Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

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August 2017

so i just started watching the Defenders and

quousque:

it’s like Gritty Crime Noir PI + Reasonably Mature Adult Guy Just Trying to Help People + blind ninja dude, but still somehow pretty grounded in reality … and then there’s this random noodley ramen-haired white boy from the Mystical City of Super Exotic Asia-Land who absolutely cannot fathom poverty and has the most generic Revenge Motive ever put to screen

every time luke cage rolls his eyes i’m like right there with u man

Aug 26, 2017 66 notes
#defenders #GOD SAME #I SPIRITUALLY ROLL MY EYES EVERY TIME DANNY OPENS HIS MOUTH
W for the fandom meme?

From this ask meme!

W: List five favorite characters from five different fandoms

Does this mean…one character per fandom, or five characters per fandom?  I’m doing five characters per fandom.  Plus some rampant cheating.

MCU

Jessica Jones

Luke Cage

Claire Temple

Steve Rogers

Natasha Romanoff

+ Elektra Natchios as Honorable Mention since I just spent eight hours of Defenders crooning over my murder girl

Animorphs

RACHEL, A THOUSAND TIMES RACHEL

Tobias

Ax tied with Jake

Eva

…Cassie but she and I have some major ethical differences, thus the tie with Marco

+ Elfangor and Loren as Honorable Mention because I will take any opportunity to remind the whole world how much I love them

Star Wars

Rey

Finn

Poe Dameron

Leia Organa

…and all of Rogue One because I am a filthy cheater

Star Trek

JANEWAY

Jim Kirk

Nyota Uhura

Seven of Nine

Spock tied with Bones McCoy

X-Men

Rogue

Kitty Pryde

Storm (Ororo Munroe)

Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner)

Gambit (Remy LaBeau) tied with Colossus (Piotr Rasputin)

Aug 26, 2017 9 notes
#xmen #star trek #star wars #defenders #animorphs #rogue one #let's boldly go motherfuckers #ask meme #fandom asks #I CHEATED AND I DON'T CARE #LET ME WEDGE ALL OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS INTO THIS LIST #YOU'LL NOTICE I MANAGED TO HIT ALL SIX ANIMORPHS PLUS EVA AND ELFANGOR AND LOREN #ALSO: I HAVE A LOT OF EMOTIONS ABOUT ELEKTRA #IF I HAVE TO PUT UP WITH 99% OF THE INTERNET RHAPSODIZING ABOUT CRYLO REN GETTING A REDEMPTION ARC #I GET TO BE ADORING AND HOPEFUL ABOUT ELEKTRA #DON'T FUCKING QUESTION ME #ALSO YOU'LL NOTICE THAT EVERYONE ON MY XMEN LIST HAS BEEN DONE DIRTY BY THE MOVIES #well actually no kurt in xmen apocalypse is pretty good #BUT EVERYONE ELSE #Y'ALL SHOULD LISTEN TO ME BITCH ABOUT KITTY PRYDE SOMEDAY #anonymous #asked and answered

youngnoblewoman:

awed-frog:

Okay, you need to make sure you play this game at some point. Maybe not today or anything, because you’ll need about thirty minutes and a serious willingness to understand how it works, but - it’s so worth it. It’s basically an answer to our occasional frustration - why do assholes always come out on top? - and the beautiful thing about it is that not only does it explain how that happens, but also how we can change it.

“In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it’s us players who define the game.”

This is fascinating if you’re into math or sociology or computer programming or all of the above.

Aug 26, 2017 33,130 notes
#THIS IS COOL AS SHIT
“You’re in a cult, call your dad.”—Rachel to Tom, probably (via incorrectmorpherquotes)
Aug 26, 2017 11 notes
#l i t e r a l l y #tom's parents not even once: hmm perhaps our child is in a cult #like #Y'ALL #although like remind me to just WALLOW in that guilt while i'm writing the ellimist ex machina au #ellimist ex machina #animorphs

tatterdemalionamberite:

neurodiversitysci:

fierceawakening:

star-anise:

God fucking bless the “worried well” who seek psychotherapy. They can mostly keep their lives/jobs/families running, but want an increase in their mood or quality of life, and come to me for a tune-up. They talk about existential questions and childhood dreams and personal fulfillment, and worry that they’re “whining” or “taking up [my] valuable time.”

I like them for them, of course; I find their lives and worries interesting and valuable, and enjoy the work we do together. But also?

They make the more “serious” work I do possible. People with the greatest need for therapy are frequently the least able to pay for it. When one of my clients loses their job and benefits, they need therapy more, not less. And in private practice I can only afford to keep treating them for free if I have enough people on my caseload who are paying me full price. My ability to volunteer at a homeless shelter and talk to them about grief and trauma is strongly dictated by how many upper-middle-class people pay me $200 an hour to talk about optimal job performance.

And emotionally, it is an honest fucking joy sometimes to get out of a session with someone whose childhood abuse makes their entire life difficult, and spend an hour talking to one of my worried writer clients about anxiety management and creativity and nothing too deeply painful.

So if you’ve ever paid a therapist but felt self-indulgent or whiny or like your problems “weren’t serious enough”: please know you’re valuable and important. Not just for yourself (though you are), but because your presence in that therapy room makes a lot of other things possible.

i was tense because as someone who has trauma in her history but looks to a lot of people like “worried well” (to the point it took me years to be properly diagnosed with PTSD, ugh) i expected bashing from this post

THANK YOU for doing a very different thing <3

I mean, once upon a time the worried well had confession with priests, or village elders/wise old men and women, or shamans/people in touch with the spirit world to listen to them and advise them on how to lead a happier, wiser life. Now that we’re a secular society that treats shamanism etc. as superstition, and locks old people away? All the worried well have is self help books, psychotherapy, people they know in person who are probably no wiser than they are, and talking to people on Tumblr. Of all these options, psychotherapy seems the most likely to actually help. Going to psychotherapy when you’re not severely mentally ill fills an important need that society isn’t otherwise filling, so it’s not shameful to go.

Also, the boundary between “worried well” and mentally ill/traumatized can be blurry sometimes. At one point I was in therapy for severe depression. But now, with my lower grade trauma, social anxiety, excessive shame, and just Needing Someone To Talk To In Order to Deal With Emotional Stuff And Reflect in General? That’s “worried well” compared to a lot of people here on Tumblr.

A related idea (which I’ve had before) is that if you do have a serious trauma, you’re wasting your/the therapist’s time if you aren’t talking about the most traumatic thing possible every single moment of therapy. But sometimes you’re not ready to go there, and that’s okay. Sometimes, your work or family need you to focus on more minor problems, like anxiety management or writer’s block. And getting unstuck on something like that can make you feel so much better about yourself, and more capable of change in general. I would think that could only help you deal with the serious trauma.

Thank you for writing this, @star-anise.

*cheerful neurodivergent yelling* Curb-cutter effect! Curb-cutter effect!! CURB!! CUTTER!! EFFECT!!

Also, I want to point out that someone might objectively be the “worried well” but still be in distress, and as was so astutely stated above, those people need somewhere to go to ease that distress.  And therapists offer that.

Aug 26, 2017 9,702 notes
#thank you very much for this post #i look 'worried well' and most of the time i qualify #i've had a lot of years locked in this flesh prison and i'm a professional at managing its antics by now #but honestly last year i spent an entire year in counseling for my therapist to get to the point where she just said #'has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don't need to work on being more comfortable around men' #and like tbqh no one had ever suggested that to me before #just straight up 'maybe you're not paranoid; maybe you're right' #'maybe your level of caution and stress is healthy and reasonable given your experience' #'that's what experience is for' #it was kind of a shock but yeah no i needed to get to that point
Aug 26, 2017 2,650 notes
#jessica jones #is the buffest thing i've ever seen and i'd let her break my arm #defenders #i love how much of a running thing it is for danny and luke and matt to just #watch in awe while jessica #you know #catches falling elevators #i almost screamed i was so pleased with that

helookslikeafriend:

i love that Baze’s cynicism is totally divorced from negativity

he’s like god is dead so we all gotta be extra good to each other y’hear?

Aug 26, 2017 752 notes
#SAME #baze malbus #rogue one #star wars

lyricdissonance:

the tv in the caf today was talking about james cameron dissing wonder woman and one of the freshman girls behind me in line asked her friend with 100% sincerity “who’s james cameron?” and it’s already the best thing i’ve heard all day

Aug 26, 2017 1,233 notes
#god bless #good job
What about... T and U? (for the fandom meme)

From this ask meme!

T: What are your favorite M/M or F/F ships?

Um…Enjolras/Grantaire from Les Mis, Baze Malbus/Chirrut Imwe from Rogue One, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught from Wynonna Earp, Hamilton/Laurens from Hamilton and also HISTORY, Legolas/Gimli from LotR, and Aziraphale/Crowley from Good Omens, probably.  Those are the ones that come to mind.  Oh, and of late Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin from The Man From UNCLE.  And Breq/Seivarden(/Mercy of Kalr) from Ancillary Justice.

U: What are your favorite M/F ships?

Rachel/Tobias and Elfangor/Loren from Animorphs, Jareth/Sarah from Labyrinth, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff from Avengers, Raleigh Becket/Mako Mori from Pacific Rim, Aerin/Tor and Aerin/Luthe and Harry/Corlath from the Damar series, Jame/Torisen from the Kencyrath series, and any arrangement of Rey/Finn/Poe Dameron from Star Wars.  I’m also currently watching B99 and feeling a great deal of affection for Amy Santiago/Jake Peralta. 

Aug 26, 2017 4 notes
#ask meme #fandom asks #THERE IS NO WAY I'M TAGGING ANY OF THESE #THERE ARE TOO MANY #I COULD EASILY COME UP WITH MORE #SO I JUST #HERE #TAKE THIS LIST #IT'S A MESS #anonymous #asked and answered

littlestartopaz:

siriuslyymoonyy:

littlelions101:

adramofpoison:

dondaario:

so if in the soulmate au the very first words your soulmate ever says to you are tattooed somewhere on your body since the day you are born imagine having something like ‘man I cant believe dumbledore died’ tattooed on you. imagine being spoiled for a book series that doesnt even exist yet. imagine worrying about this dumbledore guy your whole childhood while not knowing who he is. imagine knowing dumbledore dies before jk rowling even thinks about it.

Everybody go home, this is my favorite soulmate au

So you finally find your soulmate. After years of knowing that dumbledore dies and the entire franchise being ruined, you find him. You’re in the theatre, dumbledore is dead and you hear it. ‘Man I can’t believe dumbledore died’ by a guy walking right by you and in you’re rage you shout ‘You! You’re the one!’ The guy stops, looks at you, his own arm to read the words, then back at you and he says, “That’s not really how I imagined that being said”

It got better

@words-writ-in-starlight

you’ve probably seen this already, but still funny.

Aug 26, 2017 391,156 notes
#this is still so fucking funny to me
D For the fandom meme?

From this ask meme!

D: What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?

Pretty sure the first thing I ever actually contributed was THIS Scarlet Witch/Vision post-Civil War fic, which is entirely fluff originating in a conversation I had with my best friend about the lack of fic for the two of them and the fact that no one had written a mid-air kiss for these two FLYING SUPERHEROES.

An excerpt:

Vision’s hand reached out, hovering just over her shoulder.  “Are you having nightmares again?”

“Nothing shocking,” she said.  “The same.”  The wreckage of her house, her brother’s body.  Strucker’s failed experiments.  Straitjackets inside cages inside prisons.  The Avengers, twisted and shattered in red light.  “Some new.”  Men without limbs, and sinking into the sea, and Vision, turning his clear cold eyes and terrible power toward her.

Vision lingered for a moment, then lowered his hand so that his palm was up, an invitation.  “Come with me.  Just for a little while.  I promise to bring you back.”

I love this ship, y’all.

Aug 26, 2017 1 note
#scarlet vision #wanda maximoff #the vision #ask meme #fandom asks #otp: distracted #wanda goddamn maximoff #i'm still pretty proud of that fic actually #it's nonsense and fluff but it's GOOD nonsense and fluff #i do invite you to read it if you're interested in that #anonymous #asked and answered
When I was younger, I only read to book 13 of Animorphs before my mom told me that I should read more mature books and my school library didn't have past book 13 so I stopped but I found your blog and book overviews and now I'm reading it again and what the fuck. This is not for children, I mean, it is, but it's not. And I love all my children so much and I completely adore your Animorphs tag. I don't have time to read during the school year, so I'm trying to get as many books in

over the summer as I can, and I am just now caught up on #13, but I just wanted to say I love your blog and your thoughts on Animorphs so thanks so much. <3

Honestly bless?  I love this comment so much, I hope you don’t mind me publishing it so that I can keep it forever?  I’ve enjoyed watching you go through my Animorphs tag so much, tbqh, and I’m frankly honored to have dragged so many people into this series with me.  And you’re so right, these books are not for children, but they’re for kids, but also I would never be allowed to give them to a child.  (I would give them to a child, let’s be honest, I’m a mess of a child tender.  But those of my friends who would be the kid’s parents would probably stop me.)  

If you’re in the market for other Animorphs folks, my one-stop-shop is @chromatographic as well as @derinthemadscientist, also @incorrectmorpherquotes is fucking hilarious, trolling Chroma and Derin’s stuff can point you to other people (I say as I use familiar nicknames like I’ve ever exchanged more than a couple words with them I’m so sorry y’all).

Please feel free to always always come talk to me about Animorphs more at all times.  ESPECIALLY my sad bird boy.

Aug 26, 2017 9 notes
#animorphs #other people reading animorphs #YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO I HAVE DRAGGED INTO THIS #AND HONESTLY I'VE NEVER BEEN SO PROUD OF MYSELF #I'M WATCHING ONE PERSON READ THEM IN REAL TIME OVER ANON #IT'S GREAT #ACTUALLY SINCE THIS ASK WILL BE QUEUED YOU WILL HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED TO THAT WHOLE CHAT #BY THE TIME THIS GETS SPAT OUT AND PUBLISHED #oh wow am i an animorphs person now #my goal in life is to be an animorphs person tbh #oh also new friend i write fic but soME OF IT HAS SPOILERS #also do you have the ebooks? #if not hit me up and I'll get you all the books for free on whatever platform you desire #... #*opens trench coat* #*drug dealer voice* i got a special order of chronicles in just yesterday #you wanna cry about andalites or marco's mom or hork bajir? #NO SERIOUSLY IT'S LEGAL #to the best of my knowledge #um...moving on #idiot teenagers with a queue #diannaofthemyscira #asked and answered
ANDALITE. AND-A-LIGHT WOULD BE GREAT!!!!!!!! HILARIOUS. TOP QUALITY. I LOVE IT.

AND A LIGHT.  LISTEN I WENT ALMOST TEN YEARS WITHOUG READING THESE BOOKS (long story) AND WHEN I REREAD BOOK 12 I LOOKED AT THE COVER AND THE FIRST THING THAT POPPED INTO MY HEAD WAS “CASSIE I’M SO PROUD OF YOU YOU’RE SO GOOD” LIKE LISTEN THAT LINE STUCK WITH ME COMPLETELY INTACT AND WORD PERFECT FOR A D E C A D E.

Also, if anyone wants to hear my headcanons about ADHD Rachel hit me U P.

Aug 26, 2017 3 notes
#rachel berenson #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #cassie #FUCKING BRILLIANT I LOVE HER SO MUCH #LIKE #THAT'S THE GREATEST FUCKING LINE I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE #I'M SO PROUD OF CASSIE SHE'S MY G I R L #and listen i'm very serious about adhd rachel #i've seen a few 'neuro-weird animorphs' posts where she has bpd or whatever but #seriously #takes one to know one and THAT girl has adhd #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered
D, for Star Wars!

For this list of fandom questions!

D: What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?

I’m pretty sure it was this fluffy Rey/Poe/Finn fic, featuring the three of them on a forest planet, cute shy pre-relationship flirting, BB-8, and flower crowns.  And Rey attempting to eat the foliage.

Here is an excerpt:

Finn’s teeth flashed in a grin as he laced his fingers through Poe’s–Poe stomped down on a blush, he was a grown-ass man, he was not going to turn into a kriffing Academy kid over a pair of pretty young things.  Even if they were as pretty as Rey and Finn.  Finn didn’t seem to notice his moment of internal struggle, pulling him after Rey and BB-8 with a laugh.

The trees gave way to low growth, shrubs and wildflowers and grasses, near the lakeside.  Rey nearly shrieked in delight at the discovery of a patch of flowers in a shade of brilliant red, dotted here and there with the tiny light blue blooms that practically infested this system.

“They come in colors!” she cried, and Poe made a mental note to get Rey out more.  This was their first free day since Finn regained full function and Rey brought back a very reluctant Jedi master, but he could probably trade some favors to get her a few flowers to keep on the base.

If you require an antidote to the sheer density of fluff in the above fic, I also wrote this one.

Aug 25, 2017 4 notes
#star wars #the force awakens #the damerons #jedistormpilot #tfa #ask meme #fandom asks #THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK #IT WAS VERY SOOTHING TO GO THROUGH MY OLD STAR WARS CONTENT #PLEASE @FOLLOWERS ASK ME MORE OF THESE QUESTIONS #i'm going to get out of the mcat and cry for like seven hours #but i don't have time to cry right now so please help me procrastinate my anxiety attack #by asking me these questions #abrightshiningstar #asked and answered

the-frog-brothers:

Jessica: *enters the room noticeably disheveled* Sorry I’m late, I was doing stuff.

Matt: *enters the room, also disheleved* SHE PUSHED ME DOWN THE FUCKING STAIRS

Aug 25, 2017 4,716 notes
#FUCKING ACCURATE #defenders #daredevil #jessica jones
Aug 25, 2017 53,080 notes
#hey nicole i think you'll like this
Fandom-Related Questions
  • A: Your current OTP.
  • B: A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind.
  • C: A pairing you wish you shipped, but just can't.
  • D: What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?
  • E: Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what?
  • F: What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? What fandom was it?
  • G: What was your first fandom?
  • H: Do you prefer real-life TV shows or animated TV shows?
  • I: Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?
  • J: Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr.
  • K: How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom(s).
  • L: Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for?
  • M: A person who got you into a fandom and what fandom they pulled you in to.
  • N: Your favorite fandom (for the people; not the thing you fangirl over).
  • O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of?
  • P: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).
  • Q: A ship you’ve abandoned and why.
  • R: A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships.
  • S: What's a headcanon you have?
  • T: What are your favorite male/male ships or female/female ships?
  • U: What are your favorite male/female ships?
  • V: Do you have any 3-way ships? If so, what?
  • W: 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms.
  • X: 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms.
  • Y: A fandom you’re in but have no ships from.
  • Z: What's a ship that you want to ship publicly, but everyone on tumblr hates it so you keep your mouth shut about it?
Aug 25, 2017 116,173 notes
#ask meme #i'm reblogging this from myself because i'm anxious and exhausted and burst into tears over a discovery channel ad from when i was a kid #please give me something else to think about #something other than my inevitable doom re: the mcat #reminder #if your question is fandom specific and you don't specify a fandom i will default to animorphs #or possibly labyrinth #or maybe xmen #or whatever other formative Core Fandom seems applicable #fandom asks
Play
Aug 25, 2017 231,134 notes
#i love this so much #i'm so stressed out and exhausted from mcat studying that watching this legit made me burst into tears #mandatory reblog #god i never cry how do i fucking stop #i can't wait until this test is over #like i just know i'm gonna fail it but at least it'll be over #what do i even do if i fail this test #i've not had real dreams about what to do with my life in so long #i have no idea how to replace this goal with another one #IGNORE ME IGNORE ME I'M SO SERIOUS PLEASE DO NOT DISCUSS THIS WITH ME #I AM VERY NARROWLY MAINTAINING THROUGH THIS AND HONESTLY IF SOMEONE BRINGS IT UP #I'M JUST GOING TO NEVER STOP CRYING AND GIVE UP ON EVERYTHING

hellenhighwater:

hellenhighwater:

so I’m in that finals week punch-drunk sweet spot where sleep deprivation, caffeine, and first-final-went-well all combine into a mind-altering state not unlike being high. I’m still functional enough to study, but whatever part of my brain that makes metaphors is definitely on the fritz. This morning I was trying to describe the 20-minute nap I got at the end of my pre-final all nighter, and the sentence I uttered was:

“I basically spiked my gray matter off the far side of a REM cycle, which was just enough to let the pathetic mass of neurons left behind after the caffeine brain blender get all the juicy law nuggets into some kind of order.”

To which my horrified classmate responded: “What.”

So in the interests of procrastinating on studying for a few minutes and entertaining internet strangers, here’s a few of the metaphors/similes/analogies/weird crap that has come out of my mouth in the last week. Not even I know what I meant with some of these.  Please be merciful in your judging; I am so tired.

  • describing how pale I’ve gotten while living in a study room: “when i go makeup shopping i just go the palest end of the spectrum, past ‘ivory’ to ‘copy paper’ and then i grab the jar of mayonnaise next to that, because that’s how white i am right now.”
  • “ive become a half-reverse-vampire; i love garlic and i won’t come in your house if you invite me, but i still flee from sunlight and smell like death.”
  • “im ADHD as fuck dude. my brain is like seventeen squirrels on crack. if i can get them all pointed in one direction and focused on one thing, im basically unstoppable, but as soon as i get distracted, it’s a full on clown party in there.”
  • “as a general rule, i try not to consume any food item larger than my head, but given the current size of my ego and the amount of nonsensical court rules i’ve stuffed in there recently, im pretty sure my head’s twice the size it used to be. so we should probably order at least two more pizzas.”

things I just said:

“im like a raccoon when it comes to shiny new office supplies. i just have this unsuppressible urge to steal them in hopes that somehow they will imbue me with their motivational powers and i will become a more efficient person by consuming their tiny paperclip souls.”

regarding energy drinks: “it used to be that if you were in law school you would just get addicted to cocaine, but now all we have are these. i figure if i drink enough of them my heart’ll just pop like a balloon animal and i wont have to sit the final.”

Aug 25, 2017 283 notes
#LAUGH RULE #I'M SCREAMING #I READ ALL OF THESE OUT LOUD BECAUSE THEY'RE SO GOOD #I LOVE EPIC TALES #honestly med students and law students should get together in the post-final haze and just lie on the floor in a pile of exhausted misery

akamine-chan:

aristoteliancomplacency:

oodlenoodleroodle:

transkrem:

Like, people who identify as Queer know the word is used like a slur. Trust me, we know.

So when we say “queer is a slur” was started by terfs, maybe use some critical thinking and try to understand what we mean. That is, if you actually care about queer people and the damage terfs do, rather that just screaming “queer is a slur!” and ignoring the actual point.

Terfs did not like that queer was reclaimed. End of. This is a fact. Queer was too broad, too accepting, and embraced all the people they wanted gone. And I know y'all exclusionists feel the same but get pissed when we point it out so you deny it, but sit down and listen for a minute.

Queer was the preferred term for poc. For bisexuals. For trans people. For people with multiple identities. It neatly encapsulated everything, and was a friendly community to those who felt thrown under the bus by mainstream LGBT activism. It was a political and social statement, “you treated my like I was different and weird, and guess what? I am and that’s something to be proud of.”

So the response? “You can’t use that word. Its bad. Its a slur.”

And at the time, a lot of people rolled their eyes. Everyone knew why they didn’t like the word and brushed that off. It was fine.

So they started more subtly. “Just so you know this word is very harmful and is a slur so be careful how you use it :))) in case you didn’t know :)))) its a slur :))) friendly reminder :))) for the sake of other people of course :))))” type shit on every post involving the word, including and especially posts simply mentioning self identification.

Always worded in friendly, concerned ways, like the derailment was meant to be nice and considerate, and not about normalizing their rhetoric.

And what happened because of that was a younger generation of community kids growing up with these statements being thrown at them and absorbed on every. Single. Post. That. Mentionioned. Queer.

The result? That same generation of kids cutting it all short, removing the meant-to-be-palatable niceness, to just say “queer is a slur.”

Exactly how it was originally intended. “Queer is a slur.” People drop on posts where young queer people talk about it being a self identifier that actually fits them. “Its a slur,” they comment, with nothing else, on posts they clearly didn’t read past that word, written by people twice their age who had reclaimed it before they were even born.

Its nasty. Its disgusting. It’s plain old bigotry, whether the people saying know it or not. It is a terf tactic, plain and simple.

And no one wants to deny that it is indeed used as a slur (right along with all the rest of our identities.) No one wants to be insensitive and force it on people who haven’t reclaimed it.

But invading queer people’s posts to spit “queer is a slur” is flat out queerphobic. You do the dirty work of terfs, of cis straight oppressors, by saying in one simple sentence: “its a dirty word, there is no pride in it, you haven’t/can’t reclaim(ed) it.”

And regardless of your actual intentions, when you do this, that is EXACTLY what you are communicating and doing.

“Queer is a slur” is a terf movement. Stop fucking supporting terfs just because you want to pretend like it isn’t.

This is why I block people who say ‘Queer is a slur.’ 

You quack like a terf, I block you like a terf. 

This thing was so weird to me when I first encountered it on tumblr, because like… in academia

queer studies

 is a thing. Queer Theory is a thing. If I search my Uni’s library for ‘queer’ I get 138,481 results. Here are some of them: 

  • Queer in Europe : contemporary case studies / edited by Lisa Downing and Robert Gillett.
  • Queer Phenomenology, Sexual Orientation, and Health Care Spaces: Learning From the Narratives of Queer Women and Nurses in Primary Health Care, / Cressida Heyes, Megan Dean, Lisa Goldberg.
  • Playing With Time: Gay Intergenerational Performance Work and the Productive Possibilities of Queer Temporalities / Stephen Farrier
  • Postcolonial and queer theories : intersections and essays / edited by John C. Hawley.
  • Queer Dickens : erotics, families, masculinities / Holly Furneaux.
  • Showing Your Pride: A National Survey of Queer Student Centres in Canadian Colleges and Universities / John Ecker, Jennifer Rae, Amandeep Bassi
  • Mad for Foucault : rethinking the foundations of queer theory / Lynne Huffer.

Do those look like queerphobic texts? And do you think that most of the writers writing about queer theory are straight? Lols. If you don’t want to be personally be called queer, that’s cool. You don’t get to stop other people using the word though. It’s ours now and we’re keeping it.

Did I reblog this already? If I did, doesn’t hurt to blog it again.

I usually unfollow people who use the tag (or the equilivant) q-slur.

Because fuck you, I’m queer. Have been since like 1986.

Aug 25, 2017 27,222 notes
#queer as in fuck you
Moran Rereads the Animorphs, Part 10

Book 10: The Android

AKA “Dogs are literally too good for this world, the first main character dies for a bit, and we learn about the motherfucking Chee”

Keep reading

Aug 25, 2017 31 notes
#animorphs #the chee #the great animorphs reread #the android #book 10 #I WILL NOT BE MOVED ON THIS #FIGHT ME #seriously the chee could do plenty of things that don't include homicide #also how do their 'injury' calculators even work #like #okay #they can't kill stuff #FINE #bring information #hack the yeerks #BUT DOES THAT COUNT AS HARMING THE YEERKS BY ENABLING THE ANIMORPHS TO FIGHT THEM? #IF YES: DOESN'T REFUSING TO TAKE THOSE ACTIONS COUNT AS HARMING EVERYONE THE YEERKS INJURE? #SHOULDN'T THE CHEE SUFFER A LOGIC SHORT BECAUSE OF THIS? #IF NOT THEN WHY AREN'T THEY CHANNELING HUGE AMOUNTS OF INFORMATION TO THE ANIMORPHS #G O D #ARE THEY EVEN ABLE TO DO MEDICINE OR DOES DOING STITCHES COUNT AS 'DOING HARM'? #i'm so fucking annoyed with them #on a watsonian level #i understand the doylist reasons but i'm fucking furious #idiot teenagers with a queue
Aug 25, 2017 313,685 notes
#history according to Tumblr

slyrider:

when-it-rains-it-snows:

ultralaser:

some asshole all ‘captain america would beat up wonder woman’, as if he would ever, ever look at her any way but this

They are the Hold My Beer twins, they would fight people together, come the fuck on

@words-writ-in-starlight

Aug 25, 2017 6,212 notes
#supremely accurate #wonder woman #steve rogers #the fucking justice otp
Marco and the Terrible, Horrible. No Good, Very Bad Haircut™

Okay, I recommend the absolute hell out of Morph Club Cast, an Animorphs reread podcast, and in the episode for Book 10 I think they count a total of six mentions of Marco’s new haircut?  Eight?  Not sure.  A lot.

So basically… all puppers are Chee’s right?

…so…at some point all puppers were part Pemalite but also evolution exists and maybe not anymore but on the other hand the puppers respond intelligently to the Pemalite crystal but…only sort of?  Maybe?  But yes.

I realize that I just gave every answer possible to that question, but also.  Just roll with it.

I… don’t know how to feel about the Chee book. Just. Huh. Huh.

Same?  Same tbh?  It’s a weird book?  Like, Marco has some Bad Times, but ultimately it doesn’t seem to click as well as, say, the previous book, in which Cassie had Bad Times and the day was saved by bureaucracy and skunks?  Also, you just reminded me that I should post my recap of this book so that I can vent my Potentially Controversial Opinions about the Chee.  Look forward to that being the next thing in the queue.

(preview: WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK PLEASE HELP THESE SIX TRAUMATIZED TEENAGERS INSTEAD OF JUST BEING PROBLEM GENERATORS)

Aug 25, 2017 5 notes
#animorphs #other people reading animorphs #the chee #i have complicated feelings about the chee but mostly i'm annoyed with them #EVEN IF YOU'RE GOING TO STAND BY YOUR PACIFISM WHILE THE ANIMORPHS ALMOST DIE A LOT #YOU COULD #IDK #GIVE THEM A LIST OF KNOWN CONTROLLERS WHILE YOU SPY ON THE YEERK POOL #JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD #THAT WOULD BE LIFE-CHANGING FOR THE KIDS #I UNDERSTAND ON A DOYLIST LEVEL WHY THE CHEE DON'T DO THAT #BUT ON A WATSONIAN LEVEL I H A T E I T #I JUST WANT THESE KIDS TO HAVE EVEN /SLIGHTLY/ EASIER TIMES #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered
Aug 24, 2017 2 notes
#handwriting meme #ask meme #SORT OF #idk y'all it's been a long couple of hours #let's see if the picture will ever upload #fucking mobile #well the picture uploaded #my handwriting is a mess i'm sorry #i hate it #i'm very tired of family drama if i had known there was going to be family conflagrations i would have politely excused myself from life #like 'no sir i'll pass what if that solar eclipse really did kill all our tech for a couple days' #except then i would be bored? #i don't know #i feel like the only solution here is for my grandfather and both grandmothers to die untimely deaths #but murder is frowned upon in most societies so #things will be what they will be i guess #whatever the fuck that french saying is #i can't spell french for shit
Aug 24, 2017 995 notes
#FORGOT THIS IN MY DRAFTS FOR A MILLION YEARS #wonder woman #otp: when there are no wars to fight #steve trevor #winter soldier steve trevor #MY JAM

beirut:

beirut:

Having ADHD is hard because 

this post has been in my drafts for like 5 months and I still don’t know what I was going to say

Aug 24, 2017 11,615 notes
#adventures in adhd #no see this is what the post was destined for
You've read Sansûkh, right?? because that's like, the pinnacle of the A+++ dwarf worldbuilding and love

In fact, I have.

And it is a world-changing experience.

Aug 24, 2017 3 notes
#sansukh #I AM LIVING A POST SANSUKH LIFE RIGHT NOW #THE MIGHTY SANSUKH FIC REC #lotr #dwarves #anonymous #asked and answered

fozmeadows:

roachpatrol:

jumpingjacktrash:

mikalhvi:

jumpingjacktrash:

the-real-seebs:

amakthel:

thesocialjusticecourier:

thej-key:

arjan-de-lumens:

argumate:

corpus-vak:

vessel-haver:

thefutureoneandall:

argumate:

marcusseldon:

(note: I have no romantic or sexualized experience myself, so I admit *some* of these points rely entirely on secondhand stuff and media)

One thing I think is not talked about very much is that straight men live pretty much desexualized lives if we’re not actually having sex at that moment, and then there’s not much room to be the object rather than subject.

As I’ve said before, we men don’t have clothing options for “dressing sexy” in masculine clothing (there is cross dressing but that is different). There’s no male equivalent to the short skirt or low cut top. There’s no male lingerie that isn’t seen as a joke.

Further, we just don’t get validation for our sexuality outside of a sexual partner. We are almost never complimented for our looks or sexiness from platonic friends like women are, especially same sex friends.

There really aren’t many straight male role models for raw aesthetic sexiness in mainstream culture (besides unnaturally muscled men). In fiction, male characters are almost never attractive for embodying sexiness but rather for doing things (saving the world, being extremely witty, being a genius, winning the tournament, etc.). Their sexiness is non-aesthetic and sometimes is in spite of their aesthetics.

Anecdotally, it seems like a lot of men aren’t even called physically hot and sexy by their own sexual partners, who themselves focus on personality. There’s not much room to fulfill the role of passive sexism object for you partner for many/most men.

I think it is telling that a lot of porn for men ignores the man’s personality and has a woman just throwing themselves at the man, overcome with lust.

Also there the fact that women seem to rarely approach men and some seem to often expect the man to do most of the sexual escalation, especially in the early stages.

We talk about women of color or women who are disabled being sexualized, but we don’t talk about how all straight men are desexualized and denied the ability to be sexualized object.

oh my god… that’s why they send dick pics

“witness me!”

There are occasional reddit threads about things like this: “guys who send unsolicited dick pics, why do you do it?”

The answer always seems to be some combination of slot machine mentality (“maybe this one will like it, and make the other 50 worthwhile”) and a desire for witness. Surprising numbers of people admit that it’s validation even if the reaction is negative, simply because they’re still being viewed in a totally sexual context.

At the very least that has obvious consequences for people trying to reduce dick pic sending. There’s some core of people who can’t possibly be reached with “it’s not attractive to women” because that was never their expectation.

More broadly, I think efforts to get (Western?) men to emphasize with objectification wildly underestimate the challenge they’re facing. It’s not just a sympathy shortage, it’s a totally unfamiliar feeling. Making things even harder, it’s a feeling a lot of men say they wish they could have.

The usual narrative on not (politely) complimenting the appearance of unknown women is “sure, it’s nice if it happens once, but think about how annoyed you’d be if it happened all the time”. Fine in general terms, but I think a lot of men don’t have any way to intuit the emotional difference between too-frequent compliments and being pestered with too much of something totally innocuous like requests for the date.

The comments on those articles are frequently from men saying they’ve literally never received a single compliment from a stranger on their appearance, and can’t imagine what it would be like. The ones who have are often talking about a single, years-old compliment they still cherish. That’s not a framework that supports more than a purely theoretical understanding of what’s it’s like to be valued for your appearance too heavily - or at all.

Obviously that’s not universal, any more than all women are catcalled, but it seems like a really serious communication failure to appeal to a sense of objectification that much of your audience has literally never felt, and desperately wants.

Reblogged because thefutureoneandall describes exactly why I have trouble empathizing with feminism columnists.

Can confirm, I’d take literally any compliment on anything at this point, and would cherish it.

one day we gotta get all the men and all the women to sit down together and hash this stuff out between them, how hard can it be.

This discussion kind of reminds me of a story that made the rounds about a year ago, where a woman, after having gotten a bit tired with dick pics, decided to try to get her “revenge” of sorts, by sending unsolicited vagina pics to 40 random men:

https://www.thrillist.com/sex-dating/los-angeles/we-sent-a-preemptive-v-pic-before-dudes-could-send-dick-pics-heres-what-happened

Let’s be honest: while I enjoy penises, I don’t necessarily want unexpected visual boners intruding on my day. I wondered, “What would guys do if I turned the tables and sent them an unexpected vagina pic?” And so, in my own twist on revenge porn, I sent 40 unexpected vagina pics to men on Bumble.

This … didn’t work out the way she apparently expected it to:

Overall, I was surprised that I didn’t get my, “Gotcha!” moment. I’d initially hoped the guys would see how invasive it is to receive such intimate photos from a stranger. When I’m excited to get to know a guy, his penis isn’t the first part of him that I want to know. But given that men like to send dick pics, I suppose their enthusiasm for v-pics makes sense.

So, basically, women experience dick picks as a net negative, as an intimacy violation, while men experience v-pics as a huge positive, as validation and an indicator of interest.

This seems consistent with the above discussion, where it’s a pretty common male experience to basically never receive any sexual attention ever and thus respond really strongly positively to whatever scraps come their way (or to start trolling for attention - with the point of some of these dick pics apparently being to get any attention at all, no matter how hostile), while a common female experience seems to be more like being flooded with unwanted sexual attention and wanting a way to make it stop -

resulting in an absolutely massive inferential gap - with the result that if you’re on one side of the gap and try to describe your feelings and experiences to the people on the other side, whatever words you have will just fall on deaf ears because the feeling and experiences you describe are … not just unfamiliar, but outright alien, to the ones on the other side.

This alienness is … mutual.

For men, it feels like no men are sexy to women.

For women, it feels like all women are sexy to men.

It’s like one person dying of dehydration watching another one drown.

“It’s like one person dying of dehydration watching another one drown.”

the conversation has gotten longer, so i’m reblogging

… This is so cool. It actually makes sense.

but of course women are wary of just giving men compliments, because attention-starved men are likely to take it as a come-on. what a dilemma.

So what I’m getting from this…
Is that my idea of taking popular types of fiction and essentially ‘flipping the script’ so that there are sexy male characters as ‘damsel in distress’ types would actually be very good and help a lot of people become comfortable with their sexuality?

it could well! i’m not the guy to answer this really, i’m queer and also i’ve always been pretty comfortable with being the one giving the compliments (and just asking for validation when i need it). but i do think there’s a place in the world for fiction where The Sexy One is male.

consider chris hemsworth in ghostbusters. that one’s a bit mean-spirited, with him being hilariously clueless, but you’ve got that dynamic where what he contributes is, he’s hot. that’s it. and i found it kind of a breath of fresh air, not because it was a fuck-you to sexist tropes, but because it’s never, ever enough for a guy to be attractive, but here it was, and that was fun to see.

i once thoughtlessly complimented a guy on his jacket, because he and his friend rounded the corner and suddenly i was confronted with an extremely handsome young man in a very fashionable black leather jacket, and i blurted out ‘whoah, nice jacket, you’re looking good!’ and the look on his face was just this explosion of surprise and delight– he actually kind of missed a step. the next minute i was like shit shit SHIT what if things get weird JEEZ but he and his friend were already walking past, and his friend just started laughing. kind of this ‘whoah, cool, what the hell’ laugh, and when i glanced back they’d both kind of lit up and were elbowing each other as they walked away. i was extremely relieved to have like dodged a bullet of ‘if you let a man know you are attracted to them at close range GOD KNOWS WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN BUT IT’S GONNA BE OBNOXIOUS PROBABLY’ and then also pleased that i’d made that guy’s day. but also like. i guess now i’m realizing i probably made that guy’s decade… 

i wish it was more common to compliment people– especially guys– in a casual way. but when you live as a woman you can spend a lot more time dodging men’s attention rather than soliciting it… 

maybe male poledancing is like, the next big fad to cash in on? guys can enjoy getting hit on and girls can enjoy there being a specific space for that, that they, the girls, can leave afterwards. 

I’d honestly never considered this before; it makes a lot of sense. *internally recalculates a bunch of stuff*

Aug 24, 2017 13,245 notes
#there's a part of me that wonders if this is part of the reason straight men struggle to give compliments to their girlfriends #like #total lack of comprehension

being-childfree:

ehwellpffft:

i have a fake son.
his name is Tim and he is working on his M.S. in astrophysics at Berkeley.
he is devestatingly handsome and enjoys rock climbing and volunteers as a counselor at the local YMCA there in Berkeley, California.
i am so proud of my fake son. i have raised him up in my own head to be such an outstanding member of society.
“Tim” is only brought up when asked about by one particular woman at work that i only see on occasion. i don’t make a habit or game of lying to people, but with her, it kinda came about as follows:
Faye is one of those people who has been there/done that and will hang herself on the cross while she tells you how much worse the experience was for her. i’ve seen this woman Kanye West an 8-month pregnant girl at said girl’s own baby shower to glorify the gift she gave her as well as go into how horrible her labor was with her own children. Faye also is a braggart. her car/purse/house/ring/shoes/etc. all cost more than whatever yours did and her children are all angels.
i was forced to work with Faye for 2 days about 5 years ago. she called me Emily a few times before i finally told her my name is Amy, not Emily. she gave me a sideways glance and said, “I like Emily better”, and since then, she has always called me Emily. i let this go because to get angry with her and tell her off is to see her become dramatic and begin crying and insist she did not mean anything by it while not issuing anything close to an apology. Faye is always right, too, you know.
anyway, when she shut up long enough about herself and her fabulous offspring on the second day, she asked, “Do you have any children, Emily?”
i replied that i do not. she then launched into her daughter taking fertility drugs so that she could give her mother grandchildren someday.
that was the only question she asked me until i saw her about a year later.
“Oh, HI, Emily! How are you?!”
“Hi, Faye…how are you?”
“Wonderful, wonderful. Stephen just graduated from UT. He’s going to be the best doctor ever! How is your son, uh, Tim?”
it took me a second. Tim? son? what the hell is she talking about?!
it dawned on me what a complete narcissist she truly is. she hadn’t heard me the day she asked if i had children, because she didn’t care. she didn’t care enough to call me by my real name, so it wasn’t much of a surprise.
i couldn’t stop myself. i briefly thought about correcting her, but i decided to just go with it.
“Tim is doing so well. He was just accepted to Berkeley after his amazing thesis on planetary nebuli. We are so proud of him.”
her eyes grew big. “Oh, how nice! But, Berkeley? That’s so far from home. UT is an excellent school; surely he could’ve been accepted there?…”
i gave a small chuckle. “Oh, well, they wanted him for sure, Faye. I mean, all the letters he received, practically BEGGING him to study there. But, well, they just don’t have a sufficient astronomy department. UT is a fine school, but not for the subject that Tim is going into. Astrophysics is not something you can study just anywhere, you know.”
her eyes narrowed. “Medicine is what these young people should be going into. Astrophysics? What is that, anyway? How will it contribute to the world?”
“Gosh, I don’t really know how to explain astrophysics, Faye. It’s so mind blowing for simple minds like mine and yours. But searching for things in space that could potentially help our planet is a pretty big deal, I think.”
Faye promptly excused herself. i knew i had gotten her.
i’ve bumped into her on and off throughout the past 5 years and she always told me how her angels were saving the world, especially Stephen, and then she’d ask about Tim. and i made sure my Tim was one step above her Stephen. her face would turn crimson and she would have to abruptly leave.
i saw her as i was leaving work yesterday and she stopped me to wish me a happy Easter.
“Stephen is coming home this holiday. He’s bringing his fiance. She’s a doctor too, you know. How is Tim? Don’t tell me he’s still not graduated?…”
“Oh, Faye, don’t be silly! Astrophysics takes YEARS to graduate from. It’s not as simple as medicine. But, yes, he is close to graduating.”
“Is he coming home for Easter? I can’t imagine spending holidays without my children; how dreadful! Oh, but he’s all the way in California…it costs so much to fly here, I assume.”
I grinned. “Yes, it does. But he’s such a sweetheart, he’s flying me out there this year! Taking a break from his studies and humanitarian efforts to have his dear ol’ Mom around for Easter. I’m so lucky!”
“…yes, well, have a nice time, Emily. Happy Easter!”
“You too, Kay! Oh, I mean Faye!”
you know, like i said before, i don’t like to lie. it does seem very silly to have let this go on for so long. Tim has been a fabrication in the making for over 5 years now, he almost feels real to me.
when i see Faye, i have images of my fake son, looking so handsome in his lab coat as he’s peering into a microscope looking at dust particles from a comet. i see him jogging with his dog on the beach. i see him hiking and biking and climbing. i see him helping an elderly woman with her groceries.
it’s a true testament that if you lie, or let a lie go on for a while, it becomes a solid thing that you have to keep up with.
oddly enough, i don’t lose sleep on this lie. i don’t see her often enough to fib about this on a daily or consistent level. Faye never cared anything about me or my life until she had something to try to one-up me on. SHE is the one losing sleep on account of her Stephen not succeeding quite like my Tim. it’s amazing how this lie has eaten her alive and made me feel proud of something that doesn’t even exist…
eh well.
i’ll be boarding the fake plane to Berkeley this afternoon, to celebrate Easter with my fake son.
Mama’s soooo proud of you, Timmy!

This is legendary

Aug 24, 2017 52,792 notes
#ICONIC #i love epic tales #story time
i'm imagining the significance of the dwarves inventing a printing press. like you said, their years spent traveling without a home probably did a lot of trauma, which trickled down through the generations. to be able to tell their own stories and to see them permanently pressed with something stronger than a hand and pen, is probably really special. catch me crying in the fuckin' club thinking about this, goddam fucking line of thrain and children of Mahal.

Honestly I need a shirt that reads “Catch me crying in the fucking club about the children of Mahal” because HARD SAME.  THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

Aug 24, 2017 5 notes
#lotr #lord of the rings #dwarves #of course the dwarves invent the printing press #HARD SAME #ME AS FUCK #justangrymacaroni #asked and answered
My boy, Jake

I’M NOT EVEN GOING TO PUT THIS ON ANOTHER POST BECAUSE JUST.  YES.  JAKE IS MY BOY.  HE’S THE BEST BOY.  HE’S DOING HIS VERY BEST AND I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE JAKE BECAUSE OF THE ACTIONS HE TAKES DURING THE WAR, I DISAGREE BUT I RESPECT YOUR OPINION.  IF YOU DON’T LIKE JAKE BECAUSE YOU THINK HE’S INCOMPETENT AND/OR BORING, I INVITE YOU TO MEET ME BEHIND THE HAUNTED EX-DENNY’S AND WE CAN SETTLE THIS PROPERLY.

Aug 24, 2017 11 notes
#jake berenson #prince jake #animorphs #other people reading animorphs #I'LL FIGHT ALL OF YOU #HE'S DOING THE BEST HE CAN #HE'S A B A B Y #LITERALLY A SMALL CHILD #LEAVE HIM ALONE #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered
Aug 24, 2017 98,799 notes
Welcome to the loony bin!

Oh God, listen, they get saved by the power of skunks and bureaucracy in this one and I’m SURE it’s because KA Applegate looked at that whole…termite thing and said to herself “I should go easy on them, where can we get some humor here” and I’m not even mad.  I love her for it.

Also it occurs to me that this ask IS in the middle of several asks about Animorphs #9 but I could be wrong, in which case…thanks?

We are sure to SMELL you coming…. My boy… Look at him… Such a good one liner. An icon truly… 

Aug 24, 2017 1 note
#animorphs #other people reading animorphs #ax #aximili #HE'S DOING SO GOOD I LOVE MY BOY #book 9 #the secret #THE SECRET WAS TOMATO JUICE ALL ALONG I'M FUCKING CRYING #I LOVE IT #also hello internet please accept this offering of my shitty ms paint edit #my photoshop skills extend exactly far enough to accomplish this shitty edit #someone draw me v3 chilling in a tub of grape juice okay thank you all very much i will wait #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered

princehal9000:

ok but what if

the tolkien dwarves invented the printing press

give me that fic

I never thought about it, but, I mean…of course it’s the dwarves.  

The elves would never think of it, fading out of Middle Earth with their perfect memories entirely intact, bearing the lore of ages in their own lifetimes.  Elrond would never think to write down the story of his life, for all that it stretches back to the Silmarils’ crafting.  When they do write things down, they believe in taking the time to inscribe the words with their own hand–no one knows the hard truths of permanence and impermanence like the Firstborn, and if you are going to take the time to make something ephemeral into something lasting, you do it right.  And besides, Quenya and Sindarin and forgotten Noldorin, all are made with elaborate curling letters, intended more to be written with a brush tip or a calligrapher’s pen than printed for clarity.  A printing press would never capture the fluidity quite right.

The race of men…well, they’re still trying to recover.  The great kingdoms of the human race–hard Gondor and broken Arnor, wild Rohan and poor shattered Harad to the South–took the brunt of the Ring War hardest of all.  Even the strongest of them is left in fragments.  New rulers, damaged walls, burned cities.  Not many have time, in those first years–and it does take years–to worry about the lore that might have been lost or muddled by water and fire and falling stone, not when there are still leaderless orcs roving and people starving as they try to stretch the harvests.  By the time they do, they’re trying to piece together what they used to have.  No one thinks twice about trying to piece it together the way it was, and the way it was, was handwritten.  Someday the race of men will be great innovators, reaching toward the stars with sure hands and bright eyes.  Now, though, the race of men is enduring, is rebuilding and making alliances, trying to prevent the losses of the war from reappearing ten, twenty, a hundred years down the line.  They are doing well, at enduring–pragmatists, grim and tough and determined–but they hardly have the time for mechanical marvels that don’t aid building, speed farmwork, or otherwise smooth the path.

The hobbits persist in being stubbornly hobbitish.  Oral history is what they do, and their memories for family ties and dramatic gossip could give the oldest Eldest a run for their money.  Who’s going to bother to write down the story of the time Athella Proudfoot–no, not that one, the other one, Odo’s great-great-great aunt–drank half the tavern under the table, got up on the bar, did a jig in nothing but her bloomers, and then settled in to drink the place dry?  (And still looked fresh as a daisy, if quite a bit less sober, the next morning.)  No one, because anyone you ask knows the story of everyone who ever did anything worth knowing the story of.  What do the hobbits care for legends and lore?  They know who they are and where they come from, songs and stories and all, and there’s a certain level of strength in that.  Strength enough to walk into Mordor, strength enough to reclaim the Shire.  

The dwarves…the dwarves are a people who once had libraries, sweeping and beautifully full of knowledge.  The libraries in Khazad-dum have rotted, by now, ransacked by orcs and goblins or burned entire by Durin’s Bane.  Books and scrolls, illuminated with precious metals and expensive inks by the finest scholars, are worth nothing to a dragon, nothing but fuel for amusement, things to send sparking.  The library where Dis learned to read, where Thorin and Thrain before him learned statecraft, are nothing but ash.  The Iron Hills, Ered Luin, those places were filled by a people seeking refuge.  Few dwarrows snatched tomes as they fled Erebor.  Fewer still kept them at the ruin of Azanulbizar.  The dwarves escaped their ancestral homes with the clothes on their backs and scraps of bread baked on stones, with the pyres of the burned dwarves still smoldering behind them.

It’s a survivor of that flight who scratches down the first idle plans.  She remembers seeing Dain Ironfoot, barely more than a child–but then he seemed such a grown-up to her, at the time, when she was still a beardless babe only just walking–bloodied and limping on a crutch as he stood up to claim the leadership his father had left in his wake.  Dain and Thorin, young dwarrows still, but already old with the weight of the world.  She remembers that better than the dragon, better than the battle.  Her mother died in Ered Luin, but not before writing a poem for the burned ones, a poem for the two dwarves who had surrendered their own youth for the sake of their people.  She can’t stand the idea of her mother’s poem being lost, the way so many things were lost in flight after flight.

That dwarrowdam dies, an old dwarf in her bed with her loved ones around her, and it’s her best friend’s daughter who comes across the plans, many years later.  Yes, she thinks, looking at the levers, at the vague notes about possible lettering methods, yes, that could work.  

It doesn’t work, at first.  It doesn’t work a lot, really, but the dwarves are a stoneheaded bunch and not in a rush to be put off by a few petty failings.  Or by a total collapse of the base mechanics, the first time she tries to pull the lever.  The dwarrowdam unearths herself from a pile of metal and gears and wood, with the help of a few other folks who heard the complicated crash and weary cursing, and starts again. 

It takes most of two years and a lot of brainstorming–first with her friends, then with her guild, then with any poor fool careless enough to wander into her workshop–but the scribe-machine works.  She shrieks and bursts into tears when the first page comes out crisp and clean and beautiful, and sprints into the great hall waving it triumphantly over her head.

The paper says, in kuzdh runes, plain and clear, We are Mahal’s children, and we are yet unbroken.

Aug 24, 2017 417 notes
#lotr #lord of the rings #moran writes stuff #dwarves #LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY FEELINGS ABOUT DWARVES #THEY ARE INFINITE AND LEGION AND I LOVE THEM #but yeah no inventing the printing press was a mess in our world so i'm assuming it would be a mess in theirs #also catch me with my fixation on dwarves as a wandering people #every once in a while i am Strongly Reminded of my jewish upbringing and dwarves are One Of Those Times #wow let me tell you about my feelings about thorin as a flawed and shattered moses #listen i'm so so sorry to hijack your post it's just super 1 am and i was OVERCOME with the brilliance of your statement #LIKE #YES #OF COURSE THE DWARVES INVENT THE PRINTING PRESS #A) RUNES WOULD BE SO MUCH EASIER TO PRINT THAN ELVISH LETTERS #AND B) THE DWARVES HAVE LOST THEIR RECORDS AGAIN AND AGAIN TO FIRE AND DEATH #WHEN ALL YOUR RECORDS ARE HAND-SCRIBED LOSING THEM IS A CATASTROPHE #THE PRINTING PRESS SOLVES THAT PROBLEM BECAUSE YOU CAN EASILY MAKE MULTIPLE COPIES #OF C O U R S E A RACE THAT HAS BEEN EVICTED FROM HOME AFTER HOME AND ESCAPED WITH THE CLOTHES ON THEIR BACKS WOULD THINK OF THIS #OBVIOUSLY #I CAN'T BELIEVE I'VE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS BEFORE #I AM SO SORRY TO STORM ONTO YOUR POST WITH MY FEELINGS(TM) BUT LIKE #THERE THEY ARE #IT'S NOT A PROPER FIC BUT I COULD NOT CONTROL MYSELF
Aug 23, 2017 14,700 notes
#...i just #i gotta #animorphs
Aug 23, 2017 278,381 notes
#codes and ciphers

brainstatic:

The prosecutor who subpoenaed and cross-examined Hitler in 1931 for a murder trial against four brownshirts was a Jewish lawyer named Hans Litten. The three-hour testimony left Hitler so unnerved and humiliated that he forbade anyone speak Litten’s name in his presence, and he was killed in a concentration camp. Today, the German bar association is called the Hans Litten Association, and every year they give out the Hans Litten Award for excellence in the legal profession. That’s how you commemorate history. 

Aug 23, 2017 47,093 notes
#um #history according to tumblr #props to germany for Knowing How To Do It #america could stand to take lessons #we could DESPERATELY stand to take lessons #you know in the midst of this whole fracas about confederate statues #i've been wondering why there aren't more statues of harriet tubman and her people #of the underground railroad commemorating people who lied and fought and died for the freedom of others #i was fascinated by harriet tubman as a kid and every time i see facts about her that old fascination rears its head #like #that's a soul worth commemorating #okay you want to commemorate people who died in the civil war #let's have a statue like the one i saw in boston recently of a black man with a broken chain around his wrists #i think it was commemorating a historic legal ruling about escaped slaves in the north #shit i should have written it down or taken a picture or something it was an amazing statue
Aug 23, 2017 50,492 notes
#100 nazi scalps #do not go fucking gentle #slow clap it out for chicago florists
re millennial killing stuff post: so at my second job I edited a dissertation on how young consumers are changing luxury brands, like they won't just buy the same identical handbag bc "oh it's $designer!" like they'd rather spend that money on an experience etc, so brands have had to COMPLETELY change how they approach the new generation - I mentioned this to an older friend cause I thought it was neat & she went "yeah it's weird how young people expect companies to bend over backwards for them"

THIS EXACTLY

My (much older) co worker was talking recently about how she wants the new $300 whatever designer bag, and I was talking about how me and the husband might set $300 aside to go up to House on the Rock for a weekend.

That seems to be pretty standard for the older people I know vs. the younger people I know. For $300, we could get a hotel room overnight, a couple good meals, into House on the Rock, and some money to spend on whatever while we’re there.

And she was just like “But it’s a kate spade bag.”

And I was like “And???? My purse has a unicorn on it I paid $5 for it at Goodwill and I can hold things in it to take up to House on the Rock.”

Aug 23, 2017 2,015 notes
#millennials #VERY TRUE
Great now I'm having emotions about the Hork-Bajir

OH BUDDY JUST YOU WAIT, THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE EMOTIONS TO HAVE ABOUT THE HORK-BAJIR

Ha, your tag “way past Romeo and Juliet” I get it now. *sighs* God do I love ships with angst

You have not known angst until you’ve sailed the good ship Rachel/Tobias.  Honestly this was super formative in terms of what ships I do and don’t like, and also what kind of ships I write, but even so: I’ve never come close.

Oh geez… I really like Marco and Rachel friendship….

Marco and Rachel have that excellent A-grade “Yeah we hate each other but also I’ll shank you if you so much as look at them crosseyed” banter dynamic and I love it.  Also they’re…kind of similar, in terms of terribleness, and I love the kind of unconscious alliance that springs up because they both have that ruthless cold-eyed clarity about What We Have To Do.

Aug 23, 2017 13 notes
#animorphs #other people reading animorphs #otp: way past romeo and juliet #THAT'S ACTUALLY A QUOTE FROM BOOK 23 IN CASE YOU'RE CURIOUS #my otp tag for jake/cassie is 'more than i do myself' which is a quote from 26 #sorry these asks are mostly unrelated i just lumped them all together #marco/rachel friendship is great #anyway #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered
Aug 23, 2017 3,433 notes
#G O O D #elektra #defenders
Oh no! He had to watch as they blew the ship apart.Oh geez this poor guy... I hope he does get to stab Vissier 3

*anguished keening*  Aaaaaax.

My poor blue trash boy, I love him, he had to watch the Dome ship burn and then he thinks he’s going to die alone at the bottom of a foreign ocean and then some aliens come to find him and tell him his hero brother (who Ax adores) is dead and THEN he joins a horrible horrible guerrilla war and tbh I’m dying over it always.

OH GOD It’s the Andalire SOCIEEEEETYYYYY

YEP.

YEP IT IS.

HONESTLY THE DEATH RITUAL IS VERY LOVELY BUT ALSO OH MY GOD AX YOU DON’T HAVE TO DIE IN BATTLE IN ORDER TO BE WORTH SOMETHING PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.

MORE COMMENTS HERE

Aug 23, 2017 5 notes
#animorphs #aximili #ax #book 8 #the alien #other people reading animorphs #the great animorphs reread #ax is my booooooy honestly i need to write an ax/tobias friendship fic because that is my jam #andalites would probably have much more success against the yeerks if they weren't so histrionically xenophobic #...hm #apparently i have used that tag before #probably in that other post there tbh #anonymous #asked and answered #idiot teenagers with a queue
Aug 23, 2017 65,046 notes
#ifeelbetterer with the best tags i've seen in a long while #THIS IS SOME FUNDAMENTAL BUILDING BLOCK NARRATIVE SHIT: AIN'T NO DOWNSIDE TO ROBBING THE RICH #GOD BLESS #robin hood
Aug 23, 2017 2,354 notes
#THIS IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL SHOT GOD #THE WHITE AND PEARL GREY OF THE BED ALL CAST IN BRIGHT LIGHT #AND ELEKTRA CURLED UP LIKE A SHADOW #THE GASH OF RED SHOWING THROUGH THE CLOAK LIKE BLOOD SPILLING FROM A WOUND #THE WAY SHE CURLS UP LIKE A LITTLE GIRL AFRAID OF THE DARK--OR RATHER #A MONSTER IN THE SHAPE OF A GIRL AFRAID OF THE LIGHT #THE WAY HER HAND CLUTCHES JUST A LITTLE AT THE PILLOW #THE LOOK OF PEACE ON HER FACE #MAYBE THE FIRST PEACE WE'VE REALLY SEEN ON HER FACE #HER SWORD SET ASIDE BY HER CHOICE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE ENTIRE SHOW #GOD #I'M A WRECK #ELEKTRA #DEFENDERS
hi!! i absolutely adore your Blue Sword headcanons (why doesn't it have a bigger fandom. why.) and i cried a little when i read the last ones. if i may ask, do you have any headcanons about the children?

(i sent that before i meant to weeps, sorry, feel free to ignore this one if you want) also, luthe is probably their weird uncle who loves them all and tells wild stories that no one quite believes. (i hope you’re having a good day!)

Ummm, let’s see, headcanons about the kidlets.  I’m not going to do the headcanon meme because I’m mostly making these up, but I hope these are good!

Tor Mathin

  • Tor is a lot of things–first sola, horseman, a good tactician, a promising young king–but a swordsman is not among them.  He’s passable, technically very good, but he lacks joy.  Tor is the first person in his family in the gods only know how long to prefer spears, and dredges up an old design for a Damarian saddle that allows him to strap the poles to his horse’s side for easy access.
  • Tor takes after his namesakes–both of them, actually, although naturally Tor’s dry humor and stoic sufferance of small children didn’t make history nearly as much as his Just-ness.  But what I’m saying here is that, basically, Tor has a very droll sense of humor and is an incredibly excellent big brother who claims dibsies on his youngest sister on the spot and routinely allows himself to be dragged into trouble with her.  Mathin is delighted.

Aerin Amelia

  • Obviously, Aerin Amelia is the next carrier of Gonturan.  One of them, at least.  She is a talented stateswoman and the beloved first sol of her people, and her mother teaches her swordplay, and Aerin associates it with laughing and joy and the beat of sunlight on her cheeks.  She beats the crap out of her brother frequently and Tor puts up with it because he’s a good sport.  
  • She likes to dress up like her godmother–Amelia dotes on her, and for Aerin’s sixteenth birthday the girl shows up in crimson and blue, a dress Amelia sewed for her over the winter, somewhere between a Hill robe and a layered Homeland dress, with pearls woven into her bright red hair.
  • Aerin and Senay’s baby sister Rilly fall in love and get married and Senay and Harry are both pleased beyond belief.  Aerin, much like her namesake, is Tall, and Rilly is kind of Tiny all her life, they’re adorable.

Jack

  • Jack is a fucking kelar powerhouse.  All his siblings are, they take after the old kings, but Jack in particular is juiced.  His talents run toward rock and stone, and when his kelar wakes he almost shakes down a wing of the citadel.  He and Harry ride out into the Hills and she sets up a camp in a little valley where she once learned how to fight, and they just sort of wait out the worst of it.  She kisses his hair and rubs his back and it’s a terrible few weeks, as he tries to get control, but it’s an oddly warm memory, later.
  • To that effect, Luthe likes Jack very much, he reminds Luthe of the Aerin easily as much as his sister, and although Jack is far from being a full mage, Luthe teaches him a few tricks.  One that Jack particularly loves, because of the way it makes his sisters yell at him in mock aggravation, includes turning little posy rings of pimchie flowers into golden birds that sing before flying away into nothingness.  Luthe observes Jack’s talent for this particular parlor trick and very scrupulously does not burst out laughing.

Hari

  • The youngest child of Harry and Corlath is two things above all else: an incredibly skilled rider and the fucking family prankster.  Tor adores her from the minute she’s born, a wrathful little thing with jet black hair and tiny clenched fists, and he makes a fantastic babysitter, and she gets on her first horse at two years old because she talked Tor into letting her ride his stallion.  It was a terrifying experience for Tor as well as all the sofor who witnessed their teeny baby sol shrieking with delight as she clung to the horse’s mane like a burr.  It was also the moment that Tor realized his baby sister could probably ask him to hand over the kingship and he might actually do it.
  • Hari and Aerin trade custody of Gonturan, sometimes, more just for variety than anything else.  Aerin usually carries it because Aerin actually likes swords, whereas Hari likes to fight with a pair of knives.  This is considered something of a sneak-thief’s weapon, in Damar, but Hari is very stubborn and Harry isn’t exactly a strong candidate for telling any of her children “No, you can’t, Because Tradition” and Corlath is too thrilled with his life to take a hard line on something so unimportant.  So it’s mostly Hari’s tutors kind of moaning through their teeth as she learns to throw knives and Hari young woman is that your brother’s best tunic you’re using for target practice.  
    • Yes, it absolutely is Jack’s best tunic, because Hari, in the fashion of younger siblings everywhere, is, after all, something of a sneak-thief, and she stole it to see how long it would take him to notice.  
    • It has been three weeks and while Aerin and Tor have both noticed, Jack shows no sign of picking up on it.
Aug 23, 2017 9 notes
#the blue sword #robin mckinley #harimad sol #corlath #otp: at your left hand #IT'S NOT TECHNICALLY ABOUT THEM BUT IT'S ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN #also this was a ton of fun i've never thought about the kidlets much before #i made these up wholecloth and do not expect people to agree with me #but i like them #i hope you like them my dear new blue sword buddy #i have another blue sword ask but i'm not going to answer it because it's ONE IN THE MORNING #anyway #tada #the dot #asked and answered
hi! can you do allura/shiro or matt/shiro for the ship grading? (I hope you're well!)

All right, listen, I am excited to be excited about Matt as a character but thus far he has such negligible onscreen time as to be pretty much a wholecloth creation of the fandom.  Thus: Shiro/Allura, my loves.

Ship Grade: A+ (OTP) | A (I love it) | B (It’s really cute) | C (Not a bad ship) | D (I’m neutral on it) | E (I don’t really like it) | F (NOTP) | N/A (Don’t know it well enough)

I love Shiro as a character because I’m an ENORMOUS SUCKER for PTSD-ridden ex-prisoners who are holding it together by the skin of their teeth and on the merits of a core of solid titanium determination.  I love Allura as a character because I’m a huge fan of royalty whose nations are half-destroyed (or all destroyed) and who are still fighting the good fight because they believe that nobility is an obligation, not a privilege.  I’m enormously in love with them as a couple because they’re mutually the adults in the room most of the time and, A, I love relationships where the people in question can relax around each other more than anyone else, and, B, they’re just so ruthlessly competent and I live and breathe competence porn and I am NOT turning down such a perfectly dovetailed pair of personalities who can ALSO be a solid 10/10 in capability.

Also, that shot of Shiro catching her hand and pulling it down in whichever episode of Season 2 was a more compelling argument for the ship than anything else I’ve seen for any other arrangement.  So like.  Here I am.  Let the alien princess and her right hand man smooch.

…I just realized that between this and Elfangor/Loren I have A Type and it’s half-alien battle couples who bond over learning how to be EVEN MORE COMPETENT with each other.

Aug 23, 2017 5 notes
#voltron #allura #takashi shirogane #shallura #shrio x allura #I AM HERE FOR IT #i'm super into this ship #it's just...it's Very Good #i'm not super cogent about it #unlike animorphs i do not have a perpetual subroutine in my head processing My Feelings about voltron #but REST ASSURED i'm extremely here for shiro/allura #anonymous #asked and answered
Aug 22, 2017 29,654 notes
#your enemies do not know you; so look away: they too have teeth #i love it
For the ship grading, Elfangor and Loren?

Ship Grade: A+ (OTP) | A (I love it) | B (It’s really cute) | C (Not a bad ship) | D (I’m neutral on it) | E (I don’t really like it) | F (NOTP) | N/A (Don’t know it well enough)

Where do I even START with my affection for this ship.  Like, despite the unremitting horrors of war, this ship has it all.  Alien expressions of affection, Battle Couple shenanigans, Loren and everything she chooses to be in the face of not one but three alien abductions, cute flirting, comedy, tragedy, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS.  God, Animorphs can fucking deliver on the ships.  

But I think the thing I like the most about Loren and Elfangor is how much they learn from each other?  Like, okay, Loren learns about the universe, she learns about how big the galaxy is and how much there is to see, about science she could never have dreamed of and what it means to fight.  That’s obvious.  But Elfangor learns so much from her, too–the Andalites teach courage with a combination of formal education and shame culture, but Loren is the first person as far as I can tell who teaches Elfangor that feeling emotions isn’t in conflict with being brave.  

More than that, though, Loren brings a kind of brutally hard-headed, incredibly human pragmatism to combat that Elfangor seems to gravitate toward almost immediately.  Like, this is humanity’s Special Thing in Animorphs (in addition to our mastery of the sense of taste), it’s that we’re very clear-sighted about our goals (be they freedom from a Yeerk or victory over an enemy) and we care much more about achieving them than about anything else.  Plenty of people in the series talk about how strange humans are in their absolute willingness to fight against hopeless odds–everyone from Temrash 114 to Edriss, Visser One herself, mention it.  The Hork-Bajir bring up how much they agree with it, free or dead.  Taxxons, Andalites, the Arn, even the Ellimist. 

And Loren teaches Elfangor that brutal human practicality from the very first time they meet.  He meets her and she doesn’t know what he is or what’s going on, but she’s already eliminated the immediate threat to her safety and she is more than willing to take out this new potential threat as well.  Loren wants to get home, sure she does, but saving the universe takes priority, so okay, sure, she’ll go on a potentially life-threatening mission to make sure that happens.  Fighting Pre-Visser Three (actual Visser Three at that point?  Not sure) in the Time Matrix world, Loren doesn’t mess around with fancy forms, she throws rocks and beats things with a bat and does whatever works no matter how dishonorable or underhanded it might be.

And then Elfangor, after everything, when he’s returned to the timeline, what does he do to win a battle?

He rams a ship with his fighter, in the most graceless, unadorned, pragmatic battle tactic I’ve ever seen.  

I love these kids so much, y’all.  Does Loren/Legs art even exist, y’all, where is it.

Aug 22, 2017 29 notes
#elfangor #elfangor x loren #loren #animorphs #ask meme #ship grading #my buff superstar #THIS IS SUCH A GOOD ASK THANK YOU SPARROW #OH MY GOD THESE CHILDREN #THESE KIDS #I LOVE THEM V MUCH #MY WEIRD ALIEN BOY AND HIS BUFF TOUGH GIRLFRIEND #i don't care what anyone says in my heart of hearts loren is 5'10 as an adult and can physically lift elfangor's human morph #he's tall and...like...stringbean and his buff tough girlfriend is all broad shoulders and muscles #THEY ARE BIG AND SMOL BUT IN TERMS OF LOREN BEING A BRICK SHITHOUSE AND ELFANGOR BEING A PENCIL #idk in my heart of hearts that the deal #and elfangor is just like 'wow look at loren she's so strong she's so tough she can twirl real good and she has nice hair' #and loren is just like 'this is my boyfriend he's a disaster but he fights good' #i need an otp tag for elfangor and loren #also i got 'legs' from morph club everyone go listen to it #ANYWAY HERE HAVE SOME FEELINGS ABOUT THIS #miraculoussparrow #asked and answered

wanhedamaximoff:

likeigiveabother:

why do superheroes care so much about their cities? its always “i have to protect this city” or “people of this city will die” like chill i mean shit i dont even know who my mayor is 

Aug 22, 2017 270,373 notes
#defenders #jessica jones
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