Words and Birds

Anglophile, Harry Potter expert, Supernatural enthusist, Doctor Who lover, recent Marvel convert, aspiring writer and teacher.

[ryebreadgf]

yayyyy

[jomiddlemarch]

[whetstonefires]

One of my favorite things is modern adaptations that leave people with the same careers they had in the original material, because unless you’re a cop or a doctor that practically never happens.

Irene Adler’s an opera singer. We still have those! They don’t have the same subtext exactly, but nothing is going to because we aren’t the Victorians. She could continue to be an opera singer. I have never seen this happen.

Jonathan Harker can still be in real estate. That’s a job people have. A modern story that still involves Dracula contacting his firm to help him purchase property sounds amazing actually.

[nudityandnerdery]

A modern adaptation of Dracula where you keep seeing Jonathan Harker’s face on bus stop bench ads for his realtor office.

[daddygrandpaandthebeaver]

#“This client doesn’t seem to exist online; a bit strange. But he’s elderly so it’s not that unusual” -Jonathan about to make a mistake – @capslockdoesntexpressmyjoy

[prokopetz]

I was about to joke about Quincey Morris still being a cowboy, but then it occurred to me that he’s not actually a cowboy in the source material, is he? He’s the wealthy heir of a Texas ranch-owning family who just acts like an Old West cowboy. If anything, that’s even more plausible today than it was in 1897.

[roach-works]

let’s see dracula shrug off getting hit with one of these country cosplay motherfuckers

[pensandbirds]

After seeing Fantastic Four: First Steps twice now, I can confirm I’m head over heels for the whole team, but Johnny Storm….OH BOY. 😍😍😍

1. The way he interacts with H. E. R. B. I. E., treating the lil robot like a beloved pet, scratching his head, calling him buddy (and I swear once “Herbert”), and how H.E. R. B. I. E. loves Johnny too! Bringing him food, trailing after him…it’s so sweet.

2. How excited he gets when he finds out Sue is pregnant, literally picking her up and swinging her around, so excited to be the best uncle.

3. How clearly he’s enamored with space, how much he longs to be there, how passionate he is about what he does. After they confront Galactus, you can see the other three returned their spacesuits to the lab, but Johnny keeps his in his room.

4. His superb sibling dynamic with the others, teasing Ben constantly but also absolutely supportive; freaked out when Sue appears, gives in with the slightest force field “not tying her down,” but also just loves to show her anything he figures out; making fun of Reed, but also following his directions without hesitation in a fight.

5. “Take me instead” and “Tell Franklin Uncle Johnny loves him,” and “shh shh don’t cry, buddy, I’ll be right back” and “that’s not MY plan, that’s a terrible plan!!”

6. Two fingers salute (swoon)

7. When he sees Sue hurt at the end, he’s obviously so broken. Reed is more open in his grief, but you can just see Johnny’s heart is shattered, thinking he’s lost his last family member, the sister that held him together after the accident that tore their family apart.

8. “Johnny loves space, Johnny loves women, okay I GET IT!”

9. The Coppertone sunscreen billboard. It’s so funny

10. The absolute sweetest record player ever?

11. His determination to understand Shalla-Bal’s language, to therefore understand her, and then to be able to convince her to spare Earth. “I’m just trying to save my world.” He doesn’t get enough credit for what he does there, from about four words total to figure it out from.

12. When he leans against Ben at the end, just so relieved, and his tender forehead kiss for Sue.

Anyway, I’m basically obsessed with him now.

[itsclydebitches]

Something I don't think we talk enough about in discussions surrounding AI is the loss of perseverance.

I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.

Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.

Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.

Idk I'm just really worried about kids having to grow up in a world where (for a variety of reasons beyond just AI) they're not given the chance to struggle through new and challenging things like we used to.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

I think this is an incredibly important post for a lot of reasons. You have to write a bad book in order to learn how to do something. You have to suck at playing an instrument before you can improve.

Struggling is part of the process, and I've had a lot of people argue with me that it shouldn't be who fail to see the point. When you replace an composer with an AI music generator, an artist with an AI-generated image, or an author with an AI-generated fanfic, you are missing out on the critical, fundamental experiences humans need to learn and grow. You are robbing yourself of essential skills you need as a person.

AI is not like a calculator, or a synthesizer, or a prompt generator. It's not a tool to aid in your process of understanding or creating something. It is replacing your ability to learn things, and that is going to do so much damage if you let it.

[heartwarminganimals]

[pensandbirds]

Billy picking up Señor Scratchy the rabbit in episode two, cuddling his old buddy from when Agatha babysat him and Tommy, and just whispering “hey buddy, it’s okay, I got you…” yeah I love this child

[no-baths-for-stan]

nothing funnier than a teen superhero walking away from the end of a battle in his sick new getup, absolutely devastated, and then getting in his subaru and driving home

[pensandbirds]

I haven’t seen enough people talking about the moment where Billy screams “Agatha, am I killing this boy to save my brother?” But he disappears before he can hear her say, “No, Billy. Sometimes boys just…die.”

And the parallels as she finally accepts what happened to Nicky, as she finally accepts that maybe she can help Billy find what he really needs and save Tommy…yeah it broke me.

[pensandbirds]

Truly identifying with both Wanda Maximoff and Agatha Harkness because I, too, would both burn the world down and die for Billy Maximoff

[kermitthesog]

HES SO FUNNY

[insert-writing-blog-name]

How new WIPs are born:

[dduane]

(sigh) Yeah, this. :)

[pensandbirds]

Marvel said “Rogers the Musical” in the Hawkeye trailer and my fingers slipped whoops.

(I realized on rewatching the trailer that the scene featured more from the Battle of New York, but if you want to get all of Steve’s life in there, there’s got to be some things cut).

Please enjoy my plan for the musical numbers that would be in a Steve Rogers musical because you know, it’s the intersection of two things I’m obsessed with.

[pensandbirds]

OKAY so a year and a half or whatever later, I’ve seen Rogers the Musical at the Hyperion Theater at Disney California Adventure and can I just say….HALF AN HOUR WASNT ENOUGH OF THAT PURE JOY. I cried like three times, both times I saw it. I have memorized half of “The End of the Line.” It’s a masterpiece and everything that a single scene in Hawkeye could have ever hinted at and I LOVE IT

[ayeforscotland]

There is no ‘rest of the Mona Lisa’ - it doesn’t exist.

Tech bros fundamentally don’t understand art, and it’s why all AI art looks ugly as sin.

[pocket-deer-belly]

The mona lisa was actually a landscape painting but this random woman decided to just like sit there and block the view and da Vinci just rolled with it

[ofgeography]

i feel like the fundamental issue that i have with AI art is that it misunderstands why art is interesting. it's not just about a production of images. like yeah of course it can produce images. neat! fun trick! but what makes art interesting is that a person made it. like fundamentally that's what makes it interesting. an ai did some math and was like "this line has to continue so it's going to continue." like, ok? whatever? i wanna know about her eyebrows and the decision to leave them on or take them off. a person decided that. da vinci developed a whole set of skills and talents and then used them and made decisions about why, some technical, some based on vibes, some probably to do with some random thoughts he was having at the time, some probably, yes, based on math and continuity of lines. what's interesting IS THAT a person made it!!!! not just the thing itself!! if pretty landscapes themselves were the interesting thing we'd all just go stand and stare at mountains!!!

idk like this guy being like oOoOo My Robot Painted A Mountain like ok that's great for your robot i simply do not care

[husborth-deactivated20241109]

i need less "happy, fluffy cinnamon roll" luke skywalker and more "raised in the ass-end of nowhere with spiders 4ft across who used to shoot rats the size of saint bernards for fun, who at 19 killed one million people in a single shot and just happens to be really optimistic for a guy who is a guerilla fighter and a space revolutionary"

[husborth-deactivated20241109]

let me take you on a little journey:

luke skywalker is public enemy number one, with a bounty on his head that's astronomical, who took down the deadliest weapon the galaxy's ever seen in a single shot he fired on gut instinct listening to the advice of a ghost with his eyes closed. in one shot he took the rebellion from a sprawling network of small resistances to engaging in all-out war with the empire. he wears the lightsaber and the last name of a murdered jedi traitor, uses a banned weapon and believes in a banned religion and accompanying psychic powers that children are either slaughtered or indoctrinated into a cult for having. yesterday he'd never flown in space before and a day later he's the commander of a squadron, and he flies like a natural.

in the span of a few days after the death star is blown to smithereens, taking out a massive portion of the empire's top brass, the scariest guy in the empire - seven feet of murder and death where if he steps on a battlefield the only advice anyone can give you is run and pray he doesn't find you - calls on a moratorium of Hunting The Pilot Who Destroyed The Death Star. the scariest motherfucker in town decides that he wants luke skywalker's head on a pike, and bans anyone else from getting it. in the span of a week it looks like luke skywalker made a mortal enemy in the cyborg that hell spat out because he was too evil to contain.

and it's THAT guy who earnestly thinks this scrappy little rebellion's got a shot. it's that, this immensely weird motherfucker from seemingly nowhere, that tells you, genuinely, with his own mouth, "we can do it if we help each other and never give up :)" and he sounds like an inspirational poster on the wall of the guidance counselor's office. but you watch him wave the antique weapon the empire wants to pack him off to a firing squad for having, and you're like, well, if this guy can believe it, maybe anyone can.

[husborth-deactivated20241109]

people interpreting this post as "an appropriate luke skywalker characterization should be sunshine but more murdery" are sending me for a loop. murder is not a character trait, nor is what luke did to the death star what anyone would consider murder; he took out a battlestation responsible for planet annihilation, i'd love to see anyone argue he's guilty of a crime.

"make this character but with more murder to make him edgier" is not the point. the point is that luke is eerily capable, beyond all reason; he does the impossible by destroying the death star, does the impossible by pledging himself to a dead religion that paints a target on his back, does the impossible by outrunning the guy that no one else can outrun, does the impossible by looking said evil in the face and saying "do better" and it actually working. the point is that he's not an optimist because he's naive or young, but because he's made the impossible work, he found a way. he's a fighter and a believer and that's what makes people want to follow him, from people like han to people like darth vader.

i don't mean luke skywalker should kill more people! i mean that luke skywalker swings in on his x-wing and pummels the TIE squadron raining fire on you faster than you can blink, and it's impossible, no one is that good, but there it is right in front of you. and that guy of all people has hope that liberation is possible, and you believe in it because you watch luke skywalker accomplish so much impossible bullshit, you don't think impossible exists anymore.

[foone]

As someone who grew up on a farm, I feel it's important to point out that there's a LOT of southern guys who are just... like this.

Like, their main hobbies are "drinking" and "girls" and you're like 70% sure they deal meth on the side but if you show up and say "hey we're gonna burn down the police station, wanna help?" they'll loan you their pickup and shotgun without question.

Luke is absolutely the image of every farmboy I ever met: optimistic, a frighteningly good shot, drives a junk heap, doesn't like the government, and is so bored out of his skull that he will jump at any potential adventure.

[afacelesschampion]

STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI  + (letterboxd reviews)

[queen-breha-organa-archived-dea]

I’ll take whatever Matthew Stover was having when he wrote the Revenge of the Sith novelization-

“This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever: The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain. The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.”

“This was not Sith against Jedi. This was not light against dark or good against evil; it had nothing to do with duty or philosophy, religion or morals. It was Anakin against Obi-Wan. Personally. Just the two of them and the damage they had done to each other.”

“But even in the deepest night, there are some who dream of dawn.”

“In the end, the shadow is all you have left. Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself—And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.”

“This is Obi-Wan Kenobi: A phenomenal pilot who doesn’t like to fly. A devastating warrior who’d rather not fight. A negotiator without peer who frankly prefers to sit alone in a quiet cave and meditate.”

“Everything dies. In time, even stars burn out. This is why Jedi form no attachments: all things pass. To hold on to something—or someone—beyond its time is to set your selfish desires against the Force.”

“Obi-Wan looked down. It would be a mercy to kill him. He was not feeling merciful”

“This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.”

[pensandbirds]

Her Only Hope (2022)

“Almost home, Princess.”

…

I’m obsessed with the the flawlessness that is the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Seeing little Leia was SUCH a delightful shock and I can’t believe that kept that secret. And she is absolutely perfect. Uncle Obi-Wan keeping an eye out for these kiddos that he loves more than anything, the last remnants of his best friend, just melted my heart.

.

This is based on a photo from Star Wars Celebration 2022. It’s a bit quick and messy (I was enthusiastic over painstaking) but it turned out all right.