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overleftdown · 4 months

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can u talk more abt his apparent affairs w teachers and relationship w sex in general? so many ppl gloss over that bit

of course! i'll link a couple posts for preface, although i'll probably paraphrase some stuff anyways.

[my commentary on sex and consent in saltburn.]

i received an ask regarding farleigh's queerness the other day, to which i tied in this little tidbit about farleigh's affirs with teachers. the explicitly male/male language that felix used when recounting farleigh's sexcapades with teachers was interesting to me. farleigh is pansexual (as stated in the screenplay), but felix uses male/male language exclusively. part of this could be the erasure of pansexual or bisexual reality. people either exclude the homosexual aspect of someone's identity, or the heterosexual aspect. but this could also mean that farleigh did only harbor affairs with male teachers.

that would be an interesting complex to think about. although women in positions of power are absolutely capable of abusing that power and asserting dominance over others, men have a different dynamic within that. the fact is, farleigh does things to gain the affections of other people, because he isn't automatically handed that affection. farleigh does play into teacher/student dynamics, whether it's overtly sexual or not. you can see this in the tutor scene and the brief montage moment where fareligh is sitting on the floor in front of the tutor, while they both ignore oliver. consider it an investment, of sorts. there's always a possibility that a white teacher will have academic bias against you, and the need to mitigate that is strangling sometimes. teachers are also just dicks. i find myself in "teacher's pet" positions for a number of reasons, a few of them are bias related.

where it gets complicated is the sex aspect specifically. if it is true that farleigh has been expelled from an absurd number of schools specifically for harboring teacher/student sexual affairs, then this is can really only be perceived as compulsive. also, can i just say, the fact that farleigh was expelled instead of the teacher being fired is disgusting. i kinda wanna call this evidence of discrimination, as well. queerness and perceived sexual deviancy, blackness and the constant inability to be seen as human and innocent. arghgh. i digress. the fact is, if farleigh truly was harboring sexual affairs with teachers for his own benefit and that alone, then he wouldn't have made the mistake so frequently. he would've recognized that the disadvantages outweighed the benefits and found other ways of playing teacher's pet. archie talked about the quickstart dynamic and said that although it was ambiguously consensual, farleigh is attracted to and aroused by power dynamics. many people are. where that compulsive need to buy into power dynamics comes from, i'm not sure. it could be a lot of things.

the neglectful nature of farleigh's upbringing could've resulted in a need for validation and attention from those who are in a position of authority. farleigh's queerness could've resulted in an internalized feeling of perversion that was then externalized through a desire to be taken advantage of. the nature of submission is also often linked to a need for control in other areas of life, and therefore relinquishing control in sexual dynamics. some marginalized people play into eroticization because it can be more validating than exclusion. many people learn to crave their own objectification, and it's often a manifestation of sexual trauma or other forms of trauma. if i get really convoluted and let my angst-fanfiction brain run wild, i start to imagine what environments farleigh was in throughout his childhood. as archie said, farleigh was involved in overly "mature" conversations and situations through his mother. what that could mean for farleigh's perception of sex, nobody knows. i can let my imagination go insane though. i can imagine a lot of weird scenarios. those are all conjecture, of course.

i'm just going to conclude that whatever sexual complexes farleigh has, they're not healthy. i don't think that they should be fetishized or ignored. i think that they're relevant to farleigh and oliver's on-screen dynamic, especially considering oliver was in a position of power over farleigh when they had sex.

#farleigh start #saltburn #meta #so much meta #i'm yapping and i love asks #thank you for the ask teehehehe #hope this was a good response <3 #oliver's absurd extrospective posts #just constantly yabbering away #you guys are validating me though ^-^

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blindmagdalena · 4 months

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Hi, Amy! How are you?

You know, I've been having a lot of thoughts about Homelander's relationship with both Ashley and the rest of the Seven, and wanted to share them, if that's okay :)

Although at first glance it really seems that Homelander just hates his team, I think that it's a bit more complicated than that.

Sure he likes to bully them, intimidate them and generally just play mind games with the team. He's a sadist for sure. However, I also think that he rationalizes his mistreatment of them as "toughening them up".

I've had a lot of teachers (and one terrible boss) who had this mentallity. They use the people bellow them as pounching bags, an outlet for their own frustrations because they know they won't face any repercussions, but they don't see it as an abuse of power. They think that this mistreatment helps to build character and it's necessary.

In a way, they think "they are doing us a favor", and in my mind that's exactly how Homelander sees his relationship with the Seven. "Oh, they re weak and pathetic and so bellow me, but it's okay, I'll make them better" basically.

It's also a form of revenge, because Homelander went through abuse as well while he was in the lab. So, now he believes that pain and humiliation is something everyone should go through because it will make them stronger. This helps him justify his own suffering too. Because if pain isn't necessary to become better, why did he have to go through that?

I think (weirdly enough) that this is particularly true when it comes to his relationship with women.

In his mind, Alex's death was not just a way to intimidate Starlight. It was a loss she needed to experience to "understand the situation she was in". That's why during the interview he held her hand and even said that he missed her, acting like everything was fine between them. Because what he did was for Starlight's benefit so she doesn't have a right to hate him for it.

His issues distinguishing reality from fiction (as in marketing and PR stunts, branding, etc) also played a role in that, but that's beside the point.

AND ASHLEY!!?? I have so many thoughts about how he actually is, deep down, VERY fond of Ashley but feels the need to terrorize her bc she won't be a useful paw if he goes soft on her. Even if she's just using her, you don't hang over the most sucessful company of the world to someone you hate.

Yes, everything he does is horrible and ill-intended, but he doesn't realize it!

He thinks he can hurt people and still have an emotional connection to them, because abuse is just an intrinsical part of any relationship. That's what Jonah Vogelbaum and Vought taught him, and that's why he's always so dumbfounded when people turn on him.

(Poor thing, he really needs to be commited at this point 😩).

aahh wow, so many good points! i agree that Homelander absolutely ascribes to 'tough love,' like pushing Ryan off the roof. that is undoubtedly exactly how he was taught to fly, too. you've nailed his warped perspective on how he goes about teaching people lessons.

though a good deal of his bullying, especially in regards to A-Train and Deep, seems like him lashing out against them for not being his dream team. he's at his worst with them when he feels small and insecure. he treats them as extensions of himself and his image, and when they fail to live up to that, it infuriates him.

i don't know if i entirely agree with the latent fondness beneath his bullying of Ashley: if he is fond of her, i don't think he's aware of it at all. to me, it seems much more like she's his designated adult. a frazzled babysitter. someone he has terrified into being loyal and responsible for all the company related nuances he doesn't understand. it makes so much sense to me when you take into account what Starr said about Homelander having the emotional intelligence of a 14-year-old. she's his stand-in for Stan Edgar.

he's pretty openly doting when he has fondness for someone. Black Noir is a very good example of this.

that said, fondness is different from attachment. i do think he's both attached to and reliant on every member of his team. a teenager who lashes out at their friends and family is still very much reliant on those same people.

i like what you said about him viewing abuse as an intrinsic part of relationships, and something that shouldn't cause people to turn on him. it's fucked up and tragic, and his perspective definitely IS very skewed, but he shows us several times that he's actually pretty soft when it comes to his loved ones.

when Ryan has a panic attack, he doesn't scold him or tell him to get over it. he removes him from the situation, gives him space, and then empathizes with him. obviously he's much softer with his son bc he's actively looking to change the way he was raised through his son.

ultimately to me, Homelander's sadism doesn't come across as quite as meticulous or well thought out as he'd like people to believe. he's a wounded, frustrated child taking out his pain on those around him. he uses fear and torment to get his way because that's what was done to him, and yet he expects them to have the same weird reverence for him that he had for Vogelbaum.

#i hope this makes sense i'm feelin off my game today #but i LOVE your analysis here it's so good #thank you for sharing!#homelander meta #homelander #ask and you shall receive

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victoriadallonfan · 8 months

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I saw your notes on ewingstan's Kenzie interlude post, and if you'd like to talk at me about the Kenzie interlude, please do! I need someone else to share in my character brainworms.

I think Kenzie's mom and dad is an interesting contrast to Carol and Mark, imo, and in many ways feel more similar to the fanon New Wave parents you see in bad fanfiction.

Both sets of parents are abusive, but they cover two different sides of the abusive: the Martins cover the physical and Dallons emotional/mental.

Mrs. Martin and Carol are the more obvious hate-sinks: both are vocal and headstrong (not to mention proud of themselves), but where Mrs. Martin holds no compunctions with beating Kenzie repeatedly, Carol's abuse is more like a scalpel (saying the wrong/right words or using poignant silence and stares to get a message across). Carol would be horrified at the act of lashing out physically (not that she hasn't come close or been tempted ofc; see her interlude), while Mrs. Martin would likely not even begin to understand subtlety. Funny enough, both even talk about how their jobs are more about supporting people rather than taking the lead (though that may be Carol specifically acting humble; epilogues show this is not the case). Carol does end up apologizing for her actions and seems to, on a level, recognize that her daughters will be distant from her because of her actions. Not to say she's 100% better, but that she has a chance for growth.

Mr. Martin and Mark are overlooked, because they are more than willing to let their wives take the heat, but that doesn't mean they aren't massive fuck ups either. Mr. Martin clearly has no love for Kenzie and blames her mere existence for causing his wife to lash out, and in general tries to act as the belabored husband dealing with two non-negotiable women. He will raise his hands and step aside while his wife beats his child repeatedly. Mark is more complicated, but the end result does tend to have the same outcome. This is not to disparage his depression, but it's clear that Mark has more power in the relationship than he lets on (he was the one who pressured Carol to have Victoria AND to quit therapy, while she was going through law school, just because he didn't like therapy!) and that at some point he decided that his children did not need him to parent them (see: his talk to Victoria about how he never needed to check on her). Victoria even notes that his visits began to slow down once he realized she was conscious in the asylum, and we see that he will enable Amy even when she tried to murder Sveta (aka someone he called "family") until Victoria pushed him. It's only by the book end that he decides to put his foot down and seek out ways to remove himself from an unhealthy marriage, and perhaps seek out help in a different country.

(I know I gave the men more focus, but that's because the story tends to focus more on the wives, and I feel like it made some readers forget/overlook their awful behavior)

#parahumans #wildbow #ward #ward web serial #wardblr #Mr. Martin #Mrs. Martin #Mark Dallon #Carol Dallon #Flashbang #Brandish

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soloorganaas · 2 years

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what are your thoughts about sirius black and gender and class and trauma and toxic relationships and british homophobia and mental illness and kill the gays tropes and the suffocation of hope and found family

ALRIGHT DANI LETS GO

exec summary: JKR’s class anxiety is a big part of her bigotry and her punishment of characters who run away from her. it shapes a specific set of rules, which Sirius breaks in more ways than most other characters, and it draws out a hatred from JKR that leads her to punish him through her writing in painfully particular ways. that includes inflicting brutal tragedy on the heavily implied/coded queer relationship he has with remus, in a kill your gays trope that is peak 90s/00s. and so Sirius’s storyline overall becomes a morality lesson for queer/enby/neurodivergent kids that teaches them whatever love or found family they have will inevitably be destroyed - and they deserve it

~ spicy meta essay below the cut ~

JKR and class anxiety

class divides people in the UK to such an extreme extent its bizarre for people outside to conceptualise. like most of Europe we had centuries of strict class hierarchies, but ours never got entirely broken down because we never got rid of the royal family and aristocracy. class is such a strong form of division that we truly 'other' people from another class to us and generally avoid the excruciating ordeal of mixing with someone from a class different to us. this isn’t always the case - i know people reading this will feel differently - but it is predominant in the middle class

middle class in the UK is entirely different to the US. it's not at all about income, it's about identity markers that signal you are better, more well to-do, more refined than people of a lower class than you. the majority of the UK are working class, so the middle class work hard at the idea they're better than everybody. except, obviously, the upper class, who they will never be as good as under these rules, so instead they aggressively enforce them to try and cling onto power over those below them. think white Republican women

the middle class enforce this generally through keeping everyone and everything in a nice and tidy box. a good education, a respectable job, a large (but not extravagant! that would be chavvy) house, nice (but not flashy! also chavvy) cars, modest and neat clothes that don't draw too much attention, excruciating and often fake politeness. the most important thing in being middle class is not drawing attention to yourself. if you're loud, if your appearance is out of the norm, if you're queer or trans, if you're disabled, if you're neurodivergent, then god help you. you will be abused and shunned (i'm not joking, this happened to me by my school). this interacts with race in a very complicated way which i am absolutely not qualified to speak on, and isn’t relevant to Sirius, so I won’t be attempting to talk about it - but I don’t want to erase the fact that it exists.

JKR grew up working class but gained so much wealth and notoriety in an educated profession that she shifted to middle class, which is unusual to the point of being forbidden. so when she wrote the later books especially, her need to firmly, clearly follow middle class rules in order to gain acceptance bleeds through her writing

JKR hates Sirius

Sirius breaks every single one of nice middle class rules. every single one. and offensively so. and she hates him for it. I don't think it's a coincidence she only made him a shunned aristocrat until she became famous and classism rose to the forefront - she wanted that power for herself, and she'd never have it, so she punished him for it

Sirius is loud. he's brash. he's talkative. he's argumentative. he's mentally ill. he's neurodivergent. he's gay. he doesn't give a fuck about gender roles. he's extreme, coded a thousand times over as manic depressive. he's unapologetic about all of it. and she can't stand it. no one is allowed to be like that - and especially not the madman side character she created just to provide some spicy background for Harry

so JKR does what every bigoted classist Brit does in this situation and silently, viciously, hatefully and passive aggressively punishes Sirius. she has every character shame him for all his rule-breaking traits by patronising him, looking down on him, criticising him, humiliating him, belittling him, all because he is apparently incapable of being trusted by normal society. Molly is literally JKR's mouthpiece for this, passively aggressively keeping Sirius in line, and getting away with it because she's so sweet and loveable no one ever sees her as a bigot. I have met one hundred thousand women like in her my lifetime. so has JKR. she knew exactly what she was doing

why would these characters turn on him like this, though? Sirius is highly competent, incredibly intelligence and very astute, as shown over the previous books, and both the characters and readers know that. so it has to be something else, something that overrides all of that

it's because of who he is, and that's what we absorb between the lines of the book. that who Sirius is is wrong, and people like him will inevitably be shunned by society around them

12GP, mental illness and Sirius's death

Sirius is (quite literally) characterised as mad, and it's used as a justification for punishing him. by OotP his rebelliousness is explained as a sign of instability. and by god - that instability is toxic. so he's locked in a madhouse for his own good (to keep him alive! to protect Harry!). he's then tortured as painfully as possible to drive him even madder, leading him to the inevitable conclusion of bringing about his own death through his irresponsibility. he has to die, because he has to face the consequences for rebelling

the way that JKR weaves his rule-breaking and depiction of "madness" together is intentional, and truly vile. it's evident in the sharp contrast of his characterisation in PoA/GoF and OotP. he's coded as mentally ill and neurodivergent from the first time we hear of him. he's portrayed as a man of manic depressive extremes (I wrote a bipolar meta here talking about this in more detail), and is clearly suffering from PTSD. we can assume this continues in GoF

alongside all of this, he is so smart, competent and compassionate he manages to keep himself alive and hidden from the ministry whilst living outdoors, basically figures out the entire GoF plot through newspapers and a few rushed conversations through the fire, and is single-mindedly dedicated to his godson

in OotP he is a fundamentally different person - not in a way that is caused by mental illness, but genuine changes in his core character, however it’s still characterised as mental illness. so it becomes justifiable to punish him, to restrict him, to criticise and curtail and humiliate him

and most of all the traits JKR hates about Sirius so much are part and parcel of being bipolar (and also having ADHD, which he's implied to have as well). bipolar people are capable of extraordinary feats when we're manic, which aren't always bad - like, for example, breaking out of a wizarding prison! being on the run for two years just for take care of your godson! we feel everything incredibly deeply - like, for example, devotion to the point of death for your friends, strong emotional reactions to them being mistreated! we have tendencies towards being incredibly creative, smart, and making intellectual leaps that are impossible for other people, all of which are traits Sirius has that make him such an extraordinary wizard, and person. he literally wouldn't be who he is without neurodivergence, and yet JKR portrays it as an entirely negative characterisation, a punishable offence

kill the gays - queer and mentally ill people will never be happy, and they don't deserve to be

Sirius and Remus's story is about two traumatised, scared, lonely kids doomed to be outcasts forever, until they find acceptance and love in found family, and each other. that is the story of every fucking queer kid growing up before like 2015, and everyone now who doesn't live in a liberal town. we look at that story and we know it, we feel it in our bones. i could will write an essay about this in itself but for now:

the way that that story should play out is Sirius and Remus getting to grow up and begin adulthood in a stable environment where they can slowly unlearn their trauma, toxic coping mechanisms and/or terrible relationship models, and form a healthy, mature and long-lasting relationship with each other. but they don't get the chance to do that, because of the First War, and instead their unstable and immature relationship is put under an existential pressure it could never have survived

okay. but then we should be able to see them slowly, if painfully, recover from and/or learn to live with the impacts of that war and eventually get to a stable place where they can deal with their formative trauma as well. except Sirius goes off to be tortured for 12 years, and Remus is sentenced to living as a lonely, isolated and unsupported outcast, who’s lost everything good that he gained in his life

okay... but then when they're finally released from this slice of hell frozen in time for 12 years, they should be able to spend the rest of their lives, guess what? fucking recovering from it all, and maybe, perhaps, being able to salvage a healthy relationship from it. instead they get thrust into another war, where every bit of trauma they've already gone through is magnified, and they have one (1) year together in absolutely awful circumstances before Sirius is killed

at every single turn in their story queer and/or ND people are taught that they will never find safety. they will never be given a reprieve and the chance of stability and happiness they see others have. it's not on the cards for them. it is simply not possible. JKR hams this home three fucking times. it’s brutal. it’s vicious. it’s beyond what anyone should ever have to go through. it’s entirely unnecessary for the plot. it is just punishing them for who they are

it’s a trope we all know well from that era, but the fact that it’s used as a punishment for so many other aspects of Sirius's character is what makes it so doubly awful

conc

nothing about what JKR did to Sirius was an accident. it was deliberate, it was targeted. and it has very, very real impacts on kids growing up reading those books

we should be learning that what makes us different is nothing to be ashamed of, that everyone is different in some way, that difference is all a matter of perspective, that you should be allowed to express every aspect of who you are without so much as a comment, let alone stigma. we should be learning that in a world which doesn't afford us that luxury, we can still build our own sanctuary where we can have that, full of found family and meaningful, lasting love. we should be seeing people like us unlearn the harmful ideas they absorbed growing up so we learn how to do that as well; we should be learning what people like us look like in relationships; we should be made to believe, in our very bones, that happiness is possible for us

instead we watch someone who we see ourselves in be tortured, humiliated, punished and denied every ounce of happiness until their premature death

Sirius deserved better, we all deserved better, and i'll never be quiet for a fucking moment about it lest this wrongdoing go ignored

#finally answering this #it required SO much thought #and it made me really sad #so it took a minute #but it's important #sirius black #wolfstar #harry potter #ty for the ask bb #ch: we choose who we really are #hp #hp meta #meta

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atopcat · 2 months

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If you had the chance to change something about the dance of the dragons (TV show or book), what would it be? For example, how a character dies, which team a house is on,or an entire character personally. How would you change it to make the story better, in your opinion? 💙💚🖤♥️

House of the Dragon? EVERYTHING and I do mean everything!

Age appropriate actors, why are 20 somethings pretending to be women in the mid to late 30s one of whom is a grandmother?!

More body positivity, Viserys, Rhaenyra and Helaena are all canonically plus size. The excuse Sarah Hess used was disgusting and fatphobic.

Actual development of the characters, I sound like a broken record but omg this crapfest of a show has given me 0 reason to be invested in anyone.

The show should’ve been 13-15 episodes long instead of 10, everything felt so rushed because they were trying to cram as much in with little time.

Don’t make such drastic changes which completely ruin the characters goals and motivations.

Real female relationships. Rhaenyra was a girl’s girl surrounded by women: Laena Velaryon, Rhaenys Targaryen, the Strong sisters, Elinda Massey etc. Alicent was not her friend and she certainly wasn’t her only friend yet for all their airs of “feminist writing” the writers are just as allergic to female friendships as their GoT counterparts.

And most importantly:

FOLLOW THE DAMN BOOK! Condall and Hess have deluded themselves into thinking their fanfiction is better than George’s work and this underserved arrogance destroyed the show before it even began.

DON’T BE SO F*CKING RACIST! The treatment of House Velaryon is an actual joke, of Laena and her girls in particular. I talk about what they did to my dragon girls here (Baela and Rhaena rant), the Velaryons went from being the second most powerful family in Westeros to nothing more than props for white characters. It honestly feels like Ryan decided simply casting black actors is enough, fans shouldn’t be mad their personalities and storylines were ignored in favour of white characters.

With the books my feelings are a little more complicated.

how a character dies

Do I hate that certain characters die? Yes, but no one in the books died for the sake of dying if you catch my drift. They had to die when they did for the story to work. None of their deaths felt unnecessary, they all had an impact on the storyline, that’s what I love about George’s work if one person didn’t die then the events that happen completely change.

Aemma: there’s no civil war full stop.

Laena: Aemond claims Vhagar, loses an eye in the process and triggers the beginning of the inevitable civil war.

Laenor: it was at his funeral people finally called the Strong boys’ paternity out. He was Rhaenyra’s shield against the rumours, which is also why the whole fake death plot was dumb af.

Harwin: pretty much same as Laenor, if he doesn’t die then Rhaenyra has an easy solution to her bastard problem by marrying the man everyone’s accusing of being her sons’ real father. By killing him off she doesn’t have a quick fix, the ghost of Harwin Strong will haunt the Dance.

Lyonel: his death gives Larys control of Harrenhall and allows Otto to be Hand again.

Lucerys: he’s the trigger for the war, Rhaenyra stopped playing nice the minute she found out he died. We forget how evil kinslaying is in Westerosi culture, but she allowed it because she wanted revenge for her son.

Jacaerys: the Robb Stark to Nyra’s Stoneheart, his death triggered her paranoia and slow descent into madness. He was her stability, her rock, without him she already lost even when she finally sat on the Iron Throne.

The Strong boys in general had to die for the sake of everything that happens to House Targaryen post Dance. The only survivors have to be Aegon III and Viserys II. Aegon who was so traumatised he hated dragons and deliberately prevented them from being hatched. Viserys who continued the generational abuse, allowed his daughter to be maritally raped by his son, and usurped his niece’s throne using his own mother as justification for why women can’t rule.

George didn’t kill any of these characters for fun, they all served a purpose to the overall storyline and all their deaths mattered.

which team a house is on

Considering how much George loves his wolf pack it is a little cliche that House Stark is Team Black and House Lannister is Team Green lol, that being said it does make sense.

House Stark and the North in general are isolationists, very rarely do they involve themselves in Southern politics. Jace made a pact with Cregan, offering to make his son the next Prince Consort and gave House Manderly a marriage to Joffrey also. His alliance wasn’t that different to Aemond’s with House Baratheon, they’re not going to involve themselves unless there’s something in it for them.

It’s a nice twist to Robert’s Rebellion where House Stark is anti Targaryen and House Lannister stay loyal.

Jeyne Arryn saying “we women must band together” gives you the impression that they didn’t see Rhaenyra’s accession as a one off thing, they were expecting real change to happen in Westeros.

It also makes sense Team Green didn’t have as much support. House Hightower isn’t one of the great houses, Otto is a second son, Alicent isn’t a dragon rider, Criston is the son of a steward etc. Considering they started this war with the odds stacked against them hats off to them for managing to pull it off I say.

or an entire character personally

I don’t think I’d want to change character personalities, this godawful show tried doing that and look at the absolute mess they’ve made. George wrote well rounded characters, we know their individual motives and goals, he’s not the problem the show is.

That being said I do want more depth to them, especially Harwin because I really want to know what he was thinking when he decided to impregnate the Crown Princess THREE times. So fingers crossed George gets around to writing that Rhaewin novella I guess.

How would you change it to make the story better, in your opinion?

I’d put more focus on the maester conspiracy, Team Black vs. Team Green by itself is dull, reduced to nothing more than woman vs. patriarchy. Unlike Game of Thrones where you can argue in favour of over a dozen characters for the Iron Throne, the Dance is a lot more black and white which makes it more boring.

There’s no philosophical discussion, no critique, nothing to expand on etc. Focus on the maesters makes up for this, now we can have debate on whether or not they were justified in their battle against dragons.

Once the Targaryens lost them they became more dependent on other Houses, they were a stability but no longer a threat. I can see maesters argue about the dangers of Old Valyria, the desecration and blasphemy, the evils of incest and slavery as arguments to destroy the dragons. This is 100x more interesting than simply Blacks vs. Greens.

#house of the dragon #hotd #hotd critical #anti hotd #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #hotd meta #grrm #team black #team Green #anonymous

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mk-writes-stuff · 2 months

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The Seven Station Chronicles

Belladonna is the heir to the Seventh Station, one of seven orbital space stations torn from their planet by a wormhole several generations ago and stranded in the dead of space. Six years ago, the ritual that would have allowed her to hoard magic like the other nobles mysteriously failed, leaving her as her parents’ greatest failure. All attempts to regain their favour have been for naught, and, while she still clings to her status as heir, her parents’ manipulations seem targeted at taking away every remaining ounce of control she has over her life and her station.

Cassie is a runaway clone from Sixth Station, escaping the cruel brutality and murderous magical farming of her genetic donor, Cassiopeia. After a tumultuous year on the Seventh Station, armed with nothing but her muscles, the titanium arm she built to replace her lost one, and her street smarts, the magic she gained in an accident during her escape is discovered. To her surprise, instead of being killed outright, she is brought to guard the heir to Seventh Station - with the understanding that the heir will kill her the moment she gets the opportunity.

Both Belladonna and Cassie have secrets to hide and haunting terrors, both past and present, that plague them. Both are desperate to take back the power over their lives that has been ripped away from them. And both are inclined to hate and fear the other. But their lives have been irreversibly tied together by the actions of the leaders of Seventh Station, and not only their lives, but the lives of every person on every station, might be dependent on them - if only they can figure out how to work together.

Welcome to the Seven Station Chronicles, an original space fantasy series I’m working on! This is primarily a political and interpersonal drama story set on a series of seven space stations lost to the void of space, full of fantastical politics and complicated relationships.

There are currently four books planned in the series, each with its own plot but recurring characters and long-term character arcs. Book 1 focuses on Belladonna and Cassie’s relationship, Belladonna’s attempts to get back power over her life and gain power over her station, and the oppression and struggles of clones. Book 2 is focused on First Station and the resource shortages of living in space for so long, along with the struggles and hardships of the First Station leader, Septimus. Book 3 tells the story of an evacuating ship of space elves encountering the station and struggling to integrate and adapt to the new situations, and the stations’ struggle to integrate with them. Book 4 focuses on the religious cult of the Fifth Station and its impacts on the surrounding stations and political impacts. Belladonna remains the protagonist for the entire series, although the group of major characters widens significantly.

The Seven Station Chronicles have themes of abuse and recovery, coming into one’s own, love and found family, oppression and freedom, and the importance of compassion and fighting for what’s right. Please note that the series features depictions of mental illnesses (including eating disorders and addiction), abuse of multiple kinds (including emotional, physical, and sexual), self-harm, cults and cult trauma, homophobia and transphobia, ableism (especially against neurodivergent people), and sexism (women discriminating against men in elvish culture). Please feel free to ask me if you would like more detail on any content warnings - all snippets or detailed descriptions will be tagged with appropriate content warnings and anything depicting explicit content will be tagged as 18+ content.

Feel free to ask me any questions about anything related to this series - I love talking about it, and my asks and DMs are open.

#writeblr #seven station chronicles

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ms-hells-bells · 1 year

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i have to be honest, i'm having some complicated feelings at the moment, i'm quite perturbed, so i'm just open journaling, this doesn't really have a firm point or conclusion, just getting my thoughts out there.

it is a little frustrating and aggravating when i encounter accounts that hide their age for a variety of reasons. but i think it's a complex matter (helpful adults that want to avoid inappropriate interactions with minors vs malicious adults who seek minors to inappropriately interact with, etc.), and that's not what i want to talk about. this site is 13+. there are many kids on here. i was on here from 14. so, the mix of grown adults and very adult subjects and online responsibilities/consequences with....children can create uncomfortable circumstances regarding discussion and content re; violence, sex, and power imbalance [between child and adult users].

i am not eager to have such interactions (involving topics and content seen as explicit, mature, adult, violent, sexual, etc.) with minors because i am not a grooming man. and i think normalising it, even in a benign, attempt to be supportive manner can potentially create a vulnerability for the malignant 'you are mature for your age' men because a lot of these girls ARE very mature in terms of the way they speak, and the knowledge they have which other generations before them didn't have at their age before the internet. but that doesn't equal psychological and physiological maturity, and it doesn't mean being exposed so unrestrictedly to so much complex, adult topics and media when you've just started puberty is mentally healthy. as i've said, i was massively negatively impacted by being on here for much of my teen years, and most women i speak to on here or elsewhere say the same, we all have stories of grooming, inappropriate interactions, harassment, bullying, mental health degeneration, etc.

it's a difficult topic, and i don't think i have an answer, because teen girls deserve support and knowledge from older women, and there does need to be that transition from childhood to adulthood, including more maturity and social responsibility and involvement in discussions such as radical feminism in detail, but yeah. so, the most i can do is try not to actively interact with teens. i can't stop them from following me (that 'don't follow if you're a minor' does nothing lol), but i hope that we can encourage and teach taking breaks, avoiding direct conflict that leads to online harassment and abuse by other groups (or even within infighting here), focusing on school and irl hobbies and friends, and reminding them that they should have these discussions with themselves about what is healthy, and consider what exposure to which online content helps or hurts their mental health, personal relationships, natural development, etc.

that's all i want to say. if you are under 18, you are not stupid, you are not a baby, you are not sitting at the kiddie table. but you are also not an adult, and as women very aware of the damage done to our own selves by being exposed to so much when we were your age, we do very much care, and just want a balance between power of knowledge and having a normal, healthy adolescent development BECAUSE we respect you.

#long post

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horizon-verizon · 8 months

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At least, Cersei is the one to refuse to go public with their incestous relationship and isn’t out there proposing to marry Myrcella to Tommen, unlike Saint Jaime who call his sister ‘queen of whores’, treat her as his property, and victim-blame her (I tell you, he [Robert] loves me not/And whose fault is that, sweet sister ?), and never spare a thought for Tysha (or Bran for that matter), but thats normal, its because he’s a feminist and teenage girl-coded. No wonder he has some sympathy for Criston Cole, lmao. Do people genuinely believes Jaime is a victim of patriarchy and that his gender doesn’t favor him over Cersei ?? Insane. Can’t wait for him to die. It’s 2023, Jaime isn’t Adam and Cersei isn’t Eve, dude is a misogynistic, racist and hyperprivileged white man and his father’s golden boy. Funny how you all talk like Green/Criston’s stans when it comes to Cersei and Jaime.

*EDITED POST* (9/21/23)

Probably from this recent post that itself has 3 links to other posts where I talk about Cersei as a character.

Um...when did I ever either imply or directly say that Jaime was "a victim of patriarchy and that his gender doesn’t favor him over Cersei"? Or express that he was better than his sister, morally? Or express that Cersei deserved to die more than he did?

Perhaps you have that impression because I never talked about Jaime exclusively once, or you're just going off of what you recently read and horribly misinterpreted the purpose and argument of that post. If the latter, I advise you to reread. If the first, I don't write about Jaime much simply because he doesn't interest me as much as Cersei or Tyrion, no one asked me my thoughts about him, and I'm not thinking of him apart from his relationship with Cersei or Tyrion. His knighthood and masculinity are...not "easy", but direct enough for me to not dwell as much as his other siblings' issues. (look to this post by blankwhiteshield about Jaime) I generally care more about women, children, and other marginalized people in fiction, even when I do sympathize with some white cis straight men some of the time.

I mean pre-Brienne Jaime. That's just how GRRm wrote his arc.

For me, blankwhiteshield's posts about Jaime HERE and HERE both suffice to give me a picture of who Jaime is bc they fill in some blanks I had in my pre-existing assessment of Jaime. Which actually wasn't favorable, anon. I find Jaime to actually be very annoying, and no, I do not think that he is Cersei's victim. He is deluded in some ways as much as her and is not a good person because of the abuse and emotional neglect they all get from Tywin/Westerosi society. I actually should have, since again, there were blanks. You can take a look at those links as well.

Look, Cersei is evil & abusive AS WELL AS a victim of domestic abuse woman & of misogyny since childhood. These are not mutually exclusive nor does it NOT mean that her domestic abuse only and directly caused her power-hungriness and need to control if not every, most aspect of her life and those she sees will help her get or maintain control and a good image of herself. Neither the abuse nor misogyny against her erases the fact that she develops hatred towards women, going so far as to violently and sexually objectify them like w/Taena. (Her using what she's observed men do to affirm power and copying it). Or that she pinched her baby brother's penis at a very young age, showing her classist and blase willingness to target children/one of the most vulnerable groups for her own sense of control over her husband, family, etc., and political power. She is also very willing to sacrifice/risk the entire city for her own control of power, similar to Aerys II. Cersei is complicated and there is nuance to her character, but she is unmistakably evil simultaneously. What I like about her or what I find compelling about her (if you haven't read the post about it) is that I can understand her motivations, and relate in some ways, and from practically babyhood she's been trying to be essentially "good enough" and perfect through external, social values of competency BUT also as someone has said: her need for perfection and power and total love comes across as pure in its own sort of twisted way. Her emotions are so intense and uncontrolled and she remains totally unaware of her loneliness that she comes across as childlike.

I also find it very funny how you're criticizing show!Rhaenyra for wanting to marry Jace to Helaena (I presume, you don't specify but that is the closest betrothal to the one you make b/t Myrcella and Tommen) when you say: "At least, Cersei is the one to refuse to go public with their incestous relationship and isn’t out there proposing to marry Myrcella to Tommen". Because while this would have done nothing to assuage Alicent--which was what Rhaenyra was trying to do--it was also not that bad of a deal for Helaena or Jace themselves. I personally dislike it bc, again, we're erasing Rhaenyra's relationship w/Laena and how she ever made it so that Jace married Laena's daughter...but I digress. OR you probably were referring to Jaime expressing the desire to go public with their relationship, that conversation? Again, what does this have to do with my argument in the post I recently posted and that I assume you're responding to?

#asoiaf asks to me #cersei lannister #the lannisters #jaime lannister #agot characterization #cersei's characterization #jaime lan's characterization #asoiaf parenthood #asoiaf #agot

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certainwoman · 1 year

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I said something on my twitter yesterday about the whole nicholas braun situation and i might as well say it here.

problem with this whole story is that i fully think he's probably a creep / weirdo who seeks young women but there is not a single first person source of someone who did have any kind of sexual relationship with him. all "my friend..." "whole nyc knows...". get first person sources. It is upsetting to me how this was approached. If going to the media with this kind of story, it should have some kind of first person account. It seems like either people are afraid to come out about this or perhaps, they do not feel abused by it. Now this is complicated by the sexual dynamics of it all, just because we ourselves see large power imbalances both in gender and capital, doesn't mean these women at least currently have a problem with it. and a young woman being sought for her lack of experience and youth might at least temporarily feel "empowered" or proud of hooking up with a celebrity. It sometimes takes years to realize how actually disempowering the situation is when women in this situation are the ones being subjugated allegedly but then again, some women never see a problem in this, don't mind it and even like what they gained from these experiences. It is not on me or anyone to assign labels of abuse or assault to this. This is generally a problem in discussing sexual relationships that we sometimes confuse issues that are more to do with systematic conditions (patriarchy, class differences etc) with abuse. We won't solve men subjugating women by castigating a few celebrities.

Personally I feel tremendously disgusted out by everything this discussion is about (and it actually made me sick because I kept thinking about all the men in my circles and if they had more social and economic capital, would they seek out younger women). I am also well aware there are so many people with power with similar fetishes and desires and a pattern of seeking young women who themselves are not even out about it and that this itself isn't going to result in any material repercussions. I mean what good would it do again if we castigated a few individuals when the problem is systematic.

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minthe-lover · 1 year

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So the story will focus again ln Demeter being a manipulative controling mother??? Why??? Like okay think about her place for a second....

She was assaulted by Zeus and had a daughter to who she wanted to protect from going the same as her. But no matter what the Gods are mischievous as always and Hades asked Zeus help to kidnap her niece. She's missing for how long knows and in her fury demands her return and makes winter so that crops get ruined. She in the end can have her daughter but only half a year. As a mother wouldn't it reasonable to worry?? I just summarised her story from the original myth do you see any abusive parent here? 😅

So LO took her story and just made her a bad parent for no reason, while some people never mention her daughter's r*apist... Make it make sense like how is it a feminist story when the men get away from everything and women are pitted against eachother.

^^^

Like I want to make clear that I don't dislike the idea of bad mothers in feminist media, demeter is just done terrible. She both needs to be constantly ALOT worse and her story needs to just be improved. Currently her story is about someone whos suffered through alot of trauma and then a deeply sexist society, where the decision of two men ruined her dreams for petty reasons. She has a daughter and is very protective of her, especially when she learns she has a desired power that women have been abused for in the past. We get all this information and we see all of demeters struggled but their under played and she's treated like garbage by everyone and the story views her as 100% terrible.

The story isn't written or tries to view demeter through the lens of feminism... if you want a massively horrible mother in feminist media.. try to make someone like Beatrice from bojack horseman. She is 100% just a terrible horrible person, but the story around her is a fundamentally a feminist one. It makes great points about how women where abused and pushed to be a certain thing and generational abuse. I mean christ one of the first big things we learn about her backstory, after like three seasons of us just knowing her as a terrible person is that her mother got fucking lobotomized after her brother died. it's a truely heartbreaking scene and it makes you actually sympathize for someone you have been told and shown the amount of cruelty she has done.

It's something that like I could see the bases of how it could be reflected in lore olympus but rs just.. can't write a complicated parental relationship well.

#lo critical #anti lo #anti lore olympus #lore olympus critical

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 15 days

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The problem with patriarchy theory, is that it isn’t just a sassy catchphrase to be thrown around by empowered instagram warriors – if it were, I wouldn’t really care so much.

The problem is that for decades, the theory has been a piece of immovable dogma at the very heart of how we see, discuss, intervene and support within the issue of domestic violence.

For generations we’ve seen ‘the patriarchy’ presented as the primary motive for partner violence, in a kind of religious zealotry that has erased countless studies and stomped over numerous intriguing theories, that tell us otherwise.

Forget about the myriad of other risk factors, forget about the irrefutable statistics that show women and men as equally violent in relationships. Forget about the work and wisdom of world leading experts who try to widen the picture.

No – DV is simply men exercising patriarchal power and control over women.

So for 50 years, as this obscene theory has been built into the very bedrock of our most influential intervention strategies such as ‘The Duluth Model’, and adopted as gospel, by our refuges and charities as a means of operation – we’ve seen male victimhood and female perpetuation systemically erased.

It’s no coincidence, that this theory being so deeply entwined into the domestic violence industry, has created a dogmatic monolith that offers literally no support or compassion for our men or boys who are suffering abuse.

So, impervious to testing, and fiercely reluctant to scrutiny, does this tired and antiquated theory hold any truth to it?

Or is the reality of domestic violence a little more complicated than a quippy hashtag presents?

[1] http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2420/1/Bates%20&%20Graham-Kevan%20final%20version.pdf

[2] https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-control-motive-and-marital-violence

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190740907001855

[4] https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/10849/advancing-the-federal-research-agenda-on-violence-against-women

[5] https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/violence-against-women-research-post-vawa-where-have-we-been-where

It's a religious article of faith which, like any religious tenet, is unfalsifiable, untestable, and impervious to evidence and reason. Which is why its adherents don't care about evidence, they just call you a blasphemer "bigot" for pointing out the facts.

#The Tin Men #patriarchy theory #patriarchy #duluth model #Don Dutton #Ellen Pence #pseudoscience #mythology #myth of the patriarchy #domestic violence #domestic abuse #male victims of domestic violence #male victims of domestic abuse #male victims #violent women #female violence #power and control #male power #religion is a mental illness

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eli-is-reading · 11 months

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alright, time to try talking about weyward cus i finished it like a we k ago.

SPOILERS ABOUND!!

weyward for anyone who isn't aware is a novel about three generations of witches from the weyward lineage.

altha weyward- a witch on trial in 1619 for the accusation of murdering a man by way of making his cows go insane

violet ayres - the daughter of a viscount, growing up in the midst of the second world war, and her struggle with an abusive father, a younger brother fighting to get their father's affection, and her cousin, a manipulative creepy british army soldier, on temporary leave from libya.

kate ayres - violet's great niece, a young woman who escaped her abusive boyfriend's house in London to her late great aunt's small ancestral cabin in the countryside, named weyward cottage.

these women navigate through their complicated lives in a patriarchal society full of abusive men who try to hurt them as they slowly discover their powers and as we slowly find out about the history of the weyward family along with them.

now, the things I've loved about weyward:

-a LOT

so the word weyward is in reference to the original name for the three witch sisters in macbeth, and the references to their theater origin SHOWS.

the story takes place in and nearby the old town of crow's beck. a lot of the people living there have roots in the town going back to at LEAST the 17th century. that part makes it so that even when we go through different times, we hear the same family names, making a callback to theatrical plays where there is usually a small cast of actors playing multiple characters and joining the chorhses at certain points. it is even mentioned in the book: when kate goes to the village cemetery, she finds the graves have all the same names and thinks of them as a cast of players in a show.

this makes me REALLY want to watch a play based on this book, and i hope as it's getting pretty big online it might actually happen!!

- i loved their concepts of witches and the way they are women from the beginning of humanity with abilities tied to nature and understanding of medicine that help humanity survive. i especially love their connection to insects and the way they even use their connection to animals for sometimes nefarious means that are honestly always pretty well deserved, and creepy in the best sense.

i honestly loved so many things about this book that I can't say everything right now but these two things were some of my faves.

things i would've changed or wish to have seen more of:

- there are motifs of crows all over the book (i mean, the town is literally called crow's beck) and there is even am idea that the family have been raising crows for years and each woman has a specific crow with white specks that is connected to them and follows them around; think familiars - although that name is mentioned as a negative view made by the patriarchy, that's actually also about the name witches and the idea of a "witch's mark" as a symbol of evil.

i really wish they were to talk more about these crows, the idea was super cool and I'd love to have it expanded and the relationship between the weywards and crows to be further examined.

- i honestly have no idea right now of what else I'd change. it was really a great book

final thoughts:

weyward is a lovely book about female empowerment, nature, the problems with the patriarchy, and the way women with strength are treated by a society and men that wish to see themselves at the top of the food chain. it is a book worth reading till the end, because even when it seems everything is painful and bad, it has a fantastic conclusion and a gratifying power take-back for every woman there.

I'm excited to see what emilia hart comes up with next and it is obvious how great of a writer she is, her prose is absolutely beautiful and feels easy to read even when it waxes into poetic.

10 crow feathers out of 10.

#weyward #weyward book #weyward review #book review #emilia hart #review #books #book #novels #witches #feminism #feminist book #elireviews

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delusion-of-negation · 1 year

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what's your favorite thing about yandere stories? like what type of characters do you like, what kind of scenes/situations do you like reading etc.

okay so my all time favourite is happy sugar life. idek how to say what's great about it. um. basically. she kidnaps a child. and the characters are all traumatised and then traumatising others as a result in many cases. and it ends in tragedy. and it's just. perfect because, like, there's a movie I also love called the voices (I think genuinely it's one of the bestest movies ever made) and it's ryan reynolds playing a schizophrenic man, who accidentally kills the women he works with, and you never know what's real. like, that movie is almost constantly bright and cheerful and goofy, while occasionally, very very occasionally, giving you a few seconds of reality, of the abused animals in the bloody flat, and it sticks this niggling feeling in your head that you can't trust anything. and it genuinely feels like that in happy sugar life too - if you watch the opening credits, there's a short bit when hands are moving a kid then it flickers to negative colours and she looks scared. and the murder scenes in the show are often covered by the scribbing it conveys panic with, or cuts away, or whatever, so the gore takes somewhat of a back seat (contrary to my usual love of gore) but allowing your imagination to go wild. and while I loved making a goofy yandere headcanon about the silly "____ has fallen" action movies a while back, and relentless violence, and all that. there's honestly no better genre to take the most fucked up person, like pedophile girls with co-dependency issues, give them a knife, to watch and see what happens. and I love that for them. show me something that makes me question my grasp of reality. like that similarly is why I like the film annihilation, and cosmic horror, it's wonderful to take some alien that doesn't even think like us, if it thinks at all, and give it the power to destroy everything. and we watch some poor folks suffer the consequences. a lot of things I absolutely adore boil down to "wouldn't it be fucked up if", as an initial idea, then "yes and... yes and... yes and..." all going deeper, deeper, and deeper into the implications of each tiny detail. that would be my favourite thing, my favourite trope, etc. cosmic will perfectly use that on a large scale, on a reality bending scale, so yandere is, to me, doing what body horror does to bodies, but to romance, sexuality, love, and relationships. you take the "what if organs were crawling inside of you" and apply it to "what if your inability to stop thinking about them made you blind to reality in extreme ways", it's like berenice by poe, the way his obsession is destroying his life until he wakes up having stolen her teeth. like breaking apart something pure and good, and showing you that thing if it wasn't good... but you still thought it was. I think that I generally feel frustrated by how people criticise yandere like "do fucking sickos like you not understand this is wrong???" my guy, literally two of the most famous ones are happy sugar life and of course doki doki literature club - both, very explicitly, horror. it is literally a horror genre first and foremost, romance second. we'd understand that horror comedy doesn't mean "all real life killing makes me laugh", so why can't y'all see yandere is a complicated interaction of genres, greater than the sum of their parts? ugh. I actually could rant for hours. as for like, types of yandere things, mutual obsession in a pseudo-familial way with a side of mutual bloodthirst in defense of the other, particularly if it ends in total tragedy for them and everyone (jinx and silco are perfect, those moments like when he says "you're perfect" as she's killing him I adore, that unconditional love, making each other not better not worse but a secret third thing, it's immaculate). I feel like love is generally seen as untouchable in media, true love's kiss, love will repair everything and make us human, I like when love makes us inhuman, but it's more unconditional and pink and sparkly than anybody with moral codes stronger than their heart will ever go.

[disclaimer: I am mentally ill stfu if you wanna act like portraying symptoms like psychosis, which I have, in horror is always some stigmatising or harmful thing, the voices is cleverly done and it's endlessly sympathetic to him, don't judge a book by its cover ig]

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vivacissimx · 2 years

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really interested what do you think about daemon and rhaenyra as couple! i would love to read your daemon/rhaenyra metas 😩💕 their relationship is kinda creepy but also fucking delicious the power imbalance shift just make it hotter 😩

oh this is a setup 😂 cause people are not gonna agree with me and that's fine

the first domino to fall was baelon's death. while baelon was alive he seems to have been able to keep his sons in check, but soon after he dies daemon quickly develops a reputation as a rogue, as someone who preys on young girls, as volatile and dangerous. daemon believes the ends justify the means. daemon targaryen does not take well to being told no. all this leads up to his rift with viserys (a guy famously willing to enable daemon!)

now daemon groomed rhaenyra. she was too young and isolated in a court that half loved half reviled her to be any match for him. unlike daemon's other girls & unlike other targ women who face abuse, rhaenyra had the benefit of a father who could & did send daemon away immediately after. however like most of viserys' actions it didn't solve the root of the issue (throwing rhaenyra at laenor after - to salvage her reputation, to reconcile with house velaryon, all of which ignores that laenor's reputation was no better) nor did it go far enough (allowing daemon to return a few years later).

[and is he the only one to prey on rhaenyra? criston cole turning on rhaenyra so viciously & immediately when she displayed any sexual autonomy is a result of his obvious madonna-whore complex. he did nothing of the sort when mr. bitches aegon ii had multiple bastards. is it clear this is a story about misogyny yet?]

rhaenyra on dragonstone has what seems to be steady relationships with harwin strong and laenor, and a seat of power without the divisions of king's landing set against her. her rships with laena & daemon appear to be made on more equal ground. however the fact that she betrothed her kids to theirs is kinda sus - why so young, was she courting them as allies? was it done out of affection? as concessions to corlys & rhaenys to ensure that their bloodline sat the throne? or was it for daemon, to appease him?

generally speaking, rhaenyra has complicated relationships with men. there's her father, who makes her his heir, honors her, but also is the cause for the greatest threats to her future and banishes her to dragonstone after the aemond incident. there's criston, who idealizes her then wants to punish her. there's harwin, there's laenor, both men who are her allies then are murdered - to isolate her, likely.

rhaenyra is never alone for long. in this i think she displays a mindset that many abuse survivors have difficulty getting out from under.

with that in mind, by all appearances yes rhaenyra wielded power over daemon in their avunculate marriage. whatever she asked, he did. he did the dirty work whether or not she wanted him to. did rhaenyra ever ask herself if maybe daemon had a hand in laenor or harwin's deaths? did she ever wonder if he might try to harm her first three children to put a son of his own on the throne? my guess is yes she at least considered it, that she approached him as pragmatically as she could (ex. turning a blind eye to his sexual relationship with mysaria), that she deemed it wiser to keep him close. let him do as he pleased. summon him when she had "need of him."

to me the peak of their relationship is when daemon takes out the biggest threat against her (aemond/vhagar) at the cost of his own life, because nobody else could have and he did it "for her." it's the closest thing we get to him doing any reflection, in that he refused to return to king's landing in order to feed into the maladaptive dynamic he once courted. i'm personally more inclined to view rhaenyra targaryen's life in the lens of manipulation & misogyny than to synthesize it as a love story. of course i understand how others feel otherwise on this couple - they're written in a codependent and twisted way that is compelling as a story! this is all purely my take on them

#asks #abuse mention #grooming mention #dance of the dragons #text

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cafeleningrad · 1 year

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ah yes, the character who called Sansa a stupid little bird is hated for his looks

am I going to take the bait of bad faith reading? Well, why not.

I already sat through an entire discord server who demonized Tyrion and Sandor but shipped Sansa only with handsome men, so yes, albeism and lookism may not be an apparent factor in the Stansa circle but yes, at some point it is noticable how wilfully misread Sansa's POV chapters are in her relationship to Sandor (and Tyrion to that extend). I also ask myself if you can't handle the ambiguity in general, ambiguity of a character's personality informed by trauma but still living on and by default having to interact anyway with people, and to some extend beauty and the beast motives, if ASOIAF is the right reading material for you.

Is Sandor a nice man who gives Sansa the comfort she needs? Heck no. But he does object Jeoffrey's commands to abuse Sansa further by Boros, he saves her from the KL riots whereas everyone who acts courtly left her on her own devices. Sandor' so deeply caught up in and can't physically escape from trauma (Gregor is still alive, under Tywin's generous protection for Sandor to get away), he is an unpleasant, rough person but Sansa's compassion leads him to be, in spite of demeaning words, more knightly to an actually unprotected person than anyone else in Jeoffrey's court. And may I add, that Sandor was unsympathetically ready to slaughter a defenseless butcher boy yet for the one person who showed campassion to him he's ready to refute royal orders - by the same king who ordered him to kill the butcher boy when the king was the status of a petulant prince. Also weird tend how people are ready to let the Lannister's who pushed Sansa into social isolation and towards Sandor (in this case literally by Jeoffrey), and Tyrion get away in a lukewarm manner. Tywin moving Sansa like a pawn to shut up his hated son and the Northern calls for revenge for the Starks? Gets barely mentioned how he sees Sansa as an unperson. Maybe people oversee it because this is how he sees mostly everyone else, especially women. Cersei? Yeah, I know, we love evil women apparently on tumblr. But for Cersei's very complicated way to deal with her own sexual trauma and womanhood, she has no qualms to do to Sansa exactly what was done to her by Tywin and Robert. Not to mention she finds amusement is seeing how humiliating the wedding looks for Tyrion. But not treated by the standom as big Sansa antagonist, ok. Jeoffrey? We all dislike Jeoffrey. But let's be real here: One one hand, Sandor is rude to Sansa, talks her down for using the only defense she has left: diplomacy and courtly politeness. On the other hand you have a power tripping teenage boy who makes forces her to watch the decapited heads of the everyone from the Stark household she liked and even loved, orders repeated physical and sexual abuse to the extend which is executed by apathetic knights. Even Arys who was internally sorry for Sansa did participate in her beatings ordered by a king who isn't of legal age, even in Westerosi standard. (And because I will be pesky about it, yes, Tyrion did put an end to Sansa's public humilitation, Jaime later greatly criticized his fellow White Cloacks for executing Jeoffrey's orders because refute was an option.) Read what I read how you like but in my book, what Jeoffrey did, how Cersei and Tywin thought then treated her is far more abusive than a guy who is unfriendly but in the end protective. (Not to mention how Sandor is a plot device in Sansa's journey of disenchantment but I digress.)

Look, Martin even said so himself, he inteded to write characters not everyone could like. There're also characters I prefer over others or don't get why people like them so much. Sandor is in a category of sympathy over actual liking category for me. Yet reading Sandor as the one who uniquely traumatized Sansa is not disproportionating harm, it's greatly misunderstanding plot.

#asoiaf #Lewis' ask boy management

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