#poppi might or might be intentionally keeping things secret

[tophats-tea]

drawing fanart everyday for Danganronpa: A New Generation until the First Episode comes out

Day 215: TalentSwap AU log-writing

Check out the fangan!

[tainted-heartz]

Hear me out all the welcome home characters (if possible poly if not das cool u could just do wally) with a s/o who intentionally and unintentionally does the frog blink when looking at people.

I just think it would be funny

| bestie I can do poly no matter what its just gonna be so much to write...ITS WORTH IT THO<33 |

- wally finds it..normal funny enough. if you do in unintentionally he won't mind a bit even if you're staring at him during a conversation. hell he may even laugh and jokingly say “ that's a..interesting blink , dearest. ” “ what do you mean? ” “ oh nothing.. ” now if its INTENTIONALLY done he again , doesn't react in the slightest. he's probably seen much weirder so your silly little frog blink isn't much to him.

- julie can't help but giggle at it even if you're staring at something else or talking with someone else. she finds it silly yet adorable! if you blink at her that way she can't help but gently hold your face and say “ you look like an adorable froggy! ” and give you a kiss on the forehead. even if you do it intentionally it don't seem weird to her , she's going to find it cute in her own special way no matter what.

- frank is more of the ones who gets disturbed ever so slightly by the fact you frog blink at people or objects. sometimes he'll flinch if you blink at him but always quickly apologizes about his reaction and even if he's been dating you for some time he'll still jump. “ oh jeez I'm sorry butterfly , I'm just..I'd rather not say creeped out by it. it's just interesting! ” he tries to say that in a positive way and will make up for it by kisses and hugs...your his strange partner and he loves it in some form.

- sally giggles at it like julie but is a little secretive about how she thinks about it. by the way she acts she finds it unique yet adorable. she can actually keep eye contact with you but does laugh if you look at objects you're interested in and do it. “ you remind me of how moths stare at flames or go to them , starshine! it's adorable. ”

- poppy , being the motherly time , ignores it. it's a gentle way of ignoring it and even can't help but kiss your forehead if you're staring at an object or thing while doing the frog blink. she even lightly asks about it and never pushes it but does let a giggle out or two.

- eddie finds it well..funny yet unique! he says that in a gentle way but seriously he can't help but stare in such a loving way but will..lightly joke. calls you his ‘ froggy ’ and if he ever delivers letters to you expect a frog drawn on it with a lot of hearts on it! he even accidentally makes everyone else call you froggy....

- barnaby can and will joke about it only because that's in his nature . yet it will be jokes that show he loves you , if he doesn't joke around with you he might as well not be your boyfriend- he calls you “ frogster ” and somehow can hold eye contact with you and jokingly mimics you.

- howdy can't help but find it unique and adorable , always making eye contact even if you do it but if its for no reason he may be a little creeped out but just stares back usually. you're always gonna be loveable in his eyes but you're just a frog...a very lovable one.

[popatochisssp]

Hi Poppy! Is Merc big into romance/romantic gestures? How does his goopiness affect how he shows affection?

It definitely affects how Merc (Horrorswap Sans) goes about pursuing romance, that’s for sure!

Obviously his condition is a Pretty Big Deal, at least in terms of potential deal-breakers for prospective datemates--or at least something they should be warned of ahead of time--so if he were to intentionally seek out a romantic relationship, it would involve a bit of distance at first.

Meeting people online is great for him (romantic or otherwise), because he can express himself a little more fully and freely and build relationships with people as himself, without having to hold back or disclose his unnerving medical condition right off the bat. No psychological harm done to anyone else if he’s just de-solidifying by himself, at home, you know?

And if that’s how his meets his prospective s/o, through a dating site or a chat forum/server for a shared interest and things start to take a turn That Way, there’s no need to hold anything back: big time flirting, romantic overtures, perhaps a gesture or two as their method of communication allows. If things progress from there and the topic of a video chat or an in-person meeting comes up, that would be where he’d give them a heads up about his condition, in as much detail as they ask for, before moving forward with anything.

If all that goes well, and if they actually see him drip a little and don’t get freaked out and want to call things quits, then he’s happy to go all in on the romantic overtures: flowers, presents, fun dates, the works!

He’s definitely a romantic at heart and would love to woo his partner to the best of his ability, so the certainty that they can handle what he’s got going on is something that really helps him commit to that knowing that he can get excited about a date that’s going well without ruining it; that his partner can look really nice or say something sweet and won’t get frightened if he melts over it a little too literally.

In the event that love finds him, unexpectedly and in person without the convenience of a screen between to allow him to be wholly himself and express his feelings fully...

Well, in a case like that, he has to be a little more subtle. He’ll work on the friendship first, even more than he already would have had he met his prospective s/o some other way. He can’t always be as expressive as he likes and that tends to lead a lot of people to think he doesn’t care for them very much, or is just being polite, so his goal is to make his position--positive!-- as clear as possible, so he can gauge their interest in having a relationship with him. Platonic, at first, and if that goes well, then he’ll be looking for the romantic potential.

He might play the Secret Admirer angle at this point, leaving notes and small gifts for them--romance, but a little less direct, easier to keep from getting ahead of himself--hints that he’s the one leaving them, but dragging out the transition from friends to something more as much as possible. More time to grow the relationship, more time to organically share a little information about his unique condition, if it hasn’t come up already...

And from there, he’ll leave the ball in his prospective s/o’s court: they know about him, they know he’s interested, and if they’d like to pursue anything, he’s ready if they are.

Which brings us right back to the possibility for open romance, in spite of a little occasional goopiness it might cause. They chose him, knowingly, so why would he hold back on their well-deserved wooing? UwU

[trinuviel]

Winterfell’s Daughter. On Sansa Stark (part 6)

This is the sixth part of my analysis of Sansa Stark’s character in Game of Thrones. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) and it concludes the analysis of Sansa Stark’s season 1 arc. This is where the story takes a turn against the Starks and where Sansa’s life becomes a nightmare.

LIFE IS NOT A SONG

In my last post, I showed how Sansa’s illusions about chivalry, court and love were restored after they had been undermined by the vicious behavior of Joffrey, Cersei and the Mountain. In the very same episode as Joffrey mendaciously woo Sansa with pretty words and a pretty necklace, Ned falls out with Robert over Daenerys Targaryen and decides to break off Sansa’s betrothal to Joffrey and leave King’s Landing (ep06). Unsurprisingly, Sansa doesn’t react well when Ned tells her and Sansa that they’ll return to Winterfell.

Sansa: I can’t go. I’m supposed to marry prince Joffrey. I love him and I’m meant to be his queen and have his babies.

This is where Ned utters this oft-quoted line:

Sansa: I don’t want someone brave, gentle and strong. I want him! He’ll be the greatest king that ever was, a golden lion, and I’ll give him sons with beautiful blonde hair.

Arya: The lion is not his sigil, idiot. He’s a stag, like his father.

Sansa: He is not. He’s nothing like that old drunk king.

Out of the mouth of babes… Sansa unwittingly gives Ned the key to the mystery that his predecessor Jon Arryn was investigating: The true parentage of Cersei Lannister’s children. Sansa sounds like a complete ninny-hammer in this scene. Once again, she’s got her head in the clouds, imagining herself the star of a Westerosi fairytale. I have already mentioned that it is a shame that the show has erased existence of the songs and romances that are part of the cultural fabric of Westeros because this literature informs Sansa’s views on romance and chivalry. This literature therefore serves as a context for her ideals and her behaviour. Let’s have a look at how part of the exchange between Sansa and Ned plays out in the book:

“Father, I only just now remembered, I can’t go away, I’m to marry Prince Joffrey.” She tried to smile bravely for him. “I love him, Father, I truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be his queen and have his babies. […] We’ll be ever so happy, just like in the songs, you’ll see…” (A Game of Thrones, Sansa III)

Sansa isn’t facing the reality of her relationship with Joffrey but is rather desperately trying to make it fit the shape of the stories she loves so much. However, Sansa doesn’t understand that the songs she loves so much leaves out or stylizes all the hardship and suffering that the characters go through. She thinks that Aemon the Dragonknight defending the virtue of Queen Naerys against slander is terribly romantic – and it is. However, she doesn’t understand is these epic romances that she adores dilute the grief, suffering and horror with pretty words and ear-catching verse. Sansa’s life may become the subject of songs and stories, but not in the way that her younger self imagined. It is a common theme in the books: that romanticism erases the suffering, the blood and the grief of the people and events that are immortalized in stories and songs. Life is not a song, but it can become the subject of songs: “We are all just songs in the end. If we are lucky”. Young Sansa wanted to live in a song – and she just might get her wish, but in the worst way possible.

THE LION’S “MERCY”

As noted above, Sansa’s little outburst about that “old drunk king” leads Ned to discover the truth: that Joffrey is the offspring of Cersei and Jaime Lannister’s incestuous affair. However, his handling of this explosive secret is disastrous. Not only does he inform Cersei that he knows her secret but he does so before getting his daughters safely out of King’s Landing. Thus, when Cersei acts against Ned and slaughters his household, both Sansa and Arya are targeted by the Lannister soldiers. Syrio Forel delays the attackers to facilitate Arya’s escape and Septa Mordane tries to do the same for Sansa though it fails. This unarmed woman stares down a bunch of soldiers with bloody swords, knowing that it most likely means her death and she doesn’t flinch. It is perhaps one of the bravest acts I’ve seen on the show.

Sansa is captured by the Hound and she is now completely alone and isolated in King’s Landing. Ned is in the Black Cells, Arya has escaped and the rest of the Stark household are dead. It is a frightened girl that is summoned before Cersei and the remainder of the Small Council (Varys, Pycelle and Baelish). They pull a good cop, bad cop routine in order to coerce Sansa into writing a letter to Robb Stark at Winterfell, begging him to travel to King’s Landing to bend the knee to Joffrey.

Varys: Your father has proved to be an awful traitor, dear.

Pycelle: King Robert’s body was still warm when Lord Eddard began plotting to steal Joffrey’s rightful throne.

Sansa: He wouldn’t do that! He knows how much I love Joffrey. He wouldn’t. Please, Your Grace, there’s been a mistake. Send for my father. He’ll tell you – the king was his friend.

On the surface, this reads like a very self-absorbed thing to say – and it is, to a certain extent. However, it also shows that Sansa believes that her father would never hurt her intentionally. In her mind, her father would never hurt her – he knows she loves Joffrey – losing Joffrey would hurt her – ergo: Ned would never work against Joffrey because it would hurt her. It is a superficial way to approach this whole situation but it also reveals that she has complete faith in her father’s love for her.

Maester Pycelle: She’s a sweet thing now, Your Grace, but in 10 years who knows what treasons she may hatch?

Sansa to Cersei: No I’m not. I’ll be a good wife to him, you’ll see. I’ll be a queen, just like you (oh, the irony!), I promise. I won’t hatch anything.

Cersei, Varys, Pycelle and Baelish manipulate her skillfully.

Baelish: The girl is innocent, Your Grace. She should be given a chance to prove her loyalty.

Cersei: Little Dove, you must write to Lady Catelyn and your brother. The eldest – what’s his name?

Sansa: Robb.

Cersei: Word of your father’s arrest will reach him soon, no doubt. Best it comes from you. If you would help your father, urge your brother to keep the King’s Peace. Tell him to come to King’s Landing to swear his fealty to King Joffrey.

Sansa: If I could see my father, talk to him…

Cersei: You disappoint me, child. We have told you of your father’s treason. Why would you want to speak to a traitor?

Sansa: I only meant that… What will happen to him?

Cersei: That depends.

Sansa: On… On what?

Cersei: On your brother. And on you.

Sansa is led to believe that Ned’s fate rests on her slender shoulders. She thinks that her father’s life is dependent on her actions, which most likely provides the impetus for the next action she undertakes. Sansa publically pleads for her father – on her knees in front of the Iron Throne.

It is unclear whether she does this of her own accord or whether Cersei and the Small Council are in on it. Regardless, it is a lovely piece of heartfelt theatre and it shows that Sansa quickly has become familiar with the conventions of the royal court as she is exploiting the system of the king petitions publically.

Sansa: All I ask is mercy. I know my lord father must regret what he did. He was King Robert’s friend and he loved him, you all know that he loved him. He never wanted to be Hand, until the King asked him. They must have lied to him, Lord Renly or Lord Stannis or somebody. They must have lied!

Joffrey: He said I wasn’t the king. Why did he say that?

Sansa: He was badly hurt. Maester Pycelle was giving him Milk of the Poppy. He wasn’t himself. Otherwise he never would have said it.

Once again, Sansa demonstrates her complete faith in her father’s innocence and honour. Most likely, she knows nothing about what really happened and tries to come up with her own explanation. She ends her plea with an appropriation of the language of Courtly Love:

Notice how her language changes at this point – it becomes formal, stylized. She is speaking a sentence that could come straight from one of the chivalric romances that she likes so much. Here she appeals to the conventions of Courtly Love whereby the lover should fulfill his lady’s wishes. Joffrey, in turn, knows this language and responds in kind:

Joffrey: Your sweet words have moved me. But your father must confess. He has to confess and say that I’m the king – or there’ll be no mercy for him.

However, where Sansa uses the language of Courtly Love in good faith, Joffrey operates in bad faith. Just as he did in the scene where he gifted her a necklace. To him the language and conventions of Courtly Love are empty words and gestures whereas they are very meaningful to Sansa. She has yet to understand that truth and honour are rare commodities at court. Here deceit and double-speak reigns supreme.

When the time comes, Joffrey’s mercy turns out to be no mercy at all! However, Sansa isn’t the only person who is blindsided when Joffrey calls for Ned’s head. Cersei, Varys and Pycelle’s reactions show that they, too, have been blindsided by Joffrey’s demand.

Sansa breaks down, screaming desperately for them to stop. She has to be restrained by an armed knight before she faints at the sight of her father’s headless body.

Unlike Arya, who is shielded from the sight of her Ned’s death by Yoren, Sansa is forced to watch her father die. This is the moment when the scales finally fall from her eyes. Throughout the season, Sansa has been willfully blind about Joffrey. It isn’t necessarily because she’s stupid but rather because she has constantly been told not to trust her own instincts. She was also purposely mislead by gestures and words designed to appeal to her romanticism. However, her final disillusionment is incredibly brutal and traumatic.

“HE CAN MAKE ME LOOK AT THE HEADS; BUT HE CAN’T MAKE ME SEE THEM”

Joffrey takes Sansa to the battlements of the Red Keep to show her the severed heads of her father and his household.

I have chosen to title this section with a quote from the book because it encapsulates how Sansa adopts a strategy of passive resistance in the face of the emotional abuse that Joffrey inflicts on her. What does this distinction between “looking” and “seeing” mean? To look means to direct one’s gaze at something (what is being looked at). To see can mean the same thing but it can also imply to understand, recognize or comprehend something. So what does this mean in relation to this scene between Joffrey and Sansa? It could refer to Sansa’s tendency to compartmentalize and supress things that are traumatic to her. Let’s have a look at the passage that follows the quote above:

Sandor Clegane took the head by the hair and turned it. The severed head had been dipped in tar to preserve it longer. Sansa looked at it calmly, not seeing it at all. It did not really look like Lord Eddard, she thought; it did not even look real. “How long do I have to look?” Joffrey seemed disappointed. – A Game of Thrones, Sansa VI

The way that Sansa disassociate “looking” from “seeing” can be read as both a coping mechanism and a form of passive resistance. The whole situation is incredibly traumatic for her – her father was murdered before her eyes and she is alone among people she cannot trust. On top of that, she has to contend with Joffrey’s vicious nature. He only brought her to the battlement to enjoy her anguish. Sansa refuses him that pleasure by not giving any outward reaction.

Sophie Turner conveys Sansa’s passive resistance perfectly through a stoic, emotionless countenance and an inflectionless, almost “dead”, quality to her voice. There’s even a subtle defiance in the manner in which she raises her head to look – at Ned’s head, at Joffrey. At some level, Joffrey knows that she’s resisting but he can’t put a finger on it and thus he’s rendered impotent. He doesn’t get the reaction from her that he wants. He wants her tears and she refuses to give them to him.

When she refuses to show her anguish, Joffrey tries another tactic: threats against her brother Robb.

However, this backfires as well when Sansa replies:

Then she coldly stares him down, daring him to challenge her. Joffrey is flustered, he even takes a step back! Then, as the coward he is, he orders Ser Meryn to strike Sansa. A grown man, wearing gauntlets, slaps her around and she doesn’t make a sound!

Immediately after this, the camera work shows the audience that Sansa ponders the ultimate act of resistance: killing Joffrey by pushing him off the battlements. She even starts walking towards him. The only reason Joffrey doesn’t die that day is because the Hound intervenes with the pretext of wiping the blood off her face. Sansa herself is completely prepared to die with him, as the book says: “All it would take was a shove, she told herself. […] It wouldn’t even matter if she went over with him. It wouldn’t matter at all.”

The scene ends with Sansa standing on the battlements, alone. She lifts her gaze one last time, looking up  at her father’s head, whilst she fights to hold back her tears. This gaze, I’d argue, is different than the “look, don’t see” approach she adopted earlier. With this final look, she is committing the crime of her father’s murder to memory. She’s reminding herself never to be deceived by Joffrey and the Lannisters again. This time, she won’t close her eyes to the truth. 

Sansa is often criticized for being a passive character in King’s Landing. Many think her weak because she doesn’t resist violently. However, it is mistake to confuse helplessness with weakness! About his sister Lyanna, Eddard said: “You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath.” The same can be said of Sansa. Strength and resistance come in many forms. Sansa is not a violent person, she is not physically strong and she has no weapons training. It is ridiculous to expect her to fight off a bunch of armored soldiers. It would simply get her killed. Sansa’s resistance is more subtle and it is psychological rather than physical. The scene with Joffrey on the battlements shows how Sansa employs two different forms of resistance to Joffrey’s cruelty:

Active, verbal resistance where she talks back. That leads to a beating at the hands of the King’s Guard.

Passive resistance where she outwardly complies but refuses to let Joffrey enjoy her pain by schooling her face and her voice into an impassive countenance.

These two options are the forms of resistance that she continues to employ whilst she’s a captive in King’s Landing – and as the seasons progress, we see how she adjusts this resistance to more sophisticated and subtly manipulative forms.