Kitty 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇵🇷

Light & Shadow - Glowing eyes

I couldn't do them in color for so long because chiaroscuro is killing me BUT IT'S FINISHED 🦾

fic: Arachnology 101 First Edition: Vita Aranearum

@cyptids-in-my-basement

And perhaps we should interrogate who that narrative is for.

Damian has literally been sent to hell. Tara has been treated like...Tara by basically every narrative she has ever been in. To this day, people still refuse to acknowledge their growth, their nuance, or the lack of agency baked into their circumstances.

But then you get a willing, spiteful mass murderer who spends five dubious minutes posing as less of an asshole, and suddenly he is the freshest, hottest concept in comics. We simply must root for him. We must celebrate his growth. We must ignore the continuity of his crimes. And if you point out that he has, in fact, done horrific things on purpose, suddenly you’re “taking comics too seriously.”

Interesting.

Redemption arcs are not the problem. Growth is not the problem. Characters with blood on their hands becoming better is not the problem.

The problem is how quickly some fans recognize humanity, nuance, pain, and potential in a violent white male power fantasy, while treating characters like Damian, Talia, Tara, and plenty of others as permanently defined by their worst context, their worst writing, or their least charitable interpretation. Even Diana suffers from this and she didn't even really do anything wrong--

What could possibly cause people to project so hard into that archetype?

In this political climate?

The Blue Spirit mask

zuko's scar reminds me of toph's blindness, and how her parents defined her by it, while the gaang goes the exact opposite route and FORGETS that she's blind ALL THE TIME. and toph makes jokes about it! she sets them up to make fools of themselves because she thinks it's funny!

zuko says that he used to think his scar defined him, and you can see why - whenever it's brought up in the show, it's in a bad way. people are always using it against him, as if it's HIS fault that his father's an abusive piece of shit. as if that's ZUKO'S problem and not his DAD'S

the gaang don't do this shit. AT ALL. aang doesn't react to azula's mockery, doesn't agree that it's funny, but three minutes later he thinks it's hilarious that azula calls zuko zuzu. like toph being blind, it's just a part of who zuko is to them. honestly, I think it barely registers sometimes. and that's GOOD, when you contrast it against how this topic is usually treated and how that must make zuko feel. it strikes me as so much more respectful that none of them ever pry

I believe the only time zuko talks about his scar, instead of having it be talked about, is in the catacombs with katara. so I do believe he'd be okay with talking to them about it once they're actually friends. but I really, really like how we don't actually get to see that. zuko comes to terms with the fact that it was cruel and it was wrong for himself, confronts his father, and then... doesn't mention it to the gaang. doesn't use it as leverage to get into the group, doesn't use it to try to convince aang to kill ozai, nothing like that. because zuko can be self-absorbed at times, but he doesn't have a manipulative bone in his body. azula would absolutely use something like that, even if it's a weakness. but zuko needs to address it on his own terms, or he won't address it at all

Absolute universe, Timbern, where Bernard is like 6 feet tall (minimum) while Tim is like 4'11 to 5'3 (maximum). [I blame @akaanmo for this; I LOVEEE your art]