don-quixote-and-sancho

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people are gonna listen to me if i put lain iwakura in the background right. am i doing this correctly

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Lol. Lmao, even.

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Kettricken being the only 'royalty' to apologise to Fitz and see him as a human being with regrets about how they used his skills means so much to me. Most other characters saw his sufferings as a necessary evil but the scene where Kettricken grieves over Nighteyes which invites Fitz to grieve in the awful heaving sobs kind of way is so deeply important to me.

Like. So far only Beloved has been determined to remind Fitz that he is more than a tool in the Farseers hands, and now Kettricken THE QUEEN is also showing genuine sympathy for him.

RAAAH Fitz you deserve so much better than what you have.

As a sidenote, their friendship really does just add to the Wit being a metaphor for Queerness thing bc Kettricken saying "I am ashamed that you face such things seemingly alone. In truth I hate that such bigotry still exists in the Six Dutchies (...) I wished to let my Witted folk know that my justice was available to them."

LIKE.

Ofc Kettricken is hardly a perfect Queen, Robin Hobb has never written a perfect character in any of her books. but Fuck if it doesn't hurt to see yet another relationship that should have been beautiful and easy if Fitz hadn't had it beaten into him that he doesn't deserve companionship.

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So uhh. If you feel like talking about it. As someone who lives in the US, how are you being kind to yourself on this upsetting morning <3

Checked in with my loved ones first and foremost.

It's interesting. The vibe I've been getting from my circle is very different from 2016. Much less… dread and horror at a realignment of the understanding of what can and can't happen here, now, in this place and day and age. More "fuck, guys. again? whatever. enjoy your consequences, maybe you'll manage to learn something this time."

Frustration and anger is not the most positive feeling, or even the most fair one to express, but it is a protective one. It hurts a lot less than most alternatives.

And it's quite a shift. It was earthshattering back then. How could this have been allowed to happen? Why couldn't it be stopped? Why couldn't we stop it? Why couldn't I stop it? Why couldn't everyone see what this meant? Why couldn't I make them understand? Did they really not care? What did that mean about humanity as a whole? Were we so thoughtless? How could anyone be trusted?

It seems… much less earthshattering to see it happen twice. Disappointing, sure. Frustrating. But nowhere near as devastating as the first time I saw it unfold. We already knew it could happen. I've already had time to digest the implications. Now I'm just freshly disappointed.

It also feels less indicative of Crushing Truths Of Reality this time. We've seen shit get bad. We've also seen shit get better from here! We know both outcomes are possible, even inevitable. We know hoping for a better future is always worthwhile. This isn't the apocalypse. It's an unremarkably bad turn of events brought on by unremarkably self-centered well-documented human impulses. It's utterly mundane in its unpleasantness. It doesn't need to be dignified with despair.

A democratic election, no matter the outcome or the side we're on, makes us all acutely aware of how outnumbered we are by people whose worldviews and priorities are demonstrably incomprehensible to us. And the first time you get outnumbered, it's a shock. Defeat is haunting. It didn't matter how badly you wanted it; by the very function of democracy, you do not have the power to override greater numbers. (insert electoral college caveat here)

The second time through, I find myself focusing on a different facet that has dramatically reduced the amount of spiralling I'm doing. I don't expect this to work for everyone, but for me specifically, it helped to crystallize a few thoughts:

You don't have the power to control anyone else. You don't. You can't share your worldview and your revelations with them. You can't make them think or understand anything. You can lay it all out for them, but you can't make them listen, and you can't make it click. A mentor can't make their student learn a lesson; that's why teaching is so complicated and hard. An active choice must be made by the person to enable themselves to understand, and they must put the pieces together in their own mind before it makes sense to them, and the pieces must have been presented in a way that makes sense to them in the first place. Lead a horse to water, can't make them drink.

These elections highlight a disconnect in what different groups of people care about; and no matter how clearly you explain yourself or how passionately you perform, caring cannot be forced on someone. Understanding and connection cannot be forced. You cannot make anything or anyone matter to someone. They have to choose to see how it matters in order to internalize it. If they choose not to, that is not your failing. You couldn't have made them do it by just Explaining Better. They are not your responsibility. They make their own choices. You can't reach inside their head and connect the dots for them.

I'm a storyteller. I make stories and put them out into the world. I hope people get something good out of them, but I have no control over what that something is. I want people to be thoughtful and kind and compassionate and hopeful and see themselves reflected in stranges, no matter their differences. I can craft stories that I hope encourage this. But that is the extent of my ability and the extent of my responsibility. I control no-one's actions but my own, and so while I am not having the best day, I am at least content that I am doing what I can, and I am not shattering myself against impossibilities trying to control the things I can't.

Sometimes, people make decisions that I think are really bad. I can't make that not happen. All I can do is try to make decisions that will result in things I think are good. Today, that means checking in on people, and not assigning too much dramatic narrative weight to an ultimately mundane set of unremarkable bad decisions outside of my control. We'll take life as it comes and help each other out when and how we can. Everything else is out of our hands.

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Fitz+ dogs (mostly taken from this post)

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did you know you can spend your entire shift at work thinking about your OTP fucking on a kitchen table. capitalism doesn't want you to know this one simple trick but luckily I am here to fight the good fight and spread the word far and wide

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would I gain or lose aura points if I dress up as Amber at my job on Halloween

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Lord Golden watching Fitz pull into Aslevjal after thwarting Fitz's plans to keep him safe and alive off the island where it was foretold he would die:

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realm of the elderlings animatic! song is never love an anchor

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i think prophet eyes should glow and go crazy

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Here's my MCM merch catalogue!

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man whatever. i don't even care about this creature

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Fitz, Beloved and Bee. A happier ending.

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This was actually a thing in queer history if you look back, before asexual was commonly used as its own label (I say that because the term itself in queer usage dates back to the 70s, but it wasn't COMMON) a bunch of the ace people hung out and identified with bisexuals for that exact reason

"do I feel different about men and women? No? Must be bi"

Thinking about that post that said like"the reason commercial straight romance is so awful is because you drown in the heteronormativity of it all because it's written by the straightest women Alive"

And I think that goes like double for rote because like Robin Hobb already accidentally wrote the

"oops all bisexuals"

Book series, can you imagine what we could've gotten if Robin Hobb was a deranged queer lady? Imagine what we could've gotten. The 98.3% bisexual rote fandom (trust me def real guys) would be even more feral for these characters than we already are

Imagine if Molly was a derranged bisexual how cool of an ark she could've had

Just on my mind because holy fuck this series man

Like ah yes both Fitz and burrich are totally straight thanks Robin Hobb now collectively as a fandom we're gonna go whimper about what if burrich had put on that second saddle

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no bc when you stop and think about the full implications of fitz and the fool calling each other “beloved” you do have to go a little crazy. it’s required. because what do you mean that 6 sentences after fitz thinks, “being fitz had never been that enticing an existence” the fool summons him back to himself by calling him “beloved” and renewing their bond. what do you mean fitz refers to this as “burning my identity into me.” what do you mean “the word echoed through me, rebounded me from my fraying edges, found and bound me.” what do you mean. are you not going insane.

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COSTUME UPDATE!!! FT MY BIG DUMB HAPPY SMILING FACE

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Fiiiiiiitz