shaggydogstail:

prongsmydeer:

I love Gryffindor but even I have to admit it’s probably the most shit stupid idea for a Hogwarts House because it’s like “yes let’s take all the adolescents with poor impulse control and put them ALL IN THE SAME PLACE”

What a lot of people don’t realise is that Helga Hufflepuff basically gamed the entire house system so that ordinary, chill people could get some goddamn peace for a change.

Poor impluse control & show offs – over there.

Overwraught daydreamers & insufferable pedants – thattaway

Obsessive emo try-hards and baby bigots – you know where to go.

Anyone else out for drama?  No?  Good. Let’s camp out by the kitchen.  We’re gonna need snacks.

notbecauseofvictories:

• Rey is patrolling the Greenfields border when she hears the shrieking. “I didn’t know there were lady-rangers,” the hobbit with the shock of bright-orange hair says, after Rey has beaten off the goblins attacking her and snarled a warning at their retreating backs. 
  “And I didn’t think halflings ventured so far from home,” Rey answers, helping the little one to her feet.
• Her name is Bertina Baggins the Eighth, although her long-suffering parents, who made the grave mistake of giving all their children ‘B’ names, have since resorted to calling her BB-Eighth. 
• “Do you have any family?” BB-Eighth asks, and graciously lets it pass when Rey flinches and does not answer as to why so young a woman is alone in the northern wild.
• It takes Rey two bowls of gruel and several hours to earn enough trust to get more than that out of BB-Eighth. She’s carrying a message from one of the elves who pass through the Shire on occasion, a friend—supposedly it is a map to the secret hiding place of the great grey wizard, Skywalker. 
• Her elf friend was tasked with bringing it to the Grey Lady of Gondor, but he was being chased, cornered by orcs of the Black Army before he could escape.
• “And now you are going to Rivendell?” Rey asks, trying not to sound too amused. “Have you ever been outside Hobbiton before?”
• This is—somehow—the story of how Dunedain Rey ends up on the road to Rivendell, with a tiny chattering hobbit at her side.
• Finn is one of the soldiers from Far Harad, pressed into service of the dark army, but wracked by doubt around fighting in this strange land, this strange war. When he is told by the Nazgûl-prince to slaughter the village, he cannot even raise his bow.
• The captured elf is no secret (an object of fascination, they have no such creatures in Far Harad) and it is not hard to march him away from his guards, to convince him to help steal one of beasts the orc captains ride into battle.
• “I’m better with horses!” he shouts as Finn clings to him desperately—he was taught to string a bow and wield a spear and grapple with a man, not ride things into battle the way they do in the north, and now this mad elf is trying to get them both killed by heading towards exactly where they took him from.
• Unfortunately, in the flight their mount is wounded, and they plunge over the edge of a cliff—when Finn comes-to, it looks like the elf is dead beneath the carcass of the beast. 
• When he stumbles towards the road looking for civilization, he finds a pale woman with a deadly staff and what looks like a child, with a shock of bright hair.
• “You stole her friend’s cloak!” the pale girl snarls as they struggle, and it takes Finn several tries to get her to listen to his story.
• They steal horses from a nearby town, and Finn gets a very quick lesson in how to shoot from the back of a moving animal.
• The Grey Lady of Gondor—Steward of the White City, Lady Leia of House Organa—is somewhat notorious for marrying a mercenary who served in the armies of Gondor. She is very notorious for her rumored origins, that it was the dark Witch-King who gave her birth along with her brother. (Rumors of Istari blood do not fade, too full of strangeness and fascination to be quelled.)
• She is tragic for the loss of her son—a casualty of these warlike times, they say, stolen on the road, killed. She does not speak of him.
• When Rey—just Rey, Rey of the north, dressed in white beneath her armor—is taken, Finn is the only one familiar enough with the Black Lands to retrieve her, and destroy the terrible siege weapon they are building. (To be fair, the aging mercenary and his hairy Druedain are a surprise.)
• There is still a sword. It still fits to Rey’s hand, even though the Nazgûl-prince (just a boy, after all, beneath the heavy metal mask) reaches for the reforged blade of the Witch-King.
• And at the end, there is still a wizard, dressed in grey, on an island that all of Middle Earth thought lost to the great and terrible wave.

literallyaflame:

listen….. pal…… buddy…… the bar has never been fucking lower

penfairy:

What’s really incredible about Mad Max: Fury Road is that our titular, brooding White Male Lead in an Action Movie™ is given no opportunities to appear badass or heroic unless he’s working as a team or directly helping the women.

We see Max alone in the desert, all brooding and action-hero-y, clearly haunted by a tragic past… and he’s immediately captured, chained, humiliated and spends the next half hour tied up and useless while Furiosa is off getting shit done.

Then he gets free and he comes in waving a gun around and embarrassing himself. It’s not until Furiosa calms him down, wins him over, and he starts following her orders that he’s allowed to appear properly badass – in an action sequence that begins with him handing her a gun, and which progresses with the two of them working as the ultimate team while the girls help him as much as he defends them.

Then they’re in the Night Bog. Max fails to hit the Bullet Farmer and instead becomes a prop to steady Furiosa’s shot. Then he runs off on a solo mission and it doesn’t even merit screen time. Some dude lone wolfing it to kill a scary bad guy? Who cares. Let’s watch Nux running in front of the rig and the girls cooling down the engines instead.

Then comes the final chase. Max is undeniably awesome, but he is only allowed to be awesome because all of his efforts are dedicated to helping and protecting his weird new family. And the instant he hears Furiosa is hurt, all of his badass moments are pivoted around reaching her. He fights a hundred war boys, jumps over trucks, swings off poles, sets of explosions, beats someone with a flamethrower guitar, just so he can be there to catch Furiosa once she has killed the big bad Immortan Joe.

And, of course, his biggest heroic moment in the film isn’t even a cool action sequence or taking out a villain – it’s saving someone’s life. It’s being selfless and compassionate. It’s expressing love and humanity. It’s acting as a nurse and donating his blood. Max’s triumph is fixing something that’s broken.

Then, at the end, instead of being rewarded with a sexy girl and something else cool like most action heroes, Max gets nothing. He gives everything to Furiosa – his love, his loyalty, his fighting skills, his blood, his name – and he takes nothing in return, nor does he feel he is owed anything. He is content simply to help her, and thanks to this love and selflessness he was able to achieve some kind of redemption. 

In Fury Road, a man’s heroism is not determined by how strong or tough he is – it is defined by how willing he is to love, help, support and protect others, particularly women, while demanding nothing in return.