#and you can love something but think it’s deeply flawed and sometimes kinda sucks ass actually!!

[lambjock]

like if there’s one thing i cannot stand in fandom it’s the people who label themselves critics and use big fancy words and show off their wikipedia definitions and claim they’re so much smarter than everyone and YET! they clearly are inflating characters or scenes in their favor and use buzzwords like ‘racist’ ‘fetishizing rape’ ‘abusive’ and ‘homophobic’ to win their arguments … they will look canon in the eye, the good and the bad, and completely obliterate any nuance while claiming that they’re being Super Realistic actually! genuinely these people are just glorified haters who adorn the title of critics to try and pretend that they’re approaching media with a neutral, critical eye when they are, in fact, just bitching about everything ever. on god have some damn positivity once in a while! and GENUINELY stop spinning narratives that aren’t real to fuel your own biased world view when you already have valid shit to bitch and whine about. smh

girl i don’t like stolas as much as the next guy but some of you fans seriously need to shut tf up about how much you hate him …. some of you look SILLY with how much you accuse this fictional bird man of irl crimes 😭

[lukefonfabre]

kamen rider REVIEW!!!

i was gonna do this on twitter but twitter is dead now. anyway i decided when i finished ryuki i would review every kr i’ve watched so far so here it is. no spoilers (i think) but it is fucking long. 

build - i can’t believe it’s been 5 years since i watched build… i miss her so bad every day… but also build had a lot things that i couldn’t stand. however the yaoi was really fucking good. also build is pretty strong overall despite it all. we need that energy back for kamen rider so bad but all they do now is try to sell toys. i really like sento as a protagonist because he’s so funny and quirky but also not like the usual kr protagonist who is stupid. i mean he is still stupid but in a different way. banjou is more like the protagonist type but he is actually just sento’s boyfriend. love wins. my thing about build is that i didnt care about kazumi or gentoku or katsuragi or any of the other men (evolt can stay #sexy). so sometimes i was sitting there like oh my god. enough. also the way they nerfed sawa and misora pissed me off. but that final episode hit hard enough that i forgave all the shit the last 10 or so episodes put me through. which is true of a lot of kamen riders like if they hit that ending it’s like all is forgiven baby!!! but anyway i love build. i miss her. i love her. 

ooo - i got so obsessed with ooo that 5 years ago i was in a college english class and they asked me what my favorite tv show was and i said kamen rider ooo. right there in front of everyone. ms. kobayashi really got me with that one! everyone has already said this but the relationship between ankh and eiji is so interesting both on a yaoi level and a psychological level… the human won’t let himself want anything and the monster whose existence is all about wanting things. and they’re in love. wow! the whole ooo cast is great though and i think it’s so cute that the actors still interact 10+ years later. i love hina so much… i love gotou and date and satonaka. i miss them. i’m sorry that ooo 10th was like that but i will forgive them. i guess. i think ooo’s one weakness is that the monster of the week episodes were kinda boring. like bro i don’t care about this guy getting back into wrestling what about ankh’s existential crisis!!!! but it’s ok we all have our flaws. i love you ooo. 

ex-aid - i THINK i watched ex-aid after ooo but honestly i don’t remember? wild that i went from ooo to ex-aid actually. ex-aid is a deeply controversial work because it sucks so bad but it’s also really fucking funny. but also sometimes it really is unwatchable like i tried to watch a couple of the first few episodes with eri and i was like this is horrible i’m being tortured but then when i think about parad i get hysterical. the duality of ex-aid. I think a lot of ex-aid is not very good. and yet it has something… some kind of power that makes me tell people to watch it and then they’re like this sucks and i’m like yeah! (this has happened 2 times.) but i do like ex-aid despite the fact that it’s really loud and annoying and the camera angles are weird and the belt noises are insufferable. it’s funny. i think the idea of gamer doctors fighting to the death(?) is hilarious. it definitely impacted me that’s for sure. there’ll never be another one like it… despite takahashi doing multiple krs since then (mistake). ex-aid is the demon that haunts me.

w - i think i’ve actually forgotten a good chunk of what actually happened in w but it was good. it was solid. philip and shotaro and akiko found family baby!!! and w made me tolerate a cop so that’s something. i really have nothing else to say here. ok actually w totally fell apart when it killed off the sonozakis and brought in that weird-ass doctor and that random villain who showed up at the end but philip and shotaro carried it… for me. and akiko of course she was everything to me. also again the final episode made me forgive everything because it was like they’re reunited!!! (sobbing and screaming and crying) 

fourze - for a while i didn’t hype up fourze that much because of the american high school aesthetic, which is actually really funny but not exactly my taste. but gentaro truly is a wonderful good boy. he loves his friends PERIOD. also ryusei was really funny because everyone else was like some kind of american teen drama trope (the goth girl, the jock, the cheerleader, etc.) and then there was ryusei who was like two-faced bitch alert! i love that. also kengo and gentaro were in love so there was #yaoi. that one episode where kengo was mad bc ryusei and gentaro were getting along and he was so jealous i cried. i would give anything for another kr as good as fourze tbh. 

den-o - when i first started kamen rider i was like i’m not watching that old shit (pre-neo heisei) but then i was like ok i will give den-o a chance because it was written by ms. kobayashi… and it was good. it was really fucking good. like there’s not a lot of crazy shit it’s mostly just funny shenanigans with the imagins and ryoutarou’s hard knock life but you still feel emotional about it all… ms. kobayashi’s genius. her range. even though the plot makes absolutely no fucking sense i think it’s fine. it’s about the feelings. the bonds. and also trains. 

ryuki - so after not watching kamen rider for 4-5 years i started watching ryuki with lain because they put it on tokushoutsu. and wow was i not prepared for whatever that was! i don’t think there is a way to prepare yourself for ryuki actually. but i will say that ms. kobayashi once again impacted me with her talent. her ability to create so many weird and mentally ill men… i’m obsessed. also i love shinji so much he is just an silly little dogboy who is being forced to confront the trolley problem and also fight to the death. why did she do all that to him? also why did she give kitaoka a beautiful and perfect malewife? why did she make asakura so sexy? why did she make tojo like that? why can’t ren be nice to shinji just a little? i have a lot of questions and no answers. there was never a dull moment with ryuki bc there was always some shit going on. every single guy was fascinating except the ones that were meant to be annoying as hell. and the ensemble cast of yui and ore journal and aunt sanako… love them. they are all so funny and iconic. i wish i could say more but i would spoil it. ms. kobayashi’s wild ride. as you can see ryuki has left me incoherent. i will not recover from what ryuki did to me. gen urobuchi you will never be her. 

blade - i started watching blade while also watching ryuki to prevent myself from looking up spoilers but it didn’t work. anyway the point is i watched all of blade while also watching ryuki with lain. it was interesting to watch them at the same time bc toward the end blade started copying ryuki so hard with the battle royale shit it was like ok girl i guess! blade is interesting bc a lot of krs have a strong start and then go off the fucking rails but blade is the opposite. it starts off like what the fuck is all this now then at the very end it���s like ohhh it’s about how the love was there all along. bring out the yaoi. i think at least 30 episodes of blade are complete nonsense like you will be sitting there like um okay i guess? but it’s worth it for the shakespearean gay tragedy of kenzaki/hajime. i can’t say i really liked mutsuki or tachibana but toward the end i started finding them really funny like i couldn’t really be mad because tachibana is so pathetic you just have to chuckle and mutuski has teenager disease. although it was tiring watching them both be assholes to their beautiful girlfriends for so long like ok can we get back to how in love kenzaki is with hajime PLEASE. but oh well. we can’t have everything!

if you actually read all of this thank you. i have so much to say and yet my brain is very small… i will continue making my poor quality videos to show my respect however. kamen rider the world. 

[t4tpumpkinduo]

cquackbur<3

okay. listen to me. to an extent, i support and agree, and i can be understanding on the base appeal and i can go so far to meet halfway and say maybe i kind of like it sometimes maybe. but to act like the fandom's treatment of everyone involved hasn't deeply soured me on it would be 👍a lie.

first off, i feel like it's the klance of the dsmp lmao. ppl more obsessed w a sharply to the left idealized version of something rather than what's actually on screen, and it's kind of almost insulting to me, because there IS so much there to be enjoyed and explored and unpacked, and yet its squandered bcs people just can't stop being fucking insane and weird abt it and that leads well into my point abt ppl being insane and weird abt cee wilbur ill get to that right now actually.

ive mentioned before that i really really despise the woobification of wilbur in the fan base and that deffo doesn't change in tntduo spaces, if anything it's worse. i feel like people are very eager to scrub away his flaws and agency to make him very palatable, more easy to defend and consume instead of accepting the complexity that their guy kinda sucks bad and that's OKAY 👍 he's deeply hurt and complicated and painfully human, and he's understandable i fucking feel for the guy i really do, but he's also. he can also be very very selfish, and very cruel, and very quick to hurt others in a pursuit to feel good about himself and only himself and it isn't. okay. and he does this a lot w quackity.

wilbur isn't nice to q. he doesn't seem to particularly respect him, not really see him as an "equal" and ESPECIALLY not originally, and while he does come around a bit more, he still puts q on a weird pedestal that q bristles at more than people like to think. and in that tntduo haze, along w that specific brand of wilbur soot apologism, people brush right past those kinda flaws and just. ugh.

one good example of this is the fanbase general consensus of "omggg look at nikis birthday party 😻 look at their romance!!" like wilbur didn't spend the latter half of that calling q worthless and only good to be looked at (something quackity explicitly goes over and over hey fellas can you please not do that to me if i don't ask for it. please.) and the schlatt's bitch isms and then pulling a long ass PURPOSEFUL powerplay where q had to practically beg him to calm down and listen and not blow up manburg, if he could please just give him a chance to talk to schlatt, and niki in the bg of her own party clamoring for wilbur to look at Her abt it please talk to Her abt it and him flatly ignoring her to fuck around w q. but yeah true love♡♡ yeah im sure q walked away from that one incredibly smitten.

or another great example, the way all of hitting on 16 tends to be treated. this interesting conflicting story that shows quackity DOES like parts of wilburs back and forths, he clearly does care abt him, he is clearly having a degree of fun, and just like before wilbur can't stop taking it too far, and people ignoring all of it for ship fodder like thats not a good chunk of the story 😭 the scene where q went "sit down wilbur." and wilbur listening being treated as some fucking weird sexual thing, like it's not quackity coldly shutting down wilbur after he spent 10 minutes calling him stupid and ugly and worthless and then making fun of his scar, q making it a POINT to shut it down and that he's Done w this conversation and then calling wilbur pathetic for it, and wilbur explicitly scrambling over himself because he knew he crossed another line. but lmao yeah true love 👍i too love when my suitors purposely go out of their way to say the most vile shit to me imaginable and then get upset when i go cut that shit out.

even the later scene w tubbo is a great example, their physical fight, it being treated as some ohh it's it SEXY when q pushes wil into a wall like the man isn't genuinely fucking furious at tubbo being put in such danger again be SERIOUS and for WHY. so wilbur can kill his horse for no fucking reason because he "messed w him" BY DOING WHATTTT 😭😭😭 imagine his plan went through and he kills ossium and q is left standing there behind the glass oh real romantic id swoon. girl i would KILL HIM ‼️

and also uhh the fact a lot of tntduors are like plain racist to q can i say that. 👍 can i say that. sorry for being upset abt it.

i have more points too, the way karlnapity or pumpkinduo will be treated in regards to it n again those two have heavy flaws 😬!! im aware!!! i am aware and acknowledge, but to flanderize and criticize both those relationships, to the point of Making Shit Up to make tntduo look better in comparison and then replicating those v critiques within that space because you think it's hot. well be serious is the thing :heart_hands:

anyways, despite my critiques i do find it enjoyable on occasion, i do think it can be so interesting and snappy and (sorry) kismises like in the sense of a rivalry w GENUINE respect and acknowledgement, that push to be better that rush to improve and also gay sex and then maybe...gay love? 😳 but for that to be possible the respect has to become more undeniable it HAS to be both ways and consistent and i feel like more often that not it just isn't the case. and the fandom stuff i have mentioned. pissed me the fuck off forever.

7.5/10 ssorry sorry sso srry don't look at me

EDI: 0/10 FUCK CTNT WHAT WAS I ON

[lozenger8]

in awe of somethin' so flawed and free

Written for @scottappreciation week, Days 5, 6 and 7 (Heartbeats Rising, The True Alpha, Road Ahead). Scott/Stiles, G except for all the swearing. Title from Hozier because I am nothing if not predictable.

There’s an old adage in storytelling of ‘show, don’t tell’ which people frequently try to apply to real life, but Scott doesn’t know how to explain how deeply he’s fallen in love with Stiles without saying the words, because nothing being shown is new. He’s always wanted to be this close to Stiles, always put his life on the line, always imagined a future of them together. Scott has pulled himself apart for Stiles and sewn himself back together, and when he did that, he loved him, but not in the same way. Before, the love felt deep inside him, a tiny ball of warmth beneath his rib cage. That sensation is still there, but now it stretches all through him, radiating out beams of light that skitter over his skin.

Stiles has been back in Beacon Hills for four months and five days. Scott’s not truly back, yet, still commuting to graduate veterinary medicine classes at Davis. And every time they’re in the same room, Scott thinks this is the time he’s going to tell Stiles, this is when the truth will finally slip out. But somehow, some way, he always manages to contain himself.

The thing is, Scott loves the person he can be when Stiles is around, loves who Stiles brings out with a well-timed in-joke, fond smile, raised eyebrow, squeeze on the shoulder, handshake, hug. Only his mom knows him the same way Stiles does, and sometimes that’s a curse as well as a blessing, but there’s such relief in being known. However, he loves Stiles for Stiles too, for being funny and loyal and the parallelogram to his square. Scott’s in awe of how he’s grown, how they both have. Scott thinks, together, they’ve become something to be admired rather than feared, a force of calm and confidence.

Plus, Stiles is objectively hot, there’s no denying it. When Stiles sits close to him, Scott’s pulse races and his tongue goes dry, and he can’t stop visualizing how they’d look together, because damn.

“Are you okay?” Stiles asks him on one such occasion, because he does that now, he checks in. Sometimes it’s a little on the condescending side, but Scott still likes it, because for Stiles to be making the effort, he must really care about the answer.

Scott pauses for a moment, because how could he tell Stiles he’s fine, he’s good, he’d just be better pressed all up against Stiles, limb against limb, lips against lips?

Like that, probably, using those precise words, but they’re lodged in the back of his throat.

Better to show him, maybe, but what if Stiles doesn’t reciprocate these feelings? Sometimes, Scott thinks… maybe. But then that air of suggestion dissipates and he assumes it was imagined.

“Honestly? I’m kinda exhausted. Finishing off my degree is kicking my ass,” Scott says, because he has learned to both accept and mention his limitations more frequently and it’s been very useful, especially in moments like this when Stiles frowns in commiseration and rubs a comforting hand up and down his arm.

“Skip the pack dinner and movie night, go straight to bed?” Stiles asks, and Scott knows he doesn’t mean to make it sound like it’s something they’ll be doing in tandem, in the same bed, but his nervous system doesn’t.

“No,” Scott says. “I wanna see everyone and when we’re all together I feel energized.”

“I asked Alan about that and he said it’s purely psychosomatic. There’s no mythical True Alpha pack boost magic.”

“I don’t care. And the great thing about placebos is that you can know they’re bullshit and yet they still work.”

Stiles graces him with a wide smile, which he does a lot more now; half-knowing, half-skeptical, and he moves his hand from Scott’s upper arm to his shoulder. The touch lights up every single nerve on his right side and Scott’s spine shivers.

“Tell me if it gets to be too much.”

“I will,” Scott replies with a dramatic roll of his eyes. He might even be telling the truth.

*

Scott wasn’t lying about wanting to be with the pack. He can and will listen to hours of Liam and Mason debating the latest movie to watch, likes watching Corey and Hayden mocking them with love-filled expressions, and will sit behind Malia alongside Kira and braid her hair. Sometimes, Lydia video calls from Oxford. Stiles talks shop with Noah in the kitchen, ostensibly preparing food and usually bringing far less than Melissa and Scott bought into the living room. Scott will attempt to pick Alan’s brains in some covert study revision in the guise of casual conversation and never get away with it. When they play the movie, Stiles will sit so close to Scott he’s practically in his lap. And it’s good.

This night, he really is so tired his bones ache, so Scott says his goodnights halfway through the second movie and goes to shower before tucking himself up in bed. This ability to cast himself loose when he needs to is one of the many benefits of still living with his mom when he stays in Beacon Hills. He’s going to get his own place, eventually, when he makes a living wage and isn’t pulled pillar to post. Luckily, his mom seems in no hurry to push him out.

An hour later there’s a knock on his door. Scott awakes, flicks on his lamp, mumbles, “Come in.”

“Oh, you really went to sleep, shit, sorry,” Stiles says, looking poleaxed.

“I did tell you I was tired,” Scott says, sitting up against his headboard and tugging his sheet so it covers him to his waist. He’s wearing boxer briefs and only boxer briefs, and even though he’s been naked around Stiles before, these days doing so feels charged.

Stiles shrugs a shoulder. “That’s my go-to excuse when I need me-time.”

“I would not being doing that in a house full of supernatural and extraordinary humans,” Scott states, emphatically.

“I did not mean it like that, oh my God,” Stiles replies, giving a shocky little laugh. He hikes a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll go.”

“No, stay. I think that power nap did me a world of good.”

Scott gestures to the side of his bed and after he closes the door, Stiles settles there on top of the sheet, shoulder nudging into Scott’s. His sleeves are rolled up and Scott reminds himself to take slow, deep breaths to calm his rapturous excitement at the possibility of skin meeting skin.

“Are you sure it’s just you being tired?” Stiles asks. “There’s been something different about you lately I can’t pinpoint.”

Scott wants to tell Stiles the truth, but he also doesn’t want to put this barrier between them. He knows they won’t break, they’ve been through too much, but they’ll definitely change, in small yet significant ways. Stiles will stop touching him so much, and that little piece of familiarity, or home, will disappear.

“It’s nothing bad,” Scott says, because it’s not. He refuses to think of his feelings as something to discredit, diminish or degrade.

“All right,” Stiles says, though every tone is grudging.

“You trust me, right?”

“Always. With my life.”

“Then please trust me on this.”

Stiles nods, picks at the hem of his shirt. In the half-light of the room he’s all angles and shadows, and Scott’s heart rate picks up to astronomical heights. The heat he always feels where Stiles is concerned burns inferno hot. There’s tension between them, taut as one of Stiles’ yarn threads.

“You want a run-down of the rest of the movie you missed?” Stiles asks, taking that tension and cutting it, short and sharp.

“Yeah, go on, spoil me.”

For the next hour, they chat, until Scott’s woozy again and Stiles is fully slumped against his arm, head cradled on his shoulder. Scott’s the most comfortable he’s been in a long time, with the weight and heat of Stiles on him, the scent of him in his nose.

“I should let you sleep again, but I don’t wanna,” Stiles says, quiet. They turned Scott’s lamp off a while back so they’re shrouded in the dark.  

“Cruel. I thought you cared about my best interests?”

“I do, but I care about mine too and every part of me wants to be near to you.”

Scott tries, really hard, not to read too much into that, but it’s a pretty suggestive declaration. “Even your spleen?”

“You fuckin’ nerd. Especially my spleen. My lungs. My skin. My heart. All my organs, really. Nope. I just heard what that sounds like. No need to say it.”

In the interests of ‘show, don’t tell’, Scott reaches over and takes Stiles’ hand. He twines their fingers together, strokes his thumb in soft circles against Stiles’ delicate skin. It feels so right and he wonders why he never tried before.

In the interests of really needing and wanting to tell Stiles, he speaks too.

“I feel the same way. That’s the difference you’ve been noticing. I realized I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Scott can only see an impression of Stiles’ expression, but all fear he held evaporates as Stiles snuggles even closer to him and sighs. “Thank God. I thought I was the only one.”

They hold onto each other a little longer and then Stiles shifts position. Scott can feel him a few inches away, can just about see the whites of his eyes.

“Are you gonna kiss me?” Scott asks, hopeful.

“Actually, I was waiting for you to kiss me.”

When they kiss, it’s a mutual movement. Stiles’ kisses are all-encompassing. He has a way of mouthing at Scott’s bottom lip with a sweet suck. Scott’s whole body is set alight and he embraces it, embraces Stiles.

And this, this is new, this way of expressing the love he’s always felt. Scott smiles into their kisses and thinks about all the other ways he can show Stiles how thoroughly he has his heart.

[kelvintimeline]

Just wanted to tell you that I Love how you criticize media? You're honest but not joyless? Most of the time I see people talking media, analyzing shit and stuff, and no matter if what they say is actually valid, I end up thinking HOLY SHIT DO YOU ACTUALLY LIKE SOMETHING? ANYTHING? YOU RIDICULOUS SOUR ASS. But lmao you're not like that, so hugs, pal. Keep being cool, duderoo.

I’m definitely compassionate towards those who do seem joyless about it--I think it’s really easy to lose joy when you see media that constantly betrays you while people who you thought of as friends/allies celebrate it and in many ways I am privileged because the media does often uphold people like me.

Like, I’m still white. As a woman-aligned nb person, I still benefit from women’s rep in general. So, for example, things like Captain Marvel being white feminism or pro-military is something I can call out and even be irritated by but it’s never something that is going to genuinely and deeply affect me. I have the privilege to look at a lot of these flawed things and not be personally targeted about it. White feminism is for my benefit more often than not. I am not the target of the US Military’s violence.

So, please don’t give me credit for being able to swoop in, criticize something (often while still enjoying it), and then come out seeming unscathed and happy. A lot of the people who seem angry are (rightfully) angry from a place of hurt that I will likely will never be able to fully understand, even if I can sometimes (SOMETIMES!) be able to empathize a little bit by extrapolating from my own experiences being let down as a fat, bisexual, nb woman viewer. But I still couldn’t really ever get it, y’unno?

I am able to kinda have my witty fun yet biting take because when one show or song let’s me down, I still have a dozen others that I can get positivity from. Maybe they won’t be perfect but at least they won’t be wholly alienating. For a lot of people, that sort of “This sucks but at least I have [x]” does not exist from them.

I’m glad to be able to provide some entertainment that’s still holding up a critical lens but just please remember that if someone else is doing something you see as “just negative” or “nitpicking” or something, they’re likely doing it because it personally hurts them in a way you and I can’t understand. And sometimes people don’t have the time/energy/headspace to make their suffering something fun to consume. I like to do that because that’s how I #Cope but other people don’t have to and often aren’t able to do that. And that’s okay!

Sorry for the mini-rant on a compliment (which I do appreciate, lots!) but I just don’t want to shit on people’s less “positive” criticism because a. sometimes I’m 100% critical 0% funny, so I get it and b. I know my more positive spin on things comes from a real place of privilege.

[ghosts-n-whores]

I’m drunk again and I’m sick and I feel like I have to tell this story and get all of this out of me before I fucking explode. Also this is hella fucking long. I tried to shorten it but frankly, all of these were big, life-altering moments. If i’m going to spew out a lifetime worth of unspoken trauma, I’m gonna tell it all. Let me have my moment.

The first time my weight was ever brought up as an issue I was 5 years old. Me, my mother, and my sister were getting ready to take family portraits at the church we attended. My father was too drunk and too ashamed to be a part of it. Dads drinking and drug use was the worst kept secret in the fucking world but mom did her best to put on a good show. It obviously embarrassed her though and when she gets upset anyone can become a target. Mom had dressed us all in matching purple shirts. As she put my shirt on me she stopped, poked me hard in the stomach, and with a look of disgust told me to make sure I sucked that in before the flash went off. When we got home that night I stood in front of the mirror for the first time and recognized the flaws in my reflection.

My parents divorced soon after and my new stepfather arrived, bringing with him a new era of torment and criticism. It wasn’t all reserved for me though. Suddenly my sister, who until that point had been the golden child and light of my mother’s life, was coming under fire too. Everyday I listened to how fat her ass had gotten, that they couldn’t understand how a 14 year old had so much cellulite. She was so skinny, so perfect before. What had happened? (Spoiler: puberty had happened. She had developed hips and ass. And for reference here, my sister was a size 4. She was, and still is, a knockout.) I, too, faced scrutiny of course. My mother still insisted on dressing me every morning. And every morning of my life I listened to how much weight I needed to lose, how big I had gotten, how many rolls I had. Body shaming had become my new normal. The morning of school pictures mom put me in a floral print dress. I hated it. I sobbed hysterically. In retrospect, there was nothing wrong with the dress. It was pretty. The problem was that I hated me in the dress. The square neckline and spaghetti straps made my shoulders look broad, showed off how big my arms were. I actually found those pictures a few years ago. I immediately noticed how bloodshot and swollen my eyes were, how I had hunched my shoulders together in a subconscious effort to make myself smaller. My mom gushed about how pretty I was but all I could think was “that poor girl.”

I have a mole/birth mark/something on the inside of my labia majora. Mom discovered it when dressing me one morning and proceeded to pin me to the bed so she could look at it. Now, I understand as a mother you want to make sure there’s not some cancerous growth on your kid. But fully pinning them down while they scream and cry, because you’ve taught them their entire life that that is a private part and no one should ever touch it, seems a bit extreme to me. What I felt was by no means a sexual violation. But it was a violation of my privacy, my trust in my mother, my bodily autonomy. I realized I was viewed by all the parental figures in my life as a possession for them to do with what they wanted. Children didn’t have rights in my household.

The first time I ever stood up to my mother was also the first time I was ever called a bitch. I was 7, mom was telling me how fat I was again, and something in me just kinda snapped. I told her she wasn’t exactly skinny either to which she replied “Well, Savannah I’m 40 years old, it’s a little different.” I told her that meant she’d had 40 years to lose it then, huh? She told me I was a bitch and to dress myself from now on.

Things continued in much the same way for the next several years. My sister developed a drug habit, my father’s worsened, and my mom and stepdad became the bane of my existence. My sister’s boyfriend had introduced me to MTV and eyeliner. I was deeply enthralled with all things early 2000s punk rock. It was the first time in my life I connected to something. But I soon discovered that, to my mother, the only thing worse than having a fat daughter was having a goth daughter.

Now, this is something I still don’t understand. My parents were the generation that grew up in the satanic panic of the 80s. As an adult I discovered my stepdad, who was obsessed with Ozzy Osborne as a teenager, found himself part of a small town scandal involving satanic rituals when he was in high school. The rumors were obviously never true, and we all know that satanic imagery was just Gen X’s way of conveying shock value and rebellion. But to have lived through that, with that knowledge, and still think there was something genuinely wrong with me for claiming my own version of it is just....fucking asinine to me. But honestly that whole experience is another story entirely.

Back to my point, one day I was clothes shopping with my mom at target. (I’ll preface this story by telling you this was the last time I stepped foot in a target with another person until I was 19 years old. And even then, he just showed up and I nearly had a panic attack.) She and I had went to try stuff on and she barged into the changing room behind me. I begged her to get out, that I wanted privacy. She demanded to see how the jeans fit. They didn’t. I already knew they wouldn’t when I went in there and knew what she’d say when she found out. She berated me, loudly, about how the seams were going to burst. How she couldn’t believe I couldn’t even button a pair of pants. When I had been sufficiently reduced to a crying mess on a changing room floor she slipped out and sweetly told me to let her know how everything else looked. This is what she does, brings you to your lowest point and then suddenly turn on this sickly sweet charm. It simultaneously drives it all home and makes you look insane for being upset. My father does the same thing. I’ve never been able to tell who learned it from who.

It was about this time that MySpace became a thing. Mom knew I had one but was too naive to ever look at it. Social media felt like a safe haven to me. It had my music, my friends. I could obsess over whatever new band was breaking onto the scene. I could be myself without ridicule. Until one night, anyway. A cousin of mine had seen my page, reported it to my grandmother, who immediately called mom to tell her she needed to look at the “sick shit” I was posted on the Internet. My mother burst into the room, threw me out of my chair, and proceeded to pour over my profile. It was all studded belts and black lipstick. My profile song was “My Sweet 666” by HIM. My sexual orientation was listed as bi. My mother and I both very nearly stroked the fuck out as she took it all in.

My brain, in a last ditch effort to save itself, has repressed most of the conversation that night. I’m thankful for that. It’s a lot of the reason I’ve never really told anyone what happened that night - I can’t fucking remember it. But I do remember my mother telling me how disgusting it would be to be bisexual, and how even if I was (and she was adamant that I couldn’t possibly know what it even meant), it would never be something to admit out loud. This was her moment to tell me all the horrible things she had ever thought about me. I don’t remember what all was said, but I remember lying on the floor begging for her to stop. That I loved her. That I was sorry I wasn’t what she wanted. She never stopped. Eventually, she came to my weight. Again, I don’t remember it all verbatim but I do remember being told that I ever did was “eat and gorge and eat and gorge.” To this day, I can still hear those words when I look in the mirror. Ive spent a lot of time shoving them out of my head, but my god are they loud sometimes.

We moved to the lake when I was 12. My mom had recently had my younger sister and was working 5am to well past midnight some nights. That left me and my stepdad at home. My school bus would only drop us off at the end of the road but my stepdad refused to pick me up like the other parents did. He told me it would be good for me to get the exercise and walk. Our house sat at the end of a 2 mile long gravel road. The heat rose well over 100° daily. I was head to toe in long, black layers. I passed out on that walk more than once. Even when I did make it to the house, he would lock the doors and windows. He told me to go run laps and when he felt like I had done enough, he would let me in the house. He was going to force the weight off of me if he had to.

I told my mother more than once and she either outright denied it, refused to deal with it, or sided with my stepfather. She sings a much different tune now that their marriage has fallen apart and she’s searching for reasons to hate him, but the fact remains...it was abuse. Neither of them ever actually cooked so I survived off of energy drinks and crackers. Mom would come into my room, find the wrappers, and tell me I would be 300lbs one day if I don’t stop funneling food into my face. It didn’t matter what I did though, the weight wouldn’t leave. This was partly due to the fact that I was fucking 12 years old, and partly due to the fact that, to all of our surprise, I had a thyroid condition. I also had faulty ovaries which only further threw off my hormonal balance. The rest of that summer they were kind to me. Shoved food at me, coddled me. I always imagined it was because they felt guilty. But it didn’t last.

That summer I moved back to my dad’s. Up until this point my father had always firmly been on my side in this battle against my mother. That changed immediately. He put me on the Atkins diet and I felt like I was dying every day. Fuck, I even gained weight. I resorted myself to the fact that I would never have a happy home life but school would be different. I didn’t take into account that I had just stepped back into a small town and I looked like an extra on a Marilyn Manson music video shoot. People I’d known since preschool, who all claimed to be excited to have me back, ostracized me in one glance. I was goth, I’d gotten fat, and I was immediately tossed in the reject pile. I attempted suicide for the first time that night, a month shy of my 13th birthday.

A lot of things happened in my teen years that aren’t entirely worth mentioning here because it’s all the same. My dad started looking into plastic surgeons because he was sure I would have grotesque, loose skin once I finally lost weight. He also became fixated on the idea that I must have something wrong with me because “all that extra weight has to be putting strain on your organs. You have to have diabetes or damage to your heart.” I was taken to every doctor in the tristate area it seemed, searching for a condition that was simply never there. When a doctor would start questioning his reasoning for this, we would move to another doctor. I’m not saying I was a victim of Munchausens by proxy, I’m just saying the line was getting a little blurry. We never found a problem with my heart but it all later manifested as crippling hypochondria.

Eventually I just started blocking it all out. I stopped engaging when someone called me fat and started focusing on just getting the fuck away from them all. I refused to put myself down, out loud at least. I was going to train my brain to love the body it inhabited. And I did, kind of, for a while. I realized I never really had an issue with my body. I had an issue with everyone else having an issue with my body. Therapists, teachers, friends, family. Everybody felt the need to make a comment. And looking back, I nearly throw up. I was barely overweight. I was 150lbs when my father had me do my first glucose test. I will never understand how someone can become so fucking obsessed with the size of other people.

All of this was going pretty well until I went back to working at the haunted house. When you’ve spent years disciplining your brain into not hating everything about yourself, you stop hating other people too. You become a little kinder, a little softer. I was still new to this though and my newfound confidence was fragile at best. My new family quickly started to remind me of my old one. They were negative, toxic people. They were bitter at the way life had panned out for them and projected that onto everyone around them. No one was safe, and no one was your friend. When you’ve been on red alert since birth, you learn to recognize this pretty quick. So again, I just didn’t engage. I heard the horrible things they’d say but I let it roll off. The one time, in a moment of unbridled rage that I did stand up, I was immediately shot down. They pretended to handle the cause of the problem, but they looked at me with distain. It pissed them off that they had to take time out of their day to deal with a fat girl. They never said anything to me directly, but they always made sure I was in earshot. If I didn’t want to be called a whale, lose weight it’s not that hard. Stop being so sensitive. A stronger me would’ve said something. Burned the place down. Something. But I felt defeated. I was exhausted. These were supposed to be my friends and no one, NO ONE stepped up for me. It became crystal clear to me that no one would ever defend me in this life. All that negativity started to creep in, no matter how hard I fought it.

But I did fall in love at the haunt. And for a while he made me feel beautiful. I remember telling a friend of mine that it was the first time I’d ever felt comfortable sitting naked in front of someone without posing. But it brought to light a lot of insecurities I didn’t realize I was still hanging on to. He used to ask me to model lingerie for him anytime I bought it. I remember feeling overwhelming flattered that he would even want to see it, but also fucking terrified. So I refused, no matter how badly I wanted to do it. He eventually stopped asking, and my anxiety riddled brain concluded that it was because he didn’t find me sexy anymore. This idea backed by the fact that he only told me I was beautiful or that he loved me when he was drunk. He remained friends with the people at the haunt who put me down. I was left to assume he agreed with them. I want it to be known I don’t blame him for this. He had no idea what I was dealing with or where it all came from. I was afraid to have the conversation and my inability to do so is my own fault. He did the best he knew how to with what I gave him. I know that.

Sex has always made me feel empowered. It felt like a reclamation of my body. It was truly my liberation, but it would also be my downfall. To be as sexual as I am, I often don’t enjoy sex. I can never do the things I want to do, take control the way I want to, cum the way I want to, if I cum at all. I am forever thinking of what I might look like to them. What I smell like, what I move like. A fun side effect of severe hormonal imbalance is hirsutism, skin conditions, thinning hair. So not only am I fat, I’m hairy AF, have acne, and the hair that I do want is falling out. Do you know how fucking mortifying it feels to not be able to let a guy grab your ass because you know you haven’t fucking shaved it recently? And even when you do the window for feeling hairless is smalllll. My ex boyfriend probably only truly grabbed my ass a handful of times (there’s a pun there somewhere). But I couldn’t have that conversation with him. Wouldn’t. This is why I got into cosmetology so early. Fuck, it’s why I got into the tattoo industry too if I’m honest. If you don’t like the house, you paint the fucking walls right? It was just another (and admittedly much healthier) way of reclaiming my body.

If I am not the height of femininity, if I don’t ooze sex appeal and porn star magic, they won’t want me. I started placing a lot of my self worth in how sexually desirable I could be. Sex, at best, is an ego boost. And not a very good one. Since becoming single I’ve come into contact with a menagerie of men. They too have all had something to say. And they all play on a loop in my head. Here’s a list:

- “I’ve been with women with perfect bodies and ya know *side eye* not so perfect bodies.”

- “Ya know, if you were just a few inches taller you’d actually have a decent body.”

- “You remind me of Lardi B and she’s hot. I’m really into big girls. Send me a picture of your fat pussy.”

- “You know you’re a catfish, right?”

- “I’ll fuck anything, I used to hate fat chicks but honestly if you wanna fuck I’d be down.”

- “I secretly have a thing for bigger girls, but I’d never date one.”

I’ve shot down every invitation to hook up for the past year. I get on tinder for 5 seconds, immediately hear that catfish line in my head, and close back out again. I’ve stopped wearing makeup unless I have to. I dress in leggings and oversized tunics almost daily. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have an eating disorder but have discussed it with no one. I do not know how to proceed from this point. I’m not at my lowest, but I’m somewhere close. My insecurities are my own problem but I don’t know how to get the reassurance I need without making it somebody else’s. But telling someone to call me beautiful, to gas me up, to put my mind at ease negates the point. I can’t place my self esteem in someone else’s hands. But my healing requires the ability to have that conversation. And that’s the hardest part.

I’m a grown woman now and my mother still grabs my double chin, just in case I forgot it was there. She still balks at my stretch marks. She recently told me she admired me for the way I dress. Said if she was my size she could never because she would be too ashamed. It was meant as a compliment. Funny how backhanded those can be sometimes. I think about her a lot and what kind of mother I would want to be. Both of my parents struggled with eating disorders. My mom still does. I know it’s the root of all her criticism. But I don’t want to be her. I don’t want to project my own trauma into my children one day. I think a lot about what I would say to 7 year old me. I’ve written her letters. Told her I was sorry for not loving her, for not being kinder. That it wasn’t her fault that the adults in her life failed her. I think of what I would say to a daughter. To a son. I like to imagine that I tell them these stories one day and they look at me in disbelief. I want self love to be so deeply ingrained that the concept of body shaming is unrealistic to them. But I can’t give them what I don’t have. So for now, I’ll work on that.

There is no real conclusion to this tale, I just needed to bitch for a minute.

[the-madame21]

50 more interesting questions

Rules: fill this out and tag at least one person you’d like to know more about! Or just fill it out! Or don’t! Answer only some of them! Make up your own questions! “What kind of requirement is that”, you ask? A reasonable one! Who am I to tell you what to do? Anything goes!

Tagged by @acrispyapple. Thank you! <3

1. What kind of food can’t you stand? Pixie sticks. Or onions. 

2. If you could choose one minor inconvenience to never have to deal with again, what would you pick? My phone recognizing my thumbprint every time so I don’t have to deal with physically unlocking my phone lmao.

3. Have you got any useless talents? all talent is useful.

4. If you could be really really good at one thing, what would it be? Not stressing. It’d be so nice to not stress and get worked up over every little thing lmao.

5. Name a few people you think are extremely good-looking - Matt Damon (fight me) Hook from Once Upon a Time, the lead singer of Black Veil Brides 

6. What was your favorite way to pass the time as a kid? Playing pretend!! Ah me and my sister would make up the wildest stories haha. And we had an insane amount of stuffed animals and shit we used for props. I also loved swimming back then. 

7. What is something you’re proud of? I’m really proud of my writing even if almost no one I know personally reads it lol. 

8. What’s one character flaw in people that you just can’t tolerate? I hate when people are fake friendly. Like you can tell when it’s genuine vs not and it just bothers me like stop fucking trying so hard. 

9. Do you consider yourself to be more of a leader or a follower? Uhhhh both I guess. I rather just follow since it’s easier and back in elementary through high school everyone always pegged me to lead group projects and shit so I’m kinda sick of it lol. 

10. What kind of student are/were you? 6 AP classes all in one go woo let’s do this lol. 

11. Butterfly effect question! Has there ever been a seemingly minor decision you’ve made (at the time) that ended up having a profound influence on your life? Not that I can really recall off the top of my head. 

12. Name your most irrational fear/aversion  I can’t watch scary movies. Like at all. “But it’s fake” bitch that don’t mean it ain’t scary. 

13. Are there any fictional characters you find especially relatable? Anything is relatable if you try hard enough. 

14. If you drink, what kind of drunk are you? Alternatively, what sort of person are you at parties? I get really giggly. Like I laugh all the time anyway but it becomes especially true when I drink. 

15. Do you fall in love easily? Or does it usually take a long time for you to trust someone? I think I do. But I don’t know if that was just because I’m in love with the idea of love. 

16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends? One close friend. Which is basically what I got now lmao.

17. Do you consider yourself to be more of a slob or a neat-freak? I’m kind of a slob since I’m lazy but never for very long because seeing everything dirty just like *screams* I can’t take it. Cleaning is like relaxing to a certain extent lol.

18. Describe a place (imaginary or real) that you would find incredibly cozy Oh I always think of like rain or snow and just having a desk pushed up against the window or something like that. Or somewhere with a bunch of pillows where you can see the rain falling. If there’s a christmas tree too then that’s awesome lol. 

19. Do you have kids? If not, do you want them someday? I don’t have any kids but I do want them someday. 

20. What was your favorite book as a child? The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: Wolf Brother

21. Name one thing you just don’t get what all the hype is about Is it bad if I say kpop?

22. Name one thing that you think is tragically underrated uhhhhhh

23. If you had to be glued to a person for a month, real or fictional (who you have never met), who would you choose? Abraham Lincoln.

24. What’s something you’d like the chance to do someday? Visit all of the Disneylands. I’m only missing Shanghai and Hong Kong.

25. Do you typically speak your mind when you have a controversial opinion? Or do generally prefer to not rock the boat? I usually stay quiet, judge you in my head, and then talk shit to my mom or bf. 

26. What’s the dumbest fad you’ve been caught up in? Does anyone remember those rubber bands that were like animal shaped and people wore them as bracelets? 

27. What’s something you thought was cool as a kid/adolescent, but now cringe at yourself for? My entire middle school self lmao.

28. What’s a trait you consider to be very admirable? I think honesty. It’s hard being honest. And it’s like everyone is so used to lying like sometimes these people come off as blunt but like it’s appreciated.

29. Is there a particular kind of item people always tend to give you as gifts? (For instance, people always get you things with ducks on them because you like ducks, etc.) people don’t give me things. So. I guess things that are disney related?

30. Do you speak multiple languages? Which ones? Spanish, English, Fake French and even faker Japanese. 

31. Would you rather live in the big city or the countryside? City please for the love of god I would not survive in the countryside. 

32. Has there ever been something you were certain you’d hate, but ended up loving? Anime. Woops. 

33. Do you mind being the center of attention, or do you prefer the spotlight to be on someone else? ALL EYES ON ME IN THE CENTER OF THE RING JUST LIKE A C I R C U S. I like attention. 

34. Favorite holiday? Christmas! :D

35. Are you a more go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you need to have things planned meticulously? Plans. Please. 

36. Is there something you loved so much you wish you could forget it and experience it all over again? (A tv show, book, series–anything.) Mmmmm no. Things get better the more I know about them. 

37. What hobbies do you have? writing...other than that I’m an incredibly boring person lmao. 

38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have? shaving in like three seconds. Gods that’d be so useful. 

39. Something people are always surprised to learn about you I’m not white.  

40. Something that took you way too long to figure out I religiously spelled “maybe” as “mabye” up until like the third grade because I was convinced my teachers were just wrong. 

41. Worst injury you’ve had? a busted lip I guess? 

42. Any morbid fascinations? not really?

43. Describe your sense of humor it’s fucked up. 

44. If you had to be born in another era/place, which would you choose? I love/hate this question because as a woman like shit sucked back then. But let’s go with ancient egypt cuz I like ancient egypt. 

45. Something you are irredeemably bad at video games. I literally cannot game. How does it work. 

46. Something that sucked but you’re glad you went through Walking the length of the golden gate bridge. That shit was awful. I’m scared of height AND bridges AND it was raining so and it’s a long ass fucking walk. But I guess I can say I did it so whatever. 

47. Would you rather have a really godawful ugly tattoo in a place that is only slightly inconvenient to conceal with clothing (upper arm, thigh, etc.), or the coolest, most beautiful tattoo ever in the middle of your face? (Neither tattoo can be removed or concealed with makeup, and the ugly tattoo will deeply offend anyone who sees it.) the ugly one. 

48. Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist? depends on my mood honestly. 

49. What would be the most flattering compliment someone could give you? Idk all compliments are pretty flattering so I’m not too picky. 

50. Something you feel people often misunderstand about you I don’t really know. I don’t interact with enough people lmfao. 

not forcing anyone to do it, this is long af. So whoever wants to, feel free!

[hoe-imaginess]

I don't know if you've done something like this before but do you think Tobirama would be a good s/o?

Ooooo okay. This could have been a yes or no question and I could have left it at that but y’all know me with my unnecessarily extensive posts so this is going under the cut

To put it simply for those who don’t wanna read all this: No. He wouldn’t be. 

And I think the fact it’s plainly obvious that he’s my favorite Naruto character should erase any suspicions of me being unfairly bias when I say that. I’m not just saying it because he’s an asshole

In fact—and I don’t mean to dig at people—but a majority of the time, I see others write him off as being a 100% jerk and give no more thought to it. I guess that’s just natural given how he’s portrayed a majority of the time in the anime and manga, but I do see a different side of him. There’s more to the asshole exterior. I think there’s more potential there for his character if you look close enough. That in mind, I still don’t think it’s enough credibility to mark him as a good s/o but anywayyyyyy

In essence, if you can handle Tobirama’s brash attitude and his ignorance then okay yeah, he might still be a good s/o in your eyes. It’s just not going to be an entirely healthy relationship. Just a personal disclaimer though: I don’t think it’s easy to have a completely healthy relationship. I just don’t. I’m not saying it’s impossible or unheard of, but it’s just not easy. Obstacles will be in the way and I think especially in the shinobi world, and during Tobirama’s time in the founders era when contention was high even after Konoha’s establishment, you have to expect there to be setbacks in a relationship. Unfortunately, those setbacks are almost second nature when it comes to a relationship with Tobirama. 

Of course I love imagining Tobirama with a s/o because I think he deserves one (even if this post implies otherwise) but I think when it comes down to it, and if Naruto verse has implicated as such, he’d just work better without one. Work comes before anything else. Even if he really loved a s/o, that’s going to be a hard reality to accept at times. Even if it’s his pre-Hokage days, he was still dealing with Hashirama. And before that, the warring time. He’s always been busy. I don’t think there was ever a point in Tobirama’s life where he found free time to pursue a relationship. Which is why my favorite scenario for Tobirama is an arranged marriage AU. I personally just see that as one of the only ways you’re getting Tobirama in a relationship. Otherwise, if it was a casual relationship, and even if he really liked you, it would just be so difficult. He prioritizes work, blows the lid on his temper way too easily, and doesn’t have a sensitivity chip. If you’re a sensitive person, then Tobirama is not for you. When he’s angry, he doesn’t hold back. And there’s no saying he’s going to apologize for what he did either, in extreme cases

Let’s just take a play by play on this, I guess:

Tobirama is controlling. I’ve probably said that in other headcanons before, but he is. His intentions are to protect you and keep you out of harm’s way because really, he’s just protective. But he doesn’t always execute it well. You’ll feel constantly stifled and pressured by him to do what he wants, and when he wants. He gives you a hard time when you try to be independent or brush off his counsel

His pride is also a very big obstacle. He’ll do anything to save his pride. Whether that’s refusing to admit his guilt and consequently blaming you for mistakes/arguments even if they were definitely his fault, or, not showing you any affection because he’s afraid it will peg his pride. So if he’s constantly giving you a hard time and not compensating by showing you that he actually cares, you get pretty tired of it. It’s only expected. However, I will say that when it comes to reassuring you of his feelings and showing you that affection you need, he will do it eventually. You just have to wait for it. But that’s also a hassle. It gets draining after a while. The cycle of “why is he being so mean to me then trying to make up for it without even saying sorry?” just kinda sucks

He’ll yell at you a lot if he’s in a mood. For the smallest of mistakes. He’ll yell at you in public too like Tobirama doesn’t care. He yells at everybody. Goes back to his temper problem. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tobirama could make even the most strong-willed, callous s/o cry. He’ll make you cry a lot if you’re the type who cries easily. Even if you’re not the type, tbh. You know when someone yells at you/snaps at you and it bothers you for days? That’s what Tobirama will do to you if he’s in a volatile mood. Even if he’s not yelling at you, that cold glare and those sharp eyes are just scary when he’s irritated or when he’s talking down to you. Oh and condescending you: definitely a thing he could do. Tobirama can put you down a lot if he’s in a vindictive mood

So in general yeah he can be a huge asshole and being with him can 100% lead to an unhealthy relationship… But maybe in the beginning it would be okay? When he’s getting used to the relationship and actually trying to be a nice guy so he doesn’t intimidate you. But at some point, Tobirama just stresses out with work and he finds his train of thought focusing only on that work. Anything can set him off. Anything can irritate him. The arguments will be constant. You already know Tobirama is combative and will argue about literally anything, so it’s too easy to get into arguments with him. In some extreme cases, it would be abnormal to go a day without arguing

All this being said, I do have to give Tobirama some credit, if you can forgive him after all of this:

It might just depend on who his s/o is. What kind of person they are and how they react to him. If his s/o is passive and not combative at all, it’s easier for him to see the error of his ways and apologize for his behavior. That might not be enough compensation of course, but he feels incredibly guilty and knows he’s not being fair. In general, his mood might be more placid and you can avoid the arguments and tension. He’s actually pretty pleasant aside from the occasional attitude when he’s stressed

With a hardheaded s/o who also has an attitude and will argue in circles with him, it riles him up even more and the angrier he is, the farther that empathy and sensitivity to see the error of his ways is pushed. It takes a longer time for him to come around and apologize. It also takes a while for the frustration to go away and for the guilt to set in. Like I said, Tobirama will feel guilt for all he’s done eventually. Heavy, painful guilt. He doesn’t like hurting his s/o. He can’t help the way he is. He wishes he was different but he’s been like this for too long. It’s just with a stubborn and combative s/o (which let’s be fair: it’s natural you’d want to defend yourself when Tobirama gets snappy) he can’t really see past his anger when he’s in one of his moods, so it just makes the relationship so much more difficult. It’s with this kind of s/o that you’d see all the obstacles arise

I’m always in angsty moods, but when I’m in particularly angsty moods, I like to imagine that Tobirama is constantly afraid his s/o is going to leave him. Every time he fucks up and starts yelling at them or arguing with them about something, there’s an alarm going off in his head that says “Stop right now you idiot, or they’re going to pack up and leave you when this is over” but his anger fuels him and he can’t stop. He has to have the last word. He has to be right and he has to prove you wrong 

And one fatal flaw with Tobirama, is that although when you look at him you wouldn’t think he’s the type who could ever feel deep, deep compassion for another human being, when and if Tobirama finds someone he really cares about—loves, even—it’s so difficult for him to live without them. He just can’t see himself not being with them from that point on. They serve as a reminder that life isn’t all work and strain, but there’s good things in life too. They ground him. Which is why I think having a s/o would benefit Tobirama in a lot of ways. The compassion he feels for them just shifts his perspective on a lot of things. It’s that sentiment that drives the guilt when he upsets them, and leads him to try and make up for it in the end, even if he knows they might not forgive him. But he doesn’t want them to get tired of him. They could go find someone else who treats them a lot better, and he knows that. And it makes him panic sometimes. So he’d try hard to keep his temper under wraps and to be fair with his s/o, but sometimes, it’s just not possible. That’s just the kind of man Tobirama is

I’m so fucking extra sorry but basically yeah Tobirama has his ups and downs, leaning more toward the downs if he clashes easily with his s/o. ALSO to make it clear: I’m not trying to romanticize unhealthy relationships. If I were in a bad relationship w Tobirama Senju I would leave his ass on the spot. I would encourage anyone to lmao. I’m just saying that there are ways to work around a relationship with him and that he’s not completely heartless, which is why although I don’t think he would be a for sure good s/o, he wouldn’t be downright bad. He’d deeply care about a s/o if he found someone he liked, it’s just a matter of how you handle the relationship. And really, I think the way his and his s/o’s personalities mixed would really determine if he was ‘super volatile and cold’ Tobirama, or ‘decent and relatively pleasant’ Tobirama. 

Signed, 

The admin who thinks way too much about this on a daily basis

[andhumanslovedstories]

What I’ve Read (Books 1-6)

in the name of 1) public accountability to actually read 150 books in 2017 and 2) to remember what the hell I read, I’m recapping/reviewing the books I finish.

The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters

Circle of Magic: Sandry’s Book, Tamora Pierce

Circle of Magic: Daja’s Book, Tamora Pierce

Flawed, Cecelia Ahern

The Treasure Map of Boys, E. Lockhart

Real Live Boyfriends, E. Lockhart 

Fiction: The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters (1/02/2017)

Waters was on my radar for years (which is the cultured way of saying, “In high I used to watch clips of kissing scenes from her tv adaptations to Feel Things”) but I didn’t read her until last year. I expected an eat-your-vegetables-this-is-good-for-you type of literature with beautiful prose and a turgid plot where women exchange meaningful glances of a love they dare not speak, for they’ve only heard gayness whispered about if they’ve heard anything at all. Instead, I got hardcore bonetown. I got high drama, intrigue, suspense, communities of openly queer women in historical time periods, and just. so. much. boning. the. hell. down. The Paying Guests continues the trend of baroque drama lesbians, this time in the 1920s when a genteel but newly poor mother and her spinster daughter must take in a young couple as lodgers. I’d recommend Tipping the Velvet as your intro to Waters’ wet and wild work, but The Paying Guests is a solid romance turned crime novel, as Frances and Lillian fall in love and struggle against Victorian, Edwardian, and Jazz Age expectations of what a women should be. Also murder. They struggle against some murder too, which does cut into the deeply literary boning. 

Fiction: Circle of Magic: Sandry’s Book and Circle of Magic: Daja’s Books, by Tamora Pierce (1/04, 1/10)

Are there cliques in the Tamora Pierce fandom? Are there Tortall versus Circle of Magic kids? If there aren’t, let’s start them now, because I was always a Tortall kid. (Except Daine, who I never like. Sorry, Daine. It’s nothing personal, mostly because I can’t remember why.) But I did read the Circle of Magic books, specifically because in eighth grade someone told me there was a gay romance in The Will of the Empress, a later book in the universe. (Me reading over this post so far: “I did not realize the extent to which I was always super gay.”) Since I’ve decided I want to reread Empress, I’ve likewise decided to haphazardly reread the earlier books as well. In December of last year I read Tris’s Book, the second in the series. This January, I read Sandry (book one) and Daja (book three).

Sandry’s Book unfortunately isn’t a strong start to the series. The necessary assembling of all the characters lasts the first half of the book, the magic feels likewise over introduced and underdeveloped, and Sandry has little emphasis in the book named after her. I wish I could talk more in detail about this book, but looking back on it from two months later, I can’t remember much of anything except Sandry’s introduction (locked in a tower while everyone around her dies of illness, which is one of those backstories my disclaimer-adult-ass-in-no-way-the-intended-audience-age self thinks is wasted on junior fiction when you can hardly linger on the horror; maybe the YA The Circle Opens series deals more with that).

Daja’s Book improves the series thus far, mostly thanks to Daja. She’s always been my favorite of the original circle, a reserved, strong, hardworking grieving girl with metal and fire magic, who is excommunicated and shunned by her people who consider her bad luck after she is the sole survivor of her family’s shipwreck. She’s also black. Did I mention she is black? Because the book does, a lot, a weird amount, in places you really wouldn’t think it was necessary. Like, “‘Let’s talk about magic,’ said the black girl whose name we definitely know.” But that dubious choice aside (and I don’t remember it being present in later books in the series I’ve read), everything about Daja is my favorite part of this first series. Daja mourns the loss of her family through disaster and the loss of her people through custom while building a new family with her fellow mages and trying to reconcile that she would not be able to do the work she loves, blacksmithing, if she hadn’t been cast out.

If you’re interested in the characters (who are very good, they do develop well) or the magic (which I came to love, and felt organic and unique thanks to a combination of Pierce’s emphasis on hard, unglamorous labor as the basis of her heroes’ lives and the elemental astral projection that the mages do in this world), and if you, like me, don’t enjoy junior fiction, I’d recommend starting with The Circle Opens series instead. The books in this universe are connected but standalone, and it’s easy to jump in wherever. (I’m still gonna read somewhat in order before I get to The Will of the Empress, though. It’s who I am.)

  Fiction: Flawed, by Cecelia Ahern (1/13)

There are books that, before I returned them to the library, I want to slap a sticker on the front that says, “Warning: this book is fine but it is also secretly the first book in a series. Beware the ending.” The most recent such book, Flawed, is a YA dystopia where separate from the legal court is the Flawed court, which with absolute power can judge you defective as a person. Once deemed Flawed, you are branded in a symbolically suitable location as befits your crime, publically shamed, unable to assemble with other Flawed in large groups, shunned, hated, subject to a curfew, subject to constant surveillance, forever. Celestine North, who was named by her parents with the knowledge she would be the hero of a YA dystopian novel, dates the son of the court’s high judge and supports the system unquestioningly until she sees a Flawed man dying on the bus in front of her with no one willing to help. Her intercession sends her to the Flawed court herself, and gets her in a girl on fire situation as she inadvertently becomes the figurehead of a revolution much bigger and older than her. With Flawed as the first book in the series, its limited viewpoint feels myopic, determined to keep Celestine’s point of view relatively narrow. She suffers thoroughly and compellingly throughout the book, but when it ended on a cliffhanger, I couldn’t see myself waiting eagerly to see what happened next.  

Plus, the book has an unfortunate case of YA Bad Boy Syndrome, i.e. there is a troubled, scowling teenage boy who dominates a disproportionate amount of narrative focus as compared to his narrative interest. In contrast, the most compelling relationship in the book, that of Celestine who always supported the system until she saw evidence of its abuse and her sister who rails against the system but stays quiet in the face of the same abuse that makes Celestine act, is introduced as a central element and then gets minimal page time. Kill your darlings, authors. Cut the bad boys.

Fiction: The Treasure Map of Boys and Real Live Boyfriends, by E. Lockhart (1/12, 1/13)

E. Lockhart writes the most exquisitely uncomfortable YA. When I read Dramarama—a title, by the way, I only picked up because I already trusted the author—I spent so much time wincing that it read the book twice as slow as normal because not only did I recognize the characters, I both didn’t like them and utterly understood them. It was agony, but very specific “creative kids from a small town who go to a theater camp, discover they might have been friends by default, discover they might not be as talented as they think, discover that everything good changes and there’s nothing you can do about it” kind of way. The Ruby Oliver books (of which The Treasure Map of Boys and Real Live Boyfriends are books three and four) are similarly specific in their discomfort, except the discomfort lasts for four books instead of one.

I say discomfort instead of something like awkward because awkward implies a kind of charm, and while plenty of the characters in the books are charming and the writing is charming and many of the ideas are charming (too charming even, occasionally bordering twee), the situations of the books aren’t charming. They just kinda suck. These books aren’t a slog through misery and woe, not by a long shot, but they offer few if any pat resolutions. The characters hurt each other on accident and on purpose, and while some get better and trying not to, they don’t stop. Friendships end and it’s kinda everyone’s fault. Relationships are continually undercut by flaws that never go away, or even get addressed. Ruby is accused by her former best friend of trying to steal her boyfriend (who used to be Ruby’s boyfriend) and Ruby didn’t try to except she sorta did, or she at least wanted to, or she flirted back with him when she knew he was dating someone else, or the whole idea of “stealing” someone is ridiculous because you can’t steal a person, except Ruby’s best friend did kinda steal Ruby’s boyfriend. Even when characters are in the right, they don’t always act their best. Ruby never gets the apologies I spent the books hoping she’d get, and she never changes in the ways I hoped she’d change. But she is in a better place when the books end than when they began, and she is a better person too. It’s just that she still kinda sucks sometimes, and so does everyone around her. 

While I struggled now and then with the preciousness of the writing style, the characters provoked a satisfying frustration that made me read all four books in two weeks. If you’ve never read anything by E. Lockhart, I’d recommend The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks as your first, since it’s got a complete story in one book as opposed to the Ruby Oliver books which are more episodic, but this is a satisfying series if you’re looking for slice of life, low plot, nuanced relationship explorations that are zippy as hell to read.

[panszy]

but  ok seriously now i’m tired enough to ramble and not care i’m just gonna talk about undertale and how much it and its characters have changed my life for the better

ok so for the past few hours i’ve been scrolling through undertale blogs and i found a post and it just....clicked as to a big reason why i love it so much: the entire fucking game is about love. and not just romantic, it covers all kinds of love, the entire fucking point of the game at least to me is love. and this wont be coherent because it’s nearly 4 in the fucking morning and i need to sleep but it makes it one of the most heartwarming pieces of media i’ve ever seen (and become fully invested in as a result), the friendship between the characters is heartwarming, the sibling love between the skeleton brothers and royal family sblings is heartwarming, the parental love over frisk and asriel and chara is heartwarming (and heartbreaking...). and everything is so fucking human??? like i cant describe it properly really but i can read hundreds of books and not connect to characters like i do in this video game because everyone is so well rounded and have proper personalities rather than just a few character traits, it’s the way i’ve always wanted to be able to write, the personalities they have and the love they have for each other is beautiful and it’s everything to me because it’s so real???

also my favourite character is papyrus (followed by sans and undyne, who i love equally for different reasons i will probably ramble abt all three who knows??) and oh my god can i just say how much i love this character??? for being so positive all the fucking time and seeing the best in literally everyone he comes across and he’s so sweet but holy fuck it’s his optimism that really gets me because like....if you take away my depression (or not actually?? i get through it every time for a reason lmao) i’m actually also quite an optimistic person who’s able to see the good in literally everyone i meet (like i also genuinely don’t hate anyone) and sometimes it bites me in the ass, and people see it as stupid but papyrus has helped me so much to realise that it’s...not stupid??? i’m well aware that some people suck but sometimes they just need a chance?? and if they fuck up well, that’s it, but they deserve the chance right?? but also everyone treats papyrus like an innocent baby who needs to be protected, and as someone who is often talked down to because i’m optimistic and idealistic and empathetic and let my emotions guide me i can really see why papyrus is actually pretty insecure because being talked at like you’re a kid when you’re an adult feels awful!! the only thing i genuinely properly dislike about papyrus is how much he lies, how much he keeps a face up and pretends to know less than he does around his brother, how often he pretends to like things he doesnt to impress people. but like, even that’s ok because i get why he does it (lonely...) and he’s hardly gonna be flawless, there’s traits in everyone including myself that i dislike, and it feels so well rounded...like ppl often reduce his character to ‘his main character flaw is stupid’ and he’s not stupid but thats beside the point - it’s also not a character flaw like at all. and oh my god i just love him so much he brightens everything up, he’s who i aspire to be is2g (ok maybe just the core of who he is is inspiring to me - his kindess, empathy, optimism, seemingly endless). he also says things that doesnt make sense and i do the same thing, i think weirdly and my friends often ask me what the hell i’m talking about, and i jsut connect to him so much??? so so much 

and fuck fuck fuck i really wanna talk about papyrus and sans because like....ok as a character i love sans, he’s my second favourite along with undyne, i do connect with him less but he’s very interesting (he’s a little overrated and mischaracterised by the fandom sometimes but i’ll let that go for now), and m a n do i connect to his laziness lmao (it’s not just caused by his depression i will fight u on this, i don’t think it helps obviously but as someone who’s depressed AND lazy i can relate on a personal level to him in that sense), but he is funny - not necessarily the awful skeleton puns but like in the ‘oh if you insist on prying me away from my work’ kinda funny, snarky asshole - and i actually really like that he’s a bit of an asshole, he likes to screw with people and he’s won’t fight you unless you’re literally going to end the entire world along with every single timeline (again though, i can really sympathise and get why he’s like this even tho i don’t really relate because he is so fucking well written), but i love that he loves papyrus so fucking much. like i’m a massive sucker for strong sibling relationships (the baudelaire orphans, the way brothers) and this just...oh man, i’m not the biggest fan of the way sans is portrayed in the fandom either but when people who agree with me on that argue that sans doesn’t even care about his brother it infuriates me because that’s...so....wrong??? papyrus is his entire fucking world, the game make that very clear, p much all he talks about is how great his brother is and it’s so cute and blindingly obvious that he means every word he says about that (even if that’s the only thing he doesn’t fuckin lie about lmao...). but i also love this relationship because they balance each other out so much, papyrus tries his best to get sans to get his life together - nagging him constantly, getting him an actual job therefore getting him out of the house, etc - but i think papyrus is also an optimist to sans’ pessimism and nihilism (for lack of a better word - depression i guess) and i think it helps sans quite a lot, or at least is something that makes him genuinely happy when he’s lost all hope. and on the flip side, sans is constantly saying really little things to pick papyrus back up when his mask of self confidence is slipping, and it’s very subtle - the main one i can think of atm is (paraphrasing) ‘me? right about something? come on bro’ or something after papyrus shows self doubt about his puzzles in the genocide route - that’s one of the more obvious ones i think but it’s there p much throughout, and god help my lack of being able to explain things because i can’t put it into words as to why i think this or why i love it so much but i think it really helps papyrus emotionally. THEN you’ve got the bad points, like the lies they constantly tell to each other and how they never fuckign open up to each other (they just project their emotional problems onto you lmao) and ohhh man the relationship between those two.... i could go on forever but i’ll shut up now 

i’ve been rambling for half an hour so i’ll keep the thing about undyne shorter hopefully (nearly half 4 in the morning...fuck... .and i have shit to do tomorrow like this essay.....god) but oh man oh MAN i really love her as well?? so passionate and so PROUD of it, she’s so completely unafraid of being herself (so unlike two of the people she’s closest to - papyrus and alphys), she’s such a fun character and i relate to how passionate she is and can i also just say i LOVE hers and papyrus’s friendship nearly on par with papyrus and sans’s sibling relationship, funnily enough she also treats him like a kid like sans does but she’s very kind and it’s obvious that she cares deeply for papyrus, and their phone calls made me laugh so much (the fucking hot pants one actually made me cry with laughter, it was brilliant), she’s so much fun i love her so much 

im leaving it there but this fucking video game it’s actually changed me for the better it’s quite literally my favourite thing on the planet atm, it’s gorgeous and i love it with every inch of my heart bless this fucking game i cant even put into words how much i love it it’s just!!! my god!!!!! 

i genuinely havent felt like this about something since i got into mcr over 6 years ago, if that doesnt say how much i love it then nothing will tbh

[parisgellerisbisexual]

Hayley Watches Parenthood

Decided that I need to vent my feelings about Parenthood. Under the cut.

Okay so I started Parenthood for my beautiful bae Lauren Graham, but I’m honestly falling in love with them all. I’m having far too many feelings already (I’m on s2e7) so I’ve decided to vent them all out on le tumblr dot com. 

Sarah, Amber and Drew

I know I’m biased because I already love Lauren but Sarah is one of my favourites. I find her so interesting and complex and I love watching Lauren play this character who kinda fails as a mother sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, she’s really trying and a lot of the time she is an amazing mother. But it’s nice to see someone who is a bit of a mess and does make mistakes with her children. I think it’s realistic. Also am loving watching her career blossom. She’s beautiful, of course, and quirky. But I super love how she doesn’t remind me of Lorelai. Like, at all. Phew. Side note: CANNOT stand her with this Gordon guy (I just find all the Baldwin’s sleazy, sorry?) and I want her to get back with cute teacher guy. They had the best chemistry so far. 

Ok I am honestly so so so in love with Amber. She’s my little misunderstood queen and I love her. Sure, she can be moody and shitty and what not, but I just know that they’re setting her up for some beautiful character development and I genuinely cannot wait to see it unfold. I love her with all of my heart. And I love her even more for the fact that she wore a banana costume to a halloween party. I also really enjoy her relationship with Sarah. It’s interesting to watch Lauren act this role, where she’s not super close with her daughter and they butt heads a lot, but they do care for each other deeply and that’s shown every now and again. 

Drew is kinda in the background a little bit and I don’t feel a connection to him really? I feel bad for him because he obviously has daddy issues, but it was nice to see him connect with Adam as a fatherly figure. He always has time for Max which I think is super rad. That storyline where he kissed April Nardini was random though, and short-lived, and I don’t understand the importance/relevance of that entire storyline?? 

Adam, Kristina, Haddie and Max

OKAY SO the thing is I find myself kind of not liking Adam, and I don’t understand why?? Like, he is such a good guy. Not in a fake way, like, all the way down to his core he is just such a good guy. He cares about his family and he’ll do anything for them. It’s actually annoying how he basically always does the right thing (so far anyway). Like, he’ll be about to fuck up and I’ll be like ‘yas this will give me some sort of explanation as to why I don’t like his character’ and then at the last minute he goes and does the right thing! I can’t quite put my finger on why I don’t care for him too much -- perhaps it is because he slightly bores me? -- but all I know is, I try to not like him but I just /can’t/. That probably makes no sense. 

Kristina is also not one of my favs (she can piss me off ALOT sometimes) but I do have a whole heap of respect for her. She is one badass mum and she really takes care of her kids. She really is your kinda typical mum, and I love that about her. She reminds me of my own mum a little bit. I don’t like the way she treats Sarah sometimes (but that’s bc I Protect my favs). I really liked that scene she had with Gaby and she actually admitted how she’s been feeling about it all, and also in relation to her marriage and it was awesome to see her vulnerable that way. She’s absolutely stunning tbh and I envy her hair. (p.s. she was a badass when she was working on that campaign). 

Haddie can annoy me so fcking much oh my gosh. BUT also I was a 15 year old girl once so I can totally relate. She kinda portrays your typical but realistic storyline of young teenage girl pushing for more freedom, and how she deals with her parents resisting that. I know that feeling where you feel like you deserve more freedom than you’re getting, and how unfair it all feels. But in hindsight, my parents (and Haddie’s) were right. Fifteen is still pretty young tbh. I didn’t like how in the first season ALL of her storylines revolved around boys, namely Steve. I just wanted to see a bit of Haddie as her own person, as opposed to just this boy-loving teenager. It felt like a bit of a cliche. But now that her and Steve are over, I like her a lot more. She’s, like, cool. idk. 

I like Max. I think the actor that plays him is outstanding and I also think it’s super important that stories like his are being portrayed in the media. I don’t really know what else to say about Max other than I just think it’s really cool to see his story, and the character’s that are affected by him, play out. 

Julia, Joel and Sydney

I LOVE JULIA. Julia is bae. She’s is so smart and passionate and stubborn and beautiful. Honestly, I get lost in her eyes during her scenes I s2g hahahaha. She is such an important character, honestly, like give me all the working mothers trying to balance their work and maintain a close relationship with their kid. I love how they show that it’s not necessarily easy but you can do it, and also it’s okay to be a working mother. You don’t have to give up your career. She’s so stubborn and I can understand the way other people in her life react to her sometimes, but all in all I love her to pieces. 

Joel is such a sweetheart like he’s just such a pure cinnamon roll so far. He has this real quiet confidence that I love, but also it’s adorable how shy he was around the family at first. I loved that scene when he yelled at Zeek about the roof, saying he was a certified trained contractor and that he knew more than him and I was like yes!!! go Joel!! He’s so cute and good with Sydney, but I also like how he’s not super praised about being a single father. I think there was only one line in the whole show so far where someone was like ‘you’re such a hero for being a stay-at-home dad’ and my eyes rolled SO FAR back it was unbelievable but thankfully!!! there’s only been one line like that. He’s just a sweetie and I love him. also sexy. 

Sydney is kinda just whatever the show needs her to be in that episode, like imo she doesn’t really have a character yet. I don’t know. She’s just the kid, you know? But she is considerably less annoying than most kids her age so that’s a plus. 

Crosby, Jasmine and Jabbar

I love Crosby with all of my heart. He’s the male I feel the most emotionally connected with in the whole show. At first I thought he was being set up to be the continuous loser failure and I was so exhausted at just the thought of him being a dropkick dad. I just feel like that storyline has been done before so many times, so I was so happy to see that they’ve actually done his character justice! Sure, maybe he’s not at the same point in his life as his siblings, but he’s killin’ it where he’s at right now. I love love love his relationship with Jabbar, I think it’s the cutest thing and it made me smile so much when he told Jasmine that he was falling in love with him. CROSBY IS CUTE. 

I like Jasmine. I think she’s really talented and a great mum and good for Crosby and she’s stunning, obviously. I’m glad she got to live her dreams, but am also glad she decided that her family is more important. I’m just like, I like her but don’t love her. A little indifferent towards her relationship with Crosby, could go either way and I wouldn’t mind (aside from it would suck for Jabbar if they split). They did just get engaged though and that was cute. 

Jabbar is cute and his personality is adorable! I love how much he loves Crosby and AHHH idk they’re just the cutest lil dad-son duo. It makes my heart so happy. 

Zeek and Camille

Honestly??? Can’t stand either of them. I just wanna tell them both to pull their heads out of their asses. Zeek is arrogant and stubborn and rude and cheated so yuck. And Camille is sooooooo annoying. Sorry. I don’t know. She just??? Like just fucking say something, stop playing the victim and take control of your life???? Really honestly can’t stand either of them hahahaha oops.

General Opinions

Where are the gay people? Why is everyone Straight™? Surely SOMEONE is lgbt+??????????? PLEASE?????? List of people who I want to be lgbt+: Sarah, Amber, Drew, Haddie, Joel, and Camille. I personally think all of these are possible? A GIRL CAN DREAM.

I love it with all my heart. I see flaws and it’s similar to Gilmore Girls in the sense that it’s very white and very straight, but I can acknowledge that and still enjoy it. although there is far too much yelling in this show for my liking. so many scenes are just five characters shouting at each other and it does my head in.

I found that I became invested in these characters very very quickly which was nice? nice and snuggly. I think the family aspect of it is very...comforting and it’s just like, a nice show to watch. idk, i just love it a lot!

so anyway here are my thoughts on Parenthood that nobody asked for. if you read them all then you’re a champ!