#lots of people can publicly ridicule mothers see

[aaronstveit]

Hey Jamie, I was thinking of watching the RWRB movie and since I’ve seen you didn’t like it I wanted to ask if you think I should only read the book instead? I don’t mind spoilers and I wanted to know what do you think they failed to adapt to the screen. (Also, if you think people will annoy you if you answer this with the things you disliked you don’t have to answer, ok?) I love your blog! 🫶🏻 Hope you have a great week ahead of you!!!

hi anon!! i'm going to answer this beneath a 'read more' so people who don't wanna see negativity about the movie don't have to read it🫶🏻 trigger warnings for discussions of sexual harassment & assault and forced outing.

obligatory disclaimer that the book is not without its flaws & there are very valid criticisms of it!

a big part of the RWRB book is the main character, alex's, journey through realizing he is bisexual, and pretty much all of it was cut out of the movie — for what i consider to be completely ridiculous reasons. the director said that the characters were older in the movie than in the book — which i don't think is actually true? alex is in law school in both the book and the movie so idk what this guy is going on about — as if someone in their midtwenties couldn't possibly still be discovering their sexuality. he also said he wanted alex's "angst" to only be related to henry and not his sexuality. lol.

almost all discussion of race is also taken out of the movie. for context, alex is a biracial Mexican American, and this shapes a lot of his journey throughout the book. aside from one line, all of this is taken out of the movie.

also taken out of the movie are two big characters from the book: june, alex's older sister, and rafael luna, alex's mentor. june's absense is explained by the director (in the same article linked above) as being about not wanting "two young actresses who are each being given half a meal." so he keeps nora, alex's best friend, and cuts out the sister, but funnily enough, nora doesn't even get half a meal. pretty much all of her personality & story are cut out of the movie.

rafael luna, in the book, is a gay senator who takes alex under his wing. he isn't in the movie because the director said, and i quote: "Anything that isn’t about Alex and Henry and their relationship and their own personal journeys to the narrative doesn’t belong in the film." i don't know how he can explain rafael (or june) as not being about alex's personal journey, but whatever lol.

[this is where the big spoilers start] the climax of the book is when the emails that alex and henry have been sending each other are leaked to the public, outing both of them. in the book, it is revealed that the emails were leaked by the republican running against Alex's mom in the 2020 presidential election. it is also revealed that he has a history of sexual assault & harassment, and that rafael luna is a victim of his.

in the movie, though, they scrap that whole plotline and imply that the emails were leaked by a jealous gay reporter who used to hook up with alex and is mad that alex isn't in love with him. aside from just being a stupid change to make, this is a genuinely harmful & homophobic stereotype, and honestly it really upset me. taking out the entire plotline on institutional homophobia and making it all about ~jealous gays~ is just sickening imo.

i was also annoyed at how characters like henry's sister bea and his best friend pez were given almost no personality or screentime when they were, in the book, fleshed-out and lovable people. henry's mother was also removed from the movie — in the book, she has a bit of a rocky presence, but ultimately stands up for henry against his grandmother — because the director felt that "robbed henry of his agency." which is an especially interesting take from the person who changed alex's coming out scene in the movie so that he comes out publicly and tells the world that he and henry are in a relationship without talking to henry about it first, giving a speech on how "queer people deserve to come out on their own terms" while doing that exact same thing to his boyfriend. but whatever!

on a more petty note, i just think the movie is extremelyyyyy cheaply made, that the actors playing henry and alex have absolutely no chemistry, and that uma thurman's texan accent is godawful. but i could live with all of that if the movie had literally any of the heart that the book i had! but i think "gay media should be allowed to be bad or silly" only goes so far.

ultimately, i would definitely recommend just reading the book & skipping the movie entirely, but it's up to you! i'm sure there are other people who would say it's a perfect movie and they loved every second of it. but it couldn't be me lol

i hope you have a lovely day/evening, anon!! i hope your week is lovely💛💛

[realasslesbian]

Gonna get on my Australian politics for a minute here, but the entire media narrative irt That Shooting and how anti-authoritarians are responsible for it is actually getting kinda ridiculous.

But firstly, lemme just express my sympathy for those two fresh outta the academy cops and the innocent old man who died at the hands of these legitimate lunatics. Because I ain’t defending that. What I’m complaining about is the inaccuracy and disingenuity of laying the blame for this sorry situation (and every other sorry situation of the past couple years) squarely at the feet of anti-authoritarianism. 

There is good fucking reason to have a healthy dose of anti-authoritarianism in this country. Increasingly over the last decade our government have be doing some very shady things and quietly bringing in a lot of very invasive laws. For example:

The Greenfields Foundation and all the subsequent fake charities whose sole purpose is to funnel Australia tax-payer dollars directly into the bank accounts of politicians

That time Australia withdrew from widely ratified international treaties so it could take East Timor hostage for its oil fields, and even went so far as to plant listening devices in the East Timor Prime Minister’s office, and when one of Australia’s spies snitched to the East Timor PM about it (bc apparently that was too evil even for an ASIS spy), instead of showing any remorse Australian authorities aggressively pursued that spy and his legal team, even raiding their offices and homes so they could destroy evidence

The ongoing situation where people who are assessed to have incapacity irt their finances (which is often a very flimsy assessment in itself) have their estates taken over by the Public Trustee who then force these unfortunate souls to live in poverty while the government frivolously spends their money, banning them or anyone else from speaking publicly on it, and ignoring/deliberately making it difficult to prove return to capacity

The entire Robodebt Scandal wherein people forced to live in the abject poverty afforded by welfare payments were then deliberately shackled with fake debts by authorities and forced to pay money they did not in fact owe on pain of jail time, a lot of people (myself included) still have not been released from these fake debts

Speaking of arbitrary jail time for Robodebt victims, statistics show that women are twice as likely to be jailed for ‘welfare fraud’ than men and that the ‘welfare crackdown’ (aka the Robodebt Scandal) is pretty much solely responsible for the huge inflation in Australia’s female prisoner population

The continuing wrongful imprisonment of Kathleen Folbigg who was falsely accused of killing her four children and is now halfway through a forty year jail sentence with no signs of authorities intending to release her, despite evidence having since proven her children died of natural causes

And what about the new and extensive laws which punish ‘unauthorised protesting’ with YEARS in jail, especially if any coal mining companies were inconvenienced

That time an Australian politician got upset when a comedian made some jokes about him so he had plain clothes federal police abduct said comedian from his home, assault his mother and his dog in the process, load him into a black car and drive off, and this was all perfectly legal and actually the politician then went on to successfully sue this comedian for defamation

*not an exhaustive list, there’s definitely more

So, as you can see, there is plenty reason to be questioning the Australian government. And yet the primary narrative irt this shooting and any other situation that might make authorities look bad is to blame it on the conveniently faceless boogeyman of ‘crazy extremist anti-authoritarian anti-vaxxer right-wing conspiracy theorists from the US’. Despite that being such a fantastical mash-up of conflicting ideologies, that’s what the media are going with for a strawman (probably at the behest of the government who in fact can utilise gag laws and imprison journalists who don’t comply). 

Without free and open journalism to offer critical insight into how Australian authorities are at fault and could do better you get other explanations gaining traction. And, for certain demographics, these other explanations can seem more believable than the government-approved message. These are demographics who are often from low socio-economic backgrounds (most people living in those Tara bush blocks are living in poverty), are from First Nations backgrounds (the offenders had Aboriginal heritage), are extremely disenfranchised women (Stacey Train was being abused by the male offenders), or otherwise from various vulnerable demographics, aka the usual choice of punching bag for a government whose apparent sole purpose is to move money from poor people to rich people. These are people who know something isn’t right, have maybe already been victims of the government, but perhaps don’t have the education or resources to form an accurate critical opinion. So instead their opinion is ‘I can just not pay my traffic fines and violently defend my land because subsection SovCit of the US Constitution applies in Australia’ or whatever other crazy shit (which tbh as crazy as some of this shit is, the government cover stories are often even crazier, hence why we got articles about anyone without a sewerage connection being sus)

So when the Australian government has displayed such an obvious lack of transparency, when they keep making mistakes and trying to cover them up, and even when they can no longer hide they don’t show any remorse, no matter how blatantly evil the shit they’ve done is, then you can see why their favourite demographic of underdog punching bags might develop some reactionary views.

In any case, I think rather than trying to turn anyone questioning the Australian government into the new societal pariahs, a better use of journalist resources would be to seriously consider questions like:

a) how were authorities not aware of previous government employees, who posted frequently about their violent views, and who had been reported to police multiple times

b) what truth is their to the accusation that police had been ‘casing the joint out’, which probably resulted in the Trains deciding to fortify their property

c) who made the decision to send two rookie cops into a ‘routine’ missing persons check (as if there is such a thing lmao)

d) why are Australian authorities trying to purchase the property this took place on, and don’t tell me it’s gonna be a ‘beauty spa for stressed coppers’ when it’s surrounded on all sides by similarly anti-authoritarian preppers 

e) and while we’re questioning the government why don’t we start asking these type of questions BEFORE people start dying, not after, whether that’s irt police shootings or robodebt victims who committed suicide, or people dying of starvation in East Timor as a result of our government’s actions, or people rotting in prison cells despite being innocent, etc, etc, etc

Anyway, call me a right-wing anti-authoritarian conspiracy nutjob, I guess. But imo the Australian authorities are just as responsible for this situation as any ‘crazy hillbillys’, and if they actually stopped for a moment to consider putting the welfare of the Australian people before their profits then this and plenty of other bullshit might not have happened.

[bellamysgriffin]

would love to hear your gilmore girls s6 thoughts!

lmao i don't even know where to begin i have so many! let's bullet point it

so i can see why people point to this season as the beginning of the downfall of rory gilmore. girl crumbled after someone said one mean thing to her, immediately committed a felony and dropped out of school. that said, i did like that storyline for her, it was interesting, but. i was definitely on lorelai's side. i think rory behaved pretty badly throughout that storyline – and frankly throughout the season. i feel like the only person who points out that the scene with rory/richard at the end of s5 was a pretty manipulative scene on her part, but i also feel like the show agrees with me, since they point it out several times lmao. like, that girl realllllly did not want to face any consequences, and so she went to the person who would guarantee that for her. 

in general, i do think the writing has gone downhill, and that’s in large part due to so much of so many episodes being dedicated to antics instead of actual storylines. side characters have been getting broader and broader. it feels like everyone aside from rory, logan, luke, lorelai, emily, and richard are basically operating at kirk levels of zaniness. one kirk is fine but they can’t all be kirk, you know?

i think that could have been solved by giving side characters meaningful arcs. which means it’s time to talk about the paris of it all. they’ve fully bastardized paris and i could not be more disappointed. she’s my favorite character on the show, and i think it’s wild that instead of showing her grow or have any arc, they’ve regressed her to being socially inept. like can you imagine s6 paris leading madeline and louise around and running things at chilton? paris has always been intense and frank and kinda mean, but she’s not like. terrible with everyone. the running joke that everyone secretly hates paris was really mean-spirited, especially considering how long she’s been on the show. they had a storyline in which rory publicly clarified to a room of ppl who she knows hates paris that she does not consider herself paris’ best friend. 

i will say they got better at writing for her again by the end of the season. but i feel like they could give her an arc in which she’s confronted by the fact that a lot of other students at yale are as driven and smart as she is. she claims that rory is her only real competition but get real. they go to YALE. are you expecting me to believe that rory is the smallest person here?

also they could have given her a meaningful romantic subplot a la lane/dave, instead of just dumb comedic fodder with doyle. (i say this even though im a parisrory but).

SPEAKING OF LANE, the way they wrote the breakup with dave was WILDLY bad. so contrived. i don’t think they ever gave the storyline with lane & her mother the kind of weight it needed, and i’m disappointed by what seems to be a very long slow character assassination. 

also. hot hot take about logan/rory. i prefer jess and jess/rory mostly because i think that was a better, more interesting story and i was therefore more emotionally invested. that said, i do happen to think logan treats rory better than any of her other boyfriends did. and yes, that includes the sort of cheating storyline. i can go more in depth if u want, but i do firmly believe this to be true. (logan himself i find kinda smug/smarmy, but i don’t mind him. i do think that’s what rory is looking for right now, and it’s kind of a signal of her embracing her grandparents’ lifestyle.)

finally, the luke/lorelai of it all. oh BOY am i sad. the april storyline was RIDICULOUSLY contrived. april herself is a fun kid, but i see no reason why her existence should make luke have to postpone the wedding?? the show could never give a reason. how does april prevent luke from committing to lorelai? and why wouldn’t lorelai say anything? they both acted really out of character in order to make that work as a complication. and it just didn’t. (i also don’t love how the first few episodes of season 7 seem to be letting luke off the hook just bc lorelai slept with chris. like you wouldn’t let her into your life!! that’s why u broke up!! not bc she slept with chris or bc u “weren’t right for each other”!!)

i feel like they wrote this partly bc ASP didn’t know what to write. i think that explains the antics-heavy season, dumb side plots and april fiasco. they could have given paris a meaningful arc in that time, but they didn’t. and what they COULD have done with luke/lorelai is just…. give them a kid!! i say this as someone who is not super crazy about baby storylines typically, but on gilmore girls you could do SO MUCH with it. you get rory dealing with a sibling after being her mom’s whole world for her entire life, you get emily and richard getting a second chance at being there from the beginning, you get lorelai having a kid with a stable life and support system, and you get luke and lorelai navigating parenthood together. so much potential tragically wasted and i’ll never get over it.

also…… i’m only on 7x03, but i can’t believe luke/lorelai get married in AYITL…. a full twenty years after lorelai dumped him for not marrying her….. LUNACY

[leviiackrman]

11, 22, 26, and 43 for margot/levi please!

11. How physically affectionate are they?

In public, hardly at all. The most you’ll see is hand holding or a brief kiss on the cheek/forehead from either of them when they say goodbye to each other. In private or when no one is looking, they have a LOT of cuddles or just gentle touching - like Margot brushing her hand over his knuckles if he’s tense while working or Levi placing his hand on her back/leg to comfort her if she gets agitated and/or starts scratching at her scar

22. What petty opinions do they not agree on?

Margot fully stands by the opinion that cleaning is not a daily activity for most things and is better done when it’s a big mess so it feels like more of an achievement - which obviously fucks Levi off royally.

She also believes getting dirty means you’ve done a the job right, again - not a shared opinion. Levi thinks that throwing your life in danger for no good reason is ridiculous, where as - as we know - Margot is desperate to die essentially so she’s insanely careless.

A couple others: Levi insists clothes are folded and shoes and cleaned regularly - Margot says the complete opposite. Margot believes most wild life has a personality and deliberately gets upset if Levi picks flowers and/or in careless around wildlife - even tho she loves receiving the flowers (she just does it to tease him) imagine walking across grass and your girlfriend starts crying hysterically because you’re ‘trampling their freedom’

26. Do they share the same music taste?

Levi didn’t have a v large music knowledge before knowing Margot - and the same could be said for a lot of the other scouts too. Margot sings/plays music of all kinds but she favours folk type bops that can liven up the space! But if Levi were to choose from the music she plays, he’d say he prefers her more relaxing/lyrically intriguing songs that’s she’s written personally (they tend to be about the people she knows she he enjoys trying to figure out which one is about who - because she never shares that info)

43. What small quirks do they like about each other?

Margot loves how he holds tea cups. At first she thought it was the dumbest thing she’d ever seen because ‘there’s a handle for a reason!!’ But now she always has a little smile when she sees him do it just cus it’s such a him thing, yknow? (And yes she now does it too sometimes) She also likes how he folds his ascot haha. It sounds weird, but after finding out that it’s actually the only piece of his mother that he’s kept (it’s a cut of fabric from her dress) she thinks it’s the cutest thing ever that he wears it near on every day!

Levi subtly enjoys the fact she greets every animal she meets/walks past. When she’s getting her horse ready for a ride, she’s always having a conversation with them through her hand signals or just general like grunts and small noises haha (she’s convinced her horse understands her but to most people she just looks a little crazy) One other thing he loves is her comedic timing. You’d be surprised how witty someone who doesn’t speak can be with just their hands/facial expressions - and she never fails to either make him smirk or have to walk away because he doesn’t want to be caught laughing! She knows when she’s achieved that too so that’s another thing she adores about him, how he never publicly laughs but she always manages to get a snort or grin out of him (and more of a genuine laugh in private)

50 OTP Questions

[suzypepper]

Ok I listened to the whole podcast because unfortunately I always listen to Liam Payne’s podcast interviews tbh and also I was toldddddd there was juicy scathing hurts-to-watch-but-can’t-look-away one direction drama. That not true lol. He kinda made fun of zayn being a shit partner to Gigi (which he is), he gloated about supposedly getting billions of streams on strip that down (🙄), he talked about Simon cowell putting together the band and planning for Liam to be the breakout star, and he said one time he got in a physical scuffle with another of the guys and they put their hands on him and he said “you’ll lose your hands” jfc I don’t know what allergy 1d fans have to actually seeking out the source of the information they feverishly spread but they really never do

My main takeaways are:

-he says he still sees his kid on a very regular basis and is on good terms with the kid’s mom and I am glad to hear it

-he’s not writing and releasing new pop ballads and touring the world like his ex-bandmates are because he obviously doesn’t want to do that. If his fans would actually listen to the words coming out of his mouth for the past several years they would already know this. His career is not being sabotaged by any Big Bad Guy

- millionaire crypto guys are the worst most obnoxious people on the planet I hate investing I hate nfts I hate web 3 I hate “projects and companies in the works” I can’t believe I listened to over an hour of these people

-don’t say a single word about amber heard good god I had to take a break and lie down. Doing a Johnny depp impression and then saying “amber heard is shivering” you aren’t stupid I know you know what you’re implying and you will rot in h e double hockey sticks

-Logan Paul and crew think Liam should fight Justin Bieber men are so fucking stupid

-one direction used to not get along backstage one time somebody put him hands on Liam and Liam said "you’ll never use your hands again" oh my god I don't care

-he made fun of zayn. Specifically about his relationship which… did everyone else just forget that he was arrested for his violent harassment toward Gigi and Yolanda. Both of these guys suck and Liam didn’t even say anything that bad I don’t know why people are desperately defending zayn here

-he was asked about his feelings toward zayn and he implied that he doesn’t want to be too harsh because zayn’s been through a lot; zayn didn’t have the support system that Liam did. Maybe that was an insult, maybe he was airing somebody else’s business when he shouldn’t have, but again, the way that one direction fans have been talking about Gigi and Yolanda since zayn was arrested makes me not care!! Sorry!!

-Liam was meant to be the frontman of one direction yes we knew this, but I didn’t know he was meant to actually breakout and be a solo star and use the boyband feature as a jumping off point like nick + Jonas brothers. If that’s what he was implying idk I think so.

-he said he hopes Justin Bieber is being taken well care of by his team because he’s a good kid. Liam also said that he still needs to fight his “demons.” He was also drinking the whole time and we’ve seen him obviously drunk or high and acting stupid in public in public way too many times Liam is the one who needs to be better taken care of. Why is he talking about physically fighting his managers why are his managers right there off screen drinking right along with him that’s all really not a good sign

[army-of-mai-lovers]

in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough. 

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.” 

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!” 

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role. 

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all. 

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.” 

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.” 

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka  repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--   

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~” 

y’all WHAT. 

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back. 

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai. 

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too. 

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!” 

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse. 

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.) 

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal  adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out. 

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)  

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”  

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show. 

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.” 

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process. 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring. 

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what? 

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her. 

Conclusion    

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked. 

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here. 

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice. 

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us. 

[blushedarmybunny]

On the Same Page (3) | KTH

✧ masterlist of chapters

✧Pairing: kim Taehyung x fem reader

✧ Word count: 2k

✧ Genre: Angst (m) this chapter contains adult themes, don’t read if you are a minor.

6 years after

Your mother said to you since you were little that you were always so independent and strong, now at your mid 30´s single but CEO of a successful company of art supplies, you feel that her words connected to you as an adult, it was not an easy path, but fortunately you got friends and family watching your back in every slip that you made helping you to get up and thrive.

Yes, even though a lot of people see you and can only think that the only thing that is lacking is a partner, you had to bite your tongue and remind only to yourself that you sacrifice love a long time ago for someone that deserved the entire world, and he, thanks heaven, was thriving too.

Not saying that you didn’t have your fair share of lovers from one season to another, but those flings were only to satisfy sometimes the unbearable loneliness that any human being is not capable of scape.

You were living a good life, despite of the good fair share of accusations about funding a company with divorce money, when in reality that money was donated upon it landed in your account, a ridiculous amount of course, but the world problems needed more that you did.

Of course the curiosity took best of you every now and then, that’s is how you had known about Taehyung during this years, he took a two year hiatus, BTS disbanded during this hiatus, then focused on acting that’s how he met the actress Lee Bora his costar it seems that they hit it off and started very publicly dating, lots of rating for his show, a year past and they had a child together unmarried, a true scandal but in spite of the public pressure they never got married and started to raise the little Kim Gyeong-Ja, and they were one of the most publicly acclaimed celebrity couple, getting all source of attention from the press whenever they were, you really didn’t pay much attention after that you were happy that he could move on from you even if that hurt a part of you that could never let him go, he at the end was exactly how you predicted him to be, sometimes you hated to always be right, but at least you knew that he had fulfill his most wanted desire.

At the end of the day, he was happy and part of you was so proud of him.

Now that your priorities shift your job is your entire life, which was fine by you because it made you busy and your life simpler.

Today you need to assist a new art gallery event downtown, now that you are busy woman meetings, travel, events and openings were part of your daily life, so you prepare yourself and went.

The first thing you see it´s a particular art style that you had seen before but don´t remember where, the host received you, you out of curiosity had to ask

“Everything looks so well, I had to ask who´s the artist? This style seems familiar” you asked politely.

“The artist is an ex-idol” she almost whispered while you raised an eyebrow.

“ yeah I know but it´s good publicity and can bring investments”

“May I ask who is the ex idol we are talking about?” you asked praying that it wouldn’t be the one person you were thinking about…

“V”

“V?”

“Yeah, from bts” she simply replied confirming your fear, you blood ran cold and just wanted to vanish, now you had to leave fast.

“Oh, I see, well it´s good to see you must be busy so I don’t bother you anymore” you waved goodbye and started to walk to the exit as fast as your heels let you, when suddenly you hit a very familiar chest, with a very familiar smell and very familiar firmness, two long hands stabilize you.

“I’m very sorry…” you said quickly while you look up then appearing Infront of you it’s the presence of the person that you tried to avoid for so many years, the person that had a place in your heart that nobody could replace, Kim Taehyung.

“y/n…” he whispered without stopping his strong grip“…you are here” then he smiled.

“You are here! ” he hugged you tight all you could do was hugging him back still in shock that you are in the presence of your ex husband that you haven’t seen in so many years.

A couple of seconds past and you break the hug and with all your courage you looked at him in the eyes.

“Taehyung long time no see…”you manage to say, he looked amazing, he was wearing very stylish designer clothes, his brown hair was a little bit longer, he smelled amazing too, it was a fucking dream.

His eyes look at you back, both hiding something neither sure of how to act or say.

“It amazing to see you, you look phenomenal!, ” he chuckled “but at the same time you are exactly how I remembered you” he looked at you once again warm feeling building up in your chest.

“Thank you” you replied but quickly remembered that you needed to go, not willing to keep torturing you this way “I …uh have to get going now” you said too him his smile immediately dropped.

“uh? But you haven't seen the whole exhibition, have you?” he sounded disappointed “let me show you.”

“I can come back another day, this exhibition it's supposed to be up for a month” you tried to persuaded him even though you were talking with the most stubborn person on earth.

“Right, ok I let you escape this time, but before you go please promise me that you'll have dinner with me this week” he said smiling again his gaze sharpened watching every move of yours.

“dinner? What are you saying?” you keep pressuring him to just let you go, but he wasn’t going to accept no for an answer.

“I haven’t see you in years, I have so much to tell you, I want to hear from you what you are up to” he confessed “please I won’t bother you ever again.”

With much hesitation you nodded and he smiled and nodded back.

“may I have your number?” he asked pulling out his cellphone and you said your number, you quickly saw his homescreen, a beautiful toddler smiling.

It must be his daughter

“pass me your phone , please” he demanded and you handed it to him, your homescreen was a beach landscape of you vacation in Mikonos, you never got the chance of going before and when you started to have more time you begin to travel, that was the way you started to heal, you met new cultures and had so many new experiences that not even Taehyung had offered you.

He quickly typed his number and give it back to you, you said goodbye and while you were on your way home a text of Taehyung appeared on your screen.

Was good to see you today, take care :)

You smiled while typing a response:

It was good to see you too, see you soon.

The past few days you weren't prepared for the unexpected attention that Taehyung was paying to you, he would text good mornings and good nights, asks you about your day but above all he was pressuring you about a date for the dinner you had made a agreement the night of the exhibition, you keep beating around the bush but he wasn’t giving up, tired of inventing excuses you finally say to him:

Ok lets go out on Tuesday, can you?

The reply arrived in less than a second

Yes! See u on Tuesday, take care

Finally on tuesday you were sitting in a very fancy restaurant apparently it just had open a few months ago and it was full of people, Taehyung looked perfect as always, but today he went out his way to look even hotter if that was possible, you chug on your wine to calm your nerves.

“you look beautiful y/n” he said softly looking at you

“This feels like a date” you tried to joke but he didn’t replied his gaze was so strong that you felt you could not apart your eyes from his.

“So you been acting right?” you change the subject to lighten the heavy tension.

“Yeah its nice and I quite enjoy it” he responded “what about you?”

“I been taking care of my company, traveling, I've been busy” you replied.

“Really?”

“yes, I bought a house too, I always wanted to live in a house and I finally did it, nothing too fancy or anything” you tell him, he was hearing every detail nodding.

“I see, that makes me glad” he smiled and “are you seeing someone?” -he asked pressing his lips together.

You raise your eyebrow faced with such a question

“no, not right now”- you responded lowering your gaze noticing how his fist softened.

“Oh” he managed to reply “well I’m not seeing anyone either, I guess we are both single”- you looked at him surprised.

So he is not with the mother of his child anymore?

“I heard you have a child now”- you said sipping your wine, at the mention of his daughter his look change to a small shine, like when someone remembered a precious moment.

“Yes that right, my baby is the most beautiful princess in the world” he said to you smiling.

“I seen pictures she is adorable, and how cant she not? Her father is Kim Taehyung” you assured him smiling back.

“Oh really, she look more like her mom but then there are little things that she definitely got from me, like my smile” he was so invested talking about his daughter and you were invested too, it was a new face of him that you haven’t seen and it made you so happy because you knew how much he wanted it, he stopped suddenly and looked at you.

“Sorry if get carried away but I can´t help it” he apologized.

“Oh no, I enjoy listening to you talking so passionately, its so cute” you confessed

“Really?” he felt suddenly shy and sipped his wine

“That’s why things are the way they are now, look at you” you said to him

“What?” he smiled

“You are so happy as a father I knew it” you said smiling-“ I’m happy for you”.

You look at him but his gaze changed like he was fighting something inside.

“yn I would never regret having my daughter in a million lives, but I would always regret letting you go” he confessed without warning and your lips parted surprised, you gasped.

“Taehyung…”you exclaimed with a weak tone

“No yn listen, I don’t know if I would have the chance to tell you this but I’m not gonna miss it, ” he said firmly “leaving you was the hardest thing I ever done in my live, I almost die along the way, and to this day I believe that a part of me truly died when we were divorcing, but I tried my best to go on with my life and I did, I slept around with many women that could satisfy my carnal needs but at the end of it all there was something that was lacking, when I met the mother of my child she could temporarly fill the void but at the fucking end it wasn’t enough, you ruined me for the rest of women, yn, you are that kind of woman” he confesed and you were taken back by his words.

“Oh god, Taehyung I feel the same” you said to him your chest burning- “you were the love of my life it just seemed pointless keeping up with people, it was never going to even come close.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Im saying that after all this mess, you are still the man I could never stop loving, even if we are not together, in heart there will always be a place for you” you confessed.

“yn don’t play with my feelings like this” he warned you.

“Tae that’s the truth, in your words, you ruined me for other men”

He give you a wide boxy smile.

“Ifs that’s how you feel, would you give us another chance?”

You smiled back at him

“Yes, tae, I want to be yours again”

“oh shit” he exclaimed because he dropped his glass of wine to the floor.

The waiter quickly made a gesture of don’t worry

“Don’t bother, sir” he said to him- “it looks like it just little inconvenience, mind me if I bring you a new glass?”

“It would not be necessary”

“Sir?”

“Pass me the check, we are going home” he simply said, the waiter nodded and quickly brought the check

“Tae?” you asked him- “are we going home?”

“Of course, my dear yn, we have to recover our time lost starting tonight” he smiled seductively

Oh damn

[pettyprocrastination]

You don’t have to show this but do you think Omera would have gotten more love if she was white? I don’t ship it but her introduction was badass. I’m surprised that Din gets shipped with white bread so much. One he didn’t even speak to. The amount of fics for that compared to him and Omera is insane. I’m hoping they give him a Latina or black women love interest just to see people’s head explode.

I have ZERO issue with posting this publicly cause i wanna say: yes. 

I apologize this isn't very well written and very scattered about but here are my thoughts. 

PLEASE know I'm not trying to shame any specific writers or readers, I'm just sharing my opinions about the topic. 

(in this I'm also gonna be bringing up Ellaria sand because this isn't something only seen with Din, its seen with just about all his characters)

I think it comes to three things that are very prominent in the pedro fandom specifically: white readers not enjoying content written by/presenting woc because they feel like it doesn't directly project themselves, having an odd animosity/jealousy towards romantic leads of pedro characters and flat-out throwing away the actual characterization of his characters just to thirst for him. 

Now I will say we do have to acknowledge that I know people don't enjoy that he’s shipped with cobb vanth, because they only had a day of interaction but that’s also a mlm ship in the starwars universe so some people would like to see the representation where they can so lets keep that in mind. 

But at the same time I kind of see the mentality of “oh, its not for me? nvm” from fans when the possible romantic character is a person of color because they cant directly relate/project onto them. Which you see a lot with poc writers who make fics that have readers/oc’s that are specifically described as not being white and getting little to no notes. while others making fics that are so specifically for white people with descriptors as such but not acknowledging it when people say “hey you cant really preach inclusivity when this is very clearly written by white women for white women” which you see in moodboards, face claims, and descriptors such as “you blushed bright red” “your pale skin” “your blonde locks” . 

another BIG thing that has a part is this weird ass, juvenile wattpad-esque animosity female fans often have towards female characters who have the possibility of being a romantic lead for characters pedro plays. I know it sounds ridiculous to say, but so many fans do have this weird, almost jealous mentality to female characters who are romantic leads/have romantic tension with his character.

Like we see other female leads in the Mandalorian get lots more love than Omera, because they are mostly depicted as having a platonic relationship with Din. For exmaple, Fennec, cara, and peli, I've seen much more content for them than omera because its almost never in a romantic sense. 

Hell, before gina carano’s shit went public people were always posting about thirsting for cara dune+ how she and din were best buds and loved the relationship between them. 

And lets be real, the amount of fanfiction that the reader is essentially peli (a starky mechanic who befriends mando and becomes a kind figure to the child, who almost always becomes a live-in mechanic on the razor crest) is astronomical. You could literally switch the perspective and slap peli in and it’d make more sense but nobody wants to do that because they want to be with din, not imagine him with another female character cause they get weirdly threatened. 

(no shade to people who write that fanfiction im just SAYING)

Its not just mando either, it happens with a lot of his characters who have distinct relationships already, especially with Oberyn Martell and his lover Ellaria.  He says multiple times she is the love of his live, mother of three (i think) of his children and always accompanies him on his travels, when asked if he gets tired of her during their journeys he says “never. We share too much.”

a good majority of oberyn fanfiction either doesn't involve her at all, or writes her off as a bitch to pose animosity between her and the victim-reader or simply write her off as “she and oberyn don't love each other anymore wah-wah” even though she’s is quite literally his soulmate. 

He’s also often written to become suddenly monogamous upon meeting the reader, which just seems out of character given he is an openly polyamorous, bisexual man that talks about the joys of living life and loving freely quite often. 

Even with Marcus Moreno, when the trailer came out for We Can Be Heroes, I would see people make posts about how they hope he’s a widower instead of a married man cause they want him single.

Now I know a lot of this fandom is straight women so I don't expect them to suddenly enjoy wlw-reader relationships or polyships (even tho they do but only when its two dudes and one girl who is usually the reader but that’s a different issue) It comes down to the simple issues of throwing away the basis of the character just to thirst for pedro. (for oberyn at least)

I know some blogs on here that have gotten anons explaining the reason they dislike Ellaria that are the exact same traits Oberyn has: arrogance, sexual confidence ect. Its hot when he has it but if a female (often of color) has it, shes a bitch for some reason. 

Not even gonna get into Dave York, who was a moderately enjoyable character in the film but his character in fanfiction a good 80% of the time is “i like to cheat on my bitch of a wife with you” so lets leave it at that. 

Now. let me say there aint no shame in writing smut. I do it. I read it. And i enjoy it! But at somepoint you look at it and go “this isn’t even the character anymore” and find it a bit tiring. As well as the lack of attention writers of color get in the fandom where the main muse literally a latino man but whatever. 

This was a very long winded way of saying yes anon, I do think omera wouldve gotten more attention if she was white. But even then people still wouldn’t like her because she would pose a threat to their reader-insets. what are you gonna do I guess lmao

[thehmn]

I used to watch my brother play the Metal Gear Solid games and it’s actually really interesting to look at Hideo Kojima’s games in the context of how homosexuality is viewed in Japan.

I’m not going to speculate on Kojima’s own sexuality, I’ll leave that to himself, but his games are famous for being very horny, homoerotic and having a ridiculously high number of bisexual male characters. People will point out that they’re all villains, but that’s just the explicitly bisexual characters. His two main characters, Snake from Metal Gear Solid and Sam from Death Stranding, are also implied to not be straight.

This is where Japanese culture and the extensive lore of Kojima’s works comes in.

Homosexuality is taboo in the west and Japan for different reasons. In the west it’s seen as sinful, but in Japan it’s seen as disruptive. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t call attention to yourself in any way. Don’t mess with the status quo. Most queer people choose not to come out to their families for this reason. And to make matters worse, even if a small majority of Japanese people are in favor of queer people having rights the government is very conservative and it’s even illegal to depict homosexuality positively in some parts of Japan.

So what does Kojima do to appease his government and the culture of his people? He does what people did in Hollywood in the 30’s and make the explicitly bisexual characters villains and make his heroes covertly bisexual.

Kojima always had an interest in sexuality and gender. In high school he wrote a story where all women succumbed to an illness, leaving the men unsure of how to continue. Remember, at the time the majority of women in Japan quit their jobs when they got married and took care of their husband and children. So who was supposed to take care of the house and their sons? Could men just stop craving intimacy or would they have to turn to each other? And how would they make more babies? I’ll get back to that.

One of the most famous scenes in Metal Gear happens when Snake disguise himself as Ivan, the lover of Volgin. Volgin walks up to what he assumed to be his lover and grabs his crotch, looks confused, grabs him again and asks “Who are you? I know the major better than anyone else” Volgin and Ivan are undoubtedly villains, but their love for each other is surprisingly the most human thing about them. If Snake puts on Ivan’s mask during his bossbattle with Volgin, Volgin will hesitate at first, then double his attacks in anger, but also cry because he’s trying to kill a man with his boyfriend’s face.

Snake/Otacon is the most heavily implied relationship in the whole series that hasn’t been confirmed. In the first game Snake could end up with Otacon at the end, and since then they’ve moved in together, raised a child together, talked at length about how they taught each other to love, teased each other about their libido, and the list goes on. They also notably get call-backs to two other canon romantic couples; Raiden and Rosemary when Otacon tells Snake that he won’t be let back inside before he takes a shower (Rosemary wouldn’t let Raiden back in because he got pee on him), and Volgin and Ivan when Otacon says he knows Snake better than anyone else. My point being, Snake and Otacon are very heavily implied to be a bisexual couple.

Then there’s Death Stranding. The game is definitely written by a more mature Kojima who has been hanging out with a lot of Americans. His view of sex and love is more nuanced and he understands that there’s a difference between sexual and romantic orientation. We still got Higgs, a flamboyant villain who acts very predatory and is heavily implied to be bisexual, though never confirmed, and Sam who’s implied to be asexual (he has an Ace of Spades sticker on his bike) and biromantic, and we get our first confirmed good bisexual character, Die-Hardman.

Kojima never got to play around with gender much in Metal Gear Solid, but he made up for that in Death Standing. Remember that story he wrote in high school? We see a lot of inspiration from that here. The solution the men came up with for having healthy babies in the story was to have men carry pods around on their stomachs where the fetus could grow in the most natural way possible.

There’s still women in Death Stranding but there’s a lot of men carrying babies around on their stomachs, men forming family unions, and the main character Sam acts more like a stereotypical mother than father. There’s literally a scene where Deadman puts a hand on Sam’s pod like it’s a pregnant belly and basically asks him “The three of us are a family, aren’t we?”

Sam later tries to give the baby to a woman, Fragile, but she only sees it as babysitting and gives it back, so Sam gives it to Deadman who declares it “our little one”.

By the end of the game the three of them are seen together, depicted as two parents holding their child. Throughout the game people are constantly trying to hug and touch Sam but in the end the only person who gets a hug is Deadman.

It’s also worth noting that in the universe of Death Stranding Sam and Deadman are believed to be a couple before they actually are. Deadman made sure of that so no one would question why they spend so much time together.

There will no doubt be more bisexual men in Kojima’s next game, and I’m curious to see if there’ll be any development in how openly he depictes queer characters. He’s a middle aged man so no matter what his own sexuality might be I don’t expect him to easily shake the expectations of Japanese society off, but he has started hanging out with a lot of Danes, most notably Nicolas Winding Refn who despite making extremely violent movies is very open minded and has, when asked, been very honest about his own sexuality (to spare you the pain of digging though Danish interviews, he’s a straight, slightly bi-curious man with an interest in BDSM, but who’s also satisfied leaving a lot of his fantasies to his imagination because his movies gives him an outlet for a lot of it).

You can see a lot of Scandinavian/Nordic influences in Death Stranding and I’d be surprised if Nicolas didn’t expose Kojima, intentionally or unintentionally, to the Scandinavian view of homosexuality. I can best describe it with a news report I once saw on national television. Parents were worried about a dangerous road that their children had to cross every day to get to school but the government wasn’t doing anything about it. The parents they interviewed were a gay couple but they were treated exactly like any other worried parents. No fuss, no spectacle. Please think of the safety of these parents’ children.

I can imagine that approach would go over very well with a middle aged Japanese man who clearly wants queer people to be able to live happy, fulfilling lives with families and children but doesn’t seem to want to upset his society.

Other people have pointed out that Kojima and Nicolas seem to inspire each other a lot and have taken an interest in each other’s cultures, and Nicolas was the first person to announce publicly that he’d be in Kojima’s next game, so I’m really interested in seeing what that will do, if anything, to how comfortable Kojima is with depicting his queer characters. Something certainly happened once he started socializing with a lot of Americans.

I am of course not saying Kojima is a saint who’s doing everything right, but he is an interesting guy to follow.

[shadowturtlesstuff]

Enchanted

finally finished this!!! im so happy with it, and will be writing it in thomas’s pov as soon as possible and perhaps part 2? 

Sleep evades me. My mind keeps returning to last night, specifically to a certain person I had met last night. I pull the covers higher, burying my head as I finally gave into my wandering mind.

~

I stand alone, needing a break from my aunt Amelia. The music was beautiful, a soft sound that filled the entire room. The party itself was decorated in a magical way, the columns in the building encompassed in vines, the tables with floral centrepieces. It was a mixture of whimsy and magic, yet no one seemed happy to be here. Everyone I spoke to was forcing smiles, men faked laughter as they believed this was not a party but a way to make business deals and enforce their own reputation. It was absurd how no one was just admiring the effort people put into making this perfect. It was the same every month, I'd walk to the edge of the room and watch. To calm my nerves, to explore the different flower pieces, the musicians and the flickering candles from the chandelier. The gowns women wore only once to try and show their wealth, whilst I tended to wear the same, as it fit the magical atmosphere this room desperately tried to make people see, yet they were too blind by their greed, the need to prove themselves to everyone to just simply stand back and enjoy themselves.

My cousin Liza seemed to be in conversation with Dacina, the host of the party, someone I had spoken to a few times, each being more enjoyable. Her calming demeanour and charm always lifted my spirits. Her family organizes this ball once a month, her father hates it but makes a lot of business so it is always left to her to plan and design it. With the help of Illeana and lots of their servants they always make this place ethereal. Her brother, Thomas Cresswell, only ever shows up for a few hours then leaves, only being able to handle the faking niceties for so long. Dacina told me of his tolerance, or lack thereof, to society. She speaks highly of her brother, as I once did, yet I have never met Mr.Cresswell. 

The varnished wooden floor slowly gathers marks as couples danced. How I longed to be one of those dancers, being swivelled by someone I loved. They would look at me as if I was the most magical thing in the room, with a soft smile and adoration in every word he whispers to me. I would be his equal as we spun around, the world fading into nothing as we held each other. Alas, those dreams are not likely for someone cruel enough to carve the dead. 

I snap out of my fantasy as a group of older men walk towards the buffet near me. They talk loud enough so everyone can hear, shockingly talking about work. I roll my eyes at them and look away back to the dance floor. The lights above cast shadows, making the scene feel like my imagination as I sit by a fireplace to read a romance novel. If this was a novel, there would be my love interest here, watching and finding the courage to say something. There are families at the table, children clinging to mothers as the men sit and discuss whatever. My father, uncle and aunt sit together in a seemingly civil conversation. I look for Liza again, deciding I should probably stop brooding in the corner but as I look for her my attention keeps going back to the men at the buffet. Not by choice, but by their obnoxious decision to shout their conversation. 

“A woman led the strike, ridiculous, she had to go,” I heard an oldish man say, followed by murmurs of agreement, “these strikes are out of hand, demanding we pay more, absurd notions.” The man is none other than Mr. Birling, a notoriously cold hearted man, much like dacianas father apparently, both of whom value money rather than people. Even their own families. The group of men who looked the same as him, slightly wrinkled face, greyish hair, miserable faces with hints of conniving schemes being plotted against each other. Friends until one of them was earning more money and was more successful, then they were enemies again. 

The men were in a heated discussion about their business and from what I can dissect from their ramblings is that they fully believe themselves to be hard working men, a rarity these days, and they must do what is necessary for their companies. Meaning, budget cuts, strikes from workers, firing people, and any horrible decision in the name of money.  I refrain from rolling my eyes, or going over to berate them. 

“Mr. Birling would not know what a hard day's work is.” someone says quietly behind me. His voice is smooth, confident, and whilst I agree due to what I have learnt about the birling family and the conversation I had just overheard, I still wouldn't say it aloud with him being this close. Not that he pays any attention to anyone but ‘hard working men’. 

I turn my head slightly, the man behind me is tall, a smirk playing at his lips. His suit is finely tailored in a dark grey, with a peach tie. He takes a step forwards and stands at my side, staring out into the crowd, a glass of half drunk champagne in his hand. I return my gaze to the crowd. “Whatever makes you think that, surely you heard him talk about how much he works,” I try to suppress my own smirk and I also sneak a glance at the strange man. He merely takes a sip of his champagne. 

“Right of course, his words, I shall listen more closely next time.”

“As you should. You wouldn't want to misinterpret someone's work ethic and make a fool of yourself in front of a stranger.” 

“You consider me a fool now?” he turns to me now, hands pressed against his chest in fake offence. His brown eyes meet mine as I face him. His sharp cheekbones feel familiar, but I can't place where from. 

“Yes. how could you consider someone such as Mr Birling, a man with such talent and tolerance of others, a man who clearly built his company and was not handed it by his father, how could you with a straight face imply he doesn’t know hard work.”  we stare at each other for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. He has such a pure laugh, we seem to be the only sound in the room. People around us stop and stare, upset two people are having fun at a party. The stranger leans against one of the columns, disrupting the vines slightly. Yet he doesn't seem to care, as he slowly starts to regain his composure from our outburst. 

Mr. Birling is one of the men looking at us with full disdain. He perceives us as two kids who do not understand life, he specifically tells his accountant that there is something wrong with us if the rumours are to be believed. Children of science. Outrageous. Especially a girl. A girl, not a woman. I ignore his pathetic whining, intent on not letting him ruin my night and return my focus to the stranger. Who, I realise, is someone who enjoys science. His face is more solemn now, having also overheard Mr.Birling. He quickly recovers and plasters a smirk on his face, a spark shines in his eye and I can already tell this won't be good.

“I want to meet this ‘girl’ who led the strike, perhaps she could use some help. I mean, all they ask is fair pay,”

“But fair pay is absurd. Completely and utterly absurd. Why should the wealthy share their wealth to those who ensure it.” he finishes for me. The men that run this world will end up being the reason it fails. We share a look, full of understanding and he lets out a sigh. Now we're talking about work and politics at a party. 

“Aside from those charming men, how are you enjoying the party?” He gestures to the men around us and I snort. Charming was one word for them. Being with him and trading remarks felt like passing notes to each other, telling secrets during class even though we are meant to be listening to the teacher. I can't help but think I know him, and by the look in his own face he knows me. Perhaps we met but didn't have time for a full conversation like we are now. 

“Mostly entertaining, the place is spectacular as always, the people are..” I searched for a word to describe the people, as well as my family. I love them dearly but they can be insufferable. “An interesting mix. My family is dramatic, so I escaped to the edge to peace and quiet, which apparently isn't possible. "I give him a pointed look but he takes no notice. 

“My family is also dramatic, and I came for peace myself but found myself captivated by you, specifically how you watched the crowd, listening, and how you curled your fists in an attempt not to go and publicly humiliate the poor man. Which, by the way, I think you should've. Would've made the whole thing worth it.” He takes a sip of his champagne and I nearly roll my eyes at him. Of course he'd want that. From what I can tell he isn't someone who enjoys society and has no problem saying it. I also think about the families in attendance and which of those are dramatic. The only person I can think of is Darci's brother, whom I've not met but heard about his nature over wine with her. 

“If I was merely standing here minding my business would you still have found me captivating enough to talk to me? Or is my appeal in my anger?”

He downs the rest of the drink and straightens himself taking a step towards me. I cross my arms, impatient but he gives me a soft smile. “I've been trying to get the courage to talk to you for months, I always see you here at the edge, always. My eyes find you instantly in any crowd. Transfixed, captivating. It was an added bonus to me when I saw the fierce nature in your eyes up close, I knew I was right to want to befriend you.” 

Silence falls as we both take in his words. I feel bad, not being able to figure out who he is. His honesty is admirable and makes me smile, as well as blush. I can feel heat rise to my cheeks. Just as I begin to rectify the situation by asking for his name, a man comes behind 

me, he’s around 40 probably, and looks at me horrendously in an attempt at a smile. I recognised him from earlier, he's one of the men that spoke with Mr Birling and that alone makes me instantly want to recoil. 

“Can I help you sir?” I asked and I can hear my own clipped words, yet somehow he does not. The smile widens and he looks me up and down. Then he offers his hand to me and I realise he wants to dance. With a woman half his age, that he has never met. 

“Miss Wadsworth, dance with me?” more of a common than a question. Since I am already highly aware he doesn’t like when females have opinions or say no, I refrain from rolling my eyes and just walking off from him. Instead I take a step back, so I'm by my new friend’s side and smile widely. 

“I'm afraid I already promised the darling Wadsworth a dance, we are just finishing our drinks first.” As if to prove my point he drinks the last of his drink, mostly to hide his smirk. Something else the man doesn't seem to notice. His face drops, but his pride makes him believe he can stand there, waiting for me to run to him. There is an awkward silence until I feel hands reach down and take mine, they are warm and make me jump slightly at the contact. Not in a bad way, not in the way I would have if it had been the man in front of me with his gaze like fire as he looks at our joined hands as though he has a right to be mad about it. I feel my own fire burn as he stares, so I tug his hand away from the man. I need to just escape into the dreamlike nature of the dancefloor, as well as thank my saviour and learn his name.

He leads me to the dance floor, nearer the edge and his hands slip down to my waist as I find his shoulders. His touch is hesitant but reassuring. Somehow he looks calm and terrified, as though he never expected to dance with me but never wants to stop. I can't help but feel the same as we begin to move. My skirt swirls around us and we say nothing for a while as we both calm ourselves and let the music envelope us. In a way, this is as close to my daydreaming as I might ever get. Being here on the dance floor with someone who isn't twice my age and the definition of misogyny. We dance as equals, neither of us truly leading but letting each other float around each other. We're sure of our movements and demand nothing from each other. It is a weird calmness that settles. We are strangers as far as i know, and yet we dance as though we have known each other our entire lives. 

“You are a delight, miss Wadsworth.” he breaks the silence, somehow louder than the music for me, yet it's quiet. Almost like he didn't mean to say it aloud. 

“How do you know me?” my voice matches and i feel bad asking, but i need to know. My tone is not accusing, and his face only burrows in confusion for a second before he smirks at me. A smirk I'm seeming to become familiar with.

“My sister Dacina speaks highly of you.” my eyes must expand as he laughs softly. That's why I recognized him. He has the same structure as Dacina, sharp cheekbone and soft skin. Perfect complexion. 

“So you are the infamous Thomas cresswell?” this time I smirk and his eyes widen. 

“Infamous? What on earth have you heard of me?”

“Your sister has lots of opinions on you.”

“Of course she does. Whatever she has said is most likely not true.” He blurts out and I laugh at his relationship with his sister and him wanting to impress me. “Unless she told you I am utterly irresistible, charming, quick witted and incredibly smart.” winking at me he sends me into a surprising spin and my hands land on his chest. We've sped up slightly, yet our heartbeats are both faster than necessary and I can see a hint of a blush creeping up on his cheeks. 

“She did mention you have an overly large ego. She'll be happy to know I agree with her.” I feel his hands tighten at my waist slightly and I watch his curls fall down in his face as he shakes his head. I'm delighted by this turn of events. Daci is wonderful, and if this is the Thomas that I get to see, not his reputation, then I shall try and keep this in my life for as long as possible. His spark in his eyes shows how he may think the same. Also, if daci, liza and ileana are with Thomas, then i might have the most fun I've ever had in my life.

His voice slides through my thoughts, but also reinforces them. “I am sure she failed to mention how big of an ego she has. Honestly, Darci is worse than I. Have you met Illeana? She will surely agree with me on this.” 

“I'm sure she would, I've also heard you are a scientist, what do you study?”

“The dead. Much like you and your uncle.” There is so much certainty in his voice, no resentment or the usual tone I hear so I gift him an earnest smile. 

The song ends, and we stand, hands still on each other for a second longer than we should. Just as I go to remove my hands from his chest I feel him pinch my sides lightly. Then his warm hands slip from my waist and I wish more than anything to dance again. 

We go to return back to the column near the buffet, where we first spoke, and as I take a step I feel him move so he's pressed at my back, his hands finding mine. Even though we are gloved, even though no one can see our hands due to how close we are, and how many people are moving about, my heart pounds at his bold nature. I adore it, so I squeeze him and keep my head facing forward as I lead him off the dance floor. We settle back, Thomas letting go of my hand to pick up two glasses of champagne and hands me one. We both take a long sip, perhaps settling our brains or making it worse. Well see. 

“You look,” he pauses, as if trying to find the right words, brows furrowed slightly as if he was reading a dictionary, “enchanting.” he finally finishes, gifting me a rare smile it seems. No longer does he smirk at me, but shows me a genuine look that I want to have painted as it is the best thing I have witnessed. Heat rises to my cheeks as I look down at my dress. Someone at least understood what I was going for, with a pale peach colour, sparkling bodice that runs along the length of the skirt. The long sleeves adorned with tiny gemstones, golden to match the accented colours of the hall. In response to Thomas I look back up at him with my own genuine smile, perhaps some of the only true smiles to be shared this evening. His suit fits him perfectly, showing off his defined features, his tie a pale peach as well. I assume Dacina helps him, as her dresses always astound me with the details. There are tiny, miniscule gems on his tie, that snake down and remind me of vines.

“You look,” I act the way he did, scanning my brain for something that fits, handsome or charming doesn't do justice but I'm sure whatever I use will only boost his ego and be used against me, so I settle with: “bedazzling.” 

“Bedazzling?”

“Thomas, I study the dead, I have to look closer than one should at things, so of course I noticed your tie. Henceforth: bedazzling.” The air shifts back to our teasing tone and he smirks once again.

“You are the only one to notice, except Daci of course, nothing gets past her. Am I correct in assuming you like the tie?” Despite his teasing I feel a hint of worry as if I wouldn’t like his tie. 

“I adore the tie cresswell, everyone here should be weaning ties with tiny jewels.”

His face falls as he scans the crowd, eyes narrowing slightly as he takes in the groups of men. “I cannot tell if you are being serious with me or not, but I agree nonetheless. The men here are awfully drab, boring, plain. It's insulting to us really. Daci puts so much time into making this beautiful and these people do not see it.” He is shaking his head. I agree, I have heard how much work goes in and despite my effort to help she insists that I do nothing but enjoy the party. I have a sneaking suspicion though that Liza helps. The flower centrepieces are her favourite, and whilst that might be a coincidence I know how stubborn and convincing she can be. 

“I do. I love her parties. I always find myself standing here, watching and noticing all the changes from the month prior. Like, last month she went for more of a red theme, with red roses as the centrepieces, little red accented chairs and carpets. Whereas this month is more of a forestry vine, hence the vines around the column.” I point as though they are a secret thing you need to search for even though they are obvious. Yet he turns anyway and runs his finger down the length of it with his adorable face set at a soft smile. Thomas might have been there when she got the idea, or placed them or he might have placed them himself and is now remembering it. 

My gaze finds Thomas and he looks at me, baffled, and I feel the blush creeping back up. It is not the same confused look that I get when I tell people my love of science, but one of intrigue. As if he could listen to me talk forever and not get bored. It's as if he has never thought anyone would notice such things about his family's party. “Enchanting.” is all he whispers to me. Then he clears his throat, an ever so soft shake of his head as though once again the words were meant for him and not us both. 

I stare out at the crowd again. I'm sure my family will want to know where I've disappeared to, I normally do not leave them this long. Liza I'm sure will want to know why I danced with Thomas. Yet the thought of leaving him makes my legs leaden and my heart sink and anchor me right next to him. Im completely wonderstruck, and feel ill have a permanent blush, especially when i look at his stupidly handsome face, his quick smirk and small smiles that feel special. It is odd, I've only heard stories, spoken to him briefly and danced, yet I have enjoyed his company immensely and hope this never ends. I want more dances and to steal more smiles to keep forever. I want to make fun of people together, and dance. 

I go to steal a glimpse of him, expecting to find him staring at the crowd like I was but his eyes are on me. “I have to leave,” his abrupt words anchor me in an entirely different way, “I mean,  I want to stay and I'm sure you want my amazing presence always now Wadsworth but I have to wake early. New job. So, my darling, I shall see you tomorrow.” Thomas hesitates for half a second and begins to walk away. I watch him go and say goodnight to his sister and then leave. His words fill my head. It’s reassuring to know he enjoys my company as much as I do.

~

I bolt upright in my bed, the lights, music and memories falling away as I focus on the last words he said to me.

I'll see you tomorrow. 

What does tomorrow mean? Does it mean he has a job where he thinks I visit? Will he be making an effort to befriend me? Does he know my family? I am so confused. How had I not caught these words sooner? Perhaps he wants to tell me he had a terrible time, that he doesn't like my presence. I'm on my feet without realising, pacing back and forth, the cold air hugging me close. I wish he was in front of me now. I wish he would whisper the words enchanting again. I wish I knew what was happening in a few hours that warranted him saying those four words. I run my hands over my face, untie my hair and let my curls fall over my shoulder, brushing away the colder ever so slightly. I'm ridiculous. Four tiny words sent me spiralling. I climb back into bed, my hair fanning out around me and the blanket returning warmth back into my system. Immediately my mind returns to Thomas, his face forever in my mind. Even if tomorrow could be the last time I see him, there is a chance that it is just the start. 

Enchanting…

Those words fill me with confidence that yes, Thomas might become someone special to me. That perhaps our dance sparked something and now all I wish is that I can tell him how enchanting he is.

@fangirling-again @kittycat2187 @goatahoan @city-of-fae @purplecreatorhorsewagon @boredbookwormgirl @goddess-of-writing-wars @loveyatopluto @lovecakeandmore @yikesitsmaddie @bookscressworth @androgynousdeputylawyershoe @fandomtakeover @throneoftsc @the-hoofflepooff

[pynkhues]

Hi. I'm a bit confused about the hate Beth is getting for not choosing Rio over her kids' future. She can't print money and boland bubbles is shut down, so she's broke once again, with no income or way to pay her mortgage. What secret service is offering her is going to give her family a fresh start. Yes, Dean as well, but it's about the kids for her. And if she chooses Rio there's no guarantee that she'll get anything out if it. She has no reason to be loyal to him at the moment. Am I getting something wrong here? Because I don't get it how she could make any other choice at this moment.

Hi! SO I’m bundling these two asks together because I think that my answer to them is ultimately the same, and it’s been an answer I’ve been thinking about really since the first half of season 2 when I noticed some of the louder opinions on Beth change within the fandom, specifically here on tumblr, but also on other platforms. I’ve debated talking about it at all publicly because I know it’s an opinion that will probably upset some people, but I guess we’re here now, haha, and I’ve been sitting on it for two years, so.

I agree with both of you, and in particular the latter (I’m sorry it took me so long to reply!) There was a reason I logged off pretty quickly after the 4.03 promo dropped and went and did some gardening instead.

Look, I think this fandom, like every fandom, has a problem with misogyny and I think that that is steeped not only in y’know, generations of institutional, social and narrative patriarchy, but a fundamental lack of empathy extended to women.

I think we’ve seen this misogyny manifest in a range of different ways in this particular fandom. I think the generational misogyny has been particularly loud to me personally, where progressive young women apply today’s standards and resources to a woman in her mid-forties, failing to take into account not only her unstable childhood background which has been inferred since season 2, even if we did only get the confirmation of it in 4.03, but the lack of resources (i.e. the internet), education, and social support systems that would’ve been available to her at certain points in her life.

This is not directly relevant to Good Girls, but a point I often come back to with generational misogyny is that marital rape only became illegal in 1993 in the US. As much as we’re in challenging times right now, feminism particularly around and within marriage has changed a lot over the last 30 years, and Beth and Dean’s marriage is one that holds to a lot of old tenets that have been, and still are being, challenged in the process of that.

I’ve seen this sort of misogyny and sexism manifest in other ways too – simple things like Beth’s wardrobe, and the idea she has to look a certain way to be not only appealing to the men in the show, but to us as an audience. People have criticised her parenting and her relationship with her children as if there’s only one right way to be a mother; the choices she makes to try and survive, which are frequently the only choices she has as you identified, anon, and especially criticised her not prioritising the man she’s boned twice over herself and her family and those she loves the most. I’ve seen the latter in particular evolve into this desire to see Beth punished, and frequently seen that written into some people’s fics in a way that honestly gives me pause.

The point of this post isn’t to say that Beth is a perfect person who shouldn’t receive criticism, she should, and you can also feel very frustrated by her. I do all the time! She’s a frustrating character who’s done terrible, toxic things on this show, but doing those things does not remove her right to empathy. I think that criticism without thought, without context, without understanding, without empathy is something I will always think is, quite frankly, shallow at best and cruel at worst.

Beth is, of course, a fictional character, but fiction is what helps us to realise our prejudices. I know watching the show and reading criticism has certainly made me look at things I’d internalised and maybe thought of less in the past – particularly around issues like nuance and race in storytelling. I can own that! And I’m glad to be challenged and to listen and learn and grow. I just wish perhaps people would also be more thoughtful of how they think about women in this show too, because some of the language, the shaming, the vitriol, the sheer hunger for punishment is reflective to me of a much deeper-rooted problem.

I want to leave you with a quote from Andrea Dworkin who was a radical feminist (and trans ally!) in the 1970s through 1990s, because it’s one I think about a lot.

“Women are perceived to be appalling failures when we are sad. Women are pathetic when we are angry. Women are ridiculous when we are militant. Women are unpleasant when we are bitter, no matter what the cause. Women are deranged when women want justice. Women are man-haters when women want accountability and respect from men.”

[cheryblossomdreams]

A Discussion About Dramione

This is a very difficult ship in the HP fandom, alongside others like Drarry etc.

However, I think there is something to be said for it regardless, since I’ve seen a lot of anti-Dramione content with some valid points and a lot of non valid ones too, so I suppose I’d like a try my hand at rebuking some of them.

1. Dramione shippers romanticize abuse and bullying.

At first glance, it certainly looks that way. Draco Malfoy was a racist, petty, spoiled bully that jumped on every opportunity to bully Hermione Granger and her friends. He is not a good character. In the Dramione fandom, no one claims he is a good character either. Instead, the Dramione fandom recognized the canon potential for change in Draco and uses that to shape their fanfics. The largest majority of the fandom (There do exist those really young fans that don’t quite yet understand everything that will blindly defend him or create extremely problematic fanart, but they are truly a minority) acknowledges entirely all the wrongs Draco has committed, and they are many. Actually, in most Dramione fics, the writers go to great lengths to process the part of DHr’s past that was filled with hatred and insults. You can find examples of this in the fic Measure of a Man by @inadaze22​. Also to the point, most of Dramione fanfiction is written and set in a time many years after the War, after their school years, where they’ve both grown, matured and become adults, changed by time and what they went through, so it is a null point to say Dramione shippers romanticize bullying when their content is almost always set in a time where Draco is no longer a bully and Hermione is no longer a victim.

What the Dramione shippers like to emphasize is the fact that even though Draco used to be a horrible person, he had changed and grown past that, owned up to his mistakes and is now a different man. That’s what the stories they write are about. He had the potential to change already established in canon that he used later through his life to become someone better Hermione could eventually forgive and love.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a Dramione shipper that would say that while they were still in school they should’ve gotten together. Absolutely not. The content most of the Dramione fandom creates is always set post-canon, at a time where Draco’s changed and grown up from who he used to be, and Hermione recognizes his change and forgives him.

She certainly doesn’t have to forgive him, she doesn’t owe him anything, but part of Hermione’s bravery and overall character is that she would have been able to forgive him when she realized he’d changed. Plus, he saved her best friend’s life at a critical point in the war and, even though he did nothing to help her because he literally couldn’t have, which is something I’m pretty sure Hermione would have been grateful for, even a little bit. 

The Malfoy family saved Harry’s life TWICE in HP, in both extremely critical moments in the war (Draco lying at the manor, Narcissa lying to Voldemort), which is something Hermione wouldn’t have been able to just ignore and pretend like it never happened, because that’s not who she is. 

There probably is a very small percent of the Dramione fandom who create problematic content, but every fandom and every ship has toxic shippers, besides they are simply not the majority.

2. Dramione shippers use Hermione to redeem Draco.

The redemption arc Draco got in HP is extremely flimsy at best, especially considering the amount of damage he’d done prior. He saved Harry’s life, yes, but he did nothing to protect either Ron or Hermione, so personally I wouldn’t harp on about that being much of a redemption arc at all. However, I don’t think any Dramione shippers use Hermione to redeem him. In the Dramione content the things he did wrong and the hurt he inflicted is something Hermione recognizes and then, through the story, eventually chooses to leave behind. Besides, she doesn’t have to redeem him, since we know from canon he’d grown out of his beliefs eventually, privately at least if not publicly (more on this later).

3. Draco had a choice in how to act, if he really didn’t believe in blood supremacy.

No, he didn’t. Let me break it down why.

When he was 11 years old and first coming to Hogwarts, he was too young to understand the beliefs his parents ingrained into him were wrong and harmful, he simply didn’t have the mental capacity to comprehend that. He was a child that hung to every word their mom and dad said and he acted accordingly.

As he grew up though, started going through puberty and maturing, he would’ve realized that blood supremacy is wrong. Let’s say this realization came when he was 14. Lucius and Narcissa weren’t with him at Hogwarts, so if he changed his behavior to reflect his new realizations, they wouldn’t have known, right?

WRONG.

Do you really mean to tell me that if Draco Malfoy, only son and sole heir to the Malfoy family, an extremely wealthy, influential family in the Wizarding World and its politics, part of the sacred 28, well respected and with a high status in society, suddenly started being kinder and friendlier to Muggleborns and Halfbloods, people wouldn’t talk? People wouldn’t wonder, get suspicious? That such news wouldn’t reach his father, who’s got eyes and ears everywhere (evident by the fact he was able to bribe someone in Hogwarts to buy his son a position on the Quidditch team). And how do you think Lucius Malfoy, a devout Death Eater, would have reacted to receiving such news? What do you think would have happened to Draco when he came home that summer?

Draco was never abused and I doubt Lucius would start then, but I am positive he would’ve been disowned, for betraying the values his family had upheld for centuries. Lucius is a staunch blood purist and he absolutely would cut all contact with his son (disown him) when news reached him Draco was making nice with Muggleborns and Halfbloods.

And Draco knew this, he knew how strict his father was, he knew how deeply he believed in blood supremacy and he knew the consequences for stepping out of line and being anything less than the perfect son.

What would a 14-year old kid do being disowned? Homeless essentially?

So, even if he had realized the wrongs of his beliefs and renounced them, he couldn’t have done that publicly, and certainly not with Hermione Granger or Harry Potter much less, seeing as Harry Potter is the nemesis of the man his father believes in.

By the time he reaches 15 and 16, Voldemort is already at full power again and living in Draco’s house. Now things get even worse. After Lucius fails to get the Prophecy in the Department of Mysteries, Voldemort decides he has to punish him for his failure by having Draco take the Dark Mark. By this point, Draco had abandoned ideas of blood supremacy, but at this point, what the fuck is he going to do? Refuse The Dark Lord? The Darkest Wizard in all of Wizarding History? The guy who is living in his house AND holds the lives of him AND his entire family hostage? Who could and would murder Draco’s mother and father and Draco himself if Draco disobeyed? The man who murdered a person right on Draco’s kitchen table and had Nagini swallow them whole?

Even if all of that wasn’t true, and it is, how’s a 16 year old kid going to fight off a house full of seasoned Death Eaters, proficient at the Dark Arts who will use Unforgivables on him, plus Voldemort himself, plus a giant terrifying snake?

At that point, Draco is left with literally zero choice but to take the Mark and obey his mission to murder Dumbledore.

He hatches several plots to kill Dumbledore, all of which fail. When they stand at the Astronomy tower, even Dumbledore himself calls all of his plots halfhearted and weak. Dumbledore offers him help, but Draco is very clear in his regret of the things he’d done and the fact there’s no going back now.

‘I have to do this, I have to kill you, or he’s gonna kill me.’

AND

‘What do you know about me? I’ve done things that would shock you.’

(I’m paraphrasing here, these aren’t the exact quotes).

At which point Snape shows up and kills Dumbledore in Draco’s place because of the Vow he made to Narcissa.

Any way you look at it, he really didn’t have any choice, even if he did at some point during school renounce his beliefs and grow past them.

4. He tried to kill Ron.

I’ve seen antis blame Draco for this one, which is a bit ridiculous. He did not. He had madam Rosmerta poison a bottle of wine, which he sent to Horace Slughorn, hoping Slughorn would pass it onto Dumbledore. Filch hadn’t noticed any traces of poison in it, because he is a Squib, he also didn’t doubt a shipment from Rosmerta, and so he just gave it to Slughorn. Slughorn kept it around and then later he was the one to offer Ron a glass of that wine. In Draco’s plan, Ron wasn’t ever even mentioned nor included in any way. It had been an unlucky coincidence for Ron, and Draco couldn’t have possibly known that Slughorn would hold onto the wine, that Ron would ever be around Slughorn OR that Slughorn would offer Ron that same wine. Sufficed to say, Draco never attempted to murder Ronald Weasley.

5. He did nothing while Bellatrix tortured Hermione.

We’ve been over this, what could he have done? He had saved Harry’s life earlier, but that one lie couldn’t of spared Ron or Hermione, their faces were too recognizable, even if Harry’s wasn’t.

A room full of Death Eaters, some of the cruelest, most dangerous ones mind you (Bellatrix Lestrange) and he’d be 17, if I remember correctly, still not even an adult, plus at this point in the war even more powerless (considering the fact the Malfoys had fallen out of favor with Voldemort, evident by the fact Lucius tells Draco that if they deliver Harry Potter to Voldemort, all would be forgiven).

What did you expect him to do? Leap into battle and try to fend off dozens of Death Eaters, effectively betraying the Dark Lord in the process and single-handedly getting his entire family killed, if not even himself?

Would you have done that? No, of course not.

6. Draco Malfoy is not redeemable.

Now Draco’s “redemption arc”, if it can be called that, is a powerful moment but it’s flimsy. JK didn’t really ever intend for him to be redeemed or liked either, but let’s take a look at it anyways.

It is canon that Draco stopped believing in blood supremacy at some point during their school years, though we can’t know exactly when.

How can I say this, when his behavior never indicated that?

Well, I’ve already been over why he couldn’t have suddenly changed his behavior, now let’s go through how I can claim it is canon.

The scene where Draco lies to everyone about Harry’s identity.

That moment could only exist IF Draco didn’t believe in blood supremacy anymore.

Think about it, if Draco was devout to Voldemort and his beliefs like his father, he would have had no problem or conscience to tell everyone ‘Yes, this is Harry Potter, hand him over.’ It would have been favorable to him if Harry died.

And let’s be clear, if Draco had said the truth in that moment, Harry would have died. He was captured, wandless (his is broken, when they escape the Manor he steals Draco’s), Ron and Hermione captured as well, he was entirely helpless and surrounded by powerful Dark Arts wizards and witches who would lead him directly to Voldemort the moment they got confirmation it was indeed him and that would have been it. Voldemort would have killed him. Voldemort would have won.

But that isn’t what happened.

Draco looked at Harry, recognized it was him (evident by a later scene where Harry straight up says that. “Why didn’t you tell her? Bellatrix? You knew it was me, you didn’t say anything.”) and at first, still unsure what to do, asked why Harry’s face was like that, and he’s told Harry just came in like that.

Draco says “I’m not sure.”

At that point Lucius grips him and tells him that if they gave up Harry Potter to Voldemort all would be forgiven, Bellatrix brings him closer to get a second look.

Draco knows all the consequences of what he’s doing at this point, he knows what he’s risking, the literal lives of everyone he loves, and what does he do?

He still lies.

‘I can’t be sure.’

It’s a powerful moment for his character, BUT it’s not enough for redemption. The amount of pain and hatred he’d spewed for 6 years (I say 6 years because The Golden Trio wasn’t attending Hogwarts for year 7) is not redeemed by this one instance. His actions, letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts, likely torturing people on command of the Carrows in 7th year, are not redeemed by this moment, even if he did save Harry’s life.

However, though this instance doesn’t constitute redemption, it is telling of the fact Draco has changed, and changed significantly from the hateful, angry, spoiled, racist brat he used to be, which gives him potential to grow up into a different, better man.

Whether JK intended it or not, the way that was written makes Draco Malfoy more than redeemable, if not for the duration of the books, then later through his life.

Being a horrible person at one point in your life does not make you forever evil, does not mean you can not ever change. To prove this, I’d like to humbly request you to watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSH5EY-W5oM

Voldemort’s regime is very similar to Hitler’s Nazi movement, so this video is very fitting to my point and HP in general.

Here’s another three:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw0vS0qvYo0&list=TLPQMTcxMjIwMjBZfqJdkbbQJw&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4gly9n9RBo&list=TLPQMTcxMjIwMjBZfqJdkbbQJw&index=3

If you don’t have time to watch, let me sum it up for you.

The first video chronicles the story of a man who’d been part of the Neo-Nazi movement, managed to leave it behind and become an activist and overall an amazing guy now.

The other three links chronicle the story of Daryl Davis, a black man who’d attended KKK rallies and even met with the Imperial Wizard of the KKK Roger Kelly, somehow despite all odds became friends with him and eventually managed to get through to Roger Kelly to the point where this man (The leader of the KKK on a national scale) stepped down from his position and left the Ku Klux Klan.

That’s real life, something like that happened, truly happened, but Draco Malfoy is irredeemable?

PLUS, Draco is hardly the first case like this.

Take James Potter as an example. James was also a rich, racist, privileged white boy, and a bully. He’d bullied Snape severely, even set up a “prank” with his friends that would lead to Snape getting attacked by a WEREWOLF, putting him in mortal peril, with great potential of killing him, that required then a rescue operation.

James attempted murder, or if you don’t want to go that far, he set up a situation that quite possibly could have gotten someone killed, and he got to mature and grow past his behaviors and redeem himself, fall in love with Lily and have a wonderful son.

Why couldn’t Draco change when James had?

~

In conclusion, I think there’s a big diifference between what the Dramione fandom actually is and what antis think it is. 

The heart of the Dramione fandom is about growing and changing and maturing and forgiving and falling in love despite the differences of the past.

It’s not about romanticizing bullying or toxic relationships, life is not black and white people, people can change and grow from their past actions and people can also forgive and move on. 

There’s plenty of examples in the books of Harry and Ron mistreating Hermione and they all move past those instances (obviously that can’t be compared to what Draco did, I’m just making a point here).

I do acknowledge that the Dramione shippers have some bad apples among them, some problematic people that take it all too far, but honestly, every fandom and every ship has bad, toxic people so you can’t really use that against them.

All in all, things aren’t the way antis always present them, there’s a lot more gray there, and I hope this entirely too long post helped some of y’all see that.

[lifeofkaze]

Fourth Time's the Charm

Bill Weasley x Fleur Delacour

Prompts: The number 4

1) (word) Initiative

2) (colour) orange

3) (dialogue) “Take a chance. What harm can it do?”

Word Count: ~ 2.300

A/N: AU where Fleur meets Bill’s family before they get engaged.

____________________________________________

Bill Weasley had never been a superstitious man.

He had never listened to his mother’s old wives’ tales, nor cared for his father’s various ways of bringing about good luck. He had always smirked leniently when Charlie had gone through his pre-match rituals back at school and had long ago stopped questioning Ron’s doubtable fear of bad omens.

But today, everything was different.

Today, Bill had found himself jumping when Ginny had broken her glass at breakfast; his heart had skipped a beat when George had knocked over the salt shaker during lunch and he had felt the tips of his fingers tingle as he had subconsciously looked for any sign of the stray black cat visiting the Burrow from time to time.

He knew he was acting ridiculous, but he couldn’t help it; ever since waking up this morning to sunlight filtering into his old room and the silky hair of his girlfriend tickling his face, he had been out of his mind with nerves.

It was the first time he had taken Fleur to the Burrow to meet his family. Given, it wasn’t love at first sight for neither party involved and the atmosphere was a little more tense than what he was used to, but he could tell everyone was trying to get along; that wasn’t the problem.

No, what was actually making him nervous was the little red box he was carrying in the pocket of his trousers. Every time he moved and felt its corners against his leg, his mouth went dry and he had to fight the urge to panic.

Ever since he had met Fleur, when he had walked into her office at the Gringotts Headquarters, he had been sure she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Not because of her looks or her inherited Veela charm – although he couldn’t deny the appeal. No, what had won him over mere minutes into their first conversation was her personality.

He had never met a person more fierce and gentle, funny and witty. She was nothing like the perfect porcelain doll people made her out to be, an image she detested to the core of her being. Bill had felt it deep down back then, she was the one to complete him.

Bill had bought the ring he intended to give to her for ages ago, on his last work trip to Egypt. It wasn’t particularly elegant or fancy, but he thought Fleur would like it. Whenever he told her of his adventures, she hung onto his every word, his stories about ancient Egypt being her favourites. So when he had seen the delicate golden ring with a stylised lapis lazuli scarab on a bazaar in Cairo, he hadn’t thought twice. Haggling for an engagement ring had felt like weird thing to do and he had wondered if that was a good start for his endeavour, but he hadn’t wanted to be impolite.

Looking back now, he maybe should have trusted his initial instinct. He had been back in England for months now and it was almost time to leave again; the ring was still sitting in his small red box waiting to be presented, however.

And it was not like he was lacking enthusiasm to propose, quite the contrary.

The first time he had tried to ask Fleur the question of all questions, they had been at her favourite French restaurant. He had ordered champagne and the candles on their table had made her hair look like molten silver. It had been perfect, just until the couple on the table next to them had decided to break up very publicly and with a lot of thrown napkins, bitter curses and spilled wine.

The second time, Bill had cooked a three course meal for Fleur, giving it his all. He had taken care to prepare her favourite dishes the way her mother had explained it to him. They had just started on dessert and Bill had nervously fingered the box in his pocket when his family’s owl had crashed against the window so badly they had to rush and get him treated.

Bill had tried not to get discouraged by all his failed attempts. In the spirit of third time's the charm, he had taken great care and called some favours to make sure everything went right this time. A friend of his, who was skilled at weather charms, had promised to write his question into the sky for him; all he needed to do was show up with Fleur at the right place and time.

But she had come home from work late that day, tired, with a headache and in no mood to go anywhere. Desperate and nervous, Bill had urged her to come with him until she had snapped and they had had one of the worst fights Bill could remember.

No, Bill Weasley wasn’t a superstitious man; but seeing how many things went wrong already, he couldn’t help but feel on edge.

He had seen a lot of places over the course of his career; seeing how his attempts to propose to Fleur had gone so far, he couldn’t shake the thought that this would be his fourth attempt. Where three times was the charm, the prospect of number four made him uneasy.

Bill remembered his first work trip to Asia; the headquarters he had been supposed to get back to had been an inconspicuously looking building along the main street bearing the house number 4. He had been surprised to see that it wasn’t even enchanted to not be seen by Muggles until his colleague had explained to him why. There was no need to hide their headquarters because people wouldn’t even look at it for fear of something bad happening. The people believed that the number 4 was an ultimate omen of bad luck, the native word for it sounding almost the same as the word for ‘death’.

And right now, on the verge of attempt number four, Bill was dying more than a thousand deaths with every second the moment was drawing nearer.

He had chosen his timing carefully; his mother had gone into the village to run some errands, his father was off for work. Charlie and Percy had long since moved out and everyone else was busy playing Quidditch in the fields behind the Burrow. For once, the ramshackled house he grew up in was empty, save for themselves.

They were sitting under the huge tree in the corner of the garden where Bill and his siblings had played with the tire swing attached to a lower branch when they were children; the old treehouse reminiscent of his childhood was still sitting in the higher parts of the treetop. A slight breeze was blowing, making the leaves around the treehouse rustle unusually loud.

He had prepared a picnic for them but even the strawberries Bill had picked from the garden himself tasted like ash in his mouth as he mentally braced himself. He set his food aside and breathed in deeply.

It was time to take the initiative, once and for all. He would make sure there wouldn’t be a fifth time.

Leaning forward, he took Fleurs hand in his, sending a prayer to Merlin himself that she wouldn’t notice how sweaty his hand had become.

She looked at him in surprise. “What’s the matter? You are looking so serious.”

Despite his nervousness, a proud smile tugged at the corners of Bill’s mouth; her French accent had almost vanished since she had moved to England but the ‘s’ were still rolling from her perfect lips like a soft song, sending a shiver down his spine.

“It’s nothing, I just wanted to tell you how glad I am that you are here with me,” he started but trailed off again. He had prepared what he wanted to say beforehand, but all the sweet words were forgotten. “You know, this is my family, my family home. You and them getting along is so important to me, I wouldn’t know what to do if you didn’t. It would be a disaster, it… “

Bill noticed he was rambling and stopped. Judging by Fleur’s sceptically raised eyebrows, he wasn’t exactly manoeuvring himself into a good position.

He took a deep breath, collected his thoughts and tried again. “What I wanted to say is, they are the most important thing to me in the world; my family. But ever since I met you, things have started to change. All my life, my family was the first thing on my mind; but not anymore.”

Bill had shifted from his seating position onto his knees, fumbling with the box inside his pocket. The wind seemed to have picked up, the leaves above them rustling louder than ever.

“The first thing on my mind is you, and it has been you ever since we met.” His heart was pounding in his ears as he took the small red box out. “That’s why I wanted to ask you – “

His words were cut short by something colourful whizzing through the air from up above him. He just had time to see two identical mops of ginger hair vanish between the branches of the tree again, before the water balloon the twins had thrown exploded right in between them.

Fleur shrieked and jumped out of the way as the bright orange liquid washed over them – Bill shuddered at the thought of what it might be.

Slowly, he raised his eyes from his own stained hands to Fleur; his eyes widened in horror as she started cursing violently. Even now, the rapid succession of angry French words spilling out of her mouth sounded beautiful to him, but her face was like thunder. The liquid had stained her silvery hair an orange colour almost the same as his own and Fleur’s tirade only intensified as she inspected the ends of it.

Bill’s heart sank at the sight and he felt a rush of burning anger at his little brothers for ruining his moment. Apparently, the fourth time was as unlucky as it was made out to be.

Discouraged, Bill hung his head. He wasn’t sure if Fleur had already seen the box before they had gotten pranked. Cursing Fred and George under his breath, he tried shielding it from her eyes with the back of his hand. But of course, she noticed the sudden change in his demeanour.

The crease between her brows softened as she reached for his hand. “I’m surprised you’re cursing them so much. This is new for me, but I thought you would be used to this.”

He shook his head. “Because they always have to ruin everything.”

Fleur’s nose wrinkled as she glanced down at her ruined hair and blouse again. “It’s a horrible prank. Just look at us, we’re looking ghastly. But I’m sure they didn’t mean bad.”

Bill sighed; he knew she was upset but was trying to make him feel better anyway. “They never do. But still, if I get my hands on them, I could kill them.”

Fleur shook her head, orange stained hair falling into her face. “No you couldn’t. You love your family just the way you love everything, with all of your heart.”

She smiled at him, the warmth in it making Bill’s heart flutter. “That’s what makes you so special.”

He blinked at her in surprise. “So you’re not mad?”

Fleur tossed her hair over her shoulder, a flicker of dismay crossing her face. “A bit; look at my hair, it’s looking just the same as yours now. But they’re your family. If I want to love you for the rest of my life, I will learn to love them, too.”

She intertwined her fingers with his and got up, pulling him along with her. “Because that is what I want to do; loving you for the rest of my life, as a part of your family. If you want that too, that is.”

Bill couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had always known Fleur to be brave, but he would never have figured her to be brave enough to take the initiative from him on herself.

He cleared his throat. “Are you really sure this is what you want? There is no me without this madness.” To drive his point home, he rubbed a smudge of orange from her cheek with his thumb. She chuckled at the sensation.

“This madness made the man that I love; how could I not want that?”

She took a step away from him and tilted her head to the side. “So, I think there’s something you wanted to ask me?”

Bill blinked incredulously. “You still want me to? Even though we’re all orange?”

Fleur’s laugh was like music to his ears. “Even though we’re all orange. Take a chance. What harm can it do?”

And just like that, looking at her smiling at him, his nervousness ceased. He felt completely calm, nothing but certainty left inside his heart.

He let go of Fleur’s hand and got down to one knee, both of them already smiling so widely it hurt his cheeks as he reproduced the now spattered red box again.

“Fleur Isabelle Delacour, do you want to give me the honour of becoming my wife, no matter how insane the ride will get?”

With a laugh bordering on a sob, Fleur sank to her knees next to him, showering his face in kisses, muttering “Yes!” over and over again.

Bill slipped the scarab ring onto her finger, the blue stone shining in the sunlight. He pulled his fiancée into a tight embrace, his face buried in her orange hair. Breathing in the lavender scent of her perfume, Bill felt a happiness wash over him greater than anything he could ever have imagined.

Maybe the old superstition was wrong after all.

Apparently, fourth time’s the charm.

[cassiabaggins]

Cassia Baggins (oc)

Name: Cassia Baggins

Age/DOB: August 13th, 2909 TA (Shire Reckoning) (32 at the time of the BOTFA)

Gender/pronouns: Female, she/her

Species: Hobbit

Timeline: The Hobbit, LOTR

Physical Description: Cassia takes after her mother in looks. She is short and plump like all hobbits, with dark brown, curly hair, dark blue eyes, and a snub nose. She has an hourglass body shape and full lips, and lots and lots of freckles all over her body, but mostly on her face and shoulders... basically any part of her skin that sees the sun! Her faceclaim is Anna Popplewell, but I imagine Cassia with a bit of a rounder face! Cassia also has pointed ears and large, furry feet like all hobbits.

Personality Description: Cassia is hotheaded and adventurous, just a chaotic little gremlin. She is stubborn, mischievous, and determined, but also friendly and outgoing. She loves to try new things and ever since she was a young child, longed to see more of the world due to all the adventures her mother told her about! She has a penchant for trouble and always tends to get in ridiculous situations. She’s also a romantic at heart, and somewhat immature/naive and this can lead to her being taken advantage of. Frankly, Cassia is extremely empathetic. Maybe too much. She feels everything very strongly, and that tends to make her a bit of a crybaby at times as she will cry at any strong emotion, fear, anger, joy, sadness... But whenever someone needs her help or her comfort, she’s there immediately, not only with kind words and a hug, but with a warm slice of pie or a warm drink and a blanket, because sometimes you need some creature comforts. She gives great hugs and even better backrubs, and is great at giving advice. She loves children and is very motherly and sometimes certain parties (Kili) call her ‘mom’ jokingly. People always know they can come to her for anything and she’ll do everything within her power to help them. She’s their confidante, not just their queen.

Significant Other (if any): Fili 

Family: Mother: Belladonna Took, Father: Bungo Baggins, Brother: Bilbo Baggins, Brother in Law: Kili, Sister in Law: Rhis, Mother in Law: Dis, Uncle in Law: Thorin Oakenshield, Children: Thorin IV, Kirin, Arnin, Belladonna II, Vilrin, Frerin II, Corin, Columbine, Leifrin, Eglantine, Elestren, and Daffodil

Backstory (includes SPOILERS for An Extra Burglar!!!): Cassia is Bilbo’s little sister, Belladonna and Bungo Baggins’ youngest child and only daughter. She was an accident baby, born 18 years after Bilbo and while the Baggins’ had always hoped for another child, she was born well after they expected one to come along! Left to be raised by her brother when her parents died when Cassia was 17 (Bungo) and 25 (Belladonna), she always felt a bit out of place. She was too Tookish for a Baggins and too Baggins-y for a Took, stuck in an awkward in between. Her closest friends were Delphinia Greenholm (something of an older sister to Cassia) and Lobelia Bracegirdle (eventually Sackville-Baggins). Six months before Gandalf volunteered Cassia and Bilbo for Thorin’s adventure, Cassia became involved with Allen Proudfoot. Bilbo was very hopeful she would finally settle down and stop talking about adventures, and she did. For a time. Three months into a very promising relationship, Cassia found out Allen had been seeing her friend Lobelia on the side and this discovery resulted in Cassia dumping Allen very publicly, having a huge fight with Lobelia, and throwing herself back into the troublemaking ways of her childhood as a rebellion. When Gandalf arrives, Cassia is more than happy to become a burglar for the Company of Thorin Oakenshield. She immediately gets along with Fili and Kili, though her relationship with Thorin is rather strained at the beginning due to her anger over his treatment of Bilbo. Over the adventure, she grows close to Fili. Very close. She ends up falling in love with him, but is unsure if he reciprocates, and, wary of love due to her past experiences, contents herself with the idea that they are simply not meant to be. However, Fili confesses to her near the end of the Quest and they start courting, meaning to marry the next year, but the Battle of the Five Armies and Thorin’s resulting death throws a wrench into their plans, as Fili is crowned King of Erebor. Cassia returns to the Shire with her brother for a time, but some months later, she goes back to Erebor, marries the love of her life, and has 12 children with him. Read more about her in this fanfic I am writing!

Gallery: one  two  three  four  five  six  seven  eight    and more!

[laineystein]

“This is new.”

The Boy™️ and I went out for his birthday on Thursday night. His favorite restaurant happens to be close to where we both grew up so we drove through the same neighborhoods that raised us - streets we walked to get to school or back and forth from the houses we grew up in. Of course, we ran into three separate people we knew. This seems to be a trend lately. It’s like our past, every little detail we’ve been so good at keeping hidden, keeps rearing its head, demanding to be dealt with. One of the people we ran into was a teacher we both had in yeshiva and they commented “oh, this is new!” And we both smiled and laughed and wished them a good shabbat. We didn’t talk about it then but we spent Shabbos together – alone – and we spent most of the night unpacking all of it.  

 This wasn’t the first time we’d heard it. It’s all anyone seems to say lately. When I had a ride to the airport at 4am and my mother strong-armed me into admitting who it was she said “oh, that’s new”. When his Modox parents were a bit passive-agressive toward me earlier in the summer because suddenly I was *everywhere*, I finally got his mother to admit that she worried about our relationship simply because it “came out of nowhere”…because “it’s new” and a lot of our “decisions seem impulsive.”

  No. This isn’t new. We’re not new. Our relationship is 15 years old. This has been a thing - many things, actually - for a decade and a half. I have been in love with this man for half of my life but to the world, even the people we love the most, yes - this is new. And I can’t argue with them. We don’t. We have no idea how to handle this. 

  We were fifteen and sixteen. Simply put - being a teenager means being young and dumb and somehow being terrified and craving happiness in equal amounts. He was (is) my best friend’s brother and they’re extremely close. On top of that, he’s Modox and I wasn’t and am not. His family never treated me differently, even when other families did - especially early on at yeshiva when it was very clear that I was raised differently than most of my classmates. But I loved them and they loved me. They loved me as their daughter’s best friend. It didn’t make sense to explain that I was more than that with their son - especially because we didn’t know what that was. 

We were teenagers! We were intense and fearless and manic and we were absolutely terrified of letting anyone down. We’re both the first born in our immigrant Jewish families. There has always been so much pressure on each of us to be the best - the smartest, the most hardworking. For him - the most devout. We both had to marry well and have big Jewish families. We were the product of generations of trauma - children and grandchildren of families that had consistently escaped persecution and now we were seemingly well adjusted teenagers in America, finally free to live the lives everyone who came before us fought so hard for. It was a lot of pressure, all the time. But together? No pressure. The things I struggled to tell his sister - how much I hated my yeshiva uniform, how marriage and children weren’t in the forefront of my mind yet…everything I couldn’t tell anyone else in the world, I told The Boy™️.

That’s where the name comes from - and those of you who used to follow my studyblr know I talked about him often. I never talked about him by name. His sister always thought I had someone in Israel that I had this big crush on. And I did. When he was in Israel with me I had a huge crush on him. But I loved him in Brooklyn too. I loved him when we traveled to France and Amsterdam and Italy. I spent four out of my five IDF civilians (time off from the military) with him and no one knew. We have lived so many lives together. We’ve experienced so many things, side by side, and no one had any clue. And we watched each other love other people and try to make it work with people that weren’t us. But ultimately he was the one who helped me through breakups and med school. He was the person that literally saved my life in 2020 when my shifts at the hospital during COVID had me so mentally and physically exhausted that I could barely get out of bed…literally. Then when things calmed down I realized, it didn’t matter what was going on in the world, he’s always been my biggest supporter and I cannot and will not live without him and the fact that we weren’t sharing this thing that made us both so undeniably happy just felt ridiculous and unfair.

But we didn’t know how to even explain everything so we kind of…didn’t? It was never “this is my best friend and we’re in love” it was “I’m going to Israel and he’s coming too”. We alternated Shabbos between his parents’ house and mine. All the while everyone is hesitant, almost nervous - this is new, this is new, this is new. It’s not new. But this is the first time we’re admitting how we feel and what we are to the people we love. He’s not just my friend’s brother. He’s not even just my best friend or my boyfriend. He’s the man I want to marry and have a family with. I get why our families are so confused. They have no idea all we’ve done and how so many of the things they celebrate in us - our jobs, our successes, our faith - is because of the other.

  So we have to start being honest. They’ll never truly get it if they can’t see how deep it is, if they can’t acknowledge the history. But how do we explain it? We are who we are because once upon a time we were both really struggling with our faith. We thought we were terrible Jews because we didn’t want the things our parents wanted. I didn’t believe in tzniut. Some days he didn’t either. We were doing things we were told kids in yeshiva don’t do! We were having sex and smoking weed and going to bars in the city because we could. But it wasn’t about being a part of the goy world. We didn’t want that. We just wanted to be who we were in the Jewish world and we had no idea how to do that. For so long it felt like it was us against the world - Jewish and gentle. We didn’t fit in with either but we could be who we wanted to be, together, in this weird in-between. He’s safety. He always has been. When I have a thought and I know no one in the world will understand it, I know he’s the exception. We always felt like we were judged, even inadvertently by people who swore they were being open minded and supportive, but together that was never a worry. So how do we explain that? 

We don’t. We won’t. We need to be honest about some things: about how far our friendship goes back, about the depth of it - then and now. Everyone else is free to make their own assumptions. They can draw their own conclusions or they can just learn to accept us as we are now. The weird part is that everyone has been much more accepting than we imagined - especially his sister. She loves our relationship so much, to the point that we feel bad for keeping it from her for so long. But we don’t know if we’d be who we are now if we hadn’t lived this other life together. We weren’t wrong. Having this one thing in life that is untouched by the world was magical. We still have days where we miss it, especially now as questions of marriage and children flood in. But we’ve agreed that we’ll be honest with our children. All of it. 

I guess a lot of this for us wasn’t just about *us* but about who each of us are as people. We’ve always worn so many labels. We’re completely opposites but we have fundamental similarities. We both love being Jewish. We’re loud and proud, unapologetic Jews. But we weren’t always! And the secret nature of our relationship aside, that’s what’s the most difficult for us to acknowledge publicly - myself in particular. I get a lot of that - often from many of you. I am so so honored that where I am with my faith today, at 31, is something so many of you admire. I can’t even begin to explain to you how much that means to me. But I guess it’s important to note that this was a journey. I was a mess. I always loved being a Jew but for several years I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know that I had the power to write my own narrative and live my life as a Jew on my own terms. The strength and confidence you see now is because all of the bullshit I went through before. Even now I am constantly learning. Every day I become more and more secure in my role as a Jewish woman, now that I can define what that means for me. 

And that’s all I want for any of you! Live your Jewish truth! We are all products of so much hardship. We really do deserve to be the best version of ourselves. We deserve happiness and security in our relationships, in our careers, in every aspect of life possible. And if you’re not there yet - if you wake up wondering where you fit into the Tribe, that’s okay! You will get there! Being a Jew is a super power!!! You just need to figure out how to be a Jew in a way that makes the most sense to you. There truly is no one way to be a Jew - no wrong way to be a Jew. Being a Jew, in any capacity, makes you an awesome Jew. I wish I had someone to tell me that but I didn’t. It took me many years to be where I am now. So for anyone who needs to hear it: you’re an awesome Jew and I’m so proud of you! 

[nieladasdenani]

The daylight’s fading slowly (but time with you is standing still)

So, months later I finally was able to finish the prompt @mooooonshine gave me: The Corrs - Breathless + Summer Vibes. I hope it holds to your expectations, as it was erased twice accidentally! I love the Corrs, actually, so maybe that helped keep trying. You can also read this in AO3, if you rather.

Lena Luthor hates the beach.

She's aware that it's an unpopular opinion. And it's not just because standing in the shore of vast expanses of water trigger some trauma. It's not to be edgy either. Lena can actually appreciate the gentle breeze coming from the ocean, the calming sound of the waves. But she's not a fan of the Sun burning her skin, unless she's cocooned under a palm tree wearing a giant hat and shawl. Or the intense heat that makes the sand stick to her skin. Or the noise of too many people having too much fun, everyone trying to impose their respective playlists.

And yet, here she is. Dragged by her traitorous best friends with a flimsy excuse of getting back out there, Lena. So, it's been a while since she's last had casual sex. But less time since she had sex, though. She just ended a two-year relationship, and it's in no hurry to get back out there. Jack is still a dear friend, and it was her who ended things, it's not that she's opposed to casual sex, or one-night-stands, it's a matter of respect for the relationship they had.

"It's been a month, Lena. I think you mourned your kill long enough." Andrea's deadpan comment reaches Lena's internal ramblings, as if her friend could read her mind. She supposed she can, after all those years of friendship. Which is also why Lena glares at her openly and without remorse.

"No. Don't start, you two. We're here to have some fun, and enjoying a lovely day at the beach. We deserve a break!" Sam's always been the soft one out of the three of them. "It's also a good opportunity to meet new people!" Now Sam's throwing an unfairly sweet, hopeful smile at Lena, which in turn make her frown harder.

"Et tu, Brute?"

"Now, there's no need to be so dramatic, Lena. I'm not saying you have to, we're here to have a good time as friends, and if it happens, then, great!" Sam has the audacity to grin, and Lena is appalled to find herself softening in the face of her friends' love. Lena's not about to show this, though. Especially not when Andrea is smirking smugly at her, as if she knows she's won.

"Why are you smiling as if you enjoy spending time at a packed beach?" Lena fires at Andrea, who shrugs:

"I like it just fine. More so when I can eye such delicious, half naked snacks." She says this while pointedly looking in the general direction of a very tall, very handsome dark skinned man, who's smiling at a much shorter but equally gorgeous dark haired woman. Lena's about to point out how the pair seem to be a couple to Andrea, when Sam can't contain her enthusiasm any longer and explodes with an expressive:

"Who wants to get in the water!?"

Neither Lena, nor Andrea startle at the exuberant proposition, they both acknowledge it, however, with a decline. Though, Andrea promises to join her in a future immersion. The rejection doesn't affect Sam in the slightest, who skips the short distance that separates her from the ocean and dives head-first into the water, disappearing from view.

The attention of the remaining pair is grabbed by loud exclamations of joy coming from a group of people that are settled a short distance from them, only to discover that tall and handsome and short and gorgeous are part of the neighbors, and the actual reason they are whooping. Lena imagines it's because they come bearing alcohol and snacks.

"It seems like your snack is already taken." If she's going to have to get through this by force, Lena might as well be annoying, perhaps it will deter her friends from future abductions to the beach.

"Are you not familiar with concept of eye candy?"

"All I'm saying is, if you're going to fantasize about a handsome man, but it turns out he has a gorgeous girlfriend, and they're displaying it so publicly it must dampen the illusion somehow." Lena shrugs, not willing to let it go.

"You said that like it's a problem. All I hear is: handsome man and gorgeous woman. I'm sure you can also appreciate this combo." Andrea directs an arched brow at her, and Lena sighs in defeat, because she sure as hell can appreciate it.

"You're incorrigible." Lena huffs out with a laugh.

"Hey, guys!" They hear Sam, and turn in time to see her waving them from near the edge where sand meets water. Her smile impossibly large as droplets drip from every inch of her. Lena instinctively waves back with a small smile, but then freezes, because right behind her friend there's a goddess.

"Oh, no." She can't help the murmur that escapes her. It's a miracle that she recovers enough, despite Andrea's pointed, mocking, laugh. Just in time for Sam and her new friend to reach them.

"This is Kara!" Sam wears a smile that would be predatory when directed at Lena if it was in anyone else's face, specially Andrea's. "We were talking, and she's inviting us to join her and her friends to spend the day here at the beach!"

"Oh, isn't that wonderful, Lena?" And sometimes, Lena truly wonders why she allowed a friendship with Andrea to bloom after they fucked in college.

"Yes, so gracious." The growl is directed at her friends, but the moment she circles back to look at Kara, Lena finds herself smiling genuinely. Not only because the girl is ridiculously beautiful and fit, but because she's sporting one of the most charismatic smiles Lena has ever been hit with in her life.

"Hi! Sam said you guys were here to have a break from life, and so are we. So I figured we could just join forces and have a good time?" She's chipper, which should be enough to save Lena from this situation, because Lena Luthor hates the beach and Lena Luthor doesn't do chipper. And yet...

"That'd be wonderful, thank you, Kara. Are you sure it won't be a problem with the rest of your group?" Lena finds herself saying.

"Oh! Not at all! They're all very friendly and welcoming. Like I told Sam, it's really not a problem."

"Lovely. I'm Andrea, by the way. This is Lena. It seems as if our dear Sam has forgotten her manners."

"Right! Sorry!" She sounds anything but. "Anyway, shall we?" She's practically jumping with excitement and hurries to carry as much of their things as she physically can. Kara then jumps in to help, despite Lena's protests.

"No, it's no problem." And god, that smile is a weapon.

Turns out they fit right into the group, mostly because said group is outstandingly welcoming, at least after some awkward introductions that served to confirm that tall and handsome (James) and short and gorgeous (Lucy) are, indeed, a couple. Lena tries to send a smug smirk Andrea's way, but her friend looks, if anything more pleased. Incorrigible.

Kara doesn't leave Lena's side, not even when she looks like she's physically ill at the prospect of not getting into the water when most of the group decides to dip together. Andrea included, which almost makes Lena openly balk at her. Kara keeps stealing glances at the friends loudly enjoying the water, so much so that even Lena is close to feel like she wants to join them, too.

"You should go. I promise I'll be here when you come back." Lena teases. Satisfied when a light blush covers Kara's lovely face. 

"Are you sure?"

"Of course! You look like you're about to turn green with envy." Lena appreciates Kara's laugh, like she's always been free to express it, and she finds herself wanting to hear it more. A lot more. Odd.

"Ok! I'll be right back! Have fun, don't let Alex scare you, she's actually a softy." And with that Kara bolts to the water as if she'll turn to sand if she's not wet promptly... Ok, maybe not the best analogy, now Lena feels like she needs to dip in cold water. Ah, Alex. The big sister. Right. She has been friendly enough, but she keeps giving Lena the side eye and Lena's afraid she may receive a shovel talk she's not sure if she's ready to face. Lena faces her with a solid, confident stare, she's a Luthor, after all.

"So," Alex starts, "how are the labs at Luthor Corp? You're awful far from Metropolis." She never leaves her stare from Lena's face, not even when she sips at her drink. Which is a problem, because even if Lena recovers well, she's sure Alex didn't miss how much her question startled her. 

"Hm, are you keeping tabs on me? What is it, agent, special agent?" Lena remembers Kara gushing about her sister's accomplishments when she introduced them, FBI.

"Doctor Danvers is fine." She says. Smug. Lena squints at her. "I'm something of a scientist myself."

"Ah, that's what Kara meant when she said you were like Scully, then." And, surprisingly, they share a fond huff of a laugh over it. So maybe there's still hope.

"Yes. I like to keep up with the latest and greatest of the scientific community as much as I can. And that seems to lately involve Luthor Corp more often than not." Oddly, Lena sees the thinly veiled compliment, she tries not to blush.

"Well, it's a passion of mine. The lab, that is." Alex hums, but adds nothing, just keeps her gaze on Lena. And are moment like these when she's grateful for Lilian, she would be squirming if it weren't for her mother. They share a few more charged stares. Then Alex sighs and drops her eyes for a moment.

"Just don't play with her, all right?" Oh, wait what? Oh, no. She thinks... No!

"We're moving the company to National City!" What? What is she doing' why is she revealing secret information to a literal stranger? "We're changing the name, too. To L-Corp." Oh my god, someone please shut her up! Now! Oh she's dead. And Alex looks completely baffled, she even takes a couple of tries to speak.

"I...Oh. Oh, ok. That's, that's great."

"You can't tell anyone, though." She's not begging, just clarifying. "Please." An afterthought.

"Sure, no problem."

"I wouldn't. I wouldn't play with her." And here Alex sends her a searching look, no doubt looking for flaws. She doesn't seem to find any, because there aren't, and because she shrugs, finally.

"All right. That's all I ask. She's a big girl, she can take care of herself. But If you break her heart I'll make you regret it."

Lilian is going to kill her. Why is she revealing corporate secrets like this? For fear of the sister of a girl she finds cute (ok, glorious)? What the fuck? Since when does she panics like this? Why does she even care to make clear to Alex she's not playing with Kara? Oh Lilian is definitely murdering her now, no matter she's the only child she has left, now that Lex went crazy. So she probably shouldn't be making fun of her brother's very serious mental illness, but she's in self-destruct mode, apparently. Oh, forget Lilian killing her! Sam and Andrea are going to mock her relentlessly. Wait, they don't have to find out! None of them. Oh, good.

"What's wrong with you?" Andrea's usually unimpressed drawl has a tint of concern. And Lena is so caught off guard by the return of the rest of the group form the water that she gapes a little. Which only makes Andrea's frown deepen.

"Nothing. What's wrong with you?" Great. Excellent comeback. Andi's eyebrows almost touch her hairline.

"What did you do?"

"Everything ok?" Kara's sweet voice carries a hint of menace, and both Lena and Andrea turn to see her in such a defensive pose it's kind of uncanny to associate it with the sunshine girl they've met. It's actually kind of hot.

"I don't know. But she looks terribly guilty." Andrea, who seems to be a little impressed herself, says while pointing her accusing finger at Lena.

"Oh! Are you ok?" And she's back to being sweet, sitting back down next to Lena and scooting closer in case she wants to share a secret... again.

"Yes. Yes, of course."

The situation is gathering the attention of everyone, and Lena is sure that she's heading towards a panic attack. But her rescue comes from the least expected place: Alex.

"It's fine. She's just trying to reconcile the fact that I'm FBI and a scientist that knows science."

Lena sends a grateful smile Alex's way, because that seemed to be enough of an explanation for everyone else. Everyone else, except Andrea, of course. Lena does her best to ignore her, which is honestly not that hard with Kara so close to her giving her all of her attention, or the years of practice Lena has in the matter of ignoring Andrea. Also because Andres has her own source of distraction, in the form of James and Lucy. The day goes by in a whirlwind of fun, Lena's loathed to admit. Until Kara's stomach actually growls.

"Yep," Alex says, "that sounds about right. How about we order some actual food before hungry hungry hippo here resorts to cannibalism?" Kara's pouting, but she's also not offering any sort of dispute either. Something Lena shouldn't find adorable, and yet...

Somehow night crawls on them, and Lena is surprised to find that she's not drunk, despite having been drinking since they joined Kara's group. Actually, now that she thinks of it, none of them are. It's probably because Kara was making sure they were all drinking water and eating regularly, the whole time. She feels a little shift in her heart.

It looks like the spell will be broken when Sam regretfully announces that she needs to pick up Ruby from her dad's place. Andrea and Lena start to get ready to go with her, but Sam adamantly refuses them, ordering them to stay and enjoy the rest of the night. That she's just going to pick up her daughter and head home anyway. They insists, even Alex offers to be the one going with Sam, which strikes Lena as odd (doesn't Alex have a girlfriend?). But Sam, for her sweet disposition is really good at being a mom and having a mom voice.

"The only thing is that you two are going to need to find a way get back. I trust our new friends to take care of that?" James is the first to scramble to placate Sam that they'll make sure Lena and Andrea get home safe.

After Sam left night was quick to fall and they group started to retire for the day. Alex received a call from her girlfriend, Brainy and Nia left for Nia’s roommate’s birthday party, Winn had “mysterious date” his friends were teasing him about the whole time.

To Lena’s utter surprise, Andrea ended up leaving with James and Lucy, sporting the smuggest of smirks. This left Lena in the sole company of one Kara Danvers. Lena is actually surprised of how good her day at the beach was, she had fun, she feels like she did make new friends, not acquaintances, but actual friends. She also learned a lot about Kara, who has no reservations in wearing her heart for all to see. Which in Lena’s life is refreshing. It’s why she can tell the blonde is nervous when she says:

“I, I could walk you?” She doesn’t word it as a question but her voice does this thing that makes it sound like one. It’s endearing. It’s disarming.

“I’d like that.” And Lena’s nervous, too. She’s just better at hiding it. She’s nervous because she really wants to fuck Kara tonight. But she truly doesn’t want Kara to be a one-night-stand, or something even more ridiculous, like a summer love. But, god, she really wants to make love to this absurdly beautiful girl. And the walk is lovely, the air is a little cooler, but mild enough they can stay in their beach clothes, it gets lovelier when Kara spots her favorite ice cream stand open and insists she introduces Lena to:

“The best ice cream ever, you’ll see.”

“I’m sure.” She is, because she’s starting to believe everything with Kara is going to be delightful, Lena’s never been more charmed in her life.

Kara ends up buying a monstrosity that’s like a sample of every flavor available in one giant cup. Lena voices her concern about the amount of ice cream, and how she doubts they’ll be able to finish it. And Kara looks at her with a genuinely offended expression. Admittedly, the ice cream is delicious, and surprisingly, Kara does manage to finish the whole thing by the time they reach the hotel Lena’s staying in while her new apartment is done. They both look at the entrance like it has personally offended them.

“Well, this is me.”

“Yeah. Uh… Would you… I know you’re an important scientist and are probably super busy, but, do you think we could see each other again?”

“I’d love that.” Lena’s sure she’s never sported a bigger smile on her face. “Here, let me add you to my contacts, and I’ll text you so you have my number as well.”

“Yes, yeah. That’s awesome!” They exchange numbers like giddy teens, but still linger just outside the door.

“Would you like to come up?”

“Oh, you have no idea. I really, really do. But I want you in my life for as long as I can have you, you know? I mean, I want to do this right.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, if… if that’s what you also want, of course!”

“What I want is you, naked, in my bed.”

“Oh… Rao…” Kara’s so red, it’d be concerning if it wasn’t so adorable. “I really want that, too. I do. But, will that mean like a one night thing? What are you proposing, exactly?” Lena is so surprise for a moment, about the openness of Kara’s feelings, that it’s taken the wrong way. “I’m not, like, trying to pressure you into anything! Please, don’t freak out! It’s just, I like you so much, I really would like to maybe try and see if we work? Together? Like, as a couple? I know we just met… What I mean is, I’d like to know where we stand.”

“Kara,” because Lena doesn’t ever want to be the reason Kara looks this distressed again. “I’d love to explore the possibility of a romantic relationship with you. I know what you mean, you want to go step by step. I appreciate that. I just really wanted to have my way with you tonight.” Lena teases. And suddenly, Kara’s whole body language changes, she gains some confidence at Lena’s confirmation of affection.

“Well, I’ll make it worth the wait.” And oh, Lena is going to hold her to that.

They’re close enough to each other there’s no way to tell who initiates the kiss, it’s probably both of them, honestly. It’s soft, but so full of promise, Lena suddenly has no problem with doing the thing right, doing it their way, at their pace. She has a feeling this is all going to be worth it.

As a matter of fact, she’ll be right. She and Kara would go to start a relationship that’d be the best either of them ever experienced. They complement each other nicely, when Kara is impatient, Lena steps up, and when is Lena the one rushing things, is Kara who grounds her. It’ll start with regular coffee dates, then dinner dates, then lunch dates at Lena’s office. Game nights, movie nights. It’ll be like watching a flower bloom. And yes, the wait for the love making part will absolutely be worth the wait.