#girlboss don't stop girlbossing

[bean-spring]

Viktor treating Hextech like this beautiful, majestic and worth loving dream. "This dream of yours" always talking about Jayce being the one to change the world. Focusing on Jayce and what Jayce can do with this wonderful dream. The possiibilities. The precious potential. The focus being on Viktor instead of on the board that has the dream written all over it, because it's from Jayce's POV. Viktor might be looking at the board but Jayce is looking at him. The sentence continues while Viktor turns around and Jayce's eyes are still on him. His mind doesn't go "oh, right, MY dream" but "OUR dream now" because Hextech, now, can't exist without Viktor. He sees what Jayce has never been able to share with anyone. He sees Jayce and their dream in a way Jayce thought he might never be able to share. So, all of a sudden, it isn't "the hextech dream" but "Viktor and me and our dream".

While (and no hate to Mel, btw, I love her. "she was manipulating Jayce" and "she loved him and cared about him" are things that can coexist") with Mel's scene, it's only "hextech" as a project. An investment. As Jayce is, too. The focus isn't even on Jayce anymore but the city. He's so small in comparison. This scene is separating him from his dream to turn him into a protector of the city instead. A symbol. Something he never wanted to be.

I'm going to be sick.

[devilsskettle]

The X trilogy + "psycho-biddy" influences

[bonefall]

Maybe I'll make a post on this at some point but like, something deeply fucked up about TNP and Po3 that people have totally forgotten about is how badly they try to whine that "Tigerstar Had Good Traits :("

Firestar does it, Brambleclaw does it, and they keep doing this after it becomes this GRAND irony that Firestar almost gets Tiger'd to death in a fox trap because he was too trusting. Bramble gets his pity award of keeping deputyship and then cries to his son about how No One Saw The Good In Tigerstar :(

And it's wiiiiild that no one else in this fandom has done anything with the fact that Leopardstar broke the Warrior Code to appoint Hawkfrost, who had no apprentice, an extremely aggressive and warmongering Tigerclone who says things like "Tigerstar wasn't the worst cat to look up to." ONLY qualifying trait was being kinda like Tigerstar.

And she practically did that the SECOND Mistyfoot went missing. And then Leopardstar continued to be one of the most violent and xenophobic leaders through Po3, joining with WindClan to attack ThunderClan.

What I'm getting at is that like, a few years ago, with books like "Blackfoot's Reckoning" and "Shadow in RiverClan" it's like they suddenly decided to retcon in a bunch of "redemption arcs" in hindsight. They just pretended like there was this grand high reckoning with TigerClan, when there literally wasn't, and if anything that caused SERIOUS problems for the cast that the authors didn't fully acknowledge as such.

And now ppl haven't actually read the main series and are just working with their recent memory of all these retcon books.

But TNP and PO3 are still there, and you can go and see the ACTUAL timeline where Leopardstar is really not apologetic at all, and Blackstar is a useful stooge for the very next wannabe dictator that strolls in, in spite of the new side content that COMPLETELY mischaracterized them for their plots to work.

[dry-yellow-marker]

what DIDN'T tai do my god

[mangled-by-disuse]

been watching a bunch of youtube videos about snow white (because it is the topic du jour and i need background noise) and this is neither a critique of the video essays nor of the disney remake but like

it really makes me think about how much you lose from the story when you keep making Snow White an older teenager or an adult woman?

like

I realise it is Uncomfortable to have a story where the main conflict revolves around "this twelve year old is super hot", but also: idk about you but for me that's what's so impactful about the fairytale and to a lesser degree the 1937 film

it is ultimately a story about the very specific but unfortunately near-universal experience of the world deciding for you that you have changed from "child" to "woman" and proceeding to treat you as a fully adult agent while simultaneously denying you all agency and power

like. snow white is a child. this is incredibly obvious in the framing. she is hitting puberty and that is when the mirror is like "hey she's a Woman now". and that is a process that is finished when A Prince Occurs, and that sucks as a message, but there's so much about snow white as a story that is still so fucking resonant to my experience of growing up, and I imagine to the experience of most people raised as girls.

like, imagine you're nine or ten, right, and your dad remarries and then he dies. it is traumatic and sad and you are scared and alone. you look around and you see the changes happening in your home, and you make the very sensible decision: okay, all right, I need to keep my head down and make myself useful, and then nobody will have a reason to send me away.

and it works! because your stepmother is vain and self-centred, and she only cares about her looks and what makes her seem more beautiful. you are at most an accessory she can dress up and trot out when she wants to, but the vast majority of the time, she ignores you. you are annoying to her. you are neither an asset nor a threat. why would she care?

(you continue to make yourself useful, but to try and keep out of her way, because, well. a lot of your friends aren't around the palace any more. you try to get the approval of the people who will give you attention. you hang around with the cooks and the servants and the animals in the courtyard. you don't care about class differences. you are a neglected preteen)

and then

suddenly

you are twelve or thirteen. your body is doing strange things. people begin to look at you differently. people have always said you are beautiful, but now it comes more often and it seems... different somehow. men say things you no longer understand. women whisper. you are growing up, and you know that, but you don't understand that, not yet.

and out of the blue, your stepmother comes to find you, to invite you to go on a trip. you think: she's noticed! she's noticed that i'm growing up, that i'm responsible and dutiful and kind and obedient, and now that i'm not a child any more, maybe i'm no longer an annoyance. maybe if i'm really good, she'll understand that i just want to help!

(and she has. she has noticed you are growing up. she's noticed that you made the indefinable change from "girl" to "woman", and now in her eyes there is nothing of the child to you. you are a woman. you are beautiful. you are a rival. and women... women know what they're doing. you aren't innocent, you're coy. you aren't naive, you're coquettish. you aren't humble, you're manipulative. you are an enemy. you are her enemy.)

so she demands your heart. and yet, when the huntsman takes you out to the woods and draws his knife - listen, huntsmen have children too. he looks at you and he sees that you aren't a woman at all, that you're not even a doe but a fawn, and he thinks about his own children under the knife, and he isn't a monster, so he lets you go.

you are thirteen or so. you are wandering in the forest. you have no mother and no father and no guide. you are terrified, with good reason.

you see a cottage in the clearing. you think: i shouldn't, but i have to. you don't understand entitlement, you don't fully grasp how unreasonable it is to help yourself to someone else's home. but, you know... it's cold. it's dark. there might be wolves and monsters in the shadows. you want your mother, but your mother has been dead for years. you reason, with a child's reasoning, that whoever owns the cottage has to understand how desperately you need it.

and, like... you have already learned how to make yourself useful. and here are these men who own the cottage, and they seem like they never learned the things you're good at, and they say they need a woman to keep house. you know how men are, they say. and suddenly, at thirteen, you're mother to seven adult men. you cook and clean and sing them songs and comfort them and they say: oh, snow white, you're so good. you're so kind. you're so sweet.

(none of them says: oh, snow white, you're still so young. snow white, you should have time to play. snow white, you should be a child. they might not be attracted to you, but you're still a woman in their eyes.)

and eventually, an old woman comes to your door, and she says: take this apple. take it, it's sweet. it's good for you. it's a gift.

and you might doubt her intentions, but you are a good girl. you learned to respect your elders and to listen to grown-ups. and she's so insistent, and she knows so much more than you, and even if she's old and crooked, she's also here with you, alone in the woods, and it's rude to turn old ladies away, but it's also dangerous. you've spent your life - all thirteen years of it - learning to appease and learning to be small. you don't trust the apple. you don't even like apples. you take it anyway.

and suddenly, it's all your fault. suddenly, you're stupid for being so trusting. suddenly, you should have known better. you should have stood up for yourself. you should have been a grown-up about this.

you are snow white. you wake up in a coffin with a mouth full of dust and apple. you are thirteen, maybe fourteen years old. you are sweet. you are innocent. you are trusting. you are frozen under glass, simultaneously a child and a woman, not growing up.

you already grew up. you learned so many things in the wrong order, in the wrong ways. you are jolted back to life by accident, when a grown man trips carrying your coffin.

the prince marries you. the dwarves say goodbye to you. the evil queen dances herself to death in red-hot shoes. the story's over. you won.

you never asked to compete.

you never asked to be the fairest of them all. you never tried to be. you never even knew it was happening.

god. it's so unfair.

[angels444yuri]

moths are so pretty up close but i am never not screaming and running away at the sight of one i'm sorry

[kumakuma-circus]

just randomly remembered that during my like 10+ attempts at the shadow yukiko fight i more or less consistently ran out of revival beads so yosuke was just dead (well unconscious but whatever) on the ground for like half the fight gfhfjvhfhfhd-

[riveroverthesky]

Went to see Wicked on tour with my mum and just finished reading Malice for my queer book club. And even though I had a fun time with both, I'm honestly tired of Fairytale Villain Retellings where the author does not want to actually engage with the villains and what makes them so iconic. Instead, the author takes the easy way out and makes the villain a misunderstood woobie, erasing what makes them interesting in the first place.

[a-lonely-dunedain]

.

[muses0fgracie]

Scowling in 'The writers need to stop making me look weak for once'

[ersatz-introspective]

hiii:33!! friendly reminder that someone can enjoy a character that has done heinous things and not support said heinous things

usually when a character does Bad Things in a narrative (espec if they're not the protagonist) it is Portrayed As Bad so people who enjoy the character Likely Know They Are Bad

& either way harassing people over enjoying a fictional character is just really childish

if you don't like the character, that is perfectly valid. but there's never any reason to characterise everyone who likes said character as Evil, and/or imply they condone the character's negative actions.

also sometimes i look at internet discourse and it's like people want morally grey characters but then turn around when "morally grey" is not always "i have my own rules but i still make all the right choices !!" some of y'all just need to admit you just like good characters that's fine not everyone is into the spice it's ok to like that good protagonist energy

;;;not saying every character i'm referring to fits in that "morally grey" category, some are just evil villains, but even then i'm sorry 90% of ur stories wouldn't exist without them. they drive the plot.

[cilantroodon]

I have a complex wherein if a person is attracted to me but I don't think much of them that warps into me being insanely attracted to them because there is nothing hotter than someone pathetically wanting an indifferent partner. however the second this happens the dynamic shifts and I go "wait who is this lmao" usually for good.

[i-platypus]

OMFG!!!!

saw someone refer to not knowing how to keep track of your money as "girl math" ......why are we in this weird era of treating women like idiots but repackaging it to sound cute and quirky. We All Need To Stop

[light-wrath-paradise]

I like the weird freaks of Look Outside but I fear I can only absorb everything about the game secondhand because body horror is the one type of horror that makes me physically sick.

[smoelpoes]

im not made for working, im made for smoking my little joint and material arts 😔

[cryptosexologist]

replaying elden ring, completely stuck trying to figure out what my character would do wrt the sellen v jerren conflict (+ my out-of-character desire to get sellen's ending because its obviously the more advantageous loot-wise. like, jfc, its not even close to equal what you get from each)