#and i mean like it's valid

[foolofatook001]

She’s not stupid, okay. She knows that no one trusts the Traveler—Artagan, whatever— no matter how much they all say We’re with you, Jester. She’s seen them in their little worried huddles off to the side, Beau and Fjord and Caduceus, and she knows when they’ve been talking about her and the Traveler because they all have That Expression on their face. That pursed-lips Mmmm I don’t like this but I am keeping my mouth shut right now expression. That Mmmm my god is a real god and a lot better than Jester’s fake god expression. (And of course the Traveler is still basically a real, almost-god, even if he doesn’t want to be as much of a god anymore! Jester just knows that that’s kind of what they’re thinking when they have That Look on their faces.) 

And they’re her friends, and Jester loves them, and she knows they love her and they want her to be safe. 

But. But. The Traveler was Jester’s first friend, and her best friend, and for a long time her only friend, so it hurts that the rest of Jester’s friends don’t… see that.

And Fjord’s one to talk, too— wasn’t he doing stupid things for Uk’otoa (Uk’otoa) not too long ago? But he follows the Wildmother, so obviously he knows everything now!

All right, Jester knows that’s a little mean. She remembers him promising her Mama that he would protect her. He just wants to keep her safe, and he’s said as much; he’s been burned by his own experiences and he doesn’t want her to get hurt the same way. 

(And she has been hurt. Is hurt. There are a few things that she’s never going to draw out in her sketchbook, the kind of things that she just wants to cry out while curled up in her Mama’s lap like she’s little again. The kind of things that she can’t even tell the Traveler, because right now he needs her help, so he needs her to be strong and he needs her to be happy.)

But even so, she KNOWS the Traveler, knows him better than Fjord ever knew his stupid snea snake, even if she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. He may be tricksy, but she still trusts him, because he’s promised time and again that she is his first, his favorite, and he will not leave her, not forever. And none of her friends seem to believe her when she tells them this!

“I’d like to be there to help you walk the path you’re on, and…keep things from getting out of hand,” says Caduceus’s slow, deep voice.

“Sure, Jester,” says Beau, “but you know you’re the one who does all the amazing stuff, right? Not him.” 

“Arch means evil, doesn’t it?” Nott’s worried, reedy voice says. “It’s only used in bad things!”

The silence from everybody but Caleb after the Traveler says, “As long as you have her around, you’ll have me around,” speaks volumes and volumes. A whole Cobalt Soul library. 

And that hurts just as much. 

If Artagan told her, right this second, that he was going to go off to travel through the planes and he wanted her to come with him… 

She isn’t sure she would tell him no.

[noodles-and-tea]

Little Stan getting manipulated by Bill has excellent angst potential but consider.

Stanley just, keeps tricking Bill. Because Bill would definitely massively underestimate Stanley and how far he’ll go to protect Ford (like in the actual show). We also know Stanley has the street smarts between the twins and could absolutely tell Bill is full of it.

And because Bill would absolutely loose his mind if he kept getting foiled by a snot nosed eight year old that isn’t even supposed to be here

I like to think that he doesn’t even try that hard he just does not even care about bill

[thriftdyke]

it really does bother me how no one can seem to answer the question “what even is romantic attraction, really.” like some people are like “it’s who you wanna kiss and cuddle <3” and I’m like ok well kisses and cuddles can be either sexual or platonic depending on context. “It’s who you feel passion/desire/arousal for” well that just sounds like sexual attraction which you can have without even knowing somebody so I fail to see how that’s romantic. “It’s who you want to go on dates with” I go on dates with friends all the time plus “date” is a social construct anyway there’s really no innate difference between a date and hanging out. “it’s who you have deep feelings for” great news for you that can be literally any type of relationship. my friend told me she defined it as “who you wanna give roses to” and I’m like do u hear urself??? like the more I talk to people the more I’m convinced romance and romantic attraction is an elaborate socially fabricated illusion that has no real defining characteristics. and like there’s nothing Wrong with it being a constuct but why people are so attached to defending the supremacy of it is something I cannot for the life of me figure out

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[cube-cumb3r]

while im at it neopronoun opposition is weird to me as a swedish person.. the whole debate is so anglocentric that they assume every language landed on the same solution they did, to reuse a plural pronoun as a gender neutral one and then they think any other solution is absurd or unheard of. what do you mean you just made another pronoun up you cant do that!! etc

coz its like here in the 2014 the swedish academy accepted 3rd person pronoun "hen" (as opposed to hon/han) like officially into our word list after it gained some popularity in the 2010s. like that is a NEOPRONOUN that someone just Came Up With in like the 60s and then people just started using it and now its just a recognized part of our language. sure we could've also reused our plural pronoun "de/dem" as a gender neutral one but we just made up a new one instead. and to like imply that mainstream use of a neopronoun is just UNHEARD OF and that neopronouns is something the mainstream could NEVER GET USED TO EVER!!! is... your perspective is very limited to the english speaking world is all i can say

[anghraine]

It's interesting (if often frustrating) to see the renewed Orc Discourse after the last few episodes of ROP. I've seen arguments that orcs have to be personifications of evil rather than people as such or else the ethics of our heroes' approach to them becomes much more fraught. Tolkien's work, as written, seems an odd choice to me for not wrangling with difficult questions, and of course, more diehard fans are going to immediately bring up Shagrat and Gorbag.

If you haven't read LOTR recently, Shagrat and Gorbag are two orcs who briefly have a conversation about how they're being screwed over by Sauron but have no other real options, about their opinions of mistakes that have been made, that they think Sauron himself has made one, but it's not safe to discuss because Sauron has spies in their own ranks. They reminisce about better times when they had more freedom and fantasize about a future when they can go elsewhere and set up a small-scale banditry operation rather than being involved in this huge-scale war. Eventually, however, they end up turning on each other.

Basically any time that someone brings up the "humanity" of this conversation, someone else will point out that they're still bad people. They're not at all guilty about what they're part of. They just resent the dangers to themselves, the pressure from above, failures of competence, the surveillance they're under, and their lack of realistic alternative options. The dream of another life mentioned in the conversation is still one of preying on innocent people, just on a much smaller and more immediate scale, etc.

I think this misses the reason it keeps getting brought up, though. The point is not that Shagrat and Gorbag are good people. The point is that they are people.

There's something very normal and recognizable about their resentment of their superiors, their fears of reprisal and betrayal that ultimately are realized, their dislike of this kind of industrial war machine that erases their individual work and contributions, the tinge of wistfulness in their hope of escape into a different kind of life. Their dialect is deliberately "common"—and there's a lot more to say about that and the fact that it's another commoner, Sam, who outwits them—but one of the main effects is to make them sound familiar and ordinary. And it's interesting that one of the points they specifically raise is that they're not going to get better treatment from "the good guys" so they can't defect, either.

This is self-interested, yes, but it's not the self-interest of some mystical being or spirit or whatnot, but of people.

Tolkien's later remarks tend to back this up. He said that female orcs do exist, but are rarely seen in the story because the characters only interact with the all-male warrior class of orcs. Whatever female orcs "do," it isn't going to war. Maybe they do a lot of the agricultural work that is apparently happening in distant parts of Mordor, maybe they are chiefly responsible for young orcs, maybe both and/or something else, we don't know. But we know they're out there and we know that they reproduce sexually and we know that they're not part of the orcish warrior class.

Regardless of all the problems with this, the idea that orcs have a gender-restricted warrior class at all and we're just not seeing any of their other classes because of where the story is set doesn't sound like automatons of evil. It sounds like an actual culture of people that we only see along the fringes.

And this whole matter of "but if they're people, we have to think about ethics, so they can't be people" is a weird circular argument that cannot account for what's in LOTR or for much of what Tolkien said afterwards. Yes, he struggled with The Problem of Orcs and how to reconcile it with his world building and his ethical system, but "maybe they're not people" is ultimately not a workable solution as far as LOTR goes and can't even account for much of the later evolution of his ideas, including explicit statements in his letters.

And in the end, the real response that comes to mind to that circular argument is "maybe you should think about ethics more."

[short-king-enthusiast]

The most irritating thing, is that if you watch season one and then immediately watch season two, everything makes perfect sense. It's a great story. Characters that are vessels for very real emotional storylines and symbolism, but at their core, are silly pirates on a silly pirates show.

However if you watch season one, then spend a year obsessing over the characters, obsessing over characteristics, traits, relationships that are not actually canon but convincing yourself they are. Getting so wrapped up in fanon that your version of the characters and the actual written canon characters are two completely different things. Yeah of course you're gonna be pissed.

Most of the backlash from season two is because people have been reading fanfics for a year and had wildly unrealistic expectations. It's actually fucking fascinating and should be studied. It just keeps happening over and over again in every new fandom and nothing changes

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

My real time reaction of watching an American influencer spread straight up lies about my country because they lived/visited there at some point

[drdemonprince]

people who are obsessed with passing are gonna be the death of our community i swear

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

not enough discussion about the gavins' complicated relationship with feminine-coded/beauty products, i don't think.

[krazieka2]

Assassins!! They’re friends!!!!

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

ASOIAF discourse would be a lot more fun if we all realized that every single person who has been put in a position of leadership/rulership fails in one way or another. Jon and Dany failing is not an indictment on their abilities to lead or rule. They’re kids, they still have shit to figure out. Given “what was Aragorn’s tax policy”, I doubt GRRM will write a story that will feature the appearance of a most perfect ruler ever who will be a total success instead Jon and Dany who were tOtAl FlOpS. Especially if this person has no previous experience that has been detailed within the text itself. That’s not only antithetical to the series, but also not how you write a narrative.

[meaningless-mayhem]

Being asexual and possibly aromantic but also being a huge shipper and hopeless romantic is such a wild experience ngl. I'm always freaking out about my favorite ships and giggling internally reading ship fics, getting invested in characters finally kissing or reading about their pining and their love and I think "I want what they have!!"

But then sometimes you have a slamming realization that your sweet shipping scenarios you imagine in your head look totally different irl and that you are extremely aspec.

One time I went down a YouTube rabbit hole and stumbled across Vsauce's "Why Do We Kiss?" video and let me tell you. When I saw that stock video footage of two people kissing each other I was a little flabbergasted lmaooo

[hopelessromanfic]

okay but the best part of s4 hands down was max drawing a literally fine picture and dustin being the gordan ramsey of art basically calling it shit saying they need will instead

[brainrotcharacters]

As far as I care, he's only the worst Wolverine because he's not supposed to end up happy and at home at the end of the story

[kittykatninja321]

Not to rehash this discourse so close to his birthday but genuinely what other mysterious unnamed trauma of Jason’s is Bruce referring to in bftc if not csa? We know that:

It’s something that happened to him

It’s something that happened to him pre-Bruce, so it presumably could’ve happened while he was an extremely vulnerable unsupervised homeless child

It’s something associated with secrecy and shame: Jason only told Bruce about it and freaks out about Dick playing his hologram talking about it

It’s something that affected him profoundly, Bruce says it left him “broken” (ugh side note: hate this language) and he seems to get retriggered by it being brought up again

What other trauma is coded like this besides sexual assault? Like genuinely I have yet to hear an answer that fits as well or better