#she literally invented coming back wrong but actually the same

[littlenastieswewhispered]

[tabiito]

ACADEMIC LIABILITY or ACADEMIC WEAPON?! — one piece in college

sanji is a hospitality major -> very obvious -> eventually wants to go to culinary school and open his own restaurant, but wants to get some work experience in and wouldn't mind working in a hotel for a year or two -> rooms with zoro; they both got randomly assigned based off signup sheets and they've been torturing the housing incharges to change ever since then -> the housing dept is so fed up with them that they're not budging just to spite them -> zoro regularly buys the wrong kinds of ingredients for him and sometimes messes with his schedules so he's late for classes -> did a semester abroad in france and is planning to do one in italy to intern under his favourite chefs -> watches and falls asleep to reruns of the great british bake off or masterchef jr. -> is a pleasure to generally have in class and submits his assignments on time except when there are any sorts of accounting/finance courses he needs to take ... pesters nami to help with those -> probably tied with chopper and robin as the people who're the most genuinely passionate about their major -> hosts sunday study sessions where everyone comes to his dorm and studies while he cooks lunch for them -> makes nami, vivi and robin bentos the days they have long classes and drops them off at their buildings -> will make people on his floor food if they ask for it -> actually not that big of a fan of huge parties but gets dragged along by luffy anyways -> 100% academic weapon

zoro is a kinesiology major -> him and ace are prolific nappers. will nap anywhere: under a tree in the quad, in the library, in classes, etc. -> that is, if zoro actually makes it to his classes in the first place, he's so directionally challenged -> took him months to figure out the campus layout, will still end up 10-15 minutes late cos he took the wrong staircase up -> mainly just spends his time sleeping in the dorm or at the gym -> very intimidating in the gym, loads of people mistake him for a varsity athlete cos he'll casually be bench pressing mad numbers -> will spot your weights and help you out if you ask tho <3 -> sanji gets back at him by playing ridiculously loud music while cooking and giving him the wrong directions -> he still has to admit that for what it's worth he keeps sanji around since he's practically memorised zoro's meal preferences and macros (sanji will sneak in some greens and sugar here and there) -> does not party often but when he does he goes beast mode, drunk zoro blushes like crazyyy -> he's a girlfailure academically though, does not keep track of his assignments, all his coursework leaves his head the minute he leaves the classroom -> gets law or chopper to help him with basic biology parts of his major -> at one point paid chopper to do his assignments but chopper was too nice and did them for free until law found out and started going on about "child labour" or something -> he's BARELY making the passing grade -> 100% academic liability nami is a business major -> IT girl!! on top of everything always -> dorms with robin, is literally living the pinterest girl aesthetic -> super organised, notes are color coded, always running around campus with her cup of coffee -> is the president of the campus's women in finance club -> summer internships, TA-ing, you name it she's doing it -> is debating going down the investment banker route because of the 6 figure salary or starting her own business -> invented office siren core. she walks into a class with pointed kitten heels bayonetta glasses and everyone loses their shit -> at the same time is a party MONSTER -> her tolerance is unlimited . got a matching tattoo with vivi and robin one night -> she ran an alcohol supplying racket in her freshman year for a quick buck but switched to more legitimate moneymaking methods in her sophmore year, she now connects students from her highschool with college mentors -> her profs love herrr she hates being called a nerd but she pre-reads all her syllabus, is ready with good questions but she's not a nerd guys!! -> is the campus cafe's best customer. will stop by at least twice a day for some sugar/coffee shot that keeps her sane -> her and robin have a wine night every week where they watch real housewives, do skincare, and catch up on each other's lives -> robin lowkey worries for her because she's very ambitious but she trusts that vivi keeps nami sane when she's not around

robin is an archaeology and history double major -> why is she even in college (is a question her professors keep asking her) -> she could teach the class! (she's assistant in every department she's taken) -> definitely taking the academia route after college, also because she's genuinely passionate about teaching -> is overqualified to even sit in introductory level courses -> has been published as an undergraduate in multiple prestigious journals for papers that she wrote because she was "just curious" -> is a part of student government -> is also a part of the campus debate union, but is not as proactive as other members (eg. luffy) -> double majoring is a breeze for her. her assignments make her professors question their ability to grade -> singlehandedly carries the class average on her back -> is idolised by underclassmen because she's very sweet and patient -> got invited to join a lot of secret societies and sororities during her freshman year but politely declined -> could honestly be successful in any major since she has a general academic knack -> wants to take a year off after college to gain on-site archaeological experience in egypt -> is the mother of the group; everyone comes to her for advice whenever they're struggling to pick classes or feeling down -> her guilty pleasure is a good matcha latte. has bought a full matcha station to perfect her own lattemaking skills -> nami took her thrifting once and now she spends hours on her weekend in shops -> doesn't like partying so is often the designated sober one along with sanji and law, will occasionally smoke with him depending on how tolerable he is -> 100% an academic weapon

a/n: i'm a big yapper so ima do ace luffy chopper and law in the pt 2 for this ⁽ଘ( ˊᵕˋ )ଓ⁾

[romicat]

So, I understand where people who are calling NYX racist are coming from, but I don't fully agree with that.

Instead, I think the problem is that it fails at hitting that same intersection of real life and fictionalized discrimination that both the Ms Marvel solo books and even the goddamn MCU did really well. That's something most X-Men titles fail to do despite many of their characters being marginalized minorities on top of being Mutants. It comes with the territory, X-Men has always been pretty bad at that stuff.

I don't think it's intentional, more it's misguided and toned deaf.

To break it down some: Sophie's problem with David at the start is that she thinks he's a sell out.

Mutants selling out to humans to make their own lives easier is a theme in some of the other X Books going on right now too. Becca refuses to leave her team and go home after her family pulls strings to get her out of jail, and instead throws herself into the thick of it, unwilling to put her own comfort first. And X-Factor is all about this.

^this is what Sophie is accusing David of.

Literally Kamala repeats it a few issues later for those that missed it. David for his part isn't actually doing that.

In a way he's trying to find his own answers to his own questions.

He can't jeopardize his position. He tries not to rock the boat too much, even as he's going out to paint some mutant graffiti. He takes Sophie's attacks and tries to *calmly* argue to his bosses against putting mutants in ghettos using data and facts.

Issue 1 is Sophie laying into David, Issue 4 is his rebuke, it's him deciding to risk his career to do what he feels is right. In Issue 4 he finds his own answer: "Xavier's dream wasn't his to burn."

----------------------

Yes, it sucks that they had to invent a whole new cousin for Kamala to be an anti-mutant member of the Truthseekers. They really didn't need to do that, but you can tell what it is that they were trying to do with that.

An amount of feminists and cisgender queer people have started to turn against trans people. For many years now there's been a growing movement of far right nationalist Hispanic immigrants in the states. One of the biggest voices in the far right is a Jewish man and another is an openly gay man and yet another is a black woman.

Kamala's cousin isn't a Muslim terrorist, he's a PoC who joined a far right extremist organization based off of the Proud Boys and the Guardian Angels. If ever they were to get their way with Mutants, the leopards would turn on him next. . . But you know if I were writing NYX I probably wouldn't have him bomb New York. That's kind of toned deaf. (Cough also Wilson literally introduced another Muslim villain who used explosions and talked a lot about purity first cough)

Despite what they were trying to do that entire subplot feels unnecessary. As does Kamala "learning" about mutant discrimination like she's some wide eyed ignorant little girl. I saw a comment on reddit that described it as "discrimination power scaling" and that basically hits the nail in the head.

Going back to one of my earlier point, X-Men books are really bad at that stuff. It's not something unique to NYX or its writers. It's the kind of stuff I expected would happen when Kamala was retconned as a mutant.

The Ms Marvel books deal with how all these different parts of Kamala's heritage and identity come together. How she's something wholly distinct from any one of them. Her identity is larger than the sum of her parts.

But in NYX, and the mass majority of X-Men comics really, a character's identity as a mutant supersedes anything else. At the core that's what's wrong with NYX.

Compare this to the MCU show where, yeah Damage Control would've gone after Kamala even if she wasn't visibly brown. But because she was, they racially profiled her. And because she was a Muslim they got a leg up since the FBI had already been watching Kamala's mosque long before that investigation. They went after Kamala for being a little reckless with her power as hard as they did Peter for potential murder.

Sorry for what might be another late night rant that might only make sense to me in my sleepy state. I'll try to clean up the text some time tomorrow.

I just had to get my thoughts out there because while I think NYX is bad, I don't think simply boiling it down to "Sophie is racist" or "the writers are racist" or "the characters are coming from a place of racism" is helpful. I understand why that's the immediate reaction a lot of people have. But I think the issues in NYX are in large part the issues with every X-Men series. . . Well, with the exception of Momoko's Demon Days and more recently maybe her run on Ultimate X-Men. I say maybe because we still need to see if it can stick the landing.

[melorambles]

Tauriel is a creation of studio executives to try and make the hobbit movies more appealing to certain market demographics, but that's really only the spark notes of why she feels so disingenuous as a character in Tolkien's world. Again, they did the elves - especially Thranduil and the Mirkwood elves - so dirty in the films, but that's only the tip of this iceberg.

Tauriel is, first of all, a love interest, not a character in her own right. She's there to provide Kili with Forbidden Love, For Their Peoples Do Not Get Along. It's an attempt at Romeo and Juliet, but it doesn't feel real or deserved. Why is she the one elf in Mirkwood that doesn't have any anti-dwarf prejudice? Legolas (and he feels very out of place in the Hobbit movies, a cameo would have been nice. what we got was very much not) had to work past prejudice and when he and Gimli come to an accord, it is incredibly satisfying. Tauriel just magically has nothing against dwarves. Which is actually, in the context of her culture, insane. Like, legitimately her peers must think something is wrong with her.

Maybe someday I'll make a longer post about the fact that Tolkien's elves and dwarves have a conflict rooted in actual bloodshed, not just the hatred/misinformation/stereotypes/etc that things like racism and homophobia are rooted in. Legolas and Gimli aren't just acting on societal/cultural trauma, this is also generational trauma for them. Their dads were in literal, armed conflict on opposing sides for a little bit there. Legolas and Gimli becoming friends is a combo of the Hatfields and McCoys burying the hatchet and symbolic of an ages old wound between their people finally being encouraged to heal.

But back to Tauriel. So she's definitely culturally insane because everyone else is like, girl, the people who invited a dragon into our backyard (a possibility we explicitly warned them about) and let it torch our only trading partner are looking to kick off the fireworks for dragon bbq part 2: electric boogaloo, except we're the closest option for a main course. And Tauriel is all, are you sure? that one seems so sweet, he's got such a lovely... soul, and he showed me a rock. And everyone else is like, yeah, I'm sure they thought the same about the dwarven craftsmen who used to come to Doriath. Tauriel: oh but that was so long ago. Everyone: I was there/my immediate relative is dead/that trauma formed the foundation of my family. And the dragon is literally toasting our neighbors for appetizers right now. Tauriel: I'm sure he - I mean they! didn't mean for that to happen when he - I mean they! went into the dragon's bedroom to check under the mattress for cash.

I know I referenced her being half a Romeo and Juliet here, and it really should have been obvious they were setting that up as a tragedy given anyone whose read the book knows Kili wasn't going to survive. But that doesn't really feel earned either. Like, she's supposed to be some sort of girlboss elven warrior and she's flirting with a prisoner. She - and the other elves - completely miss an orc incursion basically right into their front door. Part of that is that the hobbit movies are definitely the dwarf propaganda version of this story, but still. She also completely bails on her responsibilities as Mirkwood border patrol (?) captain in order to chase after her crush/prisoner, because... contrived orc plot reasons invented for the movies.

The hollywood girlboss problem hit her hard before it became a noticeable problem throughout the 'strong female character' archetype. She's a powerful warrior, except for that one time her love interest saves her. Most of her questionable decisions pay off in the end without consequence to her. She is right because everyone else was making stupid decisions, even the people much older than her who had more responsibility - especially them, actually.

Where did the Thranduil-is-prejudiced-against-sylvan-elves thing come from? What the heck? I know they were trying to set up a forbidden love triangle thing involving Legolas, but that comes off as painfully weird in it's own right. Either way, it also gives the movies a colonizer subtext if you know the lore, because then you have a ruling class mostly of elves from Doriath, ruling a population of wood/sylvan elves who were there first. Heck, the books call Legolas a woodelf, not Sindar. Either his family is assimilated into their adoptive culture or his mom is a wood elf.

Also, the wood elves are supposed to be way more fun. Like, the minute the company enter the woods, they've got woodelves singing mocking limericks at them. They have parties so wild and drinking so intense they go through over 13 barrels of wine in one night and everyone down to the dude in the storage area is blacked out. Outsiders describe them as 'less wise, more dangerous' but they're also the only elves not constantly mourning the end of their era. They are literally living their best life.

tldr: the studio added Tauriel so they could say they had a strong female character but they pulled her romance from Romeo and Juliet and torched all the woodelves' brain cells so she could be right about... whatever it was?

[thenightling]

The Supernatural and The Addams Family

One complaint I see a lot of about the Wednesday series on Netflix is "The Addams Family was grounded in reality. There was nothing supernatural about them! The Munsters were supernatural." Almost always someone will say "What about thing?" And comes the typical meme / joke response of "Well, they're just that Goth." Okay, outside of the disembodied hand that serves as a friend / pet / sex toy / lover (throw-away line in Addams Family Values about his relationship with Uncle Fester) here are some elements of The Addams Family that are definitely supernatural. 1. Uncle Fester is immune to electric shock, mercury poisoning (he ate an old thermometer) and other things that would kill most people. Not only that but he has his own high electrical charge where he can power a lightbulb with his mouth. This is all from the 1960s Addams Family TV series.

I won't bother to mention the kids surviving improbable scenarios since even in the movies there's usually a cut-away. 2. Grandmama is a practicing witch. In fact the lyrics of the 1960s Addams Family theme song include "So get a witch's shawl on, a broomstick you can crawl on." We're told that at least some members of the family are witches, if not all of them. Morticia's mother was played by Margret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West in The wizard of Oz). Note: Morticia's mother and Grandmama are not the same character. When Grandmama curses Debbie in Addams Family: Values, her curse comes to pass later in the movie.

In The Addams Family Broadway musical there's even a joke line of "My mother? I thought she was your mother!" and Gomez and Morticia just shrug it off. She's theirs and that's all that matters. They just adopted the strange old woman who wants to be called Grandmama. 3. Morticia canonically has psychic powers in the 1960s Addams Family TV show. She has permeations, experiencing omens, and at one point felt it when someone stuck a pin in a map directly over their house. This is from the 1960s Addams Family TV series. This was not something invented for the Wednesday TV series. 4. In The Addams Family 1960s TV series Santa Claus is Canonically proven to be real. He shows up in the Christmas episdoe after each adult Addams dresses as Santa to try to make the kids happy.

5. Another witch in the family is mentioned in the Christmas episode. When the children were told that Santa isn't real, Gomez and Morticia reassure them by reminding them that they were also told that witches weren't real and they proved that wrong when they met a certain aunt. 6. Morticia's sister, Ophelia, in the 1960s Addams Family TV series has flowers growing out of her scalp. Flowers that Gomez is allergic to. This is actually partly the origin for Morticia cutting the flowers off her roses, Gomez is allergic to flowers.

7. Lurch may or may not be a zombie or Frankenstein style creature. Yes, the animated movie made him an escaped mental patient but the 90s Addams Family animated series gave him blue skin and a flat topped head, making him heavily resemble a Frankenstein monster. (Note: The Creature does not actually have a flat head in Mary Shelley's novel. This and the groaning is a movie trope.)

8. Cousin It.

9. In Addams Family the Broadway musical the Addams do a conga line with the ghosts of their ancestors.

10. Ophelia (Morticia's sister) is inhumanly strong (besides having flowers growing out of the top of her head.) She can flip Gomez onto his back with one hand. 11. Their library contains books that literally bring to life what's inside them. 12. Their house is definitely haunted. In the 2019 Addams Family animated series the House repeatedly told them to get out, and consumes coffee. Also Morticia refers to the entity as "The spirit." 13. Morticia talks to the ghosts of her parents In The Addams Family 2019 Addams Family animated movie. 14. There are singing severed heads in The Addams Family 2019 animated movie. 15. There is a sentient tree on the house grounds, named Ichabod. 16. Uncle Flambe has flame-hair. 17. Wednesday is able to control Pugsley via voodoo doll in The Addams Family 2 animated movie from 2021. 18. Wednesday was able to freak out another little girl by showing off that she can read minds when she wants to in Addams Family 2 the animated movie from 2021. 19. Lurch is indicated to have "cold dead" hands suggesting that at least in the Addams Family 2 animated movie from 2021 he is a zombie or Frankenstein-style monster. I know he has a mother in the 60s show but other incarnations don't seem to follow this. In the 2019 animated Addams Family movie Lurch seems to have escaped the insane asylum but the haunted insane asylum (which becomes The Addams Family house) had been abandoned for years, possibly decades. Bonus as this one is not confirmed. 20. The Addams' may or may not be immortal. In the 1990 Addams Family movie Gomez is trying to find Uncle Fester who has been missing twenty-five years. The 1990 Addams Family movie was deliberately released twenty-five years after the 1960s Addams Family series of the 1960s ended. There is continuity changes such as making Uncle Fester Gomez's brother instead of Morticia's uncle (pre-marriage) but otherwise the 90s Addams Family movies were meant to directly continue from the 1960s TV series. This means that in twenty-five-years no one aged. Not even the children. "Their Goth game is just that strong."

[thegeminisage]

UGGGHHH ok its star trek update time, Special Deep Space Nine Finale Edition

did not love the finale. mostly this comes down to two things 1. pacing bad 2. everybody's ending sucked

pacing problem: the pah wraiths came in at the last second, AFTER the big space battle was all done. it really feels like they should have been directly involved with the battle somehow, like that time sisko vaporized all those spaceships. also, speaking of that, wasn't not getting to rest on bajor his trade for making that happen? yet it didn't get brought up at ALL. ok. more on that later. anyway, the pah wraith thing seemed like a fucking afterthought, which was crazy considering we had winn and dukat scheming and plotting for all those episodes. one would expect the pah wraiths to be like. actually let out. to Do Something. to be scary. we have been building up to this! and yet. nothing happened. a lot of other plots were also wrapped up way too quickly - ezri's romance with julian, miles leaving, etc - but that's more a problem with the endings being bad - they did not have time to build up to what they decided on, or maybe they did and just chose not to utilize it wisely

endings - going thru this character by character

SISKO: this is of course is the very worst offender. avery brooks spent 7 years putting blood sweat and tears into a positive portrayal of a black father only to be contractually obligated to act out a deadbeat dad plot in the 11th hour? man, no wonder he was pissed. there was also no explanation of WHY he had to live in the wormhole, it was just more mysterious wormhole alien stuff. if it's punishment or a trade for what he did before, why not remind us? and i definitely get why avery brooks wanted them to do this rather than him just not ever coming back at all, but it's such a copout to be like "and then he has more adventures" when we can't conceptualize of what those adventures might be, and doubly so when there was no sure bet of having a ds9 movie later, bc they didn't get to have one!!! overall the entire wormhole alien plot in s7 got REALLY weird to me, with a tone shift + lack of explanations about literally anything, and wrapping up sisko's fate in their lore fell short because of that reason too. preferred ending for sisko would have been for him to die during the big battle, then come back right as everyone got overrun by pah-wraiths to save them. if he HAD to go into the wormhole, could his family had come with him? if he had to sacrifice something to win the battle, could it have been a future on bajor specifically, or connection with the prophets? idk, amnesia or something? his sight, like dukat? it was just a bad ending.

JAKE & KASIDY: putting them together because what the hell lol. the final shot of jake looking out the window while kira comforted him might as well have been ripped from the visitor...genuinely it's disappointing they enver found anything cool to do with jake, because i feel like there are a lot of good stories you could wring out of "journalist who covers the war and comes of age at the same time." i could almost see him teaming up with bashir to root out section 31 or something like that. as for kasidy, i've said this before, but it's so unfair to both her and sisko that she was basically invented to be his perfect woman and never got a personality of her own, and DOUBLY unfair to knock her up in the penultimate episode just to drag cheap tearjerker shit out of sisko's ending, which was bad. it's the same thing as having jadzia discuss a baby right before they kill HER. what is wrong with these guys??? plus, we didn't even a discussion of what they'll do now. wait for sisko on ds9? go to earth and live with grandpa sisko? remain together so jake can help with his new sibling? jake didn't even get to say goodbye to his dad. we got a scene with KASIDY, who, love and light, has even less personality/stuff going on than jake did.

O'BRIEN: this was the only ending (besides worf's) i actually liked/understood, though i feel like it didn't get nearly enough screentime. war's over, o'brien has served long enough, it's time for him to go back to the safety of utopia with his family. i like his plot about not being able to tell julian goodbye, it reminded me of the mash movie, but i wish they hadn't wrapped it up in the MIDDLE of a battle scene. like, what??

JULIAN & EZRI: i absolutely HATE that ezri became julian's replacement miles. i almost understand why they got together because when i tried to conceptualize my ideal ending for ezri it was ??? because i don't know enough about her passions and desires. where does ezri dax believe she can do the most good? where does she want to spend her life? with whom? obviously i'm into ezri/quark and ezri/worf, and i would have been fine with her staying with either of them, but with julian? and he just...stays on ds9? i was so sure julian was gonna dedicate himself to taking down section 31 or fighting for the rights of genetically enhanced people. him fighting section 31 would have been a great ending because he could have said something like "i'll ring you up for advice as often as i can" to garak or something. just...hanging out on ds9 is boring if everybody else is gonna leave.

WORF: also mostly acceptable, though i still think he should have been chancellor. i guess then he can't just randomly show up in tng movies lol.

GARAK & DAMAR: it's such a fucking copout to kill damar. that speech garak gave, where he talked about the rich history of cardassia being reduced to ashes? where he talked about how some people would say cardassia deserved it for what they did to bajor and other worlds just like it? that should have been damar's speech. kira's "yeah damar what kind of people give those orders" was setting him up as someone who goes through what the bajoran people did and learn empathy from it. dukat could have never done it because he cares about himself first, but damar actually has principles. furthermore, giving garak the speech doesn't make any sense because for all the crimes garak has committed, they were ON CARDASSIA. he wasn't out doing the colonizing. he's done crimes but not those crimes. it makes no sense for him to have to live with them. GARAK'S moment was when he realized mila was dead and his house was about to be leveled and you can never actually go home. THAT was his moment, and it was incredible. he didn't need that double beat. i think a better idea for garak is to have him decide he doesn't want to be on cardassia anymore (kind of like klinger deciding he's not going back to america after all) and joining bashir in taking down section 31. not even just for shippy reasons, though there's that too, but i think he'd insist julian would need someone like him around, and he would be right. meanwhile damar leads cardassia, and he and kira being kinda-friends now means that they leave bajor alone and become allies in the future

KIRA AND ODO: what the fuck girl...ok, you know who needed the "i'll be back" ending? odo. "maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, but i'll be back" should have been odo's ending. i get him leaving. i even agree with him leaving. he's got to cure his people or he wouldn't be odo. and he deserves to spend a little time in the great link like he's always wanted to do. but part of what makes odo so compelling is that even though he loves his people, he condemns what they do, and he has come to love his found family more. if odo rejoins his people permanently to keep them on a leash then he's just another changeling. odo who every day chooses to be with and love people who are so fundamentally different from him is what's compelling. it's what makes his and kira's relationship so beautiful. as for kira, nothing could be lamer than her quiet no-rage acceptance of odo breaking her heart and giving her no goals or ambitions outside of that. i think she should have tried to work towards bajor joining the federation in sisko's absence, since that was his goal in the pilot. like maybe not NOW, but something to work for in the future.

DUKAT & WINN: so i was really hoping winn would push dukat into the fire, and it's very sad that she did not do that. i also have mixed feelings about her mini-redemption, since it was ultimately useless. if anything, winn should have thrown herself in with dukat to spare the emissary, like IF you were gonna redeem her. let's fuck the devil but for like ever. in hell. on the other hand, i would have preferred if she unceremoniously had dukat killed and then got possessed and became the final boss. i think an unceremonious death for dukat is kind of fitting because he wants to be important. if not unceremonious, at least something where he fucked around and FINALLY found out, you know?

NOG: he didn't? get?? an ending?? i think that final vic's scene should have been with nog instead of quark, because they were such good friends. they could worry about...

QUARK: while his goodbye to odo was PERFECT, i kind of wish there had been some emphasis on him being one of the few people to stay behind. in an ideal world, it's just him and nog and kira, and vic too i guess. even his brother is going back to ferenginar! he has no one to take care of or snipe at! i liked his final scene with kira, but i would have liked to lean a little more into it. if quark/ezri, he wouldn't mind being left behind because she'd be there with him, but if not, his talk about making everyone happy but himself includes creating a space for them to come back to. and since he can't have this chat with vic, he could have it with...

MORN: come on. ONE line of dialogue! it would have been so funny.

overall it still wasn't the worst thing i've ever watched. there were some positives. it was well acted. i was very fond of everyone. even though "the way you look tonight" went on a little long for me it did give me an emotion. i liked the flashbacks even though i missed jadzia (o'brien's and julian's was really gay). but jesus christ, what a mess!!

[hybridempress]

Of course it makes sense that Aziraphale would ask Crowley to go back to Heaven with him.

Of course it makes sense that he believed Crowley would be happy to come back to Heaven with him.

Think about the way that Crowley talks about or views his Fall. Every time he mentions it, he is either super vague or he is extremely sad and remorseful. Either way, he doesn't actually take responsibility for his Fall.

"An Angel who did not Fall so much as saunter vaguely downwards."

"I didn't mean to Fall, I just hung around the wrong people."

"I only ever asked questions. That's all it took to be a demon in the old days."

It is always made very clear that he never wanted to Fall. It was never what he intended. It is something that he regrets. It is something that happened to him, not something that he did. Something that was undeserved. Something that he is extremely distraught over and that he doesn't want to be blamed for or even properly admit that it happened.

Crowley is also fundamentally a good person. He pretends not to be because it gets him in trouble. He refuses to let Aziraphale say that he is a good person, whenever he does something good he comes up with an excuse or an ulterior motive, but his excuses don't even always work. He's been punished before. And yet, over and over again we have seen him put his own life at risk to do the right thing.

He is devastated at the idea that God is going to flood the world and kill all living things. He saves Job's livestock and his children and makes sure their family is saved and reunited. He drinks literal poison and convinces Elspeth not to kill herself and helps her get a head start on a new life so she doesn't have to suffer anymore. He redirects Nazi bombs to kill Nazis. He convinces Aziraphale to form an "Arrangement" with him where they both either do a temptation and a blessing or neither of them do anything at all because it "balances out" and he doesn't actually try to make an effort to do bad things. He mostly leaves the humans alone. All of the "sins" that he has invented have been either inconvenient, frustrating, mildly mischievous, or actually kind of funny and have an equal amount of good effects on humans as they do bad. He's never shot a gun before. The only times we ever see him bring actual harm to something is when he (accidentally) drops some graveyard watchmen down a deep hole, kills Nazis, and (assumedly) throws a potted plant into a wood chipper. He refuses to kill Adam because he's "personally not up for killing kids." He convinces Aziraphale to stop Armageddon with him because he loves the world, he loves humans, he loves life on Earth, and he is fundamentally against the idea that humans should be "tested to destruction." He is a better person than all of the other angels and he is even a better person than Aziraphale in a lot of scenarios.

Of course Aziraphale would think that Crowley would want a chance to go back. And not just to go back to the same system that had hurt them both before, but to go back to a Heaven that Aziraphale was planning on recreating in their own image. A Heaven where both of them could make a difference on a massive scale and be able to protect the Earth and all of the humans in it without having to worry that they would ever be in danger again. A Heaven where Crowley would never be cast out for asking questions or making suggestions. He truly believes this is the best case scenario for both of them, where they can be together without having to hide themselves anymore and they can do things their own way forever, and they can always help people in the process.

So when Crowley says no, it sends him spiraling. He panics. "No, this isn't how this was supposed to happen. You were supposed to be happy about this. That's the only reason I said yes, because I thought it would be what you wanted. I already told them yes, I can't take it back now, you can't just abandon me with this when I did this for you." He means it when he says that he needs Crowley. He is begging Crowley to reconsider. When he says "nothing lasts forever" he doesn't mean that his and Crowley's life on earth can't last forever, he means that he is willing to give it all up if it means that Crowley will be happy, if it means that the two of them can be together unconditionally and that they can make a difference together.

Aziraphale tells the Metatron that he doesn't want to go back to Heaven. He only changes his mind when the Metatron says that Crowley can come with him. And after Crowley leaves him, and the Metatron comes to collect him, he seems now so unsure of himself. He starts to say something along the lines of "I think I--" forgot something? changed my mind? whatever it was, he is hesitant to leave. He doesn't want to anymore. It's just that I don't think he can back out of it now, or at least he thinks that he can't back out of it, he doesn't think he's allowed to change his mind--or maybe he really can't. And for him, Crowley kissing him and then leaving the bookshop feels like an act of manipulation. And it's Crowley leaving because things are hard. Crowley does this a lot. He leaves when things get hard. He usually ends up coming back, but he does always leave. Aziraphale feels like he's being abandoned, and he doesn't know if Crowley can come back this time. He's just hoping that Crowley will.

[tacagen]

did you know that negaduck from darkwing duck was based off reverse-flash? yeah, that doesnt even BEGIN to describe what's actually been going on between their character histories..

first, negaduck wasnt just inspired by or a reverse-flash parody. he's a literal copy-paste of silver age thawne with a very few changes of origin place from future to parallel universe and identity from some random future guy to main hero's evil twin, because originally eobard was fixated on being a Criminal and not particularly flash's nemesis. back in the day, thawne constantly mentions how much he loves his criminal life. half of his lines are negaduck-worthy purely because the rest is related to being a speedster scientist. my personal favorite as an example:

he passes the speed limit law in central city so that barry couldnt use superspeed without breaking it but thawne still could because he is 'a hardened criminal'. he invents rays that turn everything inflicted evil (something even negaduck has never done (ig solely because megavolt's already done it in the negaduck episode where he accidentally splits darkwing into good dw (posiduck) and bad dw(negaduck, with a black and gray color scheme), and while yellow negaduck is a different character this is basically how the idea of him was born and the writers just decided to keep him in a different form bc the gray one merged back into normal dw at the end which is super funny. imagine coming up with a duck villain and going 'oh this guy actually reminds me a lot of reverse-flash with all that opposite/negative thing. LET'S PAINT HIM IN THOSE COLORS AND GIVE HIM THE SAME PERSONALITY AND SIMILAR ORIGIN THIS TIME'), altho he DOES test the power gem on a cat in jail bird like thawne did with evil rays). he repeatedly tries to get poor former dr alchemy back to crime just because 'crime fun. why cant you see that. im doing it for your own good' and negaduck tried something like that with morgana in feb 14th episode my valentine ghoul (+that brief scene with gos from 2016 comics run where he believes she must be bad deep down inside out of comparsion to nega!gosalyn). negaduck also travels from a whole other world just to fuck around here for fun (there was this bronze age flash issue called flashback where thawne gets lost in the timestream because barry pushed the wrong buttons in his time capsule which is almost exact negaduck's fate in life, the negaverse and everything) and one of another few differences related is that negaduck is shown to be a dictator of his universe's St. Canard who is bored to live somewhere he already has all the power so he travels to another universe to cause problems on purpose.

second. dc's new52. eobard is rewritten again, now he and zoom are kind of one character. but guess what else is new in this version that never happend neither in zoom or professor zoom's lives? thawne is a fucking dictator in his own time. and people tried to fight his rule in flash's name just like friendly four needed darkwing as inspiration to finally fight back for their world.

he gets his own team, acolytes of zoom (i wish i could call them local fearsome 4 but there are 5 of them, making it more of a sinister 6 if you count thawne) which he trains for centuries to fight the flash and betrays later by trying to steal their powers just like negaduck stole f4's in jail bird to become mega-negaduck and if all that wasnt enough, without the mask he straight up looks like negaduck humanization. look at him. this mf is only missing a hat and a cape.

also these sudden black parts in his new speedster suit design? either it is some absolute fucking bonkers of a coincidence or someone on the flash writing team really went 'hey guys you know what would be real funny? lets base new thawne off negaduck. like he was originally based off thawne. i swear no one will notice' and everyone went with that. (i could also mention he has the same dumb motivation for being evil (having shitty childhood/being deep down sad about mistreatment and loneliness) as 2011 dwd comics run negaduck but imo that's too far of a stretch to actually be included)

third. yall know the deal of the first season of cw's the flash? yeah, what if i told you the whole thawne messes with the particle accelerator and causes barry to gain superspeed thing already fucking happend in darkwing duck, episode going nowhere fast?

(the way i lost my mind over this back in the day when i decided to watch dwd just because negaduck reminded me of thawne(i didnt even know he was a direct rip-off, i just went 'oh wait dt universe has this evil fuck that wears the same color scheme as reverse-flash? girl i AM checking the whole thing out just to see if he's anything like thawne'.) and first watched the episode... priceless, still haunts me to this very day. how the hell was that written in 1991. did cw writers just take the idea from dwd too. honestly i cant be sure about anything anymore).

and remember in the duck knight returns (2011 comics run arc) flashbacks there was a super funny thing with negaduck not knowing dw's secret identity and being so proud he cracked the case? remember cw!og!thawne looking for flash's time period and not knowing his identity in 2nd season cameo episode? what the hell was even up with that!!! like guys. guys one of you is the most devoted flash fan from the future and there is NO way none of that kind of information was left a CENTURY after (i mean come on dude couldntve you just asked gideon. she literally had that 2024 newspaper about vanishing and thats at the very least not mentioning she was created by barry) and another is straight up the same fucking person as the hero with the same fucking relatives and enemies. idk take a wild guess??? ((i really wonder if anybody on the wirting team of 2011 dwd run saw not just life, the negaverse and everything but any episode featuring negaduck at all. not only do they ignore the existence of nega!gos in the 'oh he mean bc alone :(' approach, they ignore the very definition of negaduck's character which is literally evil drake mallard. i mean sure hes dumb and may miss obvious clues because of being the same dw just evil but come on, such a comedic situation and never addressed by drake whos literally been in the negaverse and knows they are the same person or by anyone else he coluldve told that? oh well unless drake is also dumb af and thought there never was any drake mallard in the negaverse in the first place and that negaduck is some other guy. which is a real probability i suppose))

also. negaduck's death by being split on billions of evil particles in crisis on infinite darkwings and thawne, being 'exorcised' from nash's body in a form of a negative speed force stream with sparks in 6x15 of cw's the flash.

fourth! yall did watch ducktales 2017 reboot, right? specifically the duck knight returns episode? they introduce a whole new version of negaduck there! and guess what. jim starling, an old darkwing duck (in-universe 90s tv series) actor obsessed with his role, goes fucking nuts because there is a new darkwing duck actor in a new movie and he didnt even know. because he feels forgotten. because no one remembers neither him nor original series (objectievely not true bc obviously launchpad and drake but to jim they just dont count bc reasons. he seems to count only children but calls lp his fan when anthagonizes drake for taking even that from him in the end). because he was replaced and no one even bothered to tell him. he causes a fire on the set, almost kills drake but does have a change of heart at the end after launchpad's speech about what darkwing duck stands for and seemingly sacrifices himself to save drake and lp from the explosion. then they have the worst idea they could have in relation to jim's character ever: for drake to be a real life darkwing duck to honor jim's sacrifice. so naturally he hears that from the sewers or wherever he was hiding to see their reactions(look i am. 100% sure that this is what happened bc that makes so much more sense than jim getting brain damage or whatever from that explosion and waking up to choose violence again for no other reason). he gets hit with the being replacable and forgotten thing once again and renders back to negaduck tendencies, for all we know for good this time as his darkwing suit changes to the yellow-red one. yk who else went on a rampage because he felt forgotten and replaced? you guessed it! the return of barry allen, a 90s classic where thawne goes to 21st century for the first time, thinks he's barry (original-ish flash) because dissociation from trauma of seeing himself being killed by his hero and acts exactly like starling, having the same issues as motivation aka him/barry being forgotten and replaced by wally. he implies wally taking on the flash mantle is most disrespectful to barry. he rants about how he's the only flash and threatens to destroy not only the flash family but the whole central city for forgetting that. he and wally have a conflict of legacy similar to jim and drake's conflict in dt17. he is The starling blueprint only a lot more mentally ill. also we've heard something like the duck knight returns in running scared (this one is less reminiscent of jim but still features some things that werent in the return of barry allen). it's a rebirth arc that introduces another new origin of reverse-flash. now, he's been hyperfixated on barry allen his whole life (on a whole new level i mean) and there was the first meeting in 25th century where they Connected like thawne always believed they would. that day ended up in a fight and thawne's imprisonment because he set up casualties to get attention and praise for being the flash of 25th century but unlike all other versions this thawne has a change of heart after the fight, too. he promises to 'fix everything' including himself, he even goes to therapy afterwards. then he goes to the 21st century to tell barry how much he accomplished since they last met and then sees barry saying to wally one meaningful phrase he said to thawne that perfect day. like it wasnt something special only barry and eobard shared. like the day they met never happened. like he forgot thawne ever existed. like he was replaced as barry's speedster partner/friend/whatever he thought they were after that day by wally. and that shatters thawne so much he runs back to 25th and just decides to become the reverse-flash and make barry suffer until he gives him attention and recognition he deserved. frank angones, i am inside your walls. you CANT deny you based your versions of dw and nd off flash comics and thawne particularly. and more, you legit made reverse!eobarry au and put it in dt in duck forms. i have been losing my mind about it for 3 years now. i am exposing you and there is nothing you can do to escape that.

fifth(ish). yeah, and btw about friendly four from life, the negaverse and everything. did you think they actually escaped being mirrored in the flash? ha. i present to you reverse-rogues from the 25th century aka the renegades, carefully created by zoom and thawne himself, thinking it would somehow be funny.

cant believe hunter once saw it on tv put 2 and 2 together and went 'eobard my dude we need to go full negaverse with the 25th century. we need a friendly four to your negaduck. i swear it'll be Hilarious'. god the only thing they lack at this point is nega!gosalyn (i mean. hunter actually did try something like that with inertia, saving him from the museum and trying to teach him how to torture flashfam into improving them but thad was more of a nega!honker and reverted hunter to disabled powerless state just because. love that kid)

and that's all i have so far, if anyone here also into both yellow-red mfs with no life feel free to comment or even add more because there sure is or at least will be more and no one has the power to stop it.

[molotoph]

Fuck it I’m just gonna say the thing

Toffee should not and does not need to be redeemed through whiteness as it is portrayed in svtfoe. Any and all attempts to “redeem” him or “make him better/more sympathetic” that are done through bringing him into direct sympathetic proximity with the white supremacist empire that has colonized and ethnically cleansed his homeland, his people, and the other indigenous nations and peoples on the land occupied by Mewni and its allies, I read as a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to critique themes of racism, sexism, classism, and tbh queerphobia as well in the canon of the show.

Please think of how you would sound if these ideas left the bubble of fiction. Would you want to be the sort of person who thinks an anti-apartheid activist can only be validated by the canon narrative if he has a royal white partner, has a royal white parent, he should not have to forgive them, he does not owe them anything, and he is not a worse person for not wanting to have any relationship with the regime that destroyed his life and countless other lives. If Moon were to “forgive him” (yes moon, this centuries old colonial genocide definitely wronged you the most when the remains of one of the last militant indigenous resistance groups on the entire continent killed your mother. It’s not like in her chapter she called them “beasts of the forest” because “they don’t know how to enjoy food properly,” as if her regime wasn’t continuing centuries of forced starvation against these people. And when have colonizers claiming to be inherently racially superior to other people, whom they refer to as beasts, ever broken a treaty with the indigenous people that itself was signed under siege and duress from the colonizers unto their targets. When has that ever happened. Oh 500+ times in America alone? Golly gee) the idea that he must be grateful for that forgiveness, welcome it, accept it, or even acknowledge it as her being a “bigger person” is fucking absurd.

The idea that what would make Toffee more sympathetic is having a romantic or sexual relationship with someone bent towards the destruction and subjugation of his people and his community is fucking absurd.

The idea that what would make Toffee more sympathetic is if he were specifically half white mewman is fucking absurd. That he would need to have some sort of positive going into or coming out of colonizer cooter in order to be redeemable or even allowed to fight back without being punished and murdered without a care by the narrative, and the internal logic of the world, is fucking absurd.

He’s a full blooded Septarian native. He’s proud of his heritage and has no interest whatsoever in Mewmans’ little white feelings, especially those of the literal monarchy. Why is that such a problem for so many people? Also, no, I’m not doing blood quantum shit with him— it’s just, the thing is, I’ve never seen anyone partner him with a working class mewman, or tbh any mixed race relationships between the lower/working class of mewni and the indigenous population. And that does actually matter. Y’all… y’all know whiteness and the original five “races” were invented by American colonizers c.1776 with one of the primary aims being to divide people who had more in common as oppressed by the same oligarchs than they had differences between them? So in order to divert a class war that they would almost certainly lose, the capital class established race as we know it today? And that’s why “whiteness” is itself adaptive to whatever context as eugenicists need it to be, therefore all but hilariously contradictory?

Let’s zoom all the way in for a second. Who the fuck wants or needs “forgiveness” from their abuser? Who wants to be friends with their abuser at the cost of their core values? Who wants to fuck their genociders? Who thinks they can use the colonizer’s fetishization of their body to regain that stolen humanity? do some of y’all really think fascists don’t know what they take? Humans, like most animals, can instinctively recognize our own species. Do you actually genuinely think that appearance and physical differences are what cause the dehumanization of marginalized identities— Not that it is a consistent and deliberately repeated pattern of choices and actions that are all backed by the oppressors’ desire to, in breaking that most sacred and immediate recognition of shared personhood, attempt to render themselves as superior in comparison? Dehumanization is a funny word— in its construction it reveals the games being played with it— you can’t dehumanize an object. You can’t dehumanize an animal. You can only dehumanize another person.

At some point I will have no choice but to talk about the “hot Nazi” phenomenon in neo/liberalist western media because like. For fuck’s sake.

Toffee is not only allowed to have genuine hatred for all things monarchy, all things colonial and imperial, it is beyond a normal fucking reaction that he is disgusted by the regime and completely uninterested in humoring it— from the individuals who chose over and over to continue their apartheid against Native peoples hand over fist, to the system they are using to enact it, to the mewman citizens frothing to defend their death cult who were happy to become solarian warriors in the past and present, to the shadow govt of the MHC and their god of the book (wow an old man that’s ascribed to be living within every copy of a historic tome who will provide his favorites with nigh unlimited power to slaughter and destroy entire cultures where have I heard that before, who’s so explicitly clear in his actions about what he is and what he wants, but who when confronted will twiddle his thumbs and say uwu oh noes I’m apolitical because I said so! My actions may say I’m genocidal and base my actions on the belief that other people are genetically inferior and less evolved than I am, but my words say I’m not. And the right words in order to make the marginalized feel insane, and to make them look like the problem, the instigators, the ones who refuse to change, are the currency of liberalism.

Which I feel like a lot of y’all don’t understand the inherent colonial legacy of. Liberalism is not the opposite of conservativism, it’s primarily an aesthetic difference, at best a waiting room for fascism proper, and it will provide more humanity to anybody willing to bow to it— and demonize, and slaughter, everyone who refuses to give their colonizers a little head pat and a cookie for not being as evil as they possibly could be. If the door to your fascism pipeline is held on by coercing and threatening praise out of your targets lest they feel the gruesome wrath of hurt little white feewings, and calling yourself their savior and advocate (as long as they shut the fuck up and never challenge the status quo and accept the omnipresent insistence from the regime that they are truthfully subhumans being elevated out of the sheer “mercy” of that colonial white man’s burden shit), you’re not actually an ally, you’re just fuckin racist and think nobody can catch you out if you say “monsters” instead of “savages,” or maybe“size shifters” instead of “black people,” perhaps “Septarians” instead of for instance “Palestinians.”

The communities, cultures, and lives destroyed by white supremacy don’t need to bend the knee to it, and what a foul thing to unmask the want and/or expectation of when the words are obscured by a fantastical curtain. Guerrilla resistance, armed resistance, the destruction of the regime at its head, the complete disarming and destruction of its weapons of mass destruction, the removal of its ability to hoard resources and destroy the world around it without having to feel the consequences, the liberation of political prisoners, the reparations and acknowledgment of evil owed to those who have been forced to endure genocide, are all not only fucking valid responses and ways to feel, but are often mandatory steps in taking down any group that has amassed too much power and hoarded too many resources using the justification that they’re the “chosen people” in any way that places them as inherently superior to any other people.

There is no level of peaceful protest or preemptive compliance that will spare any person targeted in a genocidal structure. Follow every order, dress like they do, act like you’re told to, hoodie down, eat their food, carry all of their emotional labor, break yourself trying to show them you are worthy of equal treatment on their terms, it does. Not. Matter. The second an empire like the Butterflies’ is done with you, you will be left to rot, scapegoated, executed by the state.

When I say I believe Toffee was right, I’m saying that as an anarchist, a socialist, an antifascist and as someone who is both subject to multiple marginalizations and who is committed wholeheartedly to practicing anti-racism. His praxis and how he went about fulfilling it were sound and correct, the approach fits with what someone who has survived centuries of apocalypse events in his native land would do. And even under those circumstances his tendency to think his enemies have limits of depravity that no person would ever break ends up putting him in lethal danger.

Oh he killed Comet? Good. She upheld an apartheid regime and called the people she was starving animals.

Oh he would fucking hate eclipsa and moon, and be disgusted by the thought of sleeping with a Butterfly? No shit, how many hummus members do you know who’re clamoring to get in bed with biden and netanyahoo? How many Black Panthers do you know who would abandon their cause if Reagan gave them a trite little nothing of an apology, or if he turned out to be the father of a queer person, would you expect them to run back to their partner dying of AIDS singing the praises of their proud murderers?

An indigenous rebel got met with the treatment neo/liberalism gives to any marginalized person whose resistance poses a serious, tangible threat to their empire, and you want to improve his condition by giving him a closer proximity to whiteness, to the fascist ideologies that took away his chance to be just some random person with a life of their own forever?

We don’t have a pocket dimension of golden Lethe, we have a rising line of infinitely increasing numbers. Magic can make a solarian warrior in seconds, money can mass produce and grant sovereign access to more bombs than were dropped in the entirety of WWII. These things deserve to be destroyed. And he went. Alone. The absolute fucking audacity to look a cannibal god and his gross little empire of glittery mosquitos in the eyes and say, “I am going to be the last casualty of this to ever fucking exist,” is something whiteness can never have, something fascism can never create for itself.

Do not try to deaden this person. Work on your own biases and guilt. No one’s fucking asking you to absolve whiteness because it can’t and shouldn’t be done: whiteness. Is. Not. Real. It was made up. It does not exist. Allegories for whiteness aren’t more real because different words are being used. In the fictional world of the show, whiteness and race are not more intrinsically real. They deserve to be divested from, dismantled, and destroyed to prevent ANYONE from EVER using them again.

1. humans as white and other species as nonwhite have been used as a metaphor for races and racism so often the usage is considered a common trope of fantasy and sci fi works. I’m not pulling this out of my ass. The paper cup of water in my ass is also for me, thanks.

[borderlineacademia]

hi. coming out of the woodworm (iykyk) again because I took a bath and talked to my friend who plays actual league (he gets zero fucking play [Eli if u see this im so sorry u do get play]) and he brought up the actual system of the arcane and the magic and stuff and I have some thoughts about it, based on this discussion we had (and on me swaying him lmfao).

DISCLAIMER: I DONT PLAY LEAGUE. I WONT PLAY LEAGUE. THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING YOU CAN DO OR SAY TO GET ME TO PLAY LEAGUE. however I have arcane brain rot. not just any character, the show as a whole.

the arcane is sentient. we know this. this is a fact. fr. in fact, (in reference to how it uses sky to manipulate Viktor) it does things and manipulates people to get what it wants. and what it wants is to continue to be used. again, true fact, we know this. but him and i talked about the au episode.

now! I have had my personal beliefs about the aristocratic oligarchy that is essentially piltovers governing powers, but they weren't really solidified until season two, and im going to tell you why. first was that moment when Salo was wheeling down the steps in the council room; every Thunk, I felt in my fucking soul. second was the au episode. NOW! I said in my earlier post, the hex core exists. it does, we see it happen. in fact, we see that it killed vi, and then Jayce is sent away (? I think?) and because of that, hex tech isn't invented, and isn't weaponized, and the government doesn't really get their grubby little hands (a willow reference? in 2025?) on it. instead, powder keeps some from the explosion, and then it's used to send ekko back to his own timeline (and let bsffr kill heimerdinger) and give him the fucking time warp again (rocky horror too? my god they're on a roll). because of this, AS FAR AS WE KNOW the government never really gets their hands on hex tech cuz they don't exist at this point? and in that timeline, it's actually pretty chill. (aside from the fact that someone had to die for people to realize that this maybe isn't a good fucking idea)

NOW JAYCE. I don't actually remember what happened in this timeline, all I have are what I can understand from pictures so like if this is fucked up im sorry. but there's a part of me that is lead to believe that this is what it would look like if the arcane took control. but because of the way it works (sentience wise) there had to have been some sort of discord to feed off of or gain some sort of traction from. again if I'm wrong like go ahead and let me know because again:

I DO NOT PLAY LEAGUE ALL I KNOW IS WHAT I CAN GAIN FROM THE TWO SEASONS

but obviously the people didn't know that, so they did what they could, which was try to control it. and im so sorry but who was encouraging the control and understanding and weaponizing of the arcane? because from what I remember it was government manipulation.

which brings me back to my earlier point (in the post before this) about (one of) the macro problem(s) being the aristocratic oligarchy that is set up over piltover and zaun!!! sure there are other problems, but like everyone is blaming the magic or the hex tech or even actual characters but from where im sitting it looks like the government!!

and here's the catch for me. im not normally a black and white thinker. I try to be objective (I believe that I can understand jinx's actions and hate them for what they are. two things can be true.) and because of that I try not to be like

PILTOVER VS. ZAUN

cuz it's not that. it never was. if it was, vi and Caitlyn and jinx and ekko and Mel would not all have been fighting the same side. but we also should probably recognize that piltover was governing over zaun, whether they wanted to or not. zaun had silco, but the government was still in charge of zaun ("the people of zaun deserve to breathe"? hello?) even if it was in name only. im not saying it's the only issue, but guys if Caitlyn is valid in gassing all of zaun, including children (she wasn't) or if jinx was valid in setting off smoke bombs and harming topsider children (she wasn't) is our biggest topic of discussion then maybe there is a bigger systemic bad that maybe we should be thinking about?

tldr: the arcane is a unique system of magic that is sentient and will do what it wants to get what it wants. but piltover's government def helped it along.

[strangerwheelerthings]

Stranger Things Leverage AU:

(You don't need to know anything about Leverage except that they help people through cons and thievery like Robin Hood, sorta.)

Nancy is the mastermind, the one who instigated the whole thing because of what happened to Barb. Who is knowledgeable about so many things and knows how to piece information together. She's exceptionally adaptable and has many unexpected talents.

Robin is a thief with a knack for languages. She'd be surprisingly good in certain con situations, but absolutely horrendous and chaos prone in others. Steve is trying to teach her how to improve her acting skills, but it's never going to be something she's good at. She's socially awkward and incredibly knowledgeable about the things pertaining to her interests, such as various types of safes, etc.

Steve is the grifter. He can charm the pants off of anyone. He struggles with who he really is but desperately loves this little family they have formed even if they don't know his real name in the beginning.

Jonathan is the hitter. This man has been through some stuff, and he knows how to take a hit. Knows how to give one, too. He has some serious trauma, but he will do absolutely anything to protect the people he loves.

The older group doesn't allow The Party into the thick of things, not to the same extent at least. They are less involved with actual cons and infiltration and help from a distance.

For example, Dustin, with the occasional help from Susie, is the hacker. He is exceptionally good with computers and other technological inventions. He stays behind with the computer unless a situation is dire.

Mike and Will work in law, with Mike and Nancy's original work having an unexpected number of overlaps when she was an insurance agent. They contribute help and support to the team as the need arises.

Lucas and Max are a dynamic duo of knowledge and physical know-how. They sneak their way into cons and fights far more than any of the other Party members. Max has a talent for thievery that Robin fosters behind Nancy’s back. Lucas is more of an athlete than his partner and handles a lot of action alongside Jonathan. Their official jobs have to do with handling the literal business side of things

El is the secret weapon that no one tries to use. They all work to keep her out of things, to let her live a normal life, but she doesn't let them. She uses her powers to frequently help with cases, be it through spying, thievery, or knocking people out. She is capable of quite a lot of what they do, but the one thing she is absolutely horrendous at is acting. She accidentally messed up more than one con by being found at the wrong time and place.

----

The original group was formed through various connections coming together at once. Nancy and Jonathan met through their brothers, who are married. Steve and Robin had a tenuous partnership and trust from past crimes. Nancy and Steve had a small thing when she was an insurance agent chasing after him, but they are both over it by the time they team up. Nancy had dealt with Robin's crimes before, but she'd never been able to find the elusive thief.

I'd say they still handle the occasional supernatural situation, but they handle plenty of typical corruption as well. The older group are the core four who run the show while every single one the Party cajoled and snuck their way into the action. Mike figured Nancy out instantly when she worked a case he happened to be involved in. Dustin hacked his way into the coms and made himself their official tech guy. Lucas and Max got directly involved when a con went south, and Dustin contacted them to save the team from danger. Not one of the Party tried to keep the secret from El or Will. They all ended up making themselves at home in the Leverage Offices one day and never left.

[aemiron-main]

The Evil One, Ghostbusters, Edward and Peter

So, there’s two Edwards from Ghostbusters that i want to talk about today- Edward Zeddemore and Edward Kirilian.

Edward Zeddemore is Winston’s father. We’ll come back to him later.

Edward Kirilian was a colleague of Spengler, but the two of them had a falling out after Edward’s research became more and more dangerous- Edward believed that he could capture and control weak spirits and force them to do his bidding.

After the conflict between Edward and Spengler, Edward isolated himself and lost his mind while working on his project. Even though his project succeeded, he’d basically gone insane.

He called his invention the “Collar of Obedience,” which has me staring DIRECTLY at Brenner’s literal obedience collars in ST:

The collar allowed Edward to kidnap and control ghosts and force them to work to open a portal to the Netherworld for him- a place that’s EXTREMELY similar to the UD in ST.

And to top it all off, Edward Kirilian’s title was literally “The Evil One.” It’s definitely giving me Henry vs Edward vibes/more than one 001 vibes.

However, I don’t actually think Edward Creel is evil/was born evil- I think the “evil,” aspect of this comes in to play regarding the idea of one of the Brenners merging themselves with Edward, and “the Evil One,” connecting to one of the Brenners technically being 001 after merging with Edward/001.

Especially considering all of Edward Kirilians’s parallels to Brenner. Things like what I mentioned earlier about the shock collar, and Edward being an unethical scientist like Brenner, and Edward kidnapping weak ghosts for his experiments the same way Brenner kidnapped children, and Edward forcing the ghosts to open a gate to the Netherworld vs Brenner trying to get lab kids like El to activate their powers/open a gate.

Hell, Edward Kirilian even LOOKS like Brenner:

Also, Stav @heroesbyler pointed out to me that there’s the whole Mike-Lucas “can’t have two Venkmans” conflict and she mentioned how how that could tie to Henry vs Edward and timeline stuff and two versions of people:

Which made me remember a very important detail about Venkman- his full name is Dr. Peter Venkman:

And not only do we have all of the Peters in ST (such as Peter Owens, Peter Bingham, and the Peter from the lab) but when we look at Fringe, we also have Peter Bishop, who has connections/parallels to Edward/001 in ST, and who only has one version of himself that exists/there isn’t two Peters, because the other Peter from the other timeline died (and keeping in mind that Fringe is a confirmed source of inspo for ST).

And we also have the two doctors/the two Brenners- Dr Richard Brenner vs Dr Martin Brenner.

So, in ST we have the idea that there can’t be two Venkmans- aka, there can’t be two doctors named Peter. There’s something here regarding the timeline weirdness and Richard vs Martin/the two doctors, I just need to think more.

And also, jumping back to the Lucas-Mike ghostbusters conflict briefly, Winston is the other character that’s mentioned as part of that conflict, and Lucas suggests that Mike should be Winston:

Which is especially interesting because as mentioned earlier, Winston’s dad is named Edward- and Mike’s dad is named Ted, a diminutive form of Edward.

It’s also interesting to me that Lucas says that “no one” wants to be Winston- no one wants to be the guy who has a father named Edward…. Vs Edward Kirilian being so paralleled to Brenner… WHATS GOING ON HERE??

And Mike also asks “what’s wrong with Winston?”:

Versus Mike asking “What’s wrong with Nana?” and all of the Creeler stuff and Creeler timeline stuff:

And Henward saying that something was “wrong” with him:

Anyway! I’m insane as always! There’s Something Here

[coraniaid]

Tips for new arrivals from reddit:

Did you know that the trope of dying and Coming Back Wrong is literally named after Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Well, on an early fan wiki that catalogues tropes in popular media, it's ... yeah.

It's not ... I imagine some people had probably noticed the idea of tropes before 2004, sure. But I guess they didn't have a web site, so it wasn't official.

Yeah, you're right, there is a lot of focus on Buffy on the older articles on that site.

Oh, yeah, it was founded by a bunch of Buffy fans shortly after the show ended. That might have some relevance, I guess.

No, the editors of the site explicitly say that a trope being named after a particular work isn't meant to suggest anything in terms of inventing or first popularising the trope. It's not meant to be used as a badge of honor, no.

Yeah, Tara does magically test Buffy and then tell her in Dead Things that she didn't actually come back wrong, that's true.

Right, in the final scene, when Buffy asks her "I didn't come back wrong?" Tara literally says "No, you're the same Buffy ... I promise, there's nothing wrong with you." I suppose that might mean something. If you analyze the text really hard.

Yeah, Danny Phantom being more popular on this site than Buffy is a little galling, I suppose.

Reblog gifs (don't repost them), don't use Tumblr Live, and think about getting the xkit rewritten browser extension if you want the site to be at all readable.

[wosopatri2]

Hey queen

Yes I would love to see more photos, you can post whatever u like :) Just be careful posting the city u currently live in, idw you to have a repeat of your old situation. The architecture there is beautiful and stunning, I hope to see some of it in person someday.

Babes just a question what about me have off American 😭I mean to be fair you know nothing about me but it genuinely made me giggle that you thought I was American. Not going to say exactly where I’m from but you’ve gone completely in the wrong direction geography wise. There’s no accent? At least I think. I will say I’ve developed an odd way of talking from my friends mixed accent at Uni.

Glad to hear that ur hanging on, maybe try to find new things to do to distract yourself? I remember you said you were interested in basketball, do u follow any of it? Heard the wnba draft just happened maybe u could distract yourself with that. Either way, proud of you for going one step at a time, im sure you’ll get over it.

Omg I’ve actually been so off the grid with football idk what’s going on anymore. How’s Pere’s tactics going? Cause I too am shitting myself over the fact that his tactics have to play Chelsea. Genuinely still remember the tears I shed last year when we lost to them. At least we made a come back? Idk if we will learn this time tho….

I cannot write short messages for the life of me, I just start typing then boom a whole essay appears. Oops. Love you anyways, xoxo

Hey love :)

I’ll definitely keep posting more photos then, thank you for hyping them up like that, seriously. And don’t worry, I’ll be careful about posting anything that gives away where I am now, I learned that lesson the hard way. But yeah, the architecture here is actually super beautiful in its own way. Less flashy than Barça, but old and full of character.

I’m still laughing at this cause I don’t know, your tone, some expressions, and maybe just my brain inventing backstories, it gave me “east coast liberal arts student trying to survive” vibes. Turns out my brain invented lore for you and now I’m being called out. I love that, you’re such a mystery. But I am now reimagining your whole accent and way of speakin cause my brain can't let it go.

Also, you mentioning basketball made me smile, yes I’ve been following women’s basketball for a really long time. I actually used to play pro and don’t get me wrong, it still excites me, especially watching the new talent come up i'm in love with Paige i think she's the perfect player tbh… but I’ve followed it so closely and for so long that the spark just doesn’t hit the same anymore. It’s like seeing something you love from a distance, still beautiful, but it doesn’t set your brain on fire the way it used to. Maybe it’ll come back though.

Football-wise, don’t even get me started. Pere’s tactics are both bold and terrifying, and if they are doing great is not his job but because Barça is the best team in the world, his management of minutes is horrible (this last matches he's been doing that okay but still... I don't like to judge a season until it's over but I don't like what he has done with this team). Facing Chelsea again....I have war flashbacks. I still remember that loss way too vividly. I hope this time we’ve actually grown and won’t collapse under pressure. I believe in the players, but I’m also keeping one eye half-closed just in case it turns into a horror show again. Just really hope they don't score a goal here cause defense this year is being wanky so hoping for a 2-0 Ewa, Aitana, Caro or Alexia please I know they don't like Chelsea (specially Aitana) so I'm hoping for them🙏🏽🙏🏽

And don’t worry about writing long messages, your “essays” are literally a highlight of my day. It feels like catching up with someone over coffee even if we’re both in the middle of a mental breakdown and a pile of things to do. I love reading them, always.

Love you lots ♥️

[ganondoodle]

something i just realized thats yet another point to the whole "sonau did all the things before the shiekah did, actually" weirdness is the helmets of those unnamed and utter voids of personality ancient sages- their weird ass sonau helmets are very clearly meant to be the titans heads but "sonau" so i guess the shiekah didnt even come up with that design on their own either, isnt that totally coolio (why are they wearing that sonau stuff anyway ... doesnt that too come off as weird?? putting face masks made of the design from the dominant culture of the king ruling everything over the other races leaders heads and not even giving them a name .. let alone a pesonality, or anything to say but the literal same exposition dump 4 times???)

also, though it is a smaller point, the sonau being supposedly "from the sky" also sitts wrong with me bc we know the shiekah had a long history of admiring the stars and trying to read from them etc, which combined with everything else just kinda adds to the weird feeling of the sonau having hijacked all of the shiekahs things in retrospect despite the shiekah as a whole having a wayyy longer history (and no i dont find it inspiring or like ... cool that the sonau are bascially the origins of everything the botw shiekah ever did, it feels not just disrespectful but like it cheapens the shiekah as a whole since now they really had never an original idea i guess lol - i swear if they meant that random "mechanical beast" that zelda apparently rode when she was trapped back in time as some sort of precursor to the eponator zero from botws dlc im gonna scream-)

additionally, the sonau being from the sky is still kinda weird to me given their other heavily used design elements are clearly based on undergound stuff, like the lightferns being literally every lamp bc i guess they knew only one kind of lamp to build, one that only gives off an eery cold slightly greenish light, (not really working in favor with that also cold grey and rather featureless blocky design of all the totk sonau structures) and the design of the constructs looking alot like mini/gigamas, i dont know if i want to believe they invented all of their stuff that isnt grey blocky rock after coming to the surface and mining the underground barren .. given how spread out their mines are they must have had a pretty strong grip on hyrule before they all went extinct from *gestures vaguely* -i think the english version puts it more vaguely but the german text def implies they all died 'somehow'- which is weird and underexplored as well-

all of this really adds to the sonau just ... not fitting into anything, not the world, the history, the design, the story, and their presentation as those only good goodestes of peoples makes me even more sus of them- i know im not the only one who was convinced that rauru was running some sort of scheme behind your back or something like that for almost the entire game (also to the person that added to this post saying that the same rauru statue being over and over at the end of the shrines made him feel even more like an "divine king" kind of dictator vibe, yes i feel like that too) and yet he is only ever presented as the oh so kind and good and perfect king by divine right, with his only mistake ever being not stabbing ganondorf right away i guess, but its fine, he died to seal gan after all uwu, what a noble guy, uwu

*sigh*

... man this entire game is such a mess once you start to think about it even a little, tbh i think zelda fans should be kinda offended this is what we are offered for an even higher price than botw after all this time ... we deserve better man :(

sorry, long post, got totk thoughts ...again

first botw vs totk shrines aesthetic and meaning; then shiekah symbolism thats overtaken by sonau

botw vs totk shrines (not in quality of puzzle since i talked about that a little before, but as in aesthetic, meaning etc)

something that worked well with shiekah shrines in botw was that these things were built SPECIFICALLY to make a future link stronger, theres that denialability to it that kinda make sense when you think about it, they are small challenges for the future hero to test and make them stronger, they are spread around the world bc you wouldnt want to hide some major source of power in one place, a monk literally sacrifices their life to enable you to gain more power their dead body waiting for you at the end (neat!!), they are each a little different in pose and clothing and im pretty sure its implied each monk made the puzzle for their shrine themselves; and the ones that rely on something happening in the world first can also be explained by their ability to see the future, the shrines and towers all rise up from the ground, which gives them that believable sense of they have been down there all this time and been activated via the net connecting them all to signal it is time- their design is also just .. nice? its got a nice contrast of the dark and the ligher brown with eye catching light from orange to blue to pink telling you in what states of operation it is (idle, working/done, corrupted) and their shape design is a very striking mix of bigger emptier spots of dark with the lighter browns wiggly lines coming in in nicely paced patches and the strong lights poking through giving you a nice soemthign for your eyes to look at (their tech is also a mix of magic stuff AND mechanism, they still look and work kinda magical but still have cogs and springs and looks like they are actual maschines put together)

totk shrines have no real denialability to why they are the way they are, its pretty clear that they are there for game reasons (and to copy botw i guess?) with no proper thought given to it (or failed to convey); they are already there when zelda does her time travel bs, and i heard (havent seen it myself? or dont remember) that the sonau shrines were built to .. keep monsters at bay? ok, im not even gonna question that part ( ... but i am .. i guess lightmagic wahtever dont think about it) so .... why do they contain a puzzle at all? its not to prevent monsters from entering since you need raurus hand to activate it (in botw you need the shiekah stone to do so which isnt really found besides yours either but ... their purpose is to test and empower you anyway .. and pehaps in a wider range to strengthen the bond with other folks when you have to work with them to get to it) then they werent present in botw so they must have ... somehow appeared out of nowhere? their connection to the lightroots might have been an attempt to try and make them feel more connected but that didnt work either imo, the shrines on the surface mirror lightroots in the underground, implying they are connected somehow, i at first thought like the lightroot is their root and the shrine is the flowerbud, but its very clearly just some ...magic rock crystal with stuff built around it including a teleportation thing thats pretty much copied from the shiekah ones (??) and you somehow ... enter magic dimension (which is .. fine, but i liked how in botws it was an elevator going down, making it feel like you are put into a physical room underground) but then there .... are also shrines in the sky ... that have no lighroot to connect to .. (i guess .. magic light wahtever dont htinkaboutit) so that part kinda falls flat- and the bring-crystal-to-shrine-spot (uhg) also debunk that thought since its a (tasty looking) green crystal that just kinda warps into a big grey rock ... for some reason, at their end is always the same colorless statue of da kind and his fridge wife (not her build) they are also missing that denialability that they were built for link specifically, sonau cant see into the future so (unless they yoinked that from the shiekah too??).. how does .. anything of that work then? especially with the crystal ones given that they are always a blessing shrine sicne bringing the crystal to its spot is counted as the puzzle but they couldnt have known that thats where it would end up at (and then ...how and why would you put a shrine thing into a crystal thing and disconnect it and throw it whereever when it manifests somehow again thousands years later- i need to stop thinking about it)- then their aesthetic is white green and gold(ish) which is a nice color combination in itself tho its lacking that neat status singaling and the eye catching contrast with their glow, the green glowy bits dont stand out as much, their shape design i dislike alot since it ... looks kinda unfinished and in a strange disconnect to their tech; buildings and statues are very blocky solid colors with the occasional rune or dragon carved into, which is also very blocky and one colored, their shapes are pretty uniform in a blocky way, theres not alot of shape contrast anywhere besides basic smaller block and bigger block, the most interesting looking ones are the ... outer walls of the shrines with their scaled look and the ground with the circle patterns; their tech and clothing is in a strange disconnect, its got a gree-tealish scale like texture in anything solid, be it tech or ornaments, it also features alot more gold and also brown stones that look rather untouched- now, for clothing, that is fine, the shiekah didnt dress like their tech either (.... mostly, ancient armor does exist) BUT the constructs and tech also have that more natural look to them

the fact that the same blocky statue waits for you at the end alsso removes not just coolness but also personality, instead of individual monks that gave their life for you and you setting them free once you take their spirit orb its the same representation of the holy king and queen giving you some light juice to cure you more of miasma .. which doesnt actually matter sicne you get your normal arm back no matter how many light juices you got at the end anyway (their "tech" also just looks less like actual maschinery and much more like .. magic tm, the constructs have nothing maschinery like about them and are just floating rings animated by green magic wiggle lines and function almost the same as literal bokblins with the added thing of being able to fuse/use tech.. the empty spot of a threat like the guardians is very prominent once you realize that the constructs are largely just like a reskinned bokblin, and the miasma hands, while neat, are more like a surprise jumpscare and less like a looming threat and are also not taken to their full potential)

theres also a disconnect between the sonau as we are introduced to them in totk and the actual sonau ruins from botw, which share a common dragon motive but have a much more .. MORE aesthetic, theres even color present you dont see anywhere in totk sonau stuff, like the red paint- you are given the explanation that those are ruins built by hylians as a monument to the sonau but i think it falls very flat sicne its clear it wasnt designed to be meant like that in botw and also looks much more withered than the totk sonau ruins which rarely look withered at all despite being even older than the botw ruins; im very sure its jsut an excuse bc their design for totk sonaus got changed ... for some reason, just like their "barbaric" origins in the phirone/faron region

shiekah symbolism and more kinda overtaken by sonau

so, soemthing i really dont like about the sonau as well is that theres quite a bit that they take from shiekah and kinda... present it as being the origin of it, actually;

we all know the very dominant symbol of the eye/third eye with three eyelashes and a tear drop for the shiekah which is established in the very first chronological game (skyward sword) but also featured in alot of other zeldas, it symbolizing their connection to hylia and their foresight (perhaps even more? i dont know everything); now we got the sonau who ... have a LITERAL third eye (and it doesnt even look special ..) that has three lashes and they paint tear drops under their eyes... (which has only the connection to .. the tears zelda sheds when shes a dragon, no other character does so at any other point, lol?) it makes it seem like we are to assume that the shiekah got their symbols from the sonau, actually, just like their tech wasnt their invention either but the sonaus, actually, who are new to the franchise and have no other connection to anything of past games, unlike the shiekah who have been there from the start really

then theres the tech, the ancient shiekah had very advanced, mystical tech in botws ancient history and now the even MORE ancient sonau had even MORE advanced tech way before them in totks lore which goes beyond even botws ancient history

im not saying symbols gotta be exclusive to one group of people but .. it holds alot of significance carried from the older games too, it feels strange for them to highjack the shiekah symbols and achievements WITHIN the two games that are supposedly directly connected in timeline and world (while also pairing them with those supposedly aniecnt hylian feather crowns and belly out look ... which, im no expert but i raise my eyebrow at that) together with the fact that nearly any and all traces of shiekah tech, except for the little needed parts that are never called that though and are just footnotes .. if anything, are precisely erased feels .... off

another long ramble about my thougths about totk, some people graciously call them analysis but i wouldnt say its that, its jsut a largely incoherent waterfall of words that would have spun around in my head for weeks if i didnt write them out and i keep coming up with more thoughts bc im thinking about the rewrite and well ...

im gonna have art soon again ... promise <(＿　＿)>

[hellofeanor]

Fëanorian Quenya

Hey friends! Do you like elves? Do you like the Silmarillion? Do you like Fëanor and co? And most of all, do you like spending hours thinking about minor details pertaining to made-up languages??? If so, boy do I have a treat for you! Let’s delve into the weird world of Fëanorian Quenya and explore some history and mechanics of why they talk Like That.

I’ve seen a lot of posts joking about the Fëanorian lisp, which is about as funny as a joke about a speech impediment can be. 👍 It’s important to understand, though, that this IS a joke. No, they didn’t really speak with a lisp. Yes, they did pronounce some S sounds as TH. That’s the critical disclaimer here: SOME. It’s not a blanket pronunciation. There’s a lot of background research that goes into determining which words would be pronounced with S and which would be TH, and that’s what we’re going to look at.

So if this is something you’ve come across in fandom and you’re not totally sure on the details, or if you ARE sure and just want some more in-depth info, read on.

The stuff probably everybody knows already

For anyone who’s been hanging around the Fëanorian corner of the Silm fandom for more than three minutes, there’s about a 100% chance you’ve heard of Fëanor’s penchant for retaining an archaic TH pronunciation after the majority of the Noldor went ahead and started pronouncing this sound as S instead. You may also know that this sound is represented by the letter thorn (Þ) in HoME, but since thorn doesn’t exist in modern English orthography and it’s a pain to keep typing the ALT code, I’m sticking to TH here. Anyway, all this was due to the fact that Fëanor was a huge mama’s boy, and his mom Míriel Therindë (later called Serindë, which made Fëanor want to punch walls and possibly also fellow elves) was an outlier who retained the TH after it fell out of use. Her son Fëanor, in turn, kept this up to honor her. Now, whether or not he would have bothered if this sound hadn’t literally been a critical part of her name is debatable, but that debate is outside the scope of this essay.

Fëanor continued to use the TH pronunciation until his death, and required his sons to use it as well. Finwë, however, switched over to S after the death of Míriel and before his marriage to Indis. Fëanor, reasonable and level-headed as he was, took this as a personal insult and decided that anybody who rejected TH likewise rejected him. So presumably, his loyal followers would have obeyed his totally reasonable demands not to give in to the seductive S-shift.

Why tho

Why did the Noldor decide to alter their pronunciation from TH to S? Great question. Nobody really knows. For the hell of it? IDK. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But the important thing to understand is that elves, and especially Noldor, were really committed to making sure their language sounds cool. This is why it changed so much and so comparatively quickly for an immortal population: they were actively invested in changing it. They liked inventing new words and exploring new sounds and messing around with grammar.

So at some point some influential Noldo might have been like, hey y’all, let’s stop saying TH and say S instead! And everyone (except Míriel I guess, who was known for her elegant manner of speech and didn’t want to muck that up by changing pronunciation of a whole letter) was like, whoa, capital idea my good egg. And they went with it. Previous ideas along these lines included ‘hey y’all, let’s stop saying KH and say H instead’ and ‘hey y’all, let’s stop saying Z and say R instead’, and those went over swimmingly. Nobody could have foreseen the problem this TH to S business would cause.

Now here’s a fun fact. There was another change to Noldorin pronunciation that happened AFTER Fëanor’s birth, that he himself was involved in. This one was all about bilabial to labiodental F. And those sure are some words, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about (I don’t blame you), BILABIAL is a more whispery sound that happens when you say F using only air passing through your pursed lips, and LABIODENTAL is when you say F with your top teeth touching your bottom lip. Going forward I’m going to use PH to represent the bilabial sound, and F for the labiodental.

So F got on the radar of the Noldor via the Teleri, who used this sound in their language. And ol’ Fëanor figured it would be awesome to incorporate it into Quenya because he thought the PH sounded too close to HW, and the two were getting confused by lazy speakers. Why did he care? Because of his dad’s name and his own, of course. If people started to get lazy in their pronunciation, we’d end up with Hwinwë and Hwëanáro, which would be terrible and stupid and unacceptable. He accused the Vanyar of leaning down that road, and he wanted to stop that kind of shift before it happened to the Noldor. How to do that? Why, by instigating a different shift from traditional Noldorin PH to Telerin F!

“Hey y’all, let’s stop saying PH and say F instead!”

“Whoa, capital idea my good egg.”

Moral of the story: Fëanor is only concerned with Quenya pronunciation insofar as it affects his own name and the names of family members he likes. He does not care whether it’s staying the same or moving to a new sound so long as it personally makes him feel good and his name sound cool. Therefore the true way to piss him off would be to call him Curuhwinwë Hwëanáro, son of Serindë.

Okay so here’s how it works

Now that history is out of the way, let’s get back to how TH was used by the Fëanorians. As I mentioned earlier, TH wasn’t a blanket pronunciation. It all depended on the original form of the word, and whether the root had a TH or an S. And some very similar-sounding words come from different roots, so this can get tricky. A great resource that’ll give you this information is Eldamo: Quenya words where the S was originally TH are marked out with the Þ (thorn) symbol in the wordlist.

Some examples:

Súlë (spirit, breath) comes from the root THŪ, which means it would be pronounced with a TH. Silma (white crystal) comes from the root SIL, so it and related words like Silmaril would be pronounced with an S. No Fëanorian would say Thilmaril. Isil (moon), however, is a similar-sounding word that comes from a different root: THIL. Olos (mass of flowers) comes from the word LOTH, but: Olos (dream) comes from the root LOS. Fëanorian pronunciation would immediately differentiate between these two words.

While Fëanorians may have retained the distinct pronunciation of TH vs S, other Noldor can still differentiate between original S and S-that-used-to-be-TH in their writing. There are specific tengwar to use depending on the word’s original form. Silmë (the one that looks like a 6) is used for original S, while súlë (or thúlë, the one that looks like an h) is used for original TH.

Which other elves used this sound in their speech?

Fandom has really latched on to this TH as a Fëanorian thing, but it wasn’t that exclusively. The TH sound was actually ubiquitous in other elven languages, and in Valinor, only the Noldor dropped it. It was still used in Telerin and in Vanyarin Quendya. The Vanyar retained the TH not because of anything to do with Míriel, but just because they were a little more conservative and their language didn’t pick up on all the changes that the Noldor made. They also noped out of the Z to R shift the Noldor initiated, opting to keep the Z around.

When Indis married Finwë, she stopped using the normal Vanyarin TH and switched over to S as a gesture of loyalty to him and his people. Finarfin, however, out of love for the Vanyar and Teleri, switched BACK to TH. I like to think about how much it would have annoyed Fëanor that his snot-nosed kid brother was speaking correctly, but for the wrong reason. Go down one more generation, and Galadriel very specifically did not use TH. But this time it was absolutely a choice made as a glaring middle finger to Fëanor.

What this means for your fanfic or whatever

The big takeaway here: you can’t just have Fëanorians replace every S with TH and call it a day.

If you’re inventing names for your Fëanorian OCs or coming up with phrases for them to say, it’s important to look into the history of all Quenya S-words you end up using to determine if they should be S or TH. If Fëanor got mad about somebody saying Serindë instead of Therindë, he’d get equally mad about somebody saying Thilmaril instead of Silmaril and assume they were mocking him. Remember: this is a dude with no chill. (On the other hand, if you WANT somebody to be mocking Fëanor, Galadriel would 100% do this because she has an equally negligible amount of chill.)

It’s also important to note that the TH isn’t a true shibboleth, since pretty much all elves EXCEPT the non-Fëanorian Noldor use it. And even the S-preferring Noldor would still be able to pronounce the TH. Those who went into exile would go on to use it commonly in Sindarin, and those who remained in Valinor would still encounter it among the Vanyar and Teleri. So if you’re writing a scene where somebody has to pronounce a TH word to prove their loyalty… yeah, everyone can pass this test. And in the opposite direction, you can’t use TH to prove somebody’s an evil Fëanorian, either. They might just be Vanyarin or something. Or, like. Really Old.

Would the sons (and followers) of Fëanor keep using TH after his death? Oh hell yeah. This is an entire family unfamiliar with the concept of not dying on hills. They will keep using it unto the ending of the world. Actually, with Sindarin becoming the common language of Middle-earth from the First Age, probably not a lot of change happened in exilic Quenya. It became a lore language: a piece of living history. It would have been preserved as it was when the original speakers left Valinor.

(And then, thousands of years later, Galadriel finally returns home to Tirion like, Long have mine eyes awaited this most blissful of sights, and ne’er hath my sprit soared with such grace, for I am returned! And all the Amanyar Noldor stare at her like, whatchu bangin on bout, eh? Because they had nothing better to do in the peace of Valinor than push Quenya to brave and frankly questionable new horizons.)

Anyway, there you go: a somewhat brief history of Fëanorian Quenya. I hope you found this informative and useful, or at the very least not boring. Obvs this is super condensed and, uh, not particularly scholarly, but I promise I know what I’m talking about. I have a university degree! (Not in anything even remotely related to what’s written above, but I hardly see how that’s relevant. It’s still a DEGREE.)

Questions? Need clarification or want more info? My asks are always open!