I fully understand that the preponderance of evidence is that George Lucas put absolutely zero thought into what Naboo’s culture was actually supposed to look like outside of what we see on screen, but as far as unintentionally effective worldbuilding goes, establishing that Naboo a. has a tradition of electing literal children as figurehead rulers of its planetary government, and b. apparently also has a tradition of assassinating these children with sufficient frequency that dressing up a bunch of other children as decoy targets has become standard operating procedure by the time of Padmé Amidala’s reign suggests that maybe the fact that this random backwater is a breeding ground for Sith Lords isn’t as unlikely as it initially appears.

#yes! this is what i’ve been saying! #i’ve always headcanoned that the reason they have child monarchs in the first place #is to try and discourage the assassination attempts #like #alright i know you’ve poisoned our last five queens #but this one’s an adorable child! #you wouldn’t poison a CHILD would you? #and even if you would no you wouldn’t #because ACTUALLY you’ve poisoned the decoy

#and like… headcanon part 2: if I were trying to discourage assassination attempts #you know who I’d recruit to be my handmaids and decoys? #that’s right: the daughters of my political rivals #you thought you poisoned the queen? #psych you idiot that’s the minister of finance’s niece #fuck it maybe that’s YOUR niece

#sure you haven’t seen her since the Queen ‘invited’ her to join the Royal retinue #but are you really gonna risk it? #better to just cool it on the poisonings for a bit isn’t it? #try out this fun new thing called ‘diplomacy’ i really think you’ll like it!

#and like– maybe they did cool it and Naboo as a society moved on from that era #and kept the trappings as a reminder of how far they’ve come #or maybe they didn’t and the whole system is just threats behind smiling faces #who knows! certainly not us outsiders! I’ve heard Naboo’s a peaceful society and very fond of diplomacy actually #and what a quaint little government they have! their queen’s fourteen i hear #how very… sweet (via @allogrim )

when people talk about writing ‘the next Lord of the Rings’ they think it’s all about the wars and the languages and the histories, and Aragorn brooding in the corner of an inn and the Balrog roaring in Moria and the ruins of Isengard, and that’s how we got Game of Thrones and several dozen cheap fantasy knock-offs every year, not to mention whatever nonsense the Amazon show is going to produce

but Tolkien’s wars and languages and histories stemmed from his love of creating - of words and history and mythos - and that love infuses into everything he writes, and if you miss that then there’s no way in hell you can replicate it

and the people who want to write the next Lord of the Rings because they want to write the next epic don’t get that the story is about the hobbits’ soft and simple lives and Bilbo’s poetry and Sam’s love language being food and Eowyn discovering hope after depression and Gandalf making fireworks for hobbits even if he is a literal angelic being, and Aragorn weeping over Boromir’s body and Theoden’s kindness to Merry, and Beregond betraying his most prized orders to save Faramir, and the unlikely friendship between Gandalf and Pippin, and the even unlikelier friendship between Legolas and Gimli, and Sam and Frodo singing to each other in Mordor, and Boromir sacrificing himself for the hobbits, and Sam’s simple love for Rosie, and the restoration of the Shire, and the friendship of the Fellowship surviving down through the ages, and peace after war and hope in darkness, and the love between a gardener and a gentleman pacifist being literally the only thing that saves Middle Earth

and that is why people who try to recreate Lord of the Rings by starting with war always get it wrong. you have to start with the love, or it’s nothing: just another empty history

The system is rigged. The advantages for the wealthy are immediate and endless.

“How can you not be angry?”

“I am angry,” the werewolf said. “But unlike you, I don’t have the luxury of showing it without being called a monster. Without someone taking it as a sign of proof that I need to be put down like a rabid dog, that I’m just like what the stories tell you.” 

“But everyone gets angry…that’s human.”

“Up until the point when you’re not human.”

such a wonderful metaphor for anyone Othered by society

Ive had this saved in my phone since April

The true AO3 experience is trying to remember a very specific fic you read some time between 2013 and 2019 but you can only remember two of the characters, a vague idea of the plot outside of one specific scene, and you have no clue what the tags could have been.

It recently came up in conversation with my toddler that some birds can talk, and this has caused her great concern.

See, we were talking about how movies are pretend and how in real life, animals don’t talk. I mentioned that there are some birds who talk a little bit, but not like the animals in movies, and she just looked at me like “???”

So I informed her that some kinds of parrots can copy sounds that people make, and can learn how to say words. I thought this would give her a giggle, as fun new facts often do, but she was just deeply perplexed and a little worried about this.

“Birds can talk?” “Do they ask questions?” “What do they say?” Why do they talk?” “Do chickens talk?” “What about Blue Jays?” “Why do some birds talk?” “How do they talk?” “Birds TALK???”

We showed her a video of a parrot doing the “Hello, pretty bird, give a kiss” thing, and she was dead silent the whole time, hugging her comfort pillow with her knees to her chest. We asked if she wanted us to turn it off, and she shook her head. But we also asked if she wanted to see another one, and she shook her head even harder.

I don’t know why it has distressed her so greatly to learn that some birds can mimic human speech; but then again, I don’t know why it doesn’t distress the rest of us more to know that some birds can mimic human speech.

I keep thinking about that post that’s like “The first person to hear a parrot talk was probably Not Okay.” Because that’s exactly what happened. She had never been introduced to the concept, and her entire worldview got SHOOK.

Part of why Ravens are considered Spooky Bad Things We Associate With The Faeries is because they can and do mimic human speech - but much, much better than a parrot. With a parrot, you can tell something is off about the sound. You can tell it doesn’t belong to a human. Ravens don’t sound like that, no, cause they’re overacheivers. (And passerines). They sound EXACTLY like the voice of whoever they are mimicking.

But more importantly they love the sound of human laughter. No one knows why. But it is totally, 100% possible, and it happens to this day, to walk along the paths in the Black Forest and suddenly hear a strange kind of giggling sound, or maybe even a very clear, definitely human sounding “hello?” “Hiiiii!” Or “let’s go!”.

However, it takes a lot of practice for them to copy sounds as perfectly as they do, so you’re equally likely to hear something that definitely sounds human-like, but the words make no sense and the sound is unlike any language you know.

Ravens at the Tower of London do this all the time. Theyre pretty sociable with humans though, so they do it quite openly. I have seen videos of people, mostly Americans, look absolutely spooked out of their skins when a big ol’ raven (mind ye, these are birds that are 2 feet tall with a 5 foot wingspan) comes waltzing up on the deck and starts talking to them.

And ravens, especially the ones there that have been bred and raised by humans for centuries, don’t just imitate - they have one of the same language processing genes we do, and they understand the way a toddler might that things, places, and individuals have names, and can string together basic sentences much like an african grey.

I know because I used to work with one, Darlene, who knew, quite well, what she wanted and how to ask for it. If you were preparing her breakfast, she would hop on up and investigate. She used to be an illegal pet, and had been taught “manners”. That is to say, if she went for something and you told her, sternly, “mind your manners missy!” She would stop, look at you, perhaps for up to a minute, and then point with her beak to what she wanted. If that did not work, she would ask, in plain English, “grape?” Or “Darl have grape?” And lord help you if you gave her anything less than what she asked for. She would throw it at you, and try to bite you, sometimes while saying “No!” In the same tone as I imagine she was reprimanded in her home.

So yeah. Parrots arent the only ones.

WHAT

Was anyone gonna tell me that ravens can talk or was I meant to read about it on a tumblr post?!

I'M CRYING I'M ACTUALLY CRYING

Folks: Back in June the Biden administration also made it possible to claim LOAN CANCELLATION for over a hundred predatory for-profit colleges. Thousands are illegible for total relief-- return of money paid, and credit score readjustment. Now that other student relief action is in the news a LOT of people are just learning about Borrowers Defense.

ohhhh my heart is so full right now. ive watched the art institute eat naive young artists alive for decades now. i hope they all burn down. i hope the upper management all die broke and ashamed, like so many hundreds of their graduates have.

This is, obviously, amazing, but CRUCIALLY, if your school is listed here, you have to apply for the cancellation. This is NOT automatic. This is a payout from a settlement based on a government suit against the conglomerate running these schools. I urge everyone who has outstanding student loans to go to this website and APPLY FOR A SETTLEMENT. YOU HAVE TO APPLY.

ASAP there is a deadline.

THIS IS THE LINK YOU WANT.

https://studentaid.gov/borrower-defense/

man can I sympathize (I keep editing 90% them out in my final pass over a fic).

“They deserve each other, and that’s not a compliment” is an underrated ship dynamic tbh

It is!  And so I just prompted it at the @be-compromised Epic 2022 Promptathon!

Rest in peace Nichelle Nichols, December 28th 1932- July 31st 2022

“Last night, my mother, Nichelle Nichols, succumbed to natural causes and passed away. Her light however, like the ancient galaxies now being seen for the first time, will remain for us and future generations to enjoy, learn from, and draw inspiration.” - nichellenicholsofficial

RIP Nichelle Nichols. Your mission is done.

Bilbo was declared dead while he was away in the Hobbit (and had to do a bunch of paperwork to get declared alive again) but there’s no indication he was formally declared dead after leaving the Shire, even though most people assumed he had died.

Therefore I posit: having a missing person declared dead in the Shire requires the consent of their next of kin. Whoever Bilbo’s next of kin was at the time of the Hobbit (possibly Otho? I’m not sure) had him declared dead at the first opportunity but Frodo refused to ever do it.

Frodo had anxious hobbit bureaucrats knocking on his door every couple of years like ‘Mr Baggins… blease… it’s been 10 years… he was eleventy-one… can we fill out his death certificate yet’ and Frodo was like ‘absolutely not’.

Early on he genuinely couldn’t bring himself too but after a while it was more that he enjoyed irritating the local magistrate’s office than anything else.

I raise you: the hobbitish bureaucracy has no means to re-declare someone dead. They had no precedent to declare someone who was once-dead dead again. They would need the Thain, the Mayor, and the Master of Buckland to agree to changing the statute, and since the Thain and the Master are too amused by the whole henclucking that they haven’t gotten round to it just yet.

I’m upping the stakes with: last time Bilbo was declared dead when he was, in fact, not dead, they removed the law stating that you can have someone declared dead without a body, so when Bilbo left (happily aware of this legal loophole and snickering) he could never become legally dead again.

I am loving the implication here that Bilbo can literally never die in the eyes of the law. He’d love that.

a hobbit parent telling their kids the story of Mad Baggins and being like “thanks to a loophole in hobbit law he’s technically still alive today”

a hobbit child misinterprets this and lies awake at night worrying that Mad Baggins is still out there and will appear in their room without warning 

Alternatively: the laws for declaring somebody dead if they’re missing for long enough are still in place, but the magistrates are just refusing to enforce them in this particular case.

After all, last time they declared Bilbo Baggins dead— which involved filling out all the paperwork necessary to declare somebody dead without a body— he had the rudeness to show up again, forcing them to do a lot more paperwork, and this time with an indignant Bilbo having a go at them while they did it.

As a result, the magistrates have decided that they’re not going to declare Bilbo Baggins dead a second time unless they have a body, a coroners reprt explaining the cause of death, and a three day wake to make sure that he doesn’t get up and walk away again.

Centuries later, hobbit parents tell their children that Mad Baggins is forever gone from the shire— at least until the day when somebody is stupid enough to declare him legally dead, at which point legend states that he will immediately come marching back, demanding an explanation.

i love the implication that its considered rude in hobbit society to show up alive after being declared dead

Two hundred years later the inheritance drama over Bag End is still going strong. The Sackville-Bagginses insist that even if Bilbo isn’t legally dead, he’s clearly abandoned the property; those responsible for overseeing the affair respond by pointing out that, as it’s well known that Bilbo Baggins could turn invisible, they can’t be sure he’s not still in the building.

Bilbo was declared dead while he was away in the Hobbit (and had to do a bunch of paperwork to get declared alive again) but there’s no indication he was formally declared dead after leaving the Shire, even though most people assumed he had died.

Therefore I posit: having a missing person declared dead in the Shire requires the consent of their next of kin. Whoever Bilbo’s next of kin was at the time of the Hobbit (possibly Otho? I’m not sure) had him declared dead at the first opportunity but Frodo refused to ever do it.

Frodo had anxious hobbit bureaucrats knocking on his door every couple of years like ‘Mr Baggins… blease… it’s been 10 years… he was eleventy-one… can we fill out his death certificate yet’ and Frodo was like ‘absolutely not’.

Early on he genuinely couldn’t bring himself too but after a while it was more that he enjoyed irritating the local magistrate’s office than anything else.

I raise you: the hobbitish bureaucracy has no means to re-declare someone dead. They had no precedent to declare someone who was once-dead dead again. They would need the Thain, the Mayor, and the Master of Buckland to agree to changing the statute, and since the Thain and the Master are too amused by the whole henclucking that they haven’t gotten round to it just yet.

I’m upping the stakes with: last time Bilbo was declared dead when he was, in fact, not dead, they removed the law stating that you can have someone declared dead without a body, so when Bilbo left (happily aware of this legal loophole and snickering) he could never become legally dead again.

I am loving the implication here that Bilbo can literally never die in the eyes of the law. He’d love that.

a hobbit parent telling their kids the story of Mad Baggins and being like “thanks to a loophole in hobbit law he’s technically still alive today”

a hobbit child misinterprets this and lies awake at night worrying that Mad Baggins is still out there and will appear in their room without warning 

Alternatively: the laws for declaring somebody dead if they’re missing for long enough are still in place, but the magistrates are just refusing to enforce them in this particular case.

After all, last time they declared Bilbo Baggins dead— which involved filling out all the paperwork necessary to declare somebody dead without a body— he had the rudeness to show up again, forcing them to do a lot more paperwork, and this time with an indignant Bilbo having a go at them while they did it.

As a result, the magistrates have decided that they’re not going to declare Bilbo Baggins dead a second time unless they have a body, a coroners reprt explaining the cause of death, and a three day wake to make sure that he doesn’t get up and walk away again.

Centuries later, hobbit parents tell their children that Mad Baggins is forever gone from the shire— at least until the day when somebody is stupid enough to declare him legally dead, at which point legend states that he will immediately come marching back, demanding an explanation.

i love the implication that its considered rude in hobbit society to show up alive after being declared dead

Two hundred years later the inheritance drama over Bag End is still going strong. The Sackville-Bagginses insist that even if Bilbo isn’t legally dead, he’s clearly abandoned the property; those responsible for overseeing the affair respond by pointing out that, as it’s well known that Bilbo Baggins could turn invisible, they can’t be sure he’s not still in the building.

Fanfiction Club: The Rules

This idea came to me when I woke up first thing this morning.

This is gold.

i do not see a flaw

[SLAMMING REBLOG BUTTON REPEATEDLY]

My man was really gonna let a fucking BEAR into his house for the views and the BEAR had to be the sensible one here

NEED A FIX of Thor/Val but not heading out to the theater to see Love & Thunder immediately? THEN THIS AU FIC IS FOR YOUUUUUUU!

Words: 4740 Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Mature Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Thor (Marvel), Minor Clint/Natasha, Minor Steve/Sharon Characters: Thor (Marvel), Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Korg of Krona, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Sharon Carter (Marvel), Other Marvel Characters

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Hockey, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hockey, Roller Derby, Boxing, Bisexual Female Character, Friends With Benefits, Developing Relationship, Mild Smut, Short reference to Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Vague reference to past trauma

Part 3 of Hockey ‘Verse

Thor wasn’t looking for a relationship. And Valkyrie REALLY wasn’t looking for one. And yet somehow, it found them.

Notes: See if you can find my tiny Easter Egg tribute to another 80s movie (I mean, other than Cutting Edge.) Thanks @bluettspetal for reminding me this WIP existed and needed finishing. I had to rewatch Ragnorak for it - oh no, the hardship!

(I have absolutely no real knowledge of boxing OR roller derby so, uh, yeah, take that as you will.)

((@alphaflyer is the BEST and the fact she corrected my notes in addition to the fabulous beta she did on the bulk of the story cracks me up to no end. :D))