subterraneanexhibit - Tumblr blog

subterraneanexhibit · 15 days ago

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It's kinda wild looking at all these together, but I figure I make a "master post" with all of my 'Link on the move' animations!

Which one was your favorite?

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subterraneanexhibit · 19 days ago

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daisy in my latest ootds 🌻 love me some baggy pants and white sneakers lol

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subterraneanexhibit · 19 days ago

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Happy Pride!!! 🏳‍🌈

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subterraneanexhibit · 19 days ago

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So this was based on another Soul Steel I failed on. Just one of the many reasons I hated going through this place (yes, even more than Deepnest).

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subterraneanexhibit · 19 days ago

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《歴史AU — 時の勇者 Hero of Time 》

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subterraneanexhibit · 22 days ago

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Problem Solving: Courage Vs Wisdom - How would you get the Book of Mudora?

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subterraneanexhibit · 22 days ago

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It's kind of poetic how easily colors of the lesbian flag can be used to color Ty Lee and Azula. Happy Pride, y'all.

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subterraneanexhibit · 24 days ago

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Okay I'm back to talk about headcanons that this ask made me think about because like I said yesterday I think we have very similar but adjacent thoughts and I wanna blabber

So the tl;dr of it is that I fully agree that Bulma terrifies Vegeta and that's part of her charm but our reasons for why differ a bit.

My headcanons are very heavily based on the manga, so in my mind he really didn't see much of her on Namek to compare with her Earth behavior. She and Krillin were both the correct amount of afraid of him, and then the Ginyu force showed up.

I do definitely agree that he's very impressed with the dragon radar -- but Vegeta's grown up in a super high-tech empire full of Freeza's personally curated collection of brilliant minds. While it is crazy that Bulma essentially reinvented scouter tech as a teenager, and hyper-specified it to pick up only the energy that the Dragon Balls were putting out, I think it's also important to recognize that Dragon Balls are a myth at best to almost every non-deity being in the universe, and a closely guarded secret for Namekians.

Bulma invented the radar because she found real ones in her attic (which, why do we never talk about why Dr B and his lovely wife just. Had two dragon balls? Chillin in the attic? This whole time?) and decided to see if the legends were true. Freeza had never seen one, and didn't know anyone who had ever seen one, and wouldn't have had any reason to invest R&D into a device that could detect them.

Don't get me wrong it's still CRAZY impressive that she did that, and something I fully agree Vegeta acknowledges as crazy impressive, especially having done it at sixteen because she was Bored, but for me I think that detection and tracking tech is kind of standard where he comes from (if others didn't already have proof that they work and weren't always in a race to make their wish, which kills their energy signature, they might too take the time to study them for the same result) -- so the time machine would be a much wilder truth to learn for him imo

But I feel Dr B impressed him first because, outside of Capsules, in terms of technology, Earth is VERY primitive to Vegeta. Even for as rock-carved as a lot of the low-ranked neighborhoods on planet Vegeta were, they still had space-faring ships (and potentially also the rearing pods) before they were taken over by King Cold. Bulma and her father -- and even Gero, who is collectively acknowledged as the most superior scientific mind on Earth -- didn't have access to the kind of tech and fuel that can do that effectively. In the Saiyan saga Bulma even talks about how the fastest engine her father ever built would take over four thousand years to go where Vegeta can in a matter of months (in an autopiloted pod, no less).

Bulma and Dr B can, however, utilize alien tech to create things that suit their needs, which is its own brand of impressive. In the manga, there is no second ship. Vegeta asks Dr Brief to build him a gravity room, so I personally hc it's him Vegeta's impressed with initially. I enjoy the thought that Bulma's capacity is one he learns more about just spending time with them developing the room to suit Vegeta's needs and standards, which are almost certainly annoyingly high (as it's established in the manga that Freeza's bases had training rooms too, and it may be safe to assume there is gravity tech in use, considering those fighters have to be prepared for battle on various planets of various sizes and atmospheres).

But again, that this earthling is able to replicate that technology without access to the base alien tech is crazy impressive.

I like to think that Vegeta's mind impressed both of them too, having spent so much time around fighters who are not scientific or tech-savvy at all, and suddenly an alien who knows wtf he's talking about and specifically what he's looking for and can troubleshoot and do minor QA on tech and explain in great detail how how something works (he can report in real time what's happening to him physiologically while it's happening to him, even if it's happening to him for the very first time, which is insane). One of my favorite long-time inside jokes with friends is that Capsule Corp didn't have hover cars until Vegeta moved in. I also just love that Dr B calls him Vegeta-kun in the JPN.

With Bulma though, especially in the manga, she's very much like everyone else -- she's brilliant, but imperfect, and still learning from her mentor (her dad). The bit in Daima where she works so hard on the ship just to have the launch fail feels very much like a callback to this joke where she VERY confidently tries to call Nappa's pod and self-destructs it because she mixed up the buttons, for example:

"Krillin, who's the genius here?" [fails immediately] "Dammit." my love for this fictional woman cannot be overstated why do we even have that lever

So like, while I VERY MUCH AGREE that Vegeta finds her intellect deeply impressive and hot and dangerous, in my personal opinion that is a part of her that intrigues him but it's not the part of her that terrifies him.

To me, it's that despite the fact that she is so smart, and so clever, and so quick-witted -- she is so brazenly authentic.

When Vegeta gets to Namek, he's at the tail end of a poker game he's been playing for years inside the Freeza force. Everyone's running a clever game, everyone's got an ace up their sleeve, everyone's bluffing, everyone is looking for a tell, and everyone's got a loaded gun under the table pointed at someone else.

Freeza notes that their confrontation was inevitable, but is surprised Vegeta's rebellion happened so soon. The thing is that Vegeta is also surprised that it happened so soon -- he was planning to go back to Earth when Cui told him Freeza had already left for Namek. The table got flipped and a 30-Year game turned into a standoff overnight. Vegeta's living on earth fresh from this lifelong cultural experience of "Loyalty is a strategy, everyone is playing to win, and no one is ever really on your team. The only way to save your neck is to keep your head low and your mouth shut."

Then there's Bulma, who -- despite her housing every ability (and reason, as the most wealthy heiress on her planet) to be extremely cut-throat and manipulative and shady and mysterious -- is not only extremely open about her flaws, her feelings, and her insecurities, but extremely LOUD about them.

Bulma will just cry. Bulma will just scream. Bulma will just be passively peer pressured into changing her clothes and then announce that what other people are wearing made her feel stupid.

Bulma is not just vulgar, she's transparent about all of her weaknesses. She plays damn near nothing close to the chest. She announces her suspicions. She announces her plans. She announces her observations, as if they can't be used against her. She's messy and unpleasant, out loud, where people can see her being messy and unpleasant. That's horrifying when you're used to everyone posturing and cooing and kissing ass to get what they want.

She's openly afraid, and also openly curious, and also openly lacking a sole singular fuck about what you think, and also loudly giving a fuck about what other people think. She's both deeply predictable and impossible to track. She thinks we should just kill that guy before he becomes a problem, she also thinks that even though everyone saw how dangerous this guy is he seems uncomfortable so we should leave him alone.

For lack of a better word, from where Vegeta's standing -- Bulma's fucking insane. This woman is crazy. She's got whims like the goddamn weather, but in the exact opposite way that Freeza did. Freeza would smile at you and wish you the sweetest condolences while running a knife through your chest, Bulma will wish you dead at the top of her lungs and then ask what you want for dinner because it's punishment enough being stupid you don't need to be hungry too.

Bulma has all of the same ingredients he's used to being around, but hers combine into something so radically The Opposite of that, and I think that's destabilizing in a way that was very very good for him (likewise, I think Vegeta's absolute lack of GiveAShit about being exactly who he is and dressing however the fuck he's dressed and doing exactly what the fuck he's gonna do no matter who's got opinions about it or what those opinions are (bless Toriyama for describing his personality as 'aloof superiority') was destabilizing in a way that was very very good for her).

I also definitely agree that seeing so much of Bulma's personality in Trunks as he grew up was not only endearing but kind of reassuring. Although I personally think Trunks is terrifying in his own special way. The combined parentage made the boy too confident. Now he's an unbridled weirdo (absolute joy, overwhelming praise).

tl;dr Part 2: I really really enjoy Bulma as a genius in terms of maths and metallurgy and machinery, but I like to think that Vegeta's got a better head for biological and social sciences and strategic operations (when his pride is not in the way), just as a matter of that being where his primary work experience lies.

I love the idea that Dr Brief was a bridge for them, and is a wildly fluctuating polymath who can kind of do all of it with exceptional comprehension, and would be a much bigger problem for everyone if he didn't have the personality of a career stoner.

Bonus: Dr B being awed and happy that there are people out there in the universe doing things better than he can while his daughter reminds them they're on a deadline.