"Slow down, Sunshine. You're not falling behind and you are loved for more than what you do for others."

guys i am trying Really hard not to have public opinions about of this morning... pray for me

I don't think Yuno's crime is abortion because I don't think that it has enough depth for Milgram compared to the other prisoners

Hey, what do you mean by Perfect Cell? This has so many possible implications. Can he spawn mini hims? Can he fucking absorb people? EXPLODE?! There is a few things this could mean

On reflection, it's actually more of a Piccolo thing, since Perfect Cell has the trait from Piccolo's DNA, just turned up to 11, and Lamarr cannot regenerate from total obliteration the way Cell can.

So Lamarr can't pull a Perfect Cell, but he can pull a Piccolo. But I wanna use The Lines.

the dialogue in the first 2 panels is stolen from DBZA (as linked) the dialogue in the second 2 panels is not

Dreamlight Valley is just Storybrooke and we're all Emma Swan trying to save everyone and get their memories and magic back.

some funny snippets of a tentative timeline for the reverse gondolin au

The most annoying thing about the Gerudo in BOTW is the orientalism, racism and misogyny. The second most annoying thing about the Gerudo in BOTW is the way the orientalism, racism and misogyny directly tank their worldbuilding.

I'm not gonna talk about why the Gerudo are orientalist, people smarter and more informed than me have already done so extensively and I don't have anything to add to that discussion. I'm here to bitch about how it affects the worldbuilding to the extent where Gerudo society, as portrayed in BOTW, does not make much of any sense in-universe.

Let's be clear here: the worldbuilding would be trash even if it made complete in-universe sense because it's orientalist and misogynist. But it doesn't even make sense in-universe and it's pretty much entirely because of the orientalism and misogyny.

Two things are true about the Gerudo at once: 1) they do not allow men into Gerudo Town, and 2) they are absolutely obsessed with finding husbands. I don't want to guess at percentages, but a truly ridiculous portion of the dialogue the Gerudo get is somehow related to finding husbands, being in love with men, etc. It is baked into their culture, most obviously exemplified in the love lessons that occur in Gerudo Town. But, more important than lessons or whatever, is the fact that leaving Gerudo Town to find a husband is considered a coming of age rite of passage for young women. It is an integral part of Gerudo culture to leave on a journey to find a husband.

And let's be clear: the goal here is absolutely, unambiguously long-term marriage. Many Gerudo you meet lament the shallow nature of the men who try to pursue them, we see Gerudo who reference husbands they currently have, and just generally the way the Gerudo talk indicates that they are not looking for a one-night stand or a summer romance: they are looking for something permanent. They are looking for marriage, and a good portion of them succeed.

So. Uh. Where do their husbands live?

The only time see any Gerudo who permanently lives outside of Gerudo Town is in Tarrey Town, and you're the one who brought her there. All the other Gerudo you meet outside of Gerudo Town or Kara Kara Bazaar are travelling. There are no Gerudo residents in Kakariko, Hateno, or Lurelin, or mixed Gerudo children.

This is very, very weird when you consider that married Gerudo would not be able to live with their husbands in Gerudo Town. The 'no men allowed' rule has no exceptions, so if a newly wed couple wanted to live together - and they almost certainly would - they would have to do so outside of Gerudo Town. And yet, we do not see them, despite demonstrable evidence that married Gerudo do exist.

There is another option, of course: that Gerudo culture normalizes long distance relationships even for married couples, and that the husbands live outside of Gerudo Town whereas the wives live within it. This is theoretically possible, except we never get any real in-game hints indicating it. It's still the option that makes the most sense, but it's a fanmade band-aid solution, not a real element of the worldbuilding.

Either which way, the inherent conflict between 'men are not allowed in Gerudo Town' and 'a big part of the Gerudo Town culture is to get married to men' should logically be causing tension. While the guards take the rule very seriously, most of the people you meet inside Gerudo Town don't really care that you're a man, and we know there's a thriving black market supplying men's clothes. This indicates that, already, in canon, most Gerudo play fast and loose with this rule to begin with, and don't have much special attachment to it.

Which makes it even more glaring that nobody seems to be arguing against it. Logically, there should be conflict between the Gerudo who value the tradition of an all-women Gerudo Town, and the Gerudo who want to be able to live with their husbands in their hometown. With how incredibly centered the Gerudo's culture is on these two things, this should be a major political problem that's going to singlehandedly turn Riju grey before she even comes of age. There should be discontent and unrest from newlyweds and long devoted wives who don't want to leave their home behind to be with their husbands, and don't want to leave their husbands behind to be home. Who would want to, at the very least, be able to show their husbands their childhood home.

But even if there wasn't, there should be a larger Gerudo presence outside of Gerudo Town. Either Kara Kara Bazaar should be a lot larger and more populated than it currently is, or there should be one or more smaller towns around Gerudo Town where the married Gerudo live with their husbands, or where the husbands of the Gerudo who live in Gerudo Town reside. You cannot tell me every single Gerudo would be okay with abandoning their culture and moving in with their husbands; even if they could not bring their husbands back to Gerudo town, they would frequently like to live somewhere close by. And if we take the long-distance approach, there would be plenty of couples who wouldn't want to be separated too far, and therefore there'd be husbands moving closer to their wives, even if they could not live in the same town.

But say, for the sake of the argument, that this also didn't happen: then, at the very least, we ought to see Gerudo in other Hylian settlements. We ought to see Gerudo who live in Hateno, Kakariko, Lurelin, and maybe even at the stables. We ought to find populations of diaspora and mixed race Gerudo who have grown up outside of Gerudo Town, and have maybe even never visited it. We have circled back around to the first point of argument.

If the Gerudo are getting married, we should see evidence of their husbands, somehow, beyond dialogue references and quest objectives.

The reason we don't, of course, is obvious: orientalism. The Gerudo are an orientalist idea of a harem, exotic women out of reach yet practically begging to be conquered by Western men. They want to be with men, are searching for men, yet are very rarely shown to find one because doing so would pop the fantasy being sold to male players: that they could be the one to get them.

So to successfully sell this orientalist, misogynist fantasy, the worldbuilding becomes completely and utterly nonsensical.

[HAS NOT PLAYED TEARS OF THE KINGDOM DISCLAIMER]

As the mayor, he can't do anything overt even if he wanted to: a hand resting on the small of your back or on your hip holding you close to him, seating you close by him when he can at events and resting a hand on your thigh, half out of habit and comfort. Hands intertwined and held firmly, almost protectively. A distinct look in his eyes when someone flirts with you that his politician's smile can distract from; and a sort of cloaked danger in his ostensibly polite tone and body language when those flirtations go a bit too far. An arm around your shoulders if they still don't get the message, and a darkened expression that threatens more overtly, even if he's quick to resume a jovial air. Pieces of jewelry here and there that indicate in some way whom they are from, but not always obvious at first glance. (And perhaps the intent is not quite so much to be an indicator to others.) Yes, as much as he would like to leave other indicators, a mayor must appear upstanding, and he can play the game well. It just makes it all the more interesting when you learn his little tells.

My final attack for 2023 and 100th attack overall went to @venfaaniik aaand featured our wizards being nerdy little bookworms :]

*remembers that I have WIPs that I inadvertently failed to update over break*

*realizes I start back to uni for the spring semester in two days*

*resists the instinctual urge to hate myself for lack of creativity and motivation on the writing front*

Vibrating between "I don't wanna watch the trailer. I never look at the trailers of stuff I'm really looking forward to. I want everything to be as much as a surprise as possible. In an ideal world I wouldn't even know Donna is back" and "I need to watch the trailer right now. I mean it's made to be watched! They want you to watch it! They wanna get you excited!" and "The mere thought of it makes me excited, I don't need to watch it. Don't spoil the surprise, you've been so good at not learning anything about it" and "just one look! Everyone is screaming about it, you'll feel left out if you don't watch it!"

The controversial classic, Gehrman and Maria!

These characters have infinitely deep potential no matter what you make out of them, they're just such an interesting duo! As ship, as grandpa/granddaughter duo, as just teacher/student duo - no matter! But yes granted I don't even know if /I/ ship them? I am more interested in defending the idea of a ship than shipping it myself, as both characters work better in a ship with other characters! I just always like to see people that ship them, especially if we are on the same page about what ended their friendship and they depict them happy from simpler times before things went into Hell!

I think my biggest discourse point, aside of translation errors and assuming versions as 'THE' truth is that... I don't believe discourse woulda existed if both Gehrman and Maria were the same gender. I will only eat my words if I can travel in the parallel universe where either Maria is a man or Gehrman is a woman and see fandom being the same anyway. Until then, nope!

In my opinion it works better if this ship either never came to fruition and was one-sided from start to finish, or fell apart. Would explain why Gehrman moans Laurence's name in his sleep (ha! GAYYYYYYYY!) but doesn't mention Maria (perhaps enough time passes from her death for him to start to bury feelings even back before Hunter's dream?). And also 'his curious mania' is properly translated as 'insanity of his curiosity' which I always seen as Maria realising his true repulsive Byrgenwerth affiliate motivations for Hamlet massacre? And in my version Gehrman doesn't care or sympathise with anything inhuman - but we know Maria ended up lethally guilty about her crimes, so Gehrman failing to understand and help her with her emotional anguish is a big reason for them growing distant.

It is just so fucking sad. Really. Gehrman has more regrets than anyone else could bear and Maria has to live with disappointment in a mentor she used to idealise. I pointed out 'they can fix each other' in terms of influence - I see that in better turn of events Gehrman could have helped Maria to get less naive and grow tougher skin to manage her natural tender-heartedness better; meanwhile she could influence him to become less ruthless, at least for the sake of people he DOES hold dear. I use 'things crashed and burnt because people failed to properly COMMUNICATE' often in my ideas, huh?

I have to admit it though - dark creativity has its merit too? For example if someone who legitimately interprets Gehrman as sexist and creep showed a messed up dynamic between him and Maria (walking into 'ship' territory or not) through creativity, that'd be interesting to see and examine? Visual art, fanfics or simple presentation of ideas (like theories and essays) just speaks way better and deeper than just bashing character for interpreted reasons. I do not get bitter at hate for the duo as long as it doesn't concern the fans of it, but if someone was to show why for them ship is bad, through art, I'd actually like it despite having different interpretation!

i just think he's neat but not neat enough to actually detail that minigun or you know actually finish this skdjhgkjhs my 40 year old babygirl

bonus cord because he was my warmup

anime mom hairstyle... i didn't draw his 'scouter' because i wasn't feeling it. that's all lol

my two favorite college professors are anarchists lmao... in my defense in high school (Real Life) my social studies teacher was a self proclaimed anarchist. I mean he was, tbf to him, not to make it sound like he wasn't. He'd actively go to protests and tell us stories about them and write rage against the machine lyrics on the blackboard. he was my 2nd favorite teacher even tho i was like. super socially awkward around him lol. he once talked to me about bor/derla/nds because he saw me wearing my Ze/r0 hoodie (the one with the Vau/lt/symb/ol on the shoulder) specifically T/P/S. he liked playing Cla/ptr/ap, and i mumbled something incoherent about maining At/he/na because i was freaking out lol.

my favorite teacher was actually my physics teacher... he once put on a long purple wig [because he was bald] to commemorate the start of our electricity unit. i miss physics a lot... anyway cord having purple magic and long hair totally isn't because of that wig or anything...

sometimes i forget this stuff. i don't have a lot of memories of high school, it's nice to be able to write down the parts i do remember and don't actively regret. i guess that's also how Cord feels some days.

maybe i should get tiktok again just to spam every person who says "they didnt meet" "i dont get this" "this character sucks" its like free rambling area basically AND you get to be petty while doing it

Ok no I LIED I'm going to rant about him lovingly in the tags even more