#i just hate dudebros who see a man and a woman and immediately think of love

[taolaoo]

There are a lot of things that make me despise dudebros. One of them is when Abigail and Arthur's relationship becomes the object of their stupid jokes.

So, Abigail and Arthur's relationship. If you ask me, I really don't think Arthur was head over heels in love with her. Absolutely not. The way he describes her and Jack in the journal is more like grieving for what was taken from him. It's so painfully obvious that he's comparing them to Eliza and Isaac in his mind. It's not love, it's just a glimpse of a lost feeling. But even if it is love, it's not in a healthy way.

An important clarification, but I also don't think Arthur ever slept with her. How could he if he had women of his own at that time? (Eliza and Mary, we don't know for sure which one he got into a relationship with first). Arthur doesn't seem to me like a man who can sleep with someone when he's already in a relationship, you know.

Bill's words in rdr1 about Abigail sleeping with everyone sound very funny coming out of his mouth in my opinion. Because first of all, it's Bill; secondly, he's a bastard who always likes to say things to piss others off; thirdly, why do you expect me to take him seriously after he said he slept with her too? I'd rather believe in flat earth than that Abigail, strong woman that she is, would let this smelly boykisser too close to breathe next to her.

What is certain between Arthur and Abigail is trust. From the way Jack is very friendly with him and not afraid to ask for his help, you could tell that Arthur has always been there for him and Abigail, especially after John left. And that's totally understandable. Because Arthur is the only man in the camp who seems normal, kind, and good enough to look after a child. (Hosea too, I'm sure he and Arthur were that strong support for Abigail when she was having a hard time, but that's a bit beside the point right now).

Because Abigail is careful and smart, maybe she even saw something in Arthur that he didn't want to tell anybody (you always know that a man can only be gentle and caring to a child when he has one of his own). That's why they have such a strong friendship, that's why Abigail can ask Arthur to take Jack fishing without a problem.

And yeah, it may be hard for Arthur because he sees ghosts of his past around them, but he doesn't say no. Because he's kind, selflessly kind to those he cares about no matter how hard he tries to deny it.

Their friendship is so underrated, I wish for once it was talked about in terms of strong friendship and trust, not some dumb pseudo romance that doesn't exist.

[vivithefolle]

What are your favourite fanfic tropes/aus for romione?

(I’m gonna try to make my way through old asks I received AGES ago and never answered because I’m a procrastinating lump. Here’s betting I’m going to give up and play videogames all day instead.)

Oh my god, so many.

Okay so as a rule of thumb as long as it’s nice to Ron I’ll read it. I’ll read anything. I have been known to read Ron/Draco and even sacrificed my dignity and everything I stand for as a human being by reading some Ron/Snape stuff. Yes. I was THAT desperate. This is how low I’m willing to go because of sheer love for Ron.

Which means that when a fic will go “oh poor Hermione, poor Hermione who is waiting for Ron to grow up because She can see one day he could be worth it but for now he’s all dumb-dumb and inferior and doesn’t deserve Her perfection :(”, I will be judging. Judging very hard. I may not leave a comment but rest assured, my thoughts are loud enough for me. This is 2010s mentality. This is “haha I’m so like Hermione, not like other girls who throw themselves at boys, I’m so special and girl powery :)” Horribly Bad Feminism. Fuck that. We’re doing better now.

Speaking of doing better. Recently I read something about how Ron is, paraphrased, “the brute of the Trio”, spun in a positive way since he uses his strength to protect them but, but, still... please no? Just no! Just eff no with these takes about how Ron is a hypermasculine dudebro M For Manly™! No, no, fucking no! Just because he’s the Sulfur to Hermione’s Mercury and Sulfur represents the masculine component to Mercury’s feminine one, DOESN’T MEAN Ron is “the brute”! (”the” brute... seriously... who’s the more brutish one, the one who punches a racist in the face or the one who uses a torture curse as retribution for spitting on his fave teacher?)

The way I see him, Ron is a balance, a blend of feminine and masculine qualities intertwined close together. I LOVE that he can swear like a sailor but can only say “scarlet woman” or “cow” when it comes to insulting a woman. Some will probably see it as “hurr durr he sexist he doesnt think women can take it!!!!!!! >8C” but given that those are probably also the peeps who say “HE CALLE D HERMOANI A NIGHTMURRR!!!!!!! DDDDD8″ I’m gonna venture the idea that we don’t care about those folks’ biased, sexist opinions.

Where was I going with this... oh yes! Ok, so Ron can swear like a sailor yet couldn’t insult a girl to save his life. He’s strong physically but most of all he’s strong mentally (to put up with the way his friends treat him for years speaks a lot of his mental fortitude... and to top it off he comes back for more to boot! I’m not sure if that’s more mental fortitude or straight-up masochism though.) When he succeeds at things he gets a bit attention-whoreish but at the same time, you can see that when he’s being complimented he’s all unsure of himself and blushy and shy and you just, dude you can’t handle positive attention because you don’t know how to react to it I don’t know whether that’s adorable or the saddest thing I’ve seen in my life? He’s insecure but he’s always the first to cheer on Harry and Hermione when they’re doing something great, which speaks VOLUMES of Ron’s selflessness and of his actual character: to quote @peetamaellark​, Ron doesn’t think “Harry is great, therefore he sucks and I hate him”, he thinks “Harry is great, therefore I suck and I hate me”. THIS is Ron. THIS is why Ron will lash out, not because he hates Harry, but because internally he hates himself and you can’t keep that sort of feeling bottled up for too long before... you got it, you explode.

I. Want. More. Fics where Hermione isn’t this ~oh dear~ Victorian damsel in distress who cries and Ron is the Big Strong Man who holds her with one arm and is stony-faced and goes “I’ll protect you”, please no that was old before it existed, let us have nice, realistic depictions of Ron and Hermione please.

Like, Hermione is more than capable of kicking butt herself. She IS absolutely nervous and scared and cries easily and that’s a vulnerability we NEED, but the fact that she can be super scared and crying but still hex her opponent into oblivion? THAT’s good, THAT’s excellent. It’s a very important message for girls, I think. “You can cry, you can be sensitive, you can be emotional, AND you can still kick butt”. And as important as that message is for girls, it’s also a very important message to give boys, because boys are socialized to “never cry” and that’s super unhealthy. I love Ron’s admiration of Hermione. I love the way Ron hesitates, the way he can be cautious when he needs to as much as he can be reckless and impulsive. I love how he shows himself to be a big softie and a sweet soul. I don’t think that makes him an “emasculated doormat” (to quote a guest I once saw on FFN), on the contrary it makes him an even better man in my eyes. You know why I love the locket scene so much? Because Ron’s tears aren’t ridiculed. Ron gets to cry about the terrible ordeal he’s been put through, and while Harry “pretends he can’t see Ron cry” because it’s more comfortable for him personally, he doesn’t try to tell Ron to “man up” or anything. His reassurance is pretty lousy but he lets Ron cry, he lets his friend be upset, and he doesn’t try to invalidate Ron’s pain. (ok, the “I thought you knew” is kiiiiinda on the way there, but it stops at that and I’m grateful for it).

I like. Seeing Ron distressed. I like seeing Ron upset and be allowed to be upset. I like to see Ron’s pain treated with respect. So when Ron is having a shit day I like to see him get a cuddle. I like seeing Ron go through horrible ordeals and break down and for his breakdown to be properly acknowledged and not turned into insensitive comic relief (ISN’T THAT RIGHT, LATTER HALF OF THE SILVER DOE????). I mean seriously, just imagine GOF, Harry sitting in the hospital wing after Cedric’s death, Molly Weasley gives him a hug and it’s all very sad and angsty. And now picture Ginny running into the room screaming “HARRY JAMES POTTER” and punching him over and over and saying “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER MAN, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER” then after two pages of Harry “explaining” himself to Ginny she goes away saying “aight but if you do that shit again you’ll have to answer to me” then Harry’s friends are like “damn she’s spunky huh?” and Harry laughs and everyone laughs and this is how the book ends? How would it be funny? How would it be appropriate? How would it feel like “romance”? When Ron returns in The Silver Doe, he’s been psychologically tortured (”tortured” is the actual word JKR uses, please), we don’t need him to be hurting outside as well.

I want more accountability for Hermione. More “uh hey Hermione maybe don’t do that”. More “hey Hermione you know you think of yourself as a good person buuuut yeah actually if all good persons were like you I’d be very afraid”. More “Hermione please for the love of God educate yourself”. More “Hermione sweetie I love you, but you can’t actually learn everything from books”. CHARACTER. DEVELOPMENT. PLEASE. Don’t be afraid to punch Hermione down and tear her apart the way the best Ron fics maim and torture our poor boy. Just because Rowling treated Hermione with kiddy princess gloves doesn’t mean you have to mimic her.

So when Hermione does a genuinely shitty thing let her own up to it. When Ron is a victim let him be upset and angry, even if Hermione is the one treating him badly. Just because he loves her doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to be disappointed in her or that she’s entitled to his immediate forgiveness. Give Ron and Hermione equal consideration. If you’re brushing off Hermione’s actions but condemning Ron for the slightest mistake, I am sure to hate it.

Okay, uh, so, those aren’t really tropes. Those are more just, guidelines I presume.

Oh, yeah, a trope that annoys me! Ron saying “you’re mine”, “my Hermione” and stuff, and Hermione just swoons and says “yours” and shiz. Ok, once in a while, why not. Once in a while. BUTT. I WANT HERMIONE TO SAY IT TOO. “Mine”, “my Ron!” and Ron swoons and says “yours, absolutely yours”. DO IT YOU COWARDS. FUCKING TAKE THOSE GENDER ROLES AND PUNCH’EM IN THE FACE.

Oh, right, while we’re on the subject of gender roles! Dad!Ron is everything. SingleParent!Ron is mwaaah. Stay-at-home-Dad!Ron is ALKZLDSJDLQSKLFJ <3. AnimalLover!Ron is HHHHNNNGG. Remember, the small gestures, the tiniest, softest acts Ron does (helping Harry get dressed when his arm is deboned, giving Dobby his brand-new sweater, praising Ginny, Luna and Neville when they escaped Umbridge), those are often those unremarkable, unmistakeably kind and sweet actions that tell us who Ron really is at his core: not a guy who’d want power at all costs, not a guy who’d give it all for ambition, not a guy who sees people as possessions, but someone kind who wants to make others happy.

Ok, I was also asked for AUs, so, uh, pretty much every AU is game as long as Ron gets treated with respect? I mean I don’t really care for Mafia!AUs or such but if you can find a way to fit good Romione then go for it I guess. Royalty AU, yeah why not but I often see Ron being made a prince while Hermione is a poor wee servant girl and like. Uuum, we’re talking about the same characters here? Hermione the highly educated girl who keeps on walking over everyone’s toes and loudly talking about how things should be done and is definitely Nouveau Riche, Ron who is a country boy who lives on a farm and is lost in the constant shuffle of his brothers, you think she should be the peasant and he should be the royal? Whaddafack? Oh, and all the “Hermione is a Muggle, Ron is a wizard” AUs that start this way BUTT! Suddenly... Hermione... turns out... to be (wait for it!)... A WITCH! And a super powerful super talented very good one too!!!... yeah ok, yawn. It’s quite scary, actually, how often I’ve seen that plotline, but in the rare cases when it’s Muggle!Ron and Witch!Hermione, Ron never ever EVER (I mean, seriously, NEVER EVER) turns out to have been a wizard, not even a mediocre one, all along. No, when Ron is made a Muggle for the sake of AU he stays a Muggle. But when Hermione is made a Muggle she has to turn out TO HAVE BEEN A WITCH ALL ALONG OMYGAH. I can count on one hand the number of Mugglemione/Wizardron fics that actually stick to their Mugglemione premise till the end - and usually they’re one-shots. (Also I don’t mean “Ron mistakes Hermione for a Muggle because he meets her in the Muggle world and assumes he must hide his magic from her, oh wait she was actually a witch!” fics, I mean genuinely “Hermione has been raised a Muggle her whole life, never had weird things happen to her her whole life ever, then Ron comes in and is a wizard and he does magic and Hermione wonders what it’d be like to be a witch and oh surprise! Don’t worry Hermione, you won’t have to feel not-special or mundane for long, here comes the plot contrivance to tell you you really were in fact the specialest of them all!!” fics.) Fairytale!AU is cool. Very good. But honestly I like to see them swapped around. Ron cursed by a nasty fae to be a Beast and Hermione stumbling upon him? Neat, especially if you don’t go the boring route of “oh let’s just rehash the Disney/the original book with different names and call it a day”. But Hermione cursed by an asshole fae for, let’s say, not sharing books, turning into a Beast, and Ron stumbling upon her as she’s trying to survive in the woods (and not doing a very good job of it)? Yes, brava, chief’s kiss. Rapunzel AU where Hermione’s bushy hair turns into the most impractical, most suffocating improvised ladder ever for Ron? Hilarious. Rapunzel AU where Ron has A GIANT EFFING PONYTAIL OF THE GODS and is screaming “ow ow ow” as Hermione makes her way up to his window cringing and saying “sorry! sorry! sorry! (damn his hair smells good)” on every step? Equally hilarious. Go! Be creative! Please I beg of you

Creature!fics! Oh my god there’s not enough of those, at least that aren’t focused on a bullshit pairing! Soulmate AUs! Give me everything! I’ll even take A/B/O if you insist on making it Romione! That’s how far I’ve fallen from human decency I’ll take anything just give me some good Ron content please I beg of you (Ah and to those that are going to say “Alpha Ron Omega Hermione :)))” well yes, but actually no. “Beta Ron Beta Hermione”? “Beta Ron Alpha Hermione”? “Omega Ron Alpha Hermione”??? HELL YEAH NOW WE’RE TALKIN)

Oh dear god I’m still not finished and I haven’t gone through everything someone stop me.

AND NOW BE CAREFUL CHILDREN, BELOW WILL BE SMUT.

Okay I don’t know if it qualifies as a trope, but. But. A more realistic depiction of Ron is usually what I’m after. All those fanfics that have Ron be “the sexy experienced one ;)))” ravishing “naive virginal Hermione ;))” is just UGH. We spent all the 2000-2010 period having fics like this, mind adding a bit of EQUALITY to the mix???

It’s just... I hate it okay? So many fics read like they’re just projection, writers who are essentially making Ron their big strong sex toy stud who's so attentive and sweet and cherishing, and so it does indirectly ends up as "servant Ron is so devoted to his goddess Hermione, providing pleasure to her while she doesn’t have to lift a finger”. The Dom!SexGod!Ron thing honestly depresses me... Since it's Ron taking care of Hermione, AGAIN. Like, he spends his WHOLE LIFE doing that already. Can we give him a break for once?

In the endI feel that it's less "Romione smut" and more "self-inserting into Hermione smut". In "real" Romione smut I think Ron and Hermione would switch roles according to what they feel like. And honestly I ALWAYS picture Ron being super nervous during Dom stuff, like he spanks her once then immediately he goes "oh my god are you okay?? did that hurt, do you want to stop?", things like that. I cannot imagine it happening any other way. XD Ron is just... too caring, too sensitive to do stuff like hard BDSM and that kind of thing in my opinion. He’s too much of a caretaker. I understand if it’s your kink and you’re perfectly free to project and write the fic you want, I’m not the fun police, but it’s just... I don’t think that’s really what Ron would be like. I just want MORE realistic Ron.

Also I’m trying really really hard to not point fingers here but WHY is it that it’s always “Ron growled” while it’s always “Hermione whimpered” or “Hermione moaned”? Like... you know it’s okay for a man to moan or whimper in pleasure too, right?  You know Ron isn’t 110% muscles and testosterone? You know Hermione is allowed to be fierce too? Hermione can 100% “growl” and be dominant and pin Ron to the wall and reduce him to a puddle of goo if you’re brave enough?

(Honestly how sexy would Ron think that is? The woman he loves is half his size yet can pin him down and ravish him. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG RON HAS WANTED TO BE RAVISHED AND CHERISHED DO YOU KNOW HE’S BEEN WANTING THIS ALL HIS LIFE)

Oooo-kay, so that’s... mostly it, I reckon. Oh also Ron has a gigantic penisraise kink (and a great penis too, but mostly a praise kink). That’s canon and that’s all.

[duhragonball]

shadowjack12345 replied to your photo “Got a commission this week by the awesome FrauleinPflaume, and it...”

Nice to finally see Zatte, I always liked her - she's dangerous in a way we don't often get in DB.

Hey, thanks, that means a lot to me.    Also, this is all the prompting I need to try to explain how I came up with the character.   Spoilers under the cut.

The thing that held me up early on was that I couldn’t decide if Luffa’s “career” in the past should be long or short.   I used the Bardock: Father of Goku TV special as a model of a “short” Luffa arc.    You have this character who’s only mentioned in passing (by Raditz), and the TV special fleshes him out and kills him off in the space of an hour.   Then he wakes up in the past in the 2011 “Episode of Bardock” Special, if you want to count that.    On some level, I imagined it could be possible to give Luffa a really quick run in her native era, and then send her to the future to join the TIme Patrol, like the Bardock specials.   

I worked on Chapter 126 and 127 today, so I think it’s clear that I did not go down that route.   I knew the alternative would be to really flesh out the character, having her go through multiple adventures like Goku in Dragon Ball.   That meant I had to come up with extra stuff for her to do.   The simple fact is that I really enjoyed writing the character, and I wanted to take the long road, so that later on, when she refers to her past exploits, there would be some weight to them.   

So I worked on coming up with stuff for her to do in between major plot points.   I thought about giving her some love interests, since we’d never seen a Saiyan character jump from one relationship to another, like Spider-Man in the 70′s.   At some point, I thought it might be interesting to have her run into an old flame, someone who knew her before she went Super.   

The problem with that was that when we first meet Luffa, she’s only 19 years old, and she’s been married to Kandai for about a year.    And she’s been living on the Dorlun colony for about five years.    I say this like someone else foisted this problem on me, but I’m the one who came up with all that stuff, to better amplifly the tragedy she experiences before turning Super Saiyan.   This isn’t some seasoned veteran who’s been all over the universe, loving and leaving ‘em from one planet to the next.     She’s young and inexperienced and isolated in a very small community.    

But I still liked the idea, and I hadn’t published Chapters 1-10 yet, so I still had a lot of room to set things up for later.   I realized the only way this would work would be if the “old flame” was a Dorlun who had admired Luffa from afar.    And that led me to Captain Mesas, the leader of the Dorlun militia.  

Mesas originally served only one purpose, which was to be a sort of proxy who could represent the entire Dorlun colony that Luffa had been hired to defend.   I assigned her gender at random, I think.    I just know that I didn’t put a ton of thought into it, since I was planning to kill all of the Dorluns off later anyway.   Luffa would take this personally, because she came to appreciate these people without really admitting it, and this would be demonstrated by her respect for Mesas, who was their lead warrior, and thus the most Saiyan-like of the bunch.   Eventually, I renamed her Captain Zatte, because I had settled on naming all the Dorlun characters after anagrams of metric prefixes, i.e. “zetta”.  

So I quickly came to the conclusion that the only way this “reunited with an old flame” idea would work would be if it was a Dorlun, and the only one that would make any sense would have to be Zatte, and the only way that could work would be if there was some sort of romantic tension between them.    They couldn’t be lovers in those early chapters because Luffa was married at the time, but later, there would need to be a moment where Zatte would confess her feelings and Luffa would have to feel the same way.   

And this is how I ended up making Luffa bisexual.    I didn’t want Zatte to be a man, and I couldn’t make Luffa gay, because I needed her to start out in a marriage to a Saiyan man.   Too much of the plot depended upon that.   I struggled with this decision for a couple of reasons.   

First, I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, and I didn’t know if I wanted this story to be my first try, because I was already trying to do a lot of other new tricks.   I didn’t want real-world wlw’s to see this story and be disappointed by my amateurish attempt to get it right.    

Second, I felt disingenuous about making such a major change to the character for my own convenience.    I felt like I’d seen that a lot in comic books over the years, where writers would seemingly assign bisexuality to characters arbitrarily, or for “shock” value, or just to be salacious.  I didn’t want readers to think I was only doing this for shallow reasons, or to get my jollies writing two girls making out.  

But at the same time, I really wanted to do it this way, and I finally decided to just go with it and see where it took me.   In hindsight, I realize that I was just being a fraidy cat about the whole thing.   Writing wlw romance isn’t so functionally different from mlw romance, and once I got used to the idea, I realized the only thing I needed to do was to treat it with the proper respect.    And really, this wasn’t so far off from the original premise.    I wanted to make the “Legendary Super Saiyan” a woman to defy convention and to piss off dudebros.    Making her queer just continues that same line of reasoning, right?   I used to see jackasses on the internet say that women couldn’t turn Super Saiyan because they couldn’t “get angry enough,” which is pretty similar to a lot of biphobic crap I’ve heard on the internet.    I mean, I used to listen to Loveline on the radio around 2001, and Dr. Drew was acting like bisexuality was some made-up thing.    Apparently Dr. Drew went nuts somewhere along the way, or maybe he always was, but he seemed pretty progressive in 2001, and he accepted gay and lesbian callers just fine, but he told bi callers to “figure out what they want”, and that never sat right with me.   People used to say there were no such things as black swans, too.    That’s Luffa all over.     You can deny her all you want, but she’ll still kick your ass.  

I’m this close to going off on a rant about J.K. Rowling, so let me try to force myself to talk about Zatte here.    The problem I ran into almost immediately was that I wrote what I had originally planned for her, and I was very pleased with how it turned out.  And then I had to move on to the next arc, and yet, she was still there, and I knew I’d have to do something with her.    I feel like I’ve been winging it ever since, but my main priority was to set her apart from Keda, the other Dorlun character I kept around.  So I ran with the idea that Zatte is more “Saiyan-like” than the rest of her species, and maybe that makes her a little radical at times, maybe not in a way we humans might notice, but a way that other Dorluns would find unsettling.   Dorluns are survivalists, and for them “risk” is a four-letter word, but Zatte’s a thrillseeker at heart.   She wants to survive in spite of the dangers rather than back away from them.    Keda would find somewhere to hide for several months until it’s safe to come out, but Zatte would try to go all Die Hard on a situation.   Keda sticks close to Luffa because Luffa is the strongest person in the universe, so by Luffa’s side is arguably the safest place to be.    Zatte sticks close to Luffa because she’s a furry being by Luffa’s side is arguably the most dangerous place to be.    If she can survive there, she can survive anywhere.  

There’s also the whole fanaticism angle.   At some point, I came up with the idea that Zatte sees Luffa’s Super Saiyan emergence as a watershed moment in history.     I sort of threw that together, mostly to make Luffa uncomfortable and to add some tension to their relationship, but it also distinguishes Zatte from characters like Chi-Chi or Bulma, who see Super Saiyan as a lot of flashy nonsense, signifying nothing.    “Punk rocker?   Don’t you understand?   Your son is a miracle!”

That angle is kind of hard for me to work with, because I also tried to make Zatte very grounded at the same time.    I guess it’s like if you had Jerusalem Syndrome but you were very self-aware the entire time.   You make a toga out of your hotel linens and just constantly saying “Man, I’m just being really nutty right now, but oh well.”

A lot of her tactics are sort of rooted in stuff I thought made sense with the weaker characters in Dragon Ball.   I don’t really know how strong Zatte would be.    I envisioned her as being like a “mere mortal”, like Lois Lane, but in Dragon World even guys like Mr. Satan are insanely tough.   I’m pretty sure Bulma could kick Brock Lesnar’s ass if she visited our own world.   He’d F5 her and she’d just get up and slap him in the face and he’d collapse.    I feel like if Zatte entered the 23rd Budokai, she could sweep the entire thing.   That’s not what I set out to do, and it sounds really arrogant because I’d be putting her over Goku and Piccolo, but come on, that’s low-tier by DBZ standards.   If she couldn’t dominate the 23rd Budokai, then definitely the 22nd, which also sounds unthinkable, but that’s how this crazy show works.   Yajirobe could have won the 22nd Budokai if he’d only thought to enter it.   

My point is that “weaker” characters can do a lot from the sidelines if they know their limits and pick their spots, like Tien using the Kikoho on Cell and Super Buu, or Yajirobe cutting off Vegeta’s tail, and so forth.    Most of those guys hate resorting to that sort of thing, because they prefer to stand and fight in the open, but Zatte specializes in sneaky hit-and-run attacks.   She should be able to shoot ki blasts, but she sticks to firearms instead, because they’re more precise and ki senses can’t pick them up.  She likes being underestimated, to the point where her ideal battle is one where the enemy doesn’t even know she’s on the field.  

I dunno, I’ve always wondered if I was getting her “right” all this time, but now that I summarize it all in one place, it doesn’t seem as disjointed as I feared.   I had all these different things I needed her to be and do, and most of them involved finding ways to justify her continued presence in the story, but maybe it’s all worked out after all.   Sometimes I feel like Zatte is the Yoko Ono of this fic, but the Beatles suck, so I shouldn’t indulge in their crude analogies.    I Zatted my way into this mess, and I’m happy to Zatte my way out.    

[occupyvenus]

I don’t buy it - Jon isn’t “a northern fool”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! SPOILERS FOR LEAKED EP 6 AHEAD !!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just don’t buy it. I still believe that Jon is playing Danielle (btw we are using this name so it won’t show up in the search, not as an insult), going “undercover” as he did with the wildlings, to ensure she helps against the white walkers. Want to know why? Keep reading, but I warn you this got ... very, very, very long. 

This turned, more or less, into an analysis of the entire Jon x Danielle interaction over season 7 somehow, even though it wasn’t really supposed to be that. Just to be clear about this: If you are a hardcore j0nerys shipper who doesn’t like people having different opinions.... you better stop reading right now. All nasty comments will be deleted without exception. If you see things differently and are open for a civil conversation, well don’t let me stop you. I’m not trying to “hate” on somebody else’s ship here, but as a fan of the series I can analyze and interpret the things happening. J0nery is one of the things happening right now.

They way I see it, there are three key issues to their relationships that can be seen both as motivation for them working and being together, and as distinct sources of conflict. Both internally for each character and in their interpersonal relationship. 1. the personal aspect | their personal feelings for each other, generally and specifically romantic 2. the political aspect | Jon’s duty to stand for an independent North vs Danielle's desire to rule over all Seven Kingdoms 3. the ... “end of the world” aspect | the looming threat that will end them all

At the beginning of ep3 Jon and Danielle were opposed on everyone of those issues: They didn’t know or particularly like each other, they both are relentless about their political decision, Danielle doesn’t believe him about the WW’s and/or is only ready to help under certain conditions.

At the end of ep6 these three issues seem to perfectly align, all conflict seems to be resolved: They are clearly, if not in direct words, admitting their love for each other, Jon has given up his claim on the Northern Crown, Danielle has decided to destroy the night king and his army.

This could be the natural progression of the story. My question is whether this resolution, despite being rushed, was properly portrayed, developed and flashed out over those 3 episodes. Whether the last interaction between Jon and Danielle was earned, whether Douchebag&Dumbass (they earned those nicknames by butchering Arya’s and Jaime’s character, btw) used their limited screen time to build up to this moment. After all, the (supposed) J0nerys romance is clearly meant to be the “emotional climax” of this season.

Now when you look at all their interactions over the season you notice that something is missing. Something very important when developing an intimate personal relationship such as a romance. There is no real human bonding moment for them. Though I supposed that’s not completely true. Danielle does share a few personal issues with Jon, but we never hear Jon talk about anything personal and/or private with her. 

This starts in their first interaction when Danielle talks about her hardships, while Jon keeps shut about his and when she later talks about their dead brothers and Jon doesn’t really respond to the topic. This pattern persists when she asks for his advice on the beach, clearly indicating that she came to value and respect his opinion, while he is resisting to give her a clear answer, responding only with a vague statement praising her previous achievements and alluding to her potential. He doesn’t just outright says what he thinks, as he has f  If he was sure about Danielle having a “good heart” and trusts her, wouldn’t he feel free to just speak his mind? But it seems he’s afraid of saying the wrong thing, worried about alienating or offending her. Which makes sense, he is in a very vulnerable position right now, basically her prisoner, and needs her to be on his side. Pissing her off is the last things he would need. 

The interesting thing about the cave scene is that while it is shot as the most “romantic” scene for those two characters - the location, the lighting, the dramatic music score, EC’s line reading - they don’t really talk about anything personal in it. Not really. Their shared appreciation of the locations historical significance makes for a bit of a human connection, I guess, Danielle is definitely guilty of some heart-eyes, Jon puts on a more sympathetic face as well, but despite what EC’s voice is trying to tell you: The topic of this conversation is neither personal nor romantic. It ends with their thus far unresolved conflict: To kneel or not to kneel, that is the question. 

The dragon petting session was definitely a moving moment for Danielle and finally Jon being a secret targ means ... something. But Jon makes it pretty clear that his targ-blood doesn’t immediately make him regard dragons as cute pets. When his statement about them offends Danielle, he corrects himself and calls them “gorgeous beasts”. Again, she is sharing something personal and important - her connection to her dragons - but Jon doesn’t respond with an equally meaningful story. It’s obvious that he doesn’t approve of her actions - wait until he finds out about the Tarlys - so their one-on-one conversation ends on a conflicted note. I’m pretty sure that Jorah views heartthrob Jon Snow as a potential love rival (what man wouldn’t?), but I don’t think that Jon looks jealous at all. Mostly confused about the weird, old, know slaver that just showed up.

When Bran’s letter arrives, Danielle is trying to strike a more personal tone by telling Jon she’s happy for him, but Jon is going straight back into politics and EotW territory. This would have been a perfect opportunity for Jon to show his “human” side a little bit more. Forgetting about everything else for a minute, sharing ... something, just something about his long lost siblings with the supposed love of his life. But nothing, straight back to White Walker talk. Danielle is obviously worried about Jon going on this stupid ass mission, I have no doubt in my mind that she is head over heels for him at this point. But Jon? He calls her a stranger. He asserts his position as king (Y’all are disappointing Tywin this season) and makes it clear that she can’t force him to stay on this island. Danielle is obviously in too deep to care about it anymore. (It’s a shame Dickon never had a chance to seduce her... ). 

Last, but not least their farewell scene  She states that she has grown fond of him, while Jon is keeping the conversation proper and formal. While Danielle is longingly looking after him, Jon doesn’t turn around. This fact is even more emphasized by Jorah’s presence who does take a last long look at the woman he loves, whom he might never see again. Why not have Jon do the same? Why not have Jorah turning around only to see them two exchange a long meaningful look, causing some love-triangle tension? Don’t tell me that Douchebag & Dumbass would be “above” this. 

Compare it to Jon meeting Gendry. They talk about their fathers (why Gendry has come to care so much for his sperm donor is anybody’s guess, btw), joke a bit and connect. Jorah and Jon have a similar conversation about their fathers in ep6. We have an interaction like this for most, if not all characters who are forced to or decide to work together. We see this with Tyrion & Jorah, Sansa & Bran, Bronn & Jaime, Tormund & the Hound, Brienne & Arya etc etc. Because in order for us to care about the bond two people share, we need to see that bond being formed. We need characters to tell each other about their feelings, experiences, opinions, families, traumas, etc. for us to get emotionally involved with their relationship. We simply have no interaction between them where they connect as human beings. Especially Jon never brings up any private issues. We never see them actually getting know each other as people. Which is so so odd. If their love story and relationship was this important to the overall story, wouldn’t they want to make sure we get emotionally involved in it? 

They could have easily written in Jon telling Danielle about his “father”. This is a difficult topic for them, considering the rebellion and stuff, but he brings up good old Ned to almost every single person he talks to. Jon has some serious daddy-issues and it would make sense for him to defend his father to Danielle. To make her see that he wasn’t the kind of man who sends assassin after newborn children. But not once do we see him go “I can’t speak to Robert and you might not want to hear this, but my father was the most honorable dudebro in all the seven kingdoms, blah blah.” Btw, why did Varys never tell her that Ned quit his job because he didn’t agree with Robert? He could have chimed in, overhearing them “by accident” and tell that story. Them having a conversation about Danielle’s father, the rebellion, this conflict and tension between their houses would have given real depth to their relationship. I would even consider them sorting out these issues a key requirement for them to even have a healthy, mutually loving relationship. Why were they never brought up? Why do we never see Jon talk about anything that matters to him as a person, other than the threat beyond the Wall and his duties as king? 

What I’m trying to say is that their personal interactions are biased toward Danielle. She has made obvious heart eyes, talked about personal issues and showed that she gained trust in Jon. I’m not saying that Jon isn’t attracted to her or dislikes her completely. But, at least everyone should be able to admit that up until their goodbye in episode 5  Danielle looks a lot, like a hella lot, more love-struck than Jon. Even if one could argue that Jon has his moments where he shoots her a tender look, the disparity is pretty apparent.

But then in ep6 immediately after Jon wakes up on Danielle’s ship (btw, at least Jon didn’t decide to ditch WF for KL by his own choice. Of course Douchebag&Dumbass had to put him straight on a boat, because as so many people - me included - pointed out: It makes no sense for him to want to go. He should have want to go to WF by all means, home to his family and his people, preparing them for the threat that is getting really fucking close), he basically hands her everything she wants on a silver platter, without any coaxing from Danielle whatsoever.

Don’t you think that’s at least a very drastic, sudden shift in his behaviour? Even if we assume that he has changed his mind about Northern Independence eg he’s willing to kneel in exchange of her help, even if we assume that he has developed serious feelings for her, why would he be the one to bring this up? Why would he be so direct about it all of a sudden? Why not wait until Danielle mentions the whole kneeling issue, hoping that maybe she’s ready to put the political struggle aside now that she’s seen the enemy with her own two eyes - as was Jon’s original plan - but still being ready to give in should she press on about it? I wouldn’t begrudge Jon for doing so, but just giving up the north by his own choosing, proclaiming her “his queen” -ugh- stands in direct contrast to his convictions so far.

What has changed? Seriously, what happened between the end of e5 and the end of ep6 that could have made Jon do a literal 180 on this topic? . Let’s look at the conversations Jon has with his suicide squad companions, shall we?

Jon talks to Tormund in Eastwatch | It’s interesting that Jon doesn’t try to distinguish between Cersei and Danielle in any way. When Tormund asks which queen he has to convince, he simply says “both”. Though I was under the impression that Danielle already believed him - maybe still a bit unaware about the true extent of the issue - and this was first and foremost to get Cersei on board. He could have said “Danielle won’t risk sending her armies north until Cersei is convinced” or something like that. If he was already in love with her and believes her to be “his queen” -ugh- wouldn’t he come to her defense? Wouldn’t he try to put the “blame” for this stupid, stupid, stupid idea firmly on Cersei?

Jon talks to the Brotherhood without Banners in their Cells | The one thing to notice here is that Jon makes it clear that nothing else matters anymore, everyone who still breathes is on the same side. We have to work with people we neither like, nor trust because all of these squabbles don’t matter anymore. The only thing that counts is defeating the Night King.

Jon talks to Jorah | This would have been the perfect opportunity to bring up Danielle. Seriously, when I saw them starting talking I was already shielding myself for some “isn’t she just amazeballs”-comments from Jorah and maybe even Jon. Simply because ... well it’s Jorah’s favourite subject in the whole world and if Jon really was jealous he could have asked some side-eyes question about his relationship with her. Jorah himself could have pulled a Tyrion a la “Kh*leesi is the most wonderful person in this world, you will see that and then call her your queen -ugh- too.” Have Jon say something a la “D*enerys, she is quite an impressive woman.”. He’s talking to someone who knows the woman he supposedly loves very well, why isn’t he prying for some information? But she isn’t a topic of conversation between them at all. Similar to many of the things mentioned above, while this scene doesn’t necessarily refute any potential romantic feelings from Jon’s side, it is clearly a missed opportunity to shift our focus on them.

Jon talks to Tormund | Danielle comes up, but again not in a personal context. Another missed opportunity to mention the emotional aspect of their relationship. Since, you know, this is Tormund. They could have easily written in a comment a la “What does a fucking dragon queen look like?” or something like this. If you need a shameless character who doesn’t care about personal boundaries and just outright asks inappropriate questions, Tormund is your man. Hell, it wouldn’t have been out of character for him to straight out ask whether “Jon’s little pecker got happy with the dragon queen while he was south. Is that why he took so long?” or something alike. But no. He only asks “so you’ve met that dragon queen?” and Jon takes the conversation into the political direction. He brings up that she’ll only help if he bends the knee and Tormund this train of thought by highlighting the Jon/Mance parallels in this situation once again.

Jon talks to Beric | His talk to Beric revolves around the whole Lord-of-light, brought-back-from-the-dead, what-are-we-fighting-for issue. Beric states that they are not fighting for some king or queen, but for life itself. Weird that Jon would proclaim a woman “his queen” -ugh- not 30 min later. Jon rehashes a line from his night’s watch vows: The shield that guards the realms of men. This is a call-back to his conversation with Half-Hand back in season 2(?), who reminded him that “we are the watcher’s on the wall” before he died and told Jon “to do what needs to be done.” Does anyone remember how Jon infiltrating the Wildlings went down? 

Looking back at the three big issues surrounding the relationship between Jon and Danielle, only two of them were brought up in their time apart: The impending threat from the dead, how fighting them is all that truly matters and Jon’s dilemma of bending the knee to get Danielle’s help. She is never mentioned as a love-interest. The personal side of this equation is not addressed between him leaving DSt and him being saved by her.

Which is weird, because ... a bunch of dudebros alone in the wilderness, some of them even talk about ladies and sex and dicks (emmy nominated writing, folks), would have been a great opportunity to bring this up. But instead the theme of Jon’s conversations seem to be “proud men and their downfalls”. Something that has been mentioned many, many times over the season. 

His conversation with Jorah (like he didn’t talk about Danielle with Jorah -kh*lessi loving- fucking mormont.) also revolves around the topic that honorable men don’t always get what they deserve. Jorah’s father was killed by his own men, Ned was executed. Plus the Mance dilemma is connected to this as well. “Pride” and “honor” are more or less the same thing when you think about it. This plays back into the “Northern fool” narrative the season has been setting up since episode one. We here about three men who found their untimely death because, or despite of, their own kind of honor. Jon has been warned by Sansa not make those same mistakes and Jon himself has admitted to coming to close to doing just that. But more on this later. 

All of Jons interactions and seeing how effective the dragons truly are explain why he has made the decision to bend the knee, at least why he’s ready to give in to her demands, not why he would actively give it up. But there were no conversations that would allude to his growing feelings for Danielle. At all. If that was the “emotional climax” of the episode, shouldn’t they put in a few things hinting at it?

I would also like to mention how very odd his behaviour after waking up was. The first thing he said wasn’t “where am I?”, it wasn’t about his uncle who just died to save him (which I would assume would be the first thing that comes to mind). It wasn’t Danielle asking him “How did you get out of there??!! We all thought you were dead.”. Before Danielle could say anything, he tells her how sorry he is about Viserions death. I’m not trying to be insensitive here, I know that her dragons are immensely important to her but to Jon? His uncle was just killed in front of his eyes, shouldn’t that be the thing he is heartbroken about? He didn’t even build any kind of personal connection to Viserion specifically. He should have started this conversation with many other things, but he very deliberately chose to start with that.

If I’m allowed to put this in colloquial terms, he is sucking up to Danielle. Just as he’s been doing in ep4 when she asks for his advice, just as he did in ep5 when he didn’t think “beautiful” was the right word to describe her “children”. This is before Danielle promises to destroy the night king with him, it seems to me that he is doing what he’s been doing for the entire season: Catering to Danielle’s feelings and wishes. Soothing her temper. Not saying the wrong words as not to alienate her. Rather than holding his tongue or beating around the bush, as he has done before, he actively says exactly what she wants to hear. And that’s exactly how that interaction progresses.

Jon establishing physical contact to create an intimate atmosphere, “using” her obvious crush on him, going a bit further by inventing a fun nickname for her, him calling her “my queen” -uuughhhh-, giving up the North and saying that what the Northern Lords want doesn’t matter because they’ll change their mind once they see how amazeballs she is. This entire conversation revolves around her, Jon only talks about things that are supposed to make her feel good. Again, there is no mention to how Jon survived. Jon apologizes for going on the dumb wight hunt ... when it wasn’t even really his idea?! Tyrion came up with the plan of catching a dead and bringing it to cersei. Why is he taking all the blame for this bullshit plot? 

Danielle isn’t taking at least some part of the blame herself “if only I had believed you, all of this wouldn’t have happened. Viserion would still be alive”. The next comment might be fueled by a bit of salt and left-over range from yesterday, so don’t take it too seriously, but “you have to see it to believe it.” sounded almost like an excuse. “Don’t apologize, it’s good this happened, this isn’t your fault. But it isn’t mine either, because how could I know?” This would be consistent with her characterisation so far. She is not willing to admit any mistakes, not even to herself. If I look back, I’m lost. But Jon doesn’t point any fingers either, not even in the most subtle way “we had to do it to convince you and cersei”... which is odd. As said above take this last paragraph with a grain of salt, because it was written with an ounce of salt.

Why would he just call her “D*ny” all of the sudden? He hasn’t called her anything but “Your Grace” until now. This comes out of nowhere. It’s pretty easy to create a narrative leading up to this moment, btw. Why not have Danielle offer to address each other on a first-name-basis? Do it on the beach when they say their farewells, Jon calls her “Your Grace” and she answers with “Daenerys is alright.” Jon only nods and turns away. At first Jon declines because of the whole (potential) political, I-can’t-love-you-because-THA-NORTH, so-I-have-to-stay-formal thingy, but after she saves his ass he calls her D*enerys for the first time. She smiles, obviously moved by this and he jokingly says “or maybe D*ny?” and the show can take it from there. Sounds a lot more romantic and a lot less random, right? It would take two lines of dialogue to make this seem a lot more natural and a lot less suspicious and ooc.

Side-note: After Danielle leaves the room and Jon opens his eyes (did he only pretend to sleep?) he looks exhausted, exasperated. Not like a man who just shared a very intimate moment with the woman he loves. It just doesn’t add up. Why is Danielle lovingly looking at his sleeping face not the last shot? 

Altogether, their “romantic relationship” is still as one-sided as it was before, only now Jon is actively pushing for it to be that way. All in all his behaviour is way over the top. It sounds like a man who’s simply trying to woo a woman for one reason or another. If they had taken it down just a nudge I would have believed it. If they had shown some restraint to either the romantic tones or the kneeling issue, I would have taken it as Jon’s genuine feelings. But this way? It’s too much, too sudden, without having a proper build up to it. It’s just not how “Jon” would act.

This is mostly what if comes down to: the romantic hints over the season were really, really on the nose - dramatic, emotional scores and line reading that do not match the tone of conversation (cave scene), or third characters spilling it out for the audience (davos), or moving deep into soap opera territory (boat scene) - but just as superficial. All these hints are thrown into our faces without properly being set up or developed. There were countless possibilities to give it some real depth and as little trust as I have in Dickheads&Douchebags writing abilities I don’t understand why they wouldn’t use them. As much as I disagree with a lot of their choices I can contemplate why they are doing stupid. The whole stupid arya vs sansa subplot is there to create some tension and drama in WF. I get it. It’s stupid as hell but I at least understand where the stupid is coming from. I know what they are trying to achieve with that stupid. But this? Half-assing the big love story of the show? The only explanation that makes some sense to me is that Jonnearrris is a red herring. 

A really well executed one, btw. Make sure the audience can’t miss it, but also prevent them from forming a real emotional connection to it. After all it is supposed to distract from the real storyline (I’m going to assume jonsa & targbowl) not compete against it. You want the audience to be shocked, but not hate you for ruining the most amazing, emotionally involving love story you’ve ever seen.

This leads me to my final conclusion: There are only two options here.

a) Dickhead & Dipshit missed out several obvious opportunities to flash out Jon’s feelings, because ... just because, and fucked up to effectively use their limited screen time to develop the grand love story of GoT. The cave scene, for all it’s romantic lighting, background music and line reading, concludes on the very political issue of northern independence. Dragon petting could have been used for Jon to make a personal statement (I have a direwolf I love and miss very much - as does the audience, btw - I wouldn’t call him “my child” but I got the connection you have going on with those lizards), instead Jon isn’t to keen of the fire breathing lizards and their conversation ends with him not being to sure what to think about her victory on the field of fire. Their goodbye scene could have been used to have them throw a last longing glance at each other, instead Danielle looks on while Jon has his back turned and doesn’t look back. Jon’s conversation with Jorah could have been used to cause and highlight some tension between them since they are “in love” with the same woman, instead it revolves around honorable, upright men and their deaths. His conversation with Tormund could have been used for some light-hearted guy-talk, as is Tormunds speciality, but instead it’s about the lives Mance could have saved if he had let go of his pride (and honor) and knelt. Again, there isn’t much in the season that would outright refute any romantic feelings from Jon’s side, he at least seems attracted to her and perhaps a bit intrigued (she is beautiful and a very fascinating woman if nothing else), but I can see missed opportunities to have Jon’s feelings mentioned or emphasized left and right. So many that it’s hard to believe Dumbass & Douchebag aren’t aware of it. If the entire season was building up to this “revelation” in ep6 and the following boatbang in ep7 wouldn’t they have used everything they got to actually build up to it? If this truly is where the show is headed, they did a very very lousy job. And don’t tell me that all the things I mentioned above would be “too cheesy” because the last Danielle / Jon scene in ep6 was fucking cheesy as hell. Btw, maybe my Jonsa-shipping-goggles make me a bit “immune” to all this, but if that’s the case, jonnearis-shipping-goggles make people overly perceptive to it as well. This accusation goes both ways.

Which leads me to the second option:

b) They didn’t mention the personal aspects of this plot point because they don’t really matter. Because things are not as they seem. They emphasize the political and “end of the world” issues in Jon’s story line and his relationship to danielle because those are the things influencing his behaviour, most importantly the drastic shift in his behaviour between leaving DSt and reuniting with Danielle on the boat on their way to the stupid stupid dragon pit meeting: He is giving up on his political agenda and uses all means possible to make sure Danielle helps them. He has learned from his predecessors mistakes (Mance not kneeling - and dying, Ned being to trustworthy - and dying, Robb falling in love with a foreign woman - losing his people - and dying) and is now using that knowledge for his advantage. There are only three possible payoffs to the “Northern fool” narrative: 1. Jon is making the same mistakes as the men he’s compared to and will suffer similar consequences (unlikely, since he is aware of that and has already broken with his mance-persona), 2. he does the same mistakes without it backlashing because Danielle is just so amazing (very unsatisfying storytelling) 3. he learned from it and doesn’t make the same mistakes. He goes along with everything she wants, tries to win her over by all means possible because what he said is true “D*enerys is their last hope”. Not only in this specific event of stupidly getting trapped by the Army of the Dead in the middle of a frozen lake because ~someone~ thought it was a great idea to go on a fucking idiotic wight hunt, without horses, adequate manpower or any real plan, but also in the grander scheme of things. If Danielle doesn’t help them (what if she refuses to go back north after one of her dragons was killed there?) they are fucked. That’s why Jon went to DSt in the first place, later admitting that is was a stupid idea, that’s why he went beyond the wall to catch a fucking wight, even though that was a really bad idea. All his actions this season were motivated by defeating the threat to the north. All of them (except for choking Littlefinger, *cough*). Even reuniting with Bran and Arya had to take a backseat to this issue. Is it really that far-fetched that his ooc-behaviour at the end of ep6 is the same? If you consider all the things mentioned above? He can’t risk her bailing on him, so he does everything he can to cater to her feelings and desires voluntarily and up-front, to make sure she fights the WW’s, to make sure she doesn’t have any excuse to leave them high and dry.

I would also like to mention that this theory doesn’t even need to implement any possible dark!dany or targbowl or just general endgame speculations. Except for one paragraph, this is solely based on what happened on screen this season. This isn’t about me being a salty shipper either. It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of any j0nerys romance really, but the big pay off in e6 was simply unearned. Either Dickhead & Dipshit fucked up writing a romance or they are presenting us with a wonderfully crafted red herring. Being the optimist I am, I’ll believe in the second until proven wrong. 

I teased to write a “little something” about this issue, but it turned into a “fucking big something” instead. Thanks for sticking with me until the end!

[defunctblogtobedeleted]

9/8/19 8:15pm - Another Weekend Update

So! I just waited through 2 hours of queue, had some nice sush for dinner (just picked up a salmon cut from H Mart, nothing fancy lol), got ahead on my work for the night, and then the server for WoW went down so I guess it’s a sign that I should be doing an update.

I’ve had one hell of a week, actually. It’s only been 9 days but god damn do I have some story updates.  First off, my car is still beautiful. And I’m starting to sit a little pretty myself, just made it to 168.8 lbs. So I’m kinda comfortably below 170 now. :3 Finally went running for the first time since wow came out the other day so hopefully I keep that up lmao. I guess I’ve been out walking around town and dancing and shit too though.  I also got my hair dyed blonde again! I originally got it cut to look like Brad Pitt from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, with just a little bit of highlighting, but Maya wanted me to go Full blonde again and I was about it. Checked with a bunch of people and they all said I should, and people are loving it lol.

The first night I had it done when I went to karaoke I got asked by a 40 year old woman if I was a model. As if he heard my ego inflating, this big hulking navy dudebro came up to me within 30 seconds of the compliment, got my attention, and asked “hey. I need to settle a bet. Are you a man or a woman?” Like jesus fucking christ lmao.

Anyway. Karaoke was fun, but there were a lot of birthday parties so it was kinda busy and I went off to Circa to hang out with Jacob. We hung out til like 230 talking about shit and then Jill had me over to crash and fuck. 

Hung out with Jill a bunch this week. Accidentally made her oversleep for work one night and she didn’t even care lmao. Our sex has gotten a little better, but she’s still someone I really need to work around which is frustrating.

There was one kind of cool position I wanted to remember, she was laying flat on her belly, left leg cocked off to the side splayed out at a comfortable ~right angle. Having sex with her from behind I was in like a push up position, only using my right arm so that my left could be focused on playing with her pussy. In this position you have sooo much more access to her pussy, it’s not like doggy style where you feel like you’re really kind of stretching awkwardly to get to rub her off.  Just takes a little bit more effort holding the position than doggy obviously. 

Okay so backtracking to Sunday though, holy shit lol. I spent the whole weekend playing WoW. Like I think a ton on saturday, and then I woke up early and was playing on sunday and considered not even going out to boxcar because I knew maya was out of town. But then Manu hit me up and said him, pacos, christina, and vita were going so I was like oh fuckkkk yes.  Went to boxcar, found out they were actually at a different bar, while I chugged down the full bottle of champagne I had bought I talked to this guy about smash bros, and then ran through the rain to go see them and it poured all over me lol. We drank a bit there for a bit, they tried to get a tattoo but couldn’t, we went back to boxcar, had More champagne, I ran into this girl Chelsea that dakota used to go out with at the frat parties who was kinda cute and we talked for a sec, and we’re sitting there playing some foosball when this other girl taps me from behind and says hey how are ya gives me a great big hug, we talk for a few seconds and she walks outside.

I turn to pacos and I’m like “I have no idea who the fuck that is.” So we wrap up our game and I tell him to come outside with me to investigate. Now, I had a pretty simple strategy. I went up to her and asked some basic questions like “hey, so how’ve ya been haven’t seen ya in a bit.” and then she was like “yeah I mean I’m fine haven’t really been doing anything.” and I’m like [shit that doesn’t give me anything to go off at all] so I follow up with “so where are ya living these days?” I don’t know why That’s where my immediate follow up was. Clearly I was predisposed to thinking I was just going to continue running into people from Chapel Hill all night. But she says to me “wait what? I live in Raleigh, we talked about all this like... last weekend.” and I’m like 

oh.

shit.

fuck

me.

Because now it clicked into place that the girl standing in front of me who had gone out of her way to say hi to me was none other than MJ, the girl from the party that I was talking about. I had texted her asking her to come out to karaoke and shit but she hadn’t been able to do anything. Maybe work. Maybe not interested. But she would always respond to my texts quick and then nothing would ever work out on her end. But here she was! Staring me in the face and I didn’t even recognize her lmfao. Luckily she was like “I mean we were pretty fucked up that night, it’s fine.” but goddamn I’m an idiot. I kinda like just was facepalming too hard internally to even carry out conversation after that so we split. I tried saying hi to her later when I bummed a cig but she wasn’t very responsive. I was so frustrated with myself that I had blown it so hard that I nearly made myself sick. Or maybe that was the drinking two bottles of champagne plus beer on top without having anything to eat. Who knows, really. After hanging a while at boxcar we grabbed a hotdog and ended the night at Raleigh Times to eat a little bit before splitting. So good chilling with them. Spent some time nostalgiaing with them and telling stories to Peter who had met up with us. And had a sweet waiter who convinced me to not overeat and save my diet. Lol it was a neat day. Idk. Plus I got to go to Jill’s afterward and hook up with her, so that made up a little bit for fucking things so hard with MJ.

Honestly though, despite what the quick responses would suggest, I think she’s not really interested. I mean she definitely isn’t NOW lmfao.

Mon I was supposed to hang with Melanie but she had to flake because of her mom being in town, so I hung out and played a fuckton more wow. So I got my hair done, did karaoke, went to work, played a bunch more wow, and I’m up to lvl 30. TECHNICALLY halfway but like... effectively maybe a quarter? tops?

So this weekend was Hopscotch. Krey. AND it was the weekend that hurrican Fish$ came through. So Thursday just in case shit hit the fan work pushed all my patients to weds/fri and cancelled. Fucking sick.

 I got to see my karaoke bartender Tyrone play with his band The Black Surfers that afternoon, went to another band called Illuminati Hotties and they were super cute. Was feeling pretty beat so I went home to nap and play melee and chill for a sec. Met up with Dar to have dinner with her and her friends since they were evac’d from southport. Then for the first time I got to go to Night Rider for karaoke, which I had been recommended like a dozen times but haven’t been able to go since it’s on thursdays. 

It. Was. Incredible. Oh my god the vibe is like Emo Karaoke+. Like all the same crowd of non-normies that would go to emo karaoke and all the hype of people screaming for you, but none of the tackiness and forced playlist and overcrowdedness that comes with it. Not that I hate any of that about Emo Karaoke, I love it to death, but it’s amazing for that to happen more naturally.  I was expecting to just go and hang out alone and do a few songs, but my new buddy Matt actually recognized me from emo karaoke when I was walking in. I stopped to talk to him and his buddies steph and brie, and ended up hanging out with them the rest of the night. These two other girls Terri and Que (I think), and this guy Pharaoh also chatted with us and it was hilarious. We were talking about weird sex shit and furries and porn and all sorts of weirdness. Terri asked me and Pharaoh if we were on Fetlife, which made me amazingly happy and no longer embarrassed that I made an account on there about a year and a half ago. She told me that I really needed to try to go to this Fetish Night at Legends, which I had actually seen a post about but wasn’t sure if I’d ever do it because it happens once a month on wednesdays. But after she told me that I got her number and then shot my coworker a text to switch days so I’d work sunday and not wednesday (which is why I’m in right now).  Terri’s this beautiful short black girl with bright shiny purple hair. It’s totally gorgeous. We’ve been texting the past couple days about weird kink shit. I’m really excited to see her there on wednesday. I bought a pair of supreme cheetah print boxers to match the shirts I have, gonna cut a hole out to stick my tail out through and go in just that and ears. It should look incredible. Especially with my new hair being dirty blonde to match the cheetah print. MMMmmm i just hope everything comes in the mail on time.

Anyway, so I had a blast. They were amazed that I was 27 (most of them were 21, matt’s like 32), and I was told “I hope if I grow up to be your age I look as beautiful as you do.” mmm so kind. Actually it’s like the first time I’ve heard that and not that I was babyfaced or that i’ll look good when I’m old so I’lllll take it. Also everyone loves my hair.

AND since I was with my emo karaoke buddy and everyone was seeming like they were into a pop-punk vibe, I did some Blink182 and MCR. Finally busted out I’m Not Okay after practicing it for forever, and I fucking KILLLLLLED it. People cheered the fuck out of me afterward. I felt like I really needed to impress the gang I was with (especially Terri) so hopefully it worked lolol.

Went to Jill’s at 1am, I’m so fucking glad she’s down to chill at night after I’m done doing shit for the evening. It’s really the most low key fwb thing I’ve ever had in my life I think. So cool. Actually she made me wait to bake these brownies when I got there so I passed out lmfao. But we had sex twice on 9/6, my third favorite day of the year so nice lol. (the first being my birthday, and the second being 6/9 lol.)

Saturday I got off work, played wow at home a while, went to hopscotch at like 2. Got to see my karaoke dj Sam’s band play, he was stoked that I made it out. Hung out with brandon going around town for the day. Saturday the main event was chk chk chk, phantogram, and chvrches and I fucking died it was so good. chk chk chk was inspiring, the dude was mooooving despite being a pot bellied 46 y.o. lmao I loved him. Phantogram was gorgeous and had the best underboob I’d ever seen in my life. Chvrches played mostly new stuff and only a few of their hits, but I love them to death so it was still wonderful. And the best part was that me being me I wiggled me and brandon all the way to the front row of the show, we were dead fucking center, practically against the rails. Technically there was one person in front of me but holy shit it was fucking lit. The bass for chvrches was so loud it practically destroyed my ear drums lmao. Gotta get earplugs for next time.

and despite it being 11, that was practically just the beginning of the night lol. Brandon and I met up with Sam for this last concert, but I was pretty drunk and totally exhausted. It was in an indoor amphitheater so as soon as I got my ass in a chair I passed the fuck out for the whole show. They tell me it was incredible. Idk. The sleep was perfect.

Then we started to go to after parties. Brandon and I got a hot dog to sustain ourselves a little and walked over to this place Five somethingorothers and saw the guy from Sylvan Esso playing some club music, but decided it wasn’t our vibe. He decided to go home, and I ran off to meet up with Sam. We went to slims and I met this girl taylor, we talked about flowers or something, and then a big group of us went to this Ruby after party at a big warehouse building that they had rigged up with music equipment and had a fuckton of kegs to supply drinking for the night. I danced and drank til like 6am it was pretty righteous. Well drank til like 5, until the alcohol ran out. We also ‘broke’ into this dilapidated building to the right (it was open) and gave ourselves a little tour lmao.   And it seemed like EVERYBODY that I’ve met the past couple months out at bars and stuff were there. It was so much fun seeing everyone. Alex was there, too, and MJ even showed up at 4am! This time I actually remembered her and said hi first so that was good lmao. She gave me some tequila from a flask but we didn’t really talk much. She was mostly chatting with other guys so I guess she’sssss not really into me. Shame. But whatever so it goes. I’ll just stop hitting her up and see if we keep bumping into each other enough to do something one day, probably the best call. But what was excellent was getting to hang out with Sam and his girlfriend Taylor so much last night. It was so excellent

Now Terri and I, I hope that turns into something weird and beautiful. She just told me she’s into pegging and all sorts of lewd stuff I’m so excited.

This wednesday should be a blast. Idt I have much coming up other than Chris’s wedding in a couple weeks though.

Oh yeah I managed to buy two of my 3 supreme things! I got the jacket and the shirt, just need to get the matching hat and I think I might be done with blowing money on clothes lmfaooo. I guess I need to get khakis for the wedding, and maybe a new pair of shorts or two but that won’t be too much. It feels so nice throwing money around on cool shit and going out drinking and shows and good times lmao. Life is so fucking good right now. 

Hope everything keeps staying as interesting, I’ll keep ya posted.

[amorremanet]

For the meme: Hunger Games?

my all-time ultimate fave character: Katniss and Finnick. Like, I have a lot of them who I love, but Katniss and Finnick are tied for my number one spot.

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: Mrs. Everdeen took a while to grow on me, but by the end of Mockingjay, she really had.

a character I used to like but now don’t: tbh, it’s not that I used to like Peeta and now don’t, because I never really liked him and I still wouldn’t say that I dislike him, personally

—but there’s a lot about Peeta, especially with regard to his and Katniss’s relationship, that I find troublesome for various reasons (e.g., the way that Katniss, who is definitely canonically dark-skinned and is written against a backdrop that’s blatantly inspired by the racialized dimensions of classism and poverty, is always contextualized as Not Really Deserving the blonde white boy, who is regularly written in terms that are super not subtle about comparing him to Jesus)

To say nothing of how the text itself seems to agree with this idea, and does shit like go, “Wow, Peeta is oppressed by the Capitol too, like damn Katniss how much of a bitch are you, I mean your family and Gale’s only haven’t very literally starved to death because you and Gale know how to hunt, but wow, damn, Peeta had to help make the goat cheese and apple tarts and he wasn’t allowed to eat them because they were too expensive, that’s totally the same thing as people in the Seam literally starving to death”

Like, I’m not saying that Peeta and his family weren’t oppressed by the Capitol, because they were…… but it’s explicitly established in-text that the Capitol manufactures gradations as part of how they try to keep the Districts all fighting each other instead of fighting them, so yes, Peeta and his family did not experience the same thing as Gale, Katniss, and theirs, and part of that difference was how the Mellarks didn’t need to worry about getting enough to eat, they just couldn’t eat the expensive treats

The thing that bugs me the most, though, is the way that Peeta has supposedly been in love with Katniss since they were kids — except……… how? How can you say that he has truly been in love with Katniss when he, by his own goddamn admission, knew basically nothing about her and never even tried to get to know her for real? I’d buy that he was in love with his ludicrous headcanons about Katniss, but that’s not the same as being in love with Katniss Everdeen: Actual Person

And sorry not sorry, Peeta, but it is NOT true that you, “couldn’t talk to her”; you COULD have talked to Katniss and you chose not to talk to Katniss or deal with her at all in any context where you didn’t have the power of life and death over her (whether it was because she was literally dying of starvation, or because she needed you to make her look sympathetic to viewers in the 74th Games, and you needed her to literally and immediately keep you alive)

……Also, his version of how he fell in love with her has way too much in common with Dante Alighieri’s account of how he first fell in love with Beatrice Portinari for me to be truly okay with it, because Dante is one of the Western Literary Canon’s biggest examples of entitled dudebros who objectify women even while they claim to adore them (because over-idealizing someone is a form of dehumanizing them).

This said, I still don’t dislike Peeta. I just don’t think he’s that great, or that he’s as pure and innocent and cinnamon roll-ish as the books and fandom all make him out to be. Even without my misgivings about Ever*lark, ffs, he is one of the sneakiest, most manipulative characters in the series, and his BS sense of entitlement doesn’t only come out with Katniss

a character I’m indifferent about: Presidents Coin and Snow are both well-executed villains, but I don’t have a lot of feelings about them, personally. They were actually helped by the movies, for me, because Donald Sutherland and Julianne Moore were both really good in their roles, and it made me like them a little more, even if it still didn’t make me have feelings about them or anything

a character who deserved better: Most of them, tbh, but my top six are (in no particular order) Johanna, Madge, Rue, Annie, Finnick, and Gale

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: Katniss/Peeta, see above

But also? Gale/Madge. In my experience, the whole thing only exists so people can have some kind of “uptown girl” fantasy and go, “Look, see, I don’t hate Gale!!! Stop saying that I hate Gale!!! Just let me shove him off to the side and completely mischaracterize the shit out of him and pair him up with Madge for no reason beyond getting him out of the way so I can have Katniss/Peeta!!!!”

Also, Madge Undersee is a lesbian. #sorrynotsorry

Even worse: Effie/Haymitch. For one thing, both of them are gay. I don’t know what books everybody else is reading, but in MY copies of the books, Effie and Haymitch are both gay as fuck, why would you pair up a gay man and a lesbian like that unless it’s like, a situation where Effie and Haymitch get married so no one knows that they’re actually married to Portia and Cinna, respectively

But aside from that (because it’s admittedly a matter of my own headcanons even though I refuse to back down from them), I just??? Effie/Haymitch is just so blatantly a bunch of straight nonsense, pairing the two of them up because he’s a man and she’s a woman and therefore any time they exchange more than two words, it’s ~flirting~ even when Effie has HAPPILY AND ENERGETICALLY been a part of the system that treats all the kids Haymitch as mentored as if their lives mean nothing, and she’s been helping shepherd them to their deaths without getting that this is not good until it affects Katniss and Peeta (which only makes Effie get it because she likes them), and as much as Haymitch’s distaste for Effie is understandable, a lot of his lashing out at her isn’t actually coming from a place of, “I object to you for these fair reasons” so much as it’s coming from a place of Haymitch being a troll for the sake of being a troll, and I just

Why

Why is this ship a THING

Why is it so fucking POPULAR

I only understand this phenomenon in the most cynical way possible (i.e., the way where my explanation for it is, “they are so popular because it’s an M/F ship and, in the movies, both of them are white, even though Haymitch has dark skin and black hair, and the same racialized poverty-coded background as Gale and Katniss, in the books”)

Also, both of them are gay, sooooooo……… #sorrynotsorry

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: Katniss/Johanna, Katniss/Madge, Katniss/Finnick, Annie/Finnick

a cute, low-key ship: Annie/Johanna, and in some AU where Rue and Prim both get to grow up, I think they’d be cute together.

Also, Gale/Peeta. I’m just saying, it’s a perfect solution to the issue of the alleged love triangle because it means neither of them ends up without a ship, but Katniss doesn’t have to be with either of them.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: dude, my only M/F “ship that deserves to be called an OTP” for Katniss is called a crack ship by most of the fandom, even though she and Finnick have better-written relationship development than Katniss/Peeta and even though Finnick consistently respects Katniss Everdeen: Actual Facts Person and not some shiny pretty pretty princess headcanon about her

Sure, he may not want to be her friend, at first, because he assumes, like she does, that friends are not A Thing that’s going to happen, and if he maybe feels like he has been tasked with babysitting her and Peeta during the Quarter Quell, then… that’s not actually inaccurate, because he was kinda tasked with babysitting them by the other rebels.

Like, helping the two of them to survive and getting them out of the arena was the job that Finnick and Mags were given by the other rebels, and he had to be more hands-on about it than, say, Johanna, since Katniss wanted to have an alliance with Mags, which meant she had to have one with Finnick

So, no. The two of them aren’t exactly cozying up to each other in Catching Fire, because both of them are playing certain parts and performing certain versions of themselves based on a lot of assumptions about How The Fuck This Shit Works and a lot of assumptions about their roles and positions in everything (which admittedly end up being less than accurate… because both of them have been manipulated and lied to by everybody who’s pulling the strings)

Anyway, I shouldn’t go on about this too much more because it will make me get defensive and angry, but Finnick and Katniss are my autistic children and they are not a goddamn crack ship and if I had money, I would pay people to stop saying that so I could look at their tags and only see people tagging everything with them as “BROTP,” as opposed to that plus people calling them a crack ship

Also: Finnick/Gale, Cinna/Haymitch, Annie/Katniss

Also, I didn’t really LIKE Gale/Katniss, but it made me feel more things than Katniss/Peeta (even if I have more thoughts on that one, that’s the thing: they’re thoughts, not Feels; the only thing that I ever really feel about Katniss/Peeta is frustrated), and the whole, “Katniss is all but explicitly suicidal and that’s why she wants to mack on Gale” thing from Mockingjay totally does it for a lot of my angsty catharsis interests

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: Effie/Haymitch. I went, “EEEUGH” out loud when they kissed, when I say MJ2 in the theatre, and I didn’t feel bad about it because: 1. all of the people who loved them collectively when, “AWWWWW”; and 2. eww, can you say, “what the fuck is this hetero pandering bullshit”

my favourite storyline/moment: The entire, “I drag myself out of nightmares and find there’s no relief in waking. Better not to give into it” scene, because I’m a human cliché and Katniss and Finnick are my autistic children. Also, any and every Joniss scene, because I’m garbage and a human cliché and I just want them to be together, is that so bad

a storyline that never should have been written: idk about anyone else, but I personally choose to live in a world where the series-long alleged “love triangle” was between Katniss/Madge and Johanna/Katniss, and the Katniss/Peeta stuff was only ever during the Games and not actually for real, and Gale and Peeta can go do each other or something, because fuck forced hetero love triangles, that’s why

Also? I’m willing to accept that Prim’s death was legitimately necessary for the plot and the narrative, in the same way that I hate Sirius Black’s death but accept that it was necessary for the sake of the story that JKR wanted to tell, so I can just go, “I see your point and I don’t begrudge you this in canon, but I am going to headcanon around it anyway because I don’t like it”

—but there was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to kill Finnick. See, much like JKR’s senseless murders of Remus and Tonks in DH, Finnick’s death did nothing to make a point that hadn’t already been made multiple times over, and it added nothing to the story. Yea, like JKR before her, SCollins only killed Finnick for the sake of cheap shock value and reaffirming certain ideas about heroism that the rest of the series tried to deconstruct

It was pointless, it was senseless, it wasn’t necessary, and the story, characters, and readers all deserved better than that

Finnick Odair is happy and fine and he’s definitely alive, because all that unadulterated bullshit, “lmao finnick dies” crap never happened

my first thoughts on the series: uh. The first time I tried to read the books, I didn’t even get to the games themselves, because SCollins introduced Madge, introduced the backstory of her and Katniss being like kinda friends but kinda not but they’re not sure, and I was like, “ugh, why. I already know you’re going to make me suffer this bullshit between the two boys, but why would you hand me a totally valid and much more interesting F/F option. Why” and on the other hand, because Katniss reminded me too much of myself at a point when I wasn’t ready to deal with that

my thoughts now: We all deserved better, but I say that all the time about the HP series, too, so me feeling like the series was kind of a let down in various places and criticizing different aspects of it? Isn’t going to stop me from enjoying it

Also, Finnick is fine, Madge is fine, Effie and Haymitch are gay, Gale is bi, and most of my favorite characters are autistic because I said so, that’s why (—I mean, I actually have cases based on canon evidence for Finnick and Katniss, but my real rationale here is, “I want them to be autistic, so they are now, okay peace bye”)

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

I don’t know if someone has already talked about the melody Ramiel whistles while he comes home from fishing, i.e. the music of the aria La Donna È Mobile from Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto.

(Trigger warning for mention of rape in the context of a XIX century opera.)

It’s actually an interesting choice because the text of the song is about women being fickle and not to be trusted, which could suggest that it refers to Mary going behind the others’ backs and lying to them.

But I’m pretty sure there is more to it, because there was more about the song in Verdi’s work to begin with. I mean, the opera was first performed in 1851 and it wasn’t exactly times of much feminist-friendly representation in media, but basically the song is put in the mouth of a young and attractive version of Trump so it’s like the most feminist statement you can get in 1851, since the narrative frames the character as a misogynistic asshole and rapist (warning: in the story, the raped girl still loves him afterwards, so read the plot at your own caution).

In fact Rigoletto is all about deceit and lies and fake identities and disguises. Kind of a big theme in Supernatural...

(Disclaimer, I have never seen Rigoletto or read the script of it lol. There might be inaccuracies.)

The plot goes kinda like this: Rigoletto, a misshapen and hunchbacked man, is the buffoon at the court of the Duke of Mantua (kind of the only job you could do if you were a visibly physically disabled guy at the time), and he has a secret daughter (from a deceased wife) who people think he’s his secret lover.

The girl’s name is Gilda and Rigoletto is very caring and loving towards her, while he’s brash and caustic with everyone else at the court, so people assume his vitriolic side is his full personality, as they evidently wouldn’t bother looking beyond their perception of Rigoletto as the stereotype of disabled people being bitter and misanthropist. Kind of remind me of people who dismiss Dean as a womanizing frat boy - Rigoletto’s caustic side was probably his “work persona” as he pretty much worked as a court satirist. Also his daughter being mistaken by his lover kinda reminds me of w--cest shippers but hey.

Anyway. The Duke of Mantua is a dudebro who sleeps around with a lot of women (including married ones). In fact he’s the one who sings La Donna È Mobile, the song about women being irrational and always changing their ideas and opinions, when in fact he’s just a misogynistic prick. You know how misogynistic dudebros brag about being “logical” and say that women are emotional and weak because they’re irrational, when in fact they (the dudebros) are the whiniest and most irrational people around? The sense of the song is something along those lines. (Although in the opera everyone is irrational, men and women alike, but I guess that’s just how opera is.)

Now, the Duke often goes around the people in disguise, and one day he sees Gilda and decides to seduce her. He pretends to be a penniless student, and she falls in love with him, not knowing he’s the Duke. (I guess the Duke was smarter than Trump otherwise he could have never passed as an academic lol.)

In the meanwhile the rumor has spread that Rigoletto has a secret lover, and some courtesans, who hate Rigoletto because of his constant satirical attacks on them, decide to kidnap her, They even involve Rigoletto in the plan, as they lie to him about what they’re going to do. They make Rigoletto wear a mask (another disguise...) that limits his vision and hearing (limited knowledge due to deceit...), and only once the deed is done, Rigoletto realizes what has happened.

In the meanwhile the Duke finds that the girl has been brought to the palace, and is all happy because he can have her without even trying. Rigoletto tries to get to Gilda, revealing that she’s in fact his daughter to everyone’s surprise, but it’s too late and the girl gets raped by the duke. Afterwards she gets to her father and cries for having been lied to by the duke about his identity, and Rigoletto tries to console her.

Gilda still has feelings for him, though, because it’s the XIX century and female characters in media aren’t really emancipated. So Rigoletto decides to let her see what kind of man the duke really is. He makes a deal with an assassin, whose sister is a prostitute: the sister will arrange to meet with the duke, while Gilda is there in disguise and thus will be able to see that the duke doesn’t respect women, and then the assassin will kill the duke.

The duke agrees to meet the prostitute, and while he goes there he sings the song about women being irrational: Gilda has the opportunity to see how much of a dudebro the duke is. But again, 1851 and feminism in media had a long way to go - both the assassin’s sister and Gilda love the Duke anyway. The assassin’s sister begs her brother not to kill him, and she and her brother come to a compromise: the brother will wait until midnight and then kill the first man that enters the place the duke and the prostitute were supposed to meet. Gilda hears that and decides to sacrifice herself for the Duke: she dresses up in male clothing, enters the place immediately at midnight and the assassin kills her thinking she’s a man.

The assassin brings Rigoletto the body in a bag, and Rigoletto is all happy because he thinks the Duke is dead... and then he hears the Duke’s voice nearby cheerfully singing his song about women again. Rigoletto freezes in horror and finds out that the victim is his daughter, the tragedy of the scene emphasized by the irony of the cheerful song by the Duke.

Basically everyone lies and disguises themselves as someone else, a parent makes a shady deal and the innocent child gets the short end of the stick. Makes me think that in the context of the plot of the episode Mary is Rigoletto and Cas (who counts as one of her boys, as Mary states herself) is Gilda, who sacrifices herself because she’s in love. Of course unlike Gilda Cas survives but Cas has been paralleled to a character called Gilda before in-show, so...

[back-to-louis]

How do larries (especially the ones who identify LGBTQ+) not see that turning Louis and Harry, especially Harry in this aspect, into mindless sex drones that's lives revolve around fucking one another, is unbelievably fetishizing and highkey homophobic. It's like they red a republican manuscript on what it is to be gay and took all the worst stereotypes to project into their fictional versions of Harry and Louis

ANON, I would give a boob for someone to honestly academically dissect the ways in which Larrie fetishization of Louis and Harry incorporates the homophobic stereotype of the oversexed, insatiable gay male, and how they use the idea of Louis being an oversexed heterosexual male as part of the character flaws they believe he would have to possess if he "is in fact straight."

His sexuality, if it is directed towards women, is inherently oppressive and dangerous, and to see him act it out in ways such as [allegedly] flying Eleanor around to visit him for only a few days at a time (the assumption of “booty call” being that he demands this sort of interaction and she as his girlfriend is merely complying and couldn’t possibly return that level of enthusiasm or need), or writing songs about waking up already ready to engage sexually with her, or to want to have sex with her after breaking up before they part, or having sex with other, multiple partners after his breakup, or impregnating someone he’d only known a short time, or wanting to engage with someone else sexually after that, is in and of itself a character flaw that needs to be erased if one wants to see Louis as a kind, compassionate, caring individual.In contrast, seeing Louis’ insatiable male sexuality channeled towards Harry, who can return that appetite without the spectre of being a woman who could be exploited or forced or feel compelled out of societal expectation, is preferable on the face of it. Louis’ sexuality cannot be interpreted in a violent or oppressive way if it is directed towards another man (Harry), in a sexuality that is already considered a protected class and thus subject to oppression BY HETEROSEXUALS, no less. For Louis to be heterosexual puts him in the class of the oppressor, and that does violence to the entire Larrie theory.

Louis is a shitty objectifying boyfriend if No Control is about his relationship with Eleanor, but his insatiable sexual needs can be safely indulged by fellow insatiable gay male Harry. Because men! love! sex! and only think about sex they're thinking about sex RIGHT NOW and that's what makes straight men inherently predatory and shitty and fuckboys and dudebros and do you want Louis to be that guy? Do you want Louis to be the guy who looks at boobs and is aroused or interested, on some level, in his head, because That's What Straight Guys Are and that's how we know he's gay bc he saw Danielle's boobs and didn't immediately get an uncontrollable hardon and attempt to copulate with her, but he has to Hold Back from jumping on Harry at every moment That's Just How Men Are

THEY WON'T FUCK YOU AAHAHAHA HAHA SILLY HET GIRL TEENAGERS STOP CATERING TO BOYBAND FANS THAT ARE YOUNG GIRLS WITH HETERO SEXUAL FANTASIES WE HATE THEM JUST AS MUCH AS SOCIETY DOES.