#safe and isolated

[heart-songs]

Finally, after a lifetime, she admitted it was the chance of seeing Tate, the hope of rounding a creek bend and watching him through the reeds, that had pulled her into the marsh every day of her life since she was seven. She knew his favorite lagoons and paths through quagmires; always following him at a safe distance. Sneaking about, stealing love. Never sharing it. You can't get hurt when you love someone from the other side of an estuary.

Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing (pg. 354)

[met4lwhore]

yall are pro mental illness until they hallucinate

yall are pro mental illness until they dissociate

yall are pro mental illness until they self-isolate

yall are pro mental illness until they're paranoid

yall are pro mental illness until they split

yall are pro mental illness until it's too Scary for your comparatively neurotypical brain to handle

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I love tornado survival guides. "Shelter in a basement or interior room without any windows. But if you're in a mobile home, just fucking die I guess lol"

[mari-lair]

wishcraft

[potassiumprincess]

i think marinette is worse at resting when she's sick but adrien is worse at sitting things out if he's injured. i have no explanation, these are just the vibes

[noxcheshire]

I have done a brief yandere Damian post in the past, it is now time for the next best boy.

Yandere! Tim x Danny

Tim loved watching the sun setting over the skyline of the city buildings. He loved watching the reds, the purples and blues blending until finally the night encased Gotham entirely.

He loved watching the hurried steps of strangers as they maneuvered around packed crowds through worn streets. Or small groups slipping through dirty alleys where clinging shadows whisked them away to disappear into the ever-present smog of Gotham.

He loved pacing across rooftops, quiet feet leading him from ledge to ledge so that he could peer over the edge and see the world from above.

From that point of view he could see everything and anything, the same as he had done when he was younger and chasing a man dressed as a bat and a boy adorned in reds and yellows rushed through the air with gleeful laughter.

Even now as a vigilante, named as Red Robin, the results were the same.

Tim loved people watching.

And Tim loved watching Danny the most.

Danny was different from Gotham and its people.

He was softer and warmer — a flame that crackled and flickered amongst the coldness and wariness of this city that Tim has known all his life.

Danny with skin as pale as moonlight, whose touch was as soft as a feather kiss because all he had ever known were cruel hands and tight grips. Danny with eyes filled to the brim with stars of beautiful blue that shimmered with delight, because he had never been taught to wrap himself up in masks and placid words just to get by. Danny with a smile that barely pulled up on sharp fangs because Danny always felt guilty when people would flinch at the sight of his too animalistic teeth.

Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny Danny DannyDannyDannydannydannydanny —

Tim loved watching Danny as much as he loved Danny himself.

The boy whose heart beat unsteadily, and whose heart ceased functioning when black hair turned white.

This is who he loved.

And Tim hated nothing more than when the things he loved were hurt.

Danny didn’t understand.

He was different.

He was soft.

He was damaged.

He didn’t understand the harm that came with a heart that still pumped blood in sluggish and tired bursts. He didn’t understand the harm that came when his heart fell abruptly still, cold and empty as blue eyes turned green and black hair turned white.

He did not understand the harm that came with pale skin bruised by larger hands, both young and old.

Danny didn’t understand how much harm truly came upon him from the threats within this world. Threats that not only existed in his rogues, but by ordinary, simple humans.

The harm that can exist from fellow students, from neighbors, from the GIW, and his fucking p a r e —

Danny didn’t understand.

He was different.

He was soft.

Even when physical abuse and emotional abuse littered across Danny’s flesh and sensitive ears like poison on open wounds. Even when he became Phantom, a lost soul on the brink between living and dead, who tried so hard to protect.

Even for people who didn’t deserve it.

Tim had never known someone as stubborn as Danny.

But Tim loved that about him too.

Tim loved the sheer determination to be good. To be kind… .

It was heroic. It was Danny.

And just as Tim had done, once upon a time when dogging the steps of Batman whose mourning bled into violence, Tim did what he had to.

He did what he had to.

[sunsetsover]

am i gonna sound crazy saying that despite the fact robert's just got out of 6 year prison stint for murder that has clearly left him traumatised and his life is genuinely in shambles he seems freer than he ever has

[bigmoon-is-bigwife]

I wonder how it must feel for Sneeg to be so dangerous that a new player can hit him and instantly die. He was warning Zam to be more careful after her two accidents the other day and I have to imagine he's always very aware of his own strength as well. He has to be, he's always one miss click away from killing someone. Hell, it turns out he doesn't even have to be the one to miss click, it's dangerous even being around him.

[t-u-i-t-c]

Toku Pride Month Challenge│Ships

Kaito Goshikida & Stacy

[dreamylittlevalentine]

Sometimes you just gotta be a sad bitch so you can resume being a bad bitch as quickly as possible

[smithsibsceo]

zane and kai bonded in the early seasons by discovering new music together. both didnt really have a great access to it growing up (there was an only an old radio or maybe a scratchy vinyl player in ignacia's library and zane's village had no electricity) so they mainly grew up hearing their respective villages' traditional live music. Hearing those 'end-of-2012-mashup' compilations changed both of their lives

[mari-lair]

regular siffrin is relatable to me in a "oof, yeah i do that sometimes" kind of way, researcher siffrin is relatable to me in a "this is my true fear" kind of way. i love them but they scare me.

🤝 love the researcher, would NEVER want to be them.

[alackofghosts]

vierapril day 15 - alternate universe

[theoverstimulated]

My mom decided just last week to lessen her covid precautions and "live life" by attending a party with her friend. She's been tired all week, and today had to call in to work because she's sick. Let this be your gentle reminder that those of us who are chronically ill & disabled & trying to avoid further sickness can't just drop our precautions to have fun without potential consequences. It seems like no one else is going to protect you, so you still gotta protect yourself! Also, none of the people who were at that party will be there to care for my mother while she's sick. She will go through whatever she caught all alone as I live many states away. Please learn from her experience and remember to protect yourself. People might think I'm rigid because I'm still isolating & masking near other people, but I'm still alive and currently not sick with anything beyond my chronic conditions which is what matters to me.

[dykedvonte]

No but like imagine all female crew minus like Jimbalaya lol

I like this thought but like I imagine you mean Jimmy is also the only guy vs like everyone being girls with Anya.

Cause then it becomes how different women react to when something like this happens. Like I think Curly’s reaction would be different if Curly was a girl on a fully female crew. I think those behaviors and comments towards Anya Jimmy would make wouldn’t fly so much. Not just because Curly can tell they aren’t his usually “harmless” teasing but because there’s other women that are reacting. She’s seeing how bad those reactions are and is second guessing how much she let slide.

Daisuke would be a young woman, likely more conscious and aware of guys like Jimmy since she would be considered a party-girl. He’s like the guy you have to watch your drink around, gets to close and “accidentally” grabs or touches something, factors she would mentions to Curly. Swansea is an old gal, knows men that think they are owed something when a lady is nice to them or just because. She still has the same past and can see that selfishness in Jimmy, likely tells Curly to get some sense about her friend, not just for their sake but for herself.

Again, when I talk about Curly being marginalized gender wise and having that experience I don’t see it as her not getting it, but simply wanting to believe Jimmy is one of the nice guys… well nicer guys… well okay guys. And then she still has to think about that. Having all the other women point out all the signs makes her tip her rose colored glasses a bit, sees those red flags for what they are. I don’t think it’s easier for her but she’s more willing to act out of her feelings.

It would bring up a part of rape culture that doesn’t get depicted a lot of how woman can accidentally or even purposely enable it against other woman. Internalized misogyny, slut shaming and just the assumption of trust. Curly wouldn’t think it was Anya’s fault but she wants some type of hope to exist Jimmy isn’t that sort of man, it’s an internalized denial that slows her movements because this was a man she trusted, a man she had put her safety in, gave so many chances to to… she wouldn’t like thinking about it, but she has to as the Captain, as a woman and as Anya’s friend.

It’s a very harrowing situations especially because they are all women with one guy but it feel like it is resolved quicker and the horror aspects and context surrounding it centers on the crew slowly coming to see Jimmy as a figurative monster and the literal monster he is.

[rxttenfish]

Did any specific animals inspire you while redesigning Aaravi?

well, considering her design is supposed to be specifically evoking images of unicorns, yes!

mainly i wanted something to contrast against miranda while also fitting with aaravi's own themes... i already knew that she was fae, because that was something that was retained from the original rps that got me shipping miravi, so i wanted to toy with that and toy with that as part of her dual nature. i also wanted something that... didn't actually evoke specifically images of "danger"? as in, i didn't want to lean too heavily on the monstrous or even the predatory. part of it is the fact that she's extremely human-passing, even compared to her own brother, so ultimately i didn't want anything that stuck out too obviously, and because i felt extremely exhausted of all the half-human half-monster designs that go too far into the same token predatory animal motifs over and over...

and because it's still a really common Thing, in the fandom, that if you're talking about aaravi you're taking her as... aggressive, in a way that's hard to explain? because she's more of a complicated person than that. like, i ship miravi so i feel the urge to compare her to miranda, specifically in how i don't think miranda actually wants or likes her specific role in the merkingdom vs. the concept of being a princess alone (which is understandable! a lot of little kids want to be princesses for good reason! it's being told you have inherent worth, no matter what you do and that you don't have to "earn" it, that you're beautiful and loved and admired, and that everyone looks up to you and wants to keep you safe in the same turn), but most interpretations of miranda don't pick up on this. it's like this with aaravi, in terms of being a slayer. she likes protecting people, being admired, being the person to save the day and the person that people can go to and feel safe and like they're protected by, she likes feeling hypercompetent and admired for her skills that she worked hard for, she likes feeling like she can solve problems and fix things. it's just that the circumstances of her life have told her that being a slayer is what's going to provide her with all of this, and because the entire structure of everything she knows has been built around this, she can't really begin to untangle one from the other.

which is to say, aaravi is a lot more nervous and scared and uncertain of a person than a lot of people think of her as, and ultimately because she doesn't want people to think or realize that she's actually feeling this way, least of all herself, it can become really easy to think it's actually how she IS.

which is why i ultimately ended up going with associating her with prey animals, and even moreso with unicorns. because she doesn't want to be seen as vulnerable, because that can get her preyed upon. because this then makes her project such an image of strength that she has to constantly hide anything even vaguely contrary to ensure no one even wants to look twice at her. because she's not really liked or accepted into social situations or circles, in a way that SINCERELY bothers her and upsets her, but is desperate to convince everyone else she's a lone wolf who likes this, actually.

likewise, i think a lot about unicorns specifically in the older kind of idea of, an embodiment of virgin wilderness. of truly untouched wilderness, which repels and is dangerous to humanity, which they cannot go into or face because it is so far from civilization. untouched purity, sure, but the double-edged sword of that, of then being something that cannot be sorted back into society or civilization and is inherently contrary to it. i think about unicorns being so fearsome that they were depicted fighting lions and with the lion as their counterpart, and about the virgin being so important to the unicorn myth because that's what induced docility in them, what allowed hunters to capture or kill unicorns due to what valuable resources could be extracted from them.

and i think this fits aaravi a lot. she's not docile, she's not easy to get along with, she's sincerely quite a difficult person, but being a difficult person doesn't mean you're unworthy of love or that you need to then discard what makes you difficult. i think about the strange way people see her as valuable to them, valuable to take advantage of or throw in other people's path or valuable just as a point of entertainment from the in-group making fun of her, but how this value necessitates not caring about her, herself. i think also about the singleminded way she throws herself into things, the way she charges into everything almost certainly because she's (similar to miri...) always lowkey suicidal and doesn't care if this kills her or not, and how unicorns were said to charge so ferociously at lions that, if the lion dodged out of the way, the unicorn would then lodge themselves in a tree in the charge.

this is why she has the lion's tail that's so drapey and flowing — i wanted to evoke the vine-like tails that classical unicorns get drawn with, with many tufts of fur along the length sprouting off. i also liked how it complimented how much body hair i draw her with, since it also makes it look similarly luxurious, with many tufts and ridges of hair (along her back, over her stomach, over her chest) like regal manes.

that's also why i ended up going with her ears being their specific design. because, aaravi's indian, and the indian rhinoceros is literally called the indian unicorn (with the latin name Rhinoceros unicornis!), and so i wanted her to have ears like one. same thing, for showcasing the seeming vulnerability of a prey animal and a herbivore, but also one that's known for being notoriously ornery and aggressive! i also thought it was nice, as so much of aaravi's mentality as a slayer is that monsters are preying on humanity, and so i wanted something that really showcased that herbivores are not passive and are not docile, that they can be equally or moreso dangerous than carnivores, and should not be taken as nonentities in their own environments. especially an animal that can absolutely kill its own predators too. :>

i also thought about using both the rhino connection and aaravi's connection to insects and arthropods to add some natural armor to her... but ultimately it didn't make the cut. i wanted some arthropod in her because i didn't want her to be straightforwardly mammalian, and there should be something off about her that suggests she's not just a humanoid design with a tail... her dad is effectively all of a forest mashed into one roiling mass of condensed nuclear magic, and she does have some (even if easily hidden) traits that would immediately clue other people in on the fact that she's only half human, and i don't like a lot of those... well, "fantasy races" designs that just puts body hair, a tail, and ears on a human. they feel off to me in a way that's hard to explain, and might just come down to the fact that, it feels like the people making them don't actually understand these traits, evolution, or why they end up selected for... and, again, i wanted the point that aaravi wasn't selected for! she's a first-generation hybrid, she has a lot of weird genetics that are also kinda working against her and would count her as disabled! this doesn't mean what she looks like is wrong or lesser, or that her intense shame and fear around these things is right, but moreso i just wanted to give the correct impression. that she's in a really complicated position that's basically only accepted because she's deemed "human enough", and that she feels pressure to hide or obscure anything and everything that isn't appealing enough about her.

and, honestly, adding arthropod in does this well! it's far enough away from mammalian that it's worth questioning, and doesn't feel like the kind of thing she SHOULD have, and sits a lot closer to the uncanny valley to a lot of people.

this is also why all of her body hair and her nails naturally grows in as purple! i saw on her original design that she had purple hair and purple nails, and she never struck me as the kind of person to dye her hair (nor paint her nails, really... she's butch, to me, in my heart), and i liked the thought that they just... naturally grow that way. that's her natural color. and, of course, both are made of keratin, so everything in her body made of keratin would be colored similarly, and chitin is pretty close to keratin too, isn't it? but it's the kind of thing people wouldn't notice, unless they got particularly close to her, unless they started putting together the pieces. so i ended up REALLY liking it, so now aaravi's body actually produces chitin, not keratin, and it's naturally a soft lavender-color too.

and the same for her mandibles! i wanted more major muscle and skeleton differences in her, since her dad doesn't even have DNA to begin with, but, again, she needed to be able to hide it easily. same goes for liking these differences being basically useless — hybridization isn't meant to be a superpower or to make you a mutant, it's just supposed to be another point of variation in the world. in the long run it's beneficial, certainly, but often it's not in ways that anyone can see, and certainly not in ways that anyone in the moment can tell. so giving her strange teeth (so long that they're worse than normal human teeth) and mandibles (so far back in her mouth they're basically only good for biting herself) fit both really nicely. she also has larger front incisors and a chipped incisor tooth, because i have those as well, and i never see them represented in designs.

her eyeshine is intentionally based off of both crocodiles and tigers, and because it being red is just close enough to being similar to human redeye to where it feels familiar but strange.

also, because it complimented miranda! miranda has blue eyeshine, but she's directly based off of both crocodiles and big cats in her design! miranda also represents both the dragon and the mermaid, in terms of "what she is", and i liked adding aaravi as the unicorn to contrast both of those. miranda's the princess and aaravi's the hero, but they're also the virgin and the unicorn, the dragon and the knight, the mermaid and the unicorn. they're both helpless against larger powers, but also fearsome and evocative in their own rights. i wanted aaravi to represent something that could be both savior and condemnation of miranda, and miranda to represent the same to aaravi, being someone who could kill her as an embodiment of evil, or someone just as good and just as worthy of love. they're both fantasy creatures that have gone the whole gambit, from being embodiments of the wild and untamed, to sexual entities, to representing virtues and beauty, to resources to be exploited, from being loved, to being commodified, to being used as inspiration for children's toys, to being hated and loathed and treated as jokes. they're both wildly different, and look wildly different, but they're also the same in fundamental ways, and find solace in how similar they are even with those differences.