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I love how 87% of the time when you open a transphobe’s blog one of the first posts you see is them complaining about how they don’t have any friends

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why is everything so hard but not actually that hard just i cant do it

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"It's so fucked up women have to do sex work to survive" so trueee it's so fucked up we live in a capitalist society where you need to do work you don't want to do just to be alive. I'm so glad we're talking about ALL the jobs that are forced onto people, especially women, that are full of harassment. Thank God we're not just focusing on jobs that are already heavily stigmatized and shaming women for doing what's necessary to survive, even though every single person has to do that but for some reason it's immoral when it's a stripper instead of a fast food employee

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not naming names but some of you are genuinely really good people and i hope that you get everything your heart wants and needs

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been thinking a lot about like. there's people in my life who I've definitely wronged, right? There's friendships i neglected who really deserved better, there's exes I fought with and never resolved any of the issues, there's people I was just unkind to. I want to apologize to these people, i want to acknowledge that I know what i did hurt them, but i don't really want those people back in my life. I can't exactly call them up and say "hey, I don't actually want to reconnect and become close again, but I should have valued our friendship more while I had it!" or "hey I don't want to get back together, but I know the way I acted towards you was unfair. Have a nice life."

And this is the thing right? You can't always get that closure, you don't always get to say your piece, often enough you just have to. know you were wrong and grow and suffer and also let people hate you? Which - I don't think this impulse is completely selfish, I don't think I just want to apologize so I can feel better about myself, I genuinely do want to try to apologize in the hope that it resolves something for the other person as well? But alongside that, I don't think its entirely selfless; I DO think I'd get something out of that closure and resolution to past conflicts.

I don't really know how to end this thought. There's people in my past who don't like me, don't trust me, and they're not wrong for feeling that way. There's just no way to reconcile without reconnecting and some doors are best left closed and locked, yknow?

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So here's one of the coolest things that has happened to me as a Tolkien nut and an amateur medievalist. It's also impacted my view of the way Tolkien writes women. Here's Carl Stephenson in MEDIEVAL FEUDALISM, explaining the roots of the ceremony of knighthood: "In the second century after Christ the Roman historian Tacitus wrote an essay which he called Germania, and which has remained justly famous. He declares that the Germans, though divided into numerous tribes, constitute a single people characterised by common traits and a common mode of life. The typical German is a warrior. [...] Except when armed, they perform no business, either private or public. But it is not their custom that any one should assume arms without the formal approval of the tribe. Before the assembly the youth receives a shield and spear from his father, some other relative, or one of the chief men, and this gift corresponds to the toga virilis among the Romans--making him a citizen rather than a member of a household" (pp 2-3). Got it?

Remember how Tolkien was a medievalist who based his Rohirrim on Anglo-Saxon England, which came from those Germanic tribes Tacitus was talking about? Stephenson argues that the customs described by Tacitus continued into the early middle ages eventually giving rise to the medieval feudal system. One of these customs was the gift of arms, which transformed into the ceremony of knighthood: "Tacitus, it will be remembered, describes the ancient German custom by which a youth was presented with a shield and a spear to mark his attainment of man's estate. What seems to the be same ceremony reappears under the Carolingians. In 791, we are told, Charlemagne caused Prince Louis to be girded with a sword in celebration of his adolescence; and forty-seven years later Louis in turn decorated his fifteen-year-old son Charles "with the arms of manhood, i.e., a sword." Here, obviously, we may see the origin of the later adoubement, which long remained a formal investiture with arms, or with some one of them as a symbol. Thus the Bayeux Tapestry represents the knighting of Earl Harold by William of Normandy under the legend: Hic Willelmus dedit Haroldo arma (Here William gave arms to Harold). [...] Scores of other examples are to be found in the French chronicles and chansons de geste, which, despite much variation of detail, agree on the essentials. And whatever the derivation of the words, the English expression "dubbing to knighthood" must have been closely related to the French adoubement" (pp 47-48.)

In its simplest form, according to Stephenson, the ceremony of knighthood included "at most the presentation of a sword, a few words of admonition, and the accolade." OK. So what does this have to do with Tolkien and his women? AHAHAHAHA I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED. First of all, let's agree that Tolkien, a medievalist, undoubtedly was aware of all the above. Second, turn with me in your copy of The Lord of the Rings to chapter 6 of The Two Towers, "The King of the Golden Hall", when Theoden and his councillors agree that Eowyn should lead the people while the men are away at war. (This, of course, was something that medieval noblewomen regularly did: one small example is an 1178 letter from a Hospitaller knight serving in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem which records that before marching out to the battle of Montgisard, "We put the defence of the Tower of David and the whole city in the hands of our women".) But in The Lord of the Rings, there's a little ceremony.

"'Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas, while we are gone.' 'It shall be so,' said Theoden. 'Let the heralds announce to the folk that the Lady Eowyn will lead them!' Then the king sat upon a seat before his doors and Eowyn knelt before him and received from him a sword and a fair corselet."

I YELLED when I realised what I was reading right there. You see, the king doesn't just have the heralds announce that Eowyn is in charge. He gives her weapons.

Theoden makes Eowyn a knight of the Riddermark.

Not only that, but I think this is a huge deal for several reasons. That is, Tolkien knew what he was doing here.

From my reading in medieval history, I'm aware of women choosing to fight and bear arms, as well as becoming military leaders while the men are away at some war or as prisoners. What I haven't seen is women actually receiving knighthood. Anyone could fight as a knight if they could afford the (very pricy) horse and armour, and anyone could lead a nation as long as they were accepted by the leaders. But you just don't see women getting knighted like this.

Tolkien therefore chose to write a medieval-coded society, Rohan, where women arguably had greater equality with men than they did in actual medieval societies.

I think that should tell us something about who Tolkien was as a person and how he viewed women - perhaps he didn't write them with equal parity to men (there are undeniably more prominent male characters in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, at least, than female) but compared to the medieval societies that were his life's work, and arguably even compared to the society he lived in, he was remarkably egalitarian.

I think it should also tell us something about the craft of writing fantasy.

No, you don't have to include gut wrenching misogyny and violence against women in order to write "realistic" medieval-inspired fantasy.

Tolkien's fantasy worlds are DEEPLY informed by medieval history to an extent most laypeople will never fully appreciate. The attitudes, the language, the ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS use of medieval military tactics...heck, even just the way that people travel long distances on foot...all of it is brilliantly medieval.

The fact that Theoden bestows arms on Eowyn is just one tiny detail that is deeply rooted in medieval history. Even though he's giving those arms to a woman in a fantasy land full of elves and hobbits and wizards, it's still a wonderfully historically accurate detail.

Of course, I've ranted before about how misogyny and sexism wasn't actually as bad in medieval times as a lot of people today think. But from the way SOME fantasy authors talk, you'd think that historical accuracy will disappear in a puff of smoke if every woman in the dragon-infested fantasy land isn't being traumatised on the regular.

Tolkien did better. Be like Tolkien.

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I’m so happy and thankful that I live in the same time as vibrators

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that’s a good one

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It's like idk man, I still wash my paint brushes the way my art teacher taught me how a decade ago. I eat tortillas the same way as the ex I haven't seen in years. You can fly to the other side of the world and the shop will play the song your dad played in the car when you were a kid and it still sounds exactly the same. My hair grows funny in one spot because I got a scar on my scalp when I was six.

Sometimes I reach for light switches that aren't there, that have never been there, because I used to live someplace that had a light switch in that spot. And I think maybe life is about repeatedly reaching for light switches that aren't there. In a few years you'll be somewhere else, and you'll reach for the light switches you have now.

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I don't think men saying out of pocket shit to me on the internet is because they're men. everyday billions of men wake up and don't say out of pocket shit to me on the internet. this is clearly an active choice

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Ok, imagine you're comic accurate Clark Kent and you're a working-class immigrant raised on a farm. You grow up and dedicate your life to helping people while being a total malewife to your Pulitzer prize winner girlfriend. You're despised and targeted by an unethical, megalomaniacal billionaire who thinks his intellect and his power and his wealth entitles him to your inherent abilities and the adoration you've earned through years of nonstop altruism. YOU WERE CREATED BY TWO JEWISH MEN IN THE 1930S

And then people complain about a movie about you being too woke

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Somewhere in The Batman (2022) universe, there is a 2 year old Tim Drake watching all the Riddler's live streams on his iPad.

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I don't know who needs to hear this, but

YOU DO NOT NEED TO START A NEW HOBBY!

STEP AWAY FROM THE TEXTILES!

YOU DON'T NEED MORE YARN!

THAT FABRIC IS NOT CALLING TO YOU! LEAVE IT ALONE!

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calling someone "straight" is basically a slur because at the end of the day it doesn't really matter if someone is gay or not because we're all affected by homophobia equally <3 really if anything heterosexual people are the biggest victims of homophobia if you think about it because they could get yelled at even though they aren't fag— i mean gay.