le mythe, la légende, j’ai nommé: pusheen, dictateur russe (fameux).
i am amazed to see that despite being in my native language this retelling of the story behind me and my friends’ “famous russian dictator pusheen” private joke got popular
villains are hard to design. making them ugly is dangerous, depending on what traits you choose to frame as monstrous or undesirable, you could very well end up saying something fatphobic, racist, anti-semitic, etc
but if you make a hot villain then people will get thirsty and demand redemptions and refuse to acknowledge their evil actions, no matter how despicable
Solution: Full body armor and masks. You don’t see people shipping themselves with Sauron!
…………..you think?
…………..don’t look up Sauron on AO3
Nothing fails to crack me up like this post - the vain hope that somewhere out there is some awful nasty thing that there is not also a person whose kink that is, the idea that covering something up won’t make people obsessed with finding out what it looks like underneath, the surface level understanding of Sauron and complete lack of knowledge of the Silmarillion and it’s fandom, the fact that Sauron was canonically hot as fuck, the amount of Sauron erotica I have seen, God this post never gets old
The Poster Of The Comment: You don’t see people shipping themselves with Sauron!
The Very Large And Dedicated Community Of Sauronfuckers In The Tolkien Fandom, collectively:
Point. For those who have not read Sillmarilion, Sauron used to look something like this
Teachers have tried this and are amazed when their classes don’t go feral like in the book. It’s almost as if the book was supposed to be satire and not a treaty on the nature of humanity.
there’s a timeskip
THERE’S A TIMESKIP
THERE’S A TIMESKIP
THERE’S A TIMESKIP
after losing control of the signal fire there’s a FUCKING TIMESKIP and when the next chapter starts everyone’s hair is several inches longer and their clothes have rotted to shreds and they’re still just kind of chilling!!!!
IT TAKES THE TERRIBLE IMPERIALISM MIND-POISONED EXCESSIVELY BRITISH BOYS IN THE ACTUAL BOOK SEVERAL MONTHS TO COMMIT A SINGLE ACT OF INTENTIONAL VIOLENCE, EVEN THE ONE (1) CHILD WRITTEN AS AN ACTUAL SOCIOPATH
AND then when they DO turn on each other it is because
THERE’S AN UNSPECIFIED WORLD WAR HAPPENING
AND A PILOT’S CORPSE CRASH LANDS ON THE ISLAND POST-DOGFIGHT AND THE CHILDREN MISTAKE THE PARACHUTE FOR A MONSTER AND SPIRAL INTO PARANOIA
BECAUSE CHILDREN INHERIT THE LEGACY AND TRAUMA OF VIOLENCE FROM THE ADULTS WAGING WAR AROUND THEM
HURR DURR IN THE REAL WORLD IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN LIKE IN LORD OF THE FLIES -
IT DIDN’T HAPPEN THAT WAY IN LORD OF THE FLIES EITHER YOU JUST HAVEN’T READ IT SINCE HIGH SCHOOL IF EVER AND DON’T REMEMBER WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THE GODDAMN BOOK
yes. yes he did. i’m also gonna direct you to the real life ‘lord of the flies’ which occured in the 1960s, when six tongan schoolboys got stranded on a desert island for over a year before being rescued by an australian fisherman (who, it should be noted, later took on all six as crewmembers because the reason they were out in the first place was because they wanted to see the world, and named his ship the Ata after the island they were stranded on). nobody died. the only injuries that occurred were accidental, and when one of the boys broke his leg falling down a cliff, the others braced it and looked after him so well that it healed perfectly. if they argued, then they would literally go to opposite sides of the island until they’d cooled off. after leaving the island, they remained friends for the rest of their lives. here’s a photo of them as adults, with their rescuer (who is third from the left) and other members of his crew.
i read about this in rutger bregman’s human kind, a book i cannot recommend highly enough, but if you don’t want to go and read a whole book about the inherent goodness of humanity (which again, you really should) then the relevant excerpt can be found here.
I refuse to accept Steve Rogers returning to the past to live out his days not because I ship him with anyone in the modern setting (even if I do, which I do), but because of the following:
He categorically stated that the wife-and-kids, picket-fences life was no longer what he wanted.
He spent several movies working to save the life of his best friend, at all costs; he would not abandon him after that.
He wouldn’t be able to live happily in the past knowing at the same time that Bucky was actively being tortured, brainwashed, and forced to kill.
He knew Peggy had lived a long and fulfilling life without him and would not take that away from her.
His found family had been decimated was badly hurting; he would not have abandoned them.
He could not live happily through (more) blatant systematic oppression based on race, religion, and sexuality after having experienced a future where these things are not universally acceptable.
He’s the guy who would jump on a grenade to save someone else. He’s not the guy to risk the future by changing the past for his own selfish reasons.
Is there anything sadder than the little chunk of Kikis Delivery Service when Kiki says “I used to really like flying before it was my job” and then gets so burned out that her magic stops working and she cant talk to Jiji anymore and she tries so hard to FORCE the magic that she breaks her mothers broom and stays up all night, alone, trying to make a new one and crying?
And I know it is all ok in the end- Kiki has friends who look out for her and she takes care of herself and finds her place.
But fuck, those 20 minutes just hurt my heart so much.
