#it’s just one long scene

[arliedraws]

I don’t really write OC’s in fic because I don’t usually like to read them, but I have an OFC in my Slytherin!Sirius soul swap AU bc I thought it would make sense to give AU Sirius a loveless marriage to a pureblood witch. In what I thought was gonna be a short exercise to explore her character a bit, I wrote 22 pages of smut where she and canon Sirius (who is pretending to be AU Slytherin!Sirius) hate-fuck (sort of) because he’s a bisexual disaster and is under the impression that he’s supposed to fuck his young hot, annoying wife and then finds out AU Slytherin!Sirius actively avoided her because he only had eyes for his rival James Potter.

And it doesn’t really fit. In my story. So I don’t know like…what to do with it.

[huntingrays]

pjo prompt: percy and jason have to go on a quest together, so they both decide to bring their respective partners (annabeth and leo). during the quest, they get kidnapped by monsters and percy and jason wake up in an arena. the monsters explain that they have their partners and in order to save them, they have to fight to the death, with the winner getting to leave alive with their partner, while the other is killed. however, the monsters are very shocked when percy and jason sit down and start calmly playing cards with each other. they’re not worried about their partners. instead, they’re worried for the monsters. they trapped annabeth and leo together, two of the smartest demigods. the girl who redesigned olympus and the boy who built a warship in six months. they were toast.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Kiss Kiss Fallen Tree!

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[petricorah]

scenes i loved from Real Enough to Get Me Through by @marriedzukka <333 [ids in alt]

[buttercupshands]

can you even call it a warm up if I'm going to bed without drawing anything big

and a sketch I made while sitting in the park today

[eff-plays]

The way Astarion reacts depending on how you compliment him in the mirror scene (I have no interest in insulting him so I won't be covering that here, have fun though!) drives me fucking insane.

"I want to know what the world sees when it looks at me. What you see."

And you get two types of responses. First, your choices for compliments are

Strong, piercing eyes.

The creases when you laugh.

Pick the first, and he's pleased. "Go on," he says, sounding very seductive. You're giving him exactly what he wants, and he's encouraging it.

Pick the second, and he gets upset. He's an eternally young vampire, not your doting grandmother! You can do better than that. Even if you meant it as a compliment (I know my Tav definitely did), he doesn't seem to take it that way.

Your second options are

That dangerous smile.

The way your hair curls around your ears.

Once again, the first one pleases him, and he even praises your efforts. Very good. Now finish the scene and tell him he's beautiful.

But if you say the second, he gets exasperated. This is meant to be flattery, not poetry. Just tell him he's beautiful and we can call it a day, he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. He doesn't need to hear this crap, just tell him what he wants and fuck off.

Of course, it doesn't matter how you get to this point, and every dialogue option at the end of the scene nets you the same amount of approval. If you call him beautiful, it's +1. Call someone else beautiful, it's +1. If you ask whether he just wants shallow praise (aka don't call him beautiful), you get +1. So this is me pulling this out of my ass I guess.

I always choose to call him beautiful becuase 1) he is and 2) my Tav thinks so too and would oblige him if he asked for it that directly.

But I am obsessed with the different routes you can take to get to this point and what they imply.

Strong, piercing eyes and dangerous smile pleases him more outwardly, but doesn't actually affect the outcome. He's satisfied and confident with these compliments. They confirm what he's trying to project into the world, what he aspires to have and to be.

The creases when he laughs? The hair curling around his ears? Those are things he can't control, can't use against someone else. But he asked to be seen, and if this is what Tav sees, then what does that mean for him?

Why are they complimenting his laugh lines? Why are they speaking poetry at him? Why are they seeing things he has no control over, and why are they revealing them to him?

He doesn't want shallow praise. Questioning this nets approval, and giving it to him doesn't increase approval. What he wants is assurance that what he's trying to be is what the world sees, that he's in control.

And if you actually act as a mirror, point out the things unique to him that you see, he gets uncomfortable, because you're showing a reflection of someone he thinks he's not, of someone he has no control over. And that's scary, even if it's supposedly complimentary.

Because what's scarier than losing control?

But then, compared to how genuinely upset he seems when you insult him (I looked these up on YT for context), the laugh lines and hair curls are still accepted as compliments. So what does he think when Tav says these things?

They see past his piercing eyes and dangerous smile. They see something else that they like even more, things he's not aware of or doesn't appreciate as much. What does that feel like, to cultivate such a perfect image of oneself for the purposes of seducing and tricking others, and then be stumped when someone walks past all that and points out something entirely different that they noticed and found endearing?

Do you do him a favor, and tell him you see only what he wants to be? Or do you speak the truth, and show him what he actually is? Which one is better? Which one is worse?

[shopwitchvamp]

I mean this gently but I have to say somethin' here- I've been getting so much "make your skirts cheaper" "I love this but why are they soooo expensive" etc lately and like look, I know a lot of this is because times are hard.. (otherwise why would I be hearing this more & more this year when prices haven't changed compared to last year) but I just wanna say that one of the only ways I could lower prices (if I was ruthless and didn't care) would be to cut sizing options. Like idk how to word what I'm trying to say, but just know when you shout stuff like this at other brands & they decide they need to find a way to cut costs to lower prices, being size inclusive is gonna be one of the first things to go. I have no plans to do this myself, but for example, a D Size Skater costs me almost twice as much (talking about only the direct from the manu cost, there are other factors too such as that they weigh more so that adds more shipping costs as well) as an A Size Skater. Say I cut D Size altogether.. and many companies would have by now while also not even lowering the price.. I could increase my profit margins significantly right away. Now lets say I cut both C and D and become a shop that only offers the standard range of SM-XL. Wow! Suddenly profits are up so much!! Or maybe going not full corporate greed, I could handle lowering skater prices by like $10 (random number not based on real math idk what things would actually work out to because I'm not gonna do it). But now no one over a size XL can order from me. I fear none of what I'm trying to get across is getting across but I just mean to say, in order to offer what I offer, the prices need to be what they are. They aren't set arbitrarily high & lowering them would mean needing to make choices that I will not make (becoming less size inclusive or making my business unsustainable in the sense that it would not survive long).

[crispywizardtale]

[kendyroy]

Although very brief, I really really love the portrayal of Logan’s Weapon X breakout scene in X2. i love how it shows how nightmarishly awful this whole situation is for him. The fucking trauma of it all. His agonizing scream and the fact he looks absolutely horrified by the blood and the adamantium claws.

[synchodai]

HBO's Continued Insistence on Dumbing Down Westerosi Politics

So there have been countless thinkpieces already on how GOT simplified the feudalist politics of Westeros (by giving a lowborn sellsword lordship over The Reach, by having no consequences for destroying the Sept of Baelor, etc.), but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about that for House of the Dragon.

The worst being that the show presupposes that Rhaenyra is the lawful heir when the books showed there are plenty of lawful arguments why she wouldn't be.

Mind you that I've been enjoying the show a lot so far. This is just to vent out my frustration with the writers' failure to fully engage with the values and protocols of the Middle Age-inspired setting. The show seems uninterested in laws of the Realm in a story ostensibly about politics, save for when they're using it as an excuse to amplify depictions of sex and violence.

Blacks vs Greens wasn't a matter of misunderstanding of who each side thought Viserys wanted on the throne. It was the Targaryens' belief of their absolute authority clashing with the Realm's established traditions. Everyone always knew who Viserys chose as heir. In Fire and Blood, Grand Maester Orwyle said as much when he was parleying with Rhaenyra on behalf of the Greens.

Rhaenyra heard his terms in stony silence, then asked Orwyle if he remembered her father, King Viserys. "Of course, Your Grace," the maester answered. "Perhaps you can tell us who he named as his heir and successor," the queen said, her crown upon her head. "You, Your Grace," Orwyle replied. And Rhaenyra nodded and said, "With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why do you serve my half-brother, the pretender?" Munkun tells us that Orwyle gave a long and erudite reply, citing the Andal law and the Great Council of 101. Mushroom claims he stammered and voided his bladder. Whichever is true, his answer did not satisfy Princess Rhaenyra.

(For non-F&B readers: Munkun is the Grand Maester who served Aegon III, the king who came after this civil war. Munkun's book, The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, is one of Fire and Blood's source texts. Mushroom is the King Landing court jester from Viserys I to Aegon III's reign. One is a source written with academic rigor but is secondhand at best. The other is a firsthand eyewitness account but is from a literal fool who will take every chance to make things more scandalous and sexual to please the crowd.)

In House of the Dragon, they replaced Orwyle with Otto and Orwyle's discussion of legal precedent with Otto handing Rhaenyra a book page from Alicent. It's quite evident here that the writers, much like Mushroom, thought a discussion on the actual laws of the Realm were negligible in this story about a succession war.

Even Alicent made no pretense that Viserys chose Rhaenyra over her children and I have no idea why the HBO writers decided to make her mistakenly think otherwise. Maybe they thought a queen regent pushing her son to take the throne over another woman made her appear unsympathetic as a character, but if anything, this only makes show!Alicent less politically savvy and more delusional than her book counterpart, fully believing an addled king's vague muttering on his deathbed was sufficient grounds to change heirs last minute.

Book!Alicent following Andal laws instead of her husband's wishes makes sense given her Andal upbringing, her devotion to the Faith of the Seven which enforces said laws, and her desire to protect her children from Rhaenyra given that Rhaenyra has shown she's not above murdering family (see: Laenor).

In the books, there was a long discussion between the former king's council on who should succeed Viserys.

Here are the arguments for Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood

the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens

hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights.

Here are the arguments for Aegon II:

many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead [...]

Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King’s choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92

the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter

Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra’s husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and “we all know that one’s nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was [...]”

Should the princess reign [...] Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. “Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne.”

Once again, the show chose to cut out this long political discussion. Instead, the council had already made up their mind and decided to stage a coup (when in their perspectives from the books, it would definitely not be a coup).

For all their marketing how two sides are equally grey, HotD is actively delegitimizing Aegon II. The strongest argument for him is how his claim follows the laws of the Realm, but the show doesn't seem to care about the laws of the Realm or the political need to maintain a more predictable/tested transfer of power.

Instead, the show focuses on Viserys's relationship with his daughter and the mysticism of the Targaryen bloodline. In doing so, they emphasize Rhaenyra's strongest arguments for succession — that she's more of a Targaryen than her half-brother and that her father prefered her.

And what for? Because in our modern-day, we don't have male-prefered inheritance and people can only imagine misogyny as the only injustice here? What about the injustice of a monarch exercising absolute control, thinking that his "superior" heritage makes him above the established laws of the native people?

This is not to say Aegon II is unquestionably the heir. But this is to say that the show removed the political nuance of why people are questioning in the first place. Precedence isn't the end-all-be-all of succession, but neither is "because daddy said so".

[tatakaeeren]

Umemiya Hajime | Wind Breaker Ep. 10 “Dialogue"

[thesorrowoflizards]

↳ You never know when the good you do may come back around.

[naomistares]

rejoice! mini comic #2 about annoying heirs, nervous knights, stupid fights, and confessions!

up next! one more final "mini" comic: world's most obnoxiously cunty assassin gets involved (unwillingly) with funny wizard gone rogue post-economic-crisis-post rejoice's crowning... you get it! (it's about ever the fairy but that won't make sense til the very end)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Heh...Literally nothing personal, kid.

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[mobius-m-mobius]

(insp)

[beaulesbian]

👒"If we fight the Navy together now, you'll be a Government-defying villain! Would you prefer that or being killed like this?" ⚔️"What are you, the devil's son?! Well, whatever. I will be your pirate, if I'm just gonna die here instead!"