#the logic is questionable

[flock-talk]

Yep Toto’s a Quaker!

Most of Canada doesn’t have laws against parrot species, however my province has begun the process of proposing an exotic pet law that would ban all parrots except for budgies so yknow we’ll see how far that one makes it.

@foxfire69

[rynli]

Harry works on his resume

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[captainjimothy]

the thinggggg the thing about kira and jadzia is that. jadzia is so so so full of joy and the measured, steady, unshakeable optimism of someone much older than she is. but she wasn't always like that, she was a lonely, anxious, nerdy kid who "grew up" 300 years in the span of a single medical/spiritual operation. and a big part of that experience was the dedicated training she got towards knowing herself, knowing her needs and desires and how to meet them, so that she wouldn't get drowned out by the rest of dax. right

and she comes to ds9 and she meets kira, a lonely, anxious fighter who was an adult by the time she was 10, who never had the opportunity to know more about herself than what was strictly necessary--that she is strong, that she makes a good leader, that she can do anything she sets her mind to. but she never figured out what she might like to set her mind to, because freedom was the only thing it was possible to want.

and jadzia sees her old self in kira's face, in the bowstring-tight lines of her, and jadzia takes her by those aching shoulders and says Hey. do you want to know yourself? do you want to know what joy is? do you want to play?

[spirkbitch]

i love how vulcans conveniently all decided to ignore the fact that annoyance is also an emotion

[twisted-deal]

Listen to the roses, they only want what's good for you...

[incognitopolls]

Brief definitions:

Ad Hominem: Trying to undermine the opponent's arguments by using personal attacks rather than logical argument

False Dilemma: Presenting two alternative states as the only possibilities when more possibilities may exist

Bandwagon: Presuming that a proposition must be true because many believe it to be true/everyone else is doing or saying it

Incomplete Comparison: Comparing two things that aren't really related, in order to make something more appealing than it would be otherwise

Strawman: Misrepresenting an argument so that it becomes easier to attack

False Cause: Citing sequential events as evidence that the first event caused the second

Slippery Slope: Claiming that a single event will lead to a series of events that would lead to one major event, or that event A will lead to event B which must lead to event C and so on until event Z

False Analogy: Assuming that if two things or events have similarities in one or more respects, they are similar in other properties too

Guilt by Association: Connecting an opponent to a demonized group of people or to a bad person in order to discredit their argument

Hasty Generalization: Making a claim based on evidence that is too small to prove the claim

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[reality-detective]

[unpretty]

my plan for next year is to put a star sticker on every day that i don't buy anything, in the hopes that this will encourage me to no longer run to the store for a single missing ingredient and then buy some treats as long as i'm there to make the trip worth it

[wasyago]

so, would you?

nothing important under the cut, you don't need to look haha

[vaguely-concerned]

while I think lords of fortune rook is probably one of the faction backgrounds that tie the least well into the overarching story for me so far, I must admit that I do see the inherent allure and hilarity in the character concept of someone who somehow manages to save the world based on nothing but the power of being a really good hang

[unkillable-gays]

It's actually so crazy that Edwin so vehemently refuses to learn to fight. Like, they literally end up in physical altercations all the time!!! It'd be one thing if their work was mostly researching and snooping, and Charles was like, "oh I want you to be able to fight on the off chance someone catches us." But they literally end up in some kind of tussle in every single case!

And it's sweet that he believes Charles will always protect him, really, it is. But he gets Charles to weave this hyper-specific hypothetical about a situation in which he'd need to fight, when a much more likely possibility is just that there's more than one enemy!!

[bloogers-boogers]

An AU where Lucifer and Adam fall in love after Lilith fled the garden yet went back to convince Adam to join them, in this universe, Lilith convinced Adam and he joined their revolution. Lucifer falls in love with Adam during their time planning, he tells Lilith and she understands. Eventually with time heaven finds out about this whole entire thing, including Adam and Lucifer's now growing relationship/ family. And lastly Lucifer is given a hard gut wrenching choice. To pick choosing to save Adam and their son instead of keeping his memories of falling in love with Adam. The consequences of chosing this option is that both Lucifer and Adam would forget their history together as if it never existed, the gain from this? Heaven doesn't have to get rid of Adam and Abel.

Eve basically raised Abel as her own without the knowledge that she did not birth him unlike Cain. Adam continues being the chosen one to father all humanity alongside Eve, his wife. And ends up growing resentful towards Abel thinking he was the result of Eve’s and Lucifer's affair as Abel looked and acted identical to Lucifer. Eve obviously denied everything but Adam was too blinded by rage and betrayal to believe her word for it. Eve knew Abel was Adam's but deep inside she felt no genuine connection to Abel like a mother would have to their child. But she loved Abel regardless.

And as for Lucifer, he has no knowledge of Abel being his son neither does he hold any feelings for Adam. He remembers nothing.

The moment Adam dies however, Lucifer regains his memories, immediately, his heart shattered into pieces. And also, he so desperately wants to reconnect with his son afterwards.

[being-of-rain]

I haven't been interested in how the pantheon of gods in recent Dr Who have been done, but I do like that Sutekh explicitly kept his Osirian origin story, and he became the god of death due to all his vortex exposure/tardis-jacking/whatever. Which means the Pantheon of Discord (to use the Trickster's name for it) isn't intrinsic forces of the universe, they're powerful entities who have gained some form of connection. I think the Pantheon of Discord is just some powerful aliens' discord server.

[wonderb0n]

Do you guys think that if Shi Qingxuan had called the right name, things would have ended differently? Even the slightest possibility?

I remember thinking when I first read the novel that SQ's plea, so raw and desperate, had managed to reach HX. I felt it in my stomach. A spark of mercy that shattered the instant they called the wrong name.

That's also something that catches my attention. HX said you called the wrong name instead of saying idk anything else to refute SQ's pleas (everything would have been valid, honestly). I felt like, in itself everything that happened was worthy of his fury, not being called his real name was just the last straw. But why would it be if it's not because he cared?

[stil-lindigo]

when people talk about educating yourself on the origins of ideologies like zionism, it isn’t to ask for sympathy but to show that fascism always hinges on the same rules - dehumanisation and other-ing of scapegoat populations in the pursuit of power.

fascism is, at the end of the day, uncreative and there is value in recognising the signs. When an entire ideology is dependent on the inherent depravity of a certain identity, it is worth some scrutiny.