Crowley in the bookshop

Took a break from needlepoint, and drew this...ink, watercolor, and gouache on toned paper.

The gender swap in the characters is *chefs kiss

Being an American right now is so fucked up. Like hi I'm living my life. I'm gay. I'm doing great. My government is trying to take away my human rights. I can vote but it might not do anything because of gerrymandering. Sometimes people here deliberately spread deadly viruses because Freedom. We're told this is the best country in the world. I can't escape. I don't want to leave. I want to escape. I love the land itself. The government is like five steps from actively trying to kill me. We have brand new lawmakers who better understand the will of the people. The highest court in the nation is rigged to side with fascists. I'm graduating soon and I have an incredible life ahead of me. My planet is dying.

What the hell do I even do, man

Like. This sounds overdramatic but you know that scene in the two towers where theoden looks out at saruman's army and realizes he made all these warriors just to destroy Rohan which is full of innocent people and his people and he says "What can man do against such reckless hate?"

That's how I feel on a daily basis

I don't think I CAN do anything except keep doing what I'm doing. Keep myself alive. Make stuff that helps other people be happy. Encourage activism and change. Plant flowers. I have to focus small. There ISN'T anything I can do against the big pharmaceutical companies causing millions of deaths from covid (among thousands of other medical ailments) because they refuse to release the patents on lifesaving medicine. I can't do anything about it I literally can't

All I can do is fucking write stories and posts and run stupid little dragon RPGs and plant flowers and hope. But if it helps other people too, what I'm doing, then it's worth it.

I am very small. I need to remember that and not try to pick a fight with an enemy that's much bigger than me. It's not selfish to say it's probably for the best if I just focus on my life and immediate vicinity. It's realistic and I think I can do more good this way.

There's a lot of pressure to like, fight for every problem ever but I think I need to remember I can't do that and I shouldn't do that and I need to limit myself to what I CAN do

Idk, it's clear a few other folks were also Feelin' This. I guess we all have to scale down. It feels gross because like... Obviously I care about shit that's happening, but I literally cannot deal with emotionally and intellectually engaging with all the awful news I'm bombarded with.

Being an American right now is still fucking awful, but being me doesn't have to be

Hey I know it's long but reblog this version of the post actually

I can bite back that mean thing I was going to say to someone who won't hear it and won't get me closure, and put it in a story that comforts others. I can tip my hairdresser well. I can find something nice to say about someone at work every day. I can thank the grocery cashier and the bus driver and mean it. I can drive less and buy less. I can give money to the food bank. I can compost and grow my own vegetables and set up cold frames and share with my neighbors. I can start a savings account for my niece like my bluestocking aunt did for me, which saved me when I left my spouse. I can give my aging dad small errands to do that get him out & about and help him feel useful, then thank him for the help. I can convince my nonprofit leadership to give all our hourly staff a $3/hr raise by holding leadership salary flat for three years, because $6200 a year for 300 people is real money. I can hire someone who's been out of work for two years. I can make pothos cuttings and turn the house into a jungle.

They're small things, but they still matter. We all still matter.

Ok but do Merry and Pippin and Frodo have jobs? Or are they just? Chilling?? Like Sam is a gardener obviously, but what the fuck do the others do? I get that theyre Rich Kids(TM), but what do they do all day?

Merry and Pippin are the heirs of important political figures in the Shire, so they probably prepare for when they’ll take over those positions or something. But what does Frodo do?? Is he just the Professional Nerd Of Bag End?????

Frodo’s job is to be the Mysterious Bilbo Baggins’ Nephew, and just do weird shit, so that the other hobbits have something to gossip about while they do actual work

Do the bagginses have any political power, tho, or are they just rich??

Only the kind of political power that comes with being wealthy and related to everyone who matters (Frodo is related to both Merry and Pippin), which officially isn’t much, but unofficially is A Fair Amount

So what youre saying is that Frodo and Bilbo are kinda like the Kasdashians…….bc that seems fair enough tbh

That is exactly what I’m saying

Every time I think I don’t really care about lotr anymore I remember that it’s the story of Sam as he helps 3 trust fund babies do physical labor for the first time in their life

Aren’t they landed hobbit gentry or something?

Yeah, something like that. Pippin’s dad is the Thane, basically the patriarch of the whole Took clan, and Merry’s dad is the Master of Buckland, again the patriarch of a very large family (Brandybucks). Bibo came home from his adventure with a lot of money, so he was set for life, and then adopted his young cousin Frodo and left his entire estate (minus a few gifts to relatives) to Frodo, so Frodo was also technically set for life. What I find most amusing is that, in spite of wealth and influence, the Tooks and Brandybucks were seen by the Hobbiton hobbits as being kind of eccentric, and Bilbo’s admirers thought he’d done a very kind and noble thing by adopting Frodo. “Mr. Bilbo never did a kinder deed than when he brought the lad back to live among decent folk.”

I assume the Tooks and Brandybucks made most of their money from farming and animal husbandry, same as most other hobbits.

The Tooks and Brandybucks, despite being richer than the Bagginses, have a reputation of being adventurous and not very ”hobbit-like”, which is why I believe the people in Hobbiton thought it was noble of Bilbo to adopt Frodo from Brandy Hall, because he’s a ~nice Baggins~ and doesnt fit in among the crazy Bucklanders. Buckland is known to not be as peaceful as the rest of the Shire. But it’s strange as well, because at that point, Bilbo, despite being a Baggins, was known to be the most eccentric of them all, after he came home from his adventure, and was known amongst the locals as ”Mad Baggins”

This is literally a flawless character analysis and Im not joking

I’m a pacifist like institutionally but I’m absolutely certain that violence solves at least some problems on a much smaller level. I don’t believe in wars or nuclear weapons or military campaigns I do believe in the power of that guy who punched the nazi in the face so hard his entire media presence immediately crumbled to dust

It’s like a controlled burn to prevent a forest fire.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

#Thranduil Christmas

#Elf on my shelf

“You never pretended to be a bride when you were a little girl?” No???? Like literally never?

I made witch soups in my garden

@ihatejonarbuckle

@raeloganthesonic06fangirl

Well, I mean, Garfield does care

Anyone who’s ever owned a cat knows that they have thier own ways to show they love you

An often overlooked thing about Garfield is between the snark and schemes, he’s really a loving kitty

I guess these aren’t as memorable as the wackier strips

But Jon can always count on Garfield to make him smile when it really matters

And Garfield knows that Jon cares

I swear, my cat is the same way, the below picture is an accurate portrait of how it is to have a dog and cat the same time.

Theory accepted

wholesome

It’s rare to see Garfield content on Tumblr that isn’t “Jon is a heartless monster” or “Garfield is some eldritch horror”

Look, some years aren’t graded as A/B/C/D/F or even pass/fail, but Last Bastard Standing. In a few weeks I will still be here and 2021 won’t be, so we’re going to count this as winning.

10/10 absolute badass response @marta-bee

Cosigned

Gordon Tootoosis, Aboriginal Canadian actor, activist, and band chief of Cree and Iyarhe Nakoda descent, as Cecil Delaronde in Canadian TV series Blackstone.

[image description: two stills of Gordon Tootoosis, captioned, “Leadership is about submission to duty, not elevation to power.” end description.]

I need this.

Reblogged last year, hoping it comes this year

This bit about Dog on page 141 is, as far as I’m concerned, actually about Aziraphale and Crowley’s love for humanity. “Form shapes nature. There are certain ways of behavior appropriate to [humans] which are in fact welded into the genes. You can’t just become [human]-shaped and hope to stay the same person; a certain intrinsic [human-ness] begins to permeate your very being.” Of course Aziraphale and Crowley have been getting more human as time’s gone on because they’ve been around real humans who have shown them how and they’ve been an influence on each other, but there’s also just something about appearing to be human that makes them more so, as well.

Well holy sh×t.

This concept is fundamental to Pterry’s writing, and comes up numerous times in the Discworld. He conceived of a morphogenic field which determines the shape of an organism, and in turn affects its nature. (It was a big deal with the werewolf characters.) I’m not surprised to see it turn up in Good Omens. It also gives me a lot of thoughts about Crowley re: snake form.

This also is interesting in terms of evolution not being real in Good Omens. Because this? This is a form of adaption. The shape of a creature influences its nature, and shapes are very often adaptions to some environmental thing. Fish, whales and sea lions are all a similar shape, because that’s the most common getting-around-in-the-water shape. That joke that foxes are cat software run on dog hardware? That’s because foxes tend to fill the ecological niche that is left if an environment doesn’t have a small to medium sized cat filling it.

Small scruffy dogs are bred to be companions. They aren’t herding dogs, or guard dogs. These small breeds are often primarily designed to be friends for their humans. And that’s what Dog turns out to be, isn’t it? He becomes Adam’s companion. His friend. (Also other dogs do that, but Dog doesn’t herd or guard. Dog is the small dog you can have fun with that Adam wished for.)

I love that thought about Aziraphale and Crowley? It’s not just being surrounded by humans and their culture for all this time, they are indeed human-shaped. They are incorporated, and it seems quite like they’re bound to those bodies rather strongly. They don’t just get around in them on Earth for a while. No, they live in them. They experience them, and they actively enjoy experiencing their bodies and the connection these bodies give them to the world. They enjoy music. They enjoy stories. They enjoy paging through old books or watching movies. They enjoy food. They enjoy dressing their bodies in clothing they like. They enjoy getting their bodies drunk. They have very human looking body language, mannerisms and facial expressions, and it’s clearly too subconscious to be an act. They have gotten very used to being human-shaped. Being human shaped has become one of their characteristics. A trait. A part of them.

When Aziraphale is discorporated, he does not take a more “natural’ angelic form. He doesn’t even have wings! Aziraphale feels so much like his body is who he is that this is what he appears as even while body-less.

And the longer they stay in their human shapes, the more human they become. You cannot become human-shaped and hope to stay the same person. ;-)

And Crowley was once a snake. We don’t know for how long, but it shaped his nature as well. He’s been human-shaped for a long time, but the snake too is part of what he is now, and it remains with him.

And… It’s like, guys, what else is this but going native?

And perhaps this also adds context to Crowley’s aversion to shifting forms, which we see articulated in the paintball scene in the book.

If form shapes nature, and Crowley knows it, from long and intimate experience in his time on Earth… how terrifying, then, must it be to take on a different form, one that does not represent who or what he wants to be?

He’s spent six thousand years developing into his own person, outside of Hell. He’s used to it. More than that, he likes it. It’s who he is, now. No wonder he doesn’t want to risk getting stuck in another shape.

He doesn’t want to be that maggot-covered monster he could so easily become. He doesn’t want to forget how to change back. He doesn’t want to lose himself.

This might only appeal to like… two people, but oh well, Dark Crystal Good Omens AU!

Here we have urZi (the Guardian), a mystic, and skekRo (the Tempter), a Skeksis. Each are half of the same urSkek, split apart by the Crystal. They’re on opposite sides, but neither exactly complies with the respective philosophies of the Mystics and Skeksis. They spend many trine on Thra among the Gelfling, and eventually they get to know each other.

very cool how the gender binary in the emerging trad terf synthesis is like, there are two genders, the one that does bad things and the one that bad things are done to. the only thing in the world is immorality and it flows from unexperiencing agents to unacting experiencers.

which naturally appeals to people who would like to be perceived as inherently lacking the capacity for immorality. for whatever reason

anyway remember bell hooks’s very cogent critique of second-wave feminist organizing in ‘sisterhood: solidarity between women’ where she argues that by “bonding as ‘victims’, white women’s liberationists were not required to assume responsibility for confronting the complexity of their own experience … Identifying as ‘victims’, they could abdicate responsibility for their role in the maintenance and perpetuation of sexism, racism, and classism.” it’s not by accident that terf gender essentialism dovetails so much with other biological-determinist & essentialist assumptions including Extremely Racist Ones   

“This is how he lets me know he cares.”

(Source)