Tag: meta

element-of-change:

how-do-you-do-the-do:

I didn’t really appreciate Aang until this picture.

When I was young, Aang got on my nerves. “Make the tough calls, take responsibility, grow up! I’ve had to!” 

I gave him no mercy for his age because, at the time, I was younger than him. He annoyed me when he slacked on his training, when he didn’t listen to Jeong Jeong, when he refused to kill the Firelord. Him and every other character who would give up the greater good to keep the moral high ground. Your principles don’t matter, results do!

It wasn’t until I got older that I saw Aang differently. He was a child, trying to do what was right, who never wanted to do any harm. And he was exactly what the world needed. Aang was a peaceful soul in war time, gentle when others were cruel, merciful when others were unforgiving, and he reminded everyone how to laugh in a world that had long forgotten how to have fun.

Even after years of hardship, losing absolutely everything and waking up to fight a war, Aang still loved life. He loved marble tricks, penguin sledding, and most of all, he loved people. Aang annoyed me because he was naive, but now inspires me because even after he saw the world at it’s worst, he didn’t forget how to be a kid at heart. In this picture, middle aged and with the weight of the world on his shoulders, Aang not only lets some weird guy by the docks take his picture, but does so with absolute glee. 

Aang shouldn’t be more like me, I should be more like Aang.

amen to this

holy fuck

poplitealqueen:

vorpalgirl:

poplitealqueen:

wizardlogic:

Filch has a doctorate in art conservation and has definitely read Hogwarts A History

Actaully speaking of PoA, can we fuckin talk about Filch and his art credentials?

The portrait of the fat lady gets slashed and Dumbledore hands her off to Filch to get restored?

AND FILCH DOES IT, AND DOES IT WELL?

The next time we see her there is NO mention of anything like, oh she’s back but you can kinda see where she was cut… NO. She comes back in PEAK CONDITION.

Restored by Filch, who *has no magic.*

He restored this however many hundreds of year old painting *by hand.*

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH SKILL MUST HAVE BEEN INVOLVED HERE?

This 100% changes the character of Filch. Like I’ve only ever seen him portrayed as this kind of head janitor kind of character, movies style, but like. Why? Why would Hogwarts need that if it’s full of house elves? According to Harry Oblivious Potter, probably cause Dumbledore felt bad and gave him a shitty job but one he could at least do and still be in the wizarding world.

WRONG. It’s cause that’s not his actual job.

Listen.

Dung bomb goes off in a classroom? Long night for the house elves.

Dung bomb goes off in a 300 year old suit of armor? Long six to eight weeks for Argus Filch.

Fanged frisbee tears up an irreplaceable tapestry?

Filch.

Peeves draws dicks on a portrait of the founders?

Filch.

All these damn kids in and out of here every day acting like dumbasses and blowing stuff up when it’s already bad enough they keep tracking dirt and *breathing* all over everything?

Filch.

Now how about, how does Filch know all the secret passages? A combination of things. Probably paintings told him about some. You spend weeks restoring a portrait of someone who helped build the place which lives and moves and speaks in their voice and you’re bound to at least talk a bit, if not learn a few things. But many he probably found on his own, either by wit or by study- he’s gotta be entrenched in tr history of this place. If Binns hadn’t come back as a ghost Filch could probably teach history of magic in his place.

He keeps the place in order such that generations next will still have it, and said generations next show him no god damn respect for that. He’s bitter for a lot of excellent reasons.

This post just made my morning.

@wizardlogic @poplitealqueen curse and bless you for this post because I – I never noticed that detail. I NEVER NOTICED THAT DETAIL BUT NOW THAT YOU POINTED IT OUT

“

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH SKILL MUST HAVE BEEN INVOLVED HERE?

“

YES, OP. YES I DO, BECAUSE MY MOM LITERALLY RESTORES PAINTINGS FOR A LIVING! Oil paintings are one of her specialties and this kind of repair is absolutely possible but it takes YEARS of skill and a SUPER steady hand and a GOOD EYE to do holy shit my ENTIRE VIEW OF FILCH IS UPTURNED TOPSY TURVY DERVY UPSIDEFUCKINGDOWN NOW

From what I recall:

– Slashed, you say? okay, so, if it was a “clean” cut with nothing actually missing, he would likely carefully line it back up but you have to PATCH THE BACK – which takes care and skill and KNOWLEDGE of how to do it right. Also, longer slashes (as might happen with a knife, which I think was the case here) are obviously trickier to line up, requiring more dexterity

– You patch it (if you’re doing it properly) from behind, with another piece of canvas, because canvas is good and sturdy there’s a reason we paint on it but doesn’t that mean he has scraps of the stuff just?? lying around?? or at least somebody got him some asap

– I don’t know what adhesive is used for this  if it’s a SMALL slash, but depending on the size, it might be easier to “line the canvas” which means LITERALLY adhering it the original, delicate canvas to a new one with HOT MELTED WAX, which has to be melted ~just so~ so that you’re not damaging the paint (I think it might be a special wax, too, idk, I might be seeing mom tomorrow and ask?? I’ll ask about whether this is also used for the smaller patches if I can remember)

– okay but here’s the tricky part. You’ve gotten it lined up. You’ve patched it. But in order to really and truly HIDE the former tear……..you need to likely do a tiny bit of INPAINTING

– fun fact: this is what it sounds like. You’re painting in the missing parts or messed up parts.

-This means Filch has to have a GOOD eye for color and pattern, and STEADY hand with a brush, because the tear is NOT noticeable.

– he likely also has a good knowledge of the ingredients of oil paint and how to mix/thin/thicken them properly!! FILCH HAS ART TRAINING. LITERALLY. HE’S BEEN TRAINED IN THIS. HE HAS TO BE.

– SIDEBAR: We know (thanks to Colin Creevey’s babbling in Book 2) that Wizarding Photographs move because during the development process, you use some sort of potion to magic it. I would lay good money that there’s something similar that gets added to oil paints, possibly enchanted linseed oil or something, something that would be in the BASE of the paint, since it’s found in all the colors of the magical paintings. He knows how to mix this in, he’s gotta, otherwise this poor woman would have like, a glitch in her painting, right? That’s my headcanon there.

– OH OH I FORGOT!! you never ever EVER want to “match the dirt” on an antique painting you want to match the actual original colors as best you can, so HE HAS TO STRIP THE ORIGINAL VARNISH AND ANY DIRT ON OR UNDER IT BEFORE HE INPAINTS

– THIS IS AN EXTREMELY LONG, DELICATE PROCESS USING OFTEN-NASTY CHEMICAL SOLVENTS. You do it goddamn inch by inch!! with like, Q-tops and cotton balls!! Alternatively, you can use your own spit with Q-tips and Cotton Balls, because spit is the most gentle solvent of all (there’s your Gross Handy Art Restoration Fact of the Day), but either way, jesus, this is a LONG process, it’s EXTREMELY tedious and a lot of really REALLY careful work. Like. My mom, and any decent restorer, will tend to charge HUNDREDS for most restorations, or thousands of dollars for particularly large ones. She charges by one of several Difficulty levels, plus by the square inch because, yeah….that’s a lot of labor. how fucking. big is this painting again??? 

– then there’s the revarnishing step, because you gotta PROTECT the future painting.  or rather, there’s TWO varnishing steps, IIRC because you don’t really want your retouch work to directly lay on the original if you can help it,  apaprently? you want it to be removable if you fuck it up or need to redo the repair at any point, apparently?? or something like that. My mom, at least, always does a layer of varnish (tedious in its own right, brushed on carefully to avoid bubbles or streaks) lets it dry for I want to say a day or two it could be longer (I’ll try to remember to ask) and THEN only THEN does she do the inpainting. which you ALSO varnish over. and let dry.

so uh, this might be another case of Jo REALLY getting her timelines awful messy because there’s no fucking way that think took under a few days to fix?? I think we’re looking at over a week MINIMUM, if Filch was really going at it, and that is my not-quite-professional opinion, it might actually be longer

I’m not saying the only way we can reconcile this is by Filch using a time turner to take the painting back in time and start work on it before the fucking school year even starts, but I AM saying that’s one of the only plausible ways I can see that painting getting repaired WITHOUT MAGIC that quickly

but my god, that man must have a really good artistic eye. and like.

it just occurred to me. he’s a squib. he couldn’t get a proper magical education at someplace like Hogwarts, since he cant’ do Charms or Transfigurations or the like, so like?? did he?? go to like a muggle college or something?? did he go to literal art school?? how did that mesh with the magical components of the paintings and other art he might be working on?? 

DO WIZARDS HAVE AN ART SCHOOL??? 

ARE ALL WIZARD ARTISTS SELF-TAUGHT??

WAS LEONARDO A WIZARD?? WAS HE SQUIB???  IS THAT WHY HE INVENTED FLYING MACHINE CONCEPTS, BECAUSE HE COULDN”T USE A BROOM?????????

I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE BEEN OBSESSING OVER HOW THERE CANNOT POSSIBLY BE ONLY ONE AMERICAN WIZARDING SCHOOL WHEN I COULD HAVE QUESTIONED HOW THEY FUCK THEY HAVE MAGNIFICENT ENCHANTED ART AND TAPESTRIES WITHOUT HAVING WIZARD ART SCHOOLS

and

……….fffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck now i want to fic this??? a little??

@vorpalgirl You made an already brilliant post even more brilliant.

arlowritessam:

People talk a lot about Sam’s lack of autonomy in his own
life, but it’s also interesting how often that correlates to the times
he’s literally been sold, bought, or otherwise leveraged as currency.

Off the top of my head:

– Mary’s deal with Azazel- trading
not-yet-alive-Sam’s blood and future for John’s life

– Dean’s demon deal- trading his own soul to
obtain Sam’s soul and life.

– Michael reviving Sam from Anna’s attack- Dean
demands that Michael ‘fix Sam’ which he agrees to do after they talk. He says
that Dean is not his only true vessel (in the same ep that Anna says Sam is
Lucifer’s only true vessel) and that they are destined to say ‘yes.’ He brings
Sam back from the dead in preparation for that final fight, for Lucifer.

– Dean’s deal with Death in season 6×11- trading a
service of serving as Death (and the amusement that provides) for Sam’s soul
and the service of Death putting it back in.

– Cas breaking Sam’s wall- to keep Dean occupied.
He says that he will ‘save Sam, but only if Dean stands down’- he uses Sam’s
sanity as an object for the service of Dean not attacking.

– Gadreel possessing Sam- when he was still
‘Ezekiel,’ he wanted a vessel to stay in to recuperate (service). In return, he
said that he would heal Sam’s body from the inside (service).

–
there’s the obvious 13×11 where he is actually auctioned
off.

– Lucifer bringing Sam back- to give as a gift/sign
of goodwill (object) to get closer to Jack.

The imagery associated with the above examples is also
interesting. In every example, he is
laying down- in all except for the baby one, it is because he is in a position
of no power: either too sick to move, dead, or tied down while others negotiate
over his prone body.

There’s many more times when his autonomy is taken away. But
this on-going pattern of his body/soul being traded without his consent implies ownership to a disturbing
degree. Normally that power is vested in Dean, but it’s also commonly co-opted
by Lucifer.  

It’s also interesting that whenever Sam tries to trade for
own his body/mind/soul, it is refused. None of the demons would trade with him
to save Dean, when Soulless Sam still wanted the soul no one would work with
him, trading his body for the trials ultimately fails, Cas won’t extract all of
Gadreel’s grace from Sam’s body because he values life more, offering his soul
to Casifer doesn’t do anything, offering to take the burden of the mark doesn’t
do anything. When he casts Lucifer into the cage, the ‘trade’ is accepted- but
this is a plan sanctioned by the ‘good guys.’ Whenever Sam attempts to leverage
himself without the explicit permission of Dean, he fails.

Any self-initiated exchange fails, but when he is traded by other people? When he is the passive
object to be negotiated over? Those measures all succeed. It’s just another
marker of the lack of control he has in his own life. And by repeating this
pattern, the narrative perpetrates the idea that Sam does not have ownership of
himself, either.

alexkablob:

swan2swan:

You know what?

I’m no longer holding Star Trek or Star Wars “accountable” for their clunky-looking sixties-and-seventies future technology.

Why?

Because the Enterprise is off on a years-long voyage through space. There’s no Verizon store, no Radio Shack, no Geek Squad out there. If the Klingons fire photon torpedoes and the bridge shakes and Spock’s head bangs against the fancy iPad72 touchscreen and cracks the glass, the ship’s toast. If Han Solo’s fingerprints get all over the starchart and the touch-calibration is off by half a centimeter, the Falcon is going right into a star. But if Mister Worf accidentally twists the command knob too hard and pops it off, he can just screw that thing right back on and it will keep working. Dust gets in there? Take it apart and clean it out. All the plugs are big and universal, all the power cells are functional and have a decent battery life, and nothing is built to expire in the next six months so you have to buy a new one.

That tech isn’t anachronistic or suffering a bad case of Zeerust–it’s practical, effective, and it works. Apple tried launching its own space exploration craft, it had to come back for full repairs within three months, and then it had to be upgraded over the next two.

image

But this? This is just good, long-lasting, fully-functional, and reliable craftsmanship.

The actual real-life space shuttles’ electronics looked pretty much like that for their entire lifespan and this is exactly why.

amimijones:

aubreysflame:

forgot to say that, without Howl chasing girls and Sophie resenting him for it, the film completely erases part of the point of Sophie being old.  Wynne Jones is using an idea that Beauvoir talked about – that being an old woman is both tragic (as we lose male attention/attractiveness) and freeing (as we are freed from the male gaze).  the idea is that with being old comes liberation, and the true meaning of what it is to be a woman, as society no longer forces gender norms on us.

Sophie is free from Howl’s attentions and therefore safe from harm (a big part of the book is the fact that Sophie believes he eats women’s hearts, and him chasing girls proves this to her).  she takes solace in the fact that she’s old, and finds it freeing.  when she learns more about Howl (notably: that he doesn’t eat hearts and that he’s not evil), she starts to curse her age and resent him chasing girls.  BUT she remains old OF HER OWN VOLITION – Howl notes that she’s perpetuating the spell by wishing to remain “in disguise”.  there are SO many layers to this, and lots to do with gender politics – if she’s still old Sophie can’t get hurt, she likes the freedom, etc.  but of course on a personal level being old is her denying her feelings for Howl, and also a representation of her low self esteem – being old is a defence mechanism and protection, both on a gender level and a personal one.

and the film kinda… loses this?  the only thing that remains is being old = low self esteem.  which really sucks.  because there’s SO MUCH MORE to Sophie being old in the book (perspective I already mentioned), and a HUGE amount of this is gender politics.  that the film just erases.

Also there’s the subversion of that in the book. Sophie’s belief that she’s safe from Howl, isn’t quite true because he fell in love with her while she was under the spell (and in the book, there’s no switching between looking young and old. Sophie is looking ninety the entire time, and Howl falls in love anyway.)

Also, her belief that being old means she can’t go to her stepmother or her sisters, that they’d fail to recognize her or reject her, is also unfounded. Fanny almost immediately recognizes her at the end of the book, and hugs her and cries over her and asks why Sophie disappeared. Sophie’s belief that the love of her family, friends and even her romantic interests is somehow conditional on her appearance is shown to be completely false at the end, which I think is absolutely beautiful.

Like, there’s definitely gender politics and commentary going on about beauty and youth and age and the male gaze and male violence going on, but there’s also this message about how love, real love, transcends all of that.