I am teaching myself how to be free

Lea. Multi-fandom blog, ft. Black Sails, Game of Thrones, Taylor Swift, Ted Lasso, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Office, Star Wars, Teen Wolf, Merlin, Parks and Rec, Doctor Who, Shadowhunters, The Walking Dead, The Borgias. I like unhinged women and fanmixes.

[selena-soto]

[satan-offical]

"aw what's the male equivalent to flowers?" IT'S FLOWERS!!! GET YOUR MAN FLOWERS!!!! GIVE MEN FLOWERS!!!!! FLOWERS!!!!!!!!

[amy-willcreig]

I can't stress this enough but men are deprived of the pretty things in the universe by patriarchy, and they do suffer from it but won't say anything to still have the advantages of dominating the others. Give them flowers. Tell them they can be happy. Tell them they can wear dresses and learn how to knit. Tell them they can cry, laugh, love, be vulnerable, show what they've been learnt to be weakness. Tell them to stop pretending to be what they're not.

[dykemcqueen]

not the person who sent the ask that received these tags but... i too am a lover of egotistical asshole self sabotaging suicidal codependent protags. tell more about bartimaeus?

THE BARTIMAEUS TRILOGY by jonathan stroud is the greatest fantasy series for children ever written. it takes place in an alternate history london where magicians make up the ruling class. as was once true in real life, england is a massive colonial power with a baseless aristocracy that brutally oppresses the working class. the "commoners" believe that magicians have inherent power, but secretly all magicians are just educated in the art of summoning and controlling spirits (hatefully referred to by humans as "demons"). all western magicians of this period punish and abuse spirits into doing what they want, no exception, as has been the case in many places and in many time periods over the years. the spirits are just invisible, giving the magicians the illusion of power.

the series is about 3 people: nathaniel, a traumatized adolescent boy who rapidly starts sacrificing his morals for power and prestige in the cutthroat world of the magic elite; bartimaeus, an ancient all-powerful djinni that nathaniel relies on to do his dirty work; and kitty jones, a commoner whose friend is brutalized by a magician who is never brought to justice. it's actually also about a fourth person who died thousands of years ago, but that's a surprise tool that will help us later.

the story is about how these 3 lives intersect in a decade of political turmoil, as the commoners' oppression becomes untenable and foreign governments sick of the british empire's power seek to exploit its growing weaknesses. it's about how the power-hungry oligarchy cannibalizes itself, and how external political, cultural, and social forces shape the characters and their relationships.

it's about trauma and power and justice. it's about oppression and freedom and classism and colonialism and the many purposeful lies inherent in the system you believe you can't change (*cough* capitalism *cough*). it's about how connection to another person can change you. it's about recognizing who the real enemy is.

it's also, if you would believe it, riotously, insanely funny, mostly because bartimaeus—who narrates about 50% of it—is a sarcastic, irreverent drama queen who can never shut the hell up. he's been alive for 5000 years and he's made it this far by being avoidant and self-serving and bitchy and lucky. he thinks he's hot shit and he kind of is, but he's mostly just driven by a need to survive. he and nathaniel are friends but also not really. nathaniel is both scared of him and scared to lose him, and the series ultimately centers on their relationship, the wariness and abuse and dependence, and the way it changes as nathaniel changes. nathaniel also does go through severe depression, for that anon who was asking about lockwood.

the bartimaeus trilogy is tightly, deftly written, and one of the only kids' series that i think 100% holds up without caveats. there's a great balance of action, emotion, humor, character development, and plot, and the worldbuilding is insane—it's very smart and never overexplains anything. i can't recommend it enough. every character is written with such care and realism by a writer who Knows How to Write. it's so, so good. every fantasy fan should read it imo.

[thestargazerlily]

EVERYBODY‘S WAITING UP IF I DARE SPEAK YOUR NAME / I PUT IT DEEP BENEATH THE TRACK LIKE THE HOLE YOU LEFT IN ME — STRANGE LOVE, HALSEY

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT SET, THE ERAS TOUR — TAYLOR SWIFT

[brandonlees]

Make it count. Meet me at the clock. TITANIC (1997) dir. James Cameron

[loseyoutoloveme]

Taylor Swift albums: E V E R M O R E (2020)

“To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs. To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in. I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them.”

[hellallamerican]

a ton of people have unexpectedly followed me over the last 2 days so here is my rent-lowering gunshot:

the american south is the most racially diverse and poorest region of the united states, and any political sentiment that treats the south is stupid or expendable is inherently racist and classist. a lot of y'all are racist and classist. the south is also the heart of american culture. argue with a wall. you cannot deny that everybody in the entire world does not emulate artists from atlanta. there is vested interest in keeping the south poor and uneducated BECAUSE this is the most racially diverse region in this country. if you actually give a fuck about progress, you would fight for the south, not mock us.

[thebctman]

I actually really liked how Nolan introduced the concept of Xenia within the movie and ultimately how he tied that into the Trojan War.

Like yes it’s been around for 3000 years that Paris broke the rules of xenia when he kidnapped Helen, but I love how Nolan also spun that on Odysseus with his Trojan Horse as well. Odysseus broke the rules, and with that he introduced a new standard of warfare and social interaction. He tied into the Sea Peoples which I thought was really interesting.

Zeus’s Law is broken within Ithaca’s palace and it is broke in Troy, and it is broken in Sparta, and everyone gets their comeuppance.

I actually really loved how they handled Odysseus PTSD within Troy itself and I think Nolan did it that way because of Emily Wilson’s introduction. I finished her translation of the Odyssey the night before I saw the movie and I was incredibly interested in how she wrote about the violence of war and how it was societally viewed. There were standards set in place even in its brutality, like with how they had temporary truces, one on one battles, and time to collect the dead. Brutality is accepted, but what does that actually do to a mind?

And within her translation, Odysseus is a shell of a man at times. He cries every night, he’s known as lamentful and sorrowful. There is a line when he first meets Telemachus for the first time, and he states something along the lines that he is the cause of all his sorrow. He blames himself for so much, and of course he would take the burden of Troy upon himself as well.

It’s more of a modern interpretation but I think he would be haunted by Troy. He’s haunted by the innocents that died, and the people that wear their faces. And I think that although they didn’t include the story of Astyanax, the Athena reveal was insanely well done and served its purpose.

The movie makes a point to show that dishonor spreads when you stop following the rules of hospitality and the rules of honor. It’s Paris, it’s Agamemnon, it’s Odysseus, it’s Eurylochus, it’s the rest of his men, and it’s Ithica’s men as well. It all just spreads when you introduce something new and something cruel into the game.

The Troy sequences were arguably the best of the movie and it was just insane to watch in IMAX

[zootycoon-archive]

i got these knockoff boots online and instead of the brand name on the tag they have the name of an apparently nonexistent martin scorsese movie??? what the fuck

[loseremo]

[syzygy-yzygy]

THE ORIGINAL? ON MY DASH

[this-too-too-sullied-flesh]

this post led to a series of events that had martin scorsese himself reacting to his alleged movie goncharov and it has less than 400k notes almost 3 years later?

[franciscolemos]

Illustration I made years ago for a magazine

[kittyoperas]

i can tell you how this story goes.

[maureen2musings]

Somerset, Southwest England

ola_monola

[ethanmaldridge]

"The America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."

-Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

[artistformerlyknownasbutttrumpet]

i just started listening to hozier (ik, like over a decade late, whatever), but bruh. some of y'all did this dude so dirty. everything i've ever seen of him on here has been like "uwu magical forest man" and so my black ass goes into it expecting white boy indie music, but instead i get this radical leftist irish guy straight up singing the blues, like?? (singing the blues/having a lot of blatantly black musical influences, BUT crediting his influences in the process, which is a an important distinction)

like y'all. has anyone told tiktok what kind of music this man actually makes? bc some of them might be shooketh to find out their precious forest man is actually telling them to dismantle the oppressive institution of colonialism while actively paying homage to artists of color

well, that and also to eat pussy, but same thing tbh

[cottoncandywhispers]

Now I'm down bad crying at the gym

[just-ur-local-peach]

i’m sorry, i can’t be normal about this

[imagesofcelebrities]

Sabrina Carpenter performing Sugar Talking at Coachella (17/04/26)