#people can see her however they want to

[faysgeekystuff]

Francesca Bridgerton has SAD

This new season of Bridgerton has been absolutely amazing with Polin, Eloise scenes, Violet being Violet, and, of course, Francesca Bridgerton. She is such an interesting character to me, and extremely relatable to many people. She has become my favorite character in the franchise due to how much I relate.

I think everyone agrees that she is an introvert, it's been confirmed by Julia Quinn and everything. Having her social battery run out, enjoying solitary activities such as piano forte, being overstimulated by crowds, needed time to herself, preferring to be a wallflower, sitting in companionable silence ect. She is very different from her sibling, and it's refreshing to see an introvert in the Bridgerton family.

One thing I couldn't help but notice is the anxiety she has when she's social. Now someone isn't necessarily neurodivergent or has a mental health issue if they're an introvert but there is a higher likelihood because of how many signs overlap. Francesca is a character that I've noticed many people, introverts or nuerodivergent people especially, relate to. I honestly think it's amazing! But I haven't seen many people talk about the clear signs of anxiety she has.

She fidgets a lot in social situations, avoids eye contact, anxiously follows social situations until she's told by someone it's okay to take a break or to go play piano. Avoids being social but will mentally prepare herself if she has to go to events. She wants to be done with these situations as quickly as socially possible, which we see when she leaves multiple balls early. There are so many signs but the biggest one for me is the faces she makes.

Hannah Dodds has done an amazing job showing the rich internal life of Francesca. The faces she makes show clear thought and internal dialogue without any of it having to leave her mouth. The anxiety she has before meeting the queen and having everyone look at her, the panic when she is surrounded by multiple suitors who don't follow her practiced dialogue (they went off script!), the relief when she finally has time for herself and can get away, the nervousness when she's dancing with a suitor because if she messes up everyone will see and judge her. All of it leads me to believe that she is a very socially anxious person.

All in all, I see her as an introverted person with Social Anxiety Disorder and relate to her so much because of it. It's something more people should talk about. When we see Social Anxiety on screen or in TV it's almost always someone who never leaves the house or has a panic attack when people start talking to them. It's almost always portrayed as debilitating and generally becomes the personality or quirk of the character. There definitely are some people like that but SAD is often fairly functional. We can go to social events, talk to people, be in a crowd, ect.

A lot of the time an underlaying anxiety throughout the interaction and you have an internal monologue telling you to not to mess up. To avoid judgement. Asking if this is okay to do? Do i look weird doing this? Are they laughing at me? When is it okay to leave? Can I go to the bathroom now or is the timing weird? Am I making eye contact too long or too little? Can i find somewhere away from people? Most of that stays internal but it can have few outwards signs. Things like avoiding eye contact, or figeting, making a face, trying to find a way to escape a conversation. All things we see Francesca do. It's so nice to see a mild form of social anxiety on screen for a change. Someone who can live their life despite the anxiety and is so much more than just their disorder.

Even if you don't agree with me and you think she's just an introvert, or she's shy, or she's on the spectrum, or anything else. I find it amazing how many people see themselves in her. That she can be seen in so many different ways, and have so many people love her without being a loud or gregarious person. She's quiet and has a rich internal life, and so many of us love her for it.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for voting in the poll to decide who was going to be the leader of the band! It turned out to be such a close race!

[parasocialcelebritycrush]

two tickets to oppenheimer please!!!

[fish-with-more-eyes]

i forgot it was maid day until a few hours ago so i speedran some fem assassin maid skts <3

[change-the-rules]

oh Wait A Second

Hang The Fuck On

Ive Got Another Thing Actually my beloved eloise Also came up with the dumbass plan to claim to be whistledown when she was backed into a corner by the queen it was a stupid plan then same as it was for cressida

the difference being eloise was confiding unwittingly To whistledown who immediately did everything in her power to shut that shit down for obvious reasons

ELOISE WAS IN DAMN NEAR THE SAME POSITION AS CRESSIDA WAS

at least in terms of personal desperation and impending doom closing in like for the love of fuck no one else could have possibly been in a better position to if not help then at the very Least EMPATHIZE

if everything went exactly as it had but *before* the dropping of the 'friendship soured' Out of Nowhere eloise had tried to comfort or reason with cressida Especially from this VERY RIDICULOUSLY SPECIFIC AND NICHE common thread but nuture and fear won out and cressida still went ahead with her ill-advised gambit?

and their friendship imploded accordingly

I would Not be nearly as annoyed as I am now because hey I like angst WHEN ITS GOOD STORYTELLING like damn

IT WAS RIGHT THERE Y'ALL ELOISE LITERALLY EXPERIENCED IT SHE HAD THE SAME THOUGHT WHY DID NO ONE USE THAT

[nhaneh]

Miqo'March 13, Colour

The most challenging aspect of the photo-aether-ographic tomestone had been a question of colour - how to best depict the many shades and nuances in a way that made sense even to eyes that no longer saw light, but aether.

(bonus larger shot of the image they're looking at below the cut!)

[nerosdayinanime]

wait. random idea. Pathetic(blame candy) muzan & kokushibo are exes from Centuries ago and he has Complaints hed like to talk about w him but all hes getting to now is Nakime. hes so sick of his bullshit and just enduring it and goes to kagaya like 'i have to kill kibutsuji. ill help you kill him & the other upper moons just PLEASE im so sick of this shit. i need to kill him' 'well you arent killing me so ill give you the benefit of doubt-'

since they broke up he's hacked at the curse to the point he can snap it Whenever without muzan noticing, he finally did so & went to kagaya bc he can Feel shit's gonna pick up soon. he has his memories but he Ignores Them bc hes ashamed and kinda projecting it onto muzan. he has to kill muzan to kill his shame kinda fucked up coping mechanism yk?

the hashira try to kill him On Sight together but he calmly deflects everything while explaining hes working with them to kill kibutsuji. reluctant acceptance with the note from kagaya giving him a pass. most of them fully believe its a trap tho.

koku seeing tanjiro & his earrings and starting to approach, giyuu already has his blade lodged in his neck as a warning/threat & tanjiro staring at him in shock like 'HUH?? THE MAN FROM MY DREAMS?? HES A DEMON NOW? WAIT WHATS HE DOING HERE-'

[crownrots]

[comixandco]

my favourite part of season 5 is still the reveal that Gabriel and Tomoe thought Adrien and Kagami made the perfect pair and wanted them to be together because it completely flips their relationship

Kagami and Adrien sneaking around and finding the slightest gaps in their schedule and giving their bodyguards/parents the slip to spend time together and feeling so clever that they’ve gotten away with it their parents don’t suspect a thing

only to smashcut to Gabriel and Tomoe doing an evil pound it because their ship is canon

[variousqueerthings]

I note that I don't, and I never, was much of a fan of doctor-and-rose as romance, but that I -- rather than get annoyed at the romantic-coded scenes -- had a tendency to simply read them from a totally different perspective, and really maybe should have been a sign of sooomething different about me, that I continuously felt that the doctor's concepts of connection must be so alien, that to call it romance would be to diminish the actual Thing that they had, which was presented as such onscreen (to my mind then, now I realise what was happening, but I prefer what I had going on), which is basically that the doctor was a shell of a person, hurtling towards destruction (he would have died without rose in ep1), desperately lonely and sad and traumatised, and she retaught nine -- and by extension ten -- how to love the universe, at the same time as nine and ten taught her the same. (I think about the scene in father's day, where while they're arguing, rose says that she knows how sad he is, and he'll just hang around the tardis waiting for her -- she knew!)

and then on top of that with sarah-jane (which, I never watched the classics as a kid, so I didn't have that context for her beyond what the episode presented) it felt like that was sort of confirmed and made even more canon through this idea that the doctor is constantly mourning the inevitable deaths of their companions and would rather simply leave them behind at some point than watch that happen (and they've seen that happen before, although dying for a cause versus just... dying, because you die, while they don't, they just continue on and on, always seeking connection, always knowing that time will take them away, that's a whole other thing)

and then of course there's ten's... I would call it "sex appeal" because it's david tennant and with his performance there's immediately a bit of a focus on oh he's quite pretty and he faints/is knocked unconscious in both of his first episodes, and a lot more flirting, and the people want to see sparks or what have you... but the doctor as portrayed and written is still... not coming at it that way. yes yes girl in the fireplace but also, once again, doesn't work for me, because I find it soooo much more interesting that the doctor would imprint on A Life - and a life that they admire -- and speedrun the exact thing that they're most afraid of with their companions... that she ages and dies and it's the one thing that the doctor simply cannot stop

meanwhile rose is quite young and swept up in this whole massive adventure and very much reads the doctor not as an alien (frequently surprised by their alien-ness) and gets jealous of sarah-jane as if she's an ex, and renette as if she's... a replacement? but really it's more that the doctor met her at the point when she was about to accept her life as it was. not an exciting life, not a bad life, but always having to ignore the idea that there must be more to it than this. and the idea that she might be unceremoniously dumped back in that after seeing just how This the this could be, of course that's terrifying. and of course she's simultaneously taken with the dashing doctor and the jetset life, and worried she could be replaced, because to her the doctor saved her at 19 years old. in some ways the doctor created her (considering who she becomes after dooms day)

contrasted to martha who initially has a similar kind of experience, but the doctor doesn't meet her at the space she's in with them -- ten is leaning on her, like they did with rose, but not giving anything back unless kicking and screaming and traumatising her whole family. martha's trajectory is so so tragic, because she barely gets a taste of the splendor versus the horrors and the latter marks her for life. but she also knows to walk away from those overwhelming feelings, rather than give into them, she knows they'll never be rewarded and she also grows beyond wanting to be a crutch for the doctor (the fact that she then ends up as a soldier, well... ouch)

and then of course donna, who never has those fucking awe-feelings to begin with and whose connection with the doctor is explicitly de-romanticised but never placed on a lesser pedestal as if there's a hierarchy of alloromanticism. topples those pillars, never sees the doctor as anything but what the doctor is. good old donna. (sobs.) (but also... cautious hope for the specials.) (but also sobs.)

my point being. just don't buy alloromantic doctor, they're a near-immortal alien. it's such a dull simplistic way of reading their relationships to other beings. other point being. all those women who were making heart-eyes at ten, wish they'd met thirteen and had a... "yeah, this still works for me," moment. their horizons, too, are broadened by seeing More. (that or they realise they were never actually "in love" but just thought ten was a sexy skinny little snack and it blinded them.) (although jodie whittaker, too, is a snack.)

and lastly lastly ofc, is that if the doctor has a longterm (by doctor time measurement) intense relationship with anyone, whatever that might be called, it's the tardis. and that relationship is also so alien it cannot be quantified by human words for concepts

[n4rval]

ough. toriel my beloved

[rackartyg]

romancing astarion with sorrow, who by level 12 had 22 charisma and +14 to insight, was very funny.

him, 10 cha and +1 to insight: i am a master manipulator

her: yes dear

[theghostofwilburtheworm]

hades and persephone but demeter and persephone commit premeditated murder and kill hades that'll be fun

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

Omg I might be reaching, but does anyone else think this would work great for a modern-day Odesta meet cute?

[sukibenders]

It's really weird seeing the discourse over Alina's ending in the books, where people hated her loosing her powers and living off in some farm with Mal, only to turn around and go "but if she was with the Darkling-". This take completely ignores the fact that, in the books, Alina never truly wanted her powers nor did she want to be in the spotlight. Sure she had things to work out and everything, and may have even grown to find solace in her abilities but that doesn't necessarily mean she became less when she lost them (a narrative that some seem to think?)

It also ignores how much trauma the Darkling had put her through--from him harassing/grooming her, to making her have to constantly look over her shoulder for a big chunk of her life, and so much more. If you didn't like her ending, that's fine, but don't go around pretending as if her staying with the Darkling would have been any better. It also feels like a lot of projection going around with people thinking she's suddenly living a bad life simply because she choose to live out the rest of her time with her partner and working at an orphanage, something that she is entitled to do so after everything she went through. It's also nor like she's struggling financially, like come on, her friends are literal royals, she is fine.

It also seems like a lot of people go and take an easy route of simply ignoring her relationship with Mal, seeming just to hate it and view it as unimportant, when that also takes away from valuable aspects of her character. Mal is important to her, whether people like it or not, just as much as she's important to him (like are we going to ignore how he risked everything to go and find her? Literally being labeled a deserter!) Do I think there are some codependent elements at times? Yes, but that doesn't mean that both can't work through that and become better. That is one thing I will give the show credit for, which is having them not only verbally state that, but show Mal going off to find out more for himself, but people still used that as an opportunity to hate on him. Like 🙄.

[caitlynmeow]

Alcina has a hard time saying ‘no’ to her daughters. Most of the time.

It isn’t a secret that the noblewoman is a very loving and affectionate mother who spoils the fuck out of her daughters. Although, when the time comes and she needs to be more firm than usual, her word is obsolete.

The daughters are used to getting what they want and when they want, there is no doubt about that. When it comes to many things, Alcina is often very indulging.

An example is when the daughters graduated from high school. At around the age of 18 they are eager to get their driving license and pick any car they want. Being filthy rich, Alcina had no limitation when each one of her daughters picked the car that she wanted, even those were custom made to adhere to the daughters’ wishes.

But that isn’t saying that the girls have free reign to do whatever they want without any consequences. Alcina is fair, or so she likes to think. While she gives her girls a lot of leeway, she also has established with them from early on their lives what is right and what is wrong.

While lenient most of the time, Alcina is strict when it comes to breaking rules.

It is simple, it only takes a daughter to cross the line that provoke her mother’s wrath. Alcina is aware that her anger can get the better of her most of the time, that’s why she tries to keep herself away until she can handle the situation. A seething “go to your room” is enough to send the offending daughter to her room without much questioning.

It takes a while, and a few glasses of wine for the woman to calm down enough to handle her misbehaving daughter. When she decided that the daughter in question has been stewing for long enough, Alcina heads to her room and they have a long talk.

The mother talks for the most part, but at the end, she allows her daughter to explain her side, even though it wouldn’t matter at the end. Alcina believes in natural consequences for actions. For example, when Cassandra almost got arrested for racing illegally in some roads, Alcina revoked her driving privileges for six months. During that time, she could only ride with Bela or have the driver take her to wherever she needed.

When things normally get to that point, the offender knows that there is no walking out of such a punishment as soon as mama makes her decision.

Luckily, all three daughters are smart enough not to provoke their mother like that. Although, two daughters (cough CassandraandDaniela cough) tend to think they can outsmart their mother or keep things from her without getting caught.