#about how all of these things are fundamentally inextricable and connected

[soldier-poet-king]

No fr maybe sometimes ur intrusive nsfw ocd thoughts aren't ocd or sex but are ur brain trying to work thru some awful uncomfortable realizations about urself and the broken warped links between the nebulous concepts of punishment, comfort, reward, and deserve and how the lines are blurred and none of these really mean anything to u

[max1461]

I think I just love people and I love the things that people do.

I've said this before, but I don't really like the notion of culture-the-count-noun, "cultures" as discrete entities. Rather, I think of culture broadly as the whole body of human practices, institutions, and ideas. Naturally, many of these institutions and practices are geographically or socially localized, but always in ways that have fuzzy and ever-shifting boundaries. Culture is just "the things that people do".

But, you see, what I want to stress here is I am fundamentally, at my core, filled with love for the things that people do, and filled with love for and excitement over the world we make together. I am obviously well aware that human society is imperfect, that there is injustice, and so on, but... I'm not quite sure how to articulate this, surely that fact is "secondary"? Surely what is wrong with injustice is that it is a stain on an otherwise wonderful world? If the world was nasty to its core, I don't really think I could get so worked up over injustice. Injustice is bad because life is full joy if we're allowed to access it, the things that humans do and make ("culture") are in general wonderful and joyous things, often marred as they are by the imperfection of the world.

Food is a good example. There is, at the end of the day, no way that I can justify the mass consumption of meat in the present world. I value the lives of animals and so, in some sense, meat consumption is an abomination to me. But when I look at cuisine, broadly, which in most regions of the world does feature meat... I mean, I love cuisine! I love how it tastes, I love the passion people show for cooking it, I love the way it brings people together. These are clichés but they are true, this is in fact the nature of things. Food is endlessly fascinating, endlessly exciting and subtle to the senses; food is an example of human culture, that is to say human activity, at its absolute finest. And yet it is, in the present world, inextricably linked to the slaughter of animals, something I regard as deeply and utterly heinous.

You can have two responses to this. On the one hand, you can disavow all the joys of food, at least food connected to this slaughter, you can become hardened to its joys and hateful of it. I regard this as unambiguously the wrong choice. On the other hand you can... hope for something better? For instance, I hope that one day in the not too distant future, artificially grown meat will allow meat-based cuisine to exist without the killing of animals. And... well, if I was faced today with a button that said "turn everyone on earth into a vegan, thereby bringing about an end to animal slaughter but also to humanity's collective knowledge and practice of meat-based cookery, to all local specialties and family recipes and subtle techniques featuring meat that have not been thoroughly documented", I think I would probably feel I had to press the button. But I would be devastated by doing so. I would regard it as a tragedy of extreme proportions, necessary only to prevent a much greater evil.

I sometimes encounter people, not just with respect to meat but with respect to a variety of topics, who would gladly, enthusiastically, without hesitation push that button. Who would relish the opportunity to cleanse the world once and for all of its imperfections. I regard this attitude as antithetical to almost everything I stand for.

This post was a bit rambling but I think I've made my point.

[indignantlemur]

⭐️😉

Hello again dear! I'm gonna pick Emigre, since I don't think you've read The Stars Keep Watch just yet.

Let's talk about this little tidbit from Chapter 41: Grace and Poise!

‘Women are shapeshifters, jenta mi.’ Kirtsen Gunnarssen had once told her increasingly alarmed young daughter, a lifetime ago. ‘We are forever changing, inside and out. We change even more when we become mothers, but even if we don’t we still change. Men do something similar, but it’s different. It seems slower for them, I sometimes think. Be kind to yourself when it happens, and accept the changes with grace and poise.’

The memory of Dagmar's mother was something I really wanted to focus on in connection to that. Dagmar's mother (aka Kirsten Gunnarssen) was a kind woman, if a little reserved outside of the family, and she took the time to share bits of wisdom and advice with her daughter just as her own mother did for her. For this, I tried to think about the things my own mother told me, what my friends' mothers told them, and also about the things I wish my mother had told me. I tried to think about how I might one day explain those things to my own daughter, should I ever have one.

How do you tell your child just barely out of puberty that their body is an endlessly changing thing, that they're not really done yet? How do you tell your daughter that these changes are normal and natural? Well, one way is to make it part of her nature, something fundamental and inextricable; the sky is blue, water is wet, and your body is always changing. Only, it's not just her body that's different and changing, it's all of our bodies - so you say women are shapeshifters. Women are forever changing forms and shedding their skins to be made new again, because that is what you are and what she will be, and maybe if you say it like that she'll understand what you didn't when your mother tried to explain. It's poetry and hope and ancient knowledge passed down in a handful of sentences that will shape how she views herself for decades to come.

Dagmar's mother explained as best as she could, and Dagmar remembered - 200 years into the future - to be kind to herself.

[aprayerforclarity]

1/25

Card: Three of Wands

I know I've had these realizations many times before, but it's kinda hilarious (if not torturous) that I have to keep reminding myself that almost all of life is driven between pain and pleasure. Maybe this is just the 7w6 me talking here, but you really can just boil so many human behaviors down to people rationalizing NOT doing something that is painful and then rationalizing moving towards something that is pleasurable. I feel like I've been painfully aware of this in all my behaviors lately.

Of course this causes me to ask what exactly is pain or pleasure. The most immediate answer is that they're chemicals that come from the brain. It is my current worldly understanding is that we're controlled by our brains. Our minds are our brains. All our senses of self and abstract thoughts are created by neurochemistry.

I recently just watched a few hours of my favorite neurobiologist (bordering on philosopher), Robert Sapolsky, and his whole theory about human behavior really resonated with me. Just as many, many writers and thinkers have dwelled on before, (mine most literary reference being the foreword of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions) is that all we really know in objective, material reality is that humans are machines. Sapolsky's very compelling narrative is that humans have no free will, and that you can ultimately boil ALL of human behavior down to chemicals firing off in their own brains.

Now this may seem like too reductive of a statement. However, the nuance lies in how up until this very point of consciousness, the very decisions and thoughts going through your head, are all inextricably linked to all of your past experiences as a human, starting off with your immediate past actions. As many of us can probably relate to, after a big lunch it is hard to really focus and get back to concentrating on something for work. This is because after a big meal, your body is busy delegating resources to your digestive system. Perhaps there's a spike in your blood-sugar levels, triggering the release of insulin and causing brain fog. So when you get back from a high-carb lunch and have to begin systematically programming a React component hierarchy for the frontend of your website, it can be really hard to do that, due to the chemicals shifting around in your brain and body.

But that chain reaction keeps going back. Let's say earlier in the week, your significant other broke up with you. Obviously that is a very traumatic experience (depending on the situation) and it's left you feeling very bad. Because of a deeper, more primitive human need for connection or love, that severance of a relationship that provided you with those feelings (oxytocin, serotonin, etc.) you may find it hard to focus on the things you have in front of you as well.

The idea is that you can keep taking things further and further back, experiences in your life that you've processed through your consciousness and thus your body reacting by producing chemicals linger in the body, and not only effect your body, but the neural pathways in your brain. This chain keeps going further and further back, where each experience or thought you've experienced in your life shapes your neural pathways by either reinforcing them, creating new pathways or by shutting particular ones down.

These chains of events even go all the way back to before we are even born. When we are in our mother's wombs we receive chemicals as the building blocks of our psychical bodies from our mothers. Through the chains of events in our mother's lives, Our mothers bodies react to the events of their own lives and pass along the resulting chemicals down to us. If a mother experiences chronic stress due to not being able to afford her living expenses, those cortisol chemicals and others are passed onto their babies embryos and begin fundamentally shaping how they began to grow.

This all begins to immediately answer the physical reasons how we are as people and how we interact with the world around us. It is all immediately boiled down to particles in our bodies and minds. But is there something more mystical driving everything at a deeper level? I really don't know.

[upwardwrites]

I’m reworking a section tonight and it led me to a neat realization about Sadie and Eugene’s relationship. But first … I gotta talk about some of their fundamental struggles.

Sadie struggles with things tied to “home and family.” A sense of place and who you come from are pivotal in Appalachian value systems. In some ways, her understanding of home and family are unshakeable. She’s the daughter of that scoundrel Esco Barton who grew up strong and tall like the mountain she was born on.

But her mama died when she was little and growing up with her daddy broken from it was real hard on her. Especially when he kicked her out and she left the hills and didn’t come home for ten years. Always moving or shifting quarters and no contact with any of her people.

Eugene struggles with the responsibility that accompanies being able to fix and build things. He wants to help and be useful, and as the second youngest in a big family, to be seen. He’s good at fixing what he knows and learning how to fix what he doesn’t. And he likes to build things that are pretty and useful.

But as things break down more and more following the collapse of modern civilization, he feels increasingly responsible for fixing things that he doesn’t know how to build if they break too much. Glass windows. The generators. The burden is heavy and reminds him that he couldn’t fix what happened to his family or repair the damage the shattered leg left him with.

It all weighs on these poor sweet kids whether they recognize it or not (Sadie might be smart, but emotional intelligence isn’t a strength given her upbringing - Eugene can see the connection).

Then they meet each other. And Sadie finds someone with a powerful understanding of family and home who anchors her as she finds her sense of place and becomes fiercely reattached to her home and her people.

Meanwhile, Eugene finds someone with a powerful understanding of how to fix things and make things from nothing who helps him see that something breaking isn’t the end of the world and helps him carry the weight.

Together they fix the broken parts left by the deaths of their families and build a home in each other. Their stories are different but weave together and become inextricably entwined.

Exploring their motivations/backgrounds keeps revealing these little connections I didn’t see at first. Like little bits of gold tucked away in the words.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

The thing about Dean is not... that he’s an All-American man who likes muscle cars and classic rock and unhealthy meat dishes and having sex with diner waitresses and incidentally fell in love with a man.

The narrative deconstructs each of these aspects of his personality. We get told that he doesn’t like these things because it’s a Manly Thing to do, or an American thing to do.

He loves his car. The car is the only possession of the Winchester family that survived the fire that killed Mary and destroyed their house and all their belongings from their life before the tragedy. The car became the only stable element in their lives. It was the only thing they could call a home in a life of homelessness and motels. It’s where Dean and Sam grew up. Yes, Dean likes to drive fast and is proud of his big sleek car, but the car has a sentimental value that goes way beyond it being a big fast car.

Classic rock is the music Dean associates to his parents. He’s heard the story from John, how his parents bonded over Led Zeppelin. It’s a story that stuck with him, to the point it’s what he uses to prove to Mary that he is her son and is telling the truth. We could argue that Led Zeppelin are associated to romance and seduction in his mind, to the point the siren uses that in their (successful) seduction of Dean.

Unhealthy meat dishes are one of few memories of Mary he has. He remembers her meatloaf (and was heartbroken to learn that it wasn’t handmade) and of course the Winchester Surprise, a horrible concoction that Dean tried to replicate only to incur in John’s anger. Not even counting in the issue of Dean’s history with food scarcity, there’s an aspect of comfort inextricably tied to Dean’s relationship with food.

Comfort is also the fundamental thing Dean seeks in sex. It’s established that the casual nature of his sexual encounters is an obliged choice, and he actually longs for more stable relationships. The “adiós” is a bug, not a feature. Dean’s relationship with sex is actually very complex, it’s repeatedly suggested he’s into kink but also seeks gentle relationships with “safe” figures (think of the blonde waitresses that “smell like food”), and that’s easily explainable with the multiple emotional needs that Dean presumably projects in sex. Dean wants to fall in love (the siren is a dark mirror for Dean, representing what Dean is afraid of being for other people). Dean falls in love easily and gets attached easily, which is a problem for him. It’s also established that he has difficulties hooking up with people when he’s going through pericularly traumatic periods of his life, which makes his sexual activity pretty inconsistent, and proves the strong connection between sex and an emotional aspect.

The narrative does not present Dean as a stereotypical manly man to which queerness happens. Dean is fundamentally a deconstruction of the stereotype in all its aspects.

[broomsticks]

FIC REC: poppies in october by tahtahfornow on AO3 (wolfstar, also jily, remadora, and remus/lily)

since stumbling upon it the other day I’ve run through so many options trying to find the best way to describe this fic (up to and including ‘favorite wolfstar fic ever’) - and the best one I’ve got so far is ‘my wolfstar ship manifesto (fic version)’

it’s a canon-compliant multi-era one-shot, written for the intention of accounting for canon, and it absolutely achieves that IMO. I’m not particularly big on caring about canon for the sake of it, but I do like things to Make Sense, and wolfstar has always 100% Made Sense as canon to me and I don’t foresee myself ever getting enough of that — which is the reason why canon-compliant is my favorite type of wolfstar fic to read (it’s not purely because i’m a masochistic angst monster)!

the characterizations are incredibly spot-on, not only for each individual character (sirius, james, lily, friend!peter (!!)), but also for each of them at their different ages/life stages: from kids/teens, into post-Hogwarts life and the first war, and, and and and. and. measured reflective remus, perfectly ineffable sirius. and how they change and stay the same.

the writing is just – wow. there’s literally everything, there's so much to cover across the eras and all of it is incredible. it’s plain and simple and funny, it’s beautiful and haunting and evocative, there’s softly falling in love, there’s exhilaratingly falling in love, reluctantly falling in love. there’s. struggling to stay in love. struggling against love. 

there’s so much achy hurty disconnect, ‘we just keep talking past each other.’ and there’s—above all—a connection, an entanglement, an inextricability, that—again, looks different and hits different at every stage, but is undeniably always, always there—that’s the reason why they are just. OTP like no other.

the other description i was toying with was ‘fic from a total stranger that somehow might have been written for me personally??’ – this fic somehow hits so many of the things i love/want/have always wanted to see! hidden for spoilers (minor spoilers, this is canon-compliant, you know the drill...) + length sorry i have normal amounts of feelings about this fic

there’s. sylvia plath poetry. daddy and lady lazarus, i’m crying

there’s epistolary bits with gratuitous literary references (personal guilty pleasure, i don’t even know. just. gets me every time yes 35 owls)

there are some of my exact precise headcanons about major first war events (specifically the secret keeper situation and Remus post-Halloween) written so much better than i could have myself/ ever imagined possible.

there is T H E most beautiful ending scene (... narnia and LOTR fundamentally shaped me as a story-reading human yall) that’s, again, just, exactly what i imagined except a million times BETTER.

there’s also hogwarts-era remus/lily and HBP remadora, written in a way I just. loved. speaking as someone who not just doesn’t mind but actively ships these ships... i felt this struck just the right balance of serving to enhance wolfstar yet also being lovely ships and characters, wonderfully compelling at that particular time, in their own right 🥺❤️

on top of everything else it is literally even my favorite fic length (short enough to read in one shot and long enough to be really substantial)

HELP I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS FIC (AND THIS SHIP D: )

[rotationalsymmetry]

Dang, that’s quite a story.

Mine’s not nearly as dramatic or interesting, so I didn’t want to put it on the same post, but:

I wouldn’t be here if my mother didn’t believe in, and use, birth control. Almost certainly. In part because chances are she would have had a different child before me if she didn’t, but also? She probably would have had a completely different life if she didn’t believe in birth control. She met my dad in grad school, while studying for a PhD. Can you imagine investing enough into your own career and education to not only go to college but also go for a PhD if you don’t think you have the right to have sex when you’re not ready to have a baby? I mean, probably someone’s done it, but the idea that women* can aspire do things with their lives other than be mothers is directly and inextricably connected to the idea that women should be able to date and fall and love and get married even without getting pregnant. I mean, they’re fundamentally the same idea! That women’s lives shouldn’t all have to be fundamentally structured around childbearing.

I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have access to birth control and abortion, both logistical access and socially being able to access it without being shunned by my family and community. I’d be someone, but I’d be such a fundamentally different person that I wouldn’t recognize myself.

I think when we’re talking about people existing or not, that should be part of the conversation.

*sorry, I’m not sure how to modify this to be trans inclusive, I don’t think this is exactly a having a uterus thing or exactly an assigned female at birth thing, and I don’t want to assume the expectation that women’s lives should center on pregnancy and childbirth and child raising doesn’t affect trans women, i mean how could it not? The sort of misogynists who are more reluctant to hire young women to important positions because “she’ll just start a family” aren’t likely to make “oh, but she’s trans so that’s different” exceptions. And I’m not getting an internal “ooh I hate this wording” which is not surprising because I am the sort of nonbinary person who is also a woman, but I also feel weird not saying something about abortion access affects people who can get pregnant who aren’t women. Dunno.

[katsidhe]

Top 5 SPN relationships that aren't Dean&Sam

My top five actually all still include Sam, so first, here are some honorable mentions without him:

Kevin and Crowley: really fascinating combination of hatred and respect, and even trust, especially given Kevin and Crowley’s respective metamorphoses over the course of s8-9. They’re both in a way caught up in the machinations of Sam and Dean. Kevin of course loathes Crowley, but also kinda appreciates knowing where he stands with him. It was Crowley’s capture of him that pushed Kevin into becoming self-sufficient and paranoid and driven; it was Kevin’s escape and translation of the trials that pushed Crowley into being proactive in s8.

Jody and Alex: <3 their connection in 9.19 is so vital and real, based on shared loss and honesty.

Michael and Adam: Jake Abel has crazy chemistry with himself. And it’s endlessly interesting to speculate on how their relationship grew in the environment of the Cage.

Cas and Hannah: just, really nice to see Cas have a relationship with one of his siblings that is mostly positive and well-meaning (except when it’s not). Hannah represents all the good things about Heaven that Cas wants to preserve, both his complicated hopes and his frustrations with his native people. She offers him in return contrast and clarity.

5. Sam and Ruby

The hideous artistry of her manipulation! The insane chemistry! The ways that Sam’s victimhood here is tied up inextricably in his power, in moments of success and pride and trust and triumph! It’s so damn formative. The religious zeal in her love for him, the look in her eyes when she turned to him in 4.22 and fully believed that she had brought him to paradise, that she had helped him carry his cross and driven in the nails and together they would be rewarded—

4. Sam and Rowena

In a way, Sam and Rowena are an inversion of Sam and Ruby. Rowena’s transparently manipulative—she, too, uses Sam to set Lucifer free. She offers Sam power to beat impossible odds, in s10 and s11. But it’s so much less personal, for her: it’s not about using Sam, it’s about the ends she craves—her own power and freedom. So when she loses both in spectacular fashion, when she extends her vulnerability in s13 and Sam answers it with his own, it’s electrifying. It’s clear-eyed. Rowena is looking at someone she’s used and recognizing the hurt, and Sam sees a genuine need for connection in her. Their contrast is so good: she gives her wants and needs and pride an unfettered permission that Sam will not give his own, while Sam has lines in the sand that she does not. Drives me crazy, how much they trust one another by the end, although Sam knows how much she’s done, and Rowena knows Sam will be her death.

3. Sam and Jack

Sam as a father, oh, my heart. Sam and Jack are in some ways so simple, in the care and the regard they have for each other, in how Sam instantly adopted Jack and how Jack is instantly protective of him. But mostly they’re so complicated. The Lucifer thing is just the huge tip of the huge iceberg. Their relationship is founded on so many delicate lies and half-truths: Sam minimizes not just the extent of Lucifer’s nature, but also the extent of the danger Dean poses to Jack, and the practical need they have for Jack’s portal powers. They’re good for each other—better for each other than either of them realizes, I think—but the fundamental incompatibility of what they need from each other is heartbreaking.

2. Sam and Cas

Another relationship that is so simple and so complicated. The honest care and faith that they have in each other, the complexity of their orbit around Dean, the batshit insanity of their plans, their alien disregard for personal pain and danger when there’s a goal to meet: iconic. I really like the quiet internalism of their relationship, how it’s founded in a deep care and trust that, somewhat perversely, also enables their most reckless and self-destructive instincts. They like jumping off cliffs together/doing ill-advised soul experiments together.

1. Sam and Lucifer

If you think I wasn’t gonna rank this number one, you must be extremely new here. I live a Sam’n’Lucifer appreciation life. Everything about them drives me INSANE. Oh man, how do I sum it up: the horror! the trauma! to be alone for YEARS with someone who will not stop hurting you, the awful and inevitable intimacy of that! What Lucifer wants, what Sam wants, the dreadful asymmetry! The weird respect, the gaslighting, the abuse in every possible way, the years and years of fallout, the sheer enormity of their relationship offscreen that must be reconstructed forensically, by the huge and hideous shadow it casts. I am literally always thinking about them. I literally always crave the barest excuse to talk about them.

[mockiery]

Michael, Lucifer, and their Gifts

//Or my attempt at analyzing Michael.

Desire is Lucifer's gift. His power over other people's desires, but also in how his own drive him. Lucifer is largely defined by desire. He fundamentally understands it, the concept is as effortless to him as breathing. He understands the beautiful and the ugly sides of desire. And when cruelties are committed in the pursuit of desires, Lucifer punishes and seeks justice.

Michael's gift is Fear. The way he can sense and draw out people's fears seems just as effortless as Lucifer's. But like Lucifer with Desire, Michael's Fear doesn't stop with power over others. It is a driving force in all that he does. Michael is defined largely by his fears.

He refers to himself as Lucifer's opposite when speaking at one point, and in many ways he can be that.

Desire is something of an honesty with yourself. What you truly want reflects the core of who you truly are. Fears are full of doubts and unsureness. And Michael weaponizes this. It does not matter if what he tells you is true or not, if it preys upon your doubts and fears. He lies and uses painful truths tactfully. The way I figure, Michael doesn't really have to orchestrate much of anything. He can be a simple opportunist. The truth of whether he's done any manipulating or not isn't important. Its not the point. It's the infection. I think he has taken credit credit for and made claims of manipulations he never did, because he could. Building himself up as more powerful and in control than he truly is in the process.

He builds himself up, of course, out of his own fear of inadequacy, especially compared to Lucifer. His voice feels rougher. Nothing like the comforting, smooth charm of Lucifer's. His physicality is stiffer, tighter, asymmetric to Lucifer's effortless gliding. His right shoulder is uneven and his right arm hangs somewhat awkwardly, using his left hand primarily. Looking at his wings, his right wing appears damaged. Most theorizing I see attributes this to an injury caused by Lucifer during the rebellion, which can only add to the hatred. If so, Lucifer will have permanently marked Michael not once, but twice now. The way he carries himself feels closed and rigid. Calculated and careful. Not someone you are drawn to, but someone you should keep your eye on, just in case.

Carefully, he puts on a show for everyone around him, trying to take control of any given interaction. Whether its pretending to be Lucifer, leaning into the angelic goodness during his manipulation of Dan, and even just when he is playing himself up as a mastermind.

In his eyes, Michael has done everything right. At least compared to Lucifer. He hasn't rebelled. He's done what he's supposed to. But Lucifer is the one who gets all this praise when he obeys willingly, after millennia? Lucifer is loved and praised, despite everything, just for who he is, and Michael hates it.

The way he sees it, Lucifer should be undeserving. For all that he's done. And Michael? Michael wants the recognition, praise, and love that Lucifer gets. He truly desires it. It's a desire we all have.

When Michael overtook Lucifer's life and Chloe played him, he enjoyed the attention and the lie of Lucifer 2.0's superiority. He delighted in it enough that he decided to try to steal Lucifer's life.

He really wants to be appreciated, for who he is. But he seems to be stuck thinking he and Lucifer cannot both experience such things, it must be mutually exclusive. Their lives are too linked, and their differences too strong for him to consider otherwise. Lucifer is right in saying Michael thinks too small.

Michael's desire to be appreciated has become far too attached to his fear of inadequacy. Now one cannot be achieved without overcoming the other. Fear and desire are at odds, but are influenced heavily by each other. Fears come from desires. Desires come from fears. The two are inextricably connected, and are sometimes one in the same.

Lucifer and Michael themselves are truly two sides of the same coin.

Fears are the twisted, unwanted reflections of our desires. And Michael's greatest fear is exactly this. That this is all he is. An undesired, distorted reflection of Lucifer. And it consumes him.

So he lashes out. He seeks control. He manipulates and hurts others who he sees as having slighted him. His emotional immaturity rivals Lucifer's at its worst. He has many flaws similar to his twin, particularly in the area of making connections with others.

His difficulties are understandable. If fear reflects back from him like Lucifer with desire and Amenadiel with faith? Just by being who he is, if every interaction has this shadow of fear lingering above? No wonder he sees humans the way he does.

Michael is likely accustomed to the way fear affects us negatively. The desperation, the helplessness. The weakness. He is surely familiar to the way fear does this to his own self.

But, just as desire has it's dark sides, fear can have it's light sides. Just because Michael's gift is Fear doesn't mean he has to be a pure evil, unredeemable villain. If he could tap into the way fear betters people, it truly would be amazing. Fear is full of doubts, but it comes from deeply held emotions. Fear of pain is just one side. Fear of loss of that which you love is another. What people fear speaks to their most human qualities. Many fears are based in love and care, and a desire to be loved and cared for. The process of getting the courage to face fears is also incredibly powerful. He does not have to be predestined to be this manipulative, pathetic weasel.

For a show with a habit of giving its less-than-perfect characters redemption, it's something that I find myself hoping for in some way. It'd be a loooong fucking road, one that the show doesn't necessarily have time for, but it's something I'm interested in at least.

But also, like FUCK Michael, he's a pathetic piece of shit who needs to change literally everything about himself.

[bisluthq]

*WARNING Domestic violence topic* Could you explain to me why seven could sound queer?, Like I can see how many Taylor songs can be interpreted in a queer way, but with seven I can't see it, like for me it's clearly about domestic violence and the only possible queer thing I can hear it's the closet part...but in this particular case I do not think it refers to sexuality but to literally hiding form your abusive parents. Sorry if this was asked before or if it's disrespectful to ask.

So firstly let me just say that victims of abuse who hear that in the song are so valid. And I’m not here to “take away” a song that speaks to that experience. If it brings you comfort and relief, that’s amazing.

Do I think Taylor meant it as a song about domestic violence or escaping from that? Honestly, no. Because she described herself in LPSS as longing for that time in her life and talked about how she misses being able to throw tantrums and feel more freely and without judgement; in her head she’s thinking about this period in her life very fondly. Now, this is one of those death of the author moments because if you’re an abuse survivor who found comfort in this you... shouldn’t care wtf Taylor meant by it, what matters is what it means to you. Same as how if betty speaks to your sapphic teenage love triangle, it shouldn’t matter that Taylor imagined James as a boy.

But yeah, so for Taylor it was not meant to be about abuse. It was about feeling stuff more freely. And let’s take a look and examine at why it feels so fucking gay to... like... basically every queer woman.

Please picture me

In the trees

I hit my peak at seven

Okay so Taylor is setting up a narrator - presumably herself. Especially in the context of her hyperconfessional marketing and the LPSS explanation we’re literally meant to picture Tay. But tbh that doesn’t matter so much - it could be any little girl. This little girl is “in the trees”... which isn’t really where little girls are supposed to be. In these very first lines Tay is setting up a little tomboy character.... and then she says “I hit my peak at seven” - ergo this rugrat period of abandon, where I was free to play in the trees, is “my peak”. It was the best time in “my” life.

Lots of people feel that, it’s not inherently gay, but for queer women - I don’t know about other shades of queer but suspect yes - childhood often represents even greater freedom than to hets because it’s before we felt deviant. There was nothing to compare ourselves to. Sure, we might’ve played families in het couples like heteronormativity is felt by children too, but that kind of thing was largely asexual and we didn’t know yet that other people felt differently about it all.

Like I only realized I was different in late middle school and I didn’t have the word for it for ages tbh. Like I just knew I didn’t get the fuss about boys. When I was a little kid? I didn’t know what the fuss was really. It was a kind of “peak” so yeah, I feel that in my bones.

Feet

In the swing

Over the creek

I was too scared to jump in, but I, I was high

In the sky

Here we have her playing, once again with reckless abandon - she’s standing on a swing (naughty!) and swinging high over a creek. But she’s slightly nervous. I relate to that too, it’s not a gay thought it’s a little kid thought I think - because while she’s enjoying her freedom and the chance to play, there’s an awareness of the risk. That’s a lot of childhood and what makes her such a greater songwriter is how she’s able to capture these feelings we’ve all had before, in this case the rumbunctious nature of free play paired with the cautious nervousness of knowing you can fall.

With Pennsylvania under me

I mean this simple makes it more autobiographical for her, like if we didn’t know her was her that was the me , now we really do.

Are there still beautiful things?

This is speaks to her nostalgia for this time period and serves to highlight how much she misses it. She wishes she was young and innocent and had that freedom of playing in the trees and above the creek and feeling like she’s flying just because she’s standing upright on the swing. This is meant to be her “peak”.

Sweet tea in the summer

Cross your heart, won't tell no other

The first line is setting up mood again, it’s innocence and suburbia and freedom and the hot days of summer vacation. The second is a common English phrase - for the ESL folks - that means “let’s keep a secret”. It’s extremely common for little girls especially to have secrets with each other. “You’re my best friend and I’ll tell you something I haven’t told anyone else before but cross your heart you won’t tell anyone else” is the kind of thing that has probably happened at a sleepover for every woman (gay or straight). So Tay’s whispering and telling secrets to her best friend aged seven in the heat of the summer and the neat rhymes kinda remind me of those clapping games you play as a kid.

And though I can't recall your face

I still got love for you

Again, I think this isn’t specific to gay kids necessarily - it’s that idea of having lifelong affection for your first best friend even when you don’t know where they are, can’t imagine them in adulthood, maybe can’t even remember their surname and frankly don’t really want to or care... but you still have warm feelings towards them.

Your braids like a pattern

Love you to the moon and to Saturn

So the friend is a girl. And here’s where the non wlw readers will have to work with me a little bit because as I’ve explained before a very common, enteral part of the queer female experience is obsession with other girls’ femininities. We notice things like hair and clothes and makeup on girls far more than straight girls seem to and waaay more than het guys do. A friend of mine who is v butch noticed like minor shit that any of us change in our appearance. Describing in detail a girl’s appearance feels - on a gut level - pretty gay. Now this isn’t a detailed description, but she links this physical trait - this pretty, braided hair her friend has - to loving her.

Now, she is a child in this story. This isn’t a sexual kind of thing in the child’s mind. She’s obviously not “in love” with her friend aged seven. But she is saying her deep, overwhelming love for her friend is inextricably linked - via rhyme scheme - to her feminine appearance.

This incredibly close, quasi homoerotic friendship is a near universal wlw experience and I’m sorry but it differs from straight girls’ close friendships because it’s... a lot. It is “love you to the moon and to Saturn” and obsessing over her clothes and hair and little habits.

And there’s no vocab for this, nothing to prepare you for it and nobody bats an eye because little girls are supposed to be friends with one another but like... you’re way overinvested and often that other girl isn’t and starts to drift away because she isn’t having this language free connection and it’s legit heartbreaking.

Passed down like folk songs

The love lasts so long

This childhood friendship becomes an anecdote, a moment of folkloric storytelling, but it never completely fades away and tapping into this first - not quite sexual but very sapphic - experience is super easy.

And I've been meaning to tell you

I think your house is haunted

Your dad is always mad and that must be why

And I think you should come live with

Me and we can be pirates

This sets up the narrative some people - I understand where y’all are coming from and I am here for it - hear of domestic abuse. The thing is, it’s not Tay’s character who is getting abused. Tay is a small child - and she’s envious of and nostalgic for that era of her life, when she thought that her best best best friend’s asshole dad was simply reacting to ghosts. It speaks to an innocence her character has which may not be shared by her friend, the girl with the braids.

But Tay is innocent and she says “come with me” and run away so we can be pirates together. Now, on a very basic and superficial pop culture level it’s worth noting Keira Knightley in POTC is pretty fundamental to any queer millennial woman’s sexual awakening. However, that’s not what Tay’s referencing here. She’s saying, at least on some level, let’s run away and be gender nonconforming. Again, she’s a small child. She doesn’t know why she wants that. But she doesn’t tell her friend “let’s run away and be princesses” - she wants to be a pirate. It links to the first scene in the song of her being a tomboy in the trees and on the swing, honestly. There were also a number of cross dressing female pirates, many of whom were gay back in the day so it’s a subtle nod to how a lot of childhood fantasies actually are rooted in possible historical fact.

But also come on, every queer girl wanted to be a pirate idk why really we just did. Like I say I can explain it as a desire not to conform to gender norms but it’s also just... another weirdly common fantasy that she’s tapping into.

Like idk this song is so fucking gay and it’s not trying to be but every line is just... felt in my bones. Like little me is seen by this song.

Then you won't have to cry

Or hide in the closet

This is obvi the line people go on about and look. The friend’s dad is clearly an asshole like that’s established. But the line has a double meaning. She’s saying if you run away with me to be a pirate on the high seas you won’t have to cry anymore and you won’t hide in the closet. It’s an innocent thought but it’s also a double meaning, right? You won’t be abused, you won’t be sad. And you’ll be with me out of the closet. It could’ve been “hide under the bed” or “behind the curtains”. But she picked closet. And that word gives this verse a second meaning, which is particularly palpable given as I say this is a very gay song from a thematic standpoint.

And just like a folk song

Our love will be passed on

Again, this is a deeeeep love. This is someone she wants to run away with. And she probably doesn’t know why, she probably doesn’t have the words. She’s a little kid. But this friend of hers is the person she wants to rescue and run away with and be together with even though she - Tay - is pretty content otherwise. In fact, she longs for this time in her life. It was full of beautiful things. And yet despite being happy, she was willing to drop it all for her little female friend she was clearly preoccupied with.

Please picture me

In the weeds

Before I learned civility

I used to scream

Ferociously

Any time I wanted

I, I

Again, this reiterates she is nostalgic for this time period. It was a good time in Taylor’s life. It was a time when she could be herself, before she had learned civility and what was expected from her by society. Which ties back to that thing I said right in the beginning, about how this first quasi sapphic friendship is cherished by queer women because we didn’t know it was weird. We hadn’t “learned civility” yet. We could scream, we could run around and climb trees, and we could ask our friends to run away with us not knowing those thoughts didn’t occur to them with the same intensity.

Sweet tea in the summer

Cross my heart, won't tell no other

And though I can't recall your face

I still got love for you

We’ve discussed this already. It’s still queer coded to me.

Pack your dolls and a sweater

We'll move to India forever

Passed down like folk songs

Our love lasts so long

So she’s once again cementing the fact that this is a little female friend with the dolls, and again suggests running away together and says even though none of that happened and she grew up and realized this... was actually a fairly specific experience not a universal universal one and she learned civility and heteronormativity but this foundational, pure, innocent gay love... will always remain in its complete innocuous harmlessness but immense power.

And so, yeah. This song is probably Taylor’s gayest shortly followed by Treacherous.

But if it means something else to you, I’m by no means taking it away. Anyone can enjoy her music in any way they like.

It’s just weird that most queer women feel their childhood selves are completely seen by this song if it was a complete accident 🤷🏻‍♀️

[stones-x-bones]

A Mother’s Touch || Morgan and Bex

TIMING: Current (Don’t @ me timelines are weird) PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems and @inbextween SUMMARY: Bex has more questions about her place in the world, and finds that Morgan might understand more than she thinks. CONTENT: Domestic Abuse mentions, Child abuse mentions, Transphobia mentions

Curiosity was one of Bex’s more troublesome personality traits. It had gotten her into quite a bit of trouble as a kid-- sticking her hands in places they shouldn’t go, like under rocks and through fences; or asking questions that didn’t exactly have kid friendly answers to them-- and her mother had often chastised her for it, so it had become one of the things that she had hidden and locked away inside herself. Except, lately, she was finding it harder and harder to keep that part of herself from surfacing. It was happening more and more frequently in which she found herself unable to hold back the array of questions that filled her head and toppled from her lips. But, more and more, she was finding herself wanting to be curious. And after everything that had happened to her-- from the cockatrice, to the mutant in the alley, to the dream world, to Frank acting so strange-- she could no longer hold back the questions that had flooded her mind since Nell had first tried to tell her what she was: what was a witch, and what, then, was magic all about? Clutching one of the books Morgan had gotten for her chest, Bex made her way downstairs. She knew the older woman would be in the great room, because she was always either there, at work, or in her shed, and it was late enough at night that Bex figured she wouldn’t want to be outside in her shed. Luckily, neither Mina nor Deirdre was around, so Bex had found enough confidence within herself to sidled into the great room and clear her throat. “Morgan?” she called out tentatively, staring at the older woman with wide eyes, “Can I-- come sit with you?”

Morgan was trying to write. On an impulse, she could talk in circles, for hours maybe, especially with Deirdre to ask her things, but as March gave way to April, she found her thoughts shrinking around the question of her history, her self, and suddenly even something so simple as a lesson plan took hours. Her eyes drifted toward a spot on the wall, searching for a hint, a bone to excavate, something that wouldn’t fade in the turn of another miserable year in this place.

She set down her stationary with relief when she heard Bex come in and shoved it all onto the coffee table. “Of course, honey,” she said. She craned her head around and saw her, a little brighter, a little more bursting with some secret thought or other she couldn't keep down. But her bruises were starting to fade and she didn’t look half as scared as when she’d first shown up at the door. “Grab a pillow and get cozy,” Morgan urged, refreshing her smile. “And tell me what’s on your mind.”

Bex hurried over to the couch, as if Morgan might rescind her offer. Still clutching the book to her chest, she pondered how to start the questions off. She didn’t want to burst with them, to offer too many and overwhelm her-- but she didn’t want to ask too little and end up regretting not asking more. “Well, I--” she started, shuffling the book from her chest to her lap as she settled into the couch next to her, “guess I was just curious.” Ran her hands over the cover of it. “What was it like?” she asked, looking up at her. “Growing up-- this way.” Tapped the cover, which was revealed to be about magic and the essence of God through Jewish faith. One of the Zohar texts, but it was obvious Bex meant more of the magic part and not the Kabbalah part. “Knowing that you were, you know--” she still hesitated to say the word-- “special?”

It took Morgan several seconds to understand what Bex was asking, and when she did, no answers rose immediately to her mind. “Well it was…” Fine? Except for her mother, which made up what percent of her memories? “It wasn’t any one particular thing all the time. It was still growing up with my parents.” She shifted position to face Bex better and beckoned the girl closer. “But it was wonderful, when they first told me. I was four, maybe five? My dad had been reading Matilda to me, out loud before bedtime. And it was just around my birthday when he finished. And then the next morning, he and my mother sat me down for a very serious grown up talk, and they explained that they knew what I had been getting up to on my own, floating toys, rotting vegetables, breaking glasses. At the time, I wasn’t totally sure if those things were me, or if I had a ghost--”  She paused to snigger but waved it away, not wanting to bog Bex down with the depressing context. “And I still wasn’t sure what to make of what my parents were telling me, until my dad explained it. It was like Matilda, only it was real.  And I loved that story so much and wanted it to be true so badly, I was ready for them to show me everything. And they did. I got a little kid friendly demonstration of what they could do, and then a very stern lecture from my mother about how magic was not a toy or a game or anything fun, and even if it was a part of me, a sacred, fundamental, inextricable part, it was still going to be a lot of work. But the lessons and everything else she had in store for me came after. That day was just for being happy, and for feeling...special. Like a girl in a book.”

Bex listened intently and wondered how her life would’ve been different had she known she had this power. Her mind hesitated to use the same words Nell and Morgan did. Magic was reserved for something unexplainable and mysterious, and this power seemed anything but. At the moment, it seemed frightening. Even as her curiosity piqued, she couldn’t help but remember only the pain it had caused her. The small joys she found in things like fixing a pot or making a plant grow slightly didn’t outweigh any of the fear that she felt. But she wanted to feel the way Morgan and Nell seemed to feel about it. She wanted it to be something more than an innate fear inside of her. But she didn’t know how to get there yet. “And you-- you said you’re Pagan. Is that-- did you grow up that way? With stories about m-magic and...stuff?” She wasn’t really sure what she was asking at this point, but she needed to work through the confusing questions before she could get to the ones she really wanted to ask. Her mind didn’t work any other way. She needed to process the small steps before the big ones. 

Morgan squinted, trying to figure out where Bex was going with this. The girl was Jewish and proudly so, enough to start reading the Zohar rather than consider another faith. So where did Morgan’s religion come into anything? “Stories?” She repeated, trying to process. “The kind of paganism my family practiced had more to do with living in tandem with the flow of the earth, and the flow of the universe. There are, in other sects, deities, like the horned god and the morrigan, but we didn’t see them as beings with minds and wills that need to be appeased, but old, special names for broader forces, at best. But, there were rituals, the holy days follow the solstices and equinoxes, aligning the mind and spirit according to the seasons, growth, life, harvest, death. And we would use our magic, our power, to perform these rituals. And there were principals within this set of beliefs for how we should engage with our power. But the stories...the prayers we gave were to the earth, the stars, the elements. The story is just that...we belong here, and we should act like it. And it’s our job to remember that we have a will and an agency in our life, as a fundamental part of our existence. And we have to use that agency and work that will in a way that bends toward our highest and greatest good. But working your will isn’t always spellcasting. Sometimes it’s just being kind, or sticking up for yourself, or intervening when you see something wrong.” She sighed, unsure if this was the news Bex was hoping for or not. “I have some books on Celtic and Norse folklore and religion, if that’s something you were hoping to learn. I’m sorry if this isn’t...is there something you’re fishing for in particular, Bex?”

Bex recognized a lot of what Morgan was saying from the very text she had in her lap. Just...different. Connecting to the earth, to the flow of the universe, to the energy inside of it all. “I’ve always...struggled, to connect to my faith. I mean, I’ve been going to Temple every Sunday for as long as I can remember-- probably longer. But there was always this disconnect. I couldn’t understand what it was, I still don’t. And Judaism doesn’t really-- at least not Orthodox-- it’s not really erm, fond of...what I have. Or what...I am.” And perhaps they both knew she meant more than just magic. Her hands dug into each other, nervous peeling of nail beds. “And it’s not that our holy book doesn’t make room for people like me, or even people like you. Our God is about forgiveness and kindness and passing that on, and I always thought that, maybe, there was something inside of me that was wrong or bad, because how could I not relate to something like that? How could I not connect with something like that? And I guess I just wanted to know, if-if it was just me. If it’s just me. If-- if you ever struggled with it. With being that way while still staying faithful.” She chanced a tentative look up at Morgan. “But you...it was always a part of you. How does it work? How do you-- how do you do those things you said? Connect to the earth with your power?”

“Oh, Bex…” Morgan sighed. She had struggled, a lot. But not for any of those reasons. It was so much more awful than that, and went on for so much longer than anything she could bear to wish on Bex. She hung her head, sifting through her memories for some other excuse or rationale that wouldn’t feel dishonest. “There’s nothing inside you that’s wrong or bad, honey. How could there be? And feeling estranged or unwelcome or just disconnected--I feel like that’s more common than people realize. I believe that more people feel that than are willing to admit it. Honestly, I think it’s better to say so, than to do something you don’t mean.” But none of these assurances answered Bex’s question.

Morgan dug her hands into her skirt, tight enough that one of her fingers bent out of place. “The way I connect to everything now is different to how I did over a year ago,” she said quietly. “And even before then, I would struggle, yes. Left out. Left behind. Like everyone got a number and a place in line except for me, and whatever I did was squeezing in where I wasn’t wanted or taking something I wasn’t meant for. But I can’t…” she let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know if that’s something I can talk about without knowing you’re going to believe me. I know you’ve been reading about--my family. The things that they did. That happened to them. But do you...believe in it, Bex? Do you understand what’s in there?”

Bex gave a confused look. It hurt her heart to hear how Morgan had suffered, and how she could relate to some of the ways Morgan said she’d struggled. Left behind, left out. Placed in a line you didn’t belong in but had to stay in. She was confused because she didn’t understand what Morgan was asking her. Hadn’t Morgan herself told her her family thought they were cursed? And if magic was real, then, by extension, so were curses. The Zohar talked about curses. It was forbidden. She put her hands back on the cover and tapped her fingers on it. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly, “I think I’m still-- trying to figure it all out. I mean, I believe that your family was cursed. It’s kinda hard not to when you read...all of that. But I don’t think what I think of as a curse is maybe what...you think of as a curse. It’s--” she looked back down at her book, “I don’t understand any of it. I’m just trying to wrap my head around the idea that I’m--that I have-- I don’t even know how to do that. I don’t know how to be this way. Even reading this, I don’t know what part of the world I fit into. I-- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just want to know how it all works. I’m tired of being in the dark about all of this,” she said, curling her knees up to her chest, the book pressed between. “You said if I wanted to get a handle on all of this, that I needed to stop lying to myself. But I...what if I don’t know what I’m lying to myself about? I don’t know what’s my truth anymore.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Morgan said, quieter still. “You haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve told you before, I’d rather have your honesty than anything else.” She sniffled and offered a smile, though it came out sad. “And I could--” she paused to steady her voice and sighed. “I could tell you about all the things that happened to me, every three years, because of a nineteen-year-old girl’s curse of eternal suffering. And the things I ran away from, and the things I ruined, and the people I hurt, and the fear I carried, and all the times I wondered if I had done something to deserve it, and if it would make things better or worse if I had. And I could tell you about how the girl cast the spell, the Norse and Celtic sigils she cobbled together to make something more cruel than anything she had in her books. And if that is what you want, I will. Everything I know how to talk about is yours. But there is so much in this world, Bex. More than anyone can digest at once or even in two or three talks. It takes time…” She scratched at the corner of her eye, trying to check for tears leaking over the side without making a thing of it. “But I don’t know if that will give you what you want. I can tell you that it’s no more mysterious to be someone with your magic than it is to be any other part of yourself. That it’s just patience, acceptance, nurture. I can tell you that you know, your soul knows what’s true and what isn’t, but you have to bring that in, honey.” Slowly, hesitating, she reached out a hand, hovering by her hair in a silent request. “What is it that you’re afraid of being a lie? Or is there something you’re afraid of being true…?”

Bex put her chin on her knees as she listened. It wasn’t fair, everything Morgan was saying. It wasn’t fair, that Bex couldn’t understand. It wasn’t fair that the world was cruel to people who didn’t deserve it. How could she believe in a God, a power, that did that to others? She buried her face in her arms. She didn’t move when Morgan reached out to her, but she didn’t flinch away either. The fading bruises on her arms hurt. “Why didn’t anyone tell me sooner?” she asked into her own skin. “Why are there so many parts of me that feel so wrong? You keep telling me there’s nothing wrong with me, but I feel-- I feel so wrong. And I just wanna know how to not feel that way. How did you do it? Did you ever think it was bad? This power? The way you-- the way we are? How come I have to be this way? I don’t want to be this way.” She sucked in a breath. They were going in circles. She was going in circles. “I’m afraid-- I’m afraid letting myself be this is going to change me.”

Morgan combed her fingers through Bex’s hair when she didn’t flinch away and shifted closer, so she didn’t have  to reach so far. She stayed like that, finger combing Bex’s hair in slow, steady strokes while she spoke. “But what parts, Bex? There is nothing about you that deserves any shame. I’ve known you this long, and I’m only more proud to know you than I was before.” She brushed the tip of her finger along the shell of the girl’s ear. “You are only and ever you, Bex. Unless you’re breaking yourself into a different shape to please someone else. But something that’s in you, that’s as much a part of you as your bones, can’t do that.” She wished that there was a way, from all her talks with Deirdre over the last year she had learned something more useful than simply denying the false story and trying to make her own more persuasive. She didn’t know how to compel someone to change their mind, or how to lift the self loathing out of a heart. “You can only become more yourself through this. And no bad came from an accessible education. It’s ignorance that hurts. But can you tell me-- maybe I could assure you better, if I knew what you were afraid of changing.” She touched her knuckles to her cheek, realizing only at the fuzzy, nothing sensation that she wouldn’t be able to tell if the girl was burning up with anxiety, or anger. With a mournful sigh, she went back to combing Bex’s hair. “I want to help,” she murmured. “Explain it to me, as best you can. It doesn’t have to be perfect or anything. Maybe I can piece it together if you tell me a little more…”

Bex couldn’t tell yet if Morgan’s touch was comforting. She felt her fingers brushing gently through her hair and wondered if there was ever a time her mother had done this for her without the malice that had usually preceded it. She couldn’t remember. Her childhood felt like a movie that she could only observe from the outside. She could remember thinking, even as young as five, that something was wrong with her. Because lightbulbs exploded or lamps toppled over or windows broke and her parents would tell her it was bad. With their words, with their hands. And if it was bad, and it was part of her, then she, too, was bad. It wasn’t something she could think her way through, not when she’d been conditioned in the opposite direction. “I’m afraid I-- what if I can’t do it? What if I’m not good enough? I-- I already failed my parents. I can’t-- if I do what you want me to, if I accept what I am, I can’t go back. They won’t let me come back. And I-- I don’t even know what kind of person I really am. My parents shaped me as a child, and then my school shaped me as a teenager, and now it feels like this place is trying to shape me into something else and I don’t know who I am or if I ever was anything, or if I can take much more. And what if I’m not enough? What if I’m not good? Where will I go then? Who will I be then? If I change again, I lose again. I’m afraid if I change again I’m just going to be alone, and I don’t want...I can’t take that again.” She decided, then, that it was comforting. She leaned into Morgan, still curled up in herself. “I want to know how me being...magic is going to make anything better.”

Morgan eased an arm around Bex’s shoulders and tucked her in with a loose grip before turning her attention back to her hair. It was easier to focus on that than anything else. “Hey, hey--” she cooed. “I don’t want you to be anyone but yourself, Bex,” she said. “Not some performance you’re putting on out of fear, not some set of made up rules to fit someone else’s idea. That’s not living. I just want to know you. And who you are, the amazing, incredible things you are capable of--” she sighed. “I don’t really believe in good and bad. But if there is anyone who might be truly good at heart, it would be you. And it is your choices, the kindness you decide to give to others, to yourself, the levity you bring to try and cheer your friends, the risks you take in the hopes of something better, that is what defines you more than anything you’re born with or born as. The choices you make that are your own, not pressured or beaten or intimidated into you. But you will always have a place here, if you want it. And the reason why accepting yourself, being kind to yourself, is going to make anything better is that you will have so much more peace, and so much more control in every other area of your life. All that energy you spend hiding and shaming yourself and repressing your light can go to good things, fun things, neutral things, whatever you want. You will have so many more choices, better choices, ones that can help other people, help the world, because you will have cleared out all the ones that are consuming and breaking and killing you. And getting to do cool stuff, live-saving stuff, just by wanting to is just as awesome as it sounds. But that’s just my two cents, Bex. I’m not going to make you do anything while you’re here.” She pulled back just far enough to look at the girl. “Am I making any sense…?”

It wasn’t fair, Bex thought. None of this was fair. Nothing she’d been born with or as was fair. She wished it would all just...go away. She wished she’d never been born the way she was. She wished she’d never found out she had magic. But wishes only went so far. And Morgan was right, because fucking hell, Morgan was always right. That also didn’t feel fair, but Bex knew that was because she was just being childish. She wanted to believe everything Morgan was saying-- really, she did!-- but those parts of her that ached so deep inside it felt like a part of her kept from accepting the reality that yes, she could choose who she wanted to be. She’d never had the choice before. She felt a silence settling over herself. Tomato, she thought. But that also wasn’t fair. She’d been the one to come down here and ask Morgan to talk. The book felt suddenly heavy in her lap. Somehow, she’d thought reading it, understanding it, would make her feel better. It didn’t. Because it wasn’t that she didn’t believe in magic, or that she didn’t believe she was-- it was that she believed her magic was bad. And no book would change that. She lifted her head enough to look over at Morgan. “Yeah,” she answered quietly. She let out a long puff of air, looking away again and resting her chin on her knees. “I need to tell you something. And I know you already know, but I need to say it out loud. So that I can make it...feel real.” 

There were a lot of ‘secrets’ Bex held that Morgan had already figured out, but she wasn’t about to guess which one. She soothed Bex’s shoulders with a brush of her fingers and shifted so she could meet her eyes. “Of course. Whatever you need, honey. Okay? You’re cared about just the same.” She offered another smile, brighter now. “What is it, Bex?”

Bex wished someone else had said that to her. Why hadn’t her own parents ever told her that? Whatever she needed. She wondered if she could ever call this place home. Wondered how a woman with ice cold hands could make her feel warmer than a woman with warm hands and an ice cold heart. She met Morgan’s eyes for a brief moment before looking away. “I’m trans,” she mumbled, “and I-- I know it doesn’t change anything, obviously, but I wanted to be the one to tell you.” She shifted and held out the book to her. “None of these books tell me anything about myself. Not about being trans or a witch, or anything else. I just wanted answers.”

Morgan’s smile widened, showing only kindness. “I wanted you to be the one to tell me too,” she said. “Thank you, Bex, for trusting me with this. I hope, so very much, that you give the rest of yourself the same ease, the--relief you must have had when you looked in the mirror and finally saw someone you recognized. Someday.” She looked down at the book and set it aside on the coffee table. It had been a well-meant idea, at least. “No one can tell you how to be yourself except for you,” she said. “But there are plenty of books and media resources for trans girls that we can track down, if you want, and no shortage of material on magic and being a witch. Maybe with the right materials, when you’re ready, you’ll be able to cast your transmutation yourself.I am sorry, though, that it can’t be any easier. Truly, Bex.”

“You know,” Bex started, “I knew I was a girl when I was, like, five? Six? I remember because I saw all the other girls in my class wearing dresses and I wanted nothing more than to wear a dress, too. I also remember telling my parents and I guess, at the time, things weren’t so bad, because they just said okay. And the next thing I knew, my closet was full of dresses and skirts and I got to grow my hair out. They pulled me out of school and put me in a new one. I wasn’t allowed to start hormones until I was older, but even then, they were on top of it.” It sounded like a dream come true, really. “Except...I realize now it was because they were afraid. They told me never to tell anyone, that it was our secret, and that if anyone tried to find out, to tell them and they’d take care of it.” She looked over at Morgan. “They gave me a good life. I got to grow up as a girl because of them. Do you know how many trans kids never get anything close to that?” Her eyes fell back to the book. “I’ve been blowing things up since I was about that age, too. They never said a word about it.” If they had that much shame for her being trans but still had the gall to pretend, then what did it say about her abilities? “Books are nice. But I think I need something more. I just don’t know what that is.”

“The absence of cruelty isn’t the same thing as the presence of kindness,” Morgan muttered. Maybe it would be smarter to play along with Bex’s deluded affection for her parents. She certainly understood it, and maybe there was even something good she couldn’t perceive and understand about holding onto those scraps of ‘love’ and pouring affection and apologism on them like water, hoping they’d grow into something. But her fear that Bex would think she agreed with her parents was much stronger. If she was going to fuck this up, maybe it could at least be for trying to be a voice of reason. “...It could be that they didn’t understand what they were seeing, when you were doing what every other child witch in the world does. Or they were in denial. You’d think people would realize that willful ignorance just hurts everyone, but I’ve known at least one person who holds onto it like it’s the only thing worth keeping. Maybe it’s easier to do that, than admit you’re miles out of your depth. I don’t know. Only they do.” And she certainly wasn’t going to encourage Bex to dial them up to ask. “If you figure it out, I’ll do everything I can to bring it to you. I want that for you. Okay?”

This wasn’t the way Bex had wanted things to go tonight at all. She’d wanted to talk to Morgan and get answers to her question and maybe figure out how to feel at least a little better about herself. It wasn’t that Morgan’s reassurances weren’t helpful or nice to hear, but she felt like she was going in circles. “I don’t think my parents like being wrong about anything,” she muttered in response. She shifted, then, and laid her head on Morgan’s shoulder, arms still tight around her legs. She looked at the bruises on her arms and the bandages that were finally starting to become less and less. “I wish my mom had been more like you,” she said without thinking too much on it. She didn’t want to think anymore, she’d thought about so much today. “Do you think I’m wrong, for still loving them?”

Morgan closed her eyes at Bex’s words and held her just a little tighter. She wanted that too. Horribly. Impossibly. And what could she say in response that wouldn’t tell on herself and ruin everything? “...I’m here,” she said at last, wavering. “And you’re not wrong, no.” She brought some of Bex’s hair over her shoulder and twirled it around her finger. “Maybe it hurts us more in the end, or leads to some kind of trouble, but I don’t know how many kids can help loving their parents, even when they’re cruel. Maybe we think if we hold on, they’ll learn to love us the way we want. Maybe it’s just...how it is,for better or worse. But whatever it is, I don’t think it says anything bad about you, that you want to love and forgive them so much. I just hope… that part of you doesn’t get hurt so much that you become afraid to use it at all.”

Bex stayed quiet. She listened to Morgan and felt the truth in her words and understood that it came from experience. How else could she know so well, the way Bex longed for her mother to one day hold her gently and tell her she really did love her, and she really was proud of her? How else would she understand the pain of not having that love? Of desperately wanting a sign, any sign, that it was possible? Bex finally uncurled herself and let herself be held. It still took conscious effort to remind herself that the hands holding her would not hurt her, but she allowed enough of that part of herself to quiet, and she relaxed in Morgan’s arms. “Do you love your mom still?”

Morgan sagged with relief as Bex uncurled and wrapped her up the way she’d been aching to. She let her head come down to rest on the girl and closed her eyes and let herself be still save for the slow, steady breathing she measured out in her head. She tried to think of Ruth Beck as seldom as possible, but she was hard to forget, living in close quarters with so many haunted women. It hurt, always, but thinking about the things her mother had done was easier than answering Bex’s question. She’d had four years to get over it. She’d turned the ghost of the woman away, when the answers she got weren’t what she wanted. What was she still holding onto, if she’d already rejected her? And yet she had left the door open, for something, anything to change for so long as her mother’s soul lingered. And what the hell for? 

“Yes,” she admitted at last. “Very much still. I think I’d stop if I knew how, but I don’t.”

In some strange way, it was relieving to know that Morgan still loved her mother, too. Bex knew that her mother was a cruel woman, but she also knew that her mother could be gentle. She had been the one to buy her dresses as a child, and tell her that she could be a girl if she wanted. Bex even remembered falling asleep in her lap by the fire some nights, or sitting with her on the couch while they watched movies. She remembered bedtime stories and forehead kisses and burying herself in her mother’s arms when another parent had tried to scream at her for going in the women’s bathroom. Her mother’s cruelty wasn’t always towards Bex, but when she did turn it that way, Bex always forgave her. Time and time again. Because she loved her, and all she wanted was for her mother to love her back. “Does it still hurt? To love her?”

“Yes,” Morgan said. “Sometimes it feels worse than what she did. Or didn't do. I have every reason in the world not to love her anymore, and now that she’s--gone, mostly, there’s not much chance of a better ‘someday.’ But even when I remember everything, I uh--” She hiccuped a wet laugh. “I’m still just the little girl she didn’t want, wanting her to save me from my hurt.” She swiped at the tear rolling down her cheek before it could land on Bex’s hair. “And it wasn’t all bad, which makes it worse, in a way. Maybe. I tell myself if it was all bad, I’d let her go easier, but maybe it would be more of the same.” She shrugged. “She’s the one who taught me how to cook. Made the best birthday cakes. Probably the alchemy.”

The familiarity of Morgan’s words hit Bex like a punch to the gut. Not that she’d ever been punched in the gut, but she assumed this was what it felt like. It felt a little bit like her future was being told to her, laid out in front of her. She didn’t have to hear it or see it to know there was probably a tear in Morgan’s eye. She’d pretend she didn’t know. Instead, she settled in closer and put her arm around Morgan. “Will you teach me how to cook?” she asked into the quiet.

Morgan’s next tearful laugh came out more freely and she didn’t even bother to hide her sniffles, understanding that Bex knew. This was her present. Her wounds were still raw and infected. “Absolutely, Bex.” She gave her a quick squeeze. “Besides, Deirdre’s too easily distracted to ever let me teach her, and we need to save the rest of the pots from burnt water somehow, right?”

[entamewitchlulu]

that last episode of Healin Good gave me approximately 5ish minutes of DaruNodo interaction and it was really everything I wanted and also with incredible animation so i’m vibrating

thinking once again about how fascinating they are as both perfectly opposite to each other and yet inextricably connected and i have so many emotions tbh

anyway i was gonna apologize for waxing poetic about a ship from a cartoon for nine year olds but then I realized! I’m not sorry! thoughts continued below

like, for one thing, the girls’ new upgraded transformations for Healin Good Arrow are angelic, while the Pathogerms’ evolutions are decidedly demonic, so you’ve already got the demon/angel parallels aesthetically, which I am so so so super into in any possible iteration

But then it’s just like. These two are just so interesting as enemies. They have totally, completely incompatible worldviews that necessitates that they fight each other - Nodoka has grown up surrounded by love and support and the belief that people have to take care of each other, and the desire to give something back to the world that helped her make it through her darkest times. She wants to fix things, to heal, she wants to make people happy and to live life with all the joy she can muster.

Daruizen, on the other hand, is literally a parasitic virus. The only way for him to survive was to take, to hurt. Destroying is the only thing he knows and he thinks that that’s the way it should be. He can’t imagine relying on anyone else, always looking out for himself and no one else - even though he obeys the orders of King Pathogerm, he doesn’t do it out of any sense of loyalty, but only out of his own sense of protecting himself. He can’t see the joy in living things.

These two have to fight each other. There is no other option. Neither of them can live comfortably with the others’ viewpoint, in fact, both of their desired realities actively destroy the other’s. 

And yet! There’s also something about them that connects them inextricably that can’t be forgotten. Neither of them would truly exist without the other. For the obvious, Daruizen wouldn’t exist if Nodoka hadn’t been his host. He wouldn’t even be alive without her. But Nodoka, too - her entire worldview stems from a childhood being sick - she’s so enthusiastic about life now that she can live it healthily because her childhood framed her current ideas about the world and her desired reality. If she had never been sick, she’d be a completely different person. Daruizen and Nodoka sharing their lives for a brief time inescapably made who they are today.

And that’s just fascinating to me. I know I’m reading way too far into a cartoon for nine year olds, but the layers to this premise is just so intense that I can’t help it. Two people who would not be themselves without the other, who have no choice but to be opposed to each other - it’s Romantic in the most Gothic sense of the word.

I’m extremely interested to see how their story ends - in any other medium I would say they would have no choice but to end up with either one or both of them destroying each other, but Precure is a little kids’ show, and Daruizen did look pretty surprised here at the end at Nodoka’s determination in her values....

So while I doubt they’ll ever be allies, and Daruizen will likely disappear in some fashion in the way that Precure villains do (from my experience of exactly 1 other precure), I can at least hope that there may be some fundamental change in their relationship as we head towards the end of this series. I’m looking forward to it~

[animebw]

Ive been reading through your evangelion analysis and I agree with you on a lot of your thoughts when it comes to the show, but I don't really understand how you can ship asuka and shinji, it always seemed incredibly toxic to me, why do you think they are a good pairing?

“Alsoo ,what do you think of the rebuild movies?“

Hoo boy, that’s a loaded question. To be clear, I also think Shinji and Asuka are very unhealthy for each other... during the show itself.

See, what I’ve realized from thinking about Eva for so long is that Shinji and Asuka are kinda the same person. They’re both dealing with the same insecurities of self-loathing and depression, using their robots as a replacement for their self-worth and assuming that piloting the Eva’s all their good for. That’s what makes them so volatile together; they recognize themselves in each other. They can’t help but be drawn to each other by how much of themselves they see in each other. After all, out of everyone in this show, they’re the people who understand each other the best. But because they’re both so full of self-loathing, they also can’t bring themselves to actually risk that connection. If they acknowledge the other’s pain, that means admitting they have carry that same pain as well. So they’re both inextricably pulled toward each other and desperately pushed apart, and that tension results in misunderstandings, anger, and violence.

But under better circumstances? If they were able to start processing their trauma and worked up the courage to give human connection a shot? They might end up being the best possible thing for each other. Shinji could help Asuka work through her pain just as he’s working through his, and vice-versa. They understand each other on such a fundamental level, and if they were able to overcome their insecurities, they could give each other the perfect shoulder to lean on. And that’s what we start to see happening at the very end of End of Eva, imo. When Shinji tries to strangle her, she reacts by reaching out and offering a gesture of kindness instead of fighting back. She offers him a sign that she’s willing to meet him on a human level. And he accepts that sign by stopping the violence he’s enacting upon her. It’s evidence that after all the ways they’ve grown over the course of the series, they may finally be able to reach each other. That’s where the appeal of Asuka x Shinji comes for me; imagining how good they could be for each other if they continue to work through their issues together.

As for the Rebuilds, haven’t seen ‘em yet. I plan to watch them all in one big chunk once the final one finally drops, because Eva’s not the kind of franchise you can properly judge until it’s finished. It’s just too dense.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

More regarding the biphobia ask: the Dean/Lisa relationship wasn’t just a m/f relationship existing in a vacuum, there are plenty of elements that suggest a coding as something Dean feels like he’s supposed to do because that’s How People Are Happy. Not even counting the Sam’s dying wish thing, the arc is told by using elements that have specific meanings in the language of the show (such as the car in the garage). It’s not a stretch to read something inside the arc that has to do with heteronormativity. Just because bisexual people can feel attracted to people of the gender heteronormativity says is “correct” doesn’t mean that compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity do not apply to them, in fact they do experience those things in specific and unique ways.

Also, not less importantly imo, there is not just the fact that Lisa is a woman. There’s also the fact that Lisa is middle class. That’s something we talk about less but it’s absolutely a fundamental theme in season 6 (and also, in very different terms, season 7). Seasons 6 and 7 deal a lot of the Winchesters’ class, first exploring Dean’s attempt to fit into suburban life, then pushing the Winchesters’ underclass status to the extreme.

That Lisa couldn’t be right for Dean isn’t simply a matter of sexuality, although that’s the most discussed theme in tumblr fandom. It’s a larger issue, of “lifestyle” in a broader sense. Dean cannot just fit in a suburban middle class life where he needs to live a lie about himself entirely, I’d say season 6 Dean couldn’t fit in a middle class life at all because of the reasons we know.

Speaking of living a lie, it’s also interesting how the truth of Dean’s previous life can only be overt inside the house, with Lisa and Ben. There’s something here about truth about your identity as something private that needs to be covert to the public, to the people outside. The whole arc tastes like a closet metaphor where it’s not Dean’s sexuality that gets hushed (indeed he’s not gay), but still a fundamental part of his identity, the truth of his past and experiences.

The Lisa arc is inextricably connected to these themes, so we cannot pretend that Dean’s relationship to Lisa was all nice and good and sadly villains ruined it. Lisa was good for Dean and Dean loved her dearly, but relationships don’t happen in a vacuum, both in fiction and in real life in fact.

[groovesnjams]

gr_OOves ‘n j A_ms       S // O // T // Y 2o2o

nO. 13/50

“The Streets Where I Belong” by Annie

DV:

There are a few artists whose greatest gift might be their ability to sing their own name - a list that extends through Pitbull and Usher and Shakira and Jens Lekman, all the way back to Bo Diddly and the birth of modern pop music (not to mention rap, because we’d run out of space). This is fundamentally an extremely silly skill to have, but it’s also fundamentally wonderful to hear. Annie is very good at it. She’s good at it from “Chewing Gum” to “Hey Annie” to “The Streets Where I Belong”, where the opening line, “Annie, Annie, they're playing our song” tells listeners they’re in for something special. Here it’s because Annie’s other great-and-silly strength is the way she can transition so smoothly between coolness and vulnerability. “The Streets Where I Belong” is a memory, it’s a dream, it’s an impossibility. It’s a song about going home and feeling like it’s where you’re meant to be. It’s a song about missing the people you once knew there. The thing is: we can never return, we can never fully belong in the places where we once were. That community, that world, that ecosystem moves on without us - as we move along without them. We've always both changed, as hard as that is to grapple with. In “The Streets Where I Belong,” Annie comes back cool and ends up the opposite.Turning her peculiar power toward Johnny, the fictional guitarist, she asks for refuge the best any of us can: “Take it away.”

MG:

It’s a bit bold to posit this is the 13th best song of the year and then follow that up by saying it’s best appreciated by serious Annie fans, but that’s just the sort of thick-cut, flavorful pepperoni that this blog generously tosses on our pizza. To dig a little deeper into what DV says about artists singing their own names, Annie does it differently from the rest of the list. It’s her voice, yes, but she’s speaking as some sort of omniscient narrator calling “Annie” to the song. In “Chewing Gum” she sings “Hey, Annie” and coaxes from herself the story of how she loves ‘em and leaves ‘em. It’s a bit like an infomercial for a dubious product where it begins by positing that everyone struggles with opening cans or cooking eggs (no, they don’t) and then offers some hulking piece of plastic as the solution to the problem the infomercial invented. The manipulation is naive and childlike; if you buy that air fryer, you are a rube. If you’re hitting on Annie, you want to be shot down. But on “The Streets Where I Belong” the self-reference is brief, direct, affective, and adult. Annie has grown, grown nostalgic, but also collected enough experiences to be genuinely caught off guard by the flood of emotions music can trigger. She’s not just playing by herself here and the person calling her to the song isn’t her own invention but variously Johnny and the beauty queen and the DJ and her friends. Music connects us in profound, inextricable ways and it’s an obvious thing to point at but that doesn’t make a song like “The Streets Where I Belong” any less meaningful. It’s the obviousness of her journey through memory that makes Annie’s return to start feel familiar. Haven’t we all heard them playing our song?