The Student Loan Debt Thing Got Me Thinking. Fuck The Founding Fathers Of Course, But "I Am Compelled

no but really why does mike get blamed for every little thing it's not funny anymore. why is he inherently more culpable than the rest of them. why is he the one they always expect to know everything. why does he usually actually know everything or have the key to figuring it out. why is he personally responsible for any given disagreement even when 3+ people are involved and all acting out of line not just him. why is he the heart why is he the bad guy why why why

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.

Eddie post a Tiktok where the background is various photos of Steve in his Scoops Ahoy uniform and says, “James Harrington never did a single good thing in his life except for, in the summer of 1985, deciding that his son needed to learn responsibility with a summer job at nautical themed ice cream shop. May we all look down upon him in hell and say thanks.”

Later that day when Eddie is on live in the studio, Steve comes in all hands on his hips and huffy, before throwing his hands out like ‘why????’ and says, “I work at a middle school, Eddie. Those kids are going to see that video and bully me.”

“You love being bullied by middle schoolers.”

Okay so other than Lucas, none of Steve’s friends care about sports, and even for Lucas, it’s more about actually playing

But one day one or a few of them figure that maybe it’s about time they do Steve’s thing instead of Their thing

And they watch a game on the TV and they just don’t get it. They try to figure out what the commentators are talking about but suddenly it feels like there is so much context missing, even though Steve’s already explained most of the rules - so they ask Steve

And Steve, well, by this point he’s already absorbed in the game so he isn’t thinking about if they’ll care or be bored or think he’s weird, so he just starts rambling

He starts talking about all of the history and culture and politics of the sport. He talks about how certain teams have this rivalry that originates from political issues that have made the fans of the two teams obsessed with getting one over on the other. He talks about team members trading (and they didn’t even know people could switch teams like that, weren’t they supposed to play for their hometown???). And he talks about the racist dynamics that sometimes manifest and the demonstrations that sometimes take place. 

And they realise that maybe they’ve been making a lot of assumptions about something they don’t understand. And also that Steve is a fucking nerd.

Maybe it’s with Robin, and even if she still doesn’t care, they regularly watch sports together just like they regularly watch Robin’s artsy weird films

Maybe it’s with the Dustin, or all the kids, and they don’t really make a habit of it, but they respect his interest and hang out during games sometimes

Maybe it’s Eddie, and while Steve is distractedly rambling about all the information, he’s subtly writing notes, adapting some of this drama to his campaigns, maybe even introducing a gladiatorial fighting competition as a political tool between kingdoms

Maybe it’s Max, and she isn’t nearly as interested as Steve is, but she gets into it, like, yelling at the screen because what was that player thinking and it’s fun to vent her anger into something harmless and boding with Steve

Just… his friends appreciating that sports aren’t one dimensional hobbies for mouthbreathers

Many people are claiming "Just way for Blood and Cheese, justice will be served" That's nasty,what justice? Luke was an 18 yo adult ENVOY with a fire-breathing WMD at his disposal,making him an active participant in the conflict of Blacks VS Greens. His war machine was the one who attacked first and died on an accident. Jahaerys,Jaehaera and Maelor were not combatants. They had quite literally 0 sway on the conflict.They were 5 and 2 years old. Who's on the sane mind could call that "justice"?

These stans are so dumb. Look at the reaction to Luke's death - it was far from the reaction to Ned's death. People were shocked and devastated when he died, it literally put GoT on the map. No one really cares about Luke. He is more like an NPC than a character. When he died, we were making jokes about it - Vhagar having bad eyesight, Aemond going home in silence, Alicent's horrified reaction to the news, Aegon's oblivious reaction to Aemond's remorse, etc.

People were making fun of Luke for coming to Storm's End so unprepared. A good amount of people were thirsting after Aemond like their lives depend on it. All of this is largely in part thanks to Aemond and Luke's ages being close and their pre-established beef that resulted in Aemond's disability.

Blood and Cheese will involve 2 toddlers and a mother who is at the very least coded as autistic. The kids were made even younger than they were in the books. In the show, they babble instead of talking that's how young they are.

You also have Helaena who is sweet and shown to be childlike. When the two assassins threatened to rape one toddler and murder the other, all while their poor helpless mother watches, who will laugh at that? What jokes can you even make about a situation like that? You don't even have to care about any of these characters, they can be NPCs too but this is a horrifying act involving babies. Plus, in the books you can pretend Daemon cares about Luke but in the show, he has a contentious relationship with Jace so it's doubtful he had a good relationship with Luke.

So no, Blood and Cheese won't be seen as 'justice' by anyone besides a small group of weirdos.

oh to have a fraction of the swag the average background character in sleeping beauty does

Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)

Q U E E R   A S   F O L K Season 3, Episode 13

Pov- Mike after the Quarry incident can't wear that specific shirt because it freaks Dustin out.

dustin when mike improvs the tiniest thing in existence as a weapon in self defence against his new pet: DON'T HURT HIM!!!

dustin when steve improvs an oar as a weapon in self defence against his new friend: don't worry! steve'll get him with his oar :)

it's not even that dustin didn't think eddie was a threat while dart was cause he thought dart was his little meow meow at that point. he thought it was unnecessary both times. he just respects mike more when he's in Protection Mode. although i do think he learned not to mock steve pretty quick after the "almost got his throat slit immediately after being mocked for being cautious" incident cause steve grabbed that lamp at the school and there wasn't a WORD said about it (even after "I COULD'VE TAKEN YOU OUT WITH THIS LAMP")