#i project SO HARD onto her

[casscainmainly]

So as much as I loved Batgirl #5, I did kind of raise an eyebrow at this panel:

It's a sweet sentiment but not one I think Cass would have; this kind of sympathy towards her younger self, particularly this idea that she had "no control of her life," runs counter to my view of her self-hatred and guilt. Elsewhere in this sequence she talks about that self-hatred, which feels more true to Cass, and to me somewhat contradicts the way Cass is fully embracing her child self here. I do not think Cass would ever shift the autonomy of her killing away from herself by saying she was "lost" and had "no control."

But then I thought harder about it, about the times when Cass was more forgiving of herself, and realised there was a common denominator: the one and only Stephanie Brown.

From the beginning Steph is associated with communication and language - Brombal nods to that here, where Steph allows her to "find those words." In Batgirl (2000) #20, arguably the start of the Steph-Cass relationship, Cass goes to Steph for reading help. Stephanie has always been a source of communication and connection for Cass, both things David Cain withheld from her.

Then we have this scene in Batgirl (2000) #28, which is SO important to Cass' conception of Stephanie. The "you... won't last" isn't only referring to their sparring, but to Steph being Cass' "best friend" - Cass doubts whether anyone can truly love her like that. But Steph impresses Cass with her tenacity, making Cass realise that this is someone who never gives up, no matter the odds. Someone who might actually, truly be able to love her.

It's this foundation that allows Cass to relate her experiences to Steph's abuse from her own father:

Steph's friendship allows Cass to acknowledge, on some level, that what David Cain did to her was abusive. It's a crucial step to mitigating some of that eternal guilt she holds, and seeing herself as someone worthy of love.

It's why Steph's conversation with Cass in #38 kickstarts Cass' journey of romantic discovery. It's not necessarily the possible crush she has on Steph, but that Steph as a whole represents romantic possibility.

Then Stephanie dies, and we get #62:

Imagined-Steph encourages Cass to fight for her life. This is huge compared to Cass' death wish in the beginning of Batgirl (2000) - even though Shiva helps her overcome that in #25, this is the first time we see Cass fully embracing her desire to live, fully choosing to live. And this choice is framed not through her own voice, but through Stephanie's. It's as if Steph represents the fact that Cass is actually worth saving.

So although some other people might have worked for this hallucination, for this specific part - Cass embracing her younger self - I think no one would have allowed her to do it except Stephanie. Nobody except Steph allows her to look at herself as someone worthy of compassion and love.

Batgirls (2022) #14 and #15

[ooooo-mcyt]

The reason I love Double Life Pearl and Scott in specific so much is because I can project my neurodivergent trauma onto Pearl and my queer trauma onto Scott🤭

[neverpathia]

so, tumblr, here's a little cheated x thorn thing I wrote. (I say 'little' as if I didn't spend three whole days on it. It's pretty long. Take heed.)

i don't exactly know if it's one of my best works? and it feels a little like multiple ficlets condensed into one, but hey, productivity is productivity.

just know that cheated and thorn are wholesome, flawed, adorable, bumbling little guys, who hurt and yet heal.

“Must it be so fucking cold?” The Cheated jerked his hand aside sharply, flinging some snow off the back of his palm—and nearly tossing that hand away with it. He narrowly caught the appendage in mid-air, muttering curses as he haphazardly jammed it back onto the bloody stump. 

The Thorn chuckled, her scarred fingertips playing with a barren tree-branch. “There’s trees and grass around. I could weave a coat for you.”

His face flushed—no, he wasn’t flustered or anything, pah, must’ve been the damned weather—and he quickly turned away. “There’s no need. Really.”

She twirled around to face him, tangled hair drifting with the winter winds. “Come on, then. We’re almost there.”

They crossed a couple of meanders, punctuated by someone’s constant grumbling and the amusement of another. 

The Thorn got bored of the journey at some point, and before he knew it, Cheated’s complaints were cut short by a snowball smack in the face. His grimace turned to a grin as he pelted one back at her. She retaliated in turn. He tried to strike, but she ducked in time. She got him as he was packing snow into another ball. It went on like that. 

Her smile was playful, catlike. He’d stared at that smile for too long, and his heart raced, and something hitched in his throat—until a fresh hefty dose of snowball interrupted his simpering.

And they chased each other about the Endless Woods, until Cheated was breathless and his legs were both on the verge of falling apart again, red flesh sloshing against flesh. 

Thorn propped him against a rock, fixing his limbs back in place. “I’m sorry. That…wasn’t what I took you here to do.”

He leaned back, trying (and failing) to wink at her. “It’s all good. No worries, I swear.”

She giggled. “That wink was nasty. Did Opportunist teach you?”

“Should’ve known better than to trust that smarmy shit-load.” He shrugged—

—or tried to, but she held his arm in place. “Ah, no. Not yet.”

Cheated rolled his eyes. “How much longer?” 

“When you finally decide to stop complaining and let yourself rest.”

He cracked a smile. “Bloody hell, we’ll be at this rock for ages.”

She laughed. “Hey, at least you won’t have to see that ‘smarmy shit-load’. Trust me on this one.”

But it took a little less time than ‘ages’ before the Thorn took his hand in hers, scratches and scabs brushing past each other, and led him across the snow again. His strides were brash and wide; her silent footfalls never strayed far. 

Eventually, the snow gave way to grass. He toed a close-set cluster of grass-blades, a dent left in the clumps of snow that flanked it. “Huh. What’s this doing here? Are the woods changing again or something?”

“There.” She pointed. 

He squinted into the distance, before he fully registered the sight and gaped in dismay. “No fucking way. A path in the woods.”

Her smile was subtle, but sneaky all the same. “Where it ended, no…where we began, again.”

His gaze followed the path. It snaked uphill, and he could barely make out scattered red blossoms, further at the end…

He nearly choked. “This one? The exact same place?”

She sidled closer to him, giving his hand a squeeze. “I told you, I did have something to show you.”

The Thorn had to yank him back pretty hard before he could recklessly scramble up the hill. 

“No-no-no-no-no—” He nearly fell flat on his face, but Thorn’s grip on him never faltered— “how? This isn’t—the woods are endless, endless, there’s a crap ton of cabins just lying around—how did you find this one?” 

She ascended the path, at times in unsteady stumbles, at times with easy grace. “I’ve been wandering for a while.”

She tripped, but Cheated held her steady—except he teetered and went off-balance himself, and the two of them soon went careening into the dirt. Lesson learned: floundering around does not prevent you or your companion from getting a mouth full of hill. 

She leant over him, a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Peeling his face from off the floor, he spat out a glob of something unidentifiable. “Are you okay?”

She shook some mud off her face, off faded burns and pink-white wounds. “I didn’t expect the climb to be this...tough.”

“Nor did I,” he admitted. “Hell, I didn’t pay much mind to the climb myself the first time.” 

As she got up, her smile was wan. “You weren’t this cut-up the first time, were you?”

“Damn getting cut-up. I survived it better.”

Her tail gave a little flick, curious. “What do you mean?”

“This one was way worse. I was a lot more worried about, I don’t know, the fact that I’d just gotten stabbed—”

As soon as the words left his mouth he knew, he knew that he’d fucked up. 

Of course. 

Of course she’d know that he got stabbed, she’d been the one who stabbed him, they’d built that trust here so precariously, so in spite of all that had happened between them…and he’d remind her of that, here, now?

But Thorn only gave a tinkling little laugh. “Well, I do know, and I can’t blame you. I was a little preoccupied with getting stabbed myself.”

Oh. Well, he did stab her too, sort of…but she didn’t seem too mad about it. Cheated felt himself exhale. “That wasn’t my fault, by the way.”

She shrank back and covered her mouth in mock-surprise. “Oh, I definitely never knew that. It’s totally not like you’ve said that before, perhaps just once—”

He groaned. “Hey, now...” 

“—oh, maybe you said it twice, no, a thousand times already—”

“Come on, it can’t have been—”

She leant forward and placed a single, dainty finger on his lips. “You grouchy little thing. Of course I know. But we’re over that, aren’t we?”

He had forgotten how to breathe. Or move, or speak. Or keep the blood from rushing to his cheeks again, too warm, too fast; or to keep his face from betraying just how much he felt, and could never help but feel—

The Thorn skittered ahead. “Follow me. You do want to see this, don’t you?”

“H— Now, how dare—” He finally remembered words again. “How-dare-you-do-something-like-that-not-fair-what-the-hell-you-little-not-fair—”

She winked at him. 

And he had to admit that it was a lot better than his shoddy attempt from earlier.

They trudged on. 

They fell against the soil and stones, again, again. She got up. He flailed about. She picked him up by the back of his collar and nearly considered carrying him the entire way uphill, but he protested so hard that she mentioned something about tossing him back down instead. Oh, she couldn’t have meant it (surely?), but it shut him up nonetheless.

They reached the top together. Red poppies in full bloom lined the path, in rich clumps and heavy clusters. Thorn bent down, pawing at the flowers. 

“Huh. I knew there were poppies.” Cheated paused. “But I never really asked why.”

She gingerly reached for a single blossom, handling it by the stem. “I don’t know either.”

“No?” He lowered himself to the ground, sitting cross-legged beside her. “I guess I always thought you were behind them somehow.”

“Maybe I was.” She gently tilted the poppy, angling it, red petals tinting light in the diffusing dusk. “Subconsciously, perhaps. I never actually saw them, not until I…until we left.”

The Cheated shifted in his seat, closer to her. “I saw them when I came, I think.”

He paused.

“I just didn’t know what they meant.” Cheated gazed at the flower she was handling. The petals were the same colour as her wounds, and his own. “If they really did mean jack-shit.”

Wordlessly, Thorn snapped the poppy from its stem. “Maybe they didn’t.”

“Ah.” He had no idea how to respond. “Well, fuck that then—”

“Shh.” She lifted the flower between her thumb and forefinger, tender as a lover’s embrace. With her other hand, she probed the side of his head; his choppy matted locks, the slashed wings he had in place of ears. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, but he never drew away.

She raised the poppy-flower to his temples. “I trust you now,” she said simply.

 The Thorn slipped it into the Cheated’s hair, placed it snug above a wing, and fixed it with a few deft motions; an eternity softer than the hues of sunset before them…before, at long last, she pulled away. 

“Maybe the flowers don’t mean anything.” Their eyes met, her green against his gold. “Not by themselves. But they can be so much more, to us.”

“What…” He felt the side of his forehead, where the flower was. The petals were soft beneath his coarse, calloused fingers. “You…You—That was…”

He let it linger for a few beats. 

She retreated a few steps, eyeing him. “It does suit you.”

“I—” He shot to his feet. Air hitched in his throat, and if he hadn’t blushed enough earlier, he certainly did now. A lot. “That was—you devious little—! That—the flower—you—it…”

“That flower.” Thorn rose with both hands clasped behind her back, smirking just subtly. “Me.”

“Bah.” He let his hand fall from the flower. “You know, Thorn?”

“What is it?” Her scars, her burns, those delicate features, those eyes crafty and cautious; they caught the fading sunlight and played with it, danced with it and bathed in it. Just like the flower she had picked, soothing soft, better somehow.

His eyes fell away from hers. “I don’t know why I find you so damn pretty. But I do. And you are.”

She stepped closer to him, came before him, next to him. “It’s a little hard.” Her hand slipped into his, fingers intertwining. 

“What is?”

She turned, and her stare fixed steely. “To say ‘I love you.’”

The ruins were still there. 

“Um…” Cheated followed her gaze. He shot her a quick glance before looking back, hesitant. “Fuck, I don’t know if it feels right here. Should we enter?”

The wood was just as charred and broken as he remembered, the brambles and thistles that overran it just as wild. But it never deteriorated: there were no new splinters, no unfamiliar growths. Only the same encroaching vines, creeping in place, ever-threatening to devour something that once was whole. Something that had given up. Something surrendered to nature.

And yet it remained frozen in this little enclosure of flowers and grass.

She reached out, eyes closed. She took a deep breath, and another, until her arm flinched back and uncertainty flickered over her face. 

His grip on her hand tightened. “Something’s wrong, right?”

“Not really…” She took a wary step forward. “No, we should go.”

Cheated raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, but all the signals I’m getting right now are telling me that we should, in fact, not go. Look, I know a good wager when I see it—”

“Do you?” Thorn was already walking, leading him along. 

He scowled. “Maybe not, but this is…Thorn, this is where you were bound. I remember it, and I remember it well, but just now—I’m sorry. This isn’t just where we met again for the last time. This is…this is a fucking place of pain.”

Her face fell. “I know.”

“Then we don’t have to go.” Gently, he tugged her hand back.

She shook her head. “The wilds speak to me. They were more welcoming last time—they bent to my will.”

“And now they don’t?”

She didn’t meet his eyes. Fuck. 

“Thorn.” He swivelled around to face her and gripped her shoulders. “I know you probably brought me here to show me this place, but I’m not trusting this place, you know how it tried to hurt us—”

“We go.” A resolute growl lay beneath her tone. 

“You can’t be serious.”

She was silent for a long while, and then she sighed. “I really am sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. But maybe it’s wrong because it’s supposed to be. Maybe we need it, the closure it brings us, whatever it is.”

Cheated winced. “Well, I sure as heck don’t like the feel of this place. But, alright, if you insist.”

Thorn didn’t smile.

They slipped past the empty door-frame and descended in near-silence. The only sounds Cheated could hear were their breathing—hers slow and measured, his erratic as ever—their footsteps, and the faint rustling of the prickly roots that now writhed and shifted. 

“Is this your doing?” he asked about the wilds’ movements, after nearly tripping over an unwelcome bramble. 

She never looked up. “I can’t tell anymore.”

One step. Another step. Hand in hand. Wordless. Another step, another step. Cheated really didn’t like how grim it all felt, how dreadful. Like a bad hand played before you send your deck to shit.

They reached a narrow clearing. Flanked by vines, tangled and knotted into shape, leaving behind some hollow mimicry of a basement. More thorns crept over the ground, blanketed it fully. A few lay limp and lifeless, some thick and some thinner, all severed and scabbed over where the Cheated had cut through and set the Thorn free.

Thorn knelt and pressed both palms over her former prison. She shut her eyes.

“Careful,” warned Cheated. “The thorns are, well, thorny.”

Despite everything, she gave him the slightest smile. “Of course I’d know.”

He wanted to kick himself. Of course she would, these very thorns bled her. 

She frowned, opening her eyes, and jerked a hand back as if it had been stung.

“Woah, hey.” He leant down, though he wasn’t sure how he could help at all. “Are you sure you’re okay? Really—”

“Yes,” she snapped. “Wait, no. No. Something’s wrong.”

“Tell me,” he urged. “We can leave, we can always leave, you don’t have to deal with this, not now and not ever—”

“This is where you cut me free.” She stood. “This is where we embraced. You released me. We healed.”

“And it’s also where you were hurt!” Cheated couldn’t understand. What was this? What was going on at all, what was he supposed to do, what the fuck would the right move be in this situation? “It’s also where…I hurt you. You hurt me. Let’s just get all of this over with.”

“I hurt you,” she echoed. “The roots are lonely, yearning. They retain where we forget. I read them, and they show me pain…” 

She sighed.

“But you trust me. You do trust me.”

“Yes!” Could anything be truer? “No shit, now, if you told me to jump off a cliff, you bet your life I’d jump off that fucking cliff—”

“Would you?” Her tone was wary. “Is it still the same?”

He didn’t know. What could she mean? “I don’t know, nothing’s changed, I just—it’s gotta be the same, dammit, what else—” It couldn’t be like this, everything they built couldn’t be this fragile, it couldn’t be like this, so sudden…He slumped. “Do you trust me? Have you ever?”

She didn’t speak. 

He didn't know how to read that expression, and it—it troubled him. 

And why did he fucking ask that? Why, just why? Why didn't he just let it slide, why didn’t he just grumble a little and move on, why didn’t he ever think before he fucking spoke, god-damned loser, why…

The Thorn's voice came out in a single whispered breath. “I want to.”

Why was it like every sentence he spoke was the wrong choice? “Good. Now let’s just—”

Cheated was abruptly cut off when something knocked him back into the ground, his mangled body tumbling down, hands closing around his throat, claws digging into rough skin, of scars closed and re-bled. Her eyes were wide, suspicious, faltering, keen—

“You trust me!” She yelled, straddling him, her maimed chest rising and falling with every rapid breath. “Don’t you—you don’t and you never have, but you do, you do—”

“I—” he gasped, even as he could feel every rough scar on her hands digging deeper into the skin of his neck. “—what are you—Thorn, it’s me—don’t…”

“And how long will it take before I return to my nature?” Her voice trembled even in...no, this wasn’t anger, this couldn’t be anger, it couldn’t. “How long before I need to save you from myself?”

He couldn’t speak. But this couldn’t be it. This couldn’t…no…not again, they couldn’t return to the hurt, the lying and hatred and schemes…

“I’ll make you trust me for as long as you live.” She whispered, leaning down, her lips almost brushing his. “I’ll make sure you never think about betraying me ever, ever, ever again, never in your life. And…and I won’t do it again. I can’t hurt you, not if I never get the chance. This is kind.” 

She strangled him, harder, tighter. 

“I’m being kind. I have to be.”

Gold eyes searching, pleading, beseeching into green. 

“I can’t…hurt you again. Don’t struggle…don’t hurt—”

And suddenly, everything let go all at once. He gasped, he could gasp. Something horrible, weighted, heavy had cleared away. Her hands fell back. The claws retracted with a soft click. She stood and knelt again, bending listless over him, like a poppy-flower close to withering away. 

He rolled over and retched and coughed, chest roiling and heaving as the air rushed in, deep and all too welcome. 

Only tension remained. A breath. Then the Thorn shifted, veering aside, wrapping her tail around herself. 

“I can’t be sorry enough,” she said. She gazed at him, something between loving and remorseful, so remorseful. “Cheated…”

It trailed off into the quiet. 

He sighed and pulled himself up. He dusted himself off. Sure, his limbs were still falling off every which way, but at least he didn’t get decapitated. But everything felt loose, about to rip apart. 

That wasn’t the point. 

He walked over to the Thorn and offered her a hand. “You coming?”

She only looked up at him with those mournful, cautious eyes. “You don’t understand. I—”

“Oh, I do know that getting strangled fucking sucks!” He snapped. “I hated it, what the fuck? I’m done with this damn load of bullshit, I’m fucking done, who the hell—Fuck this, fuck all, and fuck you, and why would you even think of going here, and what the fuck told you that strangling someone was a fucking good idea, and—and…”

She only looked down at her hands, still as stone. 

He cursed himself. Whatever the right move was, this certainly wasn’t it.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I guess—you didn’t mean to do that. I…yeah, I think I understand. I didn’t mean to lose my shit with you either. Really. I didn’t mean that.”

There was no response. 

“Sorry,” he tried again—

“No,” said Thorn. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

This wasn’t going anywhere.

“How long will it take before I return to my nature?” Cheated slid onto the unfurling vines, coming to a seat beside Thorn. “It’s not like I’m all sunshine and rainbows myself, you know.”

She buried her face inside her palms, littered with pink scratches. “It’s…you’re different.”

“How? It’s just as you said. You hurt me, I hurt you.”

“Yes.” She brought her knees close to her chest, huddling into herself. “But you stopped it. You gave me a chance.”

He scoffed. “We started it, and you were only protecting yourself. It wasn’t fair, not for you.”

“Such a righteous heart.” Her smile was wry, but it flickered false. “I guess we really are the same.”

There was another quiet moment, one of careful hesitation; a tentative dance over a bed of thorns.

“Do you think I wouldn’t forgive you?” Cheated finally said.

Thorn looked away. 

“Okay. I forgive you.” Blunt, stupid, but there. It was out. “Not that it felt very nice, but I—you said it yourself, you were trying to save me in some twisted way. I’ve got to respect that.”

“But you were hurt—”

“So? We all play a bad hand from time to time. Does that mean you straight-up lose the whole game?”

She pursed her cracked lips. “I might. And when I lose…what I stand to lose now, it terrifies me.”

“Alright.” He drew himself closer. “Look at me, Thorn.”

She didn’t budge, not at first. 

“Look. At. Me. You have eyes.” 

It was slow, but at last she turned. Shameful, tense, wavering in her uncertainty. 

She saw him, drank in the sight of him: all sliced-up flesh, grisly scars, a tattered suit smeared with grime. He wasn’t a pretty thing.

And still the poppy bloomed snug in his hair. Red as roses, red as blood, red as a love borne and bathed in pain.

“Damn you,” he spat, “if you think I need saving from you. I know bloody well what it means to trust and lose, thank you very much. And damn you if you think I’d stop caring about you, damn you if I’m not sitting through it and waiting, waiting, even if you cut me and bled me and slashed me up and skewered me a billion times—well, damn the pain, I’ll still be here…but you never would. ‘Cause you’re too good for that.”

She fidgeted with a single tendril from her hair. “I wouldn’t be so confident about that. Especially not…”

She paused. 

“I don’t ever want to go back,” said the Thorn. “Not to the lying and the hatred and the schemes.”

“You’ve changed.” His gaze hardened. “The old you would never take anyone out because she was scared of what she’d do to him. She’d lure him off and leave him to rot.”

“Mm.” A genuine smile, finally, played across her gaunt face. “I would. But dead is dead.”

“And gone is gone. Like the Witch, who’s now the Thorn, and if she’s the same little monster, I’m wrapping myself up and heading straight to Razor’s door.”

That made her chuckle. “So you really think I’ve changed.”

“No shit. I…” And there, there were the words that were never easy for him to say. “I love that. And I love you.”

“Oh?” It was gradual, almost imperceptible, but something lightened within her poise. “Then I must say…I do. Love you too, I mean.”

“Let’s go.” Cheated couldn’t help himself from grinning like a total idiot as he stood. Thorn laughed, and he swatted at her in jest. What ensued was a disgruntled Cheated and a smirking Thorn both scrambling to reattach his elbow.   

Hands clasped, the two of them left the thorns behind and stepped out into the ebbing day.

[specific-dreamer]

the outsiders as quotes from me and friends

fair warning we are all black girls at an hbcu with no filter

~~

Bob: she told me to pick a planet, i picked the sun :)

Cherry: and i’m gon’ hold your hand when i say this

~~

Bob: do you expect your sneaky link to take you out on valentine’s ?

Beverly: no! he’s for the 15th

~~

Soda during a school project whilst at his wits end: Malcolm X shot MLK

Darry: well no

~~

Pony and johnny in spanish class

Pony: Solo creer en me

Johnny: …What’s creer i thought that was a gender?

~~

Steve when he found out Evie’s 25% white: I was expecting like slavery r-worded white like every other black person but consensual white?

[mylove-thresher]

Why tf does my art slap more when im sick bro 😭

[gemini-queen42]

Batb: Other Than Human - Themes stuff (& why I Called It That)

That's right folks, the self-indulgent "throwing any concept I like at the wall and haphazardly mixing together what sticks" au rewrite Thing has Actual Themes! That kind of happened accidentally but they are so real for that so let's get into it.

The Main Narratives Themes Trio of the story now all also embody expanded themes about being an "Other", when being a person is not enough to be properly considered human- more specifically of a neurodivergent/queer girlhood type flavor.

Summary is that it's called "Other Than Human" because the prominent theming is about being considered something other than human due to not fitting the mold of the 'norm'.

[This is a long one so details & specific character stuff are under the cut<3]

Amalure has the greatest departure from her original counterparts thematic placing, so we'll start with her. Amalure retains Gaston's social standing, reputation, etc. But it's of course not quite the same- because she is a woman, and she is not revered for being the picture of ideal womanhood/femininity. Instead, she excels in masculinity, but remains firm that she is and always will be a woman. So, to justify the desire & awe people have for her, they dehumanize her: She doesn't need to follow the Rules because she is outside of them. Amalure is not a person: she is a symbol, a figure, an object. A legend, a folksong, a modern myth. Her skills are not skills they are blessings, inherent, a mundane magic or supernatural. Despite having grown up in Villeneuve for her entire life, she is considered exotic, and is practically, if not actually, fetishized. And through all of this, the status quo and social order gets to be retained without question, and she gets to exist as the exception that proves the rule, rather than the Undesirable that she'd be marked as otherwise.

Amalure is fine with this, because this dehumanization is her status quo: She doesn't really view herself as a person either, she is defined by her relationship to other people, by who she is to them. Amalure has never been a person to anybody: Growing up she was never just a girl, never just Amalure: She was a girl with a mans brain, an embodiment of her fathers greatest achievements, an embodiment of her mothers worst mistakes, she is her fathers daughter or her mothers daughter, but not her own. (and she never both, it is either or, mother or father, never both, never parents.)

Princess Eve/The Beast is the other end of this, of operating through her dehumanization. Upon being cursed, she adheres to what societies have oft wanted to happen to their Undesirables: Hide away and never be seen by the public again. It is entirely self-inflicted, as most of her suffering truly is. She operates not through others dehumanizing view of her, but her dehumanizing view of herself and its warping of how she believes others view her. Because, well, the servants still view her as a person. I mean, they're still human- under the new object forms. And the separation of humanity that is easy to slip into on matters of royalty is awfully minimal as well; they watched her grow up, and she grew up among them.

The girl's bratty, spoiled, temperamental, and is a ball of horrid consequences of the shallow views and ideals learned from surrounding nobility. But she's also the girl that fell asleep listening to Cogsworth explain the many technicalities to managing servants; because she was stubborn in asserting her authority as the mistress of the castle, and thus she Must have say over its goings ons. But the majordomo's voice can be awfully soothing when he's not high-strung on anxiety, and it's hard to pay attention when you don't understand what's being discussed, so its all going in one ear and out the other. And She's Lumiere's 'Evie', who was so amused when Lumiere would draw on a little mustache when dancing the male roles so the princess could learn some duo dances, or because she didn't look very "waiter-like" (because Eve wasn't entirely sure what a maître d' did, but it seemed to have something to do with waiters), and who got annoyed every time the dance teacher/maître d' would warn her not to hurt her body in her pursuits, because it seemed so silly, why would anyone do that? And she's the girl who dragged Mrs. Potts to have tea with her, because she made the best tea and as princess she would have only the best; and if you're going to have tea you may as well have a tea party, and you can't really have a party of one, but two isn't much of a party either so she's going to drag Babette away from her duties too, since the maid was so elegant and thus would be perfect.

Honestly, the girl probably would've turned out fine if she was raised by just the servants. But they weren't the only forces in her life: she's a princess, so she's got to host and interact with important people and learn how to Be noble which isn't something any of the servants can teach her. And it is under the pressures and eyes of nobility, is in mixing and learning their social rules, that learns the lessons that will lead to her curse: That to be considered human and treated as such, one must look human. And to be such as a woman meant to look beautiful, like the ideal. As a woman, to be worthy is to be beautiful and vice versa. And even if she does not, she must have some way to serve men. Otherwise, she is nothing. Eve met these requirements well, and where she did not yet her authority as princess covered. So when a beggar woman is at her doorstep, the princess turns her away: because she is old, ugly, so long past her 'prime'- there is no worth to her anymore. There is no point caring for her future.

Helene stands as both the middle ground and inverse to the other two. She is an Other by virtue of her mind, she is Objectifiable by virtue of her beauty. She sits on the precipice between Undesirable and Desired, seeming nearly apathetic to where she lands despite popular encouragement to embrace or smother aspects of herself. Helene is quite sure she's a person like anyone else, thank you, and is frankly frustrated and a bit weirded out that others seem to have a hard time getting the memo- she doesn't like or want to assume the worst, though, so maybe she just missed another confusing untold social rule or something. I mean, the local triplets really do seem to be advising in good faith- they really do think of her as one of them to an extent (for reasons Helene is yet to know); they just don't understand her.

When Amalure pursues her, there's an unspoken aspect to the deal of marriage she proposes: Helene will get a secured place on the in of the community, a secure standing the promises people no longer questioning or trying to encourage her to no longer be herself. But Helene just isn't interested in Amalure like that, and she also sees what the real trade-off of that security is; that uncomfortable dehumanization that is exactly what Helene doesn't want to deal with anymore. If Amalure is fine living with it than she is free to do as she pleases, but the huntress doesn't seem to understand what Helene could possibly have a problem with- and it's not like they can discuss it, because it's unspoken, and you're not supposed to speak the unspoken things, because they're unspoken for a reason- even if you don't know what that reason is. Helene knows that rule, at least.

When Helene meets the Beast, she regards her as she does any other. It's plain as day that the Beast has a humanity to her, whether she's really "human" or not- she thinks and she feels, and that's enough for Helene.

Because Helene grew up raised by a single dad who she got most of her brain workings from, and he is a man of compassion and science. Off he'd send his beloved daughter to go and question and figure out the world for herself, to experiment and learn and become whatever she desires. Off to bed he'd send her to tell her fairy tales and have their lessons of love and compassion and humanity understood as she drifted off to sleep. Helene was never Odd with her father, never Other, in fact they were so easily two of a kind. It was so jarring, hearing people imply Tyndare less than sane; his logic paths were so easy to follow- but apparently his voice gruffs enough that others have a hard time understanding what he's saying sometimes, so that's where things seem to get lost in translation she guesses. People became jarring in other ways as she grew up too, because suddenly there seemed to be lots of social things she was supposed to know or be but didn't and wasn't, and it became very apparent very quickly that she was an Other among her village.

Overall: Eve & Helene get to go through these themes through the main plot, and post curse-breaking is when Eve gets to properly deal with the internalized issues and whatnot. Like she's learned beauty doesn't matter when it comes to love, and shouldn't decide whether or not someone should be cared about, and Helene loves her despite her having been beastly and despite her being a failure of a woman- (because she no longer fits the feminine ideal after the curse is broken, and frankly she never will again.) But she's still a Failure Of A Woman and Helene deserves Better Than That! So there's still work to do.

Amalure remains static on this aspect of the narrative until after the battle at the castle, where she does survive! .. barely. and it's later, in an argument with her mother that same night, bleeding out on the kitchen floor, when she asserts that she's her daughter too, not just her fathers. she has always been her daughter, always will be, she is the daughter of both of them, because that's not something that just switches or turns on and off- and it's an entire rant that I will not recite here, but the important part is the assertion that she is, always has been, always will be, the daughter of both her parents at once- that's the first little step for her arc of recognizing her own individual personhood and whatnot.

[the-ghost-bird]

Rant over Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer:

Note: I wrote this while drunk months ago and my drunk self accidentally saved this as a draft instead of posting it. Against my better judgement, here's how bad I was obsessing over Annihilation, with the correction of the horrenous whiskey induced spelling mistakes. Spoilers ahead (obviously)

I was thinking back to the book, trying to figure out what about it hit me like a damn train, even after years and multiple rereads.

And i think part of it is just.... idk, there's something about the calmness of the biologist when she realizes she's contaminated from the spore inhalation. There's something about how she accepts it and the changes after it that just speaks to me. It's not a morbid acceptance, it doesn't come across as just her choosing to accept it for the saking of keeping her emotions in control. This acceptance of hers is less morbid and more like a... relief.

She just accepts it, and as she and nature merges, there's this feeling that Area X is not as dangerous to her as it is to everyone else because she's meant to be there. She is this reminder that nature and human are not separate, and we see it from the way she's always been so deeply connected to nature, more than anything else society could provide to her.

Her career choice isn't just an interest to her but an excuse to be connected to nature as much as she can, like a person who chooses to become a surgeon not because they want to help people but because it gives them an excuse to cut them open. I mean for fuck sakes, she kept getting removed from any research projects she would work on because she would just hyperfixate on the environment surrounding her and get lost instead of doing her actual job.

The biologist has always belonged to Area X. She's always felt like an entity that transcended humanity and connected to the lifecycles around her. That's why the husband highlights in his journal that he would've understood her better when he volunteered for the 11th expedition.

So when she inhales those spores, and remains calm, and accepts her changes all so easily, it gives the impression that now that feeling of hers, that feeling that she's meant to be in the remote, in the wild- all of that isn't a feeling anymore, it's physical, it's real, it's irreversible and you can't ignore it or brush it off or undermine it.

She transcends and becomes Area X, and it's what she always wanted, what she was always meant to become, what she's always been.

[evaiskindaweird]

I should probably go to bed but here’s some drawings on Miss Power’s dynamic with Mara +some baby Becky and trauma 💖

Also age changes!! Mara’s age when she had Becky is now 25 instead of 21 (way too young 😭🙏) and Miss power was 18 when Mara found her, being about 19-20 when Becky was taken

I have too much lore dawg I need to like pin a lore doc to my intro page 💀

[zeninsama]

whenever artists depict toji’s wife as a masc woman it makes my soul sooo happy. an angel gets its wings fr

[panncakes]

listen i would've supported 23.5 no matter how terrible it might've been and i will continue to support it no matter which route it takes; but i am incredibly happy that it starts sweet and gentle and goofy as all queer high school romances deserve to be 🥰

[love-killed-the-superstar]

rereading through the lost years and realising casey marie has had zero dynamic with moja so far besides these 2 panels :(

we've had her comforting yi when she got hurt, having a heart to heart with uno about his impulsivity, and her and odyn have had an adorable fist bump and 'you look lovely sensei', 'sensei has been gone five seconds and i miss her already' (odyn is such a sweet soul). but moja? we've had nothing. even sitting here together for a whole two panels, casey marie isn't even looking at her.

moja seems close to her grammy april, happy to chat away to her and hold her hand, but seems to keep to herself more compared to the other three, always with her headphones on. i'm... intrigued? to see if this is a case of the dynamic being overlooked in the lost years by accident and they're as close as she is with the rest of the turtles, or if there will be some kind of detached or tense relationship between them in re evolution.

i found a single bonus panel, from april's imagination btw, where casey marie seems to be squeezing moja's shoulder. more of this please!!

i know it's a bit of a toss-up right now whether uno or moja will be the new leader of the turtles (or if there will be a leader at all), but i'm leaning more towards moja because even if she and casey marie aren't as close, she still has the edge over uno when it comes to how impulsive/cocky/reckless he can be.

i think it would be super interesting if moja ends up mirroring pre-ronin michelangelo in that out of the new turtles, she ends up being the most resistant to the teachings and demands of her sensei despite being the de-facto leader. wrestling between honouring your family and sensei versus just wanting to live a peaceful, conflict-free life feels very in line with what we've seen from the last ronin so far.

[are-they-queerplatonic]

Do you see them as a QPR?

QPR Definition:

"Queerplatonic relationships (QPR), also known as queerplatonic partnerships (QPP), are committed intimate relationships between significant others whose relationship is not romantic in nature."

QPR reasoning under the cut

"- "i know that if you're lucky in this life, you get an extraordinary relationship. if there's one thing i know for sure in my life, it's that you are my extraordinary relationship".

- "promise me we'll always be together." "We'll always be together." "It's you and me forever"

- when talking about the future, riley's boyfriend asks if she thinks they'll still be together, and she says she hopes so, but when he then asks about maya, riley and maya both say "we're forever" without question or hesitation.

- they have rings that they promise to never take off

- they also call each other things like "peaches" and "honey"

- parallel a canon ship multiple times and just overall are the main pair of the whole show and love each other a lot and want to be together forever and prioritize each other even when they're in relationships

- there's a scene where one of them asks something like, "what if we never care about our boyfriends as much as we care about each other?", te other replies, "no we'll just love them in a different way. "what different way?" "less.""

[cemeterysquids]

thinking about prototype au again. what tee hell

[cosmogyros]

.

[reanimatedgh0ul]

now that i'm going back to ep 7 and i'm remembering that i had some thoughts as to why lance is more favored among the other kids despite not engaging w literally anyone meanwhile ilana will doing anything she can to connect w her peers and yet is ignored

[buddiesmutslut]

I have to be honest, I hate the “Eddie has so much sex with women, we don’t see him having any problems with it so he CAN’T be gay.”

Like, it took me YEARS to realize that the way I was feeling about sex wasn’t normal, that you weren’t supposed to feel empty & cold & a little gross after sex, when the high of an orgasm wears off. Even when I didn’t really want to have sex, I still did it, bc that’s what was expected of me & I thought it was normal. I had a whole “slut phase” on my late teens-early 20’s, & thought that the way I was feeling was normal. I didn’t stumble onto the word “demisexual” until I was like, 25 years old & had already decided that I was just broken, somehow.

Granted, I am a woman, so the experiences might not be exactly the same, and I obviously don’t know what direction they’ll go with Eddie’s sexuality, but I think for a lot of people that discover their queerness later in life, you don’t even realize that what you’re feeling is wrong or that there may be another way to feel until something happens & you can’t really ignore it anymore.

Idk, sexuality is really confusing & I feel like it’s going to be that much harder for Eddie, considering the way he grew up & his predilection to repression. He could be literally anything.