#Development Manager

[muffinlance]

Consider: Post-canon Zuko wakes up in the body of his childhood self, the morning of That War Meeting. Would he still speak against the plans, knowing his fate? What do you think he would do differently the second time around?

"Turned away at the doors, Zuzu?"

"Shut up, Azula," her brother sulked. But sulked weirdly, after staring at her too long and too wide-eyed, not like she'd surprised him but--

But like he hadn't expected her to be there. At all.

He turned away. ...He turned back. "Hey, Lala? Do you think you could help me practice that one set?"

He didn't meet her eyes.

She narrowed hers. "Which set?"

"The one I'm bad at."

She scoffed. Pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "That's all of them, Dum-Dum."

He didn't shout or stomp or yell about the nickname. His lips twitched.

"It's okay," he said. "If you're afraid you won't be a better teacher that my instructor..."

It was the most obvious manipulation ever.

Perhaps if he proved an adequate firebending student, she'd work on his courtly survival skills next. Honestly, it was good that not even Uncle Gets-Cousins-Killed had been fool enough to take Zuko into that war meeting. She could only imagine how terribly that could have gone.

"Keep up," she said, and turned her steps towards the training grounds.

He did. There, and during the katas she ran him through.

Azula kept her eyes narrowed.

"Hey," he asked, "do you know how to bend lightning yet?"

As if he could have missed it, if she'd been able to get more than sparks. "I will soon," she said.

"You will," he agreed, and flowed through his next set. The one she'd only just mastered.

Father didn't notice how weird Zuzu was being. Uncle never noticed anything. Zuko ate dinner and asked a servant for seconds and didn't stutter or flinch or lose his appetite when father asked, coolly, what he'd done with his day. Azula's shoulders tensed, because one mention of how she'd squandered her own training time teaching him--

"Azula hogged the training grounds. For hours," Zuzu scowled, exactly like a petulant thirteen year old.

Exactly like he hadn't been acting all day.

By the time Father was looking her way, Azula had her usual smirk in place. "I'm sure there would be room for both of us," she said, "you're not afraid of a little friendly fire, are you, brother?"

Zuko sulked. And ate his seconds, like he was enjoying each bite. There was something in his eyes, like a joke no one else was getting.

---

Father died that night. A heart attack. There were the faintest of burns to either side of the treacherous organ; the royal physician hypothesized that he'd grabbed at his chest, fingers burning hot in his final moments; so hot they'd only exacerbated the problem.

The royal physician would never have been brought any victims of lighting strikes. Those that occurred in the capital did not generally require a doctor in the aftermath.

Zuzu ate a hearty breakfast.

He didn't order seconds. Azula gave him points, at least, for not being tacky.

---

The sages named Iroh as regent.

They named Zuko as Fire Lord.

"No," the tiny Fire Lord in his perfectly miniaturized Fire Lord robes said, sitting at the head of his war council. "We're not doing that. And I'll be reviewing all recent battle plans, as well. What's this I hear about a division of new recruits being deployed to the front?"

He did not mention how he'd heard of the 41st Division. No one asked.

"Prince Iroh, surely--" one of the generals tried to appeal.

The young Fire Lord's regent was looking as startled as the rest of them, for a moment. Then he sipped his tea, and smiled.

"Your Fire Lord is correct, of course. A change in our leadership--a change the other nations may mistakenly view as weakness--will necessitate a change in our strategy."

"Now," said their lord, "what, exactly, is our overall objective in this war?"

War, the new Fire Lord decreed, was not an end unto itself.

---

The new Fire Lord continued to have time, to pretend to be trained by her. Azula watched him. Adjusted her footwork. Did not tolerate, and was not offered, any commentary on who was teaching who.

"What did you do with my brother?" she asked, as they flowed from one set to the next. As her hands, poised to throw fire, just so happened to be pointed his way.

He missed a step. It didn't look like an act.

"I'm, uh. Right here?"

She didn't bother to dignify that.

He didn't bother to look worried about her hands, one movement off from a true attack.

He looked around, then grabbed her sleeve, and tugged her further from any walls that may hide ears. The royal family's private training grounds were wonderfully large, and wonderfully open.

"It's me," he said. "It's still me. Just. More of me? Longer of me?"

She narrowed her eyes. A familiar expression, by this point. "Explain."

"...I found the Avatar," he said. "And this is definitely his fault, but--but I guess it started at a war meeting, when I was thirteen."

Azula listened. It was a very Dum-Dum story.

[dracomysthical]

NELLE NELLE NELLE NELLE NELLE

i support women’s rights and women’s wrongs

the beautiful and horrendous and morally questionable NELLE belongs to @cupcakeshakesnake and i am eternally grateful they have created upper management farmer which continues to bless my day

badly cropped images under the cut so there’s like. some semblance of order

[zhukzucraft]

i'm sure nothing bad will come from this guy getting a position of power over the Permit Office and the Poe Poe

[sa2mping]

fake ass executive, i saw you care for your workers 🙄

[ryllen]

when everything is confusing, and then u see a familiar face

[16th-of-a-twigg]

❄️Suddenly realising that you’re in undoubtedly and irrevocably in love with your team mate and it's like whooooaa 🍊🫐 Redrew and animated this drawing from last year Ko-Fi

[starscream-is-my-wife]

Optiratch beating up Starscream for 40 years ❤️

Bonus: continuing the family tradition

[thecaramelidiot]

I think these might be too many snails. Removing you. No natural predators and no shame. But I found a new pellet food that everyone loves :D

The Shrimplets are around 4mm long now!

[honeytonedhottie]

how i manage multiple interests⋆.ೃ࿔*:･📔

putting ur energy into SO many things is great and all, and its so fun to be a multi faceted person. but it can leave u feeling so burnt out and dissatisfied with the results of ur hard work and energy. here's information that i've learned and applied about managing multiple interests…💬🎀

ABOUT MULTIPLE INTERESTS ;

so the thing about being a person who has multiple interests and wants to do everything all at once, is that u find urself actually getting nowhere cuz ur energy is like all over the place. ur putting energy into so many different things that ur not moving forward in any of them.

REMEMBER ;

doing everything is impossible. everyone only has 24 hours in a day and there are literally infinite things to do. so dont feel like u have to do every little thing cuz thats just not reasonable. the way to manage ur interests efficiently is to choose what matters.

make a list of everything that u wanna do and rank them in importance…💬🎀

and ofc LOTS of things matter, but to different degrees. by understanding which things have more or less importance you'll feel less bad if u can't get to everything all at once.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME MANAGEMENT ;

i use notion to create a weekly agenda, monthly calendar etc. and in doing so im making sure that im being mindful of where im putting my energy and time and im holding myself accountable and being productive. theres lots of other organizing apps that u can use but make sure that ur managing ur time intentionally.

and remember that you have plenty of time to do all of ur interests, including the once that you've ranked as less important. i remind myself that i have decades of my life ahead of me when i catch myself stressing over not having enough time to do something…💬🎀

[bet-on-me-13]

Steph's Year of Recovery

So! Danny noticed that a new face had made it's way into town. Two new faces actually, an older lady known as Dr Leslie, and a girl about his age called Steph.

He first met them when he was at the hospital for one of his parents. They had stood too close to an explosion again, and he met them while he was in the waiting Area.

Dr Leslie was a strict but obviously caring older woman, who seemed to be the one taking care of Steph as a kind of maternal figure, or maybe more like an Aunt. She greeted him simply and then walked away to talk with the Secretary, leaving him to talk to Steph.

Steph was a blond girl in a Wheelchair, and he could see bandages piking out of her clothes as he talked to her. She explained that she had been in an Accident a few weeks ago that left her wheelchair bound for a while, and that she had come to Amity for their surprisingly good Medical Centers.

He and Steph got along really well, and by the end of it he asked her for her Number so they could continue talking later. They stayed in touch, and when she was finally permitted to leave the Hospital, he introduced her to his friends. They all got along like a House on Fire, both figuratively and in one memorable case very literally (Vlad had pissed them off okay!)

Eventually Steph recovered enough that she moved from a Wheelchair to Crutches, and their shenanigans got even more chaotic (Vlad hadn't even pissed them off, this time was just for fun)

The only thing Danny could complain about was the fact that Steph was hiding something from them.

She said that she had been in an Accident a while ago, which was why they had come to Amity in the first place. But Danny knew it was more than that.

He could sense lingering traces of Death coming from her after all.

...

Steph honestly loved her current life.

Sure she had lost everything, her home, her health, her friends, her life, but she had gained new things too! Like Danny and the Gang! They were honestly some of the best friends she had ever had, and for some reason they just clicked with her instantly.

Danny was interesting and funny, Sam was vegan and a badass, Tucker was smart and witty, they all fit with her personality perfectly! It almost felt like she bad been friends with them for years. (She ignored the way her heart skipped a beat when she saw them)

But she still couldn't shake the sense that they were hiding something from her.

She knew it had something to do with the Ghost Problem in the town. And wasn't that a kicker, there was a whole Supernatural Ghost Outbreak in this Town and nobody knew about it. Dr Leslie had said that Amity was off the map enough to hide from Bruce, but she hadn't mentioned it was hidden from the Justice League itself!

Danny, Sam, and Tucker definitely knew more about it than they let on however. Whenever a Ghost Attack would happen, at least one of them would rush off with some practiced excuse and return after the Ghost Attack was over all dirty. She could guess what was going on, and she really didn't like it.

(This had killed her, she had died doing what they were doing, she didn't want to lose them)

Eventually she had to confront them, coincidentally on the same day they decided to confront her.

"Are you Vigilantes?" / "Did you die?"

"..."

"What?" / "What?"

[flavoredmagpie]

1: Ben’s death… we don’t know what happened

2: The monsters inside of him did it

3: History is going to repeat itself if we don’t

4: Ben didn’t know, its not his fault

5: He’s still my brother, I’m not giving up on him

6: Its under my skin, I’m ready to burst

7: Not this time

[Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]

[alastair-1205]

It must be so weird for Jay being around people who know him better than he knows himself. But like in the physical sense.

Idk how exactly to explain it concisely but like. He doesn't know how he got any of his scars but Nya probably knows the story behind each and every one. He doesnt remember how his elemental power needs to be managed but Kai just hands him an old notebook with faded notes in Jays own handwriting that he doesnt remember writing. He doesn't know what he's meant to do about the way his knee clicks when it bends, but apparently Cole still remembers the meds he used to take for the pain. It helps and Jay hates that he never would have known any of it if he hadn't been told.

Jay has made his own new systems over the years sure, and his body has gotten used to the new stuff, but some of the older tried and true methods just Work Better becuase they were made For him By him. And he doesn't remember any of it. And everyone else does.

[fanfiction-obsession]

Major Monogram from Phineas and Ferb is a fascinating accidental example of unjust biases stemming from ignorance and laziness instead of intentional harm in the ‘species-ism’ that is a root of injustice in the PnF universe. In this essay I will

[waitineedaname]

MXTX protagonists ranked by how bad their mommy/daddy issues are

Luo Binghe: absolutely nuclear level of mommy/daddy issues. this is the consequence of giving your protagonist two deadbeat dads and two dead moms, and then letting him project all those issues onto his overly indulgent teacher

Wei Wuxian: he could've had perfectly normal orphan levels of parent trauma, but what's that?? IT'S THE JIANG PARENTS WITH A STEEL CHAIR!!! the combo of fear and respect he had for Yu Ziyuan is already bad enough, but then there's also the feeling of responsibility for the Jiang siblings that they put on him, which then leads to, you know, all the Yunmeng sibling problems

Lan Wangji: this dude is so haunted by his father potentially kidnapping his mother and then locking her up and putting himself in seclusion, and this significantly shapes his relationship with Wei Wuxian. plus he took his mother's death really, really badly :(

Shen Qingqiu: he like never mentions his parents?? which is weird, but at least he's not haunted by it. however, he gets the special privilege of being the person exacerbating someone else's mommy/daddy issues. he brought this on himself. he doesn't get to walk out of a confession involving a metaphor where he'd be pregnant with his partner and act like that's normal

Xie Lian: he definitely has trauma surrounding his parents for sure, but they don't seem to have manifested as specifically mommy/daddy issues? it's just, you know. normal grief. honestly, there's so much shit going on with his trauma and baggage that he can't be defined by this one thing

Hua Cheng: does not seem to care about his parents?? at all???? he's presumably an orphan and they're probably the origin of his self worth issues, but like. in the grand scheme of things, they do not seem to be that big of a concern for him. who needs mommy issues when you have devotion to dianxia i guess

[emmg]

I sincerely hope the Grand Necropolis’ Lich Lord recruitment team has the common courtesy to slip in the “oh by the way, we’re chopping off your dick” clause before the whole undead ascension bit. Just a little heads-up! A quick bullet point in the brochure! So poor Emmrich knows exactly what kind of lifestyle adjustment he’s signing up for.

Because imagine thinking you’re about to ascend into velvet-draped, arcane immortality (centuries of quiet study and making sweet, sweet love to Rook in candlelit crypts) only to walk into the ritual chamber and find Vorgoth standing there with a giant ceremonial cleaver like:

“THE HOUR IS NIGH TO PART WAYS WITH YOUR MORTAL MEAT SCEPTER.”

Cue Emmrich: “oh my”

(yes, i will keep making fun of liches)