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ojou-sama that married into a commoner family but kept her pride

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Cursed Hiroi bean plushie that drinks all your onikoroshi and empties your wallet

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Lora from Xenoblade Chronicles 2! ✨

Comm'd by @sam1tron! Thank you so much for the support! 💖

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I saw this tweet and couldn't get it out of my head all day

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Mythra

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Barbenheimer: Hell is Real and We Built It

Last night I decided to commit to the meme of watching both Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day. I had a bit of a mix up with the movie theaters, turns out that constructing movie theaters following the philosophy of Californian Starbucks is actually detrimental, but I digress. I was fortunate enough to have a two hour break between both of these films in order to let them properly digest. In fact, they’re still being broken down as I write them, so my thoughts are a bit more sporadic than I would usually have them when committing my thoughts to text. I have nothing but good things to say about both films, plotwise, I’ll try to stay away from any major spoilers, focusing more on themes rather than the story aspects of both stories. The Oppenheimer section will be riddled with spoilers, but I will mention that when we get there so you may skip that section.

Barbie was a bit of a shocker to me. I’m no stranger to stories that like to get on their soapbox, but Barbie was strikingly different. I wasn’t annoyed at the message the same way I was in regards to The Alchemist or Netflix’s Sabrina: The Teenage Witch. I make the connection between those three as they are incredibly loud about what they’re trying to tell you, they break a very fundamental rule of writing I hold very close to me: Show, don’t tell. None of those three tell as much as line up a series of megaphones directly next to your ear and yell their message, but Barbie executed that in an oddly entertaining way that felt real, felt genuine. When watching the characters loudly exclaim the issues of society, it’s not the writers telling me that patriarchal attitudes make life as a woman difficult, it’s someone’s mom venting to her friends, it’s raw.

The movie very loudly exclaims the issues of American, hell, Global patriarchal issues and the division it causes in men and the problems it causes women. Any system in which one group is the one in control inevitably oppresses the other while creating mass expectations for the oppressor that in turn are a source of anxiety and depression. Being in the position of power in turn chains us from any form of self-expression and creates societal expectations for the oppressor group. We refer to this issue in men as toxic masculinity (TM).

This is the opposite side of what we’re going to call Testosterone Poisoning (TP). TP is a voluntary and conscious thing, me taking action to look like a refrigerator with limbs because it’s what I want and it’s what makes me happy is entirely different to (TM). TM is doing things not because it’s what makes me happy, but because of the societal expectations that have been imposed upon me. To put it in layman’s terms, TP leads to himbos and TM leads to Andrew Tate. TP is self-actualization through masculinity, being masculine is your personality, you show up to the party driving the biggest fucking obnoxious vehicle but still give the right of way because in your meathead brain God has constructed you to be the epitome of goodness and virtue. You are the second coming of Christ with 3 scoops of protein. TM is none of that, as it fails at the act of self-actualization and instead follows the concept of conformity, you are no longer Todd, you are a man.

Which leads to my next point, why is that bad? It’s the dissolution of identity. Mike works out because he’s Mike, he likes lifting heavy objects because it’s a way for him to cool off after work. Todd works out to pick up chicks because some dude on the internet told him women like huge arms(which studies have actually disproven, women actually prefer you have a massive dumpy) and that he needs to have sex to be a man. I’m not going to say much other than Ken himself doesn’t actually like the image of what a man is in a patriarchal society and states he didn’t even like it at all nor that he found joy in it. The expectations of society to fit in to a specific gender norm/expectation made him unhappy, even if he was in a position of power. Combating the issue for women is just as problematic, though. Barbie and the mother acknowledge this in the end, as Barbie realizes that following these societal expectations of what female empowerment are accidentally have become her own chains. Society itself is a prison that we created ourselves because every idea of what we should be is shoved down our throats. You cannot be happy with yourself because of society's own expectations and fighting those expectations confronts you with more expectations of what the counterculture should be. If you’re a woman, in any position, say astronaut, you’re no longer just an astronaut. You’re a role model, you’re someone that all little girls should aspire to be. Anything you do will be judged because the society we live in simply does not want you to succeed.

Being happy with yourself in any society that does not see all as equal is simply not acceptable. As a man, you have to fulfill certain requirements to maintain that image of masculinity because it's expected of you, you are not yourself, you are a man, and you should act like one. As a woman, don’t you dare step out of line or we will find faults in you in every way possible. Don’t be single either, because you “aren’t complete” unless you’re in a relationship. Think about that for a second. Consider how many people online think that all their problems will be solved by having someone in their life and think about how many times you’ve heard the line “You complete me” in film. Again, society expects things from you, that you can’t self-actualize until you’re in a relationship. You’re not allowed to be happy until that American Nuclear Family ideology happens, because that’s what a happy ending *should* be, but is it? I’m not going to answer that for you, but finding out that I’m a massive Bible-Thumper and High Fantasy nerd did more for my mental health than any relationship I’ve been in.

I’m going to take a minute in regards to Allan(Michael Cera). Allan is perfect, Allan doesn’t abide by the gender norms, he is not “a man,” he’s Allan. Allan, if anything, is disgusted by the societal expectations of society and finds happiness in staying Allan. In a place where all the Kens choose to adopt the same personality, Allan retains himself as Allan and chooses to escape because that society is detrimental to his own self-being. I relate with Allan, it’s hard not to. Young boys are told not to play with dolls, like the color pink, or even grow their hair out sometimes, because it’s simply not “manly.” I’ve grown up with that, I’ve been told that having my hair at chest length is too girly and that I should cut it or even shave my head because that’s what guys do. Thankfully, there’s been a change in that, but you can see where I’m going with this. The patriarchy sucks. It’s a prison, for both men and women. Individuality is dead and the patriarchal attitudes don’t allow for people to exist for who they are, they must conform.

*Oppenheimer Spoilers*

Now that we’ve gone through that, let’s talk about Oppenheimer. I like to think we are all good, that no human is evil, but rather misguided, corrupted by the society in which we exist. Wars are never about good versus evil, they are conflicts of ideology. We can definitely argue that one side is “evil,” but any villain never considers themselves as such. No sane man would ever kill another willingly, yet, in war, it happens. We dehumanize the “enemy,” they are no longer people, they are rats, they are roaches, they are vermin. We do not kill, we eliminate the problem. War does not make heroes, it makes monsters.

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite for the sake of improving safety conditions in the creation of canals, but was labeled a “merchant of death” by the news as his explosives were used for war. Richard Gatling invented the gatling gun believing that it would diminish the need for large armies. Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project with the idea of creating one as a deterrence against the Nazis of ever using one on the basis of mutually assured destruction.

Oppenheimer fell into the same problem as his predecessors. He had revolutionized wars.

In one scene, they are discussing which places to target with nuclear weapons. Kyoto is immediately stricken off the list. Not for any particular reason other than one of the individuals there really likes vacationing there. The deaths of hundreds or thousands isn’t the problem. The problem is creating an inconvenience. The Japanese did some horrendous things during WWII, but what do random civilians have to do with anything? Nothing, and that was all they were worth. They are set pieces, they are not even a number.Their lives do not matter anywhere near as much as someone’s vacation being ruined. The atomic bomb created a massive gap in power, one so great that the so-called enemy isn’t even dehumanized, they are not even ants. Ants at least are knowingly exterminated when seen, but the lives of the Japanese people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t. War does not create heroes, it makes monsters.

The invention of the nuclear bomb created an arms race that the US is still economically recovering from. It created a world in which a fight between major powers dare not target each other out of fear of complete annihilation. A world where it’s no longer about strategy, manpower, or ideology, but who has the biggest bomb and how many of them? Oppenheimer and the researchers in the Manhattan Project had created a world in flames.

Both movies show that every act of villainy or evil is something we have fabricated. That much in the same way God has created us in his image, we have created the Devil in our own. We forge the same chains that bind us. The ones we use to dominate others, end up around our own necks. Every good intention paves another brick towards our own personal Hell, one we have already built. We’re just finding our way back home.

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Edelgard

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want to fall asleep under the stars(no bugs)

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Mikuu cute miku cute

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Started thinking about a setting where isekaied people are commonplace to the point where they were almost as common as elves and such and ended up bashing out an idea about it.

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500 years ago in the remote forests north of the Kingdom of Grant the demon Valgur was gathering power. His army grew in strength and it became clear that the world was in danger. This growing power had started to corrupt the Grand Azure river, the largest river on the continent. It was clear that not only Valgur army was a threat his very presence was.

Champions of the gods and kingdoms were too slow, while the Kingdom of Grant had prepared an army to face the demonic horde they had no way to mount an attack. However the deity of rivers and streams knew that if something was not done soon there would be dire consequences to the river and decided to to act. She decided to bring through a soul from another world to be her champion.

This worked, a young man from another world with his holy blade and companions of mostly attractive women made their way through the deep corrupted forest to defeat the demon and save the world. The hero Siegfried (Pronounced Jeeg-freed)(Real name Tanaka Kaoru) was hailed as a savior and founded a kingdom on the site of his victory near the source of the river along with a temple venerating the god that brought him to this world.

"If it worked last time why not again?"

100 years later a warlord was gathering in the mountains west of the kingdom the river god's former champion founded. Favoring Siegfried's Kingdom she decided to intervene once again, summoning yet another champion to defeat this warlord.

This too was quite effective and seeing this the God of streams and rivers saw this victory as an endorsement to this method. Why bother relying on champions from this world when summoning deceased and desperate souls from another world was all the easier and just as if not more effective?

It started infrequently. Once one of her champions was had died or were getting too old and there was a threat on the horizon she would summon another to take their place. But what the god saw as a threat became more wider in scope. Rather than being summoned to fight foes the worlds' heroes could not hope to match up against the people being summoned were tasked to stop a rampaging giant, intervene in a civil war, kill a necromancer before he ascended to lichdom.

These "threats" were becoming so frequent the god summoned more than one champion. These summonings over the centuries went from once every 50 or so years to 2-5 people a year. The strength of these champions also diminished as more were summoned too, Siegfried was a man of immense power but by the current year these people were barely stronger than an average rookie adventurer. The tasks bestowed upon them became more and more trivial too, some being asked simply to clear out a long abandoned shrine.

By now in lands around the River Kingdom it is not uncommon to meet a person from the other world. Most of these people are adventurers and for most within that profession they have at least one horror story working with these summoned "champions" (or "flotsam" as some have taken to calling them due to their link to the god of rivers). Some are arrogant, some naïve, some try too hard and some focus too hard on their "god given mission" but the smart ones rarely mention they're from another world.

However half disoriented young adults with no connections make easy marks for people looking to take advantage of someone as such it's not uncommon to find them dead in the forest, working off a debt they had been tricked into or completely destitute. While they're rarer in lands further afield some end up in cities far away due to wanderlust, or more commonly, debt slavery.

Not all do take advantage of them, veteran adventurers (some being flotsam themselves) help them, kind villagers and innkeepers look after ones that wander to their home until they settled in. The River Kingdom in particular make a concerted effort to aid these people due to their founder and patron god.

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in the year 2050, they will build orgrimmar in southern ohio. in upstate new york, they will build stormwind.

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a little bit of dinner in my life

a little bit of mah boi by my side

a little bit of spaghetti is all i need

a little bit of gay luigi? is what i see

a little bit of pingas in the sun

a little bit of pootis all night long

a little bit of lamp oil here i am

a little bit of rope makes me your bombs.

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A from Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed! ✨💖

Commissioned by GW_Comms! Thank you so much for the support! 💖

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Ivy

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I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE

She didn't have to be 80% the same character

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🐈🕊️