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moony-artnstuff · 3 years

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Matchup Commission @yunohawkeye

Note: @yunohawkeye it's finally here! Thank you so much for your patience, I know you had to wait very long for this, but I hope it is to your liking!

Warning: This matchup contains nsfw, don't like, don't read!

Lord of the Rings: I ship you with Legolas!

The height difference is adorable.

He loves your hair, and he’s surprised when you tell him how you actually want it because that’s not something you really see in Middle-Earth, least of all his own culture. Still he’d be happy to help you find the supplies you need for cutting and dying it the way you want it.

You like stealing his tunics, as they look like oversized t-shirts on you and they smell like him. The first time he saw you wearing his clothes he almost died from cuteness.

He loved how you were a bit shy when you first met and then gradually became more comfortable around him. He saw it as an achievement whenever you shared something new with him, and he loved getting to know you more.

He’s a curious ball of sunshine and when you get excited about something he gets excited about it too. He’s so supportive of the things you do and likes learning more about them. He’d also be really happy if you took an interest in his hobbies such as archery.

Legolas enjoys being with people (this is also expected of him because he’s a prince) but he also loves quiet moments with you. He’s happy you can entertain yourself when he has to do his duties as prince of Greenwood the great, as he wouldn’t want you to be bored or lonely while he’s away.

Don’t worry about shopping he will get you all the clothes you could ever wish for and he lets them tailor exactly to your size (benefit of being a prince). He quickly takes notice of your style and orders clothing accordingly.

This ellon is clingy as fuck and would love nothing more than to be in your presence at all times, so no worrying about that. He’s also extremely cuddly. Good luck trying to get to the bathroom at night, he won’t let you out of his grip.

He likes your random moments, as he has a lot of them himself. I imagine him as a kind of oddball amongst elves. The two of you keep each other on your toes, and you can often be found laughing about something the other said.

Legolas adores both your tomboyish personality as well as your tomboy looks. Legolas is a warrior and works with both ellons and elliths who are all badasses but all look quite feminine with their long hair and stuff, meaning your personality is familiar yet your looks are refreshing and he likes it.

Introduce him to video games, he’d be fascinated by them. I can totally see him getting fully absorbed in a fight scene, whether he is playing himself or encouraging you.

Loves to dance with you, he does it all the time. You’re relaxing on the sofa doing nothing in particular? Dancing. He sees you walking past in the halfway? Let’s twirl around together for a moment. He’s been away from you for some time and now finally gets to see you again? He picks you up and spins you around, so happy he is to see you again.

Like I said before, Legolas is a bit of an oddball amongst elves, so he would never judge you for being your weird and quirky self because really, he’s the same. It makes him so happy that you’re comfortable enough to be yourself around him, and it encourages him to do the same as well.

Legolas is a ray of sunshine and finds joy in almost everything in life, but he has seen dark things and lost loved ones as well. He is the perfect person to talk to when life is weighing you down or when you just want to talk about some heavier topics, as he knows what it feels like, while at the same time he’s also capable of making you smile again in mere seconds.

Your dark humor catches him off guard at first but he catches on quite quickly.

Legolas is all for having a good connection and good communication. He often talks with you about how he feels about something and asks your opinion. He also frequently compliments you and genuinely can’t understand how you can’t see how amazing you are. Will stubbornly continue with giving you compliments, all the while looking at you as if you are denying simple facts such as the sky is blue, because he means every word he says.

Teasing him will be a challenge as he can be quite the oblivious one (for example if you were to rile him up during the day with lingering touches and then play dumb he would get frustrated because he’d believe you’d genuinely didn’t know what you were doing when in reality you were teasing him), and he will probably take the things you say too literal (“Legolas, is that a banana in your pants or are you just happy to see me?” “Why would I have a banana in my pants?”). It’s best to just give him straightforward compliments when trying to flirt with him.

Legolas is a bottom. Like yeah, sure, he can take the lead if you want him to but he prefers to be the submissive one, and he loves the way you take the lead and how good you make him feel.

Just like with Thorin you’ll be introducing him to a whole new world regarding sex and toys. At first he’s a bit shy about the concept of dirty thoughts and talking about sex, but his curiousity and your openness to talk about it makes him more comfortable.

Loves it when you tie him up and have your way with him, especially when you peg and edge him.

You met at the counsel of lord Elrond where you volunteered to be part of the fellowship. Legolas was curious as to why a human woman would offer herself to such a task, and he started a conversation with you. He quickly came to like your company and often seeked out your company during the journey. You comforted each other after Gandalf’s death and while you are in Lothlorien he tells you about his home and the dangers it’s facing. He needs a bit of help from Aragorn and Gimli, but he eventually realizes he has feelings for you and he doesn’t hesitate to confess, because why would he? He loves you and wants to be with you, and if you feel the same then he wants to start courting immediately since your time together is already short with you being human and him being an elf.

The Hobbit: I ship you with Thorin!

He likes you being blunt. Thorin does not have the best social skills and though he is by no means stupid he can be a bit thickheaded sometimes. That’s why he likes that you’re not afraid to tell him how it is without beating around the bush.

Whenever you get bubbly or excited about something he gets this soft, fond smile while looking at you. He just thinks you’re so precious and he makes a mental note to often talk about your interests to see that spark in your eyes.

The teasing will get to him. God this dwarrow just can’t handle it, he might act all tough and stoic on the outside but he really is just one big softie on the inside who becomes a flustered mess the second you give him that look alone.

Just like you, Thorin is an introvert. He prefers to spend his time with close friends and family, such as the company and you. His favorite moments are spent with you, in your shared bedroom where you do your writing and he hums in front of the fire next to you, just enjoying each other’s presence.

You both tend to keep problems to yourself, so you help each other with opening up. It was a bit of a struggle in the beginning, with the both of you wanting to be there for each other but refusing to open up about your own problems. Slowly though, Thorin started to tell you about his past and the loss he felt when he lost his grandfather, his father and his brother in the war against the goblins. This made you open up about your feelings as well and the two of you learned to reach out to each other whenever something’s bothering you.

He’ll hold your hand when you have to be in a big crowd. As king and queen under the mountain it is expected of you to attend council meetings and grand parties alike, but Thorin always makes sure to stay close to you and offer you comfort until the two of you can retreat to your chambers again.

He loves your ‘randomness’, it refreshes him. He’s always been so focused on leading his people, reclaiming Erebor and then rebuilding it that he’s never really had any time for fun. You saying and doing random things gets him out of that cycle of endless responsibilities and to him it feels like a fresh breath of air.

Please play music with him! He feels a lot of pride in having such a talented and musical s/o. He would be so happy if you let him accompany you in your music with his harp.

Don’t worry about not having spotify or youtube in Middle-Earth, Thorin’s voice will definitely make up for it (we all heard him sing in Bag-end *chills*). He often hums to himself when doing a mundane task, and if you asked it of him he would be happy to sing for you.

He’s honored if you show him your writing.

Despite knowing you can handle yourself perfectly well he’s still very protective over you. He’s just so afraid to lose you, but he tries to tone it down for you as much as he can.

After the mountain is reclaimed he becomes much more loose and free spirited, he’ll be both your partner and your best friend for life

Although he can be a bit oblivious sometimes he makes an effort to see what your likes and dislikes are, for example your movie preferences, and he keeps them in mind when getting you gifts

Like I said before, you’ll have to help him with being open/vulnerable with you. It's not that he doesn’t trust you, he’s just not used to being vulnerable with someone, so he needs to take it slow. You’ll also have to teach him to stay calm and talk when the two of you have an argument. Thorin is used to leading his people and has always been put under a lot of pressure because of it, but you quickly showed him that getting angry and barking orders was not the way to handle a fight with you, and with time he becomes better and better at talking things out with you.

Your openness to sexual talk and constantly having dirty thought caught him off guard at first, as people usually don’t talk so easily about such concepts in Middle-Earth. He tends to get a bit bashful/shy when he hears you talk about it, but slowly becomes more comfortable to listen and maybe add some of his own thoughts.

Will sit you down and tell you in a very serious way that you are amazing when you turn down a compliment. For example, he’ll compliment you for your writing and you say something along the lines of “I’m really not that good, I’m actually quite bad at it.” and he’d just get this serious face and be like “Amrâlime, you are one of the most talented people I’ve met, don’t talk about yourself like that.” Que him starting a whole rant about how beautiful and amazing and skilled you are and genuinely not understanding how you can’t see it too. Thorin has never been good with words, but he sure as hell is going to make sure you know how amazing he thinks you are.

He’s never thought much about sex or having a spouse, untill you came along. He first imagined himself topping, but when the moment finally arrived and you took the lead, he did not mind at all (he’s a switch).

You’re gonna have so much fun tying him up in bed and edging him. He’s not one to beg, or even ask for something in general, so it’s gonna be delicious when he finally does break

You introduce him to a whole new world regarding sex and toys. Thorin loves to experience all kinds of things with you and eventually settles on his own preferences and dislikes. He likes it that you’re a dom, it makes him feel taken care of. Being able to be so intimate and vulnerable with you was something he never knew he needed.

You met when the company stopped in Rivendell, where the company found you playing the piano. You had heard about the arrival of the dwarves and started a conversation with them. Soon you hit it off with Fili, Kili and Nori (for some reason I imagine him liking sex jokes and also being open to nsfw talk) and before you knew it you were part of the company. At first Thorin was against letting you join them, as he didn’t understand what business you could have with dwarves trying to reclaim their homeland, but during the quest you became closer and closer with him, talking about what Erebor was like before Smaug took over and what life was like for him and his family when Thorin had to lead his people to the blue mountains. Eventually the two of you started courting and Thorin asked you to marry him after Erebor was reclaimed, making you queen under the mountain.

#commission #matchup #special matchup #legolas x reader #thorin x reader #the hobbit #the hobbit x reader #lord of the rings #lord of the rings x reader

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bookjonsa · 4 years

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Hi! :) In ASoS, Jon asks Ygritte about her lost of virginity. He thinks that she losted it with Longspear, and she responds something like "that's vile. Would you bed your sister?". Jon just avoids the question. I don't know, but I feel like this entire dialogue wasn't neccesary at all. Based in the Jon's reaction, could be this a hint about his true parentage? Could Jon, because of that, actually bed a "sister"? Maybe I´m just delusional haha but I would like to know another opinion about it.

Hi! :)

This is the passage you mention:

"There's been no one," he confessed. "Only you."

"A maid," she teased. "You were a maid."

He gave her closest nipple a playful pinch. "I was a man of the Night's Watch." Was, he heard himself say. What was he now? He did not want to look at that. "Were you a maid?"

Ygritte pushed herself onto an elbow. "I am nineteen, and a spearwife, and kissed by fire. How could I be maiden?"

"Who was he?"

"A boy at a feast, five years past. He'd come trading with his brothers, and he had hair like mine, kissed by fire, so I thought he would be lucky. But he was weak. When he came back t' try and steal me, Longspear broke his arm and ran him off, and he never tried again, not once."

"It wasn't Longspear, then?" Jon was relieved. He liked Longspear, with his homely face and friendly ways.

She punched him. "That's vile. Would you bed your sister?"

"Longspear's not your brother."

"He's of my village. You know nothing, Jon Snow. A true man steals a woman from afar, t' strengthen the clan. Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters."

"Craster weds his daughters," Jon pointed out.

She punched him again. "Craster's more your kind than ours. His father was a crow who stole a woman out of Whitetree village, but after he had her he flew back t' his Wall. She went t' Castle Black once t' show the crow his son, but the brothers blew their horns and run her off. Craster's blood is black, and he bears a heavy curse." She ran her fingers lightly across his stomach. "I feared you'd do the same once. Fly back to the Wall. You never knew what t' do after you stole me."

Jon sat up. "Ygritte, I never stole you."

"Aye, you did. You jumped down the mountain and killed Orell, and afore I could get my axe you had a knife at my throat. I thought you'd have me then, or kill me, or maybe both, but you never did. And when I told you the tale o' Bael the Bard and how he plucked the rose o' Winterfell, I thought you'd know to pluck me then for certain, but you didn't. You know nothing, Jon Snow." She gave him a shy smile. "You might be learning some, though."

—A Storm of Swords - Jon III

There is a lot to say about this passage. I think this conversation illustrates how different Jon and Ygritte were, how different their cultures and values were. And yes, I think here we can find hints about Jon’s true parentage.

Yes, Jon avoids the question, but Ygritte avoids the question first. And that was because Ygritte and Jon managed two different concepts of kin, in this case, brothers and sisters. That’s why Ygritte is constantly saying: “You know nothing, Jon Snow." But the line works both ways really.

Jon asked Ygritte who was her first sexual partner, and he was glad it wasn’t Longspear, that’s why Jon asked again: "It wasn't Longspear, then?" And Ygritte instead of saying “no”, said; "That's vile. Would you bed your sister?" And that’s why Jon said: "Longspear's not your brother.", avoiding to answer Ygritte’s question about bedding his sister.

For Ygritte, a boy from her village was her brother, her clan kin. That concept doesn’t work for Jon, who could have married (and bedded) a girl like Jeyne Poole for example, a girl that grew up in Winterfell with him, but she is not a Stark, so she is not his sister, despite being a girl from Winterfell. For Ygritte that would have been vile. And I bet that Ygritte would have even said that a marriage between two Stark cousins, like Rickard and Lyarra, would be vile.

The same thing happened when Ygritte started to talk about wildlings marriage rituals and consent. For Ygritte, Jon stole her the day they met, while Jon insisted that he never stole her.

Jon sat up. "Ygritte, I never stole you."

"Aye, you did. “You jumped down the mountain and killed Orell, and afore I could get my axe you had a knife at my throat. I thought you'd have me then, or kill me, or maybe both, but you never did.”

Something similar happened to Sansa the day of the Battle of the Blackwater. Cersei told Sansa about the blood lust that war provokes in men, and later that night she found a man that left the battle, went to her room, pushed her on bed put a dagger at her throat and demanded a song (a sexual innuendo used by the author) under threat of death. This was basically the same situation Ygritte described as Jon stealing her. But Jon would have seen that as a rape attempt, never as a marriage ritual. And Jon definitely didn’t steal Ygritte the day they met, he thought she was a man and he was about to kill her as he would have killed any man of the enemy lines during a fight or battle.

I don’t think this dialogue was unnecessary, the author has used it to tell us about the evident differences between Ygritte and Jon, and in a more subtle way, he has used this conversation to tell us about Jon’s true parentage as the son of a Targaryen prince and a Stark maid.

Hints about Jon’s Targaryen parentage:

“Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters."

This is true about Targaryen members. They married and bedded brothers and sisters, and that practice affected the Targaryen women health and fertility. In Fire and Blood, we can find a lot of Targaryen young girls that were weakened with every pregnancy and at the end they ended up dying in childbirth and/or giving birth sickly children or stillborn twisted and malformed babies.

This happened with Rhaella:

Following Rhaegar's birth, Rhaella and Aerys had multiple trouble where childbirth was concerned. In the seventeen years following Rhaegar's birth, Rhaella went through multiple pregnancies, stillbirths and miscarriages:

-miscarriage in 263 AC -miscarriage in 264 AC -Princess Shaena Targaryen, born in 267 AC, stillborn -Prince Daeron Targaryen, born in 269 AC, lived only half a year -stillbirth in 270 AC, gender and name of child unknown -miscarriage in 271 AC -Prince Aegon Targaryen, born in 272 AC, born two months premature, died in 273 AC -Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen, born in 274 AC, died later that same year -Prince Viserys Targaryen, born in 276 AC -Princess Daenerys Targaryen, born in 284 AC

[Source]

And Daenerys:

-Rhaego was stillborn and malformed

[Source]

Jon’s father, Rhaegar Targaryen, had not fertility problems tho, and Jon was healthy enough to survive.

Hints about Jon’s Stark parentage:

“And when I told you the tale o' Bael the Bard and how he plucked the rose o' Winterfell, I thought you'd know to pluck me then for certain, but you didn't. You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

But Ygritte was not a Rose of Winterfell. The Rose of Winterfell is a clear reference to Jon’s mother, Lyanna Stark:

“You said you were the Bastard o’ Winterfell.” “I am.” “Who was your mother?” “Some woman. Most of them are.” Someone had said that to him once. He did not remember who. She smiled again, a flash of white teeth. “And she never sung you the song o’ the winter rose?” “I never knew my mother. Or any such song.” “Bael the Bard made it,” said Ygritte. “He was King-beyond-the-Wall a long time back. (…) “Well, long before he was king over the free folk, Bael was a great raider.” (…) “The Stark in Winterfell wanted Bael’s head, but never could take him, and the taste o’ failure galled him. One day in his bitterness he called Bael a craven who preyed only on the weak. When word o’ that got back, Bael vowed to teach the lord a lesson. So he scaled the Wall, skipped down the kingsroad, and walked into Winterfell one winter’s night with harp in hand, naming himself Sygerrik of Skagos. Sygerrik means ‘deceiver’ in the Old Tongue, that the First Men spoke, and the giants still speak.” “North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark’s own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he’d made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. ‘All I ask is a flower,’ Bael answered, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell.’” “Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o’ the winter roses be plucked for the singer’s payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished … and so had Lord Brandon’s maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain.” Jon had never heard this tale before. (…) “Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flew forth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any sign o’ Bael or this maid. For most a year they searched, till the lord lost heart and took to his bed, and it seemed as though the line o’ Starks was at its end. But one night as he lay waiting to die, Lord Brandon heard a child’s cry. He followed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleep with a babe at her breast.” “Bael had brought her back?” “No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son, the song says … though if truth be told, all the maids love Bael in them songs he wrote. Be that as it may, what’s certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he’d plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. So there it is—you have Bael’s blood in you, same as me.”

—ACOK - Jon VI

The tale of Bael the Bard and the Rose of Winterfell resembles Jon’s own story: Bael the Bard, a king, and Rhaegar Targaryen, a prince, both harp players, “abducted” a Stark maid, Brandon’s daughter and Lyanna, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell’. Rhaegar also crowned Lyanna as the Queen of Love and Beauty with blue winter roses, and they procreated a “bastard” son, Jon Snow. Lyanna died after giving birth to Jon, and the memories of that tragic even haunted Ned, who remembers Lyanna’s bleeding in bed and the blue winter roses.

And here is the best part, because it turns out that Jon actually bedded a girl that was his kin:

“So there it is—you have Bael’s blood in you, same as me.”

Ygritte tried to allure Jon with the tale of Bael the Bard and the Rose of Winterfell, but according to this tale Bael and the Rose joined both people, Wildlings and Starks, as kin. And that’s why Ygritte said to Jon: “You have Bael’s blood in you, same as me.”

¡That’s vile! ¡You know nothing Ygritte!

So there you have it, Jon Snow bedded a redhead, blue eyed, half-fish girl that, in a broad sense, was also his sister.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you for your ask.

#jonsa #bael the bard and the rose of winterfell #rhaegar x lyanna #ygritte as sansa's foil #anon asks

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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Chess Theory 2.0

This theory comes from a discussion me and my fellow theorists had after this ask was posted:

I really love the idea of the black and white representing the battle between the CRM and the Commonwealth. We can’t know for sure if it does, but given everything leading up to this point in the story, it definitely could. My fellow theorists and I had extensive discussions about this, with @wdway especially contributing a lot of thoughts and research.

@wdway:

Starting with the ask, I love it so much and believe they could be quite right that the black could represent the CRM and the white the Commonwealth, and they could be at odds with one another and our group. TF will be caught in the middle.

Since I feel strongly that Beth could be tied to Eugene's group’s storyline, that would make her white. Rick we know is with the CRM, which makes him black. If both Beth and Rick are fighting independently within these two groups and that would make them neither black nor white but gray. This is the part that I've said for quite a while: that gray represents a middle ground, it's neither black nor white.

Beth and Rick in Coda. I chose this shot because they almost look like one unit. Both in gray from behind so that Beth's yellow shirt is not a distraction to the gray that ties these two characters together.

I also love the fact that the red machete could easily belong to either one in this shot. And with a thought that colors have different meanings for different scenes, I believe in this particular case, the gray represents that the scene is not as black-and-white, as clear cut as it seems, that there are things going on here that the viewers are not aware of. It has shades of grey for these two characters.

Also, it could tell us why Daryl wore one white leg tie and one black leg tie. They represent the two people that he loves and will lose, believing they are both dead. He will search for them both and not be able to find either one.

Twdmusicboxmystery: Breaking into @wdway’s thoughts here just to have a wowza moment. Can you see how they’ve set this up from the start? Can you see how it lines up? Okay, back to @wdway:

@wdway:

I simply could not go back to the hall scene in Coda without watching Daryl carry Beth out. This time I noticed something that I had never noticed before. @Frangipanilove, this one is especially up your alley. Look at the walkway right behind Daryl. On the left side, there is two parallel lines =. On the other right side is a directional symbol <. How have we not noticed this before?

I then wanted to look at the Commonwealth soldiers, so I went to the episode 16, when Eugene's group is surrounded and again I noticed something that I didn't before.

PM 110 and RX 04. I'll start with RX, we have always attached the "X" to Beth, it can also stand for the number 10, and it has multiple meanings. When paired with an R (which could possibly stand for Rick) RX is a medical or drug symbol used for a Latin word, "recipe" meaning "to take." Yes I Googled it. I'm not sure about the PM but 101 is the series number for s8e11, Dead or Alive Or.

@twdmusicboxmystery: Breaking in again to point out that Dead or Alive Or was one of the episode titles mentioned during the Cast Trivia Battle I posted about a few days ago. Just saying.

@wdway:

It's the episode that is so very full of Beth symbols that it's not even funny. There also Tara and Dwight's conflict and Daryl trying to take the children/people of AZ to Hilltop.

I do want to note in the photograph above if you look at the desk you see droplets of black paint against the white top. Like I said, every symbol that we can imagine for Beth is pretty much in that episode.

@frangipanilove:

Love this! It actually does get my mind spinning. I had to google the meaning of PM and the literal meaning is the Latin “post meridiem”, which of course translates to “after noon”. We have all these Dawn references and midnight references and clocks etc on TWD, so an “after noon” reference doesn’t seem entirely out of place. I’ve been obsessed with ep 8x11 for a multitude of reasons. A bunch of Sirius references, the green Jaguar car, the Sirius piggy bank, FGs blindness, animal traps.

Mostly I’m obsessed about it because the original Noah’s t-shirt theory pointed to 8x2, when we saw the blue heron painting, but I later realized that the “2” could also point to 8x11. The radio shack is a huge Sirius symbol in and of itself, and it even ties into ep 10x11 “morning star” (Venus/Sirius reference). I’ve never noticed the = symbol and the < symbol behind Daryl. It’s incredible that we can still discover new things in episodes we’ve watched a thousand and one times already.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

One thing I keep circling back to is the Governor because the white, king chess piece was so obviously a symbol for him. And I do think they used that specifically for his arc, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a foreshadow of another, bigger, future arc. And there was SO much Beth symbolism around him, especially in 4x06. And his chess piece was white, not black.

@wdway:

I've already gone back and started searching some things and have some ideas that will connect Beth with white and Rick with black symbolically that I'm excited about. I've already solved the problem of the white chess piece connected to the governor and I think you will love my findings.

I was thinking about the gray and Beth’s sweater and Rick's shirt in Coda, when suddenly I remembered that it was not Beth's first sweater. Her first sweater we saw in Still and it was white.

Now, this sweater has been talked about a lot through the years. White typically stands for purity, both in body and in mind and I think you can we can use both for Beth in this example.

When Beth stands next to the Rich Bitch walker, I think it's a matter of purity of the heart. The Rich Bitch, although outwardly she's in white. she was not a person with a pure heart. What color a person wears on the outside doesn't necessarily reflect in color of their soul. Not all white is good not all black is bad.

Shortly after Beth put on the white sweater, she is covered in blood and she removes it. You would still call it a white sweater, but it has stains that cannot be removed. Her soul will always be white, but she will have strains that cannot be removed. The next time we see her in a sweater it will be a light gray, more white than black. It represents coming to grips in the world that she is in now and will be in the future.

The challenge is, if Beth represents white, what does that mean about the Governor’s white chess piece? We know the Gov was not pure of heart, so how could he be white?

When the Governor originally found the chess board and was teaching Megan the game, he is black. It was Megan that draws that eye patch on the white king because outwardly he seemed to be pure of heart, but he was not. It was an illusion. He was a black king chess piece. So, what about the fact that Rick is black, does that make him a villain? Does he have an evil heart? I believe that Rick has always struggled with his dark demons. It's in the fact that he desires to be noble and good, even though he can do bad things, his desire is pure, to have a white heart.

The next couple of shots was just confirmation that Beth will appear as white and Rick as black. Her shoes from Slabtown.

One shoelace is white, the other is black. When I went back to look at the shoelaces, for the first time I realized that her shoes are gray. Love that.

This, I'm sure you will recognize as being from Coda, just before the exchange of prisoners.

I'm always harping about the fact that diamond shape represents Beth, a square represents Rick. You can turn the square on its side, and it becomes a diamond. If you go back and look at the chessboard, it's a huge indication that I'm correct. If you look at the board from one angle it is blocks of squares if you look at it slightly from the side, it's diamonds.

So here, Beth is in the hallway and she will end up standing in the middle of the white diamond on top of the black square. Beth and Rick could have similar but different stories. They’re both in rebel groups, fighting for the same type of cause but in different locations. I think if that's the case, especially with Beth, we could see her appearing to be on the inside, a villain type, but in reality, more of a double agent.

They showed us in Slabtown how she could manipulate and play the game that she had to in order to survive and get what she needed.

This picture is from Dead Weight, from the cabin that the Gov searched. There are a lot of Native American symbols in that cabin and this one stood to me. It is a dreamcatcher.

This next picture is of the room in WHWGO, I'll remind you that on the corner post of the bed is a small dreamcatcher.

I think this links the two episodes together. It's hard to imagine that they would put so much symbolism and foreshadowing all in one episode, so they spread it out over several episodes and seasons. In this bottom shot, we have a black helmet sitting on top of some type of communication equipment, a telescope for gazing at the stars, a poster about science fiction with a rocket on it, a small toy helicopter on the side table. And of course we have the Dreamcatcher which imo is pointing to the next stage of clues. The other things that tie this episode and the Gov's episodes together.

Hard to get any bigger tie than the Governor himself, surrounded with military and water symbols.

Maybe there is another symbol that could tie this to the past and future storylines.

A shot of the Gov and Beth together in this room. Even though he is not in this shot, Rick later, at the end of episode, comes into this room. Rick, Beth, and the Gov at some point are surrounded in this room with a helicopter, rockets, airplanes, and a ton of water symbols.

What did I hear you ask? But there are no chess objects? That might be true in a material way, but I believe the conversation between Ty and the Gov was definitely a chess play, a game of strategy, moving back and forth, a power-play of sorts.

So that's all I have for you right now.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

Love all this! When I was putting together my Divine Comedy Theory, I was thinking about AOW (because that’s when we saw the “Abandon all hope…” sign) and that maybe AOW was a type of the CW vs CRM war. Most of the major conflicts probably have been. The fall of the prison. AOW. Certainly TF vs the Whisperers. Maybe even Terminus. This idea is just making me re-think everything. I’m sure if we went back and rewatched, we’d see more clues than ever.

@wdway:

There was one thing that I meant to mention from Live Bait. In the nursing home, we see the woman in the yellow wheelchair. She is wearing a white gown with black trim. She had marks on her feet to make her a Christ symbol figure and we've always connected her with Beth because of the yellow chair.

Now I'm thinking she could represent white/Commonwealth and black/CRM. Because now we not only have Beth as a Christ figure symbol, but we have Rick also. Something that we did not have before the last couple of seasons. It seems easier to connect Beth to the color white. We have been doing that for years and thinking she could be at the Commonwealth and could be a part of Eugene's storyline fits with what could be coming.

Rick is harder when looking to past seasons and connecting him to the color black, but we know for certain that he was taken by the helicopter people and been told by tptb that he is with the CRM. From all that we've seen, their military color is black.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

Just want to point out that in 8x12, The Key, there’s definitely a black theme going on. Rick crashes a black car,

everything in the basement he and Negan go into is black, Negan is wearing a black coat,

(I don’t think Rick’s shirt is black, but it’s dark enough to look black here:)

and even the sign, “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here” is written in black.

We’ve always knew this was foreshadow of Rick’s disappearance in the helicopter group and it does suggest a black theme.

The other thing I noticed is that in the pic of Beth’s shoelaces, it’s specifically the WHITE lace/shoe was spattered with blood, just like her white sweater in Still.

So, those two symbols are probably synonymous. I don’t have much to add for how to interpret that beyond what we’ve already said, but it’s interesting. But I guess this is the other thing I was thinking about the Gov’s S4 episodes. And there’s no way to know this for sure. But because we saw Native American stuff in the cabin he stayed in, and also around the Wolves, and both of those are heavily paralleled to Beth, I guess I’m wondering if the Native American stuff will somehow be fulfilled in this CW/CRM war stuff.

@wdway:

I love that you mentioned the blood spatter on Beth's white sweater and the shoe with the white laces. I made note of it and meant to mention it and forgot. Another thing that came to my mind in looking at the Native American stuff in the cabin is it reminded me of Ezekiel in past seasons wearing feathers in his hair. He is now with Eugene and company being held by the Commonwealth and needing medical attention.

I know it may just be wishful thinking but when we first saw the Kingdom it screamed Beth. At Grady, we saw Beth in a medical setting, learning from Dr. Edwards being his assistant which in the dead world is the new form of medical school. Fast forward, if she is with the Commonwealth it would be more than likely in some kind of medical position with the possibility of Beth and Ezekiel meeting. And gives a purpose to the painting of Beth at Hilltop to be recognized by Ezekiel. There's the question of did Eugene see Beth at Grady or was he still unconscious, if so then there again the painting.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

I love the Zeke/feather tie. Side note: I have ALL kinds of head canons of Beth and Ezekiel meeting and swapping stories about Daryl and Carol.

@wdway:

Yes! Can't help but think that Ezekiel, Carol's husband and the love of her life and Daryl's love Beth could possibly meet in the Commonwealth. That this could lead to them all coming together and then torn apart. My headcanon is that something will happen, probably to do with his cancer and Ezekiel will be sent out west and Beth will go with him. I can imagine their first meeting, Elijah keeps looking at Beth asking, do I know you, you look so familiar. And they start talking about the fact that Beth is from Georgia and it all comes together. Please don't let the writers pass up this great opportunity, especially when it seems that they've been setting this up the whole time.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

Yeah for sure! Love that! I’ve always thought about maybe him mentioning that his wife is named Carol. And maybe she doesn’t even think it’s the one she knows bc more than one person can be named Carol, right? But through conversation or more details, just as your head canon above, they realize this is the Carol she knows. Scenes like these would be so much fun!

@frangipanilove:

You guys discussed the blood on Beth’s white cardigan and on the shoe with white laces. It’s actually something I’ve thought about before, though I still don’t know what the most precise interpretation of it should be. But I’ve mentioned that I believe shoe/leg/foot references allude to the trunk of a car (because boot is Australian and British for trunk). Also, I believe that TPTB sometimes use the human trunk to allude to the trunk of a car (the upper body walkers coming out of the back of a car in WHAWGO, the library guy hanging from a bridge that had an x painted on his upper body, Beth’s blue hospital scrubs, Noah’s t-shirt and loads more).

Well, we see Beth get blood spatter on her upper body in Still, and we see the shoe with the white laces get a similar type of blood spatter in Slabtown. These could be trunk references.

How should we interpret it then? I don’t have anything groundbreaking on that. Just that it appears to be further evidence of an injured Beth somehow ending up in the trunk/back of a car. So basically, not anything I didn’t already believe in, but it certainly fits the symbolism language.

That’s pretty much what I have to add to the chess theory for now. As you can see, our conversations can meander and include things like headcanons. (I’d love to tell you we’re all symbolism business all the time, but that’s just not true. ;D). Anyway, hope this gets you all excited for what’s to come. It’s only a theory for now, but as you can see, there’s some pretty compelling evidence. I’ve said for a long time that the show is pointing toward some HUGE conflict in the future, and since Rick disappeared, I’ve known it would be the helicopter people. But until Nonny sent in that ask, I’d never considered that maybe the black and white theme might be pointing to it, too. Awesome!

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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johnny-boy-17 · 5 years

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How Starco f***ed with my life in a good way

Welp, here we go again w/ another post on 7 reasons why an otp of mine is some gud s***. This is gonna be a bit different from the last one I did tho (it was about HiroTwo from DITF, here’s a link to dat) considering that one was an anime & the other is a D1dN3Y sH0w. Then again, both shows were pretty good w/ endings that pissed people off to the sun & cosmos so I guess it all evens out. But that’s enough stalling, let’s dive in (if you want of course)!

1: No Bullshit Zone!

What I thank these two drawings and the creators for everyday I spend alive is that it doesn't have the whole “they don’t like eachother but they will someday Hyuk Hyuk!” bullshit you see in anime. This is a tsundere free zone! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU GOD ALL MIGHTY ABOVE!!

I mean it kinda throws you for a loop at first in the pilot with Star sorta f***ing up Marco’s precious little life...

...but then she goes to find him and apologize, some other stuff happened, and all is forgiven and the two only become closer after that. In fact, they become best friends from that point on.

Maybe it’s just my anime background, but I think it would have been SO FUCKING EASY to do the stupid tsundere bullshit you see all the time. But no: they legit are good friends in the entire run of the series. This brings me to the second point.

2: Multiversal tool

Star and Marco are the kinda duo that could have never become a thing, and I would have actually been kinda ok with it. Their bond as “besties” so strong that it didn’t matter much to me whether or not they become a thing (though I would very much like it), I just liked their interactions either way.

I dunno, something about them gives me Arin and Danny vibes (game grumps), in that they treasure each others friendship so friggin’ much and are so comfortably open about it. Star/Arin constantly exclaiming how much Marco/Danny is their best friend, and Marco/Danny reciprocating (plus the fun times they have together in different scenarios), their just so comfy being friends.

3: Aesthetic dorks

These two just have look down to a T, and are total doofs, lookit.

I’m convinced that the photo-booth on it’s own has more than enough good shit to go ‘round.

4: Patience rewarded

And I’m not just talking about the actual ‘sailing’ of the shitp, I mean like any amount of time. One thing all of us can agree on is that the “will-thy-won’t-they” teasing kinda gets old after a bit, but they sure-as-s*** know how to friggin’ deliver.

Lemme set this scene: a big battle has been won, star’s made a confession a few weeks back, and Marco’s about to leave to go home. d0 d3y K1$$?!? Nope, but do they give a big ol’ wholesome going away moment, like their actually leaving each other forever.

5: Slow and Steady

That fable about the tortoise and the hare is classic for a reason, and it’s cuz it’s right: slow and steady wins. Starco did take their sweet-time trying to get it working, and it paid off. As much as we all harp on how long it took, you can’t say they didn’t take their time to make sure it went off without a hitch... whether or not you see that those efforts worked is subjective I suppose.

6: Moral Support-hotline

Moral support be super important in any relationship (real, fake, whatevs), and these two got that down in spades. Perfect examples being the above, when Star’s going through some abandonment issues when Marco is planing to leave for home. He comes in, tells her it’s gonna be ok, and that their still gonna be besties.

The other being (that in the beginning) Marco always kinda struggled w/ self-love and confidence and all that, then Star took off his fake glasses and used them to help calm his worries (NOTE: I think there’s alot more to those glasses now that I’m typing that out).

7: Endgame

Ok, before you start... OK. BEFORE. YOU. START.

Look, I’m not gonna deny that the show’s ending as a whole has a lot to be desired, because it does leave a lot to be desired. But let’s look at it from the standpoint of the whole point of this post has been about: the relationship between the two leads. This whole show has had the whole ‘cleaved’ theme going on, and this is them following through on that theme. It’s sorta like the old disney movie endings: it relies more on the emotions rather than the logic. Take any of the stories where the prince wakes up the princess w/ a kiss and they live happily ever after. Did you even for one split second think about the lack of consent? Maybe you do now, but did you as a kid? Nah, you were just happy for a happy ending.

Likewise, I didn’t really think about the logistics for the two world merging and what the consequences meant (AT FIRST), I was just happy these two get a happy ending, and I still am.

And hey, lookie there: Lucky seven reasons these two is guuuuuud s***. I realize I may be a bit late with this post, but better late than never, right? Besides, these two took their f***in’ time, why shouldn’t I?

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#star vs the forces of evil #starco #star butterfly #marco diaz #svtfoe

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knightofbalance-13 · 6 years

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Your headcanon/delusion is not the intended character

http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/176603257231/taiyang-does-not-fill-his-intended-character

Yeah Dudeblade, pretty sure this means ‘Taiyang doesn’t act like my headcanon ergo that’s wrong.’

Yang only laughed at Taiyang’s arm joke so that he wouldn’t look like a fucking asshole because she’s nice and forgiving like that, it had NOTHING to do with him being right or not. It had NOTHING to do with the notion that that was how they functioned. It had NOTHING to do with whether or not it was funny.

Proof.

And Proof.

Because I can bring up how Yang treated Ruby in Volume 1 with her abandoning Ruby right at Beacon in order to force her to socialize, RUby talking to Jaune in Volume 1 and telling him that he can’t be a failure or a mistake because he’s a leader now and Qrow...anytime he opens his mouth, like his entire appearance in Volume 3. And that shows that 3 out of 4 family members deal with stuff like this the EXACT same way so why would it be ANY different with Taiyang?

Taiyang wasn’t right. He lost empathetic skills when Summer died.

It wasn’t how their relationship functioned. Yang didn’t fire back with something equally as scathing, and she had to take a moment to process what he said.

It wasn’t funny. Who the fuck asked for that? Who in the audience asked for that joke?

A. Dudeblade, that would require you to understand the concept of empathy. And considering I have proof of you saying that troll blogs deserve to be raped for trolling about FICTIONAL CHARACTERS (https://web.archive.org/save/http://araniladin.tumblr.com/post/176539964626/i-really-hope-the-incel-who-keeps-making-blogs): You clearly DON’T understand the concept. Even IF you did, Taiyang showed empathy both BEFORE and AFTER the joke (Episode 3 in giving Yang space as well as the new arm and Episode 4 where he told her that her experience doesn’t need to define her.)

B. No...Instead, she fired back later with a WORSE insult with INTENT to hurt. (https://youtu.be/GaB62PeuFwM?t=7m21s) Oh but that’s okay because...bias.

C. The fandom disagrees since THEY were making WORSE jokes about her arm ever SINCE she lost it.

Taiyang was an asshole. Not only that, but he wasn’t being a father. He was being an armchair critic. All he did was say stuff like “Your semblance won’t win you every fight.”- Yeah. We know that. You want to know something that the audience knows that Tai doesn’t?- Yang only deliberately took hits to fuel her semblance one time up to that point. That was the team vs. Paladin fight. So I guess Tai saw a few of Yang’s fights, and then decided that it wasn’t his fault that she was so ‘over-reliant’ on her semblance, despite the fact that he was her teacher. Oh no. That would make him the one at fault.

No Dudeblade-

YOU’RE the armchair critic.

See, thing is: Taiyang is a FULL FLEDGED HUNTSMEN. Meaning he’s been in more fights than Yang could imagine. Meaning he would know a thing or two about fighting, definitely more than her and surely more than you. But instead no, you say that the Huntsmen of at least 18 years doesn’t know how to fight nor that Yang, someone with a NOTED reckless streak, wouldn’t just ignore her training in a brash rage.

Every time I look back to that shitty arc, I find more and more things about Tai that irritate me.

Yeah and how many of those actually happened and how many are you being delusional?

And every time I do, I start to think to myself “Maybe Tai drove Raven away because he was so insufferable, and hardly took responsibility for himself.”

This sounds like a ‘He made me abuse him!’ excuse. We KNOW Raven didn’t leave because of that. But you’re portraying it that anyway both out of sexism and an insane desire to shove Summer Rose’s character into Raven’s body.

Considering that this is Mr. Leave my kids alone because I need to work, it’s starting to feel like a distinct possibility.

So providing for your family? Not okay.

But emotionally manipulating your daughter and threatening her life while gaslighting her about her actual family? Perfectly acceptable.

See what I mean here?

Best case scenario though: He’s just out of touch with everything… Because my insult to him is correct. Maybe he did lose some ability to empathize with others when Summer died.

A. Your tone is contradictory, going from definitive to ambiguous.

B. Your only example does more to make Yang look sociopathic than Taiyang.

And C. You don’t UNDERSTAND the concept of empathy.

Worst case scenario: He’s like Raven, and he hates having to accept responsibility for himself. Considering that despite him saying that he wants to go out and look for Ruby, he opts to stay behind to tend to his garden, this is a possibility.

Or what probably happened: Taiyang is depressed and having him around would do more harm than good and the cast is too fucking big as is you idiot.

Goddammit, I had high hopes for Tai. I was hoping that he’d be more of a father and less of a critic. I was hoping that he’d be more of a father and less of an unsympathetic teacher.

Thing is Dudeblade-

He’s precisely that. Taiyang IS a father. You use TWO instances to paint him like this instead of EVERY instance of his appearance.

Why? Because you project yourself onto Yang. You’ve admitted as much in the past. And likewise, you project your mother onto Taiyang and thus what you see is just an easy target to vent out your frustrations out onto.

Point is: You’re being delusional.

It was obvious that his intended character was to be a caring father, but freaking Ghira fills that role better than him. And Ghira’s doing double duty since he also has to be the encouraging mentor figure to Blake.

So is Taiyang.

And to Ruby as well.

And without someone to help him.

So he’s pulling...octuple duty?

Considering that Raven abandoned Yang, it’s starting to get harder to determine who is more at fault for Yang’s issues. Raven or Tai.

Raven, 100%. Taiyang has done some damage yes but Raven has done so much horrible shit to her own kid that her being Adam’s mom actually makes a fuckton of sense.

Like… the reason why I rag more on Tai than I do Jacques is because Tai was made out to be a nice dad figure. While Jacques was made out to be an asshole from the start. Jacques fills the role of being an abusive dad. Tai does not fill the role of caring father that well. It’s fun to hate Jacques. It’s not fun to hate Tai. But there’s so little to like about him, and so much to be critical towards him for.

No, you do it because you have some sort of reverse Oedipus complex. Also bias for Raven.

Because that is where this falls apart. You CONSTANTLY try to portray Raven as what TAIYANG is and act like this is at all feasible in canon.

The worst part is that the narrative seems to believe Tai to be in the right. Similar to how it wanted jaune to be portrayed as being in the right for starting the fight in volume 5- That stuff’s for another post, many apologies.

... Jaune was in the wrong you idiot.

Hopefully, Volume 6 can fix him. Because so far, he fails to fill the caring father role that he should have. He fills the armchair critic role well though. So if you want to say that’s his character instead, you’re welcome to it.

Because then I’d stop being so critical of him. Because at least then, he’d fill the role of his character.

But his intended role wasn’t to be an armchair critic. It was to be a caring father. Which he utterly failed at doing.

Bull fucking shit.

You said you would stop bitching at RT about representation when they delievered and yet you still harp on about it.

He DOES fit that role, you just deny anything to support that role.

And when someone actually DOES act like an armchair critic when Raven has the galls to bash Yang for being scared, you completely ignore it.

This is like saying, “i’ll leave you alone if you jump through X hoops” and X is just the number of hoops you already jumped through +1.

Everyone knows you won’t stop.

Only thing to do is to mock you for it.

#dudeblade

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bisexualtimothylawrence · 6 years

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Ok, so. I said in the tags of my last reblog that I had an example of how toxic and pervasive diet culture and fatphobia is in the US. Here goes.

This is LONG so. Under the cut. Mind the trigger warnings for discussions of weight, calorie counting, caloric restriction, fat shaming, food shaming, abusive behaviours, misogyny, and the military. If I missed anything, I apologise, and please let me know so I can tag it.

A note in case this is distributed beyond my followers: I’m a transgender male. The experiences I talk about below are about military training for women, as trans people could not (and cannot) serve as their true gender in the US. Do not refer to me using she/her pronouns or terms such as “woman”, “female”, or “girl”. The use of the words “women” and “men” below should be understood to refer to assigned gender at birth, and not the actual genders of anyone involved.

I used to be enlisted in the Marines. You know, the branch of the US military that prides itself on being the toughest, most combat ready branch - every Marine a rifleman and all that jazz. (Spare me your opinions on the military; that’s not the point of this post.)

Now, one of the things they really go hard on is that every Marine receives the same basic training, and I can say from personal experience it is difficult, physically demanding training. You are up at 0500 and not going to bed until 2200. Most days on Parris Island start with PT - usually some mixture of running and body weight exercises - continue on to walking fucking everywhere, have several nice sessions of practising synchronised walking, and include martial arts training. In addition, you will more likely than not receive incentive training - a polite way of saying you’ll be doing pushups or side-straddle hops until your drill instructor is tired. And you’ll be expected to work on physical fitness during your free time - oh, they don’t flat out tell you what to do, as it is free time… but it’s highly encouraged. Highly. Encouraged.

So. You would think. That because of how demanding all this is. That men and women would eat the same.

Wrong.

I know this because I was part of the 4th Recruit Training Battalion - the only training battalion for women Marines. Which meant I got to see the difference in chow, as during rifle training, women recruits eat from one of the male battalions’ dining halls - it’s by the rifle range. I think it was 2nd Bn’s, but it’s been a decade and I don’t recall exactly, nor do I want to look it up as this post is emotionally taxing to make as it is.

The 4th Bn chow hall had caloric contents posted for everything. The 2nd Bn chow hall only had it for the diet food.

The 4th Bn chow hall, you were served one slice of toast or half a bagel. 2nd Bn served two slices of toast or the whole bagel.

4th Bn you could have margarine OR peanut butter. 2nd Bn could have both butter and peanut butter.

The box lunches provided from the 4th Bn hall had: one meat and cheese sandwich, one apple, one orange, one hard-boiled egg, one granola bar, catsup, mustard, and miracle whip.

The box lunches provided from the 2nd Bn had: one meat and cheese sandwich, an apple OR an orange, two hard-boiled eggs, one granola bar, a bag of chips, and some form of dessert. Plus the condiments.

(Vegetarian lunches got a peanut butter sandwich, but I don’t recall what replaced the egg. I digress.)

We were made to hand the chips and dessert over to the drill instructors, and some of them would take the granola bar too - dunno why, because it was also part of the women’s box lunch. I guess because we were getting an extra egg - I’m getting to why that’s my guess in a moment.

Official policy, of course, is that we were allowed to eat anything provided. As the drill instructors angrily pointed out one day in the 2nd Bn chow hall. I don’t know who had the balls to complain about the fact we were yelled at when we ate the entire bagel served to us, or that we were supposed to ask for the diet option… but the next few meals were supervised by the officers.

See, the big thing the drill instructors harped on was that we weren’t here to be fat. Women Marines are not fat, never fat, fat is disgusting, eating chips is disgusting, cookies are disgusting… you get the idea. (Thus why we had to turn in the granola bar from the male box lunch - it was basically a cookie, and we had an extra egg so we didn’t really need the granola bar, now did we? Fuck the vegetarians I guess, as they had to hand over theirs as well because otherwise they’d be getting ‘special treatment’.)

So, whilst they’d figured out that male recruits needed a fuckload of calories to complete training… they hadn’t figured that out for the women.

It seemed like once you were labelled a “diet recruit”, that label stayed with you no matter what. But “double ration” recruits? Unless you came in with MEPS saying you needed extra food - rare, as this generally required a weight waiver - you could be pulled off double rats as soon as you hit minimum weight. Only to be put back on at next week’s weigh-in when you dropped below minimum. And you lost double rats if you were moved to a different platoon, until weigh-ins there.

Maybe those things happened to the men, too. I don’t know. But male recruits still got more food overall.

Because we also weren’t allowed double rats at the rifle range because “the men’s chow has more calories.”

My weight was in a constant state of fluctuation because I couldn’t eat enough to maintain minimum weight for someone two inches shorter than me on regular rations. So I’d drop below minimum by a Lot. Get put on double rats. Gain weight. Hit minimum just in time for weekly weigh-in. And since Women Marines aren’t fat, I’d get dropped back to regular rations. You would think at some point someone would have noticed the pattern, but no.

Remember how I said caloric contents were posted? I decided to calculate how much I was eating. I figured out that on regular rations I was hitting 2800-3000 calories a day, on days I got everything I was allowed to… which was most days. Unless they were serving turkey curry. (Gd that stuff was a unique brand of awful.) Which means on doubles? I was eating 6000 calories. At the rifle range, I was lucky if I hit 2200 calories, as we had to - ahem - sorry, I meant were strongly encouraged to eat like male diet recruits.

Diet recruits were at ~1800 a day, iirc. I honestly don’t know how they survived; I remember one woman who was obviously becoming thinner, but the scale showed no difference. A sensible person would have realised she was (somehow) gaining muscle.

She got extra incentive training and closer supervision at meals because clearly she was sneaking food because she couldn’t stop being a fatty.

Oh, and the above caloric intake doesn’t accurately represent the average recruit’s intake. Nominally you have 20 minutes to eat, from the time you sit down. In reality, the drill instructors count starting when the first recruit in the platoon sits down - if you’re lucky. If you aren’t, time starts when the first recruit enters the chow hall. Either way, unless you’re one of the first people in, you’re fucked. And generally they had the diet recruits go first so they could be more supervised… and double rats went last.

(See, I got very good at eating quickly. Too good, actually. Apologies to anyone who was ever in a platoon with me, because I was typically near the end of the line no matter what, and I was typically one of the first recruits up and out the door. Mainly because once ONE person finished, they started yelling about the rest of us being slow and taking our good ol’ time. It was less stressful for me to finish up - clean tray always because they also yelled about wasted food - and head outside to recite knowledge. Unfortunately, it meant everyone else got yelled at because, “[Blue] is done and [he] sat down after all of you!” ::wince:: )

A common impression was that most women just couldn’t hack it because they were too weak… stress fractures were a common reason women got dropped back in training. The other most common reason was not meeting PT standards. Most women I met in the separation platoon were either too sick or injured to complete training… or suicidal.

I personally wonder how much of those problems would have been fixed with adequate nutrition. How many women suffered injuries they shouldn’t have because they were malnourished? How many women crumbled under stress because they were malnourished? Lack of nutrition weakens the body and causes and exacerbates symptoms of mental illness.

This post is hard to write because - again, spare me the opinions on the US military complex, I know it’s bad - I spent so much of my life wanting to be a Marine. I wanted to die for the longest time after being discharged. I spent six fucking months on Parris Island. And how many of the problems I had could have been solved by just being allowed to fucking eat?! How. Fucking. Many.

The hardest weeks were the ones where I was frantically stuffing as much food as I was allowed in my mouth, knowing it wasn’t enough, and knowing I’d be in trouble if I tried to get more. The rifle range was where I fractured my sacrum and had my first mental breakdown - ‘coincidentally’, that was when we were all forced to eat like diet recruits.

It. Really makes me wonder. Really fucking makes me wonder. If we, as a nation, could get past the fucking preoccupation with “fat=bad”, how much better off everyone would be. Because I could have completed recruit training if I’d just been allowed to eat. And I don’t know if my life would be better…

but I do know that it is really fucked up that even the United States fucking Marine Corps is so fucking worried about women getting fat that they’d sooner starve recruits than risk a woman being more than exactly the minimum weight for her height. That what is supposed to be one of the best fighting forces in the world cares more about what women look like than anything else.

So, yeah. Fuck anyone who says it’s about health and physical fitness. Because even in the military it’s all about the idea of fat bodies being aesthetically displeasing, regardless of what they can do or how healthy they actually are, to the point of literally starving people just to make sure they don’t get fat.

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