#shes my step daughter

[soupbaddie]

[perihelion-crew-lounge]

'I was in an environmental suit now and Amena had made my hair fluffy (she was trying to make me feel better).'

Okay but I'm imagining that Amena ruffled Murderbot's hair. She probably had to stand on her tip-toes to do it.

[radfem-polls]

do you think childfree women should help mothers/be part of "the village"?

yes, I'm childfree

no, I'm childfree

yes, I'm not childfree

no, I'm not childfree

Hi thanks for the submission!

I'm going to assume "not childfree" includes anyone intending to become a mom in the future. If you're unsure whether or not you'll be a mom in the future, pick whichever one you're leaning more towards.

[lilybug-02]

I wanted to redo my attempt at drawing Dess Holiday. But she seems more "stereotypical deer person" here, so this may just be a practice on anthropomorphic characters.

[preoxxupy]

whether you like her or not, she played all the cards to her advantage and is getting exactly what she wants.

[i-mybrunettelady]

it is an ancient ascalonian belief that lighting candles invites the favor of the gods. in every proper home of the ascalonian rites, one is lit for each of the six; as long as it burns, there is hope for that home and for ascalon. candles also invite the spirits of long gone warriors to protect and inspire ; for world is loss and grief, and faith and hope, as balthazar's scriptures teach us. so take heart, o' heretical daughter of ascalon, o' vain godkiller, and rejoin the war eternal. light a candle for those you've lost; say your prayers to the gods you still believe in. and say a prayer to yourself, as you know that death is not the end, but the end of the beginning. did your little adventure to the domain of the lost teach you nothing, after all?

[blaithnne]

Menaces when they team up. Need to find a dynamic name I can tag them with that doesn’t sound shippy. Does Kaisen work

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 11 thoughts (pre-interludes):

Taylor's dad sees his daughter for the first time since she ran away. Since the fucking Endbringer attack! And literally says the line "“I need to go handle this" about a fucking work thing. No Danny. You do not NEED TO HANDLE THIS. God damn. It is fucking hard to be a co-parent for Taylor when I'm the only one doing any parenting!

Speaking of parenting - Taylor, you really should get some therapy. That was a pretty detailed level of fucked up nightmare you had. I love you and just want you to take care of yourself.

Skitter just like "all right, for day 1 I'm going to gain complete fucking control over my territory and establish myself as an unkillable bug goddess". And then she worries if she is doing enough!

Seriously though, letting that guy stab her and counting on her costume to block the knife? Fucking baller move. Also stupidly risky. So pretty much on point for my wonderful but stress inducing bug daughter.

And then she just sits in her chair drinking tea while she destroys two groups of Merchants? Doesn't just beat them, but absolutely terrorizes them. Lights one of them on fire with their own matches! WITH BUGS! I love her so much.

She also gained two minions as a side bonus to controlling her territory. And ensured their loyalty and dedication to her.

For real. Sierra would take a bullet. She'd die for Taylor. But Charlotte? Charlotte would kill for Taylor.

The speech Taylor gave Charlotte when giving her the options "leave town" or "work for me" was so well done! Came across as incredibly fair so Charlotte couldn't complain, but also just tied her in a little bundle all nice and neat. Set her up to want to work for you. Very nicely done. Taylor clearly has been learning from Lisa.

We're just pretty much giving up on that whole secret identity thing huh? It just started cascading out of control quite quickly. I don't expect Taylor and Skitter to be different people for much longer.

Lisa and Taylor went to a party together! A shitty villain party that was dangerous and almost killed them. But villain prom is villain prom. GAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

Just a number of good Chatterbug (Smugbug) moments here.

Lisa has a MURDER WALL! AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I love her so fucking much and I will just sit in there with her working on the murder wall for hours. (She isn't trying to solve a murder so I know it isn't technically a murder wall, but it's a murder wall cause that's the best name.)

Fucking Bryce. Sure went through a lot of trouble for that asshole.

Skidmark just doing a thunderdome up in here. Some people use their powers for cool things and others build a fence.

Also really not seeming to do great for loyalty. Like ya you get a cape or two out of it but it left everyone in your gang not trusting anyone else.

I love everyone in Faultline's crew. Newter was my favorite but Shamrock may have beaten him out. I always loved Domino and Shamrock gives the same vibe.

Newter got a few good Nightcrawler like moments here too which was fun (grabbing things with his tail, talking to people from weird perches).

God DAMN Labyrinth is powerful. Like I knew she was but getting to see it. Holy shit. That was so fucking cool. Literal goddess of reality right here.

I'm really excited to learn more about Cauldron and the superhero in a can stuff. Very Weapon X with the memory wiping and such. (I'm just really on an X-men comparison thought process right now I guess)

Taylor "I'm not a skilled combatant" Hebert over here as she dual wields knives and successfully fights off multiple people, most bigger than her, while specifically using non-lethal attacks on them. Taylor that isn't what "not skilled" means!

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHILD, STOP GETTING HIT IN THE HEAD! I WORRY!

Seeing the trigger event thing was really cool. I don't think the fact that any cape near a trigger event appears to almost pass out has been mentioned before. Obviously in universe know one would know anything beyond them appearing to stumble, but still. And we got to see more of the higher dimension beings. We in Flatland now.

Oh god there is so much more I think I'm missing huge amounts. AHHH!!!

Oh, this is important. While describing Mush Taylor says "He bore a resemblance to a particular pink skinned, scrawny goblin of a creature from those fantasy movies." That open endedness of that context made me decide she must be talking about The Goblin King in Labyrinth. David Bowie. But to keep things simple, since it might seem like she is talking about Gollum, I decided that on Earth Bet David Bowie played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies. This is canon as far as I am concerned.

That does also mean Mush looks at least a little bit like David Bowie.

[valleyofdeaddandelions7]

I'm literally watching the first episode of "im in love with the villainess" right now and lemme tell y'all from all the self indulgenced, isekai audience inserts there are

Rae Taylor is by far the most relatable one cuz, i too would be more than ecstatic if i were transported to another world and the pretty villainess decided to dedicate all of her attention to me (yes even bullying is attention and maybe just like Rae herself i would like to get stepped on, HARD!!!)

[faaun]

procrastination is starting to have its consequences finally

[ann7av]

(spoilers) I am rereading FW and once again face the same dilemma I had since my first read back in July 2023.

Do I think Lilith Sorrengail is hot or do I just have mommy issues?

Do I think Lilith Sorrengail is hot or do I just have a thing for mean women who are good at giving orders?

Do I think Lilith Sorrengail is hot or do I just enjoy an older/more unhinged version of Mira?

"Oh but she is a war criminal"

I'm aware, she's also a middle-aged woman in a uniform who'd carve me up like a pumpkin and I would not mind it at all, blessed be the violent tendencies running in this family

AND THE BIG BROWN EYES TOO, why would RY give her big brown eyes if she didn't want me to like her?

[cerealmonster15]

i think this is one of the funniest dialogues so far 😭

[money-and-dandellions]

Characters pulling their dear ones out of danger but, instead, taking the damage themselves

and smiling because their dear ones are fine and safe and—

why are they crying?

[fayzday]

Sabine, after she's found by Fenn Rau's crew on Concord Dawn

[pynkhues]

It is interesting with Antoinette. I could see it being that Lestat genuinely had affection for her, even if he would certainly have killed her had Louis personally asked him to -- or it could be that she was just familiar, and he wanted the closest thing to intimacy he could get, so someone who knew him was better than someone who didn't. And the whole possibility that she reminded him of Gabrielle in some ways...

(x)

Yeah, I totally agree, anon.

I actually unfortunately suspect that Antoinette isn't a character the show will really come back to, and I think I'm one of three people that cares about that, haha, but where I tend to land on her relationship with Lestat is the fact that neither Lestat nor Louis actually have any friends.

That's not to say that I think Lestat and Antoinette were just friends, I don't, they obviously fucked a lot (which like, also comes down to the fact that Lestat doesn't know how to have friends he doesn't fuck, haha), but I do think the reality is that Lestat and Louis have very different racial and cultural contexts, hobbies and areas of interest which aren't things they can easily share with each other, especially not in early-1900s America, and I think that's a bigger factor in their relationship breakdown than either will admit to.

It's why Louis' able to reconnect with Jonah so quickly - they might be leading different lives, but they have more overlapping factors than they don't, whereas he and Lestat have less than they do - and for Lestat as a white theatre kid, he needs to be around other performers. I think with Antoinette, she's obviously a talented vocalist and an ambitious artist, and I can see that genuinely just being company that Lestat wants to be close with. They probably talk shit about crap theatre they've seen and do vocal runs together and fuck, and honestly for a part of Lestat, that would lowkey be a dream relationship, haha. Do I think they have a deep emotional connection? No, but given even Louis' willing to admit she's talented, and his own complex relationship with not succeeding as an artist, I wonder how much that factors in to his portrayal of her and his insecurities around their relationship (to say nothing of the fact that she's both white and a woman).

This feels like it's going on a hundred tangents, haha, but my point is maybe they'd step out on each other less or descend into unforessen levels of chaos and destruction if they both had a few friends they could talk about their identities and niche interests with!!

[atopvisenyashill]

what do u think of ned and sansa’s relationship?

sorry this took so long, i wasn't sure how to lay it out because i didn't just want to word vomit all over lol.

i think it's a great depiction of grief and trauma "dripping through" so to speak (to steal a succession line) from a parent to their child. ned and sansa are similar in many ways (in fact, I'd argue that Sansa is the most like Ned) and you can see clearly that Sansa gets her outlook on life and society more so from her father than her mother. While Cat is much less trusting, much more forceful, and incredibly emotional, Ned has a much more romanticized idea of the world. He makes many of the same mistakes that Sansa does, as a matter of fact -

they both trust Littlefinger despite the warning signs because they both feel they have no other option and no allies to rely on, so this shady guy obsessed with Cat is the least noxious option (in their eyes)

they both have this idealistic image of a Baratheon that is tied more to reputations and romanticism than in that particular man's personality - Ned should realize that he can't rely on Robert literally the moment Robert refuses to step in to protect Lady but keeps deluding himself because Robert the Hero, Robert the King, Robert the Foster Brother, is this larger than life image he has in his mind. Meanwhile, Joffrey is...Joffrey and Sansa overlooks and romanticizes this because The Chivalrous Prince is this idea that is all powerful in her head.

they both think around a subject rather than face it head on. I detailed an example of this here but there's literally dozens of examples in both of their narratives. it's this commonality that I find particularly interesting; it's not just that they're very indirect people but that when faced with trauma, both of them double down on avoiding their trauma to cope with it.

in particular, they both do this wrt a younger sister which is even more fascinating in my opinion - so easy to have Ned think more often around Brandon but instead it's Lyanna he Does Not Obsess Over, and it's Lyanna he compares Sansa to (even though they likely look nothing alike). Later, it would be easy to have Sansa think more about her brothers but again, it's Arya she Does Not Obsess Over, and we know Arya likely resembles Lyanna to a point. Just something really fascinating there, that the relationship they are most troubled by is one with a little sister.

and in that vein, both of them will romanticize their own trauma to cope with it. we see this obviously with sansa and the Unkiss but I think it's present in his thoughts of the Tower of Joy as well. his fever dream in eddard x is steeped in fantasy imagery, with his companions as faceless wraiths, a "storm of rose petals" streaking across the red sky. he does this with rhaegar as well in my opinion - when he does think of rhaegar the man (and not just of his children) he has this image of Rhaegar as a chivalrous sort of man who no one can really measure up to and yet he never explicitly thinks anything positive about Rhaegar. once again, sort of romanticizing his idea of someone, like Sansa does with Sandor.

both of them are incredibly self conscious about how they're perceived - Ned thinks about his father and brother as being "born" to rule, is very aware that people see him as kind of an idiot, and Sansa is equally worried that people will see her as "silly" or simple. It seems very tied to their roles as the "girlson" - Sansa as the eldest daughter who must make an illustrious match and live up to that expectation of her and Ned as the second son stepping in to fill a role he feels unprepared to take.

despite some paternalism about the poor (Ned sitting a man with him every night while also kind of purposefully distancing himself to be The Benevolent Father of Winterfell and Sansa's out of pocket but realistic comments about Jeyne and Mya's marriage prospects), they clearly care about the common or low born people they live with - I think Sansa's grief (and purposeful Thinking Around) over Jeyne Poole going missing and her insistence that Jeyne's father is safe speaks to her affection for the Pooles just as Ned's fixation on Jory Cassel being murdered by Jaime also speaks to his affection for the Cassels. And just from an audience PoV, I think it really underlines Ned and Sansa's horror over the situation that Ned is traumatized by Jory's death at the hands of the Lannisters, and Sansa thinks over a year later about "poor Jeyne Poole" and her disappearance (due to the Lannisters, though she's ultimately sold by LF)

And then there's the emotional distance between them, that I think is really compounded by his trauma over Lyanna and Sansa's age -

Ned ultimately learns the wrong lesson from Lyanna's death. He doesn't learn "women shouldn't be given so few options and should be allowed control over their lives" he learns "if i protect the women i love from the evils of this world and give them freedom when they're young, they'll be happier" and that's just. Oh Ned.

But that "lesson" is really obvious in how he treats Sansa - he keeps her in the dark while putting her in a dangerous situation, because he doesn't want her to be involved in the same politics that killed Lyanna even as he's actively involving her in those politics. His first thoughts about Sansa in the book are that she's too young to be engaged to Joffrey! He does not want to let her go out into the big bad world and he thinks simply keeping the bad stuff from her mind is how he'll save her.

The Lady situation I think is what really damages their relationship; he links Sansa and Lyanna in his mind so closely during this scene that I think it stops him from being able to emotionally connect with her anymore. It's so tragic - to see Lyanna's sorrow reflected in Sansa, to feel that loss so deeply that it stops him from being able to comfort Sansa the way he comforted Lyanna as she died.

all of this really bites him in the ass because Sansa looks at his silence and sees treachery while Ned looks at her silence and sees obedience. And the moment when both of them are finally ready to act and not just dream is when their stories clash horrifically.

Narratively, I think they're set up to have some parallels - Ned as the second son (and what is a second son than a girlson, really) who was never supposed to inherit who does after a violent tragedy, and Sansa as the second born who was also never supposed to inherit who will after a violent tragedy.

And Ned's story is book ended by Ned choosing his love of a young female relative over his honor - he actually compares Sansa to Lyanna first in his narrative:

He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once.

and it's Sansa who he once again chooses over his word, over his honor. when he looks at Sansa (and Arya) all he sees is his grief. It leads all three of them to their doom, but Ned's death is something he would choose over and over because in the end, with all his faults, Ned did learn one good lesson from Lyanna and it's that a living, breathing woman will always be more important than some words spoken before a king. what is honor compared to the feel of your daughter in your arms, the memory of your sister's smile?