Reepicheep could just walk into Mordor. Easy-peasy.
He could definitely get there, but he wouldn't be my first pick as Ringbearer. I definitely don't think he'd have it any easier than Frodo and Sam. If I had to send Narnians to do the Fellowship's jobs, here's who I'd send:
Reepicheep could kill the Witch King of Angmar
Puddleglum and Hwin could take the Ring to Mordor
Caspian could take the Paths of the Dead, with assorted Old Narnians (Trumpkin, Trufflehunter, etc.) as backup. Drinian is along to sail the ships.
Puzzle could unwittingly contact Sauron via Palantir
Tumnus is my pick for improvising Boromir's funeral lament. We know he's musical and HHB shows that he thinks fast on his feet
On the flip side:
Faramir could stamp out the Green Lady's fire
Bilbo could joyously take the coracle over the edge of the world (unless it's the First Age, in which case it's definitely Eärendil)
Sam would do the Jill thing and rescue Puzzle from the stable, then immediately speed bond and refuse to let anyone hurt him
Any number of Middle Earth warriors could do single combat with Miraz, but I think Aragorn would come up with the plan on the spot the way Peter does. Very similar vibe to the attack on the Black Gate
Also:
Father Christmas could hand out gifts and cryptic advice in Lothlorien; Galadriel could arm the Pevensies and patch up the Beavers' dam
Lucy stands the best chance of anyone at finding the Entwives
Pippin and Cor would have a lot to discuss re: first experience in battle. Pippin and Corin would have a lot to discuss re: everything else
Ramandu and Coraikin have a biweekly book club with Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. Gandalf is also invited, but only pops by once in a great while
It’s a saying in the world of the supernatural. A well-known one even. See, several, many generations back, no one quite knows when, the Kent family managed to run afoul of a particularly nasty creature who laid a curse upon them. The original wording, no one quite knows either, but the gist, everyone is aware of. For no firstborns will be born to them before they already have one.
It was supposed to be airtight in a way, a curse that would end the entire bloodline really. For a child to exist before they could have a child? How could that be?
Well. That curse had… backfired. It had backfired massively. Most, at least back when blood was everything, didn’t exactly ponder things like adoption to those outside of their own bloodline. The Kents however, lived in a very simple village, one that had disease spread through it often back then, leaving families childless and children parentless.
What were they to do but take them in? And so they had a son, many sons and daughters even, before their firstborn. Now of course, most would simply dismiss it afterwards. After all, that was the end of the story, isn’t it?
Well, no. See, the curse was a family-line curse, a just in case perhaps, that meant that each generation could not have any children until they had children. Perhaps it should have ended there, but well. It didn’t.
Kents are a strange breed in the world of the supernatural, known for having a… bit of an adoption problem. If any child or babe were to be left near their land, one can be assured the family line would take them in as their own.
Fae, demon, human, changeling, satyr, cyclops, half-breeds, werewolf- it didn’t matter. A Kent would gladly pick the child up and raise it as their own. And now, they could add aliens to that long, long list in the family line.
And really, perhaps with this context, is it really surprising that when one Clark Kent, said alien, opens his door to a basket on his doorstep holding a trio of godlings, he takes them in with no questions asked?
so funny to me that miles bron doesn’t burn the incriminating napkin until after lionel asks him why he didn’t. not only does he steal his murder idea from benoit, he steals his cover-up from lionel. they really doubled down on making him steal literally every idea he ever has, huh.
thinking about connor in prague saying "dad's theory was you got two fighting dogs, you send the weak one away, you punish the weak one." in relation to this episode, and the way the siblings view abuse inside their own family.
shiv and kendall and their belief that connor and roman are the weak dogs that got the brunt of logan's worst behavior, because abuse is reserved for the kids who can't behave - the ones who aren't smart and mature enough to make it in the world. abuse evokes pity, because abuse is what happens when you expect too much from people who obviously aren't capable of more.
and then they go forward in life, believing that they're just naturally more intelligent and more capable than connor and roman, as if being raised seeing what happens to you if you aren't a perfect child wasn't the entire point of the "punish the weak dog" mentality that logan instilled in them. the looming threat implied behind any praise they do receive that tacitly tells them "you're not like roman and connor" because everyone knows what happens to roman and connor.
the absolute height of the rich capitalist mindset. "we're succeeding because of our own merit, and other people fail because they don't have what it takes" when in reality they're succeeding because of arbitrary rules made up by someone who knows that infighting makes meaner dogs.
"the way they killed medusa was stupid" "using the hat to kill medusa was dumb" that's because this show isn't written for action and blood and gore its written for STORYTELLERS ofc the "fight with medusa" wasn't epic and bloody that would defeat the whole point INSTEAD it was symbolic and set up narrative arcs. it was annabeth passing on the invisibility her mother cursed her with to a woman who was cursed never to be seen. it was paralleling the original perseus myth where he uses the helm of darkness alongside his shield and shoes from athena and hermes. it was setting up the conflict between percy and annabeth about giving up the hat and making annabeth suffer an emotional loss to go on with the quest versus imposing the consequences of medusa's story and tragedy on the gods themselves.
imagine watching a scene where annabeth increasingly gets defensive and 12-year-old lashing out with "but my mother is always just" "that isn't how the story goes" and "you're a LIAR" imagine watching the air go out of the room as "i'm a survivor" "i was you" "i would have been content to worship her for a lifetime... in silence" medusa breaks her calm demeanor at having her story erased once more imagine watching annabeth appear out of nowhere and make medusa disappear with the powers that athena granted her so that a son of poseidon can murder her and your main thought being "awwwww but i wanted it to be more epicccccc i wanted blood and gore and decapitationnnnnn" imagine missing the whole point of the entire percy jackson series that bad
yuuta exhibits such previously abandoned, recently adopted dog behavior. incredibly anxious all the time, even though nobody’s out to get him or leave him behind. waits for you to return home or from school or from work excitedly, just to see you when you walk through the door. follows you around senselessly, hovering in your space just for the sake of companionship. initiates affection in prodding ways—starts off next to you, then a hand on your thigh, then deems it safe to lay all the way down, then slowly pushes his head into your lap. gets up whenever you need to get up, and resumes his position as soon as you’re ready. brings you gifts as a sign that he’s thinking of you, and maybe because he likes the affection it brings out in you, maybe because he likes the gentle affirming touches of a hand in his hair or a pinch to his cheek. rests his head on your stomach or his chin on your shoulder when he’s sleepy, stays there, immobile, and will not move unless absolutely necessary. sometimes he gets surprised when he hears you calling for him, there’s a moment of disbelief as he thinks “me? really? you need me?” but it’s very quickly overshadowed by this compulsive need to show up, to please, to do anything for you, which is why he always answers when you call. he doesn’t realize that he has puppygod eyes, especially when he’s excited or confused, but he does and it’s incredible endearing. very reluctant to share your space or attention after a while, considers that to be sacred and he won’t risk being let go or lost again, so as a safety precaution, he keeps himself right by you, waits for you always.
STEVE & BUCKY'S LOVE STORY, UNABRIDGED SOMEWHAT ABRIDGED, part 2/3 (here is part 1)
picking up from where we left off:
some 65 years into the future, steve's plane is fished out of the ice, and they find him, frozen like a sexy hot-dayum popsicle, but still alive thanks to the same super serum that made him go from Smol to Lorge.
steve is thus brought back into the world, but it's a world he no longer recognizes after all these years; a world where all the people he used to know and love are long dead, and his own face has been turned into a tool for propaganda over the years. obviously, he has a hard time adjusting, and he turns to fighting again, joining this group of kinda possibly superheroes, aka the avengers.
lots of exciting new things happen, sure; but steve is still pretty miserable. until one day, a mysterious masked assassin dressed in bondage gear (but not really), and sporting one very shiny metal arm (!!!!), is sent to kill steve's sort-of-boss. and then to kill steve himself. oh no!!
in what is possibly the most gripping, most visually pleasing hand-to-hand fight sequence in the history of cinema,
(NO BUT SERIOUSLY, all jokes aside, if you've never watched it then please do bc it's!!! *shrieks* so fucking good!!!)
a fight sequence which also happened to unlock both steve's and an entire fandom's competence kink with that little sexy knife-flipping trick alone -- i know you know what i'm talking about, don't you lie to me babes--
as i was saying, steve manages to knock the mask off of his opponent's face. and who do you think appears before him? can you guess??
DING DING DING!!! EXACTLY!!! IT'S HIS LONG-LOST BAE BUCKY! who apparently doesn't recognize him??
confused and upset, steve fights to uncover the truth. turns out, the man is indeed the very same bucky he grew up with and loved. only, he didn't actually die in that tragic fall in the ravine; rather, due to the experiments performed on him while he was a war prisoner, he survived long enough to be found and captured by the enemy. who then proceeded to torture and brainwash him, using him as a tool for murder against his will, and literally putting him back in the freezer when they didn't need him.
which, as it happens, is how he stayed so young in the first place: he, uh, spent the better part of 70 years frozen. yeaaah, are the parallels paralleling or what, hmmmm?? preserved in ice like your mom's best lasagna from last week? plunging to a 'death' that isn't really a death? waking up in the future kinda screwed over? :D
ANYWAY
steve is even more devastated than before, now that he's learned that while he was asleep in the ocean, bucky was out there suffering. when he finally confronts bucky again (and it's fucking epic and also fucking heartbreaking, believe you me) steve is desperate to bring bucky, his bucky, back. knowing in his heart that his bae is still somewhere in there, no matter how deeply buried.
in the most critical moment(TM), steve chooses to stay behind, on a plane that's about to fucking blow up around them - just like bucky did for him all those years ago - because if he can't save bucky, then he'd rather die with him.
only, bucky is scared and confused af at the moment, and he attacks steve, because 1) he has a mission after all, he's supposed to kill this guy dammit, and 2) wtf is even going on here??? who IS this man, WHY does he keep saying that they've known each other their whole lives?? and WHY does bucky feel like he's actually seen him somewhere else before?????
AND HERE IS THE PIVOTAL MOMENT OF ALL PIVOTAL MOMENTS: for the first time in his life, steve refuses to fight back. like he literally drops his shield out of the plane and into the river underneath, in a very powerful and symbolic gesture, signifying his surrender: he's not going to hurt bucky anymore, no matter what. THIS FUCKER LITERALLY LETS BUCKY BEAT HIM TO A PULP, WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO DEFEND HIMSELF, 100% ready to let bucky kill him if that's what's gonna happen here, because that's still better than living in a world where bucky's gone - a world where bucky will look at him and only see a target, or a stranger at best.
and then!!!!
no this is like, this is THE most romantic shit, okay, like you could try to convince me that it isn't for the next hundred years and i wouldn't buy it, because. BECAUSE.
at the very last moment, steve finally manages to break through bucky's brainwashing, breaking the metaphorical spell bucky was under. and do you know how he does that? i ask you, do you know how steve does that, my love?
by repeating to bucky the very same words bucky offered him way back in the beginning, when he proposed asked steve to move in together. till death do us part the end of the line, baby. romeo could NEVER
bucky, who was about to deal the fatal blow, freezes instantly, finally recognizing the man under him.
and when steve falls out of the plane, bucky jumps after him, instinctively saving his life instead.
but bucky can't stay. confused, wounded, vulnerable, and only just beginning to remember who he used to be and what was done to him, he slips away and hides from steve - and from all the other people who might be looking for him, and probably want him dead. you think this is gonna stop steve, though?? now that he knows that bucky is still alive, and that he remembers him??? now that he knows that bucky's not lost to him forever?? AS IF!!
i'll never forgive the TSP fandom for taking the valid critique of " hey isn't it just a little weird that this character without a form is most often depicted as a conventionally attractive skinny guy "
& turned it into " guys let's not police anybody's designs here that's not cool, everyone's design is valid "
nobody ( competent ) said you HAD to change your designs or that they were bad, they just asked you to consider a very glaringly obvious trope IN the pool of designs, but you had almost everyone bastardizing that message as " policing "
guys, all that was being pointed out was that " conventional attractiveness " seemed / seems to be the norm for a character that doesn't even have a physical description, much less anything that alludes TO him being attractive beyond personal tastes.
I really truly, from the bottom of my heart, hate you bitches so much, because on the tiktok of literally COCK AND BALL jokes w brittany broski, there were a few notes/messages like this:
And I KNOW you don't think anyone's going to check. You had someone go into your askbox and say "hiii brittany broski is shitty about palestine she's really ignorant :/" and you went oh omg I didn't know!! thanks for telling me!
So I checked! This is in reference to her talking in her podcast, because people were asking why she hadn't done any big press statements about Palestine, you didn't retweet this or that, you must not care, don't you care, what's your stance, etc etc please say more
OKAY COOL. So what's going on there? What did Brittany say on her podcast? Is she a Bad Person? Can I have some transcript, please?
____
"Hey guys, before we get into this week's episode, I want to talk to you about the ongoing and prolonged suffering and loss of life in Gaza, in Israel, and the oppression of Palestinian people widespread. I don't ever want it to be a question that I would ever not be against the oppression of any group of people, that I would ever stand on the side of the oppressor."
"There was a lot of fear of misusing my platform." ... "I will admit that I was nervous to talk about it, because I don't want to say the wrong thing. And this is too fucking serious of an issue to misspeak, or to spread misinformation, or to speak over or for someone." ... "So I want to take a moment on my biggest platform- which is this podcast, to say that I stand with the people of Palestine, I stand for the liberation of Palestinian people." ... "Every day, to log on to social media, and be just inundated with graphic, unimaginable violence, and loss, and grief, it's just--There are no words." ... "And I feel helpless. That's part of it too, when you feel helpless, the last thing you want to do is talk to people about it-- but visibility is a resource in and of itself. And I can offer that."
... "The outpouring of rage and passion online, and anger at what's happening, I would argue needs to be dedicated and focused on our elected officials. We live in a democracy- albeit an inherently flawed one- we live in a democracy where we have elected officials who were elected and put in power to represent us, and if we feel misrepresented, if we feel underrepresented in foreign affairs? These officials have public phone numbers and emails. There are scripts available online to express your disdain and your rage, and unfortunately that's one of the only ways we'll see actionable change."
"If you expected more from me, it's a terrible feeling- but I don't want to center myself, this needs to be all eyes on Palestine right now, where the real activism is happening.
I would encourage you to follow journalists that are on the ground, people who are in Gaza, we need to be listening to them.
I would also hope that we're at a point in this conversation where I can express my desire to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and that NOT meaning or suggesting or condoning anti-Semitism of any kind. There's a rise of anti-Semitism and islamophobia in the United States and it's just-- it's disgusting, and it's scary, so I want that to be said too. I just wanted to share that I am experiencing part of this collective sense of helplessness and hopelessness-- but it DOESN'T HAVE to be hopeless.
I'm going to include a phone number in the description of this episode where, if you don't know the name of your senators or your Congressman, it's never too late to learn, and you can reach out to them."
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Hm. What a bitch!! Yeah, just so ignorant and uncaring. Obviously she's not keeping up with anything. Should've retweeted more shit ig!
Okay, so I have read a lot of fics where Dogma joins the Coruscant Guard post-Umbara as a way to protect him, or he joins the Guard because the 501st doesn't like him, but I have a new CG Dogma AU concept.
Rex sends Dogma to the Guard specifically to look after Fox. He KNOWS Fox is overworked and the Guard is understaffed, but Fox just isn't asking for help as much as Rex would like, so he sends Dogma over because if Rex can't be there to look after Fox himself, he might as well as send the next best thing. Dogma is a little skeptical about it at first, but Rex tells him that he is legitimately the best man for the job specifically BECAUSE of his personality (he's got reason to believe Fox will have a soft spot for someone who reminds him of Rex).
He tells Fox that this is something he and Dogma discussed because the kind of work the Guard does is a better match for Dogma, but that he's also one of Rex's most impressive soldiers. Fox sees right through Rex and is not impressed at being assigned a babysitter, especially not some barely-not-a-shiny sergeant from the 501st. It's almost insulting, but the paperwork has already gone through so he can't say no or just send Dogma back.
But Rex knew what he was doing and Dogma IS a lot like Rex and he thrives in the Guard and it turns out he gets along incredibly well with Fox and, due to some special insider info from Rex, is perfectly capable of helping keep an eye on his new Commander.
You made a post saying “it has been zero days since our last alex hirsch hates ford so much bullshit” and i know it was mostly hyperbole, but you have some really good takes that I would love to be elaborated on in terms of how ford is written
it really wasn't hyperbolic. over the years he's just really shown a lot of hatred towards this one character.
content warning: discussion of abuse
i want to start with this clip from the commentary which i think of as a microcosm for how the writers and especially alex think about ford.
transcript:
rob renzetti: i mean he [mcgucket] should've basically knocked ford out, and... and destroyed the... you know, tied him up, and, destroyed... and...
alex hirsch, speaking over him: yeah he should've beat ford with a wrench and taken this thing apart piece by piece! he's the one who understood how to built [sic] it, but...
... so that seems like a pretty violent course of action. shall we unpack that?
ford is a character who's pretty explicitly written as a victim of abuse, and who now has c-ptsd as a direct result of the abuse he experienced. alex hirsch believes that ford deserved everything bad that happened to him, that it's ford's own fault, and that he also deserved worse things to happen to him. this is why, given every narrative chance, alex hirsch has piled more suffering onto ford's plate. the biggest example of this i can think of is in the journal, when he wrote that fiddleford was actively erasing ford's memory (despite this being a massive timeline contradiction which i still refuse to accept). because god forbid ford even have one remotely healthy relationship with somebody. that would be too good for him.
ford was manipulated and lied to by bill, but alex repeatedly compares him to icarus, a teenager whose demise was the result of his own ignorance. this comparison is still so fucking offensive to me. the sun did not lie to icarus, did not guarantee icarus all of the happiness and success and sense of belonging which he had been denied all his life, did not actively shut out the voices of those around him who would try to help him.
alex in general has a very strange relationship with abuse. he seems to get really upset when people read his characters as victims of abuse. the strongest instance of this is actually not with ford, it's with pacifica - especially in the nwmm episode commentary. the episode says "pacifica's parents have conditioned her to respond to a bell" and alex says people got "the wrong idea" about it. like. dude. what the fuck. you wrote abuse. even if you didn't mean to, that's what you wrote. you can't say people got "the wrong idea" just because you didn't think about the subtext of what you were writing.
anyway, back to ford: i believe this extends to him as well. alex wanted to write a character who's a foil to stan and who was a selfish unlikable victim of his own arrogance. however that's not what he wrote. he somehow seemingly accidentally wrote a really compelling and relatable awesome autistic guy who had to fight for every good thing he he ever had in his life only for it to be taken from him every single time. but alex can't let go of seeing ford as just "the opposite of stan". when he talks about "how someone as smart as ford could fall for bill's tricks", he refuses to realize he wrote a situation in which a man was being psychologically manipulated and tortured.
it goes back further, too. people repeatedly theorized that filbrick was... not a very good father, to say the least. on top of the very explicit and canon fact that he threw one of his children out on the street (seriously, there is no defense for this), people pointed out that stan would flinch at filbrick, that ford seemed upset by things filbrick said but dared not talk back, that filbrick was mad at stan not for hurting his brother, but for "costing the family potential millions". but alex can't have people seeing ford as sympathetic. ford can't have it bad like stan did. ford had to have everything and he lost it all because he sucks so much. so he wrote the graphic novel story where ford is filbrick's favorite child and filbrick also is not even a bad parent you guys he's just stoic. ignore the whole thing in dreamscaperers where stan perpetuates the abuse that filbrick did to him. ignore the fact that ford was shouting at stan and then completely shut up as soon as filbrick entered the room and did not say another word for the rest of the night. ignore all that because i just made up this story where he cries at a present from stan. filbrick loved his boys for sure you guys!!!
i'm not even touching on how alex repeatedly villainizes traits commonly associated with mental illness and neurodivergence. ford's hypervigilance becomes arrogance. his passion for knowledge means he's a know-it-all. his difficulty socializing and making friends means he's a misanthrope. his lingering resentment for the way he was raised means he hates his brother and is the worst human being to ever have lived. i could go on, go even further into how the finale reaffirms this, but i feel weird talking about this too much.