#truly a species

[infernal-lamb]

some rushed doodles of our new goat darling........I have so many plans for them

[red-moon-at-night]

After doing some research on the types of pets people had in ancient Greece, I'd like to imagine that Helen is the sort of person who has a whole menagerie of birds — and she loves each and every one of them very, very much.

It fits well with her being good at mimicry, you know. Talking and imitating and singing with her beloved birds 💜

Close up under the read more:

I had to include that one necklace from the minoan 'saffron goddess' fresco because it's my favourite thing Ever

[neopianbiologyproject]

one of my favorite item jokes on neopets is fruit and veg items having "Organic" counterparts that are identical in every way, except that they are categorized as "Healthy Food" and are slightly more expensive

also the descriptions tend to be a little different:

[montereybayaquarium]

🌍🦦 We’re otterly excited to sea-lebrate World Otter Day! 🦦🌎

Whether they're floating, sliding, or just being their mischievous selves, these adorably aquatic, pawesome pals never fail to bring joy to our musteliday.

It’s time to  unleash your inner otter and join us in a round of ap-paws in celebrocean of World Otter Day!

[burst-of-iridescent]

Writing a Final Battle: Kung Fu Panda vs ATLA

every day i think about how the po & shen battle at the end of kung fu panda 2 is everything the aang & ozai battle at the end of atla should have been and get frustrated at the wasted potential all over again.

i’ll cut the show some slack in that the personal nature of po & shen’s relationship was never going to be possible in atla given the 100 year time jump, and that ozai himself wasn’t personally responsible for the air nomad genocide, which naturally undercuts their individual connection. but given that the final agni kai fulfilled the character-based conflict of the finale anyway, it fell to the aang-ozai battle to represent the thematic one, and it fell incredibly short where kfp 2 absolutely delivered.

it’s threaded throughout the narrative of the movie that po and shen are two sides of the same coin: black and white, yin and yang, goodness and madness. they both see themselves (po in kfp 2, at least) as orphans, plagued by fears that they were abandoned and unloved. both flee from a past they’re too afraid to face, tormented by wounds they believe won’t heal, shackled to a destiny they refuse to give up. the existence of one threatens the survival of the other; shen is foretold to be defeated by a warrior of black & white, while po cannot be the dragon warrior, the title that gave him a home and identity and belonging, in a world without kung fu — the world that shen is trying to create.

even without po’s personal connection to shen as the one responsible for his mother’s death and the loss of his community, thematically the two mirror each other perfectly. and it is this mirroring that makes the moment of their divergence so impactful and essential to the narrative: that while po stops running from his past, shen is never able to do so. it’s in making the choice to accept what happened to him & find peace in who he is that po triumphs over shen, and so illustrates the themes of the movie perfectly: that your past need not determine your future. that you cannot avoid your destiny, but you can shape the road you take to meet it, and that choice is yours and yours alone.

where po exemplifies the choice for peace, for healing, for acceptance, shen represents the choice to perpetuate violence, pain, self-loathing — and the brutal, inevitable self-destruction waiting at the end of that path. a classic writing technique for a thematic conflict, executed brilliantly: to have the hero and villain rise or fall by the virtues they stand for.

now compare this to aang and ozai.

i’ve talked before about how this battle fails from a character perspective for aang, but it also fails thematically as a result. following the constructed narrative up to the southern raiders, what should have happened in this battle was aang winning because he drew wisdom from different places, using bending techniques and knowledge from all four nations, and ozai losing as a consequence of his own destructive pride and reliance on firebending alone. instead, the unity vs individualism, balance vs domination theme set up from the start with the idea of the avatar falls completely by the wayside as the battle focuses on air nomad pacifism vs fire nation violence instead — an unsubstantiated, last minute ass pull of a conflict chucked in for no good reason.

but fine, we’ll bite. it’s not a bad conflict, in theory, just poorly set up. the execution might still have worked, if not for the fact that a) the means of this pacifism is entirely unearned and b) the choice to save ozai’s life is not about ozai at all, but about aang.

po’s victory feels earned because not only did the movie set the means of this victory up well in advance — introducing the chekhov’s gun of the dew drop and inner peace in the first ten minutes — it also perfectly aligned his external conflict (defeating shen) with his internal conflict (coming to terms with the pain of his past). in other terms, it’s the classic Want vs Need: po’s want (saving kung fu) is only achieved through first meeting his need (accepting who he is and where he came from, in its entirety).

aang, on the other hand, is given the solution to his external conflict through lion turtle ex machina, and Rock of Mega Convenience, neither of which was found as a result of his own choices or autonomy. it’s like if po showed up at the final battle with shen having skipped the entirety of the scene at the soothsayer’s, and yet is able to redirect the metal balls anyway because… well who the fuck knows, just go with it.

and that’s bad enough, except then it’s compounded by the fact that aang gets his Want (maintaining his people’s values & his moral purity) by doing… uh… *checks notes* Fucking Nothing. there is no Want vs Need here at all; aang didn’t have to sacrifice anything, or undergo any internal struggle, to receive the power of energybending. (and no, being “pure of heart” in order to energybend doesn’t count — a potential moral decline or losing air nomad values through assimilation to a changed world was never an arc set up for aang, and so cannot be counted as a feasible Need.)

and as the cherry on top of this clusterfuck of terrible writing comes the moment where aang chooses to spare ozai, a scene intended to convey the triumph of the air nomads’ compassion and pacifism over the fire nation’s brutality, a scene meant to have incredible pathos and meaning… and which accomplishes neither of the above.

po trying to spare shen is genuinely moving because the scene is framed around shen. it’s about the fact that despite every terrible thing shen has done — in that moment po sees in him only someone as lost and confused and pained as he was, someone clinging to a grand destiny to cure, in vain, the wounds of the past. someone po himself might have been in another life, another time. po’s compassion is for shen and shen alone, with no ulterior benefit to himself, and you get the sense that deep down — at least for a moment — shen wants to believe in the kindness and hope po is offering. that’s what makes it genuine and gives the scene such gravitas.

by contrast, the scene between aang and ozai is framed around aang, not ozai. aang is the one who wants to spare ozai. aang is the one who benefits from leaving ozai alive, because he doesn’t need to sacrifice his morals or beliefs. aang is the one getting his wish, not ozai — who would likely choose death over defeat and losing his bending anyway. this isn’t helped by the fact that the fire lord is inherently a far less tragic & compelling figure than shen because a) he exists largely as an antagonistic force than a character in his own right for most of the series, and b) aang and ozai don’t have an existing relationship to add depth to this moment, the way zuko and azula do.

as such, the one-sided nature of the conflict only strengthens the impression that saving ozai’s life is all about what aang wants, not ozai — which makes the message of the scene seem a lot more “if you’re the hero, you’ll get everything you want with absolutely no cost or consequences” and a lot less “compassion always triumphs over cruelty” (which was probably the intention).

ultimately, the po vs shen battle works where aang vs ozai fails because:

1. the themes embodied by the characters manifest beautifully in their individual arcs, and in their eventual victory and defeat, respectively

2. they contrast each other thematically and narratively, and their individual endings are earned through their own agency from start to finish, with their external conflicts being linked to and resolved through their internal character struggles

3. the set up of the conflict is carefully planned and thoughtfully executed, and the payoff follows through perfectly every step of the way

tldr: kung fu panda will always be the superior asian-inspired fantasy about a chosen one confronting his destiny as the saviour of the world & the day we can acknowledge as a society that po’s character arc is a thousand times better and more well-written than aang’s is the day i will finally know peace.

[cruel-hiraeth]

part of jing yuan’s irresistible allure—in the bedroom, particularly—is how versatile he is. some may interpret his flexibility as boredom or laziness, both of which are far from the truth; in reality, he has simply sated the sexual curiosities of his youth, so is repertoire is vast. what he craves more than anything in the cosmos is intimacy and connection, which is exactly what you give him. and his open approach allows you room to explore your deepest desires without judgement—so long as you can clearly voice said desires (he is a scoundrel, after all).

[patchesjam]

being called 'female' is so much worse than whore

[wifegideonnav]

ever since i was a little girl i knew i wanted to have only one friend who was only friends with me. and we would be obsessed with each other.

[bytewire]

I often wonder what it was like for the Architects in these zen gardens. Being sick and having to process the fact that a cure was not developed in time.

This specific Architect component: what was their assignment? What tasks they were preforming on 4546B before the quarantine was instated. Before they situated in the garden and most likely succumbed to Kharaa. AL-AN mentions that Architects don’t see endings as the same way humans do, so even though this mind is gone, their data and experiences are in the network. I wonder if their remaining goals were carried out by the collective, or if there was simply no time to do so given the 143 billion other Architect casualties.

At the very least every time I go to the deep lilypad caves cache in game I take a minute to think about things as I listen to the dialogue between Robin and AL-AN. I suppose even after a millennium abandoned the garden is still fulfilling its purpose as a place to reflect.

[isa-ah]

does anyone else miss the mornings after big sleepovers when all the kids would wake up at different points in the morning, whispering and wandering out for breakfast

[acoustic-crayons]

He's here to turn in the Wanted Dead or Alive Bounty(dead) and even brought some flowers as well, much to his brother's embarrassment

Hickory could've gone without seeing his brother's strange attempts to flirt.

[longagoitwastuesday]

I keep thinking that this Gojo is just like Sukuna. I truly don't see much of a difference between them beyond the human/curse point of view

[owlsdrawinglair]

a colored and lined sketch of a friend of mine as a togeuta! Really proud of this one!

[shopcat]

the one horse argument that pisses me off so much is like.. well it isn't an argument it's just a sound bite people repeat bc they think they're funny and/or smart (they're not 🤎) is when people go on and on and ON they just never stop, frankly, fucking talking about is how fragile and horrible horses are for various reasons that boil down to them just describing anatomical features of an animal than being like "and that's HORRIFIC" bc they're most of the time going into this with obvious bias against or even outright hatred towards this animal 😭?

like "their legs are so fragile they can break just by stepping wrong" so are your toes and fingers and ankles and wrists and legs and arms and ribs and hips and collar bones and your fucking skull. a human being can die just from falling the distance of its OWN HEIGHT. YOU can drown in an inch of water. YOU can die just from tripping over. YOU have one of the worst body plans in the natural animal kingdom. you have entire organs that are defunct and can decide to one day kill you. your bones are so fragile and your organs are ridiculously mapped out and your back and spine is absolutely fucked which includes your neck which is connected to your HEAD. we were granted as a species enough intelligence to form written and oral communication and this is the way you use it ... to be a fucking idiot who speaks like a redditor trying to write the next copypasta online because you think you have something interesting to say and end up sounding like a toddler who is scared of a dog on the street.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Far Removed

book 1 in a character-focused sff (with dystopian/horror elements) duology

set on a moon city populated by a highly intelligent semi-aquatic species with a strictly stratified society

a well-off politician / college director who is trying to use his position to challenge the corrupt upper strata organises to have one of his students smuggled out of the city after she’s accused of insurgency

he’s helped by maskad worker - those who are forcibly magically disfigured and made to wear masks, becoming the lowest strata - at the college, who’s able to guide the student to safety

but they catch the attention of powerful people, leading the two of them to be drawn together, developing a complicated friendship

[theshadowrealmitself]

Not to sound like a broken record, but fuck I love thinking about how things would change in the future, especially horror movies

“I actually really enjoy horror movies, especially the slasher kind. Did you know that many of the tropes found in it are the result of things that were condemned in the late 1900’s in western society? Many of the plotlines of the time were “teenagers have premarital sex and do drugs and get killed off, and the one that lives is the “good” girl who doesn’t do those things.” As you can imagine, those things were very looked down at the time.”

“Now, even though those things are no longer condemned, those character types still exist in slasher films, and have even evolved. There’s still the “slutty girl”, but instead of it being a Human playing a character that’s meant to be “punished” for premarital sex, it’s now always played by an Orion woman. In fact, the current most popular slasher franchise in today’s time involves an Orion woman who does everything right by playing up the “slutty” stereotype. So rather than being condemned for her sexuality, she’s venerated for it.”

“Do you think the Orion director was aware of the Human history of these kind of slasher films and did this purposely to subvert the trope, or do you think it was a natural outcome because of the difference in how Orions view sex and sexuality? As a director, it would make sense that she’d do her research, but also it’s been so long since the 1900’s on Earth, I wouldn’t be surprised if information like that is too difficult to find, I wish I could ask her myself.”

- person from the 21st century who’s not aware of how much of their knowledge is still common or not