No But Really Why Does Mike Get Blamed For Every Little Thing It's Not Funny Anymore. Why Is He Inherently

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i think i read a post of you that said western leftist can't write conservative religious women without reducing them to being brainwashed or insecure. as a western leftist I'm curious how you would have written alicent for hotd?

You mean how would I personally rewrite Alicent's character? Or how I would have liked to see GRRM's Alicent written in the show?

Either way; I'd say: Western leftists can't write a traditionally religious woman unless she's a hypocrite, brainwashed, or actively using religion to cope or to feel superior. They can't write a religious woman who genuinely and intellectually believes in and is devoted to her own religious conventions and ideals. And when they do - which is very rare - they always feel the need to attach a moral or intellectual judgment on her. She must always be "lesser". Unless she's pagan and they can co-opt her paganism to uplift their own "progressive" ideology 🙄

Anyways, I hated how they made Alicent cling to her faith as a means of "repentance" in the show. She should have clung to her faith as a means of resistance. Of claiming her identity and power back.

This will give the "Green Dress" moment and the "Where is duty? Where is sacrifice?" moment real meaning.

It's not that she can't sincerely believe in her religion and still subconsciously use it to heal her psychological and emotional wounds. It can happen. It's not mutually exclusive. But her ability to use her religion to heal should be originated from and motivated by her sincere belief in her religion.

The Faith of the Seven was always the hard and the soft power that kept the megalomanic, blood-supremacist Targs in check after they conquered Westeros. The Targs were forced to compromise and adapt to Westeros instead of forcing Westeros to be assimilated or fully subjected to Targ culture and religion.

Alicent's ambition should have reflected this spirit. Her need to have her son crowned as King should have been her own way to keep the Targs in more chains. To mold the Targ dynasty to benefit her and her children and Westeros as a whole.

What better way for an oppressed woman to feel liberated than to have the power to put her oppressors in chains? and to have the freedom to live by her own conventions and ideals without sacrificing her dignity and sanity?

you know what i want? i want some more of that time when jack drake benched tim after he found out tim was robin. specifically, i want jack drake having to deal with the fact that his son is robin.

oh he’s angry. his son goes around beating up criminals and breaking the law and he knows batman. but the thing is, batman and robin have been these distant, almost mythological figures for so long. gotham thinks of the duo as heroes, as not as people. and jack drake didn’t realize what exactly constitutes as being robin.

jack can’t hear his son anymore, not unless he wants to. granted, he had always been a quiet child. but now, his footsteps were completely silent. his breathing was almost nonexistent. his voice could carry across a room if he wanted, then shroud itself in fog, muffling it instantly. tim would just suddenly appear, at the kitchen counter, in the office, next to or behind jack. jack never saw him coming. and when jack reminded his son of these things, albeit a little shakily, tim blinked in surprise, as if he wasn’t even aware he was doing these things.

there are scars all over his body. objectively, jack knew that. batman and robin fought brutally, of course they would be injured. seeing the marks littered all over tim’s skin, however, is another matter. there are slashes and stabs. puckered skin that looks like a bullet hole. clean lines with little hashes, a nicely healed and well-taken-care-of injury. ugly, jagged streaks that scream pain, that jack felt nauseous seeing, let alone having the strength to bear it. tim acts like they’re normal, acts like assimilating all these scars were a mark of progress, a mark of strength. he rubs lotion on them a couple nights a week, falling into a routine. there’s a story behind each and every one of them, a life saved behind each and every one of them. jack doesn’t know whether to be somber or relieved at the fact that tim will never tell them to him.

tim’s reflexes are catlike, his instincts sharp, his mind always working a split-second faster than anyone else’s in the room. jack will accidentally drop something, and tim will catch it out of the air, easy as breathing, and hand it to him. as a test, jack dropped a ceramic mug filled with coffee on purpose. it landed in tim’s perfectly outstretched palm, not a drop of the drink spilled. tim was still on his phone with the other hand, but he looked away enough to raise an eyebrow at jack. jack didn’t question how tim knew he had done it on purpose. tim knows things, things that he has no reason to know, until he explained how he knew them. he had all of jack’s nervous tics memorized, apparently, and picked up things from other people uncannily accurately. dana poured acceptance and affection into the kid, and jack loved her for that, but he knew that tim scared her, just a little. jack was left wondering when his son had become the modern-day sherlock holmes.

and tim knew people. he’d casually reference batman or nightwing in a conversation, acting as if he knew them personally. which. well. apparently he did know them personally. but it wasn’t just the heroes from gotham, no. someone had once called tim while he, jack, and dana were cooking dinner together, sort of a bonding activity. tim had answered, then put the call on speaker, then continuing to chop a couple vegetables. (he looked far too comfortable with a knife in his hand. tim flipped it between his fingers and in the air with an ease and grace that made it impossible to tear his eyes from. and he wasn’t even trying.) then the sounds of an explosion came in, causing jack and dana to flinch, but tim didn’t even more. apparently, the flash was calling him, all the way from central city, where he was fighting killer robots, and asking for advice because apparently, someone named ‘bart’ had told the flash (the! actual! flash!) that tim had worked out a way to defeat them once before. tim advised them on how to get under armour platings and where the weak spots were while mashing potatoes with a fork. then tim said goodbye and good luck with a cheerful tone before hanging up. because apparently the flash calling him was something that didn’t faze him anymore. jack never said anything about the pictures hanging up in tim’s room, of a too-small kid in a robin suit, a boy in a leather jacket and an earring, someone more hair and goggles than boy, a girl with a confident smirk flexing her biceps, a girl with a bow and arrow, and a literal ghost. he also didn’t say anything about the photos of tim and that boy in the leather jacket, just to two of them. in those pictures, tim was laughing harder than jack had ever seen in his life.

tim was still his son, but he wasn’t entirely himself. jack couldn’t get rid of robin, no matter how hard he tried. tim moved like a predator when he was just walking down the stairs, a new grace in his movements. his eyes flicked to all possible exits any time he entered a room. he was no longer afraid to walk the streets of gotham at night, treading calm and sure even as jack and dana hurried quickly home with their shoulders bent. 

his son was important. his son was powerful. his son walked and talked and laughed amongst gods, and they showered him with respect. jack was beginning to think he was foolish for ever believing he could take robin away. 

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au where Steve is a famous Disney kid and Eddie is a teenaged singer-songwriter. They get pushed together at events because they're close in age, but they just quietly dislike each other.

Steve's got a new show starting, a spinoff of the one that made him a household name. They hire a newcomer, Robin Buckley, to play his best friend and the two quickly become BFF in real life.

The show runs for two seasons but when it comes time to renegotiate contracts, neither star is interested. They're older now, ready to live life on their terms and not the company's, or in Steve's case, his parents.

As soon as the finale airs, Robin and Steve celebrate by going to a gay club. A few weeks later, an interview is released where Steve comes out as bi and talks about how his parents mistreated him; how they worked with the network to pressure him to be a perfect "all-American" kid even off screen.

Meanwhile, Eddie's an impossible level of famous. He's had number-one hits, won a Grammy, headlined an arena tour, achieved every dream he had for himself as a kid growing up in a trailer park in Indiana. He's not shocked by the news that Steve is leaving Hollywood, but he's flabbergasted that the guy isn't straight. When Eddie reads the interview, he gets this weird pang in his chest, almost like regret. But he never even liked Steve.

Steve isn't in the news again and Eddie doesn't think of him for a long time.

Steve goes to college. He loves it. Not because he's great in his classes, or anything, but because he's free to be himself for the first time. He makes friends and goes to parties and relaxes. He and Robin share an apartment.

After a few semesters, Steve decides to take a couple of theater classes, and is quickly cast in campus productions. In the vague anonymity of college theater he rediscovers his love of acting. No one has expectations of him, no one forces him to perform. He graduates and slowly starts appearing in small roles in Indie films, gathering critical acclaim. He feels good. Happy. Hopeful.

Eddie is blissfully unaware of Steve's career resurgence, experiencing his own musical highpoints, until the day where he's scrolling Twitter, sees a Variety headline that's getting a bunch of attention, "Steve Harrington in talks to star in Max Mayfield's first film." Eddie's livid.

"Maxine, what the fuck?" He growls when she answers his call.

They grew up together in the same Indiana trailer park. When she moved to Hollywood to start a career as a screenwriter, Eddie was by her side. And when her first script wound up on the Black List, his involvement on the soundtrack and original songs sealed her production deal.

She gives a long suffering sigh. "Munson," she grumbles. "I know you have a weird history with this guy, but I swear he's the right choice."

"He's a stuck up rich boy who's never been in trouble in his life."

"He's changed."

"Doubtful," Eddie sneers.

"Look. I'll set-up a meeting. Come hang out and you'll see what I mean." Before she hangs up she adds, "Call me Maxine again and I'll end you."

They invite Harrington to Eddie's recording studio. His hopes are not high for this meeting, so he's already a little thrown when Steve Harrington walks in, all grown up. He's in a crimson sweater, tight jeans, hair grown long so that it flops around his face in tousled waves that actually look genuine, windswept and golden. Eddie's eyes instinctively trace the scatter of moles on Harrington's face and neck, a pang of something hitting deep in his gut. Fuck, this dude is beautiful.

"Harrington," he greets, sticks out his hand. Eddie barely hears the answering, "Munson," because instead of a handshake, Harrington pulls Eddie in for a hug. Muscles bunch under the sleeves of the sweater, against Eddie's chest, and he's assaulted by the scent of cedar and sunshine and Steve. Eddie's not prepared for any of this.

They make small talk, Harrington sharing about going to college, falling in love with theater, Robin Buckley who he calls his soulmate. Eddie's head rings with how wrong he was about this guy; the pretty kid he grew up alongside who seemed to have the world in his hands. Max was right, he's perfect. Except.

"Let's get down to it, Harrington," Eddie says. Can't bring himself to call him Steve yet, feels that will somehow change everything and he's not ready. "I'll admit that Mayfield had the right idea about you, but can you sing? Play guitar? You have to perform my music, dude. That's not a small ask."

Harrington smirks, asks for a guitar. He gets it settled across his lap before he speaks. "I started taking piano lessons when I was 4. Voice and guitar at 7."

Eddie belatedly recalls that Harrington's parents were the worst kind of stage-parents, pushing their cute kid to perform even as he sobbed about wanting to play soccer with his friends instead of going to auditions. He has a moment of shame that he forgets as the other man begins to play. It's one of Eddie's biggest hits, a ballad about a teenaged broken heart from a kid whose name he can't even remember.

Harrington's hair flops in a swoop over his forehead, his fingers move across the strings with ease, skill. His voice is a rasp, close mimic to Eddie's own, but not quite deep enough. Goosebumps spread across Eddie's arms, his neck, and warmth pools low in his gut.

Steve finishes the song, looks up, cheeks glowing pink, honey eyes bright. Eddie's fucking gone for this guy. He wants so badly he might choke on it.

"Good?" Steve asks.

Eddie's embarrassed suddenly. Unsure. He tugs at his hair. "Yeah," he laughs. "Good."

He reaches out to take the guitar, the one Steve's already handing to him, and their hands brush. Eddie flushes. Their eyes meet and Steve smiles. Eddie's thoughts are consumed with the desire to kiss his plush pink mouth.

"You wanna get dinner? Just you and me?" Steve asks.

"Yeah, Steve," he laughs. "I'd love to."

🎬🎸🎬🎸

Fifteen Months Later

"Former Teen Heartthrobs Make Love Connection?"

Fans of musician Eddie Munson and former child star, Steve Harrington, were in for the surprise of their lives last night as the men arrived together for the premier of Harrington's new movie, Small Town Sins, written by up-and-coming screenwriter Max Mayfield, featuring original music by Munson. While Harrington's performance and the movie itself are garnering quite a bit of positive buzz, it's being overshadowed by gossip about Harrington and Munson's budding romance. They walked the red carpet together, pausing for photos as a duo, holding hands and flirting. When asked for confirmation of their relationship, Munson answered, 'we're bros,' before winking and pulling Harrington close.

There's a TikTok video embedded below the article, showing the men being interviewed on the red carpet. Their arms are loosely around each others' waists, and when their eyes meet they catch and hang for a beat.

"So, longtime fans of both of yours are going feral online right now because of the rumors that you two used to hate each other. Is there any truth to that?" An off-camera voice asks.

The men laugh. "We've always been great friends," Eddie answers.

"Eddie thought I was stuck up," Steve giggles.

"I did not." Eddie slaps at Steve, who gives him an affectionate smile.

"Liar," Steve answers.

Eddie leans into the camera like he's telling a secret. "Harrington here was afraid of me."

"Fuck off, I was not." They wrestle around for a couple of seconds.

Steve shrugs Eddie off, straightening his suit jacket. "Okay, maybe I was a little intimidated back then, but then this morning you found a pretty rock and cried about it."

Eddie shrieks, swatting at Steve until someone in a black suit and name tag shoos them down the red carpet.

Eddie walks off first, so he misses Steve withdrawing a hand from his pocket and saying, "Still have the rock, though." He flashes the red, grey, blue striped stone at the camera.

His gaze drifts away, landing somewhere in the distance, hazel eyes soft and heart-wrenchingly fond.

We don’t appreciate the fact that Bruce Wayne is a Kardasian level celebrity enough. Everyone knows him. I want more one shots and crack fic moments where the League (Pre identity reveals) just openly talk about Bruce Wayne in front of Batman.

Just imagine them playing fuck, marry, kill with famous actors and such and throwing Bruce into the mix. And Batman just sits there, silently suffering as he listens to the reasons why Flash and Lantern would marry, fuck, or kill him. He prays they choose kill. They don’t.

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

The student loan debt thing got me thinking. Fuck the founding fathers of course, but "I am compelled to study war and politics so that my sons might have liberty to study philosophy and mathematics" is a great line and I think about it every time some fool starts complaining that life doesn't suck as much as it used to

I will never not be OBSESSED with the Famous trope + Found Family trope with the Party 😭 The headlines would be so chaotic? Like:

Famous Rockstar Eddie Munson is seen eating lunch with two time Pulitzer winner Nancy Wheeler, Highest Paid Photographer Jonathan Byers and Successful Entrepreneur Argyle Alvez. How does he know these people???

Three time Grammy Winner Eddie Munson seen in a McDonald's with World Renowned Astronaut Dustin Henderson and New York Times Best Seller Will Byers-Wheeler and Mike Byers-Wheeler. What the actual fuck???

Eddie Munson, seen in a Chicago Bulls game looking confused as hell, mere seconds after finding out his second album just went Multi-platinum, with his husband, Steve Munson. Also seen in pictures, Eddie Munson hugging point guard Lucas Sinclair and his wife, Max Sinclair. How???

MSG Sold Out Performer Eddie Munson seen in Chicago Medical Center with World Renowned Surgeon Dr. Erica Sinclair. Our insiders say that the rockstar is FINE and was only having lunch with the doctor. What in the multiverse is happening???

Eddie Munson and his husband seen in line at the book signing of rising Linguistics Author Robin Buckley. They ended up laughing so hard when they reached the author, they almost got kicked out. Turns out they all knew each other???

Rock Star Eddie Munson bringing packed lunch in pajamas to a small Chicago preschool where husband, Steve Munson and known friend, Jane Hopper works. Why??? How??? What???

Third most followed person on Instagram Eddie Munson, just broke the internet by posting a group picture with Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley, Jonathan Byers, Argyle Alvez, Dustin Henderson, Lucas, Max and Erica Sinclair, Mike and Will Byers-Wheeler, his husband Steve Munson and family friend Jane Hopper. HOW DO THEY ALL KNOW EACH OTHER?! WHAT A WEIRD GROUP?!

The more people speculate, the more they say shit. Like people ask them how they know each other and they all just throw out the weirdest answers.

Nancy gets asked in a press conference how she knows Rock Star Eddie Munson? Nancy answers with, "I was driving myself to California when I was 19 and I picked him up as a hitch hiker along the way. We’ve been friends since then."

Robin gets asked in a lecture how she knows the Sinclair Clan? Robin answers with, "I go way back with Dr. Erica. She once saved me from Russian Doctors trying to cut my toe nails."

Eddie goes on an interview in National TV and the host asks how he's friends with Argyle and Jon? Eddie answers with, "I got kidnapped by a killer clown when I was 17. They saved me by crushing the clown's still beating heart with their own bare hands."

Steve gets bombarded with questions online of how he knows Nancy, Robin, Jon, Argyle and even Eddie (his husband)? Steve answers with, "We were stuck in detention every Saturday when we were in senior year. We all became friends when Eddie Munson started singing Don't You (Forget About Me)."

Will and Mike gets asked in an interview about their friendship with Basketball Star, Lucas Sinclair? Will says, “Lucas once gave my dog CPR, ultimately, saving it’s life and we’ve been friends since then.” and Mike just goes, “Who???”

Erica once got asked how she knew Genius Astronaut, Dustin Henderson. Erica rolls her eyes, “That boy owes me his life. Ask him, not me.”

Dustin gets asked how he knows Eddie Munson. Dustin goes with, “Eddie once saved me from a feral army of bats and almost died. I’ve never let go of him since then.” The fans think this one might actually be true, they’ve seen the scars on Eddie, they’ve got theories and Dustin just gave them a puzzle piece.

Argyle got asked in a Business Magazine how he knows this weird, interconnected group. Argyle says, “Oh dude! Those are my life long friends! It started with a pizza van, a dead man, and a road trip to Utah. There was also a bald girl involved. In the end, the real treasure really is the friends we make along the way.”

Jonathan gets asked how he knows Eddie Munson. Jon gives the softest, sweetest smile and says, “We were in a satanic cult together.”

Jane Hopper gets asked once in public (how she knows all these famous people), someone filmed it and it went viral on Twitter. El says, verbatim, “Oh. It all started when I was kidnapped by an evil scientist who tested stuff on me like I was a lab rat. Long story short, they saved my life and they are my family.” By then people already don’t believe any of them because they all give out the most ridiculous answers. Hopper still grounds her for that even though she doesn’t live with him anymore. (Owens, who hasn't called them in 15 years, reached out with a warning).

The funny thing is, Wilhelm for all his anxiety, and insecurities and messy personal life and raw grief is actually the best man for the job. Being king, being a leader comes naturally for him. Because it's not about being arrogant and power drunk, it's not about pulling rank. It's about using the resources you have to your advantage.

He knew exactly how to persuade his schoolmates. He knew when and how to one up August, hit him where it hurts. He knew how to negotiate, with the queen herself mind, and knew when to accept what was given. He knew when to hold his ground and he knew when to let go. It's exactly where August goes wrong all the time because he has a giant savior complex. He has to be everybody's knight in shining armor.

This anxiety riddled boy got up on stage, in front of so many important people, in front of the queen, his mother, and managed to not only take back control of his narrative, but he did it completely impromptu. This boy who didn't even want to speak in front of his class changed his initiation speech midway because he knew he had to stand up for what he believed in. The fact that he has doubts and questions his abilities, if anything makes him uniquely qualified. Because if a 16 year old, royal or not, isn't a little phased by responsibilities that heavy, then they're not the man for the job.

He's grieving the death of his brother, dealing with almost zero parental support and a backstabbing cousin. And he's a goddamn teenager. He's doing better than most people would have. And I, for one, can't wait to see crown prince Wilhelm run the show in s3.

The writers better give us a third season 🔫