#10x actions

[xero013]

Sweetness

They can be apri-corny together (Nimbasa trio)

[cessmaga]

I don't get why cn wanted ben and kai to be that "one bickering couple" where ben bickers with his partner a lot is too out of character for him

I don't think ben is that aggressive when it comes to conflict, yeah he could argue with his lover but not in a sense petty way, if anything he would try to apologize and fix things, and he's not that petty to be that "couple who bickers with his lover a lot but secretly loves them"

also there has to be a real reason ben would argue with his partner a lot not some petty reasons

there dynamic is way too similar to OS ben and gwen's dynamic than an actual loving couple 😭

[wonder-worker]

During [the spring and summer of 1141], a number of contemporary narrative sources agreed that Matilda’s sudden and unexpected success went straight to her head. Matilda’s most renowned modern biographer has suggested that “conduct acceptable in a powerful king . . . was not acceptable in a ‘Lady of the English’. This line of reasoning can be taken quite a bit further. It is clear that contemporaries expected Matilda to emulate the behavior of those women who had previously held the rank of regina, and act like a queen consort while performing the office of king. Most queens consort, however, did not have to consolidate recognition of their position as Matilda was constrained to do. Nearly all the chroniclers who had marveled at her assumption of power turned on her immediately. Not surprisingly, the Gesta Stephani took the greatest exception:

She at once put on an extremely arrogant demeanor instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to the gentle sex, began to walk and speak and do all things more stiffly and more haughtily than she had been wont.

But other more sympathetic chroniclers also joined this chorus of disapproval: Henry of Huntington described her as “elated with insufferable pride” while the Worcester chronicler noted her “hard heart” as she strove to consolidate her position. Had she been a man, Matilda’s decidedly authoritarian style might have passed for a regal show of strength. Indeed, Matilda probably felt that if she was to hold on to her newly acquired status, she needed to behave like a king. Thus, Matilda’s forward movement from recognition of her status to the execution of her office was fraught with gendered difficulties concerning how a woman ought to conduct herself.

...As she anticipated her crowning, Matilda strove to consolidate her dynastic claims and establish her authority. It seems reasonable to suppose that Matilda looked to her father and her first husband for examples of successful kingship as she did for representational purposes. Both Emperor Henry V and King Henry I were suspicious, uncompromising, relentless, and ruthless in the pursuit of their aims. Probably both would have advised Matilda to follow their example. This was exactly what St. Bernard told Queen Melisende of Jerusalem following the death of her husband: “show the man in the woman; order all things . . . so that those who see you will judge your works to be those of a king rather than a queen.” Much of Matilda’s behavior during the spring and summer of 1141 can be explained as the emulation of male gendered kingship. But kings had the built-in advantage of female consorts to soften the more hardboiled aspects of their rule; Matilda had played that very role herself for her first husband. Nevertheless, in 1141, Matilda eschewed the feminine aspects of queenship completely, in effect negating what could have been useful symbolism to bolster the construction of her authority. But for Matilda to be perceived as a soft, forgiving, and gentle woman at the one moment she needed to consolidate her position at the top of a male dominant political society would not have been practical.

But by constructing herself as a female feudal lord, and emulating male gendered kingship, Matilda annoyed contemporary observers. The chroniclers’ hostility may have been due to the fact that Matilda was claiming kingly sovereignty for herself alone, and not in association with either her husband or her eldest son. The Gesta Stephani described Matilda as not only arrogant, but also spurning the advice of her chief advisors, the earl of Gloucester, her uncle King David of Scotland, and the “kingmaker” himself, the Bishop of Winchester. The Gesta implied that if Matilda had behaved as a deferential woman, and heeded the counsel of her male advisors, she could have devised a means to permanently depose Stephen, and be crowned and anointed in his place. The Gesta placed Matilda’s ultimate failure at her own door, blaming it on her arrogant reliance on her inferior, womanly intellect and emotions.

Matilda’s hard-line stance, acceptable in a male king, bothered the authors of the Worcester chronicle and the Gesta, suggesting that contemporaries were confused by what they wanted the “Lady of the English” to do, indicating that, as a woman and a domina, she should behave gently like a queen rather than forcefully like a king. Combined, all the chroniclers, with the exception of Malmesbury, suggested that Matilda should have used the intercessory powers of queenship to set Stephen free, moderated the harsher aspects of her father’s rule, and excused the Londoners from financial support. Although a more diplomatic approach might have helped, freeing Stephen at that moment in time would have realistically served no practical purpose in establishing Matilda’s authority. And, in denying Eustace his inheritance, Matilda was only imitating the efforts of her father, Henry I, who also dealt harshly with challengers to his throne. Henry I kept his elder brother Robert Curthose in prison until he died, and prevented his nephew, William Clito, Curthose’s heir, from gaining any aspect of the Anglo-Norman inheritance. Matilda wished to convince her contemporaries that she was quite capable of being a king, but their reactions betrayed hostility toward her as a woman presuming to establish kingly authority.

-Charles Beem, "Empress Matilda and Female Lordship", The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History"

[thebirdsareafterme]

With the new live-action Avatar: the Last Airbender Netflix show out today, I am once again asking all of society why we cannot just let animation stay animated. Some stories are just translated perfectly into the art of animation and that’s just fine! What’s wrong with cartoons and the like? Why do we constantly have to force animated shows to be remade into live action adaptations and then be disappointed when they don’t measure up against their animation counterparts?

I get that people want to see more of the ATLA story, but the critics are truly in over their heads trying to compare this to the original. Yes, there are errors with the writing, costuming, etc. but the main issue is that the expectations of this live action show to be an exact replica of the original is so high that people cannot enjoy it at face value.

Maybe, just maybe, instead of creating these subpar live-action shows that can’t compete with the flexibility and creativity that animation can offer, we should rethink how media perceives the art of animation and start marketing it as more than a kid’s form of entertainment. Animation for adults is cool! Anime is cool! Art in motion is cool! Why does everything need to be turned into a Netflix show?

[capn-twitchery]

Oh yea Freddie make sure you read the cards in irem. Be careful lmao

oh no. my reading comprehension is piss poor and my #1 unbreakable rule playing twitch is "curiosity wins," which usually means if a card tells me not to do something, i have to do it, just to see what happens,,,it has not once ended well for twitch, but it IS very fun for me

so unless something has more interesting text it looks like it might be the "disappointing ending in an unwritten story" choice. because goddamn do i really wanna know what that means

it's ok if it goes terribly then maybe i can make a better choice on grace's account instead. sorry twitch

[littlegayteaboy]

i know i'm going to be mad at the live action atla when it comes out because zuko's scar looks like they just slapped some red eyeshadow on there and called it a day

[mister13eyond]

🍦

name three good things about a character you hate

oh god when thinking "characters I hate" i can only think of ONE example: this motherfucker

i so rarely hate characters, even ones that are meant to be disliked, because i usually appreciate their presence in the story and how fun it is to dislike them, but joshu.... joshu is another story entirely. so uh, challenge mode, here we go:

i think nut king call genuinely has a really interesting power and design

the way he's written makes it really clear just how much of him being Like That is a result of his messy family situation and intergenerational trauma, and i really appreciate the nuance to show that sometimes well-intentioned families can fuck their kids up

[PART 8 SPOILER] giving yasuho his arm was nice i guess, shame about the Entire Rest of that scene

[cycle-hit]

the kotoko playlist i listen to in order to write her 👍or as i like to call it. "how much of her borderline personality disorder/complex ptsd swag can i audibly attempt to put into a playlist"

[yakool-foolio]

Wait why would you ship Yakou and Yomi?

'Ship' is a strong word. I don't enjoy the pairing cause I think they'd be a super sweet lovey-dovey couple that would totally work out fine. I like the pairing cause putting them within arm's distance would end with someone's arm being bitten clean off. They're not really a ship in the sense that they're a stable relationship. They're a god damn mess through and through. They hate each other's guts. They hate themselves for reminiscing about their time together even though their bond was already rotted before they tied themselves down. They'll tear each other limb from limb. They're the last ones standing in the war they've wrought. They were childhood frienemies. They're covered in each other's blood. They know one another's weak spots. They're at their most vulnerable when they're together. They're bitter exes.

[vagueiish]

what exactly is one supposed to do about accepting things you can't control when the thing you can't control is a person who is actively fucking over many people, including children?

[kenobihater]

i keep scrolling my dash, seeing one million coconutpilled liberal posts, going to unfollow whoever put those there, and then realizing i'm on my fucking tumblr fyp 😐

[roseville]

thought dump

[alicepao13]

If I only have Severance to look forward to next season...

[thecoolestfreakyouknow]

I miss action movies like The Mummy. It really has it all: gunfights, supernatural creatures, romance (that’s given more than 5 minutes thought), humour, making fun of Americans

[teamfortresstwo]

Y’know . For all that I can see Vox using Al’s deal against him, I can also see him trying to break it .

[goosemixtapes]

What’s your beef with Dracula? Like I get the xenophobia is a huge issue obviously, but it’s a 19th century novel, that’s par for the course, isn’t it? Am I missing something?

i mean yeah dracula's xenophobia and antisemitism are indeed par for the course with stuff written in the 1800s but those texts can still be enjoyed so long as one makes an effort to understand the context & messages of the story! however dracula also committed the cardinal sin of Boring The Fuck Out Of Me