#2 take away the idea of love..???

[stinkbeck]

dude i'm gonna throw up. i cannot write a critical analysis of this writer without hating on him. i do not wanna make my prof feel bad either though. :/

[ivypond11]

it's been a week and i still haven't recovered </3 so i did a little sketch with this scene between normal and scary because it fucked me up and i need more moments of them comforting and caring for each other

[solarpunkani]

Psst, hey.

Hey you.

Come closer.

Listen to what I'm about to say good and well, alright?

[bitterseaproduction]

Angsty Bilbo dying Bagginshield art giving me another story idea~ 😂😭💕

But no, seriously? A play on the popular time travel fix-it, but one where Bilbo dies protecting Thorin during the Battle of Five Armies? And Thorin is inconsolable, I can’t even. And he might pull himself together long enough to stabilize Erebor, but there is No Way he can be a good ruler in his grief, so he has to pass it on. (I was going to say to Dain just to twist that knife a little harder, but actually there are reasons hinted below on why Fíli & Kíli must have lived.) And Thorin just… he wanders, probably. A shell of himself for the rest of his days.

And yet, when he inevitably passes away, he awakens on the road to the Shire. And he’s younger. And he’s so confused, quickly suspecting he must be dead and this is nothing like what he was taught to expect. But then his instant impulse to check Bag End has him walking in on that same meeting from so many years ago, his Company intact, the wizard smiling at him, introducing him to… to…

Bilbo. His Bilbo. The sight of him makes Thorin want to weep and hold him and never let go again, but he is instantly terrified to do anything, because is this a dream? Will he wake? What happens if he says something new, will ‘this’ be ruined somehow? He doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to change anything, save for the end. The very end.

But, even as he strives to mimic himself, he knows something is wrong. He’s off-script from the start purely due to his shock, but he tries to recover, get back on track, and within words, he’s managed it. The discussion is righting itself, and no one there could possibly know the difference, right?

And yet, Bilbo stares at him. From the instant Thorin walked in, Bilbo was staring, looking lost. As he had before, that first time, but it wasn’t the same. Bilbo had been confused then as well, but it had been a light, anxious uncertainty then. This time? He was frowning, his expression tense.

His eyes haunted.

Because Bilbo has also lived that night before. Just once as far as that night was concerned, but it was familiar to him. So familiar. That first night had haunted him for decades, to the very end of his long, long life, when he thought he might know rest, and perhaps — if he was truly as lucky as some once claimed — he might get to see his friends again. See Thorin again.

Instead he had slept, drifted away, and awoken to a battle about to start.

And he had questioned it, had stumbled that first time, but he adjusted. He tried to save Thorin. To save them all.

And he failed. Again.

Then, when he finally slept for the first time afterwards, he awoke to the battle starting again.

And again.

And he tried, over and over, day after the same horrid day to find a way to get through. And sometimes Thorin lived. Sometimes the princes did. Sometimes, new people died. The wrong people.

Once, in his darkest moments, he thought that perhaps someone was trying to teach him humility, teach him to accept fate as it was and not try to fight it, not change anything. And so he went through the motions as well as he could remember them after all those years, following them to the letter, save for when he sobbed all the harder when it was done.

He sobbed again, the relief bone-deep, when he awoke again the next day, the battle still awaiting him.

He lost count of his attempts, and no one could rightly vouch for his state of mind when he finally resorted to the one thing he had refused to try: Not since that fourth (or fifth?) time, when he managed to be there for the fight and threw himself in Azog’s way, but Thorin pulled him out of the way, and screamed at him with such outrage and fear and despair in the few beats he bought by pushing Azog over, that Bilbo never attempted it again.

Until that final day. And that time, Bilbo didn’t give Thorin a chance to stop him.

And it broke a heart Bilbo thought long since shattered to hear Thorin scream, to feel him pick him up and hold him close and hear his voice like that. But the words faded soon enough, and he couldn’t feel anything, nothing except for regret and acceptance, because this was different. He felt it. This time, he would not awaken again, and that was fine. He had saved his king, kept all of his dwarves safe that last time. If that was to be the last, then that was all he could ask for. It was alright. He could sleep.

Then he woke up.

Not outside Erebor, but inside a hole. His hole. Bag End.

He walked outside, stood in the sun, and watched a wizard walk up the road to his door.

He did not understand.

[kevinsdsy]

have been struggling to find something out of pocket for jeremy to say on twitter dot com that would lead to him going go media training to perceive shawn & jean (so he can complain about it to laila and/or cat later)

[scrombit]

the eternal yapper is back at it

[puhpandas]

hi mutuals im just curious.

[apollokyler]

NOBODY MOVE *flower petals fly across the screen and music from a romance dorama starts playing*

[kineticallyanywhere]

Tell us more about Doodler Normal Kinetic i beg of you

First thing to note: Doodler Boss Normal would not survive contact with Canon Normal

Cause the thing with this version of Normal, I think, is that the situation to create it is so specific; and in a way that I've never thought about before, for a narrative? I'm sure it exists somewhere, because what story framework doesn't already exist somewhere but like.

this version of Normal only happens in a world where all 4 anchors are broken with violence and not a single other person is questioning that decision by the end. (which I don't think is going to happen! for the record!) in this world, Normal presents himself as a last bastion of empathy, but where in any other story that would look like a shining knight with their Chosen One sword and shield and righteous strength, in this story it looks like a kid ready to turn into an eldritch monster because the eldritch monster is the only other creature he can find that makes any sense to him. a character who, written in words, is a paragon hero who's virtues refuse to crumble. but because of the Ao3 CSS skin of the world he's in, he gets all the style and flair and trappings of a villain.

(which, again, I don't have reason at the time of this writing to think that this situation would happen; that there isn't going to be at least one other person on Normal's side. It's all but impossible to predict any of these kids and I think they all have good hearts, even Scary. Link right now is an unsettled weather vane in a storm, Taylor for all his swagger doesn't seem on the side of brutality, and then like... Hermie???)

that said! In a world where sometimes you can't decide if you want to sit in your disappointment or scream at the top of your lungs, there's falling back on your new frienemy-of-the-family monster bro

(anyone with a writing bug and time, feel free to use any, all, or none of these ^^)

for thoughts on where this AU would end up, anyone can obviously take it anywhere but I know the version I would make would have a happy ending (I am allergic to writing tragedies, sue me). I guess it would be a story where finally snapping and letting out some Oak Anger and not apologizing (because while it's not okay to be cruel it is okay to be angry) is what gets characters to come to terms with each other and better understand each other and meet each other in the middle and even come to terms with themselves and what version of expressing themselves makes them happy and comfortable and best able to love themselves and the people around them.

all of that admittedly wrapped in a gift box with the catharsis of a character saying "I'm not okay with how you're treating me" in a very badass fashion, as we all wish to do one day.

also for those of us who would die for Scary but also want to take her by the shoulders and shake vigorously there's the Rule of 3s for swiping the Goth Crown from Scary a THIRD TIME

all of her put-on apathy and tiredness and lashing out but from a genuine place, simultaneously forcing her in front of a mirror and asking her to reach back for the part of herself that started the day of the debate "bright eye-ed and bushy tailed" so that she could even stand a chance at getting through to Normal??? The ways to talk about Scary skyrocket even higher. to be clear, I don't want this as a form of stealing Scary's narrative, I want it as a way of taking Scary's narrative and hitting the NOS. give her just about everything she wants, for everyone to agree with her and listen to her and think she's right and enforce the belief that she has any power over what's going on and then see if she even likes it. See if she likes herself and see how far she's willing to take the identity of goth punk seeker of darkness. ask her where the line is. show her the road she she's taking and ask her where the line is. canon parallels and connections between normal and scary are a whole other post I can have and will drive to work in the morning writing the meta in my head, the way Normal is a previous version of Scary cranked up to 11 and the way Scary makes herself into a person that Normal has every right to be but isn't becausehe'shumanandflawedbutsogoodatheartandnevergivesuponothersnotevenherandAUGH

[skrunksthatwunk]

have just been introduced to a kitten named rascal who lives on my floor and whose babysitters (who are not his owner?) were trying Really hard to goad me into adopting which like. he's a little baby and he's so so so silly and he barely even bit me but like also. this cat isn't yours???? anyway if the owner's giving him up then I might finally have a cat which like AHHHHHG

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[jils-things]

since i have laras permission to post shit he made heres another favorite old art done by her ☝️☝️

this literally summarizes everything there is to know about these guys

[unnaturalceilings]

Rereading one of my fave fics and the gay brain worms took hold again

From ch1 of love like on a silver screen by powergrapes

[dizzybevvie]

boy how do you reblog such great things

been cultivating my dash for years. i also found most of them in my drafts

[aeide-thea]

ugh

saw a post with a quote that basically tidily summed up the rebuttal i'd half-started drafting to someone's post about how homosociality in tolkien ~queers amatonormativity~ [spoiler: on the contrary, male homosociality has been engaged in a three-way handshake with both misogynist heterosexuality and amatonormativity for literal millennia, and far from undermining them, more typically serves as essential reinforcement], so i was like, great, now i don't have to actually write that essay, i can just reblog this instead and tag it #tolkien! :)

but then, like a conscientious idiot, i went and dutifully looked up the book it was from, because i think it's irresponsible to cite excerpts whose context you aren't familiar with; and very predictably it turned out to be by a r*dfem and to make all sorts of claims abt so-called 'phallocratic culture' that i dislike, both as a trans person and ally myself and also as a logical thinker who can tell perfectly well from, you know, lived experience of our society that having a penis doesn't in fact confer ready social acceptance, never mind dominance, on people who don't otherwise look or act the part of a Proper Man, because ultimately what we reflexively defer to is a particular vibe, produced by a combination of physique and affect and other things besides, which may imply the presence of a penis but neither actually reveals nor necessitates one…

so like. ugh. probably i'm gonna have to write my own essay after all. :/

[jrueships]

Hi, so you know about the rumor that Josh cheated on his ex and that was very bad. But another rumor is not only did he do that, he also bought her a bunch of fake designer purses and fashion-minded fans could all tell 😱. But I don't think Josh would do that maliciously. I think Josh asked Stef about bags she might like because he knows Stef is into Fashion™️ but Stef being the petty bitch he is knowingly recommended fakes because of jealousy and evilness etc. I needed to tell someone this.

josh: WDYM it's FAKE??? it CANT be i- WDYM?????? STEF WENT SHOPPING WITH ME FOR IT AND EVERYTHING!!!! WE WENT TO ALL THE FAMOUS GUCCI SELLING SITES!!! We went to mcdonaldsss, burger kinggg, subway, the dark crime alley where batmans parents died (i had to hold him really tight because we were scared :( ...) (hold him really tight against a wall) (he sucked my di-)WE EVEN WENT TO T H E DUMPSTER!!!!!!! and DOVE Iwell *I* dove in. Stef stood back rubbing his hands together maliciously whilst laughing maniacally. but this isn't about him. BUT SPEAKING OF HIM... stef is standing in the corner maliciously rubbing his hands together while we fight. hope you don't mind :). surely his presence here holds no significance to this argument ! stef!! back me up little buddy :( !! we didn't know the Gucci bag that was actually just a Styrofoam cup i took a bite out of and you spit in before you wrote STANK ASS CUCCI on it was FAKE!! tell her WE DIDNT KNOW :(!!!

stef, standing in a Jojo villain pose:

I Had No Idea .