#and what a speech

[kvtnisseverdeen]

Brendan Fraser wins the award for Best Actor, “The Whale” at the 28th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[clementineskesh]

the best thing about benoit blanc's clearly established emotional intelligence is knowing with 100% certainty that he did everything in his power to hurt miles bron's feelings on purpose

[thetimelordbatgirl]

The police in Scotland have the chance to do the most funniest thing right now.

[rithmeres]

i don’t think i’ve rewatched atla since becoming a committed pacifist and i just finished what was probably my tenth rewatch and i have never loved aang more. i've seen it so many times but i still came away with a new appreciation for the way the end of the story was handled. aang is the only survivor of a genocide and he is clinging to the last remnants of his culture and religion, and everyone is telling him the only way to save the world is to kill the dictator whose regime is responsible for the genocide, but to do so would abandon the deeply held beliefs of his people. if aang goes against his beliefs and kills ozai, his people's way of life dies completely and sozin wins.

aang knows it would be wrong but he can't see another way out so he prays for an answer, and the universe hears him and the spirits send out the lion turtle, and the creator answers him. and here's the thing that i never put together before today: aang would not have been able to energybend ozai if he had given in and wanted to kill him. the lion turtle tells aang that only the incorruptible can bend another’s energy, or else they will become corrupted themselves. and i think that aang, because of his love for the fire nation as he had once known it, was never corrupted by personal hatred for the fire lord or the fire nation. he was able to expertly hold two conflicting beliefs in harmony better than any adult could, the belief that ozai is a horrible person and the world would be better off without him and that he's still a human being with a life that is sacred.

and i don't think it's a matter of selfishness like some people make it out to be. aang is not some immature little kid who doesn't want to kill because killing is for bad guys. he's an incredibly wise and spiritual person who was shaped by airbender beliefs and upholds airbender beliefs, and he can see beyond the scope of this war. the balance of the world depends on the existence of the four nations, and aang does not just represent the air nomads, he IS the air nomads. he's all that's left.

despite many people’s interpretation of the four past avatars’ advice, none of the past avatars outright tell him to kill ozai. they tell him to be decisive, to bring justice, to be proactive, to be sacrificial. but none of them tells him definitively to kill him. he doesn't disobey or ignore their advice, he follows their ancient wisdom while still staying true to his beliefs. yangchen actually comes the closest to outright telling him to kill ozai (even more than kiyoshi, surprisingly) but what she fails to account for is that aang is not just the avatar, he is the last airbender, and being the last airbender is far greater a burden than being the avatar. no matter what happens, once he dies, there will always be another avatar. but if he is not careful to preserve the airbender way of life, there will be no more airbenders. yangchen could sacrifice her air nomad way of life for the sake of her duty to the world because there were thousands of other air nomads to continue their traditions. aang has no such privilege.

and it's not that he doesn't want to kill, it's that he actually doesn't think he can do it -- both that he won't be able to emotionally bring himself to kili someone, and, prodigy that he is, he doesn't have the raw bending skill to overcome a comet-powered master firebender. and then it turns from 'i don't think i can do it' into ‘i can’t do it.’ and when the avatar state gives him enough power to actually do it, he changes the answer to ‘i won’t do it.’ he overcomes all the combined power of his past lives to say no, i have found another answer and i will remain incorruptible. to kill is to maintain the power struggle of the fire nation and to reject air nomad wisdom and without airbenders the world CANNOT be brought into balance.

the only thing ozai cares about is power, and that's what the entire fight with ozai is about, physically and ideologically, because ozai only sees power in terms of force, fear, threats, and violence. to ozai, aang (and his entire people) are weak and undeserving of life because they are largely pacifists, but he fails to see the magnificent power that the airbenders do hold, spiritual wisdom and mastery of the self and contentment and joy and harmony and a deep understanding of the world that a man like ozai could never obtain. to kill ozai would ratify ozai’s worldview that power as he defines it is the most important pursuit in the world and the only way to assert one's right to be in the world is to be cruel and violent like him. i think to ozai, becoming powerless might be worse than being dead. he wants power, or he wants death, and aang gives him neither. it upends everything he believed in. aang, the avatar, but more importantly, the last airbender, armed by his past lives' power and his people's love and the spirit world's blessing and the lion turtle's omniscience (and toph's mastery of true sight through neutral jing), ends the war 100 years to the day after the air nomad genocide, in the way that his people taught him, with power that goes beyond force and violence, with spiritual wisdom, with an incorruptible soul, with mercy -- mercy that is not weakness, mercy that brings justice.

[swannsways]

The Holdovers was a little movie that we made in Boston, about three people that came together to form a little family.

[bellyjellyfish]

she's a fun character to draw :DD

[ruporas]

the blank ticket in your hand is just waiting to be filled in.

happy birthday vash! (ID in alt text)

[falled-over]

its true he just comes to you in your moment of need

[sualne]

something i wish i'd see more in trigun fanarts is people having vash speak their native/non-english languages completely unprompted, ive seen folks have him speak french, which he canonically knows, but i really do believe he's a polyglot. mostly because of that one time in the desert when he saw the samurai and wanted to greet him in japanese but struggled to remember how to even say hello.

my headcanon is that rem had them learn as many languages as possible but with the big fall and so many people dying, which i think is what led english to became No man's land main (or even only?) language, means that vash (and knives!) both got horribly out of practice and are various sort of rusty in every others languages.

what im saying if there's any pun or joke you've been dying to write but just doesn't work in english vash (and knives!!) are right there!

[disc0bandit]

You ever get so excited you explode with the yay?

[sketchy-tour]

Last doodle of the year! Whiteboard is STILL hard to use and I spent way too long on this

BUT STILL!!! Proud of it~

[captainkirkk]

I love reading kid fics but I can't turn off my speechie brain when I'm reading them and it's obvious the writer isn't familar with developmental norms. What do you MEAN this 4 year old is only babbling or pointing to request but everyone says he's "doing wonderfully"???? I'M STRESSED OUT

[b4kuch1n]

study of this masterwork

[thefearofcod]

who did this to me

[wasyago]

the man(?), the myth(?), the legend(?)