#just fucking hates that wizard

[jacqcrisis]

Idea: kingdom in a magical land. The current king is married to a woman who hails from a different country that despises and punishes the use of magic, while his is encouraging about it, to the point he has a head royal wizard.

Ever since the queen came into the picture, the royal wizard isn't allowed to stay on the castle grounds as people in his position have for centuries. He cannot be within the same room as the king without an escort and the king is not allowed to visit his tower without one of the same. In fact, most interactions with the wizard must be done solely by the queen unless it is specifically about warfare or something to do with the border. If the king and the wizard have to meet, they must be in the company of someone, and are not even allowed an iota of privacy despite the sensitivity of their conversations.

Ask the wizard on his rounds through the kingdom, and he'll state the queen doesn't trust him. Such a pity, he says with a grimace before continuing on his way, basket full of foraged ingredients swinging from his arm. The commoners believe it is due to her home country, their distrust of magic, and their belief anyone who practices it is a snake despite the wizard being nothing but loved by all.

The servants and the advisors of the castle, however, have a different idea. Especially those who've known the king since he was a boy and the wizard when he was just and apprentice, the boys having basically grown up together on the castle grounds. Those who've known the two and seen the deep friendship they developed, those who've spent years whispering tales of late night visits and trips out alone together up until the betrothal to the current queen...

Well, they have a different theory why she glares at the wizard so intensely at every light touch he happens to brush upon her husband's royal hand during their meetings.

[trappedinafantasy37]

Just a quick reminder that Minthara is the only evil aligned companion who does not actively do anything evil and you never actually have to tell her not to do evil things. She only talks evil and suggests evil, but she never does anything evil herself. Now, I know this is gonna be earth shattering and ground breaking news for some people, especially those who've never recruited her, but she never tries to force you to do the evil things she suggests and you can choose not to do them. A lot of people like to act like she's holding a knife to your throat and demanding you be evil or else. But nah, she just calls you a pussy in the background and moves on. And not all of the things she suggests are necessarily evil either.

She explicitly takes orders from you and she will always do what you tell her to do, even the good things. She may bitch about doing good things, but she will still go along with it and give it her all (Hells, sometimes she'll even have fun!). She is willing to put her own desires and ambitions aside to serve a common goal. And there are some good things Minthara does approve of! She is also the only companion who will not abandon you over the choices you make and her hard line is you being an asshole and mistreating her. Minthara will literally follow you from the beginning to the end no matter what happens and no matter what choices you make because she made the oath that she would.

So, if you think she is "too evil" then you need to take a good hard look at yourself cause the only evil she is actively doing is the evil you command her to do. And you have no place to judge her for enjoying the evil when she is just following your orders.

[ecstarry]

listeeeeen reg and james as rival olympic athletes and then they hate fuck on the cardboard beds

[chessb0r3d]

i cracked the code.

[instantpansies]

life is hard for us oz fans who are only meh about wicked. have half a meme.

[hyperfixation-fix]

Flowers and chocolates and romantic mix tapes are cute I guess...

But who will deliver me my traitorous ex-best-friend, hog-tied with the word 'TRAITOR' carved into his chest?? Hm?? Who's going to do that for me??

[starlittragedies]

lily evans would’ve had a cat like crookshanks and it would have been the bane of whomever she is with’s existence

[losver07]

guys i love the hp wiki. i love it. i'm doing research for a fic and i thought it would be super complicated to get information and that i would have to search in the depths of reddit or some shit but ooooomg the hp wiki is my new best friend istg

[dreamcrow]

kanjigar in trollhunters episode 1 referring to bular's "master"... sir, how do you not know who gunmar is

[the-stars-sigh-when-i-get-high]

Never been interested in All the Young Dudes or Debt of Time

[maxdibert]

About the last post- How do you think the fannon marauders would react to the canon ones instead lmao (especially to Sev just being a normal guy who was bullied for no ‘real reason’)

Clearly, running away crying because that gang of losers could never stand a chance against the real Marauders and would crap their pants. I mean, there's nothing more to it, lol. The fandom's Sirius would piss himself if he saw the real one, 100%.

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

btw i forgto its pridemonth happy june to the gays and the aros specifically bcus thats what i drew

[justsumtransdude2000]

QuillKiller's Easy Beginnings

I know that a lot of people enjoy the internalized homophobia narrative in relation to relationships involving DE's and purebloods, and I often enjoy it too, when done correctly. However, QuillKiller is one of the instances where I think, characterization wise, it simply doesn't work. Specifically, I'm thinking when the internalized homophobia narrative is pushed onto Bellatrix.

Why? Well, what do we know about Bellatrix? She is dangerous, clinically insane, murderous and undyingly loyal to whatever she applies herself to, and canonically that thing is the dark lord, yes, but what else? She is self assured. When she battles people she taunts them because she is sure she'll beat them, when she argues she does it sardonically and with the very distinct air of I'm right, you're wrong, fuck off and die before I crucio you. Everything she does is with a sense of superiority and self respect. She knows who she is, and she wouldn't brush that off (especially in her teenage years, because Bellatrix as a teenager was a spitfire and a rebel in one way or another) to replace it with being who she needs to be.

So, when she realizes she's gay she doesn't think, she knows. She isn't afraid of it, or angry at it, guilt doesn't eat her alive about it, she doesn't dread not being the perfect daughter about it, because she's Bellatrix fucking Black, when has she ever been the perfect daughter, and when has trying to ever been fun? But this, her queerness and being able to weaponize it to piss off her family? That's fun. Bellatrix takes everything about herself and sharpens it until it's the perfect thing to ruin people with, especially when she is filled with teenage rebellion and hate.

Enter stage left Rita Skeeter, the openly lesbian trans girl (because fuck Terf-k Rowling, Rita deserves to be queer and trans and she is beautiful because of it) who is in everybody's business and runs a gossip column for Hogwarts. I imagine it starts 3rd year. Bellatrix has discovered this powerful, sharp thing about herself, and there is someone just as self actualized as her. Rita knows who she is, knows how to prove that to people. She runs smear campaigns against people who are transphobic towards her, and occasionally gets in trouble for hexing students who say nasty things, and she is a bit dangerous because of her abilities and Bellatrix loves it. She loves how being close with Rita is this game, loves how she walks a narrow tight rope of being loves and being smeared, loves the adrenaline rush it gives her (because she is so adrenaline junky coded).

And that love for all that Rita Skeeter is turns into love for her in 5th year.

And Rita Skeeter is intrigued by Bellatrix. By her ideology, the way she thinks and acts and is quick witted. The way she defends her so easily, the way curses flow from her wand with ease that Rita can tell is actually years of training and practicing (she ignores the thoughts about who she has had to practice on). And maybe it starts out as a story, but it turns into something else. It turns into this weird feeling in her hears, and sneaking into Bella's dorm, and learning what she likes to eat for breakfast, and wearing each other's ties on purpose and smearing transphobes together, and feelings.

And it's quite easy for them to fall in love.

[ratasum]

So, why we made Zojja a councilor.

At its core, Zojja's story has consistently been about running away.

It's not overt, but it's pretty clear: from the moment Snaff died, it's been about keeping everyone at arm's length so she doesn't hurt like that again. She isn't your friend. She isn't anyone's friend. The only person she lets get anywhere close to inside her circle canonically is the Savant.

And even then, she specifically treats you like a lackey and even calls you "Minion" (even if she corrects herself).

If she lets other people in, she loses. They can see that she's hurting deeply. She's a young woman, and though we never get to know her real age, it's implied she wasn't older than her early 20s. And Snaff loved her like a daughter, and she loved him, even if she bucked back against his ideas. He encouraged it, even. And then he was gone, because they let people in.

She never needed anyone to not see her for just her genius or to "want her just for her" because it never played into it, and it was never an issue at any part of the story that we see her in. She knew she was smart and that was a non-issue- she was a genius! A highly experienced golemancer, heir to Snaff's legacy! There was no inkling of her feeling like people were using her- one of her key flaws was her tendency to use others to keep distance.

She is confident, stubborn, self assured, and above all? Kind of selfish! She doesn't need other people except when they're useful. She doesn't need help unless when she dictates it. It's what makes her tension with Kudu so interesting. He went a similar path, and she didn't realize she was starting to walk it too.

My friend and I had played with Zojja being still in contact with the group for several years in our rp stuff, though we had considered reworking it with the release of The Expac. And after... events, we decided to mostly chuck it. Not just because we were a couple of the many disappointed with what we got but because Zojja's story had no line through to the story she'd had since the jump...

...except that she was still running away. Pushing away people she knew. People were reaching out to her, trying to keep up, but she refused it. She didn't want to be seen or perceived as weak. This had nothing to do with her being needed and everything to do with Zojja's continued push to not be seen as a person with feelings and fears. The stuff about her not being reached out to give talks or teaching anymore doesn't fit either- she was never doing that to begin with. She had other irons in the fire she was busy working with, and other than taking Taimi as her apprentice, she's NEVER done more than push heavily for the Snaff Savant prize to honor her late mentor.

If anything, all it did was stretch this out in the long term. It wasn't an arc or healing, it was just more of her running from everything. Taking on ascension wasn't healing it was a permanent hiding place. And it wasn't satisfying because we weren't allowed to sit with it. We got no mention of Snaff, she brushed off Taimi despite preparing to do to her what happened to herself with Snaff, and they boiled her problems down to... not feeling wanted. Even worse that they presented her continuing to run and refuse to let people in (even the wizards- they're encouraging her to ascend and leave everything she loved behind, remember) as a good thing.

We even accept it without any pushback. We don't even get time to sit with her. She gets fifteen minutes, is Wizard Lobotomized off-screen, and then promptly hurried out of the story so we don't have to worry. We know where Zojja is she just doesn't give a shit about you anymore! That's great; you should be happy!

(To say nothing about the fact that the ONLY commander she should've greeted with fondness is an asuran commander. She has next to zero interaction with anyone else. I honestly just cannot stand what they did with her; there were a billion ways they could've done it and made it feel organic and I would've even accepted her ascending but it was shoehorned in so hard and we got no time to see any of her "growth." We just got told about it and that was that.)

It doesn't jive with anything else. To say nothing about the galaxy sized plot hole her being missing for eight years provides when Taimi couldn't keep a secret if her mouth was glued shut and WE KNOW SHE WAS REACHING OUT. So was Logan, and he doesn't say anything. We deal with Rata Sum repeatedly, nothing.

Zojja was famous. She wouldn't have just never been mentioned as missing.

That aside, we wanted to play with the fact that her being there was just a continuation of her running away from her own grief. I didn't want to let her bury it, especially knowing she'd refused people who DID care.

We also wanted to play with the criticisms of Rata Sum anet has hammered in. Zojja was harmed by the culture there as much as the Savant is, as much as Taimi was. Someone needs to fix it. Making it a councilor who literally has two lines in the personal story just feels cheap. Making it Zojja, finally realizing she doesn't need to keep pushing people away, doesn't need to keep running, doesn't need to blame everyone else for her own grief and guilt.

Going back to Rata Sum, taking on an open council seat and facing down the system that hurt her so damn bad, hurt Taimi, hurt every young asura coming out of the city, felt more organic in the end. We still have her go to Amnytas and stay there for a little over a year. There's genuine tension, a back and forth on whether she should stay with these people who tell her she's so special and her magic is so good and important and powerful or return to Tyria to face her pain head on and actually let the people around her love her and help her heal.

She decides not to join the cult in the end. And it'll be hard work- using people is what she does. We see it in the early PS. And it's hard! A lot harder than having the cult wipe everything about her chronic pain and injuries with Super Special Magic (as someone with chronic pain let me tell you how much THAT pissed me off) and letting them just wipe away all the bad memories and pain by making her an immortal who simply does not care about the Little Things back on Tyria.

She goes home, and eventually takes up an open council seat to push back against Flax. No one's more stubborn than her. She will drag Rata Sum into the modern era if it takes forever. She'll take time to heal, let people in. Let the people that care about her actually care about her.

Healing takes time, not magic. She'll get there.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Ngl youtube videos suddenly got me slowly turning into a Justin Russo hater.

[aroanthy]

revolutionising the world w my nanami video essay someday i promise you guys. in the meantime this is a playlist of daise approved utena video essays if you even care. i have um’d and ah’d about including the clear and sweet aou analysis series bc i think it’s wonderful in so many ways but do disagree with the fundamental read of the movie so. ehh. my general rule for including something on this playlist is ‘the analysis must be considered, somewhat original, something that i either agree with or think is valuable to keep in mind’. if there was less ‘the series isn’t as good’ and half-reaching at what my interpretation of aou is, then that aou series would probably be on here. i do recommend it but it just doesn’t feel right to have it on here sorryyy