#and conflicts established

[synchodai]

"But Jace inherits the crown through Rhaenyra, so it shouldn't matter who his father was." How many times do we have to have this discussion: a bastard cannot inherit, especially if he has trueborn siblings. Marriages are political agreements that decree that the child born from said marriage gets their parents' lands and titles. Harwin and Rhaenyra made no such contract and therefore Jace is entitled to neither parents' holdings and/or titles. Rhaenyra could legitimize Jace, but doing so would acknowledge that he is a Strong and not a Velaryon which makes her sons forfeit the Driftmark wealth and navy.

"Jace doesn't need a dragon to prove that he's a Targaryen when he's obviously Rhaenyra's son." Jace being upset over the lowborn dragonseeds wasn't because him being Rhaenyra's son was ever in question. It's because he knows that being a bastard will not make people respect his right to rule and so he has to surround himself with other signs of legitimacy like a dragon. Dragons are seen by Jace, and a lot of Westerosi, as status symbols. By giving dragons to the lowborn, they are being devalued as indicators of a divine mandate. In short, he knows people won't care that he's Rhaenyra's biological son if he doesn't have the Targaryen might and mystique to back it up.

Again, this is feudalism. Marriages are political contracts. Biological parentage alone is not sufficient to argue your right to succession, because people had children outside of wedlock from multiple women all the time. A marriage contract between parents is what secures a child's inheritance, and Jace doesn't have that.

[wonder-worker]

Thinking about Elizabeth Woodville as a gothic heroine is making me go insane. She entered the story by overturning existing social structures, provoking both ire and fascination. She married into a dynasty doomed to eat itself alive. She was repeatedly associated with the supernatural, both in terms of love and death. Her life was shaped entirely by uncanny repetitions - two marriages, two widowhoods, two depositions, two flights to sanctuary, two ultimate reclamations, all paralleling and ricocheting off each other. Her plight after 1483 exposed the true rot at the heart of the monarchy - the trappings of royalty pulled away to reveal nothing, a never-ending cycle of betrayal and war, the price of power being the (literal) blood of children. She lived past the end of her family name, she lived past the end of her myth. She ended her life in a deeply anomalous position, half-in and half-out of royal society. She was both a haunting tragedy and the ultimate survivor who was finally free.

[thoughtfulchaos773]

A few thoughts:

I wish we had more Tina/Syd scenes. Tina —I felt her stress while Sydney kept her composure. I love how she knows to Breathe, Stop, don't think, and just listen when she's overwhelmed.

Carmy was a dick-taker but listened to Syd when she told him No. Stop. He even shuts his mouth (but glares) the rest of the time as she helps Tina.

Watching Sydney plate the pasta, I see that Carmy is still stern and angry, but impressed? WHile she is a calm leader and sure of herself.

Syd and Carmy make eye contact after she says hands. They watch each other, and that is exactly what Marcus talks about. They'll see each other paying close attention at that moment and exchange a few words in their heads.

Just wonder if they talked about it later or if it's another thing they left alone.

[sibylsleaves]

What happens after buck and eddie get together.

hello friend IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED

There are literally SOOOOOO many fun storylines that could come out of this but like, first of all, how do you even start a relationship that you're basically already in the middle of??? This is NOTHING like starting a relationship with someone new, or even someone you're casually friends with (as you could argue Buck and Taylor were) this is...starting a relationship when you already know that in the event of your death this is the person you want to raise your child. This is starting a relationship knowing this person has already seen you at the lowest of your lows, that this person knows EVERY intimate, embarrassing, silly detail about you. like yeah that's beautiful but I also think it would be surprisingly difficult to navigate.

Like. Especially if you're Buck and Eddie who both, in different ways, have such an idealized view of romance (I would actually argue Eddie more so than Buck in many ways). And yeah, i think they've done a lot of work to deconstruct that BEFORE they even get together, but it's still like...a complete rewiring of the way you operate in a romantic relationship and that's not going to happen overnight. They're going to stumble over little things that feel awkward or unnatural because maybe they're still trying to fit this into a more familiar version of romance before they realize they don't HAVE to do that. Do they just continue on the way they've been but now they kiss and have sex? Do they start going on dates? Do they start calling each other pet names? How much time is it acceptable to spend with a brand new romantic partner who is also the man named in your will to raise your child if you die AND ALSO your coworker who you see for 24 hours at a time. Do they have different ideas about the answers to these questions and how do they navigate THAT?

And speaking of being coworkers, is there gonna be conflict with the 118 because it's technically against policy for them to date and be on the same shift? Maybe one of them transfers to a different shift but oh no now they never see each other! Cue a storyline where they prove how good of a team they are and that the fire chief (or whoever) shouldn't force bobby to separate them. And also, their lives are SO intertwined that whenever a conflict arises it's like. Who am I supposed to get an outside perspective from? YOU are the person I always go to with my relationship problems. And literally everyone else I know is ALSO your friend. So potentially we'd get some opening up of more relationships on the show, particularly for Eddie who almost ALWAYS goes to either Buck or, less frequently, Bobby with relationship issues. (Buck still has Maddie) But like. Bobby is BASICALLY Buck's dad so???? and even Carla, who seems to be at this point lowkey written out of the show, knew Buck first!!!! Eddie either has to talk to his parents (difficult because they've never approved of his relationships in the past and I think it's still probably touchy subject for them), Pepa (i actually love this option but also she's a different generation and sometimes you really DO need the opinion of someone who intimately understands modern relationships. Or maybe we get Eddie rekindling his friendship with Linda, or getting closer with Karen (this is after they get trapped in a well together thanks ryan guzman).

And in general (stealing this from @try-set-me-on-fire's recent post about them fighting) HOW do they navigate conflict in their relationship because we really DONT see them have much conflict in their friendship, so what happens when a relatively small issue in their relationship blows up into something bigger just because they literally DONT KNOW how to argue with each other.

And I haven't even touched the Christopher of it all yet. I DO think there's juicy conflict to mine there, because as many people have said I could see there being real fear for him about what happens when/if this relationship implodes the way ALL Eddie's relationships have imploded. I think it could go one of many ways, but what's interesting for me here is Chris is NOT ten years old anymore. He's a teenager, and his emotions are way more complex than just "ANGRY AT DAD." I could see him saying he's fine with it but then acting out in other ways that make Buck and Eddie realize he's NOT actually fine with it (kind of mirroring how we saw in 7x01 Chris acting out by stringing girls along being a symptom of Not Being Fine about Shannon's abandonment). And how Buck and Eddie might have to actually WORK to even get to a place to have an honest conversation about what his fears are.

Anyway I just think there's so much new exciting storytelling ground for them once they get together this is just the tip of the iceberg

[ohanny]

nothing bad can ever happen to oyei and cher. i need them to be happy and together and horny and happy forever, actually. no internal drama. just give me them being like "it's us (and our son) against the world"

[lady-tortilla-chip]

There is something so fucking sad to me about the idea that Yuuji, knowing and believing how powerful Gojo is, just knowing without a doubt that Gojo died because he CHOSE to stop fighting.

[americankimchi]

it's so hard to take star wars seriously nowadays because i'll watch someone get skewered by a lightsaber and then somehow walk it off with a bacta patch and a slap on the ass. like you're telling me a weapon that can carve furrows into foot-thick solid durasteel doors, dripping melted slag in its wake, when applied to the flesh of a sentient being leaves behind nothing more than superficial damage. like be so ffr. "it cauterizes the wound instantly" this is not a little cut. this is not minor burns. you were IMPALED BY A BEAM OF PLASMA. your ORGANS have been COOKED. your BLOOD has BOILED. your BONES were INCINERATED. what are you TALKING ABOUTTTTTT

[po-cky-o-o]

I present a very unnecessary analysis of the scaralumi talk before the big fight

First of all I love the way they both can see through each other. I think often times we overlook how good Lumi is at understanding the feelings of others - mostly because Paimon does most of the talking - but here we can see just how good she is at reading him since (I believe) this is the most she has ever talked in a quest. Scara believes he knows what he wants, but Lumi knows what he needs.

I like how he says this because it is true. We have been proven time and time again how Lumi cares about others, which is why despite her being enemies with Scara she can’t help but empathize with his situation.

But she’s not stupid, there’s where it comes the “almost” part. She is saying that as a way to try and stop his plans, not simply because she is worried about him and he knows that, but he still tries to convince her about him being, even though for a moment it almost sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.

Scara then moves on to say how his life has been meaningless up to this point, as if becoming a god is his only purpose and without it he is nothing. So he tried to understand why would Lumi bother going through such “futile errands” of protecting everyone.

But once again Lumi sees through him asking why then would he keep the connection with Haypasia (and consequently with Lumi herself). Even with his answer she is not convinced so he just deflects with his arrogance.

Not to mention how everything he says about Haypasia can also be applied to Lumine, since they both share a connection with him and saw his past. I find it interesting how he was able to sense Lumi and immediately entered her consciousness to observe her

Once again Lumi is able to figure him out and say what she needed to tick him off. He says how bad she is at sewing discord, but he still goes ahead and attacks the fatui calling it an “expression of affection”like he did for Haypasia, putting the two girls on the same wavelength

[luckydicekirby]

link click s2 is very funny bc its main weakness is its insistence on hiding things from the viewer to the ultimate detriment of the narrative and fully developing the new characters. however the most banger moment of the season was also of course suddenly revealing something cool as hell that was hidden from the viewer until the very end. multitudes!

[sergle]

sergle i thought you didn't like ppl objectifying you :/

god okay this gave me whiplash. make sure you remember how to read before proceeding. sound words out for a friend or family member if you need to. People Being Thirsty in my general direction is different from people like. seeing me only as JO material. I Don't Like people thinking they're smooth as hell trying to dm me what they assume women want to hear. Describing some cringe ass shit. I Do Like a compliment. I even like a compliment that is clearly thirsty. I don't think "I've jacked off to you" is a compliment. not from yall anyway. super controversial, I know. a fat fetish blog following me and reblogging my selfies Is objectification. someone being vaguely horny can be good, or bad, or funny and I show it to ppl on discord and laugh- depends on the specifics. Most of the people following me are too uwu to even get close to the line. they've backed so far away from the line out of fear that they tripped over something while they were backing up and it was embarrassing for them. People trying to push me into sex work specifically while I'm fundraising, because they know I'm more vulnerable at that time and they want to take advantage of me needing money, is definitely sexual harassment, that's definitely me being objectified. the ask I just got, though, was not that. 😭 just telling me that some girls think I'm hot? that is tepid as hell. thinking someone is attractive isn't objectifying them. all attraction is not objectification. please. work with me here

[communistkenobi]

because Vulcan emotional repression is social/cultural and not “biological” then like is pon farr just a physiological response to a mass social condition of constant total repression. like it’s a “biological” urge that they can measure & anticipate but that doesn’t mean that’s the natural or eternal state of Vulcans

[justmenoworries]

Still hyped but ngl that's a bit of a downer.

[paingoes]

Crash Out

Itch

(Content: ex-whumper, whumper turned whumpee, physical violence, addiction, past abuse, fainting, minor insects/insect bites, minor ableist language, homophobia mention)

The old irritation was back and biting. Throwing his phone into the creek had helped a little bit. Being away from the throne had helped a little bit. The drugs only ever made it worse and the drugs were all he had. He twitched endlessly. He hadn’t realize how badly he needed it until the urge was right on top of him.

He couldn’t break anything around Lorelai. The only time he’d tried that, she’d starting packing her bags, and they’d had to pay the hotel staff off for the damages. It was the closest she’d come to leaving him, right then and there. Nonstarter. 

She noticed it this time, but she mistook it for withdrawal. He was seldom down long enough for the lapse to start really hurting, but she could still see the signs when they came. She ran her fingers over his temple in an attempt to be soothing. It only made the burning worse. He bit into his own hand just to feel the pressure.

Another club. Better maintained on the inside than the others had been. It was a pity they had set it out in the middle of the swamp like that. The whole city was built on top of the wetland. The air burned with heat even at the darkest time of night. Lorelai had bought a pointy pair of pink sunglasses and a snapback that said LIFE’S A BEACH. She lost both of them an hour after they had entered the club and soon after he lost sight of her all together.

Thank god.

He knew so intuitively what he had to do. His knocked his shoulder straight into the boy’s side as he passed. The drink spilled and his hands didn’t leave his pockets. The club was crowded and his movement was subtle enough for the whole thing to look accidental, if you weren’t paying close attention.

“Say excuse me, asshole.” He heard the boy hiss out from behind him. Paris had to wipe the smirk off his face before he turned around.

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” It melted into a glare. He didn’t need to force the irritation into his voice; it was right beneath the surface. He only needed to reshape it. It did not de-escalate from there.

The kid swung on him. Paris slipped to his right. He knew it was unfair. He was — for once — the more sober one in the exchange. His reflexes were overtrained. It didn’t matter. He’d been given an opening. He swung back. 

He pulled the punch, the same way he would have if it had been Delta. Not trying to kill him. Not even enough to seriously injure him. Just to do it. He got a few hits in just like that. There wasn’t any adrenaline in his body. All that existed was release.

It was a very funny feeling when the other party fought back.

The fight had to be mutual; he knew that ahead of time. He wasn’t crazy enough to just beat a stranger unprovoked. Still, the resistance he received came as a surprise. He wasn’t used to encountering it while in this headspace. In spite of what he’d planned, it caught him a bit off guard. Not enough to change the outcome, just kind of diminishing what he could get out of it. It shifted back into a normal fight just as soon as the kid had recovered. He was so fucking sick of those. The way they were matched up was decent, though. He gave more than he got, enough that he was momentarily sated. 

The bouncers got in the way before he could finish, though. They dragged both of them outside, practically throwing them onto the pavement. Paris landed on his feet, twisting out of their grasp. The other boy landed roughly on his side. All too familiar. The boy sat up, trying to struggle to his feet. The only reason Paris didn’t immediately kick him back down was because he was aware on some level how hard the concrete must be. No broken bones. That was a rule.

He shook his wrists out, ready to draw even more out of the encounter if he could afford it. He rolled his eyes as the club’s doors opened again and the boys’ friends came to the rescue. God fucking dammit.

He was right — the concrete was hard. They were all so fucking drunk and uncoordinated, but there were a lot of them. It was like fighting a moving wall. He wasn’t ready to be on the defensive. Not while he was like this. The most Delta had ever given him in return were cat scratches — sometimes electric shocks, if he was really freaking out. He’d barely even feel them until afterwards. Here, the sharpness of the pain took him out of the mood instantly. The one it forced him into was even stranger. For some reason, he started laughing. One of their fists caught the side of his face. Another half dragged him backwards, making him lose his balance even from a sitting position. He got the preternatural instinct to protect his skull. He felt the hard edge of someone’s boot collide with his interlaced knuckles just as soon as he did so. He’d just barely spared himself the head trauma.

“Not the head, dumbass,” One of them slurred. 

“Yeah, dumbass.” Paris was still laughing hysterically. Someone kicked him in the stomach, cutting him off mid-breath.

“He’s fucking insane. Like, mental sickness.” The boy he’d initially started the fight with had started to walk away. “Leave him alone.”

“Pussy.” Paris coughed. He flinched as one of the shapes above him moved, but another hit didn’t come. They withdrew.

He sat up slowly. His knuckles were bloodied, though he did not know if it was his or not. He glanced back at the club doors. The bouncers had been watching the whole thing. They shook their head. No re-entry. As if.

When he was back on his feet, his vision immediately got spotty. He thought it was another insect hallucination, but the movement was much more rapid. Like ink blots. The only reason he bothered to distinguish was because the hallucinations did not usually take up his entire field of vision. They didn’t threaten to take him down again. He blinked in and out of wakefulness and somehow did not stop walking until he heard the sound of waves crashing. Nobody could see the ocean at this time of night, only the darkness that held it. The beachgrass was right off the road. He took about five steps into the sand before he collapsed.

==========

It was the that heat first woke him up. The sun had only just risen over the ocean and already it was unbearable. All his skin felt dry and course. He rose his head up slowly from the dune and immediately regretted it. He hadn’t felt the soreness until he moved; it did not go away again once he stilled.

He blinked. A small caiman laid within the reeds a few feet from his face. They watched each other for some time. Little insects crawled rapid and clumsy throughout the pale grass and into the sand. There was an itch in his arms and his calves. He knew he’d spent the better part of the night getting eaten alive. 

He crawled up through the sand. The pavement was too hot to touch; he forced himself to rise. He shook the sand out from his shirt and hair. The sweat that was forming on his skin moistened it, coating him in a gross, muddy substance. The gnats buzzed incessantly. His mouth felt like cotton. Hell on fucking earth.

He trudged the path back to the motel room. He was lucky the spatial memory was still holding up, foggy as all his other facilities had become. Otherwise he’d have been totally lost. Lorelai…wasn’t as good with directions. Hopefully she’d made it back okay.

When he entered into the room, Lorelai was sitting up in the bed in just her camisole. The blanket was crumpled up around her. She looked up expectantly as he walked in. She wasn’t alone.

“Oh my god, you’re still alive.” Lorelai gawked. “Did you get kicked out of the club?”

“No,” he lied.

“So you just left me there alone for no reason?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Very cool of you. I was worried.”

“Clearly not that fucking worried.” His eyes traced over the girl sitting cross-legged on the bed beside her. She was wearing Lorelai’s hoodie, which was technically his hoodie. She was also hitting his vape. She didn’t take any visible offense.

“I should probably head out, anyway.” The girl unfolded her legs and stepped into her slides. She gave Paris a quick once-over as she stood up. “You’d better take some Nexgard. The sand fleas burrow.”

He could immediately feel the itch, even knowing it was psychosomatic. She slipped the door open.

“You’ll call me?” Lorelai called after her hopefully. The girl winked without smiling and disappeared behind the closing door.

Paris held one open hand up in the direction she had left in. The universal — one-handed — what-the-fuck? gesture.

“What?” Lorelai’s tone was defensive. “You’re not my boyfriend.”

“We are on the damn lam and you’re inviting people back to our room?”

“Relax. She’s rebel. She was at Occupy.”

He could’ve guessed. Any breed of deviant sexuality typically signaled rebel allegiance. God knew Empire wouldn’t have them. That didn’t necessarily put his mind at ease, but he’d have preferred to be caught by one of the rebel groups over Nezu if it really came down to it. Lorelai held up a large envelope from the nightstand.

“She asked if I could drop this off for her at Coda since we’re already headed North.” She smiled a little.

“Fuck no.”

“Well, it’s my ship and I’m driving, so we’re probably gonna. But we can talk about it.” 

There was definitely an edge to her voice. He didn’t answer, knowing there was nothing he could do but irritate her further. He moved past her.

“You should shower,” she suggested helpfully.

“I’m gonna shower.” 

……..

tags:

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @vivulapom @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat

[katzdxd]

I'm back to writing agents of chaos after a break and I've been playing a LOT of cotl while in wisdom teeth extraction recovery so I've been on leshylamb brainrot again

anyways I like to think shamura used to be able to see glimpses into the future and something they saw a lot was a lamb in leshy's future. everyone was confused because lambs were narinder's whole thing, then after narinder went against his siblings they thought leshy would catch and kill the lamb, then after he was killed they were once again confused, and finally once they were all brought back they realized leshy's destiny was to marry the lamb. they are still very confused.

[devilsskettle]

i think some of the popularity that meta horror has garnered is a little bit disingenuous tbqh even though i do like some of the movies that have come out of the subgenre, people don’t realize that the foundation of the slasher genre was established in the 60s/70s and a lot of the 80s movies that have become so classic were already riffing off of the tropes established by those movies before full fledged meta took off. the idea to make friday the 13th was sparked by the commercial success of halloween. the original script for slumber party massacre was a parody of the genre and the movie retains much of that humor which is referential to past slashers by nature. + it intentionally uses typical slasher tropes around gender and sexuality to bring forward the concerns of teenage girls. is that not something that meta horror is frequently touted as doing? child’s play is like a slasher, “except —” which is what a lot of meta horror comedies do now (“slasher except it’s a possessed doll” is not that far off from “slasher except it’s freaky friday” and whatnot). this isn’t to say that scream isn’t foundational to what the slasher genre evolved into or that contemporary meta slashers aren’t doing something interesting but i also think they tend to lean towards cynicism towards the movies they’re deriving their themes from + they’re not even as different as they think they are from “classic” 80s movies that already are borrowing from classic slashers which in turn borrowed from even older horror (for example, in halloween, laurie is watching the thing from another world from the 50s which was adapted into the now classic john carpenter’s the thing in the 80s). and of course many of these older horror movies were adapted from literature which also inspired more literature. like the shelley/byron/polidori scary story writing contest is now legendary but also you don’t get the shining without the haunting of hill house (and you don’t get the haunting of hill house without turn of the screw, for example) and the shining is probably one of the most referenced movies by other media of all time. horror has always been an intertextual genre let’s stop pretending it didn’t become “self aware” until 1996

[bookwyrminspiration]

"No pressure. No time limit. You set the pace and I'll just...follow your lead." (Flashback, p. 663)

"[...] the way she was chewing her lip made Sophie pretty sure that Biana was asking herself the same question Sophie was. Would Fitz wait?" (Legacy, p. 523)

killing and maiming, Fitz I'm so sorry they'd do this to you bbg I'm so sorry the intrigue of relationship drama was deemed more important than staying true to your character. I could write you so much justice