#dumb when it comes to each other

[duchess-of-lythikos]

"I used to think your eyes were beautiful. But they were sad, too. Like a song I heard when I was a kid and forgot about until I heard it again.”

Guess who's obsessed with @childrenofcain-if ? (Axel's writing is brilliant, his characters are incredibly compelling and the soundtrack is flawless) Made following this compact ship template, with some additions from this disaster ship template.

[ratsoupee]

A single stick was drawn a little to the left and changes the timeline

Obligatory Mango-adopts-Purple-earlier-and-now-Gold-and-Purple-are-siblings AU

Bonus:

Single mum who works two jobs

[arte072]

Op was talking about the Stark girls but the problem with this take is that Sansa calls Arya ugly AND would also never die for her lol. In fact, she actively risked Arya’s life/safety multiple times be it the Trident incident, telling the entire court that Arya has traitor’s blood while she herself was a “good girl”, telling Cersei about Ned’s plan, etc etc. and never reflects upon it. She still blames Arya for Lady’s death in A Clash of Kings 😭

I’m sorry but Sansa’s dislike of Arya runs deep. Far deeper than any negativity that might be felt in reverse lbr. And it may not be as bad as say, Cersei and Tyrion, but it also doesn’t have to be for it to still be considered negative.

I’m just so baffled by the insistence that this fundamental aspect of their relationship be denied.

Name one moment of Sansa being selfless for Arya or standing up for her in any way. Name top three moments of Sansa saying or thinking anything positive specifically about Arya! (Vaguely remembering her existence in her idealized memories of Winterfell doesn’t count btw) They both care about each other as family, sure. But where’s the actual love y’all keep talking about?

I think the biggest evidence of the sheer dearth of positivity between these girls is the fact that Arya and Sansa are both POV characters with some of the highest chapter counts in the series, they’ve interacted with each other both in their own chapters and in other’s, and have thought about each other multiple times even after they’ve gone their separate ways. Yet the most ““positive”” quote this fandom has of them is Ned’s “sun and moon” comment. (And for context, this quote was said by Ned after Arya was angry at Sansa for victim-blaming Mycah for his own murder so…..lol)

In the combined 50 something chapters these girls have, the fact that the “Stark sisters LOVE each other!!!! 🤬” crowd has just that one quote spoken by their dad who was basically giving his daughter a lecture and nothing from the girls themselves is just…. sad tbh. Imagine if we were constantly told of the strength and love between Jon Snow and Arya’s relationship and the only evidence was Theon’s “Lord Stark’s sullen bastard has always been fond of his half-sister Arya”.

Sad.

There used to be this trite, overused comeback made by Sansa/Stark Sisters fans that went:

“Umm if Arya knew you were saying anything bad about Sansa she would fucking HATE you!!!!!”

and maybe so! Arya’s very empathetic and has been shown to defend Sansa and get upset on her sister’s behalf multiple times! But would the reverse be true?

Would Sansa hate me if I said negative things about Arya? And if so, where are the textual evidence for this? Because Ned’s “sun and moon; you share dna” is not cutting it I’m afraid 😔

[factsilike]

One of the things I very much hate about modern AUs in MDZS is how the fic writers Americanise everything about the characters until the only thing Asian about them is their name.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

My hot take is that marcanne has as much potential for toxic yuri as any other calamity trio ship and it's not nearly as soft and fluffy as one may think

[cherriesforheaven]

idgaf what anyone says season 3 white lotus was definitely my fav so far

[gu6chan]

work related question does anyone have any fun anime for likely 12-14 year olds that to their ulta-conservative conspiracy theory parents would have no objectionable content whatsoever that's not like . pokemon. i live in the most conservative area in michigan btw /hj

[winepresswrath]

hi! i always love your MDZS/CQL takes; can i ask what are the questions you think CQL is asking, as compared to MDZS?

I haven't actually revisited either canon in ages, which is making me nervous. what questions the novel is interested in can be pretty contentious all on its own! @mikkeneko has an excellent answer in the notes here which I reccomend to everyone. My own thoughts are honestly pretty scattered- I keep on deleting things and going hm, that's not quite right.

So, for the obvious-to-me example, people reasonably zero in on the creation of innocent doctors/radish farmers who Wen Ruohan is holding hostage. In CQL it's easy to infer that Wen Qing and Wen Ning are maybe the only cultivators and almost certainly the only combatants among the Wen remnants, and their status is much more ambiguous in the novel, which I personally think is asking, essentially, "and so what? were they wrong to run, when they had a chance? Do they deserve what Jin Guangshan will do to them if they go back? Aren't they just people, actually?" Whereas the question that CQL is asking is more to the effect of "What does Wen Qing owe these people, when she is their only defence? What is she entitled to do to save them, at other people's expense? If she fucks up that moral calculus, what then? Does it matter if she's personally fond of some of the outsiders who are going to get hurt? If one of them saved her brother? Later, this question will flip to what Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, and the parallel to Jiang Cheng's situation in particular is, I think, genuinely pretty fun. You're giving up the Wen as soldiers who've laid down their arms in exchange for Wen Qing also grappling with leadership and the question of how many horrors she can stand to look the other way on to protect her own people. one reason I keep deleting so much is that a lot cql's changes were motivated at least in part by censorship, which I think we mostly share a general and justified distaste for! but I also think that within the bounds of that censorship the creative team put a lot of work into actually doing something interesting with those changes. Or, for another example- nieyao! There's a much greater emphasis on the nmj-jgy relationship, it's unambiguously very close and they are clearly extremely important to one another, and I think that's because the cql team has a lot to say about love, trust, power, and the ways those things interact, and that reflects back on all of the other relationships in play, including Wangxian. Almost every time, when CQL chooses change a relationship they make the characters in question closer- that's true for Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, for Wen Qing and the Yunmeng contingent, for Zixuan and Mianmian, and Huaisang and Meng Yao. It's even true for Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, who have a close and trusting relationship in first life! CQL puts a much greater emphasis on "all right, so you care, what next?" How do you choose someone and then choose to be good to them? What if there's a massive power disparity between you? What if you seriously disagree about your priorities and morals? How do you trust someone who's betrayed you? When is it a stupid choice to trust at all? How do you have faith that you know someone well enough for that trust to be meaningful?

for legal reasons i would like to specify that it's not that mdzs isn't interested in these problems. i do remember wangxian's literal trust fall. cql is asking these questions all the time about everyone. also for legal purposes i'm not suggesting that cql lwj and jc love each other. but! they establish a three month wartime partnership looking for wwx and then jc immediately drops him on wwx's say-so despite apparently having a positive enough opinion of him to tell wwx he thinks they should make up twice. lan wangji will later tell wwx he thinks he should loop jc in on the second flautist! these are people trying to navigate some kind of relationship/shared interest/community, as opposed to a hateful void. cql wants to say hey, how do you go about this? while I'm here and rambling cql also puts a lot of emphasis on wwx's connection to yunmeng and changes things up so instead of feeling alienated right before he leaves our last glimpse of him there is happily picking lotuses and playing with a kid! in both stories the narrative is asking who do you protect? who do you leave behind? can you ever get it back? but the angles are very different.

[roots-symphony]

seeing a post or fic about Jinx and Isha:

it doesn’t make them mother and daughter:

[wildsaltair]

goodnight everyone I am traveling to the secret gardens in my mind where Maximus is alive and in love with me

[aq2003]

romeo of romeo and juliet fame is hardly my all timer shakespeare blorbo but i feel like in all the productions i've watched/listened to no one has really . Gotten his Vibes. except of course for dt's romeo essay which understands romeo so perfectly it's scary

[hayaku14]

NO FUCKING WAY I DIED AND GOT SICK FOR TWO MONTHS AND I COME BACK TO RUMORS THAT KAISHIN COUSINS IS CANON NAAAH DONT FUCK WITH ME THAT SHIT SAY IT AINT SO GOSHO I SWEAR TO GOD

[spr1ng]

i feel so at peace but at the same time so chaotic and drained

[clockwork-carstairs]

My roman empire is Mark on his knees in front of Kieran saying “I wish that you could see my heart. Then you would understand” while Kieran is staring at him with his eyes wide as saucers and sinks to his own knees and STILL somehow believes Mark doesn’t want him

[eebie]

i cant keep it hidden any longer

[theriu]

It's wooing week in the River household and Puddeglum and Truancy are being SO FREAKIN PICTURESQUE AND CUTE I CAN'T

Turning the shelf over my desk into a dang Hallmark card!!!

AND THEY FOUND THEIR WAY ONTO THE MINI HAMMOCK IN THE BATHROOM HNNNGH