had someone respond to something I said about Nancy with “I hate that she’s reduced to a pretty face butttt she doesn’t actually have much character until season 3” and I didn’t know how to respond because I can’t even begin to comprehend that way of thinking. for me, it’s almost ONLY in fan spaces that I see Nancy reduced down to “pretty girl in love triangle” like… for me her characterization has always been incredibly strong and clear.

like she starts out as this incredibly smart overachieving student, a teenage girl doing teenage girl thinks, giggling on the phone with her friend about a boy and getting excited about parties. She’s a little shy, very much the smart girl nobody who has attracted the attention of the popular jock. she makes normal teenage mistakes, being a little more absorbed in her own romance than her friends feeling or what’s going on with her brother. She’s sixteen years old. Then Barb goes missing and everything in her life becomes about that moment. She wasn’t there when Barb needed her, and despite the fact that there’s no way she could’ve known what would happen, she takes the blame and responsibility for that completely on herself. No one else is worried about it. Her parents, her boyfriend, the police, everyone else is willing to let it go but Nancy never did. All of season one we’re focused on the fight to get Will back, but Nancy is fighting just as hard for Barb. She’s putting her life in the line (with no superpowered backup). Learning that Barb was dead the whole time was a horrible blow to her.

Despite things going back to “normal” for everyone else, Nancy is forced to live with the knowledge that her friend is dead and no one else knows what happened to her. Her parents are still looking for a runaway, no one at school cares, her boyfriend wants to get on with their normal high school lives… but she can’t. so she focuses her anger into a determination to bring down a TOP SECRET GOVERNMENT FACTION, putting herself once again in danger to expose them no matter the personal risk. this is where things between her and Jonathan change imo… he’s the only person she can trust to go after this as hard as he can (because he feels the same anger and guilt around what happened to Will). that’s the difference between her relationship with Steve and her relationship with Jonathan and why the former was doomed. The Nancy that had a crush on Steve in season one is gone, she’s been fundamentally changed by what she lost. Steve (at the beginning of season 2) is the same… he’s moved away from some of his more toxic characteristics, but he didn’t have the major life altering trauma that Nancy (and Jonathan) experienced in season 1. she’s on a different maturity level, she’s basically turned completely away from anything that indicates she’s still a child (because she doesn’t feel like one)(but she IS). That’s why at the party they are having fundamentally different arguments. She breaking under the weight of everything she’s having to carry while pretending to be normal, and all Steve sees is his girlfriend pushing him away. Season two is all about her chasing justice to try and give herself some peace.

But we see in season three and four that despite winning that justice, there is no peace for her. she can’t go back to being a carefree teen. she’s hyper focused on her journalism goal, which is the one way she can take control of what’s happening around her. when you live in a world of secret government experiments and girls who can move things with their mind and horrible monsters that come from a hell dimension… the only way to be safe is to know everything that’s happening all the time. you can’t rest, you can’t let things go, you can’t look away because if you do, someone else will suffer for it. so she keeps a couple of guns under her bed and becomes a dogged reporter and refuses to let herself slip for even a second. the amazing parallel between her and Jonathan in season 4 is that the have the exact same reason for not visiting each other. They are both afraid that if they take a break to do something selfish as visit their high school significant other, the whole world might fall apart. and they’re right! If Jonathan had returned to Hawkins, Mike and Will would’ve been on their own. If Nancy had gone to California, she wouldn’t have been there to investigate and figure out the music thing and Max would be dead. So now she’s had it reinforced once again that she has to be constantly ready to fight. Her childhood is OVER and has been for years. She can give away her teddy bears and keep a shotgun under the bed

The reason people look at her and see her as a pretty face is their own misogyny. They see a pretty girl and they want to reduce her down to her relationship status and make her a villain for not constantly catering to the emotional needs of their favorite man. Idk it just astounds me

more phoenix wright situations

trying not to get irked by swiftie media illiteracy. I've retired! I'm out of the game!! but some of you are very stupid

Kouhei: Mizuki may not be able to be honest with himself with regards to Yoh, but if it were me, if I did the things he did, I think Yoh would have caught on. Mizuki may not say much, but I think he shows how much he likes Yoh through his actions. I tend to say exactly how I feel. In Mizuki's case, he doesn't say what he thinks. It's almost like he's choosing not to say it, that's his thing. I can't just say that he should say what he feels in words no matter what. I think he should keep being himself, and Yoh's the one who should be paying more attention.

Atsuki: You're wrong. I'm sure Mizuki hasn't realized that Yoh doesn't realize. I'm saying, Mizuki doesn't realize that Yoh doesn't know how he feels. I think that's part of the reason why he acts the way he does. I think there's a chance, at least. Yoh should be thankful for what he has going on. Mizuki is taking care of his housing and food. Mizuki comes home right away without going to after work dinners or anything. He gets paid a lot! He's got a very good environment to work with. On top of that, I think he could help Mizuki out more in different ways - Sorry, I misspoke! He could help Mizuki out by being more straightforward with his feelings, without just keeping it all in.

i didnt watch unknown as it was airing bc i knew it would consume me so i decided to binge it all today. i was correct. it has consumed me.

I feel like I'm missing the crux of the man vs. bear debate because it's so silly. of course I would pick the man, because neither my Sig nor jiu jitsu is going to take down a bear

idk if anyone has been keeping up with the #blockout2024 movement where people are blocking celebrities or influencers that have talked about the genocide and people have been making their lists of who to block on social media and today bisan posted about it on her story it was lists and bts was right there (blackpink too) but i am mentioning bts because some armys took it upon themselves to harass her on instagram and dm her about it like... these people's arrogance is crazy. this woman is going through a genocide right now, she has been displaced multiple times and is asking you to take action for palestine and you go out of your way to harass her because she put your oppas on that list and she is valid for it! bts and blackpink, being the biggest kpop boy group and girl group respectfully, should be saying something like OF COURSE THEY ARE GONNA BE THERE and tbh every kpop group should be on these people's lists because they can go on with their lives like nothing is happening and i'm sorry if this offends you personally but if it does offend you, you have a problem you need to fix like??

listen valvert is a better exploration of les mis’s themes than enjoltaire could ever be

Nothing pisses me off more than when people talk about my friendships with mid-support needs autistics and other people with differently-wired brains as if I am descending to help them because I’ve taken them on as a charity case. That is NOT true. Oh they’re a burden because they’re neurodivergent? WELL GUESS FUCKING WHAT: SO AM I! THE REASON I HAVE SO MANY FRIENDS WITH SO MUCH SHIT WRONG WITH THEM IS BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF SHIT WRONG WITH ME. WE ATTRACT EACH OTHER! WE LIKE EACH OTHER! IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD TO UNDERSTAND!

honestly i kind of expect the usual “precious little baby boy” infantilization treatment and ignoring the problems with it from neurotypical spn fans, bc neurotypicals are just incapable of treating any autistic characters normally, but when other autistic fans are the ones saying jack has the mental age of a toddler or insisting that he’s canonically a child and that somehow justifies how the fandom treats his character???? it just baffles me. it’s like some bizarre cognitive dissonance phenomenon where everybody collectively decided that infantilizing autistic people is actually okay for this particular person because insert-reason-pulled-from-ass. it’s just. weird.

This Years Thoughts On Reading. tbh

the past year i read a lot more than i had in quite some time. to be fair, i didn't finish most of the books i started, didn't start most of the books i want to read, and spent most of my time wasting time on social media still (i don't know why i can't stop doing this. i don't even enjoy it past a certain point). i didn't do well in my university classes. but for a really long time i've found it very difficult to read at all, even to read fiction. i read a lot of fiction (by my standards) this year, especially historical fiction set in ancient rome (though i also read some other good books, favorites among which are probably queer by william burroughs, night side of the river by jeannette winterson, and invisible cities by italo calvino. i also read quite a few short stories and a bit of poetry), i read or started /some/ nonfiction, i read or started /some/ ancient literature, and i had a poem and a short story published in my university's poetry journal and newspaper respectively...

but, really, i feel a little in over my head. i don't really feel like i can do this, by which i mean i still don't think i'm trying hard enough at university. i feel behind everyone else, despite the fact that since i've transferred to a different university having done 2 years before, i still have this and another year before i graduate. even though most of the people in my year will be 2 years younger than me i feel like i am behind them (did i mention that i did badly on my exams last year?)

especially before university i was never a particularly good student, honestly (i was like. a C average, though in my 3rd and 4th years of high school i started to try a little harder) and i think i spend a lot of time now fruitlessly wishing that i had tried harder and taken more of an interest in things. i still wish i tried harder. i still wish that passion was enough to fuel me to actually focus on filling out my historical reading. i wish i just didn't feel so stupid sometimes, honestly. sometimes i'll open a book that's a bit dense or technical and it just makes me feel like the biggest idiot in the world. i wish i was better at articulating my thoughts. i also wish i understood literary analysis or criticism. in a lot of ways now i feel dumber than i was a few years ago, and i don't know why.

the marker of my final piece this year has so spectacularly missed the point of my story that i want to fucking scream

The rough draft of chapter 5 of Interlude is done

when i see thin and/or untrained tightlacers im like 😖😖😖😖😖😖 bro a corset is 1. not susposed to hurt and if it does it doesnt fit size wise or shape wise and 2. YOU SHOULD NOT BE TIGHTLACING FOR AN 8HR FAIRE!

not everyone needs to have a crazy reduction esp if your body isnt able or used to it.

exene talking about the state of the world. the good stuff starts at eight minutes. or you can just read the transcript complete with the usual errors that accompany robot transcribed speech (the irony of which is not lost on me). maybe it's not about transhumanism and living forever (or maybe it is who knows), but there's definitely an agenda of surveillance and control at work which is designed to keep the powerful in power. cash rules everything around me and you will own nothing etc. the future is worse.

okay listen, anyone can headcanon mike as whatever you want, really!! but can we please stop saying that one sexuality would be “easier” to explain/understand than the other… i know what you’re trying to say but it really rubs me the wrong way implying that one sexuality would ‘make more sense’ when they can all be explained perfectly fine — that’s exactly why people headcanon him differently.