#words! mere words!

[blujayonthewing]

hey you know how reflective eyes are a bit spooky in the dark

do you think for races with darkvision it'd be spooky that humans' eyes are completely lightless in the dark

[historical-paramedics]

Feeling very emotional about John Marston rn. Idk he's literally just a guy a stupid dumb idiot guy who's also very clever and kind and sympathetic and loving but he's an idiot and doesn't know how to deal with things and hurts people he loves but he never stops trying to do right by them and I just. Love Him.

[bakudekublogblog]

kacchan gave izuku his dream back oh i’m hysterical

[dearorpheus]

"In ways that are often hard to articulate but run through everything, my work has been deeply informed by my own experiences. I have been reading Homer throughout my adult life. Whenever I hear blustering winds and rain-storms, surging rivers or choppy seas, when I watch a flock of geese or a swooping hawk, when I walk through rustling woods or up a mountainside, I know I am inside the world of Homeric similes. Even the most trivial moments of daily life remind me of Homer. I notice that my feet are not "well-oiled" whenever I tie my sandals on. I cannot watch my dog happily rolling in mulch without thinking of Achilles, prostrated in grief and tossing around in the dust. More seriously, the poem gives me a language to understand my deepest emotions and those of people around me. When I weep for my mother, who died recently in a distant land, I remember the grief of Achilles and of Priam. The Iliad is with me always."

— Emily Wilson, in the translator's note of her Iliad

[hay-bails]

no one gets him like i do ❤️

[carto0ncritter]

I'd rather have Stolitz be boring like Chaggie (seriously these girls have nothing in common and everything Vaggie is has to do with Charlie/supporting her dreams/acting like her babysitter) than abusive like it is in canon. Sure you can make a boring ship more interesting in your headcanon, but the abusive one I would never even WANT to think about further in the first place.

Stolitz is not only terrible gay representation, but it is also a spit in the face to actual abuse victims irl (including me). And honestly, even if Viv SOMEHOW makes Stolas realize how much he had screwed up when it comes to his relationships with those around him (Stella, Octavia, Blitzø), I still wouldn't ship Stolitz simply because the foundation of this ship is r*pe.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that KIDS watch HB despite the "adult content" warning at the beginning of each episode, this show is less adult aka mature than a lot of kids shows so they can familiarize themselves with what an abusive gay relationship looks like (except that most will end up shipping Stolitz simply because it's between two men, regardless of toxicity; ALSO THEY'RE KIDS WHO SHOULDN'T WATCH SHOWS LIKE THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Parents, just wanted to let you know that you're doing a terrible job at well... being a parent, just like a certain owl demon)

We SA victims (Blitzø included) deserve better.

[trek-tracks]

Bones, defending himself at the post STID medical tribunal: Your Honor, you say I resurrected Captain Kirk from the dead and violated the laws of God and Man. I submit to you that I merely un-unalived him

[pepperpixel]

Yadda yadda yadda jinx is generally seen as a loose canon, does whatever she wants type of character, totally unpredictable. When in actuality, up until the last few episodes all of her choices and actions r motivated by wanting to please someone else. Hell. Even in the last couple episodes, the very Last thing we see her doing is ENTIRELY MOTIVATED by devotion and love and grief for silco, she’s taking out her frustration at herself and the world, and also honoring his wishes and dreams. By shooting a fucking bomb at piltover, she’s ensuring his life wasn’t in vain, she’s honoring him. In that moment

Her entire, self!!! is centered around love and loyalty. Is centered around other people, She’s motivated by an insatiable urge to prove herself, to be useful to those she loves, to show that she can help them and be there for them and be WORTHY of there love. That they haven’t made a mistake in loving her. To prove that she can be as pivotal to them as they r for her. She goes to the ends of the fucking earth to do this. And it ends. Terribly.

She puts the people she loves on pedestals and supplicates at there feet, she has no motivations most of the show outside of making the people she loves happy… she yearns for connection and love and safety. For a home that will never leave her behind, or crumble under her feet, (an indestructible home, That she can’t destroy just by being her…)

Which is why.. it’s so. Interesting and intriguing. How now, she has no one on that pedestal to worship, no one to drag sacrifices and offerings to the feet of, no one to spiral around and build herself off of. She is a person so *affected* by her relationships w others, but there is no relationship now, no one is stepping up to the plate to love her. She’s too much. For anyone. The one person who seemed to have unlimited patience for her is dead, because of her. and maybe vi could still love her.. but. She’s already soured that relationship. Already broken that one too. Broken all her favorite toys that made her so happy. That were there for her. And scared all the rest away. (There is a limit to what vi can support and forgive to reconnect w her sister. And I believe terrorism is crossing that limit ghgh)

And maybe, jinx is cutting that part of herself out on purpose. To be stronger, she’s realized she just. Isn’t made for love. That she ruins it all in the end. That it just makes everything worse. Messier. More complicated. She’s better off on her own, but for what PURPOSE! Who will she be now! What choices will she make!?! Almost all of her actions in the show were for others, what is driving her now, now that she has this gaping void at the center of her being. Where love used to be… what kind of person will she become, Without a guide to follow… a sun to orbit around. it’s sad honestly ghghg-!!! like yeah it’s not healthy that she is this way but there’s no THERAPY IN ARCANE. THIS IS THE WAY SHE IS! And now. She’s alone… it’s rough. But also intriguing…!! And I honestly have no clue how she’s gonna act in season 2,,, or what sorta shit she’s gonna get up to. but I’m excited.

[raphlecia]

airflow and ventilation.

do you ever not do something you love for so long that the desire and longing begins to consume you, but every time you try to make time for it something else takes it away from your attention and you're left with this odd feeling... like, when you've finally taken a warm shower and drank hot chocolate after a long, tiring day, then you accidentally touch a stainless steel surface and the chill lingers in your fingertips, spreading to the rest of your body, rendering you in a state of physical tension, the exhaustion setting in you as you realize you have to start the process of getting comfortable all over again?

haven't finished the book i started reading in october because chores have torn me away from being able to sit down and do nothing long enough — mansfield park, beautiful hard copy with gilded edges, got it from this annual book sale, it was the last one. haven't continued writing any of my stories for nearly a year and to compensate for it i jot down every little thought and idea i have about them in a notebook i began keeping specifically for my writing: chapter summaries, characterizations, plot threads, thematic details, lists of potential names and titles (i hate coming up with names and titles because i place so much significance in them), dialogue-heavy scenes formatted like a screenplay. haven't knitted in a month because i just moved to a new apartment and am too busy unpacking and setting up the place to feel like a home to watch murder, she wrote and finish my projects: an unfinished scarf, three headbands with unwoven seams, and a sling bag i may or may not unravel because i no longer like the design/pattern i went for.

it must be some big cosmic joke that i, who has carpal tunnel syndrome, hate for my hands to be so creatively idle that i inadvertently resume another hobby i had set aside for several years due to a creative block with renewed drive and inspiration. maybe what i really need is a fidget toy.

our former apartment was never properly ventilated. if we fried food opening a window wasn't enough to let the smoke out because it also didn't get proper airflow. i'd have to splash water in my face or stick my head in the freezer for a few seconds for some sense of relief, for my eyes would water so terribly that it would force them shut. this is how my mind feels when it has been long too idle. today it was unendurable; i decided to reread the first few chapters of daphne du maurier's rebecca.

[demitheweirdo]

the worst part about spirk is that i’ll just be going about my day, and my brain will supply me with

i have been and always shall be yours

and it’s like i’ve taken a kirk-style flying kick to the chest because WHAT

[captainofthetidesbreath]

I should get an award for my restraint in not automatically blocking people who say things like "I hate paladins, they suck so much, they're the worst class bc their vibes are so bad" on my posts that even just mention paladins.

RIP that you and most people do not understand paladins as a class and do not understand that their narrative is not just "stick in the mud who loves being a cop", but I'm different and I think they're incredible and they're one of the classes with the best inherent narrative

[my-deer-friend]

Homosocial – homoromantic – homoerotic – homosexual

A lot of people who talk about 18th century queerness treat these concepts as existing on a linear scale of "straight" to "gay", or as a progression of increasing queerness.

But that kind of framing isn't accurate. There's no line that we can draw here beyond which things become definitively queer. There were homosexual acts that had very little queerness to them, and homoromantic relationships that were fundamentally queer without ever (to our knowledge) straying beyond the emotional.

[lykegenia]

So something has been bugging me for a while now about A and N’s backstories, and while I know not everyone will be as pedantic as me, as someone who loves history and has done a lot of writing, I feel that if you’re going to write a story about vampires and give them a specific time and date of origin, then there should be a certain level of research that goes into making that background authentic. I'm not saying that Mishka didn’t do any research. It just seems that in order to keep the vibe of a happy, mellow fantasy some of the less savoury aspects of A and N’s upbringings have been left out, and it's a shame. To be honest, it feels a bit disingenuous, and it feels like an opportunity got wasted.

Let me explain (long post got long, it's 2am)

Let's take A first, since the problem is simpler here.

A is the child of a Norman lord and an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, born in the first generation after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. A says that these were turbulent times but that their parents had a happy marriage. Which. While I’m sure a lot of unions in that time period made the best of it, I can’t help but feel this description strips away a lot of the context of what was going on at that point in history - and removes some of the complexity about A’s thoughts on love and relationships.

Basically, after he took control of the throne, William the Conqueror stripped many Anglo-Saxon lords of their lands and titles so he could give them to his Norman buddies instead - with the added bonus that it left the Anglo-Saxons without the means to raise armies against him. The sisters, daughters, and widows of the dispossessed Anglo-Saxons were then forced to marry these new Norman lords to legitimise their power, not infrequently after all of their male relatives had been slaughtered. It’s not as if Anglo-Saxon women weren’t used to being used as political chess pieces, but the years after the conquest were brutal. It’s why William had to build so many castles. The point that I’m trying to make is that even if A’s mother was content enough in her daily life, due to the power imbalance between her and her husband, it's very likely she had little choice in the matter. She may have seen a lot of her family killed for political reasons, with the knowledge that – in an age where women had very little protection outside of their paternal household – she might be next if she made too much of a fuss.

It would be fascinating to see what effect that tension has had on A 900 years later, or even to get an acknowledgement of how much times have changed, but we don’t. We don't see how their early years affected them, how they view relationships formed naturally instead of via political contracts. And I really, really wish we did. There is so much potential there.

But A is not the one keeping me up past 2 in the morning. It’s N, and the utter detachment their backstory seems to have from the period in history they lived in as a human. And it all stems from the fact that they came from the English nobility in the late 1600s.

See, the bulk of the problem is that English inheritance law at the time heavily favoured primogeniture, where a man’s wealth would go to his first-born son. Some dispensation was made for widows and other children, but the estates, assets, and most of the money had a very clear destination.

For one thing, this makes it kinda weird that N’s stepfather would have needed an heir before he could inherit, because except in extreme circumstances everything would have gone to him anyway. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the worst part of the problem, it’s just annoying when there are more plausible reasons for him marrying a woman already pregnant with another man’s child (old family friend wanting to save her from disgrace, needed the dowry to pay off gambling debts, there was a longstanding betrothal between them that would have been tricky to get out of, etc.).

No, the bigger problem with N’s backstory vs primogeniture is firstly that at the time the English aristocracy was racist af (still is tbh) and given his pretty obvious mixed-race heritage, no court would have agreed that Nate was a legitimate son (this is for a very special reason that we will be coming back to). I say Nate specifically here because primogeniture requires the eldest legitimate son. Nat wouldn’t have inherited at all, as women in that period passed from the guardianship of their father (or other male blood relative) into that of their husband after marriage, and only gained any kind of independence with widowhood. If N had been an only child, maybe they would have been treated as a special case, but unfortunately Milton exists: the eldest legitimate son who by law will inherit everything.

Now here’s the thing. Your average aristocrat in the 17th century is very obsessed with lineage and keeping the family line unbroken. He would not, therefore, send his legitimate heir to sea to be shot at or drowned before he can carry on the family name – that joy instead goes to any other sons who need their own profession, because again, they will get very little. Nat would have had a dowry, but would never have been expected to make her own living, so I'm going to focuson Nate for this next bit.

In Book 3, if you unlock his tragic backstory Nate tells you he joined the Royal Navy after Milton went missing so that he could go look for him. And, well. This is where his backstory as Mishka tells it completely falls apart. For two reasons:

1. Even in the modern day, you can’t ‘just’ join the Navy, and you certainly can’t just jump straight to being a lieutenant – it takes years of training and after a certain age they won’t take you because they won’t be able to mould you easily enough into a useful tool. For most of the Navy's history, the process was even more involved. It wasn’t an office job you could just rock up to and then quit if you felt like it, it was a lifetime commitment. Boys destined to be officers would be sent to sea as early as 12 to learn shipboard life, starting at the bottom and moving up the ranks. These were gained by passing exams and by purchasing a commission – which is why you generally had to come from wealth to be an officer at all. Once you get to lieutenant you're responsible for a lot of people, and might be tasked with commanding any captured ships alongside the daily running of yours - it was not an easy job.

2. Even as a lieutenant (one rank below Captain, with varying levels of seniority) it’s not like you can just go where you want. In the 1720s British colonies already existed in India, the Caribbean, and up the entire eastern seaboard of North America and into Canada, and the Navy was tasked with protecting merchant shipping along these seaways (and one trade in particular that we’ll be getting to, don’t worry). Nate could have ended up practically anywhere in the burgeoning empire. He would not have been able to choose whom he served under, and would not have been able to demand his superior officer go against orders from the admirality to chase down one lone vessel because he thinks another one of the admirals might be a bit dodgy. It could not have happened.

Besides these impracticalities, there’s a far easier way for the child of a wealthy man to get to a specific point on the far side of the globe to look for their lost sibling, which is the route I assume Nat took sine she couldn’t have joined the Navy (yes she could have snuck in but she’s specifically in a dress in the B2 mirror scene so). All they'd have to do would be to charter a ship and tell the captain where to go, which is the plot of Treasure Island. It's quicker, less fuss, with less chance of things going wrong. It's even possible in the age of mercantilism that the Sewells had some merchant vessels among their holdings that could be diverted for the task. Why go through the hassle of joining the Navy and potentially ending up on the wrong side of the world when you can just hire a ship directly?

If Nate does have to be in the Navy (and let’s face it, it’s worth it just for the uniform) then it's far more plausible is that, as the illegitimate son who would not inherit because of racism etc, he got sent to the Navy as a boy and rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant. When he got news of Milton’s disappearance not far from where he was stationed, he begged his captain to go investigate in case whatever happened turned out to be the symptom of a bigger problem. Like pirates.

I like this version better not just because it makes more sense, or because it keeps Nate’s situation re: inheritance closer to Nat’s and therefore makes their stories more equal, but also because it adds a delicious amount of guilt to Nate’s need to find his brother. We know his entire crew died looking for answers, because he was selfish – that’s roughly 100-400 lives lost because of him, and we know that sort of thing eats at him.

So that's one side of the story, but if Milton wasn’t in the Navy, what was he doing on the other side of the Atlantic in the first place? Well, this is where we come to the biggest elephant in the room regarding N’s backstory as a member of the 17th century English aristocracy and potentially as a naval officer: the Atlantic Slave Trade. If you are wealthy in 17th century Britain it's more than likely that your wealth comes either from the trade itself, or from the products made with the labour of enslaved people. If you are wealthy, you want to protect your assets from attack by pirates or foreign powers so you don't become less wealthy, and that is what the Navy is for.

Regardless of N’s own views on slavery at the time – and any subsequent changes in opinion – it’s likely their family owned or had shares in slave plantations in the Americas. As distasteful as it is, it makes far more sense that Milton was on a trip to check the family’s holdings when his ship - specifically a merchant vessel - went missing. From a pirate perspective, a merchant ship would make a much better target than a Navy vessel, being slower, more likely to have valuable cargo, and less likely to have marines or a well-trained broadside.

It's not surprising that Mishka left out the subject of the slave trade given her tendency to skirt around darker subjects and general blindspot for racial politics, but it is nuance that, if it was there, would create a more grounded and coherent backstory for N that doesn’t have quite so many holes. Like with A being the child of an invader and his war bride, we could get some deeper thoughts from N about their place in the world - How do they feel to have grown up so privileged when others who looked like them were regarded as literal property? How did they feel being part of the system that made it happen? Did it inform their compassionate nature? Is it still a source of guilt or someithng they've tried to make up for?

I'm not sure where I was going with all of this. It's late, my sleep pattern is fucked. The tl;dr is that giving the vampires' backstories historical context would make them feel more multifaceted and would give opportunities for character growth that are instead missed because of a desire for a more sanitized version of the past.

[motivationisdead]

The show does a really good job of showing the difference between ‘Wen Kexing with A-Xu’ and ‘Wen Kexing without A-Xu’ because Wen Kexing without Zhou Zishu is fucking terrifying.

So, naturally, I think the only solution to this is that Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu should be kept together at all times.

[prolibytherium]

I see people complain that their immersion is broken when a book set in a historical period uses general contemporary slang/swear words/informal terms ('lads', 'guys', etc) etc and it's just like. You do realize that every language in every era was 'modern' to its users and had at least some vulgarity and slang right? Writing in vaguely 'old timey' speech solely on the basis that it took place a long time ago does not add any realism and if anything kind of detracts from it imo.

Like if you're writing a story in english + in a way that's legible to contemporary english language readers that takes place any time/anywhere that people did not speak contemporary english, you're already 'translating'. I feel like this 'translation' is made more complete by including at least Some vulgarity, informal speech, etc where the core underlying concepts and uses of these words are applicable to the setting. It makes the characters more human, not distanced from the reader by artificially antiquating them with a language that is exclusively hyper-formal and neutered in scope.

[handweavers]

was talking with my psych and she mentioned that due to the sheer amount of death i've experienced that the way i interact with the world and the way my mind works is similar to that of her clients who are refugees and survivors of war and other catastrophes, particularly in my struggles to relate to others, anhedonia, chronic stress response, etc. like i have c-ptsd it's all trauma whatever but it's like. the things that repetitive and constant loss not just of people but places and rituals and belonging does to a person. to think of your childhood with tables full of people and the only one who still lives and remembers any of it is you. all of the places are no longer accessible, lost to time. holidays mean nothing anymore. bad things happen and the people you need comfort from are dead, good things happen and the people you need to share it with are dead. life events rendered meaningless. and unable to connect to others because they view this kind of tragedy to be just something that happens to you and thus something you should be used to, and the normal life worries they have become difficult to listen to because they lack the perspective this kind of grief brings. any problem that is not "someone is dead or dying" is a minor issue in my mind, it is all survivable, i can cope with it and quietly find a way through. loss on this scale does not and has not made me a better person, or rather, i have to choose kindness and empathy and compassion every day and hold myself resolutely to that and check myself constantly as much as i can because if i allow myself to be cruel and angry even if it is a righteous anger it will only cause further alienation and further harm. an awareness that if i had not experienced all of this that the things others go through would be greater issues, and committing myself to empathy for others, to be kind and gentle as much as i can (and sometimes failing), even if it feels like swallowing glass. there's no winning or escaping only trudging through