#anyways my point is i need THERAPY

[miusato]

Honestly the main attraction for Shinjiham is how contrast their personality is and it is always funny for me to think about how people around them would react if they found out they're dating in this AU lol

[skelecentral]

what if Y/N could see Dust San's Papyrus & like ghosts & spirit's in general

They’re gossip buddies 🥰

When Papyrus finds out that you can see him, he’s elated to finally have someone new to talk to - don’t get him wrong, he loves his brother! But his interactions with Dust have been his only interactions for years at this point, so having someone new to dialogue with is like finding water in a desert. A very sock-filled, dusty desert. He wants to talk about anything and everything, desperate for any form of contact, and as a result he’ll probably come off as a bit intense at first; he evens out a little as time goes on and he settles into the new norm, though. He’s glad he can talk to you about what he’s experienced and all of the batshit things he’s seen as a spectator - gossip buddies!

He also likes to give you advice, especially related to his brother. He thinks you’re good for him, and knows he likes you, but he worries about what Dust will be like as a partner. He understands completely how unstable Dust is and doesn’t want you getting caught in a bad situation or some sort of crossfire, both because he’s desperate for company and because of his integrity and value system.

In the end, he decides that the best course of action is to help his brother become an Acceptable Datemate and to be there for you if you need any help or advice or encouragement relating to his brother (or anything else, really - he prides himself on being the best friend anyone could ask for, and what kind of friend would he be if he didn’t help you in your time of need even if it didn’t have to do with his plans? It’s all he’s good for at this point, anyways - it’s not like he could make any other sort of difference…but nevermind that! Moping won’t help anyone!)

I’d say that in the end, most Y/Ns would end up being pretty good friends with Papyrus - especially if they were living in Nightmare’s castle for any reason, but also just in general. Dust is silently happy Papyrus is happy, and finds a lot of joy in that you two get along - despite their damaged relationship, the brothers still care for each other deeply, and that comes out in a lot of their actions. I could see Y/N being really good for their relationship as well and perhaps even acting as a catalyst for healing it :)

[chickenoptyrx]

'nother comic for the AU, but this ones not funny- more just 'miserable with small less miserable moments' :D

[six-of-cringe]

Something that is sad but also that I hugely appreciate about CK is that by the end, most of the systems that harmed the crows are still in place, but their relationships with themselves have grown and changed. I find this particularly interesting in the cases of Jesper and Wylan (shocking I know). Their identities still put them in danger of being exploited or harmed - Grisha indentures are still the norm in Kerch, and the auction scene made it very clear that if the Council knew Wylan's illiteracy was true, they would treat him much the same as his father did due to the culture surrounding productivity and ability. This might seem disheartening, but the hope lies in the shift in how these characters see themselves and their role in the world. By the end of the book, Jesper and Wylan are beginning to put away their internalized shame surrounding their identities. They may still have to hide who they are from the world to survive, but they're no longer hiding it from themselves - their true selves are no longer this crushing burden they have to turn away from to function. A general theme of the series is how, in accepting who they are and what has happened to them on a personal level, the crows place themselves in positions to make change on a systemic level - Inej and her ship, Nina and her mission, Kaz and his Barrel empire, Wylan and Jesper with their political, high-society empire. None of them are all the way there yet by the end - they're still healing, and both the loss of Matthias and the weight of those oppressive systems are going to weigh on them for a long time - but we get to see the very beginnings of that process. I'm going to bite someone.

[can-of-slorgs]

I'm personally blaming @starbiology and everyone who has reblogged or commented the other piece for this.

Bonus comic featuring my grundo:

[yardsards]

thinking of the Implications of the blight parents signing their 14 year old daughter up for emperor's coven tryouts

because

1: the emperor's coven takes their recruits away from their friends and family

2: they do not wait until you are an adult to do this

(like, even assuming the process from getting accepted into the coven to actually joining it and moving to the castle aren't as fast as hunter makes it sound here it's like.

we do see lilith having dinner at home after eda's been cursed. so it wasn't immediate (at least back then it wasn't)

but they weren't waiting til she was an adult either. cuz eda was 2 years younger than lilith (thus at least 2 years younger than whatever the boiling isles considers an adult, cuz we know lilith was still a student then too) and she and lilith planned on joining at the same time. there wasn't a "well, eda can't actually *join* join for two more years, so she might as well wait for next tryout anyway"

which, tryouts might not be *yearly*, perhaps it's more efficient to not have to run the training camp every year, but i don't imagine they'd be less often than every couple of years)

so this?

the blight parents are 100% willing to send their FOURTEEN YEAR OLD CHILD away *forever*

14 years old. not even done with puberty yet. half a head shorter than her siblings and a whole head shorter than her parents. face still covered in baby fat.

this is a child who is called *mittens* by not only her siblings but by the very parents who were willing to send her away

and they weren't just sending her off to live far-ish away and rarely see them again; they were sending her off to have a Real Grownup Job. even if exactly how bad working for the emperor is isn't a well-known fact, it's still obviously a full-time job.

odalia has wanted amity to join the emperor's coven for a long time. after all, having a daughter in the emperor's coven would bring a lot of prestige to the family, and she could maybe try to leverage amity's position to gain more power

and odalia can be an impatient woman, so it makes sense that she'd want this to happen as soon as possible. not to mention, she's canonically not averse to child labour

(i briefly considered that maybe odalia wanted amity out of her life but i don't think that's the case. odalia doesn't outright hate amity; odalia's cruelty comes from seeing her family as tools (and seeing amity as very useful but flawed) rather than malice)

meanwhile, alador explains his choice by saying he thought it was what amity wanted

and it's addressed that that's not really her dream (at least, it DEFINITELY isn't anymore. they way she used to "want" to join the emperor's coven is worthy of its own post tbh). and that if he paid attention to her, talked to her, listened to her, and made himself a person that she could comfortably admit these kinds of things to, then he'd know that.

but he also ignores her when she says she doesn't want to go to tryouts that night (even if she didn't admit that she never wants to join the emperor's coven at all) and wants to go to the bonesborough brawl instead.

doesn't stop to question why his daughter -who has previously shown herself to be rather studious, responsible, and goal-oriented- would suddenly want to "goof off". he just... assumes she's being irresponsible and thoughtlessly not pursuing "her dream" or "a bright future" for no reason, and just needs to be pushed into doing the supposedly responsible thing

but that doesn't quite explain why he's convinced that she needs to do this at *age fourteen*, why her future can't wait a few more years, why her dream needs to happen as soon as possible before her childhood's even over. (and i'm not gonna take "because odalia said so" as an answer here; he's clearly convinced that what he's doing is right and is not just mindlessly following orders)

well, first possibility: i think maybe, while he's not as bad or blatant about it as his wife, he might also think material success is the key to happiness (and the emperor's coven is considered one of the most successful positions in the world, next to being a covenhead)

and with that kind of mindset, a lot of the things that would bring the children actual happiness just get forgotten. their needs for attention and affection, for friendship and leisure, for the freedom to express themselves, for the chance to just be kids, all get thrown by the wayside -sacrificed in the name of "success"

by that line of thinking: joining the emperor's coven = material success and material success = happiness. and if joining the emperor's coven = happiness, then joining sooner = being happy sooner. and why wouldn't a parent want their child to find happiness as soon as possible? unfortunately her age and specific needs are not in that equation at all, even though they're obviously actually very important factors

(you could also honestly apply this reasoning to odalia herself as well, if you want to be charitable. cuz i've seen good arguments that she does actually care about her family's wellbeing, but in a twisted sort of way, wherein her priorities are extremely skewed AND it gets obscured by her own selfishness. idk, the show's characterization of her is weird, even compared to her husband (i blame the s3 shortening rushing their development, tbh). so i waited to bring this up til after i started talking about alador.)

there's also a second possibility: maybe he realizes that their home environment is bad for amity (which, it is), and thinks getting her out of there early by any means would be good for her (which, not quite the case)

maybe not even by noticing her actual misery, but by projecting his own misery onto her. like, he's in an abusive marriage and severely overworked. when he says amity has a bright future, he's kind of contrasting her with himself, and -consciously or not- implying that his life is not what a bright future looks like (which kind of goes against the first possibility, because he is rather financially successful). and he's very afraid of his children having to take his place: probably especially amity, because she's the abomination witch and would be more likely to have to take on his exact job

(ironically, though he doesn't know it, emperor's coven members are just as overworked and controlled as he is)

except, y'know, leaving a toxic home environment to become fully self sufficient is not the kind of upgrade for a kid that it would be for an adult. it'd just be throwing her from one bad situation to another

and also it's your responsibility as a parent to provide an environment for your child that they don't need to escape from. and while some concessions can be made due to the whole abusive wife situation, that doesn't absolve him of all responsibility.

like, the whole point of his role in reaching out was that the WERE things that he COULD do better. like, he became a better father at the end of that episode than he was at the beginning. and none of that change was due to "my wife changed, so i now have the ability to be a better father"; odalia wasn't involved in that growth at all

[deoidesign]

.

[gxlden-angels]

Bro I hate fundamentalists and culturally-fundie parents they'll say shit like "spare the rod spoil the child am I right haha yea my parents used to have to beat my ass with a switch almost everyday but I sure did learn my lesson" but like??? no you didn't??? you were hit multiple times for something you very obviously did not, in fact, learn

Like studies about how harmful even lightly spanking children is aside, you're literally contradicting yourself?? Some even admitted they got worse as they got older cause they wanted to see how far they could push their parents before they got punished

And studies not aside, you're gonna get child raising advice from the same book that tells you to stone your wife if her hymen doesn't break on your wedding night instead of the decades of research we have now?? Just say you're a bad parent and move on my guy. Skill issue

[figofswords]

thinking about taking a little bit of a step back from social media for a bit for mental/physical health reasons (as in: chronic severe anxiety is causing chronic health issues and I need to remove stress Somehow). I will still post art but I’m probably gonna make an effort to engage with my dash only minimally, if at all. (that being said I have very poor discipline so if you see me suddenly reblogging stuff out of nowhere just. roll with it)

[songofsunset]

Today we weren't allowed out on the playground due to wet paint, and my kids were doing great but by the end of the day we were getting stir crazy and bouncing off the walls

And also separately we've been working with this one kid to try and control her temper (her tiny body fills up with So Much Rage and she will bite!!!) and I realized that we only tried to give her tools to deal with that when she was all worked up, and that isn't any sort of way to build a new skill

So we all sat on the carpet and and dimmed the lights and took like 5 minutes for toddler yoga and deep breathing and it was actually great?????? We practiced taking deep breaths and blowing them out (toddlers can't see the difference between breathing in and breathing out, they just hear it, like a lot of times if you show them how to smell a flower they will blow on the flower!!!! So emphasizing the blowing out part helps them figure out the breathing in part) and we patted our heads..... And our shoulders ... Then gave ourselves a big hug!!!! (One little boy who loves hugs was so excited about this part!!) Then I walked them through a basic sensory activity where we felt the carpet with our hands and listened with our ears to see what we could hear and then looked around for what we could see, and then we did deep breathing and stood up together for some stretching and wrapped it up

And it was so helpful??? It really helped reset the mood in the classroom, it was amazing

AND THEN, later in the day, when my tiny child was full of rage when her classmate grabbed a toy, I said 'take a deep breath!!!'

AND SHE DID

SHE STOPPED RIGHT THERE ALL FULL OF RAGE AND TOOK THE TINIEST ANGRIEST MOST ADORABLE BIG BREATH IVE EVER SEEN AND IM SO FUCKING PROUD OF HER!!!!!!!!

[steakout-05]

i don't know much about Horrid Henry but from what i have seen of the cartoon it's just his shitass mum blaming and unfairly punishing her kid, who obviously has undiagnosed and unaccommodated adhd, on small mistakes, things that aren't even remotely horrid and stuff that wasn't even his fault in the first place. lock this woman up and get this kid (and his brother) some halloween sweets

[camp-counselor-david]

I was wondering what bugged me about the season 4 Cameron Campbell redemption arc, and I think it finally clicked for me. (And yeah it's 95% David related)

Tw for talks of abuse under the read more.

(Spoiler warning for s3 & 4!)

My relationship (from a character standpoint) with Mr. Campbell is very iffy. He's meant for comedic relief, as is his treatment of David within the series.

Side note- I know that the wolf in "The Forest" being a metaphor for Campbell's abuse of David isn't technically canon even if it's pretty widely accepted by now, so I'll be excluding that part in my analysis.

Mr. Campbell goes through a lot of changes within the series. He starts out as sort of a criminal mastermind type. Self-serving, a blatant scammer, and someone who is seen abusing David in particular many times in the show, physically and verbally. That's not even mentioning the scene in "Jasper Dies in the End," where he attempts to murder a young David for witnessing Jasper's near-death experience. Despite this, David looks up to him and idolizes who he is as a person.

Up until when things peak in season 3, where it's revealed to David that he's not only a terrible person, but he has attempted to frame him for the camp being a scam. Season 3 handles Campbell the best in my opinion, up until the ending of "Camp Corp" where it's decided that Cameron Campbell is more of an idiot than a mastermind, so his new punishment is staying at the camp under David's watch.

Season 4 is where it takes a turn for the worse. As per usual, David is on board with the idea of redeeming Mr. Campbell and places faith in him changing for the better. This didn't bug me until the episode with the escape room where the series begins to explore a different side of Campbell. There, it's revealed that despite how awful as a person he was, he secretly has some type of heart! He still had feelings for the woman he ghosted for 17 years to the point of never once seeing another person in all of that time. Not only does that feel impossible to believe, but given how he acts when he's coming back from the club in "Keep the Change," it feels a lot more like a retcon to me. You're telling me that someone as greedy as him would make such a responsible choice when it comes to any of his personal relationships? In 17 years? While regularly being under the influence of alcohol and other drugs throughout that time period?

It felt like a quick "See? Mr. Campbell isn't actually that bad of a person!" To which I feel is not the right angle to take with his character, at least not so quickly. I understand that characters can have nuance. They can have good traits and still be bad people, but these traits have to line up with what makes sense for the character, and from my perspective, it didn't.

They then change the approach with Campbell and start making him a lot more reasonable of a person in the way he talks. "Time Crapsules" ending with an admittedly nice message from him about change using the camp itself as a metaphor for his own character growth, which becomes apparent in the last prominent Campbell episode, "St. Campbell's Day."

This is the episode that urks me the most. Since the very beginning, David has had full faith in Mr. Campbell. He spent time making excuses for him and going out of his way to prove that change is really possible. But (spoilers, sorry!!) then this episode features the very first time that David stands up against Mr. Campbell. He sees the fake holiday that he's making for presumably self-serving reasons and decides that Campbell is showing his old patterns again-- because why else would he make up a holiday revolving around making money?

David ruins the holiday by stealing the holiday supplies and reporting him to the presses as a con artist. Then, the show reveals that David was overreacting, and this was really pushed by the campers rather than Campbell himself. They wanted to raise funds for the camp to get new things like the outhouse, and David feels bad. Afterward, there's a happy moment where David apologetically fixes everything with the help of Gwen and QM, which is admittedly very sweet, and Mr. Campbell forgives David for jumping the gun and assuming the worst.

While I don't hate this, it just rubs me the wrong way that the one time David stands up against Campbell, he's punished by the narrative. He apologizes to Mr. Campbell, a thing that Campbell never properly does for David, the one who actually deserves it.

This episode could have been a good opportunity for there to be some reflection on how David, who vouched ceaselessly for his redemption, might have some mixed feelings on his abuser. Exploring this side of things more would have made this a better episode and overall a better arc for me rather than "Silly David!! You've ruined the one good thing he tried to do!".

The concept of David wanting to be happy about the changes but finding that part of him guiltily thinks that Campbell doesn't deserve it is something I really wish they explored a lot more.

The tl;dr of this is that the Mr. Campbell redemption arc isn't a bad angle to shoot for! Some of it was handled decently, but the loose ends that we'll likely never see wrapped up leave a sour taste in my mouth. A few kind moments don't make up for around 14 years of abuse, and that's not even mentioning the death of Jasper as a consequence of Campbell's actions.

I love this show a lot, and this is by no means hateful towards it, I just feel a little put off by how they handle the Campbell-David stuff.

[yuridovewing]

Was gonna make Hollycinder endgame to my hyporewrite but now that Hollyleaf is gonna be a medic all the way through po3, I kiiinda want to put her with Willowshine instead. For the drama. Oh the misery of swearing yourself to your restrictive code to an unhealthy degree being challenged when you fall for another medic from another clan, indulging in the romance when you're children but breaking it off because you refuse to put your selfish sinful desires over the goodwill of StarClan and tradition, spending a few years in yearning and guilt and ruminating going "I had to, I can't love her, I would be less than scum if I did" and throwing herself into her work. Only to learn that she herself is a product of a forbidden relationship, the same as the one she indulged in. And her mother had "no" consequences for so long. Her mentor who she looked up to more than anything, who she previously honored for her faith in StarClan and the code and saw her as a standard worth following, had faltered in her faith. Why? Why would she inflict that on her clan? Why would she inflict that on Hollyleaf? What was it for? . .. Could Hollyleaf have done the same? Would she? But why? Was she cursed with her mother's name because she was destined to be like her? Were they both destined to be sinners? No, no. No. This can be fixed. It has to be. She can repent. They can both repent. And she will make her mother repent if its the last thing she does. She has to. She has to get back in StarClan's good will. She has to. She has to.

[artinandwritin]

Just a few little doodles of gussiri and their cat(s) (i think it's funny af LMAO)

[sleepyblr-heart]

i need them to be put. into a snowcone machine.

[yakkety-yak-art]

Boba, meeting Vader for the first time: Wow Hope This Doesn’t Awaken Anything In Me

AKA boba had a weird childhood and I can’t imagine that led to him knowing how to deal with crushes in a normal way (or how to avoid having crushes on the worst person in your vicinity) so we have boba thinking he’s being very Smooth and Normal and Vader just being incredibly confused and concerned in equal measures