#it also makes ME feel invalidated and ignored bc everything has to be about her life

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Tired of every conversation with my mom having to get filtered through her own personal experiences like. You do not actually have an anecdote or a story about a relative to relate to every scenario and all she does is use them to invalidate current situations and experiences of other people. Most things are not in fact about you and should not be comprehended only through finding the closest relatable thing you did 40 years ago and considering that to be the ultimate example of renting or car insurance or job hunting or college. Not everything is like something else and everything should be considered in context

[bonefall]

How do you feel about "character joins bloodclan" aus? Im curious about ur thoughts since youre really in tune with the themes of the series but personally i just hate them bc its ALWAYS aimed at 'unfortunate' characters and always ALWAYS ignores the fact that bloodclan is a horrible place in-canon and that they're just reflavoring the abuse and trauma the characters qent through to be more emo or goth themed.

Ravenpaw is ALWAYS a prime target for this and its like. Great. You took the character being abused by their mentor figure and is being harmed from the violent culture the clan has generated... and giving them an EMO mentor figure who will inevitably abuse them and harm them as a result of the violent culture the emo clan has generated. Sasha is another one I've noticed- you've put the woman who lost her kit and is struggling to survive with the others while being controlled and abused by someone who sees her as an outsider (aka alone and easy to isolate), and are gonna put her in a faction who specifically separates kin from one another to easily control them and who have canonically tried murdering those who stick with their family. What was gained here.

Like i know bloodclan is revamped in ur au (thank god for it) but in canon bloodclan is HORRIBLE. People ignore that in favor of putting their favs into bloodclan bc bloodclan is cool and killed tigerstar that one time bc of revenge. Ravenpaw becomes Scourge AUS are SO SO SO much worse bc of this too- sure you manage to point out how scourge and raven has roughly similar stories in their youth but you could also do something interesting and make an au where raven and scourge are FOILS and do a firestar/scourge thing, while pointing this comparison out!! Instead you just went "Ravenpaw emo now and is sad about beating up Firestar his friend" and basically kept everything the same.

Sorry im basically venting here but i just dont like how people forget that scourge in canon does NOT look out for the 'little guy', he's a murderer and abuser who wants to keep his subjects afraid and separated so that he alone has power over them. Bloodclan is not the cool strong goth group, its the group where two cats slaughter eachother over a piece of twoleg scraps, only for the survivor to die bc the food was poisonous to cats and no one knew bc theres no cohesive group that can pass that knowledge around. its a fucking horrible place to live. Im not saying that you cant do interesting "character in bloodclan" aus (a Rusty who lives in bloodclan who STILL wants to do good but is shaped by the horrid reality of bloodclan would be fun imo) but its so often used with already traumatized characters as a 'solution' or 'fix-it with some emotional issues involved' that i just foam at the mouth and howl like a rabid animal on principle at this point.

Hmm... I think for me, it doesn't tend to read that way for me when the fandom makes AUs for it. I'm coming at BloodClan from a point of really deep critique and frustration.

BloodClan's not a REAL place, and what that means is, every speck of how horrible it was is a choice the writers made to justify its treatment. It was something they actively decided, because, BloodClan was a tool to suddenly invalidate the previous 5 books of TPB so that the series could comfortably conclude there was no need to upset the status quo.

If you haven't read it before, I recommend this post I made on how Darkest Hour Is A Personal Disappointment, but anyway;

We spend a whole series on how Fireheart challenges a broken society, because he is different. Their xenophobia, how isolationism and glory get people killed, the way that Tigerstar's greatest asset is how respected he is... these are bad things. They're things that Fireheart fights for several books.

But then, in the LAST book, in the 11th inning, they introduce BloodClan. They're just evil. They have no nuance. The narrative bends over backwards to stress that this group of evil foreigners LOVES murder, hates friendship, and doesn't believe in our good god.

Suddenly, the Clan cats have to be EXTRA xenophobic and glorious to kill these filthy, murderous foreign hordes. Clan cat belief in their good god makes them stronger than the bloodthirsty barbarians. Firestar kills Scourge and we can feel happy and triumphant about it, when Tigerstar was killed a few chapters ago and given a tragic sendoff.

So, I encourage you to step back from an emotional response to how Filthy and Murderous this group was portrayed, and look at it as a writing choice.

When Tigerstar, known cat-racist and murderer of mixed-race people, is killed by Scourge in self-defense, he is grieved by Firestar and commended for his "good qualities". (and then they retconned in that it was actually secretly revenge all along, not just self defense, so this killing is extra evil)

When Scourge is killed, Firestar just thinks about how it's cool he's not going to heaven, and how all of the previously ferocious BloodClan warriors look so inferior to the forest Clans.

And so, with all that said,

I'm 100% in favor of how the fandom widely looks at this, says, "fuck that" and just makes them the Cool Goth Group. I'd argue pretty strongly that the least nuanced idea of that is still infinitely better than canon.

There was nothing there. It was literally just Xenophobia-Is-JustifiedClan. They literally hated love and friendship and banned families so that Clan cats would look good in comparison. Banned families. You don't get this level of stupid evil from anything else but an 80s cartoon.

Maybe I just don't see the AUs you tend to see (I curate my Tumblr experience very well and generally hang out in more adult-oriented spaces, I can imagine a place like Amino being mostly kids who tend to be immature. Edgelord Angstpiddle is just a normal part of growing up), but every project I see that gives me a glimpse of BloodClan Ravenpaws and Sashas come with such tweaks already assumed.

Like, these are examples I've seen,

They'll have Raven be involved with the formation of BloodClan

Scourge will actually be a character with some pity and mercy, like how he was in Rise of Scourge when his abusive siblings begged him for food, and he fed them before sending them away.

no ban on love and friendship. Lol. Lmao, even.

More of the social structure will be based around acquiring food for people in a 'harsh' environment, leading to that battle, instead of just Evil Foreign Greed (which canon!scourge only had after being almost killed by tigerstar, because he said "actually, in light of new information that you are a murderer, i need to reconsider our deal.")

BloodClan will be overhauled completely. I've seen this a few ways. Connecting them to SkyClan, or the Oakstar raids on Chelford, or even as a positive entity; a surprise ally. (VERY common with BloodClan Ravenpaw AUs I've seen).

Anyways... (Shrug), I dunno dude, it doesn't bother me that much.

[todayisawthewhxlewxrld]

HAI FRIEND

i’ve literally been obsessed w ur megumi smau since like chp. 14 or something LOLL,, i have this thing where i just psychoanalyze characters and ive been thinking a lot about yn like hm…

(THIS MIGHT BE A LUTTLE LONG BTW SO FEEL FREE TO JUST LIKE IGNORE THIS BUT I RLLY WANT TO TALK ABT HER)

like yn (to a lot of people) may be like a little intolerable but honestly i think the reason we have such a reaction to her personality like that is bc we see a little bit of ourselves in her if that makes sense…

PERSONALLY, I AM A YN DEFENDER FOR LIKE THATS MY HOMEGIRL.. like imagine you grew up in a world where soulmates are the basis of your romantic future. the sheer fact that that in itself already builds a sense of you either love your soulmate or hate them in someones head (considering that most of the time,, soulmates are portrayed as; first time you meet, you just know)

yn,, having met megumi long before you brain could have developed a coherent understanding of relationships, and lacking in the sense that when she met megumi,, she didn’t feel sparks like they said she would, obviously, she would categorize those feelings as hate. THATS WHY WHEN MEGUMI SAID “i dont think you really ever hated me either” HIT SO HARD FOR ME I WAS LIKE OH MY GOD…

BASICALLY WHAT IM GETTING AT is the fact that there is so much pressure already due to the fact that soulmates are said to be your other halves, so if you don’t like them, theres immense pressure and insecurity (hence yn’s hostility to the subject of her hating megumi because she has no comprehended idea of why she actually hates him) plus the fact that they met when they were kids and that probably affected the way she saw relationships in the first place EXPLAINS WHY SHE IS SO ADMENT ON BEING INDIFFERENT TO HIMMM

ok… another thing (sorry)..

AS MUCH as i love yn’s friend group,,, THEY LOWKEY PISS ME OFF THE SAME WAY YN PISSES ME OFF HELP..

OK SO,, obviously i’d also get pissed off if my friends get hostile bc i bring something up to want to understand them better, BUT at the same time, i would also have some sympathy 😢😢

LIKE,, their immediate response is to press harder, and try to solve the problem and if youre looking at texts like that thru yn’s eyes, it will prob lowkey feel like your feelings are being invalidated. yn is already confused, probably insecure about her love life, and now having to literally throw up her heart into her hands just for her friends to understand why they feel that way,, like she’s not gnna want to do that no matter how close they are (but maybe thats js me idk…) and then their immediate response to her not wanting to show that side of her is to get pissed off like i’d be mad and sad like yn too :(

i think those are all the points i was thinking sbt but if not im not gnna try to rmbr the rest bc this is alr super long.. BUT I HOPE U ENJOYED MY RANT AND I LOVE UR SMAU AND I LOVE U MUAH I HOPE U HAVE A GREAT DAY

I LOVE U I LOVE U I LOVE U

i absolutely ADOREEEE when people psychoanalyze the characters (mostly only when the analysis is correct tho LMFAOAO autism.) BECAUSE I DO THE SAME THINGGG i kinda have to when i’m doing plot heavy smaus like this to make sure everything fits n there’s the least amount of plot holes possible blah blah blah insert my annoying rambling on how i write

ANYWAY i loved ur analysis u r so amazing n so right ! like i get yn is annoying but lord have mercy so is everyone else that’s the POINTTTTT NO ONE HERE IS ACTUALLY IN THE WRONG OR BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE. EVERYONE HAS THEIR REASONING FOR WHAT THEY DO OR DONT DO!!! ugh sorry okay i’m gonna shut up now i could talk about this forever i fear .

I LOVE UUUU HAVE A GREAT DAYYYY

[firelxdykatara]

gods, ok, apparently i’m not done.

atla fandom? we need to have a chat.

(....ok that made me sound pretentious as fuck. and maybe i am, but this needs to be said, cause i’m getting....real, real tired of a Certain Corner of this fandom and as a result, this is gonna be a discourse-heavy post so feel free to scroll past if that’s not your bag. as always, my salt posts all carry the catch-all #salt for ts tag, which you’re free to blacklist/filter at your leisure. i’m Very Annoyed at the moment, which will probably come through in the following post, so just. yknow. be prepared for that. or ignore it, that’s perfectly valid too.)

under a cut bc i do care for my followers and their sanity i swear lmao

there’s a real serious issue in this fandom with not understanding what queer terminology actually means or implies, especially when applied to a fictional narrative.

i’m specifically talking about ‘coding’, here. (if i were in a more meme-y mood, i might have said ‘the atla fandom found out about the term “gay-coding” and haven’t shut up since’.)

to the people who say ‘zuko is gay-coded’, i have this to say: you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. because he isn’t. i’m sorry, but he’s not! and the fact that this is such a prevalent claim in this fandom is distressing, bc it says to me that none of y’all know what gay-coding is or when and how to apply it! please, i’m begging you, go and look up these terms and what they mean and when they should be used before actually trying to plug them into your critical analysis, because when you misuse them and then call other people delusional for disagreeing with you it casts a pall over the entire fandom and is, i think, the root of some of the worst toxicity this fandom has to offer.

and the thing is, there are cases where gay-coding would apply--for instance, a couple series that are famous for queerbaiting their audience by coding their main characters as being attracted to one another (sometimes even despite their openly stated sexualities) come to mind, but those shows bare no similarities at all to atla and how zuko was written and portrayed! (and it would be funny, if it weren’t so obnoxious and infuriatingly wide-spread throughout the fandom, because the only queer couple we actually seen on-screen in either show wasn’t even queer-coded in any respect, and they’re canonically bi! [yes, i’m shading korrasami, or more accurately i’m shading bryke for refusing to give ka the build-up and development they deserved].)

this absolutely isn’t to say that headcanoning zuko as gay is a bad thing or invalid in any respect. (although the tendency for zukka shippers to do this specifically to keep zuko away from katara and/or invalidate his canon relationship/attraction to girls is more than a little eyebrow raising. especially since sokka is usually allowed to be bi, bc fans have no problem letting sukka stay in the background bc it’s no real threat, while jetko shippers are happy to have both boys be bi. [possibly bc katara is less a threat to jetko bc jetkotara is every bit as valid as any single ship between the three, but zukka can’t exactly let katara join in, and if the potential exists for zuko to be attracted to her then canon giving them the far deeper emotional bond becomes a threat to zukka’s existence? idk for sure--you be the judge.]) i prefer to hc zuko as bi (and always have, long before the atla renaissance), bc i don’t think zuko being attracted to boys is outside the realm of possibility, and it isn’t a threat to my ship since zuko&katara had a deep and emotional bond in canon that is very easy to develop further into something that becomes explicitly romantic--but the headcanon itself isn’t really the problem (although what it’s often in service to can be).

it’s the strange insistence that this is the only way to read his character, bc he was coded that way and so anyone who doesn’t see it must be too straight to understand--and i really shouldn’t have to say why and how that is so incredibly fucking insulting. (the ‘hetero lenses’ comment wasn’t cute when it came from bryke six years ago, and the same sentiment being repackaged and delivered by zukka shippers ain’t cute now.)

calling zuko gay-coded not only demonstrates ignorance as to what the term actually means, and how to usefully apply it in critical analysis, but also validates the frankly bullshit insertion of institutionalized homophobia in the world of atla where it was neither needed, nor wanted, nor ever hinted at in canon. as a queer woman i’m still infuriated by one fucking comic panel shoving institutionalized and systemic homophobia into a world where it was entirely unnecessary (and doing this in the first installment of the franchise showcasing a queer relationship??? making korra and asami worried about ‘coming out’ when they could have just gone on to have cute adventures together and tell people ‘hey we’re dating’ and have everyone else be ‘that’s awesome =DDD’ [because it is, in fact, possible to just have a world without homophobia i promise!!!!!] double yikes, i’m still pissed at bryke about it), and i doubly hate that ‘zuko is gay coded’ has become so widespread that ‘ozai hates him bc he’s gay’ has become a staple in that part of the fandom.

not only does making zuko gay and implying (or outright stating) that ozai hated and abused him because of it completely undermine zuko’s character arc by making his abuse about his sexuality rather than ozai’s toxic pride and anger at seeing himself reflected in his ‘weak’ son, but it comes very close to outright stating that abuse and trauma are inherently gay experiences, and they aren’t!!! they really aren’t, i promise!!!

abuse and trauma narratives exist outside of ‘my dad hates me because i’m gay’. and, quite frankly, there are MORE THAN ENOUGH queer trauma narratives out in the world. we do not need to start trying to retroactively make them canon in a series where they didn’t exist! if you’re gay and see yourself in zuko and project your own experiences on him, that’s understandable and valid. that does not make zuko gay-coded. and honestly, the insistence that he is makes very little sense to me, because you’re essentially trying to give the show credit for work you put into interpreting the characters! why would you want to do that? why not own your own headcanons and take credit for them, rather than insisting they are canon and everyone else is wrong for not seeing them??? like, i’ve said before that i’ve always headcanoned zuko (and katara) as bi, and even support it with my interpretations of evidence from the show, but the difference between ‘i think zuko is bi’ and ‘zuko is definitely gay-coded’ is that i know that bi zuko is my interpretation of canon, and that it is work i’m putting into the show that wasn’t actually intended by the creators/writers, no matter how much sexual tension i read into the jetko swordfight.

and like, zuko’s character arc doesn’t actually parallel a queer one all that well to begin with. it’s easy enough to do the work and twist it sideways just enough to make the general points fit, but the fact is, zuko’s arc is not one of self-discovery. it’s not one of coming to understand something fundamental about himself that he can’t change, that he was hated for, and coming out to his father in a dramatic confrontation where he shows that he understands himself and doesn’t need his father’s acceptance to be fulfilled.

zuko’s arc is actually one of trauma and healing. and those can (and often are--like i said, there are more than enough queer trauma narratives in the world, atla really doesn’t need to be one of them) be part of queer narratives, for sure! but they aren’t uniquely queer. and zuko’s confrontation with ozai during the eclipse doesn’t read like a ‘coming out’ at all. (yes, i’ve seen that post. yes, i rolled my eyes and moved on, bc unlike some people, i’m capable of not clowning on correctly tagged posts i disagree with.) zuko is specifically confronting ozai over his abuse, because his arc wasn’t about discovering anything fundamental about himself (and therefore realizing that ozai was hating him for something he couldn’t change)--it was about realizing that he was not at fault for the way his father treated him. it was also about realizing that the fire nation was broken and corrupt at its core, and that his father was an aspect of that he needed to break away from so that he could help the world begin to heal.

he says it himself:

Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.

making this about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

anyway, uh, that was a lot of words, so have a tl;dr: zuko is not gay-coded. there is nothing uniquely gay (or even uniquely queer) about his character arc or characterization, and he was certainly not coded gay in an attempt to sneak a queer character past the censors. if anyone involved with atla was gonna try that, it would’ve been in lok, and as established, they didn’t even manage to queer-code the actual queer relationship before the last few minutes of the final episode. headcanoning zuko as gay is absolutely fine (though if it’s only done to keep him away from female characters he may otherwise be attracted to, that smells more like misogyny than anything else), but insisting that this reading is the only one that makes sense, and anyone who doesn’t agree must be straight (hello, queer woman here making this insanely long thinkpiece) is very much not.

ship what you like, but stop trying to invalidate other ships and other interpretations of characters just to make your ship seem more plausible. it’s really not a good look.

[bestworstcase]

I like your thoughts on how Rapunzel was handling things wrong in “Rapunzel: Day One.” The episode tries to imply that Cassandra is wrong for not sharing her feelings with Rapunzel, but is a Rapunzel really the person Cassandra should be opening up to? Rapunzel never respects Cassandra’s boundaries. Cassandra’s a private person. Rapunzel doesn’t respect that. And just because Cassandra doesn’t want to open up to everyone doesn’t mean that she’s bottling things up.

ok so this is gonna be a long one bc tbh i like. fundamentally disagree that RDO, the narrative of RDO, in any way positions cassandra as the one at fault for the emotional conflict between her and raps.

to digress a bit - while tts is not immune to Aesop Episodes (e.g. rapunzel's enemy or you're kidding me) wherein the characters close out the story by talking about What They've Learned, ultimately i don't think tts can or should be read as a morality play. it's a story where sometimes characters just... fuck up and the narrative doesn't waste its time on hand-holding or spoon-feeding us the moral.

anyway, i submit that RDO is what i'll call a False Aesop Episode. it follows the basic structure of an Aesop Episode (protagonist acts badly -> protagonist learns a lesson) but the lesson rapunzel learns is a bad one. it's like if you took... say, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" as an aesop, the False Aesop here is rapunzel confidently eating a rotten apple and then being blindsided a few months later when the doctor who kept begging her not to eat food with maggots in it steals the moonstone from under her nose and runs off into the night with her new demon pal--

and that metaphor got away from me a little bit but you get the idea.

#1: constructing the conflict

the episode opens with cassandra. she's training; we see the sword fly out of her injured hand; lance suggests she take a break, and she answers, "thanks to rapunzel's little trick at the great tree, i have to relearn everything using this hand, so breaks aren't really an option."

she isn't harsh about it. her demeanor isn't all that different from her normal self—she even segues into a very typical concern (that the woods are dangerous and they should all be on their guard) and banters with lance a bit.

what this communicates, immediately and succinctly, is that:

1. cassandra's injury is severe. it's disabling. she's either in immense pain or she's lost all the strength in that hand or both.

2. cass is really upset about this, and not happy with rapunzel.

3. nevertheless cass is keeping her feelings more or less in check; the worst anyone could say about her is she's being a bit more curt than normal.

which is to say, she's acting quite reasonable. she's not taking out her hurt feelings on anyone else or being mean or lashing out, and she's not hiding her injury either. the most concerning thing about her behavior here is actually that she's focused on training so she can do her job instead of on healing or resting or taking care of herself.

then there's a pan over to rapunzel, who is angrily watching this play out while venting to pascal. "i get why cass is mad at me," she says. "she told me—" huge disdainful rolling of eyes here "—not to use the decay spell back and the tree, and i did, and she hurt her hand. but if she had just listened to me and stayed out of it, this all could have been avoided! and i feel like we could work things out, but she refuses to talk about it!!"

line this up against cassandra's behavior and spot the differences.

cass is focused on her injured hand. cass is upset because rapunzel accidentally mutilated her in the great tree. that's what this conflict is about for cass; her injury, and how she feels about being injured.

by contrast, rapunzel thinks the conflict is about them not listening to each other. she does acknowledge that cass was injured, but 1. she puts the blame on cass, and 2. has shoved the fact of the injury to the periphery of the conflict. it's not important, it's just a natural consequence of the real conflict, which is cass being mad and petty and refusing to talk to her about how she's unfairly blaming rapunzel for something that wasn't rapunzel's fault.

[i will add here that this behavior from rapunzel is 100% not knowing how to handle guilt and externalizing it as anger, and this thread of rapunzel burying her guilt gets picked up again in rapunzeltopia; it isn't that rapunzel doesn't care that cass is hurt, so much as she's just not emotionally equipped to process these feelings in a healthy way so it mutates into...this.]

and where cass handles her feelings in a pretty reasonable way, rapunzel rants and raves and draws cass as a literal monster with fangs and claws—she's stewing in her out of control emotions and concludes that she just has to find a way to force cass talk to her, which she does shortly thereafter by ordering—not asking—cass to come with her to search for parts to fix the caravan.

#2: the breakdown of communication

i've said it before but it bears repeating: cassandra might not be perfect, but she's a good communicator. in s1 and the front half of s2, she shares her feelings with rapunzel readily and frequently. when she tries to set boundaries with rapunzel, she's able to be clear and specific about what she needs. when she expresses frustration with eugene or her dad or rapunzel, she's very articulate about exactly what she's frustrated about. she can recognize when politer, softer refusals are being ignored and become blunter and more specific to ensure the message is getting across.

the moments when cass struggles to communicate are noteworthy because they're not normal. they signal that she's in acute crisis. think of how her unhinged rant about adira in RATGT heralded a complete emotional breakdown. she clams up in RDO because it's the only thing she can do to protect herself. because rapunzel is an inexperienced nineteen year old who learned all her social "skills" from a manipulative, egotistical abuser and nowhere in the series does that show more than in RDO.

rapunzel knows cass doesn't want to talk about the great tree, so she isolates cass from the rest of the group with the intention of forcing her to talk about it anyway. she's passive aggressive at first: chattering about inanities and trying to bait cass into 'opening up,' and acting vexed and guilt-trippy when she finds out cass brought owl along. she broaches the subject by going "too bad there's not an open-up-to-your-best-friend-about-the-thing-you-guys-are-fighting-about wand, huh?"

then she leads with "i know you're mad at me, but i did the right thing. i didn't have a choice," which... what can cass even say to that? she acknowledged cassandra's anger in one breath and followed up with "but you're wrong tho" in the next. that statement makes cassandra's feelings about her debilitating injury into an argument about Who Was Right.

this is a game that cass tries very hard not to play. "look, if you feel that way, then it's fine. we're good," she says, which is a statement that is not true at all on its face but - what it means is that if rapunzel wants to turn this into a debate about Who Was Right, cass will concede because that's not an argument she's invested in. cass does not want to put her feelings on trial so rapunzel can pick them apart and decide whether she deserves to have them or not.

so she disengages. the sun sets. they camp. rapunzel pokes her again, this time with a more direct approach: "cass, i need to talk about what we both know is going on between us."

and that's when cass throws up a WALL. prior to RDO, when cass is pressed on her feelings, she either: 1. opens up and explains to the extent that she's able (e.g. under raps or RATGT), or 2. flatly shuts the conversation down (e.g. cassandra vs eugene). but in RDO?

"there's nothing to talk about."

"i never said i was upset."

"what makes you so sure that you know how i'm feeling?"

this is cass falling off the end of her rope. this is a cass who spent the last year and a half with rapunzel running roughshod over every boundary cass exhausted herself trying to set. this is cass maybe a few weeks out from rapunzel screaming at her in front of all their mutual friends and then telling her "i am going to make decisions you don't agree with and i need you to be okay with that" when cass tried to open up about her deepest insecurities. this is cass spiraling into despair because she's seen that her best friend cares more about assuaging her own guilt and exerting her authority as a princess than she does about cassandra's feelings.

this is the moment when the friendship dies.

#3: the memory wipe, cassandra's apology, and the false aesop

the details of the tangled-but-cass shenanigans are not super important for the purposes of this discussion. suffice it to say that cassandra lashes out in the heat of the moment, seriously harms rapunzel by mistake, and spends the rest of the episode trying to repair the damage, then apologizes to rapunzel for hurting her. this is, obviously, the correct thing to do when you hurt someone, even if it was an accident.

you see the parallel here, yeah?

rapunzel hurt cass with magic by accident, and then made cass's hurt feelings all about her, blamed cass for the injury, twisted the facts to justify her own indignation, picked a fight about Who Was Right and invalidated cassandra's feelings, and pushed and pushed and pushed until cass blew up and lashed out at her.

cassandra also hurt rapunzel with magic by accident, and then she set aside her own hurt feelings from the argument they were having before to focus one hundred percent of her energy on brewing a cure and keeping amnesiac rapunzel safe, readily admitted her fault, and offered an earnest apology for losing her temper as soon as she could reasonably do so.

if RDO were a true Aesop Episode, this would be the lesson, and rapunzel would of course learn from cassandra's good example and reciprocate by apologizing for the accident in the great tree and her abysmal behavior afterwards—and in a reflection of how cass shared how bottling up her anger allowed it to erupt in a catastrophic way, rapunzel would probably confess that her demanding, selfish behavior came from a place of feeling awful about what happened and terrified that it would ruin their friendship.

but RDO is a False Aesop Episode. rapunzel isn't emotionally equipped to handle the intensity of her guilt, and she lacks the social insight and empathy to draw comparisons between what she did to cass and what cass did to her, so she can't connect the two situations in her head to understand what she's doing wrong. the true aesop flies right over her head, and instead what she learns is this:

1. she was right about cass being upset

2. backing cass into a corner fixed the problem

3. friends really do "just know"

4. being pushy and forceful was the right thing to do.

because the thing is, when cass apologizes for the accidental memory wipe, she truthfully explains why she acted the way she did—she's furious and she didn't want to talk about it, so she held it in as long as she could and then exploded when the pressure became too much—and for rapunzel, i think the explanation and the actual apology get conflated. meaning, cass says "i'm sorry for what i did out of anger" and what rapunzel hears is "i'm sorry for being angry."

and because of that misunderstanding, from rapunzel's perspective her own indignation has been validated and her behavior justified, because she was right all along and cass shouldn't have been angry with her in the first place and now everything is fine--

but it's not fine.

we're not supposed to share rapunzel's perspective here, because she's flat out wrong. nothing is really better and nothing has really changed, except that rapunzel got the talk she wanted and stops putting this intense pressure on cass. so as we enter the house of yesterday's tomorrow, rapunzel is taking it for granted that things are fine with cass, and meanwhile cass is still injured, still angry, still as aloof as she can be without getting rapunzel breathing down her neck again... and then she meets zhan tiri, who gives her everything she needed and couldn't get from rapunzel.

like, to my mind, this is the entire point of RDO, that rapunzel makes this catastrophic mess of trying to patch things up after RATGT and comes out of that mess wrongly thinking she succeeded. the episode is presented through the lens of rapunzel's perspective, but the lines are very wide and i absolutely think the intention is for the audience to read between them and understand the reality that rapunzel has sort of blinded herself to.

[cafeinthemoon]

The Senju brothers finding out their little sister is going out with Madara 💥

Lately I’ve been into family drama and such, so when anon requested this I couldn’t say no lol Btw thank you, anon, for this scandalous incredible idea 😘

In this scenario/list/idk we have the Senju brothers finding out their younger sister and Madara are seeing each other. As you might expect, the news provoke different reactions in each of them, but the main point is how she will deal with this situation.

So I’m gonna shut up now and leave you with this:

Fandom: Naruto | Senju Brothers

Warnings: none, just a heated argument and a looong list ahead

Symbols: 💙 | ◻ | ▶▶

Hashirama

Being Hashirama and Tobirama’s younger sister, of course you and Madara were known to each other, but being more than just a friend to him wasn’t in your plans… until now 😳

You used to admire and respect each other, not only because of the alliance between your clans, but mostly because you both were worthy being praised. Plus Hashirama has always been talkative about his best friend’s qualities, which slowly transformed the way you saw the Uchiha leader, but you only noticed this a few weeks ago

During a meeting/party/whatever at your brother’s house, Madara and you spent more time than usual talking to each other. Turned out that you discovered many things in common beyond the fact that you two were shinobi, including your views on life, politics, etc.

If Hashi noticed something, you couldn’t tell, but it was strange that during all the time you were there together he didn’t come to join you (not that you complained about it)

You and the Uchiha saw each other a few times on the next days, and the feeling of familiarity between you only grew. You weren't sure of how to call it. You were fond of each other, but saying that you were just friends didn’t seem to be enough now

You both agreed that it was too soon to name it as a date or something, so you didn't tell anyone, not even your brothers

You wanted to be sure of your own feelings before making a statement. Were you still friends? Were you really in love? Was it just a crush, a superficial attraction? You wanted to understand what was going on

During this time, Hashirama didn’t make a comment or anything that suggested that he was aware of this situation, so you were a bit surprised when one day, he came to talk to you about it

“So you and Madara are engaging in a secret romance and you dared leaving your big brother out of this, y/n? Where did you learn such behavior?!”

“Don’t you really know?”, you smirked

“Excuse me?!”

“Am I the first person in this family to keep secrets that involve Madara, Hashi?” 😑

THE REDNESS ON HIS CHEEKS WAS PRICELESS LMAO

Hashirama was your elder brother aka the person who has been taking care of you since your parents left this world, so not only his worries were valid, but he also had the right to know, so yeah, he was a bit disappointed that you didn't tell him first

Now, I think his feelings about this were not as plain as some can imagine. In fact, he had a mixture of contradicting feelings and ended up talking about them more than demanding an explanation from you

On one hand, he was happy because he loves you both, so finding out that his little sis and his soul brother might have started a relationship was exciting 💖

On the other hand, he was worried because you were even younger than Tobirama, while Madara was not only older but more experienced than you and he knew his friend’s flaws better than anyone else

However, Hashi was an understanding person and was willing to listen, so you explained your feelings and your reasons to him, as well as part of your conversations with Madara, pointing out that making things this way was a mutual decision, for the best of you two and the people you knew

He pointed out that despite not calling your meetings a date, you two were already thinking as a couple 😏

You blushed and asked him to keep quiet, at least for a while

He promised you he would not say anything, but not before hugging you tight and crying about how his lil sis was growing up so fast saying how much he was happy for you two 💓

Tobirama

Prepare yourself to get your ass smacked and burning for an entire week lmao

Okay, so as you can easily imagine, it didn’t take much effort from Tobirama to find out that something was going on between you and Madara

It wasn’t that you two were reckless, it was just that your second brother was not stupid an observing man (and tbh how hard it must be to keep a secret from a smart sensor shinobi, uh?)

Unlike Hashirama, who took some time to connect the dots, he noticed small changes in your routine and behavior since the start

Why have you been so quiet, distracted lately? What has been occupying your mind? You were spending more time alone and/or out, and (yeah, he noticed that) you weve more concerned about your looks and manners than usual. Of course you were up to something 

Besides, you’ve suddenly became too defensive towards Madara and the Uchihas in general. Anything Tobirama said that sounded slightly negative about them was promptly refuted by you. You seemed to have a deeper understanding of their ideologies now, as if you were having long conversations with their leader

So, it was with no surprise that you saw the storm coming ⚡

One day, Tobirama came to your room without warning and just by looking at him you knew he figured it out 

How did he find out? Hashirama and his big mouth, probably. Or did he follow you and saw you two together? Well, he could have simply traced your chakra and once he sensed Madara’s close to you, the riddle was solved. But did it matter now?

His first words: “What is it?”

You don't need an explanation: you little sis + Madara Uchiha problem™ + maintaining your privacy keeping secrets from him

And now you were a brat possessed with the Uchiha evil, and not just with any Uchiha evil but with MADARA’S Uchiha evil 🔥🔥🔥

There was no way for you to have a normal conversation in the current circumstances. You had a heated argument, and I’m sure you’re capable of imagining what it means to have a heated argument with Tobirama

“Tobi, listen to me, I-”

“No YOU listen to me you brat possessed with the Uchiha evil”

Your brother didn’t even let you speak. He stated that not telling anything to your elder brother was not only wrong, but some sort of betrayal, then started remembering serious sh*t from the past when you were so young that you couldn’t even carry a sword the right way and everything you’ve already heard from him countless times before

But now you were done with his incapacity of simply listen, so you just stated that your elder brother Hashirama already knew it and that it was you who asked him to keep it a secret just for a while

“Hashirama is our leader, and if he knows and approves it, that’s enough for me and that should be enough for you too!”

“Hashirama is too soft with you, and this is why you behave like this!”

“Like this how? Living my life without asking for your permission? Is that what you mean?”

“Being unnecessarily connected with a man with whom we need to be careful in our treats, that’s what I mean. Our elder brother purposely ignores the fragile spots of this alliance and you know it, so there’s no excuse for your attitude!”

“Speaking like this about our ally could be considered some sort of betrayal, Tobi. If I was you, I would be careful!”

“Why? Are you going to tell him in your next date?”

“GET OUT OF MY ROOM!”

“Yes, I’m getting out and having a serious conversation with our brother about this!”

“Tobirama, the war is over! We all have to move on, whether you like it or not! So instead of wasting your time with something that’s none of your business, you should go and live your life as well!”

Yes, you lost your temper, and you only realized it when your brother fell silent and lowered his tone

“You are right, lilttle sister. But let me tell you something. My way to show that I care about you might not resemble Hashirama’s, but my feelings towards you are not less deep than his”

You were heartbroken after he left, yes, but you had to stand your ground. Tobi could be very controlling if he was given space to, so you had to learn to deal with this early in your life. In this point you were better than Hashi, who was too easygoing for his own good, so you felt like you had to be strong on your resistance for both of you, otherwise Tobirama would dominate every aspect of your life without even realizing. You loved him as well, but your decisions didn’t have to always gravitate towards him

Still, you weren’t proud of your words about the war. That was a sensitive matter for Tobi. Despite his silence about it, you sensed he was offended. You knew you went too far 💔

The conclusion

Later, Hashirama came to mediate the conflict, and he had some words for both of you. When Tobirama and you found ourselves in the same room, you were about to start a new argument, but your eldest brother elevated his chakra and demanded you to be silent, bc now it was his time to speak

“Brother, I understand you are worried about our sister and I am sure she acknowledges your efforts to protect and guide her, but that doesn’t give you the right to interfere in her decisions regarding her own life. She’s right to remind you about our alliance with the Uchiha clan and to say that we need to move on. If moving on means starting a relationship with Madara in her case, things are what they are. It is her life, not yours. And do not think I haven’t talk to her about this. Y/n is no longer a child, Tobirama. She’s aware of the challenges of maintaining such connection with the Uchiha leader”

“Little sister, I understand that our brother’s way to express his worries uses to irritate you. It happened many times when you two were little. But that doesn’t invalidate the honesty of his intentions. He loves you and cares about you as much as I do. Besides, I’ve already talked to you about thoughtless mentions of the war. That was a though period for all of us, which includes your brother. You were not with us at the battlefield, that’s true, but you weren’t immune to the dark consequences of what happened at it. You mourned our siblings with us, but you were too young to understand everything that was involved. That was not Tobirama’s case. He doesn’t talk about it, but he has his reasons for that, and this must be respected”

Hashirama left you two hoping you would be capable of getting along again, which eventually happened, but at its own pace

The next day you found Tobirama working at his desk. He already acknowledged your presence, but that didn’t discourage you. You hugged him from behind and said you were going out to the river, and he could come with you if he wanted to fish. His first response was a groan

“Is there more people coming with us?” = “Is there any possibility of Madara showing up?”

You kissed his bristly hair

“No. Just us. I promise. And when we get back, I’ll cook fish for you”

Your brother’s next groan meant many things at once, “I agree”, “Thank you” and “I apologize” being some of them 😜

[veethesnake]

A collection of hastily typed out thoughts before the next episode airs:

- “Pietro” is in fact Peter from the X-Men movies

- Señor Scratchy is either Nicholas Scratch (I don’t really think so), a connection to Mephisto (apparently that’s a name for the devil? Who knew), or Agatha’s cat

- the fly is Mephisto, or a sign showing he’ll come soon (I mean, the devil attracts flies, right?)

- the twins are still alive, either in the basement or already handed over to Mephisto

- Dottie is another magic user, maybe one of the Salem’s Seven (which I don’t know much about), maybe a(nother) pawn of Mephisto’s

- I really wanted to read more about Salem etc, because once I heard about it I thought Westview might be Salem - but then I found out that it’s placed in a different US state so that’s probably nothing

- the mailman is still very suspicious, which actually made me think of Salem in the first place (lots of people seem suspicious aka possible magic users)

- very very random but the mailman could also turn out to be Agatha’s son, who knows

- I am PUMPED to see what Monica’s powers are, how she reacts, what she will do

- “Ralph” might just be Mephisto

- hang on, I just went to Mephisto’s wiki page to see if “Ralph” could be an abbreviation and... he’s also called “the messenger”? As in... “don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger”?!

- okay so Mephisto might have several forms, including the mailman and the fly and possibly the rabbit, too

- the question is... would Mephisto really take action and walk around giving the twins clues that their mother is up to no good? But on the other hand... he is a trickster, isn’t he

- so something that really stood out to me was “Pietro” saying “damn it, if Westview, New Jersey isn’t charming as hell” um? My dude? Do you mayhaps have actual knowledge about what hell looks like?? (What invalidates this thought is the German translation being not even close to this)

- so if Monica absorbs energy, I can’t wait to find out what happens when she meets Agatha and/or Wanda. Maybe she’s able to lift whatever spell Agatha used on Wanda?

- what about Herb? Is he just another victim, or does he know a little more? Argument for victim is Agatha using magic on him, argument for “something else” is him asking Wanda if she wanted anything changed

- what is the thing in Vision’s head? An illusion to look like the mind stone, the mind stone of a different universe (highly doubt that), something else that still gives him some sort of powers? He is able to change his appearance on his own, after all. He can fly, run fast, and used something on the computer, Norm and Agnes. Btw, what did Agatha think of Vision trying to use powers on her? Did it feel weird? Is she just able to ignore someone using their powers on her?

- is there another aero space engineer? Didn’t think of it, but after watching an interview with Teyonah Parris there might as well be someone else. Reed Richards would be cool bc of what I’ve read about Salem (I think he was there?? No?), any of the Skrulls in Captain Marvel would be dope, and I personably am still thinking about a possible Agent Brand (I hope she gets actual green hair)

- are the moments were Vision and “Pietro” turned into a dead version of themselves really some kind of “warning” or shock from Agatha or Mephisto - or is it just PTSD? I thought it was someone else or Wanda’s powers being weakened in the scene with Vision, because in the background you can already see that his head has a different colour. (I originally thought it would be a demonic head and Mephisto, which is why my easily-frightened ass wasn’t jumpscared.) But “Pietro” - you can see that for us, the audience, he looks normal. It’s only the back of his head, but he looks alive as usual. Only from Wanda’s perspective we see him dead

- now that’s something really specific and weird, but when “Pietro” said “you probably suppressed a lot of the trauma” I first understood “your brother suppressed a lot of the trauma”. Probably just my ears, but it did make me think that Peter got forced to play brother to this Wanda, or (and I know this is the exact opposite) someone who isn’t Peter got ahold of his body (and memories).

- the Nexus sounds fricking cool and I hope they’ll actually do something cool with it and open up the mess that will continue into Multiverse of Madness, Spider-Man, Loki and possibly even Falcon and Winter Soldier... I mean, what would be better for Zemo to worry about superheroes than one/some causing as much trouble as I believe Wandavision will do?

In conclusion... I have no idea, everything contradicts itself, I’m excited to see Monica with superpowers and my fav trio even though they’re split up now, and I hope the episode will be a bit longer...

[junior-goddess]

Ok, so a few months ago I tried to confide in my mom about how my supposed best friend had earth-shatteringly betrayed my trust and exploited a traumatic experience for me, and her response was “oh, I forgot. Anytime someone does or says something you don’t like they’re ‘being mean to you.’” and this honestly was such a stab in my heart (which I let her do to me repeatedly bc I yearn for her love and acceptance, but that’s another issue). She is constantly manipulating and gaslighting me, invalidating my feelings at any and every chance she gets. So now set the stage for tonight with this memory fresh in your mind.

At dinner every night for over a week my stepdad has asked how we’re all feeling about thanksgiving (specifically if we’re comfortable with my brother and his girlfriend, and my stepdads three kids plus one of their partners coming to dinner). We have all said we’re okay with it, every night for a week (I’ll get into why later). The household is currently me, my little brother, my mom, and my stepdad. I nanny once a week and my little brother leaves once a month to buy food for his lizard. That’s all we do, but my parents are different. My mom has 20 different students come to our home each week for private instrument lessons (she did stop for like a month and a half at the beginning of the pandemic), with both parties wearing masks, washing hands when they come in, and sanitizing doorknobs and instruments in between each student (not good but could be worse). My stepdad has not changed his work routine in the slightest and goes in to work 5 sometimes 6 times a week. Most of his department (sales) works from home at least partially, but he claims he can’t because he has to do inventory (which is maybe 4 hours of his entire work week). He’s had 2 ‘scares’ and one test since the pandemic started because he was potentially exposed to the virus from his coworkers when they were in office, but everything was negative. He didn’t disrupt his work routine for this and still went into the office daily.

In addition to this current schedule of our work lives, each potential thanksgiving guest group has been over before during the pandemic. My brother and his girlfriend have visited twice from the next state over. They do not leave their house other than grocery runs and the visits to us. My step sister A has been over once or twice for dinner. My step brother has come over once a week+ since the start of the pandemic, despite having several ‘scares’ (he is a hypochondriac and also just dramatic. All of his tests have been negative). He still goes in to work every day and sees his friends. He claims he wears a mask during all of this socializing but I would be willing to bet serious money that that’s a load of bullshit. My stepsister B and her boyfriend have been over once or twice since the pandemic began as well, but we are pretty confident they make no health concious choices and know they do not wear masks the majority of the time. They claim they already had COVID (despite testing negative when they thought they were sick and ignoring the possibility they could get it more than once). And once during September we had all of the mentioned parties at our house for lunch. We were seated outside but still right next to each other. And at no point during any visits have either my siblings/step siblings worn masks, even when it was all 10 us in September.

So now the issue is, my brother wants to come see us for thanksgiving with his girlfriend. My mom has okayed this but stepdad doesn’t trust stepsister B and her partner so now wants to cancel any visits to make it ‘fair’. I want to see my brother and honestly don’t give a fuck about the step siblings. My stepdad has been trying to ‘convince’ us to tell him to cancel thanksgiving so he can do it without feeling bad, making it just the 4 of us in my household. He told us the state my brother is from ‘has gotten so bad they’re completely shutting down again’ which we (we being myself, my mom, and little brother) know isn’t true and that they’re being preemptive to combat any surges because of the holiday. Since he couldn’t convince us that way, next he brought up that cases are surging in my state with over 7,000 new ones yesterday, which while true, is misleading because those cases are mostly on the other side of the state from us. Our area is doing relatively well. Next he tried to say that even his boss cancelled his thanksgiving, but left out the fact that their holiday was going to have over 30 people there from all over, and has now been cut to just their household, which is not much smaller than our group. And In his final attempt to sway us, he said 2 of his coworkers just got it, but failed to mention that they were in a different department on the other side of the building that he’s had no contact with.

So after a week of him asking us and lying and making himself anxious, I explained to him that I still wanted to see my brother and failed to see how he was going to tell him he couldn’t come. To me, my stepdads not taking the appropriate precautions because he still goes in to work when he doesn’t have to and wears a mask everywhere but his desk, yet has still been exposed now 3 times. More than that, he’s had each member of the family over separately, AND EVEN ONCE ALL TOGETHER. If he was really that worried he wouldn’t have done any of those things. I didn’t really have a say in any of the other visits, but he asked how I felt about this one and I was honest. We’ve already done it, and if he doesn’t want his kids there at thanksgiving bc he doesn’t trust them, then he shouldn’t punish my brother for that and he needs to work it out himself.

Well, apparently he felt like I was making fun of him and making him out to be over reacting (which I think he is but whatever) and that hurt his feelings. So my mom came down to my room to condescend to me and tell me. I don’t think I was rude, sarcastic, angry, or mean in anyway. I was just being honest about how I felt and why, and I relayed it respectfully (not it like a tone or anything). I told my mom I didn’t understand why he accused me of making fun of him, and, get this, this woman said to me “well those are his feelings. You hurt his feelings”. Like, ARE YOU KIDDING?

So basically this was just a novel length explanation to why I’m now boiling with rage. I really need to know if I’m right and she actually is being pretty fucked up, or maybe am I over reacting? I honestly can’t tell, all I know is I’m offended and upset with her for treating me like this.

Also, I don’t think I was mean to my step dad at all. Does it sound like I was? Do I need to apologize or something? My mom is so passive agessive and she’s the only one who raised me so I genuinely do not know or recognize anything below absurdly mean and horrendous behaviors.

If anyone can offer some insight/clarity to this situation from an outside perspective that would be fantastic. And any tips for surviving until I get a job and can move out (other than killing myself :) ) would be greatly appreciated.

Tldr; I hate my parents and want outie

[gyokuto]

Omg like when yashahime was first announced i couldn't even get excited about it because it explicitly said it would be about sesshomaru's hanyo daughters (which is extremely ooc by the way, he wasn't even enoughly developed in the og) and i instantly knew they would make rin the mother bc it's a popular ship (which is absolutely disgusting) and Sess is my favorite character in the manga. I also did not have any positive expectations for it bc it was also not written by Rumiko and it's anime only.

When it aired back in october, I tried giving it a chance - i did read some kagura theories and thought they were plausible but the girls being hanyo always threw me off. After ep 8, everything did not make any sense to me - badly written, full of holes, inconsistent, bad characterization, boring villains, so I dropped. I kept up with it online, but the environment started giving me anxiety bc I did not wish to see Sess with Rin ever bc I'm a csa survivor and i was scared it would trigger bad memories. Then ep 15 aired and I felt like vomiting esp sunrise deliberately made Rin have kids at 14 and she still acts like she is 8. So i decided to watch the ep to at least see how it got done and it was so weird bc everything felt very off ? Like sesshomaru and everyone else did not feel like themselves if that makes sense - it was so odd. And everyone is off model with this new artstyle too . When i finished the ep, I couldn't associate og with yashahime bc everything felt different. Like if u watch the first 6 episodes of inuyasha and then go to yashahime it's like two completely different series, it's as if yashahime is simply borrowing the og's appearances but not their cores. So after thinking hard about it, about Sesshomaru specifically as a character, after analysing him all over again, I realized that he wouldn't ever do any of these things and i finally got over it. I dont think it's fair to judge these characters so harshly bc this was made by real people... I understand and respect if ppl hate him after ep 15 and can't see his relationship with Rin the same as before, but to me personally, their dynamic is intact. I love him as a character deeply. I also found comfort in knowing that Rumiko's been apathetic towards inuyasha for so long, she does not care about it anymore and that's why she's unbothered by what's going on. I no longer have any respect for her though and i will not support her anymore bc she's ruined inuyasha for a lot of people with her irresponsible act of approving this.

So i hope u can forget about this one day <3 it's sumisawa's fanfic with a budget and nothing more

thanks so much for taking the time to send me this message <3

i’m sorry that as a csa survivor you’ve had to witness all this shit going down. the ways in which some people downplay or invalidate the genuine sadness and discomfort that this sequel sparks among fans who are csa surviors in particular is absolutely disgusting.

when it was announced, i was super excited because anything inuyasha related gets me excited, and i was stupid and naive in thinking they would never do something like this

i always knew there were people that the pairing was popular amongst, but from my understanding, the most popular characters have always been kagome, inuyasha, kikyo, and sesshoumaru. i usually had to go out of my way to find fanart of anyone else since the series has been over for so long, so i was like...why would they even focus on some ooc romance between a demon who despised humans for 99% of this life (including his own half-human brother) and the pre-pubescent child he adopted...i was like no way...?

it’s literally so ooc for sesshoumaru to fall in love that the only valid candidate in sunrise’s eyes was the only character who was important to him, had a uterus, and was still alive which is so disgusting

i was honestly expecting some kind of fun plot twist, and i was interpreting the rin scenes as red herrings which could be explained by the fact that, as his first daughter, of course she would have high importance in his life

which is another thing that rubs me the wrong way about the whole ship (y’know, besides the child abuse); it’s like they’re saying if the child isn’t biologically his it’s not *actually* his daughter...which is such a GROSS mentality

but yeah, you’re absolutely right that the “sequel” is an ooc train wreck. you can even tell that the first ep. of yashahime was better than the rest because it came from something RT wrote. i’m sad over the wasted potential of these characters because moroha deserved better and towa, whether intentional or not, felt very queer coded, and that meant a lot to me

i also like your point about the characters not being judged too harshly because they have no real agency. it was real people that created them and decided these things for them. for this reason, i think it’s 100% valid to ignore yashahime and continue to find comfort in the original versions of the characters. sesshoumaru wasn’t the only one that was ruined; everyone who didn’t go against the relationship is ooc too

anyway, i understand that some people may not be able to separate the two, and if they’re triggered or uncomfortable, i also 100% understand having to let them go.

i hope i can go back to inuyasha and feel fondness and nostalgia one day too :)

it’s difficult for me to enjoy things once i lose respect for the creator in some way, but i’m trying to rationalize her involvement in my head

[5sosbitchfest]

Alrighty, Nonsters.  We currently have 290 Asks in our box!  As much as we might try, I know there is NO WAY we’re going to be able to get through all of them.  Everything exploded this weekend when MessyGate went down!   I don’t want to ignore any asks just because I already answered a similar one.  So, I’ve tried to gather as many similar Asks as possible to let your your voices be heard.  Y’all are definitely NOT alone in your feelings.  Get ready for a lot of opinions on Messy’s Twitter Drama.  

Also, if you sent in an Ask and we haven’t answered it yet, please feel free to resubmit it!  I do try to scroll through all of them but it is a daunting task and personal stuff and work make it difficult for me to get through everything in a timely manner!

********************************

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’m really disappointed in Luke and this band in general, the way they deal with things. “honest policy” with messy? So he knew all of this and it was okay? Or he confronted her on this and he is okay with what she has done? I’m not sure this whole thing would be a deal breaker for me, but it certainly would make me real mad at my SO and some whiny excuses wouldn’t be enough to make things alright. Radio silence would’ve been much better than that story he posted, made himself look like a fool.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls will sooner or later become their downfall if their management or them does not realise they should rely on other things than bringing relationship up front to sell their music. I find it extremely bad that they are behaving as if nothing happened, I hope there will be changes once touring will be possible again and we won’t see these girls tagging along everywhere or being brought up in interviews all the time but somehow I’m not counting too much on that.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder if Luke knows everything that Messy got exposed for or just the parts Messy wanted to show him. Bc Luke said in his Story that he wasn't online lately so maybe he wasn't on Twitter too and Messy just showed him the parts that make her look good and he still doesn't know that she spoke bad about Ashton or how she stalked the fans also after she knew that they didn't hack his email adress cause he wasn't on Twitter so he couldn't see the screenshots.🤷‍♀️

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm just waiting for the day one of them date someone who isn't a part of their circle. tired of them passing around the same toxic girls.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls are just digging a whole for these guys and they want be able to get out of it soon

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: It was a chicken move for Sierra to do it as a reply and no one has talked on twitter that she deleted it because they probably think her deleting it is saying it wasn’t true

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Am I the only one who thinks that guys really only heavily interact with us when they want to promote something or say something about the music? I do understand they have lives so being on Twitter isn't number one priority and with all the drama that surrounds this fandom its very easy to not want to be online a lot, I just can't help but feel that way

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm talking about this messy situation (no pun intended) with my friend and she said to me that Messy should consider changing her career if she can't handle that not all people are going to like her. (that ofc doesn't include any form of harassment bc that's not cool)

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I really don't know how to feel about the Luke situation. At first I was upset and disappointed of Luke but now I almost pity him bc real or not either the management would want Luke to defend her or Messy. And I think Luke isn't the kind of person who would stand up against the management or Messy (even though it would probably be better for him if he would). And most people don't realise when they're in a toxic relationship so I can't really blame him. I just hope this ends asap.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I literally was so angry and frustrated with Luke and this whole situation yesterday that I couldn’t even look at him on my home screen, I had to change it. It’s really a disappointing thing to witness. Whether management put him up to this or he genuinely believes this toxicity is okay, I’m just very grumpy with him at the moment. He deserves better and WE (the fans) deserve better.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I think Luke really needs to be in a relationship with sb who either isn't famous and doesn't want to be or with someone who is famous bc they have a successful career too and who doesn't need Like to be famous.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’ve only seen a few accounts on Twitter who are attacking Messy and Crusty to the core and exposing every bad thing they’ve done with receipts for the sossies defending them! I’m happy that karma is finally getting to those con artist who think they can get away with anything

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: that recent lierra picture is photoshoped lmao. if you look at Sierra's hand you can see color coming off from it and her arm looks hella weird.her forehead looks hella weird and look couldn't have taken the picture because I doubt that he could stretch his arm that far and make a perfect picture. also we haven't even seen Sierra's face so I still don't believe they're together

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The Lemon pic was like a punch in the face (even though Petunia and Luke are looking cute there). But I've been asking myself lately if Luke has seen the whole drama going around on Twitter or just the posts Messy wanted him to know so the ones who make her look like the victim (and not the ones where she insulted Ashton or she made it clear that she stalked his fans). Cause Luke said he hasn't been online lately.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I mean we dont know how much of the story he truly is aware of and how much s changed to fit her narrative and get L to feel bad for her. Plus he was under pressure from management to do damage control and not standing up for his gf is a very bad look for outsiders who dont understand why she's at fault. It was a pretty neutral statement and he was obviously told to make the post so I dont blame him and just blame her more for putting him in the situation in the 1st place

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder how much toxicity happens behind the scenes, we know S is very manipulative and L is very much a people pleaser so.. and with how much they have to sell their "love" and "happiness" in the relationship. Minipulation is a powerful thing and it could explain why hes out of touch with reality, especially lately since he's isolated with her and doesnt have the voices of the band to raise any concerns and he's been getting skinny again and seems very "meh" rather than happy, idk

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel so disconnected with this fandom rn. I feel like no one is streaming CALM and that makes me sad bc it's such an amazing album. The boys aren't even online anymore, everyone is mad at each other and now Luke comes up with this shit... tbh I wish I would wake up tomorrow and see him tweeting something like yeah I'm sorry about my ig story I still love y'all lmao

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Wait wait wait wait ive been gone from the fandom for a little while now and what the fuck is going on with Luke and S? What did S do that she made a fake ass apology for?? I’m so lost please help me! 😂

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm seeing a lot of my mutuals unstanning and I'm just so mad bc Sierra started this drama and got Luke into it and I'm sad that people are leaving bc of this, it's just too much toxicity and it shouldn't affect the band and their connection with the fans but with Luke saying this he makes it seem like he supports the ugly things she does

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I am a Luke stan and I've always loved him bc he has inspired me so much through the years but when he does this things it's like...damn. I feel like he's invalidating the fans' feelings by being like "if you don't like my girlfriend, ur fake" like he has never noticed me on Twitter or anything but my biggest fear is to be blocked by him or just ignored bc I don't like her (although I never expressed it publicly) n yeah anyways :// It feels weird

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Going back and re-reading the DM’s messy literally confirms that she accesses Luke’s account by saying “we couldn’t get in” or some shit like that

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I hate being a luke stan, sometimes it just seems like he doesn't care? he always puts these toxic gfs before the ones who adore him and pay his bills. might just move into Cashton's lane. unproblematic kings.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: He literally posted a picture of him cuddling her and petunia within the hour

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The saddest part of this situation is it’s like a repeat of Arzaylea. Luke has no idea what a respectful, mature relationship is. We saw it with Arz and were seeing it again it’s just a little bit different. He stays being controlled and manipulated by toxic partners. I really think homeboy needs to be single for a WHILE and focus on himself. He needs to unlearn the things his past and current relationships have taught him about love because if I know anything, it’s that this ain’t real love.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Is it bad that I just want the larzaylea drama back?? Like everyone could at least agree on their feelings then...

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Just checked messy’s insta and of course, everyone that still supports her filled her tagged with just the single picture

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel like the reason Sierra is getting away with what she’s done is because she isn’t that known. Like yeah she’s associated with 5sos, but they’re also like not that big which is probably why it’s getting swept under the rug. I’ve only seen the 5SOS fandom calling her out for her actions. If this had happened with a well known celebrity, they probably would’ve been dragged and been trending on Twitter. I might be wrong but I feel like this is what’s happening which is just unfair.

[sunsmitten]

     This is something that’s been bothering me lately and i feel the need to give my two cents. im starting to see homophobic comments abt gay ships on my dash and while the people saying them may not think it’s homophobic, it is. no one has to really read this, it’s just something i want to put out there. it’s my personal experience with a group of people that were very Straight Ship centered, heteronormative, and would frequently make the very same comments others are starting to make here: “gay ships are being shoved down my throat so now i hate gay shipping and want nothing to do with it” or you know, stuff along those lines. if two people rping two girls kissing or two boys kissing bothers you in any way, literally, in any way at all, it is homophobia. and here’s a good chunk of how shit like that grows and can become something very harmful;

when i very first started rping on tumblr i had made an oc ( both the oc and blog are looooong gone by now ) that wasn’t very attracted to women romantically or sexually. he didn’t define his sexuality, but throughout that blog i made it clear he wasn’t really into women.

i eventually made friends with this group of people who also rped on tumblr. in the beginning everything was fine, great and fun! but after some time they would make me feel bad for only putting my oc in a relationship with a man. in order for me to be included and not repeatedly discarded by them, i would actively have to put my oc in a ‘straight ship.’ and unfortunately, that’s what i did. i immediately noticed a difference with how they treated me when i finally shipped my guy oc with one of their girls oc’s, and i would have to repeatedly sit through them saying transphobic and homophobic comments abt other people’s ships and muses ( it was the transphobia in this community that made me leave in the first place ). they would constantly express their bitterness towards m/m and f/f shipping on the internet bc it was “more popular” than their m/f ships, and when i would try to explain how that wasn’t a good viewpoint to have, I would be ostracized, guilt tripped, and forced to apologize and ‘admit’ that i was wrong.

as i got older and more comfortable with my sexuality, i really only ever viewed/read content centered around m/m and f/f because like. im gay. and i wanna see gay shit, ya know? but that didn’t really fly with them. they’d would continuously make me feel guilty for this, call me misogynistic for liking m/m and f/f over m/f because to them being gay and wanting to see gay content makes me hate women, and i was called the big word itself. Heterophobic. 

one of the girls in particular, we’ll call her S, was very keen on telling me how awful of a person i was bc of my preference, how ‘straight shipping is oppressed’ on the internet and im only ‘feeding into the oppression.’ for 4 years she would manipulate me and make me feel guilty not only for the type of media i consumed, but for my sexuality in general. it got so bad to the point that i would have frequent panic attacks and i still got the throw up stain on my carpet to prove it ( i got one so bad bc of her i puked all over my bedroom floor and then fainted ). when i would try to reach out to the others abt what was happening behind the scenes, i’d either be ignored or my feelings were invalidated. to me, she was toxic, to everyone else, she was a wonderful friend. but that doesn’t excuse or make her treatment of me ok and it took along time for me to realize that. 

again, please keep in mind this went on for 4 years. this started when i was finally comfortable with myself and then to be thrown in and stuck in this situation bc i was too much of a coward to leave really fucks with a person. her distaste, hatefulness, and bitter attitude for gay people/characters/shipping was all taken out on me every week for 4 years. i’m doing my very best not over-dramatize this but yeah, it was every week for 4 years she would send me paragraphs of how terrible i was for just being me. how shitty i was as a person, how im a terrible friend, how the content i liked wasn’t fair to her, a straight person, that i was predatory for being a masculine identifying person looking at other guys, and how lucky i was to have a friend like her that tells me when i’m ‘in the wrong.’ 

near the end of last year she sent me another one of these multi-paragraph messages. at this point, i had finally become very aware how fucked up of a person she is and how i was never in the wrong through any of this like she originally made me believe. instead of agreeing with her and apologizing, a ended up snapping back. i told her how i felt, how she wasn’t being fair to me, and that i felt she was being very homophobic. admittedly, her response wasn’t at all like i had expected. She apologized, told me i had opened her eyes to some things and she’ll work on getting better. this made me happy! i thought that maybe we could continue our friendship without anymore of the BS. 

after that i took a good break from being online. i needed some time for myself and i needed to think some things over about my life. during this time, i realized how lax i was with S, how i let her and that whole friend group get away with so many things and i began to wonder if i should even go back. even after that talk i had with her, she was still very defensive against homosexual relationships and would get angry if someone expressed more interest in gay media than straight media. 

i was away for a good couple months, i was healing and rising above that bad mentality she forced on me. i logged out of all social media and messenger apps so there was no way her or anyone from that group could contact me. i hadn’t heard from her in months, until i received a letter in the mail. She wrote me a letter. A two paged letter. A LETTER. A REAL, WHOLE ASS LETTER. just so she can continue to try and tear me down. she started by telling me how much she missed me, a little starter paragraph kissing my ass until it, very abruptly, turned into the usual “youre shit, terrible, bad, you have no respect for me or anything i create, you hate me bc im a straight woman-” you get it. but this time i didn’t care! nothing she said in that letter got to me like it used to. the only thing that bothered me was her persistence to make me feel bad. she genuinely wanted to continue to hurt me. but with that time away and probably because i was so used to it by then, it didn’t faze me. 

i eventually went back to social media and kept my distance from that friend group. i still considered them my friends, bc when things were good, i had a lot of fun! and wanted to keep that in my life. But, I blocked S. I blocked her on everything so there’d be no way for her to contact me and if she wrote me another letter, i would simply rip it up. i made it clear i wanted to go our separate ways with no hard feelings, i didn’t talk to anyone abt what she had done. no mention whatsoever. i carried on my merry way bc i was moving past it. She did not. 

When she figured out i had blocked her, she threw a tantrum. she twisted my words and painted me as the villain by showing out of context screenshots of what i had sent in response to her second to last message ( the one before the letter ). she told the people i was still friends with that i abused her for years bc she was straight and put me on full blast on the internet. she did this because i blocked her.

it all happened in the time span of a second; i lost all my friends, i was blocked by everyone and not only called a piece of shit by her, but by everyone i still cared deeply about. i was forced to delete all my social media accounts so i wouldn’t continue to be put on blast. for a week i was upset bc really, who wouldn’t be? but after that week i realized that if these people i called my friends just took S’s word for it and were all so eager to tear me apart bc she said so, they were never my friends. they never cared about me so why should i care if im not with them anymore? it was a real eye opening moment and my dudes, im doing fucking great. im so much happier without them all in my life and i can finally do the shit i want. be gay and indulge on harmless gay content. 

so! to make the moral of the story clear. The people that are so butt hurt over gay shipping being more popular than straight shipping are people not to be trusted. it may seem unfair to lump them all into a category, and im not saying they’re all as toxic as S, but their mentality is homophobic. disliking anything gay bc it’s not straight, is homophobic. straight people are constantly represented in every source of media and if someone is bothered by the fact that gay people are indulging in gay shipping in the rpc, they are homophobic. there’s no way around it.

im still getting over S and all that she did. i know without her i wouldn't be as tough as i am now and unapologetic with what i like, but there’s a good part of me that wishes i never met her or that friend group. bc of her i struggle with my self esteem and my own internalized homophobia that only formed after i met her. i’ve come along way in the months after i officially cut myself off from them, but i know this is something that’s going to take some time. 

[nineteensixtieschikadee]

Debunking Arya Stark being Azor Ahai and the Princess That Was Promised. (S8 E3)

(Let’s get one thing straight before I write this whole post. I LOVE Arya Stark. That girl is my baby. She’s my favorite character, not only in the show, but also very importantly, in the books. And I LOVED that she was the one to kill the Night King. So this post isn’t in any way going to a post about me complaining about the final 10 minutes of Episode 3 of S8. Instead, this will be me CRITICALLY ANALYZING that moment, and how it fit’s and doesn’t fit into the lore, and the books. Afterall, I am a book reader first and foremost, and a show-watcher 2nd.)

Before I say anything else, I’ll give you guys my rundown opinion of that scene. This morning I was on twitter and Tumblr, and I started losing my freaking marbles because everyone was labeling Arya Stark, Azor Ahai Reborn, and TPTWP. And I wasn’t the only one. Everyone on the asoiaf forums were equally disappointed at how everything about e3 was handled. And I, unfortunately, am one of those people. But here’s the thing, and let’s make this clear. Ask any book reader, NONE OF US ARE MAD THAT ARYA KILLED THE NK. In fact, a lot of us expected something like that, because we know that Arya in the books will have a VERY IMPORTANT role for the upcoming war for the Dawn. There are lots of hints and foreshadow about her doing something remarkable in the books, however, this is not one of them. So let’s analyze and debunk this moment:

Yes, Arya killing the Night King was hella bad-ass. Hell, I even cheered for her. Although when it got to the final credits, I was literally so lost, and confused, and overall disappointed. I was lowkey quiet for the first 10 minutes after, because I couldn’t believe what actually happened. Here’s the thing that is irking everyone about Arya being AA or TPTWP: her killing the NK, so easily AND ALONE is what ruined the plot arcs of some of those characters whose plot actually revolves around the Others. Yes, the moment was EMPOWERING. Being a women who stopped the damn apocalypse. I was inspired. And it was very poetic that Arya killed the ULTIMATE representation of DEATH. But the BUILDUP to her killing the NK? Where was it? A simple foreshadow from Mel about eye colors? The fact that Arya used a sparring move against Brienne in S7? A moment when Bran gives her Catspaw? When she meets Jon, and Jon says, “How did you sneak up on me?”? 

Here, the reason why Arya SIMPLY killing the NK so easily doesn’t work, is because it INVALIDATES EVERYTHING about the books and it’s morals, and the text. Arya killing the NK with one stab, while Dany couldn’t even injure him with fire, fucks up the lore and the history so badly, that it all feels so worthless. Pointless. What? Was everything that happened in the books a BIG RED HERRING?? You spend so many years BUILDING up to this war, and Arya simply killing him without any problems or consequences is what wins the war? What about Daenerys? What about Jon? WHAT WAS THE POINT? WHY WAS HE WAS BROUGHT BACK? Just to be King? Huh? And BRAN.

Yes GOT is about the Throne. And it would make sense that the show ends where it started, with the throne. But the whole point of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE is about ICE AND FIRE. The balance between life and death. The balance between good and bad. The balance between magic and reality. The whole point of the battle between ice and fire, is that none of the things involving the throne matters. Bc there is an even more powerful danger lurking on both sides. Dany being a danger from the south (fire) and the Others from the north (Ice). There has to be a balance between those two things, and that is not the Iron Throne.

Let’s go back to the AA prophecy quickly. People on twitter were lowkey confused because apparently no one knows who Azor Ahai is, and now everyone immediately thinks it’s Arya cause she killed the NK. Here’s a small rundown: Azor Ahai, or The Prince/Princess who was promised was a prophized figure who fought against the Others (White Walkers), bringing forth a summer after a generation of winter and darkness. This prophecy is to come back into fruition once more, now that winter is coming. And HIS is the SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, who will be reborn amidst salt and smoke, and is prophisized to save the world AGAIN from eternal darkness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3o2LqFZcGU Click the link for more info. This one is my favorite video analysis about AA. (IN SHORT, AA IS BASICALLY JESUS, LOL)

Now I know prophecy should always be taken with a grain of salt. It shouldn’t be taken too lightly, or too figuratively. BUT! AA is NOT just anyone. There are REQUIREMENTS to be this prophesied savior. (See video above.) Those requirements do NOT FIT ARYA. I really tried. No this fandom tried. We tried making even the slightest connection, even metaphorically that Arya could somehow be the PTWP. But the only thing we could find that actually made sense, was that she felt “reborn” when she saw the red comet (bleeding star) back in ACOK (S2). Not even metaphorically does she fit this prophecy. Now here’s the next counter argument: What if prophecy is just bullshit, and none of it is real, and we’re all just wasting our time? Yes, all of that is plausible. HOWEVER, you spend all this time, 8 seasons, 5 books, with SO SO SO MUCH foreshadow and hints, and LEGITIMATE EVIDENCE, that it doesn’t properly pay off? GRRM is NOT like that. There are characters in the books that predict ACCURATE prophecies and foreshadows. In fact, there is a character who is known to accurately predict prophecy. And she does for Arya. Guess who it is? *Bingo bingo!* The GHOST OF HIGHHEART. (Jenny’s Song. S8 E2)

“I see you. I see you, wolf child. Blood child. I thought it was the lord who smelled of death ... You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone!” (ASOS, pg 593)

Prophecy may not be accurate at times. But they DO pay off. This prophecy here is literally the equivalent of Melisandre giving the “Colored eyes” prophecy in the show. Because in the books, Mel doesn’t even meet Arya and there is no colored eye foreshadow, or any sort of foreshadow that she is TPTWP. There is however, other ways you can interpret this prophecy above. (You decide.)

Prophecy is a BIG THING about the books. Yes, it may not be accurate, but they HOLD MEANING. THE AZOR AHAI PROPHECY IS THE BACKBONE OF THE WHOLE WHITE WALKER STORYLINE. By ignoring this prophecy, you are essentially taking away the PURPOSE and the real motives of these characters who are INTERTWINED with this prophecy. The reason why Arya killing the NK so easily and ALONE is a problem with us, is because it invalidates this prophecy, and therefore makes everything, all the buildup absolutely POINTLESS. The characters that have been involved from Day 1 with this prophecy, have been reduced to nothing more than a side story. A myth.

Let’s look at all the characters whose building story arc have become irrelevant because of the writer’s decision to pull that plot twist: 

Jon Snow:

Wow. This one literally couldn’t hurt any more than it already does... From his first chapter, to his first scene in the show, we are led to believe that this character is literally nothing more than Ned Stark’s bastard. A side character. It is made clear that he IS A BASTARD. He IS AN OUTSIDER. Both him and Arya have parallel arcs. They intertwine beautifully. This is why people think Arya will also have a role to play with the Others in the later books. Because she and Jon share the same story, just she is dealing with a different kind of death. GRRM from the book emphasizes Jon’s bastard title, and his mother. And he isn’t really made out to be an important character until MUCH LATER in the book series. The fact that there’s so much emphasis on his title, and R+L=J is IMPORTANT. Bc the whole AA prophecy states that AA will be reborn out of Jaehaerys line. Not anyone from the Starks. Also the line, “You know nothing Jon Snow,”  is even more relevant because it’s full of irony. You have the guy who’s known to know nothing, but he actually KNOWS MORE than anyone realizes. Jon’s whole arc is about the Others. Which would have made his fight with them MUCH MORE PERSONAL because his storyline is physically and emotionally connected to them. The fact that he joins the Night’s Watch is important too. Because no, they don’t just fight wildlings in the books. Their purpose was to protect the realm from the Others.  I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. This is so relevant because Jon becoming king, would make it MUCH MORE meaningful. A king that PROTECTED the realm. Assuming he even becomes king, would make his whole arc come full circle and would be so much more rewarding. You have this dude resurrected from the dead, and what? Was his purpose just to unite the people and become king? You have this character foreshadowed to have a standoff with the ultimate bad guy, and he does nothing but run around screaming at an undead dragon...Yes, it’s cliche. BUT IT’S STILL GOOD STORY TELLING BECAUSE IT’S BEEN BUILT UP PROPERLY. 

Bran Stark:

I don’t even have words for this one... You have Brandon Stark literally the most OP person in all of the seven kingdoms and YOU. DONT. USE. HIM. Okay I agree, GRRM says Bran is the hardest character to write in the books, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for him to just warg into ravens and do what? Scout? That’s it? This kid was literally pushed off a tower that ended up triggering his journey to become the 3-eyed raven a.k.a THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE, and he does absolutely nothing but sit around predicting other peoples future, and being weird, and warging into ravens. Lol what’s worse is that he’s just there in the show to serve the other character’s plot line. By “TRIGGERING” these events that the characters will eventually get into. Bloodraven in the books is SCARY AS HELL. No one really knows his motive and yet he can do so much more than what Bran does in the show. Bloodraven is the definition of MIND BLOWING. Bran AND JON ARE THE TWO PEOPLE WHO ARE THE MOST PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY CONNECTED TO THE OTHERS, AND BY THE END, THEIR WHOLE ARCS WERE THROWN IN THE TRASH. They don’t have a big face off, or any sort of payoff. Just staring and staring and staring. And BAM. Welp Night King’s dead. Oops guess we were just here for absolutely no other purpose than to trigger events and bring all these dumb people together. (Sorry, this one lowkey triggered the hell out of me. The 3 eyed Raven, Hodor, Meera and Jojen DID NOT DIE just for Bran to not be used to his full potential...)

Daenerys Targaryen:

This one is soo annoying. Daenerys Targaryen, fits literally ALMOST ALL the signs of the prophecy that it almost seems too obvious if she was AA. But welp, none of that matters now because she didn’t really do anything to kill the Night King. SHE DID DO MORE THAN JON though, I’ll give her that. Yeah she’s a conqueror going for the Iron Throne. But she’s also a direct descendant of King Jaehaerys’ line. Part of her whole arc is fire and blood. But it is also about her fight for her birthright, and if she would give up her birthright to fulfill something greater. We as fans, we root for her to get the throne. But we also root for her to do something MORE. But more IMPORTANTLY, her arc is also in parallel with the Others. And no, I don’t mean that she’s a mad queen. But the title of the series is called A Song of Ice and Fire. Daenerys is a THREAT from the south. (Fire.) And the Others are a threat from the north. (Ice) There has to be a balance between them. In the show she loses a dragon, one of her children. And the fact that her choice of weapon doesn’t do ANY damage to the ultimate villain, but a simple stabbing does? I don’t even like Daenerys much after s6, but wow. This was underwelming to the core. Dragon chick who’s literally a level 1K going against another level 1K final boss and can’t do shit to him??

Rhaegar Targaryen:

This I think is the one that ANNOYS ME THE MOST. Like holy shit, they could not have possibly damaged this whole wretched storyline even more than they already did. But somehow the show writers managed to go and give it one final blow. Rhaegar Targayen. The one arguably responsible for ALL the shit we have in Game of Thrones. The one whose actions triggered nearly every single arc into motion in this whole goddamn series. The man who is arguably considered the REAL MAIN CHARACTER in ASOIAF. HIS WHOLE COMPLEX CHARACTER ARC AND STORYLINE FLUSHED DOWN THE TOILET. I love Rhaegar’s character in the books, cause he’s well, not exactly a good guy. He’s in that perfect morally grey area, which is what I love about characters. He’s not suppose to be likeable. He’s suppose to be complex. But the show not only managed to make him the MOST UNLIKEABLE character in this series, but they also managed to ruin all of his complexities in favor of making him a love-sick puppy thinking with his dick. This was lowkey the biggest fuck you they could give to his character, the characters surrounding him, (*cough* Elia)  and to the lore and history of the books. Rhaegar’s whole arc and storyline revolved around this stupid prophecy and that’s literally THE reason why everything went down the way it did in the books. Elia was also INTO the prophecy too, so it’s not like she wasn’t aware of anything! Elia was even helping Rhaegar fullfill this prophecy, it just so happens that she was too sick, to do anything more. The fact that the show chose to ignore this whole thing and disregard the lore surrounding it is literally is the biggest fuck you to Elia and her children. It means that Rhaegar truly was a mad man who left his wife and disowned his children because he was thinking with his dick. When in fact it wasn’t really like that. Rhaegar really did try to protect Elia and their children when he left them. And that too gets thrown in the trash because of this dumb prophecy. And that sucks because Elia played an important role with this prophecy, and she knew and understood it too. And in the end, none of their actions became worth it...  By not having the proper payoff from all of this buildup, Elia and her children literally died for NOTHING.

Other characters who’s arc were ruined by the mess in e3:

Samwell Tarly: Was the first character to discover that WW can be killed with dragonglass. He was studying at the citadel to learn more about them, and find info on how to beat them. Not only did this NOT happen, but he didn’t even contribute to anything for the end of the world. Literally just went back to being the scared little puppy he was back in S1/book1. His role then had no relevancy because NK was killed so easily, and he didn’t even learn a single thing about him or how to kill him, other than him wanting to “erase memories.” His whole arc was about him being more than what he believed in. Being smarter than what his father thought he was. And they did not utilize that. He coward back again! Like what was the point of him going to the citadel and stuff if literally the EASIEST way to kill the NK was a simple stab with a special steel?

This episode had so many problems. But Arya Stark killing the NK WASN’T the main problem. You can have the most beautiful shot television series with so much time and effort put in it. But all of that means nothing when the writing is not consistent. The fact that the show did a 360 and practically ignored literally EVERYTHING about the lore and the text, is what’s frustrating everyone. Because while Arya killing the NK and saving the realm BY HERSELF was yes, poetic and SERVED WELL TIEING UP HER ARC, in doing so, it had managed to UNTIE literally YEARS and years of plot threads and buildup from most of the other CRUCIAL characters, that in the end, it feels so empty. Arya should not have killed the NK ALONE. Bran should’ve been a part of it. Jon should’ve helped Arya kill the NK. Now that would’ve been a good payoff for both their arcs. Jon, Bran, Arya, Daenerys and Tyrion are considered by GRRM to be the CORE 5 of the story. And in the end, in this supposedly world ending apocalypse, only Arya really played a KEY role. Bran didn’t do anything powerful to stop the NK. He only triggered events and was bait. Daenerys was getting slaughtered out there, and even her most prized weapon could help her fully. Jon... Let’s be honest, no one knows what in the world Jon was doing this ep. Tyrion was down in the crypts, when this little man literally could have contributed to WAR TACTICS. All these characters are connected with the Others emotionally, physically and/or metaphorically, that the fact that only one of them became crucial to the endgame, makes the story so POINTLESS. What was the point of bringing Jon back from the dead if he was only going to unite people and become king? What was the point of Bran venturing far north to become the most powerful human being, if all he’s going to do is trigger events and warg into ravens? etc. 

Arya killing the NK alone hurts because while she is foreshadowed to play a crucial role against the Others in the books, SHE IS THE MOST DISTANT FROM THEM IN TERMS OF STORYLINE. It doesn’t pay off well in the show, because until a couple of weeks ago, she didn’t even know the Others existed. Up until last night’s battle, she’s never seen a white walker. That’s why it didn’t feel right for her to do the kill alone. Her arc did not intertwine with the Others, physically or emotionally. Unlike Jon or Bran whose literal whole arc has been with the Others, and is about the Others. That’s why it feels so empty. It didn’t feel rewarding. It was undeserving. Because up until last night, she’s had no interaction with a single Other, whatsoever. The buildup was actually weak, and because of it, it didn’t feel as good as it should’ve. 

Arya’s plotline is more than just hyping up to kill the Others. Like the other core members, she has a complex story arc. Arya’s storyline is about her heart in conflict with itself. It’s about her identity. Part of the reason why she struggles in AFFC & ADWD in her Faceless Man arc, is because she CAN’T become a faceless man. Her heart won’t let her forget her identity. That’s also why she’s had so many other identities in the books. Her different identities are about survival as well. They’ve helped her survive. It’s not really about revenge, and killing, and white walkers. But it’s about her, having so many identities and finding her way back to her true identity. Finding her way back to being a Stark.

So yeah. Arya killing the NK so SIMPLY when there should’ve been more, is like a big fuck you to the books and what it stands for. It invalidates the books. The fact that the books hype up this war for the dawn and prophecy and the Others, and then it just ends after 1 episode? Like that’s it? The NK being killed so easily? The payoff was weak, and it hurts not only the book fans but the book and it’s characters in general. No Arya is not Azor Ahai reborn, or any prophisized savior. She is an assassin and the slayer of the Night King. But to make it even more utterly pointless, the NK doesn’t even exist in the books.

The episode was fun, tense and good! Arya killing the NK was hella badass. But... it just wasn’t A Song of Ice and Fire.

(Congrats if you made it to the end of my very, very, long essay! As always, debates are up and open! Feel free to counter-argue!) :)

[bestworstcase]

To be honest tts had many characters who had their emotional and mental trauma handled horribly, they deserve better exploration on how they healed and what they went through. Tangled The Movie did a better job of handling these mature themes but why couldn’t tts?

ok so tbh i don’t agree ajklsdlkjf

like! ok to start with. tangled (2010) is kind of interesting to me in this regard because it does such a good job illustrating gothel’s emotional abuse and the harm it does to rapunzel but it - like, at the end of the day It Is A Disney Film. it spends almost all of its running time meticulously building up this very complicated emotional trauma for rapunzel, and then the resolution is like—BOOM!—she has a tearful reunion with her parents and they pull her boyfriend into a group hug, cue ending narration about how they got married and ruled corona and lived happily ever after. to me tangled (2010) feels like it runs off a cliff at the last minute because. lmao. 

leaving an abusive parent is the easy part.

which is not to say that it’s easy! but once you hit that emotional point of “i cannot have you in my life anymore” and cut them out... now you have a heap of maladaptive coping mechanisms and psychological scars and inherited behaviors that you have to deal with. you can’t just *flaps hands* cut off your abusive mother and skip off into the sunset with your long lost real family and new boyfriend whom you met three days ago and everything’s gravy. kskjdfjk it doesn’t work like that!

tts on the other hand - absolutely, there were clear limitations on how far they were able to go, and absolutely the plot-driven writing was a less than ideal vehicle for telling a story about recovery-from-trauma. but also like fundamentally tts is a story that is interested in recovery from trauma in a way that i don’t think tangled (2010) was. rapunzel has nightmarish flashbacks to gothel in s1, struggles because of her sheltered upbringing, expresses behaviors that she clearly learned from gothel and internalized as normal, flounders when she is handed responsibility because she is not used to making her own choices, and has complicated, messy feelings about her tower and gothel herself! there is a whole episode dedicated to exploring rapunzel’s ambivalent feelings about her new life in corona through the lens of her suddenly-fraught relationship with pascal. one of the emotional linchpins of the entire show is the moment in RATGT where rapunzel screams “enough, cassandra!” in a direct parallel to the way gothel yelled at her in the film, and while tts ultimately shied away from exploring that on rapunzel’s end, we got multiple episodes following up on how badly this damaged cassandra, eventually culminating in her villain arc in s3. 

likewise with cassandra - tts devotes two whole seasons to meticulously building up cassandra’s very complicated trauma, then allows her a whole season in which to have a messy, anguished, enraged breakdown because of it—and then her happy ending is *leaving behind* the toxic situation she was trapped in in corona to venture into the unknown and figure herself out, which is imo a lot more in scale and realistic than rapunzel’s happy ending in tangled (2010). 

likewise with varian - in QFaD he is badly traumatized, and the remainder of s1 examines how the failure of his would-be support network to actually support him leads to his continued downward spiral and eventual violent breakdown; when he is punished for this that explicitly makes everything worse both for him and for everyone else, and after his redemption he features as a deuteragonist in what is essentially ptsd flashbacks: the episode. etc. 

so my overall impression of the many places where tts *failed* to adequately examine characters’ trauma is very strongly that - they wanted to and they were capable of doing so, but there were disney executives going no, that’s too heavy, that’s too dark, you can’t portray the disney princess with serious deeply-entrenched flaws, you can’t have the disney princess be the one who’s in the wrong in her interpersonal conflicts, blah blah blah. s3 in particular just reeks to me of executive meddling and executive sanitizing of the intended plot. i’m honestly shocked that tts got away with going as far as they did, especially with rapunzel’s and cassandra’s childhood traumas, because frankly it spits in the face of the squeaky clean happily ever after Disney Princess Brand aljsdjfk. 

(also as an aside - one’s personal reading of the text is imo a big deciding factor in how unsatisfying the handling of trauma is, bc - i think there is a tendency in some areas of the fandom that are centered around varian and/or eugene for fans to go “they should be more traumatized than they are and it’s bad writing that they’re not broody and angsty about xyz” and like - 

the impression i have from being on the sidelines of this discourse is a lot of people have one specific model in their heads of what “trauma” looks like and that model is essentially “miserable and brooding and needing to be comforted” so when we get things like eugene coping with awful shit by cracking jokes about it or not having ptsd flashbacks to gothel stabbing him that gets interpreted as the narrative not taking him seriously as a character, whereas to me it reads as “eugene is a psychologically stable person who has the emotional resilience to cope with horrible events relatively unscathed”—

or this vibe of varian isn’t brooding and angsting all the time so obviously tts is ignoring his trauma, when my reading of him overall is that he’s the kind of person who deals with trauma by throwing himself into work that makes him feel better - like in CR he’s working in the demanitus chamber, surrounded by amber, but he’s doing dumb chemistry experiments he enjoys and over time that’s gotten him to a place where being around the amber is no longer triggering for him, he’s healed enough to have conquered most of that fear.

and obviously all of this is a matter of interpretation and this is not to say that, like, fans who wanted more of a raw exploration of these characters’ fear and sadness and struggle with trauma are wrong or like invalid for wanting that, it’s more - like, i personally choose to take the text more at face value and interpret the behaviors i see on screen as telling me something about how the character responds to trauma instead of as the narrative ignoring that they have trauma altogether. which leads me to “eugene is emotionally resilient and humor is a key feature of his resilience” and “varian copes by working on stuff that is intellectually engaging or just makes him happy in order to tackle his fears head-on” and so forth. and one consequence of that is i don’t really walk away from the text feeling unsatisfied with the way tts handled its character traumas, except insofar as i’m like “wow i wish disney had let them go even farther!”)

[findsomeoneelse]

       This might be a very angsty thing to say but I kind of legit hate my dad. He complains all the time that my brother (who i think probably has depression or something rn) and I don’t help him around the house but 1) when we do he’s a huge asshole, literally calls me retarded all the time bc he’ll verbally tell me like 10 things in a row to do and my ADD ass can’t remember it like that and he often  threatens me as well (and there have been incidents with physical violence between him and me). 2) gives us the most useless and asinine tasks i.e. vacuuming a BRICK PATIO or WASHING ROCKS. 3) will ask us when it’s convenient for HIM, my brother and I are 20 and 21 and have either a job or school and for a while I was doing both. 4) he is NEVER satisfied no matter how much we do. 

        And concerning the physical violence shit I have so much pent up feelings about it. As far as I know he’s never come after my brother like that. He may have hit my mom before but I’m not sure. I just know that once they got into a bad argument or something bc he was being really loud bc of a football game and then suddenly my mom was crying (she doesn’t cry a lot) grabbed us kids and went to our grandma’s. He’s also kicked every dog we’ve ever had, literally drop kicked one through a small tree bc it chewed the blinds and then left him outside to run away while he took off to who knows where to sulk. But my point is he has NEVER treated my brother the way he has treated me and it shows. My brother gets away with avoiding so much work and a fuck-ton of lying. My dad almost never invades his space or commandeers his stuff. I’ve almost failed several big school projects in the past bc he’d randomly decide to punish me or that his stupid yard work was more important and that it was my fault for not accounting for his random chores. 

         I literally keep a bug-out bag in my car and a knife by my bed bc of him. I spent my entire junior and senior years of high school with a stomach ache every single day and horrible insomnia from anxiety bc if he wasn’t threatening me with violence he was talking about kicking me out of the house for no real reason. His response to my worsening mental health was to make jokes or just ignore me when I managed to finally muster up the determination to say something. If my mom hadn’t taken action and helped me get help I’d most likely be dead now. I’m still trying to rebuild my self esteem that he destroyed. Then years after I was on medication (that he was opposed to and mocked, my mom was the only one on top of that) and doing better he had the fucking audacity to ask me about how I was doing. Me being like 16 yrs old I lacked the vocab to say that I feel that he forfeited the right to ask me those things so I just shrugged it off.

          He insults and mocks every friend I have in some way shape or form. He also once told me that some older friends I was extremely close to at the time would eventually get tired of hanging out with an annoying little kid so I should get used to them not being around bc they would leave me. I mean he was right about that, and they were pretty toxic for me but that was really fucked up and I’ll never forget it.

          I finally have a good romantic relationship now, with a boy surprisingly, and he’s so sweet to me. Every time he tells me anything remotely kind I almost fucking cry bc I immediately assume he’s lying or somehow delusional. We had our first sort of disagreement, it wasn’t even that big a deal he had just made a few jokes that had upset me, but I was so terrified to bring it up and was so ready for a fight that when he simply apologized for his behavior and promised to correct it I immediately broke down in tears of relief. I’m so terrified for him to meet my dad bc I don’t want him to belittle and invalidate us, or try and take away all our privacy in a weird attempt at policing my sexuality (he has tried something like this in the past with my brother). I’m also so scared my boyfriend will just assume my dad is a normal nice guy and that I’m crazy, bc my dad is good at appearances. We’re well-off but honestly the only reason my brother and I ever see any of that money is bc of our mom, she handles the finances (and p much everything else around here). 

        That’s another thing I hate is that bc I turned out okay everyone assumes he must be a good parent. I had to work so fucking hard to become who I am now DESPITE him NOT because of him. I had to work so hard to become a kinder person, and learn to motivate, comfort, advocate, take care of myself. I’m an intelligent person (at least i’ve been told I am) bc I work to teach myself, both in school and life. I had to learn all my emotional intelligence and social skills myself. I’m working to make my life good and full of the love I never felt from him and to a slightly lesser extent my mom. I’m still working at it. Which is why I’m just as afraid that he’ll be accepting of my relationship and be “proud” or whatever. Thinking he raised a confident and smart daughter. That he has any right to be a voyeur to my happiness or take any credit for it.  

      I work hard so work through so many issues he caused in me on my own. I work so hard to keep myself from sabotaging my current relationship bc I feel unworthy or like it will just vanish. I still can’t fully grasp that this boy could genuinely like me and feel like I’m worthy of his time and effort bc of how stupid and ugly my dad has made me feel my entire life. I have so many things I want to tell my SO but in the moment feel like I physically cannot get the words out for fear of looking stupid when he finally leaves me. I still have so many walls up with him and I really don’t want to but I can’t get them down bc I’m so fucking scared despite all the evidence he’s given me that he cares about me and just wants to know me. It’s honestly incredible how just having someone like him has changed me for the better. He makes me feel smart and capable, like I can have the life I want. He doesn’t see any of the shit my dad seems to see in me and hate. Like fuck the fact that I only seemed to need one stable and loving relationship in my life to succeed really says something I think. 

       I hate feeling like I can’t talk to my own parents, well mostly my mom, but they really make it impossible. My dad bc you never know what will piss him off or if he even gives a shit and my mom bc she will probably tell him whatever you tell her. I have other adults, my aunt (my mom’s older sister) and uncle (tho he’s a newer addition to the family, they married last year.) but I’m so scared to talk to them in case they slip up and let stuff slip to my parents. My aunt also just doesn’t Get a lot of things like mental illness so she can invalidate ppl and be mean. She does encourage me a lot tho, more than my parents EVER have. 

      My SO doesn’t have much of an idea of my relationship w my family other than it seems strained and we barely talk despite all living together. He sometimes half-jokingly tells me I should spend more time with them or make an effort too, and I don’t tell him that I’m not the one who fucked that up for us. I try not to talk about any of this with him yet, and I honestly don’t know when a good time is or how to go about it. He’s gotten little hints here and there before I change the subject. He has a relatively big family that he regularly spends time with, so I don’t know if he’d understand all this. His dad is a little similar to mine in the sense that he always seems to have weird projects around the house that he drags them into but it doesn’t seem like he’s violent. I honestly don’t know what to say about the physical abuse. I’m so scared of how he’ll react. I’m scared he’ll brush it off, I’m scared he’ll get super concerned or angry for me. I just don’t want it to change how he sees me. People seem to get the impression that I’m confident and that I don’t take shit, and it makes me feel so embarrassed that I let myself be pushed around by my dad.

      If anyone actually reads this post and has suggestions for talking to an SO about this stuff (especially in the case of an abuser being good at manipulation/gas lighting) let me know any suggestions you have. I thought by this point in this rant I’d have some sort of clarity but I don’t really. My dad has been slightly better the last year or so, since we moved to a new house that’s bigger and we’re on opposite sides of it. After one of his worst outbursts (at the beginning of my senior year) I gave him a book about male abuse in an attempt at confrontation but I doubt he read it. He’s been better but I can’t let go of all these feelings. Older people tell me that eventually I’ll forgive him and move on but I honestly don’t want to. I don’t want him to just get away with treating us like garbage. Maybe that makes me petty and childish but I am barely 20 so. It be like that. Might make a separate post about my brother might not. I love him but dudes got issues rn.

[sunflowerchester]

please tell me what you thought!! I'm not worried about spoilers, i already know what happened, i'm gonna see it in a few days and i'm so psyched! tell me all your thoughts please!!!

I am so charged up about this movie I don’t even know where to fucking start!!! I guess I’ll start with my initial Twitter rant bc GODDDAAAAMMMMNNNN!

Here’s some non-spoilery things about the movie for those who don’t want to be spoiled:

Mother! is a horror movie for every woman whose pain was ever used & romanticized to further a man’s personal growth.

Mother! is a horror movie for women who have invested and fallen in love with a selfish man.

Mother! is a horror movie for women who feel the constant suffocating entitlement of the patriarchy.

Mother! is a horror movie for women who feel they’ve been constantly taken advantage of and are demonized for daring to speak up about it.

Mother! is a horror movie version of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. (And I said this BEFORE I saw this tweet by the director 😍)

Mother! is a horror movie for any woman who was only valued as a cure for a man’s pain instead of valued as a full, human person.

Mother! is a horror movie for women who were treated like IRL manic pixie dream girls and then tossed aside like garbage. 

Also I found it able to tap into horrors of being a woman that were subtle and specific in a slightly Get Out kind of way, imho. I felt very understood in many ways even as I was being horrified by what I was seeing. 

Below are some spoilery things:

The movie opens with a woman burning, a tear falling down her face, and then her turning to ash. Javier Bardem sets a gem stone on a stand and then a beautiful home surrounded by nature appears out of the ashes. I knew as soon as Javier Bardem’s character sat that gem on the mantel and the scene turned to Jennifer Lawrence appearing out of the ashes in bed that that is where the movie would end, and it would end with another girl in her place. 

AND IT DID. For a bit there at the end, I was wondering where it was headed because of the chaos, and I nearly forgot about the gem itself, but then we ended right where I expected. What I didn’t forsee was what the gem was made of: it was the last thing that Bardem’s character could squeeze out of his previous lover before she turned to ash, something beautiful that he could put on display before he started it all over again with someone new. 

GOD-FUCKING-DAMN

This movie is about a woman who gives all of herself (physically, literally, spiritually, emotionally, horrifically) to a man because she loves him, because it is expected, because she thinks he will view it as love, and it is never enough. He never stops taking from her, not even when there are literal mobs in their home tearing the physical house apart, stealing their belongings. At one point an actual war spills into their house and she barely escapes with the life of herself and the child she is about to give birth to. When she begs her husband to send these people away, he refuses because they stroke his ego. 

I don’t think the chaos of the previous 10 minutes of the film before she asks this question nor her struggle through them were literal but rather a representation of how it feels to be in her position, where she’s tried everything to be enough for this man for as long as she has been with him, rebuilt his house by hand, made it a home, served all his guests and fans without complaint, and even carried his child. She finally started believing with her pregnancy that she was going to win him over and be with just him, that this would be the key to finally meeting that standard of enough, but that was never who he was ever going to be for her, even as a father. And when she realizes, at 8 months pregnant, that his true love is still himself, his writing, and his fans, despite his child growing in her womb, she felt her world slip. The insanity of the the wars, the executions, the mobs in the house weren’t real but that’s how it felt. Her world was crumbling and she’d never regain any control again. 

In the end he even invites his fans to hold their baby and the baby ends up dying. It’s horrific and disgusting, and what does he say to her? He tells her that it can be something beautiful and encourages her to forgive, that there is nothing more beautiful than forgiveness, so they must. As if she doesn’t have rights to feeling ugliness in the face of losing her child. I felt suffocated myself by this immediately invalidation of even the most understandable and vulnerable of feelings. 

There are other moments like this throughout the movie where Jennifer Lawrence’s character is trying to speak up and voice her needs but it’s like shouting into a pillow as she asks politely and reasonably. No one listens or seems to care, especially not her husband. He seems to only placate her lovingly when he can tell she needs to feel he’s heard her, but he never really does or cares to try to actually listen to her. This last time, when she is weeping about her son being murdered by the people he allowed into their house, is the last straw and she calls the people around her what they are: MURDERERS. And because she finally yells and screams at them, they beat the everloving shit out of her and call her names like whore and bitch and cunt, etc etc. 

So she makes her way down to the furnace and burns the fucker down. GIRL YES BURN THAT BITCH TO THE GROUND.

And yet after the explosion that incinerates it all, guess who is intact and who is charred to the bone. Javier Barden, completely complete, carries Jennifer Lawrence, a burned, scaley version of herself, through the rubble of the house. She can’t understand how he is able to do this when she and everything she built is destroyed. 

She asks, “What are you?” He replies, “I am life.” She asks, ”What am I?” He replies, “You are home.”

You don’t have to be sexualized to still be objectified and if this isn’t exactly the damaging dynamic in so many male/female relationships, I don’t know what is. He is what life is and she is where he gets to live. Does she have her own life, her own plans, her own goals, her own space? It doesn’t matter, she exists to house him. 

She asks, “Where are you taking me?”He replies, “To the beginning.”

He lays her on the charred bed and tells her there is one more thing he needs from her. She says she has nothing left to give. He says that isn’t true, he wants her love. She relents. “Take it.” He digs physically into her abdomen and pulls something bloody and charred out. Jennifer Lawrence’s character turns to ash and the mess in Javier Bardem’s character’s hands turns into a gem. He marvels at how beautiful a thing it is, the only thing left of his lover. He doesn’t grieve that she is nothing but a pile of ash now, he sets the gem up where the old one once sat and the opening scene repeats with a new girl waking in their bed, signifying that this is what this man does to women and what he will continue to do. He doesn’t learn his lesson or change because he doesn’t value the women he is with enough to see their pain as destruction. Instead, he only sees it for how it can benefit him.

She is ash. He is whole. A parasite going from woman to woman. 

To me, one of the scariest elements of this movie is that Javier Bardem’s character himself isn’t really that scary, he’s not a horror. He’s even sweet sometimes, albeit neglectful af. What’s smart and unfortunately really relatbale about this is it makes him seem like (if not a good guy at least) an okay guy. He’s not evil. She doesn’t befall this horrible fate because he is malicious. It’s a Nice Guy who just wants to Create something Beautiful. But in the process he fucking destroys and sucks the entire life out of the woman he is supposed to love with no remorse at all. There are so many fucking men out there who do this very thing to every woman they are with, emotionally and mentally. Sometimes physically, too, but that’s easier to pinpoint. The horror of Javier Bardem in Mother! is that he could be and really kind of is many of the men we will come in contact with. 

(Bro I know I’ve fallen in love with and had this done to me by one ALREADY)

My thoughts on how this movie has been received:

What blows my MIND is that large groups of people DO NOT GET this movie and I think it’s because it is largely and almost exclusively a fundamental female experience. There are whole hot takes and think pieces trying to figure out HMMM WHAT IS THIS MOVIE ABOUT???? when like…to me, it was obvious and direct in my opinion. I’m not trying to be a bitch about it, like I’m smarter than everyone. I understand that I get it because it’s for me, it’s about a female perspective, but to say it’s about nothing is ASININE. Which many of them are saying. 

If you don’t like the way this movie told its story, that’s fine and fair. We all have different tastes. But if you don’t get the message and therefore want to criticize what it’s trying to say because you think it was pointless, maybe THINK AGAIN. It didn’t fail because you PERSONALLY don’t get it. It maybe just means that there are other experiences in this world and you’re lucky enough to have never had to understand what this movie is saying, the feelings it evokes in many viewers, or the horrors it represents for them. And most likely never will.  If the movie is just not for you I GET THAT bc damn it was rough, IT WAS HARD, it was awful. But it wasn’t about nothing. If you didn’t see the point, be thankful.

There were some think pieces analyzing it and coming to the conclusion that it was about global warming and the Catholic church, which there was definitely some imagery for but that for SURE was not the POINT. If you thought Mother! was just about taking on the Catholic Church while identifying the other ‘weird’ stuff in it as just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ you MAY be ignoring the literal title character of the movie & her entire emotional journey throughout the whole thing. 

Which, SHOCKER, is like… the point of the entire movie. 

Good job I GUESS. But you still missed point by proving it. 

I mean, I get it, make it about whatever resonates with you, but it is undeniably about a fundamentally female experience. No wonder it’s being overlooked. "Gee what could this movie entitled ‘Mother!’ be about? Should we look at the mother character in the movie?? OR HOW ABOUT we just dive into the symbolism surrounding the woman instead while ignoring her completely.“ 👍🏻

To me it seemed any side-symbolism in that movie was to promote the dynamic of her giving all she was & him feeding off of it. Including any messianic imagery. As a smart, smart friend of mine said, “Men will of course deify themselves all the time.” That’s EXACTLY what the religious imagery was about, about Javier Bardem’s character living out his desire to be a god to his fans for his own ego, so deep that he let them devour his own child. It was about the church but it was only in service TO EMPHASIZE HOW HE CONSUMES HER AND WHAT SHE HAS GIVEN. Like… LORD help me. (No pun intended.)

I cannot believe a horror film about a female experience is so baffling for people to understand when we’re half the people out there. “WHAT IS IT ABOUT?????” It’s about what she’s showing you it’s about. PAY ATTENTION!! 

But how poetic (ew gross) that many people who don’t get it write it off. It’s the same reason so often women are not believed and their experiences are questioned. No wonder women feel LIKE NO ONE LISTENS.

It’s like there are people looking directly at this movie screen and seeing a blank black box for 75% of it. And here I am screaming into a pillow.

This is not to say that Mother! doesn’t take on many things, it does. There is a lot to unpack and it would be unfair of me to say there is only one way to read it. Of course there isn’t, and many parts are going to resonate with different people for different reasons. With that being said, though, to anyone trying to make the point of this movie about anything other than the experience of the female lead character, remember the gemstone and the burning woman at the beginning of the film, and then at the end. It is bookended this way for a reason. This is about the pattern of a man and how it affects the women he chooses to be with. This is about a woman who loves a selfish man who unapologetically lives selfishly and what it does to her to be in his life. 

It’s metaphors, it’s symbolism, obviously it’s hyperbolic, but it’s still REAL👏🏻AS👏🏻FUCK👏🏻.

[chaseprice]

it’s kind of a dick move for me to bring this up when people are mostly just having fun and its only a small minority of people who genuinely have ill intent, but... do people realise chloe and rachel never dated/ended up in a stable committed relationship.. hhhhh

okay i think some people are aware and just ignore it. they fear it bc they think it invalidates amberprice or something, but. it doesn’t. it doesn’t make them lesser somehow as a ship... imo it’s the fact that their relationship was so ambiguous and deep and confusing and had conflict that made it so unique. ‘cause in lis, chloe is insecure. she constantly flip flops; first saying that referring to rachel as a friend is putting it mildly, then continues to refer to her as her friend and can never mention the word girlfriend... and she has no reason to fear max finding out if they were dating. she’s pretty obvious about her attraction to girls. naked posters up in her room, clearly flirting with max, saying she crushed on rachel. if they were dating, she wouldnt be like, oh yeah, i crushed on my friend. she’d be like... uh, yeah , of course, she was my gf. but she can’t bring herself to say girlfriend because... they weren’t. other people refer to them as ‘friends’, saying that chloe was some punk chick rachel hung out with sometimes... but chloe’s word is more trustworthy. there’s confirmation that chloe was in love with her, multiple times, explicitly. “i loved her so much...” “i loved her, asshole!”. and confirmation that chloe believed rachel loved her back “and she loved me”. the photos and bracelets and secret box and feathers and postcards and mixtape and everything all suggests chloe was in love with her. because she was. the fact that rachel was so anxious to tell chloe she’d met a guy because chloe would blow up about it -- just shows they were more than friends. but that doesn’t mean. they were a proper couple. the language used, the way chloe doubts and fears what her and rachel’s relationship meant -- breaking down, calling rachel a bitch for banging frank, saying she ‘betrayed’ her, but still referring to her as a ‘friend’ in the same sentence... it’s so goddamn painful, but in the most... relatable way to pining lesbian experience imo? i just... it’s what makes them even more interesting. they were planning to run away with each other... they were more than friends... in this weird, liminal space between a relationship and a friendship... expectations are EVERYWHERE, jealousy is rife, chloe ends up hating rachel’s friends -- hates frank, and frank hates her back, saying chloe stole rachel away from him -- she puts her life on the line for rachel ‘cause she loves her so goddamn much, but also because their relationship isn’t stable. it’s under threat. it’s torture in a way. but it’s still love. and although i despise dontnod i really do think this fanon interpretation which dontnod inspired is real lush cause god i love exploring complicated relationships between girls and i love that chloe and rachel are canonically complicated af

i think believing that they were gfs just... sets. people up. for disappointment. it’s what leads people into being like “ohhh i cannot believe rachel would cheat on chloe, that’s so fake, not canon”... but it’s not though. it happened. this event -- the fact that rachel gives herself to people, needs so much validation and attention from others due to insecurity and feelings of not belonging, has so much love inside her and has so many issues with trust and opening up to people and telling them the truth -- is a canon detail. it’s interesting. it’s sad. it’s real. it affects people. but it’s not as simple as ‘cheating’. ‘cause we don’t know what rachel’s intentions were, and chloe and rachel weren’t dating in the first place. i just... chloe and rachel can still be super gay and in love despite all their issues. i love complicated weird amberprice and i just hate seeing people who like, never liked them from the first game but are suddenly seeing the rushed portrayal of them forming a relationship and deciding they want that version to be real and getting upset when they think about the fact... it ends... messily. ‘cause... guys... that’s amberprice. that was them. those were their realest, rawest selves.

everybody knows that chloe and rachel have always meant a lot to me, but yeah basically..... i think in my heart i’ll always prefer the amberprice which has been canon/fanon for years -- since it shaped som of the best opinions and interpretations of rach/amberprice in the fandom, and brought so much community and a shared love for Complicated Rachel Feelings. at this point it honestly just feels either so boooorring to think otherwise, or it just lets people down. but it’s not like i don’t get that deck nine would never be able to portray that long, tense, slowburn and complex amberprice anyway with how short the span of the game is, so i don’t blame them. i think they did nicely in their portrayal too, and i’ll continue to cherish bts amberprice. it’s introduced me to a few nice hcs and seeing baby gay chloe fall for rachel in the flesh was fucking beautiful. but still, in my head i see those amberprices as two seperate entities. with the first of which... as the more canon one. so, sorry. cant blame a sad lesbian for being attached to and loving classic amberprice :’(