#(so it'd be the least I could do)

[thetimelordbatgirl]

The police in Scotland have the chance to do the most funniest thing right now.

[invinciblerodent]

"I'll make a save here and try breaking up with Astarion, just to see the dialogue- I could see him get kinda nasty about it, but I honestly don't know what to expect so---"

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[beatriceportinari]

Origami jellyfish, one square sheet of elephant hide paper. Colors are inspired by Thysanostoma loriferum. Zoom in to see the glitter!

[babyloniastreasure]

something that kind of bothers me about modern feelings toward the epic of gilgamesh is how it's been COMPLETELY watered down to being "gay". Bear with me as I explain.

this is more of an extreme example, but I see this take all the time (not the yaoi part. the gay lover part). it's boiled down to the fact that it's gay over literally anything else in the epic. Gilgamesh's lament to Urshanabi about Enkidu's loss is overshadowed by the fact that Gilgamesh is mourning his gay lover. Gilgamesh is on a journey because he lost his gay lover. Gilgamesh and Enkidu were gay.

Now I understand that with a modern lens, people tend to lock on to how unabashedly Gilgamesh mourns Enkidu, because it's gay and because it's the oldest written epic in human history. People feel deeply connected to the idea that people like them have been around since the dawn of literature. But placing exclusive focus on the nature of the relationship as gay, rather than why the relationship or its loss was important, erases the story the epic is trying to tell.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a story about love, yes, but it is not a love story. It's about the fear of death, coping with loss, and desperation to stave off the inevitable. It's about the bonds of friendship, about hardship, coming to terms personal change and losing pieces of yourself as you learn and grow. It is about consequences, arrogance, death, second chances, mourning, yearning, loving and LIVING. The Epic of Gilgamesh is about the entire human experience and one man's struggle to accept it. What does it mean to have lived? What does it mean to have loved, and lost? What does it mean to die, and to be remembered? What does it mean to be human?

It is perfectly okay to find appreciation for the Epic because of Gilgamesh and Enkidu's relationship. But also understand that the world's oldest story is not about two gay men who loved each other. It is a story about being alive.

TLDR;

[gay-jesus-probably]

Seeing as the Gerudo turned on Ganon, he might not have been that much better of a ruler.

First of all, we literally have no idea, because the only ancient Gerudo that we actually get to interact with is Ganondorf himself, and he has nothing to say about his own people. The ancient Gerudo sage doesn't count btw, she doesn't have a name, we never even see her face, and she has literally nothing to say except repeating the exact same dialogue as the sages for the other races. The narrative does not treat the ancient sages as people; they are four completely interchangable weapons that are owned by the royal family.

And secondly, I don't care how Ganon ruled them; the Gerudo only get one man every century, if their king sucks, they've obviously got their own system of government to fall back on. I have no idea what kind of authority the sages had among their own people, but honestly I'd say if the four of them were in charge of their respective people, then they were just puppet rulers appointed by Rauru, given that all four of them happily agreed that to sell their entire race into servitude the second Zelda asked them. Say what you will about Ganondorf, but I fucking know that if he was told the Gerudo people existed for the sole purpose of serving the glory of Hyrule, he'd drop kick Zelda into the fucking sun.

And don't get me started on the implications of the cultural differences we see between the independent Gerudo and the annexed Gerudo. The background Gerudo characters all have their own models, and we can clearly see that the ones siding with Ganon have their own unique looks - for example, the amazing lady with the mohawk that summons the molduga swarm in that one flashback. And men are never mentioned in these flashbacks at all, which implies that the Gerudo genuinely didn't care about settling down. Ganon even speaks derisively about marriage, implying that it's very rare for Gerudo women to make serious romantic commitments with men. It implies that their culture is more along the same line as their portrayal in OOT - they are a closed culture. Men trying to force their way into their areas are arrested, and mocked for being entitled dumbasses. Outsiders are only welcome if they can prove that they respect the Gerudo as people, and aren't just there to try and pick up chicks. It's never outright said, but OOT also makes it pretty clear that the Gerudo women just aren't interested in marrying outsiders - close relationships occur with other Gerudo, Hylian men are only considered useful for making babies.

Meanwhile the Gerudo we see serving Hyrule are all trying to measure up to Hylian beauty standards, and appeal to their men. Their one goal in life is to meet a man and get married. Men are welcome in their lands, and only kept out of the town itself... and even then, there's a small army of guys trying to force their way into the town anyways, which is brushed off as just haha, boys will be boys. No men allowed isn't even about independence, it's just a silly romantic tradition.

Of course this is just a fictional culture in a game world, but it's still really fucking uncomfortable that the 'evil' Gerudo are the ones that have independence, both politically and socially, and display a unique culture that refuses to tolerate disrespect from outsiders. Meanwhile the 'good' Gerudo are the ones that canonically exist to serve a kingdom where 95% of the population is light skinned (even setting aside the unfortunate implications, just saying one race exists to serve a different one is super fucked up), they have classes on how to be more appealing to Hylian's, and their entire social structure is built around finding a Hylian man to marry, making them all inherently dependent on the goodwill of outsiders. Even their biggest value of 'women only' is treated as a joke; men trying to trespass in BOTW are just shoved back out the door, letting them keep trying all day if they want. The crowds of men plotting to force their way in are laughed off as a joke. Nobody cares that there's a guy running laps around their city walls and trying to trick women into being alone with him. I mean for fucks sake, in TOTK we find that the creepy guy trying to lure women away has taken advantage of a massive disaster to get into the town, and he's still there once things return to normal. You can't kick him out, or alert anyone to his presence. And the Gerudo just tolerate Hylians blatantly ignoring their boundaries. For fucks sake, TOTK even reveals that the seven legendary heroines they've been revering the whole time were actually completely useless and unable to achieve anything... because they needed the eighth hero, a Hylian man to teach them basic tactics and do all the heavy lifting.

TOTK does not respect the Gerudo people in the slightest. It doesn't respect anyone who isn't Hylian or Zonai.

...This got a little off track, but the point I'm trying to make is, no, I don't consider the Gerudo turning on Ganon to mean anything. The entire game does not feel like the real story of what happened, it feels like the propaganda version of history meant to make Hyrule look as good as possible. I genuinely cannot believe that we're being told the real story about the Imprisoning War, because none of it feels real, and we don't get to know any details that might have made Hyrule look even slightly imperfect. We're told that Ganondorf is evil because he hates Hyrule, and he hates Hyrule because he's evil. The Gerudo people followed Ganondorf and saw him as a hero of their people, then suddenly he was their worst enemy. Hyrule is a perfect kingdom that has strong, equal alliances with the other races, but also all of the non-Hylian races exist for the sole purpose of serving Hyrule, and their leaders are expected to swear eternal loyalty and submission to the Hylian royal family. King Rauru and Queen Sonia united all of the races in peace and equality, which is why they're sitting on the world's supply of magical nuclear missiles, and every member of the Hylian royal family is allowed to walk around wearing them as cute accessories, but everyone else only gets them at the last second, and they all need to outright swear to only use that power to benefit Rauru and his descendants.

There's just so many fucked up contradictions, and so many hints of something more nuanced going on... but the story refuses to acknowledge any of it, and just keeps aggressively pushing the narrative that Hyrule is the ultimate good and couldn't possibly do anything wrong. I don't even believe that Ganon was a bad king honestly; we never hear why his people stopped following him. We also never even see if the Gerudo people turned on him at all; all we know is the ancient Gerudo sage wanted him dead, and given that she also happily sold her people into slavery, she's not exactly the most trustworthy source of information. All we know is that Ganondorf was a hero to his people, only one of his citizens is ever shown having an issue with him (and her motives are never explained), and then he lost the war and was sealed away, leaving his people open to be conquered by Zelda and annexed into Hyrule. By the time we see any Gerudo actually opposing Ganon (apart from the ancient sage), it's been ten thousand years since the war, and all anyone knows is the Hylian version of the story.

[djevelbl]

i sat down at my pc to make a wadanohara-inspired trsmp!roscumber design to match my meikai-inspired trsmp!clownpierce and found out my pen ran out of battery, now i gotta let it charge for like 2 or so hours :(

[ifindus]

If you're still doing the ship opinions, what do you think of Egypt x Norway?

lol don't think I ever started doing ship opinions, it's just so happened that I tackled a lot of ship related asks after one another 😅 but always happy to contribute Norway related information regarding connections and relations to other nations! ✨

Can't say I've ever heard about Egypt and Norway as a ship before, so I'm starting all fresh with this one. Norway and Egypt don't really have a lot of relations with each other - most of the dealings between the two nations is regarding Norwegian ships and the Suez, as well as military collaborations, and some Norwegian companies have investments in Egypt. I won't say Egypt is a very popular tourist destination, but there are definitely Norwegians who go there on holiday. There's no major cultural links or other funfacts I can find about them in my very short time looking into this.

For me, I need a historical link or some other cultural bond to really enjoy ships, so I think I'll need a bit more convincing on this one ✨

[razzle-zazzle]

betrothal au is so funny actually. jay & cole are still beefing because of the love triangle, except cole has been engaged to skylor the whole time. chen made sure that cole and skylor's rooms are next to each other so kai has to look to the balcony on the other side of cole's to make googoo eyes at skylor. skylor unintentionally cracks kai's egg. kai sees cole and skylor doing a lil waltz in the courtyard one night and immediately joins jay in giving cole the stinkeye over lunch. chen sees cole and skylor sneaking off and gets one of his underlings to play romantic music in whatever room they go to. clouse suggests just using a love potion to ensure cole turns against the ninja but chen wants that to happen organically because he thinks it's funny/more satisfying. cole and skylor make up stupid pet names that make no sense. soap opera level drama. chen going all bridezilla for what should be his daughter's special day, bc he's chen.

it's all so funny. to me <3

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Dangerously close to plotting a real Skyrim/Lord of the Rings crossover for after Keeping Count because my secret desire for Leara/Glorfindel has reared its head again

Shhh Don't question it.

[sergle]

what do you think is the hardest part of being an artist? personally I hate the process of "finishing" any piece. do you ever feel like a piece is truly done?

tbh... Finishing is such a weird one, I NEVER feel like a drawing is finished, only that I'm finished looking at it but I think the hardest part of being an artist (as a Trade) is that most of what you have to do, in order to be an artist, isn't art. So the organizing, the emails, the customer service, self promotion, order fulfillment, keeping a Schedule, things like that. None of that has anything to do with actually making stuff. and I think that's what's always the hardest for me. If I never had to manage my own presence, advertise, or figure out how to handle customer service / emails / organization in general, and my job was just to make things, I think "being an artist" is easy. If I could just draw, I think that would be the ideal. But 78% of being an artist actually has nothing to do with drawing.

[rainbowstargazerlilies]

Decided to give my @laertesthelocalstranger doll some company, based on what I could find of picrews and art on their blogs. Hi @little-watcher and @child-of-the-vast!

(If there are any quick fixes you'd like noted, let me know. I'd have asked beforehand, but I thought having this as a surprise would be cool. Otherwise, hope you enjoy-- I've bugged you folks on anon enough times that I figure this is the upside :))

[true-blue-sonic]

Alternate Sonic Rivals 2 wherein the teams are as follows:

Sonic and Silver

Espio and Rouge

Tails and Shadow

Knuckles and Metal Sonic

for maximum hijinks, silliness, and incompatibility on all sides.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

You should become a streamer

once upon a time i tried that

[siren-of-agony]

What if.... Whump scavenger hunt...

[silent-sentinels]

we have gotta actually finish the other account, it has been months and we want to tell revi that we're also plural hgkjgk

[skunkes]

doing figure drawing studies because i know thats what i should be doing right now but also ive been in a very insane deranged state for the past 2 months that leaves me like this whenever i look at a man for too long