#yeah that's actually wild to think about

[moeblob]

Impulsively shoving a guy's hand in your mouth after having the thought "oh just like when my little sister used to prick herself on a rose thorn" and then immediately being treated like a pet who ate something they shouldn't have? Wonderful. Thank you, Thane.

(also not pictured is Thane apparently trying to scrape your tongue with his hand BEFORE pouring the holy water down your throat because NO. BAD.)

[my-name-is-apollo]

Why is Hera so hostile to Leto in a manner that she isn't with the other lovers of Zeus? I can't think of any other woman who was targeted so much by Hera. One could say she didn't want Leto to give birth because her children would be a competition to Hera's children, but why bother her even after she had already given birth? Is it because Leto herself is also a threat to Hera?

Sort of I guess?

I don't think Leto would ever be a threat to Hera's role as the queen of the gods but Hera might see her as a competitor for Zeus' affection, even though I think Zeus would not marry someone else and replace Hera.

The twins are definitely a big reason why Hera begrudged Leto - it is outright stated in the Callimachus Hymn to Delos that the reason Hera especially targeted Leto was because she was told that Apollo would be dearer to Zeus than Ares is. Zeus is very proud of Artemis as well. As he himself puts it, he doesn't mind facing Hera's wrath for children like her.

But the continued hatred even after the birth of the twins (like sending Tityus to rape Leto) could have been for different reasons. This wasn't like one of those affairs Zeus would have with mortal women where he'd leave them behind once the child is conceived. Neither could Hera, despite her many attempts, get rid of Leto like she did with the other lovers. Not only did Leto give Zeus children that he loves dearly, she also stayed on Olympus despite Hera's hatred towards her (which isn't directed to any of Zeus' other divine mistresses, btw). It might have also been because Leto herself is dear to Zeus, if the way she's treated on Olympus is any proof. In the Homeric hymn to Apollo, Leto stands next to Zeus - in the Olympian assembly - to welcome their son. Hera is completely absent from the scene, as if Leto had taken her place even if temporarily. Now you could say this is because Apollo himself is such a powerful and glorious son in a way that no other son of Zeus is, so of course Leto would get such an honor (the hymn itself presents it this way).

But here's another instance - in the Iliad, when Hera goes to seduce Zeus, he is obviously very smitten but before getting into the action, he lists some of his lovers (I believe these were his favorite lovers, as a lot of others are not mentioned):

"for never has such desire for goddess or mortal woman so gripped and overwhelmed my heart, not even when I was seized by love for Ixion’s wife, who gave birth to Peirithous the gods’ rival in wisdom; or for Acrisius’ daughter, slim-ankled Danaë, who bore Perseus, greatest of warriors; or for the far-famed daughter of Phoenix, who gave me Minos and godlike Rhadamanthus; or for Semele mother of Dionysus, who brings men joy; or for Alcmene at Thebes, whose son was lion-hearted Heracles; or for Demeter of the lovely tresses; or for glorious Leto; or even for you yourself, as this love and sweet desire for you grips me now.’ (Book 14, trans. A. T. Murray)

Notice how when talking about most of them, he also mentions the children they bore to him but when Demeter and Leto are mentioned, he doesn't bring up their children at all despite them being some of the most accomplished kids of his. What's more, he takes Leto's name just before Hera's. I mean, this is an interpretation but it looks like not only did Zeus love Leto the most out of all his mistresses - giving her a place second to that of his wife, but also his love for her wasn't necessarily only because she gave him two amazing children.

Nonnus does something similar in the Dionysiaca (but this time Zeus is enamored with Persephone instead of Hera) but more notably, when Typhoeus attacks Olympus and Zeus is discouraged, Nike takes the form of Leto to encourage him and it's pretty telling of what Leto meant to Zeus.

One interesting similarity between Hera and Leto is that they both had a giant try to rape them. Porphyrion tried to violate Hera (Zeus inspired him to do this) and Tityus tried to violate Leto (upon Hera's order). Though both of them were killed, only Tityus got an eternal punishment in Tartarus of having his liver/heart eaten out by vultures so Zeus seems to have taken a greater offense at Tityus trying to assault Leto.

Again, I don't think Zeus would ever take anyone other than Hera as his permanent wife - she is irreplaceable to him. There's an entire myth about Hera leaving him and Zeus winning her back. Their relationship is obviously complex and involves all kinds of emotions including love and hate. But Leto is continually dear to him as well and that's something Hera can't do much about.

[necrotic-nephilim]

jealousy really is the driving force of DamiTim as a ship. love that for them. love how Tim has the Robin mantle ripped away from him and he has to suffer the jealousy of watching Dick and Damian bond. how possessive over Dick Tim can be, to have him stolen by Dick.

even more so though, is the jealousy from Damian. how on earth do you cope when you finally get to be Robin, a role you've convinced is your birthright, and no one really likes you? every prefers the Robin who came before you? Dick regularly reminds you that he can always go and call Tim back when you act out? like the complex Damian has over Tim is unreal. Tim, who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had everything handed to him his whole life. he never had to struggle or fight for his place like Damian did. Damian has spent his whole life fighting and proving himself, and yet he can't ever seem to truly claw the mantle of Robin away from Tim. even when Tim lets it go, becomes Red Robin, they seem to share it. Tim can slip back into the role of Robin whenever someone like Dick or Bruce need him to, because *he's* the Robin who they need. he's the Robin who was able to find Bruce. he's the Robin that Ra's wants an heir out of. he's the Robin who even Jason respects. in Damian's eyes, everything Damian has fought tooth and nail for, was handed to Tim.

so of course he's going to react to Tim with violence and aggression, especially after finding out Tim has contingency plans for him. no matter how much Damian proves himself, he's never going to be enough, especially not to Tim. and so his deep refusal to see Tim as family, to acknowledge Tim's legacy is all driven by such an angry jealousy. Tim understands aspects of Bruce's legacy that Damian doesn't, like the need to sweet talk and play nice with the elites of Gotham, even if they're corrupt. they exemplify different aspects of Robin, and the aspects that Tim exemplifies are the aspects that Damian knows he'll never fully understand and therefore holds such a deep contempt for. he wants to fight criminals, not play nice with politicians. Tim understands the side of Gotham that's utterly foreign to Damian. if anything, he represents that side of Gotham, to Damian. a pretty little rich boy who's nothing but a know-it-all and not a real son of Bruce. he can't be a Wayne. he can't be Damian's family.

and all of that angry jealousy leading to unhealthy obsession turned a weird, angry crush from Damian is just my bread and butter. that is how DamiTim should be. to me. Damian obsessed over hating Tim Drake so much he accidentally ends up sort of in love with him and that only makes Damian angrier. because he can't prove everyone right by *also* liking Tim. he can't let Ra's win like that, because frankly why wouldn't Ra's be delighted by Damian and Tim getting together. and it builds and builds with angry passive aggression towards Tim that culminates in angry hate-fucking-that's-not-just-driven-by-hate. love and hate are always viewed as opposites in shipping and i think they're the same intense passion just in different directions. and for the best ships, they're very intertwined. what is DamiTim is not the peak of that. "i put so much of myself into hating you i had no choice but to fall in love with you somewhere along the way" core. love that bleeds into hate and hate that bleeds into love. "you make me so angry i regularly passively try to kill you but not with any real effort because who would i obsess over if you were actually gone" core. murder attempts as a form of courting. contingency plans to take each other out as a love language. they're unwell.

[animucrystal]

thinking about arthur and gwen and i think the best part about their relationship for me is the Choice. theyre two people with not alot of agency in their lives, for varying reasons. arthur obviously has a lot more privilege, but has to play a part in order to rule his kingdom properly lest he be seen weak to others and put his people in jeopardy. hes born and raised in one role, to be a prince then a king. he takes it on with pride, but you Know he feels stifled. gwen, on the other hand, is a black servant girl born in a lower class family. she may not have a certain “role” shes required to fill but she still has to work hard to provide for her family and for herself. she has to look and act like a proper lady lest people think shes unfit for her job, she has to be subservient in order to keep her already fragile status. the agency they do have is very limited, not just by society but by their own morals and beliefs. however, despite all of that, they both choose to take a risk with this one thing. they decide to take a risk Together, and they do it for Years!! they wait for YEARS!!! they work hard to be together, to Stay together, and while they may not have been eachothers first loves - they make it last because they Choose to make it last.

personally, thats way more romantic that being destined for eachother. they chose eachother and kept choosing eachother everyday, what else is there to say?

[doomed-era]

thinking about the (probably) unintentional symbolism of the master sword's state often reflecting link's in the botw trilogy, swords being frequently described as an extension of yourself in popular media, the master sword as an extension of link and link an extension of it. he really is a living weapon if you think about it too hard

[blueskittlesart]

maybe this is a kind of obvious answer but can you talk about the symbolism of the silent princess flower in botw?

YEAH. i can <3 <3 <3 <3

so the silent princess. this flower which is so pervasive as a symbol throughout this game. most of what we are told about it comes directly from zelda in the memory where she talks about it. in the english version of the game, she says "This one here is called the silent princess. It's a rare, endangered species. Despite our efforts, we can't get them to grow domestically yet. The princess can only thrive out here in the wild. All that we can hope... is that the species will be strong enough to prosper, on its own." in japanese, she (more or less) says, "this is... it's called the silent princess, and it's an endangered flower. I started artificial cultivation [of the silent princess] a while ago, but it's not going well. it's... a princess that might become extinct." that discrepancy is interesting, i think, with the english version being altered to give zelda a slightly more hopeful outlook on the fate of the flower, musing about its potential for survival instead of thinking more negatively about the prospect of its extinction.

So. the flower's actual symbolism. It's honestly kind of heavyhanded imo, but sometimes a heavyhanded symbol still works really well. consider the flower's name, the "silent princess." consider, then, the two characters who are most obviously tied to it--zelda, the princess, who is actually named in the flower's compendium description, and link, the silent knight who seems to find the flower at every important location throughout his journey. On a certain level, the flower is representative of these characters, hence why its name evokes aspects of both of them. more specifically, though, the flower is representative of the internal struggle these two characters undergo as pieces of the bigger puzzle that is the calamity.

both zelda and link suffer "in captivity" as zelda puts it--they find themselves struggling under the weight of their destinies, zelda unable to perform to the standards of her father, link terrified to fall short of the kingdom's expectations. neither of them are able to reach their full potential when "cultivated artificially" as it were; link is mute and subdued, never showing even the slightest hint of his true personality underneath the hardened exterior, and zelda is frustrated and depressed, convinced she will never be enough to win the love and praise of her father. On a certain level, being "cultivated in captivity," being forced to live under careful observation, with a clear purpose and clear, unshakeable expectations, killed both link and zelda. link literally died at the hands of the calamity, and zelda killed her adventurous spirit and scientific curiosity in an attempt to conform to her father's expectations. when zelda, in the japanese version of the game, muses that the princess may be destined to become extinct, she is expressing kinship with the flower, believing that she, too, has no meaningful future since she can't conform to the expectations her father and her kingdom have for her. She essentially feels that if she can't be useful "in captivity" there is no way for her to live in this world, and that the only other option is "extinction."

Her more optimistic english monologue, however, is closer to the truth of the silent princess's resilience. While we know that the princess was in dire straits a hundred years ago, post-calamity hyrule sees many of the flowers taking root, often in places that were once highly-populated but have since been abandoned. what we find in a post-calamity landscape is that the silent princess, once thought to be unsavable, is THRIVING in this new world, having been released from the expectations and interference of the people trying to cultivate it. Again, this is symbolic of link and zelda: in a post-calamity landscape, we see link begin to find his voice. we see his personality begin to return--he cracks jokes, he laughs, he cooks, he takes photos, he makes connections, he buys a house and decorates it. He thrives in a world where he is not confined by the pressure to be perfect, to grow in the way that others expect of him. the silent princess can't grow in captivity, but it CAN thrive in the wild, free of outside influence, allowed to just BE.

Also worth noting that there's a side quest in botw which involves a legend that if you swear your love on a freshly-picked silent princess, you and your partner will "live a charmed life." there's definitely something to be said about The Zelink Flower being the subject of a romantic legend. but that's not actually the point of this post. anyway

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

I always thought that handcuffs were kinda stupid. As a little kid I would watch movies where the bad guys were hauled away in cuffs and I'd always think "alright, I guess that's inconvenient for them?" but I never really understood why they didn't just... take them off and escape

This curiosity heightened when I saw that my aunt had real metal handcuffs that locked with a real key and I quickly, before any adult could see what I was doing, shackled both my wrists with the cuffs as tight as they could go.

And when I say tight, I mean tight. I had reaaaaal skinny wrists and I was a child wearing adult handcuffs, so you'd think the cuffs would be loose but nope. Those things weren't circular anymore, they'd folded in so much that they looked more like the shape a cat's pupils turn when they're mad.

And what they don't tell you about real handcuffs? Those suckers are sharp. The inside edges are almost bladed, I guess to discourage exactly what I was trying to do but that certainly didn't stop my curious lil neurodivergent brain, oh no no.

Anyway, after about five minutes of pulling, straining, huffing and puffing, I finally went to find the adult with the key.

I was so disappointed.

And so, so hopelessly confused.

Course, no one questioned why I had locked my aunt's handcuffs and why I needed them unlocked. And, of course, I didn't communicate my confusion in any way.

So it wasn't until way later in life, when I had quickly shimmied out of one of those indestructible water park wristbands and saw the horrified eyes of my friends watching me with morbid glee, that I discovered that, apparently, most people can't dislocate their thumbs at will.

The moral of the story here is that neurodivergent children have no concept of typical versus atypical and that I cannot be contained by your petty mortal means.

[cryiling]

revalink au where revali is the world's most stuck up coffee connoisseur. he owns 3 separate espresso machines, he can lecture about different brewing methods all day long, he only drinks coffee made with ethically sourced beans from high-end cafes

meanwhile link drinks the shittiest coffees known to man. either they're unfathomably sweet or they're a horrendous concoction of something like instant coffee powder in lukewarm water with a shot of vodka

so ofc they fall in love <3

[garvalhaminho]

matthew developing more romantic feelings towards lucie had so much comedic potential. love triangle between a blonde and a corpse and she still would've chosen the corpse

[moeblob]

Shavuli !

She's just. Into rocks. It's fine. She likes to collect shiny rocks. (this is dice related and I am not apologizing for giving her this trait)

[grahamcarmen]

And my thing STILL is that as carmen gets a stronger sense of her past and better connections with her friends and allies the need/desire for Gray in her life doesn't decrease and dissapate, it INCREASES and is refined. All while constantly being more sincerely layered in romantic tones as the show goes on.

[freakinator]

fun fact about me is that despite me logically not caring about cc boundaries, emotionally i get really nervous about breaking them still cause i Hate being intrusive to anyone ever which in practice means that if a cc has too many/too strict public boundaries i just. dont wanna draw them. ever.

so anyways ive been hyping myself up to draw 4c for like 2 months now and thats just been going nowhere lmao

[socksandbuttons]

Anyway

Todays episodes

Idk

I dont know what the future one was trying to tell me

But poor puppet trying to get info and everyones like WTF

like an alternate future that dosnt help at all

[mumblesplash]

the fact that doctors can just Recommend Weight Loss with no instructions beyond ‘eat healthier/less’ is actually insane to me, i lost weight on purpose ONCE and it took me like 6 years to recover a semi-normal relationship with food and hunger

[hardlyworkingtbh]

ok, but, you know what's so wild? toranosuke, taka's grandfather, went to hope's peak. like, i don't remember if it was mentioned in game and it was only sort of touched on in the wiki, but he supposedly went there too. and that's. like. crazy to me.

imagine how taka felt about that. there's already so many reasons his thoughts about his grandfather might be conflicted. and to just. to be given the EXACT same opportunity he was. to be given the same gateway as the person he's actively trying to separate and distinguish himself from. just a few years after he fucked up the country, left them all in debt and DIED. imagine how that would affect taka. imagine how that would affect how he sees hope's peak and the people in it.

just. i don't know

[capybaraonabicycle]

Doctor: Huh, is that who I am now?

Donna: It was never that far from the surface, mate.

Doctor: frowns Yes, it was! You know I used to be a woman. And that made people... assume all sorts of stuff. And - and pretending to be Graham's wife for five minutes was bad enough but - Byron? That was torture. Does the man ever stop talking?

Donna: Takes one to know one

Doctor: Oi! I just mean, there were all these men people assumed I would be into and I - and I just - I just wanted -

Donna: I know, darling.

Doctor: softly I just wanted Yaz.

Donna: I know. - There was one man, though, remember?

Doctor: No, there wasn't! I don't fancy the Master!

Donna: ...

Doctor: Okay, fine. But the Master isn't a man. He's like me! Flexible - uh - timelord gender and stuff.

Donna: Sure.

Doctor: So, anyway, I have always been primarily into wom-

Donna: What about Jack Harkness?

Doctor: - Jack doesn't count, everyone fancies Jack.

Donna: ...fair enough.