#{ an older believer; main }

[yennefer]

not going to call it a "trend" per se, but i'm loving how many books i've been reading lately that feature older, more mature main characters. now that i'm older i'm much more interested in these stories and also life doesn't just end at 29 lol

[atopvisenyashill]

Thoughts on the Alysanne is Maegor's daughter AU? I feel like it has some interesting potential, and it vastly recontextualizes different parts of Jaehaehae (I do not like him sjsjsjs) and Alysanne's relationship (such as Jaehaehae's treatment of their daughters) but I wanna hear what you think about it!

I’ve touched on this a bit before but since you actually want to hear my thoughts, allow me to present to you my Jaehaerys Is The Goddamn Worst, And Alysanne Annoys Me Too: An Essay lmao but my answer is basically “yeah all of what you just said.”

I think it makes Alysanne much more palatable (to me) as a character because as she stands, she just fixates on forcing her daughters through these fucked up marriages at too young an age bc it traumatized her to be married and pregnant at 15 too but she’d never admit that being a willing participant in her own kidnapping by her brother-husband was the single worst thing that ever happened to her, and because Alysanne doesn’t want to admit it (and Jaehaerys would never see it as wrong or a mistake) F&B really shies away from delving into the fact that Alysanne is as deranged of a mother as Cersei is. So as she stands, she’s very flat to me because she’s presented very flatly and inconsistently. She’s so in love with Jaehaerys, she’s maritally raped by Jaehaerys, she’s a loving and doting mother, she forces her daughters into marriages when they’re the same too young age she was, she accuses her teenage girls of being scheming whores then gets angry when her husband accuses their teenage girls of being scheming whores, and worst of all we are just told “Maegelle tells them to make up so they do” so we don’t know why Alysanne gets over all of this. What is the point of riding a dragon when you never use that dragon to protect your daughters from unwanted teen marriages? We’re just not given a good enough justification for why her behavior is so weird and frustrating towards her daughters.

Make her Maegor’s daughter though…most of her behavior as an adult makes more sense. Like a worse version of Rhaenyra’s childhood almost - a father desperate for a son, but lowkey obsessed with his daughter, who makes all his hang ups about his parents the problems of every woman around him, except Maegor is out here blood sacrificing and torturing and starting wars and forcing babies on wives he discards quickly and brutally. Then here comes Jaehaerys on a white horse green dragon to save her from the horror her life has become, and he loves her so much he runs away with her even though Alyssa says they shouldn’t marry because people won’t like it. And they have beautiful children, and a beautiful marriage, and build a beautiful kingdom.

Then her pregnancies start getting dangerous. Gaemon, then Valerion, die. Alysanne thinks of the shriveled up mutants she called brothers, if Maegor’s taint has passed to her. Her perfect husband ignores her no, and forces Gael on her. Alysanne remembers that he said nothing to Rogar when Alyssa died, merely wept. Then her daughters start to die. Daella, Alyssa, Viserra, all within a few years. Then Jaehaerys makes Saera watch as he murders her boyfriend, calls her a whore, and says Alysanne cannot follow Saera to Lys. Alysanne thinks of Maegor torturing the Harroways over Alys’ presumed infidelity. Jaehaerys says he’s sorry, and her daughter badgers her into forgiving him, and she remembers how she helped Jaehaerys badger Alyssa into forgiving Rogar. Not two years later, Jaehaerys passes over Rhaenys. Alysanne thinks of how she was never enough for her father, how she felt so superior to Rhaena banished to Dragonstone and resented by Aerea, yet there she is dragging Gael away from court because she can’t stand to be with Jaehaerys. How her father was surrounded by dead women and dead babies and how Jaehaerys is surrounded by his own dead daughters, but surely she did the right thing, surely Maegor was worse, surely the realm is better off? Is he right to pass over Rhaenys? Is she enabling a man just as monstrous as her father? She will never decide, because Maegelle will guilt her about keeping Gael isolated at Dragonstone, and Alysanne will do as she’s told, just like Rhaena, and Alyssa, and Jeyne, Elinor, Ceryse, Alys, and Tyanna, just like every one of her daughters.

I do get why Alysanne is Alyssa & Aenys’ and not Maegor’s. The weird Targ babies, the line not descending from Visenya, Jaehaerys and Alysanne being held up as the perfect Targaryen couple specifically because they are brother and sister and dragon riders. I do even think canon Alysanne is likely traumatized by her time as a hostage on Dragonstone, and the ensuing war, and the trauma bond that caused with Jaehaerys, and it makes her idolize Jaehaerys, and then he isolates her at Dragonstone so he can swiftly and safely marry, groom, and knock her up. It’s not like,,,, a fun time, and it’s enough to make anyone crazy and weird about their daughters, but I think having her father be Maegor makes Alysanne herself much deeper because it gives her, as the most beloved Targaryen queen, a blood tie to the most hated Targaryen king, and a marriage to the most beloved Targaryen king. It fits better with a lot of the themes of the main series (again, imo) - forcing the spotlight on the outsiders to see how the affect the story from behind the scenes. The fall of Aegon’s sons, and The Long Reign, not told from the PoV or to serve the PoV of any of the kings or princes, but of the queen that tied them all together.

[giddlygoat]

fiddleford is so sexy when he does silly things. bangin out the tunes on the banjo. hamboning and knee-slapping. his goofy hillbilly laughter. nervous stims as he excitedly explains something. bro i feel insane whenever i see him because the silliest little details are just so. waugh

[soliusss]

what the fuck is up with Reyna. who tf is she. how did she become this crazy crime overlord. who was she when she was a child. is she single- [gunshot]

(Seriously tho this ur excuse to tell me absolutely anything you want about her bc I am Obsessed)

childhood lore is secret right now (I cooked really hard with it tho believe me I want to share but I'm storing it for the future) but she grew up on a farm in a village in the American Midwest. (the main story takes place in an alternate timeline where the world's structure is similar but slightly different to reality) How she got the international criminal empire is uhhhhh scratches head not sure the mechanisms of how exactly she did that for now but she was very very motivated about scouring the world for evil and forbidden information. crime empire is simply the most efficient way of going about her plans. The short explanation of her motives is that she wants to starve gods.

[meliake]

Im so caught up on Linc and Taylors friendship

theyre husbands, best friends, and have traversed many many planes of existence together

[bibyshitsuji24k]

im saying it.

smile will grow older.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

One of the biggest problems of writing that Frasier post is that the logic of 90s comedies is not real life logic. It's not just that you can just pick which exaggerated thing to believe more (and sometimes you need to outright pick between two mutually excluding canon facts), but also the degree to which you believe anything. Which is fun for theorizing but also terrible for theorizing because to argue one way or another you need to create the fiction that the coherent narrative you are pointing out has value of truth in a universe where the value of truth is the rule of funny.

[vaguely-concerned]

got stopped on the street by a charity representative guy today who very earnestly and with genuine well-meaning bewilderment bordering on concern asked me if I was fucking with him when I told him I'm over 30. I take back every mean and derogatory thing I've ever said about Blue (which of course is going to take a while there've been quite a few, deservedly (affectionate)), the ongoing indignity of having a babyface should entitle one to any number of vile acts and character flaws as compensation

[bookwyrminspiration]

we should give the keeper characters noticeable birthmarks. can’t believe they don’t have them—not like “Biana has a birth mark in the shape of a dagger hehe” but like. there’s a big ass light splotch on Keefe’s shoulder he doesn’t think about because he can’t see it, or there’s this dark mark on marella’s arm curving around her biceps. real birthmarks, sincerely someone with one because they’re cool as hell

[heatwa-ves]

i willll get the ace attorney game(s) one day....... :') BUT ive been quite interested in tdp for a while now but somehow i never got to watch it. if you say the last season just aired maybe its a good time to do it then mmm actually what is the show abt i know nothing besides the title so. i assume theres a dragon prince in there but idk anything else. and there are doomed siblings too ???? 👀

Yesss the last season just came out!!! I really love it it starts off kinda fun adventure similar in vibe to atla but in the later seasons it gets a bit darker.. like it's still a show targeted at like. older kids/young teens but is that demographic while still telling a compelling story with heavy topics and good character arcs. the first few episodes of the final season really heavily focus on siblings there's not one not two but three main doomed siblings!!!! There is a dragon prince but he's kinda just chilling tbh. callum the main character is my best friend forever I love him sm sm I'm also really liking his character moments lately.. excited to watch the rest of the new season but also so sad for it to be over I've been watching since near the start of the show ...

[starpros-sunshine]

I think the reason I'm so uncomfortable in conversation with cis men is because in my life the image I've grown up with is that from the American movies and while there's so much to be said about how women in those are basically objects or exclusively love interests or just Really Really forgettable I feel like there's also something to be mentioned about how most of these men are all the same pseudo-tough-guy character that's cool and suave and sexy and the only emotion he's capable of is nonchalant banter (it feels worth mentioning that the American movies I'm referring to are all from the last century I have no idea if that's changed in these last years but a gut feeling tells me no) and I also barely talk to the guys from my grade so the result of kind of growing up with that is that I just genuinely can not imagine real cis men with a complex inner emotional landscape. Maybe this is also an empathy thing but I genuinely can not imagine most cishet guys doing normal people things in their free time that aren't gaming or going to the gym or...idk. making music too I suppose. It's quite comical really but I just can not imagine cishet men with interests or doing stuff like having crushes and it's so strange because I know for a fact I am generally speaking not a sexist person but this little tidbit of apparently just not being able to view cishet men as normal people? Can't get that to go away even if I logically know it's silly. There's a point in this post about how toxic masculinity is a huge issue and affects even those not affected by it and runs really really deep or whatever but I'm too tired to coherently put it together. On the positive side now I get really happy when I see men online talk about how much they love their wives and all that because it's like "wow! Crazy you really are just a normal dude and not some James Bond knock-off like I thought every cishet man was supposed to be! Thank god!"

[gu6chan]

ouaaaaaghhh i've been on a bit of a pokemon binge lately......... i should crack open my old pokemon games and take a peek at my teams :,) i wish i still had my old copy of conquest and black 2 though............ :(

[marvelstars]

This is kind of an unpopular oppinion but I honestly don´t see much evidence of Vader being obssesed with Obi-Wan, will he try to kill him on sight, yes, as he would most Jedi if not all, not because he hates them but because it´s his literal job as the Empire´s enforecer, is he mad at him? yes, because he cut off his limbs and left him to die on Mustafar, he may understand very well why he did it but it doesn´t mean he can´t be mad at him and it hurts even more given he considered him a father figure but other than that he pretty much left the man alone, he knew he was alive in one place of the galaxy(same with Yoda) and didn´t pursue him, made traps for him or used their old force link to track him down and given the Empire´s connections and dealings with Jabba, I am quite sure Vader has been more than once on Tatooine post ROTS. The guy´s first words for his old master in a New Hope are "You should not have come back" that speaks a lot about Vader´s perception of his former master.

I guess there´s space for an interpretation which confuses Vader´s coping mechanisms with other kind of villanous characters where they become "obssesed" with their opponents and think a lot about them. I have found in Vader´s case it´s quite the opposite, he forced himself to forget all about it because thinking about it hurt a lot more, it hurt so much Palpatine used those memories to torture him psycologically to keep him chained to the darkside.

Vader´s whole thing is that he has made himself emotionally uncaring to deal with his life and his past, which extends to pretty much all aspects of his life, except for his missions and his self appointed role of bringing "Order to the galaxy" , he just stopped caring and is under such physical pain every moment of every single day he uses most of his mental energy to feed that pain towards the darkside to keep himself linked to it. The force, the Emperor and the darkside is everything he has got left and until he learned about Luke´s existence, he didn´t thought it was possible to change this objective reality. He´s a Sith now and the darkside would forever dominate his destiny, it´s what it is, until Luke helped him rethink all of that.

[natp20]

you are fresh cut grass (faithful care giver? maybe? once, perhaps)

you are made of metal (repairable, malleable, breakable)

you don't have legs (but wouldn't it be neat to have some, to be able to move of your own accord?)

you are living history (and you are still so young, still learning, still growing)

you put yourself before others (the stress is what will kill your friends, when it becomes too much)

you once tried to kill your favourite person (and maybe she'll never forgive you, but you're learning to be kind to yourself)

you have faith in the gods (but not in yourself to make the right decisions, to carve your own path forward)

you want to provide (to feel useful, to feel like you weren't made just to inflict pain, to hurt and to harm)

you are learning to be a person (is it foreign to you? to be treated like one? did you yearn for it, believing that it was never yours to have?)

you have a soul (doesn't everything?)

you can love (and you are loved)

(and you've got a schrödinger's tongue)

[ectogeranium]

Hello MagiQuest community, I am here finally with a happier, more historical post!

While going through a photo album, I found a picture of little me from 2003, playing in the water fountain in front of MagiQuest!

"But Ecto", you may say, "MagiQuest didn't open in Myrtle Beach until 2005!" And you would be right! Upon further observation of this grainy kodak, I noticed this sign above the outdoor ticket booth that reads "Butterfly--"

And I found this odd. Of course, being literally almost 2 years old, I didn't remember what the hell was there before MagiQuest ever opened. So after a very quick google search of "broadway at the beach butterfly".... Turns out, it was a Butterfly Pavilion!

damn, what dreamy architecture! Here's a side-by-side of both businesses when they inhabited the same building!

The building was built by Gateway Construction, and developed by Mozingo + Wallace in 2001, and with not much to go on, the Butterfly Pavilion closed sometime in 2005, with the first iteration of MagiQuest taking over in the summer of that year. (I found yelp reviews from 2006 asking if the Pavilion was open, and one reply said that it had "closed last summer")

Pictured above is the floor plan of the Butterfly Pavilion, and below are some pictures of the interior!

This explains why the ceiling of MagiQuest always had that weird grid pattern to it; It was originally a glass ceiling!

(I definitely think some of the half-walls in MagiQuest were these white ones repainted to be medieval-looking stone lol)

(^^^ The flooring (pictured left) is the same as the floor in the dungeon)

Anyways, that’s all I have for now. This has been in my drafts for a hot minute, I only now got around to adding photos lmao.

[starrytalking]

Recently I was at a meet-up-thing for a-spec people and one of the older ones who organise these meet-ups said in the course of a conversation “well I’m ace and whatever sort of attraction I might feel every time a full moon aligns with the bloom of a special flower won’t shake my understanding of myself, I’m secure enough in who I am to not let that shatter my picture of myself” (that was a very loose quote but I think u get what she meant). And I just found it so funny cause she said it like it was a ridiculous thought to herself, that something small like that could impact herself so much because she’s obviously very at piece and secure with and in her asexuality and while I’m also quite sure of myself in that regard nowadays, there was a long period of time where a random maybe-attraction could definitely make myself question my whole sexuality all over again so that ridiculous thought was and in parts still is a reality to me. And I think this really beautifully shows how self-discovery is a process that we’re all taking at our own pace but that can “end” at some point where we can still be open to new feelings and realisations but where we can have found a way to self-identify that makes us be secure in who we are and where the path of self-discovery is less a daily shattering of our perception of ourselves and more a stable ground we can be free to make new experiences on.