#ESSAYS. *

[gaindragon]

BOLD ENOUGH & AEMOND. house of the dragon, season one, episode 7 / house of the dragon, season one, episode 7 / house of the dragon, season two, episode 8 & george r.r. martin's fire and blood / saint mesa, blackest hand / george r.r. martin's fire and blood / house of the dragon, season two, episode 7 & kiki rockwell, burn your village / george r.r. martin's fire and blood / house of the dragon, season one, episode 10 / c.s. lewis' the chronicles of narnia / house of the dragon, season two, episode 4 / george r.r. martin's fire and blood / saint mesa, blackest hand / george r.r. martin's fire and blood / house of the dragon, season two, episode 4 & george r.r. martin's fire and blood.

[oakenbranch]

THE HISTORY OF THORIN; A TIMELINE AND RELATING EVENTS.

here offers a brief overview of the different events marked in thorin's life from his birth to his death, as well as the coming of the messenger of morder to the gates of erebor. 't.a.' refers to the third age of middle-earth's history, in the time of the sun and the moon.

T.A. 2590: king thrór re-establishes erebor, 591 years after thráin the first founded it, and 380 years after thorin the first abandons it for the grey mountains. though the alliance between durin's folk and the kingdom of mirkwood had already been made, it is strengthened by king thrór's return. the arkenstone is discovered. in T.A. 2644, thráin the second is born.

T.A. 2746: thorin the second is born. frerin, his brother, is born in T.A. 2751, and dís, his sister, is born in T.A. 2760.

T.A. 2767: the alliance between king thrór and king thranduil is ended over a dispute of jewels.

T.A. 2770: smaug takes erebor. dale is burned. fréris, wife of thráin, is eaten by the dragon. all who can escape the mountain hide, awaiting more survivors. after a week, king thranduil arrives with a host to aid erebor. however, seeing it lost and deeming it and the dwarves without hope, he turns and leads his army back into mirkwood. while some dwarves go to the iron hills, the rest of the dwarves of erebor depart to dunland. after a few months, the remaining dwarves, led by queen durís, wife of thrór, starve to death in hiding in the mountain.

T.A. 2799: the battle of azanulbizar takes place in front of moria after months of smaller scale battles. here, king thrór and frerin are slain, and thráin is taken captive. thorin faces azog the defiler and earns his epithet. balin and dwalin fight by his side, while their father fundin is slain. lord náin, and his son dáin, arrive late to aid the house of durin. náin is slain, and dáin ironfoot, looking into the gates of moria, sees durin's bane. the battle is won, but no one is willing to enter the mountain while durin's bane still lingers. they return to dunland.

T.A. 2800: after thráin has been missing for a year, thorin is named king of durin's folk. he and his people dare to enter the realm of mirkwood, asking for food and shelter. king thranduil turns them away.

T.A. 2802: the dwarves of erebor, now led by thorin, travel to and establish themselves in the blue mountains. in T.A. 2854, dís marries víli of the blue mountains. in T.A. 2859, fíli is born, and in T.A. 2864, kíli after. víli is killed in T.A. 2875.

T.A. 2941: gandalf comes across thorin by chance at the prancing pony in bree while thorin is out looking for thráin. through gandalf's council, the quest for the lonely mountain begins. erebor is re-taken, smaug is killed, the battle of the five armies takes place, and the deaths of thorin, fíli, and kíli occur. dáin becomes king of erebor.

T.A. 3017: an emissary of mordor approaches erebor asking after a lesser ring and a certain hobbit ...

[koobiie]

i feel strongly about this

[soracities]

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]

[valeriehalla]

I am so utterly fascinated by “Saki”, the 18-year-running mahjong manga in which you, the reader, become gradually, frog-boilingly aware (over the course of nearly two decades’ worth of mahjong tournaments) that none of these girls are wearing underwear and most of their boobs are slowly expanding.

I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:

the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and

the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.

Okay. Point 1. The frog-boiling.

Let me put this in perspective for you. There was already a meme about how the characters in “Saki” don’t wear underwear when I was in middle school. I am thirty now. Okay? And it’s still going.

In the time since, this has stopped being a joke. It is now indisputable canon. This is not because anyone outright says it at any point. It’s because the underwear ran out of places to hide. I’m obsessed with this thought: somewhere in the over 20 volumes of “Saki”, there is a panel in which underwear was objectively deconfirmed. And it would be so hard to figure out where that panel actually is. Maybe the artist didn’t even realize it when she drew it! The frog? Boiling!!

And of course there is also the breast expansion. I don’t know how to put a spin on this. They are just expanding. Like, this happens a lot with artists: you define a character as being, in your mind, “the one with the big boobs”, and over the years you emphasize that trait further and further so that the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. It’s just that normally—in like a wildly popular manga series about mahjong published by literally Square Enix, for example—normally there would be a point at which the boobs stopped getting bigger. Like, an editor would step in or something. Or you would get to the point where you cannot draw the character in the same panel as her mahjong tiles without her breasts spilling over the tiles, and you’d go, “Well, this is now untenable.”

That did not happen. There is no ceiling. The frog is soup.

Point 2. The complete and utter mundanity of all of this.

It’s like this, okay: there’s no shortage of trashy ecchi manga out there. There’s a million other comics doing wildly bawdier things with wildly more improbable bishoujos.

The vibe with “Saki” is different.

It’s hard to explain this, but it feels like the world of the comic is fundamentally uninterested in the fanservice happening on the page. I cannot describe it as “leering”, because I cannot conceive of a person in the story from whose point of view one would leer. I think the artist is probably into it—I can’t imagine anyone is making her do this—but “Saki” the comic has no opinion on the matter.

There are essentially no male characters in “Saki”. Like, there was one guy? Kind of? At the very beginning? But he is gone now. They put him back in the toybox. He does not exist. It appears to be some level of canonical that in the world of “Saki”, almost all humans are women. Those women are sometimes romantically into each other. According to comments the artist has made on Twitter (which I cannot source), they have lesbian baby technology, so it’s no problem. It’s so much not a problem that the story is about mahjong, instead of any of that.

So, like, the fiction here appears to be this: this is the, like, meta-narrative of the fanservice of “Saki”, right: it’s just normal that they don’t wear underwear and their boobs are arbitrarily big. It’s been normal. It was normal before the story of the manga began. It’s just how things are. Nobody bats an eye about it, and if they do, it’s in sort of a lesbian kind of way so like what’s the problem, we love lesbians here. This is literally normal for girls.

The fanservice simply diffuses into this all-encompassing aura of disembodied, ambient sluttiness. The framing of the panels demands you acknowledge it, and the story demands you already be over it, because it’s mahjong time now, and we’re playing mahjong.

Do you get??? why I’m so fascinated??? Are you not a little enraptured???

Anyway, I have no idea how to end this weird post. I guess the conclusion is that women stay winning????

[francisforever2014]

how it feels knowing that loneliness is still time spent with the world

[ofswordsandpens]

idk why people get super pedantic about the movie logic in Home Alone and start and try to pick it apart, because like, its a Christmas movie about a child accidentally being left home alone, the premise isn't exactly asking us to suspend our disbelief that much, and yet nearly every single "gotcha" question I see people bring up about this film is literally answered within the first 15 minutes :/

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

if I've learned anything from grad school it's to check your sources, and this has proven invaluable in the dozens of instances when I've had an MBA-type try to tell me something about finances or leadership. Case in point:

Firefox serves me clickbaity articles through Pocket, which is fine because I like Firefox. But sometimes an article makes me curious. I'm pretty anal about my finances, and I wondered if this article was, as I suspected, total horseshit, or could potentially benefit me and help me get my spending under control. So let's check the article in question.

It mostly seems like common sense. "...track expenses and income for at least a month before setting a budget...How much money do I have or earn? How much do I want to save?" Basic shit like that. But then I get to this section:

This sounds fucking made up to me. And thankfully, they've provided a source to their claim that "research has repeatedly shown" that writing things down changes behavior. First mistake. What research is this?

Forbes, naturally, my #1 source for absolute dogshit fart-sniffing financial schlock. Forbes is the type of website that guy from high school who constantly posts on linkedin trawls daily for little articles like this that make him feel better about refusing to pay for a decent package for his employees' healthcare (I'm from the United States, a barbaric, conflict-ridden country in the throes of civil unrest, so obsessed with violence that its warlords prioritize weapons over universal medical coverage. I digress). Forbes constantly posts shit like this, and I constantly spend my time at leadership seminars debunking poor consultants who get paid to read these claims credulously. Look at this highlighted text. Does it make sense to you that simply writing your financial goals down would result in a 10x increase in your income? Because if it does, let me make you an offer on this sick ass bridge.

Thankfully, Forbes also makes the mistake of citing their sources. Let's check to see where this hyperlink goes:

SidSavara. I've never heard of this site, but the About section tells me that Sid is "a technology leader who empowers teams to grow into their best selves. He is a life-long learner enjoys developing software, leading teams in delivering mission critical projects, playing guitar and watching football and basketball."

That doesn't mean anything. What are his LinkedIn credentials? With the caveat that anyone can lie on Linkedin, Mr. Savara appears to be a Software Engineer. Which is fine! I'm glad software engineers exist! But Sid's got nothing in his professional history which suggests he knows shit about finance. So I'm already pretty skeptical of his website, which is increasingly looking like a personal fart-huffing blog.

The article itself repeats the credulous claim made in the Forbes story earlier, but this time, provides no link for the 3% story. Mr. Savara is smarter than his colleages at Forbes, it's much wiser to just make shit up.

HOWEVER. I am not the first person to have followed this rabbit hole. Because at the very top of this article, there is a disclaimer.

Uh oh!

Sid's been called out before, and in the follow up to this article, he reveals the truth.

You can guess where this is going.

So to go back to the VERY beginning of this post, both Pocket/Good Housekeeping and Forbes failed to do even the most basic of research, taking the wild claim that writing down your budget may increase your income by 10x on good faith and the word of a(n admittedly honest about his shortcomings) software engineer.

Why did I spend 30 minutes to make a tumblr post about this? Mostly to show off how smart I am, but also to remind folks of just how flimsy any claim on the internet can be. Click those links, follow those sources, and when the sources stop linking, ask why.

[simplyfroggy]

me when a movie is bad: 👎

me when a movie is good: 👍

me when a movie is mediocre:

[mayonaisalspray]

HEY YOU!

Do you have an obsession with Ace Attorney? At least mild respect (or fear) for Miles Edgeworth? An inability to focus on your tasks? All of the above? Well I have just the thing for you!!

For the low price of opening it on your web browser of choice, you can use my handy dandy program I’m tentatively calling “Miles Edgeworth Glares At You For Being On Your Phone Instead Of Working”

Features include setting a timer(wow!), victory music, and an image of one very angry looking prosecutor! That’s more than one feature!

Try it out today!!

EDIT(final for real this time): I’ve made it so you can download and use it offline should you desire! Have fun

[gaindragon]

THE TARGARYENS OF MIDDLE EARTH; A SHORT HISTORY.

while much is stored in the archives of minas tirith and the scrolls of imladris, true scholars know this is but a meager part of the land's great history, and untold accounts have either been long forgotten or their record has been kept secret. that which has been put down in the telling of house targaryen comes largely from when their heraldic banner has been seen upon the field of battle. what has been passed down by the chroniclers and lore-masters gives but a brief tale of one of númenor's oldest persisting houses.

the targaryens were one of the many noble houses of númenor aligned with the king's men, later to be known in part as members of the descendants of the 'black númenóreans'. their house was not one of prominence, keeping no strongholds nor governance amongst the lesser men of middle earth, preferring instead to hold to their ancient seat on númenor. in the year 3262 of the second age, when sauron was brought to númenor as the prisoner of ar-pharazôn only to shortly be elevated to role of advisor to the king, the targaryens were the first of the númenórean houses to hearken to the dark lord. the targaryens partook in the proffered dark magicks, of which they already had an affinity for, and it is said that sauron presented them with a vial of dragon's essence, to which their blood and the blood of their lineage would be eternally bound. deceiving them into thinking this would bring them power nearer to the likes of the eldar and the valar, the targaryens were misled by sauron to consider their house as more akin to gods rather than mere men; a notion that has since spread like a fire.

some years before the downfall of númenor, one of the targaryens had a vision of the destruction that awaited them lest they depart and build a new stronghold in middle earth. thus it was that the targaryens and their household left númenor, choosing to settle in the withered heath rather than the havens of umbar. it is there that they came upon the last dragons, and thus their many-towered citadel was named dragonstone. long had the dragons become disobedient, heeding naught but their own fancies and obeying no summons. it was the targaryens who finally brought the dragons to heel, as sauron intended, for now he had a tool to bend the dragons back to his will; the targaryen dragonriders. when the downfall of númenor swept the island beneath the sea and sauron returned, in the coming decades many of the targaryens left dragonstone to fly to the aid of barad-dûr during the years-long siege. many a dragon and a targaryen were slain, and in the wake of sauron's defeat in the year 3441 of the second age, the remaining of house targaryen retreated back to dragonstone.

some travelled and married with house velaryon, another remnant of the 'black númenóreans' who resided as a power in umbar. in order to put an end to the battles waged between them in the following centuries, a lady of house targaryen wed the gondorian king tarannon falastur in the year 830 of the third age. named berúthiel by the men of gondor, though this was not her name, she brought with her seven dragon hatchlings, and was much detested by the gondorian people for her love of these evil creatures. she was later exiled, and further enmity deepened between house targaryen and the gondorian houses. as the targaryens dwindled due to their custom of intermarrying to keep their gifted blood pure and infighting for the seat of their inheritance, so did their mark upon the annals. one of their last more notable contributions were as dragonriders flying beside the ranks of the armies of angmar against the men of arnor, for with the bond to their dragons came an eternal oath sworn to sauron's forces that they could not break, until such time that the king who was promised fulfills the legend of the targaryen dream, releasing them and their dragons from their oath.

[catfindr]

[nyancrimew]

NEW ESSAY: anarchism starts in the now: hope for a better future

there is still time

cover art: @punkitt-is-here

[scrimmiestbingus]

I need someone to do a video essay-length deep dive into how 75% of the BG3 fandom fell so hard for Astarion's manipulative seductor act that they believe that's his actual personality. This man has to practice his lines and still fumbles them constantly. He flat-out says it's all a front because he believes his sex appeal is the only reason anyone would keep him around, which is tragic. When he drops the act, he becomes this kind of silly man rediscovering what it means to be himself, and what it means to both love and be loved. He says "I'm all pointy ears, love." while turning his head to show off those pointy ears. Let him be silly, let him be awkward! It's so much more authentic then him being a walking innuendo.

He has a mid charisma stat with a bonus for deception and rolled a nat 20 on all y'all.

[prokopetz]

The constant rolling disaster that is Overwatch's game development aside, what really perplexes me about how Blizzard is handling the broader franchise is their continual insistence that a canon narrative exists in spite of their equally continual refusal to tell anyone what it is.

Like, okay, the events of the games aren't canon. Fair enough: the games are multiplayer-only, and you can't account for player actions.

Oh, and the animated short films aren't canon either – they're properly understood as in-universe propaganda, not depictions of actual events. That's a little high concept for you guys, but fine.

But surely the comics are canon, right? Well, no; some of the comics (we're not telling you which ones) were canon at one point, but the writing team has decided to go in a different direction.

My dudes, what is left? The weird Source Filmmaker porn? Is that canon? Well, apparently it's at least as canon as anything else!