#it just fucks so hard and people rarely talk about it beyond boy division

[tasticbastard]

we as a society don’t talk enough about how good conventional weapons is and frankly i think that’s unacceptable

[normal-thoughts-official]

I love your Magnus responses! Some have brought me to tears :') hopwfully you haven't answered this yet. I always see fics/ metas on how Alec came to terms about his sexuality, but never on Magnus (or just a selecative few). In your opinion how did he come to terms with his bisexuality? - luxxmagnus

okay first of all I LOVE UR BLOG im so glad u like my shit omg fajsfoamsa and second of all BOY DO I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT HOW MAGNUS CAME TO TERMS WITH HIS SEXUALI-

okay SO. your relationship with sexuality is deeply influenced by your early years, as is, well, most aspects of your personality lol. so i think it’s fascinating to think about magnus’ relationship with his gender identity and sexuality considering he was born in early-1600s indonesia, aka right when the colonization started. meaning, a lot of their customs and views on gender and sexuality couldn’t have possibly been erased yet, but they were being very violently and aggressively repressed. and then he finished his growing-up years with asmodeus, a demon, who can’t really give much of a fuck about gender identity and sexuality. so this means a very complicated relationship is bound to develop, and i love it.

unfortunately, magnus’ exact ethnic background isn’t specified in SH (nor tsc, i believe) which makes the whole discussion a lot harder because there are hundreds of native peoples in indonesia. however, they were very much in contact with each other both before and after the dutch invasion and subsequent colonisation, so what i’m gonna do here is talk a little bit about the views on the subject magnus was definitely aware of, and go from there

i know this specifically asked about his bisexuality so i will refrain from shitting my trans magnus headcanon all over the place but i will say that the Bugis people recognised five genders, including one for AFAB people who identified as neither male nor female, and one that embodied both female and male identities

anyway, queerphobia is, in fact, a very recent and very european thing, and most indonesian people, like most asian people and most non-modern-western peoples, were actually A-okay with what we view today as homosexuality. there were even many rituals centered around men-on-men and women-on-women practices. they were also pretty open with sexuality as a whole; there’s even a mountain with a shrine where people have sex with strangers as part of their religious worship.

but, as we know, the european colonizers were very intent on killing off and erasing all records of their dominated cultures, particularly the aspects that directly challenged the european model of gender, sexuality and relationships, to the point where we, ppl born in previously colonised countries, don’t even know about our culture’s views on gender and sexuality. in indonesia, the dutch criminalised homosexuality and we can’t forget that magnus’ stepfather was dutch, and that magnus was born after the colonisation. 

so here’s the context: since it was very early in the colonisation days, there is no way that magnus didn’t know about the very rich and diverse gender and sexuality practices in his own country. there’s just no way. it takes decades to completely erase that shit. and we can’t forget that all indonesian peoples resisted colonisation, a lot. we don’t know the exact nature of magnus’ mother’s relationship with his stepfather, but it is very likely that he either enslaved or forced her to be in a relationship with him, because - well, because that’s colonisation, folks. it’s what these guys do. this is also supported by the way his stepfather treated magnus, because i mean, what the fuck. it was extremely rare that native colonised ppls would willingly be with their coloniser, particularly considering how the dutch were just, like, casually deporting and starving indonesian native ppls and ppl in java had been at war with the portuguese would-be settlers (would-be because they lost amazingly lmao get rekt) since the beginning of the 1500s. so im gonna go out on a limb here and say that magnus’ “stepfather” was, in fact, an abusive piece of shit coloniser who probably mistreated magnus’ mother and was probably a huge reason why she killed herself - i mean, your people are dying, and you’re bound to this guy who abuses and rapes you and keeps telling you everything about you and the way you live and was raised is demonic, that’s just bound to mess with you. actually, the religious aspect of colonisation that taught ppl that their cultures and religious were demonic and immoral and that they either had to repent for that and submit to the colonisers or be killed slash go to hell, hmmm…… well, is probably related to the fact that the idea that magnus was demon-related was repulsive enough to her that she killed herself? and that’s if we go with the interpretation that magnus was the main reason, which isn’t really reliable because 1- magnus clearly thinks he needs to Save Everyone and is bound to think that if anyone gets hurt it’s his fault; 2- canonically, it was magnus’ stepfather who told magnus that the reason she killed herself was magnus’ heritage. i mean i find it hard to believe personally that magnus’ mom didn’t know she was fucking a demon or at least a supernatural entity of some sort, and the whole angel-demon division is a christianity thing anyway, so what the fuck does this mean to magnus’ mom, really? especially considering that, unlike magnus, she probably was alive before the settlers arrived, so it’s even harder to believe that she would just uncritically believe everything about good and evil she was being taught by the guys that were, you know, committing mass genocide. i personally think that if magnus’ eyes were related to her killing herself at all (which makes less and less sense the more i think about it. i mean, what, was he born glamoured? surely she knew about this before he was like 11 or something) it would be because, in a way, this proved that everything she was being told about herself was true. she was demonic, her culture was demonic, and they deserved the absolutely horrific and traumatic things that were happening to them, and her son’s eyes proved it. so it’s not really about magnus as it is about, like, the entire continent of Europe’s bullshit. and anyway, again, everything she was going through was extremely traumatic - i think magnus’ eyes would be almost an afterthought, if considered at all.

anyway, sorry, went on a huge tangent here, i have no self control whatsoever. what i’m trying to say is that magnus grew up in an environment where expressions of different gender and sexuality were very repressed, but he was born in the heart of the very resistance. he was a native man (or, well, boy) and he knew for a fact that most people lived outside of the constricting western gender and sexuality binary, and he lived in a time where the europeans hadn’t really managed to dominate and erase their culture - of course, they never truly did, but the differences were way more latent. so magnus’ views on the whole thing were probably among the lines of “the asshole white people think the way we live is bad and are trying to kill us and that’s why they’re assholes and we’re trying to kick them out, but currently me and my mom are on their hands so i’m gonna have to behave like they expect me to”. so, lots of abuse, a very complicated relationship, but i do believe that magnus wouldn’t have internalised the european bullshit because, well, he was seeing the counterpoint and the resistance and he certainly knew which side was “his”. also in his flashbacks he’s wearing traditional indonesian clothing so there’s that - proof that he wasn’t completely assimilated to european views and culture.

and then he killed the stepfather (good riddance, rot in hell) and went to live his final teenage years with asmodeus. i mean, more like was found by asmodeus and forced to be with him by both the circumstances and asmodeus himself, but you get what i’m saying. 

here’s the thing: asmodeus is definitely an asshole and an abuser, but i can’t bring myself to believe he gave a good fuck about modern-western gender roles and sexuality. he is older than them. by a lot. and he doesn’t even care about the earth realm that much, his whole thing is that he wants to rule edom, so i’m not even sure if he knows about them beyond the, like, very very basics. maybe not even that. so during the rest of magnus’ formative years, and probably the time he figured out what exactly his sexuality was anyway, he was in a pretty open environment when it came to that.

so with that we’ve reached the first conclusion of this huge-ass essay that you probably didn’t sign up for: up until he went to England, Magnus was probably pretty comfortable when it came to his sexuality. like, shit, he was fucked up about everything else, but this one thing i can’t see him internalising a lot of.

i’m gonna fast forward the asmodeus years because i don’t have a lot to say beyond that and also i have no fucking clue what the fuck was going on during that time????????? like it ended when magnus banished him to edom, so i can only assume they were on the earth realm the whole time, but what exactly were they doing???? no clue. i am gonna say, tho, that i think one of the reasons why magnus managed to break out of asmodeus’ shitty “be evil” conditioning is precisely because he had been on the other side before?? like obviously magnus must have been an extremely compassionate kid (which again makes absolute sense in the context of him being part of an oppressed people that were trying their hardest to fight together. you learn a few things about community-building and taking care of others in that context, lemme tell you) since he was out there blaming himself for his mom’s death and also for killing his literal piece of shit stepfather who also tried to kill him as well, but i think it’s just that much harder to help your dad commit mass murder when you’ve been on the receiving end of it. obviously he was probably around asmodeus for a while (i’m thinking until he was like, 18? you know, enough to be an adult), especially considering how he needed the help to learn how to master his magic and also he had nowhere else to go, and also asmodeus was all over the place with “they will always think you’re an abomination, i’m the only one who understands you” and he had eyes like him and all. but still. he knew that he didn’t want that, he knew that he liked earth and didn’t like edom at all and he knew that in order to be himself he’d need to get rid of asmodeus. so he did.

anyway, after the First Great Yeeting Of Asmodeus (second yeeting was when he sent him to limbo so he would never be able to come back. ugh we stan) Magnus went to England. I’m guessing that somehow he met other warlocks during his time with asmodeus (which actually makes sense, i mean, asmodeus must have been wanting ppl to join forces with so he could defeat lilith? or something like that idk they never said anything about what they were doing with their time magnus’ backstory’s got more holes than a swiss cheese) and there seems to be a pretty tight warlock community, so maybe he went to wherever it is that the warlocks meet to gossip and shit? trying to find somewhere else where he belonged. and there he met Ragnor, who helped him break out of his shell and find who he was beyond the constant abuse and the deeply ingrained idea that he was Born To Be Evil.

so for a while, magnus was learning who he was, and again the Warlock Community should be pretty open with gender and sexuality considering most of them are also older than western binary bullshit and also come from different, non-european backgrounds. it was probably at this point that he started going around, having relationships, looking for someone who loves him and somewhere to belong in, you know. haha im fine and soon he figured out that he wanted to find out more about the world. magnus is a curious and creative guy, he’s going around inventing portals and shit, he wants to see the world. so magnus goes to the mundane world. it makes sense, considering in most of his pics he seems to be in mundane settings, and there were no accords at that time. also i mean even post-accords magnus is still going around owning clubs where mundanes can get in so i think he’s quite fond of mundanes.

and that’s when shit comes crashing down, because “sodomy” was punishable by death in England until the 1960s and like boy these guys were not into the whole free sexuality thing. at all. i tend to think magnus would go looking for sex and stuff in downworlder and warlock spaces, where there was a lot more freedom and nobody gave a shit, but he was going around meeting people, and he’s vulnerable and he wants to be loved and he’s definitely been in relationships with mundanes. he knows he needs to hide it, but it doesn’t mean he’s uncomfortable with it. so he might get the occasional insult and he knows he needs to be careful, but this is one aspect of himself he’s actually okay with

but like, he’s spent centuries doing that, eventually shit would go down. and it does. i firmly believe that one of his lovers got caught and got the death penalty. magnus managed to escape but couldn’t save him, and i mean, that’s at least the third time he’s blaming himself for someone’s death. immortality is tiring, and he doesn’t feel like he belongs anywhere. there’s the shadow world, but even there he’s being looked down on because the shadowhunters are racist assholes. he’s got his friends, sure, but he’s never really felt worthy of any love, or like he belonged anywhere, and he’s been through so much abuse and being used and everything he touches seems to go to shit and he’s tired. and he’s killed someone he loved. again. so he goes to the bridge. and camille finds him, and stops him.

now, i don’t know if that’s how they’ve met of if it’s happened before, something like, seeing each other in parties and in downworlder spaces or something. but either way, he’s at a really low point, and that’s the first meaningful interaction they have - camille saves his life. he feels like she cares.

she’s not the only one who cares, obviously. so does ragnor, so does cat, so does dot and lots of other of his friends. but at this point, he’s feeling so empty it’s hard to believe that they care, and camille is all too quick to figure out his exact weaknesses - she’s there to listen to him when he wants to kill himself, i can only imagine the infodump that went on that night. he gives her all she needs to know - his fear of abandonment, his desire to be loved, his belief that he will never be accepted no matter what, his fear that he really is evil inside after all despite everything proving that he isn’t - to use against him perfectly. camille is smart. she’s also manipulative. and she also seems like a ticket into a somewhat normal world - she’s a woman, she’s immortal, she’s acting all sweet around him and telling him that she understands, that this is why she doesn’t mingle with mundanes, that it’s better if they’re just amongst themselves, that people like them can’t trust too much and need to stick together. slowly, she plants into him the idea that he’s gullible, has a weak judgement, and is just weak in general for going around thinking he could ever have a thing with mortals or could ever find a space to belong. she uses that to drive him away from his friends and make sure he does as she says. also, magnus owes her, doesn’t he? she saved his life. how can he fight her, when she saved his life? how can he say no to her? how can he disagree? he’s gullible, he’s weak, and she’s the only one who has enough patience for him. everyone else leaves. she’s all he has.

in conclusion: his sexuality is a huge factor in camille’s abuse, it’s what makes him vulnerable to her and gives her every tool she needs to manipulate him. it’s not direct, she’s not about to make fun or dismiss his bisexuality because she knows this is not something he’s internalised, but she can weaponize the trauma that queerphobia brings to his life, and so she does.

she wrecks him. like really really wrecks him, everything he’s built for himself, his identity, whatever he had of his confidence. like he was still trying to build all of that, but he was getting there, and she gets him back to ground 0 just like that. i think he only broke up with her because she started doing her more Clearly Immoral shit and magnus can’t do that. say what you want, but magnus’ actual nature has always been to care and to give all that he can for others. and camille is just evil mcbad. and her abuse goes a long way, but i don’t think anything could actually break magnus enough to be okay with hurting others. especially considering how most of his trauma seems to revolve around the fact that he believes he is constantly hurting others, and it seems to me - considering how he’s going all around the place helping everyone and sacrificing himself without a second thought - that helping others is even a way to cope somewhat, he doesn’t focus on himself, he does his job and helps others and doesn’t think about himself and so he copes, he can do what he’s good at and also believe he’s somehow “repenting” for “killing” his mother and stepfather (it was SELF FUCKING DEFENSE he didn’t murder him, but he does seem to believe he did). so that’s probably when they break up, when he realises that camille is just. keen on hurting others and she’s bored with him and his morals anyway. i know that in book canon apparently the reason they broke up was that she cheated on him, but again i don’t consider book canon and show canon to be the same canon, specially considering how magnus is a wildly different character in those. so i don’t think that would somehow be the last straw for him. camille probably was cheating on him left and right but he probably just believed that it was his fault, or just kept forgiving her anyway because he had nowhere to go and it should be enough that she loves him and saved him, right?

he doesn’t really get around to realising that camille is a straight-up abuser and awful person (as shown by the fact that he seems to still internalise the whole “camille saved my life” bullshit when she was really just manipulating him and using his vulnerability against him) but he does realise that he can’t keep looking for a partner as a solution to his issues. he also doesn’t really want to be in a relationship after her, not when he’s broken in more pieces than he was when he left asmodeus, and that was a lot of pieces as well. so he sleeps around and all, crafts this whole playboy persona of his, and locks his heart away. dedicates himself to the downworlder children he keeps adopting and trying to help, reconnects with ragnor and the other warlocks - who kind of knew what was going on and never blamed him for it or for growing distant with them because they’re amazing and probably have seen this happen many times before.

he also carefully avoids mundane men. he’s not risking getting anyone else hurt.

but then there’s the 60s and 70s, and he’s in bloody new york, and the queer community is shaping itself, and goddamn, after all the hurt and pain he’s seen due to sexuality, he’s not gonna ignore this. also, his Adopting Instincts are way too strong anyway, he can’t really see people struggling and not do anything. so he supports queer spaces, probably made pandemonium one, too - a particularly safe queer space, since she could use his wards to keep police out of his business and ensure everyone’s safety. he definitely was there at stonewall and subsequent protests and parades, keeping people safe, weakening gas bombs and the like with magic, making sure they managed to escape jail.

magnus’ relationship with the mundane queer community is kind of weird, then - he’s not an actual part of it, not really, and he’s particularly scared of getting attached then, so he guards his heart with even more determination than everywhere else. but he still wants to help, so he brings in his money, tries to keep them safe, participates in some community activities and volunteers, and occasionally talks to some kids who were just kicked out of home or something, who are dealing with self-loathing and fear, and even though he hasn’t gone through the whole “my sexuality is unnatural” thing or particularly hated that aspect of himself, he does know what it’s like to be cast away and seen as a monster, and to see himself as uncapable of being loved. so he listens and he talks about his experiences and tries to help as much as he can, and for the most part, he’s successful and he feels kind of accomplished in that sense. he might never have hated himself for his sexuality, but this is the first time he is fully able to bring it into his mundane life. and it also helps him deal with and talk about his other issues, even if he can’t be 100% frank about being an immortal being who does magic and shit, he can connect to these people in a lot of ways, and he also has his own scars brought in by homophobia even if they weren’t internalised in the same way. also, there are names popping up for what people are, homosexuality is being decriminalised all over the world (even in england, he’s heard), things are starting to look up.

as the 80s come up, he knows that a lot of things are changing - that white gay guys are getting more and more space, that the word “bisexual” is being popularised, but also that the reason for that is that a lot of gays and lesbians are trying to get bi ppl out of some spaces, that there’s a division going on between people who want to be seen as palatable and are willing to step over others to get it, and people who refuse to blend into an oppressive society, or just can’t, because they’re trans, they’re people of color, they’re sex workers and homeless and they can never be really assimilated when, even if they’re not getting the death penalty, they’re still getting killed and framed as criminals for existing.

magnus is a person of color as well, he’s bisexual (meaning one of the groups that were being cast away and despised by the white, “clean” gay movement) and he’s been there since the beginning, where these exact people that are being driven away were the only ones building the queer movement, so i think it’s pretty obvious who he “sided” with. not much changed in that aspect, then, since the spaces of queer resistance he was used to were the ones created by the “outcasts”. it was disappointing to see a movement that seemed so amazing at first get slowly gentrified and push the most vulnerable people away again, but at this point, he was used to seeing the divide, to drawing the short end, and at least he could continue as he was and try and help people, right? so life was good as a whole.

then the AIDS crisis happened, and shit that was SO rough. people were dying left and right, they had nowhere to go and there was so little he could do. of course he tried his best - pandemonium, like many other similar clubs, was definitely raising money to help the victims, and he was definitely volunteering to help them, along with catarina (who’s better at healing than he is, anyway), but even healing magic isn’t as simple as “begone, disease” and this was a completely new thing, anyway. there was little they could do beyond try and lessen the pain and symptoms and spend countless nights awake doing research and trying to figure out what exactly was causing this and what they could do to help and try to cure it. it’s endlessly frustrating and he gets to see a lot of people he knew, and talked to, and helped, die slowly while he was unable to do much, and shit is that a theme on his life. he also blames himself for not being able to work out a cure - what good is fucking magic if he can’t do this? - even if he and cat do figure out ways to help, at least. but they’re just two people and creating spells isn’t easy and it’s not like their patients have a lot of time, and also he needs to sleep, as cat and dot keep reminding him. the mundanes beat him to it, and for a while he can breathe again. but then there has been so much loss and death the community is in shambles and they’ve been set back one hell of a lot, and magnus is so tired. his friends help him, reassure him that it’s not his fault, and he’s okay, because he’s stronger now, he’s been getting better during all these years and a part of him is used to it - it never hurts less, but it does get easier to push through. 

and then, well, there’s the whole war against valentine thing, and then the accords, so i think for a while magnus was kind of not very involved with the mundane world, and also this is already WAY to long to get into the 2000s and shit, but i will finish by saying that maybe after a few years magnus might get somewhat involved with the community again, because i just. really like the idea of magnus joining some kind of group of bisexual men and learning that SO MANY of them have gone through abusive experiences with straight girls that are scarily similar to his experience with camille, considering, you know, all the other layers involved and the fact that it happened centuries ago. and it kind of works as group therapy, and magnus finally realises that what he went through with camille was abuse, and that he’s not alone, and that queerphobia made him vulnerable, and that the fact that he is part of so many minorities can mean that, rather than not belonging anywhere, he belongs in many places and many different spaces, and he’s helped so many people in so many different ways. and then he finds out that there are other warlocks who are working as therapists and in there he can talk about his immortality issues and, well, other issues and he starts healing faster than before - he’s been healing ever since the breakup with camille, of course, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to open up to alec. like, of course, alec and him are soulmates and shit, but if he wasn’t in a better place he wouldn’t have allowed himself to fall for him like he did. and. yeah. magnus doing therapy and getting better and finding groups where he feels like he belongs, and realising camille was an abuser, please.

[mrneighbourlove]

Queen of the Red Sea: Beyond the Sea and Oceans

Gulper Bay was one of the biggest hotspots for pirate activity. A true wonderland for pirates, with trade able to be achieved in safety. Well, for the most part.

A bar fight broke out in good fun, a man flying across the floor. Landing at a Gerudo’s feet, he only saw a foot smack him in the face. The young woman laughed, and the bar gained a hardy laugh with her.

Captain Adda was the chieftain of the greatest band of Gerudo Pirates, hailing from the Great Bay of Termina. She was here today to let her crew enjoy a fun night after finding a huge cache of ancient jewels by fluke. Her real objective was a much greater treasure found in this sea. “Drinks for the man who can kick THAT guy’s ass!”

The poor large man got tackled by a bunch of other drunk men. Adda loved causing chaos here and there. Gerudo Pirates were getting drunk, trying to find suitable mates for the night. Wasn’t hard, as Gerudo were known to be exotic and rare, and the hormones of a man could easily be swayed. Adda kept away from any drink, at least for the moment. She wanted to be sober when she found her Voe.

Her first mate, a woman in big iron knuckle armour groaned in annoyance. “I hate this place. It stinks like piss.”

“Could be your attitude towards having fun. I’m ordering you to relax.”

“It’s my job to keep you safe Captain.”

“No Scarlet. Your job is one of three things. Find a guy to put a baby into you, find a buyer for all the loot we acquired, or three, get out of that heavy suit and get wasted on all the liquor here. Now go. You’re a buzzkill around me.”

Her bodyguard sighed and left her Captain to her own devices.

Captain Corsaire was in Gulper Bay to sell most of the loot he robbed from one of Danjur's cargo ships. After selling what he could, the pirate captain would then take the money and give it to his crew's family members and others in the kingdom who needed it more than he did. True, he did keep some for ship repairs and ammo, basic necessities as well, but most of the time, he kept very little for himself. His crew all knew his mission and were perfectly fine with being on the giving end instead of the receiving. After all, he had pulled all of them out of horrible situations and saw Corsaire as family. Tonight, he was treating his men to delicious tavern food, a game of darts, and a pint or two of the best beer of the seas.

"Cap'n," Rat approached Corsaire with some money earned by gambling on darts. Mojo and Juju never lost a game at darts, and to this day, still held their record. "You think we could use this to buy Seer some new boots? The ones he has are looking a little worn."

"Anyone else need anything?" Corsaire asked his quartermaster. "I think we've already stocked the kitchen."

"Acrobat's crutches have seen better days."

"All right, get him some new ones."

"We still have plenty leftover. Could buy your sisters something nice?"

"Nah, save it for the orphanage down the road." Corsaire took a sip of his drink. "Annie and Bonnie would rather have new seeds for their garden, I know how they are."

Adda noticed the freak with four arms first. That got her attention of the crew, lead by a scruffy looking rogue. Perhaps she’d test him out. Walking over she sat beside them with a devilish smile. “Hello boys. I don’t think I’ve seen you around here.”

"I don't reckon I've a-seen you either, miss." Rat was the utmost gentleman to women, even if that particular woman was a pirate. "Enjoying the bar?"

Pockets caught Adda staring and promptly blushed, turning his attention to Acrobat and insisting on a game of pool. The rigger saw his friend's problem, and entertained the notion of playing pool. Acrobat was painfully shy with women, considering he had four arms instead of the usual two. That, and he was a giant of a man, not many were bigger than him.

Corsaire, however, was not interested in Adda's playful nature and continued to write down the divisions of the loot in his small notebook.

“Thank you.” Adda didn’t like that Corsaire ignored her, so she decided to be a little playful. Turning her attention to Rat she tipped her hat. “You the Captain here? Look like a Captain. Tall, muscular, getting the deck scrubber to write out your notes.”

"No, Corsaire is the captain, I's the quartermaster."

"I don't need any of my brothers to write for me, especially considering that Seer cannot see." Corsaire did not even look up from his notebook. He nibbled at the end of his pen, thinking for a moment. If half the proceeds went to the orphanage, then he could take the other half and divide it between his men and their families with enough leftover for everything needed on the ship.

"The captain is a-little busy right now." Rat tried to turn Adda's attention somewhere else, knowing he hated to be bothered while running the numbers.

“What was your latest score?” Adda said, her gaze back on Corsaire.

"None of your business." Corsaire still ignored her. "Please leave, you're annoying me."

"Ah! Cap'n just wants to finish his a-work," Rat knew when his captain was starting to get in a bad mood. "You can talk to him a-later, hear the story of the kraken, and have drinks all a-round."

"Pretty lady no bother de captain when doing the numbers," Mojo told Adda as he tossed another dart into the bullseye. "He needs to think."

"And cal-cu-late." Juju had a thick accent just like his brother.

Adda raised an eyebrow at the brothers. Their accents were annoying. She looked back at Corsaire, her amusement starting to waver.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have come to a bar if you wanted to behave like a nerd and get your homework done. You have problems with doing numbers? Need the other kids to settle down so you can be a good boy? And a Kraken? You think killing some calamari is impressive to a lady?”

"I have problems doing numbers when a bitch with a mouth won't leave me alone when I'm clearly not interested in the booty she's so desperately trying to get me to fuck." Corsaire had lost his cool and shoved his notebook in his pocket. Standing from the table, he headed for the exit. "I'll be on the ship when you boys are done having a good time. Make sure you help Seer back to the docks."

"Oh sweet goddess of the seas," Rat took in a deep inhale. "Miss, I'll show you a-good time in the captain's absence, let me take you to the bar and buy you-a drink."

Adda glared at Corsaire now, more aware of the pistols at her side. She didn’t often let people insult her to her face sober. “I see you have a black spot on you. You lose any of your brothers in taking down a Kraken? Hear any of their bones crack and give a nice loud pop? That why you in a bad mood? Or you just a naturally born pussy with a splintered peg up your ugly ass.” She gave a chuckle, but it lacked any real humor in it. “And is sex the only thing you can naturally conclude? You’d be honoured to have sex with me, bitch. I suppose I’d have to find someone else to assist me in securing a legendary treasure.” Adda looked at Acrobat, giving a teasing smirk. “I think Mr. Goro here has a bigger brain than you on how to be smart around a lady who can carve and staple your face to a mast.”

The rest of the crew heard her mouth and instantly frowned. No one liked it when Corsaire was mocked about the kraken incident. Mojo and Juju stopped their game of darts as Acrobat and Pockets halted the shooting of pool. Seer, who was being seen to by Bomba, both looked up from their food. Rat, who had tried to be a gentleman before, was now angry. It was clearly seen on his face.

"Cap'n is a good man."

"More than you will evah be."

"Saved us, we his brothers!"

"And I-I-I'm not a G-G-Goro."

"Yeah, lady, don't call him names, it's bad enough you're staring."

"Cap'n only fucks a proper lady," Bomba zipped by Adda with a look up and down, and then turned his nose up. "Not one that smells of ass."

"Can we get out of here before someone gets killed?" Seer was dragged along beside Bomba, the blind man able to get around on his own, but it was difficult in small spaces with people.

Adda was surprised, a rarity for her. She looked over the crew that boldly spoke up to her. Akin to a shark, her eyes were still, like a doll’s eyes, the devil’s eyes. Her mind contemplated if this was an insult she would punish, or a joke that she could find enjoyable.

Looking these misfits over, and hearing Mojo’s accent again, she laughed. Her laugh echoed a young cockiness found only in Gerudo, and a dash of dark insanity, not unlike Ganondorf. Like a joke only she found was funny. “You are all an interesting bunch. Here.” She put a sack of extra jewels on the table and started to walk away. “Sorry for intruding on you and your merry men. Enjoy the entertainment around here. You’ve peeked my interest. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you. Or maybe I’ll just kill you.”

"Damn, Cap'n, she's a crazy bitch." Bomba whispered to Corsaire. "Why didn't ya just knock her lights out with dat arm of yours?"

"Because a whore like that isn't worth it." Corsaire gestured for his men to follow him out of the bar, leaving a generous tip for the barmaid. "She wanted to start something and I wasn't going to let her get the best of me."

"What should we a-do with the jewels?" Rat asked.

"Give them to the barmaid. She has three mouths to feed and her husband ran out on her." Corsaire instructed his quartermaster. "She could use it."

"Shall we get the sails ready, cap'n?" Acrobat inquired as he hobbled along with his crutches. "Go tonight?"

"No, we still have business tomorrow. Let's get some rest and I'll take first watch."

"As you say, cap'n."

Adda sat down, getting her first drink of the night. “What a mother fucker...”

Scarlet walked towards her, eyeing the crew as they left. “You want me to take care of them?”

“What? No, no.”

“But they insulted you!”

“People insult me all the time. I’m the Queen bitch of the seven seas....” She took a solemn drink at that.

Scarlet felt enraged. “I’m gonna knock his fucking teeth out.”

Adda shook her head. “Don’t. A crew of misfits isn’t worth the trouble. I think I’ll just forget about them. Need to focus on finding a dummy crew to help us with our main objective. We didn’t travel across the world to pick random fights with some losers.”

Scarlet ignored her, stomping over in her huge armour right up to Corsaire’s face. “Hey, you!”

"Cap'n doesn't want to be bothered right a-now, thank you." Rat stood in the armored woman's way. "Leave him alone, and go back to your leader, miss."

"She sounds really heavy." Seer noticed the clanking of metal. "What in the seven seas is she wearing?"

"It's a b-b-big suit of ar-armor." Pockets told the man. "Like someth-thing you'd see at a c-castle."

"She gave you her time you assholes. She's the Chieftain of the last great Gerudo tribe left. Show some respect to her. She deserved her spot at the top, fought for it fairly. AND she smells wonderful, unlike you, you tiny bandana wearing, ugly tanned grease ball." Stabbing her words carefully, she turned and gave a low growl like a panther towards Bomba on that last comment. Adda rolled her eyes and continued her drink. Scarlet liked to be her hype-woman, whether she wanted it or not. "So, when my Captain gives you a proposition for business, sex, or whatever the hell else she wants, you can at least give her your time to listen."

Adda touched her own Bandana under her hat. Scarlet wasn't the most observant, or smartest. She turned her attention to the bar fight she instigated, still raging on.

"Cap'n Corsaire doesn't have to give anyone his time." Bomba huffed, puffing up his chest like a turkey. The teenager wasn't the brightest of the bunch and was pulled back by Rat. "I'll have you know, you metal lunk, that no one gets respect just because of some damn title and a nice pair of titties!"

"She does have big boobies." Mojo muttered to his brother.

"Aye, dat she does." Juju nodded.

Rat tossed Bomba over his shoulder before the kid got his head knocked off his shoulders.

"Listen, lassie, we don't want any trouble." Rat was trying to be the peacemaker, but it was proving to be a difficult task. "Kindly go back to ye boss, and leave us be. I'm saying this politely, because you a-know nothing of the cap'n."

Using his crutches, Acrobat nudged at her leg and pushed aside.

"Come on guys, the women have ruined the buzz at this bar." He hobbled down the steps with Pockets following after him. "Some ruin it for the rest of us, I swear."

"You were doing... doing g-g-g-ood at pool this t-time!" Pockets agreed as he helped his friend with the stairs. "Some p-p-people like her and the other... other lady are just... m-mean!"

"If your boss wants a man, there's a brothel that way." Seer pointed down the wrong street.

"Other way, Seer."

"That direction, excuse me."

All the while, Corsaire was groaning internally, just wanting to be left alone.

If Scarlet wasn’t pissed before, the blind man did it for her now. No one, no one, made a comment about their crew and a brothel under any circumstance. The Iron Knuckle gave the blind man a sucker punch to the face. “You calling us prostitutes?! You’re fucking dead!”

Adda looked over, watching her first mate grab Bomba up high over her head to throw at Rat. “Oh fucking hell…”

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, HE'S BLIND!!!" Corsaire jumped into action as Rat caught Bomba and set the teenager on his feet. Seer was out cold from the punch, his nose spurting blood. Pockets grabbed the downed cook and kept Acrobat behind him. Mojo and Juju drew their pistols and were ready to shoot. Before Scarlet could throw a punch at Rat for being distracted with Bomba, Corsaire caught one of the Iron Knuckles' fists with his metal arm, the clang echoing through the bar. "I don't know what your problem is, or your damn boss', but you do not hit Seer!!! You can hit me as much as you like, but you don't attack my brother who cannot see!" With that, he swung with his free hand, catching her in the jaw. "I'll fucking kill you if you touch him again. You won't hurt him, no one will ever hurt him again, he's suffered enough!"

"He wasn't insinuating anything, you stupid bitch!" Bomba hollered. "He was just giving directions, all women go to find male prostitutes around here!"

"Cap'n, calm down!" Seer exclaimed as he groaned, holding his nose. Pockets managed to shake him awake. "I'm okay!"

"We're leaving. Now." Corsaire ordered his men. "Let's find Seer a doctor."

"Cap'n, I'm okay---"

"Doctor. No bickering."

"... fine."

With that, the crew headed into town in search of a healer.

Scarlet grabbed Rat by the shirt, throwing him to the side. With a growl she put her helmet on. “I gave you a handicap. My mistake. You insulted my sister again and again. I’m going to collect a cup of blood from you for every insult you threw.” She measured a litre with her hands. The ironed giant threw a heavy swing at the old gladiator.

"Damn it, woman, what is your problem?!" Rat caught the swing and stopped Scarlet's movements. "Leave us alone!"

Mojo and Juju had had enough of this ignorance. While Rat caught the swing, Mojo let off one bullet, nicking Scarlet's head to get her attention, the helmet ringing like crazy, while Juju scraped her hand with a bullet. "Look, they miss... on purpose, lady. The next one will be in your head."

"I'll ask only once more or I'll give my men permission to take you down." Corsaire glared at Scarlet as he held Seer around the shoulders. "Leave us alone."

“Go to fucking-“ A shot rang out from Adda’s gun, ricocheting off Scarlets armour, the bullet going past Corsaire’s nose. Adda clicked the second shot ready to go in a instant. “Scarlet! What did I say!”

“But, Captain, they-“ A second shot ran off, into the one exposed part of her armour around her thigh. Scarlet cried out as she dropped down. “I don’t want to hear another goddamn ‘but’ out of you. I told you to leave them alone. You disobeyed an order and got into a fight, where you most likely would have gotten killed. But worse, you damaged my authority by disobeying me. You showed others that you don’t respect my leadership.”

Scarlet was crying now from all the pain, as well as disappointing Adda. “N-no Captain. I’m sorry. I just wanted to make them understand.”

“Understand what? That our crew goes around beating the shit out of cute blind men? What’s next, deaf elderly?”

“T-they insulted you.”

Adda shakes her head. “And it’s my call if I want to tear all four arms off the stuttering man or make a skin carpet out of the albino. You do not act out of term. Now I have to deal with the ‘code’, on why a gun fight broke out on ‘neutral ground’. Maybe even get exiled from this particular port. And that’s on you.”

“A-are you going to kill me?”

Adda tapped her gun. It was just her, Scarlet, and Corsaire’s crew watching. “No. Not today. But don’t you ever disobey me again. Now pick yourself up, apologize, stop sobbing, go find yourself a medic, and go back to the ship.”

Scarlet nodded, saying sorry over and over to each crew member. As she hobbled off, Adda twirled her gun back into her holster. “Apologies for your blind Voe’s injury. We can talk about his medical bill in the morning. See you around....”

As the two woman left, Adda sighed. “What the hell were you thinking girl?”

“I’m sorry Captain…”

“It’s ok. Let’s get you patched up…”

The crew felt their adrenaline drop as the Gerudo walked off. Bomba expressed the feeling in the air perfectly.

“What the HELL just happened here?”

~

It was an eventful night to say the least. After taking Seer to the doctor, where it was confirmed that he had a broken nose, the crew returned to the ship. After seeing Seer to bed to rest and recover, the rest of the men agreed to get some sleep while the captain took first watch. It was the first night in port in weeks, and the crew were more than ready to rest. As the men retired to their beds, Corsaire sat on the ledge while playing his harmonica. It was a quiet night and the stars were absolutely stunning. He blew a note or two and then leaned back against the rigging. Sighing, the captain traced the constellations with his fingers as he hummed.

"Dark and dangerous, deep and low,

Whispers of a treasure trove,

The sea witch and her serpent show,

To drag you to hell below.

Krakens, maelstroms, the witch's sea,

Hear my cry, hear my plea,

Water spirit of my dreams,

Take me home, on the blue wave's gleam."

Adda felt an odd sense of guilt. She should of approached finding help more directly. But pirates, let alone her, don’t ask for help outright. They need to be smart, manipulative. But in doing so she might have caused more trouble than she wanted. After calming Scarlet down from her wounds and knowing the rest of her crew were settled for the night, she asked around and took some bottles with her as she walked down the docks. The stars were indeed beautiful, and she needed some fresh air. Hearing the harmonica as she approached, she chuckled. Of course, the gruff rogue was a musician. She started to swagger up to the draw bridge to Corsaire’s deck.

"Oh fucking hell, no." Corsaire saw Adda trying to walk up the draw bridge and promptly jumped off the rigging onto the wobbly plank. The board bounced from his added weight and he had his hand on his pistol. He was ready for a fight if there was going to be one. "There ain't no way in the water spirit's good name that I'm letting the likes of you on me ship!" He glared at Adda. "Seer already has a broken nose, I ain't letting anyone else of me mates get hurt because someone doesn't like to be ignored." The captain always had his crew's interest at heart. "What do you want? I have half a mind to give you a broken nose, but I don't start fights with ladies unless I have to."

Adda steadied herself on the board, a little wobbly from a head start of drinking. She was a heavy weight, but if she wasn’t careful, she could fall into the water. “I came here to offer you a drink. I asked around and was told you’re a man of fine rum. Until I was told you’d rather enjoy whisky. So I brought both. As my way of saying sorry for the unnecessary trouble I brought. Think of this as wanting to restart a first impression.” She took out two thick bottles, a rum and whisky in each hand.

"...?" Corsaire was a little taken aback. He was not expecting this brash woman to come with drinks, much less offer an apology of sorts. Maybe someone knocked her silly or she was drunk. He was not sure what to think. "While I appreciate the offer of alcohol, I won't drink when I'm on watch. My brothers count on me." The captain declined the drink and then said, "However, that doesn't mean I cannot enjoy it later. If it doesn't offend your senses, I'll keep my whisky for a more appropriate time."

“Is the password ‘please’ for me to come aboard?” She said as she wiggled both bottles.

"Me ship's a jealous mistress, lass." Corsaire then gestured to the docks. "She's not called the Sea Witch for nothing. You think I want to risk her wrath?"

“Awwww, she can’t fit in another woman? Never know, she might like it~” Adda toned it down a little. “I’m not gonna hurt any of your brothers. Both them and my girls should be able to rest easy tonight. Now can I come aboard?”

"No." Corsaire was not buying into her attempt at flirting. When she asked again to come aboard, this time more serious, he crossed his arms, debating for a moment. Finally, he relented, begrudgingly, simply because she brought a peace offering. Snatching the whisky, he said, "On deck only."

“Got it. Want to pull up the bridge? Can help you relax more.” Adda walked up around the deck, feeling the wood below her. “Any story behind this Sea Witch? It see a dreaded battle? Acquired from a deal with an actual sea witch?”

"Nay, I leave it in case we need to exit in a hurry. Can't jump overboard with Seer, he cannot see where to swim, and Acrobat can't swim due to his legs." Corsaire did not have any chairs on deck so he simply pulled up a barrel for Adda to sit upon for the time being. "I built this ship with my quartermaster after my run-in with“...I’m sorry about making that crack at you. I was pissed that I hadn’t gained your attention. I know my own grievances about sea monsters....” Adda sat down and popped open the rum for the two of them. the kraken. Named her after the dreaded sea witch that took down me mentors."

“I’m sorry about making that crack at you. I was pissed that I hadn’t gained your attention. I know my own grievances about sea monsters.” Adda sat down and popped open the rum for the two of them.

"Some believe the story and others don't. It's not up to me whether the landlubbers think the Kraken is real or not." Corsaire took a spot on the opposite barrel. "I know it's real and I know better now than to ever mess with one of its kind again."

“I’d believe your tale if you’d believe mine. Why’d you fight a Kraken anyways? Was there a woman, a treasure, glory...or just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

"Treasure and greed, lassie." Corsaire was honest, he saw no reason to lie. "Took me first crew to its lair, thought the story was a bunch of hogwash. Rat was the only sensible one to stay away. Took one of the lifeboats off the ship and stayed outside the cave." He chuckled halfheartedly. "That's the only time he ever disobeyed me. I lost me crew, lost me arm, but I blew that son of a bitch to kingdom come."

“So you actually killed your monster. Admirable. You feed the squidy some firepower?” Adda had a laugh, pouring them two drinks.

"Nah, it actually was devouring the first ship I stole." Corsaire shook his head at the drink, knowing he was on duty. "Several boxes of gunpowder fell into its mouth. I shot the box before it could eat me."

“Good thinking. Shame about your crew. They die quickly though?”

"Some drowned, some were crushed, and others were eaten." Corsaire shuddered to think about it. "Didn't really know the men, just said they could have whatever they could carry if we succeeded in finding the treasure. Rat rowed me back to land before I died and bargained for me this arm." He pulled off his glove, showing his metal fingers and wriggled them. "Some islander magic”, he said. “Lor-Lee-Li something... found it in a market and bought it for me."

“That’s the arm you threatened to punch me with hon?” Adda examined it, trailing her fingers down his mechanical bicep. “Nice craftsmanship.”

"It's not for sale, if that's what you're going to ask next." Corsaire snorted as she touched the metal, not able to sense her touch with the fake limb. "All I know is Rat said it was elemental magic from some island. Won't melt, won't break, just needs a good cleaning here and there." He put his glove back on his hand. "Banthorarium I think it was called."

“Don’t want to buy it. Now, my brave little Captain, it’s my turn to tell a story.” Adda stood up, taking another drink. “You ever hear of the infamous narrow trench?”

"Aye, I have. Sirens be there." Corsaire nodded.

“To us Gerudo, the charms of a siren are lost on us. But that is not the danger that concerned me was there. In this trench, in order to pass through, you must negotiate a narrow strait. Let me ask you a question Captain. Given the option, would you take a route that would chance either complete survival or complete destruction of you, your ship and crew, or take a choice to willingly sacrifice a member of your crew, but guarantee the rest of you and the surviving crew safe passage?”

"My crew, me mates, are my brothers." Corsaire told Adda as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the other barrels. "They'd lay down their lives for me and I'd do the same for them. I'd never willingly sacrifice one. We'd take the risk; all together alive or die together."

“HA! So you’d take the choice I didn’t make.” Adda looked back at the stars. “When I first became Captain, I took my crew on a large expedition, stealing from some rich snobs. They sent a navy after us, so I decided to take a quick shortcut to avoid capture. I was previously told of the story of Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla was a six headed sea monster who would eat members of ships that passed by. Charybdis was an even fiercer entity, who used hurricanes and whirlpools to swallow whole ships. On the left side of the ship we saw the storms. On the right, calmer waters. I took the crew through the right path. Like hell was I going to take us through the storm. Yes, I had a chance for all of us to survive, but we might have all died as well. Besides...” Adda took her sword out and made fancy sword play. “We were badass Gerudo warriors! The deadliest female crew of pirates to ever live! We could take down a monster of the physical flesh.” She stabbed her sword into her sheath, shrugging her shoulders. “Oh how wrong I was. Scylla shot forth from the water’s depths. It had this terrifying appearance. I could make out what was once human, I think. It was so uncanny. It shot forward, eating two crew members immediately. It just kept chewing them, slowly. The screams....god those screams.” Adda took another swig of her rum. “We fired enough cannon fire at the other heads and used our might to stay alive, but they just wouldn’t die. That was when the monster started attacking my ship, pushing it towards the left part of the straight towards Charybdis. It wouldn’t be denied it’s meal. So.... I made a choice. I shot four of my members in the feet and back. Scylla accepted the offering and ate them. With all six of her heads fed, she let us through. I had to make a sacrifice, right on the spot at such a young age.” Adda relaxed onto the barrel again. “Now, whenever I have to go through there again, I make sure I have the right sacrifices. I don’t want to sacrifice my sisters ever again.”

"Captains make mistakes and we pay for it then or later. It will always haunt us." Corsaire knew that at the time, Adda did what she felt she had to do to ensure the  survival of the majority of her crew. "Once, I might have made the choice you did if I ended up like my mentors. They started out on a good path... but by the end were lying, kidnapping, murdering rapists." He recalled the faces of the captain brothers, Azir and Hizir. "My own brother fell under their impression and he, too, lost his life by the sea witch along with our mentors. Perhaps if I had simply dragged my brother off their ship, he'd still be with me... or not. I'll never know for sure." He shrugged slightly, and then added, "But what I do know is no captain is perfect. I've made plenty of mistakes, mistakes that cost me and my crew. Yet, through the maelstroms of it all, they've stuck with me. I couldn't ask for a better band of brothers."

“You think you’re a good man? Above your mentors? Me? Or any other pirate?” Adda asked in a good tongue and cheek, philosophical way.

"No." Corsaire answered honestly as he fixed his tilted hat. "But I try to be the good man my crew thinks I am."

“That’s cute. You’re cute.” Adda sat her drink down. “I saw that you gave the jewels I presented to you to that single barmaid. That’s very....charitable. Why do you do it? And please don’t tell me it was out of the good of your heart. Everyone has an ulterior motive....you like her?”

"Dahlia has three kids, young ones with mouths to feed." Corsaire told Adda, having seen the little ones in the bar before when the babysitter dropped them off for the barmaid. "I know what it is like to be hungry, and no, Dahlia doesn't interest me in that way. Her focus is her children, the way it should be." He explained to Adda. "True, I could have used the jewels for my ship's necessities, or I could have spent it for Seer's nose. Yet, the money had needs elsewhere and I have the ability to pickpocket, raid, or steal whenever I please. Miss Dahlia does not."

“Ha. Never said if you like her you devil.” Adda took her hat off, followed by taking Corsaire’s off with a quick snag. Her long beautiful red hair flowed in the wind. Taking a breath of the sea she smiled at the Voe. “The sea is calming, isn’t it. I got another peace offering for your crew, if you’re interested.”

"I admire her, but romantic interest? No." Corsaire knew the woman would not shut up until he answered. "If it's more alcohol, I'm sure they'll oblige."

“I’m not flirting myself when I say this, but when’s the last time you or your men have had sex?”

"That... is something I actually do not keep track of with my men." Corsaire snorted, trying to hold back a laugh. "As for myself, it's usually the last time we're in port."

“This would be to make up for the fighting and have you not make any report against me. But I could persuade my crew to mingle with your crew. Nice environment, safety, few drinks here and there. Some of my own crew has been blue balled, even tonight.” She gave a chuckle. “Go really easy on the shy guys in your crew. Give them a night they wouldn’t forget. Hell, they could even pick out who they’d like. Just don’t make any comments about whores, prostitution or brothels, and it could be a fun time for all. How’s that sound?”

"Pfffffttt..." Corsaire had to hold back a laugh at her phrasing, knowing it was rough to have a declination of intercourse. "Pockets and Seer are the two most shy men on ship, but Pockets is the shiest man on the planet, I swear, he turns red if a lady holds his hand!"

“How much you bet he’d faint in one of my girls’ arms as they carried him off to bed~” Adda stifled a loud laugh she wanted to get out of her system.

"Oh, there's no need to bet, he fainted when a lady kissed his cheek for carrying her groceries!" Corsaire tried to keep his snickers to a minimum. "He's got a pure heart, that's for sure."

“Then you won’t object to the offer.” Adda put on his hat. Turned out to be a very good fit.

"Object to..." Corsaire paused his words as the lady adjusted his hat. Why did the women always go for his hat? Was it a secret kink among the girls or something? He cleared his throat, deciding to play dumb. "What offer?"

Adda walked around him, trailing a finger under his chin. “The type where after we undress you of your clothing and have our fun, we get to keep a trinket or cloth to remember you by.” She gave a hardy grin, feeling the rim of his hat and ready to move if he grabbed for it. “Think I’d keep your hat. Add a peacock feather to it!”

"You have a very descriptive definition of fun." Corsaire chuckled as she tried to tempt him and then stood. "And I'd sooner let you keep me treasure," He placed his hands on her hips, one running up her back, getting closer, lips almost touching. "then keep me hat." With a quick tip of his fingers, he flipped the hat off her head onto his.

Adda allowed him to lay his hands on her. They were firm. "I could settle for that too. I like this look...." One hand held him by the belt, the other firmly holding his back.

"Though... my crew, they get a touch lonely too, you know." Corsaire nearly jolted when she squeezed his ass. "We could always arrange for somewhere more so... suited for nightly activities."

"I know a proper quiet hotel on this island. I can get us all some nice quarters. Or just settle for staying on my ship~" She grinned as his face crumbled for a moment at her squeeze. She reached down and squeezed the front of his pants too. "You know, usually I challenge men to a sword fight, cut their pants down and make them submit. All I had to do was walk onto your ship and you were mine!"

Corsaire was not exactly a fan of submitting to a woman he did not know. For all he knew, this could be a trick to slit his throat after the deed was done. He had heard of some women seducing men, then killing the poor sap, and taking off with all the money. He was about to nicely decline the offer of meeting on a turf she knew when he heard footsteps coming up from the cabins.

"Captain?" It was Seer. What was he doing up this late? "I sense someone else on the boat."

Adda was like a cat when it came to having sex with men. When she was hungry, she'd consume as many as she could. If they were especially tasty looking they were hers. The Captain liked to play with them before digging in as well. People were consumables to her. Be it for money, sex, or just an able body to use. And seeing the blind man come up, she gave a smile, wrapping an arm around Corsiare's shoulder, standing side by side with him. "Hello there dear. Seer was it? Glad to see you up and about after that little scuffle earlier evening."

"...? Wait... you're the lady from earlier this evening. The one that smells like brimstone and metal." Seer wondered why Corsaire allowed her on the ship. “What was going on? ... I'd prefer not to be punched again."

"No, no, the lady is just here for an apology." Corsaire quickly told Seer, taking this chance to turn from Adda and check on his crew member. "You should be resting."

"I was... until I sensed her."

"I'm here for your whole crew my man. By next week I won't even be in this particular ocean. Felt wrong not to give you and the rest of your brothers a.... proper apology." She slowly trailed a finger down his open upper chest. "Corsaire, why don't you wake the crew. It's not even midnight yet."

"Um... whole crew?" Seer repeated her words, not understanding what she meant until that finger traced down his chest. His white skin turned bright red in the cheeks. Usually women were not so forward with him unless she had a kink of some kind. "M'am, you know, that's mighty kind of you, but I'm sure a nice lady like yourself has a more suitable bed... partner..."

"Seer, are you seriously being shy when the lady is interested in you?" Corsaire knew the man was a touch shy, but then again, he always was very tipsy when he ended up in bed with another lady. "Just say hello before you go straight for the boobs, okay?"

"I did not---!!!"

"You were tipsy that one time and told a lady she had a fantastic pair of tits. I thought you were going to get slapped but she actually liked that."

"Depends on the woman." Adda trailed a finger down the side of Seer's cheek. "You were right Corsaire, he is a shy one. Give me a moment with him while you get the rest of your boys?"

"I think they'll definitely take you up on your offer." Corsaire laughed the way Seer kept turning so red. "Now, be nice to Seer. He's not normally one to flirt with ladies until he's had a few."

"Captain!!!" Seer protested. "What are you doing?!"

"I'm helping you get laid, I'll be back in a second... or minutes..."

Watching Corsaire go below deck, Adda gave a chuckle. "You seem like a nice kid. How old are you?" The poor man felt himself be pulled waist to waist with the tall Gerudo Captain. She wasn't a massive giant like some of her tribe, but at just over six feet, she was peak to most average men. Luckily, Seer matched her in height.

"Um... I really don't know?" Seer answered honestly with a sheepish grin as she pulled him close. "I think I'm around maybe twenty-two... or twenty-three. Maybe older, maybe younger, I'm not sure."

"Twenty-Five myself. I think you're cute. Sorry my best friend punched you in the face. I heard the blind have the rest of their senses heightened." Her hands held his sides for support as she leaned in to give him a deep kiss. Her lips were like strawberries, her breathe fresh and savoury.

Seer was nearly at full attention from that deep kiss. Other senses being heightened, Adda was definitely right about that. Perhaps he was a little too eager when turned on, simply picking Adda up underneath her ass and feeling that glorious backside.

Adda had the booty and the rack to bring heaven to any man. She lathered her tongue with him, pulling away for the tease. "So tell me, how did THAT feel~"

"I'm not sure I have the proper words for it, but I think I'm going to settle with amazing for right now." Seer said breathlessly. "I'd like for it to happen again."

"Alright. You want to wait for your brothers to wake up or do you want to get out of here now~?" Adda tugged at his belt, a Cheshire grin on her face.

"You know I can't see, right?" Seer liked to use a little jest here and there. "You'll definitely have to 'lead' the way."

"Then let's go~" Adda held his hand down to the docks and whistled for her ride. A gerudo on a mechanical skid boat steered in. It was made of Termina technology. Simple for quick on the shore transport, and easily attachable to the main ship. "Easy steps honey."

Once in the boat Adda sat him down, taking her own seat beside him. "Hold onto me tight, ok~"

"Oh sweet Water Spirit..." Seer nearly cursed under his breath as the boat moved so suddenly. The noise was rattling in his ears and he felt a little uneasy by all the metal. He was used to Corsaire's ship. The cook gripped Adda a little tightly.

Adda saw Corsaire getting up onto the deck again, waving him goodbye. “Too slow~ Meet you at my ship! You can’t miss it!”

Giving a laugh she held the nervous cook back.

Once the boat slowed, Seer felt like he could breathe much easier. His senses were not being rattled. Corsaire and the rest of the crew would be along soon enough. Though he was not exactly sure what this captain saw in him.

The small speedboat pulled up to its destination. Her ship was unlike many in this ocean. It was large, made of metal, yet floated with grace. It was painted to look like black charcoal wood, and the sails had a magical shimmer to them. Her flag was an old Gerudo symbol, forgotten to even her. To Adda, it looked cool and held significance that marked it as her own. As the small speed boat was pulled up to the side of the ship, Adda stepped onto the large open deck, and her crew cheered.

“Captain! You did it!”

“Others coming?”

“Ooooo, he looks cute~”

“That the guy Scarlet punched? Poor lad.”

“Can we share him?”

Adda waved both her hands downwards to silence them. “Ey! The other boys should be on their way. This handsome fellow is mine though. So is their Captain if he has the balls to challenge me. Come on Mr. Cook. I’ll walk you up to my quarters.”

There were so many women, too many women. Seer gulped down his nervousness as the women pawed at him, feeling their touchy feely hands. He nearly jumped out of his skin as one groped his backside. What fresh hell had Adda brought him into now? Thankfully, the captain told the rest of the women to back off as she led him to her quarters.

“You don’t get off on drugs do you?”

"No! No drugs!" Seer reacted negatively to the mention of any substance. He shook his head insistently. "No drugs, or I go."

Adda squeezed his hand. “Good.  Means that I don’t have to worry about some junkie not wanting to focus on me or trying anything stupid.” Adda opened the door to her quarters for Seer. First room was an office, with trophies all over the walls. Second room was her bedroom. The bed was a King Sized mattress with the softest sheets and blankets Seer had ever felt when she sat him down. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

"8 steps... from the door to this room and... 10 steps to the bed." Seer counted as a habit. He knew every inch of Corsaire's ship, and this was foreign territory. Once Seer felt the sheets, his hands carefully smoothed the material before sitting on the mattress. "You know, I'm not usually the pick of the litter, if you know what I mean." His head turned in her direction.

“You mentioned that. You got self-esteem issues?”

"Not really, I don't mind being blind." Seer admitted. "I'm just curious as to why."

“I can tell when a man doesn’t want it. Your Captain was chivalrous, but it seemed he wasn’t into me. His loss....and your gain.”

"All the men have their particular tastes." Seer told Adda. "You, however, I think will be all right because... you smell nice."

A knock came at her door, Scarlet’s nervous voice calling out. “Captain. The rest of the men arrived.”

“Ey! Seer. Wait right here. Just want to settle your brothers in.”

Adda walked to the quarter deck, a lot of the Gerudo woman eyeing Corsaire and his men. “Hello boys. Welcome aboard!”

Once the men were on the ship, Corsaire had to admit it was a nice setup.

Hard drinks, fine wines, and other fruity beverages had been set up. Adda shook Corsaire’s hand. “Your lad’s waiting on me, so let’s make this quick. No one does anything stupid, like kleptomania. Besides, you don’t want to steal from a band of thieves. Two, play nice, and we’ll treat you nice~”

"Pirates stealing from other pirates sounds like a bad story." Corsaire told Adda with a small smirk. "We'll keep this civil."

“Good.” She gave his side a tap, and spun around to address the crews of both crew. “Alright ladies! You wanna have fun!?”

“YEAH!!!” The cry echoed the night. Adda dramatically spun to the men, snapping her fingers with a pose. She had a flare for the dramatic. “What about you Gentlemen!?”

They gave a hell yes right back. This was certainly going to be an interesting night. All the men seemed eager to get to know and romance the ladies before finding a potential bedmate.

Adda pointed to Rat, giving Scarlet a big smack on the ass. Her first mate yelped, blushing red in the face. “What about you two? Maybe take some time making up for earlier tonight?”

“C-captain? You don’t need to-“

“Phhhhhh I insist. It will be good for you Scarlet.”

Scarlet was dumbstruck, slowly turning to Rat. “H-hi....sorry for picking a fight.”

"...? Me?" Rat pointed to himself when Adda suggested he hook up with Scarlet. "I'm very a-flattered, but tis the ladies' job to chose her partner."

"Pfffttt," Corsaire tried to keep from laughing at Rat's surprised face. "Just go with it for once, Rat."

Adda pushed Scarlet towards Rat, and the two of them started to slowly talk. Adda winked to Corsaire. “I’d offer a room, but I get the feeling you’re not into Queens when you see one~”

"All men have certain preferences, Adda, you can't fault me for that." Corsaire chuckled half-heartedly. "I think your girls and my crew will have a good time."

“Well, one day you’re gonna kick yourself in the ass for not being with a beautiful Gerudo when you find one. And with how the population is, you might never get the chance again. Have fun regardless. There’s an empty room you can stay in. That is unless you change your mind~”

Adda pulled him close for a quick teasing peck on the lips, walking back to her bedroom.

Her crew was having the time of their lives with Corsaire’s crew. The men were so charming, some even funny. With poor timid Pockets, a group took their time coaxing him into a good time. But now it was Adda’s turn to enjoy her chosen prey. Taking off her clothes, she smiled down at Seer. It was a damn shame he couldn’t see anything. Took the fun out of an exotic and slow strip tease, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped. “I hope I didn’t tease you too long with the wait.”

"No," Seer was feeling the embroidery on the sheets. He had never learned to read or write, but could recognize certain letters from his years with Corsaire. Brail books were rare, and the few that he had on the ship were the courtesy of his captain trying to teach him how to read. This language, however, he did not know. "What does it say?"

“It means Power. For the Gerudo, Power became synonymous with the Gerudo King of Hyrule, Ganondorf. The tribes of Termina have luckily never met him, because I imagine if we did, we’d be challenged, and either wiped out, or forced to obey him. Being Captain means I am the Chieftain of the Terminia Gerudo Pirate Clan. So as far as I am concerned, I am the Queen to my people just as he was King. I am Power itself.”

She gripped his shirt, and with a solid pull, tore it in two with a loud rip of the fabric. Men usually loved this move or were terrified by it. Regardless, it got Adda off. What held Adda’s interest, was that she was intrigued by Seer being invested in her culture, as little as he could be though.

"Whoa!" Seer was certainly surprised by her simply ripping open his shirt. That was not a move he expected. Though she was a pushy woman and got what she wanted from the sound of it. He was not as buff as some of the other men like Rat or Pockets, but still possessed a good amount of lean muscle.

“Scarlet’s punches are like kitten swipes compared to me. It’s all about how you apply yourself. Now, let’s get the rest so you can match me~” With a purr, Adda took down his pants. Eyeing him over now, he was a very pretty sight. His white skin, coupled with a slimmer body and beautiful dark hair made him an ideal candidate for the pirate. “You want me to describe myself to you? I promise it’s all truth~”

"I'll take your word for it, but I wouldn't want to test it to find out." Seer jested in good humor at Adda's statement. He had been punched once today and that was plenty enough in his book. "Why describe when I can just feel?" His hands carefully found her warm skin. Though his fingers did not go down to her backside, rather up to her face. His calloused fingers gently traced over her jawbone and around her features, feeling the area around her nose and her soft lips. One finger twirled around a lock of her hair, feeling the silky texture. "Warm... and soft."

Adda was expecting him to get touchy as she leaned closer, but she was taken aback by him slowly exploring her face and hair. “Why are you feeling up there?”

"I want to 'see' how you look." Seer explained to the captain. "A female's anatomy is pretty much the same with just a variance in size... but the face, that's the true treasure." The blind man's fingers then slowly left her face. "I can picture what you look like in my mind with my hands. I can sense what you're like by how you smell, the sound of your walk, how words flow from your mouth, the grin with your laugh... it's not too hard to know you're beautiful despite not being able to see."

Adda’s bravado and spunk was gone for a moment in time. In her place was a young woman completely moved by Seer’s words. Her faced softened, and her eyes grew with wonder. How long had it been since someone had spoken to her that way? Too long, too long indeed. Coming back to reality, she held him close. “Trust me when I say this. I think I really like you Seer.” With a deep kiss, the Gerudo woman straddled him, followed by the most passionate night of the man’s life.

~

The night had been glorious for all the men onboard. Gerudo woman came in a variety of charms, and excelled at their beauty. Sleeping with Rat, Scarlet was happy being cozy in the giant mans arms, having never been with someone so big before, and in more ways than one.

The man who had the most fulfilling night though was undeniably Seer. He experienced sober love making like never before. Adda was fiery, tight, and gave him everything a man could want in a passionate night. They had to have kept going even as everyone else went to bed. Filthy with sweat and other nightly coatings, Adda was the first to wake.

Seer had proven quite capable in bed and, in the privacy of her own quarters, she allowed herself to stew on his kindness. It was rare, and something she forgot existed. In this kill or be killed world, it would no doubt get him killed, but she thought it was sweet nonetheless. Her naked body felt so sensitive, even now as she brushed against him. “You beautiful Voe... maybe I can talk to your Captain about you staying on my ship....”

Adda was shocked by herself at muttering such words. He was good, in so many ways, but she wasn’t going to so easily give up her heart for any Voe.

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness," Seer was laying there with his eyes closed, still not wanting to move from the bed. He was comfortable, warm, and these sheets were a slice of heaven. Not to mention, he was not quite ready to leave the company of the beautiful captain. "Though I cannot leave Captain Corsaire, not after all he's done for me. I think you are very lovely, Adda, yet I am not ready to leave just yet. I hope you understand."

Adda was glad he couldn’t see her flare up in embarrassment. “You... weren’t supposed to hear that.”

"I'm blind, Adda, not deaf. Or have you forgotten from having your mind blown last night?" Seer grinned, only teasing in good humor. "... I think I can even hear your face turning red from all the blood rushing to your cheeks."

“Oh shut up.” She crawled on top, giving him a deep kiss. For an extra tease she rubbed her body against him. “I was the best damn experience you ever had~”

His white skin was stained red from multiple love bites, and his hips bruised from the more physical aspects of the night. Adda was incredibly proud of the canvas she painted.

"Love making, yes. Wrestling? I think Rat might have you beat on that." Seer snickered as Adda's warm body pressed against his own. "There is something to be said about all those nips you gave me. I think you definitely hold the record for that, my lady."

“Good.” Her hand trailed his shaft when she heard a knock at her door. With a grin, she held his hand to get one more touch of her perfect breasts. “Mmmm, stay here.”

Getting up, she quickly put on the bare clothing she needed with some baggy pants, a bra, and her hat. Opening the door, she smiled at Corsaire. She hoped he would be jealous. “Ey Cap. Here to check in on your lad?”

"I'm alive, Captain." Seer said from the bed with a chuckle. "She didn't kill me."

"Well, I'm glad you're all fine and dandy, my boy, but we need to head out." Corsaire leaned against the door frame. "We have a Danjuran cargo ship heading along our route."

"I understand, Captain."

Adda quirked an eyebrow. Maybe now she could get what she wanted when they first met. “What if I can offer something better?”

"I'm not into a threesome with another man if that's what you're suggesting." Corsaire teased lightly.

The Gerudo captain chuckled, a more serious tone flexing from her voice. Games were over now for her. “How’d you like treasure more valuable than gold or jewels.”

"I'm listening."

Adda went to get fully changed, teasing Covarog with her naked body as she got herself into fresh clothing. “You see my sails there Corsaire?”

"I see the carpet matches the drapes."

"Captain, please!" Seer was feeling around trying to find his own clothes and accidently picked up one of Adda's bras. Clearing his throat, he folded the underwear neatly before placing it on her bed and continuing to search. "Be serious for once."

“You can keep it if you’d like~”

Adda gave him one of her shirts as well and patted Seer, fuelling his shy embarrassment.

Now clothed, the Captain walked onto the main deck. “Up above you are one of fives magical sets known as the Swift Sail. You can’t burn or tear it, and it will sail perfectly in any direction, no matter the air resistance. In my travels I’ve discovered two other sets. Both of which I’ve promptly locked up and dropped into the sea. Rather not have anyone else have the advantage I have.” She turned to Corsaire with another dramatic spin. “However, a ship I’ve been tracking for a while has the fourth set. You help me raid this ship, and along with splitting the rest of the jewels in half, I will allow you to keep the Swift Sail for yourself.”

"Hrm... sounds a little too good to be true.” Corsaire crossed his arms. "How do I know you'll not betray me? I'm not known to work with other pirates because I've been double crossed before."

“Because on this ship that we’ll attack, there’s a much bigger prize that I desire. I can’t achieve my goal without another crew to help me pincer in my target.”

Adda took her gun, firing a bullet to not only wake her crew, but demonstrate that the sail could not be torn. “It’s like the saying goes. There’s honour amongst thieves. I can guarantee they hold the full set. I can guarantee the rest of the treasure they hold can make your crew very happy men. So trust me.”

"Hrm... what do you think, Seer?"

"Me, Captain?"

"You're the one that spent the night with her, what do you think?" Corsaire asked the cook. He knew about Seer's ability to 'read' people, to sense their thoughts, whether it was honest intentions or not. "Should I trust her?"

"Well... she was kind to me, Captain. Her words are sincere, from what I sense." Seer spoke as he finished putting on his clothes, but was having trouble with the shirt. Button up shirts were his worst enemy. He was off by one button. "If she was going to betray you, I would detect more malice. I do not sense any."

"... very well." Corsaire trusted his crewmate. "If Seer thinks you're good... then I suppose you are."

“Good. Very good.”

Adda was so close to achieving her dominance of the sea.

~

It took a day’s travel, both crews working with each other in sequence. Their target was an imperial ship of some rich nation. The ship was small, but very fast. Adda was right when she said her ship couldn’t catch it on its own, but with Corsaire’s help, the two ships trapped their quarry at the mouth of a river. That was when the bloodbath commenced. Adda was ruthless, her cannon fire crippling the lower decks of the ship, forcing it to beach itself. She used mortar fire to take care of any who dared flee onto the land. Her boarding party swept aboard and Adda showed off her terrifying power with a blade. With great laughter and snark, she duelled her way forward. Corsaire witnessed her exchange blows with the enemy captain, the man cursing the pirates to his dying breath. It was obvious that Adda was toying with him. When she was finally bored, she pulled out her revolver in the middle of the sword duel and shot her opponent in the knee cap. As the man screamed she took his suffering in with a deep breath, and silenced him with another shot to the head. Soon enough a number of men had surrendered, being round up on the main deck. Adda took extreme satisfaction from her work as a pirate. After finishing her afterglow of the victory, she signalled Corsaire to come aboard.

Adda was ruthless, that was for sure. If at all possible, he tried to avoid killing, but it seemed Adda and her crew rather enjoyed it. Once on board, Corsaire made sure that he took only a few men, leaving the rest on his ship. Rat and Pockets were beside of him, while the rest stayed on board the Sea Witch. Once Adda had her treasure, then he would go his separate way.

"You find it?"

“Give me a moment.” Adda eyed the men that were still alive. “Hmm. You’re cute. Ladies take him, and five others. You know what to do with the rest.”

They gave their Captain a nod, and put six men onto the Gerudo ship. The other were dragged over to the edge of their ship, having their necks slit and thrown into the river. Crocodiles tore into the corpses as they fell in.

Kicking down the treasury door, Adda pointed out the treasure she wanted Scarlet to divide. The first mate started counting the treasure boxes, finding a large massive rolled up sail. With a smile, she handed it to Rat. To tell the truth, she was forming a crush. “Here you go Mousa.”

"Thank you, lassie." Rat took the sail as Pockets started to load the divided treasure onto the Sea Witch. "And I's a ratty... not a mousa." He winked at her. "Not meek like a mousa either. Then again, you know that."

"Is it necessary to kill everyone?" Corsaire felt his hairs stand up on his neck when the women so casually killed the men and fed them to crocodiles. "Or is this not to leave any loose ends?"

“Lack of loose ends. Those six will make a good distraction for Scylla when we return to home waters. You aren’t worried, are you?” Adda cracked a smile, sneaking malice in it to purposely make Corsaire feel a little fear to her. Discovering a silver box, it held the engraving of ancient text, and three golden triangles. Creaking it open, Adda took hold of a very light silver baton. With a single light swing, the wind blew softly. “It actually exists....”

"You know, you could always sail around Scylla." Corsaire mentioned and tried to keep a straight face. He was not malicious at heart unless the situation called for it. What Adda did was her business. "I have no reason to worry as long as you uphold your end of the bargain. You have what you want, and I have one of the sails. Give me the rest and we'll be even."

"Captain!" Seer called from the Sea Witch. "You and Lady Adda better hurry. We have a Danjuran navy ship on our tails!"

“You only need the current sail for its magic to work. God knows what power could happen if you got all five. And by the sound of it, we don’t have the time.” Adda power walked to her ship. “Scarlet, do we have the inscription for whirlpools?”

“Yes Captain!”

“Excellent. I can buy us some time for goodbyes and an escape Corsaire.”

"The legend says I need all of them." Corsaire knew how pirates were, so he had to be sneaky. As Seer called about the Danjuran ship, he knew the navy would be close soon enough. After all, he used to be an officer for the royal Danjuran navy. He knew all the ins and outs of their routes, how the ships worked, and the weaponry. Hopping back on his ship, the captain signaled for the men to ready the sails. Grinning, the captain removed the board connecting the Sea Witch to the one he and Adda chased. With the wind in their favor, the sails unfurled and lurched it forward. "Though it won't be too hard to find where you've hid them."

“You can have my sails when you find the fifth set!” Adda ran to her ship, her crew setting out. Taking the scroll Scarlet unrolled for her, Adda followed the directions carefully. It was time to see if this Wind Waker worked. She made a flurry of flics left to right, once up, twice down, finishing by pointing at the navy ship. Storm clouds poured over the target, and the sea itself swirled. A massive whirlpool started to rock the boat, anchoring it in a circle as it spun around. Adda gave out a triumphant laugh. “It worked? IT WORKED!!! I have the greatest weapon a pirate could ever dream of!!! HahaHAHAHA!!! YES!!!”

The two ships momentarily sailed together as they left the navy behind. Adda walked to the edge of her ship with a swagger. “Well, boys, I suppose this is goodbye!”

"Just wait until I come for your sail." Corsaire said in good humor as he signaled for his men to head in the direction of Gulper Bay. "See you soon, captain of the Gerudos!"

Seer was at the end of the ship and although he could not see Adda, he waved goodbye with a soft smile.

“I guess you’ll have to visit. Give a year or two after I’ve finished making myself Queen of the Sea. Gerudo woman are the best damn pirates you’ll ever meet!”

Scarlet took her helmet off and waved to Rat. “I’ll think of baby names just in case!”

Adda turned to her with a look of confusion. “What?”

Scarlet whispered to herself in embarrassment. “I didn’t buy any pills or condoms. Something might happen...”

“Christ girl....”

Shaking her head at her first mate, Adda turned her attention and winked at Corsaire. “Normally I’d consider you a ‘loose end’.... but that cook of yours is too damn adorable to disappoint~ Don’t tell any Gerudo men about us, and you can visit anytime!”

Seer normally did not think about ever having contact with a woman with such bravado as Adda, but perhaps, one day soon... he'd see her again.

With that, both ships sailed in different directions, new adventures and danger awaiting them. (Christmas gift to the beautiful Lorraine of @figmentforms. Captain Adda is technically a creation of Lor that we made together in our spare time. I’m proud to play and bring Adda to life in this crossover with @ridersoftheapocalypse in her first introduction to the extended universe. Art is done by the fabulous @s-kinnaly. Reblogs and comments appreciated! Happy Christmas Eve! See you tomorrow for one more gift!)

[johnclapperne]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[ruthellisneda]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[joshuabradleyn]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[neilmillerne]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[almajonesnjna]

{#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism?

A man recently found out that I, the completely normal-looking and friendly young woman he had been chatting with, was a feminist.

This must have really shaken him up (I assume he’d never met one of us IRL before), because his next question was:

So you think women should be superior to men?

Naturally my first response was to assume he was kidding and laugh. Because… wut?

But no. This man was deadass serious. I have no idea what kind of people he had been exposed to, but he was completely under the impression that, since gender inequality no longer exists, feminists are trying to oppress men so that we can run the world.

The interesting thing was that this man really believes that since women are paid the same as men (false lol) and we can vote and own land now, so basically… any woman who feels oppressed at this point is just playing the victim card and want everything to be handed to them.

He also seemed to feel very strongly that identifying our movement according to gender is just “divisive” and that we should be focusing on “walking together” rather than “pitting ourselves against the good men trying to help us.”

Sigh.

Anyway, after this conversation turned sour, I got to thinking. Not about him, because he had nothing to offer but privileged nonsense, but about some of the beliefs we was spouting. I hear echoes of his views all the time, from good people who are genuinely struggling to understand why is feminism still a thing again…?

It’s very easy for people (aka people who aren’t actually reading feminist texts or following feminist leaders) to completely misunderstand the goal of feminism. They hear bits and pieces from snarky and inaccurate third-party sources like FOX news or whatever, and come away with the belief that feminism seems stupid, dangerous, or unnecessary.

If you frame it like “women whining about injustice instead of doing something about it” or “women wanting to oppress men,” then yeah, the whole thing is pretty unlikeable. Duh– that’s why so many anti-progressive (right-wing) sources spin it that way!

But those views are based on nothing more than malevolent gossip; a smear campaign designed to invalidate a movement that causes trouble for people who want to maintain the status quo.

That’s why I decided to set a few facts straight, and tackle some basic shit about what I’m fighting for when I say I’m a feminist. Obviously this is a much bigger topic than one essay’s worth, but I’ll do my best.

Q: Why do we still need feminism?

A: Because there is still gender inequality. There is still sexism, and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and gender presentation. There is still exploitation and oppression based on gender.

Q: What is the goal of feminism?

A: There are many serious legislative and structural issues at the core of the feminist movement, like fighting for access to full reproductive health care and rights, access to affordable and high quality child-care options and paid family leave, an end to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and fighting for better representation in media/entertainment as well as a more equal percentage of women in elected office, CEO positions, leadership positions.

Not to mention of course the right to not be sexually harassed/assaulted/raped, the right to not experience domestic violence, and equal pay for equal work. Oh, and the right to be LGBTQ or transgender without the barrage of violent and marginalizing fuckery that currently comes with that.

Note: It’s also important to acknowledge the intersections of oppression that cross categories such as race, ability, class, age, weight, etc. Intersectional feminism is about recognizing and fighting the various intersecting systems of power that marginalize and oppress people, because a black woman’s experience is completely different than a white woman’s experience, and a fat woman’s experience is completely different than a thin woman’s experience.

I wish I had more time to tackle the complicated intersectional landscape, but for the purpose of this essay, feminism’s goal is simply to end sexism, gender inequality, and gender bias.

Q: Who is the enemy of feminism?

A: Spoiler alert: it’s not men! Feminism is not anti man. Again, we’re just anti-sexism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression, and anti-exploitation. The “enemy” is sexism, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and gender inequality.

Q: What do you mean by sexism and gender inequality?

A: If you’ve never personally experienced gender or sexism inequality, they can be completely invisible.

Wikipedia says:

“Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals wholly or partly due to their gender. It arises from differences in gender roles.”

So here’s the deal: Our culture is obsessed with gender differentiation. Before a baby is even born, we are consumed by the desire to categorize them based on their genitals (which is super creepy if you think about it), and we wrongly identify both sex and gender on a binary. You get to be just one of the two options, and anyone who doesn’t fit into one of those has to just pick whichever is “closest.”

Interestingly, intersex people are born all the time with a variety of unique reproductive organs and genitals that make it hard for them to check the box of either “boy” or “girl.” These people are often surgically altered at birth to make them fit whichever box is most convenient.

Isn’t that pretty fucked up? Like… we have a binary system and these babies don’t fit in with it, so we cut their bodies until they do. Oh, and in case you think this is a super rare occurrence, it’s not: intesex people are born at about the same rate as redheads.

Ok, so I take issue with the way our culture fetishes sex and gender right out the gate, and forces everyone to choose a binary option, but from there it only gets worse! Due to our obsession with gender, we shove gendered clothing, toys, and treatment on our children.

Our implicit gender biases (aka: biases that are below the level of consciousness) get passed on when we praise little girls for being cute, nice, pretty, and well-behaved, and we praise little boys for being smart, strong, fast, and clever. They get passed on when we buy our girls dolls and our boys trucks. They get passed on when we permit our boys to be aggressive and wild, but shame our girls for the same. They get passed on when we permit our girls to be sensitive and emotional, but shame our boys for the same. They get passed on when we put our little girls in dresses that limit movement and have no pockets, teaching her that her body is for looking at, not for doing stuff.

In short, we socialize our children to see their gender as the most fundamental part of their identity, and we teach them how to appropriately perform their gender so that they fit in with our sexist ideas of what gender should be.

It doesn’t get better from there though.

The perceptions we hold of each gender get stronger throughout a person’s life, and we chalk it all up to biology rather than the way we socialize children since before they’re born.

We perceive men as better at math and driving. We perceive women as better at nurturing and childcare. We see men as smart, and women as social. We assume men are better leaders, and women are better at domestic skills. We take for granted that men love sports and women, while women love shopping and makeup. We unconsciously believe men need to feel like useful providers, while women need to feel beautiful and desirable.

In short, most of us internalize the performance of gender that we got stuck with based on our genitals at birth, and apply it both to ourselves and to everyone else. We know that people who break the rules are severely punished and marginalized. Think: a feminine gay man who spends his entire life being shamed for not being “manly” enough, or the way a woman is slut-shamed and victim-blamed if she tempted a helpless man into assaulting her.

We all have implicit gender biases, and women and non-conforming gender individuals get the short end of the stick. Both men and women view men (especially tall, white, conventionally masculine men) as more trustworthy and competent, for example, so it starts to feel completely natural that they hold more positions of leadership, and make more money, and otherwise rule the world.

When we talk about living in a patriarchy, it simply means that this culture was historically built by men, for men, and most of us still view this as the natural order of things due to implicit gender biases that we keep passing on to our children. The patriarchy determines who is suitable for which job positions, who is believable in a trial, who gets access to bodily autonomy, and whose problems matter most.

Q: But… what about biology?

A: Many people really, really want to believe that men and women are each naturally drawn to all the gender roles and gender performance we shove on them, and they use “biology!” to defend their gender-obsessed actions.

First of all, I certainly recognize that there are some inherent differences between men and women beyond genitals, but it’s very difficult to tell the difference between which is nature and which is nurture when it comes to gender. Socialization is powerful shit, and we don’t have a gender-blind control group to see what would happen. (Trust me, I dream of this world often.)

That said, I feel like… if it’s really biology, then nobody should have a problem with us fighting the gender-based socialization. Because that would mean that even without teaching girls to be sexual objects and people-pleasers, they would become that way anyway! And even without teaching boys to feel entitled to women’s attention and bodies, or to repress all of their feelings except anger, that they would become violent, stoic, and emotionally stunted anyway!

I mean really, if biology is so strong, nothing would change if we stopped shoving gender performances down everyone’s throat. So maybe just let us try?

Most importantly though, using the “biology!” response is very rude, because if biology explained all of our gender biases and performances, then we wouldn’t have a feminism movement because nobody would be bothered by anything. But people are, well… bothered.

It’s kinda like how we used to think women weren’t capable of voting, owning land, having jobs, running a mile, being fulfilled without children, or anything else. They used to cry “biology!” to that shit too, and we’ve slowly proved it allllll wrong. When I hear the biology argument, what I hear is that you simply don’t want things to change because the status quo is working for you.

Q: Why do we need to talk so divisively about gender, why can’t we just focus on coming together as humans?

A: It has to be about gender because it’s already about gender. This question, though usually well-intentioned, would be like asking your doctor: why does my treatment have to be all about cancer? Well… because you have cancer, my friend. It would be silly to treat you as if you didn’t have cancer, just because cancer makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. That.

When gender is no longer a divisive issue, we’ll stop treating it like one.

But gender determines how people are treated and perceived, what life chances and opportunities they’ll get, what standards they’ll be held to, and how they’ll be encouraged to view their role and identity.

This isn’t healthy for anyone of any gender, but women and non-gender-conforming individuals are disproportionately negatively impacted by both implicit and explicit biases, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

This is why we fight, my friends.

Whew.

Happy Tuesday.

<3 Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Why Do We Still Need Feminism? appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2zMzN36

[itsallinmeee-blog]

Boss. Black. B-Word.

Black women? I love.

On paper. Passionately black, unapologetically black, black girl magic. All phrases you'd find in my social media biographies (if that's how I wrote my biographies). “Go, sis!” and “Yaaaasssss, bitch!” are used heavily in my vocabulary. I went to a HBCU. I even had the afro. All signs of your favorite kind of black girl, right? But in real life, I couldn't stand these bitches.

Okay I lied, they didn’t like me. Well, it was more of a mutual blend of curiosity, confusion, enamor and disdain. Not a full rejection, nor a full acceptance. I liked watching them. Observing them and trying to get into their minds, as I do everyone. Watching them interact with each other, with the boys, observing their various archetypes, seeing them express themselves non verbally and non-stop through their clothing, hair and nails. White toes, fuzzy key chains or thigh tattoos- you know what all that means. I noted the way some of their spirits dropped when you saw them without weaves or their nervousness debuting the afro they didn’t think was tall enough yet. Learned the little social cues that indicated maybe, just maybe, everyone was talking about you before you walked in (they love that shit). I saw how they passively yet aggressively let it be known when they didn't like someone using jokes, banter, unnecessary observations. I watched them, like everyone else, in awe. Saw them either control the room, captivate the world. Do it all so confidently. I saw them love relentlessly or never at all. And I loved them. Yes, I loved them flaws and all but when it was time to play? Like play with them? I was ready to go home.

Like PLENTY OF OTHER BLACK GIRLS I'm nice, introverted and passive, period. Empathic, easily crying tears for others before I can for myself. I am one of the many black girls that want the whole world to get along. So no, I am not claiming to be some unicorn black girl. And every time black women were grouped together to be dismissed as mean, angry, divisive, bad attitude having bitches, I was present in that group. No matter how different you could find me, I was them and they were me.

But yes, I am also saying that only saying that it seemed like every time I was around too many black girls, they were tossing the room up into teams and picking sides. You can get with ‘this’ or you could get with ‘that’. The IN crowd and the OUT casts. I had to get used to, then expect, then embrace 9/10 times being that or out… or whatever that weird, in limbo, do-i-like-you-or-not-there’s-a-disconnect-can’t-put-my-finger-on-it-hmm thing me and black girls do with each other is called. So I wasn’t always an outcast per say. My wittiness and observational nature made it so I could find an acceptable facet of myself to show them. But even when I could fit in, I still didn’t blend in. Even if they did like me, I still wasn’t necessarily sitting with them. You know? I kind of preferred it to be that way: all against me… or rather, everyone except me.

But honestly, it’s odd feeling like you make people uncomfortable. Or rather, that there is a mutual discomfort between you two. Not the white ones, not the men, no. Just the ones that look like you. The ones I should fall in easiest with.

I found I wasn’t about to chase the approval of black female authority either because from college to my first three "real" jobs, I got along with black, fully grown women even more poorly. Well definitely not all, just the ones that looked at me with so much… I don’t know is that… envy? What? I’m not sure but I think they would infuriatedly watch me waste over all the youth and potential they'd kill to have again… or were they trying to ensure I wouldn’t realize my potential, leaving them to their superiority? Wasn’t sure but as you probably can pick up on, the real issue was between me and my black, female superiors.

For some reason my whole life, older black women have known either to try and take me out early or under their wing quickly before someone else saw what they did. I've rarely to never been ignored in their hands. They all start off liking me and my pleasant, timid personality but then one day I'll do something. I'll do something that rubs them that same wrong way and they'll give me that look. Like they knew I was too good to be true and they see who I really am. And from that point on it's like my efforts are thwarted and my genuineness is dismissed.

Oh, you thought I was weak? No, girl! I'm a lion, too! that's why I like you! ...Oh you're the only lion in this jungle...? I better watch my step? Ha, ha... okay?

My first job was as a cashier at a fast food restaurant. I worked for an insatiable black woman 10 years my senior. At first, I tried. Anywhere I am my mind is to move ahead so I had no qualms about trying my ass off as a grown ass woman in a fast food restaurant. No one had to tell me to try or take pride in my eight dollar and five cent an hour work. At first there was an issue (with… you guessed it... the black girls) because I don’t feel it necessary to speak when I walk in the room, especially if I feel like the only reason my presence needs to be made known is so you don’t slip up and say something you didn’t want me to hear. But I spoke, though. Even forced myself to be friendly, although nobody knew how hard for me that was. The harder I tried in work, the harder she wanted me to. The more I did, the less she said I was doing. Everything I did to go above and beyond what my little poor ass job entailed became a requirement. Once I had to start watching people who didn't know right from left surpass me, I snapped. Plus, I ended up having my own problems going on so I couldn't possibly be of good use to her company with all the excuses and black eyes I was coming in with. I still haven’t fully figured out what she didn’t find teachable about me but I decided I didn’t want to learn anyway. So fine. Next.

I moved to another city and worked for a spineless black woman next. On a team made up of myself, a middle aged white woman and another middle aged black woman that just would not shut the fuck up.

Hello, I’m Nandi. I'm ALWAYS the new girl but don't worry, I won't be here long. My mom literally blows with the wind so since I was a child, I was always the new girl. Not too often, but often enough. New family in church, new kids in the neighborhood, new girl at work. I come, stay long enough to shake shit up, and leave. It’s how I was raised. The issue at this job wasn’t the boss. She was sweet as pie and accommodating than a M-Fer. The issue was the talking lady strong armed every team meeting so we didn’t get much else done, and the boss lady let her do it. I mean, the purpose of the weekly meetings was already redundant, especially with a job designed with the purpose to be our transition into something more. So her, the talking ass lady, having worked this job longggg past her time, knew all these remedial ass turns like the back of her own chicken frying hands. Knew when to talk and about what, the art of keeping us off topic with her long, pointless lies and stories. Most importantly, she knew how to interrupt me. I say “right” out of habit and this particular program (child education) discourages the responses “right” and “wrong” and encourages “yes” and “try again”, whooptie-damn-do. Oh, but you know Madam Talk-a-lot made it her duty to catch every “right” and give me bullshit pointers and such. Fuck all this. I left there quickly and ended up in the hands of the angriest black woman you or I know

and I loved it.

By this time I was just as angry. I already fake-hated people, now understood what there was to hate about men, but I only hated people in theory and from my experiences. I still had the capacity to greet everyone with a smile and pleasant attitude. She, did not. Almost 30 years my senior, she opened up to me quickly and would stop work to tell me all the stories of her life. She had fired 5 assistants before me and I wondered if they got the stories, too. The fucking novel filled up to the rim with danger, drama, loneliness, abandonment, rejection, anger and resentment. I knew God put me there to tell her something but before I learned the words to that song, I found myself hating this bitch. For what reasons? Pick one. She used all her painful past as an excuse to go out of her way to be a bitch to people. It soothed her to hurt people. We were in a leasing office (you would’ve thought we were real estate tycoons, my nigga… it was the damn clubhouse at the apartment complex) so the fact that she had the power to leave folks HOMELESS? Oh dear God, she thought she was the second coming of Christ. I watched her snake people, then turn to me with a speech of how she couldn’t figure out why people talked so badly about her… then I watched her snake me to our boss. Bold face lying, constantly. And when I sulking but silent let it happen, I was reassured that she was the one that called the shots I needed to be worried about. Not her boss. Damn, et tu, Brute? Bet.

She tried to manipulate me, aggravated me out of asking her clarification. She had only been trained  in her position for 2 days with way more responsibilities than my assistant ass, (although she had started out as an assistant, like me, observing the director before her for however many years before she got her new position) half ass training me? No big deal. She was old and bitter but stable and proud and I was not mad at her at all. A lion is still a lion. But she made sure I was mad. It turned from the promise of being her successor into an unachievable, ongoing riddle. Whatever answer I had was wrong. She wanted me to need it. I thought my presence said that. She needed me to fear her. I woke up to the devil after I put him to sleep, so… sorry, I couldn't. She wanted to convince me that I was really just a zebra pretending, incompetent and that I needed her to teach me MY own lioness ways. She feared I would see through all her facades and I did. I think the final straw was when I let her know that I knew she was wearing a half wig, I’m not sure. She fired me.

That isn't a lick-the-wound exaggeration, it was a set up I should've seen coming before it did when I walked in on the 27th day of the 2nd month of being absolutely done with her imaginary dramatic bullshit. Some young little know-it-all-with-nothing-to-show-for-it bitch thinking I'm just gonna hand her the one thing I have, one thing she wants, needs.... and I'm just gon hand it to her? For free? Not that day, huh? Right, and it was fine, because I didn't have a second left to waste on non-sense that wasn't my own.

So I’m doing that thing you do when all your plans fall through and you start over a million times. I’m on Fresh Start Four. I work with children again and the way these black little girls’ eyes light up when they see me says a lot. I realized through children that often times, people just want my attention. Like when I say ‘everyone sit down and be quiet.” And Starquaijah decides she needs to sharpen all 75 million of her colored pencils. Not like I’m some oh-so-special black female deity… Well, not like it’s obvious I’m some super special black female deity… but like I’m a black girl, too. In my fear and then familiarity with rejection, I unknowingly became the black standoffish, uninterested girl I always assumed I didn’t have much in common with. And in these series of events I learned to take off anger, rudeness and disinterest as defense mechanisms, wake up my ‘resting bitch face’ and try out this carefree black girl deal. So far, I must say, it’s helping.