crshelidon

[crshelidon]

There’s two ends of the horror spectrum

[crshelidon]

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) dir. Steven Spielberg

[crshelidon]

My very giod friend @atrusofmyst already mentioned the primary book on the topic (of course he did). As a counterpoint, I would like to add that we often put loads of effort to emphasize how Tolkien did not intend LOTR to be a metaphor (or God forbid an ALLEGORY) of some kind, and therefore we’re pretty deinitive in saying the war didn’t have much influence on Tolkien’s work. While Tolkien himself in the foreword to the second edition, alrady mentioned by Atrus, he himself writes: “An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.” I think it’s safe to say he did not intend any of the events to be inspired by the war, because he says so himself, but it’s also safe to say some of them might have been and we’ll never know, just as much as he did not. Makes sense?

It's a cliché to say that Tolkien's experiences in WWI affected all aspects of his writing, how he wrote about friendship and grief, how he wrote about desolate blasted landscapes. But I wish someone who knows more about Tolkien's military career could help me understand how Tolkien related to retreats. His description of Faramir keeping his people together on the retreat from Osgiliath is one of the best-written sequences in the trilogy, and hardly anyone remembers it. It's about a desperate retreat, and a leader whose presence, whose strength manages to keep it from turning into a rout. There's something very vivid in the descriptions: don't break formation, don't start running or they'll pick you off one by one, keep together, keep moving, hold all of that fear at bay. Tolkien describes that retreat as genuinely heroic, a superhuman act of will, one that exhausts Faramir almost to death, and Denethor still does not accept it as heroic because it's a retreat. It saved men but it lost territory, therefore in his eyes it's a failure.

Tolkien has strong opinions about heroic retreats, in the Silmarillion he sometimes gives the retreat-through-the-dangerous-wilderness plotline to female characters (Emeldir, Idril), he always writes them with respect. Sometimes, getting out of there and keeping most of your people alive is a great act of valour. I feel like he must have had a personal experience about what it means to retreat, and what it means to hold a retreat together, and what it means to get no thanks for it.

[crshelidon]

there’s a class of anders fan or anders post that tries to love him “despite”, that tries to love him through forgiveness or understanding of his supposed wrongs. let me make it so clear that for me, blowing up the chantry is in fact one of anders best features and so hot of him

[crshelidon]

My doctor and therapist: now with this autism + ADHD diagnosis you need to learn to unmask because masking all the time will make you burn out again and feel like shit

Other people: well it's just interesting how after getting the diagnosis you suddenly start behaving like that I mean I'm not saying you're faking it's just funny how you suddenly cannot be normal like you were before

[crshelidon]

stop fucking using the word psychotic to describe bad behaviour and violence already god fucking damn it

[crshelidon]

Ellery Queen and Dragon Age Veilguard is basically just a Neve spin-off.

[crshelidon]

MUPPETS FROM SPACE (1999)

[crshelidon]

Quiz: guess which one I picked.

[crshelidon]

I know I should have spotted it sooner, but I just realized that my Rook is... well... barefoot. She's been barefoot through the blight, pools of boiling blood, a literal floor of lava, venomous mushrooms and whatever the fuck that green thing in the Necropolis is. All this time Neve and Lucanis have been complaining about stains and ruined boots, and she's just shrugging it off and scraping one sole against the shin of the other leg. I love her.

[crshelidon]

I would still use my turn signals in the Mad Max Wasteland. They'd call me "Signal" because I'd hit my blinker before ramming the enemy hot rods into the side of a desert ravine. I'd use my turn signal every time. They would respect me for this.

[crshelidon]

I had a feeling this was a Sixth Sense kind of thing and then Baldie told me, with a smirk, that at least I still have my friend to talk to, and I think I'll go to my in-house Necromancer to brainstorm a way to kill his ass MULTIPLE TIMES.

[crshelidon]

I KNEW IT!

I just knew you couldn't trust a guy named ILARIO.

[crshelidon]

I KNOW HOW MY FILTHY MUTANT ABILITIES UPSET YOU, SCHMIDT. DON’T WORRY–

–YOU WILL DIE PURE. NO MAGNETISM 

JUST FISTS.

[crshelidon]

"A proper teacher never makes their students feel inadequate."

THANKS Emmrich. Good to see I'm not the only one thinking Taash's mother is full of crap.

[crshelidon]

"A proper teacher never makes their students feel inadequate."

THANKS Emmrich. Good to see I'm not the only one thinking Taash's mother is full of crap.

[crshelidon]

Ok, so, now I'm ANGRY. Why is the romance with Taash tied down to saying you believe their mother cares for them? I don't think she does. In fact, I met their mother once and I think she should go FUCK HERSELF. I think "Forget what she wants" is the right answer. Why ON EARTH does this answer forego the romance with Taash?