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#totk salt#I totally ranted about this before but I’m ranting about it again#cuz this plot hole ruins a lot of the game for me cuz it doesn’t feel believable#it makes me think that Rauru is a weak and pathetic guy#like c’mon#imagine the possibilities with Zelda#her with the Triforce of wisdom cuz I KNOW she has it#imagine how powerful she’d be???#thatd be SICK#UGH#THIS GAME ANNOYS ME SO MUCH SOMETIMES#totk spoilers#tears of the kingdom (@smilesrobotlover)

Gosh I hate how insanely powerful Ganondorf is in totk. You’re telling me this guy, who we rarely see his actual magical capabilities, is so powerful with a secret stone that 4 people who have used the secret stones for much longer than he and four additional people with the secret stones can’t defeat him??? He’s that strong??? He’s stronger than the master sword that is the most powerful weapon out there??? Just cuz he has the measly little secret stone?? Are you kidding me?

What’s most frustrating about this is that if they JUST added the Triforce it’d fix EVERYTHING. If Ganondorf had the Triforce of power I would TOTALLY believe that he would be THAT powerful because the Triforce is the most powerful thing on that entire planet and it gave previous ganondorfs all their power. And so yeah the secret stone would amplify his power ten-fold and so it makes sense that he’d be nearly unstoppable! But NOOOOO they didn’t add the Triforce and fixed that very fixable plot hole for some reason. Good grief

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you know what doesn’t get talked about enough in writing circles

completed story grief

That feeling you are left with when you have finished a long project - whether it is long because it contains a lot of words, or long because it took you a long time to write, or long because it took you a long time to start writing it - when you’re happy because you finished it but empty because it is finished. You took out all of the words that were inside of you, at least all of the ones that pertain to that story, and the relief that follows such an action can be devastatingly exhausting.

On top of just the empty feeling, there follows that bittersweet sense of understanding that this thing which has for so long been your companion is no longer just your companion, and that you have in some ways severed the ties with it, because you will not be writing it anymore. You might write other stories related to it. You might write stories in the same world. Or stories with the same characters. But THAT story is finished. That story has been taken out of you and put where it can be a part of everyone that reads it. That is unimaginably happy and sad at the same time.

So I just want to say, I guess, be nice to yourself after you finish a story. Yes it’s happy, yes it feels good. But if you also feel a little like you’ve just lost something, give yourself some time to process that, because in a way you did. It’s a happy loss, the sort of loss wildlife rescuers feel when an animal they saved is able to go back and be wild again. It’s a good, happy thing, but it’s also okay to take a little time to be sad and take care of yourself.

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Ok breaking containment for this one because I need everyone who will listen to hear this.

Women who suffer bad cramps are told cramps shouldn't affect school/work/etc, but no one ever investigates further because no one can possibly know if what someone experiences is just typical pain or something much worse.

Well after 15 years of stage 4 treatment-resistant endometriosis that came with pain as bad as, if not worse than, actual labor contractions every month, all the while being told I was 'typical' and 'just had bad cramps', I've finally been healed (another post for another time). I have had what everyone describes as the elusive 'normal period pain' for several months now, and I am begging you to look me in the eyes and listen because I need everyone who can hear this to hear this.

I have been on both sides of this. I have the hard-earned knowledge of what a period 'should' feel like.

If you have to put in any effort to hide your cramps, you need to get help.

Even during of the PEAK OF CRAMPING (i.e., as bad as your cramps possibly get), you should still be able to stand, speak, walk, eat, work, and sleep with no problems. These tasks should require very-little-to-no extra effort beyond what you would normally do when you aren't on your period. When you do these things, you should feel grumpy and a little bit icky and maybe a twinge of nerves and NOTHING MORE.

If you have to sit in the corner and hope no one approaches you because you can't speak or stand without showing pain, even slightly, you need to get help. If your pain is showing on your face, you need to get help. And most importantly, IF YOUR PAIN DOES NOT RESPOND TO 1-2 TYLENOL OR IBUPROFEN, YOU NEED TO GET HELP.

Your period cramps should make you grumpy. Your period cramps should make you feel a little icky and tired. Your period cramps should make you feel your insides existing/moving a bit and a twinge of nerves that makes you groan slightly then the "pain" should stop there, NOTHING MORE.

If your cramps put you on the floor but you make believe you're the captain of a ship who has just been stabbed and has to hide it to fight on, and you force yourself to power through the day, please understand: you are not okay, that does not make you okay. Just because you can power through the pain doesn't mean you aren't sick. If you have to force yourself through any basic task beyond the effort it takes you to do when you aren't on your period, and I am holding your face and looking you in the eye as I say this because I need you to hear me: You aren't normal. You don't 'just have bad cramps'. You are sick and you need to get help.

Now most people will tell you if your cramps are beyond a 3 out of 10 on the pain scale, you should see a doctor. While this is usually true, you have to consider chronic pain CAN AND WILL BREAK YOUR PAIN SCALE. Most people will only compare pain they currently feel to pain they may experience one day but probably never will. "Sure these cramps feel bad now, but if I had a leg amputated with no anesthesia, that would hurt WAY worse, so this pain can't be that bad-" No. Your pain is what it is, objectively, full stop. My cramps were at a 10 out of 10 every. Single. Time. And nobody told me claiming they were a 6-8 because I thought to myself 'what if I lose a limb one day?' was completely wrong. 10 pain is 10 pain. And if there's something that hurts worse than that, guess what. The thing you are experiencing right now is still a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale. Just because you experience it every month doesn't mean it's magically not as bad is it is. And if your pain is worse than a 3 out of 10, you need to get help.

Now when I say get help, I mean find the root cause of your pain. You can't just throw drugs and hormones at it without knowing what it causing your pain. Endometriosis, fibroids, pcos, cancer, adenomyosis, polyps, thyroid issues, there is always a cause. And if you leave it untreated, it will grow and get worse to the point where it resists treatment and the drugs and hormones you've been throwing at it for years don't work anymore. You have to find a doctor that will investigate. If your doctor tells you you 'just have bad cramps' get a new doctor. I know you've been told that but please hear me: no one ever just has bad cramps. A healthy human body doesn't spontaneously cause itself pain so bad you can't stand up; there is ALWAYS a cause.

I was sick for more than 15 years. My entire life was put on hold and now I'm in my late 20s trying desperately to play catch up for everything I missed. I want to pick up 12yo me, spin her around, and tell her she doesn't have to die before she finally stops hurting. I don't want anyone to suffer the same fate I did simply because everyone told them they were normal. A little twinge of pain here and there is normal, suffering is not. I promise you your pain is real, it is not normal, and dear heavenly day I am begging you you need to get help now.

TL;DR: There is no such thing as 'just bad cramps.' If you feel anything more than grumpy, icky, and pain greater than a 3 out of 10, you need to find out what's wrong with you before it gets worse.

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I'm so pissed right now. I know that fabric has been declining in quality for a while but I just bought new pajamas from kmart and they are literally see through. Not just through one layer of fabric either; I can see through the leg, that is, through 2 layers of fabric. These aren't clothes. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have strained soup through cheesecloth thicker than these pants. These are men's flannel pajamas, the kind people wear in winter, and they are made if shittier thinner fabric than even the most bargain bin bullshit halloween costumes. This "flannel" feels like plastic and is thinner than a chux wipe. Why is this even for sale.

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A 14 year old girl flushing her miscarriage down the toilet can be charged with mutilating a corpse, but keeping a dead woman on life support for 120 days then cutting her open to extract a 2 pound fetus because her dead body was decaying too fast to sustain the pregnancy any longer is not only legal but compelled by law. America/the world/men hate women so much.

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genuinely one of the worst things that’s happened to television in the last few years (exacerbated by streaming services) is death of Filler. going from 20 episodes to 8 because “we didn’t really need that episode where the main characters went to the beach right? it had no long lasting effect” but we DID!!! we needed to see how they act without the Big Bad Plot and to establish the dynamics between the characters and lay in the sun (do they forget sunscreen? how do they react to a thieving seagull? do they get buried in the sand or do they do the burying?). the plot isn’t everything. the action doesn’t hit as hard without the quiet moments. give us character development and our little scenes back

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The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

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A good rule of thumb for AI is "would you trust a trained pigeon to do this?"

"We trained a pigeon to recognise cancerous cell clusters and somehow they're really good at it" okay great, that's something that could plausibly be a thing.

"We trained a pigeon to recognise good CV:s and left it in charge of sorting through all our job applications" uh perhaps consider not doing that.

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Goddddd I hate Zelda's stupid fucking dress in TotK. You're telling me that a flimsy dress with beads and ornaments and decorations and shit makes for a decent battle outfit?? When her old field outfit is right there???? But nooo, Zelda HAS to be in her stupid sacrificial white dress and she HAS to be running around a battlefield in fucking sandals and she HAS to lose her smarts, her intelligence, her curiosity, and become nothing more than a fucking caricature of the role she was forced into all her life, a role that nearly destroyed her inside and out, a role she could have left behind to grow into something new.

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Hi for some reason it didn't send as an ask before and just got posted to my blog.

Anyway, one thing that always bothered me was the four near-identical "Demon King? Secret Stone?" cutscenes at the end of each temple.

How would you rewrite these cutscenes?

I HATE THOSE CUTSCENES SO MUCH YOU HAVE NO IDEA

Okay. So.

Final battle with the Demon King.

What happened is a vicious battle, Rauru's sealing, everyone collapsing, and gloom spreading.

They need to be comprehensible enough on their own that you can get them in any order, but they also need to give you different information every time you talk to them.

The Rito sage recalls the heat of battle, specifically because he's faced all sorts of foes, but never one as horrifically outmatching as the Demon King. You see snippets of the fight. You see fragments of what Ganon's power is like at its peak. He pledges Tulin his ferocity, since his alone won't be enough to face the Demon King.

The Zora sage recalls Rauru's sealing, how much it shocked her, both in the king's ability and his commitment to the ultimate sacrifice. You see snippets as he makes that final choice and figure out more about the arm. She pledges Sidon her fortitude.

The Goron sage recalls everyone's battle injuries, because as a Goron, he's never felt so weak. You see snippets of people dying so you know their ultimate end. He pledges Yunobo his power.

The Gerudo sage recalls the burst of gloom that drenched the depths, shocked because of how even sealed, Ganon continued to harm those around him. You see snippets of the depths falling into decay. She pledges Riju her resilience.

Mineru is the one that threads all these together. Rather than snippets, you see the full cinematic experience with voices rather than voiceovers, as she lends Link a piece of her soul to convey the whole event, and she pledges Link her own spirit to fight alongside him.

Also. "Demon King? Secret Stone?" REWORD IT A LITTLE.

That one can be Tulin's. He hops on one foot to look at his ankle after, then almost falls over before Link steadies him.

Sidon: "I don't understand. What Demon King?" Concerned, holds his trident like a scepter. Link puts a hand on his shoulder.

Yunobo: "Never heard of a Secret Stone before..." Pokes his Secret Stone, curious. Link leans over to look at it as he does.

Riju: "Your words don't mean much as they are. I need a little more information." Thumbs her new earring, gives a little smile to Link at the end, who nods back.

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Me about Alfred and Leslie to the batfam fandom.

Because people love to criticize Bruce and then turn around to say that "Alfred is a saint". Really? Because Bruce's issues, his terrible mental health and his difficulty to open up to others, are the result of his education. He was 8 years old, it was not his responsibility to take himself to therapy to deal with the trauma, it was not his responsibility to teach himself how to heal and accept to love others. And, yes, now that he is an adult, it's his responsibility to heal, but when he was a child, it was his guardians'.

So, here it is, the post explaining how Leslie and Alfred fucked up Bruce.

Leslie Thompkins: only shows up to point your failures out

So, a lot of people don't know, or don't remember, but Bruce wasn't left in Alfred's custody. It may have changed with the newest timelines, but it wasn't the case before. No, after his parents' death, Bruce was put in the custody of his father's colleague and best friend, Leslie Thompkins. "But, Artie, Bruce lived with Alfred" you are right. Leslie had custody of Bruce, but she did not have him live with her, she left him at the manor with Alfred, and she did not live with him. And when did she, the one the state gave Bruce to, came to visit him?

Well, Leslie is shown to come to see Bruce for three reasons: when he is too sick for Alfred to deal with it himself, when he is sick but making it difficult for Alfred to deal with him, and when he is in trouble at school and they call his guardian. Can you see the pattern? That's right, she shows up when Bruce acts up. It's a bit much to say that the comics writers implied this, I don't believe they did, but we know now children acts up when they are trying to get attention. Without realizing it, the writers gave us Bruce acting up to have his surrogate mother's attention. Because Bruce does see Leslie as his surrogate mother, even as an adult he still tells people he sees her as a mother.

By the way, this was shown to us through multiple flashbacks through Batman's publishing history. And when these flashbacks happen, Leslie often makes a comment that Bruce was a difficult child to raise. Like, girl, shut the fuck up, you barely were there to raise him. And you are putting the blame on him for trying to get attention when you were neglecting him?

But, now, let's talk about the other issue with this and Leslie. Leslie interacted with Bruce during his upbringing principally when he was acting up, so she principally showed up only to reprimand him. This must have left some scars on Bruce's psyche. Like, his guardian only shows up to reprimand him, he must have felt unlovable. What? We are telling me in my earpiece that Bruce still believe as an adult he is unlovable.

Actually, I'm going to be very critical of Leslie, because she is VERY critical of Bruce, like he cannot do anything right. She is against Batman and thinks he is too violent, which she has the right to. But she will look out for more reasons to argue with him. Like in Knightfall where she is supposed to listen and help orphans that were victims of a kidnapping, but she is more focused on using their accounts to paint Batman in a bad light (Batman who is NOT BRUCE at this point, but she doesn't know that) Or during War Games where she put the blame of everything on Bruce, every crime and murder is his fault, and she is very vocal about it. Finally, she makes Stephanie fakes her death to teach a lesson to Bruce about letting children fight as his side (totally ignoring how he has been trying to make Steph stops and also tried to kill himself after bringing Steph to her, something that Barbara had to put a stop to herself because he was determined). And in No's Man Land, she even tells him she is afraid of becoming like him, making him to be the monster in her nightmare. She blames him for trying to make her "sink" to "his level", she is straight degrading him as inferior to her and corrupting her in a way. What a great mother.

And there's Bruce Wayne: Murderer? The title tells you what it is about. The batfam at large doesn't believe Bruce is guilty, but there are still some doubts, so they are working their ass off to find the truth. Well, Leslie, she immediately thinks Bruce did it, and when Alfred tells her that Bruce didn't, she tells him to stop excusing him, that they knew it would happen. She refuses to think, even for one second, that Bruce is innocent. And then, she goes to see him in jail to show him how disgusted in him she is, and that she told him she wouldn't be here for him anymore if he killed. I like to think this is the last straw for Bruce, because after that he goes full breakdown, where he escapes prison and thinks Bruce Wayne shouldn't exist anymore, only Batman. He is so mentally unwell in this, and everytime Leslie is there, I fell so bad for him.

I'm so mad at Leslie because nobody either call her out on how she treats Bruce. She is always painted as if she's right and "how hard it must have been for her to raise him, this mentally traumatized kid" (the same shit people tell me about my abusive mother raising me, like being a mentally ill kid means your parents get a free pass at treating you like shit because "it's hard", people care more about "how hard" it was for the guardians than for the kid) She thinks the worst of him, and she keeps telling him, her traumatized surrogate son that is suicidal and hates himself, that he was a burden to raise and he is to blame for anything bad happening to the people he loves... wait, no, to everyone around him. This qualifies as psychological abuse, btw.

Alfred Pennyworth: NOT a better father than Batman

Let's talk about the man y'all call a saint now. It's kind of incredible how Bruce will be criticized by the fandom for not adopting Dick earlier, when the context is pretty complicated (At first, it was literally not legal for an unmarried man to adopt a child. As the time changed, they changed the reasoning for Dick not wanting to be adopted. Bruce respecting that is him being a good guardian, but there's also how Bruce thinks Dick deserves a better father), but Alfred is called a saint, or a better father than Bruce, when he raised Bruce while keeping the butler/master distance between them. By doing this, he made it clear to Bruce, while raising him, that he wasn't family. Of course, Bruce still saw him as such, but he got the message that it was something he should keep to himself.

And when you add to this butler/master how Alfred brought up how he was doing this to honor Bruce's parents, how Bruce needed to make his parents' proud, how he needed to honor the Wayne's name and legacy when Bruce did not give a shit about it, it really increases the distance. Growing up, Bruce must have felt like he was just a job at time for Alfred. With Dick, he only develops a fear that Bruce and him doesn't have a relationship anymore now that he is an adult AFTER he becomes Nightwing and has a fight with Bruce. There were no thoughts about Bruce and him failing out once he was an adult before he became Nightwing. But Bruce must have believed that once he was an adult, Alfred would leave if he didn't keep him as his employee. When Bruce ran away to train, he probably thought Alfred would be gone when he would be back.

Also, Alfred complaining about Bruce not going to therapy when he didn't take him WHEN HE WAS HIS GUARDIAN is so hypocritical. He criticizes when Bruce doesn’t open enough to his kids, but he raised Bruce with a master/servant dynamic and barely vocalizes he views him as his son. It has even been shown that Alfred's way to deal with being worried about Bruce's wellbeing is by building more distance between them, either by getting very formal and cold, full "I'm just an employee", or by physically leaving. He also often has threatened to quit working for Bruce, which send the message that Bruce is just an employer, not his son.

And I'm being nice here, because I'm not talking about all the time Alfred drugged Bruce without his consent, which is fucked up. Or the worst thing I know Alfred did in canon, which was to pay actors to play a mugging looking similar to his parent's death, so Batman would come to help, only to get beat up. Yep, Alfred has once pay people to beat up Bruce to teach him that Batman was a bad idea. Like I said, I'm being nice and throwing that piece of canon away.

A penny for my thoughts

The most heartbreaking about this is how much Bruce loves them. They are his parents, they are his mother and father. He thinks of them as such in the comics, and losing them is nightmarish for him. He will never stand up for himself in front of them or call out their behavior toward him, because he respects them to much for "putting up with him", something they put themselves in his head, even if they didn't mean it. Leslie is made the president of a lot of charities and organizations Bruce created. He is way too good for them sometimes, but he was taught BY THEM that he wasn't someone easy to love, so he takes what he can. He doesn't even believe he deserves them, but he certainly deserved better.

And maybe Bruce thought he didn't deserve to adopt Dick and be his father because of how he was raised, with people he saw as his parents holding him at arms length. With getting the message again and again from them that he wasn't family to them, but a burden or a job to do. That they wouldn't be there if it weren't for the respect they had for Thomas and Martha Wayne. In a twisted way, he thought he didn't deserve a family.

He has trouble communicating because he had nobody to show him how it is done, but he tries because he wants his kids to have a better life than him. It's why he took Dick and later Jason in, to gave them a better life than he had, to make them better men than him. He tries to give them what he didn't have, but the scars hold him back sometimes.

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#we are all posting on a half-dead hellsite about a handful of fictional superheroes#who are all written by various creators with different interpretations and biases#and who are all employed by a soulless corporation who values the quantity of comics they sell over the quality of stories they tell#nobody here is winning#so stop feeding your ego by looking down on how other people find comfort in characters#so long as their fan content does not cause tangible harm#get a grip#discourse and media criticism is one thing#unnecessary negativity is something entirely apart#batman#batfam#jason todd#dick grayson#cassandra cain#talia al ghul#bruce wayne#red hood#nightwing#red robin#tim drake#spoiler#stephanie brown#black bat#duke thomas#the signal#dc comics#dc fans (tags from @eddiebloombug)

all comic fans know how to do is: develop superiority complexes based on their personal perceptions of a character, eat hot chip, and lie

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One day the Justice League is fighting yet another Big Bad

It's only been a few weeks of Nightwing as an official League Member and this is his first time fighting alongside the Justic League and not young justice

Dick and Bruce's relationship is getting better. But fighting side by side again is both an adjustment and like stepping into a pair of well worn boots

The other members are amazed at how well they fight together, admiring how good of a fighter Dick is, how serious he's taking it all for how young he is

And then during a lull in the coms chatter they hear it

"Holly guacamole Batman"

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I know in fanon and some canon people talk about how Gotham would be such a better place if Bruce killed the joker, but those same people rarely consider the possibility that 1) killing the Joker WOULD improve things but 2) it’s entirely likely that doing so, especially when combined with the recent trauma of Jason’s death, would send Bruce off the deep end and 3) this would leave Gotham without a functional Batman, without philanthropist Bruce Wayne, and would deeply impact the Justice League’s operations and beyond.

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So I just watched Panda Redd's new video about how the Joker accidentally made this genius chess move by killing Jason and can't be touched by Batman

so what if Bruce was just a little more unhinged by it

Joker needs funds kidnaps Bruce Wayne takes him to a hide out

Joker then makes the mistake of being alone with Bruce and in the course of insulting the Bats, insults the memory Robin (Jason Todd)

Bruce, who for the last few months lost his son, almost lost Dick from it, had Barbara shot and paralyzed, her father his friend James Gordan kidnapped and tortured, and has been taking out his grief on the criminal underground because he couldn't get Justice for Jason and it started this spiral, just snaps and goes full John Wick on his ass

Bruce: Go ahead and tell, but no one will believe you. Getting the crap beaten out of you by Gotham's Brucie Wayne, who would lose in a fist fight with a fly? You'll just seem like even more of a joke than you are.

Hours later Bruce turns up a few miles from the warehouse in a new suit from a hidden stash and explains to the police how Batman rescued him

Police see the bloody mess of the still somehow breathing meat pile that is Joker and accept it because he was going around bragging about killing Robin and Batman has been getting more violent towards criminals lately honestly the guy had it coming

so like a few years later the Joker tries to rob a gala and freezes when he spies a familiar face Bruce with his stupid Brucie smile that doesn't touch his eyes

Bruce: Oh did somebody hire a party clown?

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