#laura talks

[targaryen-dynasty]

the fact that i‘m still sobbing just thinking about poor sunfyre‘s cries when he just thought he and aegon go out for a fun ride and meleys‘ sad look at rhaenys in the end as the light left her eyes. what a foul way to start the week 😭

[thejellycat]

I'm having more feelings about Charles and Edwin as not quite foils but like. idk the only metaphor I've got is a math one - they're sine and cosine waves, identical if you offset them but functionally the opposite of one another.

Charles lived his life making himself as small as possible, squeezing himself into the exact shape and size of the person his father told him to be. he was a normal boy who liked normal things and had normal interactions with other normal boys. it took something drastic to even begin to shake him out of that, a kid being beaten by those normal boys, and then he promptly died for it. not really a great endorsement for "being yourself". so he lives even his afterlife occupying that same shape and space until things come to a head and he just can't anymore, wherein he beats the ever loving shit out of the Night Nurse. it's like those mattresses you can have shipped to you, vacuum sealed and rolled up tight, and the moment the seal breaks your mattress essentially explodes. (btw this is why you're not supposed to use blades to open things like this. this has been a psa) Charles never had the chance to really know himself because he had to become someone else to survive.

Edwin tho. Edwin lived his life making himself as invisible as possible. it didn't really matter who he was or was not as long as he performed the roles expected of him. he has always known the shape and size of himself, even if the details were blurry. Charles' father cared immensely about the details, but for Edwin they weren't important. (the irony is that the brief moment of connection with Simon combined with Edwin trying to fade into the background is what caught the others' attention and thus got Edwin killed.) it's only once his carefully constructed world gets blown to smithereens by the surreal experiences in Port Townsend that he starts to figure out no those details are important, actually. Edwin has always known himself, he just had to ignore all of it so that no one else would find out.

they're perfectly in sync with one another while also being the exact opposite. thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[poedameronloverx]

He is providing us with content and I’m so here for it! How is it possible for one man to be this handsome?!

[absolutesilly]

Another fun question to answer when you’re in the mood, what trope does FengQing fit in? A lot of people like to say rival to lovers but the thing is… these two can’t stand each other 😭 I feel like the fandom keeps forgetting these two seriously don’t like each other before the XL and MQ reconciliation (YES I SAID MQ AND XL ONLY, I just don’t think the f-f-friends part is directed to fx lol) For example, you know matchablossom from sk8infinity, those two bicker a lot but they’re genuinely best friends since young. Fengqing is nothing like that of the sort ☠️☠️☠️

fx has stated he doesn’t like mq because he’s a moody overthinker and looks down on him lol. And mq doesn’t like fx because he feels attacked by him all the time and his unwavering blind loyalty to royals. Anyways, they’ve said awful mean things to each other throughout the story and to see the fandom go “OMG HES SO MEAN TO HIM! Why would you ship them????!” “THEY HATE EACH OTHER”

like…. Duh? That’s the appeal 🙄 hear me out, hence why I believe they’re “almost” the perfect example of enemies to lovers lol.

hi hi!!! this is SUCH a good question!! these two are a bit hard to place! i’ve often called them rivals to lovers, but they definitely have more animosity than your usual rivals to lovers ship! (especially matchablossom, who as you mentioned are best friends despite their bickering… i think any similarities between the two ships are mostly aesthetic lmao, they’re verrrrrry different when it comes down to it)

there’s definitely a rivalry between them—as we see with the competition between them and their followers every year in the lantern battle—but most normal rivals can meet in public without trying to physically attack each other lmao. i think many people are too quick to gloss over the fact that they REALLY do have a LOT of genuine bad blood for most of their history! they’re not just in competition with each other, they hate each other!

i think that my own hesitancy to call them outright enemies to lovers is the fact that in spite of all this animosity, they are generally fighting on the same side of things! working under prince xie lian, serving as the two gods of the south, and joining forces to try to protect xl after his third ascension—they’re ALWAYS forced to team up! i generally associate true “enemies to lovers” with being on opposite sides of some big conflict.

in addition to working together, it’s clear that they don’t view each other as their “greatest enemy”—ie. they easily join forces when they believe there is a bigger or more pressing threat. hua cheng is the greatest example of this; it’s clear their distaste for him far outweighs their dislike for each other.

a lot of this may come down to my own personal definition of “enemy.” but i think what really makes me pause is the fact that it’s obvious neither of them has ever actually wanted the other one dead! whether they’d like to admit it or not, they cannot live without each other. we repeatedly see them save (or at least try to save) each other from danger, and in spite of all the hatred between them, they ran the south together for 800 years without either one ever genuinely trying to get rid of the other. (contrast this with yin yu and quan yizhen, who were tasked with running the west together… that didn’t work out!)

rivals to lovers doesn’t feel quite like an apt description to me, but neither does enemies to lovers. the more i think about it, the more i want to make up a category of my own, which is:

coworkers (derogatory) to lovers!

the enmity that can exist between two coworkers is something that is so sacred. sometimes you work with people who you really fucking hate! but my god. you work with them anyway, because you have to. and sometimes you accidentally work REALLY well together, in spite of everything. and sometimes, you get a new, even worse coworker that makes you realize the coworker you thought you hated actually isn’t so bad. maybe you like them. maybe you even love them.

[oyeixcher]

Ateez ✦ Spotify Korea

[goldencherriess]

For being the face and the name of his own franchise, Harry Potter is really underrated

[lilakyy]

Jude Duarte has stepdaddy issues she‘s just like me fr

[softle0]

Just wanted to show you guys my favorite tattoo ever (and the most painful too) 🥺

[tomhollandandtessa]

y'all know I love to show up once a year and be like "I'm back on my Tom Holland Bullshit" and then fade back into oblivion, and I want y'all to know that its that time of year again!!!!!

[targaryen-dynasty]

we all know simon didn’t send a raven to rhaenyra because he suspected daemon was going to betray her. my man just was sick and tired of having daemon tripping balls and invite one stranger after the other to harrenhal and asked her to pick her husband up because he‘s had ENOUGH

[thejellycat]

I have a lot of feelings about Edwin and his relationship with being gay.

in my head, Edwin knew that he was gay not long after he started attending an all boys school. he also knew that it didn't matter. there was no choice to be made, no decisions to agonize over. he knew what happened to people like him, and he knew that there were expectations of him. so he just kind of... ignored it.

he repressed and ignored and didn't bother to think about it, because what would be the point? why spend time wishing for something that could certainly never happen? why invite that kind of pain in the future when inevitably it came time for him to settle down with some nice girl? so he kept his head down and applied himself to his studies, and that was that.

it's not until Niko makes her comment, casually asking without any hint of judgement if he knew that it was okay to like boys, that he realized that it never occurred to him to stop ignoring it. he'd done such a good job of embedding the notion that it could never matter into himself that even 30-odd years after escaping from Hell he literally never thought to acknowledge this fundamental part of himself.

and then everything with the Cat King and Monty becomes that much more overwhelming because now he is thinking about it, thinking about Charles (wonderful beautiful loyal Charles, and oh those are thoughts he's been having for a while aren't they?) and everything is changing, and they nearly get destroyed several times over, and then Charles literally goes through Hell to save him. and he realizes he's done this whole thing quite backwards, gone and fallen in love with his best friend before he even knows what to make of his feelings. but in that moment that doesn't matter at all because Charles deserves to know just how special he is.

I think Edwin would flounder a bit after that, trying to figure out exactly what this all means for his own perception of himself. he spent all that time after escaping Hell the first time rebuilding his sense of identity only to realize he'd left out this massive piece. he's been clinging desperately to the way he was raised in order to have some kind of foundation so he could build himself back up, but this piece, these feelings don't fit there. how do you even begin to untangle 100 years of trauma and repression and loneliness on top of all the recent changes and losses?

I don't have any kind of conclusion here. I just think he's neat.

[poedameronloverx]

God I love him! 😍

[absolutesilly]

Tgcf fandom likes to talk about morals and such. We have folks who are the obvious clear good guys like xie lian and feng xin. And then we have hua cheng who is completely neutral. And then we get the morally grey like he Xuan and shi Wudu. And then we have mu Qing…. Which he’s not obliviously good like the other two xianle. But he’s never done an act that’s morally despicable… and he’s not like hua cheng either. What do you think of this topic? And what do you conclude on Mu Qing morality? lol sorry if this sounds like an exam question ☠️☠️☠️

hello there! :) i really appreciate the question!!

to start, i just wanna say that the tgcf fandom’s obsession with morals has always kinda driven me crazy, to be honest! in my opinion, flattening a whole bunch of very complicated characters into clear cut “good guys” and “bad guys” tends to feed into circular arguments about whose fave is the most morally pure and “right”—which isn’t very productive. having said that, though, mu qing’s specific morality really interests me, so let’s chat about it!

to me, mu qing is one of the most realistic characters in the novel, morality wise. he’s pragmatic and driven by self-preservation—which makes sense considering that he was born into extreme poverty with a sickly mother and an executed criminal for a father. he has to succeed and provide for himself and his mother, or they will starve. this is the reality he was born into! underlying all of his choices is the need to survive, at any cost.

but more than just being driven by self-preservation, he’s self-interested. mu qing is ambitious! he wants more for himself!! he isn’t satisfied just being someone’s servant, he wants to stand on his own as xie lian’s equal!!! (this is the crux of why they couldn’t actually be friends until the end of the novel… but that’s an essay for another day lmao)

anyway! mu qing protects himself first because he doesn’t trust anyone else to do it for him. he knows his worth and he leaves when he feels he isn’t being valued.

however, being self-interested does not mean that mu qing is selfish—though he’s often accused of it, both in-universe and out. i think many of the “selfish” accusations (from fans at least) come from the contrast between him and the rest of the xianle quartet, who are all nuts for self-sacrifice. feng xin is still struggling to break himself out of the “devoted bodyguard” mindset, 800 years after xie lian kicked him to the curb. hua cheng has LITERALLY died for his beloved, multiple times. and xie lian, of course, is Mr. Self-Sacrifice himself!

so naturally, a character like mu qing—who places a clear and high value on his own life—stands out a lot compared to them!

but it’s this very self-interest that makes his actions at the end of the novel SO powerful and so telling for who he is as a character. mu qing, THE self-preservation and self-interest guy, risks his life multiple times to save the people he cares about. he takes on a cursed shackle rather than betraying xie lian! he stays and tries to help everyone even though he fully believes that they all hate him and want him dead! he almost DIES just to buy xie lian a few more minutes of escape time! these are all acts of genuine love and selflessness.

of course, mu qing’s big self-sacrifice moments at the end aren’t the only time he does good!! he helps a lot throughout the novel—or at least attempts to help. many of his altruistic actions are either misconstrued by people’s assumptions about him/his own poor communication, or they blow up in his face. but he is very often trying to help!!

i think that’s the crux of mu qing for me: he’s trying. in spite of his cynicism, he KEEPS trying to be a good person! even though basically no one believes in him.

he’s not perfect. he’s mean and unpleasant (i say this with deep affection) and sometimes his pragmatism hurts the people he loves most. case in point: the 33 gods incident on the auspicious land. (though i could also write ANOTHER essay on how this was a complicated and unwinnable situation for both him and xl to be in, and ultimately i think his choice was sad but completely understandable… but i digress. essay for another time.)

anyway! if you’ve gotten this far! my overall verdict is: mu qing is complicated. he’s an imperfect person trying to be good, and i think that’s why i find him so interesting. he makes good choices and bad choices, as we all do!

i think a great many fans would do well to be a little more charitable in their assessment of him. when push comes to shove, many of us are more mu qing than we are xie lian. and there’s nothing wrong with that! ;)

[bandaged-writer]

no thoughts, just tecchou working out with reader sitting on his back princess style

[goldencherriess]

When you realise that you're older than the characters you grew up reading about

[mumumumuch]

today I finally got a real job after 5+ years of being an intern 😭