Recently I went to one of my favorite
museums of all times, the Muskegon Art Museum, and discovered this
new bronze by UK artist, Beth Carter, Minotaur Reading. When people
think of the myth of the Minotaur it’s almost always in context of
his violence, his lust, his impossible body. Here all that is swept
away with this monstrous form reading a small golden book. This made
me crazy happy to see.
[image description: photos of a bronze sculpture of a minotaur, sitting and reading a small book]
This is basically what my physical therapist had me do for my back problems last year and it helped with the pain so much! Also walk for at least thirty minutes a day, even if it’s just in small chunks throughout the day.
[Me and my husband, watching a martial arts film] Me: See, now this is how the Jedi should have recruited their Padawans: you find some dude and then challenge him to a fight, and if he kicks your ass you then have to beg him to teach you. Husband: Yeah, but the Jedi were a lot younger when they become a Padawan than these guys. Me: [cracking up] So it’d just be teenage Obi-Wan all “COME AT ME, JINN, LET’S DO THIS I’LL TAKE YOU” to 50-year-old Qui-Gon. Like, jumping on his back while he’s walking to the cafeteria. Luke trying to bodyslam 900-year-old Yoda once he figures out that he’s a Jedi Master. Or Ahsoka, like, 13 years old and trying to start shit with the Chosen One. Fistfights breaking out in the hallways… Husband: You should have to win a fight to get on the Council. You have to challenge someone for their seat. Me: [dying] Oh God, Anakin would be so into this. Husband: You should at least have to best a sitting council member in a Jedi dance solo.
Honestly, this should be canon. I can totally see Ahsoka starting shit with the Chosen One.
FOR REAL. Tiny Snips showing up in front of Anakin’s dorm door some day all “IT’S ON, SKYGUY.” (Also, I’m dying because you know that as Mr. Force Himself, Anakin was probably highly-sought-after and so I’m just picturing tiny Jedi trying to lure him into a fight every other damn day when he’s back at the Temple because they all want to be the Chosen One’s Padawan.)
Also: 9-year-old Anakin trying to fight 25-year-old Obi-Wan is killing me. Obi-Wan being all “It’s all right, Anakin, Master Yoda already said I can train you, you don’t need to challenge me to a fight, Padawans aren’t usually as young as you and you haven’t had any real Jedi training yet so it’s not a good –” and Anakin being like “NOPE, if this is what Jedi do, I’m gonna do it too, Obi-Wan. It’s happening. HAAAAAAAAAA!” and flying at him with his tiny little fists while Obi-Wan is like “MASTER YODA WHAT DO I DO??” and the whole Council is just in stitches as this all goes down.
Ok you know what’s killing me here? The fact that obviously the more skilled you become as a Jedi the BETTER you have to be at AVOIDING fights. I mean one of the secret trials of knighthood would have to be proving that you are capable of derailing a preteen’s attempts at fighting or else you’d be dealing constantly with initiate attempts to fight!
The first step to being a Padawan isn’t convincing your potential Master to take you on, it’s getting them to fight you in the first place.
So imagine all those tiny Jedi throwing themselves at the Chosen One and Anakin just striding through like the tall bastard he is, ignoring the occasional flying tackle attempt and dancing aside from small fists without looking up from his latest speeder schematics.
And imagine the traps they attempt to set, hoping to corner him into a confrontation - a tactic that would actually be quite effective, were it not for the fact that Anakin Skywalker was trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi, and we all know their mutual stance on traps…
(Speaking of which, consider how many attempts there are after Anakin’s knighting to earn a place as Obi-Wan’s new Padawan - the poor man is constantly battling rugrats as well!)
Snips wins her place through cunning and persistence. I’m thinking it involves her pretending to be after Obi-Wan as a Master, a carefully timed post mission encounter and a plate of cookies or something - while keeping up light conversation she makes sure to steal the last treat out of Anakin’s fingers prompting him to chase her and thus initiating a fight. Anakin and Obi-Wan will boast about this for YEARS.
But anyway aside from cunning old Jedi who can evade like whoa, consider the second part of this whole ritual. The begging to be trained.
Consider the idea of a smol Anakin clearing his throat and humbling requesting Obi-Wan take him on as his Padawan learner and Obi-Wan being like “Yes! Of course!” and Anakin pouting and insisting it’s not fair if he doesn’t do this right! Obi-Wan needs to be persuaded like tradition says! He made an entire list of arguments! So Obi-Wan has to sit there and hide his smile while he gives pro forma rejections for Anakin to rebut.
The council are in need of medical assistance at this point due to excessive laughter.
But also consider the other partnership we haven’t looked at yet.
Young Dooku having managed to engage Yoda in a fight, but not quite able to bend his pride enough to actually beg for training. The old troll is having so much fun just WAITING and watching the boy squirm!
BUT HOW DO YOU START A FIGHT WITH YODA
Yoda, see the thing about Yoda is he IS the small harmless looking Master of Kickass archetype so common to the kung fu movies. He is old. He is experienced. No one starts a fight with him unless he wants them to…
And he is an EXPERT at making those opportunities look natural. The food stealing fool technique we see him use with Luke is one of the most obvious plays in his repertoire and one he relishes as his reputation means he hasn’t been able to use since his second century!
Other “simple” openings he has utilised in the past include inviting philosophical disagreement to the point of the initiate throwing the first punch, humming off pitch in a most repetitive manner for hours on end, and pretending to trip over his gimmer stick.
But don’t be fooled. Yoda chooses his padawans carefully. He tailors his approach to give them the most incentive to want to prove their worth. The trap he set for Dooku involved injuring his self pride and insinuating that Dooku was too straightforward in his thinking, causing the boy to create a plan involving weeks of prep time, multiple changes to temple schedules and a bit of minor sabotage. Just to prove Yoda wrong.
So in truth, it is actually very easy to start a fight with Yoda. If he thinks you’re ready.
Qui-Gon Jinn the absolutely feral madlad inexplicably deciding that the refined Master Dooku had to be his Master. Everyone tries to convince him otherwise, there are so many living force experts who would clearly be a better match. But Qui-Gon has decided that its ‘the will of the force’ and once Qui-Gon decides that gooood luck.
Dooku is deeply unnerved by the muddy gremlin child (all children are gremlins, of course, but some at least strive for dignity). An expert duelist skilled in misdirection, Dooku becomes little more than a ghost anytime Qui-Gon is in the vicinity.
Six months pass, and while Qui-Gon doesn’t appear to be giving up, he also doesn’t appear to be very good at this. His strategy more or less seems to be charging full speed directly in Dooku’s direction anytime the man steps foot in the temple. Dooku thinks it should be simple enough to avoid the blundering initiate until he gives up or ages out. It’s easily done to take back-to-back missions in any case. He’s an hour from the temple, en route to one such assignment when he blacks out.
He wakes up in a moderately sized cell, well stocked with food, water, and Qui-Gon Fucking Jinn.
They look at each other.
“You do realize that the temple is hardly going to approve of an apprenticeship begun with an initiate knowingly interfering with a Jedi mission”
“There is no mission,” Qui-Gon explains cheerfully. “I’ve had a friend in the Rodian system submit and withdraw a request for Jedi aid matching your skillset whenever you were in temple. No one will be expecting you to check in for weeks, and I’ve made sure we’re provisioned with everything we need.”
“….You’ve been luring me in to a false sense of complacency with your direct attempts. And by harassing me into taking back-to-back missions, you made my movements predictable. Impressive. How did you manage to slip around my guard long enough to drug me?”
“I’ll tell you if you beat me in a fight.”
“I see. And I imagine if I ask you for the keycode to get out of this cell, your reply would be much the same.”
I think the best thing about Amok Time is that it is canon that satisfying the Pon Farr is equivalent to marriage on Vulcan. Usually this is done with sex, and since T’Pring challenged the winner would have gotten to marry her via sex while the loser would have been dead…
but since Jim didn’t die, spock satisfied his Pon Farr with him, AND he did no frickle frackle with T’Pring, for all intents and purposes, Jim and Spock are canonically married by Vulcan law.
And idk I just picture that the next time T’Pau calls spock she’s just like “and how fares your husband” and spock is just like “hold up what husband.”
T’Pau: “your husband. James Kirk.”
Spock: “gRANDMOTHER THE CAPTAIN IS NOT MY HUSBAND. YOU ARE MIXING UP THE ENGLISH WORDS AGAIN.”
T’Pau: “You rolled with him in the sands and did not die. He lives and therefore he is your husband. You rOLLED WITH HIM IN THE SACRED SANDS GRANDSON. Also your father and mother believe he is. Your mother has knitted him sweaters.”
IMPORTANT ADDITION EVERYONE REBLOG:
On TOP of this before they’ve probably gotten married for the sake of the mission more than once. Like, Jim will always ask Spock because hey, strengthening my bond with my second is a Good Idea and Spock’s argument is the same like “Yeah it is logical to strengthen my bond with my captain.”
Alien of the week: and finally, to prove your acceptance of our culture, we deeply wish for someone on board to preform the ultra special bonding ceremony that is super important to our culture
Jim, grinning wryly at spock: hey, wanna get married again?
Spock, sighing logically; for the 24th time captain, there is no one I would rather marry
Jim: *heart eyes*
Bones: OH MY GOD WHY CANT YOU JUST GET MARRIED ON EARTH
I love fics that have this premise where of the planet is a member of the Federation then the marriage is recognized by all Federation planets but translations are hard, so none of them are like an actual marriage until one day it is and they don’t know until months later when Pike calls and is in the middle of saying “Now, Mr. Spock—“ but then he’s like wait did you hyphenate, or did Jim? Or? And that’s how they find out they got married for real this time
You know the fact they never really did anything with Tim Drake missing a spleen in canon means there's a non-zero chance he never actually lost it and the League of Assassins were just pranking him.
group of assassins: *giggling next to Tim’s unconscious body*
the White Ghost: what are you laughing about
assassin 1: wouldn’t it be fucked up if -
assassin 2: - we told Drake here that - sh, guys, sh sh - that we took his sp-*wheezing*
assassin 3: we want to tell him that he lost his spleen. Like, no more spleen. What if we told him that
the White Ghost:
the White Ghost: that’s fucking hysterical, let’s do it
Tim: So yeah I just wanted to tell you guys that my immunity is low because I lost my spleen
Dick: What are you talking about?
Tim: Um my spleen? Organ above the stomach?
Dick: I know what a spleen is I meant why you think it’s gone??
Tim: Ra’s told me-
Dick: Tim it would have showed up on one of the million scans B makes us do. As weird as it sounds, I think the League was pranking you? Anyways you have your spleen
Tim: …oh
Damian: TT the only organ you’re missing is your brain Drake
You know what does make sense? Pawn shops. Each time the players show up, roll for items like random boss treasure. Low ball buying the players items, and if they lose the receipt they have to buy the item back at full price if they want it back. Dumb and useless items are common. Each useful item they buy comes with a secret roll on a “what’s wrong with it?” table.
Only downside? They don’t buy or sell perishables (potions or gerbils)
i need feminism because when jesus does a magic trick it’s a g**damn miracle but when a woman does a magic trick she gets burned at the stake
fabulous
i mean they did also kill jesus. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but they very much did kill jesus.
I feel this is an important addition. He saves so many people on a regular basis that this just keeps happening. And he feels so much for his uncle that the answer is always the same.
…. This hits different when you realise he’s canonically Jewish
Can you please elaborate ? I’m curious as to what it means
You can read a pretty good summary of it here, but as (most likely) Ashkenazi Jews, PP probably follows the minhag (custom) that says “that by naming a newborn child after a deceased loved one, the soul lives on through the child.” (Quoted from the site linked above.) And given how his Uncle Ben died, it just makes it all the more sadder tbh.
another fine distinction is that the soul isn’t thought to be reincarnated, it’s that the memory of the loved one is kept alive and more good deeds in life can be inspired by (and thus partially attributed to) the dead. ‘may their memory be a blessing’–the memory of the deceased is honored, respected, and who they were is retold as inspiration to the next generation.
ben’s memory is a blessing. that’s extremely jewish. spiderman is inspired not just by the shame of his death, but by the moral teachings he’d given peter in life. and his name given to these babies is another part of it: babies named in spiderman’s honor are also very honestly and truly named in his honor, and continue to be blessings to the world.
it’s very joyous, i think. very sweet.
I swear to God I get happy tears every time I see these panels, and the commentary makes it even better
Brad Meltzer, the writer for these panels, is Jewish, so this is all very intentional.
