Hello :D

You're so cool

Anyway have you thought that in your rat sons au Splinter might outlive the boys?

You're very cool :D love your stuff dude

(tw for some blood, light gore, implied overdose (kinda??))

hi copper!!! this is a fantastic question!

so obviously typical irl rats have far shorter lifespans than the average irl tortoise. according to google (yes, be awed by my spectacularly in-depth wealth of research) the average pet rat lives between 2-4 years ish, and the oldest on record lived to be about 7. meanwhile, an African spurred tortoise (Splinter's species) averages more around a 50ish year lifespan in captivity, tho is suspected to possibly exceed 75 or more in the wild.

Now, the mutation does give us a lot of wiggle room for playing with these numbers. For the rat sons boys, id say their natural lifespan probably clocks in at about 45-55 years old? definitely not old by human standards, but not young young either. (though, its also important to note that the boys were exposed to the mutagen just days after being born.)

For Splinter, meanwhile, aging is slightly more complicated. He lived the vast majority of his life as a regular normal African spurred tortoise (well, non-mutated at least. there were perhaps some shenanigans of a more mystical variety going on before he was mutated, but thats a separate matter) He was about 70ish i think? when the boys were born and they were all exposed to the mutagen. so he is already distinctly an old man turtle papa. id guess he'd probably still have another eh lets say 25-30 years after his mutation. he could probably push it a little farther even with some mystic nonsense, but when push comes to shove id say his 'natural' post-mutation lifespan would put his death like a solid decade or two before his sons.

of course, the tricky part of the matter is that theres no way for Splinter to know any of this. theres no way for him to know how the mutation affected them all, or if it even affected them all in the same way. especially since the boys dont show many physical signs of mutation for the first few years, and just kinda look like normal rats, (albeit with a more human sort of intelligence) — what sort of health standard do you hold them to? what if they simply dont show external signs of sickness or old age anymore? how do you actually know if something is wrong?

for a while there Splinter is very worried that one of his babies will just essentially reach the end of their normal rat lifespan, fall and not get up again.

so mostly, he just tries to live in the moment, enjoying whatever time he does have with his little ones, taking each day as a gift <3

still,

that fear

never

really

goes

away.....

michelangelo, test my brushes

do you have any thoughts on zelda not staying as a dragon? me personally I like it and am very cool with it mostly because I think zelda should get to be happy forever (and because I'm smart enough to know she changed back because of recall and not some ambiguous power of love lmao) but a lot of people seem to dislike that it made the draconification inconsequential?

i think there's like. some valid concerns surrounding inconsequentiality/"curing" the physical problems characters have as a way of giving them a "happy ending" but I think those concerns don't necessarily apply to totk in the way people seem to be applying them, especially irt zelda's draconification and link's arm.

most of the time when the criticism of this "magic cure" trope is applied to media, it's because the trope is used as a cure-all to erase a character's suffering or trauma and make them "normal" again, and often ignores the character development or themes of the story in favor of giving the character a happy ending. I don't think that applies to totk, though, because the "curing" link and zelda experience is both within the realm of possibility given the worldbuilding present in the game (recall could easily have done it, as you mentioned) AND thematically consistent with the rest of the game. One of if not the most important central themes of totk is the idea of failure and second chances. we see a hyrule that has been given a second chance after link's initial failure with the calamity brought it to the brink of destruction. we see characters who were deeply unhappy and entrenched in the shame of their precalamity mistakes like purah and zelda become active, beloved members of their communities. we see the people of lurelin village take back and rebuild their destroyed home. we watch this kingdom and its people make an unprecedented comeback after a century of struggle and ruin.

Similarly, totk's gameplay is LINK's second chance, his comeback from the initial mistake of losing zelda, of specifically being unable to reach her with his injured hand when they fell. The consequences of that--the master sword's corruption, the loss of his arm, and zelda's draconification, are all supposed to SEEM irreversible, because that's how LINK initially sees them. he believes that he doomed both himself and zelda all because of that SINGLE moment in which he wasn't enough, a viewpoint which is obviously left over from the pressure he experienced to perform to an impossible standard of perfection pre-calamity. The story of totk is about deconstructing that belief and proving it wrong. the mistake he made caused harm, but it's never too late to repair things. he can fix the regional phenomena ganondorf causes and rebuild those communities. he can revitalize the master sword. he can GET ZELDA BACK, with his own arm, uninjured and able to reach her this time. no matter how impossible those things may initially seem, no matter the perceived finality of his mistakes and their consequences, there is always hope. there is always a second chance. no one person's single mistake can doom an entire kingdom for eternity. the fate of hyrule was NEVER resting on link's shoulders alone. he was never their final hope. there was always going to be an after. the whole POINT of the draconification and the loss of link's arm is that they AREN'T final. they ARE inconsequential, because they were born of one mistake and ONE MISTAKE IS NOT THE END ALL.

chara fell underground and was brought to “home” (the ruins) by asriel, and only then did monster kind leave home and move into the undergrounds other areas, the royal family moving into new home, which is implied to have been built after the core, since the core is built under it. the core was of course, built by WD Gaster, who was the royal scientist, and therefore worked closely with the royal family.

all of this to say that Gaster is implied to have known chara and asriel.

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ  ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ

bonus:

Just wanna say I am very thankful for the support and super kind messages even after I have transitioned from fanart to OC art. It really does make me feel more confident and happy to see people enjoy my writing and creations - I do put a lot of effort and time into them! They're something super precious to me , and I think this being something mine has encouraged me to take on more ambitious projects (like backgrounds and complex lighting - It feels more satisfying when it's something yours, ya know?)

I get insanely happy and fuzzy inside seeing people have tags for my characters, or seeing regulars in the comments - I love responding to them and it's a big highlight of my day. I know sometimes depression does get the better of me and I whine on here, but I think overall this endeavor has made a positive change for me, and you guys are a big factor for it. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I feel excited to wake up in the morning, to draw, and have more ideas for Blythe, Raha and Lorelai, and I hope to be able to make them interesting and to deliver an entertaining and thought provoking narrative.

"But why did Gwen push Miles away like that if she loves him so much?" You ask as if in the same movie we didn't watch her father, the person she loves more than anything and the person that she thought that loves her more than anything, disown her right away because he learned one thing about her that he didn't like.

I just caught up with ep 63 and I'm fucking vibrating. The difference of the Bor'dor reveal and the Dusk reveal! Dusk spending their entire time with the party stirring up drama, once caught out still openly provoking and trying to find an angle to straight up kill Fearne's parents, and the party still struggling to find every reason to let them go, let them live. And Dusk never gave a shit. Why would they! They were a fey assassin! And still the Hells fought and argued for them and let them walk away despite openly remaining a threat.

And then we get Bor'dor, wet paper tissue of a man, tragic backstory up to the gills, genuinely spending time to bond with them, having his little practice session with them being his proudest moment, sharing vulnerabilities. And though he drew first blood, he did it trying to run away, not kill! He did it having seen these people murder his friends and drag their dead bodies out of the hole! He was helpless on the ground, all but begging them to end him because he saw no reason to keep going! There was enough turmoil and doubt in him that he could probably have been deradicalized! He hated them but he loved them too!

And had this been early campaign, in all likelihood they would have let him live. But this is a Bell's Hells who have already been betrayed once by an ally, who lost Eshteross to the Ruby Vanguard, who lost half the fucking party to the Ruby Vanguard, who went on a grueling journey to get Laudna back, who struggled and struggled and still failed to stop Ludinus and ended up separated and scared and not knowing whether the world is about to end or not, whether their friends are alive or not.

And they were done. They did not fight for him. This is war. Were Dusk to show back up now, I doubt they’d survive the encounter.

"posting this because i NEEEEEED this on my blog" is probably going to be the caption for 95% of the Shin-chan stuff i post BUT IT IS NO LESS TRUE BECAUSE OF IT. Masaaki Yuasa is quickly becoming one of my favorite animators and i want to have easy access to ogle at his work at any time. and i hope for you to do the same! so here's his animation for Ending 3 of the show from 1993

Ventress is really enjoying being the master for once huh. she finds an untrained clueless young force sensitive and immediately goes full Yoda mode with the balance-stuff-on-your-head test and accompanying cryptic commentary

and it's even funnier when you remember that qui gon in TPM checked anakin's midichlorians with basically a covid rapid test

me thinking about the moment in the movie where leo is fighting krangified raph and he is feeling so much pressure and so much stress and guilt and he is so so scared for his family and for raph especially because he just wants to get raph out safely, he just wants his brother with him and their family unharmed and in one piece, but he can’t get through why won’t raph HEAR him why isn’t raph LISTENING he just wants to SAVE HIM why is he making things SO HARD--

and that is the moment where it finally fully clicks for leo, after all this, where raph was coming from at the start of the movie. that it wasn’t about being stubborn or wanting to call all the shots and be the boss, it wasn’t pettiness or raph being hard on them for no reason. it was always just raph wanting them to be safe, and getting scared and frustrated when doing that was difficult. or when, perhaps, certain stinker lil brothers seemed to be going out of their way to make it difficult.

like he really has that hard stop moment of realization while he’s looking directly at raph... at his own reflection u could say... love that

talk about je souhaite

well, yes! you know what i love about je souhaite? mulder. i love je souhaite mulder so much. this is the mulder that called the jersey devil "beautiful" and ran through the woods trying to save it. the mulder that looked the soul-eater monster in the eye and gave up the chance to save his own life, because he couldn't bear to add to the monster's pain. he's a bleeding heart behind 7 levels of delusional mania and vince writes the balance better than any other.

i love that the first thing he does is ask the genie what she would wish for, just because he wants to know. just because he's curious, and he's curious about her as a person, her own desires and input outside of the role she's cursed to play in the world. in her answer, you can see how much 500 years of being a slave to people's selfish whims has weighed on her, in the way that she tells him she would just want her days to be her own. to sit and have a cup of coffee.

at its best, this show and its lead characters endowed their central "monsters" (and victims) with so much intricate confliction, humanity within the metaphysical.

i love that mulder tries to win at the genie wish, to save the world. tries to construct the perfect wording and all-encompassing fool-proof plan. he literally throws around the phrase "the end of tyranny."

he thinks that he can crack it, that he can solve it, that he can come up with just the right wish that will make everyone safer and happier, and free. je souhaite is a quintessential season seven episode in that it's a lesson for mulder that scully already knows, scully gets to spend this episode being wise and joyful and absolutely giddy with nerdy delight.

her perspective on the genie wish (something that she doesn't believe in, but takes seriously, as she always takes him and what's important to him seriously) is perfect. "maybe it's the whole point of our lives here, mulder, to achieve that. maybe it's a process that one man shouldn't try and circumvent with a single wish."

in the end, as optimistic as his hope in what's possible is, it's a cheat. it's no more grand than the 500 years of people before him who wished for things like boats and beauty. mulder is learning lessons that scully already knows, and when the time comes, he closes his notes. you can't escape doing the work, that's the whole point of being alive.

after so much mystical pondering, the next scene is refreshingly down to earth: mulder and scully on the couch at his apartment, him complaining about her popcorn choices, her complaining about his movie choices. the way he throws the beer cap just to make her giggle.

there are few moments i love more than the exchange here, when mulder says, "i don't know if you noticed, but i never made the world a happier place." and scully casually answers, "well. i'm fairly happy. that's something."

what a lesson to be learned at the end of the day!! what a sentiment to express, to someone who spends his entire life trying to save the whole world to make up for not having been able to save one person. who spends his entire life trying to repent for having lived.

you don't have to save the world, you can call your best friend and sit on the couch and watch caddyshack. it's something, that someone loves you in a way that makes a life spent with you fairly happy. this is the point, part of what she was telling him earlier.

when she asks what his wish was, and he just smiles and turns to the movie, this cut to the final scene is one of my favorite shots of the series. the genie, finally her own person for the first time in 500 years, sitting with a cup of coffee.

i will say. i think that this fandom is generally very reluctant to criticize tamsyn muir as a white author but there's a meaningful difference between representation that's actually in the books and the author's headcanons posted on tumblr dot com.

I think my least favorite thing on the internet is how quick people are to call characters toxic just because they don't like them.

anyway every spider-man in the multiverse is alone except for miles. can anybody hear me

mutuals should i learn to play the violin i just found a video for learning my very favorite piece of violin music of all time the meditation from thaïs and . well my brother once tried to learn violin and he gave up (he was like ten) but we still have this . fiddle of his. suppose i tuned up this probably not quite adult sized beast and learned the thaïs . a thing ive been thinking about since approximately seventh grade

bayle domon wrote today's duolingo lesson