Fallingstarinspace - ᯓ☆

the funeral (a grotesque display of two queens’ grief, forced on them against their will) being interjected by images of aegon beating blood into a bloody ruin says something about how women’s grief is exploited and paraded around as a virtue while male grief is only allowed to exist in conjunction with violence.

female sorrow is expected to be public, dignified, and even noble, it serves as a symbol of quiet strength and resilience. otto uses it as a tool to gain sympathy for their cause. notice how he forced alicent and helaena into it, while he allowed aegon not to participate. wouldn‘t the king being at the funeral send a powerful message? yes, it would. but otto looks at aegon with contempt, the other councilmen and alicent do not know what to do with his tears. the realm cannot be allowed to see the king grieve. not like this.

male grief is denied its own space and validity unless it manifests in aggressive or destructive acts. aegon realizes this to some degree too— he lashes out publicly by killing the rat catchers. he shows his grief by being violent, by spilling blood.

the toxicity of it all is very effectively shown at the end when aegon is crying by himself. did he retreat there to be alone and finally let it all out? his mother is either letting him have that moment alone or she’s deeply uncomfortable with it and chooses to leave. no matter what motivated alicent in acting the way she did— the moment still reveals how male vulnerability is something people fear. it shows that even the most human expressions of pain are not acceptable for some.

i will always hate that katara never came to terms with her bloodbending. especially given that it’s a symbolic representation of her own “darker” side, the fact that she was never able to find the good in it and accept it as just another aspect of her element, instead outlawing and demonizing it forever, makes me so sad because it perfectly encapsulates the person she herself ended up as: the shallow, shining trophy wife on aang’s arm, locking away everything he didn’t want and was never able to understand to become his perfect, flawless forever girl for the rest of her days.

and it’s so much more frustrating knowing that zuko — who knows exactly what it feels like to wield an element that can be destructive and violent, whose own arc about the duality of fire would have made him the perfect person to help katara understand that there is no such thing as inherently good or evil bending, only the bender who makes it so — was right there! yet instead of letting them have even one conversation about it, we got bloodbending being villainized till the heat death of the fucking universe and katara left forever unable to accept the complexity of her bending (and metaphorically, the complexity within herself) even though she had the exact person she needed right at hand to help and support her through the process… god it just drives me mad

stop asking me wyd i’m literally always thinking about love and how it touches every aspect of the human experience

I edited the photo so it looks digital

#the progress tho

Imo blood and cheese could never have went down exactly like in the book anyways because luke's death ends up being an accident (as a result of them trying to make both teams come off as not as bad and violent as their book counterparts), in order to make team black not viciously evil (because we the audience know the circumstances of luke's death), they went with the approach of removing haelena choosing which son to kill like she does it the book. And tbh it makes blood and cheese in the show work well.

While I still don’t think it was done perfectly, the more I think about it, the more I think Blood & Cheese was done well. With no Maelor, the change to “which one is the boy” makes sense, and even Helaena offering up her necklace, which I really didn’t like at first, makes much more sense now that I think about it. Cheese(?)’s “does she look like a fucking prince to you” line and all their talk of sons makes it clear to Helaena that offering herself up is not going to do any good, and doing so might risk making them angry and just make them kill both children. So then of course she offers up her necklace, they have to be doing this for money and it’s the only thing that might appeal to them. Then, once they make it clear both kids are dying if she doesn’t tell them which one is Jaehaerys, she points to him. They know she’s telling the truth because she looks so guilty and horrified but she has no choice, at this point she can only save Jaehaera. Even her running out makes sense, being unable to watch the fate her son has been doomed to, saving who she can save and wandering around, not even being phased by Alicent and Criston because she’s so guilt-ridden and so traumatized and so stunned and so out of it that all she can do is collapse to the floor and say “they killed the boy.” Not even Jaehaerys’ name, they broke her so thoroughly that she can only speak like them. Okay maybe it was actually done well.

Anyway if nothing else matters then I hope people remember that Pope Francis used his last public address to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and call Israel a terrorist state:

"I continue to receive very serious and painful news from Gaza. Unarmed civilians are subjected to bombings and shootings. It is terrorism."

Eyes have a language of their own.

Jupiter, Moon, Saturn above the Black Hills of Central, Az. Double exposure.