#but like its just... like certain.... excerpts... and quotes

[elegyofthemoon]

i wan bookclub w someone

[iwantyoursexmp3]

garth greenwell talking about the tenderness of sex and how it functions alongside grief in reference to a piss play excerpt  🥰 ️ 🥰 ️ 🥰 ️ 🥰 ️ 🥰 ️

[jessource]

prompts:　random quotes + excerpts.

“ you are so vulnerably haunting; your eeriness is terrifying irresistible. ” “ we’re not that different, you and i. ” “ you are a child of the cosmos, a ruler of the skies. ” “ you’re just becoming more of what you’ve always been. ” “ i’m not changing, none of us are changing. everything is fine. lets have a picnic. ” “ my father had the kind of anger all fathers do – loud and terrible. it lingers for your whole life. ” “ girlhood rots between my teeth, a sickness so sweet it aches. ” “ i wished so badly to have my own life, but you wouldn’t let me. ” “ parts of me died in the house i grew up in and i visit them in dreams. ” “ today i heard your name and my hands started shaking. please make it stop, make it stop. ” “ i wasn’t even allowed to cry over any of it, anyway! i wish the only thing that i spilled in my life was milk. ” “ this is not fun! it’s just scary! ” “ but if i hadn't fallen, i wouldn't have met you. ” “ have you let go of the ails that anchor you yet? ” “ have you let this marvelous spinning earth pull you into its arms and sweep you off your feet yet? ” “ i dream, i dream, i keep dreaming. one word in my mouth crystallises like sugar: hope. ” “ the nights get heavy like they always do. ” “ heavy wind, cold rain, and yes the stars. ” “ drifting apart always seems to hurt more as it happens. ” “ i am trying to say: look at me. ‘i am weightless. you make my heart grow light.’ ” “ right now, everything without you is almost sticky-sweet. it tastes like nectar. ” “ can you accept help or are you the eldest daughter? ” “ i swallow a bee for each ill deed done. i am a hive walking. i strain to hear you over the regret. ” “ i knew that it was cruel to be so optimistic, but, in my solitude, i couldn't resist the urge and spent entire days basking in idiotic fantasies, sometime verging on prayer. ” “ grief is not a feeling, but a neighbourhood. this is where i come from. everyone i love still lives there. ” “ there is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get. ” “ i was once very close to getting out of here. ” “ there is no moving on. only running away. ” “ i don’t love anyone. well, maybe my sister. ” “ i am infatuated with the private life, and with anonymity; perhaps even invisibility. ” “ sometimes you just need someone to tell you you're not as terrible as you think you are. ” “ i opened my mouth, almost said something. almost. the rest of my life might have turned out differently if i had. but i didn't. ” “ she is still inside of me. i carry her with me wherever i go. ” “ being a confessional human being for me is like a defense mechanism. if i can tell you the flaw before you see the flaw, then maybe it's okay. ” “ being a person didn't come naturally to me the way it seemed to for others. people who were sure of themselves awed me. i studied them and tried to mimic their ease. ” “look back at the mess you've made. try your best to pick up the pieces. ” “ not only had my brother disappeared, but– and bear with me here–a part of my very being had gone with him. ” “ i kinda wish i was buried six feet under ground. but oh god i also wish i was buried in your arms. ” “ we tell our stories differently, don’t we, you and i? ” “ you poor thing. sweet, mourning lamb. there’s nothing you can do. ” “ a golden cage is still just a cage. ” “ although i may not be yours. i can never be another’s. ” “ my mother didn't foresee what was going to become of us as a result of witnessing her despair. ”

[ladiemars]

I love Nor and her giant sad puppy eyes, I would love to know more about her

thank you!! have a hastily drawn nor ft. her giant sad sopping wet puppy eyes:

+ a giant nor lore dump below the cut જ⁀➴

➸ her whole character was inspired by that one textpost that’s like, “characters with both the abject terror and desperation of an animal that knows it is cornered and destined to be eaten. you just can't get that kind of angst out a successful hunter” and this quote by james harriet: “if having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”

➸ she’s is the product of a union between a drow woman and a deep imaskari man. for those who don’t know, the deep imaskari are a human subrace (from 3e) that have stone-like skin and hair that’s white or black. because that’s nor’s human half, most people assume she’s completely drow upon meeting her, since did not inherit any features from her father that would make her look less like her drow mother.

➸ the deep imaskari live longer than other humans—up to 550 years—so nor ages at a rate more akin to drow and elves than half-elves or humans. nor believes she’s currently around seventy years old, though she could be off by a decade or two. she’s not sure when she was born and has long periods without human contact. she really isn’t sure how much time has passed.

➸ she has no given name, but eventually ended up going by the name ratcatcher, which is what the locals in baldur’s gate called her. halsin is the one who names her nor shortly after they meet, which is the elven word for “passion” and also “run.”

➸ this excerpt from one of my fics sums up her urchin/orphan to urban ranger/beastmaster pipeline pretty well:

➸ around the age of twenty, nor grew to resent humanity so much that she decided to leave baldur’s gate and live in the forest with only animals for company for half a century. (this is when she lost track of time completely.) in the forest, she became an expert in survival, attuning her ears to the slightest twitch in the air, to every noise and smell. she lived in a cave and slept curled up beside velvet on a bed of willow leaves. the events of baldur’s gate 3 is the first time in decades that she’s had social interaction.. and it shows.

➸ she has a little wolfdog companion named velvet. (i’ve drawn him and her and halsin and scratch here). he was another half-breed who didn’t quite being anywhere, so they bonded very deeply. (fun fact: velvet killed the elder brain in my first playthrough as nor. he’s a legend in faerun now.)

➸ laezel is her bestie. they are ride or die. neither of them understand a damn thing about faerun or its inhabitants. but that also means they don’t judge each other for anything, cause they both just kind of assume what the other is doing is normal

➸ a big part of her character is her dynamic with the emperor. she gets manipulated by him so bad because he tells her everything a forgotten, unloved creature wants to hear: i need you, i’ll protect you, you’re not like other people, we’re a team, you can trust me, i want you to join me, you aren’t alone. it’s not until he begins to pressure and compel her to become illithid against her will she starts to fear him and his power over her, and after certain revelations she realizes he was using her and turns on him altogether.

➸ obviously she romances halsin. i love the dynamic of beastmaster/druid. they’re extremely well suited because they’re both such inherently good people and they bond a lot over their love for nature. they are also the only two people who can really understand each other’s animalistic quirks.

i’ve written some fics with her that you can read here if you’re interested. >:3c

[joannerowling]

have you seen this? https://thecritic.co.uk/j-k-rowling-is-honest-not-nasty/ the og article is rage-inducing. how dare she write books where there are bad men other than the one single bad guy!?

The Critic's article is great – short and to the point. The original though… First of all the accompanying image.

????? Anyone has any idea what that's supposed to convey cause i'm at a loss.

The actual article written by a certain Nick Hilton isn't just nonsense, it's badly written nonsense. What adult seriously calls someone "nasty"? Well, i suppose the kind of person who gets offended by the use of the term "sodomise" to describe the very act, in a novel which amongst other themes deals with sexual abuse (something that makes Nick apparently very uncomfortable), might.

(Side note on that, i counted, and he used "nasty"/"nastiest"/"nastiness" FIVE times in an article that's like 2000 words long including a fair amount of quotes. I just find that detail particularly funny, considering he complains about Jo using "sodomise" twelve times, "in its many tenses". And she conjugated it too! How uncouth.)

I'll skip over the bad faith claims that the world of Strike is "populated with paedophiles and rapists and terrorists who are never the murderers"; besides being patently false (Career of Evil and The Running Grave both have killers who are also rapists, and so does Troubled Blood even if it's not The killer), complaining about these topics showing up in crime novels is fucking stupid. What's next, an article decrying the amount of gore in horror novels titled "Stephen King Is A Big Meanie"?

But beyond all that weird pearl-clutching, it's also just… lazily written. There's no actual argument and the tone is all over the place as a result. Like, he expects you to naturally agree with him that JKR is "nasty", so he's just citing some book excerpts that are, i guess, supposed to speak for themselves? Like this:

… Ok, and? JKR was illegally hacked by a journal, the one bit character who works for said journal in her novel is unpleasant… conclusion she's nasty?? i don't get it Nick.

Because of stuff like this you're left wondering if he actually hates or rather admires her. Very bizarre. Not helped by the fact that he reuses JKR's own turns of phrase?

Like, was this on purpose in a clumsy attempt to parody her, or was it subconscious? I have no clue.

And finally, the funniest bit:

No comment.

[leonardcohenofficial]

here’s the NYtimes interview with alan alda reflecting on the fiftieth anniversary of M*A*S*H (text below the cut)!!

By Saul Austerlitz Published Sept. 16, 2022 Updated Sept. 17, 2022, 1:10 p.m. ET

When we think of the default mode of much of contemporary television — mingling the tragic and the offhand, broad comedy and pinpoint sentiment — we are thinking of a precise mixture of styles, emotions and textures first alchemized by “M*A*S*H.”

Created by Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds, “M*A*S*H” aired on CBS from 1972 to 1983. (It is currently available to stream on Hulu.) Over the course of its 11-year run, it featured alcohol-fueled high jinks and other shenanigans alongside graphic surgical sequences and portrayals of grief, blending comedy and drama in a fashion rarely seen before on television. Set among the doctors and nurses of a Korean War mobile surgical unit, “M*A*S*H” made use of the mockumentary episode decades before “The Office” ever tried it, featured blood-drenched story lines long before “The Sopranos” and killed off beloved characters without warning well before “Game of Thrones.”

The “M*A*S*H” series finale, titled “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen,” remains the most-watched non-Super Bowl program ever broadcast on American TV. The heart of the series was Alan Alda, who played the acerbic and devoted surgeon Hawkeye Pierce throughout the show’s more than 250 episodes and also wrote and directed dozens of them.

The actor revisited “M*A*S*H” in a video interview ahead of the show’s 50th anniversary, on Sept. 17. Alda, 86, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015, discussed famous scenes, the series’s battles with CBS (“They didn’t even want us to show blood at the beginning”) and why he thinks the audience connected so deeply with “M*A*S*H.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How have you been feeling?

Good, thank you. You mean with regard to Parkinson’s or the Covid or what?

All of the above, I suppose.

Parkinson’s I’m on top of. And I haven’t come down with Covid yet.

What does it mean to you to know that people are still interested in “M*A*S*H” 50 years later?

I got the script submitted to me when I was making a movie in the Utah State Prison. And it was the best script I had seen since I’d been in prison. I called my wife and I said: “This is a terrific script, but I don’t see how I can do it. Because we live in New Jersey, and it has to be shot in L.A. And who knows? It could run a whole year.” To go from that to 50 years later, it’s still getting, not only attention but it’s still getting an audience, is a surprise.

What kinds of conversations did you have with Larry Gelbart before the show began?

With “All in the Family,” I think the door was open to doing stories about things that really mattered. So when I got out of prison and went down to L.A. to talk to them, the night before we started rehearsing the pilot, I wanted us all to agree that we wouldn’t just have high jinks at the front. That it would take seriously what these people were going through. The wounded, the dead. You can’t just say it’s all a party. And we talked until about 1 in the morning at a coffee shop in Beverly Hills.

Do you feel there was a shift over the first season away from the booze-fueled humor of the early episodes?

Yeah, there was. Partly because people who were submitting story lines thought that that’s what was wanted. Larry Gelbart rewrote most of the shows the first season. Midway through the first season, there was a show called “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet,” and that was a real turning point. Because in that show, a friend of Hawkeye’s shows up among the wounded, and he dies on the operating table. That’s the moment where McLean Stevenson [as Lt. Col. Henry Blake] says: “There’s two rules in war: Young men die, and then Rule 2 is there’s nothing you can do about it.” Something like that. [The exact quote: “There are certain rules about a war. And rule No. 1 is young men die. And rule No. 2 is, doctors can’t change rule No. 1.”]

The network was furious about this. Some guy in charge of programming said, “What is this, a situation tragedy?” Soon after that, we were getting more popular. And the more popular you get, the less they complain.

Was CBS also concerned about the language used to tell these stories?

The most striking example to me was early in the series. Radar [Gary Burghoff] is explaining to somebody that he’s unfamiliar with something. And he said, “I’m a virgin at that, sir.” With no sexual context. It was just that he’d never done something before. And the CBS censor said: “You can’t say the word ‘virgin.’ That’s forbidden.” So the next week, Gelbart wrote a little scene that had nothing to do with anything. A patient is being carried through on a stretcher. And I say, “Where you from, son?” And he says, “The Virgin Islands, sir.”

Early in the show’s run, Gelbart and Reynolds went to South Korea and recorded 22 hours of interviews with doctors, nurses, pilots and orderlies there. How did those interviews make their way into story lines for the show?

We had reams of transcripts of those conversations. I would go through them looking for ideas for stories. And I could see that the other writers were doing the same thing, because there’d be circles around sentences and words. Sometimes one little phrase would spark the imagination of one of us, and that phrase could turn into a story.

Larry and Gene went to Korea at the end of the second season, and they got a lot of material for stories. But they had also found that we had, by paying attention to the lives that they lived, we had made up stories that were very similar to things that had actually happened.

People may not remember that you directed 32 episodes of “M*A*S*H” and wrote 19 episodes. How did you start getting interested in writing and directing?

At the end of the first season, I wrote a show called “The Longjohn Flap.” I borrowed the idea of “La Ronde,” but made it long johns instead because it was reflective of what their lives were like in the cold. I had been trying to learn writing since I was 8 years old. I wanted to be a writer before I wanted to be an actor.

Were there story lines that you thought “M*A*S*H” hadn’t quite tackled yet that you wanted to bring into the world of the show as a writer and director?

When I wrote, I tried to find out a little bit more about each of the characters. Who is Klinger [Jamie Farr] really? What was underneath — I almost said, what was underneath the dresses. [Laughs.] What was underneath the wearing of the dresses? Who was Margaret [Loretta Swit]?

I see on the internet that people assumed that because I was politically active, trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed, that in my writing I was trying to make political points, too. And I wasn’t. I really don’t like writing that passes as entertainment when it’s really propaganda. I want to hear a human story.

The unexpected death of Colonel Blake (McLean Stevenson) in the Season 3 finale, “Abyssinia, Henry,” remains one of the biggest surprises in television history. What was it like to shoot that sequence?

Gelbart showed me the scene. I think [it was] the morning of the shoot. I knew, but nobody else knew. He wanted to get everybody’s first-time reactions. And it really affected Gary Burghoff on camera. I think everybody was grateful for the shock.

It shocked the audience, too. I had a letter from a man who complained that he had to console his 10-year-old son who was sobbing. But it was one of the ways for the adults in the audience to realize that another aspect of war is that things happen that you don’t expect.

Was there ever a point when you got tired of fighting the Korean War on TV? The old joke is the show lasted almost four times as long as the actual war.

Around a year before we finally ended it, I felt we were getting toward the end of our ability to be fresh every week. I started suggesting that we do a final movie-length episode that really could end it. First of all, we were getting too old to play these people. And after you tell stories about a group of people 250 times, it’s hard not to repeat yourself or say things that sound like they’re supposed to be funny but aren’t really.

What did it mean to you to have Hawkeye leave Korea scarred by the death of a child in the final episode?

You just described exactly what I wanted to do with all the characters on the show. I was looking for stories, each in a different way, that showed how everybody left the war with a wound of some kind. Everybody had something taken from them. And Hawkeye was just one of them.

Earlier in your career, you had been on another great military comedy, “The Phil Silvers Show,” also known as “Sergeant Bilko.” What did you learn about acting from your pre-“M*A*S*H” TV work?

The first thing I learned on the “Bilko” show was you have to know your lines before you go in for the day’s work. I had come from the stage, where I would learn my lines during rehearsal. And the first thing they did is say, “OK, you’re up for your phone conversation,” where it’s a page of dialogue. It was an eye-opening experience. [Laughs.] I staggered through that.

Why do you think the audience connected so deeply with “M*A*S*H”?

Aside from really good writing and good acting and good directing, the element that really sinks in with an audience is that, as frivolous as some of the stories are, underneath it is an awareness that real people lived through these experiences, and that we tried to respect what they went through. I think that seeps into the unconscious of the audience.

They didn’t even want us to show blood at the beginning. In the pilot, the operating room was lit by a red light, so you couldn’t tell what was blood and what wasn’t. Which, once we got picked up, was ditched.

And giving us a feel for the circumstances that the real people had to go through, so that you could see that the crazy behavior wasn’t just to be funny. It was a way of separating yourself for a moment from the nastiness.

You can’t get as harsh as it really was.

Correction: Sept. 16, 2022 An earlier version of this article described in error the viewership statistics for the series finale of “M*A*S*H.” It was the most-watched non-Super Bowl program ever broadcast on American television, in terms of total audience, not the highest-rated non-Super Bowl program. A rating refers to the percentage of TV households that watch a program. The “M*A*S*H” finale remains the highest-rated program, of any kind, ever broadcast on American television.

[torgawl]

i was a reading a bit more on purgatory and purgatorius ignis (cleansing fire), which is a concept that existed even before the notion that purgatory itself was a third other-world domain, similar to heaven and hell, when i suddenly remembered dante's la divina commedia and decided to revisit the story a little. and i found something interesting as i was scrolling through the wikipedia page.

so, purgatory is the second part of la divina commedia, following inferno, and is an allegory telling of the climb of dante up the mount of purgatory, guided by the roman poet virgil. alegorically, purgatorio represents the penitent christian life (and christianity, as we know, is one of the core themes of fontaine's archon quests that arlecchino was a part of). while describing the climb dante focuses a lot on the nature of sin, examples of vice and virtue, as well as moral issues in politics and in the church. what's interesting, though, is that the poem posits the theory that all sins arise from love – either perverted love directed towards others' harm, or deficient love, or the disordered or excessive love of good things.

why is this interesting, you ask? let me add here a few quotes before i contextualise it:

"she is a god with no love left for her people, nor do they have any left for her" - dainsleif about the cryo archon, the tsaritsa

"her royal highness the tsaritsa is actually a gentle soul. too gentle, in fact, and that's why she had to harden herself. likewise, she declared war against the whole world only because she dreams of peace. and because she made an enemy of the world, i now have a friend in you." - childe about the tsaritsa

"everyone praises her for her kindness and benevolence, but they forget that love is also a form of sin. what if she's just trying to compensate for something?" - wanderer about the tsaritsa

the tsaritsa, the cryo archon and the person arlecchino is devoted to, is theorised and hinted multiples times to be the god of love. yes, the love that is said to be the origin of sin in la divina commedia. we can also draw parallels between the idea of perverted love talked about in the poem and the relationship between arlecchino and others, for instance the kids of the house of the hearth.

arlecchino's drip marketing including an excerpt where the scene goes from a gentle warm environment, seemingly mistaken as a loving family home full of innocent looking children, that quickly shifts into a somber and dark atmosphere under her authority - the children answering instantly, without hesitation and completely obedient -, is the perfect illustration of the duality within her character. there's an obvious exploitative and manipulative system making use of the house of the hearth and the orphans under its roof, where arlecchino (as the one running the orphanage) is the provider and the kids are brought up to be dependable and further dispatched as fatui soldiers when "potential" is recognised. and we can deduce that there's ways that their education is done from a very young age so it prevents or punishes any sort of dissent, something not hard to imagine when we know from freminet that arlecchino doesn't like when the kids cry or show emotional vulnerability, something she sees as weakness, for example. but if there's this dark side to her, there's also certain attitudes that demonstrate her care for the children or even her care for the world around her. arlecchino helping freminet get closure on his mother's death, the reformation of the house of the hearth (which we know used to have a much more punishitive and strict leader before arlecchino took over) or even her devotion and deep respect towards the tsaritsa are some examples of the way she shows care for other people. now, we can theorise that these good deeds directed towards the orphans under her care are very much purposeful to better manipulate them, but i think that's exactly what the notion of perverted love in la divina commedia tries to hint at.

besides this concept, there's something else that peaked my interest in dante's poem. dante pictures purgatory as an island at the antipodes of jerusalem, pushed up, in an otherwise empty sea, by the displacement caused by the fall of satan, which left him fixed at the central point of the earth. it's a cone-shaped island that has seven terraces on which souls are cleansed from the seven deadly sins or capital vices as they ascend. at the summit is the garden of eden, from where the souls, cleansed of evil tendencies and made perfect, are taken to heaven.

as we know, arlecchino is being introduced in fontaine, her homeland, and the idea of purgatory as an island in the sea leading its way to heaven caused by the fall of a sinful being sort of reminded me of remuria. remuria was the civilization in fontaine which directly preceded the previous hydro archon egeria's rule. its downfall occurred as a result of remus' attempt to avert its predicted destruction, and in particular, by his act of sharing his power and authority — reserved only for gods — with the four human harmosts he appointed to govern his cities. remuria eventually ended up being sunken into the abyss, devouring everything including the people and remus himself. we know there's still a region in fontaine's map that wasn't yet released, so how odd would it be that the last part to be revealed in fontaine might just be the land that was once sunken? after the little note about the samsara cycles near the tower of the narzissenkreuz ordo, which referenced a cycle called remuria, i would not be surprised at all. it's also particularly funny that fontaine is directly below celestia. yes, the floating island in the sky above teyvat which is the residence of the gods, the same gods that made remuria fall. as the contemporary philosophers of our time have said, that's sus!!!

i don't want to get too ahead of myself because i don't have a theory about what's going to happen or what role arlecchino will play exactly but i don't think it would be shocking if we got to know more about remuria during her release. and still in the purgatory idea, i think the angel of death (azreal) might be an interesting parallel to make with arlecchino. azrael's role is seen as benevolent, transporting souls after death. it fits perfectly well with the idea of purgatorius ignis, that signifies transformation. in different cultural and religious contexts, fire can also symbolize destruction renewal and even rebirth so i'm very very curious to see what arlecchino's story will be like.

[haggishlyhagging]

Two quotes I read today. Written 50 years apart but discussing the same phenomenon of female oppression.

The first is an excerpt of Kate Millett’s masterful takedown of Freud’s conclusions (which were foundational to much of the USA’s mid-20th century backlash to feminist advances) in her work Sexual Politics:

The three most distinguishing traits of female personality, were, in Freud's view, passivity, masochism, and narcissism. Even here, one can see a certain merit in the Freudian paradigm taken as pure description. The position of women in patriarchy is such that they are expected to be passive, to suffer, and to be sexual objects; it is unquestionable that they are, with varying degrees of success, socialized into such roles. This is not however what Freud had in mind. Nor had he any intention of describing social circumstances. Instead, he believed that the elaborate cultural construction we call "femininity" was largely organic, e.g., identical with, or clearly related to, femaleness. He therefore proceeded to define femininity as constitutional passivity, masochism, and narcissism. . . .

In convincing himself that the three traits of femininity were in fact constitutional and biologically destined, Freud had made it possible to prescribe them and for his followers to attempt to enforce them, perpetuating a condition which originates in oppressive social circumstances. To observe a group rendered passive, stolid in their suffering, forced into trivial vanity to please their superordinates, and, after summarizing these effects of long subordination, chose to conclude they were inevitable, and then commence to prescribe them as health, realism, and maturity, is actually a fairly blatant kind of Social Darwinism. As a manner of dealing with deprived groups, it is hardly new, but it has rarely been so successful as Freudianism has been in dealing with women.

The second quote is from Yagmur Uygarkizi’s piece “‘Feminism Allowed You to Speak’: Reinforcing Intergenerational Feminist Solidarity Against Sophisticated Attacks” which was published in the anthology Spinning And Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century. Uygarkizi is here discussing the foundational tenets of queer theory and its attendant postmodern analyses of women as socially-constructed entities:

Finally, and most importantly, sex roles are no longer imposed but ingrained: gender becomes an identity. If you as a woman are foolish enough to abide by the stereotypes that constrain you, then that's your problem: you could have just identified your way out of it. This is the message the disparaging "cis women" expression hides.

We are witnessing an essentialisation of our oppression: what men do to us is who we are apparently. If they rape us, we are the rape. If they veil us, we are the veil. If they stereotype us, we are the stereotype. One can sense a hint of victim-blaming here: just like a woman in prostitution/pornography might feel that she is only good at that, queer theory rehashes that yes, that is very true. Instead of taking material biological reality as the basis of an identity, socially constructed practices are taken as accurate indicators of someone's identity. What this means is that any criticism of those practices becomes a criticism of the person. Whorephobia. Islamophobia. Transphobia. The basis of the discrimination shifts from the female sex to the sex-based discrimination itself.

The link between Freudianism and postmodern queer theory is a simple one: women exist to be oppressed. We have simply shifted from it being seen as a natural phenomenon, based on the material reality of sex, to a chosen one based on the psycho-social assumptions based around personal identity.

[liskantope]

Half a year ago, I got myself involved in a thread which compared trans rights to gay rights and tried to make a case that, in terms of arguments for each, the issues are not as directly comparable as a lot of people seem to think. A lot of my perspective comes from a sort of an empathy I feel with the non- religiously conservative, non- radical feminist motivations for doubting some of what this social movement is pushing for, particularly with regard to its disconnect with how more traditional people view identity categories.

This portion of a recent interview on the YouTube channel Nonzero (see until 47:43) is a stunningly crystal-clear illustration of the attitude and motivation I was trying to describe at the time, so much so that I think it's instructive and kind of fascinating to watch, even if it's almost so extreme and ridiculous as to come across as parody. (Warning: a certain kind of non-conservative, non-TERFy transphobia, which I'll quote bits of below.)

The interviewee, Norman Finkelstein, feels violently averse to using "they/them" pronouns purely because it would be implicitly affirming what in his mind is an untruth. (Presumably he would not want to refer to a male-presenting student as "she" or a female-presenting student as "he", for a similar reason, but this doesn't directly come up.) He appears to have no other motive, but the motive of not liking to "play along" with someone else's factual untruth is plenty for him. There is no particular social conservatism evident in him; he states plainly that he's fine with androgyny, of people dressing/presenting any way they wish, and that stuff doesn't bother him in the slightest, because that doesn't involve saying things that are untrue. Politically and philosophically he is obviously left-leaning, pro-science, and non/anti-religious in most areas: he repeatedly likens affirming someone's gender identity to affirming that the world is flat or that climate change isn't real or "all the craziness you attribute to the Trump base". Not pronouncing things that imply a factual untruth or deny objective reality is sacred to him as a professor and an intellectual, is what he is saying.

Also, this:

I'm not insulting anyone. If I'm calling you a "he", it's not like I'm calling you the N word or I'm calling you a c*** or something. It's just a relatively stable identifier.

Notice how completely uncomprehending Finkelstein is of the notion that not affirming someone's claimed identity (on the basis of what he believes to be objective reality or established definitions of words) could possibly be an insult or convey lack of respect or qualify as dehumanizing treatment of someone else. That a refusal to affirm someone's claimed identity (on the basis that it denies objective reality) is somehow a form of dehumanization is a completely unfathomable concept to many.

Now I find Finkelstein's perspective flawed on at least half a dozen counts, and fallacious on a particular fundamental level in conflating different types of "objective facts" (something that Robert Wright, who takes a much more reasonable, kind, and open-minded agnostic view on all of this, gently tried to push back on him about). I do think Finkelstein had some good points later in the excerpt about not forcing jarring changes in language down everyone's throats -- this is how I feel about artificial and ugly terms like Latinx, for instance, and I would have had some issues with xie/xir and the like becoming widespread nonbinary pronouns -- but in my opinion these points can't be applied well to using singular "they" for nonbinary people. Moreover, Finkelstein comes across as hardly more than a crusty, curmudgeonly jackass throughout, one who proudly and stubbornly adheres to a disagreeable absolutist view and refuses to open his mind to where his defense of that view might be flawed.

(More minor point: in arguing that mispronouning someone isn't a form of insult, he compares it to factually saying someone's hair is white or that their muscular dystrophy will prevent them from running a 4-minute mile. But, while maybe "insult" or "dehumanization" wouldn't be the best way to describe these things, they are certainly rude in certain contexts: you probably shouldn't call attention to someone's hair being white if they are sensitive about aging, for instance. Similarly, calling a nonbinary but male-presenting person "he" is pretty unkind if they don't want to present as male and are sensitive about it. But Finkelstein clearly isn't the kind of person to prioritize others' feelings over his duty towards "objective reality" in this way.)

But I contend that this is simply an extreme and rather dickish version of how tons and tons of people think, because in terms of the history of social justice and civil rights movements, it is brand new for a movement to be so heavily based in the objective truth of internally-felt identities and accusing people of fundamental dehumanization when they refuse to affirm them. And yet, activist rhetoric sounds as if this is simply part of how identities always worked and what dehumanization always meant, rather than something that appeared on the scene just yesterday.

There is certainly still a major constituency of conservatively religious people who believe that everyone should only do with their bodies what their bodies were "created to do" or whatever, but conservative Christianity is very weakened in our culture since it lost the last major culture war, and I think a lot of people in that camp still also fall into the category of finding it incomprehensible nonsense to say that an identity category is whatever each of us says it is and that it's dehumanizing ever to imply otherwise. I believe it's simply a misconception to assume that the pushback against trans activism is comprised mainly of fundamentalists and TERFs. Norman Finkelstein is an (albeit extreme) example of someone who appears to be neither, and my perception at least in the US is that most people are neither, but that a great many Americans, if not a majority, don't really get the "identity is whatever you say it is" concept and at best are bemusedly humoring it as long as it doesn't get too much into their faces.

(On each day of this past weekend, I was in a different public place -- a bar restaurant and a coffee shop -- and overheard part of a conversation about how "the people in such-and-such social group over there all ask about and share pronouns and a bunch of them go by 'they'", and in context this wasn't being attacked in any way, but it was being treated as bemusing and only semi-comprehensible.)

As Tumblr user Bambamramfan once said, people (particularly scientific-minded, non-faith-y people) really don't like to assert things they don't actually believe (don't have time to look up the post right now; the way they phrased it was something like "Americans don't like to lie about what they believe" and it was in the context of lesser-of-two-evils voting, a topic on which I emphatically disagreed with Bambambramfan, but I consider that particular point to be wise). I wish this were more recognized in social justice activism communities in general, and both that more rhetoric were crafted and ideological assumptions were more carefully examined with it in mind.

I'll end by saying, as I've probably said before, that I'm not claiming just because certain ideological assumptions in trans right activism are fundamentally brand new, that they are wrong or shouldn't become adopted by the wider community. Lots of fundamental ideological assumptions that we are obviously better off for making the default, such as "people owning other people is a gross moral evil", were once brand new at least on a society-wide scale. What I complain about is activists completely refusing to acknowledge or even be aware of this novelty, and so refusing to critically examine it, to defend it on its own merits, or to meet others where they're at.

[greenerteacups]

Dear GT,

I'm among the many admirers of Lionheart, and I can't stress enough how deeply, madly, and profoundly I love it. Your sharing of this masterpiece is something I'll always be thankful for.

I've mulled over this extensively, but would you mind terribly if quotes, phrases, scenes, and the like (the ones we often see of published books?) from Lionheart were shared on other platforms?

There are numerous passages and scenes I feel compelled to shed light on. Lionheart holds immense literary value for me, and I'm certain there are others who feel the same. I'm eager to exchange views on Lionheart with fellow enthusiasts.

Please don't hesitate to decline if you have reservations, as I too am wary of the potential negativity that often accompanies popularity. I trust your expertise, which is why I'm seeking your opinion.

I'd be mortified if my actions inadvertently caused any harm to you or anyone else.

Hello, friend!

Firstly, thanks for a really beautiful message. It's made my day.

With respect to sharing Lionheart — sure! From this message I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind, but here are a couple of thoughts:

Quotes/excerpts/short passages: yeah totally! Go for it! Talk about it with anyone you want to, anywhere you want to! It's really courteous of you to ask about this.

Please don't repost full chapters/the fic in its entirety (I have cleverly defended against this problem by writing a fic so bonkers fucking long that it would require Herculean efforts to do this, but it's still worth saying — if not for you then just to make sure it's in writing)

I don't have Instagram/Facebook/TikTok/etc., and I try not to engage too much with discussions of the fic outside of AO3 or my Tumblr inbox. Unlike those spaces, Reddit/Facebook/etc. are platforms for negative criticism about fic, and people deserve spaces to do that without the author breathing down their neck. Just as I can set etiquette for my inbox, readers have every right to share their opinions and enjoy the (valid!) fruits of critical discussion; I have neither the ability nor, frankly, the desire to stop them. I'm a big girl, and I take responsibility for my own Internet experience. The only way I even feel empowered to reject that kind of feedback in my inbox is because I pointedly leave space for readers to do it elsewhere.

All of this to say: if you want me to see something, please send it here or in the comments section! Otherwise, I probably won't.

[leafkingofbirds]

Chapter 3 excerpt/preview

I've been having some mental health struggles which has made sitting down to write more difficult, but I wanted to share this bit from next chapter. I'm still excited about it and I have a solid plan, so there will be more, don't worry!

Partially inspired by one of my favorite quotes, just in case a certain phrase looks familiar 😊

~~

Kieran cannot guess at Ella’s thoughts as they make their way back to the Moon Palace on borrowed horses. She is quiet, withdrawn, and though he still feels the magic buzzing within her like some foreign form of life, it is subdued for now.

Kieran knows the Moon Source magic like he knows the beat of his own heart. And her magic feels...wrong. Not just because she is imbued with both sources combined, which is unnatural in itself. That magic parasite that has taken over Ella, using her as its host. And it feels alive. Hungry.

He glances behind her and winces. She keeps her eyes on the horizon, and he feels a gaping, terrible distance open like a wound where she once lived in his heart.

She looks like herself, but his Ella is gone.

There is a way to break this curse, Kieran firmly promises himself. Every curse has its cure, and he will find hers. Or he will craft a cure himself. Even if it takes him a thousand years, he will do it.

Then she will be mortal once again.

And if they succeed with taking back the sources from Opulence, he and every fae will become immortal once more.

They will end just as they had started: on two sides of a great divide, with no way to meet in the middle.

There is no situation in which he gets everything he wants, and it infuriates him. He has always had known that the power to shape the world was at his fingertips, and now…

I don’t care. I will either find a way, or make one.

He would build a bridge between their impossible divide with blood and sweat. With the strength of his love and all the magic he possessed.

He looks hard into her stone cold face and thinks, I will bring you back to me. I will never stop searching.

With brute force, he quiets the voice of doubt within him, faces forward, and rides on.

[sumeru-academy]

Hello!! I really love your fics and wanted to request something, I hope you don't mind!! Could I request Lisa, Shenhe and Eula, with a s/o that struggles to put thier affection into words and is too shy to ask for physical touch, so they end up writing a bunch of love letters/poem and leaving small gifts around? I apologise for any grammer/spelling errors in this or if its hard to read. Thank you for your time and I hope you have a wonderful day <33

Sonnet.

synopsis: you’re too shy to invest in physical touch and struggle with communication, so you show your appreciation with gifts. 

character(s): eula, lisa, shenhe.

warning(s): kissing.

note(s): female reader.

⎯⎯mod chewie 🪑

EULA LAWRENCE

I have a feeling she’d struggle with the same thing.

She’d struggle with communication, seeing as she lacked both familial love and the understanding of romantic love growing up. 

Eula was never good at handing out compliments, and physical affection was never her favorite.

It’s not that she didn’t like you, nor did she dislike you touching her, she just didn’t like being touched in general. Similar to how a cat only likes being pet at certain times.

When you first established a romantic relationship, the official title of dating dangling over your heads, the pressure felt immense. Especially considering Eula had never invested in someone romantically, and you lacked communication in every aspect.

Your conversations consisted of red faces and on edge twitching.

Not the most ideal! But Eula cherished the moments, even when she’d kick at her bed and get frustrated with herself for saying something sarcastic to you, every night.

The gifts started appearing one by one, each increasing by the week. Sometimes it was a little treat, or a cute trinket. 

Or a love note, “Thank you so much for all your hard work, I’m very excited to see you again today. -(Y/N)”

Or both!

Sometimes there’d be little love poems, most were original. Or an excerpt quote from some cheesy romance novel. Eula loved it anyway.

They appeared in Eula’s office, you’d given them to her maids and servants to welcome her home with, and you’d give them to her yourself on dates. Eula showed her appreciation towards these things a lot more abstractly than you had.

One time, you had mentioned that one of your uncles was collecting funny looking spoons. You also had mentioned you were thinking of collecting something like that too, and it was a harmless topic you had come up with. That week, at the end of a date which consisted of binge eating at Good Hunter, she gave you a very elaborate steak knife.

Because you had mentioned wanting to collect some kind of decorating silverware, she decided she’d start your collection off with a custom made kitchen blade! How sweet!

You took it as some sort of threat. 

“Is she gonna kill me? Am I getting that annoying?”

Eula quickly reassured you that she had no intentions of hurting you, and that she liked you perfectly fine. All of which with a variety of stutters and a very red face.

She keeps all your love poems and notes in a chronologically organized drawer and reads through them before she goes to sleep.

LISA MINCI

Lisa enjoys physical touch, but she’s very nice about respecting boundaries regarding your preferences with being so close.

When you had first started leaving love notes and gifts, she was very flattered, and returned the favor by brewing your favorite tea and giving you baked goods. 

You’d given her quite a few novels which weren’t in her library, and she had her own personal collection of books, an entire shelf dedicated to the novels which you had gifted her. Lisa used the notes you write as bookmarks, but one time it got wrinkled a little and she hasn’t forgiven herself yet.

Her favorite gift to receive from you is flowers, specifically red roses. She’s always so upset to throw out the withered blooms.

She understands your troubles, and also writes small poems for you. 

You had made a small notebook worth of nothing but her sweet poems, you cherish it. 

One time, you had continued her poem, and then you had made a very long poem which you had both contributed to. You’d like to do that again.

Jean finds your love poems and notes before Lisa does sometimes, and she treats it like an egg hunt. Lisa didn’t get it when Jean came to her with some sort of cryptic rhymes and riddles, all created by Klee.

You didn’t know about it, but you watched Lisa scurry around the headquarters with a wide smile.

Lisa loves brewing sleepy time tea for you, and then sleeping by your side. That brief moment of exhausted relief is her favorite moment she shares with you, almost beating your sweet good morning notes and a fresh brew of coffee. 

There was one time where you were in a rush and didn’t have time to do those things for her, and she spent the entire day thinking you were furious with her. Jean and her had a very serious conversation about it, poor Grandmaster.

Overall, 10/10, she loves it.

SHENHE

She thought someone was stalking her at first, so she never opened the gifts out of paranoia. When you had confessed it was your doing the entire time she felt really bad. 

Shenhe still kept them, and accepted all of them. 

She lacks understanding for poetry, she can still read but isn’t familiar with it enough to understand the metaphors you make when you write her notes. She’ll still pretend she knows about it. 

You realized that shopping for her was insanely hard considering she didn’t eat whole meals unless it was some sort of assorted salad of wild herbs, and she disliked most material things. So you were really stuck on how to convey your feelings.

So your next idea was writing anecdotes. 

She adored those, most were small cheesy romance stories about kissing and cuddling. Both you and Shenhe avoided such notions due to the mutual lack of communication. You weren’t the best writer, but every now and then she’d come up with some cute idea, or do something adorable and you’d write about it to her. 

Shenhe never understood that all of the things you would write in such an idealized manner were ever about her specifically and thought it was just similar characters, and when she found out it was her she couldn’t help but be flattered. She could hardly look you in the eyes without becoming a blubbering mess.

The anecdotes were only a few pages long, and she keeps every single one of them. You have no idea how she keeps all of them with her at all times, but she does. 

Out of your few years of officially dating, she’s only purchased you one gift, and it was an earring. One of which to match hers, two halves of one piece. 

It was the most heartfelt thing she had ever done for you, and it was enough to keep you by her side for the remainder of eternity. 

Shenhe began frequenting libraries and bookstores to familiarize herself better with poetry; she still couldn’t understand cryptic messages inside metaphors. She tried to write you a poem about vanquishing a beast, and it was supposed to be how she was so happy to meet you through all of her harsh times.

You didn’t get that message, and there was no way to tell you without her becoming embarrassed. So she just kissed you until you could understand. 

“So, you like killing big animals? Is that what it’s about?”

You weren’t allowed to breathe for a few minutes, her lips were stuck to yours. For some reason she thought just kissing you for an extended amount of time was a good way to convey her feelings.

[skitskatdacat63]

super obsessed with your art, seb looks soooooooooooo stunning!!! I am now very curious however, only if you feel like going into it, as to which other historical figures you align with which drivers?👀👀

AAAAAA tysm Grace!!!! Though I am so so so sorry for how rambly and long this post is gonna be, but you just asked me abt one of my brainrots!! I will answer your question but also talk about my history alignments and AUs in general LOL

But if I'm making comparisons of F1 drivers and historical figures, my brain kinda forces me to make it an AU because I'm like "this needs to make absolute sense historically and contextually.)

So, tbh of the four historical AUs that float around my brain, only two of them are really specifically about certain historical figures. The four are: Nandopoleon(About how Fernando reminds me of Napoleon), War of Spanish Succession(mostly about that era, but Seb and Nando are supposed to be paralleling Charles VI and Philip V), Napoleonic Hussars(which is about how , in general, Hussars = F1 drivers), and Rennaissance Muse(this just happens to take place in a different era.)

Explaining my AUs and the historical contexts(proceed with caution, its a lot)

Nandopoleon:

Okay so I'm really really am so deranged about Napoleon = Fernando, but I’ve not posted about it too much because I wanna make a well thought out post about it. But basically I think they’re similar people with similar characteristics and motivations. There was this period of time over the summer where I was only brain rotting about how well any of Napoleon’s quotes fit Fernando(with my fellow nandopoleon confidant @/sweatyflytrap haha.) Here’s some quotes as example: 

“Victory belongs to the most persevering.”

“It is not necessary to bury the truth. It is sufficient merely to delay it until no one cares.”(Piasco era lol)

“Victory is not always winning the battle…but rising every time you fall.”

“From triumph to failure is only one step.”

"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon."(trophies y'know)

"Always carry champagne! In victory you deserve it, and in defeat you need it!"

Tell me Fernando wouldn't use these as instagram captions! TELL ME!!! But the other thing that was driving me crazy is how well excerpts from the personality/image section of Napoleone's wiki line up with testimonials from Fernando's doc. Examples:

"He cheated at cards, but repaid the losses; he had to win at everything he attempted."(Napoleon) "Whatever activity I take part in, I have this compulsion to find the compeititon in it."(Fernando)

"He could rapidly dictate a series of complex commands to his subordinates, keeping in mind where major units were expected to be at each future point, and like a chess master, 'seeing' the best plays moves ahead"(Napoleon) "When you talk to him, his mental capacity is so strong. He's talking to you, but his brain is thinking ahead"(Fernando)

Like c'mon tell me they aren't at least a bit similar??? There's a lot else I find similar about them but I cannot list my whole manifesto here skdjlsd

Anyways this AU would be Fernando as Napoleon and would be Webbonso -> Strollonso. Basically, Napoleon had two wives: his first wife, who was older than him and who he was super in love with, but had to divorce because they couldn't have kids, but he still loved her deeply. And then his second wife , who was much younger thanhim and from the Austrian royal family, and this was a politically motivated marriage but they still got on pretty well!!(also it's funny, before she married him she didn't want to be with him because the public perception of him made him out to be not the best guy, but then she wrote to her father about how loving and kind he was. very Strollonso, no?)

War of Spanish Succession:

Mostly explained it here and here. I'm not too interested in either Philip V nor Charles VI themselevs as individuals, but rather the roles they fufill in the "story." Though I will say, I got hit with a brick while reading Charles VI's wiki when finding out that he apparently had several male lovers! So I guess my AU having an arranged m/m marriage isn't even that far off the mark hahaha. Why did they have a 13 year war, they should have just arranged a marriage between the two canidates sigh sigh. But yeah, mostly Austria vs. Spain, I think it fits well with the Vettonso rivalry!! They would end up being: Fernando I King of Spain and Sebastian I Holy Roman Emperor hehe. Also I sketched some more:

Napoleonic Hussars:

Explained here as well as with art, and more art here. I'm really still proud of the points I made, I just feel very ardently about it!!! Not about any specific figure, but rather a historical group that I think lines up extremely well with F1 drivers. But this one is fun cause I can kinda insert any driver into it and they'll work pretty well. It's fun to figure out what kingdom what driver would be, either based off their nationality or the nationality of their team. I remember vividly staring at a map from this era trying to figure out where Maranello would be....But like Renault = Kingdom of France and RBR = Kingdom of Austria, and stuff like that

Rennaisance Muse:

Mostly just this post, I've not thought about this one incredibly deeply. Mostly just brainrot about how I think Seb looks like The David with his curly hair

[alovelyburn]

So there’s this Japanese fan on twitter who has been posting a lot of excerpts from interviews with Miura and such.  This is the reason for my post the other day about feeling increasingly correct the more I read Miura quotes, but at the time it was all just  in Japanese so I didn’t really get into it. But now they’re posting translations and so I feel a little more like talking about what they were posting, some of which was just chef’s kiss.

-About Griffith, he said that he was trying to create a character who gives a different impression depending on who’s around him or who is reading - if Griffith is giving off a definite impression then he’s not Griffith anymore. Even if Griffith is strategizing, Miura wanted it to be unclear whether he was carefully plotting or moving on instinct. He wanted Griffith to be kind of a void that way (where its impossible to know what exactly his deal is and he’s mysterious). He said if he had to put it into words he wanted to establish a childlike mysterious character ( here )

-He said that originally Griffith was supposed to be the confident and indomitable one and Guts was supposed to be the insecure one, but as time went on facets emerged and Griffith became a person who desires certainty (as opposed to one who is genuinely certain). ( here )

-He says that it’s Griffith is a professional’s professional as far as affecting people’s hearts, so it’s unusual for him to “fall” in personal relationships, but Guts is the exception to this and he portrayed it (brought it to catharsis) by making Griffith do the most unGriffithlike foolish things. ( here )

-He says that Guts will probably end up becoming like Griffith because Griffith is the one who gives him the sustenance to live. ( here )

edit: to be clear, he does specify the Guts of NOW, he’s not talking about Griffith shaping him during the Golden Age.

-He designs characters with the thought of what they will bring out in Guts. He goes on to say that Grififth brings out Guts’ “impatience (in the sense of being anxious to do something), will to fight and loneliness,” Puck brings out his humor and crushes his seriousness and Casca brings out guilt, frustration and pity (this is prior to her mental healing). ( here )

This is the Twitter  - a lot of the quotes are from a 30 page interview with Miura in a research journal. but some of it is from stuff that’s been translated previously either by fans or in official publications like the guidebook.

Anyway it’s all hilarious to me because I spent a whole day going through the twitter and just kind of wildly gesticulating and screaming, “I KNEW IT” internally. Its also pretty funny in light of the “how does Japan see Griffith” discussion from last week because if you scroll around you’ll see

-the twitter’s owner suggest that Berserk won’t have a revengey ending and will involve a reconciliation -them retweeting someone who says griffith is disgusting and selfish -and someone suggesting Berserk will end with Griffith ascending to the throne of God.

IT’S JUST FUNNY RIGHT like this is what I mean about there being a much wider range of reactions and expectations vs what goes on in the west which is basically “he did a bad thing hes bad and evil and it has to end by butchering him violently.”

(TBH I was kind of reluctant to post about it because western fandom is so rude sometimes, but I don’t know how many of the rage monster types read my tumblr tbh, like why.)

[acourtofthought]

The other day I was trying to show my sis one of your theories about elucien and gwynriel that why you think they're endgame and the crumbs sjm dropped for us throughout the series and it's been in front of this whole time...

And she told me and I quote: don't waste my time on this when I know they're endgame😎

Me: 😦

She said that with a certainty that it shocked me lmao like I wasn't that certain when I finished the series I just knew after Azriel's chapter I didn't feel so good about e/riels and I was trying to convince and prepare myself that they might be a good pairing in their book haha I was struggling it was a dark time lmao

All I'm saying is that people like my sister exist and they instantly knew Azriel and Gwyn scenes where a mean to romantic scenes

And STILL there are some people who ask "gEnUiNeLY why do you ship gwynriel/elucien?" Or "I read the books but idk why there are gwynriel shippers they barely talked!"

pls if you like the rest of us weren't waiting for "e/riel interaction" and paid attention to the actual plot and the current storyline maybe just maybe you would've noticed it too!! Bc I know how they were disappointed that they didn't got the training session they wanted with them and now they're reasoning the very same thing for not liking gwynriel...

They are so hypocrite that its funny at this point everything they have reasoned for not liking or believing they won't happen reek of hypocrisy and jealousy bc they wanted angst but elucien is already serving and they wanted a trainer x trainee dynamic and gwynriel has already gave it to us and they still need to train more😌✌

I love that you wanted to share my blogs with someone!! That makes me feel special ❤️❤️❤️ And though she had little interest 😂 I love that she came to the conclusion all on her own. It's one thing to still ship E/riel, that is completely someones right. But it is ridiculous when someone truly acts confused as to how anyone sees the possibility of Gwynriel ESPECIALLY when those same people ship Vassa / Lucien. Lucien has never felt something spark in his chest when it comes to Vassa. He did not take Elain's solstice gift and easily regift it to Vassa. Vassa has never once sassed Lucien the way that Gwyn sassed at Az. We've never even seen a conversation between Vassa and Lucien outside of the one that Jurian, Eris, and Cassian were all part of and which involved Koschei. And Azriel notes that his shadows are playful with Gwyn in a way they never have been with Elain. Does that mean Gwynriel is a certainty? Not necessarily but let's not pretend it couldn't be hinting at something. A while back I sent a few friends excerpts from the book. I didn't not tell them my own preference but sent them certain lines about Elain's character (i.e., cruelty troubles her, the "don't hurt" Graysen quote) and then sent lines regarding the characters of Az and Lucien, how they handled certain things ("if Lucien kills Graysen, good riddance", "I'll defeat him with little effort"). I asked who seemed to be a better match for Elain based on personality and Lucien took it in a clean sweep. So yeah, it's ok if someone still ships E/riel because they have been given reason to ship it. But it's frustrating when certain E/riels act like we don't have just as much hinting at the possibility of an Elucien or Gwynriel endgame.

[lilies-and-forget-me-nots]

✏️ 🎭 💐 :3

oc emoji asks!

✏️ PENCIL - is there a particular quote / lyric that you associate with them?

There’s actually a lot! Though here’s a lyric that influenced her softheartedness (which I used for a picrew tag game like last last week but shhh):

"The dropped knife I can no longer grasp it. Rather than such an ending, I'd rather become bubbles and disappear!" — Little Cry of the Abyss by sasakure.UK feat. Asako Toki

Very obvious inspirations just from these lines!! For more context the song is basically about the original version of the Little Mermaid, where the mermaid was given a choice: kill the prince with a silver knife, or turn into sea foam and cease to exist. So, basically, Kayo would be the little mermaid refusing to kill her prince despite very obvious repercussions if she doesn’t. Hmm…

There's also this excerpt that won't be relevant until way down the line:

One day...

🎭 MASKS - do they act differently around certain people? what's different between the way they act around friends, family, strangers, etc.?

Kayo was once a really bubbly girl, and once tried to get close to Seiji and the other staff at the church. The only problem was her reputation, their odd belief that she was a demon. They would always maintain a certain distance from her at all times, afraid of angering her in case she snaps, but also not wishing to treat her kindly. 

Because of this, towards both those living in the church and her schoolmates back in the day, she would always keep her voice down and close in on herself so no one would have any reason to be scared of her. Ironically, that’s the reason why her classmates started isolating her. She was physically imposing—tall, long and dark hair, and piercing eyes—who wouldn’t be afraid of the girl who never speaks, but stares into your soul like she knows what's in there?

In the end, she was alienated.

Later as the hunter, she stopped caring about masks, and adopted a general friendly, yet dry demeanor towards most humans. She’s even flirty at times, though her sweet words are always empty. She treats demons with obvious disdain, less of a personal grudge, and more of because she has no incentive to be kind to them. They’re prey, and they might as well be dead, so who cares if they come to hate her?

As a bride, she finally met people that weren’t scared of her—the vampires, the school staff, and even her new classmates. 

She tried sucking up to the vampires to not get killed immediately for Yui’s sake—if she dies too early there’s a chance someone would find out that she isn’t actually the bride—but eventually her original, kinder personality shows through and she ends up being either a big sister and a spoiled brat, depending on who she’s with.

With school staff and classmates, she’s generally friendly, though a little awkward. She’s willing to befriend anyone who approaches her first, and even tries to reach out herself sometimes. Be kind to her, she’s new to this.

💐 BOUQUET - create a bouquet for them! what do those flowers mean? are any of the flowers their particular favourite?

((i’m not that well-educated on bouquet making, since i think the entire bouquet has to have a coherent meaning in the end… welp >&lt;;))

Queen of the Night ; The centerpiece. Treasure the small moments. You’ve forgotten them, but it lives on in someone else’s mind. This flower only blooms under certain conditions. Is there a side of you that hasn’t appeared yet?

White Lilies ; Rebirth. You were reborn so many times, did you forget?

Forget-me-nots ; Keep me in your thoughts. Naturally it's part of the bouquet—it’s your favorite flower, after all, even if you can’t remember why. How silly that you’ve done the very thing this flower begged you not to do.

Blue Hydrangeas ; Apology. Are you apologizing, or is this someone apologizing to you?

Skeleton Flowers ; Affection. Like how rain turns its petals transparent, one day you’ll have to lay yourself bare against the world.

Baby’s Breath and Bluebells ; Everlasting love. Someone loves you dearly, even if you don’t realize it.