#once again: grow the fuck up

[navree]

imma be real with you...being a latchkey kid was the highlight of my 90s childhood. video rentals after school, maybe riding bikes around the neighborhood park, inviting schoolmates or neighbor kids over to play videogames until the parents came home and the streetlights went on. was it lonely? occasionally, but it was never THAT BAD™️ to the point of leaving me moping in a corner. hate to sound like a boomer...but kids today are soft.

Like, the thing is, I'm not a millennial, but I'm definitely on the older side of Gen Z by being born in early 1999, and this trend of "latchkey kid" stuff is BAFFLING to me. Like, parentification and child neglect are real things, with real and negative impacts on the children involved, but that's not what people are talking about half the time; they're literally just talking about being left alone on occasion. And it feels like a lot of it comes from two places: 1) from people who didn't actually have two parents who worked and so view the idea that sometimes kids are left alone or with babysitters as akin to child abuse (I made mention of this with one of my complaint about Tim Drake fans wanting his parents to be abusive because they went on business trips for work, y'all clearly had stay at home parents because otherwise that concept would not be shocking) or 2) from people who, I'm sorry, want to feel more put upon than they actually were either because they want to be more interesting or because they feel aggrieved and are grasping for a legitimate reason for it. Maybe I'm mean and crochety but you were not, in fact, criminally treated because sometimes your parents weren't around. My dad went on months long business trips for work when I was a kid, he missed multiple birthdays of mine, my parents both working meant that a lot of times during summers my sister and I were put under the care of babysitters until I was twelve and deemed old enough to be in charge and we were thus left alone. And that was occasionally an issue, because it wasn't nice to have a parent miss a birthday or sometimes the babysitter was definitely not a right fit (we still make jokes about a sitter my sister absolutely hated) or situations arose where an adult was needed (like my sister locking herself in our bathroom by accident, where the lack of readily available adults meant I ended up calling 911 about it, it's a story my parents love me to tell and did result in some rule changes in our house regarding when doors are allowed to be locked and when you should be calling emergency services vs just leaving a message for mom). But it didn't mentally scar me or make me feel abused. The only material consequence it left me with was that by high school I was coming home first cuz my school was within walking distance from my house and therefore I was the first one returning to our dog who had been bereft of human companionship for the day and it made me his favorite for a time.

I also feel like a lot of this also comes from a recent need to pathologize everything. It's something I've noticed with that fucking eldest daughter shit people do, where there's a legitimate idea at the root of it (ie that the eldest child does have to put up with more stuff than younger siblings and if that child is a daughter that gets compounded with societal misogyny and the expectations placed on women and girls and their roles) then balloons outward into this thing where every eldest daughter on the planet has suddenly suffered more than Jesus. And again, as an Eldest Daughter, I am intimately aware of how my being the first born influenced my upbringing; I was far more harshly treated than my sister because my parents didn't know while raising me what was normal behavior for my age vs what was behavior that was unacceptable, whereas they had a baseline for when she reached similar milestones. But it's not something that's left me rocking back and forth and in need of psychiatric care, any more than being left alone did. And with latchkey kid stuff, it's doubly stupid because it really feels like it comes from a position of privilege. Most families need dual income, most families need both parents to be working, and as such that means that sometimes most families are going to need to rely on childcare or, eventually, leaving the kid in charge of themselves for some afternoons. And most kids understand that, the reason I find this shit stupid is because I'm aware of the fact that my parents not being around sometimes was due to the fact that they were doing their jobs, so that we could all live, because that's how the world works especially when you have children and are thus responsible for them as well as yourself. But now everything needs to be some Big Deep Issue, so the fact that a two parent household will involve two parents who either need to work or honestly want to work (don't think I'm not missing that a lot of this stuff completely ignores that mothers should be entirely able to return to the workforce and have their own independent lives outside of being wives and mothers, cuz I see it) is now a harmful thing to do to one's children. Completely ignoring, of course, the lived experience of people over the age of 20 who were "latchkey kids" and were completely fine with it, or even view those early moments of freedom as fundamental happy memories and part of their journey into becoming their own person.

[royaltea000]

swk fuckspawn ocs

ft. a freshly born qi xiaotian

[frobby]

this came to me in a vision

[lollytea]

I need to watch Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure to reach my final conclusion on if she's even attracted to men

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[feline-evil]

Dick or no dick confirmation Pickles was always going to be trans to me anyways; if he's swingin' somethin that's phallo babes, if he's not then his t-dick fat. What's not to get.

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

HUH.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Self-indulgent oc moments again. About the brat and the old man and the gender issues and slightly the reproductive horror trauma. I can never quite work out how it works in the details but it makes my brain itch.

Ketheric - and by extension Isobel - sets something off in Vel badly. Like femineity and father-daughter relationships in general fuck them up deep down. Faerûn is still very cisnormative in the sense that the identity of 'woman' is tied to biology and motherhood, and that was all very well and fine until you reach 15 years old and your father is threatening you with life as a breeding mare as punishment and suddenly it all gets very tied in with trauma and you start only identifying with masculinity/as a 'cis'man to feel at least a little safer (and because as an extension of Bhaal, you must be a man too, right?), even though by the cultural values you were raised with (and technically according to Toril at large) you are both.

And then there's Ketheric and his daughter who he loves and mourns and is extraordinarily unhealthily obsessed over, and now the Bhaalspawn is a mess of envy and disgust (on top of the general disgust of a fundamentalist zealot looking at a cyclical apostate who sees the gods through the lens of 'how can you serve me?') who will take every opportunity to dig their claws into any opening they can find and twist and tear.

Not to mention the double daddy-issues because 'hello dead foster father I killed who loved me dearly and whom I still feel crushing guilt and self-hatred over and need to be punished by for being such a horror and a disappointment!' Foster father who was an elf. Hit me harder, O'Su...

And then there's Ketheric with his guilt and pride and disgusted pity-scorn looking at this broken, brainwashed 'child' desperate for parental love and attention. Who reminds him simultaneously of Isobel (even though they're not really alike) and Thisobald, as well as Aylin (spite), and the issue with divinity in general - you might not be able to fight a full god, but choking an upstart quasideity will do. Also the appeal of humiliating the brat and putting it in its place. (You kneel to him at his own hearth, damn you!) But also the sheer blind faith is somewhat reminiscent of Isobel and Selûne...

In some ways I wish I'd made Vel a white-haired moon elf just to make them look a bit more like Isobel. Still there's always breaking into her room/tomb and wearing her old clothes or just using illusions.

[poebrey]

the little tidbits they keep adding about Micheal’s Vulcan upbringing are making me wish we got more of that in seasons 1&2. Season 1 set it up and S2 had the chance to take it further and then dropped anything that had to do with her familial or social dynamics on Vulcan outside of her relationship with Spock.

What we do get is so fascinating. It’s so interesting how her and Spock are two sides of the same coin- we got her reminiscing about her days at the VSA meanwhile Spock was the one who attended Starfleet Academy and bonded with Una over it - but she’s the human and he’s the half-Vulcan Vulcan, and she, the child who embraced logic, is the one that ultimately leaned toward emotion, and Spock, the rebel child, was the one who was steadfast in being guided by logic (with emotion)

[angelstrawbabie420]

in my quest to quell my pain ive only hurt myself worse. damned if i do damned if i dont.

[nickbutnodick]

sometimes i surprise even myself with this fantastic playlist

[glasswaters]

for this last day, for your pride and your pleasure, i offer from the depths of my guts, the thing that has made itself a burrow there.

it whets its teeth on the lining of my stomach. it curls its tongue around the lowest of my ribs. the tongue is barbed, see, and it takes with every lick pieces of me, until the bone shines white.

until it splinters, and the marrow lays bare.

oh, but it has long since stripped the hair from its skin. it has sat, sharp tongue and sharper teeth, and pulled them out by the root, until its pores bled. it dug teeth and tongue and claws into its lips until they lay, swollen and red, a smear in that wretched face.

its claws are dull, by now. they are stuck in the flesh of my guts, and they have broken at their joints. when i move, i can feel the points of them just under my skin.

don't worry about the teeth now, for they have long been lost. Spit out or pulled or simply wasted away in my stomach acid, there is not a single sharp edge left. its eyes are big and have always been framed by lashes longer than mascara can fake. its cheeks are raw, and bleed still where its beard once grew.

take it. wrap that tongue around your fist and pull. polish it, until barb and flesh are soft and wanton. the lashes flutter. the mouth yawns open. the feet are arched and when it turns its head, its pulse flutters in its throat.

this is a family heirloom. it was my mother's before it was mine, and she took care of it with silken gloves and her heart in her throat. with wax and tweezers and claws, she grabbed it by the throat.

I picked it up and wore it as a scold's bridle, with my tongue wrenched between its teeth and my lungs crushed by its bones. until my stomach had lost its pouch, until my vision spotted.

until my thighs gapped.

this year's celebration, i close out with a showing of my womanhood. for your pride and your viewing pleasure, i bare my insides. please don't take pictures.

please don't tap the glass.

[navree]

gonna be entirely honest the ten shitmillion 'can't believe they abandoned adding queerness to alicent because she has sex with a man' takes accompanied by all the screaming and crying and throwing up absolutely REEK of biphobia, and that's not a good look for y'all during pride

[bucksboobs]

I’m the anon from the post before and I understand what you mean! I guess I just took differently when I watched the show. I don’t think Charlie or Nick was upset about Ben being closeted I think they (especially Charlie) we’re just upset how Ben treated Charlie the entire. Also I’m not saying this to be rude or start anything this is just how I saw it:) I think Charlie was angry (as he should) about how Ben treated him through out the relationship they had and not about him being closeted. Because I do believe if Ben just communicated better and treated him better and didn’t treat Charlie the way he did it could’ve worked out. I’m just saying that I didn’t see them bashing Ben for being closeted only bashing him for treating Charlie the way he did without acknowledging how it felt for him.

Yeah I don't think Charlie or Nick is mad about Ben being closeted but weirdly I think the narrative is and that's what irks me. All his issues and bad behaviors are because he's closeted (you said yourself that it's because he's closeted that he treats Charlie the way he does) but the story doesn't seem interested in exploring that so much as punishing him for it by having both Imogen and Charlie yell at him and then throwing him out of the series before he can improve at all.

And when this show is so renowned for it's love and celebration of queer experiences and identity it will always feel out of place that Ben was left out in the dust seemingly because he and his experiences were too complex.

[quietwingsinthesky]

just going to keep this au tucked into the back of my mind for the rest of the show btw. doctor who if his companions literally would not leave him alone. he keeps getting new companions and they’re just. integrated into the tardis family. bonding over how much they all love this weird pathetic spaceman who has enriched and/or ruined their lives.

[petrichorium]

Truthfully it should be considered a crime of humanity to just drop glow-up ace on us during wano no warning that’s INSANE what the actual hell I had to pause and catch my breath for a second