Christian FangirlMostly LotR, MCU, Narnia, and Queen's Thief
277 posts
The difference between Howl and Gen is that Gen won't try and weasel his way out of the things he really really doesn't want to do.
i love the difference of sophie’s inner struggle between the book and the movie. how in the movie she believes herself plain and ordinary, not beautiful in the slightest. yet howl genuinely consoles her:
how in the book she battles with feelings of inadequacy, of being worthless, and yet howl encourages her:
in both adaptions, howl acts as the voice of love and support. every bad thing sophie tells herself are the values which howl cherishes. it’s about the love. i’m so sick i might throw up
you ask a student in april how they're doing and they'll say "oh i'm fine" but in reality they are treating themselves in such a way that violates the geneva convention on treatment of prisoners
Elena is a double amputee.
Day 138
(Requested by anon)
“You’re a hacker Skye, not Seal Team Six”
Give it two years Miles
well, if you're not in the mood for big shenanigans, how about just one very tiny shenanigan?
one thing that really gets me in rotj is when luke is first captured, right as he’s calmly insisting that vader still has good in him, vader (standing behind him) ignites his lightsaber and you see this flicker of fear on luke’s face, then acceptance. i think luke went into this situation knowing conceptually that he would probably die, but this is the moment where the reality of that sets in, and he really has to accept the possibility that his father might destroy him and decide again whether he trusts him not to
atheists will post gotcha memes about “the guy who shot you repented and is now in heaven don’t you want to say hi?” as if the knowledge of a person who wronged you in the most heinous way imaginable being lifted up to sainthood by the grace of God isnt the most incredible thing conceivable to the Christian mind
Reblog to make it die faster
I wanna say that every part of King of Attolia is my favorite part but possibly my favorite part is when Attolia goes “Relius. You are my oldest and most trusted advisor, who helped me keep my throne and committed your life to me. But you made a mistake, so I’m going to have to kill you.” And Relius goes “My queen, you are incredibly correct, that is 100% the right thing to do” and Gen is standing there like “wtf is wrong with you people, I thought I was the one with poor coping mechanisms”
girls don't want boys girls want big rocks in the forest to climb on
@accidental-spice and I are repotting green beans and I accidentally beheaded one of the smallest plants, so now it's the Green (Bean) Knight! In a year and a day it can do the same thing to me, if I manage to plant and grow it properly
Hey students, here’s a pro tip: do not write an email to your prof while you’re seriously sick.
Signed, a person who somehow came up with “dear hello, I am sick and not sure if I’ll be alive to come tomorrow and I’m sorry, best slutantions, [name]”.
The Lay of Leithian
“it's different, watching your friends go before you, isn't it? i have been through that, as well. it can be harder to stay than to leave.”
credits – unknown || balthasar, losers || @/inanotheruniverese || anne sexton, a self portrait in letters
hahahahahha………………..
youve been fooled………………by the april fools beeper……………..it was a fully grown bird the entire time…..no egg………………it tells u it hopes u hav a good april 1st
New ask game:
Reblog if you want your followers to tell you what your trademark ™️ is. Like, what’s that thing that really identifies you.
a lot of people on tumblr and Ao3 seem to think Christianity (mainly Catholicism) is just a cool and sexy esthetic narrative force to make your characters guilty and repressed and I'm just like...
hey what about the grace? the grace of God? the grace God gave specifically so we wouldn't need to be guilty and repressed? God's grace? that grace? do they have that grace?
@spring-into-arda (301 words; a continuation of my earlier AU where Finarfin arrives in Beleriand to find nothing but ruins)
There was someone outside the camp.
Finarfin should mention this to someone, probably, but he couldn’t prove it; there was no movement in the endless fields of high, stinging grass, no rustle in the dead limbs of the trees. No noise. No perceptible hint.
But there was an itch at the back of his mind that insisted someone was here.
Madness, probably. A manifestation of desperate hope after weeks of marching through Beleriand and finding nothing, nothing, nothing. Failing that, surely it was the Enemy, at last showing himself.
Surely.
But the itch at the back of his mind felt . . . not like the hunts he had never particularly enjoyed, but that he had gone on for his children’s sakes. It felt like the games they had played when they were small, and he would walk into his office and know they were there even before he had spotted a tiny foot peeking out from behind his desk.
The madness of hope.
Even if Artanis was still alive, was still free, surely she would approach the hosts her father was leading openly, not creep around the edges of his camp like a thief.
He shot one last look at the dead emptiness of the woods before nodding to the guards and letting himself back into the command tent.
The flap fell behind him. The itch intensified.
He turned.
A gaunt figure was sitting at his desk. There was barely an ounce of flesh left on the figure waiting, in dead stillness, in the chair; just bruised and bloodied skin stretched across knife sharp bone.
The only hint of life was in the eyes: dark and haunted with more horror than Arafinwe could even now imagine, but still burning with a hint of dread fire.
“Hello, uncle,” rasped Makalaure. “I’ve come to bargain.”
it's funny how often, in the queen's thief books, the sad and shocking twist is that the love was there all along. there's the big obvious one, of course, but it comes up again and again: Dite with his hopeless crush, Sejanus with his mocking cruelties, Relius with his abject devotion and Teleus with his stalwart loyalty, Attolia's ladies closing ranks around her, Sophos telling all his tale and bashfully leaving out how often and how wistfully he thought of Eddis. in other cases it grows silently and catches our narrator by surprise: Costis down the well, Pol on the cliffside.
and it doesn't save everyone. love is not always a gentle thing, and it's not always enough. the minister of war nearly strangled his son to death. Sejanus committed treason. Eddis went to war. but it's always there, unobtrusive as a shadow, pervasive as the sunlight.
I think sometimes of a quote from mwt saying she front-loads the trauma: the worst thing that is going to happen to the characters, emotionally, generally happens in the first few chapters. their world ends, their life shatters, they lose everything, they are alone and afraid with no allies and no hope. and then we rebuild. over the course of slow, painstaking pages, they regain their footing in the world, carve out a new self, discover a new perspective and a new strength. further ills befall, of course, and at the great climax everything seems bleak and dire once again, but it's still not the worst thing to happen to them. they face the dire moment bravely, afraid but not alone, certain now in who they are and how they will face the end if it comes.
I'm still mulling this over, I don't have a tidy knot to tie between these points, but they feel connected. something about the compassion woven through these stories, both for the characters and for the readers. something about how they're tales of intrigue and adventure, yes, but they're also stories about building something good, and about seeing the best in people even when their worst is horrific, and about love as an act of courage in a cruel world. love as an act of faith. love as the last thing left that might be able to save you.
“Get help,” Palpatine said. “You’re no match for him. He’s a Sith Lord.”
Obi-Wan turned to look at the Chancellor. “...yes?” he said. “But he’s also something else – something I’m surprised you’ve forgotten.”
“What?” Palpatine asked.
“A politician,” Obi-Wan replied, turning back to Dooku.
Anakin groaned, then sat down.
“Here we go,” he said.
Palpatine blinked, looking from Anakin to Obi-Wan.
“...what do you mean, Anakin?” he asked.
“This happens sometimes,” Anakin replied. “How do you think he got his nickname?”
“Count,” Obi-Wan said, at about the same time. “It’s occurred to me that I never actually found out what the Confederacy wants.”
“Isn’t it a little late for this?” Dooku asked. “We have been at war for several years.”
“True,” Obi-Wan conceded, readily. “The war having started on Geonosis, because of tracing back your clone army which we… appear to have appropriated, mostly because you did it in our name. But that’s how the war started – not your objectives.”
Dooku was silent for a moment.
“I assume some semblance of a point will be emerging,” he said, eventually. “If you could be so kind as to provide it?”
“Wars begin for all sorts of reasons,” Obi-Wan replied. “But how they end… they end because a mutual settlement has been reached. And it’s occurred to me that I don’t know what you’d want out of a victory.”
He spread his hand, the one not holding the – unlit – saber. “It’s not the conquest of the Republic, I can tell that much. If the CIS annexed the Republic, what you’d have would still be the Republic, just under a different name… it’s not the Republic without the corruption that’s been causing it problems, because most of the corruption in the Republic was – was – the big industrial concerns like the Techno Union, Commerce Guild, Trade Federation. But you seem to have taken all of those off our hands, and they provide essentially your entire military so I don’t think anyone else could honestly believe that either.”
“I wouldn’t expect a Jedi to understand,” Dooku replied. “The Confederacy’s member systems have concerns relating to over-centralization.”
Obi-Wan stared at him for a long moment.
“...no they don’t,” he said.
“I hardly think you can have earned your reputation as a negotiator, Kenobi, if you are so willing to be insulting,” Dooku said, archly.
“That’s not what I mean,” Obi-Wan replied. “I mean… yes, now the Republic has an army, though really it’s actually the Jedi’s army and we’re simply letting them borrow it, but four years ago the Galactic Republic was proverbially incapable of doing anything. It took emergency powers for the Chancellor to get the Republic to authorize having any kind of military whatsoever – and the only one available was the one you ordered. That’s not over-centralization.”
He drummed his fingers on his ‘saber. “And I note that I overheard Nute Gunray insisting on the head of Senator Amidala – literally, in those words – as his price for signing a treaty. But I still haven’t heard an actual answer. What does the Galaxy look like if the Confederacy wins?”
Dooku frowned, and after about three seconds Obi-Wan glanced at the Chancellor.
“Didn’t you discuss this at any point, your excellency?” he asked. “Count Dooku doesn’t seem to have thought about this.”
Palpatine blinked.
“...he’s a Sith Lord,” he repeated. “Shouldn’t you be fighting him?”
“It’s called diplomacy, Chancellor,” Obi-Wan replied, before returning his attention to Dooku. “Grandmaster, are you seriously telling me that you never thought about what you would do if you won?”
Anakin checked his comlink, for the time, then the ship trembled slightly.
“Artoo?” he asked. “Can you tell those ships outside to stop shooting at us and give us a wide berth? This could take hours and I don’t want to find out if my name’s literal.”
“Hours?” Palpatine repeated.
“He’s rolling,” Anakin replied, rolling his eyes. “Like I say, I’m used to this.”
He rummaged in a pocket of his robes, taking out a miniature toolkit, and began disassembling his lightsaber. “I’m pretty sure I can retune these crystals to give two stable configurations which it’ll snap between, that should give me a length toggle instead of a single adjustable length…”
“Are you taking your lightsaber apart?” Palpatine hissed. “What if you need to fight?”
“It’s okay, Chancellor, I’ll get about five minutes’ warning if the negotiations are going downhill,” Anakin replied. “That should be time to put it back together again…”
Palpatine looked up to Obi-Wan, who – sure enough – was still going.
“...of course, a separate but related issue is what it’s going to be like afterwards,” Obi-Wan said. “In principle the Republic and the Jedi Order could probably accept the existence of Sith so long as we actually knew who they were and they weren’t trying to destroy us. It’s the fact that the first Sith we met in a thousand years tried to run Anakin over and cut Qui-Gon’s head off as an opening move that’s soured us towards them a bit… but are you really going to be content as someone whose whole job is to die for Sidious?”
Dooku stared at Obi-Wan, baffled, then glanced at Palpatine and Anakin.
“What do you mean?” he asked, forcing his gaze back to Obi-Wan.
“Sidious is your Master, we know that much,” Obi-Wan replied. “Partly because you told me yourself. But has he ever put himself in danger? Or has it all been you dealing with Jedi like myself and my apprentice? Putting yourself out there, in danger, while you do exactly what he says?”
He smiled slightly. “A Jedi would accept that, but you’re a Sith – you’ve said so yourself. Sith are self-interested. What do you think your new master is getting out of the situation? Because if you don’t know, it’s got to be something and it’s probably something he doesn’t want to tell you.”
“My master is quite willing to put himself in danger,” Dooku said, then clamped his lips shut at a frantic mouthed shut up from Palpatine.
“Real or feigned?” Obi-Wan asked. “Do you think he wouldn’t manipulate you? He’s been doing it to everyone else – you’ve said it.”
Dooku’s brow furrowed.
“But we’re getting off topic,” Obi-Wan said, turning to look at Palpatine. “Chancellor, what about this as a starting point? Your emergency powers were granted to resolve the crisis, and I’m sure you want to abandon them as soon as possible… so why not take away the whole reason why the individual systems in the Confederacy had problems with the Republic to begin with? Freely allow the departure of any system which wishes to do so, under the emergency powers legislation; enact a progressive tax, one which hits the Core worlds harder owing to their greater ability to pay, to sustain a carrier based navy able to hunt pirates more effectively than conduct occupations or orbital bombardment, and have the navy established on a sector-federal two-level model?”
Palpatine stared at Obi-Wan for at least ten seconds.
“...he’s a Sith Lord,” he said, yet again.
“Oh, shut up,” Dooku replied. “You’re a Sith Lord and I don’t see you doing anything constructive.”
Obi-Wan glanced at Palpatine.
“...you know,” he began. “I’m quite sure you’d need to note that on your financial disclosure forms, your Excellency.”
He turned sideways, so he could see both Dooku and Palpatine at the same time. “What was the point of this whole abduction, anyway?”
“As it happens, I was supposed to kill you,” Dooku said. “It’s the only way to turn Anakin to the Dark Side, if you’re out of the way.”
“Huh?” Anakin asked. “Is something up? I’ve almost got the crystals realigned.”
“This plan looked a lot better this morning,” Palpatine muttered.