#the women of the outsiders

[kaytheday]

Sandy Head Canon's

Sandy was Sodapop's girlfriend that cheated on him in case you forgot. I have a lot of thoughts about that and will probably post them here later.

I UPDATED THIS TO BE BETTER. Masterlist linked here. Comment or PM to be added to the tag-list. HC's under the cut!

Her full name is Sandra May Phillips. Her mother named her Sandra because she grew up in Florida by the ocean. 

Sandy and her mom moved away from their dad when she was twelve because of his ‘job’. Though by now, she is pretty sure they came to Tulsa in an attempt to run away from her father. 

Her mom works and tries her best to provide for Sandy. They have a lot of family in Florida but none in Tulsa. 

She’s got white blonde hair and these ginormous blue eyes. Ocean color eyes that seem to take up her whole face. Her facial features are petite, she’s got a button nose and a nice smile. She’s also pretty skinny, she’s got a thin frame that looks almost like a child. She gets pretty self-conscious about her size, small arms, and child-like frame.

That’s why she was befriended by Evie in the first place. She came into school one day looking like a bit of a lost kitten. Small, wide-eyed, almost hungry for the scraps anyone could give her but apologetic at being there at all. 

Evie has a history of adopting people to her little group. Sandy was a quick earmark. 

She likes to wear baby blue dresses. Her mother told her once that they go well with her eyes and she loves to impress her mother. 

She also adopts the cowgirl jeans, no-bra, and crop top look that many of the hickish girls have down in Tulsa in the summertime. Soda thinks this is sexy and claims it is her best look. Soda got her a secondhand pair of boots once. 

Sandy is naturally quiet. Her mom is never home so she grew up not talking a whole lot. She got pretty good at listening because during the times when her mom was home, she just wanted to talk. 

This was also why Sodapop was so infatuated with her. Not only did he think she was drop dead gorgeous he just enjoyed the challenge of trying to get her to talk about herself and make her laugh. 

When they do get together, it is easy to see why they fit well together. First of all they are both gorgeous and a lot of people say they look like a movie star couple. Secondly, Soda can talk and get all rowdy and Sandy is a great listener and can bring him down a level. His constant talking, chattering, fidgeting, moving, and his need to do something also helps to drown out the noise in her mind (sometimes!) 

She also has some sort of generalized anxiety disorder. She gets pretty nervous about things. Being somewhere she shouldn’t, saying something that isn’t accepted, being too much of a bother, etc.  

She also deals with various self esteem issues because of her size, hair, moving during her formative years, money, SES status, and probably her mother. 

As she got into her teenage years, these self esteem and anxiety issues started manifesting in the form of various substance abuse. 

Originally, this substance abuse started with the use of sleeping pills. 

Sandy has had a hard time sleeping her entire life. As a kid, she was left alone in the house a lot and was scared of everything that made a sound at night. Because of this, She often sleeps better when someone is there, especially someone who she perceives as being able to protect her. She slept really good the first night she ever slept over at Soda’s and it has baffled her to no end. 

As she got into her teenage years, she started to use substances to help her sleep. Her mom was working all the time and was usually gone on weeknights and Soda can’t always be around, especially after his parents died and Ponyboy needed him more. Her girlfriends can’t always have her over, so what is one thing she can do? Sleeping pills. She used to only do sleeping pills on the nights when she had a hard time falling asleep, but then it just became every night. It was her mother who introduced her to them. 

Then she figured she could use pills to quiet her thoughts during the day as well. 

It starts with over the counter painkillers. Just a little something to take the edge off when she goes out with her friends. A little something to drown out those thousand tiny voices in her head that are constantly telling her she isn’t good enough. That all her friends are cooler, stronger, prettier, and better than her, and that Sodapop is only dating her out of pity and doesn’t really love her. 

She just needs something to help her actually feel okay when those voices tell her all the things that she isn’t

Oftentimes she’ll go the entire night without feeling bad but as soon as she finishes hanging out with Sodapop and she gets home to her empty house, those thoughts start. They become so intense, threatening to eat her from the inside out. 

What if he finds out about how terrible I really am? Why is he even dating me? He’s only going out with me because he feels bad. He wouldn’t love me if he knew the real me. What if he finds out that I’m not normal and need these painkillers to feel okay?

Then she’ll take more pills to help her go to sleep. 

The same thing happens whenever she comes home after hanging out with her girlfriends. 

She moved to Tulsa around twelve years old. She doesn’t grow up with any of these girls. 

This only adds to her self-hatred and her self esteem issues. She feels like an outsider within her own group of friends simply because she cannot share those childhood stories and she doesn’t know the pieces of Tulsa the way the rest of them do. Technically, Tulsa isn’t her childhood home, a town in Florida is. 

I might do another post on the reasons Sandy and Soda break up but for the most part it has a lot to do with her substance abuse. It starts distancing her from Soda and her other friends originally. This is because she lies to them about where she is going to get these pills and when she is taking them. It also had a lot to do with her paranoia about Soda finding out that she was using pills. But she is the most terrified of Soda finding out why she needs them. Of him finding out that something is wrong with her because she can’t feel okay without them. 

She is terrified of anyone finding out that she uses and isn’t as pure as everyone makes her out to be. 

I think Soda definitely idolizes and romanticizes her and the idea of her. Mostly because she is small and blonde with those big eyes, very perfect girlfriend material. He has this notion that she is pure and innocent like a child. Sandy knows this and is worried that when he finds out about the pills that this illusion of her that he has will be shattered and he won’t love her anymore. 

Ultimately, at the root, their breakup has a lot to do with Sandy’s self-esteem issues and paranoia. This poor girl has nobody to go to about any of these problems. She feels truly alone and like an imposter to everyone in her life.

Overall, I just have a lot of thoughts about Sandy, especially how she is demonized in this fandom. I think she was a complicated girl with a lot of problems who was put in a tough spot. Let me know what you think!

TAGLIST: @ratwife77

[dootznbootz]

Sorry, not sorry but I see this too often and it bothers me :)

Before people get mad: Notice how I put “Me and Penelope fans” there? I know there's others. this ain't about you <3

edit: This is about how people in the fandom prioritize Odysseus and Telemachus (and even Diomedes, who is not in the Odyssey) despite the Odyssey also being HER story as well. I've seen many fics about Odysseus and Telemachus in their youth, and never really seen that for Penelope.

[tiffanyachings]

what i love about the queer women rep in tlt is that so much of it is just like. gideon reading her titty magazines but getting zero action. ianthe trying to kiss harrow and getting rejected. harrow begging a hallucination of a corpse to have sex with her and getting rejected. marta turning down judith, judith turning down corona, corona unsuccessfully flirting with camilla. nona's one-sided attraction to corona and camilla. camilla’s third-wheeling (x3) and plain lack of interest in getting it on with anyone. gideon and ianthe fighting over harrow when they’re both losing out to a frozen ice bimbo. ‘but she never gave you anything. you never got anywhere.’ ‘did you???’ << honestly sums it up.

[jq37]

Siobhan plotting with Ify to take ducks and box Trapp out and then Trapp later just giving her a duck because she's too short to get one herself even with three boxes. Her little cry face. Truly a gentleman and a scholar.

[kaytheday]

Kathy Head Canon's

Kathy is Two-Bit's supposed girlfriend. Here are a couple Head Canon's about her.

Master list link. Comment or PM to be added to the taglist. More under the cut!

Her full name is Kathrine L. Bennett. The L doesn’t stand for anything, it’s because her fathers name was Lawrence.

Almost all her friends and family call her Kathy for short. Two-Bit will shorten it even further and call her Kath or Kat. She yells at him but she secretly likes it. 

She’s got a mom and a dad and three little sisters and one little brother. Her mom works as a nurse and her dad works at a mill. They both work full-time so she is tasked with taking care of her siblings almost all of the time. 

She also had two older boy cousins that lived with them up until they finished high school. They were never good kids but they would never let anybody hurt her. 

Kathy is in all honors classes and is very good in school. She sees it as her ticket out and she’s always looking to please her parents who don’t seem to have much time for her as it is. 

She likes feeling useful

She has wavy blonde hair and brown eyes. She is pretty curvy and is a good size. 

Her family is very poor so Kathy is very good at mending her own clothes. She wears homemade flour sack dresses with workers overcoats that are mended to look good for a girl. 

Kathy has been friends with Evie since they were kids. They balance each other out.

Kathy is a natural caretaker, that's why she gets along with Evie. She is definitely the mom friend of the group. 

But she is very funny. Kathy has a very good sense of humor and has no problem making jokes at any time. This is what draws Two-Bit to her, she was the only one laughing at his jokes. 

She wants to go into nursing like her mother and it figures because she has been a caretaker all her life. 

TAGLIST: @ratwife77

[outdoornudist]

[chlobody]

California roads

[mommy-gift1]

[eggplantgifs]

2024 Japanese Nationals: Top 12 Women's Short Programs

Kaori Sakamoto 78.92

Mao Shimada 75.58

Mone Chiba 74.72

Wakaba Higuchi 71.05

Rino Matsuike 70.79

Yuna Aoki 70.07

Rion Sumiyoshi 69.58

Saki Miyake 68.54

Hana Yoshida 68.42

Kaoruko Wada 66.70

Rinka Watanabe 65.96

Mako Yamashita 65.13

[rmbunnie]

It's most likely just Starlin trying to get to Jason dying faster because he did not like Robin, but the whole "Jason's spiraling because of his grief for his parents" thing they were trying to spin was honestly really weird, not supported by the rest of the run INCLUDING the parts Starlin wrote, and kinda reads like an unreliable narrator situation because all of the information supporting it is given through Bruce's narration, him speculating on Jason's thoughts and actions.

The plot thread of Jason's grief for his family affecting his behavior shows up like TWO issues after Jason first becomes Robin back when Collins was writing, and gets sorted out after one conversation where Jason gets to confront Bruce about hiding his father's death from him for 6 months. After that Jason is behaving normally until they encounter three predators in a row, and each time Bruce insists that they can't do anything because of The Rules and assorted red tape/diplomatic immunity plotlines. (The sister of a woman who got dismembered actually tricked the violent-misogynist killer who dismembered her sister (and then got his serial killings dismissed through a technicality) into attacking her, and ends up killing him in self-defense, and then Jason's like "seems fair" and Bruce is like "no. it's NOT. we need to follow laws and not take justice into our own hands. which like wtf Bruce! you are a vigilante who just used a custom tank to fight an evil televangelist! who then got ripped to shreds by his followers while you watched!)

Bruce kinda just decides with Alfred that it must be grief upsetting him and not the dozens of brutally killed women and their predatory killers who the law inexplicably protected, (all written by Starlin, so retconning it for DitF like five issues later would be an odd move) but the only text claiming that's why Jason was upset is from Bruce's POV and through Alfred's dialogue. Jason himself doesn't display any signs of grief in the story itself, or even act or speak in a way that alludes to Catherine and Willis beyond looking at a picture of them and smiling fondly while he sorts through their possessions. He kinda just happens upon the box with his mother's info by chance, and is like ok i guess we're doing mom searches now. He was only going for a walk through his old neighborhood, not actively searching out info on his family. When Jason is deciding whether or not to run off without telling Bruce, he considers telling him and then goes "no, all he cares about is being Batman, he wouldn't even understand why I want to see my mom." Which, I mean, "Bruce wouldn't get it" is a REALLY odd angle if the sole motivator for spiraling, then getting benched* and running away to search out his bio-mom, was because he was mourning his dead parents, a thing he notably has in common with Bruce. That statement only really makes sense if he's thinking about a different thing that was greatly upsetting to him that Bruce brushed past, like maybe a combo of hiding the murder of his dad for half a year and allowing several cases involving sexual violence to freely develop body counts in the name of the law.

Lots of people have written about how Jason's stay in the manor might have seemed dependent on being Robin with how he was kinda just scooped up, but (if we're including Detective Comics in our characterization,) Bruce had offered to let him resign from Robin and just live with him (a little late, but still. It's worth noting Batman proper shows Jason afraid and uncomfortable at the thought of Dick taking Robin back, which lends more merit to the housing-dependent-on-Robin-misunderstanding interpretation, but canon is pick and choose anyways.) The lack of trust involved in his choice to search out his mom kinda reads like it was bred by more than that alone, and Bruce's prioritization of the law over the protection of the people it ignores is notably upsetting to him in the prior issues. tbh I really do believe the outcomes of those cases could have informed Jason's stance that Bruce's method of justice is ineffective right alongside his own murder and his experiences in Lost Days.

It would make sense for Bruce to not consider his own actions while he's thinking through things that would upset Jason, because from his point of view the things there that were bothering Jason were the criminals alone, not the way that the methods with which they were approaching their crimes continually led to the perpetrators evading actual justice. During the point in DitF where he's thinking through motivations for Jason's running away because something isn't adding up for HIM, the idea doesn't so much as cross his mind. It would also add another layer to Jason's sulkiness upon Bruce's arrival if he held the belief that Bruce is ignoring the consequences his brand of justice has on victims (and the way it's affecting him to helplessly watch it play out), starts to hope that Bruce actually can understand his thought processes/relate to him when he shows up, only to be told to his face that Bruce is prioritizing his style of justice over Jason again. With the way everything that led Jason to his bio-mom was comically circumstantial and the context of the previous issues, it's kind of the ONLY way Death in the Family makes sense to me. Tldr: I feel like the grief claimed as reasoning for Jason's actions leading up to his death is mainly speculation from Bruce and Alfred and the more textually-supported reason for his erratic behavior and lack of trust in Bruce is the lack of intervention in several sensitive cases that led them to worsen unobstructed and eventually permitted them to escalate into casualties in 2 out of 3 cases.

*Also, side note, but the idea that Jason got benched for the Filipe situation, while perfectly reasonable, is not quite spot on. The Filipe situation escalated into the fight in the junkyard where his dad is crushed by a car and Bruce is all "everything you do has consequences" which is kinda big words for a guy whose lack of action indirectly lead to a girls death earlier in the storyline, but true. Jason actally gets benched because he jumps directly into gunfire while fighting the third set of predators and Bruce starts to worry he's getting a little suicidal with it. He baits a guy into shooting at him on purpose again trying to protect mom prospect number 1 later on in DitF, so Bruce might have had a point with that one.

[uncanny-tranny]

I love love love when trans women* give advice to trans men* about """manly""" things and when trans men* return that kindness with advice about """womanly""" things. I love the intracommunity commitment to supporting each other <<3

[kaytheday]

Angela Shepard Head Canon's

Angela Shepard is the younger sister to Curly and Tim Shepard. I learned recently that she was never actually mentioned in The Outsiders, she was only ever mentioned in That Was Then, This Is Now.

ALSO: I am creating a tag-list for this series! Just comment or PM me to be added. Masterlist linked here! More under the cut, thanks!

Angela is about 14 years old and she’s in 10th grade

She has straight black hair and black eyes. Her features are dark and her skin is olive.  

She’s very skinny. She’s the kind of skinny where her wrists are thin and her hip bones jut out underneath her jeans. Her teeth are crooked and she's got this cat-like grin that she learned from Tim and tries to copy to look tough. 

She started wearing heavy black makeup in 8th grade. She wears it in an effort to distract from the fact that almost all her dresses are second-hand. 

Angela is no stranger to dangerous boys. Her brothers are some of the most dangerous guys around for crying out loud, but she tends to be drawn to them. 

Like having a crush on Dallas Winston till she was twelve. 

The first time Tim caught her making out with one of the guys in his gang, he beat the guy up and slapped her. She was twelve. 

 After this incident she tries a little harder to piss Tim off. She took up smoking, got black out drunk, and even lost her virginity to one of the Brumly boys. 

Angela is a very vicious sort of danger. She’s desperate in every sort of way. Desperate to impress her brothers. Desperate to let everyone know she's tough. Desperate to grow up in a world where the deck is stacked against her. 

Her desperation often ends up manifesting itself in stupid dangerous acts against authority. 

Like how she overdosed and Curly had to call someone to pump her stomach.

or hitting on Buck Merril because she knew Tim would be pissed.

Tim gets frustrated because he’s the one parenting. Their dad walked out of the picture a long time ago. Their mom is a drug addict and prostitutes herself out for drug money. Because of this, the parenting responsibilities often fall on him. Tim is hardly the best brother, let alone parent. Especially when it comes to Angela. 

Tim can tell Curly what to do. Curly will listen to him to some degree. Curly respects him. 

Angela is a different story. She's got that defiant look in her eye. The one that dares Tim to challenge her. 

And he just doesn’t know what to do. 

TAGLIST: @ratwife77

[mouseshift]

marble hornets more like idk gay joke

[chlobody]

JOYRIDE [ shot by @ohseephotography ]

[balkanradfem]

I've managed to curate my small misogyny-free space both online and in real life, and now I'm no longer used to misogyny, it's no longer normal to me. So when I accidentally glimpse it, I'm not desensitized to it, I'm always shocked and unbelieving.

If I notice a m*n talking about a woman like she's 'just some ***' I'm immediately aware that this is in fact a demonic creature who needs to be burned. If I see anyone using a slur against women or pretending women are at fault for any of the world's issues, the hair on my neck stands up at the unbelievable amount of hatred.

Anyone implying that women should be in any way controlled, punished, forced to do anything against their will or dedicate their lives to anyone but themselves, is preposterous and villainous to me, I'm at loss that someone could even think that way about a half of the human population who are creators and administrators of life.

I know I am in a bubble, but it feels different knowing deeply in your heart that all of this is not normal, that casual or normalized hatred against women is absolutely insane, that it's sharp and painful and dehumanizing at every turn. It's insane to realize that women just have to live like this, believing all of that is normal, that I once lived like this, wondering what was wrong with me and why I couldn't just be what everyone was expecting me to.

I think still, if I can make a small space without this hate present in it, without anyone or anything implying we should be anything but free, anything but full complete human beings with absolute control over our lives, then we can strengthen and grow these spaces, and get more women in, have more women experience what life is like when hatred is removed. There is hope for women.

[aintnopartylikeaprideparty]

"we need more messy and toxic relationship dynamics in fiction!!" u guys can't even handle the non-canon Rebecca Sugar gregpearl art