#internal contradictions

[sanctus-ingenium]

Hello so I heve a rather personal question as an artist. So when I draw and create art no matter how much I like it after it's done i'm not satisfied with it and I see every little detail that's off or every mistake. No one else see it. So my question is do you get that feeling too? How do you get rid of it? Or do you just embrace it and ignore the things that tip you off?

you cannot draw something in a way that removes its most essential and valuable feature: the fact that you drew it. that's why when you look at it, you have x-ray vision and you can see every brush stroke you fucked up and how the sketch was better but you could never capture it and how the foreshortening is wrong etc. because you drew it. it will never go away no matter how good you get because you can never outrun the fact that you made it. that's a good thing btw

[quatregats]

Something I've been thinking about is how Patrick O'Brian manages so skillfully to write characters whose actions contradict their beliefs, which I think is honestly a big part of why his characters feel so real. Mostly with Stephen and Jack—e.g., and perhaps most notably, Stephen has notably leftist sympathies (honestly I have no idea how to characterize his politics in period terms) who nonetheless becomes very comfortable with his rise to the landed gentry, while Jack is a card-carrying Tory who much of the time sympathizes far more with working class sailors and farmers than with the upper classes—but I'm sure he does it to a lesser degree with some of his minor characters (James Dillon, while perhaps not precisely minor, comes to mind), and I love that he's able to do that, especially the way in which he embeds it in the narrative. We see how they're all unreliable narrators of themselves; we understand how they want to be seen and how that does and doesn't coincide with the reality, but most importantly, this isn't presented as something reprehensible, just as a part of their own humanity. They are not their expectations for themselves, but they don't need to be those expectations to be beloved.

[benveydraws]

i can't love you in this skin

[gayofthefae]

Mike and Will - Let It Happen by Gracie Abrams

@best-thing-at-this-party asked me to - commissioned it, basically, I mean...they told me what to edit. Anyway-

sorry this one took so long! @throne-of-crows @your-local-bi-guy @imatotallynormalteengirlok

[liquidstar]

style practice w a style swap 🖤🩷🩵🤍

[ilynpilled]

I feel like as the resident dishonor/honor guy enjoyer I have to speak on honor as a construct and how it seems to operate in asoiaf in my eyes. I will be stating the obvious here imo but: violence IS inherent to it. Be it directly or through the enablement of it. “Honor”, as a feudalistic moral construct, revolves around the reinforcement of a status quo. It is a moral construct that is embedded into a feudalistic structure, one that is inherently violent. It can be deeply flawed and destructive as a result of deeply rooted systemic issues. Being “honorable” is very complicated because, again, it does not exist based on a very sensible moral framework. It ends up contradicting itself because the way society is structured in Westeros.

Almost nothing embodies this more clearly than the KG. They are supposed to be the paragons of honor: an unsoiled white cloak.

Vows are social contracts this society is built on. This is why Jaime is very restricted in a lot of ways in his world by his label. Breaking one of the most important contracts (one that happens to be key in reinforcing a feudalistic structure: it places the king’s will above every single other moral or ethical code) makes it so he is not believed or trusted and he is unable to operate properly within their society in a lot of circumstances, as we witness in his chapters. It is honorable to protect the weak and the innocent, but it is honorable to protect your king in all circumstances and reinforce a status quo. To obey your family and play your societal role. To obey laws, even if they are unjust. To keep your word, to be honest. Loyalty to a tyrant has to be inherently more honorable (especially in certain positions) to maintain this status quo, even though it contradicts other oaths and we know it is inherently immoral. Balancing values is the most interesting aspect of characters dealing with ‘honor’ and morality. Feudalism is what makes the honor system collapse. Honor itself can be a more vague concept, ���the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right”, but the way it is defined and how it operates within this society is so fucked. The KG appear in the weirwood dream (mirroring the imagery of The Others, conflating the honorable white cloak with snow and cold and death.) “You swore to keep your king safe” “and the children as well.” Yeah, the innocent children of kingslanding as well, that would have burned to ash. It is honorable to save your king, to protect the weak, to save the children, to save the innocents of KG, to obey your father. He tells this to them in the dream, he explains his reasoning for killing Aerys, but they do not budge. That is what Jaime fears the most, the complete collapse of everything that holds meaning to him, heroism becoming undefinable with these conflicting moral codes, which is likely another huge part of him keeping it a secret. It is something he feels powerless against. The way things are prioritized is wrong. Morality becomes skewed. In Jaime’s mind the enemy and primary source of doom is this nonsensical moral construct that contradicts itself represented by institutions that make no sense. It is what makes his symbolic fire go out. His moral code conflicts with this society’s code of ethics, which eventually leads him to cynically accept amorality. It is disillusionment that tears the idea of heroism and being “honorable” apart and leads to moral nihilism.

Another aspect of the honor code and its violence is the fact that it places more value to individuals based on class. It is dependent on class and a flawed social structure. This is despite the fact that vows of knighthood call for the protection of those that are too weak to protect themselves: the underprivileged. Jaime keeps having this epiphany of an inherent equality in death that seems to contradict the way society is structured. Aerys’ life is worth inherently more according to the honor code than Rhaella’s, than the lives of thousands of innocents, than Jaime’s. Yet, a lowborn hand, no one, seems to die harder than Aerys does (and nobody cares). A crown is worth nothing when crows feast on victors and vanquished alike, and the rightful heir himself. We are all equal in death, so the text is indicating that something is not right here.

When it comes to characters and their relationship with honor the important through-line is examining whether they are being “honorable” in the abstract sense, if they base their actions around empathy and a sense of actual justice, or if they are abiding by made up flawed constructs. Being viewed as honorable by this society does not make you a good person. In fact, in order for you to abide by the honor code you would likely have to turn into an amoral individual. For example, if you try to keep the cloak pure white you will metaphorically soil it. Like every one of Aerys’s kingsguard did. To keep their oath to the king, they broke vows to protect innocents and protect women. They should lose their honor by a lot of definitions, but that would mean the status quo collapses. Jaime’s knighting for this reason is very much like a boy being sacrificed at an altar. It is not just about drawing a parallel between young girls and boys being sentenced to bloody doom by violent constructs created for their gender.

“Blood is the seal of our devotion.” He bleeds on his plain white tunic. It was never “pure white”, it was always all tainted in blood. It is inherently violent. You can argue that is when “the boy died.”

Very rigid and hypocritical honor codes built for feudalism lack nuance and lead to amorality. I think George aims to address, interrogate, deconstruct, and then reconstruct honor, as with most other key concepts present in fantasy. Honor can be redefined. Examples like “No chance, and no choice”, among many others, are at the root of that reconstruction. Even then, the reconstruction does not conflate it with pacifism necessarily. For example, Chelsted did the ‘honorable’ thing, in the abstract moral sense, of quitting his job and not supporting a tyrant anymore, but that act achieved nothing in preventing the wildfire plot. Same with essentially everyone important at court abandoning the situation that is Aerys, turning away from a gaping wound and not addressing it before it was too late. Jaime had to soil the ‘white cloak’ and disrupt the status quo and lose his “honor” within those terms by murdering his king and his pyromancers as a kingsguard and actually save half a million lives. It was not glorious, nor was it anything like the songs, and the city is still doomed because there is no way to get that festering corruption out of there at this point, metaphorical of the greater problem with KG, but it was heroism, a choice with meaning, and a form of triumph, even if the consequences break Jaime down the line. He gets no answer to the question of what it means to be a knight and a man of honor if society’s version of it is so skewed. Then, Jaime and the readers get an answer in the form of Brienne: “I dreamed of you.”

[jimmywilsonschutzpah]

Ok so let me get this straight. Dr James Evan Wilson, Oncologist extraordinaire and secret idiot, had an outstanding warrant for his arrest, issued by the state of Louisiana, from around 1991-95 to 2008.

Americans, help me out. This means that Jimmy-boy never renewed his passport in these 13-17 years, right? Mr Best-friends-with-local-curmudgeon-army-brat (who has lived all over the world) hasn’t left the US of A since maybe studying in Montréal or during med school (I’m assuming that if he crossed the border or renewed his passport that then the warrant would come up).

This also means that Wilson is such a good boy when driving that he’s never been stopped by a cop who decided to run his license through the system, right? And come to think of it, how was he even renewing his license?? Or wouldn’t the DMV look into warrants and such when renewing a driver’s license? (Is this the point where I should just stop thinking about this?)

Also, this man had been flying domestically and had unknowingly been playing Russian roulette with the TSA ever since the TSA was created??

I am amazed by the ramifications of this plot point. The man who went to study in Québec at 18 never left the country again after med school. Right. Continue being a secret weirdo, Wilson.

[ectonurites]

does anyone have that ‘sometimes things that are expensive… are worse’ meme on hand. because the branding company we’re working with is pissing me off

[elftwink]

have to work on a project today and an unrelated thing happened that just made me so so so so so mad (just some irl personal stuff), which normally derails my entire day because i find it so hard to come out of the angry/upset state and tend to just circle back and obsess over whatever triggered it but! today after 20 minutes of that i had a council meeting about it (<- what i call my decision making process) the outcome of which was putting it aside (!!!) for later when i could actually talk about it and resolve it (!!!) & in the meantime we could just do other stuff.

local man exuberant and jubilated to achieve feats of basic emotional self-regulation and was seen excitedly telling reporters he "never thought this day would come" and began giving a thank you speech to nobody in particular. more on this story as it develops

[yearning-gay]

no don't express to me that you genuinely sincerely and animalistically find me hot and desirable you will stunlock me and i won't be able to parry your attacks

[illuminatedferret]

Hello! I hope you're having a lovely day!!

Well- here's a dumb thing that I've been thinking about for absolute ages, if you don't mind dumb asks? I'd be interested in what you think of a TGCF story where a cannon character (NOT HuaLian) reincarnates with slowly returning memories of their last life - wherein they eventually discover that they'd actually read a book about their current life! Except, they never actually finished the series - they've devoured decent chunks of fandom content, but they don't know what's Canon and what's fanon for the parts they never read. (Anything book 3 and beyond)

Here's the conundrum- I haven't finished reading TGCF yet because I want to model their knowledge based off mine, and sketch out what I *think* might happen in this stories plot... and then go back and read TGCF and look for ways this wouldn't work and would change, and build the *actual* plot of the story from there.

How dumb does this idea sound? Would you have any advice to give, or any ideas on big differences fanon has with canon? (Without actually mentioing what the truth actually is? ^^;;)

Feel free to ignore everything aside from the "I hope you're having a lovely day," part, if you want ^^;;

hello!! today has been good :) I hope yours has been good as well.

I don't think this is a dumb ask! It's an interesting premise! I think you are going to get stuck at some point where your story planning hits the point in canon that you've read to, but it's definitely a clever way to basically like, method-act the character's experience? Taking advantage of your own lack of knowledge is clever, yeah, I don't think this is dumb at all!

If you want my advice, I'll just spitball a bunch of questions I think you should ask yourself- what kind of person are you writing? Why didn't they finish TGCF? What sorts of fandom content were they looking at? Were they a fan of a particular character? How did that influence the sorts of TGCF fans they followed, and what biases did it give them? The fan media they were engaged with, was it biased towards or against any particular characters? Because any of those things could create a lot of misconceptions.

I was spitballing fanon vs canon with some friends, and I realized we should also probably acknowledge headcanons, and the sort of bridge it is between canon and fanon. They overlap a bit, but to me, headcanons are ideas that acknowledge canon vs. personal opinion, while fanon ignores or seeks to replace canon. That might also be a good area to explore- what's something they forgot was a headcanon? Did they perhaps hear two conflicting headcanons, and they don't know which one is the truth?

It's a little hard to say "Fanon is (X)" without in the process saying "Canon is (Y)". But here's some fanon I know of:

E-ming reopening wounds. I just learned this one, actually. There are a few fic that use this idea without any mention of it not being canon, RIP.

Xie Lian thinking his food is good.

Buff Xie Lian (I'm sorry I know it's popular don't yell at me)

Hua Cheng calling himself "lowly", "useless", or "unworthy"- this is also very common in fanfic.

Mu Qing's father was executed for (X). (you could easily make some headcanons there. It's just stating anything as fact that becomes fanon.)

[wanderingmind867]

I think I can guess why I'm not scared of Man-Thing (despite being scared of almost everything), but it's a really weird story. I've mentioned it before, but I can't help repeating it. I played the Lego Marvel games, and Man-Thing was in the second one. And although he didn't do much, I kind of fell in love with his design. In Lego form, Man-Thing just looks harmless and almost adorable. For being a swamp monster, he is way too cute. He's impossible to hate. Even if his stories can perhaps can a bit eerie and uncomfortable (as I'm sure some might be), I can't hate Man-Thing themselves.

But also, I might want to actually thank the comics code authority. In some ways, I wish they still existed. Because they prevented the horror stuff from getting too scary. Man-Thing and Werewolf by Night and Morbius and the Son of Satan and stuff don't scare me, probably because the censors kept them from getting gory and shocking and disturbing. Also, thank god for the lack of ambient sound. Music would make it all worse.

[wonder-worker]

Friendly reminder that Francesco Coppino and Prospero di Camulio, contemporaries who were literally getting their information from predominantly Yorkist circles, were both explicitly clear that it was Henry VI who decided to surrender Berwick to Scotland.

Camulio: "King Henry has given away a castle [town] called Berwick, which is one of the keys of the frontier between England and Scotland." Coppino: "[Scotland has] received from the same Henry the town of Berwick, on the frontiers of Scotland, which the Scots have long claimed as their right from the English, as the excellently well furnished guardian of their frontiers, and the place to which King Henry repaired as an asylum after the battle."

The idea that Margaret of Anjou was principally involved in the surrender, or that she was the one who actually made the decision, is based on nothing but assumption. Two direct contemporaries, both speaking of ongoing events as they unfolded, who were both getting information from Yorkist-held England, both clearly believed it was Henry who was responsible for this course of action. Neither of them mention Margaret. Sure, you can argue that it was merely rhetorical, and that they were simply automatically attributing such an important decision to the King rather than the queen - but rhetoric is nonetheless extremely important and helps us understand how historical figures were perceived at the time. Margaret's enemies would surely not have hesitated to broadcast her involvement had it actually been true, and Coppino in particular had shown no qualms about criticizing her in favor of the Yorkists before. If she was genuinely believed to have been responsible, and if the Yorkists were actually claiming that she was at the time, I see no reason why Coppino or Camulio would not have emphasized her role in their letters. What these samples instead indicate is literally the opposite: that their contemporaries - probably including the Yorkists who were putting out the information that Coppino and Camulio reported - actually believed that Henry was the one making the decision. I think it's a very large and very unnecessary stretch to go against actual evidence and claim otherwise by placing the responsibility on Margaret instead.

Additionally, these small samples may also reveal what people at the time - once again including the Yorkists - actually thought of Henry's role in the war on a broader level, away from direct Yorkist propaganda which would obviously and perhaps understandably seek to de-emphasize it: namely, that Henry was perceived as the one making decisions and deciding the courses of action for his own side.

Source: Excerpts from the Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Existing in the Archives and Collections of Milan

[ohmerricat]

yes i do have two separate tags for #goth and #gothic the vibes are interlinked but not interchangeable get it right

[thealogie]

Rose gets to be with the based clone that's also part Donna. Literally no downside imo

It’s literally all upgrades no downsides

[beneathsilverstars]

my headcanons are contradicting each other [upends a table]