jedilemon

[jedilemon]

best part of princess bride is that inigo loudly and openly states to anybody who will listen that he's going to kill a guy for revenge and has been chasing this for a while and instead of anybody saying "but revenge wont bring ur father back are u really sure that killing this guy will make anything better arent u scared of regretting the one thing uve spent ur entire life chasing" they're all just like "yea dude sounds cool hope you find him" and then he does and inigo kills him and is just "aw cool my dads avenged now i can go ride off into the sunset with my friends" and i think thats actually really great. yea maybe revenge isnt always the answer but it sure does make you feel better

[jedilemon]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BABIEST!!! NICO DI ANGELO!!!

[jedilemon]

Death will not free you of your duties, Jason Grace

[jedilemon]

Stephanie: You know what? When you think about it…. Tim just dipping and randomly popping up with another blonde was fucked up. I deserve better than that shit man.

Cassandra: Yeah, me personally, I could never do that to someone I love… you deserve someone that would never do that to you

Cassandra internally: please take the hint please take the hint please take the fucking hint

[jedilemon]

does anyone wanna hold hands until we feel a little braver

[jedilemon]

@jedijune 02 The Force

✨🌙  ART LOG ->  @404ama  

[jedilemon]

post-crisis batkid canonical ages

“It’s impossible to figure out comic book timelines” - people who are not me and who I cannot relate to. I have crafted this, a coherent, canon-compliant timeline. A quick preface:

This is all for the Post-Crisis (i.e. New Earth/1986-2011/Pre-Flashpoint/pre-reboot/“preboot”/best) continuity.

My main principle here is diegetic evidence from comics >>>> evidence from supplemental materiel (like calendars, timelines from secret files & origins, character encyclopedias, etc)

Second principle is that mentions of ages, birthdays > mentions of time passed > non-birthday month placements (e.g. the start of school years).

We’re going to go youngest to oldest, because it actually makes more sense that way.

Damian is 10-11 at the end of preboot.

Damian’s birthday is not given in Post-Crisis.

Damian is 10 when he becomes Robin, per Batman and Robin vol 1 #1. He is still 10 in Batgirl vol 3 #17. That is the last time I am aware of where his age is said, so he may or may not have turned 11 in the short remaining time before Flashpoint.

Tim is about 7 years older than Damian. He is 17 at the end of preboot.

Tim’s birthday is July 19th (Robin #116).

Tim turned 16 in R#116, before the One Year Later event (where, as you may guess, a year passed), meaning he is at least 17 after OYL. Tim is still 17 in Red Robin #25. Damian becomes Robins between these events, meaning Tim is 17 when Damian is 10, and they are ~7 years apart.

RR#25 is the penultimate issue of Red Robin. Coupled with the significance of an 18th birthday and the fact that we never see one, there is virtually no chance that Tim turned 18 before Flashpoint. He’s 17.

Stephanie is <1 year older than Tim. Steph is 18 at the end of preboot.

Stephanie’s birthday is not given in Post-Crisis.

Stephanie was 15 when she first became Spoiler, per her recounting the story in Secret Origins 80-Page Giant. She is still 15 in Robin #59. In between these events, Tim is stated as 14 in Robin #43. Therefore, Stephanie is older. Stephanie “died” when she is 16, per the last story in Batman Allies Secret Files and Origins, between R#116 and OYL, meaning Tim was also 16. That makes her less than a year older.

She is also one grade above Tim, starting college in Batgirl vol 3 #1, shortly before it’s confirmed by Red Robin #17 that Tim (had he not dropped out) should be a senior in high school.

Stephanie starts college in Batgirl vol 3 #1, and we have every reason to believe she is starting at the "normal” time, making her 18. Since Tim is 17 at the end of Post-Crisis, and Steph is less than a year older, she can’t be any older than 18.

Jason is 1 year, 11 months, 3 days older than Tim. Jason is 19 at the end of preboot.

Jason’s birthday is on August 16th (Detective Comics #790).

No ambiguity here! Tim and Jason are exactly 702 days apart, unless Tim was born on or right after a leap year, making it 703. We know this because Jason’s 18th birthday is on August 16th in DC#790, which occurs after R#116 and Tim’s 16th birthday, but before OYL where Tim turns 17. This means Jason must have turned 18 when Tim was 16.

Jason’s age is never explicitly said after his return. But because his birthday comes after Tim’s, and Tim is still 17 at the end of preboot, we can be completely confident that Jason is still 19.

Cass is 6 months, 21 days older than Jason. Cass is 19-20 at the end of preboot.

Cassandra’s birthday is on January 26th (Batgirl vol 1 #33).

Cass turned 18 in Batgirl #37, shortly before both R#116 and DC#790, meaning before Tim turned 16 and Jason 18. This is well after No Man’s Land, so we can be certain Tim is long-since 15 (see below cut), and since her birthday is in January, we can also be certain Jason is long-since 17. This means Cass is less than a year older than Jason.

Cass’s age is also never said towards the end of preboot, but can be estimated via Jason (via Tim). Knowing Jason is 19 and Cass is 7 months older, we know she must be 19-20 at the end of preboot. However, since her birthday is before Tim’s, we cannot say if it’s passed to be more specific than that.

Dick is probably 6 years, 4 months, 26 days older than Jason (5 years, 10 months, 6 days older than Cass). He is 25-26 at the end of preboot.

Dick’s birthday is complicated, but imo the best bet for Post-Crisis is March 20th (see below cut).

Dick’s age is extremely messy, but here goes. Dick is 19 when Bruce fires him (Batman #419) and Jason is at most 12 when Bruce finds him shortly after (see below). Dick turns 20 while Jason is Robin (Secret Origins vol 2 #13 and New Teen Titans vol 2 #18). Dick is at most 21 in Deathstroke vol 1 Annual #1, after Tim is introduced. This means Dick is 20-21 when Tim is introduced at 13. The ONLY possible way to make all those ages work is for Dick to be ~6.5 years older than Jason, ~8.5 years older than Tim.

Dick’s age is not really said after that, except the vague mention in Nightwing vol 2 #134 that the time around his 17th birthday was “almost ten years” ago. This fits with what his age should logically be based on the difference to Tim, and we can confidently put him at 25-26 at the end of preboot.

A detailed timeline, references, and explanations of what was included or had to be ignored under the cut:

Keep reading

[jedilemon]

Every time i purchase a moderately expensive item the Karl Marx on my shoulder is like "For shame... you purchase yet another pair of jeans when you have 5 already at home, you despicable commodity fetishist? In my time, a man with five outfits would consider himself blessed beyond measure, and yet you want for more, while there are children starving in the world??" to which the second Karl Marx on my other shoulder says "Objection! Those 5 pairs of jeans all wildly uncomfortable or have holes in the ass, due to the decline of clothing quality driven by the fast fashion industry, unfortunately making this purchase a necessity... Plus, by purchasing a slightly more expensive pair of jeans from an independent brand, seeking quality over 'brand recognition', they are deliberately trying to avoid engaging in conspicuous consumption!" to which the third Karl Marx clinging to my back like that beetle from Doctor Who says "Remember, my friend; the less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt — your capital. Buy the jeans," to which I say "I don't know if any of you have actually read Karl Marx"

[jedilemon]

i cannot stand the “let men be friends” thing anymore. no it’s gay now. really gay. Sorry

[jedilemon]

Star Wars as tweets/textposts pt.2

<- | SW | ->

[jedilemon]

does anyone wanna hold hands until we feel a little braver

[jedilemon]

The Great Goodreads Diss List (Part 1)

Context: For many years now, I have been collecting funny lines from Goodreads reviews to share with my coworkers. (I do collection development, reader's advisory, and weeding at a public library, so I read a LOT of reviews)

Are some of these, perhaps, rather mean? Yes, but they are also very funny, and come from a place of honest frustration. In the tradition of Bargepole threads and lists everywhere, names and titles have been censored.

"First, I want to say that I understand how hard it is to write a book and how amazing it is when it is actually published. Congrats to the author for that accomplishment. That said--"

"Warning: This review will be lengthy due to pure hatred."

"I found myself feeling really, really annoyed with the world that this book is allowed to exist. We live in a universe where the passenger pigeon is extinct but this book goes along merrily being read by unsuspecting lovers of words and ideas and stories? It just seems like too much, you know?"

"Don't do it. Don't spring the cash for the hardcover. Instead, eat an entire bag of Twizzlers, spend some money you don't have at a high-end department store, look up on Facebook the shady college boyfriend that made you cry, research the current value of your home or 401K and then read all about how the big hedge fund managers are faring during the economic crisis. You'll feel about the same stomach pain if you waste your time reading this book."

"This wretched novel begins with the mugging of an old lady and it appears I may be in the process of repeating that loathsome crime as [author] was 78 when she wrote it. It is not nice to put the boot into such a poor defenseless old creature lying there with only a damehood, a Booker Prize and a few million quid. It’s a nasty job but somebody has to do it."

"I think this is the way dead people would write, if they could."

"I am considering setting up SPABB: Society for the Protection of Accurate Book Blurb. This blurb appears to have been written by someone from the publishers who met [the author] the night before, got very drunk, lost his notes and then constructed something in a fug of hangover the next morning."

"I congratulate [the author] on the early half of his book, which was thoroughly fun and made me laugh and think. I congratulate [the author] on the second half of his book, for finishing it. It reads like that was difficult."

"…a woman whose taste in contemporary literature has roughly the same batting average as a pitcher in the National League."

"The author is a pompous windbag."

"Recommends it for: No one. Recommended to me by: A friend who apparently wished to cause me great suffering."

"Makes me wonder: is it possible to obtain similes at a volume discount?"

"The repeated phrases made me want to mail a thesaurus to the author."

"I'm disappointed in myself for finishing this book."

"if the author described [character's] eyes as "obsidian" one more time I was tempted to write her and ask if her thesaurus broke."

"They say that an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters would, if given infinite time, eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. [This book], on the other hand, would probably take the average monkey just under two hours."

"I can't imagine what the author had to do to get this nadir of Western literature printed on innocent trees, but he does seem to know a LOT about being well-connected in New York."

"This book is so bad it is almost worth reading just to make you appreciate the other books you are reading."

"Reads like it was written by a brilliant author, the night before it was due."

"raises interesting questions, like: can a book be so bad as to constitute an act of terrorism"

"has this author ever spoken to a human woman"

"This acorn has fallen so far from the tree that it can’t even see the forest."

"I’m guessing they are touted as ‘beach reads’ because no one will care if they get dropped into the ocean."

"This book begins with all the energy of a hand vacuum near the end of its battery life, and the pace doesn't quicken much from there."

"At least everybody’s eyes stayed the same color this time around."

[jedilemon]

i love things that come in glass jars because once its over the glass jar is mine

[jedilemon]

[jedilemon]

can you please get into everything you think is pretty willfully ignored about ROTS in favour of flattening the story into something that’s more individually palatable

so, fundamentally, the OT and the PT are two different kinds of story; the OT is a hero's journey, and the PT is a tragedy. this necessitates and allows for different elements of lucas' worldbuilding to be showcased in each. in the OT, the empire is allowed to be a very flat, cynical force for evil, because it's the force that luke has to valiantly slam his shoulder into, repeatedly, in order to complete his hero's journey, and it suited the anti-war film that lucas had set out to make before he started throwing literally every other genre into it. ANH came out in 1977, from the mind of someone who'd had their brain dunked into the protests against the vietnam war and then set to spin cycle. lucas has said as much; The Empire is a vague stand-in for every empire, borrows the styling of fascist regimes as a visual cue for the audience to go, "hm, evil," without ever having to depict actual fascism onscreen.

this was a smart choice, because fascism is an incredibly hard thing to define clearly, much less defining it clearly and also getting through all of the other worldbuilding star wars had to get through in order to be understandable to anyone. the famous opening crawl, actually, was a result of lucas struggling to both have a coherent film and slam a lot of worldbuilding into a film people otherwise weren't going to understand - lucas showed the cut of episode three to (iirc) spielberg, who essentially was like, what the fuck is happening? the crawl itself exists because the OT had to do a lot with very little time, and so, because the OT is your introduction to star wars, it is a simple hero's journey, with one notable twist. it doesn't try to be anything else and it doesn't need to be.

the PT is different. people at this point know the universe of star wars, and they know how these movies end. there's been other writers hacking away at the GFFA for years, and star wars has a dedicated fanbase of people who pick over the films like vultures - it's not some movie attempting to be a success, it is a smash fucking hit, a runaway train of success that has made lucas enough money that he can do whatever he wants even if everyone around him fucking hates it. (and everyone did. studio executives very hilariously told lucas that he was going to kill star wars with nine year old darth vader.) the PT has the time and the investment to be different, and to stretch further, than the OT ever did. and in his glee, i do think lucas bit off more than he could chew, because he introduced audiences to an enormous galaxy, a wildly complicated takeover scheme, the romance on which all the films depend on, and the moral decay of the one character all six films have in common, and jesus christ there was no way in fucking sam hell that he was going to deliver something satisfying on every front.

throughout the PT you can see the bones of points lucas was trying to make, and the skeleton is there, it's just also joined by nine other half-complete skeletons; each find is individually interesting but the payoff is either buried in scripts, deleted scenes, or was forced to be dropped, like jar jar. jar jar originally had a subplot in AOTC that touched on the ways he was forced to conform once arriving on coruscant, forgoing his racist and grating speech pattern from TPM for an upper-cut lightly posh way of speaking, that's common to all of the characters from coruscant and is reminiscent of the vaguely british accents of a lot of the characters that represent the empire. i'm not saying that subplot would have been executed well, and it's good for my sanity that it was cut, but i am saying that lucas had intended to weave in another thread about how the republic expects everyone to conform to a set normal long before the empire even comes to power, in another of lucas' many attempts to convey; the republic is becoming the empire without palpatine's input. palpatine seizes an opportunity; he doesn't create one.

this is undercut by how (extremely) convoluted the plot to create the clone wars becomes in AOTC, which is a film that tries its best to set up the political drama of the era but ultimately kind of fails. i mean, even among dedicated star wars fans, there's really really little discussion about the segment of the opening crawl that specifies that jedi are run ragged trying to mediate between planets and the republic before everything boils over to war, which, like, i'd consider that pretty necessary context for every choice made in AOTC, but it's largely ignored even by the vultures. so a lot of what AOTC tries to do in regards to developing the republic further as the failed state that it is - because TPM introduces us to a state that's in complete fucking failure - ends up being shunted off on ROTS, which is a movie that already had an enormous amount to do and little time to accomplish it, and this makes certain bits of ROTS fucking fascinating and there will never be any delivery on any of it because there's no more star wars. (there is no disney in ba sing se. there is no disney in ba sing se. there is n)

like, just to lead you through a Thought Diagram of how insane some of the underexplored elements of ROTS are:

palpatine has taken over the government before the movie fucking starts. you start this film without a hope of winning. lucas absolutely never wanted anyone to believe the republic was a force for good, because every film opens with it in an evolving state of failure - in TPM, it is powerless to stop a corporation from invading an entire planet and rounding up its population into labor camps to exploit their labor to collect a debt, which is before palpatine does anything more than fuck around as one senator among thousands. palpatine isn't shown to manipulate The Entire Republic. the system itself is already broken, and he does nothing that isn't perfectly legal within the system. in AOTC, the film begins with the galaxy - once again - on the precipice of a civil war, and the ending battle of AOTC on geonosis is actually really chilling, because what starts as an arena duel melts seamlessly into full scale war without anyone stopping it. and in fact, by the end of the film, everyone involved continues to escalate. when ROTS opens, you open with the republic's leader captured and chained - the republic has nearly essentially lost. lucas tied the brokenness of the republic, and its complete failure to be successful at anything, to the plot as integral to its ability to move forward in the way that it does - you are never supposed to want to fight for the republic. that's fucking fascinating.

so all of the characters are trapped in the eternal bell jar of being motivated to protect a fundamentally broken system. not only are their motivations futile to us, who know how this story ends, their motivations are futile within the GFFA itself, because the republic isn't salvageable. it is never successful at being a state. it is never successful at being government. ROTS becomes the film where everyone looks around and finally sees the bell jar, and panics; the frog has finally, finally, finally noticed that the water is boiling. almost all of the characters are then tasked with reacting to the reality of the bell jar; padme, seeing the republic is broken, wants to tape over the cracks with the loyalist committee. the jedi council actively discusses a military coup. anakin, perhaps the guy with the shittiest response ever to realizing the water is boiling, decides this is the same water he's been in all his life so it can't be wrong, and not only does he love the bell jar he is trapped in, he'll slaughter any perceived threats to it.

you can see evidence of the above scattered everywhere through the film. padme pensively asking anakin if the republic has become the very thing they were fighting against, anakin's horror at her disloyalty; the council, as mentioned, discussing taking over the fucking senate, which is an insane thing no one ever talks about; palpatine's classic I AM THE SENATE (note: he was, in fact, the senate); and the famous, "this is how liberty dies." everyone fucking applauded, because most people lie dead center between padme and anakin - they like the bell jar because it feels safe, even though they probably wouldn't slaughter small children to protect it.

you are never, ever supposed to believe the republic is a Good Institution that's Worth Saving, because it is never shown as anything other than a failure. the one character, the singular character in all of the PT who has seen the bell jar from the start, is palpatine, who is the guy who uses it to climb to the very top of centralized power in the GFFA.

that all said, a lot of discussion intentionally ignores the blatant reality that the republic is a failure of a government, and that ROTS is a movie where all the characters in it suddenly see the boom mic in the shot, realize that they've spent blood, sweat, and tears defending an institution that was a complete lie far before palpatine did any breaking. i'm not sure what the motivation for ignoring such a significant part of the story is - maybe it's to make specific characters look better for fighting tooth and nail on the republic's behalf, but every character in the PT defends it, i'm not sure why we're playing the Blame Game with fictional dudes who are all equally guilty of drinking the damn kool aid. but in order to thoroughly enjoy what is one of my favorite aspects of the PT, you have to accept that the premise of the PT fundamentally requires everyone who believes in the republic as an institution to be very wrong about that.

[jedilemon]

Funniest possible stance for Brucie Wayne to publically take is a firmly-rooted belief that Batman doesn't exist.

"I've never once been rescued by this so-called hero and I've been kidnapped 14 times already this year."

"Why would the police summon him with a giant lantern? Wouldn't that make more sense for Mothman?"

"I know what you can do with Photoshop, these doctored pictures can't fool me! Tim's a whiz with photos, have you seen his latest exhibit..?"

"Vigilantism is illegal, you can't do that."

[jedilemon]

there’s a little detail that i didn’t notice about “the blue spirit” when i first watched it.  when zuko returns to his ship after his misadventures at ponhuai, avatar-less and honorless and still puzzling over aang’s speech and having made an enemy of zhao and probably severely concussed, iroh is there on deck.  

music night happened the previous night.  and yet it’s morning when zuko returns, and iroh is still playing the tsungi horn on deck.  

iroh waited up all night for zuko to come back.  

it’s such a small detail, but speaks volumes about their relationship.  iroh not only allows zuko to sneak out in order to free the avatar in order to preserve his chance at regaining his honor, iroh actually subtly encorages zuko to free aang from ponhuai, even though he clearly knows that there’s every possibilty that zuko will be caught by zhao and iroh will not be able to save him.  

as the guardian of a teenager, iroh’s influence over zuko is limited.  iroh must allow zuko the freedom to chase after the destiny he thinks he wants, iroh cannot always protect zuko or keep him out of danger, iroh cannot even demonstrate affection to zuko in the way he would clearly like to because zuko is too hurt and guarded to be able to accept it from him - 

- but iroh can wait up for him.  

iroh can sit up all night, just to make sure that zuko gets home safely.  

and it is such a striking element of their relationship, because I waited up all night for you becomes the unspoken love language by which they communicate caring and affection for each other.  

iroh waits all night for zuko to return safely from ponhuai stronghold. iroh stays up while zuko sleeps on the ferry and waits up for zuko to return home from his date with jin. iroh sits up all night watching over zuko when he is sick and feverish.  

and it’s not one-sided, because zuko waits up for iroh.  

zuko waits up all night watching over an injured iroh after azula blasts him with blue fire.  zuko sits up all night waiting for iroh to wake up when they reunite at the white lotus camp.

and this gesture becomes so important to zuko that it even becomes the way he demonstrates caring and concern for the members of the gaang.  zuko waits up all night in appa’s saddle, knowing that sokka is planning a rescue mission.  zuko waits up all night for katara to wake, knowing she needs to confront her own deeply-felt anger before she can understand and let go of it.  

and this even is the gesture by which aang first demonstrates friendship to zuko.  after zuko is knocked out by an arrow to his blue spirit mask, aang sits up with zuko for the rest of the night until zuko wakes up, just to make sure zuko is all right.

and the concept of sitting up all night for you is such a poignant contrast to zuko’s memory of his mother, who vanished out his life in the middle of the night, waking him up for a last goodbye.  

it’s pretty clear that iroh sitting up all night with a sick child was far from an unusual occasion.   i think it was probably really important for zuko to be shown, again and again and again, that he has someone who will be there when morning comes.  

one parent left zuko in the night - but one parent will always wait up for him to come home.