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dontbelasagne · 3 months

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desperately need to do a presentation on why the Twelfth Doctors journey perfectly represents the transfem experience

their previous eleventh incarnation being suave and hypersexual (i know moffat is mostly to blame but!) is reminiscent of attempts to fit into heteronormative ideals of masculinity. whilst it is not completely insincere, there are obvious signs this does not fit you as a person, it is acted out of desperate need to being seen. as Vastra put it, eleven wore that face, and subsequently that form of masculinity, to be accepted. on becoming twelve, realising even an "idealised" masculinity does not inherently serve them, they retreated into themselves as a person for self-reflection and trying to understand why they feel so detached from who they are.

the "am i a good man" arc mirrors being closeted and having to present as something not inherently tied to your sense of self, but still wanting to be the best of your perceived gender as any failure could leave you spiralling into self-doubt about simply being like any other "man". you ignore your gender dysphoria/questioning by trying to claim a moralistic view of gendered expression. made even more clear by Twelve rejecting Clara's heroic view of them, establishing that even though they have made efforts to be a "good man", that is just a placeholder for their loss of identity.

Missy appearing as she does, who as a character serves as a parallel to The Doctor on what they could become, and her eventual arc in trying to become good is symbolic of the fear around transition regret that internalised transphobia can create when you are closeted. Missy never gives importance to their fem existence other than nonchalant jokes, rather showing a more free and expressive personality devoid of any frustration. this immediately dismisses the transphobic assumption that trans people are only focused on their gender. also, Missy representing trans femininity is inherently tied to chaos and upsetting the status quo, she is the embodiment of what society considers accepting your womanhood as someone previously labelled masculine. what many others, and The Doctor themselves, saw as a need for attention and senseless disruption is Missy not needing to serve a false version of who they are, that they can now focus on becoming whoever they want to be now without losing energy to performing a gender that society has imposed on you. Missy could never have made the decision to stand with The Doctor if she had not given importance to her own queerness.

it wasn't coincidence with meeting Bill, she was the perfect foil for The Doctor to finally let go of their anxious attachment to masculinity. i would even argue for the majority of s10, The Doctor is largely ambiguous in their gender identity and does not fit into any construction of masculinity or femininity. whilst they still present as something socially labelled as masculine, they do not internalise that gender expression. they are uncaring about and not needing the validity that comes with heteronormativity, and thus is free to finally accept the decision they have to make. as Bill says, it is so hard to let go of The Doctor, and that rings true for twelve themselves. but they begin to realise The Doctor can be anyone. yes, they are tired, it would be so easy to simply rest and not give value to who you can become. but choosing to let go of everything you once were to survive is better than oblivion. it is better to let go, to choose another lifetime where the only person that dies is your falsity, to finally get it right and choose kindness. for yourself and for those who you love. they regenerate, not just into another person, but into someone who (if only tv scripts...) can now move forward.

#can you tell the only thoughts i have are of twelve?#this is why im kind of disappointed with the thirteenth doctors arc #like sure they're allowed dimensions as a character and to have dark moments #but there was a chance to show the nuances with relearning how to live and accept joy for yourself #as someone who has grieved and suffered loss and is detached #i know these themes arent just about transhood but dont you think they fit so beautifully?#this makes me want to bounce off the walls #doctor who #dw #twelfth doctor #peter capaldi #12th doctor #thirteenth doctor #jodie whittaker #13th doctor #long post

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glorious-blackout · 11 months

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Interviewer: Could Slovenia be a dark horse? Käärijä: That would be awesome. If Bojan would raise the trophy I would be so proud of him.

These two... 😭

Source

#the way he talks about his friendship with Bojan earlier in the interview is so sweet #he's also rather insightful into his own competitive nature and says that his happiness wouldn't necessarily occur in the moment -#- but would arise afterwards once the disappointment of loss had settled #essentially predicting his own reaction to Loreen's win and how he needed time to be sad and process it #I'm so fond of this tiny green Finnish man #Käärijä #jere pöyhönen #bojan cvjetićanin #bojan cvjeticanin #Joker Out #eurovision #esc 2023 #käärijän

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joannerowling · 7 months

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Jo's TRG interview was really like: Robin is amazing. She's really come into her own. She's so brave. She doesn't take shit from any man no longer! What a girl.

And then Strike:

"Finally my man is waking up but boy did it take him long amirite ladies"

#jk rowling #jkr #cormoran strike #the running rgave #trg #trg spoilers #really loved what she had to say about the positive of ageing and wisdom gained from acceptance of loss and Strike being a vessel of that #EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED that no one asked about whether she meant the Hogwarts and Chapman Farm parallels lol

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rotisseries · 1 month

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sorry everyone I'm listening to the tortured poet's department 😔😔😔

#jack antonoff starts fingerbanging that synth and I don’t even care about taste anymore #like yes this is gonna be on my wrapped in november isn't it. diversity loss #i broke my chappell streak for this I'm such a disappointment

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nientedal · 4 months

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wish the megawhiners would stop tagging their fucking hate. go make a "megacritical" tag or some shit and stop being so boring and annoying in the megamind one, ugh.

time to go on a blocking spree lmao.

#megamind #vent post #the takes are fucking rancid #O No it doesn't look like the original!#buddy if you were expecting it to that was a stupid expectation and your disappointment is on you #we live in a time when shows and movies are shitcanned before they're even released #and i am staring down the barrel of a gun labeled TAX LOSS #so uh #FORGIVE me if I'm a LITTLE TWITCHY about the seething morass of negativity starting to make its way over here from the Twit Pit #you could AT LEAST voice some excitement or some acknowledgment of the good stuff or the enormous win this is #if you're already doing that this ain't about you #but jesus h roosevelt christ some of you people are annoying

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kaitcake1289 · 1 year

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you are watching mythic quest season 3. i am watching the mythic quest season in my mind where cws death has an actual effect on most of the characters that prompts their development. we are not the same

#someone ask me to elaborate (PLEASE)#jk i’ll do it anyways #i just think that. for me death is something that is very emotional and to see it unutilised here is disappointing to say the least #like the fear of death coping with loss is something i KNOW these fuckers aren’t equipped to handle #and it doesn’t effect all of them and it’s not cw all centric #ian has a midlife crisis rachel loses her creative mentor david starts thinking about death and how people will #remember him (s2ep8 callback) we even saw brad moved at that bit to stay close to your friends!#poppy is too shunned to care dana is too emotionally healthy and doesn’t know cw that well jo. jo #david being in this state can also help brad show jo he’s weak (seeds of doubt in david’s leadership)#and ALSO dana not having an emotional reaction to cws death can also create #more of a rift between her and ian because it’s something she just can’t relate to #ian also mourning in silence also would’ve been so much fucking sadder after sarian knowing the two parental figures that admired and #inspired his creativity are gone #god #this show is evil anyways #also i have a long sad letter cw would write rachel from the grave would y’all like to see that #mythic quest #kaitlinshottakes #poppy li #brad bakshi #ian grimm #cw longbottom #jo mythic quest #rachel mythic quest #dana mythic quest

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dragonsdendoodles · 18 days

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I need y’all to know I am going to be insufferable about this book when it comes out

#tbh i already am #currently feeling to me like percy jackson with a 90s transformers aesthetic going for it #which i am STOKED about #literally three names and zero descriptions whatsoever and yet i’m so incredibly tempted to attempt a design for leopold and emmet #and possibly max if i can figure out an idea of just what this show is going for #also lowkey giving generation loss #anyway i have something to do today i guess lol #also i don’t think i’m allowed to say i don’t have a favorite author anymore #sunderworld #the extraordinary disappointments of leopold berry

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ikemenomegas · 1 year

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loss is a condition acquired to bury our pity

pairing: Uchiha Madara x Reader a/n: I should be working on something else, but it's like dragging rocks to do that one, and this one emerged somehow; title from the unnatural apologie of shadows; morning glories sometimes stand for short-lived love, yes red ones do exist c/w: omegaverse (alpha reader), grief turning into anger, nihilism, reader and madara both have post-warring states trauma, hints of characters experiencing war-crimes, madara's terrible plans, 18+ below the cut - reminder that alphas of all sexes have cocks

There is no kind love between you and he. Madara lays on his side, watching you wake slowly. He can feel the sun, low and heavy on the horizon.

It feels as he does, autumn reluctant.

He shifts on the futon, relishing the ache between his thighs and the sharper pain of new wounds on his body. He never knew how to love without a fight - brothers, father, friend, and now lover.

But his hands knew precision, they knew gentleness, they had known surrender.

He watched your chest rise and fall in a great sigh, your face turning towards him. With the red blush of dawn starting to peak through the window and splashing across your skin, you reminded him of asagao, morning glory, blooming with the dawn.

This was how you had met: the first two dark-eyed travelers awake in a dusty inn as far away from other people as you could get. He had been alone for too long, the day he had given into speaking with a stranger, seeking news from across the nations.

And then it had amused him to travel alongside you for awhile, as you were going the same direction as he was.

Until one day had stretched into two, and on into many, and you laughingly admitted to his late inquiry into your destination that you had none in mind. So you had been following one another, in an odd roundabout way.

It was the laugh that had done it, he recalls as you stir and wriggle beneath the covers, the heat of your body beginning to rise. It was bitter and biting, aching, like the empty places punched into his own heart.

He'd made you take him that evening, made himself open up to you like he had not done in years to anyone who was not an enemy. He had needed to, to find the right way to get what he wanted.

And what he wanted was not kind. He knew you were capable of it. He had seen your hands too, precise, capable of gentleness, capable of surrender, capable of a fight.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"Does it matter, anymore?" you had asked, heavy and ironic, lighting the fire with a look that told him you knew he could do it as well and was shoving the duty onto someone else.

It was rather Uchiha of him, although you didn't know that. Fire was new life of all kinds. Maybe he should have given into this sooner. You've built one up more nights than he had on these near-nonexistent roads. In the old ways, it was one of many forms of courtship.

But he knew what you meant. Boundaries were shifting, alliances with it. Loyalty. You were clearly not one of those who bent yours easily.

But he needed to be sure.

"Not making one of the new villages your home then? I've heard they offer safety, negotiating power so we're not all used up against each other."

You gaze at him, long and wearied, as you stir a pot over the bright, flickering flames.

You don't fear exposure on the road, which tells him your are strong enough to do something about it. You are also clearly old enough to have survived many battles, which tells him more.

"It may be misguided of me, but I think you also know that the wars do not end so easily. Peace happens only too late, when both sides have lost too much. It won't last."

There again, that hopeful flicker of something familiar when you said It won't last.

"What will you do, when it starts again?"

You are quiet a long time, long enough for the soup to be done to your satisfaction, the game he caught so easily before this simmering and tender. You have salt carefully stored in a battered wooden container which you have sprinkled over it. The taste of it is, as always, divine.

Salt is still a coveted commodity, but he has seen you pay only with coin, never offering anything more valuable.

You ladle up a healthy portion for him and pass it over before serving yourself and expertly scraping the embers around the pit so the leftovers won't burn while you feed strips of dry wood to the live fire.

Your eyes flicker right to his and it's thrilling. No one wants to look an Uchiha in the eyes.

It feels like being in a time long ago, neither of you have given the other your family name all this time, as is shinobi custom. He wondered if you would look at him so dead on the same way if you knew what he was. He wondered if somehow you didn't know already. He wondered if you knew what it meant to share words and food like this across a living fire.

He cannot call the look in your eyes haunted. There must be some out-of-time out-of-place spirit inside for such a thing. This was the hole in his own heart, the place where regret and sorrow should live.

It blinked away when you found whatever you were looking for.

"Fight if I must, and die in whatever way I should."

It was an oddly unsatisfying answer.

"Why should you die?" he demanded.

You raised an eyebrow at him. "You're oddly inquisitive today. What will you do?"

He shrugged and smugly observed the irritated twitch of your eye.

It was all the opening he needed to goad you into further snipping at one another. It felt good, to feel the fire of another mind set against his.

Complaining of the repetitive movement of the road drew you to your feet and although only one person could match him blow for blow, it felt good to spar, to flex those muscles, to see the admiration in your eyes at the smoothness of his movements, to see the vital ferocity in yours.

He did not let you get him down in the dirt, only limited his power so that when he went down it was for real, but when you did, he kissed you, lips pressed full to yours.

You pulled back, full of surprise and questions. He glared at you, full of challenge and accusation until you glared right back and got to work seeing how far you could push him.

It was an alpha thing to do, but not done the way he knew most alphas did things. It was rough, but you were so in tune to every shift of his body, learning him.

It amused him to see you spread out a bedroll. The ground was soft sand and rough, but cushioning grass. It would not have bothered him to do this on the bare earth, but he felt a flash of affection as you ran a hand through his hair and undid the tie before laying him down again, combing out what dust had gathered in his thick, coarse hair, careful, never tugging hard enough for pain.

Tugging at your clothes irritated you. He knew this already because he'd seen the flash of ire as an irritable horse had caught your shoulder when bargaining with some farmer, and then the farmer's children had brushed too close and the reaction had been shinobi-muted, but you'd been in a terrible mood for hours.

He did it now because he refused to be the only one bared. You let him because you understood as much, and Madara relished the first warning nip of teeth against his collarbones as a certain galling heat in your scent spiked. You tugged your arms free of your sleeve with a defiant flash of movement, dragging your teeth over the same spot in a way that made him twist into you, hissing.

You pulled back, pausing. "I hate this world," you said. "It can be nothing but hateful when it has none of what I once loved or protected left in it."

"That is not what you want to tell me," Madara said, his breath hot on your ear as he bit the lobe. Your breath hitched in response.

The ties closing his coat had come apart easily but you could not bring your hands to go any further.

"How did you lose?"

"Slowly," Madara growled, yanking on your other sleeve and relishing the dark bleed into your eyes. "And too much."

"Did you watch it happen?" You shivered beneath his calloused hands, tracing over your shoulders and down, catching on the low edge of your sarashi when he skimmed your hip.

"Oh yes," he groaned as you leaned down and sucked a mark at the hollow of his throat. "I watched him die by inches, for days, while his mate fought to save him."

"Who was it?"

All at once it was too much and it was with an easy surge of strength that Madara flipped the two of you so he was leaning over you, teeth bared.

"Who was yours?"

Your hands were clasped with his, and you turned your head, pressed your lips to his fingers as you answered.

"They held me by my robes while they gutted her slowly, right in front of me. It was not fast enough."

You tilted your head to look at him and he saw that same detached absence in your eyes that he knew filled him whenever he spoke of his own last, worst loss. He was also certain that the full story of the event was worse than your abbreviated explanation.

He let you go slowly, untangling his fingers from the bunched fabric pulled down from your shoulders and pooling around your ribs on the bedroll. He sat back and you lifted yourself on an elbow.

He knew you were watching his hands when he shed his jacket. The high collar caught scent and held it close to his skin and he could see the way your pupils blew out as it released and wafted over you.

The scent of your own arousal pleased him. He'd been told before that he was handsome, and it was nice to be admired, thought beautiful.

There was no one else for miles and miles. Without shame, Madara reached down, slid his hand under his waistband and cupped himself. He was slicked-wet.

When he withdrew his hand, he caressed your cheek, felt how you shuddered and turned toward that concentrated portion of his essence.

You did not care that he smelled like blood and the sweet bite of rice grain alcohol. Maybe he would find more like you if he spoke to more people, but he had found you.

You tried to trade places with him once more, but he resisted you, his teeth bared and expression wild. You attempted to lean back and he snarled, deep and feral.

That sound called out to something in you, and you snarled back. He tugged on the exposed mesh armor that covered your chest and arms, and you made an ugly sound in the back of your throat.

"Take it off," Madara commanded.

And suddenly you were angry. He wanted so badly to see what the world had done to you?

He was alight with some kind of victory as you pulled the disarranged top over your head and extricated yourself from the mesh.

He finally did the same as you finished, pulling off his own thin layer, baring scars that spoke of survival.

You came together in a bruising collide, upright like wrestlers, nails scratching at one another as though to mark the moment as different from a state of blind existence.

It was a different kind of violence, but one that he thought perhaps he could get used to. He had already learned there was no replacing what was lost, but here was someone who understood as no one else had.

He pulled his pants off only enough to expose himself, impatient suddenly for something more. You bit his lip when he did the same to you, pulling at the ties on your pants until he could get your cock to spring free.

He was at such an angle where the tip immediately bumped up against his slick opening and the sensation surprised him, invigorated him.

But you were watching him ever so warily.

He moved his hand so that it was beneath him and shivered as he began stretching himself open, the slick sounds of his fingers in his own opening goading you into biting hard on his chest, your fingers digging into his shoulder blade hard enough to bruise.

His scent was a riot around you, heady and clean somehow. He did not smell like the sick, dead tang of a battlefield, but like new iron, ready for steel.

You licked a stripe up his sternum and he shivered, back arching.

His fingers were cooling and wet when he gripped onto your shoulder, nails grasping like claws. The flash of pain spurred you onward and you guided his hip with one hand and yourself with the other until you were pushing up and inside of his hot, wet heat.

The sharp spike in his scent, like the exhale of breath over a clear cup of rice wine, spilled over.

Madara ground down on you, pulling you deeper.

"It's all a farce," he murmured into your ear finally.

You were breathing hard against his chest, buried to the hilt inside of him. You didn't know if it had hurt, to take you all at once, but you knew if it had that he would not care.

"What is this reality worth?" He showed you for only a few seconds the type of pace he wanted you to set, and then urged you on, scoring a line of red marks over your ribs.

You bucked up into him, hitting deep places that put stars across his vision, better even than being dashed over the head or bled near dry.

He straddled your hips. Your legs were braced against the ground to give you more leverage. Yes, his intuition had never truly failed him, and he could feel the strength of your body pressed against his, inside of him.

If he were the type for children, you would have made a good enough sire.

You took him with a warrior's precision and knowledge that time was never on your side, but you also held him in your warrior's perception. He let himself shiver at the intensity of that focus.

You took advantage of the way every shift of his body made his insides tighten around you and heighten his own sensation. You played the remaining soft points on his body like an expert at the koto.

It had been so long since there was time for music, he had not thought to check your callouses for the kind of wire that didn't mean to draw blood and kill breath.

He should ask you to play, he decided as you dragged a shiver from him like a run from the instrument, your nails dragging a pattern across his back and down to his hips and thighs.

He came when you drew blood on him, your teeth digging hard enough into the muscle of his breast to mark him for days.

As ever, once the pulsing shocks had calmed enough to make him want it, he gave as good as he got and reared back, leveraging himself enough to bite down on your shoulder. Hard.

You bared your teeth, some of them outlined in his blood, but locked the roar away in your chest, well practiced in keeping essential silence.

You felt the force of Madara's will lock down against your own, pushing you towards your own completion. Because that wasn't just a retaliation bite, which would have been welcome and well-deserved.

That was an omega's bite, placed over a scent-gland with the intent to own.

Madara did not bite down in a normal way either, sinking his teeth in carefully to leave an elegant scar. He bit like you were enemies, twisting his head as he did, as if daring you to watch him, to stop him, to stop pressing up into him, coaxing his finish long.

It was a very, very old way to do things, a fire way to do things, in more ways that one. The Sarutobi had regimented ways of doing this, now, involving agreed upon combat, and a certain amount of posturing. Some of the other close-fire clans told old tales of mates courting by fighting, long and hard until someone gave in.

You placed your fingers in a loose ring on the nape of his neck, the only moment you would give him to change his mind. He could feel the swelling of your knot at his opening.

Uchiha Madara did not easily change his mind.

You bite was cleaner than his but broke the skin all the same, shredding down until you could taste him, blood and blood and that sharp fragrant note underneath of it.

You bucked up into him, harder, faster, abandoning the normal course of seduction, and lighting his nerves on fire instead of easing them.

He groaned, hard and euphoric, with blood still in his own mouth. Your knot, filling him full, pushed him back over the edge, easy enough, and he let it go, felt the pulse of it behind his eyes. He felt your warmth fill him and it felt right, satisfying. He had been his own fire for so long.

"Madara," you groaned in turn. You did not stop moving, even as he pulsed and fluttered around you, even though it must be causing you your own discomfort.

You laved your tongue over the mark you had left behind, which both eased the ache of it and made it sting as you disturbed the fresh wounds.

It was enough to remind him that all the pain in the world was just a moment, bright like sparks.

All will be as it should, better even, someday.

He had not quite meant to bond with you the first time, but it seemed fitting, after. You had stayed knotted within him long enough to send him into a third, near painful finish, and there were many more bites across both of your shoulders.

He touched one of those now, which had scarred fainter than the bondmark, but still showed evidence of that first, true encounter.

You started, suddenly perfectly alert, half-sitting. Alert to the world around him, around you.

"Wha'sit?"

He smirked a bit at the stumbling stiffness of your tongue. A low, rumbling purr coaxed out from him, filling the room. You spared a brief brush of awareness over him, which was wise of you, but otherwise flopped back down among the cushions.

He curled up against your back so that you own chest cavity was filled with the echoes of him, your senses vibrating with it.

It was not comforting and was not meant to be.

"It's today?" you asked, after you knew the words would not slur and your heartbeat was back to rock-steady.

"Mhm," Madara hummed through the purring.

It wasn't really the right answer. It could have been any day, but if you said so -- well, you had a sense for these things, a nose for disaster that he'd seen develop among some of his own clansmen.

You certainly had a nose for the restlessness that took him, that demanded satisfaction the way his heart had once demanded escape to the riverbank. And despite what Hashirama thought, he did plan their little competitions. Around his own whims, certainly, but they were not entirely random.

"I'll find you, after" he promised. The purring faded, but the warmth of sunlight filling the little room took its place.

It invigorated him, warmed his muscles. You were not so in tune with such things, but he felt the quiet flex and extension of your hands and feet and then your wrists and ankles as you shifted beneath the covers.

He leaned over you, pressing his lips to one of those old scars, fingers finding one of the new marks he left on you.

He will want a bath, before he goes. This is his. He's not interested in Hashirama accusing him of an accomplice. Although he of all people should forgive Madara of no longer being so alone.

You stroked over his knuckles, scarred and toughened with over two decades of battle. "You always do."

With him here, you could believe that the lonely, aching emptiness was just a dream.

With him, it was not kindness, not like the closer, comforting love he had observed between other mates, but you knew his dream, knew his loss and did not deny it.

He thought again of his plan, and looked forward to what would likely be the last time he met his once and only friend. He no longer had the Nine-tails but for a final feint he himself would be enough.

Just as this was. He would not be alone on the other side.

For now, that would be enough.

#uchiha madara #omega!madara #alpha!reader #omegaverse #io.omegas #loss is denial anger bargaining #pity is regret disappointment sorrow #but maybe more importantly feeling what has happened and understanding that there is nothing to be done about it #this is two people who cannot get there #who got stuck in that moment of loss and are unwilling to move on from the patterns of the past #Madara is so much more lost than any of the other characters in the franchise I find him incredibly difficult #he cannot be reasoned with #he cannot even be bargained with #he has only wanted one impossible thing and no one is his equal #but i've been toying with the idea what what a mate for him would look like for months #and he does acknowledge different kinds of strength #so this seemed as close to reasonable as I could get #Madara is possessive and decisive and petty and pushy #naruto x reader

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sequesteredbhaalspawn · 3 months

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Something I had been really looking forward too from (back when) the full release was coming out, was all of the new reactivity to your Tav. LIKE my main (for EA) Tav was a mean drow lady named, Telanziiri- and just her and EA Wyll being at the Goblin Camp was something I thought about a lot.

Like the goblins having duel reactions for Wyll and her like- "Hey Look a drow- oh fuck the Blade is with her!"

but all of his act 1 content, that didn't have to do with Karlach, is gone. Along with the things I was really looking forward too.

Don't me wrong there is a lot of problematic writing in terms of just completely disregarding the lives of the goblins, and more. But that is a wider problem with D&D in general and is not going to be address beyond this point (on this post).

I really wish I could go back to EA and just experience all of Wyll's content for act 1 again. I miss it. The way his character was back then was so much fun. The way he played off Telanziiri was great.

The Blade of Frontiers (EA) befriending an evil drow lady who plans on soaking the surface world in the blood of those who worship to the absolute to honor Lolth (all because drow had joined the cult of the absolute). Very much her doing the right things for the wrong reasons and Wyll just having to deal with her was so fun for me.

I miss the friendship that will never come back, because Wyll is not the same character any more.

Larian really does need to focus on getting him on par with all of the content the other companions have. I really want there to be more things with full release Wyll's character.

#wyll ravengard #bg3 #( i'm just being lame: mourning the loss of a fictional friendship i can't revisit. )#( calming down from the new gortash and durge content from patch 6 that I love and I'm just really disappointed with how little wyll gets.#( i really want all of the companions to get the same amount of content that astarion has. i want the vagueness between gortash and durge )#( to remain. )#( but when ever I think about Wyll just I end up thinking about his EA self and miss him dearly. )

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in-tua-deep · 1 year

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man i have really been thinking about worldbuilding and exposition in books recently

when i was like, i don’t know, twelve-ish, I picked up this book about a teenage girl in a spy school. and i absolutely fell in love with it - I thought it was incredibly neat how the book just seemed to drop me into the middle of the story, even starting in the girl’s second year. in fact, the main character frequently referenced events from her first year (falling in love with a civilian, things ending badly, finding secret passageways, losing her mother’s trust etc.)

and I actually really enjoyed the fact that the character had a rich and vibrant life outside of what i had read and that the book didn’t go out of its way to explain her past in flashbacks or anything. i understood the main takeaways and why she was reacting to things based on what i gleaned, and more than that i understood the growth of the character, why she was cautious in certain places but reckless in others, etc and i felt smarter for not being handed the answer on a silver platter

anyway it wasn’t until i finished the book and realized there was a sequel that i looked it up and found out that. in fact. i had started with the second book in the series.

oops.

#i will say i genuinely read the sequels and NEVER went back and read the first book #it genuinely felt like i understood the takeaways from reading the second book #it almost felt like i would be doing cammie a disservice by going backwards and undoing the progress she had made #anyway i just remember thinking about how cool it was that the author didn't go out of their way to explain exactly what happened #and yet i was able to understand what happened just by her reactions to this new guy #the oh. OH. of realizing she hadn't fallen in love with a civilian so much as fallen in love with the idea of civilian life #her life being made much more difficult from the loss of trust by her mother and teachers #kind of want to go back and reread it but i feel like reading ur childhood books again sets you up for disappointment #probably not the masterpiece i remember reading #but man it made so much sense bc of COURSE cammie wouldn't just like. give me info about how the world worked. her mum was headmaster.#ofc she knew how the spy world worked smh #so when they were like FUCK the secret passageways we used to sneak out are blocked off bc we got caught last year #we need to figure out either a) another way out of the school unseen or b) find more secret passageways #and i was like !!! yeah! of course! that makes total sense and adds an obstacle for the main character to get though!#and now i also know that cammie a) was sneaking out to see her boyfriend which means it was b) a secret worth hiding for some reason #idk that second book was the only bitch i respect

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maddy-ferguson · 1 year

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when season five comes out and we get an amicable mlvn breakup and mike and el are instant best friends i Will throw a tantrum

#@ my 'bylers are gonna be so disappointed when everything doesn't turn out exactly like they want it to' anons...yes that's me!😁#can i get just a little elmike loss please as a treat #it doesn't even have to be a fight with a capital f #i said when and will but i'm kidding because as i said earlier (yesterday) i really don't see it happening #i actually didn't say any of that yesterday yesterday was about el consoling him specifically. but still #and like i say: brf slt

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adriles · 1 year

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I’m curious which war crimes you do and don’t approve of

i enjoy any war crime induced by rage, racking up a ton of kills, maiming every enemy combatant in sight. only shitheads kill in attempt to live up to the heroism of others

#thinking about malouf’s ransom specifically here lol #when he writes achilles’ having a vision of priam’s death at the hands of neoptolemus #with the attempt of avenging his father. but their is nothing to avenge. same with polyxena #in hecuba they have it be tbat achilles’ spirit comes before neoptolemus and tells him to kill her to return #but i could just be a euripides hater with the exception of his helen play but. that doesnt sit right with me #it is to appease the wind in the same way iphigenia was to appease the gods #it was bound to happen anyways. but it is upon achilles’ grave as neoptolemus again sees himself as avenging his father #it is an unsatisfying act. all that killing for the sake of achilles #sure u can be like. polyxena led him to the gates #but she didnt kill him that is paris and apollo #but paris is already dead so who is left for neoptolemus to target as his father’s avenger #it is a role without any use. it is pointless.#and when we see achilles in the odyssey he barely cares about the news of his own son beyond odysseus saying yeah he is chilling #it is more to lament his own suffering #i dont think achilles cares in the end about neoptolemus. he is just a boy like his father bred for war and desperate #for purpose and attachment #beyond that tho. i dont think achilles would approve of killing priam like that is the main thing #he is not above violence to the man. he threatens him in book 24. but in the end there is a respect there. for the grief and loss they share #malouf writes about the shame that follows neoptolemus after everything #and i think that is a far more poignant thing than disappointment from the father you barely know #to carry the weight of your actions knowing that your father would so differently #again achilles is a piece of shit and would do the same if not worse in his son’s place #but in his place toward priam he wouldnt. and neoptolemus reaps that destruction anyways #this is long winded the point is the shame rather than the actual disapproval of war crimes lol #i will say i dont think achilles’ rage and revenge is to the same level. he laments after patroclus died that it hurts more than he thought #because he would think losing a father or son to be more heartbreaking #but no it is the loss of the equal and confidant that hurts the most #but neoptolemus never knew his father. this isnt for his father’s personal sake it is for his legacy + where neoptolemus will end up with it #and therein lies the difference. they have that familial bond but no real connection #ask

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halfyearsqueen · 1 month

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@drakonprince : aegon the dragonbane — [when fear drives destruction.] what is my muses greatest fear, and why or how has that fear been instilled in them? how do they react when faced with that fear?how does it impact their daily life?

her greatest fear is ? failure. in so many versions of the word her biggest fear is the idea of failing the people she loves, of failing the people who had given her their loyalty and placed themselves on her side. people she has a duty to, in her eyes ( her mother, her father, her allies, her family as the future head of house targaryen, and no one more then her children. ) she’s afraid of being proven worthless or lacking in someway, that somehow she is replaceable. she’s been given an opportunity that is so unexpected now that she has it, if she’s loses it, she thinks it’s because she didn’t do enough to compensate for the fact she’s not a boy. and that that is going to be the surmountable hurdle that no amount of hard work can possibly overcome. she doesn’t view the societal precedence of male primogeniture as something that is holy impossible to overcome, (it is going to be a long drawn out process and she knows she’s meant to be a trial run, and if she fails, then what ? ) Because she was placed in that role officially, her father opened that door for her, he made it so that hurdle is passable. And he did give her a very massive burden to take up, and it definitely leaves her in a rock and a hard place situations a lot more often than not, but he also has given her a gift that she wants to prove wasn’t a mistake in giving to her. that it wasn’t a wrong choice in keeping her as his heir, even after he had three legitimate sons, she has to remain in his good graces to remain his air because that’s what’s keeping her in her position. But she also wants her father to be proud of her because she loves him and it is an opportunity to prove her worth in such a monumental way.she wants ? to prove to the realm that even though aemma didn’t give viserys a son, she still gave him his rightful heir, and that she did do her duty in that sense, and that even if she didn’t give the realm a son she gave them their first queen regnant and like ? that’s a lot of why she fights as hard as she does early on - because she wants aemma’s pain and suffering to matter. she doesn’t want the people who have supported her and have staunchly backed her claim to feel foolish and having done so by choosing the princess over the prince and siding against the hand in the queen.

and like when she has children ? so much of her fears recenter themselves and refocus on them. like she's afraid during her pregnancies that something could happen and she wouldn't carry the baby to term, or that they would die in the cradle, and very soon after they're born the questions / allegations about their illegitimacy begin. and their illegitimacy is dangerous to them. they could be exiled at best, and then ? her ability to provide for them dwindles. like she is fully aware of the dangers that such a thing would put them through when she conceives them, but she also knows that like ? she has to have heirs, and she has to have them personally, or her position becomes extraordinarily shaky. especially whenever aegon had sons of his own. and like ? we know luke had his own knife at the age of four, in the book. this four year old child was given live steel presumably to defend himself with and again, he's four. there isn't going to be a lot of time that she's away from her children, but she clearly feared for their physical safety enough that she deemed it a necessary choice to make to give it to him. and like whatever prompted that decision, whether it was just the consistency of the rumors that led her to believe that people might believe she was actually placing a pretender who didn't deserve to inherit the throne on the throne - and if that could lead to them being harmed in some way. we know that joffrey was in training circa the age of two. she can ? get incredibly ruthless in defending them from those allegations because in her mind it is that potentially detrimental for them ( see : the vaemond incident ) which was the first instance where she was ever accused overtly in public of harwin being their father ' officially' in the sense of it wasn't just her little brother calling her sons 'strongs'. it was an actual official accusation of treason. and she’s honestly afraid more then anything after the fear for their lives that they are going to grow up and resent her for the fact that they can’t escape the allegations of bastardy either — that they are going to think negatively of her in the long run for not even feeling guilty for having had them.

when it comes to most every other fear, she has a habit of internalizing it. or only really letting it out through her hands whether it be twisting her rings or compulsively adjusting her sleeves. anything to keep her anxieties and fears on the inside so she can curate her reactions to have control over them and so she doesn’t express as much vulnerability to anyone who might be watching her. it was instilled in her through experience, through the fact that she does care so much about being perceived as worthy of her place. and before she accepted the fact some people would never have a nice word to say about her in regards to it like. she had a very bad time grappling with things that her detractors would say about her and how the comments on her worth would almost always center around her purity and how it was wholly irrelevant to her worth as prospective ruler, and how it was staining her reputation, staining her more then anything she said or did. because it felt wholly inescapable . and like honestly when she IS faced with those fears as she ages it does get easier to manage and to respond to without leaving such a diminishing blow on her - because the only criticism she really ? holds in high esteem any longer are the people she knows at least do want to help her and not just take shots at her. but like in her day to day ? she’s mentally keeping track on how she behaves, on how she walks, and how she talks, if she’s being watched, who’s watching and why. dragonstone is the only place where she’s really ? calm and at ease in regards to how she handles things because it is a place that’s wholly under her control she doesn’t have people that constantly combat against her to where every little thing can be used as potential ammunition against her . fears about her kids however, are things that she never really gets better at handling as time goes on. she has a habit of lashing out when she feels they’re threatened by something, or insulted in some way . their worth and how they’re perceived at court is something that is a lot easier to land to generate a reaction from her. because as far as she’s concerned they didn’t do anything to deserve it people whispering about their legitimacy and referring to them as ‘ common’ . they didn’t do anything to deserve the whispers about them the way she did.

#like her confidence and her boldness calcifies as time goes on it it doesn’t erode #because it is very much her own armor #and she was made heir at a point in her life where she never would’ve considered the throne a personal loss if viserys waited until he #remarried to name an heir and replace daemon #and she couldn’t really do anything about it but learn to want it because she doesn’t want to disappoint him #she wanted to be important to the crown before aemma died but even though people were whispering about naming her heir #she didn’t consider it with any degree of seriousness #because daemon existed and surely ? surely her father wouldn’t do something so ultimately polarizing in placing a girl #as his heir and doing so officially #she had a structured comfortable life as a princess and people by and large adored the fact she was so visible to them #but then she actually had to prove herself useful and that was - a different story #she didn’t want it until she does and then failure becomes a singularly impossible concept #infant death /#miscarriage /

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