#man i wish i had them

[messed-up-little-driftwood]

let's talk about being mentally ill and living w the Driftwood/Firefly's cause I need the comfort (100% self indulgent):

Warnings: (mental illness depictions, mention of self-h4rm, mention of ED if you squint. gender neutral reader, lemme know if I missed any♡)

- Baby, who is actually really good abt it?? You've locked yourself in your room for the day? Well she's coming with you and you're having a Tim Burton marathon. Don't want to? That sucks; she's tying your ass down and peeling your eyelids open A Clockwork Orange style to force you to be distracted from your mind by discussing the Burton multi-verse with childish excitement. She's beside you in bed, hands on your arm, squeezing excitedly whenever she makes a connection, and even though you wish you could just sleep and disappear, her presence is impossible to ignore and be grumpy about.

- Not eating or refusing to???? Not in Mama's house you're not. She'll ziptie you to a chair and force-feed you your fav meal with the most loving, motherly care, mixed with a multitude of swearing like a trucker. If you refuse, get ready for the airplane: "vroom vroom motherfucker, open up" and "what, don't like the pasta?? here honey, have some pie instead" and "if you don't eat, I'm going to put Otis on feeding duty. and he will not be as patient as me".

- Self-harming?? NOPE, not on Tiny's watch. Tiny will lift you (he can. doesn't matter how big you are, he is bigger and stronger) to his room, sit you on the floor, and wordlessly drop crafting supplies and colouring pages on the floor. You're making a paper skeleton chain whether you like it or not with kiddie scissors that barely cut paper, and colouring with little washable markers that leave streaks. He'll pet your head too, to keep you focused should your mind get any alternative ideas. He'll also let you colour on him if you ask nicely:)

- You're curled up on the couch dissociating from the world? Rufus is a shit-disturber, and will start messing with you to bring you back. If you have long hair, he's pinching it between his fingers and pulling at it lightly. Sits in front of you and just. Stares. Until you're uncomfortable enough to say something rude, and then he's throwing you over his shoulder and yeeting your depressed ass in his truck for a ride. Maybe he'll stop at your fav food chain if he's in a good mood, while he makes you listen to some death metal band that's louder than the thoughts in your head and keeps you grounded. Definitely the type to call you 'little one'.

- In a non-verbal / nothing nice to say about yourself / 'don't talk to me or I'll bite you', mood? Otis is your boy. That's his state of being, and he also finds it relaxing when someone else is a spiteful grump like him; so he's more than happy to work on his artistry and have you listen to his musings and rambles. He'll like it even more if you vent a little (add fuel to the fire), and give him more juice to be angry at the world, increasing his motivation for his work. He's a fully grown angsty teenager — this man gets the rage, and enjoys your little venting sessions (and maybe you) even if he'd rather eat glass than say it out loud.

- Spaulding acts like nothing is any different. Little lighter on the teasing, but we know how he is, and he'll tell you to 'suck it up' and is outwardly brash and mean. BUT, he'll mess with Otis more and though he gets a kick out of it; it's a subtle way to give you even a small smile when Otis is all razzed up. Stirs the pot to cause drama like the meddler he is.

- Avoid Hugo at all costs. Will make things worse.

[decarabias]

forever thinking about royal’s bad ending. my thing with it is that maruki doesn’t necessarily give anyone what they want most, he gives them what’s most appropriate for them to want within a maruki-approved framework. iirc there’s a really interesting text sequence in the game where he just straight up changes someone’s career because they’re not “good” at it, regardless of whether that’s what they actually want. why struggle at all? ever? right?

and so ultimately i don’t think goro akechi’s greatest wish is necessarily ren. i think it’s a wish for sure, but his greatest wish is his own agency. despite any regrets he has and the fact that shido and yaldabaoth treated him like a pawn, he's generally pretty adamant about owning his choices and their consequences. he doesn't want that erased. and instead, you end up with pleasant boy™ if you take maruki’s deal. maybe maruki (incorrectly) thinks sanding off all of akechi’s rough edges will make him easier for ren to love. but the crux of it is really that maruki has to essentially lobotomize him to preserve the illusion of his perfect reality, because their ideologies are so diametrically opposed that akechi would spend every waking moment fighting back.

this isn’t to undermine ren’s importance to akechi btw — he explicitly acknowledges that he wishes they had met earlier, and there are countless moments throughout their confidant that underscore how much it means to him that they mirror each other so well. he absolutely does want more time with ren, just not under these circumstances.

and that’s also what makes ren’s choice on 2/2 doubly devastating. he knows that either way he loses akechi. and if he takes maruki’s deal, he loses him knowing that his last moments with the real akechi involved the two of them being unforgivably out of sync.

[intern-seraph]

gonna be real here, i kinda get why baul dislikes sebek's dad so much. like, aside from being prejudiced against humans, baul would see papa zigvolt as the man who will inevitably break his daughter's heart. not by any conscious action of his own, but by virtue of being human. mama zigvolt will outlive her husband (and likely her own children!) by a measure of centuries, not decades. by marrying a human, she has sentenced herself to centuries of grief. like, that's fucked up!! as her father, baul probably worries so much for when that time comes when his daughter will be alone again.

[eerna]

it might be my dislike for the "in every universe yadda yadda" trope speaking, but I just. don't see why Ekko had to go to an alt universe and see Powder grown up to figure out he could still share with Jinx what he'd shared with Powder. Like don't get me wrong I loved the dance and the cuteness and the pretending like it's the first time... but he already figured most of it out in s1. And it was a much better, more nuanced scene - of course seeing a physical reminder that she is Powder with the capacity to love him would change his mind, but it's much more powerful when it's shown through their shared memories and behaviors. The coexistence of gentleness and violence in the bridge scene is the heart and soul of why their dynamic is so interesting. She will play their childhood game, she will look at him softly, and then try to blow them both up. We could have had an episode that continues that story, that shows us how they would find their way back to each other now that the main obstacle, Silco, is removed... But instead, Ekko went through it with a separate person, while Jinx went through it offscreen, and nothing more was ever said about it. Man. I am sad.

[urghblergh]

I finally watched "Our Man Bashir" and did like the outfits and the shooting at each other, so I drew this. ✨

Also inspired by this brilliant fanfiction and the very interesting headcanon concerning Cardassians and dancing mentioned in there. 👁️🔥

Reference

[cowboythewizard726]

beautiful orc girl leed helllOOOOO beautiful leed alert oh my GOD she's so cool WOOAHHHH beautiful siilly girl she was really pretty and awesome and so kind i think shes wonderful and there should be a statue made just for her thats really big and in the center of everything and she should get anything she wants ever smile face

[catmask]

my sister texted me smthing going on at home thats making me sad but im trying not to think about it and stay whimsical. its fursona friday..... its fursona feidayyyy...

[lylahammar]

Let's take a moment to appreciate the amazing villains/monsters (sorry Nimona lol) we've been given in animated films this year

[eightspringdays]

The Boys

[wishchip106]

i wonder if these guys ever cared being gay was illegal when they first met

it sure didn’t stop them from being freaky af

everyone knew by just looking at them

[kathrynmhahn]

@lgbtqcreators creator bingo | wardrobe

Rachel Green + fave outfits

[skitskatdacat63]

Vettonso complaining about each other not respecting schrondinger's track limits on the radio compilation + Seb's commentary that made me a bit feral

Must include these sexy ass pics okay, it makes me feral how hard they race each other.

Also SO upset that we got this vid and there's also pictures(and presumably a vid out there somewhere) of Fernando, back then, ALSO debriefing this race. And yet we never got them together?????? Evil. Fucked up.

Imagine seeing them complaining about each other but also having to (begrudgingly if you're Fernando) compliment each other IN FRONT of each other. Maybe its a good thing it doesn't exist, bcs then I'd have a heart attack.

[constarlations]

🍊 Big Sis Nemona 🍊

my favorite Unovan/Latina Pokémon trainer ever created

Twitter Link

[captin-azoth]

IIII HAVE BRAINROT~

Doot da doot DOOT DOOT

I HAAAVE BRAINROT~

BA BAM

[seyaryminamoto]

My latest completed commission may have been a bit ambitious... because I went wild with it. But I certainly relished in doing so :') Combining my favorite ship with my favorite-ever Disney movie is, uh... a dangerous concoction :'D

The commissioner specifically requested for Azula as Mulan, Sokka as Shang, and Xin Long (my OC dragon from Gladiator) as Mushu. The rest of the cast was up to me to choose, and I pretty much went wild rewatching this movie and picking out some of my favorite moments to recreate them in my style, with these characters. I came up with a lot of correlating characters between both ATLA and 1998's Mulan, but I couldn't hope to draw EVERYTHING, unfortunately. Still, if you want my reasoning for the cast correlation... check out the Read More! Beyond that, feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to commission me, or if you want to join my Patreon!

The Herbalist as Mulan's grandmother might feel arbitrary but she honestly felt like the ATLA elderly lady with the most similar personality to Grandma Fa. Fickle, with a unique connection with a seemingly perfectly ordinary animal, old and sassy? Figured it fit! So for once, the Herbalist is Azula's grandma! xD strange notion, I know, Azulon/Herbalist is not a ship I ever thought I'd accidentally put out in the world but there have been wilder ships than that in this fandom...

Momo became Cri-Kee, I wasn't 100% sold on it but when I considered that Avatar features soooo many hybrid animals... I figured he could be a hybrid cricket-lemur. Weird, I know, but eh? Better than nothing xD

Aang as Chien-Po was a no-brainer. He's the only character I settled on instantly, never even considered anyone else for the role. Their personalities line up really well, and Chien-Po's tendency to be OP and resolve things that are outside of other people's reach sounded like he was prime Avatar material! So, while their dietary preferences are an obvious difference between them, I decided to go for it nonetheless considering all their other similarities!

Kino (another Gladiator OC) is Ling, and he actually did give me a ton of trouble to choose. I considered many characters for the role right up until I realized that Kino's personality actually lines up fairly well with Ling's, down to being a class clown type (who ABSOLUTELY would have cut gym class!) and breaking out in song about the hypothetical woman he'd like to fight for? Yeeeeah that's right up his alley xD but there's another reason why I picked Kino...

... And that is my likely unexpected choice for Yao:

ZUKO.

ZUKO IS YAO.

YES.

I'M NOT EVEN SORRY.

(For the uninitiated, Aang, Zuko and Kino are best friends in Gladiator, very often together, and they make a really good team, so that's the extra reason why Kino became the obvious choice for Ling aside from having really similar personalities, definitely closer personalities than, say, Jet, for instance.)

People have likened Zuko to Shang a LOT since ATLA aired. This is the main reason why I'm even making this huge note! I suspect it's primarily because of the aesthetic, let's be real here, and because he becomes Aang's teacher, but people have exaggerated Zuko's alleged similarities with Shang, or taken them out of proportion, in many ways. I actually remember an AMV ages ago with "Be a Man" and it was Zuko "training the Gaang"?? It... didn't feel right to me. Obviously, someone might rebuff with "well, how does Sokka make MORE sense than that, though?" And believe it or not, I have arguments for that... (when do I not...?)

Not only is this what the commissioner specifically requested (and it obviously lines up with the ship we love!), but let's examine the actual reasons why Sokka as Shang adds up:

Sokka actually had to train a bunch of toddlers who weren't paying any attention to him. You know. Kind of how Shang had to train the unruly soldiers who weren't getting anything right. Sokka has a positive relationship with his dad (Zuko, ofc, does not). Shang also has a positive relationship with his dad! And not only this, but there's a military component to both relationships, specifically with Shang wanting to follow on his father's footsteps and aid him in the war... so much like someone else I know, who jumped at every opportunity to rejoin his father in the war, even wishing to join him as a child until Hakoda tasked him with protecting their Tribe instead (kinda like Shang is tasked with training soldiers rather than joining a battlefield).

And the final cherry-on-top that I'd loooove to hear Zuko fans try to argue against... is sexism :') didn't Sokka get characterized as a sexist guy for four episodes, which made people decide that this was his main character trait even if it went away that quickly? Um, yes, that happened. Shang literally sings the memorable song that's a crazy ode to masculinity, including the rather sexist line of "did they send me daughters when I asked for sons". Shang outright abandons Mulan once they discover that she was a woman all along (while, admittedly, choosing to abandon her rather than KILL HER, which as we saw from Chi-Fu, he was NOT supposed to spare her!)...

So, is this REALLY what Zuko fans, who willfully believe their boy is a feminist king (... why? beats me...) are trying to compare their unproblematic blorbo to? :'D Me? I have no problem linking Sokka with Shang due to Sokka's beginnings and due to the fact that both Shang and Sokka have similar growth when it comes to accepting femininity is as valid as masculinity, and as they both learn to respect women as fighters and potential heroes! (I simply do not believe Sokka's ENTIRE tenure in ATLA was about that, though, and that's what I continue to clash with the fandom over...) So... all this is why I've reasoned that Sokka is a VERY solid choice for Shang, in fact, better than Zuko could hope to be.

... but this isn't all.

Maybe some might accept my arguments for Sokka-Shang. And then, they might ask:

WHY ZUKO AS YAO, THO??

... And the truth is it took me long to see it, myself, but HOLY SHIT, DOES IT FIT!

What is the primary thing we remember about Yao in Mulan? This guy is constantly itching for a fight, to prove himself, surely riddled with insecurities that he exteriorizes through overcompensation of masculinity. He's funny as fuck, but he's taking himself 100% seriously as a manly man all the time, and he's always ready for violence. But there's one more thing...

He treats Mulan as his RIVAL.

And more often than not? SHE SCREWS HIM OVER. Intentionally or not.

What does that sound like? Why, yes, it sounds a LOT like Azula and Zuko's sibling relationship!

The fact that Yao is a temperamental dude who lashes out easily at things (oh, something he has in common with Zuko!), that he specifically resents Mulan (in this case, Azula, just as Zuko does!) and is either constantly looking to defeat her and prove his superiority over her (... wait, just as Zuko with Azula??), that he has a black eye perpetually across the movie, and it's his LEFT EYE (just as Zuko's scar is on his left eye! :'D), that he's friends with a pacifist he has basically nothing in common with, personality-wise (just like Zuko and Aang!), and that he pretty much has a REDEMPTION ARC in which he goes from a bitter, asshole rival to Mulan to treating her as a friend and ally, to the point where he was disappointed to leave her behind and THEN joined her at once when she says she has a plan? :') I have always been critical of Zuko's redemption arc, goes without saying. But if ANY of these characters redeemed himself in any significant way, it certainly seems to be Yao to me, and with people gushing NON-STOP about Zuko's redemption? Why, he ought to be the character who goes from bitter rival to loyal friend, right?

So. I'm not even sorry. Zuko is Yao. And I'd dare say that he should be flattered by the comparison, even, because Yao ends up being cool as FUCK!

I don't really talk about this much nowadays, but Mulan was my favorite Disney movie growing up, it ABSOLUTELY had a formative influence on me as a little girl, and Mulan was my favorite female character for a looooong time. Thus, any excuse to rewatch this movie makes me happy as heck. With the wisdom of age I know, of course, that it's not perfect, it's not what China wants, it's not the most thoughtful depiction of Chinese culture or the most faithful adaptation of Mulan's poem (... but I'd also dare bring up that the 2009 Chinese adaptation ISN'T all that faithful either...), but it has a kind of magic in it, a solid storytelling flow, so many memorable moments one after the next, that I could hardly choose which scenes to depict... Disney has never again seen the storytelling heights it reached with Mulan in 1998. I don't even care if that's a controversial opinion in any way... this is their best animated feature for me, and nobody can change my mind.

So... depicting Azula, my beloved, in all these scenarios as this character I adored and idolized as a child, was so damn fulfilling for me. While some might think that, personality-wise, these two ladies don't have much in common, the fact that Mulan is sent to a matchmaker who basically tells her she looks good but is going to be the worst wife ever...? Our girl Azula, with all those insecurities about being unloveable and a monster, probably would relate big time to that.

Mulan is also an INTELLIGENT soldier rather than a brawny one, which is how she starts to make progress in the army, it's how she manages to overcome the huns with that avalanche... and Azula's primary difference with most other antagonists in ATLA is that she's smart as fuck. She is very strong, no doubt, but a LOT of that strength comes from her intelligence, from assessing situations in unique ways, from planning and strategizing. The way Mulan finds the most unexpected solutions that still pay off reminds me a lot of how Azula achieves unexpected feats through rather unorthodox means, capable of taking over a city with basically no bloodshed while her nation has spent 100 years trying and failing to do so through major army incursions and who knows how much senseless violence. Obviously, I'm not saying what Azula did is GOOD and it's kind of dumb that we always have to point that out... I'm merely comparing the magnitude of the feats, and the fact that they both come from ladies who use strategy and intelligence to achieve their goals rather than muscle and physical power.

And while anyone would rage at me for the comparison between Fa Zhou (her dad) and Ozai, the truth is the dynamic between them CAN be compared, if loosely: Mulan literally goes to war to keep her father safe. Azula goes to war under her father's orders. Hell, she makes herself BAIT in the Eclipse to make sure the Gaang won't get to her dad?? While it's very much possible to say that both characters have different personalities and attitudes in life... I'd also bring up that their contexts are evidently completely different. I wouldn't say for certain that Azula, had she been raised outside a Royal Family, would be EXACTLY like Mulan... but they might have more similar traits than one might expect. Ultimately, though... I love them both. And this opportunity to swap their places was pretty much a dream come true!

Alright, that was plenty of rambling xD ultimately, I had a blast doing this commission, as I'm sure is obvious by now. So! If anyone wants to commission me, feel free to check out my prices right here and hit me up if you're interested!

[sarilolla]

Trolls headcanon

So, we all know how babies and young kids often hide or stick around in an adults hair (I’m guessing most often a parent or parent figure)? I think that’s a remnant from when the adults had to carry them around like that for safety reasons (pre-sound era). It calmed the kiddo down, as they felt safe and protected, and kept them in a safe spot for the adult. It also probably comes from how an egg incubates in hair

Now, Pop Trolls literally depended on this calming feature for their kiddos while living in the Troll Tree. While adults and teens could be quiet when necessary, babies and young kids struggled. So hair time was when the tiny one knew they should be calm and many used it as a nap spot. It’s a thing heavily associated with protection

That protection and calming feeling continues when the kid is too old to stay in their protector/guardian’s hair. That means that if a parent grabbed their kid with their hair (like we have seen the Pop Trolls do many times), the kid will instinctively calm down a bit. It’s the sense of family and protection, and that instinct can carry on long until adulthood. The longer the older carries you around in their hair, the longer that instinct of safety lasts

Branch was carried around a lot by his brothers, but mostly JD as he was the oldest and could easier carry him around (they’re sitting on your head after all, you need a certain strength). All four of them were protective of their tiny baby brother, so they all carried him a lot, meaning that if any of them grabbed him with their hair now… he would instantly calm down and nearly rag doll, much to his embarrassment