Sam

just stuff to read

[quick-nip]

(via Saturday Morning Cartoons: Baopu #15) by Yao Xiao

words to remember

[jedi-enthusiast]

I've seen a lot of posts on my feed lately that have, in some way shape or form, said "the story of the Jedi is tragic cause the Jedi caused their own genocide" followed by a list of just...stuff that's either untrue or the other option would've been worse in that game of roulette that Palpatine set up specifically to force the Jedi to make questionable decisions and wear them down with the weight of them. (Untagged posts btw, if you're gonna post shit along these lines please for the love of fuck tag it "Jedi critical," there are tags for a reason)

So I'm here to outline why that's complete and utter bullshit in one easy, simple to understand, post! No matter what the Jedi did, or what you think they did, they did not cause their own genocide. The fault of their genocide is solely on those who chose to commit said genocide of their people and culture.

Ignoring the fact that Palpatine's entire plan, the whole point of everything that we see in the Prequels, was to kill off all of the Jedi and erase their culture--so he was gonna figure out some way to do it, with or without Anakin/the clones/Dooku/etc.

You cannot make someone commit genocide against you.

That is the stupidest argument ever.

Committing genocide is a choice, one that you actively have to make over and over again--which we see Anakin do, even long after all (or all except a measly few survivors, most of which were literal children in the Prequel-era and couldn't have possibly done anything to piss Anakin off) of the Prequel-era Jedi--aka the ones that people say "brought this on themselves"--were dead!

The Jedi Order as a whole could've been the shittiest, most repressed group of arrogant assholes the galaxy had ever seen. They could've called Anakin a whiny bitch to his face and told him that Dooku should've gone for his head instead of his arm. They could've danced on his mother's grave and had tea parties with the Tuskens.

And guess what?

They still could not have made Anakin and Palpatine commit genocide against them. It was their choice, and their choice alone.

The only people that had no choice in committing that genocide were the clones and guess who took that choice away from them? Because it certainly wasn't the fucking Jedi!

Which is hilarious because most of these posts I've seen have said something along the lines of "the Jedi used the clones as slaves," ignoring the fact that--even if that were true (and it's not)--Anakin and Palpatine used them as slaves too!

And it was so much worse when they did it because, not only were they not given a choice, they were fucking mind-controlled in order to commit genocide against their will! So they didn't even get the choice to refuse and face the consequences of that--which is an option for them during the Clone Wars, albeit a shitty one.

So no, the Jedi did not bring anything upon themselves.

Start holding Anakin responsible for his own shitty decisions, and start tagging your damn anti-Jedi and Jedi critical posts properly!

[ironwoodatl01]

To be fair:

The destruction of the Jedi Order was less a genocide and more of a religious conflict that the Jedi lost. The Jedi Order is a sect of the collective religious culture of 'Force Users,' and their destruction cannot really be considered genocide as the cultural group of 'Force Users' still exists albeit heavily restricted and controlled by the Sith during the Empire Era.

Secondly:

The entire point of the Prequel trilogy was that the Jedi contributed to their destruction. Their wilful ignorance, isolation, and insulation from the corruption of the Republic they insisted on protecting, to the point the Jedi Council, for example, caused a schism in the Order because they insisted that Jedi Masters act as Generals for the Clone Army regardless of the individual Jedi Master's wishes, led the Jedi to become entirely isolated and perhaps hated by the Republic they had sworn to protect.

Order 66 and the sacking of the Temple were executed to the surprise of the Jedi, and no Jedi was present when Sidious became Emperor of the Galaxy. No one, save for a few Senators like Organa, protected the Jedi when they fell, and during the Rebellion Era, even Organa himself did not approach the surviving Jedi to aid in the fight against the Empire. Somehow, the Jedi even managed to alienate their chosen one and drove him to the dark side, allowing Sidious to turn the Jedi's greatest weapon against themselves.

The Jedi bubbled themselves up and the Council refused to face the problems that faced their beloved Republic until it is too late. Palpatine exploited their ignorance, but it was the Jedi who were ignorant themselves in the first place. That was the lesson of the Prequel Trilogy, speak out and speak loud so that the people are aware and always ready to fight against corruption and oppression.

[jedi-enthusiast]

I'm gonna say my piece and then I want you to, kindly, get the fuck off my page--this is a Pro-Jedi space and I don't have the mental capacity to go in circles with the "the Jedi deserved it!" crowd

First: It absolutely was a genocide, you're just plain wrong there

Genocide - "the deliberate killing or severe mistreatment of a large number of people from a particular national, racial, religious, or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group."

The Jedi might not have taken up the entirety of the Force-users in the galaxy, but they took up a pretty big chunk of them—and just because they were a subset of a larger group doesn’t mean they can’t be genocided. There are plenty of real world examples of this, but I’m certain you can make those connections yourself.

And you forget, after Order 66, they went after ALL Force-users for the next 20 years and killed them—Jedi or not, if they were Force-sensitive then they were killed. So, even by your own definition, they were genocided.

But no, you're absolutely right, Anakin and Palpatine deliberately killing all of the Jedi (including children, Jedi he had never interacted with before, his own former-padawan, etc.) and doing everything they could to erase their culture, then proceeding to hunt down all the Force-sensitives in the galaxy and murdering them (again, including literal children and babies--who weren't even alive for the Prequels) for the next 20 years and also torturing some surviving Jedi so that they become inquisitors, specifically used to hunt down the Jedi and kill them-

That totally doesn't fit the definition of a genocide! /sarcasm

Second: No the fuck it wasn't, I don't even understand how you got to that conclusion

"Their willful ignorance, isolation, and insulation from the corruption of the Republic they insisted on protecting, to the point the Jedi Council, for example, caused a schism in the Order because they insisted that Jedi Masters act as Generals for the Clone Army regardless of the individual Jedi Master's wishes, led the Jedi to become entirely isolated and perhaps hated by the Republic they had sworn to protect."

1. The Council didn't want to be Generals, Mace Windu himself says that they aren't soldiers and that they're meant to keep the peace to Palpatine, but they were eventually backed into a corner and had to for the greater good (like Palpatine literally planned)--so, like...I don't understand how you got to that conclusion.

2. Yes, they protected the Republic when the Clone Wars came around...what else would you have had them do?

Sit back and let the Separatists invade, enslave, and destroy entire planets? Let the GAR be run by people like Tarkin, who only saw the clones as canon-fodder and didn't give a shit about them? Allow Dooku to take over the Republic and turn it into a dictatorship?

Like, what was the better option here?

(Those were rhetorical questions, we all know that if the Jedi didn't try to protect the Republic then you'd be complaining about that too)

3. Them being hated by the people of the Republic, being isolated from each other, and being so fucking busy holding the galaxy together that they had no time to investigate corruption in the Senate and discover Palpatine was literally Palpatine's plan!

He quite literally planned all of this to happen with the specific intention of putting the Jedi in such a god-awful fucking position that there were no good options! The Jedi were doing the best they could in a terrible situation, it's not their fault that the only options they had were shitty all around.

"Order 66 and the sacking of the Temple were executed to the surprise of the Jedi, and no Jedi was present when Sidious became Emperor of the Galaxy."

You mean the order that existed to force the clones to kill them and that Palpatine literally did everything he could to keep hidden wasn't expected by the Jedi? The Jedi aren't omniscient and couldn't have possibly thought that the men they trusted with their lives would kill them (albeit forced to)? NO WAY! /sarcasm

And the Jedi were literally getting murdered by Anakin and the clones while Palpatine became Emperor...you literally mentioned the exact order used to do it...of course they weren't around for it! They were getting killed!

Also, did you forget that Yoda tried to kill Palpatine like...right after he became Emperor? That definitely sounds like the Jedi trying to do something about it to me.

"No one, save for a few Senators like Organa, protected the Jedi when they fell, and during the Rebellion Era, even Organa himself did not approach the surviving Jedi to aid in the fight against the Empire."

How the fuck is that the Jedi's fault? And what does that have to do with the Jedi supposedly "causing their own downfall?"

"Somehow, the Jedi even managed to alienate their chosen one and drove him to the dark side, allowing Sidious to turn the Jedi's greatest weapon against themselves."

Anakin alienated himself.

He broke their rules, didn't leave the Order even though that was an option, he demanded ranks and positions that he had not earned and threw hissy fits when he didn't get them (or get all of them, rather), etc.

And even when he did all of that, the Jedi still trusted him, still saw him as one of their own.

Did you forget that the whole fucking Council was ready to fight Palpatine the moment that Anakin said he was a Sith? Anakin had no proof except for his word and the Council trusted him.

Not to mention all the times that different Jedi praise him in TCW and Obi-Wan praises him in RotS--which doesn't exactly scream "alienated" to me.

Plus, have you forgotten that Palpatine has literally been manipulating Anakin for over a decade at this point? They didn't "allow" jack shit.

"The Jedi bubbled themselves up and the Council refused to face the problems that faced their beloved Republic until it is too late. Palpatine exploited their ignorance, but it was the Jedi who were ignorant themselves in the first place. That was the lesson of the Prequel Trilogy, speak out and speak loud so that the people are aware and always ready to fight against corruption and oppression."

The Council and the Order as a whole didn't really have time to do some deep cleaning in the Republic when there was a literal fucking war going on...and, again, did you forget that the Council was ready to throw down the moment Anakin said Palpatine was a Sith? That sounds like facing problems to me.

Also, the Jedi literally have no political power whatsoever--what were they supposed to do more than what they did?

That's like saying "damn, why didn't the firefighters just impeach the President? What assholes, I hope they all die!"

It makes no sense whatsoever.

2. Speak out against corruption and oppression? You mean the corruption that ran rampant once the Jedi were eliminated? You mean the oppression that the Jedi faced once the Empire took over? Huh, funny that.

Conclusion: fuck off. Imagine defending the murder of an entire group of people and their culture. "To be fair-" bullshit.

@antianakin are you seeing this shit? if you have a piece to add, I'd love to hear it.

[antianakin]

My biggest piece would probably be that we DO see the Jedi doing something to try to stop the Sith plan. And quite honestly, they almost defeat Palpatine and keep him from winning altogether. If Anakin hadn't stepped in and sided with Palpatine, the Jedi would've won. Palpatine would've lost.

The Jedi are shown to be actively investigating things multiple times, that's literally Obi-Wan's entire storyline in AOTC. And in TCW we see the Jedi investigating Sifo-Dyas's death and the clones' creation to the point that they realize the clones were a Sith trap creating by Dooku to destroy them, they just don't quite know the details of it enough to put a firmer stop to it (especially without alerting the Sith of that knowledge and maybe putting all of them, Jedi and clone both, in even more danger). The choice they make here is effectively to hope that the clones are independent and trustworthy enough that they will choose NOT to turn on the Jedi, and they never realize that the clones won't be GIVEN a choice.

It's also canon that the Council doesn't go after Palpatine on Anakin's word. They believe him when he says Palpatine's a Sith, yes, but they're ALREADY GOING TO ARREST HIM when Anakin shows up with that information. We see scenes in both ROTS and TCW where we see the Council actively discussing treason against Palpatine, the plan to arrest him because he's corrupt as shit. They keep this from Ahsoka and Anakin because it's treason and because Ahsoka's not even in the Order anymore and even if she was she's not qualified for this level of information and they don't entirely trust Anakin's loyalties at this time. They are FULLY aware that Palpatine is massively corrupt and are actively planning to do something about it and then DO SO, before they ever discover he's a Sith at all. They are the ONLY people who canonically are shown to decide to take out Palpatine because of how corrupt he is. Even if we act like Padme's deleted scenes from ROTS are canon, all we ever see them do is discuss the possibility of trying to oust Palpatine politically but they never actually get around to doing anything about it. The Jedi are like 3 steps ahead of them AT LEAST.

And if Anakin hadn't stepped in at the last moment, the Jedi would've won. Mace would've killed Palpatine and the war would've been over. No Order 66, no genocide, no Empire. The Jedi are SO aware and SO on it that if Anakin had been more selfless and more mindful, they would've won. It's Anakin's own corruption that allows the Jedi to lose. Even with the world becoming corrupt around them, even with the corruption in the Senate, the Jedi's dedication to light would've been strong enough to counteract that had Anakin been a better person. And THAT'S the point of the prequels, that one person's choice can make a difference, for good or bad. It's Anakin's choice that destroys the Republic, and it'll be Anakin's choice that destroys the Empire, too. His selfish choice sees democracy die, but his selfless choice allows tyranny to fall.

The Jedi aren't ignorant, they're not corrupt. The Jedi are the only ones we can definitely say AREN'T ignorant or corrupt as an institution actually. They're literally the last bastion of goodness and light in the Republic, holding back the tide of corruption that's been building up in the Senate. But no dam is indestructible. The Jedi just keep getting battered over and over and over again, until Anakin decides to land the final blow that starts the cascade.

The Jedi ARE balance in the galaxy. That's what they represent. The galaxy is fucked without them, it's a symbiotic relationship between the Jedi and the people of the galaxy. The Rebellion can sort-of struggle along on its own, but it's not until the Jedi start coming in and aiding them that they manage to land any seriously major blows to the Empire (see Ezra/Kanan destroying the TIE factory on Lothal and Luke destroying the Death Star). It's the COOPERATION between the Jedi and the people of the galaxy that brings down the Empire. It's a theme you see in Rebels, in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, and even in The Clone Wars.

The Republic abandoned the Jedi, not the other way around.

The message of the prequels IS about speaking out against corruption and about not being complacent towards evil in yourself or the world around you, but it's the Jedi who are standing firm against corruption and Anakin/the Senate who are being complacent. The funniest part of this argument is that they're actually picking up the exact right message, they're just applying it to the wrong characters, so it also means they've missed the message entirely at the same time.

[valtsv]

I'd buy a horror novel written by you and/or I'd watch a horror film directed by you. That's it, end ask.

i would honestly be less flattered if you proposed to me <3

[valtsv]

using this to soapbox about my horror story ideas real quick actually hope you dont mind:

Nothing Beside Remains: Told from the perspective of a prison interview with the sole survivor, an Arctic research station team find themselves isolated even more than they were initually expecting when their communications suddenly fail during the first week of the three-month long unceasing polar night. Cut off from civilisation and facing increasingly strange cosmic phenomena, conspiracy, paranoia and terror ensue as it becomes apparent that each member of the expedition had reasons for wanting to be on a trip to one of the most hostile regions at the ends of the earth other than scientific curiosity or financial gain.

[Untitled] (as in i haven't come up with a title yet, not a stylistic choice): A once-beloved figure skater fallen from grace sees an opportunity to tell her story in her own words to a world convinced of her guilt when her former colleagues begin to be picked off in a series of violent spree killings. A trashy tabloid journalist sees an opportunity for a big break that will finally get them taken seriously in following the story of a disgraced ex figure skater suspected of gruesomely, systematically murdering her former colleagues. A down-on-his-luck police detective sees an opportunity to close a case and gain respect with the help of an investigative reporter's insights. None of them are prepared for the parts they'll be expected to play in the story that unfolds as they begin to unravel the truth.

Devil's Advocate: A lawyer faces her most challenging case yet when the client she's called to represent in a high-profile trial seems convinced that it's a battle between heaven and hell for her very soul.

Labyrinthia/Cemetery Lane (haven't settled on this one yet): A suburban housewife begins to suspect that her charmingly dull life is not what it seems when her neighbours start to behave oddly - and increasingly violently and vengefully - towards her. Sort of Bluebeard meets Inception, with shades of Dante's Inferno.

[valtsv]

also not so much horror as medevial-esque fantasy but it has horror elements because it's me:

Empire of the Skies: In a world where dragons are real and venerated as gifts from and messengers of the gods, a lonely, outcast village boy rescues and restores and restores an injured dragon to health and bonds with it, and is rewarded with the offer of a place in the immortal emperor's royal cavalry of sky-saints, should he successfully complete training. What seems like an impossible turn of good fortune quickly sours when he experiences firsthand the brutality and cruelty used to form and maintain the empire's millenially undefeated military force, and the sacrifices expected of him and his fellow martyrs-to-be. Basically I took the concept of how to train your dragon and went "what if I turned this into a critique of the military-industrial complex, the horrors of war, and imperial propaganda". Also, dragons are classified by angelic hierarchical terminology (seraphim, ophanim, thrones, dominions, etc.) and Nevine, our human protagonist, eventually transitions to female after she finds herself enjoying assuming the identity of a girl for secret rebel identity purposes.

[stil-lindigo]

the fox god.

a comic about a trickster.

--

creative notes:

–

all my other comics

store

[ooccouchgags]

[dynared]

There are four jokes in the span of 30 seconds and they all land. Prime Simpsons was something else.

[illmadekn1ght]

‘no one uses tumblr!’ ‘tumblr is dead!’ no there’s at least enough people for us to point at each other and go ‘10k notes!!!!!!’ and it can happen

[kazoosandfannypacks]

oh hey i just remembered this post exists let's curculate it again that'd be funny

[wavaur]

mccullough drusus is everything to me

[literary-illuminati]

It's very #problematic of me I'm sure but if they must do either I really desperately prefer authors coming up with fancy always-italicized elven words for being gay or trans than having preindustrial warrior aristocrats and barely-socialized monsters have a vocabulary that casually includes 'demisexual' and 'enby'.

This is only slightly a principled stance (queernorm fantasy worlds are very obviously not trying to have any sort of realistic political economy of gender, which I only slightly judge them for), mostly just painful aesthetic mismatch.

[malcolmschmitz]

The thing that irks me about using modern queer terminology in fantasy is that you're depriving yourself of a way to Say Things about people in your world.

In my YA fantasy book with the trans prince stealing back his kingdom, trans people are called cymerans. Cymerans are named after the goddess Cymera, who presides over death and change.

A person who decides to trans their gender is, in this society's conception, dying and being reborn. They throw a wake for the person they used to be, a big party with food and drink and stories and laughter. (Part of the wake is the 'deceased' giving their own eulogy, which is often an incredible self-roast.) It's equal parts funeral for your past self and coming-out ball for your new self.

When someone is born, in this world, they're consecrated to a god. Most of the time, you're consecrated to the Lady of Currents (goddess of luck and the sea), Atheran (the god of bloodlines, and patron of the royal family), or the Beetlemaker (god of craftspeople). It really depends on who your parents are and what they want for your future. If your parents want you to be prosperous, they'll consecrate you to the Lady. If your parents want you to be clever and inquisitive, they'll consecrate you to the Beetlemaker. And if you're the eldest son... you'll get stuck getting consecrated to Atheran.

Most of the time, people don't get consecrated to Cymera. If your baby is really sickly and you're scared they'll die, maybe? However.... there's no formal rebaptism process, but most people see cymerans as having been re-dedicated to Cymera after their rebirth.

In this world, cymerans are Cymera's children. They died and came out the other side of death, like a moth from the chrysalis.

.... You cannot get that across the same way if you just say 'transgender'.

You just can't. It's a completely different mindset. It's a completely different conception of gender, trans genders, and religion-re:-queerness. Calling my protagonist "trans" isn't inaccurate, but it leaves out a huge dimension of how he interacts with his gender and his world.

Using modern queer terminology in a secondary-world fantasy story is the same kind of thing as having your characters eat potatoes. Sometimes, it's the right choice. A lot of the time, they should be eating cabbage, or turnips, or aklano root.

[ariaste]

LOVE the trans worldbuilding there and 100% agree that giving them a Word for it is the same thing as giving them a Concept for it, and the Concept (as illustrated above) is so much deeper and more interesting. Cultures all over the world have had their own ways of categorizing/classifying the gender spectrum, and those categorical systems are can't really be fully "translated". For example, we can't say that being two-spirit is the same as being nonbinary, because it's not -- it is as much an expression of Native culture as it is an expression of gender. That cultural element is significant enough that it must be considered as its own thing rather than shoved under the umbrella of "nonbinary" and therefore erased.

Now, there has been an ongoing conversation in the fantasy community about, "When is it appropriate to make up a word, and when should we just use the English word?" This is sometimes joked about as The Great Kahvee* Debate (*or other fantastical spellings of the word "coffee"), because of a trend in the 80s/90s for scifi/fantasy writers to anxiously try to erase all real-world concepts from their books in pursuit of Worldbuilding. "Well, you see, they can't drink coffee because they're not on Earth and they've never heard of it," says the Fantasy Writer™, except the drink in question looks like coffee, tastes like coffee, has the same physiological effect as coffee, is drunk in the same contexts as we drink coffee, and is potentially flavored with sukrr (fantasy sugar; spellings vary) and milk from a creature you've never heard of (or, if your author is really unhinged, some other appalling bodily excretion). We have, as a society, mostly agreed that this is Silly, and now characters drink coffee in your fantasy novels.

So the question you face as a writer is, "If this character is [trans, gay, nonbinary, whatever], and it's exactly the same as it is in the real world, should I bother to make up a word for it?" The authors who are answering "If it is the Exact Same, I will use the IRL word for it" have swung the pendulum of fashion on the Great Kahvee Debate allllllllll the way to the other end, possibly out of a desire to do Good Representation. Except... I don't really feel like mentioning a label IS good representation (except perhaps to small babies who don't have enough reading comprehension to recognize a concept unless it is Clearly Labeled), so the way it actually comes across is, rather, a desire to BE SEEN to be doing Good Representation without actually doing much work. Because being queer in your fantasy world ISN'T going to be exactly the same as being queer in the real world. Whatever culture your character is operating within IS DIFFERENT, that is why you have gone to all the trouble to talk about their special magical tattoos or their special magical dragon familiars or their special magical prophecies or whatever. Give them their own word for what they are, IF that categorization system is important in their culture -- and it might not be! In which case they might not have a word for it! Like, a character might just say, "Oh, that man? No, girl, you don't have a chance, he only has boyfriends" instead of "He's gay."

You don't have to give them a label, either a fantasy one or a real-world one. You're allowed to say, "They don't think about sexuality that way" -- that is a perfectly valid worldbuilding choice, and I encourage you to lean into that and explore it! You don't have to have a label! But what you DO have to do is treat your queer characters like whole, complex people and honor the culture that they come from even if it's a made-up one.

Which brings me to the subject of italicizing the special fantasy words -- I'd encourage people to just leave them in plaintext, actually! This ties into an ongoing discussion on the exoticization of foreign languages in English text (link to an article on the subject). Basically, it marks those words out as jarringly OTHER, which 1) doesn't make a whole lot of sense when the speakers themselves are using the words with fluent familiarity, 2) implicitly frames English as the dominant language over all other languages (linguistic imperialism as an expression of white supremacy), and 3) doesn't even make sense from a descriptive-linguistic perspective when you look at how easily and readily English adopts words from other languages into common parlance.

Consider the sentence: "I went to the cafe and ordered a chai latte" -- italicize chai for emphasis is fine ("no, i didn't order a coffee latte, it was a chai latte"); but it is patently absurd to italicize it (or cafe!) for being an ✨exotic foreign word✨. We know what chai is, we know you can buy it at a cafe. The words have entered our language. English speakers are very, very used to learning new words for a Specific Concept ("Sitting in the sauna eating naan and sipping boba that I bought from the tomato-colored kiosk"). Scifi/fantasy readers will do this even more readily (see Jo Walton's article about SF Reading Protocols).

If you're in the dialogue/narration of someone for whom the word/concept is just part of the ambient cultural background, honor that! Even if they are a fantasy person from a fantasy culture, honor it! It's good practice for real life. :)

[simkaye]

Mom says stfu or we’re not going to Dairy Queen

[turquoisemagpie]

The Voice in the Night

(Part 1)

The Voice in the Night

(Part 2)

The Voice in the Night

(Part 3)

The Voice in the Night

(Part 4 - end)

[quicksilverlightning]

Eight Questions

I know I’m an All Might blog now, but I do in fact have other interests. I’ve been on something of a break to keep myself from burning out and the House of Leaves void has been calling me for the last two days, so I may just disappear for a while. In the meantime, on the off chance that anyone here has read House of Leaves, here are eight discussion questions:

1. Who is the “real” author?

       Johnny?

        Zampano?

        Pelafina?

        Are one or more of these characters the product of another’s imagination?

        Do all three exist?

2. Why are animals unaffected by the House?

3. Why remove the red text sections concerning the Minotaur?

    Does the Minotaur exist? Is it symbolic of something else?

    Can it sense itself being analyzed?

    Is it after me right now?

4. Did the Navidson Record exist?

    If yes, why does no one know about it?

    If no, why all the effort? Is it a product of Zampano’s madness? Did he pass     that madness to Johnny?

5. Why did all the doors slam shut?

    Trapping Holloway? Or protecting Navidson?

6. What is the significance of the baby story?

    Whose baby is it?

7. How did Navidson get a copy of House of Leaves?

8. Why include the Pelican Poems? What do they contribute?

[academic-vampire]

(I lent a book to someone the other day and said “just ignore my notes, I wrote another book in there.” This made me laugh so hard)

[writing-is-a-martial-art]

truly some people have no genre savviness whatsoever. A girl came back from the dead the other day and fresh out of the grave she laughed and laughed and lay down on the grass nearby to watch the sky, dirt still under her nails. I asked her if she’s sad about anything and she asked me why she should be. I asked her if she’s perhaps worried she’s a shadow of who she used to be and she said that if she is a shadow she is a joyous one, and anyway whoever she was she is her, now, and that’s enough. I inquired about revenge, about unfinished business, about what had filled her with the incessant need to claw her way out from beneath but she just said she’s here to live. I told her about ghosts, about zombies, tried to explain to her how her options lie between horror and tragedy but she just said if those are the stories meant for her then she’ll make another one. I said “isn’t it terribly lonely how in your triumph over death nobody was here to greet you?” and she just looked at me funny and said “what do you mean? The whole world was here, waiting”. Some people, I tell you.

[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

[dross-the-fish]

drew him having a good time. Decided since it's storming out I'd extend his Lichtenberg figure scars to his cheek. Adam Frankenstein 1918 AU

[memesonnets]

Hi my name is Don Quixote of La Mancha the Knight of the Rueful Figure and I have a rueful figure (that's how I got my name) with purple bruised ribs and tall stature and gaunt features and hair turning gray and a rather hooked aquiline nose and large black drooping mustaches and a lot of people tell me I look like Amadís of Gaul (AN: if u don’t know who he is begone!). I’m not related to Lady Oriana but I wish I was because she’s an incomparable flowering beauty. I’m a knight errant but some of my teeth and grinders are missing. I have long lank limbs. I’m also a defender of damsels, protector of orphans, succourer of the needy, righter of wrongs, undoer of injustice, and I wander a magic countryside called the mountains of Spain where I’m in my first year of knighthood (I’m forty-nine). I’m a gentleman (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly armor. I love my great-grandfather's forgotten corner of the house and I cobble together all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a doublet of fine cloth with matching shoes and velvet breeches and a helmet, morion, visor, breastplate and backpiece. I was riding outside La Mancha. It was early morning so the rays of the sun fell obliquely and the heat did not distress me, which I was very happy about. A lot of giants stared at me. I put up my pasteboard visor at them.

[anonymousfisch]

(I am only talking about the movie not the live show)

I had to think about how Brad was really into the Frankenstein place when he saw that it frightened Janet. The second she started to enjoy herself he began to hate it and tried to keep her in her place.

One of the more fascinating moments is obviously how he tries his macho bs with Frank but it doesn’t work.

Frank literally lets him yell and then pokes fun of Brads display of toxic masculinity by playing into his sexual insecurities. Which is really at the heart of a lot of Brads behaviour (IMO). He is incredibly insecure (implied gay) and completely unable to break out of the system he finds himself in.

Frank picks up on those insecurities and forces Brad to confront them throughout the entire movie.

And it’s interesting how Brads behaviour changes after having sex for the first time. He isn’t as aggressive anymore he even displays submissive behaviour/tendencies especially towards Frank.

Which is something continued even when he tries to be more aggressive again during Planet Janet he gets turned into a statue.

His floorshow number is literally about the conflict he feels between the way he is supposed to be (sexuality, gender) and how he actually wants to express himself something Frank is forcing out of him.

He in the end is the one who says "what’s his crime?" And that obviously can be read in a very different context when you consider that Brad is gay/bi. Literally having to watch the person who changed him into his true self get murdered in front of him. It could be interpreted as his first experience with homophobia now that the story is over. And all that is left is darkness (superheroes).

Because don’t forget Brad is the one who judged people who were different from him very harshly in the beginning (The motorcyclists). And both him and Janet are implied Republicans so now he has to deal with the fact that he has become "the other" who will be judged the way he judged others.

There is obviously some more subtext that can be read into it that I want to write down in the future about Frank being a creator/god/jesus metaphor. These are just some thoughts I had after watching this movie again