if a4 has steve sacrificing himself again, that’s the pinnacle of lazy writing. it’s not character growth, it’s stagnation. all they’ve ever used steve’s character for is as the answer to a call to arms for fights that were never his to begin with, but which needed a leader and he was the one who was conveniently there. he wants to fight bullies, i understand that; he wants to fight for those who can’t, i get that. but to cheapen steve’s character and lessen him to only this, to only trite & repeated storylines as if this is the whole of who he is, is so boring.
steve has had so many experiences with death, the deaths of others and his own: why is it so hard to comprehend that this time around, it might be worth letting steve live? and not just live for the good of others so he can keep fighting for them – why is steve surviving and learning to live for himself such a foreign & unacceptable concept? if all the other avengers can have lives outside of avenging and outside of fighting, why can’t he?
An elf maiden dances on feet of living wood sung into shape, planted in soil and watered when she takes them off. Every year she plants the old ones and sings a new pair. (Incidentally, the pair of peach saplings from three years ago have produced an excellent crop- She makes preserves from them, and despite the inevitable jokes about “toe-jam”, they are appreciated.)
A dwarf king has a metal fist, all tiny gears and fine wires, kept wound by a mischievous mine-spirit bound to the spring as punishment- the more it struggles, the tighter the spring.
An orc chieftaness is regularly asked for the story of how she earned the name Wyrmthrottler- she boasts of how she strangled the dragon that ate her arm, and had her shaman make a new arm from its bones, with its fangs as the fingers.
A necromancer simply re-attached his old leg bones- Sacrificing a few mice each day keeps it going.
A pirate captain lost her arm to a shark attack: a passing selkie saved her, and gave her tattoos of kraken blood. Now she has an arm made of salt-water, that grows and wanes with the tides, and swings a cutlass as well as the original. (She doesn’t sail as far these days though: she doesn’t want her wife to worry.)
A wandering swordsman was broken at the waist- his ancestral armour allows him to walk again, as long as he keeps it polished, and burns incense to the ancestors regularly.
A high priestess has an eye made from a crystal ball- to predict the future, all she has to do is wink.
A bard was struck deaf by illness- he struck a deal with the god of music. Now he wears hearing-trumpets made from his old pipes, and dedicates his every song to the god of music- the better he plays, the better his hearing. (It is said his music could make statues weep, and he can hear a mouse fart at 60 paces.)
A princess has the arm of a golem, enchanted clay with mystic words carved in- her music tutor despairs of how her harp playing has become even worse, but her calligraphy tutor is ecstatic over her handwriting.
A goblin pickpocket has an arm made of whatever he steals- no-one feels his fingers, and even if they did, they couldn’t find their possessions amongst all the rest.
A witch has eyes made from shadow and starlight, given to her in a game with a demon. Nobody dares to ask what she wagered- they aren’t even sure she won.
A warg was born deaf and blind- his people learned of his power when the nearest birds started staring at them, and dogs pricked up their ears as he walked past.
The contextual foreignness of firm breasts in a society that doesn’t use bras
This is funny and charming
By far one of my favorite posts.
I love that across cultures, every woman grabs their boobs.
My friend is an army wife and spent some time with her husband on his Pacific posting. One day the locals invited the families from the British base for a big get-together. It was going really well but after a few hours the British women noticed that a lot of the local babies were crying, so my friend asked one of the mothers if there was something wrong, like a bug going round or something. The mother replied,
“Oh no, they’re just very hungry.”
So my friend asked, “Why don’t you feed them?”
And the mother said, “We will when you’ve gone. We use our breasts to feed them and we don’t want to embarrass you.”
And my shocked friend said, “But we do that too!”
So all the British mothers who had babies sat down and whipped out their boobs to feed them (whether they were hungry or not) and the relieved local mothers then did the same.
Two things:
– because western ladies usually cover their boobs the local ladies weren’t sure whether western women use boobs for what they’re supposed to be for
– women everywhere are considerate of other women
I also really love this photo set because, far too often, we only see pictures of African women as anthropological archetypes. They are treated like exhibits to be studied, similar to exotic animals or landscapes, rather than human beings. I LOVE these pictures, because here we have women of two different cultures laughing and talking and playing around. You can see their personalities shining through and I LOVE IT
Women 🙌🏾
this is one of those photosets that fills me with the rocket-fuel equivalent of hope and optimism
Reblogging this beautiful post before it becomes a tumblr crime
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