#there is no excuse for this episode

[feralnumberfive]

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[lexo-is-pesto]

Like mother like daughter

[zephyrchama]

You were sick. Your head was in a fog and your throat hurt something fierce. It was sweltering hot yet you shivered under the covers, hoping for the fever to pass soon. Your body, doing its best to get better, decided to empty the contents of your stomach over the side of the bed.

Beelzebub was the first to discover your condition. He came to wake you up in person when you hadn't shown up on time for breakfast. You were teetering like a newborn deer trying to clean up your mess. He was taken aback at the sight, at how clammy you were, and gently wiped the sweat from your face while checking how warm your forehead was. "You should lay down," he recommended, practically pushing you back into bed. You asked him to guide you to the bathroom instead.

He disappeared to fetch Lucifer. The eldest arrived immediately upon being informed of your condition. Your face muscles twitched as you tried to hold back a second round and apologized for the state you were in. Lucifer told you to stay quiet and just rest. "If you want to apologize, then get better soon."

"Don't tell anyone about this, ok?" you tried to ask. It came out as a garbled, barely perceptible whisper sending bolts of pain through your neck. You didn't want anyone to know how bad things really were.

"I do need to inform Diavolo, but rest assured I'll keep it brief." After ensuring you had water and would be fine alone for a few hours, Lucifer left early to inform RAD of your absence. He later texted you, "Don't hesitate to summon me if you need anything."

The house was quiet. It felt surreal to be the only one there. After some time had passed, you hobbled back to your bedroom and tried to sleep through the pain. Blissfully unaware of the chaos occurring elsewhere.

RAD is no small academy by any means, but rumors sure do spread fast. In first period, Beelzebub told Belphegor the sight he witnessed. They were overheard by Asmodeus, who lamented your absence to Solomon. Solomon asked Raphael to come with him to prepare some nutritious human food so you'd recover faster, and had to be forcibly stopped by Simeon. Luke found out by interrogating Solomon about why he was causing a scene in the kitchen.

Mephistopheles caught wind of the gossip and went directly to Diavolo for confirmation. Lucifer was none too happy at the situation, but the rumor mill was already spinning in full force. He did his best to uphold your image by telling anyone who broached the subject, "it's just the sniffles."

By lunchtime, Mammon was taking bets on how sick you were. "500 grimm says they're explodin' from both ends." "If that were the case, one of us would have stayed at the house with them," Satan rebutted, spying an easy win. "500 grimm says it's just coming out the bottom." They went back and forth, with others occasionally chipping in new symptoms such as hives or internal bleeding. Asmodeus, unable to listen any longer, left the cafeteria to post vague stories about his concern for you on social media.

Leviathan and Thirteen sent you get-well-soon text messages. One was full of worry and asked you to respond ASAP so they knew you weren't dying, as anxiety over your condition was causing them no end of fear. The other assured you to rest easy knowing that your candle was fine and you had plenty of time left before you kicked the bucket. It even recommended passing your bug onto someone else for fun.

You only saw the notifications in the evening, when a pounding headache woke you up and resounding footsteps in the hall signaled that people were home from school.

There was a knock at the door and Lucifer announced you had company. The crown prince and his butler imposed with a tray of fresh herbal tea. It would have smelled amazing if you possessed the ability to breathe through your nose. As the door shut behind them, you spotted at least ten figures out in the hallway.

Barbatos silently served you a hot cup, hopeful the rising stream would assist your sinuses. "Looks like you're recovering well!" Diavolo chimed. "That's great. I feared you were going to heave your guts out all day."

The frank sincerity caught you off guard and you choked on your tea. Barbatos was quick to grab the cup before it spilled.

"You knew?" you rasped. "Oh yes. Lucifer said it wasn't that bad, but tales of your illness have spread all over campus. We know human bodies aren't very strong."

You hunched down into the blankets to hide. The heat spreading across your face this time was not due to fever.

[cuepickle]

If stranger things was a comic (and I was the artist)

[egophiliac]

I've had a beast of a cold for the last few days, but I wanted to get this out before the new year! while I've sort of made my peace with my first take on Lilia's UM poster, I really wanted to do a version with the new context that chapter 6 gave us. because. c'mon.

(don't worry, Lilia can carry ALL HIS KIDS AT ONCE)

[mwagneto]

no!!!!!! 8 episodes will kill patient!!!!!!!! he needs 12-24 episodes some of which is light-hearted filler to live!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thesnadger]

When I see Breaking Bad memes and people making jokes like "lol if only they had universal healthcare" I get it, but I always just go:

[tizeline]

Well. Every tmnt artist has to turn them into humans eventually, I suppose.

Sorry for not posting a ton lately, I have been................. playing fire emblem three houses.............. busy............ Also I've been feeling a little burned out on art, admitedly. Don't worry, it's very much temporary! Last month was just pretty high tempo for me, expecially with the Cell Talk comic, so I just needed to take a short break from drawing to also play fire emblem but I'm getting back into an art-mood now! I decided to draw humanified turtles as a bit of a warm up basically, I've been wanting to do it for quite some time so it was just a fun little thing for me :]

Anyway, some thoughts about the designs-

A lot of people draw Leo as blonde, and I was fully intending to draw him blonde as well, but then I just wanted to see what he'd look like with brown hair instead and I just.... liked that a bit more, so he's a brunette now. Also he has dimples because of course he has dimples. And Mikey has freckles because OF COURSE he has freckles! And Donnie ALSO has freckles because he's my blorbo and I give all my blorbos freckles cuz they're neat. All of them have pretty small eyebrows except for Donnie because he fills them in with makeup. I thought for a while of how I would translate Leo's facial markings into his human design, and I ended up settling for birthmarks (also some red eyeliner cuz his face needs a bit of red on it)

[wispurring-moss]

sometimes i think about what kinds of absolutely batshit ridiculousness Angel probably spews during all his time spent sitting at Husk's bar & this just kinda fell out today lmao 🤷🩷🧡✨️

[red2007]

Tell me I'm wrong.

[umanta]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, S3E12 Past Tense, Part II

this episode is about an anti-governmental revolution in 2024 btw. just in case anyone was looking for ideas

[sphor-art]

ummm.. she's right behind me isn't she

[threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat]

i've discovered a quite large category of people who never got into The Good Place and the only way they could articulate their disinterest was, "there's no stakes cause they're already dead." i'm obsessed with the idea the only reason they could enjoy seinfeld is they imagined kramer could beef it any fucking second

[thealmightyfruitcake]

AWKWARD

We know Zooble had a Gangle mask all this time so......what if?

They like to see her happy!

[egophiliac]

Since book 7 part 5 (the part where we meet Meleanor/Maleanor 👀) is coming to EN this month, i would love to see your take on lilia’s proposal to meleanor! i mean they were like little kids right? it couldn’t have been that serious…i think the only reason she even brought it up again is because she could tell lilia still genuinely loved her…(even if he didn’t realize it himself?) but, oh well! Let’s think about silly childhood shenanigans to numb the pain! ^_^ (orz)

oh shit?! get ready for a doozy guys, it's comiiiiiing ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I chickened out of posting the whole thing (look, I get VERY carried away when it comes to these wacky kids and their Tragedy), but I do believe that it probably ended with Lilia getting embarrassed and just shoving the first thing he sees into his mouth to try and cover for it.

(we're just lucky it wasn't a frog this time)