Hawk

spoilers for TMA up to the finale btw

The Guardian's whole deal is that they're fighting the fear of children. but they live in fear, every day of their lives. they could disappear at any time and not be able to do jack shit about it. they signed the guardian contract because they care for the kids of course, but in doing so they give up what autonomy they had with carrying our their existence, as they now must fulfill their duties or cease to exist. and that will always be sitting on their shoulders, controlling them more (web vibes, anyone?)

clearly this has major parallels with signing the work contract at the Magnus Institute. and the whole man in the moon deal already has major eye vibes! tying in some of the William Joyce book lore in here, Manny is basically stuck on the moon (which is a literal space ship and his home btw- it's awesome) and he took on the responsibility of watching over the children of earth. He'd be an Avatar of the Eye for sure, watching over all the kids at night, witnessing their dreams.

so!!! what if the guardians embrace the fear from their contract to become avatars and use their powers to protect all the kids from the fears!!

I think Jack primarily serves the Vast (look at his powers), but the Stranger has a grip on him as well. due to his loss of memories he didn't know his life before death for hundreds of years, and he is very concerned about who he was and what that meant for him and his current identity. I think the Stranger would be trying to take Jack from the Vast's clutches, but ultimately loses most if its grip on him once he gets his memories back.

Bunnymund definitely has to be tied with the buried in some way. he literally lives in the tunnels (gasp, the tunnels) and he fucking hates Jack, who's serves an opposite fear. i feel like aesthetic-wise the Spiral could fit for him (winding tunnels that are ever changing, brightly colored eggs with ever-shifting patterns, egg hunts that are formulated to deceive the seeker)

i feel like i always forget about the Desolation when thinking abt TMA. maybe that could go with St. Nick? material property is a factor, and the concept of choosing to be naughty or nice throughout the year and in life really plays with the desolation's concept of having to willingly fuck everything over in your life. also he lives in a very cold place and needs to keep warm somehow lol. i think the Flesh is often assigned to horror-santas, but this isn't an evil horror santa parody, and it seems too easy of a route.

**also a note about this- since it is a kids media and the guardians primarily deal with children, i'm going to attempt to stray away from things like the Flesh and the Slaughter, unless i can find a way to incorporate it in a way that tempers it somewhat. such are the hurdles of combining horror media with a kids show (im looking at you, mpl fandom). i don't mind if the Guardians themselves are par tof those fears or deal with them themselves. i just don't want to imply that Pitch is inflicting the horrors of flesh and slaughter upon tiny ass children.

i feel like it would be fascinating if Sandy was tied to the Web. the scene of him casting his sand dream threads from his hands is so Web-coded, but he's also often overlooked. he doesn't work in the limelight, but the team is lost without him. he's an essential part of their dynamic and doesn't mind not being popular as long as he can help from the background. his muteness plays into this vibe really well too. He could also potentially have some spiral powers though- as his whole thing is creating good dreams for children, which is inherently associated with mind manipulation and making others see things, and the Spiral deals with mind games quite often.

maybe Tooth can be tied in with the Hunt somehow? idk i think that would be fun, but i dunno if that really fits her (im just picturing her with her twin swords hunting a mf down). Maybe hunting down the teeth can be part of it? I need to incorporate the tooth memories in here somehow too.

and of course there's Pitch- considering his whole deal in the movie is to cause fear for the sake still existing, i think that he's like a conglomeration of all the fears. he could be an avatar of the one main fear concept/entity that Jon talked about a bit in the finale. or maybe he's like Breakon and Hope where they're just entities/servants of the greater desire of fear being spread. except in Pitch's case, he uses Dark powers primarily to mask how much he uses powers of the Spiral. manipulation and shadow trickery is so his thing.

Sandy being part of the Spiral also narratively makes a lot of sense when Pitch relies on it so much himself. Pitch "used his little trick", and it really plays into that dichotomy of Sandy and Pitch using the same powers for different goals. and how there's a little bit of each of each other in them; the spark of hope and need to be seen in Pitch, and that ever-gnawing fear in Sandy, for the kids and himself.

slipping through the silks of time

Teach your kids that:

nests are important and that they need to be left untouched and undisturbed

they should NEVER take an animal that they find outside and that if they find an injured animal, they should give it space and find an adult to help

wild animals in general need a wide berth and that ANY animal can be dangerous if it feels threatened

wild animals are not pets under any circumstances

it's kinder and very easy to catch and release bugs outside instead of killing them

all bugs are important, even spiders and wasps and other scary ones

everything in nature has a job in general, and everything has a role to fill

did you know that they are capable of imitation? don't worry! apparently no one else does either, but i have personally overheard them doing terrible approximations of not only red-winged blackbird songs, but also rooster crowing, ring-necked pheasant squawking, and what i now believe to be an eastern meadowlark song (which i have captured on video, something about which no one gave a fuck!!)

they are supposed to be drawn to marshes with deep water, over which multiple females will weave nests in single male controlled territories of typically 1k to 6ksqft. the waters of this marsh are wading depth, and the males control micro-territories of what cannot be more than 500sqft each-- territories that they share neutrally with marsh wrens.

When we got our younger cat Skadi, her favorite toy was (still is, but she's calmed down with age) the rattley mouse. She would bring the mouse to be thrown for fetch so many times that not even two human adults in the house could keep up with her. So my partner started making puzzle boxes to put the rattley mouse in that would occupy her for longer.

So, we have a setup: mouse is in the puzzle box, puzzle box is on the floor, younger cat is trying to resolve the puzzle box, elder cat is sitting on the cat tree observing all this. Skadi spends about fifteen minutes trying and failing to get the mouse out of the box. She sticks her paw into the holes. She sticks her nose into the holes. She pushes the box to and fro on the carpet. She meows beseechingly for a human to come solve the problem. Sticks her paws into the holes again.

Finally, she gives up on the puzzle box and wanders over to see if there's any food to be had. As soon as she walks away the elder cat gets up from the cat tree, big stretch, jumps down, walks over to the puzzle box, hooks a paw under the edge and flips the whole thing over, spilling the mouse onto the floor.

avataroftheeye: #CALM DOWN KING. SIMPLY CLOSE THE DOOR AGAIN

hello thank u i laughed v hard at that tag and i said to myself “wow this would be a fun little animation project to do slowly over time as a break between my other art pieces!” as i proceeded to spend my entire friday evening on it