look at the skill and spirit

fitz on the record said “why do i spend so many nights alone in my private study looking at the carved face of my best friend who died and i resurrected and who then left me when i didn’t want us to part instead of being in bed with my wife”

there are SO many examples of fitz linking having agency -> being a man. and this to me is like. the lynchpin of his inability to grapple with the fool’s gender. he’s fought so hard to be treated “as a man” that the fool’s lack of care towards his gender presentation can’t make sense to him. and, as we see with the quarrel, he is afraid that association with it will unman HIM. and this all of course can’t be uncoupled with the abuse fitz faced. but of course, the fool faced abuse too. but to fitz it’s like, well obviously why would you not try to hide the thing that makes you a secret pervert. that’s what we all do. and so he’s always been both in awe/disgusted by how open the fool is with it. so mostly he just tries not to look at it. and what’s also interesting is i think one of the major sources of that shame for fitz (that is touched on textually) is being witted. but he of course learns to embrace the wit and think of it as a gift. but he can’t imagine the fool thinking of his inclinations in a similar way. which of course leads to the subtextual transfeminine reading. and i do think maybe there’s also an element of like, well the wit is power. so even though people despise it, fitz can understand it as being a good thing because there is clearly something to be gained from it. whereas Not Being A Man is to open yourself to abuse for—what? and i think it ties back to how fitz’s body and mind have never been his own. the idea of doing something for your own comfort/pleasure is so foreign to him. especially when that something has material outcomes that are decidedly negative!

robin hobb is one of my favourite fantasy authors for her portrayals of how social edifices can absorb people and twist them beyond the ability to perceive the truth. even fine people, and even protagonists. she's also fantastic with human interconnectednes and the ways people live within fear and neglect and loneliness. her work seems to utilize every human secret that other writers consider too tedious, too distasteful, too harmful to agency, and she spins gold out of it.

I realized long ago that shit just fucking happens. oddly the shit fucking happening is distributed very unevenly among the general population which I am sure is due to a variety of factors. and also due to some people having God's Terrible Eye upon them

playing stupid games but im really bad at them so im not even winning the stupid prizes

all the rights that come with marriage you should be able to have without marriage btw. you should be able to designate a person who can visit you in the hospital regardless of your relationship to that person.

so much of fandom is about alignment. every arc is about how does this character come to understand their life as i understand it, feel the way toward every relational connection as i think they should feel, in line with all these implicit assumptions about what i believe to be the freest, most liberated, most integrated, most worthwhile human life. they should realize they are abused, and narrate an understanding of the causes and effects of this perfectly in accord with my own, and feel the way towards those who have harmed them whatever happens to be the way i clearly believe a “healthy” person should, regardless of how this particular character happens to feel in canon. if they don’t feel the way i feel, this is false consciousness, and to be corrected - they will “realize” they were x y or z and inevitably respond accordingly. it is impossible they could have in fact known this before and simply made different choices than i would have. everything is an arc from disillusionment to knowledge, from sin to salvation, with knowledge and salvation, ending with ME, the fan-psych-priest, and what i understand of the world. they should realize they are gay of course, and “come out” and “live their truth”, and vanquish any lingering self-loathing, then have as reward a sexuality exactly in line with what i believe to be the most healthful. they must have sex of course - to be averse to this in any way is to be lacking, and this must be fixed - and romantic love - ditto. but not too much of it (no “hypersexuality”, monogamy is the unquestioned welcome cure for such sad signs of self-hatred which is of course the only possible reason anyone could possibly have for fucking two whole people). not the wrong kind (nothing that could be “sex as self-harm”, no power dynamics). if they have any beliefs i find politically inconvenient, that will be addressed. are they religiously devout, or maybe believe in the divine right of kings? (my current examples, but endlessly swappable) welllll either the entire point of the narrative itself must be about proving to them these treasured beliefs are erroneous, and the canon should be so lax as to fail to amend such error, fic can handle it (or erase it, vanish it). wait, you might say! no, i love stories about FUCKED UP characters who are sooooo messy and repressed and never heal, hashtag internalized homophobia tag is my fave. but i regret to inform you i think this is basically two sides of the same coin. see, either you Align, or you are doomed to enduring misery. no one could possibly ever live a whole life that means anything outside of the parameters of what, i, personally have decided is a meaningful, good, well-ordered existence. they might be a circus sideshow of dysfunction to gawk at, tragedy the inevitable only result of such recalcitrance, the satisfying, comforting moral message to be salvaged from such resistance (hashtag doomed by the narrative) - it is not possible to hope for anything more.

im nonbinary in a way that doesnt really matter