#its pretty much guaranteed that youre not going to get the truth or context from mainstream media

[news4dzhozhar]

[clusterduck28]

Analyzing one line said by a gag side-character in a kids' cartoon - An Owl House Essay

Belos is supposed to know everything, but why should he know what the Titan wants? Maybe the Titan doesn't even know what he wants. Maybe he's just some normal guy, you know?

I'm just sat here, still endlessly contemplating this line delivered by Steve and its implications on the nature of religious belief in the real world. I feel like there's a pretty nuanced take that is implied there, that I don't see brought up often, not within the online spaces where theist topics are usually discussed and especially not within the context of kids' TV animation. So I'm going to try and extrapolate the implied meaning here while adding some of my own thoughts in a way that would hopefully be comprehensible but I can't necessarily guarantee that :)

Okay, so you guys know how often discussion of religion is exclusively framed around the question of Theism vs. Atheism? It always seems to boil down to the question of god's existence, he either is or he isn't. Every participant in a discussion is supposed to place themselves in one of the two camps and go die on the religion hill in the name of either god or science. This is, to my knowledge, the most common way people conceptualize all of religious discourse for themselves: there's the main question of god vs. no god and then many auxiliary questions that are less important and largely stem from your personal position on the main one.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be like this. You personally, don't have to reject and abandon your religious beliefs in order to be critical of religious institutions and recognize the historical and ongoing harm said institutions have done to society.

Bringing this back to Steve's words, his question is not necessarily about whether the titan exists, he's literally standing on its corpse, in his case it would be silly to question that. But what is not silly to question how Belos, the titan's prophet, is even able to be certain about the titan's will, if the titan himself actually has a definable will and if it's even worth following it. Because ultimately, these things are unknowable and if anyone is to claim to know them, the burden of proof is on them, especially when they stand to personally benefit from everyone taking them at their word. Belos has just as much actual proof for his bullshit about the titan as Steve does for the titan being 'a normal guy' so why does Belos get be emperor?

It's not as if Steve here independently came to some ultimate truth that is unambiguously more true than what he was told by the system he was indoctrinated into. Instead, he has just accepted and embraced that some things in life are just unknowable.

This is, of course, easier said than done because we, as people, are known to be terrified of uncertainty. In fact, many theorize that all religious/supernatural belief is a consequence of people trying to fill in holes in their understanding of the world. Why does it rain sometimes? Gods pissing from the sky. Where did we come from? God created you. Why do our loved ones have to die? It's God's will. Why the world is so cruel? God is testing you. What happens when I die? God decides your faith for the rest of eternity. And so on and so forth.

Religion is a natural consequence of human curiosity, our brains are inclined to get anxious over existential questions and religion provides simple and comforting answers to them. There's nothing wrong with that in on itself, everyone likes to feel comforted but, of course, as we al know from the real world, providing comfort is not the only thing religious institutions are capable of. In fact, they are responsible for all kinds of war, genocide, minority group persecution and other kinds of oppression. Religious leaders are known to often push their personal beliefs through the authority or their institution, justifying all kinds of horrors with the notion of 'god's will', which is not to be questioned.

But like maybe you should question it. After all, the titan didn't personally tell you his will, you only ever heard about it second hand from that Belos guy and he certainly doesn't have your best interests in mind, just look at the inhumane conditions you and your fellow scouts have to work under!

Anyway, so the point here is that it's absolutely necessary to question the authority of religious institutions, regardless of if you are religious not. Faith is an important part of many people's understanding of the world, but this shouldn't, however, be a justification for supporting harmful things practiced by religious institutions. You have the moral right to disagree with things done in the name of your faith.

For a lot of people, my younger self included, it can be quite difficult to decouple the concept of religious belief from the the religious institutions that are supposed to embody them. But separating them is actually quite important because belief is a personal matter, while social institutions are a public one. In other words, each individual is free to determine their own beliefs for themselves but the questions that have to do with determining what kinds of institutions serve society best have to be decided upon collectively. Thus, critiques that focus specifically on religious belief remain in the realm of philosophy, a field that is notorious for never having certain provable answers to any of the questions it seeks to answer, all is shrouded in uncertainty and frustrating to engage with for laymen. On the other hand, critiques of religious institutions rely primarily on historical and material analysis, they are way more grounded in reality, accessible and understandable to an average person and don't have as much ambiguity as philosophy does. It is way more productive to criticize the bad things done in the name of faith than the faith itself.

Basically, I think that this is what the creators of The Owl House are trying to get at with Steve's story and with the broader point it's building towards in general: the show is not against faith, instead it's against authoritarianism justified by faith.

[agate-dragon]

So I was wrong :(

For context, weather is a HUGE shift trigger for me, especially what we typically think of as springtime weather. If its rainy/overcast, temps in the 50s-70s, crisp air, and a strong breeze, it's pretty much guaranteed I'll have at the least a slight mental shift. Now where I live, the weather has been weirdly warm, with temps in the low 40's and nonstop rain, so I've been shifting rather frequently, which meditating on my hearthome.

Whenever think about what my hearthome could be, I'm instantly hit with kin memories of stony hills, dense pine forests, fish-filled wetlands, plunging cliffs into the gray ocean, herds of deer and warrens of rabbits in case I ever wanted red meat, and a constant damp chill in the air. Anytime I'm in nature with a similar vibe to that, its shift city baby.

Being the ecology nerd I am, I almost instantly assumed I lived somewhere along the intersection between a boreal forest (taiga), and tundra, and I was happy with that! I mean it checks all the boxes- cold, the right type of plants, big ol' mountains, sometimes wet, and with fish and large game aplenty! But the one thing I could never get around was how cold it actually got that far north.

I HATE snow. I really cant stand it, and I don't really have any kin memories it. I mean, how does an arctic dragon hate snow? I thought about how I also hate when it gets dark early in the winter, because it messes with my sleep schedule severely. Well, I guess that must mean I hibernate! If I have a diet and lifestyle similar to a brown bear, I probably have torpor like one too!

And I stuck with that thought process for months and months, until today. Like I said, I've been in shift city due to the weather, despite the fact that I almost never have weather-triggered shift when it's colder than 40, or snowy. I don't have any kin memories of either snow OR settling down for hibernation, hell, I don't even have kin memories of midnight sun.

So, after hours of research on the wikipedia page for ecoregions, I came to the conclusion that I'm not from a boreal forest/taiga, but probably a temperate broadleaf and mixed forest, the most similar ecoregion I can find being the Caledon conifer forests and the north Atlantic moist mixed forests.

Basically, where I lived was closest to the sparse, grassy, and mountainous forests, bogs, and moors of Ireland and Scotland!

I'm very happy about finding a new detail about my past life, but unfortunately it means I'm going to have to do a lot more meditation to make up for some of the assumptions I've made about my hibernation, by lifestyle, what foods I ate, and how I lived day-to-day. Despite looking and feeling similar, boreal forests and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests are VASTLY different environments, with vastly different adaptations.

Moral of the story: Don't be afraid to admit you're wrong about a kin memory, or that you interpreted the cause of a shift incorrectly, or any mistake you might have made in your own personal kin journey. It hurts a lot to know this environment I've put so much thought and love into wasn't actually my home, but I'm so much happier being closer to the truth.

If you're interested in narrowing down your hearthome, and being able to talk about/find uber-specific pictures, I HIGHLY recommend this resource! I could spend hours just looking through all the interesting environments. Support Wikipedia!

[neoculturetravesty]

We met in online class - Last Part

Image adapted from here.

Pairing: Renjun x Reader Genre: College AU, romance, angst, fluff Warnings: Strong language Word Count: 3.4k

Navigation: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | You are on the Last Part

A/N: And so it comes to an end, and let me tell you guys, I am not okay 😔 This is going to be a bit of a longer A/N, so please bear with me. If you’d like to get straight to the story, I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND, so feel free to click Keep Reading!

Lowkey, I had a bit of a meltdown as I typed the final words on this fic because I hadn’t realized how attached I had grown to the characters. This is the first time I wrote three different chapter openers before deciding on one, because I simply couldn’t believe it was goodbye after this.

These mofos had constantly been on my mind for the past two months and a half. I would spend most days thinking about where to take them and then bringing them to life at night, after my entire day was over. When I wasn’t writing, I’d make little notes about thoughts I had into the night about them so that I wouldn’t forget them when morning comes. 

This was my first ever (and as of right now, my only) chaptered fic. I had no idea parting with it would be as emotional as it was. When I think back to when I first received the prompt for this, I had never even imagined I could write Renjun, let alone a series. But there was something in the prompt that had gotten my wheels turning. And I am so immensely glad that it did. There were days when I thought “Oh man, what have I gotten myself into.” Some days, the story would just flow. Other days, I’d keep staring at the blinking cursor not knowing what to type. But when I did, I found my emotions so deeply connected with the characters. I was happy when they were happy. I was sad when they were sad. So, parting with them is very hard to say the least.

But through this journey, I got to experience the joy of reading all of your reviews and comments and honestly, it made it all worth it. THANK YOU to every single one of you that read this story and waited on it and laughed and cried with it. You have made my life better in more ways than you can imagine.

In this moment, I want to thank 🍙 anon, because it was their prompt that put me in this mess in the first place. And so, it is only fitting that I dedicate the final part to them 💛

“Oh, we definitely need a picture together. How about here? I think this place would fit everyone.” Kim Doyoung looks about, finding a spot best suited for the photo he wanted.

“I think right there on the platform would be better. We could get everyone in two tiers.” his assistant suggests.

“You’re a genius. Let’s gather everyone. It’s not often that so many NCTU grads and students come to Midnight Arthouse,” Doyoung nods.

“How many of us are here, anyway?” Renjun muses. The assistant looks at her iPad, checking once again.

“I think there’s 23 of you. So, let’s definitely go for the platform.” she nods.

“Okay, then.” Doyoung claps his hands together once, “Gather everyone,” he says to no one in particular and walks ahead with purpose. Renjun and the assistant’s eyes meet and they smirk. Of course this was directed to the both of them. So, they set about to work.

As it would turn out, gathering 23 people from a charity event with art and food and drinks would be a bit of a task. But somehow, they manage to gather all alumni and current students on the platform in three tiers instead of two for a somewhat chaotic picture. There must’ve been something in the water at NCTU because none of it’s students could stand still for very long. They get maybe one decent picture and several in which someone or the other was moving or pulling a face.

His friends aside, looking around at the group, Renjun realized that he recognized nearly all of them. Yangyang and Hendery and the rest of their frat were here. As were the 127s, old and new. Renjun recognized them all, except maybe two boys, who didn’t seem to know a lot of the others either. When the pictures were done and the main events were over and the crowd had started to dissipate, Renjun finally walked over to the artwork to observe it up close.

Honestly speaking, watching the work with his own two eyes left no doubt in his mind that this artist deserved to be spotlighted like this. This work was in a league of its own. Watching it makes Renjun smile; because looking at it makes him think back to a few months ago when he was sitting in Kim Doyoung’s office, thinking of himself as some sort of a big shot. But the truth is, there was no way he had that caliber then, and there is no way he has that caliber now, though he was sure as hell working on it.

“This is the piece I lost the bid on.” Renjun hears a voice and he turns around to see Zhong Chenle’s father observing the art with him. Renjun bows politely and smiles under his mask,

“I mean, this is a remarkable piece. You have good taste.” Renjun acknowledges.

“What about you? Why isn’t any of your artwork displayed here?” he asks and for a while, Renjun smiles a bit nostalgically. He could’ve been here, had he made something for the Annuale. Had he just selfishly taken that shot. Then again, there would’ve been no real guarantees. Because Kim Doyoung was pretty particular in the people he chose, whether they were recommended by his family or not. Working with him closely in the last couple of months had taught Renjun that. It had also taught him how underdeveloped his skill was in the real world context.

“I guess I still have a long way to go.” Renjun replies humbly.

“Don’t we all?” Chenle’s father nods, “Are you working here at this establishment?” 

“Um, I… I suppose I am. I am Kim Doyoung’s apprentice. He is my mentor.” Renjun nods.

“So I might see your work here soon enough, eh?” Renjun assumes the kind man is smiling under his mask because his eyes seem to be making the same shape as Chenle’s do when he smiles. So Renjun grins back.

“I mean… if I work really hard, I might get to shoot my shot in the next Midnight Arthouse Annuale.” Renjun fantasizes.

“Or maybe you’d get lucky like this young artist,” he points his chin towards the artwork.

Renjun smiles, “I would credit her luck, too if I hadn’t seen her work. But her talent is… it kinda speaks for itself.”

“Oh, no, you should definitely credit her luck. Talent isn’t enough. The stars have to align. Luck, talent, the right place, the right time. It all has to come together.” he says nodding. 

Renjun considers his words. They seem to be coming from the wisdom of experience. 

What if Renjun hadn’t received the phone call about his grandma back then? Well, then he probably would’ve made something lackluster and gotten rejected. Working with Kim Doyoung has taught him as much. It didn’t matter who had put a word in for him. At the end of the day, his work had to be outclass.

What if he had received the phone call and then still had enough time to submit something for the Annuale? Then he still probably wouldn’t have because… well, because of you.

What if he had gone ahead, regardless of you or his grandma and just made something and submitted it? Then he still would’ve been rejected. Because the truth of the matter is, he just didn’t have the caliber that artists associated with Midnight Arthouse did.

In that sense, Renjun supposes everything was in fact happening at the right place and right time now. Doyoung was mentoring him and he was getting better by the day. The stars were aligning for him. He knew it in his heart.

“Then I would wish that it all comes together for me, too.” Renjun says.

“When it does, young man, I’ll be the first one to bid on your work.” he says and Renjun doesn’t even have the time to react when he feels a presence breeze in his direction and invade his personal space.

Renjun doesn’t even have to look up to know who it is. He can tell by the way this body fits perfectly into his side. He can tell by how naturally his own body responds and just puts his arm around it’s waist.

“Oh man, I missed all of it, didn’t I?” you lament, as you loop your arms around his neck from the side instead of a hello.

“Not all of it. The guys just left but your brother and his friends are still here. Besides, you had work.” Renjun turns his head and looks into your eyes to reassure you. “Y/N, this is Chenle’s father.”

“Oh, hello!” you say cheerfully and respectfully bow and give you greetings. “It is so nice to meet you. Chenle looks just like you!”

“Yes, I’ve been told I’m a more handsome version of him,” he smiles then turns to Renjun, “And who might this young lady be?”

“This is my girlfriend, Y/N. She goes to NCTU with us.” Renjun introduces you and you bow again. Oh, the thrill he got every time he got to introduce you as his girlfriend. Fuck, he’s pretty sure he’d never tire of it, even if it had just been a few months. The serotonin boost in his veins is strong and he gets the urge to squeeze you and hold you forever.

“Oh, that’s very nice. Come have a meal with us before we have to catch a plane back home, okay?” Chenle’s father invites the two of you. 

“Oh, I would love to!” you say in your chipper tone before your eyes start darting around “I’m going to have to excuse myself for a little bit, I just wanna say hi to my brother.” you say and you politely bow before you start moving away.

“Babe, hang on…” Renjun says, holding you back by your hand. He brings his fingers delicately to the bridge of your nose and softly pinches down the mask over it so it sits more snugly on you. “There, it’s much safer now.” Renjun nods and watches the affectionate smile your eyes give before you move away. You looked so pretty today, even if you were just coming back from a four-hour internship. You were easily the most beautiful girl in this room, though Renjun suspected that you’d be the most beautiful girl in any room you entered. 

Albeit sometimes, Renjun had to wonder if your talent or your beauty was greater. Because you had become the only junior in NCTU to land an internship at the SMK Trainee Drive. And now that you were a senior, you were somehow managing to keep your grades up alongside it. 

Renjun, on the other hand, would find himself struggling with balancing his apprenticeship with his school work. So he knew firsthand how your discipline was something else altogether. Recently though, he had experienced a rise in his grades because you had been taking him on so many study dates that your organizational skills and motivation had started to rub off on him.

Renjun walks around the studio and the party and feels like it’s been too long till you’re finally back by his side. 

“Love in the Time of Corona,” you read the title of an art piece displayed in front of you. “That was supposed to be our thing.”

Renjun laughs and has no qualms in looping his arms around your waist and finally pulling you into himself.

“I guess we should’ve realized then how un-novel the idea would become in a few months.” he comments. 

“Un-novel is not a word, Huang Renjun.” you narrow your eyes at him.

Renjun laughs. “It is now,” he says and lets out a long exhale, “I missed you today.” he complains, though he looks down at you with warmth.

“Well, you’ve got me now. And you have me for the entire weekend.” you reassure him, your palms on his chest.

“Mhmm.” Renjun smiles and he wants to lean in to kiss you. But Kim Doyoung specifically had people assigned to walk around and make sure that everyone had their masks on when inside. “Also, we already have a thing.” he reminds you and winks.

You laugh, and say “I guess we do,” then let out a happy sigh as your eyes avert from his for a moment, taking in your surroundings. “Our Couple Thing should give you some ideas on what you can make when your work is displayed here in the 2022 Annuale. I won’t be late to that, I promise. I’ll take a day off from everything else in my life.”

Renjun's heart grows warmer still, and he’s sure his eyes reflect what he feels, “How can you be so sure my work will be displayed in the 2022 Annuale?”

“I don’t know, Huang Renjun. I just have a feeling about you.” you say and Renjun can see you smile even if your lips are covered by a mask. Your eyes always smiled before your mouth did, anyway.

“Y/N L/N, I have a feeling about you, too.” he retorts. 

“And what feeling would that be?” you raise an eyebrow.

“It’s a secret.” he says, but now he sees your pout, even if he can’t see your mouth because your cheeks have puffed up over the mask. It makes him laugh.

“You’re no fun.” you protest.

“I’ll tell you once we get out of here.” Renjun offers.

“Well, I’m ready to leave.” you jut your chin up. Renjun grins and offers you his arm. You grab it with your entire body and the two of you start walking out together.

You had plans for the weekend, after all. And Renjun was determined to keep you all to himself for once, with no one else demanding your time. Not your internship, not your assignments, not any of your friends, and especially not Lee fucking Donghyuck. He was finally going to take you away where it could just be you and him and nobody else.

This moment felt way too surreal to Renjun.

The campfire had simmered down from a glorious roar to a comfortable burn, giving off just enough heat in the cool of an early winter evening. The sky was in it’s fading moments, where the pink of the light was slowly turning to violets and the violets were slowly merging into darks. 

Renjun remembered suggesting to you all that time ago that maybe you could go somewhere together. But now that he was here, he hadn’t imagined that the moment would feel as surreal as it did. 

Because now the two of you are sitting in front of your tent by the fire, entwined in one another. You’re sitting between his legs, arms around his neck, nuzzling your cheek inside his padded jacket while he supports your head on his arm and kisses you.

He’s holding you in his arms and kissing you and everything seems so perfect that for a moment, he has to pull away to watch your face and wonder if all of this was real. And though there is a gentle smile on your face, you’re not opening your eyes much. Because you know full well that Renjun’s lips would be back on yours in no time. So you play with his hair as they fall to his forehead and when he kisses you again, you press up into him so he would wrap his arms around you and hold you tighter. He does and he rubs his hands up and down your back and attempts to close his jacket around you.

“Are you cold?” he asks lovingly. You shake your head.

“No. I just want to crawl inside you.” you say, like it’s the most logical thing to be said.

“Creepy.” Renjun remarks but holds you closer still.

“You should be happy you haven’t seen my collection of your hair clippings.” you quip as you nip into the skin of his neck.

“Oh, sweet. That rivals all your used tissues I’ve kept in my shrine at home.”

“Aww, you shouldn’t have.” you coo at him and then lean up to kiss him some more and he laughs. But soon, he pushes the arm that you were using like a pillow up so your face would be closer to his and he could kiss you as deeply as he was truly craving. 

The two of you keep kissing like that till the sky is dark. It was an odd sort of trance, being so lost in one another that neither of you cared about what time it was or how long you had been sitting here, wrapped up in one another. Your phones were zipped away in your bags and you hadn’t checked them even once since you had parked your camping van and set up your tent. It was a slow, peaceful sort of bliss, just sitting by the fire and kissing and kissing with nothing else on your minds but being here like this with one another.

“Renjun?” you say, your voice sounding like it was returning from a deep thought.

“Hmm?” Renjun asks as he combs your hair away from your pretty face.

“You know, I learnt today that a cactus can live anywhere between 10 and 200 years.” you tell him, idly tracing the birthmark on the back of his hand.

Renjun leans in and presses long into your lips. “Yeah?” he replies and watches your face. It seemed hazily focused, like it was trying to catch onto a faraway thought.

“I also learnt that it can take up to 30 years for a cactus to bear flowers.” you say in an introspective, wistful tone.

Renjun looks away to hide his smile. Oh God, you were so cute. “Yeah?” he says again, but it’s getting more and more difficult to keep a serious face.

“Sometimes, a cactus doesn’t flower at all.” you say and then you turn your head to look at him like you’ve resurfaced from your thoughts and are now in the moment. Renjun’s grin grows wider. “Renjunnn…” you whine and so he has no choice but to tenderly hold your cheeks in his palms and stroke your hair.

“What?” he chuckles.

“You said you’d think you’re worthy of my forgiveness when the cactus bears flowers.” you whine again and Renjun has to plant a loving kiss to your forehead.

“Is that what I said?” he chuckles some more and then leans in to kiss the anxious realization away from your lips. 

“Renjun.” you pout and Renjun laughs and takes his beautiful, whiny, kindhearted girlfriend in his arms and hopes that his hold could chase away all the worries from her pretty, brilliant mind.

He kisses you because his heart can’t bear it any longer. How did he manage to hold a heart like yours in his hand?

Renjun feels an indescribable amount of happiness. Like he wasn’t sure that you were really here with him, in his arms, all for him to hold, with no worry or burden afflicting him. The happiness is so immense and so incredible and so heavy that for a moment, he feels it suffocating him. He wonders if he deserved this kind of happiness.

But right in the next moment, he stops himself. He knew how easy it was to relapse into those tempting, lonesome thoughts. But if there was anything that therapy was teaching him, it was that of course he deserved happiness. 

Though right now, holding you in his arms, this happiness was choking him. He felt like his heart was swelling and pressing against his lungs and his chest couldn’t bear it and he could no longer breathe. 

“Y/N…” he exhales, holding you back so he can look at your face and you could look up into his. He pauses to gather another breath. Then, he just says it. “I love you.”

And doing so does the trick. He feels his chest slowly getting lighter, because this is what it had been bursting with. Now, he’s told you. Now, it can be unburdened.

You look up at him and there is nothing but a sparkle in your eye, and tenderness in your smile. For a while, you say nothing, just looking upon his eyes like that. “Thank you.” you finally whisper back at him.

Renjun pauses for a moment. But then, he relaxes. This was okay. You didn’t have to say it back right away. Renjun was ready to give you as much time as you needed. So he presses his lips into your forehead once again till he feels you laughing against him. He pulls back in confusion and you grab at the lapel of his parka.

“Huang Renjun…” you say and he looks back at you with uncertainty, “... I love you, too.”

And Renjun can’t help it if he kisses you too hard. He can’t help it that he’s squeezing you too tight. He wouldn’t care if the night brightens back into morning and the morning fades back into night. He was going to hold you just like this for the rest of his life. 

So he lays you down and kisses you deeper, like he wanted to make up for all the time he had lost. All the time in his life when he hadn’t known you. All the time he had known you and didn’t let himself have you. He was going to make up for it all. And as he zips the tent up and shields you from the rest of the world, he wonders if he could spend all of his days just like this. Holding you and loving you and knowing that you loved him back; and if he could, today was a damn good day to start.

The fire slows to a simmer till all that’s left are embers that keep being carried away by the breeze. But the two of you remain inside, in your own world, happy that you had found one another, happy that you could finally have one another. Happy that you could hold one another and say that you loved each other and have nothing in the world hold you back, not now, not ever.

You were Y/N and Renjun, Renjun and Y/N, two names that were forever intertwined because that’s how people would call you now. You were the couple that belonged so perfectly with one another that people would wonder if you’d been together for years. And any time someone with a burning curiosity would come up to you and ask,

“So, where did you guys meet?” you would just look at one another, smile and say, “Well, we met in online class.”

~THE END

Copyright © 2021 NeoCultureTravesty. All rights reserved.

[ratingtheframe]

10 Films to watch this Valentine’s Day if you’re single as hell.

If anyone or anything is making you feel worthless on the Capitalist Holiday that is Valentine’s Day because you’re single AF, then don’t fret because it means one of two things;

You’re happy enough with yourself to not need anyone else.

You’re allergic to people.

Though mine is both the former and the latter, I can still get down to a good romance movie now and again. Now I’m not talking about those horrendous rom coms that Netflix seems to be churning out every damn minute, but those emotionally invested, earthy and well written dramas that has you ugly crying into your bathrobe for 17 minutes straight (me at the end of Her.). Here is a compiled list of some of the best romance films I’ve seen over the years and how each one doesn’t showcase an abundance of clichés and brands them as “acts of love”.

A Star is Born (2018 or 1953, take your pick)

I’ve found that both the 1953 version of A Star is Born with Judy Garland and the 2018 newer version to be a perfect and well rounded love story. What makes this love story so fierce is the vulnerabilities and downfall of its characters, which even though there are many sad moments, it perpetuates and strengthens the acts of love shown in the film. Both versions are similar in that they follow a woman who’s rise to fame as a performer becomes overshadowed by her jealous partner, who is also a notable celebrity. In the 2018 version starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, Gaga’s character Ally is helped by a country singer, Jackson Maine to become a successful singer and icon amongst the music industry. As she rises, Jackson falls and the character dynamics and intensity between them is a fitting love story. I was thoroughly bawling at the end and I guarantee you will too as Lady Gaga’s rendition of Love Again was the true scene stealer of the film. 

Call me by your name (2017)

I have an incredible bias towards this film and it has nothing to do with the film’s context or characters or even Timothée Chalamet The reason why I feel so connected to this film and proclaim it as my favourite film of all time is because of when I watched the film. It’s almost like seeing a film about a political event right after it's happened; you have this rush and connection towards something that’s actually affected you in the real world. I had the same feeling with Call me by your name after going through a rough and confusing patch whilst trying to get over someone I thought I truly loved. Turns out I didn’t (thank god) and yet Call me your name was almost like a shoulder to cry on. It’s a film that’s taught me to love and love hard but most importantly, not beat yourself up or try to distinguish the pain felt by true love. If you haven’t been fortunate to catch this beauty of a film, it follows two men, Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) and their brief relationship in the summer of 1983 in Northern Italy. 17 year old Elio lives with his parents and his father (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a scholar who invites students from outside the country for the summer in hope of passing on his wisdom to them. This is when Oliver arrives, a handsome twenty something American who becomes the infatuation of Elio. 

I’ll never forget the first time I heard the monologue that Elio’s father gave his son at the end, explaining to Elio why he shouldn’t feel embarrassed by the pain he felt after loving Oliver:

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster, that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste”

That, ladies and gentlemen and all in between, is what love is.

Her. (2013)

Once again, another film about love that had a profound effect on me because of when I watched it. Her. follows the story of Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) and his search for a story using an A.I to help him write. However, after getting to know this A.I named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) and hearing the way she adapts and shows emotions, he soon falls in love with it. Some may deem this as rather sad (which it is) but I think it speaks to bigger constructs like internet dating and letting go of people you loved thus diminishing the fantasy and world you created for the two of you. This part of the film got to me a stark way as I felt the pain of letting go of not only a person, but a fantasy, just like Theodore had to do in letting his past partners go. Her. is truly beautiful, with some great production design, cinematography and acting.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

The absolute queen of love stories would be Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a film about the romance between two women in the late 18th Century. Definitely not a narrative you see every day or one that’s been painted in such a way (pun intended). Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is commissioned to paint the beautiful and stubborn Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) and the portrait is to be gifted to a suitor of Héloïse’s from Milan. But instead of getting the painting done and sending it off, Marianne and Héloïse unexpectedly fall for one another at a subtle and well timed pace that had me gawping at the screen the entire way through. Slow, sensual and moving is Portrait of a Lady on Fire and I would definitely say is one of the best LGBTQ plus films ever made to date.

Broke Back Mountain (2005)

Ang Lee scooped up a BAFTA, Golden Globe and Oscar for his direction on his adapted screenplay of Brokeback Mountain. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) form a romantic bond after shepherding alone together on the side of a mountain. Once their time herding sheep comes to a close and they return back to their respective lives, it's clear that their bond is stronger than they had anticipated. They live in constant fear of their relationship becoming apparent to those around them, which leaves one of them taking matters into their own hands. A controversial yet extremely successful film of its time, Brokeback Mountain does a fabulous job of showcasing the consequences and despair of love using two of Hollywood’s finest actors.

Carol (2013)

It’s difficult to fully appreciate LGBTQ plus films set in the past as they mostly focus on the persecution of homosexuals as opposed to the love they wish to express. However, this was pretty accurate of the time and it's only very recently that we have begun to accept one another’s sexualities and genders fully so much that we play these stories out on screen without the persecution part. Carol is a film directed by Todd Haynes and stars Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. I found them to be an extremely intense pairing whilst they unravelled as their characters on screen. Therese (Rooney Mara) works in the toy department of a department store when one day she lays eyes upon Carol Aird, a beautiful and elegant married woman who becomes the infatuation of Therese. Therese throws all caution to the wind in order to be closer to Carol and because of this and the 1950s society they live in, their relationship is doomed from the beginning. I was in complete awe of the way Carol had been shot and created into this sensual and rich drama set in the 1950s. From the costumes, to the lighting to the acting, everything about Carol held weight to it showcasing the devotion of a truly talented director.

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004)

Usually I’d pass on a Charlie Kaufman film, seeing as they make no sense, however I felt that it was time I delved into this cult classic starring Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood. It’s a really well made film with a clear and distinct message to it that’s represented in some phenomenal filmmaking techniques. The plot line of this film follows a man trying to erase a past lover and his memories of her get wiped away physically before your eyes on screen. It made me wish that I could do the same with people I’ve liked in the past, but the contradictory of this would be the trauma of eventually ending up with someone you had already met in another life. I haven’t experienced a break up nor felt the pain of one, though I could judge that this film tells that experience really well.

Moonlight (2016)

Moonlight is one of few films that I would genuinely worship if it were a religion. It's also one of the films that I outwardly shame people for not having seen, as it is truly a masterpiece and film lover’s film. Deep, emotionally connected, colourful, harsh, moving and eye opening, this film takes you on an emotional rollercoaster through the eyes of Chiron and the three stages of his life that have carved out his essence as a human being. Not only that, but he falls in love with another boy at his school, and when he does, he’s hurt rather badly. Literally. Moonlight is the definition of profundity and was awarded the top prize of Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards. 

Loving (2016)

When I think of a truthful and honest testament of love, the film Loving comes to mind which is a fitting title for such a delicate yet strong story. The film is based on a true story of an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred (Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga) being banned from Virginia in the 1950s for choosing to be together. If that ain’t a true sacrifice of love, then I don’t know what is. Choosing someone you love over your own home is an unfathomable thing and certainly shows the strength that this couple had in facing the judgements of others whilst remaining emotionally truthful to themselves. 

The Shape of Water (2017)

The Shape of Water is a strange yet enlightening love story between Eliza, a deaf woman (Sally Hawkins) and a creature being tested on in a laboratory. Awards season went mental for this back in 2018, winning four of the THIRTEEN Oscars it was nominated for. I would categorize it as quite the niche film and wouldn’t usually think that such a film could be garnered with Oscar success. However everyone who worked on this film really pulled out the stops in creating an entire new world and perspective that has many layers to it, as well as an abundance of conflict and dynamics for audiences to lull over. The relationship between Eliza and the feared swamp monster that’s being cruelly tested in the laboratories where she works, is heartfelt and honest, which is strange seeing as Eliza’s virtually in love with a monster. The casting in this was outlandish yet it really worked as all actors in this melded well into the story as their prospective characters. It also has one of the most touching endings to a film I’ve ever seen.

And there you have it, ten Romance films for you to enjoy this Valentine’s Day. Watch them all at once, or maybe just watch one. Whether you watch it alone or with someone, it doesn’t really matter!

Lots of love

Ang x

[plus-size-reader]

Reunited

Seperated pt.2

Daryl Dixon x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1751 words

Warnings: none

Summary: When Glenn and the reader are reunited, both Daryl and Maggie find themselves feeling especially jealous.

Part 1

——————————————————————————————————

You followed Daryl down the path he'd came from, doing your best to keep from stumbling or holding him up too much.

It wasn't lost on you that Daryl was doing you a huge favor by sticking his neck out for you and you didn't want to cause him any more problems than he may have been dealing with already. On that front, you did better than he thought you would, considering the shape that you were in.

"You doing okay?" he wondered, turning back to you slowly. The two of you had been following the main road thus far, making it a pretty smooth path but he just couldn't be too careful. You were a few paces behind him, so he stopped to let you catch up and then checked the tightness of the wrap.

So far, you were doing alright.

"I'm alright, don't worry" you assured, finding it funny that he was checking on you. There was no good reason for him to care so much but he did. It even surprised Daryl that he cared so much but he decided not to think about that.

It was probably just because you were hurt, or all alone. He knew that feeling and didn't want you to have to go through that if you didn't have to.

"So, you wanna tell me where we're going to?" you asked, finally getting up the courage to do so. You didn't get a really good feel for what Daryl communicated like until much later in your walk but now that you got a better idea, you needed to know.

It wasn't everyday that you just followed a complete stranger to a mystery location, and if you could fill in a few of those pieces, you were going to try.

The male in question was silent for a moment, visibly slowing his pace so that you could keep up. You were hurt, and he didn't want you to feel like you were slowing him down or anything silly like that.

He just assumed that you were that type to feel like you were constantly a burden or some shit like that.

"It's a prison. There's a whole group of us held up there right now, it's got walls and all that" he decided, figuring that was the best description he could give you without getting into too much needless detail.

That was just the way it was, pretty simple.

"A prison huh? Sounds homey" you joked, you had no idea what you were going to do when you got there or if the others would want to accept you, but you were just going to have to see. A joke seemed odd, given the circumstances but you couldn't help yourself.

Surprisingly, Daryl laughed.

It was a dry laugh, deep in his throat and not very amused but you took it as a win. That was the closest you'd gotten to any real emotion from him in all this time. For you, it was more than enough and guaranteed that wasn't going to be the last joke you'd attempt.

"It's not as bad as it sounds" he shrugged, in a way that told you it must not have been. Though, even if it was a hole in the ground, it was more than you'd had for the last few weeks. Anything was better than sleeping on a pile in the ground or under the back seats of a car.

You nodded, stopping short when you came across a fallen tree, covering a pile of dried brush. Daryl stopped first, causing you to almost run into him, though you managed to stop just before you could.

It didn't make any sense. Until, you saw the very front end of a tire peeking through the leaves. This must have been how Daryl had gotten out here in the first place, but that also meant that you had to go back the same way.  

"You ever road a motorcycle before?" he questioned, pulling it up on its two wheels. You hadn't, and you would have thought that was obvious. However, when you shook your head, Daryl chuckled.

So, your real joke wasn't funny but the fact that you'd never been on a motorcycle was? This guy didn't make any sense.  

"You're being serious? I'm not getting on that thing" you huffed, folding your arms across your chest. The action made your cut burn but you ignored it, trying to keep your ground steady. You were scared of it, and to be fair, anyone would have been.

Your mama always told you that motorcycles were dangerous, and you believed her.

"Well princess, I don't see any other options so unless you want to stay here..." Daryl hummed, gesturing off to the bike, which you really didn't want to get on. Though, you didn't want to be left here more, so you agreed.

You let Daryl get on first, and then you tried your best to get on, throwing your leg over like you were trying to straddle a horse. You had never done that either but you figured it was the right approach and when you didn't fall off, it seemed to have worked.

"Now just hold on tight and try not to fall off" Daryl joked, though you were beginning to think that he was being serious. In any case, you did as he said, holding tight to his middle to keep from falling off and before you knew it, there was a huge prison in front of you.

He was telling the truth.

The walls seemed pretty sturdy, and from what you could tell, there weren't any holes that would cause any glaring problems. Still, everything you were thinking about faded away as soon as you saw Glenn standing there behind those walls.

For a second, you thought that you were hallucinating, but there was no way that was true. You were in a little bit of a rough spot but not that rough. You would have known him anywhere and while you never thought you'd see him again, there was no disputing it.

That was Glenn.

"Oh my God. Oh my GOD!" you squealed, doing your best to get off the back of the motorcycle as gingerly as you could, though seeing as it hadn't fully stopped yet, you faltered on your way. You were okay, and safe within the walls, but it didn't stop Daryl from scoffing.

"What are you doing? Stop that" he chastised, looking at you like you were out of your mind, and maybe you were but you couldn't worry about that. All you could think about was Glenn, standing there with mud on his face.

Before you even knew what was going on, you jumped into him, wrapping your arms around him in a pretty aggressive way. It hurt like a bitch, the open wound in your side punishing you for it immediately but you ignored it.

Right now, you didn't care about anything other than him.

"I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead" he muttered, holding you close with his head in your neck. It was the sort of thing that only two lifelong friends would do after so much time, and you didn't even question it.

However, a few feet away, Daryl was putting the motorcycle up and had very obviously changed his demeanor. He was angry seeing you like that with him, a strange feeling bubbling up in his stomach, but he ignored it.

Clearly, there was something going on between you, but he didn't know what and he wasn't alone. Maggie was struggling with the same thing from where she was standing. Right now, her partner was all wrapped up in a complete and total stranger and she didn't like that. No one would have in her place.

"I thought you were dead too" you replied, pressing a kiss to his cheek before backing away completely, fixing where his hair had gotten a bit messed up in the hug. It had gotten quite a bit longer than the last time you'd seen him.

That seemed to be the last straw for Maggie who stepped forward and cleared her throat. That was more than enough for you and Glenn to turn your attention toward her, and the smile she'd plastered onto her beautiful face.

"Who is this?" she asked, her arms folded in front of her chest as she addressed you. It wasn't aggressive or hostile, just distant and given everything that was going on, you couldn't blame her.

By this point, Daryl had come to stand at your side. He had given you your space to catch up but until you got acquainted with everyone here, you were his responsibility. Not to mention the fact that he had found himself quite fond of you in your time together.

He didn't just want to throw you to the wolves, at least not before he made sure that you got that cut taken care of.

"Her name's Y/N, I found her out there" he spoke up, addressing her question before Glenn even got the chance. At which point, you nodded, offering a hand to her in return, "I'm Y/N" you repeated, looking between her and Glenn as if waiting for the same.

However, he was still so caught up in the fact that this was happening, and that you were alive that nothing else mattered. Something as simple as introducing someone he cared about to his girlfriend was a luxury he didn't really think about anymore.

Though, you coming back into his life was the perfect opportunity.

"Oh yeah, this is Maggie. She's my girlfriend" he introduced. It sounded so mundane, so normal but maybe that was because it was. The two of you had made it all this way, separately and still managed to come back together.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

"Glenn and I were friends as kids, we grew up together" you filled in finally, figuring she had the rest of the pieces to put the story together fully.

You were beyond ecstatic to meet her. Immediately, the tense reaction she'd had to you initially melted away and she smiled. All she needed was some context to understand but Daryl wasn't going to be so easy.

Even knowing all that, he still had that feeling in the pit of his stomach and he wasn't sure why. Until he found out though, he wasn't going to be able to relax. That was for sure.

[blossomoranges]

Crossmarch and Mirai's Search For The Silver Fox

hi everyone! this was part of the @ikesennw‘s secret santa, written for @mitsushide from me. the fic focuses on her character, Mirai, facing her first Christmas in Azuchi posing as a princess of the Nakamura clan. in truth, she’s an undercover agent for the Crimson Lotus, an organisation of women looking to bring down the feudal warlords, and an all-around badass. also, local himbo Yukimura makes a cameo.

read her fabulous series beneath a night sky, vast & wide  for more context!

word count: 1550

pairing: hints of mirai/mitsuhide

Winter had come to Azuchi on swift wings, bringing a chill to the air and a coating of frost on the ground. But this year, the season was different. The Oda’s support of the Western traders had brought a new influx of foreigners to the gates of the town, and with them came stories of strange cultures and traditions. ‘Christmas’, as it came to be known, was a winter festival celebrated by many of these people - a time of feasting and gift giving and togetherness. Nobunaga Oda, with his endless fascination for anything new, had announced a holiday for the citizens of his provinces.

Mirai wasn’t sure what to think of all this. A day off for all the hard-working people of Azuchi was a step in the right direction, but it could just be one of Nobunaga’s passing fancies. There was no guarantee that this festival would become a tradition. Plus, she could barely pronounce the name. Christ-moss? Clip-mass? Whatever.

And just how was she meant to look for openings to rid the land of these warlords when the castle was flooded with people preparing for a banquet? 

Ever since she’d arrived in Owari under the Nakamura banner and the guise of a sickly princess, she’d made sure to document the routines of the six key warlords, but they’d seemingly scattered to the winds. Mirai had caught a glimpse of Masamune Date cooking up a storm in the kitchens, the door to Ieyasu Tokugawa’s office had been barred from the inside, and Mitsuhide Akechi… was nowhere to be found. According to Honoka, he’d last been seen heading out to the town centre. She can’t say that trying to track him down is a wise thing to do - princesses don’t usually go around tailing people. But the sheer volume of people stocking up on winter goods and preparing for this strange festival provided safety in numbers and a golden opportunity to see what the kitsune was getting up to.

So here she is, standing at the edge of a crowded marketplace, attempting to track a man who’d perfected his disappearing act and to blend in all the while. 

If she wasn’t so experienced, she would never be able to find him.  She cleared her mind and focused on the smells, sounds, and sights of the market, and kept pushing forward. Out of the corner of her eye, Mirai sees a swirl of teal and ivory. The chase is on.

He’s a worthy opponent. Mitsuhide ducks, dodges, and weaves through the town with the grace of a heron, while Mirai follows in his tread, slinking just out of sight. She can’t survey him from the rooftops (damn these unwieldy kimono skirts), so she darts into one of the many alleyways to stay out of sight. Their pattern of fox and mouse holds, right until the kitsune stops in his tracks at the very edges of the market, turning to examine a stall surrounded by trinkets and charms. Mirai is a tad surprised - he didn’t seem the type to enjoy frivolity, or anything uninvolved with torture for that matter.

His exchange with the shopkeeper lasts mere moments before he’s off again, out of sight and drifting away like a spirit with questionable taste in clothes. Thus comes an end to her fruitless chase. She needs to head back to the castle soon, anyway. After he had overcome his initial animosity, Hideyoshi seemed convinced that Mirai might drop dead from a cold as soon as the sun sank below the horizon. There was a slim chance he’d be too busy to notice her disappearance, preparing for the banquet and worshipping the ground Nobunaga walked upon, but it wouldn’t do to be questioned. 

The road back to the castle gates was so much more boring without a target to prey upon. The crowds had dissipated a bit as it neared sundown, though some citizens milled about, browsing and discussing the coming winter. The winds were even more chilly, but she kept a measured pace.

There was something glinting in the last rays of the day. Mirai inclined her head towards the source, a blanket laid out with accessories much like the ones that had caught Mitsuhide’s attention. She was in no rush to return to the castle - regardless of the festivities, it was just another night of endless posturing and waiting for openings to strike. Looking at pretty things might suit her disguise. 

She crouched to examine the wares, her eyes drifting over the kanzashi, hairpins, and obi charms. Aha! There was the culprit. A group of silver animals hung upon cords were caught in the light and a tiny fox curled up against its tail rocked gently at the forefront.

“You gonna buy anything? I’m about to close up,” came a rough, unrefined voice. 

Mirai barely spared a glance for the man before responding in a cool tone. 

“I am just admiring your wares, sir.” 

“Well, admire them quicker! I’ve been busy all day with this… Crossmarch nonsense the Oda are putting on. I swear, all you girls are like this.”

He must have been blessed by the gods, because if Mirai didn’t want to blow her cover, she’d have attacked by now. Her newfound acquaintance was dressed head-to-toe in scarlet and his head, clearly empty, was crowned by a mop of brown hair. He also seemed to be the world’s worst spy - six golden coins were emblazoned on his chest, marking him as one of the Sanada. She grasped for the little fox she’d been examining, tucked it into her pouch, and chucked a few coins onto the blanket. Not the best use of Rui’s funds, but needs must when playing a princess.

“Good night, merchant. You may want to use those funds to buy a new kimono. One that’s less conspicuous.”

She glided away from the blanket, taking careful steps, only half-listening to the spluttered retorts of the merchant-warrior. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The moon peeks out from behind the heavy clouds to cast her light over the courtyard, lighting it up in splendour, and Azuchi’s newest princess watches in turn. She had broken out in shivers from the frigid air long ago, but the stillness provided a balm for her mind. The banquet had been so loud. The further away she was from crowds of rowdy men, the better - at least Mirai can be herself here under the moon’s watchful gaze. 

The day wasn’t entirely a loss: she’d learnt the layout of the town, confirmed the presence of enemy forces, and managed to find a fox - just not the one she’d set out to catch. Her charm was threaded onto her obi cord, but Mitsuhide was still shrouded in mystery. 

With his wit, guile, and access to information, Japan could be his. So what was his motivation for following a distasteful man like Nobunaga?

The moon slips away at the same moment she feels that something, or someone, lurking in the dark behind her. She’ll have to feign surprise if the presence behind her decides to declare itself, but her thoughts race - everyone has the same primal response to shapeless beings in the dark. Kaede’s words echo across time in her thoughts.

��You are a warrior, but don’t forget the frightened girl that you were. Your past exists within you, dear Mirai. Use that fear to spur on the strength that will always rest in you.’

The words bring a pang to her heart, but she cannot say whether it is fear or pain or grief. She forces herself to breathe.

“Hello, little mouse.”

She casts an upward glance at the voice’s source. With his white robes shrouded in the pale moonlight, the man could pass for a ghost.

“Good evening, Lord Akechi.”

“Oh, do call me Mitsuhide.” His crescent moon smile is wickedly sharp.

“Mitsuhide, then.”

They remain in silence for a few moments.

“Why is our darling princess out here? You’re missing all the festivities.”

“I prefer quieter company. Everyone in the banquet hall is awfully loud for my tastes.”

“I see. You must be tired from your excursion into town, as well. Such a busy day,” he tuts.

Had he spotted her trailing after him? No matter. There was a challenge in his voice and she would not rise to it. 

“I haven’t had much chance to explore. I had missed seeing new places and people, after being ill for so long.” 

“No need to defend yourself, little mouse. I merely noticed your fetching new charm.” He gestured to the sleeping fox in the centre of her obi.

The kitsune brought something out of his robes and set it beside her, as his other hand rested upon her head. It was a battle for Mirai to resist raising her hackles at him.

“A Christmas present for you. I heard you like this particular bird. Good night, little princess.”

Then Mitsuhide was gone, disappearing down the corridor and leaving silence in his wake. 

The only trace he had left was a bronze statue that fit neatly in her palm. A little quail. Was this a trick or some bizarre act of kindness, or did he really just like seeing her puzzled expression? The mystery surrounding him had grown. Mirai hoped she would get her answers soon, but they would not come on Christmas night.

[citrineghost]

Humans Are Historically Known for Being Terrible

Hi I’m here with an opinion today. Let’s see how many words it will take for me to adequately get it across on this very fine 15th of January

I personally believe canceling things from the past* is fruitless, pointless, and accomplishes about as much as censorship does

*We aren’t talking about shit like nazi Germany, let me elaborate further

So, as I occasionally do, I have seen a post on my dash today criticizing something historical that people are ‘problematically partaking in.’ That thing today was the wellerman sea shanty due to its ties with colonialism, slavery, and so forth. 

I’m not going to dive into this specific example, because I don’t know enough of the details and am not interested in going to find them out because I’m not planning to defend it or its history, so there’s no point. I learned what I needed to know from said callout post and it’s enough to work with.

To me, it is important that we remember that people, in general, have been historically pretty terrible.

There’s colonialism, there’s slavery (of all kinds, including chattel), there’s thievery, murder, genocide, sexism, the murdering of queers. There’s lying, manipulation, propaganda, and so many more things that I couldn’t possibly list them all. I’m not saying that everyone was equally shitty. I am aware that, especially in the most recent couple hundred years, white people, especially Western Europeans and Americans, have been pretty Shite.

Am I excusing them for their actions? Absolutely not. I think it is always important to bear in mind the way they played a part in cultures’ growth, death, and, ultimately, development from one year to the next.

The reason I’m pointing this out is because the result of people being historically shitty is that most, if not all, of our historical content, our history, is steeped in horse manure. 

There is not one thing you can enjoy from centuries - even decades - passed that is not here because of something inhumane, unjust, or otherwise terrible.

The only thing keeping us from canceling every other historical thing that we enjoy is our lack of awareness of how each thing ties into the whole mess.

So, we’ve learned that wellerman was sung by slavers and thieves and colonialists. What about that nice little folk song from uh, idk, Ireland or something? Let’s take this metaphorical song and ask the question, “who wrote it?” The truth is, for many folk songs, we just don’t know. There is a very very good chance that 90+ percent of nice, soft folk songs about lying in the grass or feeding chickens or baking bread for your spouse were written by racists, sexists, abusers, homophobes, and so forth.

Does that make it wrong to enjoy that song about lying in the grass and looking at the stars? I don’t think so. No one is profiting off of you listening to it, regardless of who wrote it. It’s hundreds of years old. Do you even know the name of who wrote it?

Remembering that times were different may not absolve something of its wrongdoing, but it does provide us context.

We have to allow ourselves to admit that most, if not all, historical things, came from or benefitted from atrocities or injustices that we would not stand for today. That’s just how human progression works. Frankly, if people 200 years from now don’t look at US, CURRENTLY, and think we’re terrible assholes, I am actually very concerned by that. 

The nature of humanity is to get better and better over time and to build a world and a society where we don’t feel the need to be controlled by greed or to consume unethically. The problem is, it takes time. It takes lots and lots of time. Would it take less time if certain people weren’t terrible, terrible people? Yes it would. But they are, and so it doesn’t.

The fact is, human progression and improvement will never reach its end because, as things improve, our perception of our past actions will change as well and we will begin to realize that what we were doing wasn’t acceptable and is no longer necessary nor excusable. 

Hate Jeff Bezos? Look around and see that 90% of people still buy from Amazon, because it provides the only affordable source of many products for people who don’t make enough money under capitalism to buy from a small business.

Hate Bill Gates? How many of us are willing to switch to Linux to quit using Microsoft? Speaking of Microsoft, they own Minecraft. Do we stop playing Minecraft?

Think Steve Jobs is a terrible person? Why are people still buying iphones, ipads, and macs? Why don’t we stop buying those so that he and current CEO, Tim Cook, quit making billions of dollars?

These are just a tiny amount of examples, using big names. We also must consider, if you have 100 books on your bookshelf, how many of the writers of those books are racists, homophobes, sexists, or abusers? I guarantee you it’s a non-zero answer. The thing is, an author who’s relatively nobody is not someone who gets canceled. No one knows anything about them but that they wrote a neat work of fiction and it’s a good book.

The question is, should we be expected to quit buying, consuming, and enjoying things made by problematic people?

In some cases, the answer should be yes. If someone is currently profiting massively from people consuming their media or products and people are ignoring their atrocities, that person could end u making millions or billions of dollars despite being terrible, which is something that undoubtedly affects all of us, economically.

In the other cases, the answer should be, do you want to? If you’re not comfortable with something, you should, of course, stop consuming it. If you can ignore the thing, you might not need to bother. And, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re excusing it.

If we look at all of humanity, even in the present day, mathematically speaking, 50% of people are more bigoted and terrible than the rest. There’s no other way for it to be. Less than 50% would be a mathematical fallacy. Does that mean we only consume content from the better 50%? Does that mean we rigorously research producers and creators and their personal lives only to decide it’s not worth the risk of ‘contributing’ because they have no trace online except for a private Facebook account? Is them having a Facebook account enough of a ‘sin’ that it’s not worth it to buy their book?

This brings us to the censorship point

If you know your history, you know that censorship is a nasty thing. When one person decides who or what is unethical to consume from, they sometimes seek to get rid of that thing so that no one has a choice - so that no one is Allowed to consume that thing.

This has led to book burning, the destroying of decades and centuries of research about sexuality and gender. It’s destroyed religious texts. It’s destroyed content created by women that painted any single man in a bad light. It’s destroyed progression.

“But I only want to get rid of the bad thing that everyone agrees is bad!”

It doesn’t matter. If you open the door to censorship for yourself, those who wish to use it for worse reasons will become just as justified, in their own eyes, to do the same. You’ll have Christians saying it’s okay to get rid of gay content because it’s objectively wrong according to the bible. You’ll have conservative parents burning books with complicated topics like abuse and assault because they don’t want their children to have access to anything controversial or complex like that.

You cannot open the door to censorship for one group without opening that door for everyone. And that is why we do not censor things.

The question then becomes, but what of the people consuming that media? Even if it’s not censored, consuming it still makes someone bad, right? 

Not necessarily. People consume problematic stuff all the time - things considered objectively bad. However, people don’t always consume said media because they support it being normalized in the real world. For example, fanfiction or books with rape in them may be something a victim reads to cope with their own past or present. A book with abuse depicted may actually make a young teen aware that what they’re going through is abuse. Content largely seen as ‘problematic’ can often play a part in solving the problem it portrays.

Then there’s historical, problematic media. Now, this is an area where I feel things have actually been OVER complicated.

Because everything historical has some tie to injustice, there is no ethical way to consume it. 

There is no ethical consumption under passed time.

So, how do we judge whether something should or shouldn’t be consumed? It is my opinion that something historical should stop being consumed and become shunned when its meaning is well-known enough and its message is still pervasive enough that it is actively causing problems.

For example, we generally try not to consume content when it is made by someone who is a known nazi. This is because nazis are still a problem in our society, presently. We have antisemitism all over the place. Therefore, we cannot let the message become that it is okay to be a nazi by way of us treating nazis like normal people and allowing them to succeed in society without consequence.

However, there are certain problems that are no longer particularly prevalent or which are agreed to be terrible on a large enough scale that consuming the content does not necessarily imply you believe it is okay. For example, if you look at literally any media from the 1800s or which is placed in the 1800s, you will see a lot of casual sexism and gender roles. Should we despise that time period because sexism was readily available at every turn? Should we refuse to enjoy 19th century fashion or culture because it had problems? I think not. I think it would be pointless to refuse to consume, read about, or otherwise engage with the 19th century. It wouldn’t change the past and it isn’t going to somehow undo the progress we’ve made on women’s rights. 

As a matter of fact, if someone merely suggested that perhaps the people of the 19th century were right for forcing women to wear long dresses and darn socks all day, they would be laughed into oblivion and called a shitty, sexist incel (which would be correct).

Does enjoying media from or placed in the 19th century mean you support sexism? I certainly hope not, since I enjoy it very much and know a lot of progressive people, women especially, who do enjoy that kind of thing. It is common sense enough, at this point in time, that people don’t generally believe that the sexism of the 1800s was acceptable. I am not going to see someone watching a period drama and assume they desire for our present-day social laws to be like what’s portrayed. That would be a ridiculous assumption. However, I could not assume the same about someone I saw watching openly antisemitic content. I would quickly wonder if they’re an antisemite/nazi/white supremacist.

So, what about that one thing I heard had a sordid past?

Listen, if we’re being honest here, most things from history have a sordid past. Sea shanties? You bet. But then when we talk of sea shanties being steeped in colonialism, we have to look at the bigger picture. What about pirates? Pirates were, by and large, a huge contributor to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder. Does that mean enjoying media with pirates is glorifying or contributing to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder?

(I’m about to talk a lot about pirates but this can be applied to anything that was historically bad but is no longer prevalent)

Pirates of the Caribbean is only a movie, but pirates did once exist and they did kill people. They did raid ships of merchants and tradesmen and they killed them and stole their goods. They took many good men from their families and even killed working children aboard the ships. Does that make enjoying pirates in media a contributor to these things? No. It doesn’t. We are looking at a dramatised, cleaned up version of the original piracy. I think most people are aware that pirates, in the real world, are bad and harmful and should not be supported. That doesn’t make pirate media any less fun in theory, and under our own terms.

Then we arrive at our perception - because most of this does come down to perception. When you watch pirate media, should you enjoy that, are you able to divorce yourself from their actual history enough to enjoy the media? If you can, you might enjoy it a lot. If you can’t watch a movie about pirates without thinking the entire time about how terrible they were and how much damage they did, then pirate media just isn’t right for you. But, it doesn’t mean you should attempt to take it away from others. Your opinion and perception of pirate media is not the global perception.

I have to ask, do you think others view it the same way you do?

When you read that question, you may be wondering what exactly I mean. What I’m asking is, do you believe others view that media with the same “clarity” that you do? Do you believe they understand the atrocity of real pirates and Feel that the entire time they watch the media and still enjoy it anyway?

Perhaps that’s why your response to someone enjoying something you feel guilty partaking in is, “these people all must not care about the real-world damage pirates did. The fact that they can watch this (despite sitting here and feeling the same things I do) makes me sick.”

However, if that is the case, you must remember that for a lot of people, the awareness of real world consequence is suspended during dramatised depictions of it. It doesn’t mean they have forgotten about the real-world consequences of piracy or that they don’t know it at all. It just means they are choosing not to think about it in that light while consuming media.

There is also the assumption that people must not know about something when partaking in it. You may think, “How can they enjoy this media? They wouldn’t be able to stomach it if they realized what really happened with pirates.”

In many instances, you would be correct. A lot of people are ignorant to what pirates have done in the real world. If you told every ignorant person the truth, maybe 5% of them would then become turned off by pirate media, and the other 95% would keep the truth in mind and then divorce themselves from it to continue enjoying said media.

There are realities that it is safe to divorce yourself from, and there are those that are not.

Is allowing yourself to enjoy dramatizations of pirates making you ignorant to present day conditions? Not largely. There are still pirates today, but not nearly enough for the average Joe to need to take them seriously. Those who need to know about them and do something to stop them are aware.

However, it is not safe to divorce yourself from, for instance, the holocaust. Divorcing yourself from the holocaust and seeing it as merely a dramatic setting with dramatic events and not a present-day real-world problem is exactly the kind of thing that leads to young teens being sucked in by white supremacy and naziism as well as what leads to many average conservatives believing the rise in white supremacy isn’t actually real or is not a big deal. They have distanced themselves so far from the real-world atrocity of the holocaust that they have forgotten it was real and that real people, like them, were contributors. They don’t want to believe that everyday people had any power in it and that it was tiny acts of willful ignorance that made concentration camps so successful. 

All in all, there is a different answer for everything we consume.

Want to know if something you’re consuming is okay to consume? Ask yourself: is this produced by someone who is contributing to present-day conditions? If the answer is yes, quit consuming it. If the answer is no, ask yourself, does this media make me uncomfortable because I’m aware of its roots? If the answer is yes, stop consuming it. If the answer is no, it’s probably fine. You are most likely not doing any damage, so long as you are aware of what is wrong with the content and are not using it as grounds to perpetuate harm. 

If, when thinking about something problematic in an old piece of media, you cringe? You’re on the right track. If you feel inclined to make excuses for it or justify the wrong in it, it’s time to step away and reevaluate why you feel the need to do so. If you’re doing so because you feel guilty for consuming it, you need to realize that it is actually more harmful to make excuses for the wrong in order to justify your consumption than it is to admit, “Yeah, this media is problematic and contains a lot of sexism, but I still enjoy it for its other qualities.” It is better to admit that you enjoy something problematic than to spread the message that what is happening in it is okay.

Some of you may be thinking, “Or, just stop consuming problematic media.”

I think in many cases, especially recent media, where your consumption has an effect on production, this is true. However, for media that is no longer being produced, I will remind you that most things have something wrong with them - yes, even pretty recent stuff.

Supernatural kills off women constantly, queerbaited the fuck out of its viewers, and sent a huge character to fucking mega hell for confessing his love.

Scrubs has no end to its sexism, transphobic and homophobic slur usage, and other problematic content.

V for Vendetta glorifies and shines a heroic light on a character who kidnaps and tortures a woman for what appeared to have been weeks or months so that she would be forced to understand his trauma and “no longer be afraid.”

Star Wars has incest, the producers/directors abused Carrie Fisher and sexualized her as a young teen, and probably a lot more that I’m not aware of because I haven’t seen the movies nor read the books.

I don’t even need to start on shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Community, That 70s Show, and so many more. Almost every popular piece of media has something worth canceling in it. There is no point trying to curate your media consumption to only unproblematic content, because it simply can’t be done.

Curate where it makes a difference. Sigh heavily the rest of the time. Make yourself aware what and how things are problematic. Put critical thought into how your consumption is capable of supporting or perpetuating a problem and how it is not. Make informed decisions.

Do not feel guilty if you are unable to flawlessly live up to the standards of purity culture. None of us can - not really.

[pass-the-bechdel]

The Good Place season one full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (thirteen of thirteen).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

49.58%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twelve of the thirteen; seven of those are 50%+, and two of those are over 60%

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-four. Eight who appeared in more than one episode, four who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-two. Eleven who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Solid; the nature of the show is such that they really need to be making a concerted effort to reflect positive, progressive morality, and as such faults in the content would also almost certainly be considered faults in the show itself (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Magnificent! It’s a wonderful ride, whether it’s your first time through or not. Just delightful.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

So, let’s talk about plot twists. In the current entertainment landscape, it seems like everyone is intent upon ‘subverting expectations’, and the good old-fashioned plot twist is very much swept up in that, since a subversion is almost always going to play as a ‘twist’ by definition. The unfortunate thing about this current landscape is that it’s rife with ‘subversive twists’ which are really just bad storytelling; they’re only there because of some pathological fear of predictability, or worse, because the creative minds just want to feel cleverer than their audiences by delivering content that no-one saw coming, serving their own egos at the expense of coherent narratives. If your ‘twist’ is about your own (supposed) intelligence, if you’re baiting the audience by playing into a common trope and then laughing at them for thinking you meant it, if you’re changing the story out of nowhere just for shock value without bothering to build toward the twist because you’re too afraid that someone might figure it out before the reveal...that’s not a real twist. It’s not even a real subversion, it’s just a bad-faith gimmick. It’s not there for the story at all, it’s there to make the writer feel special, because apparently feeling special for delivering quality storytelling isn’t good enough anymore. A proper, genuine plot twist should:

1. make sense in the context of the narrative (it should not be tonally dissonant or jump the tracks into a different genre)

2. make sense with the content of the narrative (it may recontextualise previous events or character choices, but it does not contradict or ignore them in order to function)

3. be foreshadowed (if it comes out of nowhere, that’s not a twist, it’s a random event. It’s a deus ex machina. There’s no story in it if it isn’t built into the fabric of the narrative)

4. ultimately further the storytelling (if it has no consequences for plot or character, it’s a shock-value gimmick, not a real twist).

The above points do not guarantee that a twist will be good storytelling and not just a subversive contrivance for the fuck of it, but they should at least ensure some logical cohesion and protect the integrity of the plot instead of sacrificing it in the name of empty surprise. That covered, it’s easy to see how – even (or perhaps, especially) in this twist-saturated tv landscape we currently inhabit – the big twist for season one of The Good Place still manages to be – in technical parlance – dope. The writing protects the twist not by being ‘too clever’; it simply offers a decoy issue to drive the plot. Eleanor is a Good Place fraud; that’s the first twist in the plot, and it compels the entire season forward. Other twists - Jason’s reveal, Eleanor’s confession, the introduction of the ‘real’ Eleanor - set the stage for this being A Show That Has Twists, but in a way that makes so much contextual sense that it doesn’t set us up to be looking for the next one (a common problem for those shows that rely on ‘cleverer than the audience’ twists - they’ve set themselves up as mysteries for the audience to unravel, and then they kill their own storytelling as they twist in knots trying to keep ahead of millions of intelligent viewers). The Good Place actually tells us outright that something is wrong with this supposed ‘happy afterlife’, it just fools us into thinking that we already know what’s wrong, so that we don’t see the signs of the truth for what they are. Crucially, however, it doesn’t matter if you figure it out before Eleanor does. You can have your suspicions (or have had the show spoiled for you in advance), and you can still appreciate and enjoy it as it unfolds, you can pick up the clues and have a good time with them, and that’s something that all of those gimmicky-subversion plots out there are missing. Their ‘twists’ are not proper functioning pieces of the narrative, and so the story doesn’t work if you already know the reveal; there’s no juicy build-up to enjoy, or worse, you expose your own illogical contrivances or outright plot holes that were created in the course of writing a crappy twist just to feel relevant. The Good Place works because - like any good story - it isn’t about the twist. It’s about the journey.

An important part of what makes the twist work also is that it interweaves the sins of Tahani and Chidi with the discissions of morality without drawing too much attention to them; if all four humans had simply been frauds, it would have been narratively empty, especially if the reveals were coming late in the piece. Jason’s works because it comes out early, and because the Jianyu cover is interesting and distinctly different both to Eleanor’s ploy and to the behaviour of the rest of the neighbourhood, but if the others had turned in the same way it would have been too contrived, too easy, and it would toss out the personalities we had gotten used to (which would violate Good Twist point #2). Since the show DOES pull that trick with Michael (which works because he’s the architect of the whole situation, not a pawn within it), it’s essential that they’re more subtle with Tahani and Chidi’s reasons for being where they are, and in playing it as they do they also reinforce the show’s central deliberations on morality. It’s an inspired framework for approaching what are traditionally considered ‘heady’ themes (and y’all know I’m into it), and every decision about how to approach and balance character behaviour is coming from a position of ethical consideration, weighing not only the acts themselves, but how they compare to the moral theory of various different and conflicting philosophies. It just goes to show that you don’t have to make something ponderous and inaccessible in order to have a cerebral conversation through television - you can do it just fine with afterlife comedy.

As I noted above the cut, the nature of the show automatically lends itself to careful consideration of any feminist and/or progressive content, and as such it should keep a pretty clean bill throughout, or risk cracking its own concept. I do wish they would come out stronger on the queer side of things (as I said in the episode posts, they really aren’t vague about the idea that Eleanor is attracted to women, but her saying words about hot women is still not delivering a lot on the representation front, especially when she is known to do more than say words when it comes to dudes, and the only other queer content we get is the fact that Gunnar and Antonio are soulmates, and that doesn’t technically mean they’re romantically or sexually involved (especially since they’re fakes anyway, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing)). In the mean time though, we have a female lead, 100% on the Bechdel and an essentially balanced number of male and female characters abounding, plus some really nice variety in racial backgrounds (and great names to go along with those - it’s a bit of a peeve of mine usually when show’s include multicultural characters but land everyone with Anglicised or ‘white-friendly’ names. Let the Bambadjans of the world keep their names). We’ve taken a clear stance on even ‘benign’ sexism (i.e. the stuff that’s just men saying inappropriate things - ‘just a suggestion! just a joke! just trying to get a reaction out of you, why are you so sensitive?’ - it’s all literal demon behaviour here), and I won’t pretend that I’m expecting them to get into the real nitty-gritty, but that’s ok. I’m happy to have something which is making a point of not being problematic, because such refuges have real value. So, maybe there won’t be a lot for me to tease apart as the show progresses, but that’s not a bad thing. At the moment, we have green lights across the board, and that’s a hard thing to find. I’m going with it, and we’ll see where we end up. 

[hes-writer]

I'm the anon who wrote about the reality-AU ask.

And I have a different view from what you wrote, because for me there where 2 major things:

1. Reader wasn't a strong woman

2. Harry was definitely an arrogant, selfish prick to reader.

I will start with 1.

So, what moral and values? I honestly don't understand that part because for me moral and values mean one thing and I don't see they fitting the situation.

Regardless, MC wasn't a strong woman for several reasons.

She allowed her pain get in the way of her child's life several times, she literally got with the first guy that showed her love when she wasn't ready nor emotionally stable, if we take in mind that she met him at halfway through her pregnancy and in 2 years ish she was already living with him and allowing her child to call him "dad". So she clinged to Connor as a substitute and staple to the family she had planned having with Harry, just like Harry clinged to Camille's offer as a way to have what he dreamed having with Y/N. None of them put their child's best interest first, otherwise she would have found a way to deal with her pain while allowing him to be part of Halo's life and he would have found a way to accept that he would never have what he wanted bc of his mistakes in the past.

And the clearest sign of that is her conversation with Harry in the last chapter. She did love Connor, but he was only there because Harry blocked her. If he hadn't, he'd have seen the text and be involved in his kids life. So, I know you said something about being emotionally available as a parent and that's my argument for that. Harry wasn't emotionally a dad bc that chance was taken from him out of spitefulness and he still tried to be there, he made a mistake but he never gave up. He was robbed of it countless times bc MC was never healed properly to let go of her personal feelings and focus on Halo, bc I can guarantee you that if given the chance, Halo would forget it and choose to have a relationship with Harry.

Which brings me to my previous point... He wasn't Halos dad, MC made him her dad because she didn't want to deal with Harry when she knew that he had a right to at least be informed about the baby, regardless of her relationship with him. In the story you make it known that he blocked her and that's how she couldn't tell him, but she kept in touch with his family + he contacted her at some point. So, she uses her own actions against him and he let's her out of guilty, showing a bit of manipulation from her side. Both of them were toxic and manipulative. Just bc you were hurt, doesn't give you a right to act as you please, speacially when a child is involved. That shouldn't even be put to argument and I'd have agreed with you more if you hadn't tried to classify MC as a victim at all costs, even when she was the wrong one.

If this was real life, a girl behaving like her would be concerning, so why in a fanfic she's considered strong? Because she standed up for herself and for her daughter? I mean, did she truly stand up for her child? Can we truly say that? Or did she allow her own barriers and insecurities surround them and keep Harry distant? Wouldn't a healed and strong woman be capable of dealing with her ex for their's daughter sake, speacially when she's in a happy and healthy relationship?

Parents are allowed mistakes. None of them know what they're doing and the greatest majority of the world is filled with people who weren't mature enough to be parents, yet somehow were allowed to.

She was unfair and subconsciously used her child to get back at Harry for all the pain he caused her.

He left her, so she didn't tell him about their baby, then when he found out she monopolised his entire relationship with his daughter and did some pretty illegal stuff, and when he committed his first mistake with the child she cut him off completely without taking in account what her daughter wanted.

Have you watched the show The Duchess on Netflix? I think its a great example of my point here, in case you don't understand it.

Also, forgot to say that she was toxic again when she kept threatening him over wanting to be with his kid. Like, we spend tons of times telling people to be responsible with their art, as it can be a door into introducing kids to things. We also spend a ton of time telling boys that they should care about their babies and be there for them. Then you come and write a fic where the guy gets threatened and manipulated when trying to be with his 🤷🏻‍♀️

MC definitely had her right to commit her own mistakes, as I said, parents will do it countless times. But I think that's a bit unfair that she gets as many as she wants bc she got hurt previous to baby being born, yet Harry barely gets one when trying to figure himself out after finding out about his kid. You mentioned that a judge would never give Harry any custody bc of what he did and that was a bit dumb, sorry. Law is based on justice, balance and protecting the victim with fairness and justice, therefore Harry would have been granted at least the benefit of the doubt as his mistakes were minor and the victim in this story is Halo, not MC✌🏽

This is a long one.

Morals and values are not fitting in the situation.

Morals are personal beliefs that a person upholds and values are something that are regarded as important. I think that everybody uses them in most of the things they do so they definitely fit the situation.

She literally got with the first guy that showed her love...

I wouldn’t say that MC clung unto Connor and got into a relationship with him right away. The first couple of instances—they were just friends and weren’t officially together until Reign.

None of them put their child’s best interest first // Reader wasn’t a strong woman

I agree that both parties didn’t act on the best interest of their child but that doesn’t necessarily mean that MC wasn’t a strong woman. Sure, she wasn’t ideal in the context of being a mother—but she mended herself enough to give Harry a chance when he found out, even setting up limits while she was at it.

Wouldn’t you think that that takes courage? Besides the preceding fact that it is courteous to tell someone that you’re having their baby (no argument there), especially to someone who has cheated and betrayed your trust, you are sweeping the pain away. MC was letting Harry back in even if she personally didn’t want to. Harry was a huge part of her life so I think reminiscing on their relationship would never cease; they have a kid together. All the good and bad of their time together will always be present in her mind.

Harry was robbed [of being a dad]

You think that Harry was robbed of being a Dad, I can’t convince you otherwise. You said it yourself though, ‘if Harry hadn’t blocked MC, he would’ve seen the text and he would’ve been a dad to Halo’.

But he did—and the following points of your argument are, in a sense, irrelevant because what you’re pointing out is what could’ve happened if Harry didn’t do what he did. These are the consequences of his actions. “He blearily remembered bitterly blocking her number just as she texted “I need to tell you something,” <- That scene was the turning point of MC’s decision and frankly, a showcase of Harry’s immaturity. MC said she had something to tell him and he retaliated by blocking her.

As well, you mention, ‘if given the chance, Halo would forget about it’—there’s a lot of assumptions in your argument because these aren’t part of the original story. These are what you think should’ve happened.

He blocked her [...] but she kept in touch with his family

MC kept in touch with his family on the pretext that they wouldn't inform harry that the baby was his. This was because of a misunderstanding due to a post on Camille's IG page. H seemed happy with his new relationship. MC didn't NOT tell him out of SPITE—it was because she didn't want to ruin his relationship with Camille.

Harry contacted her at some point // Just because you’re hurt doesn’t give you the right to act as you please

Yes, Harry did contact her—to call her a ‘whore’ and stated that she ‘probably slept around’ during their relationship. [ie. Harry: Why not? Scared that y’gonna have to admit that everything you put on was an act? How can y’move on so fast and give me shit about it?”] I’m guessing that’s probably not the best way for H to ask about MC’s pregnancy and I can imagine that the sheer rudeness and projection will deter most people.

His dialogues were an attack on her personality (that she was a liar and disloyal), on the validity of her emotions (that she was faking them), and on her identity as woman solely because he was crumbling under the truth that he was the one who messed up. I mentioned before that Harry’s insults were a projection as a result of his defence mechanism. Meaning that he was—to some extent—aware that MC hadn’t cheated but convinced himself otherwise to feel less guilty. Therefore, at the end of Halo, he judged the credibility of their child.

If this was real life...

And this is a fanfiction.

Once again, MC might not have been the ideal representation of a strong woman, but she stepped up when Halo was introduced.

Imagine going through a break-up with your SO of two years while you’re pregnant because he went behind your back FOR A YEAR, amidst hormonal changes, still going to work, and trying to find yourself when someone has taken so much of you—that’s traumatizing. Healing isn’t linear. Just because you’re wounded doesn’t mean that you’re not strong.

She was unfair and subconsciously used her child to get back at Harry

MC was honest but she wasn’t truthful. Her intentions were human nature yet keeping Halo away from Harry wasn’t very truthful of her—in legalities and such.

I don’t think MC monopolized H/H’s relationship. She gave Harry a chance to bond with Halo, and they did. As mentioned, MC had set limits and boundaries when discussing Harry’s presence in their daughters’ life. It was a legally binding, word-of-mouth, agreement that Harry assented to.

[he was] threatened and manipulated

In that sense, Harry’s hostility towards MC in Reign was threatening her decision to have him around [ie. You’re not something I would take the time to handle,” // You’re a goddamn mistake is what you are,’]

I understand your concern and I apologize for that. I’m not explicitly saying that this one piece of fiction is satirical in the sense that it’s the opposite of what society chants because that would be vile of me to do. Every circumstance is different though—it really is a choice of preference, validation and weighing out the subject matter.

You mentioned that a ‘judge would never give Harry custody’ and that was a bit dumb...

That line was never part of the story.

"Take it up legally if you'd like. Want to have a custody battle? Bring it on. Let's see whose side the judge is on after they find out that you cheated on me while I was pregnant with Halo."

Suggesting that the conclusion can be one of shared-custody wherein MC has more time with Halo (80/20 visitation schedule).

[jade-marie]

GG 2x04 Rewatch

Not gonna lie, this is probably going to be the only episode I rewatch. The rest has been kinda tainted by 2x13 and s3.

Generally, my opinions tend not to line up with the majority of the fandom - sorry, not sorry. 

1. What was your favourite scene of the episode? Tell us why!

It’s a tie between the bathroom break and the vette smash. Bathroom break - for obvious reasons - I’m a hoe and I live for that shit. The vette smash - I just vibe with Rio’s petty energy and the way you could see how much he was enjoying himself, Dean being metaphorically castrated by the guy who just fucked his wife... chef’s kiss. 

2. Was there any scene that missed the mark for you? And if so, how?

I WISH beth would’ve bit back when Dean brought up the shooting. It irks me so much that she contnually rolls over for him. She spitefully gets payback, but rarely puts him in his place (if it were up to me, his place would be by boomer-jeff’s side in the dumpster)

3. This episode starts with each of the girls trying to make amends in their own way – Beth through her family, Ruby through charity and Annie through Marion. What do you think this tells us about each of them?

I feel like Beth and Ruby’s attempts at making amends always feel incredibly shallow and I can never tell if it’s down to shitty writing or if its because they genuinely don’t feel guilty. If’it’s the former - I’m not surprised. If it’s the latter - I hope the girls own their lack of remorse, in future. 

Annie strikes me as the one who feels genuine guilt over a lot of this, and it’s been pretty consistent - even when Lucy died in S3. I think it makes sense for her to be the most cut up about it because she always struck me as someone who’s ruled by her emotions - she doesn’t exactly think before she acts, and is typically pretty impulsive.

4. Rio offers Beth the keys to the kingdom! This scene is always hotly debated in the fandom! What do you think he meant in the moment of it? Do you think he ever actually saw or even wanted Beth as a partner?

Straying from the general consensus, as usual - I don’t think he was playing her and I don’t think he planned to take a cut of whatever Beth came up with. 

Personally, I don’t think it makes much sense. He’s already learnt that he gets further with Beth through praise and reward, as opposed to intimidation - more flies with honey, yada yada yada. 

If the whole thing was just a manipulation it would have made more sense for him to convince her that he had faith in her and offer her a 25% cut of any cash washing operation she could come up with. She would’ve bit his hand off at the opportunity.  

I think he was telling the truth when he said that he was done, I think he was genuinely flipping his game from cash to pills. At this point, Turner was looking closely and so it would make sense for Rio to want to distance himself from the counterfeit operation. He literally explained back in season one that it’s how he avoids being caught, he flips his game before the feds get too close. 

I get the feeling that he probably didn’t intend to have much contact with Beth going forward and was going to leave her to do whatever she wanted with the rest of the money. It’s not that I think he wouldn’t manipulate her, he absolutely would. I just don’t really think it makes sense in this context. 

5. Do you think Marion had any idea that Boomer was taking advantage of her?

I think it was probably similar to the situation with Beth, regarding Dean’s cheating: the thought was there, but she never really confronted the idea and lived in a comfy little denial bubble.

6. Dean’s attachment to the corvette is played in many different ways in s2! How do you interpret this?

I think it’s the perfect display of his narcissism and toxic masculinity. The car is as grandiose as his ego and he thinks it’s going to save the dealership, much like he thinks he’s going to be the one to save his family from ruin.

7. Why do you think Beth kept the money from Ruby and Annie?

I think she’s hugely manipulative and likes to be the be the one holding the cards. She only wanted to rob the store when she had her own problems to worry about and then convinced the girls to go along with it, she went to Rio to ask for more work back in season 1, she asked him to up their drops, the list goes on.

She tends to call the shots and drag them along for the ride, so it seems consistent with her personality that she’d keep the money to herself until she needed it, and then inform the girls. 

8. The birth of the cars for cash business! Is this Beth’s best idea? Her worst? How do you rank it, both in general and among the girls’ other schemes? And do you think it could’ve worked longterm if Turner wasn’t so fixated on Beth?

Probably the best idea she came up with tbh. The others were pretty poorly thought through, as far as long term strategising goes. It could’ve worked really well if they had an accountant keeping the books looking kosher. 

9. The Beth and Dean arc this episode is perhaps one of their most frustrating (in spite of the extremely cathartic resolution, haha). Do you think Dean’s belittling of Beth and his feelings of Beth emasculating him are new to their relationship or have been around for a long time? How do you think they really see each other?

I think they lived in a state of blissful ignorance and their initial interaction (love you, tunafish) was really indicative of that. Him belittling her was probably prevalent in the beginning of the relationship, but I think she probably just placated him and got on with her life. Now she’s clearly growing tired of his shit, just not. fast. enough.

I don’t think they’re in love though. I think Dean’s feelings for her are fuelled by narcissim. She’s obviously good looking and from the outside, he has it all. The house in the burbs, kids, hot wife, family business etc. That’s what he cares about - the image. I don’t think Beth is too dissimilar. I think she probably looked up to Judith as a teenager and idiolised that life, which Dean could provide. I don’t think she ever had deep, romantic, feelings for him. But she probaly does care for him, to an extent.

10. The Annie and Beth arc is also pretty telling of the characters’ history. It’s also one of the few times we’ve deliberately seen Beth seek out Annie for comfort (often it’s incidental that Annie’s there). What do you think this tells us about their relationship, both historically, and where they are at this point in the series?

I think it’s one of the few moments that their sibling bond is believable. It’s pretty accurate that, as Annie is maturing, she becomes less of a fuckup baby sister who needs everyone to clean up after her and grows into someone that beth can turn to for comfort/advice. Makes sense that this happens later in life, considering the significant age gap.

11. Ruby’s scene at the Quick Cash with JT is really significant – both in terms of it being a generally delightful scene, but also as a touchstone demonstration of Ruby’s increasing unwillingness to swallow her pride. Do you think Ruby prior to the series commencing would’ve reacted to JT’s goading in this way? And how do you think this scene compliments the scene earlier in the episode with Stan admitting he’s taken another loan too?

I thinks she would’ve wanted to, but literally couldn’t afford to. She had the means and opportunity to give him a dose of karma. But it’s always been in her nature to talk shit - diner dickweed in season 1. She refused to swallow her pride and apologise.

That, along with Stan taking another loan, seems to fit in well with the Hill’s entire arc of trying to be good people and being consistently shit on for it.

12. THE. BATHROOM. BREAK. That’s it. That’s the question. Please elaborate on your thoughts and feelings.

Am i supposed to be able to form thoughts or sentences that adequately express my feelings?

Petty king is also king of consent, he let beth take the lead - love it.

Judging from the papertowel dispenser, stroke game was strong.

Penis levitation is now a part of my vocab, thank you for your service, Rio.

10/10 - would definitely recommend being railed in a bathroom by this man.

13. Greg and Annie have what’s their last break-up in this episode (at least up until now). Why do you think this particular one stuck? And do you see any sort of future for them?  

I feel like the key difference was Annie putting her foot down and saying “no”. Idk if I can see them getting back together, becasue I don’t think she’d have another affair when there’s a child in the mix and he’s too much of a pussy to divorce Nancy unless he has a guaranteed backup plan aka Annie. Still kinda ship it though.

14. Annnnd lastly, what do you make of the final scene at Boland Motors? What do you think Rio thought following both the bathroom break and this moment?

I think that Rio was genuinely flipping his game and moving away from cash and, in turn, Beth. But the bathroom break changed his mind, so he got curious and wanted to know what she came up with for the money, only to find out that she gave it to Dean. Given how possessive Rio is of his money, in combination with the feelings for Beth which had just been stirred up, I think his jealous side came out and he took back the money. 

Up until this point, the entire Brio dynamic was him holding the power and exerting it whenever he saw fit. The second he followed her into that bathroom, he gave up whatever semblance of control or power he had left. The man is a very obvious control freak and so I don’t think he does well or feels secure in those situations. Him smashing up the car was basically an attempt to re-establish dominance and convince himself (and Beth) that he was still in control; with the added bonus of emasculating dean and making money.

And daaaayyyyyyyuuuuuuummmmm if I don’t enjoy watching that scene. The emasculation of Dean, Rio being petty, Beth malfunctioning at the possibility of Dean finding out she got dicked down in the bathroom, while he sat outside trying (and failing) to get the waiter’s attention. I DIE

[scrunchie-face]

My ranking of TS8 based on absolutely nothing but my personal opinion

From least to most favorite:

peace: this is the only song on the album i really don’t like. her accent/cadence sounds a little affected to me and there aren’t any lyrics or musical moments that really resonate.

invisible string: i feel like i might get some pushback on this since so many people seemed to LOVE this one but hear me out. This one is clearly about Joe and their relationship and for me, there is not a single song about him that she has written that has been as good as “Call It What You Want” and “New Year’s Day.” Every other song she has written since then about being happily in a relationship with Joe has fallen flat for me. Also, I’m not gonna lie, the more cynical and less romantic side of me finds the whole concept of the “invisible string” to be a bit trite and saccharine. “Isn’t it just so pretty?” To me, yes, it is a pretty thought and that’s all it is.

mirrorball: this song is pretty, and reminds me very strongly of the Speak Now era, but with the complexity and maturity that she’s obviously acquired since then. That being said, to me the metaphor feels like it’s trying to go in two different directions at once and neither one quite gets there, leaving a song that feels somewhat unfinished. It’s either a very pretty love song or a darker reflection on identity, but it never feels like it commits to either.

august: this is where we really start to get into “there’s nothing really wrong with it, I just like other tracks better” territory. Lyrically, I think it’s very poignant, with its reflections on love, time, and memory. Unfortunately, I think the whole “Teenage Love Triangle” hint actually does this song a disservice by indicating that the speaker is the “other woman.” Since the bent of the other two songs (”cardigan” and “betty”) seems to indicate that those two singers/speakers are the couple that is “meant to be” it gives the poor unnamed “august” singer a bit of an uphill battle for sympathy in context. That’s not to say I don’t have any sympathy for her; I have by far the least sympathy for James. Unfortunately, James gets a catchier song (more on that when i get to “betty”). Which brings me to the real reason for this low-ish ranking: I just don’t find the song as musically compelling as most of the others on the album.

this is me trying: as I suggested in the previous paragraph, a lot of the way I rank songs personally is by how much the music resonates with me. I can forgive a lot lyrically if the way the music moves gives me goosebumps. With “this is me trying,” there are several lyrics that I love. The repeated “I have a lot of regrets about that”? PERFECTION. Musically, however, the song as a whole doesn’t really impress itself upon me, making all but the couple lyrics I really love forgettable to me.

mad woman: this song, and the two on either side of it, were ranked somewhat arbitrarily. higher than “this is me trying” for having a little more edge and a more engaging tune, lower than “hoax” because I generally prefer sadness and angst to anger. This is by far the most vindictive track on the album, and while I understand it and think it’s executed very well, the tone isn’t totally appealing to me personally.

hoax: this song, to me, has a very strong Hozier vibe that I enjoy very much. As i said in my blurb about “mad woman” I connect more emotionally with the sadness and turmoil here, hence its higher ranking. “stood on the cliffside screaming ‘give me a reason’“?! Gorgeous, and if you’ve ever felt that way, the line resonates in your bones. “the only hoax I believe in” is such a complex line that I could probably write paragraphs about it; it’s got psychological, emotional, and even religious elements to it that I think are part of what makes such a sad and personal song still feel universally relatable. It asks you, what are your hoaxes? Which ones do you believe? Is it because you want to? Because you have to? betty: ranking this song was difficult, because i find the character of James to be incredibly irritating. Unfortunately, the questionable nature of James’ behavior and attitude towards Betty and the unnamed girl is not enough to condemn the song to a lower ranking because the tune is just so catchy and fun. It’s got one of the best hooks on the album: the rhyming of “Inez” and “she says” just delights me every time. The “--most times--” caveat is amusing and very in character for a teenager trying to explain himself. And then “the worst thing that I ever did was what I did to you.” It sounds super trite, yes, but it would’ve probably gotten my forgiveness when I was seventeen. Also I love “will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends?” Bold words for someone in James’ position but I love the bravado and the way it pairs with the music. The triumph here may be premature but it’s SUPER contagious. epiphany: so this one is perhaps the most arbitrarily placed because I realized when I got the the end of my list that I had forgotten  it.... BUT that being said, I really like this song. It seems to be one of the more divisive on the album; people either love it or think it’s boring. I like it a lot. When we talk about big events--wars, pandemics--it’s very easy to distance ourselves from them and forget that those more affected than we are are people too. This song gently rehumanizes the people we see in books and newspapers and tv reports, reminding us that they are suffering, they are trying, and reminding them that they are seen and loved. It’s extremely beautiful and moving.

the 1: based on my previous claims that the music is  my most important factor in song ranking, this one may seem unfairly high. Like with “peace” I find the accent/modulation of her voice in this song to be somewhat affected and irritating. The tune, while fun and catchy, doesn’t really have much power behind it. But I enjoy it just enough that, paired with some absolutely spot-on lyrics, this becomes a song I was deeply attached to from the first listen. Anyone who has ever had an important relationship that came to nothing will recognize the brief emotional rollercoaster of “I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn’t though,” and feel absolutely convicted by the bridge. “persist and resist the temptation to ask you/ if one thing had been different/ would everything be different today?” If you’ve lost a friend or a lover, you’ve tormented yourself with that question, I guarantee it. Even off her musical A-game, she absolutely nails the emotions here, and I love it.

my tears ricochet: this song actually started out pretty close to the bottom and slowly made its way up. Honestly, the reason for its low ranking was that I still can’t quite figure out what it means. Taylor occasionally writes songs that are very hard to tease out into any sort of linear narrative or neat metaphor; you feel them more than you understand them. And for that reason it usually takes me a little more time to get to a point where I appreciate them. The relationship here is tangled; it’s not the simple bad guy/good girl that we would’ve seen in the Speak Now era, and I would argue that at times it’s unclear which party is even the speaker. Once my analytical mind got past that hurdle, I remembered that this is one of the most musically powerful songs on the album. The bridge? GOOSE.BUMPS. The way the music builds and pounds at “just not home... in your bones.” Shivers. Even if I don’t totally understand what the song means, i can feel the conviction and emotion in the words and music and that is what makes it such a pleasure to listen to.

cardigan: this song is simply beautiful. just lovely. sad and nostalgic and hopeful and it just hits on some stuff that is absolutely true. “when you are young they assume you know nothing./ But I knew you.” I recently had a conversation with my husband about this very concept. This idea that adults look down on young people simply because they don’t have “perspective.” But the truth is that young people know something very important: what it is like to be young and to experience things AS A YOUNG PERSON. Not as an adult looking back on being young, but as a person to whom these experiences are fresh and real and important. “cardigan” takes that whole concept: the struggle between youthful experience and adult perspective, and absolutely NAILS IT. Add in a touch of the sentiments from “the 1″: “i knew you’d haunt all of my what ifs.... i knew i’d curse you for the longest time,” and combine it with a melody that rises and falls and slows down and speeds up and you just have this gorgeous tribute to youth and life and love.

illicit affairs: i love this song so so much. I’ve never been in an “illicit affair,” but the regret and the confusion and the attachment and the love and the hate and the feeling of being trapped are all so raw and visceral that even if you’ve never felt anything like this before in your life you can feel it now. Underneath the fairly simple melody of “don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby,” you can hear the screaming anger and heartbreak. “look at this idiotic fool that you made me!” Gah. I can’t even. It’s just so real. So there. This is a song that you both understand AND feel and it’s so powerful it’s almost overwhelming. Taylor and her killer bridges absolutely ending me every time.

the last great american dynasty: this song is so fun. The story is funny and sad except the indomitable Rebecca doesn’t for a moment let you feel sorry for her. As soon as you see her pacing the rocks looking out over the ocean--a wistful, often angst-ridden position--the song turns right around and informs you that she stole a neighbor’s dog and dyed it green. And then, “and then it was bought by me.” The story has been so definitively about someone ELSE this time until suddenly SURPRISE! The twist at the end is delightful; every story we tell, every story we love, we tell it and love it because it’s about us too. And like i said, there is a quiet undercurrent of sadness and loneliness that never becomes the focal point of the song but is there giving it depth and something more to think about that facts and funny anecdotes. This song is a unique one in Taylor’s discography, and it stands up very well to that status.

exile: is my love for this song partially colored by the fact that Justin Vernon’s voice makes me swoon? Probably. The duet between him and Taylor is hair-raisingly beautiful and heartachingly melancholy. But that aside, I think the thing that first caught my attention was Taylor’s verse. The “staring honey/understudy/knuckles bloody” rhyme drives me absolutely WILD. It’s SO GOOD. It flows perfectly and poetically and honestly i transcend my body and scream with delight into the ether at those three lines every time. That is not an exaggeration. Also, “I’m not your problem anymore, so who am I offending now?” And of course the juxtaposition between “never gave a warning sign (i gave so many signs)” is this perfect description of how, to quote another, much older, lyric “miscommunication leads to fallout.” This song reminds me very much of “Story of Us.” In case you couldn’t tell from previous comments, this whole album, for me, recalls Speak Now, very strongly in many ways. I see her revisiting a lot of similar themes and stories with a more mature perspective and a different sound. Red  as well, actually, but I digress.

seven: i knew from very early on that this would be my favorite song on the album. Taylor’s voice goes places I have NEVER heard before, evoking something elemental and primal. “Before I learned civility/ I used to scream ferociously/ any time I wanted.” Her forays into actual childhood in her songwriting are periodic but relatively rare, and this is unquestionably the best of the lot. Here we see children, almost too young to remember exactly what happened, but marked forever by their experiences of nature and relationships. “I can’t recall your face/ I’ve still got love for you.” This song evokes all the things that dance around the edge of your memory: faces from long ago, the feeling of flying, the fear of falling, the irresistible impulse to plant yourself on the ground and fling your existence out into the world with your voice. The need to feel safe. The references to a friend’s troubled home life are oblique: “your dad is always mad... you won’t have to cry or hide in the closet,” and the solutions are childlike: “come live with me...and be pirates,” “move to India forever.” The song is an immersive experience, charged with feelings you can’t quite express, but that you know and remember, although they are perhaps faded a bit around the edges.

[bigskydreaming]

You ever worry about hearing one side of a story that's been taken out of context and twisted to fit op's narrative, about something you don't have firsthand knowledge about? On tumblr this is a fear I have. Imagine if I'm in some isolated corner learning half truths about some real person who op has personal vendetta against, but I only know their version so I end up hating that person's guts for years? Some isolated Tim fan hating Dick because they only know him through lies?

Yeah, this is an understandable concern to have, especially on tumblr where misinformation can run rampant at times - it happens with everything from fictional characters, celebrities, other posters, etc. 

Personally, I tend to go with the ‘trust but verify’ approach. You hear something about someone from a friend, or you see something reblogged from a person you’ve followed for years.....looking into the situation they described yourself, as much as you can, doesn’t necessarily mean that you think they’re lying about it, its just....context is SO SO key, to so many different conversations. 

And the thing about context, especially situational context, is its only defined by our personal experiences, thoughts and worldview. Basically I just mean the context for some hearsay you’ve heard secondhand could look totally different to you than it does to someone else, because the context is really just your own personal frame of reference to whatever was said or happened. Its how it looks to you from a perspective or angle you’re already at or are familiar with.

So someone can describe a situation to you but have a totally different interpretation than you get when looking into it yourself, and there doesn’t have to be malicious intent involved for that to happen......the exact same dot on the horizon is going to look different to two different people who are viewing it from different angles, y’know? Where we’re coming from or standing at when we look at a situation often has as much to do with how we interpret it, as the facts of the situation itself.

Which means there’s no real easy answer to a problem like this, because it varies so much from person to person....but the one thing I think can always be said to be true of everyone no matter the situation.......its FAR more beneficial to get more familiar with asking questions than accepting answers.

Questions, after all, whether voiced to someone else or just to ourselves as our reason for looking deeper into a matter.....are ultimately just a request for more information. And a different perspective.....one that DOESN’T come naturally to you, and thus you have to hear from someone else to even kinda conceptualize it because its far enough out of your personal frame of reference you wouldn’t connect those dots without an objective viewpoint unhindered by your own natural biases to kinda....point you to where to look.....

I’m just saying, different perspectives ARE more information. Often the most valuable or relevant information out there. 

So ultimately my advice for pretty much every situation similar to what you’re describing is.....making it more natural to you to ask questions about stuff, request MORE information before making up your OWN mind, than just...accepting one single perspective the first time you see it and assuming it knows what its talking about because of the sole fact that you haven’t seen or heard a contrary viewpoint.

Because that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there....just that the person delivering their version of the facts to you isn’t likely to provide them, and if nobody else is stepping up in your vicinity to provide an alternative viewpoint......that just means you might have to go looking for it.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that exposing yourself to viewpoints even radically opposite what you initially believe on a subject is a good thing, because then you have two different ends of a spectrum you can compare and contrast at MULTIPLE points to see just where on that spectrum you and your frame of reference land, the spot that once you look back and forth, you think is most supported by facts rather than conjecture or opinion or bias.

(Note: this does NOT by any means mean that that point is always going to be in the center of two opinions. Not every subject has a middle ground or SHOULD have a middle ground. There’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t end up landing on one of the two most polarizing viewpoints on that spectrum of possible interpretations, if that’s the one you ultimately feel is right. A LOT of people default to assuming that the most reasonable position is somewhere in the middle of two extremes, but that’s like.....not at all innately true. Given that the very nature of things being EXTREMES, as in, the outermost edge of interpretations or possibilities......literally means its entirely possible that one of those extremes is EXTREMELY BAD. And there is absolutely NOTHING to be gained by seeking a compromise or a middle ground between something EXTREMELY BAD and its polar opposite position....especially if you’re really only taking that middle ground because you’re afraid that taking the polar opposite stance will make you seem as unreasonable and single-minded as those taking the extremely bad position.)

*Shrugs*

Anyway, that’s my take on any situation that’s relevant to your broader question.

1) Ask more questions whenever possible (This doesn’t mean treat whoever brought something to your attention as your personal Ask Jeeves and act like that means they owe it to you to perform the functions of a search engine now. It literally just means ask more questions.....of the internet, of library books, of yourself and your personal sense of right and wrong and your own convictions....or of people you seek out when looking for other people who are already offering up their viewpoints on a matter as a resource).

2) Seek out opposing viewpoints (How can you truly know where you stand on a matter if you’re so uninformed on it you don’t even know what the opposition to that stance thinks and believes? How do you fight for something you’ve decided is a worthy cause to fight for, if you have zero clue what it is you’ve committed yourself to fighting against? You don’t - which is how we so often end up with people paying lip service to the idea of being allies, but then are nowhere to be found when the opposing viewpoint DOES come banging on the door).

3) Make up your own mind on matters and STAND by your convictions....while at the same time not cutting yourself off from being open to changing your mind if NEW information later comes to light. (This isn’t an easy tightrope to walk, but hey, who the fuck ever promised that being your own person was easy, y’know? But basically by this I just mean......don’t pattern your opinion or view on something by osmosis. Don’t just soak in and regurgitate what everyone around you is saying. Going against the grain on something, taking a stance that’s ‘controversial’ even in your friend group, like yeah that can be scary, but who’s to say there aren’t others around you who also hold that stance but are just too afraid to speak out on the matter for the same reasons you’re hesitating. 

Sometimes standing by your convictions means you end up standing alone and that can SUCK. But on the flipside, even when you’re the lone person standing there offering up a viewpoint different from everyone else in the vicinity....it can make it a lot easier for other people who hold similar views to SEE you and head in your direction, reach out and connect, allowing you to end up in groups and social circles where the others’ opinions are more in line with what you TRULY believe and feel and stand for.

Sometimes standing by your convictions means you can end up enacting a sea change.....if everyone is secretly holding a stance different from what’s being spoken aloud, just because they’re all afraid of being singled out as ‘against the group’......isn’t it a waste to think of all the HONEST conversations you could all have been having amongst each other the whole time if only someone had gone first, spoken up to say the things that everyone else had already been thinking? There’s no reason you can’t be that first.

And lastly, and most importantly IMO....sometimes standing by your convictions means you’re still just flat out wrong. *Shrugs* Sucks, but its a reality we all have to face. Being super passionate and sure you’re right about something isn’t actually a GUARANTEE that you’re right....

buuuuuuuut.....as long as you keep that in mind, keep being self-aware about that last bit, that ‘hey self, just FYI, I know you’re going superhard for this viewpoint right now, but just remember, we might end up eating a lot of fucking crow because we’re not actually omniscient and could have gotten this one wrong’.....

And then you COMBINE that awareness with a HABIT of always asking questions when first becoming aware of a new topic or situation, of making a note to self to get more information, more PERSPECTIVES, like.....building up that tendency like its a muscle you’re exercising, the more you do it, the easier it becomes, the more natural and ingrained.....

And then add to that just....not being afraid to test or challenge your OWN convictions or viewpoints once you think you’ve settled on one....being willing to pit your stance against even its extreme opposite and see if it actually holds up the way you think it does, or if the other side of things has points that can actually poke holes in what you had previously assumed was pretty solid....

Like, again, there’s no guarantees, nobody’s infallible, everyone gets SOMETHING wrong at some point in their lives and there’s no shame in that unless your reaction to that is to just double down on something you now know is wrong just because change is scary and the unknown intimidates you......

With all that said, personally, I still think that combination (ask a lot of questions, challenge your own convictions, and make up your own mind rather than just settle for whatever mindset seems ‘closest’).....like, IMO, keeping consistent with those three actions just as a general approach to things will serve you MUCH better in life than just taking the first thing you see or hear about a subject that’s new to you and assuming it to be true just because that’s the only view that was offered to you upfront.

[riotwritesthings]

Undateable

Steve/Tony fanfic, 2.9k, rated T AO3

Prompt: Fake Dating

Prompt found here

-

“This is all your fault,” Tony mutters grumpily as he slides out of the car, pausing just long enough to shoot Happy a quick nod. "Maybe this'll teach you not to say nice things about me in public. Important information for the future."

“I'm still not even sure how we got to this point,” Steve says, still in that vaguely lost tone he's had all day.

The incessant flashing of a million cameras certainly isn't helping with Steve's slightly dazed expression as he clambers out of the car, and a small part of Tony can't wait to see those photos. Most of Tony, though, is just dreading finding out exactly how this is all going to go horribly, horribly wrong. Plus, he just knows Steve is going to look unfairly good in all the press photos no matter what dumb things his face is doing. The suit he's all nicely wrapped up in pretty much guarantees that.

"Let's get this night over with," Tony says miserably, slaps on his press smile, and then drags Steve's giant, dazed ass towards the doors by the arm.

What had happened was Steve, being a big dumb sweet-hearted idiot who didn't know when to keep his damn mouth shut. Namely, when they suddenly found themselves swarmed by reporters just tying to leave the tower to walk to the burger place down the street. Tony had been all prepared to just flash a smile and elbow his was through the crowd, but not Steve, oh no, apparently Steve had had other plans.

Tony had been barely even paying attention to the questions being tossed at him, had zoned out around the time someone had asked asked about his breakup with Pepper for the millionth time. Like that hadn't happened a couple years ago now, like it wasn't the oldest of old news. Apparently the term 'undateable' has been thrown out there, because the next thing Tony knew Steve had been practically screaming into the gathered reporters, ranting about how 'Tony is the exact opposite of undateable,' about how he's apparently 'thoughtful and generous' and how 'anyone would be lucky to have him.'

Tony had nearly tripped over nothing and face planted into the sidewalk, and he hadn't even been sure which part was more surprising, Steve being anything less than polite to the press, or the fact that Steve apparently thinks he's 'a real catch.'

-

“Yes, I remember that,” Steve says, and he doesn't roll his eyes but his face gets that pinched look that says he really wants to. It's too bad, Tony would really love the mental image of Steve going full-annoyed in the middle of a charity gala to look back on and laugh. “And I'm still not going to apologize for what I said, they were way out of line-“

“Stop, you're embarrassing me,” Tony says dryly, and Steve kindly goes along with pretending the sarcasm is real.

“What I'm saying,” Steve continues on, undaunted as he always is by Tony's bullshit, “is that I don't understand how that got us here.”

“Ah,” Tony says, because it's a fair point.

-

That was kind of where the whole thing got a little complicated, and see there was a reason Tony never responded to those kind of digs from the press. Because they always took any reaction entirely out of context, and usually blew it out of proportion too. Which is how 'news' had gotten out that Tony Stark is looking to date again, with Captain America as his confusingly aggressive wingman.

Tony is not, for the record, looking for a date. Not even a little bit, but he couldn't exactly say that or they'd go right back to reporting on how he's obviously still in love with Pepper and wasting away without her. Again, for the record, he's not, but since when has the truth ever mattered to the tabloids? And Tony supposes it's better than the alternative, which would be the press making the wild leap to the (correct) conclusion that the reason Tony hasn't been dating is because he's a little, completely hung up on someone new. Someone tall and blond who does dumb things like yell at the press on Tony's behalf. Maybe. Who's to say, really, because Tony will certainly never tell. Luckily, very few of the least respectable writers had leapt on that theory.

The end result of the entire mess, is that the world is now convinced that Tony's looking for love, which could not be further from the truth. He's got all the love he needs, more than enough, so much that he's constantly surprised no one else notices it spilling out of him every time he's so much as in the same room as Steve. Which makes their current situation such a problem.

-

"Aren't you supposed to be mingling?" Steve asks, raising an eyebrow at him as they loiter near the catering tables. "Isn't that what you usually do at these things?"

Tony shoots him a flat look, and then peaks around Steve's broad shoulder, which he is definitely not hiding behind, to eye the circling predators. "No Steve, I'm not mingling. That's the whole reason you're here, to play human shield so I can show my face while only talking to you all night. It's like you weren't even listening to Pepper."

"I didn't understand a word the two of you were saying," Steve confirms easily and hands Tony another plate of tiny shrimp.

"You're lucky you're cute," Tony says sweetly, patting at Steve's cheek with the hand not clutching his third plate of food. And he's really in trouble, because Steve just smiles and there is no way Tony is going to make it through tonight without making a fool of himself.

"Well at least I have that going for me," Steve says with that goofy little grin that always makes Tony weak. The one Tony has been trying really hard not to think of as 'his' smile.

Tony shoves more shrimp into his mouth so he won't say anything incredibly stupid.

-

Tony's plan had been to just ignore all the rumors and gossip, like he always did, but after the third overzealous admirer had to be forcibly carted out of the tower lobby he could admit that maybe things were getting out of hand. And the media was just making it worse, of course, playing it up like some kind of competition; capture the heart of Tony Stark and win instant fame and notoriety.

Tony remains wildly unamused by the whole thing. He had even had to ban the news in the tower after a particularly fictional broadcast had Clint laughing his ass off and Steve nearly putting a remote through the TV. Pointing out that technically this was what Steve had wanted, now people officially thought Tony was dateable again, just seemed to make Steve grumpier, which made Clint laugh harder, until Steve had stormed out of the room and Tony had been left alone with Clint’s cackling. The whole thing is just a headache that Tony doesn't want to deal with, much less know begin to know how.

And then came the charity gala, the one Tony couldn't skip no matter how much he begged and pleaded and reasoned. Pepper had even sounded kind of sorry for him, though she hadn't let him off the hook, so what good did that do him? Because Tony just knew he'd be swarmed with the desperate elite the second he walked in, no way to avoid it. Not without actually finding a date to the thing, which is what Tony had been trying to avoid in the first place.

For all the good that had done him.

-

Hiding behind Steve doesn't work forever, because of course it doesn't. Steve is entirely too friendly and wholesome to keep the wolves at bay for long.

"I hear you're back on the market," the woman says, a small secretive smile on her face and yep, that is definitely her hand on Tony’s ass.

"Technically true, but I assure you, rumors of my appeal have been greatly exaggerated," Tony says with a tight smile and tries to subtly shift away from her.

Its apparently enough to pull Steve's attention away from the conversation he's having with the woman's husband. Or possibly her father. The introductions weren't real clear.

"Time for your speech," Steve says and wow, that is his Captain America voice right there. No one even thinks to protest as Steve expertly extracts Tony from the women's clutches and then escorts him across the room with his huge hand in the small of Tony's back.

It takes everything Tony has not to blush like a school girl being escorted into the prom. He has a terrible feeling that he's failing, and Tony would just like it known, just for the record, that this whole thing was not his idea.

-

Getting called to Pepper's office had felt uncomfortably similar to getting called into the principal's office. Not that Tony would know. At all. The feeling had only gotten worse when he realized Steve was already waiting in the hallway, looking like a confused puppy and Tony definitely hadn't been struck with the urge to pet his head, not even a little bit.

After making them wait for an agonizing ten minutes Pepper had finally let them in, and Tony had known instantly by the look on her face that he wasn't going to like where this was going. And he hadn't, because she'd wanted to talk about the rumors and the upcoming gala, because of course that was what this was all about. Pepper had pointed out there was one rumor that might actually come in useful, and the look she had given Tony was equal parts pity and mocking.

Tony's blood had run cold, and no matter how much he'd objected Pepper had stood firm. She thought it was the best option, no matter how many times Tony had insisted that it was actually the worst option. Poor Steve had just been left looking back and forth between them, confusion obvious on his face, and in the end it had been his downfall.

-

Tony gets up on the stage and he gives the speech Pepper wrote for him. The whole time his eyes follow Steve as he moves around the room, talking and smiling and charming everyone in his path.

It’s disgusting, it what it is, how easy Steve makes it look. Every gala or press event that Tony has to do, he worries that his fake smile is going to get stuck, stretched painfully tight across his face. But Steve is genuinely friendly, and talking to him always leaves people smiling and happy. Not at all like Tony, who at best leaves people confused and a little lost, wondering if they've just been insulted.

By the time Tony's speech is over Steve is waiting by the edge of the stage again, and his easy smile has been replaced by a look of determination. Before Tony can say a word, or maybe ask where the fight is, Steve grabs his hand and drags him over to the slowly filling dance floor. Tony is so busy trying to fight down his sudden and overwhelming urge to blush and stutter that he doesn’t even notice they’re dancing until it’s already happening.

“Um,” Tony says, and now he’s definitely blushing. His head is also kind of spinning, and Tony is totally going to blame it on the dancing, even if they're really just swaying in place. Mostly he's just lightheaded from having Steve's hands on him, Steve's eyes on him, the heavy weight of Steve’s attention focused entirely on Tony. “Wha- what-?”

"Tony," Steve says, voice low, something oddly tight in his expression, "do people think I'm your date?"

Tony blinks at him, clutches a little tighter at Steve’s shoulder because its kind of the only thing keeping him upright. "Wow, you really weren't listening to Pepper's plan," Tony says, and he definitely sounds a little strangled.

-

Historically, people have had a hard time saying no to Pepper. Doesn’t matter if it’s Tony or the SI board of directors, Pepper basically always gets what she wants.

So really, it’s not totally Steve’s fault, that he had automatically agreed when Pepper had turned that sharp smile on him and said ‘Steve doesn’t mind, does he?’ Of course Steve hadn’t been able to argue with that smile, no one would have been.

Tony certainly hadn’t jumped in with any further arguments, and not just because, actually, he would really, really like to take Steve to a charity gala as his date. Or really anywhere as his date. No, Tony hadn’t said anything because he had known there was no way he’d be able to believably object to the plan any more than he already had without giving away how much he secretly, selfishly loved the plan. He’d made some very expressive and unhappy faces though, leaning back where Steve hadn’t been able to see him, and Pepper had steadfastly ignored him.

So really, Tony is right. This whole thing is Steve’s fault. He just had to go be a dumb, sweet hearted idiot, defending Tony to the press, and now Steve has to play fake date / bodyguard to defend Tony from the desperate masses. Except apparently Steve had missed the ‘fake date’ part of the equation, and Tony’s really not sure how he’s supposed to feel about that.

-

“I told you, this is what you get for saying nice things about me in public, now people think you're my date," Tony says and he's aiming for flippant but probably misses by a mile. Because apparently the fact that this was a date, no matter how fake, hadn’t even occurred to Steve, and isn’t that fun? “You can just wait and see how undateable I actually am at the end of the night.”

“Tony,” Steve says slowly, in the special tone he gets when Tony takes a joke too far.

“What?” Tony tries to demand, tries to sound offended, but instead his voice just comes out soft because Tony genuinely has no idea what he did wrong this time. Except apparently trick Steve into a fake-date, and if that’s what Steve is upset about then Tony might actually cry. Because if he can’t even get a fake-date from the nicest guy in the world than maybe he’s even more undateable than he thought.

Steve sighs, leans his head down until their foreheads bump together, and its probably a good thing Steve's eyes are closed, because there is absolutely no way for Tony to hide the way his own eyes have gone wide with shock. “I told you, I meant every word,” Steve says, his voice practically a whisper, and he sounds so sincere and so unexpectedly sad and Tony has no idea what any of it means. “Anyone would be- so, so lucky to have you.”

Tony makes a sound that's supposed to be a scoff, but it comes out sounding weak and strangled. “Aw, come on, have you not even met me?” Tony asks, trying to crack a joke but it doesn't really work when his voice is the thing that cracks.

Steve opens his eyes again and Tony's breath catches almost painfully in his chest. “I know you,” Steve says, voice quiet but firm, like he's saying something terribly important. “I know you, and I- I think you're the most amazing person I've ever met. I just, I wish I could make you see it.”

Tony can only blink stupidly, and he wants so badly to turn this into some kind of joke, but with Steve meeting his gaze steadily Tony can't seem to think of a single thing to say that's not brutally honest. “That’s... really nice,” Tony finally says, his voice tight and he’s really having trouble breathing with Steve all up in his space like this. He’s also having a lot of trouble not reading into the way Steve's face is inches away from his own, smiling at Tony all gentle and fond, spinning him through the end of one song and straight into the next. “Stop it, you’re freaking me out,” Tony insists weakly.

“No,” Steve says, grinning a little wider. His hand on Tony’s lower back feels huge and warm and so, so gentle, his eyes bright and about as happy as Tony has ever seen him. “I’m going to say nice things about you all the time, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Before he even knows what’s happening Tony finds himself blurting out “maybe you should go on a real date with me, see how you feel after that.” The wave of mortification that crashes over Tony almost immediately afterward is almost enough to knock him off his feet, and he might actually fall on his ass if not for Steve keeping him standing.

And Steve just smiles, wide and bright, like somehow he’s the one who’s been waiting for this. "Deal," Steve says, and Tony is left blinking in stunned confusion. "But fair warning," Steve adds with a smirk, "I'm probably going to say more nice things."

"Deal," Tony repeats, a little breathless and a lot shocked, still not sure that this is really happening. He'd pinch himself, but one, he'd have to stop dancing with Steve, and two, if this is a dream Tony doesn't actually want to wake up.

"Good," Steve says, and spins him again.

[starsailorstories]

So! Given, uh, everything, any chance you could talk about how various Astraea cultures deal with sicknesses and quarantine? Especially since some (especially Bell Town) are extremely or entirely genetically identical, and so more at risk?

Also, how would the cast members react to self isolation and social distancing?

FIRST OFF, sorry this took 10 years to answer, I was super busy and there’s kind of A Lot Of Spec Bio to discuss here

Also, this question made me feel very Seen lol…why yes i DO use worldbuilding as a coping mechanism for the stress of watching the wet tissue paper my country calls a social safety net dissolve

Most sickness that astraeas deal with day to day isn’t actually contagious*, but more a result of individual reaction to the environment (in terms of public health response, think seasonal allergies, although physiologically speaking it’s nothing like that). Communicable, infectious disease tends to be a less frequent problem but purely for that reason is more feared, especially as the most common source for novel diseases is interplanetary shipping (like, astraeas on one planet who have immunity to something unknowingly ship contaminated goods to another planet where people don’t). All that is nowhere near as devastating as it could be in a human context–for one thing astraeas’ bodies are hella dry compared to ours, so if a microbe isn’t airborne it’s almost a non-issue (on the other hand, infection is almost a guarantee if you have an open wound)–but most planets, stations and orbiters have a list of OTHER planets, stations and orbiters categorized by how long it’s been since first contact and how long shipments need to be in quarantine based on that, and that kind of thing runs the same gamut from “rigorously evidence-based” to “completely political and petty” that it does on earth.

Speaking of which, the issue of genetic similarity as a disease risk is as politicized as you’d expect in a society where people said “oh, with our genetic technology we can just design the working class to be however we want.” The Hyperians, being, you know, A Rigidly Hierarchal Interstellar Empire In A Space Opera as they are, tend to present the genetic homogeneity as sort of a good thing, what makes Us Us and Them Them, and the royal family themselves subscribe to the very historically royal (and also very eugenicist) idea that genetic “purity”–which for astraeas mostly just means having children in a very chemically controlled environment–helps keep em’ royal or something. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t it just makes hemophilia, and the more conservative Basileans minimize the environmental variance that keeps them from wiping each other out like some kind of aggressively graceful banana monocrop, the easier it is for epidemics to escalate in general because whole colonies become vectors together.

You won’t read about it in your galactic history book til after the revolution, but the dangers of genetic homogeneity were actually observed by lux units, who noticed that “variant” and “off-order” clones were a bit more likely to survive outbreaks of disease. Supervisors in clone factories have tried HARD to excise the superstition that variant units who remain un-decommissioned into adulthood are good luck to have on your cabin crew or manufacturing-plant shift, but it’s never completely gone away, and once Bell Town goes topside their medics and scientists immediately get to work testing, peer reviewing and proving the mechanics of diversity as a factor of public health because it’s a helpful argument for legitimizing their seizure of the means of their own reproduction and fighting the prejudice against “defective” lux that don’t fit the mold.

To really get into your question, Bell Town at least has the advantage of being small and having a busybody mom friend for a de facto head medic, so I don’t think they’ve ever had a quarantine situation get much bigger than four or five people just because Bolt is very up on how everyone’s doing and very very persuasive–the medics know that that’s just a matter of luck though, and I’m sure a factor in the push to go topside is the potential for tragedy involved in having a settlement of mostly/nearly genetically identical people in somewhat adverse and scarce conditions. That’s not to say there’s no plan–the shortages in Bell Town tend to be of immediately consumable raw materials, like air and fuel and very basic multi-use medicines, whereas raw materials for manufacturing specialized equipment are a lot easier to get because organized factories in DT’s network can have them smuggled out. And a majority of the town’s population, at least by vol. 2, are former manufacturing-plant labor with working radio receivers in their heads, so it’s fairly feasible to expect even a small portion of them, with an emergency push, to manufacture A Lot of vaccines, or intensive care equipment, or whatever was needed practically overnight with the direct guidance of the medics to ensure as much safety in the process as possible (they do just that with medical and defense supplies in vol. 2 for various spoilery things).

Up top, the aula’s responses to any and all large-scale social crises tend to be erratic but sweeping. There are some advantages–in terms of expertise, there are certainly things that well-paid doctors with fully equipped research hospitals can accomplish that a dedicated crack team of self-educated medics can’t, including proactive study of new strains of disease. There’s also feudal insanity–technically individual hospitals/institutions aren’t supposed to issue info without the aula’s permission, though legally local nobles can give it on the Hyperians’ behalf if they’re willing to risk Drama. The internal weirdness of the court both logistical and interpersonal (which I need to make a post about) can sometimes mean, in any emergency, that different parts of the empire receive conflicting information, or an edict followed after a day’s delay in the satellite network by a retraction. Public trust (among citizens of relative status at least) that the Hyperians know what they’re doing tends to decline exponentially as you move out from the inner Rings for this exact reason.

Derafior City on Caesura B dealt with a wave of multiple epidemics a couple hundred turns before the official rise of the empire that still affect how the city is laid out–leaders at the time issued quarantine orders in cooperation with individual colony matriarchs, and as those orders became enforced in physical “zones” neighborhood identities, reputations, and rivalries became increasingly defined (Crater culture being what it is, quarantine boundaries were often pretty literal battle lines as the situation became desperate). A lot of historians trace the factionalism of the Crater to this era, although outside imperialism was also a major instigator of both factional conflicts and disease exposure. Keep in mind too that while outsiders like to portray Derafior as violently fractured and there’s a grain of truth to that, there are just as many deep loyalties between neighborhood/colony factions as there are rivalries and as we see in vol. 3, Caesurans are certainly not allergic to closing ranks when shit really hits the fan. 

I don’t have specific canon examples from other ante-dome cultures but another thing of possible interest that I’d like to talk about is that in places touched by Basilean culture, a lot of what we consider “social distancing” is just normal because cleanliness is highly ritualized and valued. Although platonic adult friendships tend to be very cuddly by American and British standards, at the same time, hand touches between strangers outside specific social rituals are seen as quite inappropriate, so things are more thoroughly designed to prevent them–for example, most trading of goods is done purely on paper at the point of sale and nothing actually passes from hand to hand, you go get it out of the crate or pick it out of the field yourself (which is also a practicality of the relative non-ubiquity of flexible currency–and actually, one of the complaints about the use of currency among more traditional astraeas is that it spreads germs). Basically everyone who can afford it wears gloves in public, which are changed and washed every time a person re-enters her home (disposable gloves are mostly limited to medical and laboratory settings, although it’s not unheard of to use them in a pinch if you don’t have a place to launder gloves at home. Side note, if you’re translating directly Altamaian actually refers to manual labor that makes it impractical to wear gloves as “barehanded” labor and the summary conceptualization of such as unhygienic represents a MAJOR vein of classism among Basilean citizens). The reason for the glove thing is that for a species with an exoskeleton regular hand washing can be kind of involved (You know how sometimes it takes a lot of scrubbing to get the dirt out from under your fingernails? Now imagine you have fingernails all over your hands). 

Oh and to answer your second question: out of the main cast the one you’d think would suffer most with self-isolation is Bolt, but being a healthcare worker she’d still see people. Rugsy would complain the loudest but also paradoxically be secretly kind of relieved to not have to worry about People for a while. DT experiences virtually no change from her normal lifestyle lmao

*There’s two kinds of disease that can affect astraeas–what they call “miasmic”, and infectious. Miasmic disease (which as you might guess I named after the precursor to modern germ theory–it’s kind of true in this instance!) is basically when an individual’s body and light chemistry can’t maintain its normal balance in certain atmosphere conditions. A big reason for the kickoff of the artificial atmosphere industry after the settling of Altamai is that the cloud cover tends to trap a lot of carbon dioxide, and for i.e. Basillans and Sitherians (who have come to be based on G-type stars, like the sun, and K-type stars, slightly smaller and cooler than the sun) there’s just not enough hydrogen atoms in there to run their bodies optimally. This mostly affects very young children, the elderly, and those whose cores were formed in suboptimal conditions (comparable to a human who has a chronic health condition because of a birth defect) and if it can’t be remedied by a move to more hydrogen/helium rich air, it’s treated by sucking the pure hydrogen out of a water electrolysis device through a hose on the daily, which side note, is also a reliable hangover remedy for them.

[yayoitree-blog]

Have we been fooled by what we saw? A.K.A. An interpretation of the Cap's Ending in Endgame

Warning: I am a stucky/ironspider fan so my point of view may not be completely unbiased. If you don't like it, don't read it. I will try my best to keep this article free from any slash context but you have been warned. Oh and yes English is not my first language so I could be wrong with some terms.

Also since the Endgame DVD isn't out yet, all the scripts of Endgame contained herein are based on my memory only.

AND

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 1. Introduction

Cap’s ending hinted that he went back to the past to stay there with Peggy there (and apparently not caring about the life or death of his other friends like Bucky and Howard). This is what many Cap fans have problems with. Fans argue that the ending destroyed the arc of Cap’s entire character.

I physically hate this ending, trust me, I really do. At first, I cried and cursed and wished to hurt someone (by someone I mean any person who works for Marvel or Disney). Cap’s ending, at least apparently, is ridiculous, nonsense, illogical, awkward, extremely OOC and plainly inconsistent with the time traveling principal applied to the entire movie. However, the more angry I was with the ending, the more it makes me think: how could it be possible for Marvel to make an ending which contained multiple, ridiculous plot holes and intentionally butcher the character, i.e. Captain America, which they have worked to build up since 1941? Other than the reason that the makers of the film are unbelievably retarded (please don't disappoint me for having some faith in your intelligence), I realize that maybe the plot holes and OOC in the ending are left there intentionally or because every Disney movie must end up with a man and a woman kissing and dancing together, so the real Marvel fans will have the fun to dig out the true ending hidden behind (especially when the Russo brothers are known for teasing fans by giving misleading scenes).

When this hit me, I stop to look at the entire time traveling theory and details in the movie, then I come to a conclusion that, there is NO fxxking way that Cap had gone back in time and married Peggy.

 2. Going back in time and its impact on the present

There are so many movies about time traveling and what the impact of going back in time and changing things in the past has on the present (or future) may be. Three theories are mainly used in the movie industry:

(a) Time Paradox/Final Destination: under this theory, you cannot change the present by changing the past no matter what you do. Even if someone goes back in time and tries to make a change, they are going to fail, no matter what. This is also the argument of Grandfather paradox, which states that you cannot go back in time and kill your own ancestor, no matter what. So when this theory is applied to a movie, it's always like this, someone goes back to the past and try to change something, however, he keeps on failing to complete the act or even if he completes the act, some new events occur and so the outcome remains unchanged (like a force of time that can fix itself. I will refer it as the "Time Band-aid"). 

We can see this theory apply in the movies like Terminator (Skynet tries to kill Sarah and John Connor in the past, but failed no matter what. Sarah and John tried to prevent the creation of Skynet, they even destroyed the chips but turned out the Skynet was still developed by other means). I also want to mention Final Destination although the movies are not related to time travel. However, it demonstrates a good example of how the time (or destiny) will create new events to make sure that the outcome remains unchanged. So basically, under this theory, you may go back in time and make small and minor changes, but you cannot change the final outcome no matter what. It's either you will fail miserably or the Time Band-aid will create new events to lead to the final outcome.

(b) Butterfly Effect: under this theory, you can go back in time and change the past but even if you unintentionally makes tiny little change, it will eventually cause the entire present to change. Most importantly, the effect of any change in the past is totally unpredictable. You cannot guarantee you will get the outcome you want even if you change specific events in the past. This theory can be easily observed in the movie Butterfly Effect, so I don't think I need to explain it as much.

(c) Parallel Universe: some people think this theory is also part of the butterfly effect theory, but I distinguish these two here. So under this theory, you may change the present by changing the past (or fulfilling a specific condition in the past), however, when you make said change (or fulfill a specific condition), a parallel universe will be created. From then on, all the subsequent events after the change or the fulfillment of a condition will occur in the alternative universe. The time and events in the original universe and in the parallel universe will be independent and unaffected from each other. However, all the events are still to come in the original universe will remain unchanged (changes will only occur in the new parallel universe).

 3. The theory used in Endgame

Dr. Banner had stated in the movie that “ ...time doesn’t work that way. Change in the past doesn’t change the future... I don’t know why everyone believes that but that isn’t the truth. Think about it. If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present, becomes the past! Which can not be change by your new future!”

 And there is this conversation between Dr. Banner and Ancient One:

Ancient One: If I give up the time stone to help your reality, I’m dooming my own.

Bruce: With all due respect, uh, I’m not sure the science really supports that.

Ancient One: The infinity stones create what you experience as the flow of time. Remove one of the stones, and that flow splits. Now this may benefit your reality, but my new one, not so much. In this new branch reality, without our chief weapon against the force of darkness, our world will be overrun. Millions will suffer.

So one thing is clear from Dr. Banner’s speech which is you cannot change the past to change your present or future. This is consistent with the multiple journeys through time that are done in the movie: they went to the past and made some changes, but nothing had been altered in the present. So we can pretty much rule out the butterfly effect theory in this movie. Now we only have the Time Paradox Theory and Parallel Universe Theory.

It was also shown in the movie that, if you remove the infinity stones from the current timeline, it will create a parallel universe. However, the movie does not show that if you change the past, there will be a parallel universe. This is a very important point to note because if removing the infinity stones is the only condition needed in order to create a parallel universe, that means even the movie has some scenes that take place in a parallel universe (which was created after the removal of the infinity stones,) it doesn’t necessarily mean the Time Paradox Theory doesn’t apply. It also doesn’t mean that if Cap goes back to the past and does certain things (except for removing the infinity stones,) he will create a parallel universe.

From the movie, we never get the hint or scene that changing the past (other than removing the infinity stones) will create a parallel universe. In fact, all the scenes related to the concept of parallel universe, including Nebula killing her past self and killing Thanos of 2014, all occurred after the removal of the infinity stones. So it is still uncertain as to whether or not changing something in the past will create a parallel universe.

 (A) Time Paradox Theory

If Endgame in fact uses this theory, that means one thing, nobody can change the past no matter what. Think about The Terminator and Final Destination, you either cannot possibly complete the act, resulting a change, or you may succeed once (or even twice) but eventually the result will be the same. This theory is consistent with the part when Tony and Thor cannot save their respective parents. I don’t want to go into details as how much these events affect the two superheroes, but if you are a Marvel fans you should know that if there is even the slightest chance to save their parents’ lives, those two will not hesitate for a second to do so and they don’t mind giving up everything they have to get their parents back. However, because the past cannot be changed no matter what, Tony and Thor had to say goodbye to their parents, and that basically meant to let and watch their parents die again respectively. So this goes to our conclusion, if the Time Paradox Theory does apply here, how the hell could Cap go back to the past and get married to Peggy Carter? There is absolutely no fxxking way! It’s physically logically and realistically impossible. If this theory is in fact true, that means Cap went back to the past, had a dance with Peggy, then he left and let Peggy live her life. He couldn’t save Bucky and Howard because the past cannot be changed, not because he deliberately chose not to save them. He then lived an ordinary life until 2024 and at the end he met Sam to pass the shield (consistent with what he told Sam that he wanted to try some of that life Tony was telling him to get). I also heard about a popular theory that Cap is actually the husband of Peggy who never named or showed up in the movie. Cap just started live incognito and nobody actually found out that Peggy’s husband was Captain America, this way Steggy will be possible without changing the past. I don’t know how they get this idea from but this is straight up impossible too. I don’t even want to get into Cap’s personality which would prevent him from doing something like this. In fact, Peggy’s husband actually passed away before Captain America 2 which took place in 2012. So if Steve was Peggy’s husband, he wouldn’t live until 2024 to pass the shield to Sam. And are they just going to pretend Agent Carter (which, btw also took place in earth 199999) doesn’t exist?? Most importantly, I don’t think Peggy would even go along with this plan (shrug.) 

 (B) Parallel Universe Theory

As discussed above, under this theory, a parallel universe will be created after you made a change in the past. This is by far the most convenient explanation to.... almost everything in the Marvel universe. See, every time Marvel gets plot holes or something they cannot explain by logic or reasoning, they will simply say it is a parallel universe, so it’s not necessarily consistent with the earlier plots.

If this theory is true, that means Cap went back to the past, had a dance with Peggy (and maybe even got married because now he can change anything he wants), then he may also go to save Bucky as well as other people. He then lived an ordinary life until he got his hand on the time-machine then he traveled back to his original universe at the year of 2023 to give the shield to Sam. I personally think this theory, although convenient, doesn’t seem to apply to Cap’s time traveling experience at the end of the movie. There are a lot of bugs and logical errors in this theory if we think closely: (1) If the old Cap was indeed from another parallel universe, that means he was teleported here by using one of the Ant-man’s machines. Is this is the case then why is he wearing his ordinary clothes??

(2) From the movie, we can only perceive that the time machine only allows you to go back to a time in your own universe. As a matter of fact, during the multiple time-travelling occurrences earlier in the movie, they all went back to the past of their original timeline instead of some random parallel universe. So how the hell did the old Cap travel back to the timeline of his original universe instead of the 2023 in his new parallel universe??

(3) Why wouldn’t Tony and Thor saved their parents then? If saving their parents means to create a parallel universe where their parents can live their happily, I don’t see there’s anything holding them back.

(4) Don’t forget that the Avengers fought Thanos against the odd of 1 out 14,000,605 (0.00000714%). It could even be said that the final victory was in fact a miracle. If Cap indeed started a new live in a parallel universe, how could he make sure that the Avengers will win against Thanos in this universe?? He had changed so many things in this universe. He can’t even guarantee that the same avengers will appear when Thanos come! Is he just going to not care about half of lives in the universe being wiped out by Thanos in this universe??

So I don’t really buy the Parallel Universe Theory unless Marvel can explain the above bugs with reasons. I don’t think they will or can, but I am gonna give them the benefit of doubt. Let’s say they actually explain how the Parallel Universe Theory applies to Cap’s ending perfectly, it still doesn’t avoid the butchering of Cap’s character:

(1) Peggy moved on after Cap’s death. She got married and had two kids. Her life without Cap was good. When she first met Cap in Captain America 2, she actually told Cap that she had lived a life and her only regret was that Cap didn’t get to live in his. So Cap knows that this woman was happy with her life and she got no other regret in her life (she didn’t even regret not marrying him for crying out loud!). So why would he step in and ruin everything for Peggy? How is he so confident that he will do better than Danielle? I have only heard about people going back to the past to mend a mistake or to save a life, I have never heard about a person gong back to time to wreck a home, let along that person being the symbol of righteous and justice.

(2) So Cap actually made out with his own niece?

(3) If this is indeed a parallel universe, there will be another Cap in this universe. How are they going to solve this problem other than studying Kama Sutra? Is he just gonna let his alternative self freeze in the ice so he can get Peggy all by himself?? Wow, Cap, I  thought you were selfish, but I didn’t know you would go so far as let your alternative self suffer. See? Marrying Peggy, even in the parallel universe, is illogical, awkward and ridiculous. I am not even going to argue about whether Cap deserves to retire, whether he deserves to be with the woman he loves. This is just plainly wrong if anyone look at this situation with sense!

 4. The real ending of Cap

I just spent three hours typing the above context and I am not trying to tell you why I have problem with the Cap’s ending, rather I am trying to tell you that the Cap’s ending, hinting Cap marrying Peggy could indeed be a fake ending. It could be a fake ending not because I don’t like it, but because it is just impossible and unachievable (if we are using the Time Paradox Theory) or illogical and immoral (if we are using the Parallel Universe Theory and if Marvel can actually explains the bugs therein). Marvel cannot possibly make Cap marry Peggy without creating a huge logical plot hole in the movie or without butchering Cap’s character entirely.

There is also another hint in the movie that Cap didn’t get married to Peggy. During the end, Sam asked Cap if he wanted to talk about the lady. Cap actually replied “I don’t think I will”. Cap’s response is indeed very strange if he married Peggy. I think everyone in America knows the history between him and Peggy. What’s there to hide? Especially Sam is the first and best friend of Cap he met in the modern time. Sam always always went all the way Cap. Why would Cap try to hide the name of his wife in front of Sam? It is very possible that Cap wears the ring to remember Peggy, the lost love he couldn’t have. So he didn’t refuse to answer Sam’s question, rather, because he didn’t get anyone to talk about. Also, I have been following the interviews of the directors and writers of Endgame after it was on theatre. From what I learned so far, none of the director or writer of Endgame ever confirmed that Cap and Peggy were married. They did however, confirm the dance they had. So at least I am quite satisfied with my theory that Cap’s ending is not him marrying Peggy and staying in the past for good.

The movie didn’t actually show what Cap did in the past so we might never know. There are too many possibilities. However, none of the possibilities could involve marrying Peggy for all the reasons I just explained above. I am totally down with the idea that Cap went back to the past and just stayed there to live an ordinary life. Why? Because it is the idea consistent with the previous Captain America movies!  

Cap is always a person out of his time. He didn’t fit in to the modern time and he always misses the time in the past. We can see these in all the previous movies: he plays music in the old days, Peggy told him that her only regret was he didn’t get to live his own life, the world has changed to much for him to cope with, he never liked the politics the authority they made him go through, etc. So he wanted to go back to the past and actually live his life as an ordinary person.

I don’t think this is a perfect ending for Cap either but at least this has been built up through the entire Captain America series (and Chris Evans is leaving the franchise so you have to find a way out for Cap without killing him off because if you killed him too it will make Ironman’s death less impressive). Further, even if he chose this path, it does not butcher the arc of his character: he didn’t save others because he either cannot possibly do so (Time Paradox Theory again) or he didn’t want to risk anything to affect the victory they fought so hard against Thanos.

 5. Conclusion

I think I have gotten down all my arguments of what I think the Cap’s ending is. Thank you very much for taking your time to read this. Even if you don’t agree with me, I am still thankful.

Please feel free to re-tweet, re-post, or quote this article or any part of it, wherever you like, as long as you credit me as the author.

Special thanks to Becca (AO3 ID: A_R_Alistair) who beta this article for me, Shililiuguang (lofter ID: 十里流光) who helped me to recite the scripts of Endgame and Pipipipidan (lofter ID: 皮皮皮皮蛋) who helped me to make the pictures (they are amazing!). If you would like to re-tweet, re-post or reuse the pictures, please credit her as well.

Please feel free to leave me a message if you would like to discuss the Cap's ending or want to correct me for anything. I am opened to suggestion and would be grateful if you could tell me what you think about this article as well.

So until next time.

xoxo