#dude I'm in deep

[stump-not-found]

he's being normal about hands

[colubrina]

no one told me that Stephen King's On Writing calls the entire fantasy genre out as Tolkien fanfic. all I ever heard about this book was that he's anti-adverbs (he is) but there is some scathingly mean and funny shit here.

[cto10121]

Book Fiyero: *immediately recognizes Elphaba and stations himself at the backdoor to prevent her from evading him, stalks her halfway across town to her aerie (even though at that point in time she was only a college friend he hadn’t seen in five years), insists on seeing her again, instinctively goes to comfort her when she first cries, gets sucked into increasingly deep and fraught conversations with her about collateral damage and freedom fighter terrorism, calls her the “most individual, the most separate, the most real” DURING AN ARGUMENT, says he adores Elphaba’s looks IN THAT SAME ARGUMENT, doesn’t understand Elphaba’s “being born with a talent or an inclination for goodness is the aberration” comment because (implied) he sincerely believes Elphaba isn’t evil, changes his mind about the plight of the Animals all by himself but doesn’t mention it to Elphaba because he is afraid she would distance himself from him, buys scarves for both his wife and Elphaba even though only Elphaba likes scarves, is so concerned for Elphaba and her dangerous Lurlinemas Eve mission that he stalks her instead of staying at his club or just leaving town altogether, and is so worried about her that he returns to the aerie just to see her*

Also Book Fiyero: Am I in love with Elphaba?

[chamomillehoney]

this has probably been said before but you know what kills me about aftg

you have renee right. her whole backstory revolves around being a "reborn", and her two names (besides their religious roots) literally mean "dedicated to the festivity of birth" and "reborn", plus the sheer fact that she goes by the middle one shows how she chooses her "second life" over who she was etc etc

and then you have just. "andrew"

[yeyinde]

devoured midnight mass and now i can't stop thinking about a Price-Priest au for some reason, but like:

he's a good leader. a pillar. but you keep making him question his faith, his morality. he clenches the rosary so tight in his fist whenever you come into the confessional that it leaves permanent marks on his palms. fresh wounds on his back from self-flagellation. hides in the confessional for days, muttering miserere to himself, acts of contrition. he's fully convinced you were put on this earth to tempt him. lead him into damnation.

you become his ultimate Test. he has to save you. has to. but you keep driving him mad until he breaks. bends you over the pulpit and fucks you in a house of god, consumed by his own downfall. all wicked, bastardised religion. the grievous weight of lust crushing him until he's broken in your hands. now a wrecked, wretched man in search of absolution that he decides can only be given to him by you. thinking along the lines of corrupted salvation. that slow crawl to unhinged, obsessive devotion. madness, honestly.

he's a zealot; you're the sanctuary that will save him. no matter what. after all, god made you just for him.

(except that god has fangs and eats flesh.)

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

Been rewatching the early Marvel movies and apparently this is the time of my life where I just get re-obsessed with characters I love so here's some random thoughts about Loki/Thor the Dark World:

Why. In the world. In the universe. Did Odin not ask Loki ANY questions when Loki was brought before him for judgement in Dark World? Like, at the BAREST MINIMUM he should have asked where Loki got an ARMY, the last time he'd seen Loki was when Loki fell off the Bifrost and then he vanished for a year and showed back up with the glowstick of destiny and an army that Thor says "are not of Asgard or any world known". ODIN. WHY ARE YOU NOT ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS?!

Like, we are aware that Odin is. partial to giving his kids harsh punishments. He obviously doesn't care about Loki's motives. Like, a good parent would look at their kid who disappeared for a year and then came back insane and be like "hey so what happened to you when you disappeared? you didn't get captured by a super powerful being and tortured into submission did you?" (Thanos tortured Loki I have SOURCES and I WILL cite them upon request) But even a bad parent who was a decent king would wonder how their kid suddenly got an ARMY out of NOWHERE and yet Odin never questions this at all. Even Thor in Avengers at least asks Loki "Who showed you this power? Who controls the would-be king?" (which just shows Thor would honestly be a better king than Odin tbh) but Odin is just like "nah this is not important. imprisoning my son for life and telling him how worthless I think he is is more important in this moment."

I wonder if she'd had more time if maybe Frigga would have been able to get Loki to tell her what happened and if maybe that was part of her goal of visiting him (beyond just, you know, actually being a decent parent who cares about her child and wanting to keep him company) because we know she's clever (she's smarter than Odin good gravy, is there like an age difference between them is he going senile or something) so PERHAPS she thought if she talked to Loki she could puzzle out what had happened to him and find out if there was, you know, a potential universal threat Asgard should be aware of. And like, if she had found out anything what was Odin going to say? He can't actually punish his wife in any meaningful way (lol imagine he tries and she just grabs her two grown sons and leaves, help xD) especially if she found out IMPORTANT INFORMATION that he SHOULD have discovered on his own.

This does kind of highlight an underlying problem with Odin, where he seems to think that Asgard is invincible and is, well, lazy about defending it. Like, I've seen posts about how Loki letting the Frost Giants into Asgard in the first movie is actually him not just showing that Thor is not ready to be king, but also demonstrating that Asgard has dangerous holes in its defenses. Because yeah, Loki can HIDE HIMSELF FROM HEIMDALL and sneak into Asgard. Heck, he can sneak OTHERS into Asgard while he's not even WITH them. That- that is a security threat, because if anyone BESIDES Loki could do that then Asgard could easily be invaded and- wait a second, that happens in The Dark World! The Dark Elves hide themselves from Heimdall and sneak an invasion force into Asgard! Destroying it's defenses and KILLING ITS QUEEN. Like, my goodness, do you think Loki is the only person with these abilities? Are you even trying Odin? At all?

TLDR; Odin is an idiot for not questioning Loki about the Chitauri/where he was for a year between Thor and Avengers, not to mention an awful father and an incompetent king.

[anghraine]

While I'm on my disruptive Tolkien opinions kick:

Yes, obviously, he was a conservative Catholic and this was really important to his understanding of the world and pervades his work and so on and so forth.

But I'm a bit "..." about reducing everything he thought and felt about the world to that. Like, yeah, there's a tradition of conservative pastoralism that meant the context of his environmental opinions was not inherently progressive in the way it can mistakenly seem in 2024. Do I think he was Like That about trees because of conservative pastoralism, or his Catholicism, or that the particular form taken by his TREES TREES TREES #OLDMANWILLOWDIDNOTHINGWRONG TREEEEEEEEES ethos much resembles most of his contemporaries' feelings?

Not really.

I mean, he would never have said it, but I kind of doubt whether his very sincere and deeply felt veneration of the actual figures of his religion was truly comparable to how he felt about things like That One Oak on the Corner That I Liked Got Chopped Down by Evildoers. I've read other conservative British writers of this era who have their own forms of pastoralism and most of them are way less intense about it. I truly don't think Tolkien loved trees the way he did Because Catholicism or whatnot. I genuinely think he just really loved trees.

Basically, I can imagine some alternate universe in which alternate Tolkien ends up with really different beliefs about religion, about politics, about all sorts of things. But I can absolutely not imagine a universe in which any version of Tolkien did not take the part of trees against all their enemies.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

(Bobby doesn't even have eyes but you know what I mean)

[vole-mon-amour]

This is not a drill: this author has another 30k fic for the same ship. And it's 12:08 am but who cares.

I'm in for a riiide, babey.

found a fic so good, instead of falling asleep, I'm giggling into my plush toy, smiling, and my heart goes

otp so good, I haven't felt this rush in a while.

[55cdfc-f7a8b8-ffffff-f7a8b8-55cd]

I've been reading Impulse (1995) and man. Man. Man. I'll share a few of my smaller screenshots like I did with Superboy but honestly I've been saving like entire issues it's so good. I wish I could write essays but all I can articulate is that sad little speedy boy is autistic

[norsevvy]

listen i know gale gets SO much hate but idk.....he makes a ton of sense even if he goes about his shit in an irritating way

like at MOST he is an 18 year old boy who hasn't even aged out of getting reaped. almost all of the characters are young with some notable exceptions, and gale is EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD!!!! him making poor choices should be expected, especially considering the terrible universe he's in where making decisions can mean life or death, both for you and your family

beyond that, gale has absolutely no idea about the in-depth inner workings of the capitol like katniss does. katniss has survived the games and lived through them, and she understands that they never end, especially not after what she pulled with the nightlock. gale has none of the context we have; he doesn't know what katniss knows. to him, the games end once you're crowned a victor. he doesn't understand that the capitol is infinitely worse than expected, and that the games don't stop even once you've technically "won"

and even Beyond his crush on katniss, it makes sense for him to be stunned at her sudden "dating" and eventual "marriage" of peeta. his best friend, who has never expressed romantic interest in ANYONE, is suddenly in love with this boy? and is kissing him? and is actively saving his life because she's "in love" with him? even if he wasn't jealous, it makes sense on why he would be confused and hurt on why she wasn't telling him anything. gale also has no idea the threats snow has made to katniss, and her sudden secretiveness when they used to be so open would have to hurt

gale has never had to "play smart" with the capitol. he has never had to be involved in their games like katniss. all he knows is that he hates the capitol and that he wants every last capitolite to die, and that the best way to do that is to just Blatantly kill them. katniss knows that this isn't an option, and that people she loves are at risk Because of her, and that she can't just do whatever she wants. gale doesn't have that risk, and he doesn't Know about it either

he seems horribly unfair from katniss's pov, and to a degree he absolutely is. but he's also Eighteen Years Old, has lost his home, seems to have lost his best friend, and is now fighting in a war, and all of that happened in under two years. i definitely think that the way he goes about things in regards to katniss is fucking ridiculous because obviously i know what he doesn't, but he's also EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD!!!!! the dude has NO fucking idea what the capitol is actually like and what it means to enter the games (and how you never leave them)

i think gale's actions are all so painfully spot-on for him. everything he does is just very Gale and makes sense. he's angry, he has no context, he has NONE of the information that katniss has until later on, and even then, it's not the full story. he's an eighteen year old boy put in a very unfair situation, and he has no idea how to handle any of it beyond just being angry, because that's all he's ever been

i think gale is so deeply interesting and i am Very frustrated with him all the time, but it makes sense for him to act like that. he's not perfect and never was, and while his treatment of katniss (particularly in cf and mockingjay) is SO FRUSTRATING, it makes sense. he pisses me off but i love that dude. the poor fucking guy has been dropped in a warzone and has had his home stripped away from him and his best friend is no longer who he thought. obviously katniss is going fucking through it, but so is gale, and OBVIOUSLY he is not going to handle anything well because he's EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD.

[gridgamesgalore]

im thirty-one and .. I love calendars ❤️

[iamfuckingsorry]

"Do you know where we are going next?" I asked ART.

Y'know what, I think maybe I don't need any more Murderbot books. I think maybe ending things here is fucking perfect and as much as I love Wells's writing I'm genuinely not sure it can get better for me.

Like, so much of the books are about MB learning how to be a person, about becoming okay with being a complete individual with everything it entails. The first thing it does once it's actually allowed to decide on its own is it runs away from it all (admittedly to go on a mission to confirm some things about its past, because it genuinely just wants to be *good*). It shoves all its emotions away as much as it's able to. Then shit happens, and it makes its first friends, makes decisions based on these friendships, goes through a lot of emotionally intense situations...

And we get to this point here. MB having zero doubts about going with ART says a lot about its relationship with ART, but it also says a lot about its relationship with its humans - it knows that wherever it goes, when it comes back, the humans will still be there. Its humans actively acknowledge its struggles with being a now-free SecUnit and MB is willing to entertain the discussions to an extent and share information about its deeply personal experiences. Hell, System Collapse ends with MB admitting it might be somewhat broken, but that's okay as long as it can keep doing its job, and agreeing to basically do counselling - this is the guy what would rewatch its favourite TV show again and again in order to avoid acknowledging it even had Emotions a couple books back.

Reading this, I know that MB will be okay. It has hopes and goals and genuinely believes in itself and it has an amazing support system that its willing to lean on for the first time in its life. I'm convinced it'll go on to do great things with ART. And that's really the only thing I need to know.

[sp-growingpains]

Oh no.

[addicted-to-the-knife]

I think it's very important that we bring back this inherent understanding that actors are also just some fucking guys (gender neutral)

[gnomewithalaptop]

Damn, I really thought I was about to make some crazy observation here and connect the dots that Hercules was the one who gave Cassie the costume she ends up using for her Titans of Tomorrow Evil Arc, but alas, DC in 2007 was simply not on my level