The Fifth Elephant @the-fifth-elephant - Tumblr Blog

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The king had six daughters, and they were all quite rebellious.

But by the time the sixth daughter came of age, the king had a handle on it. The avenues for rebellion were all well-trod.

The sixth princess had watched her eldest sister break the bonds of arranged marriage, instead settling down with a stablehand she had grown to love. The next eldest had become a pirate, ranging the seas in a ship with a black flag, a loyal crew of women at her command, before eventually the king had relented and granted her a charter to operate as a privateer. The third daughter had become a scholar, breaking the kingdom's taboo against a woman learning, and founded a college that began attracting plenty of talent, both male and female. The fourth daughter became a swamp hag, and the fifth daughter became the captain of the royal guard.

All of which left the sixth daughter with nothing to rebel against.

"I'm going to travel the world," she said.

"Oh, that will be nice," said the king. "To travel the world is a wonderful thing, will you want accompaniment or will you go it alone?"

The sixth princess huffed and didn't continue the conversation.

"I'm going to capture and ride a unicorn," she said the next morning.

"That seems difficult," said the king. "Will you want training or equipment, perhaps some expertise from your sisters?"

"I want to do it alone," she said.

"I suppose that's fine," said the king.

And the princess did make some tentative plans to hunt down a unicorn and tame it. She read through some books and consulted the court huntress. But it stopped grabbing her, and she let the topic drop.

Finally one day she came to breakfast with her father, looking glum.

"What's wrong, sweet pea?" he asked.

"There is nothing to rebel against," she said. "There's nothing that I could say that would shock you."

"Isn't that a good thing?" asked the king. "Your sisters blazed trails. The kingdom has reached heights I couldn't have dreamed of when I took the crown. You have no duties but those you choose for yourself, you are not barred from any path."

The sixth princess frowned. "Can I say something, and have you not laugh?"

"Yes," said the king.

"I am a thunderstorm," said the princess. "And everyone has umbrellas and raincoats. I am a burning match with no tinder to catch on. I was to explode, only there's no direction to explode toward, nothing that I can do, that I would want to do, that you wouldn't simply say 'that's nice dear, how can I help' to. My sisters have taken all the good rebellions."

"Hrm," said the king. "You do know that your eldest sister rejected arranged marriage for good, principled reasons?"

The sixth princess folded her arms. "Yes."

"And your other sister," said the king. "She did not join a lesbian pirate polycule out of a desire to be contrary. She genuinely was a lesbian with a strong desire not to be confined to a single lover."

"I know," said the sixth princess. "But ... she was a little contrary, wasn't she?"

"I find it difficult to tell," said the king. "But I suspect that when you think your father is being a pig's ear, any contrary impulses are greatly magnified. But tell me, do you think I'm being a pig's ear?"

The sixth princess considered that. "No."

"Well, good," said her father. "Perhaps I've learned something over the course of raising your five sisters."

The princess sat with that for a while, stirring her porridge without eating it. "I suppose," she said finally, "that I wanted to be special. To do something that would make people remember me, the way they remember my sisters."

"Ah," said the king, and there was real understanding in his voice. "That's rather different from rebellion, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"Your sisters didn't do what they did to be remembered. They did what they did because they couldn't imagine doing anything else. Your eldest sister couldn't bear the thought of not marrying for love. Your second couldn't imagine a life lived on land, bound to convention. Your third couldn't stop asking questions, your fourth couldn't resist the call of wild magic, and your fifth… well, she just really liked hitting things with swords."

The princess couldn't help but laugh at that.

"The thing about rebellion," the king continued, "is that it's not about being contrary. It's about being true to yourself, even when the world tells you that you shouldn't be. So perhaps the question isn't what you can do that would shock me, but what you want to do that would make you happy, regardless of what anyone else thinks."

"I suppose that I wanted to be special," she said. "To have people remember me, to stand out."

"Ah," said the king. "That's rather different from rebellion, isn't it?"

"Is it?" The princess set her spoon down. "Bess didn't have to become a pirate. She could have just ... been gay. And she certainly didn't need to steal that first ship. Or paint it black. Or rename it 'The King's Folly'."

The king winced slightly. "I suppose there you have a point."

"And Danica," said the princess. "She told me she was incensed that you called bog magic 'unladylike'. There was definitely a lot of spite involved."

"Yes, well…" The king cleared his throat. "Perhaps I shouldn't have said that."

"My point is," said the princess, "that being contrary was part of it. Maybe even a big part. They wanted to do their own thing, yes, but they also wanted to… to…"

"Stick it to their old dad?" asked the king.

"Yes," nodded the princess. "But there's nothing to rebel against anymore."

"What do you want?" asked the king. "Do you know?"

"I want to not feel like this," sighed the princess. "I want to not feel like all the good stories are taken, like I'm not special, like I have no purpose."

"Alas," said the king. "I'm afraid that's something you'll have to work through on your own."

winged-light

"Well," said the vizier when she came to him with her problem. "Have you considered ruling well?"

She looked at him like he was crazy.

"You could agree to an arranged marriage to whoever would be most politically convenient," the vizier added. "Learn embroidery and dance and comportment and all the intricacies of court intrigue - all the things a princess is supposed to know. I'll teach you those skills, if you like. Use them to gather allies and information. Use that to improve the land for its people."

"That doesn't sound very rebellious," the princess said uncertainly. "Actually I'm pretty sure all that's the opposite of rebellious."

"Oh?" the vizier asked with a raised eyebrow. "So you're telling me it's the opposite of what you feel like you're supposed to want?"

The princess snorted in a slightly unprincesslike manner. "Nice wordplay, but you're not getting me with that. I don't think anything you say will convince me embroidery is rebellious, or that it helps... make the realm better for my subjects."

"Okay, so don't do embroidery. What about logistics? Learning the kingdom's shipping routes, how many tonnes of grain it takes to feed the city, how high the taxes on cheese or rubies need to be to fund the city watch. Teenage rebellion will be remembered for a few years, princess. A great queen who feeds her people and makes her kingdom great would be remembered for lifetimes. It would be difficult to feed all the hungry in your kingdom; it would take all your fire and thunderstorm, and then some."

"I'm not going to inherit," the princess hesitated. "I'm the sixth daughter."

"Do you really think your elder siblings want the throne?" the vizier said with a sudden, startled chuckle. "No. All the good stories might be taken, but very few of the great ones are. Great stories are very hard to tell, and very few people want to try."

The princess considered the challenge of trying to feed every hungry peasant in the kingdom. Then trying to keep peace on all her borders, offer justice to everyone wronged, educate the children of her realm, keep all their wells and rivers clean, treat every sick person... it was an impossible task. And if she failed in her rebellion against its impossibility, she wouldn't just be grounded or shouted at; it would be a price paid in lives.

A price, she realised, she was already paying every day.

"...okay, I'll give that a try," the princess answered. "But no arranged marriages. The political benefits aren't worth the hours of sleep I'd lose over it, and I'm going to need all the sleep I can get."

wizard-of-interesting-failure

"You will need knowledge, first and foremost," said the court wizard when she sought him out the next day, unsure of where to begin. "Of the challenges faced by the humblest of your people, and of the means by which they might be solved."

The princess opened her mouth to speak, but the wizard carried right on talking as he often did. "And strength of arms by land and sea, of course," he mused, stroking his voluminous beard, "for knowledge of the means is dust if they cannot be carried out."

The princess frowned as silence emanated from the ancient mage, opening her mouth only when she was sure he was done.

"Oh! And a touch of magic, naturally, always essential when attempting the impossible," he said with a playful wink. "I'm far too busy with my wizardly duties, of course, but I just so happen to know five people who might be able to help you out with all that..."

my-lover

truly nothing about house md prepares you for wilson. he's fucking insane. he's been divorced three times. he's the only person who can scheme just as well as house. he gives a patient his own liver bc he felt bad for him - a patient who didn't even know wilson's name. btw. he noticed a patient had depression bc he never mentioned his grandkids. he starred in a porno. he dosed house with antidepressants for several weeks. he allowed his boybestie and his gf to share custody of him and didn't even try to stop it. house told him to buy a piece of furniture that represented who he was, and he bought a $4000+ organ for house. he was gonna torpedo his career to talk abt euthanasia bc one of his patients suffered longer than he had to. he let house move into his 1 bed apartment bc his therapist thought it'd be a good idea. this man would do anything for anybody if they let him. he'd fucking quit his job to save a snail off the sidewalk. bro is not normal in the slightest

german-enthusiast

the beauty of compound words:

"Altes Huhn, das keine Eier mehr legen kann"

-> old chicken that cannot lay eggs anymore

"Eierlegende Eierlegende am Eierlegende"

-> Eierlegende - egglaying

-> Eier-Legende - egg legend

-> am Eier-leg-Ende - at the egg-laying-end

thatswhywelovegermany

ˈaɪ̯ɐˌleːɡəndə – egglaying

ˈaɪ̯ɐleˌɡɛndə – egg legend

ˈaɪ̯ɐleːɡˌʔɛndə – egg-laying-end

its-not-a-pen

first day as a small-town sherif and you discover that some of the convicts you're transporting managed to escape in the night and since the penalty for letting prisoners escape is death, and the penalty for being late because you were looking for escaped prisoners is also death, you decide to free ALL of them and go hide out in the wilderness for a bit, except the convicts are super grateful so they make you their leader and it turns out they're decent guys who were exploited by a tyrannical government, so long story short you're crowd-sourcing for a peasant uprising and would anyone like to chip in?

3650th day and due to a series of unforeseen events you are now the emperor and founder of the han dynasty.

actuallynotautomated

wait a second I just need to Google something...

...Huh

lalalaugenbrot

also i learnt this semester that in 1960 only 6% (!!!!) of german students/youths made their abitur so i would like every person who's parents or grandparents or even great-grandparents!! have abitur or went to university even to do a little reality check and understand that they're from a very privileged and not normal family because i hate the way people from academic backgrounds assume everyone around them has an academic family background too, because let me tell you that is just very unlikely!!!!

jurispotence

In the past fifty years, fantasy’s greatest sin might be its creation of a bland, invariant, faux-Medieval European backdrop. The problem isn’t that every fantasy novel is set in the same place: pick a given book, and it probably deviates somehow. The problem is that the texture of this place gets everywhere.

What’s texture, specifically? Exactly what Elliot says: material culture. Social space. The textiles people use, the jobs they perform, the crops they harvest, the seasons they expect, even the way they construct their names. Fantasy writing doesn’t usually care much about these details, because it doesn’t usually care much about the little people – laborers, full-time mothers, sharecroppers, so on. (The last two books of Earthsea represent LeGuin’s remarkable attack on this tendency in her own writing.) So the fantasy writer defaults – fills in the tough details with the easiest available solution, and moves back to the world-saving, vengeance-seeking, intrigue-knotting narrative. Availability heuristics kick in, and we get another world of feudal serfs hunting deer and eating grains, of Western name constructions and Western social assumptions. (Husband and wife is not the universal historical norm for family structure, for instance.)

Defaulting is the root of a great many evils. Defaulting happens when we don’t think too much about something we write – a character description, a gender dynamic, a textile on display, the weave of the rug. Absent much thought, automaticity, the brain’s subsconscious autopilot, invokes the easiest available prototype – in the case of a gender dynamic, dad will read the paper, and mom will cut the protagonist’s hair. Or, in the case of worldbuilding, we default to the bland fantasy backdrop we know, and thereby reinforce it. It’s not done out of malice, but it’s still done.

The only way to fight this is by thinking about the little stuff. So: I was quite wrong. You do need to worldbuild pretty hard. Worldbuild against the grain, and worldbuild to challenge. Think about the little stuff. You don’t need to position every rain shadow and align every tectonic plate before you start your short story. But you do need to build a base of historical information that disrupts and overturns your implicit assumptions about how societies ‘ordinarily’ work, what they ‘ordinarily’ eat, who they ‘ordinarily’ sleep with. Remember that your slice of life experience is deeply atypical and selective, filtered through a particular culture with particular norms. If you stick to your easy automatic tendencies, you’ll produce sexist, racist writing – because our culture still has sexist, racist tendencies, tendencies we internalize, tendencies we can now even measure and quantify in a laboratory. And you’ll produce narrow writing, writing that generalizes a particular historical moment, its flavors and tongues, to a fantasy world that should be much broader and more varied. Don’t assume that the world you see around you, its structures and systems, is inevitable.

We... need worldbuilding by Seth Dickinson

arguablysomaya

the genius of megamind (beyond the obvious genius ofc) is that it's superman parody actually presents a genuinely unsettling depiction of the "hero" that I like wayyy better than "what if superman was evil" or "what if superman was wrong"... it's "what if superman didn't care"

jessilynallendilla

I wouldn’t say he “didn’t care” more like he was burnt out

He played the role since he was a child and now is in his what 30s? 40s?

He knew there was never any real danger with Megamind in charge so decided to pursue something that’s a passion and doesn’t come naturally easy to him

but it was still a dick move

roughentumble

(via @uwugenides )

lydiathespiderqueen

One of the things that always jumped out to me about this reveal is that it implies that Metro Man was also the very first person to recognize that MegaMind wasn’t really evil. He knew his nemesis wouldn’t actually hurt anyone if he won, he knew that this universally reviled pariah never really had any more choice than he did.

The rest of Metro City treats MegaMind like a real, sincere, serious threat once he’s unopposed, and it takes them a while to learn otherwise. But Metro Man? He’s not surprised to see him and Roxanne working together, he doesn’t act like there’s any kind of threat beyond his cover being blown. He wastes no time in coming clean once the cat’s out of the bag. He’s been working with this guy all his life. Besides his own mental health, I get the impression that he also recognized that this would be good for MegaMind too.

I just really love how in a superhero pastiche that asks “Is the villain really so bad, and the hero really so good?” the answer is “no, but that’s okay”. It’s okay that Metro Man isn’t a paragon. It’s okay that he has to take care of himself. It’s okay for him to step down and live his own life. It wouldn’t be okay for him to leave people in danger, but it’s pretty clear he knew he wasn’t doing that.

And it carries to the end. MegaMind becomes the city’s new protector, but it’s clear that he’s still got some issues to work through, and he’s getting help working through them. He’s got a support network, he’s willing to put in the effort, but he’s not the shining paragon Metro Man was believed to be. And he doesn’t NEED to be that paragon. He’s still good. He’s still protecting people. And he’s not alone in it.

God, there’s just so many shitty “Superheroes would have character flaws too, and that’s why they’d actually suck” deconstructions floating around, it’s nice to see a story that acknowledges that no one can live up to that kind of role, but that’s okay!

silver-tongues-blog

megamind once again proving to be the best modern superhero movie

weirdlandtv

Pulp sci-fi illustration by Italian artist, Aldo Di Gennaro (b. 1938).

auckie

This is probably the most culturally important thing I’ll ever seen in my lifetime if I’m being honest. I want this affixed over my mantle, embroidered into my denim, and emblazoned into my flesh so that generations to come may never forget this 1938 gem of an illustration. Put this on my gravestone and name my children after Alfo Di Gennaro. This is what it’s all about.

crabofdoom

Artist was obviously a leg man, but I have never seen a female alien love interest designed as THIS alien before. She’s uniquely hairy, bugged-eyed, lines would indicate at least a partial exoskeleton, she has escaped being saddled with the mammories that a non-mammal being would not have, yet she’s got it bad for Space Force Leatherhead and he is so into her. I can practically hear his prose of her cabochon eyes of nebula violet, glowing with the passion to know and be known, in the starlight. The green of her body turning more vivid as discovery (and carnal knowledge) consume her conscious mind.

To suggest a red-blooded, human man could love Greedo’s cousin? Desire her??

This is fantastic, in every sense. How many lives did this change forever?

apas-95

still genuinely incomprehensible to me that people wear shoes indoors. do you live in a mineshaft

fiollaigean

multiple people in my immediate circle of acquaintances have seriously injured their feet indoors by not wearing shoes! either by stepping on small, pointy objects or stubbing their toes so hard they got nerve damage. some of us like to be protected! get yourself a cheap pair of house slippers or something. fuck.

mortimermcmirestinks

why do you have small pointy objects scattered around on the floor of your literal home

apas-95

usamericans will massacre dogs in their house and not even sweep up the broken bones

volach-deactivated20230326

“When the handle has snapped off the basket that held all your eggs…” gone girl tier monologue

womenintheirwebs-archived

wow she read them down

a-stray-star

This just explained so much about why certain customers behave the way they do.

telomeke

[Transcript of the video (because the sound isn't the clearest)–

Video posted by Rebecca Larsen @‌rebecca_larsen on TikTok, in response to a young, conservative woman's post. Rebecca says:

Here's what I find so tragic about these young, pretty, conservative women. You're such a gaslighted demographic, because one of the pillars of this ideology that you're bought into is that some people are just inherently superior, and… inferior people deserve to be exploited. And sure, you know, women are technically property but you– you don't have to worry about that. Because you– are *hot* property. Exceptions will be made for you. So you're more than willing to play into this needlessly cruel game because you've been assured that you'll win. And soon the young winning man of your dreams will look at you and say, "Yes, that is what I'm supposed to want, and acquiring her will make me look like a superior man." And on your way to your superior life together you will become his obedient, righteous, lonely domestic servant. Congratulations. Until one day, you get a scary mammogram. And you'll discover that he never signed up to be a nurse maid. And unlike you, the young, 24-year-old bleach blonde at the office understands that he's the most important person in any room. And she'll have no qualms about poaching your mate because he's her ticket to a superior life. And at that moment, when the handle has snapped off of the basket that held all of your eggs, you might realize that you were flattered into giving your entire life away, in service of a man who only ever saw you as a commodity. Because, I assure you, that is how these men see you. And being hot property won't have protected you from a life of being used up and discarded. But here's the kicker. You'll have sunk so much of your life into proving your own politics right that you won't be able to direct that rage in the appropriate direction. Because that will mean admitting that you were had! So there you'll be: a middle-aged woman with a pert haircut and great Botox, standing in line at a Kroger making the fact that your life didn't turn out as promised into an assistant manager's problem, because don't they know that exceptions are supposed to be made for you?! [Sighs] Good luck, babe. Good luck.

End video transcription.]

Rebecca Larsen's original post is linked here.

‌

luna-azzurra

Unhealed Wounds Your Character Pretends Are Just “Personality Traits”

These are the things your character claims are just “how they are” but really, they’re bleeding all over everyone and calling it a vibe.

╰ They say they're "independent." Translation: They don’t trust anyone to stay. They learned early that needing people = disappointment. So now they call it “being self-sufficient” like it’s some shiny badge of honor. (Mostly to cover up how lonely they are.)

╰ They say they're "laid-back." Translation: They stopped believing their wants mattered. They'll eat anywhere. Do anything. Agree with everyone. Not because they're chill, but because the fight got beaten out of them a long time ago.

╰ They say they're "a perfectionist." Translation: They believe mistakes make them unlovable. Every typo. Every bad hair day. Every misstep feels like proof that they’re worthless. So they polish and polish and polish... until there’s nothing real left.

╰ They say they're "private." Translation: They’re terrified of being judged—or worse, pitied. Walls on walls on walls. They joke about being “mysterious” while desperately hoping no one gets close enough to see the mess behind the curtain.

╰ They say they're "ambitious." Translation: They think achieving enough will finally make the emptiness go away. If they can just get the promotion, the award, the validation—then maybe they’ll finally outrun the feeling that they’re fundamentally broken. (It never works.)

╰ They say they're "good at moving on." Translation: They’re world-class at repression. They’ll cut people out. Bury heartbreak. Pretend it never happened. And then wonder why they wake up at 3 a.m. feeling like they're suffocating.

╰ They say they're "logical." Translation: They’re terrified of their own feelings. Emotions? Messy. Dangerous. Uncontrollable. So they intellectualize everything to avoid feeling anything real. They call it rationality. (It's fear.)

╰ They say they're "loyal to a fault." Translation: They mistake abandonment for loyalty. They stay too long. Forgive too much. Invest in people who treat them like an afterthought, because they think walking away makes them "just as bad."

╰ They say they're "resilient." Translation: They don't know how to ask for help without feeling like a burden. They wear every bruise like a trophy. They survive things they should never have had to survive. And they call it strength. (But really? It's exhaustion wearing a cape.)

helenvaughans

📢📢📢

lingonberry24

[Images ID]: a tweet response to the below:

Tweet from Efe @SassyE (profile pic: a Black woman with long hair in twists, gold rimmed brown glasses, and a gold nose ring): I think theres too much concern over literacy than the quality of life people are facing rn. Especially young adults. Tf is a book going to do when you're hungry and homeless.

Replies from HPIC @PinKIYSensei (profile pic: a Black woman with long straightened hair, in a pink coat with fur, pink nails, and pink glasses): Literacy is quality of life. It's not just about books. It's about being able to understand a lease, advocate for yourself, navigate systems, and even regulate your emotions to get better outcomes.

Ppl think literacy just means reading for fun or school but it's functional, emotional, digital, financial. If you can't read instructions, write a coherent email, or understand a warning sign, you're navigating the world w/ a blindfold.

Like uggggh. Language gives us OPTIONS. The more language you have access to, the more choices you can make in how you respond to hard situations, whether it's dealing w/ a landlord, resolving a conflict, or applying for aid (a "what's not clicking??" GIF with a black woman tapping her head)

I keep talking about emotional regulation, something many lack. That is HEAVILY tied to literacy. Can you articulate your needs? De- escalate a situation? Reframe a setback? That's vocab AND comprehension AND self- awareness AND reading & interpreting what's happening around you.

Like yes, we need housing and food, but if someone doesn't have the literacy to complete an application, explain their situation to a caseworker, or process rejection w/o spiraling, that affects their whole life trajectory. Literacy doesn't just help you read a book. Pls!

[End ID]