#just found this in my drafts lmao

[horreurscopes]

this craigslist unlicensed contractor is so me

[antaripirate]

Emira: So I’ve put together this selection of potential wives and husbands for you. All from reputable families of course. They would obviously have diplomatic roles in the palace, which would mean you would still have plenty of time to protect Rhy…

Kell:

Emira, handing him the stack of papers: …a wedding within the year would be best, so could you let me know your decision by tomorrow morning? That should give you plenty of time to evaluate.

Kell:

*clattering of metal and swearing coming from outside, before Lila wanders in, dressed in men’s clothes, grinning at Kell, covered in blood and holding six knives*

Kell, pointing: I want that one.

Emira, looking traumatised, whispering: What is it?

Kell, with ultimate heart-eyes: It’s a Lila.

*lila grins and waves then flips off Emira*

[none-house-left-grief]

Hi my name is Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus and I have short ebony black hair (that's how I got my name) and icy black eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Erana James (AN: if u don't know who she is get da hell out of here!).

[emoprincey]

Deceit 2022 wrapped

This year you:

Disguised yourself as the other sides 273 times

Flirted with the other sides 1028 times

Hissed at Virgil 724 times

Played Dance Dance Revolution 523 times

[spectroscopes]

I need to just sit down and write my big thesis about these Avatar movies but the thing I keep thinking about is the fact that Jake and his positioning in the narrative is not quite a straight deployment of a “white saviour” trope in the way you would encounter it in another movie. It’s not that the first movie doesn’t follow the beats of that trope and I understand why people find it really annoying but it’s like, Jake is not special. It’s not even that his specialness has nothing to do with his whiteness, it’s that he’s just not special at all. He’s barely even a saviour. The only reason the Na’vi win the climactic battle of that movie after everything he does leading up to it, almost none of which ultimately matters (except that it’s partly his fault it’s even happening), is that Eywa directly intervenes. The only thing he does of any real value is provide information to her about what will happen if she doesn’t. The thing which makes him ‘special’ in contrast to the other humans on Pandora is that he is the only human in the movie with no ideological or material attachment to the imperial project because he is also marginalised by it and the reality is that there are a lot of people in the world who fall into that category and it could have been any one of them it’s just that he’s the one that just so happened to end up on Pandora basically by accident.

I think people can have nuanced discussions about the casting choices in these movies and the decision to centre a character played by a white man in the narrative; I wonder if it would have been more palatable to people if he were played by someone else but the essential story beats were the same. It’s a complicated question because it gets into the ethics of casting real-world racialised people as colonisers (and whether this is intentional or not it is noteworthy that every human character bar one in the first movie who switches sides and fights with the Na’vi is marginalised in some way: disabled, female, not white, or a combination) and also — maybe I’m stupid — but it feels like it would not fundamentally change the story messaging given that the in-universe racial politics don’t directly deal with white supremacy but this notion of human supremacy because it’s an allegory, especially considering the typical problematic optics of this type of story are absent by the time Jake does anything actually heroic since he looks like (and, like, is) a Na’vi the entire time. 

The thing which makes it interesting to me is that the saviour arc isn’t about Jake being innately good or special by dint of his identity either as human or as white. He doesn’t start the movie as a great war hero like the guy in Dances With Wolves or any kind of aspirational ideal: he starts the movie as someone who wanted to be that guy, bought into imperialist propaganda, and got chewed up and spit out by the machine because it was a lie. He doesn’t even see himself as a saviour or a leader by the end of the movie because he correctly assesses that none of this was really thanks to him, in fact he literally says “I’m not officer material”, which points to kind of a traditional mythic idea about the most appropriate leader being someone who doesn’t want the job and is also thematically consistent with the way he is contrasted with Norm who feels that he should have been the one to embed with the Na’vi and resents Jake for being chosen over him. That’s what makes the fact that he so completely fails at his leadership role when tested in the second movie so interesting because it illustrates his discomfort with the idea of being special but it also directly challenges the idea that he even is special. Ronal openly scoffs at this idea when Neytiri suggests it.

Anyway, like, I’m not saying my assessment of these movies is correct or the only valid interpretation because the first one certainly does have its moments in this regard where any reasonable person could go “ugh”. But when I contextualise the reaction to them versus other franchises that are just as guilty of the things people criticise about Avatar (specifically regarding the casting, optics, and centring of white characters) but are not considered irredeemable and dismissed in the same way it makes me wonder if the real issue here is that Avatar is at least trying to tell a genuinely anticolonialist story in a populist medium with direct application to contemporary geopolitics and perceived to be falling short or imperfect and therefore totally lacking in value and meaning in a way that stories that don’t even try or are pushing the reverse are not.

In some ways it feels like maybe it’s a little more comfortable to engage with media which deliberately pulls its punches or garbles its semiotics (or cynically utilises representation politics to repackage overt imperialist messaging as in some way progressive, naming no names) than something which is flawed in well-documented ways but very open about exactly who the villains are, who they represent in the real world, and the idea that indigenous people have an unassailable right to their own land and self-determination which they’re entitled to defend by any means necessary and they’re not just “villains making points but taking it too far” they’re the heroes of the narrative and allowed to engage in truly brutal violence without the movies ever positioning them as in the wrong. Because that is an actually challenging idea to a lot of people who do not want to acknowledge that they themselves are on the extractive side of imperialism just like Jake and maybe the only possibility for self-redemption and the only way to transgress that category is to be willing to die for it, just like Jake. Because, optics aside, tropes aside, casting ethics aside, James Cameron aside, the central message ultimately boils down to, like, “you personally are not that special, you are on the surplus side of imperial relations to the environment, you’re kind of complicit in the atrocities that are being committed to support your lifestyle, which you don’t even enjoy, and you can only redeem yourself by setting aside your own selfishness and entitlement in order to turn against this system of global destruction that you have been a cog in the machine for all your life”. And if Lockheed Martin and even fucking Shein discourse has taught me anything it’s that a lot of people don’t like to hear that.

[theunfairfolk]

i would love a reading if you have the time! :)

bear reversed. the best part about humans isn’t actually the thumbs it’s the ability to beat back our inner monkey and show some goddamn self control.

Edit: WHY DIDNT THIS POST WTF

[myaimistrue]

AHHHHHH SOMEONE EHELP ME IM FREAKING OUT AHHH. woah sorry. girl moment.

[cyypress]

tim dillon is to me what alex jones is to tim dillon

[uminhoes]

ill never forget the donghua designs for yi city dropped when i was @ a lil pool party and i posted them on my spam story like 10 times consecutively and this girl there showed me my story on her phone and was like '?'

[kazbiter]

very interested in how the storyline of ronan's sexuality is developed in the dream thieves as a battle between kavinsky and gansey while adam is almost never present in these scenes, which makes it even more interesting that we found out in CDTH that ronan was set on adam the moment he saw him. i think that ronan is attracted on some level to both gansey and kavinsky (you can draw the lines of how much romantic intention you think he hold towards either of the yourself, that's a rabbit hole I would need a whole other post to go down) but more so I think he was attracted to the IDEA of both of them and certain qualities that each possessed, and that the real question wasn't does ronan want gansey or kavinsky because we know he wants adam but rather who's qualities resonate more with who ronan is, or who he is choosing to be at this critical moment in his character development. kavinsky is a dangerous thrill and often comes wrapped in ronan's other favorite self destructive attempts to outrun himself, while gansey is ronan's history and proof of his deep capacities for loyalty and love. he tells kavinsky it was never going to be me and you and that it's not going to be ronan and gansey because that was never the question- maggie was obviously always planning on bluesy and pynch. the answer to who ronan WANTS in adam. the question of who ronan IS- that's what he's trying to decide here. his self hatred is such a heavy weight on him and theme in tdt, and the kavinsky/gansey dichotomy represents the the path he will choose to take to deal with it- keep try to drive faster than his demons or accept that he can still be loved even if he isn't the person he once was. the dream thieves my beloved ronan lynch my beloved

[sadbeautifulttragic]

@tayloralisonswiftnetwork Cruel Summer Event | Cruel Summer Performance

cruel summer at the eras tour

[collectivecloseness]

Eddie Munson getting a bump/bruise/cut on his head that you put a bandaid on, and he’s bumping it into your mouth every fifteen seconds, like a cat, and being the whiniest baby ever. He needs you to kiss his mark now! Every time, every second! Love him! He’s hurt! Help him!

‘Nooooo’ he whines when you are not kissing it/him. It was his own fault he got it, you told him to be careful when he was acting like his usual self, pre-bandaid. You’ve given him some ibuprofen and water, but he’s all cuddled up to you and not going anywhere.

He will straight up look at you offended if you even mention you are getting up, like he will give you the most offended and sometimes bitchy look, for real. How dare you even think about leaving him in his condition right now?

He’ll nuzzle his bandaided head into your mouth tirelessly, so much that no matter where you move your head, or if you’re trying to talk, you’ve got a plaster and Eddie’s boney head and a tonne of curls following your face everywhere, nuzzling right into your lips so you can’t even talk to Eddie about it. You’re smothered easily once again.

There’s no escape from Eddie and his need. You could breathe if you just gave him his kisses like he wanted! Eventually you get too busy pulling hairs out your mouth, while Eddie’s whimpering into your jaw, how you’re just being so horrible to him, whilst still hiding in your face.

Eddie is your stubborn and soft baby but he will just ram his head into your face harder if you say that. When you ask him if his injury hurts so much why is him acting like a horned goat not making him cry in pain, he just grabs your arms and pulls them over himself instead. Not letting you move your arms out of his tight hold whatsoever.

When you stop babying Eddie, or tease him too much, he’s telling you how mean you are to your injured boyfriend, saying don’t you always tell him boys can show their vulnerable side too, and why won’t you use your mouth for less bullying him and more magical healing kissing? Why don’t you love him anymore huh?

He keeps up with this all the way until nighttime, even if it happened in the morning. He’ll be the saddest/most annoying (whatever works) boy all day long so you stay snuggled up with him, looking after your poor injured helpless baby.

Eddie will only fall asleep with you constantly giving kisses around, not on, his very small no longer even hurting mark, swearing that’s the only way he can be lulled to sleep. Blinking those dark brown eyes up at you if you stop, and pouting about how he can’t sleep the pain away if you do that.

And God, Eddie Munson can sell cute.

And that’s just how Eddie dozes off after a long hard day for him, with your arms and legs wrapped around him, his own limbs clinging around yours, and with constant kisses to his injured head until he’s knocked out peacefully in bed snuggled into you, unrelated to his head trauma

[aptericia]

stuff aminals. you agree

[randomcollection-o-stuff]

[libertatias]

sam drake + assorted text posts

[cool-person-yey]

no cause like what did i meant by this