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[tarragonthedragon]

psychic: *reading my mind*

my mind: in Legally Blonde: the Musical, elle and emmett's relationship is expanded upon in such a beautiful way. it's presented in such a way that doesn't interfere with, but in fact compliments, the plot, themes, and character development. Furthermore, it's made more relevant than in the movie without reducing either elle or emmett to a romantic plot device. They instead help each other grow and support each other. This contrasts elle and warner's former relationship in a perfectly subtle and artful way, as he is seen to be constantly putting her down (usually to make himself look better). Besides using the term "a marilyn" to demean elle and downplaying elle's discovery of Nikos being gay (which was key to their case), warner also takes most of the solos when it comes to singing with elle, leaving her to be a backup singer (see "serious"). elle and emmett, however, only sing duets or relevant solos in their shared songs. emmett always puts elle on equal grounds with himself and never demeans her for not being initially interested in her studies. He reprimands her somewhat, yes, but in a helpful way and because elle asked for help. Likewise, elle always makes sure to let emmett know that she appreciates him and values having him in her life. elle and emmett just work so well, coming together in a way that isn't forced or made to seem more relevant than elle's growth as a person, the main point of the show. they are one of the best couples in musical theatre and should be more widely appreciated.

psychic [while crying]: you are so right

[tarragonthedragon]

my gender operates on roger rabbit rules actually I'm only a girl when it's funny

[tarragonthedragon]

see, to me, as an eastern european, the rampant orientalism of ‘dracula’ is yet another dimension of its comedy, but i want people to take a moment to consider how our friend jonathan talks about ee, and think about how his narration is very much in line of how real-life westerners described the region. 

you may wonder for example, what is orientalist about count dracula reading english train schedules? as one academic notices in this article, dracula’s obsession with trains mirror that of jonathan, who mentions a couple of times how he’s leaving railroads, a symbol of western ‘civilisation,’ behind, and with that he also leaves ‘europe’. this narration is a perfect reflection of travel reports from decades before. similarly as our friend jonathan, a real-life historical figure count de segur remarked that he left europe entirely when entering poland, at the same time also moving back ten centuries  and finding himself among hordes of hands, scythians, vent, slavs, and sarmatians. same attitude displayed by coxe, who summed up his impressions of poland recalling villages wretched beyond description, and going on to talk about the hovels all built of wood seemed full offilth and misery, and everything wore the appearance of extreme poverty. also not too far from what wrote john ledyard, when he claimed that he had not reached europe until he was in prussia. 

but to westerners, ee was not only foreign and poor, it was also a land of “terror,” look: lady mary wortley montagu describing her travel through hungary as if she was going to war, talking about how she was going to be froze to death, bury’d in the snow, and taken by the tartars who ravage the part of hungary [she] was to passe. this idea surely seems like a fantasy, but in terms of imagination, travellers often got even more extra: take, for example, salaberry describing the hungarian noblemen as the centaurs of fable (lol).

so, what i want people to know while reading dracula, is that the setting is not described the way it is only because it’s supposed to be a horror story; to many [most. all, even] westerners, the very idea of travelling to ee was equivalent of a nightmare, anyway. 

[tarragonthedragon]

I've seen a lot of people (mostly men if that's a factor) focus on how Chani was heart broken by Paul choosing Irulan. Am I the only one that thinks she's mostly upset that he's lost himself, is embracing/using the prophecy and waging war? She definitely cries as she summons the worm and is quiet and alone but in the room she's angry and staunch and doesn't bow to him. Their conversation about him not wanting to lose himself or lose her before they left for the South felt very important. Maybe I'm misinterpreting but I definitely felt like it was more nuanced and deeper than her just being his love interest. I think Zendaya and Denis made some really cool and powerful changes to her character.

[tarragonthedragon]

[tarragonthedragon]

Life-sized Peacock Sculpture made of spoons and other metal found objects 

by Liddlenomnom

[tarragonthedragon]

Every single episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi has had the Inquisitors using the Jedi’s compassion against them, very deliberately.  That’s how they find Nari in the saloon on Tatooine, who only reveals himself to protect the owner for a second time.  That’s how Reva lures Obi-Wan out of hiding.  Vader kills villagers as he marches through the town, not because he’s even looking for information, but just purely because he knows Obi-Wan is there and it hurts him, it will draw him out. Meanwhile, Reva’s speech on Tatooine says, “The Jedi are cowards. They failed you, abandoned you. There is no point in protecting them. They would not do the same for you.” This is what Star Wars does.  It uses lies and propaganda and manipulation, it says one thing about the Jedi, and then shows you how they really are, that Star Wars is and always has been built on unreliable narrators and outright lies expressed by characters that aren’t directly challenged because that’s the point. The galaxy just accepted those lies because it was easier than standing up for the right thing! The Jedi died to protect innocent people in the war, they and their children died when the clones were mind-controlled into killing them, they were trying to stop a Sith Lord, not seize power for themselves, they were trying to protect the people of Tatooine, they abandoned you because they’re all dead now.  They all died protecting someone, we see that in the opening Order 66 montage, where a Jedi Knight fiercely protects the children, we see it in the opening of The Bad Batch, where Depa dies to protect Caleb’s life, we see it in Jedi: Fallen Order where Tapal dies to protect Cal’s life, we see it in The Book of Boba Fett where several Jedi die to protect Grogu’s life. Star Wars characters will tell the audience one thing, because the characters have their own agenda within the narration, and then it will contrast that with showing us what the Jedi actually say and do, like the level of commitment to unreliable narrators and propaganda in this franchise is actually really, really good, because goddamn that’s a lesson we could all stand to remember when we look around the world today and are on social media where reactions and outrage and misinformation spread far faster than actually checking our sources.

[tarragonthedragon]

horror movie where the cop sent to investigate a disappearance in a remote british village somewhere uncovers a cult and slowly becomes more and more disturbed by their practises but it turns out the crime was completely unrelated and hes just. being a cop.

the horror comes when the cop snaps and starts killing everyone to save the little girl who turns out to be fine and has run away because her parents are going through a messy divorce

[tarragonthedragon]

Kyle Baker 1985-1986: “It’s Genetic” from Marvel Age #31 - 60

Having landed an internship at Marvel somewhat effortlessly and being well-liked in the Bullpen, Baker could have been a shoo-in for a bright future at Marvel. The big problem is that Marvel is mostly in the superhero business, and Baker is the first to admit he’s not a big superhero fan.

I was still trying to be funny, and I had been submitting strips to syndicates with no luck. It’s very hard to get into a newspaper syndicate. Jim Shooter and Stan Lee both tried to help me get into the syndicate that does the Spider-Man strip. Shooter liked me — I was doing some Marvel stuff, too — but he felt that I was just all wrong for Marvel, because they didn’t do any comedy. So he was always trying to get me set up at the syndicate so he could get rid of me. [laughter] That was nice of him — I’m not knocking him.

During his time freelancing at Marvel, Jim Salicrup commissioned him to write a few one-panel gags about the X-Men, called “It’s Genetic” published sporadically in the pages of Marvel Age’s “Mutant Report” feature. 

Baker did twelve of these comics over the course of a little over a year and it’s the first time we get to see him in his element. I have a fond memory of these comics and loved the way he drew such a short squat Wolverine.

[tarragonthedragon]

Writing about Thomas's trauma got me thinking about how he is the only ghost who continuously has physical reactions to things.

He reaches for his wound as if it pains him several times in the series (most notably when Mike finds the musket ball and as @martymckeaton reminded me when the Captain calls after Robin, "I could have you shot for that, you know!")

He gets badly startled when the toaster goes off and literally jumps into the air

His breath can be seen in the air when he's in the lake and when he's down in the basement with the Plague Ghosts

He seems to get stress-related headaches (as a lovely anon pointed out)

He experiences withdrawal symptoms like hallucinations and feeling hot and cold

A while ago, I came up with the (not to be taken too seriously) headcanon that Thomas's ghostly power could be the ability to feel temperatures but now I'm thinking it might be more than that. Because all those reactions I listed above actually set him apart from the other ghosts. As far as I can remember, so far only Kitty has shown a somewhat similar and comparable reaction (the "Yes, oh yes! A thousand times yes!" scene). But it's not quite the same since it a) only happened once, b) is stated in the show that it hadn't happened before and c) happened in a moment of great excitement whereas Thomas's reactions are mostly related to distress.

So if we give Thomas the benefit of the doubt and take his reactions seriously, we can assume that they're not random. I think (and this is just my personal opinion) that he might be ... less of a ghost than the others are, in the sense that he's still able to feel and experience things ghosts normally can't, like physical pain and sickness. It's almost as if a part of him never died. He probably doesn't even realise that that's unusual (or a potential ghost power). It's always been like that for him, after all. He doesn't know any other form of existence. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the others simply shrugged off those moments as him just being overdramatic and thus never realised that there could be more behind them.

That being said, I know I’m probably overthinking this but there is a pattern here and if nothing else, it makes for an interesting headcanon.

[tarragonthedragon]

Fuck it. I'm putting Spike in the Sims 4 spooky fishbowl.

[tarragonthedragon]

will solace. son of apollo. counselor of cabin seven. significant annoyance. glow-in-the-dark-boyfriend. sunshine. night light. demigod carebear.

“no one hits my boyfriend. and no one kills my dad!” ― will, the tower of nero.

willcore: laced shoes. anatomic diagrams. bushy hair. sun symbols. careful hands. stringed stars. cartoony band aids. rainbow flags. big smiles. freckled arms.

soundtrack; ― gorgeous by taylor swift. “ocean blue eyes looking in mine / i feel like i might sink and drown and die / you’re so gorgeous / i can’t say anything to your face (to your face).” ― pocketful of sunshine by natasha bedingfield. “i got a pocket, got a pocketful of sunshine / i got a love and i know that it’s all mine, oh, oh-oh / do what you want but you’re never gonna break me / sticks and stones are never gonna shake me, oh, oh-oh.” ― golden by harry styles. “you’re so golden / i’m out of my head / and i know that you’re scared / because hearts get broken.” ― the archer by taylor swift. “easy they come, easy they go / i jump from the train, i ride off alone / i never grew up, it’s getting so old / help me hold onto you.”

[tarragonthedragon]

Jeremy Miranda, USA new work 22 December 2023 oil on panel

[tarragonthedragon]

the thing about adulthood is when someone says something extremely rude to you, you can either turn the other cheek or calmly & firmly correct them. The third option is to tell them “say that again, I’ll bite you” & everyone sort of nervously laughs and tries to move on from your little joke. Which is why I think it’s very important that when they do say it again you follow through. Nobody actually expects you to bite them. We should be biting more. Also if you’re with the county health department do not read thi s post

[tarragonthedragon]

I remember you saying once that Naboo tradition is that a child's name is a wish for their future. In that vein, what does Padme mean?

I have been pondering this for a while, actually, and I think that the name Padmé means “serenity” or “tranquility.”

For most of her childhood and even into adulthood, this was a running joke in her family, because as it turned out Padmé was never still or tranquil. She always seemed to have a fire lit in her, a need to be up and out and doing, a constant fury in the face of complacency.

Nobody in the Naberrie family had ever really been too involved in civic life, beyond the responsibilities of voting in elections and maybe occasionally attending town hall meetings or demonstrations. But Padmé showed a keen interest in politics from an early age and her parents were never entirely sure what to do with it.

They were proud of her, of course, and they always supported her, but, especially after the blockade crisis of TPM, they were also clearly more and more uncomfortable with her political (and dangerous) life. But they were proud, too, and after all there was a royal term limit and so they thought (though of course they’d never say it) that Padmé would get it all out of her system and then settle down to live a nice, quiet, tranquil life.

Instead she became Senator.

Padmé and her parents loved each other, but they had fundamentally different ideas of what her life should look like and by the time of AOTC there was a lot of strain in that relationship. Mostly strain, if we’re being completely honest.

But Padmé did remain a lot closer with her sister Sola. She and Sola had very different approaches to and goals in life, and they definitely teased one another about their differences, but in the end they respected and supported one another’s life choices. Padmé felt she could share herself much more genuinely with Sola than with her parents. (As one example: I don’t think Ruwee and Jobal ever knew about Padmé’s marriage. But Sola did.)

When Padmé died, far too young and under terrifyingly mysterious circumstances, her parents buried her in blue, the color of hope. That was the Naboo tradition and as a former Queen and Senator she would have a state funeral, so it was the proper thing to do. Jobal and Ruwee looked down at their daughter’s still face and wept and told each other, desperately, that at least she was now at peace.

Sola wore that same mask of serene grief throughout the funeral, but in her heart she raged. No, she thought. She’s not at peace. Padmé was never at peace. She loved the ideal of democracy even though she knew it only existed in a flawed, imperfect system, and she spent her life angry and fighting, and that’s what I’m going to honor. In this time, in this place, we don’t need peace. We don’t need tranquility. We need Padmé’s fire. We need her refusal to accept the safe option. We need to fight back.

Sola was not her sister. She was not a politician. But she could fight in other ways. She worked as a data technician and she could get access to Imperial information. She could pass it on.

And she and Darred could raise their daughters to hate empire and to hold onto the things they loved with their teeth and to hide rebellion behind a perfect mask of serenity.

And years later, when Senator Pooja Naberrie appears in the Imperial Senate, the name she’ll use to communicate with the Rebellion will be Kiné. Fire.

[tarragonthedragon]

I think it's cool to make people not suspect Clark Kent is Superman because of many reasons including the concept that they have WILDLY different personalities. While I can respect and appreciate the Christopher Reeves route of making Clark dopey and bumbling and kind of foolish seeming a la a mix of Columbo and Cary Grant, I'd go a different direction. I think I'd make Superman the embodiment of a nice young lad who'd never hurt a fly and never say a word worse than shucks while Clark is a cunt.