Can you go a bit more in depth about your post about Sokka in the Burning Rock episode? You said that it was basically his suicide mission, which I agree with. I'd really like to hear more of your thoughts on it.

okay yeah i mean i'm sure i've covered all these points before extensively because i love weaving a tapestry of sokka's fucked up psychological landscape more than anything in the world, but every so often someone will comment on one of my posts and be like "i think you're reaching i think sokka is the paragon of mental health actually" and i'm just like um. did we not all watch the boiling rock. did we just ignore the apotheosis of sokka's entire character arc. like katara's apotheosis in "the southern raiders" is both very overt and impactful and also, arguably, subtler than sokka's, because they don't explicitly spell out the themes every five seconds, but like. if you didn't watch the boiling rock then you cannot understand sokka. and weirdly enough i also believe that zuka shippers are the biggest culprit of this despite this episode being thee zucchini episode because they somehow still have the audacity to characterize sokka as "goofy sunshine who exists to comfort zuko" when like. the entire point is that sokka is legitimately suicidal here and zuko is doing everything in his power to support him thru what is quite literally a mental breakdown. like their relationship is legitimately interesting i don't understand how people have taken that and made it deeply boring.....but i digress.

the boiling rock is quite obviously sokka at his lowest. the worst thing that could ever happen to him – fumbling a mission that was squarely his responsibility, from its conception to its execution, due to not being able to sufficiently compartmentalize his emotions, leading to the mass imprisonment of most of his comrades, including the men of his tribe whom he idolized his entire life and felt immense pressure to live up to, including his father who he is deathly afraid of disappointing (for reasons that have nothing to hakoda being malicious or neglectful in any way, fwiw), and thus being directly implicated in the failure and the harm caused by said failure – happened. sokka is someone who is especially bad at dealing with failure, because a) he is exceptionally talented, and thus has less experience dealing with failure in both minor and major ways, and thus lacks the emotional resilience developed through the process of struggle and growth that normal people (such as, incidentally, zuko) go through and b) to sokka, whose primary desire at all times is to protect and provide for others in any way he possibly can, for someone else to sacrifice themselves for him constitutes a fundamental disruption to the order. there is a perverse wrongness to kya or yue or hakoda or suki making sacrifices on their own volition, because it means that sokka has existentially failed to protect them by martyring himself. like, he somehow feels so guilty about suki being imprisoned that when azula reveals this piece of information to him, it literally distracts him from his own mission. and mind you, there's absolutely no way sokka could have known or been responsible for suki's imprisonment. but he still feels guilty nonetheless. and azula knows that, knows exactly how to twist the knife to make him break, because, well, it's honestly pretty obvious.

sokka obviously cannot retroactively save his mother or his first girlfriend, but he can save his father and his current girlfriend. in "the awakening" aang says he has to restore his honor after the guilt and shame of his failure in ba sing se (aang is also an incurable gifted kid perfectionist, btw, as is azula. posts for another time...) and sokka repeats zuko's line again in this episode, after experiencing the guilt and shame of his failure during the eclipse. the driving motivation of zuko's entire character, feeling like he has failed in some ontological way and must therefore redeem himself or die trying, is reinforced through aang and sokka's respective experiences mirroring that drive. aang goes out in a storm and nearly drowns to redeem himself in some vague, nebulous way, because he isn't thinking rationally. and likewise sokka, who usually always has a plan and always thinks things through, feels that caution and foresight is pointless, because he came up with a genuinely brilliant invasion plan and it didn't work, so clearly there's something wrong with him (just as he always suspected) and no amount of planning even matters, because he's a capital F Failure and always will be. and so he vows to save his father, as he promised him he would when they parted on the day of black sun, or die trying, because if he can't even do that then what is he good for; at least he'll die a martyr, which to him, is basically his ideal situation. because to sokka, dying as a martyr is basically the highest form of fulfilling his purpose (being needed, protecting people) and so if he dies a martyr, then maybe his catastrophic failure (that is entirely his fault and rests squarely on his shoulders btw) can be forgiven. so his plan is basically just to sacrifice himself for his father so that he can die "redeemed." very normal, rational, healthy behavior, i would say.

sidenote, i also see people claim that "the boiling rock" makes sokka look stupid because why wouldn't he take any of the insanely talented benders to a prison in a giant volcano surrounded by a boiling lake, and it's like. sokka literally admits that he's not being rational, that he doesn't think he's going to survive this, that this is not a good idea. it would go against sokka's entire modus operandi if he brought the children who he feels a deep, presiding responsibility to protect on a suicide mission that he's lowkey hoping will fail (because he not so secretly loves courting death. it's like she's the moon or something). he only lets zuko come with him because he doesn't actually care whether zuko lives or dies at this point. sokka has absolutely no faith in zuko whatsoever (and frankly, why would he, zuko has yet to actually prove himself to him. he didn't even kill combustion man; sokka did) so he has no idea that zuko is actually going to be helpful and supportive in a meaningful way. and frankly, if he had known that at the beginning, or even remotely liked zuko as a person, he probably wouldn't have caved so easily when zuko invited himself to join. if he didn't think that zuko was objectively worse than him and basically worthless as a human being, i doubt he would have let himself be so vulnerable with zuko in the first place. meanwhile zuko is eating it up bc he's like "omg he's confiding in me he's letting me help him we're basically besties" because he doesn't actually know sokka well enough to realize that sokka doesn't actually do that shit with people he remotely respects. shit like "my first girlfriend turned into the moon" and "i had a feeling this was going to be a one way trip" are simply not things that sokka would say out loud 98% of the time. the fact that he is admitting something real is not a testament to the trust he places in zuko, but rather the opposite. sokka spilling his guts (you know, for him) to his resident collateral damage, sokka bringing his lovingly crafted space sword on this mission, sokka not even confirming whether or not his father is actually there beforehand – he's simply stopped giving a fuck, he doesn't care whether or not he lives to see another day, because to him, he has nothing left to lose.

but of course, that also isn't true at all. i mean, for one thing, zuko still needs to teach aang firebending, so he does serve a pretty important function to the group, and zuko simply telling him to do hot squats in his absence does not qualify as significant tutelage. but also, even more importantly, sokka is integral to the fabric of the group. when he's gone for a day in "sokka's master" they literally all just shut down and start complaining about how much they miss him (we don't actually see any b-roll of the gaang hanging around the western air temple because the episode is simply too busy for that, so who can say whether the same thing occurs twice). sokka cannot afford to simply die just because his first plan failed, he still has a major responsibility to his friends. fucking idiot. i've said before that sokka has the emotional resilience of like. a pathetic wet newborn kitten caught in the rain. but like, come on man. i mean, as someone who has also suffered from debilitating perfectionist issues and never had to be responsible for a failed military invasion that cost my people their freedom, i do get it, but still. not his best moment. although there is something genuinely admirable about the fact that after he finds suki, he decides that saving suki is enough, and genuinely does want to succeed in his mission going forward. like his love for suki is one of the only things that consistently makes him happy and makes him forget that his greatest dream in life is to be murdered, and that's so beautiful to me.

the entire point of this episode, by the way, is that sokka is wrong. if that isn't obvious. sokka's entire worldview, that he only has value insofar as he exists to provide for others, and if he fails to protect people in any capacity, he has fundamentally failed to uphold the one reason he even exists on this earth, and thus he does not deserve to exist unless he is bearing the weight of everyone's suffering or otherwise proving his worth through sacrificing himself for others, is um. fucking stupid???? and incorrect. and stupid. the thing is, unlike zuko, sokka can't really point to any one person who taught him to see himself this way. he can't just face his father and tell him that his abuse was cruel and wrong, because hakoda is a good father who has never not supported and believed in and encouraged him, done everything in his power to protect him, loved him unconditionally. hakoda has inadvertently damaged sokka's psyche in various ways, of course, but never with any intention to hurt him. like, ozai tried to kill zuko, on multiple occasions. it's a pretty obvious indicator of the primary source of harm in his life. but sokka is equally if not more Unwell, and there's no one single figure he can blame, because his complex lies within a tangled web of what my best friend fanon calls the "massive psychoexistential complex" of the colonized subject. he is being dehumanized not through interpersonal abuse, but through the violent logic of imperialism. sokka's formative traumas inform his psychology as he understands that he only has value insofar as he is protecting the people he loves (namely his sister) from being murdered by imperialists, much like his mother did. and that logic is continually reified through the violence he is being subjected to, until he truly absorbs the belief that his life has no value on its own, that he is genuinely Less than [human] in some fundamental way. which is obviously deeply tragic, but also lowkey kind of comical because he also happens to be the specialest boy in the world, who literally did come up with multiple working escape plans at the world's most secure supermax on the fly, mind you! but whenever anyone tries to point that out, including piandao literally saying "you're the most exceptional and worthy person i've ever met in my life" sokka is just like "um. that is incorrect actually." like NO ONE should depersonalize themselves and feel that their only value lies in their ability to serve and sacrifice themselves for others, but it's especially ironic that sokka literally does not think he has any value as a human being, and yet he is also objectively exceptional. like, do you understand why i adore this character so much. do you.

anyway. the point of this episode isn't that sokka has worth because he's exceptional, either. that's lowkey the point of "sokka's master," but also a) sokka doesn't really internalize it and b) the more important part of the episode lies in how much the gaang just misses his company because they miss their neurotic control freak big brother who makes bad jokes. but even if he couldn't come up with multiple working escape plans on the fly, suki and zuko still stay by his side anyway because they care about him. they are demonstrating that they would risk their safety and possibly even their lives, in the exact way that sokka is always trying to for everyone else, for him. that sokka doesn't need to be the one who always protects everyone else, and that he isn't a failure for letting people who care about him help him and protect him. and sokka has to accept their help, because suki and zuko are simply too stubborn not to force him into letting them support him. they are standing in a literal maximum security prison in the middle of a volcano and they are still choosing to prioritize sokka's mental health and wellbeing, which is honestly crazy, but also exactly what he needs in this moment. suki has known sokka for what, 3 days maximum? yes they're soulmates but like, girl get up. and in zuko's case, "girl get up" is magnified tenfold, because he literally risked his life to go with him to the boiling rock (also largely motivated by the guilt of not being able to stage his own prison break with iroh, but still!) and let himself get imprisoned despite being the fire nation's most wanted criminal, stayed by sokka's side no matter what including getting thrown into a literal torture chamber for him, jumped across a gaping boiling chasm with no guarantee that he'd survive except for the implicit expectation that sokka would catch him on the other side. like zuko is so fucking pussywhipped and sokka didn't even value him as a human being until like halfway through their entire mission. insane.

in conclusion: "the boiling rock" is a beautiful story of the most mentally ill boy on the planet (he took first place ever since jet died rip jet forever in our hearts), and his two ride or die bitches who he met like yesterday, and also his dad, and a casual homophobe named chit sang, all working together to demonstrate to him why killing yourself is a bad idea in most cases, probably. it's also the story of the most insane dyke drama of all time, but that's for another post (of which i have of course made multiple, most recently, here). i said it's the apotheosis of sokka's arc, and by that i mean it's the most overt acknowledgement of what his fundamental issue is, and the first steps one must take in actually resolving it (namely, accepting help and support from your peers and loved ones). do i think that sokka is magically cured after returning from the boiling rock? no, probably not (in fact, because i'm somewhat sick & twisted myself, i like to imagine that once the war ends, he actually gets worse). but he does seem genuinely happier after they return. and maybe that's just bc kyoshi warrior pussy hits different, but like. he was able to rely on others for help (including mai my best friend mai) who supported him unconditionally and prevented him from simply giving up, and that's so incredibly important. that kind of support is always important, to everyone, of course, but as we've established, it's especially important to sokka specifically, at his lowest (quite possibly ever), in this situation. no one has an obligation to risk their life for someone else, but sokka is something who thinks that his purpose is to risk his life for other people (namely katara), and so for people who really have nothing to gain and everything to lose in standing by and promising not to leave without him, to actually show that they support him unconditionally is huge. if sokka has no fans then i am dead and so is suki zuko hakoda toph aang piandao iroh the mechanist etc etc etc. perfect episode <3

Welcome to my rant about one of my dearest headcanons...

Cross-dominant (handed) MePhone!

So, what might bring me to this headcanon? Why would it be my dearest?

First — you can see it in canon a lot.

Sure, MePhone4 isn’t the only character in Inanimate Insanity who switches hands, a lot of them do it. (noticed it mostly with OJ when I was looking through Pinterest for screenshots.) However, that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t have some backing inside of canon.

First, let’s look at some pictures where MePhone is using his right hand as his dominant hand.

Here you can see him clearly emoting with his right hand, — which I’ve noticed people tend to do with their dominant hand a lot more —, and also the bumper cars.

In other instances throughout the show, we can see MePhone using his left hand as one would use their dominant hand.

As we can also see here, it’s not a thing that’s limited to III alone.

On the topic of III, have you ever noticed he also uses his left hand as his dominant hand in the intro?

Oh, and let’s get the biggest thing out of the way, he writes with his left hand.

Second — why cross-dominant? why not just ambidextrous?

Headcanon territory time! Time for me to start self-indulging.

I believe MePhone4 is naturally left-handed, that’s his true handedness. But, like many people in real like, he was forced to use his right-hand. (He learned to use his left-hand in writing for funsies, but found that it was way more comfortable than using his right and stuck with it.)

I genuinely believe that Cobs would believe left-handedness was inferiour, and that it would hurt his reputation if one of his creations was left-handed.

Sure, MePhone4 might have been created by him, but he’s still his own object who clearly has his own opinions and mental issues, I fully believe he could have turned out left-handed just because, honestly.

Even if MePhone is capable of using both of his hands, he has strong preferences, and automatically switches them when doing different tasks.

Third — any other things?

Oh, you bet!

Forced use of the right-hand can cause issues! Who would of thought.

From Wikipedia — Bias against left-handed people

As we can see here, it can cause learning disorders, and since many people have started headcanoning MePhone with dyslexia I feel like it fits.

Also to take from my own headcanon pile — I believe he stutters. He had just learned to stay quiet until he feels like he can speak clearly and fluidly again.

Oh, and there’s also these statistics!

From Wikipedia — Left-Handedness

Just wanted to show this, because autistic MePhone is also a pretty common headcanon. I believe at least.

Forth — closing thoughts

Even if it’s just a silly little headcanon, I believe it has a locked packed in it, so I wanted to share it.

MePhone just feels like a left-hander or cross-dominant object to me.

more art wahoo

clyde but hes purple woaah

(character by @/pastraspec)

pose is inspired by one of the happy clyde sprites :3

artists notes under the cut

actually surprised how quickly i did this one considering how complicated it felt

this one was actually kinda Exhausting but my love of pastra and clyde prevailed

i always get the biggest urges to draw clyde but this sorta thing is way out of my comfort zone in terms of art x_x

(i did the face like three times and forgot about the tail until after i finished coloring, added a new layer to sketch the tail out and ended up merging the layers too soon so i had to erase all the areas where it overlaps with the rest of clyde's body)

despite the struggle i love how it came out :] its great imo

Mashima's biggest hindrance in fairy tail is his need to put pervy content in. Now I don't mean this as a "pervy=bad". I enjoy one piece. I can handle it to a certain extent.

But his need to make all his women scantily clad at the very least and naked at worst throughout the series, purposefully have them in embarrassing situations that humiliate them, and include older men leering at young girls will always give me the ick.

Macao and wakaba could've been cool characters, or at least interesting. I'd have loved to see what their specific dynamics with gildarts and the other older mages are and maybe even their history together. And yet Mashima can't go a single arc that includes them without them making weird comments about the girls they either watched grow up, or girls who are still underage.

And beyond just the in universe guys, his desperation to have his women be "sexy" means a lot of the unique, interesting clothing he used to draw for them gets often tossed aside in favor of showing as much skin on them as he can without outright making them naked. Now there are female characters who this can work for. Fem fatales being the best example, flirtatious women who are comfortable in their bodies being another, heck even mages that use water or solar power I could excuse it on. But it's every female character regardless of how little it makes sense for them.

And this isn't even getting into the weird stuff he does with Wendy and Chelia and the arc that aged down the characters leading to some incredibly icky panels.

Fairy tail can be so much fun. There are solid ideas and some really great twists. But so often it devolves into creepy territory that rereading later arcs feels like a chore.

Cg!Chimney

just because he's my favorite guy! and I love hearing all his funny one-liners

erm. the twitter thing

context for non twitter users

How do you know about glass children?!? It's like you go out of your way to incorporate and see disabled people and it's so nice to be seen!

I actually didn't until someone asked me if that's what I was doing with Bumblestripe and Blossomfall! I just. perfectly wrote the dynamics and feelings associated with Glass Children for B&B and learned there was a name for it LMAO

I'm interested in types of abuse and dynamics within families, how pain passes down between generations. I write a lot about it and like to listen to people's experiences. It's complex and nuanced, but somehow, it's all similar. Pain isn't that different between people-- how they react to it is.

People say, "Listen to disabled people/abusive victims/marginalized persons" and I think some folks don't know what that means. What that means is; seek out people's individual experiences and learn how they describe their own lives, in their own terms. How they interact with their family, what annoys them, the language they wished people used, day to day tricks that make their lives easier.

For Jayfeather I just did a lot of that. Took people's input on how to do the warrior training arc, what they wish was more common in these stories, and what to avoid.

And for how his relationship is to Brambleclaw... well, honestly, Brambleclaw is my special boodle boy and no one understands him like I do✨✨ This man is a terrible father and a toxic mate✨✨✨He never should have had power over kits or Clans and Bad Bramble Dad is actually incredibly interesting as a continuation of the TNP characterization and segways nicely into the sorts of bad choices he makes as a leader✨✨✨✨✨

That man plays favorites with his children just like his own dad did, lathering affection on whoever pleases him most, he is incapable of doing an accurate self-reflection because the idea that he might actually, truly be like his own father is so painful that he can't confront the idea and becomes defensive at the very thought ✨✨✨

Don’t get me wrong I love Ryan Gosling’s Ken more than I love anyone else rn. I owe that character my life. I genuinely would not have lived through the last 6 months if I didn’t have that movie breathing life back into me when I was at my lowest point, he’s my number one go-to character when my flashbacks are happening and when I need support. I would genuinely have died without this guy and his dozen characters to keep me going and helping me feel safe self shipping again

But how the fuck did Ryan get nominated for an Oscar for being a supporter to Barbie while Margot Robbie whomst IS Barbie, she is EVERYTHING… did not…???? 😭😭 How did Greta Gerwig not get nominated for best director when she made history being the first and only female director to break the biggest opening at the box office????? What the fresh fuck is this

Ryan said himself it’s Barbie AND Ken… there is no Just Ken………………

The Barbie movie would not have happened if Margot didn’t get the rights to Barbie and trust Greta 100%. Nobody believed in this movie more than Margot did, because she believed in Greta, she knew it would be a powerful film. It would not have been half the story that it is if Greta didn’t direct this movie. Greta and Margot are the reason this movie 1) exists in the first place and 2) the reason the movie is as incredible as it is. Not to mention Margot had to convince Mattel that they needed to get comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable. They were allowed to get away with SO MUCH because Margot is an artist at putting her 110% into everything she does and that includes getting Mattel to allow any of this to exist in the first place when they are so careful with Barbie.

Margot and Greta are literally everything. Ryan is JUST. KEN. THAT HAS BEEN THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT

anyway. is this anything

the dude!!! the little guy!!!!

y’all don’t understand how much I love that Alice wrote Jimmy as a gay, trans man who is also a Christian

I'm kinda scared that Taka'aki's next appearance in canon will be him targeted by the Black Organization, because he met Rum, and it is often said that he and Hiromitsu have the same eyes.

it could be a stretch, but Rum is smart and he could connect the dots that Taka'aki is Scotch's brother and try to get info out of him

i don’t care how but joseph needs to come back as eddie. flashbacks, vecna visions, whatever, i don’t care. i just wanna see him again 😭

an attempt to get out of art block, i rewatched dunkirk

every time i rmbr that one of my favourite characters in media is a guy who will , with a 99.9% chance , never get any official content ... and is the only character in his game to not be playable ... oh it hurts my heart

also had a dream tonight that had absolutely nothing to do with but reminded me of an older f/o in a very abstract way for whatever reason and now i've been thinking about him nonstop...all day....