Musings and Rants

Anything and everything that I feel like saying

[comradekatara]

the gaang + april fools

aang loves april fools. he is the king of april fools, and he loves to proclaim this as if it is an official title that he is very proud of earning, instead of a title he simply gave himself. sokka’s like, “so you might say…. you are The April Fool…..” but katara’s just like “are you calling aang a fool??? how dare you?!!?!?” and smacks him.

aang’s pranks are mostly harmless, but every year without fail sokka ends up getting soaked by water balloons. and instead of aang getting in trouble for launching a bunch of water balloons at him, it is sokka who gets in trouble for bringing an umbrella indoors. sokka’s ultimate prank in return is just implying to aang that he has a really good prank lined up, that he’ll never see coming, and then waiting as aang’s anxiety grows. the day passes and aang’s like “ha! I knew you didn’t have anything planned!” but sokka just smirks and says, “or maybe I just knew that pranking you on april first would be too obvious…. that said, maybe I have nothing planned….. or, then again, maybe you should sleep with one eye open……” and aang spends each april in a constant state of anxiety despite the fact that if he would just agree to stop throwing water balloons at sokka then he wouldn’t have to put up with this. but what would april fools be without water ballooning sokka? no, he simply couldn’t part with that age old tradition; it wouldn’t be right.

every march 31 zuko is like “please do not attempt to prank me I am very gullible and hate deception if you try to prank me it will not go well for any of us.” and well. he tried to warn them. but aang, king of april fools that he is, cannot help but say to zuko, “hey, did you hear that they successfully bred frogs with turtle shells? yeah they’re called frurtles, wanna see a pic?” and shows him a clearly photoshopped image. and then he’s like “APRIL FOOLS!!!” and zuko gets so outraged that he flips the table and storms off.

toph would never pass up an opportunity to prank katara, but because sokka refuses to involve himself in any of their petty squabbling, she has to enlist gran gran’s help. kanna, being an incurable prankster herself, helps toph fill katara’s old shampoo & conditioner bottles with mayonnaise. if katara notices that her hair smells terrible that day, she makes up for it by putting extra effort into her look instead. when toph’s like “hey guys, how‘s katara’s hair looking? greasy, stringy, a little sad?” aang’s like “luscious as usual!” and zuko’s like “no, it looks even better than usual. her hair looks amazing today.” turns out mayonnaise is actually good for hair. who knew?

suki loves to tease sokka that he would suck at pranking people because he’s too much of a square. so on april fools day, sokka makes some sufganiyot with toothpaste inside and gives them to suki. she eats the whole batch without blinking an eye. sokka’s horrified. he says, “suki…….. there’s toothpaste in there. I filled them with toothpaste………” and suki’s just like “oh, for real? dude, I am so stoned rn, I would literally eat anything. lmao”

katara, deciding to be helpful, gently informs mai that someone has taped a sign reading “kick me” to her back. mai’s like “yeah…..I know. I put it there.” katara is beyond confused. why would you do that to yourself??? two words: performance art.

azula kind of overshoots it when her idea for a prank is telling sokka that katara died. of course, she makes the lie seem really convincing, so sokka, who definitely has reason to doubt this claim, but is also constantly worrying that his biggest fear (which is well. that) could come true at any moment, simply cannot react any other way but to throw up all over her. I would like to say that azula learned a valuable lesson here, but I’m afraid I cannot.

ty lee is sitting around hanging out with her friends when she casually says, “oh yeah, so I bet you guys saw that mitski released a new album on bandcamp last night and didn’t promote it or anything. yeah, that was kinda crazy, right?” and mai and suki narrow their eyes and go “this is an april fools thing….. this is a prank….” but still have to check their phones to make sure, just in case. meanwhile zuko hears “mitski” and “new album” and goes “WHAT??? WHY DIDNT ANYONE TELL ME???” and when mai’s like “dude she’s pranking us. april fools day, remember?” zuko, with tears in his eyes, yells, “YOU DONT JUST LIE ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THAT, TY LEE. YOU FUCKING MONSTER!!!!!!!!!”

ultimately, sokka performs his prank on aang on april 25, by placing a whoopee cushion under his seat. aang goes to sokka later, evidence in hand, and asks, “that was it??? that was the whole prank????” sokka just shrugs. “eh, maybe. maybe not. I haven’t decided yet.” best to keep him on his toes. suki, upon witnessing aang’s paranoia (he begs her to reveal whether sokka has anything planned, and suki answers honestly that she has no idea what aang’s talking about, which makes aang assume that she’s somehow involved) is like “sokka I take it back. you are committing intense psychological warfare against this child without lifting a finger, and I fear you.”

[footsteps-on-the-dance-floor]

april fools day is actually the most sensible day of the year because it's the only day on which people will read something on the internet and stop for a second to consider whether or not it's actually true

[crownedwithstars]

I was thinking of Beren and Lúthien and how their story is so much more interesting than they get credit for. I mean, on the surface it reads like a fairy tale but it also elevates the rest of the story, it uses common fairy tale tropes but turns them upside down, and the way we see the heroine asserting her agency in this story is so fascinating. I think the story of Beren and Lúthien provides much needed contrast for the rest of the Silm, and both become more poignant because of this contrast. 

The familiar fairy tale goes like this: there's a a poor but resourceful peasant, set with a difficult task (which is in fact designed to be impossible to complete), but thanks to some magical help he is successful, retrieves treasure, and as a reward he wins the king's daughter and lives happily ever after as a prince, gaining all the earthly glory one can have in this life. But in the Tale of Beren and Lúthien, the hero is a traumatised outlaw, the king's daughter IS the magical help, she is an active and equal participant in the quest for her own hand in marriage, the treasure may actually be cursed, the hero and heroine die, and the ultimate reward is not a social rise from rags to riches. Beren does not become a member of the power-wielding elite of Doriath and he and Lúthien are not promised that their second life will be happy or long. But just that chance is worth it, and by choosing it they actually change the course of history. Lúthien is offered all the bliss that is possible to have in Arda, if she will give up Beren, but she decides that the love she has for him is still more valuable. And that idea, of loving someone so much that your love shifts the world, is so compelling to me. 

And I love that the story of Beren and Lúthien is also a rendition of Orpheus and Eurydice, and that just as the world was created in the Music of the Ainur, so is Lúthien's song powerful enough to change what those original notes dictated. She changes it with hope and a song. That is so simple and yet so beautiful, in the way some of the best myths are. (Insane that this is essentially a love-letter to Edith Tolkien.)

There is this fascinating contrast between Beren and Lúthien: at the time of their first meeting, Beren has lost literally everything and his family is either dead or lost beyond retrieval. Stumbling across Lúthien, he is fresh from terrible ordeals and suffering. But Lúthien's life has been full of happiness and without care, and she has lived in a literal fairy kingdom as the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar. She could have her pick of any prince of Eldar. But here she comes across this mortal, who has nothing to give except for his love and even that only for a brief time, and she is willing to risk all she has for it. The gall and courage it takes to take such a chance! She chooses this man and her choice changes everything. 

And that is brilliant! Because Lúthien starts with so little power and agency, and she is constantly belittled or even abused by those with more power around her. She is treated as a pawn, her will is undermined and she is coerced and imprisoned to make her compliant. But Lúthien shows her determination and courage in holding fast to her choice even when it's just her and Beren against the world. In the end, she wins agency and freedom to determine her own tale. In her beginning Lúthien is a maid dancing in the woods; by the end she will have faced Satan and death itself, and changed the world forever. Truly, to call her story "Release from Bondage" is more than appropriate. How insane is this all from Beren's point of view? He has lost everything, he is an outlaw, and has nowhere to go. What is left of his family is scattered who knows where. He has nothing but the clothes on his back and nothing to give. But here is this immortal princess, and she will go to hell and back with him! She will cross the Sundering Sea to bid him farewell! She pleads with inexorable death and for her, an exception is made!  It's so on brand for Tolkien that these two achieve with their love, and precisely because they act out of love, something that others with armies behind their backs can't even imagine doing.

Yeah. It's such a good, hopeful, bittersweet tale.

[helpmeimblorboing]

You know what ? The idea that Odysseus discovered his mother's death by finding her ghost in the Underworld gains a new, even more sad dimension if you assume that Epic follows the canon prescribed by some interpretations of the Odyssey, because according to some version of the story, she didn't just die of grief - she died by walking into the sea after seeing Aeolus' storms blow Odyseus' ships away from shore

Not only did Odysseus' crew get him lost at sea yet again, but they also killed his mom

[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

[ocqueen]

I WORK IN COSTUMES AND CAN TALK ABOUT THIS MORE SPECIFICALLY

It's not just that we're unionized, though that absolutely plays into the financial aspect of it to a degree. There is 100% not just an anti-labor and anti-artistic sentiment, but also just an overall shift from these productions being treated as less like storytelling and performance, like they were in the past, and more like corporate investments and business endeavors. Everything is bottom line vs potential profits, marketability, and modern trends, or what will trend on tiktok, and you have to design to that constantly.

It's also that filmmaking has developed the expectation of making movies on such a short production time that there's no time to MAKE amazing beautiful pieces like this. A good gown may take weeks or months to complete and many rounds of fittings and mockups, and might be very heavy or restrictive to actors and limit how long they can shoot in a given costume. From my experience, things are decided on one day and have to be ready to shoot in a few weeks, and that's only if the writers aren't constantly having to make last second changes because the directors and producers change their visions constantly on a dime, down to the very last minute, and there's nothing we can do as the costume team except make it happen or make a REALLY good case for why we can't just find some cheap option fast that would work instead. So you might spend thousands on that beautiful dress only for them to completely cut the scene, change the context entirely in rewrites, or just decide they don't like the dress and want something else.

And because directors and producers get last say, and often they have Bad Taste and want things that are modern and marketable, and often will think things look great that are actually pretty unfitting for the character or make no sense for the design of the film, they insist on bad choices that then get pushed through to the end result of the film. Actors do this too sometimes, like what happened with Emma Watson and Belle's dress in the live action Beauty and the Beast remake, but usually only the big name actors have enough star power to swing full changes like that.

And of course, yes, there's not enough budget for high quality work. Costumers, like everyone else on film sets right now, are expected to stretch the budgets they're given to 'make it work' because so many have (in order to make the producers happy and keep their jobs). And in return, quality goes down, because in order to build a costume you need good fabric, embellishments, and labor. Good fabric costs a lot of money, embellishments cost a lot of money, hand fitting and skilled labor cost a lot of money, and costume budgets are being given none of that because the studios are incredibly strict and frugal with what they expect you to spend so they can make the most profit off of a given project, so cuts to quality end up being made somewhere in order to make up the difference and get the actors clothed.

I've rambled enough, but basically, yes, unions, but also there's a lot of deeper layers that go into why these things have been declining that are all interconnected and related to the general commodification of art and framing of art as content to consume rather than stories to tell that's happened in the past ten years or so.

[marzipanandminutiae]

and it results in VERY VERY GOOD costumers being hampered

Rings of Power? that was Kate Hawley. who also did Crimson Peak (2015) and produced costumes like this:

so it's not always a skill issue, to be sure

[mygreatadventurehasbegun]

To continue with “it’s not always a skill issue”, Jenny Beavan designed the costumes both for Ever After and Cruella.

It just shows what a talented designer can do with time and resources (and no interfering from directors, producers or actors).

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

One thing that I didn’t appreciate about “Starship Troopers” as a kid was how they portrayed the battles. I thought it was just bad writing at the time. Now, I can see it for the brilliant satire that it is. You have this nation that is always projecting military strength and showing off their weaponry and soldiers. But then you watch the actual battle and the troops are:

1) ill-equipped to the point that it takes multiple soldiers to take down one bug since their rifles do little damage on their own

2) are in a battlefield without armored vehicles or air support

3) given no strategy besides shoot everything that isn’t human

4) gullible and consumed so much propaganda to the point that they legitimately believed the bugs were stupid and easy to destroy

5) developed an irrational, xenophobic hatred of all bugs because of the aforementioned propaganda

And instead of switching up the tactics, the Federation just keeps on sending meat wave after meat wave. The humans only “won” because they finally overwhelmed the bugs. Before then, they were getting slaughtered left and right. It’s like a dumb, Michael Bay sci-fi version of “All Quiet on the Western Front”.

[but-a-humble-goon]

"Starship Troopers is bad satire because the actors were too cartoonishly model gorgeous and it really makes me want to blindly like/agree with them." That is literally exactly why Paul Verhoeven cast them. Thank you for completely proving his point that you are not immune to propaganda.

[setheverman]

you: suck my dick me, an intellectual: inhale my richard

[setheverman]

here it is! the post that started a “me, an intellectual” hell frenzy, and is officially ⭐ the worst post of 2016 ⭐

[pointless-achievements]

Rare Achievement Unlocked:

Irrevocable Linguistic Harm

Create a memetic phrase that still sees use for almost a decade afterward

[appendingfic]

Instead of doing NanoWriMo I will be doing something where I try to aim for writing an actual average of 400 words a day for the month of November in memory of Terry Pratchett, who as far as I know never thought telling a computer to write a book for you is a good way to hone your skills as a writer.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

I LOVE THIS. THIS is the spirit of NaNoWriMo: to invent a challenge to make you write.

If I may add some ideas:

The 666 challenge: Writing six pages a day in a month (no matter how shitty) because Stephen King writes 6 pages a day. Equating it with the devil is to explain why it's shit sometimes.

The 420 challenge: Get high. Write 420 words a day.

THE OTHER 51 challenge: Write 51 words a day because, yes, Hamilton wrote 51 essays in six months, but that bitch was crazy, and you can write 51 words without feeling like you're running out of time.

The Fibonacci challenge: Try to write as many words a day as required to meet the Fibonacci sequence. So, 100 on day one. 200 on day two. 300 on day three. Etcetera. If you don't hit the number in the sequence, you can respond "DO I LOOK LIKE A MATHIMATICIAN TO YOU"

If you wanna NaNo your heart out at 1667 a day, absolutely do that. Enjoy it! But if start talking now if you're looking for a group who will join you and not try to fuck AI up its server-hole.

[dragonomatopoeia]

i'm always a bit unsettled by disdain for intellectual or creative labor in leftist spaces. there's this commonly held belief that academics are a bunch of rich old white men, rather than a wide variety of people who are barely getting by. most lecturers in universities are adjuncts living paycheck to paycheck. authors make very little money as a general rule. most researchers are overworked and underpaid. and yet there's still this idea that academics are overcompensated to sit around and smoke cigars together while making shit up

[tanadrin]

beavers are one of those things you just accept without question as soon as adults tell you about it as a kid and then many years later in your adulthood you look up one day and go wait, what do you mean there exists a species of rodent hydrological engineer that knows how to build properly ventilated freestanding houses for itself, that doesn't make any sense

[madeofjules]

I'll never agree with the short Peeta/tall Katniss takes because their canonical sizes are both narratively and thematically relevant.

Peeta's medium height and stocky build give him the size and strength to overpower most of his competitors in the arena, yet he rarely uses those traits to hurt people despite being in circumstances that encourage violence. Having the power and motive to be deadly and choosing to be kind instead is what defines Peeta's character.

Katniss's small size generally puts her at a disadvantage in the Games but she's still very deadly. I like that she's earned the skills (bow and arrow, hunting) and survivor mentality that make her a formidable tribute because she's not supposed to be this naturally gifted "chosen one" type figure. She's a regular teenage girl who has some special qualities but still needs a lot of help to win the Games.

Their size difference is also relevant in their relationship. Katniss has had to take care of herself since she was a young girl because of her mother's neglect, and as a result she doesn't trust other people to protect her. She's understandably mistrustful of Peeta's kindness when they become tributes, as one of them has to die for the other to live and he has the ability to kill her with his bare hands if he wants to (which we see later on when he's hijacked). Yet once they become allies, his larger size is no longer a potential threat but a source of comfort and protection; being held by him is the safest Katniss has felt with anyone since her parents held her as a little kid. And after they leave the arena, his strong arms are the only ones she trusts to guard her from her nightmares.

So even though I do think short guy-tall girl couples deserve more rep, it doesn't really make sense for Peeta and Katniss. And tbh viewing the gentle and compassionate boy as short and the tough hunter girl as tall is a little stereotypical lol.

[winterprince601]

the best thing about jon and sam's friendship is that aside from their core shared identity of being alienated within a classist patriarchal society, they have Nothing in common. sam spends the whole first jon chapter of acok nerding out over the sociopolitical signifance of a bunch of old maps and jon's response is "litcherally why does it matter as long as the rivers are in the same place, you sweet fool" they're like the medieval equivalent of nerd who likes lotr and jock who likes evanescence forming a deep affection on the basis of no one else understanding them.

[spiribia]

we do need to revisit the wording of "you can't have your cake and eat it too" because i don't think it clearly enough conveys that it's more that you can't simultaneously retain a cake and also get to consume it (which would render you cakeless). for years i was like But why not....it's my cake....?

[ferrettoy]

this fucking problem is how they caught the unabomber

[m0thmancore]

hey you should uh. elaborate. for my own personal satisfaction

[ferrettoy]

the unabomber was pedantic about idiomatic phrases like "have your cake and eat it too" and rephrased it to "eat your cake and have it too" (which to be very fair makes sense). fast forward to when he starts writing manifestos. he uses the phrase word for word in his pedantic style and his brother (who has been keeping his eyes on the unabomber shit for obvious reasons) notices the phrase and is like "oh fuck that's my fucking brother no one else fucking says that" and calls in an FBI tip

[madeofjules]

Katniss and Peeta at the beginning of Catching Fire are a divorced couple trying to remain amicable for the sake of their child (Haymitch), of whom they share joint custody

[syro-malabar-baby]

Father Brown S01E03, The Wrong Shape

[callmemanatee]

The way most autism literature describes "literal interpretation" is often not at all similar to how I experience it. Teenage me even thought I couldn't be autistic because I've always been able to learn metaphors easily.

In fact, I love wordplay of all kinds. Teenage me was fascinated to learn all the types of figurative language there are in poetry and literature.

But paperwork and questionnaires are hard, because there's so much they don't state clearly. Or they don't leave room for enough nuance.

"List all the jobs you've had, with start and end dates." What if I don't remember the exact day or month? Is the year enough?

"Have you been suffering from blurred vision?" Well, if I take off my glasses the whole world is blurred, but I'm fairly sure that's not what the intake form at the optometrist is asking.

Or the infamous (and infuriatingly stereotypical) "Would you rather go to a library or a party?" What sort of party? Where? Who's there? I work at a library. Am I currently at the library for work or pleasure? Does it have a good collection?

It's not common figures of speech that confound me. It's ambiguity, in situations that aren't supposed to be ambiguous.