ellekandera

[ellekandera]

Source: Screen Rant

[ellekandera]

[ellekandera]

[ellekandera]

[ellekandera]

tumblr finally getting its shit together and improving the user experience right around the time when all the other social media sites are collapsing due to greed and hubris is like the kids who got out of their small town to move to the big city finding love and settling down in their 30s just in time to watch their high school bullies get divorced

[ellekandera]

Not to play armchair movie critic but I think..movies that are sincere...are usually better...

[ellekandera]

someone in the notes on that “stop fetishizing old houses” post commented that builders before the 1970s were too concerned with elegance and grandeur, and that was all really just wastefulness

and I think about my apartment, a duplex from 1912, surely built for a middle- or working-class family. spartan, really; quite basic and no-frills. not much to look at from the outside. just like a thousand buildings of similar provenance in the Boston area.

there are flowers molded in the chunky, cast-iron radiators

there’s a design of concentric circles in the carved door-lintels

many buildings of this type have a little stained-glass window somewhere

 I think about ornate door hinges in the staff wing of a country estate from 1878.  think of patterned wallpaper in a mansion’s kitchen, from 1797. I think about purely functional spaces someone looked at and said, “this needs beauty”

the past was certainly guilty of waste in many ways. but I cannot call making a house more than just a box to live in one of them

[ellekandera]

ancient vampire characters who pursue teenagers like.... romantically... you are absolutely swagless. die

[ellekandera]

Today I’m going to talk about the opposite of child abuse, because you all need some proper references to compare your lives to.

First thing that made me realize how upside down my life was, was a friend, who had an abusive father, but good mother. And you see, because the mother was good, she realized when her kids were still small, that he’s abusive, that the kids would get hurt, and she moved the hell away from him and got a divorce. She was poor, she didn’t have many resources, and she had to work very hard to survive, and managed to get the abuser to pay alimony. My friend grew up surrounded by love and support, with high self-confidence, high social abilities, complete belief in their  worth and lacking nothing. And then one day the abusive father was angry at the mom, and tried to take it out on my friend, my friend got a call filled with insults and threats. It was scary and my friend got upset, I tried to comfort them but I really didn’t have good words to say. They later called their mom, and this is what the mother said:

“You are a perfect person, if anyone is talking to you like this, you can walk away.”

I remember just feeling complete awe hearing this, told from a mom, to a child. It even cheered me up. Those are the words we should have been getting from our parents. This is the correct attitude.

This other example is something that made me cry, and everyone else I’ve told this story. It’s from a woman on youtube, who has a farm, and it was her dream her whole life to have a farm, and she also has kids. This year, she entered a competition in growing tomatoes, she grew a special tomato plant, and the competition was about who manages to grow the most tomatoes, biggest tomato, and so on. She usually lets her kids play in the garden, but she explained to all of them that they’re not allowed to touch the special competition plant, or harvest the tomatoes.

However, her youngest son, aged maybe 5 or 6, took the biggest tomato off, before it even started ripening. She made a video explaining about what happened, and then she smiled and talked about how she cares about her farm, and her competition a lot, but not even close to how much she cares about her children feeling happy and safe in the garden. She said, even though she warned the kids to not touch the plant, it’s kind of hard to remember for a child which plant is what, and that in long term, competition doesn’t really matter as much as happiness of her children. She even mentioned how she makes mistakes in the garden too, and forgives herself right away, and her children deserve the same forgiveness. And then, her son, laughing, runs up to her, and realizes she’s making a video on tomato he tore off, and he says with a grin “I’m sorry” and she replies, with warmth and affection in her voice: “I forgive you, my darling.”

If you’re, crying, it’s okay, I’m crying too. So here, some standards. Something to compare your parents to. If these people could have done this, your parents could have done it too. You deserved this kind of gentleness and kindness too.

[ellekandera]

So in the past few years I’ve seen so many videos / posts that are like:

“Actually wolves don’t have hierarchies!  They live in family groups where the ‘alphas’ are mom and dad and the other wolves are their CHILDREN and offer their respect willingly! :D”

and I just have to say

how dare you try to make normative nuclear families out of wolves

Yes, a lot of the old “nature red in tooth and claw” stuff about wolves is nonsense. (Like anything from Jack London.) And anything ‘alpha’ you see sleazy men trying to relate to dating (yikes!) is especially nonsense.

But wolves are complex social creatures and they create complex social structures. Just as you can’t say “THIS is the way human society is structured. Just THIS single way and no other”, so too there is no single form for a wolf pack.  

Some packs are a mom wolf and a dad wolf and their wolf children.  Others are two small ragged packs that combine to form a large pack.  Others are packs where a lone wolf joins and eventually becomes a leader. Others are packs where a grown child-wolf has pushed their parent out of the leadership role.

Speaking of the latter, let’s look at the tale of Wolf 40 and Wolf 42.

Wolf 40, Wolf 41, and Wolf 42 were wild Yellowstone wolves, daughters of the alphas. Their father was illegally killed by hunters and shortly after ambitious Wolf 40 ousted her mother, driving her out of the pack.  Wolf 21 became the new alpha male, and 40′s mate.

Wolves have personalities, and Wolf 40′s personality was “volatile”.  Imagine Scar from The Lion King combined with the boss from Office Space, and you have Wolf 40.  She habitually bullied the other female wolves, attacking them until they expressed abject submission.  And the wolves that got the worst of it were her sisters, Wolves 41 and 42.

Wolf 41 got tired of the bullying and left.  Wolf 42 remained, perhaps because she was close to Wolf 21, the alpha male.  Despite that, Wolf 21 did not interfere when his mate harassed Wolf 42.

Unlike 40, Wolf 42 got along well with the other female wolves, spending time grooming them and relaxing with them. Wolf 40 could have followed her sister’s example and built up positive social bonds. But she didn’t.

One day, Wolf 40 went out on an important task.  She was going to kill another litter of her sister’s pups–having done the same in two previous years.  This isn’t uncommon wolf behavior (but is not universal, as we will see.)  Typically only the alphas breed.

However, Wolf 40 never returned from her important task because Wolf 42–who previously had submitted to her alpha and sister, who had allowed the killing of two previous litters of pups–had had enough.  She fought back.

And the other female wolves jumped to aid her.

Collectively, they killed Wolf 40. Because “alpha” isn’t a magic cloak of protection, it doesn’t even mean “strongest wolf”, it’s just a job title.

The next day Wolf 42 carried her pups, one by one, to her sister’s den.  She set her children among the pups of her dead sister and raised both litters together. And when another wolf in the pack had pups, Wolf 42 carried them to the den to be communally raised as well.  She was the alpha female now and she made the rules, and the first rule was “we don’t hurt pups here.”

As for Wolf 21, he became the mate of Wolf 42.  Maybe he understood that Wolf 40 had been riding for a fall. 

As alpha female, Wolf 42 continued to be supportive and kind towards the other pack members.  Wolves who had been nervous wrecks under Wolf 40 began to relax and come into their own; one of the former omega wolves gained self-confidence and became one of the best hunters.

“Alpha”, for wolves, just means leader.  They might be good leaders, whom you respect, or they might be bad leaders, who fill you with dread.  They might be your parents, or they might not.  Even if they are your mother or father, wolves don’t contextualize those relationships the same way humans do.

But one thing wolves have in common with humans is that they have individual personalities and experiences, and their actions derive from those.  There is no “typical wolf pack.” And I think that’s beautiful.

If you want to learn more about wild wolf dynamics, I recommend reading the annual Yellowstone Wolf Project Reports.  Which are FASCINATING.  There are also some good wildlife specials out there.

Wolves are my favorite animal. <3  It pains me to see them misunderstood as crazed bloodthirsty brutes, but it also pains me to see them woobified.  They deserve better than that.

[ellekandera]

The Exandria DMs talking about the shit their partners put up with bc they're obsessed with worldbuilding is hilarious. The idea of brennan lee mulligan standing in his kitchen, in the dark, holding a half filled thing of half and half, staring into the middle distance and thinking about dnd is the funniest thing I've heard in a while

[ellekandera]

Day 6- "Glass"

"When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!” —

[ellekandera]

This is the only day you can RT this

[ellekandera]

The Importance of Mary Sue

When I was in Ninth Grade, I won a thing.  

That thing, in particular, was a thirty dollar Barnes & Noble gift certificate.  I was still too young for a part-time job, so I didn’t have this kind of spending cash on me, ever.  I felt like a god.

Drunk with power, I fancy-stepped my way to my local B&N.  I was ready to choose new books based solely on the most important of qualities…BADASS COVER ART.  I walked away with a handful of paperbacks, most of which were horrible (I’m looking at you, Man-Kzin Wars III) or simply forgettable.  

One book did not disappoint.  I fell down the rabbit hole into a series that proved to be as badass as the cover art promised (Again, Man-Kzin Wars III, way to drop the ball on that one).  With more than a dozen books in the series, I devoured them.  I bought cassette tapes of ballads sung by bards in the stories.  And the characters.  Oh, the characters.  I loved them.  Gryphons, mages, but most importantly, lots of women.  Different kinds of women.  So many amazing women.  I looked up to them, wrote bad fiction that lifted entire portions of dialogue and character descriptions, dreamed of writing something that the author would include in an anthology.

This year I decided in a fit of nostalgia to revisit the books I loved so damn much.  I wanted to reconnect with my old friends…

…and I found myself facing Mary Sues.  Lots of them.  Perfect, perfect, perfect.  A fantasy world full of Anakin Skywalkers and Nancy Drews and Wesley Crushers.  I felt crushed.  I had remembered such complex, deep characters and didn’t see those women in front of me at all anymore.  Where were those strong women who kept me safe through the worst four years of my life?

Which led me to an important realization as I soldiered on through book after book.  That’s why I needed them.  Because they were Mary Sues.  These books were not written to draw my attention to all the ugly bumps and whiskers of the real world.  They were somewhere to hide.  I was painfully aware that I was being judged by my peers and adults and found lacking.  I was a fuckup.  And sometimes a fuckup needs to feel like a Mary Sue.  As an adult, these characters felt a little thin because they lacked the real world knowledge I, as an adult, had learned and earned.  But that’s the thing…these books weren’t FOR this current version of myself.   Who I am now doesn’t need a flawless hero because I’m comfortable with the idea that valuable people are also flawed.

There is a reason that most fanfiction authors, specifically girls, start with a Mary Sue.  It’s because girls are taught that they are never enough.  You can’t be too loud, too quiet, too smart, too stupid.  You can’t ask too many questions or know too many answers.  No one is flocking to you for advice.  Then something wonderful happens.  The girl who was told she’s stupid finds out that she can be a better wizard than Albus Dumbledore.  And that is something very important.  Terrible at sports?  You’re a warrior who does backflips and Legolas thinks you’re THE BEST.   No friends?  You get a standing ovation from Han Solo and the entire Rebel Alliance when you crash-land safely on Hoth after blowing up the Super Double Death Star.  It’s all about you.  Everyone in your favorite universe is TOTALLY ALL ABOUT YOU.

I started writing fanfiction the way most girls did, by re-inventing themselves.  

Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.  

As a girl, being “selfish” was the worst thing you could be.  Now you live in Narnia and Prince Caspian just proposed marriage to you.  Why?  Your SELF is what saved everyone from that sea serpent.  Plus your hair looks totally great braided like that.

In time, hopefully, these hardworking fanfiction authors realize that it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle and their characters adjust to respond to that.  As people grow and learn, characters grow and learn.  Turns out your Elven Mage is more interesting if he isn’t also the best swordsman in the kingdom.  Not everyone needs to be hopelessly in love with your Queen for her to be a great ruler.  There are all kinds of ways for people to start owning who they are, and embracing the things that make them so beautifully weird and complicated.

Personally, though, I think it’s a lot more fun learning how to trust yourself and others if you all happen to be riding dragons.

[ellekandera]

[ellekandera]

I never watched Game of Thrones but i was on tumblr witnessing the decline and fallout from the final season, and watching everyone get hyped about House of the Dragon makes me feel like i did when my middle school bestie took her shitty boyfriend back

[ellekandera]

update  lost 20$ billion