#love when women get 2 violently destroy the men who hurt them

[elfcollector]

THE VILLAIN IS DEAD! The wretch! Together we have crushed him, brain and body!

[alikat7]

https://www.instagram.com/share/reel/BAIn_rY2Gy

I couldn't fit my reply in an Instagram reply!

I cannot believe how much crap people put on Sebastian that is mostly lies or twisted info. Is he perfect? No. But does he deserve this BS? Hell no. I guess since your whole claim to fame is 'Hurting men's feelings by saying what they did', you probably needed to fluff this up with BS and half truths to be more controversial. I am going to talk about this video and the response comments both.

1. Yes. Actors would avoid the PR with him doing a Trump movie. Trump is about to be one of the most powerful men in the world again and he has been known to be very vindictive of entertainment people portraying him badly. Late night talk show hosts have been threatened with lawsuits for making fun of him. If you're not American, you might not understand. Regular citizens have been attacked verbally and physically for criticizing Trump. MAGA people are violently protective of him. Hollywood has mostly been very vocal against him(including Stan during his term in 2016-2020 and now) so I bet he assumed that everyone reaching out saying how great he was in that role would also be willing to do the Actor on Actor thing. But Hollywood is being quiet about Trump now that he won the election. It's fear. And yes, fear of the bad PR.

2. The whole ex thing - OMG I cannot believe this is still going after 4 yrs! - is BS honestly. People claimed his ex was racist because of the crazy section of his fandom that went back 3+ years on one of her friends Istagrams to find a picture of her in Asian clothes at a party and accused her cultural appropriation. First, she's Spanish. We have no idea if Spain has the same definition of cultural appropriation and if they consider it racist. Even in the US, it wasn't always considered racism. The MET gala had a Chinese theme in 2015, but no one complained about racism. Second - why are fans researching his girlfriends to the point you find a photo on their friends Instagram 3+ yrs before? That's crazy! I bet Sebastian didn't know about that photo until the fans dug it up. Third - if she didn't realize it was considered racist and he asked her about it when the fans brought it up, she could have just admitted to him she made a mistake. Who can say. None of his fans actually know the details of his relationships and should stay out of them. I am not defending anything she did. I am just pointing out that the fans don't know the whole story.

3. Pam & Tommy - Seb was brought into the project by the same man that did I, Tonya. I'm sure he assumed everything was cool since in the past it had been. He met with Tommy, and he was cool with it. Lily couldn't get a meeting with Pam. No one has any idea *when* Seb knew Pam was against it. The public didn't know until Courtney Love claimed Pam was hurt by it. Courtney Love isn't a credible source for anything. She's crazy. But even if she was telling the truth, Sebastian was under contract and filming by then. He can't just back out of projects because he finds out something like that. It wasn't his job to talk to Pam. It was all of the show runners. He knew he had Tommy's blessing. Despite Tommy's future abuse of Pam, he was also a victim in the sex tape release, too. And what is everyone upset he played an abusive man? He's not condoning it. He also played an assassin and a cannibal. Jeff in I, Tonya, was abusive, too. He's not glorifying Tommy. He may have admired Tommy's rock God status (and yes, at one time, he was a rock god), not his treatment of women. I only heard him talk about it being fun with the tattoos, earrings, playing the drums, the total physical transformation, etc. Seb has gone on record many times talking about how they portrayed Pam and Tommy as victims of an unbelievably cruel invasion of their privacy and how it destroyed their relationship and damaged her career. He considered the show an expose of the horrible truth because most people thought they leaked the tape because they sold the rights. I am old enough to remember, and everyone thought Pam & Tommy released it. They were known for being wild, so it wasn't that surprising if they did. Seb and Lily thought it was very pro-Pam, so until they started doing press, they probably didn't know Pam was truly against it, and they hurt her. But Pam didn't even blame Sebastian or Lily. And to be honest, no one got more shit about it than Sebastian. Not the creators, not the show runners or writers, not Lily, not Seth Rogan, no one else dealt with the backlash like Seb. Why? I think it was due to #4.

4. Sebastian has a huge fanbase. He always has, but it got bigger due to Marvel. I read some bad comments here about how he treated his fans. This goes against everything I have heard about actual fan meetings. He's known to be a bit shy, introverted, and quiet at times but has always been kind. Did everyone forget when jumped off a stage at a convention, ran into the audience, and hugged a girl because she was overcome by nerves to ask her question? Or when he heard some fans were outside the hotel at Toronto Film Fest at night so he came down in his PJs to take pics and talk to them? The man stops to talk to kids and dogs all the time. He's a nice guy.

So let's talk about the small, dark, denented section of his fandom - the Anti-Fans. They claim they used to be his fans, but not anymore, yet they still spent hours a day digging for his personal information so they can post online. They post pictures of the outside of the building he lives in, his fathers funeral, personal family photos, photos at friend's houses, his vacation, his address, videos of him as they wait outside his building or his favorite restaurant. They go up to him when he's eating, getting coffee, running, walking out of his building, etc, and wonder why he's polite but obviously not thrilled about the encounter. But then he's 'horrible to his fans'. They write long essays about him being problematic with twisted facts and lies. Sometimes, they just make shit up, which later ends up in the permanent record of why he's problematic. They list things he's done wrong and either ignore any apology he made or just say it doesn't count. He never has to apologize, but he does because he actually cares about offending or hurting people. And you know when these anti-fans come out in force? When he has a girlfriend! How odd. They rip every girlfriend to shreds and then say Sebastian is horrible if he defends them. But they also claim every girlfriend is PR. According to them, Sebastian has never had a real girlfriend - only PR girlfriends. A gorgeous actor who is single, funny, and kind, but yet he never has a real relationship that doesn't include a contract? What deluded world are you living in??  And of course, every one of these antifans claims to know about the 'business' enough to know the signs of a PR girlfriend. Every good-looking actor is supposedly in a PR relationship according to these people, even the married ones with kids! But I have questions - why does Sebastian need PR? And he would be more appealing to female fans if he were single. His current girlfriend is a successful actress on her own (and don't bother saying she's not as successful as him because it's impossible to compare). But neither of them need the PR of a relationship. And when you consider how private they have been for 2 yrs, how is it PUBLIC relations??? Most of the pics of them are taken from someone else's Instagram(a friend of a friend of a sister's friend of their agent's brother-in-law's cousin, etc. Seriously, how do you people have the time to cyber stalk to that degree?) or paparazzi pics. Including pics of them on vacation with her parents. A trip with the fam - kinda extreme for a PR relationship! Whether it's real or PR, what does it matter? He's never going to be your man, so stop trying to ruin his life by harassing his GF. You loved her when she replaced the Spanish GF, but then you realized it was serious and started tearing her apart. It's plain jealous, spoiled bitch behavior. "If I can't have him, no one should." It's nauseating. Reality check here - whether he stays with this GF or finds a new one. he will NEVER be your man.

See also:  Parasocial interaction (PSI) refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television and on online platforms.

If you really care about Sebastian, stop analyzing every pic of him with his GF for signs of unhappiness, and just leave them alone to be happy. Its none of your business whether they are happy, or if it's PR, or if she meets with your approval. Sebastian is a grown man who can handle his own love life all by himself.

5. I saw a few posts about him being an asshole on set to the crew. Elizabeth Olsen once said Sebastian hangs out with the crew more than the cast. The crew always raves about him. I just saw a video the other day where a cew member from The Devil All The Time who said he gave $200-300 to each of the lowest paid crew members. God, what a monster!

This type of fuckery is what drove him off social media. When he sorta called out his fans recently, it was after years of abuse from these so-called fans. And if you weren't one doing it, why be offended? It wasn't directed at you. Everyone has their breaking point. When you think about all the fan interaction he used have on Insta like his cute videos, it's truly heartbreaking that these anti-fans drove him away. And they criticize his lack of fan interaction?

The only thing about Sebastian that is truly problematic is part of his fanbase, who are so entitled that they aren't happy unless they spend most of their time trying to destroy his reputation.

If he truly offends you, hit him where it hurts. Stop watching his movies. Stop contributing to his income. Act like he's irrelevant by not even discussing him. And let the real fans enjoy his work in peace.

Oh, and BTW, if you spent hours a day stalking him and his gf's friends and coworkers' Instagrams because he's so problematic, you are kidding yourself - you're obsessed with him. You're a fan.

[archangelbelletti]

So your mc is a straight fighter girl?

Then avoid writing that she...

Falls in love with an ugly monster

Why do so many movies in which a human falls in love with a monster it's always a straight girl who has a crush on a male monster (Beauty and the beast, The shape of water, etc)?

This narrative reinforces the idea that women have to be pretty but men ... don't, and this wrong for many reasons: 1) men end up feeling bad for wanting to be pretty and take care of their looks, 2) people will think that being pretty is mandatory for girls, 3) a man is ENTITLED to be with a girl and demand she take care of her appearance while he doesn't do the bare minimum.

Of course these stories are not the source of all evil, but you can see patriarchal culture filtering through these stories!

With that being said, you can still write a story where a beautiful girl falls in love with a male monster if: the monster learns how to be softer, take care of themself, take care of her without being possessive or violent.

Never cries...

Not expressing emotion and being dramatic at it will make your character look like they're pretending to be someone else in a way that's pretty unbelievable.

Instead of making her stoic and self-destructive, try making her explore a path of self-improvement by recognizing that not expressing her feelings makes her feel worse!

... or cries way too much

She's a fighter, right? She can't cry when she bruises her elbows or when her boyfriend acts mad, lmao! If she has guts, she will keep having them even during an argument.

Impulsively does something that f*cks up their plan

Apart from the fact that plans that get f*cked up by mindless ocs is just lazy writing in my opinion, let's talk about girls being portrayed as impulsive.

It's an old stereotype of women: the crazy girl, the one who can't think straight under pressure, the woman who can't handle fighting or ruling because she will lose her temper.

Try writing something fresh: she keeps her head, she helps her comrades focus, she plans everything in detail.

Her plans can fail, but only if she's outsmarted by a much more clever villain *winks*.

Is a hero just because everybody else isn't able to do basic things

Being the only fighter in the village when they're starving while her family does nothing but criticize her doesn't make her a hero, sadly.

The definition would be martyr, in my opinion, because she's literally putting herself in terrible danger (to provide food for her family, protect them, or save them).

Try writing her being supported, opening up about her struggles, if you want to rewrite Katniss, Fayre, or Mare Barrow.

Instead, if you want her to be a real hero, she could be elevated from a group of already excellent fighters because she's actually stronger and more skilled than the others!

Swears like a sailor to establish dominance

We get it, she's Not Like Other Girls. Okay.

But 1) other girls are perfectly fine being who they are, 2) this feels pretty fake, a play put on just to intimidate others or to fascinate someone (even if I don't know who besides the mc's love interest in Nevernight would be fascinated by profanity).

I remember not being able to finish Nevernight because of how many times I eyerolled during a single line by the mc (whose name I can't remember).

Your mc can be strong and independent without aggressively swearing!

Nb: I'm totally okay with ocs swearing in books, but everything has to be done with a sense of measure! Swearing a little is okay, using a string of obscenities that would make an assassin blush is just ew to me :/

Has a tiny appetite (even though she fights all day)

This is just pure physics, come on. How? Just... how? She HAS to be hungry! Let he feast with food, have a healthy relationship with it, eat lots and lots of whatever she likes best.

Enough with portraying skinny cishet girls who skip meals when they're a little stressed as okay. It's not!

(Of course this doesn't apply to ocs who have ED!!)

Always has to be saved by Big Beautiful Cishet Male OC

While they are BOTH powerful people, somehow she's always in danger and he has to save her, she's the one who gets caught, who has nightmares of the past and needs reassurance, who is scarred, and (fucking hel!), she's the one who gets sexually ass*ulted, but ... do not fear! Brave Cishet Male is here to save!

Please, don't. If your oc is a heroine, let her fight WITH him. Let her save him, instead. Let her win the battle and the war, conquer the castle, sign the peace treaties, shake hands with rulers, discuss war with powerful people. Let her do whatever he does, too.

Is said to be powerful, actually does nothing but fall

So your mc is a soldier, a thief, the best of her platoon. But somehow she always trips on her feet, she gets caught, she can't escape, she's always out of breath, and people have to save her.

If you say an oc is powerful, show it!

When I read Dance of Thieves, I noticed the author saying many times that the mc was skilled, but her skills where shown only in little things: juggling, stealing oranges, stealing small objects. She was said being a strong fighter, but she isn't, is she? If she is, why does she always lose?

Her strength lies in being sarcastic (but not when she has to fight for herself)

She has a quick tongue when she's with her friends or minor enemies, but when she should talk herself out of a life or death situation she just ... loses her quirk, or it becomes stupid.

Why? Why doesn't this character think of something clever to say to distract the enemy's attention, to buy herself more time, to make them reveal their plan to her? Why doesn't she trick them into saying vital things that will destroy them?

All of this, remember, while staying intelligent, clever. Stop making her judge the enemy's appearance, insulting their group/family/nationality, telling them they're going to lose, making jokes that will make them angrier or trigger them into hurting her! This shit is just dumb, come on.

The world is oversaturated with sarcastic ocs, make some sarcastic, okay, but also clever!

[writingwithcolor]

Destroying Imperialism to avoid Discussing Racism

Hello! I wanted to write a mostly light-hearted story about cowboys escorting a mysterious stranger to the Atlantic and the weird encounters they have along the way. I know how racist the Western genre normally is but I didn’t think I was the right person to write about the racism Native Americans faced since I’m not Native. To get around this I created a backstory for the world to explain the lack of it:

A century ago during the Age of Imperialism alien asteroids struck the earth, destroying most of Europe and mutating Earth’s flora and fauna. In the ensuing confusion the Native nations banded together and pushed the invaders out, with the freed slaves staying with the Natives. The cowboys are all descended from these former slaves, with the only white person in the entire story being the escort. Since the story involves traveling the cast will meet a lot of Native people on their adventure.

At first I thought this was okay but as I this was okay but as I thought about the idea more I grew less confident in it. I didn’t feel like it was okay for me to attempt to side-step a very serious issue like this. Is there a way to repair this premise or should I just scrap the entire story since I seem to be coming at it from the wrong angle?

I wouldn’t say “wrong angle” so much as “potentially ahistorical to a fairly extreme degree,” which might not be possible to mitigate. There’s a lot of points in here that need addressing for it to be even plausible, and I’m only covering the major ones.

Point the First: Natives Owned Slaves

Part of it was to get in good with the white man, but this is something that happened. I’m not Black-Indigenous, so I won’t speak for their struggle, but I will say that anti-blackness is fairly large in Native communities, and many Black-Indigenous people are denied any sort of place in the tribe. 

I’m not very well versed in that history, and I would rather pass the mic to Black-Indigenous folks who have in some cases experienced generations of tribal disenfranchisement thanks to prevalent colourism and anti-blackness in Native communities.

I’m sure some tribes were anti-slavery. But others very much weren’t. This is something you will have to explore, extrapolate, and listen very closely to Black-Indigenous folk for their experiences and preferences.

Point the Second: Some Nations (temporarily) Benefited A Lot

The Metis were a nation with a lot of political power and a lot of wealth, all thanks to the fur trade. They came about through political and/or love marriages between white men and Native women, then grew into their own distinct thing with an intermingling of French, Scottish, and primarily Cree settlers in Canada’s Prairie. 

This isn’t counting how relations between Quebec and the Natives in the region were actually very good for a time, the Iroquois were war allies to the British in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Texas has a treaty that has not actually been broken. 

These nations/confederacies would be hard pressed to want to throw Europeans out, because for a long period of time, they got a lot of perks. They got money, the ability to expand their territory, help against their enemies, guns, horses, metal, and resources in general.

Point the Third: Colonialism Was Slow To Boil, Or Devastated Quickly

There is no one exact spot where you can pinpoint it got bad for everyone all at once. When America got its mind on manifest destiny, that was terrible for the Plains, Mountain, and West Coast Natives. When the Spanish came (well before the Age of Imperialism in the 1400s) and enslaved practically all of Mexico and Florida, it very quickly destroyed many, many, many nations that are working on revitalization efforts but will never truly exist as they were again. 

Canada’s Prairies got hit hard from the 1800s, onward, but the Inuit were slow to connect with Europeans so their colonialism is very recent and very sudden. The Maritimes in Canada got hit devastatingly before the Age of Imperialism really took hold, but then Quebec Natives hardly had that happen until everything soured. The Iroquois might’ve had even longer in a place of status.

As a result, you cannot assume everyone would either be hurt or feel hurt. In some cases the Natives only realized how toxic settlers were when America actively cheated them out of land. Others when their children were taken to residential schools.

Point the Fourth: Cowboys Existed Because of Colonialism

Cows are a European animal, primarily, as are horses. Ranching began as Spanish and then American people wanted to buy/steal large swaths of land from Natives in both Mexico during early colonialism (I reiterate: before the period your supposed asteroid hit Europe), and the Plains during the manifest destiny era. 

Ranching and Native peoples have a hard time coexisting together, because in the plains, you’ve got rancher needs fighting with buffalo needs, just to name one example. 

It might be possible to create a respectful cowboy situation, but you’d have to think pretty long and hard about how to not push out Native peoples from their territory, and how to share the land for two very large animals and their different needs. 

Also, you’d have to account for how ranching is a Spanish thing, so if Spanish people hadn’t had a chance to import all of their practices, then the whole concept of cowboys in North America would be bust. 

Is it possible to have cowboys be adapted, maybe be influenced from a few places in Asia or Africa  (because Africa does have pastoralists) instead of the Spanish, and make them respectful? Probably. How? You’d have to do your own research on the needs of cowboys, animal husbandry in East Africa, and what tensions existed between them and Native/Indigenous peoples in both North America and whatever region you’re borrowing from.

Point the Fifth: Colonialism Became Self Sustaining Very Quickly

Aka, they wouldn’t have been impacted much at all by Europe getting wiped out, especially the older colonialism like New France (1500s), Mexico (1500s), Rupert’s Land (1670), New England (1600s), etc. They might have lost some trading partners and a reason to over-produce goods, but they wouldn’t have been devastated. These people:

1- did not rely on Europe after a generation or two, maybe 3-4 at most

2- were often already genocidal

It took all of a generation or two for colonial structures to be self-perpetuating (when families came over like in America, or the active sponsorship of girls to come such as the Files du Roi in New France), and to have killed off major swaths of Indigenous people in the area (although New France did take longer to get bad). The Pequot village massacre that is the reason Thanksgiving is annual was in the early 1600s, after all.

This is not getting into the Caribbean, Asia (British shadow-rule of India started in the 1700s, but they had been trade partners for longer), or Africa, or South America. Colonialism was a long, long, long buildup, and the Age of Imperialism was just a small portion of that. 

The likelihood of the Indigenous numbers existing to remove cities that had purposely spent all of their early time “clearing” the land of unwanted Indigenous people is… possible, but low. 

This is why non-violent colonialism is an oxymoron, which I’ve discussed at length this week. Many were violent from day one, so unless you change Europe’s history to remove their manifest destiny attitudes and just have them expand to new lands and not be colonists, then your solution is too little, too late.

Also, news travelled a lot slower at the time. People might not’ve even found out about the asteroid for months if not years.

In the End

I highly doubt it will be possible to get the kind of story you want without discussing racism of some sort. The fact you’ve only targeted the Age of Imperialism, and as a result have kinda majorly glossed over the Spanish era (starting in the 1400s), which was majorly devastating to Mexico/Florida and resulted in many peoples being rendered extinct, plus being the root of cowboys… yeah.

It sounds like you’re trying to avoid learning about our struggles/putting in the work to write respectful background characters. You’re too hung up on trying to make it all better instead of learning how to write situations without making the whole story about that situation. I’d take a look at our Can I Write About X? tag for more information on how to write background stuff.

Like I said. It might be possible to create a respectful cowboy/Western story… but I really doubt that this solution is enough. It just doesn’t account for the sheer length of time colonialism happened, and by the time Native peoples have supposedly banded together, colonialism would’ve been self sustaining in many of the regions you’re discussing.

~ Mod Lesya

[squirrelacorngliterfarts]

Blood 2. 30.

Everything Taglist: @gold-dragon-slayer @your-internet-granny

@darkwhisperswolf​ @youbloodymadgenius​ @blonddnamedhandz​ @thelastemzy​ @inforapound​ @supermassiveblackhope​ @captstefanbrandt​ @roonil-wxzlib​  @syreni-dea​ @cynthianokamaria​ @rosiebrosie @loliismutt@pinkisokay @heavenly1927​ @annekleyn​  @rose-02468​ @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch @moonie-flower101​ @xinyourdreamsx​

wanna start from the beginning? haven’t read the first part? start here!  Blood 1 Masterlist

this night was particularly loud, men and women filling themselves to the brim with food and drink.

(y/n) stands in the corner of the room, looking utterly beautiful with her loose hair and dark purple gown that flowed off her, jewels adorning her skin.

she was what true beauty and royalty should look like. but yet, she didn’t seem to know the effect of her presence.

tonight was the night they met with the men and women who would fight for their cause, much like the night they had their warriors for the great army, in battle to avenge her father’s death.

but it was different now, because ivar wasn’t by her side.

she drinks at the water ubbe had gotten her, when she spots something in the corner of her eye. 

a man, covered in the most beautiful fabrics and furs allowing his eyes to wander over her figure, staring a little longer than he should have.

she knows who he is, king svase, leader of the sami people, his daughter is beside him, and (y/n) can’t help but notice that she and the leaders daughter were not that far apart in age. a very pretty girl who’s hair was wrapped and hidden from the prying eyes of the men in the room.

when he meets her eyes, he gives her a charming smile and nod, to which (y/n) nods back, showing her kindness.

something the people loved was seeing her smile, seeing her overwhelming purity of love, she was a goddess in the eyes of kattegat.

just as she goes to welcome the people, but a hand on hers makes her stop.

“(y/n), there is someone here to see you” ubbe says, smiling at her as he pulls her along with him.

she wonders who it could be, a guest she is to welcome, someone she will fight beside.

but when she sees who it is, her whole body freezes, her eyes already beginng to fill with tears.

“bjorn” she breathes, and he smiles at her, opening his arms, and she is quick to run into his embrace.

“you’re here” she mumbles into his shoulder, feeling him running his hands over her back.

“i have missed you” bjorn says, kissing her head as he holds her so tight ot his large frame.

he looks at ubbe over her shoulder, wondering why she had left ivar, seeing as lagertha filled him in when he had gotten home.

ubbe shakes his head, telling him silently not to speak to her about it now.

bjorn subtly nods, pulling back from her and taking her face in his hands.

“do not cry for me, (y/n)” he says, letting his thumbs wipe away the tears that fall from her eyes.

she smiles, grabbing his hands and holding them in hers.

“i have missed you terribly, bjorn. i am so happy to see you again”.

“and what about me?” halfdan teases, appearing from behind bjorn.

she laughs and moves to embrace him as well, sniffling into his chest.

“i have missed you as well, halfdan. so much has changed since you both departed”.

bjorn nods.

“i can see that” he says, noting her appearance wasn’t how he remembered.

she had more scars aligning her chest and arms, her hair a bit longer, marks on her skin were just now fading. 

she looked as if she’d been at war the entirety of his departure.

she says nothing, just grabbing his hand as hafldan tucked her into his side.

“we will talk later, bjorn, for now, there is someone you are to meet” she motions towards the sami, where lagertha was too waiting patiently for him.

he presses a not one, but two kisses to each of her cheeks, confusing her, but nevertheless, it made her smile.

“how has my little one been?” halfdan asked, and (Y/n) doesn’t know how to answer him, her mind reeling with the answers she could give him.

his finger moves under her chin, making her look up at him.

“it’s alright, you can tell me when you are ready”.

she pulls him into her arms once more.

“thank you, halfdan”.

“of course”.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

they now all sat at the dinner table, amongst many others, lagertha was at the head of the table, and ubbe and margarethe sat in front of bjorn and (y/n).

“i remember you used to pull on my hair when i carried you on my back, so hard, like a horse reigns” bjorn says, lightly tugging on (y/n)’s hair as he recalls the memory.

she laughs and playfully slaps his hands away.

“i didn’t pull on it that hard”.

“says you” bjorn mumbles, poking her stomach, making her giggle and shake her head at him.

they settle, and suddenly, the mood becomes more serious as he faces ubbe.

“ubbe, (y/n), why have you fallen out so violently with ivar?”.

(Y/n) chews the rest of her food, using that as an excuse as to why she doesn’t speak, and when she doesn’t, bjorn turns towards ubbe, waiting for an answer.

ubbe looks a bit angry as to why he brings it up so suddenly, not waiting until they were in the privacy of a room or in the empty hall when the people left.

“how can you even ask me that question? you know what ivar is, you saw”.

the words hurt (y/n) more than she thought they would, but again, she chooses to stay quiet.

margarethe speaks up next to ubbe.

“and hvitserk chose to go with him. the traitor”.

this causes (Y/n) to glare at her. she had no right in the matter of speaking up, she had no right to call hvitserk a traitor. lately she felt more free to speak her mind on matters that do not concern her and it was angering (y/n) to no end.

“they will destroy our father’s legacy for all time. but we can fight to preserve as much as we can. our father lives through us, bjorn. you, me and (Y/n), or he doesn’t live at all” ubbe says, and (y/n) nods understand his words, she just didn’t understand why ivar was doing what he was doing in the first place, 

“you didn’t say anything, (Y/n)” bjorn says. “what happened between you and ivar?”.

from what bjorn knew, (y/n) and ivar were together non stop, always lingering stares, touches, he always thought in his heart she they’d never split away from one another.

“he said things to me, did things to me, things i will never forget, and when i knew he wasn’t going to change, that he was becoming something i never wanted to see, i knew it was time for me to go, to be with the brothers that didn’t care about powering over the other” she says, looking between ubbe and bjorn.

bjorn nods, and both he and ubbe wonder what he said and did to her to make her leave him, but they both knew the other was suffering without each others presence.

bjorn then stands, patting (y/n) on her shoulder.

“let’s talk with halfdan”.

she smiles gently and takes his hand, the other hand grabbing at her skirts and walking with him to the head of the table.

“do you think i’m lying, bjorn?”.

(y/n) hadn’t a faintest clue as to what he was referring to, but the look on he and lagertha’s face made (y/n) think that she was questioning his loyalty considering what his brother was doing.

bjorn answers.

“you and i crawled out from under the same rock. i believe you will fight against your brother”.

halfdan nods appreciatively at bjorns words, and when his eyes catch (y/n)’s, and he sees the same look as the feeling he felt in his heart.

betrayal of a loved one.

he nods to the spot beside him, offering both she and bjorn a place to sit. they take it.

“guthrum, i brought something back for you” bjorn says, reaching below his belt and holding up a beautiful dagger with designs and jewels along the sheath.

“it belonged to a man names commander euphemius. a byzantine prince”.

guthrum smiles widely at the new blade in his hands, inspecting it with amazement.

“thank you, bjorn. it’s beautiful. perhaps one day i will get to meet this euphemius”.

bjorn laughs at his sons words, shaking his head.

“alas, no, you will not”.

(y/n) frowns deeply at bjorns words, wondering why  he’d say that.

“halfdan and i ate him” bjorn says, and the water (y/n) was trying to sip spurts from her mouth with surprise, turning to looks at bjorn and halfdan with wide eyes, disgust on her face.

“you ate him?” both (Y/n) and guthrum asked. and bjorn shrugs.

“well, not on purpose. no, you have to understand that many strange things happened in that other world. perhaps one day you will see for yourself” bjorn says, nodding to guthrum.

(y/n) sits staring at bjorn, shaking her head.

“hopefully he too will not ‘accidently’ eat someone”.

the people within earshot laugh, including lagertha, and bjorn wraps his arm around (y/n).

“i will be there to make sure of that”.

[followyoursecretsmutblog]

the lies you tell III.

Summary: You and Henry dated for 2 very happy years, when it all came crumbling down. Protection was the only thing on your mind. And now, 3 years later, on a lunch with a common friend, you are hit with the lies you told.

A/N: A short confessional.

the lies you tell. the lies you tell II.

“Ho-how did you get in here? How do you know where I lived?” My voice squeaks out, my heart still pounding in my chest.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

I close my eyes, hoping that when I open them again, he would disappear.

He does not. He is very much still there.

“That isn’t important right now.” He replies, sitting up straight.

“The hell it isn’t! Up until 10 hours ago, you didn’t even know I was here.” I take a step forward, my anger increasing with his lack of response. “How did you find out where I live?” I ask again.

“What? Are you getting frustrated because I am not giving you what you want?” He asks, his head tilts to the side. “I remember being that frustrated, asking the same question over and over again. Only to never get a proper answer.”

“That isn’t the same thing! This is about my safety!”

Henry stands, “And that was about my heart. My safety.” We stand there, staring at each other. “Tell me about how I was the lesser evil.” He says softly.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Nothing has changed. I told you the truth.” I wrap my arms around my middle, trying to hold myself together.

“And I don’t believe that for one minute. Remember Ava, I know you better then anyone.”

I hesitate, searching for something other than this man to look at. “I’m not proud of what I did.”

“What you ‘did’? Did you cheat on me?” Henry’s voice cracks. 

My eyes snap to his, “No, never. I meant I wasn’t proud in breaking up with you. It was the hardest thing I could have ever done.”

“Tell me why. I want to understand what I did wrong.” His pleading tone is not lost on me, it kills me to hear him.

“I will tell you, but understand one thing. I thought I was doing the right thing.” I whisper, looking down at my feet, trying to gain the courage to tell the story for the first time. I never told anyone what happened. It was my dirty little secret.

He sits back down, watching me as I sit on a chair across from him. Our knees grazing each other’s. I take a deep breath, picking my head up and meeting his gaze.

His eyes so blue, so clear, I could get lost in them.

I miss waking up to those eyes.

“It began slowly, the first grain of doubt being planted after Superman was released. When the world finally saw you as the attractive leading man that could have anyone he wanted, this object of sex appeal and box office smashes. This man came up to me, told me I was hurting your image. At the time, I was just your friend, tagging along with you so you would always know you had my support.” I stop, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I brushed it off, thinking nothing of it. Nothing happened between the two of us at the time, men and women can be friends all the time. Besides, you were honest in your interviews about being single.

“But a few years later, you asked me out. Made me the happiest girl in the world. Giving me something I didn’t know I even wanted.” I smile at the memory, how he went from being completely calm and collected in front of the cameras, but turning into a stuttering mess when telling me how he felt. “God, you were the biggest dork when you asked me out, I couldn’t help but say yes.” Giggles escape me, Henry smiles softly at the memory as well.

“Yeah, not my crowning moment.” He mumbles, scratching the back of his neck. “Go on.”

“Well, it happened again when you were working on Mission Impossible and working on re-shoots for Justice League. The man came back, visiting me while I was at your house watching Kal. He told me that I was ruining you. That if we continued to date, no one would hire you, not for a leading role, not for any role. The famous Henry Cavill dating a lowly girl from a broken family, from a backwoods town.” I stop, turning my head to the side, I watch the moon. “‘How could someone like Henry love someone like you? You are a nobody. You aren’t talented, you aren’t even pretty. You are just clinging onto him, waiting for him to sink along with you.’ He spoke as if he knew something I didn’t, making me think for a moment that you didn’t love me.

“I was crushed, but I knew it wasn’t true. I knew you loved me. But the man continued, ignoring the fact that I would never do anything to hurt you or your reputation, which it why no one ever knew we were dating. I didn’t want you to get hate because of me.” I wrap my arms around my middle, turning back and looking at him. “I finally got the courage to ask him who he was, why he was trying to push me away from you. He laughed at me. It was such a sickening sound, I can still hear it. He said he was part of your agency, someone that could control if you could be a lead, or to get a part with no credit.

“I knew how much your job meant to you. This man says he could completely destroy everything you worked so hard for. I didn’t want to stand in the way. You belong with someone like your beautiful co-stars, not me.” Tears start spilling from my eyes, the pain of that day still ringing in my body. “I didn’t deserve you. I loved you for years before you asked me out. And every time I looked to my future, you were always there with me, either as my best friend, or something else. Something stronger.”

His eyes widen, lips parting slightly at my confession.

Did I really just insinuate us being married?

“The man kept coming round, every time I was left alone. Threatening me. Threatening you. The last straw was about a week before that horrible night, that day I went with you to a quick meeting. While I was sitting in the waiting room, he walked by, stopped, and glared at me. He said that after the movie is released, he was going to run your name through the mud, insuring that you never get a proper role again.” I stop, putting my hand over my mouth, trying to stop the sobs from coming out. Closing my eyes, the tears fall, not knowing if they would ever stop.

I hear shifting, and then two thuds, a hand spreading my legs open, a body coming between my legs. Opening my eyes, I see Henry’s face so close to mine, him on his knees, sadness in his eyes. “Ava...” he says as he holds me.

I shake my head, “I’m not finished.” He sits back on his heels, one hand caressing my leg, nodding for me to continue. “For years I heard you talk about what you wanted, how badly you wanted to be an actor, how you loved what you did. I couldn’t take that away. I couldn’t let my selfishness for you stand in the way of your happiness.” I reach a hand toward him, my fingertips grazing his jaw. “You always looked your best when you were happy. I knew you would be able to find someone new. Someone better. All I had to do was break my heart.

“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I did it so you could continue to do what you loved. I would have never asked you to pick me over your job, because I knew what you would say. “

“I would pick you.” He says, leaning his face into my palm, his eyes watching me.

“Exactly. But I know I’m not worth that.” I put my other hand on the other side of his face, making him look at me straight on. “You mean the world to me, and these last few years, I have been able to watch you do so many amazing things, building a very thirsty fanbase, a name for yourself, a legacy. You have done so much, and I am so proud.” I smile, the tears finally stop falling. “My heart is so full, watching you do what you love. Knowing that there is nothing you can do that would make me not love you.

“I fell in love with you because of your heart. Loving you was the easiest thing I have ever done, you make it so simple. I know what I said hurt, and you obviously know it was a lie, but please, don’t hate me for wanting you to live your dream.” I place my forehead on his, brushing my nose against his. Closing my eyes, I feel the warmth of him. How he smells the same, but now a bit more expensive.

“Ava. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I would have done something. I would have fired him.” He stops, his breath coming out jagged, “I would have done anything to keep you with me.”

“I know, but I tried to protect you. And I couldn’t even do that right.” His hands slide up my body, resting on my shoulders and neck, holding me in place.

“But that wasn’t your cross to bear alone. A relationship means that there are two people. We are a team.”

He tilts his head forward, his lips meeting mine in a soft kiss. My blood runs hot, my body turning to mush. I arch my body toward him, crushing my chest to his, tangling my fingers in his hair.

I pull away, trying to catch my breath. I watch as he opens his eyes, a hand wiping my tears away.

“I love you, Ava. I never stopped. There is no one I rather have on my team.” He whispers, brushing his nose against mine.

“I love you, too, Henry.”

~~

The door to my apartment opens, “Honey, I’m home!” Chris sings, shutting the door.

“Fuck off, Evans. I’m still mad you gave Henry the key to my place.” I say, folding the last of my laundry.

“Oh, yeah! How did that go?” He flops on the couch, a pile of towels falling to the floor. “Oops.” 

“Nothing happened. We talked. He left.” I violently refold a towel.

“Nothing happened? Like at all?” An eyebrow goes up, watching me.

“We can’t be together, Chris.”

“So, you are telling me you are still single?”

“Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“I don’t trust you,”

“As you shouldn’t. But come on, take a shower and get pretty. I made a blind date for you.”

“YOU WHAT!?” I scream, my eyes nearly popping out of my head.

[trombonesinspace]

Typhoid Mary: feminist femme fatale?

“Season 4 was going to be Typhoid Mary, Alice Eve [who played the role in Iron Fist], we were doing a kind of...I had a much different version of her than what Raven [Metzner] had done in Iron Fist. I was kind of rebooting what she was going to be like, and we were going to do a, you know, kind of a warped love story/murder mystery kind of femme fatale, but kind of a modern-day, feminist version of it, as opposed to kind of the older, sexist kind of femme fatale archetype.”

-Erik Oleson, in conversation with Steven DeKnight, SaveDaredevilCon 

As I said yesterday, I have some thoughts about this! If you want some opinions nobody asked for, about a storyline that may never come to pass, you’ve come to the right place! Let’s dive in.

A femme fatale is a character type with quite a history, that can take various forms. She is always an attractive woman who brings ruin to the man who gets involved with her. But sometimes she is deliberately manipulative, while sometimes she is more a victim of circumstances. She may be evil, or she may be sympathetic/tragic. But whatever her moral alignment, she has two defining traits: sexual allure, and some form of negative consequences for the hero as a result of his involvement with her.

A woman who schemes against the hero, and succeeds in harming him, but without using feminine wiles? Not a femme fatale. The Marvel TV universe has featured several examples on different shows: Madame Gao, Mariah Dillard, Alexandra. And, ironically, the version of Typhoid Mary who appeared in Iron Fist. (We’ll get there.)

A sexy woman who tries to manipulate/damage the hero, but fails? Also not a femme fatale. I wish I could give some examples, but sadly I can’t think of any, in dramas at least. Our current media culture loves a sexy manipulator, no writer ever seems to introduce one into a dramatic story without making her succeed in her schemes, to some extent at least.

Which is unfortunate, from my perspective, because I loathe sexy manipulators. It’s a character type I really dislike, whenever I encounter her. As soon as she shows up, I know the hero is going to fall for her bullshit like a chump, and I’m going to end up respecting him less as a result. I could try to unpack my feelings about this a bit more, but that would probably make a post all on its own, so for now I’ll leave it at that.

This doesn’t mean I hate all femmes fatales—it really depends on her motivation and her behavior. If she isn’t trying to harm the hero, and it happens due to circumstances, then I might like the character, but the story becomes a tragedy. Which is not necessarily bad. Just, you know. Tragic.

Anyway! Let’s talk about Typhoid Mary.

Mary Walker is a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities), and high-level combat skills. In the comics, she is also a mutant with mental powers. She appeared in the Daredevil comics starting in 1988.

In this original version, her personality fragmented due to childhood abuse, leading her to vow as an adult that no man would ever hurt her again. Her personalities are: Mary, who is timid and gentle; Typhoid, who is adventurous, lusty, and violent; and Bloody Mary, who is even more violent, sadistic, and hates all men.

Mary becomes romantically involved with Matt Murdock, who is cheating on his girlfriend, Karen Page, to be with her. At the same time, Typhoid is trying to ruin him, having been hired to do so by the Kingpin. Matt can’t tell they’re the same woman, because when she switches personalities all her bio signs change (voice, scent, heartbeat, etc) so much that he can’t recognize her. (Uh, sure.) She may also be using some of her mutant powers to confuse his senses. I haven’t read the comics, I’m relying here on what I could learn from the internet.

Eventually Typhoid drops him off a bridge, but then Mary finds him and gets him to a hospital, saving him. Karen is with him when he wakes up, but he breaks her heart by calling out for Mary.

This storyline...does not thrill me. As I said, I haven’t read it, but comics writing about mental illness is generally neither nuanced nor accurate, and comics writing about women circa 1988 is also not great, by today’s standards. And comics Matt’s disastrous love life is legendary—cheating on your girlfriend is bad, Matt! Don’t do it! 

I have, however, watched season 2 of Iron Fist, where we get a different version. This Mary Walker is a US army veteran, special ops, who was captured by the Sokovian military. Her personality fragmented due to the brutal abuse she received from her captors for nearly two years, until she finally escaped. She got a medical discharge from the army after being diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Her personalities are: Mary, who is innocent and naive; and Walker, who is a ruthless, coolly efficient mercenary-for-hire. The existence of a third, ultraviolent personality, previously unknown to either Mary or Walker, is revealed near the end of the season. 

Mary meets and befriends Danny Rand, while Walker is hired by his enemies to stalk him, and eventually capture him so they can steal his Iron Fist powers from him. She later changes sides, getting hired to bring down Davos, the season’s main villain, by Joy Meachum, his former ally.

There are clear parallels to the Daredevil comics storyline, albeit in less extreme form—Mary befriends the hero, but isn’t romantically involved with him; her more violent personality works against him and fights him, but doesn’t try to destroy him. 

I enjoyed this version of the character more than I expected to, for a couple of reasons. For one, she is never the out of control, “crazy” stereotype of a person with mental illness. Both Mary and Walker are more-or-less functional adults, managing to live a strange hybrid life, aware of each other’s existence even though they don’t share memories.

But what I especially like is that she isn’t sexualized, at all. It’s incredibly rare, in my experience, to see a young, female antagonist opposing a male hero, and not have her be sexy. Older women are exempt from this obligation (see my list of examples above), but the young ones always vamp it up, and I am so tired of it. I am not opposed to sexy women, but I am very opposed to the requirement that all women must be sexy. (Unless they’re old.) Male antagonists aren’t required to be alluring, so why should women be? (Yes, I know why. I just don’t like it.)

There’s also a lot of potential YIKES in sexualizing a woman with a severe mental illness, which was caused by (among other things) repeated sexual violence. Could it be done in a way that isn’t super problematic? It’s possible, sure. Am I assuming that most television writers would give the subject the respect it deserves? NOPE! 

I’m really glad they chose to just not go there. Walker is extremely good at what she does, takes no shit from anyone, and (almost) never gets riled up. After everything she’s been through, nothing in her present life has the power to faze her, and none of the men around her have the power to intimidate her. It’s pretty great!

She isn’t the least bit coy or seductive, and, equally refreshing, none of the men try to sexualize her or hit on her. Everyone Walker talks to knows she is a highly skilled professional, and they treat her accordingly. Or, when someone does disrespect her, it’s never gendered as far as I can remember, and it stops as soon as she calmly states what she’s going to do to him if it doesn’t.

As for Mary, although she has a more feminine appearance than Walker (hair down and loose, makeup), she is also not sexualized. Her friendship with Danny, who is in an established relationship with Colleen Wing, is platonic, and no one else tries to hit on her that I remember.

So this is the version of Typhoid Mary that Erik Oleson was going to reboot, into a femme fatale. Only, you know. A feminist one. 

I...have some questions. What does that even mean? What does feminism mean to Erik Oleson? Let’s be real, the idea of a woman becoming an ultraviolent, sadistic man-hater as a result of sexual trauma would have been seen as feminist in some circles, back in 1988 when that version was written. So what, exactly, did he have in mind?

As I said before, sexual allure is a necessary component of a femme fatale. So she was definitely gonna be sexy. And you know now how I feel about sexy female antagonists. As for the “warped love story” part...Matt wouldn’t be cheating on Karen, since they aren’t together (please, for the love of mercy, don’t have them get together right before he meets Mary, we did that once and I do NOT want to see it again), but I am still not a fan of Matt/Mary as a couple.

Her Dissociative Identity Disorder raises some serious issues around consent, and even if the show chose to ignore that, there’s still the issue of past sexual trauma. Unless Oleson’s reworking of the character was going to include a completely different back story, a Matt/Mary relationship would mean Matt unknowingly having sex with a woman who has suffered brutal sexual abuse in her past. Not to mention, having sex with her that only one part of her personality actually wants.

Is it possible for someone with Mary’s past trauma and present mental illness to have a positive sexual relationship? In reality, of course! In the hands of writers with only a layman’s knowledge of psychology, on a show that loves to torment its hero, I wouldn’t bet on it. How do you suppose our poster boy for Catholic guilt would react when he inevitably finds out the truth?

Plus, aside from any issues around Mary herself, Matt starting a relationship with anyone other than the handful of people who already know his secret identity, means a whole new round of Matt lying to someone he cares about. Does anyone really want to see that? I know I don’t. Sure, maybe he’d tell her eventually, but how long would they have to date before he decided to trust her with the truth?

I’m not opposed to the Mary Walker from Iron Fist appearing in Daredevil, if the writers could come up with a new story for her (i.e, don’t just have her repeat all the same plot beats with Matt that she already did with Danny). But bringing her in as a femme fatale really doesn’t sit well with me. We’ve already seen Matt in an ultimately destructive relationship with a sexy, violent, morally grey woman. I really don’t want to watch Round 2: now with multiple personalities!

Of course, maybe we never will. The quote at the beginning of this post is from just a couple of weeks ago (July 25 2020), so Erik Oleson still seems to think it’s a fine idea. But obviously we don’t know yet if there will ever be a season 4, or who the show runner will be if there is. He may never get to make the story he was planning.

So yes, I realize I’m merely speculating about a completely theoretical story that may never happen. But I wanted to write this anyway. I had a strong “ugh, no” reaction to the idea of a feminist femme fatale Typhoid Mary, and I wanted to go deeper and pick apart my reasons for not liking the idea.

To the three of you who have read this all the way through to the end (this post is nearly 2000 words, yikes), thank you for indulging me! These are, as always, my own opinions, and YMMV. 

[shinra-makonoid]

1. I know you meant it in a sarcastic way but do you think TRAs are the reason so many ftms feel more welcome in radfem spaces? Because many of them if they 'came out' as a radfem usually had the experience of being repressed homosexuals that clearly have no connection to GD by the way the tell from their perspective. (such as being obviously urged by the environment to transition, whereas most transsexuals (in my experience) try to convince themselves of the opposite/ find excuses).

2. In many bios I notice the description 'former-dysphoric female' or 'victim of the gender cult' like they realize they were obviously only exposed to the 'tucute' side and never met real transsexuals (which to be fair is kinda rare but still). I'm just wondering what makes someone switch to radical feminism when they had so opposite views. Because I did hold radfem beliefs as a teen but had no opportunity to share them. I kinda grew out of it.

3.But why? I know you don't know me but I always wondered how someone came up with these beliefs like Dworking, Simone de Beauvoir. Cause I reached the same conclusion as them despite never reading anything from them. And that's scary. You said you were a tucute. How did you came to this? And how did you get away? Do you think some people will always stay in these cult-like groups and why do some have the ability to get out and some don't? Is it biological or social that some can('t) do that?

There’s many thoughts with this so it’ll be long and potentially messy.

I know you meant it in a sarcastic way but do you think TRAs are the reason so many ftms feel more welcome in radfem spaces?

I’m not sure TRA are the reason so many FtM feel more welcomed by radfem spaces. But I’m pretty sure that mainstream feminism in itself has a hand in this. GNC females (trans or not) usually feel out of place regarding their own place in society, and feminism is right there to pick them up. From there, they have a community in which they can rely on, with a specific set of beliefs to follow. You have basically two major communities of feminism, the libfem and the radfem.

Radfems are like the special club of the “enlightened ones”, while libfem are the lazy ones who just follow the trend of feminism. So, I suppose, depending on how implicated you are in feminism and gender, you get to be close to one or the other. There is also the fact that homosexuality/bisexuality in itself will come with a set of experience as a young woman who will surely push you more on the more radical side.

I long time ago now, when I was still a TRA, I’ve known someone who didn’t know if they identified as a lesbian or a FtM, and was heavily in the radfem discourse. We discoursed a lot together, and despite our very different views, we managed to bond. They brought me to nuance my views and reach that kind of “peak” where you actually realize that biological sex DOES exist in fact (crazy right). And I helped them realizing that the radfem discourse wasn’t always godspell. Idk what happened to them since, it’s been a long time. But anyway, it really made me tend to the other side of the balance, even though I’ve never subscribed to it, because I couldn’t, with my own existence, you know? At least there’s something in me that wouldn’t.

I think a lot of FtM comes through that path at some point, and violently shift to the other side as a reaction from when they were a TRA. Finally they are “enlightened to the truth of the world”, and therefore become radical feminists, because they HAVE to be a type of feminism (because otherwise they say that it means you don’t support women’s equality, and you are not appreciated). I personally stayed a long time with a feminist label, before understanding how crappy it was, by wondering about the male side.

__

Which brings me to the other point. As girls of our generation, we all were raised with feminism in mind. It’s an ideology that was thrown at our throat. Every time that we did something that wasn’t “typically feminine”, it was feminism. Playing with the boys was feminism. Playing video games was feminism. Going to STEM was feminism. Not wearing dresses was feminism. Our normal behavior (GNC behavior) became feminist. We became, despite ourselves, some kind of representant of the powerful female that we “needed” to be, to bring back some balance in the world. It’s very dehumanizing when you think about it. We are warriors for the feminist belief, and our simple behavior is suddenly perceived as something courageous when it is simply how we exist. So, even if you don’t read the feminist books and all that shit, you are still bound to feel like a flavor of feminism, by the simple fact that you exist. Add to that, that it’s very socially good to be seen as a feminist. I think that’s how most of us get trapped in that.

We are social creatures. Finding our peers is a necessary step for us to stay alive. And if it comes with a set of beliefs that need to adopt, then so be it. That’s how we get in.

__

I know you don't know me but I always wondered how someone came up with these beliefs like Dworking, Simone de Beauvoir. Cause I reached the same conclusion as them despite never reading anything from them.

Why did you come to the same conclusion as people who supposedly did sociological thesis and were eminent respected people in my country? Because it’s what felt right, it’s your intuition, your set of beliefs based on your biased experience that showed you that. It’s the same reason as to why all culture have a religion. We love to believe, we need to believe, and we love wishing for things to be the way we think they are. It’s the reason why those people were fake. They based all of their observation on their personal life and wishful thinking. They created a world that they had in their head, and projected it on reality.

It was very easy for me to think that males were abusers on the basis of my experience. I was already mindful of men, because that’s what I was taught from my family, but my bad experiences reinforced it, and feminism magnified it to a phobia. It’s this endless circle of people validating your biases, an echo chamber but on a life-scale. People who believe or behave a certain way will stick with the other people who believe and behave a certain way, as we’re a tribal creature.

__

TRA/Radfem, any cult-like thing, will have that. They will discourage you from considering the opinion and the view of the other side, because it will be deemed as being false/wrong/sin, and will also continue to validate the things that you already believe over and over again. They ARE the enlightened ones. They are the ones who discovered the truth among the falsehood. They are sure, persuaded of what they think, that it is the Truth. 

They also spew a very anxiety-driving feeling. Radfems are persuaded that all females who transition are brainwashed by the cult. Do you want your fellow females to end up in a cult and hurting themselves? Obviously not! So you help them, you try to convert them, because you feel the urgency of the situation. “She needs to be saved”. It’s a bit like the Christian persuaded they need to save you from hell.

__

Do you think some people will always stay in these cult-like groups and why do some have the ability to get out and some don't? Is it biological or social that some can('t) do that?

With time, and seeing all of these groups, I became sure of one thing. Certainty is poison, in my opinion. The world is made of nuances, and a lot of them we can’t yet grasp accurately. I am certain of nothing. I try to doubt at every step, and for everything, because in the end, even if it’s very uncomfortable, it is also the best way I found to be able to navigate without getting too stuck somewhere. I have beliefs that are still tied to my values, I will probably always have those, because we aren’t machines. But I am aware of that, and it allows me to take a step back, and think “Why is that so important for me to believe in?” “Why do I believe what I believe?”

Those two questions are the fundamental ones that need to be asked, in order for someone to rationally think. Along with that, you have to understand what constitute a fact, and how to differenciate it from an opinion. The people who get stuck in cult-like mentality are the ones who do that. But it’s not something that you just do. It’s really something to live by. Skepticism. I am lucky because in France, there are a lot of content for people to understand better science and skepticism in general. It really helped me.

Some people won’t ask themselves those questions because they never thought about it. Some people won’t ask themselves those questions because the feeling coming from it is very bad. When I shifted away from the TRA belief, it was a nightmare. When I looked into the HSTS part and how they didn’t believe in any “gender identity” the way we conceive it, I was also crushed. It’s a bad feeling, to feel the way you view the world getting destroyed by other views. It leaves us with uncertainty, fear, vulnerability, that we have to handle. We are left with more questions, less answers. It’s not easy. I would go as far as saying it’s physically painful.

It is easier to just repeat the same mantra, and get stuck with that feeling of certainty that is comforting. It is safe, and you have people thinking the same way you do, you are never alone anymore, you don’t doubt anymore. You know the truth, after all! It’s a very pleasant feeling, to know the truth. But is it an accurate depiction of reality? We are all guilty in that. You, me, the most rational person in this world is guilty of it.

__

What matters to you? Having the most accurate reality you can grasp, or your comfort and sensation of having the truth in your hand? The answer to that might be obvious, but it is actually a very difficult one, that one has to ask themselve often.

[gutsymmetry]

okay here we go. ready?

regina:

neutral evil with lawful qualities, progressing to chaotic neutral and then to good over the course of her character development.

"neutral evil with lawful qualities” is the condition of the evil queen. at this point in her character development, she is profoundly self-interested, consumed by her trauma, and lashing out in any direction she can. hence, the “neutral evil” dimension of her personality: she wants to cause harm, and she does not care about using that harm for the purposes of order; it’s about her own satisfaction. her “lawful qualities” come into play because she is, at heart, actually a strong administrator and bureaucrat who does desire to create prosperity and safety in the place she rules, and she will exercise her authority to that end, sometimes and indifferently through harm.

chaotic neutral/good is the condition of regina in season 2 and onward. she is, especially at first, once again self-interested, with her interest extending to henry and very few other people. she is not interested in "good” as such, nor in abstract morality, evidenced by her rejection of “regret” during the neverland storyline--she has no use for rhapsodizing on what-ifs or vague concepts of good and evil. as she progresses through various post-curse-breaking events, she is interested in preserving safety and well-being, and will put her own life on the line for that cause, but it’s not about a ~higher morality~ and wanting to be a do-gooder hero uwu, it’s about doing what will keep people safe and minimize harm as much as possible, and because that does extend to people outside her immediate group, hence her progress to “good.”

hela: lawful/neutral evil cusp.

this is the best way i can think of to describe hela’s mixture of purely self-interested, self-obsessed violence with her extreme authoritarianism. on one level, she is the daughter of a king and a long-time military leader who highly values regulation and structure, and demands utmost obedience to that structure, because it is the path to success. much of the destruction of asgard that happens in thor: ragnarok would not have happened if the aesir bowed to her and accepted her authority, and her decimation of the asgardian armed forces, etc. only comes about specifically because they denied her that obedience.

the “neutral” dimension of her personality comes through in the above-mentioned self-obsessed violence. hela does what she does in t:r primarily because she is hurt and angry, and has had her value system destroyed. she doesn’t need to conquer asgard or any other realm, and simply put, the military structure she is a part of doesn’t require constant conquest--that is hela’s own personal goal, her personal hunger to make meaning out of what is a hollow, violent, and ultimately fruitless way of life. constant acquisition balms the ache of being totally emotionally and spiritually empty, and ditto the violence she exerts on odin (in the murder of odin deleted scene), thor, and loki.

scathach: chaotic evil.

need i say more? scathach is an incredibly dangerous person, and this is why. she has a near-total indifference for the stuff of life and the systems of order which maintain life, except for when she can exploit them--whether to reap their fruits, or to destroy them for her own sadistic pleasure. she is primarily interested in that pleasure, as well as in her own freedom; the more psychological dimensions of her character, involving a powerful desire for connection and love, conflict with her central goals, and no doubt this is directly the reason her love affairs end in violent tragedy: because the world into which she drags her love-objects is at its core designed to destroy them, and scathach is an agent of that destruction. having a truly positive, beneficial relationship with another person would require scathach to reorganize her entire moral scheme and develop a sense of the value of human life, which she is not interested in doing.

seward: chaotic good.

i’m not sure i need to explain the “good” part, except to say that she is and always has been interested in the betterment of other people and the care and caretaking of disenfranchised and struggling people. from her earliest work among the poor of new york city, to those she treats later in life after her transition to alienism, she focuses primarily on the uplifting of those who have been dragged down by institutionalized oppression and the internalization of social harms. as to “chaotic”: seward, i would argue, is a chaotic person who is contained by organized structures, rather than a lawful person who inflicts chaos here and there. what rules she lives by are those she herself has set, or those she has chosen, for the time being, not to violate. when she does need to violate rules, she does so in a deliberately explosive way, ranging from the level of non-violent (becoming, through sheer force of will, one of the first women in america to receive a medical degree) to the violent (murdering her abusive husband, forcibly drugging renfield, killing vampires), which imo implies a kind of indifference to law for its own sake, that she was just tolerating its control over her until the time came she no longer wanted to tolerate it.

raine: chaotic good with chaotic neutral qualities.

raine is interesting. of the chaotic good characters i have here, she is actually the one with an expressed personal code, and an investment in a hierarchical order, as she is the leader of her faction and interested in maintaining control. however, i would argue that this does not change her chaotic position in relation to the society at large, particularly because her values are so explosively damaging to that society, and so indifferent to its values. she seeks the rescue of women from a structurally violent culture which attacks the root of their selves, and wants to rehabilitate women from that violence into wholeness and relief, rather than degradation. for this reason she is opposed to all participation in the society of men, from the level of intimate relations to the nuclear family structure to getting a job in a man’s business. particularly in the victorian era and through to today, this is, in the dominant culture, a fundamentally, aggressively antisocial position.

the very fact, however, that for as much good as she does and as strenuously as she works to help women, that raine is also on many levels hypocritical speaks to both various psychological qualities (born especially out of the persistent trauma of poverty) and to her chaotic neutral traits. raine is very willing to violate her own sense of good in order to get what she wants, and she’s going to do that whether people agree with her or not, whether she can live with herself after or not. her indifference to the lives of the men she’s kidnapped and her desire to not only torture but kill them, her violence against susan when challenged, etc. are explicit violations of her own moral code, done primarily with the goal of self-satisfaction--hence, not only chaotic (indifferent to or destructive of laws) but neutral (primarily self-interested).

karen: true neutral with lawful qualities.

this was an interesting conclusion because it doesn’t really have room for good in it, when karen is generally speaking quite a nice person who’d prefer to think of herself as good.

the truth is that while karen does care about other people on an individual level and has a moral code, she is not the kind of person whose day-to-day living expresses that code in any profound way, and upholding that code is not the main goal or central guidance of her life. she is primarily interested in keeping herself alive, with a minimum of harm to others, and without seeking to cause harm to anyone--but also without seeking to create good. this speaks to her deep dissociation from human society and her sense of absolute aloneness in the world, that after roughly a hundred years of life (having been born in the 1910s), she no longer feels a need, a duty, even a want to create good for other people.

her “lawful qualities” come in in the sense that she is... well, she’s a librarian: she needs her rules. she also is not a great challenger of social codes and doesn’t feel the need to openly flaunt, dismiss, or violate norms in any way; in fact she would prefer that they remain followed in order to keep herself comfortable and life from being any more difficult than it is. she’s not an aggressor against or even a quiet disapprover of those who do break norms, she just has enough problems and would like waves to not be made, thank you. her neutrality is a good quality in that she by and large accepts everyone as they come, but makes her very difficult to negotiate with because she prefers not to--indeed will not--make an overt stand.

averyl: chaotic good with chaotic neutral qualities.

raine and averyl make an interesting comparison because they’re both “chaotic good with chaotic neutral qualities.” where raine’s chaotic good comes from a stance of being fundamentally anti-social in the sense of against society, wanting to destroy its structures, averyl’s comes from a stance of wanting to transform those structures, in a way that to a lot of people probably looks like destruction. she takes over exclusively male forms of rulership (chieftaincy in her asoiaf verse, kingship in her orig. verse) and bends them by force to her own goals, promoting prosperity and equality, and strongly challenging social norms simply by existing where and how she does.

the trouble enters in her chaotic qualities, and it’s part of why she is ultimately an unsuccessful hero in her orig. verse. averyl can survive in systems, but ultimately begins to chafe against them; she’s a restless individual who is prone to challenge even the structures that support her the most, simply because she can or wants to, not even because they pose problems for her morals or ethics--just because they’re there. this is a self-interested quality that it’s on her to control, and she doesn’t always, hence the negative consequences she brings on herself. she is prone to acting in her own self-interest this way, regardless of how it may affect others--hence the “neutrality” aspect.

[spongeguyandlelouchvibridankia]

Amphibia Christmas Gift

@kaminos-hangout-corner

Snow.

 It had been 1 whole year (sort of, she was still trying to understand just how much time had passed) since she had gone to Amphibia .

 Since she had made her first real friend.

 Since she found a family.

 And…

 Anne Boonchuy, decked out in a frog themed Christmas sweater, tapping her foot nervously, was unsure if the first person she should come out to was her beloved and endearingly over protective Hop Poppy.

 But considering her… Let’s say it nicely, shit parents, it seemed like he was really the only choice.

 Sighing, she glanced out the window again.

 Snow had once been a danger, due to its once a year appearance in Amphibia. Snow forced the frogs into hibernation and near death (thank GOODNESS for interior heating!).

 Anne had protected them from it once. And while it was touch and go (the small business of Polly nearly dying), she had succeeded!

 In fact, Anne Boonchuy was very different from the girl she was when she first stumbled onto the magical other dimension.

 What once was selfish was now thoughtful.

 What once was subservient was now independent.

 What once was impulsive was… Well, actually, that sort of stayed.

 And what was once straight as a rail in her mind was so gay it made Elsa look straight!

 So why was it so hard to tell him about this?

 “…Anne, you’ve been sitting there for about 5 minutes narrating. Just tell me the problem so I can return to making angsty AMV’s of “Suspicion Island”!”

 Anne couldn’t help but chuckle at that statement, and at the frog who sat before her.

 His thin grey tufts of hair were now covered with a Santa hat (whom he was still wary of. “Breaking and entering is nothing to be proud of, unless of course you’re doing it to Monroe”), his cane was colored like a candy cane (Anne could have sworn she heard a drum snare from Marcy’s room) and his sweater was appropriately ugly, asking people to “honk if you’ve adopted a bby recently”.

 For a once so rigid and traditional frog, Hop Pop Plantar had truly given his best efforts to the transition to the human world.

 In fact, as Anne shuffled her feet and sighed, he had done more than anyone would have expected.

 After a disastrous dinner revealed that Anne’s parents were… Shit, Hop Pop had gone on a 8 hour long rant, dissing them so inappropriately that Polly hadn’t needed Anne to learn all the swear words in existence.

 If it wasn’t for Sprig ripping the chained pen off because it looked “Yummy”, Anne would have been adopted way faster.

 It was flashbacks like these that made Anne wonder how could she possibly think he wouldn’t accept her.

 After all they’ve been through, Hop Pop truly loved her.

 Which meant…

 Anne took a deep breath and stood up, deciding to face it head on.

 “I’ve got a bit of a… Hard confession to make.”

 Anne then smiled softly as Hop Pop seemed to take on a knowing look.

 “But I know that you’ll accept me for who I am, and I shouldn’t be afraid.”

 “Oh, you should! Grime has been walking around the house decking anyone who plays “Frosty The Snowman”. Says that little bastard “should have melted the moment he knew about thermomaters, even though he really shouldn’t know”.”

 Anne giggled and Hop Pop smiled warmly. “But seriously, Anne… You can tell me anything.”

 Anne beamed at this and Hop Pop remembered why he was still alive as she began to explain.

 “Well… You see, Hop Pop, ol’ buddy ol’ pal… Have you ever felt like you want to kiss someone, but society thinks it’s wrong?”

 “Why, all the time! I keep telling them that Cacti are softer than they seem but no one listens!”, Hop Pop said, removing a cactus and kissing it.

 “Oh wait, never mind. My tongue wants to die now.”

 Anne shook her head, laughing. “No, dummy! I mean… Say there’s 2 someone’s you like…”

 Anne’s mouth suddenly got very dry. She wasn’t sure she could do this.

 Even if Hop Pop was open… Who was to say that Sasha “GOD THAT SCAR MAKES HER HOTTER” Prince and Marcy “HOW CAN SOMEONE SO SARCASTIC BE SO MOE” Drosselmeyer would be interested in something so… Bizarre?

 Anne was starting to panic again. She wasn’t some badass warrior or hilarious kawaii girl (well, she was, but she doesn’t listen to me).

 She was just Anne “I can make  a decent omlette” Boonchouy.

 Sure, she helped destroy an ancient monster and she helped make peace between frogs and toads, but anyone could have done that!

 Why would Sasha and Marcy want… Her?

 Nerves at their limits, Anne decided to go for a distraction.

 “HEY HOP POP!”, she suddenly called out, mad look in her eyes. “WANNA FIND OUT HOW MANY JELLYFISH I CAN JUGGLE?”

 As she began to juggle and yelp from the pain, Hop Pop tried to stop her with logic. “ANNE! Only Polly can do that!”

 Meanwhile…

 “I don’t understand this stupid human holiday! First we watch some ridiculous children’s cartoons, then we take a tree and force it to get dressed, and now you’re telling me that you need to make some sort of “like, earth shattering” confession? I thought this “Christmas” was fun!”

 Formerly Captain now Dad Grime was very confused by the day he had been through. He’d had to endure many odd customs, and outside of drinking dangerous amounts of Egg Nog (what was IN that stuff?!), he had not seen any reason to be jolly or merry.

 Why, he hadn’t had a chance to be senselessly violent in hours!

 And now his beloved daughter Sasha had some sort of confession to make.

 “Great. Now I get to know where all my strawberry lip gloss has been going.”, he grumbled as Sasha stood next to a screen.

 Clearing her throat, the former soldier seemed less confident than usual.

 Giant anime sweat bead, feet shuffling cards, shaking more than the jell-o he DEFINITELY didn’t steal for himself…

 She was hiding something.

 He could feel it.

 That, and she had said “I’ve been hiding something” just 38 seconds ago, so…

 SCORE!

 “Get on with it, Sasha!”, Grime ordered, impatient. “I’ve got other things to do, like go back and complain about having to do all these things!”

 Sasha laughed nervously and picked up a remote. “Well, Grimesy, in order to properly explain my confession, I have arranged a powerpoint presentation…”

 Even on Amphibia, people knew that powerpoint was sad.

 Grime moaned and leaned into his hand, depressed. This was going to be worse than the time he almost died.

 “Just finish with it, before the alcohol receads and I get enough sense to leave the room.”

 Sasha gulped again, very nervous of her frog father’s reaction. While he too adopted her from terrible parents, he was less affectionate, more of a fun dad who took you to bear baiting matches and taught you how to survive torture.

 You know, fun things all children should know!

 The emotional stuff? He was less qualified.

 Why, once she told him she was feeling sad and he said to just beat it senseless until it stopped working.

 And when she had homework she couldn’t figure out, he actually spared with the words.

 And when she was having a period…

 Well, the less said about the “boxing match with god” the better.

 So, this was going to be a piece of fucking cake, right?

 Sasha continued to hyperventilate as Grime read the title, which was accompanied with an audio book version read by Samuel L. Jackson.

 “Shit, I CAN Haz Girlfriends?: The Day I Never Stopped Worrying And Learned That Women Are Hotter Than Men!”

 Sasha face palmed. “I REALLY need to get a better editor.”

 “Come on, Darling! That title is marvelous and so much better than “AAAAAAAAAAAAA HOW DO I EXPLAIN THAT ME AM GAY?!”, Sprig, with spectacles, turned around and commented.

 Meanwhile…

 “So I’m gay for Sasha and Anne and I want to date both of them. Is that weird?”, Marcy asked, while playing a snare drum for Anne’s unintentional candy cane pun.

 “Oh, it’s totally normal! Give them a whirl, girl!”, Valerina said, not phased for a moment.

 “Great! Can we T-Pose now and headbang to “Megalovania”?”, Marcy asked, setting up her boom box.

 “That’s why I adopted you!”

 Marcy and Valerina then started to aggressively T-Pose and headbang.

 “I hope this conversation is easy for Anne and Sasha, who clearly have the hots for me!”, Marcy said as she danced.

    “Anne, I can’t believe that of all things, you were hurt by tripping on a box of wiener dogs!”

 Hop Pop was applying another Hello Kitty band aid as Anne sighed morosely.

 “I’m sorry, Hop Pop! I just… I… I’m very nervous!”

 Hop Pop sighed affectionately and patted his girl’s back. “Anne, my darling… I’d NEVER judge you. And even if I did, I would be in the wrong for that.”

 Hop Pop smiled as he made a promise with his eyes. “Whatever you have to say is who you are. If your friends or your family can’t accept that, then, well, they’re pretty darn lousy at their jobs, I reckon!”

 Anne shed a tear while smiling, her real father as ever making her feel valid. Real.

 Once she was so afraid of expressing her true self.

 Now, she felt like she could sing it out loud.

 Not that she would; Musical theatre was a pale imitation of vaudeville, according to Hop Pop.

 Taking a deep breath, Anne confessed her secret.

 “Hop Pop… I tried to understand this for a while, and for a while I wasn’t sure if it was true, but…”

 “I know that you have the crushy crush on Sasha at least, that’s for sure.”, Hop Pop commented, scratching his chin.

 Anne’s eyes were now very buggy. “HOW IN TARNATION DO YOU KNOW THAT?”

 Hop Pop was too busy thinking something else. “I’ve never said tarnation, where’d you pick that up?”

 “Doesn’t matter! How do you know that I like Sasha?”, Anne asked in disbelief. What had given her away?

 “Anne, you’d need to be blind not to know! Also, you once forced me to marry you and your Sasha cardboard cutout in a lavish ceremony.”

 Anne blushed wildly. “I do crazy things when I drink too much cocoa…”

 Hop Pop chuckled warmly and observed Anne with sparkling eyes. “Well? I assume there’s a part 2…”

 Anne laughed as well and admitted that “Marcy’s pretty fine too!”

 Anne then got shy again. “I know that it’s customary to only like one person, but I really li…Lo…”

 Anne swallowed her spit and resolved herself.

 “I REALLY love both of them.”

 Anne sighed again. “I know it’s weird, but it’s who I am.”

 She looked up, scared again. “Do you… Do you see me any different?”

 There are moments in life where one has to prove to one’s kids just how much he/she loves them.

 In that moment, Hop Pop aced so hard no one would ever get close.

 “Do you know what I see, Anne?”, he asked, and as she shook her head, he sat next to her.

 “What I see is a beautiful, smart, strong, brave, independent young woman with a kind heart and a lovely soul.”

 He continued. “I see an amazing friend and an incredible daughter.”

 He nearly choked up for a moment. “I see someone who has grown so much, but hasn’t lost that innate goodness that was there from day 1.”

 He then embraced her. “You know what I see?”

 He whispered. “I see someone I am PROUD to call my daughter.”

 He retracted from the hug to wipe away her tears. “And if these two girls make you happy, then, well, I see no problem in you getting together with them.”

 Anne, who was feeling all the feels, gripped her Hop Poppy and said “Oh THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!”

 “Of course, Anne. Of course.”

 Anne hiccupped for a moment and softly smiled. “I… I… Thank you for letting me be me.”

 She kissed his forehead and as she ran off, she called out “Love you, Dad!”

 Hop Pop shook his head softly as she left. “Kids…”

     Meanwhile meanwhile (revenge of the meanwhile)…

 “And that’s is why I want to kiss two girls under the mistletoe today, so you better understand, motherfucker, before I stick my hand up your ass and make it talk like a puppet to give me validity!”

 As the powerpoint finally skidded to a halt, Sasha wished that she could erase all the bar graphs and pie charts on how “lit” lesbian OT3’s were.

 In fact, Sasha had cringed really hard for the entire presentation, and as she finally opened her eyes and laid them on a very quiet Grime, who had uncharacteristically said nothing the entire time.

 Sasha was getting REALLY nervous now. What was going to happen?

 Would Grime get angry? Would he fire her from being his daughter?

 Would…

 Would he hate her?

 Sasha already knew that Grime wasn’t exactly the softest and most understanding person in the world.

 So what would he be like with this?

 Tentatively, her fingers shaking, Sasha asked a cautious question.

 “Well… What do you think, Grimesy?”

 Grime scratched his chin in thought, before turning to Sasha with an odd expression.

 “Let me see if I understand: You love that Anne girl, and that Marcy girl?”

 Sasha nodded, depressed.

 Grime chose his words carefully. “All right… If I may ask…”

 He tilted his head. “Why are you asking me if it’s ok?”

 Sasha blinked, surprised. “I… Uh… Huh?”

 Grime cleared his throat, hoping to make himself clear to Sasha. “I may not understand human customs, but I don’t think that loving someone is wrong, at least, under certain conditions.”

 He attempted a soft smile as he grabbed hold of her hand. “The way I see it, if it’s not illegal, it’s ok. And, well… I may seem like a real grouch, but when it comes to you, all I need is a smile, soldier, and I’m in approval.”

 Sasha never liked showing such strong emotions, least of all next to Grime, but she couldn’t help but squeeze him once he finished.

 “Ok, ok…”, he said, but his enjoyment of the hug was obvious.

 Patting her back, he saluted her. “Report me of your success once the conquest is over!”

 She saluted back, grinning. “Aye-Aye, Dad!”

 None noticed that that was the first time Sasha had called him dad, but Grime would later feel his heart grow 3 sizes once he realized what she had said.

        Later that evening, Anne, Sasha and Marcy found themselves underneath the mistletoe, all a little confused and VERY flustered.

 “So… We all had the same idea and crushes?”, Sasha asked, very embarrassed. Pink was not a color frequently seen on her cheeks, but today it was dominant.

 “I guess so.”, Anne said, feeling very shy. Was all her worrying really for nothing?

 “Cool cool cool cool. When do I get to be gay?”, Marcy asked, wearing a rainbow hoodie over a shirt that said “Go to the YMCA? I AM THE YMCA!” and shoes that played “Girls Like Girls” by Hayley Kiyoko.

 Anne, Sasha and Marcy all looked at each other, and realized that sometimes, all the worrying really IS for nothing.

 Here they all were, very much in love with each other and willing to take the next step.

 So…

 Why not just do it?

 For Anne Boonchuy, Christmas had once been most magical when she opened her presents under the tree.

 But this year, it was when she kissed her two girlfriends at the same time.

     Finishing the story, SpongeGuy looked at his words and hoped they were enough.

 As ever, the lesson he tried to impart had a harder time reaching him.

 The words stood on the screen, daunting.

 Teasing.

 Were they enough for such an angel?

 Were they enough for such a blessing?

 Stepping into the room, SpongeGuy could see his sister/brother/BroSis Kamino sleep peacefully in a bed. An adorable beanie sat on the cute short hair cut and her eyes, despite being closed, sparkled with wonder, that made him want to be so excited.

 Hands shook as he clutched the manuscript and wondered again: Was it good enough?

 She had given him so much in so little time.

 Had he deserved any of it?

 Could he ever justify his existence?

 Floating in from another room was a frequent visitor.

 Cold hands sent a shiver down SpongeGuy’s spine and he didn’t need to turn to know it was the reaper.

 “You seem awfully ready to go. I haven’t sensed such resignation in a while from you.”

 SpongeGuy tried to say something but the words stuck in his throat.

 “…You haven’t even come close to succeeding in your mission. Are you ready to call it quits? It’s not like you ever deserved to succeed.”

 But SpongeGuy shakes his head. “Maybe I don’t deserve it…”

 He put down the manuscript next to Kamino’s head.

 “But they do. Every single one of them needs a hero.”

 SpongeGuy turns defiantly. “If it means fighting for years without a smile, then I will do so.”

 “…What makes you so sure that you’ll ever be happy?”

 SpongeGuy turns and sees a miracle in front of him.

 “…Just a hunch.”

[pennswoodsman]

It’s like coming out of the closet.

As a cannabis user for the past 2 decades, the last 2 years have been revolutionary. I got high for the first time with my friend Bill back in 1992. I got drunk for the first time with my friend John around the same time. I got violently ill with alcohol but I had a blast with cannabis. I knew almost right away that cannabis was going to be my intoxicant of choice. This left me with a major stigma, of course. I had to spend the next 24 years not sure how people would react to my choice of getting intoxicated to relax at night. I got a lot of shit from a whole lot of people. People who said I “did drugs”. Effectively putting me on the same level as a heroin or Crystal meth abuser. In college, being a cannabis user meant that I sometimes ended up meeting actual junkies. I had absolutely nothing in common with these people other than we enjoyed a schedule 1 drug. Mine was less dangerous than alcohol while theirs was the worst of the worst. Yet, we ended up in the same circle due to me not being able to purchase it any other way. I hated that. I resented that. 

Things like making friends always had the possibility of being judged, scoffed at and looked at with total scorn. At West Chester and Ferrum, I used to attend parties full of drunken idiots, but often got dirty looks from people for being the one smoking a bowl instead of drinking. I was generally banned from smoking in someone’s house, which I totally get. It is illegal and they don’t want to get in trouble. Ferrum also had a “zero tolerance drug policy”. Which meant you would get in just as much trouble for a joint than you would for heroin.  At least on paper. Drinking, of course, was totally normal and could take place right in the open. 

On many occasions, I have been made to feel shame by someone who loves to drink by the implication that their way of getting intoxicated was better than mine, theirs was fun and harmless, where as mine was evil and dangerous. a few examples come to mind. One was my best friend’s brother in law’s ex wife.  She was a major drinker and all her stories on Facebook revolved around her getting totally trashed at pubs every night  or being so hung over the following day she could barely function. One time I suggested switching to cannabis and she got ridiculously offended with a “I don’t do that shit.  I might like to drink, but I don’t touch drugs!!” This is a typical response (not to mention ironic as she is now a crystal meth addict). Another time I was at a pub with 2 friends of Bill’s near his old apartment. Bill had left to do something so I was hanging out with these other 2.  One of them was a single woman named Erin. She was really attractive and I was really doing my best to work up the nerve to try to engage her in conversation. The problem was she and the guy were both big drinkers and all of their stories were about drinking. Literally. I was waiting for the subject to change to a topic I could add something too.  But it never presented itself. So, even though I knew it could backfire, I brought up stories of mine about cannabis. I stopped telling stories revolving around it’s use alone ages ago, but I wanted to fit in, and get her attention. They both seemed less than impressed but didn’t say anything. The following day I was talking to Bill on the phone and he told me his buddy said I was “totally sweating Erin” which was true. But, she was really turned off by my use of cannabis and how I “kept bringing it up”. Meanwhile I was all “Say whaaaa?!” When I say all of their stories that night were about drinking, I mean there was literally not a single story they told that wasn’t about drinking, yet I was the weirdo druggie who wouldn’t stop telling boring stories about getting the reefer madness. 

In my experience, it was usually women who judged me the most about it. Or at least their judgement is the one I heard about the most (maybe because I didn’t give a fuck what the dudes thought, as I wasn’t trying to date them). Even Tammy said back in the early 2000s that it was something that was fine to “experiment” with when you’re a teen, but once you “grow up” you give it up. I asked her what was that based on, she just shrugged and said it’s just how she feels.  Fair enough, but it still struck me as illogical as the thing you do as a “grown up” is far more dangerous, and tends to make you act way more childish when intoxicated.  But, again, there was no arguing with “marra-jah-wanna is an illegal drug and alcohol is a time honored way to socialize”.  The worst of those arguments for me was with my buddy Anthony’s wife Colleen. She has open contempt for cannabis users and had no problem getting in my face about it at every opportunity (in addition to getting in my face about Israel and how Jews are criminals, then flipping out if you respond by bringing up Northern Ireland. But that’s a rant for another day). Her contempt reached a whole new level at a Halloween party at my house back in 2004. I was talking to someone else about growing my own cannabis. She started to get in my face about being a “drug user” and how it’s destroying society. I asked her how was I hurting anyone by smoking it on my back porch at night after work? She started to say that it hurts children because when I buy it from the dealer, I’ll smoke up with him right in front of his children (which I sure as fuck have never done), that it changes people’s personality for the worse (but alcohol did not, according to her) it destroys families and in order to get my drugs, it has to be smuggled by evil drug cartels who murder innocent people “because of people like YOU”. When I tried to say that’s why cannabis should be legal, taking the power out of the hands of the evil cartels, she laughed and said “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard”. She has a brother who is a criminal. Among many other things he did illegally, he sold weed.  His adolescent daughters ended up in foster care with her and Anthony due to him being in prison at the time. To me, this was the worst of anecdotal evidence. She seemed to think all cannabis users are guilty this happened. Not that her brother was a total sociopath. That was 15 years ago and she is one of those people that I’m willing to bet you would still double down on this sentiment, as she pretty much will never admit to being wrong. Even once various states began to legalize it’s use and almost everything I said would happen happened (drug cartels losing huge amounts of money, tax revenue going to help social programs, victimless crimes not wasting the police’s time, and no, it’s not going to result in everyone getting stoned 24/7, for a few examples) it all didn’t matter. She sure as hell doesn’t have to listen to anything a stupid druggie says. As we’re all a bunch of doped up liars who only care about our own pleasure. All that being said, there have been plenty of men who have judged me harshly too.  I always suspected my old buddy Mike and I drifted apart due to his attitude about cannabis (among other things). Although it’s kind of funny that his wife enjoys it, gave it up after college because it’s illegal. Then he was shocked when she said she would resume using it when it’s fully legal. 

This is all not to mention the shit my mother used to give me about it. She was the only one who was worse than Colleen...at least towards me. 

Other examples:

My ex-GF Nina one time was openly showing contempt when I made some remark about still smoking in my 50s.  She said “wait, you are planning to still be smoking weed in your 50s?!” I was all “Yea.  Why not? Why does that matter?!” She responded with something to the extent of “You never plan to grow up?!” This was at the end of our relationship and she started off the relationship with not caring about cannabis use but by the end she was always giving me shit about it. To a point where I was uncomfortable even bringing it up, because it would result in a long boring holier than thou rant about how bad it is, grow ups don’t use it, etc. I was not upset when we broke up.

My Ex-GF Lisa wasn’t too bad about it in that she didn’t bring it up very often. I just promised I would never be high when we were together, a promise I always kept. Her late father had spent time in prison on Moonshining charges and she admitted that there wasn’t that much of a difference.  But alas, it’s a “drug” and alcohol is legal. Therefore one is immoral and one is just fine. Very cut and dry.

When my soon to be ex-wife was having an affair with he who shall not be named, he used my cannabis usage as another way to show my inferiority to him.  He was a dysfunctional alcoholic, but what I did was only for hippie idiots so therefore it was only logical to have open contempt for me.

My late mother used to referred to my father’s cannabis use as our family’s “dirty little secret”. Very effectively attaching shame and guilt to it’s use...which was totally her intention. She also always referred to it as “dope” and “drugs”. She would always accuse me of being high even when I wasn’t. She would go out of her way to try to catch me (if I was coming home late, she would wait up, even if my friends were with me, so she could tell me my “eyes look funny” or “I’m acting funny”. I’ll leave it at that, as I have a lot of issues with my late mother and the way she treated me like a criminal for cannabis use.

But, it’s dramatic policy change in our country has led to a dramatic attitude change. Last week, I got attitude from a woman who was a drinker who acted like I was a druggie for owning a medical card but didn’t drink, but this attitude is becoming the exception rather than the rule. Before, I couldn’t even add it to my online dating profile because I had to always assume it was an instant turn off...even though it would be something that they would find out about eventually.  Thank freakin’ god.

[eclisseacontextforfilm]

you only care about who lose. Typical of intellectuals, selfish but so full of pity! eclisse inspirations, vol. V Michelangelo Antonioni’s Trilogy of incommunicability part. 2 - La notte, 1961 “one question I am often asked is why the women in my films are more lucid than the men. I was raised among women: my mother, my aunt, and lots of cousins. Then I got married, and my wife had five sisters. I have always lived among women; I know them very well... Speaking for myself, I find that the feminine sensibility is a far more precise filter than any other to express what I have to say. In the realm of emotions, man is nearly always unable to feel reality as it exists. Having a tendency to dominate woman, he is tempted to hide some of her aspects from himself and see her as he wants her to be. There is nothing absolute in this area, but it seems to me that is at the heart of it  Michelangelo Antonioni In reviewing the critical reception of La notte (1961), it strikes me that many observers seem to almost completely miss the fact that the film is, in part, a feminist critique of capitalist society, which centres around women, consumption, and the failure of our ecosystem, and not just the director’s trademark alienation and ennui.Conventional plot summaries of the film routinely insist that La notte centres around a male author, Giovanni Pontano (Marcello Mastroianni), his uncertain career, and his failing relationship with his wife, Lidia (Jeanne Moreau), as well as his flirtations with beautiful socialite Valentina Gherardini (Monica Vitti) I would argue, rather, that women are both the centre of the film and the mirrors upon which Antonioni reflects his dark perceptions and stark conclusions about the human condition. At a launch party for his latest novel, those who celebrate Giovanni’s newest book spend precious little time actually reading, opting instead to party all night, while simultaneously remaining oblivious to their own mortality. As in most of his films, Antonioni’s wealthy protagonists in La notte live in a hell of their own making. So thoroughly alienated are they from one another (and from the environment) that they experience the rain from the sky (in the pool sequence) as a sublime rapture from above, giggling like schoolchildren, briefly lifted out of their stupor for a moment’s play with the actual elements. The tragedy of Antonioni’s characters is not simply a matter of bored bourgeois ennui; these people are disconnected from the feminine, from the earth, and from life itself. Perhaps no critic got it more wrong than Pauline Kael in her infamous essay The Come-Dressed-As-the-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties: La Notte, Last Year at Marienbad, La Dolce Vita, in which Kael attacked the film, demanding less ambiguity: La notte is supposed to be a study in the failure of communication, but what new perceptions of this problem do we get by watching people on the screen who can’t communicate if we are never given any insight into what they could have to say if they could talk to each other? On the contrary, Antonioni gives us nothing but insight into the various relationships, and thus I find her dismissal baffling. More recently, critic Christopher Sharrett takes a far more perceptive feminist eco-critical approach to key Antonioni films such as Il deserto rosso (Red Desert, 1964) and L’eclisse (1961), noting of L’eclisse that “the failure of people to connect is rooted less in vague existential dread than in concrete social realities”. For me, it is those specific social realities that are most vividly explored and exposed in La notte. Antonioni’s key, early films are best understood from the point of view of a feminist director – keeping in mind Antonioni’s own philosophy, as noted above, “the feminine sensibility is a far more precise filter than any other to express what I have to say.” Sharrett’s perceptive comments on Red Desert also apply to La notte. He notes that Red Desert is: “explicit in its insistence that the sensitive individual (who must be, in the director’s view, axiomatically female, with little possibility for the male partaking of authentically human sensibility) cannot enjoy happiness in this end-product of patriarchal capitalist rule. A pervasive theme in Antonioni’s work is the concept ‘Eros is sick,’ meaning that the erotic, the drive for life, is sickened and doomed by the death drive in a society operating under the assumptions of capitalism and repression” Filmed on location in Milan, the opening credits shot is a stunner. The camera glides in a long track down the exterior of a glass-facade building, suggesting a descent into hell. Images of nature are fleeting in La notte – a few scrub trees in a desolate urban environment; the sky violated by amateur rocketry competitions; unfinished buildings everywhere – depicting Milan as an unnatural colonization of the feminine earth. Humans in La Notte shuffle along resembling zombie-like “sleepwalkers.” Specific allusions to sleepwalking abound, the most direct being a reference to Hermann Broch’s classic 1932 novel, which Giovanni picks up at the party with an air of surprise, wondering aloud, “Who is reading The sleepwalkers?” Broch’s own obsession with the death of values and the decay of humanity mirrors La notte’s central preoccupation with mortality as it relates to the value of love and art (as Eros). Mortality is omnipresent in the opening sequence in a hospital room, where Giovanni and Lidia visit their dying friend, an author named Tommaso (Bernhard Wicki). Tommaso wonders aloud if any of his life’s work is of value, and ironically Giovanni himself is battling the same sorts of questions, the central post-war preoccupations of modernism; self-doubt, alienation, and existentialism. Giovanni’s self absorption precludes him from a loving relationship with his wife, Lidia, who patiently waits for him to grow up during the entire length of the film. Antonioni crafts our perspective so that we see Giovanni primarily through Lidia’s point of view. Though he is unfaithful, selfish, and childish, Lidia still loves Giovanni, but she is keenly aware that their marriage is barely alive. Lidia observes Giovanni trying to woo the stunning young Vitti, but instead of protesting, she seems to almost push her husband into Valentina’s arms through her powerful gaze. Though Moreau is said to have disliked the role of Lidia, it is one of her finest performances and most of her power is established through her active gaze. In a strong and memorable sequence, Lidia wanders the streets looking at life going on around her, watching the activities of workmen and women of all types. Lidia seems keenly aware that life is going on around her, but in many ways without her, as she feels the pain of her own mortality and her unraveling marriage. Antonioni clearly empathizes with Lidia strongly. A particularly acute feminist moment comes when Lidia witnesses some young men fighting near a construction site seemingly for no reason at all. The fight summarizes patriarchy in a nutshell; macho, pointless, violent and dangerous. There is a brief moment when we think that perhaps Lidia will be hurt or even raped by the men, but she shoos them away and calls Giovanni to pick her up. The couple wanders through the nearby railway tracks where they first met and fell in love, even as the environment has taken over, and numerous wild plants have sprung up since they last visited, many years ago. Eros is still possible, even between these two. Thanatos has not won yet. La notte makes it clear that women’s artistic talents are wasted in a society that values them only for their beauty. As if to demonstrate this, in one telling sequence, Valentina uses a tape recorder to tell a story to Giovanni. She is a far better storyteller than the author, but after she finishes her narrative, Valentina erases the tape rather than playing it back. We hear a whiny, high-pitched squeak as the recorder rewinds the tape, thus destroying her story – and making us acutely aware of the myriad untold stories of all women. Whether or not Lidia and Giovanni’s marriage is saved at the end of La notte seems insignificant in light of the larger issues raised by the film. Antonioni offers us far bigger issues to contemplate. What have humans made of the earth? How do we love one another? What is the value of women, art and love in a world defined by men of commerce? Can we wake from our sleepwalking? These are but a few of the questions raised by La notte, a masterwork that only gets better with time, provoking a wakeful regenerative  response to 21st century consumption, devaluation of Eros, and our reckless destruction of the natural world. [by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, February 2015]

[thoughtfulpaperback]

People crying like they never watched the show before.

So like the GOT fandom is going crazy over certain deaths like "_______ didnt deserve to die like that"... and Ned deserved to die the way he did what about Mance Ryder, Cat, Robb, Lady, and Rickon? Like this is a story wereany characters either through thier decisions or through another person's actions die. They are good, complicated characters, that have emotional growth only to be torn down. Robb made stupid decisions but he wasnt the same boy he was when his father died. He grew into a good military leader and prospective king. His bad decisions were ones that made sense to his character and for sure didnt deserve to be massacred. But it happened. And for arguably didnt make sense to build up this character, show him on a journey of growth only to decimate what he built with like 3 bad decisions made in the season he dies.

I don't think D and D hate women or are racist. Cat was a strong female character and was butchered. Because what game of thrones does best kills off all people across the spectrum of good and bad. Talisa didnt need to be a medically trained foreigner from volantis because in the books she was a southerner or more south than riverrun if I remember correctly. So on one hand I appreciated them not going that route and giving us a stronger female partner to Robb than the books did, but it was crappy that she died, but made sense since unlike the book wife she wouldnt have had been staying with her family who was in on it.

Shae dying was sad, but it happens in the books (granted books shae wasnt nearly as interesting or that compelling of a character and was not in love with Tyrion (arguably)) Book Gilly isnt as developed as show Gilly and show gilly is pretty great. Arya and Sansa are two women who have gone through crap but are strong and fierce characters in thier respective ways. Book missandei is like 9 so I think the plot with grey worm was D and Ds add in and it explored both the characters and developed then in a way that made us love them even more. Like the women arent treated differently then the men writing wise.

Then the there is the argument about women being pitted against each other... so like did we forget this is the game of thrones and everyone is playing. Did we forget that Margery was moving against Cersei the whole time she was at kings landing. That was what made the characters compelling was that admist this War of 5 kings the women were fighting just as hard in thier own ways. And now these women have armies and are in actual positions of power and have differing interests. And we dont expect them to have tension or to distrust each other??? They did it when they had nothing so of course now that they are in charge they are gonna keep doing it.

Also the idea that Dany's character is being slaughtered to service Jon's is a total slap to his character development. Danys people have been murdered before and she has decimated those who were responsible in her eyes before too (not on that scale but not out of character). She has trusted the wrong people, hurt those that were loyal to her (mostly jorah) similar to Robb( justified in the desicion but it still wasnt the best one), etc.

Jon has been betrayed bullied killed and he even had to do some betraying too. Also as a bastard he was treated more poorly than noble women (social structure wise).He hasnt had it any easier in that sense than other characters and has earned the respect of his people just as dany did hers. Again as a woman I feel that the women of the show have had it tougher because they have to deal with that extra societal level of crap. Dany and sansa have been sexually harassed and raped, and treated poorly because they are women. But the point is that Jon hasnt had it easy either and earned the respect just as much as Dany and Sansa.

Her character isnt being butchered to make him look better. In the context of Westeros he is the better option. Dany is a foreigner with a an army made up of foreigners. The locals are there because of jon (its him they trust). All the locals know of targs since the mad king is that they are incestual, violent, dragon obsessed and conquerors. And from a small folk perspective Dany fits the bill. Of course we've seen dany from the beginning so we sympathize with her experience. But I mean Dany has been pulling some shade crap since season 3 imo. I started to dislike her character then or I should say I started to dislike they way her character went around conquering and ruling.

I think it is disappointing that we will be left with little or possibly no POC characters and that I feel could have been fixed by D and D (who arent strangers to adding or replacing character with thier own characters or changing the backgrounds). And I think that other television shows should take note and add more POCs across the board so that you arent killing off all the POCs.

But I dont think that makes them racist, they could have done better but working with so much material and so many characters I can understand how they dropped the ball. If a show has like four characters and the kill of the only POC, lgbtq+, trans, character or a character that doesn't conform to ableist standards I riot because like there is not excuse at that point when you are working with very little.

I just feel like people have been dying on this show like crazy since the beginning and so many "unfair" things have happened we like game of thrones for doing that. But now that the end is near people are more upset over these things than they were before.

I think my favorite thing about GOT is that everyone has a justification for thier actions. To Just say that Dany is suddenly going insane is unfair to her. Again books wise it seems more obvious since we get things from her perspective, but Danys experience shaped her yes she is compassionate but like she is ruthless too she has had to be to conquer cities in essos. She is just as emotional and volatile as other characters only unlike jon and sansa she has a dragon and the actual power to cause massive damage. She basically has a nuclear bomb and that kind of power in anyone's hands is dangerous. And she doesn't have to go through others to use it.

Dany is complex flawed and angry, so I dont think "Mad" as in insane is correct but she is super charged and that is a threat to many people. Always was, but now we get to see it while she is with the other main POV characters.

Again could the writing have been better..

Yes. But don't think it would change anything because Dany, Jon, sansa and the remaining characters are all justified. We have example of them being good and bad at leading, strategy, and so on, they also represent different styles and ideology that political scientists still argue about. So of course Dany stans will still stan her and people like me who sympathize with her character but cannot ideologically align themselves with her will not.

I am not saying people shouldn't be upset with the way thier fav dies. I cried so hard during the red wedding. But can we not pretend that the whole show wasn't built on that. Jaime destroyed jaime's character development he is constantly one step forward 2 steps back as a character when it comes to his family. He always has the most growth Way from them but he always goes back. This is not D and D's fault. How else could they write his character to get that across? I will see how George does it and decide if they did it justice or not. I mean again from the book people guessed that jaime would die with cersei.

I dont know yall. I do think the show is flawed and wished somethings were done better but then there are somethings that I am just like...it is game of thrones they have been doing it since the beginning why are we more mad about it now versus then?

[unwiltingblossom]

Magicians s4 is garbage and here’s why. Spoilers.

Can we take a moment to appreciate just how bad Magicians s4 was, as a whole? I know, people are mad about the whole ‘going out of their way to hint at Eliot/Q for no reason when they had just as much of a connection as friends, just to upset the people that shipped it more when they killed Q’ but

Honestly, there’s so much more broken garbage about this season than just the one part of how it ended that the writers WANT us to talk about. So yes, let’s take a moment first to appreciate how the writers hate Quin and refused to let him grow as a character ever or give him the moments of success he had in the books, until they pointlessly murdered him instead of letting him finally be happy with the ending he should have gotten. It deserves derision.

But let’s focus on other things, too.

It’s long. It’s ranty. It’s going to rip apart season four and its finale and also touch on season three. It’s already tagged spoilers, but there’s more spoilers in here than out of the cut. Also, yes. We’re gonna talk about how the show pretends that it’s empowering females while it takes away all of their agency and makes them all about their men. And other hypocrisy.

First off. The fake female empowerment crap. And yes, it was so fake. We know it because the show itself utterly undermines and destroys it at the end of the season. Or sometimes literally right after they flex.

First: IT’S OKAY TO CALL MARGOT BY THE GENDER APPROPRIATE TITLE FOR ROYAL MONARCH OF A LAND. I know that by magical technicality she has to be ‘high KING’ (more on that later if I remember, because they actually ignore some of that) but there’s no reason Margot herself and other characters need to insist on ‘king’. Queen Regnant has the same ruling power and authority as a King Regnant. That’s why a non ruling Queen is called Queen Consort. Unless, of course, Magicians and SYFY are implying that Queen Elizabeth I and II are somehow inferior to King Edward and Henry the VIII(s) because they are only queens? Nevermind Elizabeth II has been queen so long her crown would have fossilized on her head by now if she wore it like fictional royalty always did.

Anyway.

Show. You’re not progressive because you have Penny smugly smile and say ‘let go of your cishet white boy bias, the main characters are the women’. You’re just obnoxious. Especially when Penny immediately finds out the cishet white boy he’s talking down to is actually his boss. Oof.

See, if you want us to believe other characters are actually the protagonists? You need to treat them like protagonists. You don’t do that, though. The only reason I remember the blonde librarian’s name is because it’s Zelda.

The episode builds up how important Fen is and how she has her own quest that will do something important, but what happens literally the very next episode? Oh right, Margot steps in and takes control of that, seizing the quest for herself. The only reasons I can presume this is for is #1 - the show writers despise the books and want to undermine everything about them, down to ensuring none of the humans get to rule Fillory even after they wasted multiple episodes democratically handing Margot the crown. Too bad for the talking animals, eh? and #2 to set up the sequel hook in the ending that, while interesting purely because it’s a Prince Caspian set up, was entirely unnecessary and could have been replaced by a series finale ending instead.

It actually makes no sense. Margot doesn’t contribute in any significant way she couldn’t have if she were still High King, because Fen could have done the entire black sand mission herself, because she is married to Eliot, remember, let’s not make fun of her feelings for him just because she’s not the main character (but she is! screeches smug penny!) - could she have seen the fairy? No, but she would have been able to work it out anyway, because it just wanted to help her. And here’s the kicker? The reason West Loria is against Fillory (aside from lol plot) is because OF FEN. Margot wasn’t ruling when Fillory chose the wrong side! Margot hasn’t weighed in at all, so why IN THE WORLD would this woman decide that she absolutely wouldn’t deal with any High King EXCEPT THE ONE WHO DID THE THING SHE DIDN’T LIKE?

Quick, tell me what Margot contributed to the plot from the point she left Fillory that Fen couldn’t have done, or that couldn’t have been accomplished by Margot still in Fillory.

Whoops, you’re out of time! There’s nothing. She did nothing of consequence that Fen couldn’t have done just slightly differently to suit her skills and actually justify the BS Penny spewed about her being a significant protagonist figure. Margot got swapped with Fen primarily because, no matter what self congratulatory subversive crap the show patted itself on the back with, Margot is actually a main character and Fen isn’t, so Margot needed to at least be near the action, and get her own quest, even if it was just taking Fen’s away from her. And also having a weird rushed romance with Josh for some reason. Who knows. I miss the genuine connection Margot and Eliot had for seasons that this season chose to throw away on a boring monster plot. I also miss Margot and Q’s friendship that this season ignored because we needed to focus on romance instead and pretend Margot doesn’t make friends.

Which reminds me, it’s super great how we went from Josh detesting Margot for making him help murder one of his only friends to Josh wanting to be her boyfriend because they share an STD. Really important and believable romance, there.

Kady also did fairly little from the point of that episode onward. They had to bring the Hedgewitches plot in to make her important, and even as the defacto ruler of the HW she still did very little except suggest that they could help the completely improbable ‘let’s just skip over the mechanics of making this work’ collaborative spell. And Alice and Julia already had the contacts to allow that to work anyway

ANYWAY MOVING ON

but not too far, because I need to talk about that awful red sand episode.

First, an aside: just because people liked your two musical episodes over the span of the entire series doesn’t mean you need to start stuffing singing into everywhere because ‘SINGING’

If only the problem with the episode was that the singing didn’t end with dancing Eliot. But no. This episode was PEAK fake female empowerment.

Margot finds a tribe of nomads who inexplicably choose to live in a desert that’s constantly trying to kill them. Every time women have an over the top emotional eruption (the show keeps saying ‘the tiniest bump’ or whatever but that’s a bunch of crap, it’s very clearly only when they have an eruption or tantrum), red sand appears and tries to kill them via possession. Men in the tribe protect them from this by jumping in the way and getting possessed instead, and then  USUALLY DIE because the method of fixing them is to effing stab them with double axes and pull out the spirit, then try to fix them with desert medicine.

Raised knowing that their lives are in constant danger, and that if they fly off the handle about something not only are they in danger but the men around them, whom they purportedly love, may very well die, the women of course are incapable of just controlling themselves and will erupt in rage regularly like some modern city girl even while being actively cautioned to calm down and knowing they’re endangering their entire settlement.

Upon hearing that men consistently risk their lives to protect their insane girlfriends who literally cannot control their emotions on pain of death, Margot concludes ‘wow, this culture is mighty misogynistic. sucks.’

but then, oh no. The sand isn’t trying to HURT them, the sand - for no reason anyone in the show bothers to explain, because world building isn’t important to the writers - it actually just wants the women not to be sad and will grant their any wish if one so much as has a temper tantrum. Trigger scene where Margot beats up all the evil menfolk for oppressing these poor, helpless, weak women who need a sassy foreign girl to save them from themselves and literal fairies to look after their every boo-boo. There’s brief lip service given to the idea that maybe the women themselves DON’T hate all the men around them, but Margot shrugs it off and suggests that now the women of the camp are free to literally murder any man who makes them mad, or ‘just’ force them to slave for them for however long they want.

PATRIARCHY DESTROYED, GUYS. EQUALITY ACHIEVED. MEN ARE NOW ENSLAVED AND KILLED OVER NOTHING!!! LOOK AT THE STRONG WOMEN WHO LITERALLY NEEDED A FOREIGN WHITE CHICK TO SHOW UP AND SAVE THEM SO THAT A WHOLE SPECIES OF FAIRIES COULD CONSTANTLY CODDLE AND LOOK AFTER THEIR EVERY NEED.

SO STRONG.

I’m not even joking, though. They tried to write a “YEAH! WOMEN!” plot but just made the women there look completely inept and incapable of fending for themselves at all without a smart American there to teach them. And that’s without getting into the horror of setting up a slave society where men are objects that can be killed on a whim. eugh.

Anyway, so Margot does all that and spends just...all season insisting WOMEN ARE STRONGER. WOMEN ARE TOUGH. WOMEN ARE STRONNGGG. DON’T NUTSACK OUT ON ME MAN. BE A PUSSY AND TOUGH IT OUT!!!!! OF COURSE THE WOMAN IS THE VIOLENT AND UNSTABLE ONE (wait--)

But where’s that all lead us to?

The season finale.

Before we dive too deep let’s take a brief moment to look at poor Julia through all this season.

#1, in some twist that doesn’t really make sense, the dean hides all of the main cast as alternate personalities under glamors with some heavy witness protection magic as a deal to the Library so they don’t have to die...and so naturally the Library has a dead or alive bounty on them.

huh?

Whatever, let’s not focus too hard on the garbage pail of a plot the monster plot is, because that’s tied into the huge dumpsterfire that season 3′s finale was, and the best to talk about that is how these smart and manipulative people literally couldn’t be bothered to lie to and trick a simple childlike monster into thinking he was their ACTUAL FRIEND no matter how often he looked for validation from them (maybe he wouldn’t have been so keen on clinging to Eliot if he thought you guys liked HIM, not just the body, you nimrods) and who began to get some development and understanding of living life normally without killing everyone right before they imprison him and send him to ultra-hell.

No it’s cool. Just imprison the childlike creature who you didn’t bother to try to teach morality to after it desperately sought some kind of affection and acceptance from literally anyone. Seems like the good guy thing to do. I mean, you showed that mean ol’ child molester by getting him to trust you, using his knowledge, and then literally trying to murder him, so honestly this isn’t out of character at all for our ‘good guys’. 

a n y way. JULIA.

It’s hinted at in season 3 that burning up all your god magic to make keys is actually temporary (but renders you able to be killed, so season 4 literally got it opposite of right, whoops), so obviously Julia really wants to get that back. She’s been motivated and shaped by magic as much as Q. She has been raped, lost her shade, suffered, had people die protecting and helping her, and became a goddess entirely by her own merit. She reasonably wants to get that power back, since she can’t die and isn’t really affected by magic in a normal way so she’s not fully human still.

Julia rescues everyone from the mindwipe by dying literally hundreds, maybe thousands of times and coming back. She gets a Mainaid (who I don’t feel like spelling right) that comes to believe in her and worship her as a goddess, and what happens? Well, first Penny who wants to get his dick wet gets jealous and runs off because he’s not the center of her world for like an hour. Partly because of this, the girl whom she rescued from suicide gets pointlessly murdered protecting her.

But hey, they’ve confirmed Julia is still a deity mostly but just can’t seem to access her powers. So Julia keeps digging and looking for a way to get them back. This leads to discovering an ancient book in the mirror version of the library who confirms that yes, she’s basically a demigod who won’t ever die, but needs to complete the transition either back to full godhood or to full humanity or she’s always be a little wrong, basically like she dislocated her divine limb fixing the keys and it can either be put back in or chopped off.

Now, this book (the Binder) warns her that both options are going to be long and painful and have their downsides, and implies they’ll be permanent, so she’s going to have to be SURE of what she wants. This warning is the ONLY reason Julia doesn’t immediately jump to a decision. And then the Monster shows up and kidnaps her. She calls the Lady Underground, who is unhelpful and just says ‘gotta make a choice yourself girl, no wrong answer’ and then the lady gets herself killed for no reason after Julia is immediately possessed.

Penny ‘rescues’ her by stabbing her in the back to pull the spirit out, and then blah blah her demigodhood doesn’t like that stabby thing, and it won’t let her die but also won’t heal. Solution? Make the choice and go full god or human and it’ll fix. Naturally, even though Julia’s been awake this whole time, she’s now unconscious ‘for the pain’ and Penny who is A POWERFUL TELEPATH can’t be bothered to pop in her head and ask what she wants under those circumstances.

no, he makes her decision FOR her. This is important, we’ll get back to this.

Penny has been chasing Julia(’s tail) around all season now. He’s been a part of her path to godhood this whole time, knows what she’s done to try to get it, so when forced to make a permanent choice for her

THIS

DICKHEAD

CHOOSES TO MAKE HER HUMAN. Against EVERYTHING he’s seen of her up until this point, and against whatever he knew of his Julia. Why? “I was selfish” WELL THANK YOU, MISTER “I JUST WANNA GET LAID” FOR AT LEAST ADMITTING YOU ROBBED A WOMAN OF SOMETHING SO UNBELIEVABLY SIGNIFICANT AND IMPORTANT AND LITERALLY LEFT HER WITHOUT MAGIC BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO STICK IT IN.

That’s right. Fandom’s all mad that Quentin died and they glorified suicide? Yeah, they just stripped away ALL AGENCY from a woman and made a choice for her that he KNEW she didn’t want just because it would be more convenient for him. Just violate the trust and remove the agency of the woman you already raped on screen once, show. Seems smart. Plus, now she does nothing for the rest of the episode and gets unfairly saddled with the guilt of Q’s demise because you just had to hamfist in his death.

ohoho but it doesn’t end there, no.

Penny, a man, takes away everything Julia earned HERSELF and locks away her path back to godhood (despite book Julia staying a goddess and becoming a Dryad) and then leaves her helpless and pointless sitting at home hoping everyone does okay, wrestling with her new existential crisis of being a weak, magicless human after all she did to get magic in the first place...and then Quentin dies, and because she’s so sad about him, suddenly she can do magic again! Weird internal consistency there considering how little is present in s4.

So Julia goes from a self-made woman, whose primary connections outside of her childhood friend are other women, to a woman whose whole life is now dictated by men. Important choices are made for her, she is passive in a crisis about her friends, and then her breakthrough to regain magic is...because of a man.

(BTW Kady also breaks down and decides she’s all about Penny, even though she’s kind of already worked through this last year and had plenty of other stuff to do this season)

And since I’m talking about consistency, let’s glance at THAT can of worms, shall we?

First and foremost: the High King of Fillory shouldn’t be able to leave Fillory. Remember when that was a huge plot point that caused great angst for Eliot in season 2? And how it only stopped because magic went away so the spells involved no longer worked?

Let’s assume Margot was grandfathered out into the normal world, and further assume that an election still makes her High King, not Eliot. As soon as Ember’s Emanation snapped her back into Fillory, she shouldn’t have been able to leave until MAYBE she was ‘overthrown’ (which might have given a REASON for her to be overthrown, if her location on earth mattered)

Yet that’s not a concern at all. Margot also doesn’t really bother to rule much so. sucks. but whatever. Clearly they just wanted King Fen here. (Again, ‘king’, because ‘queen’ is weak somehow. ew girls.)

NEXT

Eliot. How do you mess up Eliot when he’s in like three episodes and barely in two of those? I don’t know but they did it.

Here’s the problem with his ‘darkest memory’ thing. It’s not that Eliot might have feelings for Q, this surprises NO ONE, it’s everything else about it.

First. Puzzle Quentin marries PEACH GIRL. He’s not married to Eliot, they just share an extremely deep bond. It’s pretty much explicitly nonromantic though, given that Quentin marries and breeds with some girl he never mentions nor appears to mourn again. He’s hit with a lifetime of feelings, and instead of thinking “I had a wife...and a child...what happened to my child?” he thinks “Gee, I should hook up with Eliot even though I’m bicurious at best.”

This. This is while he is self-professed to be in love with Alice, around the time of his fling with Poppy, and again, right after finding out he was married, widowed, and a father. This is when the writers decided to stage “Once, Quentin wanted to marry Eliot.” It just makes Quentin look fickle, unfaithful, and frankly some kind of addicted to relationships, like he’s terrified of not being in one.

But it’s also? Not a good look for Eliot. Because this season basically MOCKS his marriage to Fen. He’s shown to be affectionate to her, she is in the trio of the people that he loves (Margot, Quentin, and Fen) who he summons to protect him, but very very very little is spoken or suggested by him to be missing her or wanting to see her again, and more importantly, it doesn’t ring true for him to be ‘afraid of commitment’ or whatever it is he was suggesting by rejecting Q here.

Why? Because he already did this arc. Season 2 is all about him accepting his role of King (which they take away because lol) and more importantly, his marriage to Fen. He has to learn to accept monogamy and actually build feelings for Fen, eventually starting a family with her - that is tragically ripped from him by the Fairies. He then spends s3 with Fen as his wife and with a fake daughter, adventuring and questing and crap, and during the time the scene is set very clearly fine with commitment, as he’s actually in love with Fen at this point and not running away from the marriage. During this time he’s also totally cool with marrying another king for peace because he likes that guy, but I guess we should forget him because...I don’t know? He’s black, maybe?

By the way, he mentions how he ‘has sex with people’s boyfriends’ and shows the scene of his doppel getting it on with someone who has a boyfriend and ignores that he is actively cheating on Fen while he is doing this.

And the show makes fun of Fen mourning the death of her husband, and also implies something like Fen maybe didn’t really love him because she didn’t see herself as a person and was only raised ‘for the high king’ (nevermind she used to be a FU Fighter, they forgot), and that she’s dealt with losing her child TWICE now. Nah, she’s mostly for laughs because DAGGERS.

This is all done just to diminish Eliot/Fen so they can pretend Quentin was in a triangle with Eliot and Alice literally just to make it more sad when he dies unbelievably pointlessly.

Gosh.

Am I forgetting anything? Hm.

The library plot was garbage, but that ties into the dumpsterfire of s3 finale.

Oh yes. Isn’t it great when Marina is just a repeated trope forever? Ah, yes. Me too. I love when characters are super flanderized instead of being allowed to grow and change. All characters in Magicians basically just need to spin their wheels and retrace steps over and over until they die.

Ah yes.

Quentin, thy name is hypocrisy. You’ve been abusive to Alice for three seasons, and then you have the nerve to freak out at her over the keys? Sure it was a dick move, but honestly this only happened because you kept abusing Alice and manipulating her into loving you over and over. Because you’re a dick.

And let’s close out on that, I think, not on a bizarre rendition of Take on Me.

Alice, ex-Niffin, smartest and most talented and most capable mage they know, does not get any say when Quentin stupidly kills himself (by the way he only dies because for reasons known only to the writers he STOPS running and just stands there until he dies). She doesn’t throw the thing in WITH Quentin stopping the crisis before it happens (why were they moving so slowly when there was such a short timeframe? Just LOB EM IN, MAN! Alternatively wtf was the library still forcibly shorting people when there was a universal crisis and Zelda KNEW IT?)

Nope.

Our girl power season ends like this:

Julia loses her agency and has her life defined by the two main men in her life

Alice has no agency in how things play out in the mirror and has her life defined by the two (same) men in her life

Margot is told to ‘go cry outside or something’, and has fallen in love with a random white dude because she banged him once rather than literally let him die. This is character development, because none of the other relationships she’s ever had matter or affected her because they weren’t a romance.

Kady decides to define her life around the (dead) man in her life, until the other man in her life makes her realize he needs her still.

Fen is overthrown by some man offscreen

Zelda refuses to own up to the Library’s problems and try to fix them herself, and instead decides she’s going to pick someone else to do it for her. Also arguably she just sat back and let two men decide how the world would play out.

But it’s okay, guys. The Magicians is very subversive and not like other shows. The white cishet men aren’t main characters, and they proved that because Quentin died, and that’s WAY more subversive than the books, where everyone gets stories and endings that ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE FOR THEM and Quentin actually gets to eventually be happy.

But it’s not a suicide, because Quentin’s friends love him and therefore he had a good thing going, and Quentin has never ever missed or thrown away a good thing before.

Remember guys

it’s really realistic, because ANYONE CAN DIE IN REAL LIFE GUYS

OH MY LORD JUST GIVE US THE EMMY AND TELL US WE’RE PROGRESSIVE, PLEASE. WE’RE ALMOST THERE!

That’s season 4 of Magicians.

It’s bad.

[daebak-dreams]

Yandere! + Mafia! BTS: Seeing Their S|O After 2 Years of Searching For Them After They Escaped Them

Anon Asked:  Yandere!Mafia!BTS Finally seeing their S/O they've been searching for for 2 years after their S/O escaped from their grasp, how'd they react? Thank you

Here you go!~ Enjoy!

*WARNING* Contains some violent themes and vulgar language

\J I N\

You may have left, but he never forgot about you, even if sometimes he seemed that he did. He knew he had to put on a strong front, not wanting to show his weakness to his gang or even the opposing gang in worry of getting overthrown, but he didn’t care anymore as the days went by. Life had little value to him, now that you were gone. He knew he should have kept a better eye on you and blamed himself every single day for that fated day you ran away from him. 

But everything changed whenever he saw you, one afternoon at a party of a friends that you too attended. 

You still looked as stunning as ever, as he slowly approached you, and stood behind you, taking in and getting drunk off of your scent just liked he used to. 

Feeling an intense presence behind you, you turned and gasped at the sight of Jin standing only inches from you, wearing a dazed look upon his face.

“Seok-jin..”You managed to choke out, making the two of your friends from nearby, turn to quickly look. Knowing the whole situation that happened with you and him, they pulled you from him, in fear that he would try something. The way you were taken from him yet again, and how you looked at him with fear made him a mix of confusion and amusement as he backed off, glancing back from the people who gathered around to watch the scene unfold, and you who he wasn’t going to leave without. He then decided to grab at you, but was pushed back from your friends, as they yelled for him to stay back, making a few of the other men come around and hover near him, causing his temper to rise, as he pulled away from them, and leered towards you, but never too close as he let out a dry and cold chuckle while looking around at the people that surrounded the two of you.

“What’s with this atmosphere? This is a party afterall right? Then why is there so much fucking tension? C’mon.” 

\N A M J O O N\

Loosing you was something that he not only blamed himself, but the men that worked for him, always pointing out that they should’ve been there to watch over you while he worked. 

Everyone made sure to steer clear from him the moment you fled, knowing that he was sure to take out anything and anyone that was in his way, which is just what he did.In the past months, his men had ended up with bruises, broken noses, and sometimes even worse. But there was a silver-lining. And that was you.

They knew that he would stop all this carnage, at least on his own people, if you were safe and sound back with him. And that’s what they intended to do. Bring you back home, even if it was by force.

But Namjoon was’t buying something he didn’t know about. He became much more angry and vile thinking that they were hiding something from him.

“Wait boss!” One of his mean yelled out, but didn’t finish as Namjoon’s heavy fist went flying into his mouth, making him wince in pain. The man tried to lift his head, but was met with another punch to the mouth. The other man that came in with him, watched the scene, too afraid to say a word.

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do! I know you’re all planning something-What is it huh? Thinking you can backstab me?”

“N-no boss! It’s (Y|N)!”

This time Namjoon lost it once your name slipped from his mouth, making him see nothing but red as he pulled back his arm, getting ready to strike him for the third time, but he stopped at the sound of his next words. 

“We found her- We found her...” He said breathlessly as he dropped him.

“What?”

“It’s true boss..Look..” The man that stood by, took his phone out, revealing an out-of-focus picture of you that he managed to snap of you in public.

This intrigued Namjoon, and he had wanted to find you more than ever, as his finger caressed your body on the screen. 

“Find me (Y|N)... At any costs.”

\Y O O N G I\

After you left, you took his heart and will to live with him. He didn’t care about anything anymore, and that included his own life. You were his life, and he knew without you, nothing mattered. 

He grew numb to everything around him. Until you walked into his life again.

There you were. It was as if it was the first time he had ever seen you in his life, and it made him feel something again. Anger, for letting you leave. Lust for your body and every detail about it. Love and want, for you. All of you. And he intended to have it. 

It was at a cafe that he ran into you. Shutting out everyone that was around him, he focused on you. Though, the minute that someone’s chatter, clouded his thoughts, he would become pissed. It wasn’t until someone went up to you, trying to strike up a conversation with you that he had had enough. 

Without hesitation, he would approach the two of you, as all of his emotions rushed all at once, he grabbed the other man and slammed his face down on the table, before pulling out his gun, and threatening him with it, if he didn’t steer clear from you.

After that moment, and feeling the stare of others on him, he grabbed you by the wrist and dragged you outside with one hand, as he put his gun away with his other hand. Of course you protested and tried to yank yourself away, but he didn’t care as he quietly turned you around, pushing you up against the wall of the building, making you hush. Of course, he wouldn’t hurt you, he’d never forgive himself if he did. All he wanted to do was talk, and he was going to make sure that you heard him out.

“(Y|N)...Don’t give me that look..How do you think I feel after these years? I’m heartbroken, but I’m going easy on you because you’re still mine...right?”

\J H O P E\

Because of his quick-wits and smart tactics, he earned a high position in the gang he now ran months later. 

You didn’t agree with the things he did and also started to see his possessive ways; Not wanting to be apart of that, you knew you had to get out before things got worse. Which is just what you did. 

Yes, he was kind when he wanted to be, and was so especially towards you, but you knew he also had another side to him, and didn’t want to ever see that side of him, so you kept hidden, until he saw you out in public one day as you were doing some grocery shopping and other errands. 

You didn’t know it, but he had been keep track of you a year after you left, following your every move until he knew it was the right time to swoop you up and take you back to where you belonged. 

So many times, he wanted to take you, as he watched from afar, but there was always too many people around, knowing there was a chance he’d loose you again.

Today was the day, where he finally managed to go through with his plan.

“There she is..Look at that, buying her own food. If she was with me, she would never have to lift a finger. Well, I have a nice sturdy room she’ll be staying in, until she can learn not to do that again..”

“But boss, isn’t that going a little too far?”

“What the hell was that? Do your damn job, and go get her..NOW”

\J I M I N\

Loosing you was as if his world ended. He searched everywhere for you, but when he couldn’t find you, he thrashed about and destroyed half of his house. No one had ever seen that side of him, beside those that business didn’t go well with.

Even in the position he was in, he still kept his cool, and always made sure to think before acting. But it was as if something snapped within him, as the days turned into months, and the months passed by into years, and he still hadn’t heard or seen anything about you. 

That’s when it happened.

Seeing you at the club made a multitude of emotions wash all over him.

You looked so beautiful. But wait-

Who was this other person dancing on you like that?

Had they no respect for people who were clearly in a relationship?

He was also broken at the fact, at how happy and care-free you looked on the dance-floor. He knew he had to get to you, but without drawing too much attention to him.

And that’s just what he did. 

You received a call, and knowing how loud the music was, you decided to go down the stairs that led to the small hallway, leading out towards the exit to answer it. But just as you opened your mouth to say “Hello”, you felt a pair of strong hands on your. One cupping your mouth and the other across your stomach to hold your from squirming about. 

This scared you as you didn’t know who it was, until you heard that familiar husky tone in your ear. 

“Hey baby- Did you miss me? I told you I’d find you.”

\T A E H Y U N G\

He wasn’t one to be held down, or tamed when it came to running the streets. He did whatever he damn well-pleased and things seemed to get much worse, after you disappeared one night. 

This made him loose his trust in people, besides the closest to him in his gang. Which were the same men who tried to shower him with money, luxury items, and women. 

But he didn’t want any of it. Money came and went. Those women only wanted him for that specific reason. 

The only thing he wanted..He craved...He needed...Was you. And he intended on getting you back no matter what he had to do, or who he had to pay to find you. He would go high and low, far and wide, if it was you.

And someone did end up finding you. 

They dragged you inside the lavish mansion by your hair, making you yelp out in pain to let you go. You had put up a fight, the whole time, earning a few hits, here and there from the man hired to get you. 

This displeased Taehyung, more than anything, and he killed the man in cold blood. Without remorse, he dropped the gun near his body, before going over to you. 

It’s as if his whole demeanor changed. His face that wore a frown a few seconds ago, was now plastered with a soft smile, as he crouched in front of you and brushed a hand against your face, ever so softly. 

“(Y|N)...why did you leave?”

“I know! It’s because I didn’t take care of you right? I need to give you more attention.”

“I promise things are going to be different from now on.”

“It’ll be better.”

\J U N G K O O K\

If it was one thing he didn’t like, it was someone playing him at his own game of being cunning and sly, and that’s just what you did.

He didn’t like playing by the rules, or listening to what anyone had to say, even though he was the youngest out of his family. The only person that he managed to listen to was you, but ever since you had taken off, he was out of control. 

He went rogue and did whatever he wanted to. Wrecking havoc to the city and anyone who crossed his path. 

But he finally managed to slow down, when he was walked downtown, and looked around, only to spot you, eating inside a restaurant that you always loved going to. 

All the old memories came flooding back, and he acted out erratically upon seeing you, heading inside without thinking. His feet just started to move on their own. 

Here was the person that tore his heart apart, yet was the only one to fix it. 

You looked up to see Jungkook approach you, wearing a look of amusement, which made you fidget in your seat. you knew you had to get out of there, before things got ugly, but it was too late as he flung back the chair that was in front of you so he could sit, but yelled at the top of his lungs.

“EVERYONE GET THE FUCK OUT! This is my block! If you know what’s good for you, you better leave.”

Within a matter of seconds, people dropped their things and ran out of there as if the devil was on their heels. 

“Now- we’re alone..”He said to you with a smile. 

You stood up with shaky legs, but he shook his head. 

“Sit down, enjoy your food baby..” He said as he took some of it from your plate and ate it, while intensely starring you down.

“I think it’s about time we catch up..”

I hope you liked it (’’:

-Admin Bonbori

[thekoshertribble]

“Now you belong to all of us and we to you.” Women of Star Trek Entry #14 “This Side of Paradise” Leila Kalomi

Hi everyone! Yes, despite the fact that Tumblr is turning into a burning trash heap, I’m pressing on with my blog series regardless.

(As I said before, I’m not putting in any more screencaps because I don’t want to risk getting flagged.)

So today we’re going to talk about the episode “This Side of Paradise” and it’s featured female character, Leila Kalomi.

Leila is a young Earth woman who joins a brave group of human colonists who decide to settle an uninhabited planet and make a sort of agrarian society there. Leila’s specialty is botany so her knowledge is obviously essential to the mission. However, their chosen planet, called Omicron Ceti III, is constantly bombarded with radiation of its sun, killing any animal life on its surface within a few months. The Enterprise comes to Omicron Ceti III expecting all the colonists to be dead and their settlement deserted, but they discover the colony thriving and its people exceptionally healthy. Oh, and one more thing: Leila and Spock have a history.

Apparently she knew him while he was on Earth some years ago. It’s not clearly stated what kind of relationship they had, but it’s obvious that she had romantic feelings for him back then, just as she does now.

Their reunion is as awkward as you might expect. She comes into the room where Kirk and Spock are talking to the head colonist, Elias Sandoval. The soft lights and romantic music cues up as Spock and Leila meet eyes. Spock’s expression is quite neutral, no surprise there, while Leila just stands there smiling at him. In a slightly creepy way, I might add.

Then the camera cuts to Kirk looking really confused and that’s when I laugh so hard I spit out whatever I’m drinking.

Leila explains she’s met Spock before and that’s it’s been a long time since they’d seen each other. We learn more about their shared past when Sandoval and Leila have the room alone:

ELIAS: You've known the Vulcanian?

LEILA: On Earth, six years ago.

ELIAS: Did you love him?

LEILA: If I did, it was important only to myself.

ELIAS: How did he feel?

LEILA: Mister Spock's feelings were never expressed to me. It is said he has none to give.

ELIAS: Would you like him to stay with us now, to be as one of us?

LEILA: There is no choice, Elias. He will stay.

Oookay, that’s some creepy shit right there. It sounds like they’re going to kidnap Spock or something. And that’s kind of the general idea, actually.

Later, Leila finds Spock in a field of crops with his tricorder, trying to figure out how the colonists have survived. We get some further insight into her character through their conversation:

SPOCK: Nothing. Not even insects. Yet your plants grow, and you've survived exposure to Berthold rays.

LEILA: That can be explained.

SPOCK: Please do.

LEILA: Later. 

SPOCK: I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.

Uh, I don’t think that capacity is reserved to females, Spock.

LEILA: And I never understood you. Until now. There was always a place in here where no one could come. There was only the face you allow people to see. Only one side you'd allow them to know. 

Okay, you’re not wrong there, Leila, but that’s kind of his choice, y’know? And you may not know this, but Spock has shown more than one side of himself to Kirk others, just not to you, apparently. 

SPOCK: I would like to know how your people have managed to survive here.

LEILA: I missed you.

SPOCK: Logically, you should all be dead. 

Jesus, they’re both just talking right past each other, it’s hilarious. 

LEILA: If I tell you how we survived, will you try to understand how we feel about our life here? About each other?

SPOCK: Emotions are alien to me. I'm a scientist. 

I’m pretty sure I’ve used that line on men trying to hit on me.

LEILA: Someone else might believe that. Your shipmates, your Captain, but not me. Come.

And so Spock goes with her into the meadow, because science, I guess. Leila makes some rather bold assumptions in this conversation: 1) that she is the only person who understands Spock’s inner psyche, 2) that underneath his shields, Spock does possess a desire for her. Both of these assumptions seem a bit...far-fetched, don’t you think? Clearly, she doesn’t know Kirk and McCoy.

Now, I’m going to jump ahead and spoil this for you: the whole colony is actually alive because Leila discovered a parasitic plant whose spores inhabit an animal host and protect them from the radiation. It also puts the host in a constantly happy and content mood, which explains why the colonists seem like they’re buzzed on some narcotic all the time. I think this is an interesting concept, but it presents us with a problem: to what extent are Leila and the other colonists acting out of free will? We know from the above conversation that Leila wants Spock to get the spores, but is this the spores wanting a new host, or is this Leila wanting Spock to love her, or both? It’s never explained just how much influence the spores have over their host’s behaviors. It’s probably a mix of both. We don’t see Leila without the spores until her very last scene at the finale, so before then we can’t do a proper assessment of her character. When she leads Spock to the spores and gets him infected, is that a selfish act or the spores?

If she did it selfishly then I have a serious issue with her. Why the hell would you infect someone with alien spores without their consent? Yeah, I get that they’re protecting their hosts and shit but...you just shouldn’t do that! Especially someone like Spock, who has grown up in a culture of emotional control; to subject him to this kind of treatment just feels so wrong. We see that once the spores start taking over his mind, he’s writhing in pain on the ground. And Leila actually seems surprised by this:

LEILA: It shouldn't hurt.

SPOCK: No, I can't. Please, don't!

LEILA: Not like this. It didn't hurt us.

SPOCK: I am not like you.

Like, seriously, lady? You didn’t expect his mind to put up a fight?

Of course, this is all assuming Leila herself wants Spock to become infected because she figured it was the only way for him to love her. Like I said, the spores might have been responsible for all this, in which case she would be a passive player and innocent of the accusations in my rant. 

The spores eventually take over Spock’s mind and he embraces Leila, saying “I can love you.” Then they run off into the meadow to frolic, look at rainbows, and make out some more. An angry jealous Kirk finds them playing in a tree later on, and orders Spock to come with him back to the colony. Spock acquiesces, but not before exposing two more crew members to the spores. (Kirk somehow manages to avoid their fate.) 

After this Leila disappears from the screen for a while as we watch the rest of the Enterprise crew get taken over by the spores and mutiny. Kirk realizes that violent emotions like anger counteract the spores. He then provokes Spock to fight him, thus freeing him of the spores. Once the two of them succeed in freeing the rest of the crew, Spock has to confront Leila once more. He beams her up from the colony and meets her in the transporter room. She runs to him and hugs him, but she realizes immediately that something is wrong:

LEILA: You're no longer with us, are you? I felt something was wrong.

SPOCK: It was necessary.

LEILA: Come back to the planet with me. You can belong again. Come back with me, please.

SPOCK: I can't.

LEILA: I love you. I said that six years ago, and I can't seem to stop repeating myself. On Earth, you couldn't give anything of yourself. You couldn't even put your arms around me. We couldn't have anything together there. We couldn't have anything together anyplace else. We're happy here. (crying) I can't lose you now, Mister Spock. I can't.

SPOCK: I have a responsibility to this ship, to that man on the Bridge. I am what I am, Leila, and if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.

LEILA: I have lost you, haven't I? And not only you, I've lost all of it. The spores. I've lost them, too.

KIRK: The Captain discovered that strong emotions and needs destroy the spore influence.

LEILA: And this is for my good? Do you mind if I say I still love you? You never told me if you had another name, Mister Spock.

SPOCK: You couldn't pronounce it.

And that’s the last we see of Leila Kalomi. I give Spock credit for trying to let her down easily. You can tell he is sympathetic to her distress. (Compare this scene to the one in Amok Time where Spock confronts Nurse Chapel in his quarters - they’re somewhat similar). Leila’s feelings of loss cause her to loose the spores, which allows us a few moments to see Leila without their influence, although it tells us very little about her. 

All in all, Leila Kalomi is...well, not a favorite character of mine. If you like her, I’m sorry. Add some comments to give her a defense, if you’d like. I just find more problems with her character the more I think about her actions. I suppose it could be argued that Spock did like her back, and was happy with her (”for the first time in my life I was happy”) but I think it could be argued just as easily that that isn’t really the case. 

So what do you think of Leila? Leave a like or comment, and reblog if you enjoyed reading this. I’m sorry this one took so long but with Tumblr collapsing in on itself and the holidays it was harder to get this one done. Thanks for reading! Next up: The Devil in the Dark!