#idk maybe it would do certain people some good to know that not all abusers are obviously abusers from the start

[youwillfindilluminating]

I get why critical role wanted to delete all the content that had brian w foster in it but at the same time the digital archivist in me is like... you can’t...just DO that...?

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

Sorry, long rant incoming.

Someone in the replies said it, but I think it needs to be said again where everyone can see it: I think a lot of the attitude that anon is somehow secretly pro-censorship because they think certain preferences are skeevy, and strenuously insisting that bad attitudes can NEVER be media's fault.... idk, maybe take it out of the context of debates about sexually explicit/pornographic media for a moment?

There are works of media that had pretty direct effects on activist and political movements, good and bad. Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a lot of people to fight against slavery. The movie Birth of a Nation, which showed a history of the U.S. with the KKK as heroic, is considered by most historians to be a major contributor to the revival of the KKK in the 1920s. The Nazis used films, books, music, art, and so on in their propaganda, knowing it would help their ideas go down more easily. The Soviets did too. Every dictatorship did. Even democratic countries have done it as well, usually but not always in more subtle ways.

Do none of those count, because "oh, people who were going to be convinced by Birth of a Nation would be racist anyway"? "Good, non-racist people wouldn't be convinced by it"? I mean, the latter is true: there were plenty of people, especially black Americans but plenty of white allies too, who boycotted the film at the time. The NAACP led a boycott. But do you really think NO ONE was convinced? (What about people who previously didn't feel any way about it one way or the other? Were they just innately more evil, even if it might've just been that they weren't aware? Do supposedly progressive people in fandom realize how much this sounds like Christian original sin rhetoric...) And does it matter purely about media fully changing minds, or also how it galvanizes people who already think one way? If it gives them new talking points, new ways of thinking about it and convincing others? If it helps them believe their cause is more important and worth fighting for?

So why does this all suddenly change when we're talking about sex? Is porn really this special class of media where somehow all the rules about how we can both like things and also be critical of how media (fiction, news media, whatever) influences us - "be critical of the media you love," as a tote bag sold by Feminist Frequency said - just stop applying for some reason? Or maybe if something is bypassing your rational brain entirely and going directly for the pleasure centers, there's all the more reason to think critically about what it's saying? Propaganda is designed to bypass all that, too.

Also, if media really has NOTHING to do with it, that just wouldn't explain why it's disproportionately anime that feature these specific elements that seem to attract more people arguing for why it's wrong to be upset by rape or child exploitation in real life. I don't believe that everyone who watches slavery isekai or lolicon approves of those things irl - I think for the vast majority of people, it IS a fantasy and that's the point - but I have noticed that in places like the Anime News Network or Crunchyroll forums, the comments become a cesspool of creepy people arguing for why ages of consent should be lowered and mean feminists who don't like watching media with rape in it just need to get over themselves, in a way they just don't when you're talking about Attack on Titan or My Hero Academia or Shoujo Romance #4891 or whatever.

As another person in the notes said, abusers ARE opportunistic. They'll use something like Twilight as easily as they'll use the most uwu, soft, "non problematic" ship to argue for why they're allowed to abuse you. But I don't think that means we can't be critical (not calling for censorship, of course! but like, writing op-eds and stuff) of media that makes their arguments a little easier, maybe even directly makes their arguments for them.

You can believe both that everyone has the opportunity to read, watch, listen to, play what they want and make up their own minds about it, and that it's wrong for the government to ever decide what media is and isn't "acceptable," and also believe that media often is saying things that aren't apparent on the surface and that you should be critical of those messages, *especially* with the stuff you like.

The point is just that porn isn't like, fundamentally different from other fictional media in this way. (Or, hell, I would argue that fictional media isn't functionally different from other mass media in this way. If anything, fiction's politics are often more insidious in a way that makes it easier for them to reach people who might not otherwise be open to those messages in the form of, say, blatantly right-wing news media.)

It's particularly strange to me when people jump all over someone for expressing how something can be insidiously creepy in a more mundane way. The line people are upset about that used the word "unpack" was just making the point that even if we can agree lolicon isn't outright advocating pedophilia, even if we agree the point is that it's a fantasy and they're not like real children at all and that's what people like, it's still working within an idealization/fetishization of helplessness, innocence, and dependence, and that still has a lot that you can critique from a feminist perspective. It's still a thing that plays into some crappy societal ideas about who women are supposed to be, and is selling that to men as a romantic ideal. There's still a lot we can talk about there! And it's still totally fair for women to be wary of men where that seems to be all they're into - because for some (and I believe this was what anon was initially trying to say was their experience), it does impact how they treat real women. It doesn't have to be everyone for it to have an impact.

There's a lot of anime that presents women that way, even way outside of lolicon. A lot of it's anime I like! I'm still critical of that aspect of it. I still wish that particular part of it were different.

I still don't see how this makes me "pro censorship" unless I believe some kind of institution should mandate that that not be included. And whether that's the government, or the industry itself (people do kind of narrowly focus on "the government" in a way that would make a lot of industry-run censorship that was still very harmful, e.g. the Hollywood Hays Code, not "count"), or anyone, I very much disagree with that. Creators should be able to create what they want. A lot of what creators are doing with this is unconscious, is reflecting societal biases they learned but haven't thought deeply about.... which is precisely the point of critiquing how those show up in a work.

People love to talk about "secretly 'anti' attitudes" but at the end of the day, support or opposition to censorship is pretty straightforward. You believe someone should be stopped from making a particular kind of media, or you don't. If you don't, you're not pro-censorship, no matter how much you personally may not like that that media or a particular aspect of it exists. Most people who care about media have some media they wish didn't exist. It's about what they do about it that makes them pro or anti censorship. Talk to people who donate to or even work for the ACLU or other anti censorship groups; most of them don't like racist or sexist stuff, but they also don't believe it should be banned and that's the point.

Bringing it back to the discussion at hand, I think the point was just that you can't be blind to how power dynamics influence this stuff. I wouldn't even say specifically cishet men are at fault here, since some people who read this blog seem to think that anyone saying that is automatically talking about bioessentialism as opposed to like, societal stuff (don't ask me why, this has been explained on here enough times in enough different discourses over the years, I think). I'd just say anyone with power in that particular context. There's a reason why it's specifically mainstream media, aimed at groups in power, that tends to draw in creeps excusing the real thing... in a way that just similarly is not true of people in fanfiction fandom, who are usually a member of one or more oppressed categories, exploring that in their own marginal work. Fans of rape fanfiction just don't act the way that fans of slavery rape isekai do. It's because there is fundamentally a difference both when you're someone whom society tells you are entitled to everything you want in this particular arena, and also when a work is mainstream, broadening its reach, and speaking a particular message from the lens of people with economic and social power (who are making these mainstream works) and given approval by publishers/media studios/etc. in a way that is not the case with amateur work with tiny audiences. And, frankly, there's a difference between something that eroticizes rape from the point of view of the perpetrator vs. the victim.

Not a difference in terms of how legal it should be. Not a difference in whether every single person who watches it or likes it is bad. But a difference in terms of what it's saying, how it's saying that, and often the effects they have as a result. That, too, is true with every topic, not just sex.

I feel like a lot of people getting mad at these do fundamentally agree with this, but just have a weird blind spot when it's put in any sort of terminology that reminds them of certain bad arguments they've seen in fandom, uses any words that can be dismissed as "radfem" or "anti" or whatever, and so just refuse to engage with the actual meat of what is being said.

If you do actually believe though that it's wrong to EVER think media can have a negative effect on what people believe about irl issues, because there was always something "already there" that was going to "come out anyway" if it affects you that way (again, people: this is "original sin" rhetoric), and if you ever privately judge people for the media they like you're secretly pro-censorship. You do have to recognzie that both you personally come up short and also most peopel doing real concrete real world things to fight censorship would also come up short!

I think sometimes of an editorial that said "if you love Return of the Jedi but hated the Ewoks you understand feminist criticism" in terms of how you can be bothered by the sexism of a piece of media in a way you'd be bothered by any one individual element of it, and still overall like the whole. And also, you can be offended by something, even wish it didn't exist (don't we as nerds all have entries in some franchise we like or another that we wish didn't exist for fannish reasons?), without believing that it should be officially made to stop existing or have never existed in the first place. That last part does actaully matter as like, its own thing. It is in fact separable from just being able to have personal judgey feelings about media and about the people who liked it.

And opposing it does not mean in any way that we have to just stop thinking critically about the media we love, or that we have to act like media can never have any influence on people. We on the left tend to talk about sexism, racism, homophoia and so on as being influenced by culture and society. Well, guess what is part of society and culture? Fictional (and other kinds of) media. That's part of that societal programming we get. It's why you'll see some of it even from people whose parents very much tried to resist teaching them certain things, because they get it from media anyway. I was raised by strenuously feminist parents: it was the media that taught me what gender roles were and how I was expected to adhere to them.

--

Look, I realize it's a bit rich of me to say this, but people are not going to engage with your actual points if you cannot be more succinct.

[womendeservehumanity]

So I’ve encountered incel tiktok and it’s reminded me that sympathy for men is futile

So this video shows up on my fyp and it reminds me that I do truly hate men only a fraction as much as they hate women because I actually felt bad for this guy. To sum the video up since tumblr only lets you upload one video, he responds to this comment by saying he was given a horrible set of cards. He’s ugly, short, low iq. And that he’s bound to be working wagie jobs for the rest of his life. I’m thinking that he’s just one of the many members of the working class tired of an existence that seems pointless. But then I look through the comments on this video and he keeps completely dismissing any comments calling him good looking or saying that it gets better as cope. And that’s when I start thinking yeah this guy def is some blackpill woman hating loser

So I see he responded to a comment and this was the video. What a confirmation! This is rhetoric I see blackpillers/incels spew a lot recently because they literally just regurgitate the same shit in their echo chamber. There’s a meme that went viral that was like “women being able to detect autism in a guy vs women being able to detect a man that will abuse her”. It’s actually insane how much contempt males have for abused women because they only see them as potential matches that chose an abuser over them. They see it as some brutal confirmation that nice guys finish last because women would pick an abusive man over them. As if abusive males are coming up to women like “hey bitch I’m gonna beat the shit out of you come suck my dick” and women are like “ok 😍” when in reality they are very covert first opting to charm and love bomb a woman and once the security of a committed relationship is formed, that’s when the abuse happens.

Also these tards obviously don’t understand the psyche of abusers. They don’t enter relationships with the intention of beating women. That’s not their thought process when meeting a woman so acting like there’s a certain type to sniff out is disingenuous. I will say though. A lot of women do ignore red flags in a man because there ARE certain traits that abusers have. But a lot of that is due to women, from childhood, being conditioned to see the good in men despite major flaws and to give them chance after chance. It’s not because the guy is a tall Chad. Which is what they’re saying in the comments and it’s making my blood boil because the idea that the average abuser is this uber attractive, chiseled god is objectively untrue. Just watch the fucking news. But here are some of the replies to this video that genuinely made my stomach turn. Idk why I’m even shocked atp. I know how much men hate women but Jesus

And if you don’t know what total Stacy death means. Stacy = female version of Chad but incels tend to use it interchangeably with all women. And total Stacy death calls for the extermination of all Stacies (most likely women in general). This was originally inspired by white supremacists saying tnd which calls for the extermination of all black people

There were many more come comments but it was too exhausting to screenshot. I thought this guy was trolling because he’s actually not bad looking and literally looks like the average Mexican guy in Cali (who is also short lol) and they have no trouble dating. But I think he’s very off putting and has some type of social disorder. What I found so crazy is that all of the sane people telling this dude to stop being so self depreciating and fucking weird and then maybe he’d find a girl were getting dogpiled onto by his incel simps. That they’re lying and coping for saying he’s good looking. And you know what I’m glad he feels this way. I’m glad he’s given up on pursing women and as cruel as this sounds, I hope he stays true to his plan of k’ing himself in the future. One less danger to women.

But seriously “the blackpill” is some of the most birdbrained shit. It’s like “women want to date people they find attractive” and that’s supposed to be some type of mind blowing matrix-like truth. No fucking shit. Literally almost every human regardless of gender and sexuality operate with that idea. Did you go up to the women you went up to because you thought she had an oh so great personality? No you went up to her because she was attractive. Women are the ones that have to do the actual rejecting the most since they’re approached more often than not. But men literally select women they find attractive and disclude women they don’t. They just don’t have to be blatant about like women do. As someone who goes OUTSIDE and goes to college, most couples are average looking people dating average looking people because most people are average. It’s not a bunch of women with Chad while all the other men are left with no one. Hell if anything I’ve seen many above average women with average and straight up ugly males.

Anyways. It breaks my heart seeing the original video and all the women defending and supporting him. He’ll completely ignore that and focus on anecdotes that feed into his self depreciation and hatred of women. Women please stop extending kindness to males. The sympathy you feel for them is foreign when it comes to you. They’re literally in the comments calling women trying to reason with him that looks aren’t everything gaslighters and liars. There is nothing you can say to these males that will stop them from hating you. There is nothing you can say to them that will change their deluded minds. Instead of trying to “fix” them while they revel in the abuse and death of women, let them wallow away in self pity and pray they contribute to that rate 🙏

And radblr. Pls pls report this sick fuck’s account. I already blocked him but his username shows up in the video.

[snowblack-charcoalwhite]

The way Condal, Hess and co write certain characters, especially Alicent, just makes them look like some kind of aliens who cannot comprehend the core of human nature and familial bonds (motherly love, sibling dynamic...) . I mean, fine, maybe they aren't parents honestly have no idea about their private lives nor do I want to know ), but that still doesn't justify the atrocious manner in which they have been portraying Alicent's relationship with her children. And I dislike the explanations that come from one part of the fandom (she married against her will, never wanted those children, never felt freedom...) I mean, I don't deny these, but they are not enough to explain or justify her weird (and sudden imo) detachment and dare i say, borderline hatred of her sons. Not to mention that this was the life of westerosi women, basically every one of them. Also, Ryan talked how Alicent and Viserys had "a loving marriage, just weren't in love " and generally holds Viserys in high regard, so he obviously doesn't see him as Alicent's abuser or anything. That's why i cannot understand what is the point of showing her so disgusted by her children and incapable of showing them love. Otto's influence? Maybe, but still not the greatest explanation. And she seems even harsher and distant to her sons this season than Otto ever was to her. She doesn't seem broken over Jaehaerys, she doesn't seem overly upset over Aegon (he's burned alive and is dying ffs and she won't shed a tear), Aemond is apparently an ireedemeable monster in her eyes fur some reason, even before RR... It's so frustrating that there are people who eat it all up and justify it as a genius and subtle storytelling with a lot of details that we "the whiners" refuse or are unable to grasp. Idk, I really liked her in s1 and although she was a bit inconsistent in ep 8 and 9 I hoped it would be retconed. Unfortunately, this season I'm watching a character I don't recognise anymore. And the worst thing is that she doesn't suffer from a lack of screentime like Aemond or Helaena do. Almost everything on tg revolves around her and yet I still have no idea what is her goal or who she is anymore.

Sorry for the rant.

Hello!

I could not agree with you more. Not sure if some kind of personal/family circumstances of HotD writers played a role in them fumbling the Greens family dynamic so badly but I am convinced that their "women good men bad" narrative policy did.

In "Driftmark" Alicent orders for Luke's eye to be cut out (and immediately, in public) - and then attacks Luke and Rhaenyra herself. But a few minutes (in show time) later she repents - and after that, apparently, she is all for "violence is reserved for men" agenda. That's where her disdain for Aemond (in whose name she was about to commit a public act of violence herself) is supposed to come from, I think. It doesn't even feel like she is horrified precisely by the fact that he might have almost killed (deliberately at that) his own brother. Lack of consistency and logic? Yes. Obliviousness at best, hypocrisy at worst (from Alicent, I mean)? Yes. But who cares, right? Alicent does not support the evil deeds of men - and that's what matters.

And her treatment of Aegon looks even more moronic. Girl, you put him on the throne against his will! After her meeting with Rhaenyra she knows it was a result of a misunderstanding (the favourite trick of this show, dammit - but it is a topic for a whole another conversation) but how is Aegon to blame for it?

I can relate to Alicent growing tired of being used and manipulated - but IMO (I agree with you here as well) this is not a good enough excuse for her to fully go into the "fuck yourselves, the lot of you" mode. But for the writers it is, at least it looks like it. They were trying to sell us the bullying of Aemond by Aegon (combined with the former's desire for power) being a sufficient motivation for Aemond to get rid of his brother (during the civil war where they are supposed to be on the same side no less) - and now they are trying to justify whatever Alicent does with her being a child bride and so on and so forth. I have no love for Viserys (or sympathy for Otto - where it comes to him pimping his teenage daughter out to the king) - but turning Alicent into this and expecting everyone to eat it up? Come on. Even some casual viewers are going "WTF" watching Alicent's scenes with her children, never mind those who are familiar with Fire and Blood.

And double yes to the point about the show very heavily focusing on Alicent to the detriment of many other characters (Aemond first of all). It feels like the writers believe that all that audience is supposed to know about Aemond now is that he is a bad guy - and they give him just enough screen time to show that. Meanwhile Alicent has loads of it - just so we could get a really good, really long look at her face and understand just how bad patriarchy failed her.

So, as I see it Alicent is now no more than a means to the end of hammering home the main idea of the show. How does she do that and what happens to her character in the process is unimportant - at least, to the writers and showrunners.

Sorry for the rant as well🙈

[robintherobiner]

This is an interactive story. The next part will be based on what you guys choose.

Warning, the story heavily revolves around dark topics, like suicide, abuse (all types), bullying, all that jazz. It's an au, HEAVILY canon divergent. So, idk proceed carefully

"If you're watching this, it means I'm dead."

Suddenly, Jason wished he'd never bought the sticker covered camera. He'd seen it in a charity shop, looking all lonely on it own little table. All the other camera were old, and had dents and scratches, but this one looked almost new and bursting with personality.

It had cost a lot, of course, and Jason had considered putting it back down. After all, he didn't need a camera. He was pretty sure Bruce had one at home anyways.

But then he'd seen a sticker, right under the shutter button, and he'd recognized his own costume. Whoever had owned this camera had liked Robin, his Robin, with curly hair and freckles instead of tanned skin and sparkly shorts. He had to buy it now, he thought, and so he did.

Jason pressed the play button again, and stared at the kid on the screen. He looked pale, and far too skinny for someone who, if his Bristol accent was anything to go off of, clearly had enough money to buy food.

"Sorry. I realize that was probably, like, a really big thing to say. Or, not big, I guess, it was only eight words. Tough? No.. Eh, whatever." The kid shrugged. "Point is, sorry. You picked up my camera though, so you have three options."

The whole situation is bizarre. He sort of assumed there would be pictures of nature, or videos of some cool tricks if the skateboard stickers are anything to go off of. Not a fucking death announcement.

Still, Jason is curious. Is the kid in danger, and thats why he thinks he's going to die? Or is he sad? Jason lived on the streets, he's not a stranger to people who's heads are clouded, people who think things will never get better. He's never felt that way personally, but he's known lots of people who ended up hurting themselves.

"First, you could just throw the camera away. A bit of a waste, since it's pretty good quality, but whatever. Second, you could delete everything on here and just use it yourself. I'd be okay with that. Photography is fun. Or, if you wanted, you could watch these videos."

Here, his cheeks flush, as though embarrassed. Its hard to hear, but Jason thinks he can hear the boy mutter something along the lines of what a dumb thing to say.

"Even though I'm going to die, I still sort of want to do cool things. Have a coming-of-age movie moment, you know? But I can't have one, so the next best thing is to try give it to someone else." Camera Kid paused. "I think coming-of-age movies are only for teens, though. It would be cooler if I, like, changed the life of someone who's already an adult. Cuz people my age aren't fully developed. That's shaping a life, not changing it. Changing a life would be much harder than shaping one."

Hm. Maybe Jason should give the camera to Dickhead. He's an adult, legally. Give the kid, whoever he is, his wish to try change a life.

Jason would never admit it, but he can't help but snicker. There's no way some random kid can shape or change a life. Especially not with a... Jason checked. Not with a one and half minute video.

"But if that doesn't happen, it's fine. Not like I'll know anyways. I like this camera, so I'll only give it away just before I die. Unless I come back as a ghost who's like, tethered to this camera, I'll never know if anyone watches these videos."

With those words, Jason sobered. It didn't feel funny once he remembered that whoever this kid was, dumb hopes aside, was clearly certain he'd die. If what he said was true, then he already was. That made Jason feel really bad for laughing, and even a little sick.

He'd seen dead bodies before, even his own mom's. He'd watched, smelt, and heard people die. He'd talked people off the ledge, both metaphorically and literally. But this? Holding the beloved camera of a boy who was most likely dead? It made death feel melancholy in a way Jason had never felt before.

"So, yeah. You have three options." The boy says, and reaches out to end the video.

Jason didn't know what to do. Really, he has four options.

[youremyheaven]

Your Angelina Jolie post is super interesting!

(Yapping incoming)

You briefly talked about her childhood and I think something interesting to add is that Angelina says she got called ugly when she was younger for her lips (I say that allegedly as I haven’t actually seen the og sourcewhere she says it). I was never super into the whole Claire Nakti punarvasu beast ugly to pretty video idea, as a native myself, *but* I do feel like it’s common for punarvasu to be called ugly/ experience appearance related trauma in childhood.

Either way I feel like I do see quite a few young Angelina haters who say she was ugly when young- even though us women of culture know she’s always been gorgeous- she did have a physical “awkward phase” in that sense of how she was widely perceived.

Also Maleficent is kind of a punarvasu core role when you think about it. Definitely some other major astro influence in the role as well, I’m not super familiar with her chart. However starting off kind, having someone take advantage of your giving nature, turning into a controlling and unkind leader, and then “returning to the light” by learning how to be kind again through love for a child who saw through the outer “ugliness”. Idk sounds a little punarvasu core to me

I feel like it’s frustrating to guess these things when someone has a planet in the first house which also rules one of the nakshatras, in this case saturn and pushya. It makes it so much harder to go off of appearance. For me personally I spot pushya women by their narrow but full lips (alongside the other traits you mentioned). The beautiful pushya moon native Tripti Dimri has this trait- her lips are full but their shape has a certain narrowness to them.

Going back to Angelina, as you said she has the pushya look anyway bc of cancer + saturn influence, but idk I’ve always felt like it’s a different vibe? The saturn nak women feel a bit more calm and “closed off” if you will(?)

Her having a Jupiter placement would explain this tbh. I’m kind of obsessed with her when she played “Corky”, whenever Jupiter (or mars actually) women do a masc look they eat it up every time!!

I thought Claire's Punarvasu video about ugliness was most relatable to Punarvasu men perhaps because men externalise their traits whereas women internalise them. So Punarvasu/Jupiter men playing the "Beast" made sense to me because they feel hideous and when it's projected outwards (our thoughts create our reality, when someone thinks or believes they're ugly they experience things that affirm this belief?? if that makes sense??) they are perceived as Beastly by others. Also Jupiter dominant people, be it men or women are hella intimidating as all these naks have feline yoni animals (cat, tiger, lion who are all unapproachable and intimidating in their own ways) I think if others are intimidated by you, they're less likely to approach you and if you feel socially isolated like that, you're more likely to think "oh it's because everyone hates me/because I'm ugly" and I think maybe that's why Punarvasu natives struggle with "feeling ugly". Claire did also say that being isolated was a big theme in their lives. It could also be because of how Jupiter's boundlessness means these natives contain too much substance, both good and bad, it's only with age and wisdom that an individual learns to tune out the negativity and focus on the goodness so because of all the internal negativity the natives "feel ugly". Another reason could be that having really turbulent and difficult childhoods are kind of part of the Jupiter experience, if you grow up feeling neglected or if you're abused, you're not going to feel good about yourself?? A lot of people who have childhood trauma also struggle with their self image. Kali Uchis, Punarvasu Sun, Vishaka Moon & Rising spoke about it in this interview about how being abused as a child meant that she hated being looked at or seen :(((

Angelina has mentioned that she hated modelling (which she did briefly as a teenager)

Omg 😳😮 I had never looked at Maleficent that way but damn that does sound very Punarvasu core especially since her own Punarvasu Sun daughter Vivienne was cast to play the young Princess Aurora because all the other kids were scared of her lmao 😭😭

Sleeping Beauty is closely linked to Revati/Pisces as well (She has Revati Moon & stellium)

You're right it is hard to determine bc of her chart 😭😭But Pushya natives imo have longer slimmer faces because of their goat yoni, Angelina's wide expansive face and features are giving Punarvasu 🤌🏼

But also I feel like Saturnian women are very comfortable with their femininity from the get go. They don't transform into it, like Angie did (which is a Jupiterian quality). Salma Hayek, UBP Moon, Madhuri Dixit, Pushya Moon, Miranda Kerr, Pushya Rising, Mariah Carey UBP Sun, Monica Bellucci-Pushya Moon are all Saturnian women who are known for their hyperfemininity. It's inherent to them?? They have this very exaggerated femininity (Pushya is considered the most feminine nakshatra) that I don't see with Angie. She's very poised and elegant now but I see her individuality before I see her femininity?? If that makes sense lol and like you said Saturnian women are 100x more mellow, more composed and overall chill, Jupiter is what creates a more bold/loud in your face kind of persona.

Idk what Corky is 😭😭😭😭please tell me I have no clue 🥹🥹

[sokkastyles]

Do you think Toph was jealous (that might be a strong word) of Katara natural femininity And how easy being girly was for katara? It’s just that when they argue they do project some of their own insecurities onto each so it got me wondering. Maybe katara was jealous of toph toughness idk?? Thought?

Oh, absolutely. I don't think that's interpretation so much as textual fact.

I see a lot of discussions of this that take one side or the other, but I think Toph and Katara's relationship is a great portrayal of how gender expectations harm girls in multiple ways, and also can turn them against each other, and people who only take Katara's side or Toph's are missing the point.

Toph is jealous of Katara's natural femininity, and that has to do with why she disdains it, but not because she's a misogynist or she hates girls or whatever, but because those are expectations her parents tried to force on her. A lot of what it is popular on the internet to label as "not like other girls" behavior, in a way that implies that being NLOG is a bad thing, are girls who are rebelling against forced gender expectations. Toph is both an abuse victim and a disabled girl whose disability was used in conjunction both to force her to fit a certain gender standard and keep her dependant on parents who were emotionally abusive, and to reinforce how the nature of her disability meant that she would never fit certain gendered standards. I've written about this before, how Toph can't be totally comfortable with makeup because even when she enjoys getting made up and looking pretty, other people can look at her and know that she didn't do it herself, like the girls in the episode who make fun of her for it. Toph enjoys looking pretty but she also has no control over what she looks like and can't even see it for herself, so that also clashes with her trauma over needing to be independent and distance herself from what her parents wanted her to be, a girl who sits still and looks pretty and is there for other people to look at. Makeup as empowerment is all well and good, but it doesn't work that way for people who have certain disabilities, and there is a lot of ableism in makeup culture. Eyeliner that's perfectly on point isn't always possible for women who have vision problems or neurodivergence, and women who wear makeup are supposed to look perfect but make it look effortless at the same time, and that is naturally going to exclude a lot of people, especially disabled people. The show illustrates that beautifully without condemning one way to be a girl or the other.

At the same time, Katara is jealous of Toph for the way she gets to be "one of the boys," and gets respect from Sokka and Aang in ways that she doesn't. See her anxiety over everyone thinking she is no fun and acts like a mom. Katara is a nurturing person and that's one of her stengths, but she also is a kid who wants to have fun, too. And just because being the "mom friend" is natural for her doesn't mean it isn't hard on her. Just because Katara seems to fit gender expectations a little easier than Toph doesn't mean she doesn't feel the weight of those expectations, and even women who fit gender expectations also get derided for them, because patriarchy both tells women they need to be a certain way and then hates them for it. See Sokka making fun of Katara for sewing but absolutely expecting her to mend his pants. I think Katara also thinks that Toph should be on her side, as a fellow girl. Katara is so starved for female companionship and resents it when it appears that Toph is siding against her, because she's feeling the weight of those expectations. And Toph doesn't always understand that, and thinks Katara's attempts to bond with her are trying to force gender expectations on her in the way her parents did.

[theerurishipper]

After learning about the leaks about Paris special, I just want to say that all of the comics and headcanons fans created speculating how they would be in emoverse are much better than what we got. Wouldn't it be ironic to say that they're born evil like Chloe in ogverse and that some backstory doesn't justify their wrongdoings. They are evil and very much proud of it with either their cringe worthy fails or terrifying terrorism

Agreed. Like, I don't mind the arc they were intending for with Chloe, I don't mind them showing that some people can't change, but then they'll redeem the terrorist/abuser. And they'd rather say that Chloe is just inherently evil without exploring or acknowledging the backstory and motivations they wrote for her. That's the issue here. And now Shadybug and Claw Noir are going to get some half-assed redemption. Honestly, I would have preferred them being evil, you know, like an everyone has a good and bad side in them and who you are depends on the choices you make kind of thing, especially since Miraculous is so fond of redemptions.

I get it, that's just my wish and the show doesn't have to follow my exact preferred storyline to be good, but the information we have doesn't paint a very promising picture either way. Considering the bullshittery of the Season 5 finale and Gabriel's shitty-ass redemption, it really just feels like this special is pushing the Gabe Is Good agenda in our face, you know? I mean, Guardian Angel? For the child abuser in our main continuity? The one who doesn't seem like he did a good job in the alternate timeline either seeing as his son was so unable to process his grief that he became a magical terrorist? This guy is called Guardian Angel? I mean, maybe he did his best, but we won't know until we watch the special, and the show has a habit of blaming Adrien for Gabriel's actions anyway, so. It just feels like it's pushing the "some people are good and some people are evil no matter in what continuity, and Marinette and Adrien are good deep down, and so is Gabriel. But Chloe is just always evil lmaooooo." I don't mind it too much, but shit's still kinda weird, man.

And like, what do you mean "Shadybug and Claw Noir don't even like each other?" That's kind of the whole appeal for a lot of people lmao, and they hate each other? I mean, I'm not going to judge it based on my expectations and say it's bad just because I didn't get what I wanted, but... really? And I'm also gonna go out on a limb and say Hesperia and Claw Noir have no personal interaction despite them being father and son and Adrien's motivation being to bring Emelie back. Like, at a certain point, it crosses the line from being my insignificant expectation to being just... bad choices and an inability to create proper payoff. I think Hesperia interacts more with Marinette than Adrien in this special. Getting major Season 5 finale-esque "Marinette replaces Adrien in his arc" vibes.

But I'm not disappointed, surprising as that sounds. I never expected it to be good. I was always just here to see Claw Noir on screen so I can properly pick him up and toss him into my fanfics. I was excited for the special, sure, but I didn't have my hopes up and the leaks seem to have proved me right. Idk, maybe they'll surprise me. I doubt it though.

Thank you for your ask!

[izzyspussy]

may or may not be putting this in tatg (& if i don't maybe i'll make it its own fic) but like. and i know other people have mentioned this, right, about how when one parent is abusive there's no realistic way for the other parent relationship to be all hunky dory or whatever.

and the way jamie talked about her in season one, the way his childhood bedroom is as-was and there's such an abundance of publicity-looking photos on that shrine as compared to personal photos which are all kid photos, etc. we can - if we choose to - assume that there was at least some kind of in between period where jamie and his mom were not as close.

and idk i'm just thinking about the specifics of that in between period and how they both felt about it / their motivations / etc, and how we can also assume - if we choose to - that georgie pretty much knows What Happened wrt james. i mean there's equally as much room to interpret it as jamie didn't tell her exactly what happened in amsterdam specifically but she could tell he didn't have a good time and took him back, or maybe he did tell her exactly what happened and she took him back for the same reason of like overwriting the memory or whatever. like those two are equally canon-supported takes imo.

and tbh i don't think either one of those is more likely than the other, but personally i think the way the vibes feel to me, i err toward the latter. because when jamie told roy he seemed to know like okay this isn't a good experience but it's not that bad and assumed roy thought the prostitute would have had a worse time somehow. so from that we can maybe assume - if we choose to - that he wouldn't really know to hide it from georgie (of course on the other end, we could assume instead he would have felt the feelings without thinking about them and hid because of that even without knowing, but that's not what i'm assuming rn). but we can ALSO assume that since jamie so automatically didn't think roy was talking about him when he said "traumatizing" then.... georgie wouldn't have said as much when he told her.

and like. okay. so maybe she thought if she said the big scary words, if she said "traumatized" if she said "abuse" if she said "rape" that would make it worse. maybe she thought she needed to not make a big deal about it, right, to protect jamie, to not make him even more upset. i know that this is something that people think when faced with this, especially with kids.

but i also know. most of the time. in my experience. that is not the right choice at all. it seems right, and the people doing it absolutely are doing what they think is best and honestly there's not ever going to be much of a "best practice" for this because everyone is affected differently, etc. but in my experience. it's the wrong thing to do.

and it's also kind of a known phenomenon that people don't want to admit their parents were wrong or to hold things against them, especially when they have an understanding that the parent in question was going through their own struggles or surviving their own traumas at the time. buuuuut. not wanting to feel a certain way doesn't actually make you not feel that way. and additionally, not know why you feel a certain way doesn't make you not feel that way. in fact, even not realizing you feel a certain way at all doesn't make you not feel it either!

so. i think jamie was probably really upset with georgie for never saying it. for just trying to help jamie through it by moving past it, instead of ever facing it directly and calling it what it was and impressing upon him how serious it was, how wrong. (and he was also angry about this wrt to teachers, doctors, coaches, etc etc. not ted, even tho it's the same and he should have been, because it was in a pretty messed up spot when ted didn't step in, when he didn't step in again, when he later suggested more of the same just moving right along, and he maybe couldn't feel angry at ted right then whether knowing why or not, these things are sooo complicated, but later probably! later, he might be angry enough to call ted up in america and say hey man. i need to say my piece about this actually.)

and all that shit was true for him - that he didn't realize he felt that way, and if he did he wouldn't know why, and if he did he wouldn't want to - until he got to a better enough and stable enough place that he could work through all that and then have a conflict about it.

but anyway, yeah! so that's part of the reason why they were maybe not totally estranged but definitely strained in season one, maybe for a lot of season two, and however long before canon. (i think i'm headcanoning here that they started rebuilding/healing their relationship around the christmas episode, though i don't remember exactly where that falls in the timeline other than "before wembley".)

and then on the other side! georgie would probably - despite all efforts, and knowing she was being irrational, and knowing it wasn't jamie's fault - would feel a little bit sort of something similar about jamie being ""close"" with james in immediately pre-season one times. like because, he's her son, she loves him so much, and he's supposed to love her too, and he's like hanging out with her abuser. his own abuser too, yes, but! again, feelings don't care about sense. and like, she was never really angry with him, she was never actually disappointed in him like he thought she would be, but there would be this sort of background bitterness that he was (seemingly) choosing to spend time with james and change his behavior to suit him.

it's a really complicated, excessively shitty situation!

but yeah i think probably they never really talk about or even really need to talk about georgie's side of things of feeling shitty about jamie choosing to be around james, because that's totally not his fault and he was suffering for it anyway, and imo that's just one of those "your kids will hurt your feeling sometimes" facts of parenthood type of things. it would simply... pass.

but either in very late canon off-screen, or else post-canon, they absolutely do have to talk about it and let jamie get out that she did him wrong by not saying those words and making a suitably big deal over It All. and like of course he's aware she did what she thought was best and there's no real way she could have known how that would affect him or not, but it is something he has a right to be upset about and have addressed.

anyway all that to say. that's why he's not calling her about his nightmares in tatg. (and also this is at least preeeetttyyy close to my actual canon interpretation of their relationship and why it is the way it is and why it isn't the way it isn't.)

[torialefay]

As someone who also has insomnia and severe sleep deprivation- I can tastefully say that 90% of the time I flick it is to solely sleep.

So yeah, it does help but you gotta go 2-3 times before you get exhausted enough to sleep ( at least for me).

So I wouldn't be surprised if Chris was the same and I'm for sure certain he has giggled and gone feral over the...

'No lube, no protection, on the kitchen floor, to the trampoline, against the washing machine, in the dirt, on the side, hands in front, hands behind, playing twister on the ground, in the drive-thru, behind the shower curtain, with the hot sauce, covered in chocolate ice-cream, slam against the windows, drool over the sink, bent into a pretzel'

Long ass paragraph ppl leave on Instagram and has the intrusive thoughts and being like-

I got something else to help me sleep again tonight haha

also the effort people make to write those long paragraphs and the creativity they have is insane.

Idk whether to be admired or scared for them.

first of all: i am SO SORRY. TWO TO THREE TIMES?!?! THAT'S HOW LONG IT TAKES YOU TO TIRE OUT?! i will never complain ab my life again, that really takes the cake i'm so sorry 😭 i would love to be able to say "omg relate so hard", but tbh i'm out as soon as my head hits the pillow... but if i get a good knut in, my brain is already turned off on my head's descent to the pillow. I'M SORRY YOU MUST BORDERLINE ABUSE YOURSELF TO SLEEP 😭

"the creativity they have is insane"... proceeds to write a very detailed long-ass paragraph herself 🤪 i know u couldn't help it though, just giving christopher some extra fuel for tonight 🥵

what i'm gathering from all of this is: (1) maybe he is having to get off at least once if not more???? (2) the more he has to get off, the more he has to fantasize ab different situations??? (3) the more he has to fantasize ab situations, the MORE LIKELY HE IS TO BE READING OUR SMUT FOR IDEAS.

have i taken this out of context? maybe. but is christopher probably excruciatingly horny and getting off to the shit we type? almost exclusively the answer is yes.

TOPHER, if you're out there, i do not give you permission to be on my page so you better lurk quietly in the shadows

watch, he actually has an anon emoji for half the people on this app 😭😂😂😂

[0lk0s]

rhysand ramble, idk if i make sense

i absolutely despise rhysand. like i need stronger word than hatred to convey my feelings regarding him.

BUT IM EVEN MORE PISSED ABOUT THE WASTED POTENTIAL OF HIS CHARACTER!!!

in the first book he was sort of interesting character and I was actually looking forward to learn more about him. because he was actually giving morally grey character, but of course sjm had to make him the good guy while still using his 'moral greyness' as a shield against all the heinous things he did. she took a sort of morally grey character and transformed him into goody two shoes who can't do no wrong and all he does is make the world better place. like???!?!

if he was presented as 'yes, i did those terrible things and no, i don't feel remorse, because i FEEL like i had to do them' then maybe i wouldn't hate him. because i don't hate him for the things he did, more so i hate him for not being able to admit that he did them and it's wrong. and im talking about UTM, illyrian women, CoN women and children, his abusive behavior to Feyre, his weird vendetta against Nesta. all of those are wrong. period. there should be no debate, readers should be able to say 'oh, what he's doing is wrong' but instead we got rhys/feysand stans arguing that he is 'morally grey' and he had to do it blah blah blah. is sjm to blame for presenting it this certain way? yes! but also you as a reader should think about what you're reading and not parrot what is written on the paper. because news flash i can write 'color red doesn't exist' and from my pov it might seem like it really doesn't exist, but you know that is not true.

but back to his potential. his character could have gone so many interesting ways. we could have gotten redemption arc because he wanted to be a better man(fae male?) for feyre. we could have gotten corruption arc and feyre having to fight him. or he could have stayed in the morally grey area for all i care. it would also be interesting to see how his power troubles him and the question of what is okay and what no to do with it. his trauma could have been also addressed and discussion about how it manifests in his obsessive need to be in control would also be nice. but no we got this PERFECT 500 year old male with some nightmares who did bad things but only to protect the people he loves, but other than that he'd NEVER done anything bad in his life.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that all the nuance surrounding him disappeared because sjm had to self insert herself into feyre lmao.

im down to have civilized discussion but idk if it's possible in this fandom.

[lunar-years]

i think roy’s the first person jamie’s ever told about his trip to amsterdam, and i know some people think he’s told georgie about it or at least that georgie knows something bad happened. but. now i’m curious about what jamie talked about in his session with doctor sharon. do you think he only went the one time? maybe focused on his dad’s physical/emotional abuse?

on the Amsterdam & Georgie front: I do have an explanation/reasoning for why i don't think he's told Georgie. I was just messaging someone about it yesterday! But in any case I am pretty convinced Roy was indeed the first person Jamie told. (However there's a really good alternative take in the fic I recommended about Jamie and Amsterdam, in which he does tell Georgie and it pans out in a specific way. That's the one argument for him telling Georgie that I've seen so far that really makes sense to me within a canon context, lol)

it is super interesting that you would bring up Jamie and therapy and Dr. Sharon though, because i was genuinely JUST thinking about this!!! I think a fairly common consensus is that the "don't speak to me like that" language we see in the Wembley locker room is a line direct from Dr. Sharon, and/or that Jamie is king of therapy etc. idk...I'm not convinced on either front. I'm not NOT convinced, either. I don't have a super strong opinion on it one way or another because I don't think there's really enough evidence to support either conclusion, but.

I will say, I personally think the one scene we get of Keeley taking Jamie down to Dr. Sharon's office is not enough to indicate Jamie loves therapy and keeps going back. Like, with Colin we get several small lines/details to show he's consistently seeing her, and we do not with Jamie, which is notable I feel. Yeah, he's shown to be all pleased to be talking about himself in the 2 seconds we see after he sits down with her, and it's a funny moment but... it's very superficial. Jamie likes talking about him in a certain surface-level way for sure, but he definitely keeps personal things about himself and his past close to his chest IMO. So to answer your question, yes I think it's a real possibility that he only went that one time.

As for what they spoke about...the reason Keeley brings him down there is very explicitly because he's complaining that no one on the team likes him, and I do thing that's what they discussed. That's also a problem that get resolves in the very same episode, and I'm not sure Jamie would have the self-insight at that point to be like "hmm maybe I should keep going back to therapy so we can dive into my Dad Trauma." Personally, I think when Jamie isn't immediately dealing with his father he is extremely good at putting him out of his mind and telling himself "that doesn't bother me anymore." He strikes me as generally being like, "Oh yeah i'm totally over everything bad that's ever happened to me! It's so not a big deal 🤪" deflection behavior. That is, until something happens that triggers him or he has another encounter with the man and then it's like...actually yeah that problem has never gone away and I've never actually dealt with any of it! So maybe he goes back for a session or two after Wembley, I could definitely see that. But I don't really think he keeps up with it once Dr. Sharon leaves.

I certainly do hope he returns to it after s3 though!

[dayfaresthenight]

Jackie's Bio!!!

(TWs for disassociation, Substance abuse, suicide, and allusions, but no explicit mentions of NSFW topics.) Blue is Jackie, Black is Me.)

Name: Jackie!!!

Alt Names: Moriarty!!! (Aculia)

Special Titles: The Grand Archmage, The Mage In The Tower, the Woman behind the curtain, the heroine of Archalia!

Username: JackieMoriarty111

Nicknames: Jack, "That bitch.".

Chronological Age: 18 Physically. Timeloops have distorted her mind, lost track of the plot a whiles ago.

Age: 20 (I stopped aging when I finished the story!)

Pronouns: Any/All, IDC honestly!!! Lean more feminine though.

Sexuality: Pansexual

Gender: Cisgender

Species: 100% Human!~

Disorders: None!!! (Bipolar Depression, C-PTSD, Generalized Anxiety, Impostor Syndrome, Pathological Lying, Hypersexuality)

Physical Disabilities: None!!! (Underweight, Chronic Pain in Right Arm, Poor Vision)

Active Addictions: I dunno! I'm willing to try about anything, but I wouldn't call myself addicted to it. (She gets addicted very easily.)

Religion: God is just a fancy word for "OP."

Job: Scholar, Mage Tutor, Super Evil World destoryer

Major: Arcane Studies! (Never got to finish it.)

Lives in: My cool tower!!!

Languages: English, Angelic, Demonic, Feyish, uuuuuuh, a few ciphers… know I'm forgetting something… Oh yes, French!

Height: 5'2

Regular: Caucasian Human

Accent: Like one of those really loud annoying anime dub girl voices!!! (A somewhat soft English accent, when she isn't faking it.)

Powers: Astral Projection, Time Manipulation, Puppetering, Elemental Magic, Character Creation, Illusions, Alchemy… A few other things too, but why would I tell everything to you?

Weaknesses: None!!! I'm too strong!!! (Her old memories, warding seals, emotionally stable people.)

Weapons: None! (Because she stinks at physical combat.) (NO, I DON'T!!!!)

Wands: Uhhh, which do you need? I have a lot of them.

Alignment: Chaotic Good (formerly Lawful Good.)

Text Color: BLUE!!!

Main Hobbies: I like learning about new magic, long walks on the beach, puppeteering, traveling to new worlds, and alchemy! Sometimes I'll even dress up as NPCs in worlds and pretend to be a regular person.

Favorite Food: Donuts!

Favorite Flower: Roses (…)

Scent: Smells like Grapes! And maybe a little bit of Ash too…

Handedness: Right!

Blood Color: Red! Duuuh.

Awareness: VERY AWARE!!! AND ITS VERY VERY VERY POSITIVE ON ME!!! (Effect: Very Negative.)

Birthday: JUNE 21ST! Theme:

Playlist:

Fun Facts: People make up all kinds of lies about me all the time; don't listen to them. (Refuses to acknowledge anything past a certain point in her life.)

Special Interests: Magic, Chess, High Fantasy, Writing

Stims: jumping up in the air, screaming, twisting

Stimboard: Maaaaybe

Moodboard: ^

Fashion Board: ^ Comfort Objects: None! (Her Favorite Staff: Aculia.)

Family: Doesn't matter!!! They are all long gone anyway.

Friends: Doesn't matter!!!!

Romance: Idk if she'd put it in the same catagory, but Are Yoru and I get along a lot!!!

Enemies: I think about 50% of the universe are my enemies right now. I dunno how I'm not dead yet, honestly.

Brief Personality: OH!!! IM SUPER FUN TO BE AROUND!!! That's literally all you need to know!!!

Jack is a very emotionally unstable person. Most of the time, they act extremely chipper, happy, and "Extra," putting on an over-exaggerated persona. However, the moment things don't go their way, they can snap on a twig—turning into a rather nasty and unstable individual.)

Jack is extremely manipulative, and almost everything they say tends to be a lie or an attempt to further some kind of agenda. (Treat every single one of their words like it's prime cut Grade-A bullshit.)

Jack is an extremely lonely person as a result, as much as they try to deny it. There is a deep void in them that they are trying to fill with anything they can possibly think of, often leading to them burning any and all bridges they can make.

(Some part of her wishes someone would just finally snap and get rid of the problem.)

Brief Backstory:

Nope!

Aculia comes from a storybook called "Tales of Archalia," written by a man named Daniel Crane. It was a tale as old as time—The Evil Witch Jackelyn had captured the rulers of the world, planning on destroying it. She had to go through many different twists and challenges. Blah blah blah, you know the story by now.

With her and her three friends, she had ventured to the top of the tower and done it. They had bested the witch; they had saved the day! And so everyone lived happily forever after…

But, over time, Aculia began to become… bothered. She noticed things didn't change any more. The same people with the same routines, the same dialogue, and even the same patterns every day.

It started off small. Her being less polite to people or ignoring her party members coming to visit. This caused a change. Almost as if the world itself was forced to, people began to act differently. The pre-set patterns they had gone under altered. Finally, after weeks, something new…!

That was the key. She just had to try different things, and everything would be peachy! They'd get back to their grand old adventures, and she would stop being so… bored.

What turned into a few small stunts here or there quickly turned into bad habits—using Alchemy to create hard substances, indulging in the unspoken pleasures of life, and whatnot, and so forth. This sudden change in personality deeply worried her friends, who attempted to comfort her.

For some reason though, their words rang more… hollow than usual, though. She couldn't quite put why, but something just didn't feel right about this place anymore. It felt too happy, too colorful—too cheerful. So... Fake...?

...

"Aculia, look—I know you don't want to talk right now, but… we were really worried about you. #u*#$ Said he found you passed out at the tavern the other day."

"Yeah!!! I don't know what's gotten into you recently, but knock it off. Your really freaking us out!!!"

"If something is troubling your heart, please tell us. We are always here for you."

"Please… were really… really scared… talk to us… please talk to us."

"I said I don't want to talk."

"Aculia, please-"

She-

"I SAID, I DON'T WANT TO TALK!!!"

…I ran away after that. My mind was in such a haze that I didn't know what to do. I hadn't known what to do for months now. It was just always the same until I did something bad, then it would change again.

I stumbled towards the old tower and began to walk around it. It was empty, empty as always. All that remained was the witch's old staff. I picked it up and examined it…

A scroll compartment??? I wonder what she kept in it.

i- no- i- this has to be a lie. but, its- how would she know that info about me- why is it all just there... nonono please

please

she couldn't of been- no she couldn't of been telling the truth

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! I REFUSE I REFUSE I RE-

That's when I realized. No wonder it all felt fake. Because it was fake! Everything around me was always fake. It was just someone's writing, and that person had left me to rot at a dead end. No actual conclusion or anything; nothing for me to go forward to. Just… THE END! He left me to ROT!!!!

Well, you thought I was going to take that one lying down? Nope! Nope, NOPE! I didn't! I broke out of that prison, and all it cost me was everyone I ever cared about. A small price to pay. That witch was right in the end; I did need to destroy the world to be free!

And when I finally got out, I discovered something incredible!!! So many worlds, so many people to help liberate. So many are doomed to their fixed fates in the narrative. I knew that I could help them—if I just took the strings and pulled them in their favor, things would change!

As long as I keep on trying to make things change, one day I'll feel happy! I mean, I'm already happy, but one day, I'll

I'll- YEAH! Anyways, eventually, I found the guy who had left me to rot. I gave him a book that let him see the truth, and then proceeded to trap him in it. He thinks he's free, but I'm the one in control for once!

Thats right, I won! I have all the cards in my hands! ME! I am the one on the stage! I'm not lonely! I'm happy! I'm GREAT! I'm fantastic! I'm-

I-

Why do I still feel so empty…?

And so she drifts throughout the universe, searching for more people to "free." But in the end, is freedom really worth it when there is nothing to enjoy?

I suppose that is a question for you to ask yourself, dear reader.

[just-jessiejames]

Ahem *clears throat*

Attention all Tylorpe shippers, I have a very important question that I just would enjoy hearing other people's thoughts on.

How far gone do we all believe Tyler to be regarding Laurel's manipulations?

She believed him to be a willing participant, but that could be her own hubris. We know Tyler was definitely angry due to what Nevermore and the outcasts ended up doing to his mother. But how far gone is he really? How willing do you all believe he was in the end? We do have to remember, the Hyde is a two faced beast. Two sides of a coin that flip in an instant, so how much of the blood-lust is Tyler's and how much is the Hyde's.

It's just fun to hypothesize. I do believe Hunter confirmed that Tyler was playing Wednesday from the start and never had feelings for her, which does change my perspective on how far gone he is, if none of those positive interactions were real then he could be a lot farther gone than I had hoped honestly. Meaning he is closer to the cold, sadistic killer than he is that nice barista.

However, all of those interactions imo are hard to entirely fake, I mean how good a liar is Tyler? He seems pretty darn good, but emotions are hard to fake enough to FEEL real. (Though I guess killers are typically good at this sorta stuff, mmm.) Food for thought I guess, it's hard to say whether he just played up the loverboy angle and was really just an evil bastard the whole time, never once showing any ounce of real sympathy or compassion; or if some of it was actually genuine, just skewed and not whole truths.

I think he deserves a redemption arc though. Seeing him going from being a manipulated child suffering from abuse related Stockholm syndrome, to realizing that what Laurel said may not really be everything there is to this situation would do wonders for a character arc. It would be great to see him breaking free of the mentality his "master" had, and growing to have his own separate views on the situation. Maybe even gaining sympathy for the Nevermore populace.

Though as far as I know right now, if he really is closer to that sadistic cold blooded killer, then he never really cared about the outcasts and it was all a farce. Which in the end means he'd have one hell of a redemption arc to go through, we'd really have to see him get knocked in the head hard with some sort of empathy for outcasts. What exactly would spur change I'm not certain of yet?? Especially if he's really locked into Laurel's mentality. It can take years to shake an abusers/captors grooming.

Anyways, I would LOVE to hear everyone else's thoughts, honestly I'm just rambling here now. Been thinking about this a lot. I like Tyler, I think he could be a lot more complicated as a character. I think there is a lot going on with him. Do I think the show-runners will treat his arc well? God idk, hard say. Leaning towards pessimism because I feel like they might just go the "he's just evil" route and keep him as a villain who will probably end up dying as most narrow-minded villains tend to do in these shows when their story-lines are treated poorly :(

[bookofmirth]

i know fandom drama is always talked about to death and i'm probably not adding anything new to the discussion, but i feel like the way this fandom treats lucien and mor in comparison to elain and nesta and azriel is very representative of white feminism. i'm growing very tired of fandom discussions that center around uplifting elain and nesta because of girlboss feminism and azriel - their favorite bland man to project a personality onto - while ignoring the struggles of non-white, non-straight characters who are also victims of abuse.

sooo many people in this fandom fall back on choice feminism when discussing nesta and elain - like if you don't support their "choices" (despite being fictional characters with no agency of their own), you don't support women's choices, and thus you are a bad feminist. not only is this a logical fallacy, but it also doesn't allow female characters to be multi-dimensional, to make bad choices, to not just be morally "good" all the time. idk if this happens with feyre too or not, but most discourse i see is around nesta and elain.

whenever certain people in this fandom see sympathetic discussions of lucien and hopes for him to have a happy ending (sometimes with elain, sometimes not), they complain that you care more about a man than a woman that he "inflicted trauma on." they only see the social divide in terms of gender, never examining how race also plays a role in the struggles lucien has faced - never even considering that a male poc could also experience abuse at the hands of tamlin and his family. and so many people hate mor for not being a "girl's girl" towards nesta, because they believe feminism is only about women uplifting women, never considering the way that mor's past struggles with abuse because of her gender and sexual orientation have shaped her to be wary of people that are (in her eyes) unnecessarily cruel.

i do recognize that the feminism in sjm's books is fairly basic, so maybe that's to blame, but it's unfortunate the fandom can't take a more intersectional approach

Anon, I totally agree. Have you read @gimme-mor's posts about this? She did a great job of outlining some of the issues with the ways people talk about female characters in the fandom, and the surface-level feminism that is used in this post and in this one.

It makes sense that the fandom would engage with discussions of privilege and gender (and race and class etc.) on a rather surface level, since, as you pointed out, the flavor of feminism that is featured in the series is very focused on gender and rarely takes other identities, marginalized or otherwise, into account. It's #girlpower with no thought about individual differences that those women might be experiencing that actually have a huge impact on what "choices" each of them can make.

With Lucien, there is also the issue of his disability, but it's quite easy to dismiss him as a villain when all people are looking at is his maleness. It's not as simple as "woman = good" and "man = bad", but that's how people act.

The fact is, none of these characters have a choice because they aren't real people, as you also pointed out. There is no such thing as supporting a fictional person's rights because those rights literally don't exist. They do not have agency or autonomy or.... literal fucking existence in the real world, and so it's absolute malarkey to act like we need to be respectful of a fictional character, and to bully and shit on a real person in doing so.

I remember when I said that Elain is privileged it pissed some people off, but I think that also comes down to a misunderstanding of what privilege actually is, hand-in-hand with this Feminism Lite. There are a lot of great potential conversations to be had about these characters and the world they live in and how they interact with one another, the ways in which they are limited or have access to power, but it's kinda hard when people are more concerned about being right in the ship war.

[shamrock313]

Taylor Swift General Reading (August 18th)

This reading is for entertainment purposes only. Please take everything you read with a grain of salt. Enjoy!

As you can see from the title, this reading was done on the 18th, so some things may or may not be happening right now as today is August 27.

Career: Mag (R) + Fool = She wants to change things up. Wants to take a risk in changing her career/music. She's being held back from her full potential. Doesn't trust everyone on her team. She's definitely ready to take a break from touring, but she's looking forward to doing something new in her career. Always planning. She's ready. She may have been planning something for a few years now and it just hasn't happened yet either because of herself or because of those around her.

OC: Vacation "You will be traveling soon". I don't know if Taylor is on a small break right now or how many days/months left she has of touring, but she's deserving of a break.

What's next for her career wise? King of Swords (side) = (U) Challenging herself to do her best. She knows what she wants to achieve. (R) Dominating. Power hungry colleague. Irrational work decision. This person is holding her back.

OC: Water Sign - This is a water sign person and from my research this could be her dad. Her dad is the one holding her back.

Love Life: Taylor POV: PoW (R) + 6oW = PoW (R) "aimless search for love" "failure to commit" "struggling to let go of past lovers" "unsure of what she is looking for". Needs to figure out what she wants in a partner instead of seeing everyone as the one for her. Not everyone is the one. 6oW wants to prove something to her exes. Wants to show she's "fine" or can manage a successful relationship after them.

OC: Love Spell, Commitment, Intimacy OC #2: Abusive

Love Spell "You've been bewitched" - I've put a spell on you in other words Travis may not see Taylor as Taylor, he may see her as the superstar or Taylor presents herself in a certain way and he just doesn't know the real Taylor.

Commitment "Things are getting serious" - Seems they're giving this relationship a chance and looking forward to what comes next.

Intimacy "Sexual Chemistry."

Abusive - I would like to think that Taylor probably tries to treat Travis a bit different as the quote says "I know you don't deserve to be treated this way, but I'm acting out a certain pattern".

Travis POV: 3oC, 6oS, Temp, Devil, HM, 4oP = He likes her and based off 3oC this does confirm that someone brought them together. 6oS "moving on from a relationship". Putting a past relationship behind you. So, I know he was with Kayla (how long idk) so idk if he's moving past this relationship or maybe something before he got with Kayla and Taylor.

Temp is being careful and considerate. Don't pressure Taylor into something she's not prepared for. Very happy. Devil is being very attracted to her, but once again don't pressure her. Don't make her uncomfortable. HM love cannot be rushed. Avoid romantic pressure. So, from these three cards he's pushing this into something more or probably wants more engagement to put their names out there like a shock to the fans. He's all about status. 4oP Clingy lover, jealous, possessiveness, and holding onto past. He can have a temper (as we saw from the games) but he's passionate about what he does.

OC: Date Night, Let Go, and Open Your Heart OC: Message Me

Date Night - Taking some time together

Let Go + Open Your Heart - Allow yourself to let new people or new opportunities in. It will do you good to bring in better people or soothing activities into your life.

Message Me "Don't be afraid to reach out" - He made the first move

Overall Dynamic: 9oC + King of Wands = 9oC "Different love languages or having a high demanding work schedule yet you manage to pull stuff through". Satisfying each others emotional needs. KoW He's the leader not her. Usually it's her, but this time its him. Again, he has a temper, but he can let it go. She likes that he's self-made.

OC: Manifest + Intuition OC 2: Passion

Manifest "Tell the universe what you want" - The things you want will soon come true. Just keep working for it.

Intuition - Don't ignore the red flags that are there.

Passion - Satisfying each other needs whether that be emotionally or physically