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girl i know i love old boats and they got into accidents all the time and i wouldnt exactly regard an ocean liner as a not horrifying mode of transport but i just remembered we used to have those fucking balloon airships. i dont like planes myself but thank god we started making air transport out of shit that wasnt 100% flammable

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Feeling the compulsive urge to post about my oc's as if they have an established fanbase and aren't actually from wips I haven't even introduced on tumblr yet

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Luocha

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Guess what will happen in next few seconds :)

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Some Skihawken stuff! Skihawken was a ski resort AU on discord that I got to rp in from Dec-May this year. My Audrey did soooo many things during this vacation...studying, skating, stealing food, a birthday party, a new year's party, crying, inviting murderers and criminals to the resort...I had big art block and was too busy rping to draw much though (and yet somehow I was inspired to doodle 3 pics of her at the hotel's climbing gym lol?? xD) The last two pics are of Coal, who belongs to @ampreh!

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recent lumity commission

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i like him a normal amount

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Where are Uni's ears? :3

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sokka & zuko

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Electrocuting Catra via her whip [3x04/4x04]

Catra and Glimmer’s fight in 4x04 may be comedic (and really gay), but this parallel is tragic. The fight in 4x04 feels fairer than in 3x04, and the electrocution is staged to look like comedy rather than torture (just look at the differences in animation in the two middle gifs). But when you think about it, this is Glimmer using Shadow Weaver’s strategy of neutralizing Catra with magical current by using her only distance weapon against her (when she and Shadow Weaver are all about distance weapons in the form of magic). Not only that, Shadow Weaver has been doing this to control Catra for years and it’s no doubt caused Catra a lot of trauma. So Glimmer sees Shadow Weaver use magic in a smart but somewhat dirty manner to not only defeat but torture Catra, then she goes and does the same thing. And like, I know Glimmer doesn’t know that Shadow Weaver did this to Catra on the regs and doesn’t understand how abusive that relationship is, but still, it’s a little disturbing.

Also Glimmer looks intrigued/impressed in the middle gif from 3x04 and it’s kinda uncomfortable, especially now that we’ve seen the fruits of Shadow Weaver’s mentorship in her life. This is just one big steaming pile of yikes.

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Leading to the stellar domain by ying yi

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the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

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Art by Davood Moghaddami

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Art by Lily景怡

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So in the past few years I’ve seen so many videos / posts that are like:

“Actually wolves don’t have hierarchies!  They live in family groups where the ‘alphas’ are mom and dad and the other wolves are their CHILDREN and offer their respect willingly! :D”

and I just have to say

how dare you try to make normative nuclear families out of wolves

Yes, a lot of the old “nature red in tooth and claw” stuff about wolves is nonsense. (Like anything from Jack London.) And anything ‘alpha’ you see sleazy men trying to relate to dating (yikes!) is especially nonsense.

But wolves are complex social creatures and they create complex social structures. Just as you can’t say “THIS is the way human society is structured. Just THIS single way and no other”, so too there is no single form for a wolf pack.  

Some packs are a mom wolf and a dad wolf and their wolf children.  Others are two small ragged packs that combine to form a large pack.  Others are packs where a lone wolf joins and eventually becomes a leader. Others are packs where a grown child-wolf has pushed their parent out of the leadership role.

Speaking of the latter, let’s look at the tale of Wolf 40 and Wolf 42.

Wolf 40, Wolf 41, and Wolf 42 were wild Yellowstone wolves, daughters of the alphas. Their father was illegally killed by hunters and shortly after ambitious Wolf 40 ousted her mother, driving her out of the pack.  Wolf 21 became the new alpha male, and 40′s mate.

Wolves have personalities, and Wolf 40′s personality was “volatile”.  Imagine Scar from The Lion King combined with the boss from Office Space, and you have Wolf 40.  She habitually bullied the other female wolves, attacking them until they expressed abject submission.  And the wolves that got the worst of it were her sisters, Wolves 41 and 42.

Wolf 41 got tired of the bullying and left.  Wolf 42 remained, perhaps because she was close to Wolf 21, the alpha male.  Despite that, Wolf 21 did not interfere when his mate harassed Wolf 42.

Unlike 40, Wolf 42 got along well with the other female wolves, spending time grooming them and relaxing with them. Wolf 40 could have followed her sister’s example and built up positive social bonds. But she didn’t.

One day, Wolf 40 went out on an important task.  She was going to kill another litter of her sister’s pups–having done the same in two previous years.  This isn’t uncommon wolf behavior (but is not universal, as we will see.)  Typically only the alphas breed.

However, Wolf 40 never returned from her important task because Wolf 42–who previously had submitted to her alpha and sister, who had allowed the killing of two previous litters of pups–had had enough.  She fought back.

And the other female wolves jumped to aid her.

Collectively, they killed Wolf 40. Because “alpha” isn’t a magic cloak of protection, it doesn’t even mean “strongest wolf”, it’s just a job title.

The next day Wolf 42 carried her pups, one by one, to her sister’s den.  She set her children among the pups of her dead sister and raised both litters together. And when another wolf in the pack had pups, Wolf 42 carried them to the den to be communally raised as well.  She was the alpha female now and she made the rules, and the first rule was “we don’t hurt pups here.”

As for Wolf 21, he became the mate of Wolf 42.  Maybe he understood that Wolf 40 had been riding for a fall. 

As alpha female, Wolf 42 continued to be supportive and kind towards the other pack members.  Wolves who had been nervous wrecks under Wolf 40 began to relax and come into their own; one of the former omega wolves gained self-confidence and became one of the best hunters.

“Alpha”, for wolves, just means leader.  They might be good leaders, whom you respect, or they might be bad leaders, who fill you with dread.  They might be your parents, or they might not.  Even if they are your mother or father, wolves don’t contextualize those relationships the same way humans do.

But one thing wolves have in common with humans is that they have individual personalities and experiences, and their actions derive from those.  There is no “typical wolf pack.” And I think that’s beautiful.

If you want to learn more about wild wolf dynamics, I recommend reading the annual Yellowstone Wolf Project Reports.  Which are FASCINATING.  There are also some good wildlife specials out there.

Wolves are my favorite animal. <3  It pains me to see them misunderstood as crazed bloodthirsty brutes, but it also pains me to see them woobified.  They deserve better than that.