#I love this woman and all she does for women!

[horizon-verizon]

@jimmyjones12345 @pessimisticpigeonsworld

Also, to expand & explain what pigeon was saying about "it is a part of the Love vs Duty theme GRRM has woven throughout all of ASoIaF":

Rhaegar and Lyanna's story is written as a love story, specifically a forbidden love story in the vein of their "duties" as noblepeople functions to make even the nobles themselves both unhappy and subject to the abuses and exploitation of their parents. It suppresses their free will particularly in who they get to marry, reproduce with, and be intimate with and not even just romantically/sexually but also platonically. Especially if you are a woman/girl like Lyanna.

From small childhood (5 and up, and I am giving a number under 10 arbitrarily but it still runs true that it is under 10), Westerosi aristocracy and their parents and the Faith (happens in the North, too) impart and compel girls to comport their minds and bodies to towards marriage and away from activities that lend toward leadership or resource-acquirement through warfare. Masculinized activities. Because women are socially assigned the role as breeders for men's heirs. Men's "bearer-teacher-warden of his children" (Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the United States). All that discipline of feminine "grace" and obedience getting s about that, this the emphasis of pre-marriage virginity and post-marriage chastity--sexual purity, to "ensure" women do not birth children that aren't their husbands and "cuckold" or discredit him in the eyes of his peers. As she is meant to participate and support the man's dignity by staying "pure" and he is supposed to maintain said "dignity" by maintaining seeming and actual control over those deemed his property or under his authority. Obviously this has included his wife, even his betrothed bc that is a deal made between the father or whatever make relative lives for the betrothed girl and the soon-to-be husband/his family. Lyanna is directly disobeying this "duty" by defying her socially signed destiny. And like pigeon said, she defies it by engaging and being good at the masculinized martial activities when she becomes the Knight of the Laughing tree, learned how to fight, and won an actual tourney against grown men.

How does Rhaegar disobey or defy his aristocratic duties? It's more layered. First, you are supposed to obey your father AND your king in Westerosi' mores of the social concept and dynamics of "family" AND the obligations of obedience owed to one's king. (Kingslaying is a serious taboo). This isn't a Valerian or a Targ thing, it's been an Andal thing since way before the Conquest. Rhaegar planned to usurp Aerys' and take the throne because Aerys' was crazy and running things to high corruption. But not only that, Rhaegar was doing it bc he believed that he had to prepare the kingdom for the coming cataclysmic Long Night and either be the prince that was promised or produce them--and you can't do that when your government is and its base +the aristocracy) is so divided and distrustful of each other.

Other than that, he was also married to Elia and it's described by the author himself as a "tragedy" somewhat dramatically but also it was corroborated by Barristan Selmy that their marriage was not exactly what Rhaegar would have chosen. Two things can be true at once: Rhaegar, as a man, was not and would never be subject to the helplessness and life-long forced compliance of shaping his entire personality and desires for a person who'd be his intimate, lifelong "superior as a husband is to the woman-wife AND he can be unfaithful as much as he can the way noblewomen could never be, but he is also still not entitled to choose the person he's meant to have kids with NOR create a relationship with/build trust with. This is not just sympathy, it is fact.

GRRM says his relationship with Elia was "complex", and I take that to mean that he simply was never emotionally attached to her despite trying; when you factor in Elia having been so ill that she nearly died birthing Aegon, there appears to have been a previous already existing distance between them that developed more distant. They can't be around together much and Elia couldn't be at court often, and Rhaegar was out busy trying to build alliances, maintain, them, plot against Aerys', and continuously learn more about the prophecy. Elia had been relatively healthy and physically close to Rhaegar in the very beginning of their marriage, yet he didn't get that close with her or was attracted--and we don't know how Elia felt and how her feelings may or may not have progressed. So it's insufficient to say that:

he could have fallen for Elia if Elia had just stayed healthy (GRRM's fault by disabling Elia for RhaegarxLyanna)

Rhaegar should have stayed with Elia during the worst of her illnesses and bed stays instead of "doing the list and being distracted" and he would or could have fallen for her or bonded with her or just liked her enough

If it didn't take in the start when she was relatively the healthiest she was and they didn't have kids, it wasn't going to work later. Rhaegar was "busy' when he met Lyanna, but the attraction there was instant or at least quick to come. And their bond progressed quickly. Plus, I don't think anyone deserves a man who only pays attention to them & "falls" for them when they are so feeble from performing their "duties" as the heir's consort.

Other than the sociopolitical duties of an heir and an aristocratic son of a king, there was also the secret duty Rhaegar took upon himself when he thought he was either the PTWP or had to produce said person or whatever. His duties as a royal/part of the general aristocracy, the heir, and as Aerys' son/political subject directly conflicted with this separate duty, but because he seems to be the only one aware of it, even trying to understand it or use it, and take seriously the worldwide stakes. This is also all considering the fact that he was likely to know Aerys' abusing his mother Rhaella and not being able to do much "legally" or about it since young. At the same time, it is because of others' inattention/selfish pursuits AND because he had the power that he has or saw that he could develop as he got older (as he was doing) and his position that he seemed to think that only he could advance with the prophecy. Thus his "mundane" aristocratic duties and Targaryen (dragonriders blood) ALSO served to enable him to even attempt to try to "save the world" AND yet, this is a different sort of "duty" that his love for Lyanna troubled because it had the strong potential (and outcome, as we see) to derail his plans/focus. Ironically, their love also came in conflict with THIS "duty"--the duty that reflected what I think is Rhaegar's "love" for humanity/justice or at least cosmic and LIFE balance because it tripped up his already shaky control over his affairs, that delicate political balance--his part of the matrix that was the entire Aerys-era politics every known and unknown noble was active in.

So a duty taken completely by one's choice--BUT for people like Rhaegar who care about things more than what is right in front of them or don't focus on JUST their and others' own everyday sociopolitical conditions (which if one is not careful like Rhaegar they can completely neglect and that is not good either) it is not really a "choice" bc it does need to be handled for humanity/society's safety--was directly in conflict, ironically, with that which the sociopolitical conditions have inspired Rhaegar to be attracted and loved Lyanna--the pressures from the responsibilities that of being the heir of a corrupted court and society versus loving that which would defy all of that BECAUSE it defies all of that, which Lyanna was as a person...even though yes she also, ironically, ran off with another woman's husband and would have been recognized as a mistress or paramour of sorts if she hadn't been already betrothed to Robert and these actors all weren't in the type of setting Aerys' and Tywin both influenced. Rhaegar did not create a court of suspicion and fear or make the nobles around him ever more hungry for power, that was Tywin and Aerys as well as the nature of the feudalist monarchy. Yes, how Rhaegar acted was self contradictory and extremely unfair to Elia, maybe Lyanna as well. But they all, to their unique degrees and conditions, were stuck in a rock and a hard place, under many limits.

Rhaegar and Lyanna could not be together because of said monarchial/feudalist conditions not could they successfully be completely themselves as they would have liked bc the same and in their attempts to overcome them, they fucked up BUT they fucked up bc of them not perfectly navigating those limited conditions and trying to innovate a way "out" or around them. And Elia should not have been arranged to marry some guy who would never love her or regard her as every woman deserves, especially in lieu of the prophecy/usual sociopolitical "bigger pictures" that took precedence over her. Whether you believe they should have or didn't. And of course, Lyanna should not have to be forced to marry some dud who'd think he loved her but would have abused and cheated on her. Rhaegar didn't deserve an abusive, crazy, entitled father and had to have basically the entire future of his world AND society on his shoulders bc said father wouldn't come up to the plate.

The issue with Rhaegar was that he planned poorly and failed to rearrange himself or decide how to safely incorporate Lyanna without ruining things with the Martells or ruining other relations BECAUSE he thought the solution and inevitability was that he could do it all. And bc Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree winning the tourney not shortly before Rhaegar gave her the crown of the Queen of Love and Beauty and Aerys' wanted to hunt down the Knight (not knowing who she was), there wasn't really much time to make a plan for her safety other than keeping her identity a secret. Layer when they come across each other again, there's many different ideas why and how they ran off. Some say they planned to leave together before they met up again, some say it was a spur of the moment decision in lieu and that Rhaegar was out of Dragonstone just to find more information about the prophecy and happened to see Lyanna about as well. Some say Lyanna sneaked out or tricked her family to leave because Rhaegar might have happened to mention where he'd be or intended to be or just to have some space from said family and Robert. We'll see if GRRM ever manages to finish WoW. It's supposed to be a mystery for now.

In other words, GRRM is not trying to find "answers" to make us apply hard and fast moral standards; he's simply exploring the conditions of love vs duty and how people make their decisions thereof while trying to be good leaders. Of course there's a morality, but the point is to FIGURE OUT and question whether the boundaries of one's conditions require one to consider the quality of familiar morals and ones actions to maybe reconfigure them and one's reality. Be adaptive.

People in the ASOIAF fandom are very obsessed with passive women they can project onto. The obsessions with the characters of show!Alicent, Sansa, Elia, and Helaena are perfect examples of this.

In the show, Alicent is changed from a woman who actively seeks power and heads the scheming of the green faction into a passive victim who watches and reacts to the men around her. And yet, despite this being a much more boring characterization, the show version is vastly more preferred by her stans. They condemn her book character as simply an "evil stepmother trope" while completely ignoring how their fav is just as blank and tropey as they accuse her book counterpart to be. Alicent stans want her to be the show's blank victimized canvas.

Helaena is someone who the show changed very little in the adaptation, because both book and show Helaena have little impact on the plot other than to be victims of their surroundings. Both women are forced to marry Aegon at thirteen and have his children, go through B&C, and are the least active members of the green faction. The show only added elements to make her more tragic: her dreaming and autistic behaviors. Helaena's character makes her the perfect canvas for certain fans to project themselves onto as she simply exists to be victimized and play the dutiful wife/daughter despite her circumstances, just like the show version of her mother.

Elia Martell is a woman who we know very little about. She died thirteen years before the events of ASOIAF and, unlike characters like Rhaegar and Lyanna, she has no pov characters who think about her enough for us to learn anything about her. The only things we know are that she was loved by her family, was in an arranged marriage to Rhaegar, had his two (confirmed) children, and was brutally raped and murdered by Lannister men. She is an unknown character and, again unlike Rhaegar and Lyanna, has no known active role in the events surrounding the Rebellion. Because of these things, she is, again, the perfect blank canvas for people to project on.

Sansa is, despite being a prominent pov character in ASOIAF, a very passive character. She rarely takes action in her circumstances and simply reacts to them while trying to survive. There's nothing wrong with this, she's a young girl who has never had to fight for anything in her life, it's not unexpected or condemnable for her reaction to her circumstances to be this way. However, her passivity is something her stans obsess over. She is praised for being the "perfect lady" and they project their desires to see her rule onto her and how they view her story.

These women have been chosen by these fans because of their passivity and tragedy. They love that the women have suffered in the name of the "duty" they believe is higher than them. Because they love passivity, they hate the women of ASOIAF who are active in their own lives and fight to better their circumstances. Characters like Rhaenyra, Arya, Daenerys, and Lyanna are all massive influences on the world and purposely chose to challenge the patriarchy. Since they did not take their suffering silently, theses certain fans view them as wrong and hate them. They only love the women they can project on and who simply refuse to fight for better lives.

[greenwitchfromthewoods]

Hi, here is an idea for a plot : marcus is send to kidnap a women because Greta has heard that she is the most beautiful women on earth. He does it but during the travel back they both fall for esch other. Thank you I love your work

Note: Thank you very much for the request, sweet anon. I don't know if I fulfilled it completely, but I hope that I could give you at least a little pleasure with this scribble. I managed to find a moment of time and I wanted to do it. thank you!

Warnings : some violence but not literally, some weird stuff, some romance, some kissing

your feedback is very important to me and I thank you for all the reblogs, comments and likes. 🖤 sorry for all the mistakes

General Marcus Acacius [masterlist]

witch. l General Marcus Acacius

"General!" the young man rushed into his tent and quickly bowed his head. "Forgive me, sir, but we have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" he muttered without even looking up from the map he had spread out on the plain table.

Marcus, out of the corner of his eye, noticed that the man shifted restlessly, until words finally flowed from his lips that forced General Acacius to look at him.

"I think we have some kind of witch in the camp."

His head had been hurting unbearably for several hours. This journey had been completely pointless. Emperor Geta had heard rumors, whispered among other men, that somewhere on the territory of his country was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Greed and lust made him want to possess her, enslave her. After all, only the Emperor should be able to possess someone like that. He deserved it. She was his due.

General Acacius, on the other hand, believed that these rumors were nonsense. A well-concocted tale to mock the Emperor and his stupid greed. He also didn't believe that any woman would consciously and willingly want to enter a cage and be locked up with such a man. 

But Marcus had no other choice, because when Geta invited him to his chambers and assigned him this mission, his views no longer counted.

Just as he had done during the war, so now, he found the woman, captured her and was on his way to Rome. However, it was a hard road. And you made sure that each of the soldiers who enslaved you would remember you for a long time.

So you were locked in a carriage, part of the walls of which were bars so that you could at least enjoy a little fresh air or sun. You used it as much as you could.

Marcus stopped in front of the carriage and looked sternly at several men, one of whom threw a bucket of icy water straight at the post standing inside.

"By the gods! What's going on here?!" he roared.

"General!" the men bowed quickly. "This... This is a witch! Ever since we stopped, she's been deceiving our heads and senses, telling such things..."

"I'm telling the truth!" the woman's voice was strong and stubborn. It clearly reached Marcus despite the dull pain in her temples. "And the gods will punish you all! You will grovel under their feet like worthless, filthy vermin!"

Someone splashed water again and they heard a distinct snort. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

The soldiers looked at their commander. A mixture of fear and uncertainty was written on their faces, but Marcus knew perfectly well that in such a state, further travel would be an even more difficult task. Finally, he nodded to the man who had brought him here.

"Release her and bring her to my tent." he ordered.

"But, sir!"

"That's an order. She is to appear there as soon as possible." he added and then went back to his place.

You appeared after a few minutes. The clothes you were wearing were completely soaked, and strands of hair stuck to your face. And although you were shaking like leaves in the wind, rebellion and stubbornness did not disappear from your face. You twitched nervously when he tried to put a rough blanket on your shoulders.

"Calm down, I won't do anything to you." he said quietly. "Sit down, have a drink of wine."

Slender fingers tightened on the material, but finally, with quite a confident step, you moved to the place he indicated. Sweet wine and a few bites of bread occupied you enough that Marcus could calmly look at you. He hadn’t had the opportunity to do so before.

When he took you from your home, chaos reigned. The appearance of a detachment of Romans worried the inhabitants of a nearby village, and you... 

Acacius couldn't remember if he had ever seen a woman defend herself so well. One of the soldiers lost a tooth when you hit him in the face with a saucepan you had at hand, and more than one of them had marks from your nails on them. It was only when someone dared to put a cloth bag over your head that your curses and swearing stopped. 

Only now could Marcus look at you. Indeed, you were beautiful. However, he didn’t think that your beauty was only in your face or body, you had something in you that he hadn’t seen before. 

Incredible stubbornness, pride, but also recklessness since you were not afraid to challenge a group of men on whom your life depended.

"You're staring, soldier." You mumbled, washing down a bite of bread with wine.

Marcus came closer and sat down on a chair close to you. "I'm a general." He said.

You shrugged, though. "You're a soldier. A puppet in the hands of a man who thinks he's a god."

"That man sent me for you." He noticed that you looked at him nervously, like a scared animal. "He's heard rumors about you."

"Rumors." You repeated, dusting off your hands and wrapping the blanket around yourself tighter, because the wet clothes were sticking to your body. "I've seen many more beautiful ones."

"I don't..."

You shook your head, biting your lip. "Don't say that."

You noticed how the general tilted his head, looking at you closely. His dark eyes didn't tear themselves away from you and you didn't like what you were feeling. From the beginning, you felt that something was wrong with this man. He was different. Different from those you knew.

"You expected us to come." The general's voice was low and melodic, a warm shiver ran through your body. "How is that possible? Who warned you?"

"Nobody. Soldier."

You wanted to insult him. You wanted to draw a line and show that you weren't afraid of him, that you despised him. But he just smiled. He stretched his long legs in front of him and folded his arms across his chest.

"My name is Marcus." he said and ignored your snort. "And yours? Or should I call you a witch?"

He noticed how your eyebrows drew together. "I have a name." you replied and gave it to him.

The general played with it for a few moments, rolling it on his tongue, and you hated how good it sounded in his mouth. Finally, he sat up and held out his hand to you. You flinched.

"I won't do anything to you." Marcus smiled gently.

"I'm not afraid of you." you replied. "Neither of you nor any of your soldiers."

When your hand clenched in his, he felt something strange in an instant. A strange warmth flowed through his skin and veins, it hit him straight to his heart. He wanted to relax his fingers and withdraw his hand, but he couldn't. A hot feeling filled him, clearing his mind and thoughts, and the headache... He realized then that he hadn't felt it for a few moments.

You must have felt the same, because your lips parted and your face brightened as if you had suddenly understood a huge secret.

"It’s you..."

"Me?"

You slid off the chair and knelt down in front of him, your eyes fixed on him as if he were the greatest treasure. "I've seen you before. In my dreams. I didn't understand it until the seeress in the temple told me..."

Marcus wanted to touch your face. Colossal fingers clumsily brushed the skin of your cheek, but you didn't seem to feel it, because you were so focused on him.

"She said a man would come and take me away by force. I thought it was a curse..."

"And it isn't? I took you by force, you fought like a lioness."

"But I didn't fight you, I fought your men. And every other man who tried to. That's where the rumors started, which were just nonsense. The gods made fun of us..."

The tip of his finger moved across your lips. They were soft and warm. The thought of tasting them was born in Marcus' head, but he fought it.

"Emperor Geta... That's where I'm taking you."

"Are you sure?"

He wasn't. Geta wouldn't be happy if he met your resistance and Marcus knew that this would quickly turn into a terrible tragedy. He just didn't know who would lose their life first because of this. Marcus closed his eyes for a moment, but behind his eyelids he could still see your face and your eyes fixed on him.

"You know perfectly well that I'm not for him... The gods didn't destined me for him. However, they used him to make our paths cross."

You let go of his hand and stood up. A gentle touch on his cheek, your breath on his lips. You were so close that the air around him burned.

"I had a dream." he whispered quietly. "I felt you in it, but I didn't see you. You were like a wild animal, but when you looked at me we both knew that we were no threat to each other. That we were looking for each other."

"That's how it was..."

He felt your lips on his. The gentle and tender touch of lips that tasted of sweet wine. Each kiss was a promise of eternity, endless love and sensations that only souls truly dedicated to each other could experience. 

Strong arms pulled you to his broad chest, and his lips became more violent, more greedy. But you weren't afraid, not of him. You already knew that Marcus would do everything so that you wouldn't appear before the Emperor. 

You were his, by the will of the gods.

☆☆☆☆

Thank you for your time.

[busket]

putting this post underwater not because I disagree with it but because I wanted to talk about my own comic and it felt self centered to go off in a reblog, and I couldn't fit it all into the tags lol

my comic Unicorn Hunted is about haelan being hunted and persecuted for being transgender. that's what it's about. BUT it's under the allegory of him being under a unicorn curse. he exists between two worlds, half man half unicorn, but he insists he is still human, he's still a man. some characters hate him because he's a man who killed a unicorn, (sorry but Gwendolyn is meant to represent a radfem) and some characters just fully see him as a unicorn and want to use him (misgendering and/or fetishizing). some characters are so intensely jealous of him that they lash out in violence. these are things I've experienced as a trans man. but I didn't want to make a fantasy story about a man experiencing run of the mill transphobia because I love magic and fantasy

I feel like for people to understand the hurt and the absurdity of transphobia, you might need to reframe it sometimes. readers might read about Gwen being enamored and worshipping of women to the point of violence against haelan and think "hell yeah girl power" but if i reframe it as her worshipping unicorns to the point of violence against haelan, readers instead correctly thought "oh my god, she's fucking crazy!"

I can more accurately portray how dysphoria feels to cis people when haelan is not dysphoric about his chest, his hips, but instead he has to worry about hiding a horn, a tail, long animal ears. these things make him stand out, they go against his very identity as a human, and he never knows who's able to see them and recognize what they mean.

and also I don't think fantasy stories need to have the same real world bigotries, because they're so arbitrary. there's no reason why a society needs to be transphobic, because it's all made up. I think transphobia does exist in unicorn hunted but to a lesser extent. haelan and sybil do hide the fact that they're both trans but its more because they just want to be recognized for who they are, not because they fear backlash. and transphobia is so easy to mark a villain. you make any character say "ugh, you're really a woman?!" and you instantly know that character is a jackass

ok thanks for listening to me yap about my comic hehe

[k4txlulzz]

i feel like if ppl learned to love characters without romanticizing mental problems or mental illness and acknowledge that caleb's actions are objectively concerning regardless of people's personal preferences for certain troupes, the conversation around caleb would be a lot healthier

i CANNOT hate him and i understand him, its not his fault he is the way he is. but the people who think him acting so intimidatingly and extremely possessively towards mc is hot ? yall need to look into critical consumption of media and media literacy 😭 if this guy turns into the "hot mentally ill man from dark romance booktok hell" i am genuinely going to be so sad because it does nothing but spit disrespect at caleb's character himself as a mentally struggling man AND create alarming narratives

edit: this post is not meant to shame people for their preferences. i am simply tired of the idea of men intimidating and scaring women being romanticized/sexualized over and over in so many medias. there are many toxic Lis but caleb is different because he is genuinely INTIMIDATING and i dont feel like its okay for a woman to experience that from a man she is supposed to trust. i have seen multiple people joke about being scared by him and wanting another LI to "pick them up" and i ask : why should this be normalized at all ? im merely tired of female characters being put in situations where they are at a man's mercy while they give you the illusion of control to seemingly mock you. i like caleb a lot but this has to be said

[juvinadelgreko]

adding to this as a Late To The Party queer person who also just reread TRC:

i second everything in this post. it took me nearly 2 decades to realize i wasn’t into men. looking back on my life, i attribute this largely to the fact that i was way too busy being a Gifted Kid ™️ who also played elite sports and barely had time to eat, let alone consider my own identity.

those things were always true about me: i just didn’t see them for what they were until i actually had time for myself, got out into the world and had experiences that showed me those things.

i was into women the entire time. but until i actually met another queer woman, it never occurred to me that there was any explanation for what i felt beyond “this girl is my friend. that’s why i like her so much.”

i was never into men. but until i actually tried to kiss one and hated it it never occurred to me that there might’ve been an explanation for my lack of interest in them besides “i’m very busy playing elite junior sports and carrying a full ap course load.”

so it doesn’t at all surprise me that in the midst of working 3 jobs, dealing with abusive father, striking a bargain with a magical sentient forest, hunting for a dead welsh king, AND going to school, adam parrish didn’t exactly have a minute to consider that maybe he liked ronan’s attention for other reasons.

adam tells us straight up that he enjoys ronan’s crush because it makes him feel worthy of admiration—and he’d never felt admired that way before. that’s a far more plausible explanation than “i am also queer.” and while it probably does account for some of his feelings, adam Does Not Have The Time to look at it any closer. he’s literally being possessed while he tries to finish his senior year of high school!

then ronan kisses him, and he likes it???? what?? i think many queer people have this moment, where we can pinpoint the exact moment that we realized we’d been in denial the whole time, or just hadn’t been able to see the whole truth. because before an actual kiss, there were reasonably plausible heterosexual explanations for everything we’d felt prior. it’s not until something happens for which there is no heterosexual explanation that we start to go hm. perhaps i missing something.

this happened to alex in rwrb. he could easily explain away his obsession with henry by telling himself and everyone else that he hated henry because he was snobby and british and had been annoying to him one time. why would alex look any closer at this scenario? his mother, the POTUS, is fighting for re-election against a very conservative candidate. she doesn’t need her son to be queer. then henry kisses him, he likes it, and there is no heterosexual explanation for that.

and of course, as we said, with adam. he was able to explain away enjoying ronan’s crush, had no desire to examine his feelings any further because of Life ™️, and then suddenly he’s making out with ronan and he likes it and oh wait there’s no heterosexual explanation for this!

so yeah. it makes a lot of sense. queer people under a great deal of outside pressure usually take a minute to realize they’re queer. something has to happen to trip the wires. it’s kind of sad but very true. re-reading trc, i’m actually really impressed with how maggie wrote adam and ronan’s arc. it’s very much authentic to what a lot of us experience.

there’s a very clear contrast between queer people who grew up in pressure cookers and queer people who grew up affirmed and supported like ronan did. whether he ever came out to his parents or not, ronan was always told he was loved and powerful. so facing his own queerness would’ve been a much easier pill for him to swallow than adam. i imagine he saw declan start flirting with girls, thought “girls? really? ew. no.” and that was that. ronan was gay, there was nothing that could be done to change that, so fuck you if you didn’t like it. but when niall dies and he loses his support system and he has to figure out his powers on his own, dating promptly goes to the bottom of his priority list. that is, until adam. until he has the gangsey as a support system.

TL;DR, it’s very hard to live an authentic an authentic life if all your energy is going towards survival. no shit adam parrish is unknowable. he doesn’t have time to learn.

I’ve been musing on adam’s sexuality and I know some folks feel like he’s been bi the whole time but having just done a deep pynch-focused dive through the books, I actually think adam hadn’t realized that he was into ronan Like That until they kissed. like he obviously knew ronan was into him (and actually, knew ronan was gay since like, the beginning of trb probably), but he had sort of convinced himself that the reason he enjoyed it was vanity/attention. and right before and after the kiss we get the line “adam didn’t understand anything” which feels to me like he hadn’t even comprehended this was a thing he wanted until he was doing it.

and that’s actually a very common queer experience, especially for folks who are interested in multiple genders, especially when they’re young.

so adam, despite wanting to know everything and being the perceptive one, has these increasingly big moments of “I feel like I’m missing some data here” but the data he needed was the actual experience of kissing ronan/making the conscious decision to kiss ronan again and THEN he has his eureka moment. And he can look back at the moments where he found his Latin teacher hot, or when he put a picture of an attractive man in his glove box and realize he was bi the whole time.

[verm1c1de]

ok hiiii wander over yonder fans i have a post for you

Why I Really Like a Transfem Lord Hater Reading:

((in no particular order))

#1: Self Imposed Gender Roles/Suffering from Masculinity

Hater, of all the main characters, is the one Most obsessed with strict gender roles. Girls have to like this, boys have to be like that, yada yada. This is the opposite of Wander, the happiest character in the series, who doesn't give a fuck. Hater suffers from her own self-imposed role. She has to be "cool." She can't do "girly" things like being nice or whatever- And god forbid she likes playing with dolls. All of these things make Hater Pretty Stressed out and Miserable. She isn't happy with these things she calls masculine. Pretty interesting how in The Bad Hatter she's the one who likes the unicorn and the flowers, "girl things," and in the final episode, she receives flowers, too.

#2: The Funk + The Breakfast

She's not feeling it anymore. Doing all of this. Being "evil" and "manly" and "cool." There's a disconnect, and she holes herself up in her bedroom and wraps up in a blanket. That period of funk, that misery... It's the dissociative miasma of dysphoria. To Me. And the fact that Hater is almost always wearing a cloak that covers herself up, despite supposedly being proud of her "rockin bod?" Miserable in the morning especially in the shower? Yeah.... Plus, opening Space Tumblr first thing in the morning is transgender behavior.

#3: That One Scene in The Enemies

Why did she do that. Nobody asked her to do that. She just took the opportunity when she could.

#4: Dominator

Dominator is everything Hater is but Better. Everything Hater Wishes she could be. And isn't it interesting that she also happens to be a woman? The coolest person Hater could imagine, the "Greater Hater," is a girl. Hater's obsession with her, it's not just a crush, it Screams Gender Envy. She likes Dominator so much because that's her Ideal Person. That's fucking crazy guys.

#5: I Fucking Love Women!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only does this even out the gender disparity with the main four, making it a nice even half n half, but I just like pathetic women. Like, I like Hater already, but isn't a childish egotistical loser incel Woman so much more interesting???? That's just my opinion, but it's a pretty good opinion.

feel free to add more points!!!! i just want people to see my vision and also maybe incorporate it into their worldview

[genderqueerdykes]

I was talking to my gf's roommate abt the history of girlfag and started off with "there are so many terms for lesbians lol- lesboy, boydyke, fagdyke, guydyke, those are all mainly for lesbians" as she went "men have enough" 😐 at the end, when I'm saying how it has never been a term used by 100% cis people, but rather genderqueer and non transitioning (a lot believing they're too old or hrt wouldn't work enough) transmascs she says something about how we don't need a term for everything (even tho I know she uses it for herself) n I just. Hnnnn

thanks for taking the time to stop by, i appreciate it! i enjoy your blog as well so it was cool to see you pop up in my askbox :D

"men have enough" ??? what the hell. that is such a selfish, entitled way of looking at this. does this person seriously think that a man using the same label as a woman is taking something away from them. are men who have traditionally "feminine/womens'" hobbies and interests taking things away from women? are men who also identify as human taking things away from women? are men breathing taking away oxygen from women?

she says something about how we don't need a term for everything

ah, the ole shifting the goalposts. i know it well. people who think this way get backed into corners easily and have to figure out a way to make themselves sound right without actually having anything else to add, so they default to some tired old frustrated crap like this. oh if we don't need a term for everything then, you'd be okay if the "lesbian" label went away? you'd be okay with people deciding "yeah we don't need a label for this anymore" and saying that people need to stop calling themselves lesbians because we "don't need a label for everything?"

it's very clear all of that was about shutting you up and absolutely none of it was about queer rights, feminism or being progressive. that's so sad. people see diversity and get SO scared. people see diversity in their own community and jump to saying it's a "threat". like sure by all means, if you think we don't need to have labels for "everything," feel free to stop calling yourself a lesbian at any point! it sounds pretty superfluous by your logic! you know, "Stone Butch" and "High Femme" seem pretty superfluous too, better get rid of those while we're at it, since we don't need a term for "everything," and we might as well throw "femme" and "butch" by themselves right in the trash too! we "don't need a term for everything" after all! (all of this is referring to them, not you)

anyways, take care, i'm sorry you had to deal with this. people love to just shift the goalposts whenever it suits them. it's really obvious once you start spotting the behavior. if you need any help or anything else feel free to reach out! stay safe out there. queer men deserve better than this. fagdykes, lesboys, boydykes, guydykes, transmasc, ftm and trans man lesbians deserve so much better than this.

[stupidlittlespirit]

i've seen the "he'd never date a woman" thing with ford so much, which i think about a lot. like it's one thing to just headcanon him as gay but there are a lot of posts where internalized or blatant misogyny shine bright. one i saw straight up had multiple people going "he respects women too much to want to date/fuck them" like hello? do you realize what you are implying ab real women when you say that?

i'm not great at articulating my thoughts but i think it's especially prominent with ford because of his intelligence + unconventional demeanor. he's off-putting and a genius and didn't want to give up his work to settle down into a standard marriage with kids. women can't be weird or smart in the same way men can for example and all women want the typical white picket fence nuclear family american dream. therefore you are off your gourd if you think he'd ever want to be with a woman. so there’s that on top of the already rampant misogyny present in fandom spaces with shipping especially.

there's also the whole "gibe the oracle your phone number" / "i miss dimension 52" that could have some implications if you want but ig i can't blame people for forgetting jeselbraum because hirsch barely expands on her LOL. but basically it’s all up to interpretation and it really isn’t all that wild to think he could be attracted to women.

personally i just enjoy projecting my own sexuality onto him. “what gender are you attracted to?” don’t care. can i show you my isopod colonies. “how would you describe your sexual attraction?” uhhhhhhhhhhh (<- is probably demisexual)

So, I deleted my post because I felt like I was rehashing points I'd previously made a million times before, but I stand by it.

I want to address what you said and then I want to kind of go on a tangent (shocker, I know) about the interpretation of GF at large because I've been engaging with a lot of Lynch stuff recently, who we know was by and large the most influential person for Hirsch, and one of the biggest things around Lynch's work is the beauty of subjectiveness. I think Hirsch carries that legacy with him at the heart of his work.

So yeah, the comments about Ford 'respecting women too much' is insane. If anyone thinks that they are probably the kind of person who doesn't respect a woman anyway. If your hands sully the one you touch, perhaps your hands were not so clean to begin with, yknow? That's the vibe I always get with those kinds of comments.

Society approaches women so differently from men in this regard, as you said. Where a man is 'quirky' and 'cool', a woman is 'annoying' or 'trying too hard'. She suffers for her differences where as he profits for them. She can only commit the crime of being Cringe, and in my experience, people will forgive many things but never that.

There is certainly merit in the way in which a lot of people recognise that Ford is partial to things that are 'weird' or that are shunned by society, especially because of his hands, and that plays well into Queer culture. It's a feeling most of us (if not all of us) experience. So I can see where there connection comes and it's totally cool to hold that belief. Queer is BIG umbrella and I think he falls under it myself, what with the ace/aro stuff. We're given much more canon evidence of him being ace/aro, in fact, than of anything else. I maintain personally that canon Ford is asexual and aromantic, and that romance doesn't factor into his life in the way it does for 'normal' people. It's why when Bill mentions that quiz Ford does in his dreams in TBoB it makes me think of my own struggles with asexuality: "I'm not normal, everyone else is feeling this type of way and I'm feeling that type of way. There's something wrong with me. I'm weird. I need answers." It feels very much like Ford is attempting to understand that side of himself and is very afraid of the answer.

The Oracle stuff makes me so sad it was never expanded on more. I really love Jheselbraum and it felt like she was one of the first people that Ford met who was of higher intelligence than him, and who actually did just want to help. She extended an extreme kindness to him. Whether it was more than that doesn't even really matter. There was still a relationship formed there that can't be discounted. But again, it can be interpreted in lots of different ways.

This is the other thing. There's nothing wrong with projecting yourself onto your favourite character. We all do it. I do it. It's fun and it brings comfort. And that's okay! But that means we can all do it. So it's unfair for someone else to say "you're wrong for thinking XYZ about Ford" because we're all just kids in a sandbox playing house with these characters. You can't gatekeep someone else's enjoyment.

You can believe Ford is gay. You can believe Ford is ace. You can believe Ford is whatever you want him to be, but what you can't do is then rescind that privilege from someone else just because you don't like it or because it makes you feel better about yourself to punch down on someone else. People are entitled to their own interpretations of media, even if they make you feel uncomfortable or whatever.

Which brings us onto Lynch. Now, I'm not a huge surrealist fan, I like Lynch most for the person that he was (ugh I'm still so sad to type that). One of the biggest things about him was that he valued the intelligence of his audience and respected them enough to allow them the space to interpret his works as they saw fit. He never wanted to define his films in a way that would prevent another person from taking their own meaning from it. There was no definition, only feeling.

There's a clip of him being asked to expand on his meaning for one of his films, I forget which one, and he just replies "no". It's so fucking good because that, to me, is art. It is fundamentally subjective in its existence and the way I view something is not going to be the way someone else does, so why take that interpretation away from one to give to another just for their approval? We may align in thoughts but the way we process the media is going to be entirely different. Why? Because we're different people. Our experiences throughout our lives have informed the way we interact with things.

I think Alex Hirsch enjoys other people making their own interpretations of his work in a similar way. Just as Lynch does. Hirsch wants you, the audience, to derive personal meaning. He doesn't need (or even want) to tell you how to engage with the themes because why would he? It would only make him work harder to get a simpler point across and it would risk alienating parts of his audience. He wants the audience to connect and to find their own familiarities, and he respects his audience enough to give them the space to let them do that. He's often evasive when he's asked to tie things down firmly. To be honest, I think he should be braver in just saying "no, I don't want to answer that" sometimes. You can tell he wants to but he also wants to engage with people so it can be hard.

People are very desperate to want to have answers in black and white. They need things to be canon in order to feel vindicated, when in actual fact, an idea is just as legitimate when it comes to fiction. Fiction IS an idea. It isn't tangible and therefore cannot be quantified, so it can be interpreted however.

Anyway, by forcing your interpretation of the work onto others (ie. 'Ford would never', 'Stan would never' etc), I think you fundamentally misunderstand what the purpose of the work is. You're taking away the light of other people because you're scared yours doesn't shine bright enough. And you're scared because other people previously took your light away, but all you're doing is repeating the cycle and taking away from the rest of us.

Your ideas can coexist with others. No one is right and in that, everyone is right. Does that make sense? Idk.

I voice my opinions of disliking certain ways the fandom engages with elements of the show, but I don't think they have less right to have those ideas than I do to have my own. I interpret Bill as one way and someone else will interpret him another. That's okay. You're allowed to do that. But I don't think you're allowed to be actively vicious to others over it.

Engage with honesty and recognise that other people enjoys things in different ways, and it's okay not to control the narrative of that sometimes.

I have my criticisms of Hirsch but I also have a lot of love for the guy, and one of the biggest things I respect about him is him allowing us to draw our own beliefs. Do I think he could stand to do some things better? Yes. But that doesn't mean I don't love what I already have from his work.

I'm not sure if this makes sense, I'm having a bit of a Day, but I hope it at least reads well enough to convey my meaning.

[velvetvexations]

Was going through the Playdoughs tag just to see what was up with the Homestuck vs Dykes To Watch Out For stuff and unfortunately saw that she apparently was also trying to paint Leslie Feinberg as a TERF and ngl might be a bit conspiracy brained but between that and the Bechdel stuff I'm wondering if she's just trying to shit on every single notable butch person out of a hatred for transmascs and "TMEs". Like no queer person has ever been perfect, but it's getting sus that transradfems never bring up any of the problems with Whipping Girl and decry anyone who does a transmisognist but they're allowed to shit all over Stone Butch Blues and Dykes To Watch Out For because the authors both have had some questionable takes.

It also especially pisses me the fuck off because Feinburg literally stopped medically transitioning to avoid the separation from the lesbian community(and expirience a bunch of butches say they shared on a post I found from r/ButchLesbians. Legit saw PD claiming the women in the book only exist to prop up tmascs and take care of their emotions which...idk in the context of that passage I legit can't help but feel like she genuinely thinks the isolation that came with transition was just and deserved. PD also compares Feinburg to a cis man writing misogynistic crap about cis women and truly, shut the fuck up. It's possible for anyone to be misogynistic, but Stone Butch Blues very clearly shows not only how much Feinburg valued the women around hir even as they abandoned hir for trying to become who ze wanted to be, but also how much violence and hatred butches and tmascs face, and honestly I think the latter might be her real problem with it. Can't let queer books about tmascs and butches exist, people might realize queer masculinity is actually NOT celebrated by cishet society! And ofc course asking any queer woman to stand in solidary with her butch community members is placing men's emotions over women's and implying women only exist to support and care for men. It would almost be funny if it wasn't so goddamn transphobic and cruel.

Anyway yeah, sorry to vent, that just bothered me so fucking much. I think it's perfectly fine to point out issues with well-known queer authors and activists but when you are specifically attacking masc queer people I start to get suspicious that combating transmisogny might not really be what's driving this. And again, it's awful that anyone could read that book(or just like Feinburg's wiki page) and come away with the belief that society and certain queer spaces never punish queer masculinity. It breaks my butch heart to see all of my fellow butches never making their body a home because they'd rather live a dysphoric life than end up alone with no community. I'd love for any transradfem to read those testimonies and tell me tmascs and butches aren't targeted for their masculinity, I dare them.

some trans women desperately need trans men to be cis men because cis men violently oppressing us isn't enough and they need a direct 1:1 equivalent to the relationship cis women have with cis men to feel validated

[melrosing]

about what you wrote. i hate tywin/littlefinger/joffrey. tywin is one of my least favorite characters because not only he is evil but also he is dishonest. but even tywin has goodness in him. he seems to be really in love with his wife. cersei has nothing good in her for me. there are evil and incompetent male characters george wrote, but there are also evil and competent male characters he wrote. the thing is cersei is the only female villain in the series (i can think of). and george wrote her as both sociopathic and incompetent. and that's my issue. it seems like in george's mind evil woman are inherently evil and can't be admirable and smart. maybe my assumptions are wrong.

if you think Tywin Lannister has more goodness in him than Cersei i don't even know what to tell you lmao. for one thing, love is not redemptive, and it does not equate to goodness. for another, we have no real idea what Tywin's relationship w Joanna was really like, but in any case, why would we give it more weight than Cersei's love for Joffrey?? you can twist yourself into a pretzel arguing one was more pure or honest than the other but you wouldn't have any real evidence with which to make your case.

and yes, Cersei is the major female villain in the series, but I don't agree that she's the only one. Melisandre surely qualifies in some sense, and she's been given a POV as of the last book. she's done horrible shit but you come to understand her reasoning, and she's written empathetically. there's also the Green Grace, who is certainly smart and I'm pretty sure about to be unmasked as ADWD's true villain. and there's Asha, who not many people would consider a villain, but she doesn't exactly begin ACOK on the side of the Starks. and that still leaves out interesting characters like Lysa and Barbrey, whether they meet your standards or no.

there are certainly more male villains - not exactly surprising given this is set in a hyper-patriarchal society and they're going to be the ones with more power to act as such. but to say there no other female villains, or that they're all incompetent, is not true to the books.

and on this:

it seems like in george's mind evil woman are inherently evil and can't be admirable and smart.

this argument just feels all over the place to me lol. based on Cersei alone, who is one (1) of our female villains, you think that GRRM is only capable of writing inherently evil women - even though it's plain from Cersei's story that she's very much a case of combined nature and nurture. and then how many of the male villains are admirable like?? for all that Theon is sympathetic, is he admirable? is Littlefinger? are Roose/Tywin/Ramsay etc etc? I find it so frustrating that female characters are expected to be everything at once where male characters can be literally whatever and ppl will call them complex. who cares if Cersei is 'admirable' or not lol she's a villain why is that any of your priorities

[balrogballs]

Fun stuff from Dr. Balls — an essay collection published on the Silmarillion Writers Guild across the upcoming year that intertwines fanfiction and nonfiction in the pursuit of Celebrían + most women in the legendarium turn up at some point ✨

Head over here or click ‘Read More’ below for a brief introduction to and overview of the essays in the collection, which can all be read independently. Fans of Crablor and Mr. Balls, you will enjoy Chapter 5 & 6, which should be out in the summer.

—————

“But there is also something deeply strategic in the act of spectacle. To make a ‘lost woman’ like Celebrían into a vast, operatic, hyper-visible character is to place her where she cannot be ignored… no longer dependent on the fragile benevolence of the archive. She becomes impossible to overlook. Across this collection, Celebrían will be written, rewritten, and repeated, until her absence is not only rectified but reversed — until she looms larger than the moment of violence that defines her. To put it bluntly, she takes her story back, and does whatever the hell she wants with it.”

The introductory essay, ‘Dazzling Despair: Life, Death and a Spectacularly Lost Woman’ considers the radical potential of performing one’s own ‘death’. On the fictional front: Celebrían’s search for the Elessar transforms loss into an act of deliberately poetic spectacle.

Read ‘Dazzling Despair’ here.

Would honestly love to hear what you think of this so far — feel free to comment here or DM me as well. I really want to make sure my tone isn’t too jargon-y and that it flows well: combining fanfiction and nonfiction is something I haven’t done before.

Introduction and Overview

An Elopement with Life is a 9-part essay collection that intertwines literary fanfiction with the nonfiction essay form, exploring the idea of a Celebrían who stays in Middle Earth.

The fictional narrative follows a year in the life of Celebrían who, across conversations with various 'lost women' of the legendarium, makes the deliberate choice to not-sail to Valinor. The essays use Celebrían and “courtesan laments” as a general framework but traverse a wider thematic landscape, engaging with historiography, investigative environmental journalism, and critical queer/disability theory to unpack how mythic and literary narratives shape our understanding of loss, resilience, and reclamation.

The introductory essay Dazzling Despair considers the radical potential of performing one’s own ‘death’, as Celebrían’s search for the Elessar transforms loss into an act of deliberately poetic spectacle. The Art of Dying Twice deconstructs Lúthien’s legendary defiance, revealing how even the most celebrated figures of resistance may be vexing in their contradictions. Sea-cure is an intertextual meditation on the sea’s ambivalence—both vessel of liberation and instrument of dispossession—as Elrond attempts to communicate with the Valar across an unfathomable divide. The Poster Child examines the distortions of historical memory, positioning Celebrían as an uneasy object of mythmaking who must navigate her own commodification into a cautionary tale, paralleling a “poster child” in narratives of disability.

The collection then shifts toward a mode of speculative investigative journalism with The Crab-Eaters and The Crab-Saviours, in which Celebrían, Arwen, and the elusive Fëanorian wives cross paths with an eccentric cryptid who runs a farm of extinct-yet-not-extinct shellfish, mirroring the author and their partner’s real-world pursuit of brutalised waterfowl in the United Kingdom. Does Your Mother Know? takes on the ethics of retribution, as Celebrían and Elrond are at odds after she demands to see her sons' orc hunt, raising fraught questions about complicity, cycles of violence, and the power of bearing witness.

The collection concludes with the two-part essay The Bravest Girl in Arda, where Celebrían, alongside her father Celeborn, constructs a living reconstruction of Taur-im-Duinath, a sunken forest in Beleriand. This final couplet articulates restoration as a quiet, persistent act: the renewal of the self through reconnection with the nonhuman world, the submerged histories that whisper beneath dominant narratives, and the “little revolutions” that exist under the weight of the great ones — resonating with Tolkien’s own attentiveness to the dignity of small acts and overlooked labours. Across the collection, An Elopement with Life engages with resilience as both concept and praxis, unfolding through a dialectic of rupture and repair, disappearance and re-emergence, myth and materiality, and the histories we choose—or refuse—to inherit.

Zara is an essayist and novelist who works broadly across queer world literatures and ecocriticism. She holds degrees from SOAS, St. Andrews and Oxford.

The work will update every 6-8 weeks, hosted exclusively on the SWG, and each essay in the collection can be read standalone.

Go to Collection.

[meirimerens]

Because you mentioned Daniil‘s mama, does she ever meet artemy? What does she think of him? Does she ever find out about him and daniil being together or does daniil even come out to her? <3

she's at the wedding❤️ not said in jest btw she is.

I've mentioned it a few times in my #dankovsky lore and/or #yeva nazarovna dankovskaya tags (latter one including images of yeva interacting with burakh. Need to remake them but they're here and real still) dankovsky has been out to his mother since he was 15 after he realized age 11. for a while he didn't say anything because at age 12 like who cares but later it became that he kinda needed to say something lest he gets asked over and over about a fiancée so he preferred to readjust his mother's priorities before it became annoying. she's taken it better than his father, for this stuff I'll send you to the tags mentioned above because rewriting that in full kinda tires me a bit so you can read it [here] or [here].

she loves her grandkids because she was all on his ass with "you can still adopt right 🥺" even as he hadn't gotten a companion in his entire life. she's particularly fond of murky because murky looks Just Like Him For Real and is sad that she dislikes bangles and jewelry because yeva had kept all her jewelry for a future wife of her son's, then when that became obvious that That'd Be A No Ma'am for a future adopted daughter of his.

But Before That she has to kinda Meet Burakh indeed. after coming back to the city after his Hell on Earth countryside trip, dankovsky starts visiting more often from a feeling of "damn [scratches head] like is kinda precious and I should hang out with my mom before she's gone" and it becomes more and more obvious to her he has someone because he's like. Brighter psychologically. Less like the annoying stuck-up he's been. Mentions needing to travel back to the steppe often with a fondness that's not Colleagues-Only Related. so she starts "so is there someone👀 there is someone riiiight👀" and eventually he admits it. she's so excited to meet the guy (his dad a bit less because while he had made peace with him being gay [cf lore tag] he didn't really make it with dankovsky Having A Companion). Eventually yeva manages to convince her son to convince burakh to visit. and he does. a bit awkward. she thinks her son has good taste. both parents are quite in awe at the guy their son managed to bag because they're quite a bit smaller than him. yeva thinks it's so fun because she can ask him to fetch things on the shelves but dankovsky senior A Bit Less until burakh asks about the beetles collection and they get to bond by senior Proudly Discussing his and his son's collection. she reads his palms and is like I See👀 A Long And Prosperous Marriage 👀 [they hadn't even discussed that before]. Eventually burakh invites the dankovskies to ToG where yeva, who's a rather modest orthodox christian woman, is Vaguely Struck by the herb brides [cf this thing 2021 art jumpscare] but she respects the tapestry of the cultures of the world so she eventually just goes "what strong and athletic women🙏 I used to dance when I was younger um NOT LIKE THIS PERSONALLY but I did. But my knee… you know" And indeed eventually they are at the wedding. Love wins.

[roamertv]

I just love that whomever is in front of Karlie (taking the photo) is wearing a friendship bracelet (possibly with a rainbow) with a 😊 on it 😂

[inkskinned]

okay is she being actually immature or is it just a woman over 30 expressing a human experience you find to be immature.

like yeah. at certain ages... let shit go. im not defending the real immature shit. im not defending the karen you're picturing. i worked in retail i hate those people too. (once somebody got mad at me because she didn't like how our winter window decor was a snowman smoking a pipe. i wish i was joking).

but men at 57 will write books about how 17 year old girls are soooo sexy. they will invent worlds where women have to be naked for "armor reasons." they will write songs that treat women as objects. people rush to defend them. meanwhile a woman at 35 will be like "heartbreak is hard, actually" or "i feel betrayed by a friend" or "i am struggling with something emotionally." immediately people will say stuff like this woman is 35 by the way. by the way this woman is SO OLD to be experiencing this. BY THE WAY.

im 31, almost 32. the other day a poet was blasted online because at her "big age", she had written a poem about feeling unloved. top comment was "this woman is 29 by the way." this woman is too old to still be useful, by the way. she has to behave better . maybe if she was a good wife and mother she could stop existing loudly, and the story could continue on without her. this woman has served her purpose, by the way. she's so cringe, by the way. at 29 - so old! - she still hasn't figured out that her existence should be one of shame.

[rosefires20]

My brainrot today is thinking about just how incredible for a character Eowyn is.

Genuinely. The series might not have many female characters but the ones we do get go so fucking hard.

To me, Eowyn is literally the definition of defining being a woman for oneself. She rejects the roles she is given despite acknlowdging the importance and its mostly because she knows part of the reason is that she is a woman.

The reason why she is obsessed with Aragorn isn't because she loves him but because she wants what he has. She wants the freedom and courage and bravery that Aragorn has at every turn. She literally has multiple conversations during the Two Towers about how what she fears most is a cage. All this girl wants is the freedom to be and not be forced into a role. The best thing is that she literally gets that.

The segment of Return of the King about Eowyn and Faramir is literally about her piecing together what she truly wants. She doesn't want Aragorn. She wants freedom and the ability to choose. Faramir does nothing but encourage that in her. Their love story is literally one of the healthiest love stories I've seen in a long time because at the heart of it, their love is a place to return home to for both parties. Both go off to lead and help their people for a considerable amount of time before returning to each other but that does not diminish their bond. Even Faramir, I believe, falls in love with her bravery and dedication to her loved ones. The reason she went to Pelenor Fields and Gondor with the troops of Rohan was because she had things she wanted to fight for. She wanted to fight for herself, her people, and her loved ones. She is the one who protects Theoden after he is killed so that his body gets the treatment it deserves. She encourages Merry and helps him go to the battle because she sees her struggle in Merry. They feel helpless standing around when there are things to be doing.

Let's also not forget the fact that she was around Grima Wormtounge just as much as the King was. She was exposed to the same poison and awful words that eroded the king. It's even implied that her care for him is part of the reason why Theoden was savable when Gandalf showed up. She had the same power and bravery as everyone else even if she didn't see it in herself.

Then at the end of the day, SHE decides where she wants to go and what path she wants to walk. She walked the path of a warrior. The path of a princess/ruler. The path of a caretaker. But in the end she decides which elements truly mean something to her outside of gender definitions. That is what makes her character so incredible to me. In this she literally kills one of the biggest enemies in that battle with such a badass line.

[inbeautifulruins]

𝐇𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐡𝐞'𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐝, but he never thought he'd lose Shay. But life happens, and it happens unfairly a lot of the time. This was no different - and having Michelle grow up without her mom? Only stories and memories from those in the firehouse was not what he imagined. But he does what he can with what he has. Maintain life as a father, a firefighter, and trying to get back into the swing of dating all the same.

❝ Better a bookstore than anything else.❞ he says with a soft smile, though he takes notice of her stance and what she says. He listens, then looks back to Michelle, then back to the woman who brought her back. ❝ Yeah, yeah...❞ he rubs the back of his head. ❝ You may be right...❞ there is a frown that finds itself on his lips as he takes in a slow, steady breath. He loves this kid -- he never thought he'd have one. So when Shay suggested that they do when she wanted a baby he wasn't going to say no to his best friend. The dynamic was set and ready to go. He thought it was all set in stone...

He sees so much of Shay in her, in those eyes and the way she laughs, even the way she can go from friendly to whitty at the drop of a dime. Kelly also knows the fact that there is tension with her and the women he dates especially recently.

He assumes it's nothing more than just her thinking someone is taking her away from her dad but ...

❝ Honestly ... no one gets you prepared for fatherhood, let alone doing it by yourself. I doubt you have any books in that store of yours how to prepare a dad for the teenage years, do you ? ❞

𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐆𝐀𝐙𝐄 lingers on the man, her lips press together, a faint curve softening their line, but she says nothing yet. He speaks of his daughter like she’s a puzzle he can’t quite solve, and it makes her chest tighten. She’s been in her book store long enough to see it▬▬a child who craves understanding, a parent who wants to do right but doesn’t always know how to reach them. She tilts her head slightly, letting her lips curve into a softer smile. ❝ Eh bien, Monsieur Severide, ❞ she begins, her tone gentle, almost teasing to lighten the mood, ❝ if she was so adventurous to wander, then at least she 'ad the good sense to find 'erself a bookshop, non ? ❞ She takes a small step closer, her hands brushing along her sides before coming together in front of her, fingers lacing loosely. ❝ But, ❞ she continues, her gaze flicking briefly to the girl before returning to Kelly, ❝ sometimes there ees more to eet than we can see. Not everyone feels 'eard, even when they are loved. ❞

Her words carry a nudge toward something unspoken, their meaning veiled just enough to invite reflection without pressing too far. What his daughter had confided to her about the dynamics at home, especially the tension with this Stella, isn’t hers to share. She knows better than to speak for another, especially a child navigating her place in a complicated family.