#friendship that needs more attention!

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[mohntilyet]

illario + lucanis growing up together means a lot for obvious reasons ofc like the fact they did not have to go through the dellamorte villa torment nexus alone really helps. immediately from the moment they are taken to that house, lucanis has had something to protect and love. the snark and jokes that they share in wigmaker job finally having a chance to shine outside of the only person lucanis is socialised with and he learns that wow, he's actually likable. because up until this point everyone around him calls him a demon and is freaked out by him but ofc the veilguard only know him as lucanis "he banished harding from the kitchen" dellamorte. sure he's a big bad crow assassin but his reputation simply does not carry that much weight with people who are just equally deranged (maybe a de riva rook but that's also a little different) . and then he's able to share and extend that love with his new friends, and able to try being something that he's not had the chance to before, and his goodness is actively encouraged rather than being an unfortunate sidequest that is tolerated. and i fondly think also of how much of that humor is copied and mirrored off illario ("shoulders....... feeling tight...... need a ..... MASSAGE!") and it's his best experiences with illario that turned him into the man he is. wish the game explored this just a little more because the betrayal would have been made a lot more intense if they had just bothered to show any of illario's redeeming qualities. he has them!!!!! nobody is just born a traitor. you have to love someone before they can become that.

[totallynotsloughjykk]

tgcf fandom can we please start holding feng xin accountable for being an ass to mu qing for 800 years. like. he started most fights and was constantly on servant mu qing's ass who was just trying to survive but people always skip over it

[secretfreakyblog]

sigh why is it so hard to make freaky friends who aren't 100% freaky all the time, i want freaky friends where freaky is a bonus but friendship is first <3

(but freaky is a big bonus tehe)

[what-even-is-sleep]

thinking about Bodkin again bc I mean,,, ALL THE SYMBOLISM OHHHHHGH. i NEED some tumblr film analysis hobbyists to watch this show and tell me all the themes n such

[tbhshaped]

extremely well thought out female character that gets disregarded in the name of yaoi and amazingly written character that gets ignored by the fandom because they aren't white had a baby and her name is Mel Medarda

[thatgaymood]

Filed under: films I didn’t expect to get obsessed over.

Chuck & Buck (2000) - A dark drama based on the arrested development of a man hopelessly stuck in the memories and love for his childhood best friend.

*be advised if you haven’t seen this movie i literally spoil everything

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

At The Feet Of The Sun

book 2 in a slow paced high fantasy duology*

the right hand of the emperor (who is off searching for an heir) struggles with what to do after passing on his responsibilities and also discovering various pieces of information that are mindblowing to him, personally,

after adventure is thrust upon him, he travels to find His Radiancy and they go on some otherworldly adventures while growing closer and figuring out the nature of their friendship

(*there’s extra novellas & i think another book coming? duology adjacent, currently,)

[what-even-is-thiss]

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[spocks-kaathyra]

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[robotsafari]

i LOVE how courteous, and pleasant ansem sounds when he says “allow me to demonstrate” cutest thing ever before he stabs maleficent with the artificial keyblade he made and is very excited to show off <3 (it was to unlock infinite power. they are friends.)

[phagodyke]

anyway yeah relevant to that post abt being deaf/hoh and ppl excluding u from conversation bc of it (even unintentionally), that's smth that's been really deeply bothering me lately bc there are a few ppl I routinely have to deal with who do it a lot and it Pisses Me The Fuck Off I've lost all patience w them. giving up and calling it ableism and walking out idc anymore 🚶‍♂️

[oddvanilla]

do you and mikeysway still talk-??

Nope, not at all 🤦‍♀️ I'm actually glad I ONLY got 2 asks about her (so far),, but yeah it took you guys AGES to figure this out??? I cut her off last month😭 but yeah, me and her not being together doesn't affect me (nor does it affect her, I hope??) im just saying, this friendship could've worked in another universe because we're two different people who just happen to have the same humour ☹️so short answer, no anon we are NOT friends anymore 🤷‍♀️

[audliminal]

I stg if I see one more person call the goddamn honeymoon phase of a relationship "love bombing" I'm going to chew through the earth's crust

[57sfinest]

what do you think the best case scenario is for jean and harry's relationship post-martinaise?

okay so not to be Like That but i do have one fic up about this with another one currently in the works

but anyway. obviously their relationship is never going to go back to the way it was. there was just SO MUCH between them that they have no hope of restoring with harry's amnesia, and also jean knows rationally that things shouldn't ever be the way they were again. it's not like they were ever supposed to be that way anyway.

in the best-case, i think it takes MONTHS for them to even start to bridge the gap, and harry has to initiate it. jean is done being the one reaching out, being the fixer, overlooking things. IF harry wants him back, as a friend or anything else- and secretly jean wants him to want him back, but he'll never admit that- he has to take the first steps and do the work. so first harry has to put in the work to recover (if harry kept using drugs, i don't think jean would care, but he'd have to kick the alcohol) and then harry has to put in the personal work and learn how to communicate properly and respect boundaries. even when he starts trying i think jean pushes back for a while and harry has to take his turn being the bigger person and let jean complain or shut him down or whatever and not bitch about it or start a fight, because that will just push jean away more.

best-case is that harry passes these little trials of jean's, and they finally sit down and have an actual conversation about everything and clear the air. i don't think it's a pretty conversation, but they (jean mostly) says a lot of things that have needed to be said for a long time. assuming this goes to jean's satisfaction i think they agree- harry gets ONE more chance to stay on jean's good side.

buffered by the few months of jean REALLY hating harry and resenting him and being jealous of his second chance and all that, i think a friendship between them has a better chance to be healthy at this point. harry is ostensibly working on his shitty habits and behaviors, and now harry probably has kim (and possibly others) to talk to, which takes a lot of the burden off jean, because imo one of the biggest issues harry and jean had was a lack of distance. they just couldn't get away from each other, and ended up not wanting to. so now they have an opportunity to keep a healthy buffer and *choose* to engage, which also allows them to step away from one another if things get heated. yes, they'll definitely still clash sometimes, but it's a lot easier to deal with when they can just agree to leave the argument there and not speak until they've gotten over themselves.

the best-case requires harry to do a lot of personal work but assuming he does do it, i do think he and jean could go back to being friends. their new relationship would definitely start off very rocky and tentative- mostly harry is afraid to ruin it again- but given enough time i think harry proves it's for real this time and they can come to actually trust each other and be comfortable around one another.

[clfixationstation]

you see, I know I'm a lesbian because

guy approaches me: I am filled with violent intent

sapphic approaches me: 😳🤭