#myopic woman

[jackcast2021]

mildly myopic spina bifida girl

[aydascomprehendsubtext]

All of the characters in Archer are carrying guns but only one is canonically strapped. I would encourage guesses as to who it is but it's too easy to even be interesting

[flagellant]

perhaps this is in bad faith, but don't you think it's plausible that ms appleton was just a government food scientist who was sent to japan as sort of U.S. ambassador and given a generic, americanized name? we know that resources were scarce during the war and that many changes had to be made, or simply were made to cut costs, in the production of lots of things at the time. it just makes sense when you break it down that traditional shoyu is time and labour intensive to make but improves the taste of even outright bad dishes. at a time when people were forced to eat whatever food was available to them demand was likely very high to the point of unreasonably outweighing supply. either officials at kikkoman reached out to american food scientists for a solution or they offered one up themselves, given the fact that food science was undergoing a huge international renaissance led by the americans during the 30s, 40s and 50s. americans have a tendency to synthesize food. they also tend to feel strongly about imposing their culture on other countries. it seems more to me like this is a story about the american government taking extra steps to obfuscate the story of how they semi-successfully tried to be the final nail in the coffin of widespread, traditional shoyu production. less like some kind of yakuza conspiracy somehow centred on one woman. just the perspective of someone who's felt compelled to do their own research. it's my opinion that the way you're presenting your findings leaves massive gaps as well as leaps to get over them. i can't speak for the things you haven't shared publicly, obviously, but it feels a lot like you're dancing around the point. good luck to you in your research, regardless of my own feelings.

I think I agree that you're either arguing in bad faith or simply aren't really paying attention to a wider picture here. It's common knowledge that postwar economics in Japan were heavily influenced and remain to this day connected to organized crime and the Yakuza as an old tool of the imperial/noble order. We also know for a fact that the CIA worked with the yakuza during American occupation in order to manipulate political culture and economic structures.

It's also a common conspiracy in Japanese circles (or at least so it appears, and I want to be clear I am not voicing this as more than preexisting theory/belief, so I will not directly source to give complete credibility; consider this as context for why I might be interested in investigating further, just in case) that Empress Michiko and the Seifun Milling Company had close under-the-table connections with America, which would further influence the traditional shoyu brewing culture.

Like, I feel as though if you seem to be aware enough that America's treatment of Japan was one of extreme hostility and cruelty with little-to-no care about the nation or its people, solely using it as a means to enforce American/Western ideals and principles onto an unwilling populace and using violence and illegal organized crime syndicates to fulfill those goals...then why are you acting as though it's sus of me to look at a single woman in 1947 having this much power/control over Japanese-American relations when you have said yourself that shoyu is the single most important ingredient for Japanese food of all time, and only moreso during war rations/scarcity times?

[booksandteaandstuff]

“When in Doubt” by Sandra Cisneros “When in doubt, Wear faux leopard. “When in doubt, Err on the side of generosity. “When in doubt, Greet everyone as you would the Buddha. “When in doubt, Collect blessings from those who own nothing. “When in doubt, Absorb biographies to avoid life’s major mistakes. “When in doubt, Make life’s major mistakes. “When in doubt, Pay attention to the vendor shouting ‘Diooooos,’ Even when you find out he was only shouting, ‘Gaaaaas.’ “When in doubt, Carry a handkerchief and a fan. “When in doubt, Thank everyone. Twice. “When in doubt, Heed the clouds. “When in doubt, Sleep on it. “When in doubt, Treat all sentient and insentient beings as kin. “When in doubt, Forgive us our myopia As we forgive those who are myopic against us. “When in doubt, Unreel your grief to a tree. “When in doubt, Remember this. We are all on a Caucus-race. “There is no start. No finish. Everyone wins.”

Woman Without Shame: Poems by Sandra Cisneros

https://bookshop.org/a/12010/9780593534823

[shidouryusm]

Everyone praises women when they set boundaries with “my body, my choice” until a hijabi muslim woman enters the equation 😒

[eccentricallygothic]

Husband!Robb ‘The Wolf’ Stark | Wife!You.

Warning(s): D/s dynamics, husband Robb Stark, fear kink, power imbalance, doggy style, rough sex, spanking, biting, mirror sex, mention of edging, dacryphilia. Minors do not interact.

“Is it true?” You were tinkering with some medicinal herbs when the children approached you before they crowded around you. You looked up from what you were doing, and then silently raised an eyebrow in question. “That your husband can turn into a wolf at night?” Your breath ceased for a couple moments, heat coursed through your veins and your consciousness drifted into a series of recollections. 

So many times, so many moments, so many nights. 

Different positions, various spots all over the estate and a myopic vision that you owed to the tears that would stain your face. 

And through that barely functional vision images of your parted panting mouth, bent and flush knees, pulled back head -due to the way your hair wrapped around the pale fingers of your eternal ravisher-, neck and breasts painted in purple fang marks, nipples inflamed from how they had been treated, buttocks covered in handprints and arms compliantly folded on the small of your back. Your form pushing face first into the mattress with breath stifling force before being pulled back with a limb tearing strength in such a rapid unceasing cycle that it caused for the brutish violator bent atop you to appear inhuman as he used you in his monstrous way that you could see through the body size mirror placed on the wall in front of your bed. 

Realization seeped through your brain cells. 

Man.

Man-Wolf.

Wolf-Man.

Wolf. 

The dark mop of messed up curls that graced your dear husband and cruel defiler's head was amess as the loose damp strands flew about, his nose flared to help with his panting, chiseled features stern under the dark coarse hairs of his manly beard, beastly muscles tense as he effortlessly held your submissive figure bent to his pleasure with one hand, the other holding one of your compliant legs up in the air in an obtuse angle, his skin covered in a shadowy brown vell in such a way that your opening that his cock had stretched open nearly to the size of a woman's in labor clenched around the man-creature's monstrous girth. The deafening sound of skin colliding against skin was on the verge of marring your eardrums, his piercing dark blue eyes watching you through the mirror all the while.

They watched you even now from across the room where your dear husband and Lord sat telling the stories of his recent expedition to everyone willing.

There were always hundreds if not thousands of those.

Words didn't always require a necessary exchange between the two of you.

Your cheeks threatened to bubble up from the heat compressing itself underneath them. Your fingers had ceased from crushing the herbs between the mortar and pestle long ago. A hot drop of meek arousal sizzled past your covered opening -which blinked in response- and coursed down the insides of your thighs. Your breath hitched as you laboriously swallowed and licked your lips. 

“Mhm” was all you could let out in your shy state that he had influenced with a mere stare. You looked up at the children before you proceeded to nod your head politely so as to not stir the sanctity of your Lord's presence with too harsh a gesture. The children gasped and whimpered before scurrying off, too young and afraid to say it out loud but in their naive minds extremely terrified for your wellbeing. 

The longer you felt The Wolf staring at you the more you sensed yourself sharing the sentiments of the young ones. 

You bit your lip and dared not look up from your work. 

Because you were always tortured cruelly before your taking solely for the purpose of His Lordship's amusement if the eagerness in your eyes was too visible.

And it was always embarrassingly visible.

[doberbutts]

Tbh I think the comparison to white people might be some simple us vs them thinking (maybe not all the time, though). White people complaining about oppression = nonsense/overeaggeration (if you're myopic), therefore comparing transmascs to white people is a way to call what they say nonsense. Or, if you're under the impression oppression=good person points, then white = bad/wrong, therefore transmascs are bad/wrong. Idk. Lots of these folks have some black/white thinking.

I think the answer is much easier than that.

The majority of people I see using the race analogy to draw a parallel of white vs black racism and trans man vs woman oppression are white themselves. Not everyone, but I would say my casual scroll of Bad Take Havers usually reveals whiteness here.

It does not surprise me at all that the very same white people doing this do not have the nuanced racial understanding to be able to reflect how, for instance, both black communities and latine communities experience racism in different yet similar ways, and how there is both bad blood and also shared history and solidarity between both communities, with many people who exist somewhere in between (afrolatinos) and people who exist completely outside of this equation (other marginalized races of color) or on the fringes (other mixed people of color but with only one of the involved races in this venn diagram) that also may experience their own oppression.

And so, they don't even think to use the comparison of black and Latino understanding, instead choosing to reach for white vs black racial dynamics. They don't have the understanding necessary to get why that's neither a good comparison nor is it a fair one to use especially when this particular conversation was started by trans mascs of color and how prior conversations regarding trans men and mascs occupying a marginalized gender were started by both (cis *and* trans) women of color and trans men and mascs of color.

It also does not escape my attention that those insisting that not only do trans men and mascs have privilege (something I do not completely disagree with, although I think as always it is more nuanced than "have" vs "have not") but also that trans men and mascs are specifically an *oppressor class* are also largely white, and show an inability to understand that "privilege" does not always equally translate to "oppressor". This comes to a head when discussing trans men in powerful positions- teachers, doctors, politicians, business owners, religious leaders, even celebrities- and whether they are pushing harmful rhetoric or if they are holding the line and refusing to budge.

And, while not true in all cases and certainly no one is perfect, because people are people and thus imperfect at the best of times, the majority of all trans people in power hold the line and refuse to budge regarding harm to our community. We can all think of examples- usually celebrities- of otherwise, but those pushing for laws and change are generally hand-in-hand with each other keeping step and refusing to leave their fellow siblings behind.

This does not mean that we cannot *contribute to* or even *lean on* transmisogyny- remember, there were cis women on the Supreme Court gleefully voting away abortion rights even though it directly affects them. There is no identity that makes you immune to bigoted bias, and no identity that protects you from doing harm to others. That is on each of us to do better, to each out in fellowship and solidarity to our fellow humans, and to lift each other out of the pit.

Much like how a Latino friend of mine may experience privilege in that he does not experience the antiblackness I do, and much how I may have privilege that I speak English as my mother tongue and he doesn't in this largely English-language-dominated country, neither of us are inherently each other's oppressors unless we are acting on oppressive bias. Intentionally or otherwise.

Oppression is action, not existence.

But again, I am not surprised a group of largely white people do not understand nearly enough of this nuance as it applies to race to then be able to apply it to gender.

[artbyblastweave]

Frederick Sinclair is a really interesting foil to Mr. House. I mean you start digging into this and it's just parallel after parallel after parallel. Start at the high level. House sinks inordinate amounts of resources into saving the city of Las Vegas - not the people, but the city- from nuclear destruction; as long as the stage endures, he can get anyone to wear the costumes. Sinclair sets up an entirely new "community" totally off-the-grid for the sake of protecting one woman, plasters that place with her likeness. House is a visionary with a 200-year action plan to rebuild society in his image, bootstrap space exploration, and construct an interplanetary empire; Sinclair sank everything he had into building the most secure facility possible for a woman who he knew was terminally ill anyway, just to ensure that her last few years lived in the aftermath of the nuclear apocalypse would be as comfortable as possible- there's a fundamental pessimism baked into what he was doing. Both House and Sinclair relied heavily on automated defensive systems and cutting-edge, esoteric technologies to accomplish their ends, but House built his power base on proprietary robotics and computing technology, much of which he personally designed- an outgrowth of his policy of never widening his circle any more than he absolutely has to. Sinclair, in his naive techno-optimism, outsourced his utopia, grabbing flashy third-party technologies like a kid in a candy store- opening a backdoor for the Think Tank to poison his city and ultimately getting everyone at the Gala Event killed when the holograms malfunctioned and went berserk.

Their management styles are inverse. House allows countless abuses to occur under his aegis because he subscribes to a libertarian-when-convenient philosophy where he doesn't much care what the little people do as long as he gets his cut and they don't rock the boat too much- a hands-off approach that fosters resentment amongst his subordinates, lets the White Gloves and Omertas get up to untold levels of fuckery while Freeside languishes and Benny conspires against him. Sinclair, by contrast, had a sincerely-held utopian-straight-edge safety-first micromanagement approach built into the very bones of the casino, he appeared to genuinely give a shit about the safety of the construction crew on the villa, and he was well-liked by nearly everyone who had any direct contact with him- and yet untold horrors also went down under his aegis, because his myopic focus on building the vault for Vera let Dean Domino and the Think Tank run circles around him, good intentions be damned. Their respective interpersonal dispassion and obsession are on display in how they react to betrayal. House's tone never rises above exasperation when it comes time to clean house of Benny, the Omerta Leadership and the White gloves; he treats them as problems to be solved, gears that are slightly out of alignment; By contrast, when Sinclair learns that Dean and Vera have been playing him, he channels the monomaniacal energy he previously directed towards protecting Vera towards the goal of building the perfect poetic-ironic death trap for her and Dean.

There are some other parallels in their personal lives. For one thing they both trusted a pastiche of a 40s lounge singer a lot more than they should have. They both tried to digitize, immortalize their girlfriends- and the discrepancy in how they went about it is telling. House's recreation of Jane isn't terribly robust, and in terms of House's overall project she's an afterthought. She's more a sock-puppet than a person, a sanded-down copy of a woman who died forever-and-a-half ago, forever agreeable, never saying no. Convenient. Only the most superficial visual elements preserved- an illustration of her face on a robotic chassis. Sinclair was obsessive in recreating Vera, preserving her likeness. It's all over the villa, her hologram is everywhere, her voice is everywhere. The terminal in the lightwave lab in Old World Blues reveals that he was still obsessed with getting her hologram right even after the love curdled into hate. All of it a monument to the real woman, and yet in all of it the real woman is still lost, buried under the mythologized projection. He didn't respect the real person enough to let her know that she was dying. A total failure of preservation from the opposite direction. (Except in the suites, where you can hear her very authentic dying pleas.)

You find both of them in their basements. House only looks a little better than Sinclair, but he's got much more of a voice in the narrative. He took steps to make sure he'd be around to tell you what he thinks about everything, fine-tuned the voice with which he speaks to the world, the face he presents. It matters to him that he gets to tell his own story. We find out a lot about House, from House; but for the kind of figure that he is, a shocking amount of what we learn about Sinclair comes from other people, people who knew him or wrote about him. The only image of him you can find is a downplayed element of a larger mosaic. The two documents you find that're written from his perspective have been buried for 200 years, and they're yards from his corpse. And the more recent of the two is an apology. I mean admittedly at the point where he wrote that apology Sinclair was personally turbofucked regardless. If the cloud didn't get him the holograms would have, or the radiation, or, or, or. You can read some level of ego into what he did in the face of that. But however futile it was, he died in the specific way that he did because he recognized that he'd done something awful, and he was trying everything he could think of to correct it. Somehow I find it very hard to imagine House doing either of those things- admitting fault or putting skin of his own in the game to make it right.

[hazelfoureyes]

A Doe in Fall (Part 12)

⟢HumanAlastor x FemaleBurlesquerReader - A Doe in Fall

A burlesquer with a penchant for conning men, you find your latest game interrupted when your next mark saves you from an aggressive fan— by killing him. The chance encounter left you curious, still half convinced you could complete your normal chase. Unbeknownst to you, you were the one being tracked.

Part 1 - Pretty in Red smut💦 Part 2 - Liar smut💦 Part 3 - A Tragedy smut💦 Part 4 - Enough Part 5 - Too Much Part 6 - Learning smut💦 Part 7 - Recognition smut💦 Part 8 - Trust sexual 🥵 Part 9 - Shiny Things Part 10 - Good Deeds Part 11 - Caught Part 12 - Eddie📍 Part 13 - The Release Part 14 - Someone like her smutty💦

Part 12 Eddie

Brady tried to cut some corners to bring you and Alastor down but ends up just hurting himself.

「Warnings/Promises: Human Alastor x Fem!Reader, still not smut cuz we’re waiting for the special moment, po-po, 5-0, down at the gun club, not an accurate portrayal of 1930s New Orleans Leadership, mystery kisses, brief thoughts of violence, illiteracy, @minkdelovely」

MDNI 👮 🚓

Edward Freeman met Kenneth Brady when the younger man was partnered with him. He was bright eyed, and had a sense of justice Freeman appreciated. He was already tired of the rigamarole of police work, so the fresh energy reinvigorated his early days and long nights. It was rather pointless though, police work, given the people in charge weren’t fans of cracking down on the illegal booze business. It was making too much money under the tables and in handshakes.

The nation was still reeling from the crash of the market nearly two years prior. Any way to get ahead, to stay with your chin above the rising waters, well… what harm is there really in feeding your family? The end justifies the means, right? And Brady didn’t seem to disagree too much with that sentiment. 

So when the typically stringent, but otherwise soft spoken and relaxed, Brady began to…devolve into someone a little too myopic, Freeman wasn’t quite sure how to handle him. They’d been rather laissez-faire about the morality of things for so long. They tried to keep violence at a minimum so their fellow citizens could enjoy their city. That was the extent of it. But, Brady was becoming obsessed. 

It started normally enough. Brady bringing up a missing husband. Later on, a missing bartender. Soon he was snooping on to other’s cases, convinced something was connecting them. 

But, given the times and the character of such people, well, Freeman couldn’t quite understand Brady’s fervor. Sure. Some of them probably ended up under backyards and in the water. Hell, quite a few of them he’d have helped do away once he got the real dirt on them. A conspiracy? Or a mass killer? That seemed implausible at best. There was simply no indication of a grande scheme. 

Brady kept pushing. Walking the streets at night with ears open and eyes peeled, for any inkling of what was going on. 

He just couldn’t accept that sometimes people leave town or jobs. Very few of them were actually reported by loved ones, even the ones that had them.

Then came along the widow Dupre, watery eyed and shaking about her missing adult son. Who, from what they’d uncovered, was a real piece of work.

Freeman let Brady start his investigation, but as it became clear he was adding it to his pile of random disappearances, Freeman had to step away. He could see the obsession ruining his friend. 

At a rare dinner with the families, the stress on Brady’s wife’s face was visible for all to see. She cornered Freeman in the kitchen when he went for more coffee, asking if Brady was stepping out on her or if he truly had been working so hard on something big. 

He hardly knew what to say. Neither were true. He’d been working late, but on a wild goose chase. 

When he dragged a clean cut and confused woman into the station, Freeman knew he’d really lost the fucking plot. 

“She’s his accomplice. I know it. Her fella is the man. I’ve got him fingered.” Brady pointed at you through the closed door. You weren’t listening to their voices in the hall, the name still ringing in your head. The name you'd both sacrificed to keep secret. 

Alastor.

Freeman hissed, “You can’t arrest people for knowing a guy! A boogie man at that, Kenny. Come on.” 

“I have her confession for prostitution. It’s all clean and by the book. And, I have a witness.” Brady tapped Freeman’s arm with the back of his hand and led him down the hall to another room, “He saw her and her guy throw a body in the river.”

Well, shit.

“You found a body? The Dupre son?” Freeman considered what he’d said. The river? Why the river? Bodies didn’t always make it to the sea. It’d be a sloppy misstep for this supposed murderous mastermind.

Brady sighed, his parade a little rained on. “...No, but I have a witness right there. And, I got the name of her fella. I just need to find which station he’s at and I’m off to the races. I bet you my house this guy’s good for it.”

Ah, so. He had next to nothing. Freeman just nodded and took a calming breath. “Alright, are we starting with the woman or this guy?”

“Oh, for sure her.” Bready turned to open the door, but Freeman shot his hand out to stop him. 

“And this is the one who gave you the runaround?” Freeman had heard so much about you already, he wanted to prepare himself for whatever tricky shrew was waiting for him. He followed his partner through the door and took you in fully. Your stare was distant and glassy. You’d been crying and you seemed to be shaking slightly from the cold of the room as fall’s night air slipped in through the window. 

You could, reasonably, be his daughter. A similar age for sure, similar build, same hair color. Same penchant for the wrong kinda guy, apparently.

He recalled all of the ways Brady had spoken about you. The image in his head was a bird faced woman with sharp eagle eyes and tight lips. Someone decidedly ugly with a permanent scowl and mischief behind quick glances.

And here was a woman, vulnerable and quite nice to look at it. Hair obviously groomed well when not manhandled by cops, and a rather handsome dress which indicated a good personality by the current standards. The shoulders had flat bows that let their ribbons fall onto your bare shoulders. Feminine. Suitable. Not much skin showing. otherwise. A burlesquer seemed to the kind who didn’t wear clothes often, but he supposed everyone has a work uniform after all. Even the nude dancers. Who was he to judge you for your professional clothing requirements? You were here and modest and that’s what mattered.

He took a seat, sliding the folder Brady had set down into the space in front of him. “I hear you’re not too fond of disclosing your personal information.”

It had been several hours since you’d arrived, and now they chose to grace you with their presence? You’d been tossed into a room and left alone for so long, it seemed more like punishment than bureaucracy.

Brady’s bright blue eyes only get clearer and darker with every ounce of anger you inspired in him. An angry sea churning up violently behind his mean mug. He was practically sneering at you. 

“Can you blame me? The men in this city are certifiable. Case in point, this hound you call a cop.” You had the forethought to keep your shoulders pulled inward, gesturing with your chin.

“Detective.” Brady corrected. 

“Same thing, jackass.” Eyes rolling, you pushed back against the chair causing the front legs to lift for a second. Returning your glare to him, you honed in on the messy details. You remembered his hair well from that first meeting in front of the cafe. It clearly had become oily and weighed down from less frequent washing. The skin under his eyes was looking dark and thin. “You look like shit, by the way. Should sleep instead of bothering honest performers.”

“Ha, there you are. True colors shining through finally.”

“How was my mom? Not much of a talker.”

“Fu-,” Brady flinched forward, chair squeaking against the linoleum floor. It took a tensing of your arms to keep from openly reacting.

“Ya’ll, enough. Now, don’t be too sour with us. We’re just working off your own words,” Freeman opened the folder to find your confession. It had been typed nice and neat and labeled DOE, JANE. He turned it to you briefly, eyebrows hitching as if to ask if you remembered it. You glanced at it long enough to see the conversation and names and nodded. Yes, you’d had that conversation. Brady must have typed it mostly from memory, you thought, or he had some quick shorthand. He brought it back to face him and as his eyes roamed the sheet, his shoulders stiffened. He wasn’t seeing what he was expecting. “Could you-?,” he motioned for Brady to point out the part of your last conversation that constituted a confession. Brady tapped a line of text. 

BRADY - Tell me about the dates Tommy arranged. DOE, JANE - Apparently many of the dancers agreed, got a cut. I had no idea about it until he introduced me to a man who was very forward. I insulted him and ran off. Lost Tommy good money, apparently. BRADY - And who was that? DOE, JANE - S something. Mister Stein? I honestly wasn’t listening much after I realized what was happening. BRADY - And then he knocked you around? DOE, JANE - Yeah. Got me good. BRADY - And… the next date. Last time anyone saw Tommy. Tell me about that. DOE, JANE - Tommy said he’d kill me if I didn’t go. So I did. Promised me he’d stay with me for protection. But as soon as he got his money he left.

Freeman’s head lifted slowly from the paper to look at you over the folder, across the table. Your arms were crossed, makeup smeared and running with long dried tears. Your hair mussed. His head turned with a crawl, weighted down with a steel ball of apprehensive horror, to look at Brady. He was leaning on the table with both elbows, staring at you like you’d busted out his car window and shot his dog. 

“Can I speak to you for a moment?” He pushed back, resting his hand on Brady’s shoulder and walking out. In the small room that looked into the interrogation room where the male witness fidgeted, he set the folder and your words down. 

He motioned for Brady to close the door behind him. As soon as the latch clicked into place, he smacked the table. 

“That isn’t a confession! It’s a fucking victim statement, Kenny.” He looked through the one way glass at the man seated, “And he wrote a witness report?” He gestured with his head, the man Brady called Joseph sat quietly waiting for their return. His clothes were pulling at the seams, his fingernails crusted with dirt. 

Brady nodded, “Yeah. He came in yesterday and after he told me what he saw he wrote it down there and signed.” He was pointing to a piece of paper he’d left on the same table Kenny was now trying to use for stability. Trying was the keyword. His disbelief was dizzying. 

A small laugh, petulant and bordering annoyed, left his lips. He grabbed a pen, wrote something down, and brushed past him. Freeman marched into the witness room, Brady closely following behind.

“Sir, do me a favor and check I’ve spelt your name properly on this paperwork please.” He held it up. The man looked, found where Freeman's finger was pointing, and nodded.

Freeman looked at Brady with dead eyes, the shutdown of his feelings was an automatic attempt by his body to try and keep from grabbing Brady by the shirt in a fit rage, and turned the paper to reveal the name written to Brady. 

Josanna. Written neatly in block letters. 

Without breaking eye contact with Brady, “And just refresh my memory, sir, what was your statement in regards to again?”

Joseph cleared his throat, “I saw it happen. Down by the river.”

“Saw what happen?”

“The crime.”

“What crime?”

“The one with the guy and the girl. It’s all in there.”

Freeman shoved the written statement into Brady’s chest, “You have half a second to get to the captain’s office before I do.” 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“That man can’t even read his own name let alone write. From what I can tell he’s a random homeless you plied with confiscated booze. What is going on with you?” The gray haired man bellowed from his chair, hands resting on a large pot belly. 

“What does that matter! It’s an illegal hooch den! Naked dancers! Race mixing! She admitted she-,” Brady was pacing a small three foot by three foot square in front of the desk. Freeman had his arms crossed while seated.

“A victim told you she was assaulted. And I-,” the captain leaned back in his chair, “You know exactly how we feel about the wet spots in this city. The, uh, race thing is another issue but— Kenny, you’re one more rogue act from losing your beat. Do you not get that?”

“Rogue? I’m doing legitimate police work. I’m investigating crime! What the fuck is happening here?!” He stopped pacing long enough wave an apology to his boss for the language. 

Freeman sighed, long and heavy. A huff of breath that somehow conveyed his disappointment better than words.

“I decide what constitutes police work and this is not that.” His boss shook his chair side to side, thinking about how to get Brady in line. “It comes straight from the commissioner and the mayor above him. We aren’t to hound the bars under our purview.”

‘I’m not!” He started up pacing again, hands up and open in genuine confused frustration. 

“You’re harassing their dancers! Stalking around their establishments at night freaking people out!” He laughed in disbelief, “Her manager is outside now. Had to shut down for the night because of your little show.”

Brady put his hands on his hips and faced away from the captain. His face enough alone to have him dismissed. 

“I know she’s involved. I know her guy did it. And I know someone’s killing people. Lots of people.” He said it confidently into the corner of the office.

“Kenny. Enough.” Freeman shook his head and stood to leave. 

“One complaint about you and you’re being chained to a desk. Cut her loose, apologize, and go home. I don’t wanna see you anymore tonight. Your freaky little eyes are getting under my skin.” His captain removed his small rounded glasses and rubbed his hands down his face, exasperated his life had come to telling men to stop doing their jobs.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

While you were here anyway, and Brady shooed off Joseph, Freeman decided to speak with you again. He offered you a nod and took Brady’s seat.

It was hard to be friendly, you found. Every minute or so you had to sniffle, nose running long after the tears dried up. Your eyelashes stuck together when you blinked.

“I’m afraid I didn’t get your name, sir.” You sniffled again, hands warming your arms.

Freeman leaned over and offered you his hand, “Detective Eddie Freeman.” You shook it, keeping your hand rather limp to give the appearance of weakness.

“I just-,” he laughed as he set his hand on the table, clicking his ring twice out of habit, “I gotta ask. Did your fella kill Tommy? Are you in some kinda trouble?”

With a scoff and a shake of your head, you found yourself, “No,  but I wish he had. What’s the point of being good if people assume the worst of you anyway?” Reaching out for his hand again, you held his large one in both of your smaller ones, “At least if he’d killed him I’d be sure Tommy’s never coming back to keep his promise.”

Your mother always taught you to make yourself small. Remind the people you needed to believe you that you were not a threat. Play the part they always pigeon holed you into. It was easier than fighting the assumptions. There was power in deception. 

“Your pal is really ruining my life. Even more than Tommy.” You squeezed, 30% strength.  

When you looked up at him, he could only find you to be the image of pitiful girl, “Let me check some things and I’ll have Kenny sending you on your way, miss-?”

“Doe.”

“Right.” His ring rapped against the bright wooden door frame, two times, and your brief time knowing Freeman ended. 

The paralysis set in as soon as the door was shut. You could hear Alastor’s name echoing around in your head, the sound so sharp it made fresh tears well. Brady had heard it, of course. It was for nothing. You worked so hard, kept his name off of your tongue despite the way it always felt so good there. 

Conjured images of Alastor barging into the police station haunted you. What would he say in anger? Brady wasn’t crazy, he was smart and lucky. Nothing could be worse. Alastor could say anything while mad, and Brady could make conclusions he had no business jumping to.

And then he was there in the room with you, and you had to return to the moment and try to calibrate yourself. Who were you now? He already knew you weren’t the damsel in distress, he knew you weren’t weak and frail. Right?

Maybe you’d just be yourself, like you’d let slipped earlier. Your mouth opened and his hand flew up, “Don’t. Shut it.”

“Excu-”

“I’ve been told to apologize and send you home.”

“Oh? And are you?”

Brady smiled, and for a moment you forgot how scary that should be. “No. You’re a liar and you’re aiding a criminal. But you work in a place I’m not supposed to bother. Luckily for me, Alastor’s work surely isn’t one.” Your eyes rolled. Hearing him say the name was like hearing a dog sing opera. Unsettling and unnatural. Perhaps a little impressive from a distance. Unfortunately you were front row and center.

Time with you felt so rare, he wanted to keep you a little longer but couldn’t think of what to say or do. Briefly he entertained grabbing you and violently shaking you until you confessed. He managed to find the strength to bury that down, mouth opening instead in preparation for words he didn’t have yet. 

“Can I go home now?” Rubbing your arms to make it clear how uncomfortable you were, you cut him off like he had you. Not that he had anything to say. 

Brady motioned with his thumb down the hall and said, “Your guy isn’t here to pick you up. Funny name by the way. I got a complaint for an Alastor last week. Socked some man for no good reason. Sounds like a violent fella, kinda guy with a temper when someone speaks I’ll of his lady, or fiancée, I’m told…Anyway, dropped the case since the guy wouldn’t give any more information but maybe I should follow up.”

“Are you so sure I have one, a guy that is?” You simply couldn’t admit Alastor was yours. Never. Not for Brady. “No one’s coming for me. No one’s punched anyone for me either. Though, I’m flattered you think I’m worth the charge. Am I free to leave?” The little tug of your lips into a halfhearted grin warmed you. It was thrilling, lying to his face when you both knew the truth.

He didn’t move. He couldn’t let you take this moment from him. He’d made a massive victory in this personal war and your nonchalant attitude was making something in the back of his skull itch. Somewhere beneath his bone. A new sensation.

A brief and violent flash of knocking the smirk off your tear stained face startled him. You noticed him swallow hard, expression shifting from amused to bewildered. From the outside, all you could read was a frightened widening of his eyes.

“Brady…? If you’re waiting for some man to collect me, I’ll be here all night.” Your voice was softer now, while you couldn’t uncover what was happening in his head, you could tell he was in some kind of turmoil.

A man unable to control his face was often a man unable to control his hands.

His legs lifted his body up and dragged him over to the door.  He opened it, slowly, before leaning against the wall beside it to ensure you passed him in close quarters. He knew he couldn’t keep you there forever.

Maybe this Alastor was a real rough fellow. So cruel he wouldn’t even care if his dame was in a bind. The kind of man to abandon his closest allies when cornered. Maybe he really wasn’t coming for you. Which was fine, he told himself. He’d be seeing him soon.

Following you out, he took the walk as an opportunity to warn you again.

“This won’t end like you think it will.” He said it too loudly for how close he was to you, “It never does for the women.” He stopped at the station’s front desk and leaned into the glossy wooden counter, “Oh! I almost forgot! Congrats on the engagement.”

Turning to say a harsh good night, you caught yourself and turned back, exiting through the station doors without another word to him. No need for polite pleasantries anymore. The game was well and truly over for you. 

“Oh thank god,” Johnny was sitting on the steps of the station and jumped to his feet when you came out, a sight you weren’t expecting. You stopped, confused. He smiled seeing your brows knit and eyes wander past him in search of someone else, “I was going to bail you out but they said there wasn’t any need. Alastor is waiting for you.” 

Like a leak in the hull of your iron-sided ship, it seemed the second Ruth so sweetly dripped that name into Brady’s waiting maw the ocean was spilling in. Every time you heard it fall from another person’s mouth the breach in your metal barriers tore wider. If the Titanic could sink in calm weather what luck did Alastor and you have in the tempest of Brady’s fervor?

“Oh…,” you tried to hide the dejection. He sent Johnny? That was smart, but, why did it sting?

Perhaps it was his six sisters, or maybe he was genuinely a good man, but Johnny’s heart ached at the pitiful tone. He leapt up two steps, “He wanted to come! But I told him it was a bad idea. Tempers and all that. Don’t need any more issues for you tonight. Though admittedly he didn’t seem mad, necessarily.”

A slow nod. Johnny told Alastor what to do? Your eyes looked to the left, that was an odd mental image.

“Thanks, Johnny. I need to return to the theater first.” Your hand reached out for his arm and gave it a squeeze, “I appreciate you.”

“Dont mention it. And your bag is with Alastor.” He let his hand come to yours, “He’s kind of a mess, that one.”

You tensed, accidentally pinching his arm in a flit of panic before drawing it back, “Did he drive home like that?”

He shook his head and handed you the card, “He said,” a pause as his eyes rolled up to search for the exact words, “to tell the host you’re there for him. Called it the Golden Dish, but the card doesn’t mention anything like that…. Sorry, I didn’t think to ask more questions. Like I said, he seemed out of sorts.”

You looked down to inspect it, nervous at the sudden introduction of a paper trail. Nodding, you finally took it with both hands. The face was rather plain: an address in the corner with just the number and street, and an interlocked G and D in the center. Turning it over, you found a pink lipstick kiss stained haphazardly across the back and a small squiggle. Your thumb ran over the clipped right bottom corner. 

What was the Golden Dish? And who was kissing Alastor’s business cards?

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ⋆Masterlist.ೃ࿔*:･

˖ ݁𖥔.Summoning the Horny Little Deer Cult.𖥔 ݁ ˖

@eris-norwega @reath-solia @catticora , @angelicribbons , @xalygatorx

@cxrsedwxrlds , @nonetheartist , @tsunaki , @janchei , @moonmark98

, @readergirlstuff , @berry-demon , @chirimeimei , @fairyv-ice , @olive-frog ,

@thonethatflies620 , @tiredkiwiii , @ilikemyteawithmilk , @whateverlololo , @psipies

@howabouticallyou , @roxxie-wolf , @fizzled-phoenix , @star-kujo-platinum

, @a-case-of-attachment, @multifandomfanatic02 @watereddownmilk , @bontensbabygirl @smoky000

@hoebihoeshi , @pansexual-opera-house , @polytheatrix , @lorddiabigmommymilkers , @backinthefkingbuildingagain

@harley2223-blog , @poinappel , @midnightnoiserose , @spookieroz , @missmidorima ,

@ivebeenthearchersstuff , @downbadforfictionalppl , @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx , @sleepylittledemon , @aether-th3-enby

@dontfuckbutimfab @breathlessaura , @aperfectidiot , @certainlygay , @jth12

[jackcast2021]

Shortsighted paraplegic wearing strong circle frame spex.

[akajustmerry]

always and forever obsessed with how Roman's loneliness as well as his privilege are key factors in how he's able to be so myopic in his pursuit of power where his sibs can't. Roman wants Mencken in the top job for no other reason than he knows mencken likes him more than Kendall which gives him an immense veto ability within the sibling dynamic he's never had before. Kendall, who is also seeking a way to one up roman in his "one head one crown" pursuit still asks shiv for her blessing to knife roman, but roman doesn't ask. why would he? He's never trusted the sibs to have his back (hence the jab about the steak) and he has no genuine connection to them that means anything in the face of power over them. that imperious isolation combined with the Roys' privilege gives Roman the truly horrendous ability to only think of mencken as a "great night of TV" and as his personal hotline to the whitehouse. But shiv and ken have kids and a social political awareness that makes them hesitate, even if it's not enough to actually galvanise them into stopping mencken from happening. Shiv's status as a woman means she can never truly be unaware of what someone like Mencken means for the country. Kendall's daughter being a person of colour means he can never truly wash his hands of those consequences either. But Roman, without any tangible marginilistion or human connection, has a level of insulation from these consequences that Shiv and Kendall can never have and it makes him ruthless, apathetic and, frankly, evil. Roman Roy is what happens when someone is unburdened by humanity in every possible way a person should never be.

[wilwheaton]

”Why do racists always invoke MLK…?”

This is a comment from Reddit. I swear to god, it’s like the redditor who wrote this transcribed all the shit my racist, entitled, privileged, Boomer parents said my entire childhood. Like, word for word.

”Why do racists always invoke MLK…?”

First, you gotta understand their position, which is “Racism doesn’t exist anymore”.  Because black people aren’t lynched, because there are wealthy rappers and basketball players, and because there was a black president, racism doesn’t exist in the US anymore.  And this is especially important; when black people get upset about their lot in life, it is because they are lazy and want a handout rather than earning their way like white people do.  When a black guy is killed by cops, he was a criminal and deserved his fate.  When a black woman loses her access to food stamps, it is because she was taking advantage of the system.  When black people get into college, it is because they are given special privilege they didn’t earn.  And when black folks talk about reparations, it is because they want to punish innocent people so they can be handed their success rather than earn it.  

Because there is no racism, and anytime some white person is called a racist it is likely because they don’t support simply handing success and money over to people who haven’t earned it, and not at all because they act racist in any way.  And the term “racist” has become toxic in the US lately; people lose their jobs after being called racists unfairly.  Heck, one could suggest minorities call white folks “racist” in retaliation, knowing there will be social consequences which are completely unearned.  So to combat this unfair and, in their view inaccurate, narrative they employ a couple tactics;

1) “I’m not racist, you are for even suggesting it”.  Since racism is defacto non-existent, playing the race-card is introducing a factor that doesn’t belong.  When a black person calls a white person racist, they are not only lying, but specifically targeting someone based on their race and falsely labeling them something socially toxic with intent to cause harm.  And the white person is defacto innocent because they would see anyone as insert accusation here, not just black/brown/gay/muslim/female/handicapped/immigrant people.

2) “Black people don’t know how good they have it”.  Classic myopic delusion that assumes the complete lack of racism in the US also means any ongoing hurdles faced by black/brown/gay/women/etc people are their own fault.  The fears behind CRT are great examples of the struggle to maintain this delusion, and not have people delve too deeply into history and see how cause/effect resulted in the current socio-economic imbalance.  And since there are successes in the black community, that is proof that racism is over.  Black folks had a black president, now shut up and stop making waves.  There is an attempt to show that any calls of racism are not only unfounded, but examples of success in the black community disprove systemic racism; wouldn’t MLK be proud?  And not only proud of the success, but would side with the white folks who are now experiencing reverse-racism as the lazy black folks ask for more.  Racism, they think, is simply targeting another race purposefully, and has nothing to do with power imbalance.

3) “I earned my success, so black folks need to earn theirs”.  And this is the crux of it all; white folks today don’t believe they are in a position of privilege because they work hard and their success was difficult.  Many of them come from poor families, struggled to pay for college, don’t have a family history of slaver ownership.  They see any minorities complaining as trying to get privilege unearned.  They assume that, because there is no more racism, there is balance and parity among the races.  Illegal immigrants are trying to circumvent the law, reparations and affirmative-action programs are unearned handouts, and special months/parades celebrating a particular group/race is promoting racism by giving them special attention they don’t deserve.  Many white people see themselves as victims because they don’t receive any overt benefits from being white, meanwhile minorities are showered with unearned benefits all the time.  The Great Replacement Theory is constantly being reenforced for them as they watch society take the side of minorities anytime someone attempts to call out this apparent imbalance in their favor.

But underneath all of this is the undeniable knowledge that they are, indeed, racist.  Whether it is a jealousy, or a fear of socio-economic parity, or ethnocentricity, they know that society isn’t accepting overt racism anymore.  And because of this, they have to hold back, watch what they say, watch how they treat people.  “Make America Great Again” was a call to return to a time when casual racism was fun, and didn’t mean anything, and people weren’t so thin-skinned.  Being “Woke” is forcing people to take difficult looks at the fact racism still exists, which is uncomfortable and threatens to challenge the current socio-economic stability, so terms like “woke” are being dismantled, misused, redirected into something that seems illegitimate.  There is an active, desperate avoidance of acknowledging racism still exists, because admitting otherwise means admitting their world-view is wrong.   invoking MLK isn’t done out of malicious intent, but out of desperate denial of a world that doesn’t fit their assumptions.  Many, perhaps most, white folks in the US have no consciously ill will towards minorities, and would recoil in distaste at the notion of being considered racist.  And they will spend all day explaining why they are perfectly justified in accepting a racist position on a topic and how that doesn’t make them racist because the minorities in question are to blame.  Deflection.  Denial.  Dismissal.  And then vote to prevent change.

(Source)

[closetcasefabray]

jesus saves (i spend)

i have been writing parts of an avatrice college au for two gd years now. the ideas & writing are scattered between here (one of the tags below should work), my whatsapp convos with @snowandwolves, on discord, my dinosaur laptop that crashes, & my email. it’s a fucking disaster but whatever so am i & not once in my life have i had my shit together so this is all unsurprising.

SO what i’m saying is, here’s the only part i have ‘formally’ written in fic form bc i posted that other ficlet. doing this made me almost throw my dino laptop & my phone out a window on several occasions—that’s why there isn’t more. but i just wanna share this.

more notes & rambles at the end.

//

You notice her because it's syllabus week of your freshman year, it's an 8 AM class, and you're fairly confident you're still drunk from the party you attended last night, but she raises her hand and correctly answers a question posed by your theology professor without hesitation. Your professor, Father Vincent, was likely hoping for a good guess at best, but there she is, exceeding expectations from the moment she speaks. You pickup on an accent, which you would find incredibly attractive if you weren't so thrown by her perfect and concise response, like a well-prepared speech is always readily accessible in the back of her mind—a girl with all the answers. A young woman, really. 

You, however, are not—you're just a girl. You're just a girl who shows up to her morning classes smelling like the bar or the house party from the night before, like the weed you started smoking almost immediately upon arriving to university during orientation week, like the cigarettes you smoke because it affords you a little more quiet outside and an excuse to borrow a lighter and talk to a cute boy or a pretty girl.

You're just a girl who technically died, existed in nothingness for a whole minute before being ripped back into a reality of blank ceilings and the sound of your heartbeat in your ears. You're just a girl strangers prayed for after they heard about the American child pulled from the wreckage. You're just a girl who didn't get any credit for teaching herself to stand again, to walk again—and if you’re being completely honest, you’re a girl who’s incredibly bitter that a god you never saw in that one minute got all the credit and none of the blame—for taking your mother from you, for taking years from you that had to be spent healing from god’s grace or lack thereof. 

You're just a girl who is tired of being told to look at her life as an expression of holiness, who thinks it is more so the consequence of indifferent stardust. But you still look for the beauty in that, in humanity and its flaws—these meaningless beings in a vast universe, creating and destroying their own little, myopic worlds on this spinning rock. Some will dream of poetry for their lovers, and some will dream of arsenals to level cities. You wonder how many lips were pressed together in a final kiss versus hands clasped together in prayer when fire fell from the sky in the name of God. You wonder what that says about faith.

You'd like to think if your mother could see you, she'd laugh at the irony because once you were baptized, she never took you to church. God finds a way, so you spent five miserable years in a Catholic orphanage before you were sent back to America. People said you were lucky to have two years in a foster family at your age, but it felt like living with strangers who were tasked with the minimum of keeping you alive. Then you were moved into a home for teen girls with a nun at the helm, and that’s where you actually felt fortunate for the first time in years. It was there that Mother Superion helped you with your studies and college applications. So here you are, tipping into a hangover in one of the oldest buildings on campus, learning theology from a priest.

But your mom would understand. (You don’t remember much of her, and you try not to think about that too deeply, or else you have to deal with the resulting ache that comes from reaching inside yourself for something that’s gone.) You have spliced together what you can recall into a short reel—you mom buckling into your car seat while humming a show tune, showing you how to fold a pizza slice and telling about a city famous for their pizza, and holding your hand in a museum in Spain, promising to take you to another big museum closer to home, the home you never saw again. So you promised yourself and the parts of her you carry that you’d make it here.

You would have had to pay almost full tuition if you wished to attend your reach, requiring immense debt, so you ended up at the school that offered you a ticket to the city and a hefty enough scholarship you could get through four years without requiring loans or a full-time job to afford it. (You first refused to use your mother’s death as a sob story in you application letter, but Mother Superion put her hand on yours and said, So rarely do these letters contain truth, but do not be afraid to tell yours. In telling your truth there is a sadness, yes—and I know you detest pity—but of all the things that have been taken from you, do not feel guilty for taking some of it back to live a better life.) You remember getting your acceptance letter, and looking up at the sky and flipping it off, praying whatever god hears you, No thanks to you!

But your bitterness temporarily takes a backseat in your mind as you look at your classmate, beautiful in the refracted light shining through the stained glass window, speaking so graciously of god you'd think Jesus were in the room, about to hand her his latest work. It's poetry, bordering on scripture in a new tongue, and you'd almost be a believer if it didn't sound as if she had repeated these words—practiced—enough times to believe them herself. You wonder what that says about her faith.

If the nuns at the orphanage had spoken the gospel as she does, maybe you'd be here for different reasons. You're fascinated.

Behold, you are beautiful…

//

i promise this fic gets lighter & has some silliness. so some notes/tangents:

this is 100% self-indulgence bc i heard ‘write what you know’ & ran with that shit. when i visited a friend at a state school in a college town i was so so confused bc it was just a diff campus culture entirely. then i was going to make this set in an ambiguous city, but i literally have saved places in google maps that would be great places to kiss someone sooooo you get NY avatrice.

likely setting this before instagram & smartphones bc i’m old/lazy & i can.

the title is from st. vincent who my friend introduced me to in college. “paris is burning” changed my brain chemistry & so i listened to her music on repeat for ages—“jesus saves, i spend” is on the same album.

father vincent will not be a bad man or evil professor. he will be as he was before adriel—a lost man who found himself through god & still a little broken but caring & devout.

also song of songs/song of solomon is like… the only part of the bible i fucked with in theology class so that’s the reference at the end. also another line used in another scene with JC, chanel, & ava written in v rough form. maybe will share that later.

this is meant to be a fic with a post-grad sequel as well. not much written of that but a lot of ideas everywhere.

once i figure out where i’m moving (hahahaha i’m so stressed), i’ll consider a ko-fi or something (i wish emails & names weren’t shown though). but mostly i will likely need a second job to save up for an actually good computer/macbook. once i have that i’ll be able to post on ao3.

anyway thanks for reading & being here :3

[melrosing]

I’m sure you’ve talked about this before but tumblr’s search function is ass 😭 what’s your endgame prediction for Jaime esp in light of the show? I think Jaime is def fighting the others as hinted in his weirwood dream. But the way got ended doesn’t feel right to me. On Reddit everyone’s saying it makes no sense so it has to be a bad adaptation of what GRRM told them but idk I don’t buy it. Especially since it seems like Cersei replaced young griff’s role

i have talked about it before but even i can't find it ha so i don't mind talking about it again however.... my thoughts on this are vague. longwinded post ahead which is more thought starters than anything definitive.

to briefly address the show ending... I mean it's literally impossible for Jaime's story to end like that, because we know that Cersei's can't end that way. Cersei is going to be murdered by the valonqar, whoever that turns out to be. and even apart from that, the book version of the twins are so done romantically. sure, there are the barest vestiges of that connection in Jaime's ADWD chapter ('back to Cersei, another part of him whispered'), but ASOS/AFFC otherwise make for an extremely thorough deconstruction of that relationship that ends with Jaime leaving Cersei for dead and wandering off the grid with Brienne. like.... GRRM didn't write all that for nothing. and sure, some people still think he might still bounce back to her in some way or another, but generally i have found.... that those theories don't tend to accompany the strongest takes on jaime's character dhjkls

for the same reason, I don't really know where this leaves us wrt the valonqar prophecy. if Jaime were still preoccupied with Cersei's cheating, he would've acted on it by now. Tyrion thinks in ACOK that if Jaime ever found out about Lancel, he'd have killed the kid himself. Jaime in AFFC suggests Lancel eat something and go to therapy. Jaime himself imagines in AFFC scenarios where he exacts revenge on the Kettleblacks and Cersei herself, and yet given the opportunity to do so.... he wanders off in the opposite direction.

the reason being that the connection Jaime once felt to Cersei has died. that bond was his reason for living, for doing anything at all - and now it's not enough for him to even stick around long enough to see what's happened to her in KL, never mind return to her side to exact revenge on her himself. in practise, he doesn't harbour the kind of action and rage he dreams about, or claims to Ilyn Payne. it's the same as how he claims he's Tywin's heir, and then keeps letting people off the hook t any given opportunity. like for all Jaime knows, he could die fighting """"the Hound"""", and never see Cersei again, and that's apparently just fine. the opposite of love isn't hate it's indifference etc. and no I don't think Jaime will ever feel truly indifferent to Cersei - she is his twin, the mother of his children, and the woman he has loved all his life. but I think it's entirely fair to say that the extremes of love and hate he felt within the context of their romance are gone, because the romance itself has gone. Jaime's feelings towards Cersei exist outside of that now.

returning to the valonqar prophecy. I don't think it's necessarily guaranteed that Jaime the valonqar, but I do think it would be myopic to claim that he isn't a real possibility. and since Cersei's end has to factor into what Jaime's is or isn't in some kind of way, I'll suppose that he is the valonqar for the sake of this post. it's not written, so I can't say how exactly I'll end up feeling about its execution, but per the previous paragraph, I don't imagine this will have anything to do with the 'Moonboy for all I know' shit. that was for AFFC. that was building to Jaime burning her letter. Jaime in TWOW is going to have left much of that behind, bc frankly he'll have other stuff to worry about.

but we know that Cersei will be dealing w wildfire (apart from what happens in the show, this is one of the most heavily foreshadowed events in the book), and whilst it's not clear when or why she'll use it, it seems like a natural site for the valonqar prophecy to come true, in whatever way it does. and Jaime has been here before w Aerys etc, this has perturbed him in other Cersei x wildfire scenes in AFFC, so it seems it's a likely full circle moment. potentially Tommen's life is wrapped up in this too - I think it's also foreshadowed that Cersei (I assume accidentally) will manage to kill Tommen in the wildfire blast as well. so like, sure, ig that would set the scene for valonqar Jaime. I've never really liked this prophecy for a whole host of reasons, but the idea of spurned lover Jaime tramping back to KL to kill Cersei over Moonboy is uh. ??? yeah im not worried about that

[as for the more sensitive implications of Jaime being the valonqar as Cersei's ex lover, which I believe exist regardless of whether the act is about Moonboy or not: I think that's an important conversation to be had, but not one I feel effectively able to have until we have the scene itself. so whilst i want to acknowledge that context, I've found that conversations aren't often productive when participants are each imagining a different version of the scene in their minds]

then we're just left to contemplate where exactly any of this comes in the broader picture of TWOW/ADOS. if it is (per the show) effectively the last act of the series, then idk. maybe Jaime dies in Cersei's wildfire/the general pyre that is KL by this point idk?? like ok sure. he saved the city once but he couldn't save it this time etc.

however I tend to believe that TLN will follow what happens in KL, or in the very least will follow Cersei's death. i'm never certain of this, but if not, it leaves you wondering what exactly Cersei, Aegon, Arianne, Joncon etc are even doing in the south throughout all this. like. carrying on as normal?? do they even notice TLN?? winter is setting in everywhere.

and I do fully believe Jaime will fight in TLN per the weirwood dream, widow's wail etc. Jaime's story is a redemption arc (whether ppl like that term or not, GRRM uses it himself), and fighting in TLN is a natural conclusion to Jaime's pivot to the pursuit of honour, and his arc's own gradual turn towards the northern storyline. Jaime's story has always been about leaving behind loyalty to individuals and institutions, and instead fighting for causes he believes in, according to his own set of values. there's also the fact that he has to attain widow's wail somehow (which i'm certain he will), and as it is currently in KL.... it seems reasonable to assume that Jaime will be stopping by KL before he moves north again. this could be a tenuous assumption or it could be entirely correct, guess we'll see. but whatever

so if TLN is the final act of the series, then Jaime either dies in TLN (fine), or possibly even survives the series (though on this I always hedge my optimism). survival possibilities include becoming Hand or a KG to Bran, joining the Night's Watch, becoming a hedge knight, literally whatever. I like the idea that he stays with Brienne whatever ends up happening, but if it's some bittersweet long distance shit then sure whatever that's workable. however i do prefer to just assume he'll die for my own sake xo

[velvetvexations]

i saw a post claiming that when transphobes say "predatory women are turning young girls trans", the "women" they mean are trans women. they can intuit the "young girls" are trans boys, but somehow it is impossible to work out that transphobes call trans men "women". apparently saying that trans men ARE in fact blamed for rogd is "denying objective reality". how fucking myopic can people get?

I'm still so bothered by the other day when I tried explaining how transphobes don't see trans women as women and they were like "actually if you read Whipping Girl-"

NO

IF A TRANSPHOBE SAYS WOMAN WITHOUT SARCASTIC QUOTES AROUND IT THEY'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT TRANS WOMEN HOLY FUCK HOW IS THAT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND

[flagellant]

transphobic radical feminists will ALWAYS end up siding with racist fascists because their transphobic bioessentialism cannot coexist with intersectionality. they understand womanhood as innately oppressed due to its womanhood but that is an extremely myopic understanding of the world.

the reality of things is that there is no such thing as "women are always oppressed due to their womanhood and men are always oppressive due to their manhood" because the moment you stop viewing gender in a vacuum that flies out the window. the history of black masculinity is one where a white woman has systemic and oppressive power over a black man explicitly BECAUSE of how her whiteness weaponizes her womanhood and how his masculinity is turned into a threat BECAUSE of his blackness. the system of oppression relies on both the axis of "the predatory black man" AND the axis of "the defenseless victim white woman".

and then, of course, i specifically state that it is black masculinity which is oppressed by white womanhood, because white womanhood treats black womanhood as masculine. look at black cis women constantly being forced to face misogynoir--we have a literal name for the intersection of oppression--by transphobic white women who only understand womanhood as something which is antiblack in nature. the reality of how transmisogynistic white womanhood ends up oppressing black cis womanhood has been written about by black women since before the suffragettes. it isn't a new idea.

so of course TERFs are going to end up quoting Mein Kampf. their entire ideology is predicated on ideas of gender which advocate for white supremacy and have actively been a part of genocide since the beginning of white oppression of black people. it isn't a chance side effect, it's a common goal shared between the two groups.