That they even pretended to side with us in the first place is good, though. It means they expect us to win.

There are far right terrorists threatening to kill employees at Target, they removed the Pride section for their safety

And how, exactly, does pulling things from the website make people safer?

No. They caved, and by caving, they actually made employees less safe, because by caving, they told the people who use violence as a lever that it works.

There were other options, things like "the videos you make of you destroying displays or threatening employees are now Exhibit A," and standing behind and in front of their employees, including their queer employees, by pressing charges against people threatening or enacting violence, for a fucking start. Making clear that what these people are doing when they trash displays or threaten employees is criminal and will be treated as criminal is the first, most necessary step. All this has done is told people like Matt Walsh, who is specifically saying that violence is the only language they [meaning queer people and their allies] understand, that threats of violence work, because Target will roll over for them.

I know y'all have dealt with bullies before. Have you ever, ever gotten a bully to leave you alone by giving in?

Because I never have. I've only ever gotten them to fuck off by standing up to them.

And before someone says it:

• I have employees. Right now.
• I worked traditional retail for 20 years, from grocery to big box to cellular to retail banking.
• Our company goes to high-risk events, including Pride events.
• I've been doxxed repeatedly and had "credible threats" to my life over our company. We've had to change our lives to protect ourselves.
• So yes, I do understand the risk, and we do have to engage in this kind of calculus.

Is it fucking bullshit to ask someone to risk their life? Yes. It's especially bullshit when Target pays as little as they do. At least the people going to Pride with us this year will be making $25-27/hr. (Sorry, not hiring right now.)

But caving to bullies does not make their employees safer. All it does is say, "threats and violence work, so you can continue to use them, they will work."

The idea that doing this somehow protected their employees and customers, especially in the long run, is simply wrong.

Next review of course is A Link to the Past mixed with Link Between Worlds (since the latter is a continuation of the former) but I’m thinking of doing something kinda different where I’ll upload the article in progress and keep updating it. It is going to be around 50 monsters long and that’s still the condensed version.

But yes I have encyclopedic knowledge and strong opinions about Zelda creature design without ever having properly played a Zelda game before. STRONG OPINIONS!!!

PERFECT ANGEL

PRECIOUS BABY

I DON’T KNOW..........WIFE?

You say Zelda II “wasn’t well received at the time” but it was actually an incredibly popular, well-loved game, and everyone I knew thought it was amazing. It wasn’t until the third game came out that people decided that Zelda II was crap because it was “different.”

shounen anime is all well and good, but have you considered the following?

• chronic vase-breaker link breaks a vase, and is subsequently hounded by six attractive people who need him to flirt with women in order to pay back his debt

1. Link is, apparently, Literate.  This is a tremendous surprise to me.

2.  You, my good personage, are a GENIUS, becuase somehow Link “Adeventure Is My Middle Name”  McStabbington somehow screw up every shonen anime but stays weirdly on-track for shoujo.  For instance:

• A Cat hands some Magical Bling that gives the wearer a kickass outfit to Link in exchange for him dealing with some monsters and making some similarly exctingly dressed friends. Link can’t actually pronounce “Moon Prism Power Make Up!” but “HYAAAHGH!!” seems to get the Job done.
  This is honestly a pretty typical Teusday for Link.
• Local Homeless Weirdo Link is chilling out in the woods when a mudslide happens to his stuff, and local highschoolers take pity on him and invite him into thier mansion, only for him to discover thier terrible curse- if they’re hugged  by someone of the ‘opposite’ gender, they’re transfomed into an animal from the chinese Zodiac.  Shenanigans Ensue when Link, the universe’s Most Androgynous Twink Who Only Knows Gender By Reputation, completely screws up that Dynamic as whether or not the individual changes comes down to what Gender they percive Link as.  Fortunately for them Link is like.  So Good at breaking Curses.
• Chronic Ancient Library Looter Link opens up a cool-looking book becuase apparently he can read, and like, a zillion cards and a very irritable stuffed animal fly out of it.  The Loud Toy demands he find all the cards again, and fortunately for Keroberos, Link is The Best as insane Fetch Quests.
• Someone sends Horrible Goblin Child Link off to a prestigious Boarding School in an attempt to domesticate him, but True Cross Academy has a secret: The Night Class is Vampires that are attending school for some godforsaken reason! Masochism, probably.  Can The Human and Vampire Classes ever really live together? The answer is a resounding YES after both band together in terror against the explosives-happy, sword-carrying, urn-smashing, shrieking weirdo that just enrolled. 
  
  
• The only Shoujo that Link immediately Derails is the one where a weird critter with a cute sing-song voice attempts to get him to maka contract.  Link, no stranger to dulicitous creepy little things, immediately shanks Kyubey for the XP.

So apparently there’s a new Leg of Zeg game out and Link got an engineering degree while I wasn’t looking. Good for him! Let’s talk more Anime:

-A mysterious broadcast signal from the moon turns all humans on earth into stone! Several thousand years later, veteran Time Traveler Link pops out of his stone cocoon, decides that ‘doing it the long way’ sucks, and stomps off to rebuild civilization using random garbage and looney tunes physics.

-A terrible new form of space weapon called a “Mobile Suit” has been created- these child-controlled behemoths cut swathes of destruction as they wage a territorial space war, impervious to all but the most powerful weapons, and that one kid carrying a frankly improbable number of explosives and a smartphone that can manipulate inertia and electromegnetism (??), riding around on what appears to be a rocket-powered tractor.

-While out at summer camp Child of Destiny Link is suddenly transported to the Digital World, where an adorable little blob of an animal declares itself Link’s Digimon Partner! No stranger to having a Weird, Loud little critter following him around, Link is slightly perplexed when the fat orb wants to fight the enormous monster on his behalf. Silly Digimon- that’s HIS job! Grappling hooks his ass up to Devimon’s castle and beats him to death with a tennis racket he found on the way.

-A mysterious book called a DEATHNOTE falls out of the sky in front of Link, who carefully reads the rules, and shrugs, because if he REALLY needs someone dead, He’s going to want to do it in person, and Link has never given a shit about the police. He’s gonna hang onto this book, because it looks like an important quest item, and Ryuk languishes in Links Inventory for the rest of the Series.

-The barbaric battles where legendary and historical figures are summoned to fight on behalf of Mages known as the Grail Wars are rudely interrupted when Link sees Iskandar, assumes it’s Ganon AGAIN, and beats his way through the lineup to get to him, even besting Gilgamesh by putting the king’s inventory skills to shame.

-Salt Middle School gets a new transfer student and Shigeo Kageyama is initially distraught by his teacher assigning HIM to show the New Kid around, but turns out, Link ALSO enjoys Milk, long amicable silences and complaining about getting into stupid battles with the multiverse’s most magically overpowered and emotionally constipated Dumb asses. It’s nice, to have a reliatively uncomplicated friendship for once.

Not only is Link specifically literate in pretty much every game (including BotW and TotK), in one of them (ALttP) he learns a whole forgotten language just by picking up a book in the library.

In almost every game he’s at least capable of reading signs, anyway. It isn’t clear if the Zelda 1/Zelda 2 Link(s) are (he never has to read anything himself, he just has to present letters to others) although in Zelda 1 he does pick up a book which upgrades his magic wand and I think most folks assume that he has to read it in order to do so.