the--pipsqueak--alchemist - Tumblr blog

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

love and light to everyone but if i see one more post that’s like “the point of asoiaf is that feudalism is BAD” i’m going to rip out my hair and start eating dirt and worms. like yes, it is bad. yes, monarchies are bad. yes so true it’s annoying when people ignore all of that and focus on who they think deserves the throne more. but that’s not the point—that is the premise? it’s the beginning of the exploration and deconstruction. functionally this system is rigid (specifically in terms of gender and class) and horrifically violent: so what it’s really like to live in it? to try to be a hero, a knight, to be a lady in a world where your body belongs to your family, your lord, your order? is it possible to be a good person in a hierarchal world like this, with such vast power imbalances woven throughout it and every relationship and interaction that you have informed by that? how do you navigate that imbalance in order to have meaningful relationships—can you every truly do it? and who decides what is good? how do you know if it’s truly right or it just felt right because it’s what you wanted to do? what about the people who have no name, no family, no order: what happens to them? don’t they matter? what if in a lifetime of looking the other way or actively causing others harm, you do a few things—maybe one thing—that’s objectively good: does it mean anything? does it matter, even if no one ever knows? what if the best thing you ever did broke every vow you made, every law that governs your society? how do you live with that dissonance?

what’s it like to be a ruler, to be a king or queen—is it possible to be a good one in such an unequal system? to wield power justly? who decides what is just? who decides who should rule? at which point does the amount of power someone can have cross the line into too much? is it when you stop trying to figure out how to use it correctly and worry only about how to keep it? if holding onto it costs you everything, your family and all your relationships, is it still worth it? what if having that much power available is necessary to the survival of your people, maybe even your world, but when it’s misused the carnage left behind is beyond articulation—is it still worth it? are the lives it saves worth the lives it took? how do you measure that? who carries the weight of that choice and how? how do you live with it? how do you go on living in a world that can be harsh and cruel and unfair, a world where your good intentions and your personhood seem to matter very little in the face of someone else’s greed or when compared to the yoke of your duty? and the questions never stop and the answers when and if they come are rarely easy, but the point is that you keep asking and keep trying because that’s what it means to be alive lol

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

Jesus.

492.

This is American-backed, and specifically, Democrat violence against Arabs and Muslims.

Earlier:

Now:

This has been building for months, with no real efforts from the Biden admin to avert it because do not care about Arabs and Muslims.

Mass murder of Arabs and Muslims will continue and the only action from most Democrats will be to undermine attempts to stop it.

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

i’m actually at the end of my fucking rope with how willfully ignorant some of y’all are about the genocide currently taking place. if you’re spewing vote blue no matter who rhetoric everywhere, block me. if you think gofundme posts on your dash/asks in your inbox are an inconvenience, block me. if you think your life is somehow more important than those in the levant, block me.

my father’s home country is being bombed. i have relatives that could be fucking dead tomorrow. i’m tired of everyone putting their hands over their ears and pretending this shit isn’t happening. the way people in the western world turn a blind eye to ethnic cleansing sickens me. who the hell do you think you are deciding that your life is worth more than others. despite the propaganda we get fed daily, war in the levant is not normal. bombs are not normal. gunfire is not normal. famine is not normal. you are told that it is normal in these regions because it is being funded and encouraged by the government you live under.

i don’t give a fuck if learning about the war crimes currently taking place makes you “uncomfortable”. the people who have lost limbs to bombs and gunfire are uncomfortable. the people who don’t have access to consistent food or clean drinking water are uncomfortable. the people who are suffering through severe disease without any medical treatment are uncomfortable.

it baffles me that people can still be so selfish and uncaring after seeing photo and video evidence of what has been taking place in palestine (and now lebanon and syria). reach in and scrounge up some sense of empathy and humanity for fucks sake.

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

This is genuinely insane

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

a game of thrones

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

More profound when you consider that Doctors Without Borders rarely makes political statements.

In #UNSC mtg on Middle East, @MSF SG Christopher Lockyear says: "Israeli forces have attacked our convoys, detained our staff, bulldozed our vehicles, hospitals have been bombed and raided. And now for a second time, one of our staff shelters has been hit. This pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence. Our colleagues in #Gaza are fearful that as I speak to you today, they will be punished tomorrow."

He adds: "The humanitarian response in Gaza today is an illusion. A convenient illusion that perpetuates a narrative that this war is being waged in line with international laws. Calls for humanitarian assistance have echoed across this chamber. Yet in Gaza we have less and less every day, less space, less medicine, less food, less water, less safety."

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

really i think the red wedding is perhaps one of the best moments in modern literary history because its soooo much more than just that one scene ive said it once and ill say it again nothing in asoiaf is a complete and utter shock twist everything is foreshadowed like being woven into a great tapestry of everything that happens. the red wedding is foreshadowed so much you feel it looming over every narrative involved and i really do believe the cultural consciousness of the spoiler that it will happen improves the reading for the red wedding. you know that sickening feeling that everyone here involved is doomed and there's nothing youu can do to stop it. daenerys's vision of a king with a wolf head surrounded at a feast of the dead a whole book before it even takes place. the emphasizing of how you should never ever ever ever violate the laws of hospitality its a crime against the gods and catelyn continuing to push that they should eat first no more matter what. the legend of the rat cook and the gods anger over it. and then you realize not only is the red wedding a tragedy but it is just the beginning and a narrative device that will span every house involved and their downfalls. it is by design that tywin lannister plans it and he's dead by the end of the same book along with his grandson. oh red wedding you will always be famous i love you so dearly and i cannot wait to read the fabulous horror of the demise that lord walder frey will meet

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

If it must be a canonically 'ugly' character than why not Brienne

I’ve seen a lot of shippers argue that Sansa should end with the Hound because she’s a privileged pretty princess and needs to fuck an ugly lowborn pedophile to unlearn classism 🙄 Ignoring the fact they’re treating wokeness like a STD, I find it pretty interesting that I never saw them use this argument to justify why Sansa should end with Podrick, who is around her age, is as lowborn as Sandor and never tried to rape her at knifepoint 🙄

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

Sometimes I think about parallels and story beats in ASOIAF and it makes me want to pull my hear

A princess stuck in the tower where a clegane breaks into. One doesn't survive and the other survives by the skin of her teeth.

One clegane is pushed to remember his humanity and it makes him ashamed of what he was planning on doing. The other has no qualms or hesitation.

Sansa being haunted by Lyanna and Elia. Barely escaping their fate. Because there's no brother coming to take her home, no brother dying to avenge her.

So she becomes her own Brother in a way to go back home.

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

a collection of wolves, not doing well

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

Ugh why is Sandor and petyr so high up. Pedo ships shouldn't be here tbh, especially when one of them is actively grooming her while the other wanted to r*p* her

Poll choices are based of characters that Sansa has actually had substantial dialogue with in the BOOKS. No… Theon does not count, get that show lore out my face. The show sucks.

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

to the people who follow me for my book content, these are some authors that i no longer support:

pierce brown: one of the earliest authors to share the "i stand with israel" posts. (I guess rebellions are only cool for plot points. I loved red rising but ive always found it to be a whitewashed version of the hunger games, and b4 u go "but hunger games characters r white too!!" No theyre not. Katniss was supposed to have darker skin. The movie franchise whitewashed her.)

sarah j maas: has made it clear that her grandmother was in the IDF and is proud of her israeli heritage. I liked her when i was like 14. I grew to realise just how much queerbaiting and subtle racism there is in her books.

victoria aveyard: i loved her for a very long time, red queen was the series that pulled me back into reading and she have been one of my biggest inspiration in being a writer, but she had made a statement of standing in neutrality, and she have made a tiktok of her Starbucks order while everyone is trying to boycott starbucks for their donation to israel. I hope her words and actions are only of ignorance and that she'll learn to do better soon. but until then, I've completely lost my respect for her.

•••••••••••••••

IN RETURN: HERE ARE SOME AUTHORS WHO HAVE BEEN SUPPORTING AND DONATING TO PALESTINE AND WRITE AMAZING BOOKS:

- Rebecca F. Kuang: The poppy war trilogy, yellowface, Babel.

- Olivie Blake: The atlas six trilogy, One for my enemy, Alone with you in the ether, Masters of death.

- VE Schwab: A darker shade of magic series, The invisible life of Addie Larue, This savage song (monsters of verity) duology.

- Chloe Gong: These violent delights duology.

- Faridah abike iyimide: Ace of Spades.

- Leigh Bardugo: The grishaverse, Ninth house.

- Tracy Deonn: Legendborn series.

- Xiran Jay Zhao: Iron widow series.

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

What is something that too many people ignore about Sansa for you ? (Apart from the fact that she’s a child)

The context.

They basically always ignore the context, and judge her as if all her opinions, decisions and actions are created in a vaccuum with zero social, psychological and political pressures, made up of nothing but free will and an inexplicable desire to Be Mean.

GRRM doesn't spell out how living under the conditions of patriarchy and feudalism is traumatic for her the way he does for Arya, so they treat all of her decisions as low-stakes when in fact we don't even get her POV until she's already coping with the existential certainty that her well-being is entirely conditional on the whims of other people. Something that is brutally reinforced by the murder of Lady at her own father's hands.

Why do people think Sansa is desperate to please Joffrey? Because her father handed her over to the king for Joffrey to marry. And we've seen how the king treats his wife in public, even though she is the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the Realm. Just like Sansa. Her situation is prettier than that of Dany, where again GRMM spells everything out, but at their core they are the same. Vulnerable and abandoned. Trying to cope. Looking for relief. Lying to themselves.

Also the importance of social rules and courtesy. Sansa observing them matters. She does it even to compensate for Arya's lack which is part of the reason why Arya gets away with disregarding them so easily, but people don't realize that because it's not spelled out. They think it's pretentious vanity. They don't even account for how she is actively kept ignorant of the secret dangers around her by her own family.

Ignoring the context of their world and her specific situation allows them to erase how smart and compassionate and deeply traumatized Sansa is. How powerless and neglected from the first. Of course they don't understand how her actions make perfect sense from her own perspective. How justified she is. Instead they jump to victim blaming a, as you rightfully point out, child.

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

First Light of Dawn

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

“our symbol”

—Baby Blue

⋅˚.⋆☾⁺₊ ‧

[the--pipsqueak--alchemist]

Wtf