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sykostyles · 2 months

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let you love me 1.1

wc: 4.5k

summary: in which y/n is a 26 year old bakery owner and she can't quite get this whole "love" thing right; settling on finding solace in being alone. One day, Jackson Cole: an egotistical, but oh so charismatic professional quarterback comes along and swears he can change her mind.. and for a while he does. nearly two years of breaking down her walls.. but they seem to argue about one thing a lot. y/n's "negativity". she swears she's not trying ro be a pessimist.. it just works out better for her if she keeps her expectations low. But what happens when she meets a handsome stranger, who wants nothing more than to see her smile? Will she push everything away again or will she finally accept the love she deserves? or ; tldr sunshine! harry x grumpy! afab reader part one, three

a/n: welcome to part 2! I thought I would be done with this in two parts but the words just keep coming out of my brain. so there will be one more part to this! (and its already been started!)

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE LOVE ON PART ONE!! I can't believe this many people are interested in my brain child. I hope you all enjoy this part as well!

cw: this story contains suggestive and explicit language, minor descriptions of violence, and verbal abuse. please do not continue if these topics upset you!

Not much has changed in the apartment above the bakery, a good bit of your belongings remained here after you moved in with Jackson. You were thrilled when the gentleman who sold you the business told you it included the unit upstairs. “How perfect?” you thought. Slowly but surely you’d ended your lease on your previous place and made the arrangements to live above the bakery. You spent all of your time there anyways.

The last time you were here flashed through your brain and made you grimace. Images of wet lips, clashing teeth.. hands exploring curves.. All flashing in your mind. You’d been out with Jackson for your anniversary and neither of you could wait until you got back to your shared apartment, so a bit of a pit stop was made. But having those thoughts of Jackson at this moment only make you want to throw up the sweets you’d tested earlier.

Peeling your clothes from your body, you make your way into the shower and the spiraling thoughts ensue. Why am I like this? Why can’t I be loved the way I am? Is it actually me? Am I really the problem? Why? Why? WHY?? Sliding down the tile wall, your knees come to your chest and you just sob.

Twenty minutes turn into an hour, into an hour and a half and then nearly two hours. You’d been in there so long you didn't even realize the water had turned ice cold. You were numb to everything.

A knock on your door startles you out of your stupor. Quickly, you shut the shower off and grabbed a towel. “Nobody even knows I'm here,” you think to yourself, making your way to the door. Glancing through the peephole you see your best friend, Carly, looking rather distressed.

“Y/N I know you’re in there.” No, you don’t.. “Your car is outside.” No, it’s not.. “I can see the shadows of your feet at the bottom of the door.” No, you can’t.. “Y/N, open the door. Jackson said you took off when I came looking for you.” No, I don't want anyone to see me like this. “I know you can hear me, don’t make me call in a wellness check. You know I will.” Memories of officers knocking down your door at 3 am when you wouldn’t answer Carly's “are you alive?” messages flashed in your brain.

Your hands shoot up and unlock the deadbolt, swiftly opening the door for your friend to step inside, closing the door with a click behind her.

She turns to look at you, taking in all of your features, Severely swollen eyes, tear stained cheeks, and the frown weighing on your lips.

“I’ll kill him.” She says, turning towards the door. “No!” you object, reaching out to grab her arm. “Please, d-don’t leave.” You say, demeanor crumbling. Your legs begin to shake as you start to cave. Carly reaches out with both hands, stabilizing your arms. “Woah, okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.” she says as she guides you both to the floor, pulling you to rest on her front. “Everything will be okay.” she says. Will it? You think to yourself.

Carly was someone you met in your first year in college. Now she's a 27 year old journalist. Originally she was your freshman year dorm mate. It was instant friendship. I mean instant. You would have thought your first interaction was two friends meeting up again after not seeing each other for a while. Accompanying each other to frat parties, skipping classes together, what have you. Where one was, the other wasn’t too far behind. She helped you get over some of the darkest times of your life.

Losing both of your parents at the age of 20 isn’t something anyone should ever have to deal with, but having Carly by your side made it a little easier. She also didn’t judge, or object when you decided to drop out of college your junior year after their passing. And when the opportunity came up for you to buy the bakery, she knew owning it was your all time dream so.. she handed you a check for 5k.. saying it was her way of investing in your passions. Granted, the bakery wasn’t located on the Amalfi coast in Italy, but your shop where you’re at would have to do for now. You were grateful for her to say the least.

Jackson? Hated her. She tried to make you see your worth. Carly? Also not a big fan of Jackson. “Ugh a J name? Have I taught you nothing?” She’d joked with you when you told her about him. Even after you’d told her about his constant attention and nice gestures, she still wasn’t convinced. “They all just have that type.” she’d started, making you roll your eyes. “AND he’s a professional football player? Y/N!”

“I finally want to give a guy a chance again, and this is your reaction?”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t go for it, I'm saying to be careful. These guys all have a reputation.”

“Carls, I swear it feels like he’s different. You don’t see the way he looks at me.”

“Babe, just promise me you’ll be careful, okay? I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Famous last words.

After half an hour of Carly consoling you on the floor against your apartment door, she peers down at you, noticing your sniffles had quieted. You’re staring off into space while your thoughts just race.

“Hey, I love you and all but my legs are seriously starting to cramp.” She says, breaking the silence. You chuckle softly, being broken out of your haze. “Sorry,” you mumble, pulling yourself to your feet slowly.

“You go get dressed, I’m going to make you a cup of coffee.”

“You don-” “Ah ah ah, go.” She says, turning your shoulders in the direction of your bedroom. “No objections.” You make your way down the short hallway. Silently thanking yourself for not taking every single article of clothing with you when you moved in with Jackson.

Settling on a pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, you make your way back to Carly.

“Now, we don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” she says, holding a mug out to you across the island, “but you know I'm here to listen whenever you’re ready.”

You grab the mug from her grasp, and look down into it. “Am I too rough?” You asked timidly, not looking up.

“I'm sorry, what? Too rough? What makes you think that?” She questions, head tilted to the side, You give her a look that can only be summarized as “what do YOU think?”

“Did he seriously say that?”

“Mm, amongst other things.” You say, taking a sip of your coffee. “Apparently I need to be more obedient.”

“I swear I’ll kill him.” Her fist slammed down on the countertop, making you jump.

“He’s not worth it.” She reaches out, placing her hands over yours. “No, but you are.” You offer a smile at that. Though it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Well, do you want to talk about it?”

You nod. “Yeah. I just.. need to mull over it in my head first.”

“How about I order us some of your favorite take out, pick up a bottle of our favorite wine, and we can have a night on the couch like we used to? Watch some terrible rom coms?”

“That sounds.. Wonderful, Carls. Thank you.”

“Course. What are best friends for? Now, you go get us a sweet treat from downstairs and pick us our first awful movie. I’ll be back in 20.” She says, placing a friendly kiss atop your head and ruffling your hair on the way out.

After Carly’s return, you both promptly made home on the couch you’d spent most of your college nights together. She listened to your recount of what happened.. More threats to Jackson’s life were made.. Of course you quickly reeled her back in with the wine bottle. Promises to be there for whatever you needed were made, not that it needed to be said. She made a wonderful distraction for you for the rest of the night.

But night turns into day and unfortunately, life moves on. Whether we’re ready to or not.

Carly makes sure you have your morning coffee before she has to make her way to her “big girl job” as she puts it. But I guess anyone with the privilege of working for the biggest sports magazine would make anyone feel a little intimidated by their job.

You begrudgingly make your way downstairs a little before your opening time and started setting all of your tools you’d need for the day. Going about your daily morning routine, trying not to let the gnawing feelings in the back of your head bother you as you help your few regular morning customers. Your favorite was probably Henry; a little old widow who always buys a peanut butter cookie to share with his very friendly pitbull, Rocco. He says peanut butter cookies used to be his wife's favorite, so he eats one every day to feel close to her. That story nearly ruined your day when he told you, but he immediately scolded you for crying. “Now, none of that. Life happens, dear. Pain is only temporary if you let it be.” His words didn’t seem to help you much right now, but you know he’d be scolding you for letting this affect you this way.

“Good morning, Mr. Henry. Rocco. How are we today?” You ask, reaching down to scratch behind Rocco’s ears.

“Oh, just peachy dear. Rocco had his yearly visit this morning and is in need of his reward.”

“Well, it’s not much of a reward when he gets one every day, Mr. Henry now is it?” Raising your eyebrow at the gentleman as you wash your hands.

“Ah, there she is. Good morning to you too.” He chuckles. How are you doing today, dear?”

“I gotta be honest with you, Mr. Henry.. It’s a rough day. Probably going to be a few rough days. But I know I’ll manage just fine. Especially if seeing you and Rocco is something I have to look forward to.”

“But won’t you be closed tomorrow? For the championship game?” He questions, handing you the cash for his payment.

Your heart sinks at the thought.

Crap.

"People will wonder why I'm not there and it’s going to start spreading. Everyone is going to know what happened. Or at least Jackson’s version of what happened. Maybe I should make a post letting people know. No. They won’t care. Who am I kidding of course they will. They all act like high schoolers. Am I going to be posted all over social media? How is he going to spin this? Or will it go quietly? Knowing Jackson, he’ll demand a press relea-"

“Y/N? You alright?” Henry’s worried voice snaps you out of your steady spiral.

“Yeah, sorry.” You sniffle. The back of your hand coming up to wipe the tears that had escaped. “Um, no. I’ll be open tomorrow. I won’t be at the game. Or any games for that matter. Jackson and I aren’t together anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, honey.” He reaches out and tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear.

“It’s okay, Mr. Henry. You don’t have to lie, I know you hated him too.” You push out a strained laugh.

“Well, yeah. He inhibited my ability to buy cookies on some sundays. And he was no good for you. But I'll spare you that lecture for now. I can see you’re upset.”

“I probably need to hear it, to be honest.” You say.

“One day, maybe. But you do your best to get through the day.” Picking his cookie box up from the counter he continues, “Fix your face though. No more tears. You have cookies to sell.”

You chuckle. “You got it, Mr. Henry. See you tomorrow?”

“Of course, dear. Have a great rest of your day. See you tomorrow, let’s go Rocco.” He says before he’s out the door, pitbull in tow.

You take the opportunity to duck into the bathroom to splash some cold water on your face and bring yourself back down. Looking at yourself in the mirror, you force yourself to smile and wipe the excess water off. “Pain is only temporary if you let it be.” You say to yourself, making your way out of the bathroom.

Spinning the cake on the lazy susan once it was done being decorated was always your favorite part. Seeing all of your work just perfectly pieced together, every flower laid perfectly, every swirl placed intentionally. Cake decorating was your main passion, but you picked up everything else along the way. Baking and decorating ran in the family after all. Your grandmother bought you your first cake kit, your first big kitchen aid mixer, got you your first cake decorating job at 15, etc. She really helped you form the love that you have for the craft now. Before she passed away when you were 18, she would bring you to this very bakery nearly every weekend to see the different cakes in the case. You owed your love for the craft to her, and you try to show your appreciation to her every day in your work. Always learning new techniques and trying new ideas. Your current obsession was learning this new palette knife technique where you quite literally paint the flowers on the cake with a palette knife. It’s turning out to be quite tricky, but Nana didn't raise no quitter!

You’re boxing up your last order of the day, back facing the door. The little bell sounds, “Hello! Welcome. I’ll be with you in just one moment!” You say, closing the last bit of the box down.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, Love.”

Wait. That voice. That nickname.

Placing the box in the order cooler, you finally turned to the counter, taking in the man before you. You being shocked is an understatement, The man you face planted into yesterday was standing in your bakery.. Waiting for you to speak.

Speak, Y/N, Speak.

“H-hello. Can I help you? You manage to get out.

“Well, what’s good?” He asks.

Weird.

He’s not going to bring up yesterday?

You scoff. “I’m the owner. So it’s all good. But I might be a little biased.” You say, wiping your hands on your apron. “But my cupcakes are my best sellers.”

“I see that, your case looks well picked over.” He says, walking over to the display on his right. “Do you have a favorite?”

“Mm, probably the red velvet. They’re my number one. Chocolate peanut butter is my close second.”

“Everything is homemade?” He inquires with a raised brow, and a smirk of course.

“What do you think?” You challenge. Seriously, what is your problem, y/n?

“I’ll take one of each then.” He says with a smile, walking back to the counter.

“Coming right up.” Boxing them up carefully, you set them on the counter. You tap a few buttons on your register and give him his total. He hands you his sleek black credit card, making you internally scoff and roll your eyes.

“Thank you for stopping in. Have a great rest of your day,” You say, turning away from the counter.

“You don’t remember me?” You hear from behind you. You can almost hear the smirk on his face.

“Oh I do, but if I'm being honest, I just don’t really care that much. Have a great day, Harry.” You say, rounding the corner into the back room.

You hear the little bell sound again, signaling he left.

“Why are you like this?” you say to yourself.

The following few weeks were a blur. Nothing major came of you not making an appearance at the championship game. A few comments made on social media, but nothing you couldn’t handle. Just block and delete.

Henry and Rocco made sure they made their daily stop to see you of a morning. Henry even brought you a coffee from that shop down the street a few times.

Carly stopped by every day during her lunch break to check on you.

“You know you don’t have to babysit me, right?

“I know, but how else will I get my daily cupcake?” She laughs, peeling the paper off the bottom of said cupcake.

Someone else was also making a daily stop, much to your dismay.

You and Carly were sitting at the little table with two chairs you have by the big shop window, just chatting about each other's day when the doorbell chimes, pulling your attention from the conversation.

Looking towards the door, you immediately roll your eyes. “Just, give me a minute.” You grumble to Carly before taking your spot behind the counter.

“Hi, how can I help you?” Emerald eyes bore into yours as you spoke.

“Good afternoon, Love.” He smiles warmly at you, “I’ll take the same as yesterday. Seems those were a hit for my friend Ryan out there.” Glancing over his shoulder you see Ryan standing outside the door.

“He can come in too, ya know.” you say, boxing up his order. “And I thought I told you to stop calling me that.” you huff, smirking as you set the box in front of him.

“Mm, well, until you tell me your actual name, i’ve got nothing else to call you.” He says, handing you that same sleek black card. “Plus, if he comes in I can't have all your attention on me.”

“I’m wearing a name-tag, Harry.” You roll your eyes. “Bring Ryan in next time. I could use a break from you.” You smirk, handing him his card back.

“Reading your name-tag is different than you telling me your name, love.” He chuckles at you rolling your eyes again. “Ryan stays outside until I hear it come from you.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Harry.” “Must be why I’m so successful. I always get what I want.” He states matter of factly.

“Mm, and is that all you want?” You muse, raising a brow at him.

“On the contrary. There’s a plethora of things I want, but we can start with your name.” He smiles warmly at you.

Your breath hitches at his words. “It's Y/N.” You breathe out, his grin grows ten times in size.

“It’s lovely to officially meet you. See you tomorrow, Y/N.” He states, picking up his box and making his way out to Ryan.

“What. The hell. Was that?” Carly muses from her spot at the table. You almost forgot she was here.

“That was Harry. He stops in every day. A right pain in my ass.” You say, plopping down in your chair.

“That didn’t seem like he’s a pain in your ass.” She starts, “Could cut that sexual tension with a knife!” she squeals. “Who is he?!”

“I have no idea. I quite literally ran into him a few weeks ago, and he’s been coming in here every day ever since. He’s a massive flirt as well. But I’m not interested.”

“It didn’t quite seem like you weren’t interested. You were hanging on every word he was saying.” “I was wishing he would leave.”

“Whatever you say, Y/N. He’s into you. I can tell.” “Maybe so, but I'm seriously not interested. I’m good with being by myself for now. It’s barely been three months, Carls.” “I know. You’ll make that jump when you’re ready.” I’ll never be ready. “Where did you say you met him? He looks so familiar.”

“Uh, I actually met him for the first time at the stadium. After all that happened with Jackson.”

“Does he work there?”

“No idea, babe. I ran into him right near the parking lot. I don’t even know if he was coming or going.”

“And then he just showed up here the next day? Kinda weird.”

“I agree. It could just be a coincidence. My business does have a pretty good reputation.. If I do say so myself. but it makes my brain hurt trying to think about it.”

“Agreed. But be careful. I still don’t like that you’re here alone all day.”

“Ah, but Jesse is returning from school in a few days so I will have my help back.”

“Oh good! I liked him.” She stated, standing from her seat. “Well babe, I have got to get back to the office. I have a few articles to finish and send off before the end of the day. Same time tomorrow?”

“Of course. See you tomorrow. Love you long time!”

“Love you more!” She says, making her way to the exit.

About another week had passed, and it’d been the same old same old. Jesse, your seasonal help, returned from school for summer break a few days ago so you haven’t been as lonely throughout the day. He was thrilled when he found out that you and Jackson were no longer a couple.

“Good, there are so many other better players out there that you could shack up with.”

“Jesse! Stop it right now.” You exclaimed, unable to contain your laughter. “Don’t make me mess up this cake.”

“I’m serious, Y/N! There are so many quarterbacks out there that don’t get sacked 12 times in a game. Or we could branch out to other positions on the team. What about a tight end? Or a linebacker if you like them bigger.”

“Oh my god, Jesse!” You cackle. “I don’t need you to play football match maker for me. I’m done with all of that.” You chuckle, setting your bag of icing down on the counter.

The doorbell chimes, breaking both of you out of your fits of giggles, and Jesse made his way up front.

“Good morning, how can I help you?” You hear Jesse ask.

“Oh, good morning. Is Y/N here?” That voice only belongs to one person. He’s early.

“Yeah, she’s actually finishing up an order. I’ll let her know you’re here. What’s your name?”

“Harry.’

“Got it man, be right back.” He says before disappearing around the corner where you stood. “Hey, there’s a guy named Harry out here for you?”

“Oh. Yeah, give me just a minute. Or you know what, can you finish this? Just needs a leaf here and here, and then it goes in its box in the cooler.”

“You trust me to finish a cake?” His eyes widened.

“It’s a few leaves, Jesse, not a rose. Just don’t fuck it up, and you won’t die. Simple as that, really.”

“Oh yeah, simple.”

“I have faith in you.” You say, rounding the corner. “And how can I help you today, Harry? You’re quite early.”

“Good morning to you too, Love.” “Harry, I’ve told you to stop calling me that. You know my name now,”

“I know, but I enjoy watching the lightning spark in your eyes when I call you Love.” He smirks at you.

Your cheeks flash a light pink. “What can I do for you today, Harry?” You mutter out.

“I’ll take one dozen of the red velvet.”

“Ooh, big spender. You’re gonna clear me out of my red velvet for the day. Do you and Ryan have a big sweet tooth today?” You joke, placing the cupcakes into their respective box.

“Not quite, I have a meeting and I promised a treat from this bakery I discovered a few weeks ago. Haven’t shut up about it. I never shut up about the owner either. She’s awfully pretty.”

“You’ve gotten quite bold, Harry.” You muse, sliding his order across the counter.

The doorbell dings again, pulling your attention from the man in front of you.

“Good morning, Mr. Henry, Rocco. I’ll be with you in just a minute.” As the words were leaving your mouth, Jesse emerged from the back room.

“I can take you over here, Mr. Henry.” Jesse claims, leading him to the other side of the case. Before following him, Mr. Henry sets a coffee cup down on your counter,

“Here you are, dear. Thought you could use that today.” Mr. Henry smiles at you.

“Thank you, Mr. Henry. You don’t have to keep doing that.” You scold.

“I can do whatever I want, thank you.” He smiles, taking his stand down with Jesse

Turning your attention back to Harry, you give him his total.

“That doesn't sound right. Shouldn’t it be more?” He questions.

“Mm, nope. I give a discount when you buy twelve at a time.” You say, handing him his card back. “Is there anything else I can do for you today, Harry?”

“I can think of a few things, but we have an audience. Naughty girl.” His words make you go red in the face, nevermind the pink tinge from before.

“You are insufferable. Have a great meeting.” You say, stepping away from the counter.

“See you tomorrow, Love.” He says before promptly heading outside.

You don't even realize you're smiling.

“Well now I have got just about a million questions.” Jesse’s voice startles you on your left.

“I second that,” Mr. Henry says. “Now what is it you kids say these days? Oh right. Spill.”

“Yeah, what he said. Spill, Y/N.” Jesse said, backing up the elderly man.

“Both of you are terrible. There’s nothing to spill.” You say, turning to wipe off the counter.

“You’re a terrible liar.” Jesse says.

“I know you might not be able to tell, but I was not born yesterday, dear. I know something when I see it. Now just who was he?” Mr. Henry quips out.

You chuckle. “I promise, he’s nobody. He’s been coming in here every day. He’s got a little crush on me, I will admit that, but I’m not looking for anything right now. Jackson still has me all messed up in the head.”

“Okay, but they say the fastest way to get over a guy is to get under a new one!” Jesse exclaims, “You never know what you’re miss- OKAY OW.” He says when you snap him with a towel.

“Now, I wouldn't listen to Mr. Horn dog over here, but maybe someone new is what you need, dear.”

“I hear you, Mr. Henry, I’m just not ready for that just yet. I appreciate both of your concerns though. Have a great day, Mr. Henry. Rocco.” You say with a smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes. “Jesse, I’m going to step out for a minute. I’ll be right back.” You disappear up the staircase to your apartment.

“Maybe we overstepped.” Jesse says to Mr. Henry.

“Perhaps, but maybe she needs someone to push her to that step.”

“I think I’ll take a step back from that. I don’t want to lose my job. She’ll get back out there when she’s ready.”

“I suppose you’re right. Have a good day, Jesse. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Have a good one, Mr. Henry.”

Mr. Henry and Rocco make their way outside, settling on a bench right down the street from your shop.

“Mr. Henry, was it?”

“Who’s asking?” He responds, looking up at the person in question.

“Names Harry. Harry Styles. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.” Harry asks, extending his hand.

“Mm, is this about the owner of that bakery down there?” Mr. Henry inquires.

“Would it be a problem if it was?”

Mr. Henry laughs, and takes Harry’s hand in his, giving him a firm shake. “What can I do for you, son?

thank you for reading! please like &/or reblog if you enjoyed <3

taglist: @stylesfever @olipoli21 @hermionelove @st-ev-ie

#harry styles #harry x reader #harry styles fanfiction #harry imagine #harry styles fluff #harry styles x reader #harry edward styles #mdni banner & dividers both by @/cafekitsune

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youalreadyhavefullresults · 9 months

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the mindset journey

So hi.

My mindset has been evolving a lot ever since I started this journey, and I thought I'd lay it all out in one post. Subliminals, mindless affirming, scripting, visualization, states. I've tried so many things out, and I think I've finally figured out what works for me.

TLDR:

Stop “trying” to manifest or checking the 3d, you already have full results, creation was over like since forever.

Sure you know that you’re God, as the posts and everything you’ve seen tells you, but have you really embraced that internally?

It doesn’t matter how many posts you read, it’s up to you to actually change your mindset.

Logic is literally useless, be delusional (don’t you just wanna go ape-shit :), go get your fucking desires)

Time is not linear, and means nothing when manifesting.

Revision is so powerful, use it.

It’s just so easy guys, please just make sure you’re actually applying the information you see instead of just passively scrolling through.

And the rest is under the cut, happy reading <33

I started off in the subliminal community in Oct 2020 and just had so many limiting beliefs, it was sad. Not to shit on the community or anything, some of them are wonderful people and most of them have changed their mindset as well, but my initial knowledge prevented me from getting to this point until now. But, now I’m here, and a day after I wrote this in my drafts, I literally manifested my ideal life. I originally started this blog to collect advice from loa blogs, but honestly, I don’t need any of it anymore. Though I do like helping people, so if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask.

The Initial Mindset:

I always read through countless posts that say “You’re God” and “You literally can get what you want without even trying.” While I understood the text and adopted the mindset, I still did little subconscious things that contradicted it. While I affirmed my self-concept was perfect, I would also cram-study for exams and worry I would fail. I would say I look perfect, but then also worry about the way my body looked. Also, the way that I literally became obsessed with loa media? I spent hours watching Sammy Ingram videos, looping subliminals, and reading tumblr posts on “how to manifest faster and better”. During this phase of my life, my mind was plagued with intrusive thoughts and my self-concept was slowly getting better, but still absolute shit. I would manifest things here and there, but nothing life-changing.

The main problem however, was the fact that I would treat manifesting like a task I HAD to do. Now that school was back in session, I literally would zone out during specific classes on purpose and just affirm to myself. I would feel bad if I hadn’t listened to my subliminal playlist for the day because I “wasted time in getting my desires”. There’s nothing wrong with vainly affirming or listening to subs if you believe it works, but for me, treating manifesting like a task meant that I was looking for an outcome. Clearly, now I know better, that everything is always done and that there’s nothing to complete, but back then, this was probably the main reason why I struggled to see full results easily. I was acting out of desperation and didn't believe manifestation already was done.

When Everything Changed:

I know that it’s different for everyone, but my “aha!” moment was probably when I read this post. Seriously, go read it, it made me realize that I was going about it all wrong. Now, it wasn’t learning how to perfect my manifesting, it was learning to pull out the tiny limiting beliefs that had burrowed its way into my subconscious.

For example,

“I need to do xyz so that I can get my manifestations.”

Why would I would need to do anything if I already have all of my manifestations hmm? It’s literally already done. Like there’s no need to put in that effort into something that’s already perfect right? So why do I need to even need to try? I literally get whatever tf I want without even trying. This doesn’t mean that every method out there is useless, but in the end, you are the one doing the manifesting, not the method.

“But... this makes absolutely no logical sense! How would this even work?”

I know that STEM me loves finding the logic behind everything, so that’s why I struggled a lot with the logic and time aspect. But darling, it doesn’t need to make sense. There are literally so many things in the world that scientists to this day can’t explain, including just how powerful and complex your brain is. Not to mention the fact that concepts such as logic and science are literally man-made too? What’s the point in trying to deal with logic? Just let go and have fun.

“I affirmed so hard, and I believed it. But then it never showed up when the time came.”

First off, your time spent affirming means nothing, sorry to break it to you. It’s about the mindset(your state if you will) you currently exist in that truly makes a difference. And just because it didn’t show up today doesn’t mean that you missed your window of opportunity. Revision is still manifesting, because time is not a linear concept. Anything at any time can just change with a snap of your fingers. You want to change all of your test scores? Bam, it’s done. you wish WW2 never happened? Bam, it’s done. You want to relive the past 5 years of your life? Bam, it’s done. It doesn’t matter what the event is, what time it is, or that you “didn’t do it before the deadline”. Whenever you do get it(which is instant/soon if you're persisting properly), it will be there, seamlessly blended in with your 3d. You don’t need to worry about a damn thing, your subconscious will take care of everything for you.

“Oh no! I just had intrusive thoughts, did I just mess up my manifestations?”

Why are you giving intrusive thoughts the power to do anything? Sure, you may get them, but that doesn’t mean that they have any effect on you. It’s the doubt they make you feel in your mindset that truly messes it up. Don’t give in. Acknowledge the thought, accept that it literally means nothing, and continue to persist. Your thoughts only have the power you give them.

“Nah, everyone has to be lying, this doesn’t seem real.” / ”Manifesting must just be a coincidence, there’s no way this is real.”

Oh? So you’re saying, the amount of posts you’ve seen, all of the success stories, all of the followers and comments, are you saying every single one of them is lying? No. I’m not saying that every single one of them is truthful, but there’s no way that every single one of them would lie and put this much work into something that’s not real. If you find yourself struggling to believe in the law, I’d suggest you try to manifest something small, and then build up your belief from there. I sure as hell didn’t believe in any of this from the beginning, but then, I manifested consciously for the first time. Again, and again. It became easier, and my life got better. It soon becomes apparent that literally everything you think happens. I always used to wonder how things I randomly thought in the back of my head always happened even though I literally didn’t do anything about it in the 3d. This proved to me that your mental state is more powerful than it seems.

“Can I manifest-”

Yes. Just yes. You’re GOD. GOD. Why tf is God asking some random loa account if they can manifest something or not? Ofc God would know that they can manifest whatever the fuck they want instantly. Do you think when God said “Let there be light”, he first asked people around him if he could? No. He took that shit and just fucking ran with it.

“But-but, what if-”

Uh-uh. I don’t want to fucking hear it. Like I said in the previous section, stop overthinking everything you do. Just go. Run with what you already know and manifest the life of your dreams. You don’t need to keep looking for new information, some specific post that changes everything for you. All they can do for you is steer you in the right direction. You’re the one who’s going to have to figure out our mindset and pull yourself together, no one else can do it. Take back your power, embrace it. I don’t care if you unfollow every single loa account or delete tumblr, just stop looking for the next post. Why would you need more information when you already have everything you need?

I wrote down everything I struggled with, forgot about it, and continued to persist in my new mindset. I ignored any negative 3d circumstances, and just vibed in the feeling that my desires were already here, that feeling of contentment someone has when everything in their life is just amazing. The main question I asked myself was, what would a person who had ____ think, and I went from there. Soon the things I wanted just started popping up in my life, just as I knew it would. I feel like the things I’ve said in this post are pretty much the same concepts you see all over loa tumblr, which is why it’s so important that you actively take in the information that’s being given to you and actually apply it. I was obsessed with tumblr and kept on scrolling through countless blogs and posts, and I was only able to fully manifest after I stepped away from all of that. There is no big secret. There’s no miraculous method that will fix everything for you. There’s just... you. And your subconscious. Whatever you tell your subconscious, goes. As simple as that.

How about, instead of scrolling to whatever next loa post you were about to see on this app, you close tumblr and just go live your best life? Don’t overcomplicate it and just do whatever feels natural to you. I hope this post helped, happy manifesting!

-cinna

#self concept #motivation #loa #law of assumption #manifestation #subconscious #success story #mine #mindset #neville goddard #manifesting #loassumption #law of manifestation

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thinkingrocks · 3 months

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vox's life: headcannons

im an electrical engineer and i have opinions on this character. moral of the story: don't fuck with CRT capacitors, shits scary

i have a lot of Vox thoughts, or Voughts, and i will be rambling about them at legnth under the cut.

TLDR: he invented zuckerberging. also i see his "canon" death date of 1950s and respectfully disagree. its way funnier if he died the year widespread television became a thing. the fruits of his labor were all for naught etc etc

1928: Vox was in college as an electrical engineer when the first ever live TV Demo happened, and I think he was immediately obsessed with it. Decided he'd do anything to work with TV. He and his friend/roommate at the time went full tilt into learning about TVs and working on them, and by the time they graduated, they had the beginnings of what would be a very profitable company.. together.

1930s: Out of the two of them, Vox has the better social skills(relative), so he's the one who talks to investors and handles that part of the business, though he still works on some tech. He decides he likes talking to people, marketing, manipulating, being a little showman. I like to think this ties into that one trivia fact that he likes watching commercials.

early 1940s: He starts wondering why he's splitting half of this company(HIS company) with some guy who can't even bother to attend business meetings. Tensions start rising, he starts using some of that handy manipulation skill he honed in business on his friends

1945: Tensions break. Through less than legitimate means, he steals the company out from under his partner. His partner threatens to go start his own, since he did the majority of the tech work. We can't have that. Vox doesn't kill him himself, imo, because he is kind of allergic to getting his hands dirty. He revs up that media training and uses it to create a smear campaign so brutal and widespread that his former partner offs himself. Problem solved

Late 1940s: Vox starts getting paranoid about people trying to steal his empire from him, funny that. He starts trying to do everything himself, because he doesn't trust anyone. Starts losing a lot of sleep, getting a little insane but its fine man. Don't worry about it.

1947: Sleep deprived, paranoid, and working on a final prototype model due soon, he electrocutes himself because you shouldn't fuck with CRT capacitors. Wakes up in hell with electricity powers and a CRT head because it's hilarious.

Alastor: Yeah we all know what we're here for. I don't think they ever met in life, but I definitely think Vox knew of him. Alastor was actively broadcasting during the 20s up until his death in 1933, and college student Vox I think listened to a lot of radio while studying and working. I also think in the later years, Alastor was never technically caught as a serial killer, but "hey I think that radio guy was that one killer, cuz he stopped broadcasting right after he stopped killing" was like one of those insane conspiracy statements you'd say to get a laugh at parties, but Vox always secretly kind of believed it, and was VERY vindicated in hell.

I am fully prepared for actual canon to contradict all of this but that's fine because it means they finally had to get season 2 out.

#hazbin hotel #hellaverse #vox #vox hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel vees #fanart #hazbin hotel fanart #hazbin hotel art #art

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halfagone · 4 months

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So I was thinking and...

Move aside, Danny, this ain't about you-

My reasoning?

We all know Danny's life is fucked up. We know this. We've acknowledged this. All sorts of shit happens in the show that gets glossed over and we, as a fandom, go in and say, "Yeah, no let's talk about that actually-" But while Jazz may not be a main character, things happen to her too that should be acknowledged as well.

Let's start with some basics: her parentification. While it may not be uncommon for older siblings to take care of their younger ones, that doesn't make it right or better. Jazz is 16 in the show. She is just as much a kid as Danny is, even if she vehemently tries to deny it. She should not be the one responsible for looking after her brother like a parent would.

This also bleeds into the way she has to watch after or hold her parents back. They are grown adults; she should not be the one responsible for making sure they treat her younger brother right, or don't forget things, or act like adults. This is not and never should have been her duty as a child, oldest or not.

Let's move onto more episodic examples. In "Prisoners of Love", she had a bit of a meltdown when she found out she had been wrong. That lends to some control issues and perfectionism that isn't healthy in the slightest and should probably be dealt with before she becomes an adult and realizes that kind of mindset is going to burn her out. Fast.

In "My Brother's Keeper", Spectra intended to murder her in front of the entire school. Obviously the plan doesn't work out, but a murder attempt is a murder attempt and that brings trauma all of its own.

A lesser known example, but Johnny (who she had dated briefly) used her as a meat puppet in "13" so that his girlfriend could escape from the Ghost Zone. If we want to acknowledge that what Kitty did to Paulina was wrong, then we have to acknowledge this too.

In "Doctor's Disorders", Jazz was literally a disembodied head in a jar. I feel like we should talk about that, and the body horror that comes with it. In line with that, Vlad had nanobots injected into her system, as known from "Secret Weapons", and regardless if they're still there or not that weighs on the mind.

In "Reality Trip", Jazz agreed with Freakshow which implies she has some ghost envy of her own? If Tucker's desire to have powers like Danny is messed up, then this ought to be too.

Now this poll isn't to ignore Danny's trauma. But this ain't about him. This time it's about Jazz and the fact that she has problems of her own. I know it's popular to make her out as a mini therapist, but therapists have therapists of their own to handle their stress and emotions. Jazz should be no different, even if you don't headcanon her as a psychologist as an adult.

So, tldr: Jazz's life is fucked up too and it deserves some acknowledgement.

#danny phantom #jazz fenton #character analysis #with yours truly :D

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im-totally-not-an-alien-2 · 1 year

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I had a very cursed thought and I'm choosing violence and making it Tumblr's problem:

Bruce had his thing with Talia. It led to the Stabby Child that is Damian.

Except, Damian has 2 dads.

Bruce, biologically his Father, and Daniel James Phantom, brought to their world by the Lazarus Pit, who "convinced Ras to retire" (aka turned his mind to mush through Eldritch Madness of Revelation). Talia took over, and, thinking herself The Chosen One, allowed the guy to court her.

In fact she isn't some Chosen One. She's a badass woman who could kill Danny easily, and he's very into that. And it's not helping that she's very attractive, and her kid is very feral and like to fight, like baby ghosts also like to do.

Eventually the Bats get wind that there's been a Change in Management in the League, and they come to investigate. Bruce expects the worst, Tim is just praying Ras is dead and he can get his spleen back, Jason is mildly disturbed that it might mean Talia is leading the Assassins, and Dick is keeping Gotham safe while the others are out.

They expect a cruel dictatorship, or a mound of corpses piles in a corner.

They did NOT expect to see a tiny Damian fight a guy dressed in League armor, a Cape and a crown of black iron, who could've been Wayne Adoption Bait if he was younger, while the guy laughs and corrects his form. Every blow the child is allowed to land simply passes through him.

Talia got herself a very comfy throne (Danny gifted it to her, saying some cheesy line like "no other would be fit for a Queen like you") made of Starlight and Ice, from which she can watch her on and her Beloved bond and train, while her new and improved League watch on as their Prince takes joy in his training and the pride his parents have in him. Soon he shall move to Gotham to meet his other dad, and learn from him as well, so he may know his family and make his destiny as he wishes.

TLDR: Danny is a simp for strong deadly lady and a good dad to her kid. She's indulging in his attention and caring. The bats are confused. Jason can feel the Ghost Adoption that will be coming his way when Danny "Ghost King" Phantom learns of his existence. The League of Assassins, even while they kill people to maintain Wolrd Order, treat Talia, Danny and Damian like the spies in SpyxFamily act towards Loid and Anya :)

Bruce: *opens his mouth*

Talia: You can't adopt my love

Bruce: *closes mouth*

I go a little feral for Jason viewing Talia as his mom so I am 100% behind Danny adopting Jason. Maybe Tim follows him after learning what Danny did to Ras and let's him have his spleen back, tho only on the condition that his own doctors put it back in. Who knows what Ras has done to it and with ecto involved its better to be safe than sorry. Tim is amazed that they can put the spleen back in at all due to how long its been outside his body.

Is this going to turn Poly with Bruce/Talia/Danny? Cause I'd read that!

Lmao imagine everyone going on vacation in the Ghost Zone. I'd read that too!

#the alien answers #dp x dc #i noticed the Change In Management and im wondering if thats a reference to one of the fics ive inspired

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balioc · 9 months

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Thoughts on the Barbie Movie

Hoo boy. Here we go.

This is long. Spoilers abound.

The movie is not, in any normal sense, a Barbie movie (like this or this or this or whatever). It is not a story of Barbie doing the kinds of things that Barbie does in stories. It is an endlessly postmodern and self-referential movie about Barbie, which is to say, about the Barbie franchise and its role in culture. Which is, at least plausibly, an interesting thing for a movie to be.

You probably knew all that already. But it does give us a baseline of "this movie kind of had to be political and discourse-y, one way or another." Or even, to be more specific: "to some large extent this movie had to be about feminism, explicitly, if it was going to exist at all." How could you talk meaningfully about Barbie's role in culture without touching on that stuff?

The evaluative TLDR:

Barbie is very ambitious, and in many places very fun. It is also deeply confused, and fragmented, about what it's trying to say and do. Often it raises genuinely interested problems/scenarios and then totally fails to address them, or else addresses them in ways that are incoherent. The text knows that it's doing this, and on several occasions kind of apologizes for it; a couple of times it more or less looks into the camera and says "sorry, we're not going to deal with this properly;" but, well, that's not a substitute for dealing with things properly.

There is also a streak of genuine political nastiness running through the film, in a place where the story really cannot afford it. It...doesn't match up, tonally or thematically, with some of the surrounding material. I have no background at all in cinematic stratigraphy, but I would be fascinated to learn about Barbie's editorial history, because I have the vague sense that a more-cogent (and more-interesting) story got hacked apart and then Frankensteined together into something much cheaper and worse.

III

The opening sequence of the movie is wild. You've seen most of it -- or you can, if you haven't, and you want to -- because it is the film's first teaser trailer. Girls are playing listlessly with baby dolls; a giant Barbie appears like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey; and then the girls enter a frenzy of destruction, bashing their baby dolls' heads against the ground.

I don't know whether I would have found it as disturbing as I did, if I didn't actually have a baby of my own. But speaking from the standpoint of a parent...yeah, wow, it's more viscerally horrific than most actual horror I've seen recently. The narration says some stuff about Barbie providing a new and more rewarding set of imagination games to play, but the visuals by themselves tell a message loud and clear, which is: Barbie will turn your daughters into infanticidal maenads. It wouldn't need any editing at all to be part of a shock-you-silly Reefer-Madness-y moral panic film.

Which is really good! And really interesting! It starts us off on an undeniable thematic note: there is something primal and powerful and very dangerous about Barbie.

The very best part of the movie is probably the part that comes right after the opening, when we explore the movie's depiction of "Barbieland" by going through Barbie's Typical Day, before we get into any of the notional plot or metaphysics. It's joyful and charming in a consistent way. The gags are (mostly) great. The movie is in love with its base premise, and that love is palpable.

This sequence makes one thing very clear:

Barbie treats Ken like absolute dogshit. She is a bad girlfriend.

And it's taken seriously. I mean, it's played for laughs, almost everything in this movie is played for laughs, but...it's not mean-spirited, not here. It's not, like, "ha ha, Ken, what a contemptible loser." He's Pierrot, asking for very basic forms of affection and attention and respect, and getting the door slammed in his face over and over. It's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

That colors everything that comes later.

The movie doesn't forget this, or fail to acknowledge it. At the end, after everything, Barbie does apologize to Ken for her treatment of him. It's a halfhearted and supremely unsatisfying kind of apology, especially in context, but...it's there, in so many words! I'm not making it up! This thematic foundation was laid down, not-very-subtly, right at the beginning!

This movie, which is at least trying to be ambitious, is juggling a million themes. Many of them are dumb at their core, and have no real promise; many of them lack any kind of narrative synergy with the others. But there are at least two which, I believe, (a) are genuinely worthwhile individually and (b) work well together in a story.

One is: What does it mean to be a symbol rather than a person? To exist, not for your own sake, but for the sake of influencing the dreams and culture of entities that you don't know and can't really understand?

The other is: What is the proper ordering of the relationship between Barbie and Ken?

I've seen a number of Takes in which people say, essentially: Couldn't this have ended with the Barbies and the Kens just being decent to each other and treating each other like humans? Couldn't there have been equality and mutual respect, instead of the weird uncomfortable girlboss-supremacist stuff that we got? And I sympathize with that impulse tremendously, but the honest answer has to be: No. We cannot have simple equality and esteem between Barbie and Ken, not in a movie like this. That would be a lie. Because this is a movie about Barbie-as-symbol, and when you're looking at Barbie through that lens, it is true and unavoidable that Ken is an appendage and an afterthought. You can have toys for boys; you can have dolls for boys (even if you call them "action figures" or whatever); for that matter, you can have dolls of boys for girls, so that girls can tell stories centering on male characters; but that's not what Ken is, and never has been. There are no Ken stories, and no one particularly wants them. Ken exists to be Barbie's boyfriend.

(One of the most painful moments of the movie comes during the resolution wrapup. Ken wails to Barbie that he has no identity outside her. She says, basically, "you have to find one, because I'm leaving you." And he...acts like he's had an epiphany, and does a little silly celebration. But his "insight" is just literally "I'm Ken," there's absolutely nothing there, and of course it's the most hollow and awful thing in the world because he really does have no identity outside her.)

The movie's metaphysics are not even slightly consistent. The nature of Barbieland, and the ways that it affects and is affected by the real world, are completely different in every scene. In large part because the film can't ever pass up a gag, whether or not it's funny, no matter how much damage it does to the narrative and the theming overall.

The worst part is that the movie is not capable of saying anything remotely coherent about the real world, because its version of the "real world" is as weird and fake as its Barbieland. Will Ferrell's CEO of Mattel character is more of an absurd cartoon than any of the Barbies or Kens. Mattel HQ is some kind of surreal labyrinth tower out of The Matrix. A random receptionist can handle herself like James Bond in a car chase, for reasons that are [handwaved in a gag].

VII

So. Yes. There is the sequence in the third act where Ken takes over Barbieland with the power of patriarchy. This is pretty much as bad as it can be. And I say this as someone who thinks that the movie probably did actually need a plot thread doing roughly that kind of thing.

Almost as bad as it can be. The wannabe-patriarch Kens are gleefully goofy in a way that you can't help but love, or at least, I couldn't help but love it. Which has something to do with the writing and something to do with the charisma of all the Ken actors. The main Ken, Ryan Gosling's Ken, really seems to believe that being a successful patriarch has a lot to do with riding majestic horses and wearing a giant fur coat without a shirt, and when he takes over Barbie's Dream House he names it Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House -- that kind of thing.

But. Apart from that, it's real unfortunate. The justification for Ken's ability to conquer Barbieland with patriarchy, instantly and effortlessly, is -- in almost so many words -- they had no defenses against it, it was like the American Indians encountering smallpox. I...don't think I need to spell out the problems with that.

Worse yet, the whole sequence is soaked in, uh, let's call it "2014-era upper-middle-class social-status-oriented feminism." The real bad behavior on the part of the Kens, the stuff they do when they're not being adorably weird, is: mansplaining their extensive opinions about cars and movies, and wanting to show off how helpful and knowledgeable they are to "damsels" who are having trouble using machines or computers. Apparently that's the real problem at hand, the causus belli of the gender wars. The way that you deprogram a patriarchy-brainwashed Barbie is by...ranting to her about the stereotypical social irritations of upper-middle-class women (e.g. "you have to keep yourself thin but not act like you care about being thin," "you have to be a confident leader but also be nurturing and supportive," etc.) [note that the Barbies of Barbieland have never encountered these irritations, at least not at the hands of men]. And the girlboss victory montage consists of having the Barbies put on deceptive manipulative bimbo acts to stroke the Kens' egos, which sure is one way to depict girlboss feminist victory.

But the most unforgivable thing of all is the depiction of the patriarchy-brainwashed Barbies. They're lad-magazine caricatures, endlessly offering their Kens "brewski beers," dressing up as French maids, gazing on in cow-eyed adoration as their Kens mansplain stuff to them.

Barbie does, in fact, have a problematic history with the patriarchy. And it does not look like that.

VIII

@brazenautomaton:

Barbie isn’t someone who had to fight through the patriarchy to be seen as good enough to be an astronaut even though she’s a woman. Barbie’s a fucking astronaut because she’s fucking Barbie of course she’s good enough to be an astronaut.

That is...one aspect of the deep Barbie lore. It is the Barbie-nature that Mattel was trying to push, as far back as my own childhood; it's certainly the Barbie-nature that Mattel is trying to push in this movie. But there is another side to Barbie, even older and even more fundamental than Senator Astronaut Veterinarian Barbie, and you can't make a postmodern movie-about-Barbie without addressing it.

This is Barbie the fashion doll. The Barbie who is an icon of ultra-consumerist teenage girlhood, whose life is defined by her fancy clothes and her fancy car. The Barbie whose most salient traits are her hourglass figure and her long blonde hair and her feet that are always posed to fit into high heels. The Barbie of "math class is tough!" The Barbie who is kinda vapid and shallow and, yes, boy-crazy.

How can you tell a story about Barbie wrestling with the culture of patriarchy, and not talk about that? How can you depict Barbie falling victim to the patriarchy and have it look nothing like that?

...the movie does bring up the specter of Vapid Consumerist Barbie, briefly. When Margot Robbie's Barbie first comes to the real world and meets with the sullen teenage daughter character, she has a litany of That Thing thrown in her face, and it makes her sad. But nothing is ever done with it, and it goes nowhere.

And it could all have fit together so well. That's the hell of it.

You can imagine the version of the story in which Ken conquers Barbieland with patriarchy, because the Barbies are actually vulnerable to patriarchal narratives, because Vapid Consumerist Barbie is the chthonic serpent that gnaws at the foundations of Senator Astronaut Veterinarian Barbie civilization. He successfully makes them all forget that they're senators and astronauts and veterinarians, and turns them into airheaded teenage fashionistas who think that math class is tough.

And this avails him, and the other Kens, nothing. Even within the "patriarchal" version of Barbieland, Ken is still an afterthought and an appendage. He still gets treated like dogshit, just in a different idiom.

Because the thing that has always been true of Barbie, though every age and every phase of her mythos, is: she is the main character of her own story.

This is what the movie was telling us all the way back in the horrific 2001-pastiche prologue, right? Even when Barbie was just a swimsuit model, the point was that she let girls tell stories about themselves (or idealized/aspirational versions of themselves), not about boys or babies. That is a truer, and more powerful, feminist message about the meaning of Barbie than any message the movie actually bothers conveying.

The gag scene practically writes itself: the brainwashed Barbies are sitting around in a giggly slumber-party huddle talking about how dreamy Ken is, and actual Ken cannot get a word in edgewise, he can't even get them to notice he's there, because even Vapid Consumerist Barbie is fundamentally centered in her own life. Her narrative is not about a boy, it's about the experience of being a girl (mostly engaging with other girls) who likes thinking and talking about boys. Which is very much beside the point, if you started out with the complaint that your girlfriend never paid any attention to you.

Patriarchy hurts men too, indeed.

The movie ends, as I've intimated, in a disappointing squidge of thematic confusion. Barbie announces that she never really loved Ken, and leaves him, because...well, because these days the smart-set target audience is allergic to romantic narratives that Produce the Couple, as far as I can tell. Then she goes to the real world and becomes a real girl, a move that means nothing and is nonsensical even by the standards of the Barbie metaphysics, because the storytellers don't know how to end her arc and Becoming a Real Girl is the sort of thing that feels like a meaningful conclusion.

The Kens...sigh...the Kens ask for equal rights in Barbieland, more or less, and get told, "nah, but we'll throw you some bones." And they're happy with this, more or less, because they're dumb and don't really care. The narrator says, approximately, "maybe someday they'll make as much progress as women have in the real world." Haw haw.

It's probably too much to hope for a movie like this to be willing to say something substantive about responsibility and kindness in relationships. It's almost certainly too much to hope for a movie like this to be willing to say something about the nature of love symbols and love narratives. But all the pieces really were there, laid out very conspicuously. The movie could have wrapped up with: Ken doesn't need to be more important than Barbie, he doesn't even need to be as important as Barbie, he just needs to be treated with human decency. And if little girls are going to play with Barbies, and fantasize about having cute guys hanging all over them -- maybe they should have functional models of romance and human connection in which to root their fantasies, and not terrible ones.

#media analysis #barbie

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krashoutluv · 3 months

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ANON MY TUMBLR BUGGED OUT HERES UR RESPONSE. AND DELETED MY DRAFT TO THIS THEN RESHOWED IT.

I CAN SEE THIS TOO, AND YOURE FURTHING MY DILEMMA. (LOL NO HATE I THINK THIS IS SO FUNNY)

but ive come to a conclusion.

Ak!Jay n’ bein’ called “Daddy”

((uhh nsfw context but nothing super explicit/detailed stated))

tldr on my conclusion ;

i figure out what the fuck daddy means;

So, i see what youre saying anon. with Jason being kinda caught up on his past I can see this not being something he indulges in completely.

completely

i had one of my mutuals (shout out to @bloodtypemoss ), say it’s not a huge thing for him but could stroke his ego.

so i did my own silly little research because i knew that calling your partner daddy/mommy isnt always a maternal/paternal matter, but then i wondered, like what else is it then?

(ITS NOT SOMETHING I INDULGE IN SO??)

its a term that falls into the dom/sub dynamic, but is still a lighter term for calling your dom a name instead of something maybe “hardcore” like master (yucky4me), sir, etc etc.

and its also pretty tame, its really just a nickname thats really just about giving someone dominance without it being over the top. there isnt normally incestous/paternal undertones;

been around since like the 60s or something

i’ve seen people say it stems from old ass pornos to just the term “sugar daddy” or just a term of endearment for someone who’s considered a provider it wasn’t always sexual

its also a nickname that parents just use for each other

so my conclusion

so i think he could enjoy it because its a light dominant term and its also a term with protector/provider undertones, but hes not like a huge daddy kink haver. its hit or miss and not something he wants to be called often.

i dont think he’ll have a problem if your not into it tho cause like its not a huge thing for him. literally just a ego stroke for his want for dominance and to be someone’s provider but he gets off more with other things.

definitely not something thats directly abt bruce or his father figures

its not a massive thing he enjoys / does it rarely (probably just when he’s super sexually confident)

he prefers to initiate himself

he doesn’t want a someone screaming it every 10 seconds in his ear, just like once or twice but nothing over the top.

i definitely believe if youre into it and initiate it without his permission its hit or miss, either is into it or makes his dick kinda go soft lmfao

anyways if u wanna make me reconsider or just wanna have me write more about something you can yap abt it in my inbox which is open !

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #arkham knight x reader #jason todd smut #arkham knight smut #i ramble about arkham knight heheheej #skullkidwithsunglasses #red hood x reader #red hood smut

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atopvisenyashill · 10 months

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patterns of abuse with jaehaerys

this post made me deeply depressed and i reread f&b which was my first mistake.

tldr i’m making the argument that jaehaerys definitely sexually abused saera and alysanne, and likely viserra and gael, and also i hate this man. if you disagree and want to say so *nicely* that’s cool but if you hardcore love jae and don’t want to hear criticism, maybe just scroll past bc i’m not nice to him at all (obviously, i’m accusing him of csa lol).

breaking this down by each woman, so there’s 6 sections: saera, viserra, daella, gael, alysanne, and alicent.

saera targaryen

If she were the king’s firstborn, or better still his only child, she would be well content. Instead she finds herself the ninthborn, with six living siblings who are older than her and even more adored. Aemon is to be king, Baelon most like will be his Hand, Alyssa may be all her mother is and more, Vaegon is more learned than she is, Maegelle is holier, and Daella��when does a day go by when Daella is not in need of comfort? And whilst she is being soothed, Saera is being ignored. Such a fierce little thing she is, they say, she has no need of comfort. They are wrong in that, I fear. All men need comfort.

that’s septon barth’s opinion on her and barth is always right. simply put, she’s a deeply neglected child who acts like a brat to get her parents attention because she’s learned the only way they’ll pay attention to her is if she’s causing a problem.

Before she was eleven, she was stealing wine and ale instead. By twelve, she was like as not to arrive drunk when summoned to the sept for prayer.

The king’s half-witted fool, Tom Turnip, was the victim of many of her japes, and her unwitting catspaw for others. Once, before a great feast where many lords and ladies were to be in attendance, she persuaded Tom that it would be much funnier if he performed naked. It was not well received.

stealing alcohol at 10 and being a committed alcoholic at 12 is not normal behavior. it is a sign of something deeply at wrong at home. also, the way she kind of, sexually humiliated tom, someone who is too “innocent” to even realize she’s sexually humiliating him…gives me the ick re: how she views sex.

Saera had learned the art of getting anything she wanted from her father: a kitten, a hound, a pony, a hawk, a horse (Jaehaerys did draw a firm line at the elephant). Queen Alysanne was far less gullible, however, and Septon Barth tells us that Saera’s sisters all misliked her to various degrees.

i don’t like this. nothing wrong with giving your child gifts (see ned going above and beyond to get arya not just instruction on how to fight but also a specific style that would gel with being smaller than your average opponent) but in conjunction with “jaehaerys ignores saera unless she’s pressing him for an expensive gift which he immediately gives her and alysanne doesn’t get why he caved so quickly” its an alarming dynamic.

also speaks to how isolated saera specifically was, that the only siblings that like her (aemon and baelon) are usually out and about, and there’s a clear wedge between saera and her sisters, even viserra.

The screams were coming from Tom Turnip, who was lurching helplessly in circles trying to escape from half a dozen naked whores, whilst the patrons of the house laughed uproariously and shouted on the harlots. Jonah Mooton, Red Roy Connington, and Stinger Beesbury were amongst those patrons, each one drunker than the last. They had thought it would be funny to see old Turnip do the deed, Red Roy admitted. Then Jonah Mooton laughed and said the jape had all been Saera’s notion, and what a funny girl she was.

again with sexually humiliating tom.

it continues with her friends. it’s not unusual for a 15 year old girl to want to fool around with other 15 year olds but alys and perri are all guilt ridden and upset and alys is with child. it reminds me a lot of cersei sexually abusing taena in affc. when she’s caught (now, mind you, she’s been marched in front of her parents sitting on the throne and not brought to them in their private rooms. she’s being treated right off the bat as if she’s guilty of a crime and not guilty of being a shitty teenager):

“She went from denial to dismissal to quibbling to contrition to accusation to justification to defiance in the space of an hour, with stops at giggling and weeping along the way,” Septon Barth would write. “She never did it, they were lying, it never happened, how could they believe that, it was just a game, it was just a jape, who said that, that was not how it happened, everyone likes kissing, she was sorry, Peri started it, it was such fun, no one was hurt, no one ever told her kissing was bad, Sweetberry had dared her, she was so ashamed, Baelon used to kiss Alyssa all the time, once she started she did not know how to stop, she was afraid of Stinger, the Mother Above had forgiven her, all the girls were doing it, the first time she was drunk, she had never wanted to, it was what men wanted, Maegelle said the gods forgave all sins, Jonah said he loved her, the gods had made her pretty, it was not her fault, she would be good from now on, it will be as if it never happened, she would marry Red Roy Connington, they had to forgive her, she would never kiss a man again or do any of those other things, it wasn’t her who was with child, she was their daughter, she was their little girl, she was a princess, if she were queen she would do as she liked, why wouldn’t they believe her, they never loved her, she hated them, they could whip her if they wanted but she would never be their slave. She took my breath away, this girl. There was never a mummer in all the land who gave such a performance, but by the end she was exhausted and afraid, and her mask slipped.”

What does Jaehaerys ask after all of this? “Have you given any of these boys your maidenhead?” Her response:

“True?” said Saera. It was in that moment, with that word, that the contempt came out. “No. I gave it to all three. They all think they were the first. Boys are such silly fools.”

Now mind you, Alyssa and Daella have both died of childbirth recently and her parents are mad she had sex as a 16 year old bordering on 17 year old, and not the fact that she like, at best peer pressured her besties into having sex and now one of them is pregnant. jaehaerys has only asked if she’s still a virgin.

“I will be married,” the princess said. “Why shouldn’t I be? You were married at my age. I shall be wedded and bedded, but to whom? Jonah and Roy both love me, I could take one of them, but they are both such boys. Stinger does not love me, but he makes me laugh and sometimes makes me scream. I could marry all three of them, why not? Why should I have just one husband? The Conqueror had two wives, and Maegor had six or eight.”

i keep trying not to give my opinion and just lay it all out but the thing is i’d just be reposting the whole scene because it’s just filled with so much weird sex stuff. if you don’t remember it, go reread it. it doesn’t feel (to me) like regular “george is bad at writing sex” vibes but “george is purposefully trying to skeeve you out” vibes but i am willing to admit i could be wrong and he really just doesn’t understand what he wrote.

anyways remember how i said saera acts out to get attention from her parents? all she’s done here is act out, her “crimes” are basically nonexistent; beyond how alys feels about being pregnant, saera consensually had sex with boys around her age who aren’t married, and then blithely compared herself to some asshole relatives. if your teenager idolizes dick cheney that’s probably worrying but not a crime! this is not how jae treats it however.

When the princess heard his words, she rushed toward him, crying, “Father, Father!” but Jaehaerys turned his back on her, and Gyles Morrigen caught her by the arm and wrenched her away. She would not go of her own accord, so the guards were forced to drag her from the hall, wailing and sobbing and calling for her father.

The king was angry and unyielding, for his shame was deeply felt, and he could not forget Saera’s taunting words about his uncle’s wives. “She is no longer my daughter,” he said more than once. Queen Alysanne could not find it in her heart to be so harsh, however. “

saera tries to escape.

This time the princess was not allowed to return to her own chambers. She was confined to a tower cell instead, with Jonquil Darke guarding her day and night, even in the privy.

Princess Saera watched from the window of her cell. Jonquil Darke, her gaoler, made certain that she did not turn away.

that’s as her dad is murdering stinger btw. is he a creepy 19 year old? yeah. but like, making your 15 year old watch you murder her 19 year old trust fund baby stoner boyfriend sure is something.

so then they sent her to the silent sisters where she’s beaten all the time and has to pray all the time and she runs away, becomes a sex worker and literally never looks back.

The truth did not come out until a year later, when the former princess was seen in a Lysene pleasure garden, still clad as a novice. Queen Alysanne wept to hear it. “They have made our daughter into a whore,” she said. “She always was,” the king replied.

“You need her as a Dornishman needs a pit viper,” Jaehaerys said. “I am sorry. King’s Landing has sufficient whores. I do not wish to hear her name again.”

but before we move on, let’s look at one more related ick, when saera’s sons show up to the great council:

From Essos came three rival competitors, grandsons of King Jaehaerys through his daughter Saera, each sired by a different father. One was said to be the very image of his grandsire in his youth.

after her drinking, acting out, and jaehaerys’ focus on calling her a whore, explicitly pointing out that one of her grandsons looks just like jae is a choice. i know they’re super inbred. it’s still uncomfortable in context.

viserra targaryen

alysanne makes no sense here but i’m just gonna quickly explain instead of lay it out or we will be here all day bc viserra’s engagement is completely nonsensical. theomore manderly is old, ugly, has a shitton of heirs, and viserra clearly doesn’t want to marry him. also if she wanted to be queen, why is she going after baelon, aemon is still alive. anyways jaehaerys is no help here, then she goes to baelon for help, but she’s also super drunk.

Frustrated, Viserra next turned to her brother Baelon in hopes of rescue, if court gossip can be believed. Slipping past his guards into his bedchamber one night, she disrobed and waited for him, making free with the prince’s wine whilst she lingered. When Prince Baelon finally appeared, he found her drunk and naked in his bed and sent her on her way. The princess was so unsteady that she required the help of two maids and a knight of the Kingsguard to get her safely back to her own apartments.

she gets drunk with some friends again, goes riding, breaks her neck. i wanted to point out this pattern of drinking and acting out at a young age. as well as this pattern of targaryen daughters who aren’t “meant” for a brother and are promised to men who are old and with heirs

daella targaryen

i wanted to add daella because her getting married at 15 makes as little sense as viserra, and her match to a old man with several heirs is equally nonsensical. but also this:

“I would never marry her,” the boy said, in front of half the court. “She can barely read. She should find some lord in need of stupid children, for that’s the only sort he will ever have of her.”

where did vaegon get that mouth.

Daella was not clever, even her septa had to admit. She learned to read after a fashion, but haltingly, and without full comprehension. She could not seem to commit even the simplest prayers to memory. She had a sweet voice, but was afraid to sing; she always got the words wrong. She loved flowers, but was frightened of gardens; a bee had almost stung her once.

Jaehaerys, even more than Alysanne, despaired of her. “She will not even speak to a boy. How is she to marry? We could entrust her to the Faith, but she does not know her prayers, and her septa says that she cries when asked to read aloud from The Seven-Pointed Star.”

The queen always rose to her defense. “Daella is sweet and kind and gentle. She has such a tender heart. Give me time, and I will find a lord to cherish her. Not every Targaryen needs to wield a sword and ride a dragon.”

so daella is 12 at this point.

Her sixteenth nameday was fast approaching, and with it her womanhood. Queen Alysanne was at her wit’s end, and the king had lost his patience. On the first day of the 80th year since Aegon’s Conquest, he told the queen he wanted Daella wed before the year’s end. “If she wants I can find a hundred men and line them up before her naked, and she can pick the one she likes,” he said. “I would sooner she wed a lord, but if she prefers a hedge knight or a merchant or Pate the Pig Boy, I am past the point of caring, so long as she picks someone.”

i just don’t like this. other “simple” targs are not required to marry, like vaella and aelora, two of daeron ii’s grandfaughters so i don’t get why daella is pressured into marrying before she’s even of age. at least jae 2 forced rhaella and aerys because of a prophecy? what is jae’s reasoning for so sexualizing his daughter?

gael targaryen

this one is definitely a reach but i’d like to point out that this is basically all we know about gael:

Princess Gael, a sweet, shy child of seven, became the queen’s constant shadow and support, even sharing her bed at night.

and our information on how she dies is so shady:

A sweet-natured girl, but frail and somewhat simpleminded, she remained with the queen long after her other children had grown and gone, but in 99 AC she vanished from court, and soon afterward it was announced that she had died of a summer fever. Only after both her parents were gone did the true tale come out. Seduced and abandoned by a traveling singer, the princess had given birth to a stillborn son, then, overwhelmed by grief, walked into the waters of Blackwater Bay and drowned.

how does gael get pregnant by a traveling singer when she never leaves her mother’s side? why doesn’t anyone in court know gael got pregnant and killed herself until after aly and jae both die and how was this even found out?

am i implying that jaehaerys sexually abused all four of his daughters? yes because he literally sexually abuses his own wife.

alysanne targaryen

“I am forty-two years old,” she told the king. “You must be content with the children I have given you. I am more suited to be a grandmother than a mother now, I fear.”

King Jaehaerys did not share her certainty. “Our mother, Queen Alyssa, was forty-six when she gave birth to Jocelyn,” he pointed out to Grand Maester Elysar. “The gods may not be done with us.” He was not wrong. The very next year, the Grand Maester informed Queen Alysanne that she was once more with child, to her surprise and dismay.

he uses the birth that killed their mother and that is condemned by rhaena and alysanne as reckless and cruel of rogar to force on her. that birth.

at this point as well, he had abused saera and daella, then they’re gone, then viserra starts drinking and dies, then jae marital rapes aly into having gael, giving him access to another young girl to abuse…i’m aware this is a very uncharitable reading of him but…

alicent hightower (and kind of alyssa targaryen)

Ser Otto’s precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, Alicent, became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names; near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea.

saera is the one he fixated on yet again but notable that he’s fixated on his daughters as he dies and not his sons, despite jaehaerys turning to drink after aemon died bc he was so upset.

He announced his intention to wed Lady Alicent of House Hightower, the clever and lovely eighteen-year-old daughter of the King’s Hand, the girl who had read to King Jaehaerys as he lay dying.

The Hightowers of Oldtown were an ancient and noble family, of impeccable lineage; there could be no possible objection to the king’s choice of bride. Even so, there were those who murmured that the Hand had risen above himself, that he had brought his daughter to court with this in mind. A few even cast doubt on Lady Alicent’s virtue, suggesting she had welcomed King Viserys into her bed even before Queen Aemma’s death. (These calumnies were never proved, though Mushroom repeats them in his Testimony and goes so far as to claim that reading was not the only service Lady Alicent performed for the Old King in his bedchamber.)

i know it’s just mushroom being a perv but a rumor that 15 year old alicent “serviced” jaehaerys existing besides rumors that he mistook 15 year old alicent for the daughter he last saw when she was 17 - and viserra was 15, gael 19, and daella 15, all around alicent’s age and all died before age 20. all the targaryen girls that weren’t born “for” a brother exit the narrative after some sort of sexual abuse that centers around jae, as teenagers; daenerys was born for aemon, alyssa for baelon, and maegelle for vaegon before they both fucked off and maegelle was too pious (and too old). this idea of being “for” a brother leads directly to alyssa’s death before 30:

“You were made for battles, and I was made for this. Viserys and Daemon and Aegon, that’s three. As soon as I am well, let’s make another. I want to give you twenty sons. An army of your own!” It was not to be. Alyssa Targaryen had a warrior’s heart in a woman’s body, and her strength failed her. She never fully recovered from Aegon’s birth, and died within the year at only four-and-twenty.

and alysanne being “for” jaehaerys is how he excusing sexually abusing her into a risky pregnancy. essentially what i fear is that because saera, daella, viserra, and gael aren’t “for” someone, jaehaerys gets it into his mind that that are for him. even without him raping them tho, that subtext is there! he is entitled to saera’s virginity and calls her a whore multiple times, even decades after she’s left, and murders her boyfriend in front of her. he claims a weird sexual ownership over his neurodivergent daughter daella and his alcoholic, depressed daughter viserra, and we get zero information on gael’s pregnancy or his reaction to it. but jaehaerys deciding his daughters are “for” him certainly has a basis in canon just judging from the erratic and worrying behavior of his younger daughters.

jaehaerys is a creep and i hate him and i don’t know how much of this is on purpose (like, will aegon vi or dany find out jaehaerys was a shady pedo and it shatters their world? will dunk and egg find it out and it affects their plot somehow? did george just put it in there to make a comment on power and monarchy and misogyny, similar to aegon iv raping the bracken women? or is just there for window dressing creepiness, like “i will pepper in the fact that jaehaerys is sexually obsessed with his daughters” thing?) or if george just made jaehaerys sexually obsessed with his daughters on accident?

on the one hand, it seems out of character for george. he romanticizes drogo thru dany’s eyes but it’s clear he’s meant to be seen as a creep (dany talking about being pregnant followed by “she had just turned 14” is sickeningly jarring for a reason) and also, drogo dies bc of his own pride. sansa doesn’t like any of the old dudes touching her; she is at least marginally freaked out by her wedding night, the unkiss, and lf & dontos taking liberties with her, and rightly. the story that’s told about the mountain raping a girl and making the father pay him is meant to disgust us. the walk of shame is a harrowing chapter to read, because whatever cersei’s crimes, this sexual humiliation is not something she deserves. on and on. yes, we all hate the way arya is sexualized in the mercy chapter, but crucially, she’s not blithely and happily seducing these pervs, she’s going hard candy on their asses. is this just messy set up for something like that?? i think, given how little dany knows about her family’s crimes that somehow learning jae sexually abused (and maybe even impregnated) his own daughters after she herself experiences sexual abuse would be huge. the same goes for aegon vi learning that sexual abuse runs rampant in his family tree; would he empathize with saera hiding out in essos to escape the sexual abuse of her father, see some of elia and his own plight in her? in gael?

or did george really just. not realize how sexually obsessed jaehaerys was with his daughters?

idk how to end this. where’s the winds of winter george i need answers.

#anti jaehaerys targaryen #anti fire and blood #valyrianscrolls #saera targaryen #viserra targaryen #gael targaryen #debated the vs tag bc i know it’s probably gonna annoy some people but. i do actually wonder if this will be a plot point in the books #or if it was an accident #rani attempts meta

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