#like she's my ideal woman

[natjennie]

I need everyone to watch this right now please

[cozylittleartblog]

i now understand how certain people felt when harpy eda was revealed 😳

prints here

[buqbite]

My thoughts here mainly revolve around YSA as the mary sue/female lead type character:

She goes from being this perfect woman to. just being a woman. And my idea is that the weight gain isn't there to make her "unconventionally attractive," or whatever other dumb phrase you wanna use to avoid calling someone ugly, but to make her conventionally attractive, yet realistic.

Instead of looking like a skinny waifu character, she looks like a skinny human woman. Her hair swaying in the nonexistent wind isn't as perfect, her magic blush is missing and she has eyebags. She's still hot, just more human.

[paper-possum-party-pal]

She is such a Creature

Here is the original post the image comes from.

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

Some person on YouTube: Did you know that Sisi was actually bad at being Empress? Why do you like her so much?

Me, a person who has read more than the Wiki: Wow, really? What a revelation! No one has ever thought of that before! There can't be any reason that I can sympathize with a woman who struggled with a very demanding role that she was thrust into at 17. This must make her someone who isn't worth finding interesting.

[morninkim]

that one movie sinbad did about the genie

[griem]

ijbol idk man releasing screenshots of very polarizing things said in a private discord server between friends in a public "callout" post is #the most #tumblrific thing ive ever seen LOL.

#opinion 😱 in tags

[millidew]

rip lucy and mina you would’ve loved farcille. rip marcille you would’ve loved westenray (falin lost interest and fell asleep before finishing the book)

[bonefall]

Tbh I never read that far in DOTC but I heard so much about star flower from fandom that now hearing about it directly from you I feel so cheated. I was promised a femme fatale.. tho in hindsight considering how much these writers hate women I probably shouldn't have gotten my hopes up

I WISH we got a femme fatale. It would have been incredibly cathartic for her to make herself alluring to Clear Sky, turning his worst traits against him and getting both power and revenge. For Thunder to bond to her over it, reaching the conclusion in the end that they both had terrible parents that they need to reject.

but, knowing the Erins, they would have just had Clear Sky kill her violently and gratuitously for ever tricking him. Like how he gouged Willow Tail's eyes out. So... I guess we were doomed either way.

Anyway im cooking

[red-moon-at-night]

Thinking about the idea of Helen's desire for kleos, and how she is limited in the ways in which she can achieve it as a woman, it is rather interesting to see how the most 'obvious' solution to it is avoided — through children.

The main consensus surrounding Helen's number of children is that she gives birth to one, a girl called Hermione. Some sources bring up several others, but the earliest and most consistent child mentioned (and birthed by Helen) is her:

He was bringing Alector's daughter from Sparta for his son, mighty Megapenthes, grown up, who'd been borne him by a slave. The gods no longer made a child appear for Helen after she gave birth to her first child, lovely Hermione, who had the form of golden Aphrodite. (Homer, Odyssey, OD.4.10 - ca. 700 BCE)

MENELAUS [Laurentian Scholiast on Sophocles' Electra, 539]: 'And she (Helen) bare to Menelaus, famous with the spear, Hermione and her youngest-born, Nicostratus, a scion of Ares.' (Hesiod, Fragments, CW.F70 - ca. 650 BCE )

Now Menelaus had by Helen a daughter Hermione and, according to some, a son Nicostratus; and by a female slave Pieris, an Aitolian, or, according to Acusilaus, by Tereis, he had a son Megapenthes; and by a nymph Cnossia, according to Eumelus, he had a son Xenodamus (Apollodorus, Library, 3.11.1 - ca. 100 CE)

When Orestes became king of the Lacedemonians, they themselves consented to accept him for they considered that the sons of the daughter of Tyndareus had a claim to the throne prior to that of Nicostratus and Megapenthes, who were sons of Menelaus by a slave woman. On the death of Orestes, there succeeded to the throne Tisamenus, the son of Orestes and of Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.18.6 - ca. 174 CE)

It seems the later the sources get, the more children are added (look at that Apollodrus extract! Menelaus has been around!); but even then, Hermione is always mentioned, and often mentioned as the only legitimate child of Helen and Menelaus.*

*Yes the Scholiast on Euripides, Andr. 898 Cypria fragment does mention Pleisthenes the third born child, but... we're ignoring him (lol). As far as I'm aware he's only mentioned once and also no confirmation he's legitimate. Sorry Pleisthenes.

Now, let's talk about that a little. Helen giving birth to a daughter, and proceeding to not have any more children after that raises an important point — Helen does not produce an heir for her husband. Helen, as Menelaus' wife is expected to do that but she simply... doesn't. She has one child and that's it. Sometimes that one child isn't even intentional:

And she (Helen) bare neat-ankled Hermione in the palace, a child unlooked for. (Hesiod, Fragments, CW.F68 - ca. 650 BCE)

unlooked-for = unexpected; unforeseen.

However, as Ruby Blondell mentions in 'Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth Devastation':

"In normal circumstances such failure to bear a son would jeopardize a Greek wife's position, since it denies her a woman's primary avenue to status within her husband's household. Since she did not relocate upon marriage, however, Helen needs no sons to establish her status at Sparta. Moreover, the absence of a son helps her maintain her independence. When a son grows up, he becomes another source of male authority over his mother." (pg. 32-33)

She has different circumstances from her peers; she doesn't need children to retain her status. In fact, if she were to bear a son it might be worse for her position.

This would explain her reluctance for children, if the lack of them was indeed a choice. Nonetheless, it's worth exploring the possibility that it is unintentional. There's certainly evidence for it being so, if we look at how Hermione fares in adulthood with her own fertility:

(to Andromache) but as for thee, slave and captive, thou wouldst fain oust me and secure this palace for thyself, and thanks to thy enchantment I am hated by my husband; thou it is that hast made my womb barren and cheated my hopes (Euripides, Andromache, 117 - ca. 425 BCE)

Helen is struggling to have children, and now Hermione is struggling to have children — like mother, like daughter. Is the infertility hereditary? Or perhaps there are some godly influences afoot:

TYNDAREUS Scholiast on Euripides' Orestes 249: Stesichorus says that while sacrificing to the gods Tyndareus forgot Aphrodite and that the goddess was angry and made his daughters twice and thrice wed and deserters of their husbands (Hesiod, Fragments, CW.F67 - ca. 650 BCE )

While this extract focuses only on Tyndareus' daughters and their infidelity, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that the curse of a god could extend to multiple generations of a family (e.g. the house of Atreus) and in other ways — in this case, not being able to get pregnant/have a successful pregnancy.

However, considering the infertility as an intervention by the gods, I don't think that this is necessarily a 'curse'. This feels more like fate. That, regardless of whether it is Helen's choice to have just Hermione or not, it is destined to happen. The subtext being 'just Hermione' and no more.

Blondell mentions that in Theocritus' poem The Epithamaly of Helen, the chorus pray that Helen bears Menelaus a child that resembles herself. If we take the quote from The Odyssey earlier, of Hermione 'who had the form of golden Aphrodite', we can assume that prayer is fulfilled. Blondell also says:

"There is something a little strange, however, about the chorus's prayer. ... since there is no doubt about a woman's identity as a mother, the crucial point, for a husband, is that his wife's offspring should resemble him. It seems strange too, at a wedding, to pray in effect for a daughter as opposed to a son and heir." (pg. 32)

Helen will have a child, and it will resemble her, but that's it. No sons, no heirs.

Enter stage left: Zeus' plan to reduce the population of demigods by having a beautiful daughter, who will instigate a long and bloody war.

How do you get such a daughter to instigate a war? By leaving her husband because she desires more than the cards she has been dealt.

If Helen does desire kleos, but is essentially barred from achieving it in the ways a woman traditionally does, then she must seek it elsewhere.

In choosing to leave with (effeminate, unconventional) Paris: If she doesn't wish to have children, maybe she thinks she can escape the 'inevitable' fate of all wives to bear a son and be known only as their mother — she will seek kleos elsewhere. If she does wish to have children, maybe she has tried to bear children, many, many times after Hermione and cannot, and in that shame of failing to meet the minimum standards of being a woman — she will seek kleos elsewhere.

Whatever her feelings are on the matter, fate remains the same: Helen will have a daughter that resembles her, and Helen will go to Troy with Paris. The facts still remain the same too: Helen cannot bear a son, and this separates her from womanhood. She cannot successfully be a woman by society's standards, and cannot make her legacy her children.

She must find kleos in other ways.

[the-descolada]

frankly biggest under-discussed overlap between baru in masquerade and harrow in tlt is a protagonist who people somehow see as femme because they have a love interest who more people see as butch, despite both characters being...either very fucking butch too or just not fitting into those categories precisely

hell, baru being butch in a very specific way in terms of sexual dynamics she likes playing into is a major fucking plot point!

[knbposting]

i filled in @akashirl 's fun knb meme! it revealed too much i'm going into hiding now. also momoi knits, i feel like that fact is not talked about enough!!! my girl knitted kuroko a scarf and i crochet so that's close enough :')

[fumifooms]

Okay okay new flekille angle... Fleki joking about being a "dark elf" and Marcille being uncomfortable about it... Fleki saying it and teasing with it BECAUSE it makes Marcille unsure and uncomfortable.

No because okay okay rundown : 'dark elf' is a catch-all term for elves who show unsavory behavior or commit wrong actions, wether violence, theft, scamming or lying... It being a shorthand for criminals in general is a safe assumption to make, especially since they're classically demonized already.

"Okay but Fleki? Run me through the situation what does it have to do with flekille." Short sociology lesson, because of urgent needs being unable to be met through honest means & with the system favoring others instead, people from poorer more neglected social classes tend to fall into crime & bad crowds more easily. Having less ressources means the 'solutions' you do have are more extreme, wether it be for regulating your mental health or stabilizing your income or living situation. Here's a study link if interested.

Why I think Fleki may have been lower class, before becoming a prisoner? Okay stay with me here, elves are very hierarchal and xenophobic, even while being colonizers. Referring to the area guide blurbs, the northern central continent (NCC) is managed with more restrictions but also more valued in general than the southern central continent (SCC), which also has a widespread elven population. It's said life is "safe and easy" in the NCC, so alongside all the noble elves we have info for come from the NCC, we can see a dynamic form where NCC continent elves are from a higher safer social class than SCC elves.

Another hint of this is the characters' names. If you compare their name origins, a pattern starts appearing where... Well @room-surprise did the work and has more knowledge than me so, the way they put it: "It seems like every elf that has a clearly Germanic or Slavic name is either a criminal or a lower-class person and everyone who is higher class seems to have names that are Latin, Greek, or West/South Asian."

And this seems like a lot of large vague groups options that don't mean much, but this tidbit of info becomes more telling when knowing which races are more associated with what languages and cultures. For a full look into it I recommend this essay, but to get to the point here concisely: 'Fleki' is old norse. 'Otta' and 'Helki' are other elves with old norse names, but for what it's worth Otta is from the NCC, and who knows about Helki's origins. They're the only elves with old norse names at all, but three's a crowd. Who else do we know are scandinavian coded? That's right, Laios and his home region. Tallmen.

Prisoner/non-noble elves tend to have old norse names while none of the noble ones do. And wouldn't that be interesting if tied with tallmen being nordic, wouldn't it be a result of the cultural mixing happening in the less rich regions and the lower social classes, since noble elves are especially xenophobic and uppity about social classes?

Ironically, our protagonist Laios has a greek name, something associated with elves in Dungeon Meshi, but just like Anoutolid and Nussa (two of Laios' father's dogs) could have been picked as names because Laios' father likes names from myths, with the dogs this is canon but in case of Laios it's probably more of a meta joke. ANYWAYS! Go in the essay for more info, all I'm saying is, tallmen = nordic, elves having nordic names = possible cultural mixing, on the continent that canonically has more immigration and less restrictions but is also less safe and 'easy' to live in.

Elves concentrating all their efforts and wealth into the 1% is too real and it checks out. It's also hinted at and mentioned many times through canon and extra info (Misyl's Complete Adventurer's Bible blurb for one) that the canaries overpolice and charge criminals too heavily because they lack manpower, so they want people arrested and want them arrested for longer to have more canaries. Fleki was arrested because of possession and sale of ancient magic artifacts, and only got into ancient magic for the money. Look I'm just saying, it lines up that Fleki would turn to crime because her material conditions weren't great! And as a criminal, she's automatically fit to either having been treated as a dark elf or joke and taunt about it. Especially since the lore info extra on dark elves is set somewhere where tallmen approached unfriendly elves, while this could be a tallman unused to elves outside of rumors thus approaching them with a reckless idealized view, the casualness of it makes me think this is the sort of contact that was likely to happen in an area with a lot of elves and a lot of tallmen living nearby each other, ie the SCC.

Mentioning the Mithrun-Hareus parallels AGAIN but Mithrun and the canaries directly contrast Daltian Clan, it' holds up and makes sense a result especially of Mithrun being hareus' exact lookalike. It's fantasy vs reality of Marcille idealizing Daltian Clan and elven military through General Hareus and novels growing up, then realizing that the real elven military is miserable and very much not glamorous and general Mithrun is dehydrated, rude and after her life. So this plotline about idolizing vs demonizing elves as a race, stances that are very split within the dunmeshi cast, is very Marcille-centric within canon's story. She herself goes from associating with them a lot and being prideful about it & elven customs, to condemning their superiority complex and narrow-mindedness and being on the run from the elven military, before becoming an advisor for a short-lived tallman court, which is seen as dishonorable for elves, as Marcille the half-elf. There's a bit of an arc here, regardless of how much change she actually went through or if it was always just performance on her part that she wasn't really attached to.

So obviously this is all to say that Marcille having a romance with a very underprivileged elf, a "dark elf", would be not only compelling but relevant. FLEKILLE SUPREMACY!!!!!

Half-elf woman who drank the koolaid a bit growing up and idolized elves and tried her best to fit the image of one x woman who knows personally the shortcomings of that same idolized society and embodies that a bit, who breaks that elegant image by being crass and unapologetic and a criminal prisoner, who would have no problem breaking Marcille's fantasies about it, a full elf who still grew up disadvantaged and demonized. Marcille has been emulating elves all her life, perhaps in the hopes of being accepted more or feeling a bigger sense of cultural belonging, but Fleki is there, showing her hey, it isn't that great anyways, hey it doesn't matter squat if you're an elf or not people will always find excuses to mistreat you anyways. It's Fleki taunting and saying come be dark elves with me and Marcille coming to understand and replying no, we're both just elves.

[shannonsketches]

like why did they change where Vegeta was when Cell announced the cell games in the anime

why did they make this vegeta starting shit with yamcha instead of chillin in the lab with his family? why did they take Bulma out of the lab? Why'd they say she was Out while Dr Brief was repairing 16? Why did they change Bulma working on advanced robotics to running in late with her baby?

it's the same scene except: - Bulma's actively at work being a scientist - Vegeta's not being rude to her (or anyone else!) - Vegeta waits for Trunks instead of leaving the room - Cell interrupted the airwaves, which means Trunks and Vegeta were just hanging out with Bulma and Dr B while they were working

Those are all Great Character Details!! That the anime rails against!!

[britneyshakespeare]

Had the extremely upsetting experience of a mutual of like 6 years going off on me for occasionally making posts about supporting Harris because apparently that makes me a g n cide denier who refuses to learn and grow, with all of my views just being assumed not even from what I've told them I believe or what I've posted before, but just because I DON'T post particularly the kind of things they THINK I should be. When I pointed out how much they were just completely assuming about stuff I'd never talked to them about, I was told it doesn't matter what I do in real life or "care" about if I simply disagree with their conclusion and vote for her anyway. Like they were absolutely not sorry for the level of maliciousness they not just assumed of my character, but for some reason thought appropriate to bring directly to me before unfollowing me. No apology whatsoever for how discomforting or upsetting that might be and certainly no acknowledgment that I could disagree with them and still be a good person. I just got another even longer rant about how they fundamentally can't fuck with me because of this one thing, no matter WHAT else I do in my real life (which I pointed out that they do not know), and how I'm directly supporting fascism.

Like seriously what is it about Tumblr that makes people think they know someone based off of occasional posts? There were just such DEEP assumptions they were making of me and going off of very little or absolutely nothing. Around the time I first became mutuals with that person I used to express my personality and beliefs and talk about what was going on in my life a lot more openly, but I've significantly scaled back on doing that in many ways for many reasons. One of my major ones is privacy and the way I've had strangers outside my followers and following circles just find random things I say and dogpile me for it. I was fundamentally changed after some T Fs did that to me like 3 years ago. I also just didn't have many conversations w that person anymore (I message people in general on here like 10x less than I did circa 2018-2019, which I'm somewhat sorry about!). My point is to say I think this person felt comfortable assuming that they knew me, especially who I am in 2024 at the age of 25, much better than they actually did.

One of the specific things they accused me of was being afraid of learning and growing (because I don't perform social media activism on here like they think I should). Like AFRAID to take criticism. When again I've never received criticism from them or had to respond to any criticism on here before as pertaining to my views on... well, absolutely any of the issues they accused me of not caring about. They essentially treated it as if the only thing in the world I cared about was the US election and characterized me as the most out-of-touch liberal they could possibly imagine, because I'm not "pushing" Kamala Harris to be better (Oh?? Should I do that on here?? Does she read my blog??).

And most hypocritically what they said was that I only *sometimes* *vaguely* post pro-Harris things (I often post like 5 or fewer things in a day though?). But here's the kicker. "Because I know I'll get shit for it. And rightfully so."

Really????? Not a single person, anon or not, in my messages or in a tagged post or anything, has ever given me shit before for saying who I'm voting for. I'm actually NOT afraid of "getting shit" for that opinion, I just don't start fights with people who are anti-voting. And why should I??? I genuinely don't believe in trying to change the minds of strangers on the internet about that sort of thing. I'm just not confrontational about it; that is so not the same thing as being "afraid of getting shit." I'm not posting ENOUGH about my support for Harris, therefore I'm afraid. But therefore they can also make all these assumptions about me being their strawman for an ignorant Harris supporter.

I'm afraid of getting shit but I still post anyway? But if I weren't afraid of getting shit I'd be posting a lot more?? This is ALL based on their assumptions of what my blog *should* look like, based on what I really and truly believe. My level of posting every now and then is an accurate gauge of my feelings on complex, sensitive, global issues. Because I'm voting for the Democratic presidential candidate and I'm ok sharing pretty much just that little glimpse of myself.

I really don't think that person knows just how inappropriate and insulting that is to just say all of that to me. Like they really know what's going on in my head. Their first message began and ended with like "I'm sorry I love you I just can't take it anymore" but they clearly weren't sorry enough to try and be more respectful to me, and they didn't love me enough not to default to extremely ungenerous assumptions and attacking me based off of those instead of any actual words I've said that they take issue with.

Online radicalization is real and it's not necessarily bad because your political views can start to fall well out of the contemporary Overton window. The way you find it appropriate to treat people whose views, however common, seem to fundamentally misalign with yours... that does matter. You can't just assume the worst of everyone and then act on that in how you approach them as individuals. And then be shocked that you don't stay friends with them. You can't be confrontational with someone about an issue you've never had an honest conversation about, and then expect them to take your bad faith in them as reasonable well-meaning criticism.

I'm afraid of criticism??? I'm afraid of criticism. No I'm not. This person and I have never had an issue before where they criticized me and I got harshly defensive. It was ALL projection. The entire tone of their messages was as if all their anti-voting posts recently were somehow in communication with the occasional go-vote-for-Harris posts that I make. That's not a conversation. I don't post for your satisfaction. I don't post in "response" to my mutuals I disagree with. I just post what's on my mind, sometimes, about some things. I really again can't stress enough how baffled I am by this

[michyeosseo]

Ano bang ginawa kong mali? [ t/n What have I done wrong? ]

Barbie Forteza and Julie Ann San Jose as KLAY & MARIA CLARA

MARIA CLARA AT IBARRA (2022-2023) 1.36