Resident Robot-Loving Grandma

Elrond: Let's maybe not swear a binding oath to keep jewelry away from an Ainu at all cost. Let's maybe. Let's maybe just like, pinky promise to do our best. Trust me on this, you don't want to swear any oaths

I find this moment very interesting not just because of the Oath of Fëanor but because of what it says about oaths in general.

Because imagine that all of the Fellowship did swear to go with Frodo to Mount Doom. Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn would have felt obligated to abandon Merry and Pippin to the orcs to go with Frodo; who knows how the Ring could have used that guilt to twist them. Gollum would never have had the same dynamic with Frodo, because he hated Aragorn. Gollum wouldn’t have been at Mount Doom to destroy the Ring. Aragorn wouldn’t have been there to take the Paths of the Dead. Minas Tirith would have fallen. There would have been no march on the Black Gate that cleared a path to Mount Doom by distracting Sauron.

“No oaths,” means: the world is larger and more complex than you know. You don’t know that the thing you’re swearing to do will turn out to be the right thing, the best thing, in every possible circumstance. Have the humility to recognize that complexity.

“does fiction influence reality?” fiction is part of reality.

real people write, publish, distribute, profit off, read, learn from, interact with, form communities around, use as a rhetorical device, project onto, and take action based on experiences with fiction. writing fiction is itself a real life set of behaviors that people do. fiction is influenced by and influences culture because fiction is part of culture.

there is no way to separate out what humans do (whether that’s writing stories or conducting scientific studies or having sex) from the culture and systems of power that humans do those things within. there is no behavior of humans that is isolated from and unrelated to our connections with each other.

It’s much more useful to discuss how our behavior relates to our places within existing power structures, our culture, our values and beliefs, and how that behavior impacts each other, and why.

I’m not interested in the question of “does it influence reality?”  I’m interested in the question of “how is this piece of fiction impacting real people and why?”

No: “You have to be X to write about X.”

Halfway there: “Anyone can write about anything.”

Yes: “Anyone can write about anything, but your content does not exist in vacuum. If a POC tells you your portrayal of a character is racist, or a queer person tells you you’re playing into harmful stereotypes, listen to them. Fandom is an escape only for privileged people. Being inclusive means listening to marginalized voices instead of dismissing us as fun police.”

[id: Tumblr tags that read: “if fan content is a legitimate form of media then it is not exempt from criticism”. end id.]

I’m so proud of you. You’ve come a long way since that day I found you by the lake. Can you keep your emotions in check long enough to take me on? Or will they get the better of you as always? I always told you you’ll be ready the day you’ll knock me down as yourself. This is that moment. This is that moment, Vers!

This quote is so fucking powerful, no wonder the f*ckbois hated this film. Can you imagine? Yon Rogg sees himself as a protagonist, whether he acknowledges his actions as good or bad is not that relevant. He wants this girl to be on his side. So he puts her down, and down, and down, until she thinks the only way her worth can be measured through him, through his approval. And he acts as her mentor, maybe genuinely wants her to succeed, but she’s never quite good enough by his standards, he sets the rules so that she can never quite win or measure up. Until one day, she realises that actually, his restrictions are an illusion. She doesn’t need them. She doesn’t need him to tell her how/who to be anymore. It’s a statement of ultimate independence.

I wrote a college paper once about gender dynamics in Disney films, and part dealt with the emphasis of androgyny in this film. Mulan is an outsider and unsure of her position of the world when she is adhering to both a total feminine role (the matchmaking scene) and a total masculine role (disguised as a male soldier) and it’s only when she’s able to embrace both sides that she is able to fully showcase her abilities and ultimately save the day. 

The entire climax, from climbing the poles using sashes, counting on Shan Yu’s complete dismissal of women to get the Emperor to safety, to this scene where she literally uses a symbol of womanhood (within the movie at least) to disarm the villain of his symbol of masculinity and beat him at his own game, shows Mulan relying on the aspects of her femininity that she has grown up adhering to and adapting the tactical knowledge and fighting skills that she learned disguised as a male soldier to those aspects. The result is a unique and innovative view of the world and her course of action that leads her to save the day when the male soldiers failed and the women wouldn’t even have been allowed to try. 

While I’m on the subject of Sans’s depression, I’ve seen some fanwork where after the True Pacifist ending, Frisk promises Sans they’ll never reset again. And while the game definitely implies that some large part of Sans’s depression comes from the feeling of helplessness and meaninglessness that knowing your world can be reset at any time (and possibly experiencing that, over and over) entails, it’s not like removing that possibility would make everything okay.

Frankly, I think for a while Sans would be paralyzed with anxiety. He’d gone so long telling himself his actions were meaningless, but now they mean too much. Everything that he does is set in stone. He can’t screw anything up. Don’t even tell me he wouldn’t be trapped in bed, worrying about all the terrible things that could happen and this time they’d be stuck.

I mean, it’s still a happy ending to me because I think in the long term promising not to reset would be good for Sans’s overall happiness, but in the short-and-middle-term I wouldn’t be surprised if things got worse.

I’ve gushed about Batman: The Animated Series before. And I’ll do it again. Because I can’t express just how much I love this show. And this is the main reason that I love it. The dynamic between Batman and the ‘villains’ is fantastic! Just like in the other versions of Batman, he’s always there to stop their schemes and throw a few punches and take them to Arkham/Blackgate. But the series went one step beyond. The series showed a compassionate Batman - a Batman who spoke not only for the innocent citizens of Gotham but for the villains as well. He understood that many of the villains were simply victims of circumstance. He wanted to help them. He needed to help them.

The first gif is from an episode where Harley is rehabilitated but ends up snapping and Batman stays with her all day to try and help her. In the second one, Batman is horrified to learn about Mr. Freeze’s origins. The third gif is from an episode where he shows a drug-dealer/mob-boss that his son has become addicted to the drugs. The fourth one is from an episode where Selina Kyle is initially rehabilitated before somebody steals her cat, causing her to resume her position as Catwoman. Unfortunately, even at the end, she is unable to find her cat and is upset. Until Batman lowers a basket onto her balcony with the cat in it. The Dark Knight went out of his way to find a cat because he knew how much it meant to Catwoman. How great is that? The two gifs of the Joker are from one of my favorite scenes in the entire series and really define their relationship. He actually yells out for Batman when he’s in trouble! And even better, Batman appears! And just look at how happy Joker is! (And you don’t see it in the gifs but he jumps up and hides behind Batman. And even when the guy throws a ‘bomb’, Batman crouches in a position to shield Joker!) You can find a great post about Baby Doll here. And finally, it shows him with Harvey/Two-Face - the villain that he refuses to give up on.

I just love this show and I love this Batman and I love this dynamic with the ‘villains’. Because, again, it show a Batman who speaks not only for the civilians but for the ‘villains’ as well!

This is the Batman I want to read. Sadly only “grimdark” is thought to be mature.

also, on the subject of steve’s superhuman status…

i felt like this movie was brutally heavy-handed about showing us just how much steve’s body can take. like, we get a hint of it in first avenger but even steve isn’t sure by the end of the movie the entire scope of what his body can do—what can be done to it. then in the avengers, we get a little more…ideas about his endurance, his agility, his combat skill—but they’re just glimpses, and really, nothing earth-shattering is discovered. and then this fucking movie comes along, and all of a sudden, the audience is seeing in visceral constant detail just how super this soldier has become. steve fights like lightning in a bottle—he’s a tremendous force in a contained, controlled package. we see his skill, but more than that, we see how his skill is the vehicle for his power. how many times do we get it reiterated that this dude is magnificent? the very first scene of the movie is all about how he’s running THIRTEEN MILES in 30 minutes like it’s nbd. and then rumlow pointing out steve’s jump sans parachute and how well he was single handedly taking on the ship’s crew before rumlow landed. and then his fight with batroc, how it’s very specifically meant to show that even without the shield, steve is more than capable. that he can withstand things and do things other human beings can’t. that HE and HIS FISTS AND FEET AND MASSIVE MUSCLES AND CORE STABILITY can and will fuck you up. the entire first half of the film is all about steve being a force to be reckoned with, not just as a person but as a body, as a physical presence.  and as the battles escalate, so too do the stresses on steve’s body. every new thing was like a dare. a step further. a question—how much can this guy withstand? steve, leaping through a window into ANOTHER BUILDING ENTIRELY, crashing through WALLS like they’re nothing, running at top speed and withstanding the force of throwing the shield and being thrown the shield, stopping a hairsbreadth from the edge of the roof. steve, getting ambushed in an elevator, several burly and skilled men and their assorted weapons against him. this scene is SO important—those little electricity things that rumlow zapped steve with at length and several times? remember how a tiny little zap was enough to knock out that french mercenary? yeah, well, it barely pHASED steve even after it’s stuck to his gut for like 30 agonizing seconds, repeatedly. that whole scene is an exercise in showing the audience that steve literally has the strength of multiple men, maybe even more. (and he knows it, too. it’s why his fairness, the fact that he gives those goons the OPTION TO GET OFF THE ELEVATOR, is so much more remarkable than it otherwise would be. because he knows what his body is capable of now. and it’s a fucking lot.)  oh and then he leaps out of the elevator and falls several thousand feet at full speed and not only lives but barely staggers after a couple minutes of shaking it off and then he leaps onto a moving jet and disables it before somersaulting to the ground? this isnt just innate confidence, it’s a lack of fear borne from the knowledge that his body can take it. like sitwell said—“are you kidding me?” it’s pretty significant that in a world of superheros and mutants and gods, sitwell is shocked by a SUPERSOLDIER and what his body can do. as well sitwell should be, tbh.

bc MULTIPLE TIMES steve uses his own body as a buffer between the shield and people he’s protecting—two times with nat and a potentially catastrophic and close range explosion and once FALLING OUT OF A FUCKING SPEEDING VEHICLE. he knows the shield will provide the first line of defense, but he also knows his body is capable of creating another. his body becomes a shield, too. a weapon and a tool. and it’s worth noting that he’s posed as superhuman by acting as a mirror to another superhuman. when he’s fighting bucky on the bridge, he matches bucky move for move—i still cant decide whether that fight is meant to drive hom how powerful bucky is or steve, tbh. like, on one hand, we already KNOW how strong steve is, so the fact that bucky is fighting him shows the audience this isnt just an assassin—he’s souped up more than the average human. but on the other hand, we see early on how fast and powerful bucky is, and when we see his fist hit the shield we get a sense of his incredible strength even more, and that just shows us AGAIN how very strong steve must be to keep up with him and fight him like an equal. anyway, the next round of death defying comes with the helicarrier business. and a lot of his awesome comes from how well he moves and how tactical he is, but there are elements—when he leaps into the open air and freefalls waiting for sam to catch him, when he uses his upper body strength to fucking climb up the outside of the helicarrier after being thrown off the side—that you’re reminded again that beyond him being a great soldier, he’s also got a body that is a conduit for all that knowledge, all that skill. and that body is a weapon unto itself. guys. guys, he’s shot MULTIPLE TIMES and STABBED and he just wrestled a super assassin into submission and he STILL makes it up to change the blade for the helicarrier. and when the helicarrier is crashing, he stILL has enough strength to move a steel beam off bucky. and then he SITS THERE AND GETS PUNCHED REPEATEDLY IN THE FACE BY A METAL HAND. this is the first time we really see steve rogers bleed in this movie. the first time we really see how exhausted and worn down he must be. THE FIRST TIME in TWO HOURS—after multiple battles and running away and fatigue and villains. but even as he bleeds, he lives. he’s alive. conscious. TALKING. as a viewer, at this point, i was just like—how much can steve take??? how much MORE??? and it seemed that steve would keep answering me with “i could do this all day!” except then he falls into the potomac. but EVEN THEN we don’t see him get mouth to mouth. we see bucky drag him to shore and leave and steve’s breathing on his own. his lungs are EXPELLING THE WATER IN A THIN STREAM OUT OF HIS MOUTH. steve is literally defying everything i know about drowning and breathing in this scene. his body :( so magic :( given all this, the fact that one of the last scenes of the movie was steve in a hospital…it feels right. it feels like we finally get to see steve slow the hell down and take CARE of himself. it feels like there was a natural culmination to all that getting beat up and beating other people up, and it’s there in that hospital bed, waking up with his wounds not yet healed, showing that as superhuman as he is, even he has some limits.

but those limits are pretty well fucking beyond most powered humans, imo. and that’s another reason i love steve rogers.

I also loved the symbiosis between Steve’s body and the shield, you really get a sense of it being an extension of his self and of his power? so it’s not just decoration or symbolism (though it is that, particularly that in context of this meta); it’s also fairly brutal. the speed and power with which Steve wields it seemed very deliberate to me in a way it wasn’t in the previous films, in a way that makes you cringe a little ‘cause that looks like it hurts. sure, Cap’s weapon of choice will disable you without killing you, but maybe you’ll kinda wish it had. which makes the moment when Bucky just catches it with little apparent effort and throws it at Steve hard enough to push him back that much more of an unexpected, stakes-raising moment.

ALL OF THIS IS BEAUTIFUL AND YOU BOTH ARE BEAUTIFUL AND STEVE IS BEAUTIFUL

Baby-Doll Batman: The Animated Series

This is one criminally underrated Batman villain.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH SHE WAS MY FAVORITE BATMAN VILLAIN

Her physical condition didn’t allow her to age

No one took her seriously as an actress

And even when she was trying to get into a happy romantic relationship (albeit with another villain) he still couldn’t take her seriously as a consenting, sexually active and romantically interested adult

That’s a lot of blows to someone’s psyche 

and Babydoll is both a sympathetic villain and a formidable one

I remember this episode fucked me up a a kid. 

And man, do I wish we could see this Batman again: the Batman that consoles his villains, because the majority (if not all) of them are mentally ill people. And Batman knows this and wants them healthy again, not punished and GOD definitely not dead.

Baby Doll is so underrated as a Batman villain 

but her episode was perfect 

Batman: The Animated Series The story of one fucked up, traumatized little boy, doing his best to help other fucked up traumatized people.

absentlyabbie:

The Batman that cares about the inmates is my favorite. He doesn’t put up with their shit, but he does try to reach out here and there and he’s as human as he can be to them.

When Harley was re-institutionalized, he got her that dress she wanted.

In the comics based on B:tAS, there was a time during Christmas that there was snow and it was Mr. Freeze’s fault, and he was making it snow because Christmas was his anniversary with Nora and she LOVED it when it snowed on Christmas, so Batman let him finish mourning before calmly taking him back to Arkham.

He never, ever gives up on Harvey possibly recovering.

Sure, Batman is going to throw punches and do what it takes to take these guys down when they’re hurting or threatening people. And he’s not going be a complete bleeding heart; he has to protect the innocent. He’s going to take them down and take them back to Arkham, but it doesn’t mean he’s incapable of being a bit human to the ones who deserve it.

Things you didn’t know about Brave (by Oh My Disney)

He is, however, perfectly willing to fuck with time and reality.

And also steal your infants.

He didn’t steal anything. She literally asked him to take the baby. Don’t make him the bad guy just because she was a shitty sister.

I think you are severely misinformed as to how baby ownership works.

It was not her baby to give.

David Bowie is unquestionably the villain.

Which do you think existed first, modern custody legislature, or the goblin king? 

The girl was entrusted by her parents with the care and custody of the child. By the laws governing the goblin king and his transactions, the girl was the current rightful owner of the child and made a deal with the king to take the child. Perhaps you’re not familiar with english folklore. Fae have rules, they’re tricksters, they can be sneaky, but they never break the rules.

Slammin’ it down in the Labyrinth fandom tonight, kids.

This particular moment in Star Trek is actually quite important. A lot of people don’t realise that understanding something is not the same as approving of something. This particular episode (A Taste of Armageddon) had a civilization where war was fought on computers instead of on the battlefield and instead of people dying in combat they would send the calculated amount of “casualities” into a camp to die. Kirk is outraged completely by this and rightly should be, but Spock is not so overtly disapproving. He understands why they might think their solution is better for their civilization and takes the time to think about why they are doing it. Even though he can understand why, he still believes it is wrong for them to be doing it. 

There is a separation between understanding something and  approving of something that a lot of people seem to miss. 

During the scene when Mulan decides to go to war instead of her father, she decides to do it while sitting on the foot of the Great Stone Dragon. The image of the dragon looking over Mulan is repeated several times throughout the sequence, and the bolts of lightning strike at significant times whenever the dragon is in sight. When Mulan takes her father’s scroll and when she is praying to her ancestors, the Great Stone Dragon can be seen. It is also engraved on the sword Mulan uses to cut her hair and the handles of the wardrobe containing the armor are in the shape of the dragon’s head. The dragon’s eyes glowing in the temple symbolizes Mulan’s role as protector of her family awakening, instead of the actual dragon.

The reason Mushu couldn’t wake the dragon is because the dragon was no longer there. Mulan is implied to be the Great Dragon that protects her family.

I’ve said this again and again,and I would never get tired of reiterating: Haikyuu brings something new and something extremely important to the world of sports anime. 

That is advancing the perspective of the defeated, the characters in the periphery, the characters that we often forget and bypass when we watch sports series.

We’ve had a lot of sports series in the past years—series that emphasize the value of determination, teamwork, patience, and talent—the key to catching that win. But is that all there to is? Is competition just about winning, or more importantly—

Is it just about WINNERS?

I must say, this has been the most emotional episode of Haikyuu for me. Why? Cause we get to see that losing is something unnatural. Okay. Yeah. Losing is inevitable, but the way we focus on the story of the winners makes us forget how the other teams have felt. In this case, Furudate-sensei has achieved something I haven’t ever seen from the other sports anime that I’ve watched. He knows that these other teams also have their stories. It makes me glad that this episode was told from the perspective of the losing team. If this was the conventional sports anime, we would’ve shrugged our shoulders over this other team, went full force on supporting the protagonists. But no. It made you feel like, “Hey, it doesn’t really matter who wins. Everyone is doing their best, aren’t they?”

Another point of contention is the fact that the rival teams have always been presented in an antagonistic way—arrogant players who just wanted to bring down those who get in their way, athletes who only think of winning, blah, blah, blah. In the Nekoma vs. Karasuno match, I did not see any antagonist in Nekoma. They were supporting each other. To quote the Nekoma Coach, “they bring out the best in each other, that’s why they are called ‘rivals’.”

Watching this episode only made me realize again that in essence, their is no useless team. Every single player, every single team—all of them has their own story, their own purpose. Their relationships might rest on rivalry or friendship—but these two things all boil down to the fact that they are “bonds”, reactions that make the competing teams better and improve themselves. After all, this is the essence of sports—continuing to challenge yourself and come out as a better, stronger, and serious player.

I do hope, and sincerely so, that Haikyuu continues to be like this. :)

For the longest time, this bugged the hell out of me, that Usagi had this ultrasonic waves power that she only used the one or two times, but then never again, despite trying to chalk it up to, “Well, Naoko only planned for it to be the one arc, so the powers weren’t that consistent….”  It was a decent enough explanation, but it never settled quite right with me. Until I started really looking at the Sailor Moon story in terms of the themes and its target audience (not that anyone can’t enjoy it! everyone is welcome! but it’s primary audience is girls about Usagi’s age) and thinking of this moment in terms of a young girl trying to figure herself out in a scary and unknown situation. A young girl who’s desperate in this moment, who’s scared and unprepared for the reality of what she’s facing, of course she’s going to cry and those feelings have power.  Sailor Moon is all about a young girl in puberty, growing into a young woman.  It makes perfect sense to me that one of her earliest weapons, one of the ones that is most childish (even if it’s entirely understandable, god knows I’d do the same even out of puberty) is a wailing cry that she doesn’t want to be here, she doesn’t want this to be real, she just wants to go home. How many times have girls her age been through something that’s made them want to cry exactly like this? and that those tears and that crying have an emotional power.  It’s something to be outgrown, it’s something that she’ll leave behind when she’s ready to face the situation with more preparedness, that’s just the way of these things. When viewed through that lens, when it’s the first way Usagi’s power manifested, but later changed because Usagi’s power is all about her emotions and her own manifestations/self identity, it’s something I’ve come to whole-heartedly love about the first time she faces a youma. She’s still barely a young adult, she still has so many childish things about her, of course she’s going to reach for childish expressions!  And the whole point of it is that the next time, or the time after that, she’ll be better prepared, because that’s how growing up works.

#OH MY GOD NO BUT THE WAY DEAN’S ATTITUDE CHANGES AS SOON AS JOHN COMES TO THE DOOR #FROM SMILING AND GENTLE TO THE GOOD LITTLE SOLDIER #CHIN LIFTED #SHOULDERS SQUARE #’SIR YES SIR’ #AND SAM’S EYES GO WIDE WITH FEAR BUT DEAN #/DEAN/ #DEAN NEEDS TO /IMPRESS/ JOHN #HE ALWAYS HAS #I JUST #I FUCKING CAN’T JESUS CHRIST WOW (via mrjackles)

sometimes i really hate this show