BEHOLD! Every Balance arc (plus one Lunar Interlude)!! I’m so proud of these i wanna print them out and have them tattooed on my ass

[Here There Be Gerblins: x] [Murder on the Rockport Limited: x] [Petals to the Metal: x] [The Crystal Kingdom: x] [The Eleventh Hour: x] [The Suffering Game: x] [Lunar Interlude V: x] [The Stolen Century: x] [Story and Song: x]

It’s been nearly a month since I read The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England and I’ve had this post in my head for most of that time, but I finally have leisure to write it down. I may have forgotten or misremembered some stuff.

The book is definitely engaging with a lot of the recent discourse around policing, in some obvious and some less obvious ways. I never fully bought into the protagonist’s temporary characterization of himself as a ‘heroic cop’, and didn’t feel that the book bought into it either - it felt from the start like a story with a deeply flawed protagonist who was going to need to grow beyond his past attitudes and assumptions. I did assume that he’d bought the ‘universe’ he was in rather than hiding in it, so that was a surprise.

The characterization of Ryan and its subversion - the initial presentation of him as an ideal hero, followed by the revelations that he’s both a pretty crappy friend and doesn’t care about the people of the medieval-universe - is the most direct way the book deals with cops, since he’s the one cop character who appears in it, but I don’t think it’s the most important way the book engages with the topic. The most important way doesn’t openly mention cops at all.

Near the climax, John realizes that the way organized crime operates is by making people feel weak, powerless; by saying, ‘you have only the power I give you, and the second I take that away, you are nothing’. The crime boss kept John around as an example for that reason. And then, crucially, with Sefawynn’s story it explicitly connects that to Woden and says: he is behaving in the same way. He is sending the message of, ‘you aren’t obedient enough, unquestioning enough, to deserve my protection,’ and leading people like Sefawynn into deception because deception is the only way they can square their support for him with his actions. And at the climax, Sefawynn rejects both that and Woden. In short, the story turns around and says to the reader: look at the way the organized crime boss is acting. What other authorities, ones with social power and status and legitimacy, are in fact behaving in the same way? Which ones are ruling by force and fear, saying that that they’re the only thing that can protect you and give you security, and justifying their actions by saying any of their victims just weren’t good enough, just weren’t obedient enough, compliant enough?

In additionto this, there’s a thread running through the story of what I’ll call the redemptive power of vulnerability and weakness. John comes into the ‘parallel universe’ with virtually no knowledge and no power, and as a result is reliant on the people he meets. This leads to him getting to know them, to value them, to understand them and become friends with them and see them as equals. Ryan, in contrast, comes into the ‘parallel universe’ with all his knowledge and resources intact and is able to recruit the locals - in fact this means he’s still reliant on them, but it doesn’t feel that way to him: to him they’re not equals much less friends, they’re subordinates or tools. As a result, John values and cares about them and Ryan doesn’t. When you’re trained and conditioned and empowered to regard everyone you work around as enemies, tools, or bystanders, you’re not going to end up treating them as equals. You can only treat them as equals if you’re willing and able to be vulnerable to them. It’s why a lot of things in society - not only policing - won’t work right without a shift away from saving/fixing/protecting people to accompanying them, to letting them say “I need X and I want to do Y about it” and people - social workers, teachers, health professionals, child welfare workers - saying “What can I do to help?” rather than saying “I need you to do X, Y, and Z, and I will give you A, B, and C.” There are limits - medical professionals know more about medicine than laypeople do, and if someone says they need herbs to cure their cancer they can be (literally) dead wrong - but working with people rather than to or for them means you’re treating both themselves and yourself more as people rather than positions. Policing’s a heavier version of a similar thing, because avoid vulnerability at all costs is so deeply embedded in its culture. And that’s the reverse of what should be. Anyone whom society gives a gun to needs to be more, not less, willing to be vulnerable, precisely because the power they’ve been given makes others vulnerable to them.

A final thing that stands out in the books that ties in with similar social themes - very openly! - is the way characters from ‘our’ timeline are encouraged to think about those from ‘parallel universes’. There are a host of ways that could have been used to describe the fact that people from ‘our’ timeline can enter the medieval timelines and not vice versa. The choice of describing it as ‘people from these other timeles are less real’ is very much deliberate! It’s a choice that lets them say ‘these people’s lives don’t matter’ - or at least, don’t matter as much as ours. And that’s the narrative that Ryan buys into, and John rejects. (By the way, the satirical send-up of superficial corporate social responsibility in the Handbook excerpts is A+. Buy a bracelet! Feel virtuous! Don’t think about the fact that yes, this is absolutely imperialism!)

fruitrollup on tumblr // Mary Karr, excerpt from Cherry // Wendy Cope, “The Orange”

You ever invite your coworker to watch you give birth just to spite a racist

Okay howmst the fuck has a ship doctor in the far future never handled a birth without the father present? Are sperm donors and gay couples and trans women no longer a thing in the bajillionth century CE?? :/

I while understand the frustration with erasure sometimes it helps to look at things through the cultural context of when something was made. Star Trek the Next Generation was made in 1987, this particular episode I believe aired in 1988 a time when a future where the husband was always present for the birth would have been amazing to many of the people watching the show as men had only been allowed to be present for the birth of their children for 10/15ish years at that point in the US.

Women (and many men) fought for decades with hospitals to even have men allowed in the delivery room during the early stages of labor, which can last for several hours, and hospitals only began to give in to their requests in the 1960s but even then they would be kicked out of the room by hospital staff before the actual birth took place. So many of the couples watching the show would have had to go through labor without having/being allowed to support their spouse regardless of their wishes. Having the child’s father present for the birth only began to happen in the 1970s and 1980s. Which means most people watching this show either went through birth without the support of their spouse, were not allowed to support their spouse during the birth of their child, or their own mother’s went through that during their birth.

A future where the husbands were always present for the birth was still a little crazy to consider in the late 1980s. A good kind of crazy for the people living in that time, it showed a future where the wishes of the couple were finally consistently listened to by medical professionals as a result of the actions of people during their or their parent’s lifetimes. And it does that by also subverting it in allowing Data to step into the role of the father when the father was unknown and/or unwilling/unable to fill that role (I’ll be honest my knowledge of Next Gen is a bit spotty and I have not seen this whole episode, just a piece of it at family Thanksgiving). The woman’s desires as to how she would give birth are listened to and respected, something that still doesn’t happen in many hospitals now and would have been seen as even more revolutionary then. So while it isn’t perfect I think this scene was actually fairly impressive for its time and cultural context and shows a future that many people of that time would have seen as ideal.

I think this kind of contextual understanding and analysis is really important because things that look antiquated now were revolutionary then. I remember reading that the mini skirts in Star Trek TOS were legot just in fashion (about 64’ ish), one of the actresses (the one that played Rand) requested they be in the show and both her and Nichelle Nichols said they didn’t see them as demeaning but liberating in that time and context. Where as NOW it looks like ‘sexy male gaze’ but then it wasn’t.

Miniskirts are comfortable and easy to move in - unlike longer bulkier skirts, which had previously been required for “modesty.” And unlike the approach of “we’ll just put them in pants,” miniskirts made a statement that women crew-members weren’t being treated like men. Miniskirts were a way to say “I can be an attractive woman, wear comfortable clothes, and still look professional and do a serious job.” 

The clothing for that message today would be different. 

This is also why the bridge crew of TOS may seem “tokenistic” today. When it came out, the Cold War was in full swing and “Soviets” were maligned and hated, Black people could not count on their right to vote being honored, and mixed-race people (like Spock) were called horrible things like “half-breed” and “zebra.” A white man was in charge of the ship, but Gene Roddenberry was fully aware that a chunk of the viewership read him as queer, and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DISCOURAGE THAT READING, at a time when “homosexual activity” was illegal in the United States!

By today’s standards, “one of everything? How tokenistic.” In 1966? “A Black woman, a Russian, a man from multiple cultures, and a man who loves differently, all top of their fields, all working together and finding common ground to learn, grow, and help where they can? What a wonderful future!”

Also I’m sorry but like. A show also featuring a Japanese man who isn’t a stereotype but part of the crew, having a Scottish character be a part of the central cast (idk if I need to get into why this is important, but considering how England has continuously tried to erase Scottish culture and identity, and the stereotype of Scots as bumbling bumpkins, etc, its kind of nice to see a Scotsman who’s the best of the best at his job).

Moreover, a lot of kids watched this show. MLK himself contacted Nichelle Nichols and asked her to stay on the show when she was considering leaving, because “you don’t have a Black role, you have an equal role,” and there wasnt many Black role models on tv. I can only imagine how Black kids, Asian kids, and mixed race or mixed culture kids felt seeing people like them on tv. Hell, seeing Uhura on screen is what inspired Whoopi Goldberg as a little girl.

Also, yeah, its easy to look back and say ‘damn, fathers weren’t there in the delivery room? What assholes’ but no like they legitimately were not allowed in there.

Tiny correction: while George Takei is Japanese, and while Sulu thus looks like what we in the 20th-21st century consider to be an ethnically Japanese man, Hikaru Sulu was Pan-Asian by design. His last name is not Japanese. And Roddenberry designed him like that intentionally, because while there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment in the US at the time (I mean, hell… George Takei himself spent years in Japanese internment camps during WW2), there was also a lot of other anti-Asian sentiments, and Roddenberry intentionally put ALL of it on the character of Sulu.

Like, all the years of anti-Chinese racism in the US? Sulu. Anti-Japanese sentiments left over after WW2? Sulu. Korean War in 1950-52? Sulu. The Vietnam War, with Johnson in 1965 (a year before TOS started airing) choosing to start sending American troops into the conflict? Sulu.

Sulu was Roddenberry’s desperate attempt to show all Asian people as inherently worthy, inherently human, and yeah, he probably put kind of too much on Sulu’s shoulders, but it was the 1960s and Roddenberry fucking cared about representation, so he did what he could.

Just, you know… a little bit more historical Star Trek context

Also to hammer this home?

Scotty was third in line for the captain’s chair. The only non-Kirk who had the con more then him was Spock.

He was smart, he was a *ranked* crewmen, he was a gentleman, he wasn’t a skirt chaser, and he was capitol L loyal. The only time he got into a fight was when someone both went after his Captain, AND his Ship.

And he was Scottish. 

That’s so above and beyond the typical Scottish stereotype even TO THIS DAY.

Dr Polaski was coded as something of an arse just so they could make their valid points about equality and bigotry using her as a foil. Yes it was kind of clumsy from a modern perspective, but it was also kind of groundbreaking (not least because you didn’t usually get arses being played by women)

I am hard-coded to put this on any post that mentions MLK and Nichelle Nichols.

Also, it’s very worth noting that the “token minority character” label doesn’t apply in any way to these characters.

Tokens are there to present the appearance of diversity. Whereas Roddenberry created a diverse cast in an era where there wasn’t even a need for the appearance of diversity. Roddenberry didn’t put these characters in because he wanted to look diverse– he put them in to BE DIVERSE.

Mary Soon Lee, from Elemental Haiku: Poems to Honor the Periodic Table, Three Lines at a Time

Hey. Hey you. Listen to High noon over Camelot by The Mechanisms. It’s not often I obsess over an album for three years but when its King Arthur Western… in Space.

That's a great table design (credit)

Daughter of fantasy villains decides to rebel against her parents by actually going through with her arranged marriage to a local golden retriever of a prince instead of running off with some local villain-to-be or conquering said golden retriever’s kingdom and ruling it solo like her parents expect her to. Plus, sue her, she’s into the clean-cut earnest look.

At the same time, local prince charming discovers that he’s actually very into the gothic fiance his parents have landed him with in order to try and establish peace with the local evil lair down the lane, he would never have guessed a spiderweb pattern could look so fetching on a ball gown…?

Meanwhile, two pairs of parents in a tizzy because they both expected their offspring to whole-heartedly reject this union and give them an excuse to conquer their goody-two-shoes/evil neighbours, they’re not supposed to actually like each other-!

respective friend groups undergoing culture clash like all of prince charming’s knights are like what vile spell has been used to ensorcel our prince.  we must be on our guard for surely this is but a ruse for an assassination attempt

meanwhile the villain bride’s friends are all like clearly he loves you not, why do you persist in a manner that will ensure your own heart break, i mean if he was taking this seriously there would be at least three assassination attempts by now.  it’s like he doesn’t even notice that you have massive amounts of dark power to covet for his own

smashcut to

fully armored knight, clanging through the hallways in attempts at stealth, blades drawn: i’m just saying, i took an oath of protection.  this feels wrong.

prince charming: it’s not wrong, it’s celebrating cross cultural traditions for my beloved bride

knight: it’s attempted murder

prince charming: it’s a loving attempted murder

@chucktaylorupset  Meanwhile the bride has a bouquet of roses, cornflowers, and wheat sheaves on her desk in her room, and she’s not coming out until she’s written a beautiful and moving poem about how they favourably compare to her groom. It’s been three days. She’s gone through an entire raven’s worth of quills (unethically sourced). The ‘toads who used to be my friends’ list has gone up by one. But she’s bent dark forces and eldritch spirits to her will and, by the powers obscene, this will not be the thing that breaks her.

Sorceress friend: Please, just get him an amulet that will double his power at the cost of his soul, no one’s worth this.

Rebellious villainess: (nearly in tears) No, he brought his best knights to the castle and tried to kill me last week, at midnight, I can’t ignore something like that! He even kicked Cathulhu!

Sorceress friend: He nudged it with his foot. And then he apologized to it. In tears.

Rebellious villainess: (actually in tears now, for reasons of feels instead of poetic torment) He’s trying so hard!!!

Villainess: Beloathed, I need a goat.

Prince: Of course, darling - may I inquire as to what for?

Villainess: Blood sacrifice to the dark gods, you know how it is.

Prince: …

Prince: …darling, you know I support your lifestyle choices, but I must say this before it potentially happens.

Prince: I’m not all right with human sacrifice. That’s one of my boundaries. I don’t know if you do that or not, but it seemed a topical time to bring it up.

Villainess: (carefree laugh) Oh beloathed, don’t worry yourself about such things, I would never!

Villainess: (leading him off to the goat market) Only incompetents use actual humans. Skilled practitioners of the dark arts know that a goat is not only a sufficient sacrifice, but the superior one.

Prince: You don’t say? Fascinating!

@sapphire-monkey One of the nobles against the marriage in the prince’s kingdom invites the villainess to a local village’s blessing ritual, secure in the knowledge that it’s not only custom to wear the absolute palest white or undyed linen/woolen clothing one owns, it’s a requirement of the ritual and sacrilegious to do otherwise. Let’s see you deal with that miss all-black-wardrobe.

She arrives in diaphanous white silk edged with lace that gives the impression of beautifully tattered hems, all of it drifting gently around her on the spring breeze to give the feeling of a wraith from a haunted castle or something of the such. While not her personal cup of tea, she finds the ritual very moving, and absolutely understands why its one of her beloathed’s favorites.

One of the nobles from her kingdom, meanwhile, decides, fuck it, and just turns the prince into a frog. It takes her two minutes to find and fix him.

Villain noble: How.

Villainess: True love’s kiss, bitch.

Villain noble: (seethes)

The prince, meanwhile, pissed off the entire villainous court for the recent engagement ball that was held by knowing and responding accordingly to all the proper threats and insults. He studied before doing this, and he’s not going to shame darling in front of her peers! Bastard even managed to subdue his chivalry long enough to flirt with one of her friends right in front of her, how dare he be so considerate and sensitive to her needs like that-!?

First time the Prince finds out Villainess can transform into a gigantic fire-breathing dragon is a very O_OU moment for him.

Villainess: Are you surprised I can? It’s a common ability.

Prince: I didn’t want to assume.

Villainess: …

Prince: (sweats)

Villainess: …you’re picturing me turning into a dragon and riding on my back into battle, aren’t you?

Prince: N-no, no, of course not-!

Villainess: (drapes in his lap) It’s okay, we’d look fantastic. (sly expression) And probably scary enough to get the enemy forces to surrender without any needless bloodshed.

Prince: (sweating) Darling, are you trying to tempt me into putting you into a position where you could be injured in battle?

Villainess: A little. :3 (more seriously) But it is also on the table if we ever need to defend our throne. It’s the sort of thing that form’s for, really.

Prince: If you’re comfortable with it, then very well, it shall be added to the list of acceptable strategies.

(comfortable cuddling for a moment)

Prince: I imagine you make a very majestic dragon.

Villainess: (preening) I really do.

Prince: Perhaps we should have a tapestry done of it, then? It could hang opposite the one of my family’s crest in the throne room when we someday ascend the thrones ourselves.

Villainess: 8O! Beloathed, I would adore a tapestry of that! (cuddles further against him) Oh, and across from your family crest! That would be such a slap in the face to my parents, having a tapestry of me there instead of their own crest.

Prince: (hadn’t thought of it that way, but is happy that she’s happy)

Villainess comes in one night thoroughly out of sorts because her stupid cousin’s decided to make a move on her rights to the souls of their ancestors, and the jerk’s competent enough to actually have a potential chance at getting them, too, like he’d even wear the necklace of jewels they’re trapped in-!!!

The Prince listens patiently to her frustration until she’s finished, then considers for a few minutes.

“Darling, about that banquet your family’s having next fortnight - will your cousin be in attendance?”

“Yes, he’ll be using it to lay the groundwork of his plans. Why?”

“Would it be all right if I popped in for a bit? And was rather more… myself than I usually am around your parents?”

“…I suppose it’d be all right.”

“Wonderful!” (kisses her hand) “Perhaps wear those full-arm gloves your friend got you for the event - the ones that allow you to handle blessed objects without them interfering with your dark powers?”

“Well now I’m just curious. I shall do as you request, beloathed.”

The night of he shows up to the banquet positively radiating charm, good will, and benevolence, decked out in full armor that’s glowing slightly. Oh this? It’s the ancestral trappings of one of his relatives who was a champion of the stellar deities, those who guide ones who have become lost in darkness? He’s not a holy champion himself, but he is a fully-realized warrior of light and family, so he’s permitted to wear it at times. Oh yes, he completed his warrior of light trials when he was eighteen, when on a quest and everything! That’s where he earned his sword - it’s actually a shard of sunlight, you know, not metal. That’s why he’s called Prince of the Sun and Stars sometimes - bit of a grandiose title, really, but the artists and poets enjoy playing with the imagery, and who is he to deny them, especially when Darling is so fond of the stars herself! There’s a lass in one of the kingdom’s villages doing a portrait of the two of them together playing with that motif, actually, and it looks like it’s going to to be absolutely lovely when it’s done-

And he continues to be cheerful, charming, and just the nicest, most polite guy for the time he’s there while also reminding everyone in no uncertain terms that, for as long as the forces of evil have been trying to quash the forces of good, his side has been working at the opposite. And his side tends to win more often. And maybe it would be wise not to pick a fight with Darling because he’d hate to have to do battle with a potential in-law in the path of supporting her family’s traditions regarding people who cross them…

Jerk cousin is thoroughly cowed out of making an attempt at the family-filled jewels, and Villainess’s friends are standing with her off to the side going, “Okay, beginning to see what you see in him now.” Villainess herself is walking around with on safely-gloved hand on his arm as he intimidates the hell out of everyone she knows in order to help her protect what’s hers, swooning a little bit inside the whole time.

(Hers might be more diversely applicable, but Villainess isn’t the only one bringing something to the table in terms of power. Prince is generally more useful for things like getting birds to sing in chorus or making friends with bunnies, but his family does specialize in slaying evil. She may be skilled at facing enemies of all sorts, but he’s prepared specifically for anyone in her home court who might try to backstab her.)

Oh my gods, yes, absolutely!

Congratulations, you are officially the smartest person on the entire thread, holy flip-?!?

Villainess is chilling in Prince’s court one day and a lady of the court storms up to her in tears, make-up running, and is just, “One of your friends turned my fiance into a newt, a newt, and he fell in the moat before I could catch him and I don’t know how to find him, or how to change him back if I do find him, and the library only has information on frog and bear transformations, and no one knows what to to do and you’re the only person who might know what to do, please help me-!” (bursts into inconsolable tears)

This throws Villainess through a loop, people don’t tend to whole-heartedly throw their trust in others like this at her place, this is super unsettling, so she just responds in the way she usually would, “Oh? And what price are you willing to pay?”

“Anything.”

…ooooooooh that is so, so tempting, why are people in this court so earnest, don’t they realize that the reason the higher nobles are worried about her marriage to their prince is the very real potential that she could use this opportunity to cast their country and its people into a thousand years of ruin and despair, bare minimum…?! But it would make Darling unhappy if she’s too mean about this, so, “How about your dignity, then? First off, we’ll have to get you out of that dress…” (seductive smirk and cock of the hips)

Court lady: (still in tears but hands immediately go to her bodice laces to start undoing)

Villainess: (grabbing her hands) OKAY, WHOA, HOLD UP, WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF COURT, HAVE SOME STANDARDS!!! Just- just go put on something you don’t mind getting all messed up, we’re going to have to get in the moat a bit for this, and even the edges are all muddy.

Court lady: Oh. (sniffles) Okay. Thank-you.

They spend the next three hours dredging around the moat to find the right newt and then perform the right ceremony to turn him human again. He appears naked and covered in mud and court lady unabashedly flings herself into his arms, sobbing in relief this time, and it’s disgustingly wholesome and romantic.

Newt Lordling: (once he’s finished doing a bit of sobbing of his own into his fiance’s hair) Wait, aren’t you Neskatina’s friend? Could you tell her that my sister likes daffodils? Girls, and daffodils? I tried to tell her myself, but the newt thing happened before I could get past asking her to stop with the threatening letters. We- we really don’t send those around here unless we mean it, she’s been finding it a bit upsetting. Daffodils would be much better received.

Villainess: …noted.

Speechless

DUDE THIS KID SHREDS HARD

i’m glad we all agree

this is what dnd bards look like when they’re casting spells. like this dude is casting fucking power word kill but the power word is SHRED

"May I ask... Do you really remember me?" IT'S HERE!! just a few more hours ;A; I was planning on posting this tomorrow but I'm too excited to wait!!! Happy almost zelda day! Hope everyone enjoy and please be careful with spoilers!! Edit: I was asked to also post each frame so you can see details, so here it goes! Hope you don't mind it's in the same post xDD (but let me know if you want a separate post too maybe)

Thank you so much for welcoming this drawings so warmly I really appreciate it!! <3 <3 <3 I was not expecting so many people to like this so really thank you so much!! ;u;

I know that Peter’s Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy technically has flaws but also….it doesn’t. It’s perfect.

‘Are these magic cloaks?’ asked Pippin, looking at them. with wonder.

‘I do not know what you mean by that,’ answered the leader of the Elves. ‘They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.”

- Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8: Farewell to Lorien

This is how I think of Jackson’s movies. Yes, there are serious flaws - Gandalf’s de-powering, Gimli as comic relief, and Faramir, namely - but come on.

Remember when the guys making their chain mail invented a new method for quickly producing large amounts of it by hand? Remember Miranda Otto walking down the street, practicing sword positions? The guys who forged all of the swords - for leads and for extras? The men and women riders who volunteered to be riders of Rohan? The costume designers who designed the inside of Theoden’s armor (which no one would ever see) so beautifully that Bernard Hill said he felt like a king? The friendships between the cast, and their size doubles, and the stuntmen?

When they made that movie, they put all that they loved into all that they made.

#just hundreds of people who went ‘sure let me try this’ #and they made something breathtaking #and then they made it 12 more times in different sizes ( @byjoveimbeinghumble​ )

Wait tell me more about that chainmail thing

“Kaynemaile has worked tirelessly to perfect the material science behind beautiful architectural mesh, collaborating with architects and designers on projects that embolden urban environments with positive buildings. The company’s patented polycarbonate mesh, inspired by 2,000-year-old medieval chainmail, was initially created for the armor and weapons seen in the The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy and is now used on major architectural projects around the world.

“The film’s art director and Kaynemaile’s founder Kayne Horsham worked with his team to construct each garment from plastic plumbing tubes, coating them in pure silver. Once filming wrapped, Horsham dedicated himself to creating a change to the liquid state assembly process to mass produce the polycarbonate chainmail for architectural applications — products that were light, but strong enough to protect the interior or exterior of a building. Now an industry-leading manufacturer, Kaynemaile produces mesh for everything from small interior screens to large scale exterior façades. Their mesh is easy to install and can be custom created for specialized applications.”

https://architizer.com/blog/practice/materials/kaynemaile-mesh-facade-systems/

YOU GUYS

they took forced perspective and scaled sets to a new level by adding moving set pieces to create the illusion that the hobbits and dwarves were much smaller than everyone else even when the camera moved.

every scene you see in the 11+ hours of glory that is the LOTR masterpiece is most like ridiculously elaborate or expensive–from model towers to the all-new motion capture technology used for gollum to the costumes and sets to the aerial on location shots of mother-fracking new zealand and the big impressive battle scenes and horse charges.

but then the story and the screenplay too–there is just SO much lore that is there in the background lurking if you want to look for it, yet it still remains simplified for the average viewer. Crazy impressive feat.

And the acting is heartfelt and real and makes you love the characters.

ALSO DON’T GET ME STARTED ON FREAKING HOWARD SHORE AND HIS 100+ HEARTSHATTERINGLY BEAUTIFUL LIETMOTIFS AND BRILLIANT SUBTLE VARIATIONS IN THE FLIPPING 13 HOUR SOUNDTRACK. AND ENYA SINGING IN REAL ELVISH.

And the acting is

heartfelt and real and makes you

love the characters.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Honestly, in this day and age, if I had a comfortable upper middle class job as a lawyer and a fiancee I was absolutely besotted with who was depending on me to make money for the family, and then my latest client (who had red eyes and sharp fangs) made me stay up all night talking to him and also lived in the middle of nowhere in a big house with no mirrors, invisible servants, and creepy wolves howling everywhere, I would STILL not want to risk jeopardizing that job by alienating my deeply strange possibly-a-werewolf client. Like… it’s either this or retail, and even if my client is literally from the bowels of Hell, that’s still better than the metaphorically-from-hell customers you meet working retail. At least he’s polite to you. 

#And this was one of my arguments like that’s his first job his boss sent him! what else do you do? #Do you go back to england and tell your boss sorry it got spooky and the lady at the inn cried for me to not go so i turned back #Like? How do you get a job after that

EXACTLY!  

Throwing Children by Ross Gay

Blackened Steel Tiaras

Between the years of 1912-1915, Henri Picq made about five or six blackened steel tiaras for Cartier.  Only three of them are known to still exist.

Fürstenberg Blackened Steel Tiara, 1912

Marghiloman Blackened Steel Tiara, 1914

Sassoon Ivy Blackened Steel Tiara, 1914

Describing Terry Pratchett’s books is difficult. Someone asked me what the book I was reading was about, and I had to tell them it was about banking and the gold standard, but like in a cool way with golems and action. 

 I don’t think they believed me.

welcome to the club

It is so, so difficult to explain to people that your favorite book is about transgender feminist dwarves, Nazi werewolves, and the mystery of a missing piece of really old ritual bread. And Opera saves the day.

yes, give us those sweet, sweet, terrible descriptions

A tortoise who’s really a god, finds an allegory for Jesus and they go on adventures in an ancient greece like place and then a desert 

The chief of police averts a rerun of an ancient war, partially despite and partially because of being possessed by a dying dwarf’s graffiti

It’s like Les Miserables but Javert is the good guy and also there’s time travel.  

Macbeth but it’s about the witches

Chapter one, the protagonist is hanged. Then he’s put in charge of the post office. Yes, in that order.

it’s like mulan if there were way more mulans in mulan and also pratchett is extra irritated that too many people missed the point of jingo

The bureaucrats of the universe get annoyed at the paperwork humanity causes so they decide to steal Christmas.  Replacement Christmas is done by Death and replacement Death is done by goth Mary Poppins, who is also in charge of the investigation.

these are all nice and accurate reasons to read discworld if you haven’t yet

Romeo and Juliet football AU but the other team is wizards

Hollywood????

An entire clan of tattooed, hairy, kleptomaniac, alcoholic Scotsmen decide a little girl is their new best friend whether she wants to be or not and she rescues her absolutely worthless brother by discovering the power of selfishness.

@cosmictwobyfour

Someone is dying, journalism is being invented, and part of Pulp Fiction is going on in the background.

The universes burocrats want to measure everything so they pay a man to imprison time so everything will stop and they can measure things in peace. Goth mary Poppins saves the day, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse is the best Milkman in the world, and chocolate saves the day. Also someone was born twice.

Classic dynastic machinations are happening in fantasy China, to be completely overturned by a gang of elderly barbarian heroes and the world’s worst wizard and best sprinter

Death incarnate battles a shopping cart for the fate of the world.  

@grifalinas

Phantom of the Opera au, except there’s witches, a cookbook that is thinly-veiled pornography, and Christine is played by a fledgeling witch with multiple personalities who can’t stop being sensible long enough to enjoy herself

Hidden heir to the throne decides an cynical, alcoholic cop is the best role model in the world.

Atlantis provides an excuse for a xenophobia-inspired war between Britain and the Middle East but it’s fine because the armies are arrested for conspiracy to cause public nuisance.

the jfk assassination is parodied in the above.

Rain is brought to australia by a lousy wizzard who runs from dropbears, steals a sheep, and invents vegamite

(sigh)(smile) All of the above.

The Tiger Poem in Classical Maya!

Literal translation:

Transliteration:

Character Transliteration (ALL CAPS are characters that stand for full words, lower case are syllabic):

honestly what a fucking iconic response. obviously “hello my name is inigo montoya” is the fucking ultimate but we were all building up this confrontation, this fight, this moment right there alongside inigo who had been doing so for 20 (twenty) fucking years ~and in all that time did he ever think the count would just run away? ha lol no~ but then the count just fucking runs away. and yes it’s a moment of perfect comedic delivery/timing, but it’s also a classic moment of subversion in this movie that is so close to being perfect if not for westley’s shitty moustache (kudos to buttercup for still loving him even after she saw that). this film dances so delicately with fulfilling and subverting tropes and it’s moments like this that just exemplifies that

It’s also a super reasonable move. Count Rugen just watched this guy kill like four guys so fast the first hadn’t finished falling down when the last one was stabbed. This dude is no joke, and now he’s like “Oh also this isn’t about the king, I’m specifically here to kill YOU” and here the Count is in just some random hallway and Inigo has a huge guy behind him as backup and… yeah, absolutely not. Fucking run.

And I think that’s a big part of what makes it so funny, it’s not just that he’s subverting your expectations it’s that this is legitimately also the smart thing to do.