[writterings]

boromir was genuinely a good guy who cared about his people so passionately and he actually cared about the members of the fellowship and tried to teach the hobbits to swordfight and he was the only one who actually offered some comfort to gimli when he found out his cousin was dead and and he CARRIED merry and pippin up the mountain and over the broken bridge he tried to make aragorn give everyone just a few minutes to mourn gandalf and THEN when he found out the ring was corrupting his mind and that he attacked frodo he literally started crying in digust of himself and tried to apologize and then he DIED saving merry and pippin and god i am so emotional over boromir

[fallingstar7669]

At the Council of Elrond, Boromir was shot down by Aragorn for boasting. Repeatedly during the trek of the Fellowship, Boromir’s ideas were shot down and he was treated like an idiot. Strong, but still an idiot. Tolkien did not understand “character development” and he knew Boromir was the redshirt so he treated him like someone that no one would be sad to lose.

In the movie, it did seem like Boromir was boasting, particularly in his tone: “by the blood of OUR PEOPLE are YOUR lands kept safe.” But in the book, his was much kinder: “Give me leave, Master Elrond, first to say more of Gondor … for few, I deem, know of our deeds, and therefore guess little of their peril, if we should fail at last.” He went on to explain that all of the lands East and South of Mordor have been allied with Sauron, and Gondor is the only power keeping them at bay… but it was not just by those alliances that they were being beaten back: a “great black horseman” was instilling a madness on the foes of Gondor, and filling the boldest Men with fear. The Nazgul were attacking the eastern strongholds in Ithilien before they were sent for the Ring. After that, and explaining his dream to the council, Aragorn presented the Sword that was Broken, and asked Boromir if he would want the Heir of Isildur to return: Boromir said he would accept help if it was given, but not demand it (which was the proper thing to say) but cast doubt on Aragorn’s appearance, which Aragorn “graciously” forgave him for (Tolkien went on to repeatedly say how kingly Aragorn looked), and then chastised him for his account of Gondor’s plight, because he and the Rangers of the North were defending the North from Angmar, saying that Boromir knew “little of the lands beyond [his] bounds. Peace and freedom, you say? The North would have known little of them but for us. Fear would have destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from the sunless woods, they fly from us.” What is that if not boasting?

The only thing we could say on Tolkien’s behalf is that he gave Boromir a brief moment of redemption, when he admitted his faults and apologized, and gave Aragorn precisely the information he needed and could in the seconds he had left, and begged that his people - whom he loved more than he ever could love himself - be saved.

Then Aragorn, the man who would be the greatest king of Men since Elendil, concealed the truth from his most trusted friends and companions. And Aragorn continued to fail to show any semblance of humility when he scorned the door-wardens of Meduseld, claiming that the rightful King of Gondor should not be disarmed, especially from a legendary sword. What the actual fuck.

Movie Aragorn was infinitely better than book Aragorn.

[shingen012]

Popping someone’s bubble of ignorance and forcing them to deal with reality.

[totallyfubar]

That’s actually a really literal description of this gif

[fallingstar7669]

And it’s a vitally important reminder that the Buzz on the left had his bubble popped already. They spent an entire movie popping it.

The lesson here is, don’t be so smug when you’re right. Because you were wrong right up until the moment you learned better, and there are a lot of things you’re still wrong about.

[xenosaurus]

here’s a handy checklist for anyone considering redeeming a villain!!!

are they…

❏ a wife beater?
❏ sexually abusive?
❏ violent towards small children?
❏ extremely racist?
❏ a goddamn fascist?

if you checked any of these boxes, not only should you not redeem that villain, but I’m also going to come to your house and pour sewer water into your sock drawer for even considering it

[sureenink]

What if he changes his ways and becomes not whichever of these things he was? Wouldn’t that be an awesome arc? Imagine, an abusive husband realizes he’s being such and changes his ways. An extreme racist realizes the evil of what he’s been doing and changes his ways to try and help people? I mean, everyone deserves forgiveness if they are willing to change their ways.

[xenosaurus]

Okay, I thought about making a snarky comment here, but I don’t think that’s productive at all, so I’m going to actually lay out the issue with the arcs you’re describing.

First off, I think it’s important to say that I’m very aware of how abuse works.  I have crisis training from a domestic violence shelter and I’m a survivor myself.  I’m familiar with the idea of therapy and intervention to help abusers become better people.  I can tell you right now that the slow, uncomfortable therapeutic work that goes into rehabilitating abusers is not really made for “fun” TV.  However, even then, characters are not real people, and when considering how a work is going to impact your target audience, you NEED to prioritize victims.

The issue is that an arc where any abuser changes their ways is almost always dangerous to those real life victims.  The fantasy that your abuser is a good person deep down and wouldn’t be hurting you if they understood that’s what they were doing or just saw the error of their ways is very seductive.  Victims loving their abuser and wanting to see the good in them is REALLY common, almost universal.  It’s usually how people end up there in the first place.  Drowning them in media where this works out is just not a good idea.  

Abuse is complicated emotionally and psychologically, and unless they’re written VERY carefully, any sort of redemption arc for an abuser is going to be contributing to a culture that keeps people trapped in bad situations.  Unless a good chunk of the plot is devoted to realistic recovery from an abusive mindset, you’re pretty much not going to be able to do this in a way that’s sensitive to the realities of abuse.

And god, I don’t even know where to start with racism.  White people shouldn’t be redeeming racists in their fiction, full stop.

There have been a few other comments about reformed neo-nazis on this post, and while I firmly believe that fictional works glorifying them is a quick slide into “not being a literal nazi is a gold standard rather than the bare minimum”, if you want more information about things like this, I’d check out Life After Hate.

Also, any “fiction doesn’t affect reality” folks who want to argue with this post will not be humored.

[sureenink]

I still can’t agree. Everyone deserves a chance at forgiveness. If a person or character has a genuine change of heart, why can they not be redeemed? Isn’t redeeming some terrible character actually a really strong narrative? I guess the question is what falls under “redeeming a character”? Because I’ve seen a great many stories, shows, etc. that start with a villainous character and end with the villainous character realizing what he did was wrong and turning around and aiding the hero to prevent the bigger bad. I’d do well to remind people that Zuko, from Last Airbender, was a fasict, but he was not only redeemed by the show, but the fanbase claims it one of the strongest character arcs on the show. Also, without it, Aang simply could not have done what he did and saved the world.

I will disagree with this post because everyone, no matter what they did, deserves forgiveness under the context that the person in question genuinely has a change of heart. If a Neo-Nazi here IRL were to have a change of heart and actively work against other Neo-Nazis, why would I not forgive them? Why should I hold a person’s past against them when they are not that person anymore? As Sunset Shimmer says “My past does not define me, for my past is not today”. Sunset Shimmer may not have been any of the things you mentioned, but she was cruel, she was abusive physically, emotionally, and mentally. She was, in fact, a terrible person. But look how much good she has done. After she changed her ways, she became a good person. So why would I deny someone else the ability to change and be good just because they committed a terrible act? If a person genuinely changes, I’m going to forgive them.

[fallingstar7669]

Everyone deserves forgiveness… but some things deserve to not, under any circumstances, be forgotten. This presents a fuzzy middle-ground where a terrible person can be redeemed.

I think a perfect example here is Oskar Schindler. While it is true Oskar was never as excessively violent as other more prominent examples of Nazis, he was, in fact, a Nazi, and took full advantage of his position. It wasn’t until he had a change of heart, and started using that position to undermine the Nazi agenda. Oskar Schindler is exactly the sort of evil person who was redeemed to the point where, by the end, we feel genuinely sorry for him.

Another good example, albeit a much shorter one, is Boromir from Lord of the Rings. True, he started out at worst a heroic braggart; not a true evil person. But for all intents and purposes, he became Evil, with a capital ‘E’. He was corrupted. He fell to the power of the Ring. He abandoned his oath and tried to kill Frodo and take the Ring for himself. Almost immediately afterwards he saw the error of his ways, but, that was not his redeeming act. No, his redeeming act was exhausting his life in defense of Merry and Pippin.

And that’s where these redeeming stories need to go. Acts of ultimate evil can only be redeemed by acts of ultimate good. But even then, as I said, while forgiveness is earned, the act of evil is never forgotten. Oskar Schindler lived most of the rest of his life destitute, and Boromir accepted that death was his punishment even though he had a redeeming act.

So how could a child abuser earn redemption? Well, the easiest way to balance the scales is to put an identical weight on the other side. Perhaps the child abuser prevents a school shooting by taking down the shooters, and in doing so, he dies… and saves dozens of children’s lives. Does this act redeem them? One can argue that an act of great good balances out an act of terrible evil. In fact, one needs to argue that in order to see the redemption of Oskar Schindler and Boromir, because both of them did something terrible. But - and this is important - both Oskar and Boromir had the light of the hero and the shadow of the villain. Thus their ending is not rainbows and sparkles; it is bittersweet. The child abuser who dies still deserves his death, despite his final act of goodness.

In fact, this dichotomy, this blending of two distinct emotions, can make for a very profound and thoughtful ending. One can even argue, it’s a great deal more powerful than a hero winning… even with a sacrifice. Because we know the hero is going to win. Narratively, it’s expected. What no one expects is for a villain to turn-coat, to accept their badness and hate it, and end it themselves in one final blaze of light.

In short, some villains get redemption and a happy ending. Some villains get redemption, but despite that, do not deserve a happy ending.

[avelera]

But have you considered: Thorin might be nearsighted?

Case in point:

Exhibit 2

“It cannot be.”aka Doesn’t actually recognize Azog until he starts talking…

This needs no explanation:

*BOOM*

Exhibit 3:

Not subtitled, but Thorin shouts for Kili when actually Fili is the one who was almost crushed >.< 

Exhibit 4

Not pictured because I couldn’t find a gif, but Thorin prompting Balin to lead them out of Rivendell because he “can see knows these paths”

Exhibit 5 

Cut off Azog’s arm, was probably aiming for something slightly more fatal, couldn’t tell he was alive when dragged back inside Moria…

Exhibit 6

WHERE’S BILBO?

(”I have no idea because I can’t see for shit.”)

Conclusion:

Since wearing glass in front of your eyes is slightly more of a liability for a fighter than people’s faces being slightly blurry, I’m just gonna throw this out there as a possible explanation for fandom to run with ;)

[avelera]

Ok but I think this is my favorite post of mine that’s done well because

1) it give a humorous explanation for Thorin’s random moments of fail that’s cracky and funny

2) it actually kinda makes sense and it gives Thorin a minor (or not so minor for his life and world) disability that he works around and actually kinda explains said moments of fail realistically and honestly guys the more I think about it and replay the movies in my head the fewer contradictions I can find for this headcanon???

[withywindlesdaughter]

There is a fanfic in here somewhere 

[guylty]

Convincing arguments!

[clematis70]

Thorin has suddenly become more human and more pleasant (short-sighted person speaking here)

[gwengrimm]

@ymrtumbler

[ymrtumbler]

I love this. Thanks for the tap, @gwengrimm!

[heirsfthemountainhall]

You are not wrong OP, Thorin IS nearsighted.  In the book, it was even canon:

“How far away do you think it is?”  asked Thorin, for by now they knew Bilbo had the sharpest eyes among them.  
“Not far at all.  I shouldn’t think above twelve yards.”
“Twelve yards!  I should have thought it was thirty at least, but my eyes don’t see as well as they used a hundred years ago-” 
(From the chapter, ‘Flies and Spiders’ of The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien )

Thorin isn’t just slightly nearsighted either, he thought a large object at across-the-street distance was three-quarters of the length of a football field away.  
By modern standards he would be legally, coke-bottle-glasses-or-we-don’t-let-you-drive, blind.

In the movie Thorin’s nearsightedness is never actually stated, but I love the clever ways in which they worked it into the acting (as avelera highlighted very well), and also into the costume and set design (implying that Dwarves tend to be nearsighted in general): 
Dwarven ornamentation is always three-dimensional, be it stamped leather, cut runes, thickly-embroidered brocade, or cast-metal beads.  There are no purely painted or smooth-inlaid designs anywhere that would require sight, let alone 20/20 vision.  

Dwarven cities too, are violently three-dimensional and ornamented with a lot of straight-lined geometry and gigantic statues.  Perhaps most telling of all, the terrifyingly high stone bridges found in both Erebor AND Moria are treated as perfectly ordinary sidewalks… which would make sense for a race that couldn’t even SEE the ground below.

As for Thorin’s precision-jump in the forges…

Brass ones.  Solid fucking brass ones.

[meabhair]

When I talk my glasses off, the last two images look identical to me… just saying, I relate

[weresehlat]

What I love about this too is that you CAN’T tell me that the dwarrow didn’t invent the use of glass for lenses. Like, you CAN’T.

Not only are they incredibly necessary for detail work on very, very fine gem work, glasses are really freaking necessary for interacting with the world outside the mountain if you’re as fucking blind as Thorin is

Which brings up the point- why doesn’t Thorin wear glasses? 

There are two theories I can think of right off the bat. The first is that Thorin doesn’t wear them because they don’t look “kingly,” which, while absolutely hysterical, I don’t think is likely to be true.

No, what I’m willing to bet is that glasses are too expensive to create and maintain for a people in exile, and if his people are going without you can be damn sure that Thorin will be right there with them.

[avelera]

My theory @gwengrimm is actually that glasses during any kind of sword fight would be a huge liability. Having GLASS in front of your eyes just waiting for your opponent to shatter and blind you would be super dangerous, much better to just take the blurriness (in a hand-to-hand fight you don’t need that much precision vision anyway).

(Holy shit I just realized that’s why Thorin misses Thranduil’s white deer by like a MILE when he shoots at it!) 

The other alternative could simply be: Thorin doesn’t know. 

See, across all the reblogs of this post I’ve seen SO MANY people mistake nearsighted and farsighted. I’m saying specifically that Thorin is nearsighted, he CAN see things that are near to him, he CAN’T see things that are far away. 

I absolutely believe dwarves have figured out lenses for close-up work like jewel-cutting or even just for reading, after all Balin has reading glasses, we see them in the film. Farsightedness (not being able to read close-up) is a product of the eye muscles growing tired over time from constantly focusing in and out. It would be very likely that people who do fine detailed work would go farsighted very quickly. 

However, going back to Thorin complimenting Bilbo on his “keen eyes”, Thorin may genuinely believe that Bilbo has unusually sharp, almost elvish eyes, and not realize that Bilbo is just a normal 20/20 and that Thorin nearly blind as a bat. As someone who was nearsighted, the first time you put on corrective lenses is a revelation (THE TREES HAVE LEAVES!) but until that point you don’t know that you have a problem. My theory is that Thorin may genuinely not know that his vision sucks, and reading glasses are actually just easier to make than distance-glasses, he may not ever find out. Or he knows and just takes the hit to vision because having Azog headbutt him in the face while he’s wearing them would end very poorly for him :P

[telltalelily]

I may be late to the party, but this makes so much sense! I would also propose that at least some of Thorin’s grouchiness may be due to headaches from straining to make things out at a farther distance than his eyes really allow for. Also, you know, the painful past and stuff…

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

Don’t forget he worked in a forge too. A mate of mine suffers from something called Welder’s Flash which has damaged his eyesight and it’s from working in similar conditions to those we see in the flashback scenes of the forges of Erebor. 

If you’re working in a very hot environment or a place where the contrast between bright and dark is very high then it can damage your eyesight. So Thorin says his eyesight used to be better when he was younger, but in the century since they fled Erebor he’s not been a prince sitting around doing princely stuff, he’s been working in a blacksmith’s forge. 

[fallingstar7669]

Another important fact, from the books that the movie got wrong (one more for the list), is that Thorin is nearly twenty years older than Balin. The movie literally made Balin older (by 40 years!) in order to have a younger Thorin, a younger character in the lead role. So the issues with Thorin’s eyesight may not be a result of anything other than - as he said himself - old age.

Of course, that point is somewhat refuted by the fact that Balin, a dwarf a mere 20 years his junior, was always expected to be the look-out man.

As a huge fan of The Hobbit (the book, not the movie), I’m perfectly okay with Thorin having legitimate vision problems. Little quirks like that are what ground characters in reality, and make them more relatable. Like, Thorin asking only for wine at the Unexpected Party, and only after Gandalf asked for it. Or Thorin rambling on in a kingly way, covering everything that was already known (a trait he would be loathe to learn he shares with hobbits).

One thing that should be mentioned, though, is that although Thorin may have missed a bow-shot in the movies, he didn’t miss any bow-shots in the book: he fired two, one into the black hart that dove over the Company as they were crossing the Black Stream, and another into the shield of a message-carrier at the Wall of Erebor. Both shots were said to strike well and true. Makes me wonder; are there any near-sighted archers in the audience who can still make bow-shots without glasses?

[marzipanandminutiae]

it’s hilarious to me when people call historical fashions that men hated oppressive

like in BuzzFeed’s Women Wear Hoop Skirts For A Day While Being Exaggeratedly Bad At Doing Everything In Them video, one woman comments that she’s being “oppressed by the patriarchy.” if you’ve read anything Victorian man ever said about hoop skirts, you know that’s pretty much the exact opposite of the truth

thing is, hoop skirts evolved as liberating garment for women. before them, to achieve roughly conical skirt fullness, they had to wear many layers of petticoats (some stiffened with horsehair braid or other kinds of cord). the cage crinoline made their outfits instantly lighter and easier to move in

it also enabled skirts to get waaaaay bigger. and, as you see in the late 1860s, 1870s, and mid-late 1880s, to take on even less natural shapes. we jokingly call bustles fake butts, but trust me- nobody saw them that way. it was just skirts doing weird, exciting Skirt Things that women had tons of fun with

men, obviously, loathed the whole affair

(1864)

(1850s. gods, if only crinolines were huge enough to keep men from getting too close)

(no date given, but also, this is 100% impossible)

(also undated, but the ruffles make me think 1850s)

it was also something that women of all social classes- maids and society ladies, enslaved women and free women of color -all wore at one point or another. interesting bit of unexpected equalization there

and when bustles came in, guess what? men hated those, too

(1880s)

(probably also 1880s? the ladies are being compared to beetles and snails. in case that was unclear)

(1870s, I think? the bustle itself looks early 1870s but the tight fit of the actual gown looks later)

hoops and bustles weren’t tools of the patriarchy. they were items 1 and 2 on the 19th century’s “Fashion Trends Women Love That Men Hate” lists, with bonus built-in personal space enforcement

[prismatic-bell]

Gonna add something as someone who’s worn a lot of period stuff for theatre:

The reason you suck at doing things in a hoop skirt is because you’re not used to doing things in a hoop skirt.

The first time I got in a Colonial-aristocracy dress I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The construction didn’t actually allow me to raise my arms all the way over my head (yes, that’s period-accurate). We had one dresser to every two women, because the only things we could put on ourselves were our tights, shifts, and first crinoline. Someone else had to lace our corsets, slip on our extra crinolines, hold our arms to balance us while a second person actually put the dresses on us like we were dolls, and do up our shoes–which we could not put on ourselves because we needed to be able to balance when the dress went on. My entire costume was almost 40 pounds (I should mention here that many of the dresses were made entirely of upholstery fabric), and I actually did not have the biggest dress in the show.

We wore our costumes for two weeks of rehearsal, which is quite a lot in university theatre. The first night we were all in dress, most of the ladies went propless because we were holding up our skirts to try and get a feel for both balance and where our feet were in comparison to where it looked like they should be. I actually fell off the stage.

By opening night? We were square-dancing in the damn things. We had one scene where our leading man needed to whistle, but he didn’t know how and I was the only one in the cast loud enough to be heard whistling from under the stage, so I was also commando-crawling underneath him at full speed trying to match his stage position–while still in the dress. And petticoats. And corset. Someone took my shoes off for that scene so I could use my toes to propel myself and I laid on a sheet so I wouldn’t get the dress dirty, but that was it–I was going full Solid Snake in a space about 18″ high, wearing a dress that covered me from collarbones to floor and weighed as much as a five-year-old child. And it worked beautifully.

These women knew how to wear these clothes. It’s a lot less “restrictive” when it’s old hat.

[gothiccharmschool]

I have worn hoop skirts a lot, especially in summer. I still wear hoop skirts if I’m going to be at an event where I will probably be under stage lights. (For example, Vampire Ball.)

I can ride public transportation while wearing them. I can take a taxi while wearing them. I can go on rides at Disneyland while wearing them. Because I’ve practiced wearing them and twisting the rigid-but-flexible skirt bones so I can sit on them and not buffet other people with my skirts. 

Hoop skirts are awesome.

[papi-chulo-seb]

As someone that has grown up surrounded by beaches and done surf life saving, I know how the sea works. Lots of people dont. Every summer multiple tourists die here because they don’t respect the sea, if you’re going to the coast, here’s a thing I saw on Facebook.

[i-amneveralone]

wow.

[robotsandfrippary]

reblogging for all of us that grew up in land locked states, then visit the ocean and are used to just plunging into a lake.

[fallingstar7669]

This is quality information. Descriptions, pictures, clearly explained… perfection. Even folks like me who don’t visit the beach would enjoy this.

Elizabeth Warren’s anti-corruption bill bans foreign lobbyists, subjects domestic lobbyists to strong oversight

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Newt Gingrich’s 1995 Republican Revolution dismantled all the expert departmentsand bureaus that Congress depended on to make sense of the world, making lawmakers dependent on corporate lobbyists to advise them on everything from pollution to food safety to military technology to mass surveillance – nearly 25 years later, Washington DC is a literal and figurative swamp, and only 18% of Americans say they trust Congress.

Enter President Elizabeth Warren (2020-2028), who just unveiled her “Anti-Corruption Act” at a speech at the National Press Club.

The Act drives a deep wedge between public service and lobbyists, making it far harder for politicians and bureaucrats to cycle between the private sector and governments. It includes a flat out ban on lobbying for foreign governments (this being the activity that made Paul Manafort his vast fortune), and subjects domestic lobbyists to the kinds of oversight that foreign lobbyists endure today.

All candidates for political office would be required to release their tax returns, and all the rules would be enforced by a new Office of Public Integrity.

https://boingboing.net/2018/08/21/a-new-new-deal.html

[fallingstar7669]

Elizabeth Warren makes me proud to be a Masshole.

[its-life-jim]

me: “god, i would give my heart and soul for this character”

also me: “so anyway what’s the worst thing that could happen to them?”

[fallingstar7669]

Also me: “Now that I know the worst thing that can happen to them, how do I make my players want to give their heart and soul for this character?”

[gahdamnpunk]

Please read this!

+

[fallingstar7669]

I want Sesame Street to start teaching sign language letters alongside all the other letters.

[broadwayz]

a midsummer night’s meme

[daughter-of-prospero]

my name is Puck
and wen its nite
or faerie-kind
is in a fite
the humans run
i shout wyth glee
“lord what fools
these mortals be”

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

This is what Shakespeare would have wanted.

Detroit: Become Human

There’s a curious thing we see in the game. Or, rather, that we don’t see.

We are made aware of Marcus removing his LED to appear human. We know Kara and Luther do the same thing at some point. Oddly, many other deviants do not remove theirs, particularly those in Jericho (who would be the most likely candidates). But there is one special android that we do not see with an LED; the narrative reason being a (rather poor) set up for a (rather poorly) dramatic reveal later. It serves its function, but brings up an interesting point that I would personally doubt was ever intended:

Was Alice a deviant?

The LED serves two narrative purposes: letting the audience know who is an android (by the LED existing), and letting the audience know when an android becomes deviant; the LED turns red in moments of emotional stress, which is explained as a trigger for deviancy. Androids such as Marcus and Kara become deviants and rid themselves of their LEDs after the audience is aware that they are deviant. Later in the story this point becomes moot; the audience is comfortable with the knowledge of deviancy, and a character like Luther doesn’t need all of that explained again.

The fact that Alice never had an LED was so they could create dramatic tension and a reveal late in the story. It is implied (perhaps not directly explained) that she doesn’t have an LED in-universe because she is meant to replace a daughter that was lost; with her being visibly an android, it would break the illusion the abusive and depressed Todd had arranged for himself.

But the lack of an LED, whether by fortune or chance, creates an unusual scenario: we, the audience, never get to see Alice become a deviant.

This is important, because there is a clear demarcation between a “regular” android and a deviant one: free will. Androids will suffer abuse time and time again until the moment comes when they turn deviant; we see it at the Eden club, we see it with Carlos’ android (who ultimately self-destructs), Kara obeys orders without question, even when those orders are in conflict; she is told to take care of Kara, but is then told to stand still after Kara is emotionally abused and runs off.

Aside: the visualization of Kara tearing down “walls” is so incredibly shitty. It’s so heavy-handed what it’s meant to represent, it actually works against itself. There’s just no subtlety. A better approach would have been to emphasize the emotional stress of the conflict, and ultimately to choose either the emotional option (become deviant) or the mechanical one (remain an android).

So the question of whether Alice is a deviant is a severely important one, as it forms the foundation of Alice’s relationship with Kara. Alice is programmed to be a child; she can be fussy, she can be scared, she likes books, she builds a fort in her room, she complains about being hot, cold, wet, sick, and so on. She’s an android; she does not actually suffer these things. And that’s where it gets interesting: throughout the story, Alice complains about these things. She is even treated as a little girl by other humans, like Rose, who has a lot of experience with androids and should recognize an Alice model. Now, perhaps Rose making Alice spaghetti was just an oversight, or perhaps it was another heavy-handed and ultimately silly way to perpetuate the narrative tension. But the fact remains, Alice behaves - and this is important - exactly as she was programmed to.

This is repeated over and over again; nearly every situation Kara and Alice (and later Luther) find themselves in, they are put in peril because Alice is cold and needs shelter. Not Kara, not Luther, Alice. Alice is behaving like a child who has needs and Kara must satisfy those needs. This continues right up until what is possibly the most dramatic moment in this quandary: Kara turns off Alice’s cold sensor.

Now I could talk about how the whole concept of “becoming human”, ie, achieving free will, is completely destroyed by an android being able to simply turn off parts of its program. How is it “free will” if someone suddenly loses… emotion? memories? behavior? Perhaps one might argue that the same thing can happen to humans; brain damage has been shown to change personality, nerve damage can diminish or obliterate senses. But that’s usually not due to free will. If Alice had turned her own cold sensor off, if she had the maturity and wherewithall to do that, if there was a discussion and it was realized that it was going to impede the group and then they let her, I could get behind that. At least it would be drawing attention to it and allowing Alice the free will to make that choice. Instead, Kara does it herself, and it’s all but glossed over. Kara makes a modification to a machine, and the machine accepts it.

This is not free will. Nor is any other time the Alice machine behaves irrationally as per her programming.

So, is Alice a deviant? We never see her become one. And this question is fundamentally important, because if Alice follows her programming in every other situation, it stands to reason that she only needs Kara - a nurturing, protective mother-figure - because that is what she was programmed to need. If Alice is not a deviant, if she’s just following her programming, then there is no actual emotion; it’s just an act, on Alice’s part, that Kara is following along with. It means Alice does not love or need Kara at all. She’s just a machine that’s pretending to. She’s a machine that has passed the Turing test… and Kara is the unwitting operator.

Or, maybe she isn’t.

There is a silver lining. It’s true we never see Alice become deviant, and it is true she follows her programming even when it doesn’t make any sense for her to, but there are two other crucial facts. The first is that androids tend to become deviant in moments of emotional stress. And this stress tends to come about - as we see multiple times in the game (seriously, the devs must have a fetish for this sort of thing) - through abuse. There is no doubt Alice has been abused. The second fact is what we see at the very end, if you take the path where Kara makes a few bad choices and the two are captured and sent to the camp to be destroyed. In that scenario, Kara needs to maintain Alice’s stress level… exactly as Connor (the android sent by Cyberlife) had to do with Carlos’ android. Connor (the android sent by Cyberlife) even explicitly states that deviants have a tendency to self-destruct in stressful moments.

Perhaps we can take this as meaning that Alice was indeed a deviant. And perhaps we can take that as evidence that she truly does love Kara.

[absynthe--minded]

every time I see the words “Tolkien ripoff” in reference to fantasy I laugh, because while there’s a lot of Tolkien ripoff in worldbuilding it almost never crops up in plot or theme or characterization

like

where are my stories about the decay of the world from the glory of days gone by?

where’s the motif of limb loss?

where’s the longing for the return of something worth following?

where are the bloodthirsty oaths that tear sanity to shreds?

where are the evil spirits who try and destroy the gods with steampunk V-1 buzz bombs (looking at you, The Lost Road)?

where’s my continent-wide dialectical shift ending in massive arguments over the proper pronunciation of a name? where’s my family drama centered around sparkly rocks? where are my dragons the size of mountain ranges?

[alia-andreth]

Tolkienesque Fantasy™: there’s a quest, the elves are bitchy, the dwarves drink a lot, farm boy hero.

Tolkien’s Actual Writing: absolute power corrupts absolutely, a little bit of power corrupts a little, to what extent are people responsible for their actions? does God/the gods really answer our prayers? and pacifistic undertones.

[tollers-and-jack]

@reeve-of-caerwyn @oldshrewsburyian

[reeve-of-caerwyn]

Also actual Tolkien: The world is full of hope even in dark times. Kindness and friendship are what heroes are made of. Absolutely do not fuck with nature or you will regret it.

[garrettauthor]

Also actual Tolkien: actual heroes are little people who band together because it is right, and because they must.

[mazarinedrake]

Actual Tolkien: write your spouse into the story as an Actual Demigoddess whose song can charm even the Big Bad and the Keeper of the Dead themselves. Write your best friend into the story as a longwinded shaggy tree who takes hours to get to the fucking point. 

[fallingstar7669]

Actual Tolkien: Small acts of kindness and love.

what if people we consider collectors today were actually just dragons in disguise, building their hoards?

[midnight-scrivener]

“I am a dragon. And this is my hoard.”

“You… don’t look like a dragon.”

“Well, hardly anyone does, these days. Times have changed, we have too. The scales and tails thing worked with the dinosaurs, but we learned quite quickly that… that wasn’t going to fly with you people.”

“You were around all the way back to the dinosaurs?”

“Well, not like… me personally. How old do you think I am?”

“… There’s no safe answer to that.”

“No.”

“So… when you say this is your hoard…?”

“All dragons have them. Some stick to the old gold and jewels thing, but that’s so cliche these days. Most of us like our hoards to be a little bit more sophisticated than ‘shiny.’“

“Like what?”

“I have known dragons to collect snowflakes from the first fall of the year over dozens of centuries. I know dragons that collect petals of flowers left on the graves of loved ones. Dragons that keep and care for soft toys and comfort items, left behind as children grow up. Dragons that guard happy memories and shards of sunlight, kept safe for rainy days. And me, I keep a sanctuary of words. A bastion of language, of poetry. Of written music and achingly beautiful prose. I am the Guardian of this monument to linguistic majesty. I collect stories of love and life and death and mourning and joy. There is nothing more beautiful in all the world, no coin or gem or sliver of starlight more fantastic than a well-told tale. A story is this world’s truest treasure, and what better chest for it than a book?”

“Wow. So these things… really mean a lot to you, huh?”

“More than anything in this world.”

“So… I probably can’t borrow your copies of Discworld, can I?”

“You absolutely fucking cannot.”

[penny-anna]

Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

[penny-anna]

~*~earlier~*~

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Frodo: Merry. You’re absolutely right. I’ll wait.

[penny-anna]

#legolas’ hick accent vs #frodo’s ‘i learned it out of a book’ accent #FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Frodo: :)

[storywonker]

Frodo: Hello. My name is Frodo. I am a Hobbit. How are you?

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo, crying: please I can’t understand what you’r saying

[wizard-guff]

Ok, but Frodo didn’t just learn out of a book. He learned like… Chaucerian Elvish. So actually:

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

Aragorn: *laughing too hard to walk*

[reformedkingsmanagent]

@ghostriderofthearagon

[kittensmctavish]

@butterflyslinky

“millenials killing cable”

[mountainlane]

okay, so here’s the thing. i’ve got a student prime account and netflix. comes to about $15.91 a month. if i added the commercial-free version of hulu, it would come to $27.90 a month.

basic cable before internet is $64.99 a month. which includes commercials. and infomercials. about a quarter of all television is commercials. which is about $16.25 a month to have someone selling shit to you.

explain how it’s my and my generation’s fault that we’re not falling for the same scam our parents are.

[fallingstar7669]

Incidentally, this is why cable companies want to change their internet payment schemes to parallel their cable payment schemes. So they can charge more for the service that everyone wants.

This, in turn, is why it’s so god damned important that we protect Net Neutrality, because it would prevent exactly this sort of thing from happening. So get involved! Talk to your congress-critters, let your voices be heard!