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#and then its also full of comedy gold

hotvintagepoll · 2 months

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Propaganda

Ginger Rogers (Swing Time, Top Hat)—Look I’ll level with you, I’ve never seen her in a musical and I know that she’s an amazing dancer and she’ll be even hotter when I finally watch Top Hat but I’m not submitting her as a dancer I’m submitting her as an ACTRESS. Her comic timing is impeccable!!!!! She’s full to bursting with life and in every role she seems to be having FUN, you can practically feel the twinkle in her eye. With her natural warmth it’s like she’s letting you in on the joke, y’all get to have this fun together! Making me laugh is hot!!! [If you'd like to see Ginger dance, videos below the cut]

Dorothy Lamour (The Jungle Princess, Road to… movies)—Ok, to be honest, I get if no one wants to vote for her--she's kind of like my ~problematic fave~ because she started in the Road (Singapore, Bali, Hong Kong, etc) movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, which are full of all sorts of exoticism tropes and usually have her playing very side-eye type roles..island princesses and things...yeah. also she banged J. Edgar Hoover. not very hot. but your honor i still think she's pretty despite all that she's pretty please look at her and tell me she's prettyyy

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Dorothy Lamour propaganda:

She started in jungle and South Seas movies and became famous in the Road series. She learned quickly to improvise when facing Bob and Bing. Road to Bali almost has her character marrying both of theirs, since she's island royalty and nobody had a problem with it - a nearly poly relationship, an epiphany for a viewer who didn't even know that that could happen! She was a popular pinup girl during World War 2, and was the first singer for the popular standard "It Could Happen to You". She sang often in her movies and has a lovely voice!

Ginger Rogers propaganda:

She needs no introduction! An undeniable powerhouse on the dancefloor, and no less talented an actress. I once watched a compilation of cinema's greatest dance scenes and one of her and Fred Astaire's dances was featured, and one of the talking heads said he pitied her for 'having to keep up with him' - or something to that effect. Bullshit, I cry. Ginger Rogers was his absolute equal, and underplaying her incredible skill is downright criminal. I want the 'Cheek to Cheek' sequence from Top Hat to be permanently burned into my memory.

"Backwards in high heels", as the saying goes (though the pedant in me must point out that she in fact spent her fair share of time leading or dancing side-by-side). One of the earliest twinkle-toed ladies of the silver screen, and in terms of acting/persona, her balance of wide-eyed cuteness and movie-star glamour has never quite been replicated.

we all know her beloved string of musicals with fred but ginger also has an extensive and varied non-fred filmography that she's great in! a few ginger moments that are important 2 me personally ginger singing “we’re in the money” in gold diggers of 1933, complete with a verse in pig latin bc this whole movie is kinda mocking the concept of anyone actually being in the money in 1933; ginger and una merkel singing a verse of “shuffle off to buffalo” in 42nd street, providing some statler & waldorf-esque commentary on newlyweds from the upper berth of a railway car (interesting that belly was apparently a risque word in 1933 - maybe its bc the lyric is innuendo-ing about out of wedlock pregnancies - and that panties was a term for men’s underthings!); a favorite fred & ginger number

Ginger Rogers could do everything! She could sing, dance and act. She was hilarious in comedies, moving in dramatic roles (she won an Oscar for Kitty Foyle in 1940) and absolutely gorgeous!

Listen, no shade to Fred Astaire at all, but she both kept up with him step for step and then later went on to WIN AN OSCAR FOR ACTING. (which he did not.) truly a double threat!!!

One of the best dancers in Hollywood! Her work with Fred Astaire is just incredible.

ONE LINE: "Everything Fred did, Ginger did backwards and in heels" AND THEYRE RIGHT! Rogers was a total dance badass, and a lot of movie buffs know the story, but the Never Gonna Dance number from Swing Time took almost 50 takes, and allegedly by the end of filming it her white shoes had been stained pink because her feet were bleeding. As a note, she looks crazy gorgeous in this number. Watching these two dance is insane. They match up to each other in a way my mom describes as "divine" and she's right. DANCE NUMBERS!

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Let's Call The Whole Thing Off (Shall We Dance, 1937, dancing starts at 3:14, they're in ROLLERSKATES)

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(Ginger Rogers is the hottest woman ever to live in this number. seeing this as a teenager altered my brain chemistry)

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(also watch her feet and how she moves opposite Astaire in this one. We all know our boy Freddie had that precision demon but jesus christ Miss Rogers, let a girl live!)

Pick Yourself Up, Swing Time 1936 (Everyone's seen this one but by god you are going to see it AGAIN!)

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Shall We Dance, 1937 (duet begins at 2:34)

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Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Roberta 1935 (There's just something about Ginger Rogers in a slick black dress man)

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The Continental, The Gay Divorcee 1934 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjv6nmF7wdk God she's MAGIC in this one.

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Gay Divorcee's Ending Montage 1934The infamous table and chairs spin happens at about 0:49. Pay CLOSE attention to her in this bc it looks like witchcraft and I feel lightheaded whenever I watch this movie bc shes THAT awesome.

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She is a miracle to watch. Sorry for the sheer amount of clips. My entire family is like madly in love with Ginger Rogers.

#dorothy lamour #ginger rogers #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 1 #Youtube

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playasmo · 1 year

Note

IM BRAINROTTING ON THE OBEY ME CAST AS FATHERS,

how would they name their children???😩😩😩

how the obey me brothers would name their children

disclaimer; these are my personal headcanons, feel free to tell which names you liked the most!

edit;;i posted the side characters version too! go check it out if you want <//3

genre; fluff

lucifer;

lucifer would either name the baby with a variation of his name, or homage somebody or something dear to him

if it’s a boy, lucian or lucius. both names means light, if it’s a girl, he would call her lilith. danica is a second option: the name means morning star.

mammon;

he would either name his baby after something expensive. another option is mashing up your names together

if it’s a boy he would go for midas, which means touch of gold, or straight up fortune,

if its a girl, esmeralda which means emerald. or diamond, the name speak for itself.

leviathan;

definitely name his baby to reference something he likes. some people may think he would name his children after an anime character he likes, but that is not the case

if it’s a boy, henry without a doubt, the name means house ruler. he would also like christopher, to simeon’s joy, which means bearing christ. very very ironic.

if its a girl, mira, which means ocean. he also likes umiko, a japanese name that means child of the sea.

satan;

he takes inspiration from human literature and would name his baby after a character or author he particularly likes.

if it’s a boy, william which means protection and desire. he chose it because of william sherlock scott holmes, probably the most famous fictional detective in the history of literature, it’s also a reference to shakespeare. another boy name is dante which means everlasting, after the italian poet dante alighieri, that wrote “the divine comedy”, which is set in heaven, purgatory and then hell.

if it’s a girl he would name her juliet which means youthful, another tribute to shakespearen literature. emma, after jane austen’s book, is also a name he likes, it’s means whole or universal.

asmodeus;

he only choose the name if it’s pretty. often goes for floral and fancy names that sound aesthetically pleasing to him.

if it’s a boy, narciso which means of narcissus, named after the myth.

he briefly considered cupid but he threw away the idea and choose a simple but pretty name like prince, which means royal son.

if it’s a girl, regina which means queen, or bellerose which means beautiful rose.

beelzebub;

he is a family-oriented person, and will try to pass his values to his children.

if it’s a boy, titan which means defender. despite being the name of a fruit, he also likes açaí which means weeping fruit.

if it’s a girl, ohana which means family in hawaiian, another name he consider is belarmina which means beautiful armor, he choose it because it’s starts with ‘bel’, just like his and belphegor’s name.

belphegor;

big fan of space-related names, it’s even easier for him since there are a lot of stars and constellations he can get his inspiration from. like lucifer, he would also try to pay homage to lilith.

if it’s a boy, sirius which means glowing, named after the brightest star in the earth’s night sky. he also likes badar which means full moon.

if it’s a girl, a name variation of lilith, something like lilithe or just lili. he also likes alrisha, one of the brightest star of the pisces constellation, since pisces is his and beelzebub’s zodiacal sign.

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steveyoungjokes · 2 years

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Discworld Pushed Me Left

by Steven Young

Thanks to the marvelous editor, Lyta Gold.

[Originally published in Current Affairs, (before the purge)]

It took Hannah Arendt two books and 800 or so pages to describe the origins of totalitarianism and the banality of evil. Terry Pratchett did it in 326 words when describing the workplace culture of the religious torture chambers in his book Small Gods. Karl Marx spent many chapters in Capital describing how the rich fleece the poor; Pratchett boiled much of that down into the 169-word “‘Boots’ Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness” in Men At Arms. By using humor to poke fun at the world that he created, Terry Pratchett made many progressive and leftist ideas accessible, explainable, and shareable. And his Discworld series helped move my political outlook leftward in a way that not many other things could.

I grew up conservative in the way that many middle-class suburban religious white kids are conservative. (“We’re fine, right? Everyone else must be fine, then. If not, it’s their fault.”) My father was a career Army officer and my mother had been in the Army during Vietnam. As adults, they both joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). That’s why I served a mission for two years in Brazil (for my Church), and why I joined the Marine Corps, serving my country (I thought, lol) for 12 years. You would think that being a religious colonizer, and a veteran in the “War on Terror” would have cemented my conservativeness, but the most important thing I inherited from my parents is silliness. I am a very silly person, and am more strongly influenced by funny things (comedy, light-hearted fiction) than serious things (pundits, war). Conservative comedy, I realized as I matured, wasn’t particularly funny or clever, since it consisted mostly of racism and bullying. In watching, listening to, and reading comedians who critiqued society and its institutions, rather than just mocking people, I began to see the weak points in my inherited conservative views. Then I found the Discworld, and was changed forever.

Terry Pratchett’s 41-novel Discworld series describes a place of barbarian heroes and hapless academics, brave witches and cowardly Wizards, silly kings and evil fairy godmothers. There are magical flying dragons, and domesticated swamp dragons with a propensity for inadvertent self-immolation. You’ll also find plenty of politics, as well as war, inventions, grifting, intrigue, love, danger, and DEATH. (On the Disc, Death is no mere abstraction, but an anthropomorphic personification with a voice like “the lid of a sarcophagus slamming,” who is really quite likeable.) Perhaps more than anything else, the Discworld has humor. Every page is full of puns and other wordplay, clever rejoinders, and silly situations. Pratchett’s stories are often laugh-out-loud funny and at the same time incredibly insightful, often by using a silly situation to show the inherent silliness of many things in our world.

In his book The Truth, about the invention of the newspaper, Pratchett writes that “People like to be told what they already know… They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things… They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that a man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds.” Pratchett often gets the reader to think about “the news” by referencing “the olds,” re-telling classic stories from a different perspective to challenge their established values. For example, in Witches Abroad (Discworld #12, Witches #3), the young witch Magrat Garlick is given a magic wand, and told that she is to act as fairy godmother for a young woman named Emberella, an obvious play on Cinderella (both in name and, as we find out, in the story). After many adventures on the way to find Emberella, Magrat discovers that there is another fairy godmother who is “helping” Emberella by trying to force her into marrying a handsome “Prince” (who had until very recently been a frog, and still thinks he is one). The book hinges on Magrat and her fellow witches competing with this other fairy godmother by trying to help Emberella figure out if marrying the handsome prince is what she really wants. The entire story, in fact, is premised on what happens when powerful people (in this case, powerful magic users) try to impose their idealistic stories onto the lives of others.

Pratchett’s 41 novels are dense with literary references, and are hilariously critical of just about anything one could be critical of. I do not have enough space to give the incredibly broad scope of the characters and places of the Discworld the discussion they deserve, so I will focus for now on the biggest city on the Disc: Ankh-Morpork. That’s right, “Ankh-Morpork! Pearl of cities! This is not a completely accurate description, of course—it was not round and shiny—but even its worst enemies would agree that if you had to liken Ankh-Morpork to anything, then it might as well be a piece of rubbish covered with the diseased secretions of a dying mollusc.” Ankh-Morpork can be likened to immediately-pre-industrialization New York City and London, and many of the problems in the stories arise from the growing industrialization of the Discworld—such as urban blight, policing, corruption, organized crime, innovation, monopolies, and lack of funding for public services.

The government of Ankh-Morpork can be described as libertarian, more or less. The city of millions is ruled over by the Patrician, whose role is, as he understands it, to ensure that everything works. “Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote,” Pratchett writes in Mort. “The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.” The Patrician, Havelock Vetinari, doesn’t rule Ankh-Morpork with an iron fist: he just lets everyone go about their business, and then rigidly holds them accountable. That said, his real power comes from his ability to influence people by sheer foresight and incredibly detailed planning. In fact it was Vetinari himself who instituted a new type of “justice” system. He legalized the Guild of Thieves:

“Crime was always with us, he reasoned, and therefore, if you were going to have crime, it at least should be organized crime...[I]n exchange for the winding down of the Watch, the [Thieves Guild] agreed, while trying to keep their faces straight, to keep crime levels to a level to be determined annually. That way, everyone could plan ahead… and part of the uncertainty had been removed from the chaos that is life.”

I can imagine certain libertarians trying to explain how paying a predetermined amount to the Thieves Guild in exchange for a receipt and future protection is different from paying taxes, but you and I both recognize that that argument would be nonsense. By taking the concept of “organized crime” literally, Pratchett exposes the baselessness of the libertarian idea that freedom can be found through just legalizing everything and resolving all conflicts through contracts. Arrangements like these don’t make people any safer, and no matter what, they still result in powerful entities charging citizens money for protection.

The societies in Discworld are pre-industrial, as I said, with some later going through industrialization, and for that reason there is little governmental regulation of housing, industry, commerce, and the environment. The water in Ankh-Morpork is described as having a “thick texture,” “too stiff to drink, too runny to plough” and smelling like “several armies had used it first as a urinal and then as a sepulcher.” Any urban planner will tell you that environmental degradation, among other things, leads to urban blight: Ankh-Morpork is squalid and dangerous. As Pratchett writes in Pyramids, there “was not a lot that could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by a meteorite would count as gentrification.” For all the danger and organized crime, “murder was in fact a fairly uncommon event in Ankh-Morpork, but there were a lot of suicides. Walking in the night-time alleyways of The Shades was suicide. Asking for a short in a dwarf bar was suicide. Saying 'Got rocks in your head?' to a troll was suicide. You could commit suicide very easily, if you weren't careful.” There’s a sly joke in here about crime statistics, and how technical terminology can be used and misused to tell a certain story. Relatedly, the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork doesn’t commit “murder”; instead they merely “inhume” their victims, but they keep detailed records of their work and come down very hard on unlicensed inhumations. The state of policing in the United States is so horrible that perhaps, if we had a strong Assassins Guild, it would be an improvement; sure, murder would be officially legal, but in the guild system it’s costly to hire an assassin and costly to be an unlicensed assassin, whereas in the United States the police often do the assassinating themselves. At least in Ankh-Morpork the Assassins Guild school provides one of the best and well-rounded educations on the Disc, with scholarships for need-based students. This is partly out of noblesse oblige, but mostly because the experienced assassins know how important it is to keep an eye on youngsters with an aptitude for the profession. (Yes, to some degree this sounds like the current school bully-to-cop pipeline, but at least Pratchett’s assassins are held accountable.)

Criminals in Ankh-Morpork are often just referred to as ‘entrepreneurs,’ and at the start of the Discworld series, the city doesn’t have much in the way of a law enforcement system. Due to Vetinari’s re-organization of the Guilds into self-enforcing crime causing and prevention, an official law enforcement body was seen as superfluous. For that reason, early in the Discworld series the Night Watch has only three very ineffective police officers. To leftists like me this may sound great, but as discussed above, Ankh-Morpork’s methods of criminal self-enforcement coupled with unregulated markets makes for a pretty terrible place to live. The three officers of the Night Watch—Captain Sam Vimes, Sergeant Fred Colon, and Corporal Nobby Nobbs—have three different takes on policing (all of which might be called a sort of “anti-policing.”) In Making Money, Pratchett writes that “Colon and Nobby had lived a long time in a dangerous occupation and they knew how not to be dead. To wit, by arriving when the bad guys had got away.” Sergeant Colon was the type of policeman who would say that “trying to keep down crime in Ankh-Morpork was like trying to keep down salt in the sea…” and would avoid having to interact with criminals by proactively guarding very notable city locations because “[o]ne day someone was bound to try to steal the Brass Bridge, and then they’d find Sergeant Colon right there waiting for them. In the meantime, it offered a quiet place out of the wind where he could have a relaxing smoke and probably not see anything that would upset him.” Corporal Nobbs, however, is the kind of person who joins armies to loot corpses. He’s often the main suspect in any unlicensed minor theft around town, stemming from his preferred method of police work (testing doorknobs to see if houses are locked, and going into the unlocked homes to make sure no thieves are there.) Slightly less risk-averse than Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs would never fight fair:

“Corporal Nobbs,” [Vimes] rasped, “why are you kicking people when they’re down?”

“Safest way, sir,” said Nobby.

When we meet Captain Vimes in Guards! Guards! (Discworld #8, City Watch #1), he’s a somewhat functional alcoholic who stumbles through the city avoiding crime as much as possible, and trying to keep Colon and Nobbs from getting into dangerous situations. Over the course of his arc, we learn that Vimes is driven to drink because of past trauma, plus the ongoing and somewhat banal trauma caused by the internal tension that he experiences as an ersatz peace officer who is constantly confronted with the fact that he is mostly powerless to protect those who need protecting and that most of the harm caused to the city and its inhabitants is technically “legal.” In short, to the extent that Vimes can be considered a “good cop,” it’s because he comes to the realization that the status quo of organized and legalized criminal syndicates fueled by unregulated libertarian capitalism doesn’t help people, and he pushes back somewhat significantly against that status quo.

That being said, in later books the Night Watch is expanded (as one of the more prominent efforts in Ankh-Morpork to officially reflect the diverse social makeup of the city). It becomes the City Watch, and Vimes is promoted, becoming a part of the aristocracy. This is all a bit neat—it just so happens that Ankh-Morpork’s libertarian problems can be solved by more policing, and Vimes is rewarded for his efforts. However, despite Vimes’ increased station, and the increased power of the City Watch he commands, he remains mostly grounded and functions as a traitor to his new class. This is likely because of the lessons he learned during his years of living on the lower rungs of society, probably the most famous of which is:

Captain Samuel Vimes’ “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

Though there are flaws to Vimes’ theory (mostly because there are many additional reasons why the rich are so much richer than the poor), his theory is very understandable, and can lead readers to ask deeper economic questions about labor, value, and planned obsolescence. It doesn’t seem like many leftist academics have incorporated Vimes’ Boots theory into their writings, but the internet is full of people who read the Boots theory and immediately find that it describes their lived experience. As many of us have seen, the internecine online leftist debate over “reading theory” vs. “not being a fucking nerd” often does not lead to much progress when it comes to spreading awareness of left ideas. It is my opinion that a very readable, understandable, and funny version of “theory,” like the one Pratchett wrote, allows for more people to understand—or become interested in or familiar with—leftist theories than would otherwise be the case. I know that during my post-Marine Corps life, Pratchett’s humor was integral for my discovery of progressive ideals.

There are subtler left touches in Pratchett’s work as well: while many stories do focus on high-level political actors or those on the front lines of conflict, his writing also considers the lives of ordinary working people. The personification of Death, rarely dealing with kings and potentates, spends time working as a farm hand, interacting with children (who, like magic users, can see him because they “can see what’s really there”), playing rock and roll, and trying to discover the meaning of life… and death. The witches, as powerful magic users, do interact with various political leaders, but it’s very clear that they gain their power and experience from helping farmers and shepherds deal with the everyday, practical issues that are part of life in a pre-industrial society. Another subseries focuses on the senior faculty of Unseen University—a bunch of old wizards with tenure—but every story illustrates the blinkered stupidity of these senior faculty members, and how useless they are without the help of their support staff.

Though Pratchett often writes stories about the inherent goodness of most people, he is also interested in the ways in which anybody can become a collaborator with evil. Perhaps the best example of this comes in Small Gods, in which the country of Omnia launches a “Quisition” [inquisition] complete with torture pits. The cellar of the Quisition is not, at first glance, a wildly evil workplace: “There were no jolly little signs saying: You Don’t Have To Be Pitilessly Sadistic To Work Here But It Helps!!!” But take a look at their coffee breaks: “The inquisitors stopped work twice a day for coffee. Their mugs, which each man had brought from home, were grouped around the kettle on the hearth of the central furnace which incidentally heated the irons and knives.” This is such a small, perfect image of evil: the inquisitors heating their coffee and their torture tools on the same hearth. Pratchett further describes their environment:

“...there were the postcards on the wall. It was traditional that, when an inquisitor went on holiday, he'd send back a crudely coloured woodcut of the local view with some suitably jolly and risque message on the back. And there was the pinned-up tearful letter from Inquisitor First Class Ishmale "Pop" Quoom, thanking all the lads for collecting no fewer than seventy-eight obols for his retirement present and the lovely bunch of flowers for Mrs. Quoom, indicating that he'd always remember his days in No. 3 pit, and was looking forward to coming in and helping out any time they were short-handed.”

Pratchett could, of course, be describing any office break room. The casual and friendly quality stands in horrid contrast to the actual work of the inquisitors. On this point, Pratchett is unsparing: “...there are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”

Reading this, as a former soldier in the U.S.’s imperial military, and as a member of a generally conservative religion with a strict hierarchy, this passage (and Small Gods in total) helped me recognize the part I had played in evil. I am still a member of my church, but do my best to push back against the banal and even friendly aspects that push people to accept evil results without question. Recently, I led the teenage boys in our local congregation in reading Small Gods together, with profound results: these fellows understood the underlying themes perfectly. It was very heartening to witness young people realize how humor can be a part of discussing serious topics, and how easily one can be co-opted to do harm by a seemingly inevitable and even friendly-seeming organization. It should be noted, that this experience did not (from what I could tell) cause these young men to question their faith, or to immediately start sinning (hormones will likely do most of that work), but it allowed them the space to question the parts of our organized religion that merit questioning.

Teasing out all the thematic complexity of Pratchett would take an entire magazine by itself, but it’s worth looking at his approach to gender. There’s Monstrous Regiment, in which (spoiler) nearly every seemingly-male soldier in the army turns out to be a woman in disguise, and a very competent woman at that. (Incidentally, Pratchett does a surprisingly good job of describing the nitty-gritty specifics faced by a frontline soldier that are otherwise almost never mentioned in literature.) Other novels revolve around the experiences of Tiffany Aching, a young witch who must navigate adolescence, gender roles, feminism, rural life, and incursions by very nasty creatures; and she does it all while subverting traditional fantasy stories’ treatment of women and sexuality.

Tiffany’s stories—and that of the other witches— are presented in sharp contrast to those of the wizards. These tenured academics live in a gender-segregated university that admits only men (with one eventual exception); they are celibate, and show no interest in the women who clean up after them. For example, in Unseen Academicals, the Archchancellor Ridcully realizes he “had never thought of the maids in the singular. They were all…servants. He was polite to them, and smiled when appropriate. He assumed they sometimes did other things than fetch and carry, and sometimes went off to get married and sometimes just...went off. Up until now though, he’d never really thought that they might think, let alone what they thought about.” Women’s labor may go unseen in the Unseen University, but the narrative ensures that you see it. Additionally, the absurdity of the university and the relative impotence of the wizards’ magic is constantly contrasted against the witch-style of magic that is largely about creating life and being useful. For example, while the witch Nanny Ogg is the matriarch of a large family, has had a host of husbands (which is not seen as particularly scandalous), loves singing dirty songs, and has published an adult-themed cookbook, the wizards of Unseen University have to keep the magical tome Ge Fordge’s Compenydym of Sex Majick “in a vat of ice in a room all by itself and there’s a strict rule that it can only be read by wizards who are over eighty and, if possible, dead.” There are multiple interactions between the wizards with their supposedly-high minded form of academic magic and the witches with their supposedly-homespun form of rural magic, which end up as pointed critiques both of gender and the hierarchical forms of educational systems. In most of the Discworld books, both wizards and witches believe that magic should be gendered; in Equal Rites (Discworld #3, Witches #1), the wizard Treatle states that “Witchcraft is Nature’s way of allowing women access to the magical fluxes, but you must remember that it is not high magic...High magic requires clarity of thought, you see, and women’s talents do not lie in that direction.” At the same time, Granny Weatherwax agrees, saying “if women were meant to be wizards, they’d be able to grow long white beards...wizardry is not the way to use magic, do you hear, it’s nothing but lights and fire and meddling with power.”

That said, the witches do a much better job of questioning the existing hierarchy and challenging their social status than the wizards. In A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld #32, Tiffany Aching #2), Pratchett describes the nature of the witches’ non-hierarchy (while also illustrating the power of a determined individual) when he writes that “witches are equal. [They] don’t have things like head witches. That’s quite against the spirit of witchcraft...Besides, Mistress Weatherwax would never allow that sort of thing.” Though Granny Weatherwax is likely powerful enough to run roughshod over the Disc, she seems to be of the same mind as Tiffany Aching’s grandmother, who said “Them as can do has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices,” a rather different ethic than that exhibited by the wizards, who gain rank by killing older wizards. In “‘Change the Story, Change the World’: Gendered Magic and Educational Ideology in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld” L. Kaitlin Williams points out that “the witches’ subversive educational ideology not only undermines the wizard’ repressive educational ideology, but also...takes on a threateningly rebellious quality capable of toppling the hegemonic and hierarchical structures of Discworld.”

This is well-illustrated in The Wee Free Men (Discworld #30, Tiffany Aching #1), where Tiffany Aching seeks out more formal witch training and is told to “go to a high place near here, climb to the top, open your eyes...and then open your eyes again,” the lesson being that witches learn from experiencing the world as it really is, rather than taking tests and attending lectures. This self-education, based in lived experience and self-knowledge, helps her defeat her enemy, the more logic and reason-based Queen of Fairyland who tries to tempt and trick her with realistic dreams. Tiffany’s less-than-formal education also makes her a natural ally of the mysterious and magical Nac Mac Feegle “pictsies” with their anti-authoritarian rallying cry (in a Scottish-ish accent) of “Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae Master! We willna be fooled again!”

But the most subversive part of Discworld—or possibly the least, depending on your perspective—may be the Industrial Revolution Series, featuring the novels Moving Pictures, The Truth, Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal, Making Money, and Raising Steam, which cover issues such as the free press, minority rights, support groups, industrialization, mechanization, government services, trains, recycling, and telecommunication. Three of the books center around Moist von Lipwig, a former conman who changes his stars (somewhat reluctantly) and helps found or resurrect some of Ankh-Morpork’s public institutions. In Going Postal, Lipwig is tasked with saving the city post office when Reacher Gilt (a brutal steampunk pirate who clearly inspired Jeffrey Bezos) tries to drive it into ruins (via murder and monopoly) in order to force everyone to use his new visual telegraph system. Moist manages to save the post office while working through civil rights issues and confronting the complexities of incorporating new technology and automation into a changing world. He also gives us a glimpse as to why he’s an ideal person to usher in a new style of banking when he stops to think about the concept of money:

“Money is not even a thing, it is not even a process. It is a kind of a shared dream. We dream that a small disc of common metal is worth the price of a substantial meal. Once you wake up from that dream, you can swim in a sea of money.”

If this sounds a bit like the principles underlying Modern Monetary Theory, you’ll love the sequel Making Money, in which Moist is tasked with saving the city bank. Specifically, he is tasked with taking the bank over from the people who had previously been running it, and who, among other class warfare tactics, wouldn’t let poor people bank because they felt that “a brigand for a father was something to keep quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of.” In addition, they had come to understand that “the best way to make money out of poor people is by keeping them poor.” Moist saves the bank, and likely the city, when he comes to two important realizations. First, that many people of Ankh-Morpork do not trust the banks (likely because of the dismissive attitude bankers held [hold?] toward the poor), but they do believe in the overall progress of their city. Second, he notices that many people of Ankh-Morpork have begun using postage stamps (which Moist invented in Going Postal) as currency. Combining these two insights, he realizes that the city’s money does not need to be backed by gold, and begins making new money that is backed by the city itself (and further determined by the value of the bodies of the city’s inactive golem slaves/workers, which is just a whole other mess). If this doesn’t sound like an especially profound reform, you would be right. Ankh-Morpork remains a city with terrible living conditions, terrible water, and extreme inequality. Making Money is the only Discworld book with an economist in it, and it has predictable results.

The neoliberal blindness at the end of Making Money is not the only flaw in Pratchett’s Discworld. Despite its breadth of subjects, it is very much a product of a Briton (Pratchett’s full name is actually Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE), a fact which is reflected in the way that he writes about Fourecks, the Discworld stand-in for Australia, not being a finished continent. Pratchett often uses physical caricature to make great plays on words, and for the most part he makes jokes about everyone, but sometimes it can dip into the realm of body-shaming; for example, there’s quite a lot in Making Money about the villainess being fat and ugly. Sometimes, Pratchett’s love stories can be a bit rote, as if it is the woman’s duty to let the man woo her, and although many of Pratchett’s women characters are quite empowered, this can sometimes take a form similar to the CIA’s new ad promoting case officers who refuse to “internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can, or should, be” while shaking hands with Gina Haspel. And because Pratchett’s books are humorous, they are sometimes seen as low brow or “light reading” that justifies “robbing readers of the true delights of ambitious fiction.” That may be true, but it should be noted that light or humorous reading can often be used to tell stories that don’t otherwise get told. That said, the effectiveness of Pratchett’s prose may be limited by the fact that oftentimes the people least likely to want to read a silly story are the people who most likely need to experience something from a different perspective.

Reading Pratchett is a delight, and not just because he uses minute details of the lived experiences of working people and incredible humor to turn accepted stories on their heads. Fun is important for its own sake. I’ve read most of the Discworld books several times and am constantly astounded that nearly every single page has jokes and puns on it. You’ll laugh, but you may also shed tears of melancholic camaraderie, as I did when reading Night Watch which features much of Vimes’ heartbreaking backstory. But don’t take my word for it; as Terry Pratchett’s Moist von Lipwig would say “I wouldn’t trust me if I was you. But I would if I was me.”

#discworld #terry pratchett #comedy #silly

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ms-rampage · 1 year

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A Strange Kindness, Indeed

Y/N is playing Red Dead Redemption 2, the mission "A Strange Kindness." the one where Arthur and Charles are searching for a new campsite and meet that German family.

Its pretty short this one. Also König + Red Dead Redemption 2?? HELLS YEAH! 😂😂😂 @ghostsareeverywhereblah2

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a reference

Y/n is an avid gamer. Red Dead Redemption 2 is your favorite so far, you love the details, the scenery, the story, and everything about it. Even if it's your 2nd playthrough.

You have your own space where you play. König, your husband, lets you do your gaming, but one day when he was about to check on you, seeing if you were hungry. He heard a language he is 100% familiar with because he speaks it.

"Liebe, I made-." he says as he enters your gaming room. Your game at a cutscene, so you can speak to him for a moment before it goes back into the game.

"Sprechen sie deutsch?." the lady in the game, armed with a shotgun with her two children behind her, asks Arthur and Charles. König enters the room right when she says this. The volume on your game is pretty loud, so he has a good hear of it.

"Ja." he says looking at your TV/computer screen as if the woman in the game can actually hear him, "Ich spreche deutsch."

That makes you laugh, now that these minor German characters have his attention. He watches you play as you continue on in the mission, then when you kill all the enemies at the new gang campsite. He never really watched you play. He assumed you'd want your space when you played your games.

When You rescue the father. That's when the real comedy comes out, for him at least.

"Bitte lass mich gehen." the man tied up pleads Arthur. You untie him, take him back to his family. When you play, your full concentration is on whatever game you're playing unless you have to use the bathroom, or eat something.

The commentary between the German man and Arthur is comedy gold to König because he understands both.

"Wo bringst du mich hin?." he asks Arthur.

"Zu deiner familie." König responds. You burst into laughter while trying not to crash your horse into anything.

What really makes him laugh is when Arthur says "How did someone even come up with those words?!." and the man continues to speak German to him, with Arthur following up with, "Look, friend, I can barely speak English."

"Yeah König, how did anyone come up with the German language?!." you joke. He sits there behind you, mumbling something in German as you play.

When you reach the end of the mission, and the man is reunited with his family. They're all speaking German.

The husband calls his wife by "Schatz." and their children "Liebe."

König leans towards your ear, "Thats what I call you schatz."

Once that's finished, and you're no longer in a cutscene, you pause the game and turn to him. "What did you want?."

For a moment, he had forgotten why he went into your room, "... oh I made us lunch."

You set down your controller, "Oh, alright. I was gonna come down after I finished this mission." You both go to the kitchen and eat since you had a small breakfast that morning.

#könig #call of duty #cod #könig x y/n #könig x reader #cod warzone

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bloodgulchblog · 2 months

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Okay. Alright. Here we fucking go again.

S2E4.

I already have one spoiler I'm completely unsurprised by, let's make it more.

I survive the LAST TIME ON HALO and my increasing desire to not be doing this right now, and am rewarded with one of this show's only endearing qualities: Vannak's ongoing animal guy personality trait. He gets to feed the pigeons for 2 seconds before the explosions start.

Cut to Perez and Jimmy Rings running through the streets while Perez yells about having to get back to her family and Jimmy yells about how they're gone, Perez! (Also sorry I'm going back to calling him Jimmy Rings because I hate having to distinguish him from actual Chief and might as well do it in the most ridiculous way possible.)

Then we immediately jump to Soren and Halsey in the funbox.

Did you know that one of my least favorite things TV shows do is cliffhanger on a situation that could've been interesting, then ~subvert your expectations~ by making it completely uninteresting and resolving nothing?

Yeah.

Gold star, no notes.

Then the power goes out.

Soren just kinda leaves because the security system's off. Bye!!!

Meanwhile again, Perez is very upset for obvious reasons and has a disagreement with Jimmy about what they should be doing. Jimmy wants to go back to FLEETCOM, while Perez wants to start warning everyone to evacuate RIGHT NOW.

Perez this isn't gonna work I'm sorry.

Anyway.

Suddenly Stealth Elite.

Sorry it's so hard to get caps of these guys, I think the sfx people don't want you to look at 'em too close.

On the bright side, Halsey leaving with Soren shows they do have a chance of unlocking the comedy duo power I believed in.

Back again.

They're really trying to speedrun some shit here.

Like, this is so close to being in character (even though it isn't quite) but the problem is that they want to have this character say so much shit when the guy they have been trying so badly to emulate doesn't open up and it feels unearned/not worked up to. The problem with trying to crack open a character like the actual Master Chief is that it requires a ton of space and focus on doing that, and this project is so full of subplots and has scrapped so much of its own first season that it has even LESS time to develop enough rapport for me to not feel like I'm being hit over the head. Like I get it, I write insane shit with Chief trying to figure out how to communicate with people after he's decided he might be okay with it, but this just doesn't work for me.

This could work, but it kinda came in from the factory pre-bungled.

Anyway.

Jimmy Rings walking around this random building they're escaping through while holding a fucking axe he found is so funny to me.

Speaking of the axe, it's apparently an antique!!! And this random building is a shop belonging to a British lady and, suddenly, we are going full WWII stiff-upper-lip blitz speech.

Fuck, hold on, I need another post for full effect-

#s2 liveblogging #halo tv spoilers #paramount halo negative

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vulture-writes-stuff · 1 year

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i came running so fast as soon as i saw ur arven x reader content, it was so pleasing to read and arven is such a good guy 😭 i hope it's alright to request something! would u be willing to write grusha x nb reader? maybe something about where the reader is his assigned bodyguard who needs to escort him somewhere important, seeing as he's a gym leader and all! but in the end, pls write whatever u feel most comfy with :) have a nice day!

I did my best with this because I adore Grusha!! He's such a good boy I think hes very funny

I also like how people lost their minds upon finding out he's a man, comedy gold

Thank u for requesting flower Anon!! Enjoy the food 🌻

Grusha X NB Reader

Every gym leader gets a bodyguard, but why is Grusha's so... Protective of him? He knows they should remain professional, but it's hard to.

Reader is not the SV protagonist. Their origin and general story remains ambiguous, but they're explicitly mentioned to be a fairy-type specialist. Their full team is brought up - they have an Azumarill, a Dachsbun, a Tinkaton, a Mimikyu, a shiny Sylveon, and an Arcanine with fairy tera-type. They're mentioned to be strong enough to lift Grusha with relative ease.

It was so damn cold.

Grusha spent almost every day up here on the mountain, running his gym... It was often the last one challengers took on, not only because of the trip, but because he was quite tough when he wanted to be.

And yet, despite that, he was freezing cold right now. He was on his way down Glaseado mountain to get to Mesagoza, because he has to meet with Geeta (she called annual meetings with all the gym leaders to see how everything was going). Of course, this was the one day the Flying Taxis couldn't get all the way up the mountain.

Grusha stuffed his hands into his pockets, nestling his face further into his scarf. He was at least thankful that, despite the bitter frost that made his face numb, he wasn't alone. Recently, the gym leaders had been appointed bodyguards - quite a stark change from their usual solitude, but an incident with a rowdy pack of Maschiff meant they needed an extra hand.

His bodyguard walked by his side, wearing a heavy overcoat that looked surprisingly warm. They didn't seem all that bothered by the weather, keeping pace with him as he trudged through the snow. Their Arcanine, the largest one he'd ever seen, padded alongside them. Its every breath made the air turn to mist, and its paws left melted prints in the snow.

Grusha had realized quite recently that he had a crush on them. Unsurprising, all things considered. They were attractive, and genuinely cared about his needs... Even if their solutions tended to be a little extreme. He could still vividly recall when his old injury was acting up, right in the middle of a gym battle, and they swooped in to physically pick him up so he could continue fighting without straining his body.

It had been embarrassing in the moment, but they were warm. And nice.

Grusha didn't realize he'd zoned out until he felt a weight land on his shoulders, draped over him like a cape. They'd taken off their coat to give it to him, more concerned about his comfort than theirs.

"That's a bad idea," Grusha said, though he didn't return their jacket. "You're gonna freeze."

"I'll be fine, I've got Arcanine." They said, giving the Legendary Pokemon a pat on the side. The Arcanine let out a soft wuff, exhaling a small puff of smoke in the process. "You look like you're going to collapse, so you need it more than me."

"...Thanks." He hadn't realized how fatigued he was until now, grabbing the collar of the coat and pulling it a little closer around himself. Grusha's face twinged with a faint blush, savoring the extra warmth he got.

The pair continued to walk in silence, and Grusha was faintly aware of the other drawing closer to him. He could see the wary expression on their face, see them tense up momentarily... And then he saw what they saw. The menacing glint of eyes from the slopes above.

Grusha was swept off his feet as they grabbed him, lifting him with an alarming amount of ease. He heard the cry of a sneasel, and the sound of way too many footsteps rapidly approaching.

"Hang on to me," They said curtly, unclipping the premier balls from their belt and throwing them behind them. Grusha grabbed onto them as best he could, glancing over their shoulder - a pack of sneasel, the largest he'd ever seen, lead by a trio of mean-looking weavile. He'd only ever seen his bodyguard's Arcanine. The rest of their team was... Mildly surprising to him.

A scowling Azumarill fought off a small horde on its own, knocking a few through the air with a swing of its heavy tail. A Dachsbun wearing a shell bell was providing support from the back, battling the sneasel that interrupted it. A Tinkaton and a Mimikyu were ferocioously fighting two of the weavile, easily holding their own, and a blue-furred Sylveon was backing up their Arcanine. Grusha hadn't taken them for a fairy type specialist, but he supposed it wasn't his place to judge.

They took off at a sprint, pursued by a few stragglers and the last of the weavile. Grusha saw the dangerous glint of claws tear at their shirt, but they were quick enough to evade the worst of the attack.

Heavy footfalls alerted Grusha to their Arcanine's return, the Pokemon grabbing its trainer by the scruff and dropping them onto its back. It sprinted down the mountain at full speed, and the sounds of battling slowly faded... Grusha could hear the telltale sound of Pokemon being returned, though.

Despite being supported by the Arcanine now, Grusha clung to them like a lifeline. He certainly didn't feel like he was in danger anymore - he was actually quite comfortable. They were warm, much warmer than the cold world around them, their arms wrapped comfortingly around him.

Their relationship should have been strictly professional, all things considered, but he found himself longing for more.

"Grusha." They said, like they'd read his thoughts. "Are you alright? Not hurt?"

"Of course I'm not. Are you hurt? It looked like that weavile nailed you pretty bad..." He sat up slightly.

"No, no, it only grazed me. Nothing I can't manage." They shrugged it off, adjusting their grip on him. "You fought well, Arcanine. Thank you for carrying us, I know you're not fond of chauffering."

The Arcanine huffed again, continuing its journey down the mountain. They sat in silence again, the only real sound being Arcanine's footsteps.

"So... You never told me about your team." Grusha was the first to speak.

"You never asked." They chuckled lightly, propping their chin on his shoulder without thinking. His heart skipped. "Arcanine was my first Pokemon. Caught him out in the wild out of sheer dumb luck, only found out about how he could terastallize later. The rest of my team I caught later, Sylveon was the last one I found. She was only a little Eevee at the time."

"Huh." He mused thoughtfully, leaning into them. "It's just rare to see someone specialize in fairy types."

"Not as rare as you might think. You just see a whole lot of fire, fighting and steel types."

"...That's probably true, actually." Grusha groaned. "I think I've seen more Skeledirge in my lifetime than any other living person."

They laughed, a lovely sound that made Grusha's heart race yet again. He couldn't take it any more! He tugged his scarf down with one hand, the other resting lightly on the back of their neck.

They had very little time to react as he pulled them down, their noses bumping awkwardly together as his lips met theirs. Adrenaline still pumped through his veins from the sneasel encounter, the roaring blizzard in his heart finally settling. The kiss lasted for what felt to be an eternity, unbroken even by the blistering wind.

The human need for oxygen forced them apart, and the glint in their eye spoke a thousand words.

"A reward," He started, snuggling into his scarf again. "For doing your job well. I don't know what I would've done if you weren't there."

"I'm... Flattered." They were the embarrassed one for once, unable to meet his eyes. "Grusha, are you... Sure you wanted to do that? I mean, I don't mind, it's just- well, the league might frown upon it, and-"

"To hell with the league." Grusha groaned. "You're adorable when you get all formal, you know. I don't care what Geeta or anyone else say, I really like you."

They were bright red to the very tips of their ears, a shade of scarlet that rivaled their Arcanine's fiery orange. They didn't say anything further, but Grusha noticed how they pulled him closer against him.

He let his head fall against their shoulder, the air finally warming as they reached the base of the mountain. The trip to Mesagoza would be long from here, but...

Well, with all that off his chest, Grusha knew he could make it.

This is so short and I am really sorry, I had a hard time writing this!!! It's not anything to do with the request, it's just my first time writing a dynamic like this 😭😭😭

It's getting late and I have work tomorrow so I'm going to post this as it is, hope you enjoy either way

#grusha x reader #pokemon grusha x reader #gym leader grusha x reader #fanfic #x reader #writers on tumblr #x nonbinary reader #pokemon x reader #gym leader grusha #i did my best !!!#also team is mildly inspired by my old fairy type team back in the day #with some modernized changes #flower anon

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animehouse-moe · 7 months

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What do you think are the best anime adaptations from manga (can be series or movies)? Why do you think so?

This is a really good question considering what we've seen in the last year or two!

I think there's quite a few, and they can earn that title through a few different ways. Though personally, I have my biases for what I look for in an adaptation, so there will be a bit of a trend in this list for sure. (also, this will largely stick to series that I've read at least a bit of the manga for)

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

I mean, even if I have my gripes with some of the content in the manga, it's impossible to say that what Saitou and Madhouse are doing here is anything less than a stellar adaptation. Coaxing Shingo Yamashita out and into the episode was an incredible feat, and it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Frieren has delivered. So some pieces may not be for me, but in terms of quality, yesterday's episode is pretty damn impossible to beat.

Heavenly Delusion

While I just said Frieren was unbeatable, I personally don't believe that as an adaptation in the full sense of the word, it can match up to what Hirotaka and I.G did for Heavenly Delusion. One of the biggest things with an anime is finding how to improve on the source material. Faithfulness is just a single piece of the puzzle, and Hirotaka and co are a great example of that. They add so much to the anime in terms of original scenes. Even more with how they choose to execute on some sequences as they add totally new meaning to them. As a story, Hirotaka's adaptation is the pinnacle of what an adaptation should be. Adding to the original context, re-ordering events for better executing in an animated format, trimming the fat and pieces that don't quite stick. And then adding on top incredible work in terms of art and animation. The value that Heavenly Delusion's anime imparted to the series is entirely incomparable to what others have done.

Bocchi The Rock!

I mean, this one is sorta self-explanatory. Taking the simplicity of a 4-koma manga and using that to explore anime as a medium? Saitou was a madman on this project, and the team behind its adaptation deserves their flowers. Story doesn't matter here near as much as expression does, simply because of the style of the series, and Cloverworks delivered on that in spades. It's pretty crazy how good 4-koma adaptations can be sometimes.

Spy x Family

This is an interesting one because really, nothing can quite stand out at a glance. But I think when you start to dig further into the series, it becomes apparent how much passion and dedication is held for it by the two studios working on it. There's a lot of added moments and details, and they work tirelessly at expanding upon each panel. It's not at the same level as Heavenly Delusion, nor does its expression stretch the limits like Bocchi's does, but I think it puts in commendable work on both ends regardless.

Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War

Another sorta self-explanatory one. Aka Akasaka certainly has ability and quality, but if you believe for a moment that the manga is the superior way to experience the series you'd be sorely mistaken. A-1 has elevated Kaguya-sama to stardom through its incredible sense of humor, and sheer dedication to comedy. The rap episode from the most recent season is just a prime example of the depth with which they approach the content. If you're a RomCom series, Kaguya-Sama is the gold standard of an adaptation you'll always be reaching for.

The overall "idea" with this list is adaptations that add something that the source material was unable to. Expression, humor, depth, structuring or symbolism- they all add to the material in ways that only an anime could. Frieren is the odd one out in that sense, as it brings sheer dedication to the manga above all else. You could argue that the flashbacks have more detail, which I would agree with, but it's not tantamount to an improvement in what Frieren aims to do with itself. A great example of my expectations for "improvement" is the Heiter-Fern flashback scene from the second episode where he first meets Fern. A great change to the narrative that places far more focus on Heiter in the present (of that flashback) than it does Himmel in the past.

Anyways, I think these are some of the most standout adaptations in the recent years, with some of them like Bocchi The Rock! and Heavenly Delusion being ones that will be remembered for an incredibly long time due to what they were able to accomplish.

#frieren beyond journey's end #sousou no frieren #frieren #heavenly delusion #tengoku daimakyou #spy x family #spy family #bocchi the rock #bocchi the rock!#kaguya sama: love is war #kaguya sama wa kokurasetai

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illarian-rambling · 2 months

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Thanks for the tag @dyrewrites!

Oc in 15

For my final Outcast of Honor, we've got Twenari Undetasib (or Crowborn or Devaris)! She's a capital G Gifted Kid who spent most of her childhood doing magic for her brutal smuggler mother. In the first book, she's twelve. After the time skip for two and three, she's sixteen. But she's always had the soul of a forty-five year old tenured professor. She also serves as the straightman of this series' four man comedy routine, so her dialog isn't quite as funny on its own as it is with the other's. This'll all be dialog from the 3rd book

"Azhur, I'm sorry it ended up like this. You... you've known me for three days. That's hardly enough time to know somebody, let alone a daughter. Yet, you risked everything for me. I... I wish I knew why. You're a powerful sorcerer, with enough money to buy the moon out of the sky. You don't need me. Getting involved in my struggles was a terrible investment---you gain nothing, but have the chance to lose everything. I suppose the only explanation is that... that you really do...."

"She also says that if you die, she'll find a way to haunt your ghost. But it shouldn't come to that. Once you're up, you can go to her and she can haunt you all she likes in the living world."

"We mortals might preserve if we work together. After all, enough ants can kill a lion."

"Something to do with gravitational runes and the density of air. It's brilliant; they combine the magical with the mechanical and get a miracle. Gods, if I could just get a peek inside one of those fans...."

"I can scan for key terms. Two can read faster than one, even if one doesn't know the science. Please, I promise I can be of use."

"Rich people love souvenirs. I'll bet one of my kinsmen has something that can get us nearby, at least."

"According to my second cousin Omari, who, keep in mind, is nine years old, we're a few miles out from Kityra Village."

"I have water, I have organic material; I can make soup."

"I'd never realized the full breadth of an infallible memory. There must be something about the mortal mind that allows it to block out such a horrific process. I'd make sense, as adaptation against madness. If robots don't have that, then, Bi'em, your contributions to teleportation magic as a whole could be incredible!"

"Delays are dangerous. We keep going."

"I tortured people for my mother. Does that count as experience?"

"I don't want to speak with her. I don't even want to see her if I can avoid it. Is that cowardly of me? She stole my childhood away, shouldn't I have something to say to her?"

"...no. I'll catch you up on Janazi literature motifs later. No, when the heros are against the wall and the dragon is closing in, they go to find another dragon. And I've got one in mind."

"Spirit of the desert! I gave you the luxury of a discussion last time, but you have worn my patience thin. You have no choice in the matter; you will apportion a piece of your power to me and I will leave with it. Give it willingly and I will not have to resort to force!"

"Leave her to her estate. Leave her to her schemes and her gold. Leave her to all those empty things and she'll hollow herself out in time. She doesn't have enough of a heart for vengeance."

I'll tag @moonandris @mitzymossy33 @revenantlore and @goldxdarkness!

Have a bitchin day <3

#writing #writerscommunity #writblr #my ocs

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slashfuhrer · 2 months

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the more I watch The Killing of a Sacred Deer the more I'm convinced that it's actually a comedy

"See? My example, it's metaphoric, it's symbolic" says Martin after having literally ripped a piece out of his arm

"We could order food if you're hungry" Kim tells Martin right after he asks her whether she's on her period (saltburn vampire scene premonition strong)

"I won't let you go until you try my tart" Martin's mum tells Steven right after coming onto him by basically stuffing his hand in her mouth (tart is a euphemism, right? also what is it about this fam where they all want to put Steven in their mouths, is this shit hereditary like Martin's dad's heart condition?) "Can I have your mp3 player when you die?" Kim asks her brother matter-of-factly. Deadpan delivery fr

"You'll say, but I only shot one person! How come four people are dead? So if you're gonna dig a hole in the yard, better make it a big one" - a line that could be delivered in all sorts of ways, but Barry does it in a "ur so stupid its kinda hilarious steven" way

"Bob, aren't you gonna come over and give me a hug?" Martin asks knowing full well (and probably being responsible) that Bob cant walk, while himself tied to a chair with a gunshot wound to his leg

Kim throwing things at Martin because he's not "trying hard enough" to heal her is just slapstick honestly That bit where Steven bangs at the door of the Lang house threatening to fuck Martin's mum and Martin himself "just like" he [Martin] wants it? Pure comedic gold The fact that Steven believes Martin can cause direct harm while being tied up and beaten in a basement ("What did you do to [Kim]")? Hilarious actually

#barry keoghan #the killing of a sacred deer #yorgos lanthimos #colin farrell #raffey cassidy

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basedkikuenjoyer · 2 months

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Mystery Scientist Theatre

First things first, the cover. Yes it intrigues me. Kicking off our cover serial in Wano which could do so many things. One thing I always pointed out was Kiku being left with the ambiguous ending potentially sets you up well for that. But what we have so far is very vague, very symbolic, very worthy of its own post. With that out of the way, 1109 is very fine and it has some things I like...but it's kinda short and feels like it's lining things up for after the break. Starting with the natural conclusion to where we left off:

Yeah yeah shifting to bad guys trying to stop the broadcast. Keeps us on the island for a bit. Perfect excuse to set up another cutaway if we are doing a Rashomon...Toei you better Interdimensional Cable this bit of the Vegapunks trying to fill ten minutes. I want the full version unredacted, it has to be comedy gold. Good job Shaka, you managed to posthumously give us another hurdle here on Egghead. Now we gotta protect the broadcast. Aaaaaand deal with five spooky hell demons!

We somehow escalated again. The pattern seems to be we do that then pull away. All while our big iron buddy still hasn't done his thang...

Short one because the chapter does kinda speak for itself. But I liked this. First, it's just cool that we do show relative time zones. I don't think we ever have before. Is this why Water 7 is often left out of worldwide reactions? Were they too sleepy? Amazing. We also get the lil secretary girl! Who we have met in cover serial format before but this is her intro to the mainline narrative. That said...given we'll need to dig into an intriguing cover story tomorrow worth mentioning her appearance like Moda and what we do with Pudding is another sign those are coming around and being less distinct from the main story.

But seriously, Alice you are so cute I just want to give you a big hug and have you as my own secretary. Are you trying to be the queen of the administrative assistants? Because you're well on your way. For what it's worth too...look how quick we shifted to protecting a global announcement and dealing with enemies that can't just be smacked around around this lil capable girlie taking care of everything already. That's all very much in our wheelhouse. Cool lil scene.

#one piece #chapter 1109 #post-wano musings #mayor iceburg #alice the assistant #vegapunk

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hotvintagepoll · 1 month

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Propaganda

Ruby Myers (Typist Girl, Cinema Queen)— I just recently saw a documentary about her and thought that besides being really pretty, she had a very interesting life. She was born in the early 1900s in India to a Baghdadi Jewish family, and became the first woman to act in an Indian silent film. In the 1930s she started her own film production house, Rubi Pics, way before most female producers in Hollywood broke through. More info can be found in this Golden Globes webpage on her life [link]

This is round 2 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Ruby Myers:

Ginger Rogers propaganda:

Ginger Rogers could do everything! She could sing, dance and act. She was hilarious in comedies, moving in dramatic roles (she won an Oscar for Kitty Foyle in 1940) and absolutely gorgeous!

Listen, no shade to Fred Astaire at all, but she both kept up with him step for step and then later went on to WIN AN OSCAR FOR ACTING. (which he did not.) truly a double threat!!!

One of the best dancers in Hollywood! Her work with Fred Astaire is just incredible.

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Let's Call The Whole Thing Off (Shall We Dance, 1937, dancing starts at 3:14, they're in ROLLERSKATES)

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(Ginger Rogers is the hottest woman ever to live in this number. seeing this as a teenager altered my brain chemistry)

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(also watch her feet and how she moves opposite Astaire in this one. We all know our boy Freddie had that precision demon but jesus christ Miss Rogers, let a girl live!)

Pick Yourself Up, Swing Time 1936 (Everyone's seen this one but by god you are going to see it AGAIN!)

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Shall We Dance, 1937 (duet begins at 2:34)

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Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Roberta 1935 (There's just something about Ginger Rogers in a slick black dress man)

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The Continental, The Gay Divorcee 1934

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God she's MAGIC in this one.

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She is a miracle to watch. Sorry for the sheer amount of clips. My entire family is like madly in love with Ginger Rogers.

#ruby myers #ginger rogers #fuck that old woman #hotvintagepoll #ladies 2 #Youtube

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saintsenara · 18 days

Note

14 and 26??

thank you very much for the ask from the i'm not from the states ask game, anon!

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or tv?

26. does your nationality get portrayed in hollywood/american media? what do you think about the portrayal?

now - i think these two have to be taken together...

so, yes, i do enjoy our media - we have obviously produced the finest comedy television show in recent history, after all.

but i do think that media made in ireland - or, at least, made in ireland in english - suffers from the fact that it's aiming to be marketable outside of ireland. and - in particular - that it's aiming to be marketable in both britain and the united states.

which means that it takes an interest in portraying an image of irishness which is appealing to those countries.

when it comes to the states, the way we are portrayed and the way we portray ourselves is always aiming to tap into a view of ireland which dominates the american national consciousness - as a country which americans, especially on the east coast, consider themselves enormously culturally aligned to and politically sympathetic with, due to the sheer size of the irish-american community.

let's get the cards on the table - being irish-american is a meaningful cultural identity within the united states. it is not - and it never, ever will be - the same as actually being irish [which someone ought to tell the president...]. and one reason is because the centrality of emigration to the irish-american identity requires ireland to become a quasi-mystical place, preserved in aspic at the point mass emigration to the states really took off.

that's why you end up with the portrayal of ireland you see in films like the banshees of inisherin - quaint, rural, full of half-wit musical drunkards who love a wee chat, surrounded by historical events but also sort of outside them...

in britain, the geographical proximity, the easier movement across boarders, and the fact that these enable diaspora communities to retain closer links with ireland [one of the single most amusing activities in the world is watching irish-americans learn that vast numbers of brits have more recent irish heritage than they do...] means that ireland is treated less like a magical fantasy land unchanged from ages past.

but it's nonetheless affected by the brits' own stereotypical view of the country - that the rural south is full of superstitious, unsophisticated idiots [who sometimes get to have hearts of gold!] who've never seen pesto; that the urban south is generally indistinguishable from london; and that the north is full of grey housing estates interspersed with burned-out cars and everyone is a terrorist.

again and again it seems that the only way to get funding for a project about ireland is to pick one of the famine, the war of independence, or the troubles as your setting. there's so little representation of what ireland looks like in the here-and-now - not least in the fact that you'd get the impression from its international film and television that it's a country where everyone is white...

and even media which is set in contemporary ireland and which does make an effort to be more diverse - such as the tv adaptation of normal people - presents an ireland designed for international consumption [trinity college dublin does run itself very much like oxford and cambridge in real life - but this is turned up to eleven in normal people in a way which is clearly aimed at the british audience...].

which is something i'd like to see us get a grip on, tbh.

#asks answered #northern ireland posting

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browniefox · 9 months

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You’re in a strange courtyard. You do not recognize it, but it feels oddly familiar.

You look down and see you’re reflection. You’re wearing a golden dress. A crown lies upon your head. The gold is all glowing, and you give a twirl, splashing in the liquid at your feet. It’s only then you realize your reflection is coming from a pool of blood. You look behind you.

There is a hare sitting on top of a dead child. It, too, is golden, with shiny fur and bright purple eyes. The longer you stare, however, the less sure you are it’s really a hare. It’s eyes are sharp, hold intelligence. It takes a few hops forwards, and you realize the shiny fur is actually dull, that there is blood all over its mouth, that it looks like a dead and rotting creature that somehow still moves.

Your father showed you Monty Python and the Holy Grail when you were young. Any dirty jokes went over your head, but you liked some of other comedy bits. You can remember the part where the knights need to get past a terrible beast that looks like a cute little white rabbit. You laughed so much at the cartoonish blood and action, and you dad had laughed along. The sight before you reminds you of that, but something about this feels oddly more real. Why does a laugh still build in your throat?

(You once laughed at a horror movie in the same way, as blood gushed from a poor dumb victim of the murderer. Your date had slowly pulled his arm off your shoulders, and a few days later he broke up with you. After that you watched horror movies alone.)

You stare at each other for a minute before the hare takes off, fast fast fast into the woods. You do not hesitate to chase after it.

Through the trees and shadows, the rabbit flees and you chase, panting and gasping but refusing to let it out of sight. Your hands are full of your golden dress skirts, which despite your best efforts are becoming dirty and torn. The hare leads you to a large meadow, and you can see glints of fur through the long grasses. You’re getting slower and it is only getting faster.

That is when you feel the ground shaking beneath you. You turn around just in time to throw yourself out of the way of a beast.

At first you think it’s a giant black bear, but closer inspection shows that there is something inside the bear fur and skin, something with long black and white tendrils that almost puppeteer the bear skin around. Atop the not-bear sits a figure, riding the huge monsterous thing. A white mask with purple tear marks adorns her face. She does not look at you, too focused on chasing after the golden hare, hands tight on a set of reigns.

After her is a other impossibly large bear, this one with two heads that bite at each other. Two riders are on this one, both with golden bear masks to match their mount.

Many more beasts ride on, a hunting party. All their mounts are monsters of animals that are made too big, given too many fangs and claws, look stitched together or dying or already dead. Chickens and rabbits and foxes and bears. But they all run swiftly, faster than your legs can carry you. You also realize that every rider wears a mask, and that they are all children, their innocent youth hidden behind the terrifying masks they put on.

Bringing up the rear of the hunting party is an adult man, who comes to a sudden halt right before you. His mount has three heads. The rabbit and bear heads are surprisingly docile. The middle fox head, though, looks older and far more scarred and snaps at you, just barely too far to actually catch you in it’s large and sharp teeth. The mask worn by this rider is an almost childish white bear mask. You can see his hands and the edges of his face, though, and that he is a rotted corpse of a human, a surprising reversal of the children riders.

“Well?” he says.

“What?” You do not know what he wants from you.

“Will you take up your mask and join the hunting party?”

They are hunting a hare. It should remind you of a silly old cartoon, or maybe the Aesop fable; it feels very far from that.

“I am not a hunter,” you say.

“And yet you chase our quarry,” the man replies.

“I will be a hare,” you tell him. He studies your face. You can see, just barely, purple eyes looking at you from behind the mask.

“You will not keep up,” he tells you, “At best, you will for a while. And then he will bite your leg and leave you to be trampled by the rest. Or you will fall behind, and if you are not running with him, you are chasing, you are hunting,”

“I will be a hare,” you assert again. The rider shifts his hold on his reigns, and you realize they are not leather. They are chains, shackled to his wrist and sunken into the flesh of his mount.

“Wear your mask and run then, little hare; the hunt does not cease. Lead or chase; the choice will be made for you.”

He spurs his mount on. The fox head yowls and spits but its legs run again to catch up with the rest.

You look down and there’s a mask in your hands. You cannot tell whether it is a hare, like the hunted, or a rabbit, like many of those forced to hunted.

Red blood splashes at your heels; the pool from the dead child’s body had still grown, and it reaches you again.

You jolt awake from the dream, heart pounding in your chest.

You try to fall back asleep and ignore the mask that you know sits in your bag at the foot of your bed.

#browniefox speaks #fnaf #vaguely #shell game #shell game spoilers #vanessa #Michael afton #was listening to ghost riders in the sky #and got possessed to write this #I love dream sequences #browniefox writes

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ijustreallylikecaptainamericaok · 3 months

Note

How about 1, 15, 23 for the air your grievances ask game?

Hi! :-)

What's your biggest __[insert fandom]__ pet peeve(s)?

Oof, okay... I think my biggest pet peeve with the M/C/U fandom is how greedy certain pockets of it can be. When 80-95% of either the canon or fandom is catered to you, I don't get complaining so hard about the slim percentage that doesn't. It's infuriating. But I've talked about that a bunch in the past.

Something I don't think ever talked about is how this fandom drives me up the damn wall as a music nerd. The biggest example is folks describing the Guardians soundtracks/"Qu*ll's taste in music" as "80s music." No. No, they're not. They're mainly the 70s. I know, I counted, after the fandom nearly gaslit me into doubting my own knowledge. In fact, out of the trilogy, IW, the Gro/ot shorts, and the Holiday special, only Vol 3 and the Holiday special contain any 80s songs. (And for record, this isn't me shitting on the 80s or anything. I'm an 80s baby and love tons of music from that era. This is just me being an insufferable know-it-all, lol.)

Another one is constantly framing Sam's recommendation of Tro/uble Man as some kind of come on. Like, first of all, that album is mainly a score and the few lyrics that do exist on it are not sexy. Second of all, oh my God, there's more to Marvin than just sex jams, holy shit. It's very obvious that some are only familiar with stuff like "Let's get it on" and "Sexual Healing" and that's it and... I can't help it, that makes me so sad.

youtube

15. Name an aspect of __[insert character]__ that you think gets frequently overlooked in fanfiction characterizations/deserves more attention/exploration

I think fandom's really dropped the ball with post-EG Steve. We could've had sprawling epics with Steve creating timeline after timeline where he had full lives with every Av*nger and Guardian and whoever else and having D*ctor Who style adventures across space and time. But, noooope. Nada.

I'll also never understand how I've only ever seen one fic where Professor H*lk and Steve raise Baby!Scott. That's comedy gold, right there. And how the hell did Sh*-H*lk not spawn a ton of St*ve/Jen? Not to mention all the cool concepts WI? has given the fandom on a silver platter only for them to be completely ignored.

23. Share an unpopular opinion you have RE: __[insert fandom]__

At the risk of being skinned alive, I know that even people who don't ship St*cky romantically will say that they still love them as friends instead. And I... don't. I can't get into that dynamic, even platonically. Most of their relationship is told rather than shown and what little we are shown doesn't endear it to me at all. Fandom can scream "till the end of the line" until it's blue in the face, but that doesn't make up for its problems in the slightest. (And frankly, I think that was the main purpose of the line to begin with, but that's a whole other rant.) I mean, B*cky spends most of T/F/A coming off (to me) like a condescending prick towards Steve and then spends the rest of Steve's time in the films deliberately staying as far away as humanly possible. It feels very one-sided to me, overall. And why should I revere that period, but especially so when dynamics like the ones Steve has with S*m, N*t, and P*ggy exist? Dynamics where the love and respect is quite clearly mutual and they actively want to be in his life? There's just no contest as far as I'm concerned.

Now, in fairness, theirs isn't the only dynamic in the films that's way more tell than show nor is it the worst offender in terms of the discrepancy between what's told and what's shown, but again, those are other rants.

Sorry about this getting kinda long. I'd been holding that first rant in for a loooong time, lol, so thank you for sending this in and giving me the chance to finally get that off my chest. XD

Air Your Grievances Ask Game

#bulkyphrase #replies #fandom woes #fandom wank #long post cw

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