#or think that Gilbert was a helpless victim in all of this

[vogelschadel]

abatina!!

abatina :   is there anything in life your muse has changed their mind about over time   ( due to becoming more educated on the topic ,   certain experiences  ,   etc .) , or that they   would   change their mind about under certain circumstances ?

Ohohoho! This is a great question! And extremely applicable to Gil. One of his strengths is his innovativeness, he accepts and creates new ideas often, but its flipside is a major flaw: He's surprisingly gullible and falls victim to changing his strong and deep-hearted opinions quite quickly in the end. As long as someone he respects voices a differing stance or the differing stance sounds cool enough for him.

Obviously, there are exceptions. Sometimes it takes hundreds of years for him to de-escalate the brainwashing put into him since childhood, but it still happens. Gilbert practiced what he preached and believed that Christianity was the only way for humanity, almost until he became protestant in the 1500s and questioned everything he had done until then.

A major identity crisis, guilt, shame, helplessness, all of it eventually eased him into believing that "All religions must be tolerated ... every man must go to heaven in his own way," as quoted by his king Frederick the Great.

This is the most prominent example, me thinks! Thank you for the prompt!

#islandiis #I think about this quite often! #Thank you! #About Gil.

[daretogobeyondtheunknown]

Under These Fluorescent Lights 3/4

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.”

                                                                                              Elizabeth Gilbert

“I want to talk to Alex.”

It was the tone, detached and formal that caught Winn off guard.

“Kara, I don’t think-“

Before Lucy was ever Kara’s agent, Lucy had been her friend. Would always be her friend. She was the one Winn knew Kara called in excitement or when her shoulders felt heavy with unending expectations. Lucy was reason and stability.

“I am not signing anything until I talk to my wife.”

But under the florescent lighting, Lucy negotiating nondisclosure agreements and divorce clauses, Kara looked more like a stranger than a friend and Winn wondered if Lucy saw it too.

“Kara, please, would you just-“

If Winn thought Kara had closed off under the scrutiny of James and his questioning around Alex, he was wrong. Because this Kara looked like a stone wall with no notable features and no clear entrance to what lie beneath.

x

“Sign it.”

It had been a rough day on set. The site was understaffed – some bug going around – and the guy covering on sound just couldn’t seem to get anything right. Winn could have sworn he heard ‘cut’ and ‘get that boom mic out of the shot’ more today than over the entire duration of his seven-year career.

“No.”

Winn skidded to a stop.

“Look, if you want what is best for Kara yo-“

Around the corner, Winn heard Lucy and the singular response of Alexandra Danvers.

“Might I suggest that you choose your next words carefully, Ms. Lane. Threats are not something I take lightly.”

It was the most Winn had ever heard J’onn speak.

Around the hushed whispers and pointed stares, Winn had imagined little from the looming man. But this was strong, authoritative, and if Winn was quite honest, terrifying. It reminded him of when he was nine and the corner shop owner had caught him attempting to sneak off with a handful of unpaid for gummies.

“I could say the same for you, Mr. J’onzz. I imagine you understand the severity of the situation should this information find its way into the hands of the press. For yourself and for my client.”

Winn had always disliked Lucy in work mode. It was like she could become this other person who didn’t awe over cute dog videos or sing ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King’ while cooking eggs. It felt a little like whiplash and a lot like the crushing reality of the life he had chosen to live.

“I am not the one demanding anyone sign legal documents, Ms. Lane. And should this information find its way into the hands of the press or the public, The Aurora Organization is prepared.”

It sounded a lot more like strategizing for war than damage control and not for the first time Winn wondered just who these stoic forms were.

x

At face value, Eliza Danvers was a highly successful researcher. She had achieved great accolades in her chosen profession and had become an inspiration to many either entering into the field or currently a handful of years in.

Her personal life had been marked by tragedy when her husband of eighteen years had passed in a work related accident, leaving Eliza behind to care for their two teenage children. But through it all she had persevered and had continued to live an abundant life.

“You aren’t twelve anymore, Alexandra. It is time you stop playing house and make believe. Kara did and look how wonderful she is doing now.”

Under the glow of the fluorescent lighting, hidden and tucked away from plain sight, Winn felt the tendrils of familiarity slipping away. The posture was foreign, the edge to her voice unthinkable, cutting like a knife Winn had never knew existed.

Winn might not have denied it before, but there was no denying now how very much Kara was struggling and pretending. Externally, Kara had soared. But internally, Winn realised she might just have been crumbling all along and Winn wondered if Eliza had ever seen it. Or maybe she had never wanted to.

“I let you get away with those perverse ideas as a child. I should have listened to your father. But I didn’t and look at what happened?”

Nothing about this Eliza Danvers was the woman Kara had ever described nor was she the woman that had settled beside him, sharing for hours’ tales of a much younger Kara and an apparently much more talkative Alex.

“Your father would be so disappointed in you.”

For the first time, Winn wished the ominously looming form of J’onn was present. It might not have spared the words, but it might have raised the slump in Alexandra Danvers’ shoulders or have given her fuel to fight back. This Alex needed fuel - needed something - under what Winn knew to be one of the deepest cuts: the rejection from a loved one.

x

“So this is where you stay.”

Winn had always wondered how over the past few weeks Alex had never appeared to leave but had always remained well kept.

Here, tucked away in what he presumed was one of the doctor’s offices, Winn finally had his answer.

The space seemed complete with a functional mattress and what Winn presumed to be a private bathroom. He had never meant to stumble across Alex, but he had always wondered and when he had seen Alex disappearing into an unfamiliar area of the hospital, he had grown curious.

“It’s nice.”

But it felt invasive – Alex toweling her hair dry and seemingly startled by the sudden intrusion.

“Sorry, I’ll just-“

Exiting into the hall, Winn refused to turn back, purposely returning to the room which he knew housed Kara.

x

“-a game?”

“No.”

“Then why…”

It felt like an invasion he had never intended to lead.

The door had been left propped open ever so slightly and Winn had just heard the most ridiculous of things on set. All he had wanted to do was tell Kara in person, to share some snippet of the world she had been ripped so suddenly from.

“I’m sorry.”

Alex was never supposed to be there. She was never meant to sound all broken hearted and every bit lost.

“I want to believe you, Alex, so much. But you left and I just… I don’t know what to believe any more.”

Nor was Kara – bright bubbly Kara.

Hovering just outside the room, Winn prayed. He prayed for a way to mend broken hearts because Winn wasn’t sure there was enough time to heal them before they bled out.

x

“Why?”

The sun was setting on a comparatively uneventful day.

If Winn was to be honest, he was shocked that nothing had leaked to the press. From the marriage to the breakup to the apparent negatively of Eliza, it gave opportunity after opportunity for something to slip, to get into the hands of people who wouldn’t see the current events as private but as money, livelihood.

Winn watched as Kara looked up from the book she was reading in bewilderment. Over the course of the past hour, neither had spoken a word. There had been no topic of discussion and no unanswered questions from the previous day.

“Why what, Winn?”

Off the top of his head, Winn could list two dozen questions all of which he did not know why and had at some point plagued his thoughts. But all paled in comparison to the elephant that had lingered in the room ever since Kara had first spoken of ghosts and memories and Winn had thought her heart would never mend.

“Why Alex? When it could literally crumble everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve… I mean she abandoned you for how many years, Kara!”

Alex seemed okay – or at least like she cared in some strange way Winn wasn’t sure most people could recognize. But what Alex represented was heartache and trouble and an unsure risk of future flight. And that was the last thing Winn ever wanted for Kara to experience. Again.

“You probably think I’m stupid. Heh, sometimes I think I’m stupid.”

It was self depreciating and not the way Winn had ever wanted this conversation to go. But as Kara struggled over her words and Winn clamped down on his, he wondered if perhaps there hadn’t been any other way this conversation could possibly go.

At least Kara was talking to him.

“Alex left. She walked out of our marriage before it truly had a chance to even start and to most people… that would be enough.”

If it wasn’t for the weakened state of her body, Winn imagined Kara would have drawn in, arms wrapping around knees as they nestled against her chest.

“I told Lucy when things really started to pick up and she said she could dissolve it. I mean, Alex had been gone so long, I thought maybe she-“

Died.

Suddenly, Winn realised that the people Kara had loved most in life had never left of their own volition. Whether it was her parents, her aunt, or her adoptive father, each had left but never intentionally. All Kara had likely expected to return that night through the front door with worn or beaming smiles.

So when Alex had left and she had not returned that night or for the many after, Kara must have felt the same helplessness, the same pain, all over again.

Winn hated Alexandra Danvers all the more.

“But I knew… There are probably a dozen reasons why it shouldn’t be Alex. But they never outweighed why I should. Alex always brought out of me the best. She was this mirror to a part of me I didn’t realise was broken. She made me feel loved when everyone else made me feel tolerated.”

“But Kara-“

Winn had read how victims of abuse or those who clung too much to something that gave too little – stole from them and hurt them – often defended the situation or the individual who had caused them great hurt.

“Sometimes being with Alex felt like dependency; like I needed her to breathe, I needed her to see, to walk, to live life and to be happy. But when Lucy proposed the dissolvement, when my career started to blossom, when James asked me on a date, I realised it was never dependency.”

In the dying rays of the sun, Winn watched as Kara smiled, reminiscent of a realisation that had allowed her more than just acceptance. It had allowed her peace and belief and the ability to move forward in a way nothing else could.

“Until she disappeared, Alex inspired me to overcome my fears everyday by standing to her own day in, day out. She gave her all even when I felt I had nothing to give.”

Under the pale florescent lights, Winn realised it would always be Alex no matter how far or how long they might be apart. Because Kara believed Alex made her better; like a mirror to her darkest corners, illuminating. Because until Alex had broken herself, she had always remained, navigating the dark hand in hand as best she could.

But Alex wasn’t that anymore and Winn wondered if Kara would ever accept that. 

#kalex #alex x kara #kara x alex #fic: Under These Fluorescent Lights #celebrity au #alternate universe - no powers #musings #writings

[fashiontrendin-blog]

If Hollywood Insists on Deeming Women Good or Bad, I’d Rather Be Bad

http://fashion-trendin.com/if-hollywood-insists-on-deeming-women-good-or-bad-id-rather-be-bad/

If Hollywood Insists on Deeming Women Good or Bad, I’d Rather Be Bad

I’ve always had a thing for Blair Waldorf. The sometimes antagonist of the CW’s teen soap Gossip Girl always seemed like exactly the kind of girl I would want to be if I had access to her wealth and freedom. She was cutting, sarcastic and usually downright mean, but she was also self-possessed, Machiavellian and clever; a kind of alt-world Slytherin-sorted Hermione Granger. Over Gossip Girl’s six seasons, Blair blossomed into a young woman with a clearly defined sense of self, a razor sharp focus on what she wanted and an unwavering determination to get it. I just generally liked to forget that what she wanted was usually the social destruction of some other poor girl who happened to stand in her way.

Despite her well-documented flaws, Blair always seemed preferable next to her best friend and nemesis Serena Van der Woodsen. Tall, blonde, and a black hole of male attention, Serena was always positioned as the innocent damsel to Blair’s conniving villainess. It was a dichotomy that never sat well with me, perhaps because I could more easily identify with Blair’s desire to escape Serena’s shadow than Serena’s desire to be the girl that all the boys dreamed of. Blair stood out to me not necessarily because she was a villain, but because she existed in direct contrast to Serena. She wasn’t evil, Serena was just kinder.

When I came to terms with my fondness for Blair, it occured to me that this wasn’t the first time I’d sided with the devilish vamp over the perky ingénue. Whether it’s Glee‘s Santana Lopez or 90210‘s Naomi Clark, the “bitchy” bad girls have always been my favorites. I resented the easy dichotomy female characters were often sorted into and preferring the villainess felt like a bit of teenage rebellion. Now that I’m an adult, I realize that I was picking up on the coded ideas about women that were being presented and roundly rejecting the narrative that a good woman is, first and foremost, helpless.

Stories are built on tropes, and tropes about women are built on binaries. Whether it’s the Madonna or the Whore, the Maiden or the Crone, or the Ingénue or the Vamp, as women we are often forced to pick an all-encompassing identity from a short-list of pre-prescribed options that rarely represent the fullness and complexity of who we are as people, and that’s never more apparent than it is on television. This kind of shorthand is used to communicate larger cultural ideas about women, and frees filmmakers and storytellers from having to develop more complex characters. This isn’t a new complaint; women in Hollywood have been begging for more nuanced and representative roles for years, and with increasing fervor — in many cases, they’re finally just writing roles for themselves. It’s pretty clear that these discrete binaries no longer serve the diverse ways we want to represent women on screen.

The ingénue was originally imagined as a female filmic stock character who is beautiful, kind, naive and pure. Her innocence makes her vulnerable to conniving men who wish her ill, and she is often the main focus of romantic affection. Conversely, the vamp is mysterious and seductive; she uses her feminine wiles to mislead and waylay men to her own advantage. Rather than welcoming male attention and traditional ideas about love and marriage like the virtuous ingénue, the nefarious vamp manipulates men’s advances for her own gain, is promiscuous and abandons hearth and home. She is a villain because she rejects the life that requires a man.

Today those tropes have morphed into your romantic comedy heroines and your blunt bobbed working women. One is afforded sympathy, sentiment and the benefit of the doubt, while the other is stuck making hard decisions about difficult situations and being punished for reacting out of self-preservation. The vamp might be a “difficult woman,” but she’s busy getting things done, while the ingénue is waiting to be saved. The ingénue is a perpetual victim, and the world (and the story) revolves around her. The vamp, meanwhile, is forced to take care of herself.

Think of Edie Britt and Susan Delfino of Desperate Housewives, or Katherine Pierce and Elena Gilbert of The Vampire Diaries, or Regina Mills and Emma Swan of Once Upon A Time, or even Kalinda Sharma and Alicia Florrick of The Good Wife. In each of these examples, the ingénue is almost uniformly perceived as innocent, kind or otherwise wholesome, while the vamp’s adversarial relationship to men is a central and significant part of her character. The ingénues are given their happy endings while the vamps are eventually felled by their deceitful nature or promiscuity. It’s an easy way for filmmakers to demonstrate which women they believe are worthy of an audience’s sympathy.

Additionally, the racial implications of the way ingénues and vamps are cast and costumed are easily identifiable — and it’s always easy to see where on the spectrum black girls were meant to land. Ingénues are nearly always blonde with bouncy tresses and wear light-colored clothing that is breezy and romantic. Vamps are largely brunette with severe hairstyles and darker-colored clothing that reads as somehow foreboding. Think, Elle Woods and Vivian Kensington from Legally Blonde, Peyton Sawyer and Brooke Davis from One Tree Hill, or Emily Thorne and Victoria Grayson from Revenge. While all these women are white, the deployment of the light and dark dichotomy aligns darkness with villainy and lightness with virtue. As a black woman, it means that, metaphorically, I am always on the wrong side of the story.

As we move toward stories that allow women to be more than one thing, the ingénue/vamp dichotomy has broken down significantly, but shades of these reductive tropes remain. These storytelling constructs give us an easy way to identify where our sympathies should lie, but they don’t allow for the possibility that every woman is a little compromised under patriarchy, and most are striving to be their best selves despite it. But if you’re forcing me to choose, I’ll always prefer to be the cunning vamp than the ingénue in need of rescue.

Cate Young is a freelance writer and pop culture critic in Trinidad and Tobago, and the creator of BattyMamzelle; a feminist pop culture blog where she writes about film, television, music and critical commentary on media representation.