Q U E E R   A S   F O L K Season 3, Episode 13

The only reason Jon views Catelyn as a mother figure/maternal figure is because Ned neglected him enough that Jon projected that onto his father's wife. Ned neglected him by witholding any information about his actual mother and by not prividing an adequate emotional replacement for his "son", be that a maternal caretaker or his own damn self.

Ned gets praised to hell and back for the bare minimum.

But people blame Cat for Jon's issues. The actor blames Cat for Jon's issues.

It simply has to be the woman's fault.

The expectation that Catelyn was supposed to act as an actual mother figure to Jon in any official capacity is a massive misogynistic doubel standard that entirely hinges on ignoring the context of the setting and Ned's responsibilities and on insisting that women have the obligation to provide for the emotional needs to male characters regardless of their own self-interest.

She never treated him "like crap". Her worst "crime" (apart from an emotional outburst at her absolute breaking point) is not being warm to Jon and regarding him with suspicion in a way he was able to detect. It sucks for Jon that he was a child and an adult in his life communicated her dislike of his presence. BUT SHE WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS EMOTIONAL VALIDATION. NED WAS.

I will never forgive the show for the absolute character-derailing travesty of a scene where Catelyn castigates herself because she couldn't "love a motherless child" when that is absolutely brushing aside her actual issues in the book canon. It's one of the worst examples of sacrificing a female character's storyline for a male character's validation in the series, and it's on par with Sansa "thanking" the Hound for his abuse or telling Tyrion he was "the best of them", or utterly ignoring Shae's murder.

It cheapens Sansa's validation of Jon because it casts her actions as "making up" for Catelyn (or her own "awful" past, which, don't even get me started on that nonsense). Like it's something Jon is owed by either of them, instead of something Sansa gives to Jon because she she chooses to, because she sees him as worthy of it on her own accord and because of his own actions.

No, instead she has to apologize for not being his #1 stan from day one, like a "good" female character would have been (like Arya). Liking and loving and validating Jon is framed as a default standard, and deviating from it is immediately a transgression that has to be compensated for.

Male-centric, misogynistic nonsense.

My hats off to Kit for giving this mess some thought, but unless his show actually examines the angle that Cat wasn't the bad guy, that the person who withheld emotional validation and crucial information from him was Saint Ned the Honorable... I can't take it seriously.

Baby Will at some point: I love my brother

Baby Mike after a minute and tugging on his shirt: Can we share, I like him he’s nice

Baby Will, reaching for a dandelion and making a ring: Sure! Here put this on mommy says that’s how that works and now Jonathan can be your brother too

Jonathan looking up from his homework, he’d been doing it in the grass while watching them play. He’s now crying straight out: W h a t ?

mike’s still smart in s3 & s4 though. he came up with the sauna test in like two seconds. he’s the entire reason the cali crew found the location of the nina project. i made a whole list of all the smart things he’s done in the show (for Reasons) and i promise you he hasn’t stopped being scary intelligent, he’s just mostly forced to deal with emotional conflicts now, which he’s abysmal at because he’s a teenage boy from a family that doesn’t talk about emotions and doesn’t even know what he’s feeling half the time, much less how to say it (or if he should say it) in ways that aren’t clumsy and impulsive and unintentionally hurtful

[white knuckling the bathroom sink] but i stay silly :3 but i stay silly :3 but i stay sil

Eddie is used to getting recognized in public, but it doesn’t mean he likes it.

And Gareth knows how much he doesn’t like it, so Eddie’s not really sure why his best friend has completely abandoned him like this. Well, maybe abandon is a little dramatic. He said he’d be right back, but that was half an hour ago, and there’s only so many times he can circle the park and dive into bushes anytime someone gets too close. Which is why Eddie left the park altogether and is now sitting at a bus station. No one would expect notorious Corroded Coffin frontman Eddie Munson to be at a bus station, right?

Except he’s not sure the hat and sunglasses and incongruous location are quite doing their job. A group of kids across the road have stopped and they’re all whispering amongst themselves as they look at him. Eddie really wishes he had something to conceal himself with, but his hand over his face would definitely look way too suspicious. He’s thinking he might just have to cut and run and take his chances back in the park bushes.

That is, until the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life sits in the seat next to him, unfurling a giant map that easily shields both of them. Eddie’s fucking savior.

“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know how to get to Japantown, would you?” the guy asks.

As it happens, Eddie does know how to get to Japantown. He hasn’t actually ridden the bus in years, but he still remembers the route. “Yeah,” he says, pointing it out on the map. “You just get on line five headed east and ride it like nine or ten stops until you get to McAllister and Fillmore. From there you just have to walk a few blocks to get into the area.”

The guy looks at him with big eyes, brown and a little droopy. “McAllister and Fillmore,” he repeats, like he’s trying to memorize it. He has pretty pink lips, glistening a little like he’s wearing lipgloss. 

Fuck, he’s adorable. And looks a bit prone to getting lost. And Eddie’s still kind of mad at Gareth for leaving him high and dry out here. So as the bus pulls up to the stop, Eddie figures what the hell?

“I’m actually headed that way,” Eddie says, standing. “I can show you.”

The guy’s whole face brightens and fuck, he really is gorgeous. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all, big boy.”

The bus is blessedly empty other than one shriveled up lady sitting towards the front with her groceries and a teenager in the middle with giant headphones and their nose in a book. Eddie heads to the back with the guy, who now has a faint blush dusting his nose and cheeks.

“I’m Steve, by the way,” he says as he sits in the seat next to Eddie. “What’s your name?”

So that confirms that Steve doesn’t know who he is. It didn’t seem like he did from how he was reacting, but it’s a bit of relief to know for sure. “Eddie,” he says, bumping his shoulder into Steve’s. “Nice to meet you.”

Steve gives him a smile that’s about as radiant as the sun as he nudges Eddie’s shoulder back. “You too.”

“So what do you have going on in Japantown?” Eddie asks.

“I’m headed to a baby shower for some friends who live near there,” he says, “Well, it’s not a real baby shower.”

“No?”

“‘Cause it’s not a real baby. That is, it’s not a human baby.”

Eddie lifts his eyebrows. “I think you lost me.”

Steve twists in his seat and starts gesturing with his hands. “Well, it all started when they found out that one of their cats wasn’t actually spayed and had gotten knocked up by a stray,” he says, “And Robin was like, ‘Hey, more cats, that’s a good thing,’ and Nancy was like, ‘No, our neighbors already think we’re crazy cat ladies.’”

“Uh huh.”

“So they compromised and decided they would keep one kitten and give the rest away,” Steve says, “So it’s less of a come give us presents for our baby shower and more of a please take our babies away shower. You know?”

“Oh yeah, one of those,” Eddie says, and Steve laughs. 

“Hey, are you in the market for a kitten?” he asks. “Cause if you are, I totally know where you can get one.”

It’s Eddie’s turn to laugh. “Honestly?” he says, “I’ve got nothing else going on. Why the hell not?”

Steve gives him another one of those radiant smiles and Eddie can’t help but hope he gets more than a kitten by the end of this.

modern asoiaf aus are interesting to me bc seeing how they reckon with cersei and jaime’s whole…. thing….. is like a delightful little window into authorial intent and the story they want to write like. ive seen some people who go full hog with it – jaime and cersei have a long term sexual relationship with incest babies and all – and some people dodge it entirely – their sibling relationship is normal, or they’re not siblings at all. I think its kind of a betrayal of the source material though to pretend NOTHING is wrong there, bc like its so essential to both of their characters that they have a weird thing going on with each other that is actively affecting their lives in a major way. I can understand not wanting to write incest but imo the characters dont make sense without SOMETHING. when i wrote that bit i just posted i was trying to figure out where in the middle i wanted to fall, and i landed on a weird unconsumated too-close-for-comfort sibling relationship, which i think is a good middle ground. saw these tags on a fanfic that were like “no incest bc jaime and cersei’s relationship is fucked up enough without it” which i also think is a graceful way to handle the issue

The fearless one.

oh to have a fraction of the swag the average background character in sleeping beauty does

Jason Todd has " Thomas and Martha Wayne stan" on his birth certificate, actually