#expectations are negative

[fuwaprince]

HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP PLEASE

Hi everybody, how are we doing? I hope you're enjoying the beginning of fall. Now that I'm done just being hospitable, can I just be honest? Can I vent? Can I be heard? Am I allowed to express my hurt? Can I please request for aid?

I am struggling to all hell. On and off the streets and been homeless since June 1st. I don't need resource information- I need immediate relief in the form of financial support. My partner and I are doing our best to be strong but being strong does not help when we're in the position where we're lucky just to eat, or do laundry. Over this summer I have been robbed of my possessions (cards, clothes, cash, toiletries, my phone... all of which I struggled to get to begin with). I have been sexually assaulted and put through violent situations. Detained because people LIED and I guess that means guilty until proven innocent. Woke up undressed for reasons unbenounced to me in a house fire surrounded by flames and SOMEHOW, unfortunately survived. Somehow contracted a disease that has no fucking cure. I have reached out to EVERYONE I KNOW BEGGING FOR HELP. I have taken so much shit in exchange for the smallest amount of help, for food, for access to medical attention or a shower or for privacy. I have been homeless with a 103 degree fucking fever that lasted for days and got no help because I was too sick to move. I crawled to a shower and sat on the floor hoping my brain wouldn't melt (which it begins to at such temperatures btw). All this did not happen because I'm "lazy" or "a bad woman".

I am a woman presenting person who probably should have just been born in the right body or into the right wealthy ass family. I am in my 20s. I have been told I would make a great prostitute but I wasn't even made for of- nor am I interested. My abusive ass neglectful ass family are not helping me through my situation and my mom tells me I deserve it so that she doesn't have to cry while listening to me explain how bad things have gotten. I have a stab wound on my neck. I have burns on my body. I did not put those there myself. How could anybody deserve any of that? How could anybody do nothing to help? How can you just look at me and pessimistically say, "good luck". Or give the apathetic and unhelpful "me too" response.

My partner lost his dog after the fire. Can you imagine having to pretend like that doesn't matter because you have to worry about food? Can you imagine trying to provide emotional support because red cross never called back after you requested for health services? When your school says they can't help you because it's out of the budget???? "LIMITED FUNDS" they say. I was on the Dean's honor roll for TWO semesters in a row, almost close to getting my BA (just a few classes away). I was a student leader. UNTIL I had to finally say fuck that shit and drop. I have enough credits to graduate but I do not see how the fuck I'm going to survive until 2025.

I need help! Please help? Words of encouragement are appreciated but please help me raise enough for a down payment for a car to live in. That is what I'm asking for, at least for winter. I would like an apartment but California is so outrageous with prices, all I can hope for realistically is a car. Anything would help. Nothing is expected.

Please rb this post, if you can, it helps.

Always remember to maintain your humanity and that love persists.

Garlic haters DNI

my paypal is @garyanne

[milesofstars]

dont worry about it jason...

[arcanegifs]

rewatch the show yall. it gets even better if you do.

[ineffably-human]

So here's my problem.

And it's not about Nandermo, not exactly anyway. Because I didn't expect Nandermo to become textual until the very end, if at all. The show kept making it clear that they liked their ambiguity to keep the relationship on the razor's edge, and Paul Simms made it clearer and clearer that for some reason (put a pin in this) he just couldn't see their connection as a sexual one.

But I frankly don't care about that, because if anything is canon in this show it's that the vampires will eventually fuck everything, and Nandor canonically fucks his other friends. More importantly, their connection was always the emotional core of both characters. And Paul always did say he saw their relationship as a romance, if a strange and non-sexual one.

So I figured we'd maybe get Nandor confessing that Guillermo meant a lot to him (and immediately walking it back a little), or Guillermo confessing how lost he feels without his vampire dream and Nandor offering him a place. Maybe an ambiguous, could-just-be-queerplatonic-partners 'I love you'. Maybe just the hug they kept teasing for three or four seasons and never got. We got like...half of two of those, in episode 10, so I guess that's a wobbly semi-fulfilled thing by my definition of it.

But it's not the Nandermo of it all. It's the Guillermo of it all. And how this final episode seemed to almost mock Guillermo's place at the emotional core of the show.

And the Guillermo of it all is why we never got the Nandermo of it all.

Shadows has vampires doing absurd-ass things, but every character also has things they want and feel, and there are various amounts of emotional ink spilled about it. The show has found space, sometimes very poignant space, to take that seriously in between the piss and sex jokes. The vampires change very slowly and in spirals, they repeat a lot of their old issues that stem back even to their mortal lives. But they always try.

And things do change in the vampire house; that is not the same household from the first season. Every single character, right down to the Baron and the Guide and Derek, are in different and better places than they were before the show began. They've made progress in their individual desires, and a lot of that is due to the improved connections they have with each other, connections we've watched them foster. A lot of the time it's because they're talked about as a found family, something Guillermo started and Guillermo believed before any of the rest of them did.

---

So where is Guillermo this season? Our human point of view, our dynamic character, the character who has a dream and wants something more than any of the others? Whose dream drives the storyline of the entire show?

Guillermo has chosen to be human, and he thinks he can't be part of the household if he's not a vampire. We watch Guillermo try to throw himself back into the human world trying to make up for lost time - to the point that he forgets the person he called his best friend, the people he called his family, in a way I think we never fully resolve. He thinks he's thriving, and he doesn't even seem upset about leaving the others behind.

We watch him revert (and that's fine, people revert sometimes) to the same waiting lapdog he was when we started the series. We watch him realize that and he says no. Nandor stands up for him, and feels better and more fulfilled in doing so, and that's a great capstone for Nandor and Nandor's own tendency for selfishness. And that's excellent. Episode 10 was a great start for all the ground they had to cover.

Nandor offers for Guillermo to be his partner in crime. His sidekick, but Guillermo expressed that desire back in season one so it's not an insult inherently. But here's the problem. Here's the part of Guillermo that has frankly always been a problem, because I thought it's something the show was eventually going to cover respectfully, and instead it was always part of the joke.

---

Guillermo is someone who made a decision sixteen years ago as part of a very young man's desire, to be respected and have cool powers, to live forever, to see the world. (He somehow thought being a vampire, and only a vampire, could get him those things but that's a rant for another time.)

That young man has grown up. He's in his mid-thirties, he has a body count. We've watched him at various times be empathetic, clever, cunning, and brave. Also extremely sexy in bodyguard gear. (And for some reason, the show keeps wanting us to forget that for a season he was extremely competent and badass and sexy pretty much all the time, and he seemed thrilled to be in that role, and he didn't even care about being a vampire if he could protect Nandor in that way and be regarded as 'part of the team'.)

Then Nandor dresses him in a stupid cowboy costume, and gives him a sidekick name ending in 'Kid', which he seems less than thrilled about. They all still talk about him the entire episode as if he's a disobedient child. The vampires speculate if Guillermo is having a fling with the crew, but no - Guillermo's had one boyfriend, who we saw him hug once and nothing more. Despite living in a house for fifteen years that is openly raunchy and shameless, he seems like a character designed to be both desexed and humiliated, and they never expand on the reason why.

(And if Guillermo were ace it'd be amazing, hell it's my headcanon at this point, but I don't think that's what they're going for. I think the show just desexualizes Guilermo. As a matter of praxis. For some reason.)

And the show has done this more and more to Guillermo in the later seasons. Nandor says he could steal original!Freddie easily from Guillermo if he wanted to. The vampires laugh at the thought of him being a vampire - "a little bat pooping everywhere," and Guillermo's time as a vampire has him basically feeling no different in his sexuality or, after a very brief moment, his confidence. Even Nandor's big climactic moment in Episode 10 has him saying that just because Guillermo isn't as cool or hot or interesting or strong as Jordan (or Nandor) doesn't mean Guillermo deserves to be treated poorly.

Look, I don't know if it's because Harvey Guillen is babyfaced, or because he's fat, or because he carries a different energy to his masculinity. Or because it's great to talk about gay sex and being horny, but writing a gay relationship is just too hard. Or some fun combination of all those things.

But I keep thinking about everyone freaking out when Nandor swooped into the collapsed floorboards to save Guillermo in season 4, and everyone freaked out and swooned. And Paul Simms expressed that as "[Nandor] has to save his little buddy."

Guillermo is a grown-ass man, with a desire to feel powerful and special and accepted, who Nandor sees as his little buddy. (Who everyone in the house sees as their little buddy, and it's nice he's part of the family, but...) After every emotional beat that makes them seem like equals with a special connection, he reverts to the less-cool sidekick who makes Nandor feel special and important. And Guillermo's prior devotion to Nandor - not to vampirism, not to a job or promotion, to Nandor - changes to other things, but Nandor never figures out why that hurts him so much. And for some reason the deepest bond of the series just isn't sexual, the showrunner just can't see it that way, in a house where everyone's fucking but not you Guillermo.

We're at the end of the story, and that's our punchline.

---

And we don't end on one of the points where Guillermo is asserting himself as someone who deserves to be taken seriously, and given the things he wants - and the show has had plenty of those moments, all of which seem to be building and evolving his relationships over the years.

We end on Guillermo being told that suddenly, the documentary is packing up without any fanfare or clarity on what they were looking for in the first place. We get Guillermo stumbling for clarity on what it all meant, what the point was for him and what his life is going to be now. We're told over and over again the documentary (and Guillermo, and the viewers) needs a satisfying capstone, needs emotional closure.

And the vampires tell him to shut up. And they tell him this has all happened before, and none of it is special to them. ("No human is special," Nandor said several episodes ago, and never went back on it.) And they tell him to do a little dance for their amusement, and Colin recites some pithy lines. And every attempt to take a moment to care about Guillermo's journey, or the core of his character and what he needs, is turned into a joke for him and for us.

Guillermo's looking for a point to it all, for some kind of fulfillment, and there wasn't one. And everyone is satisfied in that but him. And even if there were times Guillermo got the chance to be respected, to have cool powers (which he kept, but the vampires keep forgetting them), to live forever (he will die and leave Nandor someday!), to see the world - none of these things are going to come to him now.

It would make absolute, complete, and devastating sense for Guillermo to feel he's outgrown them and to leave. Nandor doesn't even seem upset enough to try and stop him. We never really get a clear reason about why he decides to stay.

I mean, it's for friendship or something, with a line about how they can still be close but he needs 'his own thing'. But in six seasons, over and over and over, we've been driven back to the idea that the most emotional part of this story is Guillermo's desire to become accepted in this family, and the effect he has on Nandor. That Guillermo needs this home and he consistently makes Nandor softer, kinder, less selfish and more fulfilled when they're together.

But those parts of their relationship, the love story parts, don't matter. Guillermo is going to find 'his own thing' when it's been clear how entrenched in this world he is (right down to his DNA), but Nandor will drag him back into shenanigans anyway, probably keeping Guillermo from whatever 'his own thing' is.

And Guillermo will always be Nandor's sidekick, his little buddy, never to be taken seriously. And one day, Guillermo will die, and he'll be someone they all forget. And for some reason, he'll be just fine with that, because he belongs with them but will never really be in a better position.

And he'll be satisfied with that. For some reason. But I won't.

[formulanni]

Yuki Tsunoda as The Moon Tarot:

The Moon is a card of illusion and deception, and therefore often suggests a time when something is not as it appears to be. Perhaps a misunderstanding on your part, or a truth you cannot admit to yourself. Night is the time when dreams and fantasies rule.

The moon also represents instincts that we have buried in our own unconscious - they come out to play in the moonlight. But the reflections that we see springing forth can also be illusions, it is easy to lose your way in the dark.

Embracing the Moon tarot card meaning allows us to face our fears and uncertainties, trusting our instincts to guide us towards the right path.

Tag list: @st-leclerc @rubywingsracing @saviour-of-lord @three-days-time @the-wall-is-my-goal @albonoooo @ch3rubd0lls

[lazylittledragon]

ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:

i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???

[feketeribizli]

she cut her hair 😔

[ender1821]

im a child of divorce

[gatekeeper-of-witchcraft]

correct me if I’m out of line bc I’m not a detransitioner, but I hate hate hate how common arguments against transition/“in defense of” detransitioners is “they can’t have kids!” or “they can’t breastfeed!”

why should mitigating harm always come down to what a woman can do for a potential child (or a man’s ability to father children)? why isn’t it enough to keep HER from harm? it’s just prioritizing women as broodmares all over again. why isn’t it enough to keep HER from chronic pain, heart and blood pressure issues, incontinence, necrosis, limited mobility and death?

[skruttet]

more pics of the moomin nendoroid

[bonesbuckleup]

The issue with the live action taking out all the gender-based conflict in season 1 isn't that I think Sokka needs his sexist arc to be Sokka, but it's that Sokka is a deeply insecure character and one of the ways that manifests in the start is him basically playacting what he thinks a confident person looks like--eg, a manly man. In the same vein Katara being forced into a mother/caretaker role at way too young an age is integral to the best part of her character, which is being a pissed off angry force of nature who will wreck your entire day when properly motivated. By stripping those two aspects away, the characters are fundamentally different people and cannot have as in-depth or fully realized arcs as in the OG cartoon. In this essay I will

[sleepsucks]

[meg-noel-art]

Did anyone actually enjoy the end of Arcane though? 😟 I feel like the only takes I've seen are utter, vitriolic criticism or disappointed indifference. I actively *enjoyed* the ending and thought it wrapped up pretty nicely.

It's feelin' lonely out here 😔

[spineless-lobster]

This is gonna be troy (2004) all over again and my heart can’t take it

[apollos-boyfriend]

> open up twitter

> be told there’s a dsmp renaissance happening

> ask if it’s a dsmp renaissance or a c!sbi renaissance

> twitter doesn’t understand

> pulls out illustrated diagram explaining what is dsmp and what is just c!sbi

> twitter laughs and says “it’s a good renaissance sir”

> scroll down my timeline

> it’s a c!sbi renaissance

[beneathsilverstars]

what if mira's parents were like... "oh our precious darling baby, please never grow up!" sort of parents.... not cruel, but stifling. deciding what she'll do, and then doing it for her. not letting her learn and try and fail and grow into her own, independent self.

of course she would love the religion of change! of course she would believe so passionately in the importance of discovering and reinventing yourself. of course she would have been missing basic life skills when she first came to the house, and enamored with whoever patiently taught them to her. of course she would take every class available, try everything she was denied.

and of course it would feel awful, when she kept failing. she started out at a deficit and has felt two steps behind ever since. and every time she tries a new skill and makes a mistake, she hears her parents say, just let us do it for you. and every time she compares her same-old self to the unique and talented people around her, she wonders if maybe her parents were right about her. maybe she wasn't meant to have her own interests, to make her own choices. maybe she can't learn. maybe she can't grow. maybe she'll be a useless child forever.

it's hard to decide how she feels about her parents. they never hurt her, so why does she feel so hurt when she thinks about them? they loved her, so why doesn't she love them?

and it's hard to admit the faults of the change belief. it saved her from stagnation! and yet, here she is. smothered again. expected not to stay the same, but to become someone else.

why can't she just be who she is?