#i know a lot of ladies don't!

[anotherwellkeptsecret]

[sakemilktea]

You got booped by Panini the wanderer frog

He likes you very much and wishes you good booping day

(or only day if you aren't into booping)

He also documented it on his little journal

Image ID

A photo of a green and white belly hand knitted frog wearing a lavender hat and yellow hoodie carrying a little crossbody bag and booping to the camera (frog + clothes are bought but handmade from local ladies, the bag is made by me)

The same frog as before but with an upper photo. He's holding a pencil on his left hand and a journal over his little legs that has a frog hand with "1 apr 2024" and "boop" written on the left page and a "today i booped strangers on tumblr ♡" with a little self portrait below on the right page. At his left side there is a pen holder with other pens and a calendar, and oh his right a plate with cookies and an empty mini cup, he already got his morning tea!

(frog + clothes are bought but handmade from local ladies, the bag + journal is made by me, the other thingies are from sylvanian families sets)

[eliounora]

my pet peeve is those "historians thought they were very good friends" jokes, like obviously for sure there are homophobic historians, but the study of same-sex desire and relationships of the past is also quite complex and you can't often go and simply label people's relationships or identities of time gone by, and sometimes it's more complicated and elusive than "they were a couple" or even "they were in love"

[hexitca-art]

Nero: "I don't care who fucking started it first, STOP STABBING EACH OTHER IN PUBLIC! IT SCARES PEOPLE!"

Another pose/environment study, these are so fun. I was messing around with the lights/darks again but messed around with blending, idk if I like that way but this is why I'm doing it, kinda playing around and seeing what works and what doesn't (and putting Nero in cute crop tops lol)

Reference:

[spriteofmushrooms]

The interesting thing about Jiang Cheng is that he refuses to be his mother's golden child to Wei Wuxian's scapegoat; he actively chooses Wei Wuxian again and again. He defends Wei Wuxian from her until she dies. It's unusual.

This doesn't mean that Wei Wuxian's experience was any less fraught--being hated by a caretaker is awful even if everyone else loves you. But it was an interesting choice by MXTX.

[katyspersonal]

who do you think fucked up worse…gehrman or maria?

This is an interesting question, and I kind of didn't think of it before! Time to take a closer look at their crimes I guess. Some of these will be held on the possibilities and 'safe assumptions' though and addressed for the full picture!

1) Both were involved in Fishing Hamlet massacre!

With Maria, we can conclude as much because she discarded her weapons in the well at the place specifically. Her version in the Nightmare realm, a Hunter again, is supposed to be what punishes her, and she is focused on keeping Kos/OoK away from rummaging through. Considering the nature of the Nightmare, as well as the Doll who has spiritual connection with her, it should come from her guilt and regrets rather than.. I dunno, discarding the hunt over natural 'character development' and just picking a cool place to forsaken her past!

Gehrman sleeps better according to the dialogue Doll has after you kill OoK and free it's soul, so if it tortured him so, I think it is safe to say he had to be personally involved too rather than stay back while his students did the job:

They both were involved with Byrgenwerth, following their quest for obtaining the eyes of the dwellers from their skulls, and I suppose cord of OoK?

The thing about this point is that the description is written as though it was Gehrman's curiosity which ruined Maria's "idealisation" of him, or WOULD ruin it had she learned of it! This makes me wonder whether she was really involved in Byrgenwerth all that much, or whether she was aware of the real purpose of Fishing Hamlet massacre beforehand? Her goal, within the Nightmare, is stated to mercy-kill us so we don't allow that curiousity corrupt us to the point of "rummaging through corpse" and similar things, further supported by her visceral attack being an embrace if it is lethal!

I am just saying that here the balance might slightly shift towards making Gehrman 'worse' than her. Maybe she was not aware that it all was not just killing "monsters" but also a pregnant mother with her divine baby, but "well you didn't ask :/". Maybe Gehrman deceived her to use her aid. Maybe he didn't think it would be a big deal for her seeing that Maria was also interested in evolution through talking with Great Ones, and assumed she'd be just as callous about which means to accomplish the goals with?

2) Both were grave-robbing, or at least okay with that!

This one is a little less obvious, but Tomb Prospectors were not the first to go to the Chalice Dungeons! ...It were actually Willem, Dores and Gatekeeper lol:

BUT ALSO it were Old Hunters! We can see the remnants of it by Old Hunter Vitus being one the summons in Chalice Dungeons, hear Gehrman encourage us to go into the Chalice Dungeons to become stronger as via "tradition" of the Old Hunters,

and the fact that one of the things that torture Maria (again, remember that Nightmare Realm is Hell that punishes) is a Chalice:

(A video ( x ) for a better look at the Chalice from a figure)

I'd say that it is not very nice to disturb the undead Pthumerians just struggling in remains of their civilisation! Interesting thing: we can conclude they are even staying there to protect the Great Ones or their remains!

There has been some sort of civil war between ancient great-ones-respecting Pthumerians and who late became Cainhurst nobles! Maria, ironically, fell onto the side of "entitled guys" descendants! But yes, I could see why bullying zombie guys to get more history and archeology relics from them might not seem like much for her at start. Experience in the Fishing Hamlet likely retroactively ruined this period of her life for her: delving into Chalice Dungeons was likewise 'not leaving the corpse alone'. The remaining Pthumerians were right having some honour and dignity. So, that came to haunt her in the form of Pthumeru Chalice. Gehrman is.. well he's here too I guess dfshfdhs

3) Both knew a little too much about Laurence's shady business and did nothing?

Old Hunters used to be friends with Healing Church's Hunters and even had their workshops located close to one another! Gehrman was friends with Laurence and Ludwig, who are both quite strongly involved with Moon Presence (Ludwig's sword and guidance, Laurence's affiliation being known since Byrgenwerth times), as well as the key figure in creation of Hunter's Dream:

This was most likely a bait-and-switch, seeing how the cord itself is still in the real Workshop, and not in the grasp of Moon Presence (unlike, say, Wet Nurse taking Mergo's cord)! I think the purpose of creation of the Hunter's Dream was to "buy time" for the research conceived by the scientists! Remember: Gehrman was known to have "madness of curiosity" that Maria resented, or at least would resent had she known! He might have been fully aware of what Laurence wanted to do and support it! My point here, that with such proximity, he must have known of all Laurence's crimes and agreed with them!

Maria was at least overseer of the Clocktower's Research Hall, which, again, was just beta!Choir.

This last line IS a bit confusing, because it makes it sound as though the nerds looking for the Eyes Inside and the Blood Ministers got split. Laurence and Ludwig make it weird, as Moon Presence is also an Eldrich creature and Ludwig is for sure full of eyes! What also makes it strange is that Choir, and then School of Mensis, are both upper echelons of the Healing Church, but Laurence is supposed to be above both of them.

I think this can be worked with! Let's say what if Choir formed after Laurence's death, which also happened after Maria's death, and Vicars after him were somewhat "powerless" and walked over by Choir and Mensis, only leaders in the name! But that still leaves the bit that the mentioned "division" happened after Choir was formed! Maria and Adeline, however, are locked to the existence of the Research Hall, so, the timeframe when doctors and blood ministers were 100% working together! We find the Eye Pendant that opens the access to the Research Hall in Laurence's hand, and human Skull of Laurence on the platform that hides the secret elevator to that Research Hall. Again, by the Nightmare Logic, they must be connected with Laurence's sins: he started this research, or sponsored it, or was overseeing it, and so on.

This point is not an absolute thing though, because one or both of them might be freed from guilt here. Maybe Gehrman was not as informed and agreeable as we could assume and Laurence did lead him around? Maybe Maria wanted but could not do anything being caught in the web of complicated connections, blackmail and risks for the people she cared about?

4) Both are willingly involved in questionable practices (Maria with research, Gehrman with the cycle of Dream and Hunt)

This point I feel like transcends the morality a little bit, as it touches the matter of 'it is bad if you do it, but it is also bad if you DON'T do it'. I really love Soulsborne universes for having guts to say "you can't win, just pick your poison", but I think it is still worth addressing!

It is up to interpretation in which quantity Maria is involved with the Research Hall! Nothing states whether she founded it, joined in the research later, stepped in and turned the tides (ba dum tss) of the research, or simply was a caretaker/nurse/etc of the broken mess while Research Hall was getting ready for a bit of rebranding. She can be very guilty, or she can be barely guilty but in either case if that was her "redemption arc" that was a pretty bad way to go about it. ...or was it?

Fauxsefka turns people into Celestial Emissaries so they physically can't become beasts instead, and is even stated to be a hero / heroic researcher by Miyazaki:

First, I don't do Death of the Author (in terms of interpreting media I mean, not in terms of a style of writing)! Like, nope. Never. It is just not for me. Creator's word is the final for me; Fauxsefka is the good guy in the story, apparently, and it makes sense considering the fundamentally broken place characters are in! Maria has similarities with Fauxsefka: not only both of them have Cainhurst roots, but also both of them seem to favour 'Stars' line of evolution for humans!

Whereas other patients are afraid of the horrors of the Deep Sea, a concept Miyazaki could not get over well into DS3, Adeline desires them! Other patients seems to have gotten it right, and you can see one of them also clings to Maria mentally to "not drown"; Adeline "didn't understand"! The balcony that Maria wants Adeline to go to so she can forsaken the Deep Sea and seek something "happier" holds unique kind of patients who can shoot cosmic arcane spells:

Herself, Maria is associated with these lumenflowers: their petals are all over her boss arena, and the way to her lays through a much bigger batch of flowers, where Living Failures, other 'Stars' Kin are, whose song lyrics also feature lines 'ave stellar' and 'ave Maria'!

So, how this is different from what Fauxsefka is doing, who is stated to be as much of a good person as possible within this context and with the burden of her knowledge? Fauxsefka was doing more or less rinse-and-repeat practice, with maybe a few patients not surviving the procedure but we don't know what happened: maybe that person was already at the brink of death and she tried to make them live like this.

^ This guy I mean. Maria, on the other hand, is in the time period where the doctors and scientists were only testing the waters (BA DUM TSSS) (ok I will stop) and it was not SO certain what was at the stake, what were the alternatives, what was awaiting the humanity. It is even possible that the beasts problem was not yet bad to the point of "you'll either become a beast, be eaten by a beast or become a Kin, humanity is DONE for!" ! This was an unethical research at the cost of real people! The weight of Maria's sin here really depends on the interpretation, though

As for the cycle of Dream and Hunt, this is complicated and lingers on one's interpretation of what the purpose of the Dream even IS! Its existence provides two things: 1) a hunter who is immortal for the night, thus can sustain the beasts with efficiency like no other, but also effect the continuity of the night ( x ) and 2) supposed sustenance to the Great One Flora of the Moon, who holds the hunt as a concept!

I used to be a bit more set on the idea that if beasts are not sustained and hunted, they will simply overpower those who are yet humans and eat them! It is a self-feeding cycle of people needing to self-defend from beasts, thus having to consume the blood as urgent means of healing and power-up since beasts are too strong, thus risking to become beasts themselves because the blood they consumed during that hunt corrupts them. So, the Hunter's Dream would be a good thing, as it'd help to 'buy time' during nights of the hunt in which not only beasts are more active but Great Ones too! While the Dreaming Hunter holds everything together, the greatest minds of the Healing Church can efficiently study the ways to end beasthood, or ANY problem of humanity, once and for all! It is just better to throw the hunting resources on the Dream, so the scientists don't worry about the beasts and can focus on research. However, I almost forgot that:

This implies that had there not been Mensis Ritual ongoing, people WOULD have the chance to simply 'wait away' the beasthood problem. That, since Rom is not stopping Mensis Ritual but just conceals it, what really makes the inner beast within everyone who consumed the blood inevitably come out is Mergo's cry that draws the Bloodmoon close!

So yeah, the point about Hunter's Dream being helpful for the research of evolution still stands, especially under assumption that the deal with Moon Presence helped to bring more Eldrich Arcane close for "feeding" her. The point about how if the beasts are not hunted they'll simply eat everyone, though, is vague. It is safer to assume that the Hunter's Dream and Research Hall both are both example of hubris of man even if approached differently. Attempts to draw in something dangerous and horrifying, but it is "justified risk" because if you manage to 'tame' arcane/blood, sure, humanity will prosper!

Like... yeah, sure, there IS dangerous and undesireable nature of man that ruins everything and might or might not still linger in humanoids' genes after Loran. But did humanity ASK any of you guys to keep trying to fix it with so many victims and sacrifices? Like, was it WORTH it?

This point is closely tied to 'knowing Laurence's bad antics and doing nothing', yeah. Maria didn't seem to like blood ministration very much, as she disapproved of Adeline becoming a Blood Saint, but she also didn't even approve of blood antics of her own clan! I am not sure what would be her opinion on the Hunter's Dream had she lived to the point when it was created, just that she herself is not willing to ever hunt, so I am leaving this point aside. Is this just blood ministration that she opposes but proximity with a Great One Moon Presence would be something she can see the potential of? Or would she and Gehrman have a pointless cat fight about whose methods are better when they are both hubris of man? In both versions they are 'guilty'! Besides:

In the end none of THIS matters either and everyone was fooled ( x ). The blood offering is a blood offering in any way; whether it is through spilling blood violently during the hunt, or offering the blood's 'red' with how celestial Kin all bleed red. Moon doesn't care what paints it red, in the end.

___________________________________

My conclusion is: both of these characters fucked up almost equally! I think the balance shifts just a little bit and Maria is slightly better than Gehrman since she had some limitations set on how far she was willing to go. Her motivation was not in "curiosity" but strictly in helping humanity, even if in unfair ways, which is apparently not the case for Gehrman?

I'll say this though, NOW I am hooked on the idea of Maria and Gehrman being petty "rivals" ideologically (for as long as they could before Maria's own demons caught up with her). Especially since neither approach is better than the other and they are both cringe loosers! Again, lost comedy gold over Fromsoft making Gehrman's tender and warm feelings for her before and after her death plain. What is not lost, however, is the fact that the two should just kick Laurence and go home :pensive:

[hurglewurm]

thinking about how. MORE than one old white woman presiding over me during my master's program in some capacity,,, has gently (unprompted) insinuated to me that accommodations are available, academic or otherwise

like i've had classmates undergo the same meetings, the same presentations for the same prof, etc and they do Not get the same gentle "oh you poor little thing. is this so hard for you? do you need help?"

and it's like. on one hand cool, thanks, glad that's available. i am, however, legit fine and chilling and doing better than ever in a classroom environment because i Stopped Masking in my mid-twenties and i sit cross-legged and play with my spiky ball sometimes and i'm vibing

glad accommodations exist. none of them would do anything helpful for me specifically. but if me being visible is what it takes for you to ? ? feel like you're Helping students who need/use accommodations ? to assuage your Guilt idk lol ? then ok white woman i will continue to exist within eyesight

(wish you'd respect the accommodations of students who actually require them, instead of giving platitudes to me who is i guess more Visibly 'other' to you)

[dootznbootz]

I think some folks MAY have gotten the wrong idea about how I feel about Circe with some of my posts. So, to clear the air...

Homies, I love that fucked up sorceress.

I love how we're never given a reason why she turns people into animals. That's so funny and so awful. And another potion-making magic gal?!?! I love that she's just basically vibing on an island doing whatever she wants. I even love the fact that she scares Odysseus shitless! She's morally gray and that's why she's FUN.

I just sincerely hate when people try to girlboss her or have her be a victim of SA when she never was Looking at you, Miller. Especially when she was actually the one who coerced Odysseus in exchange for his men being transformed back into humans. And even then, while he was clearly afraid of her, (it's in the language of the Odyssey) she likely meant him no harm after a certain point. He just didn't know that.

Why does she need a reason to do awful things? Why can't she just be a goddess who does whatever she wants? That's the reason why I love her!!! She's fucked up!!! :D

I hate what the Telegony did to her as well! >:( You're telling me, this sorceress goddess, who makes potions (!!!) wouldn't have magic contraceptives??? Would WANT CHILDREN?!?! WITH THE PATHETIC WIFEMAN?! No. Fuck no. Eugammon of Cyrene, I have beef with you 🤬

Anyways!!! Understand all the "#anti circe" I have is simply Anti "Girlboss Circe" or the book. I genuinely think she's neat af as her morally gray, fucked up sorceress self and just get frustrated with...everything :'D

[detshin]

Magic Kaito is the Poker Face to Detective Conan's Telephone.

[herd-reject-arts]

Pulled from videos I put on my Instagram, but they're better together.

Went to clean my car and found I had a stowaway. Little dude was hiding under my passenger seat and would have almost certainly gotten vacuumed up if it had not come out swinging (I think. I don't know mantid behavior too well, but it was jabbing with its foremost legs, so that seems like an attack to me).

I was able to get the mantis onto a Gatorade bottle and out of my way while I cleaned. I was hoping it would leave in the meantime so I didn't have to deal with a tiny animal who was probably just as confused as I was on how it got there. But nope! Dude stuck around and listened to the honky tonk music the car wash was playing, or at least it seemed to be listening based on how it was swaying (note: I'm joking. I'm pretty sure it didn't care about the music. I just kept making comments to it about dancing to the tunes).

In the end, it hopped off the bottle (only after I moved it to the trash can, though I wasn't going to throw it away if it hadn't jumped off) and I got a really cool video of a praying mantis jumping.

And the frame-by-frame of that jump, because why not.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

favourite twdg villain?

I'm a fond enjoyer of the St. John's as villains. I don't know if they're my favorite just because they're only in one episode, but I love the concept of this family almost immediately jumping into cannibalism toward the start of the outbreak, dealing in human flesh to bandits, and casually feeding this group their friend's legs.

Like... what the hell was this family like before the outbreak that all three of them were like, "Hey now listen... nothing should go to waste, the dead are eating people so why shouldn't we? We gotta survive and in our defense, we only target those who were gonna die anyway... like y'all."

Dude, Mark was shot in this shoulder with an arrow. He wasn't going to die from that injury. It's so fucked that these seemingly friendly people took the group into their home and then fed them Mark's legs.

If we take the idea that everyone is infected and have the capacity within themselves to become walkers, to become monsters, then the St. John's were infected long before the outbreak, y'know? Not literally, but something was wrong with them and the outbreak just further spread that infection and changed them.

But again, are they my favorite? I dunno if I can say that since I have a lot more appreciation for Lily now. Yeah, some of her writing gets a little wonky in ep3 of TFS when she goes on her monologues and shit, but y'know what? I'm into it.

You have to remember who we're talking about and the fact that she's the antagonist; Lily isn't some anti-hero in TFS who secretly has a heart of gold that's brought to light because she reunited with Clementine... she's a fucked up woman who did fucked up things in the name of survival. She's full of rot now. She sees kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers to protect her home as a means to an end, but she doesn't actually give a shit about the people she's taking. They aren't people to her, they're as the episode title suggests, toys in her game. The only one she sees as a person is Clementine, and while that makes her hesitate at first, she sees Clementine's a prize to bring back.

She remembers what happened in S1; her father had a heart attack and as she tried to save him, Kenny smashed his face in with a saltlick and then expected Lily to just stand up and help him get back to his family because "he did what he had to, he made the hard choice." Yes, Larry was a piece of shit. No one liked him, and you can even question Lily on him and she'll tell you that he has a lot of pain. Yes, it makes him an asshole, but he's still her dad and he's all she has. I mean... the simplification is daddy issues, but in all seriousness, I don't doubt for a second that many of Lily's issues stem from Larry being a shitty father to her.

Then everyone thought she was losing it when she insisted there was a traitor in the group, which she was right about, but she was unstable. She was unwell, but how do you help someone like that when you don't have training to go about it? Then Lily ends up killing either Carley or Doug and the group turns on her, and either she's left behind or she steals the van and runs away.

Then we don't know what the hell happened to her until we see her again in TFS, but like... a lone woman with decay festering inside of her joining the delta? Exposing her to their methods? I mean, what else did she have to lose? She had nothing, she lost everything, and she has a lot of issues. Survival is easy when you're numb, when you don't care about the individual; they're all just cogs churning to make the system run, and if a piece doesn't cooperate, you get rid of it and find a new one.

Plus I think there's something to say about Lily not wanting to be perceived as weak again. That whole display she put on in the cells? Telling the story of what happened to Minerva and Sophie? I get the criticism that it feels like Lily did a 180 between episodes but like... yeah dude, because it's a performance. It's not just her and Clementine anymore. It's a display of power and authority. She's playing the part and thriving in it as she ensures everyone else is terrified of her.

But then when Clementine and AJ get the upper hand? Again, she's not afraid to play up the pleading to earn enough sympathy to spare her- hell, just to let their guard down enough to strike and get the upper hand again. I mean, she's got nothing else to lose, right? If she doesn't go for it, she'll be killed and sure, you can kill her anyway but at least she tried.

Honestly, I look at Lily in TFS and still see that scared little girl playing the tough bitch, just like Carley said in S1. It's just now escalated from "tough bitch" to a downright vile person. She's so... lost? I suppose? Lost within herself and the monstrous means she's taken to survive.

I get the criticisms of how she was used in TFS, but for me, it's like when people complain about Minerva not getting the redemption arc she supposedly should've gotten, y'know? There's no saving her. Lily was never on our side, and there was no getting her on our side. She wasn't ever going to redeem herself. Even if you spare her and she drifts away on her raft, can someone like her actually find redemption? Or will she just find another group that'll feed into her rot?

Truly, I say let her be horrid. Let her be the piece of shit villain with a few fleeting moments of humanity. Let her drown in the blood she's spilled.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Ignoring for a moment that this is complete fanfiction, can we talk about how incredibly disgusting it is to frame the Hound murdering Mycah as some flaw of Arya's just to make another character look better?

[the-casbah-way]

tugoffelees is so much better when it's unrequited and i will die on this hill

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Ok. I need to talk about S5E23: The Mangiacavallo Curse Makes a Lousy Wedding Present because it's a) a damn good episode and b) so filled with Blanche/Dorothy (and a good pinch of Golden Wives too) I can feel my gay power level increase minute by minute every time I watch it. Under a cut because I (unsurprisingly) got verbose about it.

First of all: the whole thing with Blanche 'lending' one of her men to Dorothy for the wedding. The concept alone is just -- I've said before, several times, that the Girls treat their men as accessories, and this episode just spells it out.

Dorothy doesn't really want a date per se, she's mostly upset because of social expectations:

"I still don't have a date for Jenny's wedding. My own goddaughter, and I'm gonna show up alone."

She's worried because weddings are events where you typically bring a +1 along, especially if you're closely related (either as family or via friendship) to one of the spouses. She's worried about the social norm! This is a bit of a general thing in the series, especially for Dorothy, I think; there are several instances when she's upset at not having a date for a specific event, rather than not dating in general. Plus, she gets over it fairly quickly! Before Blanche agrees to lend her the judge, she tells Sophia that she's just going to go alone!

Speaking of Blanche, look at how she describes her men! Here's some quotes:

"You can borrow one of my extras. What kind of guy would you like?"

"Oh, Dorothy, come on. Borrow one of my men. One of my many, many, many, many, many, many men!"

"Oh, Dorothy, not Doug! I couldn't possibly. He's on my A-list."

"Oh, Dorothy, let me get you somebody hot off my A-list. Somebody tall, good-looking, goes with everything!"

"Don't you forget, you be careful. This man is on loan from the Blanche Devereaux collection."

I mean -- she might as well be talking about a purse or a pair of shoes! (As a side note: yes, all those lines begin with 'Oh, Dorothy'. I checked.)

Dorothy fully embraces this point of view, too:

"You always do this, Blanche. You always keep all the good guys for yourself and you give us the leftovers."

She complains about Blanche's lack of generosity -- and this might just be my personal opinion, but generosity is usually connected to material things. Once again: she might as well be getting upset because Blanche refuses to let her borrow a purse.

Rose is the only one who's somewhat concerned at not having Miles as a +1, but it seems to me that's essentially because of the 'getting hot at weddings' thing. When she introduces the problem, we get this dialogue between her and Dorothy:

"Miles can't take me to the wedding. He's going to be out of town at a teaching seminar. Now I can't go."

"That shouldn't keep you from going."

"Oh, I have my reasons."

And then she says:

"So now you see why I can't go if Miles is gonna be out of town. I might end up almost going to bed with the caterer again."

It seems to me she's not that upset because of Miles's absence; she would have gone anyway without a care in the world if the event wasn't a wedding. She doesn't necessarily treat Miles like an accessory, but she's not particularly saddened by his absence, either -- just worried about the effect weddings have on her.

And then, with all this established: the toilet scene. When the scene returns on Dorothy keeping Blanche trapped in the toilet, there's already a couple of guests looking at them and whispering among themselves (which isn't strange at all: they're making A Scene™ right there in the ladies' room!). The whole fight has such an incredible Married Couple Quarrel energy:

"Dorothy, let me out of here right now!"

"There's only one way out, Blanche, and I don't think you can hold your breath long enough."

"You're just making a mountain out of a molehill."

"Five years of molehills. They add up."

"I didn't know Doug meant this much to you."

"I'm not talking about Doug, this is about you."

Talking to the small group of guests that gathered at the scene, she then adds:

"She asked me for another chance, I gave it to her. I trusted her. Biggest mistake I ever made."

Tell me those lines aren't the most married thing you've ever heard. I'm almost tempted to make a poll and ask people what they think about this quote; I'm sure at least a good 85% would assume this is being said by someone to their lover (or ex-lover, at least!).

Then the bride (because let's remember, this is all happening at a wedding) appears and likens the situation between Dorothy and Blanche to what's happening between her and the groom -- so we have a clear line drawn between Blanche/Dorothy and a committed romantic relationship. She calls Dorothy 'Aunt Dorothy', as is expected since Dorothy is her godmother, but she also calls Blanche 'Aunt Blanche', because... I don't know, there's no heterosexual explanation for it. Note that this girl invited Dorothy and Sophia to her wedding (no wonder: her godmother and her godmother's mother; they must be close) but she also invited Blanche and Rose, whom she technically has no relation to -- we have to assume they were invited because of their relation to Dorothy (she's possibly close to them too, considering she calls Blanche her 'aunt', but that's still due to their relation to Dorothy, of course). I mean -- would you invite your godmother's roommates to your wedding, as a general rule?

And!! After all this, the whole talking/not talking thing! Dorothy tells Jen:

"Jen, honey, I think you should go and talk to Joey. The best thing to do in any relationship is talk."

She says this right after she found an excuse to speak to Blanche in private and trapped her into a toilet because she wanted to talk:

"Listen, Blanche, we have to talk."

"Not now, Dorothy."

"Suit yourself."

"Dorothy, will you let me out of here?"

"No way, Blanche."

Once they turn to helping Jen and Blanche finally escapes the toilet, Dorothy is understandably upset and refuses to talk to her, and this makes Blanche very upset in turn. I'll let the dialogue speak for me on this one because there's no way I can say it any better:

"Dorothy, I wish you'd talk to me."

"..."

"I really do, 'cause what I need is a good talking-to."

"..."

"I don't care what you say, just so long as you care enough to say it."

"You stink."

"God bless you, Dorothy."

Yeah. Married. Blanche is so relieved and reassured once Dorothy starts talking to her again that she follows the conversation for just a little while after that (just as long as they're talking about Rose) and then immediately zones out again, because she's back in her comfort zone. Dorothy's talking to her! Dorothy forgave her! Everything's fine -- back to your regularly scheduled Blanche Devereaux™ content. (Note that she also pointedly does not dance with Doug after he comes back, even though he's from her A-list. This episode should have ended with a Blanche/Dorothy dance, if only to spite Doug.)

Rose is mostly busy dealing with her own thing in this one, but you all know I love the Golden Wives, so let me point out a couple of things:

Blanche and Dorothy (especially Dorothy) really do take care of Rose at the wedding! ... well, at the beginning of the party, at least. But they do genuinely try to reassure her! It's sweet! "Rose, honey, take it easy. Breathe deeply. It'll be all right." "Don't worry, honey. Nothing to worry about. We're here to look out for you." [...] "We're gonna have to keep an eye on her." "Hmm." We see her flirt with a couple of men during the party, but she only ends up going away with Doug and only while Dorothy and Blanche are having their little moment in the ladies' room, so it seems like they did keep her out of trouble after all! Until they got tangled up in their own thing, that is.

Right after they get out of the ladies' room (i.e., right after Dorothy tells Blanche 'I have nothing to say to you") Dorothy immediately notices that Rose isn't around, and talks to Blanche about it, despite the fact that she's supposedly not talking to her at all.

Blanche manages to keep her attention up as long as she and Dorothy worry about Rose, then gets immediately distracted by a man in the band. This exchange specifically is really touching to me: "Oh, I hope she can forgive us." "She will. That's what she does best." Just -- the complete certainty... my heart...

Blanche is really aggressive to Doug when he comes back! She was using every trick in her book to get him to act as her date earlier on, but as soon as she gets the hint that he took advantage of Rose, she immediately enters Protective Wife Mode™.

This line by Dorothy: "He must really be something." "So is Rose." This line? Said with the most affectionate smile in the world? Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway. I just spent like an hour and a half writing all this down, I love this episode, I adore these ladies and I am going to scream, thank you, goodbye.

[trickstersaint]

guilt, or; i imagine myself lady macbeth behind a confessional screen // january 23 2023

[coquelicoq]

crashes ur board meeting n drags u out by the collar but its fine bc youre the one always saying shit like "im looking for people i can use" ok lol. get used idiot