#Preparing for the Future

[kidsinnowadays]

Empowering Independence: Teaching Life Skills for a Self-Sufficient Future

Explore the essential role of teaching life skills in nurturing capable and self-reliant individuals who are prepared for the challenges of adulthood.

As parents, one of our greatest responsibilities is to prepare our children for the journey into adulthood. Beyond academic achievements, fostering self-sufficiency and independence is essential. Teaching life skills equips children with the tools they need to navigate the challenges of the world with confidence. This article outlines the importance of teaching life skills and offers guidance on…

[delta-m]

It's looking likely that republicans will have both the Senate and the House.

Before they repeal the ACA, as they've tried to do at least 70 times since it was passed, you should ask for a letter from your doctor stating that you don't have the preexisting conditions that having any medical history entails.

Best case you have a piece of paper that does nothing, worst case by doing this you can afford to get some healthcare.

[jetskikid14]

Why Preparing For The Future Is Important!

Daily writing promptWhat are your future travel plans?View all responses Many people will have some sort of plan to travel, or sight see in their future. One futuristic goal I have is to travel around the United States and up into Canada in a RV/camper. I have been doing a lot of research into full time living in a RV. But with everything there are pros and cons to everything. One thing I want…

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Sunrise, Parabellum.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[the-real-nikki19]

[soldrawss]

Part 2 finally! Part 3 to come soonish,,,

You can find part 1 here!

[ourstarswerethesame]

LOCHLAN RATLIFF SEASON 3, EPISODE 8: AMOR FATI THE WHITE LOTUS (2021-)

[mushrooms-and-blooms]

I have this thought, that when they exchange bonding earrings (because obviously), sif would repeatedly check it in passing reflections for weeks

special thanks to @steamed-tets for helping me with the earring design!!!!

[jon-sedai]

Thinking about how one of the most important motifs in Dany’s childhood memories is a seemingly nonexistent lemon tree. Or rather, a tree that her memory insists exists where it naturally shouldn’t. And thinking about how, in her last Dance chapter, at a pivotal moment of development, she reflects that while she wanted to plant trees and watch them grow, dragons don’t plant trees. But how funny is it that her narrative ancestor, Princess Daenerys of Dorne, left behind a legacy of planting an entire garden of trees — a place where children of all backgrounds could come and bloom within it? And then thinking back to Dany’s moment in Clash, when she comes upon a barren wasteland. A place that, despite its harshness, has many types of trees growing within it. For a brief moment, she considers staying to nurture and watch it bloom.

Sure, her childhood memories are false. But the lesson isn’t that she doesn’t belong anywhere because she dreams of lemon trees in Braavos, where they don’t exist. Maybe the lesson is that she can plant these nonexistent trees elsewhere.

Lemon trees don’t grow in Braavos, but Dany can grow them wherever she chooses to plant them. And this is something she will have to understand when the Long Night comes. Winter means death. It means the trees will wither and no new ones will grow to replace them. But Dany is the mother of dragons, and her life is tied to the very process of life and death, destruction and renewal. The Long Night will be marked by dead trees that bear no fruit. But that’s okay. Because Dany has spent her entire arc dreaming of trees where there aren’t any. And isn’t THAT the dream of spring?

[xxplastic-cubexx]

In love with your Cherik art, especially Krakoa arc them. White suit Mags is undeniable and I love your style!

thank you so much for likin my stuff !! i love their krakoan looks a lot ..

[innome0]

some sketches but im also slow asf so they took way too long💀

[thethoriumreactor]

I think I blacked out for a bit i suddenly have art to post

anyway have my take on cursed cat alastor I love this unholy little thing and u should too

(Cc al bullying vox is one of my reasons to live istg)

[scribz-ag24]

I've recently seen again a post talking about the Sableye and Dusknoir's relationship so i'd like to put my two cents in the discussion, for I love screaming into the void about PMD. (this isnt meant to discourage any other interpretations btw this is just my take on theirs and Dusknoir's relationship, bc I think they're very fun characters and I am very glad the game actually gives these minions a bit of relevance in se5).

Tbh I don't buy that Dusknoir treats the Sableye nicely, at least not out of kindness. I don't think he's a tyrant or inexplicably mean, of course, and I think his minions ADORE him, but i also believe that doesn't mean he's nice to them, sth that i consider meaningful for their character arcs.

Throughout the entire game he's exclusively giving them orders, in se5 he concocts a plan that involves thrashing them MULTIPLE times (he's lucky Grovyle isn't one to try and kill enemies in battle ig), and the cherry on top is that the first time we see him being fully genuine he does this:

(yes, he is in turmoil in here, but there's not a single thing implying that 1. this is an unusual response towards the sablye, 2. dusknoir feels bad for it at some point or is surprised at himself, 3. this has any impact in the sableye at all. You can argue these reactions happen off screen and we don't see them, they don't happen bc they have pressing matters to attend to or they happen after they return to life, and that's perfectly valid, but i'm sticking with what the game shows us, here.)

I must say, though, the fact that the Sableye, despite having been almost mindless pokémon up to now, STAND UP TO AND ATTACK Primal Dialga for their boss and even try to look after him despite him ordering them to check on Grovyle and Celebi first is SO important to me. they are goons to the bone and they love that scheming ghost so much.

My own view is that Dusknoir is generally polite to them (you wouldn't randomly break your own revolver or weapon without any reason, would you?), but is quicker to get mean with them than with people he doesn't know or he is seeking to manipulate. He doesn't care about their behaviour as long as they get the job done, which is why I think the anime thing of the Sableye climbing onto his shoulder isn't that remarkable, rather it's a very cute moment, one that is showing how they've been working together for long and how their size difference affects their interactions, but it is not necessarily conveying an affectionate bond (this is a bit random, but it reminds me of Disney's Jafar with Iago lmao. throw your pet sableye at your enemies so they mock them and then return to your shoulder). Additionally, Dusknoir letting the Sableye onto his shoulder is probably as close as we are gonna get to a villain turning around in his chair while petting a cat in PMD lol.

[this isn't meant to be a one-to-one comparison, it's just a detail i find cute and shows that this gesture can have multiple interpretations, with none being the only right one]

Leaving that aside, I hesitate to claim Dusknoir trusts his Sableye as allies, as Grovyle makes a point in the main story of how the Sableye (your Sableye, he says, as if objectifying them; not friends, but tools, weapons at Dusknoir's disposal) are lacking compared to the way hero/partner/grovyle support one another (power of friendship and hidden information babyyyy). The Sableye are used to Dusknoir's way of doing things, though, I'm sure. They know what happens when he's displeased, after all.

I think, most of all, the Sableye are meant to look disposable: they are 6 identical pokémon that almost act like a hivemind, and we are not supposed to think at all about how we may hurt them in battle any more than we do with the angry Manectric pack or random dungeon pokémon. This, I believe, is why the game has them stand up against Dialga and gives them unique dialogue at the end of se5. They're meant to show their inner shine, just as Dusknoir managed to do. They suddenly gain an individuality they had never shown while they were working to maintain the dark future.

Where they abandoned Dusknoir in the Old Ruins, now Grovyle has motivated them to look for their dignity and fight for a better world, and that starts with protecting their leader from Primal Dialga's rampage, and supporting his new objective and allies in their quest to save the future. In their own small way, they've also grown as characters throughout SE5.

I believe that, overall, Dusknoir saw the Sableye as tools, but thanks to their growth and clear care for him, there's a possibility he might start to see them (and by extension other pokémon) in a more genuine, less pragmatic / objectifying way in the future. Now that Dusknoir has the chance to live a fulfilling life, he may learn to care for others without surrounding himself by so many walls. If anything, I think their future is quite bright. Not that the Sableye would mind if he still thrashed them around, though lol, they're clearly not bothered much by it (special episode 0 had a great depiction of the sableye imo, you can check that romhack if you haven't yet).

In conclusion, look at these little guys who adore their can-get-mean-but-is-mostly-polite boss and probably have a body count but now are good, they're so cute:

[galaxyytrash]

Neil I am your number 1 fan

[astral-herald]

Uncritically Enjoying Mage Viktor

sometimes when i turn off my angry (logical) brain, i achieve some very sentimental mage viktor clarity that i would like to share <3

this is a lot different from my other Thoughtful "Analysis" Posts. my plan is as follows: address my understanding, slim though it may be, of mage viktor; bullet-point all the less than critical/theory driven reasons why he makes me happy; make a somewhat melodramatic point about reading/viewing for fulfillment over critique. mage-tor enjoyers, unite!

What is Mage Viktor's Purpose?

Try as I might to turn off my thoughtfulness, I am typically critical of the media I enjoy, so I'll be among the first to admit that Mage Viktor was certainly a retcon. That seems to be the fandom consensus, so I won't reiterate too much on that point. It makes shots like this especially funny, though, because that is simply not the Viktor we know, interdimensional or otherwise:

But something I would like to push back on is a pervasive "favorable" read on Mage Viktor as we come to know him in season 2. I fully disagree with the idea that Mage Viktor sought Jayce out in every timeline because he loved Jayce, rather than as a means of saving the countless innocents Viktor in other timelines would inevitably kill thanks to Hextech, the Glorious Evolution, etc. Hear me out for a second!

Bestie @arowyn-m pointed out to me that Necrit confirmed that Hextech is THE canonical event, the linchpin, so to speak, that ignites the chain of events we see culminate in season 2. These are the same events that Mage Viktor seeks to prevent. It takes however many lifetimes and iterations of mass destruction for Mage Viktor to gather two vital facts about the universe: Hextech is the inciting, inevitable incident, and Jayce is the complementary indelible constant. Hextech is inevitable, but only Jayce can show Viktor how to stop it.

Viktor's love for Jayce is not what motivates Mage Viktor to seek him out - it is the inevitable result of their being "inextricably bound." Reducing Mage Viktor's manipulation of time/space/what have you to his desperate need to protect Jayce in every timeline morphs him into a very out-of-character Genocidal Eldritch Being when he's supposed to be the antithesis of OUR Machine Herald Viktor. By taking up Mage Viktor's quest to kill Machine Herald Viktor under these very specific circumstances - acceleration rune in hand - Jayce can end the cycle. He trumps the inciting incident. His love for Viktor reigns supreme.

The fact that this is so awkward to explain speaks to the severity of the retcon. I guess what I'm getting at is that Mage Viktor was not acting out of selfish, obsessive love (as romantic as that may seem to some); he was searching for a way to right his wrongs and found it in Jayce, his inseparable other half.

"Only you could show me this."

MORE TO THIS POINT: even Mage Viktor, for all his implied wisdom, having seen countless lifetimes wherein they failed to stop Hextech, still does not anticipate the depth of Jayce's love for him. He (presumably, because don't see this exchange, because Riot made egregious cuts) tells Jayce that the Viktor of this world must die. Jayce "can't fail." As far as I can tell, he never tells Jayce that he has to die along with him. Jayce rejected Viktor's bid to be partners again, after all...

Mage Viktor, like the true Viktor that lurks within the Machine Herald, still believes that Hextech is fully his fault. He still believes in his own weakness and his shortcomings and is so reliant, obsessed with independence that he refuses to share this responsibility. When Mage Viktor reveals himself to Machine Herald Viktor, and he's confronted with the depths of his own feelings, he shoves Jayce away in a last-ditch attempt to preserve his isolation.

Jayce does not allow this.

The love that keeps Viktor "inextricably bound" to Jayce is not one-sided. Viktor, in all iterations and timelines, does not bear the responsibility for Hextech alone. In his dying moments, when he finally understands that LOVE is what has kept he and Jayce together all this time, his humanity returns to him. They save the world - literally. Love literally conquered all. No Viktor, not even Mage Viktor, anticipated this. All Jayce really had to do was kill this Viktor, but he couldn't bear to part ways.

TLDR: Mage Viktor found a way to save the world, but Jayce found a way to reignite Viktor's humanity. Neither of things could coexist without the other.

Smaller, Less Important Reasons Why I Like Mage Viktor

I'll never forget the breathless whiplash I felt upon Mage Viktor's reveal. I feel pretty alone in that experience - oh well! I'll be the pariah! - but here are the reasons why he's made such an impression on me.

Seeing an aged Viktor hit me like a bus. I know he's still stricken with the arcane, but there's so much wisdom and kindness and life experience in his expression. I never thought we'd see that. I doubt he did, either.

BEARD VIKTOR TRUTHER.

It gives Viktor some agency back. I wrote in an earlier post that Mage Viktor being the one to liberate Viktor from his own tragic narrative is pretty awesome, and I stand by that.

Mage Viktor's vulnerability. I feel like Mage Viktor, finally realizing that this Jayce is the right one, that this moment is the pivotal one, says a lot of what Viktor in all timelines longs to say to Jayce.

The question of lifetimes - how many times did Viktor search for Jayce? How many times did he watch a timeline go by without him? How much loneliness did he endure (for the greater good?). What was it like seeing that in-universe Viktor had killed Jayce?

Reading Uncritically (I Swear This is Relevant)

Rita Felski, a very cool literary critic who we all should read, said the following about reading critically (the way that lots of us engage with Arcane on tumblr): "It is a mode of interpretation that adopts a distrustful attitude toward texts...that remain inaccessible to their authors as well as to ordinary readers" ("Suspicious Minds" 216). Even though she's writing about academia/literary criticism, I think her point still stands. We engage with media with the intent to expose, unearth, and problematize. We eagerly search for moments where the text fails us at the expense of the "superficial" that would otherwise uplift us. We are practicing the "hermeneutic of suspicion," which can be exceptionally draining.

It's pretty melodramatic of me to apply this kind of theoretical work to Arcane, of all things, but this story means a great deal to me. It is deeply flawed - the Mage Viktor retcon is kind of appalling if you stare down the barrel of suspicion. But, in looking through a reparative lens (Eve Sedgwick's word, not mine), I see Mage Viktor as a agency-ridden Viktor, an aged Viktor, a vision of the future Jayce and Viktor together make possible. I'm enriched by that.

Felski asks us: "How else might we venture to read, if we were not ordained to read suspiciously?" (232). What can we derive from Arcane by putting the pieces together with the goal of harmony and fulfillment? In the smallest sense, we may feel a bit better about the ways in which season 2 seriously let us down. In a larger, more hopeful sense, moments like Viktor confessing an ultimate love and attachment to Jayce, and Jayce returning it in kind, may fill us with an even deeper appreciation for unconditional love as the culmination of human connection, a world-ending and world-renewing thing that stares down the BBEG of Arcane and wins.

You could probably read all of this as my apology for enjoying what so much of the fandom has condemned. That's alright. There are so many pieces of Mage Viktor that fragment under the critical microscope, but I can't shake the emotional impact of his reveal, so I'll live in that space for the time being. Had Arcane allotted for any explanatory conversations, flashbacks, and/or given up their soft world build to account for Mage Viktor, we'd be in a better place plot-wise. Alas, here we are instead. Everyone can point and laugh at me if they did all this just to bring back God/Made/Eldritch Being/Whatever The Fuck Viktor in future projects. That'll be my penance!

And, finally, if you really didn't like Mage Viktor, I fully respect that, but this is my self-indulgent post and I'm not overly interested in debating...there's little anyone could say that I wouldn't agree with. I'm just avoiding the suspicion of it all :)