#it's how she shows affection:')

[valtsv]

fucked my entire day up thinking about an undead person intentionally inhaling and exhaling while holding or sleeping beside someone they love even though they don't need to because the motion and sound of breath makes them feel safe and secure

[dingledraw]

South Downs cottage fluff based on the Dolly Parton song “Berrypie” 🩷

[knightingale]

The "Sansa reminds Sandor of his sister" motive that some people try to hitch to his character really just flies in the face of his actual attachments to her, doesn't it? Sansa reminds Sandor of himself. He sees the little boy who used to love knights in this girl who's been swept up by the same romanticism. He sees his abuser in her abusers, the much larger knight(s) beating on the helpless child. He sees how she is betrayed by every level of authority that should have saved her and remembers his father's neglect and Tywin and Robert's apathy for Gregor's crimes. He's protective of Sansa because he was Sansa.

And GRRM's design, that one of the strongest warriors in the series, a fearsome and cynical 6'8" guy who's "muscled like a bull" and has the face of death itself, sees himself in this soft and effeminate teen girl, and empathizes with her because he was an abuse victim too, is INFINITELY more compelling than "Oh yeah I bet she just reminds him of his sister," who he's never mentioned and who we know literally nothing about. Way to unnecessarily water down a character, you couldn't have ignored the black and white text more efficiently if you tried.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Don't Wormy About Me.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[kazz-brekker]

the book ice court heist has big group project involving people who don’t like each other vibes but the tv version is just going to be forced couples counseling via trying not to die together

[sunlit-mess]

ngl

[hasello]

Next sister (soon)

Do not ask me why this comic took me so long to finish, I don’t know either. I had such a love/hate relationship with it 💀 I did it, tho! Here’s Riri’s part for now. You have asked so many lovely questions and I still have some hope that I’ll manage to answer most of them 🙏🏻 love you guys, hope you enjoy!!

[shortnotsweet]

[ “SOMEBODY TOLD ME”]:

BREAKING MY BACK JUST TO KNOW YOUR NAME. SEVENTEEN TRACKS AND I’VE HAD IT WITH THIS GAME. A BREAKIN’ MY BACK JUST TO KNOW YOUR NAME—BUT HEAVEN AIN’T CLOSE IN A PLACE LIKE THIS.

— The Killers, Hot Fuss (2004)

Princess Rhaenyra’s insolence is wearing her stepmother’s patience thin. Queen Alicent is not ten years her senior, but even during her own sixteenth year, she cannot recall herself behaving so brazenly. She would never burst into courtly discussions in nothing but gilded armor and the underskirts of her riding leathers, awash in blood. (She would never be spotted in blood that was not her own, anyway. Alicent has never picked up a sword, not one that belonged to her.) Nevermind that Rhaenyra is attending to diplomatic affairs with bared teeth and scales, no—the crux of the matter is just that, her affairs. Rhaenyra is the Realm’s Delight, a beauty incomparable to any fair maiden, Alicent included. She indulges herself with appetite of a spoiled child, the confidence of man, and the pickings befitting only to her royal blood. Criston Cole. Daemon Targaryen. Harwin Strong. Laena Velaryon. She’s full of love, isn’t she? That selfish, foolish girl. What does Rhaenyra Targaryen know of love, of duty? She is a child in so many ways—she thinks killing makes her a man, thinks the throne is hers despite being a woman, thinks she can have her knight and her uncle and her protector and Laena Velaryon in one fail swoop. She’s wrong. She doesn’t know herself half as well as Alicent does. Alicent, who sees her for what she truly is, who wants to see all of her and more of her and none of her. Alicent has been stolen into the Keep by her own father—both of their fathers—but Rhaenyra is the key to this place, is the window to everything barred. Rhaenyra Targaryen has a dragon. Rhaenyra can fly.

That’s what Rhaenyra had promised her once, with her lips pulled back in a grin, exposing the white of her teeth like the violently radiant creature she was. “Perhaps when you grow tired of plotting against me, we shall ride on dragonback together,” she had said. The tease.

Alicent had yanked her into an empty corridor by the silk of her sleeve, ready to chastise her for her ill behavior. Conversing with the lords and ladies of the court at a feast was one thing, but chattering about her bloody encounters in battle over the pudding tureen were another. The lord at her elbow was going green. Alicent’s own face was likely red; her heart raced whenever Rhaenyra got like this. Alicent had never seen the battlefield—only seen battered men in dented armor and the slumps of corpses lined along dirt roads in the aftermath of war—but her own imagination terrified her like nothing else.

(Rhaenyra is better with a sword than half of the knights in Westeros, and more lovely than the lot. Her reign has not yet begun, but already the commoners flock to her—lured in by tales of her beauty and fine hair—and soldiers would follow her into battle. Alicent would not follow, but she would watch and bite her nails down to the quick.

She thinks of the figure Rhaenyra cuts in full armor, the heat in her gaze underneath the slots of her helmet. Alicent remembers the weight of her own hand in Rhaenyra’s—which was gloved—when the princess rode up to the spectators box and grasped it in her own, bringing Alicent’s knuckles to her lips. She thinks of Rhaenyra murdered in the sky, skewered with another man’s sword, plummeting to the ground, torn in half, streaking crimson across the clouds. Alicent would scream, or cry. She might laugh. She would throw herself from the window of her tower. Rhaenyra’s bloody exploits terrified Alicent for reasons she could not identify, and excited her for reasons she refused to.)

“I’d sooner be confined to the castle for the rest of my days than get on the back of that bloody lizard,” Alicent scoffed. Rhaenyra only tucked her hand over Alicent’s, where it was resting on her forearm. She flexed her fingers, moving to release her grip on the dark fabric, but Rhaenyra intertwined their fingers and held them fast.

“You’re confined already. You are already accustomed to such a thing. I know you. But—”

“But you forget yourself. You think you’re invulnerable, Rhaenyra. You don’t know who you are.” Alicent intends for it to be a sneer, but instead it comes out quietly, and too gentle for disdain. She can’t know. Rhaenyra is as trapped as she is, but they’re trapped together. They belong together. She belongs with Alicent.

“I am Rhaenyra Targaryen, Heir to the Iron Throne and all of Westeros. I am a dragonrider. I am—I am your daughter. In a way. Your sister, too. Your enemy. Your sword, your shield.”

“And what am I?” What else is left for me? Alicent wonders.

“My Queen. For now.” Rhaenyra cocks her head, and the gleam in her eyes burns like fire raining down. “When I am Queen, you will be my lady.”

[jessmalia]

Mal's Avatar: The Last Airbender rewatch: The beach 3.05

[alluralater]

as a lesbian there is something beautiful about the simple act of draping my body over another. as if i am the curtain, and you the stage. protection and safety. my breasts to your back. this is soft space, soft place. warmth on cold nights. you are humming your satisfaction against your forearms laid overtop each other. the tip of my nose grazing the back of your neck, silently taking in the smell of your hair. you can feel and hear mine brushing across your shoulders, murmur of sound. “can i kiss you here?” it is a hollow question to some but to me it is sincere whisper. i know that i could, i know you are patiently awaiting the press of my petaled mouth to the spot just beside the corner of your jaw and below your ear— but i want to hear you say yes. i want to watch your tongue appear to wet your lips as you allow me to worship this place where your love lies, and gives itself to me. trust that i will care for you, keep you safe. all you must do is tell me that i can. i begin the slowly building rise. kissing the back of your shoulder gently, affording you the pleasure of feeling the fullness there. every inch of you should know me, intimately. relaxed sigh of yearning in your throat. it is one thing to nurture, to care. to attach ourselves in all ways, and always. is this love? you taste of every sweet indulgence i have left out of my mouth for the past twenty years, for i have feared the ways in which it could rot me from the inside outward. is this love? to look down at you, feel your skin against mine, your heat and your affection and your vulnerability freely given to me, this must be— “yes. kiss me there. everywhere.” love.

[muffinlance]

Read "Suki, Alone". Liked it in general. But can they please, please hire someone who knows both the show's actual events and how to follow through on a character arc? Because guys. Guys. That comic is not implying about Suki what they meant it to be implying, and all because of literally one line.

So like. From a writer's standpoint:

What they meant to do: show Suki as a community-oriented person who cares for her people, and believes in everyone succeeding together.

As opposed to (spoilers): the thief girl they set her up in contrast with, who's pretty upfront and consistent on primarily looking out for herself. She betrays Suki for one (1) corn chip to improve her own life at the prison, no surprise.

But the problem is: they give Suki an inspirational line to the effect of "we're all working together and we'll all break out together"

You know

The thing she does not do in the show

So if both the show and this comic are canon, then instead of setting up a compare/contrast with the thief girl, they've just set up a comparison. One were Suki is arguably worse, because she's been leading a significant number of prisoners on with her "we'll all fight and win our freedom together!" business, only to straight up cut them out of the escape loop and abandon them, whereas the thief is only leading Suki on in the sense that Suki keeps telling her what it's morally correct to think and confuses snide replies with agreement

My dudes. My fellow writers. You people actually being paid for this. There were so many ways to fix those awful implications against our girl's character, the simplest of which would be to not include that line. Or they could have, you know, made it canon compliant with what actually happens in the show, so that this comic doesn't set Suki up as a betrayer instead of a community builder. Like... just send all her good prison buddies off to other prisons in the wake of the warden finding out they're colluding. Have it timed to be right before the next new prisoners arrive, thus setting it immediately before the Boiling Rock episodes, so Suki didn't have anyone left in the prison she'd want to take with her on a breakout. For bonus points, include a page or two of her and her Kyoshi warriors opening up the cell of one of her prison friends post-war, thus implying she's tracking down and actually fulfilling her promises. Maybe even show her doing the same with thief girl, who was established as being imprisoned on false charges anyway, and also showing that Suki is A) the bigger person, and B) willing to acknowledge her own role in mistakes (because I cannot emphasize enough how much thief girl was not hiding her own priorities, and it was Suki who approached HER with all this, not the girl ever doing anything special to weasel her way in) (this would also open up an opportunity for paralleling Suki's earlier in-comic mistake of not listening to one of her friend's very valid thoughts and feeling, which lead to the girl leaving their island alone pre-canon; a "seeing people as they are, not what you want them to be" moment)

Anyway yeah enjoyable enough for a quick read but another one for the "this can't be canon or the characters are So Much Worse than they were in the actual show" pile

At least Aang didn't promise to murder anyone in this one

[lunar-years]

It's interesting that when Keeley is telling Ted about the implications of that photo of him and her leaking to The Sun, she says "Jamie is going to go mental" but it's not followed up with "he's going to think i cheated on him" or "he's going to break up with me" or "it's going to ruin our relationship" it's instead followed up by, "there's going to be photographers all over us!" And later when she's talking to Rebecca it's, "My god, Jamie would've been so pissed off with reporters poking around in our love life." There's something to be said for like, she never once expresses doubt that Jamie won't hear her out on the truth or believe what she tells him. The major focus of her concern is just keeping their business out of the press. Their relationship in season one is far from perfect but there's a lot of implicit trust between them.

[rupertholmes]

what do we think of her guys

[mephoj]

taco and mephone have fascinating parallels more people could explore if taco haters weren't biased cowards

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Having story thoughts about the fourth wall:

It defines the difference between allegory and applicability. An allegorical story leans on our world to find its full meaning. Ideas, characters, settings, all symbolize something else that's in our world, thus obliterating the fourth wall and bringing the two worlds together. This can be useful for a message-forward story, but it has the side effect of making the world and characters seem less real, because it's not a place with its own independent existence--it relies on our world.

In an applicable story, the fourth wall is firmly in place. The character is a character. The setting is its own setting. They have an independent existence within their own little world. We can draw parallels to our world, but even without that meaning, the characters and setting still feel like they exist in a real, independent world.

An applicable story often has more impact and a stronger message, because the message comes out of the story and character, rather than being pulled from our world and pasted on top of the story.

As an example--I was thinking about this because I saw Ratatouille recently. In Remy's situation, there are a lot of parallels that can be drawn between his world and ours--an oppressed subculture, a life of poverty--but instead of trying to map that onto a specific real-world situation, they're still just rats, living in this weird version of Paris where sometimes the worldbuilding elements are just weird. The actual message of the movie is about art, which comes from character, not from the way the world is built. Compare this to something like Elemental, which started out as a way to explore real-world racism and the immigrant experience. Because the message is built into the world, commentators get distracted by the ways it doesn't map onto our world, and have a harder time connecting to the characters.

The fourth wall is also important to romance. The reason so much of the romance genre feels so fake and unreal is because it's so often concerned with the effect the story has on the reader--reaching through the fourth wall to give the reader things the reader finds romantic or arousing, regardless of anything that's specific to the characters or world of the book.

In a well-done romance, the fourth wall is firmly in place. The characters are not avatars for the reader and their romantic ideal, but people with their own independent existence and relationship. They live in a well-built world that has shaped both of their personalities and affects their relationships. The development of their romance is specific to these two people, and would exist independent of any audience reading about it. The story has more impact on the reader, because it's coming from outside our world and gives the reader unique characters to love, instead of just pulling the reader's desires out of our world and pasting them on top of the story.

[shprka]

Guys do you think it was Bucky who gave Gale that aftershave? Bucky swears it's because it suits him but the truth is Bucky loves that scent so it was a selfish decision (also fuck off expensive!). Thats also a part of why he'a always in Buck's space - he needs to be close enough to smell it

Doesn't hurt that others (and Gale) like it