#especially internalized misogyny and people who don’t recognize it

[riverofempathy]

[nekropsii]

ALPHA TROLLS RANKED BY HOW WRONG THE FANDOM AT LARGE IS ABOUT THEM:

This is a personal challenge, based entirely on my own experience and perspective, and also ranked from Most to Least Correct. I was bored, and thought this might be fun.

Putting this under a cut, because it's long as hell.

MEULIN LEIJON

People get her mostly correct, from what I’ve seen… Most of the time, fan content of Meulin is absolutely recognizable as Meulin, but her pride in her deafness + joy of learning new ways to interact with the world through/due to her disability is always removed, and I do not often see people tackle the Toxic Positivity aspect of her character. That seems less like character assassination, though, and more like a combination of people not actually playing through the Openbounds, people not being able to fathom disabled people (especially those who gained a disability later in life rather than being born disabled) being happy, and general fandom distaste for the idea of touching anything uncomfortable, especially when that uncomfortable topic is highly mundane, normalized, and potentially applicable to them or their loved ones. Meulin’s toxic positivity was, of course, commentary on Tumblr’s ecosystem at the time, so… It was much harder to touch back then.

ARANEA SERKET

People tend to get her general, broad strokes personality right, but unfortunately she gets treated pretty roughly for the crime of Being A Serket. People refuse to understand her motivations, and she often gets demonized for what she was doing around/during [S] Game Over, even though that was something she’d gotten pushed to and also was cool as fuck to watch. God forbid a woman do anything.

DAMARA MEGIDO

People are right about the racism, 100%. It is completely despicable, hard to look at, and extremely blatant. She does, however, have character outside of that. No, it isn’t “whore”, it’s more like “angry, dysfunctional abuse victim”, and she’s genuinely a very interesting and tragic character. But, again, people are right about the racism, so she gets to be placed way up here.

MEENAH PEIXES

She is such a chaotic little bastard. I love her. I really do. Please understand that she genuinely does not understand the concept of consequences. This girl didn’t have a Lusus, she didn’t have parents, it was functionally illegal to tell her “No, you can’t do that.” That would fuck up literally anyone’s moral compass. That’s not me hand waving away all the fucked up and bad shit she’s done, we all know what she did, but people tend to forget this aspect of her character and it pains me deeply, because it is a very genuinely interesting concept that I want to see more of. She’s capable of regret, we’ve seen her feel it, I just don’t think foresight is her forte. No one raised her to consider consequences, or help her experience them in a healthy way, because nobody raised her period.

Also, her ass is not butch, she is the girliest girl in the entire comic. She is about hot pink and glitter and kiss marks and unicorns and cute little puns and you will respect that. She is not masculine. Her ass is not masculine nor is she butch. Let her be her hyper-feminine self.

LATULA PYROPE

Please for the love of god there is more to her character than “Gamer Girl” and “Mituna’s Girlfriend”. You are falling for her fucking ruse. Please. Please. Please recognize that her entire character is about internalized misogyny, and being forced to overcompensate for misogyny in gaming circles as a gamer who happens to be a woman. Please. I’m begging.

KURLOZ MAKARA

His character is not that deep, it’s mostly just a string of events he is mysteriously, inexplicably involved with. The Makaras are extremely Function Over Form- their characters practically do not exist, they're mostly just plot devices that exist to push the story along. I'm sorry to Makara fans. You just invented a guy in your mind and decided he was real. He is also not that soft, though, and his relationships with both Meulin AND Mituna are not healthy. Hard to stop people from ascribing cutesy squishy lovey dynamics to random men who happened to have looked at each other once, though. Some people truly haven't graduated from 2012.

HORUSS ZAHHAK

I am begging people to consider that maybe the biggest issue here is not that he is “Bad Otherkin/Therian Representation” and is in fact maybe the fact that Hussie was actually making fun of Systems when he was writing Horuss. Because Horuss is canonically a system. He uses the word system. He uses the word switching. He uses the word host. He literally talks about his Plurality at length in extremely upfront, plain terms. I don’t know how him being “Bad Otherkin Representation” was and still is the main discourse about him. It makes me insane. That is a commentary that truly writes itself. Talk about having your priorities out of wack, honestly...

PORRIM MARYAM

No, she is not a MRA, she’s just a regular feminist who happens to live on a different planet with different politics and social hierarchies from Our Real World Earth’s USA. Whatever argument you’re about to pull out of your ass to say that she sucks is bad. She already explained what she meant by that, in more detail, very clearly, and she was right. Half the time she’s literally just giving you factual information about what Beforus was like, and literal plot synopses. She isn’t saying anything insane. She’s literally normal. I don’t know why people cannot handle or process this. Porrim has not ever said anything controversial. If you disagree with this you’re either misconstruing her on purpose or you fell for Kankri’s bait, and that’s just fucking sad at that point.

Also, she’s more than a sex object, and her tits are not huge. Honestly, half the shit she was saying was just “I am more than my sex life”, and so many people took that and made her main character trait her sex life. Just pathetic.

RUFIOH NITRAM

This man is a fucking war criminal and I will stop at nothing until he is behind bars for his crimes against Damara. Raging misogynist. Total fucking cunt. Just the worst. If I talk any more about this, this part will be 1,000 paragraphs long. But also, I’m begging people to recognize his relationship with disability, too. He was similar to Meulin in the sense that he didn’t mind his disability, and his biggest gripe with it was the way that Horuss tried to “fix” it… Which is an interesting way to expand upon how Beforus’s culling system is not only very explicitly ableist, but mimicking real world systemic ableism. I also want people to recognize that Hussie is actively having a conversation about the reclamation of slurs with Rufioh’s character, and how not letting people reclaim such language is doing nothing but giving the word power against them while stripping away their own personal agency. Rufioh’s a complicated guy, and he’s interesting and also the worst, and I am really tired of how he gets watered down to nothing but “Pretty Boy Victim Of His Inexplicably Psycho Ex”.

MITUNA CAPTOR

Holy Fucking Shit, You Guys Are Ableist.

KANKRI VANTAS

To this day I see people saying he was just Hussie making fun of SJWs. To this day. To this day people think Hussie was trying to make Every Tumblr Leftist look bad, and that he hates them Because They Are Leftists. When will people recognize him as a bootlicker to the oppressive class and the violently bigoted. When will people recognize that. When will people recognize that this is more of a commentary on the legitimate real flaws of Tumblr’s politics at the time. When. When.

When will people stop portraying him as a lovey-dovey Catholic Whore. I’m going to stab my fucking eyes out and then kill everyone in this building. Me when it's based and cool to ship an aroace character with a sexual predator. I GUESS.

CRONUS AMPORA

I say this with every ounce of sincerity I can possibly muster as a person: What the literal actual fuck.

[viridianevergarden]

I’m sick and tired of hearing these:

“Elain will come around”

“Lucien deserves someone too”

“They’re mated”

“They’ll get along eventually”

Please.

These arguments are literally the most popular arguments that I see all the time in nearly every comment section about them.

Perhaps it’s me being overdramatic or in general a bit of a hot take but I feel like the people who say this have a little 🤏 internalized misogyny.

Like imagine genuinely feeling uncomfortable around somebody who you’re match made with and people continue to debate over whether or not you should “come around” just because the man deserves it.

Just because your dear Lulu deserves it?

It really rubs me the wrong way. What about Elain’s wants? What about her feelings? Her thoughts? As if her body language wasn’t obvious enough of a tell tale sign of her discomfort. Not to mention the fact that Lucien is also uncomfortable around her.

Moreover, regarding my thoughts on Lucien:

I also feel like the same people who say these things are the ones who truly glorify Lucien and think him to be some innocent puppy or just an all around good guy.

Do we not remember the fact that he enabled Tamlin’s abusive tendencies by doing nothing for Feyre? Do we not remember that he tracked Feyre down like some hunting dog to get her back because (mainly) Tamlin wanted her back? (Even then, it was all about Tamlin rather than Feyre, the one actually suffering the most.)

Lucien’s eye widened slightly. “We need to get out of here. Tamlin’s been—he hasn’t been himself. I’ll take you right to—” “No,” I breathed (ACOMAF, ch 47).

All about Tamlin.

I understand Tamlin saved his life. I understand that Tamlin means a lot to Lucien. They’ve been friends for centuries. I get it. But his constant “I’ll try to talk to him” wasn’t enough. I feel like Lucien should’ve been the bigger person in that situation with Feyre. She literally begged him for help.

“I begged you,” I said, the words sharp and breathless. “I begged you so many times to help me, to get me out of the house, even for an hour. And you left me alone, or shoved me into a room with Ianthe, or told me to stick it out.” (ACOMAF, ch 47).

He knew and recognized the fact that Feyre was actively wasting away under Tamlin’s discretion yet he chose to stand by because Tamlin is his friend and a High Lord. It’s honestly no better than kicking an already downed man.

Not to mention the fact that he compared Elain to his dead ex lover? And questions if Elain is even worth the attention or attempt to bond with? If she is even worth risking his life for just to get to the Night Court after betraying Tamlin? (Not very mate-like behavior). Kind of shitty if you ask me.

Lucien isn’t an amazing person, just as everyone else in the book. No one’s a 100% good guy in ACOTAR. But some actions (or rather inactions) are justifiable just as some others are not.

So all this talk about “Lucien deserves love too” while Elain is merely treated as a prop for him because he deserves love and not her too is utterly ridiculous. It’s gotten to the point where I neglect looking into ACOTAR comment sections lol.

Now with all of this being said, I don’t hate Lucien. I don’t love him either. He’s just there for me. There’s plenty wrong that he’s done just as anyone else. I just wish people would stop babying him and glorifying him as if he’s some saint. He deserves better than that.

And most of all, Elain deserves better treatment too. But then again, people in this fandom are ✨delusional✨ and close minded so I don’t think that may happen. Especially not until Elain’s book release.

Rant over.

[anders-hawke]

hey I'm the previous anon!

I kinda logged off for a while but seeing your answer made me want to ask so really, I'd love to hear about it from a screenwriter pov.

hope you don't mind all these questions!

as per the hot takes of this season, how do you feel about them? so fa the ones I've seen are:

pen not deserving forgiveness and being the villain of the show

the queen and the ton being too easy on pen

colin needing to grovel more

eloise having to be kinder to cressida and have her become besties with penelope by saving cressida together

eloise and cressida having to be endgame and eloise being the queer bridgerton instead of francesca

benedict having to be w a man or w a crossdressing sophie because he's bi

and, what do you think of the choices made by the team this season?

what do you think of franchaela? was it a fun twist or should they have avoided giving francesca the gay storyline?

what about benedict? his gay storyline this season and why just this season?

why do you think the mondrich are so important? could it be (like some people speculate) because lord kent is gonna be hyacinths gareth?

how you feel about the very modern twist on makeup and style this season?

what do you think of penelope continuing as lw and using her name and potentially putting herself in danger?

I've tried to ask as much as possible but if there's anything else you want to elaborate on feel free!

I don’t mind the stack of questions at all! It’s very exciting to dissect it all and answer them. Honestly, I have a whole document dedicated to unpacking and debunking lots of the hot takes I’ve seen because it’s so annoying to see people type with their brains off. Like, no shame if you don’t think while watching stuff—lord knows I watch something for the first time without much in the way of higher thought happening. But I also recognize that and take the time to organize my thoughts before I speak on anything. (Although that might just be a bit of a coping mechanism I developed because of my anxiety disorder that serves a good purpose generally.) This post will also be spoilery because I reference events from the books a lot.

Pen doesn’t deserve forgiveness/Pen’s the real villain of the show/QC & the ton were too easy on her.

There is no “actual” villain of the show. It’s fucking Bridgerton, like, be honest! That claim just makes me laugh because it’s like... You can’t fool me. I know a lot of people who say that are just indulging their internalized fatphobia. And in the instances when they’re not, it’s still plain old misogyny. On the topic of forgiveness, I personally did not read what happened as anybody forgiving Pen for what she wrote in Whistledown. I think, just like when Colin said he would never court Pen, though he had a change of heart, he never did forgive her.

The people that matter to Pen—the Bridgertons and the Featheringtons, her family—accept what she did and understand that Pen recognizes that she was wrong, would do things differently if she could, and not only resolves to do better but already in season three has demonstrated that effort to do better numerous times. Pen never asked for forgiveness, she requested clemency from the queen.

She gave her speech in front of the ton because hiding that she’s Whistledown implied that some of her best qualities—her cleverness, her passion for writing, her humor—were things to be ashamed of. But they’re not and in embracing her full potential, Pen defied the misogynistic idea pervasive in the ton—which her mother repeats throughout the show but especially in season three—that all women are meant for is bearing children. No, women don’t just have to be mothers and gossips, they’re full human beings.

Pen continuing the column is a good outcome for the ton because they eat her writing up. I remember how, at the beginning of episode six, everyone’s upset that she hasn’t published! They love her writing so damn much. And as Genevieve explains to Alice in “How Bright the Moon,” they all “feed off the nouveau.” They love having new information to gossip about, and what is better than the reveal of who Lady Whistledown is? They probably talked about that reveal all the way through Pen’s maternity leave (or as they called it: confinement) until she published her next issue of Whistledown as Penelope Bridgerton.

Some people just hate to see a woman succeeding. “I don’t care that your spouse worships the ground you walk upon and that the job you love is very lucrative, that should’ve happened to me instead,” sorta attitude is what I’m getting from Pen’s haters, lol. Anyways, all that to get to the screenwriting part of this: Pen becomes Whistledown as an outlet for her frustrations with society. All of her mistakes are reflections of the terrible treatment she gets because she doesn’t fit the ton’s ideal. As Colin said, it makes sense that Whistledown would reflect, at times, the cruelty around Pen.

It’s part of the mirror motif of the season because Pen as a character is a mirror for society. She reflects people’s best and worst qualities. She wants to be more than a wife and mother like Eloise, she shares Colin’s loyalty and kindness (someone has to specifically do her dirty for her to not be kind to them), and she is also deeply critical of herself like her mother, sisters, mamas, and debutantes. She also amplifies all those qualities; for example, when she writes about Colin adopting his rake persona, she’s taking the cruelty of him declaring that he’d never court Pen and turning it back on him but with a megaphone.

I mean, I completely understand why (and I can’t remember where exactly I learned this but I think it was in a live interview she gave during season three promo but I could be wrong) Shonda Rhimes wanted to adapt the Bridgerton books because of Penelope. Obviously she saw something in the other aspects of the series, but Whistledown/Pen is a captivating way of conveying information and examining the ton. Putting Colin and Pen’s season before Benedict and Sophie’s (and, of course, all the other siblings) allows the writers to even more thoroughly use Whistledown to examine and criticize the ton, which will go hand in hand with Benedict marrying Sophie in spite of her being a bastard.

Colin needed to grovel more.

I completely understand where this idea comes from but at the same time... Please give it some actual thought if you believe this. 😭 Not knocking Kate and Anthony, as an oldest sibling I have no choice but to stan them, but it is greatly to Colin’s credit that he approaches Pen the the very first episode of the season with an apology. Anthony isn’t able to do that until the last episode of season two because he’s spent every day since Edmund died repressing his feelings in order to effectively carry out his duties as viscount.

Colin never had any of that sort of pressure and because he’s also significantly younger than both Anthony and Benedict, he’s one of what I call the “sibling-kids.” They’re Ant and Ben’s siblings, yes, but in many ways they are also Anthony and Benedict’s children. It’s kind of like a teen parent relationship with C through H. Anthony, Benedict, and Violet are very much the parents: Anthony nurtures their minds, Benedict nurtures their souls, and Violet nurtures their hearts. Anthony preaches logic (advising Colin to straight up tell Pen he loves her, going on a second honeymoon with Kate since the estate is in good hands and love is important), Benedict preaches freedom (encouraging El’s rebellious pursuits and trying Colin’s drug tea), and Violet preaches wisdom (advising her children to follow their hearts).

Kind of a tangent but as a screenwriter I greatly appreciate the careful construction of the interplaying relationships in this show. With all that, Colin has the benefit of having three advisors in his life and is able to be a very sensitive person, so he doesn’t completely freak out and not know how to approach the situation. Therefore, he doesn’t go overboard with the groveling, which would end up making it Pen’s responsibility to lift him up and set him straight. Instead, he calmly approaches Pen and offers a very thought out apology. The onus is entirely on him and earning Pen’s forgiveness requires no emotional labor on her part. (And this is forgiveness because Colin doesn’t stand by what he said, whereas Pen does, she simply regrets the way she said things.)

It’s such a beautiful scene when he apologizes, partly because it shows the true nature of their relationship: when Colin’s hero complex, his rake persona, Pen’s wallflower persona, and her Whistledown persona are set aside, they are complete equals. They are their truest selves around each other with no need for duplicity or grandstanding. Colin doesn’t need to grovel before Pen for her forgiveness because he takes a mature route where he says his piece and gives her the space to accept his apology or reject it. He truly listens to Pen when she speaks and, as proof of his regret and dedication to their friendship, he offers to help her catch a husband—something she obviously seeks to do but which he didn’t previously know about her.

Honestly, if Colin had just done a bunch of groveling, it would’ve been boring because it means we wouldn’t have the Colin who took Pen’s silence to mean that even the person who was most interested in his travels no longer found them—and therefore him—interesting or worthy of her time. Because he came to that conclusion, he changed everything about himself in the hopes that both Pen and the ton would like the new him better and would take him seriously. The ton certainly does but Pen, who matters more than anybody else, doesn’t.

Colin has always been the type of person who thinks before he acts. The times when he doesn’t are in opposition and that’s on purpose. When Marina seduces him into proposing and agreeing to run off to Gretna Green, she’s manipulating him by using his hero complex to override his thoughtful nature. But we see Colin in his natural state with Pen a lot in season two, especially “The Choice” when they have their conversations about purpose.

Colin and Penelope have also known each other since they were kids, which is why they’re able to be their truest selves around each other. It’s why Colin picks up on Pen’s melancholy and probes her on it, and it’s why Pen immediately understands that Colin isn’t simply growing up when he returns in season three but is putting on a persona. They bypass needing Colin to grovel over his comment in season two because they don’t need grand gestures between them to convey that they’re being earnest.

Eloise should’ve been kinder to Cressida and should’ve worked with Pen to get Cressida a better ending.

If Eloise actually developed the maturity to recognize that Cressida simply wanted to escape her unhappy and tragically doomed life and went about achieving that with unsavory efforts, El wouldn’t have much of a character arc left for her season. As for Pen, she doesn’t owe Cressida shit after all that bullying, and she still didn’t decide to be vengeful. She didn’t disparage Cressida in her column, despite very clearly wanting to. Cressida not getting an HEA serves the same purpose as the Mondriches having to sell their club: only Bridgertons get happy endings. We see this concept even more in Queen Charlotte where there are no Bridgertons and none of the main characters’ situations are happy endings. We know how Charlotte and George’s story turns out, Lady Danbury and Lord Ledger cannot be together, and Violet’s home life is a far cry from the abundance of love she nurtures amongst her children.

Creloise should be endgame and Eloise should be the queer Bridgerton instead of Francesca.

All this nonsense about “the queer Bridgerton” is annoying at this point and I’m so glad that I haven’t had to see it personally surrounding season three. Now, aside from Phillip already being in the show, Creloise was never going to be endgame because neither of them are mature enough for that. Eloise is too focused on how different she feels from everyone else and trying to reconcile that with the idea of everyone having interiority and not being automatically lesser for wanting to get married and have kids. Cressida is too focused on finding a solid marriage and then escaping society for good. Eloise may not like society, but she loves her family and could never leave them behind. However, I do very much read their friendship as queer and think it was probably on purpose that it read that way to us. It’s just that it could never work out in this universe. (There’s always Creloise fics on AO3, it’s fine.)

Frannie’s story is perfect for a sapphic romance, which I’ll talk more about later, and Benedict is obviously also queer, which I will also talk about later. Additionally, from season one, both Benedict and Eloise have been thought of as queer, so I honestly have no idea where people are getting this idea of El being the only queer Bridgerton from. As if we don’t have multiple!

Benedict needs to end up with a man/Sophie should cross dress.

Every person I see saying that Ben needed to end up with a man gets blocked. I don’t need that in my life, especially not when Benedict is representation for me. I don’t think Sophie needs to cross dress in season four because the show has already dedicated a lot of time to Benedict going to little parties and experimenting. Benedict meets Sophie as the Lady in Silver at the masquerade ball at the beginning of An Offer from a Gentleman, yes, but he meets Sophie the maid while he’s leaving a house party. I imagine that he’ll start off the season having a pretty grand time hooking up with people, embracing his sexuality, and then he’ll be hit with the Bridgerton lovesick-itis where he won’t be able to stop thinking about his Lady in Silver. Sophie doesn’t need to dress up as a man to incorporate Benedict’s queerness into the season; he’s queer regardless, and there are much more tasteful—and likely—ways we’ll see that in the show.

Is Franchaela a good change?

I’m so excited for Franchaela I don’t even know how to express it. Like, yes, Polin is my favorite ship and they’ll never be topped for me, but Franchaela is a very close second. I was on board with the gender swap from the get-go because after the first two seasons and Queen Charlotte, it was clear to me that the people making these shows know what they’re doing and aren’t in danger of fucking up the stories they’re telling (despite what some may think). But it was reading When He Was Wicked that I really got excited for Frannie’s season. It’s the perfect book to genderswap because Michael and Francesca spend most of the book dealing with their grief for John and their guilt for falling in love with each other; they perceive that as a slight against John. Using all that guilt in the book and adding in all the emotions that come with discovering that you’re queer—for Francesca, because I assume that Michaela already knows and embraces that about herself. In the book, Michael accepts his feelings for Frannie a lot earlier than she accepts her feelings for him, and I think that translates well into a sapphic version of the story—then Michaela has to deal with Frannie not accepting her queer feelings for her. It’s delicious and we’re not even there yet!

I will say, though, that I understand the worry some people have that the writers may be mishandling Fran and John’s relationship by having Fran immediately have feelings for Michaela and seemingly display some doubts when she kisses John at their wedding. Personally, I think it’s too early to go around decrying the way Fran, Michaela, and John’s story is going. I don’t think Fran and John’s dynamic will be ruined, I think it’s simply a matter of taste when it comes to the book. Francesca and Michael are at the park together in London when Frannie very suddenly starts to view Michael in a sexual light and she gets very flustered, which is obviously brought to the show. But I felt that it was very random and not constructed very well; there was no reason given as to why specifically at this point in their lives, at this moment, Francesca started to view Michael differently. I’ll be happy with how it turns out in the show as long as Francesca isn’t secretly pining for Michaela. I think it’s for the best if she’s immediately attracted to Michaela, so then it doesn’t feel sudden later, but that she doesn’t actually fall in love with Michaela until after John dies and we get to their season.

What is the point of the Mondriches?

I talked earlier about how the Mondriches serve as contrasts to the Bridgertons, where the leads get HEAs but no one else does. In season one, while Daphne and Simon have their issues within their relationship, they ultimately solve their issues without completely compromising their morals. Meanwhile, Will has to completely compromise his morals in order to provide for his family. In season two, Kate and Anthony are struggling to meet their expectations for themselves, just as Will is struggling with expectations vs reality for his club’s success. Where Kate and Anthony are able to step back, accept that they were going about everything wrong, and have their HEA together, it’s only through Colin’s kindness that the club is successful. Although, in both cases, those outcomes are dependent on spokespeople using their influence to rectify the situation: the queen for Kate and Anthony, and Colin for Will and Alice. In season three, while Colin and Penelope don’t have to give up their literary pursuits to have success as the parents of a titled son, Will and Alice have to give up the club.

How do you feel about the very modern twist on makeup and style this season?

I don’t mind it at all. Some of the costumes are irksome (mostly when it comes to minor characters) but for the most part I liked them or at least understood their purpose. I mean, Cressida and her mother’s looks were insane but it fits the fact that they’re trying really hard. I heard somewhere that it’s not so much trying to find the perfect look for Bridgerton but that each season purposefully has a different look that fits with the story being told through the lead romance. So for season three, they take a page out of Portia’s lookbook and the ton goes a little OTT—even Charlotte goes for it (I don’t think she should have but my opinion doesn’t much matter lol).

What do you think of Penelope continuing as LW and using her name, potentially putting herself in danger?

I went into the season expecting Pen to continue writing the column and that’s the outcome I wanted. In Romancing Mister Bridgerton, she simply retires it, but I think it means way too much in the show and also has too many uses as a screenwriter for her to stop writing it. But it’s important that she starts writing it using her real name instead of the moniker. She’s claiming her writings and not hiding from herself anymore. In terms of danger, I think people are very much going overboard. Firstly, nobody is in danger of being beheaded, because in Queen Charlotte, Charlotte melodramatically wishes that she could still behead people because a servant had her woken up in the middle of the night. Secondly, the worst punishment would be imprisonment, but this is Bridgerton, and the queen’s rivalry with Whistledown is a fun game of wits, not a game of “how fast can Charlotte unearth this treasonous snake?”

As for everyone else, they don’t have enough power to actually threaten Pen. She hasn’t written about anyone in a way that would make them want to put her in physical danger, just efforts to stain her reputation, which is why she offers Colin an annulment. What Pen doesn’t know—and what we do know, alongside Lady Danbury—is that the queen wasn’t just in a good mood when she went to the Butterfly Ball, she went with a plan. She wanted to display her power in front of everyone to keep the ton in line but also preserve her rivalry with Pen so that she has something to occupy her time with.

It’s Bridgerton. The romantic leads aren’t actually at risk of death.

I hope I answered all of your questions satisfactorily! I had so much fun dissecting everything!!!

[strangesmallbard]

something i’m observing in knight of the seven kingdoms is how people are drawn to dunk. after just one conversation, they seem to trust him implicitly and rely on him to uphold ideals of justice and honor. for example: egg, baelor breakspear, the fossoway squire raised to be a knight, eustace osgey. (i say men and not “people” bc the only woman given any page time so far is tanselle; her service worker/customer relationship with dunk + lower position in the hierarchy at the tournament + Westerosi Misogyny very likely informs their interactions. i’m about to meet rohanne and may update with my thoughts afterward.)

it would be wrong to say that dunk is wholly good. this is asoiaf; both grrm’s heroes and villains typically have complex moral values. rather, dunk 1) tries to be good and 2) believes it’s possible to be good in a world that rewards power and violence over anything else. he also maintains these convictions when “common sense” says otherwise and/or his bodily safety is at risk—i.e. kicking a targaryen prince in the mouth. men who want to be good and recognize how fucked westerosi society is are drawn to dunk like moths to a flame. these men also believe they’re shrewder than dunk; their convictions clash with their notion of “common sense.”

as a result, they revere him as a perfect expression of knighthood ideals and feel inspired to fight for honor again. this is why egg gets dunk when aerion hurts tanselle and, i believe, why baelor breakspear eventually fights by his side. (dunk is obviously not perfect; he has his own character arc to go through. he’s pretty uncomfortable with this reverence and feels a lot of misplaced guilt over his actions—an common ironic trait for heroes that fits really well in this narrative.) baelor is especially interesting in this context. right before he dies, he accepts dunk into his service and professes him as the type of man westeros needs. although we don’t have his pov, we can surmise his disillusionment with both his family and the feudal system overall.

as the dunk & egg stories deal with the aftermath of the blackfyre rebellions, i think we can also surmise that baelor’s disillusionment comes from winning the battle against “the pretender,” only to find the targs lacking honor, valor, kindness. perhaps dunk’s immediate willingness to risk everything to protect just one person inspires him to action once again, to a tragic end. (really good writing moment for grrm tbh, it’s going to be one of those asoiaf scenes that sticks with me.)

all in all, i really like dunk’s contribution to asoiaf’s internal questions about Being a Good Person. is staying honorable possible? does it even matter to believe in justice and honor when the world is unjust and dishonorable? how do i stay true to my convictions when i also want to stay alive and protect my loved ones? many characters encounter these questions—brienne & jaime are the most salient examples of Dunk Vibes from the og series, but there’s also dany, sam tarly, sansa, arya, ned, tyrion, sandor clegane, lady stoneheart, etc. dunk & egg also allows grrm to really lay into the monarchy and get into pacifism. anyway, i’m excited to see how these themes further develop in the rest of the dunk & egg stories and twow/ados (obligatory 😵‍💫 disclaimer.)

[fanby-fckry]

Random vent: (If this is rebloggable, it’s a glitch/me forgetting to turn reblogs off; please don’t reblog)

Content Warning: Transphobia, exorsexism, queer infighting

Transmascs who don’t believe in transandrophobia confuse me. Like, have you never experienced it? How have you never experienced it?

I guess some of them are just too white? I know it’s definitely worse for trans men/mascs of color, especially Black trans men/mascs, because antiblackness already hits Black men super hard, and adding transphobia on top of that just intensifies it.

But like, I’m white and I’ve had experiences with transandrophobia? I would say that maybe this is a ‘coming out in 2014 USA, just 1 year after we decided it was time to try and catch up to the rest of the world on trans healthcare’ thing, but this whole theyfab bullshit is pretty transandrophobic.

(Don’t come for me on that. I survived Tumblr’s 2010’s tucute vs transmed discourse. Like 90% of ‘transtrender’ stereotypes were about AFAB nonbinary people being feminine/having boobs/not binding, along with the non-dysphoric/semi-dysphoric thing, and “weird” genders/pronouns. There was a very strange, sometimes vaguely sexual focus on our boobs. I did not run a tucute blog just for people to rebrand this bullshit and act like it’s not transphobic/transandrophobic/exorsexist.)

Also, speaking of exorsexism, intersex people get left in the dust in transmasc vs transfemme infighting, and they deserve better. Perisex trans people stfu and acknowledge that the sex binary is just as much a social construct as the gender binary, listen to intersex people, and accept nuance challenge.

Anyways, just in case people genuinely cannot recognize transandrophobia, here are some of my experiences:

I cannot research my own medical condition without being misgendered, because it involves having a uterus

I cannot find an OBGYN to help me treat said medical condition that doesn’t misgender me; most have “women” in the practice name, and I spend time educating my fucking doctor about trans & nonbinary identities, just to still get misgendered. Because I’d rather not have my uterus make me literally psychotic roughly once a month, I grin and bear it.

The aforementioned transtrender/theyfab stuff

People assuming that being transmasc is just a symptom of “internalized misogyny” or “being fed up with how patriarchal society treats women” (I mean, I am fed up with the patriarchy, but I’m still fucking trans)

Not being taken seriously because I take birth control and not T (Again: medical condition! PMDD is already understudied because of medical misogyny, and I haven’t seen anything but a single instance of anecdotal evidence regarding the effectiveness of T as treatment. There’s no guarantee that T will stop my periods, and even if it does, some people still PMS or get cramps on T after losing periods, and PMDD is PMS on crack, with cramps so bad they set off my abdominal migraines!)

There is a very specific brand of transmasc infantilization that I’ve been subject to (I know transfemmes are infantilized too, but people often come at us both from different angles, and it’s ok to acknowledge that; transmisogyny and transandrophobia can exist at the same time and even overlap somewhat without us invalidating each other’s experiences)

My cis ex-bf often weaponized transandrophobia and exorsexism, along with against me, claiming it was “difficult” to be with someone who was nonbinary, that he was being oh-so patient and kind to me by not dumping me after I came out, and implying that nobody else would want me because I wasn’t a girl anymore (joke’s on him: I’m t4t now, motherfucker)

My trans fiancé and I are called lesbians on the regular. Even if we explain it, some people will argue, as if we don’t have the agency to define our own genders and relationship. And if they don’t, usually the best I can hope for irl is to get his gender recognized because he passes better, and have people think we’re a straight couple.

And that’s just me, personally. I don’t have the intersecting marginalizations that trans men/mascs of color and intersex trans men/mascs do. I haven’t been straight up denied medical care like some trans men/mascs. I haven’t been arrested for possession of legally acquired T like some trans men/mascs. I’ve never been harassed or assaulted for being transmasc like some people have. (I’ve been harassed for being trans, but that was actually general transphobia and exorsexism; it wasn’t targeting my transmasculinity, but the fact that I was trans/nonbinary at all.)

Like, if you’re transmasc and you’ve never experienced any of that, good for you, I guess? But that doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t out here in the trenches.

[redheadbigshoes]

bi 'lesbian' truthers are ignorant to their irony, their ideas are wrought with hypocritical sentiments. i see so much shit they spout that contradicts within a sentence or within their own community of supporters and go; ''well which is it? what do you believe? do you believe trans men are men or that they are women? do you believe the trans & nonbinary lesbians who call you out you are calling are vile, violent terfs or do you not even know what that word means anymore? do you truly believe the transphobic & lesbophobic notion that trans & nonbinary lesbians arent included by the definition of lesbian alone? how long will you ignore the rampant comphet problem in the identity of bi 'lesbian' and the hurt bisexuals and lesbians struggling to come to terms with their identities, comphet, and internalized lesbophobia & biphobia, suffer through? when will you recognize the way your radinclus movement's language and way of speaking, is horrifyingly mirrored in the way the GC cult speaks, just painted with a different radical ideology? when will you hold your "good faith" radinclus community responsible for the trans/nb/lesbian/bi phobia and harm you have directly done to trans/nonbinary/lesbian/bisexual people, and the greenlight and motivation your community has given to even more extreme concepts like ''transrace''/''transage''/''MAP''/''consang''/''paraphilia'' radical inclusion in the LGBTQ+? when will you address the misogyny, especially transmisogyny in your ideals? you love to call lesbians terfs for speaking out against this, but when will you listen to the BISEXUALS educating you, and stop pretending they dont exist?'' this and so much more.

honestly the amount of shit on this community of people i have seen over the past few years since coming out, it morbidly fascinates me. id love to do a massive deep dive essay into it at some point because it knows no depths and i feel like many people haven't seen just how deep it goes. ive gotten very good at picking out their dogwhistles because of it. its honestly impressive, their blinding ignorance, to the fact they function so much inter-community system wise, a similar hivemind echo chamber, like the way gc terf's hivemind community functions, and yet have the gall to call everyone else and their lesbian mothers the terfs.

They contradict themselves because not only they’re ignorant, but the term is contradictory. If they actually believed trans men were men they wouldn’t be fighting to include them in lesbianism. The only reason they call lesbians who call them out terfs is because it’s been normalized to use that term to offend lesbians, they’ve normalized so much that I think a lot of people don’t take that term seriously anymore, which is extremely harmful for the trans community because there’s still a lot of actual terfs out there.

At the same time some of them want to include trans men in lesbianism they don’t want to include non-binary people (?). What their brains seem to not understand is that when we say non-binary people are included in lesbianism we’re not including ALL non-binary identities. They ignore comphet and even use gold star lesbian rhetoric to invalidate actual lesbians. They don’t think comphet is real so they think lesbians who’ve struggled with it or who’ve been with men before figuring out their identity are not really lesbians. But at the same time they’re including men in our identity which doesn’t make any sense lol.

They want to be lesbophobic so damn much that they don’t realize by doing that they’re not harming only the lesbian community, they’re being biphobic and transphobic as well.

Something that comforts me is to know those people are chronically online because they know their views are wrong, you don’t see them spreading this shit in real life.

[emblazons]

The heteronormativity is bad but it’s not even just that. I think the bigger problem in the Byler vs Melvin ship war is that since mlm fandoms have a reputation of being misogynistic and hating the female character for “getting in the way” everyone automatically assumes that Bylers fall under that category too (I’ve had sapphic friends who don’t watch the show tell me that they hate Byler because they think that the fans hate women even though most of us are queer women ourselves) and so we have to be extra nice and accommodating and apologize every time anyone even mildly criticizes El on here otherwise we’re labeled misogynistic (and even ableist even though El has no canonical disabilities). Which I think is so dumb because El is a flawed character and that’s a big part of what makes her interesting. Discussing her mistakes doesn’t mean that we hate her, in fact I would go as far as to say that people who recognize her flaws and love her for them care about El more than fake-woke Twitter feminists who try to strip her of all her less than perfect qualities. And don’t even get me started on how acceptable homophobia is in the Melvin fandom. The way that they shit on Will all the time and want to erase him and have him die in the name of “supporting women” is disgusting and idk why Bylers try so hard to cater to these people and just get along. There is no need and there shouldn’t be any desire to get along with homophobes. It’s okay to just hate things and it’s not morally wrong to dislike Melvin and want to stay far away from it.

Mmmm. Well first off I appreciate your honesty and want to (sorry for phrasing it the therapist way lmao) hold space for your irritation with how ignorant people can be in fandom spaces, because it is very real—and especially given the complicated history mlm ships carry in fandom historically, I can see how byler being pigeonholed into the same "you just want to get rid of the girl for your mlm ship" space is frustrating as hell, especially now that it's officially semi-canon.

Also, to your point about El: I agree that there are far too many people who behave as though acknowledging that characters (especially female ones) can be multi-faceted + make mistakes / be imperfect is somehow tantamount to a misogyny, even though good characters (male or female) must have internal challenges and conflicts so they aren’t one-note in the narrative. Too many people act as though their personal resonance or projection onto a character should define everyone else’s understanding and analysis of that character, and that’s something that happens a lot with El, especially in the case of the space she occupies in relationship to Byler.

Personally, I've avoided most of that discourse by not engaging with Byler "versus" Mlvn conversations for the most part, but that I still notice and react to myself when it comes into my space—particularly the "you're misogynistic or ableist" conversation, considering almost all of that is rooted in headcanons and projections, and not El's (or Mike's...or Will's) canonical characterization. You’re completely right to want to stay far away from that kind of discourse/energy—staying away from how I’ve kept myself sane and enjoying st in spite of how chronically online some of the fandom's takes can be.

I don't think there is any solution to it (people are like that in every fandom space, and I don't think they're gonna stop being willfully ignorant or heteronomative now), but...it helps that I know most of the argument surrounding "byler is trying to get rid of El" is based on either not knowing the show, unchecked emotion, or poor media comprehension, because media literate analysis makes it clear that all three characters involved are deeply complex, growing individuals whose stories all have their own purpose—El's is just moving independent, while Mike & Will's are moving toward each other.

People who don't understand or can't see that—or who want to start arguments over byler based on nothing but their understanding of other mlm ships, or their need to posture solely for the sake of being "right" on the internet—are, quite frankly, not people I'm trying to converse with if I can help it. I don't need to be an advocate for byler badly enough to put up with any of that lmao.

Thanks for the ask!

[elinorwritesstuff]

Writing Advice Answers #4, Part Two: In which I go on a rant in support of female OCs

You mentioned that OCs are controversial in some fandoms, and that’s something I think a lot about, so sorry if this is a tangent, but hopefully it will be helpful with your confidence.

So I hear two basic criticisms of OCs. The first is the classic “Mary-Sue,” thing, which I’ll talk more about but is just so dumb. The one I hear most often, though (especially when I used to RP on tumblr) is “Women just create OCs because they think the character is hot and they want to live vicariously by writing sex/a relationship with them. Eww, cringe.” I hate this so much. You can find a character fascinating and compelling and intriguing and attractive. Who cares if you want to write a ship with them? Who cares if you want to write PWP with them?

It’s so weird, because I guarantee you that people writing canon ships are living vicariously through at least one of the characters.

The big hill I will die on with this stuff is that it is deeply, deeply, deeply misogynistic. Even when it comes from women, that’s just called internalized misogyny, most women have at least a little of it, and it is so freeing when you start to recognize it and get it out of your head. (For the record, I’m not assuming that everyone who writes female OCs is a woman. But this kind of criticism/judgment usually does.) And there are other people who have said this, and probably said it better than me, but I don’t have their posts handy so I’m going to say it myself.

This criticism is almost always leveled at women and female characters. Want to see the most egregious “Mary-Sue” characters, who are brilliant at everything they try, and always make the right decisions, and are destined to save the universe? Look at best-selling published fiction with male protagonists, written by male authors, especially fantasy fiction. Want to see the most obvious wish-fulfillment stories where a beautiful character falls madly in love with the protagonist and/or wants to have so much sex with them? One again, best-selling published fiction by male authors about male protagonists.

People are getting down on women (and people presumed to be women) for writing nice characters and fanfics, while men are making millions of dollars publishing books doing the same thing. I will own that when I talk about misogyny, it’s from an American-centric viewpoint, but that said, we hate things women like. You can see this in characters like Arya Stark, who’s supposed to be the coolest because she thinks “girl” things are stupid. (It’s fine to want to do “boy” things, instead of “girl” things; those definitions are arbitrary. The problem is the negativity towards “girl” things.) We hate women’s sexuality when it’s about women wanting to have sex, instead of men wanting to have sex with women. And like I said, the reason I say “we” and include women in these statements, is because internalized misogyny is such a thing. Look for these attitudes in yourself. Know they’re wrong. Be free.

In conclusion: Write female OCs. Read female OCs. Love female OCs.

(P.S. Male OCs are also amazing. So are non-binary OCs. Honestly I’d love to see so many more of them. Nothing here is to say that female OCs are better; it’s to react to negative attitudes toward them.)

[chellyfishing]

today i’m thinking about personal responsibility. putting it under a cut cause i expect it to be a bit of a ramble.

so, here’s the thing. we live in a society, and it sucks. it doesn’t accommodate huge numbers of people, and it normalizes a lot of really harmful beliefs. though there are a range of cultures around the world i don’t think there are any who don’t do this, but obviously some are better about it than others.

and it shouldn’t be like this. but no matter what, there would always be a measure of personal responsibility to take. society can make us worse people but we always have the choice to do better on our own.

this isn’t my point or the main thing i’m thinking about today but a big example of this is with mental illness. as someone who has that so bad the us government considers me disabled and unable to work, obviously i am hugely sympathetic to anyone who is dealing with that. if any of my friends are struggling, my inbox and arms are always open to them. society should do more to accommodate us, and like with physical disability, none of us should be forced to live in poverty because our inability to produce capital for others has made us “less worthy.” (huge air quotes around that. the biggest you can imagine.) we deserve support and accommodations and the ability to live well, just like everyone else does!!

here’s where the topic at hand comes in: having a mental illness is a job of its own, and you can’t quit it. it means you have to do more work than other people, and that sucks. it’s not fair. but you have to do it. you have to find the right treatment (therapy, medication, something else, but something), you have to follow through on that, you have to learn and implement skills for managing your symptoms. you have to do it and you cannot expect other people to do it for you. if you want others to help and support you (and you deserve that!!) you have got to meet them halfway. you cannot expect them to reshape their entire worlds for you. you have got to try. it’s hard and you will not always succeed but you have to try.

the same thing goes for harmful internalized beliefs about things like gender, sexuality, race, and so on. for example, it’s very common for women to have internalized misogyny! and we unfortunately have to do the work of overcoming that within ourselves. many women don’t. many women choose to be misogynist. many women give up and decide to participate in harmful systems and become tools of their own oppressors.

and the same thing goes for (and here i take a deep breath) toxic masculinity. people who have internalized that and are hurting as a result will often blame women and feminism, and let’s pretend for a second they’re right! guess what: you still have to do the work to help yourself, no matter whose “fault” it is.

like, it makes me really sad when men say they don’t have any close male friends. that SUCKS. no cap, hate that for you. i would not be alive without my friends, and i still struggle with loneliness because none of them are local, but at least i have people who are there for me like i try to be there for them.

here’s where my point comes in: well, guy… have you tried… talking to other men? i know it’s hard, but you can still do it. you have already done the first step of recognizing that the reason you don’t have close male friends is because you know you and other men have been shamed for that kind of thing in the past. that is, genuinely, an amazing start. the next step is to do something about it. i’m not saying immediately send a dm to john or abdul spilling your guts. but maybe if one of the men you know is behaving in a way that seems off, like they seem especially angry or passive-aggressive or run-down, you can send a dm or text or whatever saying hey, is there something going on? they may not be ready to talk, but like. you’re trying. and you have to try. you are not going to overcome this loneliness and isolation without trying.

and i know that there are people who read this and say “it’s not so easy!” i’m not saying it’s easy. like i said, mental health and recovery is my job. i know how hard things are. they aren’t going to get any easier by avoiding them. you have try to be strong, you have to try to be brave, you have to take the risk that maybe you’ll be embarrassed or hurt or something, but you have to try!! no one else is going to do it for you!!

and guess what. if all else fails, look into therapy. you can say whatever you want to a therapist, they are paid to listen to you, and if they breathe a word of any of it they get jail for one thousand years (actually i’m not sure what the penalty is but i know there is one!). you can even say, i want a male therapist, because then they’ll understand what it’s like to be a man and know where you’re coming from!

ANYWAY. this is just a bugbear of mine. i have encountered more than one person who used their mental illness as an excuse to wreak havoc on the lives of others and refused to take any accountability for any of it. obviously that makes me angry. women who are misogynist? furious. there is work involved and you have to be the one to do it. it is hard and you will not always succeed but. you have to try.

okay. i have vented my spleen to the void. I don’t think anyone who needs to see this will, and i don’t think they’d take it to heart if they did, because this is the piss on the poor website. but like. man. please. all of you. try. that’s all.

[sisyphusslnabyss-sent-to-abyss]

I think in leftist circles especially online we have this idea that we can be morally superior by simply abstaining, whether from fast fashion or eating meat; or by using “sustainable” products, not wearing makeup, etc etc. It’s a natural response to acknowledging systemic corruption to think we can abstain. Unfortunately, no one is exempt from any of these systemic problems no matter what personal choice you make.

You don’t buy fast fashion? Fast fashion brands don’t care, they’ll keep producing whether you buy it or not and create more waste while extorting poor brown people for profit.

You don’t eat meat? Agriculture leads to deforestation and steals ancestral lands to grow your crops that will be harvested using slave labor.

You use “sustainable” products? It’s most likely greenwashing.

You don’t wear makeup because the beauty industry is patriarchal? So is everything. You are not exempt from internalized misogyny just because you recognize it in others, and your personal choice or definition of womanhood does not make you a better feminist, it just means you’re reacting to the patriarchy in a different way. This particular idea is very common in terf circles, which define womanhood based on ability to bear children and victimization by men — as if that’s not also influenced by the patriarchy? As if enforcing the gender binary especially in regards to womanhood somehow helps women, when the patriarchy is based on the gender binary? If feminism has space for better childcare for mothers and for abortion, it has room for trans and cis women, and it has room for those who wear makeup and those that don’t.

Yes, choices don’t exist in a vacuum, but why do we expect them to? Why do we pretend that individual rebellion is both sufficient and effective? It’s the same idea as telling an anticapitalist they aren’t actually anticapitalist because they continue to work and buy things. No one is exempt from such a universal system, and the personal choice of abstaining is nothing more than an illusion of freedom. One or a million people not eating meat doesn’t stop industry cruelty, and you cannot guilt enough people into an individual choice to change a system when you could be targeting the system itself. Acknowledging oppression isn’t enough when all that amounts to is a personal fable that you as an individual are above it.

The point isn’t that change is impossible, the point is that we are focusing on individual choice when what we need is systemic change, which has led to nothing more than community infighting and a pervading sense of guilt and moral superiority/inferiority amongst ourselves. You cannot possibly be morally superior as an individual when the system undermines all of your ethical principles. We have chosen an individual illusion of freedom and rebellion over collective action and protest, and we are paying for it whether we realize or not. A collectivist revolution cannot happen on individualist principles.

[minxxfur]

an entirely too long essay on the irony of people idolizing patrick bateman

//american psycho, mentions of white teenage boys, murder, misogyny, racism, homophobia, toxic masculinity, mention of nazis, the term “sigma male”

these boys who don’t even own a driver’s license are missing the entire point of their favorite movie. they have seen this film repeatedly and still do not understand the point that is directly in front of them. this is one of the most hilarious societal phenomenons i have ever witnessed.

christian bale, the actor, is idolized for this role by these teenagers, despite him expressing sheer disdain for patrick himself. he has also played a role in velvet goldmine, and a quick google search can easily tell you why this movie was brought up.

the entire film, especially patrick himself, is satire and made entirely to poke fun of what people would consider “sigma males”. he reeks of masculinity, he’s rich, he gets major bitches. he also is a serial killer and certified joke.

the author of the book hand-wrote him letter by letter as a well-crafted joke, the entire movie was scripted, casted, directed, edited, created to keep that joke going; to make fun of the exact type of man those little white boys aspire to be.

this is because the man they aspire to be is a fucking piece of shit. he’s a known racist, a misogynist, a sexual predator, and so homophobic that the creators made fun of him for it. also, he has fucking murdered people, in case you couldn’t tell. these little boys look up to this sack of putrid vomit because it’s them (racist, among other things) but this time he’s rich and has an inhuman amount of sex scenes.

these scrawny young boys do not recognize or even have a clue of what masculinity is. they see patrick, the epitome of what they are told masculinity is, and due to the societal pressure of being a “real man”, they seek to become him to avoid this trouble. even though he is a joke.

they then resort to being the most vile cunts known to man (literal nazis) in order to appear tough, then it gets internalized. this has them look up to patrick even more, because fuck women and fuck gay people, right?

the director of the movie is a woman, and the writer of the book is gay.

it doesn’t even take a google search to know that it’s directed by a woman. the credits are right there.

given this information, why would they put so much effort into patrick bateman and his silly adventures?

because he’s a fucking joke and nothing more.

he’s not to be taken seriously. i can envision Bret Easton Ellis and Mary Harron in fur coats, clinking a glass together and laughing as they watch those “sigma male patrick bateman” tiktoks on a curved tv screen.

even if a swarm of white boys who can’t even lift a chair idolizing patrick wasn’t at all the intended results, my god is it hilarious to watch. it proves their entire point on how toxic masculinity effects young boys and how it spreads like moldy butter. of course, we can’t all just sit back and giggle (we have to actually do something about it, isn’t that crazy?) but good lord, that’s the funniest shit i’ve ever seen.

tl:dr if you idolize patrick bateman i will actually laugh at you

[alwida10]

Sexism is sexism.

Misogyny, Misandry - makes no difference. The degree is irrelevant. Definitions blurred (especially with genderfluid characters). If I have to pay for strong female representation on-screen with the bashing of genderfluid people or men, I’d rather not watch at all.

TW for Loki show negativity

I have now seen people claim frequently that „if you didn’t enjoy the Loki series it might be due to (internalized or subconscious) misogyny.”

You see, if you get discriminated against for a long time, ‘equality’ and ‘getting revenge’ suddenly can get hard to separate. And since Loki might be a little bit too close for many of us to stay objective I would like to tell you about the He-man reboot, that just came out. Well, a series about a guy called ‘He-Man’ sounds as it should be about a Man, right? But instead the production crew decided to kill the titular character and make the show about his female side kick, enraging the fans who thought they’d get content about he-man. Similarly, some people praise the approach as progressive. Being completely uninvolved in that franchise I must say that it reminds me of the Loki show, especially the false advertising in the name of feminism, which might be in truth rather be (possibly subconscious) misandry/genderfluidphobia.

The question if it’s rather misandry or genderfluidphobia/enbyphobia depends if you see Loki as a cis man or genderfluid. I see him as genderfluid, but the show painted him mostly as male-presenting and I could hardly find any indication of him being genderfluid beside that line of text in the opening sequence, so I assume most casual viewers will perceive him as a cis man. That’s why I decided on using “misandry”, but it’s just as much genderfluidphobia.

Until today, the film industry is dominated by men, which shows in the gender ratio before and behind the camera as well as wage gaps and many more points that stand in the way of equality. And make no mistakes, these points still need to be addressed!

But we must not forget that men are people, too! They can also be targeted by sexism, discriminated and even assaulted because of their gender. Sometimes this even happens under the pretense of „equality“, as if a new wrong could make an old wrong right.

Movies are a powerful tool for discrimination since subtle messages get absorbed and influence the audience subconsciously. In fact, the influence of those sexist narratives is higher when we don’t notice them, and the methods are many. Here is a short selection of frequently used methods.

1. Women are reduced to sex objects. Additionally, sexual assault is not be recognized by the narrative and never addressed outside of its immediate plot purpose. This adds to the normalization of assault on women. It is shockingly prevalent in older movies.

2. A lack of agency and powers: Kunsey (2018) compared the 5 highest-grossing films with male & female directors. He found that female directors told stories focused on women, and vice versa. Also, while historically women on screen were often sexualized, some female directors focus on romance from a woman’s perspective.

Additionally, he found women lacked both agency and superpowers in comparison to the male characters when the movies were directed by men. Female directors ensured women had more impact on the plot and even subverted classical male story types.

3. Flat, stereotypic characterization that shows women as incompetent: As this gets more and more called out, it’s not as obvious in recent movies. But historically the pretty, yet utterly brainless women who served only to highlight the man’s skills and appeal, were widespread. Some examples are Mary Goodnight from “The Man With The Golden Gun” (1974) or Kissy Suzuki from “You Only Live Twice” (1967).

4. Other tropes, such as the “damsel in distress”, are still to be found nowadays. This would include women who can have a three-dimensional characterization, even including some strengths, but still need to be rescued so the male hero can shine.

From one perspective it is great that the Loki series was directed by a woman. Not only is it a step toward balanced gender ratios behind the camera, but also female directors enable other women to join the casts and can impact our society by presenting stories of women.

However, the Loki series made extensive use of methods used in the past to discriminate against women, applied to men. In comparison to his female counterpart, Loki has little agency, is sexualized, the assault on him is normalized, and he is a stereotypical damsel in distress. Right in the first episode, Loki is stripped of his clothes, paving the way for excessive sexualization (point 1) by the audience. Similar to movies that downplayed the sexual assault of women, this scene never gets addressed again. The assault is not painted as unjust. In fact, the head writer referred to it as the “hottest Loki content ever seen” after it appeared first in a trailer. It’s supposed to equal bikini-spotting Bond girls, even though it’s clearly non-consensual in-universe.

Just like women, men can be victims of sexual assault. However, unlike women, men are not as easily believed when they speak out about being sexually assaulted. The shame of admitting being a victim paired with the poor chances for justice discourages men from filing charges, leading to a high number of unknown cases. I can only speculate if the wide spread denial of sexual assaults on men facilitates that so many people see the scene as “hot”. In-universe, the assault is not sexually motivated, but that makes the fact that the showrunners use an assault for sexualization is not less disturbing.

One scene of this sort could have been but an unfortunate accident that would not indicate an overarching theme. Sadly, it isn’t the only scene of this sort. In episode 4, Sif repeatedly kicks Loki in his groin. Loki repeatedly going down, wincing in pain, is supposed to be funny.

Neither the soundtrack nor the framing indicates an assault. Sif’s actions are justified by the show with the note that he cut her hair of. Natalie Holt’s additional information on preceding intercourse serve the same purpose: The attacker is justified. The victim deserved it.

Next: A lack of agency. From the first moments of the show Loki is either prisoner of the TVA or threatened by the environment, leaving him almost no agency, resulting in him having almost no impact on the plot. His discovery of Sylvie’s hiding places comes too late to avert her attack on the TVA. Since Sylvie can’t use magic in the TVA, her initial plan would have likely led to her capture. Loki’s attack and use of the TemPad led them to Lamentis, but in the end, both end up where they would have been without his interference, anyway: being prisoners of the TVA.

Even in the void at the end of all times, Loki fails to stir the plot. It is Mobius’ words that inspire Classic Loki to help them.

Loki subscribes to Sylvie’s goal of enchanting Alioth. Only in the finale does he oppose her – and gets promptly removed from the scene so he still does not influence the plot.

But the lack of agency isn’t all. While Loki shows a lot of powers during the series (illusions such as fireworks, drying his clothes, telekinesis, conjuring, arguably teleportation) they lack the power to chance anything. It’s Sylvie’s enchantment which is the key to breaking the TVA’s mind control of the variants. His part in this job is reduced to delaying her information that all employees of the TVA are variants to Mobius who takes it to Hunter B15.

Also, take a look how Sylvie and Loki are shown in the battle against Alioth.

Yet Loki’s lack of power doesn’t stop with the supernatural. In Avengers 1, Loki holds up well against Captain America who is physically enhanced by the serum. In the show, he is overpowered by normal humans, such as Hunter B15 and struggles to hold up against the time keeper’s guards.

Let’s proceed to point 3 - characterized as imcompetent: Similar to the women mentioned in the beginning, Loki is frequently depicted as unreflecting, foolish and shallow. Threatened with the disintegration of his clothes he argues for “fine Asgardian leather”. Everyone should be aware that this bears no meaning for a robot. Additionally, it depicts his priorities as short-sighted. Later on, Loki fails to notice the importance of a time travel device during an ongoing apocalypse that leads promptly to the destruction of the device. His plans generally don’t work. Neither does the disguise as a train guard nor the persuasion of the old woman on Lamentis 1. His plot to stall the minutemen in episode 2 is immediately uncovered by Mobius (who, btw, is shown similarly inconsequential and inferior to his female counterpart Ravona Renslayer. Again, this hints that the series might generally be biased against men).

Loki’s lack of intelligence paves the way for the sexist trophy ‘damsel in distress’. Loki must be saved at several points of the series: The trial (ep.1), in the train (ep.3) when he fails to lay low and summons the wrong illusion, from Lamentis and from Alioth (ep.5).

As mentioned at the beginning, it happens again and again that people label primitive acts of retaliation against men for former discrimination against women as “feminism”. Often those acts of retaliation aim at individuals who did not commit discrimination against women.

Those acts cast a poor light on feminism and only add to the injustice. Far too often people confuse the desire for justice with the desire to be the one holding the whip. As a true feminist, this actions need to be judged as hard as sexism against women! Only that can be called equality.

A positive example of feminism was Black Panter. Not only was this the only male-directed movie from Kunsey’s analysis that could compete with the female-directed movies in terms of women behind the camera, strong female characters, female agency, and the Bechdel test but also it showed that the male protagonist could both be the butt of some jokes (“[He froze] like an antelope in headlights!”) and also get recognition with badass action scenes. Of course, men can also be ridiculed and display foolishness. But jokes on the expanse of characters have to be balanced and done with the care to keep it tasteful. As soon the portrayal goes too far into one direction there might be a bias in the production team. This is especially important if more than one representative of a social group gets targeted!

And of course both the stories of women and men need to be told. To achieve this the ratio of women amongst the directors needs to increase. There is no way arguing that. And even though I cannot bring myself to like Sylvie, Kate Harron put a lot of effort into telling her story. Both the plot and the framing aim to make her the center of the plot and urge the audience to connect with her. She inspired many fans with this depiction of a strong female character. People praise the Loki show as progressive because of it.

But why did she had to pair this with the bashing of a man/genderfluid person? Can’t a woman not be strong without degrading another person? For me – a woman – such a portrayal is weakened if it is on someone’s expense. In fact, I realized one of the main points that sours her characterization for me is that harsh contrast between her and our Loki. She is competent where he is lacking, her pain validated where his is dismissed, her goal gets achieved while he fails.

Black Panther proved that a director and his team can produce an awesome story that provides decent representation for black people! But as Kunsey pointed out it did generally a wonderful job with representation, including those of women! They made an effort for equally behind the scenes. Okoye’s and Nakia’s characterizations show objective strength; they do not depend on bashing of males. In contrast, the Loki show proves female directors might not be the best choice when it comes to telling the story of a man or - as in this case - a predominantly male-presenting genderfluid person. Kate Herron was granted a rare opportunity that called for consideration.

The Loki show is named after the character Tom Hiddleston plays ever since Thor 1 (2011). Making his show about a female variant of Loki is fraudulent labeling. Using trailers where Sylvie is digitally removed is false advertising.

Perhaps Herron’s actions won’t cast poor light on other female directors. But it is undeniable that Loki has an enormous fandom and the show was watched by millions of people. Kate’s normalization of assaults against men might still contribute to abuse and aggression.

With great power comes great responsibility!

If you are given a chance like Herron was, you have the responsibility to use it wisely. And that excludes bashing of others because of their genders.

Our aim has to be equality and respect.

[queersturbate]

man I just found out this feature exists wtffff anyways hiya! I came from ur light edit on tiktok and u commented that if u wanted ppl to ask questions to ask them on ur tumblr so here I am

I don’t really have a specific question might I say? Just that why do think light is gay? I’m not disagreeing I just want to know? Low-key believe that I’ll start agreeing myself haha

Sorry if this is stupid light is just one of my all time characters and I wouldn’t miss a chance to hear more information about him/how ppl see him

Have a nice day/night wherever u are !

hey!

i mean besides the fact that I'm gay and when i look at his behavior, attitude and mentality and have a gay recognizes gay moment, i have a few pieces of evidence that suggests he's gay-coded purely by accident since the creators of death note are homophobic lmao. they are so homophobic and so against Light being gay that every piece of evidence they try to put out to make him more straight, ends up making him gayer.

anyway to start off with the obvious and most like "LOOK" evidence, in death note how to read 13, there's a little note on one of the pages that says something along the lines of "Light cannot fall in love with women" and it specifically said women, not anyone or people in general. im too lazy to get my copy and take a picture

but anyway the way Light views women is yes misogynistic but a lot of gay men have this deep rooted misogyny ingrained in them because they have no attraction to them, they can't relate to them in a way that straight men and straight women who are romantically interested in each other relate to each other. and because society tells gay men that they should be attracted to women and be interested in them in a way that gay men just can't, especially ones with internalized homophobia, like Light, these men create a very misogynistic mindset because they start looking down on women with the thought of "i am not attracted to you like i should be, therefore you are below me"

listen to me CAREFULLY right now, i am NOT saying that every gay man is misogynistic. i am not excusing misogyny for the sake of gayness. i am not saying gay men deserve excuses for being misogynistic. I am not excusing misogyny. read that again, if you think i am trying to justify misogyny. I am Not. i am simply pointing out how internalized homophobia can lead to misogyny, and we all KNOW Light has misogynistic behavior. he looks down onto Misa, Takada, Naomi, etc. He looks down onto Misa the most because she is a very beautiful, hot model that everyone adores but who adores Him the most. But because he is not attracted to her like she is him, he sees her as far less and insufferable, especially when expressing her love for him, because he doesn't understand why he is not attracted to this super hot model of a woman who is in love with him. (Light looks down on everyone, yes, he has narcissistic personality disorder and believes he is superior to everyone, but with women it's a lot more on how i described it.)

Anyway, it's clear that Light is not attracted to women and has no desire to be with them, right? it's clearly said in the death note how to read. let me explain how he is attracted to men. SO Light, the creators, the voice actors, etc have all said that Light has never felt understood, he is too up on his own self made pedestal and he cannot relate or find himself in other people. He feels alone, not to make Light a Joker kinnie which he definitely is, but Light feels like no one understands him or sees him. Light can roll a lie off his tongue with no hesitation and get away with it. No one will see past it. Light is a hardworking honor student who is considered to be one of Japan's best and brightest, yeah? but like he's not and that's only what people see.

Not to bring lawlight into the topic of Light being gay but of course i have to because before L, Light probably wouldn't have even considered liking or enjoying a woman's, for reasons above, or a man's, for internalized homophobia and impossible standards reasons, company. L was and is the only other man who saw Light for who he is, and not only wanted to look deeper and didnt want to look away but basically said "yeah me too" at all of it. there's multiple instances of L basically going "Kira is a fucked up human with fucked up morals and he is dark and evil and so am i" but Light is Kira and they both knew that. every time L would say something like that and look directly and Light and go "Light, one of the best and brightest in Japan, I think you are those things." and Light felt seen and recognized and angry because why the hell is he doing that and relating to him and he's not supposed to be looked at this way. L is not supposed to see him.

im leaving this a but unfinished, that's my bad on my part, but you can always ask me to finish my thoughts because they're a bit of a jumbled mess in this answer, but also I have a lot of posts discussing Light's sexuality and the significance of the rain scene, the foot massage scene, L's death and how it deeply affected Light. but again you can always send me another ask i love talking about Light being a homo

[chamerionwrites]

I was going to write a whole post but tbh I don’t have the spoons right now so I’m just doing bullet points

1. The ~universal female experience~ is NOT universal, because (ofc) women are an enormously broad category of people with an enormously broad variety of life experiences.

2. Misogyny is a very real thing that deserves to be discussed and confronted on both individual and structural levels.

3. However it is my personal experience that in a lot of spaces/situations where people are really invested in Celebrating Women, what they are actually celebrating is femininity.

4. There’s nothing wrong with femininity, it’s even true that femininity is stigmatized in certain contexts (and ofc it’s worth pointing out that liking romance novels or fruity drinks or the color pink or whatever arbitrary thing people have decided to invest with an absurd amount of Gender Identity doesn’t make someone shallow or silly or Bad At Science or whatever idiotic stereotype), but this can be pretty alienating for women who don’t perform femininity to whatever arbitrary standards are considered worthy of celebration in that space.

(4a. I have actually heard people go so far as to say that gnc or just nebulously “unfeminine” women have some sort of privilege because they Fail At Gender, which like...lmaoooooooo. LMFAO)

5. The upshot is that I am not-infrequently kind of politely bored and bewildered if not deeply uncomfortable in “women’s spaces,” especially ones that actively conceptualize and refer to themselves that way. And I say this as a basically cis (I think???), basically-gender-conforming, not-self-evidently-disabled-or-neurodivergent straight slim afab white woman.

(5a. I’m mostly speaking to my own experiences right now but WHEW the posts that could be written about that really irritating essentialist way of talking about ~the universal female experience~ in the context of race or disability or queerness etc etc.)

6. Sometimes this is a me problem! Competing access needs are a thing and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with celebrating femininity. However I also don’t think it’s too much to ask that you do it without straying into that really sappy romanticizing and universalizing language, or recognizing that some significant percentage of women are going to feel unwelcome in spaces that place extremely high social value on the ability and/or willingness to perform femininity and it’s not because they’re just suffering from internalized misogyny. (In the most egregious cases it’s always like...okay, congrats for finding a progressive-sounding way to say that people with two X chromosomes come out of the womb liking makeup and frilly pink dresses and anybody who disagrees is just in denial, I guess.)

7. I feel like more people need to recognize that misogyny is very damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t? A lot of women experience the kind that’s like “you enjoy [makeup/romance novels/pink frilly dresses/pumpkin spice coffee/whatever feminine or perceived-to-be-feminine interest], therefore you are a silly shallow sex object who should stay in the kitchen.” A lot of women also experience the kind that’s like “you aren’t sufficiently feminine in your [hobbies/preferences/appearance/mannerisms/etc], therefore you are a stupid unfuckable failure who should know your place (in the kitchen).” Being too feminine is socially punished and not being feminine enough is socially punished. Frequently both versions overlap in bizarre ways! This seems pretty obvious to me! But a lot of people seem to get really caught up in their own experiences and fail to recognize or sympathize with others.

8. TL;DR I consistently feel turfed out if not downright unwelcome in “women’s spaces” thanks to failing at gender in a variety of subtle and unsubtle ways. This does not make me any more of a full human being to sexist men. Sometimes it’s just a competing access needs thing, sometimes it’s because women are actively being cruel either intentionally or unintentionally, but regardless it’s. Distressing.

9. I’m sure this experience is not unique to me, in fact I’m willing to bet a lot of other people have also experienced this, but that does not make it any less distressing.

[think-queer]

“this is my first time ever doing an ask thingy so hear with me if this is awfully written or such jwhsjws

this may sound like a weird question and maybe this fall more in "we need to talk about these people" more than an actual question in itself but i need to understand  just how  usual it is for queer activist who are trans / n-b to also be transphobic / n-b phobic?

for bit of context though, i used to be friends / mutuals on twt with  people who were all trans / n-b (though there were also others who weren't and had the same attitude) to some extent and noticed that a lot of their opinion on our issues were... highly transphobic. by that i mean they'd say they "hate" afab n-b who still call themselves women or that have links to womanhood or dress fem because "what could they even be dysphoric about" and just saying a lot of "fuck non binary people" and one of them which striked me hard said he was glad he realized he was trans binary and not non binary because "ew" which 💀 yeah i don't even have the words for that.

i remember seeing so many "takes" of theirs with lots of underlying transphobia (and ig in a way misogyny due to the fact it's always targeted to anyone afab?) and all linked to their hate towards non binary afab (most of these people also are afab which is even more worrying imo)

and the worst is that these are  opinions shared by a lot of other people with a pretty "big" voice and following in the lgbt activism online  (this was on the french side of it but i have seen so many people with these type of opinions and harmful rhetoric across the community)

i'm just wondering if anyone has had this experience and how the hell did we come from sharing our experiences and fighting for our rights and identity to be recognized,,,, to hating on and blaming  people literally just living their life and being comfortable with themselves for being "the reason" we're not taken seriously.“ -Anonymous user

I think that a lot of, if not most, trans and non-binary have some level of internalized transphobia and enbyphobia/exorsexism just from living in a transphobic/enbyphobic/exorsexist society.

The specific hatred of non-binary people who were AFAB is something that I’ve been seeing a lot recently which I have found very concerning. The specific hatred of non-binary people who were AFAB and still have some connection to womanhood and/or femininity seems to have it’s roots in transmedicalism, it sounds basically identical to the way people would describe “transtrenders” when that was the big concern.

Something that I’ve also seen a lot of is accusations the non-binary people who were AFAB weaponize their femininity the same way cis women do. I find this very worrying because it typically ends up lumping non-binary people who were AFAB along with cis women and treating those two groups as the same. I imagine this is something that does happen at times, but it’s not something that I’ve ever seen personally. I also find it concerning that people are reducing it to a problem with AGAB, when in my experience it’s really not. The weaponization of femininity isn’t something that I only see coming from people who were AFAB, it’s something I see coming specifically from white people who are perceived as women or feminine. My experience might be affected by being from the USA, where we have a history with white womanhood being used as a weapon, so people from other cultures may see it very differently. But when people reduce it to just an “AFAB thing” it feels like an attempt to take a real issue and twisting it to attack non-binary people who don’t sufficiently perform hatred of their AGAB.

Unfortunately it feels like this is just the newest target of exclusionists and infighting. When I first joined tumblr it was asexuals who were the target, for awhile it was non-binary people as a whole... It seems like there’s always some group getting targeted in many online queer spaces. It’s really depressing to see, especially when it starts to feel like a neverending cycle. If it’s any consolation I don’t see it very often in offline queer spaces (although I have had to stay away from most of those spaces for a couple years due to health issues) In online spaces I think that there are a lot of people who find some comfort in hurting other vulnerable people, it makes them feel like they have some sort of power and control. It’s really horrible, but when I’ve been part of a targeted group I have found some comfort in trying to keep in mind that these are just people who are looking for any acceptable target. It’s really not about you, or any non-binary person who was AFAB, it’s just about finding someone socially acceptable to hurt. And you will be able to find people and groups that aren’t like that, usually the bullies are just the loudest.

I’m not sure I really made any sense here to be honest, and I’d welcome anyone with a different perspective to add on here.