#smart name choice

[swordy-da-goat]

My osc gift exchange for @mumpsetc

Very neat character 🖥️🌼

[lovl3igh]

"shireen was so smart for this" no. that was child's answer with child's point of view because shireen was, surprise surprise, a child. are you a child? no fighting against the greens for blacks meant facing the consequences of having incompetent rapist on the throne. they would have let that happen if they didn't act. don't behave like 10yo girl who still values empathy more than fighting for better tomorrow with necessary evil

[boatboys]

A whole variety of things that have not managed to get posted, of varying significance, completion, symbolism and and canon...nicity. Canonness. Canonitude.

[carnelianwings]

Something I find really funny is how for all the rumors that Seed’s staff/writers don’t like Cagalli, Orb under her leadership just keeps ending up in a better (political) position with each addition - Seed Destiny ends with Logos wiped out, Blue Cosmos severely hampered, and the entire Seiran family wiped out, including Yuna. This leaves Cagalli with almost no political opposition in Orb (since the second Battle of Orb would’ve flushed out a majority of the Blue Cosmos/Logos sympathizers within the government/military), along with giving her a boost in popular and military support thanks to her actions and field leadership during the battle.

(Cutting for me just rambling on a bit about the in-universe politics after Seed Freedom)

You can tell with how much she’s managed to get done in the years between Seed Destiny and Seed Freedom - in that short year and a half to two years, she was able to propose and found COMPASS, secret away and upgrade the Impulse, Destiny, Strike Freedom, and Infinite Justice, arrange for ties between Orb and Terminal to investigate/exchange intel (Athrun and Meyrin), and put into place all the evacuation/defensive protocols in case of another attack on Orb (as seen vs Foundation and Requiem, even if she needed Kira to pull an “I lived, bitch�� to Aura 😅).

And it doesn’t end there - thanks to Foundation, Cagalli arguably has an easier time internationally now, because the Eurasian Federation leadership also got hit and the Eurasian Federation, while not necessarily Blue Cosmos sympathizers like the Atlantic Federation, was very staunchly anti-PLANT, which I think would’ve caused some problems for Cagalli, especially post Seed Destiny with Lacus joining her for that broadcast.

I actually think Orb probably has fairly decent diplomatic relations with PLANT (I think Chairman Lament mostly cut off that call after everything went south in Eldore because of the whole nuke situation), especially since Lacus is COMPASS’s inaugural president, plus the time both Dearka and Waltfeld (I’m not sure if he’s in Orb or PLANT as of Seed Freedom since his silent cameo has him helping to stop the coup in PLANT in Seed Freedom) spent there. And we have a very prominent all-Coordinator team with the Yamato Team - truth be told I actually wonder how much the Earth Alliance invested into COMPASS because everything we see on screen is either contributed by Orb (Archangel, Murrue and crew, Kira, Mu, and the Murasame Kais), PLANT/ZAFT (Millenium, Konoe and crew, Heinlein, Shinn, Lunamaria, Agnes, Gelgoog, and Gyan), or arguably both (namely, Rising Freedom and Immortal Justice). Unless I missed a minor crew member along the way. Which is possible.

Also pure speculation on my part on this - but the fact Seed Freedom has Athrun going into intelligence with Terminal (which we first see as having a presence in the PLANTS) from the Orb side and Yzak and Dearka going into intelligence from the PLANT side can’t be a coincidence. I want to think the three of them decided on it together because being in intelligence/covert ops gives them the chance to work together without having to force anyone to change their current loyalties - I don’t think Athrun can be truly loyal to anyone except Cagalli after Seed Destiny, and Yzak was always loyal to PLANT, and if Dearka hadn’t been captured and made to realize how extreme PLANT had become under Patrick Zala he wouldn’t have switched sides to Orb/Three Ships Alliance during Seed either. Which also indirectly feeds into Orb and PLANT having better political relations than Orb and Earth Alliance.

Which brings me to my final point - I would be very surprised if Orb isn’t the primary target for the antagonists in a Seed Freedom sequel. At this point Orb’s capable of doing too much with the limited resources it has as a small nation with too much military strength at its command. And there is room for a sequel (setting-wise) because while Earth Alliance took another major hit with during the Foundation Conflict, the ideologies that led to the First and Second Earth Alliance-PLANT wars still exist - even if Blue Cosmos lost another leader, even if the believers of Coordinator Supremacy lost another leader (in Jagannath) those ideologies still fundamentally exist. All the Foundation Conflict did was serve to take down the military leadership of those ideologies - even if the public on both sides see those views negatively it doesn’t make them go away.

[raayllum]

i think one of the main reasons i can't shake the "possession is not how callum is going to be play into aaravos' hands" (or at least not solely, i.e. doing something vile or dangerous in the name of love that leads to a renewed possession) is because like...

listen, as much as it'd be kind of weird for a "Master Manipulator" like aaravos to reveal his final play two seasons in advance from a character standpoint, it absolutely make sense from a story standpoint. you couldn't just whip that out of nowhere in a plot relevant moment without having your audience feel cheated, so it had to be established earlier on. now instead of surprise, you get to cultivate a nice feeling of dread. (although i've said before that there were other ways to cultivate said feeling of dread / set up the possibility of possession, i.e. callum learning that its possible out of a book when he was canonically reading about dark magic, him having nightmares or premonitions that aaravos is tethered to him, etc. it didn't have to be so blatant so quickly.)

those are, however, neither of the points i want to get at today, because like - if it is JUST the possession, and there is no choice that leads to it directly before or after in regards to helping aaravos...

Then why the absolutely, continually ramped up Viren-Callum parallels?

Cause like, as of S5, absolutely none of this is Necessary. Callum doesn't necessarily have to exist as a contrast to Viren at this point, given that Viren himself has changed his mind and disavowed dark magic and Aaravos; Callum finally freeing himself from Aaravos (and dark magic?) will likely now have more parallels to Viren's arc, rather than the two being disparate. He'll be following in Viren's footsteps, but in a positive way.

None of this is required for the possession plot line, either. That got kick started all the way back in 2x07, like, seasons ago. If anything it'd be kinda more 'tragic' if Callum really had never touched or been tempted by dark magic again, but he couldn't (or wouldn't) take back his prior choices. A consequence of being controlled by forces well beyond your conceptualization and a price you had no choice but to pay, literally, if they're going the removal of agency arc (which has its own merits) / leaning into the eldritch horror aspect of it all.

Like if it's just possession... Callum does not have to be like or be compared to Viren, in either similarities or contrasts, like - at all. Viren and Callum are both characters who have a relationship with destiny (Viren tended to believe in pre-determined destiny, but Callum decidedly didn't as of S2; even if that still started to change in S4, that alone is not enough of a singular parallel to warrant all the rest) but they're not the only ones, nor is that exclusively related to Aaravos - even if their parallels between each other are constantly circling him, their families, and dark magic / justification(s).

Which makes me think there's two main avenues they could be taking this with:

1) S7 endgame is Callum walking Viren's path regarding the rise, but in a more literal, dramatic sense. Again, Callum proving that he's not like Viren doesn't really need to happen as much now that Viren is 1) no longer a villain and 2) will be a parallel for Callum's positive growth as well. So it's still about similarities, but positive ones: "No matter what you've done, no matter where you are on the path, every step forward is a choice" (cue Callum literally regaining agency) "I am free, and so are you." This is also the avenue where it being mostly just the possession > a choice that leads to Aaravos getting out (choice made before that leads to possession, or choice post-possession) would make more sense, but just the Rise doesn't account for the well, ominous foreboding of all this, lmao.

2) S6 and S7 are working together with S6 being Callum mirroring Viren's Fall (whatever you want that to constitute) / helping Aaravos regardless of the possession - taking an understood risk for love that leads to the possession, or post-possession due to another form of coercion/susceptibility - and S7 being the Rise. It gives the ominous foreboding of it all, particularly highlighted in S5 / 5x02-5x04 and 5x08 somewhere to go, while also providing Callum with a balanced negative and ultimately positive character arc. It ties in the possession then as a plot element / vehicle to explore their similarities and differences but keeps everything tied together with choices/agency (rather than solely removing it), which is what Viren and Callum have both reaffirmed ("No choice? You made the choice you always have" etc) in S5 in particular. It also explains why and how all these forces - the parallels, the patterns, both their individual arcs, and their connections to Aaravos, his plans, and the possession plot line could be brought to fruition, and why they've all been included.

[atopvisenyashill]

not an f&b aegon ii fan, not a hotd aegon ii fan, but a secret third thing (a fan of the aegon ii that only exists in my mind)

[pierog]

i hate my doggys name i wanna rename him while hes only a few months old. is that insane. i dont wanna be like 40 with a dog whose name i dont like. but like man i didnt even know the guy when i got him at 10 weeks!! genuinely can someone from dogblr talk me through with this. also give me potential name suggestions.

hes soo cute i love this guy

[himbohotel]

☎ ahem

Put ☎ in my ask for your muses info in my muses phone:

NAME: Nightshade

RINGTONE: Edge of Seventeen--Stevie Nicks

PICTURE: 

LAST TEXT RECEIVED: [sms] Staying gone means staying gone.

LAST TEXT SENT: [sms] This is nothing but a courtesy call.

[manishfiend]

bigger screen + controllers is rly great, so is the new connect system compared to sliding the joycons in

God, it's very unlikely I will buy this console given my current financial situation, but backwards compatibility is a godsend. cuz the switch actually has games

[illmoraineakoi]

This is the funniest goddamn charm I've made yet.

[sobecomesomethingelse]

maybe paige’s god’s name should be vaughan, since one could make the argument that vaughan was the seed of the wound tree

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

I’ve taken to playing every RPG as essentially Bertie Wooster and it has vastly improved my experience (anxiety about making “correct” choices goes way down if you decide at the outset that your metric for success is just to be a silly little guy)

[sameteeth]

the flint coming out/silvers worst possible reaction convo is one of the few times we actually see flint like. uncomfortable? or nervous i guess? when silver says he doesn't think the pattern of flint's closest person/partner dying will apply to him because of recent events, flint's response ("it is .. natural for men new to power to assume that it has no limits. trust me - it does.") seems strange. he doesn't argue against seeking out his own tragedies as he did before, or deny the pattern, or tell silver to stop blaming him for the deaths of his partners. he tells silver he isn't as powerful as he might feel at that moment. he's defensive, thrown off-balance by the vulnerability of sharing his most guarded heart and secret, only for silver to throw it back in his face. this conversation is significant for a number of reasons, but one of which is that it highlights flint's devotion to silver (he tells silver he is Entitled to the truth) and silver's reticence to genuine connection with flint. he tells flint he's sorry, but then ruthlessly points out a pattern he sees as a potential danger to him. silver is STILL acting in his own self interest here, almost defensively, whereas flint has given himself entirely over to silver. what happens makes me think of this post - flint has such personal authenticity, he KNOWS what he stands for, he has cast his lot, his narrative is fixed, that he is able to give his truth to silver. whereas silver is still playing at both sides. his identity has coagulated into silver, but he's not Long John Silver yet. he doubts this war, he doubts flint and madi's motivations. why expose a weakness when there's no need? all he sees of flint's confession is a potential threat to him. and then there's flint's response in the face of silver coolly explaining why he will survive flint's self-inflicted tragedy, a weak attempt at silver's feelings of strength, a defensive response to what flint perceives to be an attack from silver.. which silver IMMEDIATELY overturns with his stunt with dobbs, using the men as pawns in his dance with flint, proving to flint that silver is strong, that silver will survive flint. that silver will hurt flint. and all flint has to offer is an uncertain but (to me) very genuine attempt at comfort in the face of silver's ironclad defense of his own strength. that even if they agree silver has such powerful influence over the men, flint can still stand with him, against him if they have to.

[permanentreverie]

finished the first two episodes!

[mikurulucky]

I kinda wanted to try and start a new Tomodachi Life save file, but I don't want to delete my current one on my 3DS, so off to Citra I go!

Funnily, when I gave Johan's mii his name, the game pronounces it like it's pronounced in the French version with a j sound lol. So ya have to use the pronunciation setting in order for it to be pronounced in the usual way.

Though in my attempt at making him in Tomodachi Collection, I just stuck with the French pronunciation for him and Peewit. His French pronunciation kinda feels more natural to me when transliterating it into Japanese and I feel like Peewit's French name, Pirlouit, would be a bit easier to adapt into Japanese.

[chesters-ocs]

Roshan just popped into my head to tell Butcher "You'll never be my father." And like, I don't know why he's being mean right now.

butcher: ... okay?

butcher: i. wasn't trying to be, but thanks for the info, kid.