Tumgik
#i certainly have been
bigfatbreak · 5 months
Text
Birds of a Feather previous / next
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
#my art#feralnette au#birds of a feather#long tags#sorry I went apeshit in the tags#LETS SAY IT ALL TOGETHER NOW#I - M - A - G - OOOOOOOOO#its fun drawing marinette's back to Alya and having her appear stout and unstoppable and totally logical#and then you see her face and she's like two seconds from completely snapping and is keeping it together by a thread#as a note just because mari feels very certainly abt smth doesnt mean she's right. feelings can be valid and also irrational#in the throes of grief she decided it was better to be alone than to lose someone again so she started pulling away#and lila made pulling away very very very easy to do#shes also vaguely aware she's being unfair in pinning this on alya which is why she started spinning the drain on cockmoth again#legitimately all the shit that's happened to her wouldn't have been so catastrophic if he was never in the picture and she knows it#but the bitterness of her bestie choosing a fantastic liar over her at the worst of times stiiiiiings#alya's personal timing was bad but lila really took advantage of the fact that marinette had been acting off and weird#she basically clocked marinette as being unstable from SOMETHING and made up a lie about her#knowing she wouldn't have the strength to defend herself#between her social life going tachy bc of lila and losing fu in a way that felt like personhood death marinette was really put on the spot#and alya doing her thing of busting in there and assuming her bias is correct was a terrible combo#essentially marinette is highly unstable and alya is just realizing that#busting in and giving her a lecture when she's slightly hysterical and definitely delirious from exhaustion is NOT the way#to show her she's self sabotaging#cuz thats just gonna make her double down on self sabotaging. bc marinette will not accept that she is also a CHIIIIILD
4K notes · View notes
hinamie · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
bunch of portraits
1K notes · View notes
Text
fishes for the homos i mean homies
Tumblr media
[ID: nine fish with collaged scales of different colored and patterned paper, each with glittery fins.]
2K notes · View notes
fizpup · 9 months
Text
Tumblr media
pov: it’s the mid 2000s and you’re learning what love is
2K notes · View notes
radiance1 · 9 months
Text
@puppetmaster13u You called Danny a space whale in the tags of one of this post.
Now what if that was literal?
Hear me out, Danny outlives his friends, parents, sister. Danny becomes a literal whale.
Well, not a literal one because he's a ghost, but he takes the shape one of at the very least. He's just a giant, glowing white whale that looks pretty divine not going to lie.
Danny leaves earth. It wasn't safe for him anymore, what with the GIW and all that as even the ghosts found it not even worth anymore to visit the mortal world.
Except for Desiree and Spectra, but that's besides the point.
But Danny doesn't retreat to the zone, he's always longed for space, but because of his new half humanness he doesn't get believe he could've ever gone because, well. Yea.
But Danny goes fuck it and goes anyway. His form shifts from human to that of a giant whale, and he swims out into the vastness of space.
Years pass, and Danny does start getting bigger as he aged. He explored the vastness of space, marveling at many things, the different planets, the stars, the formations of rock and other things.
Then he encounters someone he never though he would've.
Vlad.
Well, he knew Vlad was left behind in space by his father but he didn't think he would find him again and Vlad seemed... different, from what he remembered.
For one thing, he didn't even know where Vlad began and space ended. He got only see those red eyes that even hinted at it being the man. His body was void black and filled with stars upon stars, all glittering from his body and Vlad barely even seemed to notice him, or if he did, he didn't seem to care at all.
So, Danny took him.
He was both curious and felt a bit bad about what happened to Vlad, even if he didn't know exactly what happened, and he couldn't just leave him there either.
So on his back Vlad went, and his travels continued.
It seemed to be the correct decision, really, because slowly overtime Vlad seemed to be regaining his awareness. Then slowly, tentatively, started to speak with him through ghost speak.
Vlad only seemed to vaguely remember what he was before space. He remembered hating a man, loving a woman, wanting a son, loneliness and a boy with white hair and toxic green eyes.
Even though Vlad was his former enemy, his nemesis, and someone who took the world hostage.
He couldn't help but feel pity for him.
Then their travels continued.
Years pass unnoticed, when in space, with Danny slowly getting bigger and bigger as the two travel throughout. They've come into contact with various civilizations, some hostile, some peaceful, some neutral.
The hostile ones never lasted long, even if Danny never lifted a flipper to do anything most of the time, Vlad made sure of it.
They came at went as they pleased, and Danny believes that they've gained a bit of a reputations over their adventures, but neither he nor Vlad knew exactly what they said. It did prove useful in some cases, however.
A few more years, and Danny feels that this system is vaguely familiar. Which happens sometimes, considering he's been travelling for so long. He then finds out why it was so familiar.
He came across Earth and, oh. When was the Earth so small?
Well, not small really, but when was he just only a bit smaller than it?
Did it shrink when he was away? Or did he just grow?
That doesn't matter though. What does, is the fact that currently seemed to be an invasion going on, on his home planet thank you very much. He did not like the fact that there was a massive fleet parked right outside his home.
So he spoke to Vlad, expressed his displeasure, Vlad responded back knowingly and went off to make the source of his displeasure disappear. That doesn't Danny was idle either, the fleet was big and, well.
It's been a while since he's stretched himself in a fight.
3K notes · View notes
theladyeowyn · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
- I'm not like you, Bilbo. - My dear boy …
866 notes · View notes
trans-androgyne · 15 days
Text
Over the past month or so there have been more people using the term transandrophobia while saying shit about how trans women are male socialized or whatever the fuck and I’m gonna have some kind of fucking breakdown. It was bad enough being accused of that shit and always having to apologize for other random transmascs when there weren’t people like that in the tags, but now I don’t even know what to do, it’s just something else that’s gonna be used against me. Can I sleep for 30 years and see if the trans community is okay again by then
435 notes · View notes
faeriekit · 2 months
Text
Health and Hybrids (XXV)👽👻💚
[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]
🖤Chapter navigation can be found here🖤 Click to browse previous updates.
💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts 💚 (now featuring mediocre mouseover translations, only available on a computer)
Where we last left off... Tim pulls a fast one on Batman for their mutual benefit. Everybody giggles. Danny goggles.
Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.
💚👻👽👻💚
(Additional TW: I think this counts as a panic attack ngl)
On the one hand. The room Danny’s in has a killer view of the earth from the moon.
The wall is basically just one big window. Danny is also apparently permitted to mash his face into the glass and ogle the Earth from Space for as long as he wants until the stinky dad, whoever he is, finally emerges from the depths of the building.
Diana’s the only one beside him today. She looks nice—nicer than usual, in her armor and bright clothing rather than soft scrubs and hair net. She can push his chair without getting tired—she could probably fly and carry him too, if she had to, so. Danny’s maybe counting on her liking him if this stinky dad tries to be mean.
So. Diana (nice lady) and Danny (half-dead ghost boy) are quietly seated in a dim, peaceful board room, absorbing the early morning (?) space radiation when the door hisses open across the room.
In the doorway is a long, dark, shadow of a man.
…And the green guy!!
Okay, if the stinky dad man brought a friend to this meeting the same way Diana’s meant to supervise him, Danny feels like he’s been lawyered up for the sake of some kind of court trial. This is not fair. Danny wasn’t able to review his case with his legal representation before this.
Well. Danny fumes. Whatever. His lawyer is Diana, the most powerful living being he’s seen ever in his life, and she can totally kick the green guy’s ass. Hell, Danny could probably kick the green guy’s ass.
...You know. If he wasn’t. Sick.
The stinky dad guy looks a lot like the blob his kid drew him as. That’s kind of neat—his suit is all black with little to no variation, which sort of just washes out the colors Danny might have been able to see if his eyes were still good. He’s very quiet, which is nice, and he’s very not-trying-to-read-Danny’s-mind, which is even better.
The two sit. Danny’s already in a wheelchair, so he just lets Diana wheel him to the table. The lady sits beside him in the spinny office chair.
Hello, the green guy opens with, already toying with the edges of Danny’s aura.
Danny sends back an abundance of ass-kicking emotions.
…Alright then, the green man capitulates, the barest hint of bemusement quickly stifled.
Good. Danny is mean. He’s awake enough to be mad about other people touching his aura from any end of his personal bubble.
But then the green guy…says stuff to the dad guy? And it’s very? Quiet?
Explanations, the green guy says. The image of a sign language translator at a baseball game floats over to him, and—
…Oh. He’s translating. For Danny.
That’s…nice? Nicer than Danny expected, honestly? Most of the time, people are perfectly happy to misinterpret him. It was kind of the way of the world at this point. Getting blamed for stuff, getting accused of stuff…
Man. If they turn out to be indoctrinating him for secret war purposes, at least they’re going all in. Danny might actually. You know. Like it here. A little.
He squirms in his chair, and tries not to look at anyone in particular. Diana—the lady who’s been nice to him—makes as if to straighten his hair for him, and remembers at the last second that he doesn’t like to be touched.
And sure. Danny doesn’t want to be touched. By bad guys.
…But Diana’s been really nice to him, so. Maybe. He scratches at the back of his neck, and ducks his head down—and remembers to use his words. “Yes,” he consents verbally. He can’t make eye contact. But he can…let her. Brush his hair back. A little.
Diana asks something long and complicated—and the green guy presses an image of Wonder Woman asking permission, being kind, being gentle­—up against the edges of Danny’s awareness.
Danny nods at the floor instead of at the lady. It’s fine. She’s fine. It’s fine.
And her fingers carefully brush through the front end of his fringe, and Danny. Danny is so normal about it. He doesn’t even cry or anything. Not even in front of his friend’s stinky dad.
And she doesn’t do it like Mom did it. And she doesn’t ruffle his hair like Dad did.
But it’s. Nice. And she doesn’t pull.
…And she doesn’t hit.
Danny eventually leans back into his wheelchair. It’s a little bit embarrassing to be halfway in and halfway out, but. Whatever. The scary-looking-dad with the earsies on his helmet has his own teenager. He should understand what it feels like to get emotionally weird with your teen in a public place. If he doesn’t, well...he wouldn’t be a great dad, then, and his opinion would suck anyway.
Based on what Danny knows about the masked kid, Danny isn’t sure the guy would tolerate a bad dad. The teen seems kinda unhinged.
The man says something, and the green guy presses a number of translated feelings against Danny’s awareness: Greetings. Questions about Danny’s wellbeing. Curiosity, but not demanding.
“…Hello,” Danny says back, and. Waves.
The man waves back. He’s got little claws on his gloves.
…Like a cat? Is it to go with his ears? Danny wonders about the possibilities of the guy being cat themed. It’s possible, presumably.
So…they want to know how Danny’s doing? Danny shrugs, and he glances at Diana, since, you know, she could probably fill them in? She does speak their language. And she’s been here the whole time.
The lady leans in close to him, black hair falling out from behind her ear. “What do you want to say?” she whispers into her ear, hand covering her mouth from their watchers.
Uh. It’s up to…Danny?? Somehow??
Danny winces. “…Good?” he tries, unsure if the word he uses means okay or fine or well. “…Not…hungry?”
“Very good,” Diana agrees, a little louder. She looks proud. Being not hungry must mean a lot to her, then. It means a lot to Danny too—he can remember the sensation of his stomach rubbing against itself, friction pulling raw at his insides as acid ate at him.
It was. Bad.
It was bad.
Danny’s glad he’s not there anymore. Anyway, there’s a guy in the room who reads minds, and Danny doesn’t really want to share that memory with anyone ever; especially someone who could turn it back on him.
The stinky dad says something else, but he uses words too thick and long for Danny to understand. The green guy translates, pure conceptual recall brushing against Danny’s outer aura—Needs? Wants?
…Danny frowns.
Danny looks at Diana, who looks back at him. Wants, needs…? What?
“Do you need aniþing?” Diana whispers to him, which. You know. Mostly makes sense.
Does Danny…need anything? He has medical care, he has food, he has water, he has toys and brain teasers, even…he has people to hang out with, he has people who stretch his legs with him so that he can go back to normal…heck, he doesn’t even have to clean his own waste bag. There’s people who do that for him.
Like. What more could Danny ask for?
Danny shrugs. He just wants to heal up and run away. Maybe…maybe, if Diana is real and not just pretending to like him to keep an eye on him, she’d let him visit her later or something. Danny would do what Dani doe—did. What Dani…did. And he’d just go a bunch of places and come back when he wants to.
But. No. There’s nothing he really needs right now.
The pointy-eared guy and the green guy share a look and a couple quiet words. Danny flares his annoyance into the silence, but all he gets is a silent Apology/Apology, which isn’t answers.
Ugh. Danny leans over the arm of his wheelchair. This is kind of super boring; it’s more boring than it is frustrating, even.
The stinky dad guy says something else, and Danny feels the push and pull of something double ended tugging on the outer edge of his aura. Additional/information, giving/take?
Danny really wishes he’d brought a fidget toy or something. His nerves are ramping up but all he can do is contort his fingers together, feeling the strain in and the joints click as he pushes them together and twists them apart. They want…to ask him questions? No, they’re already asking him questions. They want Danny to…give them questions??
…Danny doesn’t really want to. Still, he probably…should.
“The…space station,” he says, using the wrong word for their big space building but not knowing the better one; “Is this…where…why is it?”
The black-caped dad grumbles something vaguely approving. A tablet pops out of the table—spooky—and the guy starts drawing on it, explaining all the way. The green guy simplifies more of the verbally complicated concepts for Danny as they go.
Anyway. So they’re in space because it’s their…job? Danny thinks? They do…fighting stuff. Which Danny knew. Because he’d seen them on the news.
But it looks like they do a lot of things—they clean up after storms, and chase regular bad guys and super-bad-guys instead of just big ones. And they stop bad aliens from hurting people on Earth.
The green guy shifts from a green-looking, pointy-headed, red-eyed form to a warm, brown, human skin tone. And even. Like. Human clothing.
Danny stares.
…And the guy immediately takes back his natural form, his body physically shifting and morphing, which, fair, but holy crap. He’s living, on Earth. He passes as normal, on Earth. No one snitches on him. No one’s selling him to the government for parts. No one’s trapping him in a cage and not feeding him.
This guy works here, and everyone lets him.
Danny shifts in his chair. He…he wants that. He wants that. He wants to pass as human and not have to worry about…about anyone getting rid of him. He wants to go back to school. He wants to hide, and never ever not ever be found by anyone or anything when he does.
“I want that,” Danny says. There’s no inflection. He feels dead. He is dead, but usually he doesn’t feel it. “What do I do for…that.”
Help/Searching/Finding? the green—alien—questions, but there’s nothing for Danny to find. He knows exactly where everyone he loves is—and unless they’re already fully formed in the ghost zone…
…Well. Danny has forever to wait and see if he’ll see his friends and sister again. Maybe he’ll find them again one day, in a world purely green and glowing.
He shakes his head.
The next question comes…softer. Gentler. The mental push feels more like a breeze than a gale. Friends…Home/family?
The question comes tinged with all sorts of sensations that Danny’s suppressed—warmth, security, happiness, oxytocin, fondness, pride and being the source thereof, warmth and love, love, love—
Danny’s sweating. He can’t stop. His hands are shaking faster than usual—he kicks the brakes off his chair with the heels of his palms, and jerks the wheels back, pulling away from the desk—
He’s halfway across the room before he hears the noise. It’s just. Noise. It’s Diana, carefully shushing the loud heartbeat churning in his ears, hands on his hand, trying not to cage him but trying to keep skin on skin contact. Her hand is on the back of his hand, and on his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Diana whispers. Danny’s shaking. His whole body is shaking. “Shhh, sh sh sh. It’s alright, it’s okay.”
It’s not it’s not it’snoit’snotit’sNOT. His sister is dead. His friends are dead. His parents sold his captors the equipment to catch him and they didn’t care if he got hurt doing it and now they’re DEAD. They tore open his hometown down the middle just to catch him, they stole him—they took his dead parent’s things as tools to hurt him—they HURT HIM and there isn’t—he can’t—he can’t—
Something is holding him down, and Danny thrashes. He has arms, but they’re injured—he has legs but he needs a tail and he—and—
He cries into Diana’s arms, sobbing and wailing. It’s a miracle that the building stays together. She holds him tighter, and he cries even harder into her soft under-layers.
He wants to run away. He needs to run away. Someone is holding him, and he can’t even flicker through her the way he wants to; his core is already too strained just from talking.
Danny’s sick. He’s dying. He’s—
“Take a breath,” Diana whispers, calm and sure. She models it for him. Danny gasps in air. “Good. Lete it out slow. As bobbels in a straw.”
He tries to copy her he does and she’ll be so angry if he can’t do it right on the first try but she lets him try, over and over again, until Danny’s able to stop hiccupping and leaking tears and ectoplasm all over her and realize that she’s holding him like a baby. Like. Actually cradling him against his body armor.
…You know what. He’s too tired to even be embarrassed. Screw that. Danny leans all the way over her and goes completely limp. Someone else can deal with his him for a little bit.
She does. Diana just…holds him.
It’s nice. Mom and Dad used to do that for him, when Danny was still…more human, he supposed. More than he is right now.
Something else touches his hand. Danny looks blearily downwards.
The teenager’s dad gets to his knees and takes Danny’s hand—and he doesn’t need the translation to understand.
“I’m sorry,” the man says, over and over again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Danny blinks sleepily. What does his friend’s stinky dad have to be sorry for? He didn’t even do anything to Danny in the first place.
Danny won’t remember, afterwards, being wheeled back to his room for a nap. They must have wheeled him back, though, because the alternative is that Diana tucked him into bed like a baby, and that’s just kind of embarrassing to even think about for too long.
558 notes · View notes
asurrogateblog · 2 months
Text
"the average beatle can survive ten stab wounds" factoid is actually just statistical error. the average beatle can survive no stab wounds. Harrison Georg, who was stabbed 40 times after shouting "hare krishna" at a home intruder and leaping onto his back, is an outlier and should not have been counted
511 notes · View notes
poorly-drawn-mdzs · 10 months
Text
Tumblr media
Parallel Lines and Brothers.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#jiang cheng#lan wangji#lan xichen#jin zixuan#Does anyone else think about the tragedy of the parallel lines? Of characters who are parallel lines?#Of running the same course as someone. Of echoing each other in perfect synchronicity.#It's more than being a foil. It's about being on the same path and being so near to each other.#and yet parallel lines never intersect. They cannot meet each other despite their existence being tied to another.#I think the brothers tragedy is just as much of a tragedy of parallel lines as is pre-resurrection wangxian.#Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian spend so much time running side by side and yet - they cant close this gap between them.#Even if their relationship never recovers - they are forever tied together through their past. The good and bad and ugly.#All the things that are left unsaid between them. All the love and sacrifices they made for each other that are never shared. Parallel line#I firmly believe any post-canon material that would have them be indifferent towards each other is just...really doing them a disservice.#And dear god the Lan brothers. They certainly love each other! Its a far fonder fraternal relationship than jiangxian (/platonic)#They fool you by having you think they have a good read on each other. Lan Xichen certainly wingmans + advocates for lwj!#But lets not forget - Lan Xichen by the end is in the reverse situation and headspace as Lan Wangji by the end of this story.#Lan Wangji is more free and open than he has ever been. He's in love. He's married. He and wwx are intersecting lines.#& LXC who grew up with and lived the same path as LWJ - who even is said to resemble him visually - his parallel line - shuts himself away#Despite all the love LWJ has for his brother I don't think he ever manages to reach him.
1K notes · View notes
ruporas · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
on the run!! (ID in alt)
2K notes · View notes
cruelsister-moved2 · 2 years
Text
so greek police shot a 16 year old romany boy in the head this morning and I haven't seen anywhere reporting on it
donate to the european roma rights centre: link
6K notes · View notes
thebirdandhersong · 1 year
Text
she's a 10 but she secretly wants repentance and redemption arcs for all the villains
2K notes · View notes
navree · 2 months
Note
Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.
Kamala 2024!
If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.
But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.
#personal#answered#anonymous#i mean let's be clear here no president is gonna attempt to be progressive ever again within my lifetime#because joe biden tried to do like 25% of that and got ZERO fucking credit#he did so much on healthcare on reform on loans on so many social issues and for all his litany of failings on i/p#he has been distinctly harsher on netanyahu than a good chunk of dems and certainly the entire republican party#for the first time since i was four we are not involved in any wars as americans and that is thanks to joe biden#but the thing is that he gets no credit for any of it!#him pulling out of afghanistan caused his approvals to tank in a way that never recovered#and leftists gave him FUCK ALL for it#they gave him nothing they just continued whining that even tho he cancelled a bajillion in student loans#he didn't actually cancel a QUADRILLION dollars so both parties are the same and voting is the most arduous task known to man#no democrat who is running is going to forget that catering to leftist/progressive policies gets them zero leeway with those supporters#that it not only tanks numbers but you still get constant haranguing about it anyway#so they're not gonna do it#we are gonna get fuckall for at least a good fifty years#and anything we get will be utterly in SPITE of people like you anon it will happen in spite of everything you've done#mostly because of people like me and mine who understand that voting is the bare minimum#and that for the democratic process to work the way you want it to you need to participate and not pitch a fucking fit#like a four year old who was told they can't go to disney this weekend#like i know you ratfuckers are happy this played out because this is all a game to you and you don't actually care#but that's why i've got zero faith in you people and why i'm glad it's my kind of folks#actual die hard democrats who have always been hardliners for supporting democrats in every possible election#who are picking up the slack and donating to harris and supporting her agenda#which is the exact same as biden's because she's his vice president and they share they same platform#because that's what they were both running on! twice!#anyway fuck you please feel free to find a necktie and test how tall your doorframe is
357 notes · View notes
wonder-worker · 2 months
Text
A central element of the myth of [Eleanor of Aquitaine] is that of her exceptionalism. Historians and Eleanor biographers have tended to take literally Richard of Devizes’s conventional panegyric of her as ‘an incomparable woman’ [and] a woman out of her time. […] Amazement at Eleanor’s power and independence is born from a presentism that assumes generally that the Middle Ages were a backward age, and specifically that medieval women were all downtrodden and marginalized. Eleanor’s career can, from such a perspective, only be explained by assuming that she was an exception who rose by sheer force of personality above the restrictions placed upon twelfth-century women.
-Michael R. Evans, Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine
"...The idea of Eleanor’s exceptionalism rests on an assumption that women of her age were powerless. On the contrary, in Western Europe before the twelfth century there were ‘no really effective barriers to the capacity of women to exercise power; they appear as military leaders, judges, castellans, controllers of property’. […] In an important article published in 1992, Jane Martindale sought to locate Eleanor in context, stripping away much of the conjecture that had grown up around her, and returning to primary sources, including her charters. Martindale also demonstrated how Eleanor was not out of the ordinary for a twelfth-century queen either in the extent of her power or in the criticisms levelled against her.
If we look at Eleanor’s predecessors as Anglo-Norman queens of England, we find many examples of women wielding political power. Matilda of Flanders (wife of William the Conqueror) acted as regent in Normandy during his frequent absences in England following the Conquest, and [the first wife of Henry I, Matilda of Scotland, played some role in governing England during her husband's absences], while during the civil war of Stephen’s reign Matilda of Boulogne led the fight for a time on behalf of her royal husband, who had been captured by the forces of the empress. And if we wish to seek a rebel woman, we need look no further than Juliana, illegitimate daughter of Henry I, who attempted to assassinate him with a crossbow, or Adèle of Champagne, the third wife of Louis VII, who ‘[a]t the moment when Henry II held Eleanor of Aquitaine in jail for her revolt … led a revolt with her brothers against her son, Philip II'.
Eleanor is, therefore, less the exception than the rule – albeit an extreme example of that rule. This can be illustrated by comparing her with a twelfth century woman who has attracted less literary and historical attention. Adela of Blois died in 1137, the year of Eleanor’s marriage to Louis VII. […] The chronicle and charter evidence reveals Adela to have ‘legitimately exercised the powers of comital lordship’ in the domains of Blois-Champagne, both in consort with her husband and alone during his absence on crusade and after his death. […] There was, however, nothing atypical about the nature of Adela’s power. In the words of her biographer Kimberley LoPrete, ‘while the extent of Adela’s powers and the political impact of her actions were exceptional for a woman of her day (and indeed for most men), the sources of her powers and the activities she engaged in were not fundamentally different from those of other women of lordly rank’. These words could equally apply to Eleanor; the extent of her power, as heiress to the richest lordship in France, wife of two kings and mother of two or three more, was remarkable, but the nature of her power was not exceptional. Other noble or royal women governed, arranged marriages and alliances, and were patrons of the church. Eleanor represents one end of a continuum, not an isolated outlier."
#It had to be said!#eleanor of aquitaine#historicwomendaily#angevins#my post#12th century#gender tag#adela of blois#I think Eleanor's prominent role as dowager queen during her sons' reigns may have contributed to her image of exceptionalism#Especially since she ended up overshadowing both her sons' wives (Berengaria of Navarre and Isabella of Angouleme)#But once again if we examine Eleanor in the context of her predecessors and contemporaries there was nothing exceptional about her role#Anglo-Saxon consorts before the Norman Conquest (Eadgifu; Aelfthryth; Emma of Normandy) were very prominent during their sons' reigns#Post-Norman queens were initially never kings' mothers because of the circumstances (Matilda of Flanders; Edith-Matilda; and#Matilda of Boulogne all predeceased their husbands; Adeliza of Louvain never had any royal children)#But Eleanor's mother-in-law Empress Matilda was very powerful and acted as regent of Normandy during Henry I's reign#Which was a particularly important precedent because Matilda's son - like Eleanor's sons after him - was an *adult* when he became King.#and in France Louis VII's mother Adelaide of Maurienne was certainly very powerful and prominent during Eleanor's own queenship#Eleanor's daughter Joan's mother-in-law Margaret of Navarre had also been a very powerful regent of Sicily#(etc etc)#So yeah - in itself I don't think Eleanor's central role during her own sons' reigns is particularly surprising or 'exceptional'#Its impact may have been but her role in itself was more or less the norm
343 notes · View notes
fruitageoforanges · 8 months
Text
elia martell character of all time because she was playing the game of thrones AND WINNING — survived aerys, set up an alternate court on dragonstone, universally beloved even by most of robert’s anti-targ regime, was probably at least angling to get rid of aerys — but the literal song of ice and fire was being written around her and well. you can’t outrun your inevitable doom.
like. that’s elia’s tragedy, and what makes me so insane about her. she was in the wrong story. she was playing the game of court politics but ended up yoked to 300 years of targaryen collapse and dynastic rot instead. there’s nothing i love more than characters doing their best with the pieces they can see on the board, while the fact slowly dawns on them that the board is in the process of being swallowed by an eldritch monster.
645 notes · View notes