#i saw someone justifying this with how he acted in the book

[skippyhawk]

okay i’ve been here for only a few days now yet it’s already driving me absolutely crazy how people keep implying that hawk is somehow the villain in this story. absolutely not.

bigotry is the evil in this story, just as it was and is in real life. they are all victims of their circumstances. this show exhibits a heartbreakingly poignant example of how different kinds of people deal with the societal obligation to suppress a huge, intrinsic part of themselves. sorry, but if you think hawk’s the villain here, you shouldn’t be watching this show at all.

media literacy TRULY is at an all time low

[bohoteacher]

Navigating Betrayal: Reconciling Admiration with Disillusionment

Like many Neil Gaiman fans this month, I've been shocked and distressed by the news regarding the SA allegations. I won't go over the details, as they're readily available online. I'll start by saying that I believe the accusers, and even the most lenient interpretation of events is still troubling enough to discredit Gaiman. For a long time, I didn't know what to say. I was just shocked and, somewhat naively, felt betrayed. I don't typically idolize actors, authors, or other public figures—I'm here for the characters, they're who I love and believe in. So, how did I end up believing in this man and his rhetoric?

I only had a parasocial relationship with him, which is to say no real relationship at all. But I took his Masterclass on writing, spent hours taking notes, and learned from him. I feel betrayed by someone I saw as a beloved teacher. I know this is insignificant compared to what the women who came forward experienced, but it's a valid feeling, and I needed time to process it. My initial reaction was to throw out and discount everything he’s ever written or done—of course it was.

This isn't just about my love for Good Omens, although how can it not be? I learned so much from this man—about writing, about not being too hard on myself, about the creative process. I read his books to my middle school classes, and we all learned how to be better people from them. Today, I saw and bought Instructions, a children’s book by Neil Gaiman illustrated by Charles Vess, from the used bookstore where I volunteer. It was a used copy, so no royalties will go to him. It’s a beautifully illustrated book where the main character walks through a land that clearly symbolizes life, learning lessons like saying please and "if any creature cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain." How could someone write this and then do what he did? I asked myself. "What an evil hypocrite," was my first thought. But then I recalled a line from another author, Stephen King. In The Stand, a character is described as "awake at the lectern, but asleep at the switch," meaning they know the right thing to do and can talk about it, but in the moment of choice, they act without integrity.

I don’t know if I’m making sense, but I think it’s too easy to label Gaiman as simply evil, as if he intentionally manipulated us by saying the right things just to make us read or watch his creations. The reality is likely far more complicated. Within this man is the amazing, thought-provoking, life-affirming wisdom that many of us have tried to live by, but also the hard, thoughtless, selfish cruelty that led him to abuse young, vulnerable women. The wisdom does not justify the abuse, and the abuse does not nullify the wisdom.

I think it's too simplistic to say Gaiman is despicable and always has been, hiding it from us all along. This doesn't acknowledge the complexity of human nature—that there is potential for both good and bad within us all. As it’s said, possibly by Terry Pratchett or possibly by Neil Gaiman, “It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

Gaiman is a man who has done some fundamentally good things and some fundamentally bad things. I can’t forget either one.

This is just my opinion. I know some people want to cancel him, while others want to exonerate him. You do you. As for me, I will continue to love Aziraphale and Crowley. I will continue to read and create fan-fiction. I will continue to find comfort and wisdom in books that have meant so much to me over the years. But I will also remember that they were created by a very flawed man whom I can no longer trust.

I understand that opinions on this matter vary widely. I know some people might feel that not discarding everything associated with him is wrong, but this is where I stand. I’m not looking to debate this or be told how I should react. I just needed to process my thoughts in writing and move forward in the way that feels right for me.

[outlanderskin]

Tobias Menzies

I was reading on a card how much would fit in ten years and I saw that in 10 Years

fit 120 Months

521,714 Weeks

3652 Days

87648 Hours

5258880 Minutes

315532800 Seconds.

And even in all this, it doesn't fit what it meant for me to wait for him.

Within these 10 years, there are memories of being persecuted since the beginning when I said that he was my favorite.

All the times, I had to explain the difference between actors and characters for people who hated him because of Frank and BJR.

All the times I've had to say that I really like Sam, but that at the top of my list will always be Tobias, and this isn't a sin.

All the times I said there was no dispute between them.

All the times I was hurt when I saw people from my side of the fandom excluding him from photos or wishing he wouldn't go to some events because it would "take the focus" away from the main actors couple (yes, this stupid thing happened).

I've been in this fandom since the beginning, and anyone who knows me knows that for me, it's always been about him. I'm not someone who started using Tobias to justify hatred or to disguise an unhealthy love for Sam. It was natural from the first day I looked at him. And a thousand times, I've expressed my pride about how private, talented, different, down-to-earth he is.

I've been going to Cons of Outlander since 2015, but he rarely does Cons, I had already met the loves of my fandom friends' lives, but never mine. Until Saturday, April 13, 2024.

When I took the first photo (with him and Sam) and saw him for the first time, everything around me disappeared completely. There he was, finally. I was practically led by my friend, I gathered all the courage to say where I came from, then he blinked, and all my senses and rationality, and 🎶🎶🎶 all that was me, was gone🎶. I don't remember how I left the room, but my friends remember... I needed to be strong, I thought. There would still be three photos with him alone (one of them a gift from much-loved friends), a photo with him and Sophie, and an autograph. I would have to maintain my sanity until then.

For the first time, I understood the fact that Sam Heughan's fans left photo shoots shaking.

During the photo shoot, I spoke quietly, and so did he, and for me, it was like a dance because I said he decided the poses and I followed. I left the session and I want to thank from the bottom of my heart the girl on the team who asked me how I was and I could only say "he's my favorite" and she hugged me.

There was a rush at the autograph, but I gave him a book about theatre from my country, and I believe it was a gift he didn't expect. He thanked me with his hand on his chest, like the gentleman he is and at that moment I wanted to be royalty because I was going to give him all the honors of a noble English knight that I could find in the Buckingham Palace . Do I like British Monarchy? I like Tobias Menzies.

Ah....how I wish I could sit down with him and say he has a fan page that I manage, say that I admire him for being truly discreet in every way. Ask about his process of acting , speak about Stanislavski, Brecht, Ibsen, talk about my experiences in the classroom with The Theater of the Oppressed and say how good is for me to see someone like him acting. But conventions are collective experiences, and there would be no time.

In ten years, a lot can happen... all this time waiting for him. And I would do it all again. Someone like him was worth waiting for.

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

"Izzy Canyon dwellers just want to turn him into an innocent victim who did nothing wrong!"

Actually my problem is that, in hindsight, Izzy didn't do enough wrong to justify the common interpretation of his relationship with Ed. In my book, the first time in the series he legitimately crossed over to villainous antagonist territory - someone you actually loved to hate for it even if you understood his reasons - was when he set the British Navy on the Revenge. That way he not only betrayed his integrity as a pirate by consorting with the common enemy of all pirates, but risked Ed's life too - cause, like, come on, that "plan" to send CJ to convince Ed to leave Stede was so far-fetched it barely counts as a plan. I don't buy Izzy ever looking at CJ and going "yep that seems like a smart, responsible, trustworthy man I could rely on for a delicate mind games operation like this". It was an act of sheer desperation on Izzy's part, but he still chose to do it. IMO this was actually worse than what he said to Ed in S1 finale. Although of course that was very nasty, too.

But the thing is, we don't actually have any info on what their relationship used to be like before S1. We were only ever shown, not told - and both times from Izzy's perspective: the first time in S01E04 during his resignation rant, which was very heartfelt and I'm sure a lot of it was true, but it's still one-sided, and the second time during his deathbed speech, which was, again, one-sided and this time biased in another direction - instead of airing his pent-up grievanced Izzy was putting most of the blame on himself.

Other than this, the entirety of Ed and Izzy's pre-S1 relationship gets extrapolated from one single episode, S01E04. The narrative itself seems to want us to see it as a microcosm of their usual long-standing dynamic, at least on the surface. We see Ed being depressed and suicidal, trying to open up to Izzy about it, and Izzy shutting him down and making him act like Blackbeard again. Since it's already clear that Ed and Stede are the main characters, we're primed to see Ed as the victim here and Izzy being an annoying, insensitive nag.

Except the context of those interactions changes everything. The context being that they are literally about to be attacked by the Spanish - something Ed knowingly brought on them with his decisive power as captain - and Ed is deliberately withholding crucial information from his own first mate and the rest of the crew, making them all think they're going to die and he isn't doing anything about it. Izzy wasn't just being a boring buzzkill not being excited for Ed when he showed him that ship model. He was actively panicking and trying to do his job asking Ed for orders so they don't all get slaughtered.

So, yeah, those are some very exceptional circumstances that don't say anything about their typical day to day interactions go when they're not in immediate mortal peril due to lack of communication. Was this the first time Ed ever told him about not wanting to be Blackbeard anymore? Izzy didn't seem very surprised, so probably not, but we don't know, and if Ed had confided in him before, we don't know how Izzy reacted - but I'd like to point out that this time he didn't ridicule Ed in any way, he simply pointed out that they were about to die if Ed didn't do anything. Does Izzy usually indulge Ed in the stuff he finds fun when they're not about to be killed? Again, we don't know, but Izzy's playfulness during that first confrontation with Stede in S01E02, and his whittling and jokes in S2 showed that he wasn't always as grouchy and joyless as he's made out to be. We actually saw him smile when Ed got excited about Buttons, too. Pretty sure if Izzy always shut him down about things like that, Ed would have stopped trying to share it with him long ago.

And, finally, there's one piece of this puzzle that doesn't seem to fit in with the rest at all. The show both told us and implied that Izzy couldn't let Blackbeard go because his own identity was too tied up in it, and because he idolised the glory of violent pirate lifestyle. But if that's the case, then why did he have no problem with Ed wanting to retire? Izzy literally gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up on the whole "kill Stede and steal his identity so he could live the rest of his life as a rich aristocrat" plan. If Izzy only admired Ed as a pirate, and was so hell-bent on keeping the Blackbeard persona alive, why was he ok with Ed retiring? How does this square up with the idea that Izzy had been keeping Ed chained to piracy?

I'd honestly hoped we would get some flashbacks of the two of them in S2, and then S3 before that hope died too, because there's still so much we're missing.

[spacerockfloater]

I am so displeased with Alicent’s character development, if you can even call it that.

Her taking her frustration out on Criston and slapping him because her grandchild died? Disturbing as hell, but I was willing to led it slide because she was grieving and it seemed like Cole understood that, too.

Her letting Gwayne insult the fuck out of Criston and be racist/ classist towards him without defending her lover in the slightest? The man who has no personal gain from all this shit-show and does it all for her sake? I was fucking livid. Tell me, whose loyalty is as fleeting as a moth’s again?

And then having the audacity to be angry with him for not standing up for her when she herself didn’t do the same for him? What is wrong with her!? Especially when Criston made a perfectly valid point: she doesn’t have the heart to do what must be done to win this war, which is crazy considering that she was fully ready to fight Rhaenyra to protect her children. The children she borderline hates now apparently (I can’t get over how much she suddenly disapproves of Aegon and Aemond this season), which would have been fine since they are her rapist’s children and all, but then why would you go to war and not be ready to do whatever it takes to win it? What do her and Rhaenyra think that they’re doing here? Did they plan on being the first pacifist war leaders in the history of the universe or what? Neither of the two act like women with motherly instincts or humans with personal agendas to pursue. It’s as if all of the women in this show are competing for the fucking Nobel Peace Prize.

By the way, speaking of her and Rhaenyra, the parallel of them being women who are ignored by their council is so forced. Alicent never wanted to rule neither in the show or the book. In HOTD she supports her son’s claim to save her family from Rhaenyra and her faction and in F&B she does it because she feels that the law is on her son’s side and he deserves the throne. She NEVER does it for herself or because she thinks women shouldn’t rule. Never out of selfishness or misogyny. So where the fuck did this “parallel” come from? It’s so infuriating.

I understand this is not completely her fault. I think her character peaked in S1 E9 and the producers saw how justified her actions were and how sympathetic she is (even Emma D’Arcy said they are on her side) that they decided to knock her down a peg, because God forbid the Greens have anything good going on for them! Let’s make them all hate one another! She’s slowly regressing back to herself from the first half of S1, because the determined mother and queen that was ready to win at all costs is no longer there.

As someone who has spent countless hours of my life defending and praising her, I am so saddened by her behaviour this season. I know this is Ryan’s tactic to make us hate the Targtowers, but nonetheless it is show canon and I feel the need to be fair and hold her accountable for it.

[randomlifex]

Sunshine and storm

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ‘♡’- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Go Kyungjun x fem!reader

Plot:the sun shines and the storm doesn’t understand why he likes it, but when his clouds will cover her rays, he’ll do anything to make the sun shine again

Warnings:bad language

Please notice:in this timeline Seun hasn’t died yet so there’s no game going on

This story is a request

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ‘♡’- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The spring weather was approaching, the temperature rose and birds had finally begun to sing all day long.

“What a great day! -you exclaimed, hugging Seun, your friend- and in a few weeks cherry flowers will blossom! Finally my favourite colour will be everywhere again!” you clapped

Seun smiled, putting her book on the desk, then she watched as you sat next to her:

“How can you be always in such a good mood?” she asked

“How can you not be when it’s spring! It’s the season of blooming. Birds sing all day and animals come out from their hibernation”

“You make me nauseous” Kyungjun popped out from nowhere,sitting with Seungbin right behind you. You rolled your eyes hopelessly:knowing how he was, you didn’t expect him to appreciate the cute little things of life

“Man you gotta smile more, you’re always so angry. The situation is getting serious” you mumbled as the teacher came in

“You don’t wanna see me angry, do you, Snow white?” he hit the back of your head with a pen, making you groan in pain, then he shifted into the “I don’t care about the lesson” mood,texting…or at least that was what you thought.

The truth was that Kyungjun spent the whole class staring at you. He had been doing so a lot in the past weeks, shifting his eyes away only when you noticed it. He didn’t know why, but there was something leading him to you, even if he hated it, and acted like the meanest person on earth (not that he was nice, but he had never put you into troubles).

He wasn’t used to it, nor to your constant happy mood; and since those feelings were unknown to him he would find any reason to come for you, even when you were doing nothing besides being a nice teammate.

That day your team had been pretty unlucky:the teacher had decided the members on her own, meaning that if you had to play with good athletes like Hyunho and Kyungjun himself, who was the captain, you had to put up also with those, like Sungpyo and Yoonseo, who were terrible at PE.

She got called out lots of times by everyone, but to Kyungjun the real problem was Sungpyo; or better, he was the victim whose ass was supposed to be constantly beaten in order to scare everyone and get great results.

Hyunho tried many times to stop the bully, but he eventually got kicked out due to a so called “litigious behaviour” ; so, in order to calm everyone down, you tried to spread positivity, like you always used to do.

“It’s okay, next time we’ll score something”

“It can happen, I made mistakes too”

“Don’t think about it and let’s have fun! It’s about having a good time, not winning”

You were dispensing smiles and comfort as you saw that someone was actually on the edge of tears, but Kyungjun got even more mad:

“Ya! Yn! -he called you in the middle of the first break- what the fuck are you doing?!” he was yelling, his eyes burning like fire

“What…what do you mean?” You asked, a little bit scared

“What do I mean? Do you think that’s how you make a shitty team work?!”

“I’m just trying to be positive…they’re all stressed out…” you justified yourself

“Really? -he laughed- are you fucking kidding me?! “Trying to be positive”…bullshit. Do you know what you can do with your stupid positivity? Go home and stay there. Idiot” he scoffed

“But…”

“No buts. You’re getting on my nerves. What’s so funny to be constantly smiling and laughing? Uh? Come on tell me! Be serious for once, and let the captain be the captain. Go to the back lines, you suck anyway in the front” he shrugged his shoulders, pointing to the back of the field.

You looked around you, realising that everyone was staring, the your eyes rested on Kyungjun:

“You know what? -you were holding your tears back- fuck you and this stupid game! Get a new player to cover your shitty back lines. Asshole!” you yelled, running away to hide in the first empty classroom you had found.

Kyungjung looked at you:something inside him shattered as soon as he realised you were terribly hurt. “Did I…did I cover the sunshine with my clouds?” he asked himself, feeling guilty as hell.

You spent the whole lesson crying in a corner of the room, next to the blackboard, suffocating your sobs in order to not be found by anyone. You didn’t want people to see you in those conditions, you had promised yourself to be always happy to make everyone around you happy as well. Your friends used to call you “sunshine” for a reason, and you loved it, just like you loved keeping up your good mood. Why Kyungjun had to ruin everything? You hated him. He was always so mad, so mumbling, so rude…was it so hard for him to relax at least once? And if it was, who allowed him to ruin everyone’s mood? No one!

The more you thought about it, the more you felt sad. You kept seeing his angry face, and his yells wouldn’t stop resonating in your mind. You brought your knees to your chest, hiding your face in the cloth of your tracksuit…until you heard someone.

A hand rested on your leg, squeezing it. You rose your head, seeing Kyungjun kneeling in front of you.

“Go away” you scoffed

“You need to see something”

“I don’t want to. Leave me alone”

“It’s urgent. Come on” he grabbed your arm, forcing you to follow him to the backyard.

“I swear to God if it’s something stupid…” you weren’t even able to finish the phrase as wonder got your mouth to open wide

“You tell me if that’s something stupid to you” Kyungjun said, carelessly.

You didn’t know what to answer, you were too busy staring at the flowering cherry blossom in front of you…the first of the season.

“When did you find it?” you asked, grabbing the boy’s arm

“Yesterday, during the break”

“Why didn’t you show it to me?!” sadness had already left your body. It took nothing to make you happy, Kyungjun thought, but he was okay with that. He didn’t want to see you crying ever again.

“I wanted to, but I forgot. That’s just a stupid tree after all…” he shrugged his shoulders, hiding a smile

“That’s not! -you started jumping- that’s the first cherry blossom of the season!!” you then exclaimed, taking a bunch of pictures.

“You good now?” he asked, still cold. His facade was hard to fall.

“What do you mean?” you blinked

“Are you okay now? You were crying…”

“Yes, I cried cuz you’re a rude asshole” you crossed your arms, giving him your back.

Kyungjun stepped closer, wrapping an arm around your shoulder:

“I crossed the line…” he talked

For a second you were surprised…was he apologising for the first time in his life?!

“But you got me angry there. Don’t do that again” he scoffed, letting you go with a path on the shoulder.

Of course he wasn’t, not openly, not that time, but you knew his intentions when he showed you that tree:he was aware of the fact that he had fucked up, and was trying to fix things in his own way.

“I did not made you angry…you were born angry” you said, sticking your tongue out.

Kyungjun didn’t reply, he simply put his hands in his pockets and walked away; but, once again, he was smiling behind your back.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

i’m not interacting directly with the post that brought up this topic, but i will say that if laurent saw someone claiming that what he did to damen in book 1 was justified, he would start picking up chairs.

laurent takes his own moral integrity very seriously, so even if we set aside his love for damen he would absolutely say that what he (laurent) did in book 1 was unequivocally unjust. it may have been done out of revenge rather than aimless cruelty, but it would still be a source of shame for laurent to know that he 1) did those things and 2) got any kind of gratification from doing those things, even to his worst enemy. look at how he acts after aimeric’s suicide—he experiences regret and knows that he was wrong to take it as far as he did. he tells damen specifically that he’d been wrong in book 1 to treat him (damen) so cruelly, and given laurent’s high standards of integrity, i believe that he means it. that wasn’t just something he said to be nice to damen, or because they fell in love—it’s because laurent knows he went against his own moral code for it, especially considering that damen is also a morally decent person and not a monster.

when laurent treated damen how he did in book 1, he met damen’s assumed depravity with what laurent understood to be depravity of his own. laurent was being evil, on purpose, because he thought damen deserved it. but part of laurent’s growth in the series is understanding that his assumptions can sometimes be wrong, his actions were unjust regardless of damen’s status, he (laurent) was being a hypocrite, and he (laurent) needs to do better. damen learns the same lesson, just about different topics (slavery, his rose-colored perception of akielos and kastor). these character arcs contribute to damen and laurent’s “coming-of-maturity” so they can rule together as kings.

a character’s actions being unjustifiable, at some point of the story, does not mean that they are ultimately a character who stands for and represents injustice. laurent can be a good person who did bad, unjustified things. in fact the power of his characterization comes from his moral complexity. to rob him of those things is to rob yourself of fully understanding and appreciating this one-of-a-kind character and story.

part of what makes fandom great is that people can have discussions to better understand appreciate a piece of media they all enjoy. these are just my personal thoughts on the matter. some people will share them and some will disagree! i’m down for it all :)

[balladofmyramblings]

I’ve seen my fair share of…interesting BOSAS takes (Tigris and Snow’s relationship doesn’t make sense, Sejanus wasn’t important to Coriolanus/Coriolanus’ character, Dean Highbottom was inconsistent, people just called Lucy Gray Lucy instead of LG or something, etc) but never has one irked me as much as people saying the ending was rushed or out of character or didn’t make sense.

The ending is a representation of their whole relationship. Yeah, it’s rushed, because it lasted 3 months and they were prepared to spend their life together after that. No, it was completely in character. Yes, it made total sense, because what else would have convinced Coriolanus to go back, if not the idea that he was safe?

First off, elaborating on the rushed point, be so fr. 1, the book was getting a bit long anyways, and 2, it couldn’t have been long and drawn out. How quick their relationship crumbled and we were shown Coriolanus’ true loyalties shows so much I can’t even begin to explain it, but I’ll try.

It shows how Lucy Gray valued family and trust. She’d already talked about how much trust mattered to her, and she’d been hurt so badly before she needed it. She needs trust, and she doesn’t just need it for herself. She needs to be able to trust him, and she needs him to be able to trust her. When Coriolanus obviously lied about the third person he killed, Lucy Gray realized that neither of those things were there.

It shows how Coriolanus valued himself and the capitol above all else. He was going to, and tried to, kill Lucy Gray. The person who, just 10 minutes ago he was prepared to spend the rest of his life with. He did that because he couldn’t be guaranteed loyalty, and because he realized she definitely didn’t belong to him. Coriolanus’ view of Lucy Gray- that she’s a pet, or something just for him, is entirely effed up and he can’t see that, so he clings to it. He clings to that idea of her being his and when it’s proven false, he can’t let go of it.

Lucy Gray was there when Coriolanus lied to her about the killing, and there was only one person he could have also killed. She was wary of him then, what he was capable of, but she didn’t know for sure where his loyalty truly laid until she saw the look on his face with the guns. She knew then that the Coriolanus standing before her she couldn’t trust, and she knew what that meant, and Coriolanus knew she knew what that meant and he couldn’t deal with the fact she wasn’t completely infatuated with him.

It’s also worthy to mention how easily Coriolanus started to see Lucy Gray differently. He justified his killing of her to himself, as we see in the whole “she’s a victor, maybe Billy taupe was right, etc” page. He thinks that it may have been an act all along, and can’t deal with the fact he fell in love with someone who could turn on him so easily. So he justifies it and makes stuff up and uses all he can to convince himself of the devilish nature of Lucy Gray.

Coriolanus’ deep, unwavering faith in the capitol is shown here so clearly I feel like it’s bleeding into my eyes. He was so ready to leave her (also how he thought she’d be ok with it also proves how he sees her as completely loyal) when he realized he was basically innocent. He is only ever scared of the capitol when it could harm him.

Their whole relationship was a whirlwind, and could never have had a breakup 3 chapters long. It needed to be quick and easy, all ties cut. The fate of Lucy Gray also needed to be a mystery, because nothing else in his life is. The constant worrying of if she’d ever tell, if she’s alive or not, blah blah blah unsettles him just like he deserves it to. We don’t get an answer to if Lucy Gray came back (probably not though), we don’t even get an answer if she’s alive.

In conclusion, the end of BOSAS was very fitting, and though unpredictable and fast, it was right.

[bonefall]

This is kinda a funny comment but @ Brambleclaw telling Hollypaw how smart she is, i remember reading an article about how corporate spies (YES THIS IS RELATED) got information. The article was mostly one person's retelling about how it was entirely though phone calls where they just ask for information, and whenever the person on the other side started questioning them for why they needed the information, they were told to switch to praising the person on the other side for sticking to the rules and 'authenticating/checking' everything. That they'd 'put in a good word for how dedicated they were', basically buttering them up and making them feel good about catching what they were doing specifically to nudge them away from actually catching on.

I find it WILDLY interesting how the Erins just ACCIDENTALLY put actual manipulation tactics in their books when trying to make a male figure seem like a good person, almost like they're writing from experience in some kind of elaborate essay to themselves about how that behavior is okay and justifiable. They write in another character, Crowfeather, who abuses in a different, more noticable way just to compare and go "At least it's not this bad!" (the scene where Crowfeather chews out Breezepaw and one of them goes 'id rather Brambleclaw any day of the week!'), and then have Ashfur butter up Brambleclaw so that him excusing Ashfur's abuse can be claimed as Ashfur manipulating him.

ANYWAYS a question so you can properly add to the ask: How DOES the Ashfur buttering up Brambleclaw thing go down? Does Ashfur even NEED to butter him up? I think it'd be a little interesting if Hollypaw telling Brambleclaw was the first time he's actually heard of it happening, but he either confronts Ashfur and THEN gets buttered up, or he heards, thinks about it, and goes "nah its good actually I'd do the same".

There's actually a name for the tactic Ashfur uses that you saw in that spy article. It's called Ingratiation.

It's the act of making someone have a higher opinion of you, therefore putting more trust in you, by simply getting them to like you. Flattery, posing yourself as an in-group, and even using humor can all be part of ingratiation.

Now-- Ingratiation isn't ALWAYS nefarious. It's normal to try and make a good impression, or want to be liked by a possible friend or coworker. We try to influence other people all the time, we're social animals. It's just good to know that it CAN be used maliciously.

So I'm not too surprised to see a manipulation tactic in the book. I was using "buttering up" exactly because most people know WHAT it is, and that it IS a way to get people to do stuff, but don't connect that to its academic name. Like you said though what's so BIZARRE about it is how they really DO sometimes seem to be writing this looooong essay to themselves about how that was all Fine, Actually.

ESPECIALLY the way Bramble and Crow were contrasted in the Dog Scolding Scene. I left most of Bramble out because I was trying to focus on proving that Breeze was abused, but Nonny... the way the Three get chewed the fuck out by Bramble, as he insults them, assures Crow he won't be stopping for their exhausted sakes, and doesn't indicate that his anger is coming from concern...

It massively reminded me of when one neglected kid sees another kid get abused too. "Oh, well, what I'm going through isn't so bad, because it's not like THAT."

THEYRE SO CLOSE. ALL THE TIME. Like an INCH away from the point and it's AGONIZING.

Anyway... in BB, Bramble's enabling of Lionpaw's abuse is a WATERSHED moment for a bunch of the character arcs, especially Hollypaw.

I plan to keep it very similar to canon actually, I think it's stainless steel the way it is.

Ashfur KNOWS what he is doing.

He wasn't rolling for a save. It was calculated. Brambleclaw is someone who could have stopped his abuse, so he sought him out.

Can you see how inescapable that makes it, for Holly and Lion?

Holly finally worked up the courage to say something and stand up for her brother, only for her father to coo like she's a kitten who doesn't understand the world.

Even Lionpaw's father believes it's good and right to BLEED for your Clan. That this is normal... that this is even what love can look like.

BB!Lionblaze is the adopted father of his bio-nespring, Ivypool and Dovewing. What he internalizes here as a child is going to hurt BOTH of his daughters down the road, as he shoves them into the Dark Forest and a Prophecy, respectively.

Even after Brambleclaw disowns him and Lionblaze rejects him in response, adamantly saying he has ONLY a mother, he won't reject this lesson until it's TOO LATE.

And Hollypaw is so damaged by this scene that it's going to be the first domino towards her murderous break in Cruel Season.

"I need you to keep your brothers in line, Hollypaw" is soup stock, and then add obsession with the Code, constant betrayal from the relationships she forges in other Clans, her near-murder at the claws of Ashfur when he finds out the Power of Three + Fire and Tiger prophecies, and the murder of her mentor and grandfather.

And then she finds out her HalfClan brother, a Cleric, angel-punching blasphemous wretch he is, has gotten Poppyfrost pregnant. Just like Leafpool before him.

What else IS "keeping them in line" supposed to be, when he's gone this far? He's had enough chances. She will do what she's meant for. Jayfeather must DIE.

Bramblestar himself is notorious in BB for being incredibly controversial as a leader, taking power in Cruel Season just after Firestar is killed by the Dark Forest assassins.

This is part of his personality. He is easily blinded by his own feelings, and it makes him a good target for manipulation.

His first deputy, Thornclaw, exploits many of the same weaknesses Ashfur did. All part of the Dark Forest's plan.

And even Ashfur. Up in StarClan, he continues to plot, eventually leading to the events of TBC and his time as the Impostor.

[bruhduck]

Why are all Slytherins "evil"?

I was re-reading Harry Potter in the last period. Awesome experience, as always. I mean, HP is literally my favourite book series: it helped me to grow up and find my own identity, it made me feel less alone, it taught me how to dream and it introduced me to the world of fandoms in the internet.

Despite many problems of the series (narrative and ideological), I love Harry Potter with all my heart and I will never stop to recommend it to young readers.

But, you know, there's always something that really, really bothers me with Harry Potter. Well, yes, we could discuss about the problematic aparth- uhm, separation between Wizards and Muggles, or about the fact that Elves slavery is pratically... justified (?), and there's no solution for the Elves question in the final book.

But these topics are too much complicated for a random tumblr post, and we are on the internet, I don't want to start a war about politics, etc. :)

No, I want to complain about a certain thing that I really can't understand and it bothers me everytime that I read the books or watch the movies.

WHY ARE ALL SLYTHERINS EVIL? JOANNE, I NEED AN ANSWER, BECAUSE I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Why they have to be so mean everytime? Being ambitious and shrewd doesn't mean "bad person".

Also, why are they all racist? And why it seems that all of them are sons or daughters of Death Eaters, or in any case their parents share Voldemort's ideology?

Are you saying that ALL SLYTHERINS are pureblood and racist? ALL OF THEM came from a family of Death Eaters? So there are not cunning, ambitious and shrewd people between halfbloods, Muggle-Borns and healthy pureblood families. That's weird.

Oh, yes, and in the first book Slytherins are described as all ugly. Literally.

So, yes, Slytherins are evil and ALSO ugly. Again... why?

Yes, there are some exceptions.

The first one is Severus Snape: now, I love Snape, he's such an interesting character and I feel sorry for his past; the scene in which he gets bullied is so hurting to me (I was bullied myself so I can understand the anger and that feeling of weakness), but... he was not a good person. He has been dominated by hate for his entire life and he never overcomed his past. He was a Death Eater for a period. He bullied Harry, Hermione and Neville for no reason. And sometimes he was so cruel that I think his behaviour is a part of the "All Slytherins are evil" mentality.

Like, Snape has deceived the Dark Lord for years, he is a genius in Potions, DADA and Occlumancy, he's supposed to be one of the smartest characters in the series. So... why has he never understand that Harry is not like James?

"Because he was blinded by hate", you can say.

Ok, but when he saw Harry's memories in the fifth book, why didn't he change his mind?

"He had to act cold because he was pretending to be still loyal to Voldemort."

OK, but there's a difference between being cold to someone and being openly cruel. Snape's behaviours are often illogical and contradictory with the idea of his character, and I can only think that the author depicted him in that way not only to write a "grey character", but also to be loyal to the tradition of "Slytherins are evil".

Next? Oh, Regulus Arcturus Black, one of my favourites. Yes, he was a Slytherin, he was a hero who betrayed the Dark Lord for the sake of Wizarding World. However, his character still has many negative traits: he was a Death Eater, and he shared the racist ideology of his family for years. Again, not bad, but not a good example.

Narcissa Black. She saved Harry, but she is still a racist woman who is married to a Death Eater, and she failed complitely to educate her son.

Her sister, Andromeda Black. Yes, she is the only example of "good Slyhterins" who is not racist or who has not connections with Death Eaters. So, yes, she is good, but there's another problem in this case: she appears once in the whole series, she is barely a character!

Horace Slughorn, my love, he is good, yes. BUT the main trait of his character is negative: he loves to collect the best students like they were trophies.

Draco Malfoy. He is a useless bully for five books, then he changes but even when his character became deeper and more interesting he remains a coward.

Sorry Draco's fans: I like Draco too, but it's true.

I often see people talk about "Draco's redemption", but honestly I don't see this redeption. Simply he becomes a decent person, but he don't go through an actual process of change. He is mean, but he has never wanted to kill, he has never wanted war, so he tries to not get in the way of Harry and his allies, that's it. This is not a redeption, this is an awareness.

There are also Albus Severus, Scorpius and Leta, but they are not characters from the original series, and they were created AFTER all the criticism about the fact that all Slytherins are depicted as bad, so I won't consider them.

It's a shame, you know? Because one of the most important themes in HP is supposed to be INCLUSION. So, why, WHY, nobody, even the "good characters", try to understand or socialize with Slytherins?

Why, in the SIXTH BOOK, I have to read about Harry and Neville who don't greet their Slytherin schoolmates because "Gryffindors and Slytherins don't talk, that's it." Yes, Harry says that.

This is the reason why I love those fanfiction in which we can see Harry and other characters interact with Slytherins. Because this is what I want to see at Hogwarts: inclusion, no prejudice, brotherhood between the four Houses.

I don't know why, but nowdays I still see some "fans" of HP criticize or have prejudice about Slytherin house and I'm like: "After all this time?"

Don't answer "Always" this time, Slytherism (?) has to finish, once and for all.

So... Yes, peace and love between the Houses, thay are all great in their own way!

[I also hope that my English was comprehensible, I'm not that good, but I'm trying my best.]

[lakesbian]

so i blinked & accidentally wrote 2.4k words of alec analysis, content warning for extended discussion of child sexual abuse

i am actually like. genuinely surprised by how common of an alec opinion it is that people would probably feel more negatively about him if we had a chapter from the perspective of one of his victims or if we had more details on his life prior to the undersiders, because the idea goes directly counter to one of the core Things you have to get if you want to understand alec: much like taylor, you should take absolutely fucking nothing he says about himself at face value, because--also much like taylor--he is Absolutely Fucking Terrible at understanding himself!

and speaking of taylor, she is also absolutely fucking terrible at understanding alec. nearly all of the commentary we get on alec is from taylor’s point of view, and she’s frankly incredibly ungenerous towards him.

her very first thought about his childhood mentally classifies him as not being one of heartbreaker’s victims, and the pity she’s offering him wears out pretty quickly when he doesn’t speak about the abuse in terms she finds palatable--while she does secondarily recognize that living with heartbreaker impacted him on some level, she regards him primarily as someone who does Bad Things because he’s a Bad Coldhearted Person.

she and alec are fairly similar--they’re both people who have been abused, people who are remarkably desensitized to violence because they’ve been abused, they’re both people who have ended up on the same villain team where they regularly commit terrible acts of violence, and they’re both people who are terminally oblivious to their own emotions while they commit those acts of violence. their actions are both similarly horrifying from an outside viewpoint, but by sectioning alec’s actions off in her mind as being horrifying because he’s ontologically a bad person w/ no interiority or justifiable reasoning for his actions, she doesn’t have to face that her own actions are horrifying regardless of how she justifies them to herself. neat little compartmentalization trick! alec stabbed that guy to death with a fork because he’s a Bad Person, but when she used triumph as a bargaining chip by filling his lungs with bugs, it was for Understandable and Interiority-Having reasons, so she’s fine.

what this means is that nearly all of the commentary we get on alec is from the perspective of someone who has a very strong psychological incentive to avoid being fair to alec.

much of what taylor thinks about alec is blatantly irrational and wrong, and the fact that he (similarly emotionally oblivious wrt himself + probably entirely unaware she feels this way about him) never directly confronts her misconceptions means that we spend the entire book being told “hey, here are the reasons you should think alec sucks” without any alternate viewpoints to consider. i think that if we saw the worst things pre-undersiders alec did without the repressed way undersider alec describes them or taylor’s biased perspective obscuring what actually happened, most people would feel Really Fucking Bad for him!

even in the very first discussion of his childhood, it’s clear that taylor’s reading of the events is wrong--aside from the fact that she’s not classifying the kids as victims (girl what), there’s these lines from alec:

“[He] pushed my limits, made me do stuff that was dangerous, stuff that was hard on my conscience.”

“I had convinced myself I didn’t care about the people I was hurting or about this guy I’d just killed, and maybe I didn’t. Maybe I don’t, still. Dunno.“

taylor’s response to this is:

“He’d been made to do it, he’d been in fucked up circumstances with no real moral compass to go by, still a kid. The way he described it, though, it didn’t sit well with me. Cold blooded murder.“

that is not how he described it. 

1. he outright says that what he was forced to do was “hard on his conscience”

2. he outright says that he “had convinced himself he didn’t care about the people he was hurting,” i.e he was a 10-13yo child being forced into extreme violence by his ridiculously abusive father & he naturally repressed his emotional reaction to it because there’s no other way to feasibly psychologically cope with feeling the full brunt of the emotions that induces. he’s not a Cold Blooded Bitch, he was a kid desperately convincing himself he didn’t care because he couldn’t care if he was going to survive.

3. yeah, he says “maybe i don’t [care], dunno.” this is because the 3+ years he spent learning to cram every emotional response he had to his abuse into a box & then solder-iron that box shut do not magically disappear the second he escapes from his father. it’s not at all unreasonable that taylor (also 15 and horribly emotionally repressed) misses this, but the “maybe” and “dunno” are indicators that he genuinely can’t tell whether or not he cares! as imp points out after he dies, it’s not that his emotions aren’t there at all, it’s that he has no ability to read them--much like taylor, he’s great at convincing himself of things regarding his feelings and then genuinely believing those things. he’s fifteen and has been out of his abusive home for all of 2.5 years--he’s not capable of grasping the full impacts that the abuse had on his psyche, and the way he describes everything from a detached perspective and waffles about on allowing himself interiority is a natural result of that.

if we saw this or any of the other murders alec was forced to commit as they were happening, we would not be feeling less generous towards him, we would be thinking “i want to beat heartbreaker to death with his own bones, because this is an evil thing to do to a child.”

okay, that’s the murder out of the way. now onto the significantly more controversial aspect of what alec did as a 10-13yo.

taylor generally regards alec as a special type of ontologically real & distinct class of person called a rapist. many people in the fandom share her viewpoint on that one. and, like, objectively true--he is a rapist, he raped people. but applying “rapist” as a descriptor meaning “evil piece of shit who sucks, but i guess he gets some leeway since he was a kid, but he still sucks and is bad and probably a sociopath” is massively flattening the circumstances under which he committed sexual violence & severely underestimating how it impacted his psyche.

taylor--and again, most other people in the fandom--tend to unilaterally go “gross and fucked up, he sucks, moving on” during bits where alec discusses that aspect of his childhood. but if we actually pause to read between the lines for the details and then address the actual context (which alec is not capable of doing, because 1. emotional repression to hell and back and 2. it was, as he said, normal to him), it becomes very clear that it’s unjustifiable to slap the “Sucks + Evil Predator” label on him and then move on feeling comforted by the straightforward moral judgement.

“’Sure,’ Alec drawled. In a more normal voice, he said, ‘But what I’m saying is he wouldn’t mind. Now, it’s been a little while, but there was a time when I had someone in my bed every night.’

‘When you were with Heartbreaker,’ I said. From the look of disgust on Aisha’s face, and what I imagined was a similar expression on my own, I suspected we were on the same page. At least on this one thing.

‘Sure. Cape groupies, my dad’s girls, people I used my powers on toward the end.’

There wasn’t even a trace of guilt or shame on his expression, no regret in his tone. He just looked bored.

He went on, ‘What I’m saying is that I’m speaking from experience.  Having someone cuddled up beside you, even if it’s a little bit of a pain in the ass, having that body contact isn’t so bad. Especially when you’ve had a bad day.’”

like, okay. let’s unpack all the implications there.

1. alec is bringing up this whole topic as an attempt at empathy--aisha is effectively saying “i’m pissy at taylor for being intimate w/ brian while he’s experiencing the worst pain of his life” and alec is effectively responding with “i support them, because when i was in similar circumstances, physical intimacy made me feel better.” it is extremely notable that he’s implicitly comparing brian’s “bad day” (getting fucking bonesawed!) to his own “bad day” (living with his dad)!

2. alec grew up in Emotional Neglect & Abuse: The Household. this is established in buzz 7.1--he recounts that there was zero attention paid to him & the other kids except for when heartbreaker was terrifying the shit out of them for either a perceived slight or in an attempt to force a trigger event. he also grew up in Sexual Abuse: The Household. as detailed in one WoG, the heartbroken were a massive group hiding out in significantly less massive houses--6-8 people sharing a room was common. alec was constantly in close quarters to normalized sexual abuse from the ages of zero to thirteen, e.g the memory mentioned in his interlude where he starts crying over not being given the TV remote and a sweaty, wearing-nothing-but-briefs heartbreaker stomps out of the bedroom to terrify alec for interrupting what was, very presumably, a marathon of sexual assault. exposing children to abuse happening in their environment is a form of abuse itself. there’s also the WoG in which this is mentioned:

“Look at it this way - at the age that many boys are raising an eyebrow at boobs, family members were saying 'hey, here are all the boobs you could want...’ Interested in dick? ... Dad's not that into it but a sister can hook you up. At an age when many are just figuring out enough of the world to ask 'what's heroin?' or 'what's weed?' he was given heroin and weed and everything else that was theoretically obtainable and told to only indulge if it was someone else's body. At an age when many are saying 'sex must be awesome' he was given free reign.”

which is sexual abuse! it is in fact exceedingly sexually abusive for alec’s father & older siblings to go “hey, 10-13yo son/little brother, i notice you are Hitting Puberty! here’s a fucking tidal wave of sex and drugs, have at it.” he didn’t magically get the idea to commit acts of physical violence w/o grooming & coercion from his family, and the same goes for the sexual violence. it’s not a hard extrapolation to make that after 10 years of isolation and abuse he leaps on the chance for physical intimacy, for something that actually makes him feel good when good is a feeling he’s never really gotten to have before--and how would he have a frame of reference for this being bad when his childhood was one long march of his own autonomy being violated + constantly seeing other peoples autonomy violated?

alec did not leave the house as a kid. alec Wasn’t Even Thirteen. the people he assaulted were victims, but he’s inarguably not the person with primary culpability for the assault--that would be the family members significantly older than alec who directly groomed him into hypersexual behavior, kidnapped + brainwashed victims also significantly older than alec, shoved them at alec, and said “have at it, buddy.” (which he, considering it to be normal and desperate for any positive attention or emotion, immediately adopted as a coping mechanism.) it would be absurd not to regard alec as a victim in this circumstance as well, and the fact that the way he was victimized led to him hurting people doesn’t change that. he was a chronically abused and manipulated preteen--he couldn’t issue meaningful consent or exercise any real autonomy in his decision-making. his lack of emotional reaction to casually sharing the story isn’t a moral failure, it’s an indicator of how badly the abuse skewed his perception of what’s normal.

and despite All Of That, taylor’s immediate reaction is to judge his lack of guilt, shame, or regret. which isn’t a wholly irrational reaction from her by any means--it makes complete sense given who she is and what information she has. but it does mean that the judgement we’re given on alec in this moment is nearly entirely detached from the material reality of what happened & how that reality should reasonably be regarded.

3. i think i’m literally the only person i’ve ever seen point this out--the first category of person he lists off as having slept with is “cape groupies.” as in, fans of capes. 

what kind of person do we suppose would be a fan of heartbreaker’s cult? what kind of person would have a thing for heartbreaker’s sexual abuse and mind control cult? the fact that he specifically mentions “cape groupies” means these were people who liked the heartbroken and were picked up by it voluntarily--what kind of person would want to sleep with one of heartbreaker’s barely-pubescent superpowered children?

yeah, that one sounds less like alec committing rape and more like heartbreaker providing access to his children to pedophiles w/ a Thing for the powers involved, presumably because it was a fantastic honeypot for people he could drain for money or otherwise use as a resource (which was his primary method of staying undercover & getting by). which alec parses as normal enough to casually slip into a random sentence.

alec’s childhood was not a lengthy tour of him committing sexual violence because he sucked, it was him being sexually abused, and a portion of that abuse included him being groomed to perpetuate it onto others. because that’s one of the Core Things about his character: he was a victim of grooming to perpetuate a cycle of abuse, he ran away from it at an impressively young age, and he spent the rest of his life making stumbling attempts to jerry-rig a distinct system of ethics & decision-making so that he wouldn’t be like his father.

no, the abuse he experienced & the way he responded to it wasn’t straight-forward or palatable. he’s not a stereotypical or idealized Good Victim--none of the traumatized teens in worm are. the specifics of what happened to him & what he did as a result are uncomfortable. he participated in hurting other people very badly. he still doesn’t really understand everything that was wrong with what happened. he doesn’t open himself up for pity or add caveats when discussing it to make it clear that he’s viewing his childhood the Right Way. he doesn’t feel or talk about it the way he’s “supposed” to. he doesn’t understand why or care that it upsets and disgusts people. the abuse left him with low to no empathy, and he’s not ashamed about admitting that.

and absolutely none of that changes that he’s still undeniably a victim, and if we saw any of the things that happened to him from the perspective of anyone involved, if we saw the abuse he experienced without the normalized lens he views it through or the villainizing lens taylor views it through--everyone would probably feel really fucking bad for him.

or in other words: alec vasil is a little boy whose life fucking sucks, and we all have to be nice to him, okay?

[snapesshylittlebadger]

Welcome to my side blog!~

๋࣭ ⭑⚝⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆ ⚝ ๋࣭ ⭑⚝⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆

๋࣭ ⭑⚝ Info ๋࣭ ⭑⚝

๋࣭ ⭑ It was December 2003 when I watched the first Harry Potter film. I fell in love with the film! I saw the 2nd movie when it came out at the time but for the rest I didn't watch until 2020. (Yes I know, WAY LATE.) As for the books I've never read until now which I am slow at but I am reading the books.

๋࣭ ⭑⚝ Why the love for Snape? ๋࣭ ⭑⚝

๋࣭ ⭑ First and foremost, I am a huge fan of Alan Rickman. He has captured my heart with his exceptional acting skills and down-to-earth personality. He knows just how to bring a character to life and add that extra spark of excitement! ๋࣭ ⭑ One of the other reasons I am drawn to Snape as a character is his unique appearance. Tall and dark, with an aquiline nose and long black hair, he is like a piece of eye candy for me. There's something captivating about men who dress in all black, especially if it's in vintage styles that are more modest. Maybe it's just my quirky Aquarius side, but I find what others may consider unusual and strange to be fascinating and uniquely attractive.  ๋࣭ ⭑ But on a deeper note…I love Snape because I can relate to the bullying he went through while at Hogwarts and I had a friend in 5th grade who was bullied and outcasted like him. Like jayrickman on TikTok put it… “If you asked me what I think about the Marauders, I would say…That like every other character they had their flaws and strengths and that I quite like Remus! But if you asked me on a deeper level…I would say they were horrible people (except for Remus), that came from wealthy influential families and bullied people until a point of attempted murder and S.A. Nothing can ever justify that and I’m wholeheartedly convinced that, if Severus was not excluded by literally everyone BUT Slytherins, he would’ve turned out to be a completely different person. People crave companionship. Milieu forms people.The Slytherins passively and actively brainwashed him to think of his hatred towards his abusive muggle father as hatred towards all muggles. He was abused at home and thought Hogwarts would be his safe place, only to then be bullied there too. Marauders fans have managed to spin their little fanfictions in such a way that they actually made the victim the villain. Snape becoming a bully is such a CLASSIC case of the abused becoming the abuser yet Marauders fans will still say that he deserved to be S.A. I sincerely wish I was privileged enough to say things like ‘sometimes bullying is okay’ because it is more than apparent that no Marauders stan has ever felt what it’s like to have absolutely no one and cling on to whatever lifeline you have. It was always Tobias’ and the Marauders fault that he turned out the way he did.” 

๋࣭ ⭑ I am someone who faced bullying since Elementary because of being of mixed race and the things I like, being S.A during my 10th and 11th grade school years and people saw and did nothing as well as the staff and then having a good majority of my so-called ‘friends’ tell me ‘it was my fault’ and ditched me when I needed them most. I feel a kinship to Snape through that trauma, unfortunately.

๋࣭ ⭑⚝⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆ ⚝ ๋࣭ ⭑⚝⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆

๋࣭ ⭑⚝What will we see on this blog? ๋࣭ ⭑⚝

๋࣭ ⭑ Well, you should be seeing things related to the Potion Master, my character Sandrine Everhart and anything and everything H.P related. ๋࣭ ⭑ On top of that I will be sharing commissions of Snape and Everhart on here too.

[arthurtaylorlester]

RETURN OF THE KING: MALEVOLENT LIVEBLOG EPISODE 37 THE FARM

spoilers (you already know)

back at it with some humming!

JOHN MY BELOVED !!!! youre so bitchy i love him

HES SO PETTY HELP

harpers hill mention omg (harpers hill hijinks coming soon)

“MY BOOK HMPH 😤” girl 😭😭

“i didnt realise” yes because you cant see and john is like really really dumb

it kills me that john is bitching about oscar not finding anything but like what information have you contributed in the last 3 episodes

ive missed bullying john

malevolent is a comedy and i will stand by that

mmm rain sounds

HYPNOS GREEK GOD MENTION ‼️

“can you imagine hahah” yes i can it was the best arc of the show send tweet

well you havent seen his face

whys john being so quiet all of a sudden?

OH WHAT THEFUCK I SAW RHIS COMING

“i suppose ill just watch again” SOMEONE IS A JEALOUS GIRL

arthur ignoring john….. the girls are going to DIVORCE

“not you sorry ^_^” and then he goes back to ignoring john?? girl

oh wait that was very sweet

WHAT THE FUCK I JUST TOOK ABDHDNFN

sorry arthur speaking to john like that just destroyed me

I TRUST YOU AND YOUR MY FRIEND??? IM NOT TRYING TO IGNORE YOU?? THEYRE COMMUNICATING A

“its not because i dont care 💛” “…yes?” oscar this isnt about you

poor guy though he must be so confused

arthurs tone changes so much when he speaks to john

someone get john a pair of glasses either that or he was too busy daydreaming to see the turnoff

oh of course john would want to split off because he hasnt ever seen a horror movie arthur if you die then it’s your fault for not showing him the movie 🙄

“we might have to sleep in the car” okayyyy

oh so now john wants to give him info because he deserves to know

aaaand now he doesnt want to tell him. we love a hypocritical king !!!

return of the canadian sourry

you dont need to sound so smug that he looks hurt john 😭😭

okay oscar love the existential crisis while reading very relatable

is he gonna say arthur is his purpose

oh for fucks sake

NOT THE SOFT “oscar”

ok oscar is def into arthur and arthur saying “i don’t believe in god” is like rejection. this is how unrequited blindfaith can still win.

also god believes in you? well john and kayne sure seem to believe in him for what its worth

oscar nooo dont devote yourself to arthur that never ends well

john i dont care about oscar either but you have got to stop laying it on so think jfc

john the undefeated more like john the opportunist

“woAH” same john same

oooh so john can see auras now basically?

what monster are we gonna find in the barn 👀

oh that sounds fun actually though /j

AWW I KNEW HE WAS GONNA ASK IF HE WAS OK

ok i love how prominent the dreamlands are this episode i was just thinking about how good it was

john just wants his alone time with arthur because he cant answer his questions

“i need another set of eyes” thats like the one thing john can do it must be kinda sad to like, not be able to fully do the one thing you used to be great at

“ *gasp* a forgotten one :0” john dont act like you know what that means

hey is john a forgotten one then. is he. is he though.

can everyone except arthur feel the weirdness of places

NOT THE MUSIC BOX MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND HARLAN WHEN ARE YOU GIVING US AN OST PLEASE IM BEGGIN YOU

ITS MIDNIGHT DONT GO IN THE FUCKING BASEMENT ITS RAINING YOURE BEING CHASED BY AN EDLRITCH THING

john its ok if you didnt see it you dont need to justify yourself ❤️‍🩹

john sounds almost scared to go in the basement lol

the stairs are gonna give out at a later date im calling it

what could possibly happen in the last 15 minutes

a door ajar omg is that a wtnv reference

did arthur almost die by getting crushed by a bunch of furniture

oh a barricade i know what this is about

oh happy halloween btw guys

OSCAR JUMPSCARE

my honest reaction too john

what… what did you just sink into….

oh hole in roof, cool

arthur pay attention oscar hes gonna set hjmself on fire on accident

the jarthur was too busy analysing the painting to pay attention to oscar

OH GODDAMIT ARTHRJ WHAT THE FUCK JOHN WHAT THE DAGGER? THE ONE HE SLIT HIS THROAT WITH

oh he wants to cut it off ok

jfc 7 minutes oh no

I CALLED THE STAIRS CAVING IN

GUYS HE WAS READING THE BOOK OFC HE KNOWS

question: how strong is arthur physically

“A TOWEL!” “A TOWEL?” as i said a comedy

WE GOT A “WELL DONE ORTHUR” LETS GO

you know its weird that i can handle this fine but couldnt deal with the michael torture in the woe.begone finale

NO ARTHUR ITS NOT OK

HES ISNT GOING TO MAKE IT

oh ok hes fine sort of ok

the music goes so hard again

that arthur was so scared

ok the arms alive run

or get john to arm wrestle it idk

“what thE fUCK WHAT THE FUCK” my daily vocabulary

and oscar was right :)

RUN YOU IDIOTS

arthur you could at least carry him instead of dragging him that poor poor man

i find it amusing that this mostly happened because of jarthur studying a painting and ignoring the man currently in possession of their braincells

indeed what do we do now

and thats a wrap! oh boy what an episode i have THOUGTHTS (oscar is not surviving this)

i know like maybe 2 people read this type of posts but i enjoy making and reading them back. so if youd like me to keep going with these i will :)

[marsupialmuseum]

Being a Nightheart fan is rough on Tumblr 😭

Okay here's my Nightheart take:

He wasn't completely right as an apprentice, but he DID have a right to be upset. I don't think we were meant to be entirely sympathetic towards him and agree with all of his opinions in the early ASC books. For instance, it seemed to me like we were supposed to see him failing his assessments as justified, considering he tries to show off when he shouldn't, and he takes risks that are completely unnecessary. Squirrelflight failing him on his 2nd assessment was the right choice. However, he had every right to be angry about his name and how everyone was comparing him to Firestar. Like he says, he's a black cat, the Flame prefix never made sense. The clan already knew he didn't like living in Firestar's shadow when he was given his warrior name, and giving him almost the same warrior name as Firestar didn't honor him for the individual he was, it honored his heritage.

Nightheart also felt that Sparkpelt had abandoned him when her and Finchpaw left ThunderClan, and throughout ASC, we see his take on her become much more nuanced, and they eventually forgive each other. Iirc, he also apologizes for his actions, but correct me if I'm wrong. I do agree that there was sexism from the Erins involved in Nightheart's story that made Squirrelflight and Sparkpelt (and even Finchlight, a little bit) look bad, but I also think that they weren't as vilified by the story as some people claim. We were reading from Flamepaw's point of view- He saw things in black and white when he was younger, and he later grew to understand that the situation was a lot more nuanced than he'd first thought.

I like that Sunbeam makes him more cautious while he makes her more daring. He becomes considerate and she learns to stand up for herself. I see a lot of people saying that it's not fair that Nightheart was the main cause of Sunbeam's character development, but the way I see it, she affected him just as much as he affected her.

I do agree that Sunbeam's arc got sidelined a bit for Nightheart's. Honestly, in TBC, I felt that Shadowsight's - and *sometimes* even Rootspring's - arcs got sidelined for Bristlefrost's, and my opinion is that it was about keeping more of the focus on ThunderClan so that it'd still be seen as the "main clan" just as much as it was about the writing of Warriors being sexist at times. Multi-faceted issue.

Also, people seem to act like he didn't grow as a character, but he definitely did. He becomes less reactionary, he starts to consider the opinions of others, he forgives his mother and sister, and (minor spoilers for Star, doesn't reveal anything about the plot which is why I'm not bothering to like, put this in a separate post) in Star, when someone whose name I honestly cannot remember starts to say that he becomes more like Firestar every day, Nightheart says thank you. That's... like very obvious character development and I have a little bit of hope that it'll make people favor Nightheart a bit more, but I'm not *that* hopeful.

I see a lot of hate for him that comes from the Erins saying he's only a POV character because they needed a male POV character. Personally, I don't REALLY understand why the (rightful) disdain for that fact gets thrown onto Nightheart instead of the Erins, but I mean, I can get why that would sour people's opinion of him. I'm just sad about it because I'm a Nightheart fan and it gets kind of tiring to see people constantly hate on him and even go so far as to say that they hope he suffers in Star or that they headcanon him as having an orange flame-shaped marking just because they know he'd hate it 😭

I kind of view people who call him a bad character specifically because he's annoying and whiny the way I view people who call Catcher in the Rye a bad book because they find Holden annoying. First of all, you can find a character annoying without calling them a bad character. Second of all, he becomes like, a LOT less whiny and annoying after he actually grows up and realizes he wasn't always right. Lastly, he was a teenager (and yes, he was basically warrior aged in the early books so maybe a young adult, but still very young) who felt misunderstood. He felt like ThunderClan didn't appreciate him for who he was because they could only see him for who he was related to, and he's kind of right tbh. He clearly holds the same values in Star regarding his belief that every cat should be an individual and they shouldn't have to live in the shadow of someone else's legacy, but he's more reasonable than when he was an apprentice.

Overall, I love Nightheart as an interesting, nuanced character that has some of the best character growth in Warriors. I love how him and Sunbeam compliment each other. I think a lot of the hate he gets should be directed at the Erins for their... very male-favoring writing instead of at him, and I definitely do not believe Nightheart fans deserve to be attacked or called sexist for liking him. That's going way too far. We're all going to have different takes on these books and the characters in them, and ngl, the writing is so inconsistent in the series that one book can portray a character as being loyal and kind and the book directly after it can portray them as the complete opposite, so we should all fight each other less and fight the Erins more LMFAO.

Now, I'm perfectly open to hearing people out if they disagree with my takes here, but they won't make me stop liking Nightheart. I relate to him and I like his arc. If you don't like him, whatever. Just don't come in my comments talking about how you hate him and want him to die between books and never be mentioned again because I'll just block you 😭 I don't want to see that. And to the people who comment shit like that on art people post of characters you don't like, stop doing that. Seriously. Unless the artist is already talking about hating that character, their post is not the place for you to rant about how much you despise what could very well be someone's favorite character. Yes, that includes comments like "I hate x but this art is great". Just say the art is great and move on. This community isn't always nice to each other, and a little less negativity would go a long way imo.

Yeah 3 am post about how much I love Nightheart. Also, I was 100% happy with Star. That seems to be an unpopular opinion, which I understand, but yeah I really liked it :)

[jadehaven]

Thank you for your analysis, it just makes so much sense, and it gives me hope that they might really explore a slow burn romance between them. 🥺

But also I've been going back to their scenes together, and they almost always touch each other, and it's so delicate and intimate? They might not be aware of it themselves yet, but they aren't acting like siblings.

Haha you’re spot on, and thank you! I’m holding out hope too! Nobody online listened to my speculations after season 1, but I called every trope before it happened. Not trying to hype myself up lol, just stating that the knowledge I have in the romance writing department has proved itself true in this area. Even the ring scene, I called it the episode before, because it would’ve been the perfect screen play in regards to foreshadowing. And I’m just a measly aspiring romance author, not even a screen writer or nothin’. But lemme tell you I freaked when I saw it the first time.

Anyway, about the touching— it’s very deliberate also. I do think, however, that it was played out as more platonic in the beginning than it is now. Galadriel and Elrond’s story feels a bit like a coming of age romance for this reason. It starts off like “puppy love” when they first meet. It’s innocent and sweet this way, but it definitely doesn’t give siblings. I think this is why much of the fan base was confused. Many folks interpreted it as either one or the other, completely platonic and familial(because of the lore), or entirely romantic. But in reality? They sit in this very small space that’s not quite friends, not quite lovers. Mckay even acknowledges this: “Best friends may be reducing their relationship too much. I’d say she’s someone for [whom] he has so much love.” This sets them up perfectly for the forced to kiss trope. Their moments of touch/intimacy would typically read romantic, but ultimately don’t because the characters are technically just friends. Anyone (including themselves) could justify that there’s no romantic intention in their touches.

Here’s the kicker though. Now there’s been a romantic gesture that doesn’t fit into the “grey area”. A kiss is a romantic gesture. OK AND BEFORE YOU SAY “things just operate differently in this world”— No. No they don’t. Because if kissing between elves was normal, or not romantic, or just something viewed as extra intimate friendship, THEN IT WOULDN’T HAVE WORKED AS A RUSE. 😤

*cough* Sorry. Got a little.. excited. As I was saying…

They’ve crossed the line, unintentionally maybe so, but now they will likely question their touchiness. The reason is, they don’t want to confuse the other person. Before, their intimacy was always “platonic” because they’d never acknowledged the possibility of it meaning more than that. Now there’s this elephant in the room. “Did you mean to kiss me? Would you have kissed me without the pin? Did you like the kiss? What would happen if we kissed again?” Etc etc. And all the unknowns create too big of a risk for it to just go back to the way it was before.

Maybe I’m overshooting a little, since ROP isn’t technically a romance. They might not do it this way, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Elrond suddenly doubting himself, not knowing how to touch her now, what’s safe and what’s not. Does this make sense?

I recommend reading ‘People we Meet on Vacation’ By Emily Henry, in order to familiarize yourself with the more common components of the trope(best friends to lovers). It’s not the only reference out there, and it’s not my favourite book/couple, but it does a good job of depicting those blurred lines— and what happens when you unintentionally cross them!

Anyways. Yeah, their touches are beautiful. We actually haven’t seen elves this intimate before on screen, and that should be your first clue. Even in Tolkien’s books, there’s not a lot of physical intimacy between two elf lovers. A kiss is a huge deal, and I think it’s supposed to feel that way to us (though people didn’t get the memo) because it’s how it would feel to them. Think about it. The only other person Galadriel has lots of little tiny touches with (though the tone is different) is Sauron. We know how they felt about each other, and they didn’t even kiss! The E & G kiss was not done on accident, that’s for sure.

Last point, just for funsies—

They literally can’t not touch each other 🥹💘 Even when they’re fighting, they’re compelled to each other. Bumping shoulders, held gaze, hand touching, the list goes on. If that doesn’t say romance then idk what will!! 🫶✨❤️

Thanks for the ask! Come again!

Bonus gif:

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

Translation State

Anne Leckie returns to the world of her Ancillary trilogy for a second independent novel in the setting. This one rotates between three protagonists. An heir to an old family shuffled off world on a diplomatic mission to find someone who meant missing three hundred years ago (explicitly a sinecure - there is no expectation she makes more than a token effort to find them). An adoptive child working an ordinary job who finds he may be the descendant of the disposed ruling dynasty to a deceased station. Lastly and most interestingly a young translator one of a species created to server as an intermediary between humans and the incomprehensibly alien

The beginning of the book is attention grabbing. Each of the protagonists are interesting in their own way. After that initial burst of promise it never felt like it reached it's potential.

Getting a perspective from a Translator was great. They were one of the most interesting parts of the Ancillary books but the best chapters about that were all early in the book and the facts that a point of view was a translator felt less and less relevant as the story continued despite it being crucial to the climax.

By the end of the book the diplomat Enae's perspective became increasingly superfluousness. The other two protagonists are deeply tied in to the climax and Enae is also there.

My biggest complaint about the POV's is that we didn't get to see Reet and Qven's viewpoint after they matched. It would have automatically made me like the book a lot more if we saw that and it was even half decently executed.

It's not a book with surprising twists. It telegraphs everything. The first idea you have about what will happen will nearly always be what actually happens. It does this all well in advance of events happening. You can see plot points long before they actually eventuate. I don't need shocking twists but events happening exactly how you would have expected a hundred pages ago gets tiresome.

There's references to the setting's history but they feel like isolated events with no real connection to each other rather than a detailed fleshed out history.

The depiction of polities and how those with influence in them act was simplistic. Leckie only seems to view them at a very high level and an individual level and is blind to anything in between. A lot of the political beliefs of background characters are more like caricatures rather than what someone would genuinely belief. In other cases the beliefs are plausible but the manner in which the characters frame them or justify themselves rings false.

The arcs of the main characters are didactic and the book is equally opinionated about events that are only focused on in passing. We can never just be shown or told about something; we must be told what to think of it. Leckie's views aren't objectionable but the messages imparted aren't complex or novel. It often seems as if Leckie simply doesn't trust the reader to draw their own conclusions rather than her having something she feels is important to say.

All this combines to make the world feel wooden and hollow. A mere facade constructed by Leckie to attempt to wow the reader rather than a fully realized world.

I am being somewhat harsh here. This isn't a bad book. It's certainly better than the average SF novel but I see Leckie in general and this book in particular in the context of award nominations and accolades and it doesn't meet that standard.

Simplistic is the word I keep coming back to for it. The world, the non-POV characters and the messages it intends to impart all lack any real complexity. It was a reasonably enjoyable read albeit frustrating at times but ultimately not anywhere near as good as the accolades suggested.