Still emotional about Fy'ra Rai and Opal, actually. Thought dump time bc i. dont have the energy to cut this down effectively.
Because at that point in the episode, Opal is doomed. Not in the fun little "oh things are getting worse ;)" kind of way we'd been experiencing leading up to the fight, or even IN the fight. At that point in the fight, Cyrus is dead. Dorian and Dariax have their minds twisted, bodies clambering away from the fight. Morrighan has felt, firsthand, just how far gone Opal is, holes in her mind, her friend broken. The heartbreaking sentence of. "You can always come back." understands that she is gone already. She's lost already. Opal has forgotten Ted. Opal has forgotten herself.
So at that point in the fight, we know Opal is doomed. Us as the audience, the cast, the characters. Aabria is running through each of the other crownkeepers and it is more of a goodbye than a round of combat. Defying the Spider Queen invites death, with zero hesitation- Cyrus's body as physical evidence of that. The terms were very clearly set: You leave Opal, you let her be lost. Or you die. (Leaving Opal anyway).
and Fy'ra Rai then. Grasps the crown, understands intimately that she can break it off and it will kill Opal. (I will free you, if you want me to. We would lose you but you would not be taken). And asks, what do you want me to do. What do you want.
and Opal says, I want you to leave. (I want you to live.) and Fy'ra Rai functionally says. No. Sorry. That's not one of the options.
If you wanted to go. I will do that (your blood on my hands). If you want me to stay, I will. But I'm not going to leave you.
There was the point where Fy'ra Rai broke into the communication and I felt my insides sink because. Look. Lets be real, Aabria had already demonstrated the stakes here. The gesture would not be rewarded for the gesture alone. The Spider Queen's terms were: You leave Opal. Or you die.
And Fy'ra Rai said: no.
I don't think I'm overstepping to assume that if Fy'ra Rai had failed the intimidation check, she would have died. This entire thing hits me so hard because I think Anjali knew that too. I think Fy'ra Rai knew that too. Yes, Fy'ra Rai convinced a Betrayer God to negotiate. She carved a third option out of a non-negotiable situation. She knew what would happen if she failed and did it anyway, with no fear, no regret, no waver in her resolve. She had lost enough sisters. She wasn't going to lose anymore, no matter the personal cost. That's part of why it succeeded, I'm sure, but.
Just. Fuck me. The amount of resolve. The amount of love. The amount of conviction. "I am. A protector." You know your friend- your sister- is doomed. So no more negotiating away from that. You step to her side and you grasp her hand and say- doom me with her.
And in some, sideways way, this saves you both, at least for a little while.
Because this story is a tragedy. This ending is a sad one. We know this already. But think about- Opal, under Lolth's bidding, alone in the dark. Think about Fy'ra Rai, alive, intimately aware that she had failed to protect yet another sister.
And think about what we got, instead: the two of them, in deep darkness, danger encroaching- holding hands. Someone they love at their side. A champion. And her champion.
This is still a sad story. But it's not the same one. Fy'ra Rai stared down a Betrayer God and made her change her mind. She stared down a Betrayer God, and her love and conviction changed the nature of the story. It shouldn't have been able to. But she did.
Fy'ra Rai chose to doom 2 people instead of one, and the sheer strength of her love and will managed to save them both, at least for a little while. Isn't it funny how that works? Isn't it devastating? Isn't it. fucking incredible?
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I'm thinking abt that pretty fall leaves embroidery pattern post and about how like... it is categorically a repost, it's a reupload. right? a thing that is generally disliked. but because it's credited, it's genuinely boosting the artist in question.
and it could ALWAYS be like this. reposting content could ALWAYS be a symbiotic relationship, but because sourcing back to the original creator of something is so uncommon, it's just easier to ask people not to repost it at all. and people still don't understand the difference. or they'll go to the effort of cropping out usernames/signatures to repost something, which is More Effort than literally crediting the creator of something you liked enough to want to repost.
Like. I literally don't actually care if my own shit gets reposted, you have to understand. I just don't want it STOLEN. But "do not repost" is easier to write on my art than "you can repost this, but don't alter the image/remove my signature, don't you dare write 'credit goes to the artist' because that is not credit, please link back to my original post or someplace that you can actually find me. please use an actual link/url instead of writing a non-clickable link of my username, because making it text instead of a clickable link cuts the number of people who will go to the effort of visiting my own page in Half."
All those aggregate themed accounts, those fuckin annoying as hell instagrams and facebook groups that are like "body positive art we love wamen 💕 hashtag feminism" and then MASS-STEAL plus sized art created by women, if pages like these that always go and steal my older self-portraits and other works... If they just put a link to my prints of those pieces in the text of those posts, or, fuck, my commission info page? I would literally be living on the moon right now. I would have a house on the moon
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arthur (prince of camelot) still has to study under a tutor bc yknow uther wants him to be very intelligent before becoming king or something bc its super important idk idc anyways merlin is doing chores in his chambers while arthur is squinting at a book and merlin eventually caves and asks him what he’s reading and arthur gruffly explains that its a collection of stories from greece that make absolutely no sense so merlin asks him to read them outloud to him. arthur of course teases him and calls him an idiot and asks how he could possibly help but does as he’s asked and reads the stories to merlin as he does his chores. merlin (being crushed under the weight of destiny and tormented by the prophecies that kilgharrah spews) understands the stories almost immediately and gets all excited and starts rambling about them with arthur. arthur is glad to have someone who understands so he can give something that reflects a hint of understanding to his tutor who accepts it and moves onto the next unit of education.
the thing is, arthur finds more stories in camelot’s library and brings them up to his room to read them aloud to merlin under the guise of completing his studies but really he just wants to watch as merlin’s eyes gleam when he understands whats happening and listen to him ramble on and on about them bc he’s gay. the stories stick with merlin though and he realizes that they’re cautionary tales, that the heroes who were told too much of their future doomed themself to fulfill them - that them fighting the prophecies led to their completion. merlin takes it to heart and gives a big “fuck you” to kilgharrah before forging his own fate and helping morgana with her magic and handing out an olive branch to mordred and now everyone can live happily and peacefully in an albion teeming with magic.
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can i be real with you guys for a second. do i have permission to speak my truth without being flayed alive. just for a moment. the way many of you talk about zuka makes me think you guys don’t actually enjoy their relationship. people will be like “oh i love how it’s grumpy x sunshine because zuko is a little grouchy grouch and sokka is funny and flirty and bubbly” and i’m just like……. in what world?????????? i don’t think you guys ship zuck actually i think you guys just wish you could ship zukang without being perceived as weird for age gap reasons. but in no world is zucchini a ship wherein sokka is emotionally uplifting zuko thru the power of love and friendship. they’re literally both suicidal freaks. and yet people love making them not only as boring as possible, but also giving sokka a personality transplant (aang’s personality, to be specific) because they hate the source material or they just see conventionally attractive teenage boys and black out or who knows what. but it’s okay you guys can just ship zukang if that’s really what you want out of their dynamic. i won’t judge
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