i eye rolled those tlj & luke tweets so hard. a good thread from those who disagreed. “if you don’t think about this thing the way i do you’re dumb and wrong” is a bad take that needs to shhhhh. (and i mean, i DON’T think the way he did but y’all were 100% more right lmao.) PS. if you don’t want to publish this or don’t have time to answer, that’s 300% fine! i just couldn’t comment on the original post and wanted to give a thumbs up) ❤️

It can be really hard not to step over that “If you don’t think about this thing the way I do, you’re dumb and wrong” line, because we all feel very passionately about Star Wars and we all feel that we’re right about our interpretations!   But when you go full force with it, when you don’t try to walk that impulse back, it gets frustrating for those who are having it leveled at them because, no, we’re not dumb and wrong if we disagree with someone, just like that OP wasn’t wrong to have their feelings on TLJ for them.One of the things that made it harder for me to find the good in TLJ was how often I was seeing the, “If you don’t think this film is brilliant, then you’re just not smart enough to get it.” (in combination with how TLJ was brilliant, while the rest of SW is just pedestrian fare) and trying to push those views onto other fans just rubs me the wrong way, so I’m admittedly a little extra cranky right now.  ;)SW fandom would be a whole lot better if we could all work on giving other people more space and refocusing back in on what we ourselves love and expressing that love as HEY I LOVED THIS THING.And I’m saying this as someone who actually thinks the Luke stuff makes sense to me and I see it as a continuation of ANH/ESB/ROTJ!  So I don’t think the film bastardized Luke (my problem is more in that it’s not very satisfying to me because of the pacing of it/the sheer amount of it and some of the things Luke says/does in his depression vs the two minutes we get of Luke settled in his own skin again), but I didn’t care for the tone of trying to say, “If you don’t agree with my opinion on this fictional movie about space wizards, you’re not paying attention.”  Meh, nah, a lot of people paid attention just fine, they just disagree.

@porgoth oh *tight hug* i’m so sorry

@jlarinda i'm so sorry!

@thefairylights I am so sorry. I’m so so sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t want to say I know how you feel but honey I do and I wish I could hold you right now. I’m so very sorry. I’ll be here to talk if you want to. About anything. ❤️

Thank you, all of you ♥♥♥

3, 4, 5, 7! (some of these are probably no-brainers but please yell about your feelings) >:3

Hello, Your Porgliness! How fare you this fine evening? when our stupid neighbors have apparently just discovered the wonders of bass. >___>#

3. TV Show Episode

Fave: Episode Eight of the Mandalorian

I know, right?? Shocked that I didn’t pick something from the Clone Wars?? I think that might because I don’t have a favorite so much as I love the series as a whole. It gave me my Jedi Babies, my Clone Sons, my Perfect Space Daughter and Master Plo “Yes, I am adopting 1.5 million grown men. Don’t try to stop me. I have a plasma chainsaw” Koon. I really, really, love and utterly adore The Clone Wars and all its attendant goofiness, pathos and sheer jaw dropping awesomeness. 

But… I just REALLY LOVE EPISODE EIGHT OF THE MANDALORIAN OKAY?? DON’T @ME CLONE WARS! I LOVE YOU! IT WAS JUST ONE SEASON BABY! THE SHINY GUY AND THE YODA MUPPET DON’T MEAN ANYTHING TO ME! YOU’RE MY ONE TRUE LOVE!

Eh-hem. Listen, if you put Giancarlo Esposito in an imperial uniform, have him flawlessly info-dump the backstories of our brave heroes and trigger a flashback to Din’s rescue by helpful Mandalorians DEATHWATCH apparently, give me an entire scene with the armorer? blacksmith? What is she supposed to be called? EMILY SWALLOW kicking ass and SHATTERING STORMTROOPER ARMOR, and the tragic sacrifice of IG-11 to save his new friends and the Baby Yoda???

AND THEN YOU ADD THE MOTHERFRACKING DARKSABER TO IT????where is Bo-Katan? WHERE IS BO-KATAN? WHAT DID YOU DO TO BO-KATAN FILONI??  ????

I’m there. With bells on. I just… I’m there. I will buy your merch, I will go to your theme parks, I will do whatever Lucasfilm wants for more Star Wars that feels like Stars Wars that I don’t feel like it’s actively trying to shit on the things I loved about Star Wars I am looking at you TLJ. You can step right off. 

Least: I’ve heard there’s an episode where Fives gets hurt or something but I haven’t seen it and it sounds pretty terrible to me. I think it’s one of those weird memes where people try to google translate ROTS or something. 

Fives is fine, y’all. He’s just fine and he’s having dinner with Echo and THEY ARE JUST FINE. *SOBS*

4. Character

Fave: So… I kind of answered that here. Obi-Wan is my favorite, far and away the best, fanciest, and most wonderful of sparkly, awesome people in the GFFA. 

But lately? I’ve been really on a Commander Cody kick. I just love that tension created by the audience knowing that Cody is going to betray Obi-Wan in ROTS but at the same time, you can see how well they work together and that there is mutual respect. It just makes everything so much worse when Palpatine calls Cody FIRST! THAT MOTHER KARKING BASTARD CALLED CODY FIRST OUT OF ALL THE JEDIS HE COULD HAVE HAD KILLED TESTICLE FACE CALLED CODY TO KILL OBI-WAN FIRST! AAAAAAAAH! THE PAIN! and destroys his agency and his right as a sentient being to chose. 

If you read After the End which you don’t have to but if you do, I’m starting to go into Cody’s headspace after Order 66 and it’s a fun challenge. Mostly because it’s not Anakin/Vaderkin have five different emotions in one paragraph but I digress. Also!!! BLY!!!! MY POOR BROKEN SPACE GERMAN SHEPHERD! I WILL AVENGE YOU!

Least: Boba Fett. And that is all I will say about that. 

5. Actor/Actress

Fave: Carrie, just… just Carrie. No one even comes close to Space Mom. Y’all know I love me some Ewan McGregor and I adore Mark Hamill but in the end it’s always going to be Princess Leia. My first fictional hero and the one person from the OT that I really, truly, deeply wanted to meet. 

STOP MAKING ME CRY DAMNIT. I HAVE TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW. 

Least: BUT THEY’RE ALL SO NICE! HOW CAN YOU MAKE ME SAY I DON’T LIKE SOMEONE???

Ugh… okay, fine. That hobbit that was randomly shoved into ROTS because apparently we didn’t have enough celebrity cameos in it. I don’t know why he was there when BILLIE LOURD, THE ACTUAL DAUGHTER OF CARRIE FISHER, IS RIGHT THERE AND HAS BEEN WITH THIS TRILOGY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THIS LONG PAINFUL JOURNEY INTO CORPORATE FAN FICTION. SHE. IS. RIGHT. THERE. USE HER. 

BTW, I have nothing against hobbits or LOTR in general. I thought he did a great job as Charlie in Lost. I’m just… if you can break MY suspension of disbelief you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. Charlie Hobbiton was not necessary and his lines could have easily been given to Connix or, even better, to Rose. 

7. Species

Fave: Togrutas. I gotta rep Ahsoka in at least one of these damn things. Twi’leks came very close but Togrutas have stripes and Ahsoka is amazing and the most excellent ambassador for her species. 

Least: Mairans. EWWWWWW! 

From the Star Wars Fav/Least Fave meme thingy. 

writing chatter: invisible words

Invisible vs. Stand-out Words

We know a great many more words than we use daily. I read once in an education book that the majority of people use about 500 of the same words from day to day. Simple words like “cold,” “friendship,” “school,” “car,”  “neighbor,” etc.  

These are what I call invisible words. What I mean by that is that our brain just skims over them without a problem. They’re part of the background of our world. We probably have no strong reaction to seeing or hearing them, unless we just really hate cars or something.

Some words, however, stand out. These might not be ten dollar words, but in this particular argument, they’re words we hear less often. Exhibit A:

[Dude] drove around slowly looking for a parking spot.

vs.

[Dude] sharked for a parking spot.

Now, “shark” is a familiar word, but it’s usually (unless we’re shark scholars) one we’re not going to hear as often as any of the other words in that sentence. 

In the first example, none of those words really stand out. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing -- actually, a sentence where every single word stood out would get old really fast.

The thing is, the more stand-out a word is, the more distracting it is. You know how movies have points of high and low emotion? Prose does, too: moments of high attention, and moments of invisibility. We need that contrast.

If you use a word like “sharked,” it’s gonna stand out. Therefore, we don’t want to overdo it.

My rule of thumb is: the more unusual a word is, the more distracting it is; therefore, it should be used in proportion to its strangeness. I can use “he” repeatedly because it’s such a basic word, but “finagle” should come out perhaps only once. 

On a related note, here’s my personal take on the Don’t Use ‘Said’ vs. Only Use ‘Said’ trench war:

“Whatever,” he said.

vs.

“Whatever,” he snarled.

It’s invisible vs. stand out words again. My main issue with shaking up “said” for every single dialogue tag is that as a reader, I start to get hung up on the tag more than the content of the dialogue. Stand-out words draw attention; that’s their purpose. So what do you want to draw attention to: what they said or how they said it?

after being stuck in the mdzs hell for months i decided to read tner again and died laughing when i checked your profile and saw you were there too lol. you're one of my favorite authors, so it's really cool to know you also like it!!!

asghgaksjgjhkakgljajh one mind 

when/how did you first get into it? i wanted something to watch once the spring semester was over and netflix + tumblr were pushing it (and i could tell from one look at wwx in gifs that this show had My Type and i was mad at my own predictability) soooo. then for like, the months of may + june i was just pouring mzds content down my throat 25/8. my main blog @porgoth is now filled with mzds/cdrama/danmei stuff and i lost so many followers when i started that agjgkakhfgh, pls come visit if you’re not sick of it yet! c:

also here’s wang yibo playing with a rabbit just cuz

Have you yet drawn a crossover with Star Wars and Tolkien's work?

now i have

behold

porgoth

@laventadorn replied to your post “My head hurts and everything sucks today.”

*porgoth hugs*

*a fit of giggles that turn into coughs*

porgoth said: i think they were giving people extra for unemployment? i thought i heard something about it on the news; but google might know, since my brain is crap about remembering details lmao

They're doing an extra $600 thing, which they have paid me for twice. But I think that’s monthly. But I checked the e-mail I got regarding the deposit and it said they put in $120.00 so I think they did add an extra zero. I e-mailed them but I hope they lose my e-mail and lose my number and I’m lost in the shuffle lmao

porgoth said: lmaoooo @ “he’s disgusting” also i relate to hating one’s hair, rip (initially i typed “hating your hair” and then i was like “wait that sounds like i hate YOUR hair which is not accurate”)

If you saw my hair you would hate my hair.  I think a lot of my hang up is that it used to be really nice. If it was always ugly I’d be like “okay, I just live this way”.  Kind of like Tom Hiddleston is general. Used to look really nice, now I’m like “Oh he just lives that way”.

phantomdivine 7Up is also lemon-lime! I will not be defeated!

porgoth this reminds me of the lemonade vs sprite showdown on tumblr a while back, and my appalled realization that some countries consider them interchangeable. how. lemonade is juice, to me...sprite isn’t juice...7up isn’t juice....they’re soft drinks....what is reality. where is truth. do they exist?? i think not!

What about lemon Italian soda? How is that classified, if I just pop on over with a bottle of lemon Italian soda?

Anyway, yes, I consider lemonade juice. And limeade.  We haven't even opened the limeade can of worms yet.

My biggest culture shock is still the frozen pulp orange juice tho like idk if that's how it always is or was the place I was at just messing with me. Here is a stupid American give her the frozen pulp.

porgoth said: legit tho - i can’t be cute in a men’s cut t-shirt; it makes me look like a toaster. (and if they have women’s cut tees or tanks they’re 5 sizes too small for a normal adult, which is just as bad but in the opposite direction.)

EXACTLY my issue.  I mean, I have a ton of band tees that are men’s t-shirts because I wear them to my unglamorous job of greeting card merchandiser in Walmart, but is it so much to ask for something cute?  I got a Nightwish shirt years ago that was a ~girly tee~ in XL and it was like an XS in real person sizes.

porgoth said: was what they gave you like that canned stuff you can buy in the frozen section, that you add water to or something? i vaguely recall being exposed to that in my childhood. that stuff is cursed.

That's what it seemed like. I've never actually had the canned stuff so I can't really say, but it's exactly what I imagine it to be like. 

porgoth lolol the XL tank. one time i saw a "large" tank and i was like "that would fit around my leg. maybe." where do they get these shirts?? aliens???

i’ll bet they’re trying to cut costs on the construction because they know we have no other choices. It’s this band tee or nothing else.

Which I fall for. I bought a wrong size shirt once because it was the only one they had and I was like MUST HAVE and now I have no idea what to do with it

some days you just wanna claw your own face off

i was feeling really fucking agitated over nothing (period hormones, probably, plus it won’t stop feeling like 100 degrees every day and i want to go outsiiiiiide) but this evening i baked some bread and instantly felt calmer afterwards. idk why but baking always does this for me.

except cakes. don’t ask me why, cuz i don’t f-ing know, but cakes STRESS ME OUT ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i’m making french toast with bread i baked myself, who wants to marry me and be doted on with baked goods