So I don't know if it was ever revealed how Duncan felt when we killed Malistaire all three times but I'm wondering if maybe some part of him could hate us for that too. Like you hear that and you go "but why. Malistaire was terrible and even Duncan knew that(?). Why would he hate you for getting rid of him."
But like I think it's so....... interesting in a very, very, very sad way how Duncan so easily latches onto anyone who directly feeds into his delusions of grandeur. And that's no fault of his own that he was manipulated by the nasty Schism but when you think about how desperately clung to the idea that Malistaire, easily one of the greatest necromancers any of us had ever heard of (at that time), somehow actually recognized Duncan's talents (even when canon supports that Duncan wasn't all that talented, at least no more than the next necromancer) and then praised him for it so often that Duncan believed that he would be the next Death Professor is. I mean ☹️
So like with that mindset I unfortunately feel like it would be quite easy to twist even Malistaire's death as something that's horrible and awful and all our fault. ESPECIALLY if the Schism was feeding into Duncan's already broken mind and shattered ego and was constantly telling him that everything bad that ever happened to him ever in his life was Our Fault. That's like a realistic conclusion that someone like Duncan could come to
And like, at this point in time, are Malistaire's crimes even a factor in how he thinks????? Was Duncan ever able to separate Malistaire's talent and skills and prowess from the terrible and awful things he did? If Duncan wasn't able to consciously tell that distinction in the first place I can't imagine it would be any better during the years he was being manipulated and isolated and lied to
Like in Duncan's mind it probably isn't, "maybe I shouldn't idolize a national criminal, or idolize anyone at all for that matter, and aspire to be like someone so harmful when I can recognize my own talent and build from there" it's probably more like, "you (the wizard) permanently got rid of a brilliant mind, an innocent person who just made a few mistakes, and someone who believed in me no matter what just so that you could be the better than me and loved by everyone else" and that's! very sad actually!
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hello, here for your opinion on odysseus! have you read madeline miller’s “circe”? if so, what did you think of odysseus?
Ooooohhhhhhhh you're nudging at a pandoras box asking me my opinions of Madeline Miller 🙃
To answer while holding the full ranting instinct back on a leash (partially bc I legit don't have much time for much typing rn AND I know lots of people like MM and idk I generally don't enjoy making people feel like they shouldn't like a thing, but I also love being salty and this is my constant internal struggle):
With a lot of her characterizations I feel like M.M. either goes too hard making them sympathetic (Circe and Patrocles being the top contenders who come to mind) or she swings too hard the other way. Odysseus is like....fine? He's not outright terrible? But he does fall into her "they are either sympathetic (cougboringcough) beauties with maayybe a couple Tragic Flaws (that are barely flaws, goD why couldn't she just let Circe have full agency and purposely curse Scylla why can't maybe Penelope be as much of a scheming suspicious fucker as her husband GOD these "feminist retelling" authors are too cowardly to touch Medea-nonono the rant is leashed I'm staying on target!) or they are horrible awful people." But she's made so many comments that make me baffled about her academic background in classics (why would you say all the gods are sociopaths Madeline??? that is an actual ancient cultures religion you're trashing??? do you not get how gods are used narratively in stories is not the same as they're worshipped esp in a religion without strict canon??? You know how we all understand that Paradise Lost isnt Christian canon what the F-Not ranting not ranting I'm good!!) lmao. She seems to fall into the common take I see where modern Anglo morality is projected on the characters divorced of the time/culture/narrative they are set in, and then go "omg how did people think this was a hero?"
Anyway I just don't see how people can look at Odysseus being a scheming ratfuck compulsive liar (who is also a great warrior in violent times bc it...was a warrior society who told his story) and go "um he's terrible why would anyone like him as he is originally????" while MCU Loki was so popular they kept bringing him back from the dead to continue being A Scheming Little Bastard.
(EDIT: uh tldr is I read Circe. The entire experience was me going "oooo it's about to get good" and then realizing that Circe is just boring the whole time. Came out the other end with more feelings about how M.M. writes women than Odysseus, but her Odysseus is part of a trend of doing a lot of black and white morality shenanigans)
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The truth is every queer person has the right to come out on their own terms, and on their own timeline. They also have the right to choose not to come out at all. The forced conformity of the closet can not be answered with the forced conformity in coming out of it.
-Alex, Red White & Royal Blue (2023)
i want to talk about this quote. full disclosure, it’s because i keep seeing some really frustrating takes (some of which veer into queerphobia) and i am getting a bit annoyed with people and rather than directly addressing it with them & appear to be picking a fight im going to make an analysis post in my space. (tbf. its mostly on twitter and i have a priv account so that limits me)
disclaimer; this is my interpretation, im not saying its the only interpretation just something to consider. i am queer & cognitively disabled - don’t assume malice and dont be cruel. i will ignore and block freely.
tl;dr/very simplified summary: it doesn’t mean “dont ever speculate about other people’s sexuality” but rather that ‘coming out’ in the way society understands it shouldn’t be a necessity for queer people to exist openly as queer. full context under the cut & self-exploration questions at the end.
so lets start with the context. alex is talking at a point in time when the world has read their emails and so knows both are queer (bi & gay, specifically), but neither alex/the white house or henry/the palace have commented. so more simply - alex and henry are known to be queer, but have not come out. alex uses the speech to come out as bi, and as being in love with henry. he also uses it to imply that he & henry should have the right to choose not to do this formal coming out alex is doing.
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okay. lets get into the quote analysis.
The truth is every queer person has the right to come out on their own terms, and on their own timeline.
reasonably self explanatory. each queer person gets to decide their own timing for coming out, and the way that they want to address their sexuality.
They also have the right to choose not to come out at all.
this is where problems with interpretation have started to appear. fundamentally yes, this means people are allowed to not be openly queer/‘out’ if that is what their decision is. but it also means that they can be visibly queer - for example being in a visibly queer relationship; signalling with their aesthetic (e.g. someone being butch, someone who wears only ‘girl’ clothes despite that being at odds to their assigned gender); casually posting about queer things on social media etc - without addressing their own sexuality to others.
it does not mean that you should assume everyone is straight until they explicitly tell you otherwise. and quite frankly insisting that it does mean that is veering into homo-/bi-/queer-phobia because you are insinuating that being not-straight is a negative thing.
The forced conformity of the closet can not be answered with the forced conformity in coming out of it.
some people seem to be interpreting this as ‘you shouldnt force people out of the closet’ and i don’t think thats quite to the nuance of what it means. yes, i do think that is part of it - in much the same way as the previous sentence - but it is not really the whole of it. in my opinion this is actually addressing - at least to some degree - the concept of ‘we should assume people are straight until they explicitly say otherwise’.
the ‘forced conformity of coming out’ addresses the idea that to be “out” you have to follow these steps; that you have to make a public statement that ‘this is my sexuality and i am [queer/bi/gay/pan/ace/etc]’. you are conforming to this precedent of “how to come out” that countless queer people have followed. there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing so, but actually there are different ways to be queer - and even being “out” as queer - that don’t involve following that playbook.
here’s a hypothetical to demonstrate my point. two men, who have never dated any women, live together & spend basically all their time together over 5-10 years. they holiday with each other’s family, they’re always together at events (e.g. weddings of non-mutual friends), but they’ve never told you/the public that they’re queer and/or dating each other. at what point does one start to assume they’re together? and does the answer change if its a man & a woman rather than two men? if a man & a woman did that, people would assume pretty early on they’re probably dating. but yet when it’s two men suddenly it’s invasive to speculate. this is where this concept of the forced conformity of coming out comes in - along with the veering into homophobia i referenced earlier - why must they say the words “i am gay” for it to then be ‘okay’ to consider that they’re together? (the homophobia comes into play because if you think being gay is morally neutral (which it is) then you shouldn’t have any issue with the speculation about people being together regardless of their genders.) the idea that straight is the default is where this forced conformity starts to really kick in.
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i guess the main things i want people to ask themselves are these (and i have been asking myself these questions, there is no judgement or censure just self examination):
1. do you think people can be openly queer publicly without explicitly sharing that they are queer? (by this i mean in an announcement or in casual conversation. can you be openly queer without ever addressing it explicitly?)
2. if you do, why do you think that talking about the possibility someone is queer is something that should be hushed up? is it because there is an internalised concept that being queer is something abnormal and/or negative? if it was a straight couple would you feel the same way?
3. what does “coming out” mean to you? why does it mean that, what have you internalised to get to that conclusion & is it something that always works or are there other ways to be openly queer (or ‘out’ if you prefer)?
4. is it possible that there are queer people living openly and happily as themselves without explicitly addressing their sexuality to the wider world, who don’t want to address it publicly? does this make them closeted or ‘less’ queer to you? if so, what makes you think that?
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i never would have let myself love any of these characters as much as i have if id known that this wasnt actually a safe place to do so, i genuinely thought, for the first time ever, that this was a really silly show at its core, and serious things do happen, but nothing that cant be fixed, and that its a romantic comedy and they all get to be happy at the end. because real life is hard enough right now, a lot of us are barely hanging on ourselves, and did they really think that we'd want to see our surrogate for ourselves in the show, give up, and die, and especially in that manner? i truly regret opening my heart as fully as i have, but i have had this happen before with other shows, so i guess its fool me once, shame on you, fool me the 20th time, shame on me, but maybe ive learned my lesson because i dont think ill ever be this trusting in a show ever again, so thanks. i was having fun thinking love doesnt have to be scary, i thought i was supposed to be learning that loving doesnt always equal pain, and heartbreak, but i guess for people like izzy and me, thats all it equals.
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Hello people of tumblr dot com
This is just a reminder that I do not allow any reuploads of Art Heist, Baby! onto any other platform. Art Heist, Baby! lives on ao3 and ao3 exclusively.
Really upset to find out that people who have messaged me privately on here asking to upload Art Heist onto other platforms just went ahead and did it anyway when I politely asked for them to keep my work on ao3. Even after I explained why I wasn't comfortable uploading it to other sites.
I could go into the details of how sites like wattpad are for-profit companies and are naturally inclined to favor whatever makes them the most amount of money even if it's at the expense of writers and I could go into my own issues with those sites capitalising off of writer's creative output/hobby etc. etc. (not to mention the reuploads were not tagged and didn't include chapter warnings at all 🤠) but the point is I shouldn't have to.
You (in a very general but also pejorative sense) should respect my decision to keep Art Heist on ao3. I realize that uploading something to the internet means that I put myself at risk of losing control of my content but come on, y'all. It's in my pinned post and I've told people multiple times to not reupload my fic anywhere else. It's my fic, and my writing, and I don't think it's too much to ask to keep it to ao3.
Anyway, I've already reached out to the people who have posted my fic elsewhere and corrected the issue, but I thought I would go ahead and make it abundantly clear that Art Heist, Baby! is for ao3 and ao3 only in the hopes that this issue doesn't arise again!
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