PaisleyPajamas

Pudding puddles puppies pals [andie]

[soulmvtes]

i love it when i catch myself being myself and being happy like yes this is exactly how it should be

[hauntedearth]

[hummingirls]

the fact that the house speaker election hasn’t been this bad since the civil war and the guy is named fucking mccarthy and it’s jan 6 … this has to be a tv show cause how do you so perfectly reference three major events of extreme internal division in the US by pure coincidence

[hummingirls]

ID: #and I feel the oppressive crush of history in this clown car today

[passionpeachy-deactivated202312]

How To Find A Sea Unicorn (prints)

[headspace-hotel]

To destroy the lawn ideal, we have to destroy the ideal of what makes an outdoor space look "neat" "tidy" "well-maintained"

It's partially because people have this idea that outside is supposed to look "tidy" in the same way that inside looks tidy, and that things in your yard are just outdoor equivalents of indoor fixtures. Grass is just carpet, trees and plants are decorations

It's also about avoiding the look of poverty—people around here are skittish about lawn alternatives for fear of looking like a "redneck"

I don't know how it is in other places, but American homeowners make up "yard work" tasks for themselves that do nothing (raking leaves, burning sticks and twigs...) because a "nice-looking" yard is one that's had a bunch of "maintenance" done to it, to make it look "tidy" and empty. it doesn't matter what the maintenance is or whether it looks good or has a positive effect, you just have to look like you've Done Stuff in your yard or you will look like a poor person

in America the aesthetic of wealth is all about emptiness, just look at pictures of rich people's mansions. Clutter and visual noise and busy-ness are something we associate with poverty.

[gnome-friend]

I always say that a “tidy” space gives no sign that anyone lives there. I love a space where one can tell that creatures are living abundantly; overflowing with signs of life. This applies to outdoor and indoor spaces.

I hate the capitalist shame of “looking poor.” It truly does make wealth emptiness; storing up treasure instead of enjoying anything.

[headspace-hotel]

A "tidy" outdoor space is also one that grows no food, gives no berries or fruits or nuts or vegetables.

[chocolatepot]

Wait, why is raking pointless? At my house, if the leaves aren't raked up they carpet the ground and kill everything under them. That does not seem better, ecologically speaking.

[headspace-hotel]

What's under them?

[fromthedust]

[cemetary]

friends

[firbold]

Alright I HAVE to gush about Dragone Age Absolution mostly cuz I’m a starved DA fan first and a person second. Spoilers, and long post below

I LOVED Rezaren. He’s an excellent villain, but I hardcore disagree with the takes that he’s just as traumatized as Miriam and Neb and that he’s coming from a place of twisted love- He’s a born and bred Tevinter Magister. There is not a single second where he does not place his needs absolutely first or hesitate to do something that crosses a line or endangers others. From the START he believes he knows best (turning Memory, an ancient spirit who had so much knowledge to give to Enmity when it would not obey) or that his wishes are what everyone else should want (ignoring Tassia’s requests to make the palace safer to play with the circulum, everything with Miriam). And why should Rezaren EVER question himself? From birth he was given PEOPLE as personal playthings, tools, extensions of himself (his right and left hand). His failed harrowing, a DEATH SENTENCE in every other circle, is a consequence for someone ELSE to bear (and suffer for). He’s an Ammosine, and no Ammosine has ever failed their harrowing. There is no point in the show where Rezaren shows a hint of hesitation or remorse. This is WHILE he is considering himself kind and so far removed from his cold blooded and cruel magister kin. He breaks every rule with blood magic and magister law and if he had succeeded I truly do not think he would have faced a single consequence. What an amazing way to showcase the deep set corruption of the Imperium without having a stereotypically evil character.

Tassia and Sapphira are different sides of the same coin to me. It’s an excellent example of how difficult, if not impossible it is to separate the biases and culture you grew up in from yourself. Tassia defends the citizens at the palace at every turn- even defying Rezaren at one point to do so*. She agrees with Hira when it comes to rooting out the Venatori, an easy example of Tevinter corruption. But it means absolutely FUCK ALL because she’s so indoctrinated into the Imperium culture that she would never make an actual difference. *Part of the reason the common people at the palace are in danger is because she never, ever corrects Rezaren or contradicts his will in any real way. She lets him into the vault without changing the safety measures (EVEN AFTER SUMMONING A WHOLE DEMON) because he’s a magister and she’s there to hold the status quo. She never blinks an eye at the slaves around her, even going to far as to consider Neb (who she can’t possibly know the truth about) someone who would care deeply about Rezaren’s welfare, knowing he is a whole ass slave bound to his service from childhood. She willingly turns a blind eye to Rezaren’s corruption and ambition, vaguely threatening to turn him into the Divine but I truly believe she never EVER would. Innocent people died all around Rezaren and Tassia willingly let it happen every step of the way, while considering herself anti-corruption and a bastion of what Tevinter could be.

Sapphira is the EXACT SAME! Spoilers for the twist but despite joining the inquisition we see that she could never detach herself from the Imperium even if she’s wanting for it’s destruction and not caring what that means for the elves that live there, free or enslaved. She paints the Inqusition as uncaring to the Tevinter plight but the key is that she, unlike the advisors of the Inquisition (shout out to my wife Leliana) doesn’t care about the collateral, be it innocent citizens or her lover, Miriam. There’s so much I could write about the dynamics between Miriam and Hira but it really does boil down to this: Hira is/was an affluent mage from a well respected family in a place where mages rule above all. I have no doubt her family had slaves as well, and that she likely didn’t think twice about them and still doesnt. I can’t speak to Hira’s true feelings for Miriam; the show makes it seem like she does care for her at the end, with her inability to kill Miri. But there is no love where, to get what you want, you’d SELL YOUR ESCAPED SLAVE GIRLFRIEND back to her master. “You would’ve escaped again!” my ass. She would’ve been as complicit to Rezaren as Tassia was while convincing herself the ends justified the means. Hira is just as much the villain as Rezaren is. They both use Miriam for personal gain, like she’s a “thing”, a piece in their chess game, while they’re convinced that they’re in the right and better than their peers. It’s almost a shame her family was wiped out, because she probably would’ve made a very effective magister. (And don’t get me started on “we were trying to change things for the people around us!” Her family was for sure, but in the flashback we see she was just a child when it happened. Her family may have been trying to enact change, but Hira had a chance to make a difference with Miriam and instead used her for personal gain, just like the people who killed her family).

[bogunicorn]

Rambly thoughts about DA Absolution under the read more.

Imagine my relief when fucking Rezaren didn't get woobied as someone doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Like, fandom is fandom and he's a skinny white guy with magic so I'm sure there will be some fuckshit if fandom really takes to this show. But I'm weirdly grateful that we as the audience weren't expected to have sympathy for that specific devil.

Also, maybe I'm just jaded because of the sheer amount of movies and shows that are like "this antagonist would be 100% in the right, so we made them do some atrocities so you won't side with them", but it's also a strange relief that the character who does do shitty things for sympathetic reasons isn't the most oppressed character around, for once. It's Hira, whose anger and trauma are clearly justified and validated by the narrative, but also isn't entirely removed from her background as a Tevinter noble, even a disgraced one. Burning down an entire country - the bad and the good - is a position of pretty intense entitlement that she holds onto even after having what seem to be pretty genuine feelings for a formerly enslaved person. The difference between Miriam and the thousands of enslaved elves still living in Tevinter is chance, and Hira is clearly comfortable siccing Meredith on everyone regardless of status just for the association.

I love that Hira lived (no fridged lesbians!), I love that Roland and Lacklon kissed on screen instead of being implied (bc it's so common to have explicitly queer women but not men in the same work), I love that the villains weren't comically evil but instead rather mundanely so. I really like that "we're not family and you're actually the bad guy" was a genuine shock to Rezaren.

I think it was a good, if brief, glimpse into Tevinter. I'm fascinated by the idea of the Tevinter Circles using Harrowings; it definitely seems like a final exam or a prestige sort of thing? I wonder if they're a requirement for graduation or something optional? They seem private; maybe I have to look at the scene again but the only bodies at Rezaren's Harrowing looked to be his mom's and Neb's.

Also! Pavus namedrop! I was hoping we'd actually see Dorian in the show, but having that little bit of information about his ancestry is neat, too.

[sagga369]

[ziggy-solarecreator]

Proper boundaries

[funnytwittertweets]

[letsplayitcool]

YESSSSS ISMAEL!!!! i’m so proud of you 😭😭😭

[margoshansons]

Y’all can keep your silly little Dragon show I’m gonna clutch Rings of Power to my chest and defend it with my last breath because gdi it’s the only fantasy show I’ve seen in the last five years that’s made me feel anything outside of rage and disgust.

[parasitoidism]

Being a weird little girl as a kid provides two options to you: becoming transgender or becoming a weird adult woman. Both of which are things the world needs more of

[stellatheknave]

[freshmoviequotes]

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

[the-transfeminine-mystique]

broke: that racist “two wolves” bit

woke: this excerpt from the Talmud

[penrosesun]

Some possibly useful context for folks who feel like this quote is weird and slightly random: in historical Jewish philosophy and literature, the place where you were identified as thinking from wasn’t your head, it was your heart - and the place where your emotions came from wasn’t your heart, it was your kidneys. So, “the head understands this thing, but the heart wants this other thing” would be stated as “the heart understands this thing, but the kidneys want this other thing”. The fact that you biologically have two kidneys is a sort of a representation of the multifaceted nature of emotions - you have one logical heart, but two emotional kidneys, and the kidneys might not always agree what direction they’re pulling you towards. It’s actually a fairly common motif, and a lot of Jewish writings which touch on the theme of logic vs. emotions don’t make very much sense when translated literally as a result, or else mean something completely different (eg. in the Torah, Hashem “hardens Pharaoh’s heart”, that is, “hardens” his logical reasoning, not his emotional response)