#opinions I guess lol

[shannonsketches]

omg. i dislike how people say that the gerudo are obsessed with love and "finding the voe of their dreams". love is a hell of a thing. oxytocin is a hell of a hormone. and the protentional heartbreak. something that can render the greatest of warriors invalid, and these women KNOW it and they have to have classes for it. and those gerudo that do find husbands, they seem to be content and those men seem to be competent! Hudson had a job, he loves his wife and ADORES his little girl so much! And that one voe that got jailed for entering the town, he did it not to peep on the women, but because he missed his wife and daughter! not wise, but not malicious either!

i interpret that fascination with love the same way as the little mermaid is fascinated by the outside world. it's beautiful but it can absolutely crush you.

On the one hand, this is something I dismiss as Nintendo having the standard sexist amazon fantasy that a society of women would be obsessed with men.

On the other ‘justify the lore’ hand I think this is something that probably got romanticized in their culture overtime, since the Gerudo are sovereign but have to breed with Hylians as a necessity. The idea of love probably makes that a less daunting reality, and it’s easy to understand how it could evolve into a popular fantasy in Gerudo youth.

A lot of people do fantasize about love unrealistically, and adding a foreign element to it makes it all the more mysterious and whimsical. So it makes sense to me that people with NO experience would be weird about it. It also adds a touch of vulnerable human silliness to the Gerudo, instead of having them ALL hella militaristic and beefy warrior people. They have different tastes and different priorities and some of them are weirdos about hypothetical dudes who are a borderline mythical creature in the valley and it’s endearing imo.

I love the idea that the Gerudo have like ‘don’t scare the men, we need to reproduce’ classes, and I love the idea that the Gerudo who are interested in the outside world have this naive romanticization of what meeting a boy is like, and that some of these these 8’ warrior women think boys are scary.

It’s also in part because Nintendo can’t say ‘this is a class on how to fuck him and come home pregnant’ of course, but IMO it’s not unrealistic for a lot of young and ignorant Gerudo to be giddy and obsessive in context. You build up the fantasy and you go out and learn life isn’t actually like that, but sometimes you can still meet someone who makes you feel like you live in a fairy tale. Other times you try it out and learn you’re happier in a different kind of story, which many Gerudo you meet have!

Either way, more experienced Gerudo being like ‘Bruh relax it’s literally just a man’ and less experienced Gerudo treating the idea of a dude the way tumblr treats Mothman is very, very funny to me.

[hermitwithoutapermit]

if we can’t have a rendoc wedding bc APPARENTLY they’re married already then we can use the courthouse to renew their vows

[fisheito]

I started reading beastars so now HE's reading beastars .wait

THEY'RE reading beastars

[superfallingstars]

Personally I think jily is supposed to be idealized (like how James and lily were idealized) to Harry. James gets knocked of his pedestal in swm and so does jily by Harry questioning if his father forced his mother into marriage. Later when talking to lupin and Sirius James and Jily get a slight defense and Harry is back to feeling alright but with the knowledge that things weren’t perfect.

I personally don’t read Jily as abusive (even though I read James as being abusive to snape at school, but I don’t think that violent, physical behavior was extended to Lily) but I definitely don’t read them as a “good” couple (whatever that means). I think you can read it in many different ways given there is so little of them and I think an interpretation that their relationship wasn’t the healthiest is perfectly plausible with the scant information we’re given.

Yeahhhh that’s probably what JKR intended. James and Lily are the fridged parents who are dearly mourned and missed, and as a result, their flaws are completely smoothed over in everyone’s memories. But in Snape’s Worst Memory, Harry learns the hard lesson that things aren’t always what they seem, and that nobody is perfect, not even his dead father. Hurrah.

My problem with this is that I think it’s very boring, LOL. Like it really is probably exactly what JKR intended (given her middle-of-the-road takes on every moral and political question that happens in these books), but man, it feels like such a cop out. James basically ruins Snape’s life for no reason, and the conclusion we’re meant to draw from this is just, well, people are complicated! NO!!!! Bad answer!!! Like, Snape also did some terrible things, but at least he spends a ton of pages actively suffering/atoning for his sins. But James, on the other hand, is only somewhat implied to have changed maybe slightly a little bit somewhere off-page, and we just have to take #1 James Potter fanboy Sirius Black and serial understater Remus Lupin at their word. So if James was supposed to be “redeemed” – or even just excused – wow, it really doesn't work for me. You can't go as dark as "protagonist questions if his father forced his mother into marriage" and then just brush it off like no big deal, Joanne! And it’s so frustrating, because all it would've taken to fix this would've been to show James being a good person instead of just telling the reader that he was one (proof: trust me?). Ugh.

So because of all that, I agree that from what we’re given, it’s quite difficult to read Jily as “good.” We rarely see them interact, and when we do, James’s behavior is wayyyy too similar to the trope of “terrible guy eventually gets the girl even though she seems to hate him with every fiber of her being because his persistence and not taking no for an answer is just toooo romantic to resist.” Which sucks, lol. It feels like JKR is basically being like, “eh, James was young and dumb, whatever” and giving him a huge out for all the grief he caused Snape (and Lily, for that matter) – and she expects that the reader will agree that that is a legitimate excuse for his behavior, and by extension think that it's reasonable for Lily to forgive and eventually marry him. And man, I am just not sure if that is enough to convince me. (And evidently, I'm not alone, considering the “Jily is abusive” meta post that likely sparked this ask!)

With that said, I agree that it’s a stretch to say that James was abusive (or even implied to be abusive) toward Lily. It’s not a completely unfounded take – it could probably be written well in a fic, and even be canon compliant – but you would really have to extrapolate that dynamic from the little information we’re given (as you pointed out). And more importantly (at least, re: that meta), I don't think JKR intended that interpretation at all.

Personally, I just don’t think it makes sense for the narrative for James and Lily to have been in an abusive relationship. And by the narrative, I mean Harry. If Jily is an abusive (or even just bad) relationship, that would have massive ramifications for the way Harry sees his parents. Ideally he would have to come to terms with that at some point – I don’t think it makes sense for James’s and Lily’s relationship to have been this way and not have significantly affected Harry – but imo JKR clearly does not want to deal with that. Like you said, the point of SWM – aside from foreshadowing Lily and Snape’s relationship – was to knock James off his pedestal and basically go, See, nobody’s perfect. <3 And the story is not interested in engaging with James’s behavior on a level any deeper than that lol. Which ok, I don’t love it, but if we’re not going to spend time dealing with morally gray James, then it doesn’t make sense for him to be even more morally gray (or rather, have him fall face first over the line into becoming a downright despicable person) by making him abusive toward Lily.

So that's my Doylist analysis: no way in hell did JKR intend Jily to be an abusive relationship, but she also didn't do a good enough job defending and/or redeeming James after SWM, so we're just left to speculate about how much he really changed. Still, I don't think "JKR is a bad writer" is a very satisfying answer. After all, the only reason that I'm engaging with this text in the first place is because I'm a fan of it, so I think it's also worth looking at it from a Watsonian perspective – or at least, to accept the events of the book as they're written and try to fill in the blanks. (Imo so much of the fun of fandom is trying to fill in those blanks in a satisfying way, to expand upon a character and try to reach a more interesting conclusion than the author did... And I would be remiss not to mention that, because it undoubtedly influences the way that I (and probably also you, if you're on this side of tumblr) engage with the text.)

So for me, as a Marauders era fan, I’m faced with: ok, I don’t really like the idea of these two characters together, but they canonically got together, and I think the story is better because they got together, and it’s better if they genuinely like each other, and it all had to happen somehow – so how can I explain it in a way that both makes sense with the story and is satisfying to me? And my answer to that is twofold.

First, I imagine that James was not always quite such an awful guy (as in, not always as showy, combative, and cruel as he was in SWM). After all, there is a glimmer of goodness in him when he chooses to save Snape’s life during the Prank, revealing that somewhere deep down, he does in fact have a moral compass. And second, I think that he has to have changed. And I mean a genuine change – one that might not have resulted in completely different behavior (after all, he was still hexing Snape through his seventh year) – but regardless, something that makes him seriously reflect on his actions and reconsider his motivations. His behavior in SWM is just too inexcusable for him to get with Lily – partly because Lily is generally framed as a Very Good Person, and partly because regardless of how she is framed, James was still awful to her – without any self-reflection or growth. Of course, the problem then becomes explaining this in a satisfying way!

And I have some ideas in mind – but they’re definitely more speculation than fact, and omg this post is long enough already. Luckily, I received another ask on this topic, so I will save my self-indulgent headcanons for that.

There is one last thing I want to mention, which is (part of) my reasoning for why James may not have been such a bully all the time and why I think he has the capacity for change, and it's been nagging at me ever since I read that meta post (which again, presumably started this whole thing). I think one thing that bothers a lot of people (including me!) about James is that it seems like he chooses to pick on Snape in SWM because of Lily’s presence. He wants to show off to her, so he keeps looking over to the girls by the water, he ruffles his hair, he deepens his voice, and he tries to get her attention by targeting Snape. Following this logic, we can presume that James wouldn’t have done any of this if Lily hadn’t been there – and that’s the part that got me thinking. I have to wonder if Lily was perhaps not the only person who James wanted to impress in that scene… in fact, I think it’s incredibly likely that James would have acted differently if the Marauders hadn’t been there! (Harry has "the distinct impression that Sirius was the only one for whom James would have stopped showing off," and Sirius saying that he's bored is the inciting incident for James spotting Snape...!) Yes it’s going to be a James masculinity analysis because this is what happens every time I talk about these fucking characters apparently. So idk, stick around if you’re into that.

And of course, thank you for the ask!

[mauv-the-bluest-cat-ever]

:3 :D :>

[valtsv]

i need to clean up more of my tsv meta drafts and post them i used to love posting tsv meta

[dxrkl1ght]

They seem to be interested in you for disobeying Sun Sun doesn't seem very happy with you not listening to him, though

[b0tster]

Fixed a major bug that was popping up in the new 'The Hunt' game type for today's Bloodborne Kart dev post!

I'll explain the bug in further detail below the cut, but now that the bug is fixed we have a fully playable game type, so check out a match!

The bug went like this: Randomly during gameplay during this game type, I found that some kart racers would seemingly forget how to drive and just ram into the nearest wall. Using a lot of debugging, I was able to narrow it down to 'the enemy I am targeting does not exist'

Loong story short I was able to detect when this 'brain dead' state happens & direct them to a new enemy target

This doesn't fix the source problem, (which is 'why are they targeting a null reference in the first place?') but it does address the issue, which is good enough for me!

[snowball-maltese]

Tried my hand at the Fandom Opinion Meme for Obey me!!

Here is the original! Idk who made it, I found it on the internet lol

[stardust-sunset]

ok i get people not liking brody’s pony (not really but ill pretend i do) but what i don’t get is the pointless arguments they make

“B-bUt He DoeSnT lOoK 14!!!” maybe cause he’s like 25?? call me crazy but MAYBE that’s the reason.

Idk i’ve just been seeing that excuse a lot like just sat you don’t lie his voice or smth, it’s a less stupid reason lol

[localchocobomerc]

I tried telling someone about this yesterday and they felt it was very bleak, but it doesn't feel that way to me:

I really like what final fantasy 7 has to say about failure! I read it as showing how much defining something as just a failure and assigning blame exclusively to the fail-er depends on removing it from the stream of causation and isolating it from context...

For instance:

1. Zack's failure to get him and Cloud to safety after escaping the Nibelheim lab. This is an easy one, because who looks at what he did and calls it a failure? It's obviously incredible that he made it that far AND was able to protect Cloud enough. But his goal was for both of them to make it, and he couldn't do it. I don't think he felt like he failed overall (thank goodness), but another person might have. Which, in context, and looking at the effects of the attempt, is ridiculous.

2. Cloud's failure to keep an independent sense of self after Zack died (after being tortured for years, after being impaled, after losing his mother, Tifa, and his hometown, all in succession). Maybe the not-that-rare attitude of blaming him for this is a fault of the OG script, which I think makes it sound like more of a reasoned choice than it is, whether through translation error or through Cloud being the only one to really talk about it after he realizes that's what happened (and blaming himself for it). Regardless, it is a failure, in the sense that Cloud definitely wouldn't want to forget Zack, never mind construct a false self from pieces of his memory, but he did. Looking at all the causes of this, and the effects (including both vulnerability to external control but also the ability to be present with Tifa when they met again, and to continue to function as the situation demanded), it just starts to feel too simplistic to view it as a failure only.

The story is full of people trying to protect each other and themselves and not being able to, or not being able to in the way or to the extent they wanted, like failing to:

- Keep the sector 7 plate from falling

- Keep the Black Materia from Sephiroth

- Save Dyne

- Save Aerith

- Save Zack

- Stop Sephiroth from calling Meteor

But if you look at each of those things in context, they both have many causes besides "I wasn't enough" and more effects than just "the loss I couldn't prevent." And in most if not all cases, making the attempt achieved other good things, like saving Marlene or giving Zack the chance to see that it wasn't all for nothing... Things that really matter a lot. Ultimately, saving the rest of the planet besides Midgar is another one of these... a good thing grown in the rubble of failure.

I just feel like, as someone well acquainted with failure, this game is saying it's worth trying and continuing to try after you fail, and that's not bleak to me at all.

[phantom-hogs]

i don't usually do these ramble type of things, but I thought it would be fun especially since I just thought of something lol.

y'know how we have extensively explored Shadows and Sonic's trauma in multiple fan comics and what not? Going into the real nitty and gritty and what not. Y'know who- even the people that really like him -have never really talked about?

Silver.

Like, don't get me wrong, I love our little dork. But can you imagine how absolutely traumatizing living in the literal end of the world must be? And even more traumatizing to grow up in that world would be? Living in dead world, where you and your best friend and maybe one of two other people are alive. Having no hope for any kind of future. Fruitlessly searching for a way to fix, knowing that you'll probably either die alone or in some horrible way and there's really no point to try, but you still do because that hope is quite literally the only thing you got left.

And even adding on top of that, imagine once the future - I know in canon they all lose their memories and what not, but fanon and the IDW comics (and even canon at this point, let's be honest) always ignore that, so stay with me - everything is normal, a Peace future. I have high doubts Silver knows how to be a, essentially, normal person. He's been in survival mode his whole life. (Presumably at least) Silver doesn't know how to go out of survival. Hell, I don't think this man even knows what a 9 to 5 is. He thought saving his future would bring immediate happiness, every single one of his problems solved. But now? He probably would even more isolated because him and blaze are the only ones to remember.

And if we bring IDW into this, this man came back twice because his future was in danger two more times (as of the time writing this) can you imagine how anxiety inducing that must be?

Like idk, maybe it's just me. But I feel like this man has more baggage than shadow at this point.

[kaiserouo]

wait if you aren't mirage then who is?

[monstersinthecosmos]

the most rancid drama starters in fandoms are always like "gee i wish this fandom was nicer, why do we have to fight all the time :("

[gothiethefairy]

#dungeonmeshispoilers

too many fanarts of dungeon lord!marcille being kissed and held by chimera!falin

i wanna see more sopping, sobbing dungeon lord!marcille pressing her snotty face against the ice block she froze chimera!falin in bc she was very unwell during that arc LOL

"ooh falin, you're probably cold! don't worry! i'll fix everything!" marcille cries over the frozen corpse of her "best friend".

[snow-in-the-desert]

holy trinity of star wars shows that explore the nuances of morality in a way that isn't mind numbingly condescending and simplistic