In December of 2021, I came across your posts and my life changed in a single afternoon. Within a few months, I finally left my physically abusive husband of 6 years. I had tried so hard to leave before but the things I read on your profile were what gave me the strength to leave. I always believed these things deep down and didn’t really understand how I felt. The accounts I found through your profile all have continued to give me strength and I’ve learned so much. I didn’t know when I got a tumblr back in 2013 it would one day save my life and shape my worldview. I follow tons of Radfems on all platforms now but this will always be home base. So much has changed since then - thank you for your presence. It means the world to me that you and other women are brave enough to be beacons of truth in a world that hates us.

i am actually going to cry, thank you so much omg. i'm so happy for you, that you were able to find a way out of such a horrible situation, and i'm glad that i was able to be of some help. that is one of the main reasons i keep this blog; so that maybe the things i say can help other women, like how i was helped in a lot of ways when i also joined in 2013, at the age of 14.

i don't know how much longer i will be on here, at least semi frequently. i more use it as a personal diary and a classical blog (aka, my thoughts and opinions far more than reblogs), but i like to think that even just expressing my feelings and thoughts about stuff may have other women able to either relate to my experiences, or learn something from my views.

here it is! I will be updating this every time a new episode airs, enjoy buglady being a simp.

I’m trying to work on The Sea Sings a Song’s second chapter but this chapter will not cooperate. I think I need to spend more time with Leilani to really cement her character’s backstory. So I’m sorry if it ends up a little delayed. It will come, I just think I need to do some more research and more concept work for her. Sorry :(

Bonus points if you explain why in the tags/replies/etc

The washed-out card indicates that this toy is “handcrafted from Persian lamb’s wool and velvet, 1958.”

I wanted very badly to take this sweet plush poodle home, despite its price tag of $30 (and that was with the final-day discount), but I have neither the space nor the proper skill to to keep her in nice shape, and oh I am going to be sorry about that for a while. I’m not sure if the photo does her justice, or if she’s only beautiful to me, but I think she would look so good on an old chair in a Victorian house, perhaps a Summit Avenue mansion. So I’m going to imagine that somehow, some way, a person who lives in one of those made their way out to this rinkydink split-level in the suburbs and swept her away after all.

i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good

you call them flop posts but I call them reaching my target demographic: whichever mutuals are active rn

theyre chillin

Holy shit they made the cowkini print into an animal

tracked down this clip just because of this post! have jokes from skizz and scar

shadow & bone cast, behind the scenes of episode eight (via jessie mei li’s instagram)

hey don't cry! it's spring! 💧🌼 shop | patreon

Earlier this month dollsome posted a poll of some favorite TV shows, and there was a space to write in your own favorite, and I had an immediate crisis of conscience upon realizing I do not know anymore.

(this got kinda long)

In high school and for a few years after that the obvious answer was X-Files, but lol no to that; even if the revival hadn’t tainted it, it’s been handily surpassed by way too many better shows at this point.

Up until the early 2010s it was definitely a CBS procedural, probably one of the CSIs or maybe NCIS. Now the only ones that have a chance at that title are Criminal Minds* and maybe Numb3rs; the rest are all uniformly like “you want me to watch cases? about strangers? when I could instead just make the episodes 10 minutes long by reducing them to the important parts, i.e. regular-character personal moments??” (...I actually do still have pretty good memories of the cases on CSI: NY and Cold Case, but I digress)

*which I joined up with in season 8; still haven’t seen huuuuge swaths of the entire first half of the series

I guess I could say The Office, which is a rare blend of strong character/shipper moments and episodes I genuinely enjoy watching again in their entirety, but also, how can a sitcom (even a smart one) be my favorite show*?? (even though sitcoms make up the vast majority of “shows I can watch over and over,” I’ve ruled most of them out because Office is honestly one of the only ones where I have beloved characters, let alone ships. And my favorite show of all time HAS to come with an OTP, it just has to.)

*especially when I hate Michael Gary Scott with every fiber of my being, or at least 96% of them!

So now I’m like - oh god. Is it Glee? Maybe it’s Glee?? Has anything after that so thoroughly eaten my brain and made me happy watching both as whole episodes (season 666 not withstanding) and as short scene clips years after the fact, complete with fanfic consumption? But I am certainly too old for Glee to be my all-time favorite show, aren’t I? And/or too straight? How could my favorite show be one in which the heterosexual rep is less than 90% of the ships, and also not the best one.

Part of me genuinely thinks it could be Revolution, something smartly done but also action-packed that I have now watched 4 times in its entirety, and on which I have a top tier OTP to boot. Seems an odd choice for favorite, given that I don’t actually think I watch a lot of shows in this genre, but maybe? Same goes for Pushing Daisies.

Another part of me is in such a fannish fugue state right now that I’m like “OBVIOUSLY Blood and Treasure. OBVIOUSLY nothing has ever been better than this beautiful couple on this glorious cracky treasure-hunting ride,” but I’m too close to it right now to make a judgment call, given that I once had this same feeling about Zoo. (which was fun, mostly, but also no. definitely not my #1 fave. I haven’t watched so much as a scene clip since like, 2018)

Then there are a lot of single-season shows I loved, but single shows simply cannot be my favorite. No one remembers most of them, for one.

Maybe I would feel better if I made a top 10? Or if I listed my top 10 rewatchable sitcoms, deliberately excluded them, and then tried to list a top 10??

Spiraling!!

tl;dr SUPER JEALOUS RIGHT NOW OF ANYONE WHO KNOWS THEIR FAVORITE SHOW, OR EVEN TOP 3-5 SHOWS, OF ALL TIME.

p.s. I came across this lovely book in the library, What to Watch When: 1000 TV Shows For Every Mood and Moment, which very much impressed me with its organization, comprehensiveness and ability to deliver on the subtitle while spanning decades all the way up to 2020 -- and I gotta tell you that as much as I cherish this one’s content, I am also very tempted to write my own personalized version. I think that might be the only way I feel okay. “what if I told you my thousand favorite shows? *hands you a Tome*” 

me: OF COURSE she ate the ear. what else was she supposed to DO with the ear? bury it? lose a part of jackie when she's already lost almost all of her? this way it becomes a part of her at least, that's more bearable

the cashier in aldi:

i have had like 10 friends rec worm to me but nobody’s given me a good like, gist of its vibe and what its abt because ‘its best blind’, could u please give a like brief summary and vibe check of it 😭 it’s so long i dont wanna try and invest that much time without knowing much abt it

so, worm is a 1.7 million word long webserial written in 2010. 1.7 million words seems like a lot, but it was also written over a relatively short period of time, which means the writing style is very easy to parse--the ideas aren't without complexity, but the language itself isn't intimidatingly dense. you can get through it at a very decent pace. i agree with your friends that there are vast portions of worm that hit best when you're unspoiled, but the thing is that worm is long enough that giving you the basic plot pitch is in no way spoilers for any of the things that i wouldn't want to see spoiled for someone. i'm actually kind of baffled they're not telling you Any Thing, because it is in my estimation one of the best books i've ever read, but it also Needs a briefing before you get into it for like five different reasons. which i will now provide. i swear to god this is brief by my standards it's just that i am very thorough

worm is a story about superheroes and supervillains, set in a world where superpowers are traumagenic--rather than appearing randomly or innately, some people gain powers after a traumatizing event happens to them. the protagonist is taylor hebert, a 15yo girl who has the power to control insects and desperately wants to be a superhero. and then accidentally finds herself scouted by a team of teenage villains instead. who's to say how she's going to react to all that!

one of the most compelling things about worm is that the superpowers in it serve as visceral, hyper-literal metaphors for the trauma and traumatized coping mechanisms of the characters with those powers. each power is incredibly specific and thematically relevant to the person who has it, and it's incredibly interesting and evocative. it feels so natural and well-done that it comes off like how superpowers are just meant to be written.

the fact that superpowers stem from trauma also means that worm is fundamentally a narrative about trauma. specifically, about traumatized teenagers and the relationships they form as they cling together while struggling through growing up traumatized & mutually coping with an increasingly intriguing, intense, and far-reaching escalating plot. worm's depictions of trauma + mental illness--including unpalatable trauma responses, including traumatized characters who are allowed to be complicated and nuanced and messy while still receiving narrative respect--are deeply real-feeling and impactful, and they're placed in the context of a well-spun + engaging story.

i really do have to stress how excellent the character writing is. worm is fully deserving of being as long as it is. over the course of 1.7 million words of character development, the average reader's reaction to the main characters goes from "sorta interesting" to "okay, i want to see where this goes" to "augh...really likable" to "i am now on hands and knees crying and these characters are going to stick around in my brain forever." wildbow has incredible talent for efficiently conveying complicated, real-feeling, and viscerally evocative characterization. many of the interlude chapters (chapters written from the perspective of different characters other than taylor) are so interesting, fleshed-out, and emotionally affecting that they make you wish you could read an entire novel about just the side character being featured. with that level of characterization for just the side cast, it's not surprising that taylor (& co) are genuinely just downright iconic. and i do not say that lightly--taylor is truly one of the best-written protagonists i've seen in anything. ever.

the other main pitch-point for worm is that it's a fascinating deconstruction/reconstruction/examination of the conceits of the superhero genre. it answers the question of--what would the world have to be like, for people with superpowers to act the way they do in classic cape media? and it does this well enough that it's interesting even if you have only a passing familiarity with cape media. i am not a big superhero media fan, but worm addresses virtually every aspect of cape media that was under the sun around 2010 in a way that's so interesting i still find it incredibly engaging. the approach it takes makes the narrative very accessible even to people who aren't usually cape media fans.

and speaking of the narrative: the end of the story is coherent and satisfying and deeply thematically resonant*. the way worm follows through on all of its main mysteries & plot threads is excellent. you don't have to worry about getting thru 1.7 million words and being dissatisfied by the author shitting the bed at the end, or anything like that. he does an amazing job of weaving together plot events in a way that makes each successive one feel rationally, thematically, and emotionally connected to what came before. there's really only one part where i feel the story stumbles a bit, but i think it was the best option he had for the narrative, and it's by no means a dealbreaker. it's in fact really impressive how cohesive and satisfying worm is for such a long webserial released over such a brief period of time.

*this is subjective ive seen some people who didnt love it but ive never seen anyone who downright Hated it who didnt also demonstrate egregious misunderstanding of literally everything worm is about. so thats a good sign

as for the downsides of worm/things that might put you off:

there is a very long list of trigger warnings for it. if you have any trigger warnings you want you should ask your friends to let you know about the relevant parts, because the fact that it's About Trauma (& about typical cape media circumstances presented very seriously) means that traumatic and violent things & their realistic aftermath are constantly happening and/or being discussed. i would not classify worm as needlessly dark or spiteful to the audience by any means, but it is intense and covers a lot of heavy topics. i do assume if your friends are all recommending it to you, they think none of the material would be too much for you, though!

worm was written in 2010 by a white cishet guy from canada. it's typical levels of 2010-era bigoted, it has a deeply lesbophobic stereotype character, it has some atrociously racist stereotype characters, the author really hates addicts, It's Got Blind Spots. i think worm is generally fully worth reading despite these, but very fair warning that it can get bad. i think what exacerbates this is that worm is generally extremely nuanced & sympathetic regarding ideas such as "crime is a result of systematic circumstance vs people just being inherently evil" and "mentally ill people who are traumatized in unpalatable ways are still deserving of fundamental respect as human beings" and so on and so forth, so it's extra noticeable and insufferable when you get to a topic the author has unexamined biases on and all that nuance drops out. the worst part is that a lot of this is most concentrated in the early arcs, so you have to get through them without being super attached to any of the characters yet. it is worth it though.

worm like. Does have a central straight relationship in it. and it's a very well written straight relationship for the most part and i like it quite a lot. but worm also passes the bechdel test with such flying colors that it enters 'unintentionally homoerotic' territory. which means a lot of people were shipping the main character ms taylor hebert with her female friends while the story was being released. which caused the author to get so mad he 1. posted a word of god to a forum loudly insisting that all of the girls are straight and 2. inserted a few deeply awkward and obvious and out of character scenes where he finds an excuse for the girls to more or less turn to the camera and go "i'm not gay, btw. this is platonic." This is fucking insufferable, and will piss you off immensely, but then you will get to any of the number of deeply emotionally affecting scenes between them, and at that point you will be too busy sniffling piteously and perhaps crytyping an analysis post on tumblr to be mad about all that other shit. also they're only a couple tiny portions out of an entire overall fantastic novel

overall: if those points don't sound like dealbreakers (i hope they aren't they're really massively outstripped by the amount of devastatingly good moments in worm, worm still has a thriving fandom over a decade later for a reason), you should absolutely give it a shot and see what you think. my final note is that you have to read up until the end of arc 8 to really see where what makes worm Worm kicks in, so aim for at least there to see how you feel about it if you're just thinking about dipping your toes in vs fully committing. i hope that was helpful and not too long :)

oh and don't go in the comments section on wordpress if you don't want spoilers. or anywhere else in the fandom at all. you will be spoiled. quite possibly for things you could not even have imagined were topics to be spoiled on.