#having romance ALWAYS come first

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

True love is possible only in the next world. For new people. It it too late for us.

(Redraw for @pakhnokh's DTIYS post!)

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

[tricoufamily]

oc evolution tag, thank you @sikoi :))) <3

i randomly posted their real evolution a few days ago before we were doing these should have waited lmao. i did remake this edit at one point though!!! very cute

[caressthosecheekbones]

Game: Add 10 gifs from your favorite shows and tag 10 people

Tagged by @almightaylor, thank you dear 💜✨

Mr Robot

2. The White Lotus

3. Trust fx

4. Sense 8

5. Fleabag

6. The Good Place

7. Mad Men

8. Generation 56K

8. Downton Abbey

9. We are Lady Parts

10. Brooklyn 99

tagging @smute @elglin @schimmelspore @mylucayathoughts @mossy-fae @bambi-nicky @beepbeepsan @wtfuckevenknows @moripartylove @accordinglyskeptical but absolutely zero pressure, as always, babes 💖

[mermaidsirennikita]

the "reunited after two years of Win doing a Rocky training montage but Make It Victorian Girl in France with Kev burning her horny letters" sequence my god.

Win comes home and tells Amelia "hahaha you know after two years of Kev ignoring my letters I realized he's really not the guy for me I actually am seeing my annoying doctor" (Lisa Kleypas circa 2008: don't get with Nice Guys no no they're frauds save it for the giant angsty man who sucks on your nipples in public venues)

Amelia is all "aww yeah that's too bad well you know he just happens to be in town on this floor at this room number" while Win is like "haha well look at the time I'M GOING TO BED IMMEDIATELY"

Win sneaking out to creep to his room while wearing a cape and Kev assuming she's a sex worker he didn't order and going "well whatever I'm sad and horny all the time so we might as well"

Kev not realizing it's Win because the one good thing Doctor Nice Guy did was tell her to not wear a bra ever for medical reasons and That's Not What Proper Ladies Do so he bends her over the table and she's literally thisclose to just letting him plow her before she realizes he fucks OTHER LADIES like THAT and is all "OMG IS THIS HOW YOU TAKE YOUR WOMEN????"

him being all "WIN????" and commencing to dry hump her to near mutual orgasm while sucking on her nipples (in a less public venue) before he does the Kev Merripen Hurtling Himself Into a Wall Move (TM)

"YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME YOU WERE COMING HOME EARLY"

[theultracharmingladynoire]

.

[hawnks]

Me: Sara J Maas is stupid for switching the love interests halfway through the story

Also me: switches the love interest partway through

[roobylavender]

considering what you have spoken about regarding selina do you also get frustrated with like…i cant quite explain it but sometimes especially in more recent years shes been posed or positioned like some sort of damsel that needs a big strong man to save her and like im not saying she should be portrayed with the “hollywood level feminism” for lack of a better term im just think about how old versions of selina would have hated that. like im just thinking of anytime in the reeves movie where bruce grabs her or forces her mouth shut or even when he didnt allow her to kill falcone and im just thinking she should claw the fuck out of him for that. i just miss a version of selina who wouldnt allow anyone to walk all over her personal autonomy like that

oh absolutely! in fact this is specifically why i can't stand loeb's take on her character lol (and as we both know that was a significant point of reference for the reeves film). it's really jarring to transition from her volume one and two canon to the long halloween / dark victory / when in rome. i think a lot of people tend to latch onto these books because tim sale's art is to die for and it's obv hard not to enjoy a good murder mystery. in that aspect they're still books i can enjoy in isolation. but i find it very difficult to enjoy them as a selina fan specifically because in every single one it's like she's looking for solace and security in a man and i'm not sure why. like what was so bad about her original backstory of having a deadbeat dad (whether you ascribe to the volume one or volume two version of him) and why did she need to go looking for her "real" father in carmine falcone. why did she need to seek out temporary boytoy relief in italy. why did she dream about being saved by bruce. none of it really has a reason other than to create a "lack" in her for the sake of it being there, because she'd never needed a man like that before in her post-crisis narrative. as you mentioned it was quite to the contrary and she was fiercely independent and protective of her own peace, esp from men. when she felt empty or without a connection or lifeline to someone real, it was mostly about people like maggie or holly or arizona. her people

what i think it ultimately comes down to are two things: the first thing is the diminishment of her post-crisis origins. after all, it's convenient to ignore how distrustful selina is of people, and of men with power at their leisure to abuse specifically, when her post-crisis origins are no longer relevant to her personal characterization. although selina's status as a sex worker is more prominent now, it was more or less completely swept under the rug for the bulk of volume two. loeb also refused to engage with it in any capacity. it only really resurfaced with the conclusion to volume two because it drew direct parallels to how we initially found her in volume one, and then brubaker expanded on it once again in his take on the character, which was notably juxtaposed against a pre-existing romance with bruce and brings me to the second thing. i've already waxed about this at length so this may very well be recap but i really don't think selina's lack of control over her personal autonomy can be divorced of the modern portrayal of the romance. when selina looking for security and understanding and comfort in bruce is what drives the romance forward there's not much room to maintain her original values and guarded demeanor, if not her outright defensiveness and hostility. a lot of people look at the extensive trauma selina has experienced and argue that she deserves to be in a relationship with someone who allows her to let those walls down. this isn't incorrect in theory. but it does repeatedly ignore who she is. it's kind of like the point i was making about bruce yesterday. exploring the inherently abusive nature of robin or of bruce's right to his children in light of that fact is interesting to do, but the actual execution has rarely managed to take into account who bruce actually is

for however nice it might be for selina to let her walls down romantically and look for solace in bruce—and i say this mostly for the sake of argument, personally i would argue against its necessity—it's realistically not something she's actually going to do. at least not as willfully as she's been portrayed to. realistically she's going to make it extremely hard, which if anything is precisely the appeal. i love it when selina gives bruce a hard time. i love that it's not supposed to be easy or maybe even a possibility for him to win her over bc there's so much about his own ideological stances that's flawed and in opposition to her own. she doesn't have to be any less unrelenting in her principles and worldview for that romance between them to be compelling bc at the end of the day the entire crux of it is that against all odds bruce cares. for however wrong he thinks she might be in a given moment or in her stance against the government, he knows who she is and how hard she's fought and what she's survived and it makes him sympathetic to her because she's real. she's a wonderful character through which to explore the logical limits of bruce's self-righteousness and categorization of crime, as well as a wonderful mirror to hold up to his face as he starts to ask himself whether what he's doing is really the only means of keeping the city safe. and the novelty of it all is that you don't have to sacrifice her character for any of that to be true. writers have simply deluded themselves into believing that they have to and that's why we are where we are today

[starlightandsunshine]

This might be kicking over a hornets nest but I think that Jedi/clone ships should be queerplatonic actually

[swordmaid]

having shri’iia thoughts as one does bc GUESS who’s save file completely died when the new patch came out nooo we have to replay her again 🤭 alas. just stewing on the thought of how she never got to fuck her Mistress even though she wanted to…!!!! like she was out there getting psychologically tortured and mind broken but she was just like WHY won’t you fuck me im literally doing everything for you. which is so bad for her, woman who already has an excruciatingly low self worth because she missed the mark on the standard for lolth’s children (and that’s worse than not fitting in the standard at all) by something out of her own control btw (not being born in a noble house) but she’s been recognised and blessed by her goddess, and she’s been invited to join a drow house so everything should be good right?? she should be desirable right?? finally everything is correct and well and good and the way it should be right????? but no..!! it’s not..!! and so she’s doing everything for this woman, no dignity left, literally doing anything to get her approval, to be told that she’s finally enough, and she’s finally fitting in - and she gets it sometimes, she gets ignored most times tbh and it’s just this painful excruciating stew of self loathing and insecurity that she’s in, and she’s in there for a century but the thing is she can’t even give up. it’s not in her nature to. and she’s done too much to just give up , and she’s been doing this for a long time that she can’t give up and lolth didn’t raise no quitters so she sticks by it, trying to achieve that hopeless praise. but then one day she gets dropped like nothing, everything she’s done and suffered and worked towards and sacrificed gets thrown out bc her goddess isn’t pleased with her and good luck going home btw you’re not welcome here anymore bc ur pathetic. the rug gets pulled under her feet and she’s left in this strange world that she can barely navigate in let alone speak the language and u expect her to b fine with that…?

[fingertipsmp3]

Ughhhhhhh I hate writing and I hate not writing and I hate myself

[sort-of-a-hero-that-way]

Thinking about Frank vs Russia again. And about the confirmation that the SINNED system was created at the same time as the DENNIS one. We know Dennis perfected his system for women but we haven't seen him ever date a man or keep a man. We have no confirmation of what he's done, and based on Dennis' eagerness in knowing if Dee and Mac got 2nd dates, I like to think he's never even tested it before. It was all based on observations. He kept it secret all these years and finally saw potential now to test it out through them. When's the second date? He's eager to know. Does it work.

And it does. Ofc it does. It was foolproof. He knew that.

Dennis isn't against a romance with Mac. The system exists since s6, Dennis clearly WANTS to keep a man. He just doesn't understand how that's already happened. Mac likes him? Wdym, he hasn't done the steps yet. Dennis just confirmed that the system works.

We know Dennis' outburst basically meant "You can't be in love with Johnny because he doesn't love you Mac, I don't love you. Move on."

But it also meant "You can't be in love with Johnny because Johnny is me! And you're not in love with me!"

Dennis is rejecting love on all grounds, in both directions. This isn't part of the plan, part of the scheme. This isn't his goal, not now. He's not ready and Mac isn't either.

The goal was simply to get Mac's attention back. To bring them back on equal footing. To be friends again. Dennis is fixing the friendship first, and Mac is being impatient and an idiot and jumping at romance and ruining the careful pacing Dennis is creating.

[quietwingsinthesky]

Just wanted to say I'm loving all the posts about aro Dean, it makes me really happy 💞

🥰🥰 I’m glad! It’s one of those headcanons that’s always background noise for me, a thing I sometimes forget isn’t actually what’s going on with him in the show, but idk, something today just made me want to ramble about it.

I really should write some more fic about it (and dean in general but also have you listened to that man speak. I don’t have the pop culture knowledge nor the insanity to make his dialogue anywhere near believable alsjfkgjsl.) it’s really something that brings me quite a lot of joy to think about, a scenario where dean just gets to live fulfilled without the weight of performing a part in a Romantic Heterosexual Marriage™️, the Normal Life he’s been raised with the ideal of.

look I’m trying not to be sappy here cause it’s midnight and if I drop the filter, I’m gonna be such an emotional idiot on this here tumblr.com, but the fact that Dean’s real happy ending is just him getting to cohabitate with his brother and his friend, with the rotating door open for other friends and family to stay whenever they like? Man, that’s just. That’s so. I’ll weep about that, dude, that’s what he needs, that’s what he deserves. Not me sitting here projecting my own issues onto dean winchester of all people but Enough happy endings of marriage, we have enough of those and I’m pretty sure they did more harm than good, more happy endings of platonic cohabitation (inside old war bunkers lmao) that’ll fix all of us <3

[bluewithpurplepolkadots]

”Why does Master Splinter barely ever seem to leave the lair in missions to help the turtles in the 2012 series? He’s an adult!”

Because it’s a kids show so the primary solver of the problems involved is obviously going to be the kids. Having an adult swoop in and solve everything/baby sit all the time would probably be kind of boring for the intended audience. Boring for everyone actually. Next question.

[marciabrady]

it's wild to me that modern critics have brainwashed so many people into thinking true love, as presented in the classic princess movies, is toxic. we go from snow white's prince calling their love "constant and true" and never giving up on his search for the lost princess throughout endless seasons and forests aimlessly until he finds her, charming tearing apart the entire kingdom when all he had was one slipper that had been left behind because he couldn't imagine a life without cinderella, and phillip fighting a literal fire breathing dragon for aurora.

to appear more "realistic", and effectively more sensible i guess??? disney made the couples afterward decidedly spikey. beast and belle are nothing if not enemies to lovers with their courtship starting with belle literally giving her life to the beast so her father would be spared, jasmine and aladdin have a lot of friction over his lies, i don't even want to get started on john smith and pocahontas nor meg working for the literal devil against hercules's best interest...but that wasn't enough and they continued to suck anything appealing out of these love stories until we reach naveen and tiana trying to kill each other in a swamp as frogs and not liking each other and even being visibly repulsed at one another, rapunzel inflicting physical violence upon flynn with her frying pan in a "cute!" and "quirky" way, and hans being used as a plot device to make us believe a prince charming for us doesn't exist which ends in anna punching him.

and...it's that astounding these bad faith criticisms have been given so much weight and power that they're literally now effectively tearing apart true love in these films to the point where it's now just bickering and physical violence with straight couples that have no chemistry but gay people still don't have a single explicitly "out" couple/storyline :)

[astrangeghost]

I don't feel like going to bed but I WILL@!@!!!!! BECAUSE TOMORROW!!! I CAN PLAY MY 15 HOUR GAME AGAIN!!! face of responsibility baabeyyyyy