#Stop calling misogyny because you like a complex female character

[remarcely]

Something was itching me about Kipperlilly as a character for a while that I couldn't place down but I just got it.

There is so much of a connection between her storyline and the radicalization a white suburban kid can have to something like white supremacy that it's not even that deep, it's surface level.

Think about it:

She has a strong hatred for a minority kid in her school because he's got great grades and is viewed as a hero

She's envious of the hardships he's gone through and starts hating her family for being so 'normal' (a lot of white people can feel angry about their identity and what they think is a lack of a culture because they 'don't feel oppressed enough' to justify their own feelings of unfairness)

She takes all that anger and infects the people around her, hurting them and 'radicalizing' a few others

Is so insistent that this random kid had an unfair start because of his family situation that she wants to permanently change the bylaws in her school so he's put at a crazy disadvantage, just so she feels like she has an upper hand (think of racist people being mad that there's more POC going to college and crying that they're only getting in because they're a minority, ignoring the real work those students put it despite the disadvantages they might have faced)

She doesn't do any self introspection, doesn't decide to put more effort into her grades or personal relations, she takes that hatred and lets it poison her from the inside out. She rants about fairness when she doesn't put the work in and chooses to despise the people that do, just because they're not as miserable as her.

Her guidance counselor doesn't know how to combat that anger because he doesn't agree with her politics, a creepy adult in her life recognizes her hate and takes advantage of it to stir up the flames, we don't even see her parents but it's safe to say they're not exactly involved or watching her.

I don't know, I'm just annoyed because I keep seeing people say 'if you hate Kipperlilly that's just misogyny' as if she is not a genuinely hate-able character.

You can hate a woman for being evil, you're allowed.

And on the whole 'redemption' thing, sure that's entirely possible but let's face it. You cannot force someone to change, that's not how redeeming yourself works, you have to want it. Kipperlilly has no desire to change because she believes she is right. What use is it to her to abandon a worldview that suits desires her so well?

There was no way that could have been covered in an epilogue well enough to justify it and do you really think all the people that had their lives ruined and were literally murdered (Lucy, Oisin, Ivy, Ruben, Mary Ann, Buddy, etc.) would be bending over backwards to check on their killer?

[zahri-melitor]

There's this thing that I've noticed on my Birds of Prey and Batgirl read, that I can probably use Burnside as a dividing line on:-

Post 2014, there's definitely been a shift to portray BOP and Batgirl as the 'girls team', to the exclusion of non-female characters.

Like do not get me wrong. Birds of Prey has always been at its heart about a small group of women working together (and frequently against the forces of misogyny). But it wasn't exclusionary. Dixon's run has Ted Kord and Jason Bard and Dick and Tim as supporting characters through it. Simone's BOP runs have Savant and Creote as antagonists and supports, they have Dawn Granger AND Hank Hall. There are male heroes around and supporting!

The premise was 'Barbara calls in the characters she sees that she needs for this mission' and sometimes that is her close friends and allies, and sometimes it's very pointedly people she's not close to because she's pushing people away for Reasons, and sometimes it's the only person who has the skillset she needs, and sometimes it's because she's meddling and trying to reform someone, and so on. She has complicated reasoning for how she puts a team together, and who she calls on for assistance.

And yes, part of the point of BOP is to showcase the wide range of talent available in female DC characters for any scenario you can think of, why are you not building teams that are at least 50% women more often?

But there's this trend that starts emerging from n52 onwards, particularly once Simone is removed from the books, where the titles sort of stop interacting with male heroes outside of dating them. No, why are you calling up all the female vigilantes in Gotham to help with this situation but none of the men, even when you're actually closer to a number of the guys? Is there a reason that there's a no-men gas or something? No?

I love seeing strong women heroes who are friends and who are enemies and who fight together and have complex relationships. I love the depth! But also it feels super walled off and unnecessarily inverted to only allow men in as characters to DATE, when from the very beginning they've been used to build characterisation and showcase the women's skills.

[melonteee]

Zoro’s “she’s a woman” is also very funny to me, but after re-reading Skypeia I *think* I understand the vision behind it, even if the execution might’ve been clumsy.

Back in Jaya when Robin and Zoro are searching for the South Bird, there’s a brief scene where Robin criticizes Zoro for indiscriminately cutting down random critters, to which Zoro retorts that it’s the critters’ fault for getting in his way before reiterating his distrust for her. Despite this distrust, however, Zoro does seem to take Robin’s criticisms to heart as he stops uses the bladed end of his sword on critters in Jaya and mostly avoids using his swords on animals in Skypeia.

Which also creates an interesting parallel to Enel, who shares a very similar opinion to the one Zoro held in Jaya. Hell, some translations of Zoro’s response to Robin have it along the lines of “it’s their fault for challenging me” which is almost verbatim what Enel says in the arc about his “lambs.” And despite Enel insisting that he is an Equal Opportunity Vengeful God, there are scenes before the ones with Robin where Enel’s treatment of women is framed as predatory, in a way that also parallels how the Celestial Dragons are portrayed as treating women later, which also colors the way that Enel specifically attacks Robin also being predatory and motivated by misogyny. So I *think* Oda’s intent for Zoro was seeing his past attitude in Jaya reflected back at him and ultimately realizing that just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you *should* while also using the scene to comment on how god complex’s are often used as covers for bigotry.

But, even so, Zoro’s line is a clumsy summary if that’s the case. The Doylist explanation is that Oda has always struggled when it comes to threading the needle that is “how to convey female fighters are as strong and capable as the male fighters without also inadvertently endorsing real life gender-based violence” and sometimes this results in clumsy lines like Zoro’s. But my personal Watsonian head-canon is that the Plinko Horse in Zoro’s brain didn’t fire up fast enough to coherently summarize 45 chapters of character development, which results in him spitting out what sounds like a complete non-sequitur.

I respect this but my interpretation of it was Zoro does have an internalised misogyny, which is proven to us in Punk Hazard. He admits he doesn't like to nor wants to fight women to Tashigi, and Monet backs him against a wall because of it. He thinks it's dishonourable to target women as a man, and considering his dojo dad was from Wano, and he was raised with Wano ideals, AND he was raised in an all male dojo, it makes tons of sense.

I know a lot of people are confused about this because of Kuina, but his mentor said TO HIS FACE "I am a woman, you are a man. You will be stronger than me." How in the world would Zoro, at his baby age, not internalise that in some twisted way? Especially coming from the person he looked up to. It feels like it's commentary on the fact misogyny is taught, it's not just a natural born thing, and it ruins ones own perception of self and lives around them.

Zoro was quite literally raised in a male dominated space, where ONLY men were trained and told they were the strongest - it has been programmed into him. The thing is, this is written to be a NEGATIVE thing. This isn't me pointing at Zoro and calling him a piece of shit, this is me saying it's a FLAW Zoro has, and it's clearly one he must get over. The strongest swordsman in the world can literally not afford to look down on women as weaker, because I HIGHLY doubt Mihawk does that. Tashigi calls him out for it, and it's very obvious this is an internalised issue Zoro doesn't LIKE that he has.

Why in the world would Oda make Wano openly sexist towards its women, refusing to let them fight, and THEN reveal Kuina's family is quite literally FROM this country - hence WHY Kuina's dad was so insanely sexist. Of course this is going to become commentary on Zoro having to overcome taught beliefs, especially considering Zoro is one of the few Strawhats who has never actually fought a woman. Not only did he not actually touch nor fight Monet (he just scared the shit out of her), but he also took zero shots at Big Mum on the rooftop lmao. He fought her homies but not her, physically - not even once. There's clearly something going on there, and it's Zoro (and Sanji) specific, cause literally NO other male strawhat has a problem fighting women or seeing women on the battlefield (once again, apart from Sanji, and that's possibly a parallel).

I say that last part because yes Oda has sexism in his writing, but every time I hear Zoro's 'woman' line is just Oda being Oda, I want to tear my hair out. Otherwise EVERY male character would act like Zoro towards women, and they quite literally do not LMAO

I don't know why this is the hot take it seems to be, because I LOVE Zoro, but it's clear there's something going on with him in regards to internal prejudice. I think it's because, as a Sanji fan, there's an irony to saying all this lmao. But of course, I do not mean for any of this to be negative, because I am excited to see if this side of Zoro actually gets explored. Ie Zoro defeats misogyny and sexism HAHA

[ginny-anime]

Just because you like Rhaenyra and support her and label yourself as team black. Does not mean you can’t be faced with criticism . Most of you really don’t care about women. You just like rhaenrya and it’s okay. Just don’t be labeling y’all selves as “feminist or women defenders”. When the only women you defend is Rhaenyra and crap on other women. (Alicent, Helaena, even Rhaenys, etc..).

I see this a lot within team black and I’m so tired of it. I like Rhaenyra and she does face misogyny yes, but does not give you a reason to be misogynistic to other female characters and then when people call you out. Y’all use Rhaenyra as like a shield for yourself and believe that you cant say anything wrong just because you like/support one women. It gets annoying and when people who are neutral and like the green characters. Y’all like to shit on them and call them every insult in the book just for liking alicent or aegon ii.

Like stop pretending team black is all high and mighty and have morals. When team black is just like team green. They both want the same thing. They both have complex and interesting characters.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/753405110589259776/note-spoilers-on-this-ask-for-anyone-who-hasnt

I’m this anon, and using your anon box to reply to a bad take in the reblogs of it lol.

1. aO3 treats the show and book series as separate fandoms for Bridgerton. My friend’s genderbend fic though is based on the books — thought I made that clear here. And yes book fans were being genuinely homophobic in her comments, not just her interpreting them not shipping it as “homophobia.” It was full of “get out of OUR tag” and claiming just writing a female character in a male version or shipping her male love interest with a guy was “misogyny,” exactly as I said. It’s a huge problem in the fandom. The main Reddit sub is so full of homophobia that queer fans had to spin out a separate inclusive sub called r/bridgertonlgbt. I’ve heard of people on TikTok being called “bourgeois degenerate” and “groomer” just for questioning why it’s supposedly such a dramatic and horrible change to make Michael into Michaela in the show.

2. Can we finally fucking retire the really tired, knee jerk “book is always better” attitude that has never been universally true anyway lol. The books Bridgerton are based on are pretty middling het histrom that repeat plots so much between them that that’s one of the big changes the show has had to make — just not have seasons 1 and 2 follow the same plot beats like books 1 and 2 did. The show has had to make a lot of changes just because it has a bigger audience than your average het histrom reader and while I haven’t loved every shift, it is overall better for it. Or just like, focusing on more than just each season’s main couple like the books only do — also better! The subplots are some of the most fun parts of that show, but also, it makes sense that people are going to continue to want to follow their favs from season to season and not just zero in on each couple. Yes I’ve read all the books. They simply are just not that great, TV is a different medium than books anyway and so certain changes are necessary, and frankly most of the loudest parts of the “book fandom” online who complain about the changes are people who read the books because of the show anyway. They’re all wildly inconsistent in what they consider acceptable changes: they’re largely on board with making the universally white books more racially diverse, but not adding queerness and gender diversity. Why is one ok but not another? Especially when a lot of them are ok with sad or bittersweet queer stories in subplots like Brimsley’s but not happy stories for main characters. Why is that, I wonder? A lot of people are pretending to be “book snobs” as a mask for bigotry, or just have bad taste, but regardless I think we need to get over the idea that stalwart defense of some mediocre and overly tropey romance novels is more elevated or intellectual and like the show isn’t an improvement in being less lazy about the cliches of that genre than the original author. (Seriously, I read a lot of romance novels, so this is not a knock on the genre as a whole or its readers — but the Bridgerton books are SO lazy and SO repetitive. Honestly I think a lot of the book defenders need to read more histrom themselves. Then maybe they’d see how weak and lazy those books can be compared to what else is out there.)

Fandom please learn basic things about how adaptation between different mediums works 2k24 also stop assuming that consuming a story in text form over another is an inherently intellectual activity

--

A pretentious friend of mine who loves Shonda Rhimes was going on at me a while ago about how she ~always reads the book first~ and then waiting for applause as if that's unusual!

She then tried to launch into how shocked she was by the books being... well, lowbrow trash, but she had some complex and boring way of explaining this.

I was like "Honey, you do know what a regency romance novel is, right? Right?!"

I mean, there are adaptations that are nearly exactly like the middle tier of romance novels. They're movie length and they air on Lifetime. This was a change not only of medium but of overall target audience and vibe.

[utilitycaster]

In the end, it is misogyny but in the form of that Imogen (and most of the female cast, if we are being fair) gets reduced to just being a woman to the point that criticizing any real flaw, wrong doing, or "hey i personally maybe perhaps don't like that she did this" is turned into an attack on her because she is a woman, because after all, all women are perfect and so so dainty they must be protected (sarcasm)

Without mentioning the attacking real women in the name of the fictional one

It really is the "God forbid a woman do anything" but in it's worst form

Sorry for venting, been having thoughts about the fandom for the past 5 years

YUP. I do recommend Unlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya which I devoured in like, one sitting over my winter break and posted a bunch of excerpts from but this discourse is extremely not limited to the CR fandom. I mean, think about all of the endlessly churning nonsense about the women of Gone Girl and Midsommar. I am going to see Love Lies Bleeding tomorrow and have steered well clear of really any discussion because I simply would like to see buff lesbians in a crime drama but apparently the discourse is rancid.

Of course there are people who assume ill of female characters while excusing men. That is absolutely a big problem. But again, we can barely talk about that. I recently made a post about how Laura is not a particularly chaotic player, and indeed is one of the most cautious players in actual play, and again I think there is a serious and important conversation to be had about how there's probably a reason why, say, Travis and Taliesin are more likely to make extremely bold moves, because they didn't get raked over the coals during C1 for stealing a cool broom from a guest character! I actually think Marisha has managed to hang on to some of her boldness and it makes her a stronger player but I would not have been surprised if she retreated after the hate she got from Keyleth. But yeah, in actual play, bold moves are pretty important. We can't even talk about how real-world misogyny holds back the actual actors without some moronic wretch being like "FIGURES THAT A MISOGYNIST CUNT LIKE YOU LIKES A MALE ACTOR."

When a character who is a man - or in some cases, characters who are not men but are played by men - does something people don't like we can say "wow, I didn't like this, but it was an interesting choice by the actor!" but we aren't allowed to either talk about the reasons why a real world woman might hesitate to play a character who does ugly things - because of the misogynistic backlash that will land specifically on her as a real person - nor can we compliment her for going for it and playing a complex flawed character, because how DARE you say a woman is anything less than some kind of Divine Feminine ideal. At best you're allowed a two-dimensional caricature of She's So Sweet And Good But Sometimes Gets Angry (this also happened to my friend Keyleth).

And this might reveal my own biases but like. I as a woman don't love being called self-centered, but that, personally, would probably lead me to some reflection. If you call me a girlfailure, even jokingly, I am going to break your nose. It's really telling that like...one of the absolute no-brainer "hey stop calling grown women girls" feminist tenets has gone by the wayside particularly with the set of people who think that meta that fails to put women on so high a pedestal they are untouchable is misogynist. They are awful towards women, fictional and real.

A line that always stuck with me from, bizarrely, a book about wordplay, was that Victorian men would treat women of their same classes as their superiors, but never their equals - they would coddle them and protect them but they wouldn't actually engage with their thoughts and foibles. (This happened to my friend Jester).

Anyway my personal solution is to keep going. On some level, as my previous post indicates, while I don't want the harassment it also only underscores my point, that a lot of these people are way more invested in being a dick to women on the internet than writing meta about the pretend women they think they like. I have to imagine they're doing this because either think they're entitled to meta they like from people who can actually fucking write it because god knows most of the people making this complaint have the most "if you can't dazzle them with brillance, blind them with the most purple-prose bullshit you can muster" attitude; or because they literally are just champing at the bit to attack women online with the ostensible veneer of "but it's FEMINIST to call THESE women cunts because they said my blorbo wasn't saintly and flawless." However, again, I know that I'm pretty bullheaded and forcibly unlearned the uh, patriarchal idea that women should not be confrontational. I do not blame people who look at this whole situation and say "I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself because this is so unpleasant."

[rosemarydisaster]

I feel like the misogyny in fandom is only partially the fandom's fault. Let me explain: if the piece of media you're a fan of has a 50/50 female to male ratio, and treats its female characters with the same love, nuance and respect they treat their male characters with... Obviously you have a bigger chance of having your favorite character be a woman instead of a men.

If there's only one or two women, if they're written like shit, if they're not allowed the same complexity (because they're just set dressing or because "feminism dictates female characters can't have flaws" lest they call you out) well obviously you're gonna gravitate to the more nuanced male characters. If you don't care enough to write compelling female characters why should the audience feel compelled?

Don't get me wrong, even great female characters get sidelined in favor of "tall dudes with (dubiously) homoerotic tension". But in fandoms with majority female characters/really compelling female leads, the vibes are completely different. Even if there are still assholes. A great example is the fandom of Game of Thrones vs the fandom of A Song of Ice and Fire. When all your female characters either feel the same brand of girlboss/badass or are framed as annoying/evil while most of your male characters (even the evil ones) are painted as cool and badass as opposed to having a full cast of nuanced characters of both genders... yeah misogyny is gonna happen.

So yeah, we do need to work on our internalized misogyny and we do need to point out when we or the fandom treat female characters unfairly. But we also need more stories that love their female characters as much as their male counterparts. No one has the guts to hate on the female characters of The Locked Tomb Series. Mostly because why would you read a book with a mostly queer female cast about necromancy and the awfulness of love if you hated complex female characters??

We should try to give more attention to those stories. Once you start asking "isn't it weird there's no interesting women here?" When you watch/read/listen to a story you find yourself not caring much for a lot of shows. Hell it's why I can't watch most shonen anymore and why I gave up on supernatural at some point. As a "consumer" (hate that word) I also have the option to stop caring about a show that clearly doesn't care about me (or any woman for that matter).

Does this mean you can't read Sasunaru fanfic anymore? No, but when you start a new show you might want to keep that question in mind. And you also may want to consider specifically searching out for works about women or that care about their female cast as much as their male counterparts.

The fandoms don't yearn for the misogyny as much as we think. I've seen some fandom really work the terribly written female characters into extremely compelling stories. Or write new female characters in fandoms with barely any (shout out to "Local Skate Dads Adopt Three Sons and a Hooligan" for adding like three new female characters to a show with one and a half).

Our internalized misogyny is left alone to fester in a desert, deprived of good female characters. Of course people develop an almost paraphilic obsession with M/M ships when they've been trained from birth on shows that don't care for their female cast (if they have any). We center men because society centers men. And we have to do the individual job of decentering men/centering women while also aknowledging that the people that make our shows aren't doing the job.

Also if you're reading this and wondering "what even is good female representation? What kind of show should I watch?" Read the locked tomb series. Trust me, it is a religious experience (not just for women, it has so much gender in it).

Has this all been a ploy to get you to read about TLT? Yes. I also recommend The Magnus Protocol for podcasts, and Derry Girls for tv shows. They're all so good.

[marley-manson]

Out of curiosity, how would you describe ways people are misogynistic about female characters they like? I can probably guess, ("she's a perfect angel", "she's two dimensional now because everything she does is excusable", "she's the mother", etc.) but I would like to hear your take on it

Yeah that's definitely one of the categories of commentary I was thinking of. Reducing her down to a badass lady with the sole braincell, ignoring flaws and complexities and completely smoothing out her personality, mom friend lol, you nailed that. Also the classic awesome lady and her silly boys style threesome stuff, or the canon love interest in m/m who is totally understanding and supportive and steps aside or welcomes an open relationship happily. It's super annoying and tbqh I'd by far rather see people completely ignore a fictional woman's existence than frame her like that. Honestly, I'd rather see genuine character bashing of a love interest lol, because at least in those fics she usually has a personality, and sometimes even gets to do interesting things.

On the het fan side of things I'd also include a loooooooot of the ways people write and talk about het romance. I see a lot of female character fans, usually the kind who are resentful of m/m and call gay shippers misogynist a lot, who act like their favourite fictional woman can only attain personal fulfillment if she gets together with the dude they ship her with and see anyone who doesn't ship her with a dude (often including f/f fans) as like, maliciously depriving her of happiness lol.

But also all those little heteronormative things that add up - the woman is 'spunky' or 'sassy' (because the man has the power), she falls very neatly into the small weak feminine category to contrast with the manly dude with rough calloused hands (no matter how effeminate the dude actually is lol), she's nurturing and comforting and reads the dude's mind to provide him exactly what he needs and is tolerant and indulgent of his shittiness, her good looks are pointed out a lot, she's a great mom no matter what her canon personality is, etc etc.

And then there's the ship wars lol. Being a fan of a fictional woman absolutely does not mean you love all fictional women, and a lot of the absolute nastiest most misogynist statements I've seen in fandom have come from rival hetshippers wanking. You want to see a woman called a screeching harpy or a fugly slut or a manipulative whore or whatever else lol dive into a fandom with rival het ship wars. My favourite woman is practically perfect in every way and deserves the dude, your favourite woman is a wanton hussy.

This also holds true for the very few f/f fandoms that have rival f/f ships ime. Even Xena fandom regularly had plenty of misogynist things to say about any woman who makes eyes at Gabrielle who isn't Xena lol.

Also I would argue that wider f/f fandom's really fucking annoying compulsion to smooth away all relationship and character flaws and write two perfect women braiding each others' hair and maybe delicately finger-fucking at best in fear of problematic dynamics and kinks is also misogynist at its core, at least as an inescapable trend if not on an individual basis. Though, on that individual basis, the rhetoric around policing problematic f/f is absolutely misogynist (and homophobic). Good women don't get off on power and abuse, we can only like totally egalitarian sex, you're probably a predator if you're into dark fiction, that kind of shit.

And of course that also goes for the rhetoric around fic in general and how much misogyny is aimed at women writing kinky shit or m/m etc, but that's a bit of a digression since it's aimed at real women rather than fictional characters, so I'll stop there.

Thanks for asking and giving me a chance to complain more lol <3

[epickiya722]

What is this trend of ppl going on fandom and being like "whoooo sexy lady!!!! lesbian sex yay!!!!!" And then when canon gives them exactly that in it's mildest form suddenly it's "well you see this show is deeply disgusting and disrespectful towards it's female characters and they have no personality or writing whatsoever"

I don't get people like that at all!! So they want this thing and once they get they complain about it.

It's the same for people who scream "we need more complex female characters" and then go as far as calling those said female characters "bitches" even if their actions are explainable. Hell, they can't even handle female characters at all!!

Let's be honest, it's misogyny and the urge to complain because of boredom.

Female characters can't be sexy, nice, plain, mean, emotional, lacking emotions, evil, good... they can't be anything without people having some complain about something.

Lately, a lot of people like to throw the word "misogynistic" at creators but they never actually stop and observe closely to the said female characters. It's like "is the creator actually being misogynistic or you're just projecting, shifting the blame somewhere else"?

[princeescaluswords]

Respectfully, i think fandom's treatment of Scott (and Allison) has far less to do with them being heroic and compassionate and far more to do with fandom racism and misogyny. Cause I've been in fandoms where the more morally grey or antagonistic characters were people of color (or even just 'unlikable' white women) and in those cases the fandom double standards re: character mistakes were stacked against them, not the white male or 'likable' white female heroes.

I don't think you can separate them, to be quite honest, though I apologize if I gave you the impression that the hatred of Scott and Allison isn't absolutely and fundamentally anchored in racism and misogyny. But I don't think it's a matter of "I see a non-white character so they must be terrible" or "I see a female character therefore she must be irrelevant." I think instead that this animosity is born out of a malicious cognitive dissonance. They hate Scott and Allison because they are embodying attributes that they were taught were meant for other characters, and the fandom can't handle it.

If you examine their behavior closely, the many parts of fandom believe that compassion and heroism are privileges reserved for white male characters. If a Latino teenager, such as Scott, in the name of compassion and principle tries to stop someone from killing other people, it's not a heroic stand -- it's him being arrogant. It's him not knowing his place. If a female character, such as Allison, in the name of fulfilling an ancient duty she has inherited from her family, falls into darkness, it's not part of her journey of reconciling that duty with her own will, it's her being a bitch. To supply another example, if black adults who possess both skills and knowledge, such as Deaton, Morrell or Braeden, act in accordance with their own principles, seek to fulfill their own agendas, and establish their own boundaries, they must be sinister.

On the other hand these very behaviors are lauded in the white male characters, even when they canonically don't possess them. The parts of the fandom which hate Scott so much do not hesitate to take his acts of heroic compassion and transplant them onto Stiles. After all, to them, Stiles naturally cares so much for people (such as Jackson, Isaac, Boyd and Erica) that he will fight for them (as Scott did in canon). To them, Stiles should correct and guide individuals (like Scott or Derek), and he should act to stop immoral behavior (such as punishing Scott for rejecting the Hales or not paying enough attention to him, even if they aren't actually immoral), which is the exact behavior fandom gets mad at Scott for doing in canon. In a similar vein, it's perfectly fine if Derek spends Season 2 trying to murder Lydia and endangering his betas, actions that lead to death and chaos, because of his family's history (which is exactly what Allison does in her dark arc). Peter has skills and knowledge, but it's actually exculpatory that he has his own agenda, his own principles, and his own boundaries, such as when he sits out the battles against the Alpha Pack in Season 3.

Ultimately, it's why they keep trying to make Teen Wolf not about Scott McCall. It's why they created the Unreliable Narrator Theory out of a single line that only serves as a framing device. It's why they created flights of fancy like the Tree Alpha or the Anakin Complex. It's why Poseygate is still a sore spot nine years later. It's why, in the end, there is Eternal Sterek. Their minds can't comprehend -- or more honestly they refuse to accept -- that the show simply isn't primarily about white men.

Want a very recent example of this cognitive dissonance? Yesterday, a writer named FairyNiamh published a little piece called Broken on AO3. Here's the citation:

Now, as with many fans of fiction I don't mind a little whump, so I read it. I shouldn't have. You shouldn't either. Why?

It's nothing but hate. The first paragraph is a summary of the movie (notice no tag about the movie) but twisted to outright state that Scott didn't care about Derek dying only to reveal that this is a deranged drug fueled fantasy of a human Scott who got hooked on heroin by Theo and so his mind is broken. (Heroin addiction doesn't work like that, but if your goal is slandering a Latino hero, accuracy and research aren't important.) And they have Melissa and the Sheriff grateful that Derek so bravely kept Stiles away from drug use through his wuv.

You get it, right? This isn't a story; it's a spasm. It's a combination of all the racist and misogynist furor generated by the unforgivable crime that Teen Wolf happened to not be about white men and then directed at a movie (and its actual fans) by a writer who had plenty of warning about whom the movie was actually going to be.

And it was deliberate. This writer is not 16, unless they wrote their first Harry Potter fanfiction piece while in their mother's womb in 2006. This person knows how to tag, considering they've had plenty of chances in the 703 other stories they've written.

So there are one of two possibilities. EITHER this person deliberately wrote this to trick fans of Teen Wolf and Scott McCall into reading it so FairyNiamh could spew bile at them (note Derek and Stiles are the real good guys, but the writer left them off the character list). It was mean. It was hurtful. There's no purpose in it but to crap on Scott McCall and the people like me who are his fans.

OR, this writer has so totally internalized the Eternal Sterek victim complex that they see this as a legitimate criticism of the movie. Not, legitimate as in 'what actually happened' in the movie, but a cultural criticism of how dare a television show not be about the endless love of two white men who never even verbally expressed affection towards each other. Because to people like this writer, Teen Wolf could never be legitimate because it had the wrong leads.

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

what qpr ships do u ship that most see as allo & why do you ship em in a qpr/pr way? like what makes them interesting for you?

basically.....every ship to be honest?

tho it is especially bad if you are particularly fond of female characters specifically (✨ misogyny✨)

there are three main reasons why I tend to prefer qprs:

1. I hc a ton of characters as aromantic and while it is theoretically possible to be an aro in a romantic relationship (if you're a happily dating aro-spec more power to you) I personally could never. and thus my version of the characters that live in my soul and love gnawing on my remaining braincells wouldn't, either.

2. fandom and spite. I'm just so tired of all the stupid "there is no platonic explanation" (yes there is, it is called loving your friends) or "a platonic friend wouldn't do that" (yes they would, it is called loving your friends) or (picture of two people hanging out) OH MY GOD CHECK OUT THEIR ROMANTIC DATE FULL OF ROMANCE (<- cannot stress enough how these are just two ppl enjoying each other's company. do allos just hate their friends)

the most annoying part of that is the way it devaluates every friendship that isn't somehow (forcibly sometimes) linked to romance (they only sacrifice themselves for each other because of their *romantic* feelings specifically, everything they do with and/or for each other is basically just buildup for their REAL important relationship - as if, if they never started dating, it would all be "a waste" or "for nothing")

3. we've all seen it. two perfectly fine complex layered interesting characters become a couple and along with their new relationship status they also receive a new personality trait: being a couple. unfortunately for them, that is now also their only personality trait.

but I think that with qprs that is much more difficult to do? when you speak of romance everyone has a pretty clear picture in mind for what that means; qprs however are by definition undefinable. meaning that in order to make a qpr work you are more or less forced to have a little character study (even post relationship): how do they perceive the qpr? how is it different from other friendships and/or past romances? or even: how do they deal with being in a relationship outside of the widely accepted romance/platonic binary? (and that's just off the top of my head)

(though I think that another big thing for me is that for the longest time I thought that "being in love" and "having a crush" were synonyms. my nine yo brain thought that after confessing (regardless of the outcome) these feelings just started fading after a while since theyd outgrown their usefulness. so even if the feelings were reciprocated you just stayed together out of convenience after a while - until you "fell in love" with another person. I know by now that that's ideally not the case but I think that I've thought of it that way for long enough for it to be baked into my worldview lmao)

ft rant below the cut

its probably bc I'm thinking bout her a lot but it's pretty bad with Lucy Heartfilia. I feel like the devaluation and dismissal of Natsu's and Lucy's friendship is so bad (especially considering they are at the core of the show) ,,,,,, I honestly believe that if they were to start dating it would actually take away from their dynamiC AND! UNDERMINE!! THE!!! ENTIRE!!!! MESSAGE!!!!! OF!!! THE!!!! SHOWWWWW (THIS IS LITERALLY THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP MANGA GUYS THEY ARE ALREADY SOULMATES STOP ACTING LIKE THEIR BEAUTIFUL RELATIONSHIP IS JUST A STEPPING STONE IM GONNA START BITING FOR REAL)

anyways. thanks for coming to my ted talk<3

[smh-yoon]

Do you think it’s unfair of Sakura for ending her friendship over a boy, bully Naruto for being an orphan, and being utterly useless?

hi there! i assume you’ve seen that i post sakura content, which is why you directly asked me this (even though you opted to remain anonymous). im going to assume several thing about you in this response, so buckle up! :D

1. im going to assume you either ignored or just didn’t pay close enough attention to sakuras character development in the series that made her complicated friendship with ino and initially strained relationship with naruto significant to her character and also to team seven. both of these events addressed larger developments that happened throughout the series, such as her understanding and friendship with naruto and her fixed relationship with ino and her devotion to sasuke.

2. im also going to assume you don’t really consider the fact that sakura was only around 12 when she was first put in team seven with naruto and sasuke, and that she was even younger when her and ino stopped being friends over sasuke. this is not a standard you would (or hopefully someone like you wouldn’t) hold a standard to a real 12 year old, because it’s more common sense to understand that children don’t have any real understanding of the way their words and actions affect others. also, ino was equally at fault in the ending of their friendship, but you didn’t mention her?

3. im going to also assume you are either a) a man, or b) a person with no real understanding of the misogyny present in sakuras character creation and that of many other characters in early 2000s anime. so, assuming you’re simply ignorant and not malicious, let’s talk about sakura. she trained under one of the three sanin, just like naruto and sasuke did, but was constantly written to sit and watch as she couldn’t do anything to help. why were naruto and sasuke so strong training under kakashi the same as her, one of the three sanin the same as she did? because the writers made her that way. there’s no logical explanation as to why she would be so weak in the series other than to say the writers intended that for her. from the beginning of the series, sakura is very strong and this is shown when she hits other people and leaves them dazed. she had plenty of potential and was very likely to be strong, but instead she was sabotaged by the very people who created her. also, compared to naruto who had the nine-tails to assist his strength and sasuke who had a kekkai genkai, sakuras strength was completely her own.

4. if you still don’t understand after ive explained it, im going to assume you’re not old enough to comprehend this in my simplified version of it, which means you wouldn’t understand anything more complex, which means you’re likely not old enough to read my content!!

5. im also going to assume that you don’t actually care what i have to think about the topic and just wanted a reaction from me, but i actually love speaking about the misogyny sakura faced in her creation and portrayal, so thank you!! :)

here’s a link to a post that goes into more detail with specific examples if you’re actually interested :)

[babyrdie]

ACHILLES ON SKYROS [PART 1]

The dancer displayed for you the many Lycomedian maidens and the work and tools of girls, the distaff, the spindle, the wool, the warp, the woof, and he has represented Achilles playing the part of a maiden. Don't worry. He won't stop the dance at this point, for Odysseus is coming to the door, and Diomedes with his trumpet, and the son of Peleus is revealing what he really is instead of what he seems to be.

Libanius and the Dancers, by Margaret E.Molly.

I decided to make a post with ancient sources that deal with the association of Achilles with Skyros in Greco-Roman mythology. For this, I’ll be using both Greek and Roman sources, but I’ll be making it clear which versions are Greek and which versions are Roman. Therefore, this post, in addition to serving to understand Achilles' associations with Skyros, in a way also serves as a group of sources for the character Deidamia and sources for the birth of the character Neoptolemus. This myth touches on topics such as gender roles in society, misogyny and rape (including depictions of glorified rape), so be aware of this if you intend to read the post.

When talking about "feminine" and "masculine" here I’ll be considering the traditional idea of ​​gender in antiquity, which doesn’t mean that all women and men were like this or even that all mythological characters were strictly idealized in this way. For example, cowardice was a characteristic more associated with the feminine, so much so that Aeschylus writing Aegythus as a coward makes him effeminate while writing Clytemnestra as the one who holds violent power masculinizes her. Does this stop Antigone from being brave without being masculine? No! But it doesn't change that cowardice, especially in the context of battle, was associated with the feminine and not the masculine, it's no wonder in The Iliad male characters call other male characters women as a form of offense by insinuating that they are cowards/aren't skilled warriors. Although there were female warrior characters like the Amazons, violence (and consequently war) was still a male attribute in the same way that weaving was a female craft (a very important one in the cultural context, including. This is why weaving was cited so often by writers as a feminine activity Achilles did while in disguise). As horrible as it’s to say that rape is a narrative device to exalt masculinity, this is how rape was treated in Roman sources like Achilleid. The perception of gender here is less about modern perception and more about ancient perception, and the traditional idea is used as a social reference and not the exceptions. This even applies to texts that subvert gender roles in some way, because, to recognize a subversion, you first have to recognize the traditional.

Furthermore, this post presents different interpretations/analyses from academics instead of being a post focused on my interpretations, as I believe they have more knowledge of the subject than I do. I’ll try to present different views, including those I don't necessarily agree with and I’ll avoid as much as possible (not entirely, however) giving an opinion on which interpretation is my favorite to avoid influencing whoever is reading it. Because they’re interpretations, it mean that they aren’t absolute truths, so it’s entirely possible for you to disagree and that’s okay.

And now, some details:

I use the spelling Skyros because I got used to it, although the most common in English is Scyros. Same about Deidamia/Deidameia.

I'm definitely not a classicist and this is purely a hobby, so don't expect anything super complex. If I make a mistake, let me know and I'll fix it! If you have anything to add that I didn't include, be free!

The dates refer to the likely periods of the authors, not the works themselves. It isn’t always possible to be sure of an author's lifetime, but if I were to try to organize the period in which the work was written it would be even more difficult.

There may be writing errors, as I’m not fluent in English and this is more evident in a long post.

The Iliad, by Homer (8th century BC)

This is a source of Greek mythology. The Iliad requires no introduction, I suppose. Homer doesn't give us many details on the subject, but Achilles' association with Skyros was already present in The Iliad, although it’s clear that it isn’t the most popular version of the girl disguise. So now I'll organize the chronology.

At some point we don't know when or how, Achilles had a son named Neptolemus, who continued to live on Skyros when Achilles left for Troy. We currently know the mother attributed to Neoptolemus is princess Deidamia, but in The Iliad the mother's name or status is never mentioned. Thus, it isn’t possible to know anything about the identity of Neoptolemus's mother or details about his conception — for example, how she and Achilles met.

[...] or the death of my dear son, reared for me in Scyros, if Prince Neoptolernus is still among the living [...]

The Iliad, 19.388-389. Translation by Robert Fagles.

Regardless of how or when Neoptolemus was conceived, the fact is: Achilles didn’t go from Skyros to Troy in the Homeric version. We know this because Odysseus explicitly says Peleus sent Achilles to Agamemnon directly from Phthia. I've read the argument that Odysseus, being the one who usually discovers Achilles' disguise, could be lying because a man dressing up as a woman to escape war wouldn't exactly do the best with Achilles' image. But besides me not considering this a concrete theory (if you see this as a headcanon, okay. But theory…well, I think it lacks some substance), Phoenix also says the same thing. So it's not just Odysseus who says it.

[...] Oh old friend, surely your father Peleus urged you, that day he sent you out of Phthia to Agamemnon [...]

The Iliad, 9.306-307. Translation by Robert Fagles.

[...] The old horseman Peleus had me escort you, that day he sent you out of Phthia to Agamernnon, a youngster still untrained for the great leveler, war, still green at debate where men can make their mark. [...]

The Iliad, 9.533-536 Translation by Robert Fagles.

At some point after he had already joined the Achaean army, Achilles conquered Skyros. From there he brought Iphis as a slave, whom he gave to Patroclus. That is, for Homer, Skyros was conquered by the Achaean army during the Trojan War events.

And over across from him Patroclus slept with the sashed and lovely Iphis by his side, whom Prince Achilles gave him the day he took the heights of Scyros, Enyeus' rocky stronghold.

The Iliad, 9.813-816. Translation by Robert Fagles.

I got the impression that Achilles and Neoptolemus' mother aren’t married in this version, since Achilles says that he thinks about Peleus choosing a wife for him.

[...] If the gods pull me through and I reach home alive.  Peleus needs no help to fetch a bride for me himself Plenty of Argive women wait in Hellas and in Phthia, daughters of lords who rule their citadels in power. Whomever I want I'll make my cherished wife-at home. Time and again my fiery spirit drove me to win a wife, a fine partner to please my heart. to enjoy with her the treasures myoid father Peleus piled high. [...]

The Iliad, 9.480-487. Translation by Robert Fagles.

I have placed the conception of Neoptolemus as the first part in the chronology, but it’s actually not possible to be certain. Because of the lack of clarity, Homeric Neoptolemus could have been conceived during the conquest of Skyros rather than before the Trojan War, as is usual in myths. This, in turn, could add some tension to the relationship aspect of Achilles and his son's mother, as she would have been a native of a conquered place (maybe a war-rape?). But this isn’t clear or explicit and, furthermore, I prefer to think that Neoptolemus was conceived before the Trojan War for age reasons. He's already very young in the pre-Trojan War version, I don't even want to think about how old he would have been when he was found by the Achaeans if he had been born during the Trojan War. But yes, it’s still a possibility.

Christos Tsagalis offers a possible link between Homer's version and a version of a Homeric scholia in which Achilles sacked Skyros before the Achaeans reached Troy, which would explain Neoptolemus' age and reinforces the possibility of a war-rape (a war-rape that, however, is practically never confirmed. Currently we can only deal with possibilities). He also comments on how, however, in antiquity there were attempts to make this version credible even considering the version in which Achilles receives hospitality in Skyros.

[...] another version (reported by an exegetical scholium ad Il. 9, 668b), according to which Achilles sacked the island of Scyros at the time of the first recruitment in Aulis, so as to subjugate the Dolopes who had revolted from the rule of Peleus. This last version featuring a heroic Achilles sacking Scyros is consonant with Il. 9,668, where it is said that Achilles sacked steep Scyros, the citadel of Enyeus (Σκῦρον ἑλῶν αἰπεῖαν, Ἐνυῆος πτολίεθρον). We do not need to get involved into fanciful explanations, of the kind entertained by ancient scholars who argued that the Scyros Homer is referring to in Il. 9.668 may have been a city and not the island on the NE of Euboea or that Achilles liberated the island from the Dolopes, who had revolted against Peleus. It is understandable that such explanations stemmed from the paradox of having Achilles sack the island where he had been of fered hospitality in the past. This paradox though is based on the belief that Achilles’ hiding and cross-dressing episode at Scyros formed part of the Cypria. According to this line of thought, Homeric poetry had downplayed such a cyclic episode, although it may have been very much aware of its existence. The episode of Achilles’ arrival at Scyros after a storm may have also formed part of the Ilias parva (dubitantibus Allen, Bernabé – assentientibus Davies [frr. 4A and 4B], West [frr. 4-5]), where in an analeptic reference, Odysseus may have told Neoptolemus, while they were still on Scyros, that part of his father’s past life which his mother Deidameia could not have possibly known, i.e. from his departure from Scyros until his death at Troy. Such a flashback may have included both Achilles’ forced landing on Scyros because of a storm after the abortive Teuthranian expedition (fr. 24 incerti operis, p. 82 Bernabé = Ilias parva fr.4A Davies = Ilias parva fr. 4 West) and the description of the famous ‘Pelian’ spear given to Peleus by Chiron and then passed on to Achilles (Ilias parva fr. 5 = Bernabé = Ilias parva fr. 4B Davies = Ilias parva fr. 5 West).

Cypria fr 19 (Bernabé, West): further considerations by Christos Tsagalis, pg 260-261.

Skyros here seems to serve to reinforce Achilles' ability (as it’s his achievement) and to explain the existence of an important character (Neoptolemus). Years later, a The Iliad scholiast mentioned the myth of Achilles disguised as a woman in Skyros, writing about the presence of Deidamia and also mentioning that Achilles left female life for weapons (you can see the text here, although it’s in Greek). One scholia about The Iliad presents Thetis as the person responsible for hiding Achilles, while another scholia presents Peleus. The version with Peleus is extremely unusual, so there is a theory in academia that it was a mistake on the part of the schoalist.

It’s argued that Achilles' association with Skyros has three different versions and that the one presented in The Iliad is a separate version from the other sources.

By scrutinizing the available ancient evidence concerning the association between Achilles and Scyros, it is argued that we should distinguish between three versions: (1) the version reflected in Il. 9, 666-668, according to which Achilles sacked and looted Scyros, and distributed the spoils to his allies; (2) the version represented by the Cypria and Ilias parva that is reported by the exegetical scholium ad Il. 19, 326a1-a2, according to which Achilles is forced to land on Scyros because of a storm after the abortive expedition to Teuthrania and the wounding of Telephus by Achilles; and (3) the version reported by scholium D ad Il. 19, 326, P.Berol. 13930, and the scholia ad Il. 9, 668b and Il. 19, 326, and some other sources, according to which Achilles was sent by Thetis (or Peleus) to hide at Scyros in an attempt to avoid going to the war, in which he was destined to die.

Cypria fr 19 (Bernabé, West): further considerations by Christos Tsagalis, abstract. 

There are those who consider the existence of two versions. The first being the sum of the version of The Iliad with the version of The Cypria and The Little Iliad (I'll explain them), thus causing Achilles to sack Skyros after being forced to land on the island because of a storm. The second being the version being the one where he was hidden as a girl on Skyros. There are those who also try to connect the three, interpreting that there was a first visit by Achilles to Skyros when hidden and a second when he sacked Skyros. Personally, I prefer the interpretation that there are three versions.

The Cypria, by Stasinus of Cyprus, and The Little Iliad, by Lesches of Mitylene (7th century BC)

This is a source of Greek mythology. The Cypria, commonly attributed to Stasinus of Cyprus, is, unfortunately, a lost epic poem. This means we’re unable to access the details, so the most I have to offer is a summary given by Proclus in Chrestomathy. It’s possible to know that the theme of The Cypria dealt with the pre-time to the Trojan War, things like the judgment of Paris, the kidnapping of Helen, etc.

In Stasinus' version, Achilles and Deidamia's meeting took place after he was already counted as one of the participants in the Achaean army, thus possibly not presenting the disguise version. At one point, a storm caused the Myrmidons to end up disembarking on Skyros. There, Achilles married/made love to Deidamia. In other words, here Neoptolemus' mother has a specified identity. But unfortunately, there's no way to know how this relationship developed.

[...] As they put out from Mysia a storm comes on them and scatters them, and Achilles first puts in at Scyros and married Deidameia, the daughter of Lycomedes, and then heals Telephus, who had been led by an oracle to go to Argos, so that he might be their guide on the voyage to Ilium. [...]

The Cypria, frag 1. Translation by. H.G. Evelyn-White.

Here Skyros seems to serve especially to explain the existence of an important character (Neoptolemus). Unlike Homer, there is no mention of Skyros being conquered, and unlike a lot of other sources there is no disguise. However, despite the absence of conquest or disguise, there are people who attempt to link Cypria with at least one of these versions. In the first case, to try to make Cypria make narrative sense with The Iliad, where the conquest happens. In the second case, to try to make Cypria make narrative sense with several other sources in which the disguise occurs. Regarding the possibility of Cypria dealing with the disguise episode, Tsagalis says: 

Kullmann is right that absolute precision on the part of Proclus is not to be sought, but it is very surprising that Proclus had decided not to refer at all to the recruitment of Achilles, the best of the Achaeans. The most reasonable explanation is that contrary to Odysseus’ ‘problematic and unheroic recruitment’, Achilles had been sent willingly by his father Peleus to Troy and that Proclus, who may well have regarded this episode as of minor importance (in the manner of the recruitment of Palamedes that is also not mentioned in his summary), decided to omit it. It is highly unlikely that the Cypria dealt with two ‘problematic and unheroic’ recruitments (Odysseus and Achilles) but Proclus decided to refer only to the former at the expense of the latter. This thematic predilection is against the principles governing his summarizing technique and can hardly be explained (unless, as argued above, Achilles’ case is not a ‘problematic’ recruitment). Moreover, Proclus refers to traveling all around Greece and gathering the Greek kings before (§ 21 Kullmann = 118-119 Severyns) turning to the episode of Odysseus (§ 22 Kullmann = 119-121 Severyns); in other words, if the episode of Achilles at Scyros really formed part of the Cypria, it may have been placed before the episode of Odysseus, which was the last in the list. If this was the case and Odysseus did not form part of the embassy to Peleus, we may start considering the possibility that the Cypria did not include the theme of Achilles hiding in Scyros at all. In a nutshell, if there is no Odysseus to reveal Lycomedes trick, then there may be – at this stage of the plot – no Lycomedes, and hence no Scyros.

Cypria fr 19 (Bernabé, West): further considerations by Christos Tsagalis, pg 264.

In another lost epic, The Little Iliad of Lesches of Mitylene, the same version with a storm is presented and that is why I’m putting the two together here. Unlike The Cypria, The Little Illiad was intended to deal mainly with myths after The Iliad, such as the death of Ajax, Helen's marriage to Deiphobus, and the search for Philoctetes and Neoptolemus. A Homeric scholia mentioned the link of Achilles and Skyros in The Cypria.

Eustathius on Homer, Il. 326: The author of the Little Iliad says that Achilles after putting out to sea from the country of Telephus came to land there: "The storm carried Achilles the son of Peleus to Scyros, and he came into an uneasy harbour there in that same night."

The Little Iliad, frag 5. Translation by. H.G. Evelyn-White.

Although there is no mention of Deidamia, a summary of Proclus (frag 1) says that “Odysseus brings Neoptolemus from Scyros”, thus still linking the birth of Neoptolemus to Skyros. Marco Fantuzzi mentions that this version was preferred by many because it didn’t “tarnish” Achilles' traditionally masculine heroic image, which happens in the version where he disguises himself as a girl (non-masculine) to avoid war (non-heroic). It was only later that the myth of disguise gained greater popularity, but it still generated reactions. As for when the disguise myth arose, unfortunately it isn’t possible to be sure. The oldest source belongs to Classical Greece, but there is a possibility that it existed in Archaic Greece and simply wasn’t the common version of the myth.

If we believe that the silence of Proclus is more reliable than Σ D Il. 19.326, we may instead suppose that the Iliad, the Little Iliad, and the Cypria knew of a version of the story — which perhaps existed before the transvestism version and was clearly an alternative to it — in which Achilles, already a member of the expedition against Troy, was blown to Scyros by a storm while sailing back from the land of Telephos, and on that occasion he had the opportunity of meeting Deidameia and having sex with her. In any case, at least in Homer and in the Little Iliad (we do not know for certain about the Cypria) neither the fact that the young Achilles was led to Scyros by an anxious protective parent nor the disguise of cross-dressing and its detection by Odysseus is attested. In the Little Iliad Achilles was simply “cast away” on the island by a tempest independently of his or his parent’s will. Therefore, there was no deliberate dodging of the draft, and Achilles’ heroic ethos and reputation were  not sullied by an implied suspicion of cowardice. Indeed, at least some  of the ancients embraced with sympathy this thoroughly heroic version commenting on Il. 9.667–668, the passage where Achilles’ conquest of  Scyros is mentioned, the schol. ex. T to line 668 observes:  Σκῦρον ἑλών· οἱ μὲν νεώτεροι ἐκεῖ τὸν παρθενῶνά φασιν, ἔνθα τὸν ᾿Αχιλέα ἐν παρθένου σχήματι τῇ ∆ηιδαμείᾳ †κατακλίνουσιν†, ὁ δὲ ποιητὴς ἡρωϊκῶς πανοπλίαν αὐτὸν ἐνδύσας εἰς τὴν Σκῦρον ἀπεβίβασεν οὐ παρθένων, ἀλ᾽ ἀνδρῶν δια- πραξόμενον ἔργα, ἐξ ὧν καὶ τὰ λάφυρα δωρεῖται τοῖς συμμάχοις.  “Having taken Scyros”: Post-Homeric poets say that there [= in Scyros] was the gynaeceum where they have Achilles, disguised as a girl, lie down in bed [?] with Deidameia. The poet, instead, dressed him up in his panoply in a heroic way and had him disembark on Scyros to do not women’s work, but that of men, and he [Achilles] also presents his comrades with spoils from these deeds.

Achilles at Scyros and One of his Fans: The Epithalamium of Achilles and Deidamia (Buc. Gr. 157f. Gow) by Marco Fantuzzi, pg 286.

Skyrians, by Euripides (5rd century BC)

This is a source of Greek mythology. I suppose Euripides needs no introduction, so let’s get to it. Like Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides wrote more plays than we have access to, as they’re unfortunately lost. For example, Aeschylus wrote a trilogy focusing on Achilles, of which only fragments survive. Sophocles wrote a play called Peleus, which also didn’t stand the test of time.

Among the lost plays of Euripides, there was one called Skyrians, which, as the name clearly suggests, was related to Skyros. The title, of course, doesn’t necessarily confirm that this is the myth of Achilles, after all Sophocles has a lost play with the same name whose theme is commonly believed to be about Neoptolemus and not Achilles, but in this case it really is about that myth. In the hypothesis, it’s possible to have an idea of ​​the content of the play (which is fragmentary), and the theme follows exactly the idea of ​​Thetis knowing the prophecy and hiding Achilles as one of Lycomedes' girls:

Skyrians, which begins, ‘O daughter of Tyndareus from Sparta…; the plot is as follows: Thetis, having learned of (the destiny) of her son Achilles, wanted (to keep) him out of the expedition (against Troy), and so (she concealed) him in a girl’s clothing (and deposited him) with Lycomedes the (ruler) of the Scyrians. Lycomedes was raising (a daughter) named (Deidameia) whose mother had died, and he brought (Achilles) up as a girl together with her, his real identity being unrecognized; and Achilles... seduced Deidameia and made her pregnant. Agamemnon and his comrades (were told) by an oracle not (to make their expedition) without Achilles...Diomedes...(they,) learning…

Hypothesis of Skyrians. 

The play opens with Deidamia realizing that she’s pregnant. Because the play is extremely fragmented, it isn’t possible to be completely sure if it was consensual or not. However, Melissa Karen Anne Funke argues that there are textual elements that imply a typical “rape and pregnancy discovery” storyline:

The play opens with a character, presumably Deidameia’s nurse, revealing to Lycomedes that Deidameia is ill, an act which recalls Canace concealing her own pregnancy with the excuse of illness. This is a conventional way to begin a play with a rape and recognition plot, however Achilles’ continued presence on Scyros departs from the usual brief encounter between the parthenos and the man who impregnates her, while the recognition centers not on the child, but on Achilles himself. Lycomedes’ response to the nurse exposes either just how effective Achilles’ disguise has been, or how confident Lycomedes has been of his success in segregating his daughter from outside influence: What is the cause? What ailment is overcoming her? Is some chill in her bile troubling her chest? (fr. 682)

Euripides and Gender: The Difference the Fragments Make, by Melissa Karen Anne Funke, pg 166-167.

Another possible argument to indicate the presence of rape is the fact that Euripides addresses gender in this play. Forced to hide like a girl, the more time passed, the more impatient Achilles became. By impregnating a woman, even by force, he would be reaffirming his supposedly repressed masculinity. The theme of femininity x masculinity continues, becoming even more evident when the character of Odysseus is present. When he discovers that Achilles is hiding from the war while living as a girl, he humiliates him by saying that such a situation tarnishes his status as a son of Peleus:

And you, extinguisher of your family’s brilliant light, are you combing wool– you, born of the most valiant father in Greece? (fr. 683a)

Thus, not only does he deny his masculine position as a warrior, but he also tarnishes Peleus' honor. A fragment attributed to Skyrians and believed to be possibly part of Odysseus' speech to convince Achilles to leave Skyros strengthens this idea:

Young men should get honours not amongst women but amidst arms and weaponry. (fr. 880)

Once again, the argument used by Odysseus is to state that, by remaining in Skyros, Achilles' masculinity is compromised. Even if Achilles, now revealed, lived as a man and played the masculine role of father to Neoptolemus, his masculinity would still be undermined by the decision to actively flee the war, an unmasculine attitude. And in doing so, Achilles wouldn’t only compromise his masculinity, he would also compromise his family, shaming his lineage by being less than a ideal man.

In a way, as Melissa's text addresses (I highly recommend reading pages 164-170, which are the part that deals with Skyrians), the play portrays how restrictive gender roles are. Deidamia is trapped in the role of mother and has no choice about it because that is her duty as a woman and refusing motherhood would be reprehensible, regardless of whether the relationship is consensual or not — even if it's not consensual, she still has to be a mother. In turn, the only way Achilles has to ensure masculinity is by going to the Trojan War. Now it’s no longer enough to live as a man after leaving the disguise, assuming the position of Neoptolemus's father or even Deidamia's husband, male positions. The only way is by going to the Trojan War, also a limiting choice. And if he doesn't do this, not only will his honor be compromised, but the honor of his family as well (represented by Peleus). Despite this, because of the fragmentary state of the play, it isn’t possible to know Achilles' thoughts on this. It’s somewhat intriguing that apparently Odysseus needed to persuade (the fragmentary speech) Achilles after discovering him, but it isn’t enough of an argument to be sure what Achilles thought of the play. Also, Euripides had a tendency to give female characters a significant voice, so I imagine there is a possibility the poem could have explored giving at least some voice to the character Deidamia.

Here, Skyros seems to serve to explain the existence of an important character (Neoptolemus), but also to discuss society (gender roles, adulthood).

Alexandra, by Lycophron (4th century BC)

This is a source of Greek mythology. Alexandra is a poem written in an enigmatic way, as it concerns the prophecies of the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, who is being observed by a slave and having her prophecies written because of Priam's orders. Because of how the text is written, it’s difficult to be sure of what is written and it needs to be interpreted a lot. As such, there is no way for me to guarantee the accuracy of the interpretations. Well, here we go:

And he shall come upon his homeward path, raising the tawny wasps from their holds, even as a child disturbs their nest with smoke. And they in their turn shall come, sacrificing cruelty to the blustering winds the heifer that bare the war-named son, the mother that was brought to bed of the dragon of Scyrus; for whom her husband shall search within the Salmydesian Sea, where she cuts the throats of Greeks, and shall dwell for a long space in the white-crested rock by the outflowing of the marshy waters of the Celtic stream; yearning for his wife whom at her slaying a hind shall rescue from the knife, offering her own throat instead. [...]

Alexandra. Translation by A.W.Mair.

And he shall come upon his homeward path, raising the tawny wasps from their holds, even as a child disturbs their nest with smok = Paris doing his chaotic things. The “raising the tawny wasps” is probably the Greeks reacting.

And they in their turn shall come, sacrificing cruelty to the blustering winds the heifer = The Greeks sacrifice Iphigenia so the wind returns.

that bare the war-named son, the mother that was brought to bed of the dragon of Scyrus; = “War-named son” is Neoptolemus, whose name means "new war", and “dragon of Scyrus” is maybe Achilles, related to his stay on Skyros. This implies that Achilles and Iphigenia actually lay together and it wasn't just fake, and from that Neoptolemus was born. Here Deidamia isn’t the mother.

…for whom her husband shall search within the Salmydesian Sea, where she cuts the throats of Greeks, = The version of the myth in which Iphigenia is taken by Artemis to Tauris, where she’s forced to use travelers (mostly Greeks) as sacrifice. Euripides wrote a play on this. The husband is Achilles because of the marriage, which in this version was apparently consumed judging by the previous line.

…and shall dwell for a long space in the white-crested rock by the outflowing of the marshy waters of the Celtic stream; = It's talking about White Island, also known as Leuke. It concerns the version of the myth in which Achilles and those dear to him don’t go to conventional Elysium, but to another form of paradise on an island. According to Antoninus Liberalis, Iphigenia was the wife of Achilles in the afterlife. However, by Charles McNelis and Alexander Sens' interpretation, here Iphigenia doesn’t literally become Achilles' postmortem wife, that role belongs to Medea (cited as Achilles' future wife elsewhere in the poem). For them, in Alexandra the idea of Leuke is subverted from a reward (an after-death paradise) to a loss (the actual loss of Iphigenia).

…yearning for his wife whom at her slaying a hind shall rescue from the knife, offering her own throat instead = “his” refers to Achilles, and “wife” refers to Iphigenia in reference to the marriage. This part talks about how Iphigenia offered herself as a sacrifice, but Artemis replaced her with a deer at the time, and how Achilles regrets it because in this version she’s his beloved. Euripides wrote a play on this.

Regarding the unexpected "the heifer that bare the war-named son, the mother that was brought to bed of the dragon of Scyrus", the Byzantine scholiast of Alexandra, Ioannis Tzetzes, says “according to some, Pyrrhus was born from her (Iphigenia) and Achilles. After her sacrifice, Achilles entrusted his son to Deidamia in Scyros. Therefore, Iphigenia is the first-born mother of Pyrrhus”, thus describing an unusual version in which Deidamia is actually the adoptive mother of Neoptolemus while Iphigenia is the biological mother. So there is no guarantee Achilles had something sexual with Deidamia in this version. Later, Tzetzes explains Neoptolemus' mother is generally Deidamia and the marriage of Achilles and Iphigenia is generally false. In any case, Tzetzes discards all these versions as mythological nonsense and tells another version, which isn’t the focus here. In another part of the text, when describing Polyxena's sacrifice at the hands of Neoptolemus, Cassandra says "sullen lion, child of Iphis", here Neoptolemus, is "imitating his dark mother's lustrations", a likely reference to Iphigenia's role as the priestess who sacrificed foreigners in Tauris.

At another moment, Cassandra makes a clear allusion to Achilles' disguise as a girl in the Court of Lycomedes, talking about a “trafficker in corpses” who hid in a female robe to avoid his fate. I don't know what the Greek text looks like, but the translator's decision to use the term "endure" certainly implies that the idea of a boy living as a girl is here treated as a burden to the boy. That is, Achilles and Deidamia really know each other and so it makes sense that Achilles entrusted Neoptolemus to her after the "death" of Iphigenia, even if Neoptolemus isn’t her son. Although I don't know if he did this because Deidamia is a trusted friend or if it's because she's a lover.

[...] even he, the trafficker in corpses, who, fearing beforehand his doom, shall endure to do upon his body a female robe, handling the noisy shuttle at the loom, and shall be the last to set his foot in the land of the foe, cowering, O brother, even in his sleep before thy spear.

Alexandra, 275-280. Translation by A.W. Mair.

Tzetzes claimed that this isn’t the correct version. Apparently he found this idea absurd. Judging by the way he wrote, I imagine that Tzetzes found the version of the myth in which the hero tries to escape the way of achieving glory (war) by dressing as a girl (something considered reprehensible) too humiliating to be believable. Instead, he tells another version that made Achilles similar to other male characters in the Trojan War, that is: a married man with a son who had to leave his wife and child behind to go to war. Thus, Tzetzes erases any possible debate about gender, since Achilles is inserted in a context perfectly typical of the male gender and resembles typically male characters like Agamemnon and Odysseus in this respect.

But these things have been fabricated and mythologized, the truth is this: Achilles, having just taken Deidameia, Lycomedes' daughter, to wife, was living with her in the bridal chamber and in the longing of a newlywed, hence they fabricated that he had assumed women's clothing. When Odysseus announced the expedition, he eagerly obeyed and rushed to war, even though he learned from an oracle that he would have a short life if he sailed to Troy. This announcement and the fear from the oracle they represented with swords and spindles; for Achilles did not show cowardice, but eagerly rushed to war, and Homer testifies in the L (767) rhapsody, introducing Nestor speaking to Patroclus: "I came, and divine Odysseus, gathering the people, to fair-womaned Achaea" and a little later (781) he says "I led - they were willing". All these things are allegorized, but this barbarian-tongued Lycophron accepts them more mythically. Therefore, it seems burdensome to me to allegorize in things not being allegorized, as I have often said.

Ad Lycophronem, 277.

Regarding gender roles, Celsiana Warwick interprets that in Alexandra the character of Achilles is subverted. Where in other myths his most exalted aspects are mainly traditionally masculine characteristics (be they positive ones like courage, or negative ones like violence), Alexandra makes him a figure considered effeminate. She interprets these three characters as being represented as "forces opposing Olympus", so to speak.

Achilles in the Alexandra also exhibits monstrous hybridity in that he transgresses the boundaries of masculinity and femininity. Cassandra describes the episode in which Achilles dresses as a girl on Scyrus to avoid being sent to war (276–80): νεκροπέρνας, ὃς προδειμαίνων πότμον καὶ θῆλυν ἀμφὶ σῶμα τλήσεται πέπλον δῦναι, παρ᾽ ἱστοῖς κερκίδος ψαύσας κρότων, καὶ λοῖσθος εἰς γῆν δυσμενῶν ῥῖψαι πόδα, τὸ σόν, ξύναιμε, κἀν ὕπνῳ πτήσσων δόρυ.  The corpse-seller, who fearing in advance his fate  Will dare to put a woman’s dress around his body,  Handling the rattling shuttle at the loom,  And cast his foot upon the land last of our enemies,  Cowering before your spear, brother, even in his sleep According to Cassandra, Achilles wears women’s clothes and performs women’s work because of a desire to avoid fighting, opening himself up to charges of effeminacy and cowardice. But by describing Achilles as ‘cowering before Hector’s spear’, Cassandra conjures up an image of a terrified female figure menaced by a warrior’s weapons. Similar imagery describes Xerxes later when he is said to fear the Greek fleet ‘like a girl fears the dark twilight … terrified by a bronze weapon’ (ὡς λυκοψίαν κόρη κνεφαίαν … χαλκηλάτῳ κνώδοντι δειματουμένη, 1431–3). Both images impugn the masculinity of a male character, but also resonate with the theme of female helplessness in the face of male violence. Crucially, while Xerxes is likened to a girl only with respect to his fear, Achilles undergoes a kind of temporary transformation by assuming the female role through his dress and actions. He is not only like a terrified girl at the loom, he actually takes on the lived experience of a woman, making him a hybrid figure, both savage warrior and frightened maiden. The passage thus has a double function—it undermines Achilles’ martial reputation, but also suggests that, in terms of the poem’s depiction of the conflict between male and female, Cassandra is presenting Achilles as conceptually allied with the female, just as Typhon is allied with the chthonic feminine in the Theogony. The Alexandra’s presentation of several key episodes suggests that the poem deliberately downplays Achilles’ role as an enactor of specifically patriarchal violence in the mythological tradition in favour of aligning him with the female and the chthonic. It would have been easy for the Alexandra to vilify Achilles by playing up myths in which he enacts violence against young women, such as his slaying of Penthesilea or his ghost’s demand for the sacrifice of Polyxena over his tomb. However, the Alexandra conspicuously does not do this; instead, it attributes the sacrifice of Polyxena to Neoptolemus only (323–6), who is said to perform the deed ‘imitating the sacrifices of his dark mother’ (μητρὸς κελαινῆς χέρνιβας μιμούμενος, 325). While the Alexandra does mention the death of Penthesilea (999–1001), this passage mentions Achilles not as her killer but as the avenger of the desecration of her corpse by Thersites, again positioning him as the champion of the female against the male. In a poem with such an emphasis on the victimization of women by male heroes, these details signpost Achilles’ unique role in the Alexandra’s thematic structure as a masculine figure aligned with chthonic feminine disruption. 

Chthonic Disruption in Lycophron’s Alexandra, by Celsiana Warwick, pg 547-548.

Fantuzzi also believes that the character of Achilles was deconstructed and reconstructed, although he gives a different motivation for this compared to Celsiana Warwick. While Warwick seeks to present an interpretation that links the characters of Cassandra, Clytemnestra and Achilles in a similar narrative role, Fantuzzi interprets that such a reinterpretation of Achilles happens because he’s an Achaean symbol since he’s the best Achaean warrior, and Alexandra's narrative seeks the Trojan point of view, in which the Achaean characters are much more negatively portrayed while the Trojan characters are exalted. Achilles, as a symbol of bravery, is transformed into a symbol of cowardice, which was mostly seen as a typically feminine trait. For example, Alexandra is apparently the only source in which Achilles is depicted as being afraid of Hector, who is usually the one who runs when he sees Achilles.

Lycophron's outlook reflects the usual anti-Greek bias with which the Trojan Alexandra/Cassandra describes the characters and deeds of the major Greek heroes at Troy; this bias is especially bitter in the case of Achilles, as he had killed her brother Hector. In an attempt to cast Achilles in as pejorative a light as possible, Alexandra even goes so far as to omit Thetis' role in her son's cross-dressing in Scyros. The idea that Achilles acquiesced in his cross-dressing adventure solely to assuage his mother's anxieties seems to (p.40) have been the most common apology entertained by the authors who passed judgement on this episode in his life, but did not want to be overly censorious [...] [...] We might certainly suppose that Lycophron omitted the agency of Thetis simply because of the brevity of his reference to the episode of Achilles' cross-dressing, or because in general he is cryptically elusive—in this case he could presuppose that every reader would assume Thetis' or Peleus' role in the hiding of the boy Achilles at (p.41) Scyros, as this role was present in every other version of the episode of the transvestite Achilles that we know before Lycophron. But in the context of Alexandra's words, brimming as they are with hatred, her silence on Thetis' responsibility surely magnifies the cowardice of which Alexandra most explicitly accuses him by suppressing every extenuating circumstance. As for the fact that Achilles defeated and killed Hector, Alexandra highlights both the cruel greed with which he demanded a very high ransom for Hector's body (only to suffer the same fate when he himself died) and the cowardice with which he originally tried to avoid Hector's spear (Al. 269–80). [...] [...] Lycophron's Alexandra cannot rewrite the story of the war or the death of Hector (the Iliad still exists), but at least she can acrimoniously re-read the story of these events with an anti-Iliad and anti-Greek perspective. It is impossible to establish whether this (p.43) spiteful deconstruction of Achilles' heroism relied on some source or not, or whether it was just the backbiting of a prophetess accustomed to manipulating the presentation of events. In the Iliad Achilles proudly maintains that, while he was fighting with the Greeks, 'Hector was never willing to push the battle away from the wall, but would come out no further than the Scaian gates and the oak-tree. There he once stood up to me alone, and barely escaped my attack' (9.352-5). Certainly, when Agamemnon tried to restrain Menelaus from fighting with Hector, he warned him that 'even Achilles shudders (pply') to meet this man [= Hector] in the fighting where men win glory, and he is a much better man than you' (7.113-14). But at least some of the ancients considered these lines a 'lie' invented by Agamemnon to 'deter' Menelaus from fighting: Σ minora II. 7.114 “ἔρριγ ̓ ἀντιβολῆσαι means 'he feared to encounter'. This was a lie; he said this to Menelaus in order to dissuade him (τοῦτο δὲ ἐψεύσατο· ἵνα δὲ ἀποστρέψηι τὸν Μενέλαον εinεv avτw)". Probably there were no other passages the ancients could bring to mind where Achilles was actually portrayed as frightened by Hector, or they applied their common protective concern for Achilles' heroism.

Achilles in Love: Intertextual Studies by Marco Fantuzzi, pg 16-20.

In the interpretation offered in “The Alexandra of Lycophron: A Literary Study”, there is greater agreement with Fantuzzi's interpretation in attributing Achilles' subversion to him being an Achaean symbol and, therefore, being the main target of ridicule. Like Warwick, this text also links Achilles' relationships as a way of minimizing him (by portraying him as being excessively passionate, as in the case of Iphigenia, or by portraying him as not being able to achieve the desired relationship, as in the case of Helen, or by erasing some of his relationships, as in the case of Deidamia). However, in addition, the writers draw a parallel between Achilles and Paris, a character who was commonly represented as not fulfilling the expectations of what a man ideally was — as he was often portrayed as effeminate, cowardly, not very skilled in fighting, vain and too involved in romance/eroticism in a way that wasn’t necessarily always connected to violent conquest. While Achilles and Paris were generally written as opposites when it came to "meeting social expectations of masculinity", in Alexandra they’re written more similarly.

The opening line of this narrative evokes Paris' account of the couple's initial lovemaking on Cranae at II. 3.442-7, where, having been rescued from his duel and beautified by Aphrodite, he takes Helen to bed: οὐ γάρ πώ ποτέ μ ̓ ὧδέ γ' ἔρως φρένας ἀμφεκάλυψεν, οὐδ ̓ ὅτε σε πρῶτον Λακεδαίμονος ἐξ ἐρατεινῆς ἔπλεον ἁρπάξας ἐν ποντοπόροισι νέεσσι, νήσῳ δ ̓ ἐν Κραναῇ ἐμίγην φιλότητι καὶ εὐνῇ, ὥς σεο νῦν ἔραμαι καί με γλυκὺς ἵμερος αἱρεῖ. ἦ ῥα, καὶ ἄρχε λέχοσδὲ κιών· ἅμα δ' εἵπετ ̓ ἄκοιτις. Not ever yet has such desire covered my wits, not even when first, having snatched you up, I sailed from lovely Lacedaemon in my sea- faring ships, and I mixed with you in love and the bed on the island Cranae, as now I desire you and sweet lust seizes me. So he spoke and he went and led her to bed, and his wife followed him.

In the Alexandra, Cassandra's narrative begins like the Homeric version (110 νήσῳ δ ̓ ἐνὶ δράκοντος ἐγχέας πόθον ~ Π. 3.445 νήσῳ δ ̓ ἐν Κραναῇ ἐμίγην φιλότητι καὶ εὐνῇ) but immediately thereafter takes a different tack. According to her version, Paris did not get to enjoy sex with Helen a second time, since she was taken from him by Proteus, leaving him only with a cold, empty embrace; the obvious reference here is to the famous story that Helen was replaced by a phantom. The version recounted by Cassandra seems to combine elements of the story reported by Herodotus, in which Proteus' moral outrage led him to send Paris away but retain Helen after the couple landed in Egypt on their way to Troy (2.112-15), with Stesichorus' Palinode, in which a phantom of Helen was sent to Troy in her stead. The Stesichorean palinode took specific issue with the veracity of the traditional account (cf. Chamaeleon POxy. 2506 fr. 26.i; Stesich. PMG 192 οὐκ ἔστ ̓ ἔτυμος λόγος οὗτος / οὐδ ̓ ἔβας ἐν νηυσὶν εὐσέλμοις / οὐδ ̓ IKEо Пéруaμа Tрoías "this story is not true, nor did you go in well- benched ships, nor did you reach the towers of Troy"), and the allusion to the Homeric version at the opening of Cassandra's narra- tive is thus particularly pointed, since it sets up expectations that are disappointed by what follows. Instead of simply following the Iliadic narrative, Cassandra's prophecy rationalizes two competing versions, the Homeric account in which the adulteress Helen made her way to Troy, and that attested in, for example, Euripides' Helen," where Helen's marriage remained inviolate: in the Alexandra, Helen will have sex with Paris, but only once. Moreover, the allusion to Paris' speech in which he describes his own sexual desire and persuades Helen to follow him to bed calls attention to the fact that, unlike in Homer, Lycophron's Paris will never have the opportunity to have sex with her a second time. In both theme and language, Cassandra's account of Achilles' marriage builds upon her own representation of Paris' relationship with Helen. At the verbal level, eg oveípov (172 "from dreams") resembles καξ ὀνειράτων (113), while ἐν δὲ δεμνίοις (171) recalls Séμva (114). Like Paris, the husband described in 171-3 sleeps only with a phantom (εἰδωλοπλάστῳ προσκαταξανει ῥέθει). In fact, Achil- les is husband to Helen only in his imagination, and in this sense the verbal echoes of the frustrated union between Paris and Helen are reinforced at the thematic level. This parallelism between Achilles and Paris is also reinforced in the structural design of the broader narrative. As we have noted (Chapter 4), verses 180-215 are framed as a diptych, in which the gatherings of the Greeks at Aulis are set in opposition first to Paris' return from Sparta and then to Achilles' travels in Scythia. Thus, Paris' return to Troy (180 x μèν паλμпóρ- ευτον ἵξεται τρίβον) is mirrored by Achilles' wandering (200 χώ μὲν TаτýσEι Xâроv aiálov Zкúony), while 183-4 and 202-4, each of which describes a ritual activity of the Greeks (the sacrifice of Iphi- genia, the oath), begin in a similar manner (183-4 oi d' av πрoуeνvý- τειραν... χερνίψαντες ~ 202-4 οἱ δ ̓ ἀμφὶ βωμὸν... ὅρκων τὸ SEUTEроûXov aрoavтes). Achilles, then, is presented as a doublet ofParis.

The Alexandra of Lycophron: A Literary Study by Charles McNelis and Alexander Sens, pg 105-106.

Epithalamium of Achilles and Deidameia, by Bion of Smyrna (1st or 2nd century BC)

This is a source of Greek mythology. The Epithalamium of Achilles and Deidameia has no confirmed authorship, although it’s mainly attributed to Bion of Smyrna, a bucolic poet. The term bucolic designates a pastoral type of poem, often celebrating rural life and describing rural customs. In Ancient Greece, many of these poets also referenced myths, since myths were a strong part of the culture. Unfortunately, like The Skyrians, this is a fragmentary work and only the beginning of the poem has been preserved to the present day. 

The title itself is significant, as it alone denotes the romantic and/or erotic nature of the poem. If you have never read the word Epithalamium before, the Collins Dictionary definition is “a poem or song written to celebrate a marriage; nuptial ode” and has its origins in the Greek epithalamion, from epi ‘upon’ + thalamos ‘bridal chamber’. Fantuzzi clarifies it’s more likely this title was added later rather than being the poet's original title.

Anyway, these are the lines we currently have access to (the rest are lost), showing that this poem is about the secret romance between Achilles and Deidamia while he disguises himself as a girl:

Myrson. Wilt thou be pleased now, Lycidas, to sing me sweetly some sweet Sicilian song, some wistful strain delectable, some lay of love, such as the Cyclops Polyphemus sang on the sea-banks to Galatea? Lycidas. Yes, Myrson, and I too fain would pipe, but what shall I sing? Myrson. A song of Scyra, Lycidas, is my desire, —a sweet love-story,—the stolen kisses of the son of Peleus, the stolen bed of love how he, that was a boy, did on the weeds of women, and how he belied his form, and how among the heedless daughters of Lycomedes, Deidamia cherished Achilles in her bower. [176] Lycidas. The herdsman bore off Helen, upon a time, and carried her to Ida, sore sorrow to Oenone. And Lacedaemon waxed wroth, and gathered together all the Achaean folk; there was never a Hellene, not one of the Mycenaeans, nor any man of Elis, nor of the Laconians, that tarried in his house, and shunned the cruel Ares. But Achilles alone lay hid among the daughters of Lycomedes, and was trained to work in wools, in place of arms, and in his white hand held the bough of maidenhood, in semblance a maiden. For he put on women’s ways, like them, and a bloom like theirs blushed on his cheek of snow, and he walked with maiden gait, and covered his locks with the snood. But the heart of a man had he, and the love of a man.  From dawn to dark he would sit by Deidamia, and anon would kiss her hand, and oft would lift the beautiful warp of her loom and praise the sweet threads, having no such joy in any other girl of her company. Yea, all things he essayed, and all for one end, that they twain might share an undivided sleep. Now he once even spake to her, saying— ‘With one another other sisters sleep, but I lie alone, and alone, maiden, dost thou lie, both being girls unwedded of like age, both fair, and single both in bed do we sleep.  The wicked Nysa, the crafty nurse it is that cruelly severs me from thee.  For not of thee have I... ’

Theocritus, Bion and Moschus Rendered into Enlish Prose. Love of Achilles. Edited by Andrew Lang.

The idea of hidden romance is especially noticeable due to the use of the word “stolen” which, according to Fatuzzi: “'Stolen', not only according to the traditional motif of sex as ontologically furtive, namely consummated in private, which dates from Hom. Il. 6.161 and Mimn. 7.3 Gentili-Prato = IEG 1.3 and is widespread in Latin love elegy (cf. most recently McKeown (1987–9) ii.101; Floridi (2007) 164-5); compare in particular Ps.- Theocr. 27.68 pápios evvá. In Epith. 6 the epithet is remotivated: the kisses and sex which Achilles enjoyed with Deidameia are 'stolen', since he acquired them thanks to his cross-dressing disguise”. That is, “stolen” here isn’t intended to refer to the lack of consent, but the way Achilles and Deidamia do it secretly and how Achilles was only able to court Deidamia because he approached her as a girl, if we take into account the same as in other versions apparently Lycomedes purposely keeps Deidamia out of contact with boys (like in The Skyrians).

Fantuzzi argues that, when comparing Lycophron's Alexandra with this poem, it’s possible to notice how, although both poems deal with Achilles' so-called non-heroic conduct in dressing up as a girl to escape war, Epithalamium sympathizes with this rather than portraying it in a completely negative way like Alexandra. Furthermore, Epithalamium, unlike most sources, has no intention of focusing on the way Achilles gives up the feminine (his disguise) for the masculine (war). Instead, the poem praises his stay on Skyros for its romantic aspect, which isn’t unexpected for a bucolic poem since some of them had love as their focus. This is shown in how the poet describes how other male characters are busy with war, and then immediately describes how Achilles is among the girls. Also in how he opens the story talking about the "stolen kisses of the son of Peleus" rather than "the rage of Peleus’ son" and goes on to describe romantic conquests instead than how many died because of his rage. The "cruel" used to describe Ares is also not simply one of his epithets, but an adjective from this poem specifically, which may sound like a kind of condemnation of war in comparison to the art of flirting.

The poem doesn’t even bother to mention that Achilles is forced there as in most texts, as the poem doesn’t seek to justify an attitude considered dishonorable, as the poet doesn’t condemn Achilles' attitude. In a way, Thetis' absence here serves the opposite of Alexandra, where Thetis' absence was perhaps intended to emphasize Achilles' negative cowardice, while her absence here is as a way of ensuring that not going to war and prioritizing Deidamia is positive and therefore doesn’t need to be justified, a vision influenced by the bucolic perspective. Not only is Thetis absent as a justification for Achilles' non-heroic attitude, but Achilles is clearly comfortable spending his days dressed as a girl, weaving and flirting, unlike other texts that somehow address his discontent or are neutral about this.

The fact that Achilles appears to be perfectly at ease in his cross-dressing and is deeply feminized is another antimilitaristic element that contributes to the erotic atmosphere and viewpoint of the Epith. Achilles is depicted as enjoying his situation, and fully complying with the demands of his disguise: he has white skin (16) and snowy cheeks (19) which blush shyly (19); he learns how to spin wool (16), he walks like a woman (19-20), and he wears a veil (20).96 In effect, as the author invites us to acknowledge, ἐφαίνετο δ' ήύτε κώρα· | καὶ γὰρ ἤ (p.56) σον τήναις θηλύνετο 'he looked like a girl. Womanlike as they he bore himself', 17-18. Furthermore, in the Epith. it is precisely this comfortable familiarity with his transvestism that Achilles exploits in the verbal strategies he uses to conquer Deidameia. We cannot rule out the possibility that he had been doing the same thing in other texts that narrate this episode of his life. In any case at least in the most detailed poetic treatment of the myth known to us, Statius' Achilleid, from the beginning (1.318-24) to the end (1.652-4) of his cross-dressing Achilles is aware that this disguise allows him to stay close to Deidameia and to wait for a good opportunity to satisfy his passion. But when he finally decides to engage with her sexually, he does so in the Achilleid through the violence of rape, which he views as his first male action after the extended repression of his manly temper under female clothes: cf. 1.638-9 quonam usque premes urentia pectus / vulnera, teque marem (pudet heu!) nec amore probabis? 'How long will you suppress the wound that burns your breast, nor even in love (for shame!) prove yourself a man?'97 And he was also supposed to have raped Deidameia in the brief account offered by Ov. Ars am. 1.681–704, where Achilles' conquest of Deidameia is presented as a paradigm of male force being used in the conquest of love objects. On the contrary, in the scene that concludes the surviving part of the Epith. (lines 25–30), Achilles tries to attain his goal by furthering his pretence of femininity to the most extreme point:

πάντα δ ̓ ἐποίει σπεύδων κοινὸν ἐς ὕπνον. ἔλεξέ νυ καὶ λόγον αὐτᾶι· “ἄλλαι μὲν κνώσσουσι σὺν ἀλλήλαισιν ἀδελφαί, αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ μούνα, μούνα δὲ σύ, νύμφα, καθεύδεις. αἱ δύο παρθενικαὶ συνομάλικες, αἱ δύο καλαί, ἀλλὰ μόναι κατὰ λέκτρα καθεύδομες..." and all his endeavour aimed that they should sleep together; indeed he said to her: ‘Other sisters sleep with one another, but I alone and you alone, maiden. Though both be girls of the like age and both fair, alone in our beds we sleep…’ Not without some awareness of the paradoxicality of this idea (cf. πάντα δ ̓ ἐποίει, ἔλεξέ νυ καί), the author ascribes to Achilles a speech (p.57) in which he appears to appropriate the female voice of Sappho or a Sapphic character: in an Aeolizing text usually ascribed to Sappho (168b Voigt), female voice, who is possibly, but not necessarily, the author, expresses distress over her nocturnal solitude in bed, perhaps implying that she hoped it would be otherwise: δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα καὶ Πληΐαδες· μέσαι δὲ νύκτες, παρὰ δ ̓ ἔρχετ ̓ ἄρα· ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω. The moon has set and the Pleiades. The night is at its midpoint, time passes, and I sleep alone.

This fragment (or could it be a complete short poem?) quoted by Hephaestion as an anonymous example of a metre (the ionic tetrameter), and is only ascribed to Sappho by Byzantine paromiographers. Therefore, its Sapphic authorship has sometimes been questioned. Regardless of whether it is by Sappho or by one of her imitators, however, the desire which it describes is erotic and the memorable έyw δὲ μόνα κατεύδω of the Aeolic text will have been easily perceived as the intertext in the background of Epith. 28: αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ μούνα, μούνα δὲ σύ, νύμφα, καθεύδεις (female voices expressing sexual desire must have been few in Greek poetry). The sense to be inferred from this intertextual connection is that Achilles, disguised as a girl, was trying to deceive Deidameia by taking on the additional disguise of a female homoerotic voice. At the same time, however, the Achilles of the Epith. challenges the phrasing of the Sapphic text, especially by twisting it to also function as a warning for Deidameia, when he suggests that the feeling of solitude is shared by (p.58) both himself and her. He thus transforms the original nostalgic sense of the erotic solitude of a single person into a paraenetic motivation for Deidameia to sleep in the same bed as another girl in order that they might overcome this shared solitude. In other words, through the allusion to Sappho Achilles hints at the erotic distress of his solitude, but at the same time, for the sake of Deidameia's innocent ears, he seems simply to suggest an innocent sharing of the bed for companionship. In the same twofold allusive interplay, Achilles' designation of the other girls who surround Deidameia as ovvoμάλɩkeç probably includes another connotation which is particularly well-suited (and of good omen) to Achilles' wishes, since Sappho had twice mentioned the vμάλɩkεç of the bride celebrating weddings in her epithalamia (30.7, 103.11), and Theocr. 18.22 (another epithalamium) had also defined—in a probable reference to Sappho-the singers of this poem as σvvoμáàɩKEÇ of Helen. Besides, výμça from line 28 of the Epith. is also charged with a convenient ambiguity whose promising connotations Achilles could be exploiting for himself without allowing Deidameia to understand, or to be disquieted by, his true intentions. Deidameia would have believed that she was being addressed as a 'marriageable maiden,' according to one of the two possible meanings of vúμôn. The word, however, is also quite a common designation of the bride-e.g. again, in the vocabulary of Sappho's epithalamia (frr. 30.4, 103.2, 103b.2, 116, 117)—and Achilles might thus be hinting at this other meaning as a sign of his wish, and an anticipation of his imminent erotic conquest. Amusingly enough, if any real sexual intention can be grasped from the supposedly innocent invitation spoken by Achilles to Deidameia, Achilles has to seem a homosexual wooer: he Achilles' impersonation of a female voice is objectively an effective stratagem of a male lover pursuing the target of his desire; but within the textual strategy of the Epith. it also contributes to the general picture of Achilles' compliant effeminacy. 

Achilles in Love: Intertextual Studies by Marco Fantuzzi, pg 31-35.

Here rape doesn’t happen not only for moral reasons, but mainly for narrative reasons. The poet, unlike other authors, doesn’t disapprove of Achilles' unmanly or unheroic attitude. On the contrary, he portrays it in a positive light. So Achilles is perfectly comfortable with the female condition and doesn’t feel repressed. Because he doesn’t feel repressed, there is no need to use rape as a narrative resource to "regain masculinity". Likewise, when Myrson is starting the story it’s already clear that "Deidamia cherished Achilles in her bower" and “bed of love how he”, that is, they slept (so even if we don't have the end of the text, we know Achilles was successful), but it isn’t important to immediately mention pregnancy as in other sources. This is because the sexual act here not only has no intention of reinforcing masculinity through violence (as in the case of versions with rape) but also has no intention of reinforcing masculinity through the idea of ​​getting someone pregnant (something emphasized even in versions without rape). This is because in other texts masculinity is intimately linked to the idea of achieving the glory of war, something that this text doesn’t exalt. Achilles' comfort with femininity is so great that, even though his courtship with Deidamia is described in the text as happening because "But the heart of a man had he, and the love of a man", the tactics used are feminine. He cannot bed Deidamia by reinforcing masculine acts, he can bed Deidamia by being so feminine that the courtship is almost homoerotic from Deidamia's point of view. Here, the poet is more interested in the idea of the sexual act as an erotic/romantic context than in the context of reinforcing a great warrior through violence or fertility. 

It’s currently not possible to be sure whether before this poem there were other Greek representations of the Achilles myth in Skyros that focused on the erotic aspect or that hyperfeminized Achilles in the same way. Because of this, this poem is considered by some to be the Greek version that possibly sparked a kind of "response" from Roman authors, who sought to reaffirm masculinity in opposition to hyperfeminization.

It is appealing to suppose that the experiment of the Epith., or some other version that is unknown to us in which Achilles was hyper-erotized/hyper-feminized in a similar way, attracted the attention of Ovid in the Ars amatoria (1.681–704) and triggered his reworking of the story. Dressed in the garb of grave moralism, which was surely more than half-jesting in the context of such a work as the Ars, Ovid’s silences and comments about the story of Achilles’ stay at Scyros parodically re-propose a critical discourse similar to the one which had been formulated in a more serious way by Horace (Ars poet. 119–122) about the opportunity for global coherence for some characters to whom the literary tradition had granted an especially monolithic characterization. A substantial dignification of Achilles’ stay at Scyros is also erected by Statius’ Achilleid, which may also have been at least in part a reaction to the Epith. or a similarly hypererotized version of the tale, and was most likely in tune with the need for epic consistency in Achilles’ biography, which Statius was going to write. After Statius, no other Latin text develops the story of an Achilles who appears to dodge the draft on his own initiative, while deeply enjoying his transvestism — transvestism which by the way was a rigid taboo for the Latin notion of masculinity. In a striking confirmation of Horace’s stylistic dictum, the feminised super-star of erotic poetry who starred in an epyllion like the Epith. in a role that belied his Iliadic future appears to have quickly lost his battle with the Achilles of Ovid and Statius, whose impatience for cross-dressing and virile rape were much more acceptable incunabula of the warlike hero sung by epic.

Achilles at Scyros and One of his Fans: The Epithalamium of Achilles and Deidamia (Buc. Gr. 157f. Gow) by Marco Fantuzzi, pg 305.

Ode I.VIII by Horace (1st century)

This is a source of Roman mythology. Useless information: Horace is presumed to be only a year older than the next writer on the list (he’s presumably from 65 BC and the next presumably from 64 BC), and I almost reversed them! But correction made, here we are. Among his many works was Odes, a collection of four books that contained lyric poems. Of these, the one we’re interested in here is Ode 8 of Book 1, as it’s the one mentioning Achilles in Skyros. More specifically, the girl disguise version.

Lydia, by all the gods, say why you’re set on ruining poor Sybaris, with passion: why he suddenly can’t stand the sunny Campus, he, once tolerant of the dust and sun: why he’s no longer riding with his soldier friends, nor holds back the Gallic mouth, any longer, with his sharp restraining bit. Why does he fear to touch the yellow Tiber? Why does he keep away from the wrestler’s oil like the viper’s blood: he won’t appear with arms bruised by weapons, he who was often noted for hurling the discus, throwing the javelin out of bounds? Why does he hide, as they say Achilles, sea-born Thetis’ son, hid, before sad Troy was ruined, lest his male clothing had him dragged away to the slaughter, among the Lycian  troops?

Odes, I.VIII. Translation by A. S. Kline.

This ode tells the story of the warrior Sybaris, who neglects the expected activities of young men (listed in the ode) because of a woman named Lydia. Horace ends the ode by comparing Sybaris' situation with that of Achilles, claiming Sybaris is hiding from male activities in the same way that Achilles did when he hid on Skyros. The description of Achilles as the son of Thetis may serve to indicate that, as in the case of Sybaris, Achilles' neglect of the male role was influenced by a female figure. Deidamia isn’t mentioned, but, according to Eleanor Winsor Leach, there is the possibility that Deidamia is a presence deduced by the Roman public and represents a parallel with Lydia, symbolizing a female character who seduced the young man away from his duties. This idea of the erotic as an obstacle to military activities, according to her, is consistent with the Augustine context. Winsor also mentions that, although the responsibility for the suppression of Achilles' masculinity is presumably attributed to Thetis, the terms used in the poem in the original language leave room for a possible interpretation that Achilles is or also is responsible.

Regarding Horace's Achilles, she concludes:

In Horace's poem, this indeterminate condition of gender, likewise painted with a comic touch, might be taken to reflect the somewhat ambivalent career prospects of the young Augustan male, who, while being encouraged to pursue an old-fashioned educational regimen, was actually being prepared to dedicate his energies to a new governmental regime where the rules and expectations of offices and rewards were in a state of change. Thus, let me suggest that Lydia's destructive blandishments and distractions are merely eliciting a condition that already exists in Augustan society and is especially highlighted by the posturing of the elegiac poets." elegiac poets. The exhibitionist lover who revels in effeminacy dramatizes the way in which he has been softened to play the role of the conquered. But Sybaris is not even posturing; the way in which the poetic speaker, by addressing his words to Lydia, talks around the young man brings out the passivity of his role.

Horace Carmen 1.8: Achilles, the Campus Martius, and the Articulation of Gender Roles in Augustan Rome by Eleanor Winsor Leach, pg 340-343.

Fabulae, by Hyginus (1st century)

This is a source of Greek mythology, but adapted to a Roman audience. Fabulae isn’t a poem or a play, but a treatise on mythology, which brings together versions of myths without writing a detailed narrative in the way other literary genres would. It’s commonly attributed to Hyginus, although some disagree and for this reason his authorship is sometimes described as "Pseudo-Hyginus".

According to Fabulae, Thetis somehow learned that Achilles would die if he went to Troy. Wishing he wouldn’t be recruited by the Achaeans, she hid him on Skyros among the girls of King Lycomedes' court. Because of the color of his hair, Achilles was nicknamed Pyrrha — yes, it's the female version of Pyrrhus, one of the names given to Achilles' son, Neoptolemus; see Library 3.13.8. Somehow the Achaeans learned Achilles was hiding there and asked Lycomedes to give him to them, but Lycomedes denied Achilles was there, although he permitted an inspection. Odysseus then deceived Achilles, causing him to ruin his own disguise. After that, Achilles left for Troy. Additionally, Neoptolemus is listed as the son of Deidamia, who we know is Lycomedes' daughter. However, Hyginus doesn’t give us details of the relationship.

ACHILLES: When Thetis the Nereid knew that Achilles, the son she had borne to Peleus, would die if he went to attack Troy, she sent him to island of Scyros, entrusting him to King Lycomedes. He kept him among his virgin daughters in woman's attire under an assumed name. The girls called him Pyrrha, since he had tawny hair, and in Greek a redhead is called pyrrhos. When the Achaeans discovered that he was hidden there, they sent spokesmen to King Lycomedes to beg that he be sent to help the Danaan. The King denied that he was there, but gave them permission to search the palace. When they couldn't discover which one he was. Ulysses put women's trinkets in the fore-court of the palace, and among them a shield and a spear. He bade the trumpeter blow the trumpet all of a sudden, and called for clash of arms and shouting. Achilles, thinking the enemy was at hand, stripped off his woman's garb and seized shield and spear. In this way he was recognized and promised to the Argives his aid and his soldiers, the Myrmidons.

Fabulae, 96. Translation by Mary Grant.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and Deidamia [...]

Fabulae, 123. Translation by Mary Grant.

Part 2 here.

[bushs-world]

The Unjust Attack On Strong Female Characters With Masculine Traits

So, I saw posts with bs about strong female character and how these representations are harmful and unrealistic and blah blah. And while they might are written in a way to showcase a problem, if we look carefully, we will find they are full of misogyny and covert hatred.

What's really stupid is that these posts/content rarely critique the character and can't point out one thing wrong with them (without ignoring or lying about canon). They have nothing substantial to back their opinions. Instead, they use generic words like agenda and TERF propoganda to justify their statements. And the usage of such words cause guilt tripping and fear.

But anyways, I will be trying to debunk all these arguments and give my own thoughts on the same.

Are masculine female characters stronger?

The answer is a big, fat no.

It is true that in today's society as in the past, femininity and feminine qualities and hobbies are looked down upon as weaker and inferior to masculine qualities, and a woman that displays certain masculine traits is considered stronger than a woman who displays certain feminine traits. Notice the word certain because if a female character is too butch, or too muscular, then she is hated. It is also true that in most media today, many strong female characters who were traditionally more feminine are made of embody certain masculine traits in order to turn them into a strong female character, like in the Amazon adaptation of Cinderella, which replaced og Cinderella's kind hearted nature with a girl boss attitude. This is a problem since a female character can be traditionally feminine and strong, as well as display certain acceptable masculine traits and still be weak.

But while this an issue, it turns into a problem when people take this framework and start hating on any female character that displays traditionally masculine traits, especially if she occupies a space earlier held by a male character. Like Sylvie.

Here's a few common arguments they make and how these are all flawed reasoning with covert hatred and misogyny.

She's a just man with boobs

Ok, this is the first argument I see and it never makes sense to me at all. Why would you call her a man with boobs?

Because she is a female that isn't stereotypically feminine and has masculine traits and personality. So, let me ask this question, does a woman stop being a woman because she isn't feminine? Why does a woman have to fit into a narrow, antiquated set of ideals to be called a woman, or else she isn't one?

News flash, a masculine woman is still a woman, a feminine woman is still a woman, a butch woman is still a woman, a trans woman is still a woman. No one stops being a woman because she is good at fighting, or because she is closed off or because she is a loner or because she isn't stereotypically feminine.

For example, some people claim Sylvie is just a man with boobs because she is fuelled by her rage and uses force. And I hate to break it to people that women are equally capable of being consumed by rage and being revengeful. Being a woman doesn't mean being a goody two shoes who is incapable of hurting an ant. We are equally complex people, with complex emotions.

And for another thing, this entire idea that women should only have x qualities, and men should only have y qualities just feeds into the outdated gender stereotypes and stunts the emotional growth of each gender. There's nothing wrong with being a woman with masculine qualities just as there is nothing wrong with being a man with feminine qualities.

She is a Mary Sue

This is the next most common argument thrown towards any female character that shows even a bit of competence or shares a place traditionally held by a male character. But in calling a competent female character a 'Mary Sue' and saying that is it because she is showcased as awesome and without any struggles, these people totally ignore any backstory that justifies her strength or competence.

Another very interesting point to note is that this label is mostly attached to female characters who overshine or atleast are on par with a male character. Even if her backstory justifies her competence or strength.

Take Sylvie for example again. She was abducted as a child and has been on the run since then, hiding in apocalypses, all the while the TVA hunted her down. Growing up in such conditions obviously made her good in combat and hence justifies her competence as a fighter, because her survival depended on it. But people conveniently ignore this part of her backstory to label her a Mary Sue just because she is strong.

And that begs the question, do these people think that a woman isn't capable of being good enough at something, even if she has been doing it for a long time just because she is a woman? Do people think our gender makes us inferior to men, that if a competent woman outshines a man in media, then it's only possible because she is being glorified, not because she is capable? Coz obviously it doesn't matter if she has been working for it her whole life, a woman still can't be better than a man coz she is a woman.

Her struggles are unrealistic

Now, I agree that any fictional character has to be relatable and display some basic human struggles for audience to bond with them. But, that in no way means, that their struggles have to fit into your definition of a struggle and mirror your real life experiences for it to be valid else it is unrealistic.

Male characters, especially white males are allowed to stand on their own as their own character, without having to function as a self insert. But when it comes to female characters, people will try to invalidate the struggles of a character as being unrealistic only because they don't exactly match their own life experiences.

So, let me ask you this question that why does every female characters have to function as a representation of the experience of every single woman and why can't they just exist as their own person with their own story, struggles and experiences? Why does a female character have to mirror your life exactly to be valid?

And secondly, her struggles are realistic to whom? Just because you never faced certain problems, doesn't mean other's never faced it. For example, for a person living in the West, the struggles of women in third world countries is going to be unrelatable. But that doesn't mean their struggles aren't valid or unrealistic. And why do you feel the need for a female character to function as your self insert and completely resonate with your life experiences to be valid, otherwise she is just useless?

Coz news flash again, women aren't a monolith. We are all different with different life experiences, struggles and problems. That is the founding principle of intersectional feminity, that our experience as women varies depending on your socio economic status, our religion, our race, our nationality etc. And it is possible for us to have widely varied experiences. If you need a woman and her experience to resemble your own experiences, if you need her struggles to match your own in order to be valid, then that's a you problem.

Coz there are so many things you would never experience unless you don't belong to a certain group or undergo a certain difficulty. This idea that if someone struggles don't match my own, if it doesn't seem realistic to me then those struggles are invalid is a extremely dangerous and exclusionist idea that is often used to discriminate against certain groups and erase their struggles. Coz then it gives privileged people, who have rarely experienced those difficulties to invalidate the struggles of marginalized groups who do experience them, all because these struggles aren't realistic according to their narrow, biased world view.

For example, a lot of Sylvie's struggles arise from her trauma, and while I don't want to superimpose that the struggles of a fictional character is similar to the struggles of real life people, her story draws parallels with stories of children of human trafficking or refugees who are targetted because of their race or ethnicity. And claiming her struggles are unrealistic, is straight up disrespectful to actual people who struggle from such situations. Coz saying being ripped away from your home is unrealistic invalidates the struggles of refugees, saying growing up on the run while being hunted is unrealistic invalidates the struggles of people who are a victim of targeted genocide or ethnic cleansing or those who have to flee to avoid persecution. Such a statement is extremely offensive and insulting to actual victims, even if it is used in the context of a fictional female character.

She isn't a role model

Again, this matches my previous point that a female character should be able to exist as her own character, without her turning into a moral science class for women. Especially since we have a plethora of morally grey, complex male characters that are fan favourites despite not being a role model.

But personally to me, this argument always sounded like a covert way of shaming women characters who don't fit into the image of ms. Goody two shoes. And it also reinforces the century old negative stereotype that a woman can either be a pure, innocent soul or a heartless vamp. And that any woman who isn't pure and innocent is horrible.

Now that doesn't mean that we don't glorify and hail their flaws but a woman isn't invalid or bad, just because she is morally grey. And especially if her place in the narrative is that of a morally grey character.

What baffles me is that these same people who apply such high standards and shame female characters if they fail to stand up to their high moral standards will often justify and defend the wrongdoings of male characters, who do equally bad, or worse things.

In the end, women are capable of being complex, morally grey and flawed. And this critique of women who are treated as flawed in narrative, just because they are flawed is misogynist coz the underlying theme isn't that the character is flawed, that much is supported in the narrative, but rather a hate campaign because the character dared to be flawed and wasn't ms. Goody two shoes.

She is emasculating to men

Now, any critique of a strong, female character isn't complete unless there is a mention of male characters and how their strength is emasculating to male characters. Coz, obviously you can't have a female character without comparing her with a male character.

And this is one of the most harmful argument of all, coz it covertly propagates hatred and paranoia against women empowerment by spreading the fear that strong women will ultimately be harmful for men. It also covertly reinforces toxic masculinity ideals and the idea that losing to a woman or a woman being better than you makes you less of a man.

This argument then serves a double edged sword, where on one hand, it spreads paranoia against women gaining power, thus attempting to keep them caged, and on the other hand, covertly mocks and ridicules men who don't fit into the toxic masculine ideal. Coz these people, who claim to be men activists will very happily exclude men when they fail to achieve the masculine ideal as incompetent and useless.

Take the series Loki for example. On one hand, the antis will hate on Sylvie, saying she was glorified and shown to be more competent and that it was disrespectful for Loki, on the other hand, these same antis who slander Sylvie for overshining Loki, will mock TVA Loki as Larry coz he doesn't succeed, despite the fact that the stakes were staked against him.

This paranoia and fear against women gaining power are also the founding principles of incels, who are fearful of women growing in power and believe that the empowerment of women is responsible for their shitty situation and harm and kill women over these imagined slights.

Guys, there is nothing wrong if a man isn't able to always top a woman, or he is sometimes unable to succeed, or if a woman exceeds a man in some areas. There's nothing shameful about a man who struggles or who needs help. There's nothing shameful if a woman does something better than you. This idea that a man has to be better than a woman is a very toxic one, that not only discriminates against women and sees them as inferior, but also places undue pressure on men to excel and achieve a standard of success according to the society's standards, not their own.

In the end, while these posts seem like such an intellectual critique, in reality they are full of exclusionist and anti feminine agenda that tries to sugarcoat it's hate with imagined slights and problems

[zire-in-space]

Hyping Ships Needs to Stop when:

Hyping ships needs to stop when:

- it is not canonical

- it is between two real life people

- it enforces a sexuality on a character that is not their canonical sexuality, whatever it may be

- it has a toxic tie to it, and any real relationship like it is very abusive *bakudeku, bakuracka and most bully x bullied ships

- it enforces ANY lgbtqa+ stereotype onto a canonically straight character to "prove" they are not straight

- it enforces ANY straight stereotype onto a canonically lgbtqa+ character to "prove" they are not lgbtqa+

*reminder to the non-straights that do the two above: you are not helping to stop the stigma around fetishizing non-straight relationships if you actively participate in this shit. If you complain about sexual or dirty stereotypes between two people of the same gender having affection while being friends, and do this, you are not helping for shit and are a hypocrite.

- it makes western and/or non-western close or distant friendships seem "gay" because showing physical or emotional affection or a tragic backstory to a friend that is the same gender is now gay, apparently

- it is very forced onto the creator and studio of the franchise when shippers start doing these things:

1. Shippers creating petitions to make their ship canon *happening with most anime ships, unfortunately. Happened to the steven universe studio to the point that someone quit because of it*

2. Shippers sending death or rape threats to the creator and/or studio members *steven universe shippers, hi there*

3. Shippers bullying other people for shipping CANONICAL SHIPS

4. Shippers constantly dragging the idea that "the character's sexuality is not mentioned DIRECTLY BY GOD HIMSELF so they must be gay, bi, pan, or ace"

5. Shippers using typical bro and homie moments to say a ship is canon and "hyping it up" on social media, which is basically putting pressure on the creator to not "let the fandom down!"

6. Shippers using well-bonded friendships where both characters have epic respect for each other for being "gay"

7. Shippers using clothing style and aesthetic to "prove" a character is not straight

8. Shippers call anyone who explains this a "homophobe" despite having these same rules against straight people pushing the hetero onto a clearly gay character

9. The ship is basically really bad fanservice for the gays/straights or anyone in between *mostly for iNcLuSiVitY / r e p r e s e n t a t i o n

10. Shippers saying that even though the character is not canonically gay, they still might be a "shy" bi or pan - even though the character's respect for certain characters and style DOES NOT PROVE ANYTHING, and a character's sexuality is clearly shown with BLUSHING or CLEAR FLUSTERING with males/females whenever a canonical crush or attraction is shown and NOT when someone gives them a goddamn compliment or bullies them because people get EMBARRASSED or just feel nice and blush jesus christ

11. SHIPPERS DO ANY OF THESE BUT INSTEAD OF THEM PUSHING NON-HETERO ONTO THE CHARACTERS, SHIPPERS PUSH THE HETERO ONTO A CHARACTERS

- NOTHING ABOUT THE CHARACTERS YOU ARE SHIPPING IS FUCKING CANONICAL OR SLIGHTLY CONFIRMED

Now, reminder that "There is not enough representation for lgbtqa+ couples in the media" is not a fucking excuse to push being lgbtqa+ onto a clearly and/or canonically straight character. Nor on the goddamn creator or studio. Do not create a goddamn "hype" with a large part of the fandom for a ship that is. Not. Canon.

Reminder that healthy friendships are typically based on idolization, empathy and affection and this never means these two people are non-hetero.

And by the way, these "totally gay" or "totally cute" ships actually ruin the way well-bonded friendships are seen between two people of the same gender. And WIDENS THE FUCKING STIGMA for non-hetero and hetero people to be in a friendship, since it assumes they want things to happen for both straight or non-straight friendships - just stop. If your defense to this is "the heterosexuals have been doing this forever, though!", then i am sorry, but you lost this debate. Us straight people haven't done this on purpose, it's what society has nurtured us to do whenever we see a guy and girl friendship - we automatically assume one or both wants more than a friendship, and this is totally a misogynistic take so gender roles get reinforced. So using "straight people have done this forever" just proves that you do understand you are partaking in the reinforcement of queercoding and toxic gender stereotypes and roles of human beings. People should try to do the opposite, and enjoy a really good platonic relationship. Straight shipping culture literally is despised by most straight females for the lack of female inclusivity, misogyny, queercoding, and female plot devices that have furthered away from us the ability to have male friends. Males now use "friendzone" jokes or harrass girls who they manipulated into being their friend since everywhere it is shown that all it really takes is for a guy to like a girl and to be in a friendship and boom, relationship. Straight women have hated this forever.

And "heteronormativity" doesn't really exist in creator's works. It's what the creator imagined their characters and relationships to be. If its all hetero, let it be hetero. If its all homo, let it be homo. If its a straight creator who made a homo character let them! If an lgbtqa+ person made a straight character let them! And I know people will question the first part on this list, but fanfics and fanart are never bad! I mean like the pedophilia and lewd sexist imagery definitely needs to get yeeted but other than that there ain't no problem! It's obvious it's an alternate storyline than the main franchise. :D

So any haters of this need to shut up and eat the fact that you are not the creator of the franchise, and you will not "convince" or "petition" or just put pressure for any ship to be canon onto the creator. I know this post is kind of agressive but I'm so tired of trying to explain it to lgbtqa+ shippers and homophobic anti-gay shippers about this stuff. So here is a last note:

Let creators make stories - complex characters each with their own styles and aesthetics and relationships - without the pressure of changing anything in it to fit society's queercoding or gender-roles, my broskis.

Thank you :D

[sokkastyles]

So a while back I saw this pretty inaccurate and by inaccurate I mean mind-numbingly stupid take that’s been grinding at my gears ever since I saw it so I’m just going to rant about it and then ask you what you think.

So, you know when Toph first joins Team Avatar, she’s having a hard time fitting in with the group, and Katara tells her that they usually all set up camp together, and so Toph tells her that she “carries her own weight” and would prefer it if she could just do the work she needed to do for herself and everyone else also do all the work they needed to do for themselves instead of everyone doing all of it together? This is pretty understandable considering that she not only grew up an only child (and as an only child let me tell you that a lot of us do prefer to work by ourselves a lot of the time and can get stressed out doing group work) but was essentially locked away in her own home and never allowed to socialize with anyone, period, let alone make friends her own age and learn how to collaborate with others. The only thing experience she had talking to other people besides her parents would be from the Earth Rumble, and needless to say what’s essentially the Avatar equivalent of WWE isn’t the best place for a 12 year old to build her social skills. Then there’s her fierce independent streak and aversion to accepting help from and feeling dependent on others, something instilled in her due to how her parents treated her because she was blind.

So this person claimed that the reason why Toph did not want to help Katara and the others set up camp was not, in fact, due to these reasons but rather due to her “classist belief that she did not have to do any work and those of a lower socioeconomic background than her should be expected to serve her.” (And just you wait, this isn’t even the worst part of the post, there’s way more.) First of all, Toph was HAPPY to do work, she just wanted to do her OWN work and have everyone else do THEIR own work too. It’s not like she made everyone else set up camp for her. She set up her own camp and let the others set up theirs. She didn’t expect anybody to serve her, that’s just blatantly untrue. This person made it sound like she was bossing everyone around and calling them “peasants” or something. They claimed that there’s apparently “a lot of inherent classism in the way Toph interacts with the rest of Team Avatar.” No? There really isn’t? AND ALSO SHE LEARNT HER LESSON BY THE END OF THE EPISODE AND STARTED WORKING AS A TEAM WITH THEM!!

They also claimed that the reason why Toph was initially annoyed by Katara was also due to her supposed “classism” as well as her “internalized misogyny.” First of all, the reason why Toph was initially annoyed by Katara was because she projected her strained relationship with her overbearing mother onto her due to the fact that Katara is the de facto caregiver of Team Avatar. That’s it. That’s the 100% canonical, undisputable, undebatable reason. They literally spell it out for you in the episode “The Runaway.” I’m not saying it’s okay for her to do that, but that is the reason why she was sometimes annoyed by Katara, not because she was “classist” or “misogynistic.” I also believe that her distaste for conventional femininity probably stems more from the way she associates it with the life she ran away from as well as the fact that it’s largely inaccessible to her due to her blindness. This person literally said, and I quote, “Toph is being classist, misogynistic, and homophobic here.” My god. I guess I can see where you get classist and misogynistic from even if I don’t quite agree with it, but homophobic? Come on. Homophobia is the hatred of gay people. Show me ONE instance where Toph expressed a hatred for gay people. Oh wait, you can’t, because that never happened. Stop throwing around buzzwords just because you can, it lessens their significance and seriousness. Also, KATARA AND TOPH ARE FRIENDS THEY’RE VERY CLOSE FRIENDS AND EVERY TIME THEY FOUGHT THEY MADE UP AND APOLOGIZED AND CHANGED THEIR BEHAVIOUR BECAUSE THEY’RE BOTH GOOD PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT EACHOTHER MY GOD DID YOU EVEN WATCH THE SHOW BECAUSE YOU ENJOY IT OR DID YOU JUST GO INTO IT PURPOSELY LOOKING FOR THINGS TO BE MAD ABOUT?

So yeah. I love Toph, I love Katara, and I love their friendship. They’re both huge comfort characters for me. That post was 100% grasping for straws and really rubbed me the wrong way because it almost felt like the OP was willfully misinterpreting Toph and Katara’s dynamic because they were looking for woke points and liked the rush they get out of going “popular thing bad, actually” and it felt very disrespectful to both of their characters and their friendship.

I absolutely agree with you about people being contradictory for woke points and I have seen these takes before. Tumblr social justice circles are also in general really bad at acknowledging ableism in general and misogyny against girls and women who don't perform traditional femininity and Toph lives at the intersection of both and is a wildly popular character. And as a disabled woman I find these takes to be really off base. As you said, Katara and Toph are friends and they worked it out in the end, and these issues canonically stem from both Toph's experiences of abuse because of being a disabled girl and Katara's need to mother other people because of her own trauma, and both of these perspectives are sympathetic and they both had to adjust their worldview a little bit. I identify a lot with Toph's desire to be taken seriously both as a person and as a woman, the latter you do see in "Tales of Ba Sing Se." Toph very clearly does not hate femininity, she wants to be seen as pretty and looks to Katara for validation because Katara is a feminine girl, but she also struggles with being able to perform femininity. She also is just not that comfortable with it, and that's okay. Like Toph, I can sometimes enjoy getting made up but it's not something I can do every day without help.

I love her and Katara's Ba Sing Se segment because it shows so well the kind of misogyny Toph experiences. The reason the other girls make fun of Toph is because she very obviously did not do her makeup herself, and this reflects on her performance of femininity. Women are supposed to perform femininity in a way that it is both perfect and appears effortless. When I go and get my eye makeup done because I can't see well enough and don't have a steady enough hand to do it myself, you can tell that I didn't do it myself. I look like Toph. I love that that episode affirms both that Toph is pretty AND that she doesn't have to be.

And Katara, the "Runaway" pretty clearly validates Katara and shows that Toph appreciates Katara's "mothering" and that she looks up to her. As younger girls are wont to do with older girls. And Katara is right about Toph missing her mom but she also realizes that Toph needs that older female figure in her life.

It also really bothers me when people pull the classism card to talk about disabled characters. I have seen it elsewhere and I have seen it in atla fandom with Toph and Zuko. Both also are fiercely independent because they struggle to be taken seriously by abusive families. To see that struggle reduced to "Oh, they just don't want to work/are ignorant because of classism" feels very ableist. People will belittle the accomplishments of these characters because they're privileged. Which, yes, they are, in some ways, but privilege is not a dirty word and you also have to recognize what privileges they lack. And in both cases, their class privilege was actually tied to the way they were abused. If Toph wasn't born into a wealthy family, she might have been subject to other forms of abuse. And Zuko...it's a miracle that Zuko survived to see his teen years considering the household he grew up in.

As for the issue between Katara and Toph, Katara has also made comments towards Toph that could be interpreted as ableism and misogyny, but like you said, at the end of the day, they are friends who deeply care about each other, so pitting them against each other like this over issues that are complex and also resolved within the series seems like just grasping for something to start discourse about.