legolas. again

[id: it’s a drawing of Legolas depicted with brown skin and long brown hair. He has two jade earrings and he is looking off to the side. /end id]

“hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me” is the funniest phrase because it always does. it always will. from personal experience things have already started to rouse from their slumber before i even get the first three words out

something has certainly awakened. it is wide awake and loud, already. and, by god, is it an issue

fic writer asks

Ask me things!

For the past year @roselightfairy and I have been playing around with these two gals who are freshmen roommates at Minas Tirith University. 

She very indulgently consented to put up what we have so far out of their ongoing story - it’s their birthday, after all, and we’d like you to meet them!

Living Conditions on Ao3

This is not a drill - a new chapter is up! I was moved by the holiday spirit and wrote the girls having a video chat on winter break!

my aunt who owns horses constantly posts these excellent horse memes

this is not by any means an original thought but there are few people #society hates more than those it designates as cowards. see, among other things, the proliferation of "anti-war media" that still shows characters who don't want to fight because they're afraid for their lives as despicable. well i think not only conscientious objectors who get put in prison for their pacifist beliefs but also all the men who broke their legs on purpose or lied about being asthmatic or underage to avoid having to kill or be killed made the world a better place

LAST TIME I REBLOGGED THIS THE LAST COMPARISON WASNT ON THERE

This is the best thing I have ever seen

@klubbhead You used a cinnamon roll for Rey and not Leia?

Dam it it got better

S T O P

@klubbhead

Do Darth Maul next!

This is why I love Tumblr. Do Yoda next please or Boba Fett.

Oh god. I can’t even think of something for them lol

Yoda gotta be raisin bread.

ENOUGH

NO

do grand moff tarkin.

The last one got me.

I CAN’T

B R E A T H E

XD

i was mildly amused until the last one, at which point i broke

The post of legend has come again

OH GOD IT GOT BETTER

This is best post on this shit hole of an app

Holy shit

Me: Why do I still have a Tumblr account?

This post: *exists*

Me: Oh yeah.

sjflksjaldj it keeps coming back, better than before

I AM SCREECHING

The last time I reblogged this, the canned bread was not there. That got me.

It’s not bread but honestly I’m not sure we’re keeping track anymore

may I? 

HOW THE FUCK IS IT STILL GOING AHAHAHAHAHA

Whoever posted Yodito with the macaron is clearly a time traveler.

IM W H E E Z I N G

THE CANNED BREAD HAD ME S E N T

the current electoral system is an unfairly weighted corrupt mess that will not save us, but

there is no materially revolutionary argument against voting if you are at all able.

I live in Georgia.

I have SEEN what can happen if you SHOW THE FUCK UP! You can, in fact, turn the tide.

I'm originally from Florida. I was in Florida for the 2000 recount that cost this country Al Gore as our president.

I've watched what happens when progressives abandon voting. You can, in fact, lose the war by not voting. You can, in fact, lose EVERYTHING by not showing up to vote electorially by a few HUNDRED votes.

YOU HAVE TO SHOW UP. YOU JUST HAVE TO.

I will treasure the number of times I overheard the phrase "Herschel fucking Walker" while standing in line to vote in the runoff election probably for the rest of my life, despite how much back pain I was in at the time because of having to stand in said line.

(I had previously been a SC resident. Less so with the hope there, though there was a very intense, albeit obviously unsuccessful, campaign to unseat Graham. Doesn't mean we should stop trying, put that fucker in the garbage where he belongs.)

Not incidentally, I stood in line for roughly 45 minutes in GA to vote in the general election, and nearly an hour to vote in the Senate runoff. When I was voting in SC, I was in a heavily white, heavily upper middle-class district, and... line? what line? except in 2020 early voting, when I stood in line for nearly two hours. Got a solid bit of sock knitted.

Lauren Boebert won by ~330 votes.

Next time, she could lose.

Just saying.

also vote in local elections. the ones about school leadership and funding, and who's got the ability to ban books. who the local judges are. all those have relatively low turnout but impact a lot of people so your vote is really meaningful there!

fucking hate it when the stuff everybody says "actually works" does actually work.

hate exercising and realizing i've let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i've overturned my fight-or-flight response.

hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i'm less anxious and i have more energy

hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i've actually started healing about something once i'm able to externalize it

hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently

hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love

horrible horrible horrible. hate it but i'm gonna do it tho

I’m all in favour of LGBT reimaginings of popular media, but with respect to some of the Labyrinth fan-castings I’ve seen floating around lately, there’s really no getting away from the fact that the Goblin King is a sexual predator.

Like, that’s the straight-up text of the film, and it’s not especially subtle about it.*

I’m not saying gay people can’t be villains, but the whole point of Jareth is that his attraction toward Sarah is sick, and her rejection of him represents a triumph of good over evil – it’s very much a film born of the Stranger Danger narrative that was all over popular media in the 1980s. I’m sure it’s possible to do a same-gender version of that without falling down the slippery slope of Unfortunate Implications, but it doesn’t feel like that concern is even on the radar in a lot of these proposals.

* Though the subtext isn’t slacking off, either. Remember the scene where Sarah first encounters Jareth, where he starts fondling a crystal ball, smirkingly invites her to play with it, then snarls and thrusts a snake in her face when she declines? That ain’t the reading-too-much-into-the-curtains kind of symbolism!

I feel like it’s more complicated than that, though? like… I feel like being a cis man there’s some nuance you’re missing? 

CW: Long meta, rape mention, frank discussion of Problematic Teenage Fantasy Boyfriends

Labyrinth is pretty clearly a Symbolic Coming-Of-Age Story ™ about the Role Of Fantasy in the life of a Young Woman, right? it’s about how you need to have a healthy relationship with fantasy. you can’t let it push away the people you love, you can’t let it control you or blind you to what’s there. but it can help you make lasting friends, and when you need it most- for any reason at all- it’s there.   

it’s pretty much text that everything in Labyrinth is part of Sarah’s imaginary world. Everything in the Labyrinth is either something she sought out and loves- her plushies and statuettes, her music boxes and books- or some part of herself, some want or fear or dream, given form. 

And a lot of girls like Sarah- bookish, daydreamy, intellectually gifted but emotionally immature girls who’ve been steeped in a lot of crap about relationships from the world we live in - have a Fantasy Lover who looks and acts a lot like Jareth. 

He’s Intense and kind of scary– because when you’re at that age, anything to do with romance or sex is intense and scary. He’s passionately, obsessively devoted to you, because it feels good to be needed and a teenager hasn’t got the life experience to realize that IRL that kind of obsessiveness is a red flag. He’s an older man- sometimes much older- so that he knows what he’s doing and can show you what to do, but he’s as pretty and graceful as an age-appropriate crush would be. He’s Flawed and Broody and a bad boy- but it’s blatantly obvious that he has good qualities; he will gladly make a fool of himself dancing just to make a baby smile. 

 And the Fantasy Lover is often… yes… kinda predatory. He’s a vampire, or a werewolf, or a Phantom, or a Goblin King. He comes onto you, not the other way around; he chases you, and you run for a while before falling into his arms and being Ravished. He leads when you dance; he tells you “do everything I say, and I will be your slave”.

But there’s a reason for this. in modern American society- and this was even more true back when Labyrinth was being filmed- women are not supposed to want sex. even having fantasies about having a passionate lover you sought out that you want can get a bit ~taboo~. and if you’re a teenager- especially if you’re a sheltered teenager with no female friends or family, no one to tell you that what you want is okay and normal- it can feel weird and bad and scary to fantasize about, well, initiating consensual sex. you don’t feel like you’re allowed to; Nice Girls don’t. 

so oftentimes, the Fantasy Lover blurs into rape fantasy territory. he knows exactly what you want and he gives it to you, no matter how many times you say no. you deny yourself any agency within the context of your fantasy, but since it’s just a fantasy, you’re having your cake and eating it too– after all, you can stop whenever you like. you still get to be a Nice Girl, a Good Girl- you didn’t do anything wrong, even in your own head- but you get all the poorly-choreographed Imaginary Romance Bodice-Rippin’ you want. 

normally, this is a pretty harmless coping mechanism. the thing is… “denying herself her own agency” is one of Sarah’s big flaws.

 She tends to immediately deny that she made bad decisions, to act like bad things just happen to her because It’s Not Fair, to balk when there’s a problem she can’t immediately solve. heck, selling Toby to the Goblin King in the first place is sort of a backhanded denial-of-agency – she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Toby even though she resents his existence, oh no no no, it was the Goblin King that stole the baby. 

 And Sarah’s never in any real danger from Jareth. the snake scared her, but it didn’t bite; the poisoned peach would have made her lose her memory and stay in her fantasy world forever, which is something that Sarah knows is bad, but still kinda wants on some level. at their final confrontation, he doesn’t try to kill her, doesn’t try to fight her– because he can’t. 

Jareth is Sarah’s Fantasy Lover. He can’t do anything that Sarah doesn’t want him to. he’s predatory because Sarah wants him to be, because then she doesn’t have to accept that she wants sex and romance; she can pretend it’s just another thing that happens to her. the reason Jareth is so out of control in the text is that Sarah has given away all control. 

the final confrontation in Labyrinth, isn’t Good Versus Evil in the sense that you mean; it isn’t Sarah destroying Jareth forever, or kicking him out of the land. Hell, he shows up at the end in barn owl form, while all the muppets are having a dance party in Sarah’s bedroom– he’s a part of her inner, fantastic world, and has just as much right to be there as Ludo or Hoggle or the little dudes with the ostrich hats. but he’s only a part of that world, and he’s not the part that matters most, or the part that has say.

their final confrontation is Sarah accepting, and taking responsibility for, her inner life. she is the one in charge of her destiny; she wants what she wants, she needs what she needs, and she will take responsibility for both. she doesn’t need Jareth to do things “to” her so she can pretend she doesn’t want them to happen. her will is as strong as Jareth’s, and her kingdom as great.  he has no power over her. 

so like…I get where you’re coming from with recognizing the Unfortunate Implications and all. “Gay people are sexual predators” is still A Thing, and in the real world, yeah, Jareth would be a creepy pedo stalker. assuming our civilization survives and all, I hope that someday people look at Labyrinth the way we look at Baby, It’s Cold Outside and completely miss the point. :V  

…but c’mon. a kid who grows up being told that they don’t really want the things they want– and if they do want those things, they’re Literally Satan– is gonna have so very much more trouble accepting their own sexuality as they get older.  

you can’t tell me that there aren’t plenty of queer teenagers out there who have the same problem denying their own agency, magnified and exacerbated by the fact that they’re queer. or that plenty of us didn’t want the goblin king to come take us away, and didn’t really understand why until much, much later.     

There’s another element I might like to add to the archetype of the Fantasy Lover, based on my own experience and observation:

When the Fantasy Lover is not human – vampire, werewolf, or Goblin King – then it comes with the understanding that the way he behaves is simply in his nature. There’s no need to fuss over wondering why he became this way (or whether he might become worse in the future) or whether you have an obligation to try to Fix Him with your love, or whether there was something you said or did to make him this way. He simply is.

(I mean, I Can Fix Him With My Love is also  a fantasy, but a different one. Sort of how like “I overcome the oppression” and “I don’t have to face the oppression in the first place” are both important fantasies for many minority groups, I Can Fix Him and I Don’t Have To Fix Him are both important fantasies for young girls.)

For young girls who have grown up with a *lot* of messaging that the good behavior of boys around them is in some way their responsibility and the bad behavior is somehow their fault, this is a *very* freeing narrative.

This.

A LOT of stories would be terrible in the real world (not just romantic ones). But they aren’t in the real world! And this one especially is about the teenage protagonist discovering her own power through the stories she imagines for herself. Of course it would be creepy if the Goblin King was her real-life teacher or older neighbour or whatever. But he’s not! He exists only for her, and has only the power she gives him. And it’s fine if she wants him a bit predatory - she’s allowed to explore any kind of fantasy she wants, she’s allowed to discover what she likes to think about, she’s allowed to grow up.

reblog for larger sample size :)

Im just feeling a certain way rn

you know i was thinking about it and since both the force and the inner workings of the human mind are arguably non-observable phenomena i think force-based academia should look a lot like psychology. current arguments and achievements of note include:

and, of course, the interdisciplinary argument staple

Okay, so I don't know if anyone else has payed much attention to this moment but there is a scene in early season six after Spoke amd Buffy had sex for the first time and Spike says something completely unhinged along the lines of: "you can't act all high and mighty with me anymore, slayer. I know where you live. I've tasted it", right? And so, before I had tumblr I spent a lot of time on pinterest and I came across a post that was screenshots of that scene. Now, in the comments someone had written something along the lines of: "tasted where she lives? So he licked her house?". And. For some reason. This was the funniest goddamn thing I had ever read. So, without further ado, the reason for this post:

doing the obligatory atla rewatch rn, and so far the main rewatch-value takeaway has been Uncle POV Unlocked 

Atla heritage post

I'm sorry, but to me the peak of on screen male-to-male intimacy was accomplished by Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor in The Phantom Menace.

The way Obi-Wan RUSHES to Qui-Gon's side the EXACT SECOND he is sure Darth Maul ain't coming out of that melting pit. The way he FOLDS himself around his dying mentor.

The beard touch.

It's not captioned in this gif, but while this is happening, Qui-Gon whispers to him "No. It's too late." Trying to keep down any fear of hurting him Obi-Wan has, trying to squash any feelings of resentment or anger that the young man would be pointing inward just then for not being fast enough, not being good enough. Because that would lead him to the darkness.

I am already gone, please let me see your face free of anguish for my last moments.

The way Obi-Wan's hand moves over Qui-Gon's chest, feeling for his heartbeat, maybe trying to coax the living force into keeping Qui-Gon alive JUST LONG ENOUGH so that he can drag him into the palace and to a bacta tank.

And then when the perspective shifts to show us Qui-Gon?

The little caress on Obi-Wan's cheek? Pretty much the only evidence we have up until the cut away that this poor kid just watched his father figure/mentor/brother-in-arms/constant companion/comrade/teacher get stabbed and is either very close to or already starting to bawl his eyes out? The way his voice is just so soft (probably because he was stabbed through the diaphragm) as he imparts his dying wish? Him basically begging Obi-Wan to remember what he told him in the swamps, that he will be a great Jedi and is wiser than Qui-Gon himself? That he should believe in himself?!

The last breath? The closing of the eyes? Obi-Wan only being able to nod because if he says anything he WILL LOOSE IT. Him resting the bridge of his nose on Qui-Gon's as his best friend becomes one with the Force?

The way Obi-Wan cradles his head?

And then that last pan away, when we see what is left of his resolve from the moment just shatter and his shoulders shake and he crumples against the body in his arms?

Yea... No...

These two? Nothing is ever going to beat this moment for me. It's so sad but just so well acted.

We did not deserve this performance in 1999.

We do not deserve this performance NOW.

Remember, kids, this holiday season: evil people have deviant sexual urges too...