#just for someone to 'willingly' give up their autonomy to save your life.

[ulteri0rm0tives]

It's actually so heartbreaking that in the temperance ending Johnny just.. leaves. Gets all these calls, maybe even texts, from people who don't know the extent of what happened. Who are accusing him, that are mad at him. Especially in the frame of reference that this was V's last wish. That it was V who gave the body up. That it was V who wanted this, wanted to save Johnny, Johnny essentially powerless to stop them ('just scared for ya').

And the thing is.. Johnny just lets everyone. Lets them make their own conclusions, lets them be mad at him. Lets them blame him. Lets them think, that after the love of his life the person who's ever wholly understood or cared about him the most like no other ever could had 'died', that it's his fault, that he could do that to them... Or just lets them think the worst of V as their final lasting impression or mark on this world. Doesn't try to defend himself nor V. He just leaves. Just takes it.

And you would think. You would think the one he would at least tell is Kerry. That the one to actually understand the most would be Kerry. I don't think any of the other love interests could get the whole engram situation like him, they don't have that personal history or connection to the code on the relic like he did after all. Kerry knew Johnny. Enough at least. But Johnny doesn't tell him, and Kerry just thinks V ghosted off on him and Johnny just lets him think that. And it just makes you wonder.. why would Johnny do that? Why would he do any of this?

[icecreamfoxes]

Sometimes someone’s soul just hits

And you know when another’s just doesn’t.

We deserve to not settle.

You get to refine so quickly when it doesn’t, or grow more comfortable in the solitude with your own soul, that you don’t just accept anything less.

Be picky, be decisive.

That creates even stronger walls, your own. and reasons to keep anything unwanted outside. Your autonomy is power.

Whether the good ones stay around for long or not, you wake up to so much if they don’t. You become your “good one”. It gets to be enough, rather than settling for what isn’t.

Sometimes it feels a little too late, but the lessons are always on time.

In their own way, and in your own way, so that you can fully implement them with full volition.

I wish we didn’t all have to grow through too much pain, that we could share and learn from each other, retaining it well, so as to save the next. But everything in timing. All our own timing.

If you feel like something was too late. You learn to be early. Or to be honest with where you’re at. And not so hard on yourself for it.

You learn where to show up and how you really want to do it differently.

What you want to pay attention to, and what you want to give & receive.

You learn how to draw the line quicker, it’s not always neat. You hurt or get hurt, yeah.

Later, you do it with more ease, or understanding, or compassion, or grace.

I don’t think you’ll ever actually miss an opportunity in life, not if it’s really yours. And not “yours” in a weird way. Not a possessive way.

But some things bloom in certain seasons, require specific things, and that’s just how it is.

Plus, you can’t give too much power to the technicalities. It just is, or it isn’t.

I think we have to somehow agree to it all, and even with our free will, there has to be some type of safety net of plans b-c-d-etc. Then, you’ll always veer back on course in one way or another.

Just more refinement. More knowledge. More deep knowings.

I think we always truly know, deep down, and it’s up to us to tend to that inner knowing.

While lovingly fighting any outside static. Do it courageously, willingly, and intentionally.

Without the lessons, you don’t always get up and go harder, with more intent. With more awareness. With more of an absolute YES in your decision.

I hope you find what you need to find, see what you need to see, learn what you need to learn.

And I hope it always brings you back to where you’re supposed to be.

I hope you know where you want to be, where you’d like to be, and where you’re going.

[dent-de-leon]

Still having so many thoughts about all the parallels between Molly/Lucien's souls and Opal/Ted's--

The way Opal and Ted were split apart and then became one again as a natural part of growing up; raised with this other half of their soul always by their side, learning from each other and through each other. It's a family tradition, their way of life. Worshippers of the Luxon willingly letting their souls drift apart and reform, an inherited legacy that has shaped their whole understanding of the world and themselves.

The way Lucien and Molly never had a choice; the violent violation of autonomy as their soul was torn apart and shredded to pieces, the agony of feeling so alone in the world, your very heart hallowed out and Empty. It's not a gradual, gentle transition of the spirit--it's losing your very sense of self, all these pieces of you burned away.

And it hurts them, both of them. The shard of a soul that would be Molly--young and foolish, so new to the world and yet already so scarred by it. A spirit that hasn't broken yet, in spite of how harsh and cruel the world is--in spite of all the pain he's inherited. Lucien as the ghastly specter haunting Molly's worst nightmares, the shadow always hanging over him.

Lucien's disdain for this "forgotten fragment"--how bitterly he resents Mollymauk for not having to bear the weight of all their most painful memories, his hands not yet stained with blood--the part of him that got to be free. Lucien refusing to call Molly by his name, to admit this other part of himself is real--that maybe Lucien's always known he hasn't felt whole, that someone carved out this piece of his heart long ago.

When the two meet, Molly can't help reaching out to Lucien. Can't help but try and save him. Molly growing to care for this other half of his soul, this other broken, shattered shard of a bleeding heart. Molly refusing to abandon him, staying by his side until Lucien is finally ready to reach back. Both of them learning to accept each other, understand each other. A kind of self love. A soul that mirrors your very own, makes you feel grounded and whole.

Thinking of Ted fighting so fiercely for Opal. Giving everything to defend her, even as Opal tries so desperately to keep her grounded and tethered. Thinking of Molly pleading for Lucien to stop, just walk away--save their friends and save himself. It's not too late, he doesn't have to do this. He doesn't have to be this.

Thinking of the Luxon and shattered souls that aren't bound by life or death, time or space. A part of yourself you never really lose, no matter who tries to tear them away--

[trollocks-in-my-bollocks]

Genuinely wondering why you would advocate for eugenics and aborting autistics. Because they're hard to raise? They are hell on the parent? So they're not allowed to live then? Breeding out "undesirables" from society is not going to fix anything. It is horrific. Everyone is one accident away from becoming disabled. You're all for aborting disableds. so what, you're also for killing those who become disabled later in life? is that it? So no one has to suffer and live in pain and be a burden to their parent? How about, instead of falling for nazi eugenic propaganda, you focus on making society more liveable for the "undesirables." We deserve to live

Hello Anon, I waited a bit so we could both calm down, and maybe see the gray parts of this situation, not only the blacks and the whites. I also read into the controversy around Autism Speaks and although I already knew they were shady but oh boy. I fully understand why you'd never willingly collaborate with this given organisation in their "research". The quotation marks were intentional. No, we shouldn't bio-engineer a perfect society. Yes, it is horrific.

At the same time, as someone who lives somewhere women's rights are being cut away gradually, it was astonishing to read how some people on tumblr.com essentially say that in some circumstances a person shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion even though they want one.

I'd love to live in a diverse, accepting society but I can't change mine singlehandedly. I keep speaking up (sometimes it's more like shouting) even in a hostile environment every single time someone blames the mother for their child's situation. It may sound unbeliavable, but I've been told several times by male relatives in my twenties to not to do this or that because I'd end up giving birth to an autistic baby. I've done cutting away some of ties there but this is just the state of our society, I'd love to seal myself away hermetically, if I could. I've seen divorces leaving mothers alone supporting children who require constant care. Right now our social system doesn't support people who stay at home to take care of their disabled relatives adequately. There are undiagnosed, untreated children everywhere because their family straight out refuses the possibility of autism because it's still such a heavy stigma and also because our school system is not equipped to deal with children with special needs.

For me, this was the hardest sentence to read in your reply.

"So no one has to suffer and live in pain and be a burden to their parent?"

Please look up some pro-life propaganda on the internet, you'll find it very similar to what you've just said, even though I'm sure it wasn't your original intention.

So overall, yes, I do my part in making society more liveable (why did you straight out insinuate that I don't?) for everyone, but I'll be always on the mother's side. I believe that we should have the right to terminate a pregnancy when we feel unsafe about it because of our direct environment/society and supporting research to develop prenatal tests will save already existing lives (especially here, where statistically a woman dies in domestic violence every_single_week). I'd prefer mothers having the right of making this decision instead of just straight out not doing research because it's unethical. Their bodily autonomy supersedes that of a clump of cells.

I hope next time we communicate you'll hit a less passive-agressive tone and to encourage this I'm disabling anon but feel free to reply with your username.

[please-return-to-villanelle]

Cold Turkey

S3E8 recap

What do you want Villanelle?

I’m looking for a new challenge.

Villanelle tries to retroactively accept Carolyn’s job offer to work for MI6, but with a slight twist. She no longer wants to kill. She is looking to start over. Carolyn isn’t convinced that Villanelle has any useful skills outside of assassinating and turns her offer down. By seeking out Carolyn, Villanelle was taking a real step of her own accord to actively remove herself from the Twelve rather than simply runaway.

I can change.

You’ve infected her with your disgusting lack of ambition.

The Villanelle that Dasha and Konstantin are discussing is the Villanelle of the past. The one whose life was not altered by Eve Polastri. In this conversation, Konstantin chastised Dasha for almost killing Villanelle with her brutal training tactics focused on discipline while Dasha jabs back by blaming Konstantin for giving her no structure. In other words, Villanelle almost died because of Dasha’s method of strict rule while Konstantin made her lazy due to his method of no rules. Neither handler gave Villanelle what she needed and BOTH of them imposed what they wanted upon her. She seems like a disappointment to them now that she is breaking free of her chains and becoming her own person, which is something neither Dasha nor Konstantin is capable of doing.

As I mentioned in my S3E7 recap (post), I think the portrayal of Dasha was meant to depict what Villanelle’s life may have been if she continued working for the Twelve for the rest of her life. This would have been a life of isolation (Winners win alone) with the illusion of freedom to do as she pleases, so long as her bosses are happy.

I wish my son was here.

The death of Dasha is Villanelle’s worst fear, and ironically, the end Dasha predicted for Villanelle; one in which she dies alone and without someone who loves her.

FINALLY, we arrive to the long-anticipated Villanelle and Eve reunion where they both “Wear it down” (post).

What I love most about this whole scene is both Villanelle and Eve have their walls of emotional armor down the entire time. Neither of them entered the ballroom with their masks on. The cheeky and overly confident façade of Villanelle is not there and the delusional MI6 agent façade for Eve is gone.

They came just as they are: Eve and Oksana.

This entire scene looks and feels like the past: the ballroom dancing, the clothing of the dancers and Villanelle’s 60s outfit, the lighting, the music, and the decorum. It’s almost as if this is a fantasy moment where time stands still; and in this moment, Oksana and Eve share a moment of honesty about the past and future.

Do you ever think about the past?

All of the time.

Eve can tell immediately that something is deeply bothering Villanelle and so her offer to dance serves as a temporary distraction but also as an opportunity to find real peace.

I want to feel carefree.

Well dancing will do that.

The freedom they are discussing here is emotional freedom. Both Villanelle and Eve have their own internal demons they are battling and neither have been able to find peace on their own.

Dancing is not my thing.

Mine either, but it’s good to try new things.

The origin of the word dance came from the Latin word saltare which means to “leap with emotion”. What Eve is offering Villanelle is emotional support by “letting it win” in order to quit their self-destructive habits of repressing their feelings around each other. In other words, they are actively giving into their emotions to feel and deal with it together rather than keep it all buried inside.

They both fumble at first, this is something new after all, but then they begin to talk openly with each other as they sway in sync. While staring at a happy elderly couple, Villanelle asks Eve is she wants to be like them. What she is really asking here is: Would a long, normal and carefree life make you happy?

Eve honestly replies no. Why?

We’d never make it that long. We’d consume each other before we hit old age.

Eve’s reply is significant because she envisions her life with Villanelle in it and associates her with happiness. In her brain, she re-framed the question from “Would I be happy” to “Would we be happy?” For Eve, to be happy means to have Villanelle but she recognizes that this situation of teatime dancing in the fantasy ballroom is not sustainable for them. Eve understands that happiness means becoming fully consumed mind, body, and soul by Villanelle which may not allow them to live a long life with the danger and chaos they always find themselves involved in.

I’ve killed a lot of people

Villanelle said these exact words to her mother. In this instance she was rejected, told she had a darkness, and instructed to leave.

With Eve, she was immediately accepted without hesitation and held in a loving embrace.

I know.

When she dances with Eve, she is Oksana. No pretense, no cheeky jokes, no lies. She is just a girl dancing with her wife, because this scene proves they are married, but when Eve leaves and she turns to talk to Rhian, Villanelle the mask is back on. Now she is cheeky, the pretense is back, and the game of lies is on.

Rhian leads Villanelle away to take her to see Helene in order to, once again, play by another handler’s set of rules.

Come a long little sheep.

Villanelle is determined to maintain her autonomy and have the happy life that Eve envisioned for the two of them. Killing Rhian to have her dream life takes its toll since murdering is no longer something she can disassociate from.

I’m sorry.

Villanelle now feels things when she kills. This was the cost of learning what love means and opening herself up emotionally. She is now capable of feeling love and happiness, but this means she can also feel pain and loss. This kill was a milestone for her because we see this balance of Villanelle the assassin and Oksana the woman.

Interestingly, Eve (aka Tallulah Shark) has a similar experience at the betting parlor and with her exchange with Konstantin. She osculates from not a nice lady to innocent and caring throughout both of these scenes.

I think this was significant in depicting how both Eve and Villanelle are capable of attaining balance between their darkness and light. More importantly, they are most at center when they together both emotionally and physically.

Now I know many of you are wondering: What was the point of Geraldine?

I think her point was literally to annoy the emotions out of Carolyn. She was annoying to us because that’s how Carolyn felt also.

Carolyn has been a spy for decades and has learned to separate her work life from her personal life. The death of Kenny was what forever merged these two aspects of her life; but the death of her son alone was not enough of a trauma for Carolyn to willingly “let it win” by succumbing to her guilt in order to feel this great loss. She needed someone to pry these feelings out of her unwillingly.

That’s what you say it’s about, but what’s this really about?

So, in a way, Geraldine is the therapist Carolyn never asked for but desperately needed in order to find peace with the death of Kenny which she achieves in her final scene with provocation from someone else she cares about: Konstantin.

Konstantin has betrayed literally everyone in his life including his own family. What’s interesting about this scene is that Villanelle is watching this whole exchange without any knowledge of Eve and Carolyn’s investigation into Kenny’s death. In fact, she seemed to have no knowledge of Carolyn and Konstantin’s past.

Villanelle is witnessing this relationship for the first time unfold and she realizes that Konstantin, someone she considered a friend/ family, is using Carolyn’s love for him against her. It’s truly a fascinating detail.

I feel like the series has drawn many parallels between Carolyn and Konstantin’s relationship to Eve and Villanelle’s. Both couples are literal enemies to lovers. Much like Dasha, this is a glimpse into what Villanelle and Eve’s future relationship might look like if they continue their current career paths. Their relationship will dissolve into nothing more than transactions and lies all centered around work.

What Villanelle doesn’t know, is that Konstantin has used Carolyn’s feelings against her to save himself before. Let us recall the car driving scene from the previous episode. He flat out lied about what he was discussing with Kenny in order to save himself from Carolyn’s inquisition and reckless driving. Konstantin has no rules set and no set of morals. He just wants to stay alive.

Winners win alone.

Once again, Konstantin shamelessly chooses himself above all others. He plays his last hand by telling Carolyn he loves her to influence her decision making by tugging at her feelings.

In this moment it clicks for Villanelle. This is the type of behavior her mother showed her and her siblings. She manipulated the feelings of those that loved her and used them to manipulate them into doing her bidding or boasting her ego.  With this realization, Villanelle saw that her mother was not her family, and neither is Konstantin.

He only called out to her when he was desperate and blatantly ignored her own calls of desperation throughout their entire relationship. She also witnesses Carolyn spare Konstantin. Instead of killing him out of anger and she let him go out of what little love she still holds for him. I believe this was a parallel to Villanelle shooting Eve in Rome out of anger. I think Villanelle recognized the difficult choice Carolyn made and why it’s so important for her and Eve to walk away from all of this if they want their happy life together.

Cold turkey.

Eve is not fully prepared to let all of this go. To her, fixating on the Twelve means fixating on Villanelle. So in this moment, I think she panicked and fled because she can’t comprehend how to live that life without Villanelle and the Twelve consuming her. She craves the excitement, the darkness, and chaos that comes with Villanelle.

You’re so many things.

Eve comes to a place of acceptance and finally admits to Villanelle that they are the same and that she wanted Villanelle in her life all along. The cost was blowing up her own life; but Eve never truly wanted that life. She only became passionate and fully alive after Villanelle came crashing into her life.

Wear it down.

Since that 30 second meeting in the bathroom, Villanelle and Eve were forever changed. They briefly saw the monsters in each other. Neither recoiled. They continued to pursue each other and are finally at a point where they can fully see one another for exactly who they are. They were both seeking the relationship they now have. It’s not a normal relationship like the couple in the fantasy ballroom, but it’s the real connection they have both been yearning for.

Help me make it stop.

At the end Villanelle offers Eve a solution to stopping all the pain, chaos, and darkness that comes with their unique relationship.

She is suggesting that Eve has to quit her cold turkey.

Villanelle is presenting them both with the opportunity to cut ties with their consuming relationship and attain their individual freedom that they have both been trying to attain throughout this season.

Ultimately, neither one is prepared to quit cold turkey. In the end, they choose to remain tethered by the red string of fate that binds them. They choose to view each other as equals and mutually consume each other to attain their version of love and happiness.

It’s new challenge they willingly face together.

[asterekmess]

1-4 What the fuck is a true alpha? A recurring joke? A convenient plot armor? A desperate attempt to make an irrelevant character look ‘relevant’ despite canon showing otherwise? Scott/Posey Stans think that Scott McCall has a right to command and dictate everyone’s life because he is a tWuE aLpAhA; Scott has a right to play judge, jury & executioner with his “inferior” friends, and he has a right to determine what is wrong or right based on his own benefit and bigoted black and white mentality.

2-4 If you think that this sounds an awful lot like the Divine Right of Kings, you are absolutely right. An unearned (and undeserved) mystical superiority or blessing, a fabricated sense of purity, goes a long way in ameliorating Scott McCall’s Failures and Fuck-ups. And like kings who rule by Divine Right, he can do as he likes. Which is why Scott can patronize and lie to Allison and Kira to control them, assault Isaac and Jackson due to his own pathological jealousy and possessiveness,

3-4 use Hayden (Liam’s girlfriend) as bait against the Dread Doctors without her consent to play the hero, dehumanize Stiles and accuse Stiles of being a violent, dangerous, inhuman monster and serial killer for daring to accidentally kill his abuser in self-defense, sell Derek and his Pack to the hunters, refuse to tell his girlfriend Allison the truth about her mother’s death to look ‘good’ in her eyes,

4-4 plot/conspire with Gerard Argent and Deaton behind everyone’s back to violate Derek Hale’s boundaries, bodily autonomy and consent for his own benefit, claim that the Argents had a reason to slaughter the Hales (including HUMANS and CHILDREN) in front of Derek Hale and of his comatose uncle – and then Scott/Posey Stans will consider everyone kicking Scott’s whiny, toxic excuse of an ass to the curb and not giving an utter crap when Scott died in Season 5 as an act equivalent of treason

I put all your asks together so I didn’t get confused (which is v likely to happen) and I thank you for numbering them for me. <3

The concept of a true alpha...sigh. Look, I see the intention, okay? I see the goal, the idea that you don’t have to kill someone to become an Alpha. That there can be “Good” Alphas who haven’t killed anyone. But I also think it’s lazy writing. This is one the few instances where TW hadn’t actually shot themselves in the foot yet. They gave us so little information on werewolves that they never actually said that the only way to become an Alpha was by killing another Alpha. They could very easily have said “Also, you can become an Alpha this other way” (Be it by passing the Alpha spark down to children willingly, or being beaten in a special kind of combat, or through a ritual of some kind)

But they didn’t just want another way to be the Alpha. They wanted a way that didn’t take any effort. It would be too hard to introduce another Alpha that would give up their spark to Scott, or to have him put in the effort to do a ritual. They needed a way to make Scott an Alpha without any additional effort. Part of me honestly wonders if they did it because they knew they’d lost a lot of Scott fans by the end of Season 2, what with all of his betrayals and lies and what he did to Derek. They needed a way to reaffirm that Scott was the good guy, so they made up the True Alpha thing and said “Look! He’s so pure and goodhearted and he has so much good will, that he can’t even help but become an Alpha”

They demonized werewolves by reducing them to murderers who had to kill for power (In Derek’s case it was survival, and i’ll fight for him.) and then held Scott up as a saint because he managed it without killing.

Except that he had killed. Or at least tried to kill. How could he be this pure person they claimed if he spent weeks poisoning a cancer patient, lying to everyone around him, and he took Pleasure in it. He was Proud of himself for his lies and his tricks and for getting back at Derek by hurting him. That’s the kind of behavior we expect from Stiles, who is established as a morally gray character. You cannot have Scott do something like that and then make the claim that he is morally pure.

Once Scott finds out from Morrell that killing someone will take away his True Alpha status, he goes out of his way to avoid killing people even when it puts others at risk. This ISN’T an Avatar moment, okay? He doesn’t summon the power of his ancestors and render the villains completely incapable of harm. He just fucking lets them go! Deucalion gets his fucking eyesight back for fuck’s sake. He was MORE dangerous than before and they let him go! (I know Derek was part of that, but I’m pretty sure Derek was possessed by a pod person by that point)

He never said he’d behave. No one checked on him or watched to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone. They just let him leave. He could’ve just rebuilt a new Alpha pack. Could’ve killed dozens more people.

Jennifer would have too, had Peter not killed her.

Even better, he brings Ethan and Aiden into his pack. They walked right up to him and told him “Everyone is hunting for us because we killed a ton of people” and he just took them in? Gave them protection from the families of the people they’d slaughtered? All because they followed him around for a bit and said “We’ll only kill for you from now on.”

And this is why I get so frustrated about the blue eyes. The concept of ‘taking an innocent life’ is so fucking vague? Scott is indirectly responsible for countless deaths throughout the show. Whether by inaction or because the people doing the killing were acting on his orders, or whatever the fuck else I can’t think of at the moment. It doesn’t matter if he hasn’t intended to kill anyone. He should not still have his True Alpha status. Period. But he does, so apparently Scott can kill as many people as he wants, actually, so long as he doesn’t do it with his own claws and teeth. Or maybe he just can’t kill a human who hasn’t killed anyone else? Who the fuck knows.

I’ll say it again. If The Alpha spark can be used to heal someone, why didn’t Scott use it to save Allison? She wasn’t cursed. She was stabbed. He could’ve done the same thing Derek did. Peter even said that it can be done on accident. All it requires is that he do the pain drain and not stop when it starts to hurt.

To be quite honest, I don’t blame Scott’s True Alpha eyes for his entitlement and his belief that he can do no wrong. He held that same notion way before his eyes ever turned red. The eyes are to blame for no one else calling him out for his actions. You’re told by the only fucking person who seems to know what’s going on in the supernatural world that this kid’s eyes turned red all on their own because he is meant to be an Alpha. That it’s because he is good and pure and it’s a sign of his worthiness. He literally was just gifted extra power, apparently because he’s the only one worthy of it. How the fuck are you supposed to deal with that? Are you supposed to be the one person who tells fucking Werewolf Jesus (technically Derek is Actual werewolf jesus what with the evolution thing, but before that Scott’s as close as it gets cus’ Peter’s just a zombie.) that he doesn’t know best? That he’s doing something wrong? If the Powers that Be made Scott an Alpha, what will they do to the one who tells him he fucked up? Everyone is just supposed to trust that Scott must be in the right. That his reasons are good enough. That he knows what’s best. Because if he doesn’t, then why the sudden Alpha eyes? Peter questions Scott often and happily, mostly because he doesn’t care if he gets struck by lightning or something. It’ll always be worth it to get that last quip in. Eventually Stiles starts to argue too, because he’s reached the point where he doesn’t care if he dies so long as everyone else important to him stops getting hurt. That’s when Scott starts cutting him out. When he stops believing Scott knows best.

And honestly, it’s like the first post I made that sparked this whole ranting binge. Scott cheats. He cheats and he uses his abilities to his advantage without ever thinking of what it does to other people. Except this time he’s not cheating at lacrosse. He’s not taking credit for bowling six strikes in a row. For some reason his eyes turned red, and everyone else is taking it as a sign that he must know better and he should be in charge, and he never disagrees.

Sure, he complains. “Why me? Why does it have to be my responsibility?”

Guess what buddy? It fucking doesn’t. If you stopped fucking ordering people around and admitted you don’t know what you’re doing to someone besides your MOM and you want someone else to take the lead? THEY WOULD. But because he will not admit any kind of weakness or that he isn’t sure what to do, he puts the weight on himself. He blames everyone else for the lead weights he tied around his waist. He doesn’t want to have to do the work, but he hates the idea of someone else being in charge. Of not being important. We’re told right off the bat that Scott wants to be important. He wants to be on first line not because he loves the game, but because he wants to be popular. He wants Allison to go out with him. This is just another way he wants to be important, and he won’t ever let go of it. He gives orders and makes calls on who gets to know what and who is worthy and won’t take responsibility for the failures, but happily takes credit for the successes. When he fucks up by not talking to people or by lying to them or making a bad call, he doesn’t admit it. He doesn’t tell anyone. He lets them think that he’s blameless so that when he actually says shit like “I lost them” someone will say “They’ll come back because you’re their leader” No. He’s not. He lost them because he pushed them away. It was his fault.

Whatever. I’m salty. *pouts* Anyway. True Alpha is dumb, and I’ve read a couple theories about how Deaton made it up, and tbh, I’d follow that logic. If you’re curious, I think I tagged it ‘true alpha’ or ‘deaton’ on my blog.

[eucatastrophicblues]

@lynettethemadscientist If he’s your equal partner, and you’re free at any point to walk away from homemaking because he values your autonomy and your freedom of choice, and you’re not fetishizing “traditional” gender roles, you’re not the target of this post. I’m not talking about housewives. I’m talking about tradwives.

Believing that you’re divinely or naturally called to submit to your husband is willfully and willingly bowing your head and accepting your own helplessness. Idealizing stay at home lifestyles where you don’t work, don’t have any savings or money of your own, and spend all of your time and energy prioritizing his life and his dreams and his desires is radicalizing yourself into helplessness and eroticizing a power imbalance in the name of making your lower social status more palatable. I’m fully out here on my blog talking about wanting Jesus to rail me and yelling at the Catholic Church to stop being so damn homophobic, but I am still Catholic. I’m not passing judgment because I’m opposed to religion or to choosing to live in a way that’s defined by ancient rules and expectations.

But choices don’t pop into existence without any external influence. The tradfem/tradwife boom is directly caused by the failing economy and by the rise in fascism and the further rigid stratification of gender roles. This isn’t about someone who’s fully examined and self-assessed and come to conclusions about how they want to live their life. Being a housewife is perfectly fucking fine. Choosing to stay at home and make a home and raise children - joining your marriage as a full partner who knows the costs and benefits of all options and outcomes - and having a full and completely free say in what you do? Sure, fine, knock yourself out. You’re able to make the calls to govern your own life and I support you and I recognize that your life and labor is real and important.

but uh. misogyny is real, patriarchy is real, our choices don’t exist solely in the context of our own minds and lives, and if you’re making a life where you kiss the feet of a man and thank him for freeing you from the hard job of living in society, you’re actually just stuck in a dangerous trap. if you’re fantasizing about escaping from the grind, so the fuck is everybody else, but I refuse to accept that the way to do that is to bow to the influence of men and tell women to skip education and skip the workforce and depend entirely on the mythical Good Man to make money and govern your household and give you good sex. There is no Good Man, there is only men, who are exactly as capable of being amazing or sucking ass as women are, except they’ve got several millennia of power structures backing them up.

Patriarchy predates the 20th century, it predates Christianity, it predates the Roman Empire. We had it in Bronze Age Greece and we had it in prehistoric China and we had it in many societies in the pre-contact Americas. It’s ancient and ever-present and telling women that going full trad is sleeping with the enemy because that way lies homophobia, transphobia, bioessentialism and intersexism, religious bigotry, abusive marriages, and more - that’s not bad.

Being a housewife doesn’t make you an impotent waif. Being a tradwife makes you a dumbass. That’s all.

I hate being the person who’s like “you should watch and read historical fiction that’s unflinching about bigotry to understand how far we’ve come!” because actual historical research is best of all but I do actually think that a ton of tradwives and stay at home girlfriends could benefit from being Ludovico Technique-d with a combination of postwar French New Wave, audio readings of various 18th century exploitation novels, and The Law According to Lidia Poët

[tanoraqui]

*chinhands* so tell me about guinevere being gay and doing crimes in space

There are three rules that an e-space* Navigator lives by:

Know who you are

Know where you’re going

Know where home is (just in case)

*“espace”, more often; hyphens don’t survive casual parlance; it’s short for “extra-space” because scientists aren’t always good at naming things. just thank god for the one physicist who raised an early objection to “subspace”, even though in early models of layered reality, what came to be known as “espace” was, indeed, below our space.)

The third is easiest, because it’s drilled into every recruit from the second they’re brought to the Lighthouse - which is usually at an age so young they’ll forget having lived anywhere else before. There might be an official name for the headquarters of the Navigators’ Guild on paperwork somewhere, but inside the space station’s halls and outside it, on every ship and planet and empty space between stars in the galaxy, it’s the Lighthouse. There’s a general understanding of why: it’s where navigators call home, where they can look to for aid and succor when the seas turn rough, in this space and the other.

Most people don’t understand, though. Because most people are not navigators: they have never stayed awake while every other mind in the ship was sent very carefully and very deeply into sleep, while the ship passed across a crackling boundary between this reality and another. They have never held themselves together in a world where up was not quite down because neither of those terms applied, where colors were tastes were neither, where time and space were both only suggestions, and the map is a matter of focus in your mind.

You are lost as the default, in espace. Or, “lost” isn’t a term that applies, because all reference points are only in your mind, and if you don’t have your destination absolutely clear, you will be lost in the metaphorical sense as well as not quite the literal. So the politer, more bureaucratic line is that navigators (orphans, usually) are taken in so that their training can begin as early as possible, the truest truth is that it is so that when they begin their training, they will have somewhere to come back to. (Their very secretive training; it’s not, allegedly, sink or swim, but the Guild protects the secret of how it trains its navigators more closely than it guards anything.) So that no matter what, if they lose track of their destination - too unfamiliar, or even unwanted - they can always remember the Lighthouse. The bunkbeds and warm corridors of the dormitories; the creatively placed asteroid ring, more for agility practice in dart-fliers than anything else; the iconic long body of the station itself, modeled half-seriously after a lighthouse of old (symbols can matter in espace), floating amidst darkness and a starry background, the nearest planet several standard-orbits away for the sake of autonomy…the navigator’s last and truest port in a storm. 

The earlier a young navigator-to-be can fix that in their heart, so surely that they’ll know the exact moment its closest, to fire the engines to make the jump back, the more likely they are to, indeed, return home.

The second has been touched on! Navigation in espace is a matter of focus and knowledge, intuition, sense of the shape of a world without shape and essence of a world - or rather, a very specific part of a world - in which its rarely manifest. Many navigators dabble in art of some kind - painting, sculpture, crochet, poetry - because it helps them capture what cannot otherwise be captured. Or maybe so much time in espace means they can’t help but see this world differently as well, and need an outlet…opinions differ. Among navigators. Person to person, you know?

Anyway, because of this quirk of interstellar travel, most planets have, gloriously from a worldbuilding perspectively, entirely in-canon motivation to have highly specific unique traits. The easier a planet or station is to remember, itself and only itself, the less likely ships are to be lost on the way to it. So there’s a planet in Alpha Centauri renowned for its deserts, and its annual global competition, bringing thousands of would-be bakers, confectioners, and more each year. There’s a space station circling Rigel where every citizen proudly gets a new tattoo each year, and so does the station itself, vast stenciled artworks commissioned by the ruling council and drawn by artists in space suits. There’s old Red Mars itself, now more a tourist trap than anything but still just as proudly rust-colored, the closest any interstellar ship is allowed to the nature reserve of Earth.

So, know where you’re going, because going back to the Lighthouse gets you safe, but it doesn’t get you paid. The Guild cares for its navigators, it really truly does…on average. But there are bureaucrats and business managers in there, too, and they know they’re sitting on the galaxy’s most valuable monopoly.

And first: know who you are. Nothing in espace is real the way it is in standard space, including the self. Don’t worry about the crew or the passengers, or even the materiality of the ship itself - the ship AI will keep track of them, as well as of time as it should be passing. Nothing determinedly holds to numerical time like a digital mind. They’ll keep track of the navigator’s physicality as well - that’s what the biotagging chip is for. But most navigators do some sort of dance, martial art, or other exercise as well, to give themselves a better sense of, well, themselves - it’s always good to have a backup. Any passengers and crew are so unconscious that they may as well be inanimate, which is why an AI can keep track of them jus fine - the navigator, of course, is awake for the whole voyage.

So, the woman who in another life might be named Guinevere…

Her first name is Djinn, because a lot of navigator orphans are named after mythical creatures or heroes, from one culture or another, that can fly. A lot others are named after mythical heroes or creatures known for sight. The people in charge of children at the Lighthouse are a bunch of nerds, really, or they were once, and tradition stuck.

Her last name is probably Navigator, because being named after your profession is as old as civilization, and there are fewer things its easy to be proud of than being an official Guild-licensed navigator. You get to choose a surname when you get your license, and like many before her, Djinn chose that.

Once a navigator has their license, they’re more or less loosed unto the galaxy, if they want to be. You’re welcome to work as an independent contractor, so long as you still pay your percentage back to the guild of every navigating fee, and don’t undercharge the Guild minimum. 

Djinn elected not to do that, actually. She wanted to travel, of course, to fly, to spend as much time as possible in hte giddy twistedness of espace. But she didn’t want to manage her own business, and she didn’t mind the Guild taking a little higher percentage to have jobs lined up for her. And she was good, oh, she was good, so it wasn’t long before she was flying precious cargos and even passenger ships - small ones, to start, and not particularly pricey (not used by the affluent, that is, who would pay more for a more experienced navigator, with more successful trips under their belt). But still, a very promising career, and she was comfortable.

She always has a sketchbook, luxurious paper so she can save or destroy the drawings as she wants, rather than wipe them clean from a laminate. Physical rather than digital, because she’s drawing this world, she says, so it has to have real mass - but she almost only ever uses pale colors. Bright things, she saves for paint, when she has time and space and money for an easel, and that art is twisting and bright and incomprehensible to everyone but a fellow navigator - and even then, most understand what she means, but now how she’s representing it. No one really experiences espace the same way.

She’s short of stature and of hair, skin probably #C26604-ish? and walks with a dreaminess in her eyes and the confidence of someone who knows she’s weird - as most navigators do. Also, definitely practices some science fiction equivalent of judo. Has slightly more energy than she needs at any given moment, and when she decides to move fast, will do so. Physically, emotionally, and in terms of decision-making - will put off decisions if they’re unpleasant, but will make them quickly if they’re not, and commit 100%. Stubborn or determined, however you want to phrase it; holds grudges…but if pushed to reconsider something, will do so, and will willingly change her mind. Often in the 100% opposite direction from before. 

(It’s hazardous to go into espace unsure of what you want in life.)

Also, she’s not actually a licensed navigator anymore, by Guild rule. See, I said she was good, right? Really good? So, most navigators have a seat on the bridge - they don’t really need to be there, but it feels right - and that’s where they stay for the duration of the espace journey. Easier to focus if you don’t need to move, don’t need to think about anything but where to go and when (”when” maintained by the ship’s clocks) exactly to make the jump back to get there. There are probably IV tubes and catheters and everything, because it can be a several subjective hours sometimes, and better safe than sorry. 

But Djinn was good, oh, she was really good, and she didn’t need that stuff. She didn’t want that stuff. Always a little more energy than necessary for the moment, remember? So her knee jiggled, and that was fine. She stood and stretched, and that was fine. She paced the bridge, alone save for the AI, and thought about the swirling patterns on the outer skin of that one station, or the best donut she’d ever tasted on that one planet (she always wanted to be more of a sweet tooth than she actually was.) 

None of this was per regulation, but it was the sort of thing that got comfortably ignored by the Guild, if you admitted it - and you were encouraged to, for your own safety as a navigator and that of your ship, and in the interest of more data gained about espace travel. And then not reported on to whoever’d chartered the navigator, so long as the nav was back in their seat by the end and got the ship to its destination just fine, because what the layperson didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.

But, well…

It doesn’t get much harder to hold yourself and everything under your care together as they are the longer you’re in espace - additionally, but not multiplicatively, much less exponentially. Time and space still function in a way, so trips between this planet and that are known to have a certain average amount of time, but it’s flexible. If a navigator can confidently know themselves through, and the ship AI has a confident grasp on everything else, there’s no reason she shouldn’t pause in her destination-seeking, or at least not focus quite so hard, and just…wander the ship for a while. See the sights (that aren’t quite, here.) Enjoy the upsideways-tasting sensations.

So, Djinn met an AI with whom she really got along, did a couple trips in a row on that ship specifically, and then talked them into covering for her while she stole stuff from the passengers. More for fun than anything, honestly. But she got…well, she got caught, mostly, more than she got anything particularly valuable (probably?). (She got away with it like a dozen times, first, though.) And stealing from passengers while traveling through espace, while nearly unprecedented, is illegal by the laws of every place of origin she flew from…which is what applies on-ship until the destination is reached, by interstellar law. 

More importantly, it was against Guild rules. They claimed precedent, because the Navigators’ Guild looks after its own, so Djinn wasn’t imprisoned anywhere. But her license was revoked for 7 years.

We meet her sometime in year 4, maybe 5 of that probably, I think on the equivalent of Jackson’s Whole.

[micahstravels]

“Pinpoint”

*A year-long compilation; a wrestling. There is nothing necessarily conclusive about these words; they are just mine from my journals and reflect the ebb and flow of what my twenty-third year looked like, the year I think I grew [up] the most. I wanted to write and leave it semi-unfinished, just as various places in my life right now still feel very unfinished. This was my year, these were my experiences, this is how I documented it.

—

I am about to turn twenty-four.

A friend asks me over a cup of tea what this approaching year feels like; I tell her that I feel I am only just now catching up to myself.  It took a year of crucial and humbling moments to understand this feeling, I am certain it will take another whole year before I feel settled into this. I tell her I don’t like the feeling of running after myself.

—

I pinpoint this feeling at the start of twenty-three, when the Lord tells me that I’m moving too fast for myself. You need to slow down, Micah. I pretend that I do not know what this implies. It occurs to me that I am probably bulldozing through my own life, ploughing down everything in my path in an attempt to get where I want to be quicker.

The cop who pulls me over must think so as well. Any reason to be going this fast? he asks.

Um no, not really, I confess.

No emergency to get to?

No.

You were just going that fast?

Um, yes?

He looks at me with gentle eyes. You need to slow down, ok? Wouldn’t want you to get hurt. I wonder if his speedometer can predict an inner collision.

I pay the ticket quickly; paying the self-imposed penance takes months.  

—

I pinpoint this feeling when a friend insists on catching up, so we start talking about the future. What is it that you want? she asks.

Not enough, is what I want to say.

Too much, I say instead.

I will scold myself for my answer later, because I don’t like the way it sounded coming out of my mouth. I don’t like the apology it implies.

—

I pinpoint this feeling as the mechanic hands me a bill I am unprepared for. He motions under the hood in an effort to explain why it cost so much, and the thought that I am probably getting ripped off gnaws at me. I diagnose myself as incompetent.

I put on my best non-quivering, adult voice as I transfer almost all of my savings from one account to the other, sign the slip of paper and dash to my car.

I sob the whole way home. By twenty-three I thought I would have a better grasp on these things.

—

I pinpoint this feeling as I sit through another forced talk about self-care in university. I realise that this advice does not apply to me. What’s keeping me up at night is not the urge to drink my guts out, instead I hang a whiteboard on my bedroom wall at 2:13 am with a list of questions I decide to answer in my spare time.

What am I working towards?

Who and what do I want to become?

What do I want my twenties to be marked by?

What problems do I want to solve?

Where do I want my time to go?

I want someone to give me the answers to these questions, to tell me how to keep my life on this trajectory. Because I am beginning to worry that in an effort to carve out the life that I want—the calling I feel compelled to fulfill—that I will lose myself in this process.

—

I pinpoint this feeling when I almost book a trip to Japan using the remainder of my savings. My friend tells me to chop my hair off instead—it will achieve the same desired effect. 

I realise it’s autonomy I’m searching for.

—

I pinpoint this feeling in August, as I watch my dad worshipping next to me at my home church. I realise that he is standing in the same place I knelt almost every Sunday for a whole year. I realise that he is alive at the same time that I realise I cannot stop crying.

I lean into him, confess that for a whole year I’ve been terrified. We weep together.

I look down: all of my disappointment and fear is draining out in a puddle on the floor. Your infection has run its course, I hear the Lord say.

I realise fear was never meant to be chronic.

—

I pinpoint this feeling when I show up to my final exam without a gram of makeup on. As I walk out the door, the sight of my face in the mirror makes me wince. I have never wanted to not look at my face so much, I have never turned away from myself so willingly before.

My skin bears the remains of an academic year I thought would be better: dark circles, acne, puffiness. Look at me, it says, look at these marks. This is the skin of someone that kept going.

I start noticing other peoples’ skin and wonder what they’ve had to walk through.

—

I pinpoint this feeling when an old friend calls me one morning; we have not spoken in years. I have wasted months analysing our last conversation, and I have finally reached the conclusion that I would take back everything I said if I could, even though those words aligned with all of my beliefs. This scares me. The thought of this chasm growing any deeper scares me more.

At twenty-three I am torn between inhabiting the house I built on a firm foundation, and the people in my life that refuse to come inside for fear this foundation won’t hold them. There is enough room here for you, I say.

No there isn't, they reply.

I fear that I will watch people’s lives occur through a glass window. Some days I want to leave this house, I’m just worried I’ll lock myself out.

But when he calls I am so shocked to hear his voice on the other end that I shove a t-shirt in my mouth to muffle the raw emotion leaking out of me. If you would have told me that my arm had just been popped back into its socket, I wouldn’t have known the difference: the relief feels exactly the same.

When he asks about the last time we talked, I find myself apologising for something I am not sorry for. I blurred all the lines, and now I don’t know how to undo what I’ve just done.

—

I pinpoint this feeling as I take stock of my life, of the people inhabiting it. I become acutely aware that if you were to strip them all away and leave me only with what I have constructed with my hands, I would have nothing of worth.

—

I pinpoint this feeling when, the morning after I fly [home] to Mexico in December, I’m sitting at our dining table with my dad and he asks me how I really am, how the last year was. I attempt an answer, except that I can’t, because I am quietly weeping into my plate of eggs. I don’t really know why.

But when he—this man with whom I feel most safe in the world—wraps me in his arms and says, what you’ve done so far hasn’t been a waste, Micah, I understand why my jaw has been clenched all year.

—

I pinpoint this feeling when I climb into my best friends car at the airport, four weeks later. I feel like I don’t want to be here anymore, I tell her as we drive through this city that I somehow do and do not love at the same time. But I also don’t want to leave. My time at home revealed what I have known all along: I love Mexico so much more than New Zealand.

“They say that nothing lasts forever,” writes Ocean Vuong, “but they’re just scared it will last longer than they can love it."

I google ways to fall back in love with a place.

—

I pinpoint this feeling when I realise this: what I want is taking up too much space in a decade that doesn’t have enough room. 

If what I want in my twenties doesn’t fit, then if and when it spills over into the subsequent decades, will it leave room for the rest? Am I caught in a recurrent cycle of catching up? Is this all in my head?

—

I pinpoint this feeling when I quietly ask the elderly speaker to pray for me. He takes my face in his hands, looks at me gently for a moment. Comparing your life to others’ is what’s suffocating you, he says.

I unravel slowly.

—

I pinpoint this feeling on a balmy evening in February, when I’m walking through my old neighbourhood with one of my dearest friends. I am wearing the leather flats that I bought in a market in Mexico; we have just eaten chocolate cake for dinner.  The past year has seen a lot of big decisions for the both of us, and the end result is that we both stayed.

And because we are in our twenties and because all of our friends are a blend of single, engaged, married, pregnant or breastfeeding—we talk about what it’s like watch this unfold from our vantage point.

I live with the weight of satisfaction and desire. They both exist inside of me, she says. I exhale. I didn’t know I wasn’t the only one who wrestled with this. 

It is here that I grab hold of my innate restlessness and pin it down—it is a habit I have started to avoid being consumed by it. At twenty-three I have had to learn that restless should not and cannot become a synonym for reckless, nor can it be a euphemism. Because if it is then I start to become someone that I do not intend to be.

And I do not intend to be reckless.

So when she says that, I understand that all along this restlessness was merely a side effect of the civil disruption happening inside of me. That to be twenty-something is to allow contentedness and longing to co-exist peacefully within you, until they decide to wage war.

And the aftermath shows up on my skin; it is insomnia, and writing lists of everything else I’d rather be pursuing right now, and boredom, and jealousy over my friends who look like they have achieved so much more. It’s the mornings when I wake up with a visceral urge to clean up what is not messy: my closet, my room, my brain. You are just restless, I tell myself. You are not purposeless.

But when they’re at peace? It’s a group of friends that make me a cup of tea without saying anything. It is parents who tell me that my life in itself is their proudest accomplishment, even when I feel like they’ve accomplished much more important things. It is the fourth and final year of a degree that I love; it’s an end in sight.

And so, at the end of this year, I pinpoint this:

I am deeply content; I am so unsatisfied.

"Twenty-three."

I am still catching up.

[alienshepard]

what are your opinions on alec ryder? (because of your last reblogs about him it seems like you're not that fond of him)

Okay just a disclaimer: It’s my opinion and does not mean that people are wrong when their opinions are different than mine. Also keep in mind that Alec is just a fictional character and I don’t mean any offense to those who might see themselves in him or have real life acquaintances who are similiar to him. It’s a bunch of pixels and polygons so pls let’s stay calm.

But the truth is, I don’t like Alec Ryder at all. I don’t think he is a bad person, but he fucks up a lot and really is not a good father. I feel like he never really wanted to be a family man but for some reason found himself as a father of two (or five in my canon but let’s not discuss that) I didn’t get the impression that he really loved Ellen, for me it appeared like he saw her as another mission or another project he couldn’t fail. Ellen’s disease was like a personal failure to him because he is very focused on succeeding and with her death would feel like he failed at a mission, so that’s why ignored her own wishes, ignored her own autonomy over her body (which chronical ill and dying people still have, who would’ve thought) and did something highly unethical for the sake of his own ego and because he didn’t feel like he could be a parent to his kids (or he just didn’t want to take the responsibility) There are many in-canon hints that Alec more or less manipulated his own kids into joining the Initiative and that he willingly put his kids’ careers at risk because, again, he couldn’t fail a mission and this was more important than his own family. Alec Ryder constantly endangered his kids and by putting Ellen on the Nexus, the whole Initiative on top of that. For me, all his actions during Ryder Family Secrets weren’t actions out of love for Ellen but almost had something obssessive about them because he didn’t want to lose her (again, personal failure)I also really don’t like how he acted towards his kid. There wasn’t a single word of comfort towards Ryder after their twin almost died - Alec was still more focused on the mission and Ryder as a soldier than actually comforting his obviously upset child, which gave me the impression that Alec really is more of a career man and also that he is too proud to be affectionate towards his child, which raises the question why he even had children in the first place (if he was a realy person and not a fictional character of course) I don’t know, I just see Alec Ryder as a selfish and cold person who barely does anything out of altruism and uses the people around him as tools to get the things he wants done. Which might make him a good N7 and strategist but a sad excuse of a husband and father and from Ryders perspective, the second thing matters more to them than having their father constantly described as great military man. Not to mention how BioWare didn’t give us a single opportunity to express anger towards Alec. All Ryder can say is that their family situation is awkward, complicated, can do a little haha yeah my dad is distant and then, nothing else. And still, all Ryder gets to hear is what a great man he was even if they never had this impression of him. People give Ryder shit for becoming the new pathfinder when they literally never had a say in this whole situation. Ryder is not a trained N7 soldier as Shepard was, Ryder is a 22 year old security guard who might had “inofficial” N7 training but this doesn’t come close to the combat experiences Shepard had. To blame them for fucking things up when it’s entirely Alec Ryders fault is so shitty and I wish there would’ve been some way to express this more.I also can’t see Alec saving Ryder as selfless and redeeming act because I personally think he just saw Ryder as the last opportunity to save Ellen and not as his child. tl;dr: Alec Ryder is, in my opinion, selfish and cares more about his career and personal achievements than his family.But that’s just my opinion of him ¯\_(ツ)_/¯(also I really don’t like the funny jokes about Alec being a distant and cold father or making fun of Ryder for having “daddy issues” because a lot of people fail to realise how much it can fuck someone up when they don’t have affectionate parents)

[vorcotec]

ducky asked me at one point about the “full circle” exchange between jack and jane, and what i thought it might mean. she and i discussed it together, but i wanted to try to do a fuller thinking-through on my own. here’s the full conversation just to have something to refer to. 

jack: (about his limbs) jane, look at this. it’s working. i’m working. jane: (keeping her back to him) i’m proud of you, jack. jack: are you alright? jane: there was a girl in here, earlier. jack: yeah, i was going to ask you about that. about her. jane: was she cruel? jack: cruel? definitely strange, but kind of interesting strange. who is she? jane: her name is langwidere. jack: is she a friend of yours? jane: uh, a client. i-i’ve brought you some clothes. we’re... going on an outing. you’re moving well, fresh air will do you good. jack: are you sure everything’s alright? jane: everything is as i’ve come to expect it, jack. full circle. (handing him clothes) here--here. your new world awaits.

i think that this conversation has a LOT of layers. i’m gonna start with what i don’t have the clearest evidence for, then work towards stuff i think is more grounded in the events of the show.

1) i think that this convo is referencing, specifically in the “full circle” line, a past event involving langwidere and jane; and that langwidere taking jack away is an echo of that event. did jane take someone/something away from langwidere, and jack being taken from her is “full circle,” i.e. retribution of some kind? did jack have a predecessor who was also taken away from jane, so that the ‘theft’ of the next generation is “full circle”? i think there are different possibilities, and i can’t put a pin in any one and say, “this is my headcanon” just yet--not until we see future episodes, and how much the writers will/will not give us of jane’s past.

2) the next layer of this convo that i see is jane’s knowledge of langwidere. jack does not find her “cruel,” but, uh. maybe jane forgot to calibrate his cruelty-o-meter? because she is very cruel to him, and very deliberately cruel to him, choosing not to give him his wheelchair and directly calling him a “freak.” this isn’t thoughtlessness: it is having the thought (”could you wheel that over here?” “i could”) and then choosing not to act on it because she finds malice more entertaining.

if jane has been in ev a long time--and i’m guessing she has, in order to have the resources she does--she’s known langwidere a long time, especially because of how she has been ruling in her senile father’s stead, making her the access point to royal resources. for me, this brings up the hc that jane knew langwidere when she was a child, or at least much younger. she’s had a chance to see the princess(/queen) grow. so she knows what she’s like. and i think it’s possible that she has been hurt by langwidere on previous occasions. that she knows what langwidere is capable of because she’s seen it, or been hurt by it, herself.

this raises a question for me: jane deflects and calls langwidere a “client,” but is it possible that they are friends, of a sort? could they have, or have had, a degree of emotional intimacy? i think that if they’ve known each other for a long time, it’s certainly possible. jane is also the person who makes/maintains langwidere’s masks, so they would probably have to speak often, and see each other frequently (the masks are stored in jane’s personal workshop). but as i write, i think of langwidere telling jack that she’s always wanted a friend, but never knew where to “get” one; and i’m thinking it’s possible that if they did have some form of intimacy, that the power imbalance, as well as langwidere’s personality, would have scarred it; and that whatever has happened, even if she cares for her to whatever extent, jane does not trust langwidere.

3) the sort of... broadest level of this convo, for me, has something to do with the trajectory of jane’s life, and how she conceptualizes it. i know that it’s a fantasy story, and that Disbelief Must Be Suspended, but i can’t imagine it was anything but profoundly hurtful and to a certain extent traumatic to be brought unwillingly to oz and then, again, unwillingly, trapped there ostensibly for the rest of her life. jane was already in her thirties in 1997; she had a career--one that was looking quite successful--and for all the show tells us, she could well have had a romantic partner. the point is that she did not willingly leave our world behind; our world was taken from her.

i think that this conversation indicates how jane sees that experience, in relation to the loss of jack, as well as her time spent as “pet scientist” both of langwidere and of the wizard. when she saved jack and created him anew, she did something she felt passionately about, and (re)created someone she cared deeply for. jack is a scientific experiment for her, yes, but he is also a person, someone she cares about, whose hand she holds while she comforts him. he matters to her. he’s someone she wants to protect from langwidere, whom jane herself describes as “cruel.” and he’s taken away from her.

just like frank took away her old life. just like he took away her work. just like things have been taken away from jane consistently over the past twenty years--her autonomy, her projects, her sense of safety.

when jane looks at her life, she sees a great deal of success, but she also sees it marked by cyclical patterns of loss. she achieves great triumphs--a vortex chamber that can produce wind energy and revolutionize the energy consumption of the united states! a young man all but revived from the dead with mechanical limbs (and a heart!) that successfully mimic the biological functions of his missing parts and enable him to enjoy a pretty decent quality of life! then she is robbed of these triumphs in episodes that make her feel powerless and alone. full circle.

[reyphorian]

A mostly in depth guide to why abortion is murder and that thing is clearly a fully formed human baby you heathen

just kidding

There’s a lot of myths and misconceptions regarding abortion and what qualifies as living and late term abortions and all that jazz so I’m here to teach you about this stuff. Granted, I’ll be avoiding statistics as much as I can only because sourcing to reputable sites and studies is hard when you’re a chronically exhausted person like me and reading through peer reviewed studies is tedious for a truly solid sourced guide, however what I will be talking about are things that are hella easy to google for fact checking if you’re really determined to tell me I’m wrong and support infanticide and I’m a satan worshiper or something. Several of the statistics can in fact be found on the Orlando Women’s Center website and will be indicated with an asterisk since all the statistics are on the same page. Also apologies in advance for using female only language. I am fully aware that there are men and non-binary people who can get pregnant and need abortions, but for the sake of simplicity for the time being, the fact that it’s mostly cis women receiving them, and the knowledge that most pro-lifers don’t realize this or acknowledge them, I will not be using inclusive language unless otherwise necessary.

Myth 1: Unwanted pregnancies can be prevented with birth control/responsible planning.

I know they always tell you not to provide anecdotes to prove points but I think this time it’s reasonable. I’m a birth control baby. In other words, my parents were using birth control (3 kinds actually!) the night they had sex that resulted in my conception. Now, if you could prevent all pregnancies simply by using a condom or taking a pill then I wouldn’t be here right now, nor would the 54% of women who received abortions even after using contraceptives during sex.* But the truth is, no form of easily obtainable birth control is guaranteed to always work. Even in the clinical testing for condoms, the pill, IEDs, and depo shots the success rates weren’t at 100%, and those settings are literally the best, meaning success rates at home are a bit lower because of mistakes or improper use. The only forms of birth control that are guaranteed to always work are hysterectomies and abstinence, the former being highly invasive, expensive, and permanent, the latter being unreasonable as most people actually need sex for the emotional bonding and mood improvement it often provides.

Myth 2: The heart beats at 18 days.

This is probably one of the worst arguments I’ve seen from pro-lifers because it indicates how little they actually know about prenatal development.

This thing right here is a human embryo at day 18, taken from a lovely chart that wikipedia has on their prenatal development article. So tell me where exactly is that heart I’m supposed to be seeing? The answer is nowhere, because it’s not a baby. It’s an embryo, not even a fetus. You’re telling me that’s the exact same thing as a fully developed and birthed baby? Nah, I don’t think so. Whatever “heartbeat” they’re hearing is nothing more than the throbbing of a literal clump of cells. This thing is no more living or sentient than a piece of lettuce in my salad last night. It’s so underdeveloped that aside from the yolk and amniotic sacs, none of those things are identifiable parts you’d hear about in a fully developed human. Every time a pro-lifer says the heart beats at 18 days, show them this and play a game of pin the tail on the donkey and see if they can find the heart because I certainly can’t. Also, the heart, as in the actual heart that looks just like the ones we have in our bodies, isn’t detected until past 10 weeks.

Myth 3: Fetuses can feel pain/The Silent Scream

The Silent Scream is a commonly cited video depicting a fetus being aborted and opening it’s mouth as if screaming in pain, however the video was debunked over 20 years ago by the medical community. The brain itself doesn’t begin forming until week 26, and the brain connections to the thalamus which allow us to sense pain and have a sense of consciousness aren’t formed until week 30. Over 88% of abortions are performed within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy*, meaning any muscle movements or open mouths are involuntary movements not caused by pain. Muscles develop before nerves, so just because it’s moving doesn’t mean it feels pain.

Myth 4: The Heart Beats At 18 Days: Return of the Heartbeat

Yeah I know I already went over this but there’s actually two parts to the famous pro-life saying. The first part was debunking the myth that an embryo has a heart. The second part is debunking the myth that a heartbeat indicates life and therefore is a living human being. So let me ask you this, why, if a heartbeat indicates life, is it that when someone’s heart stops we take time to resuscitate them? The answer is...

Brainwaves! You see, the brain is what controls all functions of the human body, sensory reception, memory, voluntary muscle movements, and involuntary muscle movements. Involuntary muscle movements are one’s we’re not conscious of doing, like digestion and heartbeats. Without the brain working, the heart stops beating and the only way to keep it beating is via life support systems. We resuscitate people whose hearts have stopped because in between the cessation of breathing, there’s 10 to 15 minutes before the body becomes too deprived of oxygen and vital areas of the brain will cease functioning, which is usually the point where a person is announced brain dead and no longer legally nor medically considered living. Going back to the points in Myth 3, the connections to the thalamus are when we develop our first brainwaves, meaning until that point, what is growing is not legally nor medically considered a living human being.

A fetus/embryo is living biologically, however, biological life is not a reason as to why abortion is murder. If biological life were necessary for something to be murder then you may as well consider eating vegetables, killing bugs, washing your hands, and taking antibiotics to be murder as well since all of those actions kill things that are biologically living. Spiders and flies are more alive than embryos and fetuses are but we wouldn’t say killing them is murder. To claim that something lesser is more important than something more developed simply because it has the potential of becoming a human shows a lack of consistency in morals, and that morals only exist when they benefit or conflict with your own personal morals (which isn’t how it works in the law).

Myth 5: Late Term Abortions

1.1% of abortions occur past 20 weeks* but none of them are done willingly in the same way abortions are done. Late term abortions are life-saving medical procedures only done on wanted pregnancies where the safety of the one or both is at risk. This usually happens on ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and situations where it’s no longer safe to continue carrying. Think about it this way, you’ve been pregnant for over 20 weeks now, but at week 27 you find out that the baby’s heart stopped beating. You can continue to keep the pregnancy for another 19 weeks (4.4 months), knowing that for those 4 months you are carrying a dead child, or you can get a late term abortion. Most people wouldn’t want to spend that long carrying their now deceased child, nor is it psychologically or physically healthy to do so. Getting rid of late term abortions means forcing a woman to continue to carry a dead baby until she gives birth. Imagine going up to a woman who is visibly pregnant and asking about it, only to have her tell you that it’s dead. She’s not giving birth to a baby, she’s giving birth to a corpse in several weeks. Here’s another situation, you’re well along in your pregnancy and your partner and you go to the doctor for another checkup after feeling unwell for a little while. The doctor does an ultrasound only to tell you that something has gone wrong and if you continue the pregnancy both you and the child will die. You also have several other children at home. You can either get a late term abortion and live and continue to care for your other children, or you can die with your child, leaving a grieving spouse and children. Your uterus and ovaries will be fine so you can always try again later on. These are just two of the realities that women already face or will face when you take away the right to late term abortions. No woman wants to have a late term abortion. Most of the time those late term abortions are performed on pregnancies where the parent/s already picked out a name, set up a room with toys, and had a baby shower.

Myth 6: A fetus isn’t a woman’s body

Okay, this is kinda not so much a myth as it is kinda true. See, there’s this fantastic thing we have called bodily autonomy, the same thing that makes it illegal for a doctor to take your organs for donation if you don’t have the sticker on your ID that says you’re a registered organ donor. It’s the same thing that makes rape and assault illegal. Bodily autonomy is the right to your own body. That means nobody else can tell you what to do with it, and anyone who infringes upon that right can be faced with legal charges. So basically, the fetus isn’t you, but it does exist in you, in your uterus, and it’s a violation of your bodily autonomy if you don’t want it. Forcing a woman to keep an unwanted pregnancy or requiring her to have the permission of her partner denies her the right to her own body. It means you believe in giving dead bodies more autonomy than living people. It places the health of a clump of cells over her, and seeing as it’s a clump of cells and not a sentient living human, her rights trump the fetus’ (which it doesn’t have since it’s not a person).That’s why the phrase “my body, my choice,” still stands even when a pro-lifer claims that the fetus isn’t her own body. It’s still her uterus being occupied, her nutrients being taken. An unwanted pregnancy is no different than a malignant tumor or a parasite, and nobody has to keep either of those, so a fetus should be no different.

Myth 7: Adoption is always an option/Some people are infertile and can’t get pregnant

A lot of people can’t actually carry pregnancies due to preexisting medical conditions like illness or psychological issues, or people who are transgender (like me!). Some people are psychologically unsound and pregnancies my exacerbate the issues further from the massive changes in hormones during and after pregnancy. Some people are too sick to carry or risk passing on a condition or illness to the child that would make caring for them too expensive or that would leave their life shortened so drastically that they wouldn’t live beyond childhood or even infancy. Some people who are transgender can’t have children because of the gender dysphoria and physical changes associated with pregnancy. We’re already having a hard enough time dealing with our bodies as they are, so why force us to go through something that’s literally considered the essence of womanhood and the gender that we’re not?

It’s also important to remember that there are already thousands of children in the adoption system, but it’s really only newborns and foreign children that get adopted. Once they hit toddler and child stages their chances of being adopted drop drastically. Teenagers have almost no chance of being adopted and remain in the system until adulthood. A lot of kids that go through the system also end up being abused or raped by foster parents, and it’s common to meet people who’ve had very bad experiences being in the system. Why put yet another child in there when there are plenty of other kids waiting to be adopted? Also guilt tripping people into keeping a pregnancy is a shitty thing to do. I mean, would you tell someone who’s dieting that they should eat all their food because there are starving children in Africa? Someone else’s situation isn’t going to change what someone wants to do or does with their choices. There’s other people who are actually willing to be surrogates and choose to carry a pregnancy, so there’s no reason to force someone to carry an unwanted pregnancy.

I’ve covered all the topics that I can remember and feel comfortable explaining, so if there’s any other stuff you wanna add on feel free to do so, and please share to destroy myths, misconceptions, and common arguments from pro-lifers against abortions!

[ashersintersectionalfeminism]

why i’m pro choice (and you should be too)

late term abortions are not infanticide. late term abortions account for about 1.3 percent of abortions and are often performed when something has gone horribly wrong regarding the fetus’s development, meaning it can’t live outside the womb. other times, people are forced to seek out late term abortions because of clinic closures and increased expenses regarding first term abortions. so, if it’s late term abortions you’re worried about, removing those barriers would lead to fewer late term abortions.

some “pro-life” activists argue that “abortion has horrible mental health consequences” for those who get them. fortunately, this is incorrect. according to an article by the new york times, “abortion is found to have little effect on women’s [people that get them’s] mental health”. others argue that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, when in reality, based on the strongest studies available, it does not (cancer.org). some say, “abortions will decrease women’s ability to bear children later in life!” first of all, that’s not your choice to make. the decision of whether an abortion is necessary is not up to anyone but the carrier of the fetus. and, what decreases the ability to have children later in life is coat hanger abortions, which is what people resort to when safe, legal, and accessible abortion is not available.

contrary to a popular belief, abortions are not sinful. in a time when abortions were quite common, it is notable that the bible never mentions them. the bible does explicitly tell you, say, not to wear garments made of two different kinds of material, and barely anyone practices this.

i have seen a facebook post reading, “when you get an abortion, you don’t become un-pregnant. you just become the mother to a dead baby.” a brilliant reply, someone commented “or dead cells”. the original poster replied, “dead cells that held life”, to which the commenter responded, “all cells once held life. no one gets lynched for exfoliating”. this is a perfect example of the hypocrisy of the “pro-life” argument. based on this logic, couldn’t all masturbatory emissions where sperm is clearly not seeking an egg be considered wasted potential? no, because people deserve the right to make decisions about their own bodies.

doctor eugene gu, md said, “roe vs. wade is not about abortion. it’s about women’s fundamental human right to control their own bodies. there’s no way to give personhood rights to a fetus without stripping those same rights from the woman [person] - essentially turning her into a walking incubator.” the reason a fetus has more rights than a woman [or person with a uterus] is that society views a fetus as still having a chance to become a man. some “pro-lifers” argue that people shouldn’t be able to get abortions because it was their choice to have sex. if we apply the same logic to lung cancer treatment, we should refuse treatment to people with lung cancer because it was their choice to smoke. but, oh, you realize, not all people with lung cancer smoked. and, not all pregnant people willingly had sex. and, consent to sex is not the same as consent to pregnancy.

furthermore, anti-abortion activists should, by their logic, be outraged at limited access to birth control, sex education, and children being ripped out of their mother’s arms at the border. but, it doesn’t concern them, because the only thing they care about is stripping women and other people with uteruses of their rights to make decisions about their own bodies. if you think fertilized eggs are people but refugee kids aren’t, you’re going to have to stop pretending your concerns are religious. and, abortion is the only medical procedure that people want to deny based on how the person in question got in that situation. oh, you drove drunk, got into an accident, and now you need an organ transplant? no problem. you were messing around with a gun, accidentally shot yourself in the leg, and now you need surgery? of course. you’ve smoked tobacco for most of your life and now you need treatment for lung cancer? we’ve got you covered. you climbed a tree, fell out, and broke your leg? we’ll fix that right up. you had sex and got pregnant when you don’t want to be? well… you got yourself into this situation, so we can’t help you. (aka: you deserve no medical help or compassion. this is your fault and you will deal with the consequences.) it is absurd.

take this story from someone on tumblr: “if my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and i was the only person on earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is relatively easy, safe, and a quick procedure, no one can force me to give blood. yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be illegal to force me to donate blood if i didn’t want to. see, we have this concept called ‘bodily autonomy’. it’s this… cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon. like, we can’t even take life saving organs from corpses unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. even corpses get bodily autonomy. to tell people that they must sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what you view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the vast majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. you can’t even ask people to sacrifice their bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died. you’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies.”

you don’t morally have to agree with abortion, no one is asking you to do that. but, you must understand that it is a violation of human rights to deny someone access to safe and legal abortion.