#bird primary model

[mooglesorts]

i have not been active on this blog in a While and being very normal about my old hyperfixation lorien legacies, which has an absolute fuckload of characters to sort, has finally gotten me to crawl out of my hole.

[spoilers ahead for both lorien legacies and its sequel series!]

there is a LOT of ground to cover here, and i am mostly going to limit myself to sorting characters and themes from the first series, but my initial notes are:

probably one of the biggest overarching themes of the series is toxic birdsec, and the harm it can do to every aspect of a society or a person's life--on both a systematic level and an individual one--right down to their basic humanity. by extension it also goes into similarly fucked up lion and bird primary used as weapons and tools of abuse, and how they interplay with each other.

a large part of this stems from setrákus ra being The Worst Fucking Lion Bird Ever to Live, lmao. he's an interesting example of birdsec interplaying with cannibal badger, and also of a lion bird who's a cheetah in that he uses systems as tools to manipulate people instead of actually believing them. he hands out toxic systems like candy while peppering them with outright lies, and blithely admits that even the one that he's put centuries into building--mogadorian progress, and the great book--is at its heart just a ruse to run his cult on. the truth he pretends to worship and champion isn't external, objective truth--it's an extension of him. he is the ultimate truth. and the only truth he believes in is his cause, which is that he has the right and ability to own, make use of, and do whatever he sees fit with everything in existence. everyone and everything that could possibly be a shiny or a tool belongs to him.

one of the other overarching themes is toxic badger primary and secondary--cannibal badgering AHOY--as well as toxic lion primary, and it is a great deal less intentional than the bird cautionary tale part lmao

five is a bird snake with deeply toxic lion primary and bird secondary models, one of which he picked up after getting involved with a cult, and one of which he's had since his abusive birdsec guardian started amputating his masks by trying to apply actor bird to them. :') his brand of birdsplode and snakeburn make him horribly, horribly vulnerable to the cult, especially combined with focused, one-on-one gaslighting and manipulation from setrákus himself, and he has to burn his bird right to a crisp to break away from it. i am very biased and i have so much to say about my boy, but i plan to go in depth about this later

there are a LOT of lionsecs among the loric garde kids. the only surviving ones who aren't lionsecs are marina's badger and five's snake (the latter of which is heavily villainized, lol); number one is either a lionsec or a snakesec, maggie is either a birdsec or a badgersec, and we don't really see enough of hannu to be sure, but my guess is badgersec. in context, whatever these books are saying here i am not sure i like it lmao

this stands in contrast to the non-garde allies, minus adam, who end up being Part of the Gang. sam and lexa are birdsecs, and sarah and malcolm are both badgersecs.

speaking of adam, he is a lion snake with a cool, calculated double bird performance/model, who has been waiting all his life for a chance to go Absolutely Feral. there are a lot of ways in which he's a real shithead, which track given his life and circumstances up to then but are also real 😬 sometimes, but like, good for him. go ape shitt, kid

nine is an awful, AWFUL double lion who models/performs the worst parts of badger primary; he also uses lionsec stereotypes and methods to misdirect people, so that he can hurt, gaslight, prey on, and abuse them. it's genuinely interesting how he does it, and i could go on for a long time about it, but it's also Infuriating because the authors really want you to love him for being a ~charming jerk with a heart of gold,~ so that is for another post. in the sequel series he also picks up a nasty posthumous birdsec model from sandor to gleefully torture children with so lmfao

there seem to be a lot of birdsecs and badgersecs among the mentor cêpans, which tracks, because, well, mentors. interestingly, it seems to be a pattern so far that the birdsec mentors are either some of the most deeply abusive among them (see: rey, sandor, and ethan even though he's an unofficial cêpan), or the most decent parents of them under the circumstances (see: katarina).

john is a hognose (badgery snake) 'i live here' snake lion, and a VERY loud one. he's set on saving the world mainly a) in order to save his People, or b) because it's what they would want. he also believes STRONGLY in snake values as applied to other people, and absolutely cannot grok that anyone would feel differently--he holds back on killing a major enemy because he's worried about killing a friendly acquaintance's Person--and honestly he can be kind of a huge dick about it lmao. he burns HARD at the end of the first series when sarah dies; in the second, he copes by making an entire community into his circle and no longer gives a shit about the rest of the world outside it, including groups who are in similar if not worse circumstances than his community. Horrific War Crimes Ensue!

rex is an everyone double badger and i love him so much. i love him So Much. he is a wonderful example of how to write a morally dubious character whose dodgy qualities interest me instead of making me grit my teeth and Tolerate Them. his arc could have fixed So Much of the Ending's Bullshit and i will be forever mad that they dumped it in the trash

there is more, oh my god there's so much more, this series has SO many characters in it, but this is a start thank you for coming to my ted talk

#lorien legacies #sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats #LL group tag #lion primary #bird primary #snake primary #bird secondary #lion secondary #badger secondary #snake secondary #bird primary model #bird secondary model #badger primary model #hognose #cheetah #superb bird #manul #toxic primaries #toxic secondaries #there is a lot going on here lmao #LL tag

[wisteria-lodge]

badger primary + badger secondary (unhealthy double bird model)

May I submit from the SortMe list please? The most difficult time in my life so far has to be in Nursing school. In hindsight I know that I pursued that career path for all the wrong reasons. It sounded good to me. Interesting, helping people and decent pay. It’s a job you SHOULD be pursuing. Even tho I distinctly remember a little while before thinking how I’d never want to be a nurse because that means I’ll be away from my future family.

Ah, okay. In that case, I think you're a Loyalist for sure. The first thing is to be close to your family. You made that decision in a kind of Bird primary way - it looks good on paper, the money is good etc. And for another person that might have been enough, but it sounds like for you particularly... not so much.

In hindsight I also found it ironic that my least favorite part was doing clinical. I always felt so exposed. Like I HAD to do everything perfectly or I look incompetent or stupid. I was warned beforehand how hard nursing would be. That just because I was a good student didn’t mean I’d do well.

This sounds a little like a perfectionist streak? Or maybe take that one step further, and it's about being *perceived* as a perfectionist? Perfectionism is unfortunately just a human flaw, but this focus on the *community* and what *they* think might be evidence of Badger primary.

However my family kept saying how hard of a worker I was and how I should take their advice with a grain of salt. I was a hardworker so I’d be fine. It also helped that it seemed like people were coming out of the woodwork to help me as soon as I made the decision.

This sounds like a Badger secondary. Like, it's possible that you modeled a Badger secondary to please your family... but you do seem to own it, and the 'people coming out of the woodwork to help' is a very Badger-secondary-to-the-core thing. You don't even need to ask them, most of the time. They just kind of show up.

Then I entered and I was immediately overwhelmed! The hardest part was the emotional toll. Everything was such high stakes it felt like I could never take a BREAK. Nursing became my world and nothing else mattered. Which I was warned about beforehand, but experiencing it is different.

Okay, so. YEAH, nursing school is very hard and very brutal. But I'm interested in what you found so hard. And what I'm hearing is permeable boundaries. Everything is getting though, you can always work harder, and the stakes are so high that it means you SHOULD. It sounds like we've got some Badger (and I suspect you're a Double Badger) lack of boundaries going on. You're throwing so much of yourself into your community, that you forget that you're part of your community too.

I generally a bit of a loner but I felt even more isolated.

Brutal for a Badger primary. You need your community.

I spent every night in the library studying my ass off eating and breathing Nursing and trying my HARDEST. I built a routine that wasn’t foolproof but it gave me decent grades most of the time. Got extra help everything that’s SUPPOSED to lead to success but it wasn’t enough.

You're doing the Badger thing - buckle down and work MORE, but it does seem that you're doing it in a Bird way, which you clearly didn't *love.* Like it worked *okay.*

The one thing I didn’t do was actually try to study with my classmates more. Which probably would have helped me the most.

I agree. That would be be something that would make your Badger primary happy (and fit in with your Badger secondary problem-solving as well.)

I ended up failing our. The thing about it though is that as soon as I knew for SURE that I’d failed out and there was no way to keep my spot I felt relieved. The pressure lifted for the first time since starting college. Sure I had to switch majors but anything I picked felt like it would be infinitely less stressful than Nursing. It felt nice to know that no matter what happened my fate was sealed when before everything felt up in the air.

I suspect that Birds make especially good health professionals *because* it's easier for them to keep everything at a bit of arm's length if they need to (and systemize things like self-care - they're *very* good at that.) And there was a period where you wanted to be, or were trying to be a Double Bird, and the whole process didn't suit you very much. I suspect that you'll be much happier (and more effective!) at whatever career you try next.

#sortinghatchats #shc #submission #wisteria sorts #sortme #double badger #bird primary model #bird secondary model #badger primary #badger secondary

[mysticalenthusiastvoid]

I'm going to sort my family from most recently dead to furthest.

Grandma - Badger Snake. I thought maybe she was a double Badger, but I think she modeled Badger sec because it was expected of her, but she was traditional and involved in her church community, so Badger primary. I say she was a Snake secondary due to her general mischeviousness, go with the flow attitude, and doing things like once tricking me into getting a flu shot by paying for two.

Mom - Double Bird or Bird Badger. Would do a deep dive on any subject she found interesting and once she decided that something was true, good luck changing her mind. She could possibly have been a Badger sec due to building communities wherever she went. Used to clash with her a fair amount, but she also could have been a burnt Lion primary.

Grandpa - This one is the hardest due to him being gone for so long, but he could be the double Badger out of the bunch. Also community oriented.

#snake secondary #bird secondary #badger secondary #badger model #idealist primary #built secondaries #external primaries #no wonder i clashed with my family when i got older and started to come out of my bubble

[dcxdpdabbles]

Passion for Fashion Part 4

A loud ding-dong echoes through the house. Danny sits up from where he was lying, inches from a radio playing falling water.

He found it in the garbage a few days after the whole kidnapping of Fiesco- the police got all the models to safety while the Bats were able to rescue Tim Drake, but the primary muscle, some guy named Waylon, got away. - but the station it could pick up was a natural sound effects station.

Danny had been tinkering with it, trying to figure out how to get it to connect to the local radio mostly successfully for days now. He leaned back to look past the randomly hung clothes that Dan had been stringing across their house.

Fabrics still littered the place, and it's become less of a home and more of a fabric storage.

Danny has forgotten the color of the walls, so used to just seeing clothes everywhere. It was a bit embarrassing to be so messy but it's not like they had guests in this dimension.

Which meant the door ringing even stranger.

Ding Dong.

"Dan?"

His counterpart grunts from somewhere behind the blue and green fabrics. "What?"

"Nothing," Danny calls back, side-stepping fabrics and pushing aside some mannequins. Who was on the other side of the door if Dan was in the living room turned studio?

Ding Dong.

They should really think about installing some cameras or even a peephole. Danny hesitates for only a moment before he carefully turns the knob and opens the door slightly, only enough so his eye can see through the crack.

An EverBurning Lizardman stands on his doorstep. That's....not confusing at all. Maybe the ghost was sent by Clockwork? Oh, perhaps the time Ghost was sending them back up?

"Hello?" Danny asks, swinging it open. "Can I help you?"

The Lizardman squints at him. "Dan Fenton?"

"No. I'm Danny Fenton. Dan is my twin brother."

"Right. I'm Killer Croc," The EverBurning says, straightening out his back to tower over Danny in what he thinks is supposed to be menacing. To Danny, it just looks like someone standing to attention, a lot of the ghosts do that when he is crowed.

"Nice to meet you, Killer. Cool jean jacket by the way." Danny responds. He crosses his arms and leans on the doorframe, tilting his head like a bird. Killer Croc seems taken aback by his nonchalant mannerism. "Do you want me to get Dan?"

The EverBruning lips pull back, showcasing all of his teeth. Danny is impressed by how sharp and white they are. He must use a whiting paste. He'll have to ask for the secret later. A model needed a pearl-white smile, after all. "I would like to speak to you both."

Danny considered the request before nodding his chin to his house. "Come on in. Sorry about the mess; we weren't expecting guests."

As the significant being of rippling scales and muscles made its way inside, Danny shut the door and held out his hand towards Killer.

The Lizardman blinked down at him. "What?"

"Can I take your coat?" Danny asked, so used to offering guests back at home that he forgot big city folk may not do that.

Killer's eyes narrowed. "No."

"Alright." Accepting the denial Danny rocked on his heels, pushing a large indego piece of fabric out of his face. It reveals the slight path to the kitchen. "Can I offer you something to drink? Tea, water, soda....heated ectoplasm?"

"...Water is fine." Killer settles on staring at Danny like he is the most fascinating thing he's ever seen. Not surprising. Those from the Elemenal Sector of the Infinite Releams don't see human-shaped beings often. He had plenty of young Yeti children surround him when he visited because they had never seen someone who looked like Danny before.

"Hot or Cold?"

"....Cold."

Huh. An EverBurning who did not take their water boiling? Danny would ask him about it, but he didn't want to seem like he was playing into stereotypes.

"I'll bring it out in a minute. Please make yourself at home." Danny gestures to a corner of the room. "I think the couch is somewhere in that direction. "

He doesn't wait for the Lizardman to reply instead he turns to the last place he heard his counterpart shout. "Dan! Come out here, you have a visitor!"

"No! Tell whoever they are to piss off." Dan screams back. Danny's face twitches. He hates that guy so much sometimes.

"Don't be rude! Come out here!"

Dan makes a loud obnoxious sigh, pushing the fabrics out of his way. He's still wearing the same pair of sweatpants and stain t-shirt grey oversized shirt. His hair has obviously not been comb and there are slight bags under his eyes from where he refused to get some sleep the last few days.

In short, he looks like a right mess.

"Who the hell is even bothering us..." Dan's voice trails off, face paling when he sees Killer uncomfortably trying to sit. Dan glances down at his body and then screams in mortification, warping his arms around himself. He sprints further into the house before they can get a word in. "Don't look at me! I have to get dressed! I normally look hot, I swear!"

Danny blinks. "Well....I'll get you that water while Dan gets dressed."

Killer looks far more confused than before. "Sure, kid."

Now, Danny has always been an alley of the FarFrozen. Not only was FrostBite his doctor, his ice mentor, and his general instructor for the Infinite Realms, but he was also his friend.

Nearly as close as Sam and Tucker- FrostBite had become someone he sought companionship with, which went for all of FarFrozen. Danny spent more time in the winter wonderland than in his home. This meant he knew all about their rivals- the EverBurning.

The EverBurning were a tribe of Lizardmen in hot volcanic lands to the south of the FarFrozen. They were very similar to the FarFrozen in culture and civilization, with a bit more emphasis on arts than science.

Although they were polar opposites, FarFrozen and EverBurning had no abysmal relationship. Their meet-ups reminded Danny of rival high school sports teams at most.

Danny was just an alley to the FarFrozen first.

When he returned to the living room, he arrived with Killer looking highly uncomfortable as Dan sat awful close to him now dressed a looking....well looking like what the locals called "E-Boy" sexy.

Not to be confused with Goth. Danny didn't know what the difference was, but Dan almost bit his head off the last time he pointed it out. Apparently, the fashions were completely different.

"So, Papi. why were you looking for me?" Dan all but purs. Killer shudders and quickly stands up, causing Dan to fall onto the couch cushions.

"I came here to apologize." The Lizardman starts but is cut off by his slight jump as Danny appears at his elbow, holding out the tray. He needs to remember to make noise when he moves.

"Apologize for what?" Danny asks, observing his guest take the glass cup in a scaly hand. He seemed to do so carefully, but surprisingly not uncurling his claws away- does he not know how?

"For almost trafficking you. I ugh...I sell drugs, not people. I wasn't aware those idiots were doing that when I accepted the job to kidnap Tim Drake for a few hours. I have to eat somehow, you know?" Killer shrugs at the twin stare of surprise. "I'm an ugly son of bitch, but I'm not much of a monster."

"Papi, you are gorgeous-" Dan starts, placing one hand behind the couch seat and giving a flirtatious little smirk up at the Lizardman, but Killer cuts him off.

"Okay, seriously, kid you're starting to freak me out. Not that I'm not flattered. You're the first and only one ever interested in me, but I'm twenty-eight. You're way too young for me."

Dan frowns in confusion. "I'm twenty-six. Two years isn't that much of a difference."

Killer gestures at him. "You are fifteen at the least, kid."

Dan's face ripples through various emotions before he leans back and stares at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. He whispers to them in a hushed tone of angst. "I'm seventeen."

Right.

Danny clears his throat. "It's alright, Killer. We weren't sold, and neither were any of the other models. So, no harm was done. Apology accepted."

Killer Croc seems more thrown off balance than when Danny first opens the door. Poor guy. It must have been the ice water. Danny shouldn't have made it that cold. "Just like that?"

"Just like-"

Someone breaks through his living room window. The Fentons let out cries of surprise as Killer quickly grabbed them both and rolled the ground, using his large body to shield them from the shattering glass. The intruder was likely unaware of the strung-up fabrics, for they stumble into the tied strings and quickly become entangled.

They fall to the ground in heap as the strong wire wraps around them. Danny knew he shouldn't have allowed Dan to use metal wire for his heavier pieces- especially one that taught, but Dan had been so persuasive.

(He put them up anyway, and Danny was too lazy to take them down)

"Ah man, I liked that window," Danny whines as he peaks over Killer's shoulder.

"We have windows?"

"Killer Croc! Unhand the hostages!" The person on the ground screams, shimmering around until the clothes fall away, and Danny finally gets a good look at some guy in a red and black costume?

Dan points at the stranger "Who is that-"

"Red Robin" Killer all but snares, suddenly far more violent than usual. Dan takes one look at the EverBurning before he, too, is standing at the ready for a fight- it makes his outfit look really out of place, but Danny can't say much when he's still in his own sweats.

Maybe he should have changed too?

"Should we kill him?" Dan asks, and Red Robin stops, seemingly shocked that the fashion designer would ever suggest that.

"Woah woah woah," Danny says, stepping between the two groups. He has his hands up attempting to appease the ghosts first- for all Dan looked and had been human, he spent far more years as a full-time ghost so he was more ghost than human.

Killer claws have sharpened, and he just knows it's going to be a pain and a half to get them to stop. Thinking quickly, Danny crouched down to place a kiss on the frozen- no pun intended- human on the cheek. "There is no need for a fight. I asked him out on a date and sort of forgot what time he was picking me up."

Killer stared at him like he had grown a second head, but Dan dropped his raised fists. "Oh yeah? Have fun on your date brat."

"Thanks, Dan."

He hurled Red Robin to his feet and practically pushed him out into the street before the other could get his wits about him. Once they were safely out of Dan's hearing range, Danny crossed his arms, raising an unimpressed brow to the dressed-up stranger.

"Alright, who are you supposed to be, and why did you break through my window?"

"I-"

"Danny!" Dan shouts from the broken window. He waves around a duffle bag that he quickly throws at the confused teenager. "You can go on a date dress like that! I have a reputation as a fashion designer to keep. Put that on!"

Danny rolls his eyes, turning back to the other teenager- is he a teenager? Danny can't really tell with the mask but he sort of looks like it. "Do you mind waiting for me to get ready? I'll pay for pizza."

"W-wait what-no I'm here to rescue-are you serious about the date?"

"Yeah, why not? I dated a dead biker before and his crazy girlfriend. Sides, you're pretty cute."

"Are you aware that Killer Croc is in your house?"

"Killer? Yeah, my brother is trying to seduce him."

"......why?" Red Robin whispered in horror, "Why would he do that?"

"Why does Dan do anything?" Danny grins with a shrug. "I get it, though; Killer is a good-looking EverBurning."

"EverBurning?"

"A tribe in the Infinite Realms."

There is a spark of recognition in Red Robin's body language. Now, why does this stranger know about Danny's kingdom?

Red Robin's mouth opens and closes before slowly reaching up and pressing his ear. Danny realizes only after a moment that he's using a communicator as the other says, "I'm going offline for a bit. Got a date with someone from Constitine's Infinite Realms."

Hmmm, does that sound like a problem Danny should be dealking with? Nah, as long as Red Robin's not connected to Batman, he should be fine.

(Meanwhile, Dan is pouting as Waylon slips out the back door once again regretting his offer of going on their own date. Just his luck Clockwork's little twin idea is going to make dating a nightmare. There went the best tail he's ever seen)

Master Post Link

#dcxdpdabbles #dc x dp crossover #Fashion for Passion #Part 4 #Onesided Dan/Waylon #Dead tired #Danny is sort of rolling with things #Waylon came to say sorry and left confused out of his mind. #He likely thinks he was drugged #The bats are in fact screaming to NOT GO ON THAT DATE TIM OMF

[kedreeva]

Thoughts on good omens 2 wings? They seem to have updated their models n thought you’d like to see

I don't think they updated the models, they're still using weird pseudo-primaries instead of proper secondaries, and they still have huge gaps between the feathers which would make it so they'd never be able to fly with them.

THIS:

should never happen

Look at a swan's wing when partially extended the same way:

Primaries are only shaped so sharp and thin because they are stiff as fuck and anchored into bone so when the bird moves the tips of its wing bones, the primaries can help steer. Secondaries have MUCH softer, more bendy shafts, and they overlap one another heavily so that the wing becomes like an airplane wing- solid shape for wind to flow over and provide lift.

Do you know how many feathers you have to clip to ground a swan? Five. Five feathers on one wing and the swan cannot fly off.

Every-other primary, which leaves a bit of a gap between the feathers so it's no longer a solid line.

It's a problem on Aziraphale's wings, too. Not to mention whatever the hell is going on with Aziraphale's underwing coverts pointing the wrong direction:

Also they still have weird motion problems, where the wings a) often act like they don't have bones, b) the feathers bend like they have no stiffness to them at all and c) they don't fold properly at all. Any bird's folded wing, even removed from the bird, resembles a pointy oval with a bit of a concave innard. I don't have a screencap of how their wings fold up in space (they do I just don't have a pic) but it's pretty terrible. Points in their favor for the primaries folding under the secondaries, but not much else.

Anyway they're pretty but still being designed by people who don't really deal with birds, or else who are stuck with design programs that don't know how to deal with birds. They're beautiful angel wings but not great bird wings. Which I suppose is fine, since they're angels, not birds.

#good omens #go2 #wings #feathers #asks

[puddleorganism]

Pondering a new rancher au (yes the giant fucking bird is Jimmy) - rambling/explanation under the cut

[Image IDs:

ID 1: a digital drawing of Jimmy/SolidarityGaming and TangoTek, in which Jimmy is a massive approximately 20 foot/6 meter tall bird-like creature. He’s standing idly (to show off his design) with a nervous smile on his face. He has a long neck and long legs that make him look like a dinosaur, but he is covered in light golden-brown feathers and has wings. His wings are huge, the primaries/tips sticking out behind his back. They’re modeled after a turkey vulture’s wings. He’s got a grey hooked beak that is mostly covered in feathers. He’s also got long tail feathers that look just short of skimming the ground. His legs are dark grey with huge talons. All over his legs, wing tips, and tail feathers is a dark grey ash. Tango’s sitting cross-legged on his back/shoulders, hunched over and looking at one of those map books you usually have in your car. (Note: the next image is of Tango, so to avoid redundancy I’m going to describe his appearance better there.) /End ID 1

ID 2: a digital drawing of TangoTek, a humanoid with fire for hair and a long, thin tail tipped in fire; like how a lion’s is tipped with fur. He’s standing idly (again, to show off his design) with his hands in his pockets. He’s got light tan skin with freckles on his nose and wrist. He’s got what look to be black scales on his ears - which are long and pointed - cheeks and nose that have glowing orange cracks in them like burning wood. He’s wearing a red handkerchief over his nose and mouth and has red-tinted goggled pushed up on his forehead. He’s wearing an off-white sweater, a worn leather jacket with red accents, grey cargo pants and black boots. He also has a pale gold and brown messenger bag slung over his left (the viewer’s right) shoulder and back behind his arm. He’s also got two scuffed, worn pins on his jacket; a small, round yellow one and a tiny polyamory flag. He’s also covered in ash - even more so than Jimmy - to the point where his boots, sweater, and handkerchief are stained with it, and are almost more grey than their original colors.

ID 3: simple digital sketches of the above characters. From left to right they are: Jimmy laying down with his head bowed, and Tango standing on his tiptoes to lean against Jimmy’s head. Both their eyes are closed and their foreheads are pressed together. The next is of Tango with his goggles on and looking confused at the map book, which is folded in half in his hands. Jimmy is leaning over his shoulder to look at the map as well. Two question marks float by Tango’s head. The last is of Jimmy standing upright, one of his talons held up near his chest. In his talons he’s holding Tango who seems surprised and is kind of doing that thing that cats do when you pick them up under the arms. This sketch is captioned with the word “hold”. There’s also a small bit of wing from a drawing that’s been cropped out in the corner. /End ID 3

/End IDs]

Ok rambling time!

So it’s set in a that was similar to the modern day, but after in a post-apocalyptic world (recent enough that they both would’ve known the world before). Not a zombie apocalypse or anything, though. There may be Foes but probably not.

I’m not exactly sure what the apocalypse that happened actually is yet, but it’s left the world an ash-covered wasteland with few ruins and even fewer survivors (survivors being organisms in general, not just humans). I want the landscape to be kind of surreal and bizarre, but I haven’t decided if that’s because of the apocalypse or not. Maybe it was just Like That lol.

Anyway, one thing you may want to know more about, is why the hell is Jimmy a giant bird? And the answer is: I like giant birds. In all seriousness though, he’s cursed! Don’t know why. He was a normal ass dude. Now he’s a bird.

Tango might also be cursed? Depends on how edgy I end up wanting this to be lol. He might be an undead wraith or something who knows.

#art #solidaritygaming #jimmy solidarity #jimmy solidarity fanart #tangotek #tangotek fanart #team rancher #rancher duo #team rancher fanart #fanart #honestly I’m SUPER proud of these?? #especially because I vividly remember struggling to draw birds for the longest time #and I can just? do that now? that’s wild to me. I guess that’s practice for ya #ALSO HUMANS #I fucking hate drawing humans #even simple little chibis like in the third drawing are annoying to draw for me #but tango turned out SO GOOD??? HOW #and more than that I ENJOYED drawing him??????? #if you know me at all that should be absolutely astounding #I have hated drawing humans literally forever #like genuinely my entire life #but fanart forces you to draw things your don’t normally sometimes #and sometimes. you draw a human and you like it :)

[topaz-witch-tea]

okok listen

baiheng shows yanqing how to braid and with his newly acquired skill he braids EVERYTHING. jys hair, yingxings hair, dan fengs hair, even mimis mane. and they all dont have the heart to take them out but they know they have to.

also i know that in the future he wants to learn diffrent braiding styles and he's determind to master them all. also he has his styling models w/ him (jy, yinxing, dan feng)

(sorry for any mistakes, eng isnt my first language)

Ahhhhh! This is adorable!!! Thank you so much for sending me an ask. Please feel free to send more.

There were no mistakes, don't worry! English actually isn't my first language either, it's my primary language now but I learned it later than most kids around me.

Yanqing sees Baiheng braid hers and Jingliu's hair and thinks it looks so cool. Since he has long hair, she asks her to braid his so he can look like his aunties. Baiheng teaches him with ribbons first and then he starts with his aunts hair. He starts doing it to Dan Feng's hair since he has long, straight hair and can sit on the ground for long periods of time. He then moves on to Jing Yuan's hair when he takes a nap, always making sure to not braid in the little finches. The lasts person he practiced on is Yingxing since he spends most of his time either in the forge at work or his own personal forge at home. Mimi's hair is the hardest since they're short and wispy and his little fingers are not as nimble. He does manage to do little braids all over its mane thought.

None of them take them out. Partially because they don't have the heart to and because Yanqing likes to see how his work withstands day to day life. Dan Feng keeps his hair braided when he goes to meeting with the Preceptors, earning himself glares and rumors over his doting/spoiling behavior. Baiheng absolutely adores it and buys him ribbons and hair ties and try out. Jing Yuan keeps it since he thinks it's cute (the man keeps birds in his hair, no one will care about the braids). Jingliu will actually request a tight, single braid so that she can train in it. Yingxing's students will actually tease him about the little braids at the end of his hair since Yanqing is so short and cannot reach higher when Yingxing is working in his office.

Once he masters the standard braid, he starts moving on to different styles. He seeings the noble girls and their attendants have different types of braid styles and accessories in their hair and thinks they're really cool. For Yanqing, he sees braids in the same way he sees swords. He admires the intricacy and skill it takes to do certain styles, and in the same sense of possessing swords, he seeks to possess the skill of braiding. Tingyun is really supportive of this, showing him pictures of different cultures from other planets and how they braid their hair and style them.

*******

Baiheng had her hair in a thick long braid today, tied at the end with a bright, red ribbon. Her fellow companions were sporting similar hairstyles. Yingxing’s white hair was tied in a messy fishtail braid similar to Jing Yuan’s, whose layered hair caused little bits to poke out everywhere. JIngliu’s hair was in tiny braids scattered with small, thin rubber bands holding them together. Dan Feng, who in all his refined manner as High Elder, had his hair in twin tail braids with a teal ribbon braided through them. If anyone had seen the High Cloud Quintet in this state, the gossip rags would have a frield day.

The perpetrator of this fashion trend had turned his sights on a new victim- Mimi, the white lion of the Seat of Divine Foresight. Yanqing sat on the ground, his face in tense concentration, as he braided little parts of Mimi’s mane and secured them with little flower clips. Mimi proved to be an excellent client as she sat quite still. Satisfied with his handiwork, Yanqing stood up and yelled, "TADA!!! Now we all match!" Mimi, the once ferocious beast who fought off assassins, had little braids poking out all arounds its head and adorned brightly-colored flower clips.

"Mrrow" Mimi called out.

Yanqing turned around, his eyes beaming. "Do you like it Mimi? I'll do a new style tomorrow. Maybe with ribbons this time!"

Yanqing turned arounds. "I'll do ribbons in everyone's hairs tomorrow!"

It seems the gossip rags will be getting a story after all. Most of them had meetings tomorrow and ribbons weren't exactly professional wear, but what were they going to do? Take out Yanqing's handwork? That's ridiculous.

I hope you like this one!

#yanqing #jing yuan #jingrenheng #dan feng #yingxing #yanqing’s happy family au #honkai star rail #hsr #jingliu #baiheng #mimi #Yanqing's happy family AU Ask

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

HGN-732bM "Old Bird's Nest"

BattleMech Technical Readout

Name/Model: Highlander "Old Bird's Nest" HGN-733bM Technology: Inner Sphere (Mixed) Technology Rating: F Tonnage: 90 Role: Sniper Configuration: Biped BattleMech Era/Year: Dark Age / 3150 Rules (Current): Experimental (Extinct) Rules (Era): Experimental Rules (Year): Experimental (Extinct) Total Cost: 16,131,760 C-Bills Battle Value: 2,735

Chassis: Krupp 255 Endo Steel Power Plant: Shelby/Ford 270 Walking Speed: 32.4 kph Maximum Speed: 54 kph Jump Jets: Pratt and Whitney 440s Jump Capacity: 90 meters Armor: Valiant Lamellor with CASE II Armament: 1 Holly "Ballista-20" LRM 20 w/ Artemis V FCS (C) 1 Krupp Sturmfeuer Light Gauss Rifle 1 ExoStar Pinnacle ER Medium Laser (C) 1 Harmon Starclass-ER ER Medium Laser (C) 1 Hegemony R&D Dept. Weapons Division ER Medium Laser (C) 1 Holly SideWinder SRM 6 w/ Artemis V FCS (C) 1 Clan Wolf Watch RISC Advanced Point Defense System Manufacturer: Skobel Mech Works Primary Factory: Yakima Proving Ground Maintenance Facility Communications: Studebaker-T19 with Neutron Star CEWS (counts as Nova CEWS) Targeting & Tracking: DeadEye Superlock 18K with Advanced Targeting Computer (C)

================================================================================================ Overview: Manufactured specifically for Star Captain/Colonel Melissa Hazen at the direct order of ilClan Ward, the HGN-732bM "Melissa" was designed to be as much a prototype of the HGN-732Ib "ilClan Highlander" as it was a command 'Mech for the newly resurrected Royal Black Watch. Stuffed to the gills with advanced systems for defense, mobility, and communication, as well as a impressive arsenal nearly equal to that of the original HGN-732b, the one-off prototype 'Mech has already come be known as the "Old Bird's Nest", an affectionate nickname referring to Star Captain/Colonel Hazen's advanced chronological age, and how much time she spends in the Mechbay, personally tinkering with and adjusting the 'Mech to her liking, sometimes even with the help of her personal Mech technicians.

Capabilities: Starting out life as the prototype of the HGN-732Ib, the "Old Bird's Nest" would soon see an almost continuous amount of tinkering and changing by technicians from both the ilClan and the reborn SLDF. Eventually, when Star Captain Hazen was frocked to the rank of SLDF Colonel to (eventually) lead the reborn Royal Black Watch, the 'Mech received a massive overhaul to become perhaps the most well-equipped Command Mech in the Inner Sphere. The upgrades started with a massively expanded and improved communications and sensor array with satellite uplink capacity. To this, the first unit of the experimental Neutron Star CEWS (based on Nova CEWS designs smuggled from the Clan Homeworlds) was linked, along with the DeadEye Superlock 18K Clan-spec Targeting Computer from the exact Hunchback IIC that Hazen used in her Trial of Position in the 3020s - this computer was not upgraded to modern specs by order of Hazen herself, save to add the advanced Variable Range Targeting program in trials for the HGN-732Ib. The weapons loadout is largely a replication of the old HGN-732b Highlander, though upgraded with modern technology. Mounting a Light Gauss Rifle in place of the standard Gauss of the HGN-732 was a decision by Hazen to gain more range at the expense of sheer damage output. The LRM-20 and SRM-6 remain, though upgraded with Artemis-V FCS. In a curious move that shows Hazen's admitted loveof the past, only one of the ER Large Lasers is a modern-manufactured Clan design - the others being one of the ER Large Lasers mounted on General Aleksandr Kerensky's Atlas II, and another the sole remaining weapon recovered from the irradiated wreck of Colonel Hanni Schmidt's Black Watch Highlander. A highly experimental RISC Advanced Point Defense System provides protection for the 'Mech and its starmates. The use of a Combat Computer helps the 'Mech's 20 Clan double heat sinks keep cool. Using a prototype Clan-spec Endo-Steel chassis, the "Old Bird's Nest" is covered in 17.5 tons of Valiant Lamellor standard armor, incorporating panels taken from the wreck of General Kerensky's personal Orion. A trio of Clan-spec Pratt & Whitney Jump Jets enable the 'Mech to execute Hazen's trademark extremely accurate "Highlander Burial", and prototype RISC Super Cooled Myomer technology helps the 'Mech keep cool even during movement, while Clantech CASE II protects the Mech from ammunition detonations.

Deployment: As the personal 'Mech of Star Captain Hazen, and soon to be the Command 'Mech for the Royal Black Watch, the "Old Bird's Nest" resides solely at the rebuilt Fort Cameron, just outside Unity City, Washington, Cascadian Administrative District, American Administrative Zone.

Variants: None.

Notable MechWarriors: Melissa "Mysty"/"The Old Bird" Hazen: One of the oldest and oddest MechWarriors in human history, Melissa Hazen was decanted, along with her 15 sibmates in 2990. As a Trueborn product of the Clan Coyote/Genecaste "Totem Warrior" program, she was part of an effort to create human-animal hybrid warriors - both to improve upon Clan phenotypes, and to embody the spirits of the totem animals of their respective Clans. After a successful career in an enormously popular holodrama, and after attaining three kills in her highly belated Trial of Position, Hazen, along with the others in the "Totem Sixteen" were sent on a scouting mission to the Inner Sphere. Joining up with the now-famous mercenary outfit, Fursona's Fusiliers, Hazen served with the unit for decades from the year 3025 onwards. Briefly taking extended leave to assist her Clan during Operation REVIVAL, Hazen returned to the Fusiliers to fight against the Word of Blake Jihad, and then as a mercenary for the Republic of the Sphere. During and after the ilClan Trial, Hazen and the others of the Sixteen fought on the side of Republic, but were spared by order of the new ilKhan. Biologically only in her late twenties thanks to the efforts of Project Totem Warrior, as well as later medical aid by the Terran Belters (on whose work the original project was based), Hazen has over over one hundred and fifty years of combat experience against virtually every foe in the Inner Sphere and Clan Homeworlds. This experience will soon be brought to the core of the revived Star League Defense Force, under which Hazen is slated to run the new incarnation of the Gunslinger program, as well as command the resurrected Royal Black Watch Regiment.

================================================================================================

Equipment Mass

Internal Structure: Endo Steel (C) 4.50 Engine: 270 Fusion 14.50 Walking MP: 3 Running MP: 5 Jumping MP: 3 Heat Sinks (Double): 10 20 0.00 Gyro: Compact 4.50 Cockpit: Standard 3.00 Armor Factor: 279 17.50 Type: Standard Internal Armor Structure Value Head: 3 9 Center Torso: 29 42 Center Torso (rear): 16 R/L Torso: 19 28 R/L Torso (rear): 10 R/L Arm: 15 30 R/L Leg: 19 38

================================================================================================

Weapons and Ammo Location Critical Tonnage

Jump Jet CT 1 2.00 CASE II (C) RT 1 0.50 Communications Equipment (2 tons) (C) RT 2 2.00 3 ER Medium Lasers (C) RT 3 3.00 Jump Jet RT 1 2.00 Light Gauss Rifle (Ammo 16) RT 1 1.00 Targeting Computer (C) RT 3 3.00 CASE II (C) LT 1 0.50 Jump Jet LT 1 2.00 LRM 20 w/ Artemis V FCS (C) LT 4 5.00 LRM 20 (Ammo 12) Artemis V LT 2 2.00 SRM 6 (Ammo 15) Artemis V LT 1 1.00 Light Gauss Rifle RA 5 12.00 RISC Advanced Point Defense System (Ammo 12) RA 1 1.00 Nova CEWS (C) LA 1 1.50 RISC Advanced Point Defense System LA 2 3.00 SRM 6 w/ Artemis V FCS (C) LA 1 1.50

================================================================================================

Alpha Strike Statistics

Point Value (PV): 63 TP: BM, SZ: 4, TMM: 1, MV: 6"j Damage: (S) 5 / (M) 5 / (L) 3, OV: 1 Armor (A): 9, Structure (S): 7 Specials: CASEII, ECM, IF1, MHQ3, NOVA, PRB, RAMS, RCN

Quirks: The HGN-732bM "Old Bird's Nest" variant is subject to the following Design Quirks:

Battle Computer

Combat Computer

Cowl

Cramped Cockpit

Difficult Ejection

Difficult to Maintain

Improved Communications

Improved Sensors

Multi-Trac

Non-Standard Parts

Reinforced Legs

Variable Range Targeting

#battletech #mechwarrior #muse lore #battlemech #no this is in no way balanced #it should probably have the Illegal Design Quirk #just from the Quirks list alone

[the-phoenix-heart]

Sorting Hat Chats - A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Heeeey I'm back again. Hunger Games is one of my recent hyperfixations, so I'm doing a sorting of the latest book/film. I'll only be sorting Coriolanus Snow and Lucy-Gray Baird in this post. And Dr. Gaul oops.

An explanation of the system I am using can be found here. (Credit: @wisteria-lodge )

SPOILERS FOR A BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES BOOK AND FILM

LUCY-GRAY BAIRD is a thriving, healthy Snake secondary through and through. She loves performing, she loves playing coy, and she clearly relishes in getting one up on her enemies. This is a woman who turn her death sentence into a concert. Her plan to defeat Reaper, someone larger and deadlier than her, is to piss him off and give him the run around until he dies of exhaustion (or drinks from a poisoned puddle). To get one up on Mayfair when her name is called Lucy-Gray puts a snake in her dress to freak her out and subsequently humiliate her on live TV. No punches held back.

She's described by her actress as "a performer in a hunt," and she is. She always gives off the impression that she is always acting and always authentic in every moment. Snow certainly can never tell if she's lying or not and for all his faults he is smart.

CORIOLANUS SNOW meanwhile is a Bird secondary (I know, oh the irony) and the two secondaries slot in well together. In ABOSAS we see how he is always calculating in every interaction how he can leverage this for the most gain. He wears a carefully manufactured mask playing up whatever trait he has to to get what he wants from the person he is talking to. That's the Actor Bird in him, he can't just become someone like Lucy-Gray can. Which is why Snow works so well as a mentor for her. He can make all the plans he wants and give her every advantage to win, and she can immediately go along with it without skipping a beat.

We also see his Bird secondary on full display when he starts to come into power. He immediately starts making plans for the 11th Hunger Games when he comes back to the Capitol. His signature method for killing people is poison, and in sixty years that never changes. It's a risky plan that always works so why would he change it? And of course we know after he becomes president just how much effort he puts into controlling Katniss with more and more plans.

As for their primaries, well, that's why they constantly misunderstand each other. Coriolanus and Lucy-Gray look at each other and they both see a Snake primary, but those aren't their true sortings. Lucy-Gray is wearing a Snake primary model, and Coriolanus is wearing a Snake primary performance, not even a model.

Lucy-Gray loves the Covey, but at the end of the day when Mayor Lipp wants her dead Lucy-Gray doesn't need to think twice about running away. She knows they can take care of themselves, and she values her own freedom above anything else. It's apparent also in how she treats Billy-Taupe. She loved him once, but the moment he cheated on her she immediately cut him out of her life and doesn't seem to regret that decision. "Without trust you might as well be dead to me."

Lucy-Gray is a Lion primary, and like her secondary it's healthy. Her mantra is "Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping." She's another example of the Jack Sparrow style of Lion primary, the Fae lion. Freedom is good and control is bad. It's also why when she leaves Snow she makes it a whole production where she sings him "The Hanging Tree" and runs around him as a way to fuck with him. She knows that Corio isn't the man she thought he was and she wants to show him she knows.

Lucy-Gray is the Yin to Katniss's Yang. Katniss is a famous Snake Lion, and Lucy-Gray is the inverse of that, a Lion Snake. That quote about Lucy-Gray being a performer in a hunt is followed by Katniss being "a hunter in a performance." The revolution in a small way begins with Lucy-Gray and is ended by Katniss. Lucy-Gray loves freedom before all else, and that means she is never going to fight the Capitol like Katniss would, "it's too early for [K]atniss," she says. But Katniss is that Snake primary who loves so deeply and devastatingly that of COURSE she would end up fighting the Capitol.

But I think Lucy-Gray likes Snake primaries. I think she likes how much the value freedom, but also the way they value their people. That's what she sees when she sees Snow, a man who will do anything to protect the people he loves over himself. But that's just a performance Snow puts on, because he knows that looks much more nobler than what he actually is.

Snow actually primary matches Lucy-Gray. When we see him he's a young lion. The impression I get from Snow is entitlement. He thinks because of the way he was born that he just inherently deserves to have what is owed to him. But after it's found out that he cheated to help Lucy-Gray win, he is stripped of what little he had and sent to be a peacekeeper. He doesn't know what he wants anymore, because he can't have what he truly wants, so he convinces himself what he wants is Lucy-Gray. Except, the moment he realizes he can absolutely still get that power he turns on her immediately.

His goals never change, in the end Snow does indeed land on top, as he achieves those goals. He becomes president, and then it becomes all about maintaining power and control. And that's the real crux of his Lion primary. Like Lucy-Gray he is a Fae Lion, but on the opposite end of the spectrum. Power and control are good, and he should have that over everyone else in the world. I also see his primary in his method of choice for killing people. He willingly poisons himself so no one catches on, that is some lion devotion to his cause of control.

But, despite him trying to appear completely composed at all times, you can see that very emotional Lion primary underneath it all. I mean, he's clearly obsessed with screwing over Katniss's life in particular because he sees both Lucy-Gray and Sejanus in her. Meanwhile everything he does that fucks with Peeta is to fuck with her, despite the fact that he was also part of that suicide threat. He doesn't like that emotional Lion I think. What he wants is to maintain control over everything, and the appear as though he has this carefully constructed worldview/ideology. He has these intelligent/convincing arguments on the power of hope and the purpose of the games. It can look very Bird to people, and I think it is. DR. GAUL is absolutely a Double Bird Mad Scientist, and I think Snow adopted a Bird primary model based off of hers.

So...

Lucy-Gray Baird - Lion primary, Snake model/Snake secondary

Coriolanus Snow - Lion primary, Bird model and Snake performance/Bird secondary

Dr. Gaul - Bird primary/Bird secondary

#lucy-gray and snow to me are so effective as a couple because they are doomed #they thought they loved each other because they saw themselves in the other #but at the end of the day corio only values control and lucy-gray values freedom above all else #sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #lion snake #lion bird #the hunger games #a ballad of songbirds and snakes #abosas #thg

[venomquill]

So, after reading @pixlokita's brilliant comic series (which has nothing to do with this above image) and finding they'd played with a winged AU, I had to as well. I just, I had to. It was required. Having written and then trashed a story about winged people (technically bird mutants???) and one with a human with wings, I'd already developed a lot of lore about winged humans. I won't upload my sketch at gunpoint, but I used their character sheet as a reference. I hate drawing humans. Kill meeee this took days. And I forgot the tail! Just look at the pretty wings and oooh cool mask! Ignore the awfully drawn child! Anyhow~

Crying Child (AKA, youngest Afton child, known in the fandom as Evan) Would be European Robin-winged. (Like this or this) Robins are aggressive, and CC is anything but aggressive. However, genetically speaking, he would take after his father, William Afton, who is robin-winged. He's currently flightless, even though he should be learning how to fly at this age. However, his lack of confidence and the bullying from his older brother has made it very hard. He fears failing now more an ever as he's scared it would just give his brother more ammunition against him. Also, in the back of his shirt, you can see those little strips? Those are straps built into the shirt that can be buckled/unlatched and buckled/latched at will. It's the only way someone with wings would be able to put on a shirt. He still needs help from someone to latch it on for him. His mom used to do it, and then William. Then when he forgot, he and Elizabeth would help each other. With Elizabeth gone, he just tries his best. He's learned how to move them around and just press his back against the wall to get them mostly on right. Michael will sometimes tug on his shirt. But Mike's done that to other kids at school, for reasons I'll list below.

Elizabeth Afton (AKA, middle Afton child, Dad's favorite) Would be European Robin-winged, as said above. She would still be learning how to fly by the time she gets turned into ice cream by Baby. I imagine she's William's favorite by the way he literally gave her an animatronic and modeled one after her. (It ended up killing her, but that's another matter) She inherits her father's more aggressive nature and bullies her older brother. Being Dad's favorite, she can get whatever she wants. Michael being an angsty teen and her being a sweet angel, she can blame whatever she wants on him and he can't do anything about it. So he has to do what she wants or else. So Michael takes it out on...

Michael Afton (AKA, oldest Afton child, Mike Schmidt) Would be a cassowary-winged! It took me a second to come up with this one, but it made sense to me. Cassowaries are incredibly aggressive, flightless, and seriously dangerous birds. They're also terrific fathers and the mothers don't stick around. So Mikey takes after his mom and gets to be a cassowary-winged. Mom's gone (Whether she left or gets killed or both is up to the imagination), his wings are so small he can hide them under his shirt by hardly even trying, and on top of it all his little brother will learn how to fly at half his height and his sister rubs it in his face. His wings are dangerous as he has a dewclaw and the quills on what would have been the primary flight feathers are sturdy and sharp. He doesn't need long slits in his shirts and has actually torn the shoulder holes with his dewclaws/quills before. So, as a teen, he's spiteful and lashes out. He has a huge fluffy tail that gets in the way all the time. But when he grows up a little, he grows into that more "protect the children" aspect of a cassowary's nature. I did sketch him out fully, but I spent literal days on CC. Instead, I drew his mask with the intention of a pre-withered Foxy look and referencing FNaF 1's crooked-jawed Foxy. I also found through Nightmare Foxy that he does indeed have a pale muzzle. (Withered, Nightmare, Foxy bro)

#fnaf #fnaf fanart #crying child #winged kid #foxy bro #VenomQuill

[bestworstcase]

Hmm Yang - Cinder parallels

Prosthetics - easy

Adoption/Step mothers - quality of such isn't because Glass Unicorn is uniquely bad in a way that has no comparison with Yang

Mother figure who is terrible at vocalizing care. Raven popping up as a bird in Yellow Trailer and volume 3 instead of taking Luke a normal person, Salem being very very bad at talking. This gets even more pronounced if that theory of Raven and Qrow (from STRQYR I think) being used as an additional lock on the Vault at Beacon is correct and Raven sending Yang to ask Qrow about what Ozpin did to them was intended to get that information from Qrow. As opposed to just catching the two not mentioning the bird thing.

Summer Rose modeling (probably). Yang in being stunningly similar in mannerisms of the little we've seen of Summer. Cinder in presumably being taught further by Summer how to fight.

Fire connotations... Possibly extending to Fenghuang (Chinese Phoenix, and the female counterpart to the masculine Chinese dragon) and Cinder's Phoenix imagery though I think there's actually very little similarity between European phoenixes and Fenghuang. This I think actually just happens to reflect the next point very well

Ozpin's mistakes and collateral damage. Cinder is explicitly failed by Ozpin's order, slavery and a huntsman turning a blind eye. Yang is a more personal variation of Ozpin's personal attention on Team STRQ. Raven is looking more and more like whatever had her leave was rooted in her disagreeing with Ozpin. She and Taiyang separating/not being partners was possibly to probably always on the table but her having no interaction with Yang instead of co-parenting or non primary caregiver? The disagreement over Ozpin with Qrow being Ozpin's man, Summer being a trusted agent until she suddenly stopped, and Taiyang (??? If he's done or doing anything for Oz but the fact the team being torn apart was specifically done by Raven is a bit telling to my mind given the cultist vibe with Ozpin. Has Raven made mistakes - yes. Drawing a line with Oz I suspect won't be one of them). If Ozpin made her and Qrow keys to the Vault without telling her and she only found out after she had Yang who would thus have hostage situation written on her forehead if it ever came out? Cause. If Raven was giving a Gretchen Spring Maiden sanctuary and lying that she had no clue where Gretchen was when everyone knows she had a bond to the girl (see speculation about Gretchen being the person the other side of the portal) - that could really tear a team apart. Summer joining Salem tips the collateral from the War in abstract to specifically Oz. Qrow wasn't around as much as he was needed because working for Oz as a spy. Taiyang... I have opinions about Taiyang but he's divisive so skipping over the past to volume 4. Port and Oobleck ask if he'll go after Ruby. IE - things aren't so bad that he can't. He says he's looking after "Things" as to why he hasn't. Yang takes things to mean her. If Things were actually the Vault... Taiyang is forced to let his barely recovered to "stable-ish" with a new prosthetic arm eldest daughter go after RWBY to guard the Vault. To do so even when the world congregates in Vacuo for a fight, even after his daughters presumably died in that fight. This gets WORSE if Qrow and Raven are additional keys to the Vault because he's superfluous in a way he isn't if Cinder having the Maiden powers means the only defenses left are him and secrecy. Which he wouldn't know because Oz is synonymous with self decorating secrecy. Yang is left taking care of Ruby in the ashes of team STRQ which are directly traceable to Oz.

Mistral heritage but not majority raised within

And that's all I got. Is there anything you'd like to add or disagree with?

yang's and cinder's recoveries in V4 are inverses of each other: watts and tyrian needle cinder mercilessly but salem tells them to cut it out while praising cinder to high heavens / port and oobleck give yang the patience and compassion she needs to feel comfortable expressing her feelings in spite of tai's very harsh "tough love" approach. there is also overt mirroring between cinder+salem vs yang+tai on at least two occasions off the top of my head:

<- these are non-arbitrary, with the first reflection being tai finally giving yang information about raven (which she's desperately wanted and been denied for years) vs cinder desperately wanting salem to do something that will fix the Ruby Problem and salem er, not doing that; and the second occurs after both tai and salem talk about yang's and cinder's failings before offering a hand, with the reversal being that tai faults yang and salem faults herself.

which suggests an interesting contrast between taiyang and salem in that he says he needs to take care of some stuff (implicitly, yang) and that's why he hasn't gone after ruby (implicitly, yet) but then after "some stuff" leaves he just… continues to stay home, versus salem talking a big game about leaving cinder to "toil in her isolation" for all of five minutes before dropping everything to rush to atlas with an army of grimm after finding out where cinder will be and that ozpin is back. what it means depends a bit on why tai is still hanging around patch but it's. something i ponder now and then. words vs deeds.

here's the og branwen keys theory, for posterity. i stand by it, although i think if ozpin did this he probably did not let the twins in on that detail and raven maybe figured it out herself—which would widen the fissure between her and ozpin in a big way and also makes sense as something she wouldn't dare tell anyone, because if salem finds out it paints a target on both her back and qrow's (and qrow is frankly not great at keeping secrets from family, even sober).

(regarding fenghuang, this is silly and not really textually relevant i just cannot let it pass without noting the minor detail that, bc raven has custody, tdt/burnt roses!yang's full name is yangwu branwen. for bird mcbird reasons.)

there is i think also something to the comparison between cinder's life in the glass unicorn and yang's childhood in that—while cinder's situation was certainly far more extreme—on the one hand, we have a young girl enslaved and forced to wait on her abusers hand and foot while the closets thing she has to a real parent trains her to fight in secret but otherwise doesn't lift a finger to help her, and on the other we have a young girl essentially co-parenting her younger sister while her mother watches over her as a bird which probably did keep yang safer than she would have been otherwise (<- i do not for a second believe raven wasn't in the regular habit of killing grimm who got too close to the cabin while tai was away) but is also equally if not more inadequate than how rhodes handled cinder.

if i'm right that summer is the stepmother in the cinderella narrative then yang's contextual role as one of the stepsisters is also complicated in an interesting way by summer being her stepmother too (esp. in conjunction with tai's favoritism of ruby and parentification of yang) and the multiple layers of twistiness rwby brings to the "evil stepmother" trope. though it remains to be seen exactly how that will shake out. (& as always i'm obsessed with the likelihood that summer has known cinder longer than she knew either of her actual daughters.)

i do question what tai is still doing in patch and if he actually has some sort of job that he's doing as opposed to perhaps being—similar to raven—soured on ozpin altogether and determined to stay out of it. it's definitely made clear that raven leaving and then losing summer too broke something in him and, while he was evidently involved with ozpin's circle before summer disappeared, no one connected to ozpin or salem has mentioned him in the present aside from the dig raven makes about him trusting ozpin Before. i wouldn't be… surprised if he's just been carrying on teaching at signal and refusing to get sucked back in to the vortex.

(<- & if that's the case his extreme passivity would also be in juxtaposition with salem)

this is all sort of scattershot but there's a lot of emotional and thematic confluences to chew on. i also think it's interesting that salem's quasi-familial relationship with cinder frequently is mirrored by or juxtaposed with father-daughter relationships (tai and yang, pietro and penny, ironwood as a surrogate fatherly figure to winter) given salem's own parental situation (mother dead in childbirth + abusive father who, reading between the lines of the fairytale, treated her like a replacement for her mother when he wasn't locking her away to punish her for 'killing' her mother) and consistent prioritization of cinder over her own plans. to the point that i sort of wonder if a conscious desire to not be her father plays into salem's decision-making wrt cinder in V8 at all

#much to think about. messily

[wisteria-lodge]

burnt lion primary (bird model) + bird secondary

Hi! I love your Tumblr and your posts about shc but for some reason, I still can't figure out what my sorting is (probably because of how much I'm overthinking it...) so hearing what you have to say would mean a lot and really help me out.

First, I'll start with primaries. For Badger Primary I do somewhat care for others but I feel like it always has something to do with the rules I made for myself from my experiences. For example, I had some kind of rule in my head which was like "You have to befriend new kids at school because you always used to think that people should come up to others who are alone because you didn't have any friends before."

"Make rules in my head, and then act accordingly" usually means Bird...

I also used to think I was a Snake Primary because of how much I think I'd be loyal to my people but now I think I might be one of the Idealist houses because I've found it pretty easy for me to let go of the friends I had in school because of how I was treated by them but also because of not agreeing with them on particular things that are part of my morality and ideals.

Yeah, I'm thinking Idealist too.

I think I could be a Lion Primary because of how stubborn I can be

Stubbornness can honestly come from a lot of places, both primary and secondary. More data is needed.

with the ideals I have especially with the rules I made for myself when I was younger. However, I'm also leaning towards Bird Primary because of the rules I made for myself to go on with life and also because of how much I research things then doubt it then check again then feel bad about going on with life without making sure if it was right or not. I do become guilty when I'm not 100% sure if something I'm doing is wrong or right morally if I read it was not okay somewhere.

Okay, your system building is sounding a little frantic here. Research → Double Check → (feel bad if you don't) Triple Check → try to get unanimous consensus. We're either looking at a slightly exploded Chidi-style Bird primary, or something else. Possibly a Bird primary model.

But actually, I feel like in the end if I don't go with how I feel about something I'd be pretty upset

Like, you think you hypothetically would be pretty upset, or you ARE pretty upset if you don't go with gut feeling?

(except for now cause I keep doubting how I feel about things but I also don't know if how I feel is reliable enough if that makes sense.)

It's actually very possibly you're a kinda Burnt Lion primary. Burnt Lions often look like really stressed out Birds.

As a kid, doing things I didn't feel I wanted to do enraged me so much more than bothering somebody. For instance, once someone got me to wake my mom up for something which wasn't a big deal. But I felt like I shouldn't so I didn't want to do it and when I did I felt worse that I was right and I still let them make me do it - rather than being upset about getting my mom mad from waking her up from her sleep.

I think you're e a Lion primary. This example - of being pissed at listening to other people instead of yourself when you knew you were right, and then being angry at yourself afterwards, instead of at the people who gave you the bad data, or sad about hurting someone you loved... that feels VERY relatable, and VERY Lion.

Ok, I think that's all I have for Primaries so now I'll start with the secondaries. I honestly think I might be a burnt secondary because I just can't figure out for the life of me which one of these I value and comes naturally.

Like I think I might not be a Badger secondary because I think I care about the end result more than the work. If I worked hard on something and didn't achieve the result I'd feel pretty bummed out but I also do see why it's necessary to work hard so you can achieve your goals I'd just rather not work too hard because I'm worried if I do then I fail that'll mean I wasted my life for nothing.

You have a perfectionist streak. It's showing up in the way you write about your primaries too, and I don't have to tell you that perfection is not an attainable goal. You've got a "If I do not try then I cannot fail" thing going on, and *yeah* that's evidence of a Burnt secondary. The Badger secondary wisdom is that it's not a binary - some work is better than no work at all, and it all adds up.

(I do agree that you're probably not a Badger secondary though.)

Now for Bird secondary, I think I might have it as a secondary because I tend to plan every scenario in my head that could happen when I'm anxious/scared of doing something or when I know I have to think it through etc.

This could be Bird secondary. It could also be a Bird secondary model used as a coping mechanism (very common) or just like... catastrophizing.

I'm also not sure if this is a Bird secondary thing or something else but I remember a time when I did tell myself to make sure of one thing I should do when I was about to confront someone about not sending her part in the group project which was that I just had to make sure I don't sound rude just in case I'd have to complain to my teacher about it and show her the messages that were sent

That slightly calculated move... probably isn't Lion, but could be any of the others

but I improvised the rest when I realized she'd lied to me about working on it and I got mad (so I don't know if that's improvisation or prep work secondary).

You could be an improvisational, in-the-moment secondary. Getting mad that someone lied to you is just a human thing though.

For Snake secondary, I hate being vulnerable in front of others including my loved ones. I tend to get scared of letting people know every side of me, especially a side of me that would make me feel less safe.

Huh. There's a part of you that feels unsafe? That's not Snake specifically. I'm not sure what that is. I'll put a pin in that, hopefully it makes more sense later.

I also do like the idea of finding creative solutions to things for example when I was a kid I used to find it dumb when like someone tells someone the truth about something when it's obviously going to get them or others hurt. I also did create a mask when I was younger that I still kind of use when I go to school which is the nice and shy student because it has helped me out a lot and I honestly haven't been able to get out of it because of how long I've been in the school I'm in

Hmm. This sounds like either a Snake secondary, or a fluid Actor Bird. And I'm... sort of leaning more Actor Bird. Nice!Shy!You is your constructed mask, your tool for specific situations (not something you tend to fall into around a specific person.)

but I'm also thinking about moving out because my school has lowered my confidence in using my social skills because of how I present myself there so I think it'd be better to go someplace else as a more confident person or something like that, I don't really know.

That kind of conscious social calibration is very much a Bird secondary thing. The idea that you think 'go someplace else, construct a more confident persona' would even work says Bird to me.

Also when I was younger some teacher did end up telling people that I was a "bad kid" at home because my mom probably told her how much louder I am at home which made me terrified so that might also be a snake thing I'm not really sure. I just have a problem with letting people know more about me cause I feel they could use it to their advantage at any moment.

It sure seems like you've got a lot of anxiety. Not to armchair diagnose. Just... I hope you have someone you can talk too. No one's out to get you. The scary (but also wonderful) truth is that no one cares what you're doing that much. It's hard being vulnerable, but it's worth it.

Enough about that, now for Lion secondary I think I might be one because I have sometimes wished that I'd do what I felt was right rather than what was best for the external situation

I think you're a Lion *primary.*

but I also do tend to get upset at others when they do that because then it creates disagreements and arguments that I don't want to be involved in. I don't know if I'm okay with being "misrepresented" or not because I still don't really know who I am but I definitely wouldn't like people to say that I'm something that's against my principles. However, I do have trouble with deciding if I should sacrifice my outward integrity or not (which I read was a Lion primary thing) because I do value sticking to your outward integrity and not caring what other people will think about it. Thank you so much for reading this and sorry if nothing I wrote helped because I feel like I rambled about everything that's been stuck in my head here.

There's a lot of fear in this ask. A lot of it is directed inward - you must do all the research (you can never do all the research.) You must be perfect (you can never be perfect.) You can't be vulnerable (if you are you'll frighten people.) It seems like a stressful way to live, and no wonder you don't trust your Lion primary. You don't trust yourself.

If there's any burning in this ask, it's coming from your primary, not your secondary. You've got a pretty robust Actor Bird secondary - which is a little constricting maybe, but you've got it under control. Get better at trusting yourself, little baby steps, and I think that will make it much easier to trust other people. All this is so heartbreakingly relatable, and there is nothing I see in you that is frightening or broken.

#submission #wisteria sorts #sortme #lion bird #burnt lion primary #bird primary model #actor bird #bird secondary #shc #sortinghatchats

[liltalle]

Sorting Hat Chats - Nimona

@sevilemar got me to watch the wonderful new movie Nimona. I'm very excited about it, and I thought I'd try my hand at sorting the main characters, since I haven't seen that done yet. Here are the basic of the system I'm using.

Spoilers below the cut:

This is a very Snake Primary movie overall, so I'm going to start with our most obvious Snake Primaries and work from there.

The titular Nimona is a Snake primary. In her flashback, we see her seeking connection with all the different animals, but it only works when she finds Gloreth. And then Gloreth is her PERSON, they're in love, it's adorable, and then, the most heartbreaking thing that's ever happened to her, Gloreth betrays her. And thus her Snake primary burns. She doesn't connect with anyone else (we might assume) for the next thousand years, and tho she's self-confident and self-sufficient, she admits that the hatred from others makes it hard for her to value herself. Then she hears about Ballister, and she gets very excited, because here's, finally, a potential kindred spirit. She takes Ballister to be the classic burnt Snake/Bird villain archetype, wanting to take revenge on the world that rejected him, and is disappointed when that's not quite him (I'll elaborate when I get to sorting Ballister). Nimona herself is angry with the Kingdom and its rejection of her, but she seems to keep her anger to graffiti and fantasies of revolution, but Ballister, if her new person wants to overthrow the government, she's all on board and will help him however she can. Even when he's not what she expected and doesn't fully accept her yet, sticking with him and helping him is so much better than being alone, and she'll stand by him until he completely rejects and fears her.

Nimona's obstacle to the acceptance she craves is wrapped up in her secondary: She's a Lion. I read once that a shapeshifter Lion secondary would have a distinguishing trait that would be constant through all their forms, and that's obviously Nimona. Her animal forms are consistent over a thousand years, her impression of Ballister has a red streak in his hair and acts like her, and when she properly acts (a bit of a Bird model), as the Demon Baby and Ambrosius, she loses patience and lets herself through pretty quickly, terrifying the Squire and making Ambrosius' death a bit over the top. And her consistent difference from everyone around her is her struggle, she can look similar to all the animals but not so similar that they accept her. Gloreth, miraculously, accepts her human form and her shapeshifting abilities as well... until she doesn't. So she's careful, opening up to Ballister again. She's Nimona, she's defiantly herself, and not defined by any group, but she's reluctant to explain. She does enjoy lying to Ballister, but only as a momentary joke. (And maybe jabbing at his gullibility is related to her burnt tendency to trust people at face value?) She gradually reveals herself, until she's unmasked as Gloreth's monster, and Ballister leaves her.

And now she's broken, she burns entirely, I think, primary and secondary. She takes a form without any of her usual red, and she's not playing a role, she's become the monster they all think she is. And she loses her weakened sense of self-preservation entirely. She is only drawn to the statue of the woman she loved and who betrayed her.

Until Ballister stops her. "I'm sorry. I see you, Nimona. And you're not alone." Ballister knows all her secrets and still sees her true self, her Person finally accepts all of her authenticity... and she returns to herself and falls into his arms.

In light of all this, I was at first confused by her final sacrifice, but then I noticed, first she looks at the screaming crowds, and looks upset, but only after she looks back at Ballister, and sees his horror, does her face turn to resolve. She's always empathized with the people of the Kingdom, especially children (as they feel like her, similarity is a good way for Snakes to connect), but I don't think she's ever really taken them as her problem. But when Ballister fully accepts her, she fully accepts him, which includes, as Snakes tend to, adopting his values. She takes his duty to defend the people as her own. He's a hero, and she's his sidekick.

(Damn, I want to cry again.)

Ambrosius Goldenloin's Snake primary is very clear from his imagined monologue to the Director, so I'll quote it at length here: "I've lost my mind. I've lost everything. The man I love, my best friend." He just says his everything is his Person. Followed by a note of jealousy: "Although now he's got a new best friend. What's that about?" His distrust of Ballister, here and elsewhere, is distinctly framed as "What else is he hiding? Who is the real him?" because if he never knew Ballister, then their connection wasn't real, and his loyalty to him isn't owed. But he isn't sure he's wrong about Bal, and so he keeps trying to make sense of his confusion, and find out if he should still be loyal to him. And he's built Ballister into his sense of self so much that he then asks: "Who am I? A direct descendant of Gloreth? I never asked for that." This man's not a Lion primary, he doesn't find his destiny or heritage meaningful in defining himself. And finally: "Now everyone expects me to arrest Ballister. And if I don't, I'm a traitor to you. And if I do, I'm a traitor to him!" He frames his choice as a binary one between two personal loyalties: to the Director, and to Ballister. They are his People, deciding between them is the only thing that matters. Gloreth, the Institute, the ideals he was taught, they don't even register for him. And Ambrosius deciding which of the two to trust is much of his arc.

His secondary is less explicit, but I think the clearest moment of him problem-solving is trying to catch Ballister on the subway. Todd, a stereotypical Lion secondary, sees an obvious clue and immediately wants to move. But Ambrosius waits, and watches. And his first clue is "He hates freestyle jazz." His skill in this investigation, as he argued before, is that he knows Ballister the best, so he'll have the best chance of catching him. He's invested in Ballister, so he has power around him. And once Ambrosius has thoroughly watched the full clip (and asked a tech where the train is going), only then does he decide where to go. The thoroughness and humility here, coupled with his intro scene giving Ballister such care and support, make me think Ambrosius is a Badger secondary. A Lover archetype for our hero/villain's boyfriend, but a variation who's very conflicted with a whole lot of agency. I love it. (And his sorting matches mine.)

Ballister Boldheart/Blackheart is a wonderful Bird primary, with an arc of transforming his belief system over the course of the movie, who models Snake for the two important Snake primaries in his life.

He starts out with a dream, "I'm here to slay monsters and protect our kingdom." But it's never about his specialness, I think he just absorbed the cultural narrative, and so just did what seemed like the obvious right thing. (Flashbacks to my Bird primary model) By the time he graduates the Institute, they've "brainwashed [him] good", as Nimona says. The Institutional Badgery values of protecting the Kingdom from monsters has become entirely his. And the public's doubt in him gets to him, he has trouble not absorbing their input.

And when it all falls apart, he's immediately concerned with the Truth. He's innocent, this isn't right, he just needs to give the right people the right information and it'll all be fine. He's not the burnt Snake primary villain Nimona expects, his values are still pretty intact despite everyone turning on him. It takes time for them to break down. The plot challenges him one piece at a time. When he sees the video, he edits his system enough to say that "the Institute's not the problem, the Director is." He gradually accepts more and more of Nimona. When Ambrosius rejects him, he decides it's ok to embrace the villain role a bit and have fun.

He definitively turns on Nimona not because of his loyalty to her or to Ambrosius, but because of a piece of paper (so Bird pri) and a deep part of his system: "Gloreth's monster is the embodiment of evil and what the Kingdom needs protection from." Only when he sees Nimona again, understands her, and lets go of this belief can he fully accept her. His early system, "I'm here to slay monsters and protect our kingdom" is half transformed. He's no longer here to slay monsters, he's still here to protect the Kingdom - but by accepting the Monster.

I think he's also a Bird secondary. He builds his own arm in a derelict tower. He makes an innocence wall to connect the dots. He likes making plans and he's initially uncomfortable with Nimona's improvisation when things inevitably go south. There's a particular way he's supposed to do this, honestly, quietly, carefully. But then, when Ambrosius rejects him, he takes up a bit of an Actor mask of the villain role, and he and Nimona start to sync and have fun together. He trusts his training and he's better at swordplay than any of the other knights, because, as Ambrosius said, he worked harder than any of them. And he learns to plan with Nimona, using her shapeshifting as a tool to get the confession from the Director. And him leaving his sword behind, "I don't fight for her anymore", the tools he uses are an important part of his identity.

The Director is definitely an Idealist. Her values are Badgery, about protecting the community from the outgroup, but her final decision to turn the cannon on the city shows that this ideal is inflexible when it comes to protecting actual people. Since we don't see her change, it's hard to tell which Idealist primary she is, but I think she's a Lion. She tells Ambrosius!Nimona that she had a dream as a child, and simply states that Ballister's knighthood would be the first crack in the wall. She has a monologue, but it's not an explanation. And when everyone around her turns on her, she doesn't update, she doesn't change like Ballister does, her convictions are internal and she carries them to the terrible end. And I think she's a Bird secondary. Lasers are her distinctive tools, to kill the Queen, to knock down Ambrosius, and to (try to) kill Nimona. She plots and lies, easily but carefully, on her own, no improvisation and no support from others. Her monologue is just her dropping her mask and speaking her Liony conviction.

Todd (Thoddeus) Sureblade strikes me as a pretty stereotypical Double Lion. He's impulsive, ready to rush off to catch Ballister at the first clue of where he went. He's a Glory Hound, competing with Ambrosius to lead the knights. And he never questions that he's in the right and better than those around him, until the very end. We only see his sad expression, but reading into that, I think the way the final battle ended shook him, and he's done some emotional soul-searching.

And while my sortings for the antagonist characters are more tentative, I enjoy the concept that this story, that's so much about inverting classical tropes, would invert the character archetypes such that Snake and Bird primaries are the heroes and Lion primaries (with Badgery and Glory Hound values) are the villains.

(These are the 5 characters I think we know enough about to sort decently. The Queen, the Squire, and Gloreth don't get much screen time.)

To sum up:

Nimona - Snake/Lion (Bird sec model)

Ambrosius - Snake/Badger

Ballister - Double Bird (Snake pri model)

The Director - Lion/Bird

Todd (Thoddeus) Sureblade - Double Lion

(If anyone else has sorted these characters, or has disagreements, I'd love to hear about it. I'm trying to get better at this.)

#nimona #sortinghatchats #ballister boldheart #ballister blackheart #ambrosius goldenloin #nimona film #shc #snake primary

[reading-sometimes]

Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks SHC Sorting

This is part 2 of a 4-part series. An explanation of the SHC system by @wisteria-lodge is here.

Sunset: Badger Lion

This movie is about Sunset learning how to unburn her Badger primary. It's pretty hard for her, since she feels like she's not part of any group in the first place. Almost everyone in the school hates her because she bullied them for years. She's not a part of the band, while every other member of her friend group is. Everyone in her friend group keeps bringing up how she turned into a demon, describing her demon form as horrifyingly awful. When the new students hate her, she assumes that it was because of something that she did, which would be pretty painful to a Badger primary like Sunset.

She uses her Badger primary pretty well, though. She volunteers to show new students around the school, so that they can know the new her before they heard stories about how she was before she was redeemed. She kept a book that let her contact Princess Celestia, because deep down, she knew that running away from her was a mistake. Eventually, she joins the band. She unburns her Badger primary as the school forgives her, and she feels more like part of a group.

It almost seems like Sunset has a Bird primary model, since she talks about how she's changed completely as a person. It's caused by her dropping her Glory Hound Lion primary model, though. Sunset's Lion secondary primarily appears in her temper and impulsivity, just like how it did in the first movie.

Twilight: Double Bird

When Twilight can't figure out how to defeat the villains, she immediately assumes that it's all her fault. Everyone expects Twilight to fix everything, so the pressure feels suffocating.

Sunset and Twilight have a nice conversation about how everyone expects them to be something that they're not (Twilight, because everyone sees her as someone who can do everything perfectly, and Sunset, who everyone sees as still being a delinquent). They both don't want to let anyone down. Twilight wants to live up to everyone's perceptions of her, but she's trying to be something that doesn't exist. It's caused by her perfectionism, but also because everyone assumes that she's a Badger primary, even though she's not. Her Badger primary model starts to explode here, and it gets worse throughout the series.

She ties her self-worth to bringing value to her friends, and when she can't do that, she falls apart. “But why wasn't it working? I should know what to do. How could I not know what to do? How could I have failed like this?”

Sunset helps Twilight by saying that no one can do anything alone, and that she needs to rely on her friends. Because this is a Badger primary show, Twilight's Badger primary model is treated as a good thing, even when it causes problems.

#eqg #equestria girls #sunset shimmer #twilight sparkle #shc #sortinghatchats

[k-she-rambles]

since I'm on a temeraire kick...sortinghatchats thoughts!

Laurence: Gryffindor/Hufflepuff with an incredibly strong Bird Primary model. Behaves like a Burned Lion --possibly a deeply underdeveloped one?

Temeraire: Slytherin/Ravenclaw (with a Lion Primary model?)

Granby: Slytherin/Hufflepuff

Tharkay: Ravenclaw/Slytherin, mirroring Temeraire. (not totally certain about his primary)

Jane Roland: Double Snake (aviators tend towards snake it seems

Bonus Rankin my Beloathed: double badger

Laurence analysis under the cut:

• first instinct for Lawrence was Ravenclaw/Gryffindor. I thought 'that man will be himself if it kills him' (ran away twice to join the navy), a sure sign of a Lion Secondary, and he relies heavily on Structures of right and wrong, a Bird Primary trait.

But then I thought about it. Bird Primaries are relatively okay with what they believe in being disproved. They don't like it, but if they find they have to modify or replace some of the moral or philosophical structures they rely on, they're going to be glad to have learned better much sooner than another Primary would.

Lion Primaries though...they carry their beliefs deep in their hearts, and attacks on those beliefs feel, to them, like attacks on their hearts. When Laurence discovers that something he believes is morally wrong, the most positive reaction he ever has is grief. To truly excise something rotten that Laurence believes, you have to cut him open.

As for the good, he feels incredibly guilty for abandoning his Bird structures, but not as guilty as he does when he realizes he's not doing what he knows in his heart to be right.

With his secondary, it's not so much that Laurence will be himself if it kills him, but that he believes in Showing Up no matter what. He's going to be there doing something, no matter where "there" is--he holds himself and those around him to that standard. That's Badger Sec! As a result, Badger Secondaries tend to attract people resources --both allies and enemies. Badgers do this mostly without noticing. If that's not Laurence...

#temeraire #sortinghatchats #meta

[runwayrunway]

No. 36 - Riyadh Air

No, they are not changing their name to Saudi Arabian Airways, but there is a new development on the Saudi Arabian flag carrier front.

That's right, Saudia is dead, sayonara you w-

No. That isn't true, that was a joke. But what isn't a joke is that Riyadh Air is a planned second flag carrier for Saudi Arabia.

That's mostly a joke. Other countries have multiple flag carriers, though that comes with a couple caveats. Usually when this happens one is full-service and international while the other is domestic and/or low cost. The UAE has two flag carriers, but one is Dubai's and the other is Abu Dhabi's, which feels like an important distinction.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, just has decided they want to operate a second airline instead of doing the normal thing and putting all their resources into one really good airline. I don't understand it. The plan is to keep Saudia based in Jeddah while Riyadh Air is based in Riyadh...again, plenty of airlines have multiple hubs, so I don't see the point. They claim to be the first "digital-native airline", which is shaped like words yet means nothing (also, take that up with David Neeleman and Breeze). They've nabbed Etihad's old CEO and bought a bunch of 787s, and the stated goal is to become the largest carrier in the Gulf region at an unprecedented blistering pace in order to increase tourism. Given Emirates's numbers...well, it's probably still more likely to happen than a startup airline operating exclusively A380s managing to turn a profit, but that's not saying much.

Anyway, they've got a livery! Apparently this is the first of two, so expect a follow-up post when the second one drops, but for now there's plenty to talk about as is.

Unlike many - nay, most - of the subjects I cover, Riyadh Air has made me do absolutely zero research. You do get modern liveries like jetBlue and Lufthansa with little style guides to weakly attempt to back up their relatively mundane graphic design choices and things like condor and Icelandair's lovely little webpages, but Riyadh Air has done them all at least one if not several better by not only explaining in detail where they got their inspiration but also giving me a high-res 3D model of their airplane that I can rotate and zoom in and out on.

Take care; my computer is fairly underpowered and I do have an absurd number of tabs open most of the time, but this did crash my browser multiple times. Even just opening the main page of their website makes my CPU sound like it's spooling up for takeoff.

Okay. First I want to discuss the logo. They've got a video up on their thought process. I had transcribed it, but it looks better in motion, and thankfully they've stopped making it autoplay (presumably because, as I mentioned, this website absolutely guzzles processor as is) and in the process made it possible for me to simply left-click it off their website and into this post. Don't worry about it killing your browser. It's a normal video in a normal tumblr post without a 100 million dollar website chugging along in the background.

(I've taken some screenshots in case anyone does have trouble with the video.)

Now this is how you design a logo. The airplane window thing feels, in retrospect, so obvious I can't believe nobody had done it yet. I think it pairs gorgeously with the R, and I love that they chose to take inspiration from Arabic calligraphy, which is not only a massive point of pride for cultures which utilize the script but also just generally gorgeous. (It looks a bit like a stretched backwards hamza to me.) The shape of the bird's wing is the part I have the most trouble actually connecting to what I'm seeing, but sure, I'll give it to them. What the heck. This logo is nice.

I mentioned when discussing China Airlines that very few airlines use lavender as a primary color. Well, here's one that does! They actually discuss this on their website as well:

Inspired by the lavender blossoms that carpet Saudi Arabia, we've chosen this color because it symbolizes Saudi generosity and its authentic hospitality.

And this is, again, pretty fantastic. This is a thoughtful choice which isn't lazy or arbitrary. It has the potential to really pack a visual punch, and it does the thing I love when flag carriers do - references a feature of its home nation.

An upside to the fact that the livery page takes eons for my computer to chew on is that I get shown this lovely loading screen, which demonstrates the fantastic combination of blues and purples which make up the full scheme of this airline's colors. I love the combination of these colors. Light saturated colors are rare enough, but to see extremely dark blues and purples together like this is a rare delight. It definitely has the potential to get eyestrainy, but if done well it could look absolutely breathtaking.

But will it be done well? After all, a good idea isn't always well-implemented - see condor - and China Airlines's livery fails for me because it's barely got any lavender! So does Riyadh Air fall into the same pit? Let's check the browser-destroying 3D model they've lovingly provided us.

I love that 3D model, by the way. Instead of looking for a bunch of pictures of airplanes that happen to be in the correct lighting and at the right angle to demonstrate the exact thing I'm attempting to discuss I can just...zoom in while putting the plane at the specific angle I want. Normally I actually try not to rely too heavily on things like style guides because a piece of flat-colored concept art isn't actually going to communicate how a plane looks in motion and with light on it, but this is a really really robust model. Sure, it's not quite as maneuverable as I'd like it to be, it's still not a perfect representation of real life, but it's really well made. It even sways side to side a bit and if you zoom in close enough you can see they bothered to model the external sensors and the engines are even turning! Don't worry about the fact that if you zoom in even further you can tell the engines are just a fan suspended floating in a cowling. They even added ambient engine sounds. This model is so cool it legitimately took me several minutes of turning it around and muttering "wow..." under my breath before I realized the environment it was sitting in was just some very stretched and crunchy jpgs.

Mmm, those reflections.

To be honest, I also just enjoyed playing with this thing. It's almost like having a real model plane, but doesn't cost more money than I have! But enough of that.

So they definitely didn't chicken out when it came to the lavender. This plane is as purple as a Breeze Airways plane is blue (it is very purple). It's not just a purple tube, though. Even from a distance you can see that there's added detail here.

I love the wordmark, first off. They've really committed to the billboard look with this gigantic text in both English and Arabic. I love it. With such an overwhelming main body color it feels prudent to make sure the name is as visible as possible so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

And with this gigantic, recognizable logo plastered on the bottom you'd be able to identify it just as well from below (and this is zoomed out as far as the website let me!). In fact, the depth of the design really shines best from below. That's not necessarily a good thing, because your plane does have to be parked sometimes, but it's not a dealbreaker either. I just need to say that this is probably my favorite design for an engine nacelle, ever. It's gorgeous, and you can see in the first picture how well it flows into the main design. They don't go together quite as well from the bottom, and from below the plane does look a bit rear-heavy and the wordmark peering in is a bit awkward, but none of those ruin it. I would be stunned if I saw this fly overhead.

The website provides a few details about the design if you zoom in and click little black dots. It took me ages to realize this. It's neither intuitive nor accessible and I truly despise it, so I've taken the liberty of transcribing the bits that matter.

You can turn this plane in any which way you'd like, zoom in and out, and the details on the bottom never stop being beautiful and coherent. It truly does remind me of calligraphy. As they describe it:

Rooted in our Heritage The controlled, smooth linear profiles make up our signature "Canopy Twist". A perfect balance of our rich local culture and our modern global outlook, connecting the city of Riyadh to the world.

I love the name 'Canopy Twist', to be honest. And I love the design, too. My one criticism of it is the colors. They already have an established secondary shade of purple. That they used the text color for the highlights makes sense, but why couldn't they have used their lavender instead of a third shade of purple? In the quantity used for the underside it feels disconnected from the rest of the livery and they could have fixed that very easily by just...using their already existing secondary shade of purple? I think it would make for a very nice bridge to the tail as well, and it just feels like a colossal missed opportunity.

You may have noticed that the bulk of the fuselage body is a color a bit darker than what might conventionally be considered 'lavender'. This, too, is noted.

Indigo Livery Inspired by the ever-changing colors that paint the sky from dusk till dawn. A symbol of tranquility, harmony and integrity.

(This color is obviously purple, not indigo, but I will not belabor that point.)

I love the description, the idea of the transition between dusk and dawn. Much like the window as a basis for a logo, this makes me go "why in the world has nobody thought of that before? That's brilliant!"

It makes me think a bit more could have been done in the details. Maybe the canopy twist could be a gradient, like the gradient of the sky while the sun is rising? Just a thought.

And ultimately it's the canopy twist that is my only real sticking point with this livery. It is beautiful and unique and well-designed and it is simply a color that sticks out like a sore thumb. It's the only warm thing creeping into a design otherwise full of beautiful cool tones, it has gorgeous flow within itself but breaks up the feeling of consistency through the airframe as a whole, and I just...I really wish it were lavender.

If that's my main issue you can do a lot worse. And overall I do like the Riyadh Air livery. If that one detail was changed, this would easily be an A. This review would be all but uncritical. Except for the fact that it could use a bit of canopy twist up top, too (maybe just a tiny bit on the top of the nose, flowing in the same direction) in order to make the plane feel less rear-heavy (though it already beats out the vast majority of liveries in that sense), the issue with the color is my only big criticism. But it's the main detail of the design, isn't it?

It's wild. So much of the time my reviews are "good details, bad when you step back". But this is the opposite. Fantastic, but there's that one detail that sticks with you. And the details by and large are far from bad too. I mentioned the nacelles, and I think it very elegantly transitions the tail into the body. It would be more elegant if the design on the body was the same lavender, though!

A few more nitpicks: the centering of the logo on the tailfin is a little strange, the tail would look better if it had a bit of a gradient to make it less matte-seeming, and the combined effect of those is very luxury-hotel-towel-monogram. Okay. I'm done complaining.

So it falls short of being one of the best I've ever reviewed, but I still really, really like it. The calligraphy inspiration creates these elegant sweeping lines that are perfectly at home on the 787. The deep purple looks luxurious despite the fact that Riyadh Air doesn't plan to offer first class. It's eyecatching. It's stylish.

And, now that I've covered all this, let's look at the colors in person! That's right, they've already had a plane delivered in full Riyadh Air colors.

The deep purple with the lighter canopy twist, combined with the tiny white dots of the various probes and such, make this plane look like an animal camouflaging itself against the night sky in a place untouched by light pollution. The light lavender contrasts sharply in this particular image, sharply enough that it feels like a slice cut out of the plane.

This continues to be an issue from other angles and in other lightings, but the cool-toned light makes this purple look like true indigo and the blueish cast improves the look, giving an almost fluorescent appearance to the transition between the twist and the tail. The way the light reflects off the dark paint makes it look rippling and shifting and alive in a way it never could off white.

In shadow, the plane looks as dark as a city sky. In light, the vibrant purple of a fresh eggplant. This paint job adapts wonderfully to its environment. Much like Vietnam Airlines's, each light brings out a unique beauty.

And sometimes, the tail, detached though it may look, does so in the way a shining arm of a spiral galaxy neatly transitions into the black expanse around it.

Riyadh Air's planes range from ultraviolet to supervoid, but they are never lost in their environment. The principles behind the design remain consistent, and beautiful, and alone in a sky full of planes which refuse to embrace the dark skies they fly in on red-eye journeys.

Ultimately, I think Riyadh Air's livery feels a bit overdesigned. They added one color too many, and a few decisions feel like they don't belong together in the same picture. Just think about the amount of colors here, the balance of major features, and think about Vietnam Airlines, and you'll see what I mean. I'm not a fan of minimalism, but sometimes the only way to keep a story straight is to minimize loose ends. A secret becomes exponentially more likely to be exposed with each new person who learns it.

But before I looked closer, before I zoomed in and out on a little 3D model while my computer screamed, I saw this livery for the first time and my jaw hit the floor. And the average person isn't going to think about this the way I do. Ultimately, my critical eye is usually something I defer to, but I can't argue with the fact that this livery is going to be to someone else what China Airlines is to me. And, like China Airlines, when they come back and look closer at it they'll notice it wasn't as perfect as they thought, but...we've come so far, if this is someone's China Airlines. And as much as I nitpick at details the package counts, too. If you asked me why China Airlines got a C- instead of a D+, my honest reason would be...it struck me enough that I singled it out to begin with, even though that started to fall apart when I looked closer.

Why am I giving Riyadh Air an A- instead of a B+? Because this plane will stun people 5,000 feet below it, and they'll think to themselves that it's the prettiest plane they've ever seen.

#tarmac fashion week #era: 2020s #grade: a- #region: middle east and north africa #region: saudi arabia #riyadh air #flag carriers #at least ostensibly flag carriers.