something about jackie planning her life in a way that always included shauna and not realizing how those plans made shauna feel so unseen by her. something about shauna planning to get away and then after jackie's death staying rooted in the place that reminds her of jackie and with the people who will forever tie her to jackie and seeing her everywhere
2K notes
·
View notes
this is sort of pathetic, but when you were younger, you were sort of puzzled by the cartoon representations of fathers: how a kid would be outside with a mitt, waiting to play catch.
it's not that your father never played catch with you, but you also didn't like when he did. something about a hard ball coming quickly towards your face doesn't seem exciting. not that you'd ever say you don't trust him. you trust him, right?
it's not like he never tried to teach you anything. or never tried to parent. on rare days, a strange person would walk in your father's skin. bright, happy, magnificent. this version of your father was so cheerful and charismatic that you would do anything to keep him. and this is the version of your father that would laugh and gently coax you try again. this is the version of your father that would break down the small elements of a problem and point them out so you have an easier time with them.
as a kid, those days happened more often. but somewhere around 11, you started being too much of a person, and he was often cross about it. when he'd try to sit you down to learn something, you spent the whole time with your shoulders around your ears, nervous, uncertain. terrified because you didn't immediately understand how to navigate something. worried you will run out of his goodwill and then you will have the Other Father back, and you will have ruined a good day for your entire family. something about you being visibly afraid - it just made him angry. he would accuse you of not wanting to learn and storm away.
on tv, it's not like there's a lot of versions of men-who-are-mostly-fathers. they can be good dads, but usually their stories are not told in the household. so it's normal that your father is there, but he's never around. you know he was in the house, somewhere, it's just not that you guys ever... "hung out". he just seemed to get kind of bored of you, annoyed you weren't made in his perfect image. frustrated with how much energy it took to raise a kid. over time, you kind of adopt a bittersweet band around your throat - he knows nothing about me. he says at least i never abandoned my family.
and it's technically - technically - true. he was there for you. sometimes he even made an effort and made it to the big moments; the graduations and the dance recitals. he grins and tells everyone that he taught you. it almost erases the days in between, where he complains because you need a ride to school. the weeks that go by where he doesn't actually ever speak to you. the times you say i am struggling and he says figure it out on your own. i can't help you.
and that's fine! that's all fine. you can call him if you are having a problem with your car. or if you need a ride to the hospital. he loves playing hero, he just doesn't like the actual work that comes with being a father. and you've kind of made your peace with that; because you had to, because you don't want to live your life like he does; the whole world at a managed distance, a little rotating and controlled orb he can witness and take credit for but never truly love.
as an adult, you are rewatching some dumb cartoon - and again, the child standing in the rain, with a mitt, waiting for their father to come play catch. as an adult, there's this strange creeping dread - this little thing? this little thing, and their dad can't even show up for that? oh god, holyshit, it's not about the mitt, is it. oh god, holyshit, your father spent most of your life leaving you hanging.
3K notes
·
View notes
what I was talking abt earlier. we have fully looped back around and away from feminism, societally, whereas before it was very Feminism 101 to acknowledge that many parts of existing as a woman in a misogynistic society are painful and upsetting.
not that being a woman is Inherently Negative in a bubble. but that living on this earth, in the conditions we're living in, is hostile to women.
and that gender is a performance. that many of the Staples Of Femininity as accepted by society are things that you have to create and perform and mold artificially and aren't inherent, that COMPLAINING about day to day difficulties of existing as a woman is something that you're allowed to do.
acknowledging these basic, again, feminism 101 things, that something tied to womanhood is more time consuming or more expensive or more dangerous Because Of The Problems. does not CREATE the problems. that when women complain about having to perform femininity, they are not, in fact, oppressing themselves. the call does not come from inside the fucking house.
saying that you HAVE suffered does not fucking equate that you believe you SHOULD have suffered.
like I could talk about this for hours. how braindead and one-dimensional the Takes are getting. "being a woman is looking in the mirror and going fuck yeah i'm a woman" damn. I guess any negative experiences you have by living in a misogynistic world... are your fault if you are anything but positive?
"you don't actually want liberation" we've fully gone back to telling feminists "you WANT to be oppressed" when anything negative about our society is pointed out. it's not real until I say it out loud, I guess, and then I'm actually the one who caused it.
if anybody expresses any unhappiness with how they're treated or the status quo or the language and culture surrounding womanhood and femininity. they've created it, right that second. they invented it just now. it wasn't a problem before somebody complained, right?
also trans women aren't braindead zombies who just follow the flow of whatever cis women around them say. I am pretty fucking sure they are very much aware of pain, and are MORE than aware of the swirling torrent of misogyny and standards of femininity than anybody else. actually. and I am pretty sure someone complaining on tumblr that being a woman means always putting on a performance is going to make someone change their mind about transitioning. also "performing femininity" as a necessity to being treated well as a woman is not fucking NEWS to your Local Trans Woman. I AM PRETTY SURE SHE GETS THE CONCEPT. using trans women as a scapegoat for this braindead perspective on gender politics is spineless, meritless, and pathetic.
223 notes
·
View notes
btw now the only songs off folie that have Never been played live before are the (shipped) gold standard and wams. and there is no doubt in my mind that by the end of this tour every folie song will have been played. after the band had such a horrible experience touring folie that stopped them from playing those songs for over a decade. almost every song has been played now. if u even care
425 notes
·
View notes
anyways i love you people that are both gay and straight, in whatever way that presents. being nonbinary often can mean a complicated relationship to sexuality and how one perceives it within the societal restrictions of homo and heterosexual, and i think bridging those definitions and having "contradictory" labels like lesboy or whatever is really cool. i support and stan he/him lesbians or butch lesbians or she/her gay men or femme gays or she/he pronoun users and whatever else, be it cis or trans or both. if you feel like youre both cis and trans that also rocks. dont let people force you back into a binary within the queer community, stay strong!
217 notes
·
View notes
I'm so annoyed. @kingcrow01 tumblr ate your ask about Danny's opinion on the League. tumblr i pressed 'save draft' why didn't you sAVE DRAFT.
ANyways I'm making a post instead. For everyone else, the ask was in summary:
What was Danny's opinion on the League now that he's left it? If he missed the familiarity of it, if he recognized the cult-like behavior inside it, and if he now detested his grandfather.
And to answer (again, grrr): It's complicated! We love complicated <3. Yeah, Danny does miss the familiarity of the League, it was still his home for the first ten years of his life and he has a lot of memories there. Plenty of good along with the bad, and while he's less homesick than he was when he was 10, it still hits him like a truck at random intervals.
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz are great, and he likes the Drs. Fentons enough that he's contemplated murdering Vlad for his meddling, but if he wants to eat the same food his mother used to make him and Damian, he has to do it himself and he can't get the taste right. No one knows arabic so he speaks it to himself because he doesn't want to forget his mother tongue, and he has a few books too. Frankly? He genuinely misses training.
Getting to use Sam's gym helps with his restlessness, same with training with Maddie, but he has no one on or above his level to go against other than his mother. And he only sees her twice a year at most. He knows that he's getting stagnant and he fucking despises it like a bad itch he can't scratch.
He feels conflicted about missing the League, however, since by now he recognizes the flaws and what was wrong with it, and he recognizes that it was cult-like. But even that is kinda, hrm, complicated? If this was a fic I would be able to go better into depth about what he has and hasn't unlearned because cult deprogramming is hard and Danny's doing most of this on his own.
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz have helped with the more obvious stuff: like the ecofascism, the disregard for human life, his emotional constipation; the more obvious stuff that shows in his behavior and personality. But none of them are professionals nor do they actually know the full extent of what Danny's life in the League was like. They only have snapshots since Danyal is very tight lipped about it. So they can only help with what they see themselves through Danny's behavior or word of mouth.
But in summary: He sees, for the most part, what's wrong with the League and disagrees with some of the stuff they do now. But he's very conflicted, and trying to dissect his feelings on the League confuses him. His protests about it whenever Sam and Tucker joke about it have at this point become mostly empty (altho it still causes him some discomfort), and its an inside joke between them three.
As for Ra's? Despises him. If only because Ra's wanted him to kill his little brother -- thinking about his motives with the League confuses Danny, cognitive dissonance and stuff, -- a lot of his hatred stems from "He wanted me to fight my baby brother to the death. I destroyed my relationship with Damian because of him, I had to fake my death and leave my home, and I will never meet my father or see my brother again because of him. Fuck that guy."
85 notes
·
View notes