#intelligent people turn me on

[ehlnofay]

my tes secret santa for @anotherclassicpretence! truth be told I've been having a tad bit of writer's block lately but some of your prompts were VERY interesting (I liked the idea of writing delphine before the main quest a lot... this more or less counts) so I hope I've done them justice. hope you're having a splendid holiday season!

...

“Steady on, Hilde,” Delphine says with a brusque, manufactured sort of calm. “You’ll do yourself a mischief.”

It's a relief, she thinks, that the day Hilde has elected to barge in with world-upending news is a convenient one; it isn’t as though Riverwood is the kind of place to attract crowds, most of the time (part of the reason she chose to live here at all) but the inn is unusually quiet now. Orgnar is nominally organising something in the cellar, which means that he’s spending an hour swapping two bottles around and calling it a day, and the dining hall is warmed to a swelter with the ever-going hearthfire, and utterly empty. No-one’s come in for lunch yet. No rooms rented out last night, either, so it’s all silent on that front; it’s just Delphine and her wet cotton cloth, wiping down the stained tables till they shine, and Hilde with her hair wrapped and her string of beads tangling round narrow, hard-knuckled fingers. She’s sat herself on the chair with the wobbly leg; it needs fixing soon. Ordinarily, Delphine would herd her onto another, but right now she doesn’t think there’s anything in the world that would get Hilde to listen.

“Hark at her!” she complains to the bead-string - all marbled glass dyed blue and red and yellow, clinking together on their leather cord. “Do a mischief - do a mischief - it’s as if she can’t bloody hear me -”

Delphine swipes the cloth over the chip in the corner of the table. “I hear you,” she replies (does she ever hear her). Hilde’s hands are white where the necklace bites into her skin; her lips are pinched into a puckered line. Her eyes are red-rimmed and fierce. “Hilde. I’m going to get you a drink to calm your nerves, and then we’ll talk it over properly, all right?”

“Talk it over,” Hilde repeats, high and scornful, and then her face screws up quite suddenly as if all the fight has fled it - the wrinkles in her cheeks deepening to uneasy valleys, knuckles pressed to the thin slat of her mouth, beads digging hard into her cheek. “Nine have mercy… thank you, Delphine.”

The inner corner of Delphine’s lip snags, near imperceptibly, between the blunt ends of her canines. She nods once, and she ducks behind the bar, folding the cloth with damp precision as she goes. The cask of ale is near empty, the mugs lined up on their shelf, sparkling clean, cutlery rattling around in its tin. It's not fancy - Riverwood is a small, old town, built on the bones of an older one, and no matter how well-run the inn has been since she bought it it's not exactly a prime destination, but it's a good sort of a place. And innkeeping is decent work. Keeps you busy. Keeps your ear to the ground. Gives you something to focus on, in the meantime -

When Delphine grabs a tankard, she notes with some incredulity that her hand is trembling. She stills it. She pours the ale until the cup rim is flecked with froth.

(Gives you something to focus on in the meantime, in between real work, while you're waiting -)

(There is a feeling rising in her body, foaming like the ale; a sour, stomach-turning excitement, as if she's in her twenties again and wet behind her ears, biting back all the intrigue. Like she has an unlined face and fresh armour and is standing again in line for her induction ceremony. Like she's staring something in the face and thinking, finally.)

Delphine caps the cask. She is not in her twenties, and she is not staring anything down; bar Hilde, a seventy year old woman with tannin-stained hands and the latest in a line of tall stories. Delphine didn't get this far (how far?) (still alive, isn’t she) through credulity. She's a pragmatist through and through - won't believe anything she hasn't seen evidence of with her own eyes; and yet.

And yet.

She sets the mug down on the table; a pale and lukewarm drop slides down the pewter, just next to the handle. She'll need to wipe it all down again, after this.

Hilde takes it, absent-minded; the beads slither from where they’re strung around her hands to rest in a smooth curve over her chest. Her hands are shaking - she doesn’t seem to notice, or if she does, she doesn’t stop them. There is a look about her, all of a sudden, that seems dreadfully, fixedly haunted, like a woman looking down the barrel of a cannon, some rapid-rigged explosive, something to level the town. Like she’s caught the apocalypse’s eye. Delphine reaches out, perfunctory, and pats the back of her hand; Hilde grimaces and downs half her tankard in one long, desperate swig.

Light’s coming in through the window-slats up by the rafters, dull and gold, dust motes in the shafts of it. It makes the white wimple of cloth swaddled hastily around Hilde’s head shine in places.

“Big as the mountain,” she mumbles into the lip of the tankard, fingers wrapped tight around its handle, “black as night - flew right over the barrow like something fit to block out the sun.”

Delphine’s teeth scrape over that spot at the corner of her lip. She can’t help but say, “Are you sure -”

“I know what I saw,” Hilde snaps. Her knuckles and lips are blanched and colourless. Liquid sloshes over the edge of her cup with her sharp, abortive gestures. “I saw a dragon.”

Delphine is very careful not to let her face do anything at all, there.

(It’s adrenaline, she knows; the pointed, muscle-coiled readiness to move - to act - to make a plan in service of a solid end and carry it off perfectly; the comfort of seeing possibility roll out before her like a long many-doored hallway, like a road she might be able to walk instead of these four walls she’s circled for too many years. Innkeeping is decent work - keeps her ear to the ground - keeps her busy in the interim, but it’s not what Delphine does, not what she’s been trained to do; not a purpose, not something to strive for, and oh, Divines -)

(None of this is substantiated. Delphine is not a rash and green youth, not anymore and not again, and she will not start running away with silly fantasies before she’s checked anything at all; she has had her fill of disappointment, and should know better than to invite it - should know better than to start spinning grand plans, before she’s even sent out some missives to the pale cobweb of contacts she has left - over the barrow; west, then - is there a significance, to the barrow? Does she have anything about it in her side room? Nine, it’s times like this she misses the old library and the mad old codger that kept it, and, no. No.)

(Yes.)

“It’ll come back,” Hilde’s saying with fearful certainty; lips flecked with spittle and beer-foam, hands still shaking. “It’ll come back, and it’ll kill us all, and then you’ll believe me -”

“I believe you,” Delphine tells her, and it is inexplicably, regrettably true. (She’s thinking about the library. She’s thinking about the dragonlore. She’s thinking that if dragons are back, someone will have to do something about it - and oh Divines how she has missed being the one to do something about it.)

Her hands are still, but only through some effort.

She feels like she’s been dozing for twenty years and only now has been shocked awake.

Hilde looks at her, white-mouthed and white-scarved; she frowns, a tense, sour thing, and she says doubtfully, “You look like you need a drink.”

Delphine laughs. It’s a short, gruff bark of sound. Her hands are flat on the tabletop; her hair is coming loose in thin wisps from the tight knot at the base of her skull. Sunlight trickles through the windows, golden-fresh. “No,” she says. “No, thank you, Hilde, I'm good."

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Would that mean Ajax has an unusually vested interest in the other nations after everything in Liyue is sorted? Like- keeping an eye on the Gunnhilder clan, or the Ragvindr’s? Would he have a vested interest in seeing the Dawn Winery form and thrive? Would he keep an eye out for news from Inazuma about the Kamisatos, Kaedehara clan, and how the Yokai are doing? There’s a lot of funky things Ajax could be tracking and or meddling with and I love that for him

oh absolutely. ajax would find a way to build himself a little news chain just to keep up on Blorbo Release Dates and accidentally install the greatest intelligence gathering network in teyvat

and like- nobody would realize at first since it'd happen so slowly, but by one point some couple of centuries down the line guizhong would be like- sorry, how do you know this? and ajax would just cassually drop that ah yes [instert someone's name here] told him and guizhong and morax would sit there like. who- who's that and ajax would drop the whole oh y'know i made some friends, i got some people to pass me some info back, usual stuff and guizhong would stare bc ajax is just casually revealing he has created a both open-secret yet completely unknown network of entirely random individuals who just- pass gossip along, and it all eventually goes back to ajax. most of that network is made up of volchiy travelers who pick up info on the coasts and directly report back to him.

[animentality]

there is a difference between being a hater and having a working human brain that can pinpoint exactly what does or does not work for you specifically in media.

don't be such a mindless consumer, you aren't really appreciating art if you're not thinking about it at all.

and how is that a controversial statement?

"turn off your brain," oh yeah, sure, i know you only use yours for cobweb storage.

but some of us use ours for things other than work.

[bonefall]

where’s that little horror piece about kits never growing up in Starclan? because I remember it so vividly but I can’t find it.

The one about Bright Stream?

Weird that it's so hard to find! It's probably because it's got such heavy tags lmao.

I really mean it though like, canon's permakitten system and the idea that Bright Stream is up there, forever taking care of fetus children who were filled by sudden knowledge and yet never grow past that point absolutely horrifies me. Jesus Christ. I don't know how anyone reads that final scene in Path of Stars and isn't filled with itching, white-hot existential dread, man.

Sometimes you just gotta write horror about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[couldtheycatchkillerqueen]

Regarding the recent post:

Killer Queen is too short ranged of a stand to affect most sleuths and it's not in Kira's character to drop Sheer Heart Attack at the police departament and hope.

Kira generally doesn't have many ways to deal with characters that: Work in teams. Work from far away. Have any sort of records showing that they're invastigating him.

The man had to be bailed out by Bites the Dust and still lost Most sleuths wouldn't even let Kira get away for long enough for him to aquire Bites the Dust so that's not even something to consider in most of these cases.

{But you're really ignoring one thing: It can't be detected by anyone but Stand Users. Why would they think they needed to investigate Yoshikage Kira specifically? There's no evidence of the killings, since in canon, even the police didn't try to investigate the mysterious disappearances. The sleuths would mostly not be able to understand that Killer Queen exists, and even if they assumed it was something supernatural, there's still no evidence. And the man managed to impersonate another man in front of his family, landlord, coworkers, and everyone who may have talked to Kosaku on the street, with only the man's child catching on. Had Hayato never thought to set up a camera in his parents' room, Kira would have never been caught at all. And Kira doing poorly against teams of people investigating him doesn't line up when he's gotten away from them twice (he would have escaped Jotaro and Koichi were it not for Act III, and he did escape the entire Duwang Gang when they were chasing him by severing his own hand), plus managing to keep his identity secret from EVERYONE except Hayato until the kid figured out how to use the time-loop to his advantage. You're right that most of the time Killer Queen wouldn't get to Bites the Dust, but it would be because Kira wouldn't need to. He has eliminated people in broad daylight before, and he could do so again when against someone who can't see Stands.}

[frogsare-friends]

i've said it so many times before. but i'll say it again. conrad was fucking evil in the car scene. and if jere had done that he'd be murdered. i just don't get how anyone can see that as him being hot or funny. i can admit petty conrad is alright "sounds like an aunt julia problem" "i'm sorry my grandpa didn't love you as much as he loved my mom but i'm not surprised (idk the exact quote)" and i like julia. it has nothing to do with being team conrad or team jeremiah. he's legit just a fucking dick.

he's a dick to belly obviously, but i'm specifically talking abt jeremiah here bc belly is an afterthought. he didn't wanna yell at her, he already did that. he wanted to make jeremiah feel worthless, and like he didn't deserve to be chosen. and he did. "jeremiah just too insecure, he can't believe belly chose him" BC CONRAD WAS MAKING HIM FEEL THAT WAY. "but... finch is fun" knowing that that's a huge insecurity for jere wasn't funny and it wasn't just petty. it was genuinely horrible for him to say. he wanted jeremiah to know that everyone else thought conrad was better, and conrad knows (thinks) he's better. he wants to remind jeremiah that belly loved the idea of amazing, smart, strong, emotional, mysterious conrad, and (even though this isn't true, it's jeremiah's insecurities bc of adam and susannah and the fact everyone fucking worships conrad) he's not amazing and smart and strong and emotional and mysterious. "i remember last year it was seven" bc he wants to tell jeremiah that he wasn't serious about those people so how can he be serious about belly. he wants him to think that belly doesn't want something serious with him bc she knows his history and knows he hasn't been in serious relationships before her. "who's the better kisser" (which, bffr you do not want the answer to that question conrad) bc he wants jeremiah to know that he's better than him. in all the ways that matter and don't, he wants him to know he's better and belly knows it too. and obviously those things aren't true. conrad doesn't even think these things. he's literally just a manipulative dick. like i don't think he's terrible or unredeemable, but he is manipulative. he always pulls out insecurities or stuff he knows will hurt the other person in fights. in this one it hurt bc jeremiah thought all of that was true and that conrad really thought that. in the party fight it hurt bc even though jeremiah knew it wasn't true, he knew conrad wanted to hurt him. someone that he has had to pick up the pieces after his entire life, someone he looks up to and most of all cares about, wants to hurt him. that's fucked.

anyway, lots of words to say fuck conrad for the car scene, it's so much deeper than some petty stuff. also, conrad is a shitty brother. i don't care. he is. the fisher family dynamic is that adam fucks it all up. susannah refuses to acknowledge that things are fucked up. conrad carries the burden of it being fucked up. jeremiah has to cheer everyone up, pick up the pieces when conrad drops them (which isn't his fault he shouldn't be carrying that burden but just bc it's not his fault doesn't mean it can't hurt jeremiah) and glue them back together, put on a happy face, and deal with everyone neglecting him. let's not pretend conrad has excuses jeremiah doesn't. "conrad had to carry this burden" and jeremiah had to do fucking everything else.

[fromtheseventhhell]

I will say that it’s not surprising for book Sansa fans to dislike GRRM’s writing because he doesn’t write her coherently at all, and treats her as more of a camera than anything. Not to mention he pairs her with too many much older men (I hate Sansa’s ships but GRRM clearly write Sansan as romantic). I’ve always thought that GRRM’s writing for Sansa’s chapters is some of his weakest. He doesn’t know how to handle this character. But her fans can’t admit that because then they would be admitting that the parts they love from the books is all the headcanons they made up instead of just being like “yeah I made up someone more interesting and complex because the book is weak and shallow in this area”. That’s why Sansa fans actively get offended when people bring up canon moments and canon quotes from her arc that go against the delusional metas they’ve read.

I have to agree, although for me the issue is with Sansa's characterization itself rather than the quality of writing in her chapters. I think George has done a great job with writing the plot surrounding her and she offers an interesting perspective on things, similar to how we get Catelyn's POV on Robb's war. The issue is that George expanded her role but he doesn't seem to have a solid idea of what he wants to do with her character. She hasn't become more active with her increased story presence. She does have moments that influence the plot but most of those aren't intentional and come in the form of her revealing information to the wrong person (i.e. telling Cersei of Ned's plans and Dontos of the Tyrells'). She hasn't learned or grown as much as her "peers" have and a lot of her chapters do have her used as a "camera" to show what's going on with non-POV characters. I think her character gets overshadowed by the plots she's involved in. George uses her to introduce and hide the plotting of others which is interesting to read, but it also leaves Sansa in a position where she just isn't meant to grow and learn like other characters. If we knew about, say, Littlefinger's true intentions from the very beginning then things wouldn't be as interesting.

To me, her strongest characterization was in AGOT, which makes sense because her role in that book is the one George created her for. She got to be directly contrasted with Arya and overall, I think her relationships with other characters are where we've seen her grow the most. I hate how George has written her relationships with all of these older men, but I do think her relationships with them (platonic) are an interesting showcase of her character. With Sandor and Tyrion, for example, we see Sansa confronting her shallow ideas of beauty and knighthood. With Littlefinger, he uses her as a pawn and manipulates her, but he's also teaching her and potentially handing her the tools of his own undoing. The issue is that a lot of people don't look at how she's actually written and assign her growth she doesn't have. I can understand the urge and I genuinely believe that if Sansa had the same level of growth as others, she would be one of the best characters in the books. She will undoubtedly continue to grow in the last two books but for where the fandom wants her to be, George would need to give her four books worth of development in a few chapters which seems...unlikely.

I do agree that there's an issue with her stans getting angry when confronted with the book content. I've had people get upset with me for simply mentioning that Sansa was a part of LF's plot to poison SW. Her stans want her to simultaneously be the smartest character in the books while also being the purest, most naive character in existence. If you "insult" her intelligence then you're misogynistic but saying that she knows something that she was basically outright told is also bad. A really frustrating attitude that comes from her stans being unhappy with how she's actually written in the books. I think a lot of it comes from people wanting her book plot to line up with the show, but there's just no way that's happening. The sooner her stans come to terms with that and learn to like how she's actually written, the better.

[fitzrove]

Poll because I watched a youtube video and am an annoying elitist

[elis-corner]

crying because why the fuck did i pick a three year course of latin i can barely string a sentence together in english and it's literally my first and basically only language

[snowstories]

I have lost 'don't be pedantic' fight once again, so: it annoys me when people straight up state fakiru is canon, because that's a gross oversimplification. There is certainly romantic subtext between Fakir and Ahiru, but unlike Rue and Mytho, they never textually get together, so how 'canon' it is depends on how you define 'canon' to begin with. Furthermore, it's also really easy to interpret the romantic subtext as platonic. This is because Princess Tutu, for the most part, distinguishes very little between romantic and platonic love. In this show the boundary between the romantic and the platonic is fluid. The exact nature of Fakir and Ahiru's relationship and feelings for each other is up to interpretation, and intentionally so. So talking about fakiru as if it's unambiguously canon without acknowledging the inherent ambiguity simplifies the show and is not an accurate representation of their relationship. Also it annoys me personally.

[fluentisonus]

sorry but those posts saying that if you're uncomfortable in a corset you just have a bad corset are so annoying to me. any garment like that (this includes bras) and especially ones that are boned are inherently restrictive and limiting and can be painful to people wearing them even if they're well fitted. it's ridiculous to pretend it's not. like I think there's a prevalence of badly fitted garments in film etc and also distain for historical people who wore well made ones as much as the next person but we can say that without outright lying agjfshjdsfhk. you don't need to gaslight people about these garments never having been restrictive

[theskoomacat]

M*uthwashing was good, the only things i didn't enjoy lie in the area of writing (but so do some things i enjoyed the most!) - but I expected more from it? kinda?

[gay-artificer]

I feel like I see much more complaining about innocent sad mom girlboss fandomized Artificer than i actually see innocent sad mom girlboss Artificer. Past like, jokes about them being a girlboss. Which don't count.

[livvyofthelake]

i feel like the. this is kinda boring -> wait this is crazy -> i don't get it -> WAIT I GET IT -> people didn't understand it.... pipeline for watching a movie goes crazy in a way a straightforward "i get it" could never dream of.....

[sskk-manifesto]

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