#tales and activities

[firadessa]

Disney Fairies- Tales and Activities disc

[stars-obsession-pit]

Suddenly half-human

Danny was a full ghost hanging out in a random spot in the Zone when suddenly a rift in space tore open on top of him.

His very essence shifted as strange energies poured into him from a previously-unfathomable direction.

No longer pure ectoplasm. Something new, something living in a deeply foreign way.

A force suddenly pulled him to collide with cold, solid ground.

He felt different.

His whole body felt weighed down as if encased in thick rubber, preventing him from shapeshifting or even just floating up. Something thudded to life inside his chest, pumping a new fluid throughout his insides.

As he continued to lay there in shock, his chest began to burn.

Instincts he didn’t fully understood kicked in and his mouth flung open, gasping for breath. The burning subsided as his chest continued to heave.

What the hell? Since when did he need to breathe?

He heard three young, panicked voices from across the room. He flopped his head in their direction and took in their appearances semi-deliriously, still trying to pull his thoughts back together.

They were humans. Living, breathing humans. A tall redheaded girl, a boy in a beanie and glasses, and a girl in what he believed was referred to as “goth” clothes.

Wait… was he human now?

Awkwardly clambering to his feet, leaning against the wall of the strange tunnel for balance, he tried to give them a grin. It probably came out a bit more unhinged than he intended.

“So, uh, any idea what just happened?”

[lothcatthree]

HERE’S HOW BARRISOKA CAN STILL WIN-

[multifandom-nerds-blog]

I'm rewatching Trollhunters in the background right now, and the disfunctional mother son relationship between Jim and his mom is making me crazy.

Like, he's taking care of the household and his mother for years as a teenager and before probably. She is sometimes giving half hearted comments about him not having to do so much, but very obviously she's not gonna make him stop do all the cooking and cleaning. Y'know. Both because they've been living like this for years, and because it's obviously also very comfortable to have someone do all the house work.

Then Strickler comes into the picture, and if we ignore the whole Troll and changeling side of the story, Barabara gets very offended cause Jim doesn't want her to meet him privately. Again, ignoring the whole magic and trolls stuff, STRICKLER IS JIMS TEACHER. If Jim hadn't figured out that Strickler was a changeling he probably wouldn't have a problem with it, but the fact that he does, no matter the reason, should be enough for Barbara to put a stop to the relationship. Her child is clearly uncomfortable with her seeing/dating that guy, for whatever reason, and even clearly vocalized it. But she doesn't care about, or rather, she tells Jim that she "wouldn't expect something like that" from him. Obviously not, cause she may see him like her child/teenager he is, BUT DOESN'T TREAT HIM LIKE ONE.

And then Jim, unknowingly to Barbara, becomes the Trollhunter, and his behavior changes. He's suddenly doing reckless stuff, sneaking out, getting bruises, landing in detention and even at the police station, barely avoiding a police report. What does she do? Asking him what's going on? If everything's alright at school? If he has any other problems? Maybe trying to lower his workload around the house, which again, he's doing most of that as a teenager and longer probably.

Nah. She doesn't do anything until he lands in the hospital. Except for again, dismissing him rather negatively at the one topic he's openly expressing any negative opinions about (Strickler). And after he lands in the hospital she now starts not asking questions, but demanding answers. Demanding answers from a teenager in a difficult situation who is also now acting much more like a teenager than he ever did before, from her point of view at least. Except she obviously doesn't know how to deal with a teenager, cause she has never had to raise or live with a teenager. She instead lived with a child pretending to be an adult for years, that was partly much more of an adult than she was, who did way to much work even before Jim became the Trollhunter. So she throws punishments at him and grounds him, but does he listen?

No. Cause why should he? Not only is he dealing with things much more important than being grounded, yknow, saving the world, he's trying to protect her from the sheer knowledge of the supernatural and physically protecting her from getting harmed. And again, for the majority of the time since his dad left he pretended to be an adult. He was and is the main adult in the household, dealing with important things she doesn't even know about.

The only one's treating Jim like a teenager are teachers, other children and Blinky and Aaargh sort of when they're not in the middle of Troll business. Strickler, in the first episodes where Jim doesn't know about his true identity, is much more of a parental figure to Jim (also after his redemption later on tbh) than his mother.

In summary: Barbara is treating her son like an adult, almost like a partner, instead of a child/teenager. And when that isn't possible anymore she doesn't know how to properly treat him. She also doesn't really care that her son is uncomfortable with her being around Strickler, or Strickler in general. And it takes Blinky telling her (when Jim is 16) that Jim might be affected by his father leaving when he was five years old.

Jim meanwhile is treating his mother more like a child/teenager instead of the adult and MOTHER that she is. Seeing her as his responsibility. Cooking for her. Cleaning for her. Telling her to rest and take breaks.

They obviously love each other other. And their relationship might not be toxic, but it's very much disfunctional. In a way that is mostly negative for Jim.

[david-talks-sw]

I think it's interesting that - in order to make his "free-thinking Jedi" characters hold any semblance of rationality in their arguments - Dave Filoni needs to resort to artificially dehumanizing the other Jedi and painting them all with the same "we dogmatically worship protocol" brush.

He does this with Huyang in the recent Ahsoka episode.

"Lolz he's so narrow-minded, preachy and by-the-book, unable to think outside the box, just like the Jedi in the Prequels."

My first reaction was being amused at the fact that Filoni had to resort to making the Jedi Order's ideals and rules be embodied by a literal machine for his anti-Jedi headcanon to start making sense.

But then I remembered: Huyang isn't just any droid.

In The Clone Wars, he had a sassy personality, he had a pep in his step, he had a sense of humor...

This character was human in his behavior, he was fun and whimsical.

But now he's been reduced to, I dunno, "Jedi C-3PO"? Basically?

"Ha! He's blunt and unsympathetic because he's a droid, but it's funny because the Jedi were the same, they were training themselves to be tactless, emotionless droids."

And Filoni does this with Mace Windu too, in Tales of the Jedi.

Mace, who brought a lightsaber to the throat of a planetary leader to defend the endangered Zillo Beast...

... and who went waaay past his mandate by mischievously sneaking around Bardottan authorities and breaking into the Queen's quarters because he felt something bad was afoot...

... was reduced to being an almost droid-like, rule-parotting, protocol purist who sticks to his instructions (and is implied to be willing to let a murder go unsolved so he can get a promotion).

I mentioned this at the end of my first post on Luke in The Last Jedi... while changes in personality do happen overtime and can be explained in-universe... if you don't show us that progression and evolution and just leave us without that context, that'll break the suspension of disbelief, for your audience.

Here, we have two characters with a different (almost caricatural) personality than the one they were originally shown to have.

Now... we could resort to headcanons, to make it all fit together.

We could justify Huyang's tone shift 'cause "Order 66 changed him". And we could make explanations about TotJ's Mace:

Being younger and thus more ambitious and a stickler for the rules, and only really becoming more flexible after getting his seat on the Council and gaining more maturity.

Being such a teacher's pet in the episode because we're seeing him through the eyes of a notorious unreliable narrator, Dooku.

There'd be nothing wrong with opting to go with either of those headcanons to cope with this. After all, Star Wars is meant to help you get creative.

But the problem I encounter is that:

Filoni has an anti-Jedi bias, so the above headcanons clearly wouldn't really track with his intended narrative.

We'd be jumping through hoops to extrapolate and fill in what is, essentially, inconsistent characterization, manufactured to make Ahsoka and Dooku shine under a better light.

And that sours whatever headcanon I come up with.

Edit: Also, yeah, as folks have been saying in the tags... wtf is "Jedi protocol"? The term isn't ever mentioned in the movies, I skimmed through dialog transcripts of TCW, never saw it there.

So it's almost as if - if Filoni wasn't draining characters like Mace and Huyang of all humanity and nuance - his point about "the Jedi were too detached and lost their way, but not free-thinkers like Qui-Gon, Dooku and Ahsoka" wouldn't really hold much water.

[hedgehog-moss]

My top 10 nonfiction reads of 2023 (the asterisked ones are in French with no translation as of yet) :

Belle Greene, Alexandra Lapierre

The Indomitable Marie-Antoinette, Simone Bertière

Reporter: A Memoir, Seymour Hersh

Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, Erich Schwartzel

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Patrick Keefe

Servir les riches, Alizée Delpierre*

La Comtesse Greffulhe : L’ombre des Guermantes, Laure Hillerin*

Le Courage de la nuance, Jean Birnbaum*

The Book Collectors of Daraya, Delphine Minoui

Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement, Hawon Jung

[whatsleftofdishaa]

Simp aisa kro chand pe jaisa koi insaan insaan pe bhi na krta ho

[morethansky]

The TBB finale posits that Echo is a foil to Darth Vader, and I am eating it up! Hear me out.

The doors open on Echo. The doors close on Vader. Past the threshold in both scenes lie the dead bodies of their enemies, who belong to the two key opposing factions of this era. Vader wreaks havoc on the rebels on behalf of the Empire. Echo wreaks havoc on the Empire's stormtroopers on behalf of his rebel cell.

Echo walks toward us, and in the following scene, he bends down to retrieve a weapon. Vader walks toward us, and in the next scene (at least in the trailer), the Inquisitors, who are his weapons, bend down to kneel before him.

Anakin was a hero in the war, risking his life by leading his clone battalion from the front to help them make it through. Then he was put under the thrall of the Sith. When that happened, he killed his own people—the Jedi.

Echo was a hero in the war, risking his life in hopes of helping the Jedi escape the Citadel. Then he was put under the thrall of the Techno Union and the Separatists. When that happened, he caused the deaths of his own people—the clones.

Anakin lost his right arm in a feat of reckless courage, when he rushed ahead to take on Dooku alone (Obi-Wan: "No, Anakin, no!"). Echo lost his right arm in a feat of reckless courage, when he rushed ahead to fight the commando droids alone (Fives: "Echo! Look out!"). Vader and Echo are also two of the characters who have suffered the most extreme bodily harm and survived.

Anakin had a slave chip put in him when he was a baby. Echo had an inhibitor chip put in him when he was a baby. Echo was eventually liberated. Anakin spent the majority of his life enslaved.

Vader recruits and trains the Inquisitorius, which includes Jedi children he tortures into serving the Empire. Echo recruits clones for his rebel cell, and trains a clone child who, inspired by his teachings, joins the fight against the Empire.

At the end of Vader's story, he does a good deed by ruining Palpatine's plans, and dies. At the end of Echo's story (for now, I pray), he does a good deed by ruining Palpatine's plans—and lives.

[velnna]

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of workout do you do? I try to go on walks outside (get to see dogs and cool plants!) but it's just way too hot in the summer and I have a hard time figuring out what else to do sometimes.

I've done a bunch of sport disciplines over the years, but the thing that's definitely easiest to keep up with is walks or runs for sure. When I did it I used to avoid summer temperatures by aiming for the 6-7am time slot but it was definitely overkill 🥲

These days I just have a gym subscription and bask in their AC. If I cant for some reason, I try to half assedly do home exercises I find online for 30-40min just to get my muscles and heart going a little. Not ideal or fun but it gets the job done more or less :') I also have a small static bicycle thing in case I feel like chilling with some cardio instead

Side note but I think artists really shouldn't neglect the good that strengthening some muscle groups can do for things like back pain or preventing wrist/arm injuries. Doing core and arm workouts here and there is the main thing standing between me and needing an ergonomic arm rest to sit and draw for 12h+ each day

[charmwasjess]

headcanon that Dooku didn't go to any nefarious lengths to get Sifo-Dyas's Archives password to delete Kamino, he just thought hard about everything he knew about him from their years of friendship, typed in "bootylicious123", and it worked on the first try.

[beyondtheseaofstars]

these are my Skylene and Tangerina designs!!

these two make me so happy y'all have no idea <33

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I realized (which was obvious to me subconsciously) is that... The family that vehemently didn't accept me when I first came out but now do accept me are still the same family that I am most unwilling to be open about things I feel protective over.

I remember that my dad reacted so poorly, not to my coming out, but to my transition specifically that my therapist was the one to ask if I wanted to put it on my file that I wanted nothing to ever be shared with him about my health after I broke down multiple times due to my anxiety that I would never transition. While there are and were protections for me, I was incredibly fearful at the time because I was a minor, and I was so worried that he would have prevented my transition that I couldn't have said for certain what (if any) lengths he would have gone to to prevent that.

He's grown a lot as a person, and made some commendable strides. But he didn't find out from me when I medically transitioned the second I turned eighteen, and I think that's among the things that truly made him realize the scope of the issue.

I'm not here to guilt trip parents, guardians, or other members responsible for the care of the children or teens or young adults in their care.... but this is a cautionary tale. You aren't saving the people in your care when you do this, you simply reinforce an idea that you will never care for them, never want them as they are, would rather them be shoved away.

When you give people reasons to be secretive, they will behave secretively. When you give people reasons to doubt their safety around you, they will become sneaky, defensive, and withdrawn. When you give people reasons to doubt that you value their life, they will believe that you don't care if they live or not.

[chipistrate]

Let Me Out

Glad we have collectively decided that this is the unofficial-official GGY song<3 Drew this before going 2 bed cause this song has been stuck in my head all day

[phenikas]

Spoilers for Deep Connections under cut!!!

"Rhys..." Jack stared into his eyes, afraid, still holding back. Because why shouldn't he? He has caused enough chaos in the younger man's life. He no longer felt deserving of being a part of it. "I'm-"

"Stop."

Jack silently watched as Rhys inched closer, slowly and carefully guiding his hand. God, how he wanted to wrap himself around Rhys, and yet even the slightest touch threatened his system to shut down. And when Rhys placed Jack's hand on his thigh, the fear of holding back a thousand moans and curses resurfaced.

He sucked in his breath, as if that would stop him from thinking about every possible way he wanted to touch Rhys. His other hand gripped the armrest, keeping it far enough with intention. Any and all contact was risky, especially when he did not know what was running through Rhys' head.

But then he felt it, at the back of his head. A ping.

He ignored it, still overwhelmed by Rhys' cybernetic hand laying on top of his.

Another ping. A request for... a wireless connection?

"I- Rhys, I can't let you do that," he tried, but Rhys ignored his fears, visibly moving even closer.

"I meant what I said that night," Rhys spoke in a hushed voice, his words meant for Jack and Jack only, "You thought I was out of it, and I guess it was kind of true. I was... angry. At you. At myself. And I know I should've handled that anger like an adult, but dammit, even I need to let loose sometimes. And I guess by getting shit faced, it did kind of open up a door of opportunity in my head. But what I'm trying to say is, I'm really tired of denying our feelings."

Jack gripped Rhys' thigh involuntarily, the man's words affecting him in ways he could not explain. He leaned back further into the chair, trying to gain control of the situation. He did not want to hurt Rhys more than he already has, "Don't say that. You can't say that! Didn't you see what I did?"

"Yeah. I saw everything," Rhys admitted, eyes locked with Jack's, "And it only confirmed what I was afraid of."

"That I shouldn't even be here in the first place?"

"That I keep bringing you back because I need you in my life. This was never a matter of you being useful for me or the company. I just... I hated how everything ended. Deep down, I kind of knew that there could've been something more between us, but I guess it was just a matter of-"

"Wrong place, wrong time."

"Yeah. Like it always seems to be."

"Is..." Jack began, still absolutely terrified that this could all go wrong any second now, "Is this the right time?"

"And the right place, if you let me in." Rhys leaned closer, his left hand gripping Jack's shoulder for support. "I want to feel what you feel, if that makes sense. I just... I want you, Jack."

Some out of context Deep Connections as I try to slowly get back into the groove of making renders. (I tried to be non-spoilery, even though this... might actually be a spoiler of its own? I mean, the real thing is gonna be in Rhys' POV so not really. There's like 2 chapters left between this and where the story currently is on ao3 - link here.)

[mrsthunderkin]

Bart's dad wasn't a great guy, but at least the man respected nap-time

Also: I would also like to remind y'all that Bart's dad was MASSIVE compared to a lot of other Fae his age over seven feet okay

[thatsjustyou]

Sun kissed 💋💋