#hes definitely not HUMAN though. that specific aspect is not complicated

[blaiddraws]

Wait I have no idea what is going out in the gunsmoke au, all I know is nobori is wanted, I have no idea what’s going on, can you give me the stupidest summary you have?

weird kinda-alien guy forgets he's an alien and lives in denialtown for decades when the nonhuman aspects start becoming obvious

#answered #gunsmoke au #lives there even after he accidentally blows up an entire city. #a little more detailed summary would include. hmmmm #adopts a child and some friends along the way #also accidentally ghosts his twin brother. because traumatic brain injury or something idk #i haven't actually come up with a reason for his amnesia lmao #it's not a specific detail relevant to the plot so. eh #OH ALSO hes wanted because he panicked and did an oopsie <3 (destroyed one of the largest cities on the planet) #(in his defense he didn't MEAN to. and wouldn't have done so normally. but there was... outside influence‚ so to speak) #i say ''kinda-alien'' because like. he's an alien but also actually not really an alien at all. it's complicated lmao. #hes definitely not HUMAN though. that specific aspect is not complicated #ALSO IDK IF YOU MEANT TO TYPE ''STUPIDEST'' SPECIFICALLY. BUT BOY HOWDY I SURE DID DELIVER <3

[onehundredandeleventropicalfish]

Sorry if you've answered this, but I was thinking abt the most common form of Dream we see, and I know it's the way he's perceived that changes not him, but like, do you think that's his kinda 'preferred' form, is there no in world reason and its just a real life practicality thing, or is it like that's the way 'the audience' perceives him and it only changes when the story specifically shows us someone else's perspective? Sorry if this doesn't make sense lol

hello!

so, i'm pretty sure you're here from this post, or at least have seen it, but for anyone who hasn't, here's the basic gist of dream's aspects work so i'm not rehashing that all here

and to your actual question! the short answer is no, i don't believe dream has a preferred form, though he probably has aspects of presentation he prefers, and that's why all versions of dream tend to be black and white and on fire

(and yes, the reason we mostly see that one is bc that's the one the audience by default sees)

the long answer does have major comic spoilers, that's unavoidable for the stuff i need to explain, so here's your heads up on that since i'm not sure how caught up you are

but to dig into all that! first off, the reader/audience is definitely a character in the story, and the endless are aware of this. it's a story most likely narrated by dream, for the most part, and then just hijacked by other narrators when they need to get their point across

this is something that stayed in the show too actually, and i do love that we get dream's narration at the start of episode one, because the reason we're seeing this is he is a storyteller by nature and he has invited us to see this! but throughout the comics too, especially in the early issues, dream's inner narration is a narration, he's not just talking to himself, he's talking to us

this is explicitly confirmed at dream's funeral, because we are one of the dreamers invited to watch - and the last one to wake up

and my other favourite instance proving this? the end of brief lives. where desire grabs the narration and forcibly turns it away.

up until now, they've had no problems with us watching, they like the attention, and performing all this for an audience. but here? where it's extremely implied that they're worried about dream and that this might have been their fault? no. desire doesn't want to share that. we're nosing too deep into their business now, and whatever it is they're thinking in this moment, it's private

(and there's our proof too that it's all endless who can do this, not just the storyteller, because we see a lot of mortals' private inner thoughts leading up to this, and it's only when we get to desire that the narration tells us to fuck off)

so, since the reader is a character, and presumably a human one, we're gonna see a human dream, and the one matching the modern english speaking western world, until the comic or the show deliberately switches perspective and then we see that one

which could just be the final answer to your question and i could end this here, but i think there's actually an additional supplementary answer here

which i think borders on headcanon? certainly people have disagreed with me on this before, but it's the way that makes sense to me in terms of what we're given in the story

so like. the endless are more than three dimensional beings. we don't know how many dimensions, but enough that a three dimensional being can't ever see their entire shape at once, hence why they look different from different perspectives despite not ever changing

and that's an easy answer not too difficult to understand. but then things like overture come up, where we see multiple facets interacting. and it's a bit more complicated than just these are all the sides to the shape that is dream. we've got both the overarching dream, the whole being, every facet at once, and we've got the individual facets that all move in slightly different ways

it makes me think of like... you know if you've ever seen a dance performance, where many performers are acting as different parts of a whole creature? and they all move slightly differently, but it's through that you see the movement of the singular creature?

every facet of dream is moving through slightly different versions of dream's life. and dream's life isn't any one of them, it's all of them at once, but if you wanted to, you could still focus on one of those performers

which i think the story does

because in overture, in the meeting between all of dream's facets, our dream arrives late. because he was held up dealing with the corinthian. so all of the other facets must have either dealt with the corinthian faster, in their version of canon, or chosen to prioritise this meeting.

they're moving differently.

but still, as the meeting between the facets continues, now that they're all in one place and synchronized again, they start to fold back into one being. say all the performers are standing in a line, and now you can't see every individual one, just the creature. and the existence of the endless continues like that, moments of synchronization and moments of ever so slight disparity weaving in and out of each other, because if dream's facets are all based on the culture perceiving them, they physically can't be doing exactly the same things all at the same time, reality has to distort just a little bit around them. (and we know they do distort reality with their presence, it's something del likes to talk about, and in extreme cases we get things like the reality storm)

it's why desire's trick in overture works, because the human facet of dream can believe that the cat facet of dream is just deciding not to synchronize with the group bc cats. and cat desire only ever talks about parts of dream's life that they know about (dream's love life, how shitty their parents are), so dream doesn't realise that's not him

(side note i do love this scene bc desire doesn't know what happened to alianora. they're asking bc they cared a lot about alianora and was genuinely hoping this would end well)

but i think that's the other reason we see one specific aspect of dream so much. because the big moments in dream's life, those are consistent across facets, but the minor details? those can shift. so if we wanna see those minor details, we have to pick one performer to focus on

and in this case, that's the morpheus we're used to

#dream of the endless #sandman comic spoilers #meta #mine #desire of the endless #ask

[waterfallofspace]

🤧😩😭💦😳📝 for chu//uya and go//jo if u would like to please 👁👁

Hello ily I am so insane about them and I am losing my mind at getting an excuse to rant about them so AHHHHH!!! thank you 💗💗 ~From This Ask Game~

Gonna make this two posts because it's... it's gonna be so long. Part One: C/huuya~

~~~~~

🤧: What does their sneeze sound like? (Description, spelling, or both!)

Something little but fiesty, like him <3 Sooo, kinda vocal, you definitely can hear his voice in it, and if you know him well enough, you'll be able to tell from another room that it was him. Somethin' like "hh'ayshhhuh-! ak'yiezzshoo-! kih'tiezshhiew-!" BUT, if it's a bad itch, or allergy, and he's not managing to stifle, it'll sometimes dip into rapid, and that's more like "ashh- yieshh- ayyshhh'oo-! arshhh- krshhh- kashhh'oo-!" but those are more rare for him. He also stifles or half-stifles quite often. "engxt-! nkKxt-! hk'enXTiew-! nkXGT'shiew-! hd'tshhiew-!"

😩: Do they tend to sneeze just once or twice, or multiple times? Do they have fits frequently or rarely? Does how many times they sneeze depend on the cause?

If it's just a natural, no cause, maybe he'll get one/two. But most of the time it's caused by a smell, allergy, sickness, or wine <3. And in all of those cases, he'll be lucky to get less then five. However, in his defense, they're usually a bit spread out, not super rapid. (unless it's a really bad tickle~)

😭: When they’re sick, do they try to downplay their symptoms, or do they treat every little cold like the plague? Do they whine a lot, or do they complain quietly or even just in their head?

Somehow both?? He's definitely a "I'm fine, leave me alone" type of person, denial till the very end, he's ALWAYS okay and will work through anything. But at the same time, if he's feverish enough, or with people he feels safe with, if he's vulnerable, he'll be the type to complain. Sneeze, whine, gasp, repeat. But this is very rare for him, you can count the amount of time's it's happened on one hand. He's also the type to complain but about others, not his own symptoms. So if he has a headache, any noise or bright light or annoyance (Dazai <3) is suddenly 10 times more annoying, and worth complaining over. But if it gets into genuine complaining territory, not playful asshole banter, he immediately stops.

💦: How wet are their sneezes? Do they spray barely at all, or are you gonna need an umbrella? Do they try to cover at all, or just let it go? Do they sniffle a lot when they’re sick or allergies are bugging them?

Not really wet, though because he'll have longer fits, and tends to get congested from them, there will definitely be a light mist by the end. He also covers, absolutely, with his gloves, or hat, or an arm, unless he's too feverish, or specifically trying to annoy someone. Also he does sniffle, like a lot, despite trying to blow his nose to make it stop. It happens anyways, whether from irritation, congestion, or just instinct/habit. He annoys himself with it at times <3

😳: Are they embarrassed by their sneezes, or do they just not really care? Do they apologize after sneezing? Do they say “sorry!” or “excuse me!” or anything like that? If they’re embarrassed about it, why?

Embarrassed. He doesn't like any show of weakness, and honestly... the humanity aspect wrapped up in it makes him a bit uncomfortable at times. He likes feeling human, but it brings up complicated thoughts he doesn't want to address. He won't apologize, though if he's not really thinking about it, (or if he's with people he trusts/respects) an 'scuse me' will slip out here and there. Pluuuus, his sneezes are rather distinct, with the 'iew' sounds especially, and how much of his voice is in them, so he tends to feel quite embarrassed by their volume. (especially compared to some of his co-workers with MUCH more 'Mafia Appropriate' sneezes.)

📝: Quick! Come up with a scenario for them! It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something you think would be cute or something you’d like to see with them!

Thanks to you, 'wine snz Chuuya' has been LIVING in my mind, but honestly feverish Chuuya always lives there too, so let's see if I can combine them into something awful~ (feat. Soukoku bc... well... I just can't take how much I love them~)

Dazai arrives at the Mafia HQ, fully intending on tormenting his dear Chibi. I mean, it's been nearly a week since his last torment session, he's going into withdrawl.

He expected a bit of resistance, maybe a challenge, some banter, possibly even a punch. What he didn't expect was to find Chuuya nearly passed out at his desk, empty bottle on the floor, glass precariously tilted in his hand.

He rouses at the footsteps, gazing up at Dazai with eyes clouded by alcohol and... something else. He manages a deeply slurred "H'llo thr D- Dazz... Dahhhzai!" Followed by a barely covered rapid fit.

Well, definitely drunk. Though judging by the congestion soaking through the corners of his words, pretty sick too. This can't be good. With a moment of kindness he'd never admit to later, Dazai takes it upon himself to bring Chuuya home.

Upon touching him, he expects the normal feeling of powers being stripped. The heat however, comes as an unwelcome surprise.

BLAH BLAH he takes Chuuya home, Chuuya drunk snz the whole time, Chuuya too fevered to take care of himself so Dazai has to help him, clingy drunk/feverish Chuuya grabs his arm and won't let go, so Dazai has to lay on the couch with Chibi on his chest, and then some vulnerability stuff happens, including Chuuya admitting that he was drinking to try and cope with the nightmares that come with the fever dreams </3

THAT WAS WAYYYY TOO LONG- I'm so sorry <333 but also thank you for the ask!!! I love my guys 😭😭 NOW ONTO PART TWO! (and also uh... I very well may write that fic bc I've been wanting to write some more Soukoku angst lately, but I make no promises for how fast I'd do it haha~)

#waterfallasks #waterfall snzcanons #waterfall snzarios #MY GOD this is so long girl look what you do to me #i love you for it tho. i LOOOOVEEE this. im so feral rn #i love him i love you i love prompts i love all of this ANYWAYS #hitting post now so hope u enjoy and im gonna go scream about g/ojo in a follow up post now~

[the-siren-in-your-fridge]

as a fellow gender expansive person [and being intersex meself], who has been reading the wheel of time, I have thought about this, and I have investigated it deeply.

To put it quite simply, robert jordan did not know trans or intersex people existed when he built the world of the wheel of time. The way gender works in that universe is so painfully and pervasively binary that it's actually a little unsettling when I think about it for long enough, that there was a time where some people in our world really believed humanity was like this [though I don't know if he himself thought so]. Even the soul is gendered in the wheel of time, and the "channeling limb" is a part of it.

How I would change it would sound subtle on paper but truthfully it would change a major aspect of the tone of the books, and the worldbuilding: I would simply make the nature of one's "channeling limb" an inherited sex-characteristic, along with all the other gendered powers in this universe. This would essentially bring the gendered aspects of the magic system[s] in this world in line with our modern, scientific understanding of sex and gender, and open the door for the existence of trans, intersex, and nonbinary people, without completely removing it from the setting entirely. It would mean there would be a fraction of channelers of a specific half of the power, who appear, present, and maybe even identify as a gender other than the majority of their type. Spicier still is it would also mean that, very rarely, if one follows the logic of the "channeling limb" as a sex-characteristic, that there would be individuals who can channel both halves of it, whether separately or at once. Whether or not these people would instantly burn themselves out according to the magic system's canon logic remains to be seen. But there are parts of the worldbuilding that would inevitably have developed differently and appear differently than their current canon expressions if this were actually the case in the default Wheel of Time. The present-day Aes Sedai could not possibly be an all-female organization, for example, even though they'd likely be three quarters cis women at least.

I hope dumping this wall of text in your inbox is not an irritation to you. I just stumbled across your post and found you were expressing a sentiment I really sympathized with, as a current-day reader of this series.

I love this idea! I’m only halfway through book four, so I don’t know EVERYTHING about the magic system, (like I don’t know about gendered souls or the channeling limb thing) but based on what I know so far, it’s weird that it’s gendered. I’m glad other people enjoyed my take!

I can’t say I’m mad that a guy who started a fantasy series in the 90s didn’t know about all the nuances of gender stuff because back then he would have had to seek it out, and if he didn’t know any gender spicy people, he wouldn’t have considered it (unless he read Wrinkle In Time, for example, and was intrigued by the Happy Medium or something along those lines form another project). You don’t question the norm without prompt most of the time, especially if it’s presented like a truth if nature that will never change, but it’s still disappointing. And a lot of the men vs women stuff gets on my case soooo badly because outside of it being painfully binary, it’s just annoying after a while. We get it, they hate each other. Even when I remind myself “it’s this bad because a man messed up the male half of the power, it’s a world building thing, it makes a bit of sense” I still get mad.

But this series has some of the most intricate world building I’ve ever encountered so sometimes it seems odd that he hasn’t considered, even a little, spicing up the gendered magic. The story could remain the same if he did what you suggested or even what I suggested in one of my older posts, and making different aspects of the power inheritable would definitely make things more complicated, but also more logical. All natural things have exceptions and the power seems to be, for lack of a better term, a nature thing (seeing as the amount of people with the gene for it is shrinking because of men being gentled). It would also make Rand being the dragon much more important (not just a lucky gene toss up, a near IMPOSSIBLE gene toss up, this is Definitely The Guy) and makes the power much more generally dangerous, because if it’s not a simple male/female split among cis people, novices in the white tower could go insane at random and men who are gentled could have been harmless and the Aes Sedai have shrunk the gene pool even more by accident. It certainly ups the risk factor, and this doesn’t begin to cover non-binary and intersex people, who add to the punnet square of Power Having even more.

(This is assuming I understood what you suggested. It’s like the calico/ginger cat gene? Where most of the time it’s one way but sometimes not? And that doesn’t always mean the cat is intersex? Yay cats)

So yes, gendered magic systems are way cooler if they account for the actual nuances of gender and sex

#wheel of time #wot #gender #gendered magic #magic system #Robert jordan #transgender #trans #non-binary #gender binary #headcanon

[bonesandthebees]

Tommy is not going to tell the other’s Wilbur’s name. I guess he might feel a little guilty about if. Also [“I guess I’m just hoping that one day you’ll wanna tell the others yourself.”] he’s trying to help. He wants Wilbur to accept his name. So the easiest way to know he has is if he tells someone else his name himself. Also, I feel like Tommy really hoped Wilbur would tell him his name himself, but he realised that either wpuldn’t happen or take to long and someone has to help him so Tommy will.

At the same time, Tommy has a tendency to keep everything he learns about Wilbur to himself. I can’t really find the right word for it, but it feels a little like entitlement or cohesiveness without actually being either of those things. It feels like he’s hoarding the information. Almost like he thinks everyone else wouldn’t understand. Like only he understands Wilbur. But at the same time. It’s a fair decision because he’s the one Wilbur trusts most. He’s the one he spends the most time with. And Tommy does in fact know him the best. He doesn’t want other people to mess up his progress or scare Wilbur. It’s a lot easier to see things and put pieces together than it is to convince other people who weren’t there of what you saw.

Overall there’s still really weird mix of Wilbur and Tommy against the world (other Deathlings). Not everyone, of course, Jack and Niki are cool. But Wilbur and Tommy have their own little bubble full of ‘secrets’. Things Wilbur doesn’t want anyone to know, yet Tommy has figured out anyway, but won’t tell anyone else. It’s such a specific relationship dynamic and it’s really interesting. Tommy is the closest bond Wilbur has here, yet there’s still an ocean between them.

It’s little things like Tommy clearly being worried about and protective of him. It’s Wilbur being angry at Tommy about the name yet still stepping closer to or trying to hide behind him when he’s scared because he knows Tommy won’t hurt him. It’s Tommy getting pissed when Tubbo compares Wilbur to a stray dog because he’s trying to convince Wilbur that he’s a person. It’s Wilbur holding Tommy back before he can ruin his relationship with Tubbo and Tommy acting like a human shield when Tubbo pulls a knife. The hand holding.

Yet there’s still a lot of things they don’t understand about each other. It comes with different beliefs and different lives lived. It comes from being stubborn. It comes from their different traumas. There’s still a disconnect. It’s just such a messy and complicated relationship, yet Tommy is still defending Wilbur during the entire impromptu meeting and Wilbur doesn’t want a different guard.

(2/?)

-🌲

oh yeah tommy definitely feels a bit guilty for what he did. like he views it as necessary, but when he saw wilbur's reaction he definitely felt bad for doing that to him. doesn't mean he's going to back down though. he just got to a point where he was convinced wilbur wasn't going to tell him his name on his own before he got another vision or something and decided he had to break through things first.

IM SO GLAD YOU'RE NOTICING THAT yes tommy is being very careful with what information he discloses about wilbur to the others. one of my favorite aspects of c!crimeboys relationship is how possessive c!tommy has always been of c!wilbur, and how he often understood c!wilbur better than anyone else. so I wanted to show that here. glass!tommy feels like he's the only one who understands wilbur and while that's true, it's largely because he's the only one finding out all this info about wilbur. if he shared this stuff with the others or encouraged him to talk about it more around other deathlings, maybe they'd all have this better understanding of him. but he doesn't. he doesn't want to mess up the progress they've made so far, but also it's a bit of childish possessiveness.

they have this little bubble like you said. they understand and trust each other far more than they should, but at the same time there's so much distance between them. tommy is incredibly protective of wilbur, and while wilbur is mad at tommy he still hides behind him. wilbur holds tommy back from doing something he'll regret, and tommy gets upset when tubbo compares him to a dog. there's a huge disconnect between them, and yet there's a connection there. neither one of them really understands it or knows how it formed, but it exists.

#ask #spruce anon #through a glass divine

[starthelostboys]

this is the last post i’m gonna make about people hcing dwayne as native, because it’s not an issue that i, as a non-native person, should really have a say in. i only made that original post because i hadn’t seen it talked about anywhere before.

the point that i was trying to make originally is that regardless of whether or not billy wirth is indigenous, that’s not something a fan gets to decide or headcanon about one of his characters. if billy wirth is native, then dwayne is native, and if he’s not, then dwayne’s not. the situation is a bit more complicated than that, since we don’t have any sort of definitive proof that he is or isn’t native, and we’ll likely never get any. i don’t want to invalidate his identity if he is indigenous, and i can completely understand if that’s an aspect of himself that he’d rather keep private/not address publicly, but unfortunately there’s a history of actors and other public figures lying about indigenous heritage, and at times building entire careers off of those lies. just a few months ago it was discovered that sacheen littlefeather (an actor and indigenous activist who’s best known for her speech at the 1973 academy awards where she refused marlon brando’s oscar in his place) was lying about her native identity and apache heritage, despite spending decades building a career out of it. given the lack of reputable and recent sources about billy wirth’s wyandot heritage, it’s something that i’m taking with a grain of salt. with the lack of proof, it leaves me wary as to whether his characters (dwayne specifically, i’m not as familiar with his other films) should be called native representation.

my issue with the hcs about dwayne being native is that it’s something i don’t fans should get to decide, and in most cases when i’ve seen those hcs it seems like there’s been little thought or research put into them (most of the ones i’ve seen just say he’s “native american” without evens specifying what tribe he’s in), or are based entirely off of harmful stereotypes about indigenous people. i’ve read a ton of fics where the author writes dwayne as native, never says what tribe he’s apart of, and then characterizes him to fit the “noble savage” stereotype or imply/outright state that he’s somehow less human than the other lost boys even though they’re all vampires and the only difference between him and them is his race. i can understand why indigenous fans would want to see themselves in the character, and as a non native person i have no say in how they want to represent and express their identity. ultimately, hcing dwayne as native isn't something non-native fans get to decide, especially if there's little thought put into that headcanon, such as excluding the tribe he's a part of or how that impacts his character, or relying entirely on stereotypes for his characterization.

#like i said this is the last post that i'm making about this #kate's bad takes

[hee-blee-art]

i have questions about the silliest

so was father elias ever a good charming priest? or has he always been so tired? (idk how else to word it)

also it seems like he has some substance addiction, is he aight

also have people that go to his church (if he does have a church idk if exorcists have churches) caught up, yknow, the whole demon creatura living in his necklace

absolutely delighted to talk about bedevil

[cw: christianity/catholicism, parental death, addiction/alcoholism, mental illness, exorcism]

father eli has never really been a "good" priest per se, though he wasn't always so tired (love the wording of the question /gen). his life has always been challenging, as he's been extremely sensitive to sensing / perceiving demons ever since he was born, which is understandably scary. he was abandoned by his birth mother at a convent and raised by nuns; his upbringing was fairly strict and not super fun, so to speak, though the two nuns that fostered him did love him. the church saw his sensitivity to demons as a holy calling and paired him with a notable exorcist, monsignor bonaventure, to train as an exorcist. bonaventure became a father figure to him, and the happiest time in his life was probably in his teens when he was apprenticing with bonaventure and still under the loving care of his two foster parents at the convent, even though the work was scary and the pressure of being a "holy gifted kid" was a lot. he went to seminary in order to become a fully fledged exorcist, having proven very gifted at dealing with demons because of his sensitivity (and in the human aspect of exorcisms, as he has an uncanny ability to get the truth out of people), though he had never had very strong faith; it just seemed like the thing to do. bonaventure was killed on the job shortly after eli completed seminary, and that really hit eli hard. he essentially had a breakdown and ran away from his whole life, but isolation only made things worse, and eventually the pleas from the church to use his gift / fulfill his calling convinced him to start doing exorcist work again. he's been pretty tired for a long time (aka he's got a lot of trauma and mental health issues). hope that gives some insight into his disposition; he's had it rough for a long time

he definitely does have substance abuse issues, especially alcohol and sleep medication (has had insomnia for a very long time). it's a pretty unhealthy coping mechanism for him but he sees it sort of as a necessary evil

also in fiction exorcists can and sometimes do have parishes / work for specific churches, but eli doesn't. because he's like the most renowned exorcist in the world, he doesn't have time to have a parish of his own, and that was never really something that he wanted for himself, as he never really wanted to be a priest, he just felt like he had to (and in a way, wanted to, but that's complicated) fulfill the holy purpose everyone always told him he had because of his gift. the people he works with in the church do know about him keeping a demon in his necklace, and it's somewhat of a scandalous rumour to anyone else who's heard of him; some believe it, some don't, and some experience keth firsthand, so they know it's true. the church sort of begrudgingly lets eli do whatever he wants so long as he does his job, and as much as they dislike their arrangement keth makes eli an even better exorcist, so they tolerate him as long as he's contained. so keth isn't a secret, but most people don't believe eli really has a demon necklace or believe in demons at all, so it's also not commonly accepted knowledge.

hope that makes sense! I am always happy to answer questions about the freefallverse (or any ocs / stories of mine). tyvm for asking !

#asks #bedevil #freefall #freefallverse #father eli #elias leon #keth #kethmannoth #alcohol. #addiction. #death mention. #christianity tw

[thybostokholm]

Why Are You Hearing Read more about Neuroscience At Job?

It seems like you can't turn anywhere at do the job nowadays without a person mentioning neuroscience. Regardless of whether it's at the water-cooler, in the boardroom, or during after-work drinks, be well prepared for it! Not necessarily that this is really a bad thing. Typically the findings from neuroscience are helping to shine a light source on aspects worth considering associated with human behaviour and decision-making which have profound consequences for companies and the people in them. But where has almost all this result from? Initial neuroscience Man's enthrallment with the workings of the head is no contemporary phenomenon. There are recommendations to the mind and nervous technique in Ancient Silk papyri dating to the 17th century BC, though the heart was considered as the seats of intelligence back then. Interestingly we now have retained references, for example memorising something "by heart" and inside the widely-used expression "emotional intelligence". Throughout Portia Antonia Alexis Business , neuroscience developed in Europe through involving the seventeenth and 19th hundreds of years; studies of the brain started to become improved after the invention of the microscope and the development of a procedure throughout the 1890s which usually used a sterling silver chromate salt in order to reveal the complicated structures of one neurons. Throughout typically the twentieth century brand-new advancements were made as neuroscience started to come directly into its as a distinct discipline. New findings were mostly the result involving dealing with brain-damaged individuals, as neuroscience began to integrate together with clinical psychiatry throughout the 1950s in addition to 1960s. The Office of Neuroscience set up at Harvard Medical School in 1966 was the first freestanding neuroscience department established on the globe. The climb of fMRI Throughout 1990, U. H. President George Rose bush famously declared the particular 1990s as the particular "Decade of the Brain". Ten years possibly even later, he would likely have been correct. At the time for the particular millennium neuroscience received the equivalent involving a huge shot associated with dopamine: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) became more extensively available as well as result on neuroscience continues to be profound. This imaging equipment uses MRI technology to assess brain activity by simply detecting associated changes in blood flow. Essentially it is able to watch fresh air in blood movement to different areas of the brain; this then uses this specific as an sign of activity-and this produces the brightly-coloured images of brains at work of which you may possess seen. The technique has given rise to numerous more experiments, typically the findings of which in turn are interpreted in addition to often re-interpreted, in addition to some of which usually find their way into 'popular neuroscience'. As the value involving these images plus their interpretations are actually questioned by some, their undoubtable acceptance has cast a fresh emphasis on neuroscience and encouraged even more people to think regarding what it is definitely teaching us regarding ourselves and some others. With businesses seeking for every possible way to study more about how to organize and manage their people, it's little surprise that will in recent years cognitive and behavioural neuroscience continues to be given more attention. It is findings have been utilized to many regions of business, from HOURS and recruitment, in order to sales and advertising, and even finance. More broadly, being aware of what motivates people, that they work better together in teams, and even how earning judgements, is always associated with essential value to the organisation.

#business #economics #alexis #women

[ask-the-crimson-king]

More Stuff from Betrayer

[While on the topic, I want to show the various humans out there a very interesting scene out of Betrayer.

Two, technically, but one that's a bit longer than the other. Image IDs will be provided at the end of the post, cause there's going to be a LOT.

Some interesting insights into how Lorgar views Chaos and a bit about the Emperor as well. I always find this scene to be fascinating, especially since he's borrowed the astropathic choir of the Conquerer to listen to worlds dying across Ultramar while he muses on this.

And then there's when Angron walks up.

Some interesting, albeit a bit morbid, banter between brothers. I do like how Angron even greets Lorgar on the way in, and Lorgar is just standing there stunned. The insights into how Angron views the Devourers is also neat, and it is to be expected at this point. Lorgar trying to argue for them and trying to get Angron to stop ignoring them outright is another neat touch.

The two begin talking of Ultramar, and Lorgar reveals that Nuceria is going to be the capstone for his ritual. Angron asks why, and the following is said:

I like this passage for a few reasons. Firstly, how Angron "dreams" has always been something of interest to me. Because I doubt he ever really gets much rest and respite. Here we get some insight into this, although this also was already expressed a bit earlier. This passage also leads into Angron's recollection of the Night of the Wolf, but I wanted to focus on this.

Lorgar and Angron's "bond" is something that's always intrigued me. It definitely feels more one-sided, with Lorgar seeking for brotherhood that isn't really there, but there are a few moments to make it feel a bit more genuine. However, there is still something missing from these interactions. I can't really describe it other than a barrier between two primarchs who will never see eye-to-eye. Lorgar does, to his credit, try to be understanding and patient throughout, but I can also definitely feel his annoyance coming through at certain places.

In a way, I can almost feel a similar sort of vibe to how Magnus interacts with some of his brothers. Namely with Perturabo in one of the opening chapters of his primarch novel. However, the bond between those two is still very different from the one Angron has with Lorgar; those two actually do have a deep connection, while these two don't. There's a misunderstanding and underestimation coming from both sides in certain aspects; Lorgar in almost sounding condescending to Angron, and Angron still thinking Lorgar a weakling.

TL;DR, Betrayer good.

Image IDs below the cut:

Image ID 1 & 2: A scene from Betrayer where Lorgar is standing and listening to worlds burn. It reads:

Serving as conductor for an astrological orchestra was more taxing than he’d dreamed, though his blunter, more militant brothers would struggle to grasp the finer points of his efforts. Exhaustion left him wondering, even if only briefly, whether absolute peace would create a stellar song as divinely inspired as absolute war. Fate had played its hand and Chaos was destined to swallow all creation whether or not Horus and Lorgar raged against the Imperial war machine, but if what if they’d stayed loyal to the Emperor? What then? Would the Great Crusade have shaped a serene funeral dirge, to play behind the veil as humanity died in a defenceless harrowing?

Therein lay the fatal flaw. The Emperor’s way was compliance, not peace. The two were as repellent to one another as opposing lodestones. It didn’t matter what enlightenment the Imperium stamped out in its conquering crusade when obedience was all its lords desired. It didn’t matter what wars were fought from now into eternity. The Legiones Astartes would always march, for they were born to do so. There would always be war; even if the Great Crusade had been allowed to reach the galaxy’s every edge, there would never be peace. Discontent would seethe. Populations would rebel. Worlds would rise up. Human nature eventually sent men and women questing for the truth, and tyrants always fell to the truth.

No peace. Only war.

Lorgar felt his blood run cold. Only war. Those were words to echo into eternity.

He didn’t trust the Ten Thousand Futures the way Erebus claimed to. Too many possibilities forked from every decision made by every living thing. What use was prophecy when all it offered was what might happen? Lorgar was not so devoid of imagination that he needed the warp’s twisting guesswork to show him that. Anyone with an iota of vision could imagine what might happen. Genius lay in engineering events according to one’s own goals, not in blindly heeding the laughter of mad gods.

More than that, Lorgar sought to keep one thing in mind above all else. The gods were powerful, without doubt, but they were fickle beings. Each worked against its own kin more often than not, spilling conflicting prophecies into their prophets’ minds. Perhaps they weren’t even sentient in the way a mortal mind could encompass. They seemed as much the manifestations of primal emotion as they did individual essences.

But no, there was a wide gulf between hearing them and heeding them. Gods lied, just like men. Gods deceived and clashed and sought to advance their own dominions over their rivals’. Lorgar trusted none of their prophecies.

Image ID 3-5: A series of screenshots from Betrayer. Angron comes into the scene. It reads:

Angron entered the basilica, armoured in his usual stylised bronze and ceramite and with two oversized chainswords strapped to his back. He even wasted time with a greeting, raising his hand in the first time Lorgar could ever remember such a gesture from his broken brother. The Word Bearer tried not to let his amazement show at his brother’s new consideration.

‘Lotara says you stole her astropathic choir.’ Angron’s lipless smile was a ghastly thing indeed. ‘I see that she may have been correct.’

‘Stole is a strong word. “Appropriated” seems much less ignoble.’ Lorgar spared a glance for the skies above the cathedral, as the Lex ripped onwards towards Nuceria.

‘What do you need them for?’ Angron asked. His wounds from being buried alive had already faded to scrunched scar tissue pebbling his flesh, just another host of scarring to overlay the last.

The Devourers lurked behind him, stomping into the cathedral without the primarch sparing them a glance. To be one of Angron’s bodyguards was no honour, despite how fiercely the World Eaters’ champions had fought for it in the first, optimistic years. Angron ignored them no matter where they went, never once fighting alongside them in battle. In their Terminator plate, they’d never managed to keep up with their liege lord, and they were as prone to losing control as any other World Eater, meaning any hope of them fighting as an organised pack was a forlorn one at best.

Lorgar watched the Devourers – those warriors who’d spent a century learning to swallow their pride and pretend they weren’t ignored – speaking amongst themselves at the basilica’s entrance.

‘Hail,’ he greeted them. They seemed uneasy at being addressed, offering hesitant and wordless bows.

Angron snorted at his brother acknowledging them. ‘Bodyguards,’ he said. ‘Even their name annoys me. “Devourers”, as if I’d named them myself – as if they were the Legion’s finest.’

‘Their intentions are pure,’ Lorgar pointed out. ‘They seek to honour you. It’s not their fault you leave them behind in every battle.’

‘They’re not even the Legion’s fiercest fighters, any more. That rogue Delvarus refuses to challenge for a place in their ranks. Khârn laughed when I asked him if he’d ever considered it. And do you know Bloodspitter?’

‘I know Bloodspitter,’ Lorgar replied. Everyone knew Bloodspitter.

‘He beat one of them in the pits, and carved his name into the poor bastard’s armour with a combat knife.’

Lorgar forced a smile. ‘Yes. Delightful.’

Angron’s face wrenched again, at the mercy of misfiring muscles. ‘What primarch ever needed guarding by lesser men?’

‘Ferrus,’ Lorgar said softly. ‘Vulkan.’

Angron laughed, the sound rich and true, yet harsh as a bitter wind. ‘It’s good to hear you joke about those weaklings. I was getting bored of you mourning them.’

It was no joke, but Lorgar had no desire to shatter his brother’s fragile good humour. ‘I only mourn the dead,’ Lorgar conceded. ‘I don’t mourn Vulkan.’

‘He’s as good as dead.’ The World Eater smiled again. ‘I’m sure he wishes he were. Now, what are you doing with Lotara’s choir?’

‘Listening to them sing of other worlds and other wars.’

Angron stared, unimpressed. ‘Specifics,’ he said, ‘while I have the patience to hear such details.’

‘Just listen,’ Lorgar replied.

Angron did as he was bid. After a minute or more had passed, he nodded once. ‘You’re listening to the Five Hundred Worlds burning.’

‘Something like that. These are the voices of the freshly dead, and those soon to join them. The mortis-moments of random souls, elsewhere in Ultramar, as our fleets ravage their worlds.’

‘Morbid, priest. Even for you.’

‘We’re inflicting this destruction on them. We mustn’t consider ourselves distant from it. It may not be our hands holding the bolters and blades, but we are still the architects of this annihilation. It’s our place to listen to it, to remember the martyred dead, and to meditate on all we’ve wrought.’

‘I wish you well with it,’ said Angron. ‘But why steal Lotara’s choir? What happened to yours?’

‘They died.’

It was Angron’s turn to be surprised. ‘How did they die?’

‘Screaming.’ Lorgar showed no emotion at all. ‘What brings you here, brother?’

Image ID 6 & 7: Two screenshots from later in the previous scene, when Angron asks 'Why Nuceria?'. It reads:

‘The metaphysics are complicated,’ said Lorgar.

That had Angron growling. ‘I may not have wasted days in debate with you and Magnus inside our father’s Palace, but the Nails haven’t left me an absolute fool. I asked the question, Lorgar. You answer it. And do so without lying, if you can manage such a feat.’

The Word Bearer met his brother’s eyes, and the rarely-seen palette of emotions within their depths. Pain was there in abundance, but so was the frustration of living with a misfiring mind, and the savagery that transcended anger itself. Angron was a creature that had come to make his hatred a blade to be used in battle. He’d weaponised his own emotions, where most living beings were slaves to theirs. Lorgar couldn’t help but admire the strength in that.

‘We’re going to Nuceria,’ he said, ‘because of you. Because of the Nails.’

Angron stared, and his silence beckoned for his brother to continue.

‘They’re killing you,’ Lorgar admitted. ‘Faster than I thought. Faster than anyone realised. The rate of degeneration has accelerated even in the last few months. Your implants were never designed for a primarch’s brain matter. Your physiology is trying to heal the damage as the Nails bite deeper, but it’s a game of pushing and pulling, with both sides evenly matched.’

Angron took this with an impassive shrug. ‘Guesswork.’

‘I can see souls and hear the music of creation,’ Lorgar smiled. ‘In comparison, this is nothing. The Twelfth Legion’s archives are comprehensive enough, you know. Your behaviour tells the rest of the tale, along with the pain I sense radiating from you each and every time we meet. Your entire brain is remapped and rewired, slaved to the implants’ impulses. Tell me, when was the last time you dreamed?’

‘I don’t dream.’ The answer was immediate, almost fiercely fast. ‘I’ve never dreamed.’

Lorgar’s gentle eyes caught the warp’s kaleidoscopic light as he tilted his head. ‘Now you’re lying, brother.’

‘It’s no lie.’ Angron’s thick fingers twitched and curled, closing around the ghosts of weapons. ‘The Nails scarcely let me sleep. How would I dream?’

Lorgar didn’t miss the rising tension in his brother’s body language – the veins in his temples rising from scarred skin, the feral hunch of the shoulders, no different from a hunting cat drawing into a crouch before it struck.

‘You once told me the Nails stole your slumber,’ Lorgar conceded, ‘but you also said they let you dream.’

Angron took a step closer. He started to say ‘I meant…’ but Lorgar’s earthy glare stopped him cold.

‘They give you a serenity and peace you can find nowhere else. Humans, legionaries, primarchs… everything alive must sleep, must rest, must allow its brain a period of respite. The remapping of your mind denies you this. You don’t dream with your eyes closed. You dream with your eyes open, chasing the rush of whatever peace the Nails can give you.’ Lorgar met Angron’s eyes again. ‘Don’t insult us both by denying it. You slaver and murmur when you kill, mumbling about chasing serenity and how close it feels. I’ve heard you. I’ve looked into your heart and soul when you’re lost to the Nails. Your sons, with their crude copies of your implants, have their minds rewritten to feel joy only in adrenaline’s kiss. Those lesser implants cause pain because they scrape the nerves raw, thus your World Eaters kill because it gladdens their reforged hearts, and ceases the pain knifing into their muscles. Your Butcher’s Nails are a more sinister and predatory design, ruining all cognition, stealing any peace. They are killing you, gladiator. And you ask why I’m taking you back to Nuceria? Is it not obvious?’

End Image ID.]

#warhammer 30k #word bearers #world eaters #lorgar #angron #enjoy some betrayer folks #long post

[hamliet]

Do you think Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov is used by Dostoevsky as a positive political/role model of rural/religious values in contrast to urban, Western thought?

Every time I get a Dostoyevsky ask I almost cry in happiness. :P Bless you!

So, to give a proper nuanced answer, I'd have to do more research than I am currently able to do on the precise definitions and colloquial perceptions of those terms in 19th century Russia. The short answer is yes to the former clause and "it's complicated" to the second.

Yes, Zosima is clearly intended to be a positive role model of religious values, almost the pinnacle of Dostoyevsky's theological beliefs (second only perhaps to the narrator in "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man"). Yes, there is a political revolutionary context to The Brothers Karamazov, and no doubt Zosima, as the moral center of the story, would have ultimately influenced any political direction Alyosha would take in the sequel which sadly never came :'')

That said, while there is certainly emphasis on the serfs and poor folk/common people (I'm quoting Dostoevsky's novel by the term "poor folk" not being pejorative) and sharp critique of Russian nihilism, I'm not so sure the terms "urban/Western values" are the terms I'd apply to what he's critiquing specifically. He does believe in the beauty and value of nature, but that doesn't make him against urbanism inherently, and he does critique intense individualism, yet he also advocates quite strongly for an existentialist understanding of the world and every single individual's right to choose their paths in life; he just concludes that if you neglect to care about other people in said pursuit of free will you'll become a parody of yourself (see, Demons).

So I'd argue it's more that Doestoyevsky critiqued the hierarchies and pseudo-caste systems of the privileged elite, who treated everyone and everything from poor children to nature to philosophy with a utilitarian self-righteousness. Father Zosima contrasts that perspective certainly, even emphasizing that despite being perhaps the mouthpiece for Dostoevsky's most evolved philosophies and theology, he is still human. The people revere Zosima, but after his death his corpse is noted to smell atrociously, even worse than normal--and the degree to which your body stank after death was in traditional thought assume to be a reflection of the degree of sin you had in your life. So in that aspect you can see Dostoyevsky critiquing even the idea of putting beliefs he deeply held on a pedestal and creating a superhuman view of someone espousing them, and also a critique of superstition (which is less associated with traditional definitions of urbanism/Western thought, though why that is is another conversation entirely) at the expense of a basic understanding of science and the nature of humanity.

Anyways, those are my thoughts for now. There is clearly a lot more to say and I would need to do a lot more research before I can be confident in such an answer (especially as Dostoyevsky’s works delve deeply into the gray nuance rather than explicit metaphors), but yeah. Here you have it.

#ask hamliet #fyodor dostoyevsky #the brothers karamazov #russian lit #father zosima

[imaginariumpod]

Studio Ghibli; and the aesthetic of comfort and the mundane.

When it comes to animation movies, Studio Ghibli movies are still some of the long standing staples of the genre, and for a good reason. A lot has been said about these films, their thematics, their characters, their stories and the studio that made them, as well as one of their elusive and yet most well known creators : Hayao Miyazaki. I will try to focus on the ways Studio Ghibli views comfort as well the coziness in these little slower moments that fill the universe of Ghibli films. These movies are generally universally loved by the public, despite the fact that they are aimed toward a younger audience. These movies are definitely created with the goal of showing it to a public of children and families, and yet they still are very complex and layered pieces of art and animation that all audiences can appreciate. These movies also do not look down on their audiences, they do not shy away from touching upon more difficult themes such as war, loss, and fear, in a manner that’s adequate for the public it is targeting. With this article, I want to write an extension on the article I have already written on the subject of slowness in cinema and that has been asked by one of my subscribers on patreon. If you haven’t read that article yet, you can read it HERE on my blog. 

 The films that have been created by Studio Ghibli, are, and with reason, a cornerstone of the animated movie industry.  Despite the fact that these movies are definitely intended and made for a younger audience, I think we can all agree that these particular movies can be appreciated by everyone, at any age, and that anyone can find meaning and solace within these movies. Studio Ghibli movies are truly an excellent example of filmmaking that manages to capture a slower pace in media, slowing down the action to just offer a moment to breathe. Between all of the grand adventures and events that are happening in those movies, there are always moments of slowness to be found. Of calm. Of quietness. The characters of the Ghibli universe are permitted to simply exist sometimes. 

The concept of slowing down in media is one that I deeply appreciate for the way it brings depth and serenity in stories. This is a very personal point of view of course, I find the modern pace of capitalist life deeply alienating at times, and sometimes I think we just need a moment to slow down and enjoy simply being. Doing nothing is a very anti-capitalist thing, in my opinion, and I greatly appreciate seeing this concept in books and movies. While being productive is always a nice feeling, and god knows I always enjoy being busy and having things to do, it is always in these moments where I feel submerged by everything I have to do that I yearn for some peace and quiet. While it is not always possible to have this, it is always possible for me to simply … start a movie, and try to escape a bit the weight of the world.

I personally think having these moments to be able to just breathe and be truly enriches a movie. Those moments of simple mundanity and ordinariness ground the story in reality even when the story is about a wizard living in a moving castle. Studio Ghibli movies are the epitome of films that can focus on fantasy and the imaginary and telling incredibly original stories, while also including this measure of the mundane, the routine and the ordinary in between the louder and more action-packed parts of the film. This way of constructing these films, makes it so that the universe feels more lived-in, real and comforting, the characters feel more grounded and rooted in reality. 

 Studio Ghibli: a brief history

Even though Hayao Miyazaki started working as an animator in the 1960s, working in TOEI animation and learning the tricks of the trade, it is only later in 1985 that he established Studio Ghibli as we now know it, with the partnership of Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki. It is with that previous working experience that he got to truly construct an identity as the type of animator he wanted to become, and the type of movies he wanted to produce. Before Ghibli, Miyazaki got involved with different animation projects such as Heidi (1974) , and Anne of Green Gables (1979) and a project that would never see the day : Pippi Longstocking. This project is quite interesting in how it simply … never got made, its a bit like a lost part of history, a what-if. Despite the fact that Hayao Miyazaki had drawn a lot of concept arts as well as storyboards for this project, they never got the green light from the swedish author Astrid Lindgren.  

Nonetheless, it is obvious how all of these projects forecast how Miyazaki and his business partner Isao Takahata will more often than not try to center young girls as the main protagonists of their movies. A trend that will continue on for the most of their careers to this day. They will continue to focus on young girls and women as the main characters of the stories they are telling in such a complex and intricate way, all of their female characters are different from each other, with their own complicated inner lives, dreams and goals. It seems like such a basic requirement to request from our media, and yet even now, it is still not something that… will be guaranteed in the stories we consume. It is not to say that ghibli’s portrayals of women is perfect, but I do appreciate their very complex heroines and their adventures. 

I will not try to pretend that I can totally understand the type of person that Miyazaki is, he’s a complicated figure at the helm of Studio Ghibli, the man behind the curtain. He is definitely a hardworking and self-critical person, but also deeply critical of others as well, wanting to set up very high standards of work that can be extremely difficult to achieve in a very high pressure environment. Thus is the complex personality of Miyazaki. I do not want to pretend he is a perfect man, and I do think some of his choices are things i don't quite agree with. There are some very valid and legitimate criticisms to be made about him, some by the closest people he works with as well as his own sons, especially Goro Miyazaki, who say that his father was always very distant, working long hours even by the era’s standards, and whose heart was obviously more into his work than his home life. Hayao Miyazaki valued work and putting in the time and effort into his art and job, pushing for very unhealthy job practices and work culture.

 He is far from perfect, and seek perfection in his work, both from himself and the people he works with. There’s a lot to be said on that aspect, and yet I still very much think that he is that he is still a very fascinating person to reckon with, someone who brought very important and beautiful stories and revolutionized the world of animation in a really significant way. The universes he created are some I keep coming back to times and times again. I also highly recommend the documentary A Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (2013)  if you have not seen it, as to have a glimpse of the way this animation studio functions on a daily basis. I find it always so very inspiring personally, each time I watch this documentary, I feel hugely motivated to create and to make something, no matter how small. Sometimes, it is simple about the sheer act of creating something, of spending some time away on the roof, looking at the skies while a cat is sleeping next to you. 

His involvement with the Union during his early animator years left him with a leftist tendency that will continue on during his career and seep through the themes of his movies.From the very firmly anti-war stances to the pro-environmentalist and anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist themes, Ghibli movies are a proof that you can tackle these subject matters in a very conscientious way even in children’s media. It can be seen in the movie Grave of the Fireflies (1988), a heart-wrenching movie about two children trying to survive the last months of  World War II.  Even though Isao Takahata, who directed this movie, says the movie was not made out to be an anti-war movie, this stance is still very much woven in the very fabric of the movie, from its beginning to its ending. 

This specific theme is very important here in terms of the experience of the mundane and the ordinary in Ghibli movies. Even within the most devastating of events, smaller moments of slowness can be found, and appreciated. Quiet moments of peace that feel even more poignant in the midst of struggle. Despite everything, I think we have all come to the conclusion that even when world-shattering events are happening, life truly must go on. And it does find a way to go on, and it feels mind-boggling that we all have to do our groceries, cook dinner, wash our laundry while terrible events keep happening, and yet, these mundane moments still occur. It is still possible to find a moment of respite and peace in the midst of uncertain times and terrible events. 

But also, as Marco says it in Porco Rosso, « I’d much rather be a pig than a fascist » and I think this really does say it all. 

The aesthetic of comfort 

Despite being usually  an animated movie set in a very obviously fantastical universe, Studio Ghibli movies tend to be very realistic in the way they portray the characters, their complexity, and also what are the real underlying conflicts. For example, in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) «The primary conflict isn’t about magic—it’s internal and invisible and wholly human: Kiki’s brief period of lost motivation and artist’s block. She gets it back when she wants to help Tombo, whom she loves. Simple as that. She doesn’t have to wage an epic battle to prove her worth»  The stakes might seem lower in this movie compared to other stories, very mundane and ordinary, there is no war, there is no significant conflict, but I think this is what makes it so special in the end. 

One of the particularities of Ghibli movies is how they deal with the notion of childhood, a notion that few animation movies have approached with such delicateness and seriousness. One of the things I really appreciate from Ghibli movies is that it does not shy away from treating children as complex beings. It does acknowledge the fact that children are also able of complexities and of understanding more than we think they do, and yet creating media that is easy for them to comprehend and appreciate, which I think is no small feat. 

There is definitely also a definite focus on working class characters instead of the more “prestigious” ones in Ghibli movies, there is a desire to center normal people, whatever that means, in their stories. Most of the characters have to work for a living, earn their lives, and the value of hard work is definitely something that is highlighted in the Ghibli universe. In Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), the baker’s wife tells the young witch that work is work no matter how small and insignificant you might think it is,  and all work should be paid, and it is a truth that should be remembered.

In that movie, here is no world shattering events, no wars or massive destruction, only a young witch trying to make something out of herself, losing her will and creativity and gaining it again. That particular theme is one that resonates a lot with people on a very basic level, especially in this current day and age where so many of us are trying to monetize our creative work. So often, trying to capitalize off a hobby and enduring the bone deep dreary weight of capitalism is what will make artists lose their original inspiration and will to create, when a hobby turns into labor, and this is, at its core, the journey that Kiki went through. 

As Robert Ebert told Miyazaki, during an interview with him « I told Miyazaki I love the "gratuitous motion" in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.» 

And he was right, Ghibli movies have these moments where the action is not something that is strictly essential to the plot of the movie, and yet it is essential to the essence of what Ghibli movies do. Miyazaki then explained what this concept for him meant for him : 

  «"We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally."» 

Those slow moments between the actions are thus very deliberate, they mean to slow down the story and to slow down the pace. Unlike the generally accepted school of thought in modern Hollywood cinema, where every single scene and dialogue needs to move the story forward, Miyazaki lets his story and movies breathe and exist. This way of building a story does give it an added sense of calm and soothingness, but also it gives it a sense of realism. Instead of following a strict narrative outline, this fluidity makes the story feel more real and relatable.

These quiet moments and details that might seem innocuous and useless at first glance, and maybe look like they would slow and hinder the pace of the movie in itself, are ultimately what gives it this feeling of genuineness, of sincerity. It lets the characters as well as the plot have the space to breathe, evolve and grow. 

« Although these scenes may seem slow or unimportant, they give space to develop the characters and to heighten dreams or feelings the characters are having such as feelings of isolation, wonder, or anxiety. It is in these moments of stillness that the audience can contemplate with the characters and feel what the characters are feeling. These moments remind the audience the importance of stillness in such a fast paced world and highlights the beauty of a slower paced life»

Studio Ghibli movies insert those slo

wer moments in between their more faster paced and action packed scenes, but also in the midst of world-changing events such as wars, as shown in Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). This demonstrates how people still live on during those crises, even with the danger looming over their heads. This kind of media gives me hope that we can live through this, that moments of happiness and peace are still to be found even within the madness of our very fast capitalistic and  hyper consumerist life.

From visibly established routines to a focus on the mundane, the daily.  the ordinary, Ghibli movies will definitely bring these seemingly unimportant acts and integrate them as essential to the general experience of the movie. You see the characters inhabiting the Ghibli universe working, studying, sleeping, eating, in a way, you see them being alive. In a manner of speaking, of course, these are fictional characters in fictional universes, but it is obvious that the universe and the lives these characters lead extend beyond what we’re seeing on the screen. They have whole lives and experiences that we might not be privy to, as the audience, but it is apparent that these characters are fully formed. They are going on and about with their lives, and it is this emphasis on the ordinary that makes them appear so realistic. 

Falling and getting up again. Jumping and stumbling. So often, Ghibli’s characters are not perfectly graceful beacons of dexterity and elegance, quite the opposite even, their demeanor and posture will inform the character and their place in that world, and yet it is not always perfect and flawless. Sometimes, the characters will run and stumble and trip and fall and this mundanity of being.  

This representation of the realness of what it is to be a person, that sometimes we trip and stumble, that we fall and get up again and yet, we continue to walk or run. It’s also a way of defining the different characters, of imbuing them with their own personality and mannerisms and be able to distinguish them even with such small details as the way they walk and carry themselves. This is definitely not exclusive to Studio Ghibli, animation as a whole uses movement and mannerisms as an essential tenet of character, but it is  still very rare to see this sort of flailing included voluntarily in the films. Since the medium that these movies are created in is two-dimensional animation, it means that every single frame had to be carefully planned and executed, before being drawn and painted frame by frame.  These movements could have been easily not included in the final cut of the movie, they could have been considered superfluous to the film, and yet they were. These imperfect moments are what ultimately makes it better. 

Ghibli movies do that, not only in terms of physicality and concrete elements, but also when it comes to feelings and emotions. Emotions that we all feel and experience, from the feeling of restlessness to loss and  fear, to love and courage. Ghibli movies really do showcase all of these feelings that we all feel, even though in a manner that is easy to understand for all audiences. 

 “Only Yesterday does not hit the dramatic highs of Miyazaki’s work, but that’s partly the point. It’s less concerned with presenting a grand thesis about the nature of being human than it is navigating the heartbreaks, triumphs and regrets that make us. But it’s still comforting for a film about the relentless march of time, the title even invoking both the speed with which childhood can pass us by and how close those memories stay with us.

It’s immensely relatable in how it evokes these little tragedies: the feeling of being a fraud; of missing out’ of wondering if you’ve left your childhood self behind; idealism; dreams and all. It asks us not to mourn what might or might not have happened, but to keep those memories close, and use them to move forward. That Only Yesterday makes this feel as wondrous as a castle in the sky or a land of spirits is nothing short of miraculous, and why it ranks among Ghibli’s best.”

The act of eating is one that is heavily emphasized in Ghibli movies,  one only needs to read all of the articles dedicated to the mouth-watering food that fills its universe to understand that this simple act, of eating and of preparing food, is one that is very important. Countless of people have made videos on how to recreate some of the most iconic dishes and meals of the Ghibli universe, from Howl’s Moving Castle’s tempting breakfast to Spirited Away’s feasts, both the one that Chihiro’s parents eat at the beginning of the movie and the ones served to the bathhouse’s guests, and the simple snacks that are eaten throughout the movie, from the onigiri Haku gives Chihiro or the food she shares with Lin. Ghibli movies are very well known for how pretty and appealing its food looks, and simply taking the time to showcase the act of preparing and eating food, thus slowing down the pace and creating a break during the plot of the movie. There’s a certain type of media that does put a lot of importance on the act of slowing down, taking the time to cook, such movies such as Little Forest : Summer & Autumn and Little forest : winter and spring, for example. A lot of media that’s just about not doing much and preparing some food, which somehow has a very soothing effect. The act of eating and cooking is part of the greater character narrative and storyline when it comes to Ghibli movies, but also the act of sharing a meal and of eating together. 

Food, the preparing of food as well as the sharing of a meal, is a love language in itself, in my very humble opinion, taking the time to prepare all of the ingredients and then a dish for someone else or for one self is an act of care. And it is definitely one of the ways it is used in Ghibli movies, from My Neighbor Totoro (1988) in which the eldest daughter is often seen having to prepare lunch and food for her younger sister and her father, since her mother is sick and hospitalized. I will not be talking here about eldest daughter syndrome here, but it is very much a Real Thing™️. It is simply in this representation of the act of cooking, and the care she puts in it, that we can understand not only the love she has for her younger sister and father, but also the very real responsibilities that she has to shoulder as such a young age. 

In every single Studio Ghibli movie, this pattern appears, someone will make food, and it will be obvious how much time, effort and love it takes to prepare this dish, or someone will simply take a break from whatever they were doing and take a bite of a small but tasty snack. Somehow, the usage of food in the Ghibli universe is central to the way the characters will experience and move through the world. 

It is in these small moments of respite and calm that the characters, and by extension, us, are allowed to breathe. Moments that are quiet, where two people will share a meal and just be. I always terribly appreciate whenever a movie, or any piece of media really, simply takes the time to let the story expand and move at its own pace. Studio Ghibli movies are always ones I love to go back to whenever the world feels overwhelming and slightly unbearable. I hope that we can all have more moments of peace and quiet, that things can slow down enough for us to catch our breath. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Hayao Miyazaki interview | Interviews

The Magic and Artistry of Studio Ghibli's Films

The Low-Stakes Pleasure of KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE 

Wings and Freedom, Spirit and Self: How the Filmography of Hayao Miyazaki Subverts Nation Branding and Soft Power Shadow 

Miyazaki’s Magical Food: An Ode to Anime’s Best Cooking Scenes 

Food in Spirited Away: Consuming with Intent

Grave of the Fireflies: The haunting relevance of Studio Ghibli's darkest film

NAPIER, Susan. Miyazakiworld : a life in art. Yale University Press, 2018. 

#text

[sisterofiris]

Hi! There is a question about the cult of the Greek gods I wanted to ask. Beyond the 12 Olympians plus Persephone and Dionysus, the other gods weren't given much attention or temples, right?

Oh no, they definitely were!

I think one of the big misconceptions people have about Hellenic polytheism is that it is functionally dodekatheism*, that is, the worship of twelve deities. The Twelve are portrayed as central to the religion, with all others being less significant or even forgotten. But this overlooks several elements of Ancient Greek cult.

The first is that, even in Antiquity, nobody could quite agree on who the Twelve were. Was Hestia among them? Was Dionysos? Was Herakles? A lot of the time, “the Twelve Olympians” weren’t even named; so this may have been more of an expression, a nice round number to designate the most important deities while leaving room for local interpretations of who was among them.

It’s certainly true that there are some deities who received more worship than others, and who are better known nowadays because of it. If I were to write an approximate list, it would be the following:

Zeus

Hera

Poseidon

Demeter

Hades

Hestia

Persephone

Hermes

Dionysos

Hephaistos

Athena

Ares

Artemis

Apollon

Aphrodite

Hekate

Herakles

Asklepios

Pan

You’ll notice immediately that there are far more than twelve - nineteen, in fact - and the list could be expanded even further to include deities like the Muses or Eros. My point here is that, while “the Twelve Olympians” was shorthand for the major Gods, to limit cultic importance to just twelve, or even to just Olympians, is disregarding the broadness of the Hellenic pantheon - and the fact that it is polytheism, not dodekatheism. The Ancient Greeks may have called on the Twelve when necessary**, but their worship included many more deities than that.

And this leads on to my second point: the Ancient Greek religion was not orthodox. Each city, town or even village had its own pantheon, composed of the major Olympians, locally important deities, like Aphrodite in Kythera or Artemis in Ephesos, and deities specific to the area, like nymphs and river Gods. This means that Sparta’s pantheon was not the same as Thebes’, Thebes’ pantheon was not the same as Corinth’s, and so on.

As a result, deities that were given minor importance in one place could be given major importance in another. Take Ares, for example: though he had a sanctuary in Athens, he didn’t play a particularly large rule in the local cult outside of war times - but he was highly worshipped in northern Greece. Other than deities, heroes also need to be taken into account: Helen and Menelaus were revered as Gods in Sparta (likely as the remnant of an early cult), though practically everywhere else they were viewed as human and not worshipped. So while it would be accurate to say that Athenians paid far more attention to the Twelve than to Helen, a Spartan would bristle at the thought!

To complicate things further, there’s the matter of epithets. Gods were worshipped under different aspects in different areas, and those aspects were sometimes so different that they blurred the line between “same God, different epithet” and “actually a different God”. For example, Apollon Smitheus was widely worshipped in Anatolia (modern Turkey), and his cult was full of native Anatolian elements. So while it would be factually true to say Apollon was important both in Delphi and in Anatolia, it would be missing the fact that Apollon Smintheus was not important in Delphi.

Lastly, the state cult wasn’t the only influence on how much a deity was worshipped. Circumstances also mattered: the Agathos Daimon was central to the household cult, a sailor might give special honours to Nereus, a pregnant woman might give most of her offerings to Eileithyia, and any individual could love a specific deity above others, like Hippolytos with Artemis. These may not have left as many traces as state-sponsored temples, but in everyday life, they were no less significant.

In conclusion, there was a concept of twelve particularly powerful and important deities, and it did somewhat correspond to which deities were worshipped most in practise, but reality was a lot more nuanced. Any God could be more or less important depending on who you were, where you were, and in which circumstances. Ultimately, the Hellenic cult was - and still is - as rich in variety as it was in deities.

*Some modern worshippers choose to call the religion Dodekatheism, which I’m not criticising. This isn’t about the term but about its interpretation as  “worship of exactly twelve deities” being incorrect. 

**Interesting anecdote: my professor recently remarked on the fact that, in the Homeric epics at least, only desperate prayers are addressed to “Zeus and the other Olympians”. People call on the Twelve when they don’t know to whom specifically to turn, and as a result, these prayers are the most likely to go unanswered.

#ancient greece #hellenic polytheism #Hellenismos

[gad-dunap]

Sub-Commander's Log | Twelfth of T'keKhuti, 8972

 In the early days of Vulcan, there was no need for spoken words. Records gleaned from the clouded depths of Vulcan’s history are unanimous: society formed without the need for spoken language, as all proto-Vulcans could convey flashes of imagery via their innate telepathy, and what we now know as fu-fe-yontau-Vulkhansu was introduced only later when a proto-Vulcan encountered an a’kweth, one of our planet’s native sand-worms. The creature in question made sounds in conjunction with its own telepathic projection in an attempt to communicate, and as the humans say, the rest is history. Language, for the early Vulcans, captured the emotional or unclear aspects of phenomena more precisely than telepathy would allow. It also created a consistency not otherwise achievable when a concept is being passed from mind to mind.

I have always found it difficult to imagine language developing independent of telepathy, though it is by all accounts the more common phenomenon. However, it seems likely that the lack of any secondary form of confirmation is the source of the unmistakable lack of precision found in most widely known galactic languages. Fu-fe-yontau-Vulkhansu was a language intended explicitly for precision, while early Human languages formed from the struggle to communicate any image at all. I can only postulate this is the origin of such perplexing words as “thingamabob”and “doohickey”. (I have consulted several humans to confirm the spelling. It is not in error.

Naturally, Earth philosophy has spent no shortage of time puzzling over the creation of words and their meaning.  What are words? I would argue that the question is unimportant, as all of Vulcan has a shared, un-wordable mental understanding of what a word is that I’m sure could be transferred to a human quite easily if any scholars of lexical semantics merely requested it. Much in the way you cannot make flour out of kreyla, one cannot create a definition of words out of words. Only thought suffices.

Nonetheless, to Plato (no surname), they are the essence of a thing, which the Epicureans largely concurred with, albeit with more specificity. Cratylus further postulated that words were naturally ‘right’ in that they naturally flowed from one another, though gave no basis for the first word ever formed. The Stoics divided words into words corresponding to natural objects and lekta, the unsayable, which correspond to parts of speech unrelated to an object. I am told the study of how words change over time, The Epicureans and Stoics both, rightfully, believed words were a sort of border between the readily apparent and the non-apparent. It is admirable, perhaps, that these two schools came to so correct a conclusion so early, even if an incomplete one, but later study appears to have complicated the idea somewhat. Later philosophers like Augustine separated signs into more and more categories: apparent, non-apparent, temporarily non-apparent, temporarily apparent, and so on. He concluded that words were an essential method of transmitting something from one mind to another, but his interpretation took on an air of divinity and leaned into magical applications of words.

I find myself once again concluding that while humans are able to approach the use of logic in examining the world, they fail to meet it entirely. This has yet to be a useful pursuit.

Sub-commander Sozhik Vulcan Expeditionary Group Xenophilosophy Division

#vulcan #fiction #sozhik #star trek #officer's log

[cassandraclare]

Not too spoilery, but very long!

fieidofpoppies said: I was hoping to get some clarification about the LGBT situation in TLH’s background. 

What exactly is the Clave's position on homosexuality? Alec struggles with people's opinion in 2008, so I guess in 1900ish things are definitely not rosey, but to what extent? We know that being gay is considered a crime in mundane London at the time and I'm guessing that is not the case for the Shadowhunter world, so how seriously is it a problem? What does it/ would it mean for our characters to be out?

Okay, so I’ve gotten a few of this question, leading me to believe it is A Conversation that needs some addressing. It’s a complicated issue so I’m going to try to break it down in parts.

There is no “The Clave’s position on homosexuality” that is unchanging: it has changed, advanced and regressed through history just like you, know, regular human history. :) If you’re asking about the Clave’s position on LGBT Shadowhunters in 1903, we will get to that.

Just because Alec is struggling in 2007 doesn’t mean things were worse for Anna in 1903. The idea that culture moves inevitably forward towards tolerance and progressivism is an oversimplification. We see it assumed all around, so it’s easy to believe it, but actually it’s more of a two steps forward, one step back scenario. There are always periods of cultural progress, marked by periods of cultural regress. If someone had told me when I was a teenager that a woman’s right to choose would be more trammeled and in danger in 2020 America then in 1989 I wouldn’t have believed it; it is, however, the truth. We are in a more regressive period culturally now than we were ten years ago; LGBT rights are more under threat. This isn’t the first time in history this has happened and it won’t be the last: “During the golden years of the Weimar Republic [Germany's government from 1919 to 1933] Berlin was considered an LGBT+ haven, where gays and lesbians achieved an almost dizzying degree of visibility in popular culture” — but by 1934 LGBT+ Germans were being persecuted and eventually would be sent to death camps with Jews, communists, and other “undesirables.”

Alec is living in a time in which a regressive, conservative group that his own parents belonged to nearly toppled the more progressive aspects of the Clave. He already comes from a family in exile, during a time in which progressive and regressive aspects of the Clave are battling each other and the situation with Downworlders is explosive. Four years after Alec comes out, the fascist Cohort rises to power and splits the Clave in half. Nothing like that is happening in 1903: there is a progressive Consul in power, demon attacks are low, there is generally peace with Downworld.

It is reasonable that Alec would have concerns about how the Clave at large might treat him, and also have concerns about family and friends, given his parents’ past. And while Anna and Matthew etc. might have similar concerns about coming out to the whole Clave, which they haven’t, they are not concerned about their particular group of friends, and have mixed concerns about family. (Also, we have plenty of characters who have been just as worried about coming out as Alec was: Charles, Alastair, Ariadne. We don’t yet know Thomas’ attitude. Everyone who doesn’t consider themselves a “Bohemian” isn’t taking this very lightly, and even Matthew isn’t “out” to anyone except his friends. It’s not like the Wentworths know he’s bisexual.)

None of this is to say it was “easy” to be LGBT+ during the early 1900’s. It isn’t easy now. It’s to say that “Well, it sucked across the board then and now it’s great across the board!” isn’t true, and ignores the significance of context in the lives of characters — and people. There’s a great moment in the movie Colette (set in the 1890′s and early 1900′s) that focuses on Mathilde de Morny, Colette’s lover. Mathilde was assigned female at birth (academic scholars are widely divided on whether Mathile was transgender so I’m going to be gender-neutral here.) Mathilde dresses in men’s clothes, and openly romances women, but in this particular moment, Mathilde speaks about the fact that if Mathilde were not rich and titled, it might be a problem. But given Mathilde’s social status and power, and the Bohemian set of people Mathilde spends time with, it’s not. Colette herself also dresses in men’s clothes and is open about her same-sex romances, even kissing Mathilde onstage at the Moulin Rouge.

(Colette and Mathilde, 1907.)

The artist Romaine Brooks wore men’s clothes, even painting herself in them: according to the Smithsonian “By 1905, she had made a name for herself in Paris as a painter of women, some of whom were her lovers. Her most visible and lasting relationship was with the American poet Natalie Barney, who also lived in Paris.” (There’s a reason the characters are often talking about Paris or visiting Paris: being LGBT+  wasn’t illegal in France, and Paris was a gay and lesbian mecca, complete with LGBT+ cafes, high society, celebrities, and so on.)

People like Anna existed in the mundane world in 1903. It’s important to realize; this isn’t something I wrote because I’d have liked it to be true and historically accurate, it is true and historically accurate. It’s also true that even though male homosexuality was illegal in England in 1903, there were plenty of gay men who were out to their friends and community. Lytton Strachey (part of the Bloomsbury Group which included Virginia Woolf) “spoke openly about his homosexuality with his Bloomsbury friends, and had relationships with a variety of men.”  Which isn’t to say he spoke openly about it to everyone —  just that there have always been spaces within “mainstream” society where it was safe to be queer: Anna and Matthew, by going to the Hell Ruelle, by standing somewhat apart from their contemporaries save those they already trust, are inhabiting those spaces.

Now, if the question becomes: what happens if everyone in the Clave finds out the sexualities of the LGB+ characters in TLH? Well, first, they won’t be arrested; it’s not illegal. But that hardly covers the whole issue. We look at what happened to Oscar Wilde and think, horrors, as well we should — had he not sued the Marquess of Queensberry, though, he probably would have lived out his life with society turning a blind eye to his affairs with men. What happened to him is fucking terrible. Yet even today, there are celebrities who remain in the closet — though their queerness may well be an open secret to their friends, family and colleagues — not because they’re worried about being arrested, but because of the fear of what the damage to their career might be were it publicly known. And how is that so different from the situation Charles finds himself in? He’s pretty clear that if people knew he were gay, he couldn’t be Consul. He wouldn’t get the votes. In the same way, it’s likely that the other LGB+ characters would face societal disapproval and issues with their families. That’s not really about the “Clave’s official position” though, any more than a politician today not wanting to come out is worried about being arrested rather than losing their career. The official position is important, but it’s not the only indicator or generator of societal, systemic bigotry.  (” It turns out that one of the worst times to be a homosexual - that is, in terms of being at risk from the law - was in the run-up to and aftermath of the liberalisation of the 1960s [when homosexuality was decriminalized].” )

So if you made it this far: what I’m basically saying is three things: one, that any comparison to Alec has to take into account Alec’s specific family situation, the Uprising, and who the Clave and Inquisitor are in 2007. And that I can’t say what it means for the characters of TLH to be out because it’s going to mean different things, and have different repercussions, for all of them. I can say “They won’t be in trouble with the Law”, which is true, but in terms of their family situations, their personal goals and dreams, and where they are socially, it would be different for each one of them. 

And third, that we can’t assume that progress is one inevitable forward march. That things will always be more tolerant, less oppressive, in “the future” simply because it’s the future.  While we can believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” it’s important to remember that rights can be abridged, freedoms taken away, times of tolerance and harmony can end, bigotry and nationalism can rise. To assume progress is inevitable is, I worry, to forget to fight for it. And we can never forget to fight.

[Recommended reading: Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century, by Graham Robb.]

#the last hours #chain of gold #spoilers #tlh

[entishramblings]

The Bewilderment of Alluring Attraction [Fellowship X Reader]

A.N: hey guys! This one shot is based off of this one of my imagines! It was really fun to write and helped me work through/explore an aspect of myself. I hope you all enjoy it!! Please let me know what you think! 

Request: none

Pairing: its complicated? none really?

Summary: A female human warrior joins the fellowship. She’s a complete badass and a flirt. In addition to this she is bisexual (though no one knows...yet)!!!

DISCLAIMER: please do not misinterpret Legolas’s confusion for homophobia or biphobia!! It is intended to be that Legolas, as unexposed to anything other than strict elvish customs, is just confusion and is more like OMG WHAAaaa!!!! 

Word Count: 1,065

Warnings: none

(gif not mine)

MASTERLIST

It was early morning; the sun had just begun to peak out from the horizon to wake the rest of nature from its deep slumber. The crisp wind assisted, as it blew between the sleeping bodies of the fellowship, allowing chills to run though their bones. Well, it danced among those that were sleeping. Legolas and Aragorn were awake preparing the bags for the days journey, while (Y/N) sharpened her long silver sword.

“(Y/N), get them up! We must keep moving if we want to keep hidden from Sauron’s watchful eye.” Aragorn stated.

The human warrior nodded and began to shake her companions awake one by one. When she got to the last person, a mischievous smile pulled at her lips. She bent down and brought her mouth close to Boromir’s ear. She lowered her voice and whispered in a teasing tone, “Time to arise, Gondorian. You cannot lay there looking sexy all day.” She made sure she spoke in such a way that added an appealing and alluring ring to her words.

Boromir’s peaceful face was disrupted by a slight smirk that whispered upon his lip. Satisfied, she stood up and turned away, only to bear witness to Legolas’s wide eyes and shocked expression.

Damn elf ears.

The blonde elf was entirely forged of something proper and conservative. He was by far a traditionalist and spoke to others with only to utmost respect, likely drilled into his head since he was young.

Quite a boring existence if you asked (Y/N). She preferred to live in the state of excitement and amusement, anything less was as bland as lembas bread.

She slung her dark leather bag over her shoulder and walked towards the elf Prince. A smug grin formed upon her mouth as she got closer. The alarm and trepidation pooling in Legolas’s blue eyes was prominent, and it only enhanced with every one of (Y/N)’s steps on the soft soil. Oh this was gonna be fun.

(Y/N) spoke softly so only his elven ears could capture the sound, “Don’t look so shocked, Princeling. You’ll rupture a blood vessel.” With that she reached out with one hand and squeezed his firm ass.

He jumped as he was completely startled and embarrassed. His cheeks flushed and the tips of his ears turned the color of a rose. Lucky for Legolas, the only one to witness this interaction was Aragorn. The Dúnedain shook his head in amusement as he tried to hide his chuckle, for the fearful expression that rested upon the elven warrior’s face was quite humorous.

It took a moment for the flustered elf to move. Never had he met a human, or anyone for that matter, that was so provocative and exacerbating. He knew enough about the human race to know she was definitely a dissident renegade; no normal human, especially a women, would be so openly controversial to the esteemed manners of society. Of course, this was not Legolas’s only hint of  (Y/N)’s strangeness. She was a highly skilled female warrior—something unheard of to the race of men—and she always had an outrageous amount of weapons hidden in the crevices of her clothing. Furthermore, she was lethal and offered no restrain when she fought. She had no regard for authority and often spoke her mind, which included cursing profusely when she was frustrated. (Y/N) was bold and fearless which was a quality Legolas found admirable, but he would never be unfazed by her ill-disciplined behavior.

..........

Much time had passed since that specific incident and many more had occurred, but nothing could have prepared the elven Prince for the shock of his lifetime.

The battle of Helms Deep had been fought and won. The losses weighed heavy on their hearts, but they would not let those lives be taken in vain. So, the fighters of Rohan and others that had assisted were celebrating their victory.

Legolas had seen humans drink and he knew how careless they could be, but he had never seen (Y/N) drink. She was sloppy and, quite frankly, a hazard. The female warrior brought tankard after tankard of ale to her lips, downing it within minutes. The pale orange liquid spilled from her mouth and dribbled down her chin and shirt as she laughed and smiled brightly. When she danced, it sloshed in her cup and flew onto the clothing of many—including the Legolas.

But this is not what stunned the elf the most. It was when (Y/N) laid eyes on Éowyn when the elf had the most considerable surprise.

(Y/N) stood next to Aragorn and Legolas, her drink in hand; they were discussing numerous topics as they came to mind.

When she spoke, interrupting Aragorn, her eyes were filled with lust and interest. “Who is that?!”

The Dúnedain‘s brows furrowed in confusion as he followed her line of sight. He lifted a tankard of ale to his lips before answering, “Éowyn, Lady of Rohan.”

(Y/N) raised her eyebrows as her teeth pulled on her lower lip. “Damn....that women is more gorgeous than silver elven blades.” Her tone was one of attraction and desire. 

Legolas was no expert in human emotions, but he could hear (Y/N)’s heart racing and see the lust and eagerness present in her body language.

(Y/N)’s pupils were dilated and her eyes were fixed in anticipation. Her tongue snaked over her bottom lip as she gazed at the attractive women. (Y/N) wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

She turned towards her two friends and ran a hand through her hair, “Alright, how do I look?”

Legolas’s brows furrowed in confusion, “You look as you always do—“

She interrupted him, “Great.” She paused to take another gulp of ale. She then slammed her tankard against Legolas’s chest and he instinctively grasped into it. 

“Wish me luck boys!” She stated simply before strutting over to the blonde maiden.

As she approached Éowyn reality dawned on the Elven Prince. His eyes widened and he immediately turned to the Dúnedain. He spoke with slight alarm and distress, “Aragorn, are humans attracted to other humans of the same gender? Is this a normal custom?”

Aragorn chuckled and a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. Of course (Y/N) was bisexual, and of course the sheltered elf was so confused.

#The Lord of the Rings #lord of the rings #lotr #legolas x reader #legolas imagine #legolas drabble #boromir #legolas #boromir x reader #eowyn x reader #eowyn #bisexual #fanfiction #fanfic #lotr fanfiction #lotr fanfic #one shot #lotr one shot #lotr one shots #the hobbit #lotr imagine #legolas one shot #legolas one shots #lotr is gay #gay

[princesssarisa]

This article, which @astrangechoiceoffavourites recently shared in a post, is an interesting one. I've read some of Claire Dunkle's commentary before, particularly her debunking of myths about the Brontës. I think most of what she has to say is good, though some things are questionable: for example, the suggestion that the cheerful diary paper Emily Brontë wrote on her 27th birthday while her brother Branwell was deep in his downward spiral means she was callous to his suffering. (Why can't we just assume she believed he would get better at that point and didn't want to dwell on suffering that she thought would only be fleeting?) These musings on Heathcliff are likewise full of excellent insights, but again, I think a few of her assertions are worth debating.

For example, the question of whether Heathcliff has a specific aversion to being laughed at by women or if his aversion is gender neutral. I honestly think it could be viewed either way. Of course Heathcliff's relationship with women is nothing if not complicated. He adores Cathy I in her natural, rugged, iron-willed state, and as a boy he gladly lets her be not only his equal, but his superior. Meanwhile, of all the other people he knows, his most trusted confidante, to whom he reveals his deepest vulnerability, is ultimately Nelly (their relationship is fascinating!). Yet with Isabella and Cathy II, he uses his patriarchal power as husband and father-in-law to lord over them and abuse them. Although we could argue that this is gender-neutral because he does the same with his son – but then again, his son's effeminate nature is a big part of what fuels his disdain for him.

The entire novel's relationship with masculinity and femininity, not just Heathcliff's, is worthy of a novel-length analysis in its own right. I've read the argument that as a whole, the book's narrative admires masculinity and disdains femininity whether in men or in women, and I do see where that argument comes from, but I also think it's more complex than that.

I definitely appreciate Dunkle's emphasis on Heathcliff's relationship with Hareton. That essential aspect of his character arc is too often overlooked, not only in adaptations that cut it altogether, but even in commentaries on the book itself. As rightfully controversial as Charlotte Brontë's comments on Wuthering Heights are, she had insight into her sister's book that other commentators often lack when she stated that Heathcliff's most "human" aspect isn't his sublime love for Cathy I, but his unexpected regard and empathy for Hareton – which, contrary to the popular shallow reading, goes much deeper than just "Hareton's love for Cathy II reminds Heathcliff of his own love for Cathy I" – and his ultimate unwillingness to harm him. This, IMHO, is one of the aspects that clearly sets Wuthering Heights apart from the trashy romantic potboiler that it's often mistaken for; if it really did belong to that genre, then Heathcliff would never show empathy or semi-kindness to anyone except Cathy I.

About Dunkle's comments on whether or not Heathcliff is "reserved"... Well, there's no question that he's a passionate man. To deny that would be like claiming "water is dry." But it's also true that he only reveals the extremes of his passion in especially heightened moments or when he's speaking to an unusually close confidante (namely Nelly). Part of what makes his outbursts of raw rage and anguish so striking is that they're rare. And I'm not sure if I agree with Dunkle's argument that Heathcliff isn't naturally reserved, but has been taught by his hard life to wear a quiet, stoic facade. That's a valid interpretation, of course, and there's no doubt that sometimes he does put on a deliberate facade of indifference – for example, on the morning after Catherine's death, until his "May she wake in torment!" outburst finally shatters the mask. But in general, I don't see him as going through life faking stoicism like Queen Elsa with her "Conceal, don't feel." People are complicated beings: who says he can't be both naturally passionate and naturally reserved except at key moments?

Of course the question of "Nature or nurture?" is an open question that surrounds all the characters' behaviors. Could Heathcliff have ever been a good man if his life had been different, or is he inherently cruel? Is Cathy I inherently a narcissist or do her circumstances shape her too? Is Linton Heathcliff inherently weak and obnoxious because his parents were two incompatible "elements" (with all the unfortunate implications about mixed-race and cross-class unions and children of dysfunctional marriages therein), or could he have been different if he hadn't been so sheltered by his mother and then abused by his father? Do Cathy II and Hareton triumph in the end because they have inherent goodness that the other characters lack, or does the fact that Cathy II was raised in a loving home and that Heathcliff could never bring himself to abuse Hareton as much as he himself had been abused by Hindley make all the difference?

I had never though before of how surprising and strange it is that Heathcliff treats Joseph reasonably well, in fact better than Hindley did, even though Joseph was one of his childhood abusers and they mutually detest each other. Maybe this has something in common with his grudging sympathy for Hareton and lifelong confidence with Nelly. Maybe we could view him as having a fundamental respect for servants, or for people reduced to servitude, because of his own background. Even though he speaks of “crush[ing] those beneath [him]” and in large part does just that, the fact remains that the chief victims of his cruelty are people of more privileged status and upbringing than he was, even when they lack the power that he currently has.

I personally don’t see any big mystery in why he should settle into life as the master of Wuthering Heights rather than burning it down and disappearing as Dunkle suggests might have made more sense for him. In the first place, that would mean throwing away his claim to inherit Thrushcross Grange, so it would leave his revenge on the Lintons incomplete. Secondly and relatedly, he knows Isabella is out there with his son - as soon as he learns of Linton’s birth he resolves to claim him one day, even though twelve years pass before he gets the opportunity, because having his son in his power will be the key to gaining the Grange. Furthermore, he has Hareton as his ward, and is determined to insult Hindley’s memory into the next generation by shaping Hareton into a copy of himself. (A scheme which, of course, partly fails and partly goes horribly right.) But even beyond that, doesn’t it make sense that he should get satisfaction in being a better master than the “legitimate” heir, Hindley, ever was, and making the property prosper more than Hindley ever did? Isn’t that better revenge on Hindley’s memory than burning down Wuthering Heights would have been?

#wuthering heights #heathcliff #claire dunkle #article #analysis