#teach me something new

[bloodpen-to-paper]

A thing I noticed that I wanted to share

At the start, it was the English speakers and the Spanish speakers. You'd most likely be more accustomed to one of those sides and stick to the ones you speak the language of if you're monolingual.

Then the Brazilians were added, and it became the English/Spanish speakers and the Brazilians. Still two sides, but the previous ones merged. The QSMP community were used to the original members, and the Brazilians were this new group we knew nothing about.

Now the French speakers are in the server, and the existing QSMP members are the English/Spanish/Portuguese speakers. The French members are "new", and I can't help but wonder how long it'll take until "the English/Spanish/Portuguese speakers and the French members" becomes "the English/Spanish/Portuguese/French speakers and the ___ members".

You stick with who you're most familiar with, and through them interacting with the others and getting to know them, at some point, you get to know them too. They stop being "others" and they become part of the group. In my case, the Spanish speakers stopped being "Quackity's friends", and the Brazilians were no longer just "fellow Brazilians" but some of the members that make me laugh the most. Forever is my favorite and I watch him and Cellbit' for all the lore. Because of Vegetta I know the word "mamadisimo".

Very few members of this server are "others" to me anymore, and its no longer because of a language/familiarity barrier but due to me actually knowing them and having my favorites based on their specific content. I've become so familiar with Maxo and Mariana and Vegetta, Forever and Cellbit and Mike and Pac, that I can't remember the time when they were "others" in my mind. Already I've become so used to having Baghera and Etoiles on the server, and I don't even remember how it happened, it just did you know?

This is... I think this is what Quackity was talking about. Even if he didn't have these exact words, this is what he wanted from the server. For people who you would consider an "other" in your life because of a language barrier to be the bridge that you cross to learning about all the wonderful languages and cultures out there in the world.

Before this, I wanted to learn Spanish because its a common language, and I struggled to pick up on Portuguese cause learning can be hard for me without some push. Most people didn't plan to learn either.

Now? I've seen so many people trying to learn these languages because they want to understand Cellbit's theories and Quackity's spanish streams and funny Roier clips on twitter. Now, I want to learn Mexican spanish specifically, because so many people near me speak it but the Mexicans on the QSMP made me care. I know that "pomme" means "apple" and I taught it to my mother who always wanted to learn French, and I'm brushing up on my French basics and learning that "parlez-vous français" actually means "do you speak french" and not "are you French" because I didn't care to know the difference before but I do now, because Baghera taught me. And... I've finally started learning Portuguese. My mom's teaching me and I started up online classes, and I've been self-teaching the basics by translating the QsmpPOR updates account. Ain't that something.

And that's what this was about. And I feel foolish (haha) that I didn't pick up on the vision earlier. Fuck, even Chayanne just mentioning he speaks Chinese is making me want to dust off my old high school Chinese homework and relearn the basics.

This server is something special. Its a jumbled mess of languages being thrown at each other until they start making sense and its sharing and learning, and I can't thank Quackity and his team enough.

[lilypixels]

Randomly remembered how in high school, like all my friends were watching dr who, Sherlock, supernatural, Merlin, all those shows tumblr people love yknow and I didn’t watch them (i know, surprising isn’t it?) but I loved to just listen to them talk and how excited they were and by the end of it I felt like I’d seen all of them

Anyway, that’s just some exposition for me saying I don’t understand how someone could not like hearing people talk bout what they love and enjoy?? Like it’s so great and it’s one of my favorite things (bonus if I then get to go on about something I like hehe)

So yeah, I’m in mood for hearing people go off, if you want to, send me some asks and just go on about something you enjoy or something you think I’d enjoy too idk I just want to hear stuff😎

[zyphnn]

@codywanweek day 2: cody with a lightsaber

lightsaber training 🤺

[dollopole]

They should have dwelled more into Merlin’s skills (and I’m not talking about just magic)

As I rewatched Merlin, I realised this man has so many skills?!

We often talk about how surely Arthur must have thought him how to use a sword (I agree 100%) but Merlin also knows how to hunt?

He dislikes it, yet years and years of going hunting with Arthur proves to be fruitful. Merlin founds the deer in season four before the entire Camelot patrol. He knows how to recognise tracks on trees and traces of feet in the mud (he knows how to build them in the right way with magic, too). And I have proof that Arthur teaches Merlin, because in season five, Arthur makes Merlin see what was wrong with the branch. when they went out and Arthur noticed that someone (Mordred) had walked past the woods.

Also, season four, episode two? Merlin wakes up before Lancelot and HE IS HUNTING FISH LIKE A MASTER?!

Have we talked about this? Who taught him? I believe most things he already knew how to do, since he grew up in a village with a single mother where everyone had to fetch up for themselves.

He also knows how to cook. And he gets compliments (even if they are jokes) from the Knights and Arthur himself too.

HE IS A PHYSICIAN, and I wished we could have seen so much more of that, because he is hot, because it proves that is so good at learning, listening and also teaching. He tells Daegal how to get rid of the poison, poison, in his body and HE IS STILL SO HUMBLE ABOUT IT?! He spent more than ten years being an apprentice and when Daegal tells him he is a good physician, Merlin denies it?! Bro has low self esteem.

Merlin also has all the skills required from a servant, like sewing, cleaning specific fabric in a certain way, polishing armour and so many other things, adjusting swords and weapons ecc.

I guess it pisses me off when Merlin is described (heavily in fanfictions too) like an incapable manservant, unable to do things for himself or defend himself without magic, when he spent ten years in Camelot doing new work after new work. Just because he was scared at the end of season five without his powers (because he had never lost them before) it doesn’t mean Merlin isn’t capable of using a sword, or help himself, since he does and challenges Morgana too, even without powers.

EDIT:

Merlin also knows how to use a crossbow and how to fight side by side with Arthur and he knows where to head, where north and south are, based on the scent of the air?! Merlin knows so many things.

[saltpepperbeard]

gnawing on my arm because i think there's something to be said about how stede not only dreams about himself with a beard, but ed with his full beard back too. like, the dream seems to be riddled with imagery that he thinks ed would want.

and i say this especially because of how stede reacted when ed had to shave his beard. he freaked out on his behalf. he shrieked in horror whereas ed was entirely unbothered. he feared he had ruined him, had dragged him down to some despicable level, when in actuality, ed was completely content to shed that part of his persona.

and then there he is dreaming about ed with that part right on back.

so there's very clearly still a part of his mind that's convinced that's what ed wants. because why wouldn't he? everyone else seems to. and why would he want the softness and femininity stede had been bullied for his entire life?

which in turn plays into his own imagery too. bearded, masculine, fiercesome, rugged...

because how could someone love what everyone has hated him for? how could someone want what everyone has tried to quite literally beat out of him?

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[humblepoet26]

Thick thighs to please the bi's? 🤷‍♀️😘🤭

[macchiatosdumptruck]

People will see two characters who are entirely devoted to each other and whose lives are intertwined in cosmic ways, and be like "what if they were just buddies? 😊" But then one second later go ape shit about a more popular ship with less than half the chemistry, but a dynamic that is considered more appropriate for the surface level, overused, interchangeable fandom tropes that have replaced any sort of genuine character interpretation

[mermaidstede]

If I could just make an observation... Do you think you talk so much because you don't wanna know how to sit with yourself?

[weensysunshine]

sometimes when you’re new to having a body, you gotta see what kinda crazy stuff it can do

[the-mother-of-lions]

i told you we'd get to see something interesting, didn't i...

[haseulove]

ed teach // S2E4 fun and games

[burningcheese-merchant]

I can just imagine Matar Paneer learning Telugu from her dad while Pepper Jack refused to, but hen Golden Cheese also learned Telugu and now the three of them have whole conversations in Telugu at, like, the dinner table or smth, and Pepper Jack’s like: “what are you guys talking about?!”

idk I just find that funny-

Pepper Jack would not let that stand for even a single moment lol. I don't really think he'd reject learning it in the first place tbh, doesn't seem like something he'd do; a learning opportunity plus a way to bond with his father, whom he is already desperate to understand and please because he's scared that Burning Spice doesn't like him (not true but he's a child, he doesn't understand)? He wouldn't say no to that.

But to play along with your idea: if Jack saw his parents and sister talking and enjoying each other's company in a way that he can't partake in or mimic, he'd be so upset. He'd be frustrated and kind of hurt, because A) it comes across as a way to exclude him, and B) it comes across as an attack on his intelligence in some way, and there is nothing Jack hates more than that. He tries to deny it and keep humble, but he does have a bit of an ego wrt his intelligence, and also, he's extremely curious and loves to learn/know things anyway. People communicating in a foreign language in front of him only serves to make him want to learn it himself, because he's dying to know what they're saying lol

So not only would that light a fire in Jack's heart and make him master Telugu all by his fucking self, he'd go ahead and learn a few other languages just to one-up his family. He'll say something in Telugu to his sister, then immediately switch to Tamil when he talks to his mother, then switch to Hindi with his father. All quite seamlessly. With this aura 😎🖕

(except they would all think Jack is cool as hell for doing this lol. Burning Spice especially would be SO proud of his son. And touched that he's gone the extra mile to connect with his heritage. Cue Jack's grudge immediately deflating bc it's obvious his family loves him and were never trying to hurt him in the first place, and now he feels like an asshole because he was motivated primarily by resentment during this endeavor and that's not a good reason to do anything)

It is a funny idea tho. Thank you for the thought experiment, anon :P

[itspileofgoodthings]

I know I’ve talked about this before cause I basically blogged my way through it but there was no catalyst for greater growth for me as a teacher than me having to read my student surveys my second year and being so caught off guard by how cruel so many of them were that I had to leave my classroom and go sob in an empty one for 15 minutes but then when I came back in (and in the following days) when I just felt so absolutely wrecked and wretched and vulnerable and scared but I HAD to keep going that it dawned on me that it literally didn’t matter what they said about me I still had the power of authority, NOT because of my personality or charisma or anything I had heretofore believed gave me the authority, but because it was literally my job and because if I said we were going to read twelfth night aloud or diagram sentences or memorize poetry that was literally what happened and I just cannot explain the bedrock of confidence that gave me because the worst had happened, all my darkest fears came true, and it didn’t matter. They still needed to learn and I had what I needed to make them learn. The job remained unchanged. Changed me forever tbh.

[tleeaves]

There are two wolves inside me. One wants to embrace a new hobby in dance so I can be active and feel elegant and graceful and strong. This wolf wants to try something new and exciting, finally indulging in something I've always had an interest in.

The other experiences such frustrating emotions on a near daily basis that I want to go back to boxing, which is arguably easier to break into since I've already done it before. This wolf doesn't think of elegance, she just wants to fuck shit up until her body's so overworked and warm it fogs up car windows without having to do anything but sit inside.

Which one do I fucking feed??

[tennessoui]

first of all happy mayday and then also happy mermay

so au where anakin, human, falls in love with padmé, young mermaid queen of atlantis, and he finds a way to become a merman to be with her (she helps him because she's a queen lol it takes a bit of political maneuvering to get the sea witch to do the magic and ok now the sith have a small piece of their own territory in atlantis but it's worth it because they get to be together) but now someone has to show anakin how to be a merperson because it's not intuitive and he's really fucking bad at it like 'got his arm bitten off by a shark because he couldn't figure out how to swim faster that the shark' bad at it

and padmé is much too busy being queen and preparing for their wedding ceremony so...enter her most trusted advisor, obi-wan kenobi

obi-wan doesn't know what he did to deserve this sort of punishment. it's bad enough that the queen went rogue like this, gave the sith their own legitimate territory, and messed with dark magic just to get some tail (lol) but now obi-wan has to deal with it?? obi-wan has to teach anakin how to swim? the correct titles of their royals and how to pronounce them? the correct way to eat? obi-wan has to show him how to dress and deal with his sometimes surly countenance and his incessant need to touch everything he sees, up to and including the bright blue scales of obi-wan's fins--something only mates are supposed to touch??? obi-wan has to put his hands on anakin's waist and move his body to pump up and down and not side to side as humans walk??? obi-wan must carefully brush out his hair and treat it with their special concoctions so as to preserve its curl despite being underwater all the time now???

(they definitely fall in love which makes them both feel very, very guilty, except the truth is anakin and padmé's match is less true love and more fleeting infatuation now that they get to spend longer than a few seconds together)