thepurplewombat

[thepurplewombat]

my favourite hc is that jiggy, qin su and mxy all share a certain level of hidden crazy (or not so hidden in mxy's case), and jzx is the odd one out

[thepurplewombat]

i want 60 thousand votes by next thursday

[thepurplewombat]

#Neon Genesis #Actually that's not entirely true? #The first anime I remember watching was a movie and all I remember is one scene #Where a woman was having a Very Good Time with some mechanical tentacles #Scifi channel got up to some shit after midnight I'll tell u that #Anyway I remember literally nothing else about the movie except the tentacle scene #It rewired 11-yo me's brain chemistry a bit tbh

[thepurplewombat]

Tumblr Top Ships Bracket - Round 1 Side 1

This poll is a celebration of fandom and fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.

[thepurplewombat]

we should globally ban the introduction of more powerful computer hardware for 10-20 years, not as an AI safety thing (though we could frame it as that), but to force programmers to optimize their shit better

[thepurplewombat]

with every passing year of my friend's parents being grade-A dipshits re: their kids being queer, I'm more grateful for my mom. will she fuck up your pronouns? god, absolutely. but she'll apologize, and she asks questions because she genuinely wants to learn. she's called me for input on how to most effectively rip her colleagues a new asshole when they're shitty and transphobic to clients who are just trying to get their food stamps. she once walked out of a salon mid-appointment with the foil still in her hair because the owner was being transphobic in front of her. she'd been getting her hair done there for years, and she never went back. she's still furious about how shitty my best friend's mom was about my best friend coming out in high school, over ten years ago. she loves buying me every silly rainbow product she sees but after I explained rainbow capitalism to her she started checking with me beforehand to make sure she's not throwing her money anywhere extra shitty. she absolutely does not understand every aspect of queer identity and politics and I don't need her to, because her heart is exactly where it needs to be and she's also excessively willing to bite any homophobe or transphobe who tries it in front of her.

[thepurplewombat]

​i wish this was in my cart and not someone else’s

[thepurplewombat]

3d printed start gate

[thepurplewombat]

for as much as I love and adore stories where the power of hope and friendship is a blinding wonderful light, full of happiness and ease and laughter, something hits different about the way hope, in ffxiv, looks like this

covered in blood and dirt and limping forward. It’s probably been said multiple times before but isn’t it a reassuring image to know that hope drags itself through the mud just as much as you do and keeps fighting when it can hardly stand. and amidst deepest despair, light everlasting

[thepurplewombat]

I’m damaging you I’m damaging you I’m damaging you are you mad? do you hate me? are you mad? do you hate me? don’t look at the hoes I came in with look at me

[thepurplewombat]

all goofing aside I genuinely don't understand the urge to reimagine Taylor Allison Swift as a secretly queer icon when the pop music scene(TM) is like. literally overflowing with women who actually like women. Gaga and Kesha and Miley and Halsey are right there. Rina Sawayama and Hayley Kiyoko and Rebecca Black and Kehlani and Victoria Monét and Miya Folick if you're willing to get slightly less top 100. Janelle and Demi for them nonbinary takes on liking girls. like what are we doing here. like I'm not even saying you can't enjoy Taylor but why would you hang all your little gay hopes on her.

[thepurplewombat]

Eowyn and Gothic Horror

I've ranted about the interpretation that Eowyn's rejection of gender roles was a symptom of her sickness, caused only by Grima's manipulations. An interpretation that doesn't hold to either Gandalf's speech in the Houses of Healing, when he specifies how the liberties denied to Eowyn and allowed to Eomer and her male peers played a crucial role in her depression, or when we see how Eowyn was really vindicated in her decision to ride to battle by her victory over the Witch King. A victory that wins her incredible renown and respect.

I think this reading comes about because people see the significance of Grima's contribution to Eowyn's despair, and think he is the sole source of it.

But Eowyn was not dissatisfied with her role and her enforced position in the house because of Grima's manipulations. She didn't rail against sexism because Grima played with her head and "poisoned" her traditionally feminine role for her.

Grima was able to prey on Eowyn, manipulate her and drive her to despair, because of the sexism that forced Eowyn to remain stuck in the house.

Look at the speech Gandalf gives Eomer about Eowyn's sufferings. The very first thing he mentions is the fact that Eowyn was denied the freedoms and opportunities Eomer had. The suffering that follows stems from that first initial injustice.

Because of that first injustice, Eowyn was rendered vulnerable, and Grima was able to exploit that. That isolation, that limited freedom, that unhappiness about her lack of choices, left her free game for Grima to take an already bad situation, and make it far worse.

Thinking about Eowyn's experience in Meduseld, what the impact of being confined to the domestic sphere did to her, and what is left her vulnerable to, makes me think of Gothic horror, and the role of sexism and domesticity in that genre too.

Eowyn's situation before the novels is that of a classic Gothic heroine. A fair, beautiful woman, trapped inside a decaying house, and preyed on by an awful monster, who hungers after her beauty and longs to possess her. Or else, destroy her.

Domestic settings and isolation are pretty crucial themes in the gothic genre, and for that reason it has historically been seen as a woman's genre. It taps into a pretty universal fear of what happens when home ceases to be a safe space, a fear that historically, has a particularly great resonance for women.

Whereas traditionally home is a refuge and respite for men from the world, the home is the woman's only true acceptable sphere. And yet even there she is subordinate. Therefore, she is vulnerable. With no place in the outside world, she has no escape, no respite, no refuge. If home becomes an evil, she is trapped. And because she has no place in the social sphere, she has no voice either. She is invisible, she is overlooked, her sufferings and her contributions are passed over,

Eowyn is isolated. Eowyn is vulnerable. Eowyn is overlooked. And because Eowyn is isolated and vulnerable and overlooked, Grima is able to get his hooks into her and drive her to despair. She is a wild animal, trammelled and caught in a hutch, a predator's helpless prey. But Grima didn't put Eowyn in the hutch. Eowyn was already there. Grima just took advantage of that.

Even after Grima is gone, Meduseld is still a place Eowyn longs to escape, and while its evil is purged and she does return, it is only for a short while. Grima's defeat is not enough to make Meduseld a place where Eowyn can find real happiness or fulfilment. On its own, it still represents a role for Eowyn that she wishes to move beyond.

The healing counterpoint to Eowyn's gothic castle of horrors, the hutch she was caught in, is in escape, and in a return to nature.

Eowyn's entire romance with Faramir takes place within the gardens of the Houses of Healing, where we see Eowyn start to recover from her ordeal. It takes place on the open, in the garden, on the ramparts, with much notice given to the sky and the sun and the elements around them.

(Also, the Houses of Healing themselves are not a domestic setting, but a public one, and there we see women working alongside men and holding authority.)

Eowyn's happy ending, her great escape, climaxes with her decision to go with Faramir to Ithilien.

Ithilien is the exact opposite of a hutch. It's descriptions are filled with natural imagery, and is known as the Garden of Gondor. It is a place for growth and fresh starts. A place of freedom. A place for a wild thing.

When Faramir suggests that he and Eowyn live in Ithilien, he reasserts again and again that they will go there if it is Eowyn's will. Both Tolkien and Faramir put emphasis on the importance of Eowyn's will, and Eowyn's right to freedom of movement.

In his plans for their future, Faramir talks of "us" and "we", removing the separation between men (belonging to the social sphere) and women (belonging to the domestic), and speaks of Ithilien as a shared dwelling place for both of them. Faramir only distinguishes between himself and Eowyn when he puts importance on Eowyn's will, and at the end, on Eowyn's influence.

At the close of his speech, Faramir says all things will grow with joy in Ithilien, if Eowyn is there. Returning Ithilien to its former glory, allowing it to bloom once more, is to become Faramir's life's work, and still it is Eowyn's influence he puts centre stage. Far from being kept confined to the domestic sphere, relegated to being Faramir's home support while he dominates the rehabilitation of Ithilien, Faramir places Eowyn's work and Eowyn's significance at the heart of their future together.

Eowyn goes from being shut in the house, where everything around her was decaying and falling to ruin, to being freed to stand in the heart of nature, where there is a chance for influence, growth, and fresh starts.

[thepurplewombat]

Mira Furlan as Delenn in Babylon 5

#babylon 5 #I love her your honor

[thepurplewombat]

the Look™ that made me go 👀👀👀

[thepurplewombat]

Pssst

Hey, are you an artist or writer with WIPs?

Come here... I got a secret for you pssst come ‘ere

[thepurplewombat]

conclusion: you people are unhinged

the poll

[thepurplewombat]

*Global Examination has the characters 高考 (gaokao) in the title, the same name as China's national university entrance exam

**All of these are Chinese BL

[eng by me]

#I keep recommending assorted danmei to my friend #I wish I had danmei friends irl #Sadly my mom reads Patterson #And my irl fanfic reading friend has moved away and got married