#beatrice horseman

[lesbianrecorderplayer]

Noticing a trend recently in the women I'm enjoying.

[kitkatdoodlez]

Is that the horse from horsin’ around???

[dittomoon]

So, I drew this back in October 2021 but only shared it on the BoJack Horseman Reddit - I liked the idea of lining up the diamonds in Bojacks family tree, ending up with Hollyhock breaking away from their family trauma. I only realised after the sketch that Honey doesn’t have a diamond but I still wanted her to be at the top.

[teddybeach]

You're Bojack Horseman; there's no cure for that.

[galileosbeast]

The View From Halfway Down

[bunnyknickers]

⌛️Times Arrow⌛️

[reylokisses]

I read online that Vivienne Medrano cited Beatrice Horseman from Bojack Horseman as inspiration for Stella Goetia in Helluva Boss.

That makes sense, as Beatrice Horseman was a victim (of her father/mother/Butterscotch/society in general) and an abuser (of Bojack/Henrietta/Hollyhock), while Stella is a victim of forced marriage, forced pregnancy and a victim of her revolting brother, Andrealphus:

While also being Stolas’ abuser (and indirectly abusing Octavia by abusing Stolas in front of her)*

Speaking of Beatrice Horseman being an abuser, I was completely baffled when I read someone applaud Beatrice for being by Henrietta’s side while Henrietta was in labour with Hollyhock, and calling it an example of women supporting women.

Are you kidding me?!!!

The only reason why Beatrice was with Henrietta while she gave birth, was so that Beatrice could remove Hollyhock from Henrietta the second she was born!

The show even frames Beatrice’s actions as despicable- the scene switches from the traumatic memory of Joseph Sugarman, Beatrice’s father, burning little-girl-Beatrice’s beloved baby doll while she screams and begs him to stop, to adult Beatrice taking the newborn Hollyhock away to be given up for adoption, and refusing to let Henrietta hold her own baby.

Beatrice has just done one of the most evil things a person can do to another, and some people think she was justified?!

Even if viewers somehow think Beatrice was doing the right thing here, the show clearly doesn’t want us to think so. Henrietta’s face is scratched out, meaning that Beatrice is so ashamed of what she did to Henrietta, that she can’t bear to think about her.

The writers also make it clear that Beatrice was motivated by selfish reasons:

Beatrice wants to live vicariously through Henrietta and make her do what Beatrice wishes she herself had done - if Beatrice had had an abortion, or placed Bojack for adoption, then Beatrice would never have married Butterscotch and be stuck in a life that she hated.

However, one of the themes of Bojack Horseman is that “you’re responsible for your own happiness”. Beatrice and Butterscotch could have gotten a divorce and been free of one another- Beatrice came from a wealthy family, so she wasn’t trapped financially with Butterscotch. Blaming Bojack for their misery was cruel and unjust.

Butterscotch was being irresponsible and selfish with Henrietta- he could have paid child support for Hollyhock and then Henrietta could have afforded childcare while she finished her studies and qualified as a nurse. Henrietta didn’t have to sacrifice her dreams for her baby. Beatrice and Butterscotch had the 1950s misogynistic mindset that a woman who slept with a married man was a fallen person who wasn’t fit to raise a baby, and so Henrietta “had to” give up her firstborn.

It’s a pity that the viewers couldn’t see Hollyhock and Henrietta’s reunion, since Bojack is the main character and we could only see plot points that involved him. I’m glad that mother and daughter finally found each other again - Beatrice stealing Hollyhock from Henrietta remains the most harrowing scene in the whole show for me.

*Stella is shown screaming at Stolas in front of Octavia in Loo Loo Land, so I don’t agree that Octavia was somehow completely oblivious to how much of an abuser Stella was and how miserable her parents were in the marriage.

In the same episode, Octavia has a line about when she was a kid and “[her] parents didn’t hate each other”, so Stella must have toned down her cruelty at the beginning. I just hope the writers don’t retcon that and victim-blame Octavia for not knowing how much abuse Stolas endured.

I don’t want to end this post on a sad note, so here’s one of my favourite scenes in Loo Loo Land 🥰

[franki-lew-yo]

Fanart Friday - ICU

More of the lovely Sugarman/Horsemans.

My personal take away from everything seen of Beatrice throughout the show is she did in fact 'love' her son, but only in as much as she could give him...which obviously was not ever enough or even love worth having.

"Promise not to love anyone as much as I loved Crackerjack..."

"Don't cry! Don't you ever cry!"

"Look at you!" - first words said to him.

[jiaorenscove]

[dongslinger--420]

No I'm not done actually. Morally grey characters in BoJack Horseman are one of the main themes and as a result I don't believe anyone is 100% bad or good. But I think this especially applies to Joseph. I see a lot of videos with him where people comment that they used to kind of like him and see him as sympathetic until they watched Times Arrow or until they finished The Old Sugarman Place or something, but the fact of the matter is that if Joseph were evil, he wouldn't have been happily married. If Joseph were evil, he would've lobotomized his wife at the first chance he got, but the thing that people keep forgetting is that he very specifically lobotomized Honey because she was PROVING TO BE AN ACTIVE DANGER TO THE LIFE OF HIS DAUGHTER. Sure, he only had one solution to this problem, but he waited until the last possible moment to use said solution.

Also, just think about it. A man who tortures the women he's close to, just because he's horrible and never bothered to think how they would feel? We already have a character like that in the show, who is portrayed as a parodic caricature. But a man who is 100% a product of his upbringing, never thinking of trying to be anything else? A man who, despite this upbringing, still loves his wife and daughter? A man who has such a misguided view on how to support said wife and daughter that he believes that destroying his daughter's possessions and lobotomizing his wife is as thoughtful and helpful as teaching his daughter to stand up for herself against her bullies, and standing up for his daughter against his wife?

Spine-chilling.

[sadhorseman]

Bojack: "All I know about being good, I learned from TV. And in TV, flawed characters are constantly showing people they care with these surprising grand gestures. And I think that part of me still believes that's what love is. But, in real life, the big gesture isn't enough. You need to be consistent, you need to be dependably good. You can't just screw everything up and then take a boat out into the ocean to save your best friend, or solve a mystery, and fly to Kansas. You need to do it every day, which is, so... hard."

[thediamondarcher]

The difference between knowing how to write a bad parent having dementia without absolutely losing the point of how having an abuser as a parent can affect you and how you don't need to forgive them. (BECAUSE NOTHING SHOULD GIVE THE MESSAGE SHAMELESS GAVE)

In Beatrice's last scene we see BoJack empathizing with her but not forgiving her, because he doesn't have to.

He was genuinely feeling bad about her because he realized she's not the same person who abused him anymore.

We got to see Beatrice as a child, the abuse, the bullying, the being silent and mistreated, everything in just a couple of episodes. While in shameless we got 11 seasons to see Franks backstory and they barely showed that, the show ended with a scene trying to make us feel bad about an abuser without even explaining anything, we're just supposed to feel sorry for him because he has dementia? I'm not even saying that showing his past would've helped with the show giving a good message because someone's past doesn't justify their actions but they didn't even make an effort to try to write it in a good and not hurtful way.

I really think shameless is giving an awful point with Frank's character. They're basically telling you to forgive your abuser just because they're "also broken" which is completely ridiculous and can really affect other people's mental health and journey. While BJHM is showing not to forgive, just understand.

I know they're just shows but writers should be more aware of how showing these types of characters can affect real people who went through real abuse.

I don't hate Shameless but i do think the writers of that show should've thought things twice before giving this awful message (also being a famous show and a lot of people's comfort show this is even more dangerous)

you don't have to forgive your abuser!!

[kitkatdoodlez]

Women of Tragedy

[thatsillydoor]

":/"

[ohshy]

and now the easy part

(bonus art without the color effect under the cut)

[bojacksbackupblogobviously]