You like spaghetti, George? I like spaghetti. I like board games. I like grabbing a trifecta with that long shot on top... that ozone smell you get from air purifiers... and I like knowing the space between my ears is immeasurable... Mahler's first, Bernstein conducting. You've got to think about all the things you like and decide whether they're worth sticking around for. And if they are, you'll find a way to do this. And what if I don't? Then you go away, and you don't get to like anything anymore.
podcast
I Met You On LJ
A Fandom & Nonsense Podcast
Longtime friends Maggie and V met twelve years ago through a mutual fandom -- and they haven't agreed on much since, except for their love of loving things, writing fanfiction, and each other. Join them as they chat about their passions (and gentle ribbing of the other's passions) and discuss the ins and outs of fandom's past, present, and future, from LiveJournal to Tumblr, AO3, and beyond.
100 TUMBLR DRABBLE CHALLENGE: DRA666LES → 10/100100 Drabbles from this prompt list.100 Star Wars Women Drabbles → 93/100100 drabbles about Star Wars women.lent from tomorrow (today was too small for us) → 50,000/~90,000Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes shrinkyclinks WWII A/B/Oin screaming color → 79,238/~120,000Poe Dameron/Rey (Star Wars) get a lot of therapy and fall in love.Wish You Were Here → 42,195/100,000Nile/Booker (The Old Guard) slow burn...
[V. Arrow] has clearly established herself as both a titan of fan academia and as an honest, passionate, and dedicated... authority and aficionado."
-- Fanboy Comics (Fanbase Press)
[V. Arrow] takes ... theoretical exploration to the heights of pop-culture academia."
-- Booklist
An essay by scholar V. Arrow... continues, there's no reason why RPF has to be looked down upon: after all, Julius Caesar was based on a similar idea." -- Time Magazine
I've perused a lot of the maps out there... and this one, created by Livejournalers aimmyarrowshigh and badguys is perhaps the best one I've seen. It's both creative and meticulously justified based on Collins' text." -- Entertainment Weekly
V has to be right; the boy band butt psychic said it." -- pinkalldaypinkallnight
Overall, I want to get on aimmyarrowshigh's level of 'idgaf about what old white cis men have to say about pop/teen culture.'" -- persimmonlions
Listen I know she is unhinged, responsible for multiple atrocities, and a danger to herself and others. But have you ever considered that she is tiny and sad and I love her?
I’ve been having a very specific Bucky Barnes Thought™ the last few days.
How has the Disney Plus TV branch of the MCU written themselves into an ethical corner wherein:
the brainwashed, tortured prisoner of war spends almost his entire narrative arc in his show (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) struggling to atone for the crimes he committed when he wasn’t in control of his mind and body, and not spend a lot of time, y'know, actively healing (minus the famous Ayo scene)
the same tortured POW struggles with autonomy, PTSD, and constant guilt, and isn’t really comforted by anyone on that specific front, despite them having great opportunities to assert that he isn’t in any way responsible for what he did, and that while it’s great that he wants to do good, he’s a victim of Hydra’s violence as well and doesn’t need to continue doing their work by torturing himself with anger and self-hatred
BUT, in a subsequent show, an assassin who willingly murdered who-knows-how-many people gets to have a frolicking good time at Christmas as he attempts to hide his past work as an assassin who willingly murdered who-knows-how-many people
his main concerns are: upholding the promise he made to his children to be home for fun Christmas traditions; mourning the death of his supposed best friend a bare handful of times in cheapened ways that feel more guilt-based than grief-based (don’t think I’m faulting Jeremy Renner here - this is more of a quibble with the script); and so far, apparently wanting to reclaim the Ronin costume to hide his culpability in the whole “murdered probably dozens of people extra-judiciously because I consciously convinced myself that it was my job to murder people when I was sad, and it was OK because they were baddies that I deemed bad enough” thing.
Every time I think about it, I’m left with the same conclusion where Disney wants us to accept that a victim is someone who should feel guilt for what’s been done to them and for what they’ve done as a result; and a hero is someone who does terrible and violent things because they are convinced they’re right, and that extrajudicial murder is good and just when you are a hero, a fun circular piece of logic.
Sure, there’s three more episodes of Hawkeye, so we’ll see if they fix this bizarre ethics system the MCU has constructed, but it’s not like the problem began with this show or TFATWS.
I have only seen the first two episodes of Hawkeye (and I’m not a fan) but what they said in ep1 during the auction left me speechless: “Ronin decimated the criminal underworld of the city, almost completely annihilating the status and power of the head of organized crime. The Ronin brought a brutal form of justice to his victims”.
Justice? Don’t make me laugh. It’s so clear the MCU never judges the action but who is doing it and depending on who it is they say it’s right or wrong.
Bucky has to make amends but Ronin was bringing justice to the victims? What kind of joke is that?!
Oh nooo they romanticised his time as Ronin? 🤦♀️🤦♀️
Where’s the social justice crowd calling out the cultural appropriation that is the “Ronin” title?? Look, I know this title exists in the comics and went through a number of different characters, but let’s not pretend it’s not cultural appropriation by taking an exotic-sounding Japanese word, bastardising the significance of it, and giving it to a series of non-Asian heroes.
According to Wiki, the first Ronin was introduced in 2005. Rurouni Kenshin, arguably one of the most popular manga that romanticised the concept of “ronin” had its run from 1994 to 1999. It was amongst the few manga that was popular enough to have a decent fanbase outside of Japan even before English manga publishers became a thing, and I would be very surprised if the creators of “Ronin” didn’t draw their inspiration from this manga.
“Ronin” is a term that is inseparable from the feudal Japan culture and strict social hierarchy that created it, and people made into “ronin” were socially ostracised and lived in impoverished conditions (eg for some time they weren’t allowed to live in cities). Rurouni Kenshin is a story that lamented the rapid social change that came through because of western countries including America invading and forcing Japan to open up. The Bakumatsu Era was a time of great turmoil, loss and uncertainty for Japan, where it has had to collectively rethink its cultural identity and force through changes not many people were ready for.
Regardless of whether “Ronin” drew its inspiration from Rurouni Kenshin, a manga about Japan dealing with forced westernisation, or from the historical meaning of an oppressed class, it’s tasteless for it to be romanticised to become a byword for vigilante samurai-wannabe ninja assassins.
If anyone has ever whinged about non-Japanese people wearing a yukata or kimono (something that Japanese people consider positive in most situations), you better be criticising the use of this word by a White man who took it upon himself to teach Japan how to manage their criminals.
I was about to roast you for comparing a lake to the ocean but then I googled it,,, This is a LAKE?
How??
Actually let me geek out about this in body (instead of in tags) because this has been SEVERAL social studies teachers special interests and inherited pet passions are still serotonin machines. OP I’m sure you’ve already heard the answer by now but for everyone else:
So no European language had a word for what the Great Lakes are because they are pretty much wholly unique on the planet. They are the size of seas, but seas are always saltwater. Some of them are so famously saltwater that they’re called things like the Dead Sea simply so you know how much salt is in them, because of course you should know it’s the salt that’s deadly.
Freshwater bodies of water come in the form of ponds, which can be wholly contained on one person’s property, and lakes, which may be large enough that you have to drive around them but you can usually still see across on an average day.
There is no word for a body of water that is freshwater but as large as a sea because there was no need for it. It was a distinction without a difference.
So when Europeans first learned of the Great Lakes they had two options to describe them: lakes that were f****** massive (the original meaning of the word “great”) or seas that were somehow freshwater. At the time it was easier to get people to understand that they were “great lakes” so that became the term but language and scientific ….understanding? terminology? (Not sure if it’s the people or the science that have changed. Real chicken and the egg situation.) have evolved to the point that “freshwater sea” feels more accurate now, but you don’t usually just change names like that.
#IT’S ONLY CONCEPT ART AND VADER’S BREATHING #AND YET I AM LOSING MY MIND ALREADY #SAD DESERT HERMIT OBI-WAN #STAR WARS CITIES #ANAKIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #VADER ON MUSTAFAR WATCHING THE OBI-WAN SHOW ON HOLO #LOOK AT THAT OBI-WAN VS VADER FIGHT OH MY GOOOOD #ARE THEY GOING TO FIGHT ON MUSTAFAR AGAIN??? #I’M NOT GOING TO SURVIVE THIS #GIVE IT TO ME NOW
(shrinkyclinks AU with single dad!Winter Soldier and art therapist!Steve Rogers - current word count, 15,926)
Excerpt from Chapter Two:
The Winter Soldier brushes a metal hand through thick, dark brown hair, which falls majestically over his shoulders. Steve shivers when the Soldier stares right at him and doesn’t so much as move a muscle.
Is it a horny shiver? Maybe. Steve doesn’t have to explain every shiver, does he?
“Thanks,” Steve manages to say. He hopes he sounds confident. “But I had him on the ropes.”
Even though the Soldier’s face is, as usual, completely obscured by goggles and mask, Steve can tell he’s now glaring at him with a strong element of what the fuck?
“Maybe next time, hit something that is not attached to a flamethrower,” the Winter Soldier suggests in that deep, sarcastic, Russian drawl of his. Steve flushes under his collar.
“Maybe next time, I bring my own flamethrower,” he counters.
The Winter Soldier chuckles, and the flush under Steve’s collar spreads to his spine. In their past interactions - and yeah, Steve’s bumped into the guy a few times, so what? - he’s never heard the guy laugh. It’s ridiculously attractive.
“You? With a flamethrower?” The Soldier shakes his head. “You’d be my new mission.”
I’m sorry, both of those prompts have been filled! We’re getting to the end of this set so they’re filling up as quickly as being sent… feel free to try again, though! (I’m assuming you’re the same Rachel/Apollo anon whose LAST set also got filled by something else… ack!)
