#she has a great support system!!

[coincasual]

princess and queen🖤

[sayruq]

In a year’s time that Jonas fucker will be proposing to some 22 year old while Sophie is still stuck in the USA instead of home in England near her support network because he will not allow her to move with the children. And she won’t be able to change that through the courts without facing financial issues because he can drag out litigation for eternity like Jason Sudeikis is doing and their prenup says they each keep what they earned individually during the marriage. And she didn’t work at the height of her fame just after GOT because she was being a stay at home mum for him, while he’s earned substantially from touring. A 30 year old woman might’ve anticipated this and thought carefully about having children with a man unwilling to ever live in her home country or support her career. A 19 year old celebrity who spent her childhood on a set would not. Hope she’s got good people around.

Yeah 😥

[porcelaintoybox23]

Belle (2021) has pacing issues!

Yes, but have you considered *bursts out sobbing*

[captainderyn]

Hnnnn I can’t go into specifics because I don’t trust mobile readmores and don’t want to spoil Phantom Liberty but—

YOUR GONNA TELL ME THAT AFTER EVERYTHING V WENT THROUGH, EVERYTHING SHE DID THAT THIS IS WHAT SHE GETS? The absolute angsty angsty fics brewing in my head right now are real.

I’m going to ramble a bit in the tags after spoilers tags so BE WARNED

[bogslob]

Okay, so I finally finished the live action atla and I have some thoughts.

I feel like they have stripped away the soul of the cartoon. By taking away Aangs fun, Kataras angriness, and Sokkas humour the story feels empty. Also, someone said Zuko doesn’t say honour once, which is truly detrimental to his character.

By not having any filler episodes, we didn’t get to learn who these characters were, and they didn’t get to bond with each other, so it made no sense when they kept telling each other they were family like guys you met a week ago.

I think they tried to make up for it, including as many fan favourite moments as possible, and by sticking to the key original plot beats. But in doing this they’re getting there in very different ways, which don’t always make sense, and feel really crammed together and rushed. I think they needed to let some of these moments go and tell their version of the story, because let’s be honest, the show really doesn’t hold up on its own and I think the main reason people are enjoying it is because of these references, not because of the story as a whole.

It seems like they’re trying to make a live action cartoon rather than a live action adaptation of a cartoon. All the wigs are terrible, Yues in particular. All the costumes look really cheap, I think partly this is due to them sticking too close to the cartoon and wanting the characters to look exactly the same when it doesn’t fit in this new medium. I think another reason for this is that particularly the water tribe costumes don’t look fit for use, the coats are all way too thin and I cannot believe that they would keep anyone warm enough at the poles. I think another reason for this is none of the clothes look worn, and they all look freshly ironed, which makes it difficult to believe in this world.

I will give them credit though, making the 41st Zukos crew was so smart and I love it.

[fruitbatvalentine]

Making OC's for post WDGFIL Valentine to become friends with because he's a sad wet cat to me and deserves friendship

[levitatingbiscuits]

i agree that people go overboard w sokka but saying he didn't suffer much is just. blind watching the show?? idk how you can agree w that. i will always defend katara but not at the cost of bringing other characters down like other people do to her

i didn't say he doesn't suffer, just that he is less traumatized than katara because she went out of her way to help him heal, which he explicitly admitted himself. he also was not the sole survivor of a genocide, because he wasn't a southern waterbender.

it's very interesting that people think i am bringing down sokka by saying he didn't go through all the same struggles as his sister. people in this fandom are weirdly obsessed with trauma if they take me saying he's less traumatized as "bringing him down." he's still a great, fun, lovable, clever, strong, funny, amazing character! he's just not as affected by his trauma the way katara is defined by hers. he's been able to heal because of her, that's a good thing!!

characters who have healed from their trauma are more important than ever in a fandom climate that is so obsessed with unhealed trauma, because they are proof that it can and will get better.

[emometalhead]

The anger I feel listening to Would've, Could've, Should've is insurmountable. I'm 19, and just view myself as such a kid. Like it's always really weird and gross to me when older people view me as a full adult, because I'm really not! I can't legally drink. My brain isn't fully developed. I'm more mature than I was as a younger teenager, but I'm still missing so much life experience. It kills me that Taylor dealt with so much at my age. She was a kid. I'm glad she is able to look back and acknowledge that her childhood was taken from her and that she was taken advantage of. I hope she's healed from all her teenage self endured.

[tousakamis]

sigh. my mum is talking about how she recognises that both me and my little brother are mentally ill but she's apparently been "protecting us from labels how she wasn't" (because that's "all that society wants to give kids nowadays") and she wants us to just "get on with life and be who we are"

[t-lostinworlds]

i just discovered Smosh and they have this thing where they read reddit stories every week and gosh the ppl on this earth 😭 the relationship ones scare the shit out of me tho like, might as well stay single forever bc nobody seems to be loyal anymore LMAO

[freebooter4ever]

wait is that true about hey jude????? must google after work o.O

[laurelwinchester]

You: Laurel Lance is a victim of abuse, gaslighting and trauma and deserves love and happiness!

Also you: Proceeds to give Laurel Lance more abuse, gaslighting and trauma.

[nathaslosthershit]

Teen Dad (OP81)

(Part 1 of the Blind Item Series) (Part 1 of the Teen Dad OP AU)

Summary: Rumors are flying about a young driver with kids

Seeing the rumor, and various other tweets commenting on the matter, first thing this morning was like getting a bucket of ice water dumped on him. Oscar immediately sat up, frightening his fiancée who was asleep next to him a moment before.

“What? What's wrong? Are you okay?” she asked, sitting up.

“Fuck this is not good.” He mumbled as he looked through more tweets. He knew he had minutes before his PR team started messaging him on how best to proceed. 

“Osc, you are really scaring me. What is going on?” His fiancée asked again. After 5 years together and two kids, she knew him well enough to know that Oscar isn’t easily woken up. While he usually wakes up early to train or help the kids, on days like today where he has the chance to sleep in, he will usually take it. But the amount of notifications he started getting were enough to get him to check his phone and once he saw the severity of the situation he was awake and alarmed. 

“A blind item about a ‘younger f1 driver with two kids he had as a teen’ just went up. No confirmation on who but it seems they have gotten it down to only a few of us. They don’t know yet but I am sure they will know soon.” 

He was grateful they hadn’t clocked in on him but Oscar was sure with a bit more time to dig people would put two and two together. He wasn’t ashamed of the fact that he was a teen dad, not anymore at least. When he was even more so an up and coming driver, he kept it hush because he was nervous being 18 with two kids would lead teams to reconsider where his priorities were, his family or his career. That wouldn’t have been crazy of them to do though, as important as racing was to Oscar, he would always pick his family first. Luckily, though, he had a great enough support system so he didn't have to choose. 

Most people in Oscar’s life knew. Any teams apart from Prema, Mclaren, and Alpine were none the wiser but why would they need to know? Not all drivers knew either, some who he had become closer to were let in on the secret, especially Logan, who had been there the entirety of his kids' lives. Annoyingly, at least in Oscar’s opinion, he has been titled ‘the cool uncle’ from day one. 

“What do we do?” his fiancée asked, snapping him out of his spiraling.

“I imagine it is up to my team to figure that one out. I’ll message them now. Get the kids ready and I’ll be done in time to help with breakfast.” He said as he got up.

After a long, pretty impromptu, call, it was decided Oscar would make a statement about it before it was revealed to be him. He wasn’t too happy about not getting to really do it on his own terms but this is the way it worked out, and hey, Oscar would be lying if he said he wasn’t already planning which race he was going to bring his kids to first.

oscarpiastri

liked by mclaren, logansargeant, landonorris, and 518,294 others

oscarpiastri This is of course not how I wanted to do this. I had hoped to have more time before I had to let the peace of privacy go but these things happen when you are in the spotlight. So yes, I am a father of two great kids and I have been since I was 18. I am not ashamed by the fact I was a teen dad, and am certainly not hiding my kids out of anything but love. I hadn’t realized I could truly love anything or anyone more than racing but then these two came into my life and I realized I would give it all up for them. Luckily, with the support of their mother (who is my fiancée) and my family, I didn’t have to give it up. My four person family means more to me than anything and I count my lucky stars each night that I have been blessed with them. I ask that you please respect our privacy. This isn’t the end of you seeing the Piastri twins but I, being the over protective father I am, am not ready to throw two 3 year olds into the chaos of the motorsport world just yet.

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Part 2: A Much Needed Interview out now!

[fictionadventurer]

I have to talk about Chester Arthur. His story makes me go crazy. A mediocre president from the 1880s who's completely forgotten today has one of the best redemption stories I've ever heard and I need to make people understand just how cool his story is.

So, like, he starts out as this idealist, okay? He's the son of an abolitionist minister and becomes famous as a New York lawyer who defends the North's version of Rosa Parks whose story desegregates New York City's trolley system.

Then he starts getting pulled into politics and becomes one of the grimiest pieces of the political machine. He wants money, power, prestige, and he gets it. He becomes the right-hand man of Roscoe Conkling, the most feared political boss in the nation, a guy who will throw his weight around and do the most ruthless things imaginable to keep his friends in power and destroy his enemies.

Because Arthur's this guy's top lackey, he gets to be Controller of the Port of New York--the best-paying political appointment in the country, because that port brings in, like, 70% of the federal government's funds in tariffs. He gets a huge salary plus a percentage of all the fines they levy on lawbreakers, and because he's not afraid to make up infractions to fine people over, he is absolutely raking in the dough. Making the rough equivalent of $1.3 million a year--absolutely insane amounts of money for a government position. He's spending ridiculous sums on clothes, buying huge amounts of alcohol and cigars to share with people as part of his job recruiting supporters to the party, going out nearly every night to wine and dine people as part of his work in the political machine. He's living the high life. Even when President Hayes pulls him from his position on suspicions of fraud, he's still living a great life of wealth, power, and prestige.

Then in 1880, his beloved wife dies. While he's out of town working for a political campaign. And he can't get back in time to say goodbye before she dies. Because he's a guy who has big emotions, it absolutely tears him up inside, especially because Nell resented how much his political work kept him away from home. He has huge regrets, but he just moves in with Roscoe Conkling and keeps working for the political machine.

And then he gets a chance to be vice president. The Republican Party has nominated James Garfield, a dark horse candidate who wants to reform the spoils system that has given Conking his power and gave Arthur his position as Port Controller. Conkling is pissed, and he controls New York, and since the party's not going to win the election without New York, they think that appointing Conkling's top lackey as vice-president will pacify him.

They're wrong--Conkling orders Arthur to refuse--but Arthur thinks this sounds like a great opportunity. The only political position he's ever held is Port Controller--a job he wasn't elected to and that he was pulled from in disgrace. Vice President is way more than he could ever have hoped for. It's a position with a lot of political pull and zero actual responsibilities. He'll get to spend four years living in up in Washington high society. It's the perfect job! Of course he accepts, and Conkling comes around when he figures out that he can use this to his advantage.

When Garfield becomes president, Arthur does everything he can to undermine him. He uses every dirty political trick he can think of to block everything that Garfield wants to do. He refuses to let the Senate elect a president pro tempore so he can stay there and influence every bill that comes through. He all but openly boasts of buying votes in the election. He's so much Conkling's lackey that he may as well be the henchman of a cartoon supervillain. On Conkling's orders, he drags one of Garfield's Cabinet members out of bed in the middle of the night--while the guy is ill--to drag him to Conkling's house so he can be forced to resign. He's just absolutely a thorn in the president's side, a henchman doing everything he can to maintain the corrupt spoils system.

Then in July 1881, when Arthur's in New York helping Conkling's campaign, the president gets shot. By a guy who shouts, "Now Arthur will be president!" just after he fires the gun. Arthur has just spent the past four months fighting the president tooth and nail. Everyone thinks he's behind the assassination. There are lynch mobs looking to take out him and Conkling. The papers are tearing him apart.

Arthur is absolutely distraught. He rushes to Washington to speak with the president and assure him of his innocence, but the doctors won't let him in the room. He gets choked up when talking to the First Lady. Reporters find him weeping in his house in Washington. Once again, death has torn his world apart and he's not getting a chance to make amends.

Arthur goes to New York while the president is getting medical treatment, and he refuses to come to Washington and take charge because he doesn't dare to give the impression that he's looking to take over. No one wants Arthur to be president and he doesn't want to be president, and the possibility that this corrupt political lackey is about to ascend to the highest office in the land is absolutely terrifying to everyone.

Then in August, when it's becoming clear that the president is unlikely to recover, he gets a letter. From a 31-year-old invalid from New York named Julia Sand. A woman from a very politically-minded family who has been following Arthur's career for years. And she writes him this astounding letter that takes him to task for his corrupt, conniving ways, and the obsession with worldly power and prestige that has brought him wealth and fame at the cost of his own soul--and she tells him that he can do better. In the midst of a nationwide press that's tearing him apart, this one woman writes to tell him that she believes he has the capacity to be a good president and a good man if he changes his ways.

And then he does. After Garfield dies, people come to Arthur's house and find servants who tell them that Arthur is in his room weeping like a child (I told you he had big emotions), but he takes the oath of office and ascends to the presidency. And he becomes a completely different man. His first speech as president mentions that one of his top priorities is reforming the spoils system so that people will be appointed based on merit rather than getting appointed as political favors with each change in the administration. Even though this system made him president. When Conkling comes to Arthur's office telling him to appoint his people to important government positions, Arthur calls his demands outrageous, throws him out, and keeps Garfield's appointees in the positions. "He's not Chet Arthur anymore," one of his former political friends laments. "He's the president."

He loses all his former political friends. He's never trusted by the other side. Yet he sticks to his guns and continues to support spoils system reform. He prosecutes a postal service corruption case that everyone thought he would drop. He's the one who signs into law the first civil service reform bill, even though presidents have been trying to do this for more than ten years, and he's the person who's gained all his power through the spoils system. He immediately takes action to enforce this bill when he could have just dropped it. He becomes a champion of this issue even though it's the last thing anyone would have expected of him.

He oversees naval reform. He oversees a renovation of the White House. He still prefers the social duties of the presidency, but he's respectable in a way that no one expected. Possibly because Julia Sand keeps sending him letters of encouragement and advice over the next two years. But also because he's dying.

Not long after ascending to the presidency, he learns he's suffering from a terminal kidney disease. And he tells no one. He keeps going about his daily life, fulfilling his duties as president, and keeps his health problems hidden. Once again, death is upending his life, and this time it's his own death. He's lived a life he's ashamed of, and he doesn't have much time left to change. He enters the presidency as an example of the absolute worst of the political system, and leaves it as a respectable man.

He makes a token effort to seek re-election, but because of his health problems, he doesn't mind at all when someone else gets the nomination. He dies a couple of years after leaving office. The day before his death, he orders most of his papers burned, because he's ashamed of his old life--but among the things that are saved are the letters from Julia Sand, the woman who encouraged him to change his ways.

This is an astounding story full of so many twists and turns and dramatic moments. A man who falls from idealism into the worst kind of corruption and then claws his way back up to decency because of a series of devastating personal losses and unexpected opportunities to do more than he could have ever hoped to do. I just go crazy thinking about it and I need you all to understand just how amazing this story is.

[sflow-er]

So many thoughts on the fabulous Barbie film, but especially on how anyone who thinks it’s “hateful towards men” clearly isn’t getting the message.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

[Credit for both gifs goes to their makers!!]

I mean... Ken’s arc is secondary to Barbie’s, and rightly so. This is her film, and her message deserves to be the main takeaway.

That being said, I just find it really sad that the people who could’ve definitely used the point of Ken’s arc just let it go right over their heads. Maybe it’s because they aren’t great at reading subtext, or because they just balk at anything presented as feminist, I don’t know.

Because to me, Ken’s arc is about as far from “hateful towards men” as you can get. It’s a multi-layered depiction of how restrictive, outdated views of masculinity can hold men back and make them susceptible to harmful ideologies that promise easy solutions for all their problems but only make those problems worse and hurt others around them.

The first layer is an allegory for real men don’t show their feelings. In the movie, this is represented by Ken’s need to look tough and cool all the time, and to keep his insecurities and sadness bottled up. Barbieland is a utopia where being happy is a social norm, and the main Barbie also starts to struggle with that. The difference is that she eventually tells her friends, and they all support her. Ken just puts pressure on himself not to look weak - in front of Barbie, or in front of the other Kens.

Which brings us to the second level: a competitive and inherently hostile view of the other Kens, aka. toxic male relationships. Some of them are friends, and all of them work together for a while to build the Patriarchy, but they don’t actually bond for real. Even their boys’ nights are mainly about getting back at the Barbies for all their girls’ nights (which really were about bonding). When push comes to shove, the Kens still see each other as competition, which is one of the reasons why the Barbies are able to play them against each other.

Another reason is the third layer: the idea that Ken only has value if Barbie loves and admires him. It starts out as unrequited love that makes you feel sorry for him...until he turns bitter. He basically starts on the path that could lead him down the incel/mra rabbit hole and into a mindset where Barbie owes him love and admiration and the relationship he wants in exchange for his devotion to her. He decides that everything would be better if Barbies were subservient to Kens, but of course that’s not true. None of the Barbies’ newfound admiration for their Kens is real, and his own Barbie still rejects him.

All this is of course underpinned by the final layer, which is Ken’s lack of self-respect and sense of purpose. He’s got a pointless job, he’s not particularly qualified for anything, and he just feels kind of lost in Barbieland - a society run by successful Barbies who are living up to their full potential. That’s why he gets so caught up in the idea of the Patriarchy, which is supposed to make him successful, get others to respect him, and give him a sense of purpose. (This can be generalised to all kinds of harmful ideologies in the real world, e.g. the alt-right movement.)

However, the success he achieves is superficial and not based on any real passion; he even admits that he wasn’t happy in his new position and already lost interest in the ideology. The (forced) respect of others does feel good for a while, but it only goes so far. At heart, the whole thing is still mostly about his feelings of inferiority and unrequited love for Barbie, and instituting this harmful new system did not resolve those for him.

So what does? In essence, breaking out of all these harmful patterns and internalising the idea that he is enough.

He ends up reflecting on his feelings, finally puts them to words (or rather, song and dance), and manages to connect with the other Kens through those feelings. He even cries in relief and acknowledges that it doesn’t make him weak. He and Barbie finally have a proper talk, he lets go of their (non-)relationship, and he listens when she says he needs to figure out his real self. He starts to see himself not through his job, his girlfriend, or even his competition with the other Kens, but as just Ken, who is enough.

I honestly can’t think of a less hateful message to send men and boys.

[blues-valentine]

Devi Vishwakumar is one of the best main female characters and I will deeply miss her.

I love how unapologetically messy and chaotic she was. It was a wild ride seeing her make some questionable decisions. It was great to see a woman of color allowed to be messy and entangled in romantic affairs. It was amazing to see Tamil representation and how it focuses on family relationships and how difficult it is to handle cultural and generational differences. Ultimately, NHIE is about a teenager navigating grief and such a traumatic event. Devi and Nalini’s relationship was extremely complicated but perfectly illustrates how difficult it is to raise your kid when you have been raised differently so seeing their relationship grow and evolve to such tender and supportive bond was such a beautiful journey to have witnessed.

Devi was messy, cringey, confused, frustrating but also funny, driven, smart, kind and deeply human. She was allowed to make mistakes and try again until she figures it out. Her growth this season was so brilliant to see and she’s going to make many more mistakes in the future but already has such great support system in her life. Has learned to value herself and her worth. I love she got to have her romantic ending, her dream school and loved for all of her messiness.

I will miss Devi and every character in NHIE, as a show is definitely one I will rewatch multiple times and I cannot wait to see what Maitreyi does with her future because she’s brilliant.