I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.
How about enemies to reluctant allies to friends to best friends to roommates to why does everyone think we’re dating I don’t understand to queer platonic relationship?
I was inspired to write this after a quarantine re-watch of “New Girl.” Loved the show when it first aired, but somehow, I missed the true wild-as-fuckness of Nick and Jess’s chemistry at the time.
That is no longer the case.
Set in 4x22, “Clean Break,” an hour after Jess & Nick’s so-much-left-unsaid Sex Mug conversation in his room.
Some definite canon divergence. Some definite adults-only smut (do not read if you are under 18).
Inspired in part by the gorgeous Nick/Jess writing of @blithers & @kyrafic. Titled after this Old 97s song that captures yearning perfectly.
Definitely overdue reblog/rec. Yummmmm how much do I love new writers showing up with hot in-character fic like this?!
Today I found out that Mountain Goats aren’t goats and it completely blew my mind.
By which I mean I learned mountain goats, the actual animal, aren’t true goats but a different, closely related creature. I’ve known that the band The Mountain Goats wasn’t formed by goats for over six months.
ok but this is why her characterization is so vastly superior to every other ~strong female character~ because like…so much of the mainstream Strong Woman idea makes the character either 100% emotional or 100% emotionless and The Point with aeryn is that being one or the other will never work and in order to be a better person you have to be able to understand both the logical and emotional sides of yourself and how they’re similar and different simultaneously. like there’s such a tendency to have a character be a hardass at first and then like season four the m/f couple gets together, they have a kid or something, and she’s less of a hardass. but the thing is aeryn is a hardass literally the entire time. and midway through season 2 she’s presented with a time in which being unemotional actually makes her WEAKER and causes a lot of problems. she has to be vulnerable, and the vulnerability is portrayed as being something that requires courage and strength. and even she talks to a guy in those episodes and he tells her that she struggles because unlike with physical pain emotional pain can’t be callused or get easier over time, and she struggles with that a lot. and she never leans entirely into being driven by her emotions, she doesn’t soften or “settle down” in a reductive way, she literally just is like. factually weaker as a person because she can’t be vulnerable as a result of her upbringing. that’s some stellar characterization. and it’s so superior to every other strong female character who’s either just a male character but file the serial numbers off or someone who at first goes against stereotypes and then four seasons later leans into them
