Titled

They/them. Random fandom stuff. Buffintruder on ao3. I have a Bartimaeus sideblog at serpent-of-the-silver-plumes and a Kamen Rider/Tokusatsu blog at notoneglance

[chalroe]

eva stratt online shopping coping mechanism

[flareboi]

trans woman ryland grace changing her name to grace grace because she couldnt think of any other names and its right there

[flareboi]

grace: i think i might be a woman

rocky: rocky has seen this on earth portable thinking machine. grace very brave. grace has name, question?

grace, not entirely paying attention: yeah man its grace you know that

rocky: grace grace??????? question????????

[flareboi]

rocky: is not customary to change first name, question?

grace: it is, but everyone calls me grace anyway so it's fine

rocky: grace is sure, question? grace could pick any name

grace: hmmm... worth a thought, i guess. got any ideas?

rocky: rocky 2

grace: no

[flareboi]

rocky: grace second prettiest woman in all erid

grace: aw :) wait whos first?

rocky: rocky

[scribefindegil]

everyone who is not currently in the process of moving please pause and take a moment to be grateful that you're not currently in the process of moving

[spacebetween42]

still not over phm movie and dynamic change for stratt/grace. book stratt/grace is betrayal with teeth, and i do love that. it’s the pragmatic choice made brutal. grace still sits with all that anger, all that raw pain, because yes, she had to, but she still did it to him.

but movie stratt/grace. god.

movie eva isn’t cold. she’s guarded. painfully, deliberately guarded. until the mask slips and, for one dangerous moment, she thinks she might get to keep him.

she cares about him. she knows she cannot afford to care about him. and she does it anyway.

she sends him because she has to. and it hurts because it’s right. and it hurts because it’s him.

and his goodbye message being so gentle??? no rage. no cruelty. not even the satisfaction of blame. just this awful, beautiful understanding. he knows she was right. he knows what she chose. and he doesn’t make her carry his anger too.

movie eva stratt, thee woman that you are. the pain. the tenderness. the emotional damage of it all.

[oodlyenough]

a thing about me is i basically never notice a wig or other kind of hairpiece in tv/movies. it has to be party city territory for me to even twig it. people will complain about characters' wigs looking bad and i will nod along but there is like a 90% chance i did not notice for a second while watching. i consider this mostly a blessing.

[aroace-ryland-grace]

eva stratt you are the most interesting character in all of fiction ever eva stratt they could never make me hate you

[cowardsexual]

the eva stratt in my mind is a conglomeration of movie stratt and book stratt because god fucking bless sandra huller put her entire pussy into that performance, but while weir is bad at character writing (women especially) he IS disconcertingly good at coming up with plots that generate interesting character concepts through circumstances... which due to story cuts the movie sadly missed out on.

it's really interesting looking back at both iterations of the story and how stratt and grace's rapport hinges on unrequitedness. there's obviously the karaoke scene in the movie acting as grace's bid for human connection vs stratt's necessary refusal in order to do her job. the book rarely if ever interrogates stratt's interpersonal relationships in the project and how her sense of duty and utilitarianism extends to them (well, aside from grace. more on that in a sec). She's a History major and an administrator and She Loves Humanity, but it's a characteristic that when analyzed deeper rings pretty hollow (possibly because the author thinks social analysis/critique in science fiction is stupid and thus doesn't exactly have much to say about People like someone in the humanities would. SAD!) so that's an addition to her character from the movie that i'm deeply pleased about. what i don't like as much is that the bid for connection starts from grace.

because book stratt and grace? the one sidedness of their rapport is the driving emotional conflict of the entire pre-launch plotline—and of grace's character development throughout the whole book.

like most scientists on the team, grace was brought onto the project by force, but he's the only one who fulfilled his purpose, was allowed to return to his own life, and then came back of his own volition, out of a sense of personal duty and responsibility. which is the reason stratt takes him back on! and why she begins to rely on him more and more, as an administrator, as a mediator, as a scientist, as an advisor. she has all the more reason to do that when she discovers he's coma resistant, but she was already doing all that baby!

grace spends the rest of their relationship half-assing that sense of responsibility. one thing i adore about book phm is how merciless it is with grace's "modesty" "insecurity" and "social anxiety". children are easy to dote on. they're not stupid, obviously, but on an interpersonal level they're not your equal, they have no way to actually demand accountability from you and call your ass out. he doesn't actually think he's a failure, he's not blind he should know damn well he's not like the other scientists. "science lapdog", "ooo i'm just a little guy cmonnnn i'm just a middle school teacher", he downplays his own importance because if he genuinely grappled with the level of responsibility she holds him to towards the people in the project he'd run like a fucking dog.

he is a good man AND he is a coward. stratt's relationship with him verges on the tension between those coexisting truths. he is both someone she wants to respect but can't, someone she can rely on but has to act behind his back least he realizes. she WANTS them to be equals, she WANTS him to understand. on the day the hail mary is scheduled for launch she paces HIS prison cell like SHE'S the caged animal, trying to get through to the glimpse of the man she saw that day, the one who barged into an FBI guarded facility, looked atlas in the eye and told her scoot over, i'm carrying this with you. she cares about him. she wouldn't feel so betrayed if she didn't. please understand why i'm doing this to you. please understand why i need you to be that fundamentally good man. i am tied to the tracks right next to you. and as far as she is concerned, ryland grace dies on earth saying "no".

[fitzmoment]

the burrich chivalry and patience throuple is playing on my mind... like i truly believe chiv and patience flirted with burrich in private and he literally could’ve had it all but had to be an uptight monogamist with Values and simultaneously a miserable yearner. however i am not goonposting because this made me think about The Fucking Earring. i know we always bring up how it went from chivalry to patience to burrich to fitz to the fool because it’s so narratively juicy as a symbol of devotion but Walk With Me.

for burrich the earring starts as a memento of trauma associated with his witted grandfather who leads him to see the wit as a barbaric weakness, and is therefore also linked to his belief that rejecting the wit is the only way to possibly be a Good Man. burrich gives the earring to chivalry as a token of loyalty, reflecting how his devotion to him was integral to his own self-worth—he regarded being king’s man for him as the most worthy thing he ever did. he survived because chivalry believed in him. then chivalry passes it on to patience as recognition of burrich’s importance in her life. patience knows of its connection to burrich, but not its history. by passing it on to fitz, she tries to honour him as chivalry’s son. that she pierces his ear is symbolic of how burrich’s history and baggage is being physically, traumatically etched onto him. burrich hiding and hating a part of himself is contained in the earring.

the fact that a deep hatred of the wit is modelled to fitz by someone he loves gives him a devastating fear of showing anyone who he is, which worsens his isolation and grief when smithy dies. fitz tries to give the earring back to burrich by entrusting it to the fool (simultaneously washing his hands of burrich’s presence in his life) but the fool does not pass it on. instead, he hides it and encases it in wood: a metaphor for fitz’s memories being locked away. the fool eventually offers to give it back but fitz asks him to keep it.

on the surface this act solidifies the fool’s importance in his life, but it is also a recognition of how fitz wants to forget the pain trapped inside it and never confront the fact that burrich made him the Repressed Liar that he is.

[zombee]

merle highchurch is character of all time. chooses to be a priest like some people choose to be accountants but becomes his god's favorite anyway. fucks plants. absentee father who makes it right but knows the hurt will never go away. jealous of a ten year old. relentlessly pesters man who cuts his arm off to save his life simply because he swung the axe. doesn't hesitate to say no when he's offered a fix for that. plays chess with the embodiment of cosmic horror homicidal nihilism. chooses joy. chooses joy. CHOOSES JOY!!!!!

[silverlemonad3]

no little monk boy, don’t seek the approval of the evil pirate man!! don’t become infatuated with the evil pirate man’s controversially young girlfriend who is also controversially old in comparison to yourself!! don’t let them change you little monk boy!!!

[tragediegh]

just packing the essentials

[Fitz art by @heyitsrink and earring art by @mellowthorn]

[jeyneofpoole]

his dumb ass is putting limits on his love 😂 he doesn’t even know that we are one thing, whole 😂😂😂 he doesn’t even fucking know 😂😂 he doesn’t even fucking. know 😐

[radiohyo]

destroyer

[sawyer-aik]

the pseudo-benign genteel conservatism of the Vestrits is so beautifully woven through every single character in the family, it's 10000 times better and more interesting than any of their more likeable traits. Love seeing them clinging to it in all of their different ways, love seeing it challenged, love itttttttt.

Ronica and Althea sticking by Davad's useless traitor ass bc he's an old family friend bound to them by the shared trauma of the Blood Plague even though he BUYS AND OWNS PEOPLE NOW

Althea's particular derision for Kyle's ~foreign~ looks, to the point where she wonders how her sister could ever be attracted to him

Keffria's attitude to women and sex and women having sex

Ronica attributing Malta's opposition to her as her "taking after her Chalsedian father"

Malta feeling so extremely othered in her own house by the women of her own family that she overidentifies with Kyle even though he's just as dismissive of her

Ronica and Malta considering the merits of owning slaves

Ronica standing atop the hill looking at the city, deciding that she can't help her community bc first of all she has to think of her immediate family (the problems of the city will grow to affect her family)

Althea not committing herself to the side of the conflict brewing in the city bc first of all she has to think of her immediate family (the conflict in the city will grow to affect her family)

Althea taken aback and bristling at the thought of Amber, a FOREIGNER, buying Paragon off of the original divinely ordained charter-approved Old Trader family

Kyle should have never gotten Vivacia bc he's a piece of shit but also!! Because he's a foreigner

Althea multiple times for some reason: the Six Dutchies are SAVAGE

Malta's everything

My favorite Malta take though is her deciding that her unwed mannish aunt and the local weirdo foreigner beadmaker and also the mannish foreigner savage bodyguard lady must be having crazy lesbian sex. I wish Malta I wish.

Amazing. When Selden walked in on everyone finally hugging and immediately went "So Malta and Papa aren't bad anymore?"... that moment went platinum in my reading nook, 14 minute standing applause. Children notice everything and are incredibly tuned in to family dynamics, so true auuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

[sisofmythiphus]

assassin’s quest ch 21 / fool’s errand ch 3

I’m fine. thanks for asking

[eldritchoffice]

every rain wilds timeskip news has me playing What is Wintrow Doing Right Now

[crunch-barr]

this is probably beating a dead horse but you know I hear often this debate on whether rote is queerbaiting and I have to say I genuinely argue it is already on-page queer. beloved is canonically queer & in love with fitz and I just don't think there's a version of fitz that's normal about that. i think that even if there was a different author but the same fitzchivalry you could not honestly write that man in this story coming to terms with his identity because he doesn't reallyyy come to terms with any other parts of his identity. he doesn't come to terms with any of his loves on-page, barely comes to terms with the wit, never stops lying, is deeply uncomfortable with himself and his life and his relationships and his family and himself as a father and the fact that he is a bastard so why would this be any different? it's weird that hobb takes such a stance against a romantic fitzfool reading or a queer fitz because she already wrote it, it's on the page! this IS how a relationship between the two of them would play out, this is how fitz would act if he was queer, there is no what if, this is it. in my opinion at least it IS a queer story. anyway.