Stories and Pretty Things

Selkiessong on Ao3

[nesry-n]

Two major reasons Padmé died in PT -

She was already dead in OT and her character was yet to be conceptualized properly.

If she had lived, Anakin would not have remained Vader for long.

[scribeherself]

the absolute devastating intimacy of a forehead rest. when you are both just so tired from existing in a world that demands you to be a rigid, functional individual, and you finally collapse into each other and just lean your forehead against theirs, or against their shoulder. it’s the physical equivalent of dropping your shields. it’s saying i am entirely heavy right now, and i am trusting you to bear a piece of that weight. and the most beautiful part is that the other person doesn’t even flinch. they just adjust their stance, tuck you a little closer, and absorb the impact. we were designed to divide the burden of being alive.

[sweetoothgirl]

S’mores Chocolate Cake

[losthavenmine]

Eric Bana as Hector Troy (2004)

[ghost-mantis]

On this, the anniversary of the lunar landing, let us also celebrate the greatest post-mission achievement by a crewman.

I refer, of course, to the time Buzz Aldrin (age 72 at the time) cold-cocked a moon landing conspiracy theorist straight in his smug face after being accused of being a coward, liar, and thief.

Yes, someone was indeed dumb enough to tell a man so unafraid of death that he was willing to go into the void on a fragile explosive rocket, a coward.

Said dumbass was filming this confrontation as some sort of proof of moon fraud, but has instead captured this glorious moment of near-cosmic justice for us to loop for all time.

Aldrin was not charged with any crime. He should have been given another medal for public service.

[favfemfits]

Wedding Dress

Padmé Amidala — Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

THE wedding dress of all time. So so unbelievably stunning! They nailed this. She looks like a dream.

[selkiesstories]

Emily Zanotti

@bleedingcoffee42

[selkiesstories]

[gemsofgreece]

Homer: *writes a story about a man and his crew trying to return home after war*

Homer: *adds a noble, loyal, romantic, motherly, just, dignified, ingenious female character named Penelope*

Homer: *adds a wise, sharp, supportive, decisive, divine female character named Athena*

Homer: *adds a treacherous, powerful, magical, seductive, grey, divine female character named Circe*

Homer: *adds a lustful, obsessive, selfish, toxic, abusive female character named Calypso*

Homer: *adds a heartbroken, soft, sensitive, affectionate motherly female character named Anticlea*

Homer: *adds a stunning, highly perceptive, slightly bossy, somewhat shady, ambiguous, regal female character named Helen*

Homer: *adds a merciful, helpful, decisive for the protagonist’s survival divine female character named Leucothea / Ino*

Homer: *adds a youthful, vibrant, brave, playful, slightly lazy, wise beyond her years female character named Nausicaa*

Homer: *adds a wise, respectable, intelligent, regal, empowered, feminist female character named Arete*

Homer: *adds a flawed, disloyal, treacherous, disrespectful, corrupted, opportunistic female character named Melantho*

Homer: *adds an elderly, motherly, loving, confidant, loyal female character named Eurycleia*

Homer: *dies about 2,800 years ago*

Lupita Nyong’o, 2026: tHiS maN nEeDs to bE caLLeD oUT fOr hIs mIsOgYNY cOs hE fOrgOt wOmEn exISt wHiLe I tAkE milLiOnS prOfiTing fRoM hiS wOrK aNd cUltUrE

megaminds that look up to hypocritical Hollywood vultures: YAAAAAS Queen say it louder for the people in the back!!!!

[aborted-your-virtus]

As someone who aspires to be a Homeric scholar one day, her interview was so upsetting and clearly brain dead. It just shows how the actors and probably Nolan himself know and respect NOTHING about the epic, the culture it portrayed and was written in and how it even came to be written. We don’t even know if Homer existed as the Odyssey came from an epic oral tradition built on formulas and the human imagination and then it was written down and attributed to Homer (he could’ve been the first to record it) but Homer means so much to scholars both ancient and modern because he is the name we attribute to the epics we love so much. The Iliad and the Odyssey are timeless for a reason in the way that they explore not only the experiences of a culture, which allows us to learn more about it thousands of years later, but of humanity itself. The poems are so human: the way that the characters are portrayed experiencing emotions and hardship, Penelope weeping into the night for her beloved husband; Odysseus falling asleep after staying awake for days; Achilles’ grief and anger over the death of the man he loved; Helen seeking respite of grief through drugs; and so much more, especially in the anthropomorphism of the gods themselves. Also there is so much beauty in the revelation of the culture that we can see within the poem in the aetiologies and the agricultural and natural similes that provide a window into the world of the audience of the time.

But of course in our stupid, media-driven, capitalist, raping of ancient culture and works of the past for money society, none of that matters. Lupita attempts to make a point about sexism in an ancient patriarchal society in a way that makes my blood boil. It was a patriarchy thousands of years ago in a somewhat similar way to how it is now really (of course women do have more rights nowadays in some places more than others, but we have yet to achieve equality all around the globe) and she says, in a slightly jovial tone, that she would have confronted Homer about the lack of “screen time” his female characters have which is just insane. First of all, “screen time”, really? I suppose it kind of works in the cinematic context of talking about a movie and the way that the term can also be applied to other forms of media but the compound noun denotes just the appearance of women of which there is plenty and most certainly enough. In fact, the Odyssey has so many female characters that were considered to be well-written for the time that Samuel Butler in 1897 argued that the poet of the Odyssey must have been a poetess, namely Nausicaa, the young Phaeacian princess who clothes and aids Odysseus in supplicating her MOTHER, Queen Arête (an example of a WOMAN WHO HAS AUTHORITY) when he washes up on Scherie. But, of course, Hollywood wouldn’t know about that because it is so often cut from any adaptation of the poem as is the case in Nolan’s.

Furthermore, she goes on to say that Homer didn’t understand women as he wasn’t able to spend any time with them (going for a patriarchal “no bitches” dig at an ancient poet who might not have really existed while trying to make a feminist take, how awfully mature). As mentioned in my previous paragraph, the Odyssey has an array of female characters who I consider rather human. In an ancient oral tradition we might expect characters to be more similar to archetypes but they are not, they are complex. I think every character in the Odyssey has a layer of complexity to them in the stories surrounding them and the speculation that can be made, the epic focuses more on action and dialogue than thought, we see characterisation through their speeches. While we have no access to Penelope’s innermost thoughts, we can see her feelings and her cunning which suggest her strong desire to be reunited with Odysseus and her overcoming her lack of autonomy to save her household. Penelope is hidden from us deliberately, she is as mysterious and complex as her multifaceted, πολῠ́τροπος (many turned) husband, Odysseus. Her own epithet even mirrors πολῠ́τροπος, it is περῐ́φρων (thinking around) which in itself evokes a sense of turning. They are both on a journey to get back to one another: Odysseus navigating the seas and Penelope the household. We don’t know the true Odysseus, what we hear of his travels are from him himself and we don’t know the true Penelope as her thoughts are also hidden from us, as with all the characters which makes their actions more complex. Eumaeus the swineherd was once a prince who was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery, the poet addresses him directly when he speaks which might suggest that he could’ve been an actual person in the audience (the name at least) or simply a device to evoke pathos as the later Roman poet Vergil does with Dido and other characters in his epic, the Aeneid, to draw out a sense of their emotions. The technique demonstrates the multiple narrative levels of the poem which in its structure is also just as complex as its protagonists. A final point in terms of female “screen time” as I think this essay has been long enough and I could write about it all day, as a dear friend of mine said, there is a woman constantly omnipresent throughout the poem, and that is the muse who is evoked in the very first line.

[smoldragonborn]

“we need to stop the stigma towards drug users and addicts” and “we need to challenge the idea that being sober makes you boring” and “we need to stop acting like binge drinking to the extent you’re doing medical damage is fun and normal for young people” are all ideas that can and should coexist.

[fatfemmefreaquency]

just so we’re clear, the threshold for “binge drinking to the extent you’re doing medical damage” is waaaay lower than you think.

I work in an obstetrician and gynaecologist’s office. we have to tell patients on a regular basis that they are binge drinking weekly when they think they are simply consuming a normal amount of alcohol on the weekends.

having more than 3 drinks in a single sitting if you have an estrogen based endocrine system is a binge that is medically significant.

having more than 5 in a sitting is a medically significant binge for someone with a testosterone based endocrine system.

every time you do this, it significantly impacts your risk of getting breast cancer, and damages your liver. it takes time to recover from that liver damage. if you’re having a 3-5 or more drink binge on a weekly basis, you are an alcoholic, medically speaking, and your liver is not recovering.

again: the bar for what binge drinking is, medically, is so much lower than what you think it is.

alcohol is a really toxic substance and not something you should fuck around with.

again: if you have an estrogenized hormone system (common for most women), then 3 drinks is a binge. if you have a testosteronized hormone system (common for most men), then 5 drinks is a binge.

anything above that number, consumed as frequently as weekly or more, and you’re medically a binge drinking alcoholic.

also, if you’re drinking any quantity of alcohol 6 days a week or more, that’s another threshold at which, medically speaking, you meet the definition of alcoholism. your liver needs more days without alcohol in your system than just one a week to recover and be healthy.

I don’t say any of this to shame anyone—to me, alcoholism or substance use disorders aren’t a sign of weakness or moral failing. and most of us genuinely don’t know this stuff.

rather—I point this out because it’s important to reduce harm, and find ways to live healthier, happier lives. there is a life outside of constant binge drinking. it’s not always easy to find it. but it’s out there. you deserve a life where your emotional needs are met by something other than alcohol, and a life in which your liver is healthy, and the ways you cope and celebrate and find joy don’t put you at increased risk of cancer.

[qweerhet]

also–even if alcohol is the only way you can self-medicate, or if you choose to go on with your alcohol usage anyway regardless of other options–you still deserve to know what it’s doing to your body.

information is key. you don’t have to stop drinking, but the utter lack of education on alcohol + the normalization of binge drinking in current society leads to many people drinking without any idea of what it’s doing to their bodies.

addicts deserve accurate medical information regardless of what they decide to do with it. for some people, losing liver function is worth the benefits they get from binge drinking, but they can’t make that choice if they don’t know what the consequences are to begin with.

[jeanjauthor]

addicts deserve accurate medical information regardless of what they decide to do with it.

[underworld-melon]

Can someone tell me the definition of one drink in this context?

Because a vodka shot is not the same as (idk, some low alcohol percentage alcohol.)

So, what does 3 (or 5) drinks mean.

[theconcealedweapon]

0.6 ounces of alcohol is a standard drink. Examples include 12 ounces of 5% alcohol beer, or 1.5 ounces of 40% alcohol liquor.

[genderkoolaid]

if you are like me and numbers slide off your brain like water off a ducks back, you can use this Standard Drink Calculator to out how much you are drinking.

[frostedmagnolias]

Don Miguel of California Navy Silk & Blush Pink Tulle Ruffle Shelf-Bust Strapless Dress

1950s

Timeless Vixen

[selkiesstories]

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Oh, THERE'S the wildfire smoke.

[selkiesstories]

Life saving benefits of air conditioning!

[dagordagorath]

For death and glory. For Rohan. For your people.

[favfemfits]

Pleading Dress

Éowyn — The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Éowyn has the peak medieval fantasy wardrobe to me... Just look at this gownnnnnn

[herheartwasintherightplace]

“He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,—to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire.”  Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South.

[frostedmagnolias]

China Silk Evening Gown

c. 1912

Label: Blanche, NY

Augusta Auctions