#she was only 15 and she died because of misogyny. on her way to school. in front of her friends.

[libracorpvs]

thank you to the women who are naming the problem. 15-year-old Elianne Andam was stabbed to death by a 17-year old boy because of misogyny. the problem is not youth violence, the problem is misogyny.

[sinkableruby]

Ougi 1-26

LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BECAUSE. THEY'RE THE BEST. IN EVERY WAY. CASE CLOSED (TOO MANY QUALITIES TO NAME.)

HARD TO SAY... I COULD JUST SAY EVERYTHING BUT I'LL PICK SOME. 1) THEY'RE REALLY ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT MYSTERIES 2) HE BROKE NADEKO'S WINDOW 3) HE STOLE KOYOMI'S CAR?!??!?!?!??! 4) THEY'RE A LYING ASSHOLE WHO LIES (NOT REALLY A STRICT ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION BUT I GOT EXCITED OK NEXT QUESTION WAIT) 5) GWEH

THE SCHOOL. IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW

DIS MENTIONED UMINEKO AND I THINK YEAH ACTUALLY. OUGI WOULD HAVE SO MUCH FUN TRYING TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY. OR HAVE FUN TORTURING BATTLER. OUGI WOULD HAVE FUN TELLING HIM ACTUALLY IT WAS MAGIC. OUGI WOULD ALSO BE A FUN WITCH. (i should stop using capslock i'm just excited and happy)

mother mother - ghosting...........................

balance.... balance balance balance balance reason balance

show them being spooky and weird. ougi must be weird and spooky at all times this is a requirement GOD i love ougi

misogyny, transphobia, homophobia (less this but still)

yes because i love them. i would have to get better at cleaning my room but i definitely could as long as i did that

obviously. i appreciate their tricks and i would go along with their lies and laugh at their jokes because i already do that. we would be so tricky and fun together

11.

12. loves hats and other hair accessories but just never gets the chance to wear them because COUGH always in the school COUGH (i say this bc of the amount of official arts giving them hair accessories n hats) 13. 🤭 14. hmmmm.... it's not quite right to just say "goth." ougi absolutely wears black (could even say another headcanon is that its their favorite color bc i mean. cmon) almost if not all of the time... if i'm going off official art, cute clothes, sometimes with frills. if i'm going off a whim headcanon, fancier, elegant stuff (like smth you might wear at a fancy party), maybe formal attire, or just plain black shirt and skirt/pants. if i'm going off both, lots of dresses, long or short. if i'm picking specific styles/genres of fashion, probably either casual, business casual, or evening wear. maybe some goth too actually, but not lolita and probably no eyeliner to go with it 15. hmm.................. i dont ship ougi so much. but tsubasa/ougi kismesis rivalry ship is real. 16. >:((((((( koyougi. setting aside that it would never happen bc they dont see each other like that bc of who they are, it would put ougi in a really bad spot that i really dont want to see them in to the point where it physically pains me. koyougi can only exist and make sense by being mutually toxic and destructive and i'm fine with torturing koyomi but i refuse to subject ougi to that. 17. was gonna say this for 15 but then saw this. for a more traditional romantic ship, i think ougi/tsukihi is alright 18. well assuming this doesn't have to be romantic... koyomi, probably. she does so much for him and loves him so much. their dynamic is so unique and interesting and... intimate and special. and touching, too :) (and of course, fun and mischievous and all the good stuff) other than that... maybe nadeko? because of nademonogatari. and how nice he is to her 19. mmm don't think i have one of these? 20. TSUKIHI!!!!! TSUKIHI TSUKIHI TSUKIHI!!!! ive talked about this in another post but. they share similar situations and ougi had a heart-to-heart with her in ougi dark!!!! besides koyomi ougis opened up the most to tsukihi, and tsukihi genuinely respects ougi (ln)! ougi can unbalance tsukihi but the reverse is also true so they're on an equal footing. and tsukihi would help ougi out on whatever they needed, too bc tsukihi's just like that. they'd be really good friends i think nisioisin should scrap whatever his next novel idea is and write this instead 21. oh absolutely the gags. its soo fucking funny to think about how the hell ougi would take the piss out of something. i cannot count the number of times i've read my own fics and burst out laughing because god ougi is such a little shit and would totally do this. something i dont like........ second guessing myself on whether they would in fact, say that. alternatively, trying to figure out how to give them character development in a satisfying way because nisioisin forgor 22. there's no one thing because everyone other than me gets it wrong in an unforgivable way. HOWEVER, the thing i see people doing the most (or just remember the most) is making ougi Too intellectual. ougi isn't Not intellectual, but ougi is also not stuck up their own ass. this is the person who said "*blush*" out loud. ougi gets silly with it. ougi is a jokester and disrupts the balance and preserves the balance by disrupting it. if ougi is being too much of one thing, they will take notice and immediately shift gears to be the opposite. ougi is incredibly self aware. if ougi was ever using an average of 6 long and sophisticated words per sentence, they would cotton on and then make "Huh WHUHHHHH" their next sentence. 23. WHAT YOU CANT ASK ME THIS OK I KNOW WHAT IT IS NVM. its this (explanation in the link)

there's two to tie with this, or runnerups perhaps: this, which is just. fun and playful and lonely. a moonlit waltz, and ougi's leading him around wherever she wants. wonderful

and this vofan art! love these so very much. this one just feels like im in school and the sun is shining through the windows. which is what literally is in the picture but it feels like i'm there. ive always loved seeing the sun shine on things and it's no less beautiful here, especially when it's lighting up the euler's identity proof on the blackboard. the big ZERO scribbled a few times over is a nice touch too

(EDIT: WAIT I FORGOT)

THIS VOFAN ART IS ALSO SO SO SO GOOD! LOOK AT THEM!!!!!! IN THE MIDDLE LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!! AND ALL SMILING AND ACTING ALL HUMBLE WITH THEIR FANCY LITTLE TUX THING. GOOD FOR THEM!!!!!! LOVE THAT FOR THEM LOVE THEM YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! 24. thought i didnt know this one, but actually... ena from. ena lol. it's the inscrutability + the gender + the formality 25. "wait who is this? did i skip a part by accident?? am i supposed to know who this is??? ive never seen this character as part of the lineup for mono girls. huh." then this became admiration and joy when she started doing interesting philosophizing and harassing of koyomi. not to mention the GENDER. and how entertaining they always were. without even realizing it i started rooting for them...... and now of course. they're the most important thing to me 26. "Are you really always right about Ougi?" hehehe...

YES. I AM ALWAYS RIGHT ABOUT OUGI!!!!!! *cackle* *cackle*

[shrieking-pissing-crying]

A non exhaustive list of the shitty things my dad's done.

1. Abused my mom before I was born

2. Was emotionally abusive with my mom a majority of my life

3. Beat my brothers when they were kids

4. Put me in a closet for punishment when he stopped believing in hitting

5. Neglected my emotions my whole life

6. Literally, the only way I had any positive care if I was hurt was if I was hurt physically. Needless to say, I struggle with self-harm.

7. He put a bunch of money into making sure I was fit and muscular by putting me into sports every season he could.

8. When it came to things that I wanted to pursue, like art, music, writing, that was just a nice hobby that he wouldn't put some of the effort into helping me with instead of sports.

9. He taught me that women were "women" when they first had their periods and that women were emotionally immature longer because they lived longer and were allowed to be kids longer (I wish I was making that up)

10. He raised me on the idea that people should assimilate into the dominant culture of any given nation if they were going to live there (it's the reason I don't speak Greek that well)

11. When I put my dog down back in high school, I didn't get to stay with him to comfort him while he died, because he had told me that I had a commitment I had to attend to (a JROTC St. Patrick's Day Parade). When I got there, my teacher had to pull me aside because my marching wasn't quite right. I explained what happened and he apologized and let me stay on the bus for the rest of the parade.

12. He raised me on Great Replacement Theory

13. He kept my mom in a loveless marriage for decades because his faith didn't believe in divorce. Well, what about her, Dad? She's episcopalian. Her entire denomination started because a gay guy kept on divorcing his wives. Just because you're Greek Orthodox and don't believe in divorce doesn't mean that my mother should've been trapped in that abusive, toxic relationship most of my life. By the time you finally divorced, her dementia had started forming. She wanted to live. She wanted to love. There were times before her death that I wish I could've just given her what life I have so that she could live like she wanted and I could die like I wanted. Sure, she wasn't a Saint, but neither are we.

14. Whatever the fuck he did that had the Serbian family at our church calling him a pdfile.

15. Talking to an underage girl on the internet in the Philippines and marrying her shortly after you both meet officially. "Oh, but different cultures, different cultures" no. Unhealthy is unhealthy. I don't give a fuck about the culture. I'm Greek, it doesn't mean I have to be okay with the cultural misogyny and queerphobic bigotry of my own culture. Why should I not be allowed to critique the toxic and abusive traits of other cultures?

16. Using me just to get back to the states in time to vote for his shitty fascist wannabe dictator, just to fuck off back to the Philippines afterward. Sorry Dad. The Philippines is your home now. Get used to it.

17. Not texting me for months after mom died just to tell me that I'm getting his mail in so I can take a picture of it to send him. So he can probably get his way back into America. Not even asking if I'd be willing to help.

I mean, honestly, I always knew that he was raising me to be a resource, but come the fuck on, he wouldn't even ask me if I was willing to help? Get fucked.

Most of all: the sickest part is that I love him. He's still my dad. He made me feel safe when I was a child, and he engaged in stupid conversations about anime and comics with me. He played video games with my brothers and their friend. In a fucked up kind of way, he loved us. I miss opening up Megabloks Dragons sets on Christmas and building castles and playing war strategies against him. I miss him driving me to church and I miss venting my frustrations about crushes I had on girls with him. I miss getting into obscure anime with him, even though most of the time I was too young for it and he fell asleep before all the graphic parts that I was too young for. I miss how hard he fucking laughs when he does laugh. I hate that I miss him because I know he's gross. He's gross and manipulative, and for a minute there, I was scared that I would turn out just like him. Instead, I vowed to do better and to be better.

I mean, he was chill when I came out as trans, but that felt less like him accepting me as his daughter and more him giving up on me as anything else.

I wish my dad loved me still. But also fuck him, he's a gross piece of shit fascist. I hope he dies over there.

[munamania]

ok. we can all agree for various reasons the writing of the steve/nancy/jonathan/murray situation was annoying in s2. and weird, given that they’re teenagers, which we might forget since they all look a bit older. even if you argue it wasn’t a clean and clear breakup between stancy it was done for the narrative. bear with me i know literally everything is for the narrative so that’s redundant. they’d been hinting since s1 that something with steve and nancy wouldn’t click and the Barb of it all just made this worse.

(i also think if my best friend died when i was 15/16 and i felt guilty for that i’d probably be a little weird when it came to the relationship with the guy i was hooking up with when she disappeared, even if i really liked him, because you know, i’d be 15 and my brain is not exactly at its most mature and that’s super traumatic.)

have you people ever watched tv shows where through one couple kind of failing you see how another clicks well? and it sucks that it’s sort of emotional cheating but it just is a way of writing? like. that sort of storytelling is used for grown adults who don’t always handle it well and you want this 16 yr old to be perfect. 16 year olds often have fleeting non-perfect relationships. tell me, quickly, how perfect you wanted this to be given everything else going on in the series? yeah st is a popular show but first thing you learn is you gotta cut shit in a script that isn’t really that integral, so, this was seen as their best way to condense it and get the point across.

anyway, all this to say, i don’t think nancy’s writing is perfect, i don’t like when she’s just a gun girl #feministgirlboss. i don’t like that that’s how they chose to develop her character esp in later seasons. i don’t love anything about the love triangle. but i think if you’re coming up with all these convoluted reasons about how fucked up and manipulative and evil she is and how she just uses and abuses people for her own good and also saying there’s nothing about her family or the barb situation or anything that could be complicating things for her, and you’re saying this without taking even half a second to think through it, and also, you’re like in your 20s talking about this teenage girl, the call is coming from inside the house. sorry. go to therapy? talk about the mean girl bullying you endured in high school and get over yourself…

also. it’s been two seasons. can we shut the fuck up about that. like ever. if people were still talking about all the ways i was annoying in my 16 year old relationship and the times i wasn’t perfect i’d want to kms. it’s time to let it go

AND. one more thing. if it was steve you would. you WOULD be considering all the reasons that he acted the way he did. in fact, you guys love to talk about how steve should be forgiven for calling the byers a bunch of queers and attacking jonathan while his baby brother was missing because he had good development. that’s great. steve and nancy did talk a bit near the end of season2, obviously not for long because will was literally actively possessed and desperately trying to communicate and so their breakup wasn’t the most important thing in the world. she showed she’s not a complete bitch with the sweet snow ball dancing with dustin moment. unrequited love sucks but i’m pretty sure they sorta made up as much as you can in that situation. you literally just hate that she got with steve and u didn’t i’m sorry…

i’m not saying everything you people say is because of misogyny. i’m not saying nancy has never done anything wrong (well sometimes i do 💖). i’m not saying i only like nancy because she is a Woman and she is a Girlboss and she Has Gun and whatever. she is a flawed character but you guys take that to an extreme saying she’s this conniving selfish person. and i think you could do to take a look inward and not constantly point fingers at nancy fans saying we’re superficial idiotic white feminist types who just aren’t smart enough to engage with media the way you do. shut the fuck up <3 for once!

[richincolor]

New Releases

Happy early book birthday to, well, a whole slew of books launching tomorrow on the 14th! 

Not Here to Be Liked by Michelle Quach

Eliza Quan is the perfect candidate for editor in chief of her school paper. That is, until ex-jock Len DiMartile decides on a whim to run against her. Suddenly her vast qualifications mean squat because inexperienced Len—who is tall, handsome, and male—just seems more like a leader.

When Eliza’s frustration spills out in a viral essay, she finds herself inspiring a feminist movement she never meant to start, caught between those who believe she’s a gender equality champion and others who think she’s simply crying misogyny.

Amid this growing tension, the school asks Eliza and Len to work side by side to demonstrate civility. But as they get to know one another, Eliza feels increasingly trapped by a horrifying realization—she just might be falling for the face of the patriarchy himself. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson

Marigold is running from ghosts. The phantoms of her old life keep haunting her, but a move with her newly blended family from their small California beach town to the embattled Midwestern city of Cedarville might be the fresh start she needs. Her mom has accepted a new job with the Sterling Foundation that comes with a free house, one that Mari now has to share with her bratty ten-year-old stepsister, Piper.

The renovated picture-perfect home on Maple Street, sitting between dilapidated houses, surrounded by wary neighbors has its . . . secrets. That’s only half the problem: household items vanish, doors open on their own, lights turn off, shadows walk past rooms, voices can be heard in the walls, and there’s a foul smell seeping through the vents only Mari seems to notice. Worse: Piper keeps talking about a friend who wants Mari gone.

But “running from ghosts” is just a metaphor, right?

As the house closes in, Mari learns that the danger isn’t limited to Maple Street. Cedarville has its secrets, too. And secrets always find their way through the cracks. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora edited by Saraciea J. Fenell

In Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed, writers from across the Latinx diaspora interrogate the different myths and stereotypes about this rich and diverse community. From immigration to sexuality, music to language, and more, these personal essays and poems are essential additions to the cultural conversation, sure to inspire hope and spark dialogue.

Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed features bestselling and award-winning authors as well as new, up-and-coming voices, including: Elizabeth Acevedo Cristina Arreola Ingrid Rojas Contreras Naima Coster Natasha Diaz Kahlil Haywood Zakiya Jamal Janel Martinez Jasminne Mendez Meg Medina Mark Oshiro Julian Randall Lilliam Rivera Ibi Zoboi — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

It All Comes Back to You by Farah Naz Rishi

After Kiran Noorani’s mom died, Kiran vowed to keep her dad and sister, Amira, close. Then out of the blue, Amira announces that she’s dating someone and might move cross-country with him. Kiran is thrown.

Deen Malik is thrilled that his older brother, Faisal, has found a great girlfriend, even if it’s getting serious quickly. Maybe now their parents’ focus will shift off Deen, who feels intense pressure to be the perfect son.

When Deen and Kiran come fact to face, they silently agree to keep their past a secret. Four years ago–before Amira and Faisal met–Kiran and Deen dated. But Deen ghosted Kiran with no explanation. Kiran will stop at nothing to find out what happened, and Deen will do anything, even if it means sabotaging his brother’s relationship, to keep her from reaching the truth. Though the chemistry between Kiran and Deen is undeniable, can either of them take down their walls? — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Walking in Two Worlds by Wab Kinew

Bugz is caught between two worlds. In the real world, she’s a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and life on the Rez. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massively multiplayer video game universe.

Feng is a teen boy who has been sent from China to live with his aunt, a doctor on the Rez, after his online activity suggests he may be developing extremist sympathies. Meeting each other in real life, as well as in the virtual world, Bugz and Feng immediately relate to each other as outsiders and as avid gamers. And as their connection is strengthened through their virtual adventures, they find that they have much in common in the real world, too: both must decide what to do in the face of temptations and pitfalls, and both must grapple with the impacts of family challenges and community trauma.

But betrayal threatens everything Bugz has built in the virtual world, as well as her relationships in the real world, and it will take all her newfound strength to restore her friendship with Feng and reconcile the parallel aspects of her life: the traditional and the mainstream, the east and the west, the real and the virtual. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Idol Gossip by Alexandra Leigh Young

Every Friday after school, dressed in their new South Korean prep-school uniforms — sweater vests, knee-highs, pleated skirts, and blazers — seventeen-year old Alice Choy and her little sister, Olivia, head to Myeongdong, brave a dank, basement-level stairwell full of graffiti, and slip into a noreabang. Back in San Francisco, when she still had friends and earthly possessions, Alice took regular singing lessons. But since their diplomat mom moved them to Seoul, she pours herself into karaoke, vamping it up in their booth to Lady Gaga while loyal Olivia applauds and howls with laughter. Alice lives for Fridays, but when an older woman stops her on their way out one day, handing Alice a business card with a bow, singing turns serious. Could the chance encounter really be her ticket to elite status at Top10 Entertainment’s Star Academy? With a little sisterly support, backed by one of the world’s top talent agencies, can Alice lead her group on stage before a stadium of 50,000 chanting fans — and just maybe strike K-pop gold? Not if a certain influential blogger and the anti-fans get their way.

Delicious gossip squares off with genuine heart in a debut about standing out and fitting in, dreaming big and staying true — for avid K-pop fans and those just discovering the worldwide cultural phenomenon. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Kneel by Candace Buford

The system is rigged. For guys like Russell Boudreaux, football is the only way out of their small town. As the team’s varsity tight end, Rus has a singular goal: to get a scholarship and play on the national stage. But when his best friend is unfairly arrested and kicked off the team, Rus faces an impossible choice: speak up or live in fear.

“Please rise for the national anthem.” Desperate for change, Rus kneels during the national anthem. In one instant, he falls from local stardom and becomes a target for hatred. But he’s not alone. With the help of his best friend and an unlikely ally, Rus will fight for his dreams, and for justice. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Witch Rising (B*Witch #2) by Paige McKenzie and Nancy Ohlin

Two rival covens, led by frenemies Greta and Div, are investigating a radical anti-magic faction—the New Order—for the murder of a sister witch. In fact, Div and her coven mate Mira are pretend-dating a couple of New Order members to infiltrate it and bring it down for good. But when the president of the United States aligns himself with the dangerous group and local police ramp up their search for suspected witches, the covens must be more careful than ever.

Even outside of politics, complications abound as Iris and the new witch, Torrence, fight for Greta’s affections…and Ridley can’t get over her crush on a dead girl…and Binx’s own crush turns out to be harboring deadly secrets.

If the covens wish to solve their friend’s murder and protect their kind, they’ll have to rise above their problems, big and small. But as they grow closer to the truth, one thing becomes certain—trust no witch. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Unearthed: A Jessica Cruz Story by Lilliam Rivera illustrated by Steph C Jessica Cruz has done everything right. She’s a dedicated student, popular among her classmates, and has a loving family that has done everything they can to give her a better life in the United States. While Jessica is a part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, allowing her to go to school and live in the U.S., her parents are undocumented. Jessica usually worries for her parents, but her fears and anxiety escalate as a mayoral candidate with a strong anti-immigration stance runs for office.

As the xenophobia in Coast City increases, Jessica begins to debate whether it’s worth renewing her status to stay in the U.S., or if her family would be safer and better off moving back to Mexico. And despite her attempts to lean on her friends and family, she finds herself constantly visited by visions of Aztec gods, one pulling her towards hope and the other towards anger.

But when her father is detained by I.C.E., Jessica finds herself being pulled into an abyss of fear. With her father gone and feeling helpless, Jessica must find her way out of her fears and ultimately become a voice for her community. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

[squishneedsahero]

Oh Yeah, I Remember Now

It’s Who I Am Part 4

Word Count: 2555

Warning: I didn’t go into much detail but there is mentions of abuse and other things which the reader went through during their time with HYDRA

How would The Falcon and The Winter Soldier have played out if you, the younger daughter of Howard Stark got involved? You had been kidnapped by HYDRA at a young age, your mind taken from you as they forced you to work towards creating new weapons for them and when HYDRA had fallen you had gotten free with your scattered memories for you to slowly piece together.

You'd had a relatively good childhood, sure your father was a dirtbag to both you and Tony but your mom was good. She tried to protect the both of you, Tony had done his best to protect you as well. But you'd always lived in their shadow. It was always, "oh you're Howard's daughter? I didn't know he had a daughter," or "aww what a cutie, you must help your mom take such god care of your father and brother." All of this made you sick. None of it was Tony's fault it was all misogyny and your father's sexism.

The next thing you remember is a science fair. It's third grade and you've made a tiny drone, which you can fly around and take pictures with. You were so excited to show everyone, to show your dad that you could be an engineer as well, but only your mother and Tony came. They tried to encourage you but you didn't say anything, it isn't until you get home and you're lying in bed that you cry. You're good at keeping your crying quiet, quiet enough that no one would know you had spent the night crying and when you got up in the morning the tears were gone.

Then you're at boarding school, somewhere they could teach you to be a proper 13 year old girl. One night sticks out above the rest, the dorms caught fire everyone was getting out. You tripped as you tried to get out of bed and then when you tried to get up a cold metal hand covered your mouth and someone picked you up, throwing you over their shoulder, you feel something prick your arm as you begin to kick and scream, and then things go dark.

You're in a small cell with grey walls and grey floors. You're 15 as you're sitting there, refusing to cooperate with HYDRA's current plan, the door slams open and in walks one of the nameless agents. They show you a newspaper, the headline announcing that your parents had died in a car crash, they then show you other photos, and tell you how they had had them killed by the Winter Soldier. From there they go into great detail on the fact that if you didn't begin cooperating they would bring your brother to be the next one they make you torture.

From there things get especially messy in your mind. Some days remembering your past and other days not. Some days you're the one doing the torturing and other days the one being tortured. HYDRA had forced you to commit many atrocities in their name, so many you couldn't begin to count. There were the times where you were the one who was in charge of resetting Bucky's mind, wiping it and preparing him for a mission. There were other times when you were difficult and they had the winter soldier beat you into submission.

There was one day, one day during which nearly all of HYDRA's agents disappeared and never came back. You were locked in your tiny cell, you don't know how long you were there on your own, hunger clawing at your stomach and dehydration quickly becoming an issue. You don't remember how but you got out and escaped.

It's who knows how many months later that you become aware of anything again. You're lying in some alleyway somewhere and have none of your memories. You find your way to a library, feeling safe there, from there you begin to figure out how exactly the world works and how you can survive.

It's another few years after that, having short term memory loss and being slow to pick up on anything. It is at this point where you've some how ended up in NYC and as you're walking down the street that you bump into Tony. You don't recognize him but he recognizes you. It happens quickly, he gets a DNA test to be sure but soon you're living with him and have some of your life together but still no memories. It's during this time that you meet a few other people, but thanks to Tony they keep the fact that you're still alive quiet, not wanting to overwhelm you with his life when you barely have yours together.

After that you're sitting in the Avenger's compound with Rhodey when something happens and people you haven't meet before show up. First it's just one guy named Bruce, then a group of people Steve, Natasha, Wanda, Vision and Sam. That was the first time you had met Sam, though you hadn't spoken to him. From there you all go to Wakanda, try to save Vision, apparently cross paths with Bucky, fail to save Vision, fight some aliens in one of Tony's suits, punch a giant purple dude in the face a few times then ultimately get turned to dust with a few billion other people on the planet.

Then you find yourself lying on the ground in the jungle of Wakanda with half of the people you'd been fighting Thanos with. Some sort of portals open up in front of all of you and you fight even more aliens. You pass by Tony at some point and give him a quick hug in the middle of all of it, despite not having memories you still knew you cared deeply for him and was one of the few people you felt safe when you were with. Then as soon as your world had come together, it falls apart again, Tony had sacrificed himself to save the rest of you.It is when you're at his funeral that things begin to set in for you, your brother is gone, you're once again alone in the world... except you weren't. Tony had a wife and a daughter, Pepper and Morgan, it didn't take much for them to take you in and act as though you had always been part of their family.

It's in the six months following that when you create your own suit, and somewhat get yourself together. At least you have it together enough that your memory of that time is pretty solid even if your mind felt scattered. It is after those six months of relative peace and calm that brings you to the present. Where you had met up with Sam and Bucky on accident and teamed up with them to figure out this problem.

There is a knock on the door you have your back too, and it shakes out of the state you are in. "Hey, y/n," it's Sam, "are you alright in there?"

"Uh- yeah- yeah- I'm fine." You stand up and quickly wipe the tears which had formed in your eyes before opening the door. "Hey," you can see the concern in Sam's eyes, "I'm fine, just needed a minute," you pause before changing the subject, "so what's the plan?"

"Sharon is going to be hosting some people here and will ask around to see if anyone knows where we can find Naegele," Sam explains, "so we can join the party and just have to blend in with the crowd."

"Sounds good," you look down at your dress that has some blood splattered on it then look back at Sam, "you think she has a different dress I can wear?"

"Probably, we can go ask her."

You let Sam lead the way back to the other room, where you give Zemo a death glare before asking Sharon, "hey, you have a dress I could borrow? I don't think blood will blend well."

"Sure," she goes over to a closet and gets out a dress which she hands to you, "here, put this on, I'm going to get headed down to begin letting the guests in."

You nod and take the dress, going to change quickly before coming back out, where you're greeted by Sam and Bucky telling you Zemo had gone with Sharon. "Can I help you?" you ask with more than a hint of sarcasm in your voice.

Bucky doesn't hesitate, "what happened?"

You raise an eyebrow at him and pause for a moment before say, "shit. Shit happened, and I... remembered." You shake your head a bit, "before you ask, no I don't want to talk about it. It's a lot, it's fucked up and it's a lot but like, I can get drunk so I'm going to go do that downstairs right now then drunk cry it out so I'm good to go tomorrow."

You admitting that you remembered has Bucky feeling uncomfortable because you were right it was fucked up and he had been involved in it.

"Y/n, getting drunk it's going to help," Sam says.

You sigh and look at Sam, "I know that but I'm going to do it anyways because at the moment I don't want to deal with it. Plus I don't think I've ever gotten drunk before so it won't take much to do so I'll be good to go in the morning."

"It's still a bad idea," Sam says but isn't going to argue further since you're obviously set on this plan.

You go through with your plan, and you were right about it not taking much for you to get drunk, but its enough that you don't have to think about life for a few hours. Then in the morning you wake up hungover, but with enough time to mostly recover by the time it's time to go find Naegele. You get dressed in in your 'suit' of leggings and a shirt before heading out with the other four to find Naegele.

You go with them down to the docks, where they keep all the shipping containers. Sharon leads all of you right up to the one he is supposed to be in. You let the boys go in and you stay out with Sharon, mostly to make sure Naegele doesn't make a run for it but it ends up being pretty convenient for fighting some of the guys the power broker sent to stop all of you from getting to Naegele.

It is with ease that you take them down, discovering that the reason you hadn't been great at fighting before was because of HYDRA wiping your mind. They took the methods you picked up over time from your mind, making it nearly impossible to improve even if you instinctively knew what to do. There is a lull in the fighting, during which you and Sharon slip into the shipping container and go to the back and into the secret are to find the others.

The two of you barely make it into the room when a gunshot goes off, Zemo killing Naegele right there. You only have a chance to shout, "what the hell?!" Before the box around you explodes.

You tuck and roll, escaping the flames and second rocket fired at the shipping crates. You don't know if anyone else made it out but for now you just need to make sure all of you will survive past this point. Your suit had protected you well, and you were thankful since you'd learned the evening before that you weren't at all enhanced but just had an unusually high pain tolerance. It doesn't take you long to spot one of the people who were after you and you focus in on them, one thing you could control. You could control that they were kept busy fighting you and you could control where they were so the others could get out.

As you throw yourself at the man in front of you, you hear gunshots and you're thankful. That means the others made it out of that explosion. You don't want to kill anyone, you had come close when Zemo had activated whatever it was HYDRA had put in your head, but you'd done enough killing in your life. You just needed to incapacitate them, and you do. It's just a matter of hitting a few pressure points and he should stay down for a few hours at least.

From there you move onto the one other person you can see but you are beat to them by Sam. You jog up to him now that things had calmed down a little and see Sharon and Bucky, leaving Zemo as the only one unaccounted for. "Hey, did we get them all?"

"Seems like it," Sharon responds.

Sam looks at her, "come with us."

Sharon shakes her head, "just get me that pardon you promised."

Sam nods once then looks at Bucky, about to say something only to be interrupted by Zemo pulling up in a car. "Shall we?"

You get in the car without hesitating, taking the seat behind Zemo so you can keep an eye on him. Bucky claims the front seat and Sam gets in behind him, saying something about him not moving the seat up. Then you're off, leaving to get back on Zemo's plane and head to the location they had gotten from Naegele.

When all of you are on the plane there is a short conversation as you go over the plan. Then silence falls over all of you, not a nice silence but an awkward silence and you can feel their eyes on you. You finally decide to break the silence and look at Bucky, "hey, I should apologize for all the shit HYDRA made me do to you, so... sorry," you frown and shrug a bit in an attempt to play it off like no big deal as it's always awkward to experience emotions with other people around.

Bucky just shrugs a bit, "it's alright, not exactly your fault. Sorry for kidnapping you."

You don't know why but you laugh. Maybe because it's so ridiculous but you shut up as quickly as you can and shake your head, "it's alright, not exactly your fault either."

"Having less of a memory problem I see," Zemo cuts in on the slight moment the two of you are having.

Your head snaps around to look at him, "you're on thin ice, so tread lightly, or I'll make you wish you'd died in that explosion back there."

Zemo laughs, "ah, there is the Stark attitude that HYDRA had so much trouble controlling." He presses his fingertips together and relaxes in his seat before continuing, "HYDRA was only able to get Lemonade to stick in your mind. It was in case you needed to protect one of the agents from a monster you had created. They had to manually mess with your memory thanks to you being so stubborn, as they couldn't seem to break you."

You can't help but feel a little nauseous as he speaks but you know he's telling the truth. "Yeah, and you better not use it again though I'm pretty sure I broke it last night." Then you look at Sam, "in the case that I didn't break the programming I have weak knees if you hit them from behind and a peanut allergy, knock me out if needed I shouldn't die."

You don't get a response to that but you felt better knowing they could easily stop you if Zemo pulled anything. But that was it and with that you were able relax for the rest of the flight.

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

on: rin/haru and what “grooming” actually means

apparently there is some, hm, discourse going around at the moment claiming that rin groomed haru, crediting this to their 2 year age gap. there seems to be a pretty huge fandom-wide misunderstanding of what “grooming” actually means, so i wanted to talk about rin and haru and compare it to an actual instance of grooming in fruits basket: kyoko/katsuya

tw for discussions of pedophilia, grooming, abuse and references to csa

let’s put legality aside for a moment, and here’s why: legality =/= morality. the federal age of consent in japan is 13. it doesnt take a genius to come to the conclusion that that’s a seriously wack law, a 13 year old cannot consent to sex. however, just like in the united states, each prefecture sets their own local age of consent. fruits basket is set in tokyo, and in tokyo prefecture the age of consent is 18. japan does not have romeo and juliet laws like the US, so in tokyo prefecture neither rin nor haru would legally be able to consent to one another. so let’s set those laws aside because they are irrelevant to this particular conversation. when it comes to kyoko/katsuya, that relationship is illegal both in japan as well as the united states. in fact, katsuya would at the very least lose his job if this happened in america. however age gap relationships are unfortunately still a cultural norm in many places in the world, japan included. as an american i find this pretty shocking, but it is the reality of it

for clarity: haru is a high school sophomore (15 or 16) and rin is a high school senior (17 or 18) during the events of ep 18. kyoko is an eighth grader (13 or 14) and katsuya is 22 when they initially meet.

(source for all following images) (additional source)

so lets talk about the stages of grooming.

-rin did not target haru. yes, they both suffer (different degrees) of isolation, neglect, and abuse, but arguably rin is the more vulnerable one in this relationship. rin and haru are childhood friends as well as social peers, and their relationship grew from a place of mutual like and spending age-appropriate time together throughout their lives. haru offers rin support when she is in a bad place throughout their friendship, and presumably rin offers some sort of emotional support to haru in the same way, though we dont see this onscreen. so we’ve already failed step one

-kyoko is a victim of abuse. she is isolated and neglected by her parents. she has a chaotic home life and a lack of parental oversight, driving her to seek out bonds in an unhealthy environment (the gang). katsuya sees that she is a vulnerable, struggling child and targets her specifically after meeting her.

-does not apply. the only time rin or haru interact with the other’s parents onscreen is when haru is yelling at rin’s parents. we don’t know how haru’s parents feel about rin, but based on the way the sohma adults around rin talk about her and the other zodiacs, i think it’s safe to assume its mild disinterest to an actual dislike. we simply do not know

-doesn’t really apply to kyoko/katsuya either since kyoko’s parents are so absent

-this does not happen at all during rin and haru’s relationship. they are affectionate towards each other, but consensually and in an age-appropriate way

-katsuya doesn’t gift-give, but he does use flattery. he makes comments about kyoko’s physical appearance and her intelligence and gets her alone both in and outside of school to talk in multiple instances. he is purposefully fulfilling kyoko’s need for a positive adult influence in her life, seeing as she has none, and she starts to rely on that because she’s a child and he is being kind to her (from her perspective)

-i’m running out of things to say about haru/rin because this doesnt happen! yes they hang out alone together but again they are social peers. their age gap is simply not significant enough for this to be inappropriate.

-katsuya waits until kyoko is completely isolated from her family and her peers, having left the gang and immediately disowned by her parents, to do this. he shows up AT HER HOUSE at her absolute most vulnerable moment, getting kicked out her home at 14, and informs her that they are getting married. so now she is cut off from her immediate family, cut off from her only friends, and to a child it’s understandable why the only way out of this situation would be through katsuya. not only does she trust him after months of grooming, she basically has no choice but to trust the one and only adult in her life. she’s not even old enough to get a job (japanese labor laws prohibit anyone under the age of 15 from having a job)

-yes, rin and haru do have sex. they are both teenagers. it is not something where rin is exploiting haru’s curiosity about sex or vice versa, it’s two people in the same peer group consensually exploring it together. they are both on the young side for sure, but there is canonically consent (haru asking permission to kiss her). teenagers having consensual sex with other teenagers is not abusive in any way

-we don’t know when kyoko and katsuya’s relationship gets sexual, but kyoko was underage for sure. she’s 18/19 when katsuya dies and tohru was 3 or 4, which means when kyoko got pregnant she was 16 at the absolute oldest, and i’m sure they had a sexual relationship prior to the pregnancy. katsuya would’ve been around 24 when kyoko got pregnant

-this simply does not happen between rin and haru. they keep it a secret for a while, but not because rin is trying to control haru. once they’re found out haru talks openly to yuki about his sexual relationship with rin. the secrecy wasn’t a control tactic, they were trying to protect themselves from outside forces

-obviously there is no secrecy here either, but after katsuya dies it’s apparent that kyoko did feel that katsuya was the only person who could meet her needs. the way katsuya took advantage of kyoko’s social isolation and became the only person in her life as well as the person who supported her financially clearly took its toll on kyoko, who is despondent and floundering after his death. she falls into a deep depression and neglects her own health as well as the health of her child. she has no idea how to function without katsuya, as is the design of someone who grooms a child in the way he did.

tl;dr rin and haru dont even come close to meeting the definition of grooming. yes, they are both young, but they are also both in the same peer group as well as both being in bad home situations. their relationship is grown out of a well-established friendship and they mutually support each other. when their relationship turns sexual, they do so from a place of love and verbally consent to one another

kyoko/katsuya is an example of actual child grooming, so much so that it meets nearly every stage to a T. it is disrespectful to peg rin of all people as a groomer when there is such a glaringly obvious example of how a groomer actually acts within fruits basket.

i don’t know how people came to the conclusion that rin is grooming haru, but its an incorrect take and tbh reeks of misogyny! hope this was helpful to people who are confused.

[gender-chaotic]

Oh boy b**tleba*bes talking about stuff they have no clue about lmao

Warning talk mentions of b**tleb*bes, over sexualization of minors, and a bit of adult stuff.

Im goldenbeetle shipper whos been here a while now and is a proud drinker of loving barbara maitland juice not gonna deny our community has some issues mostly in the past with leaving babs out of fics and art and focus more on adam and beej as well as more adult content. But this is something myslef and many people IN OUR OWN COMMUNITY has been speaking out about for a long ass time now you can search the tags for posts adressing leaving Barbara out including by myself so jot that down, so we dont need b**tleb*bes who barley know anything about our community telling us about our content especially when some of y'all openly mock our ship and made it clear you do not care about it, thanks. many of us especially more recently add barbara in, ive seen so much goldenbeetle content that includes babs including again my own content, ive purposefully drawn solo babs and beej so if you're saying there no content that includes her or just beej and her you're very VERY wrong, come to me or most shippers we can provide lots of golden beetle content with babs and even just babs and beetlejuice. Not to mention a few of your own b**tleb*bes have made beetlejuice and adam content and usually leaves Barbara out and focuses just on adam and beej but go off i guess lol.

Many people draw barbara also draw her based off her actresses' who are both women who don't have very large breasts on top of that gena davis' dress for Barbara did not reveal much, kerry's showing a bit more with a deep neckline still covered alot of her body. Many people arent drawing babs with big knockers and sexy clothes because were trying to repress her sexuality and make her dress like she's in the handmaids tale, shame women for being sexy, its because barbara and adam are canonically a white bred suburban couple who are "vanilla" its their personailty, i drew babs with smaller breasts and more "canon compliant" for a while before i changed it up. Obviously you CAN draw barabra and even adam as sexy and babs with big tiddies, i draw barbara with larger breasts now, and show her cleavage and I've been doing this for a while and i have draw PLENTY of sexy and pin up style babs as well adult content with her beetlejuice, and adam, I've also posted it on here so again y'all dont know what you're talking about. I know others who have drawn sexy barbara and barbara with larger breasts just because its not common and YOU haven't seen it doesn't mean its not out there.

Have y'all seen art of anyone oc's like including self ship oc's with beej?? many of them are sexy and/or have pretty bug breasts (not complaini g btw yall are doing gr8 i love your oc's) or other adult female characters in the show I've seen of art thats sexy of miss Argentina and delia as well as art of them with larger breasts and dressed more "sexy" because that's their character, dress more revealing and prefer to be "sexy". Ive also never been attacked or seen any other "anti" attack a creator for making sexy art or big breasted versions of female characters that are canonically adults in beetlejuice, this includes myself who has openly posted suggestive content of babs even on here infact Ive seen people actually like that stuff they just don't make it themselves so claiming "no one is allowed" to draw barbara sexy or adult content of her is also a huge load.

Not to get too personal but speaking from experience as a person who developed at a very early age i got my first real bra at 7 or 8, had D-DDD breasts throughout middle school and highschool, currently has g-h cup breasts, has been overly sexualized my entire life by people of all ages because of this, and also deals with ALOT of dysphoria because of It am A-ok with representation of women with larger breasts, including suggestive/sexual art of them, women of all body types including their breasts but that's the thing i highly doubt y'all care about large breasted women I've seen the argument when talking about the over sexualiztion of large breasts

"well you dont care about women with big breasts we exist too!"

"Dont erase our body breasts!"

I get it! But its pretty clear this argument is usually only being presented to tokenize us and then someone will draw a big tiddied lady with wide as birthing hips, a dumpster truck ass, back that looks like it son the verge of breaking, and a waist that varies from size skinny to "holy sh*t did all your organs get sucked out???" If yall really care about women with big breasts draw women of differing body types with big breasts, draw them chubby, fat, ACTUALLY curvy, give them stretch marks, a double chin, ect. You fucking cowards say were mysoginists for "not giving barbara big tiddies"

Most of b**tleb*abe adult lydia art looks like a mix of jessica rabbit, elvira, and morticia addams with the same 2 or 3 body types over and over again, infact ive run into plenty of b**tleb*bes art where lydia has either has big tits or like a B-ish cup ("aged up" lydia thats looks almost exactly like her teenage self canon(s)) not really an inbetween but you "totally care about women with large breasts" its not tat you only care about adult lydia to make her ooc, project onto her and make her to sexy goth queen many of us wanted to be when we were young and watched beetlejuice, ship her with beej so she can be his big tiddy goth gf its TOTALLY about ""feminism"" uh huh....

And where has YOUR sexy barbara art been hmm? b**tleb*bes draw so little art of barbara or either maitlands other than to be in the background and react to beej and lyida's shenanigans, or scold them because babes portray the maitlands or way more protective and prude than in canon, and the little art I've seen babes draw of her isn't sexy big tiddy babs. I have at most seen a handful of deetzland fics with adult content including barbara and that's it. Its very clear many of yall care mostly about lydia and beej especially boinking be honest now. So dont bring up our ship or barbara as a "gotcha antis".

And lastly Lydia, i dont think any of us are saying she cant grow up, we literally just think its gross to sexualize a character who is a minor in canon and age her up solely to be with a canon adult. Ive seen "antis" draw adult lydia in a tasteful way and develop her as she grows up because they're interested in her charcter and no one has taken issue with it at all. Lydia in all canons doesnt have big honkers in any canon either, yes minors can have breasts, even larger ones. I mentioned above that was me, and you can have a character who is a minor who looks more developed than others where its not gross and sexualized (jackie lynn thomas from svtfoe is an example, mami from madoka isnt really sexualized in canon from my memory) i think representaion of all body types abd breast sizes is important for young women but lydia isnt one of those characters even in canons where shes 15-17 and going through puberty.

Let lydia be a child jfc, stop being creepy and getting pissy when people draw lyida with the same breast cup in canon and make her look like the average teen/tween she is, that isnt misogyny its treating a character who is a minor appropriately.

The ACTUAL misogyny is over sexualizing and aging up a tween/teen character soley to do the horizontal monster mash with a adult charcter, write her so that she really only cares about said adult character and the spawn that pop out of her from him, she dies young but parents and friends who cares shes got beetlejuice!, Forget the entire life she leaving behind too, and giving her the body of a pixar mom or h*ntai protagonist a majority of the time.

Your performative white feminism is showing.

[aion-rsa]

9 Best TV Roles From Gillian Anderson

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Full-time TV goddess and part-time television detective Gillian Anderson is never far from our minds. Here are nine of our favorite TV roles from the actress, whose on-screen legacy reaches far past The X-Files franchise to British period dramas, eccentric Bryan Fuller shows, and animated snarkiness.

Dana Scully in The X-Files

Let’s just get this way out of the way, shall we? Not because Anderson’s turn as Agent Dana Scully over the course of 11 seasons (and counting?) of The X-Files TV show and two The X-Files movies should or could be diminished, but because most everyone is familiar with Anderson’s turn as the chronically skeptical FBI agent.

Dana Katherine Scully is more than a TV character. She’s an institution. I grew up watching The X-Files and having a female character who wasn’t the same cookie-cutter example of what it was to be a woman made me feel like much more was possible. Gillian Anderson’s understated, yet affecting portrayal of the character was a large part of that.

Scully was (and still is) complex and flawed. She is a scientist with a commitment to her Catholic faith. She is a skeptic who, nonetheless, believes in Mulder. And she is funny as anything—much of that down to Anderson’s dry, deadpan delivery (“Bad Blood” being a great, oft-cited example). If Gillian Anderson had to have one character define her career, she could do a lot worse that Scully.

Miss Havisham in Great Expectations

If you’re looking for a great Great Expectations adaptation, the 2011 BBC/PBS miniseries is not your best bet. If you’re looking for a role in which Gillian Anderson gets to chew up the scenery in a miniseries-stealing performance, this three-part series is for you.

Anderson is so often cast in understated roles, and she plays them incredibly well, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t gratifying to see her make moves as a completely over-the-top villainous character, like her turn as the bitter, mentally unstable, and highly-flammable Miss Havisham. As they should probably start saying in England: Come for the Dickens, stay for the Anderson.

Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier in Hannibal

Hannibal is not a show for the faint of heart, but it rewards viewers endlessly with its sumptuous visuals, unpredictably gruesome plot, and its ridiculously stellar cast. Gillian Anderson is only one of the many talented actors who make up this ensemble — including Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Laurence Fishburne, and Gina Torres.

Remember how we were talking about how Anderson often plays understated characters? Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier may be the most understated of the bunch. Perhaps the most enigmatic character on a show filled with enigmatic characters, Anderson manages to imbue the sly, clever Bedelia with a complex vulnerability that her cold, proper surface only occasionally lets through. If you are a fan of Gillian Anderson or good TV, Hannibalis a must-watch.

Lady Dedlock in Bleak House

A big part of Gillian Anderson’s career renaissance has been Dickensian adaptations and this is, perhaps, the best example. The BBC did a 15-part (eight-hour) adaptation of Bleak House in 2015. Anderson took on the role of the cold, secretive Lady Dedlock and she is one of many deft moving parts in this brilliant retelling of the Dickens classic, which is much more fun than its lawyer-heavy premise might suggest.

Anderson seemingly agrees. She spoke with The Daily Beast about finding an appreciation for Dickens through her acting, saying:

One of the only things that I have regrets about in my life is my experience of school and education. I wish I had known how important it was to pay attention … My first foray into a lot of the classics has been through my work. It’s only after falling in love with the screenplay or adaptation that I’ve then gone on to read the novels themselves.

Stella Gibson in The Fall

If you’re and Anderson fan and haven’t yet watched The Fall,a Northern Ireland-set crime drama about the cat-and-mouse game between Detective Inspector Stella Gibson and serial killer Paul Spector (played by Jamie Dornan), then stop reading this and go do so now. Anderson plays Stella Gibson, an English DI who is brought to Belfast to stop the series of murders of young professional women that have been occurring in the city. The Fall has been celebrated for the fact that Anderson plays a character who is almost always male. She is extremely focused (and good at) her job, sees sex as a primarily casual habit, and doesn’t have the most robust of personal lives.

Anderson’s nuanced performance makes Stella a strong and sympathetic character — one who is deeply affected by the way that men take out their anger and frustrations out on women, and who knows how to navigate a world and professional space riddled with misogyny and casual sexism. Anderson has called Stella Gibson her favorite role, and it’s easy to see why. The actress is asked to do a lot in the BBC drama—and she more than steps up to the challenge.

Dana Scully in The Simpsons

Sure, this is really just a guest starring role on someone else’s TV show, but how could we not include at least one of Gillian Anderson’s animated turns? (She also appears briefly on Robot Chicken,as Fiona.) This X-Files spoof episode—”The Springfield Files”—comes in The Simpson’s eighth season and it is filled with in-jokes about the paranormal drama. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson basically just voice their characters, but — as A.V. Club‘s review notes — “Anderson is, if anything, even more restrained than she is on The X-Files, which makes her lines funnier.”

“The Springfield Files” is far from the best episode of The Simpsons, but it is another great example of the kind of range Anderson has. Sure, she may be playing another version of her most well-known character, but getting that same character across in voice work is far different from getting that character across on live-action TV. Anderson nails it.

Media in American Gods

Sadly, Gillian Anderson is no longer on American Gods, which has suffered a series of high-profile “departures” that began with the “exit” of showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green before Season 2. But we will always have one season of Anderson as Media, the mouthpiece of the New Gods, in this Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s bestselling novel. As Media takes on the form of various celebrities and lives off the worship people give to their various screens, we got to see Anderson transform herself into people like Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball, and David Bowie—a smorgasbord of eclectic Anderson performances all in one show! For one season, we truly were blessed.

Jean Milburn in Sex Education

For a show that is mostly about The Youths, Anderson certainly makes her presence felt in Netflix’s British dramedy Sex Education. Anderson plays Jean Milburn, a single mom to teen protagonist Otis (Asa Butterfield), and a sex therapist. When Otis somewhat accidentally shares some of the sex education his mother has been feeding him presumably for his entire adolescence to a school bully, he falls into the sex advice business, helping his classmates with their sexual struggles. As Jean, Anderson gets to be both wise and neurotic, a mother and not defined by it. She also gets to regularly deliver lines like: “Why don’t you start by telling me your earliest memory of your scrotum.” Honestly, we deserve this show and its brilliant casting of Gillian Anderson.

Anna Pavlovna in War & Peace

Still have room for one more Gillian Anderson-starring period drama? (You know you do.) In this lush yet somewhat soulless 2016 adaptation of Tolstoy’s tome, Anderson plays “glittering society hostess” Anna Pavlovna. Written by period adaptation master Andrew Davies and directed by Peaky Blinders‘ Tom Harper and featuring a cast that also includes Paul Dano, Lily James, and James Norton, War & Peace has a lot going for it even if it never fully capitalizes on its deep reserves of talent and, honestly, with such an expansive cast and Anderson in a supporting role, our fave only gets a small amount of screen time. But, per the usual, Anderson steals the show.

What are your favorite Gillian Anderson TV roles? Sound off in the comments below…

The post 9 Best TV Roles From Gillian Anderson appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[ghostmaggie]

hey so in your MKAT post (which you’re 100% correct about) you also mention you’ve had some issues with RT in the past. i’m fairly new in the fandom and also watch his other show iZombie, but i wanted to ask what issues they were?? i like to be informed about the media i consume lmao

Oof okay so I'm on mobile and therefore this will probably be more rant-y and opinion-based than you might be looking for, so I invite anyone with opinions or sources or thoughts or contradictions to reply or shoot me asks and I'll share them (plus I'm curious of other thoughts) but,,

Idk if this was clear in my original post, but my issues are mainly contained within the actual show as opposed to things about him irl, because idk that much outside of secondhand info, so take it with a grain of salt I guess, lol

Also, I feel like I need to say that this is really negative about vmars--which, to be clear, is a show I love dearly--and I know sometimes I like to avoid negative commentary on things I enjoy because it gets stuck in my head and ruins my enjoyment. So if that's you, feel free to skip this! I wont be offended and you shouldn't feel bad about it! It's also just one person's opinion, and I'm most definitely not always right :)

So mostly setting aside the brand new season because I have no clue how to talk around spoilers effectively, in short (with spoilers up through the movie and maybe some spoilers for the books and new season, I cant really tell at this point):

(Editor's note post finishing writing: it's not even all my thoughts, but it's not short. Sorry.)

RT shares in the grand tradition of showrunners I do not care for along with Steven Moffat and Jason Rothenberg, for many parallel reasons. Moffat thinks hes cleverer than he really is, jroth is a douche about romance and character motivation, and both are smug jerks who drove me away from shows I used to love, so.

So number one I guess would just be the sense that he really fucking does not care about the fans. It's especially egregious, as I've seen others point out, when he literally would never have gotten his show back (after driving it to the ground) without the LITERAL MONEY donated by devoted fans. I'm not saying you have to do things just because fans want them, but to go out of your way to do things you know fans will hate just to be contrary is,, yeah.

He thinks he's so very smart, and yet his plots are riddled with holes and inconsistencies (hello, Moffat). It speaks, to me, of a lack of respect for everyone involved--fans, writers, actors, crew, critics, just everyone. Write down a timeline. Something. Try.

One of my bigger issues, though, is that the misogyny in vmars is just...beyond appalling. Not just narratively--i understand representing the flaws in society, I guess, but veronica is honestly one of the most misogynistic parts of the show, and she is never ever ever held accountable for it. Ever. The show never sends the message that she's wrong for the atrocious way she treats, to name a few, Madison, Kendall, Gia, and even Carrie during the s1 plot with Adam Scott. The carrie thing is especially fucked up bc iirc the narrative only condemns her for guessing the victim wrong. (As another note, her treatment of other marginalized groups or basically anyone she ever treats badly--logan, Keith, Wallace, weevil, the list goes on--is rarely or never narratively critiqued. Veronica mars can do no wrong, apparently, even when she's obviously wrong.)

She's far from the only example of misyogny, of course--duncan's s2 dream about madonna/whore meg/veronica comes to mind in screaming color, yet donut is somehow treated like a prince forever and ever and v's lost true love even though he's basically the scum of the earth (pardon, my true feelings are coming out a little here).

Somewhat connected is, of course, the show's treatment of rape in general (hi, season 3), but especially Duncan's rape of veronica. I'm still not over the way they walked it back to "not a rape" and took back holding him accountable. I live for all the fanfiction that addresses it, because at least there people remember that, whether he "thought she could consent" or not, he literally thought she was his sister and didnt know. That's uninformed consent at best, babe!

And if that wasn't bad enough, to "resolve" that plotline and then come back at the end of season 2 to be all, "jk! You WERE raped, by SOMEONE ELSE [too]! Enjoy that reenabled trauma, and some chlamidya to boot!"

Speaking of retconned instances of sex, how about that piz/veronica tape that suddenly became full on sex in the movie? Fun times.

My favorite bout of misogynistic writing, you ask? That would have to be "narratively-enforced nicest girl in school who stands by her friends and is sweet and loyal becomes a raging hell bitch yet also the representation of misogynistic virginal innocence because she was knocked up and abandoned by Mr. Narratively-Claimed-to-be-Perfect-but-Actually-the-Worst and completely undergoes a 180 personality change then dies for plot reasons" because holy fucking shit.

Okay sorry I got way more into that than I meant to. I'll try to wrap up.

RT does a very jroth job of treating fans like shit for giving a shit about a romantic relationship he created. He acts like fans are a bunch of stupid girls for caring about romance, but then pushed it at every level of promo to reel us back in. Make up your mind, asshole. It's desperately unfair to bait fans with romantic promo (even in the form of an inane and ooc love triangle) and then snap back with "oooh it's noir, shut up about the romance!"

If that's how you feel, stop making every other plot point and promo about the fucking romance.

RT seems to want to be making a show that he isnt. He wants to be grimdark and angsty and awful, I guess, and while there have been elements of effective darkness throughout vmars, they have been tempered by the show as a whole. That made it (mostly palatable) for people like me. To flip the script now does a disservice to long term fans and does nothing to attract new viewers. If you want to make a different show, make a different show. Don't drive beloved characters into the ground because you're bitter about how your work is perceived post-death of the author.

To wrap up--he hates character growth. He must really hate it. This is dipping a little into the new season, but he just. Won't let anyone develop. Well. Maybe some people. A very few. But not veronica. Never veronica. Because heaven forbid your main character, the person we've followed for 15 years, be anything other than she was at 16. Her personality, her approach to the world, none of it has changed. Which begs the question: what has been the fucking point?

Sorry this is so long. I'm not sure I even answered your question, so feel free to ask me to try again 😂

[scorpio-karma]

Let's Finish Season Fucking Two: 2x18-22

So in 2017 I started to rewatch the show but had to stop at 2x11 because Elena annoyed the crap out of me. I literally needed to take a step back and didn't restart my rewatch until 2018 where I have been basically trudging my way through 2x12-17 because I want to rewatch S3, as it's the season I've forgotten the most about.

So last week with a half of a bottle of wine I made it my mission to finish out the season so 2019 I can rewatch season 3 and maybe remember Kol, but I kinda doubt it. I'll probably come out shipping Klonnie more, if I don't see too many temper tantrums.

2x18:

First of all, this is a terrible episode to start with because it's the episode where Bonnie dies for the first time, so dealing with that is going to be annoying. Second of all why do the recap always explain that Elena and Katherine look alike. Not only is that the least complicated part of the show, but it's also the entire fucking premise of TVD. If you didn't know that by the end of season 2 you're really fucking slow, but I guess they planned according for their audience. Also, lots of people look like Nina, so I don’t know how this is the most “unbelievble part of the show.

Anyway, on to the episode. Matt Davis made a great Klaus. I may hate him, but I'm not ashamed to admit he was attractive to me playing the evil Original, but he equally creeped me out which is why I say he made a great Klaus. The way he kissed Katherine's forehead and basically leered at Elena and other students honestly made me more uncomfortable than watching Penn Badgley in You. Davis should play villains more often, seems to be his niche since Legally Blonde. (Although he didn't do a great job with evil!Alaric in season 3 from what I remember, it was a weak storyline that even I couldn't get into when I mindlessly watched the show, it was how I noticed the drop in quality then) Don't get me wrong I like JoMo's portrayal of him too just really only this season before they woobiefied him.

You know, rewatching all of this I’m noticing more and more that Nina isn't that great of an actress. Like, I was never overwhelmed with her talent before and I definitely am not now especially as I watch her play Katherine scared and there is no difference in the way she plays Elena scared. It's like how Elena with no Humanity is Katherine, well Katherine scared for her life is Elena. There's no nuance when she plays these characters. The only difference is the hair and when season 4 rolls around not even that.

Which brings me to Elena stupidity which I'm not even surprised. First, knowing her life is in danger she goes to school and endangers others lives, under the order of it's my way. Which first of all sweetie, your way has always sucked, until you yield good results maybe hold off on making plans. Second of all, the only reason you know you'll be fine is because Bonnie will save you which is a consistent pattern of hers--risking her life with the confidence that someone will always save her which annoys me because what about everyone else. First it was not staying in the car so she hindered saving Stefan, then it was manipulating Damon, and now it's risking everyone else's lives including Bonnie's because school? Which is where I get confused, no one, especially her, are particularly studious, so why the sudden need to go to school. You could ditch and no one would care because Jenna's out of town.

Which brings me to another thing which I'm sure I went over when Jenna left, but leaving teenagers alone for days at a time because you feel betrayed by your boyfriend and teenage niece you have guardianship over is just...I have no words.

When I was 15 my mom had to go out of town for a convention in San Francisco I couldn't come with her due to school. She was gone for 3 days and I had to stay with my Great Aunt and Uncle because even at 15 you don't just leave your kids alone for days at a time (and also my mom was over protective and paranoid but that's beside the point). At least leave an adult in charge, maybe John, he's probably got to be salty that Jenna was God parent and not him, he is in fact Elena's actual father. There were so many nuances with John the could have had, but I'll get to that in later episodes.

See I understand Jeremy being salty at John for killing his girlfriend, who by the way managed to get over it, but I don't understand Elena's disdain for him. It was there before she found out he was her father, before he enabled the device, she just didn't like him and it's never explained. Like honestly when I think about the reason Elena annoys me the most it isn’t that she whines (which has never really been my big complaint with her), it’s the reasons she’s whining and in this case I have extra annoyance because there are actual reason for her to be this salty towards John and none of them are the reasons she uses.

I noted that Klaus had no plans of killing Bonnie until she became a legitimate threat. The only thing that’s honestly annoying me about this is the direction I know they take Bonnie and her magic in season three. She’s powerful and a legit threat against the original hybrid and yet she’s damn near powerless in later seasons it just irks me.

Also noted, I’m not making any arguments for Bamon, it’s just there is a stark difference in chemistry when Damon dances with Bonnie opposed to Elena. For one, when he’s with Elena he legitimately looks like he can’t dance, all his lines are stiff, as are Elena’s. I can at least forgive Nina since she’s supposed to be frosty towards him, but Ian, this is during a time he was dating her meaning he wasn’t pulling petty shit from the finale--he just legitimately doesn’t have chemistry with Elena.

When he’s Bonnie all of that changes, suddenly he does have dance skills, his lines flow naturally, even his acting improves tenfold and he can play nuances that aren’t eyebrow movement. There’s a reason why he’s only bearable when he’s in scenes with Kat unfortunately those scenes are far and few between and always about Elena.

In a weird twist of events Bonnie has the better costume than Elena--she doesn’t even look like a caricature of the 60s other than the go-go boots. Also Caroline dressed as Jackie O. has an amount of irony I don’t even thing she’s aware of. 

Bonnie bossing Jeremy around was hot which is new for me as I don’t care anything about Beremy. That paired with Damon’s “not caring” it was an overall good episode for Bonnie...until she’s stuffed in the trunk of Damon’s Camero.

Bonnie’s line “If the situation was reversed would you do it for me?” just has me rolling my eyes because we all know the answer to that--no, Elena wouldn’t do the same for you Bonnie and she continually doesn’t do the same for you so cut your losses. In fact that’s my advice for the entire series, cut your losses, let Elena die, so many more people will get to live when she does.

So when we do finally get to Bonnie’s death I actually agreed with Damon’s sentiment of “it had to look real” Elena is a terrible actress (Elena not Nina though she has a lot of questionable acting), it’s so bad they trusted Jeremy more and he’s not so great either. Also why are they spending so much time on Elena’ pain at Bonnie’s death and not the character who actually died--it’s the Abby situation pre-Abby, like we should have seen that shit a mile away if this is any indicator.

Although, in an unexpected twist, the episode ends on a a decision of Elena’s I agreed with. Granted it came with me screaming at Elena for apologizing to Damon like??? even if I understood the reasoning she literally owed him nothing, but count on Plec with misogyny for the win, and Williamson lest we forget he’s also responsible for this mess. Anyway after Damon’s words, Elena undaggering Elijah was the best decision she made and this is before the betrayal, so I at least understand trusting him.

2x19:

We start with Nina’s god awful English accent. When she ran lines someone should have made her keep the Bulgarian on from the first Katherine flashbacks because Nina can’t fake an accent to save her life. Also much like the flashback in S7 the Katherine flashbacks with Elijah and Klaus are not only unnecessary, but explain very little. How exactly did Katherine escape? Why didn’t they compel her? Did she have access to vervain? Like little is explained about her duality then and why exactly Elijah had issues Katherine. All that was explained is that they were almost lovers. Honestly all we learned about Katherine is that she really likes for people to chase after her. 

Damon is just as bad at plans as Elena. Like I hate them both, but sometime DE are a match made in heaven with how awful they are at things. Like I understand trusting Elena’s lead is actually pretty rational given her past decisions, but you way of thinking isn’t any better. Leave the thinking to those who can actually do it. 

This is JoMo’s first episode and you know what? I really miss this Klaus. Also when they do the “Niklaus” reveal I thought it was absolutely ridiculous when I first watched it. I still find it ridiculous, but I realize that much like Mikael, Kol, and Rebekah, it was the “fancy” way of spelling Nicolas, and I’m even more pissed off. No wonder I equate the introduction of each Original to introducing another Kardashian--they really love their K’s.

Elijah trying to use OMG as a cultural reference was just cringe. “Our whole family was human” I wonder at what point they decided to retcon this? Probably around the time they realized they could do anything creative with vampires. Also this line “my mother bore seven children” I thought no one knew Freya existed. Finn, Elijah, Klaus, Rebekah, Kol, Henrik, and then Freya--how is she their long lost sister if they already knew about her?

You know I spent so much time away that I literally forgot about Andie, and now I’m very creeped out. They follow the classic domestic abuse formula where she keeps coming back when she has the option to leave. You know, when rape becomes Stolkholm Syndrome and in Plec and Williamson form they try to convince you that this is a normal vampire thing even having the victim saying “I’m perfectly fine with this”. There were so many Nos.

I remember that the whole Sun and the Moon curse was fake, what I did not remember is that Klaus and Elijah started it. I thought Esther started it to dupe Klaus and that the whole sacrifice was for no reason. I have yet to see S3 so that thought might still be correct. Also, white supremacy essentially causing the war between vampires and werewolves--not surprising, but still disappointing.

Jenna’s reaction to finding out about vampires is appropriate granted her cluelessness up until this point is a whole other level. And Stefan’s serious face towards Klaus seems to to just look at him cross-eyed which I never noticed. And of course we end the episode on on of the lamest vampire fights of all time--they really ran out of ideas around here.

2x20:

So Tyler’s back! Unfortunately it’s because Klaus threw his mom down a flight of stairs. Man, he’s been hurting his mom for quite some time. That sire bond really did a number on him to forget this shit. At least he has that excuse, all Elena ever had was “love” and “hope” like bitch,Damon’s been terrorizing your friends and family, he’s had more than enough chances to prove himself. Also Tyler came back for important things. Sorry, Caroline stans, but Caroline missing him isn’t important when his freedom is on the line.

“Damon s the problem, not Caroline,” listen to Matt, Liz.

I’ll give Matt Davis this, he was a pretty good actor here. The distinct differences between Alaric and Klaus were a lot better than the cliches Nina was using. But then again because he only put against her acting that’s probably why it seemed good. I’m sure there is a lot better (I’ve never seen Orphan Black but I don’t doubt she did a better job at playing her clones than Nina did with any of her doppelgangers).

It must be easy to brutalize Elena after brutalizing Katherine so much--he never missed an opportunity to hit her. Although him shoving vamp blood down Elena’s throat wasn’t as anger inducing as it should have been since it reminded me of a time when Damon being the wild card actually made sense. Not just so much that given how early it is in the show him doing random things makes sense, but that his random actions make sense, less man pain, and was actually strategic.

Also why didn’t Katherine drink vamp blood and then go through with the sacrifice--they had the same results except one less angry hybrid. Is this ever explained as to why vamp blood can’t be in your system for the ritual?

Which now that Elena is essentially taken care of, I suggest using the elixir on Bonnie so she can take down Klaus without dying and then we can avoid the whole thing.

Tyler really should have listened to Jules, but then again, I know she’s the one who dies in the end so maybe she should have followed her own advice. 

Also I remembering why SE was never my jam--it was a lot of babysitting Elena and her “I don’t knows”. THEN STOP MAKING MAJOR LIFE DECISIONS UNTIL YOU DO KNOW. “I’m 17 years old, how am I supposed to know any of this?” you aren’t sweetie and that’s exactly the point however I don’t understand how being a vampire is worse to her than the possibility of being dead. From what she lists off as what she wants to do, they all can still happen as a vampire, not so much when you’re dead. And even if she does turn she doesn’t have to fully transition so I don’t get the mourning period she’s having especially since THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO FOCUS ON. Priorities, bitch.

I get Matt wanting to save Caroline--he clearly still loves her, but saving Damon? He said it himself--he’s the problem, he’s the reason your sister is dead, God! protagonist based morality really gets to me these seasons.

“You turned your back on me when I needed you” but did he, Caroline? If I recall, he saved you in the nick of time so...Also, you asked him to leave, what’s with playing victim all of a sudden (while equally forgetting the time you were a victim). Also, Caroline, you really need to listen to Tyler when he tells you to go, granted the other time she does this is in S5, but he’s literally in a position where he’s not in control of his actions and you are what he hunts. Go, when he says go! These women really need to stop with this “He’ll never hurt me” mentality when their monster is coming out because, bitch, how is that working out for ya?

Also the final scene with Klaus, Stefan, and Elena, I swear most of the dramaticism is in the music the scene isn’t heartbreaking enough for this music. And in a town filled with vampires Klaus needed to make a vampire? I remember not liking Jenna’s death and I like it even less here because it really was for no reason other than the writers don’t know how to write parental figures.   

Which brings me to Greta. Her complete and utter indifference to her family being dead is really on par with TVD’s views on family. Even worse, it continues this black character forsakes all family for a white character mammy trope they always have with black witches. Although she does fit the Jezabel trope more, but I’m really tired of “loyal” black characters being loyal to everyone but themselves.

2x21:

This honestly should have been the season/series finale--it actually had a great natural ending. The only thing I’d tweak is Elijah following through, and then it would have been the perfect conclusion to this shit show. Instead we go on for another six seasons where they accomplished nothing other than more of a shit show.  

So of course we start with Katherine “caring” for which honestly makes no canonical sense. Damon has literally always been a game for her so why either doppelganger bothers with him just honestly baffles me.

Also we start out with some classic Elena “pleading to their humanity” which was almost as laughable with Greta as it was with Kai. Like Bitch, did you not just see how she brushed off the deaths of her family, why is she going to give a flying fuck about you of all people? 

Also Greta, sweetie, what are you doing? I get not wanting to serve nature, but Klaus? WHAT IS THIS NEW ORDER AND WHAT DOES SHE GET OUT OF IT? Because from where I’m standing, she’s in the exact same position as servant just now with an added side of “happy slave” because it wouldn’t be an episode of TVD without that trope. Despite TVD using black bodies as food, I will give Jenna props for going after Greta--someone finally using strategy and knowing Klaus has nothing without his witch.

Which brings me to how the MFG plans to defeat Klaus--they don’t and I’m not surprised since it focused completely on Elena. Elena is one out of three sacrifices and the only irreplaceable item--why not focus on the full picture and maybe accomplish something in the end. I’ll give it to Bonnie and  her bad ass magic, but it’s honestly not enough. The entire plan hinged on Elijah who betrays them and Elena for some reason trusts again getting Abby killed and turned, but that’s salt for another review.

The salt for now is that Jeremy and Bonnie have been together in an abandoned house for days on end with really nothing to do, and they tried to convince me that season 5 was the first time her and Jeremy had sex, let alone that was her first time. I was suddenly reminded why I thought it was so weird to me that everyone thought that was when Bonnie lost her virginity--like I’d read it in fanfics and be just confused. Granted she hadn’t had a sex scene up until that point, but given the shows attitude toward sex I just assumed lack of virginity was everyone’s default. And then you had this shit, Beremy was never my favorite ship, but I wasn’t so in hatred of them that I would discredit them having a sex life because why wouldn’t they? Everyone else does, and given the shows attitude toward sex, if she was in fact a virgin that would have been known. Of course, my naive 16 year-old ass didn’t realize how asexual they were making her, but now at 25 and looking back at this I’m just pissed.

So when I looked back on season 2 I remember John being more of a villain, not surprising since the narrative treats him as such, but I literally remember him being turned into a vampire against his will and continuing the process. I’m realizing now I may have had him confused with Logan, but I was really surprised when throughout this entire rewatch John is human and then getting to this episode, knowing he dies at the end and the realizing he never was. I thought he was one before Jenna and that was just all kinda of wrong. I guess it’s because the episode had him apologize for all his wrong doings (none of which were his actual transgressions) and I guess my mind tried to rationalize.

Given my complete indifference towards Elena, it is kinda surprising that John’s letter to her still makes me cry, but I’ve always had the sentiment that John is the only person who made any sense sacrificing his life for Elena. TVD may not value familial relationships but I do. However his “prejudices” line gets to me because he was right--vampires are dangerous, and it irks me that Elena wasted the life he gave her. She doesn’t even manage to stay human for a fucking year, and not by her choice which he gave his blessing for. She just Elena’d it. 

Overall this probably would have actually been a good episode if Klaus had actually died and it was the last episode. John dies for Elena, Elijah gets his revenge against Klaus, Damon is left for dead, and the series ends on the note that they’re no longer in danger--the end, finito, better than the acid trip series finale.

2x22:

If this episode needed to happen it should have been Damon’s farewell episode. Actually follow through on something with his character and have him make amends and having a heartfelt goodbye. End series and have every live happily ever after because Klaus and Damon are gone, and Katherine who had no relevance after this season leaves as she had no reason to stick around. Like this is where the series should have ended--it had a nice sense of finality missing from the actually series finale.

Anyway, on to the mess of a fucking episode it was first with Stefan, ever so loyal, ruining what could have been a great Damon death. Now this isn’t really because I dislike his character, it’s more that him dying especially here would have been at a time where that would be an actual loss, this anti hero role Plec kept insisting he was might have been able to have been accomplished with his death in this one episode. And best of all, I wouldn’t have had to deal with one more temper tantrum from him or Klaus.

Watching Alaric’s man pain is marginally easier to deal with because it’s not destructive, but then again he’s human so what would he have done. I’m sure original vampire Alaric would have went on some massacres because they can’t resist man pain destruction. 

Caroline once again shoehorned, in today’s episode, a brother sister bonding moment between Jeremy and Elena that would, once again, suit Bonnie more, if even her at all because this is a scene that doesn’t require Caroline, but you gotta giver her that unnecessary screen time some how.

Stefan going to Emily literally makes no sense. As does Stefan’s entrance to the witch house. What do these women owe Stefan Nothing. What do these women owe Damon? Nothing. So the insistence that they help him makes no sense. But of course a black witch not serving a white vampire is useless to Plec so here we are.

The urgency of this episode was lost on me because it was getting in the way of a good plot--Damon’s death. Also after reanalyzing Jeremy’s death scene I’ve come to a few conclusions. First: in a crazy twist of events it is not in fact Damon’s fault. He was literally hallucinating out of his mind so I doubt he was thinking about anything logical. Second: Caroline snapping his neck before he officially died could have saved him. Bonnie even said it outloud--he needed to die a supernatural death to come back. In fact, it probably would have made more sense characterization wise given how she became a vampire. And lastly: even if Bonnie needed to bring him back the “spirits” shouldn’t have been so hard on her especially since they weren’t that hard on Stefan earlier. Like he shouldn’t have had to step one foot in that house--he’s still a murderous vampire, I don’t care how much of a “kind soul” he was as human that certainty didn’t translate into vampire form. 

Overall this episode was abysmal but so is this series. My overall thoughts on season 2 is that it’s easily a stronger season, but still is god awful and has not aged well. Also the series would have really benefited if it was a two season vampire series from the late 2000s unfortunately that time period wouldn’t allow that. At the hype of vampires they were determined to milk that for everything they could and the still are with the train wreck that is Legacies. They need to let it die. 

[lonelier-version-of-you]

not sure if that's what you were implying but do you think henrik's misogyny and his previous relationships w younger women are an unhealthy overcompensation relating to his own abuse?

*rolls up sleeves* YES SOMEONE ASKED ME ABOUT HENRIK'S RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUNGER WOMEN THANK YOU.

The misogyny is probably partly an unhealthy overcompensation, but I think there is a good part of it that's just because of him being an (upper class, too) man of a certain age, and then I think he probably learned some of it from his dad although I have nothing to base that on except that Anders just gave me "probably a misogynist" vibe.

But Henrik's relationships with younger women? Yeah, that is definitely related to the abuse. One of the biggest reasons I think Henrik was written as a CSA survivor from the start (they seemed to have dropped it by series 15, although maybe they forgot they were supposed to have dropped it when he came back, because there have been hints throughout his second stint too) is because of the original Sahira storyline.

Like... there's that episode with the teacher who's been grooming her teenage former-student? And obviously that ties back to the whole "Henrik was abused by a teacher at boarding school" thing (if that bit was planned from the start, we know the whole "the teacher was Reyhan" bit wasn't, for... obvious reasons, but I think it's possible the teacher bit was always planned). But like. Henrik was also in a mentorship/teaching role to Sahira since she was a teenager.

At first, while clearly thrown off by the situation, he just doesn't say or do anything about it. He actually tells Sahira that "we're not here to judge". (Which in hindsight I read as a "nope, can't think about this, gotta push it back down" type of thing, but still.)

And then Sahira gives him the "I'm through with being your special project" speech (after he forces her to do a surgery she wasn't ready to do, thus putting the patient's life at risk - when called out on this by Sahira, who tells him the patient could have died, he just coldly says "that was always a possibility". Yikes, Henrik). And it's only after that that he confronts the teacher, telling her he's reported her to her school because "you abused a position of power".

So the grooming situation between the teacher and her student isn't just used to hint at Henrik's own past - it's also used to parallel the Henrik/Sahira situation. Which I think definitely says something.

(Just FYI the script for that episode - S13 E33 "Damage Control" - is up on the BBC Writers' Room website and it is really interesting to have a look through if you wanna do that.)

I could talk about the Henrik/Sahira relationship for ages but I'll just jump to focusing on her last episode, S14 E27 "Ribbons", now, because this isn't really about that specific relationship but about Henrik's overcompensations for his abuse in general (of which the Sahira relationship was merely a big part).

But like. In that episode, we see Henrik go through a bunch of belongings that remind him of Sahira, planning to throw them all out. One of them is a Swedish dictionary that he intended to give to her as a gift at some point, but it appears he never did, since he still has it.

And there's a note written in the front that they make a deliberate point to show to us.

"For Miss Shah~

Förstånd = Understanding

H.H."

And the significance of this isn't exactly subtle. Henrik wanted Sahira to understand him - and I think a lot of his relationship with her, and his attachment to her, and why he treated her the way he did, was borne of (mostly subconscious) desperation to make someone understand what had happened to him. Because he buried it so deep, wasn't able to talk about it, the only thing he had left to do was take it out on someone else.

And that doesn't make it okay. He still treated her terribly. But you can see where it came from.

And then there's the scene where Sahira asks if he's in love with her and he just completely and utterly freaks out. And previously I thought this was just him being an asshole but - if abuse and love were so tied up together in his mind, because of being made to think that his abuse was a show of love, then I think in his mind, asking himself "am I in love with Sahira" would be only a matter of steps away from asking himself "have I been grooming Sahira".

(He also adamantly rejects Tara at the end of the episode when she asks to observe on a surgery he's going to perform. He specifically stops himself from taking any kind of mentorship role to a younger woman again. So there's that, that's another part of why I think Henrik finally realised in that episode that he'd been trying to play out his abuse all over again... and immediately went on a self-loathing spiral for it.)

Then there's Roxanna. Henrik was, if we still go with the "abused as a teenager" thing, barely a decade on from his abuse when he met Roxanna. And I think it shows. With Roxanna - well, he wanted her to fix him. He saw himself as broken, and thought she could save him. He literally talked about her as the answer to all his problems.

And then he decided that he couldn't be with her because he was too weak and broken and therefore she could never want to be with him.

There's still that whole "Henrik becoming obsessed and infatuated with a much younger woman" thing, but it manifests in a different way. (And if anyone has further thoughts on the Henrik/Roxanna relationship in light of the abuse revelation, I'd love to hear them, I've done a lot of analysing of Henrik/Sahira but not as much of Henrik/Roxanna.)

But yeah I don't really know how I was going to end this post but I do 100% think Henrik's thing for younger women is related to his abuse.

[saetorimedia]

With the recent death of several people in the entertainment industry in South Korea we feel like talking about suicide is very important. No matter how great or glamorous South Korea sounds, this country houses a dark side. Much like most Asian countries mental health and the help it needs is very poor. Usually this stems out of poverty, social status or pressure. South Korea ranks 10th highest of suicide rates in the world. However, it’s not just people in the entertainment industry, it goes even beyond that.

  Numbers and reasons

A major contributing factor in South Korea’s suicide rate are elderly living in poverty. Usually because the welfare system in this country is so poorly funded that the elderly would become a burden for their family. With younger people moving to where they can earn money and parents being left alone the tradition of children caring for their parents in old age has vanished and the suicide rates have gone up. Besides from the elderly grade and college students have high suicide rates aswell, mostly due to pressure to work above and beyond abilities but also because of bullying and peer pressure. Among the genders men commit more suicide but women have much higher attempts. Suicide comes usually in the form of Hanging, poisoning or jumping of high places.

Education in South Korea is highly competitive, the students spend almost 16 (sometimes more) hours a day in school or in school related programs/activities. Most of this is to get into a good university, of course most of the students rank near the top of international academic assesment but the stress and pressure often lead to suicide in kids between 10 and 19 years old. Inside of schools, but also workplaces, the pressure/stress isn’t always the only factor. Bullying is also a big part of why people commit suicide. It isn’t put out in the media much but when talking to people from South Korea bullying is always a reason for people to end their own lives. It doesn’t matter which way, by beating someone up, cyberbullying or verbal abuse. Usually it’s said that bullies pick on people because they’re not happy with themselves but in my personal opinion that’s a load of bull to say that it’s okay for the bully to do such a thing and make the victim seem less important (hey look a vicious circle). For some reason humans will always pick on someone, if it’s for their looks, their lack of money or just because they need something to do. Within South Korea looks are incredibly important and there is an incredible amount of plastic surgery being done just to get a job. ( read about that here )

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Sulli

Taking a look at the recently lost singer and actress Sulli (from the girl group F(x)) who since she became an artist had to endure heaps of harassment, misogyny and violence. From being accused of endorsing pedophilia because she looked too young in certain photo’s to being mistreated by male fans who didn’t want her to be in supposed relationship. However within all of it Sulli did her best to stand up, to talk about her own humanity and the problems she faced with media, fans and the industry only to lose the battle and feeling alone and lost ending up in her death. But she isn’t the first, the only one or the last of our idols to take their own lives due to the small mindedness of other people.

Another trigger seems to be that when a person from the entertainment industry commits suicide is that the suicide rates go up for a certain time, usually in the same manner as the idol that died. Mostly because of other reasons but it seems like “if they can’t endure life with how good they have it, why should I” mentality, and maybe some even because they’re so into their idol they can not live without them. Who knows..

  It’s an illness

Mental illness in general however is still taboo within South Korea, only 15% of the suicide victims within the country would have received medical attention and proper treatment, but if over two million people suffer from depression, that’s nearly nothing. With the social stigma many don’t dare to seek help and result in seeing no other way out or self medicating with alcohol. Another reason for many of the people in the entertainment industry to end their life.

There is a positive light, there is a project started to improve and increase public awareness of the illness. Screening and treating high risk patients and restricting access to ways of suicide. Creating apps that monitor students who post, search and look for suicide topics. A lot of the entertainment industry is becoming louder too to try and change people’s mentality towards mental illness. We hope that there will be some change in the future.

  Maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it but you’re not feeling okay. You might be feeling tired more often, feeling emotional and you might not want to do the things that you enjoy right now. Struggling to cope with everyday life doesn’t look or feel the same in everyone. You are not alone and there are people who can help you. If you know someone being unable to cope with everything, reach out to them and help them reach out to those who can help.

Call your countries suicide hotline.

112 is the national emergency number in the Netherlands.

Stichting 113Online (https://www.113.nl/) provides a 24/7 national suicide prevention phone line and webchat.

113Online hotline can be reached at 0900 0113.

113Online Webchat can be found at https://www.113.nl/ik-denk-aan-zelfmoord/crisislijn.

Find your country here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

    With the recent death of several people in the entertainment industry in South Korea we feel like talking about suicide is very important. No matter how great or glamorous South Korea sounds, this country houses a dark side. Much like most Asian countries mental health and the help it needs is very poor. Usually this stems out of poverty, social status or pressure. South Korea ranks 10th highest of suicide rates in the world. However, it's not just people in the entertainment industry, it goes even beyond that. #mentalillness #southkorea #kpop With the recent death of several people in the entertainment industry in South Korea we feel like talking about suicide is very important.

[thisdaynews]

‘I Can No Longer Continue to Live Here’

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/i-can-no-longer-continue-to-live-here/

‘I Can No Longer Continue to Live Here’

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — In a small town tucked in the hills outside Tegucigalpa, there is a stuffed gray bunny rabbit that knows a little girl’s secrets. “I tell him all my things,” she says. “About how I’m doing, and when I feel sad.” She feels sad a lot lately. “I start thinking about things that I shouldn’t be thinking,” she says.

There are a lot of things she shouldn’t be thinking. She is 12 years old and just weeks away from giving birth to a baby.

Story Continued Below

Sofia and her mom told me her story when we met at a women’s shelter in mid-April. Sofia (like others interviewed for this story, she asked me not to use her real name) was raped by a family member of her mom’s boyfriend. She still doesn’t totally understand what pregnancy means or what childbirth entails, but she knows the delivery is looming, and that scares her. “At first, she said that she did not want to have the baby,” Sofia’s mom told me. “She said that she wanted to commit suicide.” When doctors told Sofia she was pregnant and explained that pregnancy meant she was going to have a baby, Sofia, in her soft, small voice, asked whether she could have a doll instead.

When Sofia’s mom found out about the rape, she reported it to the police, and now the man who did it is in jail. But his family kept threatening them, and they have good reason to worry about what happens once he’s out. Most crimes like this—more than 90 percent—aren’t even prosecuted in Honduras. The few women who do see their attackers go to jail are offered little protection when those sentences end.“If he comes out,” Sofia’s mom says, “I am afraid for my life and her life, too.”

What do you do when you fear for your life and the state won’t protect you? Or if the state might make your already tenuous situation worse? The fraught calculations that face Sofia and her mom are endemic across Honduras, a country that remains in the grip of a rash of violence against women and girls. For some, the answer is simple and disruptive: They have to leave. When exhausted families, mothers toting babies and young women traveling alone arrive at the southern border of the United States, it’s not just gang violence or criminality in general that they’re fleeing. It’s also what Sofia whispers about to her bunny: men who beat, assault, rape and sometimes kill women and girls; law enforcement that does little to curtail them; and laws that deny many women who do survive the chance to retake control and steer their own lives.

As of 2015, Honduras ranked among a tiny group of nations, including war-racked Syria and Afghanistan, with the highest rates of violent deaths of women. Although Honduras’ overall murder rate has decreased in recent years, it remains one of the deadliest countries in the world, and the murder rate has been declining more slowly for female victims. Murder remains the second-leading cause of death for women of childbearing age.

Honduras’ troubling numbers are representative of stark challenges in Central America’s Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Central American migrants are now the majority of those apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, and most come from these three countries. The level of violence in Honduras has gotten attention, but the deeper cultural factors at work are less often plumbed. After two weeks of interviews with more than two dozen women in five Honduran cities and their far outskirts, a portrait emerges of a country where day-to-day violence and misogyny collide with restrictive policies to narrow women’s options to a vanishingly small window of possibility—driving them, sometimes, to flee.

A decade ago most border-crossers might have been single men looking for work. Now the majority are families. According to one analysis from the University of Washington, before 2011, just a third of migrants from Northern Triangle countries said they were fleeing violence; from 2011 to 2016, it was more than 70 percent. Among female migrants, more than half listed violence as their reason for trying to get to the United States. Honduran migrants are more likely than even those from El Salvador and Guatemala to say they’re running away from danger—and from the danger of domestic violence.

Hostile rhetoric and harsher policies have been cornerstones of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. But even arrests, deportations and family separations can pale compared with the costs of staying put for many Honduran women. Both local women and advocates heredescribed rape and the threat of rape as methods of terrorizing neighborhoods and controlling women in their own homes. One in 10 Honduran women says her partner abused her physically or sexually at least once in the previous year. (No comparable statistics are available for the United States, but in Canada, the proportion is 1 in 100.) Still, these statistics can be unreliable because family violence and sexual assault often go unreported, and it’s not hard to see why: In 2016, of the more than 400 homicide cases with female victims in Honduras, only 15 were even investigated, resulting in just two convictions.

The Honduran government, with backing from the Catholic and Evangelical churches, exacerbates this crisis by limiting women’s options after sexual violence. Honduras is the only nation in Latin America that bans emergency contraception outright, including for rape victims. Abortion is also outlawed, with no exceptions for rape, incest, severe fetal abnormality or the life of the pregnant woman. Women who seek abortions anyway assume physical risk and the potential of years in prison. Women who go through with unwanted pregnancies face a maternal mortality rate that is one of the highest in Latin America; a woman dies nearly every day and a half from pregnancy or childbirth here.

All of this has left Sofia with few options. Sofia’s mom had to quit her job when they decided to move, which means there’s not much money for a new child. A local women’s shelter is helping with counseling and paying for her medical bills and transportation, but it’s not much. Sofia’s mother says her daughter asked for an abortion, but given the law and what Sofia’s mom heard at church, that wasn’t a possibility.And so, Sofia, her fully pregnant belly protruding in jarring juxtaposition to her diminutive preteen frame, is no longer able to go to school, and waits in her one-room home for her delivery date, confiding in her stuffed bunny.

The plan for now is for Sofia’s mom to raise the baby as her own, and tell the girl that she and Sofia are sisters. Hiding up in the hills with a new baby on the way, Sofia’s mom says that leaving Honduras anytime soon is not on the table. But many women in similar positions make the calculus that the short-term risk of migrating is better than the longer-term risk of staying. “Women have to be creative,” says Joaquin Mejía Rivera, a lawyer and human rights investigator in the city of El Progreso, about an hour outside San Pedro Sula.

Vanessa Siliezar, a women’s rights lawyer based in the coastal city of La Ceiba, put it starkly: “If they’re killing you here, it’s better to go die in the desert.”

***

Mercedez is making that calculation now.She’s a curly-haired 19-year-old, almost feline in her skittishness—when two men’s silhouettes pass by a window, she visibly flinches. She gave birth to a baby girl so recently that when she curls into herself, she still cradles her soft, expanded belly. Mercedez (also a pseudonym) grew up in and around Tegucigalpa in a series of state-run homes for children whose parents died or could no longer care for them, moving from shelter to shelter until she was 18 and found herself abruptly on her own.

When she was volunteering at a nursery, she told me, she began dating one of the security guards, a 22-year-old she eventually learned was a drug dealer and a gang member. As retribution for who knows what, one night he tied her up, gagged her, and he and his friends tortured her in a small house in a dodgy neighborhood. Later that night, the house’s cleaning lady left the door ajar, and Mercedez made her escape. She ran to the police station and begged for a ride to the bus depot; the officer who promised to drive her, she says, took her on his personal motorcycle to an empty plot of land instead, where he raped her. She says he drove her back to the main road, threw 200lempiras(about $8) at her and took off. It took her hours to get back home to Tegucigalpa. On the way, a drunk man tried to kiss her, and then followed her when she got off the bus. When she crossed the street to sit and wait for her transfer, another group of men started heckling her, asking her the price for sex.

Mercedez says she cried when she read the positive pregnancy test. “What was I going to do with a baby?” she says. “I didn’t have any experience.” She would have taken emergency contraception immediately after the rape, she said, but didn’t know how to get it. She wanted to have an abortion, but knew it was illegal and didn’t pursue one. She initially tried her own way. “At first I didn’t eat, and I didn’t take medicine, because I didn’t want her,” Mercedez says. “I still think the same way I did before. I’m not ready. I don’t know how to do this. … I don’t have a way to support her.” Still, she wants the best for her baby, and as a result, has considered leaving the country—but she’s an orphaned teenage mom, and so she’s not sure how to do that, either.

The reasons people migrate are complex. For Honduran women, economic instability and physical insecurity are intertwined, and both are exacerbated by the patriarchal norms of society here and women’s lack of political power. Only about half of Honduran women work outside the home. When women do work, they make about half what their male colleagues do. Since men can and do “leave whenever they want,” Siliezar says, women might be left “with three or four children without the possibility of supporting themselves.”

For women who are lucky, a new boyfriend can bring love, affection and support; for women who aren’t, he can be a new source of power and control over the family’s finances and physical safety. Some of the worst scenarios, Siliezar says, are also troublingly common: abusive men who control women and violate their daughters.

“When [a girl] finally gets pregnant at 10 or 11, because it’s the first time she gets her period, she has lost all faith in the future,” she says. “When she goes to ask for help or to the hospital, the law says she has to go with her mom. And that mom is the one who has been quiet about what this girl has gone through her entire life.” There is then a rush to blame the mother—a woman who, Siliezar says, often has her own story to tell.

Four hours by car from Siliezar’soffice in La Ceiba and just outside of the big city of San Pedro Sula is Choloma, which just may be the most dangerous city in one of the world’s most dangerous nations.

Here, in a small house where chickens roam the yard, lives Ricsy (not her real name), at 19 the youngest of her mother’s six children, and one of four still alive. She’s not sure how old she was when her big sister, who was beautiful and tall and had long hair, was found dead among the sugar cane, but Ricsy thinks she was about 4-feet tall when she saw her sister’s body, pants pulled down, on TV. She’s also not sure how old she was when her stepfather began raping her. “I remember he got there when I was 5, and then I turned 8, I turned 9, 10, 11, 13. I was 13, and then I had the baby,” she says.

She told her mom about the abuse, and said she would commit suicide if it continued, but her mom didn’t believe her. It was only after Ricsy became pregnant with her son that her mother took her claims seriously, yet the stepfather stayed in the house for two more years. He would beat up her mother, too. Ricsy isn’t sure what he did for work, but she knows he used drugs, and “when he didn’t have any money for his vices, then he would go out and hurt people.”

Abortion wasn’t an option. Legally it was off the table, and Ricsy grew up hearing it was wrong. “I went to church, and the pastor had said if we had an abortion, it’s like we are killing someone,” Ricsy says.

When Ricsy was 15, her stepfather was murdered. That brought relief, but not resolution. When she looks at her now 6-year-old son, Ricsy says, “I just remember everything that I have gone through.”

A few months ago, Ricsy told me, she was raped by a stranger on her way from work at a shopping mall just a few blocks from her home, grabbed as she passed her son’s elementary school. Her boy keeps asking why she doesn’t walk him to school as much as she used to, and why she cries when they pass the building. She doesn’t have an answer. She goes to church for solace, and the pastor knows something is wrong. He is the only person, Ricsy says, “who asked me why I am not the same happy person I used to be.” She tells him she’s just busy because, she says, “I feel ashamed.” Besides, she can guess what he’ll say: “‘Let’s pray for that person so God may put his hand on him,’” Ricsy says. She isn’t sure she has it in her to pray for the man who raped her.

For now, she gets through the days with her son and her 3-year-old daughter. On the days she feels strong enough to take her son to school, “We hold hands, and we sing worship songs,” she says. On one of their walks, “He asked me, ‘Did you pray today?’ And I said yes. And I asked him, ‘Did you pray today?’ And he said yes. He said, ‘I prayed for all the sadness to leave your heart.’”

Ricsy isn’t sure that she will ever escape this sadness, so deep that she sometimes finds herself curled in a ball underneath her son’s bed. But she may escape Honduras. In her 19 years, Ricsy hasn’t been safe at home, and she hasn’t been safe on the street; she can’t walk through the market without a sense of hypervigilance, like someone is following her. Ricsy, who had asthma, was a sick kid, which meant she was forced to drop out of school at 7, and now as an adult she cannot read or write. She’s poor, and so leaving for the United States would mean walking, and that brings its own perils. But she’s seen the caravans and is increasingly thinking about joining one, imagining how good it would feel to send some money back for her kids, to be able to say “yes” when her son asks for a new schoolbook or soccer cleats. Whatever hazards lurk along the way feel less daunting than life in Choloma. “My mom said the journey was very dangerous,” Ricsy says. “And I told her, ‘I know, Mom, but I can no longer continue to live here.’”

A great number of Honduran girls have been, like Sofia and Ricsy, raped and impregnated as children. More than 20,000 Honduran girls age 18 and under gave birth in the country’s national hospitals in 2017, according to Centro de Derechos de Mujeres, a women’s rights group, giving Honduras the second-highest adolescent birth rate in Latin America. Of these 20,000 girls, 819 of them were 14 or younger. Twenty-five were just 10. Under the Honduran penal code, all sex with girls under the age of 14 is rape; a 2014 study found that nearly 80 percent of Honduran adolescent girls in relationships were physically, psychologically or sexually abused by their partners.

Telling women and girls that they cannot prevent pregnancies with emergency contraception, then barring their access to safe abortion, can compound the trauma of rape, says Amber Assaf, a psychologist with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Choloma. Assaf sees sexual violence survivors in her practice regularly, and says that women who have been sexually violated need to return to feeling like they’re in control of their bodies in order to heal. Women and girls who are raped and then refused the choice to prevent or end pregnancies feel “that they have lack of control of their own lives,” Assaf says. “They end up feeling that that is normal, as they do with the other kinds of violence they suffer.”

Siliezar observes that control over women’s reproductive lives extends from the state to the household. Many men in Honduras, she says, “cannot tolerate that a woman is not going to have a baby.” Siliezar works with victims of violence, and often hears that men fly into a rage if they find out their female partners are using contraception. Sometimes, the women are beaten. One woman Siliezar met tried to take a break from more than a decade of childbearing by using birth control pills. When her husband found them, Siliezar says, he forced her—his wife and a mother of six—to drink the pills with toilet water.

The United Nations and other human rights groups called on Honduras to change its abortion law in 2017 to allow the procedure in the cases of rape and incest, or where the pregnancy posed a threat to the pregnant woman’s life or health. But the Catholic and Evangelical churches rallied against even a minor liberalization of the abortion law, lobbying legislators and bringing their political influence to bear. In the end, the religious groups won—abortion stayed illegal and criminal.

Recently, the government did update the nation’s penal code: Later this year, Honduras is expected todecreasethe penalty for violence against women, to between one and four years in jail, according to local news reports. The Honduran government has spent decades making it difficult for women to assert control over their own bodies, even after they survive violence. Now, that same government is poised to make it easier for perpetrators of violence to walk free.

***

If you’re a woman in Honduraswho wants to leave all of this for America, there are two ways to do it: You can go through formal means and wait, perhaps for decades, to see whether someone says “come in,” or you can try to cross the border without documentation.

For Honduran women who are victims of violence and are seeking asylum, both these routes are highly uncertain. Asylumprotections have long extended to those who flee their countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group; domestic violence survivors have been found to be a particular social group, and have been granted asylum on that basis. A year ago, Attorney General Jeff Sessions tried to make it harder for victims of domestic and gang violence to get asylum; while he succeeded in giving judges less leeway and making these claims more time-consuming to obtain, women who survive domestic violence can still apply for asylum in the United States.

But even if a Honduran woman meets the requirements of asylum, there is no “asylum-seeker” visa she can apply for from Honduras to enter the United States; she must have left her country first before applying. This is one reason so many people from the Northern Triangle are caravaning to Mexico and trying to get across the U.S. border. From 2012 to 2017, the number of asylum applications filed by citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in the United States rose nearly 800 percent, from just over 3,500 in 2012 to more than 31,000 in 2017. According to researchers at Syracuse University, the percentage of asylum applications denied by U.S. immigration courts has been on the rise since 2012—hitting 65 percent in 2018. That year, immigration judges granted only 21 percent of asylum cases from Hondurans.

Facing these obstacles, some women, like Heydi Garcia Giron, 34, wait. Heydi has never left her hometown of Tegucigalpa, let alone Honduras, but she knows she needs to go. The scar across her shoulder, extending across her neck, is a daily reminder. Heydi has what you might call “presence” if she were a politician or an actress; she draws your gaze, holds your attention. When she says, “I am a warrior,” you believe her.

Heydi was orphaned at 6 when her mother died during pregnancy, and her father, a drug dealer, was in jail. Before that, when she was an even younger girl, Heydi was raped by her father’s best friend, she told me. After that, when she was in boarding school, she was sexually abused by her own best friend’s father. Heydi had a son with a man she spent nine years with, and then a daughter with a man she was with for another nine years. She almost had another baby, but her daughter’s fatherbeat her so badly during the pregnancy that she miscarried. He’s the man who finally tried to kill her, attacking her with a machetelast fall. He cut the nerves in her arm, and so she still struggles to use it. He nearly severed her jugular.

It happened on the day after her birthday, and he was angry she had met up with a friend. “Do you think that you own yourself?” Heydi says he yelled at her before he grabbed the machete. “I am going to show you how to respect men.” As he brought the machete down on Heydi’s neck, their 5-year-old daughter threw herself at his feet, begging him to stop. He paused to comfort her and pet her head, telling her it was over. That’s when Heydi, one hand holding her throat closed, dragged herself away and ran. At the hospital, Heydi says a doctor told her, “If you believe in God, start praying, because I do not think you are going to make it.” She thought about her children, and “at that moment, my world just fell.”

But Heydi did make it. When she woke up in a hospital room, a doctor asked her some basic questions to check her consciousness, and then told her not to talk so her throat could heal. “I just told him, ‘God gives his hardest battles to the toughest soldiers,’” Heydi recalls.

By the time the anesthesia wore off, “everything hurt, even my hair hurt,” she says. Her heart hurt, too. Her daughter was having nightmares, waking up screaming, “Dad, don’t kill my mom.” A mysterious woman showed up in Heydi’s hospital room, and said she was sent by Heydi’s now-ex to check up on her. “I was scared,” Heydi said. “If he could send someone to the hospital to see how I was doing, he could send someone else to kill me.” She filed a police report, and the case against her husband is moving forward. But there’s no guaranteeing the outcome or his sentence—or that members of his family or friend network won’t make Heydi pay.

And so Heydi, like others, wants to seek asylum in the United States.

“We are seeing a mass migration from Honduras from women who are fleeing everything from domestic violence to violence by gang members, and often there’s overlap between the two,” says Lori Adams, director at the Immigration Intervention Project at Sanctuary for Families, a U.S. organization that works with victims of gender-based violence, including on asylum claims. “Women are leaving with no other option but to flee north, even knowing that the journey itself might be life-threatening, but knowing it’s a near certainty that they will be killed if they remain.”

Heydi gathered all the evidence and paperwork, but she says when she went to the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, officials referred her to a U.S. government call center, which just referred her to a website. A friend at the embassy also told her to try the Mexican Embassy and request asylum there. But Mexico, she says, is just as dangerous. If she could stay in Honduras, she would. But “violence here in Honduras is unbearable,” she says. “It is my country. I love it and it hurts, but it is the truth.” (The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa did not respond to a request for comment.)

Heydi has heard about the caravans and those who walk or take boats across the border, but she has also heard it’s dangerous and isn’t willing to put her children through that risk. And so, she waits. “My life was gray,” Heydi says. “I don’t want my children’s lives to be gray. I want to break that chain and see the light.”

In mid-April, I watched a group of a migrants depart from the San Pedro Sula bus station just as the dawn light broke through the gray morning. Those with money for a bus ticket had left the night before, extending fistfuls of cash for a place on one of several overcrowded coaches that would take them to the border. Those who couldn’t pay arrived at the station in a steady stream, gathering through the night as they waited for an appointed leader to say it was time to go. Napping men pulled their baseball caps down over their eyes. Women fedbabies in a state of half-sleep, while family members lolled in the nearby grass, counting down the minutes until they had to wish their loved ones farewell. When the caravan of several hundred Hondurans from across the country set out on foot, young mothers walked with hips jutting sideways from the weight of sleep-heavy children. Women took hold of tiny hands when it was time for the group to cross the highway. Some pushed baby carriages draped with blankets.

Three months earlier, Marlin Alcantar Lobo, 32, had been one of those women. She was also seeking a new home in the United States, but she did what Heydi wouldn’t: She took her children and her partner, and they walked with the caravan that left San Pedro Sula on January 15. The choice, Marlin says, was made for her when her 9-year-old daughter was raped. She only found out when a doctor’s exam for an unrelated health issue discovered a perianal wart, a sexually transmitted infection that the girl would need removed. The rapist was Marlin’s mother’s boyfriend, she said.

Marlin and her family stayed for the criminal trial, even while her own mother turned on her. “She says I’m a bitch and that my daughter is a prostitute,” Marlin says. “My mom said she was going to give my address to his siblings so they can go after me and kill me.” He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, but there’s no assurance he will serve the whole term. And his family continues to threaten Marlin, saying “that I was going to pay for what I had done to their brother,” as she puts it. She especially worries because she knows they own guns.

“Shortly after he pled guilty, I heard about the caravans. I couldn’t take it anymore,” Marlin says. “It was pain after pain, it was tears after tears, and I could no longer bear having that life.”

They walked for days through the rain and the cold; sometimes they hitchhiked. Border guards in Mexico tear-gassed them, leaving the children sobbing. “They cried and just kept calling, ‘Mom, Mom,’ and I just asked for forgiveness and also asked God for forgiveness for putting them through this ordeal,” Marlin says. In Mexico, they got bare-bones legal advice from volunteer lawyers; they were also put in jail for a night before making their way farther north. “I never felt safe,” Marlin says.

Marlin is currently in Mexico with her children, all their names on a waitlist for asylum in the United States. It’s hard to fill the days when you’re waiting for your life to begin, but it could be worse. Her daughter smiles again now. If they can just make it over that border, maybe her daughter will be safe; maybe she’ll have opportunities. Maybe her son will see there are different ways for men to be. Maybe, Marlin says, they will have the choice to become whoever they want.

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[party-hard-or-die]

Ireland, Enthusiastic About Gay Rights, Frets Over Abortion

CARRIGTWOHILL, Ireland — When it comes to the Roman Catholic Church, Judy Donnelly has been something of a rebel over the years. Like much of Ireland, she supported contraception, voted in a referendum to legalize divorce and, three years ago, backed same-sex marriage.

That last vote was joyously celebrated around the country and the world, placing Ireland, which elected its first gay prime minister last year, at the vanguard of what many called a social revolution.

But when it comes to the historic decision on legalizing abortion, which will be put to the nation on Friday, Ms. Donnelly says she will vote no, as will enough of her countrymen and women, including lawmakers across the political divide, to throw the referendum result into doubt. Polls for the May 25 vote have narrowed so tightly in recent weeks that “yes” and “no” campaigners are not able to confidently predict a victory.

Ms. Donnelly, 46, who works in a pub in Carrigtwohill, found no contradiction in giving gay men and lesbians their marital rights, a triumphant affirmation of their social inclusion — Ireland decriminalized homosexuality only in 1993 — while denying what many say is a woman’s right to decide what to do with her body.

“It’s just not the same,” she said, pausing as she struggled to articulate what exactly was the difference between the two. “It’s about values and morals. It’s just not the same,” she repeated, before lapsing into silence.

The curious dynamic underscores the complex reality that even if Ireland is becoming more culturally liberal in many respects, opposition to abortion is more deeply ingrained. The reasons are complicated and nuanced: a history of female oppression; the church’s continuing grip over sexual education; a malaise over discussions about sex and sexual health; and very private experiences around miscarriages, fetal deformities, adoption difficulties and spousal disagreements over whether to keep a baby.

A big part of the problem, many Irish say, is that there is a legacy of sex being a taboo subject and that the negative consequences of sexual activity, including infections or unplanned pregnancies, are seen through a moral lens rather than as health issues. Even though 40 percent of children in the country are born to unmarried mothers and fathers (about the same as in the United States), many say there is still some stigma around unmarried mothers.

Ironically, it took a gay prime minister, Leo Varadkar, to call for this referendum that will essentially ask voters to repeal a 1983 amendment to the Constitution that gives a fetus the same right to life as the mother and allow unrestricted terminations of pregnancies for up to 12 weeks.

“I know I come across as a hypocrite,” said Darren Haddock, 48, a cabdriver who initially planned to vote in favor of abortion because he saw it as a woman’s right. But now, he said, “We’re talking about hurting a life.”

The referendum on gay marriage was different, he said. “The time was right for Ireland to come out of the Dark Ages, to break the shackles from the church, and it was a victory for people to stand up to it,” he said.

Ms. Donnelly, who recently divorced, voted in favor of same-sex marriage because her sister-in-law was part of the first gay couple to get married in England. Another cousin is gay, and recently got married, too.

When it came to abortion, she reflected on some of her other relatives who had miscarriages, having wanted children badly. “And then you have people who cross over to England to get an abortion,” she said, although she said there were some exceptions, as in the cases of rape or incest. “But just because you made a boo-boo doesn’t mean you get an abortion.”

Still, she voted in three previous referendums allowing women to have abortions if their lives were in danger, to travel abroad for the procedure and to have access to information about it. The legalization of abortion, she said, would “make it easier for people to say, ‘Oh, I’ll just go and rid of it.’”

Ms. Donnelly spoke as an older woman slowly pushed a baby carriage up the street, carrying two baby dolls under plastic wrapping to protect against a cold drizzle. Mr. Haddock recalled seeing the woman nearly four decades ago, when he was a child. She had had several miscarriages, he explained, and hadn’t stopped pushing the carriage ever since.

For Una Mullally, who edited the book “Repeal the 8th,” a reference to the Eighth Amendment that essentially bans abortion in Ireland, the answer to the dichotomy over gay and women’s rights is control.

“Misogyny is much more embedded in Irish life than homophobia,” she said. “Ireland has a terrible history of oppressing women, and the legacy of the Catholic Church is control,” she added, referring to the thousands of unmarried women who became pregnant and were placed into servitude or mental asylums since the 18th century until as recent as the mid-1990s.

Even when the country in 1985 legalized condoms to be sold without prescriptions, she said, it was to deal with the AIDS epidemic, rather than to give women their reproductive rights. “Women’s autonomy has always been viewed with suspicion or through a lens that is very bizarre,” she said.

In Cork, Ireland’s second-biggest city, placards for opposing campaigns were attached to almost every street lamp, but the mood was subdued. Most people interviewed for this article didn’t want their names published; many of them hadn’t even spoken about the subject with their friends, let alone their families.

“Oh God, no,” exclaimed a 24-year-old barista named Maedhbh who worked in a coffee shop and wore a nose ring and a bright yellow sweatshirt with the words “Bitter Lemon” printed on it.

“My grandparents don’t want to engage in it,” she said, just as her grandfather Paddy walked in. When asked about the referendum, he stopped in his tracks and pretended to be hard of hearing. “You could be shot for giving an answer,” a customer standing nearby said smirking, before rushing out the door. “There’s a saying in Irish: ‘Whatever you say, say nothing.’ ”

While the church’s influence has fallen drastically in most spheres of Irish life, its hold on sexual education remains strong — the institution still controls most schools in the country.

Even young, internet-savvy Irish in their early 20s spoke about receiving more of a lesson in biology, and a cursory one at that, than instructions about sexual health and safety.

“When we were 16 we had two lads, monks, come in to talk about abstinence, and that one in 10 people get pregnant and that you can still get STDs from wearing condoms,” said Ben Collins, a 22-year-old college student, who plans to vote to legalize abortion. “It was basically fear. The Catholic influence is so big here, but you don’t even realize it.”

Deirdre Allinen, 32, recalled sitting in a classroom and having nuns wheel in a television before being a shown a grisly video about abortion. “Then we’d say the rosary and stand around praying,” she said. “The way it’s taught to us, it’s still in me. The curriculum is still hidden in our brains. It took me a long time to shake it off.”

As a result, Ireland has never had a conversation about sex being a positive thing, said Will St Leger, an artist and an H.I.V. activist who is on a crusade to reform sex education in schools.

“A lot of these issues around sexual health and reproductive rights all stem from a lack of information and shame,” he said. “That’s the biggest element — what we do with our bodies and with other people carries shame.”

“We see ourselves as global, checking in at airports, L.G.B.T., Eurovision,” he said, and Ireland as a mecca for tech giants like Google, Facebook and Apple. “But this crushing theocratic doctrine put on Irish society has permeated right to the core,” he added, “even to the person who doesn’t go to church: that sex is seen as a sin. It’s in our D.N.A.”

The dearth of a proper national conversation is part of the reason Ireland is seeing a surge in sexually transmitted diseases, Mr. St Leger said, with 15- to 24-year-olds, for example, making up half of Ireland’s number of reported annual chlamydia infections.

The nation is also in the throes of an H.I.V. crisis, he added, pointing to opinion polls that show one-quarter of respondents are not properly informed about the virus. At least a quarter of respondents still believe they can catch it by kissing or sitting on a toilet seat. And for all the excitement around the vote on same-sex marriage, Mr. St Leger pointed out, the government has since 2009 cut the budget in half for Gay Men’s Health Service, which provides H.I.V. testing, screenings and treatments for sexually-transmitted infections, and outreach.

The same-sex marriage vote was “all about love and relationships,” he said. “But we don’t talk about sexual health.”

Still, sexual education has improved from Ms. Donnelly’s time, when nuns taught her class: “If a lad sat on your lap, you’d put a newspaper on your lap. That was the contraception of the day.”

In recent years, Ireland has seen some of the biggest turnarounds in public opinion in the Western world. In 1992, for example, while homosexuality was still considered a crime in the country, participants in a gay pride parade in Cork wore masks so as not to embarrass relatives. In 2018, Ireland has a gay prime minister, same-sex marriage is allowed and some of the world’s most progressive bills concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are being put forward in Parliament.

Similarly, attitudes toward abortion shifted drastically after Savita Halappanavar died in 2012 of complications from a septic miscarriage. She had asked for a termination, but the hospital refused her request, initially judging that her life was not in danger. The baby was stillborn, and Ms. Halappanavar died a few days later.

For many voters, the referendum over abortion is, ultimately, a deeply private choice.

In 2015, after the same-sex marriage vote, “it was like Glastonbury; it was party central,” recalled Mr. Haddock. But next week, he said, “no matter who wins or loses, there’s not going to be a party.”

The post Ireland, Enthusiastic About Gay Rights, Frets Over Abortion appeared first on World The News.

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[newestbalance]

Ireland, Enthusiastic About Gay Rights, Frets Over Abortion

CARRIGTWOHILL, Ireland — When it comes to the Roman Catholic Church, Judy Donnelly has been something of a rebel over the years. Like much of Ireland, she supported contraception, voted in a referendum to legalize divorce and, three years ago, backed same-sex marriage.

That last vote was joyously celebrated around the country and the world, placing Ireland, which elected its first gay prime minister last year, at the vanguard of what many called a social revolution.

But when it comes to the historic decision on legalizing abortion, which will be put to the nation on Friday, Ms. Donnelly says she will vote no, as will enough of her countrymen and women, including lawmakers across the political divide, to throw the referendum result into doubt. Polls for the May 25 vote have narrowed so tightly in recent weeks that “yes” and “no” campaigners are not able to confidently predict a victory.

Ms. Donnelly, 46, who works in a pub in Carrigtwohill, found no contradiction in giving gay men and lesbians their marital rights, a triumphant affirmation of their social inclusion — Ireland decriminalized homosexuality only in 1993 — while denying what many say is a woman’s right to decide what to do with her body.

“It’s just not the same,” she said, pausing as she struggled to articulate what exactly was the difference between the two. “It’s about values and morals. It’s just not the same,” she repeated, before lapsing into silence.

The curious dynamic underscores the complex reality that even if Ireland is becoming more culturally liberal in many respects, opposition to abortion is more deeply ingrained. The reasons are complicated and nuanced: a history of female oppression; the church’s continuing grip over sexual education; a malaise over discussions about sex and sexual health; and very private experiences around miscarriages, fetal deformities, adoption difficulties and spousal disagreements over whether to keep a baby.

A big part of the problem, many Irish say, is that there is a legacy of sex being a taboo subject and that the negative consequences of sexual activity, including infections or unplanned pregnancies, are seen through a moral lens rather than as health issues. Even though 40 percent of children in the country are born to unmarried mothers and fathers (about the same as in the United States), many say there is still some stigma around unmarried mothers.

Ironically, it took a gay prime minister, Leo Varadkar, to call for this referendum that will essentially ask voters to repeal a 1983 amendment to the Constitution that gives a fetus the same right to life as the mother and allow unrestricted terminations of pregnancies for up to 12 weeks.

“I know I come across as a hypocrite,” said Darren Haddock, 48, a cabdriver who initially planned to vote in favor of abortion because he saw it as a woman’s right. But now, he said, “We’re talking about hurting a life.”

The referendum on gay marriage was different, he said. “The time was right for Ireland to come out of the Dark Ages, to break the shackles from the church, and it was a victory for people to stand up to it,” he said.

Ms. Donnelly, who recently divorced, voted in favor of same-sex marriage because her sister-in-law was part of the first gay couple to get married in England. Another cousin is gay, and recently got married, too.

When it came to abortion, she reflected on some of her other relatives who had miscarriages, having wanted children badly. “And then you have people who cross over to England to get an abortion,” she said, although she said there were some exceptions, as in the cases of rape or incest. “But just because you made a boo-boo doesn’t mean you get an abortion.”

Still, she voted in three previous referendums allowing women to have abortions if their lives were in danger, to travel abroad for the procedure and to have access to information about it. The legalization of abortion, she said, would “make it easier for people to say, ‘Oh, I’ll just go and rid of it.’”

Ms. Donnelly spoke as an older woman slowly pushed a baby carriage up the street, carrying two baby dolls under plastic wrapping to protect against a cold drizzle. Mr. Haddock recalled seeing the woman nearly four decades ago, when he was a child. She had had several miscarriages, he explained, and hadn’t stopped pushing the carriage ever since.

For Una Mullally, who edited the book “Repeal the 8th,” a reference to the Eighth Amendment that essentially bans abortion in Ireland, the answer to the dichotomy over gay and women’s rights is control.

“Misogyny is much more embedded in Irish life than homophobia,” she said. “Ireland has a terrible history of oppressing women, and the legacy of the Catholic Church is control,” she added, referring to the thousands of unmarried women who became pregnant and were placed into servitude or mental asylums since the 18th century until as recent as the mid-1990s.

Even when the country in 1985 legalized condoms to be sold without prescriptions, she said, it was to deal with the AIDS epidemic, rather than to give women their reproductive rights. “Women’s autonomy has always been viewed with suspicion or through a lens that is very bizarre,” she said.

In Cork, Ireland’s second-biggest city, placards for opposing campaigns were attached to almost every street lamp, but the mood was subdued. Most people interviewed for this article didn’t want their names published; many of them hadn’t even spoken about the subject with their friends, let alone their families.

“Oh God, no,” exclaimed a 24-year-old barista named Maedhbh who worked in a coffee shop and wore a nose ring and a bright yellow sweatshirt with the words “Bitter Lemon” printed on it.

“My grandparents don’t want to engage in it,” she said, just as her grandfather Paddy walked in. When asked about the referendum, he stopped in his tracks and pretended to be hard of hearing. “You could be shot for giving an answer,” a customer standing nearby said smirking, before rushing out the door. “There’s a saying in Irish: ‘Whatever you say, say nothing.’ ”

While the church’s influence has fallen drastically in most spheres of Irish life, its hold on sexual education remains strong — the institution still controls most schools in the country.

Even young, internet-savvy Irish in their early 20s spoke about receiving more of a lesson in biology, and a cursory one at that, than instructions about sexual health and safety.

“When we were 16 we had two lads, monks, come in to talk about abstinence, and that one in 10 people get pregnant and that you can still get STDs from wearing condoms,” said Ben Collins, a 22-year-old college student, who plans to vote to legalize abortion. “It was basically fear. The Catholic influence is so big here, but you don’t even realize it.”

Deirdre Allinen, 32, recalled sitting in a classroom and having nuns wheel in a television before being a shown a grisly video about abortion. “Then we’d say the rosary and stand around praying,” she said. “The way it’s taught to us, it’s still in me. The curriculum is still hidden in our brains. It took me a long time to shake it off.”

As a result, Ireland has never had a conversation about sex being a positive thing, said Will St Leger, an artist and an H.I.V. activist who is on a crusade to reform sex education in schools.

“A lot of these issues around sexual health and reproductive rights all stem from a lack of information and shame,” he said. “That’s the biggest element — what we do with our bodies and with other people carries shame.”

“We see ourselves as global, checking in at airports, L.G.B.T., Eurovision,” he said, and Ireland as a mecca for tech giants like Google, Facebook and Apple. “But this crushing theocratic doctrine put on Irish society has permeated right to the core,” he added, “even to the person who doesn’t go to church: that sex is seen as a sin. It’s in our D.N.A.”

The dearth of a proper national conversation is part of the reason Ireland is seeing a surge in sexually transmitted diseases, Mr. St Leger said, with 15- to 24-year-olds, for example, making up half of Ireland’s number of reported annual chlamydia infections.

The nation is also in the throes of an H.I.V. crisis, he added, pointing to opinion polls that show one-quarter of respondents are not properly informed about the virus. At least a quarter of respondents still believe they can catch it by kissing or sitting on a toilet seat. And for all the excitement around the vote on same-sex marriage, Mr. St Leger pointed out, the government has since 2009 cut the budget in half for Gay Men’s Health Service, which provides H.I.V. testing, screenings and treatments for sexually-transmitted infections, and outreach.

The same-sex marriage vote was “all about love and relationships,” he said. “But we don’t talk about sexual health.”

Still, sexual education has improved from Ms. Donnelly’s time, when nuns taught her class: “If a lad sat on your lap, you’d put a newspaper on your lap. That was the contraception of the day.”

In recent years, Ireland has seen some of the biggest turnarounds in public opinion in the Western world. In 1992, for example, while homosexuality was still considered a crime in the country, participants in a gay pride parade in Cork wore masks so as not to embarrass relatives. In 2018, Ireland has a gay prime minister, same-sex marriage is allowed and some of the world’s most progressive bills concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are being put forward in Parliament.

Similarly, attitudes toward abortion shifted drastically after Savita Halappanavar died in 2012 of complications from a septic miscarriage. She had asked for a termination, but the hospital refused her request, initially judging that her life was not in danger. The baby was stillborn, and Ms. Halappanavar died a few days later.

For many voters, the referendum over abortion is, ultimately, a deeply private choice.

In 2015, after the same-sex marriage vote, “it was like Glastonbury; it was party central,” recalled Mr. Haddock. But next week, he said, “no matter who wins or loses, there’s not going to be a party.”

The post Ireland, Enthusiastic About Gay Rights, Frets Over Abortion appeared first on World The News.

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