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Why C3E51 worked so well (a DM’s perspective)
I have seen a lot of absolutely bananas critiques of C3E51 (thankfully not nearly as many around here, far more on Reddit, which I should not have visited). And the ongoing theme of those critiques is that Matt should not have imperiled former PCs, and if he brought them in should have either done lengthy side-bars with those characters or let them win the fight against Ludinis and have a chance to take him out themselves, since they’re ‘god tier’ or ‘high level’ and that makes ‘logical sense’. What these critiques really boil down to, IMO, are people who were really invested in the former campaigns upset that their faves didn’t get to do cool things, treating it more like a TV show than a game. But even as a TV show, that would have been disappointing from a narrative perspective. Because even in a TV show, this is a sequel spin-off show, starring new characters. The story is about THEM. And more importantly, the game is about the players and about telling their story.
So let’s break this down from a DM perspective. How do you build a Kobiashi Maru situation for your characters? For those of you who aren’t familiar, the Kobiashi Maru is a Star Trek term for a scenario designed from the jump to be unwinnable (Kirk beat it by creativity, but later admitted that he missed the point of it). In Star Trek this was done to test what a future officer would do if faced with certain failure. In a D&D game it’s a little more complicated. Part of it is to set up the BBEG, put their plan in motion, and set the stage for the next leg of the game. But it’s also to give your players, who are clearly into it, a darkest-hour scenario. Not every player group is going to be into facing down the Kobiashi Maru, and it’s clear from the aforementioned critiques that a lot of them are on Reddit. Power-gamers who always want to win are not going to enjoy this sort of storytelling, but players who are really into RP and working through difficult times and failures will eat this stuff up. And this is absolutely the sort of table playing on Critical Role. There is a level of trust there that can only be built after years of working together, and this was finally the moment when Matt could pay off years of planning and campaign-spanning set-up.
Matt carefully plotted the structure of this episode out to give maximum agency and impact to a party of dramatically under-leveled characters. And they knew going in they were under-leveled. This wasn’t a surprise, but a potential suicide run by people who knew they weren’t the heroes they needed to be, but were the only heroes in the right place at the right time to try anything. So they came up with as good a plan as they could, and executed it fairly well, all things considered.
They knew they couldn’t take on Ludinus directly (and this was a great way to demonstrate exactly how much he had planned and how long, to bring in elements from C2, hints we’ve had for years about Ludinis, only to reveal it went deeper than any of the characters could have imagined), so Matt gave them some winnable objectives. This is a great way to keep the characters invested in an unwinnable scenario: the ultimate outcome may be beyond the characters, barring some insane genius or incredible rolls, but they can still help. They can do something that will have a tangible impact on events and hinder the baddies enough to give them another chance at a rematch and a way to stop the apocalypse when they’re higher level. So Matt gave them the batteries: take out as many as you can. While this would not stop the ritual, I suspect that the more they took out the more Ludinis would have to drain his own power to make the key work, and the longer the process would take. Knocking out the feywild key, as well as multiple power sources turned what would have been an instantaneous event if they had done nothing into a more drawn-out affair which, I suspect, could be stopped or even reversed. It gave them a window to come back and demand a rematch.
Then we have the high-level PC allies, and how to play with those sorts of characters without pulling focus from the PCs. Matt handled this very well, by having the players roll for their former PCs, taking the specifics of their actions out of his hands and letting the dice of the former players decide. He also revealed that Keyleth’s involvement, and baiting Vax with Otohan’s permadeath poison, was key to Ludinis’ ritual, which was why she couldn’t just dive in and clean everything up. But again, because of this story, it ties less back to Keyleth and more back to Orym. That was the point of the attack on Zephrah, to get her attention by getting her to look into who did it and then coming to get some payback, but the little guy on the ground has always been caught in the middle. Orym has been Ludinis’ unwitting pawn from the off, his family’s deaths merely a means to an end, and that is vicious and amazing set-up for character growth for him.
Beau and Caleb had to be there by the logic of the story. It didn’t make sense that Caleb would sit out a world-ending event orchestrated by a Cerberus Assembly member after spending years trying to take them down. Beau would obviously go with him. It also made sense that they would be the only two there, because they were scouting when Ryn got taken down, and after that were trying to keep a low profile. Shit accelerated too fast for them to call in reinforcements.
Which is the in-story reason for them to be there, but isolated and vulnerable, making them useful allies and wildcards (who likely could have been more useful if ultimately failing as well, but failed early thanks to Liam and Marisha’s rolls). But they were still outmatched. I have no idea what the challenge rating of Otohan, Leliana, and Ludinis are, but we know Otohan was considered ‘beatable’ back in Bassuras. That indicates she’s the lowest CR, particularly with the glowing weak-spot on her back. But she can still wreck a level-20 PC if she gets the jump on her, which she did. And that meant that she remained a massive threat. Caleb and Beau were playing it smart, keeping to the shadows, but still got caught by Leliana. Between dice rolls, careful planning, and some great enemy design, Matt really set up a team that could take on high-level players and win. And he made it clear that Ludinis did not leave this to chance. He has the best people he could muster after 1000 years of planning. Nothing short of a miracle could have truly stopped them.
Which is why we cut back to Bells Hells. Because ultimately this particular story isn’t about Keyleth or Vax or Caleb or Beau or any other former PCs. This is about the current party being caught up in events much larger than them and having to rise to the occasion. This is the story of the schmucks sent in to take out the batteries, but who have personal beef with the big bads. Ludinis orchestrated the plan to attack Zephrah to bait Keyleth and draw out Vax, and Otohan carried it out. And he used Orym as a pawn throughout all of it. This makes taking them down, but especially taking Otohan down, the cornerstone of Orym’s personal quest. Letting an NPC take her down would be taking away a critical part of his motivation and goals, which is an absolute no-no for a DM. NEVER bring in a god-tier NPC and take away player agency or story beats. Especially never have them resolve important player goals and backstory events! Every NPC, even the powerful ones, are there to support the story the players are telling. So of course Keyleth wasn’t going to take out Otohan. Of course she wasn’t going to stop the ritual. Beau and Caleb might have been able to do something more if Liam and Marisha hadn’t rolled so badly for them, but ultimately, they had to get caught or fail in another way.
For the sake of gameplay, Bell’s Hells had to be the only functional team. They had to be the ants that were beneath Ludinis’ notice long enough to really accomplish something. And as much as it feels like they failed, they had minor victories: Laudna and Ashton took out more batteries, making Ludinis drain his own power to kick off the apocalypse. They only failed to take out Otohan’s backpack by 2 HP, which showed them that she was an achievable goal in the future. If they had rolled a little better, they probably could have taken her out entirely, which would have felt like a big accomplishment for them. Imogen made her mother pause in her assault before doubling down. This leaves open very interesting future beats for their interactions. Can she ultimately redeem her mother or would she have to take her out? Every step that Matt set up in this episode, from the reveals about Ludinis’ plans and Orym’s past, to Imogen’s interactions with her mother, to Chetney and likely Ashton finding themselves staring down their own backstories after the party split, was focused on this party, on getting them ready to step out of low-level play and advance.
And that’s the point of E51. It’s not a climax of the story, but the ultimate set-up. It’s putting all the pieces onto the board in a way that all the characters can now recognize. Yes, unless the players came up with something genius, the apocalypse was going to kick off, but their actions slowed everything down to a place where it could be combatted. Yes, the god-tier former PCs were always going to get neutered, because this is Bells Hells’ story, and you cannot have NPCs fix PC problems. They might have been able to do a little more before this happened, but the dice rolled.
And it’s honestly good for the PCs how things turned out. They have a clear objective, but are split up. This gives them great incentive to level up, explore character backstory, deal with their personal shit, get stronger, and then come back to kick the asses of all three of these villains (or possibly redeem one, we’ll see). Their powerful allies are now temporarily side-lined. Keyleth is badly hurt and will need time to recover. Caleb is collared and will need time to get that removed. Beau is likely up and moving now, but will need to safeguard Caleb for a while.
The Bells Hells are on their own. The Darkest Hour has come, and it’s time for them to rise up and go from nobodies to heroes. This is their true call to adventure. And as a DM, it was so cool seeing how Matt set up all the pieces over the campaign, only to pay them out in such a satisfying and motivating way in this episode.
#Critical Role#Critical Role spoilers#I really liked this episode#both as storytelling#and in terms of structure#this is how you do long-term setup#and payoff for a villain#he had planned for everything#but this annoying party of gnats muching up his works#and the gnats are going to be what takes him down#that is such a good way to let a low-level party get set up to take on a high-level villain!!#anyway#this is to combat some of the negativity I've seen toward this episode
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being aromantic is like. hey btw you're going to live a life that is the culmination of most of society's worst nightmares. sorry lol ✌️ but then you turn around and take a really good hard look at it and it turns out that living in that nightmare is fucking awesome and you get to wake up every day and take that fear that other people have and laugh and hold it close until it's a great joy for you instead. and being happy is a radical act that you define instead of someone else. and you're sexy as fuck that's just a fact of life i don't make the rules on that one
#aromantic people are just sexy i'm not making the decisions here it's just facts#course ur hot as fuck. it came free with the aromanticism#being sexy is just default settings for aromantic people 👍#hope this all helps. anyway i'm on my 'i hope i die alone <3 i can't wait to die alone <3' kick rn#i think the existential fear that people have of Not Partnering specifically is so. well.#obviously that shit is strong and it is SO awesome to be free of it.#realizing you're aro and you don't Want a partner can be such a hit to the solar plexus#cause society says that's the only thing that'll make you happy. so either you go without that thing or you force yourself#into doing something you don't want which would make you unhappy anyway.#so you think it's a lose lose situation and you have to come to terms with what amatonormativity presents as the worst possible situation#but then! whoa! turns out personhood is inherently valuable in and of itself and romantic partnering is just a construct!#and that nightmare is now your life to do with as you please... define as you will... structure as you want...#best case scenario. is what i'm saying.#every day i wake up ready to spit all that amatonormative rhetoric back in life's teeth by being alone and being happy#and it's so fucking satisfying. every day.#fucking JUBILANT being by myself. and i love being a living breathing 'fuck you' to the romantic system#you need a partner to be happy? oh that's sooo fucking crazy guess i'll go be miserable then. in my perfect fucking dream life lmao#yeah obviously it's the worst possible outcome on earth to die without a partner. so terrible. can't wait for it :)#aromantic#aromanticism#aro positivity#aroace#arospec#sorry to bitches who are sad about not having a partner. i could not give a fuck though get better soon#you couldn't EVER pay me enough to go back to a mindset in which my inherent value wasn't enough by myself.#FUCK that shit. absolutely miserable and a bad life outlook in general. like genuinely do the work w/ amatonormativity and get better#life is something that can be so fulfilling whether someone wants to kiss you or whatever or not#i'm on antidepressants and i have people i care deeply about. what the fuck would i need a partner for lmao
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Triptych
#do. do you see my vision#orv#omniscient reader's viewpoint#aj arts#orv spoilers#i guess#anyway this was very fun#wikipedia poem#yoohankim#text is from the Wikipedia pages for:#lichen. star system. polaris. black hole. author. protagonist#and tripartite#lichen can be a symbiosis of fungi and algae or cyanobacteria; or it can have all three#gravitational lensing is the term for the visual distortion around black holes as it bends light. some of it gets mirrored#youll see it in artist renditions of black holes#wait i also used a line from the page for three act structure
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2x97 "The Fancy and the Fooled" vs 3x94 "Where The Red Fearne Grows"
Plus emotional leveling up:
(Bonus:)
#cr spoilers#critical role#essek thelyss#what I should have been doing: so many things#what I did: this#the PARALLELS. THE PARALLELS!#no but it's legit wild how fucking parallel in structure these scenes are. like even in terms of table interruptions#it's WILD
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seen a couple people running to that "is it bad writing or do you not understand genre" post in regards to the ofmd upset. and let me remind people that this show was marketed as a romantic comedy, ESPECIALLY this season!
In that regard, I found an article/blog post that directly addresses the question "can you have character death in a romantic comedy?" And it really hits the nail on the head.
Even if you were to make the argument "well it's a dark comedy!" or "its a pirate show!" there's still a balance that needs to be met if you don't want to alienate your audience.
People are going to argue that the death was earned because they spent the entire season building up his character and "completing his arc". Well, I'll argue that they DIDN'T complete his arc. In fact they took about twelve steps back in his death scene by seemingly ret conning his progress and having him center Ed's feelings on his literal deathbed. So it really feels a lot like fridging, because that's exactly what it was. Izzy's death was for Ed's arc, not his own. And they spent so much time focusing on Izzy all season, focusing on his growth and giving him such a specific arc about queerness and recovery, that yeah, his death feels like a slap to the face and not a tragic story beat that makes the story all the richer.
#ofmd spoilers#ofmd season 2#ofmd#izzy hands#ofmd s2#thought about going into the definitions of comedy and tragedy in terms of classic theatre and shakespearean drama but modern story telling#has really diverged from those structures especially in television and with the way shows are produced#even so if i get fired up enough maybe i'll make another post about it#cause there are Rules to shakespearian comedy and even in modern storytelling those rules are generally respected#ofmd critical
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#okay i needed to read this#you probably do too#yeah there were many many many suckage occurrences#but it's also helpful to remember there were some fairly major long-term/structural changes for the better as well#and it's worth talking about that as much as the catastrophes
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ngl I always find it wild to see Star Wars stuff that's like "if you think about it in terms of realistic statistics/science then..." about almost any aspect of it.
I mean, what about the Star Wars films gives the impression that this universe abides by realistic statistics, or realistic anything else? SW is broadly a fantasy epic projected onto an IMAX screen with a space background painted on it. Yeah, the planets and moons in the films almost always have improbably limited biomes and two major locations max, because narratively these locations are usually just fantasy city-states with space aesthetics.
Starships travel at the speed of plot and we simply jump past the amount of time that presumably is passing, and sort of imply the passage of that time through shifts in the character dynamics. But this passage of time cannot be analyzed with any kind of consistency because the only logic governing it is the pace of the story.
Just how long did it take the Empire to send a full contingent of forces to Dantooine, search the entire planet, find the Rebel base, and then report back to Tarkin between one scene and another? No one says and no one appears to care. How long did it take Han and Leia to reach Bespin and what exactly went on between them while Luke was, in the same time frame, going through a protracted training over multiple days at an absolute minimum? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How do giant space worms survive inside asteroids that somehow have an Earth-approximate gravitational field and I guess an atmosphere? Shhhh don't think about it. The point of the sequence is not "how does the giant space worm subsist off this random asteroid and how does it breathe and how does gravity work in this context, seriously" but that the giant worm sequence is fucking sick.
There's probably some after the fact EU justification invented by people who had nothing to do with the original writing of the space worm (or perhaps there are several mutually incompatible explanations) and I am profoundly disinterested in them. Nothing could make this even slightly realistic and it was never intended to be. Star Wars sings space shanties at scientific/mathematical realism as it sails past on a completely different ship going in the exact opposite direction.
And I do mean "sails" because while astronomy might tell us that space is unfamiliar and wild on a level we as Earthbound lifeforms can barely comprehend, Star Wars understands that space is basically an ocean, yet with stars and cool but survivable planets in it, or sometimes it's air but combined with a super cool space background so you can have early 20th century aerial combat that would make no sense in actual space conditions and doesn't need to.
"If you consider relativity, then just running the Empire would be..." General relativity does not govern the galaxy far, far away. Space magic does. I'm not sure there are even time zones.
#hard to overstate the degree to which every attempt to explain#the empire keeping a tentacle monster in a trash compactor for their moon-sized roving death ray murder fortress#just seems incredibly ill-considered. drawing our attention to how weird and improbable all this stuff is does not help#and most people have no trouble accepting bizarre star wars stuff as just part of the 'wacky space fairy tale' logic#there's this really bizarre viral post about how the sw universe actually isn't a fantastic universe bc most inhabitants#would probably never possess or interact with the literal magic imbuing it—but that's missing the basic structural underpinnings#of the story#it doesn't matter how many people can use the force (in the original trilogy very few!) or believe in it or ever see it or anything#the fabric of the story and its setting are governed by fantastic rationales and elements that don't work in rationalistic terms#anghraine babbles#long post#sw fanwank#star wars#sweu critical
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redditors have the slightest amount of media comprehension challenge (impossible)
the amount of people who still cannot grasp that the Stranger is Gandalf truly baffles me. they have given us every visual and narrative clue possible and nerd ass fanboys are crying in the comments that he’s definitely a Blue Wizard because the actor has not yet turned directly to the camera and said: “I, Daniel Weyman, am playing the character of Gandalf in Amazon’s The Rings of Power.”
“but it doesn’t happen that way in the books!” they sob. No one cares!! it literally does not matter!!! this is the middle earth cinematic universe for god’s sake! it’s middle earth-616! it’s different from the books just like the PJ trilogy were different from the books!! go outside!!!
And then worse than that, they whine and cry about it being a “mystery box” or a “guessing game” - brother it can’t be a mystery box because it’s not a mystery!!!!! they already told you who the character was in the first season!!! they expected you to have the two brain cells needed to figure it out from the obvious narrative clues!!!!
i know it’s my fault for being on reddit in the first place, but i am genuinely going to lose my mind!!!
#the sisyphean task of arguing in reddit comments#rings of power#the rings of power#trop season 2#trop spoilers#OPEN THE SCHOOLS#hey did you ever wonder why your english teachers made you write all those papers about symbolism and foreshadowing and narrative structure#this is why#daniel weyman#the stranger#and then someone complained that they were being too heavy handed about it#THEY HAVE TO!#also cannot begin to describe how much i hate the term mystery box#the characters are trying to figure something out!!!! that’s called a plot!!!!
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we're all in agreement Jason just totally bit Krios, right? "unarmed, 1v1 combat" Jason bit that guy. chomp chomp.
#pjo#riordanverse#jason grace#hand to hand combat more like. teeth.#i believe there is a practical fighting term called ''the wet cat defense''#which is just. flailing. but its extremely effective because it's not tactical or structured#so it's too unpredictable even against skilled fighters#anyways that's what jason did#yeah he's an extremely well-trained fighter and whatever#but like. he *could* also just bite and flail and that works just fine#dude was raised by wolves ''biting and flailing'' is a valid tactic
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#my english language brain is not working. is that question structured correctly#idk if temp or weather is the right term yall will figure it out ASKSKS#theres no both CHOOSE!!!!!!#sunnysidepolls#cool weather is nice but i tend to be so sleepy during it. which. not ideal when im already perpetually sleepy girl i need to be awake
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After quite a long sleep the magic finally awakened huh?
I knew about this game´s existence ever since it came out in China back in 2021 and it´s almost hard for me to believe it´s about to launch globally in 5 days after such a long wait
soo asa way of celebrating I did a little practice as I drew all (well except for the Frey Twins and mc) of the main kiddos in my style, most of which were the first time for me actually :¨D
#hpma#magic awakened#harry potter magic awakened#robyn thistlethwaite#kevin farrell#lottie turner#daniel page#cassandra vole#ivy warrington#hpma robyn#hpma kevin#hpma lottie#hpma daniel#hpma cassandra#hpma ivy#I love how noticable it is which characters were drawn in diferent timeframes lmao#fanart#doodle#my art#tbh aint happy with how daniel turned out mainly in terms of how I structured his face#but still better than many other attemps I did with him lmao
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"the fault, dear Brutus -" (Julius Caesar)
Quotes from A Critical History of English Literature by David Daiches. Panels from Death in the Family, Under the Red Hood, Lost Days, and Batman and Robin.
#OKAY SO i have been thinking about the hamlet post since i reblogged it the other day so i had to find panels to fit it#anyway i don't post about him much BUT#i do find jason fascinating both in terms of the Nonstop Emotional Intensity but also because on a narrative level#this is hard to articulate and possibly you need access to my dartboard of string in order to understand but#at some moments it's almost structurally as if you took the hero of a classic tragedy#and you put him in a story where he's the villain#it's like. what if hamlet but the story was told from the point of view of laertes#what if antigone but our pov character was ismene#you take the epic greek tragedy-esque stage and the tragic dramatic hero outraged at a terrible crime and the pile of bodies#and like. all of that is still true!! he really did get murdered!! it was really bad!! it's legit that he is mad about it!!#but then you frame it all from the perspective of the people going#'you just killed my dad and drove my sister to suicide you jackass'#and!!! they're not wrong either!!#and just ahhhh the way you can do that perspective-flip is just endlessly fascinating to me#web weaving#my comic art but we are using the term ''art'' loosely
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Koko the gorilla didn't know ASL but, like, you could say that without invalidating the existence of speech-supporting signs
#apparently english doesn't even have an established term for them so i'm not that surprised#but basically for many people with severe intellectual disabilities using individual signs without the proper sentence structure#that is obviously a part of sign languages#is a very important part of communicating#so yeah please criticize the gorilla and her handlers i literally don't care but there are actual people who actually use singular signs#and while it is not asl it's still important and it's still communication#edit:// and obviously it's not just people with intellectual disabilites; that's just the group i'm the most familiar with#but for example many non-verbal autistic kids use speech-supporting signs#and for them it's a very important part of communicating what they need#so idk stop acting like sign languages are the only languages on earth#where saying ''hunger eat food hunger'' doesn't communicate that you're hungry
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not to project like a motherfucker on natalie berzatto but ohhhh boy the impact of a narrative that says “hey, is your desire to make sure everybody around you is okay also about you? and could that perhaps be partially a maladaptive trauma response you should look into and maybe mitigate? because if it’s a genuine question that’s fine, but if the only answer you will respond well to hearing is yes that’s a You Issue Too, Babe”
#as somebody with a loud and toxic italian extended family the bear comes for my neck over and over#s3 is going even harder on that#nat’s pathology is gentler and less easy to spot than mikey’s or carmy’s or god help us all donna’s#but it is nonetheless unhealthy and bad for her#the theme of “you do not need to be Good And Pleasing to be worth love” is a lot this year#related (and this will take s4 to be sure of but i have Hope) that your ability to succeed in a garbage capitalist structure defines worth#as somebody who worked in a lot of kitchens this show just feels like home#and the thing that kept jarring me about the whole let’s upgrade to fine dining plan was …what about the people you leave behind#and after having seen napkins now it feels like the show KNOWS THAT#tina could not be hired at the bear but being hired at the beef saved her life#god i want them to bring this home#the fact that the sandwich window is the ONLY THING MAKING MONEY feels promising#like… i want the bear (the in-world restaurant) to succeed#but also no. no i do no want it to succeed as-is.#i want the bear and the beef to blend for REAL and then succeed#or i guess fail given the general themes of the season but try on terms they can be entirely proud of!!! even if they fail!!!
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sick and tired of seeing people use zip ties for boning. listen to me i am a costume designer stop using plastic which does not hold your shape (the whole point of boning) you do not need to buy proper coiled boning or anything: go to a hardware store and find flat metal tension spring (google tells me that's what it's called, unfortunately i also don't know what its used for in hardware store related things so i cant describe it if that isnt the correct translation, soz) you can get a roll of 15m x 4mm tension spring for about 15 euros where i live and then you just have to cut it with metal shears (you can use a regular cutting pliers probably but if you have metal shears you will be happier) then either file down the edges a bit if you're genuinely gonna wear it a lot, or you just wind some tape around the edges to make sure putting them in the channels isn't gonna rip your fabric and anyway now you have an actually functional boned garment. go to a hardware store and show them this pic btw:
^ this is what you want. also bc this is 4mm wide around stress points like closures you want to make 2 channels right alongside each other and put in 2 pieces of tension spring for stability
#seriously zip ties are so bad for anything you want to do with boning and like i get why people use them and i DO get that most ppl dont#actually want a corset in terms of shape restriction but then im just like. use a different fabric that's stiff and is gonna look structure#just by the fact of it being a thicker fabric and you putting a bunch of seams in it#and if you want it for underwear USE TENSION SPRING BONING ANYWAY its just better in every way than plastic nonsense !!!#costuming#cosplay#sewing#historical costuming#idk dude im not on costuming tumblr just. stop it. i hate that im writing 'listen up tumblypoos' posts but like#i just got an instagram reel with ziptie boning and its like. a) if you dont know about zip ties by now its too late and b) use tension spr#-ng. this was like some dude also who thinks himself a fashion designer like baby girl i know you are not actually designing with zipties#ok. tumblypoospost over
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I also find it funny that fandom will only accept Lyanna being her non-conforming, wild self in the context of saying that Arya isn't meant to be pretty; Any other day we get back-to-back posts about how Lyanna is actually super traditionally feminine cause she sniffled at a song once, so she's actually more like Sansa. Instead of constantly speaking on Arya and Lyanna, how about you guys reflect on why your standards of beauty for women are attached to how well they perform feminity within the patriarchy?
#lyanna stark#arya stark#asoiaf#/Lyanna isn't actually pretty she was a wild tomboy/ Those two things are not mutually exclusive 😭#how you look is not a reflection of your personality and this is also a running theme within the story#we have morally good characters who are ugly and morally bad characters who are beautiful this is like...kindergarten level#Lyanna is idealized in terms of her personality hence /you saw her beauty but not the iron underneath/#and Ned correcting Robert when he said Lyanna wouldn't have shamed him like Cersei had#he's a very shallow misogynistic character and I truly doubt he would've been as attached to the idea of her without surface level beauty#reminds me of people saying that Olivia Hussey is a bad fancast for them because she has a /doll like/ beauty and they're /rougher/ 😭#as though their entire facial structure magically changed once they realized they enjoyed playing with swords instead of sewing sdksdkdsksd#it's giving that one tiktok with the /cat pretty vs doe pretty vs bunny pretty/#even if you wanted to make the case that her beauty is idealized in her death we get Arya described a pretty multiple times?#idk it's just so wild to me to use personality as an indication of looks it just sounds so stupid#Arya/Lyanna can still have /delicate/ features (which is extremely subjective) and still have a wild personality#how about we acknowledge that the perception of both of them is warped by strict patriarchal gender norms instead?#some real analysis just to shake things up idk
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