i like when people have fun but i cannot process what could be fun in pairing your favourite ensamble cast into nice neat little completely healthy and dramaless romantic pairs that can never be broken ever. nobodys bitchless?? nobodys getting poly with it??? nobodys getting queerplatonic with it????? nobodys getting toxic with it?????? no fwbs???????? its scary.
*enters the room and sits almost formally in a chair. It's just me and... her. I'm nervous, but I know what I want to say*
You know, it's interesting. Most afab people my age would be talking to their inner little girl, apologizing to her for hating her or not letting her like pink and "girl things". I get that, honestly, because I was like that. But I was never really a girl, was I? Sure I played house and was the mom mostly, but I also enjoyed being the dad. I played with the boys whenever they'd let me (a kickball to the face sure didn't stop me, did it?). I guess I always knew I was a boy.
And I know I've seen some ftm men talk to their childhood selves, saying they don't hate her and she was needed to become who they are today. That's cool, too, but that's not why I'm here. I'm not here for me, really.
I'm here for you, Relena.
From the moment I first saw Gundam Wing, I hated you. Yes even as a ten year old. You sounded stupid and whiny and selfish. When I got back into the fandom in middle school, I still hated you. Not because you "interfered with my ship" or anything, but because I still found you to have all the characterization of a moldy piece of white paper chewed on by a goat. Then the goat peed on you.
Canon did you no favors. You were supposed to be the heroine who saved the world through peace talks but I found you obnoxious and dense. Really, putting yourself between Zechs and Heero in mobile suits when Zechs was literally on the downswing??? Girl.
Fast forward another ten years. It's 2013 and I join Tumblr and encounter a much, much larger fandom for your source. There were some who agreed with me about you, but there were now plenty of people who supported and adored you. I had never encountered that before. Some of them downright hated me for hating you. Which I can kind of get- I'm in no way fond of those who hate on Wufei, but I can't say that I *hate* them.
It made me more set in my ways like a stubborn mule. I had not been shown one good thing about you at that time.
"She's so strong and brave! She shot at Lady Une-"
In a very public and crowded banquet hall where she could easily be killed herself.
Anyway.
Then I met new people. People who actually sat me down and explained you. I listened half-assed at first because I respected them enough to not blow them off. But then... Something changed. I don't know what it was, but someone's words sunk hooks into my blind dismissal of you and started to pull the scab off.
I still hate Canon you, but not in the sense that I hate *you*.
Canon just.... did you dirty. Real dirty.
When I looked behind the blonde bimbo who was paraded around because of her name and her use to others, that's when I saw you.
Yeah you were a terrified teenager- girl you were 15 when the man you believed to be your father was not only assassinated but told you as he lay dying that you were not only adopted, but a fucking princess????? Hello????? Who would be okay after that? It took time to process that.
And the whole thing with Heero, I get that now too. At first you were what you were- a teenaged girl with teenaged impulses who saw a pretty and mysterious boy. I've been there now, I get it. It's weird being 15. I didn't (couldn't) process that at the time, even when I *was* 15 I thought I was fine (oh my god I was not fine). Then when you realized who Heero really was, the mystery deepened and you became intrigued. Natural, a 15 year old handsome soldier is not what Alliance propaganda taught you to admire.
Then you started doing research. You learned more about the issues between the colonies and earth, why the war was going on, why five gundams suddenly appeared and began blowing shit up. You learned about Heero's mission straight from that creepy old man Doctor J's mouth and that, I believe, was your catalyst.
You became actively political instead of just the Vice Foreign Minister's daughter. You began to advocate for peace and a ceasefire from the beginning, your stance only becoming more solid as you learned and grew. You didn't want Heero to get hurt or die and you knew he would be in very real danger of that the longer the war went on. Then you applied that empathy to the rest of the world and really stepped up. Sure, Romefeller made you their pawn (my Wufei understands that painfully well now), but you knew what that was. You knew you were trading your agency for a glimmer of power to begin to make changes and you accepted that.
Not because you were stupid.
Because you're smart as fuck.
Fandom has really helped me understand the real you, Relena. And for that...
I'm sorry.
I apologize for hating you for years based on your portrayal and my lack of understanding what it's actually like being 15. You weren't stupid or ignorant but instead the exact opposite. You realized you had been sheltered your whole life and changed that on your own.
I should have been inspired by you.
I want to say I am now. It took 20, 25 years, but I'm inspired by you, Relena.
for those wondering why they're free to take now, it's because the company that made those "chicken soup for the soul" books bought them a few years ago and then completely collapsed so bad they couldn't afford to dispose of or even take the blu rays and dvds out of their kiosks all over.
so any of them is free game because they're all located on other business' property and they usually don't want to have to pay to get rid of them either. so asking the store manager usually gets you the ok to pull it out and keep it.
there was a period of time right after their bankruptcy where you could put in any debit or credit card and it would spit out movies without charging you. you could even put in like an expired or deactivated card, or a visa gift card with a $0 balance, didnt matter, they'd just start spitting discs out. a lotta people raided redboxes for movies for a couple months, with some people doing what me and my brother and my dad did here, taking the whole box and signs and marquees as well. because managers sure as hell don't want a big abandoned piece of trash on their sidewalk disappointing customers. BUT they're also often too cheap to pay someone to remove it. so they just sit there.
luckily there are no shortage of freaks like us who will just take them away on our own volition. we did it all "by the book", too: we set up cones and caution tape, disconnected electricity properly, used an angle grinder to grind down the bolts in the concrete so nobody would trip on them, then cleaned everything up afterward and sealed off the electrical panel so the store would know everything is safe and tidy. though they were hesitant when we were first contacting them, they were honestly very relieved and grateful when we finally took it away, especially once they saw that we "knew what we were doing" (we don't) and look like we've "done this before" (we haven't).
the fun part: the reason why this redbox, in particular, was completely full and unraided is because the computer hardware inside had failed some months before the bankruptcy, and a failing company sure as hell wasn't gonna send a tech out to our podunk dipshit city to fix it, so it was impossible to rent movies or take any discs out. plus, for who knows how long, people were returning old redbox discs to this machine and not taking any out, leading to a much higher variety of movies than your average redbox.
there is a thriving community of redbox hackers and modders out there, as well, creating open-source software for repurposing the machines and not letting their very interesting and robust disc-management hardware go to waste. this one belongs to my brother (who was very annoying persistent and did all the legwork of contacting managers and securing permission) who is a programmer by trade and will be hacking it into a family-access movie library, with whatever discs we want. i mean the machine is completely weatherproof and has a built-in AC unit, it would be such a waste to not try to turn it into something cool.
if we get another one, i'm gonna try to mod it into some sort of art or zine vending machine. the disc boxes are just the right size for small print art or stickers. would make a great "little free library" too.
remember: the rules are made up. act like you belong there and you can get away with anything. this applies to your own life
“For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”
Vanilla sex isn't "wholesome sex"! Sex is not more pure just because it's done within the framework of a monogamous relationship and free from elements of kink!
"Person is so pure they probably don't even know what sex is." Purity isn't defined by the distance from sex! As if the more a person encounters sex in any context the less pure their soul becomes!
You🫵are not immune to propagating the beliefs and ideas of purity culture!
“[after a half-hearted suicide attempt at age 13] When Daddy comes in, he carries you to bed. Is there anything you feel like you could eat, Pokey? Anything at all? All you can imagine putting in your mouth is a cold plum, one with really tight skin on the outside but gum-shocking sweetness inside. And he and your mother discuss where he might find some this late in the season. Mother says hell I don’t know. Further north, I’d guess. The next morning, you wake up in your bed and sit up. Mother says, Pete, I think she’s up. He hollers in, You ready for breakfast, Pokey. Then he comes in grinning, still in his work clothes from the night before. He’s holding a farm bushel. The plums he empties onto the bed river toward you through folds in the quilt. If you stacked them up, they’d fill the deepest bin at the Piggly Wiggly. Damned if I didn’t get the urge to drive to Arkansas last night, he says. Your mother stands behind him saying he’s pure USDA crazy. Fort Smith, Arkansas. Found a roadside stand out there with a feller selling plums. And I says, Buddy, I got a little girl sick back in Texas. She’s got a hanker for plums and ain’t nothing else gonna do. It’s when you sink your teeth into the plum that you make a promise. The skin is still warm from riding in the sun in Daddy’s truck, and the nectar runs down your chin. And you snap out of it. Or are snapped out of it. Never again will you lay a hand against yourself, not so long as there are plums to eat and somebody-anybody-who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. So long as you bear the least nibblet of love for any other creature in this dark world, though in love portions are never stingy. There are no smidgens or pinches, only rolling abundance. That’s how you acquire the resolution for survival that the coming years are about to demand. You don’t earn it. It’s given.”
I'm not saying the author's perspective must be treated as paramount in media criticism, but sometimes the most reasonable analysis of a text on its face genuinely is "the author is universalising an experience which they possibly do not realise is not in fact universal".
Sometimes the answer to "why is everyone in this media So Fucking Weird in a way that doesn't seem to be connected to any of the work's broader themes and is never textually interrogated in any meaningful way?" is because the author genuinely thinks that's how people operate.
Yeah, but what if you were dead. @riskygamble - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
blakekathryn
jacobvanloon
titsay
baratheonpilled
izzy806
annaxmalina
dededos
romaincrisis
