[ales-art]

Matured Fenris for Shadow Song. Scratched according to the customer’s lore. There is also a version with a background, but I like the gray squares %) 

[bobcat-pie]

You know what? peacock mantis shrimp but make it 1870s-1890s bustle fashion.

[mythofdevotion]

“In fairy tales, form is your function and function is your form. If you don’t spin the straw into gold or inherit the kingdom or devour all the oxen or find the flour or get the professorship, you drop out of the fairy tale, and fall over its edge into an endless, blank forest where there is no other function for you, no alternative career. The future for the sons who don’t inherit the kingdom is vanishment. What happens when your skills are no longer needed for the sake of the fairy tale? A great gust comes and carries you away. In fairy tales, the king is the king. If he dethrones, his bones clatter into a heap and vanish. Loosen the seams of the stepmother, and reach in. Nothing but stepmother inside. Even when the princess is cinders and ash, she is still entirely princess.”

— Sabrina Orah Mark, “Fuck the Bread. The Bread is Over.” in The Paris Review

[two-thirtyy]

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Look buddy, i’m just trying to make it to Friday.

[taykoutmccleod]

reblog if its friday and you made it

[nuggsmum]

[slithergaunt]

Ambition

A remake of my “a new look” comic from a few years ago. Part of a new series tentatively titled Eldritch Friends.

[withercrown-deactivated20251218]

Pro-tip for writing redemption arcs for villains:

Redemption is a change in values, not a change in personality.

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Mr. Gaiman, I'm reading the Good Omens book right now, and I'm at the part where it describes Crowleys flat as almost all white. How come you chose to make his flat black in the show?

(It's grey, not black.)

Because it's not 1989 any longer. In 1989, an all-white flat was the height of London chic. In 2019, a concrete neobrutalist flat was the height of London chic. Crowley's flat, unlike Aziraphale's bookshop, keeps up with the times, or more or less.

[theidlespoon]

the sexual tension between me and my empty word doc is unbelievable.

[dwellordream]

“Consider the Vikings. Popular feminist retellings like the History Channel’s fictional saga “Vikings” emphasize the role of women as warriors and chieftains. But they barely hint at how crucial women’s work was to the ships that carried these warriors to distant shores.

One of the central characters in “Vikings” is an ingenious shipbuilder. But his ships apparently get their sails off the rack. The fabric is just there, like the textiles we take for granted in our 21st-century lives. The women who prepared the wool, spun it into thread, wove the fabric and sewed the sails have vanished.

In reality, from start to finish, it took longer to make a Viking sail than to build a Viking ship. So precious was a sail that one of the Icelandic sagas records how a hero wept when his was stolen. Simply spinning wool into enough thread to weave a single sail required more than a year’s work, the equivalent of about 385 eight-hour days.

King Canute, who ruled a North Sea empire in the 11th century, had a fleet comprising about a million square meters of sailcloth. For the spinning alone, those sails represented the equivalent of 10,000 work years.”

“...Picturing historical women as producers requires a change of attitude. Even today, after decades of feminist influence, we too often assume that making important things is a male domain. Women stereotypically decorate and consume. They engage with people. They don’t manufacture essential goods.

Yet from the Renaissance until the 19th century, European art represented the idea of “industry” not with smokestacks but with spinning women. Everyone understood that their never-ending labor was essential. It took at least 20 spinners to keep a single loom supplied.

“The spinners never stand still for want of work; they always have it if they please; but weavers are sometimes idle for want of yarn,” the agronomist and travel writer Arthur Young, who toured northern England in 1768, wrote.

Shortly thereafter, the spinning machines of the Industrial Revolution liberated women from their spindles and distaffs, beginning the centuries-long process that raised even the world’s poorest people to living standards our ancestors could not have imagined.

But that “great enrichment” had an unfortunate side effect. Textile abundance erased our memories of women’s historic contributions to one of humanity’s most important endeavors. It turned industry into entertainment.

“In the West,” Dr. Harlow wrote, “the production of textiles has moved from being a fundamental, indeed essential, part of the industrial economy to a predominantly female craft activity.””

- Virginia Postrel, “Women and Men Are Like the Threads of a Woven Fabric.” in The New York Times

[prokopetz]

More favourite tropes:

A bureaucratic institution has established forms and procedures for an extraordinarily unlikely event

A character saves the day using a skill they have no excuse for knowing, which they claim to have learned through a mundane hobby or profession

Explaining something patently absurd in a very matter-of-fact way, particularly while referring to the person receiving the explanation as “sir”

A specific object or substance that’s needed to overcome a great danger proves to have been on hand all along in an unrecognised form

A janitor, plumber, or other tradesperson reveals that they’re already aware of some esoteric threat and have dealt with it before

An existential threat is accidentally averted in the course of dealing with an unrelated and much less serious problem

[moringmark]

[meridionalis]

the decrease in costuming quality over the last 20 years has been soooo precipitous & nauseating. i’m not even talking abt marvel’s cg supersuits or anything this time, look at the fabric quality, structure, layering, character, and craftsmanship of older costumes in 102 dalmations (2000) vs cruella (2021)

ever after (1998) vs cinderella (2021)

lord of the rings (2001-2003) vs the rings of power (2022)

this trend should upset you not just because it looks cheap, but because it suggests a strong anti-art and anti-labor movement in film and tv making. don’t forget costumers are unionized

[xenadd]

Ok, but what is happening here is not a degradation of skill. At all. The number of phenomenally talented and knowledgable Costumiers and maker working is astounding. The only thing more astounding is how little they are being properly utilised.

What is happening is a degradation of production schedules. Prep time is constantly being shrunk to the absolute bare minimum which limits design time, fitting time, r&d, sourcing (materials, hardware habdash, etc), making time (drafting, construction, embellishment, etc). Additionally budgets - despite the ridiculous sums of money being sunk - are becoming more shrunk, focused and scrutinised. That feeds back into the materials available (and a dependency on what IS available?, but also staffing levels - smaller workrooms, limited outsourcing etc etc. Schedules are not locked down at all. Ever. Even more so in these Covid times. Scripts aren’t locked down. Ever. Because productions never consider the wider logistics of outlying departments like costume, props etc.

Cast is increasingly last minute, w negotiations dragging out. This limits contact time for development and conception (actors must also be involved int he design process), fittings, etc. I did a job last year where - aside from our two leads - we had zero cast until the week we started shooting which meant we could only do extremely linited advance work plus we had a minuscule team despite being for a huge streaming platform with major stars. On another job we had three (3) days between a principle actor needing a visually iconic costume being cast and being ON CAMERA.

Additionally it is becoming increasingly common for actors to expect higher use of doubles - both stunt and picture doubles m. That means, simply, more costume as they all must have their own. Often in multiples. This with the commonality of stunts means that sometimes as much as 20+ repeats of element of a costume are needed, depending on necessity. That means fabrics are needed in huge quantities, and workrooms must effectively have factory productions. This paired with scheduling limitations above means more often than not we must use what we can get immediately. You know if you could have even a week to source something from, say, Italy, you can get something divine. But there just isn’t the time because you need 60m of specific fabric yesterday. There’s not time to get things made.

So the entire process is streamlined into what can be made in quantity and quickly. Everyone mourns what could be made if we only had the time, money and resources. Everyone know what we could be achieving, should be achieving and want to be achieving. But we just can’t because everything is about immediate, constantly shifting deadlines, high demands and logistics. It’s a nightmare, and we’re all very very tired. As with everything it’s all part of corporate greed. And I haven’t even gone into the twenty levels of executive meddling and the endless rounds of approvals (plus marketing and merchandising approvals etc etc etc it’s unending.)

I’ve been working in film costume for coming on 12 years (ugh), and it has gotten noticeably worse on all of these fronts in just the decade plus I’ve been around. Even in the last five years.

[yuki-chan23]

Which character did you view totally differently as a child vs. as an adult? - Eowyn

Eowyn

I’m talking about Book!Eowyn. This is important to remember because she’s so very different from Movie!Eowyn.

When I first read Lord of the Rings I was 11, which looking back was way too young to fully understand them. Rereading them when a was as a mature, wise eighteen-year-old (yes, that counts as an adult) I find myself looking at Eowyn differently.

As a kid, I felt like she was a good example of how to not write a female character. She was going to commit suicide just because a random guy didn’t like her, and she ends the story marrying a random dude and deciding to stay in the kitchen. Like a lot of people, I thought her entire character was pretty sexist. Of course, I loved Movie!Eowyn. She was my idea of a good female character: a spunky warrior who smashed the patriarchy.

Between 11 and 18 I’ve struggled with depression a lot. My experiences with that and other mental illnesses put Lord of the Rings in a completely different light. Its funny no one mentions exactly how much it’s about conquering depression. That’s practically the main theme of the book. Every character suffers from depression at one point, every character gives up all hope at least once, and it’s the constant, unseen enemy. The Nazguls personify despair, but we see less blatant examples too. Eowyn’s journey is possibly my favorite.

Eowyn’s situation when we first meet her is pretty terrible. Her cousin has recently died, her brother is banished and on a suicide mission, and there’s a creepy guy constantly trying to make moves on her. Her kingdom is about to be overrun and her people are being killed, and there’s nothing she can do about it. What’s worst, her uncle, who’s practically a father to her, is being manipulated and weakened. She watched him grow weaker every day and there’s no way she can help him. She’s royalty, born for greatness, but she’s stuck helplessly watching everything around her crumble and rot.

That sort of depression, the kind when you fear your own helplessness and inability more than anything when you are unable to fight back, doesn’t have a name. But those who have faced it know how draining and debilitating it is, especially when you feel that you have to stay strong for those around you.

Then Gandalf and co come in and save the day, Eowyn sees a way out. She sees Aragorn and becomes obsessed with him. Not because she’s actually in love with him, but because she sees him as a great king who will give her a chance to fight, a chance to be great, a chance of freedom.

But then he leaves on what seems like a suicide mission, and she knows her uncle and brother are on their way to a battle they probably won’t return from. She, however, is stuck once more, left behind to watch her world fall apart while she can do nothing.

Her soul has been worn away by the endless waiting. She has no hope left that the power of Mordor can be defeated because she has watched it invade her very home while she could do nothing. In many ways, she’s similar to Denethor, who was destroyed by doing nothing but watching the enemy creep closer. But Denethor’s paralysis was by choice. Eowyn has no choice, she rarely does. She has no control over anything. And the one person she thought could save her and her kingdom is leaving on what seems like a hopeless journey.

Eowyn is no longer afraid of dying. She’s reached rock bottom at this point. All she wants is a chance to make a difference, to make a choice for once in her life. So she disguises herself as a soldier and marches off to battle she doesn’t plan to come back from.

And of course, she takes Merry, who might not be as desperate but also feels pretty helpless.

We all know what happens next. That scene is so famous, it’s probably one of the best moments of the books. It’s way better in the book the movie: Eowyn laughs before her “I am no man,” line. But looking further into it the scene is about as heartbreaking as it is awesome. Eowyn’s laughing because at last, she’s doing something. At last, she’s able to at least try to make a choice. A choice at how she will die, heroically, defending her king and father-figure to the last. The Nazgul, whose weapon is soul-crushing despair, has no effect on her because she’s faced it day after day. And that despair had no face and no form and she couldn’t fight it. And now, finally, in her last moments, she has a chance to fight it.

And she does.

But instead of dying, she’s wounded, and yet when Aragorn heals her she finds that not much has changed. She still believes that their defeat at the hands of Mordor is inevitable, and she’s still determined to die in the best way she can. If she can’t control her life, she might as well control her death.

But she can’t even control that. Aragorn and the others insist that she stays behind to heal while they once again head off to a hopeless last stand. Yet again she’s trapped, helpless, waiting for Mordor to win and overrun everything.

She killed a Ringwraith, but nothing much changed.

Then she meets Faramir. He’s the first person she lets see her as anything but strong. She allows herself to cry before him, and later on, draws close to him when she thinks the armies of Mordor are coming. This is a sharp contrast to the way she treated Aragorn, constantly trying to prove her strength to him. She lets Faramir see her pain and her fear. Faramir knows quite a bit about despair himself, and he’s watched at least one loved one (his father) be destroyed by it already. He wants to save Eowyn from her own hopelessness. The two grow close, and Eowyn allows herself to melt a little.

Finally, after Mordor falls, Faramir asks her if she loves him, or Aragorn. Like many love triangles, this one is symbolic. Aragorn offered what she thought she needed: a chance to have control of her life, to be great queen, to have control over her world. But he was never going to love her back, and great deeds were never going to heal her.

Faramir offered a simple life. He wasn’t a king, her place as second in line to Rohan was much higher than his. But he loves her, and she loves him. He gave her a chance to be a healer, a mother, and a wife. She was never going to heal chasing the impossible, striving for a last heroic stand. She had to stop fighting and let herself heal.

Ironically enough, killing the personification of despair didn’t conquer Eowyn’s depression, finally accepting someone else’s love and letting herself a chance to heal did.

Eowyn’s story is not about a battle against evil hordes or even the patriarchy, but of a battle against depression. She is so much more than a spunky heroine or a tragic lover. Her character is complex and her despair feels very real because many of us have felt it.

Many people, including me at first, felt like Eowyn’s ending was sexist. But Tolkien never saw battle as heroic or good. We naturally see it sexist that our heroine retires to become a healer and wife because we’ve been taught that those things aren’t ‘heroic’ or ‘cool’. But Tolkien’s heroes rarely are skilled in battle, and over and over again we are given the message that true strength is not what it seems.

The great ones: Denethor, Boromir, Theoden, and Saruman are easily corrupted. The small, unimportant hobbits who like to cook and garden (fairly traditionally feminine activities) are the strongest of all. Even Aragorn is recognized as a king due to being a healer, not a warrior.

Eowyn’s story is another one in which Tolkien shows us that true strength isn’t killing a terrifying demon but letting yourself hope again.

[cipheramnesia]

Some days I just don't feel very eldritch.

[ms-demeanor]

You can't be eldritch all the time.

Some days the best you can manage is to be only unending.

Hell, some days the best you can manage is to just be creepy.

Even the most seething horrors from the void have off-days.

Take time to rest, recharge, and wallow in the unholy light beyond the edges of our vision. Don't bend over inside out and upside down and through hollow trees and noxious dreams to be on and on and on 100% of the time.

If you don't take a break, the universe will do it for you.

You can be non-euclidean later.

For now, take care of yourself and rest.

You will be revived when the world is ripe for it.

[endreal]

"I want to [footnote] you like an [annotation]"

- -Trent's PhD dissertation, probably

[saint-batrick]

y'all, i cannot express how much i love this gremlin.

[gothiccharmschool]

Oh my G-D.

I ugly-laughed at this so loud I woke the cats. This is perfect. 

[littlemissonewhoisall]

My ideal beginning to a Batman movie:

We start with a slow pan down to Gotham as Oracle narrates

“Ask your average person who Gotham’s most famous citizen is, and you’ll get the same response every time: Bruce Wayne. Everybody’s heard of Bruce Wayne. You’ve probably heard his name a million times before. But there are some things that the average citizen doesn’t know about him. See, to the people of Gotham, Bruce Wayne is a rich kid who never grew up. They think he’s a buffoon, an airhead, a moron. But the truth is…”

*Batman bursts out of a window, screaming, on fire*

*record scratch, freeze frame*

“…they aren’t entirely wrong about that.”

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

[experimental-sponge]

This is then followed by a series of clips from interviews with various Gotham citizens, all of whom give humorously ironic descriptions of Bruce Wayne’s idiocy:

“Bruce Wayne? I hear the guy gets through a super-car every month! Replaces every one, just like that!”

*Cut to shot of the Batmobile flipping end-over-end after slamming into one of Bane’s APCs*

[littlemissonewhoisall]

“Wayne? Please! The guy would probably have accidentally killed himself years ago if he didn’t have that butler to babysit him!” *Cut to Alfred physically restraining Bruce from going out to fight Scarecrow while having a broken arm, a concussion, and the flu,*

“I bet he throws away cash like it grows on trees!”

*Cut to Batman shouting “Hey, Lucius! Ask R&D to make some kryptonite/Nth metal alloy baterangs! Y’know, just in case!”

“I’m almost jealous. Super rich and he gets to hang out with gorgeous women across the world? Sign me up!”

*Cut to Bruce being slammed face first into a wall repeatedly by Lady Shiva.*

[forcearama]

I like how we all lost it over a disheveled old man who looks like he can't find his car

(Don't get me wrong I totally did too)

[forcearama]

(He's gonna dramatically drop that robe AND YOU ALL KNOW HE IS)

[forcearama]

...you guys are killing me and I am extremely fond of all of you: