That evening the men were practicing archery on the green. Bill Door had carefully ensured a local reputation as the worst bowman in the entire history of toxophily; it had never occurred to anyone that putting arrows through the hats of bystanders behind him must logically take a lot more skill than merely sending them through a quite large target a mere fifty yards away.

It was amazing how many friends you could make by being bad at things, provided you were bad enough to be funny.

Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

Summertime Bros

Angst

What’s your view on toxic female friendships. I think it’s such a shame betrayal seems to be more common theme in female friendships. Men seem to have life long friends without any drama at all. Of course there are women out there with good life long friends but sadly it’s rare especially in this era we live in

xx

I think the underlying themes here are patriarchy and internalized misogyny. It can appear in blatant forms like women who sabotage each other for male attention, body/appearance/slut shame other women, or overly criticize other women's behavior and choices.

But I also believe there's a more covert patriarchal dynamic to women-women friendships vs. men-men friendships that's only recently become a prominent conversation in the public sphere/social media. As women, we're taught that it's our responsibility and culturally conditioned to perform all the emotional labor for the people in our lives – mainly men, but also other women. Men are taught and socialized with the opposite mentality.

So, I believe the dilemma comes down to this:

Female friendships exist as an outlet to unload our emotional stressors from all the men and women in our lives, so along with strict standards to be the "perfect" woman, it is easy for women to get on each other's nerves/bad side when we're all constantly emotionally exhausted and unloading onto each other. We overemphasize the emotional labor we should expect out of each other because we are conditioned to do this for the men in our lives. But, because other women aren't men, we start to resent/project onto them this anger. It's a very insidious type of internalized misogyny that I think a lot of women aren't aware of and therefore do not confront.

Then, there's the other side of the coin, where men don't really have these expectations of other men. Their friendship is based more on camaraderie through mutual interests, upbringing, lifestyles, or shared experiences (like working together, attending the same university, etc.). They don't uphold this expectation of performing emotional labor for themselves or each other. That role is reversed or the women in their lives.

Of course, I believe most men are so socially conditioned by patriarchy that they don't even realize this underlying dynamic and there are plenty of exceptions of emotionally intelligent men who desire to/actively unpack this to create more emotionally nourishing and equitable relationships in their lives, but I'm speaking in generalities for comprehension's sake.

Hope this resonates with some of you and answers your question. Bisous xx

Just quietly appreciating male friendships in media where the characters are allowed to be vulnerable and openly affectionate with one another and it’s validated by the framing of the narrative rather than mocked.

*TBC, it’s totally awesome if you ship any of these characters (I myself am very prone to Logurt), I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that majority of the time in media (or at least in western media), writers & execs still shy away from letting male characters be tender with each other because sincerity is for girls.

Feel free to add on more characters!

On the one hand I like (and understand) the Samwise Gamgee x Frodo Baggins ship, but on the other hand I think it’s a real shame of intimate, 100% platonic healthy male friendship rep that is so desperately needed in todays society where toxic masculinity runs rampant

Matthew & Fernando, Henry & Tom, Stanley & Louis, Matthew & Hamish. There are some wonderful, supportive, nurturing and enduring male friendships in Matthew Goode's back catalogue. I also love all the actors who portray these characters, the chemistry they have with Matthew is fantastic.

Which is your favourite relationship? I find it very hard to chose but I have to say Matthew de Clermont's friendship with Hamish Osborne, simply beautiful 💚.

Here is some bonus Henry Talbot

🍀Manifesting🍀 Henry to appear in the 3rd Downton Abbey movie! Stop faffing around with cars Henry and get yourself back to England to charm us all, we are bored!

📷 My edits from Sky/Bad Wolf A Discovery of Witches (2018/22) s1:02/s3:01, ITV Downton Abbey (2015) s6:08, BBC Dancing on The Edge (2013) ep2

“Thanks for the lift you old bucket of bolts.” -kade

“Any time Lamebrain.” -Heatwave

devadas(telugu film)

soooo, i saw this film just now and i loved it. Looking for people who have seen it. The friendship between deva and das gave me ram and bheem vibes. The comedy was not stomachachingly funny and not bland comedy too, it was just right.

Sure it had a little of unrealistic fighting, BuT the plot and the acting of nagarjuna and nani was great with kunal kapoor (he kinda reminded me of the viliian in kaththi-the vijay film - Neil Nitin Mukesh)

I've usually seen these kinds of movie plot with nani's character as female and her changing the villian into a hero but this was different. The naivety of das and deva enjoying and learning from him was just pure fluff.

How did the rambheem shippers miss this?!

(And i watched this in a shitty youtube channel where the music was cut off so i missed a bit of plot and i dont own Netflix or hotstar)

I watched it in tamil btw

All that We Loved EP01-03

The first three episodes all whump all Bromance,, they are the best

His best friend is getting attacked and beaten while he can't sleep and in pain from a nightmare

I just love male friendship, especially in literature. Two or more men who love each other in a platonic way, who grow up together, joke together, play together, work together and are often even willing to give their lives for each other.... it brings me SO MUCH JOY

All jokes aside, I’ve tried numerous times to extend myself emotionally to my male friends like I do to my homegirls but they immediately would start acting weird and would become sexual towards me

I also have heard a similar story from many women, it’s like most of them (the men) can’t or don’t know how to have platonic intimacy and they themselves always make it weird first or mainly have sexual intentions from the beginning

I love how vulnerable Hugh Dancy is. The relaxed way he’s leaning back & the way Mads Mikkelsen is practically bracketing him in with his body stance. The pouts! The height difference! The glares 🥵🥵🥵🥵

I love when Gordo & Ed give each other looks like this. 💙🥰💙 They're such adorable besties.