#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.

[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.

[gophergal]

TFTober 4 - Provision

[mirainotes]

re:member panel redraw (this was crazy)

[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…

[transingthoseformers]

Breakdown and Bulkhead being exes and there being so many emotions about that

Especially with me remembering the semicommon hc that Breakdown used to be an autobot, which considering how he's often a stunticon and the stunticons are in rid15 gives me the crack idea of

At the beginning of the war Breakdown left the stunticons to join the autobots because of his boyfriend at the time and him disagreeing with Motormaster, leading to MM saying he won't under any circumstances take BD back if shit with Bulk and the bots goes sideways

Shit with Bulkhead and the autobots goes sideways as Breakdown grows increasingly dissatisfied with his role in the autobots, leading to him breaking up with Bulkhead and him joining the Decepticons like he was "supposed to" in the beginning of this scrap

Well. Now he's an ex-autobot in the Decepticons and again the stunticons kept to their word as he burned that bridge, leaving him a tidge of a mess.

Enter Knockout, who's looking to take on an assistant with at least SOME medical experience. Breakdown fills this requirement because i say so and because i love nurse/medic!Breakdown. Breaky says yes because fr what the pits else is he supposed to do.

After a rough adjustment period, they grow close and the more familiar power couple KOBD we recognize and love ensues

In his wiki page tfwiki suggests that in aligned Breaky used to be a scout, actually, who was real super anxious before getting a frame upgrade in order to keep up his grudge with Bulkhead and this did wonders for his mental health from what i can see. This may be another reason why Breaky seeked Knockout out

THERE WE GO, TFP BREAKDOWN: AN EX-STUNTICON, EX-AUTOBOT, UNEXPECTED MEDIC, CURRENTLY KNOCKOUT'S PARTNER IN CRIME AND MOTHERFUCKER WITH A HAMMER

[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

[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

[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?

[irisbellemoon]

no but I'm still thinking about all of us strangers, like the ending has really only now settled in after hours of watching. it would've been so wonderful!!! if adam let harry in that first night!! but he didn't. and the rest of their scenes together are both a what could've been and what you had and lost. it was no-one's fault!!! and yet, and yet.....

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

Semi negative below the cut - 

Here's the thing like...fundamentally, what the majority of the US Tour 6 indicating that they believe "the wrong cat died" really shows to me is that the understanding of the show has been somewhat lost over the years.

This is no disrespect towards any of them, and I believe that joking about this subject is absolutely within an area of general fun and lightheartedness (we do it literally all the time), but at the end of the day it misses the point.

[wolfeyedwitch]

Snippet that I forgot I had written, found located in a cute little notebook that had managed to stay out of sight for far too long:

I learned silence like skin learns scars. I kept my screams locked in my throat, learned to rename what I felt as anger rather than fear. Anger was dangerous, a razor edge I walked between what was allowed and what was forbidden. Still, it was better than fear. Fear invited study, made everyone want to know just what made me tick.

If that meant tearing me apart to study the pieces? So be it.

They didn't want my voice.

So I gave them my teeth.

[bellaaldamas]

"The Little Mermaid is a story about a woman who changed her body and left the sea to get the man".

For 35+ years reasonable people countered this argument with facts and thorough character analysis. But it's time to admit this description is, in fact, correct.