#but it wasn't the worst

[nymphaforesta]

new lil guy 🌀

[shysheeperz]

I got bumped to retail today.

[ladybugkisses]

Happy Halloween!! ! 🎃

Eleanor's fashionably late, and a new clown has arrived (Camille belongs to @allusionaries)

[rocketbirdie]

face value

[minhxiao]

really into the canon fact that hua cheng is like a 1950s housewife who sets an alarm 1 hour before his husband wakes up just so that he can make himself presentable, do his morning skincare routine, take his overnight curls out, slip his eyepatch on, etc. and then he slides back into bed right as xie lian is waking up and does a fake little yawn as if he only just woke up like that and goes "good morning, gege :)"

[astral-aromance]

I feel like 99% of the Silmarillion fans forget that Fëanor was actually a very likeable guy for most of his life.

That is literally a significant part of why people followed him. A lot of people loved and admired him. He wasn't mean to random people, and definitely not "a toxic husband/father." The whole point of his story is that he was universally beloved, which is what made his fall so impactful.

[kevindavidday]

neil, jean and jeremy all have such fanboy descriptions of kevin idek what a pov would sound like from the perspective of someone who isn't in love with him

[revvethasmythh]

so, on a scale of 1-1000, how PISSED do you think Veth is that Fjord and Jester got engaged when she wasn't even there

[confuzing]

Shang Qinghua, crying: These are the worst noodles I've ever had... ....I love them.

Mobei Jun: (⁄ ⁄•⁄_⁄•⁄ ⁄)

[mzminola]

Ned was doomed before the beginning of the story; the direwolf has already choked on the stag antler in time to be found as an omen, Robert & Ned's fates are intertwined, Jon Arryn died from what he swallowed and Robert chose Ned to be Hand of the King, there is no way turning down a royal offer like that works out safely, and no way accepting it works out safely either. Ned was doomed, the gods just gave him a heads up.

But he became doomed in a particular way the moment he swung the sword down on Lady's neck.

The gods said hey, you're doomed, but here's the symbol of your house given mortal form to aid your children, and Ned killed one. His king gave a cruel, unfair order Ned disagreed with, that would hurt a child under his protection, his own daughter, to end the life of a creature that had done no harm, not for meat or furs to survive the winter but merely to satisfy the royal family's sense of offended dignity, and Ned carried that order out personally.

Ned killed Sansa's protector. He killed a gift from the gods.

Of course his own life ends on the royal executioner's block, a sword swinging down.

[feligayzed]

menial things such as bathing was another unforeseen struggle Sebastian had to face, but thankfully Painter didn't mind assisting

[katabay]

PERCEVAL THE UNHAPPY, THE MISERABLE, THE UNFORTUNATE, THE FISHER KING!

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

ALRIGHT alright. so previously I did an illustration that explained the premise of all this, that it's inspired by the narrative choices that Bresson made in his film Lancelot du Lac etc

to dive in more into it (because this is something like derivative fiction. I'm putting concepts into a blender and seeing what comes out of it): the setting is haunted by the previously existing narratives that started cannibalizing each other until it regurgitates itself into the more well known narrative beats, and something else about the invasive rot of christianity and empire mythmaking into settings. it's an intertextual haunting, if you will! and this scene takes place during the grail quest narrative, but the temptation of Perceval plays out differently.

in both Chretien (and Wolfram's) Perceval narratives, what 'wakes' Perceval up (in more ways than one. desire and self actualization in one go!) is seeing knights, something his mother tried hard to keep him from. so instead of the temptation of lust & etc in the Morte narrative taking the form of a lady, it takes the form of a knight. the temptation to renounce one's faith to serve something else remains.

so Perceval still stabs himself, but instead of continuing on the grail quest in the shadow of Galahad, he becomes the narrative's Fisher King because his earlier state of being as a the grail quest hero is creeping back into his marrow. it was waiting for an opening, and stabbing yourself in the thigh is one hell of a parallel!!!

that wound isn't going to heal buddy, and the state of the setting will now be reflected on your body. sure hope that Arthur hasn't like. corrupted the justice of the land or anything. that sure would suck for your overall health.

all the red in this sequence is because in de Troyes' Perceval, Perceval takes the armor of the Red Knight and becomes known as the Knight in Red.

and now for the citations, which I will try to order in a way that makes sense!

Seeing Knights For The First Time

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

The Temptation of Perceval

Le Morte Darthur, Mallory (modernized by Baines)

The Fisher King, and Perceval The Unfortunate

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

On Perceval and Gender, etc.

Clothes Make The Man: Parzival Dressed and Undressed, Michael D. Amey

On Wounds

Wounded Masculinity: Injury and Gender in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, Kenneth Hodges

The Red Knight

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

On Arthur and the Corruption of Justice

The Failure of Justice, the Failure of Arthur, L.K. Bedwell

[collophora]

More minibatch adventure I need a full show maybe too XD

[ohkate]

Managing expectations.

[mayasaura]

Ortus' murder from the point of view of Harrow the Ninth is like. So turns out Crux isn't just Harrow's seneschal, he's her nurse. He was her touchstone for reality for years, the person she turned to to ask "did that really happen?" or "is that real?". And he lied to her.

She didn't believe him, about Ortus. He didn't succeed at pulling that one over on her, but he tried. Which kind of makes you question how many times he might have tried it before, and how many times he wasn't caught.

[sukibenders]

Hear me out: you can ship JayVik without falling into or using rhetoric that fits the disposable black girlfriend trope. You can ship JayVik without using Mel as some conceived ploy or antagonistic plot device that makes her out of character. You can ship JayVik without falling into misogynistic rhetoric (eg. viewing female characters as disposable or stepping tools, amongst other things). You can ship JayVik without erasing the impact Mel has had on Jayce and their relationship because, whether you shipped it or not or even gave it the time of day, Mel and Jayce did care for each other, and to deny that or say Viktor held more importance/impact than her in Jayce's life to where she's viewed as "unnecessary" just to further your ship is so wrong and, whether you intended for it or not, does carry undertones where black characters, especially black female characters, emotional impact on others is ignored or downplayed even though there's context to support just how important it is/they are. Lastly, you can ship JayVik without using anti-black and misogynoir type rhetoric because the amount that has flooded this fandom, but especially from some fans of this ship, is atrocious. Ship what you like, but be respectful and careful with certain things you say, is all I'm saying.