"Why Does It Hurt So Much?"

"Because it was real."

[exhuastedpigeon]

The first rule of fandom is have fun. The second rule of fandom is find an enabler and become an enabler. Yes you should write that fic. What if it was even hornier? What if it was angstier? What if you wrote it just for me?

[dontverbme]

@frenchtwistresistance you should write it.

[overthinkinglotr]

Ok but the subplot where Aragorn becomes the protagonist of a Horse Girl Movie™ is one of my FAVORITE things to come out of the Two Towers. 

In the stables of Rohan, there is an unruly horse named Brego. This horse is so wild that even the horse-masters of Rohan can’t tame him. He’s just a lost cause, they say. “There’s nothing you can do– leave him,” they say.

BUT THEN ARAGORN COMES IN. And like the heroine of a Horse Movie™ he’s all: “You just don’t UNDERSTAND the horse! The horse is wild and rebellious and free– like me!” 

Aragorn begins gently talking to the horse, first in Rohirric, then in Elvish. He calms him down and asks him what’s wrong.

You could easily draw a parallel between Aragorn and Brego’s “rebelliousness.”  To Theoden, Aragorn was acting overly unruly and difficult.  “When last I looked, Theoden, not Aragorn, was King of Rohan.” Then Brego acts unruly and difficult – and Aragorn’s like “the people of Rohan just don’t understand you!!!!!!”

And then Eowyn explains that Brego used to belong to Theodred.

Suddenly Brego’s unruliness IS completely understandable— his master was killed in battle.  He’s a horse with a Tragic Backstory.

“Your name is kingly,” Aragorn tells the horse. Aragorn is also a king. Aragorn is projecting. 

Now that she’s explained the horse’s tragic backstory, Eowyn tries to get Aragorn to open up about his own Tragic Backstory™. (”I have heard of the magic of elves, but I did not look for it in a Ranger from the north….?”) She fails. Aragorn is briefly like “yup I was raised by elves,” does not elaborate, and then peaces out.

But as he leaves Aragorn dramatically says: “turn this fellow free; he has seen enough of war.”  

And Eowyn is forced to wonder whether Aragorn is talking about the horse….or about himself….

Then Aragorn has a Near-Death-Experience, but Arwen’s elven-magic (just roll with it) saves him. And the horse who comes to carry him to safety is none other than Brego.

It’s Brego, repaying the kindness and understanding Aragorn showed him earlier in the film! 

 Aragorn set Brego free, and in return Brego saves Aragorn’s life!

 Because they UNDERSTAND each other, as fellow free spirits who “have seen too much of war.”  Both of them are KINGLY but also WILD, they’ve lived through too much and lost people they cared about, and their strong wills cannot be tamed by anyone in Rohan!

 It’s beautiful. Aragorn canonically has Disney-Princess-level animal friendship powers. 

When they arrive at Helm’s Deep, Aragorn smiles and earnestly says in Elvish:  “thank you Brego, my friend.” And we know that Brego understands….

[overthinkinglotr]

Literally every time I watch this subplot I think of that one tumblr post on the plot of Every Horse Movie

[murdershewrought]

JESSICA FLETCHER & SETH HAZLITT MURDER SHE WROTE: Town Father 6.11 (1989)

[dontverbme]

✨Vesta✨

Vesta's insane outfits photoset as requested.

@frenchtwistresistance

[ilikewritingandspeedcore]

EXCUSE ME THERE IS A PLANT THAT CAN MIMIC FAKE PLANTS?????

IT'S CALLED A BOQUILA TRIOFOLIOLATA AND IT'S FUCKING WITH MY BRAIN

IT APPARENTLY CAN MIMIC OTHER PLANTS AND AT FIRST I WAS LIKE "oh cool man it must take it's genetic code and copy it or feel the roots or something like that!! :3"

AND THEN I READ AN ARTICLE ON IT AND THESE FUCKING PARAGRAPHS HIT ME LIKE A BUS

LIKE READ THIS SHIT

WHAT THE FUCK MOTHER NATURE

[rhyperographer]

I went to find the article. It's fascinating.

[digital-magus]

In retrospect, consider the number 1 thing every grade-schooler knows about plants is they take in light, the idea they might be able to see should not wreck my shit as hard as it does

[turtlelady9]

Happy 77th Birthday Meryl Streep!

[dontverbme]

[ororium-z]

Happy Pride!

[rootbeergoddess]

Every pride, you must reblog this. No exceptions

[candycoloredwolf]

Anyone gonna mention how this guy actually preformed live with Carly Rae Jepsen?

[restfromthestreets]

I’m gonna scream is2g

[galaxa-13]

I was thinking of reblogging this again just because the original video is still amazing, but then I see the second video and lost my mind. The upgraded fan, the body glitter, the sheer fact that he got to do this with the actual singer.

[my-ny]

ouat text posts: regina (pt. 9)

[comicaurora]

tumblr I swear to god if your ads on mobile keep opening popup webpages because my FINGER touched them while I was SCROLLING because they are SO BIG that they FILL THE SCREEN AS I SCROLL PAST THEM I am going to MANIFEST SNAKES IN YOUR WALLS

[romanimp]

I'm tired of hearing about Young Kirk and Young Spock. I want a (good) show about young shithead Science Lieutenant Janeway falling in BFF love with Tuvok while on adventures together and there's ZERO ROMANCE. I MEAN IT. NO ENTERPRISE LOVE BOAT ALLOWED.

[romanimp]

I'm talking ZERO love interests for Janeway as far as the eye can see. People of all genders keep flinging themselves at her but she refuses to let herself do anything more than have a pathetic wank because of her angst about Tau Ceti Prime. She channels everything into raw chaos bisexual energy with Tuvok just enabling her at all times.

[romanimp]

T'Pel asking with pure Vulcan sarcasm if they had fun and in the middle of Tuvok replying that Vulcans only do their duty not have Fun, Janeway (still slightly hungover and wearing sunglasses) slings an arm around his shoulders and says, "SO MUCH fun. You should've been there, T'Pel. You should've seen the way your man risked it all to save my sorry ass from a sentient liquid people. We almost died again."

T'Pel: "Again?"

Tuvok: "....we meditated after."

Janeway: "AND we meditated after!"

[romans-art]

like this.

[romanimp]

there's a 2-part season finale with time travel hijinks and fanservice cameos by both Kate Mulgrew and Tim Russ alongside their younger counterparts, showing that even 40+ years in the future these two are still BFFs and getting into Some Bullshit together

[sherlock-on-opium]

just watched s3 e1 of Agatha Christie's Poirot and I need to talk about Captain Arthur Hastings because his uniform is doing a LOT of narrative heavy lifting and I am obsessed with it

okay so first off

I do not buy for one second that Hastings as a person, would have schemed or angled or socially climbed to get promoted. That is not his personality. he is earnest to the point of being emotionally transparent. He is loyal, he is brave, he is very “do what is expected of me and hope that is enough.” he is not a career shark.

but his uniform and rank progression are still giving “old officer class pipeline” and that is fascinating.

So, let’s go piece by piece because the costume department basically built a thesis statement out of fabric and ribbon.

The base uniform

He is in a British officer's service dress with a Sam Browne belt setup. That silhouette alone immediately codes the officer; yes, I'm aware he is a lieutenant in the episode, but stay with me, and historically it also codes class. Officer tracks in WW1 were still very socially filtered, even without literal rank purchase being a thing anymore. Though it did still happen unofficially. You still needed education, recommendations, social access, and the right cultural polish. Hastings reads as someone who would have slid into that track without ever thinking of it as privilege.

The sleeve chevrons

One red and two blue overseas service chevrons on the lower right sleeve. This shows us that he has three years of total overseas service. The red indicates service in 1914, the beginning of the war, and the blue represents another twelve-month service period each.

However, these chevrons weren't authorized until 1917-1918. So we'll assume Hastings was able to get hold of them early 1917.

The ribbon bar situation

This is where it gets fun.

First ribbon is the 1914 Star ribbon. Red, white, blue. Early war France or Belgium service window. That is basically the “you were there when everything was chaos and nobody knew what trench warfare was going to become yet” medal.

And if that is a rosette on it, that implies he had the clasp version, which means under enemy fire during that early window. Not just present. Under fire.

Second ribbon is almost certainly the French Croix de Guerre ribbon (green with red vertical stripes).

So stacked together, what the show is saying is:

Early war presence Long overseas time Recognized gallantry by an allied government Officer class presentation

That is a very specific narrative profile.

Now the rank thing

Lieutenant during active war period, Captain by end-of-war era framing.

This is not impossible. Plenty of officers got that progression in WWI.

But combine it with decorations plus early war service plus long overseas time plus officer class presentation and it reads less like “scraped and clawed his way up through chaos” and more like “reliable, socially legible officer candidate who survived and performed competently and was therefore promoted when space opened.”

And here is the part I actually love from a character standpoint:

Hastings would not think of himself as privileged or advanced by social standing. He would think he was doing his duty and got lucky to survive and was promoted because he tried his best.

And that is exactly why this works so well.

Because he is simultaneously:

Genuinely brave Genuinely competent Absolutely a product of an officer class pipeline that existed whether he wanted it to or not Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

[legallyagraverobber]

Ok wait genuinely this analysis is something I've been putting off and I'm so glad somebody else thought of it

Also amazing work and amazing take I freaking love it

This is the level of pettiness we as Poirot and especially Hastings fans need

Beautiful

[qqchurch]

[autistobrat]

scientists are experimenting on cross-breeding a crab and a cheetah; things could go sideways real fast

[ooppo]

"He has a 12 inch cock" well my pussy ain't a fucking magicians hat bitch where is all that supposed to go

[ooppo]

[maximumgraves]

to be honest, i only personally care about plotholes when they appear in writing i already have a bunch of other problems with. if i like something enough, i'll give it a pass/invent an explanation in my head. i can't find the exact quote, but roger ebert said something about this. to paraphrase: "the movie's problem wasn't [such and such inconsistency], its problem was that i was bored enough to be thinking about that."

[were--ralph]

cant stop thinking about this video

[were--ralph]

For context this was in response to someone saying their cybertruck was heavy duty

[sexygaywizard]

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

oh no no NO no no I am sorry my dear @thebirdtm you are NOT underselling one of the most seminal pieces of television of my entire childhood like that on MY watch.

"How is claiming they drowned a Hilux possibly underselling it" GREAT question.

To start with a little disclaimer, Top Gear's Hilux did not start off, as in the video above, in pristine condition. It started off with nigh-on 300k kms (for you yankees, that's about 8.4 million Boeing 737 wingspans) and a condition to match.

And it's only once careless driving around town yielded zilch in given shits...

(look, I found a local newspaper picturing it being driven around!)

...that they decided to drown it. Now, the underselling part: if you told me that they drowned a pickup the first place my mind would go to would be "driving it through a river a bit too deep for it, perhaps as deep as its height, until it stalls and then tugging it back out. You will concede that's rather different from tying it down on the seashore with the second highest tide in the world...

...and leaving it there until it engulfs the whole truck...

...only for the ropes to snap...

...and for the truck to be lost to the tides for FIVE HOURS.

(and for those wondering, yes, just as promised, well within an hour and the mandatory limits of basic tools and no spare parts, up the mechanic made the thing fire and away the presenter drove it - I must imagine doing a number on his clothes in the process.)

Oh also I would have mentioned the caravan.

Or at least the wrecking ball.

But hey, at least the fire was mentioned.

Still, I feel it's criminal to leave out how they celebrated it surviving all it did: by parking it at the top of a 23 story building for all to see! :)

Wait NO-

Well, that was uncalled for. Given what it survived, it deserved to rest in a museum instead of being unceremoniously cleared out with the other chunks of public housing that buried it.

Or at least, given that buried it wasn't...

...to be tumbled down from the rubble utop which it sat...

...and be fueled up.

"be fueled up", pfft, what for?, I hear you say. And you are right.

Look at that thing, you say.

Let's be serious now, however pretty of a story it would be that's not a truck that will do anything remotely in the ballpark of firing up, let alone running.

And again, you are right.

The battery was disconnected.

Sorted that, tho

"You can't be serious." Oh darling I sure can! "Well the presenters can't then" no no, I assure you, it lived. Go see it for yourself! It's at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieau, England!

I grew up watching Top Gear and it shaped me in many ways. My adoration of old Toyota Hiluxes is one of them.

[kyraneko]

The Toyota Hilux is absolutely the small god of endurance and defiance (and possibly masochism).

[thivell]

yes I'm reposting about a small god truck are you kidding me