#a; you don't choose to grow

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

What can I say? They're my favorite.

[thenoodlesadventures]

I just finished baby's first custom martingale and she's so cute 🥺😭

[trappedinafantasy37]

Imagine being on the verge of death, your mind being ripped apart by the very gods. You beg and you pray and none of the gods you know and worship show up for you. They all leave you to die. Except one person. They come for you at your time of need and they save you when they didn't have to. In fact, they had more reason to kill you, but they risked their own life to save you anyway.

You travel around with them and watch all the things that they do. You question them, try to understand them, because they intrigue you. They are extraordinary. They are powerful. They are exquisite! They see the world in the same way you do, value the same things that you do. They are willing to stand before the very gods themselves and defy them, challenge them, and destroy them. And you accept them for everything that they are. You appreciate them for everything that they are. And you wouldn't want to change a single thing about them because you think they are marvelous just the way that they are! You love them with everything that you have, because they exist in the way that they do. You are loyal to them, devoted to them. You want to go where they go, do what they do, see what they see, because you can't imagine a life without them.

And then they turn around and look at you and say you are broken. That you need to be fixed. To be changed to be "better". You realize that they do not accept you in the same way you accept them. You realize that they didn't take a single moment to try to understand you. That the only parts of you that they like are what is convenient for them. And whatever they do not like, they want to scrape out of you and replace it with what they think would make you "better". They have spent this entire time, harshly judging you despite not spending a single second to get to know you. They want you to change, not for your sake, but to appease them. To them, you were only worth it because they thought they could change you, remold you into something that would make them feel better about being in your presence. Because your presence disturbs them. And when you make it clear that you will live as you are and you will not compromise for the approval of others, they throw you away and discard you. Calling you cruel, and evil, and a genocidal lunatic, when all you have ever done is just try to survive whatever situation you found yourself in.

Minthara accepts you and loves you for who you are and will NEVER ask you to change a single thing about yourself, and especially not for her sake. She wants you to just be... you. She likes you just the way that you are. She doesn't always agree with every single thing that you do, but by the gods, she will still love you anyway. No matter what choice you make, good or evil, she will still love you and accept you and go along with whatever you want to do.

Why won't you show her the same courtesy? Why do you only love companions when you think you can change them into what you want them to be? Why do you look at companions and only see their flaws and see it as something that immediately needs to be fixed into something you like? Why do you abandon companions when you realize that you can't change them into something you want? Why does she have to be the one to change? Are you willing to change for her?

Do you ever spend a single second asking yourself why Minthara is the way that she is? Cause if you did, you'd realize that she shouldn't be changed, and she can't. This isn't to say that Minthara can't change at all, she just can't and won't in the way that you want her to be. Minthara is very confident in herself and has been through many tribulations in her long life and has prevailed above them all, because she is the way that she is. She is proud, strong, loyal, and a survivor. And you are telling her that all of that is wrong.

[spoondoodles]

I blacked out and more Logince HS AU appeared on my canvas idk what happened (also ty @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat for some inspiration sorry it took so long to make a post about Them <3)

[korrasamibottles]

Yeah Venom of the Red Lotus showed us how crazy powerful Korra is but The Last Stand had Korra transform the destructive power of a massive bomb blast into something regenerative in the culmination of one of the best character arcs I've ever seen. In my OPINION!!

[zxal]

boychild of destiny

[mercymaker]

went to bed last night feeling that it was finally time to step back and let the dust settle and try to get things back to normal and then woke up to all that

[gildedmuse]

This Sailor Moon Cosmo is such a weird mix of the lovable, charming anime, the pensive, deep lore of the manga slammed together with this touch of sci-fi bar fights that absolutely NO ONE asked for. A three of those movies as mashed together, but like how you would mash together three Barbie dolls.

But you know what?

Damnit if I won't take it all just for a little more of Sailor Star "Went and fell for the wrong princess" Fighter.

[pushing500]

Everyone say happy birthday to Pro! She's growing up so fast <3 <3

I look forward to seeing where she goes in life. I love her so much. For the T'au Va!

Our exploding dinosaur is allergic to the ocular forest, I think.

Noooooo my babies have the flu!!

Okay, I don't know how many people are in the crossover between the RimWorld Alpha Biomes mod and online worldbuilding projects, but does anybody else get "Mystery Flesh Pit National Park" vibes from the ocular forest?

Anyway, the randomly generated name for our new home is Monster's Basin, which I think is very fitting!

And finally, Duchess and Blackdragon have brought a little brightness to the dreary red mist of the ocular forest by announcing that lil' Dire Wolf is going to be a big sister soon!! Congratulations to the Babalbil-Mossler family!! <3 <3 <3

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[wilsonthemoose]

The tough one cries every episode and the smart one asks wait there's no such thing as unicorns? and then people say you can skip the first few seasons, nothing happens...

[uncanny-tranny]

It's always tempting to debate bigots about their bigotry, but honestly the best thing you can do is often to directly help those affected by said bigotry.

Bigotry doesn't exist to be debated. People who are bigots do not care about debate - they care about humiliating their opponents. You cannot outsmart somebody who doesn't give a flying fuck about their position being incorrect. You will be playing a completely different game by trying to debate somebody out of their bigotry.

The best thing you can do is to show up for the marginalized. Check in on them, talk to them, and engage with them as people. Ask them if they would like help and then respect their answer to the best of your capabilities. Oftentimes, that will be sufficient enough and will go a long way.

[des-no9]

half of the fun writing anything for me is making stuff up and taking small things from canon I like or that work for me and expanding on that.

I'm very faithful to lore in the "the things that matter to me and that make the fundamentals and foundations of the races and characters I love are important" but then I build on that and create out, up, back, to the side or whatever for my own enjoyment and narrative. Because for the likes of DND (specifically 5e and BG3 I write and create for) no one is writing lore for a romance and narrative between an ancient githyanki and a GOOLock tiefling who is far older that she deserves to be. So I write it myself.

[vertexline]

A certain someone isn't too jazzed about sprouting a third eye over night

[charlotterenaissance]

baffling decision for season 2, episode 18 to end with lewis making a legit effort for charlotte, making a picnic of things she likes and hugging her and seeming really happy with her

only for episode 19 to trample all over that with him blowing her off after she mentions that she misses him and hasn't seen him for a while, then apparently forgetting he even has a girlfriend altogether and softly flirting with his ex while the narrative agrees that this is correct because, unlike charlotte, cleo always smiles when she first sees lewis. you know. unlike charlotte. who goes out of her way to try and make lewis happy and smiles literally every time she sees him. there's not even an episode between these!

[ninjagirlstar5]

I was in the mood to draw Minako Tomori, and so I did. I put her in this melancholic pose while dressed in casual clothes, like she's hanging out in public, but she started getting distracted by past regrets...

Her casual clothes are based off of this sprite edit I made of her for my fanfic:

There's no tattoo-covering-a-scar on her shoulder in this sprite cause I literally just came up with that headcanon yesterday and this sprite edit is almost a year old (I just never posted it until now). Not that you would've seen it that well from this angle anyways.

Her tattoo is based off of the flower, Sakurasou or the Japanese Primrose, btw. Kinda proud on how it turned out, ngl, as I'm not really that good in designing tattoos for characters. ^^;

Anyways, I made an off-the-cuff Minako Tomori analysis under the read more, oops:

I've been seeing a lot of Tomori family talk lately and that made me start thinking of Minako again as she's, well, kindof my favorite out of the 6.5 crew next to Dr. Ando (which led to me making this drawing of her). Now, I'm not defending her in how she raised Kizuna or her horrible attitude or anything like that. She's pretty horrible in DRA 6.5 and she gets called out on multiple times by Ryutaro and even Dr. Ando, and rightfully so. But man, from what I can understand in DRA 6.5, she's clearly a goddamn mess. From all the smoking she does to (badly) cope with the stress of dealing with her failure of a marriage to a shitty husband who is also a shitty dad, to constantly cheating on him cause she'd rather be anywhere but with him and can't divorce him due to collateral so she's just legally stuck with him so she goes off to find other men (usually younger but at least they're of age) to ignore her problems at home, puts importance on money because she's the only one trying make sure they have a fuckin' roof over their heads cause her husband is too busy gambling and drinking all their money away, and probably put importance on her appearance more than anything else cause it's one of the few things she can control about herself and feel confident in (and even then, she can't stop the passage of time that is old age). And all of this, plus how she interacts with Ryutaro in her Talk sections (a.k.a. her FTEs) by constantly calling him brat and trying to get him to go away, and no wonder Kizuna turned out the way she did. She had a dad that was never there for her or his wife, refusing to take responsibility for anything and just focuses on himself, and her mom is dealing with SO many things that she's constantly stressed about money and her appearance to the point that she's unable to be emotionally supportive to her daughter in any healthy manner that her flaws, her own attitude about men, and her beliefs in money and appearance is all that matters just ended up trickling down to her daughter and influencing her in a way that it turned her into the messed up girl she is in the short time we got to know her in DRA. Like, holy shit, Minako. You're an asshole of a parent, but when you really think about it, the poor woman got the short end of the stick in life and that really affected how she acted in raising her daughter. Again, not defending her as she's still a bad influence but it's hard not to pity her when she's left to do all the work herself, from parenting, to working, to just trying to take care of herself (by coping in very bad ways)...It's not an enviable position, that's for sure. But honestly, that's what makes Minako so interesting to me. She's not a good person, far from it, nor is she the "better" parent in this scenario. But she still cared enough about Kizuna to follow a suspicious note and getting kidnapped in the process, even when it had the underlying motivation of deciding that she had enough of her shitty husband and took the opportunity to run away from him. And whenever the other characters, particularly Dr. Ando, call her out on her nonsense, I think she gets struck silent in response. Like their words are genuinely getting to her and making her question the way she acts.

And you know what fucks me up the most?

The implication that, between finding out what happened to Kizuna and the rest of the class in DRA post 6.5 upon getting rescued and before the events of SDRA2, she actually changed and improved as a person. Minako, while she is gossiping in the epilogue, is a lot more nicer and friendlier here, is giving us a rundown of what happened after the Utsuroshima Killing Game and the rumors surrounding it to Midori, and making light-hearted jokes in an attempt to cheer Midori up by making fun of herself. And when Midori starts to cry over Teruya's death, Minako's sprite goes sympathetic and concerned and it fades to black for awhile and we come back to Midori reassuring Minako that she's feeling better now with the implication that Minako was trying to comfort her through her mourning. And then she gives out some pretty sound advice, even when dropping this bit in the process:

(The translation is an unofficial version and this bit of dialogue appears at the 3:55 mark.)

"...Go ahead and cry your heart out. You're still young, so you don't have to pretend you're strong."

"With age, the tears won't come even if you want to cry, so when you feel the need to cry, cry."

Which, OW to that last one.

Like, imagine going through so much shit through your life as an adult that you can't even bring yourself to cry about it. You just go, "Yep, this might as well happen," with all the apathy and frustration you can muster in your body.

And when Midori goes to leave to talk to the criminals, Minako has the sense to go "That's a bad and dangerous idea, Midori, don't go alone!" and points out that she JUST got out of the hospital and hasn't fully recovered yet. She even tries to convince her to stay by asking her to continue talking with her cause she's bored. (And, well, I can believe that, even when she's speaking some common sense.) But it clearly rubbed Midori the wrong way as she seems to want to be useful in any way she can, regardless of whether or not her life gets put in danger, so she goes anyway. Aaand Minako complains about Midori's parents not teaching her to treat her adults with "respect," and has brought up "worrying over Keisuke getting a scratch on his pretty face" earlier in conversation, which shows that she's still a flawed person. But I consider that good writing as just because she's a better person now, that doesn't mean her flaws are just going to go away or disappear suddenly. Taking away a character's flaws in order to make them a "good" person will only make them bland, boring, and flat as a paper. Flaws are meant to help characters be more nuanced in personality, and Minako still being abrasive is good as it's a flaw that is a part of her to be aware of and keeps her character recognizable despite the implication that she's trying to do better now. And when Midori gets kidnapped, she immediately runs over to Ryutaro and Keisuke to tell them what happened, calling Ryutaro "kid" in the process, and showing fear for Midori's safety. I don't know if the translation between Kid and Brat is any different, but it's a step up from brat, at least. (And honestly, I can see Minako using "kid" and "brat" as a more affectionate nickname to Ryutaro over time since she comes off as the type to show affection through teasing.) And to top it all off, the cigarettes from her DRA sprites have been replaced with lollipops in her SDRA2 sprites, and candy is a common way of trying to combat addiction to nicotine.

In other words, the way Minako acts in SDRA2 shows that she's trying to be a better person, even if that development happened between games. (And frankly, we shouldn't just stop everything in the epilogue just to have a flashback of "here's why so-and-so acts like this now!" Like, that would just kill the pacing of the epilogue and defeats the whole purpose of a time-skip between games.) It's just a shame that Kizuna's death was the wake-up call that put her on that track to growth in the first place (alongside the call-outs). It's through the death of her own daughter and what led up to it and why she acted the way she did in that moment that made her stop, take in the call outs she's been dealt with throughout the 6.5 chapter, and go, "Oh. I've been a shitty mom and that played a part in how Kizuna acted and led to her death." Cause think about it: if Kizuna was never concerned about her appearance, if she never had this belief that she had to extort others in order to benefit herself, whether it's men for money, affection, popularity, attention or anyone else for anything else, DRA's Chapter 2 probably wouldn't have happened the way that it did. It may not have prevented Kizuna from dying at some point during the killing game, but her behavior was something that she learned and inherited from Minako. And that realization had to sting for her as she not only lost her daughter but had to come to terms with the revelation that it was indirectly her fault for influencing Kizuna in a way that made her a terrible person that decided her only option to survive was to try and kill (which backfired on her hard). But unlike some people, who would double-down on their behavior or just grow worse through their grief, Minako seemed to have reflected on everything up to that point and decided to grow as a person instead. But even though Minako is trying to be a better person now, she can never make it up to her own daughter that she messed up the most. Because that chance is forever lost thanks to death itself.

Reflection is important, because if you don't do that much, you'll never realize what you've done wrong until it's too late and the chance to make it up to your loved one is forever stripped from you.

...At least, that's how I've interpreted Minako Tomori.

[seventeendeer]

adventure time, baby, I'm going to keep it real with you: you had the perfect meta setup (a spinoff of a children's cartoon made for adults who grew up with said cartoon) for a story about two characters desperate to return to simpler times (fionna longing for the subconscious memory of a fantasy land where nothing is complex and she won't have to face the trials of young adulthood in her now-mundane world, simon longing to lose his mind again so he won't have to remember his grief) coming to realize that the "simpler times" they remember were never as straightforward as their idealized memories (fionna realizing that her black-and-white worldview was actually just deeply biased and ultimately harmful, simon realizing that ice king was just as miserable as simon himself and simply lacked the tools to parse his own emotions), the idealized past they want to return to was never real, and in order to move forward, they have to face the painful realities they've been trying to avoid, mature as people, and learn to see beauty and value in their own respective lives, even if they're not the lives they'd hoped for

and then that didn't happen. there was a perfect metaphor for the false allure of nostalgia using THE "whimsical at first glance/shockingly grim under the surface" children's cartoon RIGHT THERE. How Did You Fuck That Up