#think it's not....the most ideal)

[scramratz]

My hottest take (and I genuinely do believe this) is that most trans women pass perfectly well. They just don't pass as supermodels. Every "nonpassing" trans woman I've ever met looks like your average midwestern cis woman.

[lilianade-comics]

How does one live up to perfection?

[dazzelmethat]

Anteater Weevil. Smaller than a great anteater and more arboreal, the species combo would eat more termites and sap from trees than ants on the ground.

@weevilsdaily Hope you don't mind me tagging you. Your blog is what got me to get down and fully design an idea I've had for a while.

I love both great anteaters and weevils so so much.

[nhura]

QUICK NO ONE'S LOOKING

(See readmore for thoughts, cope, bonus, etc.)

Anyone else up thinking about Ratio's big, strong, secure arms and how warm and all-consuming they could be in a hug or embrace. :/ Anyway

I just wanted to draw them being cute and seizing a sliver of a moment where they could have some PDA silly time without actually having any eyes on them. They're public figures and working adults with very clear boundaries between public persona and private life (to varying degrees of "in a sad way"), so while it may be in Aventurine's nature to constantly blur lines for various agendas and self-preservation (read: play "the flirt" without an aligned goal), I believe that in an actual relationship they'd be fairly private.

It's kind of fun to break your own rules, though! Ratio would be more upset about the consequences, though. He's a little bit of a hypocrite, which is devastating for someone of such discipline, but nobody's perfect.

I'm of the mentality of, "If you're tired of working on it, then just post it!", so here are some fun peripherals that I didn't feel like adding:

Some staff in the background sweeping up to evoke a blended sense of fragile privacy and liminal time.

A laptop on the aquarium/bar/counter because there's something fascinating about seeing people on their work laptops in public.

The rest of their clothes (casual friday)

[anonforlackofabettername]

I wasn’t expecting to have to fight for my life in the “MB looks like a person trenches” but its entire arc(s) is on both dehumanization and rejecting humanization. MB’s story is about defining what it is between the two extremes — nonhuman/bot and human. To do that it’s essential to the story that it looks like a person, like Data, Janet, or the synths from Alien.

It’s in the text that it has a human face to reassure clients. Clients look at it and see a faceless robot with no more intelligence than a roomba or they see a person and it hates both reactions. Roomba is easier to deal with and ignore, which is why it keeps the helmet on. It’s in the text that it can pass at a glance as a heavily augmented human so long as no one looks too closes at the ports for guns built into its arms or its metal skeleton.

Secunit doesn’t want to be a person but its flesh parts means it can’t help but look like one and it gets freaked out by people treating it like one. It’s threading very fine needle on its journey of self discovery to figure out what the secret third thing is between person and bot, that’s literally the point of the last two novellas.

[fire-on-fuel]

the most important distinction between boba fett and jango fett is that jango fett grew up on a farm and then in a traveling mandalorian merc clan and boba fett grew up in a city sized lab and then juvie and then every gutter in the galaxy from here to nar shaddaa

[batboopp]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji might be an unstoppable force, but Xie Lian has 800+ years of practice of being an immovable object.

(poll results here for context)

[vigilskeep]

huge fan of lucanis’ “if i could... i want... forgive me. i’m not certain what i wish to say” line if you go see him after the almost kiss because it sounds SO stilted that he has one hundred percent been drafting this sentence in his mind for hours. and yet this is all he achieves. mind boggling

[mizaruwu]

Yo do you subscribe to the theory that Hyrule Warriors merged the three timelines back together? Cause I've been brainrotting over your necromancer au again and imagining Legend asking for help from Wars by writing a letter and hiding it somewhere where he hopes that it will be preserved until Wars' era.

Maybe Wars feels a little lonely after LU too, so he goes on a journey to discover artifacts left by the heroes before him and stumbles across this letter which simply says "Captain, I hope you find this and can find a way to help us. Rulie is not handling our separation well. Please come help him if you are able. -The Vet"

Wars immediately runs to Lana and after some convincing she agrees to send him through time to the point when the letter was written. He arrives to find Legend sitting with paper and quill still in hand, the faintest smile visible in his tired eyes, and he knows right away that something is very, very wrong.

Does he manage to talk some sense into Hyrule? Does he offer some other healthier coping tool? Who knows but oh man the idea is driving me crazy in the best way lol

Oh I'm totally subscibed to that theory XD

A tiny problem– the timeline is locked in the AU. Time travel can't happen to the parts of the timeline post LU (to stop a problem like monsters crossing timelines again) thats why any time travel item Rulie found can't work anymore. It'll be the same for the rest of the links.

I do think its funny to imagine Warriors finding Legend's letter and realising he can't do anything. No matter how much he asks Lana or prays to Hylia the timeline won't open for him. The helpless guilt? It'll be soo delicious

Hypothetically, Hyrule will be so happy to see Wars again but would grow a tiny bit (an understatement) jealous that the captain was able to visit him. How unfair!

I dont think it would go well. How can Warriors say that Rulie shouldnt raise their dead brothers when its his only way to see them again? When Wars can time travel to visit the others if he wants to?

When wars has loved ones around him he wont endanger when he goes home and Hyrule has to stay away from the princesses so the monsters out for his blood wont come for them? The captain wont be the one alone for who knows how long when he goes back!

[disgracefulthings]

If Shang Qinghua also wrote TGCF

Hua Cheng: So if you made this world and everyone in it...

Hua Cheng: That means you made dianxia into the most perfect and ideal being

Shang Qinghua: Actually, that's Mobei-Jun

Hua Cheng: Incorrect

Shang Qinghua: You can't correct me, I'm literally your go-

Hua Cheng: Absolutely incorrect!

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

Some person on YouTube: Did you know that Sisi was actually bad at being Empress? Why do you like her so much?

Me, a person who has read more than the Wiki: Wow, really? What a revelation! No one has ever thought of that before! There can't be any reason that I can sympathize with a woman who struggled with a very demanding role that she was thrust into at 17. This must make her someone who isn't worth finding interesting.

[screwpinecaprice]

Some warm up connverse

[imagineaspen]

Perpetually thinking about the impact it must have had on Ganondorf's psyche to constantly hear the Gerudo talking about how weak men are and then going 'oh but not you, you're the exception'

[trappedinafantasy37]

I'm continuing with my cult shit from my previous post cause so many more things are beginning to make sense. To add some context, I am listening to an audiobook that is a memoir of the author's time growing up in a cult. One of the things the author talks about is that cults hate individuality, they do not like their members standing out for any reason. Cults demand conformity and tell their members that the cult comes first in their minds and hearts.

Let's start with 'Shadowheart'. She was originally named Jenevelle Hallowleaf, but she chose to change it to Shadowheart. You may think, "Oh, isn't changing one's name an expression of individuality?" In this case, no. She picked that name not to stand out from the cloister, but to conform. She wanted a name that paid honor to Shar. This is a common practice within cults in which members change their name to honor or pay some kind of homage to whoever it is they worship. The practice is done to remove one's original identity and replace it with the cult. The persistent memory wipes also made it easier for this process as her identity was literally wiped away.

When we do meet Mama and Papa Hallowleaf and Papa Hallowleaf calls her Jenevelle, Shadowheart expresses discomfort in the name because it isn't who she is, even if she rejects Shar. When on her Dark Justiciar path, she doubles down and screams that her name is 'Shadowheart' while she kills her parents. The identity of Jenevelle was removed, and replace with Shadowheart and this is who she will always be. This is one of the reasons why I argue that even if Shadowheart rejects Shar, there will still be some lingering Sharran like things that aren't just going to go away.

I believe something similar happened with Nocturne in which after she transitioned, she picked a name that paid honor to Shar in which Nocturne = Night, like Nightsinger. Although I will admit that Nocturne's situation is not a one-to-one comparison with Shadowheart's as Nocturne is a trans woman and probably has a much greater and more personal desire to distance herself from her deadname and previous identity. Nocturne also mentions that she was often bullied and ridiculed by other cult members for transitioning in which Shadowheart always came to her defense and beating the shit out of the transphobes. What I find to be ironic is that Viconia of all people was accepting of Nocturne's transition, telling Nocturne that only in Shar's embrace can one truly find themselves. Regardless of why Nocturne picked the name that she did, Viconia is taking advantage of this transition to make it about Shar. That Nocturne's identity as a trans woman is still all about Shar.

The various hairstyles she takes in the game is so incredibly important. A lot of people think it's cheesy, but it's important. The way we wear our hair is one of the greatest expressions of individuality, something that no one can really take from you. The hair cut she starts with ironically is the same exact bang style as Selune, like gorl is just not beating the terrible Sharran allegations.

But it is a hairstyle she insists on having long before the events of the game. Nocturne will say that Shadowheart wanted something bold, and I'm willing to bet that Shadowheart probably wanted to pay homage to Shar. The fact that it is actually the same cut as Selune may be a little Freudian slip, just a tiny piece of "Jenevelle" still bouncing around in that head of hers.

The Nightsong decision will also have an impact on her hairstyle, but Shadowheart approaches it very differently. If she kills the Nightsong and becomes a Dark Justiciar, she cuts her hair but keeps it black. This is conformity and she says that its intent is to be in Shar's image. She also doesn't quite break up with you if you're in a relationship with her, but she puts some emotional distance between the two of you and demotes you to friends with benefits. This is her putting the cult first. This is also why Shadowheart's romance is a slow burn one because up until this point, she has been putting the cult first (the Nightsong decision determines if she keeps that up, or puts you first).

If she spares the Nightsong and rejects Shar, she cuts her hair but dyes it white. By this point, Shadowheart is not a Selunite, she doesn't worship Selune, and even says she doesn't know if she ever will. The game does designate her as a Cleric of Selune, but this is more of a game mechanic than a lore implication as the game does not allow for godless clerics. On the surface, dying her hair seems like conformity to Selune, given Isobel's and Dame Aylin's hair, and white hair is a common practice amongst Selunite's supposedly. But I do not think that is the case here. She dyes the hair to prove the point that she no longer belongs to Shar and doesn't want to look like a follower of Shar any longer. It's her insistence that she is an individual, can make her own choices, and lives as herself. It's a big 'ol "fuck you" to Shar. This is also why I like the idea of Shadowheart having a change in domain around this time as well.

A much more subtle thing that happens that isn't really pushed by the narrative is all the Sharran armor that follows Shadowheart around the game, from her default armor, to the broken plates in Grymforge, to the upgraded plates in the Gauntlet, and the full Dark Justiciar set when she embraces Shar. Now, not everyone puts her in Sharran armor, but a lot do (including myself because it does look good on her). The Sharran armor is her uniform, something she wears so she doesn't stand out from the rest of the Sharrans. Uniforms remove uniqueness, removes individuality, and ensures that all are uniform (equal) and no one is truly better than others. It reinforces the notion that they are here to serve their god and not themselves. Even when you examine the broken plates in Grymforge, she will have something to say about them, which probably prompts some players into giving them to her. And when she becomes a Dark Justiciar, she is immediately put into the Dark Justiciar armor set regardless of whatever she was wearing before in an act of forced conformity.

If she becomes Mother Superior, she will come to the reunion party with similar robes that Viconia wore. Her robes are intended to symbolize status and elevate her as the head of the cult. But multiple other members within the cloister wear similar robes of a similar design, suggesting that even Mother Superior is wearing a uniform.

The more I go through this audio book, the more I understand the cults in the game and how it impacts the characters. And all this doesn't just apply to Shadowheart and Shar, it also applies to the Absolute, followers of the Dead Three, Lae'zel, and Minthara. But, there is another character that I really really need to talk about in regards to individuality in a cult and that is Orin. However, I am going to make her an essay all on her own because that girl is just a mess.

< Why Shadowheart is a bad Sharran | Cults & Individuality: Orin >

[moth-flowers]

moth-flowers #21