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#and i'm maybe very scared to post it but it is what it is and now I got to bed
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ok, now that I've recovered a little from seeing this dress on social media again yesterday, I need to talk about what else is in this picture.
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If he was just teasing Taylor reclaiming her big moment, he could have posted just that dress like he did before, right? But he didn't and that seems deliberate. This sure seems like a very deliberately put together collection of a dress very famously associated with Taylor and people in yellow with their faces covered by yellow tulle. 🤔 Is Taylor going to share her moment with other closeted people in the industry this time? Or is her coming out going to blow such a hole in the industry that other artists will no longer have to hide themselves?
I got a message yesterday asking why I said last week that I think Taylor's coming out plan this time will be more spectacular and final than the gentle and palatable Lover coming out. Because she said it herself: We should be scared. This is about more than just reclaiming her identity, it's revenge for losing 20 years of her life to an industry that forced her to hide her true self and her love. Sunday night she played 4 songs in the acoustic set all about childhood, deep regrets, and lessons learned. She wrote BDILH and WAOLOM and put them on the setlist so she could scream those words every night. Who's afraid? YOU SHOULD BE! And what better way to get her revenge for stealing her queer youth than to blow up the industry in such a way that new young artists won't have to live through the same experience? Maybe even other industries, if 🏈 is part of this whole thing, the NFL and elite sport as a whole, could sure use the shake up if they were to ever have openly queer players. That's why I think the other mannequins here are certainly worth paying attention to.
And because it's always relevant (even though I'm not a big fan of Chely at the moment): "We need a huge star, someone at the top of their field, to stand up and just say 'I'm gay'. [...] We need our heroes."
TW: mentions of suicide
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I think my ego is getting in the way of my writing. It's confusing, because I doubt my ideas and writing, but I still feel competitive in a way. I don't like reading about others' WIPs, I avoid reading the genre I want to write, and I automatically dislike authors who's already published a book similar to any of my WIPs. I quit the ACOTAR series because the themes were too similar, and I'm scared of Priory of the Orange Tree because the worldbuilding has intense good praise. I need an egodeath.
Case of Strong Ego or Low Self-Confidence?
If you're doubting your ideas and writing, I would question whether it's actually your ego getting in the way and maybe not just good old-fashioned low self-confidence. The reason I wonder is because your dislikes and aversions all sound fear-based to me. For example, if your ego were an issue, you probably wouldn't dislike or avoid authors who did something similar... you'd more likely scoff at their relative inferiority and boast that you did it better. You wouldn't be afraid of a book because its world building received good praise... you'd roll your eyes and say you don't know what people are going on about, because your world building is so much better.
Dislike and aversion instead seem to indicate jealousy and self-doubt. The good news, however, is that low self-confidence is actually pretty typical for writers and it's something that gets better with time.
Here are some things I hope will help boost your confidence, or at least give you hope that it will get better:
1 - Writers with big egos probably aren't as great as they think they are. In reality, storytelling is a craft no one can truly master, because reader appetites, story material, and even mechanics to a degree all evolve over time. What makes a good story is also very, very subjective. There are people who consider Jane Austen one of the best writers to ever grace the Earth, and there are people who think she's one of the worst. I think truly good writers can know that they're good without thinking everyone else is beneath them.
2 - You can't doubt your ideas and writing without understanding where you want your ideas and writing to be. In other words, you know what good ideas and good writing sound like to you, which means your taste and style are intact... you just have a little bit further to go to get your own ideas and writing where you want it to be, but that's okay. Going back to #1 a bit, writers don't hit some magical peak early on and level off at greatness. There's a lifelong upward trajectory with each book being a little bit better than the last. And sure, it's not a perfect upward trajectory. You can have periods of leveling out or even dropping off, but most writers will continue to get better over time. So, again, it's okay that your writing isn't quite where you want it to be, because it's that feeling that drives us to get better and better and better. This shows you're on the right track!
3 - Those similarities aren't the big deal you think they are... I've been at this a long time, and I'm going to tell you right now: stop worrying about "similarities" in other books. I've posted about this a lot because it's a common concern, but similarities are a dime a dozen in fiction. For every book about a high school girl who falls in love with a vampire, there are a dozen more. For every book about a woman who quits her big city job after a divorce, moves home to her small town, and falls in love with her childhood nemesis, there are at least twenty others. There are countless stories about young women getting wrapped up with fae princes, sad boys/men whose lives are invigorated by a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, murder mysteries set in quiet fishing villages, horror stories set in dilapidated old mansions someone just inherited from a long lost aunt, kids or adult who learn they've secretly been magic all along and get roped into fighting a Big Magical Bad. There are over 100 million books in existence, and that number increases by hundreds of thousands every year. You're never going to write a book that doesn't have similarities with dozens of other books, so stop worrying about it. Remember, it's not the similarities that matter... it's everything else... all the things that only you can do.
4 - Similarities are actually a good thing. The truth of the matter is, similarities are actually a good thing. That's why you can look back through cinematic history and see major trends... monsters, westerns, musicals, disasters, sci-fi, action, epic adventures, rom coms, superheroes... It's why when a book about a young woman toppling a dystopian regime becomes massively popular, dozens of other dystopian books hit the shelves the following year. It's why we gravitate toward favorite genres and tropes and comfort shows. Its why we go to the same restaurants and stores over and over again instead of going to a brand new one every time. Humans like a bit of repetition, and if your book has similar world building to Priory of the Orange Tree, that's a bunch of readers who are going to gravitate toward your book.
5 - There's only so much material to go around. I was interested in the fact that your concern about ACOTAR was that the "themes were too similar," but I promise you, those themes are in a million other stories. When it comes to tropes and themes and character arcs and magic systems and settings and... all of it... there's only so much material. Themes aren't something that are created from nothing. You can't make up an original theme that no one else has explored. Themes are inherent to human existence. They're truths about humanity that beg to be examined and explored. It's not the themes that matter so much as how they're explored and what you say about them, and even if there were similarities there, odds are there were far more differences.
I hope this resonates and helps. I hope I was right that it's more of a self-confidence issue than an ego issue. And if I was wrong, maybe something here will still resonate. You might spend some time in the "writing-related fears" section of my Motivation master list to see if anything there resonates, too. ♥
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wololo-01 · 2 days
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS. WATER!!!!
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Yayyyy!!!! It finally here!! It my girl birthday!!! I'm so happy to finally celebrate Mrs. Water birthday <3
But actually that's not all I really want to celebrate and say.....
Oh boi ok long LOOOONG texts above ( there is Also some swearing so be warned too :'b) ↓
(also sorry for interrupting any of you guys!! For the people I tag, you all can just read the part I mentioned you and then skip all the rest!! <3)
*sigh* ok, I'm not going to lie here, since the last 3 years here in this community, it never crossed my mind that I would meet people as incredible, funny, creative and majestic as everyone here,And I'll tell you the truth, this fandom changed me a lot, I didn't imagine this would happen but look, this actually happened hahaha!! XD
To be honest, I had a lot of problems last year and this year too, a lot of shit happened to me and that really discouraged me in a lot of things,I had problems with my self-esteem again and wanted to give up trying anything and life as well I felt useless on several days but you guys, you all cheered me up so much!! I never had the courage to tell you this but if it weren't because of you all I really don't know what I would do :') everything was like: "No one will ever like my style" - BANG! Them find my style cool. "I made this drawing but I don't really think someone will-” BANG! People actually like it a lot “i made this fanart for them but what if then-” BANG! them like it a lot! I'm so happy! :'D
sorry, sorry kakskaak buuut also, There is actually some special people who I want to thank a lot, they are people who of all inspired me to continue and made me so happy:
@bluetorchsky & @androidcharles
YOU TWO.
Since the first time when I moved in to tumblr again to post my thsc art in a old account, I was scared to death that maybe there was no person who knew this game here and my style back then...jesus Christ"; _;, I was really about to gave up until BOOM!! suddenly you both show up in my notifications and I saw the reblog and read the nice tags you guys leave it AND- *slam table* AHHHHHHHHH/p YOU TWO LITERALLY ARE SOOO FREAKING NICE AND AMAZING!!!! Not only that but your both have such extraordinary creative and talent!! You two deserve so much happiness and love!! I was too shy to say this but now damn you both deserve to hear this!!! >:}
Blue your artwork is pretty!! Pretty like the moon and stars shining high in the sky!, your writing is extremely beautiful, like music on a violin or a piano at night or the ones pretty poems Written with so much passion, your writing is extraordinary! You dedicate yourself so much and manage to make a story seem like a book that you are lucky enough to know and read!! And not only that but your ocs, violin and accordion DANG I love how well written they are so much!! They designs are so great yet sooo fabulous and they storys is very veeeery good and greats!!!. I really hope that you continue with those Masterpieces that you write and draw!!, But not only that, but you are such a kind, spectacular and divine person, I really appreciate soooooo muuuch all the things you do here, your writing is done with so much passion and your art is so unique, Don't feel sad or anything just because you can't write or draw at some point, it's totally fine and you deserve all the time but also ALLL THE LOVE AND APPRECIATION in the world! ^^)
Katiee!!! First of all WHERE DID GET SO FREAKING AMAZING IDEAS AND CREATIVE?!?!!???? I SWEAR YOU ARE AMAZING AND FUNNY!!, sometimes I envy you a little, but I also consider you one of my inspirations!!!! Your art is beautiful, beautiful like a painting of flowers or like a clean and calm river, your style is so cuteeeee Those stick people really look like marshmallows!! I so eat your art!! >:3 (kakak sorry), but seriously you are a talented person too, many people here also like you and blue!! You are neat and I glad to be able meet you and your artwork!! (Also I saw that you also writing and it one about your au, I still need to Taste this new delicious write of you 🍽️) when you did the Toppat clan week YIPPEE I GOT SO EXCITED!!! I was scary to not be able to participate but I managed!! I have so much fun drawing all those stuff!!! The prompt You put it was really good also extremely interesting!!!, and talking about something I love so much your ocs!!! Especially Amelia! She such a cuteee cinnamon roll and a adorable blueberry cake!! I love her personality and the design Ohh ESPECIALLY the hair!! Its like a fluffy blue cotton candy!! You super cool, I really appreciate all the work you do, I hope I can see more, you are a talented, funny and absolutely magnificent person!!! Don't forget this!!! >:]
@capturecharlesau & @crown-of-roses-thsc
YOU BOTH ARE MY TWO FAVORITE AU BLOG HAHSHSHAK SUCH CREATIVE, SWEET AND AMAZING PERSON YOU GUY ARE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Minnie!!, you super cool! Like really you such a cool and amazing person!! You also so sweet and kind!!! You like one of those cool kid in the school who I look like at and said "I wanna be like she!! She so awesome!! Yep, she deserves this popularity, she deserves nothing but the best for all things" In the last year, I was really down by some things that happened, but then I saw some one of the chapter you post it and BOOOM!!! Your au is what brings me back the joy!!! AAAAAA I was so hyped about your au!!! Jesus it just so DAMN WELL writing, I love the ideas you have and the characters?? NAHAHAHA THEM ALSO ARE SOOO FREAKING GREAT you manage to combine the words anguish, violence and comfort in such an incredible way! (And snicker you too do!!) Some of your chapters were thrown out at times when I really needed something to distract me, seriously you are a divinely talented person!! And other things I love about your au is Terrence, I'm still a hater of this piece of crap but I want to praise you so much about how you wrote it!! He really was such a good and badass villain/antagonist!!! God, I've even had some nightmares involving him, he really gave me the chills, The way you wrote it from start to finish was AMAZING, I swear I still love rereading it all again, to me it's like a frollo like the hunchback of Notre Dame with a bit of the personality of Clayton from Tarzan or Ursula from the little mermaid!! (Sorry they all are one of my favorite villains), Another thing I love so much are your ocs! Not only Danny but I can also say allwork and Benz!! AHHH THEM ALL ARE SUCH COOL OCS!!! I also need to say you are amazing when it comes to writing about Characters!! I really wanna know so much more about them all!!, Danny is still my favorite (he so lovely and sweet, he and you deserve the world) but either way, I thankful for you get in this fandom :') you deserve so much loveee and appreciation!! You made wanna go back in training more cartoon styles and expression because of your artstyle who is perfect!!!! I and everyone here will love to see your next works and arts!!! DON'T FORGET WHO FREAKING NICE AND AMAZING YOU ARE!!!!
Snicker!!!! (Hope it okay to call you that)) *sigh*.....
I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE A MEDAL FOR THE BEST AU THAT IS BEING WRITTEN.
Wow, God, how can I put into words in English how good she is??? I won't even be able to describe it in Portuguese CUZ GODDAMN YOU HAVE SUCH A POWER TO WRITE SOMETHING SO GOOOOOD😭😭 think I can say you and have the absolutely talens of god and the creative of a Talented artist who deserves much more appreciation and great recognition!!! When you showed up I was having a few bad days but YOUR AU SUDDENLY FELL FROM THE SKY AND WAS IMMEDIATELY BLESSED TO READ SUCH THE MAGNIFICENT MASTERPIECE!!! I love sooo much the idea of ​​Ellie being Terrence daughter It such a cool and think I can say, a really original ideas (I mean about ellie being Terence daughter, not Terrence having a child "^^) I also adore so much all the personalities of each, RHM is one of my favorites, I'm also curious about his story and the others, I can't forget to talk about the villain!, AAAAAA YOUR TERRENCE IT'S SO NEAT!!! I also still his hater but you done such a good job with him gave the big vibe of two-face villain or the cocky anger issues one (idk what it the name for this one XD) but seriously? Meeen I wish I could could puch him just like rogue from jewel au from @smoresthehalloweenqueen ((Smore you also another of my inspiration and favorite artist!! >:3)) and CC!terrence, for me rogue, CC!Terrence and CoRTerrence are pretty good villains but make Blood boils so much just by seeing them but hey hey! This why I love villains you like them very much but wish them all just die soon (cc!Terrence was one Only these two are missing and I can't wait to see them all in hell ahahaha >:D) you really are spectacular, take the time you need to do the chapters, but I wanna to said that you are also my new Big inspiration!!
@00lari00
LARIIIII FINALMENTE EU TENHO UMA AMIGA BR NESSE FANDOM!!! DEUS É BOM DE DEMAAAAAAAAIS PORRA 🙌🙌
Akaskska sorry XDD but I serious!! I so happy to be the only brazillian person here in the fandom on tumblr!! It sucks sometimes not having someone who speaks the same language as you to talk :'''b but suddenly A SMOKE ARISED AND SUDDENLY FROM BEHIND, WIZARD LARI FINALLY ARRIVED!!! HOORAY!!!! Lari we can not talk to much since you busy with your school and I am a shy idiot but I need to said, HOLY SHIT YOU ARE THE MOST FUCKING COOL PERSON I HAVE HAD THE PLEASURE OF KNOWING, YOUR ART AND CREATIVITY ARE LIKE MAGIC COMING TRUTH!!! And this au you are creating??? É MUITO FODAAAAAA 😩😭🤌🤌🤌 CARALHO VEI TU TA FAZENDO UMA OBRA PRIMA ESPERO QUE VC NÃO PARE!!! É MUITO INCRÍVEL TUDO QUE VC TA FAZENDO!!! (Sorry back to English KAJSKS) I can't lie to you, I sometimes envy you, you are such a special, kind and incredible person. It's like I'm talking like the coolest maid ever and I think 'god they're so cool why they are even talking to me?, but I also see you as one of my big inspirations!! I know I will reach the same level as you in talent and art but I at least want to have some of your courage to talk to people and be good at drawing just like YOUU!!I also want you to remember that you are so wonderful and a very magnificent and awesome person!! Anyone who talk shit about you and one it's a hater because them never gonna be in the same way as you are!!! Also take all the time you need it for draw, study is also important I am here to let you know that I'm rooting for you every day!! I can see you Gonna have a bright and wonderful future, thank you for being my friend and also so being my inspiration
And now a really special one...a person who I am very very grateful...
@doodlethings
Bunnu?, omg I think I will cry (I already am since I'm writing all this) YOU. HOLY SHIT BUNNU I SWEAR HOW DARE YOU BE THE COOLEST, AMAZING, SENSATIONAL, WONDERFUL, KIND, AMAZING PERSON??? WHAT THE FUCK, I WISH I COULD GIVE YOU THE FUCKING WORLD, GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU DESEVE IT AND MORE THAN THE WORLD CAN OFFER TO YOU, In fact, how long have we been glued to each other? Type 4?? 5?? Or 6 years?? Oof time passed so quickly I lost count ;_; but well fuck it! The most important thing I want want to said is, YOU ARE SUCH DIVINE ARTIST AND WRITER!!! YOUR ART IS AS WONDERFUL AS A LIVING PAINTING A MUSE PAINTING, And this art deserves to be featured, every detail of it is so impeccable and incredible, and your writing? They are like a special, treasured book that deserves to be read, even if no one does, I will, I will appreciate your art and I will read your stories for the rest of my life, again and again and again, You are like a sunshine or flowers in the snow, you are my bestie, my favorite person in the world!! And you are my biggest inspiration to continue drawing, you have cheered me up all these years and continue to this day, you have the best sense of humor and music of all, your gave so wanna tips and help me a lot to deal with live and learn to love and appreciate more the things!! If wasn't because of you? Geez I really don't know but this doesn't matter, you are the best, intelligence and great yet sweetly and maravilinda person in this WHOOOOOLE WORLD!!! I LOVE YOU!! THANK YOU FOR BEING MY BEST FRIEND AND BE AND TALK WITH ME TO THIS DAY, I'm sorry about my horrible sense of humor, my delulu theories, lack of brain cells and Also because they heard the stupidest story I tell it ksskskajk you got a bored dumb friend :'b but I happy to be on your side until now and I can't wait to see you shine more <'3
Oh and for the people I didn't tag and said here
I'm sorry I can't tag all of you 😭😭 if tag more people here this post will be post only a few weeks later akajsj BUT DON'T THINK JUST BECAUSE I DIDN'T TAG YOU GUYS IT MEAN I FINDA ANY OF YOU SO NEAT AND AMAZING!!! YOU GUYS SUPPORT AND LOVE THAT YOU ALL GAVE ME HAVE A SPECIAL PLACE IN MY HEART!!! A LOT (almost everyone) OF YOU ARE ALSO MY INSPIRATIONS!!! YOU LOVE EVER BLOG, DRAW, THEORY, WRITINGS AND AUS THAT YOU ALL DO!!! KEEP SHINING AND GOING EVERYONE CUZ YOU GUYS ARE FABULOUS 💞💞💞 💅 I WANNA SUPPORT AND LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!!! YOU GUYS DESERVE A LOOOOOOOOOOOT OF MORE THAN I CAN OFFER AND SAID DO NEVER FORGET WHO COOL AND BEAUTIFUUUUUUL YOU ALL ARE!!!! 🗣️📢
You knows? Today also is my birthday and there is It's a tradition in Brazil where, when someone has a birthday, after congratulations and lighting the candles, the person gives the first piece of cake to someone important, but all of you are important to me soooo...Since this is the internet not real life, I wanna pass several first pieces to each of you all!!!! SO GRAB ONE GUYS!!! NYEHEHEHEHEHE 🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰 >:DDD
Well this all I can actually said, happy birthday again Mrs. Water and Happy birthday to me!!
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Also have I got this stupid idea her ajakskdkk xb
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looiew · 15 hours
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Recently, I've been really struggling... I can't even open the caps of plastic bottles... My muscles are so weak that I can't even open potato chip bags... My body fat percentage is only 23.5... I feel like I'm really losing muscle... Maybe this is... too dangerous... So I'm going to train my muscles a little... and aim to become a slender macho guy! And...To those who say I'm fat, I'll say it right away... I don't look down on them or say back, but I want to be someone who can say, "I've worked so hard to get here!" in my lifetime...I am currently studying to pass the English Test, the Kanji Test, and the Computer Skills Test.I know how to use the letters, but I can't pronounce them properly... That's the saddest thing...
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Today, my eyes look very dead... I feel that I am very tired... That's why... I really didn't intend to lose this much weight... I blame myself... But still, I believe that if I can go from this figure to a slim and muscular one... my body will look good... so I will do my best... And more than anything... these lightless eyes are my constant worry... I've always been the type that doesn't let light into my eyes... so that's really my biggest complex, so I don't like it.
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I used to look like this, and was a little overweight...I was 42kg at the time...But now that I'm under that weight, I'm starting to feel a little scared of myself...I smile more than I used to, but...my eyes seem to be getting cloudier and cloudier...it makes me really sad...And what I'm proud of...is my beautiful skin! I moisturize and wash my face to avoid acne and the like...the fact that I don't have many of those is proof of my efforts! And...because I don't like fake photos...I use unedited ones.I always post photos... Thank you for putting up with such a long message! See you someday... (I'll draw the requested illustrations after the evening... I think I'll also do regular audio streams) That's how it was!
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Hello may 31th anon! Look at that, another year behind us and a new one to come. Have a nice day! ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡
#may 31th anon#hello friends!! (。’▽’。)♡ how are you!! I missed you so much!#I'm sorry that once again i have not been posting but I did that thing again where I got scared of posting#I do not know why but it is the same with physical paper diarys#I have 3 diarys and they all have 1 entry#I think one just says 'I am ten'#what have you been up to!! did you do something fun? is it summer too where you live? c:#my tumblr messages seem to be broken! I'm sorry if you wrote something :C it just says 'no new messages' despite also saying new messages#not a lot has happened here! I got a tomato plant and then I got very invested into the tomato plant and I have eaten three tomatos so far (#my roses are also doing well!! I just got a new yellow rose and since she got here she only made orange flowers#I do not know the meaning of that#but I am very thankful! ( ˊᵕˋ )♡ I love it when things are orange!!#I've been trying to buy an orange shirt for the past 2 weeks but they always sell out before I get to them#I'm also thinking about buying a jean jacket#I have not worn a jean jacket for at least 15 years because one time in 7th grade  tthe girl behind me said#that I was wearing a cool jean jacket and I just assumed that this was bullying for no actual reason#but maybe she just thought that it was an acutal cool jean jacket#we'll soon have out 10 year school reunion#maybe I should ask her#is anyone else going to a secret Sherlock phase again#I just want to see that silly little hat again#would sherlock holmes wear a jean jacket#have a nice day everyone!!#see you soon hopefully!!#♡^▽^♡
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nico-di-genova · 22 days
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A Lesson in Braking
AKA: Strollonso College AU, this time with a name! Warnings: Smut, at the very end, so if you don't want to read that bit it's literally the very end bit, just skip that altogether.
Chapter 1
The problem with street racing, Lance thinks, is that it is entirely reliant on the people around you being aware of their surroundings. Which, in a state full of retirees who can barely see past their steering wheels, much less their side mirrors, is an impossibility. So Lance shouldn’t be surprised that he’s almost sideswiped when he’s doing 130 in a 65 by a white Honda Civic with a geriatric behind the wheel. He shouldn’t be, and yet when he swerves back over into the far side of the left lane to avoid being flattened, the bike still nearly goes out from under him anyway.
He fights every instinct not to brake and lock up, to lose it and go sliding across the pavement with only his padded jacket and jeans to protect him.
"Jesus Christ!” comes the panicked, staticky voice through his helmet from the Bluetooth connected to his phone, along with the worried yells of everyone else inside the car.
The red Dodge Charger that was chasing Lance seconds before slows in the lane behind him, gives him enough space that if he does fall he won’t be run over like road kill – he can hear the tires of the muscle car screeching on the pavement, the horns from the traffic behind them. Pato, thankfully, is not an eighty year old with failing eyesight. He is, however, the reason that Lance had been swerving through traffic in the first place.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Pato laughs, deliriously.
Lance’s fingers are shaking around the handlebars of the bike, leather-gloved hands so tight around them that he can feel the tension in his body. He tries to breathe out, and an equally insane laugh escapes him.
“Are you okay?”
“Fuck,” Lance sighs, laughs again, thinks his heart might be beating so fast it’s on the verge of failing, “Y-yeah. I think so.”
“What the fuck?” Pato repeats again.
Welcome to Florida, Lance thinks, flashes a shaky thumbs up to Pato behind him just to ensure the man, and his car full of people, know he’s okay – even if he doesn’t quite feel it yet. He didn’t lose the bike, which he figures counts for something.
“That was insane,” Pato continues.
“That was stupid!” Esteban corrects.
Lance eases the bike back up to speed in response, shoots past the Honda Civic that nearly killed him, and flicks the old man hunched behind the wheel off as he goes.
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Fort Myers, Lance quickly learns within his first semester at school, is fucking boring. FGCU, pitched to him as an idyllic campus set along the Gulf Coast, is actually in a swamp. And technically, he’s not even in the city of Fort Myers at all, but Estero – a town no one’s heard of but has somehow managed to house some of the wealthiest people Lance has ever encountered, himself included. He feels he can hardly be blamed for racing his motorcycle through the streets during rush hour traffic just to feel something other than the monotony of flat land and the oppressive heat he’s been stuck in for the majority of the past three years, and getting pulled over in the process. His father, who pays for each ticket with a sigh and a roll of his eyes, does not seem to agree.
Which is exactly why he has no plans of telling the man about his near-death experience. Lawrence didn’t even want him to get the bike in the first place, still threatens to seize it with the steady growing pile of tickets. Lance endures the lectures over the phone with the patience bestowed upon him by being a good son, and then hangs up to do burnouts with Pato in the parking lot of their apartment complex. He’s unbothered by near-death at the hands of the old man, but Esteban, when he climbs out the backseat of Pato’s cramped charger, is not.
“You’re insane,” he says, thwacking Lance on the side of his helmet.
Lance, working the strap through the clasp so he can ease the thing off his head, winces, “Ow.”
“Idiot!”
“I was in my lane!” Lance justifies, even if he was nearing 160 km/h in that lane and was definitely exceeding a safe level of speeding. He hates to lose though, especially to Pato, who would hold it over his head at the next mixer. Lance has endured enough ridicule from his frat brothers for all the races he’s lost, he doesn’t want to add Pato’s fraternity to the mix.
Esteban wouldn’t get it, he’s not in a frat at all.
“You were barely in the lane!”
“Close enough.”
“You shouldn’t have a license,” Esteban grumbles, eyes Lance’s bike like it is a sentient being that willfully chose to do twice the speed limit, and not Lance himself that controlled it. Lance can still smell the burning rubber coming off the tires, feel the heat from the engine. It’s familiar to him in the way the sweaty leather smell from his hands when he slides the gloves off is.
He shrugs, “Neither should half the people in this state.”
“It’s true,” Pato chimes in, coming up behind Lance to pat him on the back. His hand thunks against the padding of Lance’s jacket, sends him rocking forward against the bike. “Glad you’re okay, güero.”
“You two especially though,” Esteban grumbles. Lance just thinks he’s still upset he doesn’t have a car of his own to race, despite the fact that Lance has offered his own on multiple occasions. It hardly gets used, because he hates sitting in traffic, and Esteban would probably be doing him a favor by taking it. But money has been a thing between them since freshman year, since it was established that Lance had a lot of it, and Esteban little, and the dorm room they shared became a space where discussions of finances were forbidden – a sentiment that soon reached through their entire friendship. Esteban still lives in the apartment style dorms on campus, Lance now has a luxury one-bedroom in the newest off-campus unit. His car sits in the parking lot more often than it runs and Esteban walks to class.
“If dumbass here keeps getting tickets he might not have to worry about a license at all,” Pato teases, smirks at Lance as Lance runs a hand through his hair to try to dissuade the helmet hair from setting in and pointedly ignores him. He busies himself with unzipping his jacket, rolling his shoulders and stretching enough to ease the lingering tension from his joints. His shirt rides up with the movement.
Esteban looks away, Pato stares, and the freshman he’s let tag along, David, stands awkwardly beside them because he isn’t sure what else to do. Lance smiles at him, tight, forced, equally as unsure. The kid’s lanky, blonde, curly hair nearly gold in the sunset. One of the new pledges, or someone Pato is trying to recruit, because in their small circle Pato is the only one social enough to actually want the job of recruitment chairman.
“Sorry for almost dying in front of you,” he apologizes to the kid.
David shrugs, “It’s cool. You’re not hot in that thing?” He points at Lance’s jacket with a cast wrapped wrist, the black fabric with grey and white accents.
It’s late August now, summer still working its way into fall. Lance was not raised in the heat, returns to Canada during the break between semesters so he doesn’t have to bear the worst of it, so he is distinctly uncomfortable. His shirt is sticking to his skin with sweat, and he can feel tendrils of it working in steady drops down his spine, soaking into the waistband of his jeans, but he’d rather wear the heavy jacket than have to cart it around for the entire time they’re standing ogling at cars. Or rather, Pato ogling, he and Esteban hanging back to talk about dinner plans. He likes cars in that they can get him from one destination to the next, doesn’t care to talk about them outside of that.
“It’s manageable,” he shrugs, tucks his helmet under one arm and starts walking toward the closed off section of the outlets, where cars are already parked and lined-up.
Pato doesn’t suggest Lance leave the gear in his car, despite it being an easy solution, he knows Lance likes the looks it draws. Lance had drunkenly admitted as much one night, when Pato was straddling his lap and kiss his neck because there were no other options. They had grown accustom with becoming each other’s last resort, hooking up in bedrooms of stranger’s houses or in the back of Pato’s car because the number of girls at parties they frequented far outweighed the available, and interested, men. He smirks at Lance over the top of David’s head as they walk toward the row of cars with popped open hoods – a glint of knowing in his far too mischievous eyes.
They’ll probably hook-up later. Unless Esteban finally feels like kissing him, or the freshman stops being a freshman, both of which are likely to happen when hell freezes over.
“Looks heavy,” David says.
“It is.”
Pato’s smirk widens, “He’s used to it.”
“Go look at your stupid cars, man,” Lance rolls his eyes, shoots Pato a warning look.
It’s the Aston Martin that draws Pato’s attention first. Silver, brown leather interior, the type of car Lance’s dad would own – if he doesn’t already. Lance lost track of the collection long ago, lost interest too, much to his dad’s disappointment. Lawrence wanted him to get into racing professionally, which Lance entertained for all of two seconds before he realized just how far his dad wanted him to go. Then it all felt like too much too fast, and Lance realized he was maybe more content hiding in the Florida swamp land for four years instead. Time he is rapidly running out of.
“You didn’t want to race on a track, but you’ll do it in the street,” he can hear his father’s voice chiding. Lance doesn’t know how to explain there’s more freedom in the street racing, less control, and substantially more danger but a higher reward. No one knows him under the helmet either, not in the way they would if his name was tied to a team and a car and all the responsibility that came with it.
David goes with Pato, both of them studying the engine of the car. The owner, thankfully, isn’t around. Lance doubts they’d like the way Pato goes to duck his head in through the driver’s side door.
Lance shoots Esteban a look, “I feel like you should be more into this,” he says, leans over enough to poke the man in the side with an elbow. Esteban is one of the few people in his friend group who is the same height as him. Which was the first thing they’d bonded over, the second was the fact that they both spoke French. Esteban more fluently, but Lance enough that most their conversations were shared in the language.
“Why?” Esteban asks, eyeing the Aston the same way he had Lance’s bike, like it is likely to reach out and bite him. “Do not say because of the engineering.”
“A little because of the engineering?”
“No.” Esteban is the smartest of them, which Lance has known since he first met him and Esteban introduced himself with a handshake which was quickly followed by, ‘majoring in mechanical engineering.’ His golf management major had sounded silly in comparison, had seemed even sillier once Esteban pulled all-nighters to complete homework for math classes that far exceeded Lance’s skill level while Lance was learning the best techniques for watering grass.
Lance failed a class his freshman year, Esteban passed all of his with what appeared to be ease. Then they both got shitfaced on their last night together and snuck onto the trail that ran from the freshman housing to the upperclassman apartments to share a joint. It had been close to midnight, and every sound that came from the surrounding wilderness had them jumping, but it was maybe the thing that had cemented their friendship.
“You know what you want to do with that yet?” Lance asks, because they’re starting their junior year now. Because the future is becoming something tangible, and so discussing what the fuck they’re supposed to do next seems like the correct thing. Lance still has no idea what he wants to do and thinking of it makes the sweat on the back of his neck run cold, makes the jacket he’s sweltering in seem even hotter.
"Not a clue,” Esteban says, which makes Lance feel a little better, “You?”
“Golf, I guess.” Not much else he can do with his degree, and his business minor had only been something added on at his dad’s request. Lance isn’t passionate about either of those things, isn’t sure he’s passionate about anything. He likes racing, likes his bike, likes spending lazy Saturday mornings on the course, or weekday mornings practicing tennis with his coach, and he’s decently good at all of those things but none of them really seem like a passion.
He is becoming increasingly aware that he is running out of time.
“Professional golfer, Lance Stroll,” Esteban says, draws out Lance’s name to really test the sound of it against PGA pro.
Both of them grimace.           
“Maybe not,” Lance amends.
“Could work, maybe.”
“Probably wouldn’t,” Lance isn’t good enough, not for going pro, and he doesn’t plan on putting in the effort to get there for something he cares so little about. “Maybe I’ll just wait for you to secure your fancy engineering job, marry you and live off your paycheck.”
Esteban shoots him a look that reads ‘fuck no’ clear as day.
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The sun sets fully somewhere around eight, Lance starts cooling off at the nine p.m. marker. At some point they lose Pato and David, and then Esteban runs into a group from his major, and then it’s just Lance standing in a sea of American sports cars wondering if he should maybe just go home. He’s feigning interest in a Camaro, lime green with black racing stripes, ugly and gaudy, when someone behind him clears their throat.
“You ride?” the person asks, accented and deep and Lance turns to come face to face with a man who looks right at home amidst the crowd of mid-forties dads showing off their hardly impressive rides. Polo, cargo shorts, and a cap sporting some car brand, Lance thinks he looks a lot like the tourists he’d spotted on his brief visit to Orlando last year. He doesn’t look like the sort of guy who would know anything about motorcycles.
“Uh, yeah.” Lance says, shifts the helmet in his hands so he’s got a tighter grip on it. The guy follows the movement, watches Lance’s hand flex, follows the line of his vein up his arm until he reaches Lance’s eyes again.
“What bike?”
Lance swallows, feels a bit like he’s being interrogated with how the guys brown eyes are staring into his.
“Suzuki 650.”
“Your first?”
“Yeah,” the same one he’s had since his freshman year, stored in storage while he’s gone for the summer and then taken back out when he comes back down. It’s reliable, and Lance has other bikes back home, but he likes this one, likes that it feels like he’s worn it in. “It’s custom,” he adds, defensively, can feel this guy sizing him up.
“Yes?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a moment where Lance thinks that might be the end, the guy will decide there’s no further conversation to be had and then be on his way. He isn’t sure if that would be a bad thing or not, is still trying to maintain eye contact and try not to step back any further against the Camaro behind him.
When the guy offers his hand to shake Lance is afraid to take it, knows his free palm is clammy, doesn’t want to give himself away.    
“I’m Fernando.”
“Lance,” he shakes, hopes the guy will assume it’s the heat, not the nerves setting Lance on edge. This is the most eye contact he’s had to maintain since his plane landed back in Florida two weeks ago. It’s unyielding too, like the guy is trying to win a contest Lance hadn’t realized he’d entered.
“Lance,” Fernando says, testing it, “Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too. Do you- do you ride?” Fernando seems to have some understanding, looked decently impressed when Lance mentioned his custom ride. And he wasn’t asking about the cars on display, but instead the bike that Lance wasn’t even near.
Finally he looks away, back to the helmet, back to the way Lance is gripping it with a tightening hold. His mouth, which had before been slanted upward into something close to a smile slips a little. Lance watches the movement, categorizes it the way he does every micro expression, because he’s gotten good at reading people over the years and knows hurt when he sees it.
“I used to.”
“Not anymore?”
“Bad knee,” Fernando explains, motions at his right leg. Lance looks down at where the shorts stop just above the joint, can see the faint white lines of scarring amongst leg hair. Surgical incisions, clean and even.
“Oh.”
Fernando doesn’t look that old, not old enough for knee surgery. There’s lines on his face and grey in his beard, but still plenty of color left alongside it. Dark brown stubble and brown hair curling in the humidity beneath his cap. Lance wouldn’t place him above fifty.
“I’m sorry,” he says, for lack of anything better, and because Fernando keeps glancing at Lance’s helmet with something like envy.
“Is okay,” Fernando says with a shrug, smiles sadly.
And maybe it’s because Lance is feeling lonely, abandoned by his friends, or maybe it’s because something in Fernando’s expression is familiar, he offers, “Do you- do you want to see it? My bike?”
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“What happened here?” Fernando asks, pointing at the scuffed paint along the right side of the gas tank, finger tracing the slightly dented spot where matte black has given way to exposed metal.
Lance could have gotten it fixed, but he liked that the bike had character, liked that it was a little imperfect. At least he thought he did, now he just feels like a teenager with their first beat-up car driven off the used car lot.
He laughs, embarrassed, palms at the back of his neck as his cheeks warm, “I, uh, I dumped it freshman year.”
Fernando looks up at him, arches an eyebrow, smiles like he knows the feeling. And then he waits for Lance to continue.
“Yeah, it, uh, it was stupid. Or I was stupid. I was driving around the loop on campus, at school, hit a patch of dirt, it just slid out from under me.” It was his first time falling off the bike, only a week after he had gotten it. And because he’d only been going from the main campus to his dorm he hadn’t bothered to wear gloves, or his jacket, ended up with road burn and an arm ran raw and bloody for his stupidity. He still had some scarring, faint, but there.
"Ouch,” Fernando says, still tracing the damaged spot with an index finger.
Lance watches him, swallows, takes the moment where Fernando isn’t looking at him to study the muscles of his arms straining against the cuff of his polo. And then Fernando shoots him a quick glance and he’s darting to look away like he’s been caught. He maybe has been, if the way Fernando smirks is any indication.
Lance blames Pato, the empty spot in the parking lot where his car was a few hours ago, taking the promise of a blowjob in the backseat with him. And leaving Lance standing in the shadows cast by the street lamps and palm trees dotting the lot, beside a man whose name he knows and little else. When Fernando shifts closer, until his weight is pressing against the side of Lance’s right arm, Lance doesn’t pull away. Instead, he lets Fernando get close enough that the smell of him is almost overwhelming, sharp cologne invading his senses.
“So what’s custom?” Fernando asks, snapping Lance back enough that he can focus on the asphalt beneath him and the bike in front of him, enough that he remembers they’re two doors down from a still open Best Buy.
In his mind he is drafting a strongly worded text to Pato, outwardly, he is pointing at all the pieces of the bike that his father had spent a small fortune on and watching Fernando’s impressed expression grow. Fernando doesn’t pull away, Lance doesn’t make space, and when Fernando mentions the Aston Pato had been ogling earlier in the night is his, Lance follows him to it with blatant interest. He pretends to care about the car, up until Fernando asks him if he wants to go for a ride, and he knows he can drop the act.
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They end up on the other side of the outlets, tucked beside a dumpster near the Barnes and Noble and an abandoned Asian restaurant. Lance isn’t picky, doesn’t need to be wined and dined, is perfectly okay with grinding against a guy in the backseat of his Aston Martin and letting his sweat soak into the leather. His jacket and helmet have been dumped in the passenger’s seat, his t-shirt pulled over his head and lost somewhere on the floorboard.
Lance is straddling Fernando’s lap, his head bent against the roof of the car, his neck angled just enough that Fernando can get better access to the junction where his jaw meets his carotid. In terms of hook-ups, it’s not his craziest, though Fernando may be the oldest. He didn’t ask for an age, was content enough with Fernando still having color in his hair. And it didn’t much matter once the man got a hand around his cock.
“Fuck,” he pants, grinding down on Fernando’s growing length beneath him before thrusting back up into the warm grip of his hand. His head thunks against the roof with the movement, causing Fernando to laugh, breathy and warm against his neck.
“Come here,” He instructs, pulls down Lance until he’s resting his head against Fernando’s shoulder and curled over. The position severely limits his ability to grind against Fernando, makes it so that he’s the only one deriving any real pleasure from this scenario.
“Is okay,” Fernando says when he tries to voice that, continues to stroke the length of his cock without pause.
Lance bites his bottom lip to muffle a whine. His jeans are the only thing still on him, and just barely, pulled down and pooled around one ankle. Fernando is still fully clothed, obvious bulge in his shorts. Lance feels exposed, raw, so close that he can feel the orgasm building in his stomach.
“I’m close,” he pants, cries almost. It is better than he and Pato’s backseat escapades, better because Fernando smells likes sharp clean cologne and there’s no exercise equipment digging into his back from being pressed into the seats. Better because Fernando twists his wrist a certain way and Lance can’t stop the cry from escaping him.
“Please,” he begs, leans back enough that he can look at Fernando, only to be pulled back in by the nape of his neck – into a bruising kiss that makes him realize he’s maybe never been really kissed before. Fernando tastes how he smells, sharp. When Lance opens his mouth to pant Fernando’s name, it’s the man’s tongue that silences him, licks behind his teeth and explores him like he’s trying to learn the shape of his mouth. Lance lets him, finds he is eager to do so.
Pato doesn’t kiss him, it’s a rule they have, a fragile divide that maintains their friendship. Lance didn’t realize how much he had been missing.
When Fernando pulls away a trail a spit connects them, until it breaks and lands cool and wet against his chin. Lance doesn’t wipe it away, lets it stay there as his eyes flutter open and he’s staring into steady brown, turned dark in the shadows.
“You’re beautiful,” Fernando praises, lips slick with spit and eyes shining with praise, and Lance cums like that. His spine arching, his body tensing, Fernando coaxing him through it until he goes boneless and slack, cum streaked across his stomach and trailing down Fernando’s hand, his arm, dripping onto the leather seats beneath them.
“’m sorry,” he pants, eyes darting to the pearly mess dotting the brown leather, “Your seat.”
Fernando glances at it, uncaring, quickly looks back at Lance and trails a hand down the front of his chest, tracing along the skin as Lance’s chest heaves with the breath he’s trying to regain.  
“Don’t worry,” he says, smiles, the same smile he’d shot Lance’s way back by his bike, the smile that told Lance this would be where they ended up. He trails a hand back up Lance’s chest, his neck, settles against his jaw and traces a thumb along his cheekbone. Lance leans into the touch, finds he doesn’t mind it, finds he maybe wants it to stay for longer than a backseat hookup should. Fernando indulges him, lets him catch his breath before he suggests moving.
Lance slides off of him, falls back onto the seat, tries to maneuver in the cramped space to slide his boxers and jeans back on. Fernando passes him his shirt, pulled from the depths of the floorboard, rumpled and dirty from their shoes catching on the fabric. There’s still cum on his stomach, drying cool, he glances at it, at Fernando.
He’s about to ask if Fernando has a napkin, an old receipt, anything, but all words quickly leave him when Fernando leans down and licks the mess away. His tongue, warm and wet against Lance’s stomach.
“Oh,” Lance chokes, feels Fernando laugh against him.
“Better?” he asks when he’s done, sits up and eyes Lance like he’s asking for a five star review on an uber ride.
Lance nods, mouth slightly agape, eyes wider than he means for them to be. Like a shocked cow, he can hear Pato teasing in his head, his big brown eyes and dumbfounded expression matching that of the creature. He swallows, tries to regain some composure.
“Do you- do you want me to-“ he motions at Fernando’s cock, the bulge still there.
Fernando shakes his head, “No, you will get me next time, yes?”
Lance chokes again, “Next time?”
“Unless no?”
Back propped against the door, handle digging into his back, legs spread out before him like he’s forgotten how to make them work, Lance shakes his head.
“No! No, I mean, yes. Yes. Yes to next time,” his hands fumble for his phone in his pocket, and then he’s holding it out to Fernando like a demand. Fuck Pato. Fuck his backseat. Fuck shitty blowjobs when they’re both too drunk to swallow properly. He’s beginning to see the appeal of this Aston Martin now.
Fernando laughs again, warm, endeared. It’s slow and drawn out and all the things that Lance isn’t. It’s easy in all the ways Lance isn’t.  
Lance kisses him when Fernando drops him back off at his bike, leaned over the console, and tastes himself on Fernando’s tongue.
“Drive safe,” Fernando says.
Lance does the speed limit the whole way home.
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seaweedstarshine · 1 month
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Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).
I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?
That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.
Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌
TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.
Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.
(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)
Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.
(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)
Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.
Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.
Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.
We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).
Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.
(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)
And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.
If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.
Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.
#abuse#rtd critical#anti rtd#im NOT really anti rtd but im tagging it that because some people block that tag and uhhhh this post strays into rtd critique#maybe he does regret how he wrote the master! we'll never know because rtd is very anti-admitting-his-own-mistakes#words by seaweed#anyways tia i am. SO relieved you’re not upset with me about our last disagreement?#i high key jumped to conclusions after the lack of reply to the last DM? so thank you for this ask it's great to hear from you#sorry you were in a debate about this! that sounds extremely awful.#anyway i'm gonna WAIT at least a week to tag Amy and Rory to avoid this showing up in the character tags right away haha#because I am KINDA scared the anti-media-literacy ppl will find this (I had to include the first part tho its important)#(lack of distinction between harm to audience *in fiction* and irl harm *to actual ppl* leads to problematic public apologies where-#-public figures apologize to fans they let down *instead* of the people they actually hurt. no it doesn't work like that)#(parasocial relationships are not more important than real victims agency or privacy)#editing to say..... yanno what? ive come to terms with not all the posts with the following tag been about the doctor#and I am planning to make a post at some point about the nd aspects of Amy+the Doctor's connection which this stuff IS relevant to soooooo#(eleventh) doctor is neurodivergent tag#editing again to add character tags:#Amy pond#Rory williams
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reuptakeinhibitor · 5 months
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i love stobin working retail jobs and sharing a resume so much but consider this. steve follows robin to bloomington, indianapolis, west lafayette, wherever she decides to go and they get a little apartment. maybe they decide to go out of state but i think they stay in the midwest. then st takes a page from buffy and steve works construction while robin goes to school.
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tls123 · 2 years
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i know wei wuxian is first pick as god/personification of death etc. etc. (duh, perfect choice, so sexy) but i would like to propose jiang cheng for the part. in the same way elizabeth swann is death from that one post about her kisses damning the men she loves
in the way everything he touches and everything he loves seems to be doomed (sect, parents, sister, brother)
wei wuxian as life!!! as god of life!!! coming back, unkillable. life giving (core transfer, wen ning, etc.)*
jin ling doesn't die because at the end of the story, at the guanyin temple, wei wuxian is there too. to protect him the same way he protected jiang cheng
and this is why he (wei wuxian) has to go back to being yunmeng jiang's head disciple, in this essay i will—
*i'm not saying he lives well, but he lives! he fucking claws and crawls and fights his way out of the burial mounds, he just doesn't fucking quit** you know what i mean
**until he does, but that's a choice he makes.
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buttercup-barf · 13 days
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Under the cut are mostly self-insert doodles of decreasing quality. Again, not much directly tied to Team Fortress 2. Might as well toss these out while I have no access to my puter. Much yapping under the cut and in the tags incoming.
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Another self-insert, this time less of a "here's me as a tenth class" and more of a "here's my game experiences translated into the class I would take the place of". The Cleaner. Although I guess they could still be wearing either suit. It doesn't matter that much.
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That one Convict's Case taunt with Backup would be extremely funny, because the man would be on the verge of a breakdown (he does not want to go to jail so bad you have no idea). The second image- I owe no explanation. You know what I am. You see the pattern with my favourites.
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The duality of the man. Resting face versus "just heard you express interest in religion/Russian folklore" face. He's not that hard to make friends with, when you pull him away from all the explosions.
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Some doodles of trying to figure his face out. Unfortunately, the more I stare at him, the more I worry that he looks like A Certain Guy With The Last Name "Kazarin", and the fear of never being original in my life caught up to me.
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Don't look at me, don't perceive me, I refuse to explain any of my actions to you.
#team fortress 2#tf2#that's it that's the only tags i am putting this in. maybe someday i will have the balls to do more but for now that's about it#while i have the chance - and since posts with more of my yapping in the tags don't pop in people's feeds much - i might as well ramble-#-about these guys here. self-inserts or not i'm projecting only half of my bullshit on each one of them. creativity 👍#backup is tall and pale and has sharp canines and more of a dull brown hair colour with tired grey eyes. no amount of babyface or soft-#-hands can really help a motherfucker when he's grimacing so much because he just Hates being around half the people on the team.#cleaner meanwhile is on the shorter side and has constantly flushed skin and brighter colours and whatnot. you can't see it because of the-#-mask most of the time but they do smile a lot more and have a more cheery disposition towards life and see the whole team as their friends!#backup transitioned fully (albeit not very legally lmao) and is scared shitless of not being seen as a man although the last time that ever-#-came up was years ago. he holds onto his last name as part of the heritage he loves and loathes at the same time - attached to his culture-#-and religion and bloodline while also resentful of his family and the regime he knows someone else on the team suffered under.#cleaner just kinda binds and calls it a day. he only does it to confuse the team because while he doesn't identify with being a girl he-#-loves the confused looks his epic gender reveal moment gets. they do not remember their family name or where they grew up or what even got-#-them to this kind of mental state. and he's chill with it he values the here and now way more than some dark edgy backstory.#backup despite trying to be an honest man is afraid of vulnerability as well. he stubbornly refuses to express love towards certain people-#-lest they feel disgusted and turn away. he's afraid of consequences afraid of losing the people he loves afraid of his ''interests'' being-#-what drives them away. it doesn't by the way and he just wasted time being a cold indecisive loser for several months lmao#cleaner wears a suit that hides all of them yes but they pretty much never lie. he is always his truest self and he can always just burn-#-people who don't like him enough to make it a problem. they are a lot more comfortable indulging in their interests - be they innocent-#-and juvenile or violent and dangerous. he is quite open with his affection and his fascinations that backup would rather keep secret.#i want to establish that these two can only exist in separate universes because they both have feelings towards the funny assistant lady-#-and the funny inventor guy (selfshipping for the winnn) and would fight over those two. cleaner would win by the way#it's also a really funny point of comparison. cleaner is objectively more fucked up than backup and still managed to be more normal about-#-their feelings and live as a healthier and happier person than that guy. comedic gold honestly#OKAY I'M DONE if you read up to here you get uhhh a cookie :-)
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empressofthewind · 2 months
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something that i've found really surprising about the death note fandom is how much discussion there is surrounding characters' religious affiliations & the religious imagery throughout the text, but how little the shinigami seem to be brought up in those conversations. in 20 years of fandom i would imagine that's something that's come up before, and maybe there have been recent discussions that i've just happened to miss, but it's not something i've personally come across in posts around the topic of religion in death note and it seems like a pretty significant thing to leave out
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wellhalesbells · 8 months
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I would read your Meg 2 fic
So far it's you, me, my bestie, and a frog - ngl, seems like a damn good group 🤙🏻
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edelorion · 24 days
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#edel vents#disclaimer: really personal issues in the tags. also wishes of death upon others. this is PROBABLY too much information tbh...#so if you're not up for it scroll down fast!!!! the deluge is coming!!!#today was... eventful. bad. also very bad. grandma's birthday celebration was today#and while she... definitely has Old People Issues (racist) shes also very lonely since the death of my grandfather so i can't really not go#i'm the only one who really visits her regularly to begin with#aside from the... very serious racism issue... she's “alright”. i guess. but that's besides the point. there's family there#and among those... my parents. which i don't like to talk to#discovered they threw more of my old stuff away. typical. wanted to strangle them. as usual.#had to “talk” with my mother (read: spend approximately ten seconds reciting exactly why i *don't* talk to her anymore)#so that whole ordeal completely soured my mood.#went home tired. can't really do anything right now.#at least the food was good i guess. but i also really want to cry... which i can't. which sucks.#...i really like to think i've improved as a person. i used to be really hateful of everything and everyone#worst of all myself. still kinda do but i'm... getting better..?#i like to think i've grown past most of it but every time i see my parents i feel this gripping at my heart. as if i haven't really changed#as if instead i'm still the hateful person i “always was” deep down... bc there's this visceral joy that i feel whenever i'm mad at them.#when i looked at my mother and told her how much i despise her i felt a shiver of happiness. righteousness.#to be clear: i do NOT care for her. at all. she's the worst person on this earth#and the only person whom my philosophy of “nobody deserves to die” does NOT apply to. i'm not scared of hating her.#she genuinely deserves this. but...every time i see my parents - and thus her... i feel as if i'm slipping back into that mindset of hatred#i don't want that. not anymore. it consumed me whole. i was a horrible person back then and i've caused so much grief for so many#i can't let go of this hatred. i can't forgive them. they don't deserve my forgiveness anyway. but i'm tired of hating.#i'm tired of letting that hatred define me. i'm tired of letting that hatred direct me. i'm tired of letting it bring me to ruin.#i'm tired of being who i was. i'm no longer “that”. i'm edel now and i'm happy for people now. if i don't like something i just walk out.#i can just leave. “if it sucks hit the bricks” right?.. but i didn't. i had to say it. i had to tell them. her. and i liked it.#and... i'm scared of that. because it tells me i haven't improved.#i'm not sure what i'm expecting out of posting this i guess. maybe help. maybe i wanna be told that this is normal or something.#maybe i just want to get my thoughts in order. i don't know. i'm gonna stop writing now.#sorry for making you read all this. thanks for doing it anyway. tags were cut off on this one btw so it may look like a mess. but. yeah.
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thethingything · 1 month
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I keep noticing our brain being a little iffy about a couple of things today that I think we'd been repressing a lot lately and that's not ideal because it means we'll probably unrepress it more and be upset about it later, but at the same time it's like, oh hello there, I know this particular sadness. I've spent a lot of time with it and I recognise it whenever it comes back and I'm less surprised to see it again and more surprised it went away for this long. time to spend another evening with it and be gentle with ourselves and just let our brain feel whatever it needs to
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driftpng · 1 year
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it feels kind of weird being an artist that mainly draws animal people n anthros & that being the main kind of thing people usually come to my page for, but not being able to relate to like most of the furry community in general (specifically when it comes to art + kind of characters i draw)
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Do you ever consider doing something nice, going out of your way to help out or just brighten the day of someone you know, but then you remember you never do that, and suddenly you feel awkward, what if they ask why you're suddenly doing such a thing, what's the occasion, are you trying to bribe them, and then you just don't do it, continuing to establish a patterns where you never do that thing so that every time you consider it, you feel they would see it as some grand gesture, something out of the ordinary that gets more attention than you feel you deserve? A cycle of inaction and fear of being seen leaving the apathetic role you built for yourself back when you were someone who wanted play it. You want to be someone else, you want to grow past the expectations you've given others for yourself, but you don't want anyone to notice the change. Why do you recoil at the mere thought of contradicting someone's expectation, even in a positive way? What are you afraid of?
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