#those deals have got to be super relevant tho

[awnaron]

This is my rambling theory about Niklaus being the entity mentioned in the “true” prophecy of e110 of riptide

Massive spoiler alert for episode 110 and earlier below

The first prophecy:

—A hero born of moonlight, storm and sea. They shall rise or fall to bring unity. They will be tested or bested by evils hand. But their choice will remain: sea or land—

Niklaus does not describe himself as evil, though it is undeniable that the dominoes that lead to evil or corruption are often guided by his hand. And Niklaus has taken a major interest in following not just gillion but all three of the captains of the riptide pirates.

—A map that is a guide and a key, passed around the hands of destiny. It leads to chaos infinity, beneath the seas. the guarding giant the nameless prince the unborn kings all await to be enevitably free.—

The map LITERALLY leads to infinity, like the prison the entity is kept in. An entity of chaos and Niklaus is the epitome of causing well placed/manufactured chaos. Especially in premeditated ways that end up benefiting him in coercing deals.

—An entity threatens world stability

Caged in the deepest layers of infinity

The seal remains locked by a key of divinity

It’s release in a time an inevitability

A sea gods last egg

The chosen one is born

Underneath an eclipse

In the midst of a storm

Foreboded calamity

The chosen is warned

The shape of all life

Shall take a new form

It’s choice to be made

With no time to mourn—

Niklaus desires freedom. What if it is Niklaus that has been imprisoned? What if the teifling is only a projection? And his true form is locked in prison. The guarding giant, wasn’t Arlin a goliath? What if Niklaus is the unnamed prince? And is being guarded by Arlin. Or Arlin is being controlled by him, and chip has to save Arlin no matter the consequences, according to his deal with Niklaus.

Where Niklaus’s deals turn sour there is black goo, where Arlin is, where the hole in the sea is, even the entire Black Sea is just covered in corrupting black goo, that’s some pretty powerful shit. Maybe Arlin put a little crack in “infinity” and the reason the sea turned black from the hole in it is because it’s letting out the goo and corruption that comes from whatever Niklaus actually is.

No clue on the unnamed kings tho yet, maybe that’s niklaus’s spawn or something, a prince creating thousands of little goo kings idk

Anyway,

The chosen is warned that all life will take a new form. Like how the corruption is spreading and creating hollowed and such in the Black Sea? Will that take over the entire world? It seems that gillion is champion from the perspective of both the sun worshipers and the moon worshippers (and therefore there is only one chosen one? I mean it’s called the chosen ONE not the chosen two; though side note, what was the whole deal with the navy “being in contact with the chosen one”? And the whole thing with the leviathans and false gods? That’s another loose end) and also the prophecy he was originally taught is not the most accurate and has possibly been distorted over time, maybe he isn’t supposed to choose between saving either the land or the sea? Either way both prophecies imply some sort of choice to be made. And the “shape of all life” imply both the land and sea, “will take a new form” so either way something will change for both ways of life, whether that is unity between the land and sea, and that is the change, which is implied as necessary (or at least it was necessary to lock away the entity to begin with) or if he fails then everyone becomes corrupted and has to live their life like the survivors or the hollowed. Though while I feel like the whole sea or land this is maybe some sort of misnomer or misdirection and maybe not as literal as it sounds, narratively that’s what has been set up from the beginning, everything is leading up to this decision. I just can’t imagine the scenario it would be possible for Gillion to even be presented that choice.

And If Niklaus desires freedom, what does that mean for him?

Niklaus is hundreds of years old, does freedom and his desire for “a good show” mean freedom from life? Mean he wants to die going out in a blaze of glory? A story for the ages? A death of legacy and note? Possible but unlikely, Niklaus describes legacy amongst fame and riches as a lesser desire of simpler men. So what else could freedom mean? As far as we are aware he is physically free, one of probably the most free in the world in the way that space and time does not seem to have a firm grasp on him, showing up when ever and where ever he wants. Does he mean he desires to maintain his freedom that he already holds? Possible but I think the more likely answer points to Niklaus being “the entity”.

Many titles, many names, lived many lives. And somehow managed to find his way directly into the path of the chosen one, chosen ones, or, the hands of destiny. He wields incredible power, or at least his deals do.

Also, maybe this is a crazy stretch buttttt… the main gods are the sun and the moon. Niklaus’s symbol is a crescent moon,,,, but what if it isn’t actually a crescent moon but an eclipse? And Niklaus is like a minor god/entity of chaos represented by an eclipse. Gillion was born on an eclipse (or it says so in the prophecy) and depending on whether it’s a lunar eclipse or solar eclipse that could imply different things (but I don’t know enough about eclipses). Both the moon and the sun represent sources of light, the eclipse represents darkness and chaos

“He never once had a crew. A man like that has secrets.”

[makoredeyes]

Hello, I hope you're doing well! This is probably an odd question, feel free to ignore it. I wanted to ask you as a fellow writer I admire, who is mostly focused on unpopular/dead/deep lore characters. Do you also sometimes feel like what you're writing is irrelevant and unexciting for everyone, except yourself? If so, how do you deal with this? For me sometimes this sudden realization is so crushing, that I cannot bring myself to finish a single work.

Hello! That’s not an odd question at all in fact it feels pretty relevant tbh. (Omg sorry long reply you got me going 💙)

I think I have several kind of interrelated answers for you so let me lay them out.

1- I am powered by autism and a MIGHTY hyperfixation. I have no choice I am compelled. I am blinded to all other things and so while the little bit of feedback that I do get is AMAZING and so extra sparkly motivating it is not entirely what compels me (but BOY does it help)

2- I joked with a friend just last night that, “this season is, as usual, does not have NEARLY enough Felwinter content and so I must therefore create my own.” - as she pointed out, there have been exactly TWO seasons with ANY Felwinter content at all and I wasn’t playing destiny yet for one of them. My point being, sometimes you gotta create what you want to see yourself. I’ve always found myself in some really niche corner of whatever fandom I’m in and have to do this a lot. Probably how I got to writing and drawing etc. fun thing is tho you find a really special group of people who think and love like you that way, and if it’s a smaller crowd, it’s all the more intimate for it Imo. I’ve made some super special friends in the last 9 months or so in my weird little corner here and it’s magical and I think that quality over quantity filter is awesome. (But yeah i know the validation machine is SO good too)

3- the BEST magic of borrowing from obscure content, generally unknown or undeveloped characters or lore is the creative freedom. The headcannon swapping the worldbuilding the background gathering… the RESEARCH! Gleaning what little bit I can from what we DO have. Who the fuck is timur?! We don’t know. I borrowed the beautiful designs for his face and general personality that Sylenth has developed because she’s done such an amazing job and was kind enough to allow me to play with him as she made him, and took that as jump off point for my writing etc but I have all the wiggle room in the world with but a few widely dispersed canon signposts to lead my direction and that is just so fucking fun for me.

(And that doesn’t mean more mainstream characters like Osiris don’t have their creative appeal to me either. I will deep dive on lore and character analysis for YEARS but living in the peripherals is comfy for me)

Those are all the positives to my work, but yeah, sometimes I do feel a little dejected. I have definitely felt a drop off in reader response weirdly in converse to the effort I put into my writing. Housefire has evolved into much more of a cohesive Plot(tm) that is going somewhere very specific from its origin of a few interlinked fluffy anecdotes and funnily enough about the time I started really digging my heels in and plotting and planning and putting in twists I was REALLY excited about, people started responding less. Some of my favorite fics are the least popular. Some of my art I am most proud of gets the least attention but that damn doodle of poor Felwinter getting splattered by a warsat has 200+ more notes than my next most popular art. (The shitposts always win Damnit! 😩🤣😅)

I get frustrated and yeah sometimes a bit discouraged sometimes and I spend Way Too Much time sitting here refreshing my notes because I am a sad lonely person chronically online just way too thirsty for a little validation or a conversation with someone but like. Every piece gets better. Every piece SOMEONE appreciates. Every piece **I** enjoy and is also a chance for all of that when I share it with the world and that’s exciting and good, and like I said the people in this community as niche and little as it is, are really something special, and some of the people that have come into my circle because of it make it SO worth it.

**I was done but then I read your ask one more time and I’ll add this since it popped into my head last-second:

If we are creating works for dead characters we love, we are keeping them alive.

How magical is that??

[cowboylikeyouu]

avengers interstellar AU

since i've seen it in theaters last night i can't stop thinking about writing an avengers/winterhawk interstellar AU and i feel like it's eating me from the inside, so i'm just gonna throw all my ideas at you. spoiler warnings for interstellar and a fanfiction i'll probably never write (having some interstellar knowledge is recommend lol i'm not explaining any of the movie aspects)

it's not gonna be as angsty as actual interstellar bc i can't do main character death for the life of me, i'm gonna ignore a lot of science bc i'm stupid and it's gonna be heavily winterhawk focused bc i'm insufferable, but here we go:

the world is ending and has been for years due to the blight and everything, yap yap yap you know the deal. the avengers basically just were a team of super talented scientists and engineers and test pilots, doing a lot of research for years and also dealing with some international shit or smth idk and it doesn't really matter. the team doesn't exist anymore bc they're not needed anymore, with food becoming the most dominant problem and everything, again, yk the deal. so most of them decide to retire from shield/nasa work and become farmers/etc.

nasa is doing the lazarus missions tho, and who volunteers? 10 people who don't really matter to the story (just like in the movie), steve (bc he's steve goddamn, ofc he's gonna volunteer to go on a suicide mission to possibly save humanity) and nat (bc she's rational, + she knows clint's probably gonna settle down with bucky somewhere (they've been in that "we fuck and spend almost every minute together, and we're so obviously in love but too scared to talk about it" stage for years), so she knows she won't be needed anymore bla bla)

clint's devastated about nat leaving, but she's like "enjoy your time as a farmer and when fury asks you to travel through spacetime to rescue us in a decade, you better be married to bucky's ass, idiot".

bucky's angry with steve for leaving but not surprised, and he's like "don't you dare die out there or i will walk through that goddamn wormhole just to kill you again"

tony's super pissy with steve for leaving, but doesn't show up to say goodbye or anything bc they're not really on speaking terms (they had an affair that was obviously much more than that during the period when tony and pepper had broken up, but then something civil war-like happened, and they're still angry at each other bc of that, and now tony's with pepper again, but there's obviously still a lot of unresolved stuff going on between them ykyk.

regarding steve & bucky: pretty sure i'll make them both the same age as everyone else, so no "frozen/held captive by hydra for 70 year" business, but i still need them to be supersoldiers. so maybe steve still volunteered for the experiment, and maybe he even became some kind of captain america (but an astronaut-version of him???), and bucky still got the not-so-good super-serum thingy and was held captive by hydra, but "only" for a couple of years, before he was rescued and joined the avengers.

again, all of that's not that important, the only relevant thing is that bucky got the serum and that it slows his aging process significantly.

whoo, lots of exposition sorry. that was basically just the prologue.

fast forward, 6-10 years, idk. pepper and tony had morgan, but pepper died of cancer (and i HATE nothing more than killing of a woman for an mlm ship, but seeing as cooper's wife in interstellar died as well, forcing him to leave behind his kids without a mom, i think it's a valid plot point for once). clint took bucky with him to his parent's old farm, they had peaceful couple of years, both recovering from trauma yap yap yap, they're happy alright (and officially together bc this is NOT a winterhawk slowburn).

then they all get a call form fury tho, being like "hey guys, sooo steve's, nat's and [random third character's] worlds look promising, wanna travel through the wormhole and check those planets out lolol???", and they obviously don't want to, but they all knew that day would come, so clint, bucky, tony and someone else (haven't decided who, bc that person's gonna be the one who dies on the water-planet thingy close to gargantua, so that's a hard decision to make) become the endurance team and set off into space.

and here's the thing: tony's on the mission bc he wants to save the life of morgan and especially her potential future kids and OFC bc he has a tiny hope of seeing steve again. clint's on the mission bc with bucky on the ship as well, there's nothing keeping him on earth, + the tiny chance of seeing nat again. bucky's on the mission for all of those reasons, but there's another factor for him, and that's time dilation.

he's a couple of years older than clint, but due to his slow aging, their body's are pretty much at the same stage already if u know what i mean, and while clint's relatively chill about it bc "hey man, you still gonna look sexy as fuck when i'm a bald old man, i'm so lucky", bucky's freaking out over it.

he's well aware of the time dilation caused by gargantua, so his plan is to be the one to stay behind on the ship while the others fly down to the planet on its horizon, and to NOT put himself into hypersleep for all these years, so that when clint and the others come back, he's gonna have a few physical years on clint again. his thought process is kinda like "i'd rather spent 20 years alone on a spaceship with the knowledge that clint is probably alive and i will see him again, than to watch him die of old age and keep living on my own for another 50 years". it's kinda stupid, but that's love for you guys.

so yeah, they travel through the wormhole, clint, tony, and [random fourth character] go down to the planet on gargantua's horizon, clint's convinced bucky's just gonna sleep for 7 years bc that's what sane people do, [random fourth character] dies, tony and clint have to stay down there an hour longer due to the water damage on the ranger, yap yap you know the deal, they go up again and BOOM: they've been gone for 23 years and bucky spent all those years alone and awake and looks 10 years older than before they left. many emotions for both of them "fuck yes clint, you're alive, i fucking missed human contact", and "jesus christ bucky you put yourself through this for me and" and "JESUS CHRIST bucky you put yourself through this FOR ME?????"

anyways, next stop is steve's planet. good news: steve's alive, bad news: the planet isn't a suitable candidate for a new world. the obvious new plan is to go check out nat's world bc it's quite literally their last chance. tony - now that they already "wasted" 25 years on this mission and found steve alive - really just wants to go back to earth tho and see morgan again. he knows that clint and bucky won't agree to that tho, so he kinda manipulates steve into getting on a ranger and flying up to the endurance again, leaving clint and bucky behind on steve's planet. don't be too angry with him, he just wants to see his daughter again, alright :,)

neither steve nor tony are exceptional pilots tho, (that's clint's fucking job), so they don't manage the docking process. bc this isn't a main character death angst fic, they don't die in an explosion like dr. mann did in interstellar, they just cause the endurance to spin rapidly, and then kinda float next to it in their ranger being like "well shit". clint and bucky come in with steve's old lander to save the day, and clint manages to dock onto the spinning spaceship (like cooper does in the movie) and stops it, and then talks tony and steve through the docking process on another point of the ship (the endurance, the rangers, and the landers all work the way i want and need them too btw, idc about accuracy when it comes to this kinda shit lol i just want them all to survive)

when they're all safe on the ship again, they talk it through. the endurance + 1 lander HAVE to go to nat's planet, it's the point of the entire mission, but clint's a self-sacrificing idiot, so obviously he wants tony and steve to have a chance of going back to earth. they load up on lander with enough fuel to take steve and tony back through the wormhole (they're not sure if the lander can withstand it, but it's the only way), from where it should be possibly to contact earth again, so that someone could get them.

clint tells bucky that they have enough resources and enough fuel to get them both to nat's planet safely, which is a lie, but bucky trusts him bc they're in love, man.

clint does the iconic slingshot-around-gargantua-or-whatever manoeuvre to give the endurance the boost it needs to reach nat's planet, and he also does the iconic "yeah, i'm just gonna load up one of the rangers with one of the robots (the robots are FRIDAY and JARVIS btw) and let it fall into black hole to hopefully gather some data, but then i also let myself fall into it without telling you beforehand" move, bc they need to lose the weight and there aren't enough resources for both of them.

he's like "this is paypack for your aging dick move, say hello to nat for me" and then he's gone. ouch.

then there's the whole black hole shit, with the 4th dimension tesseract and the data from the black hole that i don't really give a shit about rn tbh lol. the "solving the gravitation equation" problem won't be a huge part of the plot anyways, bc yes, it's an important factor to this story's universe in general, but i really just wanna focus on bucky and clint in the fic, so idc. it's all kinda happening in the background.

clint sends the data to earth in morse code like cooper does in the movie - tho idk yet if he sends it to a now much older morgan, or peter parker (who's kinda tony's mentally adopted son btw) or directly to tony, who made it back to earth safely. idk. like i said, doesn't really matter. the tesseract collapses, clint's gets picked up by stark station that they were able to build bc of the data he send them, all is well.

his slingshot manoeuvre around gargantua did cause another time dilation ofc (idk if i'd make it 60+ years like in the movie tho), so maybe tony's already dead when clint gets picked up by the station. due to slowed down super soldier aging steve's still alive and well tho, and they have a little chit chat where steve's like "go find bucky, clint, there's nothing keeping you here" and when clint tells him he should join him, steve's like "i'll follow, we all will at some point, but i promised tony to look after morgan" (who's older than steve at this point).

so clint steals a ranger (they're advanced by now, but not 100% cleared to do interstellar travel yet, but this is clint we're talking about and cooper literally did the exact same thing in the movie) and sets off to nat's planet.

it takes him a few years, but he gets there, and bc i'm a soft soft softie, OF COURSE both nat and bucky are still alive, already raising the first generation of the new colony (bc they obviously didn't know if they solved the equation after all). i'm not entirely sure how plan b in interstellar war supposed to work, like who would carry & birth the first generation?? but bc of the fact that they only put one woman on the mission, i'll just go with "they have artificial wombs" :D

and now they'll just chill there until the rest of old humanity joins them.

and idk, the thought of bucky and clint being adam and adam of a new humanity for a few years (bc nat puts herself into hypersleep on a regular basis being like "i cant deal with you two idiots for too long, i'm gonna sleep 'til these babies are grown-ups so that i can actually have some good conversations") just really does it for me lmao.

and they all lived happily ever after.

okay this was a long one, sorry, nobody's gonna read this post anyway lmao. i just needed to get it all out of my head bc i'm still not sure if i actually wanna write it or not. i feel a lot better now tho, maybe my head won't explode bc of this idea tonight.

[openphrase123]

scrolling thru your top posts and this is NOT isat relevant but i wanna hear the story where you literally broke a leg on stage if youre ok talking about it. obviously it sucks awful and i hope you're okay but it is a LITTLE funny to think about everyone saying "break a leg" before your performance and you being like. well. i am good at following instruction at least

LOL yeah it happened like. oh god more than a decade ago. so it's not traumatic or anything, i am more than healed.

anyway my big leg breaking story under the cut:

basically. uh. so i wear these big honkin epilepsy glasses, right? always have, they stop me from having seizures. but i got cast as a protean in a production of a funny thing happened on the way to the forum and the drama teacher was like "well there weren't glasses in ancient greece so you gotta take those off" DURING DRESS REHEARSAL. she did not bring this up UNTIL TWO DAYS BEFORE OPENING NIGHT.

and past the epilepsy i also. have bad eyesight. so i'm like... clown juggling fake babies and doing cartwheels and somersalts with no eyesight, now.

now. this is a big deal as far as disability stuff goes. a teacher should not say that to a student. however i had eight years character ballet performance under my belt so i can do a lot of athletic feats with very little eyesight. so i THOUGHT i'd be fine. i'd been on stage a million times without glasses and lived, as long as i'm not on stage during a strobe effect i'm good to go

and i was :) i was throwing people in the air and getting thrown and hitting all my marks, no problem.

opening night happens, performance goes great. teacher is so glad that i wasn't wearing giant ugly blue glasses the whole time. i leave the after-performance cast meetup to go backstage to retrieve my glasses

you know the little half-stairs at both ends of a stage? i walk up those to get backstage, it's the only way from the audience to get up there

and i absolutely rip ass on the stairs and trip and fall on my face and leg

next morning my mom is like "hey your foot is super swollen" and it turns out i have a hairline fracture running down the entire length of my fourth toe bone. i am pulled out of every performance and i had to go to junior prom in a cast

(yes i know. Technically not my leg. foot is connected to the leg though)

anyway. it's been over a decade. it's Fine. that teacher was such a bitch though i'll never forget her, at least she wasn't the substitute teacher that tried to tell me epilepsy didn't exist tho

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

as a born-n-raised southern Californian (specifically the area around LA + Hollywood, which is relevant), Chappell Roan's California messes me up in a subtly in the lyrics i dont think non-Californians will get (or at least people who DON'T live in a climate that is similar to what we got going on in that vague LA, Hollywood, valley-area)

like everybody who loves this song knows the whole 🎶"No leave are brown"🎶 lyric is a reference to California Dreamin' by The Mamas & The Papas' lyric 🎶"The leaves are brown and the sky is gray"🎶 and that is true

and, this will seem like a tangent but i have point: im Indigenous American, and i will seldom stand up for the USA against other countries' criticisms (tho i do have "glass houses, my guy. have you checked if you live in one?" thoughts about it, but that'd be SUPER tangential to get into); but i DO feel my hands turn to fists when anyone, an American from another territory or a foreigner from any other country, pokes judgementally at California. like i either have or almost have unsubbed from youtubers or tiktokers who have voiced bitter opinions about California. and i mention this bc those people would probably joke "lol 🎶'no leaves are brown'🎶 bc, in California, they are plastic, their trees' leaves cannot turn brown" liKE?? FUCK YOU, NO. THAT'S ACTUALLY KINDA THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I AM ABOUT TO SAY HERE. BITE ME. YOU DONT GET IT

bc that line, 🎶"No leaves are brown"🎶 has a different impact as someone who has grown up in the relative area she is singing about

but if either you yourself or else your parents/guardians/older family members were in California in even the 80s, much less the 70s or earlier... you know fire-season is a brand new thing we have to deal with it. you know drought-season is the same. it's a weird political thing where they try to normalize for us these global-warming things, make us less scared of them if we see them as cyclical

which might be a surprise for non-Californians, as many have this odd image of California as "both a city and a desert × beach" when it's not. it's got cities, yes, it's got a coast, obviously, and it has deserts, yeah, AND it has a shit ton of mountains and hills EVERYWHERE, it has valleys, farms, rural mountain towns, "hicks" and "hillbillies" ontop of our 🤟surfer-dudes🏄‍♂️ and influencer/actor-culture stereotypes, ski lodges, boonies, reservations, national parks, and northern California is part of the Pacific North-West, you drive literally in any direction and within 2 to 4 hours, youll be in a whole different climate. this state is so huge that i remember my family trying to do roadtrips to Canada (bc we were too broke to fly, woah, who said that) and itd take over a week to get from my soCal hometown to Washington state alone. and im not that deep south in soCal; LA and whatnot is part of the northern-most area of soCal. it'd still be over a week of driving for 8+ hours. and we'd face sleet, hail, snow, rain, and insane winds on the way. which sounds like im exaggerating, but the reason why we stopped doing those roadtrips was because my mom (who is from MICHIGAN) couldn't stand driving through snow and rain anymore, again, before we even hit Washington state ("if you guys do get rain and snow then why does California still have that on/off drought then?" bc water from norCal doesn't trickle down for a 1+ week through all of central-Cali over in the same buckets to soCal naturally, makes sense)

so we, in this pocket of California Chappell Roan is singing about, arent SUPPOSED to have brown leaves is what im saying. but we are. we have TOO MANY brown leaves, actually. that's what happens to plants in a drought, they brown and die; and then we get at-risk for the false-normalcy that is fire-season. those brown leaves in overabundance is those wildfires' kindling. even in rural mountain-towns where there are evergreen trees, bc LA and Hollywood's area does have mountains that get some HEAVY snow and rain, to the point where houses often get snowed in ("wait, but the drought—?" fam, it just won't come down the mountains. idk why the weather is like that except ✨️general global-warming reasons✨️. and the water doesnt trickle down bc, down the mountains, is so hot normally that a lot of that shit evaporates. sometimes, we get "lucky" and the "global warming happens in extremes both ways" thing means those mountains will get SUCH BAD snow that the hot af valleys can get enough water for the drought to temporarily be "off". but that shit doesnt stick, and thank fuck for that bc these mountain towns cant stand THAT bad snow ALL the time, so the drought comes back), there will still be dead pine-needles and other evergreens in overabundance across these woods' floor, and more and more and more will fall bc the nature of a drought and how HOT it gets and that shit can catch on fire EASY

and let's pretend for a second that there are no rural mountain towns in the LA and Hollywood region (there are) but let's pretend there arent. i grew up in a college-town full of trees, at least one per house, in the valley of that region. we still get seasons. flowers bloom, red and orange leaves, brown leaves, leaflessly bare trees, i just personally never experienced snow in my hometown. i grew up associating winter with rain, and i genuinely frowned in upset if i didnt get rain on Christmas (still do. even when i wasnt in my hometown. rainy Christmas beats "white Christmas" or "green Christmas" every time for me). so we do get seasons, we still get all the trees' seasonal forms. we just are also heavy on "throw your leaves away, rake it all up, fire-season is around the corner!" types of stuff

but even if you went with stereotypical "oh, but the palm trees tho?" type of trees, in a fantasy where that's somehow the only tree in California: that shit is ever-green, but that doesn't mean it is plastic. the leaves still brown and fall. we just p immediately get rid of them since they're SO BIG that they can cause issues with foot-traffic and are annoying as hell to drive over. so you dont see them too often, not like other ever-greens, where youll easily see a shitton of pine-needles or whatever around. and thank fuck for it, bc rats nest in palm-trees and i always freak about the mostly-irrational fear of one falling by me with a rat; and seeing either a rat die from the fall or the spooked and confused rat possibly attack me. like. to the point that unless i can see a dead palm-tree leaf is fully flat, i give that shit a WIDE berth bc im scared of a spooked or dead rat being under it OR of another leaf falling. and palm-trees being evergreen means those leaves fall all-year-round, randomly, there's no season. so, again, not like that shit is plastic or like it is impossible to see a dead palm-tree leaf around. so that's not the "no leaves here are turning brown, wtf" happening either

and, as a quick aside, before someone from Missouri says it: i am aware y'all ALSO have fire-season/s, burn bans, and your trees sometimes are also unintentionally creating kindling. it's just not AS infamous as California's, because we don't have a "yearly drought" but instead have this 365-day-long drought that has brief "off-periods" of being over before returning in less than 4, 6 months. it's not a competition, bc fire-season is fucked up either way. it's just "we have more dead leaves than y'all nc of that on/off drought" is all im saying. not about how bad/worse whose fire-season is, that shit's fucked. bUT I'LL BRING UP HOW MISSOURI ALSO HAS A FIRE-SEASON, JUST WAIT

so why does this line fuck me up??? if leaves ARE brown in California?

exactly that. (ill explain) (..obviously lol)

i think that's the point of the line 🎶"No leaves are brown"🎶. not that "tee-hee 🤪 california is plastic and never gets seasons 😝 so 'no leaves' CAN 'turn brown' there 😜 heh" kind of "there are NO leaves here turning brown, there's no snow, there's no seasons, everything is 'young' forever" kind of reading. toss that shit out of here, that's not relevant to my personal reading of the song. to me, it's not "none of these leaves are brown"

it's instead "too many of these leaves are brown. leaves are not supposed to be brown all the time" kind of 🎶"No leaves are brown"🎶 (if you need an example of the emphasis shift: we have moved from "No unicorns are here, only horses (unicorns don't exist here)" to more of an "No unicorns are without a horn, there shouldn't just be horses (unicorns do exist here)" type of sentence? bc we have moved from "No leaves are brown, leaves should be turning brown (browning leaves don't exist here)" to instead "No leaves are brown, leaves shouldnt always be brown, leaves should be green in spring and red in autumn (brown leaves exist in overabundance). i hope, if everything else hasn't made the emphasis shift click yet, that breakdown example helps???), like Chappell Roan would— instead of yearning for leaves turning brown and seeing winter— be yearning for leaves turning green, of spring, of rain, of rebirth and youth instead of this "kindling for a fire" (possible phoneix reborn from the ashes) where 🎶"My dying town"🎶 then has a double-meaning of both "my hometown (definition 1: place of your early years) in Missouri is dying (with people like the singer leaving and population dwindling assumedly)" AND "my hometown (definition 2: place of current residence) in California is dying (with brown leaves and fires)". which can then turn the lines about 🎶"Thought I'd be cool in California/I'd make you proud/To think I almost had it going/But I let you down"🎶 and 🎶"Come get me out of California"🎶 to easily twist from "I failed, I messed up" walk-of-shame kind of reasons for why "Thought I'd make you proud by being cool → I let you down" into instead being external reasons of the "This Is Fine" House-On-Fire Dog Meme becoming the "How Could I Ever Think Was Fine?!" House-On-Fire Dog Meme variety. it instead reads as an evacuation, as "i almost got it but all this other stuff happened (like, idk, a wildfire lmao) and i need to leave, help me live, i cant brave this anymore, im sorry for asking for help and letting you down"... with the irony being Missouri ALSO has fire-season. but they just have a fire-season with other forms of weather more consistently everywhere, with less brown leaves. so there is this kind of "Chappell Roan, Missouri isn't where you should run from a fire, there's fires over there too", which just twists the knife about 🎶"My dying town"🎶 for sure since both are capable of burning. but it kind of makes it also more apparent that, hey, both of these places (to live in pursuit of fame OR to live with fame abandoned) will burn away a part of you, and you will panic about the "new devil" and yearn for "the devil you know" twist of "the grass is always greener on the other side". also, the place you grew up will always be special to you and scream of safety in a way. like im saying all this stuff about California, but id write a song wailing about wanting to go back if i ever had to leave it. all of which in turn spins 🎶"'Cause I was never told that I wasn't going to get/The things I want the most/And people always say 'If it hasn't happened yet/Then maybe you should go'"🎶 to now be about wanting to go to Missouri (but can't, as you can hear from the pleas being unanswered and the lack of shift from "Come get me → You've come to get me/I've left/I'm leaving/I'm packing/etc") and people encouraging "maybe you should go to Missouri". but the singer doesnt. Chappell Roan instead writes about someone who wants to leave but isn't leaving. the closest the singer gets is 🎶"Too hard to find reasons to stay/Even true love could not persuade"🎶 but the act of leaving never ACTUALLY happens. the singer pleads but doesn't move. Chappell Roan already wrote about how the singer has 🎶"[T]rade[d] amber clay roads for the/Sea foam and endless sun rays"🎶 and the leaves that are only ever brown and, as a result, will have to remain "stretched across four states" with unanswered pleading

which you could read as "Missouri is mad" and feels "let down" that the singer ever left, not that the singer wasn't able to "be cool in California". i personally see it more as Noah Kahan's You're Going To Go Far 🎶"We ain't angry at you, love/You're the greatest thing we've lost"🎶 and 🎶"The boards will still creak, the leaves will still die/We ain't angry at you, love/We'll be waitin' for you, love/And we'll all be here forever/And we'll all be here forever/You're gonna go far"🎶 or even Chuckie's famous line in Good Will Hunting (1997) about Will's potential that went like "Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way but, in 20 years if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house, watchin' the Patriots games, workin' construction, I'll fuckin' kill ya. That's not a threat, that's a fact, I'll fuckin' kill ya. [...] No. No, no no no. Fuck you, you don't owe it to yourself man, you owe it to me. Cuz tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and I'll be 50, and I'll still be doin' this shit. And that's all right. That's fine. I mean, you're sittin' on a winnin' lottery ticket. And you're too much of a pussy to cash it in, and that's bullshit. 'Cause I'd do fuckin' anything to have what you got. So would any of these fuckin' guys. It'd be an insult to us if you're still here in 20 years. Hangin' around here is a fuckin' waste of your time" or Cinema Paradiso (1988) scene where Alfredo is saying goodbye to Toto and "Don't come back. Don't think about us. Don't look back. Don't write. Don't give in to nostalgia. Forget us all. If you do and you come back, don't come see me. I won't let you in my house. Understand?"/"Thank you. For everything you've done for me."/"Whatever you end up doing, love it. The way you loved the projection booth when you were a little squirt". albeit i never liked the trope assumption of "small town lives never change", esp to the point that entire towns or states would be "waiting" or "a waste of time". i think the Thing is moreso about "sometimes you have to leave, even for just a while, you just have to leave and nobody is going to bring you back early". im more of a Nina, more of a Breathe, from In The Heights, state of mind than i ever would be "someone comes and gets the singer of Chappell Roan's California themselves". you come back when YOU come back. or else you never do. like i said, id be wailing for California, and i know my health will force me to leave it someday since i cant live well in this heat, so im definitely not of a "never come back" OR of a "small town/states are lesser" lens or whatever. but rather that kind of "everybody wants the best for you so badly, for you to at least leave for a while bc thats the best thing for you, that theyll ignore your pleading until you yourself make ACTUAL moves to come back. to follow your dreams, even if it is just for a while and then your dreams or means change, then you must follow that shit wholeheartedly". even though all the examples i gave are of people implied to have never came back, or practically never, if i remember right, in the case of Toto who does briefly return for Alfredo's funeral before returning to his new home elsewhere in Italy. still. my overall point is i dont think the singer's pleas being ignored is malicious. i believe the singer has the agency to leave, and is just momentarily scared of something external that isnt actually That New, but is scared of actually returning (and thereby doesnt use their own agency to evacuate) bc doing so/having left in the first place feels like letting Missouri down...

anyway.

i have a lot of thoughts about California is, i guess, the moral of the story(?). and this song wrecks me to pieces in a way that i dont think a lot of people outside of my homestate will get, yet everyone DOES get with You're Going To Go Far, Breathe from In The Heights, Good Will Hunting, and Cinema Paradiso... not to mention how many double-meanings the ambiguity of these lines have, and how it isn't as straight-forward a song as many assume, and that is BEAUTIFUL. but people keep interpreting what 🎶"No leaves are brown"🎶 means (aka: the plastic trees people) in ways that piss me off so now y'all get this essay

(anyway should i mention how ive wondered before if The Mamas & The Papas were prophetic in how 🎶"The leaves are brown and the sky is gray"🎶 so easily leads into the Californian brand of fire-season, all about the kindling and smoke?? no? okay lol)

[collegeboysam]

personally I love your fic because it doesn’t fall into cliche, I love that your Lucerys is jealous it feeds me. The list of suitors for Luke is a little tired and a bit of a Twitter meme so not telling you what to do but I’d hate for your fic to fall into a few loud voices that push for the same tropes over and over.

Thank you soo much loving the story and letting me know! 🥰🥰 It really means a lot and keeps me excited to continue updating it!

I personally don't mind cliches, as I think if something is good then it's worth repeating many times, in many ways. I like about 5 thropes and it's all I consume on repeat across all my interests hahahaha so I'm a cliche enjoyer for sure, can't turn on my people 😌. But I appreciate the compliment and thank you dearly for it, since I know you mean it in possitive way 💕💕💕

The rest of the reply got super long so I'll throw it under a "read more" to not clog the timeline:

As you saw, Luke is quite jealous too and there will be more of it, so hopefully you'll continue to enjoy that side of him 😏. He's just so much better at hiding it (so far), he's way more patient than Aemond, but he also has his limits, since he's never had to deal with Aemond showing interest in anyone. Aemond is not paticullarly interested in courting and wooing. As a man of those times, he does not need to, what he wants is power and strenght, not a wife. (Besides, we know he's obsessed with Lucerys, that's where most of his sexual desires stem from, as almost all of the women he has slept with looked like Luke in one way or another.) He would have only gotten a wife if it had served him to obtain something he wanted, but being part of the small council put him in a way better position. Marrying a woman won't give him a state nor a castle, so there is no need to do it. For Aemond, in this storyline, a wife would have only been a bother before the main plot started.

But Alicent is obviosly quite interested in the matter lol and you can be sure she will be pushing for it lmao she's Hand of the Queen, too, which makes it easier to chat ladies into approaching him (she knows how her son is, she's aware Aemond won't go out of his way to start any pleasantries.) Aemond might do certain things to entertain his mother's enthusiasm on the matter, even if he means nothing of it, but Lucerys doesn't know that :)))))) and sooooo many high borns are coming to King's Landing...and perhaps instructed to make the most of the ocassion by the head of their houses. Yes, the Queen's son is the one to officially get bethroted and the one with the Velaryon seat and affluence, but there are other Targaryen who are still single (Aemond, Daeron, Joff) who would serve as much of an ideal union. Having a dragonrider in the family is no joke, it's a connection to the Throne, it means eventual children in their bloodline who could potentially have dragons one day. Targaryen rarely marry out of the family for that reason, is a great chance to try to get tied to one of them.

Many are coming to King's Landing for Lucerys, but you know how Westeros is. Other interests are afoot and Luke is not gonna fucking like it hahahaha

I gotta tell you tho the second part of the message reads as being judged on America's Next Top Model or Drag Race and it gave me a good laugh (in a good way). Tyra Banks pulled my photo at the end but I gotta watch it next week for the "who wants to wed and bed Luke for personal gain" challenge 😌.

The list a little longer than the two characters I answered for, since the anon wanted to know for Dalton and Cregan particullarly, I only named those two. Cregan won't persue Luke and Dalton will, so that's as far as I went into it. Oh, and a Martell character! But I guess it's not too hard to figure out who it could be by the timeline the story is set into. Didn't add anyone else to the answer since many are originally minor characters in asoaif (but will be relevant in the fic) since I guessed it's not that interesting to know that Amaury Peake, Gwayne Hightower or Ser Erwin Lannister, a knight, will be appearing and having important roles. Can't imagine they got many fans who will get hype to read about them in a Lucemond fic hahahaha but hopefully once I post scenes where these and other "less known" characters appear and interact with the main characters, it will gain people's interest all the same.

I don't really know which characters are more common to ship on twitter since I'm not on asoiaf/hotd twitter, but this is a bit of a relief for Dalton. I was actually worried people would get mad/dislike the detail of adding him to the pool of characters who would use Luke's situation for their advantage, since...well, Dalton is an A class piece of shit. And interesting one for sure, worth exploring! But still an asshole. We still don't have him in the show so there is no way to do an mix of book!Dalton with whatever they go with for show!Dalton. I only have book version to go with and we know he's suuuch a fucking dick. Interesting and quite the character, but a psycho dickhead all the same. I was kinda nervous people would be uhh bothered, maybe? that some of the suitors are less than stellar. Dalton is a rapist, he has like 22 saltwives he has kidnapped after killing their families, he's obviosly not a lovely match. I know the fandom adores Luke and was sweating a little, worrying people would not like me putting Dalton in his way. If Dalton and Lucerys together are more popular on twiter (which I didn't know omg good for the twitter enjoyers, toxic yaoi lives long and prosper) then it's a relief, since I now think people won't be bothered by Deepsea Dipshit wanting to add Luke to his harem (which lmao Lucerys himself is not gonna he pleased nor flattered about, you saw how he is.)

Don't worry about people maybe influencing the story? If that's what you mean. The main draft is already written from start to end, I go over it and add scenes and make already written parts longer before posting new chapters, but it's already been planned from start to end. So, even if I wanted to, I really can't add things or characters people may like to see, since it wouldn't fit with the main plot nor the ending I have planned. If it turns out that details/characters people hoped to see do happen to be in the story then it's a win-win! But apart from coincidence, I really can't add much to aplease everyone.

Hopefully if people have nice ideas they would like to see, I can with (their permission) add them to future Lucemond fics! But the fate of "You May Bury My Body" has been decided for a while hahaha and hopefully people enjoy the ride 😌

Once again, thank you so much for the ask! As you can see, i enjoy discussing it with readers, sorry I got so carried away replying lmao look at this bible of an answer. And I hope you enjoy the upcoming parts!

Once the entire list of suitors has appeared and interacted in future chapters, I hope you come back and let me know if I passed the vibe check and if it's no longer tired 😜 I really don't wanna be Tiffany being yelled by Tyra that you were rooting for me, everyone was rooting for me, how dare I!

[relax-and-read-on]

My belive in the God of backpain gave me another idea. Which Character would the Primarchs be in a typical horror movie? So, the one who dies first, the one who survives through luck, one who is kinda smart but gets killed off in a dumb way and so on...

Oh anon, the god of backpain blessed you

Because

I fucking

Love

horror movies :D

If the primarch were stuck in a horror movies, wich troopy character would they be!!

Lion: The Cop. The one that show up and is sus of the main cast. Does not help at all. Depending of the type and era, might even be an antagonist.

Leman: The Jock. You know!! The funny type of stupid frat bro!! Usually get killed first, or at least very quickly. Not mean, just annoying.

Roboute: The Scholar. Mostly show up in paranormal movies. He will info dump the plot on the main cast, and will do his best to help. Usually die a very courageous self sacrifice.

Rogal: The Skeptic. The one that walk in and goes "everything is fine, ofc ghost/monsters don't exist!" Usually get murdered in a rather karmic fashion.

Corvus: The Final Girl. And I'm talking classic ones, that end the movie traumatised, covered in mud and gore and screaming their heads off as they fight the Big Bad. Yes, they get all the PTSD, but fuck are they cool.

Vulkan: The Puppy. There is sometime in horror movies one very sweet character, usually the audience fav. We root for them. We want them to survive. And yet... They usually get the horrific, needlessly cruel kill. The longer they survive, the worst their demise is.

Sanguinius; The Action Girl. The more modern version of the Final girl. They take back their agency, fight back from the start and WILL not go down gently. They don't always survive tho.

Jaghatai: The Local. Depending of the movie, they might be anything from the main antagonist, to a lore dumper, to a positive help. Always look somehow super hick and cliché. Potentially racist stereotype are happening too.

Ferrus: The Token Minority. He might be black, asian, latino, native... One sure is certain, he's not surviving this movie. Usually get a very early kill, sometime in duo with The Slut.

Fulgrim: The Slut (tm). Get killed very early one. Count double when it's a queer slut. They never get their happy ending and that's Not Fair. Be warned of homophobia and slut shaming when they are present.

Alpharius Omegon: The Creepy Twins. Talk in sync, usually have very little relevance to the plot, will just be there to freak you out.

Horus: The Secret Killer: He's one of the main cast. Charismatic and charming, you still do feel like something is slightly... *Off* about them. Usually get the twist ending of being the serial killer, and you more or less saw it comming

Mortarion: The Quiet Kid. Usually a red hearing if its a serial killer type of deal. Everyone will accuse them of being behind the crimes because of their Quiet and Broody way, while they did nothing wrong. Often survive! And if they play their card right, may end up with the final girl.

Angron: The Past Survivor. This one is usually a more modern archetype. They are the one that got away from the hands of the monster, and who are now dedicating their life fighting it. Very short lifespan usually.

Magnus: The Nerd. In more modern movies, the nerd sometime survive! They still usually make it very far, as their Nerd Knowledge is essential to the plot. Get often very kicked down by the narrative.

Perturabo: The Asshole. He's a "friend" of main cast and you have no clue why. He usually is there to get a very violent, often ironic death, that the audience can cheer on.

Lorgar: The Priest. You know the ones. Those that show up and are JUST a tad off. Definitely in a satanic themed movie. It's 50/50 if they are actually evil, but he will have a very graphic death.

.... And Konrad: The Monster. You know it was coming. You knew what he was. He's every insanely powerful villain. Every slasher antagonist. Every demonic entity. He's powerful and terrifying and impossible to stop, a literal slow march of death. If he's coming for you, there is nothing to be done. The quite literal boogeyman nightmares are made off.

[hellsbellschime]

I always love your takes on Dany because I think you explain her really well and was wondering what you think of this take by a Dany stan. It's got some uh... interesting ideas. Sorry too because it's quite long

The main difference in between Daenerys' political arc, and that of other "heroes" and their Houses is that Dany's is not currently a political arc relegated to fighting for Targaryen grievances and wins. Meanwhile, all other main House representatives in the narrative (Starks, Martells, Lannisters, Greyjoys, Tullys, Tyrells, Baratheons) are generally fighting precisely for nothing else but their own (and their Houses') grievances and wins.

That's where the double standards come in-

+ Daenerys is harshly and minutely judged for the quality of her every act, upon every single person in her narrative, bc her arc involves her aim to hold responsibility over the wellness of all these people.

+ Everyone else who are part of the Great Houses however are merely judged as per how they perform towards the wellness of their own Houses, because that's all they aim to perform for.

One girl dies in an act Dany is not directly involved in, particularly in intention, and the discussions are endless as per the repercussions and outrage of the occurrence. Because Daenerys took it upon herself to defend all these people, and this seems like a failure, particularlyin her POV: one girl with no other importance in the story and a few lines, among maybe millions. One girl. Hazea.

Robb Stark and his men, on the other hand, will kill, maim and rape thousands, or even tens of unnamed thousands, and there is no outrage; rarely discussed repercussions. Because Robb's political arc is not about protecting nameless people. Not about caring for the fate of one-liner non-noble characters. His arc is about the grievances of House Stark. About Ned. Readers judge him upon how close he gets to getting revenge on Tywin and Jofrrey, about how well/or bad he leads wars, not about what kind of leader he is to people, what kind of 'monster' he is to enemy commonfolk. The relevance of his eventual loss is not about the fate of his people, or enemy people, either. It's about his personal tragedy. It's about the tragedy of the remaining Starks.

There is outrage for Daenerys even killing her (leader) enemies. For everyone else, it's an undisputed aim.

Daenerys is even already judged for the possibility of a future where she will anything that concerns her actually being Daenerys of House Targaryen in Westeros. The possibility that any Westerosi people might die, while hundreds of thousands may have been dying so far at the hands of other Great Houses (directly and indirectly), and it's mostly irrelevant for them. But for Daenerys that judgement is everything. She is looked through the lense of "if she's a Queen she's meant to protect them, not kill them" tho she has not yet been granted that status, while those who have had the status of Kings, Queens and Lords of Westeros in the meantime have been responsible for the deaths of their own people all of this time.

No noble Northener really cares for a Jeyne Poole, least of all for a Hazea.

Daenerys alone is (harshly) judged as a leader of people, because that's her current actual arc. She is not Daenerys of House Targaryen currently, in a real sense, not really. Her family and House don't really matter where she is now, and to what she is doing.

Almost every other noble character (and I only say almost to partly exclude those not taking particular part in politics) is given the leniency of the tragic MC in a tragic family drama biopic. ALL THEY ARE IS X PERSON OF HOUSE Y. And in most cases nothing else matter. - end post

Well, obviously no hate to this person whoever they are and I don't necessarily think it's a bad take just because I disagree with it. I particularly DO agree on things like Jeyne Poole, and I think that is GRRM very intentionally trying to point out some huge hypocrisies with everyone in the story, even the "good guys", because it is incredibly unfair that no one will come to save Jeyne Poole while a fuckton of people will come to save "Arya Stark" just because they cared about Ned.

But where I don't agree is on that aspect in particular. Because it's not about winning or airing grievances for these great houses, a lot of their actions are largely driven by the fact that they simply care deeply about the other people who are involved in the war now or who have been hurt or killed in the past wars, and that is largely what is motivating many of them to do what they do. And in even more intense cases, they're going to war because they are in extremely immediate danger.

This is true for both villains and heroes, I mean Robb and Cat go to war against the Lannisters because there is an immediately mortal threat to their entire family, and even though Cersei and the rest of the Lannisters are clearly villains, their actions are also driven by an immediate mortal danger that their family is facing. And it's safe to say, a huge portion of what happened in the WOT5K would never have even occurred if a lot of these people weren't put in a position of "HOLY SHIT me or someone I love is about to die RIGHT NOW if I don't do something so I better fucking do something".

I feel like the story makes it clear that the wars that they are fighting are very pointless and brutal anyway. I mean FFS, GRRM does not accidentally traumatize the shit out of Arya by putting her in a commoner's position in a war that is supposedly being fought in her name. So I actually agree with the writer in the sense that there is a double standard when it comes to Dany vs. everyone else, but I feel like the double standard is valid because all of these characters for better or worse have a dog in this fight. Whatever they've done is incredibly personal and therefore pretty irrational for them.

And the fact that the men are rallying to save Arya Stark when they wouldn't rally to save a thousand Jeyne Pooles is very telling and demonstrates that they are extremely hypocritical, but it's also telling because they're not fighting for the "heir to House Stark". They repeatedly talk about how they're fighting for Ned's girl. It has very little to do with her nobility and power and a great deal to do with how these people feel about Ned not as a Stark, but just as a person that they knew and cared for who was horribly wronged.

So while I agree and recognize that a ton of the main characters have done the wrong things, often for the wrong reasons, it's personal, it's emotional, and it's irrational. And in a lot of cases it is driven by something as simple and pure as "I am about to die if I don't do something so I'm doing the first thing I fucking think of to get out of it". Even for the houses who initially got involved as a power play, it has become very much about the people that they care about and their own feelings rather than strategy and house advancement.

That doesn't magically make it moral, but it does make it hugely distinct from what Daenerys is doing. Because Daenerys doesn't have a dog in this fight at all. She has absolutely no personal ties to Westeros or anyone in it, and she is not in any danger from anyone in Westeros. Literally the only Westerosi person who has ever even really tried to kill her is a man she doesn't know and is already dead, and the only Targaryen she ever knew who even had a connection to Westeros was someone she hated who abused her horrifically and who is also already dead.

Ergo, Dany is a villain because she literally has no personal or political justification for the massive war that she's going to bring to Westeros. She is going to leave the place she's in that is a complete mess and desperately needs help even more than it did after her intervention, and she's going to invade a place that she doesn't care about beyond some imaginary concept she has about it in her head, has no connection to, has no need for her, and poses no threat to her.

She's not fighting for anything besides herself and her own sense of entitlement over Westeros. She's more harshly judged for her actions because they are completely driven by her own whims and desires and nothing more. She has the opportunity to think things through and plan and get advice and actually figure out the best way to do things, whereas every character in Westeros is reacting to something very immediate that they don't have a lot of time to consider and that is deeply emotional for them. But still, she doesn't even do that.

She's judged for all of the mistakes she makes because they're unnecessary and foreseeable mistakes. And, if she actually just waited and tried to figure out what to do instead of basically throwing herself into situations where she's suddenly overthrowing governments and ruling hundreds of thousands of people without a plan or any governing experience, then a lot of the bad things that have happened as a result of her campaign wouldn't have happened.

And obviously, I think this is a very intentional move on GRRM's part. I think he establishes that war is pointless and often outrageously hypocritical with the WOT5K, but there's a reason he gave Dany no one she loves and no one who needs her help and no one who poses a threat to her in Westeros. She's going to bring war to an already war-ravaged continent simply because she feels like it should belong to her.

That is drastically different than Robb going to war because his father has been falsely charged with treason or Cersei murdering Robert because he will try to murder her children if he finds out they're not his. And while all of the wars in ASOIAF are terrible and purposeless in the end, GRRM is going very far out of his way to demonstrate that Dany has literally zero justification or even explanation for why she acts the way she does beyond her belief in her own super-special entitlement.

[yurileclercseyeliner]

A Dumb Rant About A Webtoon

Okay so I’m actually super into reading webcomics (I read them on both Webtoon and Tapas), and although this has nothing to do with my blog (I AM considering making a side blog for webcomic content/reviews tho) I sort of feel like ranting about one that I saw. I’m sorry, but if you like Athena Complex this is probably going to piss you off. Admittedly, I couldn’t get far into the comic without being upset about this so I stopped reading a few chapters in, so that may affect my opinion here. This is mainly my opinion though, and if you disagree with me it’s fine.

So I did mention in my Fire Emblem kelpie beast unit post my opinion on mythological adaptation. Essentially, I believe that when you adapt any sort of mythological being into your story you need to keep these two things in mind:

The recognizable features/symbols/abilities: by this I mean what physical features is this being known to have, what are their physical/magical abilities, what objects are they most associated with, etc. You don’t need to have every single thing that is mentioned in the source material, just a decent combination of them that can allow the reader to easily connect the adaptation to the source material.

This factor mainly applies to individual characters as opposed to a full species or classification of creatures (I have read a decent number of mythological adaptations and have seen a mythical species depicted as evil in one adaptation and benevolent or neutral in another and enjoyed both, it all depends on if it makes sense in the context). What are the character’s main personal views, goals, and motivations? By this I mean how do they think and what are their views on the world around them, and what is the context surrounding that? Essentially, what can their main personalities and motivations be boiled down to and why?

After those two factors, I think that you can then go buck wild with any other characterization as long as it isn’t contradictory and makes sense in your story.

Now that I have set that down here’s my deal with Athena Complex. Athena Complex is a Webtoon based on Greek mythology that follows Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and strategy. She falls in love with Poseidon, the god of the sea, and is rejected by him. Fueled by vengeance and a desire to win his heart she takes the form of a high school boy in order to take revenge on his reincarnation. Basically, this entire Webtoon is practically a public execution of a large part of what makes Athena, well, Athena.

First off, I will give credit to Athena Complex for at least getting the symbolism correct, Athena is a goddess of wisdom and war and when in the form of a goddess her design reflects that with her armor, among other things such as her association with owls, so the first aspect that I mentioned is fine.

Additionally there is the fact that they also did heavily tap into the prideful aspect of Athena’s nature. Essentially in the source material Athena is a VERY prideful goddess and will take any opportunity to prove her worth if someone attempt to upstage her, and gets very angry when she fails or is insulted in the process (ie the story of Arachne, the story behind the double flute). This aspect could also be seen slightly in Athena Complex’s Athena’s behavior, which I can also give them credit for.

But that’s where a lot of the similarities end. Tbh a large majority of these issues surround the second aspect, the basics of the figure’s personality and motivations.

First, Athena’s stance on romance. Original Athena...literally wanted nothing to do with any sort of romantic relationship. Seriously it’s one of her main things one of her epithets is literally “Parenthos”, which means virgin. No lovers, no sex, no marriage, no intentionally created children (I say intentionally bc she and Hepheastus accidentally created a child when his snot got onto a torn piece of her cloak, but that’s a different weird story), nothing. She solely focused on the expansion of knowledge and learning. She had no time for any sort of relationship. Making Athena in Athena Complex heavily motivated by an unrequited romantic attraction literally rips one of her main core values to shreds.

And this in my opinion one of the worst offenses, MAKING THE SUBJECT OF THAT ROMANTIC ATTRACTION POSEIDON. Literally one MAJOR thing for the original Athena and Poseidon is that they HATE each other. (Also Athena is literally Poseidon’s niece, but tbh that’s a less heinous crime bc Greek mythology was weird about that shit, multiple gods married their siblings/cousins/uncles/aunts/nieces/nephews/etc., it’s weird. Also in Athena Complex Poseidon acted the main person raising Athena, which is ALSO really fucking weird and concerning, anyway back to why they hate each other).

The Contest for Athens: Basically before the Greek city of Athens was called Athens the people were looking for a patron deity, and both Athena and Poseidon tried to lay their claim. In order to determine who the city would go to, they decided to have a contest of who could give the city the best gift. Poseidon gave the city some horses (for transportation and farmwork) and a small spring in the middle of the city (note: the water in the spring was salt water and therefore undrinkable). Athena gave them olive trees (for food, making oil, wood, etc.). The peoplr decided that Athena’s gift was better and thus named the city “Athens” after her, leaving Poseidon incredibly salty.

The Medusa Incident (TW: possible rape/non-con): So Poseidon was having a nice little affair with a mortal woman named Medusa (you notice how this name is familiar, right? that’s important). It’s a little iffy on whether or not this affair was fully consensual on Medusa’s end due to the sort of victim blame-y aspects to this story, hence the trigger warning. So Poseidon his having his fun and decides to find a nice little place they can go to do the nasty. Where does he think would be a great idea? One of Athena’s temples of course! You know, a literal place of worship dedicated to his rival who is known to dislike involvement in romantic/sexual relationships? Nothing could go wrong at all! They of course get caught, and Athena, being pissed, decides to curse Medusa with snakes for hair and the ability to turn people into stone just by looking at them (see why the name was familiar?) For good measure she also curses Medusa’s two sisters with the snake hair. The sisters are then dubbed the Gorgons and then go live in isolation on a island until they are killed by Perseus (a hero that Athena was helping).

So this Webtoon completely ignores the context behind this hatred and decides to make it into an enemies to lovers story based on unrequited feelings (the feelings of a person for their childhood caretaker too...still weird). I guess they wanted to do enemies to lovers and such based on a rivalry dynamic, but in doing so they erased most of the actual substance behind that rivalry by making it romantic and destroying the characterization of one of the main characters.

I can understand taking creative liberties, but before you do so you NEED to have a full understanding of the characters that you are adapting. If a mythological character is known for a certain practice (refraining from romance) or for having an extreme distaste for another figure (Athena hating Poseidon), INCLUDE IT. You NEED to have all of the bare bones basics before you start taking liberties.

For example, the original Athena:

Goddess of wisdom and strategy

Association with owls, olives, carries a shield known as Aegis

Highly values learning and knowledge

Prideful to a fault

Virgin goddess with no interest in romantic or sexual relationships

Extreme hatred for Poseidon as a result of repeated negative encounters

Those are the bare bones basics, after that you can do what you want.

Honestly I don’t think that this Webtoon is necessarily BAD, but it is VERY annoying when you have the context behind these characters (hence my frustration and inability to make it past 10 chapters). In my opinion, if the author wanted to write this storyline, they should have made their own OCs as opposed to butchering a pre-existing figure’s characterization.

(Also I’m so sorry I know that this isn’t relevant to my argument BUT THE POSEIDON REINCARNATION LOOKS SO BORING HE LOOKS LIKE A BACKGROUND CHARACTER WHERE IS THE FLAVOR????)

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

ok this all started about 10 months ago when my 4 roommates and I moved in together. we got 3 keys from the post office for our shared mailbox. my roommate technically owned these keys yet she put them where everyone could use them so it was no issue. one day she stopped putting the keys in an accessible area where everyone could use them because someone was not putting them back. I cant confirm or deny this because I know I wasnt doing this. there is one roommate (now moved out) who would possibly do something like this. I dont agree with that if she did thats not super relevant to the story tho.

anyway many months get by of having to ask my roommate to borrow her keys every time I needed to get the mail. she had 3 keys, mind you, and wouldn't even put one out for all of us to use. the mail would pile up so much that there would be weeks and weeks worth of it shoved into our mailbox and packages sitting in the parcel lockers for just as long. she clearly wasn't even getting the mail herself on a regular basis. also it feels super demeaning to have to ask your roommate for the keys to your own mailbox.

I tried to stay calm and civil with her because even though I am not afraid to be confrontational I also don't like dealing with shit like this. what set me off was getting a notice for my blood test bill being almost late (paid it on time thank g-d) because the mail hadn't been brought in for weeks.

possibly important context is that towns in the southwest USA with decent amenities like doctors offices and whatnot are typically 45min-1hr apart by car. theres smaller villages in between and those usually don't have much more than a gas station and small store if even that. the closest blood testing office that all medical offices generally accept is about an hour away. if I didnt pay my bill in time I would likely no longer be allowed to get blood work done there and I may have to drive 2-3 hours instead of 1.

I ended up confronting her about this and I didn't yell but I sure as fuck wasn't calm and patient. I told her that either she needed to let me make copies of the mail keys or get the mail herself on a regular basis. there were 3 other people living there besides her and if she was gonna hoard the only 3 keys it was her responsibility to get the mail. she kept saying "its not my responsibility" and all that sort of bs.

anyway I decided to go to USPS on my own and asked if they made mail keys because afaik you only get 3. I figured that remained the same but I asked just in case something changed. eventually my roommate decided that we should both go to usps together so she could ask about the mail keys which I was silently pissed off abt bc I felt like she didn't trust me just to ask questions about keys. we still went though and she asked the questions when the very kind employee said they only provide 3 keys and she said "oh I didn't know that!"

I used to tell white lies a lot and its a habit I've done very well to grow out of. I said that that was completely new information even though it wasn't . I am not proud of this, yet I did it because if I said anything else I would have decked her. I didnt wanna bother the very nice employee. I had been to this post office days earlier and was told to my face that there were only 3 keys and they didn't make copies. she either forgot this over the course of a few days or was totally bullshitting this. whichever it was i wasn't happy.

anyway she eventually allowed me to take one of her keys and copy it. it took literally 15 minutes including the drive and now we have a few extra keys (a couple I keep on my keyring). there are plenty for everyone to have at least 2 and if we ever need more ill gladly make them. also I get the mail on a regular basis. im definitely not a saint however im sure as fuck not letting packages bake in the heat for weeks and weeks and everyone deserves regular access to their mail when they need it.

what rlly pisses me off in a way thats unrelated to this story is my roommate's superiority complex. she does act very nice on the outside and I dont believe that's fake I think she's really just outwardly very nice. which is amazing! (its still not the type of personality I vibe with and that's my problem, not hers. not her issue that get weirded out when people are too happy-go-lucky). what truly bothers me is her actions show she puts so little faith in the people around her and believes she is the only one who can do things right. although my other two roommates weren't perfect bc no one is (both moved out now) they were good, kind, smart, reasonable people who never deserved to be treated like they're lesser and I didnt deserve that either. we also didn't deserve dozens of envelopes in the mailbox at a time

am I pissed off that even though my roommate and I have mail keys im literally the only one who gets the mail? yeah kinda. I dont mind getting the mail its more about the fact that she could but never does.

also if u want more context pls ask bc there is a story behind all this. I dont like her very much shes perfectly nice I just can't stand her

[in-this-body-of-mine]

To The Bone (2017) - Analysis and Charting

Let’s go! I’m NOT excited because life is hard but what better way to distract myself than to do this kind of shit. No one cares, anyways.

Since this is the first one, let me tell you what we’re gonna do here. I’ll include the IMDB summary, a summary with spoilers, the placements in the chart, we’ll go over each item (also, spoilers abound) and finally my review and final thoughts. Yes, it’s gonna be long. Read at your own risk.

IMDB summary:  A young woman, dealing with anorexia, meets an unconventional doctor who challenges her to face her condition and embrace life.

Summary with spoilers: Lily Collins plays Ellen/Eli and from the start of the movie she is on the brink of her disease. She was just kicked out of a recovery center and she gets an appointment with a ~cool unconventional doctor~ played by Keanu Reeves. She goes into ANOTHER inpatient treatment home to be treated by him. Shit happens, she seems to be getting better somehow, but then she spirals down, runs away, and after a... near death experience (I wish this was an euphemism) she decides to try recovery again and goes back to the treatment home. That’s where the movie ends.

Chart placements!

Now for each item:

White: Ellen or Eli is played by Lily Collins, who once played Sandra Bullock’s daughter in that movie were she was a Karen. It doesn’t get whiter than that.

Female: She changes her name to Eli mid film (which is how I’ll be calling her here bc we respect chosen names in this household) but she still seems to identify as female and be referred to as such, so here we have it. We do have a guy in the treatment home, but we’ll come back to him later.

Teenager/Young adult: I’m pretty sure she is 19 but every review I see says she’s 20. Either way, she dropped out of college even though she just started it. The actress, however, was 28 at the time the movie was released.

Wealthy/seemingly well-off: Her family has the money to send her to inpatient a bunch of times, and they make a point to mention how they have connections so she didn’t have to wait in line to see this new doctor. Case closed.

Skinny actress from the start: As we know, Lily Collins is already thin and she did struggle with anorexia in the past. Why, however, did she lose weight for this movie? They said it was her decision “to make the character more authentic”. As if not being skin and bones wouldn’t be enough. As if eating disorders don’t come in every size. They shouldn’t let her. The need to shock people is a very dangerous sign to me.

No distinctive personality or hobbies/interests: I’m glad Eli has a thing she loves. It’s not super present, but it’s there, and it’s plot relevant. She loves art and in the story, she had a tumblr (look, it’s us!) where she shared drawings related to her ED and a girl liked her drawings so much that, when she killed herself, she mentioned Eli by name in a note. But that isn’t really explored too much and I kind of got disappointed by that.

Good student: We don’t really know about that... and I don’t think it matter, it’s ok.

Seemingly irrelevant love interest: Why? Just why do we need Luke? Luke is the only guy in the home, and we can SEE that he’s only there to be Eli’s love interest. He wasn’t needed. None of the important plot points have anything to do with him. Make her date a girl. Make her date NO ONE. This is about eating disorders. She could have closer friends in the house. Why was this necessary. Her whole speech about how love is a lie could come from a friendship but no. They had to shove pretty white boy there.

Daddy issues (sometimes coupled with mommy issues): I find this extremely funny but her dad isn’t in the movie. At all. He’s alive and well, but he makes a point to never come home when Eli is even awake. I don’t think they cast an actor for that. As for mothers, she has three, and it’s a trip. Her stepmom on her dad’s side is very out of touch but she wants what’s best for Eli, but she really hates Eli’s biological mom. Bio mom, in turn, is described as a “bipolar lesbian” and the stereotypes are just... ugh. Bio mom has a wife and she is a bit weird too. They sent Eli to live with her absent dad bc “they couldn’t deal with it anymore”. This brings us to a great scene where we can see Eli shrinking in her seat and when the psychiatrist asks her what she is feeling she says “I’m sorry I’m not a person anymore. I’m a problem.” And that’s great to see. But at the same time, I hate that her whole issue in this movie seems to come from her family and anorexia is just a thing that happened, with some vague references to control. 

*Triggering event*: We never see it and it’s okay - but I kind of wanted some more explorations of motives because we have ZERO.

Anorexia as diagnosis: As I always say, what is even the point of making a cool looking movie about EDs if your protagonist is not only anorexic, but also terminally anorexic? Ugh. That’s the only portrayal of anorexia that happens in media and I’m fucking tired.

Checklist of habits (manual for those looking for one): I mean, I mark this down but as I always say: everything is a manual if you’re looking for one. But if you’re doing more than not eating or purging or exercising I’ll judge it as a new tip. A lot of us already thought of/did most of them probably. But the marking remains.

Inpatient treatment (or extended hospital stay): As I said, she is kicked out of one treatment center and goes straight into another. What fucks me up is that the movie HAS other characters with other diagnosis, but we never see anything about them. We don’t see their journey. We only know Luke is a dancer bc he is the love interest. We only know Megan is pregnant and then she’s not bc this sends Eli in a spiral. We only know Kendra is not straight bc she makes a joke about it (and Doctor Beckham follows with a horrible joke about conversion therapy). Did you notice Ciara Bravo was in this movie? I didn’t on first viewing. She has like two lines. The whole movie is centered around Eli and every scene in the house feels like all the other patients only care about her too.

Emotional tipping point: Megan loses her baby and for some reason this affects Eli. Luke kisses Eli and for some reason she’s pissed. At that point, I was annoyed. She has a bad session with Doctor Beckham who basically tells her to grow a pair and stop complaining (which is insensitive as a doctor, but as a person I wanted to do the same) and she decides to quit and leave. She has to go to her mother’s home and I’m supposed to care. Stepmom is mad but doctor says she needs to hit rock bottom. She weights like 70 pounds dude. Rock bottom was about ten pounds ago, next stop is a coffin, mate.

Mom hugs: And here we have the emotional turn around of the movie and it’s just... make it make sense. She goes to her bio mom’s ranch. Her stepmom # 2 tells they’ll have therapy with horses (?). Eli goes sleep in a tent and bio mom cries and says she accepts if Eli wants to die. Very supportive I guess. They have this weird bonding moment where the mom feeds her a bottle like a baby and look, if you liked that, good for you, but I don’t get what I was supposed to feel about it (but that’s mom hug #1). She goes on a hike next morning and... dies? Either way she has an out of body experience where she talks to Luke and sees how she looks - which is weird to me. Didn’t we go over this in the beggining of the movie? Didn’t we establish that she does know what she looks like and doesn’t care? But still she seems shocked and they have a cryptical conversation and she wakes up. And just like that, she’s ok now. She meets up with the other stepmom (mom hug # 2) and goes back to the home.

Happy ending: In the last scene Eli is back to the home and we understand she’s going to try to recover for real this time. I’m okay with that specifically, I think it would be bad if they pretended she just got better with no relapses and everything is fine, but it’s a hopeful ending. Despite the fact that we have no idea if she won’t have a fit and leave in two days and that we never know anything about anyone else and Megan, who lost the baby, never comes back. It’s fine. At that point, I didn’t expect much.

Analysis: I was hesitant to be critical bc this movie was based on the real life experiences of the director and Lily Collins. But fuck it, this is my circus and I’ll clown as much as I want. While I do understand that, I have a lot of thoughts.

Mainly, I need to say that while I understand this is her story, this is a story that was told so many times. I’m tired.

The general public that wants to defend the movie says “well you can’t tell ALL stories”, and while I agree, these people probably only saw this movie about the subject. If you HAVE (or had) and eating disorder, you probably saw tons. And they ALL tell the same story. Which is why I started that chart in the first place.

This movie does have good moments. I do like the acting, I saw people complaining about Keanu Reeves performance - but I do know these were people who disliked the movie entirely. I think his performance was great, Lily Collins performance was great, and their chemistry was great. The best scenes in the movie happened between the two of them. The one thing that I LOVED was their first interaction when he calls her on her bullshit. “You’re not thin, you scare people, and I think you like that.” YES. I never heard anyone talk about that. And I guess I’ll never will, bc the movie itself never talk about this again either. Also when she justifies the tumblr where her art triggered a girl so much, she says that she was just drawing what she knows, he calmly tells her that she can draw, but she doesn’t have to share it online tho. I liked their interactions because often ED patients are treated with silk gloves (is that the expression?) and sometimes there is a need for some though love. I also love Liana Liberato who plays her sister and that’s about it.

The problem with the doctor ends up being: what’s his method? How are you going to cure her? The method makes no sense. I don’t see the reasoning. I don’t think anyone does. And somehow it works and she goes back there. 

I think my major problem with the movie is that it has the same issues every ED portrayal before it. It’s the same story again. I think it shines the most in the whole “it’s not about food, it’s about control!”. It IS about food though. For a lot of people, it is. Maybe not for this director or for Lily Collins, but for so many people it is about food. It’s about control as well, and it is possible that there is other factors related to it, but you can’t chalk it all up to a control issue and pretend it’s just whatever. If the food didn’t matter, it wouldn’t be an eating disorder.

Because of that, we have this heavy focus on her family issues and nothing to do with food. We have people trying to rationalize - maybe it’s bc your mom is a lesbian, maybe it’s bc i didn’t bond with you as a baby - and all that does is to make her lesbian bipolar mother seem like a crazy asshole and her dad seem like an absent asshole as if this is the only factor here. Give me SOMETHING. Any connection to food. Any sense. Nope. She just won’t eat bc her family is fucked up. Hoe, that’s all of us.

And I think the movie unintentionally DOES glamourize anorexia. Subtly, yes, but it does. Eli has SUCH an easy time refusing food. She doesn’t seem to think about food as much as she thinks about herself and her family and Luke and being annoying. She knows a bunch of calories and she overexercises. Idk.  Not to mention that moment when Kendra asks her about purging and she says “it’s not her thing”. I mean. It is no one’s thing. No one likes it. It’s a compulsion. And if you have anorexia that severe and you are not with a feeding tube, you do eat every now and then, and you do have purging mechanisms. If she had said she prefers overexercising as a purging mechanism than to throw up, I would believe her. But the movie acts as if she just never eats ever and somehow she’s still standing. Give her a feeding tube then. It would be more believable.

I know it sounds kind of ranty, but my point here is: this extremely anorexic girl, that looks like a sack of bones, and gets that by never eating and doing crunches all the time, it is the wet dream of a fatphobic society with a 71 billion weight loss industry. This is the dreamy and frugal idea of anorexia that people have when they are deep into the illness - not when they recovered as the people involved say they did. I get that this is a very personal project. But it’s flawed. It doesn’t do anyone any favors. It just tells the same story, for the millionth time, but since this time it was in a big platform, more people saw it, and it was better done, with a better budget and with a good enough resolution so I can see every bone in Lily Collins body.

Anyway, that’s it for today. If you read all of that, thanks. Since this is Netflix, I’m assuming everyone saw, but the other movies are out there and if you need liks, hit me up. Be back soon.

[astrologysvt]

MTL to Keep a Secret 🤫

Anonymous said: scorp anon ✨ yep, I'm a '95 baby 🥺✊🏼 I graduated uni and dream about buying pans which means I'm an adult 😔 but! for humoring me so much I'll leave a token of gratitude in a svt q: let's say all members were entrusted a secret (individually), just a regular secret that's nothing groundbreaking. who is the most likely to want to share it? who would keep it best? or who would forget it - up to you how to analyze it! it can be a MTL type of post or you can skip this if it doesn't interest you ✨

this one was so fun thanks for the q~ and just a bit of context, i’m doing this with the assumption that these secrets aren’t morally questionable (like crime, ill-willed, cheating etc. etc) and are being disclosed between friends 

MOST

Will Definitely Keep it: 

Minghao: super trustworthy. if you’re out there trading secrets with him, you can trust he sees no value or gain in sharing it. the scorpio influences make him incredibly loyal and will respect your privacy, then his sag mars means he’s guided by a high moral standard. he probs likes feeling like he’s close enough to someone to be told such things and wont take that for granted (tho if ur not THAT close with him?? that may be another story). 

Joshua: with that solid mix of cap and taurus he’s both incredibly loyal and very level-headed about these things. he’s not going to do anything that’ll jeopardize your trust in him. for the sake of honesty, but also cause NOT keeping the secret goes against his general conduct. he sees no point in stirring up trouble for the sake of some hot gossip, and would probably never find it relevant. may tease you! but at the end of the day his lips are sealed. 

Vernon: this guy is just out here observing. tho there is a risk cuz his moon is really great at taking the more extreme things in stride, and so he may not even react and thus not register it as a secret and THEN bring it up. but really i imagine he’s chilling more than anything. any information he collects he’s probably happily keeping to himself and sees no need to air out someone else’s dirty laundry. his mercury is also trine jupiter which makes him pretty trustworthy. 

Jun: it may be surprising to see him so high up. he’s def a reactive and talkative guy with that aries/gemini. he’s got such an active mind and will pick and prod at everything, but his taurus means he doesn’t really need to do anything with that info. you tell him it’s a secret, he’ll keep it. tho he may short circuit if you tell him to a keep a secret but he’s concerned for your wellbeing. 

Will Probably Keep it: 

Woozi: very similar to hao, though his aries moon puts him here just because there is a potential in him getting caught in the heat of the moment and blurting things out. generally good at keeping a secret, but (and this applies to hao) his sag is also guided by honesty as much as it is in fairness. he’ll probably draw the line if he has to lie for your sake. there is also a sense that he may not like being ultra-secretive, especially if it affects his routine/normal friend dynamics. 

Mingyu: so i feel like aries have a bad rep for not keeping secrets, like if they get interesting info it’s hard for them not to want to share it. with mingyu tho, his virgo and taurus really off-set that initial aries reaction. i feel like the mix of taurus and virgo (and honestly also that aries want to be told they did good) means he really wants to please the people close to him, and telling people their secrets isn’t how you do that! 

Jeonghan: it depends. his well aspected jupiter loves poking fun and laughing so if it’s not a big deal and more funny, he may push to have you tell but will respect your wishes as his libra really doesn’t want any bad feelings. his scorpio mars also loves feeling like he’s being trusted. tho his libra is going to be more focused on maintaining group harmony and his scorpio is very loyal to his priorities and ruthless to everything else. if your secret threatens that, it’s better you don’t tell him (lol libras are the first to rat someone out if it deals with one of their friends)

Wonwoo: he loves talking and discussing things and his leo means that the more dramatic things are def still on the table. he likes being in the know, and then that cancer sun may not handle secrets very well. the secret may make him uneasy and can gnaw at him, making him want to talk it out. with that in mind, his well aspected saturn is probably a great censor for him. he may feel those things, but i’d trust his ability to catch himself before he does anything.  

Be Careful: 

Seungkwan: this guy moved around a lot in this. generally, i think he is very trustworthy but he’s SUPER TALKATIVE. he loves a great story and he loves making people laugh, and with his moon opposite jupiter he may struggle to catch himself if he gets caught up in the moment. but with more serious situations, his virgo moon makes him very drawn to help and is a very reliable person to turn to. 

Seungcheol: although leos are known for being super loyal, they also love talking and they love the excitement of a secret. while he has his cap and libra telling him what’s right and wrong, keep in mind he may bend a few rules by telling one or two trusted people just to get it out of his system. also, similar to jeonghan, if it is negative and deals with his friends there’s A HIGH probability he’ll tell them due to his loyalty to them. tho if it’s a serious personal situation, he will do his best to keep it to himself. 

Dino: he’s very inquisitive, communicative, and emotionally sensitive. if the secret is interesting, he wants to talk about it. if it’s emotionally taxing, he wants to talk about it. and he’s a very philosophical and moral guy with that sag moon very similar to hao and woozi, but there is less of a barrier in his chart that makes them more stoic and controlled where as he’s excitable and a bit more impulsive. he may struggle to see a difference between what can and cannot be discussed. 

Seokmin: you have to be careful with him! even if he does his best to keep a secret, there is a threshold for how long and how many secrets he can keep or else he’ll explode. that’s mainly because of his cancer moon, and his moon square mars. he doesn’t contain those emotions well and is incredibly sensitive to these things. he may end up telling someone just to take that weight off himself. 

Be REALLY Careful:

Hoshi: this guy really means well, but all of those gemini placements means he likes having everything out on the table, no holds barred. not being able to talk about something would frustrate him so much. if it’s an important enough secret and he cares deeply for you, he will do his absolute best. but always account for the possibility he forgets it was even a secret in the first place and just starts talking about it SUPER CASUALLY because he’s not used to having that strict a filter. 

LEAST

[stillness138]

so obviously he's just a mega minor little npc so this more or less fizzles out with any other player character background but because i'm the one playing it makes me both laugh in his face at the unplanned contradiction and think about types of guy like him.

like tav's backstory, according to things i chose that the game itself presented, is having spent a chunk of life on the streets of baldur's gate, and another significant chunk in a swamp. she's a ranger. and she's very visibly and undeniably half-drow. none of this is relevant to the conversations, not even the parentage, but it's there in the character sheet as a possibility.

and this asshole could've said anything, could've said bandits or raiders or cultists and even mentioned they come from the underdark, but he specifically just says drow.

he knows nothing about tav, her life, her background, the details of her parentage beside again, that she's clearly drow to some extent, but goes out of his way to tread on that ground like he failed a perception check. because he didn't even think of rolling for it. because he's a white human dude who got his job and life handed to him on a silver platter.

and the part that hits even closer to home is that he's still weirdly friendly towards tav. almost like a "but you're one of the good ones".

even though he's patronizing about it in a way that really brings out the memories:

but a roll or two later he's giving out the password to his super secret basement club - that, in another cute spark of hypocrisy has a lift leading to a storage shed in the underdark - and even reaffirms an invitation for a drink i don't remember agreeing to and don't have the option to decline when he brings it up again.

and i'm sitting here with a lopsided grin because larian likely didn't intend for any of this, especially since there isn't any [half-drow] dialogue option as far as i know, and thus probably didn't aim to make him like those dudebros irl, but i've had the unfortunate displeasure of dealing with them, and this is so... of course i play my first tav as somewhat close to myself but my god girl now i really feel you.

they're condescending, they're patronizing, they're hilariously ignorant both to you and their own privilege, they talk about you and other women in a concerning abstract way and they still want to fuck you. if when i make it to the elfsong inn place and turn him down he'll shed the tryhard charming mask and go on a rant that boils down to "but i'm such a nice person", i'm emailing larian and saying yeah it do be like that.

god he even looks like one of these dickheads tho xd.

Rugan: by the gods, you're a sweet sight. Tav, all dark eyebags and hobo feral child swag, still wearing minthara's edgy drow armor, mug bruised, bodily fluids smeared all over it, coughing out more uncontrollably, limping up the hill: PRESS X FOR DOUBT

[mallowstep]

talking about my oc because i want to

so my blood sugar is doing a Thing and while i wait for that to regulate itself, i figured i'd ramble about my boy mallowstep for a while!

mallowstep, i.e. the title of this blog, is my warriors...oc? he's...not quite a self-insert, but he was the oc i made as a child, altho his backstory has been reworked many, many times, including very recently with inclusion of lore from the sisters.

anyway.

i figure if i type out some words i'll be distracted while i wait for the Good Food to sort itself out. (i'm fine btw. i don't talk about Personal Stuff here mostly but rest assured, i'm fine. just a lil shakey until i eat.)

on that note, my spellchecker is off because hands shakey means i do not want to navigate any way but typing.

right. mallowstep. key points:

he's got a white front left leg. i change the side a lot when i draw him but it's supposed to be left, and all of his paws are white.

i don't want to rework him bc i love him but also his whole deal is very much Impossible i was like eight when i thought of all of this

his vision is shit. he's not blind, but uh, somewhere around 20/400 vision. roughly. he can't see shit, is what i'm saying, he can't see shit.

or okay, so he's blind but in the sense of being "legally blind," not what people think of as blind.

this is because cats don't have opthamalogists. eye doctors. he has no glasses.

he's got a younger brother named deerpaw. same mother, different father. their mother is not around, so mallowstep is stepping in somewhat as a parental figure for deerpaw, but not fully.

he's a medicine cat? did i mention that? by choice. he chose this.

he sees the Ghosts. it's a whole thing with his backstory. but he sees the Ghosts.

his best friend is named kestrelwing (altho i'm considering kestrelsong), and her mate is mossytail. they've got three kits: eaglekit, kitekit, and dawnkit. (whose eventual warrior names are eagleclaw, kiteflower, and dawnstorm. i change those a lot rn tho it's just what i'm feeling at the moment.)

they're skyclan cats.

uhh there's a running joke about how mallowstep could have sired kestrelwing's kits and no one would know.

(he did not.)

deerpaw's eventual warrior name is deerleap.

okay, so...uh, idk?

mallow is born to the sisters, probably in a litter but his story Begins when he's left. he's not born with as bad of vision as he ends up with, so he does okay at first. he meets a cat named jag, who he grows close with.

(this is also in my about page, btw.)

jag and mallow are around the same age, and they're...they've got tallstar/jake vibes, is what i'm saying. (i'm not avoiding saying they're gay, here, but that's the vibe. tallstar and jake are gay in a different way to ravenpaw and barley, is what i'm saying.)

right, so anyway. jag is...fuck i forget his backstory, but he ends up meeting a different traveling group of cats. he falls for a she-cat named violet, and when her group gets ready to leave, he follows.

mallow is pissed. mallow basically writes off jag immediately. his vision is getting worse and worse, and he's pretty convinced he's going to end up blind. jag is like, "but i said you could come with us!" and mallow is like "bruh! i can't! for a very clear and obvious reason, i need to stay in an environment i know!"

so they part ways. they never meet again, this is all like, exposition.

mallow is pissed, but he also is kind of convinced jag is going to come back for him. so he stays where he is, because he just...in a way, he needs to believe that jag will be coming back for him.

the ghosts start talkin' to him, being like, "you should move on," and he's like "fuck no," but eventually they persuade him.

in part because it's becoming obvious he can't take care of himself.

(before you @ me, the most self-insert-y part of this is mallow's disabilities, and i'm not really listing what's wrong with him, because part of his story is figuring out his own limitations.)

anyway, he's a trash hunter, and he's got problems, and the ghosts are like! you know! there's some other cats you can live with. go live with them.

and because this takes place in a weird combination of canon and noncanon lore (the ghosts thing always was a part of his backstory, but when i discovered the sisters, i reframed it as that, and so on. basically, his backstory has been tweaked many, many times, so parts of it don't line up with canon and parts do. just keep that in mind.)

right because this takes place in a weird combo of canon and noncanon lore, mallow ends up w/ skyclan but a completely different set of skyclan cats than canon. i think the leader is dovestar? or rosestar? i don't remember, they're not super important.

so mallow shows up, like, hi! i can see ghosts, and passes out. the medicine cat, oakfrost, takes care of him, he meets kestrelpaw, mossypaw, aspenpaw, and birchpaw (i liked tree names okay?), and they're all good friends.

(aspenpaw and kestrelpaw are littermates, mossypaw and birchpaw are adoptive littermates. aspenpaw and birchpaw don't have much relevance in the story, because they don't.)

okay, mallow agrees to train as a medicine cat, he resolves some ghost issues, he's about a year and a half old, and deer shows up and oh i forgot to explain something, mallow leaves trail markers in case jag follows him back. it's four white stones bc mallow can see white p well and he has four white paws.

right, so deer doesn't know this, but he does know where mallow was left, and he actually is young, he runs away from the sisters because they're moving on, and he wants to find his brother. he's like four moons old. in an mostly unexplained manner, deer figures out the trail, and yeah.

this happens maybe like, two weeks after mallow becomes mallowstep. and the clan is kind of like...another one? but they take him in because well they don't really approve of the sisters and at least deer (now deerkit) is not blind.

(they don't say that part but it's on their mind.)

deer btw is adorable he looks kind of like a fawn. he's a dilute chocolate (which is called fawn but i didn't know that when i named him) ticked tabby, and he's got a white underside, and a white tail tip. they both have that, actually, but mallow doesn't care about his.

(mallow is a silver tabby? did i ever say that part. you can get an idea by looking at my icon, but he also has a lot of browm markings that aren't really shown.

woof okay sorry, you guys can't tell but i can i had to remind someone that no, i very much Need to Eat and you cannot unexpectly change dinner times on me.

right. but i am running out of time, so i'll wrap this up.

deer comes, and becomes deerpaw, we have a bit of a timeskip, kestrelwing is in the nursery, etc...

skyclan needs to leave. the villain was never specified, it can be darktail. the important thing is! they send a scouting party. the plan is, crew one will go, and the rest will leave in three moons. that gives crew one enough time to turn around. they leave a trail behind them a la mallowstep (who doesn't go with them, because, blind. oakfrost goes, she dies before the groups reunite, mallowstep is very sad.)

right, deerpaw goes! he leaves, it's all very symbolic, bc this time mallowstep does follow the trail and he does come back to the one he loves. with also a cute scene in between when skyclan is on its way and mossytail, mallowstep, and kestrelwing are each carrying a kit.

alright, and that's pretty much that. lots of me rambling for no reason. there's a lot of other stuff that happens, kestrelwing is a fun character, etc., but that's the main body of it.

<3

[nenastrology]

hi, i love every opinion you have about naruto! which is why i would love to know what your top shōnens and shōjos are because im in need of good recommendations and i trust you (if you can, please, write the names without acronyms because half of the time i don't know what animes or mangas you are talking about afdjdkfn)

ok this got fucking massive cuz i dont know how to shut up so ill just shove this under a readmore cuz im not answering this at 4am when the dash is dead

jksdfjkadfs;l thank u!! i am so sorry i do love to use acronyms um my top shounen are ok lets talk about togashi stuff first cuz they are a duo and i love both dearly hunter x hunter and yu yu hakusho which if u love naruto and havent seen those like u really should lol the inspiration is truly all over it hxh is pretty slow to start if hunter exams bores you never fear it does get better lol and then yyh has a nearly polar opposite start where the first episode just directly slaps you in the face with information and character dark tournament might be a bit weird if u arent into tournament arcs and its very long but i truly adore the yyh characters then of course fullmetal alchemist god i really am obsessed with acronym use i was about to just type fma before realizing wait you just said acronyms confuse you lol im a bit of an annoying manga purist about it and if u have seen the anime but not read the manga i really do think its worth checking out the manga.. obviously i enjoy naruto and u have seen that so lol um ok final super evil recommendation i really do need to stress DONT WATCH ANY OTHER PART OF THIS SHOW ITS MUCH MUCH WORSE.. but jojo part 4 diamond is unbreakable is genuinely a goddamn joy and tho its a bit confusing watching it without the context of a few of the characters and trying to figure out the complicated stand rules and like the first couple episodes are suuuuper slow its very much a self contained experience and almost everything can be answered just by googling character names if ur confused who somebody is lol or genuinely if u do wanna watch it i can just tell u all the relevant context lol im sure im leaving things out here and ill kick myself later or maybe just edit and add some stuff

ok this is getting long onto the shoujo part which i gotta say is a bit more of a loaded question here lol because ive definitely not gotten into as much shoujo as shounen and well the first thing my mind goes to isnt something i necessarily would recommend to people lol ok so top two tho theyre more deconstructions of the genre in well wildly different ways lol revolutionary girl utena and gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun.. utena is like well its just fucking crazy and gay and deals with a lot of serious topics of abuse and trauma that can be kinda hard to watch but is extremely good and if it sounds good you should absolutely watch it tho obviously with warning and then gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun my biggest recommendation to like just put a smile on your face and like improve your day its like a funny riff on shoujo tropes with a fun group of friends who help with their friend who actually writes shoujo manga comedy super fun love it only downside is how short the anime is because i want more!!! ok ok thing i cannot deny loving but also i have a very complicated relationship with is fruits basket like it really does have some fucked up shit in it some unbelievably creepy massive age gap relationships it really does just portray as like fine.... which truly boggles my mind because so much of the rest of the story is about how power can be used to harm and abuse people but clearly that did not sink into miss natsuki takayas brain now did it... like genuinely some of the character arcs about healing from all sorts of terrible things and the importance of relationships and god tohru and kyos whole love story really is so good like its a very unfortunate mixture of terrible shit and really really wonderful things i havent really been able to match in anything else so its like massive warning and disclaimer lol and if u watch the anime well... let me tell u theres a big storm coming and season 3 really is just gonna pack all the worst parts in there i also truly dont know how it would play to someone who didnt just get permanently brain damaged by fruits basket at age 12 dfjkfa;jls im sorry this is such a small list i really do need to like read/watch more shoujo nana and rose of versailles i will watch u eventually......

i realize i mostly listed extremely well known stuff so im not sure how helpful this will be but since u said u dont recognize most of my acronyms i will assume theres some stuff u havent seen here and i may update with more if i think of stuff i am pretty sleep deprived lol also if u do get into fruits basket im personally sorry

[ivcsisms]

        - ̗̀ NOW INTRODUCING:  IVES ❝ IVY ❞ SERRANO !

new york’s very own ives serrano was spotted on broadway street , with a striking semblance to danna paola ! you may know her as @poisonivy or hitting the front page of tmz as social media star joins top 1% of only fans earners after just one day on the platform. according to tmz , she just had your twenty-fourth birthday bash . while living in nyc , you’ve been labeled as being manipulative , but also alluring . things that would paint a better picture of you would be strawberry champagne, rose petal blunts, and red glossy lips paired with gold jewelry . ( cis female + she/her  ) 

    ♡ — ›   𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲 / 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬    &   𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬    &   𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬    &    𝐚𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜 

hi cuties !! i missed u guys sm !! i was around before the revamp so some of u already know me / ivy but to those that don’t hello i’m tay !! i can’t wait to meet y’all n ur muses soo i’m jus gonna get into it and give this a like if u want me to come bug u for plots !! or if u wanna hmu on discord u can find me at tay#6638. if u want a very long-winded, overly detailed account of everything in her life u can read the bio / stats page i linked above but if u don’t want to read all that shit here’s the basics: 

okie so the first thing u need to know abt ivy is that she is literally always lying like.. her name isn’t even rly ives ! it’s her middle name but still. she started using it when she was a stripper ( which she started doing like on her eighteenth birthday ) and her stage name was poison ivy, and then she created her online persona using the stage name and everyone just knew her as ivy so she went with it

she wanted to hide her real identity at first for like safety reasons but then as she became more and more popular she kept lying to hide her shady ass past bc she’s definitely been arrested a few times for like possession and petty theft/shoplifting type shit and also she doesn’t want anyone to know that she grew up poor, and that all of her money doesn’t come from a trust fund like she says it does

and that’s because most of her money comes from scamming and blackmailing rich men ! also from being a sugar baby but generally most of her money comes from being manipulative and using her looks for evil. she always jokes that her job is literally jus being pretty !

she got most of her ‘fame’ from instagram and other social media, and she’s done a little bit of modeling but more than anything it’s just like being the face of a campaign or a brand ambassador or smth bc she’s too short for the runway so u know like mostly print stuff. 

but most recently she’s been in the news for blowing up on only fans which honestly is the platform she’s probably most excited about being popular on bc u know.. money. she started the account like... mostly as a joke just like ha ha what if i had an of and she posted some pretty tame like lingerie pics and made a bunch of money super quick and just decided This Is What I Do Now bc she was a stripper for a while so it’s not like it’s anything that new to her

definitely spends too much time on tik tok !! social media in general tho too, she’s like always on her phone and is one of those people that can’t just hang out without posting selfies/videos on every social media site and then not-so-secretly obsessing over the engagement on it 

since her fame doesn’t really come from like ... talent ( i might make her a singer again later but for now she’s just Pretty ) she’s always doing crazy shit to keep her name in the press, whether it’s feeding into dating rumors or starting public fights with people, she’s always just trying to stay relevant and get attention ( plus the insta engagements lead to more sponsorships and brand deals sooo... all press is good press to her ) 

she is so selfish, and will always put herself first in any situation. she literally will throw u under the bus or take advantage of u without even thinking twice ok she’s so used to being manipulative and self-centered that she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it sometimes 

that being said she’s super charming and tries to keep a bit of a balance with her reputation, like people expect her to be pretty erratic and unpredictable, but she tries to at least seem nice most of the time so that she isn’t just like... universally hated. she’d much rather be hated by a small group of people that have a reason to hate her but have a mostly ok public reputation, ya know ?? 

and some people definitely have good reasons to hate her bc she takes advantage of / steals from her rich friends a lot ( not her good good friends but like acquaintances ) 

if you actually manage to get through her walls tho she is a super loyal friend and will literally do anything for u, it just takes a lot to get there like she doesn’t open up to a lot of people and is super super selective of who gets to see her be vulnerable and express her true emotions. like how she’s really feeling bc she can fake cry on command so she can be tricky and make u think she cares when she rly just wants something 

she’s also a huge partier and much more pleasant when she’s drunk or on drugs, except for the times when she gets too drunk and will pick a fight with anyone who is unfortunate enough to cross her path. 

she’s very toxic in relationships and therefore never seems to stay in them long, but also dating people / making people think she might be dating someone more famous than her is one of her favorite techniques for getting attention, so she tends to jump around a lot and have those awful on again / off again type relationships 

she’s also bi so her ass is rated e for everybody 

a lot of times she pretends to be dumber than she really is so people don’t suspect her of being the manipulative mastermind that she is, and also she’s so good at lying that sometimes even she believes her own bullshit. she also purposefully keeps an air of mystery about her, especially when it comes her her childhood/background type stuff, she’s just really vague and will usually change the subject when it comes up 

she wakes up every day and chooses chaos, that’s the gist of it really !

connections 

so i have this connections page from before and i’m still fixing / updating it BUT it has a lot of rly good ideas on there but here are just some like general ideas i would love !!

pr relationship / flirtationship / fake enemies ( like they pretend to hate each other or fight on social media for the attention ) 

exes on bad terms ( ig they could be on good terms too but i like drama ok ) 

someone she stole from 

someone that hates her for some other shady shit she did

party friends !!

mom friends that will make her Chill tf out 

bad influence friends ( either they bring out the worst in her or she brings out the worst in them / peer pressures them to do things ) 

on again / off again exes !! 

fwb / casual hookups 

friends to lovers or even better is enemies to lovers,, pls 

nd of course just like general friendships !! fake bitches need friends too !!