#if she was a man y'all would love her

[coquettejohnny]

"we need more flawed female characters in media" yall couldn't even handle her

[tea-cat-arts]

You know what, I've read enough fanfic. I'm confiscating Madame Yu from you guys

Free my girl- she did the things she's being accused of, but not as frequently or severely as the fandom pretends, her actions are being taken out of context, and her depth is being reduced to that of a Colleen Hoover antagonist

[clarissaweasley-10]

This might be a controversial take, but l don't think Eve deserves or should get a redemption arc.

[dollypopup]

"Colin should have grovelled more!" "Penelope folded too easily"

I think statements like this typically come from people who like Penelope. . .but don't really understand her. And don't really understand just why she cares for Colin, and just why him groveling would not in any way bring her peace.

Penelope and Colin are kindred spirits in their loneliness, in season 3 more than any others. Penelope had lost her friendship with Eloise, and Colin didn't really have a close friend circle to begin with. Except with Pen. Pen was the person he could put the mask down for, could open up to, (in particular with their 'dreams' discussion) and that's why he couldn't even entertain the idea of giving up talking to her in Season 2. She is a vital part of his life, and holds so much significance and importance to him.

I imagine that's what made their silence over his travels especially painful for him. They spent such a long time talking after Season 1, and he even informs her that her letters were so encouraging, that it helped him heal something inside of himself. That if she could see him in a gentle way. . .so could he. (And he repays this, because he is honest to god out here acting and looking at her like she hung the moon in the sky). But without her presence in his life, he spiraled. Didn't feel confident in being who he is, and thus put on his persona more firmly. We know this because he wrote in his journal that "I want to be less needy, less insecure, while still maintaining the core of my vulnerability that makes me who I am". That he misses his family, that he misses home.

And we know, from the books, that Home? Home is Penelope. Penelope is his North Star, is his guiding force, and who I argue he feels he needs. In his very first scene, he looks toward her house, tries to find her in the window. When he does not, he returns to his family. In the outdoor gathering, he looks for her and finds her, eager to talk. He states aloud that he misses her, and I imagine he wrote it, too. Not hearing back from her over the course of his travels was surely something that hurt him, but he doesn't hold any ill will toward her for it, only wants to reconnect again. In fact, the one and only time he brings up how he misses her and that she didn't respond, she makes very clear the reason why: she heard what he said and it hurt her. And he's ashamed of it.

Colin hears her call him cruel, and instead of ruffling his feathers about it, instead of getting upset, instead of having a chip on his shoulder as I feel so many men would about it. . .he understands why she does so.

Penelope is a woman who has been largely treated poorly in her society. She feels unheard, she feels undesired, and in her circumstances, and I can't help but ask myself. . .has anyone ever truly apologized to Penelope for hurting her, before? Her mother? Her sisters? Eloise, likely, but. . .anyone else? And the way Colin did? Because of all the characters in the show, Colin? Colin knows how to apologize. He has a lot of practice in it. And very importantly: Colin, a man of privilege in his society, apologizes. . .predominately to women. To Marina, to his mother, and multiple times to Penelope.

Ultimately, Penelope wants to be heard, Penelope wants to be understood, Penelope wants to feel desired.

And Colin checks every single one of those boxes. He informs he is not who he was before, and then he proves it to her. He hears that he hurt her, and he comments on it directly. An entire night apart, and he comes back to her 'Because I embarrass you' with 'I am most certainly not ashamed of you', replies to her 'I am a laughingstock' with 'you are clever, and warm, and I am proud to call you my good friend'. He hears her proclaim her own insecurities, and empathizes so deeply with her. He listens. He understands. He makes clear that he cares for her, and that she *is* desired. 'You lift my spirits' 'I seek you out at every social assembly'. That she helps him see the world in ways he loves, that he sees HER and how much she has cared for HIM, that she makes him feel appreciated, that he appreciates her, in turn.

And then? Then? He shows her. He tells her, and he shows her. His actions all throughout Season 3 reinforce this apology. He continues looking for her in every corner of every ballroom, he continues complimenting her, he laughs at her jokes and respects her boundaries, he is ever so gentle with her, he listens to her with an attentiveness that no one else has ever given her. To Lady Whistledown? Sure. But to Penelope? Who else in the entirety of that ton has listened to Penelope the way Colin has?

Absolutely no one.

Penelope Featherington ghosts Colin Bridgerton for months with no explanation, and Colin comes back wanting to reach out to her, and she finally tells him why.

And he apologizes. Because he listens. Really, truly listens. And really truly cares.

I need you to understand how rare that is, even nowadays, but especially back then. That Colin is the kind of man who can put his hurt to the side and realize he made a mistake, that he said something callous, and he adores her, and he can't lose her, and he has to see her and make it right.

Because that's why Penelope fell for Colin. Not because he's beautiful, not for his charm, not for his family. But for his heart. Because he shows her kindness in a world that so often disregards her. Because he seeks her out and tries to understand her, truly hears what she has to say and compliments her, says he's sorry and looks at things from her perspective.

Because he saw her when she was invisible.

Penelope Featherington, who grew up in a house that made cruel jabs at her, has Colin Bridgerton come to her and say he regrets what he said, and that he was wrong, and that he understands why she's mad at him. Penelope Featherington who has so rarely had much of anyone tell her that they're sorry for what they said about her, sits before Colin Bridgerton as he professes how much she means to him. That he cannot even spend a full day away from her knowing they're on bad terms with each other without making it right. That he sees how she is hurting and he has to in any way he can amend it. She is lonely, with no one really in her corner at the start of season 3, and she feels like she lost it all, and Colin comes to her and says 'no, I'm here and I appreciate you and you are special to me, please let me in and let me prove it'. Is it any wonder why after she shakes his hand, she stands in the sun, and she feels the warmth of it, she can smile? That she can breathe, again? That she can be truly content for the first time in the season?

Because Penelope Featherington does not want Colin to beg. She knows him. She knows the tender, full heart he hides behind the new cavalier persona. She knows the soft underbelly of Colin Bridgerton.

He never had to grovel. All he had to do was love her. Assuredly. Fervently. Loudly. Unapologetically.

And he does.

[shannonsketches]

Thinking about how Toriyama wrote an Entire Plot centering around how Vegeta has spent the last seven years learning how to be happy and comfortable with his family on Earth and how he loves his wife so much that being Gently Reminded that he loves his wife was enough to pull him out of a violent midlife crisis and made him such a powerful guardian of Earth that Heaven broke its own rules just to put him back in that position

and Toei was like 'okay but in the sequel to that plot their marriage is terrible and he's never home'

[babymillennial]

At the risk of setting off a bomb in the Aaravos and Leola fandoms, I do wonder if we ever talk about how--if Aaravos's description of his daughter is accurate--she would probably hate what he's become in her absence.

[cuntela]

the way i can write a whole essay about how they're meant to be together and how cute and perfect they'd look..................

[umbrellajam]

watching the Superman trailer:

CLARK KENT JE T'ADORE!!!!!!!!

[a-gay-bloodmage]

Day 28: Jumbo 

(Cassandra x Ozol Adaar, Pre-Relationship)

Ozol Adaar had gotten used to a select few things in the human settlement of Hercinia after fleeing the Qun. Now, stuck in Haven, he’s dealing with what it means for a jumbo-sized Inquisitor to come, quite literally, face to face with human doorways.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

People who say that Beauty and the Beast (1991) endorses Stockholm Syndrome and domestic abuse have very grossly missed the entire point of the story.

[necrotic-nephilim]

ok but consider this:

jayrose is already established but they want to try and have a threesome with kara, so both of them keep flirting with her and teasing her until she just snaps and then fucks both of them into the ground. they don't know that kara was a red lantern and is into some kinky shit, and they assumed they'd end up breaking her, but then she rims rose while riding jason and they both just lose it. I'm talking overstimulation until they're sobbing, fingering jason while he fucks rose, getting jason to fuck rose at super speed, riding jason at super speed until he disloctaes his hip, fingering rose until she dislocates her hip. ot3

ooooh i *love* this-

i have to admit i know next to nothing about Rose Wilson or Kara Zor-El. i've only really read comics with Rose that didn't handle her well, and as for Kara, i've always been more of a Power Girl than a Supergirl fan so, i don't think i've read anything significant with Kara. that said, the thing that i always enjoy about her whenever i witness her from a distance is her anger and how it always seems to sit under the surface, begging to be unleashed. and i love taking Kryptonians in sex to the extreme with just. absolutely fucked up shit. especially if it's not what the other character(s) expect.

love love the idea of Kara trying to keep her composure against Jason and Rose trying to flirt and rile her up. Jason and Rose can be two very crass, aggressive people. together, they're almost unbearable or Kara to handle, all the flirting and innuendos when they have no idea what they're getting themselves into with her. i like the idea of Kara holding herself back from sex -especially with humans- because she knows she's one for violent hatefucking and she knows humans are way too fragile to all that. it's not that she's not interested in Jason and Rose- if anything she's a little *too* interested. she just knows they don't know exactly what she's capable of. that said, there is something nice for her to be the center of attention. she's never the first Kryptonian people think of, and as far as the "every Bat has a Kryptonian" jokes go, she's never had her own Bat, especially one that comes with a pretty girlfriend who's just a little unhinged. it's even more fun if there's some angst to go along with it, bc Kara knows these are two people who would *understand* her anger, but she doesn't want to hurt them with it.

so when they *finally* make her snap, it's fun. i think it's extra fun if there's some kind of Red Kryptonite sort of situation involved bc i adore Red Lantern Kara a lot and i like putting her at the mercy of her own anger in other situations like that. so the wrong comment from Jason or Rose about how she looks all bloody and angry after a fight and she just snaps. she grabs them both and literally *flies off* until she finds an open field in the middle of nowhere that's secluded enough and wipes the smug looks off both Jason and Rose's faces.

you mentioned Kara making Jason fuck Rose at superspeed and i am *so* into exploring superspeed as like. a *painful* kind of sex. because human bodies just aren't decided to handle that level of friction. i like the thought of Jason liking the idea of it at first, thinking it's something like human vibrator stuff. but by the end he's squirming and whining from his body being forced past it's limits and Rose is just a mess underneath him.

everytime they think Kara is done, she goes at one of them again. spreading Rose's legs too wide to eat her out and holding down Rose as she struggles, even if it dislocates joints. Rose's body can heal pretty instantly, which if anything, only adds to how Kara finds new ways to bend and break it. Jason thinks he'll get a reprieve when he physically *can't* come anymore and Kara rode him so hard that his own hip is in the wrong place, but instead of stopping, she just flips him over and starts fingering him. Kara doesn't care if either of them bleed. she doesn't care if bones end up in the wrong places. this is what they wanted so badly, and now, they can take it. i think it's fun if she shoves the hilt of one of Jason's knives inside of him and tells him he better be careful and make sure it doesn't slip out-

i think it's fun exploring pain tolerance and stamina in a sexual way when you're dealing with vigilantes. how far could Kara take it before Jason and/or Rose are begging her to stop. how many bruises are going to cover their body. at what point does Kara even *decide* to stop, bc sure, she's doing this for the sexual release but she's also just doing it to get out all the pent-up anger and frustration she's been harboring for the months they've been teasing her. she's not even *really* letting loose, that's the fun part. letting loose would break them too far. she's basically just *toying with Jason and Rose. at some point Jason even gets jealous of Rose's healing factor bc it means Kara can go further with her, and is less careless about holding Rose's chest so tight that ribs crack. even overstimulated and in so much pain he can barely think, Jason is *delighted* by this side of Kara he didn't know about and wants to see how far she goes. he'd risk the Lazarus Pit again just to give her the chance to stop holding back, honestly. and Rose is thriving too. no one has ever taken advantage of her healing factor like this, not even Jason during their most kinky sessions. it's that feral sort of inhuman state they're both reduced to until Kara is satisfied. she probably *almost* leaves them in the middle of nowhere, but decides to be kind and plop them on a random rooftop in Gotham, even though most of their clothes are gone and neither of them can walk. it's a subtle reminder of how far she *could* go if she wanted to. it's her way of telling them to not mess with her bc next time, she'll drop them off in the Arctic if she has to.

of course, they mess with her again.

[stellerssong]

ok sorry the OTHER thing about lucienne is like. as previously stated she is dream's handpicked emissary from the waking world to the dreaming she's the diplomat in chief she's the translator she's the bridge. because the dreaming is, in a very real way, dream's own psyche, this is tantamount to giving lucienne a tremendous degree of access to his interiority and by transitive property also tantamount to entering into a deeply emotionally intimate relationship with her (unimportant for the purposes of this post whether that relationship is platonic or romantic).

now, in general, looking at the pattern of dream's close emotional relationships—dream doesn't share himself with people as a rule (beyond the access that all things that live have to the dreaming; but i'm talking about his self here, the one he doesn't like to acknowledge he even has), but when he does share with people, it's with people who have some shadow on the soul, so to speak. just looking at attested relationships in show canon, his deepest emotional connection seems to be with death, who embodies the duality of light and dark even better than he does himself. calliope is the muse of epic poetry—heroism and tragedy—and also bears the sort of divine pride that led her to cut dream off for hundreds or thousands of years when he wronged her. the less said about that other guy, the better, but he's no sunshine-rainbows-unicorns type—he's a soldier of fortune, a bandit and a killer, a man who profits from the sale of human life. even best bird matthew, in comix canon, had a sordid past that will maybe be partially retconned for the show but has still been gestured at.

dream likes the complicated ones. he's drawn to them. they speak to something in him that he won't acknowledge in himself (he has to be Whole, fully integrated, without reservation, because he is the king and he is the dreaming and if the dreaming ain't whole then the universe is in trouble—but he feels that ache nonetheless).

all that is to say: when people try to portray lucienne as dream's Designated Well-Adjusted Neurotypical Friend, i begin to harm and maim.

[rameen-ye]

Rip Jane Austen, she would've loved Kaz Brekker

[finncakes]

would LOVE to hear more on ur fearne/fcg thoughts omg 👀

OH MAN. i honestly just like their dynamic a lot and i am a sucker for the roger rabbit/jessica rabbit kind of ships. fcg and the bad bitch they pulled by being silly. it won't happen though i know since fcg is a robot and for some reason that seems to always mean no romance :[

[fideidefenswhore]

What are your thoughts on Jane Boleyn, and the role she supposedly played in the fall of 3 Queens (Anne Boleyn, Anna of Cleves, Katheryn Howard)? Do you think she has been too maligned by historians for centuries, especially when it comes to the relationship with the Boleyns (it seems she got along with Anne)?

Now that I've read both works and compared them side by side, I suppose I would say my stance on Jane Boleyn falls somewhere in between that of Julia Fox and James Taffe ('Somewhere in between' is not, btw, Alison Weir); although closer to the former than the latter. Offering critique of both biographies, I would say that of JF is too apologetic (smoothing out wrinkles that exist in her arguments rather than acknowledging them) and JT is too severe.

Especially when it comes to the relationship with the Boleyns? Yes and no. Obviously she was married to George, she sent him a message of comfort while he was in the Tower, and wore only black the rest of her life, which was quite the potent statement. However, I would allow for the possibility that she potentially, inadvertently implicated him or AB (ie, testimony of hers was twisted to suit the crown's case). This is where I think there are flaws in the arguments of some of her defenders-- they cannot allow for even that possibility and so make claims that disallow it; some of which are untrue. 'Jane was only blamed as a means of absolving Henry in the whitewash of Elizabethan propagandists' is not true. Johannes Sleidan in 1545 claimed that Anne and George died by her 'false accusation'. Sleidan was a Reformer, so he would have been more sympathetic towards the plights of these two than the average person, and would have spoken to others that were as well, but the motivation to vindicate Elizabeth did not yet exist; she was at this point the very unlikely third in line to the throne.

I do appreciate that you said 'got along' with Anne, not 'besties', because...it's possible they were very close, certainly, but we must also allow for the possibility of animosity. The linchpin for the argument of closeness is the report from Chapuys that they 'conspired together' to banish Henry's mistress from court. Was this the precise truth? Considering the source I'm doubtful. Probably there was a lady Henry was serving at this time (although that we never have a name makes the story somewhat suppositious), but did they need to have 'conspired together' against her for Jane to be banished from court (which is what happened instead)? Jane might have merely made Anne aware of her, and Henry finding out that she'd been the source would have been enough for banishment. Or, as was presented plausibly in Adrienne Dillard's fictional rendition, Jane might have dropped hints to Cromwell that this mistress was a supporter of the two exiled and contumacious royal women that were Anne's adversaries, Cromwell might have passed this along to Henry, and Henry might have banished Jane for shattering the illusion that this woman had no independent ambitions or ulterior motives and merely let him hit for the sheer pleasure of his company.

If this was evidence of closeness, and it might be, then we also have to remember that the end result was Jane's banishment from court, and that there is, as JT fairly pointed out, no evidence that any of the Boleyns spoke in her defense, favor, or for her return. It would take an extremely magnanimous person to accept all that with equanimity and not feel any resentment whatsoever. So, if there was intimacy, there might have also been rift.

That leaves the question: enough 'rift' for her to seek vengeance? I doubt that much for all the reasons Fox outlines in her biography, but at the same time I wish there was not this relentless push to only defend women that we assert 'deserve' defense, on the premise they were entirely selfless, accepted every insult with grace, never kept any grudges, never had personal ambitions (the actions she took during the queenships of those you mentioned would suggest otherwise), mixed emotions, or conflicting loyalties; that we could acknowledge that acknowledging the agency of historic women also means acknowledging they were capable of making mistakes.

[aro-aizawa]

seemingly the only way i can ever get into any new thing is if i spontaneously decide to watch/read it