SPIRIT OF FLAME, HEAR ME

It’s interesting how diseases rip through schools at incredible speeds despite being in an arguably modern, clean(ish) environment. I wonder if it has something to do with the whole “you need a doctor’s note to excuse your absence of even one day” combined with the average price of going to a doctor, the lack of education on things like “you’re still contagious even after the fever goes away”, and the overwhelming message of “if you don’t struggle through it, you’re a failure!”

hey sorry if i was offputting and strange and bizarre and weird as fuck last night i was just being myself

i love characters who could get the absolute Shit kicked out of them and still be fine but as soon as someone touches/handles them gently it’s like “ah. im going to shatter to pieces now thanks”

i think all this time i didnt actually believe that id ever been traumatized by anything

i’m evolved i think pda is actually a good and fine thing even when straight people do it but especially when gay people do. it’s nice to see love in public don’t be a hater grab a loved one and smooch them in line for your pretzel bites or something

The BIONICLE world has a canonical...hell?

Oh yeah, that's A Thing. I had been toying with that as a Fun Fact, but I kind of assumed we were all like

But I'm happy to hear I can put this back on the slate! So! Today You Learned about Karzanhi!

In BIONICLE, the main inhabitants of the world are these worker fellows called the Matoran, (the people the Toa protect) and they need to keep working for their world to keep functioning (this seems dystopian to me, but the story kind of glosses over that).

The Matoran have this legend that if you're a very good little worker you're sent to Artakha, a divine workshop island kingdom ruled by an entity also known as Artakha. They would work in this ultimate workshop with Artakha to create cooler gadgets and buildings than anywhere else in the world.

But if you're a bad little worker, you're sent to Artakha's brother, Karzanhi. There bad little workers go to his dark kingdom, and are never seen again...

Obviously we have Heaven and Hell parallels here. In the actual story, most of the characters don't believe this is real. In one book, the heroes come across an evil vine creature that's named Karzanhi after the legend.

But then a bit later we find out that Karzanhi is totally real...

Except... he's kind of a doof. See, bad workers weren't sent to his kingdom as punishment, they were sent because Karzanhi's job is to fix them (these are bionic beings, remember?). The idea was Matoran who were bad workers because they needed some kind of repairs were sent to his kingdom for him to repair and send back. But Karzanhi was garbage at his job, so instead of sending them back after "repairing" them, he just sent them away, or kept them in his own kingdom. The reason Matoran never came back was because he was hiding his own shoddy work.

In fact, he also doesn't realize anything exists outside of his own work. When the heroes pass through his kingdom trying to get to the Plot, he doesn't believe that they're saving the world because as far as he knows, the world is just peachy! When he finds out from them how bad things are, he decides to take a hand in world events himself. And predictably, screws things up even worse.

[He also eventually gets a set that looks nothing like his illustration, because mutation shenanigans, but whatever.]

So yeah! BIONICLE Hell! If you ever see me use 'WTK' that stands for "What the Karzanhi?" We in the BIONICLE fandom used it back on BZPower.

the way people are taught programming today continues to drive me insane insane insane

810NICLE DAY

It's bionicle day, so here's some of the toa I drew as part of a commisioned set sometime last year. Looking back at when I was making these, I had thought that it was when I was stll refining the biomechanical elements of my style, but I've also found things from that time that were further down the line in detail. I still need to get to Onua and Pohatu, but haven't quite had the time to just sit down and draw a bunch of pieces for a little while - plus I feel nervous about if whether I'd manage to capture them in a comparable amount of detail haha, don't want any of them to stand out in an unusual way

Hey you know that thing you're good at? That thing you think makes you valuable? The way you are, or the thing you do, etc?

You can be and deserve to be and will be loved and cherished even without it.

You're not worthwhile because you help, or you are good at making your art, or your skills at your job. You're worthwhile inherently, as a person, even without all that.

And I want you to internalize that because otherwise there might come a day where you can't do The Thing You Think Makes You Valuable. You'll get sick and can't draw, you'll burn out and can't do your job, you'll be emotionally unable to do your regular helpfulness for whatever reason, and you'll start to feel like you have no worth anymore.

But that's not true. You have worth, you deserve comfort and companionship and happiness, and that's not a conditional thing. You deserve that, even if you can't be Useful and Productive and all that shit.

It's an easy trap to fall into to justify yourself as "well, at least I help/make art/work hard" and have that be entirely too much of your self-esteem. Being proud of your work is fine. Being proud of yourself solely through your productivity is not, because you're making it conditional. And conditional on something that can change for reasons completely outside your control!

You gotta stop thinking about it like you gotta justify the space you take up on the planet. It's great if all those things make you happy: just make sure they're not the only things that make you feel like you are justifying your existence, or you'll crater if they get taken away.

You are lovable and likable and you have value as a person and a member of society, even if you never can be productive again. You are enough.