#when you love a woman

[duranduratulsa]

Journey - When You Love a Woman (Official Video - 1996)

90's Fest Song 🎵 of the day: When You Love A Woman by Journey (1996) from Trial By Fire #journey #WhenYouLoveAWoman #trialbyfire #90s #90sfest #durandurantulsas3rdannual90sfest

[celebrate-lesbianism]

Dear butches,

You are not second place to a man. You are not an experiment, a backup plan, or a shameful secret. You are someone's first choice and she will love you, all of you, as you are. She will treat you like a serious and equal partner, she will be proud to be with you, and your love will see the light of day 🧡

[uncanny-tranny]

Tall trans girl reading this: you aren't too tall for heels. If you want to wear them, wear them proud. There is nothing more spectacular than a tall woman in heels, and nobody can ever take that away from you, not even yourself 🩷🪻

[paperglader]

they really put alicent in bridgerton blue on the reunion and genuinely expected me to think that she didn’t in fact march all the way to dragonstone to get wifed up? bfr

[ohrackham]

what was the point of lila thinking home was a feeling she didn't deserve and could never earn until she found diego. what was the point of them finding deep, meaningful love in each other. what was the point of lila opening her heart and confessing that all she really wanted was a family with him.

what was the point of developing diego and lila over two seasons, creating such a beautiful, chaotic bond, just to destroy it for no reason.

[shinysobi]

"it was awkward to see colin flirt and behave like a rake" "he gave me the ick" yes ! that is the fucking point!! congratulations! you have the media literacy skills of a fucking monkey because my 4-year old niece could understand it better than you do.

we are supposed to find colin cringey and annoying and get the ick because that is not who he is. he is not anthony, or simon, or even benedict. colin (apart from gregory) is the sweetest of all bridgerton brothers (i'm going by book canon) and his most identifiable character trait is the fact that he values an emotional connection above everything. he runs away to the continent because he wants to feel that emotional connection. he has meaningless sex in brothels because that is the example he has seen growing up, that is the norm. he tries so hard to fit into the norm. he goes out drinking, adopts an entirely new personality, learns flirtations because that is how he thinks he will fit in. he's got armour on, as violet said. he puts everyone's needs above his own, he stops rambling on and boring his family with details of his trip because he knows no one cares. he doesn't talk to anthony or benedict about his heartaches because he knows they still, somewhere in their heart of hearts, view him as the annoying younger brother. he's so devastated by his closest friend not responding to him that he adopts a new personality in the hopes that it might mask the hurt better. he runs after penelope in episode one because he is so attuned to her emotions that he knows she's hurting, and tries to comfort her even when she's spiraling and lashes out. he must have been hurt by her words in the "good night mr bridgerton" scene but he puts it aside to genuinely apologise to her when literally no one else in that family would do that. colin, instead of brooding over his own feelings, goes and corners penelope in her family's garden and apologises to her, disregarding his own hurt at being cruelly dismissed by his close friend.

penelope asking colin to kiss her is not a mark of how "pathetic" she is. she has written and shamed herself in a manner that is almost entirely unsalvageable. she is at her lowest point, and then portia comes in and reminds her of how undesirable she is, and she sinks even lower. she asks colin to kiss her because she sees it as a final act, after which she can quietly wave goodbye to her dreams of ever getting married and leaving her mother's home. colin kisses her because he is also keenly aware of how she's feeling. he knows how hurt she is, he wants to do anything to alleviate that. be it cracking a joke, or kissing her. he is gentle, because he wants it to be something she can dream of when she's by herself. penelope, at this moment, has no hope for herself, and their kiss is an act of letting go for her. no, it's not a pity kiss, no he did not like her after her glow up, he has always loved her. him being struck dumb is a reaction to her physical transformation, nothing more. he does not flirt with her in that ballroom scene, he only approaches her when she's in distress. he's not flirting with her. i can assure you penelope could wear the frumpiest most neon yellow gown of all time and colin would still go "<333 my pen" for her.

colin jumps to catch the balloon's ropes because he sees that penelope is in danger, he does not give a shit about anyone else lmao. he feels temporary relief when he sees eloise run to safety, but the moment he sees penelope in immediate danger, he rushes to take action. afterwards, when he sees that she's being comforted by debling (all my homies hate debling, even if he is aro/ace coded i do NOT claim him) he does not approach her. it would be easy for him to do so, but he does not, because he respects her boundaries. colin bridgerton is the only man in the ton who respects women (the featherington sons-in-laws are too pretty to have a thought) he calls out fife and his friends for treating women like objects and calls them cavalier. the only way he would have been more explicit about his demisexuality was if he tap danced on the club table (entertaining thought, luke newton please)

colin also rapidly takes action, something which no one in the show has done so far. simon would have died instead of accepting his feelings for daphne, daphne would have been content with a loveless marriage forever instead of asking for help. kate would have pushed edwina down the aisle and gone off to india instead of confronting her own feelings, and anthony would have married edwina if she hadn't been brave enough for the three of them to run from the altar and ruin herself. penelope stood on the sidelines for years and loved him quietly because she had no hope of him loving her back. colin, the moment he is assured of his feelings, runs to penelope, almost kisses her in the middle of a ballroom. when he hears that debling is about to propose, he goes to the ball, just to dissuade penelope one more time. he cuts into their dance because he's desperate. when he runs after her carriage, he asks her if she has been proposed to, because he would not have touched her otherwise. he confesses his feelings to her only when he knows that she hasn't gotten engaged to debling, and when she says "but we are friends" he moves away. nothing more. he would have let her go, if she did not return his feelings.

idk whether i should be flattered or offended at people misunderstanding this season because on one hand it is offensive, but on the other hand, it means only smart people get polin. seriously. your minds have been rotted by insta-love and enemies to lovers that you can't even appreciate the innate beauty of friends to lovers. being friends with someone and then holding all those feelings for them. the trepidation of possible rejection. the fulfillment of being loved by the person who knows you the best of them all. the privilege of loving someone whose feelings you know better than your own. love is gentle and kind and yes it is a violent, uprooting force but above all, love does not hurt anyone. it does not hurt you. i could love someone quietly for years and it wouldn't bother me if their feelings were requited or not because my feelings are none of their business and i consider it a privilege to love and be loved by them, even if it is not in the way i would want it to be. polin are privileged in the highest sense. they know each other better than anyone else, they know how to love each other better than anyone else. to think they are rushed or they dont deserve each other is a disservice to both of them. they would be miserable with anyone else.

in other matters, if i see one more person talking smack about luke or nicola behind the safety of their screens i will personally get a bazooka.

[sergle]

man, you know, nobody asked me, but I have such conflicting opinions on some of the fat falin art, where on one hand: it's always nice to see A Fat Body in fanart anywhere + it's being done in positive ways, for funsies and on the other hand, there is something so familiar about how you are automatically The Fat One if you are a woman simply standing next to a more petite woman, bc I've had a 0% hitrate in seeing people change Marcille's body type and keep Falin's, or change both of them. it's just Falin

[hualianschild]

falling for all the loser in love characters in a show/book that try to come off as cool and indifferent is so fun cuz their future partner be doing weird shit and embarrassing themselves and you'll be silently screaming and hiding your face cuz of the second hand embarrassment but then you realize this fool with heart eyes is definitely squealing like they got a high school crush and hypothetically kicking their legs and punching the air over that and that helps you calm down

[brighteuphony]

I love Chiyo- and I kind of headcanon her as a Witch of the Woods (Sands???) archetype- a bitter old woman who has sacrificed too much, experienced and committed more atrocities than anyone can imagine, and who knows the truth about what lies in the hearts of men to live among the villages anymore.

In my AU she's got a pretty dark backstory. Back in time when Villages were just getting established, women weren't allowed to be shinobi in the same capacity as men. There was too much warring and death among the clans to risk women, so they were only ever allowed to serve as spies or medics. (Chiyo started off as a medic).

And like any military/fascist dictatorship, serving the state was more important than anything else- so women who were kunoichi were given missions to steal and return with powerful bloodlines. Even before villages, this was a common fear among clans (which is why so many of them have protective measures and inbreed/arrange matches very carefully).

Chiyo was one such woman, who took a X-rated mission in her youth because she was told it would 'serve her nation'. There was a powerful bloodline whose Kekkei Genkai could harden sand to something akin to Steel- something Suna very desperately wanted.

Chiyo succeeded in her mission, but despite the veneer of 'serving your nation', when she returned, she was considered, in her words, "Just another whore."

Then when her son didn't manifest the bloodline- it was worse, but Chiyo was happy because that meant her son was HERS. (This is when she met Enji, and he saved her son's life at great cost- so Chiyo owes him a blood/life debt.)

Then the war came, and they needed women to fight so now serving the nation meant something different, and Chiyo became a full fledged 'shinobi' and turned her healing towards poison and death- especially when she had to fight the Salamander.

Then she sealed Gaara and that was the atrocity straw that broke the camel's back and she dipped out Suna and retired to an oasis. She's still a healer, but adamantly refuses to serve shinobi.

Once again, thank you so much for these asks and all the support for this AU?

@youngpeacearbiter

[cry-ptidd]

"And she had brown eyes like a lamb, innocent and golden"

[thesmokinpossum]

If My Body Could Speak, Blythe Baird | The Godfather, Mario Puzo | My Father's House, Sylvia Fraser | To The Daughter Who Secretly Longs For Her Mother’s Affection, Lynne Shako | Storms from Jupiter, Wanda Deglane | DO NOT REPLY, @filmnoirsbian

[nightcorecarseatheadrest]

Do you think there’s beauty in anger as well? Do you think kipperlilly saw something beautiful in the face of love’s rage?

[little-pondhead]

Inspired by this post.

[dollypopup]

"Penelope should have chosen Debling!"

My sister in Christ. . .he literally dumped her???

Like just before Colin Bridgerton was on his knees after outrunning her carriage to profess how he can't stop thinking about her in his love me, choose me, I'm yours speech, Debling did the Regency equivalent of calling her a floozy who would undoubtedly cheat on him when he abandoned her for several years to chase his passions (because she would never be one of said passions since she asked outright if he could ever come to care for her and he went 'hmmmm seems unlikely! good thing you have solitary hobbies to occupy you instead!') when he has been given 0 evidence of such other than realizing she liked to look out the window because she had a crush on the boy across the street. I was ready to challenge that man to a duel for Pen's honor

His feelings for her were middling at best, I mean Christ on a Pogostick, after he asked her mum for permission to propose he isn't even happy when he opens the door and Pen is there? She's looking like a snack- nay, a whole ass MEAL, and he can't even smile? He just nods at her and dips the fuck out? You don't think it would kill Penelope to know that both her sisters have husbands who absolutely adore them and she's out here with an absent dude who likely won't even write to her?

Portia's 'Love is make believe!' speech is so transparently full of shit when you realize that we've got Dankworth who is so obsessed with Prudence that he makes heart eyes at her every waking moment and considers her his little bonbon and Albion who loves Phillipa so much that he was waiting for her to consent to sex (not realizing she didn't know what it was) for two entire years because he would never pressure her and so he was content with finishing in his pants when he kissed her to make sure she was comfortable. And you want Penelope to settle for a life of loneliness? When Colin is so besotted with her that he dreams of her and breaks every societal expectation in the book as a notorious People Pleaser to run after her and cannot even wait for the morning after being intimate with her to introduce her as his wife to his family in the middle of the night? You want her to turn down Mr "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible" Bridgerton? For LORD PENGUIN?

Be so serious right now