did you know that in 1953 eisenhower issued an executive order which banned gay people from being employed in government
and it was specifically to root out lesbians who enjoyed the job security of government work
“To protect their careers, lesbian government workers moderated their behavior to avoid suspicion. They refused to socialize with other lesbians in public, attended social functions with gay men as their ‘dates,’ and carefully chose their wardrobes and makeup to project a feminine persona. Male employees who resented reporting to a female boss could trigger an investigation into her sexuality.” – Robert J Corber “Cold War Femme”
this era was called the lavender scare and was both a direct result of mccarthyism and the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness during ww2. over 10,000 lesbians and gay men lost their jobs and as a result the daughters of bilitis (the first ever lesbian activist group in the u.s.) formed in order to protect themselves and gay men
good morning I just woke up obsessed with the idea of a movie filmed in the style of a true crime documentary except it’s in the Twilight universe and a bunch of completely ordinary humans are trying to figure out why Bella effectively disappeared after high school without knowing anything about vampires
let’s review the Facts of the Case as far as anyone who’s not in on the secret knows them
super normal teenage girl moves to small town
becomes obsessed with a guy who by all appearances is in a cult
the incident where they dramatically broke up and Bella tried to go back to Phoenix but Edward followed her and they got back together but also Bella’s leg got mysteriously broken
another dramatic breakup and this time the entire family skips town leaving Bella catatonically depressed
sudden trip to Italy??? and then the entire family comes back???
Whatever Happened In Eclipse I Don’t Remember
Bella marries boyfriend of approx. a year and a half, goes away on an exotic vacation and immediately contracts a life threatening disease
is rarely seen in public again until her mysterious death, which if I’m remembering correctly is a thing?? because Bella was pretty sure her mom wouldn’t be able to handle the vampire thing and that they were going to have to fake a death which is!! fucked UP
also apparently the Cullens haven’t ever bothered with, like, changing their names, so if anyone goes poking around they’re easily going to discover a family of seven rich weirdos moving around various overcast cities together for at least a century
tell me you wouldn’t watch this shit
highlights:
generic Missing White Woman opening that rapidly spirals into interviews Bella’s hilarious tacky high school classmates talking shit about the Cullens (Mike Newton’s Time To Shine)
Charlie (who Knows) uncomfortably lying to the camera about how of course he’s Very Sad about all of this and misses his daughter a whole lot. the crew immediately begins speculating about Charlie’s involvement.
a few scenes shot in Italy. the voice over concludes that there are no clues to be found there while a Volturi member hovers very obviously in the background for the audience’s enjoyment
testimonies about Carlisle’s character that end with the interviewee getting distracted thinking how hot he was, including Charlie
a segment trying to figure out what the Fuck Jacob’s involvement is followed by a montage of werewolves slamming their front doors in the crew’s faces
a brief mention of the murder spree that happened in Seattle during Bella’s senior year but quickly shrugging it off as DEFINITELY unrelated to any of this
trying to dig into where the Cullens lived before Forks and quickly realizing that None Of These Children Existed Before the Age of Seventeen
briefly toying with a kidnapping scenario before stumbling onto a record of the Cullens in some other town that’s JUST old enough to be inconsistent with the ages they were supposed to be in Forks
“wait I think all the kids were actually in their twenties, maybe?”
i always thought of a king sized bed as being a bit bigger than a queen, but now that i have one, i can tell you that a king sized bed is an absurdity. i can sprawl out, and my husband can sprawl out, and the cat can sprawl out, and none of us are touching. i reach out in the night, and find only pillows and plush walruses. i reach further and eventually find his elbow. he rolls over the comforters to try and find me. “i have crossed oceans of bed to be with you,” he says. there is a vast expanse of bed untouched, unmapped, unexplored. the cat is still trying to sleep on my face.
She took up acting because the malnutrition she suffered under the nazis permanently damaged her health and prevented her from pursuing her dream to be a ballerina. During the war, she danced to raise money for the resistance – even though she was literally starving, she used what strength she had to make sure more nazis got shot.
She and her mom also denounced their royal heritage because of the Nazis in their family
Also Audrey was a humanitarian until her death, though ill with cancer, she continued her work for UNICEF, travelling to Somalia, Kenya, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and the United States.
These are things I literally never would have known about. I’m tired of women being painted as just being pretty.
I’M SO HAPPY TO SEE HER AT AN OLDER AGE I SWEAR!
Here’s another nice one.
For the longest time I assumed she had died really young because I never saw any pictures of her at an older age. She was an amazing woman.
Ok, ok. What I don’t get is why Venom has to be eating people, specifically? Like. There’s a lot of other animals out there, my dude, and even if you’re looking for something more often found in predators or what have you, you can eat predators. I mean, call me a crazy environmentalist but why isn’t Eddie Brock renting himself out for invasive species control!? Oh, the everglades are overrun with invasive pythons? Lol, not anymore. Eddie took a vacation and now Venom is fat&happy and they’ve been banging like bunnies between bouts of snake-hunting. Ain’t like Florida’s going to think it’s too weird that there’s a huge monsterman out slurping down snakes like they’re wiggly spaghetti. Let’s be honest here, Venom is already basically a ‘Florida Man’ headline. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
pro tip: before getting serious w a man, just casually mention ur period. like, just say ‘my cramps are bad rn’ or ‘I have to go buy some pads’. his reaction is very telling of how mature and understanding he is. you don’t wanna be dating a grown ass man who gets grossed out by the word menstruation. u deserve someone who is comfortable w u and I do mean all of u. you’ll be thanking urself for doing it now and not later hun!
THIS IS REALLY INDICATIVE OF HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS. TRUST ME.
True story. Once, I dated a guy once that wouldn’t let me pay for my own pads him he has with me. He wouldn’t go out and buy them himself if I needed them though. I had to stand next to him, which defeated the whole reason for him going to buy me any. Was uncomfortable with period talk and letting me pay for things myself.
Once, I also dated a guy that wouldn’t even stand in the pads alley with him. It grossed him out. Everything about my period grossed him out and he didn’t want to touch me. Just left me alone and didn’t want to deal with any of it. Wouldn’t even stand next to me when I bought pads.
Now, the guy I’m with and going to marry, he is a whole different story. I was dying of cramps and got my period while finishing up a class. (My campus can get very bad to the point where I’m shaking in pain or unable to move) Mistakenly didn’t bring pads and texted I needed him to do me the biggest favor. Not only did he buy me pads (something he does from time to time when I need them) but he marched through campus with them not bothering to hide it and brought me Advil.
Last week, I was dying in pain and lost my hot pack when I went to visit my mother. I asked him to buy me a new one and he forgot. So, I’m in massive pain near tears and it’s past ten at night wishing I hadn’t been so stupid as to lose it. He gets dressed and goes out to get me a hot pack even when I tell him over and over that I can wait until morning and I don’t want him to go not because he needs to go to bed.
He flat out says “I love you. You asked me to get you a hot pack and I forgot. Now, you are in a lot of pain and I can’t stand to see that. So, I’m getting you the hot pack and I’ll be back soon.” Comes back with the hot pack, ice cream and a candy bar.
Not saying all men need to be this level of nice. But I am saying that bring up your period in a casual manner is a great way to see how people will treat you when you are sick, not feeling well, or just basically how they handled things.
ACTUALLY THEY DO NEED TO BE THAT LEVEL OF NICE THOUGH
You are absolutely correct, and I was a fool not to realize it sooner.
My grampa was like this. I still remember sitting in the bathroom throwing up, because hella period nausea, and him holding my hair out of my face and like … not exactly rubbing my back. Sort of patting it. Like he was trying to be comforting but wasn’t quite sure how, because a 17-year-old girl throwing up and crying and telling him this was normal was outside his wheelhouse, which, given that he was in his 70s at the time and married my grandma when she was already in menopause, is understandable. Anyway, he went and called his niece for advice. She told him to give me plain herbal tea for pain (since Advil wasn’t staying down) and put me to bed, and he did and asked if I needed anything from the store, and went out and bought me pads and extra herbal tea, and called my school and told them I was sick and he was keeping me home.
If a man born in 1929 can pull it off, boys, so can you.
ok so, for people who have seen the LOTR films but not read the book I’d like to share some things that are 100% canon:
– Sam Gamgee uses the word ‘boner’. In a song. Several times.
– he also writes a poem that contains the phrase ‘golden showers’. (this is actually in the extended cut but they changed it to ‘silver showers’)
– at one point after he’s defeated Saruman steals Merry’s weed & runs away
– Denethor has actual mindreading powers
– so does Faramir (but he’s a nice person so they manifest more as heightened empathy)
– Gandalf ALSO has mindreading powers but for entirely different reasons. he reads Frodo’s mind while he’s sleeping at one point, casually reveals this to Frodo, and Frodo’s just like ‘huh neat’
– rather than bravely drawing the orcs away from Frodo like in the film, in the book Merry and Pippin just kind of, panic, bolt into the woods, and run directly into the orcs’ arms.
– Merry then draws his sword and hacks a bunch of orc hands off
– Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli name themselves ‘the three hunters’ before setting off to rescue Merry and Pippin because they are dorks
– they also improvise a whole song about how much they loved Boromir
– Aragorn does not initially tell the hobbits he’s a friend of Gandalf bcos he wanted them to like him for who he is. im not kidding. he openly admits to this.
– i feel like this is fairly well known but, if you didn’t know Frodo is 50 years old and looks 33
– hobbits PROBABLY age different to humans so looking 33 in practice means he looks about 21
– in accordance with the above Pippin is the equivalent of a 16-17 year old human
– Pippin can pass for a human child and looks like ‘a boy of nine summers’
– this isn’t that weird i just think it’s really cute: Pippin has 3 older sisters and their names are Pearl, Pimpernel and Pervinca.
– Sam & Rosie have 13 children. One of them is called Goldilocks.
– Frodo has another best friend. His name is Fatty. He stayed behind in the Shire to cover for Frodo’s absence and ends up getting jailed for months by Saruman’s forces.
– Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, who steals spoons, is also jailed by Saruman. (She whacked one of his goons with an umbrella.)
– Grima Wormtongue MAY have eaten an entire hobbit
– Saruman invades the Shire and turns it into a communist hell police state.
– the whole Tom Bombadil thing is common knowledge but if you haven’t read the book i guarantee you he is weirder than you think.
– to give just 2 examples: 1) the whole tom bombadil arc provides the explanation as to how Eowyn and Merry were able to dispatch the Witch King
– and 2) for unknown reasons sleeping in his house causes everyone to have horrible nightmares… EXCEPT for Sam who has a peaceful and dreamless night. no explanation offered for any of this.
considering that Pippin’s dad is named Paladin, you fucking know he claimed the right to name each and every one of his children and his poor wife just begged him to choose a different letter to start with
also aragorn openly admitting to being fucking lonely and just wanting friends is treated like a weirdly funny joke in the book by the way that some of the hobbits react to it, and frodo also proceeds very soon after to basically tell aragorn that he’s pretty foul-looking but seems a good guy
yes to the above & a small correction + one i forgot:
– Merry does in fact gift Saruman the weed. It’s the bag it’s in that Saruman steals and runs off with. (also give that Merry stole the weed from Saruman’s personal supply in the first place i can’t say i blame him)
– Aragorn literally has magical healing powers. i don’t think they ever explain this in the films but he does very much have healing powers.
– the Ents are able to tear down the entire wall around Isengard, but can for whatever reason not make a single dent in the tower of Orthanc itself
– several riders knew that Merry was there and coming with them to the fields of Pelennor even though he was forbidden to do so, and they just sort of shrug and don’t tell the king
– GOD Merry and the riders: they don’t just shrug they straight up act like he isn’t there. to the point where if he talks they just pretend like they don’t hear him. this hurts his feelings.
– Merry doesn’t recognise Eowyn until she reveals herself to the witch-king. it could be that her disguise is just that good but Eowyn herself seems to be kind of surprised that he doesn’t recognise her so it’s possible he’s just a dumbass.
– Pippin goes all in for a suicide mission at the Black Gate because he thinks that Frodo and Sam are captured and/or dead and everything is lost anyway, so he just decides that if he’s going to die, he’s going to die fighting, and then he almost gets squashed by a troll
– Gimli found Pippin underneath said troll after the battle, only because Pippin’s fucking foot was sticking out, and probably had a bit of a panicky moment while he was MOVING the troll to drag Pippin out of there
– i can’t believe i forgot about the troll: Pippin single-handedly slays a troll & then its body falls on him and he’s just lying there like ‘well i guess this is how i die’
– Gimli 100% thought pippin was dead when he found him and was so distraught he almost ripped his beard out
– There’s also Aragorn making the Mouth of Sauron flee with terror because he glared at him. Not a joke. (An argument can be made here for Aragorn having psychic powers)
Or intimidation proficiency
If I may add…
– Legolas falling out of a tree and screaming.
– Legolas dropping hie bow. And screaming.
– Legolas just screamed. A lot.
– Legolas singing a song that he only knew half of.
– “Do what you will in your madness but I wish to see no eyes!”
– Legolas straight up walking away after a battle and singing
– Legolas sneaking Gimli into Valinor like contraband Twizzlers into the movie theater.
– everybody rags on Frodo for being a dumbass at the Prancing Pony, but listen, Merry knew they were on a top secret mission carrying the Ring and that the forces of Sauron were actively searching for them and not far away and he still decided it would be a good idea to just go out for awalk, at night in a strange city, all by himself, just because he fucking felt like some fresh air
Ok TO BE FAIR to Merry, unlike the others he hadn’t actually SEEN the Nazgul at this point (just glimpsed one from the other side of the river) and as a result doesn’t understand just how much danger they’re in.
I found my copy of the books a few days ago… might be time for a reread…
don’t forget when saruman went evil and told gandalf he promoted himself from saruman the white to “saruman of many colours” gandalf was like “but i liked white better”,,,,,he legit said that that was his rebuttal
Ok but what about when legolas, gimli and Aragorn are tracking merry and pippin and legolas just watches as Aragorn rolls around in the fucking dirt and when he’s like “there are a lot of riders on horses coming this way!!” legolas is basically like, yea I know I’ve seen them for awhile there are 105 and their leader is tall LEGOLAS
– In the movies, Gandalf catches Sam eavesdropping and forces him to accompany Frodo, and Merry and Pippin are just kinda there–but in the book, it turns out Frodo is Very Bad at keeping secrets and is lucky the whole Shire doesn’t know about the Ring. All three not only know about the Ring almost as soon as Frodo does, but they organize an actual goddamn conspiracy to spy on Frodo for the purpose of making sure he doesn’t go gallivanting off on an adventure without them whilst preparing supplies for the selfsame adventure, which includes the before-mentioned Fatty Bolger staying behind partially to impersonate Frodo so people won’t know he’s gone for as long as possible
– This is the most forethought any of them show for the entire series. They are never so thoughtful ever again
– There are probably Entwives, or Ent women, living in the Shire. This is evidenced by Sam’s cousin seeing a walking tree, Treebeard commenting that the Entwives would like the Shire when Merry and Pippin describe it to him, and possibly an explanation for why the Shire is so agriculturally rich and bountiful (because Entwives invented agriculture), and why the Hobbits love trees so much
– Nobody knows if the Balrog in the Mines of Moria has wings or not because the text is ambiguous and this is a semi-thorny issue among LotR fans and scholars
– That pony that they send away just before the Mines of Moria? Bill the pony? Totally a recurring character that comes back for the finale
– It is literally never mentioned in the book itself, but the appendices reveal that Merry and Pippin are basically Shire Royalty. Pippin is next in line to be Thain (or Chieftain) of the Hobbits and Merry becomes the Master of Buckland (which is for all intents and purposes an independent Hobbit country bordering the Shire)
– Sam then gets elected Mayor of the Shire, so the three basically rule the Shire as a triumvirate for fifty years, and are officially acknowledged as such by Aragorn
– Except not really because as mentioned earlier Saruman tries to turn the Shire into communist hell, which annoys the Hobbits because they like to think of themselves as libertarians. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
– Also Aragorn declares the Shire off-limits to all humans forever. The law even applies to himself, so when he and Arwen visit they have to set up camp just outside the border with their attendants like fancy hobos
– Hobbits are vicious gossipers and there a popular theory among them that Frodo’s mom murdered his dad by pushing him out of a boat and he grabbed her and pulled her in after him so they both drowned
– There is at least one sentient or near-human intelligence fox living in the Shire. It happens upon Frodo, Sam, and Pippin and wonders why three hobbits are sleeping outdoors in the middle of nowhere, and Tolkien takes the time to point out that it never did find out what they were up to
– When Gandalf goes to Isengard, all the goblins and orcs and mineshafts and everything are already there, but he just kinda—-doesn’t notice them. Not until he’s locked up on top of Orthanc and they cut down all the trees which were apparently hiding everything
And that’s everything I remember off the top of my head, LOL
