fleur delacour falling in love with bill weasley because he sees her. his youngest brother looked and went hair-eyes-teeth-legs, thought body, thought sex. her whole life, men have been looking and seeing a thing, not a girl. since she turned thirteen and bud-breasts pressed up against her shirts and boys at school wanted to sit close, men back home lingered too long in hugs.
until she was fifteen she dressed herself in shame before she put any clothes on at all. wore everything a few sizes too big, a few inches too long. draped herself in thick fabrics to hide the body beneath them. never learned that hot eyes on her were the fault of their owners, not her. took the uncomfortable stares and the endless flirtation as a fact of life. was fourteen the first time she dared to say “stop looking!” and met only laughter.
it’s not until she’s nearly sixteen and her sister is turning ten that she sees eyes begin to slide over her and to gabrielle. a friend of their father’s, not even that deep into a bottle of wine, caresses a child-round cheek and murmurs a line from lolita, eyes too bright and lips too dry. gabrielle flickers a panicked glance around the room. that look is so familiar.the same hour fleur switches her baggy sweatshirt for a crop top and rolls her skirt over two inches.
they will look at her. never at her sister.
at school, the same. at home, the same. slowly, she learns to be less ashamed of the looking. to play to the object they expect her to be. she comes to scotland and she’s the centre of attention. they hear her name pulled out of the goblet of fire and all anyone wants to talk about is her legs in that skirt. she defeats a dragon and boys whisper all the dirty things they want to do to her just moments after they finish comparing cedric’s charmwork to krum’s reflexes to harry’s flying. they watch her pass in the hallways and their eyes glaze over like she’s a thing put there for their pleasure.
fleur lifts her head high and lets the stares keep coming.
then she meets bill weasley, and not long after he asks her how she’s doing. asks it like he really means it, like it matters to him that she still gets nervous going around blind corners, that vines make her skin crawl and that the green flash of a hex makes her mind go too blank with fear to defend herself. he brings her a bottle of his favourite whiskey and sinks deep into it, tells her about his life and his job and asks about that night in the maze she doesn’t think about. he doesn’t look at her legs even once.
the next time she brings him her favourite wine and they share it. she’s giggling and silly by the end of the evening and he laughs with her, laughs at her like an equal and not like a thing he wants to fuck. he takes her to her door and leaves her in the care of her friends and he doesn’t do it because he thinks it’ll make scoring easier next time. doesn’t decide his actions based on which will result in sex the fastest.
he doesn’t ask her out until he’s laid himself bare for her, doesn’t even touch her until she reaches down and presses her fingers into his. the first night she feels brave enough to go home with him he keeps her up at the kitchen table until three am telling her all the things he likes about her. her physical appearance doesn’t even make the top one hundred. he says, how much you love your sister. how fierce you look when i take the last croissant. that funny french way you roll your ‘r’s. how you try to tell me jokes but laugh too much to finish them. how you know exactly how many children you want, and the precise shade of blue you’ll use to decorate your nursery. the bravery of you. the way your mind moves so fast sometimes i can’t keep up with it. the fact that i think you could do my job ten times as effectively as i can. they fall asleep on top of his covers, fully clothed, and the next morning fleur has to say yes i want this i am sure that i want this ten times before he starts to undress her.
his family call her all the things she’s heard a million times before. fleur lifts her head high and lets the insults keep coming. his brothers still sometimes look at her like they’ve forgotten to see a person, his mother mutters under her breath about fleur’s lack of suitability, his sister takes every opportunity to express her dislike. they see her beauty and they think they know her. they watch her move and they think she’s nothing more than her body and face.
but bill weasley sees her. and fleur will not let anything—not a war, not lycanthropy, not a disapproving family—take him away from her.
teaching children that they are allowed to walk away and cool off if they are feeling overwhelmed might literally save their life as teens/adults
could save other ppls lives too.
I feel like the key here is letting them know that they can come back to the discussion, and that you’re not just sending them to their room with different words
“go calm down” is just dismissive, but “go calm down and we’ll talk more about this in half an hour” validates the child and lets them know that you’re not just brushing them off
its also worth noting that “go calm down” as a statement, regardless of what follows it, comes across as dismissive. add plurality to the comment.
“LET’S go calm down.” “LET’S take a break” “WE BOTH should step away”
never expect a child to do what you yourself arent willing to do in the situation. otherwise, its just a time out.
Fighting transpobia and homophobia is one of the most important things the LGBTQIA community does, but it’s not the ONLY thing reason it exists, and claiming otherwise is historically ignorant and dangerously shortsighted.
We don’t define ourselves on the basis of other people hating us.
We provide community, safe haven, and support for people who are not straight, and that includes all A-spec people.
i don’t care if it’s a only a joke, please don’t make comments about how someone’s choice of field of study isn’t going to take them anywhere because it can be a great source of stress and your joke won’t help.
As a trans guy who’s been working out for a few years now and has learned a lot about their body and building muscle and whatnot in the process, here’s something I don’t see mentioned, like ever.
I rarely see male body positivity posts in general but I’ve never seen this mentioned, and honestly? Call me stupid for it if you want, but I genuinely thought that super defined look was something that was achievable in a relaxed state, simply because I’ve never seen anything to the contrary.
As someone with body dysmorphia as well as dysphoria, you can imagine the damaging effects that might have had on my mental health trying by to achieve the impossible. I can only imagine how many other masculine folk out there could be struggling with the exact same thing.
Anyway like, this is mostly to point out for masculine folks that might be pushing themselves too hard, that you’re probably doing better than you realise.
Anecdotal stuff aside, this is an important thing for artists to remember as well! This is something I never realised despite being an artist that goes to figure drawing classes on the regular and having modelled for them myself- because of course people with abs are flexing for the poses! I was doing it too!
– Admin Pasta
Bodies actively being posed and relaxed bodies look VASTLY different and that’s ok! There’s nothing wrong about the natural and relaxed look of your body, it’s still just as wonderful
Some of y’all don’t want fandom to be fun at all you want it to be like some kind of gd AP Lit class where all we do is have pointed debates over the most Correct interpretation of media like NO get fucked I will project onto my favorite character and write whatever shitty nonsense fic for whatever illogical pairing I want die mad about it
Male attraction does not need to be a conquest, the cat in a cat-and-mouse, a game where you can “score”, a victory when you get what you want.
Men do not have to be predators on the hunt to experience attraction or to seek a relationship. Women do not have to be prey.
This is heteronormative and problematic and just….like….
Having sex with a woman doesn’t have to be some kind of battle you’ve won. You didn’t beat the other Lion to the antelope because a woman agreed to have sex with you. Other men do not have to be rivals. Women do not have to be hunted and consumed.
How to make more incels the post.
If this post can make incels, then it’s best we weed them out of the gene pool as quickly as possible 😉
No it creates incels by misdirecting males energy and ruining their ability to attract women. Even OP and the women reblogging this dont want this they’re just retarded and don’t know what they want as usual.
All young men need to be aware that nothing a woman says about how to attract a woman is accurate. Like all fathers should be telling their sons this at age 13. I don’t know why, but women seem to intentionally give terrible relationship advice to young men. I suppose they don’t know what they want.
If you behaved the way OP is suggesting, you’d literally never get laid or build a relationship. Women constantly say shit like this, telling young men to be passive, but they only respond to being assertive. Every one of my successful relationships was built on this.
Men would not behave this way if it wasn’t the one method of attracting a partner that works. Our sexual and personal assertion/aggression is women’s fault. They necessitate it.
Im literally a married woman, and every single one of my relationships EVER,including with my husband, has been built on mutual friendship and respect.
Not on men treating me like a fucking piece of meat to hunt down.
Yall are gross, nasty trolls who are offended because you’ve been told to not be predatory in your relationships. Its kinda sad.
Yeah you build that as time goes on, but what makes the average woman want to build that with you rather than any other man? Making the first move. Being more assertive than other potential suitors. Your husband literally did beat the other lion to the antelope, even if his reward was emotional satisfaction. Unless of course you’re the absolute fuckin’ pits and he just settled for you when nobody else would, which, to be honest, kind of seems likely given you run a blog you’ve unironically titled “fandoms and feminism” lmao
I don’t imagine there were too many “lions” knocking on your door 😉
You have a really, really gross misunderstanding of healthy relationships. I’m sorry you view women as prey. Its actually really awful. Now get off my post.
I feel like there is some fundamental misunderstanding here between being assertive and confident vs being aggressive and possessive/entitled. I can’t quite articulate it, but it feels like the two are being conflated. Because the second person accuses OP of telling men to be “passive” which I didn’t get out of the post at all.
Agreed. Tell them not to be predatory and its “oh, so now men cant initiate a conversation?!?!?” Like….unless your regular normal conversations are PREDATORY, no one said that.
Anthony Kennedy is resigning. He is the last moderate Republican on the Supreme Court. He’s been the swing vote protecting Roe vs. Wade, though he’s allowed the erosion of access. All the other Republicans on the Court want to overturn it. 45 has vowed to only appoint justices to overturn it. Mitch MCConnell stole Merrick Garland’s supreme Court seat to over turn it. If 45 is allowed to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court, the right to choose is gone. Likely the Right to Vote for the poor and People of colour is gone. Republican Gerrymandering will likely make permanent one party rule irreversible or close to it. As it is we generally need 60% of the vote or more to win elections and in some states they’ve arranged nearly permanent control of Congressional, state, and local governments so well it takes a massive blue turn out to win. If Garland’s seat hadn’t been stolen there wouldn’t be a Muslim ban in place. They are already unraveling the public accommodations laws that protect queer folk and people of colour from being denied services.
They owe us a Supreme Court seat. Under the new role they made up in 2016, they claimed that no president is any longer allowed to appoint a Supreme Court justice. This looks like an election year to me. They have no shame, but if we can get the Democrats to exhibit spine just this once instead of letting the Republicans walk all over them again. If we can delay. If we can convince possibly one or better yet two pro choice moderates in the senate, there is a slim but non-zero chance of Saving our Country. It is a huge fucking odds are against us fight. It requires us all to pull the stops out on protests, on contacting our senators (Tell your Democrats to stand firm against them taking another Supreme court seat. Beg your Republicans to do the right thing; to hold to the new standard they imposed; and if they are moderate to save the Right of women to make their own medical decisions. If your senator is Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins, it is geometrically more important as they are our best bets.), on registering to vote and turning up for the primaries (if you have any left) and the election in November. WE NEED THE SENATE BACK and WE NEED KENNEDY"S SEAT VACANT OR FILLED WITH MERRICK GARLAND OR HIS EQUIVALENT. To do this will take maximum effort. This is the last break on the Republican goal of turning us into a religious fundamentalist oligarchy. We are steps away from Russia and the Handmaid’s tale. It will likely take a generation or more to recover from the damaged 45 has already done in a year and a half. If they do this… I am terrified because there will be no brakes left.
I know we are all exhausted and discouraged. There have been a series of particularly bad defeats in the last months. We have internment camps on American soil and they are building concentration camps on military bases that don’t have things like enough water in the desert where they are hoping refugee families will outright die. They are placing them on purpose where there can be no over sight from civilian authority and the media, where the law can’t be applied to protect them. Our only hope is a strong judiciary and if the Republicans replace Kennedy with another Gorsuch then it will get so much worse so much faster for all of us.
Please. Help save the Country. We need to fight harder than we ever have before, even though we are all tired and grieving. Maximum effort from here through November. We are nearly out of runway folks and either we fly or we crash.
If you can go in person to see your senators? Do it. If you can go in person to protest? Do it. If like me, you can’t, here are some other options.
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
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