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[myimaginationplain]

HELPGAZACHILDREN!!!!!

Med @fairuzfan’s blog got terminated by tumblr which is obviously unjust for all the people who rely on them for resources on Palestine, but it now leaves Hussam’s helpgazachildren donation drive without a point of communication, and has deleted all previous information Med had shared about the drive.

Please remember to keep donating to helpgazachildren as Hussam’s hard work getting resources to families in Gaza should not have to be hindered while Med is working on getting their blog back 🤍🇵🇸

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[myimaginationplain]

I think it's really funny how little George seems to give a shit about the Stormlands. like damn, not a single POV set there? he really don't care about y'all

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Got fed up; it's rough bois

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"Is there any love, I wondered, with the amazing color and vibrancy of the love between siblings bearing an incommunicable secret?"

Naoki Urasawa’s “Monster”

Hélène Cixous, “The Book as One of Its Own Characters”

H.D.,“The Walls Do Not Fall”

Sofia Samatar, “Monster Portraits”

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WHAT IS TENMA DOING ON TUMBLR TV

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how does one read Arya's story about being a weird little girl in a medieval fantasy setting and not fitting in gender conformity of the times and thinking actually she wants to be all these things not because of complex feelings of girlhood and thinking she's not a lady if she's not good at these things and that she actually admires powerful women who are free of specific expectations and has the power to do what she wants , no its to grow up as a model and beat a made up beef of who's the prettiest child ever and getting things that she specifically doesnt want to be that’s spelled out in the first book of the series y’all obsess about .

how does one read sansa's story about being exploited, preyed upon,molested and groomed specifically because she fits the criteria of being a #Lady in a world that sees girls and women as bargaining chips and tools for politics and take out that actually no she needs to be punished for being “beautiful” and having ideals that are expected of her time period, screw her agency she’s gotta be a housewife or evil at the end with idealism beaten out of her cause no one understands foils for some reason

how does one read BRIENNE'S story about how unfair the world is to women and girls who dont fit beauty standards all the complexity that comes with that and their relationship to womanhood , how because she can’t be a traditional lady she’s become the pinnacle of knightly good that she specifically admires and take away that "actually ugly means bad and beauty means good, i dont get the themes of beauty with the lannisters also"

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ASOIAF POV characters ranked by how good of a guest judge they would be on drag race (definitive ranking)

24. Arys oakheart. spectacularly bad in a way that would also be bad TV because he simply would not know what to do. and would be icky about it.

23. Ned stark. canonically gets suspicious of people just because they are gender nonconforming.

22. Aeron greyjoy. people are going to wonder why i put him as Victarion on this list. this is because I think victarion has a better personality for reality TV.

21. Victarion greyjoy. good TV, would win reverse GLAAD award for most homophobic event on television.

20. Areo hotah. too stoic.

19. Quentyn. little nerd in over his head. if Barristan Selmy is telling you that you are not serving hard enough it’s already over.

18. Barristan selmy. a #ally for revealing that egg legalized gay marriage for his kid daeron and being happy about it, but does not have a lot else going for him. would probably say everyone looks nice

17. Bran. seven.

16. Joncon. IS gay, but does not seem like he’s super into all that.

15. Jon. Would probably awaken something in him.

14. Jaime. does not serve cunt, is one.

13. Brienne. Listen she’s trying her best okay.

12. Samwell Tarly. Would DEFINITELY awaken something in him. too busy blushing and telling everyone they look great to be an actual judge.

11. Arya. One thing about her is she WILL be finding people and she WILL be talking to ALL of them which makes her a great TV personality, but i think she would get bored.

10. Davos. Can’t explain this one i just think he would be down.

9. Cat. Serves, afraid to FULLY serve. Ally.

8. Asha. gets off on being mean to pretty boys so you know she is having a great time.

7. Dany. what can i say she’s a star.

6. Tyrion. definitely has the personality for it.

5. Cersei. is a fascist but showing up in full rhaegar eleganza to her husband who she murdered’s funeral. cuntress. You KNOW she would kill it.

4. Arianne. Definitely the first person you would think to ask to guest judge and for good reason.

3. Sansa. 13 year old fashion icon who loves gay people so much. Is so into it the whole time. meticulous notes.

2. Theon. could be the greatest to do it if he could ever get over himself but as it stands simultaneously knocks it out of the park and is a total train wreck. extremely fun to watch.

1. Melisandre. Serves like her life depends on it which she thinks it literally does. Obsessed with appearances and performances. off putting antagonistic cryptic and weird. fantastic TV.

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why can't sundays just last forever

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stannis will WIN in the winds of winter (be complicit in his daughter's brutal death, be betrayed by his bff, realise that he's not the fire sword-wielding hero out of prophecy and everything he's done has been for nothing, then die thinking of his little brother whom he murdered 🥰)

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Sylvia Plath, from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

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i was thinking more about characters Performing Gender, but not necessarily Transgressing Gender. I wound up focusing on Ned and Sansa bc I feel like I understand them the most but-

Sansa as a hostage is imo the most obvious (bc it’s so well done) moment of someone clearly Performing Gender but not being transgressive in that performance. Which isn’t to say it’s not a complicated performance; it’s a fine line Sansa walks between weaponizing her gender to protect herself without seeming too fake. She’s trying to placate the Lannisters by playing the perfect, dedicated, air headed betrothed because it’s the only defense she has - if she outwardly rebels, she will be punished in a likely violent and/or sexual way (which isn’t even conjecture - when she says “or maybe he’ll give me yours” Joffrey has her struck with an armored hand). She’s not quite successful in being convincing but that’s because it’s a rather extreme situation; despite no one believing her, she does make herself seem meek and stupid enough that no one suspects she’s plotting to escape with Dontos until she’s well away from KL. The fact that she even has Dontos to confide in is because of Sansa’s relationship with gender! When she saves him, she covers her rebellious slip by playing up Joffrey’s intelligence & his role as King; she reaches for “tools” of her gender AND of ~proper manhood~ to save a life and herself from another beating. Her retreats into the godswood and silence are very much Sansa attempting to recharge from these draining interactions, the same way a knight would need to stop and eat and rest after a fight. She is fighting, constantly, by forcing herself to stay within the narrow confines of a specific type of gender performance as a way of shielding herself from harm.

Ned yelling at Cat is another big one, and I’ve seen the scene referred to as Ned using his patriarchal power to scare Cat, which is a great description. It feels like a Performance because Ned is putting on this terrifying Lord Stark mask in an attempt to get Catelyn to stop asking about Jon (and Lyanna). This is not how he usually acts with those he loves! When Ned is with His People, he is welcoming of questions, curiosity, emotion, even transgressive thought (to a point! the idea that Ned is a feminist because he lets Arya learn to fight is Not accurate but you can’t deny he allows significantly more flexibility wrt gender expression than most of the fathers we meet in this series. the bar is in hell tho). Yet when Cat asks him about Jon’s mother, Ned scares her so well she stops asking & still remembers the moment bitterly over a decade later. And if that snippet we see through Bran’s eyes of Ned praying that Cat will forgive him does come after she asks (like it’s suspected), it’s clear not only that this is a performance he’s putting on & weaponizing against Cat, it’s one he does not like using as a weapon against someone he is close to. After using the power his gender gives him to cause harm, he retreats to the godswood and silence to pray and rest, much like Sansa. A spiritual cleanse, the way a soldier may pray after battle, to reset and reconnect Being A Proper Man to Being A Kind Man.

I think there’s something interesting in that two of the characters most widely defined by how well they adhere to Westerosi gender norms both dislike feeling like they had to weaponize their gender. They are exhausted by the performance, because it’s a performance. This isn’t Sansa getting excited over tourneys, or Ned teaching his sons to fight; it’s toxic masculinity, it’s structural misogyny. It’s something they’re good at, excel at, and connected to something they enjoy but when it’s paired with violence, whether done by Ned or done to Sansa, it crosses over in their minds from an innate part of themselves (The Gender) to a performance necessary due to survival (The Gender Role). And that after these performances, both retreat to nature & god as a way of resting and cleansing from the experience.

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sometimes you have to search up a character on your own blog just to see what a real one is saying about them

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I don't just want him to lose the election I want him to die

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also after walking into a pyre to die at the lowest moment of her 14 year old life and instead of burning to death enacting the miracle from her prophetic dreams that everyone in her family died and failed trying to do that brings magic back into the world for the first time in 300 years and three dragons who are loyal only to her and the next day there’s a giant red comet in the sky. what is this tenth grader supposed to do NOT suspect a little bit that she’s the messiah.

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There had been a time when she had been well loved by highborn and commons alike, when they had cheered her as the Realm’s Delight. Many a young lord and noble knight had sought her favor then…though how many would still fight for her, now that she was a woman wed, her body aged and thickened by six childbirths, was a question none could answer.

I fucked around a lot w rake brushes on this one and I'm not sure about them, still. However, book Nyra! I've been reading fire & blood (to keep myself from rereading asoiaf, mostly) and if there is One thing GRRM does very well is making you forget that the characters live in a hellish lovecraftian world by distracting you with mundane politics and misogyny. Or maybe the misogyny is part of that, who knows. Wondering if I will have the time or the willpower to also do book Alicent