the reaction Alicent’s ‘queer customs’ comment garnered is so fascinating because like... people were so cruel about her over it, but like... was she that wrong? was she?? was it that crazy for her to be disgusted with Rhaenyra - for her to basically go ‘you’re kinda fucked up for getting it on with your uncle in a brothel’. lmao. Alicent’s self-rightousness is a bit justified honestly, even if she goes a bit over the top with it. the Targs are fucked up its like their whole thing - they’re obsessed with their ‘dragons blood’ and maintaining their incestuous bloodline to keep their pet war machines sufficiently bound to them and like. that is WEIRD. that is fucked up. we’re supposed to think so. asoiaf has literally never presented the Targaryen dynasty and their incestuous tendencies as aspirational. and idk maybe its just me, but it actually doesnt seem like much of a character flaw to be disgusted when someone does something disgusting.
and then there’s the fact people will call Alicent a hypocrite for marrying Helaena to Aegon later... as if that choice wasn’t purely political. as if her hand weren’t clearly forced. it was what Targaryen tradition demanded of her. it would have been incredibly stupid to marry Helaena to Jace and with that off the table Aegon really was the only option - Targaryen girls are expected to marry their brothers if possible, especially when they’re the eldest siblings. if she hadn’t married them to each other a lot of people would have been confused tbh. (and i just know the same fans that call her a hypocrite would be commenting on how untargaryen and haughtily pious she and her children are for the lack of incest.) Alicent’s children had already been denied multiple symbols of legitimacy, from Aegon not being named heir to a desperate lack of cradle dragons. she had to give Aegon every symbol of legitimate kingship she could and the last two kings before Viserys married their sisters, as did the conquerer. it just wasn’t an option to have her children marry other people, even if she would have preferred it.
also, is it any wonder she wanted to keep Helaena close? of course she wanted her daughter where she could see her and know she was safe. Alicent was convinced there was going to be a war and marrying Aegon and Helaena was the best choice in light of that. for multiple reasons. she’s not a hypocrite, i will bet you literally any money she still thinks its weird and wrong, but she’s a woman who’s been backed into a fucking corner.
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I've talked before about what language(s) Tintin speaks in the comics, and I think I've found further proof that he's not speaking French the whole time.
It's not visible directly through Tintin's speech in the albums since he's always shown speaking French (or whatever language the album is in), but when you look at Alcázar's speech in the original French version, it's clear something is up.
When we first meet him in The Broken Ear, he's speaking standard French, just like Tintin and the other characters:
However, their next meeting, in Belgium, Alcázar suddenly has a strong Spanish accent:
Accent that we also see in Red Sea Sharks when Tintin and Haddock run into him in Belgium once again:
(For anyone curious, the accent is mostly visible through the the replacement of j's with y's (yé instead of je, déyà instead of déjà), spelling words with ou instead of u (souis instead of suis) and accents of e's that shouldn't take accents (qué instead of que, ouné instead of une), which is a fairly accurate representation of a Spanish accent.)
But when they return to San Theodoros in the last album, Alcázar no longer has an accent and speaks like he did in The Broken Ear:
It suggests that somehow Alcázar only has an accent when he's in a foreign country, which seems to me like proof that he's speaking his native language—that is, Spanish—in San Theodoros, and French in when he's abroad.
And if he's speaking Spanish in San Theodoros and Tintin's replying just as naturally to him, then logically Tintin must also be speaking Spanish!
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hm okay something thats been on my mind for like over a year now. sometime last year? or maybe closer to almost 2 years(!?) i started taking antipsychotics cause i just couldnt stand the paranoia anymore it had been ruining my life and i just could not function as a person and i was sick of the daily panic attacks. but like i thought "if i dont like how this makes me feel, i can stop and just go back to being crazy" and obviously i wasnt enjoying it- mostly it made me feel really numb to enjoyment and i found that my special interests were just becoming background noise for me at most and it was really hard like i didnt wanna draw or even play games it was like "wake up go to work come home smoke weed go to bed repeat"
and it was like my stuffed animals quit feeling like sentient and started to feel like just objects and it made me feel sick. like my toys had always been alive in a way and then suddenly they werent, but thats definitly not the reason i was so distressed being sane, since i know that special objects are bound to over the years not feel like friends etc etc <- mentally ill whatever. it was like there was a sudden wash of clarity over me and i hated it.
like it was like i was split in two in a way, and this is the part thats hard to explain unless you personally know the feeling. a lot of schizophrenic people have this feeling of like another person/ self residing in the back of the head or spine. and it gives this sense of paranoia, of being over your shoulders or under your skin just beneath you. and until a few years ago i didnt know this was something other people felt sometimes, and it was terrifying just feeling this entity of sorts possessing me in a way. i had felt it ever since i was a kid (maybe 9? for sure became a hard issue by the time i was 12 though so you know. early schizophrenia if not life long) but i never mentioned it to anyone for a variety of reasons, primarily because there was this feeling that if i outwardly acknowledged it, then it would know that i knew about it, and it would get me. whether that was killing me, torturing me, pulling me into another dimension, or taking over my body. and after 2 decades it just became part of my every day life, this thing within me that would always look for an opportunity to torment me in some unknown but inhumane way. and it was just this all consuming feeling, even feeling its thoughts inside my head, and not being sure where i ended and it began, and i accepted it as just a part of me for better or for worse.
and so starting antipychotics, they did their job and i felt "normal" and i was sleeping regularily for the first time in my life (would lay awake for hours and hours ever sinde like idk 3rd grade. 5 hours a night max usually and then that was plagued by nightmares. and of course the constant hallucinations and delusions in the meantime made sleep even harder) and i even felt less of that endless anger inside of me. and i hated it. it was like after being on it for idk maybe 2 weeks or a month or something i just suddenly in the day felt this clarity wash over me and just like that, the spine creature was gone. it was quiet upstairs. and ive felt hollow ever since. i quit the medication not long after but ive felt the same. its like it got mad at me and left to teach me a lesson for trying to toy with it. and ive been a half human ever since. its spacious in my body and in my mind, used to holding two people and now its just one. and ive spent so much time trying to induce epiosdes and just hoping(?) it comes back, but it hasnt.
its like im being forced to live as a human when im not. "being human" is this like aspect ive always struggled with, like im not gonna go into it but ive been forced to live as a non human my whole life, and every time i start to feel that feeling of "maybe i could be a person" something fucking outlandish happens and kicks me back down. i feel like a cartoon character the way everything is such a "yeah this sort of shit would happen to me" moments all the time. and like in a weird way, i always had this "evidence" i was a non human, with this otherworldly thing living inside of me and it was me.
for a long time i thought of it as the "original" me before all the events in my life forced me to create a new version of myself, and that it hated me. like i was one person ripped in two, and the part you have now (carmen) is the "active" "half" but its only half of a full person. but the other half certainly wasnt a person either. ive had many theories of what it is/ was, but knew i would never know, all i knew was that i could never acknowledge it. and its funny cause knowing that "its just schizophrenia" doesnt ease that feeling. its hard to explain. but what im getting at is that ive spent the last two years learning to navigate myself as only a fraction of what i was before.
its interesting cause i wouldnt say the insanity is gone, every now and then paranoia rears its head and certain topics that would make me have an episode will still freak me out. but i can walk past mirrors now (mirrors were always a 100% episode inducing thing) and i still sleep regularily and ive been eating stable too. but its still with this feeling of hollowness. im used to there being two people inside my body and now its just one, and its too spacious and its almost like i get lost in there. only one set of thoughts in my head, only one person looking through my eyes, only one person controlling my arms. i always felt like an alien and thought i always would. and i found great joy in embracing my schizophrenia rather than hiding it as some terrible secret. and it was the best thing i ever did for myself, was finally being open about my psychosis. ive made so many meaningful connections to other psychotic people, and im so happy ive met ppl that helped me understand myself and that im not the only one that feels this, and also that ive helped other people realize their own psychosis too.
i thought i could play pretend at being a normal person and go back to myself if i didnt like it, but i ended up staying this way. i know its not impossible for that feeling to come back maybe, but my god its horrifying to lose it the way i did. it feels only the more recent months ive started to adapt to being the only me in my body, and to feel like i could maybe be human too. yeah it was scary, but on the other hand now its kind of lonely in a really weird way, and not something i thought was possible either, i can still feel the impression where it was even as it fills in with my own shape now.
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Room 115
Missing scene between Doggett and Scully in Deadalive.
637 words, read here on AO3
She was dozing in that same vinyl chair, hands curled protectively over her distended abdomen. It had been a long few days, he could feel the weight of them hanging off his bones, and he couldn’t imagine just how exhausted she must be to have crashed out in such an uncomfortable position. But he also knew there was no chance of getting her to leave Mulder’s side – he wondered how long the hospital staff had tried before giving up. With a glance back at the darkened room, he headed towards the nurse’s desk just down the hall.
‘Sir, visiting hours are over – have been for a couple of hours now. How’d you even get up here.’
‘With this,’ he flashed his badge. ‘Is there any chance we can get a cot or something for room 115? It’s just...she’s sleepin’ in that chair and in her condition-‘
‘This is the ICU, sir. Allowing her to stay is already highly unusual.’
‘Highly- the man’s been dead three months; it’s all highly unusual,’ he hissed, shaking his head. ‘Look, she just saved his life: can you at least spare her a pillow or some blankets or something?’
The nurse dropped her head and sighed, ‘I’ll see what I can do. I can’t guarantee anything, though.’
‘Thank you,’ he nodded, heading back towards room 115 and slipping quietly into the room. There was little visible change in Mulder, the monitors beeping away, his face the same scarred visage it had been when they’d dug him up, if slightly less peaky in colour, sans the tubes and wires that had been pumping life into him.
He crouched by the chair and rested a hand on Scully’s shoulder, shook her gently, ‘Agent Scully?’ She groaned, turning away from him, and he resisted a smile as he tried again to rouse her, ‘Dana, wake up.’
‘Mm. Doggett? ‘t’s’wrong? Mulder? Is- is he-?’ she wrenched herself upright, her neck cracking audibly and a muffled grunt leaving her lips as pain flashed across her face, gone in an instant and replaced with her fear.
‘Nothing. Nothing, calm down. No change.’
She slumped back down, letting her eyes slid shut again as she moaned, ‘why’d you wake me then?’
‘It’s been three days. Maybe you should go home, take a shower, get some rest – some proper rest.’
‘No. No, I’m not leaving him. I’m going to be right here when he wakes.’
‘Scully-‘
‘He’s been alone for months, Agent Doggett. I’m not leaving him alone again.’
‘Okay, okay,’ he rocked back onto his heels. ‘Can I at least get you something to eat?’
She smiled, nodded gently, ‘if you wouldn’t mind.’ She let out a sharp hiss and dropped her hand to the side of her stomach, her smile broadening. She looked up at him, took in his concerned expression, ‘kid’s got one hell of a right hook. They’ve, uh, they’ve been more active the last couple of days – like they know he’s here,’ she scoffed and shook her head. ‘Which is stupid. I imagine it’s got more to do with my emotions and hormones being all...out of wack, and that’s affecting the baby.’
‘You don’t have to explain it, Agent Scully. Maybe the kid does know he’s here: stranger things have happened.’
‘You can say that again,’ she sighed, rubbing circles wearily on the side of her stomach. ‘I’ve prayed for him to be returned so many times, and now he’s back I- I’ve got no idea what I’m going to say to him.’
He gave her a soft smile and patted her shoulder, ‘I’m sure you’ll know what to say when the time comes. Now, what can I get you to eat?’
‘Something spicy? Ooh, and something salty. I don’t mind what.’
‘Spicy and salty,’ he nodded, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Tagging @today-in-fic
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