Microdosing On Catharsis By Watching A Fictional Character Or Persona I Relate To Have An Emotional Breakdown

i think i read a post of you that said western leftist can't write conservative religious women without reducing them to being brainwashed or insecure. as a western leftist I'm curious how you would have written alicent for hotd?

You mean how would I personally rewrite Alicent's character? Or how I would have liked to see GRRM's Alicent written in the show?

Either way; I'd say: Western leftists can't write a traditionally religious woman unless she's a hypocrite, brainwashed, or actively using religion to cope or to feel superior. They can't write a religious woman who genuinely and intellectually believes in and is devoted to her own religious conventions and ideals. And when they do - which is very rare - they always feel the need to attach a moral or intellectual judgment on her. She must always be "lesser". Unless she's pagan and they can co-opt her paganism to uplift their own "progressive" ideology 🙄

Anyways, I hated how they made Alicent cling to her faith as a means of "repentance" in the show. She should have clung to her faith as a means of resistance. Of claiming her identity and power back.

This will give the "Green Dress" moment and the "Where is duty? Where is sacrifice?" moment real meaning.

It's not that she can't sincerely believe in her religion and still subconsciously use it to heal her psychological and emotional wounds. It can happen. It's not mutually exclusive. But her ability to use her religion to heal should be originated from and motivated by her sincere belief in her religion.

The Faith of the Seven was always the hard and the soft power that kept the megalomanic, blood-supremacist Targs in check after they conquered Westeros. The Targs were forced to compromise and adapt to Westeros instead of forcing Westeros to be assimilated or fully subjected to Targ culture and religion.

Alicent's ambition should have reflected this spirit. Her need to have her son crowned as King should have been her own way to keep the Targs in more chains. To mold the Targ dynasty to benefit her and her children and Westeros as a whole.

What better way for an oppressed woman to feel liberated than to have the power to put her oppressors in chains? and to have the freedom to live by her own conventions and ideals without sacrificing her dignity and sanity?

i don't think people actually realize how unsettling, degrading, and racist the depiction of criston cole has been thus far. the sheer white feminism of the showrunners 1) using him to give rhaenyra a sexual awakening moment and immediately turning him into a misogynistic brute to service her woke colonizer queen arc, 2) being completely unaware that this scene was actually rape, and 3) refusing to acknowledge the blatant abuse of power in order to push rhaenyra as the heroic queen?

rhaenyra instigated it. she blocked him from leaving the room. she ignored his request to stop. and then the next day she laughed at his clear discomfort. not only did he break his vows at her request, but in so doing also put him under threat of mutilation or execution. and she didn't give a shit because it doesn't affect her. this is his boss. this is the person who personally promoted his station in society. the person who pays him. the person who he must follow around and guard with his life until death. and people still act like they are on equal social footing, that he could've easily rejected her and continued his watch outside the door with no consequence? and even if he did feel comfortable enough to do that, she opened up that aspect of their relationship. merely putting him in the position to make the "choice" of either committing treason by sleeping with her or rejecting the most powerful woman in the seven kingdoms is a heinous abuse of power.

criston has been the butt of jokes for weeks now because he had the nerve to be disturbed at the prospect of rhaenyra using him sexually for the rest of his life. let me reiterate: his position requires being sworn for life. can you imagine if your lifelong boss suddenly and secretly decided to change the description of your labor to something completely different than what you were hired for? something that you can never discuss with anyone because you will be humiliated and executed by the state? and she doesn't even care about the potentially deadly consequences for you because she personally had a good time and can rely on her father to cover for her?

also, him being dornish in the show completely changes the optics. he is marginalized in this world. this is his livelihood. this is the only way he can promote his family. how does he know that she won't just fire him (or more likely have him killed) if he doesn't do what she wants? what choice does he have? and even though he was arguably attracted to her, there's a difference between being attracted to someone and being at their complete mercy to be fucked whenever they want for years, relying on their discretion and whims to keep you safe from execution.

rhaenyra is not entitled to sex with criston. criston is not wrong for being mad about that. she doesn't owe him what he asked for but it doesn't change the fact that she treated him in a dehumanizing way. the fact that people think rhaenyra is a person we should emulate and endorse as the leader of the seven kingdoms, the fact that people do not see her treatment of criston as a reflection of her views on people beneath her station is deranged.

My good people, I give you: Amatonormativity.

this is dean winchester canonically in a therapy session like this is literally how he acts in canon in therapy i cannot stress enough that this caption is not out of context he’s literally in therapy in this scene

I’m finally reading the Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon, I had not realized it covered the case of Marguerite and Blanche of Burgundy and ummm….. really has forcibly put HoTD back into historical perspective for me.

For those not familiar with it, the daughters-in-law of King Philip the Fair of France, Marguerite (married to the eldest son Louis) and Blanche (married to the youngest son Charles) were both caught having an affair with a pair of brothers. Needless to say, it does not end well for any of the parties involved. The men were flayed, hanged, and beheaded, and the two princesses were imprisoned, with Marguerite being murdered a year later so that her husband could remarry. And her daughter, Jeanne, who would have been the heiress of France, may or may not be a bastard, so is forcibly removed from the line of succession by the invention of Salic law, which dictates that the crown can only pass to men through the male line. (Since Louis who may or may not have been her father died without any male heirs) Unsurprisingly, this causes problems! And partly sparks (among other things) the Hundred Years War between France and England.

Having bastards is serious business with serious consequences for married women. And YES, it is absolutely unfair and ridiculous that men can do it with far fewer consequences, but the show downplayed what those consequences can be. In GoT, the whole starting point is that Cersei has illegitimate children and passed them off as her husbands, and people are killed to keep that secret. Not to mention the humiliating punishment that she has to endure, and she was only being punished for having sex as a widow!!!

My point is that Rhaenyra having bastard children is kinda downplayed in the show, and that this IS a big deal both historically and in universe was glossed over.

A random list of weird things I read in GOT/ASOIAF fics, in no particular order:

This one where a dude decided ravens weren’t cool enough and replaced them with eagles. I know I’ve complained about this before, I WILL do so again, eagles are all eye, no brain. Pigeons can actually do the work but no one loves them I am going to use pigeons in one of my works.

The one where Robb physically assaults Sansa after rescuing her from the Lannisters because she, get this, refused to marry a Lannister. You know, the disgraced house that she was held hostage and abused by, that one. For some reason the narrative was trying to blame HER for the conflict, rather than her brother, who was trying to marry off the PRINCESS OF THE NORTH to the house he had already defeated.

The ones where Oberyn “rescues” Sansa by marrying her himself and then Ellaria is just fine with it and becomes basically Sansa’s maid/grooms her alongside Oberyn. If I had a nickel for every fic along those lines I’d read, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice.

The one where Sansa killed her rapist(a Lannister OC) and his supposed good guy son was all mad at her, instead of just being like, “Oh, shit, my dad was a rapist, good thing he’s dead.” I’m starting to suspect this fandom has a misogyny problem.

The one where Catelyn was, like, randomly evil? You know I’m not a Catelyn fan. She is not invited to my dinners. But this one had her being all evil and stupid and decided that Barbrey Dustin(?) was supposed to be the good mom to the stark kids. It was really dumb.

The one where Arya and Sansa switch personalities and Sansa is forcibly married to Jaime Lannister and decides to just have sex with him. When she’s, like, twelve. I wasn’t going to like the fic anyhow bc it’s by that author who likes to pretend quitting a fic is the same as finishing it, but that one was really dumb.

The one where an OC sensed a “secret evil” inside Sansa and decided Sansa was OPPRESSING HER RELIGION by inviting her to a sewing circle. Bear in mind, Sansa had literally just seen the OC, smiled, and invited her to hang out. Amazing. Simply amazing.

There are a lot of fics out there where Sansa randomly decides she was wrong and she IS a warrior with sword after all, and they just make no sense and bother me so much.

There’s this weird thread going thru certain pieces of fandom where they seem to think the problem with book/season 1 Arya is that she doesn’t just submit and become a little tradwife, rather than the fact that she’s an obnoxious little jerk who throws tantrums and treats the people around her unkindly for no reason. Like, there’s a lot to criticize about Arya, but her rejection of traditional gender roles isn’t one of them.

Presumed incompetence. It’s so weird, but despite the narrative having to go out of its way to kill Robb, capture Sansa, do the whole Arianne plot goes wrong thing, etc, etc, fandom seems to have taken this stance that the Starks and the Martells and the other “good guys” are somehow incompetent and stupid for, ya know, having ethics.

Presumed competence. Tywin is a bad lord, father, brother, and son. Danaerys is a literal slaver who only alters her trajectory when she can’t afford the slaves she wanted to buy, as well as a self deceptive hypocrite. Yet many fics out there would have us see both of these different sides of fascism as somehow pragmatic and heroic. In reality, they’re both shitty at their jobs, and even Danaerys is, while sympathetic, not a particularly good person.

Presumed Ned Stark good guy. Ned is a complicated dude, despite fandom’s large dismissal of him as a “too good for this sinful world” tragic hero, and I wont argue that he definitely will do the right thing if presented with an opportunity(unless the right thing involves treating his eldest daughter with actual care and consideration). However, this is also a guy who lives in a country with a large slave soldier penal colony made up of mostly non-violent property crime offenders, who plays favourites amongst his children, and has not only held a teenager hostage since the boy was a child, but also forces him to attend what basically amounts to rehearsals for his own murder. So, yeah. He’s complex.

The idea that the old gods are superior to the new is kind of straight up disputed by the books, yet fandom keeps churning out fic after fic where Sansa(and it’s almost always Sansa despite the fact that she canonically worships both sets of gods) repents of her sin of coming from a multi religion family and turns completely to the old gods. Which is just dumb. They both kind of suck in different ways.

Finland: Elisabet II is dead, long live Kaarle III

We in Finland have a long tradition of re-naming the royals to fit our language, so a king George is in our history books Yrjö, and Elizabeth is slightly more understandably Elisabet. But since Elizabeth II reigned so long, I never realised the board of Finnish language has in the meantime renewed their recommendations and now in the official press, Charles III is just Charles III, not Kaarle III like we all expected him to be. Charles sounds like some random bloke was just dragged off  from the streets to be the King, Kaarle sounds like an actual king. My friends are at the moment arguing what to call him and many are stubborly calling him Kaarle. I am of the opinion that if you are any royal worth your salt, you should be getting a weird, awkward Finnish name for Finnish use.

Finnish menstrual product campaign to raise trans awareness.

Vuokkoset and Dakota Robin on Instagram.

so much mike discussion and it is so early but im once again thinking about how mike’s coming home to learn that eddie died and for him that’s very much so a “this is what happens to boys like me” moment because of how much he aspired to be like eddie and be himself and on top of that he has his conflict with lucas that they haven’t talked through so he still thinks lucas wishes they were all normal and there’s the fact that he just lost all his hope that will could return his feelings because of the push towards loving el and el is about to break up with him and to mike that means losing her entirely because he doesn’t think he matters to her outside of being her boyfriend. literally everything is telling mike that being himself is bad and trying to be someone else is bad so what’s he meant to even do at that point??? like he’s been alone emotionally for a long time but now he’s actually alone and no one is gonna care beyond him not helping with the plans and him not caring at that point and im just shdbdhxsnzjchhhsn hzjsbdkddbzjdkdbhznc mi chael

sam and dean being Known serial killers who have been on the fbi watchlist for a decade and have faked their deaths multiple times is actually very funny. I like to think literally everyone in town knows they're wanted by multiple US agencies but are like. they've evaded arrest so many times. do we really wanna anger the serial killers? no one in town has been killed let's not push it. and then the longer it goes on they begrudgingly start to like the winchesters because they tip well and are generally helpful around the community. plus their son is an absolute delight and everyone wants to figure out what's going on between dean and the weird trenchcoat guy who hangs around sometimes. like, they can't turn them into the cops before getting resolution on their relationship! the town has a betting pool! sam starts a community garden and dean jumps at the chance to help with odd jobs if he over hears people complaining about something when he's hanging out. they're politer than most of the normal locals.

you know how some towns are like 'oh yeah that's the house where the Witch lives'? everyone in lebanon is just like 'there's the nuclear fallout shelter where our local serial killers live ❤ they're pillars of this community ❤ snitch to the feds and the town will band together to eliminate you❤'