#i guess feeling very disempowered too

[youremyheaven]

Your perspective on astrology is unique in that it cuts through the bullshit. I like how quick you are to point out what is obviously woman-bashing propaganda from centuries past, and what is actually plausible and in-tune with the nature of the sign/nakshatra. However, I am actually really curious about your perspective on monogamy? There are some ideas circulating in feminist circles that monogamy was enforced to benefit men (to ensure that the offspring is theirs) at the expense of women's freedom and choice. For example, in one of your older posts, you implied that an evolved Venus in Aries would be more willing to accommodate a monogamous relationship, despite the placement having a reputation for being more... sexually liberal, I guess. Or that a Venus in Gemini is fickle only when they're unevolved, wherein the implication is that flings are only for the unevolved and the relationships endgoal is a strictly monogamous relationship. Then again, I am pretty sure you made those observations based on tropical astrology, so maybe there's a different way to look at it from vedic.

I'm really conflicted on this myself, I guess I can definitely see where both ways of thinking are coming from. It'd be lovely to hear your current perspective, if you are willing to share. Thank you for your work!

those posts are from atleast one year ago and i will admit most of my early work on tropical astrology is a bit shallow.

that said, i dont think monogamy curtails women's freedom or choice. do i find "monogamy" empowering? not necessarily but i also dont find casual sex "empowering". the truth is there is no winning either way. marriage/monogamy is an institution that is deeply flawed but what is the opposite of it? having as many partners as one wants? maybe it suits some but (and i know ill get flak for saying this) an "evolved" person is one who abstains or exercises self-control. not just with regard to sex but with any kind of indulgence, be it alcohol, drugs etc. i think its really flawed to view "freedom" as the ability to consume limitlessly. anybody who lives like that will tell you how self-destructive that is. you indulge too much (in anything) and you risk your own ruin.

we need structure, order and stability, otherwise we feel disoriented and spiritually lost. ive never looked at someone who's partying every night, doing a cocktail of 10 substances and waking up in a different person's house every morning and thought "wow they're so free!!". i know this is a very binary way of thinking and not what you intended to ask but im just airing my thoughts out.

as corny and cheesy as it sounds, i think the only thing that makes a partnership between two people "right" is love. a lot of men want a bangmaid or they just want to bang. neither of which is empowering for the women involved. im not trying to say that sex in itself is disempowering but that the ways in which men who only want sex from you treat you are. casual sex or having multiple sexual partners is fun but ive always felt like its disingenuous to call it empowering bc i dont think empowerment is something we get from having sex??? i feel like sex positivity has become a way for men and women to delude other women into thinking that they'll be happier or "freer" if they have more sex.

i dont want to be someone's sexdoll and neither do i want to be bangmaid.

but i believe in love and the highest form of love is consideration. the only way we can transcend systemic issues is if we have love for each other because if you love someone, you will value them, prioritize them, respect them and do whatever it takes to make things easier for them. expecting servitude and sex from women means you've never loved anybody in your life lol. i dont really think equality can exist or will exist simply because our world is really imbalanced but i do think individually we can champion each other and help each other rise up, if we move through the world with love and grace. i dont expect anything from "men" and atp i dont want to associate with them anyway but i do believe a man in love is one who will extend grace and id never feel like i needed anything else (from another man).

all of this is just my perspective and i will admit its vvv hard for me to find a man attractive or feel "connected" to him. i feel pretty asexual if im not seeing someone and i can only be intimate with someone i love and connect to deeply. this is why things i say or describe in my posts often dont have sexuality in them or are monogamy centered. that said, im not an advocate for it or anything, everyone above the age of 18 can do what they like and make decisions for themselves<3

#relationships

[marlaluster]

I'm optimistic about a couple of new issues I'm dealing with...

I've had a couple life changes since I last wrote here. There's an aging family member who needs my help more starting a couple weeks ago. Also, I have been having a problem with my health that has been in existence for a while (about a year and a half), but it is getting worse despite my taking medicine to improve the health problem.

I'm not excited to help my aging family member, but I will help sometimes. With the health problem, I'm going to give up on medical help for it just because I don't really understand medical stuff and I don't want to participate in it. I'm hoping I'll be okay with these new things I'm doing in my life.

I feel optimistic about things I'm doing and facing. I think I'm doing the right thing by discontinuing medical involvement for myself. I think sometimes that my aging family member is too dependent on medical help like going to the ER for a problem she has. Her trust of medical help seems misplaced to me, even though it seems to make sense here in this world that she goes to the ER to receive attention from people who are knowledgeable about the seemingly serious problem she keeps having. (She has been having trouble breathing on occasion.)

To me, it doesn't make sense to rely on medical help. It seems so disempowering and so highly involving of dependence on "medical professionals." I think being well or being in an optimal situation is being independent (and, I guess interdependent also, so a person is not totally alone in going about life).

Also, another thing to relevant to the topic of health and wellness is something I wrote about here recently. Recently, I said here that to have things go well for oneself, one shouldn't be required to do the right things, as one is required in this world. Instead, things going well for someone should come from that it is just so that things go well for people. In other words, it should just be the nature of life and the world that things go well for a person.

I believe an ideal world is what should be and not the present world. This present world is not ideal. I'm hoping this present world will come to an end soon.

I'm told by the entities talking in my mind that my letting go of medical remedies for all my health problems will result in this world finally ending.

As is apparent in other posts I've written, the entities say often that this world will end, but, as always, I hope it is true this time. Truthfully, I really believe my disentangling from the world this time by discontinuing taking medicines and seeing doctors, coupled with my three month old extreme disbelief in evil, will end the world this time.

Something I am doing that I am not fully telling at this time, I think will end this world. It is another instance where I am discontinuing medical remedies. I'm hinting pretty strongly about what I'm doing presently, but I will tell fully about this action I'm taking at some point in the near future. I'm not telling about this one very significant thing (and the other health problem I mention above) fully now because I am not telling people close to me presently because I feel they will be concerned.

I'm kind of bored right now and that's partly why I'm writing here. I feel like I don't have anything else I feel like doing. There are always things I need to do that I'm not doing and don't feel like doing.

So that's that, an update on how I'm doing. I guess I'll continue writing here if I'm bored and it feels desirable to write here, like it did today.

[strawberry1212]

Asian drama female lead passivity

I feel like a lot of aspects of female lead (FL) passivity is discussed (the fish kiss being the most famous example), but I wanted to systematically analyze each trope under the theory of female passivity and its feminist implications.

This topic has been stuck in my mind ever since I read a blog years ago (literally like six years ago so I’m sorry I have no idea where it is, I can’t link it) talking about how intimacy in Asian dramas is always portrayed as something women relent to giving up half-heartedly, and men one sidedly pursue. Women are chaste, men are lustful, and women are yielding to men, that is the essential message.

This dynamic plays out in Western media as well--the movie Don Jon is a super interesting analysis comparing how women are indoctrinated by romcoms, to how men are indoctrinated by porn. So women attach grand romantic gestures and romantic commitment to their self worth, because that’s what the girl gets in her happy ending, while men attach it to sexual prowess/having women do kinky sexual favors.

This dynamic is super harmful because it works to suppress female sexuality, as well as male emotionality. People are always surprised when a woman would rather just want sex (or a career) over a romantic commitment. And men are applauded for having the bare minimum of emotional awareness because it’s so rare.

I think a form of Asian drama female lead (FL) passivity that is most talked about is the infamous “fish kiss.” See exhibit A:

The guy initiates the kiss on the usually unsuspecting girl, as if the girl ever going in for the kiss herself would be too sexually aggressive. And as if even enjoying the kiss would be too much, they have her just stand there eyes wide open. It’s awkward, and even slightly funny to watch, but our critique often ends here. But I think the fish kiss is a symptom of a much deeper problem. 

You will notice that female lead passivity is present in all physical interactions between the romantic interests.

The pull in hug:

Which sometimes the FL looks uncomfortable to frightened in:

I even found a meme, so I know I’m not the only who thinks this is weird:

(meme/photo credit: https://goliath1357.tumblr.com/post/27115253892/kdramareasons-awkward-one-sided-hugs-k-drama)

What I don’t like about this trope is first of all, it makes female consent seem less romantic. It romanticizes this idea of male pursuit/female passivity, the man will protect her, the man will pursue her (basically like an object), the man will do all the work in making the relationship progress, etc., and it romanticizes this dynamic to women--this is easy to romanticize for us, because to the most of us that aren’t being constantly pursued by two hot men, this pursuit dynamic seems like a dream boat. Often the kdrama female lead (due to the Initial Misunderstanding trope) will even dislike and push away the male lead--and yet he still pursues her, how romantic! -_- Except in real life, the guy aggressively pursuing you and ignoring you disinterest is not romantic.

And the issue is on both sides, because it teaches women to just stand there, not express consent, and not express sexual/intimacy enthusiasm when we’re feeling it (that would be ~unladylike~). And on the other side, it teaches men to do all the pursuing and to assume that a girl standing frozen, wide eyed, and often looking scared as you kiss her, is consent. Sometimes the guy even interprets a clear “no” as consent. (Honestly I’m not even sure if these Asian drama writers are thinking along the lines of “xyz is consent,”...like I’m not sure how often they even think of the concept of consent tbh.)

But anyways, passivity. is not. consent!!!! That’s why we have the slogan “Yes mean yes,” meaning both parties must have enthusiastic, clear consent, for respectful intimacy. Asian dramas discourage women from expressing an enthusiastic “yes,” and it teaches men not to expect this “yes,” so they can steamroll past passivity and even rejection.

And I know some people will be boohooing me on this. “But sudden kisses and hugs are so romantic!” people will say. But what is “romantic,” like many things, is a social construct. We think things are romantic because they’ve always been presented to us as romantic, with swelling music in the background and the implicit understanding that anything is ok because they are Soulmates(TM) that end up happy together. We construct our idea of what is romantic largely out of media.

But that is not real life, and carrying those messages over to real life (as we inevitably all do), is dangerous. I just moved to Japan so this especially hits close to home for me: I dress conservatively by American standards, but I couldn’t bring a quarter of my clothes when I moved because I worried men on trains would interpret them as revealing, and therefore I would be “asking for it.” I, and I’m sure many women will feel me on this, think about and fear sexual assault very often. And when we don’t enshrine active consent, we perpetuate rapist culture.

Since “romantic” is anything our society constructs it to be, let’s romanticize enthusiastic consent! (like this NCT song!!) I think sudden kisses can be cute when you’ve established boundaries that it’s is ok, but it scares me that men and women are watching this and thinking suddenly kissing a person you haven’t discussed boundaries/intimacy with at all is cute. It’s all fun and games when it’s the hot male lead kissing the girl you know he’s going to end up with, but it’s not cute when it’s real life men thinking they’re entitled to women’s bodies.

Other examples of female passivity:

I stopped watching Moonlight Drawn over the Clouds at precisely this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6I0WXeD-dc&ab_channel=KBSWORLDTV

because it was so painful to watch her sitting there like a fish as the guys got these cool fight scenes. Like girllll literally do anything, throw a rock, something! First dramas routinely disable the female characters by making the male characters the able fighters, but even if you’re not an able fighter you can do more than just sit there like a lame duck -_- Especially the parts of these scenes where someone is standing over the girl with the sword and the writers don’t give the girl the presence of mind to simply run away, but they give the guy the presence of mind to somersault into the room, jump over ten monkey bars, slash the antagonist, and catch the girl bridal style on his way down. I guess the damsel in distress trope is as old as the book, but just the complete passivity so many female characters show in fight scenes as they need to be saved is really annoying and disempowering.

I think the worst part is their faces, they’re all like omg! this is so sad!

well girl you could have done literally ANYTHING other than sit there as he took ten bullets for you lmao. Women don’t exist to stand by and be saved!!! This is a historical drama but the modern drama version is when the guy is getting beat up by bullies or whatever and the girl just stands by and does nothing but look upset.

Another good trope that is under this passivity theme is the double wrist grab, where we not only have ONE male lead (ML) manhandling the FL, but TWO MLs. Ahh yes the only thing better than forcibly ignoring consent and the FL’s wishes is TWO men doing it.

I heard this recently even happened in True Beauty...which...that drama...truly I thought Kdramas were progressing until I saw how much people were hyping up that mess of misogyny (not to mention how boringly predictable it was). 

I can’t quite express this next trope in a screenshot, but something I also see a lot of is the ML professing his love to the FL and she sort of just stands there like O_O. Like she’s just sort of this object that sits there being admired? It’s just such an unnatural way to react to someone professing their love for you, and these scenes drag on for many minutes of just the ML’s dialogue so the female actress, having no lines, has no choice but to sit there O_O. Like give her lines! Give her reactions! Give her anything other than being wide eyed!!!!

And these physical interactions represent deeper emotional passivity in the female lead.

I’ve noticed it’s almost always the trend of the male lead falls later, but falls harder, and ultimately he puts more energy into making the relationship progress. Again, this buys into female fantasy, but it is an unhealthy fantasy that is grounded, I think, in our insecurities, and our fear of putting ourselves out there (so we would rather have someone pursue us than put ourselves out there and meet someone halfway).

This emotional passivity is why, weirdly enough, sometimes I will really like the drama because the girl is very stubbornly, openly, and aggressively pursuing the guy. A case of this is Itazura na Kiss, or Mischievous Kiss (there’s a Jdrama, Kdrama, and anime--I only watched the anime). Now the guy is downright meannnnn in Mischievous Kiss, this was not a healthy relationship at all, but there was something refreshing about the girl. Sure her aggression was in pursuing a man, but at least it was aggression, and I’d always only seen any hint of female sexuality/actively pursuing as something very stigmatized. 

I think a sister trope to the passivity trope is the innocence trope. The guy will literally take the initiative to profess his undying love to the FL and she’ll be like “what?? omg stop teasing you’re joking ahahha.” Why do FLs need to be so oblivious/innocent? I think it caters to the way media is seen through a male gaze but that’s a trope to deconstruct another time.

#feminism #asiandrama #jdrama #kdrama #cdrama #kdrama tropes #kdrama analysis #kdrama feminism

[winepresswrath]

If you’re still collecting songs for the disaster brothers then can I offer Brother by Sam Tinnesz as a JC POV song?

I have been working on this post for a couple of days now and I keep on having to stop to either

1) accomplish things or

2) lie on the floor a little because of the playlist you crowdsourced into my inbox.

Anyway!

How long will you run? You're not what you've become Walking up there on a wire so high You know there's only one way down I can't save you now

for when you’re mourning a person who is technically still right in front of you. nice. I also love the idea of the mob as a dog Jiang Cheng thinks Wei Wuxian can’t help but feed!

Songs that jiang cheng should sing (but like, kinda passive-aggresively) @wei wuxian: 1. Someone like you by Adele, 2. Somebody that I used to know by Gotye

I feel you on the Adele but I feel like Jiang Cheng is ironically almost too dramatic for Gotye? I have a hard time picturing him being sullenly all “you didn’t have to send your friends to collect your magic flute” when he’s carrying the magic flute in his robes at this very moment, biding his time. It’s almost too well adjusted in its fuckboyery. On the other hand,

I heard that your dreams came true Guess she gave you things, I didn't give to you

but mean and sarcastic is just canonically what happens at the beginning of the ancestral shrine scene .

for yunmeng songs can i suggest seven devils by florence + the machine for jc's fury towards wwx when he was so determined to stamp out every last shred of him even after his 'death'. It also includes fun lyrics such as

"See, I was dead when I woke up this morning

I'll be dead before the day is done"

that really encompasses how his grief and rage swallowed him up

Nice, anon. I also really like

And now all your love will be exorcised And we will find you saying it's to be better now

for the contrast between Jiang Cheng conceptualizing love as an evil that needs to be ripped out of him and the nod to Wei Wuxian, champion of letting it go and leaving the past in the past.

another yunmeng bros song, smile by mikky ekko perhaps?

And time will eventually knock on my door And tell me I'm not needed around anymore

I hate it here. I think this actually works really well as a Wei Wuxian song more generally, but that line is perfect for both of them.

We'll be lucky if we ever see the sun/Got nowhere to turn, and we've got nothing but time

gives me serious burial mounds vibes, and you can’t get more Wei Wuxian than smiling about how “the future is forgiven (the worst is yet to come)”

personally, my twin prides song is "weighted" by frank iero and the patience: "i only want the truth/that's one thing you can't do"

Let's hate what our love makes us do

If I try I may have to try my entire life and that just doesn’t feel right

Some quality Yunmeng Bros content here. This is an excellent song to throw up your hands and admit that your relationship with your brother is a disaster you need to develop a sense of humour about to.

Yunmeng bros music - 'Forever' by CVRCHES

And I will always think I'm right But I always regret the night I told you I would hate you 'til forever

Undeniable! Maybe I am just too much for you. One of the sadder entries in a really sad list, but I think it does a good job evoking the way their relationship can make them both feel trapped and exhausted and disempowered to do anything about that.

stonerxichen said:                                                                

Waste by Oh Wonder for the yunmeng bros. I watched an amv with this song and I've never recovered

oh god, I know the vid you’re talking about and I share the sentiment. Also just one of my favourite songs on this list.

There's a space in between Like a grey evergreen Where the hurt never mend

Knives out from the start, and that follow up- the waste inherent in knowing the exact edges of someone and all their bones but still not being able to fix anything. The exhaustion of futile knowing is like the inverse of the mortifying ordeal of being known.

morifiinwe said:                                                              

not to jump on the bandwagon but allies and enemies by the crane wives is such a yunmeng bros song (as is soap by the oh hellos but i know i’ve already sent you that one)

Remember when I could tell you not to smile when you were mad? And you would always crack, and we’d both be laughing in the end Now you’re not so quick to forget

I am in pain and it is your fault. This is another excellent one for that sense of helplessness- loving a person and wanting to be good to them and not being able to figure out how to do that properly, but I think what really gets me about this one is the way the uncertainty half resolves into

I’ll admit I’ve had my doubts But I want to be let in not out

Sometimes hopeful things are more brutal, actually, and this makes me think about the exact moment Jiang Cheng might admit to himself that he wants a relationship with Wei Wuxian and is immediately slammed in the face with the knowledge that wanting may not make it so! “Leave the past in the past.” “Take care.”

Shoutout to tumblr user @rozarria for suggesting Bullet by Clare Maguire

And i try not to feel

Oh i try not to feel Its so hard to believe it

but in the end of it all

its true

stop making me think about all the time Jiang Cheng spends trying to internalize the idea that Wei Wuxian never really loved him and it’s pathetic and delusional and a gross betrayal of the dead to hope otherwise!

Edit: I wanted to say that my personal favouite Yunmeng Bros song is Under Pressure, which did not make it onto my yunmeng bros playlist by dint of being hidden on my Wei Wuxian playlist. But love does dare us to change our way of caring about ourselves, even if we crack a little first.

#thank you everyone who took time out of their day to hurt my feelings #<3 ilu all #morifinwe #you have committed a great violence against me but you know #in a good way

[language-sanctuary]

I'm sorry if you've been asked this before. I'm Mexican on my mother's side, but I feel like the both of us have been very disconnected from the culture and we both want to get closer to it. Do you have any suggestions on what we could do? We're already planning on making traditional dishes, and I'm learning Spanish. Thank you in advance, I hope you have a good day/night!

Hello! Thank you for reaching out! I think learning Spanish, especially Mexican Spanish, is an amazing way for you to start connecting with your Mexican side. (Self plug, but I am a Spanish tutor if you ever were in need of practice lessons). 

Personally, my main daily connection to my culture is food. Learn how to make tortillas, atole, tamales, pozole, ponche, pan de muerto, tacos, salsa casera, enfrijoladas, enchiladas, chilaquiles, etc! We have a cuisine unlike any other and it is so incredibly delicious and creative.  I want to recommend this woman’s channel where she teaches you (in Spanish) how to make incredible Mexican dishes (although my mom says her use of grease and oil is excessive but hey, it’s a question of taste). 

You can also watch travel content which would really help to learn more about Mexico and it’s pueblos mágicos. This is my favorite travel channel that also is very educational. You can also watch Mexican tv series! I have some mentioned here. 

I liked Coco, however I wouldn’t suggest supporting Disney because while they were making the movie they tried to trademark Día de Muertos... you know, one of the biggest and most important celebrations in Mexico that originated centuries ago from indigenous beliefs? Yeah. A bit too problematic for my taste. I personally wouldn’t try to trademark the most important celebration of a POC-culture for profit but I guess I’m different. You can however watch an ACTUAL Mexican movie about Día de Muertos here . I also recommend this animated series of movies about Mexico’s legends. 

If you were to buy anything (traditional clothing, cutlery, jewelry, artesanías, etc), I would suggest supporting actual indigenous people and avoiding buying anything from big corporations that want to profit from the traditional art and end up committing cultural appropriation and disempowering indigenous artists. 

Día de Muertos is coming up (I’m planning on making a series of posts about the celebration if you are interested, I’ll link them to this post when I’m done if you wanna save it) which I think would be an amazing first step into the culture. Other Mexican traditions that I can think of right now are eating a rosca de reyes on January 6th and finding the Niño Dios hidden inside, eating tamales on the 12th and doing the whole cake and piñata thing on birthday celebrations (post about this here)

I wish you the best of luck and I’m here if you have any other questions!

#mexico #mexican culture #spanish langblr #mexicana #mexican food #mexican parties #mexican heritage #cultura mexicana #not langblr

[firstpuffin]

BBC America’s The Watch characters: what’s been “reimagined” pt 1

Given my unhealthy obsession with the Discworld series and that the books following the City Watch are among my favourite, the upcoming reimagining has been on my mind a lot of late. I can’t wait for January to come along, but until then I have little to do but speculate.

  I want to take a look here at the characters of the series, specifically the profiles so conveniently provided by the Den of Geek website and compare them to what we see in the books. This isn’t with a negative bias, insofar as I can unbias myself, but merely a brief comparison.

 Let’s do this in the order of main characters:

Samuel Vimes, “Captain of The Watch, disempowered by a broken society that’s reduced his department’s jurisdiction to almost nothing.”

  A very bare description but not wholly inaccurate. In the first book- Guards! Guards!- Vimes is disillusioned with his place in the city of Ankh-Morpork, drunken, sloven, all largely thanks to his Night Watch being a joke to the community at large.

  But this description isn’t quite right: Ankh-Morpork isn’t a broken society as instead it works. Under the Patrician’s guidance the Night Watch are largely unneeded, at least ostensibly; you don’t need to catch illegal thieves when the legal Thieves Guild will do a much better job of it for you. Vimes is a broken man, but only because he hasn’t found his place yet.

  Richard Dormer at least looks the part. I’ve seen official artwork that shows Vimes as neat and proper looking, but in the books he’s always described as “scruffy”. I don’t watch trailers so I haven’t seen him in action yet, but the worst thing I can say is that the decision to not give the Watch armour was a huge loss.

 Lady Sybil Ramkin, “last scion of Ankh-Morpork’s nobility, who’s trying to fix the city’s wrongs with her chaotic vigilantism.”

  “This is where the fun begins”. But really, where to begin? Why “chaotic vigilante”? Is middle-aged dragon breeder not bad-ass enough? In the later books we don’t see too much of Lady Sybil, but she does start appearing more, and the dramatisation can easily do this much sooner without issue.

  What we really wanted from Lady Sybil was a big middle-aged woman, which would be nice representation for that demographic.

  There’s not much to say about Lara Rossi in the role except that she doesn’t really look cut out for dragon-breeding.

 Carrot (Headbanger) Ironfoundersson, “the idealistic new recruit, raised by dwarfs, but really a human abandoned at birth.”

  Not a whole lot to say here. Carrot wasn’t abandoned so much as his family massacred by bandits, but whatever.

  Adam Hugill looks big, orange and handsome, and is dressed neat enough to pass muster. I’m looking forward to watching him.

 Angua (Delphine) von Überwald, “tasked with Carrot’s training and keeping the rookie alive.”

  Well, this is… well it’s the reverse really. The second book, Men at Arms, has the Watch forced to take in minority officers, and being a werewolf Angua is a shoo-in. She is trained by Carrot and serves to show the reader how the people of Ankh-Morpork view Carrot’s bizarre charisma.

  Marama Corlette is an interesting choice. Angua is meant to be tall and beautiful, with long blonde hair (treated with products meant for dogs), but whose werewolf side manages to come through in a disconcerting manner.

  Marama is portraying her as a short, scruffy character with very short hair. She’s going to lack the disharmony that makes Angua’s beauty so much more than fanservice. Still, probably not her choice and it will be interesting to see how she deals with the werewolf inside.

 Cheery Littlebottom, “the ingenious non-binary forensics expert, ostracized by their kin and finding a new home and identity.”

  Probably giving Cheery a little bit too much credit here: she’s skilled, yes, but she has to learn forensics when she first appears in the third book, Feet of Clay. She’s not non-binary, quite the opposite, but I’ve already discussed that here, and neither is she ostracized as such. Given that she’s not a unique non-binary individual but just a part of the larger Dwarfish sociological problem, I feel that they’re missing a major opportunity in cultural sexual expectations here.

  Going by pictures alone, I’m not even sure Jo Eaton-Kent is even playing a dwarf, but wouldn’t it be better to have an actual dwarf actor play the role? And I guess if they aren’t going to bother with armour then why bother with beards, but once again it drops a whole bunch of the nuance of the source material.

 Lord Vetinari, the Patrician, “architect of the city’s normalized wrongness and ramshackle system of governance.”

  Oh.

  I intended to say that Anna Chancellor had some big, big size twelve shoes to fill after Vetinari was portrayed by Charles Dance, but apparently that’s a non-issue as the Patrician is now fucking incompetent!

  I need to calm down. I genuinely need to take a break after reading that. Bye.

#first puffin #Discworld #night watch #ankh morpork #the watch bbc #bbc america #samuel vimes #lady sybil ramkin #carrot ironfoundersson #angua von uberwald #Cheery Littlebottom #lord vetinari #waytoomanytags #thosetagswilldofornow

[dream-girls-evil]

Ratched: Episode 5 Reactions

Party Planning

The red light stands for DRUGS

Ohh he’s meeting Mildred! On the outside this def looks like a date.

Ooh Mildred changing the game now that she’s got all the leverage.

Poor eclair didn’t deserve that

“This is about the lesbians, isn’t it?” Yes, always.

I almost feel bad for Bucket. Almost.

Oh is she gonna know Mildred put him up to this? Guess not.

Basically throwing herself a promotion party lol but yay a DANCE!!!

Is she planning to have Edmund do something to prove himself insane? Oh yep lol

Omg Mildred no this is too cruel don’t get Bucket’s hopes up 😂😂😂

“You’re a woman again” okay that’s laying it on a little thick

Haha Mildred finally dropping the pretense with Hanover. I love it.

“Trust me” Honestly why tho

Oooh who is this lady? She’s mean but she’s right, the way he’s holding that violin is terrible.

Oh, apparently she’s Ondine Duquette

Or Charlotte Wells? ...I see what’s happening.

Love an inaccurate portrayal of DID (sarcasm)

Mmm does Mildred know Hanover has a thing for her? (I think he does at least, or did) Cuz it’s pretty bold of her to touch his face like that.

Aw she’s on her date with Gwen!

Love how straightforward Gwen is and the communication here!

Oh Gwen was in love with a nurse who was killed in the war? That’s coincidental. And Mildred understands it.

Her companion!!! I’m excited but nervous. People might talk.

Lenore’s Arrival

Lenore and Petunia! They look so out of place here XD poor Louise

“The wallpaper hurts my feelings” I’d be lying if I said I’d never felt that strongly about wallpaper

Can’t believe she just invited Mildred to tea, but this is clearly a woman who’s used to getting what she wants.

Oh nice, she just wants Mildred to take over the job XD unfortunately, I think Mildred has other plans. She needs him, though not indefinitely. She’ll probably kill Hanover anyway once she frees Edmund, tie up loose ends. But there’s no harm in pretending to go along with Lenore’s wishes.

Oooh Lenore just got REAL angry about the money Mildred asked for. Guess they’ll be enemies!

Aw Betsy!!! She’s so nervous and so happy!

Hypnotherapy...this should be interesting

A RED-LETTER DAY FOR BETSY BUCKET

Fffff he’s trying to hypnotize his way out of a date. This is a new one 😂

Aw Dolly. Stop bonding with the bad man. He’s just using you.

HE DOESNT LOVE YOU

Ew I don’t like Mildred being alone with Edmund while he’s naked

Do we really trust him to hurt himself and not, you know, everyone else? Mildred does, apparently. Hope she doesn’t regret it.

Oh Charlotte...

AND THEY MADE HER NOT PRESS CHARGES

If only it really was as easy to get rid of trauma as snapping your fingers

Omg Hanover crying because he helped someone. This guy is so interesting, honestly. He does genuinely want to help people.

OMG LOUISE AND BETSY ARE FRIENDS?! Please tell me they just complain about Mildred all the time.

Okay so Betsy’s a little delusional lmao her retelling of Hanover’s reaction to the gifts is...quite altered

Omg they’re dancing this must have been the most fun scene to shoot on the whole show

“I’ve never seen you look so happy” I ship them

HA I knew they just complained about Mildred together

Lenore is there LENORE IS RIGHT THERE

Ohhh he’s breaking down. Little does he know that Mildred is the one who brought Lenore here.

Ahhh now he’s holed up at the hospital where Mildred is the only one who can reach him.

I think Lenore likes Mildred’s nerve now

The Dance

Mmm why do I feel like Charlotte might end up stealing Edmund’s thunder?

Poor Betsy. Hanover’s off to get drugged up.

Oh, he’s REALLY out of it. Jon Jon Brione is such a great actor.

So much for everyone ignoring Edmund lmao

She’s a PEACH

MMM Betsy’s onto Gwen and Mildred

Aaand Harold is distracted

Omg Dolly looks so pretty!!! Hope Edmund doesn’t kill her

Oh NO they’re planning on running?! I have no idea which plan he’s going to follow. I’m so nervous.

Oh their little clandestine handhold I cri

Betsy you are getting ahead of yourself a little

Omg causing a scene nooo

NOOO BETSY

Damn Hanover came outta nowhere with the rage

And now Gwen and Mildred have left to comfort her and NO ONE IS WATCHING EDMUND

Mildred’s sense of empathy really does strike at the oddest times and in the oddest ways.

Okay Edmund didn’t try anything while they were gone but this is definitely not going to go according to Mildred’s plan.

Noooo Harold!!! No one even got to tell you they’re lesbians 😔

FUCK GWEN NO

Duuude Dolly is excited by this. And I legit can’t tell if Edmund is playing at being freaked out by Gwen or it’s genuine.

Thoughts and Theories

Well, that was a packed episode! I really do feel bad for Betsy Bucket lol, she may hate Mildred and act like a hardass around her, but then she turns into such a sweet and silly woman. I’m kind of living for her friendship with Louise, too, although I know it can mean nothing good for Mildred, who doesn’t realize she’s surrounded on all sides. We haven’t even flashed over to Louise rifling in her room during the dance, yet. I wonder what, if anything, she’ll find. But if she does find something, how will Bucket react? I think her opinions of Mildred might have changed after this incident. Speaking of which, while I get what they’re trying to do by having Mildred go all empathetic and feminist, it feels really out of place to me. I know she didn’t expect Hanover to go off like that, but she hardly likes Bucket, and more than that, humiliating and disempowering her would actually serve Mildred’s purposes. Especially if Bucket quit over it. If the whole point of getting them together was to keep Bucket distracted, then surely getting her out of the hospital altogether would be even better. Perhaps I could believe that she saw the opportunity to get on Bucket’s good side by comforting her if it wasn’t so clearly an emotionally-driven choice, and one she was conflicted about. She chose going after Bucket over watching Edmund. That’s a pretty interesting brand of empathy and overconfidence.

On to Edmund, the whole Bonnie-and-Clyde thing was definitely a surprise, but mostly because I’m like...literally what is the plan here? How long do they think they’ll be able to survive on the run? Edmund himself is hard to get a read on, because we don’t get a whole lot from his perspective, but knowing Murphy, I’d wager that he does genuinely have some attachment to Dolly, if only because he’s lacking a sympathetic female figure in his life. He has Mildred of course, but seems very impatient and displeased with her plan and how she tries to control him. I think this whole escape is probably a combination of that frustration and impulsiveness and how he and Dolly really feed off each other’s romanticized idea of how it will all work out. It’ll be interesting to see where they go from here and whether they turn on each other or not. I really still can’t tell whether Edmund is really upset about Gwen being shot or not, but at this point I’m wondering like, why would he need to pretend? Dolly is clearly exhilarated by the whole thing (also unexpected). Their argument is over whether or not Gwen was “fair game,” which sounds to me like Edmund is similar to Mildred in that he really needs a way to justify his murders, which could be interesting, it’s just not the direction I thought we were gonna go with him. We’ll see, I guess!

#ratched #ratched spoilers #mildred ratched #edmund tolleson #nurse bucket #betsy bucket #lenore osgood #mrs osgood #dr hanover #charlotte wells #all hail the queue of hell

[pikapeppa]

5 Questions for Writers

First of all, @serial-chillr​ I LOVE YOUR WRITER TAG MEMES. Second of all, I looked at these questions and was immediately like, “... favourites of everything? Out of all the things?” [stares hopelessly at all the ships and fics] BUT LET’S GIVE THIS A TRY.

Tagged by @serial-chillr​ @faerieavalon​ @elveny​ @hellas-himself​ @myfeyrelady​!

1. Do you have a favourite character to write? Who and why?

Fenris. WOW EVERYONE IS SHOCKED. But the thing I most love writing about Fenris is the complexities of his relationships with the Inquisition companions in particular, which is the main focus in Lovers In A Dangerous Time (i.e. Fenris the Inquisitor fic). I LOVE writing Fenris talking to Solas, Dorian, Varric and Cole especially. And, of course, always, Fenris with Rynne. 

Solas is a very close second because he’s so multifaceted and has so many moods. I also love writing smut for him because understated dom!Solas hits all my buttons… [fans self]  

2. Do you have a favourite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

Uhhhh… I guess Fenris and Rynne are a pretty classic case of the angry character/sunshine character ship trope. Mutual pining is a favourite, exemplified with FenRynne but also with Abelas and Athera Lavellan. I’M BAD AT IDENTIFYING MY OWN TROPES, someone else needs to help me out here haha!! 

3. Share your favourite description you’ve written?

Bahaha when I first saw this question I was like “UGHHH I hate writing descriptions of places.” Then I realized that a lot of the smut I write is descriptions and I was like “YEAHHHH”. So here is some Fenris/Rynne Hawke smut (from “My Body Is A Cage”): 

****************

The heat, the slick pressure of her throat and the hard pressure of her knuckles between his legs, her firm fingertips digging into his lower ribs: Hawke gave all of this to him, grounding him and holding him here in the bed they shared. Fenris was caught, helplessly and blissfully captured in this cage of his own pleasure. He was his body, living in it and relishing it and all the things that it could feel.

Pleasure and sensation, heat and tightness and the pounding of his own pulse, and even the things that had nothing to do with Hawke at all - the smooth flannel of the sheets under his sweat-dampened back and the tension in his fists as he twisted them into the pillows: all of it, every part of it was his body, and he was thankful for it, thankful for the pulsing waves of pleasure that were beating through his thighs and calves and even up into his throat. Fenris couldn’t think, couldn’t think a damned thing except that he loved Hawke, and he loved this, and he loved his own tense and pleasured body as she brought him to his peak -

And that peak, fasta vass, the fucking peak…

It surged through him like an overwhelming wave of force, washing through his straining limbs with all the sparking heat of Hawke’s lightning storms. He cried out his rapture and his praise and lifted his hips toward her mouth, and even through his mindless bliss, he could hear that his voice was rough and ragged with the strain of his own ecstasy.

4. Share your favourite dialogue you’ve written?

Fuuuuck. Dialogue/conversations are my catnip and my life. I always love writing Fenris and Rynne’s back-and-forth, which is the main reason I started my ‘ask Rynne Hawke and Fenris’ thing (which anyone can still submit to! I have a couple that I need to get to still!). But barring FenRynne convos, one of my favourite exchanges was this one between Fenris and Solas, from Lovers In A Dangerous Time. It’s long AND I’M SORRY, so you can feel free to skip it.

******************

Solas tilted his head. “Fenris, you too were raised in a city, and in circumstances even more disempowering than the alienages of the south.”

Fenris grunted. “And your point is?”

“Do you ever wish you were anything other than you are?”

Fenris glanced at Sera, then at Solas. “You mean, do I wish I were a human and not an elf.”

Solas tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Unless you wished you were something else entirely.”

Fenris raised one quizzical eyebrow. That was an odd thing to say. Then he shrugged and returned his gaze to the path ahead, and to Hawke’s slender back. “No,” he said. “I never wanted to be human. I am who I am.”

“You never wished that you were different from what you are?” Solas asked.

Fenris frowned at him. “If you’re asking if I wish to be like the ancient elves of old, then no,” he said bluntly. “That is an empty wish. A wish premised on no proof. There is no point seeking to recreate times long past. Especially since we can’t confirm what those times were like.”

“That is not what precisely what I meant,” Solas said. “But it is informative all the same.”

Informative? Fenris thought. What he’d said was hardly informative. It was just his opinion. But if Solas really wanted his opinion, he supposed he could share it. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do at the moment.

“I am satisfied with being a ‘city elf’, as they call it,” he said. “I don’t wish to be other than what I am. There is something… hardening about being the underdog.”

Solas looked at him. “Do you mean ‘heartening’?”

“That as well,” Fenris said.

The corners of Solas’s mouth curved in a small smile. Fenris shrugged. ”When I first escaped Danarius, I didn’t wish I was different. I wished everything else was different.”

Solas’s smile broadened slightly and he nodded in understanding, but Fenris frowned in thought. Now that Solas had him thinking about this, it was strange to compare his thoughts in the past to the way he felt about this topic now.

“Despite that, I… I am different than I was before,” he said slowly. “When I was first freed, I was… enraged. The change I desired was little more than a Tevinter landscape rendered in blood.”

Solas’s expression grew somber. “You can hardly be blamed. No great change has ever been wrought without the spilling of blood.”

“I am well aware,” Fenris said flatly. “But…” He paused pensively before speaking again. “I no longer thirst for the blood of my enemies. The snuffing of lives is a necessary cost, but… it’s one I no longer relish.” He glanced at Solas. “That was not always the case.”

Solas bowed his head briefly. “You are wise beyond your years, then.”

Fenris raised a wry eyebrow. “And you are not?”

Solas smiled. “Ah. No. You should have seen me when I was younger. Hot-blooded and cocky, always ready to fight.”

Without quite meaning to, Fenris let out a small laugh. “I can't imagine.”

Solas’s smile grew. “I would ask you not to try. It was a very different time.”

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

I’ve been powering through writing the Trespasser chapters of Lovers In A Dangerous Time because I’m dying to write some parts of it, so those are going to happen very soon. When LIADT is done, I have a Felassan/Lavellan idea fic idea that I can’t wait to jump into. And then I have some Solavellan SMUT that I’m dying to write for @elbenherzart… [sweating]

Thanks for tagging me, friends! Tagging forward to @johaeryslavellan @midnightprelude @therarefereldancatlord @lostinfantasies38 @kittimau @barbex @novamm66 @dafan7711 @mrscullensrutherford @obvidalous @galadrieljones @thevikingwoman @solas-disapproves @beckily @iarollane @aban-asaara @tryvyalsynnes @lyrium-lovesong @irlaimsaaralath and anyone else who would like to play!

#tag meme #fanfic writer's life #fenris #solas #lovers in a dangerous time #fenhawke #fenrynne #thanks for the tags!! #looking forward to reading others' answers!

[transamorousnetwork]

How To Get Your Ideal Trans Partner In Bed

The easiest, most fun way to find yourself in a rewarding relationship with your ideal transgender partner is by becoming a match to your ideal. You do that by telling positive stories about life.

Speaking practically, telling positive stories creates positive life experiences. Consistent positive story telling creates momentum. Momentum held long enough, will draw your ideal partner right into your bed, guaranteed.

Simple experiments prove this. One need not understand or believe metaphysical or spiritual explanations for why this happens.

Think about it: if you want that beautiful, smart, confident, strong, capable courageous, proud and powerful transgender woman, and you are not beautiful, smart, confident, strong, capable courageous, proud and powerful, you’re not a match to what you want. You get what you think about, what you “be” about, i.e. what you tell stories about.

The stories you tell become who you are. From there, your life experience literally erupts from you, creating experience, people and events matching your stories. Everyone does this all day every day. Most don’t realize they’re doing it.

Why does life work this way?

Positive stories cause human senses to filter out anything not perceived positive. Again: our senses filter experience all day every day, allowing only experiences consistent with our persistent stories. Many transgender women, on balance, are fairly negative, so their life experiences match that.

Same with trans-attracted men’s stories about themselves, about life, probably and about transgender women. If one’s beliefs about trans women aren’t consistent with the trans woman one wants, guess what kind of trans woman one meets? If ones stories about themselves aren’t empowering, inspiring, positive and joyful, one gives off “vibes” consistent with disempowering, uninspiring, negative stories. It’s simple.

You may ask: What about people who seem positive? Why do they have seeming random negative events happen? Someone once told me a story of a trans woman they believed was always positive. She even practiced “the power of positive thinking”. Yet, someone murdered this trans woman.

The thing about creating reality is, one best knows what reality they’re creating in two ways: how they feel, and what shows up in their reality. It’s near impossible to tell what another has in their collection of stories by watching how they behave, or what they say. It’s much better watching how their life goes.

A lot of people who appear positive and happy, are not. They are insecure, lonely, they feel vulnerable, afraid and judged. Many seemingly successful and happy people exemplified this. Robin Williams, Freddie Prinze, Anthony Bourdain, Margaux Hemingway, Daniel Lee Martin, Philip Seymour Hoffman and many others struggled with pain and depression, finally taking their own lives when they appeared on the surface as “successful”.

So people usually have both positive and negative stories going on in their heads at the same time. Their lives include events exemplifying both.

Random negative experiences, such as getting robbed or raped, hit by a bus, or assaulted for being trans aren’t random. They come from long-term focus on negative stories or mixed stories with a negative ones outweighing positive ones.

The benefit of emotions

Often people can’t hear stories they’re telling. That’s why humans come equipped with emotions. Negative stories feel like “fear”, “insecurity”, “worry” or “victimhood”. Told often enough such stories become the person.

From the person then erupts experiences, people and events consistent with stories they’ve become. That’s why people get robbed, raped, hit by a bus or assaulted for being trans.

The same things happen for shame-filled trans-attracted men. Their negative stories about their attraction matches them to trans women who share similar (although not identical) stories. In other words, such men meet trans women who are not beautiful, smart, confident, strong, capable courageous, proud and powerful.

Often such feelings get past one’s perception because one focuses too much on what’s happening outside their head. Focus works best when it predominantly focuses on what’s happening inside one’s head first, since everything happening outside one’s head springs from what happens inside one’s head.

Negativity owes itself to positivity

Very few people chronically tell positive stories. There are many people, and a lot of trans women telling negative stories though. Everyone’s life matches their stories.

But even negative story tellers from time to time experience positive experiences. They do because a little positivity overwhelms tons of negativity. It does because negative “energy” isn’t an energy. Negative “energy” is what happens when positive energy gets diminished.

In other words, negative “energy” owes its existence to its relativity to positive energy. It has no substance, no independent existence of its own. It is defined by a lack of positivity.

What’s more, a chronically negative person still is, at the core, pure positive energy. That energy, no matter how obscured it may be by negative focus, still can overcome its overshadowed state when the negative-focused person drops their guard.

When he’s not paying attention, asleep or doing something “mindless” such as driving a car, taking a shower or experiencing something fun, positive focus’ power eeks through. That’s why a negative person can sometimes experience positive experiences.

Positive benefits feel fun

When I’m positive and excited by my positive stories, when I’m enthusiastic and eager about what I’m up to (or planning), I open up. I’m open to possibility, I see things consistently negative people can’t.

The world is full of delights.

Staying positive I produce results easily and fast. More important, on the way to those outcomes, I enjoy life more. That means life experience becomes more entertaining, more fun, more positive.

“Happy accidents”, what some people call “luck”, happen often for people telling positive stories. It’s not luck, but who cares what it’s called? Through such events problems solve themselves faster compared to focusing on the problem, trying to find a solution or trying to make a solution work.

When negative, one sees more negativity. Such focus turns things into “impossible problems.” When someone filters life through negative stories, the sheer enormity of bad things in the world overwhelms awareness. Every Transamorous guy becomes a “tranny chaser”. Every trans woman is a potential victim, every trans woman a guy meets ends up being a skeezer, working girl or gold digger.

A lot of people stand in such negative stories. Yet no such experiences need happen to anyone.

That’s incredibly naive

Someone reading this may not believe a bit of it. The majority of people believe negative situations described above are just natural parts of being trans-attracted, transgender or human.

I know, and my clients know, this is NOT NATURAL. Anyone well-practiced in telling positive stories discovers this.

A Positively Focused person knows her life experience springs ongoingly from her, not others. So she focuses on the one thing that really matters: her focus, not what others say, do or believe. Which is why my clients sometimes find their old friends getting on their nerves. My clients become so positive and their old friends’ chronic negativity so obvious, they become like oil and water: intolerable of each other.

Here’s the critical thing about being negative: It’s very hard to turn that train around. A life-long “realistic”, pessimistic or negative person may feel right about the world they experience. And they will be right.

They’ll be right because life experience springs from their stories. That doesn’t mean an alternative experience, one in which all desires fulfill themselves, including desire to have their ideal partner in their bed, doesn’t exist.

Momentum is momentum though. It takes a lot of work initially reversing negative-focus momentum. Since lives full of fulfilled desires are possible for everyone, that work pales in comparison to benefits derived, making the effort worth it.

Desires fulfilling themselves. It’s a life available to anyone, because everyone at their core is positively focused. It’s worth it. It’s fun and it’s everyone’s birthright. Even for trans and trans-attracted people.

Not living one’s birthright, in my opinion, is living. But just barely. Wanting that ideal woman in your bed is no fun if all you have is an empty bed.

But your bed doesn’t have to be empty.

#transgender #trans woman #Transamorous Network #transattracted #transamorous #mtf

[gritmama]

Why can’t I just…?

By Melanie E. Flint, LCSW, CGP, EAP

I’ve either asked myself a version of this or heard it asked by other women or Mothers more times than I can count over the years. It is unanswerable, and almost certain to keep us STUCK in the very rut or routine we want to move away from….not to mention topping of the list of minimizing and demoralizing judgements we lay on ourselves. In my private practice I treat many women and Moms, and they echo the same shame based questions I and the women and Moms in my personal life have said/do say to ourselves over……and over……again – “Why can’t I just……I know what to do, why can’t I do it?......If only I would just…..What’s wrong with me that I can’t……??”

(OK – here is where I have to say how much I love punctuation, I love it! I allow run on sentences with too many commas and with too many descriptors in a grand attempt to make a point – Phew! I said it. I speak this way; I want you to see the whole picture or feel the breeze on your neck as I’m describing it – and this is my attempt at delivering that experience on the page. It’s not refined, but it’s me! There, I’ve said it and now you can smile as you read this and no longer have to wonder if I know and just enjoy. Gulp.)

Now, back to said minimizing and demoralizing question……

This is the age-old question of SHAME. The question is benign enough – “Why can’t I just……get up on time to actually make the kids breakfast and not just shove a bar in their hands as I’m yelling and we are running out the door in the mornings?” “Why can’t I just……take better care of myself? I know all the right stuff to do!” “Why can’t I just……exercise a few mornings a week? I know it makes me feel so good.” “Why can’t I just…...get my shit together?!” Sure. Not awful at first glance – BUT, the subtext here is what gnaws away at our confidence, our resolve, our grit.

Here it is, that sneaky, shaming, gnawing subtext and follow-up judgement to the “Why can’t I just……?” question:

“If I wasn’t so (insert punitive self-judgement here) I could do it!”

“If only I didn’t have (insert resentment here) to worry about or keeping me up at night, I could do it!”

“I guess I’m just meant to be a (insert self-focused resignation here) for the rest of my life.”

“If only I could be more like (insert social comparison here) and have the help/money/body/time she has, then I could do it.”

It’s these self-judgements, built-up resentments, self-critical resignations and social comparisons, like the proverbial thumb pushing us down and keeping us in our self-doubt and disempowered state of “comfort”. Yup - COMFORT. For many of us, the “seat” of self-critique and self-blame is a well-known and well-worn one – and yes, it does provide a sense of chaffing, burning and churning comfort. For many of us mere humans, our nature is to enjoy the comforts of the “known”. It is the murky “unknown” which alludes and scares us, keeps us from motion and stuck in old ways/thoughts/patterns/beliefs.

Now, this is not to undermine those of us out there who also thrive in spontaneity and surprise. It is the very balanced state of “Why can’t I just…?” that provides us the capability, capacity and GRIT to ignite our resolve and confidence to live in the present and take on the world – and the imbalance which convinces us to stay in our very well-worn seat of shame. Sound familiar? Yeah, to me too.

Our ticket through the muck and back into our knowing and owning of our strength, our GRIT – is the skill set we use every day with our kids, our partners, our pets, our friends, our neighbors and the strangers we pass on the street or in the grocery store every…..single……day. This is GRACE. This is COMPASSION. This is LOVE. The difference is in the direction these lovely gifts are given...and when we can begin to turn these on ourselves, we win - every time.

When we can muster the grace, compassion and love to acknowledge and “see” our own experiences the way we allow ourselves to see others’ – our story changes. We can shift the beliefs that we “just don’t have what it takes” or that we are “lazy and just don’t care anymore” (or whatever your story is about “why”) into acknowledgements of changes in our identity, honoring our fatigue, priority shifts or fear of failure and allow ourselves to consider our real and justifiable resistance to something ELSE hard and new………well, it just might allow us the might to (after a nap, snack or bath – low hanging fruit!) do THE VERY THING we are denying ourselves…….because, guess what? – We really are only human and we need the TLC, gentle touch and soft voice that calms our kiddos down enough to go to school on a day that they have a big test, to go to camp for the first time when they’ve never been away from us for longer than a weekend, to try out for something they are afraid they won’t be awarded or to jump off the diving board when they are literally shaking with fear (but secretly want to). We need those calm, soft and loving reminders as well.

So, let’s ask again – “Why can’t I just……?” Well, My Dear gritMAMA – you CAN! It may not be now or today or this week……maybe you need some other need met first or a gentle compassionate reminder of your resilience and capacity for great and hard things……and once you are able to own the benefit of your own grace and feel your capacity for self-love – SERIOUSLY, YOU CAN.

[unohanadaydreams]

Could we have some headcanons about Ginjo, anything that comes to your mind is great!!! 💜 btw love your blog it's awesome

Yes ofc! The fullbringer arc was so weird I feel like they tend to get overlooked a lot lmao.

Kugo Ginjo:

There are probably plenty of times where he’s being completely sincere about something and no one around him believes it (no matter how simple or convoluted his words are), because of his penchant for being such a manipulative ass. Like, he’ll tell you the food was great and you’ll glare at him for 5 minutes from 10 different angles because you’ve seen him say that about some of the worst food you’ve ever consumed and who’s to say this isn’t one of those times? Like, he dug his own grave with that, but I’m sure he sees the silver lining and uses it as license to say really off the wall shit just to see which way people are swayed to believe. (Like, imagine Kakashi Hatake levels of “I got lost on the road of life” except people stop and wonder if Ginjo is serious or not)

He probably goes to a lot of underground concerts and enjoys the close knit communities they bring. He’s very anti-establishment from his takes on SS and his style definitely leans toward it. I feel it in my bones that this guy gets drunk as hell jumping up and down to blaring music in small basement venues to relieve stress and then just runs down random streets afterwards until he can’t anymore and looks up at the sky, hoping to see as many stars as possible past the city light pollution, feeling SO alive.

How he got his powers is never officially explained (from what I can remember. I looked it up and SoiFon takes a guess) and honestly, I can’t say I believe he was able to kill so many soul reapers that SS never noticed? Like, I get why Aizen, a respected member of SS was able to fool people, but a human with shinigami powers? I’m sure that’s something Kubo just didn’t want to throw too much thought at, but I feel like he was probably given power similarly to how Rukia gave Ichigo power and probably the reason it’s outlawed. He probably had hopes to genuinely join the soul reapers but between his dislike for how things were ran and the general disregard he was probably given, he went rogue. I think if the arc had been allowed to go a little differently (and not turned into such a ‘MUAHAHA IM HERE TO KILL YOU AND EVERYONE YOU LOVE ICHIGO HAHA’) Ginjo would’ve been a really nice foil to Ichigo; the disillusioned protector past the point of having faith in SS and the protector on his way to disillusionment who can’t seem to let go of his faith in SS. I think Ginjo’s goal would’ve been a lot more interesting and set up plot points revealed in the last arc better if it had been ‘to poison Ichigo and company against SS’ instead of the vague and odd ‘just get shinigami powers back’. (If he wanted to be a shinigami so bad, he could’ve just died….you can’t tell me he OVERLOOKED that)

He genuinely wants to help people and does so, but I think he’s a person who can’t be truthful or vulnerable to those even a little close to him and ends up ruining what actual relationship they had that was built off of his initial good intentions. Because, he sort of sucks up close. His relationships with many of his Fulbringer seemed really strained for the most part, with most of them not really knowing where they stood with him and it’s all his fault! He is distrustful and views relationships as “I give them this, so they give me that”, which only serves to further make him feel alone and disempowered. Truly, his own worst enemy.

#ginjo kugo #kugo ginjo #bleach imagines #bleach headcanons #bleach asks

[blackaquokat]

So I'm still re-watching Leverage commentary for research for my Garcy AU and I realized the other area where Leverage succeeded that Timeless failed: holding flawed white male leads accountable for their sins. 

Namely, how Leverage handled Nate Ford as opposed to how Timeless handled Wyatt Logan.

(Something to keep in mind: I don’t hate Wyatt. I honestly think his character had a lot of potential and I loved him during S1, but unfortunately, the writers for Timeless screwed up during S2 and the Ending We Don’t Speak Of and now he will forever hurt for me to think about.)

Under the cut, because spoilers and also I get a little long-winded.

Now, one of the biggest character arcs in Leverage is Nate’s struggle with alcoholism and also his, uh, morally ambiguous decisions, even as the token “good guy” among the team of criminals during the first two seasons. He’s an addict, a jerk, and does very not-okay things as a whole.

In season two of Timeless, Wyatt does some VERY not-okay things, like pining and pursuing another woman after his DEAD WIFE came back and they reconciled, along with getting angry and possessive of Lucy when he thought she was involved with Flynn, and not telling the rest of the team his suspicions about Jessica and Rittenhouse, which GOT JIYA KIDNAPPED and then later GOT RUFUS KILLED.

How were these two characters handled after their sins were revealed?

Nathan Ford is constantly called out on his bull, both by his love interest and by the rest of the team. He doesn’t always accept these call outs, especially during the first season, but the writers assure us that Nate’s actions have consequences, that he will be held accountable for his screw ups, and they sure as hell follow through on that promise. It gets the team in major trouble on many occasions, until he grows into himself in S3 and gets better as a person.

Any time someone tried to call Wyatt out on his actions in S2, he handled it with all the grace of a bratty jock. His actions are barely touched upon and he never apologizes or has the grace to grow as a person. I honestly want to believe that if Timeless had been given a S3, they would have addressed his behavior (luckily Hilary exists and gave us the most amazing @timeless-season-three we could ask for), but they weren’t. They were given a two hour finale that still did not address the fact that Wyatt royally screwed over the entire Time Team.

Even in terms of the designated romances we have for both shows and both flawed white male characters, Leverage came out on top.

Nate and Sophie’s relationship was addressed in the pilot: they had over ten years of history behind them. But he went through a traumatic experience (lost his son in a truly awful way) and it began his descent into addiction and madness. Sophie goes through a nice arc and realizes that the man she fell in love with and looked up to throughout their relationship pre-show is irrevocably changed, and Nate goes through this too.

Now, watching the commentary, the writers talk about how they realized about a third of the way into writing the first season, that the way the characters were in S1, they absolutely could not be together by the end of it. As people and for the story they were trying to tell, Nate and Sophie weren’t ready for it. They were too broken. And the actors/characters play this up, this dance where they still very much care about one another but are not in an emotional position to be together. They get to be better as the series progresses, and this finally pays off by S4 when they start something resembling a relationship.

Wyatt, on the other hand, was forcefully shoved into the arms of a woman he had basically been torments for all of S2 by flaunting his relationship with Jessica and not allowing Lucy to move on like a damn grown up. He’s rewarded for his toxic behavior in that god-awful movie they expect us to accept as canon.

Now before anyone starts crying “but Timeless only had two seasons and a movie, they needed to hurry to establish--” I’ll stop you right there.

I’ll say this briefly, because it’s not the point of this rant: another area the Leverage writers succeeded in was how they handled their seasons. In the commentary, the writers and directors said they try to treat every season like it’s their last. That way, the audience isn’t left in a lurch and each season feels “like a complete meal.” Each season starts and FINISHES character arcs, but still leaves just enough open that they could continue if they were picked up for another season.

We already know how Timeless did with their season finales. But it only reinforces my point that they considered it easier to just shove Wyatt and Lucy together and never address Wyatt’s mistakes/screw-ups in a satisfying manner.

I may be a hard-core Garcy shipper, but I honestly would have preferred if Lucy had ended up with no romance whatsoever (and getting her damn sister back) then her ending up with Wyatt. It would have made for a better story and would have treated Lucy like the epic lead she was.

And that’s another thing. Respect for your female leads, especially when it comes to your flawed white male characters. 

The Leverage writers justified Sophie for her actions and her anger with Nate throughout the show for his ass behavior. She becomes just as capable a leader as him, even runs the team for six months while Nate is in prison in between S2 and S3, and is dealt some of the best writing I’ve ever seen, both with regards to her romance with Nate and as a growing character over the course of the series. She constantly calls Nate out and is RIGHT to do so, and once he’s in a better place emotionally, he takes it and grows from it.

Timeless wouldn’t give Lucy room to address her absolutely justified anger and feelings of betrayal toward Wyatt and even condemned her for it by disgracing her as a person and character by still putting her with a man who treated her like crap for half a season.

I guess the best way to sum up the difference between the shows with regards to these characters is by quoting John Rogers, Leverage’s producer and writer and co-creator, during the Girl’s Night Out Job commentary: 

“DON’T DISEMPOWER YOUR FEMALE LEADS!!!!”

...if anyone has anything to add/correct, please do.

@koortega , @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels , @sallyexactly , @brassmama

#timeless #leverage #kat rants #i compare every show i watch on a scale of one to leverage #timeless was SO CLOSE to being up there with leverage

[bufflessbodney]

PS

Hi I just have a few followups to my letter I would like to bring to your attention.

One, probably the main, reason I do not feel bipolar and also really feel that medication is also therefore not the solution is that my mind is so nuanced and I am very aware of its aspects or components or whatever but that medication dulls those connections. So it has been extremely difficult to draw them all back together which I have been actively doing for these past five years. It is more than that though; during my 18 year stint as a single mother it's like my mind was on reserve/plateau(x) cuz everything was routine (and rather the attempts at making a worthwhile routine I could stick to but I like to change things up and learn from things, so it varied somewhat, but I was aware and purposeful with it, blabedee blah) and I was so distracted by it and my children's needs. However I learned how to multitask like a madman and that counts for a hell of a lot. I do not know the 'science' of it but I suspect it has to do with neural groove thingos.

So yeah basically what I am trying to illustrate is that I am capable of maintaining many disperate but interdependent thoughts and when I stopped sleeping, eating and lost my routine everything went haywire for a lil while.

It has been settling and reconfiguring and coming back together very peacefully and sympaticoishly since coming off my injection. I am not 100% sure I am not bipolar, and I don't entirely refute the definition as I know it serves a purpose, however, I believe in my case there is more to it. Well there is always more to it it's just that I am very self aware and sensitive and proactive and so can speak to the process from within.

So I dunno if it is 'synesthesia' or a 'photographic memory' or what (I had thought of it as the latter as a child) but when I was a kid I could remember all events for weeks, in order, down to every detail observed, like in rewind (or ffwd). That stopped when I started smoking pot, just went away. Anyway it's starting to come back.

I have theories and stuff but I do wanna keep some stuff to myself cuz I am an artist and writer, but I thought you might enjoy that relevant information.

And with it expand your knowledge base for its correct application

Also, having so much time and space on my hands, and its intelligent use (in my opinion) grants me the luxury of arriving at conclusions I can find satisfaction with which I was not able, simply to ..uh, do when I had kids or was on constant guard as a child in my home against my mother’s daily attacks. I’ll put it another way: at the age of 8 I decided that ‘weird’ was my favourite word because it represented what people were confused about and\or feared and thus did not typically investigate further. I chose the other path (of investigation). Thus I have made many connections others simply don’t and cannot. And then somewhere in my early twenties 'context’ became my favourite word. I haven’t had a favourite word in a while but one of the reasons in my first email I use so many ’s (and as opposed to “s) is to disempower words, at least temporarily, to remind us that they only have the power we give them, and to question why we do. Etc. If I have a point which is besides the point it is that no one actually knows the truth (hey check out that album by Harry Nilsson called 'The Point’ especially if you have kids: sooo good) and that we are just too busy and disorganized as a 'whole’ to apply what knowledge and wisdom quite right or yet or whatever, but I do believe in God’s plan, so I’m not worried. I just cannot sacrifice myself in any way to the process for any incorrect reason.

I also realize to you my words might seem 'grandiose’ or something, I guess, but I have a 'grand’ view of most things being as I have Venus at the last degree of Sagittarius in my first house on the ascendant (furthermore, I know what it means; its Sabian Symbol has to do with faith which I have always had in abundance, 99.9% of the time, and Sagittarius is concerned with truth and is of a very buoyant and cheerful temperament and in the element of fire has an endless amount of energy. Being at the last degree is the culmination of the sign, and so, essentially has evolved to its utmost. Meaning, I put my concepts and beliefs into action, and with my tight, uncompromising stellium in Aquarius, I at least believe I know what those beliefs are, because I believe so very little. I am a highly skeptical person and rigorous with information and its effect).

Having so much faith is a result of testing it, often involuntarily, and finding the cause was there. It is that simple and it is worth losing it for 00.1% of the time.

The other thing I wanted to say is that I realize your circles and mine would probably rarely interlap however even most people in caring professions took a holistic view in my experience in BC so to me it really is second nature.

Thank you for reading, J

[pynkhues]

1/3 I've been debating whether I should do this on anon or not and I've gone with anon because tbh I kinda want to see if anyone has any thoughts to add. I think a lot of fans have lost touch with the characters of the show. I genuinely believe that the fanon interpretations quickly usurped canon in a way that has overtaken a majority of the fandom, and this has been the main cause of the largely negative reaction to the finale. Canon Beth is a control freak and reactionary to a point where

2/3 to the point where she has become involved in a huge number of criminal activities that could harm those around her. Canon she doesn’t consider the consequences of robbery or smuggling drugs, and has been shown to be a borderline sociopath. of Rio can be violent and unpredictable, and this has been demonstrated on at least three separate occasions before the finale. Canon Dean has been shown to genuinely care about his family, but his self involvement and sexism that has been allowed to go

3/3 unchecked for decades have led him to make selfish choices. We’ve woobiefied both Beth and Rio to the point where we don’t believe either of them would act in such a violent and emotionless manner when this has been. Demonstrated. Time. And. Time. Again. And we'e vilified Dean to the point where we’ve ignored that Beth - in her quest to get HER OLD LIFE BACK is using and manipulating him to reach her endgame. I think the GG fandom needs to wake up and smell the canon.

Same anon I just want to add that people will be screaming “BETH ISN’T A SOCIOPATH SHE CARES ABOUT HER KIDS AND RUBY AND ANNIE” peeps she’s been shown to be a pathological liar, and while yes she does seem to genuinely care for both Ruby and Annie there is a certain amount of benefit she gets from both these relationships. Her kids were shown to be the only thing that keeps her looking after herself. She’s lived with a facade for her whole life and we’re the first ones to see what is underneath.

Hi,anon! You raise a lot of really interesting points! I agreewith a lot of what you’ve said, particularly in terms of the broaderestablished fanons of the characters, and the woobifying of Beth and Rio andvilification of Dean. I think we’ve pushed a lot of these characters into themargins as opposed to seeing the great big mess they all make on the page,which is a bit of a shame.

Anyway, my response is kind of long, so I thought I’d save people’s feeds and pop it under a cut. :-) 

CanonBeth is definitely a control freak and a very reactionary character too, likeyou said, and she pretty clearly doesn’t think about the ramifications orlong-term effects of her actions at all. She’s also a world class avoider, which gets her into more trouble than I think she cares to admit, and has certainly contributed to / enabled Dean’s behaviour over the years. Andagain, I totally agree that Dean does genuinely care about his family too! I dothink that he’s done some pretty awful, underhanded things though too – lying about the cancer, taking the kids, etc. and has so few redeeming qualities (I mean, the one we always come back to is he’s not a terrible father. Can anyone give another?) that he partially deserves his vilification tbh.

Thatsaid, I’m not sure I agree that Beth is using and manipulating Dean to reachher endgame. I think that they have a long, complicated history that neither ofthem know how to effectively disentangle themselves from, and, as reiterated in2.13, I think they’re broke. I don’t think either of them can afford to liveseparately right now, and with Boland Motors shut down, and neither of themwilling to really work for anyone else again, they’re in a real financial stalemate, which only makes it harder for them separate.  

Alsowhile I think Beth is a very good liar to a pretty shocking / manipulativedegree, I don’t think she’s a pathological liar. Pathological liars are peoplewho lie about anything and everything, big and small, often for no discerniblereason. Beth has always lied for a reason – whether that be to get her way, toprotect herself and the girls, or to bluff her way out of situations. Idon’t think she’s ever lied for no reason (although please correct me on that one if  I’m wrong!).

Interms of the ‘Beth is a psychopath/sociopath’ theories floating around, I can definitelysee that reading! Personally, it’s not one that I subscribe to, but I can definitely understand why people would, and the value and complexity in that interpretation. There’s a really great book called The Psychopath Test byJon Ronson which explores the history of psychopathy and looks at the test usedto diagnose people. Beth ticks quite a few of the boxes (impulsivity andcriminal versatility certainly leap out, haha), but then again, so do most people.Everyone’s on the psychopath spectrum – something that that book explores!You’ve got to tick almost all of those boxes though to actually be apsychopath.

For me though, the thing that I always come back to is that Beth, incanon, seems to feel guilt to a disproportionate degree. I talked aboutit a while ago (can’t find the post, sorry!), but the way she’s handled everything with Dean since hegot ‘sick’ and then shot, the way she’s handled Mary Pat, even her reaction toKenny’s binge eating and going back to the drug dealer’s house to get thedubby, hell, even making the decision not to rob Marian in 1.02 – arguably allof those things have been motivated by guilt - and guilt and remorse are two feelings that usually take you pretty far off the list when it comes to psychopathy/sociopathy.  

In terms ofyour point about Annie and Ruby, I mean, sure! But all relationships are giveand take, and yes, Beth does get a benefit in those relationships, but she alsogives a lot too – she was fully prepared to take the fall for all three of them(and Stan), she’s regularly the shoulder Annie cries on, she gave Ruby her cutwhile Sara was in the hospital. I think Beth has a lot of empathy, I just alsothink she’s been so repressed and disempowered for so long that she’s leaptinto this whole thing and scrambled for what feels good and what givesher a semblance of control and power over her life with little regard for theramifications. 

I guess whatI’m saying is that while I definitely think Beth is much more morally grey and a lot more ruthless than she thinks she is, and perhaps has somesociopathic tendencies, I don’t think she’s a sociopath. But also yes! I agree that fanon interpretations of canon have / can overtake canon sometimes too. Hope that makes sense!

#beth boland #character arcs #nbc good girls #welcome to my ama #beth the mvp #annie + beth #beth + ruby #annie marks #ruby hill

[animentality]

Horror stories are supposed to make you feel disempowered. They’re supposed to invoke that primal human instinctual fear of being a prey animal, I guess.

But I personally just wish more horror allowed you to be empowered.

I mean, look. Super heroes are the hottest thing right now, aren’t they?

What are they? 

Empowerment fantasies that allow people to feel like good people can make a difference in the world. Super heroes are snarky and relatable and while not as god-like, untouchable, and morally black and white as they used to be, still are ultimately not going to feel the keen sting of the real world.

Even if they kill Iron-Man in Infinity War: Endgame, it’s not going to be boring or mundane. It’ll be spectacular, heroic. 

People like to get away from their boring ass day jobs, or if they’re kids, they’ll want to be suave adults who can kick ass and look cool. 

And that’s all well and good, except for people who don’t feel like super heroes.

And who never will. 

And that’s where I wish to offer horror as a solution.

Because listen, some people like to be super heroes.

But other people want to be anti  heroes.

Or even worse, and edgier, they want to be monsters.

I mean I know that sounds like a very niche thing to want to be.

But how many people actually kind of like the idea of being able to turn into a dragon, or a demon? 

You can be invulnerable. You can burn down houses or buildings, be a villain. Terrorize a family whose patriarch didn’t hold the door open for you when you were alive.

Maybe you’re not getting the same guilt-free catharsis of the super hero fantasy, but none of us are perfect, right?

I just wish  more horror let us be the bad guy.

I feel like too often horror just says listen, you’re the victim. You have to run.

Also, people who have sex are gonna die for their sins. And here are a slew of other social norms we’ll subtly endorse by making out the pure and virginal characters survive the longest. 

They don’t let you be the bad guy. And I know that that’s how it’s supposed to be, I mean there’s a limit to what you can endorse socially. We don’t want pedophiles and rapists and serial killers to be glorified or treated like icons. 

But I dunno.

When I was writing Gallows Humor/ Shock Values/ Roman’s Numeral, I knew consciously that I was making the protagonist out to be an evil person.

And the other protagonist was this...naive, foolish idiot who was too good and kind, almost to the point of being unlikable.

But I kind of needed to.

Because I’d been suffering from manic depression for some time, and you know what, I felt like the bad guy.

I felt like the person that other people just viewed as irritable and angry and unlikable.

And I thought....but feeling badly about yourself, feeling like dirt, like some kind of shithead asshole monster character who lumbers around and makes everyone around them uncomfortable and unsure of themselves...sometimes it can be a good thing. Why not?

In times where I was only hurting myself, and not others, I thought let monsters be heroes.

Instead of making the good and privileged kid, who’s never seen hardship up close, the powerful one, make the psychologically and mentally traumatized kid who’s suffered more, and by all accounts, been changed into the monster of the story be the protagonist meant to empower you.

Because we all have to let off a little steam sometimes. 

#kl writes #motm #memoirs of the mausoleum #writblr #horror

[themyskira]

The Life of Captain Marvel - issue #4, part 2

In the first half of this issue, we got Carol’s new secret origin, which reduced all of her previously hard-earned victories and achievements to ~birthright~ and ~Kree blood~ and ~destiny~.

The second half gives us the story of how Marie met Joe and how Carol came to be, which quickly turns into a litany of excuses for Marie and Joe’s abject failures as parents and human beings.

Which means -- sorry, guys -- we’re gonna have to talk about the abuse stuff again.

Marie says she’ll explain everything, but first they need to “batten down the hatches” and get ready for the next attack. Carol and JJ turn the obnoxiousness up to eleven.

Carol: I’ll batten— JJ: Start chattin’!!!

They then proceed to sit around and do nothing to secure their defences for the rest of the issue.

Marie explains that she was sent on a mission to Earth. Boston wasn’t her target, but she was blown off course and crash-landed in the harbour. Joe spotted her thrashing in the water and rescued her.

“From then on, my training kicked in. ‘First principle of assimilation on a new planet: Never present with a power.’”

This is hilarious, because on the very next page we see Marie repeatedly using her powers in crowded public spaces by accident.

We never find out what Marie’s mission on Earth was. Since she never gets any further than Boston, the impression I get is that she flew in there all gung-ho, only to lock eyes with a cute boy and immediately forget about everything else.

While she keeps stalling with her superiors, reporting that she’s cultivated a romance with a human as a ‘cover’ (for what?!), Marie grows ever closer to Joe. He discovers that she’s an alien because, despite being the youngest, smartest, strongest, bestest, greatestest Imperial Guard captain in the history of the Kree Empire, she can’t get a handle on basic undercover principles like not flying in public.

Eventually they get married.

“It was the happiest day of my life… But it was also the beginning of a lifelong lie. Because Joe married the wrong woman. Mari-Ell had come to Earth looking for a war. Marie had stayed on Earth looking for a life, love, a family. All the things no Kree ever gets to know… or even know they want. That was my choice. When Captain Mari-Ell became Mrs Joseph Danvers, I became the person I was meant to be… just not the person your father had fallen in love with. Those letters that broke your heart, Carol? They were written to another woman, the one he was afraid of losing. Mari-Ell. Someone I no longer am, someone I no longer want to be.”

hOKAY LET’S GET INTO THIS.

Joe didn’t fall in “love” with anyone. He fell in lust with a fantasy of a sexy mystery girl from the ocean who trailed after him like a lost puppy and hung on his every word, of an illicit affair with an alien soldier babe who would fly just for him. 

Then they got married and had a baby and Marie dedicated herself to building a family with him as he’d begged her to do, and Joe found himself faced with something he hadn’t bargained for — a three-dimensional person with thoughts and desires that didn’t revolve entirely around him.

That’s why he resented Marie and Carol both — for taking his sex fantasy girlfriend away from him.

Granted, this is not the spin that Stohl puts on it. She expects us to feel sorry for him.

“Your poor father. I tried to be the woman he fell in love with, but…”

Marie: …you needed me. And the woman you needed wasn’t a warrior from a distant world. It was your mother. … Helping you fit into this place? Making you feel human? That was my fight.

What in the EVEN.

Let us set aside for the time being the sheer outrageousness of the idea that Marie could not simultaneously be two things, that she was faced with a strict binary choice between being a badass alien protector and a domestic nurturer.

At no point in her interactions with Joe has Marie ever behaved as Captain Mari-Ell, Kree warrior who has “come to Earth looking for a war”. She’s your classic naive alien fish-out-of-water. He takes her bowling and she accidentally hurls the ball so hard that she shatters the pins; Joe stares and Marie utters an embarrassed “Oops”. He takes her to a baseball game and she gets so into it that she levitates in order to catch the ball.

All the while she is shown to be actively avoiding her mission and lying to her commanding officers about her movements on Earth. This is not a woman who’s in any hurry to find a war. All she wants to do is play house.

Nor have any of her interactions with Carol shown her to be a particularly attentive mother. She allows her husband to bully, belittle and traumatise their children. When a distressed young Carol tries to protect her brothers from their father’s fists, Marie first pulls her back sternly (“You’ll just make it worse… Now’s not the time”). And then, when Carol demands that Joe stop, scolds and punishes her (grabbing her by the arm: “That’s it, young lady— You’re going home”).

All of this is understandable, if still traumatising for Carol, if we consider Marie to be a victim of abuse herself. But that’s never explicitly tackled, and it’s the only flashback we get that shows Marie directly interacting with the younger Carol, which leaves us with a woman who let her daughter grow up feeling afraid, rejected, silenced, disempowered and undervalued.

Marie in the present day is little better. She has next to no relationship with Carol. She actively avoids being honest about her and Carol’s origins, even after Carol gains her Kree powers, even during the various traumas of Carol’s depowering and multiple bouts of amnesia, even when she knows that her silence is endangering her children’s lives. She is an awful parent and this is never acknowledged.

We cut to a flashback to the Danvers family in hospital with the newborn Carol. Marie says that she’ll be stronger than any human; infant Carol kindly demonstrates this by crushing Joe’s finger. Marie says she wants to call the baby Car-Ell — Carol — because on Hala it means “champion”

Joe summarily declares that, as Marie and Carol’s owner protector, it’s now his job to keep them safe and make decisions for them, so he’d better not see them acting independently or defending themselves, y’hear?

The misogyny is enough to make Marie swoon with adoration.

Joe: Champ, huh? Guess ya both are. But now the fighting’ days are over. For both a you. Marie: Joe… Joe: I’m gonna protect ya now. She’s my daughter, Marie. I’m not gonna let them touch her. I’m not gonna let anything happen to her. That’s on me. Marie [narration]: He had no idea what he was saying— and it made me love him even more.

Marie knows that to keep Carol truly safe, she needs to go off the grid, as it were — turn off the beacon that enables her Kree commanders to track her.

Yeah, and she’s just realising that now. Not when she accepted Joe’s proposal and committed to staying on Earth with him and becoming a mother to his sons. Not when she sealed that commitment by marrying him. Not at any point during her pregnancy. It’s only now as she looks down at her newborn Kree-human hybrid baby that she has realised ‘oh shit, there might be some consequences for this’.

And what the frig do her commanding officers think she’s been doing for the last nine months? She certainly hasn’t been carrying out whatever the hell her mission actually was. Has she just been telling them more and more elaborate lies, while taking increasingly outrageous steps to hide her growing belly?

But sure, turn the tracker off, it’s not like they could possibly track you to the location of your last known signal. Not when you’ve cunningly hidden your tracks by moving to the other side of the bay. They’ll be totally bamboozled!

“We gave you as regular a childhood as we could. We taught you to love, not to fight… to use your heart, not your fists. All the things nobody had ever taught me.”

Again, there is absolutely no evidence of this in the preceding eighty-odd pages of comic. This whole thing started because Carol is so scarred by her upbringing that she’s having full-blown post-traumatic flashbacks in her daily life.

It was hard for Joe, Marie tells us. Paranoid about being found and having his family ripped apart by the Kree, he began to see threats everywhere.

So you see, it’s not his fault he was an abuser! His wife refused to centre her entire existence around him! He was scared that her alien friends would come and emasculate him! It all drove him to drink! When you think about it, it’s really Marie’s fault that he beat his kids!

Joe convinces Marie that crushing Carol’s dreams and belittling her ambitions is for her own good, and Marie believes him because his alcohol-fuelled misogyny is so convincing.

(But she hates herself for doing it, so it’s okay that she made her daughter feel alienated and abandoned for years.)

Joe: You have to talk to her. She’s sayin’ all this garbage ‘bout bein’ an astronaut again. Marie: Carol’s going to be whatever she wants, Joe. Telling her not to do something isn’t going to change her mind. She’s Kree. Joe: Only half, thank gawd. Don’t think I could handle all this one small step for womankind crap an’ the flying stuff, too.

Jump forward to Carol at eighteen. Despite her parents’ lack of support and rejection of her chosen career, Carol has made it into her dream college course and is determined to one day work for NASA. But she can’t cover tuition on her own. She asks Joe for help and gets a crushing and unequivocal no. Marie is nowhere to be seen. In the present, Carol recalls, “I remember it was the night I needed you most, Ma. I had no one.”

But! You guys! The reason Marie wasn’t there is that she was off hocking her wedding ring so she could pay Carol’s tuition herself, which totally makes up for eighteen years of neglecting Carol and making her feel like less. And the reason Marie never told Carol any of this before now is that by the time she got back from the pawn shop, Carol had already packed up and left to join the military and “[Marie] had lost [her]”, because we are also expected to believe that the fifteen to twenty years that followed this offered not a single opportunity for Marie to reach out and make amends.

So really what I’m saying is, it’s Carol’s fault here for impulsively running off and not waiting around for her mother to finally bother supporting her.

For some reason Carol is touched by all this and the pair embrace, and they’re so caught up in their own moment that they don’t even notice Clorox sneak up on them and take JJ hostage.

#comics talk #the days of our lives of captain marvel