#to be clear this is not a vague at any one specific person btw this is a regular occurrence.

[mamawasatesttube]

every time someone suggests kon (or any super frankly but they do it the most to kon) would ever be afraid of any of the bats, an angel loses its wings. violently

[rempyz]

small brain: ren is the husband and stimpy is the wife

average brain: theyre both husbands

huge brain: they take turns being husband and wife or sometimes theyre both husbands or wives or both individually husband and wife at the same time or simply neither and just are spouses

galaxy brain: gender roles do not apply to them they are beyond any shred of a comprehensible gender identity they just do as they please without any labels they simply just are ren and stimpy

[bunnis-monsters]

Discord Drama below the cut. This is kind of me just making it clear that I want to be left alone.

Y’all understand y’all can leave my discord without making a statement that shows you have no idea what you’re talking about?

People can solve their OWN issues out in DMs, but when they’ve made people uncomfortable more than once, that becomes another issue. That’s when people get banned.

I do not want to talk about this anymore, I’ve blocked everyone that could be involved besides the ones I can’t find in intros.

Not going to mention who I’m talking about because it really doesn’t matter. The individuals don’t matter, I don’t think they’re bad people but they were banned because I GOT SEVERAL COMPLAINTS! Some from my own mods who didn’t feel comfortable after a certain incident occurred.

Here’s me talking about this to one of the people. I even SPECIFICALLY said that their partner/friend was not welcome back. The person DID come back and I banned both of them afterwards.

Sharing these screenshots to show I explicitly told them why the other person was banned and that they WEREN’T welcome back regardless.

Yeah they can apologize to each other and that’s good, but that doesn’t erase the discomfort they caused by doing that shit IN MY SERVER!

I hope everyone involved does well but leaves me alone. Before I got that message in vent I didn’t mind y’all still following or messaging me, but now I’m uncomfortable. Please, leave me alone. I do not want anything to do with any of you. I don’t hate you, but I’m also deeply uncomfortable with this situation.

The 10th rule btw

Anyways anons are off because this part of the vent message feels vaguely threatening. Idk if that’s intentional but it genuinely freaks me out(this message is cropped to remove any names, they basically just talk about the situation.)

But yeah I’ll be taking the server link down for a while. If you didn’t mean anything threatening then sorry but getting this message at 3 am is quite scary considering the harassment I’ve faced before for banning people. I just want to be left alone. I don’t deserve to feel afraid for banning people from a discord server.

Please think before you send messages like this, and leave me alone. I do not like having to make posts like these because I don’t hate any of you! I genuinely would have just moved on with my life if you wouldn’t have sent this message! You could have left the server without making me feel afraid, intentionally or not.

I’m also not here to go “WAHHH they’re threatening little ole me!”. I’m just pointing out that message was unnecessary and can be easily misinterpreted as threatening, and because you decided to send that message I have to lock down my discord as a precaution. I would rather be safe than sorry, and I would prefer to think that people in my community would not try to hurt me because I banned them, but it’s already happened before. 🤷‍♀️

I understand not always agreeing with the way I handle things, but I do it for my own safety and peace of mind. You don’t have to like it, but in a world where I receive nasty asks, comments, threatening dms, and all kinds of harassment just for existing, this keeps me safe.

With all that said, I genuinely wish y’all the best. Just because you were banned from my discord doesn’t mean I hate your guts. It’s a discord server, with rules and people that sometimes don’t get along with each other. It happens.

Sometimes we find each other annoying or get uncomfortable with the way that others act and that’s fine, because people are different. Each server, community, etc is different and have different rules, jokes, and ways of talking that sometimes go over other’s heads.

But finding someone annoying or not meshing with them doesn’t mean you dislike them as a person. Just because you break some rules in a server and get banned doesn’t mean I all of a sudden hate you. It just means you got banned.

What makes it bad is when you keep coming back and bringing it up after I already expressed that I was uncomfortable. That’s what makes me not want to continue interacting with you and what leads to me blocking people.

I don’t want to interact with any of you any further, leave me be. I’ll take any further interaction as harassment.

You don’t need to apologize, I am not angry, I am just tired. I have expressed a boundary and we are all adults. Leave me be and I’ll leave you be.

I’m going back to sleep. I’m sick, cramping, and exhausted. Send me some nice asks if you’d like, I’d appreciate it

[agent-troi]

great points on Diana. I can't quite figure out what I think about her narrative yet. I didn't like when she first appeared because she came across and part of a suspicious character, and her appeal was very unappealing. When Gibson is ready to disclose who Mulder is thinking about, oh boy does she want to know to stop up the pot. She's aggressive but in a frozen manner. What I mean by that is her facial expressions seem frozen, her voice is almost stilted, and her eyes lack the dance that we see in Scully' and Mulder's. I also don't know what to think about her because she didn't get a real conclusion. We are told that she is killed, but was she? Maybe she is just reassigned to do something else. I wanted to see the closure or some actual redemption of her alliance with CSM.

With that being said, when do you think Mulder figured out that Diana was lying to him and couldn't be trusted? Was it the night that he went to her apartment or when he was in his mind-reading, psychosis state? AND, do you think that during the Diana period, after work or on the weekends, Mulder and Diana had some flings or some sort of relationship?

Did Mulder choose Scully or did he get Scully by default because Diana was removed from the equation?

diana was soooo underutilized. i had vaguely heard of her before i reached her part of the story and i was expecting this big, huge, MSR-shattering deal, and then she was hardly ever on screen. i get that the actress wasn't available very often, but then don't try to make a love triangle if she's only going to be in five episodes and the rest of the time it's like she doesn't even exist.

frozen is a perfect word to describe her. she's just so insincere so much of the time. everything is a performance, tailored specifically to get mulder on her side. she's basically a more subtle version of phoebe imo; manipulative, but in a way that can slide under the radar if you're not looking for it (which mulder isn't; he wants to believe she wants the best for him).

i'm so annoyed that she was killed off-screen lmao. this show brought back jeffrey spender after we saw him get shot, brought back csm after he was literally blown up in a fiery explosion, but we don't even see diana die and she never comes back?? i'm suspicious...

(btw if you're looking for fics where she wasn't actually killed in amor fati, Gaslight by @sisterspooky1013 and Pause by @cecilysass are two of the best imo, and if you're looking for a redemption story/something that actually fleshes out her character a bit more, I recommend The Whole Truth by @admiralty-xfd and The Only Answer by me lmao)

as for when mulder finally figured out he couldn't trust her, he absolutely knew it when she went to see him in the hospital and he could read her mind. there's no way he doesn't know at that point. when he went to her apartment, he was at the very least open to the possibility that she had betrayed him. he wouldn't have gone in the first place if he really thought there couldn't be anything to it. but then csm shows up and somehow that doesn't raise a big red flag so i don't think he really got it then. it's not clear at the end of one son if mulder and the others believe that diana was among those killed at the air force base, and since she never appears or is mentioned between one son and biogenesis, we don't know at what point mulder finds out she somehow survived. depending on the circumstances of his finding out, it might have raised suspicions in his mind, which were then confirmed by the mind-reading.

my answer to the question of whether mulder and diana had any flings during this period is abso-fucking-lutely not, and not just because i personally can't stand the idea. the only time i can really see it happening is when she first shows up in the season 5 finale, but there's just no time for anything like that to happen during that episode. beyond that point, mulder starts off season 6 annoyed at diana for taking over the x-files behind his back, but then scully pulls the rug out from under him at the opr hearing after he pretty much made a fool of himself declaring confidently that she was about to prove the virus was alien, so he takes diana's side in that episode out of sheer petulance. after that he's too busy chasing "vicious, long-clawed spacelings" to be bothered to have any flings, but then at the end of the episode, scully finally comes through with evidence of alien dna in the human genome. it's too late to take back the way he embarrassed himself at the opr hearing, but it begins to put them back on the same page. and then during the period when they're off the x-files, mulder's digging through the trash in their old office to find x-files for him and scully to investigate instead of just asking diana to sneak some files out of the office for him, which i can't imagine him not doing if they're having any kind of relationship. also he’s clearly never been to diana’s apartment before one son.

this whole season is about mulder and scully dancing around the idea of being together, which is something mulder wants but is afraid to express directly, not knowing that's precisely what scully needs to hear. i just can't see him choosing to be with diana except maybe for when he's still disoriented by her sudden reappearance, and there wasn't room in the timeline of the episode for that to happen.

@randomfoggytiger broke down the progression of mulder and scully's relationship during season 6 very well, and i have nothing to add except that yes, mulder chose scully, this whole season is about mulder choosing scully, learning to appreciate her and to express that appreciation the way she wants him to. diana really is irrelevant in the end.

[solsticewytch]

Okay, I had a crackpot idea, not even a theory (it is by the end of this post btw) just an idea, that I need to put out in the ether.

So, I recently came across a post from @vertigala who theorized that RedCanary might be the new host for Protocolverse!Jonah Magnus. And I thought, if they were to ever show up in person it sure would be fun horrible if RedCanary was someone we know from TMA. So... I'm trying to work out who would make more sense be absolutely gut-wrenching when it hits me. What if, just IF, because the likelihood of this is, like, zero, I'm sure, but JUST WHAT IF... RedCanary is Protocolverse!Jonathan Sims?

I mean just think about the potential in that. The moment we first hear this universe's Jon talking in TMAGP, sounding "awfully happy" or something, bringing a fleeting sense of joy, knowing that at least in one universe he's not so devastatingly miserable, but it slowly dawns on us, and on Jon if he's the one/one of who's listening, that it's not him, that that bastard wins again, that utter, truly next-level defeat, that heartache! And then for however long Jonah would be an active threat in TMAGP we'd have to hear him through Jon's own voice, see him in his body, all the while TMA!Jon, trapped in the 'puters (with TMA!Jonah nonetheless), using the last remnants of his own agency, all of his remaining consciousness, is actively trying to stop him (and/or this world's horrors), as the only people being vaguely aware of him are a paranoid IT guy who is actively conspiring againts him and a woman from his own world who has every reason not just to never trust Jon but also (imo) wanting to work againts him given the chance.

On top of all of this there's the several layers deep irony to all of it. Jon being the one who reads out that case, either out of his own choice or being forced to do so, the implication of him specifically chosing this case to deter Sam from or leading him directly towards the Magnus Institue, or someone else using Jon for that. Then there's the idea of this universe's Jon willingly seeking out spooky abandoned locations for fun and then meeting a gory demise from exploring the burned down ruins of the Magnus Institute, becoming a mistery known only to the mostly oblivious staff of an organization that specifically looks for these eldritch monsters to recruit, reducing his experience to little more than random numbers in a database that nobody uses anymore.

Even though RedCanary doesn't particularly strike me as a likely candidate for Protocolverse!Jon based on the wording of their comments alone, plus they also suggest they're from Manchester and their dad is still alive, I still think it would make some weird, karmic sense for them to be this universe's Jon. By not growing up in Bournemouth or, more importantly, not being raised by his grandmother, who'd carelessly buy any random cheap book on clearance for him to read, he could have avoided making any significant connection to the supernatural in childhood and therefore avoiding geting on the radar of the Magnus Institute prior to their destruction in '99, despite now being much closer to it. This being Jon, I think he would still have that Eye-aligned thirst for knowledge, secrets, uncaring for the dangers he'd be exposed to while looking for them, so with the Institute gone he finds another way to satiate that thirst and developes a liking for exploring abadoned places. Which then leads him back to the Magnus Institute, striking his interest, publically at least, with it being "cleared", "explored to death", holding no more secrets, yet not having any pictures to show it, not having any concrete information on it. So he goes to explore, not being deterred by the state of the building, being careless, expects piles of papers, the renmants of the knowledge that place once held, having the sense of doors shutting behind him, seeing grafiti on the wall and wanting to know more about it, trying to document all of it and failing to do so due to photographic distortions, having to resort to older technology, taking something they're weren't supposed to, not just in a supernatural sense, but the place they're discussing all of this is also against it, the rising paranoia that leads to the brutal mutalation of their eyes, the sight of which makes the forum freak out and remove the only photo that found its way to the internet, the only real evidence of what happened to them. All of it is there, narratively speaking, for the audience of TMA entering this new world, this new story, serving as a red thread from one world to another, basically summarising the entirity of TMA without spoilers. But how thematically fitting it would be that after being welcomed in this new world by the remnants of Martin, who's pained sob was the last thing the tapes supposedly recorded before entering the Protocolverse, telling us a tale reminisent of his own feelings and his, Jon's and Jonah's state of being at the moment ("Some of him") the person who then basically introduces us not just to this world's Magnus Institute and the danger it still holds but also theslightly changed rules of the Fears, warning us not to / beckoning us to investigate further, to be this world's Jon, appearing only through a thematically fitting username in a tale told to us by the remnants of the original world's Jon. Once used by Jonah to be the vessel through which all the fears entered the world, now possessed entirely by Jonah, allowing him to enter the world even after being defeated and do as he pleases.

(...Okay, I know it all started as a sleep deprived mind's musing on a bittersweet scene that was likely never to happen but I'm lowkey totally sold on this idea now.)

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

@intertexts I AM going to take you up on this and it WILL be everyone else's problem . this is going to be so long and disjointed and stream of consciousness and not at all organized. my enrichment for work today

GOD where do i even fucking start. im literally thinking about him constantly dude. i hate it here. i love when a character is allowed to be a bad person and also still like. care. he cares so much. he cares so much it fucking HURTS but also he sucks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and this is a good thing. i never want him to get better however i do want him to give his son a hug just once.

uhhhhhhhhhhh ok ok ok. lizard biology is a good place to start i love fucked up fantasy biology. keep in mind while i do like to talk about science and things i do also love to suspend my disbelief when it conveniences me. yes i know this would not work irl thats why i like it. anyway. hey why the fuck did they make him do that. i know overlords whole deal was fucking with dna but how insane is it that hes like. "oh you want to work for me? awesome. get experimented on idiot." awesome way to keep your employees from quitting: subject them to genetic torture. do you think he fought it. of course he fucking did hes mark winters he would not agree to that shit.

how disorienting do you think it was to wake up and suddenly have a whole extra sense. not just that but also a whole extra LIMB. what the fuck do you do. do u think it was sudden or gradual. i cant decide which is worse tbh. i guess this is a good excuse to talk about what exactly i think his lizard mutations look like.

he obviously has the scales. theyre on mostly the left half of his body, i think his right side is generally pretty untouched by any sort of mutation. the ones on his face are pretty much localized around his eye, (which i think looks like a tokay gecko btw. theyre yellow and have cool shaped pupils) but probably also extend down his cheek and maybe even down onto his neck a little. i think theyre probably scattered on his back and chest, hes got a bunch of distinct big patches rather than like a smooth transition from skin to scales. i think his left hand is completely covered with scales and his nails are more like claws on that side. he probably files them down a little (or like. just scratches them on concrete and metal and shit until theyre filed down. not healthy behavior). i like to imagine he has a tail too but its kind of short and stubby and not very. useful for anything except fucking up his balance and being generally Uncomfortable. OH also once every couple months the scales get SUPER uncomfortable and itchy and they shed. also when this happens he goes blind in the lizard eye and the first time that happened i think he was scared as FUCK that it was gonna be permanent

NOW IM GONNA START TALKING ABOUT. PIT ORGANS AND THIS MIGHT GET LONG AND TECHNICAL SO ILL TRY TO KEEP IT. SOMEWHAT SHORT. so. he can see william when hes invisible. and that has been CONFIRMED a lizard mutation thing and not just a result of one of his powers (which is still insane to me). and the ONLY WAY i can think of justifying that is by thermoreception or. heat sense. like infrared sensing. which is a thing that certain species of snakes can do!! specifically boas and vipers have these things called pit organs which are little holes usually around their nose with a membrane that is extremely sensitive to temperature changes and allows them to basically see in infrared. its not exactly SEEING and more like sensing which i think in a human would be so EXTREMELY disorienting. i havent figured out what exactly that would look like from a mark first person pov but the way i vaguely imagine it is if you overlayed an infrared camera over a normal camera and turned the opacity down to like 30% (<< clear enough that he can still see normally but still bright enough to be WEIRD). i think hes got sorta like what pythons have where they have multiple smaller pits rather than a single large one like a viper, and theyre right underneath the lizard eye so that when he has that eye covered with bandages it sort of dulls down the thermoreception. UGH.

ok enough about lizard powers i want to put you in the winters family torment nexus. actually ill talk about his powers a little bit first. so i am a little unclear as to what his powers actually ARE mechanically but based on the vague descriptions of things he can do i think it has to do with manipulating electricity and other types of energy (hence. wavelength.) i dont think its solely based on LIGHT but rather on likeeee. energy. i dont actually know a whole lot about electricity i havent taken a physics class since high school. ANYWAY. i think he was born with them and naturally theyre sort of weak and he cant do much with them which is why he uses the suits. (inserting my vague bit of worm knowledge i would put him under the Tinker class bc he makes a lot of his own tech hehe). his powers naturally without the suits manifest as like. a constant low buzzing in the background kind of like if youve ever. touched a crt monitor. sort of fuzzy and staticky. and maybe he can use them to like. run extra power through a wire or make a lightbulb glow a little brighter or power a battery. nothing really major useful for fighting but could be used in everyday activities! bizly mentioned once that he powers his suits like a battery and they amplify his powers and i have not let go of that ever since. do u ever think about how he has . holes in his back that his suits stab into. i think about that a lot. do you think he did that to himself. anyway.

NOW its winters family torment nexus time. before ashe's mom died. i think they were happy :( i dont think mark was always as shitty as he is now. i think he used to be just like. a normal dad. a little gruff and emotionally repressed because thats just. who he is. but very obviously loved his family and. idk. would take ashe fishing when he was little or something. weekend trip to the lake. he has a fucking cabin in the woods dude! i like to think heeee had a job as an electrician because it made his powers really convenient. (side note here i just really really like the worldbuilding of people casually having powers and using them to make their lives easier. i just really like that a lot and have a lot of thoughts about it.) I thiiiiiink ashe's mom worked in a library or a museum or something. something with a lot of books. maybe a museum. i think mark would take ashe with him in the mornings and drop him off at school before he went to work. i think ashe would put stickers on his dashboard when he got old enough to sit in the front seat (there are still. old faded stickers on the underside of his glove box and the old leftover residue of long term stickers dried out by the sun on the dash. the kind of shit that gets grey and kind of gross but is impossible to remove).

ashe's mom died when he was ... like 8 or 9. and i think for a really REALLY long time mark was just fucking terrified. i mean how the fuck do you recover from something like that. how do you look your kid in the eyes when you saw him do. that. i specifically wrote out part of this scene in my fic so at risk of sounding like a broken record i wont talk about it TOO much but. i think mark was at work when it happened. he got home from work and the house was way too quiet and then he found ashe still half-possessed in his room with a dead body. and his immediate first thought was that someone had broken in or something so his first instinct is to get ashe out of there but when he goes to pick him up from the floor he sees. trickster. or at least like. partial trickster. and he doesnt know what to do and theres that fucking book on the floor and his 8 yr old son is holding his mothers heart in his hands like its just a piece of meat and . whuh oh. hes just like. a regular guy. what the fuck is he supposed to do here! he considers just. running. leaving. getting back in his car and driving away and never coming back. and then he realizes thats fucking stupid and this is his child and he needs to do *something*

ashe is able to fight off full possession on his own (iiiiiii have a theory about ashes powers and what they are but i cant talk about that in detail until later) and i havent worked out the details of how i think the IMMEDIATE aftermath goes but. mark covers for him. gets rid of any sort of evidence that could POSSIBLY point to ashe being the one that killed her and sticks to the story that it was a freak villain attack instead. closed casket funeral. he tries to get rid of the book so many times and every time it reappears on ashe's bedside table the next morning. i think there was like. an IMMEDIATE rift between them. ashe is. old enough to understand what happened and since the possession was only partial i do think he remembers it. but hes not old enough to really understand why. why everything is so different now, how to process grief, why his dad is treating him so different now etc. probably goes. very nonverbal for a while. mark is a fucking wreck with grief and fear and anger and confusion and he stops going to work. they gave him a bit of a grace period due to the circumstances but eventually he got fired and couldnt get a new job and he thought about just taking ashe and moving out of that house out of that neighborhood maybe out of the city. but everything was too expensive and now he's got a 12 yr old who needs to eat and keeps growing out of his clothes and hasnt been to school in a year and a half and !!!!!!

so he starts. villain work. i dont think he really means to at first he might just. shut down a security camera here and there and make the lights flicker in a gas station and if there are a few extra snacks in his pockets whos to say. maybe he eventually tries to do hired gun work for some bigger villains and then moves to solo jobs and then gets picked up by overlord. (personally i think the overlord job was still somewhat new at the beginning of pd. maybe only like. a couple months to a year max)

ANYWAY he listens to vanessa carlton and thats just canon but i also think he likes shitty scifi movies and goes fishing for fun and finds being out in the woods relaxing (again. cabin) . and he does all the dad things in the car that we've talked about a bunch. and hes so so so paranoid and afraid all the time but he expresses that through anger but it comes from a place of love bc he loves ashe so much and doesnt want anything to hurt him ever and he just wants to keep him safe. head in hands. his methods are not good but also its all he knows how to do and i think he desperately just wants ashe to be happy and he wants to see him smile (even though it fucking hurts because he has his moms smile and her laugh and he looks so much like her when hes happy) and . take him on a weekend trip to the lake again. i think there was a moment halfway through season 1 where he saw how happy ashe was with pd and thought "maybe this is good maybe i can let him be a normal kid for a while" and then william dies and ashe gets shot and overlord has a hit on their heads and he doubles down because thats the kind of shit that happens if he lowers his guard for even a second!!!!!!!!!!! ughhhhhhhhh im insane.

um. also when he was just starting out villain work tide was still doing like active hero work and not a mentor yet and they were like rivals. smile. ("ive fought tide dozens of times and hes never spoken to me like that" << never going to forget this btw). i think tide was the one to tell him what happened at the end of season 1 . because. again. he was UNCONSCIOUS FOR THAT WHOLE THING. i think tide went to visit him in prison before he got depowered and told him everything.

[sleepingdeath-light]

relationship hcs ; royal margarine cookie

requested by ; anonymous (20/05/23), anonymous (09/06/23), anonymous (14/07/23), anonymous (03/08/23) & anonymous (16/08/23)

fandom(s) ; cookie run

fandom masterlist(s) ; hub | specific

character(s) ; royal margarine cookie

outline ; “Heyo May we get some Royal Margarine Cookie relationship hc’s no pressure if you want to skip this!!”

&

“May I ask for royal margarine relationship hcs? I just adore him! I love how smooth and charming he is and, spoilers, when he cried and called himself a sham...I loved that pathetic and cowardly side to him too and how he still has a good heart like when he saved that child! I love all the sides of him so much! I just wanna cuddle him! Lol! Btw I loved your relationship hcs with moonlight. They were so adorable and wholesome!”

&

“Hi! May I have some general relationship hcs for royal margerine? I just adore that man! I love both sides of him: the confident and cocky side, and the pathetic side....both of them just make me wanna cuddle right up to him lol!”

&

“Hello! I’d love to request some Royal Margarine relationship hcs please!”

&

“May I ask for some royal margarine cookie dating hcs? I'm just in love with him!”

warning(s) ; none, just fluff!

royal margarine cookie is big on public displays of affection and will go as far as you’ll allow him to: cheek kisses, hand kisses, side hugs, arm around your waist, massaging your sides, caressing your thighs, having you sit on his lap, making out in public, groping, etc. — he just likes showing you off really

he makes every effort to impress you, exaggerating his accomplishments and accolades and spinning the most interesting tales that he can muster ��� always searching for a new way to get you to be in awe of him and be interested and invested in him (even if you’ve been together for a while)

he never stops wooing and dating you, never giving you any room to doubt his intentions and attraction to you, whether that’s through smothering you in compliments and affection, taking you on dates whenever he can, bragging about you to anyone who will listen, or performing grand stunts with his butter wyvern and dedicating them to you

for as much bravado and dominance as he tries to exude in public, your private life is a very different story and he lives for your affection and attention — exaggerating his stress and aches and pains and sighing dramatically until you welcome him into your arms, at which point he basically throws himself onto your lap and basks in your touch (bonus points if you start to stroke his hair because he might just fall asleep!)

as far as pet names go, he tends to lean one of two ways depending on his mood: overly sappy traditional things (think: ‘darling’, ‘sweetheart’, and ‘my love’) when he’s in public, and drawn out shorter, or on occasion more dramatic, pet names (think: ‘baby’, ‘babe’, ‘love of my life’) when he’s begging for your attention and usually said in a whiney voice

he’s endlessly flirty with you, leaning in close and whispering in your ear or calling out to you across a table or the town square, and he loves it when you get flustered — he might even throw in a wink and a cheeky pinch if he’s feeling risky

cuddling usually consists of him laying on your chest with his arms wrapped around your sides, holding you close and murmuring vaguely relevant responses to whatever you’re talking about whilst you run your hands through his hair (you’re the only other person allowed to touch/mess with it)

he’s quick to get jealous and will confront the other party very explicitly (mocking them primarily) before smothering you with affection to make it clear that you’re taken — but the moment the two of you are alone, he gets incredibly clingy and pouty and huffy (practically hanging off of you whilst repeatedly asking if you still love him)

he’s the furthest thing from a morning person and he hates getting up early, even resisting when he has to because of some obligation or another — he’ll cling to you and beg for ‘five more minutes’ whilst nuzzling his face in your neck (which usually makes you giggle because of his facial hair) before muttering a string of cusses and complaints when you eventually manage to convince him to get up (he’s very clingy but he’s not going to be especially coherent until he’s had his morning coffee so it’s best not to try and have any proper conversation until then)

he loves seeing you wear his clothes and he’ll oftentimes intentionally leave some shirts and vests out for you to ‘steal’, hoping to catch you in them at some point — and if you decide to wear his clothes as nightwear then he’ll get extremely affectionate and will comment on it very explicitly

if you have a set beauty/self care routine (hair and/or skin) then he’s going to memorise it off by heart so that he can help you however he can — and if you let him help then he’s going to be incredibly gentle, incredibly thorough and very complimentary as he repeats each step exactly

[atoriv-art]

little asks compilation as to not spam ♥

thank you!! ♥

crying this is vaguely related but did you guys know neji appears in a time travel episode(/arc?) in the boruto anime. does it surprise you to hear that it makes me extremely mad

but also so true LMFAO i'm usually the type to give things a chance (or so i'd like to believe) but not much of boruto interests me 😔 some of the kids look cute and i like.... like..... a few of the timeskip designs (...like three of them? i like suigetsu karin and tenten's.) but it's not worth it and in fact i think having to see neji and hiashi alive in the same UwU Family space would have had me banging my head against a wall.

also what if they made him ugly. that's my perfect angel boy they can't do that.

HEHE ofc!!! part of the reason i love posting fanart is that i get to spread propaganda for the things i like LMFAO

and i'm glad people enjoy the funny sharky ears they're my favorite <3

ASDMKASD eu acho que esse é o maior contato com outros brasileiros que já tive quando posto arte e afins, é bem interessante

eu consigo imaginar o tipo de coisa da qual vc reclama, eu acho bem chato tbm GFKMGFM

fave i respect the movement though i'm more of a short king gaara truther myself bc i think it's cute. sasuke still the tallest of the boys tho

thank you!! and hehee this ended up being more me ranting about their general writing but :)

i'm veeeery fond of their og naruto dynamic, i think it often goes misunderstood/understated but to me it's one of the highlights to the original series! from stuff like kakashi shielding him from orochimaru and sealing his curse mark (which. btw. crazy. LOVE that scene) to the ENTIRE deal with chidori and the pride kakashi felt watching sasuke fight gaara with it... i think it's SURPRISINGLY well done! while i due to personal preference like to read it as specifically familial, i think you can read it anyway you want (not all mentor-type dynamics need to be familial in nature and not being so won't make it any less meaningful)

i don't think kakashi was a particularly great teacher (in fact i think tenzo is shown to be a MUCH better captain/mentor the moment he's introduced to team 7 lol) but you can certainly tell that he cares about all of the kids and wants to do right by them, it's just that with sasuke specifically to me it feels like it's of highly personal significance to him?

and it's not hard to see why, obviously kakashi and sasuke do not have the same trauma but i find it reductive to say that it means kakashi can't see himself in him at all, or that he can't be of any use to sasuke? one of my favorite scenes is the (... i think mildly controversial, from what i've seen?) one where he talks to sasuke on that tree and tells him to drop his revenge quest, because while yeah it was not a perfect effort, to me it's clear that 1. kakashi was being very genuine in his words and 2. that it like... almost worked? sasuke was very sincerely pondering his words before the sound 4 came along.

btw so funny that both kakashi and obito tie him up when talking to him. anyway

so you add that with the weird relationship kakashi has with the entire uchiha clan, starting with obito (the very reason kakashi is able to teach sasuke in any meaningful way at all), going through itachi if you treat team ro as canon WHICH I DO, I LOVE TEAM RO, and ending with sasuke, who is someone kakashi can still try to give a normal life to? yeah i can see why he might feel personally responsible for him!

sasuke's side is less in your face but like... sasuke sought kakashi out to help train him and very much echoes kakashi's words about not abandoning your comrades. he is also often the first one to understand where kakashi is going with something, him and kakashi have similar ways of going through life even if kakashi has majorly mellowed out with age.

there's also little things like how sasuke just had no qualms about walking into kakashi's house unannounced (after itachi beat his ass ty itachi looove u itachi), even before that, how when kakashi calls sasuke over while itachi+kisame are having tea, sasuke just kind of announces that he HATES sweets (so cute), as if he made the assumption kakashi either bought it for him or was thinking about it? like.

look at his baby face.

despite whatever route it ended up taking To Me it's very clear that they did have a special bond and that it was a VERY important part of sasuke's everything pre-shippuden, he was clearly comfortable around kakashi despite his standoffish attitude. it was not perfect and kakashi does hold blame for a lot of things (in general he has a very hands-off teaching style that doesn't work great with these kids), but that's like. part of why i like it you know! it's a little complicated but not through any ill will. it's just that they are both full of Issues lmao

it makes me ssoooooo saaaaad that they BARELY speak to each other at all in shippuden because like. that was one of THE dynamics in the original team 7 you know? and idk if it comes as a surprise but i'm not even OPPOSED to sasuke wanting to kill kakashi by the time they meet again? in fact i think it could be kind of awesome. because like he could have a lot of reasons to be angry with him, up to and including the mere fact that kakashi took SO LONG to even meet him again?

(remember when team 7 finally meets sasuke again w/ tenzo and sai, and he himself mentions kakashi? it's one of those things you can choose to dismiss as meaningless dialogue but i often do think about it lol)

but instead we have sasuke in the peak of his borderline-demonization by the writing, which just leads to there not being much of an interesting dialogue at all. i'm not opposed to kakashi's sharingan being something that sasuke comes to resent either — it could be very fun character writing as that is the very thing that encouraged them to bond in the first place —, but i don't like the way it was done and i ESPECIALLY hate how it was immediately dropped like BROTHER MY PLOT THREADS... THEY'RE FALLING APART...

i could go on about a thousand different other things, such as.

sorry to mention jiraiya but. the rasengan vs chidori thing is VERY telling; jiraiya is naruto's mentor, and kakashi is sasuke's, this is reflected best when the kids each use their respective Overkill Jutsu at each other and the adults each take responsibility for their own kid

again, i'm unsure if it's fully intentional but there is this opposition of orochimaru vs kakashi other than the obvious confrontational scene they have. the very fact that kakashi is the one to put a limit to orochimaru's literal influence on sasuke through the curse mark is a very interesting narrative choice! kakashi is also extremely afraid of orochimaru and highly protective of sasuke; again it reads as a Personal fear/protectiveness rather than purely Professional to me. it builds this idea of kakashi being one of sasuke's choices, and orochimaru being the other (and we know which one he chooses unfortunately lol)

chidori in general is like. crazy btw. it becomes sasuke's signature move. and it's kakashi's creation. hi

this is also something that was dropped but there was also the occasional pointing out of similarities between, fucking, lee and gai of all people vs kakashi and sasuke? and like i don't need to explain this one that much right. gai is lee's dad in like everything but name LOL (and much like kakashi he also has questionable habits when it comes to how he teaches his kid)

but this is way too long LMFAO my tldr is that I Like Them And I Wish They Had More Screentime </3

their dynamic concretely to me is about caring very much about someone who shares a lot of pain with you, but being a little intimidated by that shared aspect. nothing hurts more than failing / being failed By someone who you know DOES understand you, in the end!

it's all my personal preference of course there's no right or wrong way to read naruto (well the wrong way is thinking it's good.) (joke) but i WAS surprised to not see sasuke and kakashi's relationship being discussed more (esp. with empathy for both characters) because well. obviously it's one of my favorite naruto things GFKDMGKFDM

[implausiblyjosh]

This is my last post about this cause I just would rather reblog other people's thoughts, but this is the big thing I cannot get over.

txttle/tale boosts a bad post that talks vaguely about what pro-kink should be, about how this random user is offering the gold standard on how pro-kink should look, and this post directly talks about supporting "ageplay or cnc or incest shipping" or else you're not really pro-kink by their estimation.

Her boost says "yes, and, we are too harsh on people not on cis girls and we need to care about actual abuses". The OP was already bad on it's face, ignoring everything else that will come after this paragraph. It's pretty clearly dogwhistling, as people loooove to get in the fucking weeds about what their kinks are and why they love them. Why be so vague in this instance? What, specifically, does OP wish was supported more in pro-kink spaces? It's already extremely easy to see how this could be cover for something since it's, intentionally or otherwise, vague! It's a bad post to boost from the jump.

It then comes out that the person txttle/tale boosted is an abuser. Supporting "ageplay or cnc or incest shipping" in that OP is now clearly about how they run a pro-contact website dedicated to getting adults in contact with minors, and how that's very obviously unethical, horrific, and that would not get support by most people who are not similarly abusive. Because that wouldn't normally get support, OP makes some vague post about what it means to actually be pro-kink, which just so happens to have some implied overlap with their awful website.

This whole thing is, rightly, criticized. This criticism happens, going based off of txttle/tale's reblogs and posts, by basically one person. Even if you don't know everything in the previous paragraph, it was already a bad post that was clearly trying to be coy with the real message. It is now made worse by these revelations.

Instead of addressing literally any of the criticisms actually being made, she's reblogging shit like the "runs up to a mcdonalds worker" post, which only exists to paint the original criticisms as unhinged rambling. She's trying to paint the person providing criticism as a bigoted, bad actor for making the criticisms at all. And, despite the fact that the post that's being criticized ends with a point about caring about "real abuses", the only thing I can see that even directly addresses the real abuses by the person she boosted is a post from her that says "that callout post should have been better edited".

I have seen maybe one or two people in this game of telephone (that she is enabling by removing the context of the initial criticisms, btw!) conflate txttle/tale w/ the OP who is running that pro-contact site. That's bad, and should be corrected swiftly! Everything else is singling out this one person for daring to say "the post you're boosting and agreeing with is bad, and also it was made by an abuser, which makes everything said by both the OP and you worse".

All that context and summary to get to the thing that bugs me about this whole thing... where's that care for the "real abuses"?

Like, the post she made that kicked this all off was about how people should care about the "real abuses". When the real abuses made by OP are made clear, where's the reaction to that? Where's the reflection about how they boosted a dogwhistled post? Why the distancing and distraction about what the original criticisms clearly stated, and what they continue to clearly state? Why is it "be overly-cautious when you boost callouts" but using critical thinking and taking ownership of what messages you're boosting and from who is just completely unfair? Why the refusal to engage with the criticisms as written, and instead do this performance for your audience?

Because it feels like the "care about real abuses" bit is performative now. I can't imagine reacting this way if someone was to point out to me that I boosted a dogwhistle post. I can't imagine trying to start a campaign hounding the person who pointed this out. I can't imagine getting this bent out of shape over posts that maybe cracked double digit notes. The optics alone are horrible, and don't really suggest you care about the "real abuses".

txttle/tale is not on the hook for the OP's actions or OP's dogwhistle post. She's on the hook for her own post. She's on the hook for boosting the dogwhistles. She's on the hook for removing the context of the criticisms made of her posts. She's on the hook for painting the person criticizing her as a bad actor. She's on the hook for boosting every post that continues to pain that person as a bad actor. She's on the hook for having all this be the reaction to "you boosted an abuser and their dogwhistle post" when saying that she cares about the "real abuses".

[thewhumperinwhite]

Stillness for Thorne, Informal for Asher, and Roots for Andry?

And if you have one you wanna answer for Crane pls do :)

Thanks for the ask!!!!!

stillness: How does your OC act while still? Are they fidgety? Do they have any common gestures or tics? Does their clothing affect how they hold themselves while at rest?

Thorne is capable of being very still indeed, but it's a skill he's cultivated with a lot of effort under some duress—he was probably quite a fidgety, getting-into-everything child anyway, not to mention the years he spent half-feral after his parents died, where he was always quiet but very rarely still. When he first arrived at the Falcon's Nest, he was capable of moving almost soundlessly, but had a lot of trouble keeping still.

However, Morden finds it distracting if Thorne is squirrelling around while he's in the midst of research or scheming or whatever, and of the handful of times he has ever really lost his temper with Thorne, almost all have resulted from Thorne's inability to keep still.

So. As with a lot of Thorne's personality, he's a bit split on this one. When Morden is elsewhere, Thorne is really quite fidgety; he plays with his hair, he bites his nails, he paces.

In Morden's presence all his motions are deliberate, and at rest he is still as a statue.

informal: What's your OC's lazy-day look? How do they like to dress when they're winding down?

If he's not going to be seen by anyone except servants and his family, Asher hangs out in a shift and stockings, which is what he would wear under most court-approptiate attire. (He also always wears slippers, because while there are rugs or mats in most rooms of Colomur Castle, that still leaves an awful lot of cold stone floor.) Asher cares a lot less about what he looks like in general than Andry does, and most of what he's required to wear out and about is more restrictive than he'd like, so pre-conquest he wore lazy clothes most days, since he didn't have to make all that many public appearances.

Honestly, one of the (surface-level, easy-to-think-about) things he hates most about his prolonged captivity is that he is almost constantly under the supervision of Leisevan soldiers, which... like, no one is going to tell him he has to dress up properly for them; his mother isn't here and Andry has other things on his mind and they're the only ones who would care. But. Even when he's in his borrowed quarters with the door closed, foreign soldiers or the Wolf or the White Crane himself might burst in to order him about at any time, and only the Crane really knocks. So. He's been dressing up properly in a doublet and breeches and even boots for weeks to just sit in his room alone and he really hates it.

roots: Is your OC's look inspired by any specific style of clothing or fashion trend? What are the roots and/or inspiration for their look?

.......okay so I can't like. A lot of what I picture for Andry is inspired by what they wear in the captive prince series. Lots of high collars and long sleeves that lace up. You know how it is.

I picture Craetalia as like...... very very vaguely Scandinavian? I have very clear pictures of everyone's outfits, and they are entirely based on my own aesthetic preferences and NOT historical accuracy of any kind, obviously. (In particular i always picture Cinth in like... Victorian-ass riding habits which is like a good 2-300 years off everyone else's outfits.) But Andry's style is very loosely inspired by like. 14-1500s-ish Vaguely Germanic Upper Class Attire. (I may make a post later with a bunch of outfit inspo bc I am a gay bitch who loves an Outfit)

The main departure from all this btw is the hair thing, which I just put in cause it's cool and I like it, but it also makes pretty good sense to me: Royalty and well-off Nobles in Craetalia keep very long hair, which they usually wear loose (men usually keep it entirely loose; women often wear braids, sometimes very elaborate ones, but still keep some part of their hair loose). The length and how well-kept the hair is is a status symbol: it's supposed to show a certain amount of poise and self-control, and it also implies that you can afford a whole team of servants to take care of it for you and you don't have to do a lot of strenuous work.

Lots of nobles only cut their hair 3 or 4 times their entire lives. Andry is royalty; his hair had never been cut before Morden got to it.

Speaking of Crane,

favorite: Does your OC have a favorite article of clothing or accessory? What is it? What's the meaning behind it? Do they wear it all the time or do they wear it sparingly to keep it safe?

I dont know if it's his favorite accessory (that's probably his Falconer Cloak; it has a feathered collar and he expends a lot of other people's magic repelling water from it whenever it rains) but he does currently wear a long braid of gold hair hanging artfully from his belt.

Audoine never wore it braided, obviously, because braids are feminine and the Lion of Colomur never questioned a gender role his whole miserable life. Morden braided it himself after he cut it from Audoine's head. (This was pre-beheading, obviously; he didn't want blood on it.) (Morden had Raptor do the actual beheading, but he cut the hair off himself.) (It felt good to give the old man what he deserved.) (The look on the Summer Prince's face afterward felt even better.)

[piqued-curiosity]

"It's so clear to me that people who say we should have more patience and compassion for young homophobes are coming from a place of sympathy for the young homophobes and not for the young homosexuals"

Not that same anon, but didn't you just reblog this? Does make it seem like you're agreeing she's being deeply homophobic as a motivation. Ppl are being really misogynistic to her on anon but that's not your problem. It does seem like you're saying homosexuals have a right to be annoyed at this situation, but bisexuals don't have a right to be annoyed at their rape statistics being belittled, and that the woman that said those things is not a misogynist because you find her and her core message admirable. If that's not what you meant to express in both cases, I don't think you expressed it very well.

I did reblog that. Because I believe it generally, not just in response to one post on tumblr. As I said in my own post, the idea of “be nice to homophobes, they have good intentions/don’t know better” is common. Whether it be religious homophobes who “are just following what their religion tells them! Don’t be so hard on them!” Or elderly people who “grew up in a different time, it’s not their fault”, or regular ignorant people who “just haven’t really been exposed to that stuff, cut them some slack”…or yes, TRA homophobes of all ages who “are just following the dominant ideology!” (Reminds me a lot of the arguments in favour of religious homophobes).

I understand that post was a response to the other post, but I also understood it to be speaking to the problem in general. Which, as I said in my own post, is the reason that post struck a nerve with homosexuals. Because it’s the same shit we hear all the time—that we have to be sympathetic to homophobes because “they don’t know any better”.

I also understood that post to not be saying “people who do this are homophobic!!! Shameeee!!!”…but simply saying they’re coming from a place of sympathy for homophobes instead of sympathy for homosexuals. Which, yes, is homophobic, but different from being a raging homophobe like you think I’m accusing the OP of being (I’m not). Many people’s thoughts (again, not just a tumblr user) regarding homophobia are to sympathise with the homophobe before the homosexual. The thought process is “well, they don’t know any better, sucks you have to experience their bigotry but try to be easy on them, they’re doing their best” which gets really frustrating. Because the first thought is to justify the homophobia, not to protect the homosexual from it.

No, I don’t think the OP was purely homophobic in her motivations, and as I said I agree that when it comes to kids, the approach from adults needs to be different than it would be with other adults. I don’t think she should be being targeted with misogyny. But I’m also just kind of tired of constantly seeing reasons why gay people shouldn’t be so angry with homophobes.

On another note….I find it really weird that people keep bringing up me supporting the message of one misogynistic lesbian a while ago (which I explicitly critiqued when I reblogged it) whenever I critique something else. I don’t think I ever said bi women don’t have a right to be upset at rape statistics being belittled???? Or that I didn’t think that woman was being misogynistic??? As I’ve said before, if people can keep bringing up me saying “she does have a point with the core message here despite her misogyny” and acting like it makes me a terrible person, I’d like to point out that OSA radfems on here actually worship and idolise lesbophobe Andrea Dworkin and never get any slack for it. But a lesbian agrees with another lesbian talking about a specific type of lesbophobia, and “ohhhh we must send angry anons about it because that lesbian was misogynistic and none of her words can ever be listened to!!! Btw read this Dworkin excerpt! Never mind the beastiality talk that’s vaguely racist and the incest talk haha”

And guess what, I also like things Dworkin has said. She has some brilliant points and I plan on reading some of her works because I like the excerpts I’ve seen. Because no, I don’t think we should throw a whole work out because of distasteful opinions of the creator. I myself have reblogged Dworkin quotes, I’m sure more than I’ve reblogged quotes from lesbians perpetuating misogyny…yet I’ve never once gotten anons saying “oh wow, so you clearly support political lesbianism”. This tells me that everyone does agree with me about taking the good parts and discarding the bad parts…but only when it comes to OSA women. Lesbians must never be granted that grace and instead their work must be thrown out if it isn’t a paragon of morality.

[justsomeectoplasm]

Ok since my sky lore summary reblog is getting a kick in notes, I decided to redo it since I feel like I haven't been that clear in it.

So if you're still new, you read my reblog and you're still a bit confuse, here's a revamp version of it. It's pretty long, so I suggest you sit somewhere comfy, get a snack and put on some calm music.

Edit 7 August 2022: This is outdated. I have another summary but I will link it in this post when I find it.

Notes before reading

It has been officially stated by TGC that the lore is up to the player's intrepertation. The vagueness of the lore was made intentional by TGC and thus you can either agree with the theory or timeline, or you can just say to hell with it and create your own timeline. No one's stopping you!

However, this timeline will be made using the most popular theories and observations made by the fandom and skyblr. This will also contain my observations as I feel it might help adding in my understanding. I ask that those who were in the fandom longer than me (specifically players who were playing before season of dreams) to correct me if I had made any mistakes or misunderstandings.

I will also be covering the vanilla lore, so I will ignore the smaller details such as seasonal spirits, who are the winged lights, where is home located etc. Feel free to check out the @sky-lore blog, who reblogs and save pretty cool theories that were discussed.

That's about it! Without further ado

A summary of Sky: cotl lore

(Or what we have gathered as 'lore')

"With the stars united, our light was infinte"

A long time ago, there lived a growing civilization in the sky. The people lived in harmony, worshipping the Elders and, most importantly, Megabird.

Megabird is the giant bird we see when we get reborn after dying in Eden. It is believed that Megabird created all life in the kingdom. Everyone's souls eventually returns to Megabird after they've died.

The elders are keepers of the realms, most likely holy guardians who protect and rule the kingdom. Each realm has a guardian, with a shrine to pray and meditate for them.

One day, a star fell from the sky. Two stargazers, who were taking a walk and admiring the night sky, saw this and immediately rushed to investigate it. However, when they arrived they did not find a star but rather a small child.

This child was named Alef. Many theorist, including me, believed that he was the first child of light who descended upon the realm.

When Alef's existence became known Daleth, the isle of dawn elder, took him in and raised him as a prince. It seems that the prophets of the four elements had a vision that Alef was to be crowned king and rule over the kingdom.

Alef then set out to complete the four prophercy trials. After he completed them, he was crowned King Resh. (We don't know why he changed his name to Resh, but it was kind of confirmed that they are both the same person.)

Some time had passed and King Resh has discovered a very interesting energy source: Dark stones

A/n this where all the bs starts btw.

The Dark stones are a powerful energy source where, once it reacts with a specific amount of light, it creates a powerful energy that can open doors, build bridges, make boats fly and advance technology.

King Resh started to mass produce these stones and caused the civilization to grow exceptionally. (We don't know how far the civilization has grown. Early concepts showed skykids exploring and finding modern inventions, such as bus stops and modern cities, but nothing has been confirmed)

However, what King Resh did not anticipate is how much of light was starting to dwindle in the world. Darkness was slowly consuming the kingdom and causing the water to turn to waste and strange dark plants to grow. (One person looked at the early concepts and theorise that they might repesent trapped souls.)

Eventually, the civilization became desperate to harvest more light to substain their stones. It later lead to a war being waged to either protect the remaining light or to harvest the last of it. The civilization even went ahead to harm the light animals to get more light, causing the previous light dragons to turn into the ferocious Dark dragons that appear in wasteland. The Golden wasteland realm was also effected the most during this, as you can see the remnants of war littered throughtout the realm.

But the darkness continued to spread among the kingdom and things weren't looking good. King Resh was also eventually corrupted by darkness, morphing him into a terrifying monster that rests on top of eden. (Early concepts showed that he was the reason there are flying rocks in Eden, but again nothing was confirmed)

Then, an explosion of Darkness happened. Many of us don't know where this happened, but everything seems to be pointing at Eden, the last realm.

When the explosion occured, it killed everyone in it's path, causing the Kingdom to fall. King Resh became trapped in the storm at Eden and reverted back to his child like form. This is the same child we meet when we die at stormlock. The Elders also suffered some physical damages, for example Isle of dawn elder's mask is broken.

Saddened by the death of the kingdom, Megabird has decided to create a new being. A being who will bring forth hope. A being who will vanquish the darkness and restore light back into the kingdom.

That being will be named "A child of light"

And that's how we the player came to be and what our purpose is.

[quirrelli]

So, I finished Killing Eve S4 and I'm...

...just gonna pretend I do not see it. S3 wasn't amazing but its ending still works way better as the ending of the show than the actual ending, so I think I'll just be having that, thank you.

No, but seriously, how did they manage to have this much lesbian activity for four seasons and still end up with bury your gays lite?? Did literally no one in that writer's room have even a cursory look at tvtropes.com or talk to like one gay person??? Make no mistake, I was fully expecting one or both of them to die, especially since I was aware – without knowing any details – of the finale's negative reception. There are always going to be people who hate an ending and by extension the whole show simply because it killed off their favorite character, irrespective of context or execution. I am not one of those people, so I want to be crystal clear here when I say there were ways to make a tragic ending work for Killing Eve, a few fairly obvious ones even, and so I thought surely there was no way they would fall into that specific trap again.

The most generous interpretation of this (non-)ending I can come up with is to apply Hanlon's razor, in which case it might be be seen as a symptom of the general loss of focus the series suffered beginning with S3 and exponentially more so in S4. By which I mean they let the emotional core (the V/E dynamic) diverge wildly from the plot (finding the 12).

Never lose sight of the emotional core. I find you can get away with almost anything; technical faults, dodgy performances, plot holes (especially plot holes), even a meh ending, as long as the emotional core stays exactly where its name says it should stay.

Helene is an easy means of illustration for this point. Helene in S4 is basically less chaotic Villanelle, both in her function to the plot (murderous fancy bitch whomst is important as the key to a bigger bad) and in her relationship with Eve (gay, aggressive, lethally hot), which makes me wonder why they didn't just let Villanelle play that part??? It's driving me mad bc it's the most obvious thing and would have fixed so many problems in an instant.

By which I don't mean get rid of Helene btw, just make better use of her, as an actual member and face of the 12 or a double agent or sth. Give V the quest to hunt down the 12, it's already perfectly aligned with her motivations and capabilities at the end of S3! I mean she wants to impress Eve by showing her she's trying to be better and to start a new life, right? Cool, ok, therefore, in Villanelle's moderately disturbed mind it makes perfect sense to do this by violently hunting down a bunch of bad ppl ~ for Eve ~ . (The fact that she's also high key horny for murder is just a bonus, don't worry about it, baby.) If not that, then do sth else entirely with her, do the church thing (properly this time, not squeezed into two episodes and then entirely forgotten) but don't give hunting down the 12 to Helene, a character that already feels vaguely like a replacement for Villanelle while she's off doing character growth or whatever.

If they had done the thing that makes sense, it would have also meant that for once V and E's goals would have aligned, (though they might not have realized it immediately, you know, for spice,) which would have given us an opportunity to delve into a new dynamic: Partners in crime. Not S2 V tenuously working for E bc horny but actual challenging "we want the same thing except oh no, all this history and unresolved tension" cooperation. Obviously it would have gone horribly wrong in some fashion (I'm thinking Carolyn shenanigans), but at least it would have gone wrong for a reason that actually involved them bc the plot would have actually been their plot again. Incidentally, if you're going to have them hook up, this would be a great time for that, so it doesn't feel quite so backhanded if/when one/both die at the end.

The only reason I can imagine for not going down this route is that it would be too obvious, to which I can only say: [Insert tired comparison to Game of Thrones here.]

Seriously, hunting down the 12 is a natural conclusion to the story. It makes sense, was built to from the beginning and should have been a slam dunk in terms of plotting. Thus I am flummoxed as to how the writers managed to drop the ball so spectacularly that it hit every single one of their teammates square in the tits.

Well, I say that, the show does maintain a few of its strengths, first and foremost the cast of course, consequently some of the dialogue (Carolyn and V's interactions are delightful) and I do like the idea of both Gunn and Pam and also V getting shot by an arrow. Just wish the cupid/angel motif hadn't been so muddled and included Gunn more (who shouldn't have been called Gunn. It's a bad joke.)

Speaking of, many have rightly decried the lackluster supporting cast but as I see it, that is largely a holdover from S3, which killed off/wrote out basically everyone but the core four and failed to introduce any new characters that stayed past the season finale (besides Helene) bc it was too busy not moving the plot forward. You gotta have side characters in your show, so they made some new ones for S4 and gathered together whatever scraps they could (Hugo prettyboy and Martin the therapist). Idk if there was a good way to solve this problem exactly, but they could have certainly woven the new lot into the story better. Especially Pam. Pam could have been so much more. Oh and fuck the way they wrapped up Irina's story too. Complete waste.

With bad plotting comes shitty pacing. Again, that already started in S3. However, I will say in defense of S3 that it being a bit slower and introspective is very much the sort of thing that could have felt kinda ok, even needed in retrospect, if S4 had Risky Businessed into the room champagne in one hand, gun in the other, ready to party. Instead it made S3 look worse by turning it into a prelude to an even more plodding experience, now with bad editing!

For real, there's some really poorly constructed scenes; shots that feel disjointed, unfocused, repetitive. No idea what that's about, could it be the lingering effects of Covid-restrictions? Or maybe they just needed a better editor. Regardless, while not super dire it is absolutely noticeable and contributes to the general lack of cohesion, not to mention the tonal dissonance.

What am I saying, that's an excellent thing to mention. An ideal candidate to put the show and this too long note on my phone out of its misery in fact.

Killing Eve is supposed to be fun, you guys, remember that? S1 was at all times like two smash cuts away from becoming a full on comedy and it was amazing for that. It was the show's most unique feature, what took it from very good to transcendent as far as I'm concerned. Walking that line is hard, no doubt about it, and I get that different show runners have different visions and of course you can take on a more serious tone between seasons but then you actually need to make everything else match that shift. Integrate the absurdity into your writing or discard it, the way I've discarded the idea of ever writing a proper conclusion for anything. If you really want a dramatic, played entirely straight spy thriller conclusion with conspiracies upon conspiracies and doomed passions, that's fine. I mean, it’s not really bc you're losing what made Killing Eve great et cetera and so forth but my point is that you can't have your imaginary drag king Jesus and eat him too.

tl;dr: S4 is bad. There are several reasons for this.

[ilikekidsshows]

Fashion is very personal and culture dependent. I've seen a video of someone criticizing miraculous fashion while wearing something I wouldn't consider at all. I'm not going to tell them I dislike their fashion sense because what someone wears is up to them. But people criticizing Marinette not wearing different outfits is also ignoring the 3d medium of the show and the cost. people don't know/ignore restrictions of official shows while critiquing. btw I think Gabe's new outfit is a vibe XD

You, Anon, get it!

Like, whenever I criticize this fandom about a common trend, like calling Adrien an idiot or complaining about the outfits, I solely refer to people who unironically (meaning they aren’t just memeing), fully believe that their personal opinions are some kind of universal truth that has to be spouted at everybody no matter what that person's opinion on the topic is. I've seen the "Gabriel's look is so ugly" people spam people who also aren't big on the design (meaning people who agree with them) in addition to creeping into the notes of every person saying anything vaguely positive about the new look. Fan redesigns also almost without fail get comments along the lines of: “this is better than canon!” It’s one thing to have an opinion, it’s a wholly another to keep telling everyone about it.

Every single one of my beefs with the Miraculous fandom always seems to come down to fan entitlement. Entitled fans are people who are convinced that their opinion is the only right one and they'll scream their opinion at everyone until no dissenting opinion can be heard. That's annoying and exhausting. It's why I aim to keep any of my show-specific gripes out of the main tags and why I don't bother with posts that are clearly viewing the show really differently from me. Other people have a right to have opinions just like I do and, since I don't like having certain opinions shoved into my face, I try to give others the same consideration of being able to avoid mine.

The reason I try to stay clear of the Miraculous Youtube vid scene is specifically because those videos so often ooze entitlement and self-importance. Like, they can tell me what their perspective is and what angle they're approaching the show from, but if they try to tell me that their opinion is the most correct one or that the PAID PROFESSIONALS can't do their jobs because they have personal gripes with it, I nope out instantly. And all the "critical" approaches to the show veer into this territory at least halfway through if they don't outright start there.

Like, honesty hour? There's this one person who makes videos about their redesigns for the characters, and they're always so over-designed and they talk over their video how they'd "fix" the canon stories for these characters and I just end up hating the designs both because they aren't to my tastes, but also because of their entitlement. They tell me these designs are better than canon and that they can also write better than the staff? I instantly dislike them as a person, and then they give me designs that wouldn't actually work in the show due to being over-designed and hard to animate in CG (or 2D to be honest) and also that just don't fit the characters thematically and I just end up hating them with such a burning passion that just seeing a thumbnail of a recommended video where I recognize their style makes me make the most UGH face imaginable.

I always quickly look for something palatable to watch to get rid of the feeling. Usually an actual analysis of a storytelling device will do the trick.

Also, the entire point of a superhero or supervillain costume is to be a vibe, so I consider your comment a winning endorsement. Superhero and supervillain designs should tell you the basic premise of a character with a glance, the point is to have a strong "vibe".

[horizon-verizon]

A) The Inevitably or High Probability that there'd Be Rebellion WITHOUT Green Intervention or Accusations

i'm not judging rhaenyra's choice to have children with harwin. but having bastards weakened her position - she was forced to leave court because of the rumors. her sons succession was challenged by vaemond - who, btw, genuinely believed that he was in the right and rhaenyra was an evil woman trying to usurp his home. did vaemond had a wife ? children? other velaryons that loved him & will want to avenge him & refuse to accept luke?

And who enables Vaemond (who was literally the only person who tried to go against Rhaenyra or call her son's bastards)? The greens. Vaemond seems to try by himself anyway, but how easy would he actually have found it to try to claim the Driftmark seat without the greens and meeting with Otto? He would have been killed or imprisoned a lot faster, or someone could have made an easier job of talking him out of it with such arguments that I'm making right now about him having no real means to go against Rhaenyra... basically he needed support to do so. Again, which he got from the greens who were essentially going to rule against Rhaenyra anyway, as was clear in the 8th episode.

Realistically, what chance did Vaemond have without Otto & Alicent? Truly? Even in the book/original lore, with Vaemond's nephews and others actually doing as you mentioned and trying to go against Rhaenyra (by going to Viserys himself, another dumb move), Viserys nevertheless had all of them immediately punished by cutting out their tongues. The challenge was handled. And the evident challenge only came from this group of people.

This reflects & mirrors the Green supporters that you mentioned. The ones that are with the greens are the Hightowers, Brackens, Lannisters, and some of those under their banners, etc. The Hightowers are Alicent's maiden house, so regardless of it being true they are bastards or not they would have backed her/the greens bc they have a direct stake and benefits in her and her sons. And the rest say opportunity. But where is the proof that they were planning to go against Rhaenyra independently? Would they have done anything WITHOUT the greens pushing for Rhaenyra to be removed through their specific accusations? Could they, or did they have the ability? Short answer, no (since I already listed why/how above in the first reblog).

Those supporters of the greens had no evident plans or preparations BEFORE they aligned themselves with the greens, why? Because they didn't have dragons and the greens did. They had a way in through the greens' actions of going against Rhaenyra, similar to how show!Vaemond's way was lubed by the greens and made a more of a real problem to Rhaenyra. The greens materially opened the way towards any possible rebellion against Rhaenyra that you are saying would be inevitable without those close to Rhaenyra doing something to invite such actions from external lords. This isn't a chicken-egg situation,o one thing clearly happened before the other and caused the other. There was no vague passive force pushing the greens to do what they did, and there was no vague passive force enabling the lords to make their moves or to choose the greens.

rhaenyra was also forced to marry the boys to baela and rhaena (again, referring only to hotd) instead of making matches with other houses and securing their alliance. and again, not judging rhaenyra or saying that she should've had children with laenor.

Even in peacetime, these betrothals would have likely happened or at least been at the top of the list of marriages because of how prestigious and blood-close the Velaryons are. Both of the Targ girls came from dragonriders, why wouldn't Rhaenyra marry her dragonriding sons to dragonriding girls? When the point of marriage was to produce children who would likely inherit specific privileges, etc.?

Does it benefit her own claim and her sons' or protect them by ensuring that their Velaryon allies were even more invested in them? Of course. Did the announcement of betrothal come after Vaemond's accusation & death? Yes. Does this necessarily mean that she only thought of marrying her kids to the girls after Vaemond? No, not necessarily. Because of all the reasons it is a good reason why she marry them to those girls even without her being the heir and a woman. Does this mean that she never would have betrothed them even without Vaemond at her neck? No, of course not.

To claim so, we need more specific scenes of Rhaenyra either never having thought of it before the "trial" or her, again, being reluctant as such a prospect. But there's no hard evidence in the show/season of such because we moved immediately to the small dinner after Viserys defends Rhaenyra. And to claim that the ONLY reason that she's marrying them to those girls is because of a fear of a threat thus comes into question under. Without proof of Rhaenyra having some sort of reluctance or without disapproving how she's really that different from most nobles by doing this, I don't think we can begin to argue that she had to be compelled to marry her sons off to the Targ girls. I think it's getting ahead of ourselves to argue that she ONLY sought a Velaryon-Targ marriage in her kids for her/her sons' claims. The show indeed seems to frame it in a way that Rhaenyra seems as if she were responding to external pressure by marrying her sons to those girls, but this reveals more that the writers wanted this dramatic moment for episode 8 when we consider that she had all that time (10 years) at Dragonstone living with Rhaena and her own kids for those mids to be very happy with the idea of marrying each other. Evidenced by their looks and smiles in episode 8. But even more so, where was the lack of surprise on those kids' faces? This supports the idea that such was discussed to them before the dinner AND that they had a while to process said information.

Nobles are always thinking of potential allies or accruing more wealth or access to certain lands for other purposes when they are considering who to marry or marry their children. It is already a custom in Westeros--HotD or not--that people marry their first cousins or cousins and nobles often try to marry relatives as close to them as possible to reduce the number of possible competitors to the children's claims or inherited resources/wealth. Rhaenyra would not be unique in doing what she did in betrothing her kids to those girls, even with the earlier attempt to marry Jace to Helaena, which reads as much more desperate than her marrying the Targ girls to her own boys.

In HotD & the original story, the Targaryen girls are both stepsisters and cousins of the Velaryon boys. In HotD, they went against one particular piece of lore (fosterage and who gets to actually marry some scions) to justify the idea that Corlys or Rhaenys had more say in who the girls married without Daemon's permission. Corlys, show or book, maintained that he didn't want Baela or Rhaena as his heirs above the boys and he didn't consider them a part fo his house even though they were his and Rhaenys' granddaughters by blood. They both "belong" to House Targaryen precisely because they are girls and are not heirs. Even so, why wouldn't Corlys desire or even seek out a marriage b/t his Targaryen granddaughters and the Velaryon boys when he was eager to marry Laenor to Rhaenyra in the show and the canon? And I mean why wouldn't Corlys be the one to ask Rhaenyra this before he left for that 6 yr war project? And if he didn't, again, wouldn't such a marriage only work more toward his long-held desires for power and prestige?

the fact that there are lords who believe that aegon should be king instead of rhaenyra is a danger in of itself - that's the point i was trying to make.

The greens' supporters are not the only nor had most of the most powerful lords of Westeros. Here is a list of those who supported Rhaenyra and kept fighting for her and her sons's claims after she and the V boys died. Plus, it is canon that Aegon III had his claim through his mother, not Daemon nor Aegon II being his uncle. As you mention ("like rhaenyra said, challenging luke is also challenging jace and her own claim to the throne. so even before viserys's death - her position was already challenged.") this means that those lords, who overwhelmed the greens, all supported both Rhaenyra and her V boy sons (as she even declared Joffrey her heir later) as those boys being the heirs to her was the condition that came with her being the next Queen. They were a package deal. Of course, there were defectors on both sides during the entirety of the war.

This society is definitely a sexist society since the core of Rhaenyra's claim and motivation to go to war is not that she was the oldest but that Viserys chose her (and that girls in Westeros already could & did technically inherit before younger brothers or cousins, it just wasn't preferred). However, that doesn't mean that what actually happened during the Dance doesn't inform us of how much support she actually did have & came to have because of this argument and her son Jace's efforts to gather people for their cause. Plus some of the Greens' dumber decisions before and during the war.

This is all important bc it contradicts both the idea that it was inevitable she'd rebelled against. When push came to shove, she had enough people fine with her ruling even with her having children that you'd or some in-world people'd consider bastards. The future that became the present contradicts your claim.

So, no, WITHOUT the greens' accusing Rhaenyra of infidelity and having bastards, there is little substantive reason or material for us to speculate that it'd be more likely that Rhaenyra would be forced to kill her own siblings.

Also, I ask for proof of the ideas because Westerosi society, as I already mentioned, though sexist has had female leaders or girls/women considered as heirs. Therefore, we must go off of more than "it was a sexist world" to claim that there was absolutely going to be a rebellion WITHOUT the greens coming in first with their accusations.

B) Another Approach to the "My Kids Are in Danger"

So, HotD wise, Alicent's motivation is supposed to be that the lords will endanger or force themselves/their interests on her kids in a rebellion against Rhaenyra. We can argue that even bk!Alicent always believed that her sons would die if Rhaenyra became queen.

Bk!Alicent says, in the green council, that she thinks that Rhaenyra or Daemon would come to kill her kids if she succeeds in becoming queen ("The Blacks and the Greens"):

confidently "forgetting" that the Vhagar-claim incident and the fight was a literal fight b/t under 10s...except Aemond who was older than the rest, Joffrey having been 3. That Aemond was the one to push said 3-year-old and his brothers came to Joffrey's defense. Not that Aemond was necessarily evil for his pushing Joffrey, but he's not innocent nor NOT the provoker of the violence there. And still, in the show, he's the one to provoke the others or perform a "trick". Because after he pushes the group of younger children off of him, he proceeds to try to fight them again and would have bashed Jce's head in with a rock (because if you rewatch the episode, he re-raised said rock even as the others backed off). But as I already did in my last reblog, no, Alicent of nay version was wrong even if she felt that this was going to happen. Again, this is even if we argue that Bk!Alicent actually believed that Rhaenyra ore someone else would kill her kids...which she didn't she specifically says DAEMON would.

But here's the thing about her thinking Dameon would kill her kids: apart from his making fun of her after he came back from the Stepstones (and does mocking a person = beating them up, grabbing their shirt with a rock in the other hand, or actually planning to murder them? No.), do we have concrete, textual evidence from either the show or the book that Daemon would go after Alicent or her sons IF they do not try to make any moves against Rhaenyrs or Viserys? No. Daemon could have done a lot to Viserys when he forced him to abandon Mysaria and his first-ever child, but Daemon reluctantly and resentfully sends Mysaria away and that's the end of that. He would not kill Viserys' children even if he disliked them or thought them obstacles...until any of them did what Aemond did and kill Luke or seriously harmed Rhaenyra and the rest. Daemon had all the time in the world to harm his stepsons/the V boys, but didn't. And we see no time where he ever overruled Rhaenyra even when she later doesn't take his advice (delight spoiler but not rally, you'll maybe see). No, Daemon is not this stupid rabid dog who goes after people just because he doesn't like them AND he does place value on what may hurt his brother, niece-wife, stepsons, etc. Alicent and her sons simply never established any sort of bond with him, so he left them be until Luke. This all goes for the show!version of Daemon as well (not the overruling or trying to roughshod Rhaenyra part, that was purely a show invention/change). Even if he wanted, to he's not stupid enough to make any moves without provocation to the greens because he knows he'd be at the top of the list of being suspected, which in turn would harm his niece-wife and brother's needs.

In HotD, Otto from the jump says that he's making moves against Rhaenyra & that he's doing so because he believes the reason the lords will rebel against her or not accept her is bc of her gender alone. Doubly so, we understand that he's motivated not bc of bastards bc Rhaenyra is not even married at the point he says this.

Otto has much more influence and power than Alicent in the first episodes of the season. And over her. He's the one who gives Alicent the notion that her kids are even in any sort of danger. He's the one setting up that motivation that many say justifies Alicent's actions against Rhaenyra & her children. Without Otto, show!Alicent would not have really been so set against Rhaenyra, or at least have utterly destroyed their friendships by the numerous attacks. Without Ott, Alicent would not have perceived a threat to her kids bc she never conceived of such until he mentioned it.

We see instances of lords thinking Viserys will change his heir to Aegon in episode 3, absolutely, but if we're just going by HotD, I ask again where do we get the idea of there being either an absolute or very good chance that they will rebel against Rhaenyra for either her gender or, later, her bastards?

Going back to kinslaying, Alicent thinks it's a good idea to directly antagonize the woman who she says would have felt necessary to have her kids murdered...then proceeds to give her even more reason to do so?! In this scenario, it's different if she had approached Rhaenyra as a friend so that IF Rhaenyra were told or advised to execute her brothers, Rhaenyra would hesitate & thus there's more room for counter-advise or to prepare against hat. But, no show!Alicent decides to risk (since we're talking abt "risk" a lot) Rhaenyra being less hesitant towards the idea of killing her own siblings. Again, this is all in the case scenario that somehow Rhaenyra WAS as some for the she-could-kill-them arguers say she would or could be.

C) The Context, Nuance, & History of Bastardry; On Specifically Whether or Not the V Boys were Bastards or Proven to Be; Why Proving Matters in General and for Rhaenyra

In HotD, yes, Rhaenyra's sons are biologically Harwin's. (Me, I argue that even in the original story, at least Luke & Jace were likely Harwin's bc Laenor was not physically close to her for long periods until after things grew worse b/t the greens and blacks after Luke's birth.) I'd agree that considering that Rhaenyra's gender places her in the position that she follows contradictory rules about leadership, Rhaenyra's position would be troubled by having bastards in a way that it wouldn't for a man...however, the meaning or at least consequences that inform the meaning of bastard does not just mean or is defined by "not biologically" in a society that didn't have foolproof/good enough technology to prove the parentage of a child.

A reminder: HotD's Jaehaerys I's mother was a Velaryon & the Velaryons in HotD are black; yet Jaehaerys and all the Targs shown except Baela & Rhaena are Euro-Americana white bread white with no hint of Afro features that Euro-American racialization would designate as "Black". Or most other places in the world. Orig!Alysanne Targaryen's hair & eye color were not Targaryen-typical, being blond and blue respectively. We have Orig!Alyssa, with her having one green eye to her other purple eye, and "dirty blonde" hair. For these two women, we have yet to see proof that they didn't have the features I described in the HotD universe the writers constructed, so for now they have those features in the show as well. Orig!Rhaenys had dark hair. In later Targaryen families (& it's very doubtful that they will make biracial & Black or PoC main Targs in later period Targ stories if they adapt them), we have Baelor Breakspear & Rhaegar's Rhaenys. The first had dark hair and eyes, while the later had dark hair. Then there is Aegor Rivers and Shiera Seastar, Shiera had a blue and a green eye, while her mother (Serenei of Lys) very likely had the full-blown silver-gold hair & purple eyes of Targs (or had at least one typical Valyrian feature) because she was from Lys. Of course, Aegon IV was typically Targ-looking. Aegor had dark hair & purple eyes. The bastards I mentioned are all bastards not because it was materially proven that they were biologically not Naerys' (Aegon IV's only legal spouse), but because people observed that Naerys did not carry them respectively but that other women did. So, we see that regardless of who was the Targ parent (mom/dad), the undoubted parentage of various Targ children--trueborn or not--produced children with all sorts of looks. IF we stick to how real genetics work & try to apply it to ASoIaF and HotD, take also the cases of interracial marriages sometimes producing children that look like they are of a completely different ancestry or ethnicity than from one parent. Genetics can be wild. I mean, look at Alicent and all four of her children with Viserys come out having the silver-gold hair and the purple yes. Neither of which the Hightowers typically have (or it would be mentioned or shown, and what we do see in the show, the Hightowers are mainly brunettes).

Noblemen in Westeros, whether this is HotD or the canon--bc they are allowed to have affairs and cohabitating/non-cohabitating lovers even while married--wouldn't think of or really need to claim that their bio bastards are really their trueborn because they mostly have their mistresses or affairs publicly known and displayed. And they can't because they are not the ones birthing them. Whereas when noblewomen have bastards, it's usually kept very secret and the child is shipped off to another family to be raised while she's married off to prevent her from not being able to marry IF the news of her birthing said child reaches more people/out of the family, so that the family would also not lose reputation or opportunities for others to marry, build alliances, etc.

In real life, what made one a "bastard" could also mean how "good" a lineage your mother or father had more than just if your parents were married or not, as was the case for William the Conqueror. And I specifically mean that even if they weren't married, you as a "bastard" could still be entitled or have more "claim" to something over to others, especially when the father names you his heir as William the C's father did with him. No, he never "legitimized" him nor ever got a higher authority to. And because HotD's universe both comes directly from the original lore and little about how nobles noble has been changed PLUS how canon mirrors a lot of real-life EU noble practices/social principles, these are relevant.

I'm sure we already know all this, but it is important to think of the implications of such conditions and how it applies to how "bastardry" is not a fixed condition that is 100% or even "75%" built on incontrovertible facts but relies a lot on timing, perception, and opportunity as well as how well can you use a precedent against current circumstances (Anstey case of 1100s).

So, what incontrovertible proof did Alicent & the greens have that Rhaenyra's sons were not Laenor's? That Rhaenyra or Viserys were lying? Where is the accusation really coming from, and were there actual dangers to her children if she/the greens stopped trying to put as much attention on Rhaenyra as they did? Even in HotD, where no one has actually seen Harwin & Rhaenyra have sex or Laenor NOT have sex with her? Who has monitored & recorded her movements behind closed doors day in day out second by second, etc.?

You can say you just need to look at them to know since all 3 had different features, but the issue is that even when this is true (that there is observable data of them ALL having different looks from their claimed father), Alicent, in the show (epi 6), wonders how they could have ever hatched dragon eggs from the cradle/when they were babies or toddlers (compared to her own kids, who at least 2 had to claim dragons when they were older). Why does she wonder this? Because, she's implying, that children inherit their most impressive or desirable traits of appearance or behavior or otherwise from their father, not their mother. And since Harwin is not a dragon rider nor has any known Valyrian background, it made no sense to her at all. Not only does this reveal how comparatively little they--court or larger Westeros society--actually relied on real material knowledge of genetics or otherwise to make their rules, but it is also a clear reference or pulls from this F&B/the original lore or story fact about said society/court ("A Question of Succession"):

which itself comes from the older legend of Rhaena the Black Bride giving Jaehaerys & Alysanne their dragons when she placed the eggs in their cradles and they both got their dragons to hatch without having to grow older and claim a dragon as Aegon I, Rhaena, Maegor, etc. all had to.

Point is that the show!Alicent is going off of book!lore's social and historical context directly. Which means the same feelings and ideas about physical inheritance have been directly transferred into the HotD Westeros/HotD's court. Directly.

I'd argue that since even if Rhaenyra's sons weren't Harwin's in the original story/the book (bc there is debate even on why they'd be described with the features they are in F&B when Harwin, for example, had a broken shoulder I think & thus would be out of commission for sex for months or us not knowing what he even looked like, etc.), the center at this consideration is that the truth of Rhaenyra's sons' patrimony does not supersede how it's very possible & likely that the greens merely used such an accusation against Rhaenyra or not.

I stress that without the original lore that HotD heavily relies on for context. Even as it sometimes contradicts & its logic in some places. This is one of those times that its world only makes sense if you know what's going on prior. Would we be discussing bastards and such without the original story that existed even before Fire and Blood?

D) The Real Life Comparisons

the fact that there are lords who believe that aegon should be king instead of rhaenyra is a danger in of itself - that's the point i was trying to make. that's why richard iii killed his little nephews, that's why henry 7 killed edward warick, that's why mary killed jane gray - who clearly had a much weaker claim then her to the throne.

Richard (III) got to Edward V & Richard (brother, the Duke) from Elizabeth, taking advantage of an already existing separation b/t mother & son and all those military protections that Edward could have had. By contrast, Rhaenyra and her kids and her husband were all on Dragonstone with their possible protections...which include dragons. Please, let me know how the lords could expect to catch her off guard as Aegon (II) try to do first with one debated assassination attempt (failed) and another through Arryk (and failed)? Thse lords would likely (Occam's razor) not have the confidence to trry to attack Rhaenyra openly; privately, they still would be deterred by how well protected she was and have to bank on a lesser chance of really gettign to her.

Rhaenyra was already the monarch-designated heir, she was not a usurper. Richard III was never the heir, he was the usurper. Richard III took the throne away from his own nephews...of course, he did away with them. The throne was the nephews' by their "natural" male and direct blood rights by being Edward IV's sons. Richard was a usurper & usurpers must legitimize their rule when they seek to use illegitimate or violent means to force power into their own hands. Edward IV never named his brother (Richard) his heir over his sons, & his elder living son was considered a king in his own right before his uncle did whatever he did. So this is a false equivalence.

Rhaenyra is the one having something taken away from her. Not the greens/Aegon, Aemond, Daeron. Because Viserys explicitly did not name them as his heirs. And Rhaenyra was heir for almost 20 years before she was usurped.

So really, it is all her sons--especially Aegon III & Viserys II way later--who can be told to be in similar conditions as Edward V & his brother Richard, Duke of York. Aegon II is more like Richard III; maybe this is a spoiler since idk if you read the bk, but Aegon II threatens to mutilate the 10-year-old Aegon III and Aegon III is in Aegon II's custody before Aegon the Elder dies. He's also their uncle.

Unlike Elizabeth who actually seemed reluctant to get rid of Jane from an emotional place, Henry VII had Edward Warwick killed during a time when there were

Meanwhile, Rhaenyra had a much better line of descent/claim than Elizabeth or Henry VII by being the firstborn daughter of a man who declared her his heir and kept it so for years, never having legally named her as a bastard nor her sons as bastards. Rhaenyra had no such "kinks". Elizabeth had been ruled at one point a bastard while Henry VII had only a real claim to the throne through his mother. His house was a minor one descended from a bastard-turned-legitimate (John Beaufort, first Earl of Somerset, son of Jon of Gaunt and Katherine Synford, who birthed the Earl before she eventually married Jon of Gaunt. She had been his mistress for years until then).

Also, I don't understand why dragons are being left out of this conversation when they have been the game changer and the reason why the Targs are unique in their place from those real-life people that you listed. Elizabeth I didn't have dragons to feel like she'd be able to tell the lords pushing her to kill Jane "no" (she was reluctant in many sources). Henry VII didn't have dragons to deter or remove Perkin Warbeck fast enough, though he won the war by killing Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

There's a reason why dragons exist in this narrative, they serve the purpose of giving much more advantage or being much more of a deterrent against competitors. We really shouldn't underestimate not just their actual firepower but the role of them being deterrents. Once again, how likely were any lord to try to "force" any green boy to go to war against Rhaenyra with this in mind?

E) Using GoT

we also have dany and jon snow for example - dany was threatened by him despite the fact that he publicly swore allegiance to her. as long as a "stronger" alternative exists, rulers can't truly secure their reign.

I'm not sure using GoT Dany and the story they wrote for her to ascertain the realities and circumstances of Dany & Jon's eventual meeting in the actual story GRRM is creating, the politics, and how she'd react or think of them when they appear. Because Jon can be Rhaegar's son all we like, but polygamy was, for years, not accepted as legitimate after Maegor. Maegor got to be legitimately polygamous because he used his dragon & Visenya's support (Vhagar) plus the later army at his command to enforce it, as Aegon I did by winning his conquest (apart from him being already married to his sisters). Even we argue that Rhaegar could have restored its legitimacy, Rhaegar lost his chance to affirm his privilege to marry more than one woman by dying before he could announce Lyanna as his wife and for Aerys to maybe accomplish getting the rest & the Martells to accept such a union. This means his marriage to Lyanna in the show is not really that valid to make Jon Snow their legitimate son.

Who has/had the dragons between Dany and Jon, book or show? Who is the trueborn without any debate or "kink", hands down? Who had a fearsome army at their command and will definitely continue to do so when she meets Jon? Dany. Though she is a woman like Rhaenyra, she simply has too much on her side for her to be as nervous about the throne as D&D wrote her. It reminds me of when people tried to say that bk!Rhaenyra was legitimately or only resentful of Alicent bc she was pudgier than Alicent, when in fact it's far more likely she resented being compared to her as Aegon (II), Viserys, and Helasena were also pudgy people. No, Dany would not be that concerned about Jon. She'd more likely get a little frustrated with the sexism and scoff at the cheers for Jon, bc of what I mentioned.

Despite people (in-world and out) thinking that Jon was "stronger" bc he was a man & he rode one dragon, Dany was quite obviously the more powerful of the two with a stronger relationship with all three of those dragons she breastfed. Her dragons obeyed her, not Jon. If she did feel that threatened by him, that was an illogical writing thing on the part of D&D in their rush to end the show. Dany is more self-possessed than that ("Do you mean to make that [woman] as an insult?"), but they wrote her and several women more unnecessarily irrational, more like Dany consented to sex with a slave master, or more overtly and generally more sexual than their book counterparts without providing a bit of nuance in the sex we do see. We should then take their way of adapting with a grain of salt overall.

D&D made multiple consistency errors, multiple even sexist/classist/racist changes to characters and events, and forgot many things that they established in their version of ASoIaF, etc. So to use their writing to establish that things definitely would turn out the way they did is not useful.

One last thing that I don't know is a common point in the fandom: in HotD, Alicent & Otto both have many lords imprisoned, at least one killed, and they intimidated all of them at court to keep them from spreading the news of Aegon's coronation....if Alicent really were trying to protect her kids from rebellious lords...why is she giving them a far more tangible reason (than the already disproven "they don't want or can do something against Rhaenyra") to go directly against her, her sons, & the Hightowers?! One that has nothing to do with Rhaenyra herself and all to do with Otto & Alicent trying to clear the way for Aegon. And yes, Alicent imprisoned those people if not we remember Rhaenys she also explicitly says to the council that she endeavored to keep Rhaenyra out of the way and to crown Aegon. How to do that? Imprisoning those people is one way.

ok, so i've been getting a lot of "rhaenyra would never kill her siblings" asks recently.

first of all, no one is saying that rhaenyra WANTS to kill her brothers. but there's just no way that a woman & a bastard can inherit peacefully when 3 legitimate sons (with legitimate sons of their own) exist. this is not how westerosi politics work. the men in power wants to keep the men in power, this is the definition of patriarchy. and i'm not saying that's a good thing - because obvs it's not - but that's the truth. westeros is a patriarchal society.

the lords of westeros - the men in power - wants to preserve the existing order. legitimate sons inherit over daughters, bastards can't inherit. it's important to them because their own power is dependent on this very system. let's say rhaenyra becomes queen, and all of the sudden other firstborn daughters start to stand up and demand to be named heirs to their houses . let's say jace becomes the prince of dragonstone, and suddenly bastards that are older then their legitimate siblings start to demand their rights as well. from our modern pov - that's a great thing, but for the lords of westeros that's literally their worst nightmare.

"but a lot of houses supported rhaenyra". true! i'm not saying every lord in westeros will not accept her, i'm saying some of them def won't, and as long as aegon\aemond\daeron lives, there will always be someone advocating for their rights - and that's dangerous for rhaenyra and her family. so yeah, to protect herself and her children she will 100% kill her brothers. i'm not holding it against her - she's obvs going to care more about her children & herself then her brothers.

"but dorne ..." i feel like GRRM has made it abundantly clear that westeros does not want to become like dorne. dornish people are stereotyped and discriminated against - especially dornish women, that are viewed as promiscuous and are constantly oversexualized. westeros becoming like dorne is def not something westerosi men want.

ironically, jace will have to face the exact same situation with his own brothers aegon and viserys, but i digress.

also, did we forget how easily rhaenyra offered to have her 10yo brother tortured when she felt like her children were in danger? do you guys really believe that she's above murdering to protect them?

[gureishi]

dude okay so this is kinda specific and also probably not very original or anything ekdbsisj

but-

how do you think saeyoung would react/feel if (during the apartment days), his MC started crying (or almost) after that one (or maybe two? cant remember, and im only halfway through day 7 on the current playthroygh) time where he just... got really mad n yelled... hhh his expression was scary,,

getting yelled out is already a lil agitating for me... and I know i would be automatically already a lil sensitive cos i would be nervous from the last few days (rsd would nerf me) -- meaning i would be a lil more emotional/easily affected than usual ;;;

on top of that ive never had a guy yell at me djvdjdj so it would be a lil scary, i wont lie.

wanna clarify: the crying wouldn't be on purpose lol, i would definitely try n hide it. easier said then done though... OTL

jsvfsh this is so long n specific n kinda personal to me?? im sure im not alone regarding the general idea though. anyways jdbdjs sorry lolol-

and im jus asking for your thoughts or maybe HCs? whichever you feel works best!

also sorry if we've talked about this before i have a bad memory-

[417]

btw ur amazing love u

Love you too dear Four! And oh boy do I relate to this. I do not handle being yelled at well and would, without a doubt, cry multiple times in this scenario (/ω＼)

Saeyoung reacting to his MC crying in the apartment 

He’s never felt like this before. He sort of thought he’d been through it all: wrung every last bit of love and fear and desperation out of himself till there was nothing left but the things that make him useful: his clever hands and his brilliant (weary) mind.

When you speak to him so tenderly—hovering just at the edge of his space, eyes full of something he can’t (won’t) identify—he feels like his heart is too big for his body, and he can’t think straight, or see straight, or make his miserable mind form the words he needs to say to you.

He’s angry because he can’t understand why you’re gazing at him that way, like you’d do anything to ease the pounding in his skull; he’s angry because none of his words are getting through to you, and he doesn’t know how to make you understand that he’s not the person he made you believe he was. And he is angry because he knows, without a doubt, that he’s in far too deep already, and that if anything were to happen to you now, his desperate heart would break for good.

He knows how to lie (it is, in his opinion, the only real skill he has)—so he does. He tells you he wishes you’d leave him alone—tells you to stay away—tells you he feels nothing for you at all. He raises his voice (but oh, as the stinging words tear from his throat his heart wants to crawl out of his skin and throw itself into your arms).

You say nothing. Good, he thinks; and he forces his attention back to his screen (eyes blurry, hands shaking). He hears the sound of your footsteps as you retreat to the farthest corner of the apartment, and something inside him seems to go with you—since the very first time he heard your voice, he thinks, a part of him is always with you. With every day that goes by, that part gets bigger: soon, there will be nothing left of him at all.

With his eyes trained on the screen (and most of his attention on you), he hears the tiny sounds you’re making: shifting, he thinks at first, getting comfortable. Maybe even going to sleep.

But no: you are so quiet only somebody with senses that have been heightened from years of training (years of hiding, and fleeing, and fighting for his life) would hear. But there’s a whimper—a vague, almost indistinct sniffling.

Oh no. Oh god.

Oh god oh god oh god.

Years of agency training have taught him to turn his back on people who are begging, or whining, or crying—but he’s never been any good at it.

And this is you: and his scrambled mind races, his heart drumming so loud against his ribs he is sure you can hear it. He would, he thinks wildly, do absolutely anything in the world to never hear you make such a miserable sound again.

Before he realizes what he’s doing, he stands. The room spins; he’s weak, and hungry, and angry, and scared; his stomach is in knots and the darkened room seems to tilt sideways around him. 

You don’t seem to have noticed that he’s moved; you’re hiding your face in your shirt, back turned to him—and you are still (so very still). He doesn’t remember how to breathe.

“Uh...” he says, and the sound echoes horribly in the dull, sparsely furnished room. You say nothing. He clears his throat, takes an unsteady step toward you. He’s not thinking rationally anymore—not thinking about scaring you off, or keeping you safe. All he wants is to see that look in your eyes again: that soft one, the one that makes his hands and feet feel too big and his skin seem to burn and his breath catch in his throat.

“Are, uh...are you okay?” he rasps. You’re still ignoring him, which is a first; your face is turned away, so he goes to your side, kneeling on the floor beside you. You sniffle. He feels like his heart is going to burst.

“Yeah,” you say—and unlike him, you are not such a good liar. Without meaning to, he reaches for you: finds his fingers (of their own accord) doing what they’ve been itching to do since the moment he first laid eyes on you. He touches your hair—brushing it off your face, tucking it behind you ear.

Your eyes, he thinks (fiercely, irrationally): he needs to see your eyes.

“Don’t believe you,” he says. With a sigh of exasperation, you turn to him: oh, and your eyes are blazing, red-rimmed. And he is the one who has done this to you—he is the monster who has made you suffer.

His mind seems to have driven itself into the ground. Suddenly, he can’t remember how to do anything at all.

But his body moves of its own accord, because his heart has always been eons ahead of his (brilliant and foolish) mind.

“Hey,” he finds himself murmuring, brushing your cheek with his rough fingertips (and he knows he shouldn’t, but now that he’s here, he is finding it almost impossible to resist). “I know,” he says, without even quite understanding what he means. “I know.”

You watch him; and there it is again—just for a moment, that softness deep in your eyes that sets him on fire.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words springing to his lips before his brain can get in his way. “I’m so, so...I didn’t mean to...I never...”

You shake your head, and your hair falls into your eyes again. He brushes it back, finding that there is nothing—nothing—in the world quite as wonderful as the feeling of your warm skin under his fingers.

“I get it,” you tell him. “You don’t need to apologize.”

“I can’t...” He makes himself take a deep breath, and regrets it instantly as his senses are flooded by the warm, enticing scent of you. He feels you all around him now. “I didn’t mean it,” he says quietly. “Please. I can’t stand to see you making that face.”

You force a watery laugh, and the effort you are making for him is almost too much. His mind races. For a moment, he imagines how it would feel to wrap your small body in his arms—to press his lips to your temple and feel your heart beating against his skin.

“How’s this?” you say. You offer him a passable impression of a smile, and he wants to throw himself at your feet.

“Terrible,” he says. You laugh, and it sounds a tiny bit more believable this time. You are looking at him, and there it is again: that softening in your eyes that makes him think (just for a moment) that there could be a happy ending for him after all.

“I...” he starts. What? He can’t tell you how he feels—what he wants—what he is afraid of. Not here. Not now. Not yet. “Please,” he finds himself whispering. “Can you...just give me a little more time?”

You nod, and there is a strength in you that nearly knocks him off his feet.

“Yeah,” you say: and this time you sound like you mean it.

Against his will, he pushes himself up—makes his way back to his miserable little corner of the room. But he pauses—turns—and you are still waiting, still watching him. Of course you are.

“I’m gonna make it right,” he says, not quite meeting your eyes. Never, he thinks: he will never ever make you cry again.

“I believe you,” you say.

It is the first time anyone has ever told him this.

His heart shivers.

“I won’t let you down,” he says—promises. He means it with all his heart.