#this goes into why

[intermundia]

As a queer person living in conservative, rural America, and as a Star Wars fan who posts about the Jedi Order, my thoughts are frequently turned to the concept of family, and what it means in different cultures. I’ve written a longish (1k words) post about this lmao, so I will put it beneath the cut, but it unpacks a lot of assumptions that are frequently made in discussion of the Jedi.

The ideology of the family where I live is closely related to patriarchy, individualism, and property rights. The narrative of the ideal family life is this: a man falls in love with a woman and courts her until she agrees to marriage. When they marry, they become one person, or rather the man acquires a helpmeet, and the woman legally loses her personhood, becoming Mr and Mrs X. She is now a larger part of the man’s personhood, and any children they have are also inside that umbrella. They are his property, not individuals in themselves. This is why conservatives resent public school and free access to information, as they are interfering with his right to maintain his property the way he wants them. Once the children are grown, the cycle continues, the son finding a wife, etc. That is a certain kind of ideal of society. The idea of sending a child to the church to be raised, is kind of like sending a valuable, heirloom cup to be used by the community, it’s hypothetically a meritorious sacrifice to god, but the cup still really belongs to the family. It belongs at home. If the child grows up to join the church, it’s something that happens later, during the transition from being property to being an individual.

This is not a universal or necessary mode of life.

In a different culture, where a child is born and is understood already to be a member of the wider community that is being raised by their parents, the idea of allowing an institution to adopt and take over raising the child is not a violation of some man’s property rights. In a culture where there is a temple that is an honorable place, where being a monk is a livelihood that is respected and important, something that parents would wish for their child to experience, it is more of a privilege to get your child into that place where they can become an important figure in the community. The parents would miss the child, that is universal, but there would also be a sense of relief for them, to know that they’ve gotten access to a stable future that they can be proud of, especially if they were in a situation where they couldn’t guarantee that child an equally stable and important future. With the force-gifted Jedi this is even more stark; their powers should be trained and directed for their own good too. Growing up communally at a temple is a different kind of family, where there is a sense of brother and sisterhood, with teachers and elders making up a dense web of social relationships. It is a different life, but not a worse one.

The conservative American ideology is something that I have felt my entire life to be very closed and full of the potential for abuse behind closed doors. A child is not a person and is not treated like one, and a wife is not a person either. The only individuals are the men who own these families. It’s a system that I yearn for relief and escape from, and so of course I am drawn to the Jedi, an imaginary culture that is based on real values held by real cultures outside of my own. I know there are places in the world where sending a child to the temple is an honorable and good thing. I know that the Jedi think of each other as family, it’s well attested in canon and legends content. It’s not abusive or wrong for those children to be raised in that communal culture, just because it’s different from the norms of individualistic, patriarchal values. Just because it’s different, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Just like being a queer person, who doesn’t fit into the system of romantic pairing and nuclear families, being different doesn’t mean being wrong.

People raised with the conservative ideology think the absence of romantic love is inherently abusive, but if you were raised to prioritize other things, would you miss it as much as if you were raised to chase it? Is it not a worthy effort to dedicate your life to serving other people? It may be difficult, but it’s not a life without love. Jedi have romantic feelings, they’re not forbidden, but they are deprioritzed. It’s not the ultimate goal of life, but rather more of a distraction from a very noble duty. Many, many people in the world choose that path. The Jedi aren’t jailers, we have examples of people leaving when they couldn’t walk that path, but most stay, because they have an important role to play in the wider galaxy and a great use of their potential. Anakin wanted to stay so that he could have the status and power of a ranking member of the Jedi Order, but he also wanted to have private property, possessing other people and controlling their destiny. You can’t have both. I think the story of the prequels and the path of the Jedi are both fascinating because they push against the cultural norm toward romance and patriarchal individualism. It’s just nice to have something that says you can find home with friends and mentors, and meaning with duty and service. It’s important to me on a very personal level.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[stivkun]

[wanologic]

💅💅💅

[canisalbus]

✦ I've been saving all my summers for you ✦

[prlssprfctn]

Jason, who is constantly making death jokes, and gets back a "dgaf" kind of answers from his siblings. Which he is... used to. Firstly, because it is what siblings supposed to do, be mean to each other, and secondly, because... they are not wrong. His death didn't mean anything. No one cared much about him dying. Yes, they were bothered that he died - a kid, a son and a brother, had died. Everyone mourns dead kids, he wasn't special. Right?

So, he is fine with whatever he gets from his brothers. He often laughs back, even his laughter sounds far too strained to his ears. But, honestly, whatever! It is fine!

Until once, it isn't.

Maybe it is just a bad day. Or maybe his death anniversary is getting closer, and he gets more anxious. Nonetheless, he makes another joke - something about warehouses and crowbars; so, nothing new - and gets a usual funny-snappy reply back, something along the lines And no one cared. And he just huffs, his smile turning to a scowl, and before he can take it back, he shrugs.

'I know.'

Suddenly, it is too quiet in the room. And suddenly everyone is staring - confused, hurt, slightly surprised, even. Jason tries to laugh it off, to make them stop looking at him with so much pity, but his forced laughter sounds too much like a certain clown's in his insane, tired mind, and he ends up murmuring a haste farewell, before practically running away from the cave.

He thinks someone tries to call him back, but he ignores it.

The defeating silence and the looks of pity haunt him in his dreams for the rest of the night.

[humming-fly]

He was feeling left out

and the higher rez stills, since gifs always export as if you're sending messages through a metal can~

[dearchose-reblogs]

We got a Zelda equivalent of Link's unhappy new item face!

I need to draw it someday lol

[morganbritton132]

I want a fic where Tim unwittingly becomes the rebellious kid after his dad dies because he has a hard time adjusting from his latchkey kid with absentee parents life to the almost constant adult supervision at Wayne Manor.

Like, Tim spent years sneaking around to do Batman shit and even when he got in trouble, if he waited long enough his parents would either leave town or forget about it.

Now he’s getting the ‘I’m not mad, I’m disappointed’ talk from Bruce for skipping school and supplementing half his meals with energy drinks and is just like: ???? Nothing has changed??

Tim gets hurt on patrol and Bruce tells him that Robin will not be out in Gotham the next night, and then gets mad when he finds Tim on a rooftop in his civies taking pictures. Tim is just like: Robin’s not out. I followed your order. What’s the problem?

Tim disappears for a few days following a lead and gets grounded for not telling anybody where he went (even though he did. It’s in the Batcomputer) and for missing school which he interprets as meaning that Robin is grounded (can’t patrol). So it’s confusing when he gets in trouble again for inviting Kon over to hang out because he’s ‘grounded’ which doesn’t even make sense because Bruce isn’t even home??

[egophiliac]

buckle up lads we're going BACK INTO THE BOOK

[hinamie]

sympathy for cain

[lucabyte]

there's a stranger who sleeps at the foot of your bed

[nadiajustbe]

One of my favorite parts about the writing of Howl's Moving Castle is how easy it is to write off all the things from our world at first as him just being a weird wizard™ (also thanks to bestie @jutenium for spotting this I wouldn't put it like that without you!!/pos). Sure, Sophie uses weird descriptions, but readers have every reason to believe them because of the way Howl is presented as a character. When Sophie says he wrote with a quill that doesn't need an ink, you wouldn't think it was actually a ballpoint pen, you would think Howl had just enchanted his quill so that it wouldn't need ink! When she adds that she can't make out a single word, you think he has matchingly terrible handwriting, but in fact Sophie has simply never seen a pen writing. When she sees the mysterious labels on his books, you think he's keeping a lot of obscure magical literature, but it's really just an encyclopedia and a guide like "Top 10 Rugby Tips." When Sophie notices the bottles in Howl's bathtub, you think they're some kind of magical jars where he keeps girl's hearts, but I'm almost certain that they're just 'Dove' and 'Head and Shoulders' that he's enhanced with his spells and put silly labels on. When you read Calicifer singing a song in a language Sophie doesn't understand, you think it's some kind of ancient cipher or code, but it's actually just a rugby song in Welsh that Howl sings when he's drunk. And finally, when you see the terrifying black door, which is completely shrouded in darkness, you imagine a passage to an eerie, mythical place, similar to what Miyazaki showed us - but it's just fucking Wales.

[forecast0ctopus]

alien kitten……..