todays bird

JVL

roma★

Discoholic 🪩
we're not kids anymore.
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year

JBB: An Artblog!

No title available
🪼

Kaledo Art
Sade Olutola
RMH

Kiana Khansmith

Origami Around

if i look back, i am lost
YOU ARE THE REASON
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Keni
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Not today Justin
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Greece
seen from Germany

seen from United States

seen from Türkiye

seen from United States

seen from Denmark
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia

seen from Türkiye
seen from Netherlands

seen from United States
seen from Norway
seen from Brazil
seen from Mexico

seen from Malaysia
seen from Poland

seen from Greece

seen from Malaysia
@varianwrynn
Nobody can snek up on da king. 😸👑
tumblr: stop being horny for villains
me, a person perfectly capable of separating fiction from reality: no
who is this man
his visage haunts me
W A S S H O I
12 Times Han Solo Used The Force Without Knowing It
I need Han to accidentally be force strong, mostly because HE WOULD HATE THAT SO MUCH “Wow so you’re basically a self-taught Jedi” “WHAT–ARE YOU–I’M THE BEST PILOT IN–” “That’s force shit” “I’M AN EXCELLENT SHOT” “Yeah, because of the force” “I’M INCREDIBLY PERSUASIVE” “That’s the force making people believe your terrible lies against all reason ” “I’LL SEE YOU IN HELL”
I can picture his reaction now…
No, but this is:
George Lucas can pry Force Sensitive Han from my cold dead hands.
I love everything about this theory, but my favourite part of it by far is now utterly offended he’d be by the suggestion.
if you have a problem with any of the fictional pairings that i enjoy on the internet, for the low cost of $9,000 you can pay me to care about what you think
do folks genuinely not understand the appeal of the "enemies to lovers" trope, as it shows up over and over in fantasy & adventure fiction? really?
obviously it's cool if you don't personally like the trope. we're all different. but i'm seeing an increase in posts asking "what is wrong with people who ship this dynamic??" like it's so far out and strange, we can't possibly conceive of why people would like this. like... really?? enemies to lovers??? literally one of the oldest tropes in existence?? in the poppin-fresh year of our lord 2020, fandom is genuinely confused about this?
(disclaimer: i am, very specifically, talking about enemies to lovers, as it presents in fantasy and adventure fiction. when people use the word "abuse" to describe the dynamic between characters from opposing armies who like... fight each other on horseback with magical swords, i question their grasp of narrative, not to mention their motives.)
like, picture it: someone who opposed you, coming to your side. someone who clashed against you, becoming someone who never would again. someone who is in the end overcome by your power, your character, your strength, your wit, whatever: overcome by the very force of you. someone who chooses to fall at your feet and take up your cause as their own, to wield their own significant power against your enemies.
and... someone you don't have to always be so fucking good for. someone who has heard you scream unprintable curses on the battlefield. someone who has undoubtedly seen rage and fear and desperation in your eyes. someone you've probably also hurt. someone who wouldn't blink if you put an arrow in a real enemy's back and might in fact hide the body for you. someone you know will be as strong at your back in a fight as you'll be at theirs; partly because, well, you've both lived through each other.
and as a woman, boy do i personally get the appeal of this trope (as a general concept, even when specific ships don't resonate w/ me). like we live in a world where men think it's "weird" that their girlfriend swears or farts; not shaving is a cardinal sin. women's humanity is disgusting to so many men and even to so many fellow women. women's righteous anger is laughed at, our legitimate fears are routinely dismissed and belittled. if we're not nice, if we're not sweet, if we're not doormats, we're discarded; if we are any of those things, we're looked down on, we're targeted, we're blamed.
and people can't understand at all why we might be drawn to stories where the very forces that oppose us, are so transformed by us, so drawn to us for everything that we are, that they literally leave their old selves behind in the dust to join us and devote themselves entirely to our victory?
inconceivable, i guess.
(second disclaimer: no, this trope is obviously not appealing to all women, what the fuck is appealing to all women, besides pizza?)
and furthermore, since nobody asked me.... the idea that we have to "protect" women from enemies-to-lovers stories, when those exact stories can offer some of us a cathartic brand of fantasy.... whew, fandom. stay infantalizing us i guess.
@veliseraptor -- I think this post resonates very much to your fuck the villain police world view.
Damn, I’ve never seen it in words before why I’ve always had a soft spot for the enemies-to-lovers trope.
I think the backlash has come from poorly constructed enemies to lovers tropes in popular fiction.
Like enemy to lovers is one of my favorite fanfiction tropes cuz more often than not writers of fanfiction genuinely care about both characters and want them to grow into eachother.
But meanwhile in the mainstream directors and shit hand us Rey///lo and then you get people trying to romanticize abusive and manipulative scenarios.
And like although I dont ship Rey///lo I am sure there are people who do ship them who have written better and healthy enemies to lovers dynamics than we got in the movies.
I just feel like people dont know how to write empathetic villains with believable redemption arcs and when you combine that with the worlds general tendency to glorify violent misogynistic white men then we end up with this strange dynamic where both sides where like ppl are right to try to denounce the glorification of unhealthy relationships but on the other side people are also right to say that the blame doesnt inherently lie in the enemies to lovers dynamic, but on the people who misuse the trope.
i really appreciate this comment and totally agree: there is a LOT of shitty misogynistic writing in mainstream films and series that doesn't properly understand or build a good enemies-to-lovers story. a horrible man attracted to a nice woman, who "gets" the woman without doing any of the fucking work, is the shittiest manifestation of this concept. and "the world's tendency to glorify violent misogynistic white men," hoo, Jesus, yes.
in a lot of cases, fans really do write this dynamic best. that's mostly why i wrote my original defense: it's hard for me to watch fellow fans, and entire fandoms, get painted as sicko abuse apologists for actually doing the work of analysis and character-building and introspection and transformation that so much major media just doesn't give a shit about. (and like... yeah, including a lot of reylos. a lot of that fic explores evil and atonement very seriously.)
fans are really good at taking a problematic but potentially interesting dynamic and creating something useful and thoughtful and even healing out of it. guess i'd always rather we spent some energy thinking about that, and how we can make more things that build each other up, than just trying to tear each other down.
anyway, thanks for being so understanding.
I mean, on one level, yeah, I get the appeal of the enemies to lovers trope.
But on a much, much bigger level, I’m so EXHAUSTED by stories that prop up violent white men at the expense of everyone else. At the expense of the women, at the expense of characters of color, at the expense of LGBTQ characters.
I can’t even articulate how exhausted I am by it.
I don’t WANT to see violent white men “redeemed” by women who were patient enough or loving enough or made themselves small enough.
I don’t WANT to see characters of color reduced and marginalized and shoved into the background, their stories cut down to nothing, their entire characters rendered meaningless, so we can spend MORE TIME with violent white men.
I don’t WANT to see LGBTQ characters reduced to an easily cuttable background moment so we can spend MORE TIME focusing on how important violent white men are.
I’m just so, so tired by it. I just don’t care. I don’t care about the redemption of violent white men at the expense of literally everyone else.
While I agree, poorly done redemption arcs are not the same thing as the enemies to lovers trope. The two tropes can be present in the same fic, but they are two separate things; your enemy is just someone who was once antagonistic towards you, and may or may not have done bad things in and of themselves.
Like, by all means please condemn badly written redemption arcs where the violent white dude is reformed by the woman, because it’s bullshit that women are expected to perform emotional labor even in fiction. But that doesn’t translate to “the enemies to lovers trope is bad and you should feel bad for writing it”, to be sure.
It’s like millennials do not understand that middle east has been at war for 1000′s of years. That we intervened on behalf of Kuwait. That without “bombing” people that want to kill and oppress others, millions will be murdered and tortured.
“at war for 1000′s of years”
you clearly know nothing about Afghanistan nor the middle east
here’s Afghanistan in the 1950′s, 60′s, & 70′s
if you really want to know what caused all the instability & growth of extremist groups I suggest you take a look at the US foreign policy towards Afghanistan during the 80′s
It’s interesting to note that when the communist government came to power in Afghanistan in the late 70′s, one of the first things they did was declare equality of the sexes, made education for girls mandatory, & banned child marriages. The conservative tribal leaders who the US armed & funded (& who later became the Taliban) declared this to be a “war on Islam” & fought against the central government.
The US had no problem back then with encouraging the growth of Islamic conservatism to counter socialism/communism. You created your biggest enemy & you have no one to blame but yourselves.
BLESS THIS POST
its crazy to me how the US talks about war in the middle east as if its this ancient problem inherent to the area instead of a recent problem created by western countries to further their own interests.
☕️☕️☕️
the CIA took out the democratically elected leader of Iran in the 1970s over oil and that set off an entire chain of events leading to ISIS, here’s more about multiple other countries we’ve fucked over
The United States: Fucking monsters.
America, 1953: The Iranian government is terrible, we should steal their oil liberate them.
America, 2019: The Iranian government is terrible, we should steal their oil liberate them.
FFXIV LOCATIONS ▶ GARLEMALD
↳ The Garlean Empire controls the majority of the northern and eastern regions of the enormous landmass of the three continents—of which Eorzea is a part. Until some fifty years ago, Garlemald was a small, remote nation which held little more than a fraction of the northlands. But with the revolutionary advancements in technology and dramatic restructuring of the military ushered in by an ambitious commanding Legatus who later ascended to the seat of Emperor, Garlemald soon established itself as one of the most formidable forces in all of Hydaelyn.
The gigantic imperial warships which scorch the skies carry onboard fleets of the Empire’s juggernauts—magitek-clad winged machina armed with devastating weaponry that are dispatched throughout the realm to rain terror and destruction from above. These forces, together with an immense standing army equipped with equally imposing arms and armor, grant Garlemald unrivaled military might. As the Empire’s dominion expands into Eorzea, however, even its countless legions have begun to lack for numbers, and a policy of drafting and conscription has been implemented in all conquered lands.
on september 11th 2001, two planes crashed into the world trade centre in new york city. It was a massacre. 3000 dead in a matter of 24 hours. the entire world was in shock of the atrocity, the brutal, diabolical murder of scores of innocents.
the american government reacted accordingly. a full investigation was launched to hold the culprits responsible – what nation could have sanctioned such a brutal attack on so many innocents? what kind of soulless country could, regardless of vendetta, allow such a heinous crime?
by 2002, the united states had their answer. the investigation was complete. A 600 page document known as the Congressional Report on 9/11 was released. approx 20 pages detailing the workings of the nation responsible were produced. The report was published.
Except the name of the country responsible for 9/11 was redacted in the report. blackened out with a sharpie. It would remain redacted for 14 years. The country in question? Saudi Arabia.
Instead of declaring to the world who was involved in orchestrating 9/11, the u.s. would hide this information for over a decade.
Instead, they would point fingers at Iraq, whilst knowing that iraq had nothing to do with the attack in the first place. They would orchestrate journalistic propaganda in the new york times about “weapons of mass destruction” – a narrative that had been proven false by their very own intelligence officers, a narrative that had been shot down by every journalist that had ever stepped foot in Niger (where the purported ingredients of mass destruction were coming from). Regardless, the New York Times would dutifully publish the perverted stories anyway. NYT editors would say “to not invade iraq is the bigger mistake”.
In 2003, the months of building up false stories in the media, propaganda in every mainstream newspaper, journal and t.v. show would pay off. The u.s. would invade iraq.
from 2003 - 2011 the country of iraq would be brutalized in ways never seen before by mankind. modern, 21st century warfare would decimate the very spirit of iraq. at least 460 000 innocent, iraqi civilians murdered in 8 years. entire generations were wiped out in less than a decade. we will never know their names.
waves of sexual violence committed upon “captured” cities ensued at the hands of american soldiers. many of the survivors, if not dead at the hands of their occupiers, would take their own lives. we will never know their names.
in 2011, the blood in iraq is finally dry. we’ve leeched all of it. we’ve procured the natural resources we came for – it’s time to head out. the so called WMD we came for were never found, they did not exist, they were never real to begin with. A far cry from how things got started, we start seeing articles about the falsehood of the iraq war. the same publishers who willingly handed out propaganda to the masses about WMD in Saddam’s hands are now saying “wait…we’ve made an error.” the narrative shifts. the occupation ends 3 years after a new commander in chief is granted the power to end it. in its wake we leave behind military bases and mercenaries that are ready to activate whenever called upon.
That same year, the u.s. supports various popular movements across the arab world. tens of regimes are flipped.
and in that same year, using the same weapons left behind by valiant american rapists and invaders, an army of another kind of mercenaries is born. they call themselves ISIL, then ISIS.
ISIS vows to cleanse the muslim world of shia muslims, minority sect muslims, christians, yezidis, Jewish people. ISIS also vows they are enemies of the u.s. America vows vice versa. Their feud is a celebrated one. ISIS, the evil nemesis of the Brave & Courageous America.
But then, 2012 happens. America, losing their influence and control over the levant, start funding ISIS factions. America starts funding Al-Qaeda factions.
The same NYT that once convinced us that Iraq had WMD is now INSISTING that these al-qaeda factions, that themselves claim to be brothers of al-qaeda, are moderate rebels simply looking for democracy and liberation. people believe it.
America’s proxies in the levant go on to destroy the region in unimaginable ways–and then, 2018 happens.
Iraqis & Iranians destroy ISIS. Indisputably, action from both nations led to the destruction of ISIS, now a paid member of the U.S. military. America, once using ISIS and AQ factions to regain control over the levant struggles to position themselves as the heroes – attempting pathetically to play both sides of the same coin. Again, the same way outlets like NYT backtracked their Iraq war propaganda, they start apologizing for identical mistakes in naming actual american funded terrorists as “freedom fighters.” another cycle ends.
ISIS is gone, but the real loss is America’s. They’ve lost the barbaric feudalistic control they once held in the region via ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Their terrorist assets have been reduced to ashes by a people they once themselves invaded from 2003 - 2011.
This brings us to today. The united states has assassinated Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s second in command. this is akin to another nation murdering the likes of mike pence, joe biden or dick cheney. it is an act of war. 4000 troops have been deployed to the Iraq-Iran region. It is an invasion.
And just as in 2003 the NYT & MSM justified the faulty invasion of iraq, and just as in 2012 the NYT & MSM justified the funding of ISIS & AQ factions, in 2020, a new propaganda will circulate to justify the illegal assassination of sovereign leaders.
New propaganda will circulate to justify a new era of bloodshed in Iraq & Iran and the rape and murder of innocents. New propaganda will vilify young, brown children as terrorists. New propaganda will circulate to return us to the year 2003.
There is nothing I can do within my capacity to help anyone. I am completely useless in saving any of the lives that will be taken in the next several years.
All I can do is ask that when you see a piece of information that attempts to justify the actions of the u.s. on foreign soil, in any foreign nation, that you reduce it to ashes. They lied to you in 2003, they did it again in 2011, they are doing it again in 2020.
Reject the lie. It’s all we can do.
Accidentally posted Sam and Emet’s Christmas card twice. Ahaha, not really sorry about that one...!
Characters other than Sam, plus a spare Gaius who didn’t fit into the other sets.
Large batch of Sam shots 2/2 (NPCs + heavily stylized), including a Sin Eater WoL.
Large batch of recent Sam shots, 1/2 (solo shots).