Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP in Aotearoa, starts a haka to protest the first vote on a bill reinterpreting the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi

Must admit that one thing that changed the way I see fandom discourse is realizing that a lot of fandom is just… playing with dolls. We're playing with dolls. Shipping? Playing with dolls. AUs? Dolls. Darkfic? Dolls.

Lotta people very agitated about the other kids playing with dolls wrong.

really good analogy because yknow what sometimes it CAN feel bad to see other kids playing dolls "wrong!" maybe you see them damaging or "hurting" their dolls and you hyper empathize, or you see them making modifications and you don't like them! and it makes you feel bad to see it!

fortunately, though, you don't have to watch! nobody is making you watch! and nobody's gonna take YOUR dolls from you. nobody can hurt your dolls, either! these dolls are an infinitely renewable resource. you can have your own iterations, that stay happy and healthy, forever! (and moreover, the dolls don't have real feelings, and cannot suffer!)

some types of stories about my favorite characters make me feel bad. so i don't read them! just like i don't watch youtube videos of people smashing toys

good post op

i'm so touch starved. Will u please punch me in the face

UMM???? GUYS????

I am fucking pacing over this because

A) the difference of the silence of this year's memorial videos had me crying like none of the others did. Something about that just really got to me.

B) the banging from inside The Coffin could be a really poignant metaphor for grief and how it comes to find you, even when you manage to forget about it, even when you think you've moved past it, it finds you and it hits you all over again when you least expect it

C) OR IT COULD FUCKING MEAN SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THAT IM NOT SURE IM READY TO THINK ABOUT

addicts are people with value and things to love about them and deserve a full belly and a warm place to sleep at the end of the day.

This 🫂

To the people in the OTW Tumblr Inbox asking about how the OTW is responding to the American Election.

This is a separate post (and not a response to a specific message) because we all need to see it.

Folks have been asking Support (through the form) as well as the other social media mods, and we have now been given the following to tell you.

<3 Mod Remi

‼️‼️‼️‼️

Oddly specifically relatable right now, as I have my Smut No One Asked For doc OPEN while politely pretending that my multi-chapter WIPs don't exist (/hj)

“i’m a top” “im a bottom” okay????? i’m an internationally-renowned art thief????? and tonight i’m here to rob you????

AJDGSJLSSBSHAK

Can we talk for a minute about how young Gaby is in the grand scheme of things? She’s only 24!!! I always forget the team’s ages, but I think it adds so much to their characters actually:

INCREDIBLE dissection, I love every bit of this. Especially about Gaby's youth, because I've talked about moments in the movie that I absolutely adore because they're subtle reminders at how young she is, how new to this game she is. The biggest one for me is when the Diadema explodes: Solo watches emotionlessly, Illya watches with all sorts of things playing on his face, but Gaby turns away. She can't make herself look. Even after all the Vinciguerras have done; to her, to her family, even to her new partners. She still can't bring herself to watch the Diadema explode. God, I love that detail, it's so fucking good.

However. I must point out that some of the dates for Solo are wrong in terms of movie-canon timelines.

Solo has listed in his file, "Sergeant US Army, Distinguished Service 1945 - 1952" so that is correct, and according to his listed birthday, March 9, 1929, that would have in fact made him 16 at the time of enlisting (which means he lied about his age, because after the Pearl Harbor Attack of 1941, the enlistment age was dropped from 18 years old to 17 years old, so he was still a year too young). Those dates are correct.

However, the mugshot that has the year listed as 1958 has to be a prison transfer mugshot. These are taken when prisoners are transferred from one jurisdiction to another, and with what we know about Solo, it would make sense for him to he shuttled around to different (likely increasing in security) prisons.

The reason this has to be a tranfer mugshot is because his sentence is listed as, "15 years suspended sentence for robbery, handling stolen goods, and serial theft of art and antiquities". And at the beginning of the film, Sanders tells him, "You owe me five more years."

Which means in 1963, he had to have been working for the CIA for about ten years, making the date of his initial arrest 1953.

The "1945-1952" Distinguished Service supports this.

Now that bares the question; if Solo had been working for the CIA in 1958, why is there a mugshot of him in that year? This is getting into speculation territory, but I think there are two possible options:

1) Solo was 29 in 1958, I wouldn't be surprised if he still bucked against the CIA at every chance, landing him in prisons on multiple occasions, even under their thumb. Sanders even points out his rebellious streak in the same speech he tells Solo that he owes him five more years; "Now, I know you've been taking care of yourself on the side. Wetting your beak, so to speak. We don't pay you enough to be able to put….truffles in your risotto, Solo. But don't ever make the calamitous error of mistaking my deliberate shortsightedness….for blindness."

Or

2) Solo was arrested under an alias in 1958 while on a mission, and that mugshot happened to be in his file. Again, he's 29, likely still developing certain skillsets. It isn't unlikely that a mission went sideways and he was arrested, his cover blown. It also isn't unlikely that the CIA pulled some strings to get him transferred to a New York prison to have him believably back in their custody. My only proof of this is this discrepancy in Solo's file vs. the mugshot: In the mugshot, his height is listed as 6'3. In his file, his height is listed as 6'1. If you're undercover, it's likely that you'll try and change physical attributes about yourself in order to be less identifiable. There is also no name on the mugshot board, so we have no way of knowing who they thought they were arresting- Solo or an alias.

There's also, of course, the possibility that this movie is just fucked when it comes to continuity and timelines, but from what I can gather from the transcript of the movie and his file at the end, these are Solo's important dates.

To recap, though, Solo:

Ahhh, thank you Mawce for your additions and pointing out the Solo timeline issues; I edited the original post -- someone go edit the fandom wiki, haha 😆

I LOVE your thoughts so much. Idk a lot about how this all works, so forgive my ignorance, but do you think Solo could've struck a reduced sentence in return for working for the CIA? I guess it wouldn't say "suspended" then, though. Again, I love love LOVE your ideas about all of this and how Solo could've been in/out of prison/the CIA during this time. 🩵

Ohohoho I LOVE these follow up questions, and I'm in a unique position where I have close family with personal experience in both the U.S. Military life (Mom was an Army Brat) and prison (Dad and Tío both went to prison, my Tío for a felony [got addicted to painkillers after a devastating car crash]).

To address your FASCINATING tags first (LOVED thinking about this and talking it through with my mom):

U.S. Military contracts are four years at a time, so in 1952, he was one year shy of finishing his second contract. Leaving the military in '52 would've meant he went AWOL, which is never mentioned anywhere.

Now, for Distinguished Service, that's a medal that's awarded for extraordinary work in the field. Here's the official description of it (or the closest I could find, at least. It seems that the British Army has a Distinguished Service, but the US Army has the Distinguished Service Cross. Given that Guy Ritchie is a British Man, the discrepancy is understanable I think lmao):

Which means that the "1945-1952" was likely just when he was Doing A Good Job™️. It's more than likely that he just started pouring more effort into Art Theft and focused less on being a Soldier in that last year (maybe that had a hand in him being caught? 👀).

As for the question of "Do they take away the Distinguished Service when they arrest you?" the answer is a definitive it depends.

(⚠️CW: SA⚠️ I will include bright emojis after so you can scroll past if you'd like. Keep yourself safe💕)

My Mom's birth father was convicted of statutory rape. He raped and molested several little girls, including my Mom (she has given me explicit permission to share this on multiple occasions). He was Honorably Discharged.

(Although, in a positive light, my Mom's mother witnessed his commanding officer screaming at him and ripping all the medals and patches off his fatigues after it all came out, and the man had to just stand there and take it. So he got some just punishment.)

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕CW: OVER💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

Meanwhile, her uncle, a fantastic man, drove two miles on base to get home after a party, got arrested for a DUI, and was Dishonorably Discharged;

(Source)

So it's very possible that Solo was just Honorably Discharged and got to keep all his bells and whistles.

Now for the prison questions! Officially, Solo was charged with "robbery, handling stolen goods, and serial theft of art and antiquities." Lets go through those individually.

Robbery - Given the fact that Solo was A) a soldier with Distinguished Service and B) never caught until his luck ran out, we can probably assume it was a Robbery in the First Degree, which, in New York, has a minimum sentence of 5 years and a maximum of 25 years:

Handling Stolen Goods - For this, the closest New York charge I could find was Grand Larceny In The Third Degree, which actually directly mentions Art Theft. This charge, for a repeat offender like Solo, carries a minimum sentence of 2 to 4 years and a maximum of 3½ to 7 years:

Serial Theft - Now this one is also a Grand Larceny charge, but it is Grand Larceny of The First Degree in New York. Solo was charged with both degrees due to the nature of his crimes. The minimum sentence for this charge is, for a repeat offender, 4½ to 9 years and the maximum is 12 to 25 years:

All these sentences put us snuggly in the range of 15 years, and they give us some room to toy with the idea that he was initially sentenced to 20+ years, and the CIA held that over his head; "We can cut your time down from twenty to fifteen. And you'll be out of here, traveling the world, protecting your country...." 👀👀👀

So now let's talk about the "Suspended Sentence":

Now, legally, suspended sentences are meant to be chances at rehabilitation, rewarding good behavior and such. Obviously in Solo's case, the CIA pulled some strings and got his sentence suspended so that he would be forced to work for them. Those are the "conditions" Solo had to agree to. (And he's a 24 year old who went from Golden Child to being thrown in a New York prison for who knows how long before the CIA worked out that deal. Why wouldn't he take that deal? He had no real idea of what he was getting into.)

Also keeping in mind that this is a fictional movie, we also have TONS of room to play with ideas like Solo getting thrown back in prison for acting out (perhaps in 1958 👀), deals to reduce sentences, etc. I just think it's a ton of fun to look at the Real Life Implications of the information we've been given lmao 💕💕💕

This got......so long. I did not mean to write another essay 😅 Whoops!

why must the guard dog characters unquestioning devotion to their master be born from trust or some shit cant they be manipulated into it. raised into it. brainwashed even

Can we talk for a minute about how young Gaby is in the grand scheme of things? She’s only 24!!! I always forget the team’s ages, but I think it adds so much to their characters actually:

INCREDIBLE dissection, I love every bit of this. Especially about Gaby's youth, because I've talked about moments in the movie that I absolutely adore because they're subtle reminders at how young she is, how new to this game she is. The biggest one for me is when the Diadema explodes: Solo watches emotionlessly, Illya watches with all sorts of things playing on his face, but Gaby turns away. She can't make herself look. Even after all the Vinciguerras have done; to her, to her family, even to her new partners. She still can't bring herself to watch the Diadema explode. God, I love that detail, it's so fucking good.

However. I must point out that some of the dates for Solo are wrong in terms of movie-canon timelines.

Solo has listed in his file, "Sergeant US Army, Distinguished Service 1945 - 1952" so that is correct, and according to his listed birthday, March 9, 1929, that would have in fact made him 16 at the time of enlisting (which means he lied about his age, because after the Pearl Harbor Attack of 1941, the enlistment age was dropped from 18 years old to 17 years old, so he was still a year too young). Those dates are correct.

However, the mugshot that has the year listed as 1958 has to be a prison transfer mugshot. These are taken when prisoners are transferred from one jurisdiction to another, and with what we know about Solo, it would make sense for him to he shuttled around to different (likely increasing in security) prisons.

The reason this has to be a tranfer mugshot is because his sentence is listed as, "15 years suspended sentence for robbery, handling stolen goods, and serial theft of art and antiquities". And at the beginning of the film, Sanders tells him, "You owe me five more years."

Which means in 1963, he had to have been working for the CIA for about ten years, making the date of his initial arrest 1953.

The "1945-1952" Distinguished Service supports this.

Now that bares the question; if Solo had been working for the CIA in 1958, why is there a mugshot of him in that year? This is getting into speculation territory, but I think there are two possible options:

1) Solo was 29 in 1958, I wouldn't be surprised if he still bucked against the CIA at every chance, landing him in prisons on multiple occasions, even under their thumb. Sanders even points out his rebellious streak in the same speech he tells Solo that he owes him five more years; "Now, I know you've been taking care of yourself on the side. Wetting your beak, so to speak. We don't pay you enough to be able to put….truffles in your risotto, Solo. But don't ever make the calamitous error of mistaking my deliberate shortsightedness….for blindness."

Or

2) Solo was arrested under an alias in 1958 while on a mission, and that mugshot happened to be in his file. Again, he's 29, likely still developing certain skillsets. It isn't unlikely that a mission went sideways and he was arrested, his cover blown. It also isn't unlikely that the CIA pulled some strings to get him transferred to a New York prison to have him believably back in their custody. My only proof of this is this discrepancy in Solo's file vs. the mugshot: In the mugshot, his height is listed as 6'3. In his file, his height is listed as 6'1. If you're undercover, it's likely that you'll try and change physical attributes about yourself in order to be less identifiable. There is also no name on the mugshot board, so we have no way of knowing who they thought they were arresting- Solo or an alias.

There's also, of course, the possibility that this movie is just fucked when it comes to continuity and timelines, but from what I can gather from the transcript of the movie and his file at the end, these are Solo's important dates.

To recap, though, Solo:

Do people understand how foreshadowing works? They literally framed Buck and Eddie sitting on the couch as a set up for the endgame couple. It can’t be more obvious than that especially considering we all know of the couch theory and how Buck was on the hunt to find the perfect couch aka the perfect partner. And the only couch he has ever been comfortable on has been Eddie’s. So them showing us both Buck and Eddie, sitting in silence on Eddie’s couch is them setting up the endgame couple right there. It’s legit a foreshadowing

*adjusts my glasses, fixes my grip on my cane*

I haven't seen this level of speculation since Destiel 🧑‍🦳

(I don't go here, but I am ROOTING for you guys, here's to queers 🥂)

i can’t do this, sam.

i know. it’s all wrong. by rights we shouldn’t even be here. but we are. it’s like in the great stories, mr frodo. the ones that really mattered. full of darkness and danger they were. and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. because how could the end be happy? how could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

but in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. even darkness must pass. a new day will come. and when the sun shines it will shine out clearer. those were the stories that stayed with you. that meant something. even if you were too small to understand why. but i think, mr frodo, i do understand. i know now. folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. because they were holding on to something.

what are we holding on to, sam?

that there’s some good in this world, mr frodo. and it’s worth fighting for.

it is so strange to go to the grocery store and realize that 65 percent of the people there just hate me and will always hate me. i mean it’s not like i didn’t know before. but i don’t think people in blue states will ever understand that level of sheer hopelessness and total demoralization and i wouldn’t wish it on them. if you love or even just know a southerner please realize that we can hear what you’re saying about us and it’s not just one wall of bigots here. people are already talking about refusing aid to states like texas and florida in the case of another natural disaster and i am begging you to realize that we fucking live here too.