Starshine1118

Hi! You can call me Star! I’m bisexual & use she/they pronouns (:

[anthonyjanthonycrowlee]

just rewatched Goncharov (1973) and saw something that a friend had pointed out. Every time a character dies, important or not, there is a clock in the background on exactly 12. Sometimes midnight, sometimes midday. Always 12. I love the symbolism sm!!

[maimonideznuts]

I know there are bigger problems, but I fucking hate the appropriation of the word "golem".

Just say "elemental construct" or something.

I don't think there's an argument here, it's a Jewish culture term... Invent your own terms and leave ours alone.

[maimonideznuts]

Flesh golem? That's a homunculus.

Magic caster created golem? That's a magical construct.

Naturally occurring golem? That's an elemental.

-

A setting without Jews by definition cannot have golems.

Only a Rabbi can create a golem.

[maimonideznuts]

I am also bothered by the liberal use of the Eyn Sof in Fantasy media, especially animation. Full Metal Alchemist, The Owl House, Black Clover... I've even seen it used on the packaging for a vibrator/dildo.

It's not just Jewish, it's Kabbalah, a restricted practice even within Judaism and it has a cameo in an Owl House magic school classroom and on the package of a vibrator?

[queermystic]

Its always been truly strange to me that the only two instances I can remember of Actual Golems in popular media, with Jewish characters involved in the plot and and a some what legitimate explanation of what Golems actually are and that they're Jewish in Origin was......

Supernatural and The Simpsons.

[pleasestopthese]

there was also the dc comics miniseries the monolith

[maimonideznuts]

I'm not familiar, but the synopsis on Wikipedia looks interesting.

In the present the reader is introduced to Alice Cohen as she receives her inheritance from her recently deceased grandmother. This inheritance consists of a lone house in an area of Brooklyn where all the other buildings have been torn down. One of the first things that Alice discovers is a walled off section in the basement from which a voice calls to her to read stories. Alice's first choice for this is her grandmother's diary.

^ small excerpt

[sunspotpony]

I would like to continue to propose Lārem. In Latin, a Lār is a protective spirit of a place. So it’s got historical/linguistic roots and isn’t made-up wholecloth. It ties a thing to a space and has the exact same number of syllables, and at worst most folks will go “oh you’re just being unique and calling it something Fancy for your setting, just like how every fantasy story competes to come up with wild spellings for Mahgick.”

It just fucking fits. It’s so easy. I’m not remotely Jewish by any definition of the word, so I cannot speak for anybody, but instead I offer you this very practical taken on “golem.”

Let’s say you hear conflicting takes by Jewish folk on whether or not you can use “golem.” Some say you can, some say you can’t.

Rather than making it a moral matter — consider, some folks asked you not to and said it sucks, and you know they’ve got a fair argument even if you don’t agree with it. Since it’s so easy to not do, why not just, not be a dick?

If you want to look at it not as a moral matter, but look in purely practical terms, by refusing the request to call it anything else, it’s bein’ a bit of a dick.

So use mine. Call them Stone Lārems and everyone will understand immediately.

[flightyquinn]

You know what? No. Just this once, I'm not going to be respectful of other people's beliefs.

Not because I have anything against Judaism in particular.

Not because I'm particularly attached to "golem" as a term.

No, it's because this is a stupid hill to die on.

Fantasy steals. It appropriates. It uses familiar terms so that people don't have to check a glossary to keep track of a bunch of terms that they won't remember because every piece of media out there is suddenly making up their own words for shit. And you know what? Fantasy steals from everyone, without prejudice. The only qualifier is that the word be well enough known that people will know what you're talking about.

So, if anything, having your word used as a general fantasy term means that your myth was considered recognizable enough to be used for clarity.

If you still want to be offended? Go ahead. Be offended. That's your right. But you'll be neither the first nor the last to find a fantasy work sacrilegious. You aren't special. Get in the fucking melting pot.

[jadwigaspeaks]

"Cultural appropriation in the genre is fine because the genre often has cultural appropriation in it" is not the winning argument you think it is

And if you see someone from a minority group that has experienced literal millennia of attempts at forced assimilation criticise an example of cultural appropriation, and respond with "get in the fucking melting pot"... well, forgive me if I'm skeptical of your claim to not have "anything against Judaism in particular"

[jadwigaspeaks]

Actually, you know what? One more thing to point out about that response:

"you'll be neither the first nor the last to find a fantasy work sacrilegious."

^ This reads like an implicit comparison to stuff like Christian fundamentalists calling for a fantasy book to be banned because it depicts the use of magic or has a demon in it or whatever. And if that is the intent then it's an insidious fucking comparison because again, this is a response to a member of a marginalized ethnoreligious group (yes, Jewish people are marginalized) pointing out that a thing that fantasy works frequently use is actually very specific to their culture and the way fantasy uses it is both inaccurate and appropriative

[indecisiveavocado]

There are ton of really fucking cool mythological elements that I'd love to use in my stories! But I frequently don't, because they're from (say) Aboriginal Australian groups, and those aren't my fucking myths!

I see it as potentially one-directional. It's okay if it's a marginalized culture using myths and folklore from the marginalizing cultures -- you wanted me to assimilate, buddy! But the other way is just ... no.

It's not that I think it's sacrilegious, I think it's cultural appropriation! Those are different!

The golem in particular is deeply rooted in Jewish persecution and fantasies of escape from that, and erasing that context and making it into some vague Thing is...not cool. The golem is fundamentally a Jewish fantasy that Jews told about people hating Jews. You cannot remove it from this context. There are no golems without Jews. Not fantasy knockoff Jews, but Jews.

You don't get to steal our legends about some mythical creature protecting us from your ancestors. That's not sacrilegious -- that's just unethical and bad.

[pagecommando]

People don't actually WANT Jews in the 'melting pot' nor do they actually believe in the melting pot. They want what Jews create and build but the only "melting pot" they really want Jews to get into is a crematorium after they take everything we made that they like, because they are entitled to it by virtue of THEM being human and us being... Not/and/or directly comparable to christian hegemony. Exotic enough to fetishize, then inhuman enough to throw on the garbage heap of history and then fear like a boogeyman after not all of us die. It's deeply ironic that 10 years ago people pretended to care about Golems in D&D and Goblins in harry potter being antisemetic while remaining silent about the venomous rising Jew-Hate in progressive and also fandom spaces as they expanded along the fandom-cult model. Now they don't even have to pretend about their hobbies with Jews! It's THEIR colonized space! They Took These Things. It's theirs.

Now get in the melting pot so a nerd-game that took off mainstream in the last 10 years because it got played like a radio/tv show can still use the Jew Word. How DARE you ask me to do introspection. Introspection is for humans.

[indecisiveavocado]

you know what we didn't coin "melting pot" but since it was Israel Zangwill (who, you'll be absolutely shocked to hear, was Jewish) I'm taking that back too. you get to use it when you stop being appropriative.

[clayandsorcery]

@flightyquinn your argument about clarity is wrong given how often non-Jewish story tellers use “golems” as henchmen and villains and enemies to be destroyed.

That’s the opposite of a golem. In fact, if you read a story about the Golem of Prague where the Golem goes mad and kills too many people leading to its unmaking - that’s a Christian telling of the Golem story (“those crafty jooos protected themselves too much!” -Christians, probably)

Golems are protectors, exclusively.

So when people outside of our story telling traditions say “hey, we’re going to water your stuff down, for clarity” that sounds asinine to us.

[indecisiveavocado]

"hey actually your protectors are threatening to us" yeah don't try to kill us and they won't hurt you. have you considered not killing jews. are we really so fun to kill?

[hachama]

Golems are protector creatures whose primary characteristics are not speaking, being extremely literal about everything, and being very large. If you're treating them as a monster of the week combat, you're telling on yourself. You see the security system as an enemy. At best, you're casting yourself as the thief. At worst, as a murderer.

The Jewish quarter is not a villain's stronghold or an abandoned dungeon.

[prismatic-bell]

I have seen exactly one goyische depiction of golems that I respect, and it is because the author very clearly did his research and approached them with care and respect.

It should surprise nobody that said author was Terry "people as things, that's where it starts" Pratchett.

In the first of his golem stories, Feet of Clay, we see a golem named Dorfl (interesting how that's not a real name but does look so similar to Yiddish) go "no, actually, I will not be your mindless slave, I have my own thoughts and feelings thank you" and then like...basically brute-force his way into freedom.

Oh look--it's Jews.

Later we see various factions in Ankh-Morpork arguing over golems--should they have full rights? No rights? Some rights? Are they people?

Oh look--it's Jews.

The denouement is in Making Money, when Moist Von Lipwig's girlfriend Adora Belle "Spike" Dearheart makes contact with what she believes to be ancient golden golems, only to discover the sacred text she translated included a word that can be translated as either "gold" or "thousands." These golems turn up in Ankh-Morpork, still following their ancient "defend" command. Neighboring cities get very upset about Ankh-Morpork harboring Je--I mean, ancient golems. In fact, in spite of the fact that the golems are just sitting there being a defensive wall and minding their own business, other cities are declaring them an act of war. (Gee, where have I heard this before?)

And so Moist (funny how much that sounds like "Moshe," isn't it?) figures out the ritual of the ancient priests who made them and commands them to go to a land of their own, underground.

OH LOOK--

There are no actual Jews in Discworld, which is (imo) fine because it is a flat world on the back of four elephants riding on a giant turtle through space and there aren't any people from any other actual religions either.

Except there kind of are Jews. They're golems, and their entire storyline mirrors actual real-world Jewish oppression and problems, right down to a neat little twist where Moist declares that the Ankh-Morpork dollar will be based on a golem standard instead of a gold standard because [okay his explanation is actually kind of word salad but it's pretty clear the intention is "labor is worth more than a chunk of random metal"]. Why is that cool? Because it turns the "Jews are greedy bankers" stereotype on its head. The golems Moist is basing this on are the original golems, the ones whose entire job is "protect." They get no benefit from the dollar. They don't know what a dollar is. They speak an extinct language known only to scholars (oh so you mean like Aramaic, an ancient language of the--). They literally could not care less about the Ankh-Morpork economy. They exist outside of it. And yet, the whole thing is made to rest on them--much as Jews became bankers and tax collectors centuries ago because they got no benefit from the king, but had to do his bidding or risk pogroms and death. Which is what these golems were facing.

Pterry used a Jewish creature to tell a Jewish story--not as set dressing. And he very clearly understood what he was doing and did it with respect--not perfectly, but pretty damn solidly.

Until you can pull that off, you can't have golems.

[esoteric-goblin]

i'd also like to note that people who are arguing about appropriation within fantasy are somewhat missing the point. yes, fantasy creators appropriate liberally and often and this should be approached with a critical lens, but the scope of the issue is much broader, especially in regards to jewish concepts;

when fantasy authors look to real world (western) occult/esoteric/magical ideas, they are overwhelmingly going to find appropriated and distorted jewish ideas. from its foundations in antiquity, the major streams of western esoteric thought appropriate heavily from judaism, jewish mysticism, and (once it was established as a distinct practise in later centuries) kabbalah.

perhaps there could be room for some discussion of syncretism when you consider ancient philosophers and esotericists held jewish mystics in some kind of esteem as men of wisdom and education, but that argument kinda falls apart because

i) jewish orthopraxy (i.e. the tangible practise of a religion) has always placed a strong emphasis on confining certain behaviours to their appropriate sacred contexts (time/space/situation) and to pull pieces of that out of those practises is, at best, incorrect and disrespectful

ii) jewish mysticism and kabbalah require extensive grounding in jewish theology which is achieved by rabbinical study, which i know these western esotericists were/are not doing. if you are not going through the proper channels, it's not kabbalah, it's appropriation

iii) the same people who appropriate jewish ideas or perpetuate appropriated ideas are functioning within societies that disdain and oppress jews. it isn't cultures coming together, it's appropriation

i often have to remind myself that most people are unaware of how deep the history of antisemitism and appropriation of judaism goes. the roots are as old as judaism itself, and maybe older if you want to quibble about terminology. (e.g. at what point can the ancient canaanite followers of yhwh be considered jews? food for academic discussion)

this is a problem within the modern fantasy genre, yes. its a problem in historical and ancient fantasy as well. more than that, though, it's a centuries-old problem in global society. *that* is why this is so upsetting, and cannot be handwaved away as "part of the genre"

[brazenautomaton]

"I know that fantasy authors reference other cultures all the time, but it's different with mine, because <list if reasons that don't make it different>." You might as well try to claim that because society doesn't respect or know enough about the traditions that resulted in the creation of the bagel, eating bagels is actually antisemitism and theft.

Nobody else gets to copyright cultural exchange and you also do not get to. Nobody else gets to claim their own beliefs are too complicated and sacred for outsiders to understand and you also do not get to. The concept of "cultural appropriation" is wrong and incoherent all of the time which means it is still wrong and incoherent when applied to you. There is literally no amount of "but it's different this time because I think you don't know enough about my specific culture to refer to ideas from it" that makes it different because there is so such thing. The people who created the concept of "cultural appropriation" were insane racists and the framework is still an insane racist framework when you try to claim it is different for you.

[shieldfoss]

Jesus Christ where do you find these people.

[barryogg]

I'm getting incredible second hand embarrassment from the fact that one person in the reblog chain is Polish, at least nominally.

Anyway, to everyone in this trainwreck of a thread except BA and Foss:

"Cultural appropriation" is fake, and you have to be truly fucked in the head by modern copyright law to think otherwise. There's no defence of your stance that doesn't collapse up its ass into Blut unt Boden nationalism under the slightest scrutiny.

[shofarsogood]

Oh wow, a POLISH person, not respecting Jews? Wow! What will happen next!? Will the sun rise tomorrow???

Of course you think it's fine to steal Jewish culture, @barryogg, your country denies it had an active and willing role in the Holocaust! Your country wouldn't let Jews return to their own homes, and even killed them for attempting to get their own things back. Poland pays no compensation to the people it put in camps. And before you claim that was the Nazis: Poles willingly told the Nazis where to find Jews and promptly stole the Jews' belongings. Your country lost 99% of its Jews over the last century, because Poland is so antisemitic that Jewish Poles are fleeing even now.

You won't believe in cultural appropriation because your culture is built on imperialism and thinks everything should be theirs. The idea of "no, this is a closed practice" is so foreign, you have to pretend that it's a Nazi idea. Because comparing Jews to Nazis is never antisemitic, nooooo. (I'm being sarcastic. It always is and you know that.)

If Russia took over your country, again, and declared that every Polish writer, poet, historical figure, and musician was ACTUALLY RUSSIAN, you'd be pissed. But you can't imagine that your people do that to Jews every day.

[knoxious-overstreet]

every year on neil’s death anniversary, todd goes to watch a performance a midsummer night’s dream in theatres. it doesn’t matter to him if the nearest theatre producing the play is six hours away because he’d damn himself to hell for not going, even if it was just for one year.

todd would carry the screenplay wherever he went, highlighting every single one of puck’s lines—neil’s lines. he memorized each word, mouthing them in silence, while the actor on stage recites them aloud. even with each passing year, todd can still remember how the words sounded rolling off of neil’s tongue, his voice filled with passion as he broke free from his chains for the time in his seventeen years of life.

sometimes during the performance, todd closes his eyes while puck is speaking and imagines that it is neil acting up on stage. he replaces the actor’s voice with neil’s and pretends for a moment or two that he’s watching the love of his life inhabit the role once more. it always hurts todd a little when he has to bring himself back to reality, opening his eyes again only to find that puck’s face isn’t neil’s, but another person’s—a stranger.

once, while scanning the audience, todd found charlie sitting a few rows ahead of him. they both had spotted each other at the same time, and todd could’ve sworn that charlie had a few unshed tears in his eyes, threatening to spill as puck’s character came on stage. they both stared at each other with a mixture of comfort and mutual understanding, as they both realized that they came to that theatre for the same reason.

after todd’s encounter with charlie, the two always reserve a date on their calendars around neil’s death anniversary to honor their beloved friend together by seeing the only play that he’s ever gotten the chance to act in.

[coline7373]

@jedijune

week 1: a choice not taken

I nearly died making this. My ambition got waaaaay ahead of me, but the moment I saw the prompt list, this is exactly what I wanted to do and @amarcia emboldened me with her amazing art and comics.

Whenever Jedi June is around the corner, I think of her because there is no one on Tumblr who draws Jedi like her, not only in terms of favorite subjects but also in terms of philosophy. The Jedi, loved and respected, represented as they were meant to be.

Jedi, jedi june and amarcia are entwinned in my mind so I always try to... kind of... try to channel the vibes and the style, as a token of my respect and love of all three.

I hope I get somewhat close with this. I'm wiped out so I don't have much more in me.

If you like this, I cannot recommend you enough to go stroll the archives of the accounts @jedijune and @amarcia. Beautiful, amazing art awaits you out there.

Thanks to everyone who is contributing to the event, especially the mods. 💖

[beardedmrbean]

[the-silent-planet]

Just a fan of thermodynamics

[gerrykeay]

[image ID: A reddit post from User ChalkButter: “Booker loves staring at ice cubes. He doesn’t lick them or touch them; he just stares and purrs.” Attached is a photo of a golden cat sitting in a loaf position, staring down at an ice cube on the ground in front of him. /end ID]

[anonymous-dentist]

I'm hoping for some variety of streamer styles on LS8 (I need Lexie Marie in more things)

I’m hoping for more variety in streamers themselves instead of a bunch of 5’10 white boys with brain hair who all somehow look exactly like pentar

[starshine1118]

I feel like now is a good time to say that the first time I saw a photo of Pentar I thought I was looking at a slightly younger photo of Foolish

[timmydraker]

Every now and again, Tim breaks things.

Not as in he accidentally snaps a pencil or messes up when fixing a grapple, though that does happen, when Tim breaks things on purpose it’s… a lot.

It started when he was a kid the first time his parents canceled his birthday after an opportunity came up in Dubai and they wanted to stay longer. Tim was seven and at that point his birthday was the only day in the whole year that he could be sure they would be home.

At first he stood in his room two days before his birthday with silent tears as he processed what he had just heard told via a short phone call.

Then he just… lashed out.

Tim banged on his door and screamed like a banshee before ripping hooks of his shelf and throwing them at the walls and leaving dents. He yanked on his closet door till it creaked and broke one hinge and then took a pencil and stabbed it into his pillow.

He cried himself to sleep and upon waking up to his nanny arriving in the afternoon he panicked and quickly cleaned up the mess he had made.

Tim was ahed of himself for getting so emotional and making a mess, feeling like the child he was but more importantly he felt so very out of control.

He ignored the part of him that felt better after causing a little chaos and putting his anger outwards. A relief and high of a sort when he gave into an anger he hadn’t really felt before.

So, after that he decided that if he was really, really, really upset and he couldn’t get his blood to stop pumping so quickly, couldn’t get rid of that overpowering urge to hit and thrash and throw, he could do so as long as no one saw.

It happens again when Jason dies and Thai tiem he throws his camera out the window, which then makes him sob as he still had photos of his beloved Robin inside and also panic because how the hell was he supposed to fix a window without his parents noticing?

He does it a few times when he’s training to be Robin, to the point he tries to use a punching bag but when he found that the lack of damage being done left him feeling worse, he may or may not have grabbed a Batternag and stabbed instead.

Tim did not do it when his mum died, nor when his father was almost taken off life support, because they wouldn’t like it and it was about them.

The bats don’t k ow about it, but his team does.

Greta had heard him have a rather rough conversation with Batman and when she went to check on him after he hung up, she saw as he opened his Bo staff and started whacking against the Titan Tower console, hitting over and over in dead quiet before activating the blade on the end and slicing through the biggest scream, causing half of it to fall off the wall.

She had gone to the others and Tim had been given no choice but to open up to his team.

It took him a while to admit that it helped a hell of a lot more to talk to them than to smash up multi-million dollar equipment.

Jason and Damian are the first of the bats to see it, though by then Cass was well aware of his habit as Tim could never lie to his sister.

He hadn’t had a moment like that for months, nearly a whole year, but then one night when Jason and Damian had needed to come by his Nest to get some backup toxin cure when Ivy was announced as escaped: he got a call that pissed him off.

One of the board members he had very clearly told Bruce he wasn’t willing to work with as the prudish man annoyed him, had been transferred to DI from WE because for some reason Bruce seemed to think Tim needed to work less and needed more help. Why that was in the form of a useless former CFO was beyond Tim, but it wasn’t abnormal for Bruce to make company decisions like he was operating with the Justice League and everyone had basic respect for each other-

During the call, Jason and Damian had been watching and observed as Tim grew more and more tensed as he spoke with Lucious, who was doing his best to calm the situation as he had witnessed the aftermath of one of Tim’s outburst within a week of knowing the young man.

Damian watched as Tim tells Lucious to call him back in a few hours so he can be more rational before handing up and very slowly placed his phone down on the desk.

Being an assassin, Damian is an expert of body language and had been working with Cass to become a master, but to see such anger on Tim was odd. Tim was a snappy and shouting kind of angry, but this quiet and shaking rage was something different.

“Drake-“

Tim holds a hand up and when Damian actually goes quiet, Jason knows something is up and moves to stand beside the youngest of them just one case.

“If you would please give me a moment.”

The two watch as Tim moves into another room, one that they knew to be a work room that Tim used when he built or repaired things.

He shuts the door and for a moment there’s nothing before the sounds of clanging, bashing and thudding starts to rattle the walls. They hear it all but see nothing, only having the sounds of Tim shouting out obscenities and metal hitting metal to go off.

Though it’s muffled they can hear some of what he’s saying like, ‘stupid fucking Bruce with his stupid fucking meddling’ and in a mocking voice: ‘“I act dumb so people don’t know I’m Batman”- ARE YOU SURE ITS AN ACT?!’.

Glass shattered as Tim said something about buying Bruce’s company just to fire him.

By the time it settles down they can hear his breathing through the walls.

A deep inhale sounds before something, maybe a desk, is righted upwards and Tim walks back out looking only mildly disheveled. “Sorry, needed a moment. What was it you needed?”

Damian, who was caught between defending his father and trying to get a peak into the thrashed room, wanted to insult Tim for his poor emotional regulation but got the feeling it wasn’t the time.

Jason seemed to agree and answered for them both, saying, “Just some toxin cures… Ivy for out.”

Tim inhaled deeply again, looking behind him and giving a blank look, “You’ll have to ask someone else.”

Damian raised an eyebrow, “why?”

Tim gestured to the room he had just exited, “I was reorganising.” A pause. “They were in there.”

Jason gave him a teasing smirk, “you broke them didn’t you?”

With a shrug, Tim adjusted his gloves and walked over to his desk, “It was that or Bruce’s face.”

[madamewalburga]

You ever just think about how Hera the Godess of Marriage hates every bastard Zeus has but wept for Jason Grace, the demigod that Zeus had with Beryl, the one who looked like her husband's mistress? Granted Jason Grace was offered to her, almost like a sacrifice, but she was a goddess. She could've killed that baby but she chose him as her hero, called him her Champion. She was consistently portrayed as a stuck-up, spiteful wife who hated everyone, but at the same time she was also the one who initiated the modern Greco-Romano union. The first Olympian who inititated countermeasures against Gaea in the Second Giant War. The Goddess who ultimately restored harmony within family.

[murkymarco]

Caught myself spiraling and then remembered it's just my body not wanting to exist in these temperatures

[redstonedust]

being too warm during the day: well, this sucks, but this temperature makes sense because the sun is up, and the sun is making me warm. i am unhappy but logically i can deal with it for now.

being too warm at night: what if i kill everybody.

[intactics]

"rickrolling is mean" rickrolling is the gentle, kind, prosocial descendant of what we used to do on the internet, which was putting a redirect to goatse in every possible misspelling of a url

[astercontrol]

Rickrolling is deceptive, but it's among the most harmless forms of deception available

in other words, it may tell a lie, but it will never tell a lie and hurt you

[dreadpirateroe]

"we need more complex female characters" you guys couldn't handle niki nihachu.

[emi-writings]

Absolutely annoys me sometimes that when I see fics featuring "the syndicate" I can't trust that Niki will be in it...

Worse, whenever I see people listing the Syndicate members, more often than not the order is: Techno, Phil, Ranboo and Niki...

Niki was the first pick for a Syndicate member.

When Techno and Phil founded the Syndicate, Techno went out of his way to specifically invite Niki first.

And they didn't recruit anyone else until after she accepted, even though it took a lot of time for her to accept.

I'm not saying that Ranboo or Connor wouldn't be Syndicate members if Niki never accepted (though exploring that concept as an AU could be cool) but she was the first pick! She was the first choice! She was the third member of the Syndicate.

So why is she often treated like the expendable member of the Syndicate?

[emi-writings]

More DSMP fans need to be obsessed with C!Niki because while her story wasn't handled perfectly, her character and story explores some really interesting themes.

The first thing she did after joining the server was declare loyalty to Wilbur and L'manburg. The second thing she did was befriend Eret when everyone told her not to trust them. She was the last one take off her L'manburg uniform, long after the founders had stopped wearing theirs.

She was the loudest voice of rebellion against Schlatt, the most violent protester against his reign. She was treated as nothing more than a minor annoyance for this rebellion.

She saw the tnt Wilbur had placed beneath L'manburg, she saw it and kept it quiet because she trusted and believed that Wilbur wouldn't use it without good reason. After he pressed that button, after he died, she went and found one of his old coats and wore it, despite the pain of betrayal.

Wilbur, Dream, Techno and Phil all tried to destroy L'manburg, but failed. They failed to stop people from fighting for L'manburg. Niki didn't. Niki, L'manburg's most loyal and devoted, killed L'mabburg when she burnt down the L'mantree. L'manburg didn't die until Niki declared it dead.

Ghostbur only showed up once for Niki, despite her being one of the few people he remembered, even after all that time.

"We've been overlooked for far too long."

She's been hurt, and her pain is silenced. When she was suffering for her defiance against Schlatt and Manberg, Pogtopia told her to wait, that they had no room for her. When Wilbur died, no one thought to comfort her for her grief, despite that he was the one she was loyal to, that she joined L'manburg for. No matter how loud she screamed and cried, no one heard her, no one cared.

It's about fire and rage and pain and healing. Her pain and suffering went ignored, and she needed at an outlet, a scapegoat. And she tried to do that, tried to hurt others the way she had been hurt, in a blind attempt to fix things in a messed up way.

Then she heals. She heals with those who she joined because of that anger and pain and wrath. She heals and finds peace and makes amends.

Niki's story isn't perfect, but it's so wonderfully complicated and full of beautiful contradictions. Loyalty and Defiance. Hope and Despair. Forgiveness and Revenge. Blind Faith and Paranoia.

I just think this fandom really sleeps on her a lot.

[happylandfill23]

i've had this garfield panel saved forever and i even marked in my calendar today as "the monday that wouldn't die" so uh. happy(?) monday the 22nd aka the monday that wouldn't die

[4ngel-v1rus]

SINCE WHEN DID ELVIS DEACTIVATE????

[starshine1118]

shoutout to The Force Awakens for actually being a decent movie in retrospect that did a good job of setting up something that could’ve been pretty good that didn’t end up happening

Think about it though - TFA set up Finn connecting Poe & Rey as a trio, I could imagine a scene where Finn convinces the stormtroopers to revolt against Plasma by giving a speech, Rey finding her own path as a Jedi without Luke, Snoke clearly supposed to being the final villain, Ben not getting a redemption story because he clearly wasn’t supposed to have one (otherwise what was the whole point of killing Han)

I also think that while The Force Awakens sets up several plot lines nicely, the problem is that it was meant for a different director to pick up but that new director didn’t know the plans of the first one and so he had to fill in the gaps. And the problem was expanded because, based on watching Knives Out & Glass Onion, Rian Johnson likes plot twists and subverting expectations (hence killing off Luke & Snoke, Kylo working with Rey, & the Holdo/Poe plot). And then JJ Abrams didn’t know what to do because due to those key characters being killed off (probably plus Carrie Fisher’s death) he was backed into a corner and panicked and brought Palpatine back. I feel like there are other villains who would’ve made sense for this, maybe rebels or clone wars like Ventress (who did have a redemption arc but under the right circumstances I feel like she could be the villain again) or Maul (I know he was killed off in Rebels but he is the King of coming back after being killed off)

Edit: I don’t think Rian Johnson is a bad director, I actually really like the Knives Out movies. The best way I can describe it is I think The Last Jedi works well as a sequel but not as a middle part of a trilogy