#100 nasty women of history

[qqueenofhades]

I completely understand if you don’t feel comfortable answering this, but my mind is spiraling out of control and you’re the only person I know with the level of knowledge to where I can feel comfortable asking this without getting some form of “bla bla we live in a safe state don’t worry.”

I’m sincerely wondering if I need to be making plans to leave the country in the event of November bringing the most horrible of outcomes despite our best efforts (and yes I’m planning to vote blue in everything I can); as a AFAB in CA?

I know about project 2025. I’m terrified. Forgive my pop culture reference, but I feel like a version of Princess Zelda staring down a barrel of possible doom while everyone around me is like “nah that future you literally had a nightmare about where they made it illegal for a woman to have a bank account without a guy co-signing it and took the money from everyone who didn’t comply by a certain date isn’t even a possibility!”

I’m just confused about my life and am trying to take it day by day, and exercising every right while I still have it to prevent this outcome, but it feels weird making plans and retirement accounts and just general Setting Up Adult Life And Future Things™️……while wondering if I even have a future in this place at all and I’m just making it harder to escape if need be.

I’m sorry I’m rambling, and I guess I don’t know what I’m asking since no one has a crystal ball.

But I guess, it’s stuff like how much can the feds effect state’s policies? Is it possible for them to immediately block international travel for all women practically upon inauguration? How much time would I even have to gtfo if the worst begins?

Bc honestly this whole thing feels like the lead in to a very nasty chapter of a history book, and even though I have hope we’ll have another blue tsunami, it can be hard to try and figure things out when it feels like there’s barely any historical precedent for any of it.

Welp. Okay. First of all, I am giving you a comforting hug, I am walking with you to your favorite coffee shop, I am paying for your favorite beverage and also a baked goodie of your choice, and we are sitting down in a corner where we can talk honestly. So that's where I want you to imagine us having this conversation.

To start with, yes, I completely understand this feeling of utter, paralyzing doom, where I am trying to go about my daily life and make plans for my career and carry out daily tasks and Be Responsible while there's still just this total void beyond the end of the year, the utter impossibility of knowing if we will have dodged an absolutely massive bullet and finally be safe (since if Trump loses again he is 100% going to jail in the next four years) or, well. You know. That is a very hard way to live, when you're wondering if anything is going to matter and you can't see beyond that black cloud of fear on the horizon. It sucks you down and tells you that nothing is worth doing now in case it just gets so much worse. I am not going to tell you not to feel that. We all do. We are all scared. That in and of itself is a perfectly normal way to feel.

However, there are things you can do both now and if (I repeat, if) God absolutely forbid, the worst was to happen (again). First of all, we have already lived through a Trump presidency once. It was terrible and scary and awful and demoralizing as fuck, but we can do it again if we absolutely Goddamn fucking have to (once, again, God forbid). Second, you are currently about as safe as you could be in California. Newsom has proven himself to be smart, tough, able to run rings around Republicans, and unwilling to comply with their stupid performative-cruelty directives. He's not a saint or a magician, but you don't need that; you need a shrewd politician able to fight back, and he has proven himself willing and capable of doing that. So as long as he is governor, you're going to be more safe than not, and I'd also like to ask all the shrieking Online Leftists if, should the shit go down, they would rather live in a state with a Democratic governor who will fight Trump 2.0 every step of the way, or a Republican governor who will just roll over and obey. (But that would destroy their BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME talking point, so you know.)

Next of all, even if the Republicans are doing their best impression, America in 2024 isn't Germany in 1934. There are different tools, different ways to fight back, and different awarenesses/social media/visibility factors. I also need everyone to remember that just as Biden can't just sign an executive order and fix everything everywhere, Trump can't just sign an executive order and fuck everything everywhere, just like that with no more discussion ever. He tried that last time, it generally didn't work, and trust me, at least this time nobody is sleeping on the danger he poses. His candidacy in 2016 was dismissed as a long-shot joke that nobody took seriously until it was too late, and for better or worse, people aren't doing that this time. He will be sued instantly, incredibly, and repeatedly with everything his band of wannabe fascists try, and since we have had four years of Biden fixing the courts from where Trump trashed them, that does mean something. There is no scenario where even if he does issue some outrageous order against women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, etc (which to be clear, I'm sure he would try) it would just be carried out completely, immediately, and with no feasible way to stop it. Evil is evil, but it is also stupid, clueless, determined to hurt people just for the hell of it without any regard for what is possible or which will be allowed, and there's a lot more grey area in there than just "Trump says something terrible and it's instantly done, the end."

Once again, I'm not going to say that the worst-case scenario is not possible, but I don't think it's likely, and even if that does happen, there are ways for us to survive and fight back (again). Nobody wants it and it should not have to be asked of us due to the utter collapse of the social, civic, political, and intellectual fabric of this country thanks to the TrumpCult, but once again... these people are so loud and dangerous and cruel and stupid because they are in the minority. Etc. etc. polls are garbage, but we did just have an interesting piece of empirical data from the Iowa caucuses. Trump -- in one of the whitest, most rural, most conservative, most religious, most Trump-loving states in the country -- struggled to break 50%. Almost half of a rabid Republican fully-Trumpized electorate, among the diehards sufficiently motivated to get out and caucus in extreme freezing weather, voted for someone else (Haley and DeSantis took about 20% apiece). Now, no, we don't know how that will translate to the general election, and if registered Republicans will flock back to the nominee even if it's Trump, but as almost half of Haley voters said they would vote for Biden if it was a Biden-Trump matchup in the general, there is some sense that Trump is an aberration to their otherwise ironclad party loyalty. Now, Republicans are the fucking worst and nobody should be relying on them to save us; we still need to get out and vote for Democrats with all our might. But Trump is no longer barn-burningly popular even in core Trump heartland, and it'll be interesting to see how things go in future primaries.

My point is: I know the feeling that evil is awful and unstoppable and all-powerful, and will crush our lives and our futures no matter what we do to resist it. I really, really do. But Trump is a terrible candidate, he's running literally only to keep himself out of a long, long prison sentence, and if he had crushed the Iowa caucuses regardless, we might be having a different conversation. However, we need to remember that it is possible, again (God forbid) in the worst scenario, to resist, to live, and to win. Everyone who is motivated to work for a better world will still be here. Everyone who can help you and all of us will still be here. And there are more of us than there are of them. Yes, I do understand the feeling that we need to have contingency plans in place, I do absolutely know that it could get very bad, and all that (as you say, nobody has a crystal ball). But for now, I want you to take a deep breath, try to take this day by day, and remember that this is not a crushing and inevitable future that will sweep over you and destroy you without you (or any other person of good will) having a say in the matter. You still have agency, you still have the ability to protect yourself, and you still have others who will protect you in turn. You're not alone. The bad guys want you to think that, because when you're isolated and terrorized, you're easier to pick off and/or recruit into their cult. But you're not.

In conclusion: "What are we holding onto, Sam?"

[im-not-an-object-ok]

For three months this year, I bled nearly every day. My doctor doesn’t know why. Google doesn’t know why. The condition is simply called “postmenopausal bleeding,” and medicine’s best guess as to the cause is that the postmenopausal hormone-replacement therapy I started last November suddenly made my endometrium, the lining of the uterus, “unstable.” All scientific knowledge added up to “If it’s still happening in six months, get back in touch.” (I’m still bleeding intermittently, and I don’t know why.) This is the kind of massive medical shrug that anyone with female anatomy has probably encountered.

Despite major advances for women over the past 100 years—the invention of the contraceptive pill, greater access to safe abortions—much of female biology is still woefully underserved by science. There are reasons for this, most notably the historical exclusion of women from medical and pharmaceutical trials, partly because our awkward hormone cycles were thought to skew results. There’s also the fact that some scientists still project findings from research on men onto women, seeming not to realize that women aren’t just small men: Women are different down to the cellular level, meaning that many of our immune responses, experiences of pain, and symptoms (including, for instance, those that accompany a heart attack) may be different from men’s. Are you having a nasty, unexpected side effect from your medication? That could be because most drugs were developed with male bodies in mind. A 2020 review of 86 common medications, including antidepressants, cardiovascular drugs, and painkillers, found that women were likely routinely overmedicated and suffered adverse reactions nearly twice as often as men.

The lagging science is particularly apparent when it comes to periods and female hormones more generally—the subject of the anthropologist Kate Clancy’s new book, Period, a scientific and cultural history that purports to tell the “real story of menstruation.” Clancy’s book makes clear that a lack of data is to blame for many of the ills that women and girls face concerning their reproductive health, like doctors’ failure to diagnose painful conditions such as endometriosis.

My severe endometriosis was discovered only when I was 41, accidentally. For decades, I had been given prescription-strength painkillers, and my doctor never seemed to wonder whether the amount of pain I was in was abnormal. When I published an essay about my menopausal depression in 2018, a deluge of women wrote to tell me that when they were going through something similar, their doctors had told them they were imagining their brain fog or panic attacks, or had put them on antidepressants that didn’t work because many depression drugs are inadequate to treat the symptoms of fluctuating estrogen.

[slocumjoe]

Companions on social media

Cait; Posts gym thirst traps and videos of her working out or getting into fistfights. Can be found in the comments and DMs of women, gay or otherwise. Lots of activity in sobriety and self-help communities. Doesn’t have a lot of followers, but does fundraiser streams for a week every three months she's sober. The money goes to child abuse prevention foundations. Her most recent charity streams had her trying to get all achievements on Just Dance after someone donated 10k requesting it.

Codsworth; self-help videos for people struggling to take care of themselves. How to tidy up, how to take effective breaks, what needs to be cleaned in a house and what supplies you need...very useful, very popular with college students and teens. Once posted a video of him going at wasps with a chainsaw and gained a million subs overnight.

Curie; children's educational YouTube channel that's, somehow, more popular with young adults. Science experiments gone wrong. Think Jackass and Mythbusters hosted by a tiny French woman who approaches everything with the joy and whimsy of My Little Pony. Her most popular videos are her 100k subscriber specials, a series where she goes ghost and cryptid hunting to disprove them and demonstrate the fraudulence you can find behind such things.

Danse; has a Facebook for work purposes. It has a profile photo only because Haylen insisted. Fears the internet deeply, thinks its the closest humanity can get to staring into the void and seeing something blink. Unbeknownst to him, there's a viral video of him teaching a workout regimen to trainees. The comment sections are pure thirst. All of his coworkers know and made an oath to never speak of it.

Deacon; Is the one who snuck into training and got that video. Posted it to r/NextFuckingLevel with 🥵🥵🥵 for a caption. Owns several large meme accounts, all with distinct personalities and lives. Someone tried to dox him after suspicions, but found all accounts had different IPs and info. He's just that good. His Facebook changes profile photo every. Single. Day. He consumes an absurd amount of audio books. Drops CRAZY money on charity streams to make the host do weird shit, like 100% Just Dance. Probably sells feet pics.

Dogmeat; The internet's darling. Nick Valentine's dog who doesn't help with catching bad guys, but with far more important things; Dogmeat cuddles and plays with victims at the scene or in court. Also trained in search and rescue. Much of Dogmeat's page is just Nick sharing important information (hotlines, self-defense, survival tips, et cetera) while petting or playing with Dogmeat. Kind of a McGruff the Crime Dog vibe.

Gage; Facebook that he uses to cyberbully cop pages and Craigslist to offer his...unconventional services (pretending to be your boyfriend at family gatherings to cause drama). His pet lizard, an Argentine Tegu, has an Instagram with 3k followers. The Tegu often wins pet competitions and Gage posts the awards captioned with 🖕🏻💚🦎💚🖕🏻. Works at an amusement park, posts tell-all confessions on Reddit.

MacCready; Facebook with friends and family, posts a lot of Duncan. His YouTube history is videos for Duncan. Lots of Curie's videos. Mac has a Craigslist and LinkedIn, does odd jobs when he isn't working as a security guard at a shooting range. Activite in communities about comics, shows, and video games. Sometimes he'll post a theory about a show or comic and he's usually right. Really enjoys the meltdowns of fandoms when the media takes a nasty turn, even if he's also betrayed.

Nick; Ellie runs Dogmeat's page, Nick just does the talking. As for Nick himself, has some pages for his work (that Ellie also manages) and a Facebook profile to stay in touch with friends and family. Much like Danse, consumes media offline—except for poetry. Most of his screen time is spent on Poetry.com, one of those people that leave comments. He likes how the internet makes information and art accessible. Very peaceful and wholesome internet time.

Hancock; The void that Danse is scared of. Also does streams, but not only for fundraisers. Streams high. Streams himself trying to find his way back to his apartment late at night. Always end up in a fast food joint, trying to convince the workers to unionize. Twitter shitposter until a politician needs cyberbullying. Organizes protests. Extremely active in Massachusetts' political scene, his fans are a force to be reckoned with. Has fistfought his own fans before. Occasionally cancels himself to prove a point. Makes mock apology videos whenever another celeb/influencer fucks up.

Preston; Park ranger and community organizer. Uses Facebook and TikTok to appeal to all ages. Is unfairly good at TikTok dances. Posts safety tips, upcoming event information, etc. Does a lot of work with Dogmeat and Nick. Posts bodycam footage of him arresting people, like shutting down fire-themed gender reveal parties, or poachers. Not a lot of followers, but the bodycam footage goes viral on subreddits like r/Instant_Karma.

Piper; a journalist and blogger. Posts videos of her political rants and makeup/hair routine. Joins Hancock in politician cyberbullying. Makes commentary essays and videos, sometimes book reviews. Appears on podcasts. Her media presence is decently known, but mild. She tries to keep herself distant from it. Despite this, has a good-sized following who appreciate the lack of parasociality. Her most famous video is her trying to find the best coffee spots in Boston.

X6-88; security guard for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who got stuck running the Twitter when the last guy got arrested on weed charges. Piper keeps DMing for an interview and he keeps blocking her accounts. He has LinkedIn for work. Half of it is redacted and involves NDAs. No other media presence except for one thing; he's an infamous esports cryptid. Across a few different shooter games, a high-rank player called X6-88 (its just his first initial and the numbers on his security badge) fucking curbstomps everyone in the match. He has never died or missed a shot. Never speaks in chat, never in team chat. He's a legend among gamers. For him, he's just relaxing on a Friday night, keeping his senses sharp. Doesn't realize there are compilation videos of streamers raging at him.

[numbr2-pencil]

Just a Judge Claude Frollo Headcanon Post

This is strictly about the Walt Disney adaptation of THoND and their own version of Frollo.

1) He's done the nasty.

Frollo thinks he's better than everyone. As he says in Hellfire: "Of my virtue I am justly proud." The concept of virtue or virginity was a big, big, BIG deal in medieval Christian Europe - we all know that.

Buuuuuut here's the thing. We also know that extramarital sex still happened on the regular. We ALSO also know that social norms and rules were a little less stringent for men, than they were for women.

Know what else we know, about Frollo specifically? He literally killed a woman in the prologue and said it was No Big Deal. "I am guiltless. She ran, I pursued." Sounds like classic abuser talk to me.

Frollo strikes me as the kind of man who has engaged in carnal sin, has indulged his lustful desires, one way or another. He is a huge fucking prude pious man, so perhaps it has only happened on a few rare occasions in his long life; most definitely it came with feelings of extreme guilt and confusion, as indoctrinated religious as he is. But I suspect Frollo has made use of a brothel once or twice. I think it's even more likely that he has sexually harassed or assaulted someone in his time - he just believes it somehow doesn't count when it's him doing the deed.

2) Maybe 'Snowball' is a stupid nicname some lowly, smartass guard gave to Frollo's horse one day, before meeting an untimely demise.

The guard didn't survive but, unfortunately for Frollo, the name did.

3) Lead Poisoning Was A Thing.

One of my favourite #history fun facts is that members of the upper classes, nobility and royalty, frequently used pewter chalices, plates, etc., which would slowly leach lead into their bloodstream over time.

Frollo is clearly in decent health/rich enough to keep it that way, and lives to an uncommonly old age. But with his advanced years comes even higher exposure to lead over his lifetime.

Symptoms of lead poisoning include but are not limited to: headaches, fatigue, irritability, difficulty sleeping, and loss of sex drive. Sounds like someone we know!

By the time Frollo meets Esmeralda, his brain is already half-gone. His rages have become more frequent and intense, his nights often sleepless, his libido low or almost non-existent. So when he finally meets her and feels her teasing him, it stirs his desires for the first time in years. His poisoned brain hyperfixates on her. He hallucinates about her, obsesses over her - and finally, he burns half the city to the ground, just to get his hands on her.

And then there's fucking THIS:

This is not a mentally stable man.

4) Frollo secretly relishes in attending public events like the Festival of Fools.

Ok, hear me out: Frollo is kind of a drama queen at heart and lives to be seen. Especially in any situation where he can show off how much Better™ he is than everybody else.

"I am a public official - I must go!" Oh really?? There isn't like a single other person in government, or the entirety of the Parisian royal court, who could take your place? You just HAVE to be the one to take time out of your busy schedule for this petty peasant festival? Sounds a little sus, babe.

And also, apparently he's just totally unbothered by the presence of all the Roma at the Feast of Fools? Like we already know he's developed a bit of a fixation on the Roma, beyond period-typical xenophobia - like to the point that he brings in a military captain, because he feels that the presence of the Roma necessitates a freaking military intervention (!?). But - BUT! - apparently it's 100% fine for Romani performers to be at the festival, and he makes absolutely NO effort to have any of them arrested, besides Esmeralda? (Is this maybe some of that good ol' fashion lead poisoned brain rot here?) This is more of a rant, or maybe another point in favour of my lead poisoning theory, but still.

5) Cataracts!! 👁️👄👁️

Like I said, Frollo has lived to an uncommonly old age. He's just one of the grotesquely wealthy lucky ones, I guess. But with great age comes great eye health problems like CATARACTS! Which, fun fact, will naturally occur in ALL humans as we age. So, yeah, he's got cataracts forming. That's just facts.

I mean how else would he not have fucking noticed Quasimodo on the stage you guys.

6) Not a cat person.

I weirdly feel like this one might be controversial amongst fans, and I'm totally open to folks disagreeing on this point. But like, speaking as a person who has a cat - in my experience, cats usually prefer the company of people who understand and respect their boundaries.

Boundaries.

And I just think Frollo is, well, not the best at that.

... Yeah.

But also, in fairness, there was some suspicion/superstition around cats being evil in medieval Europe. So maybe that would have been enough for Frollo to not enjoy the company of cats.

What are your Hunchback/Frollo headcanons?

[zerogate]

"Men were designed for short, nasty, brutal lives. Women are designed for long, miserable ones." -- Dr. Estelle Ramey

Male expendability starts in the womb. The egg of the female inches in solitary splendor down the fallopian tube, inviting impregnation. It has no competition. On the other hand, the sperm—the male’s contribution to procreation—vigorously swim the lengthy course up the vagina and uterus, beating their long, thin tails in an effort to outrace the millions of their brothers headed for that solitary egg. Only a single spermatozoon—one literally “chosen” by the ovum—manages to finally penetrate the egg’s outer membrane and achieve the grand prize of impregnation. The losers die.

But that is merely a preview of the casual manner in which Nature tosses male lives away. Male fetuses are the primary victims of natural abortions, miscarriages, and stillbirths. When times are tough, Nature shows her preference by hiking the rates of spontaneous abortion for males to higher than normal but continuing her tendency to preserve her embryonic daughters. As James V. Neel of the University of Washington says, for males “in utero it’s a jungle.”

Things don’t get any better after birth. In their first few years of life, male babies have a higher death rate than their sisters. Then the nasty habits built into the male genes begin to take their toll. Even in a nice, civilized spot like Alameda, California, where researchers performed a longitudinal study of five thousand adults, males were nearly four times more likely to lose their lives to homicide than females. And they were twice as likely to be accident victims. Their own aggression and bravado did them in.

But cockiness is not the only thing that mows men down. They are twice as likely to be victims of lung cancer, suicide, pulmonary disease, cirrhosis, and heart disease. The immune systems of females work far more efficiently than those of males. How can you encourage the male immune apparatus to function at a higher level? There is a way, but I wouldn’t recommend it: castration. The single trick that kicks the male defensive system into higher gear is the elimination of maleness.

[...]

One result of these myriad handicaps: in every industrialized country, women live four to ten years longer than men. But why does Nature treat the lives of males with such abandon? The reasons are simple. If you did away with the vast majority of men on the planet but preserved the women, you would scarcely even dent our species’ reproductive capabilities. One man kept around as a stud could easily provide a hundred women with the wherewithal to become pregnant whenever they pleased. Every nine months a one-man, one-hundred-woman collective could produce a hundred babies.

Just how disposable males are becomes obvious in the light of statistics revealed by anthropologists William Divale and Marvin Harris in 1976. The pair scrutinized data from 561 primitive social groups. They found that societies constantly engaged in war are very selective about the babies they allow to live. They want boys—male children who can grow up to be warriors—so they weed out the female infants, killing them outright or undernourishing and overworking them. The result is that they end up with 128 male children for every 100 females. So far, it sounds like the males have made out quite well. But when the “treasured’ ‘ young boys pass the age of fifteen, their fate becomes less rosy. They are sent off to war. And there, they die. On the average, 28 out of every 128 never make it to maturity. Their lives are simply tossed away.

-- Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History

[menalez]

Feeling some kinda way right now …. I am gender critical (for real, not trans critical and pro gender roles) so I can’t see it the way most people talking about it are… but I am also in mourning for Nex Benedict, murdered, apparently in the bathroom of a Oklahoma school by three girls beating her. And so much of trans activism right now is fixated ok the “transmisogynistic tumblr staff” “issue” to the point most posts about Nex have less than 200, often less than 100, notes here. It’s weird. And I do wanna say, indirectly, to the trans critical person who wrote “happy peaking” in the comments of one of the posts pointing that out………. Yes that is true but we don’t have to say it. To say it makes it less likely to happen for one, and second it is just wrong to say at a time where a girl died, bullied, quite possibly bullied by (reportedly) other girls who were transphobic and probably just anti gnc, sexist and homophobic too. It’s just not the time ever to rub it in their faces. Show them compassion by actually just talking about this death, use your own words about it or defer to how it sounds like Nex (“they/them”) would want to be talked about… either way…. Talk about the event itself and what it says about our society. I don’t choose to express that care by using pronouns in the same way I don’t say prayers I don’t believe the faiths of, but not at all out of disrespect. We can all do that too and talk about this event as gender critical women who engage on this subject, focusing on what happened and how we can oppose this kind of violent, nasty attack. Honestly we have to remember that the conservatives and the queer theorists are both, in different ways, doing great harm. And between the two the former does the most harm to women and girls. Happy peaking to some of us too, I guess, in our own way, on the idea of every issue being “us versus” a trans “them”

100000% agree. i think saying stuff like “happy peaking” about a girl’s death seems quite disconnected and callous ngl. people need to be respectful and remember to be empathetic bc this is a child’s life lost that could’ve been entirely prevented.

it’s also incredibly jarring how tumblr put more energy and attention into talking about some trans woman with a history of harassing people on here & making violent comments being termed than into the killing of a nonbinary girl. they literally treated that tw losing a tumblr blog as worse than murder

[mindibindi]

Tagged by: @randomfoggytiger (thank you) to share....

Three Ships: I only get THREE?? Fine. Then I'll go with:

1.

because they're probably my biggest ever ship. They're also currently occupying my mind. Also: look at them.

2.

because these dummies have been back on my dash (for better or worse and let's face it, it's mostly worse). Also because they were the ship I came to tumblr to post about...

3.

because my blog is probably still 75% Galex. I wrote fanfic and meta for years. I watched and loved the actors in other roles/ships. But as this top 3 proves, I am a total SUUUUUUUCCKKEEERRR for ships that never really end (at least this one was handled well).

First Ship: God, I was a precocious young shipper. Like my tagger, there was Han x Leia. But even before them, there was:

This movie should come with a warning cos these two are too sexy for children. They're a gateway drug for shippers in the making.

Last Song:

cos I watched the Sinead O'Connor doco TWICE, it was that good!

Last Movie: At the movies? "The Little Mermaid" At home? "Amonite"

Currently Reading: "I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was" - Ruby Wax "The Female Quixote" - Charlotte Lennox "The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography" - Angela Carter "100 Nasty Women of History" - Hannah Jewell

Currently Watching: "The X Files" (even though I can quote it backwards) Random eps of "Californication." Also "Fatal Attraction" (is okay). Whatever season of Drag Race we're up to... Just finished "Glamorous" and "The Flatshare". Looking forward to more "Good Omens", "Our Flag Means Death" and "Abbott Elementary".

Currently Writing: Well, I stopped writing fanfic so that I could write my doctoral thesis. Then I stopped writing my doctoral thesis cos of mental illness. So now I'm writing lots of job applications.

I Tag: @onenerdyheart @agent-troitroi @teenie-xf @xyber116 @tossingmyglossymane @oneflydude @doesntgoaway @genderisjendar @bowserbabe @thatgirlxf and (I don't know how many I'm meant to tag so whoever likes cats. But you have to REALLY like cats. None of this: sure, cats are cool. I mean, you have to be a CatLoverTM, capital C, capital L. Mindy out.

[dongzhou3kingdoms]

Dangers of bad history

This is not about Reddit (though it involves it) so even if you hate Reddit drama, please read.

As a western 3k community, we are extremely fortunate in that the three kingdoms era or the Later Han is limited in terms of toxic ways it is used. Though we do see them: The age-old "there be women, this ruins my historical immersion" rubbish in gaming circles which is a wider problem beyond the 3kingdoms (though Koei Tecmo should be ashamed of playing into that with rtk14), Chinese people claiming Taiwan is theirs because in 230 Wu sent ships across the seas and people using the bigoted attitudes towards eunuchs of the era and the novel to warn of the "dangers" of trans rights. But compared to some other periods of history, we get it fairly light though the implications of such ideas spread are dangerous and must be opposed

This week we have seen how easily distorted history to suit a bigoted agenda (Japan bad) can, when done with some skill, be convincing, even as others argue it was bad history. A user, seemingly unaware of the problematic aspect (has since defended it when pointed to it), has been Google translating them and is utterly convinced of their accuracy as articles, putting them into two subreddits: Dynasty Warriors and Three Kingdoms. People who hadn't seen the anti-Japan issue have been enjoying them with 100 upvotes this morning across the two subreddits. Does it not show archaeology and quotes from eyewitnesses? Does it not show the statistics of peasant revolts in Wei? (spoiler alert, no). Something so academic must be correct, some new members have even suggested Wei Economy one should be a paper or worthy of a PhD

Unaware that say slave society was being written by a person who, in another forum post, argues the family inflicting a slave society and a primitive barter economy on the Chinese people was also arguing the Cao's weren't Chinese but Japanese descendants.  

This turns the threads from the very questionable and biased attempt at history into something much darker, one the Reddit poster and upvoters have walked into without being aware. The people of Wei were forced into a slave society of untold suffering by a family who aren't Chinese. Meanwhile, the heroic Shu-Han upheld the best of China including their fantastic administration. Even before 190 CE, Japan and its people were causing harm to China thanks to the Cao tombs. 

People couldn't notice, even without that important context, it was bad history and so were open to some very nasty propaganda. Just by using a little bit of history to make it seem academic and accurate, a nasty construction was built to push an anti-Japan agenda. It is very cleverly done, it builds itself credibility by referring to historical sources and quotes, by providing pictures of the tomb bricks, and using that kernel of truth and seeming truth to gain authority to then tell its tale. 

The quotes would be accurate, for example, key eye-witness Fu Xuan in the Jinshu was used to show the crushing 80% Wei taxes via a line he said. To use Jordan Paper's translation "From those who use government stock, the government receives eighty percent and the soldiers twenty. From those who use their own stock or are without stock, the government receives seventy percent, the soldiers thirty."

However Fu Xuan was talking in 168, after Wei had fallen and decades after Cao's had control of policy, about recent problems and as part of the 5-point plan to deal with droughts. His advocacy for the low tax was to return from 70-80% (share owed related to if things like grain and oxen had to be loaned to farmers) to 50-60% of the Wei dynasty (also advocated returning to Wei intensity of farming while fixing issues with Wei farming policy like the need for more drought officials). He was also talking specifically of garrison farms, not wider tax policy. 

But one line won't show the nuances or the wider point and that allows the narrative to build. To turn into talking about Wei by removing the date of advice, ignoring the wider reforms suggested, and deliberately muddling general tax policy to garrison farming (or landlord share) policy. Who can doubt it was 80?% It is a direct quote from the texts and you can build the narrative around it of suppression via this "fact". Which by being based on a historical quote, seems convincing.

Or statistics. The Wei economy post has a list of peasant revolts Cao-Wei suffered. Who can argue with statistics? People aren't going to know who the people listed are, and they aren't going to know the circumstances of revolts but this person has names, placed and dates, it is surely authoritative. Thus weighting appeal and weight to the argument. 

A harder argument is the truth of uncertainty: we are missing a lot of revolts, and our records only will have covered certain ones that reached the national level or involved an official whose life got properly recorded rather than the many thousands of officials who didn't. Even a relatively well-recorded revolt like the Yellow Turbans is a muddle in the sources and there are debates about all sorts of things involving them. Including peasant or gentry leadership. But we can tell the exact reasoning and background of all these revolts that are less well recorded? No, no we can't.

I don't know if Chen Ce (for example) was a refugee leader, a local strongman, a bandit, a leader of a self-defence group, non-Chinese, from a rich or poor background, whether he was rebelling or simply always independent in an area that had not unified beyond any one leader yet. So I will not claim any such "facts" and certainty but the more certain "peasant" revolt sounds better and thus can be used as a statistic that people often won't query. 

This seeing bad history and accepting it, as it has been, could lead to even worse things if they can not tell "Hey this sounds one-sided and off" and it is why learning history, how to spot what might be rather off, how to sort out facts from the narrative they are being twisted into and be aware of propaganda matters. It has allowed people to embrace a narrative that, to them, simply suggests Wei was a horrible regime and Shu-Han an impressive one. But one that is set up to claim the Japanese were involved in the suffering of the time, oppressing the people of China and holding China back. All without realizing the dark context to which they upvote and with the mods having no idea of the kind of material being spread in their forums. 

It is why we should keep trying, even if it only reaches bit by bit, to put out there the history, to help people learn how to read history. To help give the tools so they can be aware of potential dangers of things that look and sound smart that, instead, can carry a dangerous undercurrent. That will lead them to support things that, the full implications of, they are not aware of and be unable to have alarm bells ringing, telling them "this needs double checking" when there are dangerous lies around.

[modernwizard]

Why I love the Spymaster #102: He's the girl with a pearl earring!

Find my full series under the HELP I WUVS HIM tag.

I talk about the Spymaster's use of classic paintings of modern Western art in The Power of the Doctor elsewhere in my list. #61: Playing even more with gender! notes that he substitutes himself in three paintings into the position of women. #79: The Scream! 💔 points out that his use of the painting illustrates his struggles with mental health. #100: His art collection! examines why he turns to famous paintings that are considered classics. #101: He's the Mona Lisa! talks about the reasons for his self-insertion in that painting.

Today we're looking at the Spymaster sticking himself in the place of the subject of Girl with a Pearl Earring, a painting from about 1665, by Johannes Vermeer.

Here's a reproduction of the original:

And here's the Spymaster's version:

Two things about this painting jump out at me:

First, the subject, a white European young woman, is dressed in a turban, which was a reference to Turkish dress and therefore considered intriguingly foreign. With his extremely bushy beard, the Spymaster enhances the symbols of "exoticism" and "foreignness." He's also brown-skinned and therefore more easily interpretable as "not from around here" and even "exotic" [in implicit juxtaposition with white people].

I'm frankly not sure how to read the use of signs of "exoticism" and racial difference. The show and the BBC have a long history of ignoring the races of the actors and characters, thus contributing to nasty racial stereotypes. [See #51 for an extended discussion of the BBC's avoidance of Thirteen and the Spymaster's race and gender in Spyfall and Spyfall I and how it reinforces racist and sexist assumptions.] Given the show's refusal to significantly engage with the different lived experiences that people have based on their race, I highly doubt that the showrunners even thought about the fact that the Spymaster, who is not white, is putting himself in the role of a white woman. I'd love to read this as the Spymaster's playful commentary on the constructed, artificial nature of "exoticism" and race, but, even though he clearly knows about identity politics [#14: He exploits a modern social justice activist perspective!], we have no indication that he applies them to himself. So idk.

Second, the subject has a very interesting expression. Her twisted neck and side glance indicate that she is looking over her shoulder, a gesture that is often associated with being startled or surprised. Her open mouth makes her look like she is gasping or about to speak. She's responding to the observer, perhaps even in dialogue with them. She looks anxious, or, at the very least, uncertain.

By contrast, the Spymaster's version of this painting shows him in profile. He makes no eye contact with the viewer, and his facial expression seems neutral. Focused on something else that we cannot see, he appears indifferent to the fact that he's being watched.

The Spymaster would like to present himself as in his version of Girl with a Pearl Earring: the beautiful, brilliant center of attention who's not preoccupied with whether he's being looked at. The original Girl..., however, portrays his emotional state more accurately: one of heightened self-awareness, tension, and worry.

@sclfmastery @natalunasans @rowanthestrange @timeladyjamie @whovianuncle

[rulanarinrush]

d/rdt rewatch ch2 part 2. please do not interact if you find this

ep4

i don't talk about j a lot but what arturo does is genuinely creepy, and unfortunately something so many women are familiar with

whit: not a relationship counselor

charles: DO IT BOYFRIEND. OTHERWISE, GO MY BLOODHOUND LADIES

"why so boyish and rude?" oh misogyny welcome back to 2080

eden, while i do get your sympathy for him after receiving his secret, j is definitely the one you should take the side of here. stalking gets nasty really fast, even if you ignore the misogynistic comments

veronika+nico is kind of cute...

nico, you should know ace is a sensitive boyo..., too self-aware to try to improve

"you're not really fighting with nico because you care about what [they] say(s). After all, it's not like you ever valued [their] opinion in the first place." you're afraid you'll be next.

"when i was in middle school, people would send me boxes with a bunch of rope on my birthdays and tell me to go kilI myself, all the time. You're totally doing the same thing."

"failed hanging attempts are pretty painful"

"sorry im late" EVERY DAY DAVID

charles is learning how to cook

i like how arei makes a face at david's "secret reveal". more foreshadowing i missed

"imagine it as a confession of sorts" OH JUDAS GOT JOKES NOW

"but even though you want to prevent murders just as much as i do" OH JUDAS 2 ALSO GOT JOKES

teruk/o and arturo being reluctant to share

whit: bi, cheated on 10th math and history final, chronic shoplifter. JUDAS 3 GOT JOKES WITH THE "I AINT KNOW WHAT MY SECRET IS"

still a weird motive for murder but whatever

oh i forgot this. as soon as whit leaves david tells them they should tell other people what their secret is

who's vs whose

just noticed with all these conversation of clocks the sun rotates counterclockwise in the corner

ep5:

arei your voice please spare my eardrums

david and teruko: twiddling their thumbs as arei berates eden

" i can't stand nice people like her unless I can see them suffering"

david: wlw hostility scares me

"my older sisters made my life hell. i repaid them. that's hell."

"...other than for no reason other than it was fun."

"and if i had to go to the hospital once or twice, that was nothing more than an inconvenience to them"

"my sisters taught me that we live in a dog-eat-dog world. if you're sick of having to drag your face through shit and mud, then all you have to do is step on other people until you reach the top."

"Kindness is weakness"

I'm not a cruel person. I'm just trying to survive. I lied, earlier. I didn't really enjoy seeing eden cry, nor did I enjoy making her feel bad. I was only trying to help her.... only strong survive. If Eden doesn't realize that soon,... she's going to suffer for it. "

"It's not fair that she can be kind and trusting, that's not how it was for me!"

David turning up his charisma to 100

She lived most of her life in the same place.

Self-awareness huh arei

blush on david when arei's not looking

painting goes hard. dev is very talented

show me the others rose... i want to see min's execution again

"My dreams... mix into one until i can no longer tell what's real"

"When I paint I ramble a lot"

"I refuse to show weakness"

"I wanted to be a greater painter when I was a kid, but none of my original stuff sold well"

"family runs a hair salon and we were short on funds all the time"

"one particularly careless buyer ended up leading the trail back to me. caught at 15. bailed out by richard spurling, billionare founder of spurling foundation

"anything i make belongs to them now"

"to be honest, I'm not happy with my life now. Working to pay off my mistakes, and never being able to call my art my own, this isn't a life any artist, or anyone would want."

"It's been so long that I don't think I remember how to paint something original anymore. spark of vitality is missing, and I'm missing a part of myself."

"there's no value in the creations of someone who's fallen so far from artistry." "the only thing i can get out of art is catharsis." that line actually kinda hurt me a little as someone who writes fanfic specifically because it has no value and because it brings me and me alone catharsis, and my art, no matter how derivative, saved my life. but i get the intent of the line.

"I thought it would be rude to interrupt" now you care /verylighthearted

"I want to be an artist" AND HERE COMES JUDAS 4(Nico)

"constantly picking on someone weaker than you"

i like how david uses this window of opportunity to reveal their secret rather than immediately give it back to them like it rightfully is as soon as nico said "i don't want to." mai and david sitting in a tree,

"rose what do you think i should do?" about what levi put the subtext in the sentence

"I was worried you would pick up rocks and start throwing them at me"

"usually people call me special in a derogatory way"

"So then revealing your secret was a good thing right?" nico: um no david: ANYWAY

david: i don't want to force you. that would defeat the purpose

nico: man ur a bitch

*hu's westernized name is julia. interesting to me because I've always thought jing was a more common given name

"supposedly, the water was so still that it perfectly reflected the sky and the many butterflies that flew above the lake during those quiet morning hours" no wonder you have mental health issues your parents were fuckign morning people

j drags teruko into the changing rooms and teruko threatens her wit a knife

"who's there! i know you've been following me"

"about the arei thing, we made up! so everything's fine. you aren't going to pry?"

can hear sound from gym to elevator

nico runs away, but doesn't "confirm" guilt until trial

stepstool, broom, wire, blade

sticky tape disappears when eden gets knocked down. could mean eden or ace took it, or it got kicked away

Levi comes out of his room after hearing the commotion. Eden and Teruko arrived first. "I'm not going to kill you now or ever. except arei she's different."

"Why do I even bother?" Levi walks away but does not go back to his room. Teruko leaves for her room first and does not track where Eden goes.

ep 7

Hu: I'm Nico's #1 defender. if there are no nico defenders left, i am dead

gym is still closed by noon of next day. rose wanted to go to the gym

pullup reveals that grippy tape is missing. also reveals that nico used painting excuse to steal turpentine from rose. it is still missing.

crack in the furthest wall from the door of the computer lab

charles and whit ramble about machine-learning algorithms

veronika left her "weapon" for everyone to use (horror collection, in the form of dvds)

min discussion makes teruko wound up

whit: "saying you don't care about the people you lost to move on? Sounds good"

charles: wat

"childhood amnesia" charles:... teruko:.... charles: .... teruko: PLOT CONVIENCE

whit sends david off to the relaxation room, where he will have his confrontation with arei (also, does that mean david hasn't eaten in like. 20 hours? Since they normally don't eat breakfast before the morning announcement?)

veronika sneaks up on teruko while she's eating and watching a movie, and gets punched on reflex

veronika determines teruko has prosopagnosia

"im someone who gets bored very easily. that's why when i find something that gets me excited, i get addicted. i can't help it. but at the end of the day, fiction is only fiction. the idea that i could screw up my life beyond repair... that's exciting to me"

Eden's plan to bore the audience probably won't work cuz the hidden quote implies as much.

"I said I'd like to live here. But it's not like I want the killing game to continue. It makes ppl suffer." veronika :3

"My idea is far too risky... I might a well decide to wait for a murder... they should bear the brunt of the consequences. You'll figure out when another murder occurs."

"I'm worried about the motive reveal, my receiver hasn't reached out to me, and i have too many secrets as opposed to too little." (Wants to hide herself)

"What about u veronika? know ur secret and ok w/ the others knowing?"

veronika used obfuscate!

"I do know which secrets I gave to which person. I just don't know who each secret was originally about."

"Do you really think she'd be hanging out in the playground now?"

"Teruko, wait" is interesting. comes from eden. we don't know what that would be for.

*lights flicker occasionally from the broken light.

[getyoungersblog]

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[slayter-kinney]

while we’re on the topic of the sanitisation of queerness can we also address the sanitisation of queer history? like almost every time someone brings up a queer figure in history and their partner it’s accompanied by “but we don’t KNOW if their relationship was sexual (: they slept in the same bed and wrote love letters and were definitely together for 30 years of relationship but we dont know if they ever fucked nasty (:" like yes ofc aspec ppl have existed throughout history but can we acknowledge that lesbians and bisexuals and gay men have been fucking and sucking for hundreds of years?? "these two women lived together and were life partners and blah blah blah but we dont know if they had sexual relations" jesus christ they were lezzing out 100 years ago!!! and good for them! its bad enough to sanitize queer lives and experiences and sexualities in modern times with the current political climate but how fucking puritan do u have to be to sanitize and desexualize our queer ancestors and predecessors? weak and pathetic.

[thetudorslovers]

"Women have been there all along. They've been there, and they've been doing things! They've been relentlessly doing stuff, whether you knew about it or not!"

[cipheramnesia]

It's not masculinity that is privileged. It's manhood. I am privileged. It doesn't matter that I'm trans. But it's not my masculinity that makes me privileged. How did we go backwards and decide man = masc and that MRA talking points are suddenly valid?

I dunno, you kinda just swapped around words so you can say that talking about privilege, hierarchy, and oppression as complex and nuanced and intersectional is "MRA talking points," coz that's easier.

And I guess you're either saying manhood is a separate privileged category from masculinity so we aren't talking about the same thing anyway but then wait no for some reason they are the same thing, but there's an abstract "manhood" which exists as a privilege separate from race or class or whatever?

So like there's something called manhood which exists as a universal abstract concept which not only exists identically across all cultures but it's treated the same by all cultures, like there's no difference whatsoever if you pull a cisgender heterosexual Japanese man from Tokyo and drop him into like uh Brandywine, West Virginia, that guy is gonna get fully the same treatment as Tokyo yeah? Because his manhood is universally transferable? And like then I dunno, a gay black trans man living in like, New York City or something and drop him into Dallas County, Alabama, again thanks to the universality of manhood privilege that dude will live the exact same life yes? Absolutely will not be affected by some other factors?

Which like okay the thing is patriarchal oppression is something that will favor or oppress both of those guys but not in a vacuum. Patriarchal privilege says the black guy is a danger and should be controlled by a white guy, it says the Japanese guy has to be subservient and weak compared to the guy from West Virginia. So, you know, the gay black trans guy maybe if he's lucky and no one ever clocks him and he's not effeminate and is good at code switching and knows how to minimize getting harassed by the police for his race and stuff like that, at a point the patriarchal hierarchy will grant him a higher privilege than some, but not all, women, yes. And forgive my cultural ignorance but I'm 100% sure back in Tokyo the same guys making shitty Asian jokes in WV look absurd and the Japanese dude has a higher place in the hierarchy in Tokyo than Japanese woman in the same circumstances but again only as long as he's conceding to the dominant idea the hierarchy imposes about manliness y'know?

Or hey, uh, not to be me, but I'm a fairly pretty white trans woman and so the patriarchy doesn't precisely love me, but I'm less likely to be shot by a cop than any black person, including a guy. His manhood isn't a privilege there, and I don't have some super secret male privilege, it's just historically in the USA there's like, y'know, this whole long and very nasty history of the power white women have abused black men with. I mean, it's a thing and it still very much exists, so just wanna point out this very obvious long running and very well documented example of how manhood is not a privilege separate from other factors like race.

Like there is patriarchal oppression but I'm struggling here to understand how manhood alone exists as a sole determining factor of being granted patriarchal privilege or being oppressed by it. Not because manhood doesn't do that, but because you can't just lay out patriarchy in a vacuum divorced from all other systems of oppression.

So like, yeah, you can access male privilege as a trans man, yeah, but only so long as you also submit yourself to patriarchal oppression, only so long as you allow yourself to be caged by it.

I guess it turns out that privilege and oppression is kinda complicated and just like saying that if we talk about manhood or masculinity or whatever you wanna call it in any complex way, if you just say that's MRA talking points it feels super oversimplified to me? Or just being like "manhood = privilege" like okay but also it's still complicated? Like it doesn't always? I don't know, maybe I'm just way too old and know way too many different people and hear about way too many different experiences because of being so fuckin old I guess but I just can't see the nuance in reducing the entirety of wealth and class and race and religion and etc to "manhood gives me privilege."

Anyway how's your night going? Cool?

[disastergay]

as a philosophy student, it irritates me how I have yet to see a TERF talking point that's grounded in reality and not just speculation or based in willful misunderstanding.

"if trans women aren't just men perpetuating misogynistic stereotypes about women, then why do they try so hard to conform to gender roles?? makeup and feminine clothes don't make you a woman"

maybe because it's safer to be a visibly gender-conforming woman? less than a century ago, there were laws in the U.S. that allowed the police to arrest women who wore "two or more masculine garments/accessories" (vice versa with men). those laws might be gone, but they left a nasty scar on our history.

"we should make it harder/impossible for everyone to transition because young girls are being brainwashed into irreversibly mutilating their bodies"

that... even if this scenario was realistic, that's not a viable solution at all? I agree that kids and teens who are questioning their gender shouldn't be rushed into transitioning, because I don't believe we should equate transness to transitioning. dysphoria is an extremely difficult cross to bear and should never be taken lightly, but anyone who says "the only way to EVER get rid of dysphoria for ALL trans people is through top/bottom surgery and HRT" is just wrong.

and those of y'all who are active proponents of abortion should know damn well that the only result restricting and/or banning gender affirming medical care will achieve is making the transition process more dangerous.

"testosterone can make people behave aggressively, and biological males on average have much more testosterone in their bodies than biological females. therefore, biological males are inherently more aggressive than biological females (and the latter group is not safe for them to be around)"

I love this argument because A) I can break it down into parts (basic premise #1, BP #2, and intermediate conclusion + major conclusion) and B) it overlaps cleanly with the topic of ableism.

so! aggression. it's a fairly fickle thing. depending on your personality and what specifically triggers your aggressive side, you may express aggression in many ways--physically, mentally, and/or emotionally towards other people, through an outlet you use to blow off steam, or maybe you turn all of that aggression inwards and use it to hurt yourself.

even if I was 100% sure that "biological males" are innately more aggressive than "biological females" (let's say due to testosterone for the sake of this context), I wouldn't agree with the main conclusion--that a "biological male" tendency to experience aggression means "biological females" are not safe around them.

why? because aggression does not necessarily beget violence of any kind.

to the vast majority of people, there's a slight difference between 'aggression' and 'aggressive behavior,' otherwise we wouldn't have coined terms (and still use those terms today!) to distinguish them from each other. (for example, if a radfem finds out a woman is trans, and that radfem suddenly feels the urge to punch said woman but doesn't act on it for whatever reason, that radfem is experiencing feelings of aggression BUT not actually exhibiting aggressive behavior.)

and now we've reached the question at the heart of this argument--if aggressive people learn to deal with their aggression in a healthy way, then can't they be safe to be around?

the answer is yes. the answer MUST be yes. because the minute society decides that the answer is no, any hope incarcerated prisoners and mentally ill/disabled people have of being treated like human beings gets squashed flat.

idk, I guess I'm just disappointed that trans exclusionary radical feminists base most of their arguments on pathos with little regard for ethics or logic.

and like. every single time I make a post like this TERFs just wanna call me names, tell me I'm delusional (as if that's new information), or nitpick my phrasing and then pretend they've completely dismantled all of my points. none of them are genuinely interested in learning about what it's like to be trans or WHY we think expanding beyond the western gender binary is more radical than forcing gender abolition on everyone.

TERFs think they already know everything there is to know about us, that there's nothing else left for them to learn from us, and that is their biggest mistake.

[thesacredtwink]

I realized that I never made a proper post about the Gerudo Twilight au. So here it goes.

As punishment for Ganondorf and his crimes against Hyrule, the entirety of the Gerudo people's were forced from the desert and made to live as exiles.

By the point of oot, the Gerudo are already theves, but with their exile they turn to that full time. Many Gerudo, fleeing persecution integrated themselves into the Hyrule society. Kept their heads down, and did their best to survive. A separate group became nomadic and live on the outskirts of their traditional homeland. For the purpose of the au, the cultural tie to being Gerudo is strong and that heritage is passed down from mother to daughter even in the Gerudo living in Hyrule.

This has led to a lot of tension between the Gerudo and Hyrule.

Since Ganondorf, there have not been any kings.

Fast forward x number of years since oot to they to TP, Twilight who was fostered by the people of Ordon Village had NO IDEA that he is Gerudo. He was a very young child when he was found, and believes himself to be just another Hylian (having no frame of reference being the only non Ordonian in the village).

The tensions between Hyrule and the Gerudo are still not good. It's been a LONG TIME since oot, at least a five hundred years, and general Hyruleian people have forgotten that nasty history. People with the red hair are not common, but can be found interspersed in the population (see Thelma).

The events of Twilight Princess come to pass and Twilight makes a trip back into the desert and is set upon by the nomadic population of Gerudo living in the high/lowlands.

(had wave stuff I haven't figured out yet)

He is named the king of the Gerudo.

Twilight becoming king marks a turning point in Gerudo/Hylian relations.

For starters he brokers the return of the Gerudo homeland to his people. We also start to see the begining of some of the things we can recognize in BOTW. Sand seals for instance are being domesticated. Gerudo town itself is a ruin after so long of being uninhabited, but towards the middle of his reign it starts to be rebuilt in it's historic settlement area.

Things are not perfect, there are a number of fights between the Gerudo led by Twilight and the Hylians (not led by dusk I should say. But boundaries are contentious things) over the course of this time.

I joke a lot about Twilight being a reluctant king, but the truth is he chose to accept the role. It took some convincing on the part of the woman who would come to be his primary advisor, and he did have to face challenges and trials by his people before he became the King.

Now, like I said, it's been about 500-600 years since the last king Ganondorf made his grab for power. The Gerudo despite being exiles have survived without a king for a long time. A good number of the Gerudo women don't want a king. But it's been so long without even a whisper of a boy being born to any Gerudo, integrated with Hylian society or otherwise (remember a new King is supposed to be born every 100 years) that people have started to believe that the lack of a king is a punishment by the goddesses themselves. For a lot of the Women, the idea of a true Gerudo King is, interesting even if he's not nessicerrily wanted.

Now the fic "A Wolf in Kings Clothing" covers the chain finding out that Twilight is king of the Gerudo as well as looking more in depth about his becoming king of the Gerudo. It also tangentially covers one if the big defining moments in the early shift in Gerudo/Hylian relations.

Other important things regarding this au, Twilight has a pet Ordon goat, named Colin.