Not to me they’re not. Randyll takes his abusive, misogynistic, anti-intellectual, narrow-minded violent bigotry up to eleven. That’s largely the point of the character. Recall how he’s introduced to us, through Sam in Jon IV, AGoT. After Sam walks us through the horrendous physical abuse his father inflicted or had inflicted on him, we get this scene.
Three men-at-arms had escorted him into a wood near Horn Hill, where his father was skinning a deer. “You are almost a man grown now, and my heir,” Lord Randyll Tarly had told his eldest son, his long knife laying bare the carcass as he spoke. “You have given me no cause to disown you, but neither will I allow you to inherit the land and title that should be Dickon’s. Heartsbane must go to a man strong enough to wield her, and you are not worthy to touch her hilt. So I have decided that you shall this day announce that you wish to take the black. You will forsake all claim to your brother’s inheritance and start north before evenfall.
“If you do not, then on the morrow we shall have a hunt, and somewhere in these woods your horse will stumble, and you will be thrown from the saddle to die… or so I will tell your mother. She has a woman’s heart and finds it in her to cherish even you, and I have no wish to cause her pain. Please do not imagine that it will truly be that easy, should you think to defy me. Nothing would please me more than to hunt you down like the pig you are.” His arms were red to the elbow as he laid the skinning knife aside. “So. There is your choice. The Night’s Watch”-he reached inside the deer, ripped out its heart, and held it in his fist, red and dripping- “or this.”
If Randyll simply sent Sam to one of the formal orders that prevents inheritance, that would be one thing. That would be harsh, but not exceptionally so for this feudal society. What Randyll actually did, however, was abuse his son severely, refuse to send him to the Citadel because of his own ego (and presumably rejected the idea of sending Sam to the Faith for much the same reason), and in disinheriting Sam, ensured he was sent somewhere extremely dangerous to probably die while calling him a pig and threatening him with a painful death if he doesn’t go.
Randyll’s primary concern is not the wellbeing of House Tarly, but disposing (preferably violently) of the son he feels reflects badly on him. The fact that the two can be confused doesn’t say much good about Westerosi society, either.
I will never forget the moment my abusive father used the “I turned out fine!” to defend his upbringing.
Anyone who wants kids, I want you to spend real time every day preparing yourself for what you’ll do when your child backtalks. When your child points out something you hoped they were too naive to notice. When your child is completely aware of your insecurity and fallability. When your child may exceed your capabilities academically. When your child is not just hurt but angry with you. When your child won’t take ‘no’ for a sufficient answer. When you must explain yourself to a child.
When the authority you imagined you had over them begins to waver, and they become someone so different than the fantasy you had of them before they were born.
That is going to matter the most. What will you do?
They aren’t wanting to go ahead and kill Eren. Connie is mad. They all are. They don’t recognize Eren from the person he was a year ago. None of us do. I think it’s great that Armin wants to talk to him. We all want that. We are all wondering what Eren is thinking.
Armin is speaking for the audience again. He’s saying what many of us have been thinking these last several chapters. Like, I really appreciated his theorizing on who will be in control when Zeke and Eren touch. Armin thinks Eren’s purpose will be dominant. I’ve speculated it will be Zeke’s. We’ll see.
But the real question here is at what point is Eren a danger to Paradis. What do you do when the biggest, baddest (only) tool in your arsenal is unreliable and untrustworthy. When do you replace it with a new model? If Eren is planning on doing something catastrophic, he must be stopped. Period.
I’m not surprised Armin is floating this question. He’s always been the one to face the camera and talk about the unfortunate realities.
Armin has proven his ability to compartmentalize feelings with Annie and Bert. He was friends with both and from the last several chapters we can see that he still cares for them, yet was able to put all of that aside to take them down when it became necessary. Granted Eren is far more special to Armin that either of them, but I believe his sincerity here. If Eren is truly evil and bent on destruction, Armin will do everything he can to stop him.
So did Eren become so obsessed that he forgot the people who were most precious to him? I was talking to a friend about this very thing last night. She suggested that his care for his friends was the catalyst for his actions, but it morphed into something out of control. I agree with that. I can’t imagine Eren ever being so far gone that his friends are not important to him.
I’m anxious for the talk with Eren to happen. I’m tired of the angry eyes and unreasonableness. I’m weary of Eren being portrayed as the villain when there is probably something more nuanced there. I want to know what he’s thinking. Hopefully Armin and Mikasa can find that out.
Bless you, momma. This is dead on. We need some reasons and context for some of Eren’s irrational behaviour that we just don’t have yet. Being told so much through flashback sets up an enormous divide in the info we know. Connie is not irrational, and we’ve never seen him this angry. For Eren’s closest friends, who HAVE information we don’t, they agree at the very least that it is Eren’s behaviour that needs addressed. They don’t know him anymore. And I’m sure there have been more than one convo similar to the one at the gun range, where Armin and Eren simply disagree on how to handle things. And disagreement is normal! You don’t have to agree with your friends a hundred percent of the time. The trouble is that one acted wholly outside authority (even if he acted out of anger in defense of Historia, she seems to have at least have things her way for the moment), defied their superiors, endangered the lives of the friends he says are precious, massacred civilians in Marley, and perpetuated the cycle of violence most people were making inroads to avoid.
We don’t know Zeke’s plan, the Jaeger plan, or anything of that nature. We know that in the past, Eren has done as much as he could to look after his friends and had good intentions. He probably still has good intentions, but all his behaviour has done in the current is expedite Marley’s military assault on Paradis, the home of the people he professes to love. His friends are right to be hurt and confused and talk out their anger, and even at this point they’d rather try to talk to him first and quietly be prepared for the worst.
And it really sucks to be Eren right now, because there are lots of people and memories jammed up inside his brain and there’s no telling HOW he and Zeke met up previously and that he’s not already under Zeke’s control. Memory manipulation is a thing. The goal here is still unknown. Maybe we are getting lots of Zevi panels so Levi can tease out some answers. Idk.
We and they, the 104+vets, need more information to fill in these gaps. To make a parallel that will probably get me shit, Levi chose death for Erwin (someone no one can argue meant the world to him, regardless of what you think their relationship is) rather than letting him become everyone’s monster. The same is true for Eren; his friends…the ones that really love him…are watching their friend commit monstrous acts and pulling them into the fray at great cost. And I don’t just mean Sasha; the whole island is now in imminent danger where before there was space for diplomacy. This shit ain’t easy to swallow. What did Hanji do to earn that anger, exactly? We dunno yet.
I hope that talk goes well. I hope that wine bottle wasn’t poisoned. I hope the East Sea folks don’t swoop in during the fight and annihilate everyone. Anyway, we need answers. Being mad at Connie or Armin is an emotional exercise nobody needs.
Sean Gunn on his brother, James Gunn, and his growth while working on the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
more like sean gunn defending his brother making 10,000 pedophilic tweets
Stop spreading this misinformation. James did not make “10,000 pedophilic tweets.” He made about 10 referencing pedophilia, a lot of which were taken extremely out of context. He did delete about 10,000 tweets but a fraction of a fraction of those were about pedophilia.
@guardiansofthestarmora calling a man a pedophile because he made distasteful jokes 10 YEARS AGO which he later apologized for and decided not to do again when he realized how gross it was is so fucking shitty especially when hollywood is filled with… a ton of actual pedophiles.
like no one is saying those jokes were ok. HE NEVER SAID THEY WERE EITHER. but he had APOLOGIZED for them and never did them again and learned from his mistakes and he’s getting punished for them NOW because a conservative conspiracy theorist spreading piece of shit decided to try to take him out because he was an active outspoken anti- alt righter on twitter. THATS WRONG.
Its fucked up that HE gets fired for jokes he apologized for 10 years ago when there are active rapists and pedophiles and antisemites and racists who continue to have jobs in hollywood, all because he’s an active outspoken leftist and they aren’t. This is why people are mad.
Look i dont wanna sound like a Fandom Mom or whatever but what do you think women over 25 or so are supposed to do? Do u really think theyre supposed to drop all their interests and just talk about taxes and marriage or whatever? It seems like 25+ year old fanboys do not receive this kind of “ooh cringe” reaction either. There are guys in their 40s with comic book collections and shit and people might think theyre a nerd at worst, not a freak who shouldnt be trusted
Thank you.Because, here’s the thing, I literally tried that. And this sounds really dramatic but it kind of ruined my life for a long time.
Once I got out of grad-school and started working, at exactly age 25, I figured it was time to get serious because I was “too old for this stuff” and frankly I was afraid of being judged.
I sold all my comics, I stopped reading fanfiction, I stopped playing video games. All of it. It’s not that I never, ever watched anything “geeky” or spent a weekend binge-reading a kink-meme, but when I did, it was rare and I’d feel guilty about it like it was time wasted. I’d keep it all to myself, you know? And without any kind of inspiration, I eventually stopped drawing. After all, I didn’t need it for my “serious job,” so why bother? Unfortunately, my former skill is so atrophied now it’s nearly lost, but worse than that, it’s stressful now instead of the thing I loved to do for most of my life.
What was I doing instead? Well, I’d work my miserable, toxic job, come home and worry about how far behind everyone else I was, and how weird I was compared to all my colleagues. I’d go out with people and do the things they liked doing, but I only pretended to. But I’m not great at that and pretending to be someone else ate me alive. Unsurprisingly, by 31, my anxiety and depression was not in a great place, and I fuckin’ snapped. Not just because of this stuff, of course, but it honestly contributed. I quit my job and left town.
Suddenly I was completely alone, no job, no friends, and no reason to pretend to be someone else. So, I started doing all the things I’d given up. I read all the fanfiction I wanted, I bought a Playstation and an SNES and played them for hours. I bought back every comic book I loved, watched every Marvel movie I missed, and caught up on my favorite characters. I started traveling around just going to cons for the first time (NYCC, GeekGirlCon, DragonCon, etc). In fact, at @geekgirlcon and DragonCon especially, I saw groups of women who were 60+, just fucking enjoying things, and it made me feel so much better about my future. I’m not even joking, I literally cry every time I think about it, because I never realized how scared I was about aging in a world that thinks I’m already a decade too old for the things I love. Suddenly, that wasn’t so scary.
And then I just stopped pretending that I wasn’t into this stuff. I mean all of it, even the stuff no one understand, even the stuff people openly make fun of, even smutty fanfiction.
And look, I’m not saying this cured my depression, or that everything is perfect. For one, I picked a city that’s awful for geeks and I’m trying to figure out where to move and how. For another, I lost six years of making like-minded friends, and it’s hard to find them now because we’re all so worried about being judged and online – the space that was always a refuge for me as a loner weirdo growing up – is now apparently a Children of the Corn. But I’m happier here, actually fucking liking things, than being the unobjectionable robot woman I’m apparently supposed to be.
I don’t expect anyone to actually be interested in this, or have gotten this far, but because I’m having feelings about turning 36 on Monday, I just want to tell anyone who is about to turn 25 that you should just tell people to go fuck themselves. It’s your life. You’re going to offend people no matter what you do, at least choose the direction that makes you happiest, because those people certainly aren’t going to pay for your fucking therapist bills, are they?🦖
pssst
imma tell you a secret
the people saying you must give up the things you love upon reaching adulthood are
wrong
aging is terrifying, and im still scared of adulthood and everything it entails, but if you love something, dont let growing up take it away from you
i hit 30 two weeks ago, and you know what? im still playing WoW. im still playing D&D. im still getting unreasonably excited when saturday rolls around and its time to watch the newest episode of My Hero Academia
because being an adult doesnt mean giving up “childish things”. being an adult means being old enough to set your own path and do your own things and pursue your own interests. it means you might have to do your taxes but then you get to rejoice when they’re done by firing up your 3ds and playing pokemon
i go to work every morning in a factory, and every day i bring with me my bag covered in fun pins. my pins include godzilla, star trek, totoro, warhammer, metroid, and other things. i have a bright pink water bottle covered in holographic fish stickers. i have a few fun little toys in my bag: a squirmle, a little lobster finger puppet, sometimes my 3ds
why? because i LIKE those things, and having a job and my own money and adult responsibilities means i can absolutely go to the local card shop and buy some MTG singles or go to the toy store and get a plushie of bowser
my point is, dont stop being you just because youve been on this planet for an arbitrary number of years
now if you’ll excuse me i have some fortnite to play and some warhammer dudes to build because i do what i want and my age doesnt matter
One of the big reasons people are uncomfortable with self described “fandom moms” is that they often put themselves in circles that consist heavily of teenagers and interact with them in ways that is often inappropriate or don’t adjust how they interact with fandom or the medium itself. Often not seeing why things like teenaged fans shipping 15 year olds from a show is perfectly fine but being 30+ and doing that with the same characters can get creepy or cross a line really fast. Likewise teenagers at each other’s throats arguing with eachother about fandom drama is not good but is expected, but 30+ year olds acting the same way about fandom drama largely between teenagers is not at all appropriate.
I don’t think people should need to “"grow out” of their interests, but we really do need to think about how we engage with this stuff and with others then we do get older
I turn 30 this year and my sister in law recently tagged me in a post about an interactive dinosaur display happening nearby, cos she knows how mad keen I am on dinosaurs.
Good friends and family members support your hobbies – even if it’s not the sort of thing they’re interested in, if it makes you happy and they love you then they’re going to be happy for you.
seriously though, I want to echo dimetrodone. It is super important to stay into what you love, but you do have to grow up with it. Consider if you will, a man in his 30′s sharing porn with an 12 year old girl. Creepy right? Same goes for 30 something women exchanging under age porn stories with underage kids. Stay part of the fandoms if you wish, but you need to be careful, cause there are lines you could inadvertently cross. If you can, find fellow fans close to your own age. In the era of the internet, that shouldn’t be too hard.
Honestly, Centipeetle, aka Nephrite Facet 413 Cabochon 12, is so incredibly tragic it hurts.
I mean, she knows what happened to her. She knows that the Diamonds unleashed an attack on gems still on Earth. So what is her first response after she’s healed?
She. Blames. Herself. She immediately apologizes. “I’m sorry for my failure to heed my Hessonite’s evacuation orders.” She doesn’t seem to realize that what happened to her was wrong. It wasn’t the Diamonds’ fault. It was hers. She was too slow. Never mind that both her and Lapis’ backstory showed that the Diamonds gave gems very little time to evacuate.
The Diamonds had to make “Rose Quartz” pay. And, if a Nephrite got caught up in a bit of “friendly fire”, then who was she to complain? What really mattered was avenging Pink Diamond. Honestly, my stomach drops whenever I rewatch the scene as she says, “you avenged Pink Diamond!” because of how incredibly happy she sounds. Pink Diamond mattered more than Nephrite. What happened to her was unimportant, at least compared to a Diamond.
I want Nephrite (and all gems) to realize how much she matters. To realize that she is in no way less important than a Diamond, and that what happened to her was wrong. Period. She deserves so much more.
White Diamond is the most offputting, most alien character I have ever seen just by her upspoken presence alone.
Seriously, let me repeat: White Diamond is the most alien character I have ever felt the presence of, and she is a character in a show completely plot driven by aliens.
A show that has been running for 5 to 6 years now, leading to the moment we finally approach this single character.
A character, of which we’ve seen pictures and symbols of since season one, yet we never even had a name drop until the same minute (no exaggeration) we were going to see her face to face.
Even though she didn’t directly say a single negative word, her voice alone sounded terrifying.
Her perfect symmetrical pose as she stood, her face completely blank from emotion even though she wore a constant smile with no malicious glare in her eyes. Her completely white and silver room allowing no emotional connection other than feeling like you do not belong there. Her skin beaming with such bright unnatural light, which is terrifying in itself before you recognize that every single being in the gem species creates their physical form out of light. The light that creates her body, and her person towering in that room was created in such a way that made it impossible to focus on a single object except for herself.
The fact that her body felt so unnaturally eerie, just standing there with no movement as she spoke, was terrifying. She looked like a statue, or as if she was a robot with a human face plastered on it. A robot programmed to show emotions in the face, and even if you didn’t know the being in front of you was a robot, you could tell the being could not feel empathy even though it was programmed to show the right facial features for certain emotions. She felt so scary as an authoritative figure that she radiated power.
She is the definition of a dictator- someone who originally created the idea of dominance.
There are characters in plenty of fiction that have amounted to these things, and I would never argue with anyone on that. However, the reason I say that this is truly and truthfully the most terrifying character I’ve ever seen is that I got all these feelings, thoughts, and observation from this character when she was on screen for exactly 30 seconds.
White Diamond was on the screen for 30 seconds, and only just had her first name drop a minute beforehand. She made me feel like she could erase my entire existence without a blink of an eye.
Stressed, Depressed, and Story Obsessed 
