xbisqua

things.

[letojessica-deactivated20250221]

love is the fabric of the universe.

vladmir nabokov in a 1926 letter to his wife véra // la traviata, giuseppe verdi // the antennae galaxies in the midst of colliding, x // speak, memory, vladimir nabokov // heart and soul nebulae, x // interstellar (2014), dir. christopher nolan // divan i shams, rumi

[xbisqua]

it feels so nice to make a friend that you just click with and they're a bit older and they say you remind them of themselves and you should follow your heart and be a serious writer and they love you and yess they will come back to see you and watch the world cup with you??!!! ugh its so nice to have a friend. healing is the word

[xbisqua]

my sister’s got this illegal tv box at her place and i asked her where she got it and she said, “edgware road” 😭 you can get anything on edgware road

[oabf45]

He was so disappointed when he realized she wasn't talking about him LMAO. Old man STAND UP!

[avocado-moon]

honestly and truly if i could live anywhere in the world it would be london. and yet i am both land and sea locked in the dreaded you ess ay

[avocado-moon]

all the londoners are laughing at me but they've never known the specific misery of growing up in a town where the biggest event of the year is a derby car race during something called the "sweet corn festival"

[xbisqua]

yeah i think we just forget that we have this big city on our doorstep that offers so much to us. i definitely don’t make the most of it most of the time. but growing up in london is a different beast for sure haha

[blossom2blossom]

facts i think need to be kept in mind when looking at trinity's hatred for/fear of langdon:

she was sexually abused as a child by a male authority figure

her childhood best friend killed herself because of their rapist

langdon is a male authority figure who is commiting a crime

langdon is a father. he has access to children

trinity, on the same day, watched her department collectively decide not to report a man for raping his daughter

[emizzso]

something pretty bad happened to me.

[samirasystole]

i actually think it was really hot for trinity santos to walk in on her first day with that amount of confidence, make nicknames for every loser in there, try and get to do as many cool procedures as she could, catching some asshole stealing drugs, flirt with a 30+ year old surgery resident and still bag her after stabbing her in the foot, and just in general walking around and taking up her rightful space. i think women should do that more

[cerslaylanniserve]

mothers, “feminism” and patriarchal systems - alicent hightower and serena joy

(beware! this is a very the curtains are blue essay)

after doing a recent rewatch of the handmaid’s tale, i thought more and more about how i could see some similarities between alicent and serena. especially with how both compare to their book counterparts, and how fandom perception feels about them.

jumping in i think it’s easy to see both alicent and serena as the fundamental opposition to our female leads, rhaenyra and offred (i’m calling her offred, not june, as her name is never compared in the original novel). they are both described as cruel, uphold patriarchal systems and see the leads as threats to their power.

they both seek power through their marriage. throughout most of the handmaid’s tale serena is referred to the “commander’s wife” rather than by her name, a subtle nod to theme of women losing individual value in a way, both offred and serena are property of fred. alicent in f&b is part of the power grab by the hightowers to have male heirs after the previous queen failed. in a similar way, both rhaenyra and alicent lose their identity as they are only the “princess and the queen” in relation to viserys, a little similarity is also the definition of colours within both books, with red and blue for offred and serena, and green and black for alicent and rhaenyra.

both women’s authority is also consistently questioned, which leads them to lash out at the leads. in the book, while more subtle than the show, fred’s secret relationship with the original offred, causes serena to supposedly lash out so badly it causes the original offred’s suicide. alicent is undermined by viserys’s refusal to change the succession to her sons, so takes these frustrations out on rhaenyra, such as calling her her “whore” and discrediting her children as bastards. they are boxed in by hating their husbands, so the other woman is the only option.

serena and alicent, both uphold the patriarchal system though yet do not want to be restrained by it. serena once made impassioned speeches about her beliefs, and is no longer allowed to read or have a voice in politics, or authority outside and inside her home. alicent, for her own reasons, wanted her sons to overtake rhaenyra’s succession, even if she personally wants to continue to have power within her small council.

okay onto how both characters are adapted.

both character’s traits are made less subtle and bolder in the adapted tv shows, with them entering unexplored and uncharted territory.

their cruelty has been upgraded to be more physical. serena slaps offred and hits her head against the bath, meanwhile alicent slashes rhaenyra with the knife. their upholding of patriarchy is increased tenfold: serena previously wrote a book and was a fundamental player in the takeover of the united states by the sons of jacob, yet is is rendered powerless by a much crueler and misogynistic human. alicent lacks any ambition to actually give her sons any power, it’s not a power play for her, just for the men in her life.

they are aged down in the adaptations to be closer to the protagonist. this makes them act as narrative foils more closely and an easy way for the leads to empathise with them, which was a clear goal. serena and alicent are made more sympathetic in their show depictions. serena is beaten by fred and her finger is removed, while alicent is SA’d by viserys. these allow to show the audience the suffering they endure, even while being an antagonist.

however, they are also made crueler in some instances. such as serena’s physical violence, mental torture of offred and the SA of offred with fred outside the excepted ceremony. alicent meanwhile allows aegon to SA women and then threatens them into silence to protect them. this muddies of them as characters, especially when both characters often aid the lead and then turn back on their choices.

serena allows offred to escape with holly before changing her mind, takes fred to canada for him to be arrested only to rekindle their marriage and even in the final episodes has to be coached into giving the plans of the commanders. alicent meanwhile supports the disinheriting of rhaenyra via vaemond, then supports her as queen, and then allows the takeover. in s2, she rejects rhaenyra’s peace plan but then turns over the city to her at the end of the season.

motherhood is also explored more heavily in the adaptation. they use the leads motherhood against them, serena threatening offred with hannah and and alicent threatening rhaenyra’s children. their role as mothers is also heightened within the story. serena is desperate for a child, so much to say that she only supported fred, so she could get one, and her “love” for holly and then noah, defines so much of her character. alicent’s role as a mother is also further examined, she seems to not know how to deal with her children but her love for them is intense and fierce.

so what does this comparison mean?

i find it interesting how these characters are perceived with fandom. while i myself, personally prefer alicent’s queenly ambitions and serena’s mystery, i hate fandom discourse over them in their adaptations. attempts to give them more complexities and motivations, isn’t absolving them of any actions. fandom often calls for them to be treated horrifically, especially by male characters, with many wishing serena had been made a handmaid and suffering SA and violence at the end of her story and alicent being made a slave by rhaenyra when she takes kings landing. which just doesn’t feel like the point.

both women already suffer. serena is beaten, loses her finger and is kept prisoner by the wheelers. alicent is maritally SA’d as a teenager and has no power over her own life, which is dictated to her by her own son. they are already reaping the consequences of their actions. these stories don’t end by them being violated by male characters, male characters who btw have done far far worse than them. it ends with them getting thematic endings that make them ask “was it all worth it”

serena at the end of the show, has no power, no voice, no possessions and only a child which she must convince herself was worth everything she did. that she assaulted offred, she enslaved herself and all the other women in gilead, helped a regime that mutliated and killed so many. alicent, if keeping the same book ending, will die alone with no family and rhaenyra’s son triumphant. was it worth taking the throne for her own family, giving up her own autonomy to be queen and birth sons, the deaths of all her children, the deaths of thousands of others in the war.

this is their comeuppance, not violation, but introspection that they are alone, pitiable and the partial cause to their demise.

[lousydrawingsforgoodpeople]

[socialistfremenist]

[poetforher]

IT IS CONFIRMED THAT DR BARAN AL-HASHIMI IS GONNA BE BACK FOR S3 DR. DOE EYES IS STAYING WITH US HELL YEAAAH

[xbisqua]

fuck yeah!

[ny-ji]

I probably will be alone in this boat but anyway :

a night shift season but in a Arrested Development way

[xbisqua]

i’m asking my doctor friends and nurses friends help for writing lmao and they think i’m writing this big novel but no it’s the pitt fanfic. they don’t need to know 😭😭

[esqueletosgays]

THE DRAMA (2026)

Directed by: Kristoffer Borgli Cinematography: Arseni Khachaturan

[eclipxium]

rip to will hunting but if I had a best friend who bought me coffee every morning and gave me a ride to work EVERY DAY I'd recognise him as my platonic soulmate and I'd never let him go. I'm different

[leahbear30]

I went a little insane but I’m insane over them so it’s ok

The Kiss but Mohabbot ✨🦢🐇