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rustedhearts · 7 months

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hi rolly, hope all is well. i recently read "but i love him", and i think ive said this before, i cant remember, but your ability to capture very specific experiences/emotions really makes all of your fics stand out! like apart from the very well done characterisation (with each character/variation of steve and reader having a unique character voice), and atmospheric narrative that makes it easy to immerse in the scene, each story feels very coherent and complete thematically, even if its part of a larger series. i know its literally around only 1.5k words and written with a sort of particular goal in mind and so not like a totally accurate representation, but it was kind of fascinating from an outsider's perspective of like, what general setting a small (from the general sounds of it white coded) midwestern town would look like, especially as someone who grew up in a very urban environment with lots of other fellow immigrants and first generation people, and mostly read books that tend to reflect those specific experiences.

Its literally written as a warning but i was sort of shocked at how much of a bad taste in my mouth this guy put in my mouth?? like yeah he sucks, but i don't think his specific treatment of the reader is like, that egregiously worse than like some of boxer!steve's behaviour, or like the straight up abuse of power that is present in priest!steve. I thought about it, and, i think some if it is because of the fact that the boxer and priest are introduced with a charming and charismatic first impression.

but also i think its because of the aesthetic tones you've used really well! Your priest!steve series have always felt, at least to me, like some sort of southern gothic horror/romance, like crimson peak, where the high aesthetic of the language describing moral decay turns it into a story of appreciating that aesthetic beauty rather than examining that moral decay, which then gives readers pause to examine their own complicity in moral decay at a larger structural level. i really hope that made any sense but basically the way its written so beautifully, all the warm, gauzy summer scenes, and attractiveness of the various characters, movie-like dialogues, and sex charged scenes, distract me from the horror of the situation, that only really sets in after like a minute, and then i am doubly horrified which also weirdly is very aesthetically pleasing. i am trapped in a cycle it seems. boxer!steve similarly, especially at later points, is surrounded by like luxuries and wealth and a buzzing of californian excitement that make his actions seem smaller than they really are, especially when he apologises in the earlier chapters and i know there's a charged scene coming and allow myself to, again, get swept away in the beauty of the language that you wield really beautifully and effectively, despite being the polar opposite of a hot Christian Georgia town.

I think with this fic, the aesthetic pleasure was not as present immediately in the setting. Cold and lonesome with a guy introduced as angry doesn't give the same fantasy as sun soaked southern summer or wild shimmering california girlfriend, but it had a really unique hook all the same. the cold you wrote was so good, i swear it made me dread the canadian winter already and while it was strange sort of seeing the already dampened enthusiasm these two had when i'm used to seeing the honeymoon phase first, it also made me curious to see why these two did stay with each other, like on a character analysis level. as uncomfortable as i was in the cold, i was also uncomfortable because of the frosty relationship in the room and was caught between wanting to see them fight or make up, anything to see more of their extreme reactions to cut the cold you put in the room, to heat myself up. And omg! You did! in a way that felt true to what we knew about these people and let us know more about them (reader's desire to be possessed by a singular person who loves her to the point of wanting to cage her in and possess her and her doing a lot of the emotional labour and reparation after a fight), and that fit the tone of the rest of the story so well. there was always a feeling of something larger than both of them during that whole scene, like she was fixing a symptom and not the root cause (his anger and emotional issues, her not being able to get out of this), which is true, but you wrote it like a haunting ghost, always lingering even when you want it gone. specifically, what spoke out to me was when she looks at the cross on the wall, and then the one he has tattooed on his knuckle, and it felt almost odd, like he was taking this very real part of someone's faith and turning it into his own variation of an intimidation tactic, and seeing it in the bedroom felt just off kilter to me. And the car ride....omg....even when they're making up he will do something horrible! and she just sits there! hearing the yells but only in short bursts of scuffles, and then having him come back bruised and grinning while she sort of sits in horror and unsure felt like you captured a microcosm of their whole dynamic. idk if i'm making it much worse/darker than you intended and if so i apologise! i am genuinely excited to see how they will play out, specifically reader's desire to be consumed almost it seems for the price of love!

this is so insanely long and i tried editing it to make it shorter but i really apologise for the length. you're such a talent and reading your work always makes me excited to analyse and try to pick up on your thematic and aesthetic choices that you always execute with such grace and we are all so lucky that you've decided to share this beautiful literature with us for free.

you never fail to blow me away with these asks, and every time you send one i genuinely try and sit and soak it all in and appreciate it, because wow!!! i’m so spoiled!! 💓💓💓

i also think you live in my head, because you completely understand everything and its purpose lol. i’m convinced you’re just a little chunk of my brain living somewhere else

this steve is definitely different because he’s bad for bad’s sake. like you said, there’s no passion behind why he commits these crimes. his reason is literally just “because he wanted to.” it’s just a cycle he was always bound to end up in. with boxer!steve, his overprotective jess and jealousy stems from his passion for libby. with pastor!steve, his icky, slimy grossness stems from desire for delilah.

this steve is just…evil, honestly.

#rolly!#asks

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horizon-verizon · 1 year

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Something that bothers me about DotD is that I feel GRRM doesn't help his case much if he means the reader to sympathize with Rhaenyra's cause despite her shortcomings with the nature of the trajectory he chooses for her downfall. Now I'm not at all saying it's wrong to show her as flawed person, with hints of era-typical bigotry. But her acts against Nettles etc. make a reading that she wasn't good enough to support her after all not uneasy, leading to sexist implications considering the theme.

*EDITED POST* (4/5/24)

Found this lovely post by la-pheacienne HERE, explaining how Rhaenyra's tragedy is an ancient Greek on as well, how Rhaenyra became what she was.

It's strange. The Dance is both very very simple, yet it presents interesting questions.

ESPECIALLY SINCE WE HAVE TO REMEMBER THIS BOOK, IN-WORLD, WAS WRITTEN WITH THE IDEA THAT FEMALE-RULER=BAD RULER=BAD-FOR-THE-REALM!!!

It's a story of two very flawed factions (one still, I think, in the actual wrong) vying for power, but it essentially is the bloody catalyst for the need of sets up the death of the dragons and Daenerys'/Rhaegar's existence in Westeros--Dany's being Azor Ahai!

Rhaenyra unequivocally relied much on on her posiiton and class privilege to carry her through, as many female rulers and nobles would because without it they cannot hope to have the power they often are denied. But bc this privilege comes with the price of some level of compliance with the status quo AND can make one develop forgo looking at things apart from one's survival or dignity, it can also lead us into hurting others like Nettles who would have actually helped us succeed.

"Nature" vs Nurture--Doylist 'nature' vs Watsonian 'nurture'.

What makes a person who they are? Their environment and history (the parameters and foundations for their decision-making), or just their decisions? Where is the line between showing a woman affected by her lack of political training (but still having to self-determine red/black dress moment and her drawing strength from her Valyrian heritage) AND showing her fairly as a person in her own right with many flaws? OR where do we realize that we ourselves are subject to making arguments based on principles we haven't learned are sexist in themselves?

And I am not a mother, so I don't know what it's like to lose not one but two kids in quick succession and under a year. There was a clear choice on GRRM/probably really Gyldayn/the story-teller's, part in making Rhaenyra seemingly "incapacitated" to be involved with politics after KL until Daemon left and she was left with the envious Mysaria (our Iago-figure) to have her fears played on.

We have to remember that this account is the least well-documented in F&B and the one with the most deliberately unreliable narrators with agendas in presenting some characters, esp Rhaenyra, a certain way. Septon Eustace writes Rhaenyra stuffed her face with pies AND that she cut her hand on the throne so the throne must have rejected her after landing in KL. This is most likely a retrospective exaggeration of the real situation out of spite AND plain slander, because:

even if she were eating a lot, it'd most likely be depression/grief/stress-eating and she had a lot to be worried about, her 2 sons died, PLUS she'd maybe eat her fav foods to feel more at the home that always should have been hers

we already heard the writers fat shame her for not putting off her pregnancy weight -- sexist patriarchal body standards ignoring real health & anatomy/medicine to affirm itself -- meanwhile Helaena & Aegon the Elder both were plump-fat, and we hear of no insults or repetitive notes about them?!

Eustace really hated her probably for not using him as he wanted her to or what he was used to as Viserys, Viserys' courtiers, & Alicent most often did PLUS Rhaenyra was ultra-femme, but was not demure nor pretended to be -- again, sexist standards of feminine behavior or presentation

Aegon IV was as unworthy a leader as anything we ever see in Westeros...yet we hear nothing of the throne cutting him...Aenys I? Maegor, and not in his death!; it's a chair made of literal swords...people are going to get cut; OR it never happened bc Rhaenyra was wearing armor at the time -- basically superstition needs to be logically analyzed before we go "that's symbolism!"

A) GRRM Othellos Rhaenyra...Kinda. I just See some Things that Remind Me of the Play

Here, we know Rhaenyra definitely ordered Nettles' death, this isn't a Gyldayn invention or misunderstanding for the "Othello-ing" I name. It is narratively important that Rhaenyra become a tyrant not bc she was an evil person or stupid from the jump, but because she is an example of one who didn't manage to work through her own fear, grief, and paranoia (caused by the system's constant failures against her) to do as Dany did and rely on compassion instead of fear to assure her survival.

Without as much proper or as-much-political/military training as Jaehaerys I's and Baelon and Aemon had--Rhaenyra was that much more vulnerable. BUT she also could have gained a lot of experience in ruling Dragonstone in all thsoe years (15-16, or 20?) alone.

Let's take the first scenario: To not be fully ready or developed enough to put up much of a necessary fight against those that would oppose her and dissolve further than the already shaky bonds between Targ family members that existed since (honestly) either the generation of Aenys' and Maegor or Jaehaerys I.

After adopting much of Andal/Westerosi noble customs and especially male primogeniture, the Targs began betraying its female members and underdeveloping them almost since its dynasty's inception.

So GRRM makes Rhaenyra's flaws a direct result of her generational deprivation and gender discrimination, coming from Maegor and Aenys, but at the same time, it seems he went too hard in the paint to make Rhaenyra a woman without some necessary sense to accentuate her victimhood by making most of the bigger strategic decisions the blacks make come from the men around her BUT he also made sure to clue us in on how Rhaenyra is not like Dany in that she ultimately chooses her class privilege instead of measured compassion to maybe save herself.

A question some may have: Why make your female character so flawed instead of making her more of a great & strategic or very compassionate foe to reckon with, which would further hammer in how unfair it was that she was usurped? However, I mentioned how Rhaenyra serves as a way to re-contextualize Daenerys and the importance of ingenuity & compassion that will really carry one one into both personal and collective success/survival. (HERE is a Tweet by former brideoffires explaining).

Also, they both refuse to bow down to the oppressive standards of their time in their own ways. Even with Rhaenyra fighting for her claim and to protect her kids, she defying patriarchal restrictions of female leadership by refusing to just give up the crown despite the greens' usurpation and crowning Aegon. There is value in that, even with it going to war. Rhaenyra is an aspect of Dany's own struggles. She is where a woman in either position could falter. They share a pride needed to resist against those sociopoilitical circumstances and assert themselves.

Basically, Rhaenyra's most critical mistake and error and moment of self destruction was to accuse Nettles & use her own class privilege against a vulnerable. She relied on a thing that ultimately was set against her (you can't really separate the misogyny of the aristocratic class) to use against her "enemy", in order to feel powerful, even with her having been driven to that state from mainly others' desire for her throne.

After all, male claimants and rulers who are insane, predatory, or just weak are pushed towards the throne (Aegon the Elder, prime example for this story) all the time, so why not have a flawed or "mediocre" woman be the center of this story to accentuate the double standard held against her? To show how people like Cersei get...that, and what Dany as a woman could & has gone up against? Rhaenyra being as she was rather highlights how Misogyny doesn't care if you are a genuinely good person leader, one bad move, you're done. And Rhaenyra--to go back to the scenario abt "training" or if she did obtain "enough" experience, and even then we should wonder how much or if GRRM just wanted her to be that way for plot-sake--wasn't the most strategic, much of it due to her class entitlement. Which the greens share.

Men like Robert Baratheon, Stannis, Ramsay Snow/Bolton, or any of the current male Greyjoys who grew up in the Iron Islands? Even Canon!Jon Snow is better than most men of his time, but he is cruel when he thinks he has to be and has himself executed a child for disobedience and treachery. He also makes emotion-based/involved/inspired decisions (not often, but they exist), and he also makes mistakes. They get to hold positions of power without any added troubles (as Rhaenyra had) to the regular ones of greedy challengers or those resisting their plunder and reaping.

Why should we hold Rhaenyra to a much higher standard than these men, as much censure, as the fandom and canon society does? Especially since it's not really her story (overall), it's Dany's? None of the autonomously ruling female leaders of the story receive half as much censure for character or leadership skills (true or false) as those men I listed. Rhaenyra and Daenerys "Stormborn" Targaryen are usually the subjects, with some other Westerosi women as well, sometimes Catelyn even. All that is obviously due to misogyny, to this idea that because you are not the typical candidate or desired one for the position of power, you need to "prove" yourself to specifically those who get that power without having to fight that hard or experience the doubt of leadership similar to a woman.

In other words, trying to actually 100% buy into what the Westerosi male lords or what we think they'd want in a leader was never going to work for Rhaenyra. She kinda already did, and look where that got her?

How much of her paranoia (actually her breakdown) is understandable and consequential, as GRRM wants us to consider?

Gyldayn would say or think she should have ben better, but considering what she was up against as a woman, does he really think he could do better?

Or rather, how much do we excuse her for in lieu of her victimhood in the face of lifelong concentrated abuse and misogyny at almost every front?

Even if she had somehow quickly overcome her own grief in less than a year after both of her oldest sons died before she took KL, why are we so expectant of that? That's inhumane to me. Or I could be over emotionalizing it, idk & I don't think so.

And with the green having taken the royal coffers before they left, what would someone else have done under the immediate pressures of the lack of money, fear from smallfolk around the executions whose observations are charged and hate against the taxes raised bc of said lost moneys, and then the worst rioting exacerbated/caused by a crazy man most likely sent by the Citadel to turn everyone not just against her but all the Targs and destroy the dragons....

It's a lot all at once and something that not even Jaehaerys had to deal with, since:

Maegor at least was very dead by the time he actually got to KL.

The royal treasury was always intact AND he had Rego Draz (a Pentoshi man) help him develop his strategy of taxation, which encouraged the nobles to spend more....again in totoal PEACETIME.

since he was male, he never had to face widespread and local disfavor or contempt for his abilities (subtle or unsubtle) on account for things he cannot change or of beliefs against his gender, right to occupy a space, etc. as a woman does, esp a woman slotted to rule over other men -- people doubted him for his age/lack of experience, but they gave him more grace than they did Rhaena, his older sister

Finally, Jaehaerys may have lost two brothers (Viserys and Aegon) and a father, but Aenys didn't die by cold murder. His brothers we: A) don't even know he was close to or not, there were big age differences b/t him and them B) they were siblings, not one's children

Even without the losses of her kids, after a lifetime of having to decide how and even if one should try to legitimize oneself as one deserving of the same sort of respect and claims to power that another demographic just gets w/o trying--what does that do to the mind of a person, and under the pressures listed?

For Othello, it was using illusions and misunderstandings of adultery to put his sense of his masculinity in danger (as black masculinity is always put into question as being too "bestial" and inhuman, oversexualized--undeserving of the white chaste woman/high prize/object of white male power/public and political respect or "trust").

For Rhaenyra, it was her gender held against her AND then the betrayals, and she defaulted to feudal classism and misgynoir. Her conformity to that white female chastity of body and mind: what right did she think she had to claim power or herself without doing it in the name of a living "true" male heir/authority? And like Othello, she endured it her entire life, beginning with Alicent. At the same time, enjoying the trappings of a royal dragonrider who grew up believing that Targaryens were awesome beings who quite literally built Westeros the way it is?

That, I think, is what GRRM tries to create, this state of ethical "ambiguity".

It is true that compared to his other female Targ characters, the ambiguity is lacking because Rhaenyra is made too vulnerable to circumstances before her birth without her having quite enough substantial pushback or strategic will.

But Gyladyn wrote this book and we nee dto be careful with how he frames things or describes them.

This will read back and forth, because I think there are other merits in some criticisms of Rhaenyra's character and her characterization.

1. Maybe you can skip this if you have repetition

I think that GRRM does try to write her from that Shakespearean aspect of psychological ambiguity from Othello, but I kinda agree that the symbol of the hysterical woman unfit to decide important matters of community and state fits Rhaenyra too well, whereas Othello actively resisted Iago more than Rhaenyra did Mysaria or her other councilors OR better yet, why not subvert Shakespeare a bit and have Rhaenyra do it better than Othello and last longer?

But that could be bc its' a maester, GYLDAYN, writing this book as propaganda!

And comparing her to Dany, again, "really quick", for a reminder:

Even with Dany still existing and Rhaenyra losing, I'd prefer to see her still be more creative and active--just more engaged before more principal players in her camp betrayed her without her provocation, rather than just two dragonseeds when she had other dragonseeds with her and a full council (even if Celtigar had to go). Again, why not have her make one plan or get inspired once and have others refine that plan/beginnings of a plan? Perhaps make Celtigar the betrayer, so that she is faced with relying more on less conservative mindsets in her council? IDK.

(disagreement w/anon) But then this story would be so much less confrontational, as I have already said above:

the hate against her tells us much about other readers and ourselves as to what expectations we have towards men vs women put into situations like Rhaenyra's, where she's usurped on account of societal sexism AND one of her ancestors (Jaehaerys) making it that much harder for women to be considered fit rulers/inheritors of power.

Aside from her other mistakes:

not keeping close tabs on the greens while at Dragonstone so she'll be alerted to Viserys' worst days so she can travel back to KL and make sure the greens couldn't do anything w/o resistance -> 12/2/23 EDIT: Alicent wasn't planning the gathering the green council so much as improving immediately after Viserys died: her imprisoning Rhaenyra's supporters at court, her gathering the lords for the council, and her keeping it a secret Viserys died were all quieted events that she likely did not share with many people, maybe Otto and that's it. Not even Criston. These movements were what "saved" her the necessary few hours to get the jump on Rhaenyra; she would not have been very vocal or repetitive even if she did share her "plans" that could have been more wishes-turned-into action-in-the-moment than real, detailed, and prepared plans. So it's not that out of possibility to believe that even if Rhaenyra or Mysaria sent spies they'd pick up on this.

*not going to Jeyne Arryn after fleeing KL (this was a very understandable move to make, as she needed dragons & there was nothing left or safe for her back in KL)

Rosby and Stokeworth: for all that we say she was grieving, that Corlys/advisors pressured her, that she felt that the need for supporters around KL for the present dangers outweighed far-reaching ones for her rule later, she was still Queen and it was still a mistake because she needed to shore up female claims for herself and her descendants (two things can be true at once); this I see as Rhaenyra bowing to a real, concerning pressure that you may not think is heavy but is, and one can choose to "forgive" her for it or not and deal with the implications for either scenario because she was b/t having some crownlands close lords on her side while still in KL. Her ability to maintain herself on the throne depended on convincing men like Corlys/as many men as possible on her side. That's just the lot for female rulers of ancient, medieval, early-mod period patriarchal societies.

the dragonseeds & Nettles (nail in the coffin, the actual undisputed wrong)

I think that I can say that Rhaenyra was not the ideal leader in case of temperament or intelligence. She wasn't 100% dumb as hell by "nature" (whatever that is in ASoIaF), indicated by her making fewer mistakes before her sons died, but she still made a pretty dumb one before they died (#3 in the list above). She was purposefully made a bit more shortsighted than Alicent.

And here's another thing. She only started to be hated in KL after the taxes (that needed to be raised after Aegon/Tyland Lannister/the greens stole all the treasury money, even when he himself organized a feast celebrating Aemond and himself for Lucerys' murder and Aemond burned down one of the major suppliers of food in Westeros' "south" regions: the Riverlands and esp their farmer's villages and fields) AND when Larys purposefully spread rumors about her before the Shepherd came along and worsened it with his own misogynist rhetoric. Because all these beleaguered people wanted was to get out of danger and starvation, & when she couldn't immediately provide it, they understandably got riotous.

However, it is also true that with what she dealt with after taking KL--riots incited by Larys and the Shepherd, accusing her of killing Helaena; Larys taking out Maelor in the first place when he was perfectly safe in the Keep; being unsure of how long her followers would follow if she didn't at least comply with the Stokeworth and Rosby incidents.

And her moving to Dragonstone, to me, was not a mistake. She and her family needed their own base, which is psychologically and politically true. But, again...not monitoring her father and waiting for the aftermath of his death at all, if that is in fact what she did? smh.

Why isn't it enough to know that she was unfairly usurped? Why do we look for the ideal leader in the woman during her own disempowerment, and not at how there is a difference in expectation for her versus her male rival in terms of competency?

Let's play a little here. Even if Nettles and Daemon did sleep with each other, it is very clear that the better strategic decision would have been to question her after all her true enemies were defeated and make use of her until then.

But, once more and as I say in this Twitter thread, the deal with Nettles was accompanied and carried by the already existing Targ-Andal sexist paradigm of legitimizing one's rule through blood-purist/sexist principles. In that way, canon!Rhaenyra was not that much more exceptional than other Westerosi women under the condition of pressure looking to shore up their own claims.

AND again, it's a maester, GYLDAYN, writing this book as propaganda against female rulership/autonomy!

The Dance, more than any other account in F&B, is the most unreliably told tale because its sources (Mushroom, Orwyle/Munkun, and Septon Eustace) all seek to besmirch or objectify Rhaenyra for their own ends and are the only ones that provide the "clearest" narrations for Gyldayn, another master, to narrate. And GRRM does it on purpose:

We only get specific events that are told through a hateful gaze; what other traits and behaviors Rhaenyra could have done or said, we do not have access to and sometimes must use context to conclude our best guess. Thus, Rhaenyra also feels, to the reader, as if she could be something more than what's presented. Unlike its male characters, the Dance account gives one-note descriptions of its adult female participants because women already do not occupy or perform the same public activities as their male counterparts and thus are given less attention, unless they are Rhaenys, Alicent, and Rhaenyra. And we aren't privy to their most vulnerable moments (unless they are likely made up to disparage them OR so public as to be noticed). Emphasis on it feeling that way. It is Mushroom who says that Rhaenyra was angry that Daemon disobeyed her about Nettles: "By evenfall, Rhaenyra Targaryen found herself sore beset on every side, her reign in ruins. “The queen wept when they told her how Ser Lorent died,” Mushroom testifies, “but she raged when she learned that Maidenpool had gone over to the foe, that the girl Nettles had escaped, that her own beloved consort had betrayed her ("Rhaenyra Overthrown")". Which I can believe, since it follows her need for backup that she lost in Ser Lorent and the lack of such backup due to Daemon's refusal to follow orders or allow her orders followed. I can see Rhaenyra being angry and feeling betrayed by that. But Mushroom, as ever, also injects himself where it is impossible that he'd even be seriously considered as her companion and confidante: "At dawn, a hundred men attended her in the throne room, but one by one they slipped away or were dismissed, until only her sons and I remained with her. ‘My faithful Mushroom,’ Her Grace called me, ‘would that all men were true as you. I should make you my Hand.’ When I replied that I would sooner be her consort, she laughed. No sound was ever sweeter. It was good to hear her laugh" ("Rhaenyra Overthrown")". So is Mushroom using the hypothetical event where Rhaenyra was angry with Daemon and raged at the defiance, or did he make it all up to aggrandize himself and establish an intimate relationship with Rhaenyra for the audience, what we the readers are faced with? I tend to think the former because my idea of Rhaenyra and her tyranny coming from grief-misogyny follows such.

this is the event (the civil war/the Dance) where the women, the center, the moment of Targ history where the dragons and life-supporting magic were lost and started to die without its matriarch, occurs when the would-be autonomous female heir loses her power? Not a coincidence -> context and ratcheting up the stakes for Dany, bc what would the reception to her be like?

And again, without a closer look at her upbringing, with all these people telling her story in their way and with their own agendas and misogyny....well it's hard for me, the reader, to totally devote myself to writing Rhaenyra's comparative simpleness to just her being her and it not her developing herself to what was available to her.

Another theory is not a theory, it's obvious. Rhaenyra is a character developed after Daenerys was created and Rhaenyra is not meant to surpass Daenerys in military leadership acumen or potential (because she grew up in a context where Targ women lose much power and go untrained) AND he is mean to be her "sword", her "Visenya". Again, GRRM might have gone a bit overboard...but he's not terribly wrong.

Also, once again, they both refuse to bow down to the oppressive standards of their time in their own ways. Even with Rhaenyra fighting for her claim and to protect her kids, she defying patriarchal restrictions of female leadership by refusing to just give up the crown despite the greens' usurpation and crowning Aegon. There is value in that, even with it going to war. Rhaenyra is an aspect of Dany's own struggles. They share a pride needed to resist against those sociopoilitical circumstances and assert themselves.

If Dany didn't exist, I would have preferred to see a more non-motherhood sense of responsibility, a more altruistic side of Rhaenyra (that still doesn't outperform Dany).

6. (inspired by & courtesy of brideoffires's post HERE)

It's not a coincidence that more female Targs display the most pleasure and affinity for dragonriding:

Rhaena (Alyssa's daughter), who after bonding with Dreamfyre came more into herself and bestowed her siblings with dragon eggs so that they themselves would bond with their dragons sooner and thus would be one self-possessed early on to even become rulers

Alysanne, who cried when she couldn't ride Silverwing anymore

Saera, who would have tried to bond with a dragon and ride to freedom

Aerea, who claimed Balerion and also rode to escape her damaged mother

Daenerys Stormborn, who restored dragons to the dynasty with fire and blood (blood magic & bravery)

Rhaenyra, who became a dragonrider at 7 years old

Rhaena (Laena's daughter), who also managed to have her egg hatched when no other dragon existed

Rhaenys (Jocelyn Baratheon's daughter) protested in favor of her unborn child and died with her dragon

Baela, who fight a usurper on behalf of her stepmother and lost her dragon but made sure to give Aegon the Elder much more injuries that turned him inside out enough to be so contemptible to be put down by his own followers

and Rhaenys the Queen, who loved dragon-riding the most of her siblings despite not being a warrior like her sister, yet being the literal mother/direct ancestor of the entire dynasty

Yes, you have male dragonriders but looking at Targ history, who usually has a closer metaphorical relationships with the Targ dragons? And after who, chosen by right, was usurped because she was a woman, and whose kids then continue the line?

Notice how a running theme is motherhood as well? In ASoIaF (all of it, not just the novels) GRRM is fixated on motherhood and a woman bringing forth new/restored things. Or when she's stifled from doing so. Daenerys is a prime example. She brought dragons back when Aegon V tried and failed, when Aegon III tried and failed and when Aegon IV did a mockery of it by trying to take Dorne. Rhaenyra gave birth to accomplished people (Jace, and Viserys II) and became a mother to two more (Baela and Rhaena). Again, it is through her that the Targs can even continue. Yes, Daemon is the father, but he wasn't made heir--Rhaenyra was--and Jace would have been a good king. And she was fertile, having birthed five kids and safely. Unlike Alysanne, who had many miscarriages and stillbirths and infants dying before they got to 3.

Conclusions

Rhaenyra is a good example of a victim who wasn't necessarily a good person or an ideal ruler and neither was she a horrible ruler or an evil person (until Nettles).

GYLDAYN is writing this book as propaganda against female rulers/women having power that men traditionally are granted and have.

Some come away with the feeling that Rhaenyra has less depth because she relies on her heritage and the fact Viserys bestows her: What else, other than her Valyrian heritage and her kids, keeps Rhaenyra going, they may ask? Similar to Dany, Rhaenyra uses the fact that she does come from Valyrian dragonriders and conquering Targs to validate to herself that she deserves to fight for the throne. Differently from Dany, she does this with the fact that her father clearly named her heir and would have given it with his own hands.

Have that in conflict with her motherhood, instead of relying on her motherhood and raiding a capable would-be-monarch being the thing carries the heft of her positive character? I've also felt the frustration with the negligence of some more personal depth that is similar to women like Visenya or Rhaena (the Queen Dowager).

Again, to repeat myself (from point #4), it all comes from the desire for the alternative leader to the conservative type to be morally better than them for the greatest possible change. But we already have that in Dany and Rhaenyra is only mean to serve as to re-contextualize Dany & hammer in how she is so important.

Rhaenyra's one main "flaw" (shaped by society/history) is that she was blinded by her need to self-assert herself above all else in the face of her dissenters...since childhood and never developed past that crutch partly bc that was where she was.

*EDIT* (8/21/23):

THIS is a great post by @mononijikayu about medieval queens, female rulers, the history of how women in leadership positions were made and seen as threats to the very structure of social "order", and contextualizing Rhaenyra thru Empress Matilda. I didn't even know about Matilda's husband being comparable to Rhaneyra's Daemon! PLZ READ!!!!

Excerpt:

just as much, along with these fictitious portrayals, more lies are depicted. these women are considered vixens that cause havoc to men by shifting them into desires and danger. through the written word, we see how women are cast in roles of villains in men’s lives. it is because by their conclusive thoughts, women are the only creatures that are able to turn ‘good honorable men’ into despicable creatures who do shameful, deplorable acts for the sake of women’s pleasures. [...] it is within this narrative that ancient chroniclers declare that women were in fact the doom of men. if they were not able to control the dangers posed by the wiles of women, then the foundations of the mighty society they had built would be up in flames. [...] as i mentioned, these factors of community are written down and preserved. and with that, the example of the ancients were the foundations by which medieval society built itself. the same concepts continued to cause the same issue within society and that was the exclusion of women from participating in the bigger picture of community and state, much so with governing states in their own right—without judgment or disapproval.

#rhaenyra's characterization #rhaenyra targaryen #asoiaf asks to me #rhaenyra i #fire and blood writing #fire and blood characters #grrm #george rr martin critical #rhaenyra and motherhood #asoiaf motherhood #asoiaf themes #asoiaf dragons #rhaenyra and feminism #othello #shakespeare #character comparison #fire and Blood #asoiaf

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bigsleeps · 1 year

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podcast notes

it is always so jarring to hear people call him "matt healy" and not "matty healy"

"i could live here" (about LA) "it's so optimistic and yet so bleak" "it's a really intense place; when i'm in new york for example, i don't feel this emotional tension push and pull. whereas in los angeles ive always felt a real kind of dissonance between how I feel and what the environment is like."

"i'm here because i'm working. i'm really lucky that so many people want me involved with their records [...] i've got SNL next week. i'm really trying to embrace being on the road. i've been on the road for 10 years, and i think it happened when we were so young and you can't really take it at face value and i just got in this way of touring. i've always ... just like a human, i wanted everything. i wanted a bit of a domestic life, i wanted a long term comfortable relationship, i wanted the touring business to be really good, i wanted our records to be successful. a decision for something is always a decision for something else."

this is an actual conversation between him + bret!! like you can tell matty is rly interested in what he has to say and it's like a proper back and forth!

"i remember getting into your work, for me, was the same as getting into velvet underground [...] the first time i'd seen a book that was cool was less than zero. i was a teenager, not able to put this book down. i didn't get that. i wanted to read that! and then bret easton ellis, those words were kind of naughty, i knew there was something in that that was subversive or irreverent or i wasn't supposed to be looking at and that was magical to me. [...] sure i'd heard of clockwork orange, things that felt quite similar to something punk, or something like that"

"there's an element of buying into the whole world we build [...] it's why we won't have a number one single, but we'll sell out like three nights at the garden. there's a completely different emotional exchange that's going on."

"i remember being struck in a similar way [about the stranger by camus]. there was something about the way that character operates, there's this deep existential dread that materializes in what feels like quite superficial stuff."

"did you feel any trepidation about appearing on podcasts? [...] what are your feelings about the interview?" “The longform context of podcasts allows you to have context, so you can say This is how I really, really feel. Give me a minute, give me some space. Doesn’t really work on Tiktok or Twitter, because they want the moment, or the condensed version of what you’ve said. There’s a couple of ways I think about this, because obviously this is presented to me as … this kind of desire to be authentic, and also just do what I love, but also be on a platform where certain things are expected of me. It’s difficult, because coming from punk — and when I say punk, I’m coming from middle class in the UK, my parents when I was growing up were like jobbing actors, not massively successful. Not hands to mouth, kind of a normal middle class upbringing just my parents were actors. So there’s that aspect of my life. And I always grew up around fame. I saw where some of the values were, where the benefits were. I saw where the trappings were. I wasn't interested in fame, I knew that. Because I started in like, punk bands and stuff like that — I think if you come from where we come from, you're taught in an alternative scene, if you're into records, into books, you should kind of relish transgression and be suspicious of conformity. So that's what I thought were the tenets of being young. Like, this is my opportunity now to be transgressive by proxy. Because I'm young, and I'm going to challenge the status quo and not do what grown ups are doing. That's just what I thought being a teenager was. That's kind of changed a bit now, it feels like conformity and all things that like, punk used to define have departed all left leaning spaces. what are regarded as left leaning spaces now are very very anodyne, very void of human context and human fallibility and all the things that make art, writing, really really interesting. and another strange shift, where we used to want artists to be cigarette smoking bohemians outsiders, and now we want them to be liberal academics. I'm not really interested in the politics of a person unless they're political — the idea of not listening to a record because they're right wing, it's a mad concept to me. we all know i don't like the post-woke, anti-woke thing because I think that with wokeness it's just an arm of progressivism and progressivism is trying to do the right thing. it's trying to deal with the stuff we need to deal with, racism, sexism, all the big issues. it's coming from the right place. so this is where i get in trouble, right. cause i operate as a really, really pop star now, and i suppose i don't think about my behavior but if i was to look back at the way i behave, i act more like ... a cult figure. like someone who has their audience, and it doesn't really matter otherwise. so when i'm, let's say, over the past year, getting myself in trouble, in air quotes, i'm literally realizing that in the moment. i'm forgetting that i'm really big. i'm forgetting that i'm, 34. and i'm into this and i'm into that, and these are my favorite movies and cultural references. and there's some 14 year old kid, who has just got the 1975 box tattooed in this really really big place. and i mention this because this goes into two different areas for me — being cancelled, we can look at it like this: if you do something criminal, and then loads and loads of people talk about it on twitter. which is where most people talk, that's just being found out to be a criminal. that's not being cancelled. [...] if you do something that's morally corrupt or wrong, not subjectively like objectively like normally criminal stuff, you'll get cancelled."

"when i was a child, i would go from a room where my parents were my parents, and then they'd leave to go to work and i'd go visit them at work and they'd be a different person with a different accent. [...] we can decide what reality is whenever we want."

"when the 1975 happened, i was like i don't want to be famous, but i am interested in all of these things and i think my meta-ness has gotten worse. you get to the third album and it starts to get very inward. i can't really help it. what is that shift, there was a desire in art, it was everywhere in the 90s. i don't know what counterculture looks like now."

#*#updating this as i listen

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houndfaker · 3 months

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currently stopped at 12/2. there’s a lot i wanna talk about. this game makes me feel so incredibly strange. ill leave a very messy ramble under the cut

being past a majority of the significant moments i feel like i can give a pretty lengthy discussion of my feelings

the game does what it says on the tin it’s an hd remake. storyline (at least as of the date i cited) is by and large approximately the same.

the game itself is gorgeous it looks amazing. there is so much clear effort put into every little aspect, of which everyone is already greatly aware

i have highly mixed feelings

things i am enjoying

a nice handful of the link episodes and optional content are feel good and sweet moments that give a better impression of the cast’s relationship, which is always welcome. particular examples im personally really about include shinji’s link episodes and the group study sessions

theurgy moves and how they reflect each characters growth in their second move that unlocks with their ult persona. trismegistus’s theurgy killed me dead.

lots of very welcome qol changes that streamline numerous parts of the original game in a way that feels pretty good. i particularly enjoy the text message function and how it reminds you who’s available which days while also letting you fast travel directly to the link in question, and the net functionality thing that lets me see what others decided to do each day. a ton of helpful stuff for someone really forgetful basically

ive been playing on peaceful because im not good at rpgs (yes i spent $70 on a game from a genre i am notoriously bad at!!!!) so i can’t speak much to a lot of gameplay stuff but im glad tartarus has more to it and has also received qol changes that make it less of a slog to grind (at least in my experience). in general tartarus’s overhaul rules; visually the alternate environments with different corresponding floor layouts are awesome

they let ryoji be bisexual outwardly! kinda pretty much? much like aigis’s “I know you should be with a man” in portable it’s hard not to take “I want to be more than a friend to you” as anything other than explicitly gay. i still have a few more scenes with the guy so it might take a minute before i can be fully confident in this point.

things im not enjoying

the quality of the character writing in a lot of places is either off, irritating, or it flat out feels incorrect in some instances. whether it’s aki dropping the p word as liberally as he does or mitsuru being constantly put forward as intimidating and that’s the whole joke, or the weird new speech quirks aigis has, there are moments you can very much tell the writers are going “how many times can we fit this same unfunny joke or bit across the game”. it feels like a greater chunk of the time that they don’t Know what to do with the characters so they fall back on pushing whichever flagship trait that character is known for and it really hurts the overall enjoyment of the additional content when it feels so…shallow? as a result. not ALL of it is this way but there is a significant enough pattern that it’s genuinely a bother

how little they use the potential of this remake to demonstrate individual character dynamics that aren’t otherwise frequently touched on (i.e say yukari and shinji or aki or like aigis and shinji or fuuka and aki; there’s like a ton of character duos within sees that we just don’t really have a grasp on how they feel about each other). i was especially disappointed at the lack of shinji with other people than the rest of senpai squad or the protag, which is what i was most looking forward to having more of going in. maybe some of what i was hoping for is in tartarus dialogue i didn’t wind up triggering (which there is an insane amount of that id love to pick through once im done) but just based on the episodes i played and the hangouts i did it’s still like man. i wanted to see him being friends with other members yk? they barely took any cues from the portable slink.

BECAUSE the story is written so closely to the original any weird inconsistencies remain the same, although there are a handful of moments where they clarify certain important things that i don’t believe were in the originals. on a similar note whereas they smartened up and made stuff like romance optional and removed that notorious transphobic scene, they’re still not immune to being really fucking weird about age gaps and grooming !!! and of course the sexualization of highschoolers remains ‘Detrimental’ to the storyline 😐

ok i writing this as i am so sleep I am falling asleep with my phone. my primary thoughts for now make of that what you will. god i hate video games

#quinn moment #3DReload

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natsmagi · 3 months

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i was typing this in the notes to an ask but it gogt waaaay too long lol sorry. prefacing it with you know i love your artwork & i have nothing against what you choose to draw. also possibly worded weird cus i didnt write it in the sense of talking only to you alone

there is certainly this conflict between artists as random individuals and artists as a collective when it comes to how to approach this issue… as a hobbyist you can draw whatever you like but also when you have trends like a lack of fatness thats going to be disheartening too. i think the answer is getting more people into making art (& like general societal change of course since its an issue baked into bigotry.)

because as much as i agree with the sentiment of "there is significant under representation of fat women" (or characters in general) at the same time fandom is a hobby space and i dislike the notion of badgering individual artists to draw any particular thing especially when the source material does not have that thing. if you are looking for artwork of fat women thats great but i would not ever recommend something like enstars that has 1. no fat characters and 2. no women, barring a few exceptions. i think expecting to find fanart of fat women from a source entirely composed of thin men is unrealistic, even with the relative popularity of femstars.

plus there are other complications such as the typical modern fandom f/f scene sometimes being very strict and even vicious at times with their standards of what's enough diversity or what content is appropriate. ive heard a lot of anecdotes about people who WERE contributing to these things but whom were still harassed or got threats from other users over it not being good enough, and that's just not conducive to creating the environment or diversity you want. nobody is going to want to be in a fandom space where they have to walk on eggshells all the time. and i bring this up because of how you were clearly harassed by randos. accusing you of misogyny or shaming other womens' bodies as being "unrealistic" is not the way to go

the only reasonable solution i can think of to this is, again, to just encourage more artists to start drawing in the first place, or even better start contributing yourself. individuals should have the freedom to draw what they like without getting flamed for it AND people should be able to see themselves represented in artwork. i would like to see some more fat characters too, this is definitely something ive thought about before myself

(personally all the fat people i draw are ocs or portraits of people i know that i dont want to post online but maybe if i get some inspiration i will draw the long-sought chubby mugi myself. i am not super interested in femstars though so whether or not itd actually be fem mugi is up in the air. but all the talking here about this topic has had me thinking about following my own advice and putting what i want to see into the world.)

OUGHH THESE ARE ALL GOOD POINTS!! and i agree! the main thing we should be doing is ENCOURAGING people to add more diversity, not harassing them into it! people who only draw for fun arent really obligated to draw anything outside of their comfort zone, which again is why i think its better to simply uplift the idea of trying out new things and new appearances that you dont often draw

theres also SO MUCH room for more femstars artists too! and like ive said before if you wanna see something done right you gotta do it yourself. and i kind of like that. i like that everyone gets to craft their own little femstars variant of the enstars cast, and you can make them look however you want! and honestly? you SHOULD! seeing personal touches to designs always brings me joy, so even if you dont feel very confident in your art, if you have a specific vision for a character that you want brought to life please go ahead and draw it!! (or if you really dont want to you can always commission someone)

i also wanna highlight one of ur last points too bc yea. its unfortunate but often times whenever i see someone try adding diversity to their art for the first time they end up getting flamed because its not an accurate depiction of what they were trying to represent. and that really sucks! obviously we should strive to have accurate representation, but if its an artist that hasnt tried their hand on it before, ESPECIALLY a beginner artist, we shouldnt flame them for it. rather we should educate them on what went wrong and how they can improve for the future. these are people who actually WANT and are TRYING to add diversity to their art, but because in animanga circles theres a lack of education on how to draw more diverse features of really any kind. which is why trying to educate is far better than shaming. because if you shame these artists theyre gonna be too scared to try again, giving us less diversity once more

so yes basically what im saying is i want us all to encourage diversity and to help each other out by sharing resources and tips when it comes to drawing it!! one person is Obviously not gonna be able to do every single thing, which is why i want more people to pick up the pen and bring life to their visions!! also i really want more femstars food pelase pick up the pen i am a starved orphan and only femstars yuri can satiate me!!!!!!!!!

#long post #<--felt warranted KAHJSDFK #but genuinely though i want diversity to be requested and desired #and i want it to be done so in a positive and respectful manner towards hobbyists #if we're talking megacorps u can shittalk them all u want and send all the angry emails in the world #but for artists on the internet who are only here to have fun its important to remember to be kind and encouraging!#bc asking them for rep in a hostile manner is only gonna create negative associations #which. would be counterproductive #diversity is a wonderful thing so please do not make people resent it by being rude!!!!#that is not what we should strive for!!!!#ask

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jackienautism · 11 months

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please share your self indulgent aus 👀

fdjgdjgkg 🥺🥺🥺 to be honest w/ you i dont really have too many in my arsenal... as many as id thought id have i mean. but ill go through the ones i have now / remember from past interests! most of them aren't necessarily self indulgent just as a heads up... some are more practical than others though

the quarry / until dawn:

this is just at the forefront of my mind (since i tried making stuff for it today, it didnt work very well) but i wanna assign the TQ / UD girls / characters dog breeds..... i do have solid ideas / thoughts for the girls specifically but i think i waanna save it for it's own post / keep it a surprise

do not hurt me but ever since last summer i thought it would be sooooo cool to put a like. danganronpa spin on TQ / UD dkndkg LIKE LIKE.... itd have the danganronpa mechanics and stuff but not necessarily the killing game premise you know? itd make more sense if i like explained my ideas and such but i also think i wanna save it for later.... but know i have a shit ton of thoughts on what i wanna do and stuff dgkdg i WILL say however, protag!laura and protag!sam respectively

i wanna make this like... immediate swap of the UD characters w/ TQ charas ... like. emily woould swap w/ kaitlyn, jess w/ emma, sam w/ laura, ashley w/ abi etc etc. so instead of kaitlyn and dylan at the scrapyard, it'd be emily and matt at the scrapyard ya feel me? the same events that happened in TQ will happen but theyre just. w/ the UD characters instead

and speaking of... ive posted / talked abt this briefly but i have SOOOO many ideas for a UD / TQ situation swap AU... meaning the UD guys are in a TQ environment... and oh man do i have a ton of imo HELLA COOL AND EPIC ideas for it... i just gotta flesh things out more thoroughly and come up w/ "chapters" i suppose. ive got giant general ideas and some already solidified scenes but. thats kind of it. im super excited to work more on it though. it is my Child

this one is DEF on the sillier more self indulgent sidde but since i love drawing characters i love in diff styles of games i like... i wanted to draw the TQ / UD charas in the fire emblem style... which then lead me to. what if ijjust assign them classes and shit? i don't know which game id necessarily base the AU off of but. at the very least id just assign them fire emblem classes and create designs for them and stuff. that's always fun

speaking of games w/ sprites, this isnt reallly an AU but i reaaaally wanted to draw like sprites for the TQ / UD charas and rewrite / recreate scenes as if the game were a visual novel... so theres that

and this one isnt an au and i maaaaay have mentioned this before on this blog i cant remember BUT ANYWAYi had this dream a year ago w/ the UD charas and it just. yeah it spiraled dfgjnfdjg it began as this very warped AU of until dawn but as i began developing it more, the more realized that it just... it wasnt worth calling it an AU? like. ive been putting too much work and EXTRA extra stuff ve4ry much outside of UD for it to be considered an AU... sooooo i took them and made them my own characters and made it my own original story LOL its been almost a year and a half since i began development but its still faaar from being finished. i have a BUNCH of ideas and shit, but i def still wanna like. organize things a bit more before bouncing shit off of others. but yeah. i stole the UD girls and made them mine

TQ / UD GIRLS IN THE MEAN GIRLS MUSICAAAAAAL... i've only thought abt which roles the girls would fit since i rlyonly care about them buuuut maybe itll become more fully fledged as time goes on (it probably wont) but atm ive assigned both TQ / UD girls as mean girls musical characters :]

UD GIRLS PERSONALITY SWAP!!!

UD / TQ FUSIONS!!!!

other:

i was REAAAAALLLY into life is strange in the fall of 2021... hold on post on hold i can't believe its coming up to 2 years since i first watched my friend stream it. fuuuuuuuck. anyway. i had this life is strange in the fire emblem three houses universe AU gdgjnf like. the LIS charas were in FE3H and were in the diff houses and stuff. i didnt have too much of it fleshed out but i had this idea for rachel and max with rachel basically taking the role of sothis and oiiuggh i still love the idea so much

also had a danganronpa in a fire emblem three houses universe and vice versa... and for these i had more ideas for the DR in the FE3H universe AU for some reason. i think coming up w/ classes and backstory was easier for me idk. i remember having this whole thing written out.... i actually have a whole doc if anyonne is interested.... its real old and bad though so i probably wont share it publicly but 🤷 we'll see. came up w/ most of the ultimates / talents for the FE3H guys... didnt come up w/ much more than that however. i think coming up w/ whos gonna kill who + motives + murder details was too much for me to handle. hence why i dont have tooooo much w/ this AU. i really do want to go back to these one day though

also had a persona 5 in a DR universe AU sort of. despite my very limited knowledge on P5. i only really thought about ann and shiho's role in the AU and let me just tell you it does not end well for either of them ]: but the idea i have is so GOOOOOOD

this isnt an established AU or anything but i had this idea to like. randomly select 2 of my fandoms and attempt to make an AU out of it. i think that'd be fun

RESIDENT EVIL SWAAAAP AUUUUUU GOSH I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS AND YET NONE AT ALL. I WANNA WORK ON IT SOOOO BAD I LOVE IT SO MUCH

AU where claire teams up w/ ada instead in resident evil 2. i had this whole day dream sequence for it. hopefully i still remember it i rly need to get it down. i deeply care for them both. my ideas rock

i think that's everything? for as much as i love resident evil im kind of shocked there arent more. esp since ive had the fixation for like a year and a half now. maybe there will be more to come who knows. ill def add more if im reminded of some / more come to me later on

#lionheart-giddings #asks #the quarry #until dawn #danganronpa #fire emblem three houses #resident evil #YOU ARE TOO NICE 2 ME !!!! THANK U SO MUCH FOR ASKING ME TO SHARRE #TQ #UD #FE #FE3H #DR #RE #my thoughts #my TQ tag #my UD tag #my DR tag #my RE tag

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faemoona · 8 months

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i wanna post more on tumblr, its not a super active site anymore but i got friends on here so. I got a new story in mind! Meet the leads of The Dragon Prince's Daughter

" Little Luri lived a modest but happy life with her mom and aunt when one day when she returns home from school, she finds her home ransacked and her mom and aunt are missing. She ends up in an orphanage but a royal knight comes and takes her to a palace? Luri learns that her father is the warlord prince of princes. Luri has to navigate this new and quite odd world of nobles and etiquette while getting to know the father shes never met. Can she learn to get along with her dad and the rest of her new family and find her mother? only time will tell"

ive always wanted to try writing one of those webtoon elevator pitches hehe.

Left to right we have Kiara, Luri and Silas

Kiara is an orphan circus acrobat and singer. she lives with her found family and lives a nomadic lifestyle, traveling from city to city. Shes outgoing, confident, brave and strong. shes also quite impulsive and has a vengeful streak. shes fiercely protective of her people and especially of her beloved baby girl. Kiara and Silas courted in their teens and for a long time Kiara had no idea who Silas was. he was just some bashful but kind kid who she liked teasing and hey if you move all that hair out of his face hes kinda handsome. Kiara serves as a catalyst for Silas, where silas is a calming agent for Kiaras. She showed him how to be more confident in himself and to be proud of who he is and he taught her all sorts of magic and helped her tame her fiery temper. Even after she learned he was a prince, by that point the two were deeply attached to each other and neither could bear to break it off. it wasnt until Luri came around, (very accidentally) that they stopped seeing each other. She mises her partner but is very fulfilled as a mother to Luri and has a support system through her found family that keeps her happy and sane through the whole single parent thing.

Luri is the daughter of silas and Kiara. shes a curious and sweet but very skittish child. to be fair though, shes only five and still figuring things out. She lived nomadically with her mother for the first fopur years of her life. traveling from place to place in a caravan with the rest of the carnies who all treated her as a beloved daughter or niece. She got to see lots of things and she loves seeing her mom and aunties perform. She loved exploring in the woods and collecting her own littler treasures. Luri knows nothing of silas but everything of her mother. She thinks the absolute world of her mother as most children too and struggles a lot without her. Shres a fish out of water in the palace environment and it doesnt help that Shes absolutely terrified of Silas. Silas is the eldest child of the current queen and king and the crowne prince. as he is now, in his mid twenties, Silas is a cunning and wise prince with a tactical mind and a reputation for brutally destroying a group of terrorists who threatened to harm the nation. Hes also got resting bitch face and tends to come off as intimidating due to his large stature but this is all a wall he puts up. Silas is actually a very nervous person whos dying for genuine connection and companionship. Neither of his parent gave him much of their time when he was young, and every time he met somebody they usually just wanted something out of him. In his late teens Silas was a scrawny, almost mousey and skittish person who stayed buried in his books, isolated and was considered an embarrassment. he turned all of this around in terms of his public image but hes still the same person on the inside. He wants nothing more than to be a good father to luri but he doesnt exactly haver the best role model and the little thing is too scared to even speak in front of him. whats a guy to do?

These three are our protagonists, Luri and Silas being the more prominent characters out of the three since kiara is currently missing but theres a whole host of other characters im cooking up too. keep an eye out > : 3

#my art #oc: Kiara #oc: Luri #oc: Silas #the dragon prince's daughter #TDPD

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phoenixfangs · 6 months

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pissed off that im always too tired to draw, and when i do draw its just sketches that i dont want to share with more than a handful of people because idk im nervous to put my art out there in an unfinished state—like if im sharing with a wider audience than just some friends, i do want it to be quality, i want my art to Look like ive put time and effort and love into it—which makes me not wnat to draw because i Never finish anything, which makes me pissed off all over again

and then i never have any ideas that arent fandom art, so i feel like im stagnating a bit. like recently i dont get inspo to draw unless im thinking about krisnix JFLDSJLFJD which is STUPID!!! krisnix is fun but im sick of it being All i can draw. i need to become one of those people that has 48 billion ocs that dont have a story attached to them, theyre just pretty dolls to dress up and put in pretty environments—but even then, my idiot brain cannot get attached Unless theres a story to make me care about the characters, and for the life of me i cannot come up with a story on my own that I am satisfied with

#mine #i guess im artblocked to hell idk #and everything going on at work rn is Not Helping #because it just exhausts me more #so by the time i get home im like brain Off lying on the couch watching youtube videos ive seen a million times #grinding exp in pokemon blue because ive never played it but its such a grind its a good brain off experience #because i can never get into a good groove to be creative anymore :(

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marshmallowprotection · 6 months

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hi hi i hope this is okay </3 ive never sent an ask in to you before, firsts always make me nervous.

Ive been fiddling around with the idea of Saeyoung with an MC who had a similar childhood to him and was wondering what your thoughts were!! By similar, I mean.. very similar. Younger siblings, shitty/abusive parents, running away as a teenager to try and find a way to get their sibling(s) away from their mother, ultimately doesnt get very far (only gets further isolated from siblings due to outside causes).

i hope this isnt like. too specific or outside your comfort zone lolol ive mostly been thinking of it bc i also grew up in a similar environment and recently got super into mysme again and was curious to see one of my favorite people in the community’s thoughts and opinions lolol

Well, first and foremost, your MC is meant to be who you want them to be. You can give your character any background you want to give them because you're the one cultivating the story. If you feel a strong sense of comfort by having your MC share your background to bring you peace and compassion, then you have every right to do that.

The sweetest MCs often share facets of our personalities, after all. I put a little touch of myself into my all my CMCs and it helps me flesh them out to be more human, and in some cases, it helps me learn the best way to confront whatever I shared with that character!

So, Saeyoung with an MC who fully knows what it feels like to be in a situation where you're trapped and you can only pray every night that someday, you'll find a way out.

It gives you a unique position to sit next to him and empathize with what he's going through. Even if your situations aren't the exact same, you still understand what's happened to him and that means when you speak to him from the heart about your experiences, he'll know where you're coming from and he'll be able to open up to you a little bit faster than he would with someone who grew up in an environment that wasn't anything like what he went through. It's not to say that you'll have a better chance at talking to him because he can be a tough nut to crack, it's just that your words will resonate in a way that he can't deny.

He doesn't like the idea that somebody he cares about has gone through anything difficult and awful in their life, and it might be a bit tough to share your history with him because that might make him want to have you leave him even more. He wouldn't want to make your life more difficult than it already has been, so that'll be an interesting conversation to have with him about what you feel, what you can handle, and how you wanting to be with him isn't a burden.

You could take this a long way by really flushing out a healthy conversation with him about why he tries to minimize what he suffered for the sake of maximizing what somebody else went through. He's the kind of person who beats himself up because “it wasn't that bad for him, it was much worse for his brother.” You have the unique position to hold his hand and let him know that he suffered, too, and it's okay to talk about it.

If this is a comfort scenario for you, you can take this anywhere, my friend.

#mod kait #ask #mystic messenger #mysme #anon #mysticmessenger #mm #saeyoung choi #choi saeyoung #tw abuse

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yanaequa · 9 months

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i dont know if youre really on tumblr anymore but im curious about what you would think of the following;

im an autistic american and ive begun working on an idea for a short film. one of the main characters is an autistic korean-american teenager who's a second generation immigrant. do you have any tips for how i could accurately depict her as an autistic asian-american? her story means a lot to me

uh, hello, long time no see! First of all, thank you for asking question although I have been inactive for such a long time. Also, I appreciate that my existence came into your mind when you were looking for the resource for your story building.

That being said, I am not sure if I can give the appropriate answer for your question; although I studied abroad for quite a while, I was never an immigrant. I went to other country alone when I was in middle school, and spent most of my time in the dorm. after graduating, I came back to Korea and got a job. Basically, my experience is far from immigrant. Still, I will give my best based on what I saw & heard about asian-american immigrant. but please make sure to cross-check with other reliable sources, too!

Usually, first generation immigrants have to spend all their energy getting used to different cultures, languages, and systems. and while doing all of that, they have to bring home the bacon as well. They are very down-to-earth and hardworking; They will not be able to make it in new country if they don't. if there are other family members-especially their kids-they have to take care of them as well. They might face problem that they would never face if they had not left. (in fact they always do.) because of tremendous amount of work they face, they may compromise less significant issues, such as um... having fun, accommodating their wants, and bonding with their family members. This may cause burnout, neglect, or over-management of their children. They may want some form of compensation-because what is the point of leaving their home country and putting all that effort if they don't get anything from it? Their way of thinking and values may be fixed where they left

Now moving on to kids' side, who may be 1.5th generation immigrant (moving in with their parents) or second generation immigrant(being born in moved in country). For 1.5th generation, they are likely to remember their homeland's culture & struggle to get used to new environment, just like their parents do. They almost always miss Korean foods, places, and friends-everything they left behind. However, they tend to adapt much faster than their parents do, which makes them help their parents' work, such as making phone calls, reading documents, helping their business. If there's younger second-generation sibling, then they have to become translator between their parents and sibling as well. As a result, they become aware of their parents' effort and sacrifice, and tend to be more mature than their age. They may also feel like they do not completely blend in as second generation do.

Second generation immigrant, however, are oblivious to their original country. They think they are American, and think their parent's home country as foreign. Unlike their parents & older siblings, Their struggle may be focused on relationship between family members, since their values are foreign to their parents, and vise versa. Katy in Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings would be perfect example of second generation immigrant.

to write about more trivial & Korean-specific, Most Korean immigrant community centers on Korean church, so Korean immigrants tend to find local Korean church although they do not actually believe in god.

Oops... it got way longer than I expected. NOW moving to autistic part.

There are quite a few parents of autistic kids deciding immigration (generally to US or Canada) to access the resources(special education, therapy, etc.) for their children. Usually they decide it as soon as the children get diagnosed, so most of them would be second generation immigrant. if they are verbal & old enough learn languages, parents would rather decide to stay because it might cause regression in their language development.

Parents are well aware of the cost of such resources in US; although it is excruciatingly expensive to access them, many parents just appreciate that they have the option in first place. In Korea, there are 192 special schools. Only 30% of students with special education needs (this does not include ones with "mild" disabilities!) attend to special school. Most of them is far from residence (approx. 30 min to 1 hr by car) because of NIMBI. People HATE building special schools because they think price of their housing would fall if such institute is near. Not only the scarceness of the resources are the struggles of parents of autistics, but there are also negative perception of disability in general(especially developmental & mental one) in Korean society & obsession to normalcy. Koreans want to be normal; not only themselves, but also others as well. They are sensitive to what and how others eat, use, wear, and act. They continuously question themselves and judge others based on their own standard of normal. Perform any strange moves then you will immediately get an attention. Same goes with parents with disabled children. Would like to talk further about this topic but let's get back to the point since I would need another tons of research to write. Anyways, for parents, as long as they have enough money to consider immigration, it's more logical to decide to move to US to get resources.

so the school part and such, you can probably write the plot based on your own experience. I expect that it won't be much different from yours. For parent-children relationship, though, Korean parents tend to consider their children as their extension. They tend to prioritize what they think is best for their children then what they actually need. Parents doubt if their children would be able to be on their own even though they actually can. This manifests as distrust of their children's decisions and actions, and this is usually the main conflict with family members.

I'm not sure if this is helpful response for your story, but hope this post helps to get some idea to some extent!

#korean immigrants #actually autistic

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lunacvte · 2 years

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Hi! I saw your requests were open and I red some of your fics and thought your writing was so good! So I thought requesting something would be fun I hope your aight with it, you may ignore this if you want

So have you ever watched victorious? If you don't I recommend it very good show there's this one episode where cat gets a butterfly stuck in her ear and when I rewatched this episode I suddenly got an idea and scenario popped up in my head

What if Solomon and mc were partners in a project they were doing for class and they have to take care of a butterfly for it and Solomon accidentally drops the little cage it was kept in and the door was got opened resulting in it getting out and they have to catch it and then it flew into mc's ear and when Solomon asks where the butterfly was in this the Convo:

Solomon:where did the butterfly go?

Mc:uh Solomon?

Solomon:yes?

Mc:I think I found them

Solomon:really where?!

Mc:I think...their in my ear...

Solomon:your ear? Are-you sure?

Mc:well I don't know maybe they fle-

And then they just start screaming and running around like a crazy person and fine when it stops

Mc:yes I'm sure..

So through out the day mc is just screaming every 5 minutes and being ok 2 seconds later until Solomon can find a way to get it out I wonder how the brothers the angels and the royals will react to this news 😂 atleast it's not one of sketchy spells again and just a big accident lmao

HELPPP THIS IS THE FUNNIEST MOST RANDOM REQUEST IVE GOTTEN- but thank you so much! I’m always glad to hear someone enjoys reading what I come up with! :)

The fact that that’s one of my favorite episodes of victorious- and this fits solomon so well 😭 i hope this writing will fit your liking!! :)

Characters : gn!reader (mc), Solomon

( all dialogue spoken from Solomon will be highlighted blue, mc’s will be regular font color!)

Genre - humorrr!! i tried to recreate the same humor that was in the episode by rewatching it, except it’s a little more dramatic and spiced up, to fit the feel of the actual environment of the devildom!

You’ve given me the butterflies!

“I still don’t understand what.. watching a butterfly and monitoring it’s daily patterns has anything to do with curses or hexes-“ you sighed, slowing down your steps as you walked down the stairs beside Solomon - your newly assigned partner for this project.

“Well, it matters since later on in the class, we’ll be practicing how to manipulate the butterfly, stuff like how to make it understand our words, control its actions, stuff like that. It’s quite easy, infact. I could teach you right here without even having to do the project, but what’s the fun in that?” He explained with a smile, as if it would be an easy A+ for the both of you.

‘You would be the one person to make it sound so easy…’ you thought, nodding along to whatever Solomon was now ranting about.

“Where would you like to do this assignment? I think the library is free.. if not, my rooms always open!” You asked him as you both approached the library to check if it had been occupied.

“Right here is fine, it’ll give us plenty of room to put everything.”

‘“Put everything”?? How much does he have planned for this.. Guess it’s a good thing he has so much knowledge on this sort of stuff, I wont have to stress about not being able to do it quickly..’

Solomon handed you the little container that acted as the cage for the butterfly as he held the library’s door open for you. You bowed slightly, murmuring a ‘thank you’ and handed the cage back to him since you were afraid of accidentally letting something happen to it.

while walking inside, You set your drawstring bag down in front of the dragon designed table and sat down on the ground. Solomon sat beside you, setting the cage on the edge of the table.

“So, where should we start? I have the paper we need to fill out the questions for if you wanna start with that-“

You were interrupted by a slight thud and Solomon gasping. The handle of his small briefcase had gotten caught on the edge of the cage, causing it to fall to the ground.

You heard Solomon swear under his breath, both of your eyes going wide and frantically getting up to try and catch the butterfly that was now fluttering all around the room — and quickly.

“I can’t reach it! It’s flying too high for me..” you groaned, practically jumping in the air to catch it.

Solomon sighed and looked up, tracking the butterfly with his eyes.

“Me too.. we’ll just have to wait until it lands..”

“Can’t you.. control it with one if the hexes you know or something??” You asked.

“Not when I can’t have a focus on it.. I have to be able to focus and see the butterfly in order to take control of it.. and it’s quite hard to when its flying everwhere around the room..” he chuckled reluctantly, rubbing the back of his neck.

The both of you continued to search around for it, attempting to catch it in your hands if it came closer to either of you, but to no avail, every chance was unsuccessful.

Until…

Yelp-

You squeaked, shuddering as you felt one side of your ear tighten with a tickling sensation.

You rubbed your ear, feeling your heart rate increase. ‘My ear must just be itchy.. that’s probably it.. there’s no way the..” you knew what you were telling yourself a lie, you clearly felt the small butterfly touch your skin and it scared you.

Solomon must not have noticed, since he was still looking around the whole library trying to find the flying insect.

“Mc- I can’t see it anywhere, it might’ve landed somewhere we can catch it, have you seen it?” He asked you.

You just sat down, a nervous expression taking over your face.

“Uh.. Solomon..?” you looked up at him.

“Yes? What is it?”

“I think I found it…”

“… really? Where? I didn’t see it anywh-“

“I think it’s in.. my ear..”

His eyes widened, eyebrows coming closer in confusion.

“Your ear?? Are- you sure..??”

“Well- i don’t know.. i might’ve felt it but maybe it flew som-“

You yelped out again, screaming and hitting your ear as you felt the butterly flying around, almost like it was trying to escape, but it all it did was feel more and more uncomfortable.

But the next second, it stopped and you were completely fine.. so you stood there. Your hair was disheveled and your hand was over your ear, scared that if you moved it, the butterfly would move around.

“…yep. i’m sure..” you panted, glancing at Solomon with a weirded out look.

As the day went on, you couldn’t get a moment of peace. If the butterfly wasn’t flying around, exploring… whatever was in your ear -not that you wanted to know- then you just couldn’t stop thinking about it. And when it was bothering you, you’d just scream and end up hurting yourself from hitting your ear.

“Mc! I have an idea: what if I lured the butterfly out, like.. they’re attracted to sweet things, right?” Before you knew it, Solomon pulled out a banana, unpeeling it and bringing it towards your ear. “Here pretty butterfly~ come on out now”

You looked at Solomon like he was crazy, but you couldn’t say anything. What if this actually somehow worked? You’d just be happy to have it out of your ear.

But.. if only Diavolo and Lucifer hadn’t just walked by you and Solomon, making the situation ten times more awkward than it already was.. I mean, one of the most powerful human sorcerers was holding a banana to your ear trying to lure a butterfly out.. what even.

Diavolo just beamed and turned towards Lucifer. “Luci! Is this another activity the humans partake in? It looks quite absurd.. have you tried it? I wonder if it’s fun!” He smiled, watching you and the giggling Solomon. “Diavolo.. i don’t think that’s something humans just do.. at least I didn’t think so..”

Your head hung low as you were dying from embarrassment by now, Lucifer just watched you both, a confused, puzzled look on his face.

Suddenly you broke out in alarming, high pitched screams, startling Solomon, Lucifer and Diavolo. You jumped in place, tilting your head to the side as you felt the butterfly struggling again. Then once again, you closed your eyes and sighed in relief as the flying inside your head came to a stop.

“Mc- What is devils name was that?!“ Lucifer questioned, looking shocked.

“Oh, pay no mind to them. Mc’s got a little.. situation. Nothing I can’t take care of though. Now if you’ll pardon us, we have a project to get to..! Come on, i’ll get you fixed up; no problem.”

You nervously smiled and waved to Diavolo and Lucifer as Solomon guided you both out of the commons space — with the banana still close to your ear, mind you. - He’s really convinced this will lure it out, but all it’s doing is making you smell like a banana..

You huffed, pulling the fruit from his hands. “This isn’t working.. we need to like… pull it out or something!” You attempted to try and pick at it, but nothing was working.

“I’m sorry, Mc.. but that would only irritate and hurt you? And possibly the butterfly, we can’t risk something happening to it and not completing the project.. There’s only one more solution.”

“Huh-“ you were suddenly dragged by Solomon, directing you towards your room. “Why bring me here?” You asked.

“Just wait” he said, sitting on your bed, crossing his legs and muttering a bunch of words that you could hardly hear since.. well, pretty much only one of your ears worked. All of a sudden, all the demon brothers were summoned inside of your room. You jumped slightly only to bump into Beelzebub who was transported to right behind you, you looked up at him, apologizing.

“Hm? Mc, you smell so sweet.. do you have food? Is that what you invited me for? You’d really be so kind as to share food with m-“ Beel went on, his smile brightening as his cheeks turned a rosy color, as it usually did when he smelled (or saw) appealing food.

“N-no- i’m not the one who summoned.. any of you here. Solomon, what are they all doing here?”

“Wow, Mc~ it’s only so rare that I get to see your lovely little room~! It’s so cute in here, and smells so exquisite, like a cottage in the spring time~” Asmodeus twirled around, beginning to admire the little antiques and clutter you kept on your shelves.

“Now, everyone. I did indeed summon you all here in hopes that you’d be able to help me and Mc, you see, as you all know, we were assigned as partners for the butterfly project and.. well-“

You swatted at your ear, screaming and shouting swear words, accidentally slapping your cheek before your fit ended a few moments later as if nothing happened. The demon brothers, now alarmed, looked at you with wide eyes.

“There was a little accident..”

“Geez! Don’t scare me like that! I thought ya were getting murdered or somethin’!” Mammon said, holding his hand over his clothed chest as though it would help his increased heart rate from being suddenly startled.

“Solomon, what’s- why-“ Satan stuttered, trying to make sense of the situation.

“Listen! We were just trying to do this stupid project when the cage fell, butterfly was set loose, flew into my ear somehow, which like- how could it even fit in there?? And now it’s flying all around inside my head and it’s infuriating, so someone do something! Anything! I don’t care if you have to surgically remove it just get. It. Out!” You panted as you tried to rant in one single breath, still holding your ear to try and ease the discomfort.

All of the demons and Solomon just stared at you, not actually doing anything, causing you to groan and plop down onto your bed.

“We haven’t gotten to my idea yet. But i need you to stand right in the center of the floor, all of you, gather around Mc, please.” He instructed you and the demons, and they did as he said, forming a small circle around you.

Solomon just smiled and looked at Asmo.

“Asmodeus, I heard from Mammon that you look bad in the color pink.”

Asmo gasped, shooting an immediate death glare at Mammon, who was beyond confused. “Well if that’s how you feel, then you shall not have the right to look at me anymore! Clearly someone can’t appreciate what real, natural beauty looks like! And I look incredible in pink, thank you very much!”

“Mammon, I heard from Belphie that he thinks you have bad taste in expensive items, even though you work so hard to get money for it!” Solomon grinned as Mammon shouted and growled at Belphie, who denied everything the human claimed.

“And Belphie… Apparently Beel thinks you’d be so much more fun to hang around with if only you weren’t sleeping all the time! So boring..” Belphegor only pouted angrily at Beel, who’s cheeks were stuffed with food he had somehow found.. yet he still looked sad. “Wh- i woud nefer shay tat…!” His eyes glimmered apologetically (please he’s such cuteness )’: )

“Beel! Leviathan says he’d actually come out to eat with the family if only you didn’t eat and hog all the food! How rude is that..” Solomon grinned, while the gluttonous demon pouted even more, which had Levi frantically trying to deny and comfort the upset demon, unsure if he would get angry or even more sad, both of which he did not want to see.

“Levi~~ Satan claims he’s sick and tired of having to deal with all the games and objects you buy from akuzon, always having some sort of mischievous impact on him and his brothers!”

Satan.. well, he didn’t even try to deny it. “Honestly, yeah- that’s kinda true. You and your damn teleportation games… switching all the rooms in the house. You know how frustrating that is??” Satan sharply accused.

By now, all the brothers were now shouting at each other, fighting and arguing, and it was very loud to say the least; you could hardly even hear your own thoughts.

“Just wait, Mc.”

You looked all around, at everyone turning against one another, until suddenly you felt a little twitch in your ear, and it no longer felt muffled. You could now hear out of both ears!

“Solomon!! The butterfly!”

He smiled, standing on his tippy toes, just enough to finally be able to catch it safely in his hands. “Yes! I knew that’d work! Great job, boys” he smiled.

Not only were all the brothers now angry at each other, but they were very much questioning as to how you weren’t lying when you said there was a butterfly in your ear…

“Just- don’t ask.”

“Oh and, none of the stuff I said was true. Just needed a loud noise to get this little hider out of Mc’s ear! Thanks for the cooperation everyone!” He gracefully said before returning the butterfly to its cage.

“Heh.. soo… how’s everyones day going…?” You awkwardly asked the demons who had been staring at you, most likely trying not to laugh or make a comment.

And that concludes this writing once again~ I hope you enjoyed @tokyomaru !! I had so much fun writing this you have no idea :)

Until next time~!

#obey me #asmodeusobeyme #leviathanobeyme #beelzebub obey me #lucifer obey me #obey me fluff #obey me mammon #obey me! shall we date?#satan obey me #lord diavolo #solomon obey me #i forgot to mention the angels but i felt like i’d be hard to incorporate them #so i went ahead with just keeping it with the demons/royals!#obey me belphie #obey me crack

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