#the rest might not be... not entirely

[queruloustea]

i thought i'd do a quick sketch (plus notes) of the sillies as they appear in my fic! or, how i like to imagine they eventually end up, anyhow :]

i think this is more or less a draft, for now, but it's worth showing :]

[keferon]

Isn’t Vortex a fucking torture freak tho? 👀👀👀

Yep. He is. He is a lot of things actually. The more you learn about him the more fucked up it gets

[undertheredhood]

i don't get why people headcanon tim drake as the one in the batfam who's the sleep-deprived coffee addict when that description can apply to almost everyone in the bat/wayne family

[fisheito]

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

THEY'RE reading beastars

[peacockrulz]

Sorry for the lack of posts, have some more headcanons!!

[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.

[serpentface]

i know u havent posted about them for a while but did archen gunsmithing get nerfed too? seems like those lil guys have taken nothing but Ls in this current iteration

Yeah it got semi-nerfed but not COMPLETELY nerfed.

Where it's at now is more like they have independently developed gunpowder much earlier and have some explosive devices, but not firearms.

The single biggest threat to archin is vulnerability to much larger predators- a single archin's death doesn't ultimately harm a unit or colony consciousness, but a singular archin IS substantially more important to a colony's survival than a singular non-sapient ant, so devising anti-predatory techniques that limit casualties (rather than the ant-typical strategy of SWARM BITE STING) would be likely. In addition to very advanced and fortified nest building strategies, this is accomplished in domestication of much larger animals for above-ground protection (probably deriving from earlier symbiotic relationships), then possibly experimentation with poisons (especially in that certain natural substances can give off toxic fumes when burnt). A formula for gunpowder could have been discovered in that context (fumes from burnt saltpeter might have already been used as a repellent).

They are very involved in managing land at large scales (and lighting/spreading fires for controlled burns is very hard when you are a collective of inch long bugs), so it would have first been used to start and spread fires. Then used for killing very large animals for food (probably first in the form of strategic fires, then as bombs). Then more refined/more explosive forms could be used in Ant Warfare to produce incendiary devices (mainly to bust open fortified nests or kill en-masse with fire). So like their gunpowder weaponry is closer to dynamite than anything else.

Them having Gun's was kind of a vestigial remnant of them formerly being 2ft tall anthropomorphic bees and like, it would just be an absolutely colossal stretch with their current morphology (as pheromone-based 'hive consciousness' inch-long but otherwise normal ants) for them to develop or see any need for anything resembling a firearm. The way I translated it to their new design was more like "how can I keep the ant guns" rather than "what would sapient ants use as weaponry against larger animals and what natural (or at least Believable) stages of development would bring this about", and I try to use the latter approach as much as possible.

I honestly don't see this as a downgrade though like 'ants with guns' has a wackiness factor I guess but taking the sapient ant collective premise more seriously is a lot more interesting to me.

[canisalbus]

What are the two dots on vasco’s cheeks under his eyes?

They're beauty marks! Either very symmetrical moles or just spots of condensed pigmentation. They could pass for zygomatic vibrissae (the little darker bumps on dog's cheeks and jaw that sometimes have whiskers growing out of them) but they're positioned a little too close to his eyes for that to be very believable.

[sleepypdng]

🍰 the fourth pie sister

[completeoveranalysis]

[1]

Chapitre 219 - Magic Passed Down, or Inherited Magic

The splash text reads something like All this time she has lived a distant path, All for the sake of this moment

In which HOW DARE YOU. I will never recover. 

I don’t think we’ve seen such an unfiltered look at the heartbreaking side of Yuuko’s existence before. Even just the emotion on her face is enough to wreck me, but the rest of it makes it even worse!

She is reclining in her sakura tree - technically, but not really. The strands of her hair stretch out behind her, looping endlessly over the branches until she is tied there. Just like her inbetween-place in reality, she is fixed here and unable to move. Add in the wings on her kimono and the overall effect is that of a butterfly caught in a spider web. She is frozen, head caught at an unnatural angle, and stuck here until she dies. She can’t even look up at the moon shining in the sky behind her. All she can do is look sadly down. 

Fun ;_;

I also really enjoy how her right hand is half in shadow, but the blackness of her fingers melds into the visual effect of the butterfly shadows on the fabric. It has a touch of that “moving between existence and non-existence” that many of the xxxholic covers had leading up to this, but I think this steers a bit away from that and lands her squarely in the 'non-existence' side of things. The living butterflies don’t overlap or get confused into the pattern of the fabric like they used to - now they are cleanly distinct, a separation between real and not real,  and Yuuko herself is the one fading into the side of the shadows, the reflections, the imitations. Her existence is ending. She will soon no longer be real - and to some, will never have existed at all. 

But she paid this price willingly, to save the future. 

[stealingyourbones]

Why must the medication give me other mental health issues. I trade the Big Sad for the No Sleep and it gives me more Big Sad

[fazedlight]

"What is gender?" and "What is camp?" and "What is sci-fi vs. fantasy?" are all the same-shaped problem in my head.

Everyone knows what they are but no one can explain them to me 😭

[jadetheblueartist]

Guys I’m discovering that I kinda love Draxum he’s just so goofy and like idk

But the thing that’s making it a MILLION TIMES WORSE is that he is so girl dad in my head bc he has Camille. And like now I’m thinking that she accidentally did get some of his dna during the explosion bc they have the same hair and bc it would be cute

Um but yeah drawing stuff for girl dad Draxum makes me want to vomit it’s just too sweet (this one was fast and kinda ehhhh but well work on it)

[shoot-i-messed-up]

…ngl the Ilana & Rick dynamic was more interesting before they fucked

[quotidianish]

I love extrapolating ideas about the merc’s parents based off of what little is mentioned of them (me w/ heavy’s dad lol). Don’t let your boy drink, even though he’s already 13 (big boy number).

[evevoli]

i accidentally conned my way into an autism clinic referral by offhandedly mentioning that i think i might have it to my doctor last week and this is about how the entire interaction felt