#me when things are not mutually exclusive

[beifong-brainrot]

I think my main 'issue' with Azula's portrayal in the Ashes of the Academy isn't that it's completely implausible that she was your stereotypical cruel, mean girl, but rather the fact that it's the most straightforward, uninovative thing you can do with her character.

And honestly the plushie burning was just comically over the top. Though she also did Wilhelm Tell her friend with fire in the flashbacks in the og show so who knows.

Which isn't a bad thing, perse. I find it absolutely plausible that Azula was an absolute monster in middle school. Azula was an innocent child that was manupulated by Ozai from a young age. But children are also notoriously assholes, especially if that behaviour was encouraged, which it was in Azula's case.

But I can understand why some people aren't totally jazzed about it. We sympathise with Azula, and many of us see ourselves in her. I see a lot of my child self in her, too. And I, of course, primarily see her as a victim of Ozai and the Fire Nation's ideals. She's very young, and was groomed through her childhood to be Ozai's weapon, which severely damaged her psyche. She's not pure evil, obviously not.

And I think that's why seeing her portrayed as an asshole rubs people the wrong way, especially in flashbacks, because it feels like villainsing a very young, very vulnerable victim.

But I think the older I get, the more ok I am with Azula being mean, cruel, etc. It doesn't erase her status as a victim and doesn't make her any less tragic to me.

I don't care whether Azula was an innocent, sweet kid that suddenly flipped the switch and became daddy's little weapon, or whether she was an absolute nightmare of a child that burned toys and bullied other children. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, tbh, but on either extreme, she is still a victim of an environment that hurt her and groomed her to hurt others and she deserves sympathy for it.

Hell, when I attended a shitty, pretentious, all girl's middle school, I met girls very similar to how Azula was at the time. The comic stresses multiple times that the Academy is an incredibly volatile place that encourages student infighting and rivalry.

And that's some serious rethoric, that of course would do some serious damage to a kid's worldview. And, of course, Azula, who fits into the system well, is rewarded for participating in it, while also seeing others who don't punished, will inernalise this.

While I don't think Ursa "lost" Azula when she entered the Academy, it certainly reinforced the seeds Ozai seemed to have been planting within Azula from when she started firebending. If we want to get technical about it, Ursa "lost" Azula whenever she decided or was forced to let Ozai influence Azula.

This is aggresively on the nose though. It feels vaguely ooc but not Excessively so. Let's chalk it up to emotional vulnerability due to what's happening to her.

And while nothing would make me happier than to see Azula get a redemption arc, I'm also not as set on it as I was a few years ago. I want healing for Azula, and I don't think she's too fargone for one. I don't think the creators do either. While she's still being presented as an antagonist and an overall mean person, especially in the recent comic, I think it's not veered into "irredeemable" territory quite yet.

The hard truth is that Azula truly having a redemption would require her to admit that she was wrong, certain fundamental truths of her life were wrong and she was, and likely still is, a very bad person. A victim, and a person deserving of help, and care, but still bad. Those two aren't mutually exclusive. Which is incredibly difficult for most people, but with the indoctrination Azula would be subjected to as a child, she would have even more resistance to it.

Like, while we do meme on Zuko getting physically sick after doing 1 good thing, it's a very good representation of how difficult it can be to change when you've had certain morals and ideals so rigorously ingrained into you from such a young age.

And Zuko, arguably, had much less incentive to be faithful to the Fire Nation and Ozai than Azula.

I don't think Ashes of the Academy was awful in the way it portrayed Azula. It certainly wasn't the best, and it was, let's be honest, rather lazy and uncreative. But it wasn't some huge blow to her character.

I'll also leave some links to my other metas concerning Azula:

How Azula became isolated from Ursa and opened up to Ozai's grooming

Why Zuko and Kuvira got redemptions and why Azula didn't? Hint: it has nothing to do with morality

[red-garden]

So I love near everything u write about Yqy, like it’s perfect, so in character, it makes me want fling him around lol

But do u have any kinda silly svsss hc’s that u haven’t gotten to write about??

THANKYOUUUUU I TRY MY BEST

Silly Scumcannons (modern AU and canon setting is blended up like a milkshake in this one, just roll with it)

- Liu Qingge would have a low tech flip phone, mostly because he’s as tech savvy as a fossil, but also because he would break anything that’s not a Nokia

-when he was little, Shen Jiu saved up and bought one of those shitty quality magnetic friendship necklaces for him and Yue Qi, and was heartbroken when YQ wasn’t wearing it at the IAC (it got kinda fused into his body during the xuan su nonsense) (SJ still keeps his in a little bow in the bamboo house)

-Shen Yuan fucking loves Pokémon, and contrary to popular belief most of his apartment’s decor was Pokémon merch. He has enough shame to keep all the PIDW merch he buys in a little box in his closet

-SY and his sister were both art kids. SY is unfortunately one of those traditional art snobs that paints only, and renders in a traditional style. His sister is an exclusively digital yaoi illustrator.

-LBH has two mutual interests with LQG: Shizun, and fishing. SY tries to set up fish bonding between them, but the malevolent aura they create together scares the fish

-LBH prefers the classic Saturday set up a poll and get wasted. LQG prefers boating out with a harpoon.

-SY/SJ is actually pretty isolated from the other peak lords. Most of them are very close friends

-QQQ likes to drink with WQW and she once got him to agree to entrust his future children to her in the event of his death

-not just MBJ but the entire northern desert court think of SQH as a like a hot, domineering, James Bond type. Did you hear he was a spy?! Did you know how many people he killed?!? They’re all doing the demon equivalent of twirling their hair and making goo-goo eyes at him

-less well known than Resentment of Chushan is wildly popular stallion fiction Lord of the Clear Cold Lake, about a badass half demon spy who was playing both the human and demon realm to amass an empire, seducing an ice queen and amassing a harem of hundreds (it was written by TLJ. He wants airplane to fuck him so bad)

-MBJ would be an active enjoyer of fan fiction and has even written some (about the same literary level as My Immortal)

-YQY had to train in the four arts to be a cultivator obviously, and he can draw pretty decent landscapes, but his skill at drawing people never progressed much further than

(He makes do)

-SJ made it MF’s duty to keep disciples from fucking, and he has walked in on some truly awful things. Eventually he just stopped doing dorm walkthroughs.

-QQQ and MQF do sect-wide sex ed together, QQQ focusing on how to do sex and the etiquette therein, and MQF focusing on the health aspects, puberty, and what to do if you get pregnant/an STD/your period/figure out you’re trans. Every years they have a running bet on how many disciples will come in for related medical treatment in the following week.

-while Xian Shu is outwardly women only and Ku Xing is outwardly men only, both peaks allow disciples whose gender doesn’t fit clearly into one category or the other

-Ku Xing is dedicated to creating an environment for aesthetic cultivation, but that doesn’t mean disciples of other peaks can’t also practice it.

-the sect makes money from slaying beasts and protecting the cities in it’s territory, every peak also ha some product production sold to the wider world (other than Qiong Ding). Disciples are encouraged to build their skills to join production. Depending on the quality and quantity of their work, they will make money from sale- convenient for disciples not yet in a paid position within the sect.

-like 20% of the beasts are obvious Pokémon ripoffs

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Ok, but if you believe the monarchy is racist, if you believe that conversation about skin colour did happen, then the fact that you have a blog defending Kate - and to a lesser extent Charles - is morally indefensible, isn’t it? You are supporting two awful racists at the peak of a racist institution.

And if you believe Meghan was the victim of bias, harassment and racism, then why are you are not defending her? Why aren’t you denouncing the BRF - starting with Kate and Charles and W?

Please don’t take this as me trying to be aggressive or anything, but I am genuinely perplexed. The fandom is split between ppl who believe the BRF is the victim and the Sussexes the victimisers and people who believe exactly the opposite. Believing that Meghan is the victim here but then stil supporting the BRF in the conflict with the Sussexes seems kind of a novel take.

Fair, some points:

It has never been acknowledge who participated in the conversation about skin color. All we know is that it wasn't Philip or Elizabeth.

I do, and have, defended Meghan and validated her concerns about racism when I get asks about it. I get called a sugar over it from time to time, and once got dogpiled by Cat's blog for it.

What is there for me to denounce about Charles, Kate, and William? Do you have actual physical evidence of something they said or did that's racist? Or do you just have the word of a third-party reporter who's been told someone did something and doesn't have evidence himself? Show me something Charles, Kate, and William personally did or said and I would be happy to condemn it. But that's not what we have.

I've always said that fandom isn't black and white, that there's a lot of grey. I fall into the grey space. A lot of people can't handle that. They think you have to pick sides, be one or the other. I can not like Meghan as a person but still say "you know what, she actually does have a point there about this". It's not mutually exclusive.

And with all due respect, you're framing BRF vs Sussexes exclusively as an issue about racism. It is not, not for me. For me, BRF vs Sussexes is about status. Because if you really strip the issue down to the bare essence, the issue is haves and have-nots. William was born first, which affords him and his family certain things, and Harry was born second, which affords him and his family different things, but Harry believes he's entitled to exactly what William has because Harry is also the son of William's parents. Racism actually has nothing to do with that issue. Racism comes into this because Harry married a woman of color, which he uses to justify his demand for having equal to or better than William, which makes it a tool.

Racism certainly does have a part in it, but racism is not the only thing being fought over. You seem to think it is and it's all that matters. Why?

[solarwynd]

https://www.tumblr.com/solarwynd/780848784709124096/and-with-what-hobi-said-in-an-interview-he-did?source=share

This reminds of the Suchwita episode with Jimin. They argue about if it's the rap line or the vocal line that leads the team and Suga says he thinks the vocal line was the one leading while the rap line was supporting which sounds nice until he explains that he's just comfortable being in the back while the vocalists are in the front and that "You guys do all the things that requires good looks". They talk about how the rappers are the ones who writes the music and the vocalists perform in the front and Suga says "We each have our own thing and respect what the others do, we don't invade each other's space" and that does not give me hope that they're willing to change things and have members of the vocal line participate in making the music and not just being the ones dancing in the front.

He really said that?

God and when we say that it’s also BTS that sow that kind of stupid mentality within armys so they spout the same rhetoric like the drones they are, it was never a lie. I must’ve passed right by it when it aired cause I don’t like that at all. Not only is it a self drag to rapline but does he really think that vocal line don’t have the ability to learn and that any venture they take into making their own music is for play play? Like that’s so condescending and arrogant to me.

Why intentionally restrict the other members like that? Being attractive and also musically gifted aren’t mutually exclusive? Like that’s really just showing me that he doesn’t really hold that much respect for their musical output because they’re only supposed to be stage candy. That’s why I’m so glad Jimin broke out that preset mold these other men and that company made for him and proved he can make his own music, make it good AND chart well. And mind you it’s change that made BTS relevant after years of flying under the radar cause they pivoted to a more pop sound. They gained success because they knew they had to better cater to what the overall consumer market liked. (Ntm Jimin was the main reason WHY they did.) If they didn’t do that, they would’ve stayed relatively unknown and that’s the truth. So he can’t talk about “respecting each other’s thing” if he’s trivializing vocal lines positioning and thinking lowly of their abilities to think they can’t do what he does.

[the-bengali-diva]

Not giving any statements just pointing out the og poster never said akutagawa didn't abuse kyouka or that he was redeemable. They only talked about younger akutagawa who still haven't come to the contact of kyouka. Just saying.

(screw it I'm giving more statements)

Also to add, ones past doesn't justify their actions. As op said dazai himself acknowledges what he did was wrong and admitted Odasaku would have trained him with more patience. It is proven in beast itself where Akutagawa beats atsushi after training under oda when in canon it was atsushi who beat aku on that ship in s1.

Though I don't disagree with Dazai being an abused and depressed child, your whole post gives me the vibe that you think dazai did not understand what harm he was doing when it was the complete opposite. Dazai himself acknowledges it.

Then you accused op of trying to see bsd in a black and white lense which I again have to disagree. They just pointed out Dazai's canon actions. Which are definitely wrong. They never said dazai wasn't abused or that he wasn't depressed . They only point out Dazai's wrong actions. If pointing out a character's wrong actions is suddenly making the whole show a black and white story then I don't know what I should tell you. You can agree with Dazai being an abused child and also agree with the fact that he was an abuser. These two things aren't mutually exclusive.

Also in my opinion, when we are talking about one character being abused, pulling out the "his abuser was abused too!" Or "well he abused someone too!" Is kind of insensitive.

Let me spin it, suppose you're talking about the headmaster abusing atsushi, then I pull out, well the headmaster had a sad past too! Or in the beast atsushi context, well atsushi becomes a ruthless murderer too! How will that sound?

A victim having an abuser who was also abused, doesn't have anything to do with the victim. It's the same if the victim goes on to abuse another person. Then the victim's past doesn't justify their abusive actions.

Now before you pull well it was the Mafia card, lemme again remind you, dazai himself acknowledges Odasaku would've taught akutagawa with more patience. Akutagawa's own sister was trained by the world's best assassin Verlaine. Though we don't have their canon scenes, Gin being the timid one instead of repulsive like akutagawa may prove she wasn't abused the way akutagawa was.

This statement of mine can also be confirmed considering kyouka was also trained by Verlaine but her canon trauma is mostly related to the way akutagawa treats her not Verlaine.

Also to add another theory, In beast akutagawa didn't have his lung disease, at least not as bad like in bsd. While in bsd we see him frequently coughing up blood. It can also prove akutagawa did get his lungs damaged from the slum air, but it becomes fatal after Dazai's constant physical abuse like kicking him in the ribs, damaging his lungs to the point of irreparable.

At the end I'll like to say, I hope you're doing well. I'm extremely sorry for your circumstances. I can understand why this discourse might make you uncomfortable. But to not be as insensitive as possible for me, you aren't Dazai. Dazai is depressed and suicidal. He hates himself. These things you might relate too. But dazai is also a ruthless mafia prodigy. He had always been way smarter than his elders. He'd trade thousands lives if it serves his ultimate goal as it was evident in the stormbinger novel with him and verlaine's interaction and their final fight. When he was in the Mafia he didn't care about the good or bad side. Though it changed later in the story.

I hope you have a nice day and overcome your difficulties in life. Best wishes to you.

“Regretfully for you, I’m not interested in virtue or saving anyone. I’m only interested in results. And you are useless to me.”

How you can say that to a kid you yourself took responsibility for, is insane to me.

How you can repeatedly say you don’t like pain and yet shoot bullets at a boy who is bone deep exhausted, on the floor, with no guarantee he’ll be able to block- is insane to me.

How you can know what it’s like to be at rock bottom, get help from somebody who shows you actual kindness, and deny that to someone you took on, is insane to me.

Osamu Dazai is legitimately insane to me.

Him claiming he doesn’t like to be hurt is such a slap in the face to me- because how dare you say that, then take “in” a child for the sole purpose of hurting them?

And to be so self aware of it too.

To openly admit that Akutagawa was unlucky to be taken in by him instead of Oda. He knew what he was doing. And that, is insane.

Maybe it’s a good thing Oda died before he got to see how cruel the kid he had believed in actually was.

Or maybe it was more of Akutagawa’s “bad luck” that he never got rescued from the monster clawing at him, known as Osamu Dazai.

[torchiiko]

i love giving my opinion on things nobody cares abt!!!! for example:

a few(?) vtuber artists got in trouble for holding raffles & not fulfilling the prize even after a year onward. some ppl are saying "who cares, its not like youre losing anything by not getting free art" & others say "artists should know how to prioritize their workload & be able to deliver as promised"

both are true! lots of ppl enter art raffles specifically bc they cant buy commissions, they usually cant afford to or might even be too young to use payment processors & things like raffles & requests are their only chance. life can get in the way sometimes & some artists rely on comms to pay the bills so free work has to be put off, understandably. but 2 whole years to deliver a raffle prize while actively doing other work is a little absurd

an artist can get a lot of engagement holding raffles, half the point is building up their audience to get more eyes on their art, so it feels a little scummy to profit from that engagement & then just not make the art that was promised. makes you seem a bit untrustworthy

but again, the winners arent actually Losing anything. they didnt get what they were promised & missed the chance to get smth they maybe couldnt have gotten otherwise, & it of course sucks to have to leave the situation empty-handed, but they have just as much as they did before the raffle

ultimately, it is unprofessional as an artist to offer free art if you arent in a state to fulfill it within a timely manner, & the raffle winners have a right to be disappointed. however, as the winners didnt have to give anything for the opportunity to get said art, theyre only so entitled to it & should just cut their losses & leave it be when it becomes clear the artist likely wont deliver

[nibeul]

uncle aaron in spiderverse fucks me up so badly because here is a man who has done terrible, unforgivable things, and he loves his nephew very much

[unpretty]

I don't know if this even counts as kink taxonomy but this is the only place I can feasibly complain about it so here goes: so I stumbled across weird audio only hypnosis porn. As one does. Turns out it doesn't really do anything for me sexually BUT oh my god it functions as the most effective guided meditation I have ever come across. Traditional guided meditations never work for me but a woman with a nice voice gently domming me into relaxation? Magical.

Except then they usually try to get you off through the power of hypnosis (does not work for me) or it ends up being some other kink thing when I just want to be dommed into actually letting the tension out of my shoulders for a change. This is the stupidest problem I have ever had.

akljasdlkjasdkl as someone who specifically can't listen to guided meditations because of my 'who the fuck do you think you are' impulse this is so funny to me. i feel like there must be some kind of hypnosis asmr on youtube that would work because they can't get into porn with those but youtube asmr is a taxonomy hell all its own. SOFTLY SPOKEN WAS SUPPOSED TO MEAN YOU'RE NOT WHISPERING YOU FUCKS WHY CAN I HEAR YOUR TEETH.

[somepinkthing]

Imagining nie huaisang having a flock of spiritual birds.

Just his mother knowing early on that he would likely never be a great cultivator and getting him two spiritual beasts in the form of birds—wanting him to have something to protect himself with and figuring he might actually take an interest in training the beasts if they were his favorite animal. It would be just her luck that the two birds (that were both supposed to be male) end up a mated and bonded pair once fully grown. Luckily, they also appear to view huaisang, who raised them from chicks, as the leader of their little bird flock. Her husband, viewing this as both useful and hilarious, decides to build their son an aviary—aka a giant nesting area for giant birds. Which is fantastic if you are a humongous, newly mated bird looking to start a bird family. You see where this is going.

Beastmaster huaisang except the beasts are just giant birds with the IQ of a pack of very loyal second graders who only listen to the commands of one of the most dramatic men in all the jianghu

[zuzu-romeave]

i know people are mostly joking when they insinuate that troy is too possessive or jealous to have a polyamorous relationship with abed but like that idea annoys me so much. when troy and abed both agree to take mariah the librarian on a date, troy is entirely okay with it UNTIL mariah chooses him over abed and then later calls abed weird. after that he tells abed “there’s someone out there for us.” he just wants someone who also wants abed, and that doesnt mean he wont get jealous over it. you can be polyam and still struggle with jealousy, which is the situation that troy’s in

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

Batman Annual #25

Before Talia took him in, before he was dunked in the pit to have his memories restored, even when operating purely on survival instinct, he always split a meal with the other homeless people. It may not have been essential to his survival, but caring about and helping other people when he couldn’t even help himself was just always such an intrinsic part of Jason’s core.

[lord-squiggletits]

Honestly it annoys me that pride, ambition, and generally having a big ego are always villainous/evil-coded personality traits because personally I think if you genuinely are a prodigy at what you do you are 100% within your rights, perhaps even deserving, of flaunting your skills and being proud of the fact you can do something that only a small fraction of other people can do. Is it even ego at that point if you genuinely are as good at your field/skill as you say you are? Are people not aware that becoming a prodigy at something is something that takes lifelong sacrifice and practice sometimes to the point of giving up on having a normal life, relationships, etc even potentially destroying your own health???? God I fucking hate how pride in your own skills and ambition are so villain coded all the time. As if it's evil to want to be good at something and be recognized for what you rightfully earned

[fromtheseventhhell]

I also find it funny that fandom will only accept Lyanna being her non-conforming, wild self in the context of saying that Arya isn't meant to be pretty; Any other day we get back-to-back posts about how Lyanna is actually super traditionally feminine cause she sniffled at a song once, so she's actually more like Sansa. Instead of constantly speaking on Arya and Lyanna, how about you guys reflect on why your standards of beauty for women are attached to how well they perform feminity within the patriarchy?

[historyartthings]

Absolutely loving, adoring, Le*nda de L*sle’s review of MacCulloch’s work...

My thoughts, feelings, opinions I’ve put below. It gets very long because I cannae haud me wheesht

I don’t know why she’s obsessed with the idea that he mustn’t have loved his wife. ‘the supposedly grieving widower’? I don’t think the arrangement of a marriage for a king - which Henry obviously agreed to - is a sufficient way to judge what Thomas’s relationship with his wife was like. The (foreign and domestic) political, religious and dynastic factors at play there can’t be ignored in favour of extrapolating that he didn’t understand marrying for love. The “happy marriage” in quotation marks😭 have got to laugh. her condescending cynicism is based on nothing tangible, as far as I can work out. She shades MacCulloch as well through the, ‘he believes that although the evidence is sparse, Cromwell was indeed a grieving widower'…. Ngl I would argue it’s not a particularly strained logical leap to assume he might’ve been upset.

We know barely anything about their relationship. Mostly what can be concretely said is he, unusually, never remarried - we’ll obviously never know the reason(s) for that, but still. There was seemingly one notable relationship outside of it, which we only know of because it resulted in an illegitimate daughter, a wee while after his wife passed away. But even that isn’t for 100% certain. He also atypically didn’t have a mistress. There’s also exactly one (1) extant letter from him to his wife, which is pleasant enough, but not much revealing - he asks her for news of home and sends her a deer. she didnt live long enough so as to have any external remarks on their marriage once he entered court spheres. Essentially it’s impossible to draw anything more than speculative conclusions, but based on what can be tentatively extrapolated from his actions, it seems more likely he grieved for his wife than didn’t imo. And also just considering natural, human emotion??

(Even if you want to suggest they didn’t marry for love in the beginning - and/or weren’t in love by the end - they were married for what? Roughly a decade and a half? With no signs of estrangement, and friendly correspondence in letters to Cromwell asking him to pass on their regards to his wife. So even if it was simply an amicable relationship, on a basic level being with someone in such close proximity, for that long, and losing them is probably going to be upsetting?)

On a tangential note, as MacCulloch does point out, the valentine to Mary mentioned here wasn’t at all romantic - it’s misleading to present that, as she does, as an attempt for he himself to marry into royalty. Or more charitably, I think she misremembered the context for it from the book

I’d also question de Lisle’s point about the executions. Personally I don’t think it suggests a greater misogyny than any of his contemporaries? Imo it’s indicative of the broader pattern of a brutal, violent ruthlessness towards those he saw as any enemy, in his way, and/or as going against the crown/policy etc. As opposed to any particular or especial hatred towards women. This isn't meant as an excuse for those actions in any way, because they're - quite obviously - horrific. I just question the rationale behind such a judgement of even-worse-than-usual-for-the-time-misogyny based upon it. Such brutality wasn't isolated to women, men were treated just as abominably. She talks of their humiliation to evidence her point, but again, men were faced with the same. (Ask Richard Whiting who got dragged up Glastonbury Tor at nearly 80, whose case involved, 'to be tryed [presumably for treason] at Glaston and also executyd there' from cromwell's remembrances; or John Forrest, who was strung up in chains, which is a humiliating - to use her term - prolonged death in itself, but was also supposedly burnt using kindling made from a statue of a saint - oh how clever of you!). We don’t (afaik) have letters or remarks which reflect cromwell’s views on women in the same way as for Norfolk, for example. it's just a bizarre extrapolation to me. again, imo it's an incredibly dark, ruthless streak through his personality. it seems to have been his standard handling of any major execution. Also, to be clear, I’m not suggesting he wasn’t sexist/misogynistic, because ofc he was. All men back then were, as a symptom of living and socilisation in such a patriarchal society.

(also interesting for her to pair this suggestion w/ her thoughts about his marriage come to think of it. she seems to be linking the two in a broader picture, I assume wherein this should be added to the ‘evidence’ he didn’t/couldnt have loved his wife)

also the contrast of his physical looks in the Holbein, against his 'becoming' a 'convivial figure' in MacCulloch's work, is disappointing. not reading personalities from portraits, nor ascribing negative character traits to appearances and/or weight (implicitly or otherwise) shouldn't be a big ask, but apparently is. It'd be a wee bit different if she’d pointed to his expression - I still think that’s an unsound way to go about things fwiw - which at least isn’t intrinsically linked to his features, but alas no.

Lastly, re: MacCulloch’s arguments, i would say he’s more impartial than she implies. He might be Anglican, but I wouldn’t say he’s ‘on the Protestant side’ particularly. I struggle to see how his presentation of Catholics - from what i remember, altho it’s been a while since i've read it - is less than fair? He directly praises more and fisher iirc. but someone with a better knowledge of the book could correct me on this point.

also, positioning that he's on the 'protestant side', alongside the next line being about his argument that cromwell was grieving, is an interesting choice. is the suggestion that if you agree with the latter your sympathies must lie with "protestantism"? that it's only through a biased lens you could reach that conclusion? sksjksjk diabolical suggestion that that's the only reason anyone might consider he mourned his wife. like am i going insane or is it genuinely what she's saying??… i cant see why she'd juxtapose those specific points otherwise. Like critiquing mantel's comments about catholics and their presentation in wolf hall is fair enough, but connecting that with the fact she wrote cromwell as 'heartbroken' and that he loved his wife, comes across to me as though she's suggesting the former should invalidate mantel's interpretation of the latter. which again i dont think is fair based on the evidence we do have..

I would also question (because it is confusing to me) despite the fact that MacCulloch and Mantel were friends, why the “”””””happy marriage”””””” across both works is the way in here??? like why are you so bothered as to both lead and finish the article with that?

(And, frankly, MacCulloch paints a picture of a happier marriage - he writes that the simplest explanation is, ‘he couldn’t bear to marry anyone else’ - than Mantel does. Who presents their relationship as literally (as in, textually), ‘loves’ but not ‘in love’. and has him actively wanting to remarry. she had a line in TMATL that goes he was ‘mostly faithful’ which? I’m not sure if she meant to imply infidelity but… altho she did present a picture of him missing her i guess)

[glubandeepspace]

what if mc were to somehow through some other big incident remember all their past lives with rafayel and then gets like a few minutes with him being a mess about it before the weight of it all hurts both emotionally & physically too much for mc's brain to handle and then passes out in his arms and maybe it's hard to wake back up again and he kind of hates himself for even partly wishing mc could remember if it meant this and

[silkpages]

the dichotomy of crushing on both cole and jindrax