#I'm not even surprised anymore

[confessxcheese4tcc]

this has been one hell of a year one shooting after another bc there was literally almost one today but she got caught

CONFESSION #348

[veinsfullofstars]

(privated all my old gomens art due to recent unpleasant revelations)

[overqchiever]

izzy antis are always gonna nitpick everything izzy does because they need to be on a moral high ground so they can keep justifying their behavior towards izzy stans during the hiatus

[jahiaang]

noah schnapp stop spoiling season 5 challenge: failed successfully

you can find the whole interview here

[ghostieking]

internet going crazy about another white boy doing bad shit... what's new

[philemonsdarling]

why can't people just be honest about their intentions? i hate being lied to so much

[boombambaby]

"Uh, yeah. Duh! Everybody likes me." He defends, scoffing. "Why wouldn't Bucky Boy?" It's obvious she doesn't have an argument against his quip, and Kuzco grins-- only a little bit smug. She isn't boring! She just needs to be more open minded. As she's told him before; they can work on that. "What? Ask you to pay for it, ah hah-- don't be ridiculous!" He was going to give her the family and friends discount! "I can hear the excitement in your voice. Don't worry; this is going to be GREAT."

Kuzco attempts to follow the rest of what she says, but to be entirely honest; he zoned out right after the 'You are worth more than my life savings' part. "Ha! I knew you thought I was worth that much! See? Just like I said, that whole 'non date, you trying to make me insanely jealous' thing could have all been avoided if you were just honest about your feelings about me Malina!" He beams, batting his eyelashes at her. "You're VERY welcome. And I don't call you crazy! . . . all the time."

What?! Absolutely not! If anything, she should spend MORE time with him! "Yes! What are you trying to say Malina, that I begged him to know where you were taking him?" Kuzco teases. She's right; it's one of their many inside jokes and something they still laugh about, to this day.

SHE STARTED IT THIS TIME!!!

Despite how adorable she is when she blushes, Kuzco can't help but laugh at her response. "Oh, don't they? You just admitted it!" He points out, snickering. "Ooh, or the time you actually fell out of your chair when that JERK who shall not be named, winked at you! But the flower thing, yikes." He's just teasing her! Don't kill him!

Ha! HAH. Nope, no need to do that-- he doesn't want her to know how easy it would be to steal her old boyfr-- uh, he means. He's not interested. No thank you. "Oh, is that so? Well; this 'boyfriend' of yours is a VERY lucky man." He smiles at her, pleased at his ability to make her giggle like that, and decides to play along. "That definitely doesn't sound like a bad thing to me."

Kuzco gasps, snatching up the magical bag of clothing offered to him with a grin and clutching it against his sweaty chest. "One, I have no idea what you're talking about and two-- I was perfectly JUSTIFIED in my paranoia not that I was paranoid, pff since everyone including Ramon made it there to ask you before I got there!" She's the best thing that ever happened to him, seriously. "Be right back!"

With that, he's darting off to clean himself up the best he can and change into the far more comfortable and less sweaty peasant-y clothes he's become so fond of. Kuzco doesn't remember leaving these at Malina's hut, but he's glad all the same to have such a smart hottie who thinks so far ahead as his girlfriend. Once he's finished, he calls over one of the Royal Guard members standing watch at the carnival entrance and hands him his robes-- confident that they'll make it back to the palace to be laundered, and makes his way back over to Malina. "Well, how do I look? Less sweat-y, incredibly handsome and Kuzcarnival ready, right?"

Maybe it was her fault too, she should have taught him how to ride a llama properly. Oh well.

"Hah, what? he likes you enough to let himself being seen by you?" She folds her arms across her chest, listening to his next words which make her open her mouth to start an argument but no logical response comes to her mind, probably he's right. Maybe she's just being boring. "Ok, I'll give you the benefit of doubt." She then pouts. "Wow, so am I scheduling comedy lessons with you now? yay, I can't wait... you better not ask me to pay for them."

Yeah he respects them a TON that he wants to date every single one. "Ok, for one! You are more worth than just my life savings but there was no way I was going to tell you that! second, I'm not Empress yet! so I need my money. 3! No other girl was about to fight me to bid for you so I figured I wasn't going to need that much money anyways." Malina gives him an unamused look as she hears him sniffling, there he goes... acting like a total drama queen. "Hm, fair point. Good! and I thank you for respecting ME, at times... when you don't call me crazy."

She swoons internally at his chuckle, how couldn't she notice before how cute he is when he's happy like this? shame. It's his fault tho, one part of her thinks she needs to stop spending too much time with him. "Ow and casually he mentioned the name of the restaurant too, right? so you could move your royal butt over there too?!" She snickers, this is one of his many teases that she finds fun.

NOT HIM EXPOSING HER AGAIN!

"KUZCO! I-STOP! no one needs to know that I swoon at crushed flowers OR cling to people's legs! what kind of crazy woman does that?! not me, for sure!" She laughs nervously and blushes in embarrassment.

--------------------------------------------

And he judges her for swooning over Ramon while he says his face is handsome? at this point maybe she'll organize a date for the three of them. Anyway, Malina nods at his question and giggles sweetly. "Your majesty, I don't know if you know this but, I have a boyfriend now, and I want to go out with him only. Is it bad?" Upon their arrival to the carnival, Malina eyes him and releases his arm as she watches him all sweaty. "I guess, but then again, we wouldn't have suffered from the heat if only a certain someone wasn't that paranoid about other people inviting me here before him.~" She teases but takes out a plastic bag out of nowhere which contains Kuzco's peasant clothes that might be more comfortable than his Emperor tunic with all that heavy gold in his body.

"Lucky for you, I came prepared! so be nice and change clothes. It wouldn't be pretty if my favorite Emperor stays sweaty all day." She says with a playful smile and holds the bag in front of him so he could take it and go change to some bathroom in there.

[honey-bird10]

Been reading the novel of tscir and I'm starting to think yoojin could call hyunjae a "motherfucker" and he'd just reply "yes mommy"

[taradactyls]

"Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; ... For Marianne, however, in spite of his incivility in surviving her loss, he always retained that decided regard which interested him in every thing that befell her, and made her his secret standard of perfection in woman; and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him in after-days as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon."

I'm normally too focused on 'well, well, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions' to really think about how this sort of thing would affect Marianne, but I mean, it's quite creepy, right??

Imagine you're living your life, happy with your husband, healed and flourishing, and every now and then you find out your HORRID ex is insulting other young women (and they must be young, if they're a 'rising beauty') by invoking your name. Like leave her alone, Willoughby!! You hurt her enough. She was 17 (to your 25) when she was in love with you, she's grown up, seen you for who you really are, and moved on. There's something incredibly selfish about even after treating Marianne so horribly, he refuses to stop associating her name with his own. I wonder how many people would know of Marianne PURELY because Willoughby casually mentions (many times) a young lady has no resemblance to her.

No one wants their worst ex to keep haunting the edges of their life.

[royalarchivist]

I've been reminiscing about Squidcraft a bit lately, so I posted this clip of Phil talking about why he didn't join the Squidcraft 2 event on Twitter (I posted the longer version of this clip a while ago, which you can see here). TLDR: Phil wasn't invited and didn't want to ask for an invite because he felt awkward, didn't want to intrude, and also felt like his Spanish wasn't good enough.

Fast-forward a few hours and many Spanish Crows crying in the quote retweets later, and someone just gave me a heads-up about this:

Komanche is one of the organizers / creators of the Squidcraft event. I don't know if Phil would accept an invitation, but the possibility of him being invited period wasn't even a possibility in my mind, so this was a surprise! :'D

[plutonian-juvonian-effect]

me when the addiction is actually addictive:

[mah-o-daryaa]

For a show that's progressive, one-of-a-kind, ground-breaking for its time, and relies on "Show, don't Tell" a lot throughout the series, it bugs me how ATLA (or, more specifically, Bryke) preferred to tell the audience that Aang is a master airbender without showing us why. I mean, Toph, Zuko, Azula, and Katara are all shown practicing and improving their mastery in bending (although Katara has become rather overpowered), so why can't Aang have the same treatment?

Yes, Aang may be a child prodigy, and he did get airbending tattoos from inventing the air scooter, but I personally think that inventing an airbending technique (which demonstrates impressive ability and skill) is a way to gain the arrows prematurely, but isn't a requirement. Nothing in the show ever suggests just how far he's mastered his native element, let alone the other three. In the beginning of Sozin's Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King (3:18), Aang says he thinks he still needs to practice his firebending more (which in hindsight makes sense, as he's just started relearning it from the dragons five episodes ago), and Toph notes that his earthbending could use more work too. Right off the bat, Aang is two elements away from complete mastery of all four, but later on he's seen practicing waterbending with Katara, implying he hasn't mastered it either.

We don't even see Aang practicing his airbending by himself post-iceberg, preferring to show off to random girls (like in Kyoshi Island). He just learns the elements, but doesn't really learn the philosophies behind each element. In this regard, he makes Kuruk and Roku look venerated in contrast. (To be fair to Aang, he had a specific deadline to master the four elements before Sozin's Comet that no other Avatar besides Wan had to deal with, but couldn't he try to make an effort to learn from the other nations?) Additionally, compared to Tenzin and Zaheer, Aang doesn't stand a chance against either of them (even though Tenzin is his son, but since Tenzin wasn't the Avatar, he could focus on upholding the Air Nomad culture and legacy). Even Jinora could go toe-to-toe with him at similar ages. He isn't really that impressive in any of the elements, to be honest; we've seen what a master of any specific element can do in both ATLA and LOK, as well as in the novels.

The main thing people often get wrong is that mastery isn't a final goal; it's a specific mindset. As in Pai Sho, what separates true masters from everyone else is that true masters always look for improvement in their strategy or skills. That's why Aang isn't a real master of the four elements: He always takes the easy way out, never trying to better himself or improve what he can already do.

I think this quote from Zaheer perfectly sums up what I've been saying: When you base your expectations on what you see, you blind yourself to the possibilities of a new reality. Even though it stems from his anarchist beliefs, it is genuinely one of the more insightful pieces of wisdom in the franchise because it promotes progress, a constant theme in life. Toph was able to invent metalbending because she wanted to "see" a reality where she could be recognized for her own talent in spite of her blindness; Zuko could learn firebending from the dragons because he could see a reality where he would regain his honor and fight alongside the Avatar, and so on. By contrast, Aang only takes things from surface-level, not putting any effort into understanding the true meaning of being the Avatar.

Speaking of Pai Sho, guess which Avatar constantly improved his/her abilities? Kuruk. Unlike Aang, Kuruk readily asked his companions, Jianzhu, Hei-Ran, and Kelsang, to continue teaching him, ever after he mastered the four elements that he was required to do, saying they would all benefit from the experience (the "true master" quote I mentioned above was actually said by him). Not only that, it was even inverted; sometimes they taught Kuruk, other times he taught them (which technically makes him the first known Avatar to teach bending to others). He was right, as during their lifetimes, they were the most powerful benders of their respective elements in the world!

Kuruk also had an intuitive connection to each of the four bending philosophies, which to this day remains unrivaled by any other Avatar, and was also one of the first people to suggest the idea that the four elements are connected (homeboy's literally a younger Water Tribe Avatar version of proto-Iroh, I'm honestly not going to be surprised if Iroh actually learned his belief from Kuruk during the former's visits to the Spirit World over tea and Pai Sho matches). If you ask me, Mone, learning the cultures and philosophies of the four nations is way more important than mastering the four elements, because the Avatar isn't just the bridge between the four nations; he/she is also the symbol of a unified world, and the franchise is saying that only one Avatar even bothered to do that? In my opinion, if we go by this rule, that easily cements Kuruk as the greatest Avatar in history!

Aang, on the other hand, never does this. Instead, he puts the Air Nomads on a high pedestal (which in turn causes him to place Katara on a high pedestal), and doesn't respect or learn from other nations' philosophies. He openly disrespects SWT culture and actively makes sure Tenzin doesn't have any exposure to the culture that Tenzin still belongs too, and worse, he pushes his own culture on other people's throats (remember the time he forced a homeless couple to "give up on hope because it's a big waste of time"? Or the time he forced Katara to not murder Yon Rha?) and values his own nation and values above the rest of the world (like the time he refused to kill Firelord Ozai because "all life is sacred", even though he has actually killed before, but if he doesn't kill Ozai, the latter's going to burn the entire Earth Kingdom to the ground!). That doesn't sound like something the Avatar is allowed to do, but Aang gets away with it anyway because ... hero?

There's actually another Avatar who focused on his/her own nation above the rest of the world. Avatar Szeto, Yangchen's predecessor, became a government official in his homeland, the Fire Nation. Under his tenure, the Fire Nation transformed from a fragmented, disaster-stricken state to the centralized, technologically-advanced nation we know of today. Unfortunately, this led him to neglect the other nations and, shortly after his death, the four nations were caught in a political event known as the Platinum Affair, which Yangchen had to deal with, eventually kick-starting the cycle of the current Avatar fixing their past lives' mistakes, while leaving problems for their future selves to fix. This problem might have even led to the growing ambition of Firelords Zoryu and Sozin as dictators, with the latter starting the Hundred Years War.

Aang not only valued his own nation's values above the others, he also forced said values on his non-Air Nomad companions; signed anti-miscegenation laws and tried to forcefully deport Fire Nationals from the colonies to return the land to the Earth Kingdom, even though they had already blended in with Earth Kingdom citizens, didn't wan to be separated from their families, and Zuko perceived the citizens of mixed heritage as his own subjects; refused to let his family practice SWT culture, even though his children could benefit from being members of both cultures, not just one or the other, and set an example for mixed-race families around the world; refused to teach Kya and Bumi Air Nomad culture because he thought they weren't airbenders and therefore "not real Air Nomads", even though they were just as Air Nomad as Tenzin was, if not more; and forced Tenzin to uphold the legacy of an entire nation on his shoulders. The fact that this was all written by complete accident is the cherry on top, representing just how badly Bryke screwed up.

... On a completely unrelated note, The Other Side of Paradise by Glass Animals (which is also one of my favorite songs) is definitely a Kuruk song. The last third of the song in particular sums up his tragic journey as the Avatar so well, and I always think of him while listening to it.

[sanctaignorantia]

every time i give these books a chance something happens and i get even more frustrated with everything, congratulations!

I'm starting to get annoyed with the book, I'm halfway through and the story hasn't moved on...

[anti-catradora-collection]

you know, adora being the one who always made the promises that she would stay with catra, that she would bring catra home etc. just feels wrong to me.

adora never left catra. as much as this series shows that catra is the abandoner, it loves to tell the opposite and do some victim blaming with adora. that second scene basically tries to tell us that "adora left catra and now is trying to save her back" when the series itself shows that adora never even left catra to begin with. about the promise, it simply was made to make people believe even more about what i said previously: "adora is the abandoner" (just like the first scene).

now, what did catra promise? absolutely nothing. she never even apologized properly for being an abuser and war criminal, why would she promise anything like adora does? it would be so much more meaningful if catra made a promise that, for example, she would change after properly realizing what she did wrong and actually fulfilled that, with a proper development, but that didn't happen.

because of course adora has to apologize for everything and carry this relationship in her back. i mean, it's part of her character to apologize for everything, but what exactly did catra do for adora that wasn't at least toxic? yes, she stayed with adora for once at the end and then proceeded to lie in her own confession, victim blame adora, and insult her as an idiot (thing that adora had internalized).

[baede-6]

"I think I could beat Cayde in The Crucible."

A few days later...

Him:"Aaaaaaand apparently I'm against Cayde...Not gonna lie though. I do like my odds here." 😏

Me:"Never bet against me."

The results:

Now,this score normally wouldn't be anything to write home Tumblr about,but the situation in and of itself is (to me. I think this is hilarious and wanted to share.)

Technically,his score is lower than that because two of those defeats were because of my own hubris. I got cocky and was bounding around the map and bounded off of the ledge twice,which,if you think about it,was pretty on brand.

He spent the majority of the second half of the round hiding in his little bubble repeatedly asking where I was. My answer?

"I'm with you, kiddo. Your Light,is my Light. You're my favorite... don't ever forget that." promptly followed by me absolutely smoking him and winning the game.

I strike fear into this Titan's heart and the best part is,he forgets that fear the second we step out of the Crucible.

[thenonbinarydetective]

There's something that always bothers me about people saying "Barbara going back to being disabled" doesn't matter if it's positive, negative, or neutral. It's the "going back" part because it's just not true. She wouldn't be going back, she would just be without assistive medical technology.

In the closest real-life example, not everyone who uses similar technology is considered "cured" as the removal of the device would mean they are no longer enabled. In only a few cases have I ever seen "cured" but that's potentially dependent on injury/cause of disability where it was possible the device just made recovery easier and there are many different causes to SCIs/paralysis/similar conditions. Others have no chance of recovery but have a chance of being enabled. But still not fully becoming an able-bodied person. Even some of the ones who recovered their ability to walk were still limited in what they were capable of (and therefore still disabled)

So honestly now, it's just coming to me how bad representation the chip is of similar realistic treatment and disabled people who use that treatment. Before anyone is like "But Barbara's isn't real" I know that, but now I'm literally seeing people say the same shit about REAL PEOPLE who have had nearly THE SAME TREATMENT because they're letting poor representation in a comic book determine how they view this course of medical treatment.

TLDR: No Barbara Gordon wouldn't "go back" to being disabled without the chip. Writers and fans aren't good at writing disability and it shows