#anti romeo and juliet laws

[giggleboxstudios]

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING.

BABIES SHOULD NOT BE FUCKING‼️‼️

[atopvisenyashill]

I didn’t know fictional location excused 24 year olds from kidnapping and impregnating a 15 year old thank you anon

WHAT IM SAYING!!!! like are we seriously debating whether a dude completing his master’s program dating a high school freshman is a lil dodgy or not???? is that what we are doing rn??

[seaweed-water]

OKAY

i'm gonna say this final thing on anti-stereks and hope you read through this despite your hatred for the ship.

the number one reason i hear about anti-sterek is: pedophilia/grooming/statutory rape, etc.

my answer to this: when the show first aired, derek's age IN THE SCRIPT was 19 (nineteen... notice how the word 'teen' still exists in that age') by the time the timeline and derek's age got all fucked up, sterek was already set in motion and it was too late. i'm not gonna stop shipping a couple just because the showrunners fucked up.

that means a three-year age gap if stiles is 16 in the pilot. california does not have romeo and juliet laws, so you would be correct that it's technically still considered statutory rape. however, let's not pretend it's uncommon to date someone three years apart anywhere in the world. you're really telling me if you were sixteen and nineteen-year-old derek hale was barking up your tree, you'd say no??

even if it still bothers you, remember: these characters are fictional. just because people enjoy this kind of dynamic in fandom media does not mean they support it in the real world. with this kind of logic, watching silence of the lambs or that one episode of it's always sunny would make a lot of people cannibals. that's just not how art works- it reflects real life, it does not perpetuate the issue. if you disagree, you have bigger things to worry about than a popular ship from a 20-teens young adult television program.

another point anti-stereks like to bring up is they don't believe the sterek fandom was queerbaited.

please see this video and tell me this isn't queerbaiting? this isn't even the worst part of it. when the show was gaining traction, nearly every cast and crew member was on board and used sterek for marketing the show online. no, it wasn't in their official marketing campaigns, but we all know about parasocial relationships at this point and the power they have on a willing audience. this is actually a really great unbiased take on sterek that includes said receipts and it's a very enthralling video, especially on double speed.

another anti-sterek point i see is: i just don't *get* it. y'all are literally feasting on breadcrumbs.

and to that i say: and? let people ship who they wanna ship. is it really hurting anyone? like, an actual human being? no. (also, i disagree with you, because from our side we're feasting at the last fucking dinner mate lol)

in any case, just because you don't agree with something doesn't mean it should be censored. the great thing about the internet is YOU decide what you want to see. it is your responsibility to filter tags or click the X button when you don't like what you see, and it costs nothing, i mean absolutely nothing, to just... not say anything.

[starry-eyer]

if westeros was created to reflect our modern society instead of being loosely based off of western medieval society, then i think people would understand that these political marriages are for alliances, not love, and would agree that the modern lower class sentiments towards marriage are simply not applicable to these arrangements and both bride and groom cannot and should not expect love from their partner.

if our story occurred in a modern westeros very similar to our own modern society, then a lot of the obstacles our characters face would not happen because, simply put, modern society benefits from equality.

as an example, i am quite (100%) certain that the introduction of gender equality and other modern values and advancements to westeros would only be beneficial to rhaegar and elia, which means that this ideology benefits westerosi society on an individual level.

so, in this modern westeros au, if rhaegar and elia still married for a political alliance, and then had two children like they did in asoiaf, they could then peacefully divorce and write out a contract that secures both rhaenys and aegons inheritances. if lyanna and rhaegar met and fell in love while rhaegar and elia were married then the misunderstanding that sparked a war would never have happened. why? because lyanna would have a say in who she marries in this modern au. also, elia would have possibly been seeing others as well. why? because this was a political marriage and love shouldn’t be expected, so why would anyone be concerned about either party finding love outside of their marriage? plus modern westeros would have dna testing so there’s no reason to question the paternity of their children.

also, if elia had a child with someone else (in this hypothetical scenario, perhaps her lover died) and rhaegar decided to claim that child as his own while knowing that he’s not the real father in order to give this child a better life, then this wouldn’t be a problem either. why? because rhaegar’s in the know. (i’m only bringing this up bc of the rhaenyra and laenor situation. guys… laenor is perfectly aware that biologically those kids aren’t his, yet he still claimed them and loved them bc he and rhaenyra had an agreement. i do not understand why real ppl are even concerned about jace, luke, and joffs parentage. in the eyes of the law those boys are legally laenors.)

however, since asoiaf isn’t based off of our modern society and is instead a society riddled with misogyny, xenophobia and other social issues without the progress and advancements that we in the 21st century have benefited from, i will concede one thing to these antis who harp on and on about how selfish rhaenyra and rhaegar were for loving someone who wasn’t their spouse and for having a child(ren) out of wedlock.

because yes, rhaegar and lyanna’s love can be considered an act of selfishness, and rhaenyra loving harwin and having children with him can also be considered selfish.

but guess what? love in general is a very selfish state of being. you are prioritizing your partner and your desires over everything and everyone else in your life.

one of the greatest love stories of all time, romeo and juliet, is a tale of two selfish lovers who seek to be together despite the immense hatred between their families. selfless and dutiful children would never love an enemy. and yet, despite romeo and juliet’s love story ending in tragedy, no one would ever argue that these two lovers were in the wrong for simply trying to be together even though their love caused their families great grief. why? because the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets was stupid. and the story ends with the characters agreeing that this feud went on for long enough and acknowledging the fact that this petty feud between the families was the cause of their misery and the tragedy that befell them.

though the circumstances of all three love stories are different, it’s undeniable that these lovers were selfish for prioritizing their own desires over their duties to their houses.

to end this little spiel, i’d like to mention that the reason i first brought up a modern au was to remind people that the only reason rhaelya and rhaenyra’s relationship with harwin can be so decisively called selfish is because these characters live in westeros. and westeros is a fucked up society rooted in systematic oppression, violence, and abuse and other forms of exploitation in order to further the agenda of the powerful despite the harm it causes. any modern comforts and progressive ideas hinder the control the patriarchs have over their families and put a name to the bigotry expressed against these unconventional relationships. so yes, their love is selfish because being unconventional in such a backwards society is a recipe for disaster, especially since both of these relationships hinge on a woman deciding to take control of her sexual autonomy, which is a big no no in westeros since a woman’s body only belongs to her father and husband. so yes, these love stories are selfish because these characters are prioritizing themselves in a society that benefits from them losing their autonomy and harms them and their loved ones when they try to take back their autonomy.

to finish off, the reason i brought up the tragic love story of romeo and juliet is to remind people that even though rhaegar and lyanna’s love was selfish, other characters still need to be held accountable for their actions that helped to escalate this misunderstanding into a tragedy that consumed all of westeros.

[proshippers-against-censorship]

It's so frustrating shipping two characters who are like 17ish with each other because dude all I have to do is give them a singular birthday in the story and we're chill, why do they treat it like you're writing nsfw of child characters.

Even if they were real, it would still be legal lmfao.

Granted, antis are vehemently against laws like the Romeo/Juliet law so I'm unsurprised.

[bluemoonsystemrq]

One thing about being anti-contact (for us at least) is like, fuck all of the discussions around how to measure developmental ability to consent and juggling that against not being ableist, we have a hard time believing meaningful consent can happen when children and teenagers are, for all practical purposes, literally enslaved by adults.

(Oversimplification because of, like, Romeo and Juliet laws, yada yada, please at least try to understand our actual point here.)

WDK like, we could get a job at 15? But we couldn't fucking vote when we were going to school at a fucking university in the 2020 elections because we were THREE DAYS OFF from the age cutoff of chrono 18 and so our voice didn't matter??? Christ. We may be chrono adults now that doesn't mean we don't remember.

We think there is a discussion to be had about, like, trauma thresholds and emotional comprehension and such but that's an extremely difficult conversation for us to have when like...part of consent is that it should also be freely revokable, which we just feel Isn't Possible very often the way things are right now.

[pro-endo-culture-is]

Hi im not sure if this is true so please prove me wrong but I'm pretty sure pawmojis, who you mentioned in your post,is Alex froppy aka froppymojis, who has been caught grooming a minor

Hi! I'm going to assume this ask was sent with genuine intentions and no malice intended towards them, and react accordingly. If that was not the case, then please just unfollow/block me rather than reading this, because I'm not emotionally okay enough to start an argument.

This is also a heavy topic and a serious post with a LOT of neuance, so feel free to skip if you don't feel up to it ^-^

I'd like to preface this by saying that we are a minor, and a victim of grooming. We still struggle with Stockholm syndrome, and everything our groomer did to us feeling "normal". We still even sympathise with them sometimes, and we have enough experience to be able to more or less accurately guess when someone is experiencing the same, as opposed to the relationship ACTUALLY being okay.

please do not harass us over this, if you do not agree with our point of view then just feel free to block, unfollow or just ignore this post and just go back to our regularly scheduled content. We do NOT want a fight or argument over this!!! Feel free to be civilised and point out if i made a mistake

I'm going to be honest, I'm not 100% knowledgeable about this, as I joined the emotes community AFTER the rumours started, but as far as I'm aware, it is all (politley) fearmongouring bullshit. Alexs partner was literal months away from being an adult, (in fact I'm not even sure if they are a minor anymore, idk their birthday). We don't even know paws real age- they could be 18 or 19 for all we know! Fair enough, a mid to late 20s year old dating a 17 year old, even non sexually is gross, but would you really apply those same standards to an 18 or 19 year old dating a 17 (almost 18) year old? For another thing, to everyone calling their relationship illegal, it is NOT! Simply dating is never illegal, and would NOT stand in a court of law unless actual sexual activity happened. We KNOW alex is asexual, and has never made any actual sexual moves towards his partner, but, even in the imaginary scenario where he did (he didnt) the age of consent in Poland (where Alex lives) is 15. I am unsure what state his partner lives in, but the most common age of consent in the US is 16 from my research. Alexs partner is above both of those ages. And EVEN if alexs partner were to live in a state where the age of consent was 18 (the only one in which they were under at the time of the callout), romeo and juliet laws exist, and although they vary from place to place, a two/three year age difference is almost always allowed, with some places even going up to five years in age difference. Another detail I feel is HEAVILY left out, yet is incredibly important is that both alexs family, AND his partners family are aware of the relationship. While it is possible to groom a child into believing grooming and abuse is normal and okay, what is impossible, is grooming their PARENTS (who we assume he has never or rarely talked to) into believing grooming and abuse is okay. When we were being groomed, our own parents found out about the relationship and immediately tried to stop it, identifying it as predatory. Even the parents of the GROOMER saw how fucked up he was, and also tried to put a stop to the relationship. Neither of those things have happened with Alex and his partner, and both of their families approve of the relationship.

Additionally, most of the people "calling out" the relationship are minors themselves, in fact, they are minors YOUNGER than alexs partner. So if their argument is that alexs partner is not "mature enough" to know what is okay to THEM, then how are they, people who are younger, mature enough? Another point about the people perpetuating this rumour, is that they are all hateful, anti endos, and perpetuate harassment and bullying. They are quick to point fingers and blame and hurt anyone THEY don't like. Take k9emotes for example; (we were not in the community back then and have no idea what happened) but k9 has been in drama after drama, adding blog after blog to their list of "evil" people. Assuming alex is evil would be the same as assuming ayiemojis or emojifarm or ANYONE ELSE he's been in a drama with and "called out" is also evil. Another example of this is rockstaremotes / cavernemotes / grxngycarvern, another person spreading the rumours and hate towards alex. We have personal experience with him, where him alongside his qpp bullied, harassed and stalked us into multiple suicide attempts and mental hospital visits with seemingly no motivation other than the fact we were pro endo, and used to be in a qpr with his qpp (who is now our ex, and is an incredibly toxic person but that's a whole other can of worms)

One last thing is, we have NO idea when this relationship started. For all we know, it could have started back when alex was also a minor! The ONLY proof you have of alleged "grooming" is two age roles on a discord server. The people whose lives you are essentially ruining are just that. People. Human beings just like you. They aren't emotionless evil grooming pedo robots, or whatever you want to think they are, but they have REAL feelings. All these allegations, rumours and hate is affecting not just alex but also his partner. We found alex through seeing all these rumours. We read all the evidence, and came to our own conclusion that he was innocent, and after that, we decided to send a message of support to his blog. And you know what he did? He fucking cried tears of happiness. His own words. If the hate has gotten so bad that just ONE person believing hes innocent made him fucking CRY, imagine how bad an effect this must have had on his mental health. And imagine his partner for a minute. Put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel if the whole world, the whole community your life is built around decided your relationship was toxic? How would you feel if they decided you weren't capable of making your own decisions, or setting your own boundaries?

Please, show some support to alex and his partner. They really fucking deserve it. And if you still don't want to do that (which is your own choice), please at least don't go around perpetuating false and unkind rumours about a REAL PERSON. they are just that. Rumours.

Proof of everything I said (proof of cavern will be uploaded later, as i dont have the evidanve on this device.):

- lia + vex

[fashion-foxy]

Guys, I'm going crazy. All my 2000s to 2010s media about breaking laws to further the pursuit of justice has the rich traumatized asshole character wearing redish pink and the lower middle class character wearing purplish blue who is also stubborn and incredibly sarcastic. (This ignores every other character in these franchises and makes the characters I am talking about being slightly misinterpreted, but who cares)

Every character in Pysch at one point has worn light blue and had a black left wrist watch on. (There are multiple scenes in which all 4 of them are wearing blue) the only wrist watches they wear are either slim black rectangle face or silver wider circle face.

At some point someone told me that neck toes were for men (this was while arguing about draculaura having a cravat. She obviously does btw) but in the same fucking line Frankie is wearing a tie. But they don't take this seriously and were fucking with me.

At one point I almost screamed about whatever the fucking clawdeens ruffles were then I remembered I bought the creeproduction of her and it's just ruffles connected to her shirt (wtf).

At some point I realized that a streamer and his friend i watch were saying similar lines to Pysch and Monster High so I went on a whole journey in my mind to question if I'm going crazy (I am). The person mentioned above who was fucking with me about neck wear started saying random lines so I had take another journey to figure out if my headphones are broken and they were hearing what I was listening to didn't tell me and just decided to repeat those things to fuck with me. OR for 2 years everyone randomly started saying godspeed and I missed it.

I'm either fucking awful at media analysis or MH Scaris of Frights genuinely had a pretty anti capitalist message. (It was about how you should be yourself no matter what anyone tells you. Pretty big emphasis on the person telling you to conform being your boss)

ALMOST EVERY COUPLE DRAMA IN MONSTER HIGH AND EVER AFTER HIGH IS A TYPICAL ROMEO AND JULIET STORY.

[just-antithings]

That whole antis complaining about Japan thing especially hits home how stupidly racist they are for me considering I grew up in the good ol us of a and there was a girl in our class who was *11* years old and pregnant. And the person who did it wasn't behind bars cuz supposedly the bio father was the same age as her (I have no idea how true that is or if it was a lie to cover up abuse but honestly either way wtaf). Like idk man the US has some fucked up laws she couldn't even get an abortion cuz she didn't understand what was happening until it was "too late" and so it was illegal. And she wasn't nearly the only child/young person having kids in my area either. Like 30% of my class had had kids by the time they were freshmen year of high school. Also how quickly they forget the whole child marriage laws in the US particularly the southern us and how insanely lax they are. We got Romeo and Juliet laws in most states that protect relationships between young adults and teens and if you get knocked up marriage is allowed in some places as low as 13.

.

[cherienymphe]

just rewatched tsitp after seeing the mini discourse you had on here and like i have just a few thoughts

like the first being i truly forget how bad of a friend taylor is. like i def think she was worse in the books but she was just like mean??? like when she came for belly’s bday and was asking how her summer has been so far and then gets upset when she starts talking about the friends she made after she was like “you need to get out of ur shell” like hello???

also the deb ball girls ditching belly and taylor with no clothes was so shitty like isn’t nicole an adult??? like sure she’d be 18 at max but still i feel like she’s old enough to know how weird and fucked up it is to leave literal children alone in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no clothing

and then i lowkey am anti belly and conrad especially knowing that he’s 18 and she’s freshly 16. like sure they know and grew up with each other but there’s no way a dude that’s about to go into college is gonna want to be fucking around with a 16 year old like unless they’re a weirdo. like it’s one thing for belly to have a crush on conrad but the other way around? major side eye

I listened to the audio book of the first one and I'm pretty sure Taylor was both better and worse in the show 😭 hard to explain but in the book she didn't have as big of a presence but because of that, we also didn't get some big speech with her turning it around on belly.

The Nicole thing upset me too because the text really only incriminated Conrad. Like it was all on Conrad and she punished belly? Anything could've happened to her and Taylor out there and then how would Nicole have felt? I didn't like that at all.

As for belly and Conrad, I've had this convo before where as someone who is mid 20s, I group teens in dating ranges by younger teens and older teens. Idk if belly and Conrad's difference is 15/17 or 16/18 but going by American grade levels, it's likely Conrad is 17 going on 18 as it is for most seniors here with of course belly turning 16 going into her junior year? I could be all wrong but either way, if I wouldn't blink at a 16 year old dating a 17 year old, one year isn't going to make all the difference in the world to me. Romeo and Juliet laws exist so that teenagers won't go to jail for dating within their age groups and I can't speak for anyone else but I categorize it by two years. I see 15-17 years olds as age mates. Nothing below or above that for either party involved. The same goes for 16-18 and 17-19. I genuinely don't know anyone above the age of 20 who would blink at a 16 year old and 18 year old who grew up together starting to date each other. I just don't subscribe to the belief that teenagers are only allowed to date other teens that are exactly their age. Those weird years that consist of the last year or two of high school and the first year of college are very grey. It all depends on the circumstances and in this particular circumstance, I don't see a problem with it

[underestimated-heroine]

sure this has been said before and said better but i'm giving it a go anyway

i can't deal with people who say ignorant shit like "Greek mythology is LitERaLly fan fiction!!" mostly because it just feels (and, well, is) anti-intellectual. also like you're talking someone determined to dive into as many conversations as possible smugness-first even when they very obviously have no familiarity with the subject they're smugging about.

that said, i do think cultural views of fanfiction are so bizarre and interesting because, like...okay: Shakespeare, for instance, wrote very few original plots. quite literally, Romeo and Juliet would have gotten him sued to the ass bone if he lived under our current intellectual property laws (I'm U.S.-based).

this type of thing, to me, is part of what makes "capitalism kills art" click. Because Romeo and Juliet is very, very different from the Arthur Brooke's Poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Luliet. It is its own story. It also didn't steal from the author who wrote the poem; it brought the poem and Brooke more attention, fame, and recognition. The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Luliet is now relatively well-known, not in spite of, but largely because of the play Romeo and Juliet.

our minds are so rooted in this idea of "mine! get your own, loser! looking out for me no matter what is valid, not selfish!" that we have lost the concept of what it means to share ideas in the most productive and meaningful ways. and so many of us are so blinded by our upbringing of greed that we are unable to see the ways that we are not protecting originality and art, but hurting them.

[magicofthepiper]

It's a little bit wild to think back on the shipping wankery that went on in the VLD fanbase, and how deeply it affected today's fandom culture.

A common consensus I see is that the definition of aoc goes by California's penal code 261.5. Therefore, the minimum is 18, and without room for Romeo and Juliet law unless married. It's a strictly age-based moral standard.

However, it was clearly Klance shippers that that were the most vocally anti Shaladin. Eventually, they would label themselves 'antis' as a badge of moral righteousness. Meanwhile, it was Sheith shippers who were the face of the anti-anti or proship side of the wankery.

Much of this was due to ambiguous wording describing the cast as teenagers and whether that applied to Shiro or not. And then came the day that DreamWorks decided to release a publication with the character's ages clearly stated. Shiro was 25, Lance was 17, and Keith.... was 18.

[denimbex1986]

'It's all happening for Florence Pugh.

The brilliant actress can be seen in Christopher Nolan's latest box-office hit, Oppenheimer, as the psychiatrist Jean Tatlock. She has starred in films as diverse as Outlaw King, Greta ('Barbie') Gerwig's Little Women (for which she received an Oscar nomination), the Marvel hit, Black Widow, and Don't Worry Darling, opposite Harry Styles. On TV, she has been Cordelia to Anthony Hopkins’s King Lear, and was the lead in BBC One’s hit adaptation of John le Carré's The Little Drummer Girl.

She presented two categories at the 2023 Oscars (her striking Valentino dress prompted Vogue magazine to hail her 'punk princess' look), and she has appeared on the cover of Time magazine, billed as one of its 'Next Generation Leaders'. Her social media series, 'Cooking with Flo', has been a huge hit.

Little wonder that a London-based newspaper can say of her: "In the last couple of years, the actress has become a plain-speaking role model for Gen Zers and is fast becoming the celebrity young women most identify with".

Back in April 2017 the Sunday Herald ran an interview with her, as her then-latest film, Lady Macbeth, was released in the UK. Here it is again.

“SHE was just so different to anything I’d ever read before,” Florence Pugh is saying. “She was just so exciting, and so manipulative, and delicious. I’ve never had a character allow us to love her whilst she does awful things”.

Awful things is an understatement when it comes to Katherine, the anti-heroine whom she plays in a new film, Lady Macbeth. The film has just gone on UK general release, trailing the sort of advance reviews that most film-makers would kill for. Pugh herself has drawn praise from critics who know what they’re talking about.

The film, the debut feature by theatre director William Oldroyd, is based on a 19th century novella, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, by Nikolai Leskov (and despite the title, it’s not about the Shakespeare character).

On screen, the action has been transported to rural Northumberland in 1865. Katherine, 17, having been sold by her father, together with a small piece of land, finds herself in a large, austere country house and, worse, in an arranged marriage to a curt and distant older man, who resolutely declines to make any physical advances to her, even on their wedding night. And her new father-in-law is as harsh as he is unsympathetic. Her future looks bleak, but Katherine is not without resources.

In time, she falls headlong for a groomsman, Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis), with whom she begins a torrid affair. Gradually, however, she, and the film, take a violent turn as it becomes evident that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants. It says much for the script (by Alice Birch) and for Pugh’s remarkably self-assured performance that, even at the end of the film, having witnessed a fair degree of mayhem, we still can’t bring ourselves to dislike Katherine.

Pugh herself has won acclaim for the role. Declaring that she had announced herself as a major talent, the US entertainment bible Variety praised her for folding Katherine’s contradictions “into one composed, consistent characterisation” and that she “impresses with precocious poise, sensuality and venom”. Given that this is really her first major role, and that she is still only 21, it’s hard to disagree with Variety’s judgement.

Pugh was born and raised in Oxfordshire. At school, in Oxford, she was, by her own admission, no good at chemistry or maths, being much more inclined in the direction of drama and music. She took part in a city arts centre’s productions of such plays as Romeo & Juliet and Blood Wedding, and she was already thinking of a career as an actor when fate intervened in the shape of The Falling, a 2015 film directed by Carol Morley and set in an all-girls' school.

“I nearly didn’t do it,” Pugh says of that film. “I wasn’t going to do it. My brother’s in the industry, and I had been watching him for a couple of years before I had done that audition. I knew how mean the industry was, I knew how cut-throat it was. I knew that you just don’t get auditions like that.

“So obviously, when I saw that ad – to hand in a tape – I didn’t do it, because there was no point, because I wasn’t going to get the part. And then my mum said, well, this is what you want to do at some point. You’re not going to get the role, but we can always just give it a go because you need to start knowing how to do tapes.

“So, on the day of the deadline, I rushed over and we quickly filmed myself talking about my hobbies, who I was, and what it was that I did, and I got a callback the next day, saying the director wanted to meet me at some point. So it was all pretty much fluke, and being in the right place at the right time.”

She subsequently did an audition in person for Morley. After she left the room, Morley thought, oh wow. The casting personnel fell quiet as they weighed up what they had just seen. “Do you not think she’s amazing?” Morley asked. Someone else said it was like a young Kate Winslet walking into the room.

Pugh has a small but central role in The Falling, and if she appeared daunted by working with Maisie (Game of Thrones) Williams, with Maxine Peake and Greta Scacchi, she did not show it. That said, her first day in front of the camera was, she acknowledges, “absolutely terrifying, and I remember feeling sick on the way to work, because I’d done a whole summer’s worth of auditions, and I’d worked so hard to get this role," she says.

“I remember [on that first day], getting in the car and thinking, oh God what if I’m crap? What if all of this is a lie, and I’ve managed to wean myself into this role and I completely muck it up? The first line I had on camera is where me and Maisie are under the tree and I say one line. It’s a very simple line. There was a big crew there … and the camera’s on, and they say ‘action’, and I’m looking up at the tree, and I just completely forget my line. Gone. I remember thinking, you really can't muck this up. Wake up!”

She needn’t have worried. After The Falling, she filmed a pilot, Studio City, for Fox. Most recently, she was seen in ITV’s Marcella, alongside Anna Friel and Laura Carmichael. And last October she was one of 20 talented newcomers to win a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit award.

Casting director Shaheen Baig had cast The Falling and she recommended Pugh to Oldroyd when the search was on for someone to play Katherine. It had to be someone capable of playing an innocent young woman who becomes considerably more cold-hearted. Oldroyd himself had seen The Falling and thought Pugh had been “open and honest”. And straightaway, they knew they’d found their Katherine. Florence, Oldroyd says, “gives an incredibly strong and confident performance”.

And now, after numerous screenings at film festivals, comes the widespread release of Lady Macbeth. “It’s very rare,” Pugh says, “that a script like this lands in my inbox – especially, you know, being given the opportunity to … at the time, I was a still-unknown 19-year-old actress, and that just really doesn’t happen.” It was “such an exciting prospect to try and get under the skin of” someone as manipulative and delicious as Katherine, she adds.

“The most fascinating thing about her is that we still love her until the end. Even if you don’t love her at the end, she still managed to allow you to support her. For a character to try and play, that’s fascinating."

The film also makes you think of the repressive way in which many women were treated back then. “One reason why I believe this character is so brilliant is that she is a modern woman in 1865. This wasn’t the norm, back then: it was totally expected that the woman was bought by her husband, and she was his property, and she would do exactly as he said.

“And of course Katherine – she’s 17 and she has been forced into this marriage – and she says no, which is rare. All of us that know period dramas were not expecting that. We don’t expect to see a modern force in an 1865-period film.”

Lady Macbeth sees Pugh wearing some authentic, striking gowns, but the tightly-laced corsets that Katherine is tied into by her maid Anna (Naomi Ackie) were a key way to understanding her.

Let’s get ready to giggle

“We went up about two weeks before we started shooting, and we had rehearsal time. We would be doing all of these physical scenes, me and Cosmo, and of course the moment I got in a corset, it all changed, because I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t move.

“That was so eye-opening in terms of Katherine and the character, because it meant that she was just as serious about these things as I was, and essentially her happiest times were when she was in a nightie or she was naked or she was in a dressing-gown, because that’s when I was at my happiest.

“There are so many ties that I could pull between me and Katherine because of that corset. It also made me realise how imprisoned these women were in 1865. They were trapped in their own clothes.” The corset, she adds, squashes your internal organs. "It’s designed to do exactly what it does, and that’s to keep a woman quiet.”

Pugh has gone on to shoot three upcoming films. The Commuter is an action thriller with Liam Neeson and Vera Farmiga; in Hush, a Sigma Films and Thruline Entertainment production, filmed in Glasgow and Ayrshire, she and Ben Lloyd-Hughes play two siblings who run a profitable ghostbusting racket. “Florence is a very unique talent, a special British talent on the rise,” says Brian Coffey, co-producer of Hush, “She has a deeply intuitive ability to create characters that draw an audience in. We were thrilled to be able to cast her in Hush.”

The third film is Stephen Merchant’s Fighting With My Family, in which Pugh plays a real-life WWE wrestler called Paige. The cast also includes the substantial presence of The Rock, Dwayne Johnson.

One scene in the film recreates Paige’s wrestling championship victory in a Monday Night RAW event in Los Angeles. Before Pugh stepped out into the ring, she had a brief rehearsal with The Rock. Speaking on Women’s Hour this week she said: “He’s teaching me how to throw a punch and I was stood there, and I remember looking at him, and just this space behind, all the empty seats, and thinking, oh my God, Dwayne 'The Rock’ Johnson just taught me how to punch!”

All in all, it was a marvellous experience, as evidence by Pugh’s Instagram post: “One of the best, most terrifying, most knackering and unbelievably exhilarating shoots I've ever done. #fightingwithmyfamily has wrapped and my god has it been a good run.”

She tells the Sunday Herald that she’s excited about both Hush and The Commuter. "Fighting With My Family was an emotionally and physically draining film, because it was so much fun but also because we were playing those wrestlers," she says. "Jack Lowden played my brother and it was really wonderful. We learned how to wrestle together and we had a lot of fun.”

There’s nothing else in the pipeline at the moment, though. For the time being she is focusing her energies on helping to promote Lady Macbeth – she’s excited to see what people think of it. Afterwards? “I’m going to have a little bit of time off, because I’m knackered. And then I can see what happens to Lady Macbeth, see where it goes.”

I ask her about her favourite films. “I love Leon,” she says, “I love Eternal Sunshine [Of The Spotless Mind]. I tell you what: I bloody love all of Natalie Portman’s stuff." She asks if I’ve seen the film, Chicken. “Oh, you should watch that,” she enthuses. “It’s by a new director called Joe Stephenson and there’s a great actor in it called Scott Chambers, who I worked with on Hush. It’s just absolutely beautiful.”

It’s only once the interview is over that I remember that Florence Pugh has yet another string to her bow. On her Twitter bio she describes herself not just as an actor but also as a singer-songwriter - she plays acoustic guitar, and sings, in a tantalisingly brief scene in The Falling. If for some reason she doesn’t make it as an actor she could, you imagine, always turn to writing and singing songs. But her performance as the manipulative, quietly riveting Katherine in Lady Macbeth suggests that her acting career is already on the firmest of footings.'

THE issue of so-called "posh" actors dominating the profession at the expense of those from less privileged backgrounds crops up frequently. Two weeks ago, Eton-educated Damian Lewis rejected the idea that they dominated acting, but called for greater diversity in the arts.

“I can certainly say that I didn’t have a difficult childhood. I had a really wonderful upbringing,” says Florence Pugh. “Obviously, [the alleged dominance] must be an issue, because it’s coming up, and people are obviously very opinionated about it.

“I haven’t been doing this for very long but of course I’ve been called this and that. And because of the speed with which my career has gone up, people have questioned whether it’s because of where I’ve come from, or where I went to school, or whatever. And I think my main comment towards it is: obviously, it must be frustrating to see people of privilege to go so high, but at the end of the day it’s the same game to get into this industry.

“It is just as hard, and everyone’s stories, left or right, have their own challenges in it. It is not easy to win over the public, to win over the critics. And yes, essentially, you could get in the news a lot if you’re privileged, if you have money, but it’s what you do with that afterwards. If people continue to watch your work, then surely that’s down to your talent.

“If they don’t, then you can call them out on it. But because this industry is so difficult, to stay in and to get there, I don’t think anybody should be accused of how they got there – unless they haven’t proved their point.”'

[xburnmeintheashesx]

"proship dni" people fr be like, oh this is a safe space we will protect u from harmful ships, except whats a harmful ship is subjectively decided or a consensus is commonly reached in the fandom

Then support the most controversial shit that makes me, a pretty vulnerable person, yelp in fear.

What i find funny is that they police ppl about ship but then they promote the most unhinged shit, say the most unhinged takes, or participate in the very behavior they denounce in real life...

Meanwhile people that are accused proshippers become too scared t even interact with minors out of fear or developed OCDs, further isolating minors that actually need help.

The internet degeneracy has gone real...

And what's worst is that no party is actually fighting to protect minors better for actual clauses like putting age of consent at 18 and putting romeo + juliet laws for below. or actually cracking the law so relationships between minors and adults are ACTUALLY unlawful not just sex (only Puerto Rico and Japan have such laws I believe)

Wonder if I made a petition for an act to actually help minors that isn't just anti-LGBT bigotry how much signatures it'd get

But nooo let's punish good people who make mistakes or people who just make 2 adult blorbos with a 7 year age diff kiss and actually defend the baddies who show like no remorse for their actions

[pashterlengkap]

Gay animal couples have a lot to teach us about love, life, and grieving

Same-sex coupling is not the sole province of us homo sapiens. Neither is mourning the death of our partners.  When Magic the penguin recently died, its same-sex partner Sphen mourned by singing, and their rookery joined in.  Related These 31 openly gay pets will melt your cold, dark heart We scoured two animal-obsessed Insta reels for the most utterly heartwarming moments. “We’re not entirely sure exactly what was being said in these moments of singing, but it was definitely a beautiful moment to witness,” Renee Howell, the aquarium’s penguin keeper told Australia’s ABC. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today In 2018, their courtship became international when the two male gentoo penguins — a power couple at the aquarium — exhibited more than a mere bromance.  Their romance and inseparable bond amazed their caretakers at the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium.  Sphen and Magic’s six-year relationship is not unusual because same-sex penguin coupling is common, and gentoo penguins are for being romantic, monogamous, and equalitarian in their division of labor: especially in nest building, feeding, fostering, and raising chicks. Same-sex coupling is not a new phenomenon in the animal world. However, its disclosure and acceptance have grown in recent times, especially since, back in the day — just like LGBTQ+ love — it was closeted, pathologized, and erased. During the summer of 2005, more than a year after same-sex marriage became legal in the state, Boston’s beloved pair of swans in the Public Garden — named Romeo and Juliet — began a love affair that dared not speak its name. As Bay Staters bantered and bickered over whether the two should be allowed to stay together or be separated, these swans were being subjected to the same queries that have plagued same-sex couples in heterosexist societies for centuries. Assuming that the swans were heterosexual until one of their eggs went unfertilized, Boston’s Parks and Recreation Department decided to conduct a “detailed gender test” by examining the swans’ reproductive organs. The findings disclosed that Romeo and Juliet were really more like Juliet and Juliet. The city disclosed its findings, but very reluctantly, “for fear of destroying the image of a Shakespearean love story unfolding,” The Boston Globe reported. Some people, like Laura Elsheimer of Hudson, Massachusetts, told the Globe that the city zoo “should have a Romeo.” Spokeswoman Mary Hines of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department told the Globe, “Each year when the swans go in, the kids immediately come to us and say,’ Which one’s Romeo and which one’s Juliet?'” However, neither girl swan lamented, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Why? Because on any given day at the Public Garden, you could see them swimming happily together in the lagoon. Moreover, the swans had been cohabiting for two years. Animal scientists have observed the monogamous nature of swans, whether they’re in opposite-sex or same-sex coupling — they stay with their mates until death, which can occur between 20 and 30 years. In 2024, sadly, the Christian Right still holds to its premise that homosexuality is an aberrant behavior and found only in those lost few. However,  Bruce Bagemihl’s “Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity” was cited by the American Psychiatric Association in a “friend of the court” brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Lawrence v. Texas case that led to state anti-sodomy laws being found unconstitutional. According to Bagemihl, homosexual activity occurs in more than 450 species of animals, both in the wild and in captivity, and same-sex couplings in animals can be as enduring and lifelong as they are in humans. For the religious fundamentalists, however, these findings are discarded on the premise that man can fight such “animal” same-sex… http://dlvr.it/TChKfb

[midnight-soulless-system]

I mean let's not shit on people that struggle with english, but many people that like lolis or shotas HATE actual kids, and some may be into ageplay which is just fine. If you aren't ok with ageplay then you are anti-kink. If you don't support all paraphilias (non-contact for inherently nonconsensual ones like pedophilia, zoophilia, and necrophilia) then you are anti-kink. Engaging in fiction is not "contact". And anyone who sexually engages with a minor as an adult (unless it is something like 17/18 or it's covered by the Romeo and Juliet law in places like the US) then they are a sexual abuser! Hope this helps everyone.

Perhaps it will be a bitter pill to swallow for most people but something needs to be said: