#it's not entirely clear

[lured-into-wonderland]

V is standing next to her, but off to the side and out of view from the mirror she’s looking into. it’s a body mirror, long and tall enough to capture the sight from head to toe. she’s been trying on different kinds of scarves for their outing, gloves and all to match. hooked around the man’s arms are the different fabrics, all varied in length, color and design — it’s important to stay warm. he is just there to lend a hand to Nunnally, providing feedback to each few rotations on her choice in color matching and coordination (he remains quiet for the most part, though, unless she asks for his opinion. fashion is…not his specialty.)

It feels so good to be in a human world. Again. Perhaps Nunnally shouldn’t have forgotten what happened to her not so long ago, but in this very moment, she did. Perhaps the princess should have given more thoughts into the consequences of her being a prisoner of the Underworld, but she wants to forget. Seeing the sky, the sun and the moon, being among humans and their humans' issues make her believe she has escaped her fate, and is back here where she is supposed to be. The only reminder about her recent past (at least for now) is V. Standing next to her. She remembers his powers. She remembers his kindness. She remembers he is the only reason she’s still alive. Perhaps then, she should want him to disappear, too. Perhaps she should want to cut that last link (or the remainder) to who the proud princess has become…

…but she doesn’t…

…Nunnally wants V to stay. To be close to her. But the princess is not sure why. Is it because she feels safe with him? Is it because she knows he’ll protect her from anything and everything? Or perhaps there’s another reason that Nunnally is not ready to reveal even to herself?

She takes another scarf and tries it on. To see how it fits the rest of her outfit. It’s a nice soft wool; it gives her a cosy feeling. But would green go nicely with her fair complexion? So, she quickly chooses a different one; white scarf richly decorated with golden thread…but wouldn’t it make her looking too pale? Nunnally looks at V; he isn’t really helpful. V remains quiet for most of the time, and Nunnally is not sure why. Doesn’t he like anything that is piling up in this room? Doesn’t he like the “new” her? She is suddenly concerned. Does he find her vain?

Nunnally is not truly vain. She might appear so at this very moment, but deep inside she isn’t. V has seen her tainted and humiliated (at least in her own eyes); V has seen the princess in the rags, so now she wants to show him a different self; a different Nunnally. Still not in the royal splendor (does she really want him to see the royal princess?), but definitely a different Nunnally. Though perhaps V prefers her stripped of her royalty. Of her womanhood. Oh, is it that she wants him to see a woman in her?

She is standing there next to V wearing an elegant long dress. The black colour is the background for the seasonal motifs; all the shades of greens, reds, and golds adorn the expensive fabric. She is standing there now confused of why V is not talking to her. She wants him to say something. To calm her emotions down. Again and again. The faint pink creeps on her cheeks as the princess finally speaks: --

“Which one is better? The green? The white? …or perhaps the red one…?” – she adds as she reaches for another scarf. But she knows it is unimportant what she is going to wear. She understands that, although she still wants to look pretty for him. Though if it does make him uncomfortable…: --

“Come on…” – she says as she approaches V and gently takes his arm – “I think I have spent too much time focusing on how I look…” – though I want to look beautiful for you; but that’s not the confession V is going to hear – “We should rather focus on enjoying our…time together…” – suddenly Nunnally realizes she doesn’t know how much time is left for them. What will happen when they back to her kingdom? Where she is to take back her position?

She has dreamt about it when she was locked in that cell. So, why now a hesitation in her heart…?

“Look, V!” – the points outside the window – “The fresh snow!”

“Let’s go out…perhaps we’ll find a mistletoes…” – and end up under it. She doesn't want to think about serious issues. She wants not to be a princess for a bit longer. All she wants is to enjoy these moments...

...with V.

@ofurizen

[gallus-rising]

i'm beginning to think the Swansea is devs' favorite character and i love it so much. they made him an official dance playlist on Spotify, there's an achievement for letting yourself be axe murdered 10 times in a row called "The Good Ending", his keys in your inventory could've totally been just a normal picture of some keys but they put in the extra effort to give him a silly swan charm, he gets multiple epic speeches, there's an entire character dedicated to hyping him up, they posted a video of him twerking Jimmy to death. mark my words they're going to turn him into a marketable plushie any day now

[inkskinned]

the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.

women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.

what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.

i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.

fuck, man. write better material.

a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.

god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.

this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.

we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.

i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -

it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.

[ot3]

the interesting thing is that when you say things like 'the united states is beyond saving' people view that as a defeatist statement that is giving up on the hope of a better future, but frankly the thought of a significant number of people on the planet being willing and able to say that there is no place for colonial empires in their vision for the future is, to me, a much brighter and more hopeful political standpoint than the thought of being stuck in a perpetual cycle of choosing 'the lesser of two evils' as the overton window pushes further and further to the right with nothing but enthusiasm from our so-called progressive party.

[kooldewd123]

there's something to be said about the choice to use "prince" as the main signifier of military rank for the andalites. because it kinda obscures the truth of the situation, doesn't it? a group of kids getting magic powers from an alien prince sounds whimsical and delightful. a group of kids getting pulled into a war by an alien colonel sounds tragic and horrible. the slow reveal of what "prince" actually means over the course of the early books is perhaps the most underrated twist of the entire series, because it fundamentally recontextualizes the entire premise of the series without the reader even consciously realizing it.

[valtsv]

an angle i enjoy in cosmic/eldritch horror is when, instead resorting to the old classic "the horrors being so incomprehensible that they break your brain and drive you mad" cliché, the premise is that in comprehending the horrors you are so changed by the experience that your new state is indistinguishable to an outside observer from madness. you comprehend the unknowable just fine, but actually communicating that to anyone else is impossible because they just don't have the mental framework required to understand it. the eldritch horrors don't drive you mad. what does is the ordinary everyday horror of finding yourself isolated, ridiculed and doubted at every turn, no matter how hard you try to make yourself heard and understood.

[jingerpi]

meaningful work: transgender experience in the sex trade

[volatilemask]

What do you think would be underneath MDK's helmet....or can he even take it off at all.... ive been thinking about that

cant

[freshbeeth]

god dammit marina ida one day you will wear a shirt

[demigods-posts]

okay but. annabeth having having feelings for percy. and KNOWING he's developing feelings for her too. but refusing to act on it until she thinks he's about to die. and she'll never get another chance to. so kisses him. and then he crashes his own funeral two weeks later. and now neither of them can deny the tension anymore. and they still have a year left to see if it's even worth saying out loud. or if he was always destined to leave her. because the prophecy has yet to pass. peak writing.

[gunstellations]

boop! 💙🤍

[matchabot]

the high mobility instant life-enders experience

[feathercreates]

"Old friend... I miss you so much. I'm so sorry."

[vaguely-concerned]

I honestly don't think lucanis would have gotten much gentler training than most of the other crows -- if anything I expect he got more direct and intensely focused/constant attention on and control exerted over him than most of them might, since caterina has so much bound up in him both emotionally, politically and (ultimately, as the case always is with the crows lol) financially. she does not seem the type to as it were risk spoiling the sole viable heir by sparing the rod (derogatory). she has too much on the line here leave stuff like that to chance. where the 'first talon's favourite kid' privileges DO likely enter into it for me is that he can every so often make the move to spare a target based in nothing but his own conscience and not be killed for it himself.

which also has me wondering like... did caterina know she was sending him to kill a child, with that one target he mentions to davrin? or was it a surprise to her too? from what he says, she is the one who picks the contracts for him. was that contract how she realized there are things she could ask him to do, uses she could try to put him to, that would just break him (which would be such a waste at this point she's invested so many years and so much of herself in this knife that rests perfectly in her hand)? was it a test?? did it turn into a test both ways??? did lucanis know she wouldn't have him killed for refusing to do it, or is that one of the few times he came back and looked her in the eye to see what she would do, as the closest he's ever gotten to actually telling her 'no'???? 'you have every right to kill me for it, but this is one thing I can't do for you' with his hands not dripping with blood... and for whatever reason or set of reasons you might choose to believe, she doesn't kill him. what an absolutely nuts relationship this is

(how does illario feel watching that go down. knowing lucanis can gamble on love or sunk cost logic or whatever it is that stays her hand to hold on to having a soul, while illario could surrender his whole soul unquestioningly every time to her and still not have the love.)

[knox-knocks]

Maybe exy is a little boring to him — but andrew doesn’t just not care about exy, neil notes in the beginning of tfc that he seems to outright resent it. boredom doesn’t bring about resentment. but do you know what does? the idea that a sport you barely give a shit about is the only reason anyone gives a shit about you

[ghost-bxrd]

You guys ever think about an AU where Jason goes to hound Tim through Titans Tower, and, mid pursuit—while Tim is screaming at him about the second Robin being his hero, tryin to crawl away in a trail of blood—realizes he’s become an even worse version of his own mother, who sold him out to the Joker?

Because I do.