#also it means she's aware I've transitioned so I didn't have to even get into that at all

[karanan]

I miss "journaling" on tumblr. I'm not sure why I stopped to be honest. But boy do I have an update for you now!

I've been working on a stipend application from Svenska Kulturfonden (Swedish Culture Foundation directly translated), a foundation that exists to promote and conserve Swedish language culture in Finland. They possess an absolutely ungodly amount of funds, rumoured to be greater than the Nobel prize funds. They open their website for applications in November and as long as your project is connected to Swedish in Finland you're allowed to apply for whatever culture related project your heart desires. I'm a visual artist so that means being a fennoswede is all I can offer, but apparently it should be enough.

Anyway as encouraged by my psychologist, I'm applying for a year-long stipend for artistic work which means I had to come up with a whole project and plan and book exhibition spaces and compile a portfolio and find a reference person to recommend my application etc. It's been a lot of work but I did all of that and finished the first draft of my application just now. The deadline is on Thursday so I have some time to look over it before sending.

Getting this stipend would mean I could work on making art full time for a year. It'd have to be related to the project I've decided on, but given the absolutely horrendous art block I've been suffering through the last couple of years, it would be a good push forward for my artistic journey. I'm gonna make as many paintings as I can with the theme of challenging the whole "man vs nature" rhetoric with "man is nature". I've been dabbling in abstract traditional art lately, and am hoping to combine that with my signature digital portrait painting.

In other news, I'm also starting an internship next week at a local cinema. It's a Finnish-language workplace which makes me sweat as a socially anxious non-speaker but hey I have to learn eventually, right?

Anyway, please keep your fingers crossed for me. There's only so much long term unemployment I can take.

[lesbianchemicalplant]

transmisogyny-exempt people do the most insane handwringing about how trans women who say ‘egg’ are Predatory Toward GNC Men and Assuming Genders and Reinforcing Gender Roles or whatever (this is just the TERF argument that trans women are nefariously trying to Convert gnc cis men)

whether you like it or feel Uncomfy or not, the fact is, the following is a very common experience for trans women:

a trans woman makes a friend who at the time self-describes and presents as a man; who seems to be seeking out as many trans women as they can (maybe surrounding themself with trans women if they're able to and/or following their trans women friends around like a duckling); who seems somewhat uncomfortable around men and especially with being treated by them as a Fellow Man; who is very aware of and interested in trans issues; who maybe talks or asks about various aspects of transitioning; and maybe has other interpersonal mannerisms that don't mean anything on their own and don't even necessarily mean anything in context. but yes, then that friend eventually comes out as a trans woman to the trans women she's close to, maybe after having only recently come out to herself

this is something I've personally experienced: this is roughly what I did when I was starting to figure things out (seeking out trans women online). this is also basically how one of my close RL friends made friends with me, and eventually came out to me. I was one of the first trans women she met in real life

and yes, before my friend came out to me, I did Wonder. I didn't assume, and I didn't do anything to push or prod, because it wouldn't have been helpful: it would likely have just made her uncomfortable. I figured the best thing I could do in any case was just being there, and being worthy of trust to talk about anything when/if she wanted to

(said friend is actually now in a similar position wrt one of her siblings, who has talked about how it would be better to be a woman and wear women's clothing among other things, but for now still self-describes as a guy. We'll See)

and yes, sometimes when trans women are in this position—having a friend like this whom we wonder about—we might refer to having a friend who may be a closeted trans woman or an ‘egg’ when in private conversation with other trans women, or when speaking in an anonymous and non-identifying context. this isn't outing anyone, and doing so is not Assuming Someone's Gender or Trying To Convert A Man or Force A Gender On Someone

we might also refer to ourselves in the past tense as having been “eggs” when talking about our experiences growing up, figuring things out, getting to know other trans women, questioning and coming out to ourselves, etc. (again, I myself did seek out other trans women online etc. before I knew I was trans—again, this is all pretty common!)

we are not hunting down any cis man who enjoys baking or whatever and forcibly declaring them to be an Egg. we do not have the social power to do this even if we wanted to, which we don't. even if you did encounter such a hypothetical trans woman, she would be annoying on an interpersonal level, but again, probably not in a position to commit real harm. and if YOU were to fixate on and rage about The Nefarious Trans Women Assuming People's Genders, that would say infinitely more about you than about us or about some purported Serious Social Problem with the term “egg”

any transmisogyny-exempt person who has a problem with any of this is welcome to eat shit

[theabigailthorn]

Hey I’ve been a fan for a little while now, and I just wanted to say that you’ve been an inspiration for me, a younger transfemme. But I do wanna also ask: what’s it like being a trans woman with her life together? I’m 19 (as of sending), been on hrt for almost 5 months, and have been trans for a year and change. But I’m scared. So, I guess, I wanted to ask: does being trans ever become the norm, my baseline? What’s it like after 2-3 years? And does it get any less confusing or scary?

I think there are a few things going on here.

I don't have my life together as much as it might seem; I just don't show you all the ways it's not. I don't talk publicly about the auditions I don't get, or the things I try and fail at, or the insecurities in my own head that hold me back sometimes, or the handful of decisions I've made that were bad calls and which still keep me up occasionally. I've talked about trauma and mental illness in the past, but I only ever discuss stuff I'm comfortably over - when I'm overwhelmed or in the middle of a crisis I don't post about it. I don't set out to deceive you by presenting myself that way, I just keep my most private stuff private. Everybody has failures and regrets and insecurities: "it's a sign of having lived," as my friend Phoebe told me today. But you see a curated version of me that appears not only more together than the real person, but more together than any real person.

Also, if you're 19 a lot of your life hasn't been in your control until pretty recently and a lot of it still might not be. I'd say it's okay to not feel like you have it all together. You just transitioned, which I think is one of the hardest things a human being can do: you can give yourself credit for that even if you feel like you're not settled into it yet. Congratulations!

As for it becoming the baseline, I mean yeah? Kinda? At least for me. Sometimes I forget. I had a moment today in the gym where I saw a man and I was like "Oh yeah, I used to be one of them, sortof? Weird!" The first year is the hardest, or so they say. I wouldn't say I get less confused or scared now, just scared and confused in different ways. I worry less about getting attacked in the street than I did in my first year, for example. (I'm lucky and privileged in that regard.) But I worry a lot more about other people. I struggle a lot with survivor's guilt, which is something only people who survive get! Anyone who's had a drink with me in the last six months has heard me beat myself up because the night of The Prince premiere in New York was the night of Brianna Taylor's vigil in the UK. That wasn't a deliberate decision - the premiere was booked and paid for months before she was even killed - but I've become a lot more sensitive to those sorts of feelings precisely because I spend less time worrying about myself. I'm more aware now of what my transness means for other people. Like, I made an ironic joke when I came out that I'd become The Transgender Princess of TERF Island, and it's kindof haunted me since - I didn't set out to become "a famous trans person" but it's happened a little bit and it's going to happen a lot more next year. That comes with serious responsibilities and a few mild drawbacks, as well as perks, obviously. So I guess that's a longwinded way of saying I might be a weird person to ask this question because, at least for right now, my transness, my whole self, doesn't just belong to me.

Oh also, some great advice I got from my friends: Paris: "Only change the things that bother you on your good days," and Mattie: "Don't believe anything you think about your life after 9pm."

[scaryspears]

My rant on ITSV and ATSV

So I've just finished watching the ITSV and ATSV because I'm a late watcher, and when the movies came out I wasn't myself. I'm glad I took the time to watch them, although I had to buy ATSV online because it's no longer in the cinema. This means I got to watch my favourite scenes without issue. With that being said, I have a lot of things to get off my chest regarding both films, mostly with the characters. 

Warning: Long post and slight bashing of characters and terrible screenshots.

I don't want to be one of those people who hate Gwen just to hate on her, and I don't hate or dislike her character, but right from the jump her vibe was just off. She felt like one of those characters that disliked the main character for no reason despite barely interacting with her/him (them). I know that isn't the case but I didn't like the way she was blankly talking to him. I'm using the word 'blankly' because I can't think of another word other than 'coldly'.

During the chase scene where Miles and Peter steal the computer, she comes out of nowhere and helps save the day. I was glad but at the same time what the hell. Anyways, Miles compliments her haircut and she snaps with "You don't get to like my haircut.", referring to when he accidentally got his hand stuck to her hair and she had to get half her hair shaved off, I understand getting angry about that. It was an accident, and Miles could've apologised (I don't remember him saying sorry), but she's acting like he did it on purpose.

To top it all off she knew he was like her, which meant she knew what he was going through as he was transitioning. Getting taller, hearing multiple voices, hands sticky, and all that stuff. So that means she's aware that it was an accident, and there's also the fact that she pretended to be a student at his school and hovered around him. She bumped into him on purpose knowing he was a fellow spider.

When you think about it, why didn't she try to get to know him and investigate with him about what's going on? She just left him to discover his spider side chaotically. She should know how scary and confusing that is, but not once does she attempt helping him out. 

I'm gonna sweep it under the rug because they are teenagers, and even if they were adults they shouldn't be expected to be more sympathetic to each other. But you'd think she'd be a little bit more understanding. (Don't get me started on her going into his artwork and opening his collectable in ATSV)

Now, Uncle Aaron. I love his dynamic with Miles, the true cool uncle. His love for his generation of hip hop and us seeing Miles' taste of music. The graffiti art bonding, loved it. There were small hints that he was the Prowler. The 1610 Peter getting killed near where Miles and Aaron did the graffiti, Miles calling him while he's being chased by the Prowler, and the Prowler appearing in Aaron's home. I'm thinking "Where's Aaron in all this?" dun dun dun, he's the Prowler. I loved every bit of it. This also makes Miles different from other spider men, being the fact that his loved one ended up being an antagonist, and one scarier than Kingpin. There's no "With great power comes great responsibility." instead it's "In a bad person you can find good in them." Also, the inner torment that he was about to harm his own nephew is chef's kiss. Uncle Ben who?

Moving on to ATSV. It opens up with Gwen and her meeting Miguel and Jess. She looked at Jess and said "Will you adopt me?" Like??? Where yo mum at? I know she passed away, but still. You've only had one look at this woman and that's one of the things that comes out of your mouth? You don't know this woman! Jess sounds like one of those women that only talk with attitude no matter what so I had a hard time rocking with her, like what is her problem??? And she's fighting while pregnant... smdh.

Spot. Funny villain, I liked his banter with Miles, but he's a pu**y punk bi**h. He's blaming Miles for what he became, when he's the one that decided to become a mad scientist and work with other mad scientists under Kingpin. I'm pretty sure there's more to it than a bagel. Lesson is: once you become a mad scientist something happens to you. Norman Osborn became Green Goblin, 65 Peter (Gwen's home) became a monster and died, Shang Tsung got Rick Rolled by himself, you get the idea. Spot made himself like that not Miles.

So Gwen didn't talk to Miles for a really long time because of the whole Spider society thing. When you think about it, none of the other spiders he met did, and I get that they couldn't with the exclusion of Peni. But not one visit? Not one letter? Something??? Now Miles has a little short conversation with Hobie and admits that he only wants to get into the Spider society to talk to his friends and help out with defeating Spot. He just wants to hang with his friends, but Peni and Gwen decided not to do that.

Moving on, I'd like to talk about Miles' walk through within the spider society. They acknowledge Gwen and only Gwen, they don't bother saying hi or even looking at Miles. It was like Miles wasn't even there. Never thought I'd say it, but these Spider men are arse holes. I also got annoyed at the way Jess was talking to him, I get that he's not supposed to be there but she needed to chill.

This anger went when Miles bumped into Margo, and she looked like she was about to lose her cool but she lightened up once she saw who it was, a complete stranger. I'm not a MargoMiles shipper, but I don't mind it (granted so long as they are the same age).

So the scene that goes 0 to 100 quick: I watched a bunch of memes and edits that painted Miguel as racist and I didn't understand why, and thought it was like a Millie Bobby Brown situation. Re-watching the scene where Miles meets Miguel I can see why.

All the other spidermen showed up to gang up on Miles.

"You can't ask me not to save my father."

"I'm not asking."

And hit him with this.

While Miles is freaking out at the sudden imprisonment we can hear Miguel say "We just need to hold him a few days." They were treating Miles like a criminal and/or a confused wild animal. And then Miguel had the nerve to say "All he had to do was listen." when Miles escaped them. I don't think Miguel is racist, but the memes I will support.

Hobie was looking out for Miles as soon as he met him, and I love that so much. He knew Miles wasn't like the ones in the spider society, and made sure to tell Miles to be better. Gwen didn't do that. She did, but she didn't if you know what I mean. She followed along with the crap Miguel was spitting.

And then there was the chase scene. Bro had a bunch of spider men chase Miles and not one of them could catch him. That is the biggest L I've ever seen. One 15 year old boy, and he didn't use his other 2 powers until after Miguel slammed him onto his back. Miles was not playing. Also, Miguel was endangering the lives of people who were driving. And yes, Miguel's at fault and not Miles.

They gave Miles crap just because he didn't want his dad to die, unlike Miguel who actively replaced the life of his other self. Gwen was really going to let her dad die, and Peter B tried to justify it by saying their uncle's death made them who they are. Pavitr was just supposed to get over his love interest's dad dying? They knowingly let that happen.

Miguel calling Miles an anomaly is mega projecting. Miles becoming Spiderman wasn't on purpose it just happened, and that's always how the story goes. No one is simply meant to be Spiderman, they just become him/her. It's also funny coming from a man who crawled on all fours chasing down a teenager.

42 Miles. Prowler Miles. Gonzales. Kilo Immorales. I love him already, can't wait to see the next film where we'll see him in full action. I love how we as a fandom collectively agreed that these two would have a sibling dynamic even though we've only seen 42 Miles for like a minute. I love the Boondocks comparisons as well. I need 42 Miles to hate everyone. I need Miles to be full of rage in the 3rd film Adult Gon style. Prepare for double and make it double.

In conclusion, I should've watched these films when they first came out, they are so great. The art, the incorporation of hip hop and correctness of Afro related backgrounds and the storyline. I honestly felt like Miles was a great representation of the new generation. I saw myself in him, and not just being black but the graffiti and finding out that a family member of yours isn't really a good person. I don't do graffiti or art but I do find them beautiful whenever I see them. Also, the Air Forces. Step aside Peter Parker, we have a Spider man with more drip.

[up-in-flames-writing]

This is an old Twitter thread I'm posting here as an archive, when I eventually get banned on there for not tolerating transphobic abuse against me.

Still pretty relevant tho, even tho it was written almost a year & a half ago.

I'm sorry, I don't know how to do alt text, so here is the image ID under the cut:

[Image ID: A Twitter thread made by user Booker-Garet Feniks @abookandabun. The thread reads:

So, lately, I've been seeing some Takes™ on transition on here, & as a transman who looks like a baby butch lesbian, I have some Thoughts™, so here's a thread

First thing's first: I am short. I am skinny (read: underweight), & curvy. I have a more or less conventional hourglass figure. I also have a soft face, big lips & big eyes with long lashes. I keep my nails long & my hair long & when I cut them, they grow back fast

By all means, if I were a woman, I would be, if not conventionally attractive, at least conventionally feminine, with my small waist, wide hips, my long legs, & even my tiny tits. Despite this, I dress masculine. I hold myself like a man, I deepen my voice

My voice is naturally a bit deep, but not deep enough for there to be any ambiguity about what's in my pants. I still speak in a fake, deep voice, & when I introduce myself, I do it with a grin & tell everyone very openly 'my name is Booker-Garet'

Despite this, I do not pass. I am constantly Miss'ed & Ma'am'ed when I'm out & about. People who know me need to be told that I'm a man & go by he/him pronouns. Imagine that, imagine calling a teenage boy with an unambiguous male name 'she'. Imagine how I feel

How I feel when none of my efforts matter. How, when I'm at my most masculine while pre-op & pre-T, people see meas nothing more than a girl. It's distressing. I know what they're thinking, that I'm a tomboy or a lesbian. If they recognise that I'm trans, they don't show it

And, I feel like it's easy to get mad at GNC women. It's easy to get mad at the tomboys & the butches & the studs. 'They think I'm you' you might think. 'You're too visible & I'm not, & they think I'm you.'

I find it easy to blame a lot of ciswomen for this. The ones who tell me I should've just stayed a lesbian (which I never was), that I should've just been a tomboy (which I was), that I'm a traitor to womanhood (so be it). It is easy to get mad at them

It's hard being a trans guy, when the only pieces of masculinity coming from a female person people are aware of are the ones who are women, who stay women & who love being women. I didn't love being a woman. I love women, I love my cis & trans sisters

But I can't help feeling bitter when they perform masculinity & no one denies their womanhood, no one on the right side of history. But I can be my most manly self & even my allies feel that I'd just be better off as a lesbian, as a masculine woman.

As if masculinity is alright, is safe, as long as you're a woman who performs it, but the moment you're a man performing masculinity, you're not worth the time, the effort, the brain power.

Almost as I'd it's easier for people to accept me as a masculine woman, with my deep voice & my masculine name, than admit to the fact that I am a man

It's hard to admit that you don't pass. It's hard to admit that I'm not a 'real man', whatever that means. It's not, however, hard to admit that I don't have privilege. It's not hard to admit that I face misogyny.

It's not hard to admit that if you're AFAB & masc presenting, nothing short of a Thor voice & a Gandalf beard, & body hair like a gorilla will make people see you as anything but a woman. Because if I don't say this, who else will? I can't let people live a lie

I can't let people keep on believing that 'transmascs have it easier', that it's easier for us to pass. I can't let people keep believing that we 'run away from womanhood to have male privilege'. Where's my male privilege, Joanne? Did it get lost in the Owl Mail?

People will keep on believing that we have it easier, that we don't face discrimination, that we don't get misgendered & assaulted & killed. They will keep believing that, & they will keep ignoring us & our oppression, unless someone finally says 'Enough!' & tells their story

& I'm a good story teller, so I'm telling you. I don't pass, I wish I did, but I don't. Many of my brothers do not pass. Stop ignoring us just because you think we have it 'easier'. We don't, & your inaction is allowing us to get killed. Do better

End image ID]

[purgemarchlockdown]

Lyrical Repetition in Purge March

So I've been thinking a lot about repeating lyrics in Milgram MVs. Since Milgram will often repeat lyrics to create a relationship between the two scenes. The relationship could be Anything, contrast, parallel, irony, etc. The purpose is just to associate the scenes together using the lyrics.

I think it's really fun to check out what the lyrics and scenes are since I like seeing what connections Milgram is making and what it says about the story and characters.

So with all that preamble out of the way let's talk about Purge March!

So Purge March has this whole repeated sequence in it, but I'm splitting it up for ease.

So this lyrical repeat features a fun thing Milgram likes doing with them, perspective change! The first time these lyrics are sung we are looking at it from the perspective of Amane Punishing Herself and the second time is Amane being Punished by Her Mom.

Milgram is establishing a connection here between her Mother's abuse and the way Amane treats herself, it's being portrayed as Similar. There's also an additional layer of that the Lyrics are referring to Different People in these scenes. The first is referring to Amane Herself as the scum. As the Marching Band leader "erases" this Amane for not being able to get the performance right. She can't be helped so she must be erased.

Note that this scene still humanizes this Amane to the audience, showing how terrified she looks and how she didn't mean to make that mistake. It was an accident.

The Second Scene, however, is referring to Amane's Mother as the scum. And we aren't shown her face at all, just her hand as she's about to Taze Amane.

This completely removes any and all sympathy you could have for her. There's No Person you can latch onto, just a hand that Tazes Her Daughter.

In both cases we are encouraged to sympathize with Amane. However the first case has some Internal Justification from Amane that the abuse was "warranted" in some way because she Did "Mess up". While the second completely gets rid of that idea and showcases how truly cruel and and awful these punishments are.

Moving onto the other lines in this sequence. This continues the change in Who the lines are talking about but this time we also have a change in Role.

Instead of the one being Punished, Amane is now the Punisher. She's the one enacting punishment on the sinner. Initially she was the one who's eyes Needed to be crushed. She was the one who was corrupted and sinful. But now its her mother who needs to be crushed, her mother who Killed a Cat who did Nothing Wrong. Who broke cult rules and thus should be punished. That's how this works, that's how this Always Worked.

They never stopped treating her like that just because she was a Child.

T1 VD:

Es: Also, your dislike for being treated like a child… I never really noticed it up until now, but just looking back on it makes me angry. (sigh) You did something very unlike Milgram. From now on, I will treat you like a murderer with full awareness of their actions, prisoner no.8, Amane. Amane: Yes! I am very grateful for that… Hm?

So why should she stop just because she's her mother? Or because she's more "righteous" than her? Or because she said sorry?

That sorry doesn't matter.

The rule was still broken, after all. (Note that, unlike a lot of the other shots. The scene where the line about hopelessness first appears is in the Real World while the second scene is in the Marching Band World, unlike most of the other shots that are reversed. I don't know how purposeful this is but I think it's interesting!)

Related to all of this is how the hopeless sorry line is used to Transition between Amane's intention, there's a few lines right before it gets repeated about how Amane's mother broke the vow and how if she breaks her vow, Amane is supposed to punish her.

Right after this we have the lines where Amane is Noticeably Angry and Upset that her Mother Never forgave her even though she cried and screamed and Tried her best and how much she wants her mother to die.

The "hopeless I'm sorry" is used to transition between those two ideas. Amane punishing her mother because she broke her vow and Amane killing her mother because she Hates Her and Hurt Her.

This is a two minute and thirty second song and In One Sequence we can gather This Much Information, that's just Good Storytelling.

And that's not the Only repeated part in Purge March.

So second repeated part in Purge March. This sequence recites the main doctrines we are presented with in Purge March while also playing this line in the background.

If you become a bad girl, monsters will come out This is the magic that stops that from happening

We are associating these lyrics with each other and for good reason. The Doctrine is the Magic, if you follow that then the monsters won't come out.

We see those monsters, after all, Amane broke a Rule.

They even have the line about the magic stopping it from happening On the scene where Amane is helping the cat. A lovely bit of visual irony since this action is what they use as an excuse to punish her.

Dramatic Irony is when the audience knows more than the character and we know More than the character, we know she gets caught, we we're told what happens next, and we Can't Do Anything.

Except, the lyrics is Presenting us with a solution. Follow the Doctrine, that's the Magic. You'll be safe if you do. Amane didn't and that's why this is happening.

Now of course that isn't true in the slightest and her abusers would of found a way to abuse her no matter what.

But the point is we're being put in the shoes of this girl who wants to be good so bad it's going to kill her through the usage of Dramatic Irony and Lyrical-Visual Association. It's Good Storytelling and I think it's incredibly cool how Purge March Does That with such little time.

Those are the two scenes where lyrics are repeated in Purge March (unless I missed one somehow.) This was really fun to write and a lot of the other MVs are super cool about this too, Cat especially is fantastic at this and I might write more about it if I ever have the time. Hope you enjoyed reading!

[11queensupreme11]

Hi it's me again the anon who dreams a lot about Percy and Poseidon lmao, I saw them in my dreams again today but it wasn't a funny one and I got sad. In the dream it kind of transitioned from your author's note (which you mentioned that there's angst in the latest chapter lmaoo) to the dream itself: Percy heard from some atlantean citizens that Poseidon actually had a concubine before, unclear if he loved her but most likely yeah 🥹😭 and they were supposed to have a baby but for some reason my dreams established that godly babies can either take only a few days to grow in their mother or yeaarrsss. And for some reason you can't force it to come out so after literal years pregnant the concubine kind of chose to terminate it, didn't show what happened after but I think it implied that she got killed by some enemies. Sometime after all that Poseidon was really mad and scaring everyone and whatever. And so they were saying that Percy wasn't even supposed to be his first child so they think it's not a surprise that Poseidon doesn't really like or care about Percy. And Percy got really sad🥹 At this point I think I was aware I was dreaming so I forced myself to wake up to end it.

Also the concubine's name is Calla!!! I was weirded out when I woke up because it's not really a name you can find in my country so I googled it and apparently it's of Greek origin meaning 'Beauty' and I knew nothing about that! Greek and beauty? Gosh the coincidence it's so close  it hurts lmaoo

It's like a reverse wmmap where Percy is Jennette, Calla is Diana and Athy wasn't born. I think my brain is mixing up wmmap and arsenic blues and it's not fun!!! I do get vivid dreams so sometimes when it's close to reality I have to go through my memories to make sure it didn't happen. So I actually got really sad when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep again 😂😂 I'm so dramatic lmaoo AND I had to check if you updated and if it was your latest update and THANK GOD IT WASN'T!! I've never been so happy that you didn't update 😂 if I saw the notification I might actually have gotten a heart attack. I really liked reading about you confirming in various asks that there won't be anything like wmmap and that Percy is his only love AND NOW THIS!??! 🥹 Wow this is long I'm so sorry!!

anon, you keep having some wild ass dreams omg, but i think this is the first one i ever got that's so ANGSTY????

this is like the wmmap au someone sent me BUT SOMEHOW SADDER????? actually got me feeling bad for percy AND poseidon wtf 😭

[wynharper]

Hi, besties!

So, over on my main page I've kept saying 'surprises are coming soon' and I know it's late on a Sunday here on the east coast of the USA but I know it's still light out on the west coast, my European besties will be waking up soon and my Australasia besties are already in tomorrow. I also know it's a holiday here in the US this weekend but that's not the case everywhere and I'm not too afraid to continue reblogging my own things.

Last year, I started writing this story called Flash in the Pan. It's a summer romance between a single dad and his young nanny. Due to some.... fun brain things, I had to walk away from this project but I was never done with it.

In fact, when I started to get better, I started to think of Tilly (and Nathan) again and how much their story means to me and how important it is for me to write a rather extreme age gap romance that is a lot about safety and mutual respect and understanding of power dynamics. The kind of age gap relationship I have and have not experienced in turn, essentially. But in thinking about them and rereading what I'd written so far I just realized that.... some things needed to change for me to be able to tell Tilly's story to an audience the way I wanted to and the way that would do what was in my head justice and I just didn't think I could achieve that with what was already on the page so I've been rewriting some things.

Behind the cut because this is a long post, my beloveds!

The first key difference in this rewrite of Flash in the Pan is that Tilly is slightly older. She's still nineteen but she's nineteen going on twenty and, in this version, she is in college instead of having just finished high school. Like I said, there was a lot that I was thinking about and one of the things that I was thinking about was Tilly's search for independence and wanting to be seen as an adult and that's definitely something I've been drawing from my own experiences about. And while I was drawing from my own experiences about seeing an older guy when I was freshly nineteen and freshly graduated from high school, I wasn't feeling like that was exactly something I could fully use as a playing ground for the growth I wanted Tilly to also experience from this relationship with Nathan. I want her to be at a point of transition in her life but I believe that I can achieve that still (and maybe even a lot better) with this difference.

And, honestly, from a marketing standpoint of this story, I'm aware that while I may be drawing inspiration off of a lot of my own experiences, the situation I was in is one of those situations where even just the mention of extreme age gap is a hard no boundary for some people. I expect that there will still be some hard no boundary on that and I respect that. At the end of the day, I write for me but I also want anybody who wants to read this to feel as safe as possible consuming these words.

Another really big difference here is that I'm not taking the best friend away in this version but I am changing the nature of their relationship. I like Tilly and Nina's flirtatious nature with each other, I like their obvious attraction to one another. I like that this is a person that Tilly has always, without a doubt, felt safe with. Safe to talk to, safe to explore things with. And I'm not saying I'm taking that away but I am going to dial it back. Tilly is not going to be as experienced in this version as she was in the first, especially not with Nina.

The reason I have decided to dial back that aspect of their relationship is because I started it with the goal of safety, I started it with the goal of showing that Tilly is really only comfortable talking about her sexuality with people who make her feel safe. However, there was such a gap between the episodes and after I got sick and didn't write for a long time, I came back and I read it and I read my notes and I thought, "I don't have the energy to do what I want to do for this." If I don't have the energy to do what I want to do for that plot line, that means I will not do it justice. At no point do I want that aspect of her relationship with Nina to come off fetishistic of WLW relationships and if I don't believe that I can do it justice then, for me, it is inherently fetishistic and that's unacceptable to me. Because there's already so much media that horribly portrays WLW relationships or curiosity in sexuality and I do not wish, after years of being harmed by that kind of media as a consumer, to contribute to the very problem and continue the cycle.

So, I'll be relaunching Flash in the Pan via both Kindle Vella and via Patreon. The reason I'm going to upkeep on Vella is because I know there are people who prefer that platform and it also exposes me to possible new readers! But for all my non-US friends who have been telling me for months that they want to read it and it's not accessible because of the platform and for my friends who have told me they don't like how Vella is set up, I'm going the route of Patreon. More to come soon on that and thank you for wanting to read about these people I made up falling in love or something like it.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Immaculate Mary | BODY BACK Update #2

Harrison's back, and he's only getting worse! <3

Let's talk chapter 2 of my novella BODY BACK. We're all about villain eras, unexpected developments, Mother Mary, Jesus thirst traps (yes...) & more. Check out update #1 if you missed it!

Post starts under the cut!

Unexpected developments

I'd already planned that Suzanna, Harrison's mother, wasn't going to be a major character in BB as she is in Feeding Habits. I didn't think we'd see her "on-screen" in BB, but when you get caught breaking into a stranger's pool & need your mother to bail you out...

Suzanna & Harrison

CW: child neglect, addiction

Suz and Harrison have SUCH a complicated relationship. They were once extremely close, but are now near-strangers. Having abandoned Harrison when he was a child amidst her own substance-abuse problems, Suz also never reconnected with her son after she got sober. She is only part of his life now out of fluke (the fluke is Lonan, who runs into her by chance in Moth Work--you can read that chapter update HERE though it's old!).

Harrison isn't sure what to make of their relationship. On one hand, it's a relief to have his mother back in his life because he's missed her (amongst other feelings) and also has a safety net when he makes bad decisions (chapter 1 lmao). But on the other hand, he's *extremely* resentful of Suzanna (and rightly so). At this point, they've only been reconnected for 2 weeks, and while Suz is trying to transition their lives together as seamlessly as possible, the last time they meaningfully knew each other was ~15 years prior (1990-ish), which makes this task, especially on Harrison's end, impossible.

This relationship is probably one of the most complex things I've ever written. It's hard to verbalize/describe it because at times it's irrational, frustrating, lovely, horrifying, hilarious, and comforting (and sometimes all at once). This culminates to a volatile emotional climax for Harrison that serves as the inciting incident for BB.

Immaculate Mary

We open "Immaculate Mary" with Harrison and Suz in the Bakers' bathroom (the couple whose house Harrison broke into). This chapter is about motherhood, yes, but also sonhood, and how Harrison believes his sonhood intersects with Suz's motherhood (and conversely, how Jesus' sonhood intersects with Mary's motherhood).

The title was just an inclination I had that addressed the chapter's holy and maternal themes. I was also aware this was a hymn, HOWEVER, upon writing this update (as in RIGHT NOW), I've realized this is a Catholic hymn I used to sing all the time in choir. So I guess I blocked that out?? LMAO

Scene A:

Suz attempts to blow-dry Harrison's hair which is soaked with pool water. This goes badly.

Scene B:

Desperate and unsure how to help her reckless son (lol), Suz drives Harrison to Eliza's apartment--where his ex, Lonan, now lives--in hopes he will talk to him. This also goes badly.

Scene B is *critical* here. Harrison isn't ready to face Lonan, even if that means merely facing the potential of seeing him. Suz rushing him into a conversation he isn't ready to have flips a switch inside of him. This is how we get to Chaotic Party Harrison, whose primary concern is A) forgetting and B) having a good time so he can forget some more.

The writing process

Writing this chapter was faster than chapter 1 because it's more action/dialogue heavy with longer scenes (it's also not as clean, lol).

I wrote a large portion of this chapter as a writing prompt for a class. The bathroom scene with Harrison & Suz was almost exclusively hand-written as a screenplay, so I had to adapt it. It was a lot of fun to have the dialogue/scene skeleton laid out, since it's not often I have a plan before going into writing sessions.

I similarly followed the circular plot structure I talked about in update 1. The "satellite" in this case was "mother/sonhood/mother Mary/Jesus." Mary x Jesus are critical to this chapter--not only does Harrison project himself onto Jesus, he also does the same to Suz, but with Mary. What does it mean to Mary to be the mother of the Messiah, and what does it mean to Suz to be the mother of Harrison? These are two questions we keep circling back to.

Excerpts

Guess who didn't share every single excerpt from this chapter so I actually have *some* new content??? :)

A plastic fantastic description of the Bakers' bathroom:

They stand in the Bakers’ bathroom. It vomits ‘under-the-sea’—a theme a child might request, but according to the living room’s unstained couch cushions and front mat’s lack of tiny shoes, no children live here. Perhaps Nash requested the décor. That might check out—a Ken doll on the outside dying to be coffined in his plasticky packaging, or in this case, plasticky bathroom. High-gloss cerulean walls. A clownfish soap dispenser. The toilet seat cover ridged into a lilac clam. A translucent blue shower curtain that flickers iridescent waves when you walk past it.

Here, we explore Harrison's psychology more overtly. Is he expecting to be yelled at--and why is that something he craves now?

In Suz’s body, Harrison expects rage. How far did she drive to get here? Honestly, he hadn’t tracked the length of the car ride when he’d hitchhiked. He analyzes her shoulders as she shuffles through the Bakers’ cabinet and emerges with a hairdryer, but she’s blanker than a blank slate—the empty air in front of God before he creates. If she’d only impale the wall socket with the dryer’s prongs. If she’d only grab his hair by the roots and hang him up to dry.

Harrison tracks the similarities of his and his mother's reflections:

Harrison stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. On his wrist: a gold herringbone bracelet Sadie hung on the key holder. In his ear: Lonan’s earring. His wet hair curls weakly around his ears, drips down his twiggy eyebrows. Last week, he caught his own reflection in the dishware cabinet and was so startled to find Suzanna’s face staring back that he dropped his cup. The crash pealed like a death knell long after the sound disappeared. Picking glass from the tile, it angered him that he looked like her. His father’s eyes, sure, but his mother’s bulbous nose, spare mouth, minky hair, stubby nail beds. The last time he’d compared their reflections, they stood in front of a funhouse mirror. They wore chromized party hats, technicolour butterflies painted on their left cheeks. He was five.

Here we have a description of Harrison wearing a (stolen) ring. This excerpt will be relevant in chapter three (also JEREMIAH BAIT):

He wears Jeremiah’s silver signet ring on his pinkie, and it clicks against the marble. Perhaps he’s been looking for it since Harrison’s been away. Hands and knees. Stuffing his head under his bedframe, a flimsy flashlight in hand, his mouth wide open.

(also... I may or may not have bought this ring... for myself)

The LINE of the century:

Harrison crosses his arms. The soaked leather of his jacket squelches, baptized by pool water just like him. His mouth is twitching again—he’d like to get high tonight, see neon, taste Jesus.

This is the unholy excerpt I vowed I wouldn't share (in other words, Jesus Thirst Trap -- take with that what you will):

How did Mary feel to mother Jesus? Listen, Harrison knows he’s no Christ. But Jesus was twenty-one once, wasn’t he? What did he do in his free time besides praise the Word of the Lord, perform miracles, etcetera, etcetera? He was a carpenter sure, nailed pleats of wood bare-backed in the tart Nazareth sun, flicked pearls of sweat off his tanned forehead. But did he ever break into a stranger’s pool? Did he ever wake up one morning, stumble out of bed, stick a frayed toothbrush into his mouth, stare at himself in the mirror and feel, with certainty, an unending urge to run?

Suz is exhausted:

Suz squeezes her nose bridge. She’s aged since August, if that’s even possible. The bags beneath her eyes are violet like the fleshy interior of a blueberry, the veins scarlet lightning bolts.

“Why are you upset?” Harrison asks, drumming his ringed finger against the counter’s lip.

This is a direct continuation of the above! This is actually sad I'm sorry:

What does Suzanna see when she looks at him? A miniature version of her wearing a jacket that once belonged to her at his age, and an earring that once belonged to another mother? Or is he a stranger? They know each other best by genetics. If she asked Harrison what he thought her favourite colour was, he’d have no idea. “This isn’t a big deal.”

“Oh, please,” Suz says, teary like the actresses on her favourite Portuguese soaps. Sure, Harrison doesn’t know his mother’s favourite colour, if in childhood she was the type of girl to make rings out of peach pits, if she was the type of girl to rip worms bare-handed, if she’d eat cottage cheese with cantaloupe, if she thought about enrolling in a life drawing class before she got pregnant, if her idols are pop icons of the 80s like his are, her favourite way to fold a paper airplane, when her birthday is. But he does know she does not cry.

When young Jesus stayed in Jerusalem unbeknownst to his mother, what did Mary do? Perhaps she stared at her hands, thought of the last time she touched him. Perhaps she wept. Or perhaps she found the closest mirror, wiped her sleeve against the glass until it glossed, and tried to find her son in her own reflection.

Emo boi dialogue (this is an ouchie lol):

Suz soothes her index finger over her thumb over and over. “Things have been so…”

“So what?” Harrison knows she could mean so many things. So raw. So indelicate. So tense. So like we’re a VHS set in reverse.  “This isn’t a big deal. No one was hurt.”

“You cannot come and go as you please in other people’s houses, Harrison.” She can’t even look at him. He could call her out by name again—Suzanna, Suzanna, Suzanna. She winces every time he does, plays it off as a sudden headache or a flighty twitch.

“Isn’t that what I do at your place?” he says instead, his throat heady with the need to scream, or perhaps cry. “Parade around as your son and then crash on the couch?”

“Harrison,” Suz says. Her eyes are pellets of amber, her pupils preserved in their warmth. As a child, Harrison climbed onto the bathroom counter, pried his own eyes open between his chewed fingernails. The colour was wrong, too light, too cold, too much like his father’s—and what was a father? God is as much a father as he is a traitor to his own sacrificial son. Harrison stood there for so long his eyes stung, and when his lid eventually snapped back in place, the world stippled.

“What?” he asks now. Where the hell is God in this dim bathroom? Sucked up in the fan? Hiding in shower drain hairballs? And where is his father? Both perpetually missing like a television remote, a set of house keys. That’s right. God’s not here—not in the olive wall paint, not in the patterned hand towels, not in the piranha portrait above the toilet tank, not against Harrison’s chest like he used to be. He’s the only one here in front of his mother, all seven of Mary’s sorrows etched into a man. He almost laughs. “And my name is kind of idiotic, isn’t it? Harry’s son—but I’m nobody’s son.”

“You’re my son.”

(^^ Funnily, the Harry's son bit was in the handwritten draft and I thought it was kind of stupid, but I have been unable to delete it... there's something very real about that line, lol, yikes)

This finishes off scene A:

He kicks off the counter, pushes past his mother, walks down the hall and back into the living room. His ears ring. He’s not even sure what’s so bad about what she’s said. Change is good, isn’t it?

“Change is good,” he mutters to himself. “Change is good.”

The Bakers gape at him from the couch. This defectless couple like the blue and pink pegs screwed into a Game of Life car. Their faces scream GET MARRIED, JOB SEARCH, BUY A HOUSE.

Harrison looks at Sadie, her sad, dead eyes. “Do something with your life,” he says, then salutes and walks right out the front door.

Scene B starts very normally, right? Here's Harrison wondering what'd be like if he was... a shirt:

The city isn’t as interesting when it’s just cars, in fact, it’s not much different to Boston, to New York. Everything is brilliant and irrelevant and bleary and transparent, like a raw brain spinning around a washing machine. Harrison might like to walk to the laundromat ten minutes from Suz’s apartment, hop into someone else’s load and just let himself swivel until he’s unsure if he’s a man or a chemise blouse. The dreaminess of it all, the way silk knows it’s as defenseless as it is coveted. Harrison could be both, couldn’t he?

Harrison starts getting an inclination of where Suz is driving him:

“Suzanna,” Harrison says, wincing when the wild cherry air freshener noosed around her rear-view flails in his direction.

She takes the next exit, the car even faster now—seventy-five, eighty.

“Suz.”

“I want better for you.” Suz slows, now weaving through a residential neighbourhood. Men sit on unruly lawns, grimy hands fisted around beer bottles. At the next turn, a teenage girl hurries a sheltie down a crosswalk. A mother squints at a bus schedule while she nudges a stroller back and forth with her heel. Boardgame people just waiting for their next play.

Would you rather have a single conversation with your ex or jump out of a moving vehicle? We know Harrison's answer:

When she doesn’t answer, he wants to ask the question again, but something changes. Perhaps it’s the texture of the wheels beneath him, the way he remembers the grit of asphalt under the rubber like someone remembers the sound of their loved one’s footsteps. Perhaps it’s the way the sidewalk shimmers with rain that’s so familiar, the way the streetlamps seem to flash as they appear like a signal lamp, or perhaps Harrison’s not a fucking idiot. “Mom,” he says, already unclicking his seatbelt. She’s not going as fast now—maybe forty miles an hour, perhaps less. He watched a documentary the other day about jumping from moving cars, the best techniques.

'My heart is fine' and other lies this man tells himself (AKA em-dash wars):

“What’s heartbreak to you? A little boohoo? My heart is fine. Let me out of the car.”

“I know you think so—”

“Let me out of the—”

“But you can’t fight a battle and run from it at the same—”

“Suzanna—”

“You loved him—”

“And what the fuck would you know?” Harrison slams his fist so hard against the dashboard the plastic fractures, the break like the entire Pacific sloshing against an eardrum. Harrison doesn’t care. He does it again, again, until shards clatter, until his hand’s bloody, until Suz is horrified because he can be horrifying—and not just horrifying, but the entire fucking horror.

(also this horror line is... fantastic lol)

Aaaand final paragraph. He is not in denial. No way!

Perhaps Jesus would enter that apartment like it were his father’s temple. But Harrison is tired of gods, of ghosts, of men. He repeats this to himself as he hustles through the rain. No gods, no ghosts, no men. His teeth chatter. His hands shake. He’s not wise. He never wants to be again. No gods, no ghosts, no men. It’s easier this way, no need to contemplate the open window overlooking the parking lot, no need to contemplate who lives there now, who makes a bed there every morning, who drinks his coffee with half a cream no sugar at the breakfast table, who grinds an inkstick to practice his new interest in calligraphy, who reads poetry on the balcony every Wednesday, who finishes a one-thousand piece puzzle in an afternoon, who wears Suzanna’s angel pendant and says he bought it vintage, who takes up pottery, herb gardening, darts whenever he feels like it, who sleeps with both eyes closed at last. No need to contemplate what might happen if he spared one glance. Who he might see if he just looked back.

Harrison from now on:

Yes you will bb!

That's it! :) Chapter 3 is writing itself. I'll be back soon lol.

Rachel

[poetessinthepit]

The boomer understanding of transgender people is really interesting because sometimes, it can be weirdly progressive and other times not so much.

One time I was talking about Chaz Bono. I can't really remember the context. My mom asked me why I referred to Chaz Bono as a transgender man when Chaz Bono is just a man.

I thought this was maybe kind of cool. Disclaimer, I'm cis so what do I know. I know many transgender people are loud and proud about being trans, but I also think it's normal whether you're trans or cis, to just want to be seen as who you are and get through your day without being hassled.

I picked her brain a little and she was like " well, Chaz Bono used to be a woman, but Chaz Bono is a man now. He had a sex change."

Anyway, it seems like my mom, who works in the medical field, honest to god, believes there is one single surgery that can just flip all your characteristics from one sex to the other. This is obviously wrong, but I think a lot of people her age believe this and it tends to be more liberal people her age and not the other way around.

You could argue this places a lot of emphasis on passing and I could agree with that, but in the case of my mom, I truly think any trans person, passing or not, regardless of how much they've medically transitioned, could just tell her they've had a sex change and she'd be like cool, you are what you say you are. She ,at worst, would probably secretly think "maybe, they have a shitty doctor".

Now, I'm not saying there are no issues with her way of thinking and that it doesn't come from a place of ignorance, but it is interesting to me how there are some narrow circumstances where it comes across as more accepting than millenials can often be. My generation, myself unfortunately included, is often guilty of using "trans" as a qualifier, as way of saying "well, they're a woman but...", fill in any gender identity, etc.

Another time, the topic of transgender athletes in sports came up, something we probably never would have talked about if the right hadn't made the topic newsworthy. My mom, who is an avid tennis player, immediately brought up Renée Richards and said "Well, Renée Richards just did okay back in the 70's. She didn't dominate. It probably depends on the circumstances." I thought this was a pretty nuanced take on a pretty nuanced issue that she came to organically.

Of course, the main issue is that my mom has absolutely zero understanding of being non-binary or even a binary trans person is intentionally gnc in their presentation. I've tried to explain it to her many times in simple terms and like any movie with a non-linear timeline, she just can't wrap her head around it. That said, I think my mom tries to be accepting generally. I know one of my mom's closest friends has a non-binary kid that came to our Thanksgiving once and my mom was earnestly trying to use they/them pronouns and even corrected some of the other guests.

I know this whole post might come across as me trying to excuse my mom's transphobia because I, like anyone else, just want to believe that my parent is good person. Honestly, maybe it is. Maybe, I just lack the self awareness. But I'm also just personally fascinated by it. And it's also true that LGBTQ boomers, the people my mom learned from, tend to have a different understanding of these issues and different terminology than younger LGBTQ people. You could completely chalk that up to internalized bias, but it's a lot more complicated than that. We're talking about social constructs here.

My personal opinion is ( and don't get me wrong, I can totally see why someone from a marginalized group would validly disagree with the following sentiment) that for the most part, with some obvious exceptions, how someone arrives a place of tolerance does not matter, as long as they get there. The ends usually justify the means. And I think the job of an ally, something I try to be, is to foster understanding where you can. It's mentally exhausting for someone from a marginalized group to constantly have to justify their existence in the world. We need radical empathy. Sometimes, I am the ally I need to be or close to it and sometimes, I'm more like my mom, well-meaning but ignorant.

[cutemothman]

per manum thoughts

Honestly, there are a lot of episodes of The X-Files that give me the heebie jeebies but none have come close to the feeling I got watching Per Manum. It's a Scully focused ep in a season that's a little Scully lacking imo so ya girl was excited!

Neither Mulder nor Scully get out of the narrative unscathed in this show but, god, they really love to torture Scully don't they? I mean, we know that having a baby is something that she's wanted for a long time. Something that she thought wasn't possible. And then Mulder waltz in like "Wassup I got some of your ova. It was in my pocket for a while, but I think it's fine" (Fox, babygirl, you're smart. You should know better).

In a series of flashbacks we see them trying IVF. I have to mention that I freaking loved how they did the transitions to the flashbacks here. Like in the elevator! They were absolutely perfect. Anyway, spoiler alert, it doesn't work. (Like seriously, Mulder, IT WAS IN YOUR POCKET FOR GOD KNOWS HOW LONG. THAT SHIT AIN'T SHELF STABLE) At this point we make the connection that the same doctor that Scully is seeing, the same one that started her IVF, is in cahoots with these doctors taking alien babies from women? (For what purpose....idk that's still unclear to me)

And then we have to watch poor Scully freaking out that she might give birth to an alien baby. Seriously, I felt panicked for her while watching this, it was kinda tough to get through. In sci-fi and horror, aliens are often used as an allegory for pregnancy. Something invading your body and destroying you from the inside out. This feeds into Scully's fear of her own pregnancy, that something could go wrong. That she's alone and scared and without Mulder. And yes, the idea that she could give birth to a literal alien baby. So while I can see what they were going for, I'm just tired y'all. We see her finally get pregnant and even though she doesn't completely understand how it happened (cough cough all things cough cough) she's excited nonetheless. I think she also sees her baby as a tie that she has with Mulder. And if he's gone at least he left a part of him behind. So to have her panic about the true nature of her baby's paternity just seems cruel at this point.

Another terrifying aspect of this episode is Scully's realization that she couldn't even trust her own doctor. We're used to this show taking people in positions of power and showing them as shady and working for their own agenda. (re the entire government) But Scully herself is a doctor. She looks at other people in the medical field and she trusts them. Because they're doctors and they're supposed to help people. Her own doctor turns out to be working for the alien people, so Scully goes to another hospital only to find that she can't trust those doctors either. I think this conveys a very real and prevalent issue, that is still true today, and that is of women and autonomy of their own bodies.

I haven't seen any of the later seasons yet, but I know about the revelation in season 11. It's just another way to use Scully and her body to drive the plot forward. This comes after all that's she's already been through, with her abduction and experimentation. This decision takes away Scully's choice and desire to have a baby and twists it into a nonconsensual nightmare. One were she wasn't in charge or aware of what they were doing to her body. I don't think the (predominantly male) writers understand just how fucked up that is. So yeah, I'm pissed about that. Mulder is the father of Scully's baby and that's that.

We also finally have Doggett finding out that Scully is pregnant. This has been simmering for a while, as he can tell she's keeping something from him. She didn't tell him, but of course he found out based on the circumstances. It's taken me a bit to warm up to him but I've been enjoying Doggett's character development since his introduction, as well as the development of him and Scully's partnership. He honest to god just wants to help her with no ulterior motive and I think that's exactly what she needs right now. Someone in her corner. I think by the end of the episode, when he tells her that he wants to help her and that he's going to find Mulder, he's so earnest about it, and it breaks down the some of the walls that she's built up.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, we got a lot of insight on Scully's character as well as her relationship with Mulder. But god, as a woman it was kind of brutal to watch. I just love Dana Scully so much and I want her to be happy.

I'd love to hear other thoughts and interpretations for this ep!

[disneymagicfan6]

Ok I have an issue with the way people see Prince Philip in sleeping beauty. Yes the original story the prince (king actually) is a creepy asshole who r***s the princess. But that's not Disney's version.

In Disney, Philip was ready to break off an engagement with someone he didn't know just to be with Aurora. Like he didn't even care that she was a 'peasant girl'. He's like, 'I love her and I want to be with her, royal decorum be damned'. And you also gotta give his dad Herbert props for trying to tell Stephen (Aurora's dad) that his son wants to break his engagement with Stephen's daughter so that he could marry someone he fell in love with. That's support right there.

Now onto what bothers everyone, the kiss without consent. Well I mean he had to. Maleficent told him the girl he fell in love with is the same girl he's been engaged to most of his life (the plot twist!). She tells him she's cursed and the only way to break it is with 'true loves kiss'. So explain to me how was he gonna get her consent if she's cursed to sleep. And in Disney's version at least they met before she fell asleep so she at least knew him.

This man was willing to break an engagement, possibly start a conflict between two kingdoms that have been at peace and are friends, he escaped a dungeon, worked his way through a field of thorns, fought a MOTHER FUCKING DRAGON for his princess. And people still hate on him? Really? REALLY?!?!?!

And if you really want to place the blame then it goes to Maleficent for cursing a BABY for not being invited the to christening. Aurora's parents for not inviting Maleficent, because not inviting her was a massive insult to a Fae. And Merryweather for saying that the curse would be broken by a kiss. She could have made it be anything else like holding her hand, or touching her forehead with his own I don't know. But she said kiss.

And I get it, kissing has power in fairy tales, hell kissing in history has been used to seal a contract, it's like a magical seal and signature. So if people hate that Philip kissed Aurora without consent then they should be asking why did Merryweather make it so that a kiss is what breakers the spell?

Philip is supportive and he loves Aurora. I've read the Disney collection storybook that has short stories about the princess and he's always loving, kind, and trying to help her with her transition from being an isolated peasant girl to being a princess and future queen of two kingdoms (I think both Philip and Aurora are only children). And there was a direct to dvd movie where everyone has to go to a neighboring kingdom and Aurora is left alone to rule for the first time. And she does an amazing job. Merryweather does give Aurora her wand to use in an emergency which she does use on the second day and of course it goes wrong but she's able to fix it before everyone gets back. But the whole time he's away he's worried about her, he never doubts her abilities but it's the first time she's taking over AND doing it while being alone. But he's supportive and is genuinely happy that she's got it handled.

This man simps for her.

And yes I'm aware of the age gap Philip is like 4 or 5 years older than her but that's not the biggest age gap Disney has.

Rapunzel is 18 and Eugene is 26, that's a 8 year age gap. Though this was changed in the show so that he was 23 during the movie making them 5 years apart.

Mulan was 16 and Shang was 23, that's a 7 year age gap.

So yes Philip is a good prince and I won't stand for any slander. Disney's Prince Philip is amazing and the exact opposite of the original prince (king) of the story.

[emperoxricebunny]

I both love and hate acknowledging that I carry all the people I love with me. Everyone I've loved and lost has been complicated.

One of my favorite songs is because of the first girl I openly fell in love with. Koi fish still make me smile because of her. I'll probably never trust her again because of things she said to me and threatened to do.

I have songs on my playlist, and gave We Bare Bears because of the person that tore me so far down I've had to rebuild myself from the ashes. Though that did teach me to value myself, if someone doesn't have time for me, I can't make them care, I can't change myself for them.

I discovered Mastadon because of a person that didn't seem to understand "I trust you" did not mean, grope while I sleep after I've taken my night meds until I wake up so you can fuck me.

I went to my favorite bar for the first time because of the woman, that sent me a post sex selfie to introduce me to partner number 4.

I love Event Horizon because of the monster of my childhood that would beat my mother and inflicted pain on me as a sign of affection. Gaslit me too, telling me that pain wasn't real.

I use forks more than spoons because of the woman that told me she doesn't have to be mother anymore since I was 18. The woman that never protected me from that monster.

I have a flower vape because of the person that thought cutting off my air flow would be a fun joke.

I'm becoming more aware of who I am now. But I'm also becoming very aware of where these pieces picked up.

I enjoy the sound of a banjo despite what I now know that man did to my mother.

Because of the one person that even trying to think of anything good starts me to dissociate. I cannot speak his name, but my favorite person exists because of my time with that wretched man.

My best friend made me feel safe enough to become who I am, but also scared me shitless a few times.

Cherry coke reminds me of road trips across states and just afternoon drives to Grandma's. Liminal spaces feel good because I was always safe in those transitional periods.

I'm a bit afraid of love because it's always so fucking painful, I want good communication and stability, trust, respect. I want so much to love, but I'm afraid to get too close. Because that's when I get lost, that's when I get hurt.

[nanjokei]

well, you know. something funny about how i vehemently denied being mentally ill well into high school despite various unpleasant incidents (no details heehee) and constant panic attacks and mental breakdowns. of course into university it did not get better. but i started being a little more honest with myself. started calling myself ambigiously mentally ill, but looking back now, i was still trying to downplay it. i felt that i did not "deserve" to label myself as anything as it would be an "excuse". not only that, but also enroaching on people who are "actually" mentally ill. people who were visibly "worse off", or perhaps simply made their misfortune clear before i did (it sounds silly, but i really did think like this). well... obviously i am very neurodivergent. even mental illness and anxiety and depression aside. very nice cocktail of me juice.

what does that even mean? wasn't i struggling too? i think the mental health discourse of the late 10's was so damaging. there was so much emphasis on "worth" and "proof"... i'm not talking about listing your mental illnesses, that is so early 10's tumblr and i think something usually younger people do (to a lot of detriment ofc). i'm talking about the silent pressure of "if you don't see a professional you decided you got it via webmd" or something. i didn't wanna seem like that... so i never questioned myself. ever. i just decided to acknowledge "something is wrong" and nothing else. of course, in an effort to be inclusive perhaps to maybe their friends, people would hastily tack on statements like "but it's okay if you do a lot of research".

what IS "a lot of research"? by what metric is that decided? how much research is that? how many hours, books, webpages, blog posts... i do think in this pedantic and literal kind of way. i take the words much too seriously. but when is it okay? such questions haunted me. honestly, i am unable to let the thought go. even if i recently in the past and even now go, "i'm an adult, should i not be able to tell and surmise what may be wrong? do i not have observations? can i not relate my experiences to others strongly? is it wrong of me to do so? do i not live in my own body?" this social pressure is not something i can make sense of, but i still feared it, heeded it, let it be something that commanded my life and how i saw myself.

i can never be diagnosed in this decade. even aside from the society i live in. how intensely i have to mask in my day to day life because of how intricately collectivist this society is. gender shit. my own personal circumstances which i will probably never speak of online. but it's okay. i don't really want or need a diagnosis. i know at least and am honest with myself, but i hope one day i can transition from "i am ambigiously neurodivergent" and the like to saying what i really feel. you know? because i am an adult who is at least somewhat self aware. like, in masking so intensely my entire life, in KNOWING i was so bad at knowing what to do in such inflexible social environments and having to learn from scratch, i honestly should have realized... no idea how i did not...

honestly it runs so deep sometimes i tell myself i don't have things i OBJECTIVELY have! like i have trichotillomania yes!! i pull my hair out constantly. but sometimes im like ok but what if i'm just pulling my hair out just cuz lol... DO YOU SEE!!! it is so deep seated. when i first started doing it my mom took me to a hair guy bc she thought my hair was falling out. he immediately recognized i was pulling it out, but didn't say it was a disorder or anything. maybe he didn't have the authority to, idk, i have no idea what his profession even was. it was not a hospital. we went home and i got yelled at. i wish he said something. but alas. i lived not knowing for years. so sometimes i still don't believe THAT. how am i gonna convince myself it's ok for me to say the quiet part about my neurodivergence out loud? that i've "earned" the right to do so? i've met so many people both irl and online that have validated my trich and i can't even fully believe it. so imagine... you know??

i'm not chasing a label, but i want to be able to say it one day and not care about approval (in the sense of others believing me) or "being incorrect". BECAUSE WHO CARES WHAT OTHERS THINK?! i believe others without thinking about it or doubting them right? and no one is living my life but me!! i want to be honest to myself completely one day!!! i want to wholeheartedly say i am ___ without thinking about it too hard. you know?! ;_;

i have no idea if any of this makes sense at all. i know my way of describing my feelings is confusing and very roundabout. it may not even be obvious what i am agonizing about, maybe it is, but i want to overcome my inhibitions wholeheartedly. i am ready to evolve past the self denial

[mermaidsirennikita]

I am sorry to bother about you that, I am probably asking because I don’t know enough about the BRF, but in your post about Kate you more or less said (sorry if I misinterpreted) that William would have cheated on his wife no matter what and probably did before they married (and not in a “this people have known each other for a long time and sometimes weren’t together and therefore dated other people” kind of way). Why do you say that?

Ah, sorry, I must not have been clear (I've grown up on royal family goss so sometimes I think I make leaps in my explanations that normal people wouldn't pick up on lol).

I meant more that it's extremely likely Kate would've known that William would continue to cheat once they were married, because he most likely (according to rumors) (and interesting pap pics from waaay back in the day) slept around while they were together before they married.

Which like. Isn't surprising. Kate and William got together pretty young, and aside from a short break not long before they got engaged, stayed together from that point on (publicly). William was a good-looking guy back in the day; he was young; and essentially every woman in his vague age range and many a lot older than him wanted to sleep with him. It was like, a competition to get in his pants, either for bragging rights or for the potential chance of being queen one day. I'd honestly kind of be shocked if he DIDN'T sleep around in all that time.

I mean, I'd hope that she got (and continued to get) hers, too. But she would obviously be held to a different standard by some.

And if I'm being super real, in that cultural environment, it was and is very much expected for men cheat on their wives. And the higher up the man, the more acceptable the cheating. Charles fully expected to just be able to cart his mistress around while keeping the picture-perfect wife in place. It was more of a shock that Diana wasn't okay with it. Plus, a lot of the thought process behind Diana not being okay with the horrible way in which she was treated was that if she'd just been better prepared by the system (and not been like, a teenager when Charles got with her) she would have accepted it better and been content. Which. WILD to assume.

But that's probably one reason (along with Wills's general reluctance) why Kate didn't get a ring until she spent essentially her entire 20s dating William. It was seen as the opposite of how they handled Diana. They were the same age (she's actually a tiny bit older). They dated for a long time, got to know each other. She had her own "life", her own "career". (When, let us be super real, Kate's adult life was basically preparing for the next role.) She had to time to "prepare".

They tried to swing a similar narrative when everything fell apart with Harry and Meghan--he didn't prepare her! She didn't learn ahead of time! That's why it was so bad!

While I'll totally acknowledge that Charles (and everyone else) failed to prepare Diana, and in turn Harry (and everyone else) failed to prepare Meghan, it's still like. You know. You could also just be nice to people once they marry in and help them transition then.

BUT! Anyway. Kate's "prep" would've likely clued her in even more as to the reality of the life, so I just find it hard to believe that William doing something he'd probably BEEN doing (cheating) just drove her to split like some people think. I mean, again, I know a lot of people saying these things are new to this, but people In the Know became aware of Rose yeeeears ago. I've known about SOME mistress rumors for a long time, and I think I saw the mistress identified as Rose in 2018/2019. Before Meghan and Harry left for sure.

[ikigaicoeur]

𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔬 𝔬𝔟𝔰𝔢𝔯𝔳𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔰🪐

This was in my drafts from so long but i wasnt ready to post it😭. So here you go my first astro post❤

This might or might not resonate with some people because its completely based on observation of people around me.

🍒 Leo mercury, if afflicted, will literally dry text when the topic doesn't revolve around them but gets mad when their friends aren't hyping them up whilst they type their drama in the groupchat. Getting ignored might threaten their self esteem.

🍒 Discussing some important stuff in the groupchat:

That one gemini placement: *randomly sends out of context memes*

🍒 Underdeveloped or afflicted capricorn venus really likes the idea of toxic relationship¿ They tend to attract manipulative people who clouds their definition of love.

🍒 Saturn in 4th, saturn/sun aspect are the person who always have the "plan B". Like you can always expect them to have a way out of a troubled situation. Ideas are always racing in their mind when they're in home or alone. Its fascinating how my friends who have this placement started an online business during the pandemic.

🍒 3rd house gemini/ venus in gemini always sounds like they're flirting. No babe its just the way they talk.😭🦋

🍒 Uranus in 12th house might get so unexpected dreams they never even thought about that will turn into one of their biggest fears.

🍒 People with chiron in the 11th house, please. Adopt me😭. Y'all are literal angels. You will go to any extent to help your friends. But always be aware of the people you trust, are they reciprocating the love?💌

🍒 Venus in 6th house, do you get the sudden urge of getting that perfect hourglass body and randomly starts looking up for workout videos?

🍒 Pluto in the 3rd or pluto/Mercury aspect lowkey are the best advice giver but you aren't ready for that. They'll not say what you want to hear. They'll come straight to the point, might even hurt your feelings in the process of explaining.

🍒 Venus conjunct north node are always on the hunt for love, but when they get it, they start to question everything, like "am i even worthy of love"? (opposing South node)

🍒 I've noticed that the transit of your 12th house ruler might affect your dreams. For ex: 12th house ruler transiting the 8th house might dream about death, some kind of transformation or even sex. Transiting the 5th house, dreams about your s/o or even doing any fun activities. The aspect to the planet matters too.

🍒 I have seen people with jupiter in 1st house being really skinny and all of them have afflicted jupiter. They're also the people who never easily gains weight. Or the complete opposite.

🍒 Venus in 8th people can be the "you before me" type. They're ready to share everything with you if they love you even if it means them being empty handed.

🍒 Weird observation but people with prominent venus, asc/venus aspect, ascendant in venusian degree are the one who gets obsessed with cosmetics and makeup at early age. All of my cousins have these placements and idk why my 6yr cousin asks me for that branded lipstick on her birthday and the other tries to apply nail paint when she's just 4.😭

🍒 Earth placements loves to watch romantic movies.

🍒 5th house stellium people are those cool famous kid in school.

🍒 Lilith in 11th house person might meet envious people who tries to backstab them.

🍒 Fire mars in a chart with earth placements probably loves to challenge themselves. They know they're exhausting their body but just cant stop. It gives a big hit to their ego and self esteem if they didn't complete the task.

🍒 Pluto/moon aspect can either control their emotions very well or literally outburst. There's no in between

🍒 People with Moon/Neptune hard aspect gets confused with their emotions. They can't quite find out what they feel or why they feel. They can sense someone's emotions but doesn't know how to react in that situation.

— ℑ𝔨𝔦𝔤𝔞𝔦𝔠𝔬𝔢𝔲𝔯