hunting down Aang, then, if he's secretly a goody-two-shoes himself... I'll explain that later in depth, so stay tuned.

In short, I know the decisions I've made, as a creator, are debatable at best, and downright blasfemous at worst. But they're deliberate.

I want the readers to feel conflicted about Katara's choices in this AU. I want people to have mixed opinions about the war, the (apparent lack of) morality, the characters, you name it!

I'm not trying to glorify a victim of war joining the side of the ones responsible for her people's genocide, even if it's just for show and she's actually set on destroying their government from within. Not at all.

Katara made a stupid, horrible decision, and she's going to suffer the consequences. But she's also going to fight to reach her goals, because she's stubborn like that.

I know most people may have a little trouble understanding where I'm coming from, because they don't have all the information necessary to make a full opinion.

I'm really thankful for these kind of asks. They let me explore these concepts and AUs in depth, and see what you think about them. I'm only human—my opinions are not infalible, nor The Right Ones, and this is a kind of discussion that I love to have.

So, keep the asks coming!!!

[blujayonthewing]

GRIPPED with the sudden overwhelming desire for a pumpkin-shaped soup bowl to eat pumpkin soup out of

[unriding]

my greed is very impressive to me — how i hosted an event that was centered around you guys telling me about your selfships … only for me to sit here after and be like “yayy thank you!!! so is there more ???”

[posallys]

I am gods most insane soldier (I'm looking forward to my orgo exam)