fairydust-stuff

[fairydust-stuff]

I think abt nightwing #95 like all the time maybe

Dick’s so incapable of seeing himself as a victim that for two issues, his rapist was the only person he could stand to be around. His relationship with her was a punishment to himself for failing her and for letting Blockbuster die.

In her mind, both the murder and the sex were acts of love, while to him, obviously it was one of the darkest moments of his life. It made her feel like she knew him and made him feel known in all the worst ways.

For a few issues, (in his mind) she was the only one who understood and accepted him completely with all of his worst qualities, and the only one he was worthy of being around. She was safety and self destruction at the same time.

Later, he says that they’re bad for *each other*, because he can’t handle not being guilty of something.

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“Tara was evil”

ok and I’m sure you’d be full of kindness if you were abandoned by your father, mother and country. If you were used as a lab rat for your brother to get powers with no regard to whether or not you live or die. Then become a contract killer and begin to work with a man in his 50s who grooms you into becoming an undercover spy for him also he statutorily takes you. Being part of the SUPERHERO team includes getting sexually harassed by one of the members, being borderline hated by their leader (before he was any the wiser to you being a spy.) As well as the one time you try and mention your struggles they play the damn trauma olympics with you. Then you get betrayed by the one person in your life who you ever trusted, the one person you believed LOVED you.

Yeah I’m sure you’d be having a great time

[fairydust-stuff]

Society when people stop trying to turn every character who was raped into the “perfect” victim.

Tara was mean! She genuinely hated the Titans! She chose to work with Slade and she hurt people. She’s still a victim who deserves sympathy. Her character doesn’t need to be changed into something softer to maintain her victimhood

Dick never reached out for help and willingly attached himself to both of his assaulters for weeks/days after the assaults. I don’t think he would even call himself a victim if asked. His character doesn’t need to tearfully confide in his family members or seek vengeance to maintain his victimhood

To each their own but I hate when I see this kind of thing in different adaptations or fan works. Theres no right way to be a victim but I find it weird when people try to mold characters in a certain way to make them more comfortable. Like that’s just not the same character 😭

[fairydust-stuff]

God I'm having so many thoughts about Touga Kiryuu. (TW: sa and csa allusions)

You're a child and your parents tell you you're being sold. You have to grow out your hair because that's what the customer wants. You assume the customer will be your new parent. You grow your hair out because you know nothing else than doing what you're told.

You finally meet the customer. Customer. Not new parent. You don't know what you're being sold as. You think you're there to be a child. And you are. But not in any way you ever wanted to be.

For the first time, you want to do something other than what you're told. No, you must do something else. You have to do something else. You cannot live like this anymore, with no power, no say in what the customer (he wants you to call him father, but this man is worse than any father you've ever known) does to you.

You see your chance. You run away. You run and you run and you run but it's not enough. You're too small. Too weak. And the customer is too strong, too powerful. You have no choice. You give up.

He catches you. He calls you beautiful.

Years go by this way. You push away your friends and then do everything you can to keep them close. But you can't let them know you care. You can't let anyone know you care. Caring makes you weak. It makes you vulnerable. Your hair gets longer. You're beautiful, he says.

Then, you meet a man who tells you he can make you strong. He's gorgeous and he's attentive and he's beautiful, but he's still powerful. And you realize beauty can give you immense power. He teaches you things, things you had thought you knew, but he makes them better. And it's different, you tell yourself. It's different when it's him because you want it now. You want to be like him so you must learn from him, and it's different. You're older. More mature. But not as mature as he is.

He calls you beautiful.

You learn from him. You weave words together beautifully. People want to do things for you. People love you. People want you. And you have the power to deny them. Keep them wanting. Make them beg. Make them chase you, but they can't catch you.

No one will ever catch you again.

[fairydust-stuff]

The only way to get what you want is to lose your purity.

[fairydust-stuff]

I only like Saionji when he’s suffering

[fairydust-stuff]

Hello! Thanks for the nice comment on my harlots post c: I felt silly for a while that I had so much attachment to Charles as a character when most people write him off tbh. I have had a lot of ideas for fics etc over the years (admittedly oc / AU focused tho). would you be open to talking about the characters more via DM?

maybe but its been a while since I watched harlots. I'd have to do a rewatch. But that might be fun.

[fairydust-stuff]

Emily has a terrible time saying thank you or showing appreciation.

You do not storm out and go to work at the rival brothel, you do not talk shit to the only person that’s offering to help you, and you certainly do not punch him in the face EEEEEESSSSPECIALLYYYY after you almost KILLED HIM!

Anger management.

Count ya blessings (and I’m atheist)

She get on my nerve.

[fairydust-stuff]

what business have you? — charlie quigley. curly-haired cherub. i used to magic sweeties from your ears. do your remember? — what do you want? — your mumma has taken something that isn’t her’s. — she’s no thief. — no, she’s the worst kind. she’s a people thief. sees someone she has need of, snaffles them away, never to return. where’s she taken emily? — mumma doesn’t know or care where emily lacey is. — when did your mother ever let a dog lie? she feeds on vengeance like maggots on a corpse.

[fairydust-stuff]

“Charles was destined for the Foundling Hospital, but when they came to take him away, he grabbed a handful of my hair and wouldn’t let go. ‘This one’s a fighter,’ I thought. But instead he’s as pliable as dough. At the mercy of every hard-nosed jade that would misuse him.”

Lydia Quigley » Harlots, 1x07

[fairydust-stuff]

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[fairydust-stuff]

I have the inexorable urge to rant about a character I’m obsessed with that much of the fandom hates

Anyway fuck it.

I understand that a lot of people dislike Charles Quigley (for good reason) but I keep getting burned by finding fanfics and posts tagged with the character that only feature him to make fun of him or something

Honestly if you are writing a fanfic in the Harlots ‘verse and don’t want to include him, there is no shame in writing him out. (Or any other character for that matter.)

Have a throwaway line where someone says he went to visit a friend for a month or something.

That could also introduce things like more tension because Lydia might be more stressed / worried about having her precious baby mid 30s boy out of the house. Maybe she’s more prone to lashing out. Maybe she’s distracted and her rivals like Margaret get more bold about taking action against her.

It introduces a lot of interesting things that could work for a number of fanfic plots.

…Okay that’s it for people who don’t want to include him in fanfics, I’m gonna discuss things I think could be explored in fanfic below.

Note that because this show has a lot of interconnected characters I also talk a lot about Lydia, Emily, and Nancy for some reason.

TW: discussions of abusive relationships, incest, sex trafficking, kidnapping, murder (stuff that’s in the show)

I’ve seen someone say before that Charles is one of the few straight male characters on the show who’s important because of his part in fleshing out female characters via relationships.

I can see that. I think the nature of the show means that he as a man - a passive one at that - wouldn’t get a lot of screen time.

The point about him being important relationship wise is really interesting. Tbh, the early-mid season 1 interactions between Emily and Lydia remind me of the trope of a dad running to chase away his daughter’s boyfriend with a shotgun.

There’s that gender flipped part where women aren’t usually given as much sexual agency in tv/film etc, but also I like that it’s not played off as a kinda quirky “overprotective” parent thing, but the show recognizes how toxic this dynamic is.

You can argue in the gun toting dad example it’s sometimes bc the daughter is underage, but still, there’s often that undercurrent of a parent being threatened by their child getting a romantic partner and “replacing” them.

This is a big part of the Lydia and Charles relationship imo. I would characterize it as a nuanced depiction of an emotionally abusive relationship with elements of covert / emotional incest.

Emotionally abusive because she tends to manipulate him - isolate him from others, like potential partners.

When she feels he “replaced” her by choosing Emily - she immediately replaces him with Charlotte, a surrogate daughter.

Note: covert incest is not actual, literal incest. I do Not think their relationship has an actual sexual / romantic component to it. (but idk if you think that would be interesting to explore in a fanfic, go right ahead.)

I’m referring to unhealthy parent/child relationships where the child is expected to take on a role similar to the parent’s spouse. Such as where the parent expects the child to comfort them emotionally (even from a young age), or to prioritize their relationship over other forms of relationships, like friendships or dating other people.

I can definitely see that, especially with Lydia’s line to Rasselas in season 2 after he talks about losing his partner to an unknown disease. He says something like “I lost my precious boy”.

And she says, “so did I”.

This is due to Lydia being self centered as fuck, sure, but remember how she reacted to Charles nearly dying of an OD because of Emily? She was nowhere near this mopey about it.

(Ofc she had to make sure he was safe but once he was in stable condition she immediately struck.)

In that case at least she could react with violence and use Emily to boost her own standing.

In the case of Charles moving out to live with her, she’s kinda screwed, her old methods of dealing with a situation by attacking others to her own benefit don’t work.

It’s not really actionable. She can’t just go after Emily at the moment.

Lydia is finally stuck having to deal with the idea that her son - who she’s made part of her identity, especially if it means she can say she’s a Good Mother so she’s winning at Patriarchy - maybe chose someone else over her. Or doesn’t want to be close to her anymore.

—

Okay yeah I have talked about the relationships a lot but I could also talk about Charles himself.

Again, he’s a very passive character in a show about very active - or even aggressive - women.

I think his scenes in the show serve an important role of providing some levity or respite from the more intense drama (ie kidnapping, psychological torment, etc). It kinda breaks things up so you can fully digest how awful the other scenes are.

Not to say that he’s a totally innocent guy.

He’s still a shitty person, very self centered and privileged and willing to take advantage of others for his own desires.

I feel like sometimes I’m tipping the scales in his favor too much, as Charles is a morally grey character who likes to think he’s a good guy, but… it’s much easier for him to continue being awful or allow others to suffer for his benefit.

I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff at play with him, the ways Lydia’s parenting makes him see her as a role model and also a negative role model.

He starts off wanting to follow in her footsteps, to impress her. When Lydia starts intimidating Margaret for Emily coming to her, he backs up Lydia by remarking that Emily’s pretty bangable.

(Which is… kinda a stupid thing to add, but it still has an effect on Margaret, which is what they want.)

But once Charles starts to get into what it really means for Lydia to be a bawd - and him by extension - he doesn’t want to continue in the same way.

It’s not just, maybe he can keep Lydia from lashing out at the girls, or maybe if she does he can help them out by sneaking them food.

Once Emily nearly kills him via OD to escape, he doesn’t feel like going after her. Maybe he has a realization from that near death experience. Maybe he’s just too passive to want revenge. Maybe he knows that if he tried to get revenge Lydia would just take it to an eye for an eye levels of intense.

Maybe you could argue that he’s got some kind of guilt around what he did to Emily.

He seemed to almost have a moment of self awareness when (iirc) he told her he’d want to move out some place without Lydia, where she wouldn’t have to have sex with anyone… except him. Oops.

I think the relationship with Emily - because she’s a lot more pro active than he is, and she’s willing to talk back to him despite the power he has over her - forces him to realize his role in things.

And the development with the whole kidnapping people and giving them over to sadistic cultists to murder thing gets him firmly off Lydia’s side.

(Well, that and the line where iirc Nancy says something like “you can’t be on everyone’s side”.)

I think also there’s a lot that could be said about Nancy’s role in nudging him in the direction of a redemption arc in season. Maybe more like pushing him, idk.

Nancy is one of the only people who’s really patient enough to help Emily, even when she lashes out because she feels vulnerable.

She’s one of the first people who really treats Charles as an adult now that I think of it. Like even when Emily rocks the boat, she still plays into his childish side to keep his favor.

I think it’s largely because he’s the exact kind of guy Nancy is used to seeing - a rich dude who wants a dominant woman to take care of him and guide him - and the added history with his mother helps.

You could also argue that while Lydia fits patriarchal ideas of the ideal mother - being nurturing (unless you piss her off), delicate, feminine, lacking her own romance / sex life in lieu of caring for her child (usually) - Nancy is more like the reverse of all these traits, but she actually cares for and guides the people she takes under her wing.

When Emily lashes out at people she thinks are condescending to her, Lydia just doubles down on punishing her, but Nancy gives her the benefit of the doubt and offers her aid.

Was this post a Trojan horse for Nancy birch?? Maybe??

I think that the contrast is also interesting, with Nancy lacking all the conventionally feminine things that make Lydia appear to be a good person on the surface, but actually nurturing and wanting people to grow and providing good coping mechanisms and a shoulder to cry on. Often at the expense of herself.

(So basically Lydia is cloth mother and Nancy is wire mother? Yeah)

I realize I went way off the mark here but I think there’s a lot of potential in exploring the relationship between Charles and Nancy too.

Like he’s more used to seeing women who try to fit into social roles men place on them (whore, virgin, mother, crone etc archetypes) so seeing a goth butch lesbian who tells him to get his shit together… kinda breaks his brain.

It’s a really interesting dynamic I wish we saw more of.

—

There’s a lot more I could say, and maybe will say at a later date, but I’m getting kinda tired of writing this post. I tried to focus on the stuff that was touched on in canon + my own interpretation of it. Or different ones you could run with.

If you got this far… thank you for reading! I give you a sugar pig (whatever that is) for your efforts

[fairydust-stuff]

So I've noticed that more people seem to be able to pick up on Anya's rape than seem to pick up on Jimmy's verbal abuse of Curly even though we witness the verbal abuse 1st hand while the rape is hinted at.

I've also noticed the fandom seems to notice that Anya is doing a Fawn response around Jimmy but very few seem to notice Curly is doing the same.

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caretaker

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before I go to bed and spend tomorrow doing mostly spreadsheets (it’s fun I swear I love logistics I’m doing it entirely for fun and restarting a game bc I find making detailed spreadsheet plans that enjoyable and I realised I could get some cool mods bc I don’t care about balance) I really appreciate that while mouthwashing acknowledges and condemns curly's enabling behaviour, it never presents his disabilities or his abuse as some sort of just punishment. his extremely naïve faith in jimmy hurt everyone and was born out of a patronising misogynistic worldview where he assumed anya was mentally unwell before she was a victim but what happens to him is not a fair consequence, it’s just horrible and senseless. even if it happening made curly aware of the suffering anya did- the obvious parallels between the rape and himself being forced to take his pain medication are something I’m sure crossed his mind in the months he spent trying to focus on anything but pain- that in no way is ever framed as a good thing even if it technically made him a better person in some respects bc under No Circumstances is abuse ever justified or okay. curly is not a great person, but you do not have to be a perfect victim to be a victim. no one deserves the humiliation and violation jimmy put others through, not even jimmy himself. curly made many mistakes, and was a deeply flawed human- to think otherwise is to fall into jimmy's ableist and dehumanising obsession he uses to justify his abuse of curly- but he was not malicious. the patriarchal support of abuse eats its own, any man who falls outside of the cishetero able bodied white supremacist ideas of man are victims of it. this is not a hashtag girlboss moment, and is tragic and horrible in its own right bc abuse is always horrible, even if men aren’t the primary intended victims and even if those men uphold the patriarchy. bc people can be victims and also be deeply harmful to each other. the lines between the misogynistic sexual abuse towards anya and the violent medical abuse towards curly are blurred on purpose- bc being disabled means curly is no longer protected by male solidarity when the idea of maleness we have excludes disabled people. the parallels between ableism and misogyny are a very prominent theme I don’t see discussed much about the game, and them not framing curly as in any way deserving of his injuries nor the ableist abuse against him is so important for that point. like, curly sucks in a lot of ways, but he’s still a human being, and no human being deserves violation of any kind, whether they’re dehumanised for being disabled or for being a woman.

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It’s almost directly stated in the game Curly did not know Jimmy as well as he thought he did but the very same thing can be said about Jimmy with Curly.

Almost every conversation they have is awkward and stilted. Jimmy says something that clearly upsets Curly or makes him more dejected and doesn’t care due to his own projections. Post-crash he is just more demeaning and uncaring and puts just as many words in Curly’s mouth as he takes out of his own. Hell, you can argue he would not have chosen to crash the ship the way he did if he knew Curly would’ve tried to stop him, but he didn’t know because he didn’t really know him. Just like Anya and Daisuke and Swansea and likely anyone else in his life, Jimmy knows and understands people through the lens of his own self-centered projections. He can not fathom motives outside of his own hence not even considering Anya killing herself or the very real idea Swansea was saving the pod for Daisuke.

He understands people through the positions he forces them into in his life and had his first glimpse of how Curly was outside of his influence or desires in a while on the Tulpar and between him and Anya cause it was the first time Curly wasn’t just trying to cater to him and he fucking hated it.