#she's very monumental

[ministarfruit]

time to head backstage!

[strryhaze]

“as a tribute to her connection and dedication to the kennedy family” so that’s the story we’re sticking to alright! a diamond ring with a binding pattern all around it, called the unity ring. oh okay

[to-be-a-dreamer]

A brain dump of thoughts after Agatha All Along ep 6:

Okay but like. The parallels between Agatha and Billy that we get to see now????

Both of their mothers chose to protect other people, complete strangers, over their own children??? Like. We know Wanda made the right choice, sacrificing her family for the greater good, but in her own twisted way did Evanora believe she was doing the same? Did she ever love her daughter? On some deep level, beneath the anger and hatred and warped sense of justice did it hurt her to try to kill her own child? She believed Agatha would bring countless death and destruction, that she was destined to be evil. As warped as her justifications were did she see it as a selfless sacrifice like Wanda's? Does that make it right? Does Billy have as much reason as Agatha to be angry with his mother for choosing to let him and his brother die? Do her truly selfless intentions matter to a child was just desperate to survive? Will he be able to forgive Wanda before that resentment is used against him? Is Agatha just trying to manipulate him by taunting him about Wanda or does she truly see a bit of herself in a child whose mother tried to kill him? (Edited)

Both of them were forced to do something horrible just to survive??? Agatha had to murder her own family. Billy had to steal the body of a boy who had just died. He had to pretend to be the child of these poor unsuspecting parents who just want their son back. Who have no idea their child is dead. The Kaplans will never get to bury William. He has to look them in the eye every single day knowing he's not really their son but what else was he supposed to do? He hates what he's doing to these people but what choice did he have? Could he even control it or did his soul instinctively seek out a new vessel to protect itself? Agatha was just a child who didn't want to die. Billy was just a child who didn't want to die. Were they selfish? Could they control it? Can we truly blame them if they could?

Both of them do terrible things when they feel backed into a corner or overwhelmed or emotional??? Things that they come to regret as soon as the emotions clear??? Billy looked horrified when he finally realized what he had done to Lilia and Jen but he's an intensely powerful and traumatized child who was overcome with grief and anger. Do we really think every single one of Agatha's kills was 100% self-defense? Do we really think she never killed someone in a fit of anger only to regret it after? And maybe Agatha has come to accept and embrace that now but she must have been like Billy when she was young. (Billy is literally the same age Agatha was when she killed her coven and was even younger when he took William's body) She must have been horrified at her power, at the things she did when she felt trapped. She must have bent over backward trying to defend herself and justify her own actions before realizing no one would believe she didn't want to do those things so she might as well embrace her power to its fullest potential ("I'm not that nice").

Both of them are walking the road for someone they lost??? I know Agatha says she's on the road for her power back but that's not how the road works, right? It doesn't give you what you want it gives you what you're missing. I think if Agatha was really able to get anything at all in the world, it wouldn't be her magic. Agatha is looking for Nicky. Billy is looking for Tommy. I don't know if either of them will really get that at the end but they are absolutely in this for the same reason.

I know there are mixed responses to this episode (at least when I first scrolled through the tag) but I for one really enjoyed it. I was really worried they were going to half-ass the explanation for why Billy was being Like This and fuck up one of the only queer Marvel Comics characters but comparing his actions to Agatha's and showing us this kid who is SO MUCH like how Agatha must have been when she was his age is so much fun actually. Like, it would have been really great but pacing-wise we probably couldn't have spent the necessary time going back into Agatha's past and diving deep into her progression from "scared child who does horrible things out of desperation for survival" to "cutthroat witch who is more than eager to hurt and betray others for her own personal gain". But we get to see it happen to Billy over the rest of the season and maybe even multiple MCU projects!!! Or maybe we'll get to see him make different choices. Maybe Agatha will be able to give him the chance no one gave her. Maybe history doesn't have to repeat itself. Maybe Billy's journey will give Agatha the chance to change her own story once and for all.

Idk this is really rambly and maybe my opinion will change as I think about it more but my first reactions are positive. Yeah on a meta level it sucks that the wlw couple is moving so slowly in their own show while the young, conventionally attractive mlm couple got to kiss within their first few minutes of screentime and they probably could have put in the effort to intentionally combat the miserable lesbians trope. But on a story level, I'm personally glad they're not rushing Agatha and Rio's arc. They're definitely going to get their moment but the reason they're so compelling is because of their history and the tragedy between them. We don't have all the details of what really happened between them yet but I don't think it's something you can just kiss and make up about. Billy and Eddie are teenagers with no real baggage between them. Agatha and Rio have possibly centuries of hurt and anger and betrayal to work through Let Them Cook! It'll be that much sweeter and their relationship is one of the CORE overarching plots of the show you don't want them to rush it. (Also I personally am too ace for the "we're gonna make up by having hot sex about it" type of conflict resolution and would have hated if Agatha and Rio were intimate before sorting at least some of their shit out but that's just me ik a lot of people would have enjoyed it and I'm sure it could have been really compelling but I actually cannot stand those kinds of plots most of the time.)

Also just keep in mind that the only other named queer characters we've had in the MCU literally ever are Phastos and Ben in the Eternals and like. Yeah it shouldn't have taken this long for a queer lead but the massive jump??? We went from one character (out of like ten mains) whose partner has minimal personality traits and like five minutes of screen time to a show with two main character on-screen queer romances!!!! In the Marvel Cinematic Universe??? And one of them is a season-long complex and interesting story that is a central plot of the series and not just half-baked fanservice!!! And one is just sweet innocent love between kids who care about each other!!! I do wish wlw stories didn't always have to come with attractive cis gay men but do y'all understand how huge this is for the MCU????? It shouldn't have taken this long and we can definitely criticize the negative tropes the show falls victim to but net positive progress is always something to be happy about. If you're not familiar with the greater MCU and the history of Marvel in general just understand that this is actually insane for them and I'm so excited for the doors that just opened for future queer storylines, but that can only happen if we show Marvel that, yes we do want queer characters being openly intimate on screen. Be happy for Billy, keep being happy for Agatha and Rio during all stages of their story and maybe we'll get to see more of this!!!

[moonilit]

Caption Kaeya in this moment

[lilacerull0]

it's cool that you think l'amica geniale isn't actually about friendship. you can go fuck yourself

[lanabenikosdoormat]

Famous last words, I’m telling you

cipher and i went to go record and replay some kotfe (in jed’s actual canon outfit now) but i couldn’t help myself to making it ridiculous as possible

[schemelin]

every now and then i experience brief moments of self-awareness telling me to make major changes to the fusionsprunt story

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Alistair: So I'm not going with you, I see. Any particular reason? Tabris: I'm not going to risk you getting hurt, Alistair. Alistair: And you think I want you going in there and sacrificing yourself? You think I want you to die!? But there's no use arguing with you, is there? We don't have time... and you are a stubborn, stubborn woman. Tabris: You would do something foolish. Alistair: Maybe… I guess we'll never know now, will we? I guess this is the last chance we'll get… before this is finished, one way or another. Be careful in there. Tabris: I love you, Alistair. Alistair:

Guess who made the ultimate sacrifice...?

Me. It was me.

I made the ultimate sacrifice.

The achievement wasn't worth it.

[kcdodger]

The South can't have ANYTHING can we?

I swear, dude. I just learned The Dixie Chicks changed their name to avoid association with the term Dixie - and that this isn't an isolated thing. A lot of organizations, groups, and so on, removed the term from their vocabulary, titles or whatever else they needed to, due to the term's association with The Confederacy. This is part of a broader issue I have with performative leftism in general, honestly. Look. If you follow me, or know me - you know damned well that I'm an activist and a huge proponent of equity, equality, and fair treatment of minorities. I'm pro reparations. That does not mean I like when decade after decade I keep seeing more, new reasons for southerners to adopt Yankee self flagellation, especially since the fuckers don't like us anyway. They're never gonna'. That is not to say, "Then why bother" - no, it's to say the some shit is not worth just. Casting by the wayside. Dixie does not have to mean you hate minorities and gays and non christians and want slavery back and ThE sOuTh WiLl RiSe AgaIn!11!1one!!1! - of course it won't. (Bigotry certainly has though, nation wide! Across state lines and parties even! We're JUST about to enter America's WORST presidency, guaranteed! Dear GODS am I fearful!) I'm just tired, man. It feels like every time I look back down, here from Jersey to ask, "Hey, how's the south doing?" the answer is routinely and uniformly, "So, we're shedding something in an effort to say sorry. By the way when we get hit by another hurricane or snowstorm this year, the Yanks will tell us they hope we die and we'll just smile about it." It's sad.

[faaun]

oh my god ! haha . anyway a bit buzzed perhaps. anyway here's what happened on the date

[batsplat]

I just saw your post abt looking forward to the wta the most for 2025 and if u feel like it i was wondering if u cld share what ur looking forward to? like what narratives ur following or how u think the season will go or what ur hoping will happen. i kind of want to get back into watching tennis next yr (very influenced by ur tennis posting btw, rlly made me miss the feeling of watching tennis) but i kinda didnt watch any tennis post-ao this yr which ok was probably very unfair to the wta because it was rlly only the atp that ruined things for me and i actually rlly like sabalenka and thus rlly enjoyed the wta results but its just a large part of how i used to engage in tennis was through tennis twt and there were/are just so many sinner fans even in the wta subsection and i just at that point post-ao cld not see his face w/o going grrr so i simply chose to totally clock out lol. but i watched a bit of wta finals on my own and i was like yeah ifl i cld watch tennis on its own w/o having to follow stuff on social media and maybe along w/ watching some bigger matches w/ irl friends so yeah. idk where this is going (trust i will go on an unrelated tangent on a simple ask) but just if u ever have time/feel like it i wld be super keen to read abt ur thoughts on wta happenings next season and like stuff/developments to look out for!

oh yeah, I am ALWAYS up for proselytising women's tennis. extremely up for doing free marketing work to get the people invested. here's a rundown of where the biggest names are at headed into this year:

sabalenka as the hunted not the hunter - first time aryna has secured year end number one, she's had a fantastic season securing two slams and is to me currently the only top player without major question marks surrounding her. she has unambiguously been the best performer on hard courts for the past two years... and now she's finally started to pick up her title count again outside of slams. from her pov, this coming year wimbledon has got to be THE priority. she was banned from competing in 2022 due to geopolitical happenings, lost to ons in one of her habitual semifinal chokes in 2023, and then in 2024 couldn't play due to injury. honestly, I used to think wimbledon would be the first slam she wins - and if she'd been fully fit this year, she would've been the favourite. given how aryna has generally been known for her... um, mental fragility, especially on the biggest of stages, the turnaround on that front has been massive for her. it's been almost two years now, but the way she had so completely conquered her serving yips when she was en route to the 2023 australian open still needs to be regularly mentioned. she didn't flinch at all under the pressure of defending the title at this year's ao, she was imperious on the way to the uso title... but. who knows if it'll be different now!! she is THE player now, the talisman of women's tennis, and that brings its own pressure with it. as of right now, honestly my guess would be that she's still number one in a year's time... but it really is very far from certain

swiatek's comeback year? - this is a big year coming up for iga. to address the elephant in the room: the provisional doping ban. while she's said she's putting it behind her, obviously the rest of the tennis world might have other ideas. australia will be the first time the press can properly grill her about it... and all her colleagues get to be asked about it too, which does make it quite likely there'll be a bit of a cloud still hanging over her for january at the least. beyond that... well. iga had one big goal in 2024: to win gold at the olympics on her favourite court in the whole world. she failed. she won roland garros, but did not make any real progress at any of the non-clay slams. the us open 2022 looks like it might be a one-off... my line with iga for the past year is that she could easily end up being one of those players who wins 7-8 slams but everyone feels has underperformed on their potential. which is still obviously an excellent career!! but surely it could be better... it feels like she has run into some serious roadblocks recently, in her game and in her mind. a sign of hope on this front is that after a very long time, she has made a coaching switch - partnering with wim fissette, a well-regarded coach with an illustrious resume on the women's tour who tends to stay with his players for 1-3 years. biggest success stories are coaching clijsters in her uniquely successful post-pregnancy return to tour and coaching osaka to two slams. he's very much a problem-solver coach, one who comes in and makes adjustments... but maybe isn't known to be the type to form long-lasting relationships. now, I know what EYE would do to fix iga's game (starting with firing her weird ass psychologist into the sun) - a lot of it's about trusting her skills as a retriever more, not feeling compelled to outgun the biggest hitters, STEPPING BACK FOR RETURNS I'M BEGGING YOU. she needs to be more tactically flexible!! my sense is fissette agrees on some of these points, so there IS cause for hope. but also, if (as is likely) she doesn't win ao, then my god will she be under a lot of pressure headed into rg. three time defending champion who the field now knows is still beatable on that court after zheng defeated her at the olympics this year, with the knowledge that if she doesn't win there she could easily go without a slam the entire year. it's a lot for iga to deal with... like I said, big year

igatha/sublanko rivalry - well, first off, they need to play more matches. they have played back-to-back classics at madrid in 2023-24, the only thing of worth that shitty tournament has given us during that time - 2023 is already available on youtube and I would very much recommend checking it out. but like. let's face it. they need to play in a bloody slam final. obviously, it's mainly been iga who has been letting down the side on this front... she probably WOULD have made it to the 2023 uso final if penko hadn't done her thing and taken her out. but they need to get their act together here. it's become such a compelling rivalry - iga currently leads the h2h 8-4, though aryna won their last meeting. their matches are so intriguing not just because of the lovely stylistic contrast but also because... they both have this brittleness to them, this slight sense of unease and mental fragility, where they're both such ferocious competitors but we all know how often they're fighting demons. they both show it in completely different ways, sabalenka screaming her soul out while swiatek stalks around the court in silent distress - but what matters both is that they're both desperate to beat each other. they live and breathe every point, they need it so so badly that sometimes they trip themselves up. they're both so intense and they're both such brilliant players but they also bring such a... humanity to their rivalry, one that makes it easy to root for both of them. I want to see them hash it out on the biggest of stages

the gauff conundrum - idk what we're getting from this girl next year and tbh at this stage I'm cautious making any predictions. in all honesty, I've long been a gauff... sceptic is maybe a bit harsh, but certainly I'd say I've been cautious about buying into the hype too much. and it really does just come back to the gauff forehand. if you have one wing that's letting you down so badly, especially the forehand, it's always going to make me a bit careful about predicting great things for you. but the thing about gauff is that the expectations with her have always been out of whack - she's won one slam, which is already a MASSIVE achievement, but plenty of people are predicting double digits for her. and then on the flip side, obviously she also has plenty of critics who make apocalyptic predictions about how she'll never win again (racism as ever a major feature of that particular discourse). I don't really vibe with child prodigies except under specific circumstances, but she's sort of accidentally become crazy compelling to me because her game has these massive, glaring deficiencies that she's incredibly tenacious in figuring out ways to overcome. when it's not the forehand (which has actually looked pretty good in the post-uso stretch), it's the serve that is imploding to sabalenka-levels of yips. what's interesting about all this (as I myself can attest to lol) is that if you can't rely on your firepower and some of your shots straight-up suck and the main think you've got going for you is your ability to chase down balls, everything becomes so TOUGH for you. you need to be doing so much thinking to figure out how best to work around your worst shot, how to calibrate your tactics perfectly to somehow scam the win... the tennis might make me wince at times (though crucially I am a massive fan of ugly tennis and she sure has been delivering on that front), but my god is she a fighter. I don't think she'll win a slam next year but what do I know!! ALSO massively intriguing match-ups with both sublanko and igatha now - is she going to actually going to escape being iga's pigeon? and the sabalenka match-up has become easily one of the most intriguing on tour. talk about stylistic contrast

zheng's next step - qinwen has had a very positive 2024. she benefited from the draw at ao falling apart - but it's not easy to reach your first slam final when everyone's expecting you to. after that she had a bit of a lull... but then she won olympic gold, and has followed it up with some impressive performances towards the end of this year (albeit she kinda should have won the wta finals final). there's still question marks about the consistency... the confidence has given her an impressive mental fortitude, cf her olympics run, but there's still one too many big matches for my liking where she doesn't really show up. also, she is currently being massively pigeonised by sabalenka (0-5 h2h). if you want to win big titles, that's going to be a problem!! obviously her first priority next year will be winning her maiden slam, which... idk, I'd give it under 50% likelihood of happening but I think it's very plausible? being elite on both hard and clay will help her cause here... if for instance iga wobbles at rg then zheng would be like,, a top three contender for me. but the second priority has got to be to get a win over sabalenka - you cannot allow yourself to get monfils'd by the current best player in the world. I also have to say I'm not completely sold on her as a surefire top player going forward, she's definitely been in very good form but you never know how things go after the off-season after a breakout season, and the first three names featured in this post are the only ones I'm close to 100% confident will feature at the top of the game next season (barring any injuries). but no reason to be too sceptical!! the other big zheng storyline is... the drama!! second half of this year and it's now a few players she's seemingly locked horns with, has spoken openly about her stance she has zero interest in befriending other players, gives some fantastically chilly handshakes. it's healthy for the wta ecosystem to have someone like that close to the top of the game, someone who's just quite abrasive and self-assured and doesn't really fw her competitors. sometimes u just gotta make the locker room vibes worse. obviously it'd be fun if things got proper ugly between her and another big name... just sort of curious about how that whole situation will develop

the rybakina situation - rybakina has slipped from her perch as one of the wta ''''''big three'''''' of like. 2023. and has felt quite absent from the game for much of 2024, outside of some impressive runs at 500 level. she couldn't secure a slam at wimbledon, even though she was very much the favourite headed into the semifinals stage. she's had so many illnesses and injuries that you just sort of worry that'll end up being the story of her career. the big change headed into the coming season is, of course, dumping her long-time coach vukov. I want to be careful in discussing that relationship since we've all been relying on the rumour mill for a long time, but I think it's fair to say there won't be many fans unhappy to see that split. there were reports that vukov had been sacked for constantly insulting her, that he'd subjected her to immense psychological pressure, even that he'd been removed from the wta list of approved coaches - but to be clear, we don't know exactly what happened and she herself said at the wta finals it had been a normal coach/player split. put a gun to my head and I'd say I - like everyone else - have felt for a long time this isn't a healthy relationship, but. again! being cautious here. anyway, I think it's good for her, and she's now working with goran ivanisevic in his first coaching gig since ending his long-term partnership with djokovic. now THAT is a very intriguing coach/player pairing. I reckon it has promise!! idk, it'd be nice to see her bounce back, but at this stage you do also just need to see if she can stay healthy for more than a couple of weeks at a time - which might end up being helped by this coaching switch too. who knows. everyone knows that rybakina's best is beyond lethal, and she has managed to dominate both swiatek and sabalenka in some of their encounters in the last couple years in a way basically nobody else can. it's all the other stuff she's got to figure out

paolini revolution to continue? - I just checked the rankings and realised I've kinda done paolini dirty with her placement in this list, given she ended the year as a ridiculous number four in the world. her transformation in the last twelve months... I've never seen something quite like it. she was in good form back end of last year!! there was a Vibe where I felt like she was on a good trajectory and might have a good year!! nothing like THIS. just such a cool story of a journeywoman-type player as the quintessential late bloomer who suddenly becomes a consistent factor at the top of the game. no big weapons, not a lot in the height department going for her, no obvious x factor beyond a willingness to grind and a lot of fighting spirit. she's come out of this season with a 1000 title, two slam finals, a doubles gold medal, wta finals qualification in both singles and doubles, and the bjk cup title which... yeah, not bad. I'm glad that after the b2b slam final losses, she does have something substantive to show for her efforts this year. icl given how unexpected her rise was, I'm not really sure what we'll get from her next year. sophomore seasons post-breakout can be rough, though then again this is very late to be breaking out... maybe she'll be able to deal with it better. maybe this season was a bit of a flash in the pan, maybe she'll remain a fixture at the top of the game for longer. I do have my concerns that her game just fundamentally does not have enough to it to really trouble the absolute elite but also... who knows!! it'd be cool to see her grab a win against one of swiatek, sabalenka or gauff. she did beat rybakina twice this year!! including very memorably at roland garros on her run to the final. in any case, she's been such a fun new presence at the top of the game... would be lovely if she can figure out a way to stick around

and those are the biggest names!! those are the ones who will definitely be stories at the start of the season though... who knows, sometimes you do just need to wait and see what australia brings to get a sense of what the vibes will be like. plenty of players who could be major players, but they're less of a surefire thing than the ones on this list

just to give a few examples... jpeg mostly wasn't a factor this year except for a rich haul of points in the north american hard court swing, winning canada and then losing back to back finals to sublanko in cincy and us open. she was a perma slam quarterfinalist before that run, can she build on this new milestone?? .... probably not, but she's stuck around the top ten longer than I would've thought. mother krej is destined to remain a mystery - and she really didn't do much this year except for, you know, win wimbledon. what does she have in store for us this time round?? was that ridiculously good round two at rg against igatha as good as this osaka comeback will get, or will everything finally come together for her again? can she string enough results and form together to become a feature at the top of the game again? what of vekic with her wimbledon semis run followed by the olympics silver medal - a complicated career with many highs and lows, can she still become a late bloomer star herself in the paolini mould? danyell collins cancelled her retirement - and while iga fans might still be calling for her blood after the olympics drama, but it does tie into her continued health struggles and what seems to be unexpected roadblocks in her desire to start a family. will she play the whole year, can she replicate her form from early this season, and will she start any more major drama? is badosa going to build on her recent form and return to the top of the game? can muchova stay healthy for more than ten minutes? and so on, and so on

it's a really promising outlook because I do feel like we have a cohort of top players right now we can kinda rely on to continue to be relevant, but we also still have more spontaneity than *gestures* the horrors of the atp tour. plenty of storylines we KNOW we'll see more of, plus the guarantee that there's going to be at least one major storyline involving a player I never even thought to include in this post. on a personal note, I've been all over the place with iga these last few years. quite honestly, I wasn't a massive fan in 2022 when she was winning everything (often at the expense of my actual faves - now thankfully irrelevant, but players who iga fans did have a tendency to be quite cruel about). but because I am a broken person, having seen her struggle and fall from her perch at the top of the sport means I am now fully invested. I'm compelled by how rigid she is, by how mentally inflexible she's become, by how terrified she seems to be of her own shadow despite all her fierce intensity. how she constantly feels like she's walking on the edge of a cliff, even though she really shouldn't be with her game. I want her to play so many matches against sabalenka, I want them to both peak at the same time. I want to see if aryna can continue to conquer her demons or if she'll slide back or if she'll slide back and conquer them anyway. I want to see matches deep in slams and 1000 tournaments between them and gauff and rybakina and zheng... I want good matches. I want them to continue building on their budding rivalries. we've ended up with such a lovely little range of playstyles at the top of the sport - sabalenka, swiatek and gauff all play completely different tennis - that I just kinda want to keep mashing them together like dolls. throw them into the ring a hundred times and see what happens. see them fail and fail again and watch them grow. it's a great era of women's tennis we're in, and I think we could be in for a cracking season in 2025

[heireign]

meta question : how did her mother's death impact how she viewed her father ?

send me character development questions. ( @sinworn )

first, i don't think there's ever really any blame in regards to it when it comes to viserys purely because it's ? as a child the circumstances of it would have been so absurdly normalized that the only real red flags about it that would have impacted her views on him from it would have been the implications around the court that ' perhaps aemma had been bedded too young', and that being the reason for why she had the complications with her pregnancies that she did which, she may or may not have overheard at court - and if she did, i don't think at the time she would've entirely understood the implications of what that even meant. and there is also the likelihood she would not have even heard it at all unless she walked into a room unannounced or around a corridor to people discussing it, or it was being spoken about when she was believed to have been out of earshot -- i don't really believe that anyone would have purposefully said that infront of her, so it would have needed to have been something she accidentally overheard if she'd heard it at all.

i do believe she would have heard him call her his great joy, but that a brother was a brother, because he was said to have said often, which means she was more then likely in his presence to hear it at least once. the fact that he loves her was never a question, the fact that he valued and cherished her was never a question, but there's a precursor of feeling not quite enough that stems from the fact her parents doted on her as a child - how she was treated by them was not affected by the fact she wasn't a son, but the fact she wasn't quite the child they needed meant that her mother suffered, and above all she would have noticed how the pregnancies and subsequent losses continued to wear on her mother and how they affected her mother. she was effectively being treated as his heir, but she could never occupy that space, and that meant that viserys only had daemon as a successor, and no son to succeed him. and like the fact a girl could not succeed her father would have been wholly normal then, too. she would not have felt slighted for the throne as much as she would have felt wholly helpless that she could not help her parents who were struggling to fill this space and she was ? thinking that if only she had been born a son, maybe they would have been able to stop with trying with how badly her mother was being affected, with her as the heir and daemon as the spare. this is important because it's what largely impacts her feelings toward him when her mother dies and she's made his heir.

she's eight when aemma dies. he becomes infinitely more important in regards to her feelings of inner security and stability - because at that point he is the only parent that she has left. then she's made his heir and she's ? confused and a bit frustrated, and more then a little overwhelmed because it seems so completely pointless all of a sudden; because if she was worthy of being his heir now, she could have well been then, and then she would still have her mother. she doesn't even know how to want it at first because actually being content she had the position would feel too much as if she were celebrating a tragedy, that she was glad to have profited off of such a devastating loss and like, she wants to make him proud in turn. she doesn't want aemma to be remembered as someone who failed in her duties as a wife and queen. and if she's the heir, and if she actually somehow gets to sit her father's throne, then she won't have been. she would have given him a successor even if she wasn't male.

but like, it also incidentally changes the relatively close relationship she had with her father and makes it one that is two-fold. now she's not just his daughter, she's his heir. it makes things very stiff between the two of them for a while as she settles into the role. she's less inclined to display vulnerability around him due to fearing that he might find it too much for her, and take it. they can't quite talk as they used to due to the fact she's afraid that whatever she might say to him might make him upset and take it from her too - and after he remarries and begins to sire children with alicent her fear of being replaced personally manifests itself in a drive for her position - and this is because this is something she can actually tackle, and solidify her place in, and prove her worth in a way she has always struggled with personally because she has always been loved, but she's never been particularly useful in regarding to filling the place she now occupies. i think her proving that she is is her best attempts to both give her mother a legacy to be proud of ( one that speaks of not just success but actually something historic in her being the first queen regnant ) and solidify those anxieties with her father that she might be set aside in a personal sense, because for a while the notion of her being replaced in her position would have felt more then a little like an inevitability and less like something that may or may not happen. the security and comfort she would have derived from him as her only surviving parent rises and then it plummets again when she's made heir because she doesn't know how else to regain control of a very overwhelming situation that people are now looking at her in a whole different way because of. and there’s this whole new facet to their relationship that’s serious and scary and important and it’s nothing she wants and now it’s everything she wants because of what it could mean for her mother.

[albiclalepsza]

girl in red singing karma by jojo siwa today in Warsaw

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

"Oh, Philippe, you didn't have to do that!" Susannah smiled shyly, pale cheeks flushing an equally-pale pink as she took the plate from him, opting to carry it home herself. Flustered though she was that he went to such efforts for her, she was also incredibly grateful for it, and it took all of her willpower not to just dig in right then and there, instead bringing it home to enjoy.

In fact, the plate (which seemed filled to a brim when she uncovered it, a veritable feast still plenty warm from the oven) he'd given her seemed a bit paltry compared to what she'd made for him that morning, having gotten up early to make them specially for him.

"I...I made you blueberry muffins!" she proclaimed shyly as she presented the small plate of them to him with a little smile, grateful that he'd also have something to eat while she ravenously dug into the beautiful, bountiful meal he had provided her with (at any rate, it would make her feel a little less awkward, anyhow).

And dig in she did; almost as soon as she sat down, she had a fork and knife in hand and was trying her hardest not to look or sound like a hungry animal as she began to devour the flavorful chicken, potatoes, veggies, and roll (her compliments to the de Clair family chef!). She gave a hum of approval at the taste, and as she did, she hoped Philippe would enjoy the muffins too-it was a recipe her mother and father collaborated on before she was born, one she hadn't made in a long time, but was happy to bring out for him.

[cowboyhorsegirl]

Steve is most likely to end up in a lavender marriage and Tony's most likely to end up in a “married for tax/immigration/inheritance fraud” reasons.

They meet as married men and pine for each other hardcore and are also trying not to read too much into how their interest seems reciprocated and oh nooooo both Immigration/the IRS and the the Church/in-laws/DADT era army dudes or whatever are snooping around at the same time at each of their marriages and they have to be so good at being married at the people they are married to oh noooooo and they other guy doesn’t know why they are suddenly being iced out and maybe they were just imagining things? maybe it’s for the best with all these eyes around on them…

[yeahivegotanaccount]

I think Nana's and Maya's gazes are very similar in that they feel like a vortex.

But Maya observes like a scholar, with the expectation set and taking in details to both course-correct (if needed) and to replicate.

Nana observes like a relative, each new detail is a nice flavor of the person's core, every piece built around the immutable foundation.