Ever Get The Feeling That You Might Die In The Ocean?

Darlingly fond of transmasc Kieran :] don’t think too hard about his outfit

a boy and his dog

You're no different than those villagers back then... You know how much I love the ogre! You acted like you didn't know anything, but you were laughing at me behind my back all along! Liar! You're a LIAR!!!

lychee dragon cookie icons!!

how character fixations happen

lovingly ripped off from @icecreamsandwichcomics (I can't find the original video at the moment aaa)

Pokémon SV Academy Staff + Terastallizing

For any Kieran fan here, this is the best video of him ever and including the sick animation.

Tui makes a lot of grievous errors in her works but tbh equating Arctic’s death with Darkstalker going fully evil was probably one of the worst things she could have done” Thats because in the words of Qibli “Why didn't you use your magic to avoid war, instead of trying to kill them all?”, Darkstalker could have just his magic to neutralize Arctic non lethally but he didn’t.

Because why the fuck shouldn't he have killed Arctic, anon? Arctic made his life living hell. Arctic made his mother's and sister's life living hell, and he tried to fucking sell Whiteout off to stop the war he caused after trying to 'fix' her with his own magic. That motherfucker was the scum of the fucking earth and a literal traitor to the kingdom he chose to join, he was going to be killed anyways. Better that Darkstalker got the satisfaction of doing it instead of some random NightWing in the palace. He was an abusive piece of shit. He didn't deserve to be neutralized nonlethally, he deserved to be put down like the scum that he was.

Not to mention, Darkstalker was used as a weapon of war by the Queen of the NightWings long before he killed Arctic, when he was still young enough to be below breeding age. After growing up in a household that was always threatening violence, having to deal with Arctic's thoughts of mistrust and hatred being barreled into his mind 24/7, and then being valued- for the first time in his life!- by someone who specifically trained him to slaughter IceWings like his father, its really no surprise that he disembowled the son of a bitch when he got the chance. He grew up in an atmosphere of hatred and violence, had to protect his sister from their parent's fights since he was a dragonet, and was used as a weapon when he finally grew to be useful enough for it, of course he'd kill Arctic when the fucker finally moved to hurt Whiteout. Not to mention the fact that he lost his mother right before to a different IceWing that had made his life hell from afar, he was set up to snap and Arctic was entirely responsible for putting his son in a spot to do so.

Tui fucked up big with Darkstalker, imo. Not only was his desire to be the king of all tribes something that always felt odd/out of place/unfitting to me, esp. with the lack of explanation as to why he would want to be king, she also wrote him as if he was inherently evil when all of his transgressions can easily be pointed back to a history of abuse. I know Clearsight tried to stop him, and he ignored her, but making his girlfriend (who Tui made into a colonizer bc of fucking course she did) the only one responsible for undoing years of abuse and pent-up anger was shitty. Claiming that he was an imperialistic monster by nature when that's the only out he would have been raised to see was shitty. Laying all the blame of what happened on him and his nature and having him kill his abusive father instead of pointing the blame to everyone who guided him do those conclusions was really fucking shitty. I don't mean to absolve him of all his crimes, because he was a stubborn, arrogant, power-hungry dragon who didn't listen to reason, but the simple fact of the matter was that all of his actions can be directly traced back to his environment, his immaturity, and the elders in his life that encouraged those actions, then gave up on him at the slightest backlash. He wasn't evil. He very literally was not given a choice in the matter nor the opportunity to learn that there was other routes for him to take by those responsible for making him that way, and seeing him being treated as flatly evil when the nuance of his character is a minefield of different issues is REALLY fucking infuriating, especially as someone who grew up in a very similar household to his own. It almost feels as if the ambitious, power-hungry Darkstalker we're expected to hate and fear is a completely different character than the Darkstalker we saw in the meganovel, with one being a cheap cardboard cutout of a character that has no real motivations vs an abused teenager that's given worth through war and then dumped like a hot potato when his training shows its teeth. It's just shitty writing and character development, my guy.

And before anyone points this out- yes, Qibli also had a history of abuse, but the difference was that he didn't have someone in his family home to protect like Darkstalker did, and he had other adults in his life afterwards who offered him care and showed him that a nonviolent manner of dealing things was possible. He wasn't the older, stronger sibling that had to provide for the family and guard their vulnerable sister, he was the runt of the litter that was scorned by his family and had the luxury of a safety net/good guidance when he got out of it. Darkstalker, on the other hand, was born to hatred and fighting and war since the moment he hatched, and was never given any other option or reason to think otherwise

Giving him the choccy milk and reassurance he deserves