#on the plot than the politics..?

[snekdood]

Idrc if you wanna find the politics in every piece of media you consume but personally i dont really care to all the time like idk. Like idk sometimes i just wanna enjoy shit w/o constantly thinking about the underlying politics or whatever? Sometimes its hard to ignore if its super rw based but still, a lot of other shit i just feel like im investing more energy into this shit than was intended for most ppl like idk. The underlying political implications of spirited away. Idk i just dont really care lol

[fictionadventurer]

Maybe the problem with Christian fiction is that it's non-denominational. People are just "Christian", with no effort put into showing what practicing that religion looks like for them specifically. No indication that there are other Christians who could have different beliefs. No wrestling with differing ideas and the struggle of how one should live out their Christian faith. And that makes it unrealistic and unrelatable.

[things-stronger-than-fear]

literally in another universe snowbairdplinth could've been THE revolution. they wouldn't even really need any allies, lbr.

like, between coryo's cunning, sej's conscience, and lucy gray's charisma? the snow name, the plinth fortune, the baird d12 but neither district nor capitol pedigree?

coryo could've actually been like, panem's first 20-year-old president, who outlaws the hunger games and who the districts still listen to because he has sej and lucy gray on side. and yeah maybe coryo still kills a bunch of people but like whatever, no one really bats an eye -- who's gonna mourn gaul, anyways? no one in the districts, that's for sure. even if gaul didn't suck ass they'd be busy with cool covey music and awesome new legislation.

in a better universe i am 100% certain snowbairdplinth could've managed a fairly bloodless revolution, six decades early.

[rainhadaenerys]

Unpopular opinion, but I really do not see Dany as this "oh so tragic" and "oh so full of trauma" character. She has bad things happen to her like every other ASOIAF character, but she isn't really super traumatized or unable to deal with what happens in her life, and the tone of her story isn't really one of tragedy: on the contrary, her story is full of her overcoming hardships. It's full of triumphs. Even the low point she hits at the end of ADWD is just setting up her journey to finally crush the slavers and become the Stallion who Mounts the World. And then when she goes to Westeros, she will be one of the people to defeat the Others.

I find it a little bit annoying when I see people reading her character purely through the lens of "oh she suffered to much, she was raped by her husband, she was abused by her brother, she doesn't have a home, she is so tragic, etc" (I'm not saying people can't discuss these topics, by the way, I'm just saying that it annoys me when this is the ONLY thing people talk about when it comes to Dany). First, because this isn't the majority of her story, this is mostly part of her early story or backstory, and the main part of her story are the things she does after that, her triumphs and hardships trying to lead her people, fight a war, fight the status quo, and so on. It's a little annoying to see a character who has such a great complex political and magical storyline, a great adventure, all be reduced to "she is just an abused girl who suffered", with all other aspects of her story being ignored. But most importantly, I think this reading of Dany as this tragic character, by Dany stans and Dany haters alike, gives fuel to a bunch of other annoying readings of her character: the neutrals use the "oh so tragic" narrative to argue that her story has to end with her dying and she has nothing else to contribute to the main story other than sacrificing herself and be a tragic hero. Meanwhile, the antis use the "oh so tragic" narrative to claim that they sympathize with Dany, but her trauma is going to make her crazy, paranoid, a villain, etc. Or, when they don't say that her trauma is going to make her a villain, they claim that she was always a villain and use her "trauma" to claim that they sympathize with her and that her "trauma" makes her such a complex villain.

[borgialucrezia]

"There is no one closer—" Oh, don't lie to me, Father.

[utilitycaster]

just as there's something worth noting about how both D20 and CR have lately had strong messages about how fear and resentment makes you easy to radicalize, I think there's also something for how they've both had cases of mortal politics ultimately affecting the nature of the gods. Not just for an understanding of fictional D&D gods as living entities, though that's also valuable, but for an understanding that ultimately, these are concepts shaped and changed by people; people desired conquest and so made Ankarna into a god that supported that. I've repeatedly said and will continue to maintain that while Brennan does hate capitalism, the theme he consistently returns to is the much deeper one of "the bad people are those who exploit and dehumanize others in the service of their goals" and jokes about capitalism as the BBEG aside, if you destroy any one concept's physical manifestation, you still have to contend with the people who upheld it.

[foldingfittedsheets]

My betrothed and I are talking about co-writing a book about our DnD ship because it’s so precious and so many queers would go feral about it and we don’t want to be the only people who love them together.

[khruschevshoe]

Listen. Listen. RTD. My dude. You are back. You have the power. You are running the show. *pulls him in close and whispers through gritted teeth* Who needs UNIT when you can have the world's messiest bisexual polycule back from the dead?

[alicentflorent]

Alicent Hightower 🤝 Sansa Stark

Having their book counterparts agency stripped away from them and unnecessary scenes of SA being written for them instead

[cervideity]

jackpot

The Enemy was published 15 years ago today! Wow! You should go and read it! Check out this scene for yourself! Nothing goes wrong!

[agnesandhilda]

interesting to note that mark's superhero name is for the most part actually accurate in the comics. the only people who've beaten him in combat so far are omni-man (makes sense wrt to in-universe powerscaling, plus the point of that fight was that mark would defeat his father ideologically rather than physically) and battle beast (explicitly meant to be an outlier), meanwhile show! mark gets his shit rocked in mid-tier fights every other episode. I don't have a working theory for why this specific change was made in the reboot yet but I'm open to suggestions

[theteaisaddictive]

jane immediately recognising that her confidence in rochester is dead after the whole attic wife thing gets revealed — indeed, all throughout their engagement, noticing little red flags about his behaviour, which she wilfully ignores even as the more sensible part of her knows that she needs some form of financial independence, that rochester treating her the way he treated celine varens isn’t going to bode well for their marriage at all…….

i’m just saying. she’s young, but she’s not stupid. there’s a reason they can’t be together until jane’s inherited her fortune and rochester has been humbled by the loss of his financial status and physical ability — indeed, until rochester wholeheartedly embraces a christianity close to jane’s own, which doesn’t resemble the hypocrisy of brocklehurst or the puritan self-denial of st. john.

[rookflower]

im not really on the "i hope curlfeather killed her husband" train yet purely because i think they fumbled the bag with the pacing of her reveal a bit and i wish frostpaw had more time to emotionally grapple with it like she did with splashtail, and i think pushing her evil into cartoonish levels kind of removes any chance of that ever having the time to be more satisfying by fully cementing her as Pure Evil off the bat. i love curlfeather i think they've got a great setup for her as a villain i suport women's wrongs, but i want a look at her motives! if they are confidently never gonna show us an even more complex or interesting side to her though then Fine yeah okay let her kill jayclaw or whatever go off. but i think any kinda sympathetic backstory or revealed puzzle piece beyond the few pre-reveal glimpses of genuinity we've seen from her and besides "im evil so i want power" would be more interesting rn

[leupagus]

Am I writing the Meereen scenes as essentially "1776" with less singing and more threats of burning each other alive? Look,

x

Just then a group entered the library, arguing at and over each other. They were the most unlikely hodgepodge collection of people Tyrion had ever seen in his life: a young man in the rough spun smock favored by Meereen's freedmen, a tall bearded fellow wearing ornate robes that identified him as a member of one of the "great families," a woman dressed in the silk sleeveless tunic of a prostitute, and a half-dozen others, each more surprising than the last.

"All I am saying, my lord Hizdahr," said one woman, wearing a flowing dress and the choker that signaled her status as a Red Priestess, "is that your ridiculous notion of religious 'persecution' is so broad as to render any religious judgement meaningless!"

The tall bearded one slammed the door shut behind them and followed the group as it meandered its way over to a large oval table near a window, piled high with scrolls and books and half-written sheets of paper. "And all I am saying, my lady Kinvara, is that reducing the population via pyrotechnics is directly contradictory to achieving peace and stability, as well as freedom for all Meereenese!"

"Both of you shut up," sighed the man in the smock as they all settled into what seemed to be their usual seats. Thus far none of them had taken notice of either their queen or of him. One of the group, an old man with a white beard and a limp, got up almost immediately to totter over to one of the bookshelves, pulling out an alarming number of tomes with a thoughtful expression on his face. "And stop calling each other 'my lord' and 'my lady' when you're irritated, it makes my hands itch and I just want to wrap them around your throats."

"And you would be free to do so, were we followers of the Drowned God," snapped the one called Hizdahr as he rose to his feet, striding over to the old man and taking the pile of books. This evidently didn't put much of a damper on his ability to argue, however, as he twisted round to glare at the Red Priestess. "Any blood shed by a faith is fine, so long as it's your own devout you're killing? That seems to be your definition of 'religious freedom.'"

"Does the Drowned God punish its criminals by strangling them?" asked a young person surrounded by papers, fingers blue from ink and scribbling madly. "I thought it would be. Well. Drowning."

This seemed to side-track the conversation for a bit, and Daenerys moved away toward the door at the opposite end of the library.

"Who in the hells are they?" asked Tyrion as he followed her, before remembering his audience and wincing.

"Meereen's new Governance Charter Council," replied Daenerys, looking torn between annoyance and amusement. "They're drawing up a new system of laws and regulations for the city, as well as a system to choose their leaders."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does," she added, somewhat reluctantly. "But tyranny has its advantages."

"For the tyrant, certainly," he agreed, and winced again.

Fortunately, she laughed. "Certainly. But I mean for everyone. A just form of government will still fail its people, after all. And then who do they blame? Themselves, for choosing their own leaders? At least with me, Meereen has someone to hate."

"Do they hate you?" asked Tyrion, somewhat surprised. Granted, he'd not had much chance to mingle among the hoi polloi, but the crowd at the fighting pits had seemed quite approving of their new queen.

"They don't love me."

Tyrion rolled his eyes. "Well, love. That always fades in the end, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Daenerys looked thoughtful. They had arrived at the other door and a librarian opened it for them. She did not bow, he noted; simply nodded and closed the door behind them. Daenerys seemed not even to notice, mulling over his question as though it had been a serious one.

[beansterpie]

rewatching LoK, i'm being reminded how much I dislike the.... the brothers, mako and bolin, yanno? they're such underwhelming characters on basically every level. it'd almost be impressive if they weren't in every episode and didn't annoy me so much ugh

[raccooncityriots]

As someone who did not have a dog in the fight, I’m still a little surprised ichigo and orihime were endgame ngl