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wavesoutbeingtossed · 2 months

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The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

#thisisctrying and taylortruther sorry for tagging you two!#can remove if needed!#but you guys made me think a lot #this was inspired by a conversation i had with a friend the other day #where she relayed an argument she had with her partner #who basically felt slighted that he wasn’t getting acknowledgement for all the housework he does — which is. just. the dishes #and she was like ‘wow congrats you’ve done the dishes — i do every other fucking thing to keep this household afloat in ways you see #and don’t see and i never ask for praise because it’s just stuff that needs to get done because that’s how you support your family’#and it just reminded me that some partners (and a certain kind of man in particular) just… think their struggles take precedence #when their partners drown in them everyday but keep things afloat out of necessity and are never recognized or supported for it #(my friends have shitty husbands/boyfriends can you tell lol)#long post #again the way i just feel like i know the vibes of ttpd in my bones are 😵‍💫#i feel like i have a lot more thoughts but I’m trying to be more gracious and less parasocial so #also just want to again defend the introverts of the world by reiterating that being introverted does not mean unsupportive #being a shitty partner does though!#writing letters addressed to the fire #it’s also just like… i feel like if Taylor had had even a modicum of the support in private and even public she needed #she’d probably still be with you know who and wouldn’t have considered leaving let alone doing it #because it would have felt like enough and like it was what was needed for both of them #whereas we’re seeing a completely new side of her open up now because this is the first time she’s ever had that support from a partner #in her adult life at least #and it’s like it’s opening up things she didn’t know she needed or wanted

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navree · 1 month

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me @ you calling Lucerys boring! 😆 come on, he's just a kid! cutting out aemond's eye was bad, i agree, but i don't think he was as bland as everyone says. his imposter syndrome in 8 and 10 was interesting to watch at least. he was a brave little boy.

I mean I don't really see anything brave about bringing a knife to a fight he not only had fuck all to do with but where he was clearly at fault (Aemond did nothing wrong, he tamed a free dragon, Baela and Rhaena get a pass because they're grieving but Jace and Luke had no business being involved and certainly no business escalating into 4 v 1 violence against the clear cut victim), trying to literally murder someone because I don't know what the fuck you're trying to do when you stab a knife at someone's face but it's certainly not a warning shot, showing zero remorse for it at all, and at worse acting like a little snot when in the same room with your victim. The fact that Luke got away with this scot free (didn't he literally say "I didn't do anything" you boring little asshole you stabbed out someone's eye that is the opposite of not doing anything!) is an absolute travesty of justice that stains everyone involved (mostly Viserys and Luke but I'm not letting Rhaenyra "pls torture the ten year old stabbing victim until he tells me how he figured out that these white dark haired children aren't the sons of my black platinum blond husband" Targaryen off the hook either). Aemond could have died, not only from the initial wound, but from the myriad of infections or other issues that could have plagued him during the healing process. For God's sake, Viserys nicks himself on the Iron Throne and they have to lop off his arm, his infected injuries and their treatment have already made him pretty firmly decrepit by Driftmark, the fact that Aemond healed without any serious and lifelong and further damaging complication is a goddamn miracle. And even kids know that murder is bad, I'm pretty sure that if I were Lucerys's age and I tried to commit homicide I'd have to deal with some consequences.

And I'm sorry, but I call him boring because he is! They wrote a boring character! That's not on me for picking up on it, that's on the writers and the myriad choices they made that led to them severely underdeveloping several characters, most prominently Lucerys (Jace and Baela and Rhaena at least get another season of life to develop further, Luke gets four episodes and they knew that going in). This is a song I've been singing literally since the show was airing and it's not gonna change, cuz he's dead and therefore stuck with his boring character and complete lack of characterization.

Him being a kid is not a character trait, and it certainly doesn't make him more interesting anymore than, say, his eye color would. The impostor syndrome thing they kinda tried didn't really work because 1) it's not impostor syndrome if it's true, he's not a Velaryon and Vaemond was 99% in the right in that entire thing (I don't like him throwing out misogynistic slurs, you can point out that these aren't Velaryons but Strong bastards without stooping to calling Rhaenyra a whore, I hate men sometimes) 2) in episode 8 it exists for one single line and is not a driving force for him at all for the remainder of the episode to the point that it could be cut out and mean nothing, especially since that scene was only there to introduce adult Aemond and 3) it doesn't even make sense because the person who was set up as having issues with his lack of Velaryon heritage and Harwin being his father was Jace. Jace is the one who hears the rumors and clocks it early on in childhood, Jace is the one who is deeply affected by it to the point of bitterness towards his own mother, Jace is the one who grieves Harwin but also feels angry that he can't express it. All of that was set up as part of Jace's arc, not at all Luke's, who is literally set dressing up until he decides to commit criminal offenses in the middle of the night. And then time skip, and suddenly Jace is A-OK and Luke, who has shown no issue before now (or any personality at all) is slightly concerned about it for one line in episode 8 before going back to being a piece of cardboard until episode 10.

And I'll be honest, the second that scene came out in episode 10, I immediately saw it for what it was, which was a very obvious patch job. The writers were clearly aware that they had not given the viewers any reason at all to care about Luke one way or another, so we weren't going to feel a lot when Vhagar (deservedly, imo) munches on him. So they hastily added in this really heavy-handed scene of poor uwu soft boy Lukey who is so concerned with doing right and needs to blink up tearfully at Mommy and be her sweet boy and get little kisses to assuage his worries, so that we'd feel some emotion and then be said when he becomes the Jonah to Vhagar's whale. It just doesn't work because there was nothing for him before then and therefore I don't care, I just feel bad Rhaenyra.

Luke is a bland and boring character. That's not an attack, that's just what the writers did. They tried to cram too much into a ten episode season, literally twenty years of history, and it caused a lot of characterization problems for a lot of characters, particularly for the Team Black ones. And a consequence of that is that the character with the least amount of time for development got not development and no personality. He's a plank of wood, he's a platonic version of the sexy lamp trope; there's nothing there and he exists only for us to feel bad when the lamp is smashed. Seriously, name me five individual character traits that Lucerys has. He's a momma's boy, even though I'm not really sure that's a character trait but I'll give it to him, and I guess he's devoid of empathy, considering that he doesn't appear to feel literally any remorse for mutilating Aemond (seriously, is it like the Dothraki and "thank you"? does the word "sorry" not exist in Valyrian languages? you can't even send an apology gift basket or a note?). But he's not brave, as there is no scene that shows any bravery or courage, and he's not noble or kind or thoughtful because there's nothing that shows any of that, or anything that shows him being the opposite, cruel or cowardly or weak, because he's a basically a character who could be played by sticking a wig on a mop and waving it around. And any characterization of insecurity exists as something hamfistedly crowbarred in at the last minute in his final episode to try to manipulate the audience's emotions with less sensitivity than D&D trying to tug at our heartstrings by having Drogon try to nudge Dany awake after she's killed.

But there is a character that I do consider to be a brave little boy, though I regret to inform y'all that it is Not a fourteen year old with no depth or personality or written characterization whose main claim to fame is maiming a person without apology and then dying. Nah, the brave little boy title goes to post-Driftmark Aemond. Aemond, at ten, is delivered a life altering injury whose recovery was likely very slow and very painful, involved a lot of worry about whether he'd have to deal with infection or further risk of death, and had to relearn how to do literally everything now that he was half blind, and he did all of it. He survived, and he thrived. He relearned how to walk, how to balance, his spatial awareness. He learned how to fought and even became incredibly good at it, and maintained his bond with Vhagar, as well as trying to keep himself mentally sharp as well. He did all of that, despite the huge setback he was dealt with at age ten. That's brave, go Aemond.

#personal #answered #anonymous #anti lucerys velaryon #the only thing about luke that even gets me remotely passionate is what he did to aemond #but that's because i like aemond and i feel things about aemond #who is a fully realized character #lucery is Not that #and yeah it's a writing issue and a massive writing issue #do baela and rhaena even have ANY character traits at all?#do their adult versions even have more then a dozen lines?#like at least they live through the dance so we can see more characterization develop in upcoming seasons #but honestly the only character more atrociously handled in terms of being made boring than luke are baela and rhaena #who could honestly be completely cut from the story of season 1 entirely and not have it make a lick of difference #like me calling luke boring isn't an attack on the character of luke (because it basically doesn't exist)#it's me taking the WRITERS to task #since it's impossible to set luke's lack of characterization apart from the out of universe creative decisions that led to it #and i've always thought he's boring and that's really not gonna change #there's four episodes of the boy and i've seen all four of them and they're the only four we're ever gonna get #they knew that they knew luke was gonna be set in unchanging stone once he died and they elected to do nothing with him anyway #so he's boring and bland #sucks but it's true

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