Pointless LOTR headcanon of the day: Frodo & Merry both take after their mothers, meaning Frodo looks more like a Brandybuck than a Baggins and Merry looks more like a Took. This is a constant source of petty contention.
(Pippin meanwhile absolutely takes after his father & is the most Tookish looking)
Merry: call me a Took one more time
Gandalf: if it looks like a Took and acts like a Took it’s a Took
Merry: I will END you
Gandalf is the only nonhobbit in the fellowship who understands the minutiae of Took Vs Brandybuck Vs Baggins rivalry & he delights in it, everyone else baffled
Frodo: look it’s perfectly simple. The Brandybucks don’t like the Tooks because they play golf and think they’re better than everyone because they occasionally go on adventures. The Tooks don’t like the Brandybucks because they live on the wrong side of the river and like boats. And nobody likes the Bagginses because they’re annoying.
Aragorn: are you… Including yourself in that
Frodo: I said what I said.
Frodo: now the Bagginses don’t like the Brandybucks OR the Tooks because they’re highly disrepectable but also richer than they are. And as far as a lot of the Bagginses are concerned I’m a Brandybuck because I grew up in Buckland and I have the Brandybuck Profile
Merry: which just means he’s not pug-ugly
Frodo: quite.
Aragorn: this is all ridiculous. Keep going.
Gandalf: Hm now I wouldn’t say UGLY but… every Baggins I’ve ever met has been perfectly Round or perfectly Square… There is no middle ground.
Gimli, baffled: Frodo isn’t round OR square
Merry: that’s because he has the Brandybuck profile
Gimli: so… Is he a Brandybuck…
Merry: ABSOLUTE not
Frodo: slander!! I’m a Baggins how dare you
Pippin: was your father a Round Baggins or a Square Baggins
Frodo: my father… Was the ROUNDEST Baggins who ever lived… A perfect Sphere of hobbit…
Villains in Addams Family movies go to really unnecessary lengths to defraud them of the family fortune. These people just give it away on whims all the time. If I just walked into the house and started wearing their clothes and spending their money, they wold start introducing me as Cousin Intruder and forget there was ever a time I didn’t live with them.
Kara danvers seems honest and open and bubbly but you could know her for 2 years and not know shes an orphan who’s entire family died and her sister is her foster sister and English is not her native language (not even that shes an alien, just that she isnt from this country) and she’s ripped as hell and wants to be a journalist because it’s about service and her mother was p much on the Supreme Court and her father THE most well known scientist and her aunt was a general and shes basically the equivalent of a Princess in her culture and shes actually v religious but it’s not Christian and has anxiety and PTSD and just the fact that Alex seems to know when her Earth birthday is, not even Winn really aware, who’s her best friend and Kara definitely knows everyone else’s on the entire floor like shes an absolute brick wall other than the things that are easily Google-able no one even knows who shes dating or if shes dating anyone and when she does all she says is she has a date (thinking back to the pilot) and she, an alien who has been to several different planets, told winn with a straight face there is no such thing as aliens besides superman
Whereas Lena tells a complete stranger her life story and befriends a reporter within like 2 days and let’s her know all the sordid details about her life and her tragic backstory and her mommy issues and what her relationship with her brother was like and will tell anyone her past relationships and every person knows about her family and that her moms in jail and what theyve done like there is no hiding anyway so might as well share shes a complete open book
Tl;dr Lena Luthor is Professor Open Book and Kara Danvers is the absolute brick wall professor that you dont even realize is the brick wall until Lena starts talking about her wife Kara and you didnt even know they were married or that her brother tried to kill her cousin and her mom hates her wife and her wifes sister is an FBI agent??????? That her wife sometimes consults for??? And her wife can easily kill a man. Like. Lena would be the one to reveal all of this and no one in Kara’s class even knows her age or that she had a wife or anything about her life other than what her favorite food is and that she likes red since she wears it all the time but she is literally the professor everyone loves and goes to talk to for office hours and ends up crying about whatever is troubling them and comes out feeling better and more hopeful only to realize later they found out absolutely nothing from her in return
There are a lot of reasons I was drawn to A Series of Unfortunate Events as a kid, and if I wanted to try and analyze them all I would have to write an entire anthology of books about the series and me and psychology and by the end of the day I would be very tired and you all would be very bored, so I’m not going to do that, but when I think about the series and probably the main reason why I’ve stuck with the series so long as a kid and now as a quasi-adult, what stands out to me is the beautiful way that Daniel Handler writes, portrays and deals with abuse.
There are a lot of messages that the series conveys across its thirteen volumes and even more in the companion pieces Handler has authored, but almost all of them come back to deal with abuse in some way, particularly child abuse. Even beyond just roundabout lessons that can be applied to child abuse, it actually depicts and deals with child abuse, a topic that is virtually nonexistent in middle grade literature even now as we start to become more aware of the topic. Children with harrowing backgrounds are common in the genre, but the difference between the Baudelaires and Harry Potter is that Snicket makes it very clear that what is happening to the Baudelaires is abuse and is wrong, whereas the Harry Potter series dismisses Harry being forced to live under the stairs as simply mean guardians and an abusive school teacher as a romantic pining for his lost love (don’t get me started on Snape discourse). A Series of Unfortunate Events tells children up front that abuse does happen and that that is what it is – abuse.
It showcases dozens of different varieties of abuse, physical, emotional, neglect, and it even hints at sexual with Olaf’s predatory behavior towards Violet. It shows different kinds of abusers, Mr. Poe, who does it out of genuine ignorance and an unwillingness to learn, and Count Olaf, who does it out of cruelty.
More than showing child abuse, it shows how people react to child abuse, either through internalizing it and believing that they are deserving of their fate, withdrawing from other people, or becoming distrusting of any and all adults to the point that they might miss out on people who could have possibly saved them if they had just trusted them. A Series of Unfortunate Events presents trauma in an accurate, non-sugar coated way to the audience that most needs to hear it.
As a seven year-old kid living with abusive parents, at the time I didn’t know why I loved A Series of Unfortunate Events so much, but I knew I loved it in a way I had never loved or related to a book before, and more than a decade later it still has a dramatic impact on my life. I was a cynic from a young age, and there’s something just draining about reading story after story of quick fixes and happy endings and stories where things go right when your life never seems to go right. I loved A Series of Unfortunate Events because the things that were happening to the Baudelaires, even though they took place in a fictional universe, were real. Handler never tried to pretend that life was great because it isn’t and if you’re a kid who has been taught by literature over and over that life is supposed to be great all the time and it’s great for everyone except you, that messes you up. A Series of Unfortunate Events told me it was okay to be messed up, and it told me that other people are messed up too, and the world is just as imperfect for everyone else as it was for me.
It’s funny that we talk about Alex’s complete lack of care
for her own safety but like
Alex’s sister is a god.
Straight up, can fly, shoot lasers out of her eyes, stronger
than Hercules, the stuff out of mythology kind of god with less than stellar control
and this is who needs her—hugs without hesitation when she sees her struggle to
have the control to pet a cat and break a boys nose during her first kiss. And
it is Alex’s choice to hold her hand
when Kara could pulverize her bones into literal dust, to comfort her when she’s
upset and could hug her when Kara could so very easily bend her in half—to be the
metaphorical good man in a storm when all of Kara’s senses are going haywire
and there’s so much to process, so
much she doesn’t know—the trauma of being the last of her people, of being
completely overwhelmed. Every touch is a possible death sentence or body cast
in the making.
This is Alex’s sister. Alex is responsible for a fucking god
and is a god’s lodestone, her tether to
mortality (not humanity. She is not human,
but there is a reason why red!Kara is
her worst self, and it is not only Alex who is preventing that
from being reality—so much of it is Kara herself, making her own choices and it
would be a disservice to Kara to suggest otherwise—but it is a lot Alex that keeps that from happening).
And Alex does all of this without fear, without hesitation,
without concern.
And it’s a two way street—physical danger? Kara can get her out of it. Of course
Alex has a reputation for being reckless even for a DEO agent—look at
who loves her.
House on fire? Kara would rush in to save her. A scream of
distress? Or even a simple spoken word? Kara would come flying to save her. Jump
off a building? New meaning to catch you when you fall. Someone shooting at
you? Her sister is bulletproof. Try
it. And sure Kara didn’t know about Alex at the DEO—but what I said about Alex
asking for help still applies.This is Kara, her favorite person in the world–not Supergirl (her words, not mine)
This isn’t to say that Alex is using or taking advantage of
Kara—again, it’s a two way street, and alex would also do anything for Kara.
But. It is definitely going to skew
her perceptions of what is ‘safe’ when your safety net is a god
Especially since—and here’s the real kicker— “The story is
only a tragedy if the god loves you back”—I’ve seen this said plenty of times
about Kara’s love interests, but god.
If that applies to anyone? It’s alex. Alex, who’s life has slowly become some
kind of Greek tragedy because of her love for her sister—and her sister’s love
for her.
Alex has the love of a god. And like everything in Kara’s
life—it’s only ever bound to end in tragedy.
I was thinking a lot about this moment. Somehow it feels like the agni kai was a watershed moment not only for Zuko, but also for Iroh.
I think this something that Iroh is intensely ashamed about – and is the source of all the patience he has with Zuko and his determination to make things right for him.
Because Zuko’s scar is not just a testament of Ozai’s cruelty as a father, but is a scar on the soul of the entire Fire Nation.
Their supreme ruler publicly mutilates on his own son, a 13-year old child, who merely spoke the truth about a nation that in a quest for power has lost perspective on the worth of human life – and everyone cheers.
The scarring and humiliation of the young prince (who should be really the symbol of the future to his people) is a grotesque public spectacle.
And Iroh, who was once next in line to leading these people, former great war hero, one of the most powerful benders, and still one of the nation’s leaders – all he can do is to look away.
The boy who spoke the truth, who stood up for kindness, who tries to do the right thing, who refuses to fight his own father, who begs for forgiveness – he faces completely alone his horrible punishment, and nobody speaks up for him.
And I think this is Iroh’s moment of truth – that disagreeing privately is not enough, he cannot look away anymore. He realizes that healing this boy could be the chance to heal the Fire Nation, that he is maybe destined to be their leader, but not from the throne of the Fire Lord. He has to get Zuko through this trauma and show him kindness, love and acceptance in a way he has never experienced it. He has to teach him that speaking up and saying sorry should not and will not lead to harsh punishment, that kindness is not weakness and cruelty is not strength; that honor is not violence, but doing the right thing.
…hey Harry Potter fans, we’re all in agreement that Dumbledore brought the Philosopher’s Stone to Hogwarts in Harry’s first year as a test to see whether Voldemort was paying attention and what sort of state he was in, now that Dumbledore’s chosen champion was old enough to hold a wand, right?
Like, Harry learns what magic is and it’s time to start moving towards the full and final destruction of Tom Riddle Junior, so Dumbledore has a chat with his long-time alchemy friend who’s been keeping this thing safe for literally six centuries straight, and ‘borrows’ the easiest source of immortality he can find as bait for a trap to lure Voldemort out into the open so Dumbledore can get the lay of the land to prep for the next seven years. This is canon, right?
Yes, this is canon. In none of the other books is the climactic array of trials set up as a video-game dungeon perfectly tailored to the skillsets of three specific children. Hermione and Ron are drafted into this war quickly.
Draco gets so much shit for trying to kill Dumbledore but honestly who wouldn’t
I know everyone’s talking about how the cast of Danny Phantom is full of gay and trans characters exclusively to piss of Butch Hartman but let us not forget, Butch’s bread and butter, Fairly Odd Parents…
Timmy’s parents were 100% sure that Timmy was going to be a girl before he was born, as seen in the episode Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker.
Cosmo seems to be the only other one in the know about this, and has baby pictures of Timmy in a dress on hand
Then, in the episode The Boy Who Would Be Queen…
When Wanda does, inevitably, transform Timmy into a girl to teach him a lesson…
Cosmo immediately panics.
AND in the episode “It’s a Wishful LIfe” when Timmy wishes he never existed…
The Turners have a daughter instead.
In conclusion:
Timmy Turner is trans and used the power of one of his fairy godparents to wish that everyone in his life completely forget that he was born and raised female for a portion of his life, including his parents and his other fairy godparent.
I was on the bus thinking about Harry Potter tonight and I remembered the part where the Dementors all show up at the Quidditch game, and I remembered how they were all looking up at Harry, and I wondered why they would all be staring at him, and then I realized that it’s because he has two souls in him.
On this note, wouldn’t that also be a reason why Harry would have had a more negative reaction than his friends (even Ginny)? He was hearing his mother’s voice as she was protecting him, which in itself was his worst memory. but the Dementors were also forcing the piece of Voldemort to relive its worst memory as well… The memory of being ripped apart by the curse that backfired. No wonder Harry passed out so often.
I literally never thought about that.
omg…
HOLY
Oh FUCKING HELL, you just made me realize that it wasn’t Harry’s memory that was his father telling Lily to take Harry and run, and it wasn’t Harry’s memory of Lily screaming.
Here I was, just eating a cup of applesauce under the 14-year-long assumption that the reason a small infant was able to remember something was because this was a fictional world of magic, but no, now this entirely reasonable and somewhat less terrifying bubble has burst and I’m never going to recapture that innocence.
i just read a washington post article on romcoms aging poorly due to the pushiness (and oft-stalkery conduct) of the male characters therein, and it got me thinking about pride and prejudice, and specifically darcy saying, “one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”
because, like, that’s the seldom-portrayed romantic dream in the patriarchal hellscape that is our world, isn’t it?
a dude being willing to say, “i understand if you don’t feel the same way about me, and i’ll leave you alone forever about this if my attention is unwanted.”
so simple, yet so wonderful in its basic human decency
and dudes to this day wonder why women still swoon over darcy
Note also: Elizabeth turns down Darcy’s first proposal, and in the process, accuses him of doing some stuff he did not do (and also some stuff he totally did).
The next day, he surprises her on her walk. He hands her a letter, asks that she read it, and then takes off.
When this happened to me after I had turned someone down IN REAL LIFE, the letter contained a passionate argument to the tune of “actually you’re wrong and you do like me and you should go out with me” and it was creepy af.
Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth starts with: “Be not alarmed, Madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments, or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you”. He goes on to set the record straight about the stuff he didn’t do (as well as the stuff he did) which is *actually relevant* to Elizabeth. And he, as promised, doesn’t romance her further.
It’s totally bizarre that even now, this can be considered unusually great dude behaviour.
Darcy’s first proposal: “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Darcy’s second proposal: “One word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”
His whole arc in the book is about learning to consider other people’s feelings and not just his own, but the fact that it’s expressed via who gets to talk and who is told to shut up is so, so telling. The first time around, he imposes his voice on her whether she wants it or not. The second time, he asks how she feels, and in exchange, offers her the gift of his silence.
And yeah, the fact that dudes still! have! not! learned! this! lesson! is exhausting.
Question of Smoke 