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#best way to make change is to simply be more positive. show other people how they can be more constructive. resolve conflicts
friendofthecrows · 2 years
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You know the thing about applying to jobs that have poor company culture ratings is, when messaging whoever is in charge of hiring at that particular place, I always kind of want to advertise the fact that I can turn any workplace culture around in 6 months or less, but I always stop myself because if the person hiring there is part of the problem, then they probably don't want me there.
#i kid you not I am insanely good at that#i inherited whatever gift that is from my mom and grandpa probably so on#took a coven where most members were fighting half the time and turned it into the most loyal close-knit group of friends within a month#just through fair conflict resolution#another time (the church I work at) everyone was really stagnant bad at doing things/follow through and kinda negative#now we've been aranging events and festivals charitable rallies/vigils etc no problem the whole place is more positive board meetings#are kind of FUN and so on#it's literally not even hard and I don't understand how other people are 'powerless to change' the dynamics in a group#they just fall victim to it#makes no sense to me#although i know ultimately it's because of conformity and fear or exclusion and also submissiveness#if you believe in the hierarchy extremely and don't know how/are afraid to attempt change respectfully#then you can't do anything#if you can either make change respectfully or ignore the hierarchy as a whole then you can do wonders#best way to make change is to simply be more positive. show other people how they can be more constructive. resolve conflicts#collaborate for solutions that make the negativity *no longer needed or relavant*#it's not actually hard#sometimes you have to confront people who are Being A Problem#and doing that in a non-insulting manner is probably the hardest aspect of all of this#because if you make them feel threatened/insulted#then they're just going to dig their heels in#you gotta take a friendly approach
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jytan2018 · 10 months
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I read the comic in one sitting less than an hour after finishing the movie, and wow I have many Thoughts™.
- It's very obvious the two versions were meant to cater to different audiences AND tell different messages. I don't get why people are going "But the comic was better! It had more nuance!" just because Nimona was easier to root for in the movie.
- The comic was written back when ND Stevenson was still trying to process a lot of stuff, so all the characters are morally grey/straight up evil and the climactic battle is between a Ballister who regrets turning against Nimona, even if it was to save others vs. a Nimona who's too hurt to care if her lashing out was going to hurt innocent people.
- By the time Nimona got a movie adaptation, ND was a lot more secure in his sexuality, so the climactic battle was Nimona vs. the Director, the symbol of religious oppression and bigotry. It's not just about your friends turning on you because you're "too much" for them anymore, it's also about a society that would rather bring itself to the brink of ruin than coexist with you.
- (I totally get why people were upset about Ballister's surname change, though. Like come on, the media dubbing him Blackheart just to be mean was RIGHT THERE).
- Nimona's metaphor for not shifting is such a neurodivergent thing. Even in the comic, Nimona's parents insisting she's a monster who replaced their daughter is reminiscent of the changeling myth, which is what many parents thought their neurodivergent kids were—changelings who replaced their "real" children.
- Ambrosius being trained to cut off HIS BOYFRIEND'S WHOLE FUCKING ARM instead of merely disarming him is a very cop thing to do. As much as cops claim they're trained to de-escalate situations, their training still teaches them to treat everyone as a potential threat, and that level of constant vigilance can turn anyone into a trigger-happy/arm-choppy bastard. Even the Director, who can use a sword but probably hasn't actually fought someone in ages, STILL can't see Ballister reaching for the squire's phone without assuming he has a weapon.
- And on that note, the Queen getting killed simply because she was trying to reform the Institution and allow commoners to become knights? That's the best "no such thing as a good cop" metaphor I've seen. Because even if there ARE good cops and they ARE in leadership positions, the system will crush them before they make any meaningful change. It's not a good institution that turned rotten, it's an institution that only exists to spread its rot and refuses to be good.
- That's why Ballister's characterisation is so different in the movie vs. the comic. Comic Ballister had 15 years to come to terms with his trauma and the Institution's evildoing, while Movie Ballister is still freshly traumatised and hasn't found a way to define himself beyond the role he was assigned by the Institution.
- Not to mention Comic Ambrosius was not very noble to begin with and genuinely believed Ballister was better suited to villainy than heroism, while Movie Ambrosius never wanted the glory that came with his lineage in the first place and only antagonised Ballister because of indoctrination he needed to unlearn (which he did, all by himself, after witnessing the lengths the Director will go to just to kill Nimona).
- It really shows how important it is to surround yourself with loved ones who are open to change. Comic Ambrosius can love Ballister all he wants, but he'll still blast his arm off because he thinks Ballister deserved it anyway. Movie Ambrosius will stop to question what "the right thing" even means, even if he didn't love Ballister enough to defend him unconditionally.
I have so many more thoughts bubbling beneath the surface, but I'll probably address them some other day. In conclusion:
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[ID: A pink-haired Nimona grinning evilly while holding up a knife.]
Watch Nimona. This is not a request.
Edit: Added more thoughts!
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₊˚⊹˚ 𐙚 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞
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pairing: rafe cameron x fem!reader
summary: ❝the summer’s hot, and i’ve been waiting for you all this time.❞ — rafe finally comes back home from his two-month long family vacation, surprising you in the middle of the night.
warnings: established relationship, ward overhears you and rafe on the phone, dry humping, heavy petting, oral (f receiving), face sitting, multiple orgasms, dirty talk, unprotected sex
word count: 2.3k
a/n: it literally makes me so happy when i see the feedback you guys give me, especially when you show your support by reblogging or simply liking. i love and appreciate every single one of you <333 series masterlist
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“you’re actually lying.” tears were already forming in your eyes as rafe spoke on the other line. “i wish i was, baby. we were supposed to fly back in this morning but some weather shit got in the way, so we’re kinda stuck here until they let us know when there’s another flight available.” you sighed, trying your best to keep your voice from shaking. “have you asked the airport people already?” there was a slight pause before rafe answered.
“they said it could be weeks since the hurricanes here get pretty crazy.” weeks?! you thought you could die right now. “i’m so mad my parents didn’t let me go.” the tears were falling now. you and rafe had never been apart for this long. with all the built up anticipation, you couldn’t help but get youreself excited and hopeful about seeing him today, just for all of it to come crashing down with a single phone call. “i wish you were here too, babe. i got you a bunch of stuff from the shopping centers here, i think you’ll love it.” you wanted to cry harder because of how sweet he was.
“aww, you didn’t have to do that for me, baby.” you cooed, your heart fluttering in your chest when you heard the smile in his voice. “at least you’re going on winter vacation with me.” you nodded, trying to stay as positive as you can. “that’s true. i can’t help but to think my parents are trying to torture me or something,” you laughed, “they heard the words ‘shared hotel room’ and freaked out.” rafe shook his head even though you couldn’t see him. “they did, right?” he glanced at the tv, the weather report still the same.
“yeah, but rightfully so i guess. could you imagine if we shared a room for two months?” you bit your lip at the idea. “it’s a good thing we didn’t tell them that we’d have a whole cabin to ourselves in december.” you shut your eyes for a moment, wishing so bad that you could speed up the time. “you need to come back to me already. i’m sad and horny.” rafe snorted at your words. “hey, at least we know we could have amazing phone sex.” before you could respond, you heard what sounded like ward in the background.
“come on, rafe. seriously man?” you gasped, shooting up from your bed. “rafe! i thought you were somehwere private!” your cheeks were on fire with how hard you were blushing right now. “tell ward i said hi.” rafe did as you asked, a muffled ‘hey, sweetheart.’ sounding on the other line. “wheezie and sarah there?” as if you could be anymore mortified right now. “nah, they went to a gift shop with rose.” thank, god. “well, i told lia that i’d go with her to the beach for a little, so i better start getting ready.” you put him on speaker, opening your drawer that had all your bikini’s in it.
“all right, i’m gonna let you go babe,” rafe sighed, “i’ll update you as soon as i find something out.” you chose a top, and grabbed a pair of jean shorts as you started changing. “okay. i’ll see you soon, love you.” you smiled when he kissed the mic. “i love you more, i’ll talk to you later.” you hung up, feeling slightly better after hearing his voice. it didn’t take you long to pack your beach tote, lia picking you up soon after.
you spent the rest of the day with your friend, both of you taking pictures and reading your books. “wanna stay the night at mine? i could really go for some pizza right now.” lia pouted as she pulled into your driveway. “i wish. i have to go to breakfast with my family tomorrow.” she put the car in park, looking at you apologetically. “oh, that’s right! it’s okay, hang tomorrow afterwards?” you grabbed your bag from the backseat. “for sure. i’ll call you when i get home.” she nodded, in which you waved. “hey! send me the pictures we took!” you shouted as she rode off.
“hey, guys,” you greeted your parents as you closed the front door behind you. they were curled up on the couch watching a movie. “hey!” your mom whispered, not wanting to wake your father who was resting his head on her lap. they always looked so cute together. “i’m gonna go shower. goodnight.” you walked past them, eagerly waiting to check your phone to see if you had any messages from rafe.
[2:32 PM] loml <3: still the same bs. i’ll try to call you again tonight
you gasped at the timestamp. that was hours ago. it was about ten o’clock now, and you were definitely feeling the effects of your activities today.
[10:02 PM] y/n: superrr sleepy rn, i’ll still answer if you call bb
you waited until the message delivered and quickly got in the shower. after washing your hair and rinsing yourself off, you changed into an oversized t-shirt and called it a night. you don’t know how long you’d been asleep for, but your eyes were fluttering open as you felt your bed dip beside you.
your heart dropped when you saw a dark figure looming over you, a loud gasp escaping your lips. before you could scream, a large hand covered your mouth. your eyes widening as you starting hitting the person against their chest. “baby, it’s me! it’s me!” you stopped as soon as you heard his voice, rafe’s hand slowly moving away from your face. “what the hell!” you whispered, immediately throwing your arms around him. “how are you here right now?” you reached over, turning on the small lamp on your nightstand.
the soft light barely did anything to illuminate the space, but your heart skipped a beat once you could make out his features. you stared at each other for a few moments before he took your lips into a searing kiss. “fuck, i missed you so much.” he leaned all his body weight on top of you, the feeling nearly bringing you to tears. “two months, rafe. never again.” you scolded him, letting him settle between your thighs. “my dad pulled some strings and we were able to come back today. just landed like an hour ago.” he could barely talk as he kissed you inbetween his words.
the reality of the situation made you stop, your body freezing underneath him. “what?” he looked at you confused. “my parents are here! how did you even get in?” you scrambled to get up, locking your door before you could get caught. when you turned around, rafe was laying flat on your mattress, a sliver of skin poking out from under his t-shirt. “my key. they were knocked out cold on the couch, so i just snuck up here.” he propped himself up on his elbows, his eyes falling to your bare thighs. “you wearing anything underneath that?” you smiled before shaking your head and lifting up the hem of your shirt teasingly. “no.” rafe’s gaze darkened as he watched you straddle him.
“why?” his hands ran up your thighs, squeezing the flesh before they settled on your hips. you shrugged. “just wanted to be ready for you.” rafe could already feel his cock hardening with your words alone. “yeah?” he dragged your hips against his, your naked cunt rubbing against his shorts. “fuck,” you whimpered, letting your head fall to the side as you balanced yourself on your palms. “i missed hearing that. missed seeing you like this.” he took the shirt off of you, marveling at the sight of your bare figure on top of him.
“i want you to get yourself off on me,” rafe splayed a hand over your stomach, “wanna watch you move.” you grabbed his hand, placing his middle and ring fingers in your mouth, your hips grinding against him. “you’re so fucking perfect, ‘don’t know how i made it two months without you.” you moaned, sucking his digits while you started a steady rhythm. you knew you were overly sensitive because of how long it’d been without him here, but you couldn’t help the aftershocks that came with your clit rubbing against his hard on.
rafe groaned, knowing he wouldn’t last too long like this. while he spewed out the most filthy things you’ve ever heard, you sped up, desperate to reach the high you were so close to. rafe screwed his eyes shut, stopping you just before he could cum in his shorts. the sound of both of you trying to catch your breaths filtered throughout your room as you blinked down at him. “i was so close,” you pouted, clenching around nothing. “ride my face.” your eyes widened. “what?” rafe grabbed you by your waist, a yelp leaving your lips as he held you above his mouth.
you shuddered when you felt his breath fanning against the inside of your thighs. “are you su- fuck!” you cried when you felt his tongue where you ached for him the most. “oh my god, rafe,” he was quick to interwine his fingers with yours, holding you tightly so you couldn’t move away. this was new for both of you, but rafe was quickly realizing that watching you with your jaw slacked and greedily chasing his tongue with your hips was becoming his new favorite view.
he moaned against your soaked cunt, the slight vibration making your eyes roll back. “r-rafe!” your hips stuttered as you felt the sweet release of pure euphoria wash over you. rafe held you tighter against him, his tongue attacking your clit as you shook uncontrollably. two months of phone sex could never compare to the real thing, your breaths becoming labored as rafe laid you down. “i’m gonna fuck you senseless.” rafe kissed you, your wetness still on his lips as he did so. just as you pulled away, a knock sounded from your bedroom door.
“y/n, is everything okay honey?” your eyes widened as rafe took the opportunity to roll one of your nipples between his fingers, your face burying in his chest to muffle the moan that left your mouth. “i-i’m okay! just.. cramps!” rafe trailed sloppy kisses across your neck, smiling against your skin as you struggled to formulate a single sentence. “aw i hope you feel better, call me if you need anything, love.” you waited until her footsteps receeded down the hallway before you smacked rafe playfully. “you’re terrible!” you laughed.
he took off his shirt, his muscles on full display as he discarded his shorts. fuck, he was glorious. “yeah, but you love me.” you smiled as he slotted himself between your legs, shivering once you felt his cock sit between your folds. “i do love you.” rafe ran his fingers through your hair, caging you between his arms as he slid into you, a moan sounding from both your mouths. you stretched around him so deliciously, rafe’s head resting in the crook of your neck.
“is that my favorite body wash?” he looked up, pecking your jaw when you nodded. “something told me to use it tonight.” your eyes fluttered shut when rafe pulled out, pushing back into you as he hooked your thigh around his waist. “this is all i could think about over there,” he sighed, “i just wanted to feel this perfect pussy squeezing around me.” you mewled at his words, your nails digging into his shoulders. “did you think about me, baby?”
you nodded, your back arching into his chest. “fuck, yes. i missed having you on top of me, ‘missed taking your cock.” he groaned, lightly wrapping a hand around your neck as his pace sped up. rafe adjusted you so your head was resting on top of his arm as he kissed you roughly. his thrusts were unforgiving, soon the sound of skin slapping against skin echoed in your room. with the way the head of his cock was stroking that soft spot inside you, you couldn’t bring yourself to care if you were being too loud. you started meeting his thrusts, your clit meeting his pubic bone.
“you’re doing so fucking good for me.” he panted, his breath fanning your cheeks. you wrapped your arms around his neck, crying out into his skin. “don’t stop!” he covered your mouth, shushing you as he fucked into you relentlessly. “i got you, baby. ‘gonna fill up this pretty cunt with my cum.” you whimpered, tears welling in your eyes as you felt your second orgasm nearing. with a couple more thrusts, you found yourself falling over the edge, your climax hitting you in waves of pure ecstasy. “oh, fuck,” rafe’s jaw was clenched as he suppressed the groan that threatened to rip itself from his throat.
you reveled in the feeling of his seed spilling into you, his eyebrows knitting in pleasure as he continued to move sloppily. “fuck, i don’t think i ever came that hard before.” he removed his hand, allowing you to take a full breath. you sighed, curling into your boyfriend as he plopped down beside you. “i missed this the most.” he pressed a kiss to your temple, his fingers tracing shapes into your side. you smiled softly, draping an arm across his torso. “i could fall asleep like this..” rafe’s voice was hoarse, both of you yawning at the same time.
“me too,” you started, “i’m gonna go grab some water real quick, i’ll be right back.” he pulled you down for another kiss before letting you get up. you poked your head outside your door, slipping on a shirt and a pair of underwear before slipping out. you tiptoed down the stairs, walking into the kitchen where your mother sat with her laptop. “oh-” you smiled awkwardly, getting two water bottles out of the fridge. your mom looked up at you from her spot at the kitchen island.
“i take it that rafe is back from vacation? you’re lucky i left the volume up on the tv.”
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csuitebitches · 6 months
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Fearless Social Confidence: Strategies to Live Without Fear, Speak Without Insecurity, Beat Social Anxiety, and Stop Caring What Others Think - Patrick King book notes
Socially confident people:
expect to be accepted. When they meet strangers, they expect to make a good impression. They never approach situations thinking, “What if they don’t like me?” Instead they think, “I hope I like them.”
evaluate themselves positively. Socially confident people are encouraging, positive, and accepting of themselves. They give themselves leeway not to be perfect and don’t beat themselves up too harshly when they are not.
feel comfortable around superiors. Socially confident people feel comfortable because they don’t feel threatened, or that their flaws and vulnerabilities will be highlighted by the other person’s qualities.
With a lack of social confidence, you are usually choosing the thought that is cruelest to yourself.
when navy SEALs recognize that they are feeling overwhelmed, they regain control by focusing on their breath—breathing in for four seconds, holding for four seconds, and then out for four seconds, and repeating until you can feel your heart rate slow down and normalize.
Core beliefs: 
Steps in a thought diary entry can be arranged in the easy-to-remember A-C-B format—
Activating Event. Note down the event/ situation. This is simply the origin point of your emotional change. It’s whatever caused your emotional status to change from calm to agitation (a memory, a song, etc).
Consequences. In this step you identify the specific emotions and sensations that arose. These could be simple feeling words— “anxious,” “unhappy,” “sickened,” “panicky,” “melancholy,” “confused,” and so forth.
Beliefs. This is where the action begins. How do you link the activating event with the consequences? What unconscious narrative or story about yourself was told to achieve the consequence? (“What was I thinking?”  “What was going through my head when this happened?”  “What’s wrong with that?”“What does this all mean?”  “What does it reveal about me?”)
Now you’ve gotten to the bottom of your situation and figured out what your core beliefs are.
The first step is writing down one of the core beliefs you’ve just uncovered. Ask yourself what experiences you’ve had that prove your core belief wasn’t always true. Generate as many experiences as you can and be very specific about what happened.
Write down the core belief you’re examining.  Think of ways that you can put that belief to the test. These are actual tasks that you can perform.  Then, write down what you expect or predict will happen after conducting these tasks if your core belief was true.  Perform the tasks.  Write down what really happened after you completed your task.  Compare and contrast your predictions with what actually happened. Finally, document what you learned from the task and come up with a new, more reasonable core belief that goes in line with your discoveries.
Bushman’s results imply that sometimes the best course of action after being provoked to anger is to just sit quietly and let it pass.
There’s a direct link between social anxiety and negativity. A 2016 Australian research study showed that “elevated social anxiety vulnerability is characterized only by facilitated attentional engagement with socially negative information.” Obsessing over negative details—including by constantly talking about one’s problems—only reinforces one’s social fears and does nothing to inspire real confidence in a social setting.
Personalization is the mother of guilt. In the cognitive distortion of personalizing, you feel responsible for events that cannot conceivably be your fault. While it is admirable to take responsibility for your actions, there are things completely out of your control: the subway schedule, other people’s actions, and a million day-to-day factors.
Common cues of overgeneralization are “always” and “never.” When starting a sentence or a thought with “always” or “never,” consider whether you have the experience or evidence to back up the statement.
Other people aren't only what they are showing to the world. Most people put on a good show. But do you really know what might be going on in their private life? Take comfort from the fact that while there will be many people who are better at certain things than you are, there are also most certainly things that you will be better at.
If you are self-conscious and worried that people will judge you if you say something stupid or “off,” there's an easy workaround to that. The best approach is simple preparation. Create answers to predictable questions and conversations. Run that mental videotape in your mind about your past 10, 20, or 30 social conversations. I guarantee they are not all that different from each other.
Figure out the general questions that people will ask and the topics that will come up in normal conversation and be prepared with story-answers. For example, How was your weekend? What are you doing this weekend? How was your day? What do you do for work?
How can we ease ourselves into social confidence little by little? 
List the social situations you avoid. Ask yourself what kinds of gatherings or circumstances you steer clear of and write them all down in a list. Your list should include both physical situations—parties, family gatherings, work presentations, and so forth—and personal experiences that you don’t want to face.
Give each situation a SUDS level from 0 to 100.
Plan your goals.
Build your goal stepladder. You’ve planned a goal and have decided to start work. Remember, situational exposure is a bit-by-bit process.
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sporadicbeans82 · 18 days
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What Should Be || Mapi León x Ingrid Engen x Reader (Part Three)
Part 1 || Part 2
Summary: You continue to hide your feelings for a different couple, but doing so results in pushing you to the edge.
Warnings: Mentions of vomiting, mentions of alcohol, mentions of sex, maybe a swear word, reader having shitty coping mechanisms, a bit of angst
Word count: 5.1k words
A/N: I managed to write up a part 3. Will we have a part 4? Mayyybe.
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Over the course of the next few weeks, you began to fall into your role on the Barcelona team. It was structured very differently from the teams and clubs that you’d been previously a part of, but you found that you enjoyed the change. 
You found friends in Claudia and Patri, and the two often invited you out with them to wander around the city. You also befriended Aitana and Ona, who were often tagging along with you, Keira, and Lucy who were dubbed the “English Squad”. 
You hadn’t yet found a position as a consistent starter on the team, although you were typically subbed in towards the end of the game. Slowly, you were finding your groove with your new club, but that wasn’t to say that everything was going smoothly.
Inside, you were incredibly conflicted. You were continually confused by the feelings which bubbled up from within whenever you caught sight of Mapi and Ingrid walking into the locker room together. You  yearned to know what the two were talking about when they whispered between each other, everything inside of you wished all-so-badly to hold Ingrids’ hand or hug Mapi when she seemed cold on the sideline. 
You adamantly reminded yourself that you didn’t deserve to feel this way. You were not a part of their relationship, and so you tried arduously to get these emotions out of your mind. 
In an attempt to get rid of the feelings you held for the Norwegian and Spanish women, you began to spend your sleepless nights in other ways. You slept around as best as you could, figuring you were just simply lonely. However, no matter how many bodies you found comfort in during sleepless nights, you couldn’t help but wish you were spending them in the comfort of other bodies. 
If you closed your eyes for too long, you’d begin to envision that the tongue, or the fingers, or the skin which pushed so pleasantly against yours was that of two defenders from Barcelona. You would always push away, consumed in the thoughts of images of things which you shouldn’t have been thinking of. 
Many times, you’d end up simply leaving, apologetic and quiet as you walked out the other woman’s bedroom door. Then, you’d be doomed to spend the night alone with nothing but your thoughts of self-hatred and uncertainty to comfort you.
You were aware that you weren’t coping well with your dilemma, but you would prefer that over genuinely having to face the feelings which clouded your mind. To you, they were scary– impossible to untangle, and you were entirely too exhausted to begin trying to figure out why you felt the way that you did.
No matter how hard you tried to forget your feelings and stick to your promise of leaving the two alone, you couldn’t simply forget. You couldn’t understand why the two occupied your mind so much, haunting your every thought and action. However, the effect showed in the way which you practiced.
You were much more irritable than normal during training, and every person around you had noticed. You were also much quieter than what anyone was used to seeing, a frown seeming to have permanently replaced the simple smile you usually held on your features.
As you grew more and more conflicted, you began to lash out at those around you. More often than not, you directed your anger at the people who were making you feel the way that you were. However, given that Ingrid would only respond with concern and love, you redirected all of your anger towards your ex-girlfriend, who would notoriously dish your piss poor attitude right back at you.
Rarely did a training session go by where you and Mapi didn’t argue at least once. Oftentimes, they were loud arguments, filled with petty comments and digs at the other’s persona. You would usually have to be dragged away by a teammate, which would make it worse, as the one who would always go to Mapi after your arguments was Ingrid. The taller, dark haired woman would gently tug her girlfriend away from you, and you always felt like you’d been stabbed in the chest when they did. Your mind was constantly muddled, wanting so badly to be a part of their comforting arrangement but being unable to even consider the possibility of a friendship with the two, nevermind anything more. 
You were making a fool of yourself, and you knew it. However, you felt like you were a passenger in your own body, simply watching everything happen around you and you were useless to stop it.
You felt incredibly guilty– both for the way you were acting towards the couple, and for the way you felt. As if you hadn’t had enough on your plate, the expectations that your parents had set upon you as a child were coming back to bite you in the ass. 
You’d known you were queer from a young age, but your parents had always disapproved of that “lifestyle”. You’d spent countless nights as a child, sleeping on your friends’ couches and floors whenever you and your parents had fought about your sexuality. 
Hell, you’d even broken up with Mapi over the fact that your parents would never accept her as she was, and it wasn’t something that you wanted to subject the woman that you loved to. It was why you hadn’t dated anybody since you’d dated the Spanish defender, as you felt like they would never be accepted in your family. In your eyes, you weren’t worth the hassle and the pain that your potential partner would have to go through in dating you. 
You’d long gotten over that part of your life, having compartmentalized the mentality that had been ingrained in you and unlearned that your very being was wrong.
Despite your best attempts to accept yourself as you were, a part of you wondered if you would ever… truly be accepted. The fact that you liked women had been something you’d settled with long ago, but you felt like you were having a second identity crisis over the fact that you now liked two women at once. The guilt was eating at you, pushing you further and further away when all that you wanted was to be held and reassured, to be told that you were okay for how you felt. 
Likewise, you knew you were in for a tongue-lashing from Alexia sometime soon. The woman was growing tired of your antics, having had to personally separate you from her friend a number of times. 
Each time you’d try to argue your case for whatever had sent you and Mapi spiraling, Alexia would simply roll her eyes and shake her head at you, as though she were disappointed in you. You tried to be better, to let the anger which held you in its clutches fade away, but it would never last. 
Each time you thought that it was over, that you had gotten over what you knew to be crushes on Ingrid and Mapi, the two would go and be themselves and you would just… lose it. Maybe you were simply insanely jealous of the two, or maybe you were so full to the brim of “what if”’s and “what could have been”’s that you were blind to why you were acting the way that you were. 
However, what you really wanted was attention. You wanted Mapi and Ingrid to pay attention to you in the way that they paid attention to each other. Because you were hopeless to ever receive the love which you yearned for, you settled for pushing their buttons. Because, even if they were screaming at you and hated you, they were aware that you were there and acknowledging you. You would have gone through a million arguments with Mapi just for a glimpse of both women looking at you. 
You couldn’t keep avoiding how you felt forever, of course. It would all come to a head one day, and when that day would come… you were sure that all the walls you’d carefully built up would come crashing down. 
-----
In your defense, you were having a really bad day. You’d woken up after an hour of restless sleep and had misjudged the way you’d stepped and tripped, landing harshly on your knee. As if that wasn’t enough, you’d woken up late and were most certainly not going to make it to training in time. 
You’d had to forgo most of your morning routine, which had sent you in an angry spiral before you’d even left your house. On top of that, you hadn’t had any food in your fridge and would have to run through training on an empty stomach. 
As if that weren’t bad enough, you’d managed to forget your socks and training top, and had to ask Claudia for spare socks to wear. Of course, then, Claudia and Patri made fun of you for being so forgetful and for being late. 
Usually, you would have laughed along with the two girls, as they were the only two who were able to get you out of your moods. Today, however, you were silent and simply grit your teeth, storming out of the locker room wordlessly. 
Ingrid had noticed your apparent anger and, despite the way that you’d been acting lately, she wanted to catch you by the wrist and pull you back. She and Mapi knew that there was something very, very wrong with you, and both girls couldn’t help but be concerned for the girl that they’d both begun to develop feelings for. 
You never noticed the two, and throughout practice you continued to be silent and brooding.
You’re not even sure when the argument had started, or who had started it. One second, Mapi was complaining about a little cut she’d gotten on her knee when she’d tackled you. 
The next second, you were snarkily telling Mapi to go to her girlfriend to kiss it better. Mapi, who had been sitting on the ground, had glanced up from her knee to glare at you, and it had all gone to hell from there.
“What is your problem with me?” Mapi had asked, her accent further accentuating just how fed up she was with you and your attitude.
You didn’t have a good enough reason to explain just what your problem was, as you yourself didn’t know, either. Instead, you huffed and rolled your eyes, gesturing at Mapi’s entirety with both hands.
“My problem with you? I’m simply wondering when the fuck you decided to start acting like a whiny little girl, is all. Between the last time I saw you and now, you’ve really fucking changed, and not for the better.” Your voice was more pointed than Mapi had ever heard, causing the girl to recoil as though you’d burnt her. 
“Verdad? You really think that?” Mapi’s eyes were big, looking incredibly hurt. Just for a second, you wondered whether you’d pushed too far, and then Mapi was getting up off the ground. She stepped towards you, her chest pressing into your own as she glared at you with more malice in her eyes than you’d ever seen. If looks could kill, then you would have been six feet under. 
Her hands met your shoulders, keeping you from stepping back from her as she pushed against you, “You know what? You are the one who has changed. You are not the person I loved, and that hurts me a lot. You are so mean, and for what reason? Because if you did not want to be here, you could leave. Everybody would be okay with that.”
The way Mapi had meant her words, and the way that you understood them were completely different. However, Mapi didn’t have the time to clarify her meaning as your face was entirely transformed before her eyes. It was as if she had pressed a button on a robot and the robot had shut down.
Your face went blank, nearly emotionless, and you had stopped pressing back against Mapi. As you went limp, Mapis’ body shoved you backward, and you stumbled. You would have fallen, if not for Aitana having been in the right place at the right time and quickly wrapping an arm around your middle to keep you upright. 
You stared wordlessly at Mapi. Truthfully, Mapi’s words had cut deeper than you ever would have been able to communicate. Your worst fears, of everyone truly not caring about you and wanting you gone, had just simply been proven with the words of your ex-girlfriend. Sure, you knew that you had been an unpleasant teammate thus far, but you had been trying so hard to get better, and you’d even been making friends. 
You wondered if your teammates had meetings without you, happy to spend time without a certain brooding someone around to bother them. You wondered if Claudia and Patri simply invited you out with them so that they could make fun of you behind your back. You knew that it didn’t make sense, but your over exhausted brain was running on overdrive.
You yearned to crumple to the ground and cry, to never move again. You wanted to run away, to leave behind everything– the thoughts of Ingrid, and of Mapi, and of all the women in between who had tried to help you forget but had only served as a reminder that you were not enough for the only people you’d ever loved. You were not good enough for your parents, or for Mapi, for any of your short flings who had wanted, and not for Ingrid. You wanted to give up. 
You were so consumed in your thoughts of self-hatred that you barely took notice of your Barcelona captain guiding Mapi back towards you with a hand on her back. 
Alexia’s brows were furrowed as she surveyed you, as though she were trying to make sense of what was going on. Finally, the woman spoke.
“You two will go talk this out. I will not have this on my team any longer. Venga.” Her voice was sharp and left no room for either you or Mapi to argue. Mapi sent a quick glance to Ingrid, who looked on nervously, before allowing Alexia to continue guiding her back towards the locker room.
Alexia placed her other hand on your back, firmly pressing you forward to walk you and Mapi in front of her. You both felt like children being scolded by their parents, and it only served to further sadden you.
Alexia continued to lead you and Mapi away from the rest of the team, into the shade of the tunnel which led to the locker room. 
“Aquí. The two of you will talk here.” Alexia stared you both down, her hands on her hips and her lips pursed. You looked at Mapi, who looked at you in return. The both of you looked absolutely shameful in the way which you both quickly looked away from each other in favor of the ground. 
“Will you be standing there and listening in, Capi?” Despite the rather innocent-sounding question, Mapi’s tone conveyed anger which simmered just below the surface. Instead of answering Mapi’s question, Alexia answered it on her own.
“Will you two be arguing like children as soon as I leave?” You didn’t have it in you to speak up, but you did glance over. Mapi looked annoyed, and you knew it was because of how the two of you were being treated. In retrospect, the two of you had been behaving like children, and Alexia had a point to what she was saying. 
The stubborn defender, however, was having none of it at the moment as she mirrored Alexia’s expression and crossed her arms over her chest. There was a moment of awkward, tense silence between the three of you, which Alexia seemed to take as an answer. 
“What are you two even arguing about in the first place? Every time I see you, it is about nothing. Figure out your differences, because I will not be having this type of behavior on my team. I am not afraid to bench you.” Alexia spoke, and this time you met her gaze. Her eyes conveyed several different emotions of which shamed you further, and you sighed. 
However, it seemed that Mapi wasn’t done. 
“Verdad, Ale? Seriously? She cheated on me. You know this! How can you expect-” You turned your head towards Mapi in absolute confusion, wondering where in the world such accusations had come from. 
“Cheated? I never did that. I would never.” You sounded almost panicked, and confused. Your brows were furrowed, both out of sheer disbelief and out of the fact that you were trying to remember when you could have been mistaken for cheating. 
You came up empty as you tried to figure out where Mapi was coming from, and your arms flew out to the side as though to show just how confused you were.
Mapi appeared confused as she watched you try to put the puzzle pieces together. Finally, the dark-haired woman spoke, sounding deflated and disappointed as she did so.
“When we stopped dating-  you were with that Arsenal girl. I saw the pictures, they were everywhere,” Mapi paused, voice quickening as she realized you were, once again, trying to interrupt in order to defend your name. “No, no. Escúchame, por favor. I couldn’t get over you, and I couldn’t… get away from those pictures. You broke up with me the next night… they were everywhere, on the internet, on my feed… in my head. You should not have dragged me on like that. It was not… right.”
“Que? What pictures?” You sounded confused, voice high pitched as your cheeks reddened. You were trying arduously to figure out just what- oh. OH. Those pictures.
The night you’d broken up with Mapi, Leah Williamson, your Arsenal teammate, had found you wallowing in your room in her apartment. The blonde had dragged you out, unable to leave you to your lonesome. You’d spent most of that night drinking away your sorrows, trying to forget someone who was, simply put, absolutely unforgettable. 
You’d known that several pictures had been taken that night, many of which were considered “iconic”, but you’d never brought it upon yourself to look too hard at them. The majority of them focused on various footballers partying and taking shots, dancing, and otherwise having a fun time. 
However, that night had been incredibly painful and raw for you, and had ended with your head hovering over a toilet, vomiting and sobbing while Leah and her then-girlfriend, Jordan, had tried to comfort you.
Nevertheless, you’d known of one particular picture that had circulated the internet for much longer than others. It featured you and Leah, with you practically hanging off of the blonde woman’s body. To the uninformed eye, the two of you could have been mistaken for lovers. Your arms had been wrapped around Leah’s upper body, with one of your hands grasping at her cheek. Leah’s hand had, otherwise, been around your waist so that she could hold you up. 
You’d simply been posing for the photo, but the two of you were looking each other in the eyes and grinning like the drunken fools you were. You remembered, only barely, that you’d been telling Leah a joke, which had caused the twinkle in your eyes and the smiles to burst on your faces. 
If you’d known how damaging that photo would have been to the person you loved most in the world, you would have taken it all back. As it stood, however, you had to face the consequences of that night several years later. 
Mapi looked, simply put, incredibly insecure. Her arms had shifted so that she was hugging herself around her middle. Her big brown eyes, the ones that you’d fallen in love with time and time again, looked near-tears. It was only then that you realized that, while you’d been hurting, you’d also been hurting Mapi. The thought nearly broke you in two, and you knew that you would do anything and everything in your power to make it all okay again.
“Map- Mapi, no,” Mapi simply stared at you, waiting for an explanation. Alexia was still standing awkwardly to the side, quietly watching the two of you, ready to step in if she needed to. “Those– I wasn’t dating Leah, I never cheated on you. I promise.”
Mapi still looked unsure, and so you continued.
“I was upset… over us, so Leah took me out with the rest of the team. I was so drunk that I could barely walk, and so Leah was making sure that I didn’t fall and hurt myself. She was dating Jordan at the time, and I have proof of that, if you want to see it.” Slowly, Mapi’s posture loosened, but she still looked untrusting of you. 
“Si. Show me.” You looked at Alexia, almost for permission, as you began to angle yourself towards the locker room. You would need your phone to show the other girl the proof you had. Alexia nodded at the two of you, although she focused mostly on Mapi to make sure that the other girl was alright.
After a firm nod from the defender, Alexia’s gaze flitted between both of you before she nodded slowly and backed away, heading towards where your teammates were rather obviously pretending not to be watching you and Mapi. 
From across the field, it was Mapi’s girlfriend who caught your eye. She was watching the two of you unashamedly, not even bothering to be pretending to do something else. Her hands were crossed over her chest as you and Mapi began to walk down the tunnel towards the locker room. 
You wanted to reassure the other girl, too, especially since you knew how delicate of a situation this was. However, as you watched Alexia making her way towards the tall woman, you figured that the captain was going to fill Ingrid in on what was going on.
Finally, you turned your head back towards the space ahead of you. Yours’ and Mapi’s cleats clashing against the cement floor of the tunnel were the only noises that could be heard between the two of you, filling up the silence. 
You were quick to dart forward, opening the locker room door for Mapi to walk through. You followed her, taking a deep breath to try to calm your thoughts as you did so. You hadn’t been alone with Mapi since the fateful day that you’d broken up with her, so many years ago. Truthfully, you’d never thought you’d be alone with her ever again, and the fact that you were now alone with Mapi was bringing up memories and thoughts which had been repressed for a very, very long time.
You made your way over to your cubby and opened up your backpack, which sat atop the bench. You only had to do a little bit of digging to find your phone and you powered the device on. From there, you unlocked it and found the photos app. 
Within the app, you knew that you had a folder titled “Leah”, as you did with all your friends. What you didn’t anticipate, however, was that Mapi was looking over your shoulder and could see all of the other folders that you had. Right next to Leah’s was another folder, one which was titled “Mapi”. 
You weren’t sure that Mapi had seen it, as the girl didn’t say anything, but you were quick to press onto Leah’s folder. You scrolled through several rows of photos before you found the ones that you needed and pressed on them before handing Mapi your phone.
Mapi took a second to look at the photos, scrolling through the five which you knew were from when you, Jordan, and Leah had all lived together. You’d had a movie night, and Jordan had been perched in Leah’s lap. At one point, the two had kissed each other and you’d caught a picture of it. You’d moved out soon after that, as you’d quickly gotten tired of third wheeling with the two in your own home. However, you’d accumulated several other “couple” pictures of the two, all of which were in the folder. 
After several moments of tense silence, Mapi handed you the phone back and nodded slowly.
“I am sorry.” Mapi said, looking exhausted.
“For what?” You asked.
“For not listening to you. For thinking the worst of you when I saw those photos. For bringing it onto this team when you were looking for a fresh start.” Mapi’s voice trailed off, almost nervously, and you swallowed.
“You didn’t drag it on, we were doing it to each other. You have nothing to apologize for, especially when I should have explained myself to you as soon as I realized that those photos were out for the world to see,” You sounded apologetic, which you were. Sure, you were still stupidly confused over your feelings for Mapi and Ingrid, but you’d never meant to hurt anybody with them. “I am sorry for disrespecting you, and for starting so many fights with you.”
It was at that moment that the door opened, and you and Mapi both looked over to see Ingrid standing there. She looked between the two of you, and you took a small step back from Mapi, all-too-aware of the feelings you had for them and the fact that you did not have a handle on them. 
“Is everything alright in here?” Ingrid’s voice was delicate, and calm. You knew that Alexia had purposely sent her to calm things down if it were needed, and Ingrid looked almost surprised at the fact that one of you wasn’t dead on the ground.
“Sí, we were just… talking. We had a little misunderstanding, is all.” Mapi said, looking at her girlfriend and then at you.
“‘Little’ is an understatement,” You scoffed, and Mapi let out a little laugh at the comment. Out of a moment of bravery, you leaned over to elbow Mapi, who elbowed you right back almost instantly. Your eyes found each other in the next second, gazes meeting before it all fell apart. 
You were the one who broke first, giggling uncontrollably, which only seemed to spark a fit of laughter in Mapi as well. Ingrid looked perplexed as she watched the two of you, who had been ready to fight to the death only minutes before, busted down by fits of laughter. 
Finally, you were able to catch your breath, and you met Ingrid’s blue eyes from across the room once more. 
“Yeah, everything is okay. We’ve just been… a little stupid, is all.” Now, it was Ingrid’s turn to scoff.
“Yes, we’re aware that the two of you have been acting stupid.” Ingrid said, and you put your hand over your heart as thought you were offended.
“Hey!” Mapi cried out, having unintentionally mirrored your movement with one of her own. Ingrid didn’t speak, simply smiling at the both of you.
“Well, if all is well… our break is nearly over.” Ingrid told the two of you, and you nodded. 
You strode forward, as if to leave the room, but Mapi’s voice called you back.
“Ingrid… could we have a moment, please? I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise.” Ingrid, to her credit, didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable as she nodded and backed out of the locker room, allowing the door to shut quietly behind her. 
Unbeknownst to you and Mapi, Ingrid took a moment outside of the locker room to pump her fist in a motion of victory. A brilliant smile overtook her face, and she felt like an entire realm of possibilities had opened up to her. Over the course of the last few months, her feelings for you had deepened, and she’d brought it up with her girlfriend on a number of occasions. 
She knew that Mapi still had feelings for you and, at first, she’d been jealous. However, Mapi and Ingrid had talked it out and realized that they both had feelings for each other, and for you. However, Ingrid had been forced to watch as you and Mapi had argued, seemingly always at odds despite the obvious feelings that Mapi had for you.
Ingrid, as much as she loved Mapi, refused to step in between the two of you. Therefore, she was overjoyed with the fact that the two of you had talked it out. She wasn’t sure if anything would happen, but she couldn’t help but hope that something would. 
Within the locker room, you turned towards Mapi, raising one of your eyebrows in question, “what’s up?” 
“We are all good, right? No more arguing?” Mapi asked, but her voice seemed to convey more than what she was simply saying. However, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t figure out what underlay the other girls’ words. 
“Yeah, we’re good.” You hesitated for a moment, the fact that your feelings still simmered below the surface not unknown to you. However, you knew that you couldn’t tell Mapi about them, or Ingrid, and so you stayed quiet. “No more arguing.”
Mapi grinned, and you couldn’t help but grin back. Mapi had always been like that, able to light up an entire room with a smile, or a laugh, or a story. You missed the person you’d known so well, so many years ago. 
Mapi took a few steps towards you and extended her hand, fist held out towards you. For a second, you stood there, confused.
Then, you extended your own fist and bumped it against Mapi’s. Mapi smiled, before patting your back and walking out of the locker room, leaving you behind with your own thoughts. 
It took you a moment before it all washed over you again– you hated high fives, because you were always afraid that your hands would be sweaty. Long ago, before you’d even dated, you and Mapi had agreed to only do fist bumps. The fact that the other girl remembered that small fact had you swooning and overthinking more than you’d already been doing. 
Your heart throbbed in your chest, making your feelings known once again. However, as you made your way towards the door of the locker room, you took a deep breath to push those feelings down once again.
No matter what, you would not ruin your career over your feelings.
No matter what, you would not ruin the friendship which was beginning to blossom between you and Mapi.
No matter what, you would not ruin the beautiful relationship which Mapi and Ingrid had.
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schwarzkatje · 23 days
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dark!orphan!ellie x nun!reader
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disclaimer: i don't ever write notes but this smells like too much blasphemy not to put some warnings and disclaimers. so, this contains ellie being still in an orphanage BUT i obviously changed the age so that she is of age because it goes without saying that p*dophilia is not contemplated here. also, "sister" is used as a synonym for "nun", not with the meaning of "family member". lastly, it does contain smut even though it's not so detailed.
> for part 2 click here || for part 3 click here
ellie didn't wake up one day choosing to be mean. in fact, if you ever asked her why the rude behaviour, she would simply laugh it off and tell you to shut the fuck up with a bitterness so unlikely for such a young girl.
ellie thought it was her god given right to do whatever she wanted, having being already stripped enough of the pillars of her life, namely a happy family and a place her heart could call home. that resulted in her receiving reprimands and punishments from the nuns more than any other kid in the orphanage.
and you, the youngest of the nuns tasked with the upbringing of the kids and the newest addition to the orphanage, seeing how ellie behaved, decided it was the perfect opportunity to enact the knowledge you had acquired during your noviciate by devouring books about dysfunctional behaviour, specifically in orphans. you were positive people could change if showed how.
what you would invoke the lord's name for to swear was your entire and firmly believed doctrine, came to a brutal halt the very moment you came to the realisation of what ellie's bad reputation really was about.
it wasn't just a typical scenographic display of childish behaviours like refusing to attend class or the occasional smuggling of cigarettes that concurred to tear apart your good intentions. these were merely common patterns studied throughout the years by psychologists and educators, and the main topics in all of your books.
no, what made you falter was the fact that ellie seemed to relish being mean. if others acting the same way sported an inconsolable sorrow in their eyes, ellie's green ones would glow with the eagerness that came with the raising of the voices of the nuns, the laughable detentions and the yet unexplored range of just how far was too far.
it didn't help that ellie had learnt from the older kids all the gross vocabulary she has now assimilated, repeating the filthy words as a sort of statement to maintain the hierarchical status she has fought for and ultimately achieved among the majority of the orphans.
so it caught you off guard only the first time ellie fiercely exclaimed that "if you care so much about me maybe you should suck my dick tonight," as you apprehended over time that this wasn't and wouldn't have been an isolated incident, rather an infuriating routine that seemed only to increase the more you showed ellie how much it pissed you off.
of course, that time your cheeks were burning red and your brain was at war with the mortification of having received such a vulgarity in front of other pupils, alongside the humiliation that ticked with each second you spent silent, at a loss for words to properly tackle the problem at hand.
the best thing you managed to come up with was the most generic and fruitless "go out," pointing at the class door.
before ellie could walk through the door, she turned to you, smirking like you had just made her day, and slurring a sultry "don't get so wet when you scold me," after which she left, winking at you.
your hands were tied. you understood that you could inform the other sisters of what ellie was making you go through, but you understood just as well that it would be no to avail since the other nuns were there way before you and knew to a greater extent the amount of work needed to be implemented when dealing with ellie.
after the heat of the moment had died down, you gathered all of your strength, prayed hoping to receive some mercy, and recited like a mantra that you were the bigger person and couldn't possibly let your purpose go to waste.
the fact was that you realised too late that the presence of what you called the devil had certainly been lurking around and now manifested itself in the obscene form of ellie fucking two of her fingers inside of you from behind in the scriptorium, something that dealt the final blow to any hope of creating the optimal conditions to demonstrate the good of your heart.
ellie and her breath, together with her hands, were four fiends cooperating under the same objectives, being disrupting you, disrupting everything you represented and disrupting everything you stood for.
"no one has ever made you feel so good," ellie was insane herself for needing to hear you say it "otherwise, you wouldn't be needing to play the part of the perfect little sister who thinks she can fix everyone to compensate how empty she is," and no matter how desperately you tried and tried and cried out while doing so, your pussy was glistening with slick, feeling euphoric and on the brink of madness with how enticing the sensation and the blasphemous words that left ellie's mouth were. "you would be too cock drunk and stuffed with cum to care about anything else".
the ink and quill you were previously using laid on your desk where they shouldn't, spilling the black liquid and dirtying everything they touched. ellie could be compared to the two items, given how many times the sisters told her how harmful her tainting existence was. and maybe that was the reason her brain clicked and gave the command to her right hand to gather some of the ink and write "ellie's cum dump" on your ass.
as soon as your breathing quickened, ellie grabbed a fistful of your hair, yanked it throwing your head impossibly backwards and let you ride out the hardest orgasm of your life. the gesture wasn't just a display of dominance but it served as a lever to push you flat against the desk, treating you like a discarded toy.
"next time you come for me, expect me to fuck your ass. and it won't be with my fingers only"
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loveemagicpeace · 2 months
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🍬Uranus Energy🍬
Uranus may signify death through accident, injury, or natural disaster, but at least it never signifies the death-in-life that is characteristic of Saturn. Thus, although Uranus energies can be extremely difficult to live with, the measure of chaos that they introduce is essential for life. Life is to a great extent a balancing of the orderly forces of Saturn with the chaotic forces of Uranus. Each has its place, and each needs to be kept in check by the other. Uranus represents something very different, very unique. But can also be very strange and unfamiliar. Anywhere you have uranus in your house it shows where your life is the most different. Uranus energies coming too soon in life can cause a chronically erratic quality that prevents any kind of maturation and produces an individual incapable of taking part in the social contract. Such people are automatic rebels: they rebel simply to negate order, even when order is still useful. Whatever it may affect or symbolize takes the form of something unusual, far different from the everyday world.
🦋Uranus in 1st house- you might present yourself differently to others or feel somehow out- of step. You can play a role as outsider, bringing valuable insight to outmoded situations. Your appearance is unique and your beauty can also be original and different from others. These people tend to have a different perspective than the rest. They think and look at life outside the box. You usually don't like things related to systems, you prefer to stick to your own rules. This placement often indicates an unconventional approach to life. This suggests that you are a very individualistic person, who operates the best on their own.
🌱Uranus in 2nd house-Financial fortunes might be subject to sudden changes, perhaps a result of not playing it safe. Income might come from independent freelance sources. Your money can go up and down very quickly. You can also have a different way of making money. This can lead to a unique approach to finances, a deep understanding of personal values, and an unconventional path to self-expression. Another strength of this placement is its innovative, progressive energy. You have a different way of managing your money. You spend a lot of money on things that are more dreamy. You have a free way of managing money and it doesn't mean much to you.
🌱Uranus in 3rd house- Your mind works at lightning speed. You can be single-minded in the way you think, with a talent for presenting the opposite view. Your way of thinking is often contradictory and different from the others. Many times your thinking and manner can confuse other people. This can also mean that your relationship with relatives is distant and cold. Your thoughts are often ahead of their time, leading you to challenge established ideas and concepts. Uranus here can also cause sudden accidents on the road. You have to be careful how you drive.
💕Uranus in 4th house- Early independence may have been high on the agenda. You might opt to rent rather than buy, so you can change the scenery from time to time. At home, you can often be rebellious and do things on your own. The relationship with the mother can be more distant, cold and perhaps strange. You can move a lot and the moves are usually sudden. Uranus can make a home unstable and strange.
🍭Uranus in 5th house-You have potential for genuine creative originality, although your challenge might be to allow it to land and take form, because each idea is rapidly superseded by the next. Your dates are usually sudden, different, and you may always feel that this area is not so close to you. Many times people can suddenly surprise you (positively or negatively) - also many times you don't get an answer as to why something happened the way it did. You can also suddenly fall in love. Pregnancy can happen spontaneously and the child may be born different from the others.
🍸Uranus in 6th house- You probably need some excitement in your daily round. Being freelance might suit you, so you can set your own routine and timetable. You like work that is independent and free. Above all, what you need is freedom - you hate when someone is above you and tells you what to do. Your rebellious path can be most effective through work. But since this house also represents the physical body, health - it means that you may have some disease that is unusual or you may have some skin problems that are unusual.
🛼Uranus in 7th house- You may prefer to break up with someone who curtails your freedom. Partners may seem unpredictable, but perhaps an assertion of your independence is at the root of it. You can go into a relationship suddenly or end it suddenly. Many times you can attract people who are different, strange, unique, smart. You can have certain conditions that you like about the relationship and stick to them. Few meet your standards. But you need a lot of freedom. Uranus can mean that marriage can be sudden. The law, however, can be quite different from normal laws. It suggests an individual who seeks independence, freedom, and excitement within their intimate connections. Uranus in this house indicates that you seek the company of people who have similar views as you do.
🏹Uranus in 8th house- You can shine intellectual light into life's mysteries, bringing clarity and rational discourse. It might be important to you to maintain your distance in intimate encounters. Because it is also the house of transformation, rebirth & things connected with needles, blood also sugerirs. It also means that you can go for sudden surgery. It can also mean a sudden loss. But you can deal with a loss in a different way than others. They are likely to attract unconventional partners who challenge their views on intimacy and shared resources. It can lead to successful relationships, marriages, and beneficial business opportunities. On the other hand, it can also create disruption in relationships due to its unpredictable nature and an unwillingness to conform.
🥊Uranus in 9th house-Going to university or grappling with religious principles can bring enlightenment - but you might also be inclined to question, rejecting orthodoxy and tradition. You can be very rebellious when it comes to church, religion, other culture and you can also be very controversial about that. Cuz you can also have your own religion that you believe in. Your opinion about the world can be completely different and the places that interest you can also be very unusual. You can also travel to places that others would never go. Especially to unpopular places. You can also have a very unpopular opinion about the world things & around you.
🎱Uranus in 10th house-Bowing to authority is not your style and you may choose work which encourages your independent vision and allows you to change track when it suits you. You can also be very rebellious when it comes to authority figures. The career may be in constant motion, but this can make it difficult to identify with a profession. They are often innovative thinkers with a knack for science and technology, and they bring originality and ingenuity into their development efforts. This often leads to unique and inventive career opportunities, an exciting public image, and the potential for innovative and progressive thinking.
🏝️Uranus in 11th house-This placement offers a parodox: how to maintain your freedom and autonomy within a democratic context. You could play the role of agitator, bringing radical change. You can have a unique way of doing things and seeing them. Many times it is strictly seen that you have the characteristics of uranus. U can also have very unique group or friends. This placement suggests that you enjoy taking part in online discussions where you can connect with like-minded people. Uranus here suggests that you are not interested in everyday goals, craved by most people. You have unique visions for your life. But you can also have the feeling that you are quite different from your friends (can also be lonely placement).
🧚🏼‍♀️Uranus in 12th house-Perhaps you hide your unconventionality so as to fit in - reclaiming this can help set you free. Your radar for collective trends can put you ahead of your time. You can also struggle with spirituality, things that are hidden ,unconscious -this doesn't mean that you don't believe in it, but you can have complex believing into this stuff. They may have dreams, intuitions, or sudden insights that challenge societal norms and traditional beliefs. It often happens with this placement that your parents expected a child with a different type of personality. As a child, you felt that you have to live up to their expectations, but you were struggling on the inside. Social conventions annoy you, but you struggle to express this.
🎸For personal readings u can sign up here: https://snipfeed.co/bekylibra 🎸
-Rebekah🎸❤️‍🔥🧚🏼‍♀️
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genderkoolaid · 11 months
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okay. I feel like I explain this every time I talk about men's issues but I just saw some more bad takes on transandrophobia so I'm going to go over exactly my thoughts on men & gendered oppression.
My argument is no "men, as a class, are oppressed exactly like women as a class, and all of society is always against masculinity & therefore any proof of society valuing masculinity/men over femininity/women disproves my point." My arguments are:
A fundamental part of patriarchal masculinity is competition and threats/fear. Yes, cis men are The Best, but the patriarchy does not give unconditional love and support to everyone perceived as a cis man. Creating a strict definition of what a man is keeps people in a state of fear that makes them easy to control. bell hooks talks about this beautifully in The Will to Change: "When we love maleness, we extend our love whether males are performing or not. Performance is different from simply being. In patriarchal culture males are not allowed simply to be who they are and to glory in their unique identity. Their value is always determined by what they do. In an antipatriarchal culture males do not have to prove their value and worth. They know from birth that simply being gives them value, the right to be cherished and loved." Men cannot be unconditionally comfortable without proving that they have worth via fulfillment of patriarchal standards- which are intertwined with capitalistic standards, because patriarchy & other social systems cannot be separated for anyone. This does not mean that men receive no benefits from the patriarchy- the way the patriarchy negatively affects men does not need to be a mirror of how it affects women in order to be real. I frankly don't care if this counts as oppression or not; its a part of the patriarchy and it hurts people, especially...
Marginalized men & marginalized perceived-men. We cannot act like marginalized women experience the intersection of gender and [x], but marginalized men have their gender completely ignored. It's just not accurate. This does not mean they never benefit from being perceived as men, either, or that they cannot contribute to misogyny. But marginalized men's gender absolutely plays a role in how they are perceived and treated. Testosterone can be seen as a positive for cis men while trans men are seen as hyper-violent "emotional women with male rage," because the patriarchy does not care about hypocrisy, it cares about control. White men can be encouraged to show their anger and be seen as powerful while Black men have their lives destroyed if they do anything but shape all of their emotions around making white people comfortable. There is a consistent trend of portraying marginalized men as having the worst of masculine traits- being ugly, sexually aggressive, uncontrollable monsters- or lacking the proper traits of masculinity- being infertile/failing to be properly sexual, being meek and easily dominated, being effeminate or having female traits- while dominant men are always perfectly balanced and in control of their masculinity.
The point of using "misandry" or "antimasculism" is not "all things male/masculine are treated badly." It's is being able to talk about how masculinity is weaponized against those who do it "wrong." All language is wrong, but some language is useful.
Also, if you want to hear more about the intersection of masculinity/manhood and Blackness, I'd recommend both the videos of F.D Signifier and the work of thotscholar.
#m.
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manager-dante · 11 months
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i need to flesh this out once i’ve mulled it over more but i adore how limbus company expands on the incredible world-building of project moon, because it is so goddamn realistic.
from the outset the player is presented with this incredibly bleak world in which corporations have become the state. the poor and the desperate bow their heads and toil at the altar of the free market. worth is measured by talent in exploitation. it’s a social darwinist’s wet dream. i also think the choice to base the cast off of literary figures was amazing, because it highlights very important connections to the past. i haven’t read all the books referenced, but the ones i have (the metamorphosis, don quixote de la mancha, & the odyssey so far) draw an unmistakable through-line from the suffering and exploitation depicted in those books to that which occurs in the city. the most horrifying parts of this game in my opinion aren’t the monsters or the machines — it’s the sheer enormity of human suffering which exists in the economic and political system the city operates under. and that’s the worst part, because in so many ways, the suffering and exploitation portrayed in the city is not a hypothetical fantasy — this is just capitalism working as intended. it’s not confined to the historical context of those books, nor the gritty sci-fi horror of the game.
but not only do we have this incredible setting that’s somehow both brutally realistic and fantastical at the same time, we also get to see how our main cast attempts to survive in that world — and ultimately how none of their attempts to change it succeeded at all.
in my mind, canto i portrays how neither kindness nor cold-heartedness will help you survive — especially through the dynamic between aya and hopkins. gregor has been both. he was a war hero in a meaningless war. after it ended, he was discarded as any tool which had outlived its usefulness would be. he can’t even control his arm from becoming a killing machine. and yet, gregor is still exceptionally personable, even going out of his way to be kind at times. but no matter whether he’s a tool for violence in the hands of war profiteers or simply a man doing his best to protect others, he still couldn’t save yuri — just as he couldn’t save his comrades — and this clearly haunts him. neither the war nor its end changed anything.
canto ii shows between rodya and sonya how both direct action and an “inevitable” revolution fail to quell the suffering of the vulnerable. sonya’s revolution is all bluster and no action. he does nothing to help the people in his community in favor of this grandiose revolution that must happen at the “right moment” — even if it means leaving his neighbors to starve in the meantime. rodya’s inspired yet short-sighted action to remove what she saw as the source of her community’s suffering only led to its destruction: the tax collector was a branch, not the root, of the problem, and killing one person did nothing to stop the system which upheld them.
canto iii is even more clear-cut in the ties between sinclair and kromer: neither violent zealotry nor blissful ignorance will save you in the city. kromer’s cult does not “purify” anything, but sinclair’s courage to stand up to her isn’t enough to beat her either. canto iii still doesn’t end in a victory. dante and the sinners barely survive. it’s only through demian (and k-corp’s) divine intervention that the sinners and kromer don’t destroy each other in the corpse pit.
in the most recent addition, canto iv appears to do the same thing. on one hand, you have the devotion to a principle shown through shrenne, samjo, and donbaek. their causes are different, but their devotion is the same. on the other, there is the cynicism, indifference, and escapism of yi sang and dongrang, both willingly complicit in the machine in different ways. and yet — none of them make any positive difference. whether they resisted or submitted, the machine grinds on around them — the only choices are to become a cog in it or be ground to bits by its gears.
to be clear, i do not think the game is arguing that none of these individual actions matter. even if gregor couldn’t rescue yuri, even if rodya couldn’t protect her neighbors, even if sinclair couldn’t defeat kromer and all that she stood for, even if the league of nine members each failed to realize their ideals — limbus argues that it matters they tried. it matters that they’re still trying. it may never be possible to oust the corporate overlords and make the city a better place, but the love still matters.
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wordstome · 5 months
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Single Dad!König (Dream Daddy au)
(+ a bit of Ghost under the cut)
Thank you to everyone who indulged (said exactly what I asked them to say 😅) me.
Here’s the paragraph I wrote:
I imagine his heart sinking when Ava comes home sad and quiet, unwilling to look her dad in the eye. He recognizes what that means: that used to be him as a kid. His worst fears are confirmed when Ava admits she's being harassed by a boy at school, replaced by anger when Ava says her teachers simply shrugged and told her that boys will be boys, and has she considered that maybe he just has a crush on her? Needless to say, by the time König's walking out of that school, nobody will ever be hurting his little girl ever again. Honestly, one glimpse of Ava's dad by her classmates will keep her free from bullying for the rest of her life.
Now here’s a bit more about single dad König, namely, how he came to be a dad…and single :( Angst and death tw ahead (nothing graphic)
With Ghost, I said he would only have had Caden due to an accident, because of Simon’s previous trauma involving his family. He was firmly in the mindset that he would die in the field, he’s just not built for civilian life anymore, he's a danger to everyone who loves him. However, when Caden shows up at his doorstep, all he can think about is Tommy and his nephew Joseph when he looks at the boy. He probably does his best to get Caden sent to a different family member, but let’s suspend our disbelief that any responsible social worker would leave a kid with Simon “Ghost” Riley for a moment and say that the social worker is like “It’s you or the foster care system.” Realistically, Simon would probably be like “foster care is safer than living with me” but for the purposes of the AU, he took the kid in.
With König, he doesn’t have the same trauma/hangups regarding kids and family. He’s in the same boat as Simon: he’s a human weapon, and can’t function properly in civilian life. For König, his work is an outlet and keeps him stable. I’m gonna have to sit down and make a proper post about my König’s character (Alexander), but for my König, violence is a method of regulating his emotions and a way to manage his anxiety. Having power and being hyper competent in the field is key to his mental stability. However, I think he would be able to settle down, it would just take a very patient, special woman. (For the purposes of the AU his first partner is AFAB she/her.) Here’s where I start breaking hearts… 🤭
In Dream Daddy au, König considers his first wife the love of his life. She deeply understood him as a person and wasn’t afraid of him, even when he was socially awkward and intimidating. They were honestly kindred spirits: both of them had their neuroses and flaws, but instead of trying to fix each other or mold the other into some ideal partner, they accepted each other and thus were able to grow together. (And tbh they were already a match made in heaven anyway.) König’s wife never asked him to quit, and was completely ready to raise a child with him frequently being gone. She was a badass woman, and she really, really wanted to start a family with him, so they had Ava.
For three years, König was probably the happiest he’s been in a long time, and if you asked him he’d probably say it was the happiest time in his life. He was moving up the ranks at work, his mental health was in check, and he had a wife and adorable little daughter to go home to every leave. He started planning to transfer to a safer/more stable position, because as much as the military has done for him, he’s ready to step up as a father and a husband. Then he gets a call that changes his life forever, and suddenly he doesn’t get a choice anymore.
(I'm eternally sorry to the little fictional people I made up in my head because I entertained the idea of putting the Brooklyn 99 "Guess who got murdered!" gif here...)
One thing y'all need to know about my man Alexander is that he is the embodiment of "I am not meant for casual. I was born for soul-crushing devotion." His problem is that he never had devotion before his wife: he craved it like a starving man, and it engulfed him like water flowing into a basin when he got it. He had it for a handful of years (I'm thinking 6 but that's a flexible number), and now it's gone again. You know in movies when something horrible happens and they cut all the noise and there's just a high pitched ringing sound? That's König getting that phone call.
God. All I can imagine is König dropping everything and taking the next flight home. He’s in a daze, in a way that he’s never quite been before. His mind is finally quiet, but the emptiness is not peaceful. Then he finally sees his little girl, she runs into his arms, and the dam bursts. He just holds her and cries. He’s numb, a dead man walking throughout all the business that needs to be taken care of after his wife’s death. The only thing that brings him back to the land of the living is Ava. She’s so small, so sweet, and she doesn’t really understand what death means: all she knows is that her mama’s gone somewhere, and her dad is so, so sad all the time. She’s all that keeps him going, and the only reason he keeps himself alive.
By the time you come into his life, it’s been several years, but Ava is still a little girl. She doesn’t remember her mother at all except what König tells and shows her, because he’s determined to keep her memory alive. König’s been slowly rebuilding who he is as a person from whatever scraps are left. There’s a gaping hole inside him, and he’s reconstructed himself around the hole. In some ways he’s a totally new man, in other ways, he’s gone back to who he was before his wife came along. He’s bitter and angry at the way his life has treated him just as he was as a young man, but now he’s swallowed up by guilt and self loathing. He's gotten better at coping and functioning as the years have passed and life has continued on, but his grief has never really gone away.
(alexa, play "right where you left me" by taylor swift)
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takeme-totheworld · 4 months
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Aziraphale and Forgiveness, Pt. 4: Do Unto Others
This is the last part of this series of posts! Thank you all for coming on this ride with me.
Part 1 here. Part 2 here. Part 3 here.
If you’re just tuning in: everything I write in these is me pulling from a combination of stuff in the show and my own past with the evangelical church/some of its particularly toxic ways, to talk about why I think Aziraphale is the way he is.
Now that I’ve written many many words about what I think Aziraphale’s general damage is around forgiveness, I’m going to look at some more specific examples of his behavior and attempt to answer the question, "What is going through his mind when he does that?"
In Aziraphale’s world, God (speaking through Heaven/the Metatron) holds all the cards. She casts angels and humans alike down into Hell for eternity for various transgressions, and forgiveness is the only way out. How any part of this system works is totally unclear to everyone but God. Despite all of this, Aziraphale is strongly attached to the idea of God and Heaven being The Good Guys and himself as someone who is on the side of good.
So, what does he do?
He seldom admits wrongdoing and never asks to be forgiven.
This may seem like a weird place to start, but stick with me for a minute: Aziraphale behaves like someone who does not trust that his own mistakes will be forgiven. Which makes total sense. Not everyone's sins get forgiven, and the consequences of that are horrific. Given that, how could he possibly feel safe enough to own up to any wrongdoing, ever? So he lies to God about giving the flaming sword away, and he lies to the archangels constantly to cover his ass whenever he messes up. (This part is not just Aziraphale, by the way. Look at the constant lying and backbiting among the archangels.)
In situations not directly involving Heaven, his response to seeing his own screw-ups is generally to rush to fix them. The Edinburgh minisode provides the best examples of this, I think: he fucks up a lot in this episode but he is eager to try to rectify his mistakes as soon as he becomes aware of them. He has his view changed on bodysnatching, and he immediately goes to Elspeth and offers to help her dig up a new body. He realizes his culpability in Wee Morag getting shot, and in the next breath declares his intention to go against Heaven's rules to heal her. He wants to fix his mistakes. But what he doesn't do at any point in the minisode is apologize to the people he's harmed or ask for their forgiveness. And when Wee Morag dies before he can save her, he basically freezes up until Crowley pulls the laudanum stunt. He's screwed something up that he can't fix, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.
Rationally, this makes no sense. Elspeth does not have the power to cast him into hell, she only has the power to be angry at him. But emotionally it makes all the sense in the world. Asking for forgiveness is a vulnerable position. The other party is under no obligation to grant it. That's normal and healthy and as it should be in the real world, but when your baseline concept of forgiveness is as a divine pardon that saves you from being cast out forever, the terror of having it withheld is bound to bleed over into other situations whether it’s rational or not.
He extends unasked-for forgiveness to others, often to his own detriment, theirs, or both.
He forgives Crowley for calling him stupid in season one. He forgives Maggie her rent at the beginning of season two. He forgives Crowley for…calling him an idiot? for the argument in general? (that question is a whole post on its own, obviously) in the final fifteen. In none of these instances did the other person ask to be forgiven. It’s easy to see a lot of this as rather condescending at best. But to Aziraphale, withholding forgiveness has implications far more dire than simply harboring a grudge. I see these unasked for statements of forgiveness more like a promise—I am not going to hold this against you. “This” could be money he is owed or harsh words or anything, really, because it’s not about the specifics. And it’s also not about his personal feelings, which is why he can still muster up the words even when he’s visibly radiating anger and hurt. Forgiveness means freedom from punishment, and he’s saying whatever may have happened between us, I’m not going to punish you for it. (Obviously this is not at all how it lands with Crowley, but that’s a different topic altogether.)
This also extends into his actions, which consistently show willingness to extend grace even to those who have seriously harmed him, or committed other deeply immoral acts. Aziraphale’s tendency to quickly soften when someone appears to show a kinder or more vulnerable side has a lot of possible interpretations, but here’s mine: I think he is deeply committed, for better and for worse (and we see plenty of both!) to the idea that people should always be extended forgiveness and an opportunity to change and redeem themselves. He can’t help it. The association of forgiveness with safety and freedom from punishment is so embedded in his psyche that withholding forgiveness feels unreasonably cruel.
He doesn’t actually have the power to send anyone to hell, of course, but again, this behavior is emotional, not rational. He takes in Jimbriel and protects him despite the clear danger to both himself and Crowley. He willingly paves the way for Gabriel and Beelzebub to go off and be happy together. He’s well aware of their previous harms, but his rigid personal code around this will not let him deny someone else the possibility of positive change and redemption, because he would never want to be denied that same possibility for himself. Or to put it another way, he's doing unto others as he would want them to do unto him.
Almost-definitely-controversial opinion time: I think this exact same compulsion is at work in Aziraphale when the Metatron shows up. The job was not the draw here, Aziraphale doesn’t even want it. But the Metatron shows up and does two extremely significant things: he saves Aziraphale from punishment by telling off the other archangels and sending them away, and he offers to release Crowley from his punishment of being fallen. (I’ll come back to this in a second, I promise.) Aziraphale has so many extremely good reasons not to trust the Metatron, but the Metatron knew exactly what emotional buttons to push around punishment and forgiveness to get him thinking, "Maybe he's better than I thought. Maybe he's changed. Maybe I should give him another chance."
What were the very first words he said to Crowley when he was trying to explain the offer? "I don't think he's as bad a fellow—well, I think I might have misjudged him." His forgiveness compulsion has kicked in, hard, and suddenly he's extending grace to someone who does not deserve it at all, to everyone's extreme misfortune.
He wishes (prays?) for God to forgive Crowley.
"May you be forgiven" at the bandstand and "Then God forgive you" during the Job minisode fall under this category. He's not expressing his own forgiveness at these moments, he's wishing for God's forgiveness for Crowley.
Falling is a punishment for angels. I talked about that in part 2, but I just want to reiterate it here. However any particular demon may eventually come to feel about their demon status, it starts out as a punishment and it inflicts a lot of suffering. Fallen angels don't choose to leave Heaven, they are forcibly kicked out. It's physically painful. They are banished to Hell, a place that is ostensibly a place of punishment for humans but is obviously pretty miserable for demons, too. And reading between the lines of a number of things said in the show, it's pretty clear that the punishment of falling is understood to be permanent.
So, from Aziraphale's point of view, his best friend, the being he loves more than anything, is serving an eternal punishment with no possibility of release. I think he knows deep down that being cast out forever to a place of constant suffering is an obscenely disproportionate punishment to any offense Crowley might have committed. He clearly knows that Crowley is a good person inside. He knows that God's ineffable plan sometimes includes forgiveness, at least for the souls of some humans. And I think he's been hoping against hope for a long time that God will one day forgive Crowley.
For people who have a totally different emotional context around forgiveness, the immediate (and understandable) reaction is no doubt to bristle at this. Forgive him for what? What did he even do? Even if he did actually do something, falling is an outrageously cruel punishment. Heaven should be the ones begging for Crowley's forgiveness for doing this to him.
And all of that is absolutely true. But it's not the context Aziraphale is operating from. When he hopes God will forgive Crowley, what he's hoping for is that Crowley will finally be released from punishment. So when Crowley says something that he finds morally abhorrent ("I long to destroy the blameless children of blameless Job") or something that stirs up his anxiety that God is watching and taking offense ("great pustulent mangled bollocks to the great blasted plan!"), he counters by once again wishing for forgiveness for Crowley. It's his way of expressing some confused and anxious combination of "I know you're better than this" and "I don't want to see even more punishment heaped on you" and "I want you to be free of this life sentence one day." It comes from a place of wanting to help and protect, however misguided.
Which sums up a lot about Aziraphale's attitude around this, really. Most of Aziraphale's ideas about forgiveness, and the actions that stem from them, come from a combination of longstanding fear and trauma, plus a severely distorted worldview that he's been indoctrinated into his whole life. There's a lot he doesn't understand, and there are definitely some areas of his life where he needs to learn better and make amends. But I think there's also a big case of different exactlys going on, when it comes to what Aziraphale actually means when he says certain things about forgiveness, and what Crowley (and much of the fandom) thinks he means.
These are all just my thoughts, as someone who spent the first twenty-ish years of my life being personally victimized by certain toxic and fucked up views of Christian forgiveness, and who sees a lot of my younger self in Aziraphale's words and actions around this topic. If you've read all this (1) you deserve a gold star, and (2) I would love to hear your thoughts as well!
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typicalbrunette · 11 months
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I’m conflicted about how to be a respectful fan and realistic human at the same time. I was leaving out names while writing this but I realized that it was slightly hypocritical of me. So I’m just going to say what I was gonna say and it’s about Ashley Johnson being in the news for filing a restraining order against an abusive ex who I don’t feel like naming.
I 100% understand the impulse and intention of everyone saying to not look up the article or information that came out about this situation. It was irresponsible reporting, it put people in danger, and it was totally intrusive.
However, I also feel weird about saying “don’t look at it!” because us not looking is not going to change the fact that the info is out, the damage is done, and I fear that by constantly saying “don’t look at it” we’re going to wind up with even more destructive speculation than just allowing the facts to exist. So far there’s already a lot of “Wait what happened?” responses from people unaware of the situation which is going to lead to a lot of word of mouth info spreading and we all know how well that goes (I mean just look at Narrative Telephone).
So I feel like we have a narrow line to walk with the whole thing. To ignore it once it’s out there is frankly naive, however we CAN and SHOULD do our best to be supportive and RESPECTFUL fans. And let’s remember we are FANS, not friends or family and that means we MUST remain at a distance!
So how do we remain respectful and supportive in this very complex situation?
• Just don’t bother talking about the ex.
- It’s not constructive. At best you’re giving them publicity, at worst you’re unintentionally hurting victims of intimate partner abuse who may be dealing with a history of gaslighting. Talking shit is honestly just not helpful right now.
• Focus on showing support for the person being victimized
- The easy thing to do is to focus on those feelings of anger at the abuser, but the MOST HELPFUL thing to do is to try and focus on your feelings of love for the person they have hurt instead.
Look at it this way: If you come across a victim of a violent mugging, someone who is clearly hurt and needs help, but see the mugger running off down the street, what’s the better choice: Get mad and chase down the mugger or stop and help the injured person?
Obviously, you stop and you help and you make sure the person who is hurting is okay and help them feel safe. And that’s what we should be doing now.
• Support but don’t intrude
Like I said earlier, we don’t actually KNOW Ashley Johnson. We’re fans of her and her work. But that doesn’t give us any kind of right to intrude into her life even if it’s to wish her well. So how do we support her respectfully?
- You can post about your love of her work and how you think she’s a cool person but without mentioning this whole thing. Give love without bringing in reminders of the bad. If she wants to talk about the bad, she will do that with the people of her choosing, but it’s not going to be us and we should be cool with that.
- A lovely idea that’s floating around is to donate to the Critical Role Foundation of which she’s president and clearly cares a lot about.
- You should NOT try to send her messages or letters that in any way reference this situation.
- You should NOT post any kind of speculation about what’s going on in her head or what she’s up to or dealing with.
- If you do happen to read an article about the situation, don’t comment on it or try and get into it with the author. Trolls are trolls even when they’re professional trolls and the best course of action is to simply ignore them and move on.
Basically, be kind, be positive and don’t start spouting off in anger about other people’s business. Even if Ashley doesn’t see what you say, other people in similar situations might and it can be really hurtful to them.
I get it, we all feel protective, but the best kind of protection we can all give right now is to simply aim kindness and love in the right direction and respect Ashley’s privacy and wishes. So let’s do that.
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psychelis-new · 9 months
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pick a pile: "How can you inspire others?"
take a breath and choose the photo/number that calls you the most to read about your qualities, aspects and abilities that can inspire others and in what ways. thanks Anon for the suggestion
don’t take the reading too seriously. only take what resonates with you and leave the rest. if you're not called by any pile, let this reading slid as it may not hold messages for you. if you're called by more than one, there may be messages in each of those piles.remember that is a general reading and some things may not resonate with you. energies can change and readings are based on present ones (as you read); you're always in charge of your life.
(photos found on unsplash)
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pile 1
You bring renewal, growth, change. You underline change and transformation (you often bring them to others when they meet you), but are also good at adapting at everything life throws at you. I think you can inspire others by communicating your own experience, by sharing, by bringing light and love, first towards yourself and then towards others too. You inspire those you touch by not letting the horrors of life in too much and/or sharing your way to react to them, by bringing support, by lending an helping hand. You bring brightness and happiness, and you're a joy for others, that are really thankful to meet you (at least most of them: ofc, some other may just get triggered but that's not your fault, as not everyone can be able to really let you in because of their own issues). Like water, you're not scared of emotions, of how they can show in the surface... you try to understand them and welcome them, and even explain all this to others. You try to go after your dreams despite the fears and insecurities that are part of our human experience. You can set an example for others, trying to carry them with you on their path, leading them the way but also letting them go at their own pace/respecting them and loving them until they can move on by themselves. You are a very mind-oriented person, your mind works very well, it analizes everything and anything and also brings solutions and support. You kinda have the right words at the right time for the right people.
song: let me love you (until you learn to love yourself) | ne-yo
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You inspire others by being soft and bringing comfort. By going with the flow, by being hopeful and calm. By knowing for sure, believing with all you have, in all your dreams. You are a believer, and you believe in the positive side of life and in yourself too or at least that things will go for the best anyway. You have a very nice and welcoming smile. You know that some things take time so you don't stress too much and try to take a breath and stop anytime you start overthinking. You inspire others by never willing to give up on your hopes and your future. You follow your guts and are ready to work on yourself to better yourself and master any skill you have. You aren't afraid to put in work to reach any goal you set your mind to. You're also very helpful and really feel like home to some people. Many may come to you to ask for advice and guidance. You balance and help people by simply letting them in. by helping them see things under a different perspective, by calming their mind simply with your presence, your energy, your vibe. And you can also find your way inside of others quite easily exactly because of how you're perceived. You inspire others with your gentleness and kindness, and make them want to share more of them as well. Your heart is big, your light is warm, it's all very cozy... you're comfortable like a slightly oversized old sweater. You embrace others with your being and that's comforting and inspiring.
song: fallin' all in you | shawn mendes
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You inspire others by showing your "imperfections" and sharing your pain, by not hiding what's inside of you. You inspire others by showing your scars too, what it took you to reach something (physically or emotionally). You're determined and corageous, and you're also very abundant, but you inspire others cause you know how to share whatever you have of abundant, you share from the excess of what you have. Any quality of yours, any ability of yours, your knowledge... whatever can help others not letting their heart/emotions take them over but healing that side of themselves. I think you probably lived with pink colored glasses on for a while or let your emotions (probably fears in particular) guide you for too long, but you had to learn the hard way not to do that to a fault. I mean, it's okay when you want to follow your heart, but sometimes emotions (feelings in particular) can be tricky and you may have had a good bunch of sad experiences in relation with this, with not being able to really see the situation/people in front of you for who they were but only for what/who you wanted (or believed) them to be. You probably went through some traumatic experience in your past and you are healing your emotions (emotional abuse maybe). The way you learned to heal your heart, forgive and trust again, with every fiber of your body and heart, is really inspiring. Not everyone can do that, many just close off to everything to avoid experiencing more pain. Maybe you're not there yet, you're not that open to love yet, but you will, and you already know that deep down. And probably sharing all your pain, all you went through, will inspire others and free yourself as well.
song: shout | tears for fears
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lu-is-not-ok · 11 months
Text
Canto IV Part 3 discussion
No but seriously there is. So much. I would want to pick apart about this fucking dungeon and Canto as a whole, like there is just. So much.
The sheer amount of political commentary that’s not even subtle.
The way Dongrang is presented as just as much a victim of the system as everyone else, yet it doesn’t erase how deplorable his shitty actions are.
T Corp having a diagetic government-imposed Breaking Bad Mexico filter.
How manifesting an E.G.O is shown to not be a sign of personal growth or even always a positive thing, but rather simply a sign that you’ve accepted yourself and decided to no longer change, regardless if that means you decide to hurt more people or not.
Carmen.
Just Sang Yi in general. I want to put him under a microscope. The way he seems so morally ambiguous taking everything we know about him into account. On one hand he is the one who ended up helping Yi Sang break out of his cycle of depression. On the other hand, he was absolutely willing to exploit it to keep Yi Sang dependant on him until he realized just how much of a danger to himself Yi Sang truly could be.
The utter ambiguity of Sang Yi’s motivations or true intentions, especially when taking the context of Poem 13 from Crow’s Eye View and the fact that he’s supposed to be a partial representation of Yi Sang’s wife from The Wings into account.
Dongbaek getting to be the first one to say the Fuck word in one of the best delivered lines in the entire fucking game.
How the roles the Sinners played reflect them on a much deeper level than one might seem. From Ishmael continuing the “Can someone explain this to me this doesn’t make sense” theme even when she’s acting, to Meursault and Outis (after some awkwardness) feeling so in tune with their roles you could mistake the shit they say as Actual things they would say out of context.
How Hong Lu ends up playing the role of the emotional heart of the group, a man so kind and sentimental he made a technology to seemingly bring the dead back to life even if in just a small window, and who was constantly showing concern and understanding towards Yi Sang.
Hong Lu’s gradual unveiling over the course of the Canto as he shows more and more just how intelligent and perceptive he actually is until the very end where it pays off with him being the one to realize how to help Yi Sang.
The small moments in the dungeon where Yi Sang and Hong Lu understand each other a little more, as two men who are repressing their emotions in different ways as an after-effect of living a life where they lacked control over their own choices (presumed for Hong Lu).
Yi Sang’s smiles.
Dante’s Doomsday Clock moving an hour closer to midnight after they realized their memories can’t be wiped, thus bringing them a step closer to remembering who they are.
Alfonso being the one woman to make me question how gay I am.
Shit was fucking packed alright.
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ithinkinggenshin · 2 years
Note
Helloooooo are requests open at the moment? If it is, can I request a female reader wearing a maid dress? Similar to the anon who requested this before, but with Shenhe, Kujou Sara, and Lisa. Thank you!
Her Maid
Fandom: Genshin Impact
Characters: Shenhe, Kujou Sara, Lisa
Pairings: Fem!Reader x ^above characters
Warnings: implied smut- nothing explicit, fem pronouns for reader, shocking, master/servant dynamics
Word count: 1.1k
Synopsis: "You like what you see?"
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Shenhe:
What is that? What are you wearing? Why does she suddenly feel a hunger for you? What is this intense need to see you submit to her, to see you bend at her will? And more than anything. 
How can she keep you for herself? 
These other people. There’s too many of them. No one else should see you like this. This outfit, your body, it’s all for her eyes only. 
You can’t decide between gasping or giggling at your girlfriend’s response. She’s unconsciously gripping her spear to the point that if it were a normal one, you’re more than positive the staff would break. And the way she’s staring at you simultaneously makes you freeze in place and feel like you’re on fire. 
You’d be dead where you stand if looks could kill. 
But she wouldn’t let you die. She’d make sure you stay alive so that she can see you walk around in those tights and heels a little longer. See the way the sleeves lightly squeeze your arms in a way that makes you look even softer. Stare at the little window that shows the dip between your breasts. 
Shenhe loves seeing you in the outfit. 
But now she’s also craving seeing you without it on. 
Kujou Sara:
Completely shocked and flustered. 
She’s aware she’s staring, but she can’t seem to force herself to look away. She tries to talk but only sputters out nonsense. Your poor girlfriend has simply stopped working. When she finally regains a small amount of her composure, she quickly grabs your arm and leads you into her office, locking the door behind her. What were you thinking walking around in public in such an outfit?!
“Wha- what are you wearing?” She manages to say.
You giggle and twirl, the skirt lifting a bit before Sara suddenly grabs you to make you stop. You think it’s funny how flustered your girlfriend is, despite seeing you in much less a few days ago. 
“It’s a maid outfit,” you say simply. 
“Maid? Outfit?” Sara tilts her head quizzically.
“Yep! Girls who are servants to people wear them. Hehe. Can I do anything for you, Master?” 
You see Sara’s throat shift as she gulps. 
“I could clean your office for you or make you some lunch or help you get changed into something more comfortable. Anything for you, Master.” You giggle. 
You’re pretty sure your girlfriend is going to explode from how high her blood pressure is from just listening to you.  
“Ju–Just stay here with me. Okay? I don’t want anyone else seeing you like that.”
“Oh? Are you jealous?”
“Wha! N-No! Stop teasing me!”
You laugh again, “Don’t worry Master. I won’t ever leave you. You own me after all.”
You see Sara’s eyes darken at those words. The hand on your waist tightens and your face is suddenly pressed against your girlfriend’s chest. A low, rumbling grow can be heard inside her. You wiggle in her grasp and gasp when you’re suddenly pushed and backed into the wall. 
“I told you to stop teasing me.”
You put on your best innocent face and bat your eyelashes at Sara, “What do you mean?”
You choke on your next quip as you feel her roughly grab your ass. 
“Do you really want me to spell it out for you?”
You let out a whine and arch your back so you’re pressed against her further. “Please teach me Master.”
Sara reaches behind you and with a click and fwoosh the room is plunged into darkness. She closed the windows behind her, locking them. You grind against her further and openly moan as you feel her hands wander all over your body. You’re pretty sure your outfit is already ruined. 
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. 
Lisa:
You squeak when you feel something shock the exposed skin on your thigh. Lisa’s hand creeps higher and zaps you again, the feeling going straight to your core. 
“Goodness, I’m so glad I got such a pretty helper for the library. You’ll make the boring parts of my job so much more fun.”
She nuzzles against your collarbone, and you try to squirm out of her grasp. 
“m-Miss Lisa…”
“Hm… yes cutie?”
Your words disappear from your mouth as you open it. You’re not even sure if you had something to say to begin with. You fidget awkwardly on your superior’s lap. You’re pretty sure you should be working right now, but Lisa has a tight grip on your thigh, nails right on the seam of your underwear. Her other hand is crawling up your back, teasing the zipper on the back of your dress. 
“Awww. Did my adorable little maid just forget what she was going to say? Don’t worry, you look cute when you’re lost.”
This time the shock comes from the back of your neck. You jerk forward and end up face to face with your delighted mistress. 
“Oh darling, I’m going to love playing with you. Now, go finish your work and make sure to stay where I can see you.”
You nod and slowly stand up, careful to not collapse under shaky legs. You support yourself on a nearby rolling cart. Once you’re certain you won’t just fall over at the first step, you push the cart of books over to the shelf in front of Lisa’s desk. You start shelving them, taking a few at a time and sliding them into place. It’s going smoothly until you feel another sudden shock, causing you to drop the books in your hands. 
“Careful cutie. Make sure to treat these books carefully.”
You gulp and nod. The atmosphere seems to become more humid and tense. 
“Sorry Miss Lisa,” you apologize quietly. You bend to pick them up, but suddenly freeze when you feel hands running along your back. 
“You know…” Lisa mutters, “I was lying when I said you had to wear a maid uniform for this job.”
You feel your face burning.
“But you should keep wearing this outfit anyway.” You gasp as you feel her hands run lower and whine when her touch is suddenly gone. You look back, to see Lisa already back in her seat. 
“Go slow, cutie. I’m enjoying the view.” 
You don’t think any of this is appropriate, but you still comply, slowly bending at the waist further, reaching down to pick up each book. You repeat this process for each book that fell, even going so far as to kneel and put your head to the floor to check and make sure none fell underneath the shelves. 
You hear a soft squishing sound behind you and a soft moaning of your name. 
The air is even more electrified now. 
You wonder if everyday is going to be like this. 
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rocketturtle4 · 7 months
Text
Only Friends, Shipping Culture, Cross-Generational Differences, Themes and Endgame
Strap in, folks. This is a long one.
What finally pushed me to make this post was a very interesting discourse between @lurkingshan, @waitmyturtles, and @twig-tea here around the way this show has subverted norms to a lesser extent than first hoped and how the fans themselves, and the creator’s interactions with these fans, have impacted the creation and completion of the show, as well as the way themes built through the series may now feel less clear after the latest episode.
I wanted to offer my understanding and perspective because it differs somewhat, but it is also very much informed by this post and the larger Tumblr discourse around Only Friends and shipping culture that this show has sparked. I will note, for the record, that I have been much busier since about episode 5 of OF than I had been for the first episodes (or than I was for BMF), so I have missed a lot more of the fascinating discourse that this show has sparked than I would wish.
Let’s do this.
Shipping Culture
I had never heard of this before joining Tumblr this year (in May) despite watching 50 BLs before that, due to being completely disengaged from the actors as individuals prior to joining Tumblr, and while Tumblr has opened my eyes to how much fanservice is part of these people’s lives and jobs and the problems surrounding that phenomenon. I remain largely disengaged from the actors personally. I do not have Twitter, Tik Tok or Instagram, I rarely watch BTS and even my revelation that First is the most beautiful man ever to exist (and I say that as a person who is both aro and ace) has only got me to watch one First & Khao Armshare interview (The Eclipse one). I have also never purchased merch or event tickets so I am in fact, not a good fan in terms of profit making or engagement.
I do, however, love the shows an awful lot and may engage with BTS more once I have fewer things to watch…
All this to say is that my firsthand knowledge of such things is limited at best, but I am still here to say:
I think Only Friends is doing excellent things here, even if all the ‘couples’ end up together.
Is it burning them to the ground like so many hoped? No, but I have watched 47 Thai BLs at this stage and not many of them explored relationships beyond the pairs in any way, shape or form, and OF HAS DONE THAT.
Of our main six characters, NONE of them have only kissed their “other half.” They’ve literally all at least made out with one other person from the core six, and thus far Mew, Boston and Nick have ALSO kissed other people.
This is, in my humble opinion, A PRETTY BIG DEAL.
I am currently watching Not Me (for the first time, haven’t finished, no spoilers please), and I have been informed somewhat reliably that the original novel included a Gram/Black plotline that was cut/altered (to Gram/Eugene/Black love triangle), and I posit that was due in part because they couldn’t have Gun even KISSING Mond even if he was also kissing Off. Black and White would have been a great way to shift things even a little by having the branded pair be together while ALSO having half the brand with someone else at the SAME TIME. Can you imagine??
And yet as recently as 2021 that didn’t happen.
Sometimes change takes time and patience and I think OF is doing really good work, even if it doesn’t go as far as we might wish.
EVEN IF all our branded pairs end up together unsubverted (which is not what I am hoping for but EVEN IF), this show will have still begun paving the way for more varied storylines and pairings in shows
The Clash of Generational Lenses
Speaking of the end game, lets talk about a little thing called hope.
I had a very interesting discourse back around, hmmm episode 6, with @shouldiusemyname and @plantsarepeopletoo , about the sheer confusion I felt about Tumblr’s idea that every one of these characters should end up apart simply because they’d done bad things or something? (this is extremely generalized. I was missing a lot of nuance from both Tumblr and my own lens hence the unpacking then and now).
Now I went into this show fully prepared for this to end sadly and I largely viewed this expectation of  sad as everyone ending up broken up and alone. I don’t normally watch sad by choice, but I was willing to try this one because Jojo’s stories are SO beautifully compelling that I knew it would be worth the journey. I have watched Love of Siam (not Jojo but sad) and Gay Okay Bangkok (complicated), two very different shows reflective of their times and their creators and from the beginning, Only Friends did not feel like those (although the links to Gay Okay Bangkok and the exploration of real queer relationships has been fascinating and I am very glad I watched that one before OF).
So why was there this, almost prescribed hopelessness, being projected onto these very young characters who were just in the process of finding themselves? Why were these young people’s flaws and choices so linked to the idea that they would end up alone?
Now @shouldiusemyname told me the following (in the context of a much wider discourse):
Ahhh I like this cos this is something I take very much for granted and I think it’s a generational gap thing. This is a reaction to the way we were brought up (again generalizing cos sometimes it’s necessary). There was no alternative to monogamy and being queer meant that you can’t have that for 2 reasons: 1.    Law doesn’t allow 2.    Socially unacceptable cos being gay was seen as what kind of sex you were having as opposed to relationships. If you don’t have the gay sex, you’re not gay. This is also the reason for being anti het norm. We couldn’t have that so we needed to find the alternative and have ALL of it.
We were both generalizing A LOT, but this idea was MIND BLOWING to me at the time.
(For the record I am born late 1990s, Shouldiusemyname is born early 1980s (and Plantsarepeopletoo is born late 80s so we have variety covered lol!))
Because while, (as @waitmyturtles for example has pointed out on multiple occasions) the imposition of purity culture and monogamy on queer culture (and in general) is wrong, the idea that no queer people are desiring commitment or monogamy is also wrong. (I am not here suggesting that even in an ideal world where queer people TRULY HAD equal rights they would magically all want monogamous long-term relationships because that’s just not true. In addition hets regularly oppose the het norm as well, long-term monogamous relationships are unwanted by many of them).
I come from a strong biological background (which unequivocally supports more than two sexes and more than two genders, do not come back here and make this about that, got it!) and am currently doing a PhD in Palaeontology so a lot of my relationship understanding is informed by a wider understanding of breeding, monogamy and nonmonogamy in reproduction across the animal and plant kingdoms just by exposure (and yes reproduction in the plant kingdom is very much included, some plants have both male and female parts, it’s fascinating!). And monogamy is present in a hugely wide range of species, it’s not soley something humans came up with just because of religious norms. Addtionally, there is the development of consistent monogamous and/or committed polygamous relationships (historically, most commonly men with multiple wives) across a huge number of cultures throughout history largely for the fostering of children. Most of this influence has been more irrelevant for the queer community because of their inability to produce children in monogamous pairs*, and children are a huge sticking point for the NEED for long-term stable relationships. So, without this sticking point (combined with the aforementioned factors around law and discrimination), relationships are viewed as less permanent. Thus, I had to unpack my own casual assumptions that relationships normally have a long-term goal. (*Generalizing hugely, obviously there are lots of variations that can produce biological children without assistance, but these points most strongly apply to same-sex relationships)
For example, I find the way this plays out in a show like What Did You Eat Yesterday particularly fascinating, and have realized since starting Season 2 that I had missed a lot of this subtext in the first season because, to me, the idea that the central couple would stay and grow old together was a given. PARTLY because of monogamous cultural lenses, but ALSO because they loved each other and wanted to be together, so why wouldn’t they assume they would stay and grow old together?
I also realized that I am further sheltered in this mindset by not just my age but by the acceptance of my wider family of non-marriage as a concept (or even just not having to have children) as normal and okay. My Grandfather (in his 80s) is one of 10 children and has multiple siblings (my great uncles/aunts) who 1 never married or 2 married but chose never to have children. While I am not going to pretend that my uncles/aunts were never judged for such things, that judgment was NEVER part of my upbringing and we visited my single and/or childless great-uncles just as often as those with children.
I seem to have gotten sidetracked…What is the wider point I am making here?
Ah yes
Only Friends is so interesting because it’s shot like it’s set in the 80s & 90s, before the turn of the millennia, with so much homage paid to the queer stories and reality that the youth of this time grew up with. But the generational change that the last two decades or so have brought is inarguably huge, and so these characters, all born after the turn of the century, are not truly from the world that, in some ways, it looks like they’ve been placed into. @wen-kexing-apologist did an extremely comprehensive post about gay cruising culture and Boston that was extremely relevant to his character and the story being told, but it also was a specific throwback to something that is different in the 2020s. Not because people like Boston don’t exist, but because the turn of the century brought with it so many things that make this exact thing more complicated.
And OF has been showing us why! Surveillance, SO MUCH surveillance, every character has been recorded or recorded other characters or shared recordings of other characters, sometimes all of the above, and this surveillance does have a deep impact on the relationships today’s young people engage in! Not just the queer community but all young people of today are under near constant scrutiny and surveillance, and the young people born in the last couple decades have grown up like this, queer or not.
One last thing to mention here is the specific, observable, phenomenon that has been going on in Thailand, it is clear when you look at media like Love of Siam (2008) and compare it to ITSAY (2020) (which I haven’t even seen yet gah but I still know this is a great example). The phenomenon of BL, for all its flaws, has wrought change in the psyche and culture of the people of Thailand, ESPECIALLY the young people, and this is absolutely informing our six main characters views on relationships because they would have gone through high school with this as a major part of their culture.
Themes and Endgame: I Think Hope is the Point
All this draws me back into how I think OF will end, because it’s been at the heart of the show throughout, and that is hopefully, Only Friends will end hopefully.
Jojo has (I believe) stated outright that his primary goal for this show was to represent his community in truth, the messy non-het non-monogamy of queer youths in their 20s has been playing out across our screens, but the thing that has been keeping my attention riveted on Only Friends is the heart of it all.
The journeys of growth and discovery on this show have been magnificent. @thegalwhorants has been pointing out the intentional parallels of language this show has been using to highlight some of that growth, and that is just one very interesting fraction of the way this show has used words, music (@plantsarepeopletoo), colours, styles and more to represent the transformation characters are going through as they grow into themselves before our eyes.
A few very brief examples:
Mew’s switch to wearing Ray’s wardrobe when he is trying not to care but cares so much about Top.
Ray’s changed wardrobe to match the style Sand picked out for him even as he tried to choose Mew and couldn’t, because he’s already moved on, even when he couldn’t accept it.
Nick’s whole makeover to catch Boston’s attention later even catching Dan’s attention and the way that in that scene with Boston outside in ep10, Nick had returned to his shorts and t-shirt because he finally felt seen the way he sees Boston.
One’s sense of self is often built in part, around their relationships (family, friends, sexual and romantic), ESPECIALLY in collectivist cultures, and so much of our 20s involves growing and learning who you are through these relationships. I have seen arguing about toxic friendship groups and how they all need to just let each other go, and maybe that is the best endgame, I don’t know. Sometimes, growing together can be so much stronger, and sometimes, growing apart is the only way to move forward.
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But these last two eps in particular (but honestly every moment of this show) have left me with the feeling that hope is the point. Because things HAVE changed, the world is moving and the things possible in 2023 are often utterly unthinkable to the youth of the 1980s, 1990s and before. The world is growing, acceptance and love have always been there but, surveillance or no, it’s so much easier to find now.
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To be queer is no longer to be isolated, not in the way it once was, it is not a sentence of aloneness. Nor a stamp of irrevocable pain. Are things good now? HECK NO, you look at any statistic: homelessness, mental health, suicide rate, poverty; Being queer makes your life harder.
No matter how hard you try things might get worse and while that’s true for all people, queerness compounds that and often makes the consequences of your choices harder through isolation.
But the isolation is less now and I think OF wants to show that
You may do many things and sometimes these things will hurt no matter how careful you are, Not caring isn’t the point, Not feeling isn’t the point, God every character on this show feels so MUCH
This episode had moments of complete heartbreak
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Complete regret
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And complete Joy
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And there is much more still to come
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So when I think about endgame, I think about hope, and the lessening of isolation for all, and this does not mean 3 perfectly happy couples in perfect monogamous relationships wrapped up with a neat little bow, It means six individuals who have learned and grown through friendship and love, this may mean healed relationships, it may not, this may mean healed friendships, it may not. (It may mean Top, Mew and Boeing in a throuple but maybe I’m the only one hoping for that lol). We’ve clearly got more drama and pain to come but I am confident now that things will end with hope.
I do not know how Jojo and co will show that, but I trust them, and I can’t wait to find out.
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