#I'M ACTUALLY WRITING AND USING THIS BLOG WHAT

[thecoolerliauditore]

Pls tell me about Scott's views on women in general pls I'm begging you

o7 and I'm sorry

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fyi, the post itself isn't NSFW, but I'll be getting all gender theory in this bitch so I'll be referencing a lot of things and putting in pictures of naked ppl sometimes. maybe skip this one if you don't like that

(long post)

Disclaimers

An explanation for the tweet up there

I usually don't write these because I assume the people on my blog have enough sense to realise when I'm talking about the characters vs the CCs or are comfortable enough being a little confused, but I feel the need to extra-clarify here and expand on how I specifically view C vs CC because I think it differs a little from the average person.

To me, C and CC are two separate entities but not entirely disconnected. What differs (e.g. the exclusion of irl relationships -- their wives, kids, etc.) is poignant enough to severely detach them from the people they originated from, at least in my eyes, but there's also the fact that these are not scripted characters, just creators being themselves with a hint of behind the scenes drama-adding and improv thrown in.

For example, CC Pearl is a car nerd. So I assume her character is too.

This is where I state very clearly that yes, a lot of these thoughts come from things I've seen on Scott's twitter, which is undoubtedly the CC and not the C. However I, to me, am still talking about the C because any observations/judgments I could make on actual irl youtuber CC guy Scott Major would be tabloid at best and slightly invasive at worst. I'm seeing these statements within the context of "the death game guy would say this too and I'm writing this based on that", not "this is the inner psychological workings of the youtuber because I, as a fan, can totally tell".

TLDR I don't consider this post RPF but you might. This is a little more RPF-y than my usual stuff. If you don't rock with it we cool.

Everyone is weird about women, and that's okay

One short-hand I've used in the past to talk about Scott and women is just by saying that he's "weird about women" which I'm sure isn't exclusive to him.

(shitpost I made awhile back)

I see a lot of people now who love "villains" and "evil" but when it comes to any traits resembling real life evil (e.g. misogyny in this case) they suddenly become insecure. Just a couple of days back a saw a post on twitter essentially asking for permission to continue liking CC Scott in spite of the "bad things" he did.

And I think, in order to present an analysis like this, I must address that mindset first.

This is not a judgment on Scott's morality, nor is it trying to dissuade you from liking him. This is not saying that he is any more misogynistic than any other player in the series. This is just me pointing out Scott's attitude towards women and what I read it as, nothing less or more.

The feelings that me pointing these things out - be they apathy, disgust, anger or, what I would hope to see most, interest - are your own. I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel and never will try to police that on my blog.

Scott's Relationships with Women

aka. oh yeah this is about minecraft.

Scott and Cleo || "Yeah, you can kill me."

Scott and Cleo's alliance is arguably the strongest in the entire series, spanning through all five seasons and remaining unbroken with no (serious) drama attached. You'd expect from this that they two have a very settled and stable understanding of eachother, yet this isn't a case.

Their power dynamic shifts dramatically from one season to the next.

3L's initial Widows Alliance began on fairly equal footing, built on the mutual agreement that they were waiting for their respective partners to die. Both understood they were eachothers' "plan B" and felt comfortable in that arrangement.

Come LL, Cleo does what she couldn't in 3L, and initiates that plan, going to Scott after her last alliance, the fairy fort, fell apart. Scott requests nothing from her in return.

DL is the longest the two spent as eachothers main ally. Cleo is the one who initially proposes teaming up to spite their "cheating" soulmates and Scott agrees. Cleo admits to Martyn in private that she's aware she's taking advantage of Scott (which I've always interpreted as her talking about all seasons, not just DL). Due to the time they spend together, it's here where it becomes apparent that their initial assumptions during 3L were not entirely accurate, as Scott shows a level of gameplay competency much higher than Cleo's (e.g. teaching her how to axe-crit) but despite this Scott never berates her or thinks any less of her value as his ally.

LimL is probably this pairing at their most unhinged, as Scott, despite once again asking for nothing (or very little -- I'll be honest I'm a bit fuzzy on this) in return from Cleo, allows them and their allies to butcher him repeatedly for time. He gives more time to the Clockers than he does to Martyn, his closest ally that season. Despite this, Scott is never ever considered as a "family member" by the Clockers, despite them giving that title to even temporary allies (like the Bad Boys being their cousins) -- even Martyn gets a title with Scott completely unattached.

SL is relatively more chill, but shows that the two inevitably end up teaming together even despite their oath to avoid eachother that season.

The point being -- again and again, we see Scott literally and metaphorically making sacrifices for Cleo, with the only real transaction he requires from her being that she continues having his back when times get rough. This is despite that he's aware she isn't any more capable than he is and the fact that so far it has only been Cleo in rough times (LL, LimL and SL) and never Scott.

Speaking from a purely transactional perspective, Scott is not getting a bargain here -- and even Cleo seems acutely aware of it, judging by her comment during DL as well as the way she tends to speak of her survival capabilities very lowly in general ("rubbish pvp skills and spiffy one-liners"). I'm speaking in this sense because I've seen discussions in the past about the transactional way Scott views relationships but rarely does Cleo get brought up.

This is at stark contrast to how he treats Jimmy, whose predicted death was what spurred on Scott and Cleo's alliance in the first place.

Scott assumes Jimmy is "incompetent", where he assumes Cleo is capable. When Jimmy messes up, he reprimands him, when Cleo struggles to crit him, he patiently teaches her. When LL begins, Scott's first instinct was to look at Jimmy's lives and note that he was "useless to (him)", but holds no objections to Cleo joining his alliance despite her already having enemies being a potential liability. In SL, he jokes about how Cleo and him being allied is a given and pretty much expected of them, whereas in LimL he explicitly requests from Jimmy a recognition that he still cares ("say love you back!") before he will help him.

Scott and Gem || "You HAVE TO kill me, Gem,"

In SL, Gem settles in very easily in a leadership position within Gem and the Scotts due to her trying to live up to her reputation but also due to Scott and Impulse's more laid back, passive playstyles.

Both Scott and Impulse let Gem kill them for extra health this season, although Scott is arguably much more subservient than Impulse is, with him not only insisting that she kill him in the final episode but also not fighting back (and only yelling for her to stop) when she starts hitting him with a sword during the episode where her task was to literally kill everyone on the server.

Once again comparing her to Jimmy, Scott in 3L had a tendency to brush aside Jimmy's concerns over alliances (e.g. Jimmy questioning if they could trust Cleo) while in SL Scott runs his plans by Gem (and Pearl and Impulse) in terms of who he wanted to team up with (specifically excluding Joel from the potential mounders alliance) implying he held her opinion in some form of regard.

Before this becomes less of an analysis of Scott's treatment of men vs women and more of Scott's treatment of Jimmy vs everyone else, I think it's notable enough to mention that he and Martyn also lacked this sort of communication in LimL. He would inform Martyn of his plans, but rarely was it ever framed as a request.

SL almost feels as if Scott has slid Gem into the slot he had previously designated for Cleo in 3L (his girlboss ally) as he provides her and pretty much forces onto her by the end the acts of service he'd become accustomed to performing for Cleo.

Scott and Lizzie || "You killed her! I don't.. I don't know what to even say!"

Relatively shorter section because this is the one woman he hasn't teamed with, but there's still some interesting stuff I wanted to touch on.

In LL, one of the first thing Scott does is yell at Pearl to revenge-kill Joel for boogey-killing him. Pearl does as she's told and Joel's wet miserable pathetic LL life gets worse from there.

Several episodes later, the roles are reversed -- Lizzie lies to both of them and manages to isolate and boogey-kill Pearl. Scott, instead of reacting with the anger he had for Joel, is almost in a state of shock as he asks Lizzie to let him down so he could collect Pearl's belongings. He doesn't act aggressively towards Lizzie at all, with his most antagonizing act against her being to lie about his intentions when giving her a wither skull.

In SL, he's the only one aware of her early permadeath, but keeps quiet about it almost as if he's in a state of shock akin to when he saw Lizzie kill Pearl in LL. It's not until the others have noticed when he finally brings it up.

Scott and Pearl || "Tilly death do us 'part"

I wrote a whole post just for their relationship alone so for the sake of my sanity I'll be leaving this here.

So now I get to dedicate this section to the meat of this post -- how the way Scott treats women in general impacts his relationship with Pearl and how I view his heel-turn on her as seeping with relevance to Pearl's perceived gender.

In all three of the previous sections, the running theme is that Scott is 1. kinder and more patient with women, regardless of their competency and 2. someone who likes to be in a supporting role to women, occasionally aiding them more than he aids himself and his closer male allies (e.g. Jimmy and Martyn). As shown with Cleo, he assumes that girls have it together, but even if they don't it's not a big deal. When a girl's actions are truly disastrous, such as with Lizzie's, he goes into a state of shock and doesn't really react, preferring to swallow it down and not acknowledge it.

With the amount of times he sacrifices himself, I don't think it's a reach to say that Scott values his own life less than he values the lives of his (female) allies. This specific point actually does extend to his male allies too, shown when he's happy when Martyn literally backstabs him in LimL, but just as with the Martyn post where I point out his victim status-ing doesn't end at only women but includes all the women, Scott has pedastal-ed all the women he's teamed with.

Lizzie is, once again, the exception here due to his limited interactions with her. However that's actually somewhat patched over if you look at adjacent series (such as x-life) where he definitely shows her a level of admiration and respect.

Back to Scott and Pearl.

Their relationship during LL is very standard of how Scott treats women. While the power dynamic between them is obviously more caused by the initial life trade agreement, I don't think it's a far reach to say that Scott is somewhat comfortable in the arrangement.

However, this is also the first thing that sets their relationship apart from Scott with Cleo or Gem -- Pearl is the one making sacrifices, not Scott. She is the one "sacrificing" her lives to him, just in a more non-violent way as allowed by the season's mechanics.

When viewed through this lens, Scott trying to make it up to her and wanting his effort acknowledged makes even more sense. This is suddenly uncharted waters for him. His assuming that Pearl doesn't value him as a person goes hand in hand with him valuing himself less than her.

What Scott has with Cleo or Gem, situations where the other party is clearly uncomfortable with how he treats himself (Gem) or actively aware they are taking advantage of him (Cleo), is equalized to him because he is inherently worth less. What he has with Pearl, on the other hand, looks more equal to most people (lives vs labour) but is wildly imbalanced to him.

It's one of the many factors I see going into Scott's weird decision to abandon her in DL.

An Interlude, Before We Get to DL

La Pieta, Michelangelo

So this has been a lot of words so far and some of you might be wondering at this point: why say Scott is "weird" about women when so far this has been describing how he values women more, is kinder to them, is more patient with them, etc.? How is any of this behaviour remotely misogynistic?

And I would feel horrible if I forced you to read through all of my DL thoughts before I clarified this -- Scott is not your classic wifebeater "women are lesser" misogynist, Scott is someone who subscribes to misogynistic schools of thought and probably considers himself an ally to women, when in reality his beliefs are still rooted in dehumanizing them and these beliefs end up harming the women around him as well as himself.

After all, seeing women are your superiors is still not seeing them as your equals.

I know it's a bit of a meme on this blog at this point. But. Sigmund Freud identified what we know refer to as the "madonna/whore complex", which he described as a pattern of behaviour in men who separated women into being madonnas (pure, holy and admirable) and whores (debased, sexual, deviant). We'll be focusing on the former, the madonna, as it is more relevant to Scott's character.

Freud proposed that the madonna figure was something men projected onto women as a replacement for maternal love. These women are sacred and untouchable, literally as the projection of the maternal role onto them also makes it so that the sufferer cannot feel any sexual attraction towards her (keep this in mind for later).

Scott projects the madonna figure onto his female compatriots -- they are to be protected, served and supported. They are goddesses, queens, but they are never human. The madonna role in of itself is not inherently harmful to the woman, as seen with Cleo who takes control and advantage of it. However, it is enforced, as seen with Gem who at first revels in the superiority but almost breaks down when Scott offers him up as her sacrificial lamb one last time.

I linked this Utena AMV awhile back when vaguely talking about Scott and women, and this was the point I was alluding to.

Girls are beautiful and pure. They don't spit on the street, they don't piss on the street, they don't build hierarchies -- they subvert all the expectations of masculinity that I hate having to deal with. They are my escape.

But what about the girls who do spit on the street? The girls who piss on seats? Who build social hierarchies, who size up their competition?

The girls Scott interacts with are all painfully human. Cleo weaponizes his beliefs and take advantage of him. Scott is smart enough to know and accept this. Gem's playing into a role she has been assigned into by not only Scott but everyone around her. Scott supports the character she plays. Lizzie reflects traits he hates in Joel and Jimmy, but for her, he looks the other way.

Are they "demons", as the song says, or are they no longer girls at all?

(demons, gods, but never humans)

Weaponized Femininity and Women In Total Control of Themselves ;)

Hylas and the Nymphs, John William Waterhouse

Historically, weaponized femininity I'd argue is one of the oldest tropes in storytelling. Whether it's nymphs or sirens or witches or succubi or even more roundabout cases like Helen of Troy, there's countless stories of men's sexual attraction to women leading them to disaster.

One way to view these stories is to see them as warnings, don't let womens allure be the end of you.

There's a lot of good writing done on the femme fatale trope both in the context of weaponizing femininity and as a sexist way to argue against victims of sexual assault, as these stories often say that men who experience attraction to these "evil" women no longer have agency over their own actions.

Look at the painting above, for example - is it the nymphs who are responsible for drowning Hylas, or is Hylas climbing into the lake of his own accord?

Despite the fact we all know sirens, nymphs and succubi aren't real, the belief that men will simply lose control of themselves when encountering a particularly alluring woman persists to the modern consciousness. That there's something inherently dangerous about women and attraction to them.

(this is not 100% applicable to Ninja saying he won't stream with women, but it's the real life example I felt most comfortable putting in here)

Now, let's combine this with what's been said so far -- let's say you don't hate women. You love women, in fact, and you hate the way men treat women. You hate men, in fact.

Yet, you still believe in this inherent power women hold by being female and the loss of agency that men experience when attracted to them -- how disgusting.

It quickly becomes easily to not only demonize men for sullying the holiness of women, but also men, masculinity and attraction to women as a whole.

(apologies for using twt discourse in the meta post but this flew by my TL and i had to grab the irl example of mens non-violent attraction to women being used to frame them as misogynistic before the stupid app refreshed and i lose everything forever)

"To Venner" is a student film exploring a world set within this belief, where all the women have vanished and the men have become monstrous figures as a result of their pent up sexual frustration. fyi this is one of my favourite student films (and ive watched a bunch), but I do think its messaging is worth breaking down (especially its juxtaposition of dirty horrible monstrous sexuality vs pure and beautiful romantic love)

NOTE: this film is super graphic, lots of violence and nudity. have fun. or not

I admit this section is a bit hard to gauge as everyone in the series is gay as fuck. The closest in-series example I can think of is Scott reacting to Martyn's antics in DL with a sort of indigence but otherwise I can't really think of an example of a man expressing attraction to a woman at all, let alone one Scott reacted to. However, I do think it's still worth talking about because it opens up some interesting trains of thought in regard to Scott and Pearl.

For Scott, he himself has never been part of the picture. He's gay, after all, which gives him an edge over the bad straight men who objectify and assault women. Likewise, there's little evidence to suggest he finds the expectations of masculinity frustrating, but I don't think it's too far a reach considering how common of an experience that is for gay men and his adapting of more feminine mannerisms.

Double Life and Corruption

As mentioned in my previously linked post about Scott and Pearl's relationship, I do think Scott experiences what he would name as attraction towards Pearl, so my writing will reflect that.

Pearl is. ahem. not like other girls.

Not actually. But to Scott, she probably isn't like other girls.

She remains unaware of his different standards for her (how could she when she had nothing to compare them to), she acts out, sometimes violently, against Scott's urging (such as when she stole from Scar's wagon). She maintains their already irregular dynamic, and while she appreciates his care for her, she never quite falls into seeing him as a source of subservience the way Cleo or Gem do.

At the end of LL, right before the 1v1v1v1, she monologues to herself that she no longer has to feel bad for killing Scott. Which, in turn, implies she expected Scott to give it his all against her as well.

She entirely fails to embody the madonna with her immature naivete and her questionable morals. She is unpredictable, she doesn't take what she is owed, she is a monster in a lot of ways.

Scott, too, is a monster, to himself, for how he feels about her.

The very foundations of your understanding of yourself being ripped apart aside, let's rewind to the madonna/whore complex. To sexualise the madonna is to corrupt her and make a monster of yourself. Suddenly, you are no better than the men around you, the ones you've grown to hate. Suddenly, you are the grotesque figures in films like To Venner. You are Hylas and she is the nymph. And you are so stupid. Your worldview crumbles around its flawed foundations.

Scott is, however, immune to this corruption. This is a theme that appears in Empires as well, but throughout the traffic series he's prided himself on being loyal and kind and good. His monologue leading up to LL's 1v1v1v1 summarizes it quite well.

He can't let himself or anyone else see this side of him, but the energy needs to go somewhere. To defy fate, abandon your soulmate, is to admit you had a fate in the first place, is to acknowledge that she was your soulmate in the first place.

I've previously talked about how fate and romance are very ingrained in Scott's belief system, if it was anyone else it would've been amazing. He could've been like Bdubs and Impulse or Ren and Bigb, diving into domestic life and performative romance with a stranger. Or the world could've made his happy ending from 3L real, as he got to be Jimmy's husband all over again. I think it says something that he accepts Cleo as a "soulmate" before Pearl.

So what do you do with all that energy and tension, clearly apparent to yourself and everyone else, when you can't let them observe your feelings?

You project them.

Shout-outs to @/legally-allowed-to-slime for pointing out Pearl's comment early on in DL that she "feels like (she's) been broken up with" confirms she never saw Scott in a romantic sense. The "crazy ex-girlfriend" and "this is why I'm gay" comments really did come out of thin air, or perhaps insecurity.

Pearl is the crazy one. She's insane, because she wants me. She wants to be with me, so she does all this crazy stuff. She's lost control of herself because she wants me. She's disgusting.

I mentioned before that Scott is not your classic misogynist, but this is where the gears start turning. Scott's views of Pearl echo that of other players, most prominently Ren and Martyn, that Pearl has been overcome with some sort of corruption. She has become the witch, the demoness, the whore, in their eyes. Scott does not want to be the same as these men and I think his overcorrecting his behaviour in SL makes sense when you view it from this angle, but for now he has to rely on more traditional misogyny in order to navigate this new obstacle.

"Corruption" also implies that she had to have been pure (or at least pure-er) beforehand, something Scott personally knows is not true, but it falls in line with defaulting women to being "madonnas".

This is a Scott post but. shout outs to Ren for being all of this about Pearl but without the complexity of Scott like he literally accuses Pearl of seducing Bigb what the fuck man.

Pearl is, of course, none of that. But she plays into the role of being the witch much better than she fared playing into the role of the madonna.

Sidenote: I know I'm looking at this from a Scott/Pearl POV but I do feel like you can omit Scott's attraction if you look at it from a purely "pearl not performing to standards of femininity I expect and she makes me realise I don't view women as a whole as human which makes me feel weird so now we have to do this" POV. Like idk I think the exact reason he abandoned Pearl is going to be lost on everyone forever so any analysis I could perform is going to suffer at least a little bit of making-shit-up-itis.

I do also think there's something to be said about Pearl being pushed until she performed a role, any role and generally failing at Being A Girl tm but that's another post i think. yknow shes um. a bit. 🏳️‍⚧️ (but also very much not at the same time idk that's gonna need its own post)

anyway yeah uh the minecraft movie looks crazy huh

[hollowed-theory-hall]

this is probably stupid to ask, but do you like snape? or the marauders? there's always fanwars happening between marauders stans and snape stans. tbh i'm just curious where you stand (i like both, and prefer their canon selves rather than the fanon which is btw really stupid. they feminized sirius so much its not even sirius anymore.) what made you like snape? if you do, or are you neutral with him? just for a change of question since i always ask about harry.

Thanks for the ask! I don't think it's stupid.

I prefer their canon counterparts as well, the Marauders fanon has so little to do with canon I can hardly call the characters by the same name. They just aren't the same characters. Anyway, I'm gonna try and summarise my highly subjective opinions about them here.

1. Sirius Black

He's my second most favorite character and my favorite among the characters you mentioned. I wrote about him a lot on this blog, so I don't really feel the need to write more.

But, he's smart, resilient, and goofy on occasion. His love for Harry is one of my favorite aspects of his character because he loves Harry so much. And he has his flaws. He can be cruel, cold, and arrogant and I wouldn't like him as much if he wasn't visibly a member of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black regardless of how much he tried to get away from his legacy. I love how messy his feelings about his family are. He left Regulus' room as it was, even though the rest of the house got cleaned by the Order. He stayed in his mother's bedroom even when all the conversations he had with her portrait were in screams. I love his distrust in Dumbledore after everything he's been through and how he chooses to remain for Harry's sake — he's willing to do anything for Harry's sake.

I just truly love Sirius.

2. Severus Snape

He's the next on this list because I do like Snape, he's not a character I'm passionate about, but I like him. I think he shouldn't be a teacher (I think he hates being a teacher more than his students hate him teaching them) but he's a talented potion maker and wizard. And he is a very entertaining character, even without knowing everything about him.

But what really makes me like Snape is that I find him interesting. I think his psychology is interesting, as is his dynamic with Lily, Dumbledore, and Voldemort. Snape is a fascinating character to study from a lot of angles, and even as a reader, there is quite a bit that's up in the air about him because he's that good at being a spy and not giving us anything.

The other major thing I like about him is his competence as a spy and wizard. If there's one thing I love in my fictional characters — it's competence (and intelligence). I often joke with my irl friends that Snape is the only competent Death Eater and the only competent member of the Order of the Phoenix. We then joke that if we were in his shoes, surrounded by a lot of people who don't actually do anything and we're the only ones affecting this war from both sides, we'd probably be bitter too.

A little note that seems overlooked about Snape often in the fandom, in general, is how we think, "Oh, he's so great at Occlumancy and not being emotional" — that's not strictly true. When it comes to Lily or the Marauders all his well-crafted Occlumancy kinda goes out the window. In books 3 and 5 he throws actual temper tantrums about Sirius Black. Like, I feel Snape, deep down is actually super not well adjusted and is an emotionally unstable mess, but he learned to pretend otherwise. Basically, all the cold facade is just that — a facade. He isn't really that stoic.

3. James Potter

I'm weird about James. Like, he's almost a nonentity and what we do hear about him is either negative or comes from biased sources.

I do tend to give him more of the benefit of the doubt than a lot of other fans who prefer canon James do. He was awful when he was younger, he was a bully and he assaulted Snape and there is no excuse for his actions. That being said, I can believe he changed. War changes you and you'd be hard-pressed to find a 21-year-old who isn't ashamed of a lot of what they did or said when they were 15. And yes, some of what James did is definitely more extreme than that of the average person, but it isn't that extreme compared to the environment he grew up in. Remus tells Harry everyone was casting Levicorpous on each other in the halls. I'm not saying any of the bullying is okay, I'm just saying it probably seemed normal to him and this is important context. Same as I don't think Snape is abusive towards students when put in the context of their culture and environment where, until recently, they caned students (Snape actually seems very averse to corporeal punishment. He also likely treats Harry very different than he does literally any other student, but this is the James section).

I just, like the idea of James changing for the better. I'd like to think he did. That life and war and loss taught him something.

4. Peter Pettigrew

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I like Pettigrew more than Lupin. He's awful, he's pathetic, he's a cowardly rat man and I find his sniveling funny. Whenever I try to think of a what-if scenario in my head, Pettigrew is somehow the key to it. Because he's a character that affects so much of the plot in some incredibly crucial moments — he betrayed James and Lily, he resurrected the Dark Lord, and later, he allows Harry's survival. Idk, I just find his situation and just how pathetic he could get fascinating. It's, like, there is no rock bottom for this guy, he keeps digging. Like, you can't get more pathetic than living as a rat for 12 years when you could've moved to Argentina or something.

And at the same time, he clearly has some residual care for Harry for his father's friendship. He has so many opportunities to kill Harry or kidnap him when he runs away to join Voldemort — but he doesn't. Even after Sirius escapes and he knows his time is up, he still leaves Harry alive. When he is supposed to kill him in book 7, he doesn't, he again lets him go and pays with his own life for it. Like, again, idk, it's just how I feel.

5. Remus Lupin

I know I placed Lupin last, and it's because I don't personally like him that much. Pretty sure this is a little controversial, but I don't really like book Lupin, he does not vibe with me, at all. (Though I'd choose book Lupin over Marauders fandom Lupin every time)

Like, it bothers me that he doesn't actually care about Harry (the only one on the list who willingly physically harmed Harry, in a moment of anger, but still). It was Harry who asked to be taught the Patronus, if it was up to Remus, he wouldn't be involved in Harry's life at all. He tried to run on his wife when she got pregnant because he was scared. Like, Petttigrew is given shit for being a cowardly Gryffindor, but, look, you need some guts to betray your friends, so I'd argue Remus is the most cowardly Marauder (it's easy to be brave when you don't care for your own life).

But, all of this is part of his character and the story wouldn't be what it is if Remus bothered to get his head out of his own ass and check up on Harry. How he behaves makes him my personal least favorite Marauder, but I want Lupin to be a cowardly guy who runs away from attachment and responsibility because he doesn't trust himself with anything (especially not anything good). He's not cool, or suave, and he's desperate for people to like him but without actually knowing him because he thinks that if they do they'd run away screaming like he wants to run from himself. Honestly, I don't get why the Mauraders fandom made James the people-pleaser when Remus Lupin is right there always telling people what they want to hear so they'd like him.

Again, these are all my own personal subjective opinions, but yeah.

[fairykitten]

Hey I'm loving this blog at the moment, it's do comforting. Would you be okay If I requested a fanfic? Caregiver billie eilish x little reader. Little reader has been really stuggling with big emotions not reallt knowing how ro express them. We have a tantrum over something really little and Billie calms us down by giving reader cuddles.

Thank you ❤️

Hi Anon, I’m so sorry it took so long to get this out. I’ve been having some writers block (by some I mean a lot) but here it is I hope you like it. The ending is a little rushed.

Big Feelings

Cg Billie Eilish x Little Reader

Warnings: Angst, bottle feeding, tantrums, crying, I think that’s it

A/N: This took way too long to write but it’s definitely not my best

🛑 Completely SFW please do not sexualise this. I do not sexualise age regression 🛑

*Not proof read*

Grumpy wasn’t even a big enough word to describe it. You were extremely unhappy. You hadn’t been a very good girl lately for your Mama. You were sass mouthing her a lot. It was your fifth time in timeout this week and it was only Tuesday. It wasn’t that you were trying to be bad, you were actually a good girl and always did what mama told you. You didn’t know why you were acting up but you wanted to stop.

After your timeout was over mama came over to get you.

“Ok baby doll look at me come here” she said, her tone softer than it was when she put you in timeout. Billie pulled you into her lap and looked at your frown.

“Hey no frowning. You know why you were put here you were very rude to mama earlier.”

When she said that you looked down at your lap, fiddling sheepishly with your fingers. You wanted to be good, you really did but something was stopping you. You nodded and hugged Billie.

~Later-~

“Hey sweetheart I’m gonna make a start on lunch what would you like?”

You think for a second before answering “baba.”

“You can have a baba at nap time baby. You need real food first.”

That was not what you wanted to hear. You threw your crayons down on the table.

Billie watched as you started to tear up and scream. After watching you for a bit she came over and pulled you into her lap. Usually she would let you cry it out, you had your moments. But this one seemed different. 

She held your face in her hands. “Hey hey hey, what’s got my little girl so worked up?” She tried to ask but got no response. You just gripped her shirt and cried.

“Ok ok shhhh. It’s ok princess” she kissed you gently and rocked you until your cries subsided to hiccups and sniffles.

You looked up at her with glassy eyes and a red nose. “Mama” you whispered as you gripped her tighter.

“What’s got you so upset? You haven’t been yourself lately.” Billie asked again.

You just shrugged and hid your face in her neck.

“I think someone’s dealing with some big emotions. Is that right?”

You nodded and slipped further into Billie’s arms hiding away from the world. She picked you up and swayed with you gently patting your bum.

“Sweetheart, you should’ve told mama. I would’ve tried to help you” she soothed

“M sawi mama. Didn’t know how tell you.”

She held you tightly and walked to the kitchen with you secure on her hip. As you dug your face further into her neck you heard the microwave open and the buttons beeping. When you looked up, you saw Billie was warming a bottle for you. 

“You’re only getting this because you’re upset and clearly need a nap. You’re having food when you wake up” she said.

You laid your head back down on her and she took that as an unspoken agreement. Billie pulled the bottle out of the microwave and tested it on her wrist to make sure it wasn’t too hot and then she brought you into her room to lay down

Once you were in her room she laid you down in the bed and changed you into pyjamas before laying down herself and pulling you on top of her. You both moved around until you were situated with your body lying across Billie and your head in the crook of her arm.

Billie put the bottle to your lips and you took it. You gently closed your eyes. The room was silent. The only sounds came from your nose as you tried to breathe around all the leftover snot from your tantrum earlier and the small sounds coming from the bottle as you eagerly drank your milk.

Billie softly hummed as she fed you eventually falling asleep as well.

[yasmeensh]

Paleolithic Media Catalogue

Hello everyone :) Short story first: When I began brainstorming for my prehistoric story, I started wondering what other prehistoric fiction there is out there. I was not familiar with it and have not seen much. That's when I started my grand literature review and began a search for what fiction exist out there. I wanted to know what kinds of stories are being made with this time period. What are the common themes or recurring ideas (I found lots of humans and dinosaurs works. And time travel). Since I've had a growing collection on my computer, I decided I should keep on enlarging it and put it online. It's nowhere near complete. I'll slowly keep accumulating the collection as I find more. I only have fiction books and comics right now. I still need to work on the film section.

You can access the blog here!

***

As for where I am in my reading, the one's I've finished reading are Earth's Children series (book 1-4. Dropped it afterwards lol. I made a post on with fanart) Dance of the Tiger and it's sequel Singletusk (They were good! I'll upload my review on the blog), and Sisters of the Wolf (It was ok!). I got my hands on The Inheritors and excited to start reading it. I REALLY want to read the Shiva trilogy, but I found no PDF online... and it's out of print :( There is certainly old copies on ebay. And I want to read Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. There seem to be lots of good books out there.

[boxwinebaddie]

an uncle nina check in <3

hi team! thanks for sticking around! i know my blog isn't always the most exciting and enriching place in the world in terms of content, but i am very /content/ to have you all here. <3333

i promise, oddly enough, i have A TON of inspiration and ideas for all my weird styles ( if you're curious about anything please lmk! i've been trying to flesh out my aus out lately ), i've just been in a major bummer depression era lately, so it's hard for me to get my asks done and i'm having a hard time committing to finishing my writing. :<

i think it's because of stress and my bipolar, but i am trying to get back on the horse! ( are we all laughing at the idea of me trying to get on a horse? i'd start crying help city girl fail moment for me ) yeehaw!

and while, unfortunately due to the instability ( fabulous legendary iconery ) of my pretty girl popstar personality, i do not know whether i will be answering almost no questions or one million, regardless of that, i just wanted to let you know, i'm still here, still kicking my feet, twirling my hair, cooking...i'm just really trying not to force myself to put out anything i don't like...and only do what makes me truly happy.

however, nothing, my dear sweet e-darlings...

makes me happier than coming home to all of you. <333

so thank you for flooding even the darkest corners of my life with bright light, supporting my phantom fics and being wonderful,

uncle nina xx

[cerise-on-top]

Sorry for being annoying on main again, but does anyone have any tips on how to regain your writing spark? Writing feels like a chore more so than anything else these days, and it feels like those short breaks aren't cutting it anymore. But I'd feel guilty if I took another break, I just took one last week, after all. Has anyone been in the same boat? Does anyone have any idea regarding what I could do?

[queenlucythevaliant]

I'm watching Star Wars with my roommate, she hasn't seen any of it and she is completely unspoiled I am LIVING

[distracted-obsessions]

I am either going to have to figure out how to filter out this person's posts about rebloging or unfollow them...

[starlight-farmer-ozzy]

Welcome to Starlight Farm!

Howdy folks and welcome to my humble lil' farm!

I made this blog as a timeline of sorts to show off the progress I make towards fixin' my grandpa's ol' farm (may he rest in peace)

I suppose I should let y'all get to know me a lil' huh?

Name's Osmosis but please, call me Ozzy. I'm 26 and I use he/him. I'm a hard worker who just quit his job to take over his grandpa's old farm. I haven't been back here since I was, what 13?

God, it's been so long...

Anyways! I'm excited to go on this adventure with y'all! Let's do this!

-Ozzy <3

(Oh p.s and my mailbox is always open! Feel free to send questions or even just fun little notes! I've always wanted penpals!)

[elegyofthemoon]

While reading the relic story for Fleet of the Ageless, I ran into some mention of the "Three Sufferings":

Yet, just like the shifting of the sun and moon, what once prospered was fated to decline and what once brought elation must eventually induce agony. It was not until the arrival of the Three Sufferings, when people were tormented to near extinction, that the Xianzhou people finally came to understand the true nature of this so-called miracle, which was nothing but harrowing calamity. (The Xianzhou Luofu's Celestial Ark)

And I'm not really sure if they mention it elsewhere on the Luofu (I'm very slowly going through everything. Except I keep getting sucked into reading Belobog stuff >_>), but what it did make me think about however is that in Buddhism, there is something called the "three marks of existence", which refers to the three sources of suffering in the world. So I wanted to mostly write this up as a comparison between what's going on in the Luofu vs. Buddhist belief! (And a very big warning: I might be skimming over important details about the religion. I was born into a culture that is very heavily influenced by Buddhism and have grown up with some understanding of it while having to study it on my own, so I'm sure I'll get a lot of details wrong. So if I get anything wrong, you're always welcome to chime in!)

At least in my memory, I remembered that there was a suffering because of attachment to objects, to self, and to others -- all with the concept that all things do not last, so I had to search up these names properly.

anicca (impermanence): This is the core concept in which nothing lasts in this world. The inability to recognize the impermanence of life will then lead to grief -- suffering -- that humans face, as a result. You can actually see this with the Sanctus Medicus's desire for eternal life with Dan Shu who grieved the loss of her friend Yufei via the diaries that you could pick up

It's this idea of attachment to something bound to end some way or another that will inevitably lead to suffering/pain when that loss comes.

dukkha (suffering): The idea behind this mark is that the truth is that life cannot be satisfied. If there isn't suffering, there are moments of joy, but as all things in life, even the joy is brief.

I wouldn't exactly be able to pinpoint how this gets carried out on the Luofu. I would have said something about how the Luofu had once sought out eternal life which then led to the implanting of the Ambrosial Arbor by Yaoshi, but now are unsatisfied by their gift of eternal life to them. I could also say that at least with the longer lives that the Xianzhou natives have, they eventually lose interest in life itself because they've had the chance to sought out anything they could with their many years, which is better described in Yukong's third character story:

and for the final mark of existence: anatta (not self): If suffering comes from attachment, then an attachment to an image of one's self too can lead to a source of suffering. With time, everyone is bound to change and grow, so any attempts in trying to hold onto one specific image could lead to a source of pain.

I think the best way to display this concept is actually through Yaoshi's acts and why the Alliance condemns them and their "abominations" (themselves included :'D). To rid of the suffering that comes with death, Yaoshi hopes to grant the gift of eternal life, but it seems that coming back from the dead doesn't mean returning to one's old self, which I feel can be seen at least with Blade's case with his revival and no longer being Yingxing. These undead are what the Alliance hopes to get rid of. I think it can also be seen through Bailu's story quest with the girl who slowly becomes marastruck who panics the moment the armor and her skin becomes melded into each other, no longer able to retain her former image before meeting and reuniting with her lover, in which case the idea of "self" is an attachment to a physical form rather than something more abstract instead, and that leading to her own suffering in the end.

I'm sure that a lot of Hoyo's writing with weaving in Buddhism with the Luofu lore isn't coincidental (looks at Dan Heng) , and I'm sure that there's bound to be better show of each of these principles, but I think this is what Hoyo might be referring to when they write about the "Three Sufferings" in the relic. Maybe I'll come back to this post later if I find better evidence BUT I thought worth noting at least for now :) ty for reading if you made it this far

[afniel]

AH I REMEMBERED WHAT I WAS GONNA SAY EARLIER but it's kind of stupid, lmao.

So my partner is getting into brewing beer and I got them a Tilt, which is a Bluetooth hydrometer. It measures specific gravity and temperature, which are things you want to know so that you don't kill your yeast or whatever. Except the sensor's Bluetooth range is super short, and it basically runs via a phone app, and the temperature we're logging currently is the crawlspace, accessible via the staircase closet. So they were like, wait, what do we do about this, because I can't leave my phone in the closet, that's my alarm clock.

In a kind of ridiculous turn of life imitating art, I was like, hold up, I got just the thing right at my desk. Bam. Old phone. We just needed to scrounge up a charger because the battery is so dead that after charging just enough to power on it claimed it was at 53% (to be fair to it, there is a very real chance that it's correct, and it just holds no charge at this point so the capacity is just THAT low) and now it lives in the closet logging sensor data.

And I was like, you know...didn't I just solve a major story detail with a much larger version of this...yeah, no, this is all vaguely familiar somehow, power supply issues and all. Kind of cool that the concept works though. Kind of weird that it came up at all?

We are not gonna talk about the fact that I still have at least two more ancient-ass phones in a drawer where that came from because look, man, sometimes you just need a camera/mic/mini computer with Bluetooth and wifi that fits in a pocket, and people just get rid of these things, but not me. I actually could build a shitty security system out of them if I was reaaaally inclined. I mean. I'm not. But it's technically possible.

For real though, If I pick up any stupid maker projects I still high-key am thinking about slapping Bluetooth into a necomimi headset and running that through an Arduino and learning to code just enough to let me skip songs/change the volume on Spotify with my brain, because it's entirely doable, and I mean yeah I could do that on my phone remotely too, but that's not funny, now, is it. I'm just not sure it's $350+ of parts funny. Kind of a big investment just to prove the point that haha look I am the extremely ADHD type of lazy where I would rather solve a problem via the most convoluted and complicated Rube-Goldberg type ass machine way possible rather than just perform a single simple action.

YEAH I'VE BEEN THIS SCATTERED ALL DAY AND I REALLY SHOULD GO TO BED SHOULDN'T I. I started playing Satisfactory. Mistakes were made. I'm going to dream about conveyor belts again and I did it to myself...

[quick-drawn]

i'm just saying, if you're like me and have had 3 concussions within the span of a year and have trouble thinking and remembering things now, word hippo is a life saver —

[unproduciblesmackdown]

one in a million when i watch smthing in the horror genre and don't end up disappointed to/and/or pissed off about it so like "also yeah i liked it. ooo" is like relative to that an off the charts rave review of media of the millennium. also i did think about mh a lot along the way so would recommend its affect/effect if you like mh's horror too

[lovesour]

musings below

[queenlucythevaliant]

A Liturgy of Surviving

Scarlett always wanted to be like her mother, and maybe in another world she could have been. If the war never happened, she could have grown softer instead of sharper. She could have curbed her temper, married well, and been received in respectable homes all her days. Maybe, if it hadn’t been for the war, Scarlett O’Hara could have lived out her days in genteel artifice, just like Ellen before her.

Maybe. Maybe not. If you asked her, Scarlett would say that the question was irrelevant. “God’s nightgown!” she would exclaim. “Don’t ask me what could have been. The war happened and that’s that.”

          I won’t think about that now.  

The day after Scarlett’s world ended, she swore an oath that she would never be hungry again. 

She woke in pain. Her muscles ached and her joints creaked. She was nineteen, but she felt like she had a hundred years weighing her body down. Morning light slanted through the window and her head ached with the moonshine liquor that she’d downed the night before. From another room, she heard an infant crying. 

She passed through the dining room without eating, pausing only briefly beside her grief-ravaged father. She found Pork on the porch shelling nuts. The sun was up. Scarlett O'Hara drew herself tall and began to marshal her troops. 

Melly and her sisters were still infirm, so they were useless for now. Mammy could tend them, and Pork and Prissy were to round up the livestock. Dilcey to Macintosh, herself to Twelve Oaks; perhaps they’d find food. Yes, I know. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Now get going. 

Those days as the war staggered to its end were some of the longest of her life. In between them, Scarlett would collapse into bed and rub the welts on her feet with clumsy fingers. Sometimes she’d picture Ellen and all her gentle admonitions to kindness and refinement, and she’d say aloud to the walls, “What happened to me? What am I doing?”

She didn’t dwell on the question, but somehow, she always knew the answer. “I’m doing what I must,” she would answer herself. “I’m surviving.”

People didn’t talk back to Scarlett anymore. They were all afraid of her sharp tongue, of the new person who walked in her body. This Scarlett bullied and cajoled until everyone obeyed her, and inevitably her orders were to work. She was all edges; any softness that she’d once possessed had been sanded away splitting rails and picking cotton. Good, she thought. Let them fear me, if it keeps us all standing. 

          I’ll think about it tomorrow. 

Scarlett was sixteen when the war began: sixteen in green muslin, fearless and unencumbered. She had her mother’s slim waist and her father’s square jaw, but her clear green eyes were her own.

She was sixteen when she married Charles Hamilton and lost him, seventeen when she bore his child and draped herself in black crepe. She got Melly and Wade in the bargain, but she didn’t want either of them. She wanted Ashley. She wanted to dance! She wanted, she wanted. She wanted Scarlett O’Hara back. 

At nineteen years old, Scarlett survived the destruction of her whole world. She could have cried for the loss of her girlhood, for her old self long gone with the soft hands and dancing slippers, but what good would it have done? Curled up in her childhood bed at Tara, Scarlett didn’t cry. Instead, she folded in on herself, knees tucked up to her chest, and tried not to feel her muscles aching. She would have to get up again tomorrow, no matter how badly her shoulders still hurt.

She had strong shoulders, Scarlett O’Hara. That was maybe the most important thing about her. At any time, at any age, her shoulders could bear whatever they were given. “I’m surviving,” she would say each morning when she rose. A stranger’s freckled face greeted her in the mirror, but Scarlett only squared her small thin shoulders, breathed in, took one step and then another.

          Tomorrow, when I can stand it.

Calluses form like this: repeated pressure or friction is applied to the skin, most often of the hand or the foot. The outer layer, which is made of dead cells, begins to be retained rather than flaking off normally. The dead cells accumulate, forming hard layers sometimes hundreds of cells thick. 

They form like this: you use your skin. The shell of hardness around it slowly thickens. 

          I can stand anything now. 

The day after Rhett left, Scarlett packed up Wade and Ella and she once again drove the long road home to Tara. She pushed her way past Suellen at the threshold, exchanged brief pleasantries with Will, and then fell into her old bed as she’d done so many times before.

The next morning found Scarlett basking in the slanting yellow light that struck the porch from the east. Her eyes were fixed on the fields beyond and there was a devilish look on her face. 

When Rhett came back—and he would come back, he had promised he would—he would find her here at Tara, where she was strongest. “He liked when I was strong,” Scarlett said to herself. That was something she’d always known, for all that she’d been blind to the true dimensions of it.

Day after day, Scarlett rose and moved through Tara’s halls. She ate her breakfasts in the place where she’d faced down the Yankee army, sorted through figures where she’d once debated with Melanie over whether they ought to risk sending Pork out on the horse to look for food. Twenty times a day, she walked past the place at the base of the stairs where she’d shot her deserter dead. Here, in these halls, she had made her greatest stands.

She’d stood more rigidly then, threadbare and starving and uncertain. She’d come to the end of herself, only to find that she had wells of strength hidden deeper than she knew. Her hands were calloused and dirty. What else could she do?

          I’ll never be hungry again.

It’s easy to view Scarlett as hard and amoral. Even those closest to her would not have contested that characterization. Perhaps Melly would have argued, but then, Melly always saw the good in everyone. Scarlett killed and she stole and she schemed and she cheated, and she did it all in cold blood. What a selfish, conniving bitch, you might say.

It’s easy to forget Scarlett’s compassion. When she beat that poor horse to keep it trudging the long road home to Tara, she regretted hurting a tired animal. Her concern for Melanie, her friendship for Will Benteen, her joy when Rhett made her laugh: these were all true and genuine.

Didn’t Scarlett love her father and mother? Didn’t she grieve to see her friends and neighbors ruined by war? Scarlett O’Hara risked her life to save Charlie’s sword for Wade to inherit, and she built her mills for him and Ella both.

None of this negates the ruthless things she did in the name of survival, but it does begin to explain them. Scarlett made herself hard when hard was what she needed to be. She determined to live without reservation, without softness and with little kindness. Rhett called her cruel, and maybe he was right. But Melly also called her sacrificial and devoted, and maybe she was right too. 

          No, nor any of my kin.

On that road home to Tara, Scarlett once said, “If the horse is dead, I will curse God and die too.” Someone in the Bible had done just that—cursed God and died. Scarlett remembered feeling like that person, a despair of Biblical magnitude.

But the horse was alive, and so Scarlett did not die. Later, she thanked God that her knees still had the strength to support her, that her neck was still strong enough to hold her head high. Scarlett was not Job’s wife, nor even Job himself. She was Rahab, who escaped the destruction of Jericho, who saved her whole household and survived.

“What a fast trick,” said the Old Guard when she stole Frank Kennedy away from Suellen. No, Scarlett could never be Job. She was Jacob, the trickster and supplanter.

          Just a few more days for to tote the weary load.

Scarlett was easily provoked into courage; that was one of the first things that Rhett learned about her. A few insults, a pointed comment, and Scarlett lifted her chin and flounced off to prove just how brave she could be. She shed her crepe years early, and to Halifax with anyone who objected.

Rhett did that same thing to her on the awful day that Atlanta burned. He insulted her and laughed at her, and when Scarlett spat, “I’m not afraid,” it was true. Her hands, which had moments ago been shaking too badly to hold anything, were steady now, and anger had crowded all the fear out of her voice.

Rhett kept needling her all the way out of the city, until they reached the Rough and Ready where he left her. The banter kept her sharp. As long as her eyes were flashing in indignation, she hardly noticed the fire.

Even after Rhett left, his jabs stayed with her. “What would Rhett say if he knew I couldn’t do this?” spurred her back into action more times than she would ever admit. It was a petty kind of courage, and it felt smaller than the great, soaring motivation that came with thoughts of Tara, of the O’Hara name and Irish pride and red earth, but sometimes petty courage was enough to bridge the gap between strength and exhaustion.

He gave her something to hold onto, something to ground her, and even Rhett only halfway understood what that meant. I want you at your best, he never told her, but he pulled her into it by taffeta ribbons and witticisms. As the years rolled by, she rose to meet him. They swapped sharp words and insults, him always claiming to know her and her shouting, “You don’t know half!”

One day on the jostling ride out to her mills, Scarlett told Rhett about the fire that the Yankees set in Tara’s kitchen. “I’m not afraid of fire anymore,” she declared with something like pride, and Rhett remembered goading her past the flames the night Atlanta burned. “I beat it out with my skirts, and then Melly had to beat me out when my back caught,” she went on. “Now I’m not afraid of anything but hunger.”

I don’t want you to fear anything in all the world, Rhett didn’t say. Once they were married, he laughed at her appetite and teased her, “Don’t scrape the plate, Scarlett. I’m sure there’s more in the kitchen.”

           No matter, ‘twill never be light.  

After the war, Rhett had his millions. Ashley had his honor. Melly had the Association for the Beatification of the Graves of Our Glorious Dead. Scarlett held a ball of red clay in her fist and whispered, “I have this.”

Her father built Tara from nothing and he loved those acres like they could love him back. He had come to Georgia a poor immigrant boy and he had won that red earth. Whatever Gerald could do, his daughter could do too: of this she was certain. This land, this firm red clay on which she stood, was both her battlefield and her prize; her birthright and her hallowed ground. She gripped it tight with all the passion of a lover. She longed for its rolling fields on cold nights in Atlanta, sleeping beside Frank Kennedy.

“Yes, I have this,” and she let the dirt run between her fingers and lodge beneath her nails. Melly had Ashley and Ashley his senseless honor. Scarlett had Tara.

          I’ve still got this.

When she rode out in her buggy with her lap robe pulled up to her bosom, Scarlett heard how people whispered. She felt indignant about it the first time, and the second time she worried what Ellen would have thought. The third time, she decided not to care.

She still complained to Rhett about the whispering as he was holding the reins one afternoon. He didn’t laugh at her, just looked sideways from the road with his dark eyes and nodded like he understood. “Be different and be damned!” Rhett said, and his tone was like a soldier who’d heard the bugle. It was so strange, how Scarlett could tell him all the worst things about her and he would always answer back like they were medals instead of secret shames. 

Most of the city was in mourning, but Scarlett wore colors. She pilfered the store’s inventory in search of bright green, washed and mended her curtain dress as many times as it would stand, and when the money came she wore gowns of emerald, blush, indigo, and scarlet. Let them stare, she thought. See if I care.

At twenty-two, Scarlett rode up to Pittypat’s in the evenings, long after Frank had come home from the store, and she felt condemned. To the well-bred folks of Atlanta, she was as bad as a Scallawag. But sometimes, when she was alone, Scarlett ran her hands beneath the lap robe and hoped that Rhett was wrong about children and grandchildren, that the child she was carrying would understand one day. I hope you’re nothing like Frank, she thought. I hope you have shoulders like mine.

           I’ll never be hungry again.

“It’s no use, Scarlett. You can’t scrub out the past,” said Rhett when at last he came to Tara. “You can’t take back the last ten years, no matter how you’ve come — to appreciate my charms.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Scarlett snapped. “There’s never any going back. Not ever. But Rhett—” she reached for his hand. “I love you, and at last we understand each other. We can build something out of that.”

They argued about it until Rhett left again, fuming and bitter, his Panama hat pulled low over his face. Scarlett made an unannounced visit to Charleston the next month. “I was thinking,” she suggested, “That we might sell the Peachtree Street house.”

Scarlett knew all the words for making men love her, so long as she understood what it was that they wanted. The Tarleton twins had wanted merry excitement; Charles had wanted to feel important and Frank had wanted to feel like a strong, successful man. Ashley had wanted someone braver and better than he was, and he’d found it in Melanie without having to risk himself on Scarlett. Scarlett had never understood what it was Rhett wanted, but she did now. Why, it’s always been my love he wants! So Scarlett spoke the right words, and this time she meant them.

“You were right when you said that we’re alike. Only—you’ve always known about me, whereas I’m just starting to know you. Will you tell me about that knife fight in California again? About the sail boat you won at cards?”

“You know those stories,” clipped Rhett. “You don’t need to hear them again.” So Scarlett went downstairs and pried the stories out of his mother instead.

The house on Peachtree Street sold within the month, snatched up by some Carpetbagger who wanted it for a hotel. Rhett traveled to Mexico, and returned to find Scarlett back at Tara preparing for spring planting.

“What do the women wear in Mexico?” she asked him, leaning on the porch railing in the slanting light. “What is your favorite place you’ve ever traveled?”

Rhett indulged her in brief, but then abruptly he chuckled and shook his head. “I know what you’re doing, you little minx.”

“Yes,” said Scarlett. “Of course you do.”

           Tomorrow, oh tomorrow!

The clay soil of Georgia is red from iron oxides. It’s red the way rust is red, the way blood is red. If a blister splits open and your blood falls on the ground, that iron-red soil will just swallow it up. You can bleed and bleed, and the stuff in your blood will always be one with the stuff of the soil.

When cotton and vegetables sprout from the ground, it’s easy to believe they grew from your very own blood, and that your own sweat and tears watered them.

           Never look back.  

“We women were soldiers too,” Melanie said once. Scarlett didn’t respect her yet—at least, not consistently—but this might have been one of the moments where she first looked at Melly and thought not that her heart was soft and timid, but that it was a sword.

“We never expected to be – or at least I didn’t.” She looked around the circle of ladies, at India and Fanny, until her eyes came to rest on Scarlett at last. “We were children then. We all imagined the world far simpler than it was.”

Melly, India, Fanny, Scarlett. These women had all been girls together. They knew one another at seven, twelve, fifteen, swaddled in silks and trying to seem more grown-up than their playmates. They’d competed for beaus and Scarlett had mostly won, except where Ashley Wilkes was concerned. They had lived through the war together. Now, Scarlett sat among them on Melly’s front porch and tried to remember if she’d ever in her life felt like one of them.

For Christmas, Melanie gave Scarlett a small book of poetry. Scarlett never read it, except for the one verse which Melly had marked with a green ribbon. She bit back the urge to sigh when she undid the wrapping, but Melly pointed out the bookmark and said, “This one made me think of you, dear.”

Scarlett didn’t like to think of it now, but once she’d been sixteen in green muslin, confident that dimples and a clear complexion were the only weapons she’d ever need. She had been a child, but that child had not died when Atlanta burned. The belle of Clayton County was not in the grave with all the boys who’d never come riding home from war. Scarlett was alive. She was right here.

“What is a dead girl but a shadowy ghost/ Or a dead man's voice but a distant and vain affirmation/Like dream words most? / Therefore I will not speak of the undying glory of women. / I will say you were young and straight and your skin fair/ And you stood in the door and the sun was a shadow of leaves on your shoulders/ And a leaf on your hair—"

Scarlett came home from her mills in the gray evening and she made her way back to the Wilkes’s ramshackle front porch. She left her buggy feeling condemned and she sat with the other ladies feeling alienated, but all the same she couldn’t bring herself not to go. The war was over, and these were the survivors. They were through fighting, hung up on glory, but Scarlett still hadn’t holstered her guns. 

“We were soldiers,” said Melanie, and in her heart Scarlett added, “Some of us still are.”

           I won’t let them lick me.

Supposing that Ashley had married her. Perhaps the sight of her in green makes him brave enough to shed his veneer of honor and say, “Yes, you’re right, I can’t live without you.” It’s a minor scandal when he casts Melanie off in her favor, but not for long. The war is beginning and besides, good men have made themselves fools for Scarlett O’Hara before. By the time the soldiers march away, the scandal is all but forgotten in favor of the fine figure they cut as they embrace at the depot: Ashley so brave in his uniform, his young wife radiant as she clutches him.

Ashley sends her long, meandering letters full of philosophical musings. Scarlett reads them uncomprehending and sends back missives full of I love yous. She kisses them when she mails them, sometimes with a Hail Mary for her husband’s safety.

Rhett doesn’t notice this Scarlett at Twelve Oaks, and so he’s caught off guard when he hears the young Mrs. Wilkes say something blunt and scathing at the Bazaar. He chuckles to himself in delight and later he asks her to dance, and of course Scarlett simpers and agrees, and it’s a merry night. But Rhett doesn’t come back to Atlanta for the rest of the war.

This Scarlett leaves for Macon with the rest of the women when the Yankees come to Atlanta; after all, she has no Melly to keep her in the city during the siege. She takes Ashley’s child with her, and it’s in Macon that he finds her after the war. He waxes poetic about the Old Days, the Horrors of War and Götterdämmerungs and the like. He looks at her with sad, tired eyes and Scarlett says yes, I heard you the first time. But what are we going to do?

Twelve Oaks is razed. They go to Tara. Ashley tries his hand at farming, but it’s Scarlett who manages to pick and plant and organize while Ashley’s fumbling attempts at working with his hands yield scant success. His heart isn’t in it, which infuriates Scarlett. C’mon, get up and fight! She looks into the tired face of the man she loved so ruinously at sixteen and wonders what she ever thought was so noble about him.

When taxes come due there’s no way to pay. What’s more, Ashley doesn’t even try. It’s here that Scarlett breaks with her husband. Between Ashley and Tara, it’s Tara every time.

So Scarlett bullies her husband into calling old debts in from a few impoverished friends and when that isn’t enough, she goes to see the tax assessor dressed in green velvet and makes some very personal insinuations about Mr. Jonas Wilkerson. From there, Scarlett bullies her one-time-beloved and does as she pleases, and Ashley has to live with the fact that it’s his wife who provides for the family. In every world, it is Scarlett O’Hara who keeps Ashley Wilkes alive after the war.

His pride lays down in the dirt and dies. Scarlett Wilkes shakes her head bitterly and plants more seed in her red, red earth.   

Supposing Scarlett could have imagined all this. What do you think she would say? Perhaps in her youth she would have cherished the idea, but the hard-eyed Scarlett who emerged after the war would have only leveled her small shoulders and said, “What does it matter what would have happened? I’ll think about it later.”

           There but for a lot of gumption am I.

The day after Bonnie died, Scarlett called for the buggy and went to her store. Rhett took this as proof that Scarlett had never really loved the little girl, that she was devoid of maternal affection as he’d always suspected, but Scarlett was grieving in her own way. She threw out two uncut bolts of blue velvet: expensive fabric over which she’d have upbraided a clerk to hell and back if he’d wasted even a few inches. 

It was true that Scarlett had never wanted any of her children when she’d carried them. She had not felt joy or love or any of the feelings that other women described when first she saw them. What she did feel, in the moments after Dr. Meade placed each child in her arms, was a fierce surge of protectiveness. She was certain that she would work and sacrifice and even die for her children, if need be. They were her blood, her flesh, her kin.

Scarlett had hated pregnancy each time it happened to her. She hated feeling large and lumbering, hated the way that her tiny waist bloated and grew until even her modified dresses didn’t fit right. She hated the inconvenience of morning sickness, the limitations on what she could do, the necessity of seclusion as delivery drew near. It was nine months of hardship and frustration capped off with many long minutes of excruciating pain. 

Bonnie had died in an instant. She’d been flying towards the hurdle and then, half a breath later, she’d been gone. Standing in the back of the store with two bolts of blue velvet before her, Scarlett swallowed back tears that Rhett would never see. It wasn’t right that a child who’d taken her so much time and effort to bring into the world could be gone from it so quickly. 

When she returned to the house a few hours later, Rhett had locked himself in the bedroom with Bonnie’s tiny body. Scarlett paused for a moment outside the door, but then she squared her shoulders and kept walking. 

          Just a few more days for to tote the weary load. 

Scarlett had a habit of humming “My Old Kentucky Home” while she worked. Splitting wood, planting and picking cotton, driving between her mills, keeping the books—even sewing. The song was a thoughtless thing, an instinctual thing. She hummed it the same way a person might worry lips between teeth or tear at nails. 

She repeated the words again and again until her heart pulsed to their rhythm. Just a few more days for to tote the weary load. I’ll think about it tomorrow, when I can stand it. Tomorrow, tomorrow. No matter, ‘twill never be light. I’ll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my kin. I’ll never be hungry again. They were a mantra: something to hold onto when the whole breadth of her world had narrowed to a single point. A refrain. A liturgy of surviving.

          Just a few more steps

Rhett loved Scarlett and it was terrifying. He feared that she would treat him like one of her country beaus: a lovely toy to play with and to tear to ribbons when she was done. He was afraid, so he hid his heart behind his impressive poker face and said “I want you” instead of “I love you.” He called her “pet” instead of “sweetheart.”

Scarlett loved Rhett and it was slow. He brought her bonnets and bonbons and Scarlett thought, “Why, it’s almost like I was in love with him!” He came to help her the day Atlanta burned, and Scarlett thought that she’d like to stay in his arms forever. When he chauffeured her to the mills, she thought that he was the only person in the world to whom she could tell the truth.

"You never told me you loved me, you know," Scarlett said the next time she visited Charleston. "I never knew. That's not to say you were wrong about me - about what I would have done if you had said something. But you should have been brave enough to risk it all the same."

Rhett closed his eyes for a moment and his mask slipped away. It was doing that more and more these days.

"But I did tell you — once."

"I think I would have remembered that," said Scarlett, pursing her lips.

"Ah. ‘It is far off; and rather like a dream than an assurance that my remembrance warrants.’ I suppose my humble confession was the least of your worries that day."

Scarlett wrinkled her nose. "What?"

"The day Atlanta burned, my dear."

After a long moment, Scarlett gave a little gasp which turned into a sigh as it ended. "Oh. That's right, you did then, didn't you?" She shook her head. "Rhett, I do believe you have the worst timing of any person I know."

          As God is my witness

The day she married Charles, she wore Ellen’s cream-colored silk gown, aired out in a hurry from the chest where it had been sitting since the O’Haras married back in 1846. She couldn’t breathe for how tight her laces were —sixteen inches, like Ellen’s waist was when the dress was purchased— and perhaps that was a good thing. Scarlett was light-headed throughout the ceremony and she scarcely remembered it afterwards. 

The day she decided to have Frank, it was raining hard. Scarlett left the jail in sodden velvet and was grateful for the drops falling on her cheeks to disguise the tears. It was sunny the day of the wedding, but she scarcely noticed that. Afterwards, when she thought of marrying Frank, Scarlett would always remember the rain. 

There was a fine mist over everything the day she got Rhett back for good. Scarlett was wearing her work clothes when he came riding up to Tara; she’d been walking the cotton fields that day, overseeing the progress of the crop. They were both a little damp when he kissed her.

           I’ll never be hungry again.

O’Haras and Robillards had always known how to dig their nails in, and by God, Scarlett was both. Her namesakes had long ago fought for their own plots of Irish earth; had survived and died and been hanged fighting to hold onto it. All Scarlett’s forebears, her folk, had left crescent-moon imprints on all that was theirs when it was finally pried from her hands. Scarlett gripped her little ball of clay and felt her nails dig into the heels of her hands.

She was her father’s hot-tempered daughter, but she had her mother’s steel-hewn spine. All the years of her life, she never saw Ellen Robillard O’Hara rest her back against a chair.  When Scarlett’s own time came, she held herself every bit as straight as her mother: she didn’t rest or lean, just stood and stood.

Maybe this is what she was always made for. Her green eyes weren’t for charming young men, they were for seeing dresses in curtains. Her hands were never supposed to be soft; they were meant for digging in the red dirt. Even her lips—Rhett was wrong, they weren’t meant for kissing. Scarlett’s lips were as sharp as the words that she spoke when she wasn’t afraid what anyone thought. They were meant to draw blood.

She had been sharp all her life, even when her edges were carefully concealed in layers of satin. Scarlett was not made to be soft; her core held no gentleness. She could not pretend otherwise. All she could do was stand straight, and hold up her tired old shoulders like they were the strongest thing in the world.

           I’ll think about it tomorrow. 

One day, at the Butler home in Charleston, Rhett taught Scarlett how to play poker, and subsequently how to cheat. They were still playing hours later, counting cards and hiding them in sleeves and making all kinds of ridiculous bets on losing hands. Just as she was taking off her right earbob to call, the thought rose to Scarlett’s mind unbidden: “What on earth are we doing here?” And just as quickly, there was the answer. “We’re living.”

At the end of this most recent road home, weary and damp from running through the fog, Scarlett found her way back into Rhett’s arms. In the evenings she listened to his stories and witticisms, and late at night she listened to the sound of his breathing. I will not speak of undying glory, she thought. Rhett was still here, and so was she. They were both still here.

Scarlett took off her left earbob too, for good measure. “I’ll raise you,” she said. “I have a good feeling about this hand.” There was still an ace hidden up her sleeve, but if Rhett noticed it he didn’t say anything. 

They survived together. They built something new. There is always profit to be made in building things, and these two were nothing if not industrious.

           After all, tomorrow is another day.

[gxlden-angels]

the only person who was actually right about the world and human nature was Max striner everyone else is a fucking moron

Striner? I hardly know 'er!

Anyways, I'm not a philosophy expert. I'm just some guy. I like the egoist belief that there isn't a universal moral truth. I like the absurdist belief that, because nothing matters, we should be radically sincere. I like the christian belief in a place without suffering after this life. I like the Universal Random Number Generator idea my therapist and I talk about

All of them have their flaws though. Egoism gets used to condemn social movements and civil rights advocacy. Absurdism and the RNG can create a sense of existential dread and a loss of motivation. Christianity encourages the loss of identity and free will

I'm just some psych student with a weird ass therapist that understands my weird ass brain. He encouraged me to look into absurdism since I took a class on absurdist literature my freshman year of college and he said I might enjoy looking into the actual philosophy. And I do! At least a lot of it! I like the idea of a chaotic universe and us humans trying our best to control it. I like the idea of letting that go and living authentically instead of with a direct purpose. There's chaos and mayhem and entropy and I'm just here to react to it. And I can react in ways that makes others happier if I wanted just because I can

Egoism/egotism feels too disconnected from the human need to connect to me. It traps me into that feeling that doing something good for someone is selfish if you're doing it to feel good. I'm actively working to get out of that spiral Christianity put me in now

I don't know, though, anon. I'm just some college student with an ex-christian tumblr blog and a lot of trauma. I like to believe there's some Universe-sized Abstract Computer with a random number generator that causes the chaos we call home. I skim wiki pages and reddit posts and decided if I want to engage any further/look for textbooks. I could possibly be looking at the wrong page about the wrong philosophy. I'm honestly just on this earthly plane for the bit