Mandy, Wondering...

He asked: "Oh, was she the only son or something before *waves hand*?" and I was like, warily, no she has two brothers. And he responded with a great deal of confusion: "Then what's their problem?!?!"

When he found and married my mom, he was nearly 45 and they had so much trouble conceiving that he went to a Guanyin temple supposedly "magical" for praying for children. When I was born (not a son, also an only child until now), my mom said, "when you prayed at the temple did you ask for a son?" He said, "Aiya, everyone is asking for sons, so I said any gender is okay. If I asked for a son, maybe we wouldn't have gotten a child because Guanyin's son quota is already used up. Do you want that to happen?" My mom laughed for days about "son quota" and continues to tell people about it today, but her honest answer was: "Any child is okay."

Jokes on them. They didn't specify a gender, so Guanyin Ma gave them a non-binary child!

More seriously: my dad doesn't care about sons. When I told my parents that I wouldn't marry or have children, I thought he might be disappointed, but he wasn't. Then again, maybe I should have expected that, given he tried to become a monk at 18 🤪 I think he said the thing about sons to poke fun at people who care too much about sons because he frankly thinks it's all a bit ridiculous. In his eyes, a child is a child, so what's the point in caring about gender? If the child "changes" gender, does it make a difference?

The mirror replied "To whom?"

"The miller who made the flour for my bread," the queen would say, or "Whoever spun the thread my shawl was made of".

The second time, she says "To the King," and she is pleased to see herself once more.

The third time, she says "To the Royal Advisor," and is once more satisfied to see herself.

The fourth time, she says "To the scribe who takes the King's letters." She is shown the man's wife. And she seethes, but quiets herself, for it is only right that a man loves his wife.

The fifth time, she says "To the Court Wizard," and is shown the man's departed mother as he remembers her from his youth, radiant and smiling and warm and larger than life.

The tenth time, she says "To the Stable Master," and is shown the fastest horse in the stable, majestic and free as the wind even in captivity

"To the baker," she is shown the man's daughter, young and adorable and full of joy and laughter.

"To the artist who did my portrait," she is shown a painting of a woman done by the man's teacher, who he still looks up to now that he is well established himself.

"To the Royal Knight," she is surprised but not displeased to see the castle's entire guard force in the middle of doing drills.

The one hundredth time she asks the mirror, and it asks her "to whom?" she once again says, "To me." And she does the same the one hundred and second, and again and again and again.

It's this piece, titled The Banality of the Banality of Evil. Because on first glance, you're like. Yeah, okay, it's obvious what it's saying. Even nazis, even evil people can appreciate beauty, too. But then you learn its name, and suddenly the interpretation shifts a bit. The idea that evil is banal has in itself become banal. my first response to seeing a nazi on a bench is "oh it's about the banality of evil" and not "jesus christ there's a nazi on the bench."

what I find really interesting is how the way this is drawn (especially considering who drew it) the art style seems extremely deliberate. This type of nostalgic landscape painting is very reminiscent of nazi art and specifically, Hitler's art.

Nazis were extremely judgmental of "entartete Kunst" (degenerate art). Bansky's usual work very well fall into this category! So for him to go for this style of painting in particular is another choice I find very interesting, because I can see some people react to this painting with some variation of "oh, I didn't know he could actually draw! I thought he is a hack but he is a real artist!" - and that is where they would agree with the Nazis.

Those beans met that clay when it was soft. The tilemaker saw several paw prints in his work, lightly splayed in that "ready for business" pose. Heck, maybe he helped the cat make them. And then he fired that tile with them in there. It'd be the work of a minute to remake the tile fresh at that point, and they chose not to.

But then, we have another craftsman, laying tiles in his new local church. Perhaps he finds this delight in his tiles for the day, but perhaps his good friend John Tilemaker comes over to him with glee and shows him the special tile that his Gyb helped him make.

And William the Tiler takes this bean-blessed tile in his hands, and he knows that it is good. So it becomes part of the floor of his church. But look closer. He laid this just to one side, by a walkway but not in it. Visible, but a little bit less likely to be worn away.

the "milkman" is a common figure in stories depicting a woman's infidelity and adulterous affair.

this implies that the ability to provide milk would both decrease the likelihood of a man abandoning his wife and children, as it would eliminate the need for leaving to get milk AND would secure that man's marriage, as his wife would have no need to seek milk from an extraneous source.

therefore, all men should produce milk, through various means such as:

- being a cow

- being an almond

- being a woman

- being a coconut

- being in the omegaverse

- being an oat

(list is exemplary and not finite)

So something I've noticed as I've been writing, especially when it comes to Ratchet.

His modern depictions tend to paint him as the embodiment of "Nice if sometimes cranky grandpa who also served in the trenches".

Like he's the granddad who you never really took seriously when you were a kid because he was old and gentle and cranky and snuck you money or took you out for ice cream behind your parents' backs. But then you get older and someone tries to hurt your family and that's when you learn that Granddad's got 50 confirmed and is all about that action.

And you know what? The fact that those vibes come from the Medic character? I love it.

My dad and both grandfathers all actually did serve in the military, and all three would tell you that of the three people you should never piss off, the medics are top of that list, followed by Payroll and Kitchen staff. So Ratchet being this kind of a medic? Totally checks out.

And we have Animated to thank for this one.

Because if I recall correctly, G1 Ratchet wasn't really like that. He's stern but caring. At most he can occasionally be cynical and sarcastic, and honstly I think at least half of that was Don Messick's performance. I don't recall him really showing up during the Unicron Trilogy - his position was filled by Red Alert.

And I don't even know what happened to him in the Bayverse movies. I know he existed in those, but he looked like ass with that neon green that made him look like he was about to puke every scene, and then he dies. I'll be honest, I don't remember a single thing about him aside from those facts.

But then Animated turns him into the Grumpy Old Man and a jaded war veteran. I'm not sure this actually happened in the writers room, but he very much gives the impression of someone had asked 'what would a medic who's survived millions of years of war actually be like?' and the answer wound up being 'Tired. Very, very tired. With PTSD.'

Prime then took that and doubled down on that one. He's grumpier. He complains more, with his catchphrase even being 'Bulkhead, I needed that'. He spends most of the series very much unhappy about having humans around. Just really smacking you upside the head with the 'grumpy old man' thing.

And then there are the odd episodes where you're reminded, 'right, this guy survived millions of years of civil war'. He's not some harmless old doctor, he's a veteran who will not hesitate to throw hands if you threaten his team.

And then my personal favorite, IDW1's version. Which is probably the most extreme example of the 'granddad who served' vibes. I swear he's the embodiment of 'what does endless war do to the soul of a doctor'. He's someone who, under all the sarcasm, is a mech who's bone tired and deeply traumatized by everything and by MTMTE/LL doesn't want to fight anymore.

Doesn't want to.

Not can't.

There's a big difference.

People, both in and out of universe, often forget that he can throw down. Then he picks up a gun and everyone remembers this old medic spent millions of years in active warzones.

And I think that's why we love this version of Ratchet, and why this has become the default of what people think of when talking about Ratchet. The cranky combat medic grandfather who has seen some shit fits just way too well for this franchise, and once you see it it's hard to go back to what he was before.

He's the one who's been stitching everyone back together for millions of years.

He's the living reminder that every heroic battle often leaves somebody on an operating table afterwards.

Optimus is usually the one carrying the burdens of leadership.

But Ratchet?