#as if performing as many shows as she did by this point isn't enough

[whyshedisappeared]

how crazy am i from 1 to having this many tabs on the spreadsheet?

[grimecrow]

You're Not Doin' Fine, Oklahoma!

In case you haven't heard last December AEW filmed one of their shows in Oklahoma. On this show AEW star Nyla Rose had a squash match honestly the same type of squash match she's had dozens of times now. And before I go any further into what happened as a result I just want to point out that Nyla Rose has an online merch store with plenty of awesome designs. I personally love the cereal box design myself! https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=+Nyla+rose

It turns out that the Oklahoma Athletic Commission has a snitch line in case YOU catch a transgender individual living their life within the confines of the state. What did this result in? Well it resulted in AEW being issued a warning at the January board meeting that if they let it happen again there would be 'punitive damages'. Here's a quick little video snippet from a wrestling news site in the UK talking about it. (Spoilers they do reveal that professional wrestling isn't actually real.) https://youtu.be/kPsyIQpRXyI?si=t1F-MWa0ziai3W-m&t=448 Also for all you TERFs, and transphobes going on about how it's enough of a sport. You need to research all the times where it's legally been deemed a performance and not a competition. I'll start you off with the easiest most well known one; New Jersey State Senate 1989. That was the case that proved globally that wrestling was rigged, fake, etc. I know that many of you are allergic to facts but if there are some that do want to know you can start your search. Anyhow, though I shouldn't be I am surprised that a governmental agency believes professional wrestling is.

[kohakhearts]

goh parentified child syndrome. go(h)

my time is here at last. thank you for enabling me <3 apologies for taking months to finish writing this giant post!

welcome to my dissertation on this fucking Dynamic <3

ok! first thing, let's establish our criteria for Parentified Child Syndrome. this is obviously not like, an actual diagnostic Thing, but there are a million and one articles out there for us to look through. so i did the tough work of scouring those to find some Symptoms we can use as anchor points here. a lot of this is split into "emotional" (parents seeking comfort from their children, rather than comforting them) vs. "material" (parents assigning their children responsibilities that are not age-appropriate (e.g. grocery shopping, paying bills, etc.)) needs, but for simplicity i'll just merge them together - because realistically, they often go hand-in-hand. so the primary symptoms we'll work with here will be:

disruptive childhood behaviours (particularly at school)

stress and anxiety

reluctance to participate in play/age-appropriate activities with their peers

difficulty acknowledging and accepting one's feelings

insecure attachment styles

need to feel "in control"

distrustful of others/self-reliant to a fault

absenteeism and poor performance in school

passive communication style

the other obvious prerequesite here is the family dynamic. so let's dissect that one a bit!

goh's family situation isn't actually like...100% clear. but i have analyzed every episode where his family is even mentioned like it's my full-time job and i have no reason to believe his grandmother actually lives with him. so in the scope of this essay, i am assuming that she lives nearby, and most likely has a key to the apartment, but does not live with them.

otherwise, we are given enough context to assume that camille and walker have been busy with work goh's entire life (though i'd choose to believe for my own sanity that in his infancy his mother at least wasn't working...though given the type of job she has, that's actually...kinda hard to say for sure). we can also assume that they've at least been self-employed for the majority of his life. it's clear that they are fairly well-established in the city/in their field by jn, and since goh is supposed to be 10 at this point, it makes sense to me that they've been building that company up pretty much his whole life.

in terms of the work they do, goh tells ash, my dad is a system engineer and my mom is a programmer. they run a company together. granted, we don't see very much of their actual workplace, but what we do see is completely void of other people. as in, camille and walker do all this work BY THEMSELVES.

nothing in the anime otherwise disputes this! if anything, goh's explanations of his parents' lifestyle just reinforces it. he also suggests that during periods of harsh weather and heavy system use, his parents are busier than usual. this implies that they are most busy during holidays. this is actually further implied by the flashback in jn015 where they explicitly say to him that they're sorry for having to work through the holiday. his reaction, being completely unengaged, not even really even acknowledging it, tells us that this is the norm.

however!! he also shows off a special device to horace in jn032 that he says his parents made specifically for him, to help him learn more about mew. this suggests that they must have some amount of free time to dedicate to him...but they show their love for him through material gifts related to their line of work (his computer set-up, too; he tells scorbunny that his parents set it all up for him).

otherwise, we see camille and walker privately share their concerns about goh (a clear awareness that he doesn't have many friends, concern about him being lonely because of them, etc.) but never actually confront goh with their concerns or appear to go out of their ways to do anything about it. i wrote a bit about this and the symbolism of having him catch a cubone of all pokemon in the episode we're introduced to his family here but the tl;dr is that camille and walker demonstrate care for goh to each other but not to him - presumably to compensate for their physical absence, we get the impression he's given a lot of freedom and little to no discipline.

which brings me to the first criterion:

disruptive childhood behaviours (with a side of absenteeism, which presumably contributes to poor performance in school)

goh's school life is obviously inconvienent to the plot progression, so for narrative purposes the writers have him just not go to school. in jn049 we get the explanation that goh had made a promise to their teacher to show up to school for tests...but the weird thing about this scene is that chloe's surprised by it:

since in jn001 and jn002 we see that chloe is goh's only point of contact amongst his schoolmates and that she hand delivers schoolwork to him at her dad's lab, the only way this exchange really makes sense to me is if it's a new arrangement. even the fact that goh makes a point of saying "hey, i followed through, go me" to their teacher here gives that vibe.

so, we can extrapolate from that that...prior to whenever this agreement was made, goh just didn't go to school because he didn't want to. but given how schools operate, we can pretty safely assume his parents are aware of this. and i have strong reason to believe that they have at least been on the receiving end of phone calls from teachers or administrators, because of these lines from jn015:

all things considered, this is a weird assumption to make, especially about your hyper-independent introverted child...unless there's a history of disruptive or unfriendly behaviour to inform that assumption. and based on goh's behaviour in jn001 at professor oak's pokemon camp, i don't think it's so out there to say the pattern probably was there.

goh is actually a super sweet kid towards his parents and has a clear admiration for them both. even in flashbacks, his whole thing is kind of like...he doesn't want to bother them. they fall asleep on family vacation and don't spend time with him? well, that's fine! he'll just find something else to do! in that same episode in the flashback sequence, they pick him up on the side of the road alone in the pouring rain and he doesn't say a word to them. even though he was angry and upset before.

so, yeah. i think it would make a lot of sense if he were well-behaved at home and not so much so at school. but camille and walker, even when they learn about things that happen, don't seem to probe or discipline him. whether because of any combination of giving him leeway out of guilt or of not wanting to encourage him to act out at home, we don't know. but the disconnect obviously exists.

which then contributes to

stress and anxiety, difficulty acknowleding and accepting one's feelings, and passive communication style

goh is socially awkward, yes, and clearly very anxious socially especially early on in jn, but a lot of that seems to come from an inability to express his wants and needs. i think jn003 has some of the most succinct examples of this - ash having to realize he's struggling and to reach down to him when they're climbing the tower in order for him to even accept that he can get (and needs) help getting up, and then later one when he stumbles over his words trying to ask ash to be his friend.

i think another good example is in jn007, after he gets knocked out at the flute cup. passive communication relies a lot on shifts in body language and in, well, passive statements. when ash approaches him to tell him to cheer up, goh doesn't actually really...respond to that. he does this

and then runs off. which he does fairly often, actually, even as late as jn135. it's emotional avoidance 101. literally just run away from the thing that's bothering you. something else we see in jn135 is him backing out of admitting he wants to go on a journey - because he is concerned about ash's reaction (though i think it's a little more complex than that, but i'll circle back to that).

and of course there's jn062, which i wrote a lot about in this post. but the whole thesis of the episode is that goh has learned through his relationships up to this point that it's okay to not understand your feelings but you still have to feel them. and it's actually a really beautiful character development moment for him, but also reinforces the fact that he still doesn't know how to grapple with his own emotions. after finally finding drizzile and explaining how he knew he would find it there, he starts to cry and doesn't know why. but even aside from feeling vulnerable, it's kind of a culmination of this stress he's been carrying with him throughout the whole episode...and the sense of responsibility he feels for driving drizzile away. which is a great segue into

insecure attachment styles and need to feel "in control"

if there's one thing i feel like people sleep on regarding goh's character, it's how much of a mother hen he is. he's obviously very thorough and thoughtful when it comes to looking after his pokemon - as in jn062 where he spends all that time chasing down drizzile after it runs away, even to the point of telling ash and chloe that they should stay behind because it's getting late but that he's going to keep looking - but he's the same way with ash.

off the top of my head, things like buying extra scones because he knew ash would want them, making ash wash his hands after eating ice cream, chastising him about punctuality, you know...very parental kind of things. he actually does it with horace too, when they first meet, by bringing a lunch for them both when he goes back to the forest to meet him again.

anyway, being a Mom Friend is cute and all, but it also REEKS of parentified child. taking on responsibilities that aren't yours to fulfill? yeah. that's a need to feel in control. it's what he's used to! it offers him security!

the other side of this is...chloe. goh's first friend, who he refuses to consider a friend, or let consider him a friend. but, like, she obviously IS his friend. and yet our introduction to them gives us this exchange

goh and chloe have a pretty tense relationship at the beginning of jn, wherein she is clearly trying to help him (by you know. getting his homework for him and shit) and he blows her off in a text message, which she complains is a repeating behaviour. chloe is obviously very loyal to him, even though he doesn't seem to repay the favour. again, there's a big disconnect here.

insecure attachments generally stem from anxiety over potential rejection and/or poor self-esteem cultivated in childhood based on parents’ emotional availability (or lack thereof) to their children. by keeping chloe an arm's distance away, goh keeps himself safe from the dangers of vulnerability, taught to him through childhood encounters with emotionally unavailable parents.

i'm not here to armchair diagnose (ok, who am i kidding, yeah i am), but i think goh's attachment style is anxious-avoidant. his clear avoidance of making friends, the multiple times we see him break off his friendship with ash only to minutes later be like "me and the bestie"...yeah, that's avoidance. but he does crave intimacy, arguably even more than he fears it.

hence why even though he knows ash would want him to journey on his own...he still convinces himself that actually telling ash that would be, as he calls it, a "betrayal of [their] friendship." my theory is that he's not concerned that ash will be upset - he's concerned that ash won't be upset enough. which is why when then ash turns it around on him and says he's going on a journey, goh gets upset and pushes him away. he does the exact same thing with horace when they're younger. just a complete 180 - he wronged me once, so he's the worst and i can't forgive him, ever.

the difference with chloe is that she actually takes care of him more than he takes care of her - which changes the dynamic from "i have to do everything to keep this person in my life, including suppressing my emotions for their sake" to "i cannot express to this person that i have needs and desires because they'll think i'm too much and they won't stick around if i do." which is primarily avoidant, but insecure attachment nonetheless.

this is extrapolation, but i think his relationship with chloe is so different because we are supposed to get the sense that they have a more familial dynamic. so, she's the one person he can't push away from him - but as he learned in his actual family dynamic, he also can't be too close to her. he doesn't want to be smothered; he doesn't want her to feel smothered by him. so they maintain a degree of separation that only begins to go away after her father begins literally housing and feeding him, thus integrating him and ash into their family in some honorary way.

which brings me to the last point, i guess, which is

reluctance to participate in age-appropriate activities with peers and self-reliant to a fault

these are, i think, the traits that jn is most blatantly attempting to better in goh throughout his arc. so i won't spend too long hashing it out, because i think these are things we all know he struggled with!

in flashbacks, we see him alone at school; during the first episode, at professor oak's camp, he is always physically distanced from the other kids and chloe even points out that he's basically doing professor oak's job at one point! he's not on the same level as the other kids and it's clear he doesn't want to be. when he meets horace, we see that it takes him some time to get comfortable enough with him to go explore the forest together and become friends.

he doesn't go to school, but that doesn't mean he isn't learning things - he becomes a very self-directed learner early on, from what he see. he's not just like...rotting in his room playing video games. he's studying and researching. the only times aside from with horace that we see him in a flashback doing something that isn't solitary is with pokemon - and even then, he's like...reciting their pokedex entries. his abra story at the end of jn is precipitated by him saying he was going through his dad's old pokedex (which is a whole other thing - this implies walker used to be a trainer, but neither of goh's parents seem to have pokemon...perhaps they're too busy with work to look after them? a theory for another time, i suppose, but it has undeniably being gnawing at my brain since that episode aired lol).

and of course, there's the fact that in jn062 he tells drizzile he was never comfortable with confiding in his parents or his grandmother...suggesting that he never confided in anyone, because we don't really get the sense from the whole "i don't NEED friends" exchange in jn001 that he considers chloe a reliable confidant, either.

the other place we see his flawed sense of self-reliance, aside from like...everywhere in the first 10 or so episodes, lol (something that is reflected pretty beautifully and symbolically in scorbunny's story, too!), is in project mew. he has to learn how to work in a team - and he clearly hates it. at this point he's found one person to rely on, but that already feels like too much. the raid battle with articuno is the most obvious example of this. he isn't good at being a leader, but he also isn't good at being a follower. because he's only ever been responsible for himself, and he doesn't trust anyone else to know how to direct him, but he also has no clue how to work within the parameters of a team.

i also want to say, as a final note, that i actually think this is all extremely intentional writing. obviously in the west we have a strong capitalism culture too, but the work culture in japan is very toxic (just google "japan work culture" and you can see right away how intense it is lol) and i'm not actually surprised at all that pokemon would make such a direct commentary on that - a lot of japanese kids could probably relate to goh and his emotionally absent, work-obsessed parents! they are clearly pretty well-off, but their dedication to work supercedes matters of home and family, because that's how it's supposed to be. as a result, goh admires them a lot for this dedication - but his arc is primarily about letting go of the "work" part of interacting with pokemon and learning how to have fun and make the most of his experiences. and i think that's a really lovely message for modern pokemon to be sending to kids :')

[litnerdwrites]

I want to talk about the Valkyries

So, I love the Valkyries. Their friendship is everything, and frankly, the best part of the series. However, I've never really liked the idea of them being warriors, and I want to hear some thoughts and opinions on that.

It all comes down to this single sentence; “"There are many types of strength beyond the ability to wield a blade and end lives. Amren told me that yesterday."”

To me, Nesta's strength lies in her other skills and abilities. She was raised to marry a Prince, so there's no doubt she's far more educated than most in her station. She proved that she has a good head on her shoulders and heart in her chest when she calculated the cost of evacuating humans from the mortal lands bellow Prythian, which goes beyond the number of ships, mind you.

She'd have to calculate the cost of the ship, the sailors to man them, the cost of security to protect the refugees in case the ships are attacked, which would mean the cost of weapons made of ash (which we know is rare since the fae burned many of the ash trees long ago), the provisions of sailors, provisions for guards, provisions for refugees, medicine for those who are sick or elderly, the time it would take to sail from the continent, load up the ships, and then sail back, etc. It's not easy, and there are a lot of factors to take into consideration, but Nesta did it and presented it to The Mortal Queens, who might have executed them for siding with the fae or even just speaking back to them, with not a single ounce of fear.

Nesta endured her mother's abuse, and didn't let it make her resent Feyre and Elain, instead, fuelling her desire to protect Elain and allow them both to find happiness in their marriages, something which we can presume is rare based on the little information and context we have for the human lands, despite it not necessarily furthering her family, while not bothering to do so for herself.

Nesta won the heart of a duke before even stepping onto the dance floor, had Eris dancing in the palm of her hand, arguably before dancing with him, and her idea to distract The King of Hybern, when Rhys didn't consider it until she brought it up. Nesta united the High Lords. Not Feyre. Not the IC. Nesta. After witnessing her father's death, and having all her trauma come crashing down on her, attended a meeting with strangers, both humans and fae, at her sister's behest, then kept herself together long enough to make it back to Velaris and to her room.

Feyre takes strength and inspiration from Nesta and her steely resolve, in times like The HL meeting.

Within a single year, she forced herself to overcome her fear of bathtubs, alone, while enduring the criticism and verbal abuse of the IC. She endured that nightmare Solstice, dinner parties and other events with them watching her like a circus performer. She endured her so-called mates' abuse and the abuse he allowed his family to show her, leaving her completely alone. Nesta didn't throw herself into the river or try to commit suicide, as far as we know, during this time, and gave everything to keep her head above water.

Let nobody tell you that Nesta Archeron isn't a strong ass woman.

I think this is why her becoming a warrior bothers me. Her courtier and dancing skills are shown to help her thrive in a place like the CON, a place the IC hates and the narrative paints as being full of scheming, evil, deserve to rot in hell, asshole fae nobles. This is a disservice to Nesta's immense talents and skill in navigating these situations. to be exploited, and painted as something that is synonymous with the 'evil' of The CON.

Also, I think that certain parts of the CON's culture is similar to human culture, in some ways. Between that and Nesta telling Bryce about how she's okay with being fae because of immortality, I think SJM is doing a disservice to humanity and it's culture. Nesta's insistence on holding on to her humanity when she points out things like how Solstice isn't a human holiday, or how fae have regard for human custom or manners (twice), and even her modest style of dress is something I love about her character.

I hate how it feels like, that for all Feyre claims both the human and fae lands are her home, she's disregarding her human culture, and Nesta is being forced to as well. Assimilating into fae society doesn't mean that she has to abandon her culture, and I think it would've been great to see more human cultures and customs, even if they didn't have holiday's or religions, being integrated into the IC. Meanwhile, Feyre's only response is to try it, because she might like it, which I think is also incredibly insensitive. Feyre and the IC have essentially indoctrinated Nesta, and wiped her human values and traditions from her life.

Her so-called mate was also the one trying to make her train since ACOWAR, without regard for human customs and how much she values them. It's like none of them care for their human heritage, and want to abandon that piece of her all together. For all he claims to love her and her fire, he doesn't care for where it came from, and who she was before he moulded her into his version of a perfect mate.

Amren is the one who told Nesta that she doesn't have to be a warrior, and that's based on the strength Nesta displayed as part of her human upbringing, implying that, even then, she is strong without the ability to end lives. Yet, she's also one of the strongest advocates for Nesta being forced to train.

If exercise of some kind is what they think she needs, why not dance? Elain is aware of how much Nesta enjoys it, and given her repeated protests about being around Cassian, why not get her a dance teacher, outside the IC, and have her learn dances from different courts or places on the continent? It's something she enjoys, and gives her a chance to learn more about the world out there, while developing many of the skills she's been trained with since birth.

I don't want to hear anything about Nesta 'choosing' to be a warrior. She merely accepted her fate, knowing it was that, or certain death.

Honestly, I think I might have been more okay with the warrior thing, if she wasn't consistently exploited by the IC. Or if I wasn't convinced that Rhysand would treat the Valkyries as an extension of his military.

Speaking of the Valkyries as a whole, I think they have so much potential that's being wasted.

Why must they be warriors? Why not a group of healers, and diplomats, and dancers and explorers, and scientists? Why not have them as a way for Nesta to fulfil her own dream of seeing the world

I've made my stance on Rhysand's so-called attempt at equality in Illyria very clear in this post (where I talk about why Cassian would be the worst father ever), but the gist of it is that throwing women swords, and forcing them to be soldiers isn't equality. Giving them the same opportunities and education to chose to be a warrior, librarian, baker, blacksmith, teacher, merchant or whatever is the start of equality.

That's not to say that they can't be warriors too. It just irks me that it's all they are. That's not to say I dislike all fmcs who become warriors, though I do think that there's an overabundance of them. Why must being a warrior be what defines The Valkyries. I don't see how that makes them different to another military unit, even though Nesta is likely to be the only one expected to act like a real soldier.

The narrative makes Nesta a warrior with her other skills and passions being just a smaller part of her character. I think it should be the other way around. I think she, and The Valkyries, deserve to be more than warriors.

I feel like Emerie would be the only one who'd want to be a full time warrior out of the main three Valkyries. Even then, it's mostly due to how ingrained it is to Illyrian culture.

The concept of Nesta helping the Priestesses heal is perfect for her character, based on what we've seen her do for civilians and victims in the past. This is why I believe The Valkyries would've been more interesting if they took a humanitarian (kind of) approach to things. Helping women who are oppressed, like Illyrian women, or those in The CON, follow their dreams and escape abuse.

The IC call themselves The Court of Dreams, so wouldn't having The Valkyries be the ones to help the underprivileged start on the path to fulfilling their own dreams be poetic? It would give her a chance to travel too, if she went across Prythian or even to The Continent.

Stepping back from The Valkyries for a moment, there are many strong FMCs that aren't warriors at all. Personally, I think Stephenie Garber writes them best.

My favourite Evangeline Fox. I think she's the strongest FMC I've read/watched because her strength comes from her kindness, and belief in true love, even when the world is trying to prove otherwise. She refuses to give up hope for a happily ever after, and fights through impossible odds with her wit and heart alone for her love.

I also love Scarlett's resolve and quick thinking. I honestly think she's a lot like Nesta in some ways, when it comes to protecting her sisters (though I think Feyre is a bit like her at time s too). I'm impressed by the lengths she'd go to for those she loves, and her resolve when she decides that she deserves better than what someone's giving her. I love Donatella's determination, and decision to use other people's low opinions of her, and ideas of her being just another dumb blonde, choosing instead to use it to her advantage and prove them wrong out of spite.

I love Tohru Honda and her resolve to be kind and compassionate to everyone, even those who don't deserve it. She assumes ignorance or accident before malice and continues to strive to be better, for herself and for others. Her kindness and compassion is what inspires others around her.

I love Sophie's resourcefulness and bravery in Howel's Moving Castle.

I love Winter from At The End There Was You, because of how kind and chatty she is. How she choses to believe that the good can outweigh the bad and never stops asking questions or being curious.

Even jumping back to SJM for a moment, I love Bryce, not because she can weald weapons, but because of how resourceful, kind and witty she is. I love how she uses her femininity and others' low opinion of her to her advantage. Yrene was my favourite character in TOG, and I loved Tower of Dawn because of her. Some of my favourite moments with Aelinare when she's being girly with Lysandra. From chatting and sharing chocolates, to playing with Evangeline, or having some form of girl time (most of which are in QOS).

The Valkyries had the potential to be more than just, the now, stereotypical, strong, warrior FMCs.

“"There are many types of strength beyond the ability to wield a blade and end lives. Amren told me that yesterday."”

I think this quote should've set the president for The Valkyries. Looking back at this, I think it's less The Valkyries that I dislike and more the fact that they're warriors. I wish it played more into that quote, rather than giving us the same old story about finding strength through fighting. Personally, I think solving disputes between nations through words and dancing, or discovering the cure to sicknesses, or even bridging the gap between two sentient races sharing a world (humans and fae) all while fulfilling your dreams is more impressive than swinging swords around and ending disputes with death.

If there really needed to be some semblance of warrior like training, why not lower the intensity to self defence? Do something like Yrene and start teaching women self defence and educating them in reading, writing and maths. Give them the opportunities to better their lives and create futures for themselves. Make them about empowerment in whatever ways others feel comfortable, not just by becoming warriors.

TLDR: I think the Valkyries, namely Nesta, being warriors, first and foremost, is a disservice to her character and to the strength of women who find empowerment through other means. “"There are many types of strength beyond the ability to wield a blade and end lives. Amren told me that yesterday."” is what Amren said in ACOWAR, as quoted by Nesta, and I think that should've set the tone for The Valkyries. The worst part is how her own so-called mate doesn't respect that about her. I do want to hear other thoughts on this matter though. Do being warriors suite The Valkyries? Does it suite Nesta or her story?

[lemonhemlock]

I think the thing that bothers me the most about Alicent’s betrayal of Aegon is that it’s essentially a mother giving up her disabled son to death so she can be ‘free’.

I have a few disabled family members, and have unfortunately heard people say to their parents to just put them in a care home so they (the parents) can ‘have their lives back’. I don’t think Condal/Hess meant for that meaning, and perhaps I’m being too sensitive, but it infuriated me because there is already so much ableism in this show (that they’ve made worse from the books in some cases), and this was I think my final straw to keep watching this show.

No, you're right, on a human level, if Alicent Hightower were a real person, we should be appalled if she acted the way she did in Season 2. This is a sensitive subject that this gaggle of writers isn't really interested in tackling properly, so I hope these blunders don't stick in your mind for too long. You decision to abandon it is completely understandable.

One indication that they are out of their depth is how they never stopped to think how it would look to eliminate the sympathy or understanding from the side who basically has all the disabled characters and then paint them all as doomed because they were not 'progressive' enough.* Another indication is how they practically pigeonholed the character of Helaena into a very stock autistic-coded box and did not bother to give her any interiority or motivations or present her in any way that doesn't infantilise this almost-20-year-old young woman. Aemond, of course, was sidelined this season after a very successful introduction in S1 that advanced him more than a cartoon mustache-twirling villain. Much has been written about Larys even before S2 aired, so I won't revisit that discourse right now, as this post is already too long.

*not meant as a dig against progressive politics, but as a comment on how HotD views progressive to mean 'stan of Rhaenyra', who is not a disruptor of the patriarchal status-quo by any quantifiable means.

A delicate topic such as this one is always going to split opinion and cause controversy and I think that sometimes a lot of feelings can be hurt by untactful takes and can cause many minority, underrepresented groups to feel even more unseen and disenfranchised. I personally hope I can convey my thoughts on the matter in a way that doesn't alienate the members of these groups, but sometimes even I lack the best words to properly express myself.

I would like to point out that, on the one hand, in the ASOIAF universe and especially in such a chapter like the Dance of the Dragons, the characters are often very flawed people that flirt with the boundaries of villainy more often than not and end up performing unforgivable acts, be they disabled or not, high born or not, men or women. At this point, such a statement reads more self-evident than not. In this regard, there have been times I've found fans who were exasperated with other segments of the fandom vying for more positive representation when it comes to these oft-ignored character typologies, citing the fact that, on the contrary, endowing them with negative or unpalatable traits emphasizes their humanity and promotes them beyond a stereotypical rendition that can easily be absorbed into some kind of artificial, formulaic 'woke' quota in media.

However, I think we should remember that for people who are part of these minority groups, whose lived experiences are marred by discrimination and harmful prejudices, these narrative arguments can (even unintentionally) feel callous or exclusionary. It not easy or encouraging to see how you are almost always represented on screen in a way that is reprehensible or ignoble or detrimental in some way - that is, in the few cases when the text in question is inclusive enough to even remember you exist.

In such a context, I have to recognise and acknowledge that, as a white / cis / able-bodied person myself, it is way easier for me to simply rely on narrative merit, because I am represented so much in media that I have the luxury of many stories catered personally for me, both heroic and villainous, and I can simply choose what to engage with if relatability becomes a problem. And it would feel inhospitable and condescending for me to simply expect the members of underrepresented groups to 'get over it' because it makes sense in the context of the story.

A while ago there was a viral post that I keep referencing back in these situations because I think it's the best explanation for this type of divide: the watsonian / doylist interaction of critiques. As such, disenfranchised characters can be portrayed in an unsympathetic manner within any story, but, at the same, the real-life individuals from that group have the right to feel estranged and frustrated by that portrayal, because they don't consume media in a void and, for them, it isn't a hypothetical situation that they can subordinate to the priorities of storytelling. They should also have the space to express that discontent within fandom without having to be involuntarily accused of wanting to moralize or sanitize the media landscape. I think that we should start accepting that both things can be true and integrate that sentiment within our analyses.

That being said, since Alicent is not a real person, in the second part of this post I would like to dismantle the potential argument regarding the right to tell stories about awful people and how a woman being a bad mother or a bad person fits that bill. As I said, in principle, I agree with the sentiment. But I don't believe that the writers were at all successful in pulling this off. Their storytelling skills have proved inadequate and they were unable to craft a believable arc for Alicent to justify her so drastically shifting her entire world view in a few short weeks. And, by 'believable' I absolutely don't mean something naturalistic in the framework of the 21st century on Earth where dragons and magic don't exist; I mean plausible and reasonable behaviour for a human person in the confines of the fictional universe in which they operate.

I'm all for villainstanning and difficult female characters, but this season should have taken Alicent from

point A: doing everything in her power to put Aegon on the throne and even shielding his body from the dragon Meleys

to

point B: offering him to Rhaenyra for execution

in the span of weeks.

This season should have given her a proper motivation to basically hand over her male children to the person married to the assassin of her grandson. If nothing else, Alicent should have demanded Daemon's head. Speaking of which, there is no way to delve into Alicent's psyche, into the mind of a person in her position, after years of paranoia about a loose-cannon like Daemon (a notoriously disliked figure in Westeros), and arrive at the conclusion that, yes, Daemon as King consort would somehow be a better solution for the realm than any of her sons. It's just not. Even with rhaenicent rose-tinted glasses, he should have been a dealbreaker. This type of shortcoming makes me think that they can't truly immerse themselves in the mind of a character to properly gauge how someone could react to the events around them.

As such, let's see what disservices were done to Alicent this season that might have made her regret her initial decision. Let's see what the writers think would be reason enough for Alicent to switch sides and undo 20 years of wanting to place Aegon on the throne:

?????

2. Aemond burns Aegon

3. Aemond boots her from the council

4. Smallfolk suffering & revolts

5. Assassination attempt of Rhaenyra

6. Otto booted from the Council

7. she takes a few baths

8. goes camping

9. ??????

10. Dragonseeds

11. Aemond burns Sharp Point (?)

12. Aemond may endanger Helaena

Now let's see the plotholes in Alicent's thinking:

Most of these concern Aemond. Aegon, Criston, Otto, Gwayne and Daeron haven't committed any grievous sin against her that should be punished, yet, by conspiring with Rhaenyra, she would doom them all to their deaths. Even if Alicent is shown to have a complicated relationship with the first four, she has no reason against her 'nice' son Daeron and her brother Gwayne who was deferential and sympathetic to her. Now there is no way to make Queen Alicent Hightower "kind of forget" about Daeron and Gwayne or her Hightower uncle or cousins and not consider they would have to be executed by Rhaenyra/Daemon. If you have to suddenly make a character stupid or amnesic in order to fit your plot point, then it's not a good plot point. And Alicent has never before shown to be either stupid or amnesic. On the contrary, she is an anxious person who worries about everything.

Of course, one can argue Otto has manipulated her throughout her life and she could have reasonably developed feelings of animosity towards him, but he doesn't really factor in show!Alicent's decision at all. She isn't depicted to be thinking about him or to bring him up in any capacity after he leaves for Oldtown. Thus, we can't reasonably be expected to 'fill in the blanks' that Alicent is upset because of something Otto did.

She does not verbalise any opinion about Aegon & Criston sending Ser Arryk to assassinate Rhaenyra. At the end of that same episode, she is shown to slap Criston. But is that because he tried to assassinate Rhaenyra? Is it because Otto was booted from the Council and Criston became the new Hand? Is it because she told him they're not going to have sex anymore and he still came to her chambers? We don't know. They proceed to have another consensual sex scene. Later on, Alicent seems pissed because Criston is not telling her the truth about Rook's Rest. They part on OK terms, even though she is seen to be a little cold, but she does give him her favour. Is she even pissed at Criston? We don't know. Could she possibly be pissed enough at him that she would doom him to his death? No, I don't think that's reasonable to assume based on what we've seen. Show, don't tell. Golden rule of storytelling. In this case, neither did they show, nor did they tell.

I hesitate to assign Alicent any particular concern for the well-being of the smallfolk beyond a general sentiment to reduce bloodshed and not cause suffering on a grand scale. But individually? She is portrayed in Season 1 wanting to help Dyana and being affected by her situation. She tries to stop the guards from cutting off a man's hand during the riots, that is true. But she also allowed Larys to basically torture / execute her household staff without nary a thought. So which is it?

Coming back to Aemond. He remains the main point of contention. I am going to ignore his cartoonification this season, but, let us accept, for the sake of the argument, that Alicent did not realise how unstable he is and that now she regrets facilitating a situation in which he has so much power. If she has the power to make the guards surrender, like she tells Rhaenyra, then she is not as powerless as she laments, is she not? Then she could possibly even stage a coup against Aemond and arrest him. The fact that Aegon did not do so the minute he became conscious is another plothole. Aemond is one man with no network or friends because of his anti-social and anti-politics behaviour. He has a dragon but his access to her is restricted if he needs to ride a horse for several miles outside of the city to get to her. When he is inside the castle, as skilled a warrior as he is, he is still only one man. Him still being Prince Regent after Aegon wakes up is preposterous.

Larys does bring up the fact that without Vhagar, the greens are terribly outmatched at the moment when it comes to dragon warfare. That is true. But, if Aemond is a loose cannon who is threatening the life of the King and Queen, he cannot stay un-arrested. There's no reason they couldn't have kept it hushed for a while to buy some more time either. If Alicent is so sorry for what Aegon went through, she could have sued for peace after Aemond's ass was in a jailcell. But she makes no attempt to protect him from his supposed assassin. Her being overwhelmed with Rhaenyra's dragon superiority after Vhagar is out of commission would make more sense as a motivation for the second rhaenicent scene, it would give her more agency and not need her to abandon Aegon and the rest of her family all of a sudden.

But Aemond can't suddenly be removed from the narrative like that, because he has a part to play later on. Of course, in the books, there's not a lot to cling to when it comes to regicide. The narrator makes no such claim, nor is anyone else recorded to do so. Alicent is not upset with Aemond. Aemond doesn't attempt to kill Aegon during his long convalescence. You can argue it's not clear cut because Vhagar fell upon both Sunfyre and Meleys from above, but all three of them are reported to crash into the ground. Vhagar is old and slow, there is no certainty that she could have been sprightly enough to stop just in time so as to not crash fatally. It is not impossible to read this excerpt and think that Aemond may have tried to rid himself of his brother under the guise of battle. It is also equally possible to read Aemond's actions as a rash, dangerous move that could have ended in his death as well. It is self-preservation to let Sunfyre and Meleys kill each other. It is not self-preservation to rely on Vhagar's agility to save your life at the last moment. However, whichever way a screenwriter would like to go, Alicent can't suspect that Aemond tried to kill his brother or that he would place her beloved daughter in danger, because she would then act differently! This is another example of changing elements for the sake of changing them and not allowing the natural consequences of those changes to materialize because they would modify the sequence of events too much.

Like Rhaenyra in the sept scene, Alicent seems to be the worst negotiator ever. She doesn't get one concession from Rhaenyra when she goes to Dragonstone. Is that fair and unbiased storytelling? Helaena and Jaehaera's lives were never truly at stake, since they are girls and could always be married back into the black branch of the family. Why execute them when they could become useful? Alicent should know this, yet they need her again to be stupid and forgetful because she went to a live laugh love retreat in the woods. There is no attempt to truly settle this diplomatically. The scene is just a new pretext to humiliate Alicent and have her grovel at Rhaenyra's feet.

Below I am going to dismantle the narrative decisions regarding the dragonseeds.

Bear in mind that if we are to have 4 seasons of this story, then the sides must remain balanced for quite some time. Someone should tell the writers that biases and preferences are irrelevant because if the force differences become too great, the war ends and there will be no story left to milk.

The unavoidable truth of the matter is that the writers overpowered the blacks too much at this stage and this decision ended up massively affecting the plot. As it stands, the dragon parity at the end of the season became 2:7 - Vhagar & Tessarion vs Syrax, Caraxes, Arrax, Moondancer, Seasmoke, Vermithor & Silverwing. Out of these, Syrax was never truly considered a potential threat in battle. She is notoriously useless, does not hunt and does not fly in bad weather. Baela also rode Moondancer a grand total of one time at the end of the conflict and was never counted as a force during the war. They made Rhaenyra and Baela active dragonriders, but they refuse to do the same for Helaena to balance the forces a little bit more (Dreamfyre is a very large dragon, probably on par with Silverwing and a little smaller than Vermithor).

The book parity at this point was still unbalanced, but at the very least GRRM realised that and tried to mitigate it by moving the Battle of the Gullet close to the Sowing and making Ulf and Hugh betray Rhaenyra's side. Book!Alicent doesn't have to sue for peace because the greens get a fighting chance. I still think the Dance in the books suffers greatly from non-sensical military strategies and division of resources, but it surpasses the show with flying colours.

Let us return, however, to show!Alicent's POV. For a fictional universe famous for its amount of politicking, there is little to none in this adaptation. The writers are trying to sell us the idea that Alicent has to give up her disabled son for the good of the Realm or, like anon said, to "be free". Authorial intent is unclear on this point, but there is at least the germination of the idea that Alicent is "sacrificing" something - her family, her own ambitions etc - because she is desperate and there are no other options open to her. But is that true?

If the writers refuse to make Helaena a combatant because of reasons only they understand, even if they have no problem performing ~girlboss changes like that for TB (yes, I'm bitter about it), they could have at least given the greens the upper hand in politicking. But they don't because I'm not really sure they understand the universe they write for or posses that level of imagination. Why don't they have, say, spies in the Vale that report Aegon the Younger and his brother Viserys are on their way to Pentos as we speak? Alicent could have been shown to plot for them to be intercepted with the help of the Triarchy secured by Tyland.

Why doesn't she try to find out who these dragonseeds are. Can they be bribed? Do they have weaknesses? Ulf has a wife, no? Is there some way to use their friends and family against them and make them turn sides? Does Vaemond Velaryon not have any disgruntled relatives that have a bone to pick with Rhaenyra & Corlys and would be appalled by the decision to make Addam the heir to Driftmark? (in the books he did and they actually fought for the green side). Can they not try to assassinate one of Addam, Corlys, Seasmoke or Rhaenyra?

Alicent being involved in any of these plots would have been a more satisfying progression to her story that would have allowed her to remain relevant and maintain her screen time. Even her having a little more dignity and attempting genuine peace talks would have been more believable if she at least stuck to her guns when it comes to her family's lives, especially the son she herself placed on the throne and the one who turned out gentle and kind and has not wronged her in any way. But, of course, the show in that moment pretends yet again that Daeron doesn't exist and any other points of contention (like Gwayne and Jaehaerys) are swept under the rug because it would dismantle Rhaenyra's righteous stance. So Aegon is presented as this sacrificial lamb that Alicent must relinquish as the only way forward.

Even though the show has not established any substantial reason for Alicent to object to any tangible decision Aegon has made as king, even though she is specifically shown to regret what happened to him, even though she made no efforts via political maneuvering to mitigate Rhaenyra's advantages and even though it would have been more merciful for her to give Aegon a painless death via milk of the poppy. Instead of being an ambitious and shrewd politician, she is given a nebulous motivation of "finding herself" and discovering feminism, which apparently means her disabled son must be subjected to even more humiliation and pain. It is a very unfortunate framing because the scene invites you to think that Alicent is finally seeing reason and is trying to atone for her mistake of not stanning for Rhaenyra. Yes, Aegon is also portrayed as downtrodden and not deserving of more violence, but Rhaenyra is also not portrayed as being "wrong" to demand for Aegon's head? She is shown in soft lighting, soft-spoken, with tears in her eyes, hurt, wronged and Alicent doesn't argue back. Their parting words are bittersweet and yearning.

How can you make Alicent a selfish character overnight when you have spent so much time painting her the exact opposite and you don't even give her plausible motivations or any breaking point? She doesn't even do anything to try and gain power back for herself, change the things she doesn't like or counteract Rhaenyra's moves before she goes to Dragonstone. Her one attempt is proposing herself for the regency and it's supposed to be this grand moment of her realizing misogyny is real, even though that has been the case her entire life and, as a stand-in for her husband and a Council member, she would have encountered it often as a daily routine when trying to get anything done.

Ergo, I do have to ask again: how does Alicent get from point A to point B exactly?

[heeseung64]

PERSPECTIVE

𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘬𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘬.

SERIES, SMAU, ENEMIES ??TO LOVERS, MUTUAL FRIENDS, MUTUAL PINING, COMEDY, ANGST, SLOW BURN. MDNI.

contents.

17. PRETTY GIRL,

written part below <3

y/n placed perfect scores for each element, her body twisting and turning as she breathes, heaving, crying after seeing the judicators nod to her performance. she couldn't believe it. the sequins of her dress glittered the ice around her, and the moonlight of the stage carried her body as if she swam across the rink.

the seasonal championships have ended with y/n's dear smile plastered across the screen, and the hugs of her fellow coaches and rivals have deemed her confidence worthy of securing the top Under 25 skater. life and game changing, y/n had it all. as the crowd begins to pack it up, sunghoon watches y/n's every move, looking at the way she takes her phone- on par to the rhythm of the bubbles that show up on his phone screen.

sunghoon couldn't believe the beauty of ice skating. yes, it was amazing when he played, but this. this? incomparable. sunghoon took it enough to realise the beauty of skating didn't come from the passion alone- her everything was enough to show it. his hands gripped onto the bouquet of flowers after watching her tear, and his heart stung with a million hot thorns after seeing her search for the crowd. sunghoon grabs his phone to text her, too focused at the keyboard than the group of friends eyeing him. "sunghoon, go to her." sunoo slaps his arms, pointing at y/n who began to walk towards the locker rooms.

sunghoon booked it.

he held a precious bouquet of flowers, a few (too many) bags of gifts, and a nervous face. he doesn't know how to face her, he doesn't know how to do it; but if it makes her feel better, he'll give it all he can.

y/n finally replies to his message, turning around to find sunghoon there, breathing short breaths in his black suit, a few hairs out of place, and his eyes roaming all around her face.

"sunghoon-" y/n gasps, seeing the man before her drop everything. he wraps his arms tightly around her waist, his hands supporting her back as he doesn't hesitate to put his face in the crook of her neck.

"congratulations, y/n. and- happy birthday." he stutters. too afraid to let go. y/n's heart pounds aggressively. it already shuddered the moment he texted her, and it exploded the moment he stood there in front of her, too good for her eyes.

"hoon..." she whispers, tears welting in her eyes. the voice paired with his nickname was enough to make sunghoon melt, to which he lets go, pulling up her chin to face him better.

"what's wrong, pretty?" he cooes, brows furrowing as he watches a tear fall down her sides.

"why did you come watch? you left your internship!" she felt guilty, and sunghoon understood, it wasn't a good idea, but this? this is what was right. "why wouldn't i? you're my favourite skater." he croaks, drying away her tears that spill out with his thumb.

"you're a liar, with the way you talk- i don't even think you like me-" y/n gets interrupted by a shove of bouquets and bags worth of expensive jewellery.

"if i really didn't, would i have booked a jet here? hm?" sunghoon smirks, bowing down to look closer at y/n's face who in return avoids his by looking away. "whatever. thanks for the birthday gift." y/n pouts, to which sunghoon laughs.

"this isn't your birthday gift," sunghoon leans in closer, tucking away y/n's flyaways after she puts down her hair. "this is your 'i'm sorry, i admit you're the best skater in the world.' gift."

y/n furrows her brows, about to protest with the amount of things he bought. "my birthday gift, is this." he says, leaning closer before grabbing her waist, snaking his hands under her hair, pulling her close; and roughly smashing his lips on hers. his lips were soft, and they got warmer the longer they stayed on y/n, and all she could do was melt- feeling the exchange of heat through eachother's bodies. all y/n prayed was for an upper being to give her strength, as she believed the kiss took her legs out already.

________________________________________________------

inbox for taglist <3

theres plenty more to come :)

taglist: @istglevi-gotmesimping @hoonatic @dissoc1ating @seungminsapuppy @cheridiaries @nikiswifiee @simpjay @soobsofie @woorcve

[folkwhore1998]

All I do is try try try

I will literally never forget the first time I listened to folklore. I went for a walk around the pond outside in my neighborhood and it was cold as hell. It was such a vibe you guys. I would do anything to be able to listen to this album again. Take me to the ponds where all the poets went to die.

It is so different than anything else Taylor Swift has ever done honestly. I feel it is the lyricism of Last Kiss and All Too Well but they were introduced to depression and anxiety. Am I wrong? It is hard for me to say it is an album that divided our fandom because it brought in so many fans, but i also feel there are a lot of fans who prefer other albums over folklore.

I can totally see why and how folklore brought in so many new fans. #1 It is a completely new sound from Taylor (which is how I can maybe see why some people were divided) #2 We were all depressed during COVID and this album was a really good friend to so many people during this time. #3 It took people by surprise because there was no promo for the album. She just said "Here!" I think that there was a lot of curiosity that came with the release which brought in new listeners.

There are two songs on this album I will ride at dawn for: hoax and peace

YOU KNEW THE PASSWORD SO I LET YOU IN THE DOOR. YOU KNEW YOU WON SO WHATS THE POINT OF KEEPING SCORE? I'll admit, I was not always a hoax truther. It just didn't click. But one day I had the album on shuffle and there was a switch that was flipped in my brain and wow it is just so good. Like hello? DID YOU HEAR WHAT SHE SAID?

Peace is such a vulnerable song and we don't talk about that enough. It is like asking am I going to be good enough? but so much more than that. Taylor is a well loved celebrity and it isn't something she cannot change about herself. It is a major part who she is. "Will you accept the intrusive parts of myself and my life that I will never ever be able to change? I would literally die for you and I love your family as my own and I would do anything for you, but is my love enough? I'd also like to talk about epiphany. I personally don't relate to it a lot and I don't listen to it a lot, but I recently saw a video of someone saying "it's the worst song she's ever written" which absolutely infuriated me. Did I rank it last? Yes. I rank everything on how I personally connect with the song, not in terms of "I think this is a bad song." Just because I don't connect, does not mean it is a bad song. It is actually an incredibly deep song that I think resonates with a lot of medical professionals as well as people who lost loved ones during COVID. It talks about a loss so unfathomable or event so traumatic that you literally can't speak about it. And for someone to say it's the worst song she's ever written is honestly senseless and offensive and infuriating. (Respectfully)

☆ Fun fact: Whenever I am showing folklore to someone for the first time, I always play the LPSS version. The vocals are so raw and I feel like you can really feel the lyrics differently, and you can really hear what she just- which I find to be extremely important with this album.

Here are my rankings of

folklore:

illicit affairs

the 1

my tears ricochet

this is me trying

august

peace

betty

hoax

cardigan

mirrorball

the lakes

mad woman

seven

exile (the live version is a different story...one of her best performances)

invisible string

the last great american dynasty

epiphany

Folklore era favs:

lol

MAGICAL

actually sobbing. everything about this. they're all so appreciative and proud. sidenote: one of her best looks ever. dare I say it's my favorite?

no notes.

if you know, you know.

Yes.. I know we need to get through Fall, but it's never too soon to start planning. Taylor said so!

☆ Here is the direct link to the folklore cardigan Christmas ornaments pictured above:

☆ Here is the direct link to the folklore stocking pictured above:

@taylornation @taylorswift

[tetitous]

OK I think I'm good to give my thoughts about the last 2 episodes now (warning, it's long)

I'm so fucking wilded out by the whole wakfu extraction scene. It was absolutely painful.

I have to applaud the transition between Yugo's old and new VA, it was super clean. I really like his voice, it's so soft and yet you feel it has some power in reserve, though for Valentin Vincent (yes, if you're an ff7 fan you see it, I see it too) to win over Fanny Bloc in my heart he'd need to give me a godlike performance, for now I need to grow used to the change.

I believe I said somewhere some time ago that Eliatrope landing on the WoT could have some drastic repercussions, seems like I was wrong then, I'm okay with that.

Poor Nora, I just- she's only ever done her best, she mourned for a brother who used her like a puppet, how fucking cruel is it that now her powers is what's putting the world in danger and there's nothing she can do about it. Efrim being so devoured by his hunger that he feels hatred for Eliatrope and doesn’t care about even his own twin sister is so sad. He calls Eliatrope an egoist, as if anyone was owed her life force, and he sees nothing but sustenance. I do remember someone saying that you become someone else when you discover what true hunger feels like, it's what him being folded in two over his own stomach reminded me of. I hope there is some way out for them, but I'm not sure that I can be hopeful.

Talking about that, Toross Mordal. He can't forget himself to his own anger, like the others, but his mind still can't prioritize anything else. It's interesting to me that to him Yugo was just a means of sustenance, and yet he showed him more sympathy seemingly than he did to Nora, the central piece to his plan. Does Yugo remind him of someone else? Himself? I also think a lot about the way he's on loop about how Eliatrope "could have kept on feeding his people for centuries", he says it so often, and I wonder if it's meant to parallel Eliatrope's "we're doomed" attitude. They're both on loop about their own situations.

The whole dichotomy between "monster" and "pure" seems to reach some conclusion, that probably being that these two concepts don't really mean anything but "who we feel like we're allowed to demonize or not".

It's very strong with Qilby, who's been labeled as both by people. He's been a blast those last 2 episodes, I wouldn't call it a redemption arc, but an acceptance of his complexity. Yugo was right in s2, Qilby cannot deal with loneliness, and moreso by the void. The one thing he really wants is for things to exist so that he can discover them, to compensate for his lack of connexion. Beyond that he understands that no one can truly get him, and that's okay, he seems to have done some self-reflection if he actually came to that conclusion without much anguish. He's reuniting with the one person who can get it, hopefully at some point some form of compromise can be done so that the White Dimension never becomes a necessity again.

Turns out Lokus WAS a Mechasm after all, interesting to have rebooted the species a little. You can be "worthy" of them, the conditions of this being kind of unclear. Given the parallels between the Eliacube and the Eliasphere, it seems, strangely enough, that both Yugo and Qilby have been deemed worthy. I'm kind of fascinated, I want to understand how they work a bit more, but I don't think we'll be given much answers.

I have so many thoughts about Yugo it's unreal. First I want to comb his hair, he's pretty but haircare isn't on point, tbf that's part of the charm I think. Because I really, really want to be the one to comb his hair. Yeah he's already going up there on the babygirl list. That's powerful.

The fact that Yugo has a mind protection mechanism thanks to the Eliotropes is beautiful to me. They, or at least Oropo, did want someone, anyone, to aknowledge them, and Yugo going from refusing to accept them to giving them a full Persona-style recognition was nice. I want to know more about them, specifically I want to see which aspects of them are their own, and which they originally got from Yugo, because I see them both as some extensions of Yugo and as their own people. To me, the moment you are separated from your "original being", you start to be "you", so something different. Oropo only being one of many actually helps me to appreciate him more. Still an asshole though. Yeah I do believe they're real, otherwise Yugo couldn't have come up with Bouillon, y'know? Let me just have some Yugo chilling with his not-quite-clones from time to time, let me figure out their individual deal.

Amalia is going to pop off, love that for her, curious about what her and Yugo's reunion is going to be like.

We heard nothing from the Percedals, well for now their big arc has been handled I guess, but they'll probably come back for the finale, their friends will need all the help they can get, after all. Actually so much of Eva's personality can be understood through the prism her abandonment issues, but her it doesn't feel like we have reached the point where her arc can be considered close, but her deciding to trust Flopin, trust the people around her, to give them love, really reminds us how far she's come from the person who refused to adress Amalia by anything other than "princess".

Also not much of Ruel, he's probably going to be torn between his two treasures: his money and his friends needing him, and Ruel is generous in the ways that matter. At least that's my expectations. Kinda wish we had more comic relief moments, but let's be real, it wouldn't have been appropriate atm.

I'm surprisingly normal about the fact eliatropes seem to be able to make their own clothes.

Did I say everything I wanted to say? Ah no, wait

The scene where Ad is being all self-depreciating and Qilby's coming back like "Hey, missed me?" Was hilarious, I actually laughed out loud and I really needed it.

Bro Qilby calling Amalia superficial. On the one hand she does rely a bit too much on appearances, on the other Qilby can talk, he doesn't know her and makes some pretty mean assumptions. Wrong ones at that, because Amalia knows Yugo and loves him beyond appearances, and so does Yugo. The irony of it all isn't lost on me.

Armand had such a wisdom glow up, good for him.

Other thoughts may come up, but that's what I have right now. Can't wait till next week I'm too excited

[sapphic-agent]

As a POC I could not handle any longer the way they excused Lea's actions on the Glee subreddit. I left permanently because of it. It angered me the day someone on the sub said that Lea apologised. Lea did not apologise. More than enough times, I've seen Lea be defended on that sub and people get upvoted for it and I couldn't stand it any longer.

The tipping point for me was that people started to say that Santana fans can't keep their feelings about Naya separate but at the same time they're known strong Rachel fans and Rachel defenders and have shown support to Lea multiples all the while being overly-critical about Santana. It was just brewing into hypocritical territory for me.

As a teen, Naya helped me in ways that's hard to explain. Her passing affected me deeply. To see that a few people, going off of the multiple upvotes, were agreeing with comments made accusing Santana fans of mixing their feelings about Naya with Santana in an unhealthy manner was hurtful. Lea fans also double down on putting Rachel on a pedstal to not talk about Lea's past actions on the glee sub but it's not spoken about.

So grateful that you spoke up about this major issue when it comes to Lea on the Glee sub. Your willingness to speak up about the issues on the Glee sub makes me feel less alone.

Omg thank you! That's so nice of you to say. I really do try to steer away from real people on this blog because I want to be primarily media-based. But the Glee sub makes me so fucking mad. They're the definition of performative activism and double standards. Supporting and/or forgiving Lea is just shitty, no matter how many times they try to justify it.

Naya- and Heather- helped me a lot too. They brought to life one of the healthiest, most important sapphic couple of the 2010s (my username was inspired by them lol, that's why they were my old pfp). They made me feel okay to be myself and comfortable in my sexuality. Her passing affected me for a long time too, it was like I couldn't process it.

I know exactly what you're talking about, when people would accuse Santana fans of conflating Santana because of Naya's passing. Like, right after it happened. It was really an awful thing to say because a woman was dead. Her life and memory were more important than their favorite character getting shit. They're vile.

If anyone can't separate the actor from the character it's Finn fans. Cory was a great guy- people always said him and Dianna were the nicest of the cast- and he also passed while the show was still running. A lot of Finn's "likability" came from Cory's charisma and comedic timing. If Cory was still alive I really don't think as many people would defend Finn.

(Tbh, I think Cory himself would shit on Finn. His mom once said that Santana slapping Finn was his favorite scene)

I also feel like people (including other POCs) don't actually understand why Lea was (is?) racist. Racism isn't just "I hate minorities and don't think they deserve rights." It's way more complicated than that. Lea might not have been throwing the n-word around (though, she was derogatory at least towards Samantha with that "shit in her wig" comment), but she absolutely viewed her being white as being superior to her WOC coworkers.

It's a pretty common thing for Black girls. Hell, I even experienced it from girls I called my friends. They're so "down✊🏾" but will be quick to remind you how more cultured and better than you they are.

If you haven't been taught about or experienced these things, you won't know that. But attempting to shut down WOC who have experienced it is shitty. Lea fans trip over themselves to defend someone who went out of her way to bully a younger Black coworker just because she could.

(Also, she was outwardly transphobic. Not letting anyone forget that either. If she was so willing to be transphobic, what makes you think she wasn't racist?)

Lea fans have no excuse. I liked and looked up to JKR too, but the people she hurt (and continues to hurt) are more important than how much I admired her or how much I enjoyed Harry Potter. I was disgusted by her and had no issues condemning her. Lea fans are hypocritical, self-righteous performative activists

[kylieswift31]

Cinderella (Taylor’s Version)

"I had so many dreams about you and me.

Happy endings,

Now I know that I’m not a princess,

This ain’t a fairytale.”

Taylor Swift has been inspired by many fairytales over the years, but one particular character she has continued to reference is Cinderella. This isn't because she wants the prince, the ring or even the castle. The story Taylor has been showing us is about the night she got dressed up and went to the ball, but unlike Cinderella she is still waiting for the clock to strike midnight so that she can return home again.

Once upon a time

Many fairytales begin with the narrator reflecting back on the story in hindsight. The 1950s version of Cinderella starts with a storybook that opens up to reveal that the narrator is reading the book aloud.

Taylor has been referring to herself as the narrator during the eras tour in a similar way because she wants us to see her as the narrator of her own story. The tortured poets department has been pointing us to go back to the beginning for this reason. If we see debut as the prologue and the tortured poets department as the epilogue, Taylor's story begins with fearless and ends with midnights.

The housemaid

The death of Cinderella's father left her in the care of her new stepmother. Amidst her grief, Cinderella’s stepmother revealed her true colours before banishing her to move into the attic and she became the servant of the house.

It appears Taylor faced a similar journey as she went from chasing her dream of sharing her music with the world, to being confronted with reality following the release of fearless. As a young woman Taylor was picked apart for everything she did that her male colleagues were praised for, and no matter how hard she worked over the years it was never enough for the backlash to subside. Now that she's at the peak of her career, this animosity is arguably worse than ever. All of this mistreatment she has faced is what has lead to Taylor hiding parts of herself from the public.

The carriage

Cinderella's fairy godmother appeared after her stepmother and stepsisters had ruined her dress. She helped by turning a pumpkin into a carriage so that Cinderella could attend the ball in the hopes of meeting the prince.

Taylor's journey to the country music awards was a little less magical, but she did ride in a pumpkin shaped carriage that was inspired by Cinderella. This was a fitting entrance considering the fairytale themes featured throughout her fearless album.

The ball

The fairy godmother replaced Cinderella's tattered dress with a ball gown. This allowed her to attend the ball where she spent the night dancing, but hadn't realised she was dancing with the prince at the time.

Following the success of her fearless album, Taylor attended the country music awards. The night started with Taylor performing for the audience and ended with her accepting the most coveted award of the night, the entertainer of the year award.

The party is over

Cinderella’s night ended as she heard the clock begin to chime. She fled from the castle and lost her glass slipper on the way out, leaving the prince wondering how to find her again.

Before Taylor could finish her speech, Kanye West stormed onto the stage and ripped the microphone out of her hands. He had interrupted her acceptance speech to proclaim that Beyonce should have won the award instead of Taylor. This encounter is the epitome of how little respect so many people within the music industry and media had for her at the time. Taylor put on a brave face for the interviews that followed the awards show, but on the inside she felt humiliated.

Midnight

Cinderella's fairy godmother had warned her that when the clock struck midnight she would return to who she was before the ball, causing her to flee before the spell wore off.

Unlike Cinderella, Taylor never stood a chance of transforming back to her old self when the night ended because of her encounter with Kanye. Instead the pop star version of Taylor was frozen in time, unable to return home to reunite with the queer version of herself. This traumatic experience on stage is what contributed to the queer side of Taylor becoming metaphorically exiled and hidden from the public view indefinitely.

Exiled

Cinderella’s stepmother locked her away in the attic as a punishment when she discovered that Cinderella had snuck out to attend the ball. This was also an attempt to prevent her from seeing the prince again.

We see many versions of Taylor being exiled throughout her career. She's been buried, locked away in the vault, abandoned in the cabin, in a casket for her funeral and locked away in the asylum. Meanwhile, the pop star version of Taylor had to go on with the show. This separation between the two then lead to new versions of Taylor being added with each new era over time, all playing their part until they could reunite once more.

If the shoe fits

When Cinderella fled from the ball she left behind her glass slipper. The had prince decreed that every maiden in the kingdom was to try the shoe on, in hopes of finding who it belonged to. Cinderella escaped her confines just in time try on the shoe.

Taylor's mismatched shoes and outfits for the 1989 set are similar to the contrasting colours Cinderella’s stepsisters wore each day. The reputation bodysuit has a similar shape reminiscent of Cinderella's missing shoe too. But the final puzzle piece of the missing shoe seems to be the remaining rerecords.

And they lived happily ever after

When the narrator reaches this part of the story, they're doing so with hindsight because the story has already ended. Therefore the narrator is retelling the story for us to understand her journey. Cinderella's story ends when she reunites with the prince and they live happily ever after.

Taylor has been telling us her story through her music, public appearances, social media and throughout the eras tour. And if the tortured poets department is the epilogue, Midnights is the final chapter. Taylor's version of a happily ever after will finally occur when the pop star version of Taylor reaches midnight and is reunited with the queer version of herself that is stuck in the shadows.

Queer Taylor- "I don't wanna live forever"

"I'm gonna get you back" -pop star Taylor

❤️💔❤️‍🩹

A tortured poet,

Kylie x

P.S. Will we meet Taylor at 12am on the 12th of December 2024?

[jabberwockprince]

SB Ruin DLC really went "hey guys, here's Bonnie's corpse, located in his very own bowling alley, with some environmental story telling as to what might've happened, have fun!" and ppl will continue to say Monty killed him

"but it looks like Bonnie's wounds were caused by claw marks"

points at the sign in the wall

Monty only had claws sharp enough to cause real damage AFTER he was assigned as Bonnie's replacement, AFTER Bonnie was decommissioned, we know this from the base game - the whole thing abt Monty clawing the shit out of Bonnie to the point of being beyond repair and all makes no sense because he just. Had No Means To Do It

looking around Bonnie's body you can see a bowling ball cracked in HALF near his head, implying that was one of the things that possibly fucked him up (plus the crack on the wall directly in front)

the "green paint" around his chest area I've seen people say it's because of Monty also makes no fucking sense because. That's not. paint???? That's corrosion??? gunk and grime???? how the fuck would the paint even rub off on Bonnie like that???? they're solid metal with a coat of paint, the only way paint could've left any stain is if it was FRESH, otherwise it just. chips OFF??? it's not even properly green it's like, the same color as all the shit around him???

and then there's the motive, the fact that Monty was jealous of Freddy being the face of the company and got rid of Bonnie to be in the band also makes no real sense? Not because of the whole argument on how he had to aim for Bonnie specifically because getting rid of Freddy is TOO risky and all, THAT makes sense - but because his errant behavior is all about avoiding performing with the band

and reading Chica's and Roxy's errant behaviors also imply that these things they do aren't exactly glitches but things they actively want to do (Chica being quirky and eating garbage or other things she shouldn't, Roxy wanting to return to the one place ENTIRELY themed after her)

Monty just. skips performances. If he killed Bonnie for the chance to play in the main band, you'd think he'd be more enthusiastic about never missing a performance?

people also take the entire ride Cassie gets on that shows Monty's backstory at face value, using it to support both arguments about Monty being guilty or innocent, but like....... it's a fucking ride created by the company that covers up murders like it's the easiest shit in the world.......it isn't proof of anything? this is the story they put out for the public so that people don't ask too many questions about why Monty would replace Bonnie in the band

so with all of that into consideration, the most solid piece of evidence people have of Monty being the one who killed Bonnie is this, the fact that Bonnie was last seen entering Monty Golf

as of now, Monty feels more like a red herring rather than a proper culprit

I've seen people say that Monty could've moved Bonnie there after killing him in monty golf, but if that were the case, the broken bowling balls around him and the damage in the room wouldn't make any sense, unless you really think Monty would just spend a couple extra minutes SMASHING bowling balls on this guy's face for fun

let's assume for a moment that Monty DID move Bonnie from monty golf to bonnie bowling (using this very cool layered and labeled map from reddit!)

ITS SUPER FUCKING FAR AWAY, BOTH AREAS ARE ON ENTIRELY OPPOSITE SIDES AND LEVELS OF THE PIZZAPLEX? if you take Bonnie's last seen log as definite proof of Monty being responsible for his death, you have to explain how the fuck the guy carried a whole ass dead animatronic all the way back to bonnie bowling without being caught by any other security cameras nor any other bot - especially the daycare attendant, assuming this delivery mission happens at night cause it cant happen during daytime, obviously

I'm not saying Monty is entirely clean from being innocent, just that none of the info we have actually FULLY supports the idea of him being behind Bonnie's fate, it's flimsy at best and we know how confusing and chaotic the franchise can get with its writing

the fact that Bonnie's body is STILL THERE IN THAT SMALL LITTLE AREA means that staff never found him, because they would've had NO problem replacing him or patching him up if they did, they're good at that, they have entire machines and areas dedicated to it

whether he actually died there or not, it's definitely an area only staff members would've been allowed to be in - including other animatronics, bots and whatnot - there's just not enough info to point towards anyone's direction right now because we don't even know WHY he got wrecked so badly

[eybefioro]

hello eybe i have come to torment you 🌩️

bookshop, rain, record, nebula, polaroid, tartan socks :)

XAN!! 💛

bookshop - what's your happy/safe place? (physical or intangible)

Intangible? The good omens fandom. Physical? My hammock and my dad's home. I have to say most of the years I lived there were bad but he really tried to make there a little piece of paradise, and he succeeded in the end.

rain - have you ever been in love?

Yes. One time. (Maybe one and a half lol). She was everything to me. My best friend, the only one I could confide in for a long time, the first person I felt attracted to and that I loved in a romantic way. I never felt something so strong before. I wanted to melt into her and have every air she'd breathe out. Wanted my hands forever shaped around hers. I don't think she really loved me tho, I think I was a crutch somehow (she was in a really bad state at the time) considering it got toxic & she cheated on me with my brother, to then turn into a nun and saying I was going to hell/trying to convert me LMAO I think a tiny part of me still loves her... or at least a memory of when I still believed she loved me. I hate how I can still remember the smell of her neck or how it felt to have her weight in my arms when we slept. (Dang it sorry this got long)

The "half" is someone I dated online for a while. I really like her but she lives so far that it simply couldn't work. Maybe if we were more physically close I could've fallen completely in love again.

record - a song that's very significant to you? what does it mean to you?

I listen to so. Much. Music. All the time! it's hard to pick one... hmmrmnr okay. Here goes a sad one. So. One of the reasons I like music so much is my dad. And he used to play this song on guitar often. I almost never sang with him bc well I'm very bad at it and felt conscious about it. But on his wake it just... burst out of me. I don't even remember it properly but I sang it with all my lungs for him. Idk what possessed me. I wish he could've heard it. I think it was the first time that I sang something well and probably was the last time lol como nossos pais - by belchior (this performance by Elis Regina is incredible BTW and it haunts me. She's so amazing it destroys me

nebula - something you've done that you're really proud of?

Ngk. Well. That's a hard one. I have counterpoints and critiques to everything I ever did lol but maybe my final project at uni? That was a nice. Oh and also a Chapel I designed a while ago. Thinking that people will marry and make memories in a place I thought every centimeter of inflates my ego. Even if there's many things I'd change in it now.

tartan socks - hot or not?

HOT! almost all fanart of Aziraphale proves my point.

Gomens ask game

(Last question under the cut bc trigger warning i guess. Suicide mention)

polaroid - what's a bittersweet memory?

ISN'T ALL THIS ENOUGH. I'm kidding lol (I just feel like I'm showing you all my scars in this ask wtf) during the quarantine I got really close to some online friends. One day we found a site that let us draw together in one canvas. We had so much fun. I still have that drawing saved in my computer... it's a very sweet memory, the bitter part is that some months later one of them committed suicide, so my most tangible memory of her is that drawing we made together. I was never able to meet her. We all from the group still chat but without the quarantine we have less time to be online, and life obligations take too much time and energy so we aren't that close anymore. I still think the distance between us started growing tho when she left us.

[zee-has-commitment-issues]

Cabaret rant. Go

I already answered this and then tumblr deleted what I wrote and I’m PISSED.

SO

They changed the theater a lot since the last time I was there (the last time I was there was for Mean Girls like 7 years ago). They've changed enough that they must be fairly confident this is going to be a long ass run of the show because it certainly cost them MONEY.

They have you enter through the side in an alleyway because the show is about the Kit Kat Club, an underground club in Berlin, 1940s. Before you even go in, they check your ID to see if you're over 21, and if you are, you get a little stamp on your wrist.

You have to walk through the alleyway to get into the theater after you pass security. At the end of the alleyway they ask for your phone, where they put a sticker over your camera. There are no phones allowed before, during or after the show. Wait until you get outside.

Once inside, they check your 21+ stamp. If you have one, they hand you a shot to take before you go down to the pre-show entertainment.

Pre-show entertainment is a cabaret-esque experience, with dancers and musicians who make their way through the crowd as you are drinking and mingling. They have custom cocktails for the Kit Kat Club, and that is all they serve besides wine and champagne.

When it is time for the show, you are ushered to your seats or tables. The stage is a circular platform in the middle of the room and it isn't very big. The actors and performers must walk through the audience to get on and off of stage, which results in many of the show-goers becoming the show, with talk backs, the cabaret girls/boys dancing at their table, etc.

Eddie Redmayne (yes THAT one) plays the Emcee right now and he is PHENOMENAL. Delightfully creepy in his role. He did break character once after a truly horrific joke that got more laughs than he expected. It was fun.

Gayle Rankin (yes THAT one) is playing Sally Bowles at the current moment. I had literal goosebumps after she sang Cabaret, the title song of the show. It was insane. She was insane. I was in awe.

The whole thing was very androgynous as well, and they didn't shy away from the sexual nature of cabaret that so often gets watered down when it's talked about. They are prostitutes, almost every single character in the show, and they talk about it. They show it. They don't, however, make it purely about fem-presenting prostitutes.

Men and women wore the same costumes throughout the entire show, no matter what that costume was. Shorts? yes. Dresses? yes. Suits? yes. They wore the same thing. Some fem-presenting performers wore subtle makeup, whereas some of the masc-presenting performers wore bright pink eyeshadows and glitter on their nipples.

There is a historical inherent inequality in how sex work is shown for women vs men in these kinds of shows - in this show, even, despite it always being a step ahead - and this rendition of it did not have that inequality. Everyone was equally celebrated and judged for it, and everyone showed the same amount of skin.

The thing about Cabaret is that it is interpreted differently by every single director that puts it on. No two renditions are alike, and that's the beauty of it. This particular rendition was a uniquely incredible study in performance art, and a wild commentary on the world's current political climate.

If you are unfamiliar with the show, Cabaret takes place in the beginning stages of Nazi Germany. Do with that what you will. Think of the crossover between that time and this one as you will.

(spoiler: most characters in this show are thinking "it's fine, nothing will happen, the election doesn't really matter, the nazis won't come into power")

I don't want to spoil everything in this interpretation, especially not the ending, in case anyone goes to see it or in case a recording or something comes out at some point, but I will say that one of the BIG lines in the ending is "if you are not wholeheartedly against this, you might as well be for it" and it was an incredible commentary on current times.

Another part of the show that gets changed from one rendition to another is the closing number, which is an almost word for word reprise of the opening. One of the lines is "even the orchestra is beautiful" and in the closing number, the orchestra begins to play out of tune after that line. It was insane. It was brilliant.

It was truly a one of a kind experience from start to end. There was no sense of it being part of a bigger show, even though logically we knew it was. From start to end it felt like you were truly a part of this Kit Kat Club, and it made the ending hit so much harder. During the intermission the actors came out and sat with people in the audience, spoke with them, drank with them, danced with them and brought them on stage. There was no "them" and "us." It seemed like we were just as much part of the spectacle as they were, even though that's obviously not the case.

It was brilliant. A show I'll simply never forget. It left everyone feeling exactly how you should feel at the end of Cabaret, with the Emcee's words haunting you

"Where are your troubles now, eh? Forgotten?"

Here are the only two pictures I really got from the night:

left: 21+ stamp and phone sticker; right: alley entrance right before phones must be put away

[mothguillotine]

I Definitely Just Got Attacked By A Werewolf

CW: the reader gets attacked in this (given the title) but other than that it's just whats in the show already. hope you guys enjoy!

On a late walk in October is where you first meet. The fall crispness had let up one night when you decided to go out. The stars, which were usually quite dim due to the city lights, lit up the night sky with the full moon. The park you were in was secluded enough that it was nearly impossible to hear the cars driving by and the other various noises of the city, it was peaceful.

Until it wasn't. All you heard before you were attacked was a bush rustling and then you were on the ground. You push yourself up and realize that you are bleeding profusely from your stomach.

"HELP!" you yell, "HELP ME PLEASE!"

but you know no one is coming. As you try your hardest to run towards the roads outside the park another sound comes from behind you. When you turn you see a beast, hair covering the entirety of it's body and at least two feet taller than yourself. For a second all you could do was stare at the creature until you finally scream.

It lunges at you and you are able to nearly escape it's claws. You fall to the ground yet again and you know that your life is over. The scratches on your stomach are bleeding more than before and your shirt is turning extremely red. The beast is standing over you at this point, you assume to finish what it's started.

You quickly close your eyes, not wanting to see your doom. But before it can attack, you hear it get thrown. While you want to open your eyes to see what is happening they are just much too heavy, actually everything is heavy.

"Is this how it feels to die?" you wonder.

"Oh you poor precious stupid baby," you hear someone say, "did you get attacked by this beast?"

You try to respond to their question but all that comes out is an unintelligible noise. They move to get closer to you and lift your shirt up to peer at your wounds.

"My love, she is bound to die." another voice says.

"What if we turn her?" the first voice asks, "look at how beautiful she is, I am sure Nandor wouldn't complain."

"uhhhh, yeah that's how I got vampired if you will." you say towards the camera, "mostly everyone has been welcoming. Nadja wants to hang out, like a lot. She likes dressing me up in outfits and honestly, I can't complain. It's fun. Laszlo wants to constantly play me his music so I listen. He's honestly not half bad, but my favorite is when he and Nadja sing together. Well, singing isn't exactly the right word but performing is." You smile to yourself thinking about the song that they had performed last night, which had been suspiciously similar to one of Elvis's songs.

"Colin has tried his hardest to feed off me but after dealing with stupid men for my human life he honestly can't really annoy me much. After many unsuccessful attempts he gave up and sort of just… I don't know. Doesn't anymore. Maybe my confusion over this is feeding him?" you say mostly towards yourself, but what you can't see is the cameras zooming in on Colin standing in the doorway with bright blue eyes. "Anyways moving on, Guillermo was a much tougher nut to crack. He definitely didn't like me when I first got here, that was obvious. But after living here for a few days I understood why he was hurt so badly. After 12 years of service and multiple promises that you would become a vampire you would be pretty upset if they kept turning other people instead of you. I decided to sort of extend an olive branch to Guillermo and I promised him I would turn him myself if it got to that point." You think for a second about what to say next. The only other person you haven't talked about is Nandor.

"Guillermo's master on the other hand is impossible to crack. I honestly don't know if Nandor just doesn't like me much or what but he hasn't ever really talked to me." you continue to tell the camera and crew that are intently listening to you.

The first time you had met Nandor was a few days after Nadja and Laszlo found you in the park. You had just completed your incredibly painful change into a vampire and you all decided to go out to eat. The process left you feeling less than amazing and when you definitely felt like that reflected to your exterior. So when you finally leave your newly appointed room you run directly into Nandor.

"I'm sorry." you tell him looking up realizing just how massive he is.

"It's fine." he says and brushes past you quickly, you wonder why he is speeding away so fast but chose not to think about it anymore.

Later that night, after feeding on your first human, you and Nadja sit on the couch while she braids your hair up into a complex bun while Laszlo sits at the piano playing a soft melody. You feel much better after eating for the first time in nearly a week and you look much better too. You look less sickly and back to normal.

Previously Nadja had come in during your transition to give you company and told you all about the new vampires you would be living with. She told you stories set in the past, hundreds of years before you were born. She asks you about yourself as well, where you come from, what do you enjoy doing, if you are interested in having a threesome with her and her husband, and to be honest the last one throws you for a loop.

Nadja laughs as if she made a joke but honestly you don't think she is really joking. She tells you all about how she will make you the most pretty vampire.

When Nadja is finished with your braid you both walk over to the piano.

"Laszlo?" she asks, capturing the attention of her husband, "What do you think?"

"My darling, it is beautiful. A work of art." he says when Nandor walks in.

"Nandor, what do you think?" she asks him, you both turn to look at him.

"Pretty." he says simply and leaves the room just as quickly as he entered it.

You are honestly confused about Nandor, it feels like he wants to avoid you at all costs but you literally have barely spoken to him. You go to sit back on the sofa and miss the knowing looks that the couple gives each other. ___________________________________________________

Getting used to sleeping in a coffin was difficult. The first few nights were rough being trapped inside until it was nighttime, the feeling like you were going to run out of air (which makes no sense because you can't even breathe anymore), and of course the silence. Before you would sleep with a fan on and now that it's so quiet it's impossible to sleep.

You end up listening to music which turns out to be a horrible idea because your best friend sees that you are online right away, Oscar.

Oscar: um wtf where have you been? Oscar: are u okay? no one has heard from you for like a week? Oscar: is this about kelsey? Oscar: hello?!

You choose to forego any texting and call him instead.

"Oh my god!" he exclaims as soon as he picks up, which of course is not a pleasant thing to hear, "You are alive?!"

"I'm sorry,” you tell him, “I have been busy and shit the last week.”

“You missed all of your classes. What is wrong?” he asks you, “You just disappeared after the party on Friday and Ness said you haven't been back to the dorm?”

“Listen Oscar it's not a big deal,” you tell him, “I just needed to get away from Kelsey and shit.”

“I know that she hurt you but you can’t keep avoiding everyone because of her,” he tells you, “Jesus, we have all been worried about you.”

The burning of the words makes you cry out in pain when he says them and it alerts him right away that something is very wrong with you.

“Okay, what the hell is going on?” he asks you, “You sound like you are in pain. Are you okay?”

“Listen Oscar, it's fine, I'm fine.” you tell him thinking for a second, “I just stubbed my toe.”

“I am having a very hard time believing you.” he tells you matter of factly, “Where are you? I am coming over.”

“NO!” you yell, as much as you miss Oscar it's definitely not a good idea to bring a human around a bunch of vampires when you haven't had a chance to introduce them yet, “Oscar, I will come and see you tonight. How about that?”

“Listen, I am really worried about you right now.” he tells you and you know he is being serious.

“Oscar I promise that I will tell you everything tonight, I just… it's a lot to say on the phone.” you say.

“You promise?” he asks.

“Yeah. I promise.” ___________________________________________________

A few hours later you are getting ready to leave to meet up with Oscar when you are approached by Guillermo.

“Where are you going?” he asks you.

“I am just going to meet one of my friends,” you tell him, “He has been freaking out since last week and I am kinda worried he will call the police if I don’t go see him.”

“Are you sure that's a good idea?” Guillermo asks, “Newly turned vampires don't always have the best control.”

“I wouldn’t hurt Oscar.” you tell him, a little offended that he would think you capable of something like that.

“I just want to make sure you don't accidentally do something that you regret,” he tells you, “If you hurt Oscar would you be able to forgive yourself?”

“No, you are right,” you tell him, “But, I do know someone who could protect someone from a potential vampire attack.”

Guillremo huffs but says “I’ll come with you to make sure you don't kill him.”

“Thank you!” you tell him, hugging him tightly, “I’ll get the rest of my things and we can go! Can you call a taxi? I would feel bad about you going by yourself if I flew.”

When you go back upstairs to grab your jacket and phone you miss Nandor and Guillermo’s conversation.

“Where are you going, Guillermo?” he asks, standing right behind his familiar/bodyguard.

“Master! You startled me.” Guillermo says to the vampire, “We are going out to meet her friend, Oscar. She wanted to tell him that she was okay.”

“Who is this Oscar?” he asks Guillermo.

“I don’t know, Master. I can tell you when I get back.” he promises and Nandor saunters off as soon as you re-enter the room. You of course notice that he has yet again left when you get there. It's kind of frustrating, you have no idea what you did to make Nandor want to avoid you so much. In the last week you have said a total of like five words to him. Most of which have been greets he hasn't returned.

When you and Guillermo leave the house a taxi is waiting on you both. The drive over to Oscar's apartment is about ten minutes away and when you get there you text him. By the time Oscar gets down to let you in you and Guillermo are both waiting at the door, as well as the entire camera crew that follows you all everywhere.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks you, “Disappearing for a week and not responding to anyone? Are you having a manic episode?”

“No, Oscar I promise I am fine,” you tell him, remaining on the porch until he invites you in, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course you can,” he says, “Who is this and why are you filming?”

“Oh this is Guillermo and you can just ignore the cameras,” you tell him, “We really need to talk.” ___________________________________________________

“Telling Oscar that I am a vampire was, well, difficult. Guillermo was super supportive and well I definitely needed it.” you say toward the camera. “He didn't take it very well,”

At first Oscar had not believed you, which you had assumed he wouldn't. After explaining how you were attacked by a werewolf and that Nadja had saved you from death he still didn't believe you, even after seeing the large claw marks, which would definitely not heal in a week, he still didn't. So you decided that your only course of action would be to turn into a bat and that definitely freaked him out.

“He’s gonna be staying with us until we know he's not gonna tell anyone.” you explain “That's why Oscar is passed out on the sofa.” The camera moves to zoom in on him.

“He’s my best friend,” you tell the crew, “He was super amazing during my last breakup.” The crew motions for you to continue to talk.

“Me and Kelsey dated for five months until she broke up with me a few weeks ago. Oscar would come over and we would watch movies and eat food.” you say, “Last weekend Oscar finally convinced me to go out to a party and who do I see making out with one of my friends from high school, Kelsey. Anyways after that I left and that was the fateful night in the park.”

“If something happened to Oscar I honestly have no idea what I would do. So that includes accidentally getting himself thrown into a psych-ward for claiming vampires are real.” you lament, “I love him so much, he’s my best friend.” ___________________________________________________

Nandor had been avoiding you, but not for the reason you think he is. As soon as he saw you he knew he would definitely fall for you. Given his track record with relationships the best idea he had was to just avoid you much as possible. He also saw how much you meant to Nadja and Lazla, he didn't want to scare you off then ruin your relationships with the couple. When he had first learned that a new vampire had been brought home he wasn't super excited, but when you ran into each other after you left your room he knew he was screwed.

Never had he seen such beauty as yours. Staying away from you was the best option possible and well that didn't work out very well. Nandor had also overheard your conversation with Guillermo, assuming that Oscar was worried about you because he was your lover. What he didn’t know though was that Oscar definitely was not interested in you, his type leaning much more towards Nandor himself. Nandor is sat in the camera's view and the team gives him the signal to start speaking.

“The new vampire has taken my familiar from me. She has taken him to meet up with someone named Os-car." he says, "Could Os-car be dangerous? I do not know, but what I do know is that I can not let someone with the peasant name, Os-car, hurt her. Nadja and Laszlo would be very… disappointed."

A few minutes later Nandor is peering through the window of Oscar's apartment watching you, to ensure that you are safe. He can also hear your conversation inside with Oscar. He listens as you explain what happened to you and Nandor sees when Oscar doesn't believe you. He also watches as you hike your shirt up to show Oscar the scars from your attack.

When you do lift your shirt Nandor sees how messed up by the werewolf you truly were. Last week, when Nadja and Laszlo had brought you back to the house, Nandor had been told what exactly transpired in the park and he hadn't believed them when they explained how brutally attacked you were, until now. Seeing the scars on your torso had made him upset, so upset in fact that he swears right then he will exact revenge for you. And of course he tells this to the cameras.

"I have now seen her scars and I swear on the 35 wives I used to love that I will get revenge for her. Unfortunately I have no idea where to start." he says to the camera, "I shall search all of Staten Island until I find the beast that inflicted such pain on her." What Nandor doesn't see as he talks to the camera is you carrying Oscar to a taxi. ___________________________________________________

Later that night when you are getting ready for bed Oscar wakes up. Of course he is understandably upset when he comes to.

"You fucking kidnapped me?! What the fuck?!" he asks you, yelling quite loudly.

"Shut the fuck up," you whisper to him and take a seat on the sofa, "I brought you back here because I was worried that you wouldn't exactly be chill about this and honestly you are proving me right."

"Oh yes because kidnapping someone is such a good idea." he says sarcastically, "Why the fuck did you take me here?!"

"Listen, Oscar, I just wanted a little bit more time to explain everything." you tell him and he sits down on the chair across from you, "I know that kidnapping-"

You stop when you hear your name called by the door by none other than a Nandor.

"Are you okay?" he asks you, "I heard some yelling and wanted to check in."

He turns his head to look down the hallway and quickly looks back at you. What you are unable to see is Nadja and Laszlo giving him thumbs up from the doorway of the neighboring room.

"Yeah, Nandor, I'm fine." you tell him sincerely, "Thank you."

"Yes, of course." he says and leaves the doorway to come further into the room and joins you on the sofa, "You have yet to introduce us."

"um… Oscar, this is Nandor the Relentless. Nandor, this is Oscar Garcia." you introduce.

"Os-car it's very nice to meet you," he says, "How did you meet?"

"Oscar has been my best friend since high school, we had a class together our freshman year." you explain.

"What is a 'freshman year'?" he asks, "Why are the men fresh?"

"Master, it's a term for the first year of school when you are in high school or college." Guillermo explains to him.

"Did I ask you Guillermo? No." he says to his familiar, "I asked her."

"It's just what the first year of school is called for high school and college." you repeat essentially what Guillermo just said but Nandor seems much more interested in what you are saying for some reason.

"Yeah, I just said that," Guillermo says under his breath.

"What was that Guillermo?" Nandor asks.

"Nothing, Master." he says.

"Anyways me and Oscar have been friends for about nine years now." you tell him, "Almost a decade."

"That's crazy," Oscar says thinking about the past decade, "She really helped support me when I came out to my family and was kicked out."

"You came out? What is that?" he asks.

"Well Master, it's when-" Guillermo is cut short by Nandor yelling at him.

"I did not ask Guillermo!" he yells furiously.

"It's when you tell people you are part of the LGBT community." you tell him.

"When I came out, my family disowned me." he tells Nandor.

"The LGBT?" he asks, "What is that?"

The next half hour is Nandor asking questions to Oscar. It honestly kind of surprises you how well they get along. This is also the first time that you have heard Nandor speak for this long and honestly he is hilarious. Most of the time he doesn't even realize he says something and it makes him confused on what you are laughing at.

"So why did you bring Os-car here?" Nandor asks you.

"He was worried about me and well when I went to meet him he kinda freaked out about the whole vampire thing." you tell him, "So I took him back here after Guillermo knocked him out."

"Wait, you knocked me out?" Oscar asks.

"That's not important right now," Nandor says, "Why didn't you just hypnotize him?"

"Well I- I didn't think about it," you say, "but anyways I don't want to hypnotize him. I just wanted to make sure he understood."

"Well thanks, that means a lot," Oscar says sarcastically, "I'm so happy you decided to knock me out instead of hypnotizing me."

"Oscar it's not like that," you tell him but he stands up and makes his way out of the room, "Oscar!" He continues to ignore you and leaves the house.

<Previous Part/Next Part>

Masterlist

[hypocriticaltypwriter]

Hello wifey!😚 I am hear to ask about Chrsyta and her boys!✨🍒🦇

What was their first “I love yous”??? Where were they when they said it, WHO said it first? Were they all together when said or was it just chrysta alone with one of the guys???👀 ((saying I love you seperated))

PLEASE I WANT MORE OF DEM AND JUST THE THOUGHT OF DEM SAYING THE ✨THREE MAGICAL WORDS✨ TO HER MAKES ME ALL GIDDY N STUFF🤭

YALL

GET YOU A WIFE WHO WILL LET YOU GO ON AND IN ABOUT YOUR WEIRD LITTLE GOOBERS AND STILL STICK AROUND AFTER 57 PARAGRAPHS!!! 😫🙏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

GET YALL A GIRL LIKE MJ (Oh wait, you can't caUSE SHES MINE/j)

Babes is a strong one for sticking around this long MWAH 🩷🩷 you have NO idea what the boys being softies so rarely does to me it makes me WEAK

NOW, into questions hehehe... >:]

First 'I Love You?'

Starting this one off strong with Dwayne! I know, shocker that it isn't (*COUGH* Cherry's favorite *COUGH*) David, but our tall brunette was actually the first one to get a confession of feelings. 👀

It was after Chrysta decided to split off from the rest of the boys to take Laddie off and see some street performers and Dwayne decided he was the only who'd be able to keep his childish coven member and girlfriend in check.

Now, Chrysta had always used silly little excuses to (get spoiled 🙄) get Dwayne wrapped up in something she either wanted to do or wanted to have.

Example: "cause I'm too pretty to say no to?" "Cause I'm your favorite?" And it either made the two giggle or it worked enough Dwayne couldn't say no and was pulled into her mischief making. He doesn't look it, but he can be a pushover. 😉

🦇🍒🦇

"Dwayne? Can we please go get matching piercings?" Chrysta hurried over to the tall males side, Laddie tagging along her her hand was interlocked with his much smaller one, the boy looking just as excited, glancing between the two.

"No. Why do you want one anyway? Wanna get caught?" He had asked almost mocking, like a scolding parent, while he hooked a finger around one of Chrysta's hoop earrings, tugging on it gently to emphasize his point.

Chrysta studded put her bottom lip into a pout, giving a small huff turning her head from his hand and craning her neck up enough to look at him, before taking his hand into both her own, bringing it up to her lips to hide the little grin forming on her face.

"...Cause I love you?"

That did the trick. Dwayne fell silent for a second, obviously fighting every fiber of his being, keeping him from making a decision he'd regret.

"... Fuck..." He hissed through his teeth with a smirk he tried so hard to fight from showing. "You know how to get what you want with those big eyes, don't ya, babes?"

Chrysta didn't verbally answer, she just nodded with a small giggle, as her heart raced both relived and nervous about waiting for a reaction from the dark brunette to her silly little proclamation.

"How about we wait till Laddie's a little older for those. Can you do that for me, baby?" Dwayne spoke in a tender voice, getting closer to Chrysta's face, gently setting the pad of his thumb against her bottom lip while he spoke.

"Okay." She replied quietly, giving a little nod in case he hadn't seen her mouth the word, her gaze felt shy but she never looked away from him.

He kissed the tip of her nose in response, his thumb leaving her lip and his pointer finger gently ran down the bridge of her nose, tapping the end of it where his lips still lingered.

"I love you too."

---

Now David... He's a man who has been in immortality for a long time, and many days, and many years, he's heard 'I love you' from everyone and all. And everytime, that's all it's ever been. Words. Words from people who merely saw him as something he made himself appear to be, and never the thing he was- and I don't mean a vampire thing. But he was a man, for hells sake, a man with feelings.

So after a while, the meaning of such a confession was something he'd never take seriously, and some part of him almost made a promise to stay to that opinion, and stick to it for the rest of his immortality.

That was... Until she showed up.

🦇🍒🦇

"I love you."

The words left in a soft whisper against his skin, causing his eyes to open and look at the young woman who had made herself comfortable in what she considered safety, nestled against his side his one arm around her figure, the other resting behind the back of his head against her bedframe, while both of her own pale limbs were folded atop his shoulder, resting her chin atop them, her face so close to the side of his, he could feel her thick lashes brush against his jaw.

Her emerald eyes gleamed in the dim light of the lamp at her beside, sleep heavy on her eyelids as she fought sleeping just yet, the late night hour ticking by on the clock echoing in the empty hallway.

"You don't mean that." He responded simply, no malice or teasing in his voice, no heartbreak or longing, he spoke as though it was passing conversation. He turned his head to look back up at the ceiling, an ache where his heart used to beat strumming low in his bare chest. "None of them do."

It was quiet for a while, but there was no tension or awkward filler in it. It was almost.cknsidered peaceful, if Davud couldn't hear the furious beating of her heart thumping in his ears and the rushing blood deep in the veins on her wrists.

She exhaled a breath he supposed she was holding for a second, before he felt her fingertips brush against cheek gently grazing along the stubble etched down his jaw. "That's fine. You don’t need to believe me."

Her head lolling to the side, going limp against the comfort of pillows as she continued to stare at him while he fought even a single glance at her. "You don't need to love me right now, or ever. Just know that's how I feel."

Her warmth never left his side, even if he was expecting it, and to be left in the cold, hollow husk of his own comfort and body. But it never came, just like a response on the tip of his tongue he felt unable to say. It was only then, he cosidered to look back at her, only to see her eyes had finally closed, her heart slowing as she began to fall asleep, her lips slowly parting as soft breathing followed, rolling down is collarbone. She slept blissfully unaware of how up till this point, how much she'd truly captivated David.

He'd have to leave soon. Before the sun began to show in only a few hours, before he'd have his boys looking for him for running off into the night much longer than he expected. But... He didn't feel like leaving. He didn't want to leave. And he knew why. She'd know why too.

Yet she didn't pry it from his lips or demand him to say it. She'd wait, and she'd wait as long as her life could handle. He wondered if she already knew while he wouldn't be able to vocalize it, something deep down in his lost soul, could tell her, whisper to her in a moment of passion that he did love her. Maybe. Just maybe...

---

NOW breaking from the sappy and dramatics LMAO were going to Paul who had may or may not have been under the influence of... Um... A very likeable weed. 👁👁 And Chrysta was put on babysitting watching duty of the goofy rocker who was... High off his rocker.

Sort of like Dwayne, Paul's confession was spoken in a playful banter, but the words did the job. It started when Chrysta decided to tease her loopy boyfriend after he had cotinuesly confirmed he 'liked her so much' to which, she challenged him 'What if I like you more?'

So the banter continued and escalated until Paul had finally said "I like you sooooo much that I love you~"

Chrysta had a hard time keeping it together after that, and gladly accepted his offer in a kiss and hugs.

🦇🍒🦇

"Are you sure you're not just saying that cause your high, Pauly?" Chrysta asked, her chin perched on top of his head, blowing away a few strands of his crazy hair tickling her nose.

"Mnm, nope. S'all true, Dime-Piece. Knew you had be mine the minute I saw you." Paul responded, sighing content as can be as he inhaled the scent of weed and cherry perfume intoxicating his lungs. A dopey grin spreading across his face when he felt her soft lips press against his forehead.

---

And finally, Marko... Who was the toughest one to crack when it came to him actually saying the three words. Marko isn't one to get very lovey dovey unless it's very special, rare moments shared between him and one of his significant others. I mean, why waste time on words when he could express or share his love in so many other, better ways?

And much like David, Chrysta never really tried to get him to say it, and it didn't bother her. She knew if her boys loved her or not, and she knew Marko loved her, even if he didn't say it as kuch as she did. She could say it enough for the both of them, LOL.

He didn't actually say it to her for a long time- it was actually very far into their relationship- after the birth of three out of four of the girls (Annie, Jenny, and Tiff.) When he and her were trying to have a baby... But things weren't going as planned.

Marko and her were even supposed to have a baby before she and Paul were going to have one... So you can imagine the salt in the wound when things turned out how they did. It stung a lot.

It had gotten to a point the curly haired vampire was almost nervous that having a kid of his own was going be impossible- or very little chance of happening...

Until one night Chrysta had almost casually slipped in how they should be expecting a new member of the coven really soon.

It took a few seconds of denial as he bolted upright to look at her and ask 'Are you serious?' About twenty times, before he immediately scooped her up into his arms, holding her as tight as he possibly could as though he was terrified it was all dream, while repeatedly saying "I love you" muffled into her shoulder as she excitedly laughed in her lovers embrace.

Now it seems a day doesn't go by she doesn't hear the words from Marko. ❤️❤️❤️

[ramayantika]

as a dancer yourself, how do you think the stigma against male dancers which makes them labelled "gay" and female dancers which makes them labelled "prostitutes", can be dispersed?

This is something which even I think of and to be honest I do not have a good definite answer.

But, firstly, people need to be educated on the cultural history. History books mention about wars, dynasties and politics. There are very vague and meagre mentions of india's cultural history especially of the performing arts.

When I see the young masses talking about hindu culture and worship, the same barely know how many classical dance forms are there in India.

Exposure of the general audience to indian music and dance shows will actually help. I believe that the new gen dancers and some veteran dancers too have actually begun conversations about the history of dance, especially about female performers and their role in shaping the performing arts of india. Those need to be popularized especially through social media, because our generation uses a lot of it, so why not support viewership of the classical dance forms? That way even male classical dancers can be seen by non dancer males.

We have watched DID and other dance reality shows. Not everybody has enrolled in a dance class (neither western nor indian) but somehow we still accept western dance forms easily especially by males but sadly there isn't enough recognition for male classical artists. People talk about bharatiya sanskriti and sabhyata, will talk (and romanticize) wearing outfits from the vedic period, but will swiftly call the male dancer slurs even though he is portraying shiva and parvati.

When dance and music forms an integral part of indian culture, it is disappointing to see the general indian society be alienated from it. They are aware of it only through Bollywood which now does a shit job at portraying indian dance forms (folk dance is rarely seen. Folk is well another topic)

A good starting point would be to first read about it or watch classical dance shows and productions. Many of them are available on YouTube for free.

No one's asking to start learning dance and music, but if you can appreciate contestants on other dance reality shows with no knowledge of hip-hop, contemporary dance etc , then certainly you can also begin with indian dances.

I also need to add that good changes are happening. They are slow, but I am seeing appreciation for male dancers too. The stigma exists but the essential conversation about gender roles and art is taking place. It will take time, but it is happening.

As for female dancers well.... I do wonder when will the sexualization of the dancing body stop. Sensuality has been celebrated in India from a very long time, and there is a thin line between sensuality and vulgarity. Sadly, we as a society see sensuality as something impure.

A woman who is free and in control of her sexuality and sensuality must be tamed, turned demure and controlled. That is the general view. She is attractive, desirable but then when won/conquered/possessed must be tamed. The dancer too I think is seen as the same.

Stigma and stereotypes never completely break. But like I said previously, dialogue and debate is needed. Conversations need to happen. Female dancers too need to speak up and be vocal about it, about our history of women performers, because all of this exists due to them.

This was a long answer and I don't really have a definite solution(s) but I hope I could provide a few insights.

Also thanks for the question, I was writing in my journal about my dancing experience and the male gaze, I kinda vented it a little here too.