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#got a reduction and everything hurts
crisisevil · 19 days
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you'd think that getting parts of your tits removed because they are hurting you wouldn't also hurt. life is extremely counterintuitive.
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cuntylittlesalmon · 1 year
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i find it a little ridiculous that in being asked to consider the wider, real-world implications of the use of certain words, people will call these valid interpretations ‘reductive’ and ‘narrow-minded’ just to feel like the bigger person lmao.
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hobisexually · 5 days
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long winded rant in the tags coming that’s partly about weight but in a very unfiltered sad way so if that triggers you do Not read on
#on holiday I was like oHHHHH this is what living in the moment is! What listening to your body is! what not worrying about how you look is#but doing what makes you happy#and then …… I came home and got sent the pictures#+ my friend being. unintentionally fatphobic as fuck#while hurtful as fuck too#and it’s all just been piling up too since I got home because I’ve been having a lot of conversations and seeing a lot of people that#confront me with who I used to be and who I am now and how I’m really not happy with that#and it feels like it’s not gonna get better#like I’m destined to be in a job I like but isn’t what I want because I’m not capable enough and I’ll never know what romantic requited love#feels like. I’ll never cure my vaginismus I’ll never be able to let someone in or they won’t want me this is just it for me#and SOMEHOW the way I look has become the ultimate culmination of all those things?#my face is suddenly a woman in her thirties face#I keep gaining weight despite not even eating all that much because FUCKING PCOS makes it impossible#my hair in my face grew back. my stomach is hairy and that plus the added beer belly just makes it look like I’m a 50 year old man#I am soooooooo tired of the dysphoria#and the way pcos ruins fucking everything because I can restrict calories all I want and move all I want but will it help ? No !#and of the fact that it impacts the way I feel about myself so much because I’m convinced now I’ll never find anyone#should have tried harder when I was 21 because that was the only time in my life I reasonably fit society’s standards like That was my shot#I’ve been taking supplements everyone says will help but I’m not sure I noticed anything in the past six months and I can’t take berberine#because it fucks with my heart medication. which. That too. I have that too#and I’m in pain! All the time now! ALL THE TIME so I can’t even work out to keep the weight stable because guess what ?#just after a normal day at the office I come home and have to lie down because everhthing hurts so much !#today I got an impromptu massage in an attempt to feel better but it didn’t fix shit and I had to buy clothes for kings day after#and I didn’t try them on just quickly grabbed some orange shit to try on at home and at what I saw in the mirror I genuinely got nauseous#I just don’t know who that is in the mirror but it’s not me and I can’t accept it. I’ve been trying so hard but I can’t#it genuinely makes me so sad and I keep telling myself that a reduction will help in feeling more like myself and it will help with the pain#but what if it doesn’t? what if my pain doesn’t go away after af all and my stomach just juts out and I feel like a gremlin all the time#what then. what the fuck do we do then. also I’m so fucking scared of that surgery anyway that I don’t fucking want to do it anymore#I want so many things and all of them feel out of reach and I know my own brain is my worst enemy and it’s not rooted in anything real but.#Isn’t it? really — isn’t it???????
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icanhearcolors · 7 months
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I really love the idea of Tav drawing Astarion to show him what he looks like, could you maybe write something about that? ^-^
Hiiiiii! I can indeed thank you for the request :b
Welcome back to another episode of Abby tries to write something short and can't make it less than two thousand words.
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EVERYBODY LOOK AT THIS GIF CUZ KJNKBJHGFRRETFO
Sorry I think I got possessed for a second there
Word count: 2.1k
The night sky had never been this gorgeous in the city. In Baldur’s Gate, the upper city was illuminated by mage lights that adorned the cobblestone paths. The light was bright enough that the citizens split into two factions, the night life and the day. Even those without dark vision could operate solely at night in total comfort if they chose to. In the lower city, fires were always burning, sending plumes of rich smelling smoke into the air constantly, obscuring the night sky.
But out here, under the blue light of a full moon, you can see every star and constellation in vivid detail. A soft purr-like snore hums against your back, and you brush a hand over the downy feathers of the owlbear cub you rescued from the goblins. He was getting so big. If he gets half as big as his mother was it is going to become a challenge to travel with him. It’s a sacrifice you’re more than willing to make. Besides, you could always cast the reduction spell on him in a pinch if any problem arose. He sleeps curled around your back, alongside his friend Scratch the dog, whose fluffy white head is resting in your lap.
The campfire crackles a few yards ahead as Wyll adds a few logs, humming a Baldurian tune you recognize but can’t quite recall the name of.
For the first time since the nautiloid crash you feel peaceful. Safe.
You turn your gaze to Astarion’s tent, probably for the thousandth time tonight, and stare at his profile as he flips through the pages of the seemingly sentient necromancy tomb you had discovered a few tendays prior. A faint green light curls from the pages like mist, illuminating half his face and casting the rest in shadow. You’d never really understood the saying “so beautiful it hurts'' until you met Astarion. An unknown emotion compresses your chest in a way that makes it hard to breathe sometimes when you look at him. You think it started out as empathy. Every detail of Astarion’s story he revealed to either warn you about vampires or shock you for his own amusement painted a picture of a horrific life full of trauma and misery that you found hard to reconcile with your enigmatic companion. He was always the first to crack a joke. He laughed loudly and on a constant basis. From an outsider’s view he’d appear almost carefree. Happy even. You wondered now how much of that laughter was real, and how much of it was the armor he’d donned a couple hundred years ago when he breached the surface of his own grave. You recall a conversation you had with him a while back about vanity. In his two hundred and forty years, give or take, he’d only been able to see his reflection for thirty nine. An incredibly young age to die for a high elf, and a small fraction of his life-span. Even if any fuzzy memory remained of that past life, it was no longer accurate anyway. 
He was something different now. 
Your eyes slide to your pack. You had found something yesterday- something rare indeed. A merchant selling art supplies outside of the city. You had everything you needed to give Astarion something you took for granted every day. His reflection.
Slowly, both as to not disturb your sleeping friends and not alert the elf in question to your actions, you slip a hand inside the bag. Your fingers find a pencil easily, the paper next, and you begin to draw. At first you draw him as he is, using his current unmoving form as a model, but you had been quite the artist in your time in Baldur’s gate, and you finished that drawing almost too quickly. So, you draw him again from memory, this time with his head thrown back, face scrunched with laughter. Then you draw his frown, his smirk, the condescending expression he so often gives Gale, the softer one you don’t quite understand that he reserves for you. You don’t hide or downplay his vampiric traits. You draw him exactly as he is, blending colored chalk to capture every shade of red in his eyes. Time falls away as you lose focus on everything but your work. Eventually, some time much later, the cramps in your muscles wake you from your trance. You stretch, and your knees, shoulders, and spine crack loudly. Scratch wakes up, stands, shakes himself off, and trots into the bushes. Your owlbear notices, and trills a soft sound before standing too, following him into the woods. You smile as you watch them amble off, happy they get along so well. You turn back to your drawings and examine them with new eyes. You expected to feel excitement, pride maybe, but instead a cold feeling ties your insides in knots as you realize you can never give these to Astarion. The drawings are some of your best work, but they’re also… reverential. A glimpse of Astarion through your eyes. Anyone who saw them would think you had drawn your lover, not your less-than-trusting involuntary traveling companion. He would take one look and realize exactly what you’ve been hiding from him since- well since you met him. You were infatuated with the vampire, and somehow, miraculously, despite the fact that you’d slept with him once already,  he seemed to be unaware.
He was going to find out.
You eye the campfire, half tempted to toss the whole pad of paper into it.
In your panic you turn your gaze toward Astarion’s tent.
He’s not there. 
His tent is open, and no one is inside it. You can see that from here. 
Somehow- maybe it’s the tadpole, or maybe it’s because you’ve spent so much time with the rogue, you realize you know exactly where he is.
Slowly, as if to avoid instigating an attack from a stalking predator, you turn your head to find Astarion standing behind you, peering over your shoulder.
Even though you were expecting it, you still startle out of your skin. Astarion drops to his knees on the ground in front of you and claps his hand over your mouth just in time to muffle your screech. You both look at eachother with wide eyes before turning slowly and in unison towards a sleeping Lae’zel. She’s frowning in her sleep, which isn’t unusual for her. She twitches, and then rolls over to her other side, sound asleep. You sigh in relief, through your nose because your mouth is still covered by Astarion’s hand. You swat it away and throw him a withering glare.
“What the in the hells is wrong with you?” You whisper-shout.
Astarion presses his lips together and turns his head away from you for a moment, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
“Oh yeah, laugh it up. If she’d woken up we’d be dead right now.”
“Look it’s not my fault you weren’t paying attention. You haven’t moved in almost four hours, I wanted to know what you could possibly be writing.”
You clutch the drawing pad to your chest and swallow nervously, eyes darting around for any glimpse of something you can use to distract him.
Unfortunately as you’ve come to realize, regardless of what they used to be, once turned vampires become lethal predators. Astarion sees your darting eyes, catches the scent of your fear, and you see the shift in his demeanor. 
His movements become slower, more fluid, as he tilts his head in malicious curiosity.
He reminds you sometimes of the big cats that roam the mountains of Faerûn. Once something captures his attention, there’s little use in trying to pull him off the hunt.
Still, you’re going to try.
“I’m not writing.”
His eyes flick to your hands, dusted in red powder, then back up. He hums.
“Drawing then. What have you been drawing Tav?” 
His voice is darker now. Persuasive. 
“It’s- uh… personal.”
Astarion lowers himself fully to the ground and stretches his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his arms. 
“A personal drawing?” He purrs, “Well now I have to see it.”
“No-” You cover your face with your hand, “That’s not what I meant and you know that Astarion.”
A moment of silence passes, so you lift your hand away from your face.
Astarion is gazing at you with that unknown expression again. His eyes look earnest, a soft smile on his lips, when he speaks the words that are your undoing.
“You can trust me, Tav. I already know how talented you are, you don’t have anything to worry about. Just show me.”
You sigh, and his smile grows. He knows he’s won.
Bastard.
“Fine you can see my drawings, but I need to tell you-”
The drawing pad is already out of your hands, your permission apparently all that was keeping Astarion from snatching it away from you.
Your heart stops at his first look at the paper. He stills, flipping through the drawings slowly, his eyes tracing every detail with excruciating slowness.
Finally, he puts you out of your misery.
“I-” He clears his throat, not meeting your eyes. “These are...”
He grips the paper tightly when you attempt to take the drawing pad back from him. You’re confused, and a little… well actually very hurt for a reason beyond your understanding.
Does he hate it? Did you overstep?
“What are you thinking?”
Astarion finally looks at you, his expression guarded. He points to the drawings.
“Who is this?”
Oh.
You’re shocked silent. You should have anticipated this. Of course Astarion wouldn’t recognize himself in your drawings. That was the entire reason you drew him in the first place.
“He’s um-” You fall silent again.
Astarion looks both terrified and heartbreakingly hopeful. You’re sure he already knows the answer. You’ve spoken to him at length about what he is. You know that he knows he’s the only vampire spawn you’ve ever met, and you’ve been traveling together without much separation ever since.
He still needs to hear you say it.
You stare at your wringing hands in your lap and take a deep breath.
“I remembered that conversation we had about how you don’t know what you look like, you just have to go off of what other people tell you, and I bought these art supplies earlier and I haven’t drawn in so long, I used to all the time but with everything that’s going on- and I meant to just draw you once but I wanted you to know what you looked like when you smiled too and then I got a little carried away I’m so-”
You don’t hear him move. Your rambling speech stutters to a stop at the sensation of a hand on your cheek. Astarion hooks his thumb under your chin and lifts your head just enough to press his lips to yours.
Your eyes widen in surprise and then flutter closed. All thoughts cease, replaced by a languid warmth that melts you into a puddle on the ground.
You tilt your head and kiss him back, a tingling sensation racing down your spine. His hand slides from your cheek into your hair, and he gently pulls your head back, deepening the kiss in a way that steals the air from your lungs.
All too soon he pulls back, just a few inches, and smiles.
A real, genuine smile that shows his teeth and lights his eyes. You think you would do terrible terrible things to see that smile more often.
He brings his other hand up to frame your face, holding you in place as if he’s afraid you’ll pull away.
“Thank you.” He says simply, his voice hoarse.
“This is a gift. I won’t forget it.”
He repeats the words he said to you what feels like centuries ago, the night you found out he was a vampire and agreed to feed him. 
“You’re welcome.” Is all you can think to say.
With absolutely no warning at all Astarion drops his hands to your shoulders and yanks you toward him just in time. A pillow, rather violent in its velocity, grazes the back of your head in its catapult into the forest. Somewhere in the dark woods, Scratch yelps.
“Next time it will be my sword Isticks”
Growls Lae’zel from her bed roll on the other side of the campfire.
You turn back to Astarion with an amused but also terrified expression, and he smiles knowingly, rolling his eyes.
He picks the drawings up off the ground from where they’d been scattered at some point and gathers them in one hand. He stands, hoisting you up with his free hand, and practically drags you across the camp to his tent.
You’ll have to draw him more often.
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what-even-is-thiss · 4 months
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If you’re trying to get yourself out of the purity culture mindset of even touching or thinking about “bad” things corrupts people and you’re still Christian or at least still believe in God in some capacity my advice to you is to remind yourself that
A) God is not your judgemental aunt. They see everything and therefore probably have a pretty good understanding of things like harm reduction and how the human brain works considering They invented it. Yours and other people’s involuntary thoughts and coping mechanisms aren’t the enemy winning they’re part of being human and if anything knowing the thoughts you have shouldn’t be acted on is a good sign about your personal character.
B) Certain things you’ve been taught are harmful either aren’t harmful or aren’t as harmful if precautions are taken. Premarital sex is the classic example. Traditionally abstinence was the only reliable way to prevent STIs and unwanted pregnancies but we’ve got the technology now to reduce the chance of that stuff significantly. Besides, if you like it and are being careful and respecting your partners it’s very likely no harm at all will come of it. If you cause no harm on purpose, that’s not a sin. That’s just using what He gave you to have a good time. And even if it was a sin His whole deal is forgiveness. This doesn’t just apply to sex either. Watching media that depicts “immoral” acts, doing drugs, and many other things can be done safely or at least have their impact minimized. Follow your best judgement on these things and when appropriate try to guide people around you to reduce harm in their own lives as well, but don’t try to dictate for them what right and wrong is in their own lives.
C) God basically is the entire universe. They can’t be harmed or destroyed by human action. The universe isn’t a tug of war between God and evil. God made the rope. You or anyone else making mistakes, having a difficult time forgiving someone, sinning, having weird or nasty thoughts from time to time, or doing or making something that blurs the lines between morality or immorality can’t hurt God or the universe. She’s too big for that. And forgiveness and mercy are kind of Her whole thing. One mistake or even many isn’t an earth shattering event. You’ll be okay.
Basically what you need to remember when trying to train yourself out of this mindset of purity culture and never doing anything bad ever is that you need to work to make your default assumption that you’re trying your best, so is everyone else, and judging whether or not something is actually harmful isn’t always a clear cut and easy thing. God understands nuance. They gave us humor as a gift to cope with the struggles of the world. Learning a bit of flexibility with yourself and others isn’t always easy, but you can do it. Rethink your knee jerk reactions. Pray about it if that helps you, and most importantly be kind with yourself and others who are on this same journey. It takes time to unlearn some harmful attitudes you may have been taught. And that’s okay. You’re doing fine.
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scintillyyy · 2 months
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i just sometimes think with unpacking misogyny in comics we do need to move a bit beyond "this male character was condescending/mean to this female character and that's sexist and evil" and really get into the meat of how women are viewed as a class within the media in question.
because take robin (1993). the problem with it is not so much tim being mean to steph after steph has made a mistake that almost got or would have gotten someone hurt (such as the robin 80 page giant). the problem with it is also not *necessarily* that some main character traits of steph's are that she's never quite as good as everyone else and she's kind of a liability in the field and she's kind of prone to making mistakes (these are all things that make her a 3d character that's interesting, actually. and are fairly consistent character traits you see under writers who aren't dixon--including kelley puckett, devin grayson, lewis, scott, gabrych etc. the problem is really more the rather unfortunate execution of them than the fact that these character traits exist). the problem underpinning a lot of the issues people take with robin is how the writers view women as a class, and how write their female characters accordingly.
so take dixon. and to dixon, women are both extremely hypercompetent and also extremely incompetent at the same time. this is how he envisualizes women--they need men, but at the same time they are still capable of everything and more. and he also has a tendency to slot women into either the extremely hypercompetent, badass amazing role or the slightly incompetent, but still underestimated and badass role. and it's a sexist, reductive view of women as a class and it's why those character traits of steph that are interesting don't really work well under his writing. because steph very much starts off as the second one--and it's frustrating that she's never given a real chance, that she's given the role of being the more incompetent one who will never be as good as everyone else merely because she is a girl and that is the role she's alloted in life based on how dixon views women as a class.
however dixon's opposite tendency towards if a women isn't incompetent, she's gotta be hypercompetent is also sexist. i think a lot of that panel in robin where bruce tells steph she could be better than tim if she works hard enough, and it's interesting to me because people will forgive this because it's being nice to steph but it's also completely and wholly emblematic of dixon's brand of misogyny. because if she can't be incompetent, she has to be hypercompetent. there's no in between for how dixon views women.
and it's an especially interesting quote to me give the surrounding context--that particular quote takes place at a time when we know dixon had been begging for quite a bit of time to reward steph for her hard work and perserverence with robin. and we know that his plan for her as robin was going to be that she was just so hypercompetent and good and amazing and better than anyone at it, it was just going to fall apart because bruce would be too worried about her because she's a girl and be ultimately unable to work with her. so his story for her was going to swing from she's kind of bad at everything because she's a girl (bad, terrible way of how dixon views women) straight to she's amazing at everything because she was actually destined to be a hypercompetent female all along (which also happens to be a bad, terrible way of how dixon views women). it's definitely a total fuck you quote to editorial that kept refusing the idea of steph as robin. it is a fascinating facet of his sexism. and it's a reflection of how misogyny works in real life, too. the cultural expectations for women to either be the best or be nothing at all is a very real phenomenon.
because that's how it is as a whole. so when you just focus on how the male characters treat the female characters you're missing out on so much else that's misogynistic within a female character's story. misogyny in a narrative is about so much more than how one character is treated (though that's also important). it's about how even their successes/how they're treated "well" have to be viewed under a critical lens. the thing is that fixing misogyny is about ensuring there's an authentic variety and meaningful differences in how women are treated narratively, not just fitting them into a box of competent or not competent.
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romanestuffsposts · 5 months
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Coul you do one were the reader got pushed? Or like some guy pushed the reader and her daddies saw it and were overprotective
Hi there love! 💜
Of course I can! Thank you for being so patient toward me, I know it was long and I apologise deeply for that!
I hope you like how i wrote it <3
Enjoy <33
*****
Warnings : little reader being pushed, tickle to cheer up, reassurance, apologies, fear, angry Daddies,
Pairings : Daddies!Stucky ; Daddy!Bucky x Papa!Steve x Little!Reader
Summary : a mean guy push you away at the mall. Lucky for you, your Daddies were here for you
*****
It was a really hard day today. You absolutely needed to go to the mall with your Daddies because it’s winter and your clothes are not warm enough for the season.
It was the only schedule you all had free so it was now or never. There were reductions so it was the perfect moment to go shopping now.
But your Daddies didn’t thought there would be that many people at the mall that night.
You couldn’t see at two meters Infront of you because of the crowd in the stores. It really scared you and the idea of losing your Daddies in there scared you even more. You always had a piece of their clothes or their hands in yours.
But sadly you couldn’t be holding onto them all the times… you were attracted by a shop window where there were drawings stuff and books for kids.
You love going in store like this and just wondering around, eying everything that’s around you.
Your Daddies were behind you and kept an eye on you but they let you enjoying the view alone, which was a mistake..
A man was standing beside you, looking inside the window just like you. Only you can see from the corner of your eyes that he’s moving toward you while keeping his eyes on the toys.
You were about to move so he could walks past you but something caught your eyes and you forgot everything else.
A new set of drawing pens was exposed in front of you and your eyes sparkled with stars.
You forgot about the crowd and the man beside you, that until you feel his hand on your shoulder and then your butt hitting the ground.
You were too shocked to do anything. You stare down at you and wonder how the hell you ended up there. You quickly feel the tears coming in your eyes because the pain is only felt after the fall.
Your Papa is running toward you and is quick to pull you on his laps. He pulls your face in his neck and gently stroke your back ‘’shhh baby, you’re okay, you’re perfectly fine’’ he tries to reassure you so you don’t cry.
At the same time, your Daddy grabs the man and pulls him against the wall, his forearm against his throat and a murderous look in his eyes.
Your Papa keeps talking your so you don’t hear what is happening ‘’you fell but you’re fine, nothing is broken’’ he kisses your temple.
You sniff and look up at him through teary eyes ‘´you sure’’ your sweet and quiet voice asks.
You Papa tilts his head ‘’we can check if you want but I’m pretty sure nothing is broke’’
You nod your head because you really want to be sure. Little tears are falling down your cheeks because it really start to hurt.
You watch him touching your arm first ‘’does it hurt ?’’ He asks. You shake your head. He rolls it a little so you can feel that nothing is broken.
He does the same with your other arm and then your legs. He then looks at you ‘’do you feel better ?’’ He asks pulling your hair behind your ears.
You pout and hide your face in his neck again, he gently chuckles at how adorable you are ‘’I should probably keep checking, don’t you think ?’’
You nod your head and feel him grabbing your wrist, he lifts it up and as you thought he was checking your shoulder, his fingers fall in your ribs and wiggle his way in between the bones.
You flinch and fall more in his arms as you squirm, laughing loudly ‘’ maybe a bone in there isn’t doing good. I think I should keep checking, no ?’’ He teases.
You shake your head and grab his hands so he would stop tickling you ‘’notin’ broke’’ you say, a left over of giggle leaving your lips after the words.
Your Papa laughs and nod his head ‘’alright then, everything is fine. Nothing is hurt’’ he kisses your little nose ‘’your butt can be sore again for a little but it will go away very soon’’
You nod and close your eyes when his forehead fall against yours.
Someone clears his throat beside you causing you to look in that direction. When your Papa sees the man held by your Daddy at the neck, he stands up with and lifts you in his arms.
You rest your cheek against his shoulder and look at the man. Your Daddy squeezes his neck causing the man to grimace. But after that, he starts talking.
‘’I wanted to apologise to you’’ he says with a weak voice ‘’I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you’’
You can’t see it but your Daddies know how fake his apologies were. But before they can say anything, you talk ‘´is Oki, I no hurt. Papa checked’’
Your Papa smiles down at you and kisses the top of your head ‘’that’s right, I checked and he’s lucky that you have nothing’’ he smiles down at you, but his voice a little bit harsher so the man really know how lucky he is.
Your Daddy pulls his ear to his mouth and say something that you can’t hear before shoving the guy away. This one almost fall on the ground but is quick to run away once he found back his balance.
Your Daddy comes to you and takes you in his arms ‘’ how are you feeling my precious little one’’ he asks, worried. ‘I fine’’ you whispers and wrap your arms around his neck and his your face in his neck ‘’but I tired’’ you mumble
‘’I Know baby doll, I know. We’ll go home now, it’s enough for today’’ he kisses your temple.
‘’Please tell me you didn’t just shove him away without being able to find him back’’ your Papa quietly asks so you don’t hear.
‘’I’m not stupid Steve’´ he show him his phone where a little blue bubble is seen
‘´Good’’
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dictee · 1 year
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I don’t get why people argue it’s problematic to assign gender roles to a same sex couple like isn’t the show engaging with loads of problematic issues?? For better or worse it’s what the show is about. Marrying a powerful wealthy man who promises you everything your hearts desires in order to escape your dissatisfaction only to find he’s a controlling monster. I mean how else are we meant to watch this show without the gender lens! It’s impossible to engage with this show w/o it.
yes! well i understand the idea in principle which is like. generally the attempt to assign gender roles to a same sex couple comes from straight people trying to comprehend a break in the myth of universal heterosexuality in which they are invested. So in that sense yes that's a reductive and inaccurate framework to coerce people into. But that's not what's going on here! the depiction of something and the discussion of it is not the endorsement of it and to treat it as such--to write a world where race class and gender have no bearings on people's existence or behavior--is actively harmful. Like this anon that got sent to a different blog
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first of all i dont think either of them are gender nonconforming in terms of presentation LOL (Edit: except for louis in dubai) second of all i don't think anyone talking about for example louis reading edward carpenter in the wake of severe domestic assault is being like i love gender roles and domestic assault lmfao. and thirdly it's not "swapping out" it's what's depicted in the show. but to explain myself in depth anyways 💀:
i think this is emblematic of how totally the project of "representation" has neutralized queer politics. & this is why i think movies that came out under the hays code often have more interesting and nuanced gay characters than movies that came out for decades after. because after it was legal to depict gay people on screen well there's still the amount of homophobic jokes but like putting that aside. "positive" representation is about marketing. it is a reactionary politics that centers on reifying social categories as intrinsic to people's selves and making us think that celebrating those categories is liberation when really it's about creating another market. the rare "respectable" depictions of gay people emphasized assimilation into society ("we're just like you!") and demanded morally upstanding, universalized characters which are fundamentally uninteresting. the earlier hays code depictions (like the children's hour or rope) aren't about representation because they legally couldn't be. instead if they include queer material it is because there is a genuine thematic interest. so often this is very homophobic but also often it involves a real criticism of normative structures.
what i really appreciate about iwtv is that the writers are obviously not interested in presenting a generalized "correct" (and marketable) representation of what gay people are like. because that doesn't exist--the idea that it exists is a trap. and because they have moved beyond what would have been a concern ten years ago, which is the relationship genuinely being interpreted as a message about the evils of homosexuality, and towards an actual thematic engagement. they're interested in telling a complex and engaging story! in the same way, Louis isn't Black so they can say oh we have a Black character who behaves Correctly and proves the racists wrong. the humanity--not the moral perfection--of the characters is already assumed, and therefore not the point. instead we have a story that is concerned with grappling with immortality, trauma, forgiveness--with the core "lie" of vampirism being that it means freedom from the past and the society that made and hurt you. we can understand Louis's deep rooted desire for assimilation and we can see as it plays out how the very premise of the bourgeois nuclear family both conceals and relies on a problematic configuration of power.
there is a real wave of (mostly white) bioessentialist "to be a woman is to be oppressed therefore women are good and men are bad" type rhetoric which serves no one's liberation. and thats emphatically not what i'm trying to get at. i'm not defining womanhood by suffering and i'm not saying louis Is a woman. but i also think it's equally reductive to say the characters are Essentially Gay Men and establish "gay man" as a category somehow discrete and uninfluenced by the heteropatriarchal world. it is reductive to say that gender is absolutely discrete and uninfluenced by social context and the roles we are forced to play. like that too ends up with an essentializing understanding of gender. it's not that abuse in general is feminizing, it's that the abuse in the show is explicitly gendered even as it's in a family with a same sex couple. because the nuclear family is fundamentally a mechanism for the perpetuation of patriarchal abuse. and the show, at least in this season, is explicitly concerned with domesticity and with the inescapability of social roles. And it's criticizing those things. To be clear.
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luvzxr · 8 months
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Innocence
nsfw (18+) mdni please. I think I'd actually cry.
Not 100% sure where this fic is gonna be taken as I'm the type of go with the flow writer. This may contain heavy subjects such as; depression, alcohol and alcohol abuse, slight age gap? (by a few years in my head. Not much.) possible smut. Possible mentions of gore but I probably won't go heavy on that. If I do I'll put a bigger warning in the future on the chapters that are heavy with them!
Hello! I figured I'd start on a series because I personally love longer series and the anticipation of waiting for wonderful writers to bring out new parts just hits different. I will personally be using an OC that goes by the name Sophie Hayes but going along with this fic it will be Sophie Redfield :). You are more than welcome to use your own name or a personal oc name however! I prefer to use names rather y/n or you/your! I've loved the name Sophie after reading a fanfic years ago on Wattpad and I fell in love instantly with the name so we'll be using my Sophie girl as the main character but like I said, you are more than welcome to use your own name or a personal oc name to fill that in for yourself!
ahem. Anywayss.
Description: The youngest and most innocent member of the redfield siblings finds herself falling for a the broken and not so innocent blonde agent whose been a well known long term friend with her two older siblings.
Word count: 2,294
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Bang, bang, bang.
The entirety of my body jolting at every kickback that was shot from the firearms my current older brother, Chris, was using for his daily target practice. I couldn't help the wincing and jolts; I shouldn't be here.
I couldn't express to you how many times I tried to tug on the man's sleeve, shirt or even gentle taps to his shoulder to ask him when we were leaving but I barely got a direct answer from the him at all.
"Chris," I tugged on the shoulder strap of his bullet proof vest. I was beginning to feel more agitated by every passing second we stayed inside the echoing room that smelled nothing of gun powder. "My ears are starting to hurt from the noise. When can we go?"
"Throw these on Soph. They should help with the noise," he placed a pair of noise reduction headphones over my ears and the gave a few pats to my head before his attention was directed back to his previous target practice shenanigans.
But even with headphones my ears felt like they were throbbing against the muffled fabric, the thudding of my own heartbeat was getting overwhelming and even a teensy bit aggravating.
Stepping back to my previous seating with a sigh, knowing we'd probably be here for another hour or two, hell even three before he decides to even take it upon himself to rest and I felt like I was only losing a consistent battle with him.
The thing about Chris is he was the most stubborn sibling out of Him, Claire and I. He didn't budge half the time and even went on to say 'it wouldn't hurt for me to teach you a few things yknow.' And he wasn't entirely wrong but I hated everything that had to do with weaponry and violence, it made me feel queasy and left an unsettling feeling at the pit of my stomach just having my frail hands wrapped around the grip of a singular handgun.
The thing about me, however is if I push his buttons hard enough— guilt him. He might actually budge just a little bit and it grew to be a personal trick up the sleeve that both Claire and I used against him when we wanted something and he wasn't caving. Often times it worked more with me than with her so she always had me do the dirty work in that aspect.
However, I chose not to this time around. I chose to leave the heap of stubborn known as my brother alone because I knew in his eyes this was some sort of stress relief. It was serotonin regardless of how violent and unnerving I found it myself because to him this was what heaven looked like, served to him on a silver platter.
Here, he didn't have to worry about his life being on the line or other lives grasped in the palm of his hands. He didn't have to look the poor individuals in the eye as the light faded from them and leave yet another feeling of emptiness in his heart.
I winced at the mere thought itself.
I didn't have it in me to take that away from him. Not now.
Instead I sat like the good little sister I was and chose to endure the consistent bang after bang, each shot hitting somewhere between the head and shoulders of the practice dummies out in the range.
Running a hand through my hair, I sit with my arms folded over my chest, bouncing my left leg in anticipation and eagerness just to get out of this situation. I needed something to do besides stare off into the abyss because I couldn't even manage that, the sound of the reload and kick back of the trigger was the only thing my mind could focus on.
I allowed my cheeks to puff out. I should of stayed at home. I could be curled up in my comfy two set of pink Bugs Bunny sleep attire with some stupid film set on the television right now with some stupid microwaveable meal set perfectly on my lap. Hell, even popcorn would do. Anything was better than this. Doesn't sound like an appealing activity to spend your Friday Night, but anything was better than where I currently was.
You'd think that any 29 year old man would be at a bar checking out some girls that wore too little of clothing or just enough to hide what any man would be drowning in their own set of lust just thinking about it. That's an average thought for a man, right? That was fun to them especially if they were single. Instead, Chris was found here almost every day at the butt crack of dawn with no other excuse other than 'I need to practice my aim.' Though even I could read right through that lie.
I guess I shouldn't be judging the guy, it might come back to bite me in the ass because every morning for myself was the same thing just like him.
Wake up, quickly brush through my set of pearly whites and then rush down to the living room TV where my two other siblings would find me sitting until noon on most days watching the old cartoon channel where Bugs and the little annoying RoadRunner bird were to be found.
I realize I am 25 years old and that was probably a child like way to spend my mornings but I didn't necessarily care. It has been my morning routine since I was a little kid and it wasn't about to change just because people looked to me as if I was too old to be doing that.
I snapped out of my momentary thoughts of the night I could be having if I didn't allow Chris to drag me from my spot on the couch. The singular door to the range slide open, snapping my head to catch a glimpse of the figure emerging, he was hard not to notice.
"Chris,"
My brother took notice immediately, slipping his own set of headphone off to rest around his neck. His pistol being set to safety before resting it on the small counter in front of him, "Leon."
Leon had been a old friend of both Claire and Chris over the years, Claire being the first to of met the blonde years back in Raccoon City when all hell broke lose. He picked her up at a gas station that was swarmed with nothing but the undead, helped her through the mess even while separated and then the rest was history. In more ways than one I was thankful for him.
We weren't close like he was with my siblings. I knew little to nothing about his personal life and I suppose that was reciprocated when it came to him— he knew nothing about me other than I was the youngest out of the Redfield siblings.
I'd see him around the house every once in a while and usually the only interactions we ever made were small head nods or a wave of some kind but it was never a conversation. Maybe, if I was lucky— I'd get a 'Hey Soph.' But that even was a bit rare to hear from him. We kept to our own and I suppose that had something to do with the age difference and how I didn't work under D.S.O or even in the line of work that Claire took on. I worked at a little Café on the corner not far from where Claire, Chris and I all lived. A nine to five average job.
I was hardly ever in the loop with the three of them unless Absolutely necessary. Sometimes it irritated me and other times I was thankful for it.
"I'm gonna be heading out for the night but," I watched as the duffle bag that was hanging from his left shoulder was slightly moved to the front of him, rummaging through and pulled out what seemed to be a case file, "Director Winston wanted you to take a look at this. Our next case I suppose."
Chris had taken the flimsy case file into his grasp, giving Leon an appreciative head nod, "Sure. I'll take a look when I head home."
Yeah right. Like we would be leaving anytime soon.
I wrapped my arms over the top of the chair, my upper torso turned to face in their direction and I rested my chin down on my forearm all while my eyes fluttered shut. Sleep had really started to take a toll on my mind and body as of recently and as of now, I suppose it was showing quite a bit now.
I was still currently in College and as much as I loved my current job because of the customers and the environment in general was always something I looked forward to, It wasn't something I planned to do for the rest of my life. I somewhat had a plan for my future-- Something both Claire and Chris pounded into my head until it eventually stuck. They'd constantly lecture me on how I just needed to find something I loved to do, something I'd enjoy and wouldn't look at it like a job but rather a hobby but It wasn't like I needed much convincing from either of them.
I watched both of my siblings fight off all the bioterrorists and B.O.W.'s for years. I watched each of them fall apart and be forced to pick those pieces up on their own, one by one. I was a first hand witness to see how the innocence and light they once held in their eyes had faded away until it was nothing more than an old shell of who they use to be, drowning in the darkest parts of them would then you find maybe a small glimpse of their happy nature they once held.
In some sort of way, I understood their need for me to go to college, to have at least one of us find normalcy because deep down I suppose they knew I'd fall into that same work unless they drilled into my head where I needed to be.
It wasn't so bad, the only complaint I ever had was the bags under my eyes that I could only imagine were big enough to carry groceries if I wanted them to. And not the flimsy, small bags of dairy or maybe those small boxes of chex mix you'd snag from the shelves. No, I'm talking about the gallon of milk they'd have to double bag. The twenty four pack of soda you'd struggle to haul in through the front door. Hell, even the cases of water. I could carry all of it under the honey pools of my face.
I must of found my way into a short slumber because the last thing I remembered was faintly hearing both Leon and Chris murmuring amongst themselves over that file. Now, here I was with a few taps to my shoulder and both men looking down at me with what seemed to be amusement in both of their eyes.
"Cmon Sophie. Leon offered to take you home."
Oh thank god.
It was like heaven hitting my ears in nothing but pure bliss with the mere though of my aching back hitting the plush of that mattress waiting for me at home. I was practically jumping for joy on the inside, bouncing off every wall inside my head.
I rubbed the tired from my eyes with my palms, groggily speaking, "oh okay," a soft yawn escaping through all while I pushed and forced myself up from rather uncomfortable hunk of mental I had been sitting in for the past six hours now.
Hearing a chuckle from both men at me turning my gaze towards them but I couldn't find it in me to give a gentle glare or even a playful scowl because I was far too tired to do such a thing.
Both Leon and I begun heading out towards the door, my legs having a mind of their own to drag me around for the short period they needed to. I heard Chris call out to us which earned him a rather irritable groan from me that I though was only amongst myself but ended up being a little louder than intended.
"Make sure she gets through the door," he was in the process of placing those god awful set of headphones back over his ears.
"Will do," I heard Leon call back, giving a lazy thumbs up. He was trying to leave as soon as possible and I knew that. Chris however, was not and I could tell he was treating it like I was being babysat inside of just a drop off to the house.
"Key is in the small flower pot to the left of the door,"
"Got it,”
"Oh! also Soph, don't stay up too late. You got classes tomorrow. I better not see you up late or I-"
I finally had enough, finishing his sentence for him, "Kick my ass. Yes, I know. Can we go now?" I huffed, motioning towards the door with almost a whiney tone to my voice but I couldn't care less right now.
He let out a husky laugh, although I didn't find it very funny he was taking up more of my time I could be using to get a decent eight hours of sleep. But with a wave of his hand I was practically pushing Leon with my palms to get moving before he started talking all over again like he was a babysitter of some sort and giving Leon a run down on how to handle me as if I needed yet another person worrying about me in my corner.
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shivroy · 1 year
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being a diehard shiv fan has worked out so well for me like it is still sort of surprising that she IS my fav fav fav because given what i know about myself i guess i wouldn't expect to love her? but maybe it's because she is SO MUCH more than an archetype. shes like a WORLD to me, as is every other main character (except greg lol), and i think that must have been what drew me in, purely how COMPLETE a character she is. the nuance, the erratic but ultimately entirely comprehensible and painful ways she responds to the fucked way she's treated - she is an abused person, and acting on her abuse - AND, thus, the totally fucked way she treats others. the way she perpetuates everything, the way she can't help it. the facial expressions sarah dances through just ACHE with what's going on inside her, every thought she leaves unsaid, and god does she bite her tongue often but you can feel how she feels through the screen every time. i really do feel like shiv as a character doesn't say a tenth of what she's thinking, but because of the lone fact of her being a woman, shes STILL treated, likeee, "shiv and her big mouth over here!!" but thats compounded with the fact that she is actually verbally clumsy. shes SILLY. she says things that are SILLY and REDUCTIVE and i love her. GOD!!! think about all the rants the brothers spout, at length, uninterrupted, and yes their dad hurt them just as bad but with shiv its "stop buzzing in my fucking ear". it hurts so much. she's got to put that hurt somewhere. jesus i love her. but anyways i think i would have expected to fall totally in love with roman given the fictional Dudes i have loved in the past and my propensity towards little weasels but 1. shiv got in first 2. i think now that i really know him as a character roman is just fundamentally too sad for me to like pour my soul into. just too crushing. roman Understanders who really Understand what makes him tick are so brave, i think the whole of his life is genuinely just too upsetting for me, and shivs is too, absolutely, but idk. she is fucking UNDENIABLE to me
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rotationalsymmetry · 4 months
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Which btw I'm happy to reblog that sort of thing. (Prev post comparing BDSM to wrestling kayfabe, ie "this is make believe it's fine.")
But I do think an equally significant point is, if someone decides for whatever reason that kink is bad...ok, so what are you going to do about it?
Mostly that's going to cycle back to making things illegal or more difficult. Restricting which zones things like the power exchange can physically exist in. Driving kinky erotica off of Amazon. Restricting people's ability to publish information about kink. Keeping kink talk off of social media sites. Making/keeping it so that there is no legal distinction between consensual impact play and physical assault. Making it harder for people to talk explicitly about kink on dating sites, or in person with their friends.
And the thing about that, is, you can't really stop people from doing whatever they want to do in their own bedrooms (living rooms, cars, tents, hotel rooms, whatever.) Nor can you really stop people from having kinks, from wanting to do this stuff. What you can do is cut people off from community and from safety information, so that when people do do this stuff, it's more dangerous to them.
(Both more directly physically dangerous -- kink is mostly not that dangerous? but there's some risks -- and dangerous as in, people are more likely to get stuck with abusers when they can't talk to people about their relationship, or if they believe no one they talk to will understand.)
For a while it was illegal to produce BDSM porn in the US (or maybe just California? Not sure.) Did that mean BDSM porn didn't exist? Of course not. There were always videos of sexy people hitting each other that other people got off to. It just...had to look like it wasn't porn. So, no affection. No kissing. (Definitely no on-camera negotiation.) They couldn't stop BDSM porn, but they could make it worse.
The first kinky shit I did, in some ways the most extreme kinky shit I did, was with one other person that I met outside of a kink social context. He was going off some photos and his imagination. I'd read some Savage Love, so I at least knew what a safewords was. I didn't have anyone to talk to about what we were doing, I didn't have r/bdsm or anything, I had no way of getting a reality check and no way of getting more safety information as we went. And years later, I found the scene and went to classes and learned why you wrap the rope multiple times around someone's wrists rather than just once and learned about safety scissors and sharp shooting pains and aftercare and negotiation and sub drop and all sorts of things.
And I got really, really angry at the people who want me to only be able to do kink stuff the way I did it the first time. Because they'd rather I get hurt doing kink then be able to do it safely and with a community.
I don't especially want anyone to have a harm reduction approach to kink, because I don't think it's intrinsically harmful. But...I also don't need people to agree with me on that. Anyone who thinks Kink Is Bad, It Just Is well, you're the boss of your opinions! We don't have to agree on everything! But I think there's room to disagree on kink being just fine and also agree that attempting to get people to not do kink, by making it harder or illegal or more stigmatized, can only ever do more harm than good.
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gffa · 7 months
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"she's trying to stop more innocent people from being killed by offering a different path. She's taking a harm reduction path as much as she can. Yeah, they're going to make mistakes, but if she can still reduce those mistakes, isn't it worth trying? Or is one mistake enough that she should never try any other path ever again, even though it means they'll immediately go back to killing lots of innocent people?"
chiming in to say i think the problem with this view is that, as Jason points out, she has ZERO actual control over the people she's ostensibly "employing". she can have all the good intentions to reduce harm she wants, but acting like good vibes and promises are enough to keep things from ever getting out of hand is practically on "positive thinking cures bipolar disorder" levels of oversight (note: i'd actually finished this post and was about to hit ask when i realized how on the nose that comparison is considering scarecrow is fucking with this plan. gonna leave it.) there have to be some fire safety measures here, and her repeatedly insisting they aren't necessary and she's totally got everything handled is ultimately going to hurt the people she was trying to save when the building burns.
which, i agree with you that she's absolutely smarter than this, and it drives me up the wall that they keep having her double down on it.
Yeah, I feel like there's a couple of things at war within this storyline execution: 1 - Comic book logic is absolutely a thing and trying to map hyperrealistic complex real world consequences onto a story that is being written by imperfect authors who are not experts in the fields this would be touching on is always going to mean that there are going to be major flaws in the logic of the story. Superhero comics as a whole can have just as many flaws pointed out about their logic, like I don't believe for a single second that someone like Bruce Wayne would be able to be Batman without it being known publicly, between the coincidences piled up or how freely they all use real names in the field. If we can accept that people just don't recognize Clark Kent with his glasses on or don't recognize Bruce Wayne's jawline (while I absolutely can goddamned recognize George Clooney or Val Kilmer's jawlines even when they're in full cowl), I feel okay giving some leeway to Selina being written into a dumbass plan for reducing crime in Gotham. 2 - And the story, while pointing out the flaws in her logic (a person died in the kick off issue even!), it also points out that her way had reduced innocent people getting hurt, so it's reasonable for Selina to think this is a viable plan. No, she doesn't have actual control over these people (well, she has some, in that they respect her and are loyal to her, to at least some degree), but nobody has control over others when offering a different path of any kind. Like, if she was offering college courses or trade school classes for people, she wouldn't have any control over them there, either. Presumably, she's not ignoring that getting innocent people hurt will send them to jail, that they're warned about this ahead of time and know the consequences, she's just trying to offer something, anything that's better than what they had before, even as deeply imperfect as it is. Like, I'm in agreement that I think this is a bad plan, but I'm not sure how much of that is me coming from a real world perspective where this could NEVER happen, but costumed vigilantes at a baseline could NEVER happen in the real world, either, but we've mostly accepted that that's part of the genre, you know? Versus how much am I just trying to meet the narrative where it's at? How much of this is that they're writing Selina badly and how much is it that it's just the same logic of vigilantes being allowed to exist (which are also often criticized within the narrative, just as Selina's plan is being criticized from within the narrative) that applies to Selina's plans as well? There's just as much accountability from Batman as there is from Catwoman--he might have more money, but ultimately nobody actually is able to hold Batman responsible for anything and the only control he has are the training he's given them and the loyalty and love they have for him as a person. Should we say Batman's ideas are bad, because the rogues kill people based around their obsession with him and those he trains? He's not training the rogues directly, but his actions are leading to those deaths of innocent people that he's trying to help, just as Selina training these people, trying to give them non-lethal options, still lead to deaths, even if she doesn't have direct control over them. I don't even really like Selina's plans or that she's being written to propose this idea because I don't think she'd believe in it, but I feel like there's a lot of Comic Book Logic going on that I'm trying to be generous about, you know?
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paellegere · 1 month
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final thoughts: supernatural season 12
i've been nursing a terrible headache all day and so i freely admit my opinions of this season may be negatively influenced by this. maybe tomorrow i'll wake up and realize it wasn't actually that bad and the real enemy was my brain all along. such is life.
i'll say upfront that i liked this season much, much more than season 11. not hard to do and the bar is in hell, but i think it's a good perspective for me to keep in mind while i write this. let's go.
i'm going to talk about mary first. i really like what she brought to the table. she created such natural conflict just by existing, and that's damn good writing. she was handled with so much nuance and care, and i'm extremely pleased by this because i pretty much hate everything else in this season, and actually i'm surprised with how well they handled mary compared to how poorly they handled everything else. that's just bizarre. pick a struggle guys you're hurting my brain.
but no, i love how she's developed as her own person, and how she gets to go off on her own and leave her kids and how that has major consequences but she's still not painted as a bad or neglectful mother for doing that. in fact she's not relegated to the flattened role of "mother" at all, and that's genuinely something special for this show, since it tends to keep their side characters to reductive caricatures that best suit their purposes. that would have been a really easy trap for the writers to step into, since that's the role she's had for the entire show up to now, the ghost of a mother haunting the narrative. she had very little character outside of that (except for her kickass part in 4.03, have i ever mentioned how much i love in the beginning? fuck man). but still the writers let her transcend that role and become something far more complex. i really love that :)
an aside: all of the winchesters, actually, get this incredibly nuanced treatment that hardly any of the other characters do. i like how much care and attention are put into crafting this fucked-up little family. it's definitely one of my favorite dynamics in fiction, probably ever. every one of the winchesters has so many layers to peel back and explore, such complex identities, and contradictory, human personalities. i love what connects them and drives them apart and how that's so often the same thing. they're really great characters who fit into their roles well, never too over- or underused. the family is very well done.
anyway back to season 12. i've been holding this in all day but now i'm finally going to complain about the british men of letters. because i'm sorry but they're kind of stupid 😭 and by that i mean their operation makes very little sense, and the rapid developments of their plan are so unattainable and nonsensical. you're going to wipe out every single american hunter? with your little team of 10 people? and to what end? i get they want to exert control, but first of all, this is missing the whole entire point of (american-style) hunting, from a doylian AND watsonian perspective:
hunting thus far has been presented as a deeply traumatic, solitary life decision individuals have made after experiencing a tragic loss or otherwise had a life-changing encounter with the supernatural. they're not recruited, they have very little support, they have an old-fashioned, underdeveloped communications network, and again: they're solitary creatures. they make their own decisions, play by their own rules, hunt their own game. it's suggested that most or a majority of hunters seem to go after exclusively the supernatural entity that got them into hunting in the first place, and only the more prolific hunters have a wide range of skillsets.
this isn't something that can be controlled. and by that i mean, wiping out every hunter isn't going to stop hunters from existing. because as long as there are monsters, people will continue to be traumatized, and people will continue to hunt. even if you wipe out an entire generation, you can't stop a random individual from having her family eaten by werewolves and deciding to hunt werewolves down from now on. no matter what the BMoL try, this is an impossible thing to control, and it's stupid to try. again, from both a watsonian and doylian perspective.
the actual motives and objectives of the BMoL are so all over the place and messy that it's really difficult to follow throughout the season, too. first you're going to torture sam for information—all the while bragging about how much intel you have access to and how much you know about the winchesters. if you know sam so well, why don't you know any other hunters, huh? why do you need him to tell you? but i digress. then you're trying to recruit hunters to work for the men of letters, and it's all friendly and inviting and organized. then you're going to exterminate all the hunters because they don't want to listen to a foreign organization no one's ever even heard of and has only been in the states for like 5 months? they're portrayed as nothing better than petulant children who can't stand that the girl on the playground wouldn't give them her dolly.
and honestly that would be fine, in isolation, i guess, if the whole portrayal of the UK didn't weird me out on so many levels. i don't know what goes on in the UK, and also i didn't read harry potter, but the whole "secret magic school" and "secret magic society" thing feels so reductive and bland. like okay you have a real-world hogwarts. sure. can you at least try to be more creative about this. i was fine with the men of letters existing outside of the US, that's to be expected and i was actually excited to see what would come of that. but as soon as they put in a fucking magic school they lost me.
like first of all, why is the UK soooooo developed in this area where the US lags behind? are other countries following the UK's example? is europe equally monster-free? is the US the last haven for monsters??? and if the BMoL are so advanced, where the hell have they been for ummmm (bad at math) what, 60-ish years now? they just let the US chapter die and cut off communications? no attempt to support the country whatsoever? leave the US to rot? until just now, after some random americans kicked off 2.5 apocalypses. yeah sure. i can get behind that (heavy sarcasm). it's just—be realistic. if you're going to make such an advanced and all-powerful organization, where the fuck have they been all this time? the scale should match the presence.
my ideal for the BMoL would have been a much smaller scale organization that utilizes black and white ideology to train killers, preferably infiltrating judicial organizations to maintain peace and provide cover for hunters. they shouldn't be like. running the fucking government or whatever this all-encompassing scale is that the show presented. it was a cool and interesting idea to bring in the men of letters. it was not a cool and interesting execution. it barely holds up to any scrutiny and requires so much handwaving and excuse-making that i just cannot get myself to like it at all.
ok. rant over. i've already mentioned all of the other plotty things that annoyed me about this season in other posts, so i'll move on from my complaining.
i'm going back to mary because i love mary. what i like is how sam's relationship to mary throughout his life is, in a big way, paralleled with sam's relationship to mary after her resurrection. he never gets to confront her abut what she did to him and what she caused. the only person who ever gets to talk about this is dean, both in 12.14 and in 12.23. and maybe other people disagree with this choice, but i really like it. i like the distance between sam and mary, because that's who they are to each other. they never got a chance to know each other, but they are the impetus for each other's suffering. sam never got to know his mom except through dean, who acted as a medium to impart acceptable knowledge to his brother. mary never got to know her son at all. and when she comes back to life, this dynamic, this chasmic distance, remains between them. and dean is caught in the middle of them, just like he's always been throughout his entire life. i think by making mary's presence in season 12 so dean-centric, the show managed to highlight just how wide that chasm is between her and sam. sam doesn't get to speak up for himself or talk about his past or tell mary anything about himself or who he is. dean tells her for him. just like mary never got to tell sam anything about herself; dean told him for her. the dynamic persists, and dean remains caught in the middle, ever sam's protector and shield and greatest advocate.
sam was actually pretty damn wonderful this season. i'm clinging onto sam's character arc to distract from my angry disappointment with the british men of letters. the transition and development from mid-season 11 to 12.23 was awesome and well-paced, which is frankly something i didn't know the show knew how to do anymore. so i'm extremely happy with how subtle and natural the buildup was, especially for a show that doesn't have the word "subtle" in its dictionary. i don't think i have nearly any complaints about how sam was handled this season honestly. maybe some nitpicks, but no serious complaints. he was just great. he reclaimed agency and willpower for himself in a really unique way that didn't compromise his enmeshment with dean (and thus didn't backtrack on any of the previous toxic relationship developments that have happened, like i'd feared would happen), and he grew in a very positive and interesting way that i really enjoyed. go sammy :)
the whole apocalypse world ending in 12.23 was way too drawn out and overdramatic, also i still hate lucifer's rewritten character, also i think it was deeply unnecessary to lock mary in there with him, also why was cas even there at all he did Literally Nothing and then died immediately, also why did it take so long for the portal to close after crowley died, that's so unbelievably contrived and stupid as hell—
BUT. otherwise i liked the finale. if i ignore the whole apocalypse world thing it was great, even. big win for me since i did not like season 11's finale (big shocker). i'm really tickled that sam was the one to find jack; i think that will create some interesting developments in season 13 so i'm looking forward to that. i hope jack imprints on sam like a duck. based on posts i've seen floating around tumblr, that's more or less what happens so i'm excited about that lmao.
anyway. this was the longest 4.5 days of my life. i'm going to detox like hell after this, because lord knows i need it. i haven't decided what i'll watch, so it might be more movies or maybe a miniseries. who knows. but i desperately need to funnel some wincest fanfiction directly into my mouth now. something to cleanse me of this season. thank you and god bless 🙏
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spookymultimedia · 4 months
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Oneshot to go along with it below
Word count: 727
CW: withdrawal, addiction, self harm, underage drinking [they're 13]
Stan was seated on the back porch of Henrietta's house and looked down at his trembling hands. He was going cold turkey for Kyle but ever since he cut off drinking he felt sick. He got headaches, he felt worse, he wanted to die. He needed some alcohol just to get the edge off and feel better. He didn't want to upset Kyle but it was so hard to quit. He turned at the sound of the sliding door. It was Henrietta standing there with a bottle in her hand. He couldn't help but perk up and the thought of her having alcohol.
She sat next to him and sipped the bottle of white wine.
He looked at her wide eyed.
“My Mom already drank half of it. I'm not addicted or anything. Not yet anyway.” She laughed at herself. She held out the bottle and offered it to Stan.
He took the bottle immediately and gulped it. It wasn't as strong as whisky but it was better than nothing. He drank it like it was water. He started to breathe better once the alcohol buzz settled into his alcohol-dependent body. Tears filled his eyes.
“kyle's gonna fucking kill me.”
“Why?”
“He hates that I drink.”
“He knows you have an addiction right?”
“Yeah of course.”
“He sounds like a total dick.”
“He just cares about me.”
“If he actually gave a fuck he would care about you going through withdrawal.”
He hiccupped and wiped his eyes.
“You're not the only kid with addictions you know, you're not alone.” She raised her arm and showed her scars from cutting herself.
Stan glanced at her.
“How do your friends feel about it?”
“They understand. They were scared at first but then they bought me cleaner shit to use and proper bandages so my scars won't get infected.”
Stan furrowed his eyebrows, “but, isn't that just encouraging it?”
“No, they're just creating a safer way for me to cut. It's harm reduction. It's not always possible to just drop out of an addiction immediately so might as well do it safer rather than privately with a dirty pencil sharpener.”
“I guess that's a good point.” He took another sip if wine.
“My friends aren't like yours. I can't always talk about everything with them.”
“Hmm.”
“Henrietta?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you cut because you're fat?”
“What!? No!! Why would you say that!?”
Stan flinched, “I donno, I'm sorry.”
“I don't have a fucking problem with my body, society just hates fat people!! I think I look fucking awesome but people see me and assume the fucking worst! It pisses me off!!”
Henrietta took a deep breath and clenched her fists.
“No it's because I just- I get so sad that I feel like nothing. And I just can't seem to wake up from it without cutting myself. It makes me feel alive. I'd rather hurt than sit in the dark abyss of nothingness in my soul. It's so boring doing nothing and feeling like shit. I need to fucking express how I feel or I'm gonna scream.”
“Yeah, I get it. I- I got pressured into drinking because I just needed an escape somehow and that's what they suggested to me and-” he hiccupped “I didn't mean to.”
Henrietta placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I know you didn't.”
“It's kinda fucked up but it’s beautiful I think. Sometimes I take pictures of my wrists because I think it's pretty. With the blood and all. That's fucked up isn't?”
“A little yeah. I can't remember the last time I didn't feel like shit. It's been nearly a year. I don't know when it's gonna stop.”
Henrietta nodded.
“It's weird. I start to feel okay again for a while, I feel really really good, or just get pissy again but I'm passionate and I'm not numb. But then it just comes back full force and I go back to feeling nothing. It drives me insane. I think I'm going insane. These emotions are normal. At least I don't enjoy them. Even when I do feel passionate, it's too much and I can't sleep. Like, at all.”
“Wow.”
“It's a lot. Point is, you're sick and you need to just embrace that and treat yourself more kindly. And if Kyle gets pissy about it I'll punch him in the nuts.”
Stan smiled.
“Okay.”
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eerna · 1 year
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I love Danielle Gilligan as much as the next person, but after reading that article you linked I’m once again pretty pissed off they didn’t hire a plus sized actress for the role. I was pissed when the casting was announced but I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. But after everything is laid out on the table, with Jesper being given lighter skin as well as his portrayal as a bisexual man, and Kaz not being played by an disabled actor, and the erasure of Inej’s trauma it really shows they don’t actually give a shit about representing the canon characters. Everything that article points out really hits home and like the cast seems so cool and nice but there’s so many things fundamentally wrong with the adaptation that it’s really not enough anymore. The show needs the “out of character tag” because Jesus Christ they’re such watered down versions of the book it’s pretty insulting as a reader. Anyways thank you for answering asks about this stuff because it’s nice to see people looking at it with a critical eye instead of “Freddy Carter hot”
Okay a disclaimer: I think the article is wrong on quite a few accounts, and casting Danielle is one of them. Leigh Bardugo said she never specified Nina's size beyond "fat" because she wanted all large girls to relate to her, which means saying "Nina is canonically stated as plus-sized and can only be played by a plus-sized actress" is wrong. Also, calling s1 Danielle "skinny" simply because she isn't plus-sized is shitty and reductive of body diversity. At the moment of her casting, Danielle WAS accurate for Nina, because she was fat (on the smaller end of fat, but absolutely NOT skinny or medium). Danielle has gone on record to explain how badly it hurt to be rejected for her size in the industry, and then finally land a role only to have fans claim her body is wrong once again, and I am totally convinced that's a part of why she lost so much weight in the past 3 years. Kaz' casting is the same: Kaz gets up to so much inappropriate things that he says his disability got way worse after the events of the books, and putting a disabled actor through long filming days of an action show just doesn't sound viable to me. CGI and body doubles for every other scene aren't cheap, and also mean the character will NOT be played by the disabled actor most of the time, so we're back to square 1. Yes, disabled characters can be played by disabled actors, but maybe Kaz Brekker is not the best example of that. Jesper's casting, however, is absolutely unacceptable (especially when you take into account that Netflix does this all the time) and I still can't believe people just forgot about it. Same for Inej. I liked the paragraph in the article that pointed out how the show is only interested in scoring as many diversity points as possible, as quickly as possible, without making sure their tokens are treated as well written characters. It explained so well why Wesper was written the way it was. Ugh. Tokenism.
And no problem ahah, I totally get that people need to vent and finding fellow SaB haters is difficult. Maybe my freedom of thought is caused by the fact that Freddy Carter isn't hot to me. Guess we'll never know
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magic-hcs · 2 years
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How about some angst?
Inspired by a korean catastrophe movie I recently saw:
Skele expects s/o to be home soon while watching TV. The program is interrupted with following news announcement:
There has been a cave-in in a tunnel due to unlawful cost reduction during construction and s/o is stuck inside as the only person, trapped in the car under rubble but unharmed yet with limited food and water. Skeleboy is able to reach them on their phone and the connection was spotty but they were in contact for a few days while the rescue operation was up. The rescuers have to dig through the whole mountain to get them so it's a long process. After a week the phone battery dies and it will be a week more until the drill can reach s/o, but during that time nobody knows if they are still alive or not.
How well are Bear, Razzle, Red and Charon coping?
Ooo this is very interesting. Let’s do this! *rubs hands evilly* I’m very curious what the movie was that you’ve watched anon.
Warning: angst, mentions of tight spaces, high stress and anxiety, insecurities, implied of starvation and dehydration, injuries, guilt, death gets mentioned, (if you find warnings that aren’t in here yet let me know)
Bear: HT Sans
Razzle: SF Sans
Red: UF Sans
Charon: UF Papyrus
If you like what you read, please consider dropping a comment.
Time to cast some magic and see what we’ll get!✨✨
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Bear: Bold of you to assume that bear wouldn’t move mountains and oceans to get to you. No one can stop him, not even Bean. He’ll even shortcut if he has to (don’t let him, shortcuts are a no no, he could get stuck in the floor, or walls, or shortcut and accidentally leave a limb behind. Not to mention that shortcutting hurts a lot in general) Bear would come with phone in hand, food and water in a big cooling bag as Bean drives the both of them to the site. You just barely manage to stop him from tearing literal mountain apart to get to you (afraid it would do more harm then good)
Bear is staying near, no matter the weather he’s staying. Somewhere out if the way of course, but he ain’t leaving.
It hurts him so. so much as he tells you how to reserve the food and water accordingly, he’s muttering to you constantly both of you forgot what you are even talking about anymore . You constantly gotta ask “you aren’t tugging your socket are you Bear?” Because he will ruin his socket while he’s worrying about you.
Once your phone is at 1% you say to him “don’t do anything reckless if it isn’t a must Bear promise me. I love you” and he couldn’t utter a reply because your phone died. Bear immediately started to panic. Fidgeting with his phalanges before finally tugging at his socket frantically. Trying to stop the panic attacks from forming. Once he couldn’t take it anymore he begun to dig. Claws crushing the rocks with bit difficulty but he manages, it doesn’t matter that his phalanges hurt. He got to get to you, and the slow progress he makes only encourages him to continue.
His mind is going in one track: “save my mate, save my mate, save my mate-“
And once he’s reaching your car he’ll tear the door open. His claws are ruined and bloodied, yet he can’t find ur within himself to care as he grasps you in his arms. You’re weak and dehydrated and starving but your alive. And he’s never letting you go. Bear nuzzles into your face and temple, letting the relief flood him, he purrs. Bear will try to feed you as you’re getting moved to the hospital, mind worried about the lack of food in your system. He won’t leave you alone for a moment, snapping at anyone -except Bean- who try to convince him to leave you for even second. He will take care of you until you’re healthy again.
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Razzle: This boy is anxious. He dropped everything; his work, his coffee that he had been sipping at work when he got the news. Razzle shortcuts straight home, turning on the news as if that was gonna change what is broadcasting. Razzle is terrified, he can’t do anything except anxiously pacing around as he calls you. He’s silently begging that you pick up.
Razzle doesn’t beg…ever.
He tries to keep a level head as he describes the situation to you. Describing how big the rubble is, he’s describing how far the rescue people are. He tells you to hold on and that you’ll survive, just hang in there. He tells you to eat and drink sparingly. Razzle has a hard time keeping spirits up but he will for you.
When he’s not calling you he’s breaking down and calling all sorts of connections to get you out of there faster. Once your battery dies he shortcuts there and demands the rescue people to do something! ANYTHING! He knows they’re doing everything they can but it’s not enough. You still aren’t here safe in his arms! And he anxiously stands there on the side watching and waiting for any news of you.
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Red: This poor boy is blaming himself for getting you into this mess, if he’d just called off from work and drove you instead, or better yet shortcut you there. Now you’re stuck under so much rubble with no way out. With no lasting food and water supply, and Red is feeling even worse now.
He doesn’t dare to call you, scared to hear your being wounded. Or to hear how angry you are at him (even though he knows you would never blame him for this. You’re that amazing really, but the voices in his head whisper the opposite) it’s ultimately Charon who calls you and shoves the phone into his brother’s hand before walking off.
Red can’t hang up, it’s not what you deserve. Not only that, Red would feel even more guilty if he did hang up, and he can’t follow Charon to shove the phone back in his hand because he already left the room.
Red sighs and relents. Facing whatever you’ll give him.
….
And it’s an unexpected question…it stuns him for a moment “you’ll come get me, right Red? I’m scared…please, talk to me, you’re the only one who can ground me.”
He feels his eyesockets start to sting, he’s not crying, absolutely not.
“‘m-‘m here babe…yer doin’ amazing sweetheart…i’ll come get ya, i promise…yer gonna be outta there in no time. ‘s no biggie, right?”
(He never makes promises he can’t keep. He’ll do, and destroy anything to get to you if he’d have to)
Once Red got the phone, he’s not placing it down anymore, insecurities and voices be dammed, you need him. And no fucking way would he leave you alone in this. He’s speaking to you constantly, telling you what’s he’s doing, distracting you with jokes and stories. All the while he side eyes the news.
But then one evening while he lays in bed chatting with you the phone dies. And he shoots up from bed and short cuts into his brother’s room “boss! the phone-fuck- we gotta go. now.” (He doesn’t trust himself to drive or short cut)
Once they arrive Red will be standing anxiously at the side, getting frustrated the longer he has to watch the rescuers argue and not making any process. In anger he shoots a gaster blaster beam into the rubble, making some progress but it was risky. “i don’t give a flyin’ fuck for y’all’s petty squabbles! Get ‘em outta there for fucks sake!”
An angry, beam shooting skeleton really pumps them up and they go back to work. Charon hits red in the head once the workers have gone to work, chiding him for doing something so dangerous.
Once you’re out of there you get send to the hospital in haste for the blast had caused rubble to hit you in the arm and leg. If they had gotten you out of there any later then it was a very high possibility that they would’ve been too late.
Red sits next to your bed till you awaken. Not leaving once, Charon has to drag him out the room to get him to eat something.
✨✨
Charon: It feels as if the world is crumbling down around him. What in asgore’s name did he or you do to deserve such a thing. He’s marching out of work straight home. screw work your more important. Charon goes to call you, making sure you are alright as he watches the news.
He got quite a level head in all of this.
After making sure you’re alright and unharmed, he’ll give himself an hour to talk to you and tell you how much you mean to him. Charon wants you to preserve your phone battery after he hears how long it could take to get you out - he even searched up how to make sure you preserve your supplies.
Charon calls you at least three times a day for at least an hour to check up on you, speak to you and encourage you, he wants to be able to reach you as long as he possibly could. So he withholds himself from calling you constantly.
He feels terribly nervous and anxious as he sits and waits for any positive news, it’s so hard for him to not be able to do anything to help. Charon can’t sit still nor can he do anything else then pace back and forth. He’s been lying awake for nights without a wink of sleep and he feels pitiful and pathetic.
Thanks to Charon’s strict calling rules, your phone lasts way longer then a week, but just barely. It’s not enough to make it till the rescuers reach you. And Charon is a mess in the time when your battery died. He gets nightmares while being awake. Waiting with anxiety.
He’s muttering to himself:
“Last Time We Called They Said They Had Half A Bottle And one Snack Bar Left.”
Charon paces with his skull in his hands.
“If They Take A Gulp Every Hour Or Two And A Bite In The Morning And Night They Could Last Another Day Or Two…”
His soul is thrumming against his chest, it feels as if sharp claws are rising from the ground scratching and grabbing at his body.
“The News Said If Nothing Stood In The Way They Could Reach Them witching Four Days…”
The claws are tearing at him, it wouldn’t surprise him if it were the souls of the victims he failed to save from the underground.
“If There Are Issues It Could Take Another Week.”
He feels lightheaded. He has a hard time breathing. But he doesn’t care. Your his ever waking thought.
Charon can breathe properly again once you’re safe and sound in his arms.
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Thank you for participating in this spell, I hope it was to your satisfaction!
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