#thanks of letting me vent

[magicshop]

his smile could cure the world ♡ [for @morshiberna ♡]

cr. 0613data

[quins-makeshift-menagerie]

[lunallaa]

So potentially hot take....

Jason Todd doesn't need to or should be that much a pretty boy. Not saying he should be super ugly or something but I am a firm believer of the rough and really just average appearance Jason agenda.

I know we all love how Dexter Soy draws him but let Jason be just a lil ugly a lil beat up yknow?

This post is all in silly goofy fun pls don't get mad 🫣

[mozzaremi]

[chiiroptereh]

Grief is a hole in the chest

[meadow-mellow]

me, getting notifs on twitter: *baby's first time being harassed by unhinged Romys <3* Sure, go off, lol. *proceeds to draw Magneto eating Rogue out*

[ley-med]

I had a week long vacation not long ago, so I finally have enough energy to talk to non-medical friends once again. And I just realized once again, I'm not sure how to talk to them.

They tell me all the things they participated in, and I'm truly happy for them, all the while thinking I would never have half that much energy. They ask me how I am, I tell them I'm good, finally had a vacation. What did I do? Oh, literally nothing, tried to sleep off the worst of the exhaustion and tried to avoid interaction with other humans. How's work? You know, just the usual, it's good. It is good, and I love it, but how could I tell them all the horrors witnessed? That's right I don't, but what else do I have left to talk about? Most of my fun work stories are tainted with the shadows of tragedies... And unfortunately, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So I just read their cheerful message and leave it on read, contemplating what to answer. And just hope they won't take offence to my agonizingly slow replies...

[teawizard]

Fangirling over a fictional man is so hard. Wish he would appreciate it

(initial sketches under the cut)

[teddybeartoji]

genuinely don't understand the ppl who like to point out very obvious things like scars and other skin problems liiiike what is the reaction you're hoping for lmao my dad took one look at my legs and the scars and went "it's ugly" ya no shit sherlock hjsadhgsghdghsahgd oh no i do it bc i think they look so so very beautiful mf can you please keep your fuckass comments to yourself

[ef-1]

[carouselunique]

Is it true that there's no animosity between you and... you know, you know who. You never talk about her in any way. I guess I'm curious. You guys seemed like really close friends and then just weren't friends at all. And there was some stuff she said that seemed very targeted at you...

I don't know if she feels any animosity toward me or not any more. Our mutual friends have said she doesn't and I take them on their word in that regard, assuming that if they have an answer for me it's because they're aware how she feels. I wouldn't know and it's not my place to put words in her mouth.

I haven't spoken to her/about her in a long time and the only time she even crosses my mind is when people bring her up to me. As for me feeling any animosity? I'll admit my feelings on her these days are complicated and way too nuance-core for people who aren't my friends to hear about but I wouldn't call them animosity in any way. I inherently want people my friends care about to live well because I care about my friends, and anyone my friends care about by proxy and I still share friends with her. I would never wish ill on people my friends care about so animosity doesn't fit into that by definition. I'd say I'm hurt more than anything and even then I've worked through a lot of it with trusted friends who have helped me deal with my emotions in a healthy way.

(Besides, my own life struggles keep me from even being able to invest time into animosity. I have to expend that energy loving my family, doing my best to support them during our struggles. And I've never been a hateful person it isn't in me. I would rather play 'Hot To Go' by Chappell Roan and teach my dad how to do the hand gestures to help him strengthen his muscles again than focus on hating anyone...)

I try not to think about her because it hurts. I often think that people forget that I'm a real person outside of her sphere, and that I wouldn't want to talk about what happened because I truly did consider her a friend for a long time. And when someone I consider a friend appears to not regard me with care any more suddenly and I don't even have closure on that... well... it hurts... A lot. Of course I never talk about it.

And I'm not stupid, I have seen some stuff she's said that I've gathered was about me. I remind myself that she has a right to vent in her own spaces and I truly mean that... it's just a shame that her own spaces have people who then have taken these things to me to show me (after all, I wouldn't have even seen these things myself if not for third-party anons going 'this u?') saying it is my own fault because I was a terribly cruel friend or my own fault for not listening to warnings about her when I had the chance and that makes me a stupid gullible bitch. You lot haven't seen some of the awful shit about me from some of her more ravenous fans and haters I've seen over the years that I've had to let roll off my back in the fear it would bring backlash - not even to me, to her. I don't want to be the cause of any hatred going to anyone.

Also I'm just not going to ever talk about the details of our fallen friendship or our fallen relationship. That's private. She might be a public person to some extent but I never was, even if I do gain some measure of small fandom for my work one day I'm just private about personal matters especially raw ones. I almost deleted this ask entirely but Idk I never stated that it bothers me when people talk to me about her from my own mouth, so I guess that's what this ramble is.

If you send me anything about Lily Orchard it will not be addressed. I am not a part of her life not even through our mutual friends. I do not know or care what's going on with her public/personal life. I haven't kept up. I will never keep up. Don't treat me as an extension of the situation because I am not in the situation. In the most plainly stated sense of the word: Leave me the Hell alone. (...pretty please.)

All I've wanted this entire time was to be left alone to process everything in a healthy, peaceful way. I'm workin' on it.

[streetkid-named-desire]

Traditional leather chaps are here!

Thank you @wanderingaldecaldo for making these for me. It has been a lot of fun to collaborate. You worked really fucking hard on these and I'm so happy with how they turned out.

And thank you for indulging me and letting me pick the size of the bulge in the masc v jeans AND for getting the bulge detector to work with the flat chest body! That's AMAZING!

[hacked-by-jake]

Yo, so.. I don’t know what you are here for but I’m here to talk about theories, the story and everything else, even if we only have one episode yet. That’s why there’s this fandom. For talking about the game. For making theories. Crazy ones and logical ones. Everything.

Sorry.

[wildbasil]

It's my mother's birthday today and I'm feeling awful but it comforts me to know that (hopefully) things will only get better from here. The thought going around my head a lot today is "I'm such an awful daughter" but (a) having boundaries doesn't make me awful and (b) even if I was awful, I have no obligation to be "good". Not to someone who's treated me like that for so long.

Anyway, I'm gonna cry some more and eat ice cream and then shitpost about Gwyn ap Nudd. Or something.

[norcumii]

I read the Twilight books once – I think it was some time after the third one came out, and a very nice lady who shared a bus stop with me had nothing else to talk about except her new favorite books. She even gave me a copy, and I was willing to read ‘em. It was a nice gesture, and I was pretty deep into the realms of depression and such where anything that might be a distraction was welcome.

I honestly don’t recall much of the stalking and other classic bits people reference as horrible – I’m sure that’s a direct result of said depression. The thing I remember most is the part that enraged me, the one thing that often made me toss my kindle aside and pace about in utter frustration.

Y’see, at that time I had also JUST been learning how to drive stick. Something like within two years at most, I had gone from a what was only technically a driver to having to know how to drive a manual – with training, at least. (Though mainly in Pittsburgh. That was more the trial by fire.) And the thing you need to understand is that I do remember Stephanie Myer went into excessive detail about cars.

And apparently the sparkly vampires liked their fellow antiques old cars. Or fancy speedy bullshit, where manual gearing is considered classy, more precise and more high brow (I also used to have a friend who was really into cars who told me these things). Bella *checks notes to make sure that’s the right name* goes into MASSIVE detail about how her dad got her HER VERY OWN VEHICLE and it was suuuuuuch a let down because it was an old clunker of a truck.

Me? I was ecstatic. I was going to see a character learning to drive stick! Or at least a nod would have to be made towards “Good thing I learned to drive that tractor that one summer!” or some such excuse and that would make me feel awesome about how yes, this is a relatable element of Growing Up and Adulting!

N O T H I N G.

Not.

ONE.

Single.

Word.

I was baffled. Then I was furious. It wasn’t even that I felt cheated, it was that this was such a basic thing that nevermind sparkly vampires or werewolves, an utter lack of mentioning the challenges of driving stick for a new driver, even in the slightest passing, was utterly world breaking to me. No immersion for me, it was just GONE.

Oh, I read all of the first two books (though the second one was more because I had Theories about the weird maybe telepathy and shit that was really just depressive hallucinations or something bizarrely lame like that?). Or, more accurately, I speed-read through those bastards, desperate to get to the next part where cars were described in excessive detail BUT THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCE OF DRIVING STICK – OR NOT, SINCE SHE’D BE USED TO A MANUAL DUE TO HER SUPPOSED SHITTY PICKUP – WAS NEVER EVER ONCE MENTIONED.

I didn’t bother reading the third book, because it was clear by then that it just wasn’t gonna happen.

Anyway. Give this somewhat irrational obsession pet peeve of mine, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that I just ragequit a book where a bunch of superheroes were on a runaway train without sufficient e-brakes only ELECTRONICALLY CONTROLLED from a mere three points across a WHOLE DAMN COMMUTER TRAIN which is your most significant form of travel in the Near Future.

I DON’T CARE HOW FAR IN THE POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE YOU ARE, THERE’S STILL GONNA BE SOME KIND OF NTSB EQUIVALENT ESPECIALLY IF YOU STILL HAVE ENOUGH OF A MURICA TO HAVE A CIVIL WAR FOR GODS’ SAKE AND THEY’RE STILL GONNA HAVE REGULATIONS SO THIS SORT OF SHIT DON’T HAPPEN! That’s not how vehicles should fail! Yes I checked wikipedia to make sure this wasn’t somehow a horrific failure in current design I didn’t want to imagine! And for crying out loud, I understand that the characters are teenagers and panicking, but teenagers are vicious (affectionate), and if your friend has an adaptive mutation that evolves depending on the danger of a situation then you learn to step up and shove your friend off the speeding train.

[lullaebies]

What do you think about Helaena's portrayal in the show? Idw to ask about Aegon's portrayal because he was the one that get fucked up the most even if they wanted him to be the main antagonist of the show there were many "more complex and interesting" ways to portray him. But what about helaena? There is always something wrong in Helaena's character in the show for me, in many ways she does seems to be a caricature of the trope of the weird prophetic princess.

This is going to be an essay. Buckle up.

As endearing and easy to feel for her circumstances she is (and the show is how I got to know her, I liked her to begin with regardless and I read Fire and Blood only after watching), I feel like the show failed her tremendously, not only by falling into the trope you mentioned, but perpetuating stereotypes regarding neurodivergent people as well as making Helaena a victim before bothering to make her a person. Let me get into it one by one.

The trope of the neurodivergent girl with powers, to begin with, is obviously a somewhat uncomfortable trope that hints neurodivergency doesn't have a place to be unless it is accompanied by powers of some sort. The idea of neurodivergence being inherently magical is harmful in a detracting kind of way. That already kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth as both the neurodivergence and dreamer plotlines were added without textual evidence in F&B, so the mix is probably deliberate to create 'she's more than what meets the eye' type of character. Doesn't work as well in today's sphere of things.

Now, I wouldn't care nearly as much about the trope if they bothered to make her more than just her prophecies and her neurodivergence. They could've had their cake and could've eaten it if they gave her actual lines that speak of how she feels about what's around her and in what situation she's in. Every single line she has in the show is a prophecy, save for exactly two: her speaking about her millipede to Alicent (because her hyper fixation is the only she cares about, apparently) and her roasting Aegon at dinner (which was a serve, but was once more only there to serve she cannot converse like a normal person and to show she is a victim). We have absolutely nothing about how she feels as a person, as a sister, as a mother! They barely gave her a chance to react to Driftmark, we don't know if she was scared about her wedding and what is happening to her, we don't even get her saying what she thinks about her visions! We have zero framing of anything. We see nothing of what the book describes her as: Why was she described as a happy girl? Why people agreed she would be a lovely mother? Why did the smallfolk like her, why was her death their last straw? Who is she, aside from bugs and weird mumblings? Autistic people have thoughts and feelings and many of them can express them in an even better way than people without autism (I worked for 4 years with autistic adults, and I'm pretty sure I'm on the spectrum myself - anecdotal evidence it is, but there was no reason to not let her have actual character moments.) Many people in this fandom are convinced she is not able to hold a single conversation with anyone - it's atrocious and offensive.

And then we have the victim discussion, which only packs it in further. She is shown to be a perpetual victim in the show, pretty clearly to vilify Aegon (who frankly is also a victim of the marriage, but we don't get to talk about that). She has been stripped of all her agency; in the books, she talks smack about Aegon in a humorous way, she sits on his war council and advocates for peace, she is a good mother who is hands-on with her children and consistently portrayed with them. She has a life, and meaning outside of being a victim, she's active. When you think of a princess who claimed the largest dragon living in the dragon pit, don't you at least think she is courageous? that she has a sense of life in her, to drive her to do such a thing? And she could've done all of the things she does in the book, with the dreamer plot and the neurodivergent characterization all the same, and that is what drives me insane. These were additions, but they didn't have to overwrite Helaena as a whole.

We don't get to see her truly live, and care about the things she loves. When B&C happens, we are going to see an autistic woman brutalized and her children hurt and murdered many people would cheer for it, without the necessary preparation of showing how much she cared about the children, without showing any conflict of hers to take the mantle as Queen, without her ever showing or thinking about these complex situations she's been put in. She's not allowed to have an opinion politically, at least not so far - she's not allowed to have as much voice as her brothers do and she's not allowed to be taken seriously as Queen Consort as Rhaenyra is taken seriously as Queen, which is such, SUCH a shame, because if we had a smidge of comparisons between the two sisters we could have had them be proper foils, which is interesting, and not to the detriment of either of them!

To conclude; they sprinkled on Helaena tropey traits, made her lines be more or less summed up as cool foreshadowing, and erased the traits that would've made the crowd find her endearing and relatable as a person. (and I have theories about it, but I won't get into it here). They failed Helaena not because of the additions themselves, but because they refuse to take her place as a woman in this story seriously, as well as refused to flesh her out beyond the surface-level tropes. She could've been so, so much more, and I can talk about it for hours, but choices have been made. Her arc deserved to be built up better, as did her character, and it's very frustrating.