#WHEN MEN WERE KIND

[londonadayatatime]

There Was A Time, November 2016

I'm queuing this now, hoping that by the time this posts I will be a lot more optimistic. I hope to be more hopeful and more optimistic. I'm posting these so I can lift my own spirits, but I hope it does to you too.

[vaguely-concerned]

are. are you telling me that if the romanced mage warden dies and alistair is king, he deadass stares greagoir down over her dead body and grants the circle of ferelden its autonomy after ordering it rebuilt somewhere safer. first you have to deliberately leave him behind so he won't die for you and then he does that for you once you're gone, even when you're broken up??? absolute and literal king behaviour of the highest order????? the actions speak louder than words of it all??????? I think I hauve covid

[moeitsu]

Every time someone in this fandom romanticizes Abigail's prostitution, an angel looses its wings.

I can’t believe this still needs to be said, but let’s clear something up: Abigail Roberts was not “saved” by the Van der Linde gang out of the goodness of their hearts. She was a 17-year-old working girl. Yes, a prostitute—brought into the gang by Uncle because of her profession, not because they wanted to “help an orphan girl.” Pretending otherwise is not just wrong, it’s an insult to her character and completely misrepresents the darker themes of the game.

“They wouldn’t take advantage of a 17-year-old girl!” Really? These are men who rob, kill, and lie without hesitation. They absolutely would and did take advantage of her. Dutch was not some saintly father figure; he was an opportunist who saw value in people only as long as they served his needs. The gang didn’t “rescue” Abigail, they exploited her vulnerabilities and used her just like they used everyone else.

Even within the game, there’s a camp interaction where Susan Grimshaw tells Abigail she should return to prostitution to bring in more money for the gang. If that doesn’t make it clear how the gang viewed her role, I don’t know what will.

Abigail’s story isn’t some fairy tale about a group of noble outlaws saving an orphan. It’s about survival in a brutal, unforgiving world. She didn’t have a choice in staying with the gang. This idea that the gang was Robin Hood-like and only “stole from the rich to give to the poor” doesn’t erase the fact that they were still criminals who exploited people whenever they could, including Abigail.

The game wants you to sit with the uncomfortable truths of these characters. It shows you the dark realities of their actions and the systemic issues of the time. Romanticizing Abigail’s situation or painting the gang as her saviors completely undermines that. It’s not just naïve...it’s flat-out wrong.

This kind of take isn’t just ignorant; it’s borderline insulting to anyone who’s been in a similar situation. Abigail’s story is powerful because it’s not pretty. She was used, exploited, and forced to live a life she didn’t choose—but she fought tooth and nail to survive and make a better life for Jack. That’s what makes her compelling, not some sugar-coated fantasy about her being “rescued.”

Take off the rose-colored glasses and actually think critically about what the game is showing you. Abigail’s resilience is what makes her an incredible character—not some fake narrative about Dutch and the gang being her saviors. They weren’t.

It’s fine to love the characters, but stop twisting their stories to fit some idealized version of the gang. They’re criminals. Abigail was exploited by them. That’s the truth, and nothing about it is going to be pretty.

Abigail deserves way more respect than this.

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

obviously I'm all for complementarianism and Biblical male headship and gleaning wisdom from history, but Alisa Childers was so correct when she said some on the Christian right are trying to bring back a type of patriarchy that never existed

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

The older I get the more I realise there is just nothing to Jean and Logan as a couple, he's just the cool bad boy alternative to her straight laced boyfriend, and no writer has ever bothered to develop them beyond that. Logan really has more of a dynamic with Scott than he ever had with Jean. When written well, Scott and Jean feel like genuine partners with neither character overshadowing the other, but when she's paired with Logan, Jean seems to just become the love interest or worse a prize for Logan to win for being a good person, the relationship always reduces her.

[her-soliloquies]

If someone else comes to me complaining that Vander and Silco are brothers and CANNOT be shipped, I might snap.

[buried-in-stardust]

I swiped across an SVSSS edit that went viral and just had to share some of the comments under it lmao:

*Mo Dao = MDZS, Tian Guan = TGCF, Zha Fan = SVSSS

*yuandan (原耽) refers to original danmei, danmei being BL (boy's love)

(The novel names MDZS and SVSSS also sound very much like stereotypical novels aimed at men)

[eng by me]

[justaz]

semi-dark king merlin au, someone from ealdor tells king cenred about merlin and he is captured and held as a slave in essetir. since merlin despises captivity and servitude, he’d rather be dead and free than alive and in chains so he acts out and pisses people (especially the king) off so they’ll think him too much trouble and kill him. at first they stick to beatings until merlin manages to get his chains around a few necks and now has a body count so they kill him…..only he wakes back up a few hours later and king cenred is Intrigued and keeps him close. merlin keeps acting out but no matter how many times they kill him, he won’t stay dead. merlin has this moment after waking up perfectly fine after his twenty seventh death where he is hopeless and believes there to be no escape, not even thru death. a few other sorcerers in chains come and help him clean up and give him a lil peptalk, realizing him to be emrys, and then they revolt and take over the kingdom and crown merlin as king and now uther is like “wtf” bc his neighboring kingdom who was kinda sorta on his wavelength about sorcery, though uther did not approve of keeping them alive, is now a kingdom ruled by magic. he goes to war with them but with magic running free and fucking emrys on the throne, they don’t make a lot of headway. anyways merthur meet on the battlefield, enemies to lovers, you get it

[beaft]

anyway i'm always fascinated by the people who think that trans men transition purely to escape misogyny and gain social capital. idk how it is for other people, but since i transitioned i have not only experienced more misogyny than i ever did before but also lost access to the public spaces and support systems that might have helped me deal with it

[eelclaw]

stupid fucking bastard. i am not coping with the leaks

[xxplastic-cubexx]

it doesnt need to be said but its genuinely so funny how at-the-hip charles and erik are in krakoa like they really had the green light- the OBLIGATION- to be as obnoxiously close to each other as possible and abused that right to the fullest extent

[xfactor7aurora]

Fuck nyx straight up I've never been so viscerally upset by a book in a very long time

Art dump of julians because I need to calm down

And before you ask YES I am a freak and the biggest hater alive

When Laura and Julian kiss again don't come looking for me I'll be dead

[brofightiscancelled]

okay ill bite why do u hate kaoru sakuraba sidem aside from the fact that they went from hokuto as a main blue to downgrade to kaoru. to make it less awkward that I’m asking abt sidem on ur osomatsu side blog, what sidem idols would u assign to each matsu ?

i think sideM should collab w osomatsu-san and put them all in Beit so they can all get JOBS!!!!!!

anyways i hate kaoru from idolmaster sideM. i need all my osomatsu-san side blog followers to know that i hate this man. "i need a lot of money fast to pursue an extremely niche medical research track, which is why i quit my stable and high paying job as a surgeon to become an idol while having no soft skills, physical strength or stamina, or interest in getting along with people" are you Stupid??

he's not even using his idol clout to spread awareness of the rare disease he's trying to cure (like SEM does) so it can secure funding, he sees it 100% as a job and refuses to have fun, he is actively unpleasant and uncooperative in every interaction with his coworkers because he's trying to "rise to the top". it seems like the only thing he has going for him are his looks and that he kind of liked to sing when he was a kid. why not become a model at that point when you have the personality of a wet tree trunk. or better yet why not STAY A FUCKING DOCTOR!!!!!

also, i don't like meganes, so write that down.

[uncanny-tranny]

You know, I feel like other trans people might get this, but it's honestly kind of refreshing when a cis person has, like, undeniable tboy/tgirl/whatever swag. It's like when you come across somebody who speaks the same language as you and you only find out when they start speaking it, too.

[grassbreads]

Man, genuinely there's little that excites me more than encountering queerness in fiction where I wasn't expecting it. I'm gonna be thinking about Kikuhiko/Yakumo from SGRS for so long.

Even setting aside the subtext of his feelings for Sukeroku, the narrative around his relationship to gender norms and his own expression is so fascinating. Guy who grows up steeped in rigid 40s gender roles and actively tries to enforce them, yet only truly feels like himself when he's acting on stage as a woman. Guy who says his life would have been better if he were born a woman and then refuses to elaborate.

[sunnist4rs]

I hate men because today after years of my brother mocking me whenever I talk about something I’m well informed on by saying I did no research I finally told him how much it upsets me. So straight after he brought up my male assault statistics and called them fake before leaving.