A Bunch of Miscellaneous Stuff

she/her ◇ writing & art ◇ I post about Fantasy and SciFi books/fiction and anything else I'm currently reading/watching ◇

[lunamond]

That awkward moment when you go to a larp event and decide to make your entire costume from scratch, and it's suddenly a month away and you haven't started yet... 🫠🤡

[someone-who-leaves]

Oh my god I am still not over how the acotar series just absolutely fumbled Tamlin and Feyre’s relationship. We went from Ethel Cain level “This was all for you” to now he’s just a generic toxic macho dude now I guess?? Are you kidding me?? I’m sorry but that is so boring. Worse, there was a great setup. Both of them survive Amarantha, and instead of exploring how that kind of shared trauma warps love into something painful and unrecognizable we get, “he’s controlling now.” That’s it?? That’s the arc??

Show me them trying to be together and they can’t breathe around each other because everything reminds them of what happened. Or where Feyre looks at him and remembers the boy who sent her away to save her life and the man who couldn’t save her under the mountain. Or where Tamlin sees her and is just haunted by the fact that she died for him and he didn’t do anything to stop it. That’s angst and tragedy. And for Feyre instead of just the repetitive “I was treated so badly” internal monologues or the “I would’ve fallen in love with the first person to show me kindness” (I freaking HATE that line so much you don’t understand) imagine if we actually got her grieving that relationship.

Because she loved him beyond words. She died for him. Amarantha’s last taunt was literally “Say you don’t love him” and Feyre wouldn’t say it because her love was that real, she couldn’t even lie about her feelings. If only we could have read Feyre coming to the terrifying realization that the love that was strong enough to break a 50 year curse curse isn’t strong enough to put them back together after it. All that grief and anger, but with her trying to keep telling herself that they were real, and they mattered, so why aren’t they enough anymore?

And you’re telling me that same love just evaporates into a lesson about red flags?? We got the most surface-level “toxic man vs strong heroine” rewrite imaginable. I feel like everything I think about those novels comes to the same conclusion. Absolute. Wasted. Potential.

[lunamond]

St. Alia of the Knife 🗡️

Based on that shot from the Dune part 3 teaser trailer

[paulfrankjuliusthemonkey]

I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's more important to know and understand fully why something is harmful than it is to drop everything deemed problematic. It's performative and does nothing. People wonder why nobody has critical thinking skills and this is part of it because no one knows how to simousltansly critique and consume media. You need to use discernment.

[paulfrankjuliusthemonkey]

This is ultimately why propaganda is going to work on you. Because you never learned how to think for yourself and the actual ideology behind things. You simply rely on group think and the bare minimum explanations to tell you what's good and bad.

[quelmdn]

No limits.

[seraphimerism]

st alia of the knife

[chalamet-chalamet]

"She carries the weight and the wisdom of generations and generations in her head. She's never in a singular conversation. It's kind of everything everywhere, all at once. And the one thing that she really feels most strongly about is her love and devotion to her brother, because that is the only person who's ever made her feel like she makes sense."

-Anya Taylor-Joy teases that Alia will do anything for Paul Atreides "to various degrees of insanity"

Credit to Variety

[mercyhaunt]

“Then she laughed aloud, and said, ‘I’m a prophet. I’ve been sent to change the world.’”

[hagiomoto]

[ales-art]

ser Dunk, a knight of the seven kingdoms

[thegravityshark]

Gotta say it is really annoying to try n critique romantasy books nowadays bcuz a lot of those are made by people who label romantasy smut as "degenerate filth" or whatever when most of my issues revolve around

1. Plots that make no sense

2. Characters that suck

3. The smut isnt even that good

and 4. The fact that a non-zero amount of these books try to push a "our mc is a total #feminist girlboss!" And that just means shes a dick, uses knives & can quip. Meanwhile the romance portion continues to push the male love interest as extremely overprotective and paternal, who is constantly swooping in and solving all the MCs problems for her. Also shes (small, tiny and Still Very Feminine) and hes (tall, large, the most masc dude to ever masc)

But if you ever try to point out that these books try to label themselves as feminist while still covert/overtly sending rather non-feminist messaging about relationships and gender, you just get told "you hate it when women like things"

[dxliriumoftheendless]

so. anyone else thinking about this.

[catelynsghost]

cant really be arsed rn to articulate in depth concerning the double standards regarding how alicent & maekar is discussed but i will say this

it's frustrating as hell how much alicent is/was vilified for wanting to protect her kids who didn't choose to be born into a succession conflict but the latter is celebrated for "protecting his boy" in a trial by 7 even though it wouldn't be occurring in the first place if said son hadn't demanded it to try and screw dunk over. ntm there wouldn't be a need for dunk to answer for his "crimes" if aerion hadn't physically assaulted tanselle over a frigging puppet show causing dunk to step in

[goldcrescent]

HOTD might have an unstable crown but Akotsk has everyone from smallfolk to Lords Paramaount to 13 year old girls and toddlers playing on the floor walking around saying the type of shit that got Vaemon Velaryon’s head bisected and none of the Targs can do anything because they’re regular people and they need the good PR, which crown prince Baelor was so keenly aware of he died trying to brighten their image. Aerion was seething over a puppet show less because he’s insane and thinks he’s a dragon and more because he’s also keenly aware and very resentful of their diminished status (even if his brain interprets that through thinking he’s a dragon), and on top of that he had to have an actual trial for hurting a peasant girl and a hedge knight. Maekar’s audible disdain for andal judicial customs while Baelor pointedly insisted upon respecting them communicated a lot. Direct comparison with Aerion’s plot to Daemon killing his high born wife and crushing his own awed foot soldiers under Caraxes’ claws with no regard or consequences but when he went out and saw a mean play about his family he sincerely just thought it was funny

[gibsonsgirl]

the westerosi equivalent of #that quiet ride home after you and your bro almost died at an intersection

[lunamond]

the westerosi equivalent of #that quiet ride home after you and your bro almost died killed your bro at an intersection

[gibsonsgirl]

“some men will say i meant to kill my brother. the gods know it is a lie…” parallel that with egg wanting to kill aerion but maekar intervened because he doesn’t want his last son to bear the same sin—even if egg meant to, even if the gods know it, and even if aerion deserved it. in the name of the mother, they’re still his boys. in the name of dyanna.

[dmcmercy]

This scene was such a good addition to the show. Not just in showing off how good an actor Dexter Sol Ansell is, but also a pretty great example of exactly what Dunk is trying to tell Maekar. One sight of his white hair growing in and Egg is so traumatized and full of anger that he wants to Actually Murder Aerion. He needs to get out of that environment that raises the kind of spoiled, vengeful, dangerous princes that we've seen in HOTD and AKOTSK.

Makes the change that Maekar doesn't actually consent to Egg leaving a bit stranger, like he doesn't seem to understand the problem even when it's staring him in the face. But maybe it's for the best that Egg makes the active choice on his own to recognize the issue and leave before he becomes someone terrible. In that light, the change is better for Egg's character than it is for Maekar's which is probably better for the show since we won't be seeing Maekar until S4 at the earliest.