#queen of all things pretty

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

You ever have those moments where an idea just... won't leave your head?

[brighteuphony]

I love Chiyo- and I kind of headcanon her as a Witch of the Woods (Sands???) archetype- a bitter old woman who has sacrificed too much, experienced and committed more atrocities than anyone can imagine, and who knows the truth about what lies in the hearts of men to live among the villages anymore.

In my AU she's got a pretty dark backstory. Back in time when Villages were just getting established, women weren't allowed to be shinobi in the same capacity as men. There was too much warring and death among the clans to risk women, so they were only ever allowed to serve as spies or medics. (Chiyo started off as a medic).

And like any military/fascist dictatorship, serving the state was more important than anything else- so women who were kunoichi were given missions to steal and return with powerful bloodlines. Even before villages, this was a common fear among clans (which is why so many of them have protective measures and inbreed/arrange matches very carefully).

Chiyo was one such woman, who took a X-rated mission in her youth because she was told it would 'serve her nation'. There was a powerful bloodline whose Kekkei Genkai could harden sand to something akin to Steel- something Suna very desperately wanted.

Chiyo succeeded in her mission, but despite the veneer of 'serving your nation', when she returned, she was considered, in her words, "Just another whore."

Then when her son didn't manifest the bloodline- it was worse, but Chiyo was happy because that meant her son was HERS. (This is when she met Enji, and he saved her son's life at great cost- so Chiyo owes him a blood/life debt.)

Then the war came, and they needed women to fight so now serving the nation meant something different, and Chiyo became a full fledged 'shinobi' and turned her healing towards poison and death- especially when she had to fight the Salamander.

Then she sealed Gaara and that was the atrocity straw that broke the camel's back and she dipped out Suna and retired to an oasis. She's still a healer, but adamantly refuses to serve shinobi.

Once again, thank you so much for these asks and all the support for this AU?

@youngpeacearbiter

[idk-bruh-20]

Irondad fic ideas #155

Tony can be... a bit overbearing with his helicopter parent tendencies. To combat this, Peter sets up a small protocol with FRIDAY. 

Any time Tony wants to do something paranoid or invasive, FRIDAY is to send him a helpful article first, with titles like "Excessive Surveillance Can Harm Adolescent Development, Study Finds" and "Why Teens Need Privacy From Their Parents"

Peter leaves the choice of articles up to FRIDAY, trusting her to send ones that fit the situation.

While this protocol does get Tony to reconsider some of his more... extreme impractical requests, in most cases it fails to change his mind. Being hands-off about Peter's safety is not something he can do -- not when he knows the kinds of dangers this particular kid could face.

He's grateful for the insight that the protocol has given him, though. So instead of removing it, he decides to add to it. He asks FRIDAY to make it a two-way street. Now, whenever Peter complains about one of Tony's safety protocols, FRIDAY will send an article to help him understand

However, Tony doesn't anticipate the kinds of articles FRIDAY will choose. While she continues to send Tony studies and editorials, to Peter she sends news reports from Tony's past

Peter's mad that Tony has put trackers in everything he owns? -- "Tony Stark Still Missing: Inside Month Three of the Harrowing Search"

Peter hates the constant health monitoring that FRIDAY does when he's in the tower? -- "Death Wish or Death Sentence? Stark Behavior Tied to Secret Illness that Almost Cost Him His Life"

It goes on and on. For every seemingly insane overreach, there's a story, an experience Tony is trying to protect Peter from. 

They both still disagree about how much protection is too much, but at least they understand each other better now

[wordsinhaled]

payneland neighbors AU

(a.k.a. one of my million WIPs that may actually be seeing the light of day)

edwin is an Alive Boy, who has had a near-death experience being bullied while he was at school, so he can now see ghosts.

charles is a Dead Boy, who is starting a detective agency out of his new flat, which happens to be next door to edwin's.

edwin does not realize charles is a ghost at first.

they are mutually down bad and trying hard (and failing) to be normal about it.

pining and shenanigans ensue.

should be able to get this posted to Ao3 sometime later today as chapter 1/? of who knows how many because apparently payneland has made me that person with multiple multichapter WIPs, lmao ~*~*~

Edwin does not think about his new neighbor across the hall.

(Said new neighbor's name, it will turn out, is Charles.

And Edwin most certainly does not fixate on the compelling glint of Charles' single earring in the sun, or the curve of his smile so easily offered.)

The story of it is this: Edwin had held the door to their building for him one fine spring day. Simple politeness, and moreover basic human decency, both dictated this was the proper thing to do for someone carrying such an absurd quantity of unwieldy parcels.

He had not expected the stranger to look so taken aback.

(He had an honest-to-goodness crystal ball propped precariously atop a stack of antique-looking books; and those teetered on top of several cardboard boxes near buckling under the weight of whatever they held within. A cricket bat protruded from the pin-encrusted rucksack slung over his shoulder. People did insist on having such incongruous pastimes, Edwin thought; and, apparently, atrocious packing habits to go along with them.

But the titles of the volumes Edwin managed to glimpse were as intriguing as the crystal ball was misguided—and he'd found himself rather helplessly curious.

"Cheers, mate!" the person he will soon know to be Charles had said, sounding obscenely grateful as he manouevred his way inside, and had flashed Edwin a grin so radiant and wide it hurt Edwin's cheeks in sympathy just to look at it.

Still, Edwin tried to think no more on him; nor on how surprised he'd appeared to be at Edwin's tiny show of kindness—at Edwin's perceiving him at all, even. Tried being the operative word.)

He'd been aware Jenny was letting the rooms across the hall, because she asked him several weeks ago if he might know any potential tenants. Edwin had informed her he did not. His last neighbor had listened to ungraciously-loud electropop at all hours of the night and harbored a seemingly endless stream of stray cats despite Jenny's very clear policy against animals.

Edwin would far prefer the space to stay blessedly vacant and blissfully quiet for as long a stretch as possible. He deserved some sort of a reprieve, he'd thought.

it seems he is not about to get one.

Edwin is reading when he hears a muffled string of colorful swearing, the lugging of things, the scraping of furniture across hardwood floors. While he may be able to studiously avoid thinking about the beautiful boy he'd met downstairs, Edwin cannot escape the inevitable and inconvenient fact that they will now be living in proximity. The telltale commotion that can only be made by someone moving in comes right to his proverbial stoop.

Who else could it be but him?

Edwin sighs. The only thing for it, he supposes, is to go over and introduce himself.

[cator99]

out of curiosity, would you consider yourself butch?

used to be a blonde underweight twink and now I'm a based jock still got the chanel bag and the sick albeit matured mind of a suckpig to prove it so I'm gonna let you decide whether you wanna call me that word just cuz I got a pussy and short hair. I promise you that there have been enough advancements made in the art of lesbian sexual dynamics in the past 50 years to broaden the vocabulary used to describe the plethora of types of masculine females.

[crossedwithblue]

random thought bc I've been listening to Six on repeat: the queens claim that the only reason they're remembered is because of Henry, but would Henry be one of the most iconic and well-known English monarchs if not for them?

[maingh0st]

The hate Taryn gets is way too exaggerated and disproportionate. It’s just straight up misogyny at this point, in my opinion. The fandom needs to get over it.

I could literally write a treatise about Taryn-hate at this point lmao. I’m going to share some thoughts (this actually got quite long), but I want to include a big ole disclaimer: at the end of the day, everybody gets to engage in fandom in the ways they want. everyone is free to love or hate whichever characters they want, for the reasons that feel valid and real to them. that being said, the treatment of Taryn specifically is really troubling and bizarre to me. 

I think it’s worth pointing out that when we say Taryn-hate seems misogynistic, that means a lot more than just “people who hate Taryn hate her because she’s a girl.” in my opinion, fandom misogyny toward her often gets couched in broader terms. some examples of what I mean by this are:

(1) Taryn does things that are bad and I don’t like that - uhhhh okay. everybody in these books does shitty things, so let’s think about why specifically the actions of Taryn (a 17-18 year old girl being manipulated by multiple men in her life) fall into the category of unredeemable for you. the reason we might point to this being misogynistic is because it’s a double standard that doesn’t apply to other characters—we’re willing to forgive Cardan his cruelty, or centuries-old Madoc for the trauma he's inflicted and his ongoing need for bloodshed, but Taryn is just a stupid, evil girl for trying to secure her place in Elfhame through the levers of power that are available to her. she can never be forgiven nor redeemed no matter how loyal she is to Jude moving forward. why is that? what sin of hers are so particularly evil to warrant this response? and we have to answer these questions in the context of Elfhame & its moral code, not in the context of our own world.

(2) I could never see myself acting in the way Taryn does and therefore I don’t like her - okay? I can never see myself acting like Madoc, or even like Vivi (don’t get me started on Vivi & the fact that she gets passes Taryn never does), but that doesn’t mean I can’t have empathy for them. I understand that we experience the books through Jude’s perspective, so we’re automatically more prone to rooting for her—and to be clear, I love Jude! but fiction challenges us to experience the world through other perspectives, and it’s my opinion that Taryn acts in a way that is completely consistent and understandable with her experience of Elfhame. “I’m not like you,” she tells Jude. “I want to belong here. Defying them makes everything worse. You never asked me before you went against Prince Cardan—you didn’t care what it brought down on either of our heads.” 

while Jude’s defiance is held up as girlboss behavior (by me, too! I love a “get worse” arc), Taryn’s more traditionally feminine approach to finding her place in Elfhame is reviled (@slightlyrebelliouswriter23 has a great post on the fawn response to trauma & on passivity). more on this point below. 

(3) Taryn isn’t a “girl’s girl” - I am begging fandom to think critically about why Taryn betrays Jude & what that says not just about Elfhame, but about our world. these girls live in a world that affords them little power and agency. we meet them on the cusp of adulthood, and they’re both hyper-aware that they need to secure their place in Elfhame. Jude refers to knighthood as “earning” her place and is uninterested in marriage, but Taryn seems aware that she’s more likely to secure her place through the latter option (and also expresses the fear that Jude is going to leave her behind). it’s an oversimplification, but a useful one for the sake of this conversation, to point out that Jude chooses a more traditionally masculine approach, while Taryn chooses a more traditionally feminine one.

the tragedy is that this world—and particularly the men in their lives—pit them against one another. Locke offers Taryn the thing she wants most, requires a vow of her secrecy, and then begins flirting with Jude (and that's not even to mention him being a gancanagh!). at a point in her story where Madoc and Oriana are the only family who are still around for Taryn, Madoc capitalizes on Taryn’s ignorance (and also her awareness that she's never been the favorite daughter) & uses her to betray Jude. I almost never see these complexities brought up in conversations about Taryn, which is just gross to me, and echoes the ways that patriarchal power structures pit women against each other in the real world. 

I’ve seen people argue that while Jude’s approach is also flawed, she at least doesn’t betray Taryn. and like… kind of? she certainly doesn’t betray Taryn as directly as Taryn betrays her—but some of that just strikes me as dumb luck. consider what might’ve happened if Dain hadn’t died at the end of book one. what lengths might he have asked Jude to go to in order to prove her loyalty to him? or if we rewind even further—it’s honestly just dumb luck that someone didn’t harm or kill Taryn (Valerian, for example, could've chosen the wrong window). Jude’s antagonism of Cardan & his friends had a direct effect on Taryn’s life, and even though Taryn begged her to stop, she bullheadedly charged on. the difference is that Jude’s risky decisions ultimately work out for her, while Taryn has to face the consequences of hers not panning out the way she wanted them to. 

this isn't exhaustive, and there’s so much more I could say, but this is already so long. so in conclusion, the reason all this matters to me personally is twofold: 

at its best, fiction teaches us empathy. part of why I love tfota is because it takes characters & dynamics that are really messy & helps you, the reader, understand where everyone is coming from & why. the fact that we love Madoc is a testament to fiction’s ability to do this. so why is a teenage girl treated like the true villain of this story? what about her makes us incapable of empathy? why, in the mind of the fandom, is she not allowed forgiveness (or even just a chance at redemption) for the harm she's caused, while other characters are? I see people stanning Nicasia, who actively tortured Jude (over a boy, no less!!) ffs

fandom misogyny reflects our world. why are people eager to forgive toxic male love interests, yet hold the bar impossibly high for girls? why is there such a narrow set of choices & behaviors that we consider acceptable for female characters? Holly wrote a story about two young women carving out places for themselves in a world hostile to them, hurting each other in the process, and ultimately deciding to forgive, love, and root for one another—and fandom has taken that complex narrative and pitted them against one another, upholding one as the girlboss who can do no wrong while treating the other as scum. misogyny thrives on women treating each other like the problem, so if this is our attitude toward a fictional story where we’re afforded direct looks into characters’ thoughts, how much worse are we going to be in the real world, faced with real, imperfect women?

anyways, in conclusion: you're entitled to dislike taryn, but if you feel such vitriol toward her that you're literally making hate posts (or commenting under fanart of her!! holy shit), I invite you to interrogate where that hate actually comes from. fin.

[stuckinapril]

At a point in my life where coming off as racially ambiguous is bothering me bc I want to be proudly Arab more than ever before

[jessicas-pi]

hear me out on this ok. ROTS AU where Anakin still turns to the dark side but that's Palpatine's problem.

So, Palpatine decides last minute that ehhhh maybe dooku could come in handy later and he doesn't encourage Anakin to kill him, and Dooku gets arrested and imprisoned in the Jedi Temple awaiting trial. (Also he didn't get his hands cut off because of uhh plot reasons?)

Fast forward.

Palpatine is encouraging Anakin towards the Dark side, tells him about Plagueis the Wise, etc. etc. But see, the thing is, Anakin is at the end of his tether, probably hasn't slept more than three hours over the past week, and has no remaining impulse control or inhibitions, and upon hearing that the Dark Side can save people from death, his first thought is, "wait a sec, we've got a Sith Lord in-house at the moment!" and he sprints out of the space opera and books it back to the temple.

Now, Dooku has been calmly waiting in Temple custody, confident that Darth Sidious will arrange his escape. But THEN Anakin barges into the cell like OMG THE CHANCELLOR TOLD ME THE SITH KNOW HOW TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM DYING AND I'M HAVING DREAMS ABOUT SOMEONE DYING AND I NEED YOUR HELP TO SAVE THEM

At which point, Dooku realizes Palpatine's plan. He's going to tempt Skywalker to the Dark side and REPLACE DOOKU. this is totally uncool.

So he's like "...who are you dreaming about, exactly?"

Anakin freezes. He can't admit it's Padme because their relationship is top-secret and he can't admit how important she is to him so he tries to think of a good fib and goes "uhhhh OBI-WAN! Obi-Wan, it's Obi-Wan, I'm dreaming about Obi-Wan dying-" and he just throws himself into the drama because now he IS imagining obi-wan dying because Obi-Wan is fighting grievous at the moment and he MIGHT ACTUALLY DIE and that's in addition to Padme dying and he's totally spiraling at this point- "pleasepleaseplease you gotta help me he's like the only father i've ever known I don't know what i'll do without obi-wan I have to save him YOU GOTTA TELL ME WHAT TO DO I'LL DO ANYTHING--"

Dooku begins to smile.

(Would stealing Skywalker out from under his Master's nose be petty? Oh, yeah.)

(But it would also be very, very satisfying.)

---

Obi-Wan calls in to a council meeting to report his defeat of Grievous, but before he can say so, Mace announces that Dooku has escaped and the Sith Master has been killed.

Silence falls between the eleven councilmembers (eleven, not twelve, because their newest one is conspicuously absent. Obi-Wan wonders just what Anakin's up to now. Honestly, that boy will be the death of him.)

Obi-Wan clears his throat.

"...indeed," he says, trying to handle the shocking news with composure. "Well... at least we're down to one Sith, now."

Another awkward pause.

"Yeah, about that--" Mace begins.

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville] was the only member of [Crown Prince Edward of Westminster's] original 1471 council not already on the king’s council and her name headed the list of those appointed as administrators in Wales during Edward’s minority. [She remained on the council after it was expanded in 1473 and granted significant new governing and judicial powers]."

"In 1478 Prince Richard [of Shrewsbury] married the Mowbray heiress. Like his elder brother he had a chancellor, seal, household and council to manage his estates. His council, like that of Prince Edward, comprised the queen [Elizabeth Woodville] and a group of magnates and bishops, few of whom were Woodville supporters [...] It was Elizabeth who mattered, for Richard resided with her and Rivers treated his affairs as their own."

-J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Michael Hicks, Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives in the Wars of the Roses

[unanchored-ship]

they goofys...

this is literally just a display of my artstyles 🤡

[dimension-20-every-introduction]

Everyone Introduced in Dimension 20′s The Ravening War episode 4

[fishareglorious]

one of these days we'll get a patch featuring druvis as a major character to get back at the fact she was literally nowhere in any of the patches in 1.1 to 1.8.

[ratguy-nico]

Twinkly Light

Like said not my fav song, but the message people. Brutal. y es un temon igual no me hagan mucho caso 🕺

[bookofmac]

if everyone keeps going 'why arent they more gay?' about class of '07 i'm going to explode.

the show is set in 2017, the year that marriage equality was publicly debated and then eventually voted in it and it was a ROUGH year.

also, they went to CATHOLIC SCHOOL!!! I might just be speaking for myself here, but I wouldnt be getting into a relationship with any of the girls I went to school with if i was stuck on the campus with them, like a non zero amount of the student leadership were young libs (australian conservative party's youth branch).

[tennessoui]

i really like your take on padme in mermay au, she is straight up vicious, it somehow suits her better than her canonical persona? i don't know i never saw her as particularly, overly kind in canon, more like someone who definitely cares but is downright manipulative? idk if i'm making sense, long story short, this version of padme scratched an itch in my brain i didn't know i had

i think padme is always fun to write because versions of her can be very complex and when i write her i like to focus on her capacity for anger (in fics where she and anakin are still together when the fic starts) i'm sure that gets a bit tiring to read for people but i just can't see her character just being calm and placid and ok with losing anakin immediately. she seems too fiery in canon, and she seems to love anakin too much to just let him go

and when im writing padmé in canon fics, i want to balance that part of her with her other parts, like her kindness and a sense of justice and empathy ('a more perfect union' padmé for example is all of those things), but i think all those parts are important.

so i've really liked how easy it's been to lean into padmé's viciousness in the mer au!! it's been super fun for me, because one of my favorite parts of writing different aus is playing with how much a character is of a particular trait (ie., how much of a bitch obi-wan is, how much of a brat anakin is, how much of a good jedi is anakin, how much infinite sadness does obi-wan have etc etc) so i've liked dragging padmé's viciousness all the way up to the top of the scale here

she's a mermaid queen who is queen of a vicious and vain society and being queen means different things in this au than it does in star wars canon, a lot of which boils down to never really hearing the word no and maybe being a bit callous and naive because of it. she's also the most mer in the au because anakin was human for 21 years and obi-wan was human for likeee ~15 years (?) but padmé has been mer all her life and would never want to be human - she's fascinated by anakin, but not in the same way obi-wan was by the humans when he first discovered them and i love trying to distinguish that