The Flash 1x7

Farooq Gibran: Electrocuted, chronic illness

Joe West: Hostage situation, perceived loss of a child (brief, but the acting was OOF! 10 out of 10!)

Iris West: Hostage situation

Eddie Thawne: Hostage situation, gunshot wound, bleeding out, tourniquet, high on pain meds

Barry Allen: Electrocuted

Hmm I don't think radfems are very left wing actually

Rereading the Lord of the Rings series recently, and it's so fascinating to me how much the series is a denial of the typical juvenile power-fantasy that is associated with the fantasy genre.

Like, the power-fantasy is the temptation the Ring uses against people It tempts Boromir with becoming the "one true king" that could save his people with fantastic power. It tempts Sam with being the savior of Middle Earth and turning the ruin that is Mordor into a great garden. It tempts Gandalf and Galadriel with being the messianic figure of legend who brings salvation to Middle Earth and great glory to herself.

The things the Ring tempts people with are becoming the typical protagonists of fantasy stories that we expect to see. and over and over we see that accepting that role, that fantasy of being the benevolent all-powerful hero, is a bad thing. LotR is about how power, even power wielded with benevolent intent, is corrupting.

And its so fascinating how so much of modern fantasy buys into the very fantasy LotR denies. Most modern fantasy is about being that Heroic power-fantasy. About good amassing power to rival evil. But LotR dares not to. It dares to be honest that there is no world where anyone amasses that power and remains good.

I guess that's one of the reasons its so compelling.

Ugh, was having a great time mocking my recently imprisoned rival when I noticed the camera positioning makes it so that I appear behind the bars, thus framing me as trapped in a metaphorical prison of the narrative, now my whole day is ruined. Fuck.

But our safety, security and survival is not considered urgent. (x)

This is what happened when a fanfic site is profit driven. Wattpad sucks 😞

The email from Wattpad is so condescending imagine pressuring writers to update and work while they are doing it for free and fun. Also the discovery? Algorithm? Of Wattpad looks like a stressful popularity contest 😑

It has long been clear that Sam (usually) wins (almost) any poll he's in - unless Bill the Pony is an option. In fact, Bill the Pony is so popular that he was previously voted the "real" hero of Lord of the Rings!

So alright, fine. Let's see how they do head to head. Sam dispatched both Elrond and Pippin with ease, but will he find a more difficult opponent in the Battle of Bywater's most notable participant? Or will Bill "turn tail and dash away" as he did at the entrance to Moria, fleeing from the Watcher's tentacles? Only time (and the results of this poll) will tell!

I don't think I'll ever be over the way that the thesis statement of OWK is represented, more than anything else, even more than Reva's plotline honestly, in Haja.

Like.

Genuinely? The one "twist" I wasn't emotionally prepared for was that Haja was legit, and he really was trying to help, and there really was a massive grassroots shadow-network underground railroad evacuating Jedi survivors and Force-sensitive kids across the galaxy, and he really was part of it.

Because the thing with his whole setup--the magnet tricks, the motion-controlled windows, the cold-reading, the crowd-working kid identifying obvious offworld marks, the "audience plant" stormtrooper playing along over the comm? Yeah, they're cheap tricks, but it's a SOPHISTICATED setup.

This guy is a straight-up conman. He really is every bit the sleazy grifter he appears to be.

That matters. That's important. Haja is not an angel. He's a mid-level fake psychic, callously cashing in on the Jedi's legacy to do, like, bullshit fortune-telling. It's--it's the way you can see this guy's whole backstory in a few minutes of screentime. Because we DO see him identify a Force-sensitive kid....and the escape he offers them is genuine.

So: Haja. And the story we can see in him at a glance.

He's a scam artist! He's dressing in knockoff porn-vid robes, waving his hands, and babbling half-remembered vague tropes before murmuring generic platitudes and sending rubes on their way. The Jedi are dead, right? It's not like they're around to be offended. He's not even really lying, right? He gets people what they want! The Jedi stuff just lets him upcharge! He's just skimming a little, a man's gotta make a living.

And then, one day, someone came to him who'd used all their hope just getting there. Someone with a Force-sensitive child, and the Empire on their heels, stumbled terrified into his little den of cheap tricks, because they'd heard a whisper of a rumor that there was still a Jedi alive on Daiyu.

And in that moment, Haja learned that he was a better person than he'd ever realized.

They must have staked everything on reaching him, and then they found him, and what they found was...Haja. Just some guy in a cheap costume. Just some guy, and not a particularly great one. How much is the bounty on a Force-sensitive youngling? Enough to retire on. Enough to set you up for life. And Haja is just some guy, who had just been slapped in the face with the reality of what he was capable of doing in the next five minutes.

There are moments when you learn who you really are, and sometimes you surprise yourself.

After all that time "acting like a Jedi," when given the opportunity--he chose to act like a Jedi.

Ultimately, the thesis statement of OWK is: There is a galaxy full of Hajas. And that's hope enough to keep going for.

“tumblr is an echo chamber where people only see opinions of other people they agree with” please be serious. i have longtime beloved mutuals who are swifties. your experience is not universal

Am I getting a good grade in tumblr mutual?

The voyage west at the end of Return of the King is extremely funny to me, because just look at who's on board. You've got:

Frodo Baggins, hero of the Shire, in need of healing but also excited to see Valinor and meet the legendary elves who live there, a gentle soul

Elrond Halfelven, as kind as a summer, looking forward to peace west of the sea, probably wants to go chill out in a cottage with his wife for the next thousand years

Which seems fine. And then we get to everyone else.

Gandalf, cheeky bastard who's gotten so used to being a weird old wizard in Middle-Earth that's he's forgotten what Maia are supposed to act like, will immediately cause problems

Bilbo Baggins, noted storyteller, definitely planning to break into Aule's halls to see his dwarf friends, will ask all the elves weird questions and then sing about their lives and deaths in front of them, will immediately cause problems

Galadriel, who came to Aman half for Celebrian and Elrond's sake and half to taunt all her cousins about being the only one of them to survive the First Age, enjoys causing problems, will immediately cause many problems

(Also, to be clear, these are not three isolated problem-causers, they absolutely spent the entire trip to Valinor actively planning to give Amanyar society and the Valar an aneurysm.)

I just love the idea of Elrond, now reunited with Celebrian, and Frodo happily having tea with Elwing and Earendil, with nothing to interrupt them but the gentle sounds of the tides.

Meanwhile Galariel, Bilbo, and Gandalf are collectively bullying Mandos into releasing Maglor Feanorian from the halls because:

Bilbo wants to read him his translation of the Noldolante, which is written as a cheery Hobbit drinking song

Elrond always complained about how Gandalf and Maglor were both insufferably vague about advice and Gandalf needs to make sure he's more infuriating than Maglor as a matter of his wizardly pride

He still owes Galadriel money

Could you talk about the Aamir post Snap idea?

I'd love to! That story would actually be two 3+1 stories exploring Aamir’s trauma after losing his father and sister in the snap. If I were to write it, which I might not (I do not control the hyperfixations 😔) it would be a sequel to this story.

The first one would be something like "3 times Aamir tried to hide his ptsd symptoms and one time he accepted help". The first scene would be him trying to hide his bad sleep schedule from his mom (who is seriously depressed at that point). The second would be trying to convince his nani that he's okay. The third would maybe be something with his friends? The +1 scene would be him hiding out in the mosque washroom coming down from a panic attack after stumbling across a basketball game (about a year/year-and-a-half after the snap). Rasheed (the guy with the cookies from the show) comes across him and helps him calm down. Once he's better, Rasheed asks him a few questions to determine if it was a one-off thing or if it's a problem and then gently suggests that he may want to speak to a professional. Rasheed gives Aamir his wife's therapy practice's business card and tells him to think about it.

The other story would have the theme of "3 times Aamir was uncomfortable about his medication and one time it was totally fine". The first one would obviously be when he first starts taking it, his worries about it and whatnot. The second one would be him avoiding taking it because he's in a public place and then suffering the consequences (and maybe his friend, or better, Tyesha looking out for him). The third would be trying to get his meds through customs (and I'd have to do a LOT of research for that one, because I don't even know if you can take prescription drugs into other countries). The +1 would be after the 5 year period and would be Kamala asking about why he takes medication now (while trying and failing to be subtle/sensitive) and Aamir explaining how it's helped him over the years.

everybody’s always on writing prompts like “what if there was a world where everyone had a timer ticking down to their death… but you met someone whose timer said infinity!” or “what if everyone had their cause of death tattooed across their forehead… but you met someone whose forehead said THE CREATURE!” Enough -

enough. stop with the shock value. there is no need to insert THE CREATURE; the benign concept of such a world is horrifying enough. not even in urgency, but just in banal, everyday interaction. imagine you meet someone and their timer says two years. not tomorrow, not urgently soon, but two years. enough to do quite a lot. they could fall in love in that time - could they get engaged? have a baby? you might otherwise get to know them, befriend them, but perhaps you opt not to, make a conscious choice not to invest in your own grief. what balancing act would every individual person have to participate in - I have ten years, is that long enough to be a good mother to children? is that long enough to secure a caretaker for my own mother? my wife will die a few months before me. my newborn’s timer reads nineteen years.

and cause of death. you interview for a job and emblazoned across the healthy, smiling face of the HR lady is MALNUTRITION. your country is prospering, safe, but every person you meet on the street from the babies to the old women read BOMB. BOMB. what kind of havoc would fate wreak on the world? what about the loss of privacy? how would that shape our notions of hope? idk man I think a lot of those ancient poems were right, and the fates are monsters. I’m interested by the framing of these ideas as trite horror tales when the premises themselves are so much more disturbing if simply taken to their logical ends

barbie official: we’re gonna put all our movies on youtube for free!

youtube, still selling their movies: huh? what’d they say they were going to do?

Am I getting a good grade in tumblr mutual?

so many pointless arguments about which elf is the tallest, the most beautiful, etc, etc. it's simple.

the tallest elf is whichever elf Tolkien is talking about at the moment.

the most beautiful elf is always luthien and the second most beautiful elf is whoever tolkien is talking at the moment