#rani’s rambles

[sapphicflower-ao3]

THIS WEEK’S BAKUDEKU MOODBOARD 11/10/2023

[ashieeeesh]

Im just thinking about how the M/C name is YUU. In the manga, im pretty sure that the Yuu is based on the dorm leaders, like how the yuu in azul's chapter represents the old him. Its like a mirror them but happier. Coz when MC introduces themselves is like "Hi i am Yuu" its like saying i am the version of you. What you could've been if you didn't experience the trauma you had or smt. Idk if that made sense i dont know how to explain well im sorry 😭😭

Edit: i remember this quote from somewhere it goes "i am all you could have been, and you are all i might be." Its literally the vibes of every yuu and dormleader 😭😭

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

I’d say never change, but I think we’ve been like this the whole time

[a-dragons-journal]

How exactly is being otherkin any different than being transracial by idea? I’m not pro-transracial, but I can’t really formulate an argument on where the difference is and why one is okay while the other isn’t

The difference, in my opinion at least, basically comes down to the fact that race and ethnicity are things other real people deal with and which have big cultural impact for a lot of people; species is not. You can't hurt theriform wolves by identifying as a wolf because wolves are not people and are not aware of any of this. Dragons may be people depending on the dragon, but they don't exist physically in this world to have an opinion. You can, however, hurt people of color by identifying as transethnicity and approaching it in a disrespectful way.

And I say it that way because if I'm honest, transethnicity is one of those transIDs where I'm... a little torn on it. I can understand the feelings and experiences they're describing, but I struggle to find a way to engage with the idea of being transethnicity that isn't going to wind up being racist in one way or another. And while I haven't exactly spent a ton of time in radqueer/transID spaces, when I've gone into their tags and such to do a little research on them, I have overwhelmingly seen transethnicity people being kind of if not extremely racist about it. The experiences are not inherently harmful, but it's really easy to slide into engaging with those experiences in a way that's harmful.

And yet... in this community we have, for example, fictionkin whose fictotypes are a different race than them all the time, and sometimes that's very important to who their fictotype is and how they view the world. And that works out fine. I think the primary difference is that fictionkin are generally expected to acknowledge that they're not a part of that group in the present and can't speak on the group's issues or experiences as if they were, whereas the minute you put a trans- label onto the word, the expectation is that you should be treating a trans[x] person as if they're [x]. (And if it's not, then... why are you calling it trans- anything to begin with when that's what trans- means in an identity context?)

So, I do genuinely believe that they're having these experiences, but... idk, there has to be a better way to frame and engage with those experiences. I don't know what that is, but it's got to be out there somewhere, though it may not be a one-size-fits-all answer. (And maybe there's a transID community out there that's found it, I don't know.)

Anyway, open invitation for POC to give their thoughts on this, since they've probably got better-constructed ones than me; if I'm honest, I haven't spent all that much time thinking about this issue. I think about it on and off here and there when it comes up and then it gives me a headache so I move on.

[mysticalhiss]

What if Rani was a tiger. What then

[off-traveling-in-the-stars]

why I think Mrs flood is the rani

rain anagram

she knows what a TARDIS is

the doctor says that thing about time lords hiding away, then the next scene or so, she says she's always hiding herself away

I think it's cool!

why I don't think she's the rani

why does she keep talking to us is that a rani thing that I missed or

[sapphicflower-ao3]

EVERYBODY WAKEE UPPP THIS IS NOT A DRILL 😭‼️‼️‼️

new chapter of nothing else fills tomorrow 

[thewingedwolf]

luther: the golden child

diego: the mastermind

allison: the peace keeper

klaus: the clown / mascot

five: the rebel / truth teller

ben: the lost child

viktor: the scapegoat

is this something i think this is something

[de-sterren-nacht]

[atopvisenyashill]

hey! i’ve been sort of lurking on your blog for a while, lol, but seeing you answer one of your recent asks abt some of your main theories got me curious enough to finally start a convo. so for the record, i was kind of ambivalent about sansa before reading some of your metas, and i’m still not really a jonsa believer, but a lot of things you’ve catalogued on ur blog did a lot to solidify sansa being lady of winterfell as a new member of my ASOIAF Endgame PredictionsTM, and seeing u answer that recent ask w all your separate bits of evidence collected together really sold it for me! quick question, though: i tend to skim-read long posts, so maybe i missed something, but did you say anything about why sansa would specifically end up as QiTN, rather than just lady of winterfell (still under whoever the next major ruler of westeros is)? i mean, especially if we do go ahead and assume that bran will end up as king in harrenhal, i don’t quite get why sansa would want to establish the north as a separate kingdom by seceding from her own brother? i suppose there’s the angle of wanting to honor what robb fought for, which certainly isn’t a bad motivator… but i think the remaining starklings, of all people, would be more likely to recognize (and focus on the fact) that robb’s main motivation in participating in the Wot5K was mostly just to avenge ned and secure the safety of the rest of his family. and even if the idea of finishing what robb started is a motivating factor, considering that asoiaf’s endgame is almost certainly going to be post-apocalyptic in some senses, i feel like whoever’s making these big decisions (even if that group does include some of the starklings, though it definitely will) would be more likely to prioritize trying to kind of return the world of westeros to something most resembling the previous status quo, which committing to splitting the kingdoms would maybe not really help with?

interested to hear your thoughts on all of this, thanks for reading :D <3

First - thank you for the compliment!!! I love to spread the gospel of Sansa As Ruling Lady In Winterfell lol, and it's nice to know I've convinced some people about some aspects of it! I have got to get better about adding a tldr at the ending though bc I too will sometimes just skim a post and queue it alsdjfla. (also validating each other on "the ending is going to be post apocalyptic" - YES that's what I've BEEN saying omg I do sometimes feel like some of the endgame predictions leave out that imo the last half of ados is going to feel very much like a post-apocalyptic type rebuilding!). Also sorry if this is kind of meandering, I wanted to organize it a bit more but that didn't work out lol.

But honestly okay - I go back and forth a LOT on whether Sansa is ruling lady of Winterfell or straight up Queen on the North. I’m still very undecided on it! I think it makes sense, narratively and just like logically that if Rickon is found he’s Bran’s heir in the South (both as a parallel to the Aegon/Viserys ending of the Dance and as a kind of neat bow tie on their story as brothers - they start the series being left behind in Winterfell and end the series choosing to stay behind but together in Harrenhal), then the girls are in the North as the Starks in Winterfell. Again, I think this is a parallel to Sansa/Serena & a play on the she-wolves of winterfell, but also, being the two oldest Starks, makes sense that Sansa is ruling lady and Arya is a sort of Hand (and like Rickon, potentially the one their line descends from but again - call me Sokka because I love to waffle!) But Queen in the North specifically? I think that's less clear than Sansa being ruling lady of Winterfell (which imo isn't just clear, it's the obvious answer for her story arc) though I still think there's a high probability of it.

First, let me get into the more conjecture side of it. Basically, I think part of the reason the kingdoms are going to split is because there will be some population and geographic changes after the Long Night/second war for the throne - I think I've mentioned it before I believe the Neck is going to "break" ie become flooded the same way the arm of dorne was "broken" and flooded and became the stepstones. This would make the North a lot harder to get to, geographically, which could further isolate them and want them to have their own monarch who is In The North and can make more snap decisions as they rebuild than Bran could all the way passed the Neck in Harrenhal.

I also think the Iron Islands are going to get fucked and Asha will lead a lot of her people to the mainland to settle, probably in the North due to them needing more population because they also got fucked - and two groups of people who are notoriously kind of isolationist coming together might prefer to stay partially disconnected from the main kingdoms. Which isn't to say they won't have contact with each other - I guess I was picturing like....idk a sort of EU thing lmao, or maybe a Narnia thing of like, open borders between the 2-3 kingdoms who are all allies and work together due to being on the same continent.

Of course, the breaking of the Neck (which is something I'm a lot more confident on - I think it's a guarantee tbh) could also drive the North back into the arms of the other kingdoms, as they need more help recovering from the Long Night and can perhaps offer help to the South as the South recovers from their wars. But anyways that's my geographic/logistical reason why I think the North might stay separated from the rest of the Kingdoms, even with a Stark King on the throne.

Now, in the previous ask, I mentioned her parallels to other Queens and some of the Queen imagery surrounding her - there's the abundant Naerys/Sansa parallels, and the Cersei/Sansa antiparallels. There's a bit of talk about how ~Sansa is good at queenly things~ and ~Joffrey was foolish to set her aside that feels (to me) like setup for her being a ruling Queen - no one can set her aside or disrespect her then, like Naerys and Cersei go through. Of course just paralleling a few Queens doesn't inherently mean she'll be Queen but I do think the emphasis on comparing her to queens is pointed - then again, imo there's also a lot of parallels between her and Princess Rhaena Targaryen of Dragon Twins fame, and Rhaena does not wind up a queen!

(there is also some parallels to historical queens there, most notably to Elizabeth of York, Queen of England and wife to Henry VII. Notably their marriage ended the War of the Roses, but I don't claim to be an expert there but I have reblogged some meta on that here and I'm sure there's others floating around).

There's also these two little bits here-

Ahead he glimpsed a pale white trunk that could only be a weirwood, crowned with a head of dark red leaves.

In their midst was a pale stranger; a slender young weirwood with a trunk as white as a cloistered maid. Dark red leaves sprouted from its reaching branches.

The first is from a Jon chapter and I think it could point to Bran or Sansa - dark red hair, pale skin, and a crown. The second one is what makes me think it points to either just sansa or both of them - that comes in a Brienne chapter. Again you have the pale skin (white as a cloistered maid) and dark red leaves acting as hair almost. To be honest, there's a lot with the Tully-Starklings having the coloring of a weirwood that's sort of fascinating in what it implies - perhaps that their roots are leading them back North, perhaps something more sinister re: Bran being eaten by a tree. I digress lol.

There's a few comments from Ned as well that feel like they might be foreshadowing-

“Brandon. Yes. Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meant for Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything. He was born to be a King’s Hand and a father to queens. I never asked for this cup to pass to me.”

"Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king's council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon." But he will never run beside his wolf again, he thought with a sadness too deep for words, or lie with a woman, or hold his own son in his arms. Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?" “You,” Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, “will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon.” Arya screwed up her face. "No," she said, "that's Sansa."

There's a lot made of that last one, about how Ned potentially lays out his kids endgames right there to Arya -

Lord of a Great Holdfast and sit on a King's Council - Jon Snow

Raise Castles Like Brandon the Builder - Bran

Sail a Ship Across the Sunset Sea - Arya

Enter the Faith and Become High Septon - Rickon

Marry a King, Rule His Castle, Sons will be {etc} - no, that's Sansa

Those comments stick out to me because imo Sansa & Arya's endgames will be a sort of mirror to Ned & Lyanna so it seems natural to me that some of Sansa's endgame would be foreshadowed in the chapters of her father the same as Arya's endgame is sort of anti-foreshadowed (idk how you would phrase that one lol) in Lyanna.

tldr i am much more confident in the idea that Sansa will rule Winterfell than I am in what title she will have while ruling. I do think there is some Sansa-as-Queen foreshadowing, in her comparisons to other Queens like Naerys, Cersei, and Elizabeth of York, and the way characters like Ned & Tyrion talk about how ~queenly~ she acts and how naturally leading under stress comes to her.

[dawn-sunlight]

My least favorite Lion Guard episode is a toss up between Janja's New Crew and Triumph of the Roar. Janja's New Crew is an episode that makes 0 sense to me; Janja is suddenly extremely stupid to a level that we never see from him before or after this episode, Nne and Tano are super smart and then proceed to be consistently shown participating in background hyena shenanigans after this episode, and Nne and Tano push Janja off a cliff and make it clear they're done with his leadership only for absolutely nothing to come of that. Meanwhile, Triumph of the Roar proceeds to make the Roar even more of an overpowered instant-win button, and the big final climactic battle between the Tree of Life Residents + Lion Guard and Makucha's Army is entirely solved with the Roar and the Night Pride get to do NOTHING. 3/4's of the members are trapped in the Tree and even Rani, the queen and leader of the Night Pride, just gets to stand there and watch as Kion pretty much single-pawedly defeats the entire army with the Roar. It's all the problems I have with the Roar condensed into one episode.

[sapphicflower-ao3]

FUCKING FINALLY GOD. TAKE IT TAKE THIS CHAPTER 14

idk if this chap lives up to the hype i’ve had for it in my head all these years but. whatever it’s POSTED NOW. i hope there aren’t glaring mistakes. i realised today that i had lost like so much progress in this draft and it sucked the joy out of me for a bit

no worries tho i got the joy back when re-writing it 😎 and now im rambling again. ok whatever just enjoy it i guess

[fiannalover]

I consider Fate/Extra to be one of those stories where it is less of a coherent plot (though it is one) and more of a collection of insanely strong Character Moments. A side-effect of this is that I can't help but feel it makes Rin and Rani better characters when bosses than in their own routes.

[misha-69innit]

who up listening to faraatta by Anirudh Ravichander at 7:30 in the am you ask? well, it's me

[a-dragons-journal]

hope you guys are ready for me to not shut up about my hearthome for the next eighteen days

[map-of-obsessions]

Ok I have another far fetched theory: rani is cured

Hear me out here, she looks like shit for most of the series because she's sick, but in episode 5 when Adi has given her the supposedly failed cure she looks much healthier.

She's strong enough to run away, and also from a plot perspective they've already had one death by sick and idk if they'd want to repeat the plotline. So, I think that the cure worked, it just didn't take effect immediately.

In season 3, this could potentially send Adi into more of a tailspin because not only has the research been destroyed, but the cure had been destroyed. And it also means that they have potential to have a happy ending together or apart at the final ending