#tbc tag

[rogdona]

Iz the girl in ur profile ur oc?

hii!! nope, shes a character from the battle cats!!🙌🙌🙌i just thought she was cute kajdghsd

[batshit-auspol]

New Zealand's trade minister everyone

[borrelia]

can everyone look at beautiful knuckles images with me. please please please. @frostios made a beautiful knuckles image of him enjoying a picnic lunch of ants and grapes and worms for me* can we please all look at KNUCKLES!!!!!!

[transmasccofee]

really hes an icon

[shalom-iamcominghome]

My jewish community, friends, rabbi, and educators: We are very invested in helping you be jewish. Do you want to help read the haftarah? Here's a chanukiah! You can have it!! Borrow these books! Here's some books! You need more books... Come to pesach! Come to the chanukah party! When are your classes done? We need a minyan for once!

Me and my 50000 IQ: What if I am Secretly Appropriating judaism? What if I am doing a Cultural Appropriation........

[1tbls]

kim's liberal ass being like "we can fix police corruption by simply reorganizing and changing the points system :)" sir 😔 fucking shakes him. sir.

like when he says he doesn't believe in anything but the RCM he really fucking means it. including this almost naive faith in its ultimate good. actually, this makes his past dolorianism/moralism much easier to imagine.

makes me wonder about "the only people who actually call themselves liberals are mouth-foaming reactionaries" in relation to younger kim, how he describes his younger self as a moralist. and even in-game how weirdly belligerent he becomes towards mañana, defensive when accused of ultraliberalism. kim..... kim my man how fucking bad were you as a 20-something. i feel like in the game we only get to see the tip of the iceberg.

[transsexualhollyleaf]

this was fun to do

[efverse]

"...i don't need you of all pokemon, to pretend to care about me."

"..."

[the-owl-tree]

Is there a cat who you think had an unjustified death that you’d redo to be more satisfying or just undo the death entirely?

Sandstorm and Leafpool's deaths are the first and worst offenders that come to mind. Bumble is an obvious one, but I'll let Bumble's Official Representative tell you about how awful her death is.

Sandstorm dies by an infected wound, unremarkably with only her grandson around so that her death can motivate him and solely him. This was done A) so that they could pad out the SkyClan/Kin twist for the readers who hadn't read Firestar's Quest or any of the SkyClan books and B) in Kate's words to "thin the crowd":

And like, I get it, thin the crowd, ThunderClan is huge...but that's an arc one major character, that's Sandstorm. This is a book, a narrative, and Sandstorm essentially dying just so her lame ass grandson can get some short-lived inspiration is a bad ending to this character's story. It's just disrespectful to such a major character and it shows how little the authors think of their female cast, even one as prominent and important as Sandstorm. It was done solely for Alderheart's arc and it's honestly not even satisfying in that regard. It's bad writing.

Mind you, the Kin twist doesn't even last that long, any reader can smell BS a mile away. There's no reason Sandstorm couldn't have gone out fighting, pretending she was playing along before revealing the truth. Bad writing all around, disrespectful to the character and her legacy, just shows off how disposable the female cast is to the authors if it means giving their male protags a temporary arc boost.

Leafpool dies in Squirrelflight's Hope, a book in which you think will center the sisters in the narrative, as that's what the prologue sets up, but is actually about Squirrelflight and Bramblestar's awful relationship drama. She dies in a rockfall trying to save Moonlight, gets sent to StarClan where she is berated and yelled at and nearly sent to the Dark Forest before accepting her death. Afterwards, her children take shots at her once she's dead, awesome.

Like there's bleach in the wound when it comes to Leafpool's death. She is not killed in a mainline series, she's killed in someone else's super edition in which she is not even the focal part of the plot! Her own death is not even about her, it is a quick berating of Leafpool before it turns to Squirrelflight (and mind you, Squirrelflight's trial also sucks, it's bad the narrative seems to think she's done something wrong, but there's a big difference between how the two are treated). At her own funeral, Jayfeather takes a snipe at her for, uh, lying to protect him and blames Hollyleaf's death on her:

what does this mean?? what are you talking about??? she tried to kill leafpool over the lie, she died protecting ivypool????

And then!! That's not even the end of it!! Crowfeather, the cat who abused his son to the point it drove him to train in cat hell, blamed it on Nightcloud, took continuous shots at Leafpool purely to hurt her, and more not only gets an entire super edition in which everyone, including his dead mommy and his dead crush, comes down to teach him how to be nicies, the narrative rewards this development with deputyship. He is a light in the mist, he reconciles with his son, and he now continues to torment me with his continued relevance in the current arc (do not @ me i know and it hurts).

Onestar, a character with far more autonomy in what he had done, a leader with a law that essentially allowed him to be a dictator with no resistance just, uh, has to think really hard on his life for his trial. He just reflects on his life and Tallstar, idk after fucking off for five minutes is like "oh yeah you feel good now about what you did? yeah okay come on in bro :)"

The books are so painfully uninterested in Leafpool beyond reminding the reader of how awful they think giving her children a safe life was. She dies in a book that's not about her, given a trial when does who have done more get less, and her ex, her counterpart in a sense, is consistently given an insane amount of favoritism in how he's constantly offered chances to be angry, be forgiven, reconcile, and more. There is a massive difference in the autonomy (in-universe) that Leafpool is given versus her sister or Crowfeather or Brambleclaw.

There's probably more that I could find, Warriors looooves anticlimactic fridgings for its female cast, but these two came to my mind first. Character death in a series like this is good, but the authors are so...boring, offensively so, in how little they want to do cool and meaningful deaths with some of their long-lasting and impactful characters. Leafpool drives multiple arcs, she is the center of them, and yet they are so painfully uninterested in her. Sandstorm has been there since book one, she is a legacy character. Graystripe dies at the claws of the big bad in TBC, Ravenpaw is given an entire book about his passing, Dustpelt dies protecting his Clan in Bramblestorm's Storm. Sandstorm dies of an infection, to thin the cast (ineffectively) and give her grandson temporary angst.

[spyres-moved]

apparently the confessions blog is posting dumb takes we have to put it down now

[artaintfartwarriors]

[rogdona]

[orange-orchard-system]

I know it's a response to current events, but I kind of miss when the system community was talking more about how our system origins and structures work for us. Not just that our origins exist, but specifically sharing information about our experiences and building upon theories and discussing research that, even when not specifically about systems, could be related. I have lots of posts in my drafts about this sort of thing, but it's a little hard to work up any motivation to look for answers about how these things work when there's so much denial that things can work this way; it just feels like we're all in this limbo of waiting for the rainy season to be over so we can get back to our construction sites. Like. Idk. I hate bringing up syscourse on this blog (even though this is mostly just referencing it) but does anyone else miss when we were talking more about exploring who we are and how these things might work than just... trying to keep ourselves afloat? Banding together over slogans? Not that coming together as a community is bad, obviously, it's just that it feels a little stifling when we used to do a lot more adventuring; something done out of survival and not out of community. I feel like the recent AMA for the tulpamancy study is a step back in that direction I'm looking for but. Rn I just miss the mix of criticism of the current psych field(s) and the genuine interest in looking for what does work that used to be more common. Or maybe nostalgia has gotten me overestimating just how common that sort of thing was. Idk, I was thinking about how it feels like it used to be more common for someone around here to go "hey, here's this text about autism that might be especially relevant to autigenic systems" or for someone to say "hey, here's this analysis about a historical figure who might have been plural based on their work and words". I miss that, I hope we can get back to that sort of post/thing being commonplace soon

[atopvisenyashill]

Why do you think Jaehaerys sexually assaulted his own daughter?( I'm genuinely curious)

I have two dedicated tags to this if you want to dig in a bit more - "gael and the bard" and the newly added "jaehaerys the cruel" tags, with this meta here being the kind of jumping off point into that whole theory/analysis. gael and the bard is more focused on gael targaryen herself and the mystery surrounding her pregnancy and suicide; there's a lot of bael the bard imagery surrounding her, being called the winter princess, gael being one letter off from bael, the father of her baby noted to have been a singer, and her status as like, an eternal maiden because of her relationship with alysanne. the jaehaerys the cruel moniker is just a reference to maegor the cruel - i think the play between maegor being outwardly monstrous and jaehaerys being privately monstrous is very interesting! but also it's not like a fun tag name lol so i might change it, haven't decided yet!

but i guess to break down my thought process here - i have never liked that man lmaoooo, i am an og jaehaerys hater. my lil journey here is, i read this series in high school, roughly around the winter of 2012, but i didn't read twoiaf when it came out in 2014, i read that just before i started this blog, so like....idk 2 years ago, roughly, but i was Aware Of Its Existence (they didn't have it at school, the library was kind of far, and it felt like a stupidly expensive book to ask for at the time). i had kinda skimmed over the short stories the princess & the queen and the rogue prince (don't ask me when they came out, icr), and had read all the twow preview chapters so it wasn't like i wasn't up on all the asoiaf world stuff, i just hadn't been able to get my hands on twoiaf, which I do think impacted my view of jaehaerys because the thing is...i just didn't understand the jaehaerys appeal. i won't get into the wanky aspects of fandom (i mean i will if someone asks but idk if you care lol), but i would say in the like 2010-2014 era the fandom was p staunchly and loudly pro targaryen, and not just in a "i love the rot" way but in a "they are the promised heroes" type of way and i never jived with it. i did not enjoy the vast majority of dany's chapters on my first read, nor did i enjoy this weird "well if you like the starks you're a NORMIE" takes that i was constantly seeing, and the sansa v arya war was insane (i'm blocked and have blocked just so many people lol).

i say all that because everyone was UP jaehaerys' ass. i won't name names but i remember a common rebuttal to the "well george is kinda critiquing incest-in-fantasy here and i'm not sure this series is going to end with an incestuous targ restoration" stance was "well if incest is so bad why do jaehaerys and alysanne exist huh? check AND mate incest hater" and it was like............alright, so this is a fandom of deeply unserious people who like to think they are the Expert On Themes instead of just another schmuck with a blog like everyone else. it was just a very condescending tone, always, and it turned me off the targs but especially turned me off jaehaerys.

and it was also like....but what has he done to be so beloved in this fandom??? again, this is pre twoiaf, and then post-twoiaf but pre f&b, so all we know about this dude is that he was called the conciliator because he pardoned the people who sided with maegor, he "protected the faith", he married his sister who gave the watch the gift, he abolished prima noctus, he built a dirt road, he was besties with barth. okay? i always thought the move with the gift was annoying and goofy behavior & i feel very vindicated on being right there esp if aegon’s dream was real, and i’ve always thought the marriages for his kids were kinda weird once we got those in twoiaf and WHAT DO YOU KNOW. like, pre twoiaf everyone was hyping him up as this great king, this paragon of valyrian supremacy, oh he’s so smart and politically minded but he’s not overly cruel, and it was like. we know little about this man in his day to day life though. we know damn well whatever good robert did as king was largely jon arryn's influence so Why are we pretending like just because jaehaerys passed a few good laws it means HE was the one responsible for those ideas (and again I WAS RIGHT). is what he’s doing even that good??

AND THEN FIRE AND BLOOD CAME OUT. and everyone was crying screaming throwing up about how stupid he is, how cruel he is, how weird he is about his daughters, and then people started saying “well you’re being unfair if you don’t like him because-“ i don’t give a shit because i’m validated for not liking that man’s vibes thanks!!!! like…yeah he IS a paragon of targaryen supremacy and this is not a good thing! and especially when you factor in how often the patriarchs of the series have these deeply rooted, very disturbing flaws, i thought the backlash to f&b re: “he ruined jae & aly!” so silly. of COURSE he was weird about his daughters, he eloped with his 12 year old sister and when confronted over it basically said “i do what i want fuck you” that’s not romantic it’s INSANE BEHAVIOR and i’ll stand on that forever!!! marrying your siblings is deranged and idgaf about what magic or political reasoning they have ESPECIALLY when jaehaerys himself refuses a valyrian marriage several times over when it makes more political sense to go that route (in both his own marriage and in the marriages of his grandchildren).

so! i always thought he was boring and weird, then f&b came out and i was vindicated. the thing is, as i read, i guess i was also like. but what is the fuckijg POINT of this guy! he dominates the f&b narrative when there’s way more interesting characters, he has no redeeming qualities, every good thing he does is usually overshadowed by his reasoning being heinous and disturbing, but this book is pushing this idea that he’s the good one, he’s the blueprint, so is it JUST an exploration of like, what ~being a good person~ really means and how reputations & history are very malleable depending on who is recording it??

And then i really started to dig into Saera. Her isolation, her drinking, her sexually tormenting the court fool, the way jaehaerys is always giving her gifts and "indulging" her, the way she's brought before the throne instead of in a private room because what she did is considered like, treasonous basically (what she did being, of course, having sex without her father's permission, lmao!), her very hysterical confrontation with her parents, Jonquil Darke forcing her to watch her boyfriend be murdered, Jaehaerys' insistence on refusing to forgive her and calling her a whore, and of course this weird exchange:

“What have you done?” the king said, when at last the princess ran out of words. “Seven save us, what have you done? Have you given one of these boys your maidenhead? Tell me true.” “True?” said Saera. It was in that moment, with that word, that the contempt came out. “No. I gave it to all three. They all think they were the first. Boys are such silly fools.”

"They all think they were the first." they all think it. i don't think any of those three boys were the first - i think she'd lost her virginity well before she started fooling around with them and when I first read that part my first thought was "I think Jaehaerys knows damn well who she lost her virginity to" and I started spiraling from there.

I decided to do a write up of Jaehaerys Being Deeply Weird Towards His Girls and while there's some things I would change - in particular, I think I'd add more to the Alyssa, Viserra, and Gael sections - there's a reason that the Saera section in particular seemed to really spark off a lot of conversation (not to toot my own horn here lmao) and that reason, imo, is that a lot of people read about what happened between Saera and jaehaerys and go "now what in the goddamn hell is THAT about." Saera more than any of Jaehaerys' kids is imo the canary in the coal mine, so to speak - whatever George intended with F&B, I do think he meant for us to look at the way Jaehaerys talks about Saera and go "this guy has some fucking ISSUES." I don't know that he meant for it to go all the way up to "Jaehaerys is molesting his own kids" route but I do fully believe he meant something in that realm of "Jaaehaerys is cruel to a sexually abusive point to his children" the same way that like, Tywin and Cersei sexually abuse Tyrion but don't outright rape him themselves. I think Jaehaerys was always meant to be aman who is remembered fondly but was an absolute monster in his private life, in contrast to both the kings he succeeded (maegor and aenys) and as a point of comparison to our "modern day" patriarchs who have their own hang ups surrounding their daughters in Tywin, Doran, Ned, Robert, Jon, and Hoster.

[084392]

godddd and if aang's decision to not kill ozai had been more effectively framed as being a "last airbender" thing than just an "avatar aang" thing...

[gemini-queen42]

HEY LADS FUN FACT: I've been reading To Shape A Dragon's Breath and i love it dearly And I must recommend it!♡♡

[Some (mild?) spoilers under the break]

LITERALLY The only reason I didnt squeal is bcuz i was in class.

BUT SCRAMING!!! OMFG!!! OMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!

HELLO hi yes I've been AWFULLY invested in Anequs & Libertys relationship... ouggh...

The amount of HEARTS I annotated on just these 2 pages....sorry i lomv them...

Like literally Anequs's FIRST thought about Liberty... and when they next meet?? Ouugh???♡♡

Some more misc lil moments of theirs i annotated. Sorry these aren't taken with full readability but I can't retake them rn so 😭😭