#and i find it easy to forget that

[anotherlesbiandad]

i see this around a lot, and i feel like it's important to note:

icarus did not burn.

it wasn't some blazing inferno, searing his skin and making his death sharp and quick. no, icarus had plenty of time to see what he'd done. his death was not shining or sunny, it had no glory. the wax burned up his wings, but never his body. his death was a slow, languid thing. when the water filled his lungs, he had only enough time to realize his own arrogance, not to stop it.

icarus never burned.

icarus drowned.

[rystiel]

that annoying moment when getting left for dead in the trunk of a car in your 20s comes back to haunt you 40 years later (take a shot every time ford says “stanley”)

[demaparbat-hp]

In your Spitfire AU, since Zuko is looking after Lu Ten II, what happened to Ursa?

Zuko is slightly older in the Spitfire AU. He was banished at fifteen, his head a little clearer and denial a little weaker than in canon. After his first look through the Air Temples, Zuko decides that if he can't find a myth, he might as well search for the next best thing.

Finding Ursa isn't easy, but in time he makes it to a secluded house in a near-forgotten part of the world. His mom is there, older and stronger and alive.

But she isn't alone.

And Zuko, as it turns out, didn't keep the best company during his search.

When Ursa is discovered and her secrets are laid bare for assassins (for Ozai) to find, she begs Zuko to take his little brother and run. She'll do anything it takes to protect her children, even if that means leaving them behind to keep a target off their back. Ursa diverts attention from them and allows Lu Ten's ancestry to be kept a secret. She orders Zuko not to follow her again, and disappears.

Zuko is left with a little three-year-old brother to raise and a mother he cannot hold onto.

[fluentisonus]

working in a factory has you thinking so much about the insane chain of labor & transport that goes into making literally anything

[mistfallengw2]

Hey, a sylvari ask game!🌱

1. Are they a Dreamer or Soundless? What's their relationship with the Pale Mother and Ventari's teachings? If the first, have they ever thought about leaving the Dream behind? If the latter, why did they make that choice?

2. How much do they remember from the Dream? Did they have any particular experience in it before awakening?

3. Do they have a Wyld Hunt? Did they complete it?

4. How was their awakening? Did something particular happen? What's their first memory?

5. Are they from the first batch of Secondborn or did they awaken at some later point? What's their opinion on the Firstborn?

6. What did they do after leaving the Grove? Did they feel a particular call or did they just roam and explore Tyria? Would they still feel at home if they went back?

7. What was their first experience with other races? How did it impact them?

8. Do they fit well into sylvari society or are they more at home with other races? How do they feel about fellow sylvari? Do they have any particular sympathy or antipathy for other races?

9. Do they have a job/occupation? Why did they pick that? Did they ever change it? Are they happy with it or are they aiming for something else?

10. What are their hobbies and pastimes? Do they have any natural talent or particularly strong interest? Was it something they knew from the Dream or did they develop it once awakened?

11. Have they ever changed their own appearance? Was it intentional or due to external factors? Did it affect their glow as well? How long did it take? Would they ever change back?

12. What do they usually wear? Do they prefer regular clothes or growing "clothes" out of their bodies?

13. How do they feel about death? Does it make them curious or scared? Do they wish to understand it or do they simply accept it?

14. What do they think of the Nightmare Court? Would they ever join it? What would make them do so? / What made them join them? Would they ever leave it?

15. What are their feelings on their race being minions of the Jungle Dragon? What's their attitude towards those who turned? How do they feel about the shift in perception of their people from other races?

16. Where were they when the call of Mordremoth struck? Did they hear and follow it, or did they resist it?

17. If they were to turn into Mordrem, what would they look like? Would they manage to turn back? / When they turned into Mordrem, how did their appearance change? Did they manage to fully turn back?

18. [Free space for 3 pieces of trivia about your sylvari!]

[master-gatherer]

[foxx-queen]

thinking about the way shadowheart, lae'zel and minthara deal with breaking away from a god/god-like figure they've dedicated their lives to. shadowheart immediately latches onto rescuing her parents as her new 'mission'. lae'zel immediately dedicates herself to freeing orpheus with the vigor she served vlaakith. minthara fixates on obtaining the power to make sure she's never controlled again.

its like. breaking away from gods/god-like figures leaves a void to fill. they're trying to fill it, and trying to choose what they fill it with. and they know that's what they're doing, in some ways, maybe to avoid the enormity of what it means to have broken away. maybe to avoid working out what they'll do as individuals. shadowheart doesnt know her parents, and they dont know her anymore, but she has to save them. you can ask lae'zel why she won't focus on herself, and she acknowledges there's no time for that. not yet. minthara wants you to use the power of the brain, but has dialogue/approval when you speak to ravenguard and she realizes hes still in there beneath the tadpoles influence, just like she was.

'my deference to him is a habit that will die hard, i fear'. minthara still calls the elder brain the absolute, even after she knows the truth. lae'zel still calls out to vlaakith in battle. shadowheart still wears the symbol of shar in her hair after dyeing it. indoctrination/ingrained beliefs are hard to break.

they've broken away from what was controlling their lives. they're free. they've lost everything. shadowheart can save her parents and but will always have that mark. lae'zel has been declared a traitor and will be hunted until vlaakith is overthrown. minthara can never go home, and would be executed if she tried.

they've broken away. they've lost everything. they're struggling with what that means. they're free. they wouldn't have it any other way.

[puppetmaster13u]

Continuing to think about This AU idea and just, slowly rotating it like a microwave.

@phoenixcatch7 had the fun idea of xenomorph-inspiration and the dollhouse being replaced by the Hive instead and I am here for that. A large cave that feels utterly wrong to anyone not part of their colony, if they can even find it. I am thinking something similar to Gemini Home Entertainment if anyone has watched that, with something between plant and flesh growing across the walls. Where one can't tell the difference between the two, or realize that it's already gripping onto them. The caves are already dangerous after all, nevermind the depths that It doesn't let anyone else into.

Also made me think about Jason, and like, so he doesn't die in the cryptid au, and definitely wouldn't in a world where he has a flesh puppet. But that still makes me think about how badly said puppet would be utterly maimed, right? Not to mention the explosion that would burn a lot of it too alongside whatever affect that'd have on his mind and human body. But now I am thinking of how the tunnels are everywhere under Gotham, how the bits of tendrils can reach through that ash, can meld with it, can for a cocoon of sorts. Turning a little robin into something else, letting it evolve into something new.

I am also rotating on if they'd be known to the Justice League like in the Doll au or if only Clark knows about them like in the Genesis au. Tempted for the second if only so there can be fun distinctly Not Human moments. Maybe the Justice League even getting concerned for their friend Superman because there's times he'll whistle or chirp under his breath (he might have picked up a few habits from his friends from Gotham) or literally snap his teeth if he's startled.

But oh the lil robins would probably be so adorable. Very fluffy and downy and brightly colored in a clear warning, but still unsettling. The way they move isn't right, like a jerky contortionist, but can also go too fluid or completely inhumanely still within a heartbeat. Not helped by the fact they don't need to breathe. O h, the batfam could most definitely be venomous. What with how in both Aus they use paralytics and sedatives on their claws and spikes, It could definitely include that within the secondary bodies.

[exilley]

Friendship is a pretty fraught concept in Utena. Within the text, it's something that's ridiculed, taken advantage of, even resented, and its metatext tells us that in the way each of the characters struggle to share genuine relationships with each other outside of Ohtori's literal and figurative constructs, friendship is just another temporal aspect of infancy. It's the furthest thing from eternity. There is no blood obligation, romance, or binary arbitrations in friendship. The characters' relationships being stripped of that as children is an act of violence. Touga's pursuit of the eternity he glimpsed forces him to compromise Nanami and Saionji, two of the people closest to him; it's an ideal that promises power at the expense of his own ruin. He's right. There is no such thing as friendship where he's headed, to the top of Akio's tower. Juri and Shiori are ultimately two people who tragically were never able to see through their own preconceived notions of what they each thought the other's love was supposed to look like. So long as both of them remained trapped in the history of their former friendship, there was no way they could've beat the odds already stacked up against them in the form of cishetnormative patriarchy. Wakaba's innocent affection for Tatsuya in childhood gives way for the latter to develop an unhealthy fixation on the former, where Wakaba had long abandoned her elementary whims in favor of pursuing a commitment with Saionji as a way to accumulate social capital. Nanami only keeps her clique around because it provides her a sense of surety that her brother still values her above everyone else, while her clique likewise stay with Nanami becuase it affords them the opportunity to get close to Touga. Anthy's dedication to her role is just as performative as the way she treats those around her; where on the surface she appears to seek to empower Utena on behalf of her brother's interests, she harbors much more complicated and personal emotions towards her companion than that, and in this sense the nature of even their mutual feelings are warped on account of Anthy's cynicism. Friendship, the audience is constantly told, is an immaturity. No one's priority in a system that's made to profit off of the abuse of others. Utena is the sole individual who subverts this message as part of her counter-symbolism-- she insists Anthy make friends, she tries to get along with everyone on the Student Council, she tries to sympathize with all of her opponents in the dueling arena, she refrains from fighting her best friend. Callous individualism is the symptom of an ideology that undermines our humanity in order to establish an unsustainable hierarchy of Honor.

[vimbry-moved]

I wish it were easier to be quiet without coming across as disinterested or insulting. I still put a Lot more energy on than I want to while socialising because I don't want people to think I'm bored by their company, when really I'm absolutely fine and love to listen, it's just that my default demeanour is unhelpfully untalkative and frowny 😭

[protectorcraft]

saw ur thing, i raise you: creature loop

ouuuyiihh the aminal

[ourhouseishaunted]

people acting as if laios can Do No Wrong and infantilizing him because he is autistic are annoying as hell. especially because laios belongs to my favorite genre of character: "person who desperately wants friends and deep relationships because they're lonely, and while part of their problems stem from people not wanting to understand them and refusing to meet them where they are, they also genuinely come across in a way where you Completely Understand why others can get turned off from them"

[zappychild]

mmm good snack

[wolfertinger]

watching salem spiral back into his cycle of "boy boobs girl bulge chubby tummy :3" would be sad but i think its even sadder how many people are completely eating it up. we have got to have some kind of discussion about people putting out the absolute bare minimum and the masses eagerly praising you.

[seekingthestars]

she's beauty she's grace she's Miss Eevee Cosplay 3.0

[javierduffy]

stuffand also things