#metaphorically rather than literally

[fanficfanattic]

I’m thinking of including a few lines in Chapter 10 of the Family Curse fic. It’s the one where 9 yo Jamie shows up, and so does James, who thinks that baby Jamie is Jamie’s son. And Roy is the one who demands to know precisely why the fuck James would think his 23 yo son could have a 9 yo son.

And it would be a short blip where Georgie makes Simon promise not to have James killed. And everyone is looking at this giant clumsy Labrador stepdad with skepticism. And he just sort of waves the questions off by saying he was part of a gang when he was a youth.

Cause I like absurdist humor.

[lucabyte]

even dogs pass the mirror test

[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."

[tvlandofficiall]

[spicyboelives]

Drop Dead Fred & Beetlejuice Crossover Comic! because I can’t write but I can draw. Sorry for spamming this concept for the past couple weeks(?) Will probably make a second one from Lydia’s & Beetlejuice’s POV if y’all are interested.

[lgbtlunaverse]

Anyway. Isn't it fun how every single fusion jasper is in results in her being hurt both physically and mentally?

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

One of the more depressing bipartisan realities of the United States is a sometimes quiet but always persistent resignation that actually there is really nothing anyone is going to do to give you a materially better life. There isn't going to be any economic policy that does anything but make the rich richer while maintaining the barest minimum aid to sustain life on the starkest terms for the most severely impoverished

[mirainotes]

re:member panel redraw (this was crazy)

[gophergal]

TFTober 4 - Provision

[silusvesuius]

n*loth not being able to bag anyone over the (human term) age of 25-30 at most is the only logical and real conclusion to me because it can be just explained away as him wanting to prove and control everything and anyone (Cus he's a man!) but being stuck in that demographic because his unbearable and vile personality is a force that nobody can look past once they've outgrown the possible fear and idolization period of anyone but also n*loth in particular.

[daria-argento]

Very interested in how these two movies portray the visual horror in small bursts and fragments, like traumatic memory during overwhelm; the long takes and uneasy score that makes it feel like a nightmare; the incongruous imagery; the concept of repression of trauma/the displacement of distress on to an inanimate object that seems strangely animate…

[metanarrates]

watched a majora's mask analysis earlier today with my fiancee. my verdict is that I actually really enjoyed the op's interpretations, but that I wished that they talked more about mm's literal level and what one can get from it, rather than talking about those events as if they are strictly metaphor. yes, of course the metaphorical layer of the game is rich to dig into, but it's also such an open-ended and surreal game that it's difficult to nail down every single distinct metaphor that can be derived from its events. which is why I consider it necessary to discuss the way the literal layer presents itself and what sort of motifs and ideas exist there as a baseline before you begin looking at it as metaphor

[aliusfrater]

also now that i think about it, the mol concept is such a bad (less so bad, more so just shallow) but very supernatural-typical in-world hunting foil

[boneheads-pet-idiot]

Took a really long nap today (thanks chronic illness) and had the weirdest fucking dream about Elias.

In the dream I was in a small, very plainly decorated apartment, slowly waking up in bed with a sleep mask on. I could hear someone enter my bedroom and gently brush the hair from my face to wake me. I could hear Elias speaking, though I can't quite remember what he said. I somehow knew that I had known him a long time but that he never let me see him. He always insisted that I keep my sleep mask on.

You know how sometimes in dreams you'll just get hit with a giant wall of context for something happening to you?

Well in this case the context that popped up in my brain was that I was cursed with some kind of regenerative ability (think Wolverine) and that Elias had bought me at some point in the past to use as a source of magical ingredients. He'd come see me a few times a week and take some blood or a finger or even a leg depending on what his clients wanted to buy. It never hurt and he was always very particular about bandaging me up himself when it was done.

In exchange for him taking little bits of me, he paid for my apartment and made sure it was always stocked with groceries and that I had adequate access to television and video games as I pleased. It was very strange. I felt how I imagine a fruit tree might feel for its owner. Deeply cared for and valued and in exchange all I had to give was a small piece of myself once in a while and it didn't matter much because it always grew back.

[glimblshanks]

It's so difficult, because I genuinely do want to understand what the whole deal with Christianity is, but Christians are so apposed to any line of questioning about their belief system (in a way that no other religion is) that if you say anything they don't like they shut down and accuse you of being a sinner.

And it's like bro, I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm trying to understand why this religion is even appealing to you. How do you manage to get so many converts when you're not even willing to answer basic questions about your theology?

Everyone I've found who's actually willing to discuss Christian theology with me is an ex-Christian which is super unhelpful, because ex-Christians are people who have deconstructed Christian belief and come to the conclusion that it doesn't work for them. They're always very cynical about the whole situation. That's not what I'm looking for.

I want to talk to someone who's still into it. I want to understand what actually draws people to this religion ( I do not want to be trauma dumped at - I don't know what aspect of Christian belief confuses y'all into thinking that trauma dumping is an appropriate substitute for theological discussion, but it absolutely isn't).

Like you would really think for one of the most popular religions in the world finding answers to this stuff would be easier. Why can't you guys just talk about your beliefs?

[when-did-this-become-difficult]

OHIOANS VOTE JULY 2023

JULY 11, 2023 EARLY VOTING OPEN TODAY IN OHIO

Skip the lines and go to your early vote location! The last day you can vote is August 8, Election Day (it's an early election day, yes we also have a November election because the Ohio state legislature is so so so so stupid) but anyways

VOTE NO ON ISSUE #1 🙏🙏🙏

a) it's the right thing to do

b) it's pretty easy cause you have a whole month to get it done early

c) fuck em