#it’s not a problem with fandom it’s just a sexism problem that people have

[flashhwing]

like fandom has always skewed to prefer male characters over female characters and that’s not gonna change until society as a whole stops prioritizing men over women. and people who try to explain this as “well writers simply write more interesting men” are full of shit there are so many really good and well written women characters out there the fact is fandom as a whole just flocks to media that centers men. or if their media does center women they focus on the men anyway because that’s how people are. it’s not a failing on any individual fan or fandom. trying to get fandom as a whole or any specific fandom to change isn’t gonna work. the only thing you can do is focus on female characters yourself. create the f/f you wanna see in the world. because other people simply aren’t going to

[philtatosbuck]

you would be fucking lying if you said that women, including canonical love interests but especially women of color, don’t get pushed aside or demonized for big m/m ships (an example including something i personally ship: anyone who has ever been paired with eddie or buck!. other examples? those dudes from the witcher. st*r*k and the treatment of those fans towards malia and braeden.) and to take people talking about that as a slight against you personally preferring a m/m ship is weird as fuck. “people pair them up with other women all the time!!” no one said they didn’t??? the issue here is specifically when those women are demonized and written off and hated for being with those men. not that people prefer different ships. you’re either ignorant as hell or being deliberately obtuse. either way you sound stupid as hell

[writebecauseyoucannotbreathe]

Hi hi!! So I've been neck deep in azulaang for a while now, and your blog is a GODSEND. Do you have any blog recs for azulaang content? or maybe a discord server?

Tumblr is kinda dead so a lot of rare pair blogs deactivated. The ones remaining are on and off and you can find them through the azulaang tag. There are some azulaang shippers on twitter who still create content, you may have to search aangzula instead to find them. Stay away from fandom discord servers. Nuff said.

Not the answer you're looking for but since Avatar The Last Airbender was added to Netflix there has been a lot of toxicity and ship bashing. People have been incredibly rude & entitled and I guess small ships look like targets to them. I'd recommend sticking to the ao3 tag.

If you produce azulaang content feel free to rec yourself in the replies.

[profoundlyconfusedbeing]

Vague rant:

The absolute heartbreak and pain of seeing one of your favourite childhood detective series being put down and hated on by the fandom of your other fav detective series. Like please can you stop.

Also for the love of god examine the absolute mess that exist in your stories before you bash down on another.

I’m sorry, but it’s painful and hilarious at the same time to see the take that one apparently is so ripe with sexism, when the other one is hardly hardly any better.

Like I absolutely love both. But please, please, stop acting like you are on the better end. 😂😭😭

It just makes you look mean and shitty. Just don’t f* engage with the other series if you don’t like it??? It’s not like it’s hard. But don´t critique it if you haven´t actually consumed any of it and just go off a vibe.

This post was brought to you by me, due to seeing a bad take on Instagram by a fan making fun of the other detective series and having a caption that showed his clear lack of introspection of the content he is a fan of. (Considering the amount of similar takes I have seen before I just needed to rant. This is obviously not trying to attack anyone. I´m just sad and frustrated, cause I really really do love both and it hurts seeing one being put down in order to elevate the other.)

Sometimes I’m worried I judged the fandom who makes fun of the other too harshly, cause I have also seen and met a lot of nice people in the fandom. And then I see takes like the one I did and think: never mind. Y’all need to get down of your effing high horse. Like seriously… sit down.

Listen the main characters of the detective series that the other fandom loves to make fun of would literally be in the freaking fandom if they existed. Like they are canonly fans of the book series, which also exists in their universe. They make freaking joke references. They would be listing to all the podcasts and be freaking active fans.

Yes, I’m talking about fictional characters being fans of other fictional characters, while the fandom of the latter characters loves to make fun of the first set of characters.

Also the majority of the people I know who are fans of the one that gets hated on are literally also fans of the one that does the hating. (Me obviously included)

[sassydefendorflower]

I want to talk about something. I want to talk about ableism in fandom. And sexism in fandom. Oh, and racism in fandom.

Mostly though, I wanna talk about how the discussion about these things often gets derailed because people don't understand what trends and typical behaviors actually are.

Whenever a Person of Color, a woman, someone disabled, someone queer (or an intersection of any of these groups) points out that certain fandom trends are bigoted in some shape or form, half the replies seem to be "but they are my comfort character! Maybe people just like them better because they are more interesting!" or even "people are allowed to have headcanons!" - the very daft even go for a "don't bring politics into fandom" which is a personal favorite because nothing exists in a vacuum and nothing is truly apolitical. But alas~

What most of these replies seemingly fail to understand is something very, very simple: it's not about you.

You, as an individual, are just one datapoint in a fandom. You are not the trend. You do not necessarily depict the typical behavior.

When someone points out that there is racism in fandom, that doesn't mean every fan is racist or perpetuating racist ideas*. By constantly mentioning your own lack of racism, quite often, you are actively derailing the conversation away from the problems at hand.

When someone names and describes a trend, they don't mean your headcanon specifically - they mean the accumulated number of headcanons perpetuating a harmful or outdated idea.

I am not saying this to forbid anyone from writing fics about their favorite characters or to keep anyone from having fun headcanons and sharing their theories and thoughts - quite the opposite actually. A critique of a general trend is not a critique of you as an individual - and you're going to have a much better, and more productive, time online if you can internalize that. If you stop growing defensive and instead allow yourself to actually digest the message of what was pointed out.

I am saying this to encourage some critical thinking.

Allow me to offer up some examples:

Case 1: A DC blogger made the daring statement that maybe Tim and Jason were such a popular fanfic focus because they are the only two undeniably white batboys. Immediately someone replied saying "no, it's all the fun traumatic situations we can put them in!". Which is an insane statement to make, considering the same can be said for literally ANY OTHER DC Batman and Batfam character.

The original post wasn't anything groundbreaking, they didn't accuse anyone, didn't name any names... but immediately there was a justification, immediately there was a reason why people might like these characters more. No one stopped to take a second and reflect on the current trends in fanfiction, no one considered that maybe this wasn't a declaration against people who like these characters but a thesis depicting the OVERALL trend of fandom once again focusing on undeniably white (and male) characters.

(don't get me started on the racebending of white characters in media that has a big Cast of Color and the implications of that)

Case 2: A meta posted on Ao3 about ableism in the Criminal Minds fandom caught my attention. A wonderful piece, very thoughtful, analyzing certain characterization choices within the fandom through the lens of an actually autistic person. The conclusion they reached: the writing of Spencer Reid as an autistic character, while often charming and comforting, tended to be incredibly infantilizing and at worst downright ableist. They came to that conclusion while CLEARLY stating that the individual fanfic wasn't the problem, but the general fandom trend in depicting this character.

Once again, looking at the replies seemed to be a mistake: while many comments furthered the discussion, there were quite a few which completely missed the point. Some were downright hostile. Because how dare this author imply that THEY are ableist when they write their favorite character using that specific characterization.

It didn't matter that the author allowed room for personal interpretation. It didn't matter that they noted something concerning about the entire fandom - people still thought they were attacking singular people.

Case 3: I wrote a fic about abortion in the FMA(b) fandom (actually I've written a weird amount of fics about abortion in a lot of fandoms, but alas) and I got hate comments for it. Because of that I addressed the bias in fandom against pro-choice depictions of pregnancies. I pointed out that the utter lack of abortion in many omegaverse stories or even mpreg or het romances, painted the picture of an unconscious bias that hurt people for whom abortion was the only option, the best possible ending. The response on the post itself was mostly positive, but I got anon hate.

(which I can unfortunately not show you since I deleted it in the months since)

And I'm not overly broken up about it, but it also underlines my point: by pointing at a general problem, a typical behavior, a larger trend... people feel personally attacked.

This inability to discuss sexism, ableism, racism, transphobia, etc in fandom without people turning defensive and hurt... well, it damages our ability to have these conversations at all.

Earlier I said YOU are not the problem - well, i think part of this discussion is acknowledging that: sometimes YOU are in fact part of the problem. And that's not the end of the world. But you can only recognize yourself as a cog in the machine, if you can examine your own actions, your own biases, your own preferences critically and without becoming defensive.

And, again, this is not to keep you from finding comfort in your favorite characters and headcanons. This is also not to say that I am free of biases and internalized bigotries - I am also very much a part of the system. A part of the problem.

This is so you can comfortably ask yourself "but why is there no abortion in this universe?" or "why are my favorite black characters always the top in my slash ships?" or "why do I write this disabled character as childish and in need of help?" - and sometimes the answer is "because I am disabled and I want comfort", and that's fine too.

There is no one shoe fits all in fiction. There is not a single trope that captures all members of a group. There is no single stereotype that isn't also someone's comfort. No group is a monolith, no experienced all-encompasing (or entirely unique).

There is never a simple answer.

But that doesn't mean you should stop questioning your own biases, your own ideals.

Especially, if you grow defensive if someone points out that a certain trend you engage in might be racist. Or sexist. Or queerphobic. Or fucking ableist.

*this does not mean negate the general anti-blackness perpetuated by most cultures as a result of colonialism and slavery

[stormsbourne]

alright listen

I know we're all having an evaluation of how eagerly we believe people who present with even the slightest air of authority and frankly good! we all need to be less credulous of people on the internet who tell lies.

but I think there are also other lessons to learn from james somerton. namely about his raging and blatant misogyny, which I've often seen similar forms of in fandom and on this specific site. to paraphrase bombs himself in the ctrl alt del video, if you see shitty behavior within your sphere, it's important to recognize it and try to fix it instead of rejecting it and asserting that no REAL members of the ingroup are like that. and nerds have a misogyny problem. including tumblr. so let's reckon with it.

do you append "white" or "straight" to your comments about women even when those things have little to do with the topic being discussed, just to make your comments seem more legit? (and no, m/m shipping discourse does not give you a ticket to say it's all straight women -- it's fictional characters, james.) do you often theorize about how (hurriedly appended "straight/white/cis") women are responsible for a problem in fandom, nay, all problems in fandom? have you made up a guy based on a single post that annoyed you and extrapolated to say that all (appended signifier to make it ok) women in fandom are like that? do you see women as uniquely fetishizing, uniquely stupid about politics or social issues, uniquely annoying to talk to? do you assume when there's an issue, even a real one and not the fake ones james made up, that a woman is probably at the root of it?

all of this still applies to you if you're a woman. it also applies if you're gay or a person of color or trans. being an oppressed group doesn't mean you are immune from sexism, and sexism is still rampant in everyday life for pretty much everyone.

your shipping and fandom discourse isn't immune from this. no, I'm not talking about how not enough people like yuri. I'm talking about how women who like "bad" ships like r*ylo or whatever are seen as open targets for harassment. how women who are into "bad/problematic" fandoms are seen as idiots and enablers who deserve what they get. how there's an attitude that women who like shitty bad porn must think it's good, must be too stupid to know better, and must need to be handheld and taught about good, acceptable fiction. I've already talked a lot about tumblr's complete refusal to admit that fujoshi wasn't a term coined by delicate japanese mlm to complain about evil women (and I wonder if james contributed to that idiotic concept), but the way I've seen people assert that women into m/m must be straight, must be stupid, must be lying about their identities, must be hurting gay men in real life in addition to wanting some anime boys to kiss ...

I've seen how some of you people talk about amb*r h*ard, is all I'm saying, and I've seen what you've tried to do to dozens of female creatives that, for some reason, you've decided deserve to be taken down or taught a lesson. I've seen the descriptions you use. shrieking, bitchy, whiny, uppity, shrewish, karen (don't get me started on how karen has been turned into an easy excuse for misogyny). you're not bystanders to what james did and is doing, you're a part of it. sure, you might not have the nazi fetish, but you've said things about women that put somerton to shame.

just a thing to keep in mind while the plagiarism discourse is ongoing. somerton is a shithead for many reasons but this is one that's important to remember because I think people often treat misogyny like a lesser crime, a smaller concern, and it's not. just think of what laws are passing and what views popular movements have of women and then, for one moment, consider that maybe your reflexive need to blame women or pick them apart might have been influenced by the Society In Which We Live.

[alt-zadr-b1tch3z]

ALT-ZADR-WEEK 2024

This event is inspired by the vintage culture of Invader Zim (1990s/2000s) and largely relates to fashion and media trends of that time. This year pays homage to that via the magic of alternate universes and the creativity of the fandom when exploring them. RULES: Must be 18+ to enter   Both written and drawn submissions may apply To submit applications, post to tumblr and tag your submission as @alt-zadr-b1tch3z​   Do not harass the Artists/Writers  It is the preference of the blog creator that you depict Zim and Dib as Adult versions of the original characters. However, underage iterations of Zim and Dib will be posted if the artwork meets the criteria of Disney shipping (cheek kisses, holding hands, exchanging gifts, hugging, Not Being Sexual) No depictions of Racism, Sexism, Pedophilia, Homophobia, Transphobia;  or anything else I think is deplorable will be reblogged. I personally will block you if you’re being disgusting or a bigot.

Trigger warnings MAY include: Blood, Eyestrain, Drugs, Needles, Cutting, Gore, Suicide Mention, Murder, Violence, Infanticide, Patricide, Negative Depictions of Hospitals, Gay Cartoon Characters, Guns, Weapons, Vomit, and much more!  Feel free to send asks about specific things you want tagged.   Disclaimer: This blog does not condone any unlawful or harmful acts depicted in the events submissions. I will do my best to tag content for trigger warnings but may screw up, I’m just one dude. Negative mental health symptoms such as suicidal ideation, violent tendencies, long lasting depression, and many unmentioned others; are all things that deserve to be depicted in art and shared within an understanding and mature community. Sharing your experience with other like minded people is an important part of the coping process, and makes us feel less alone when we face the dark feelings within ourselves. It’s ok to fuck up and do the things you’re not supposed to, no one is perfect. You deserve to get the most out of life that you can. Healing is a slow process and it’s ok to acknowledge your bad feelings through art. If you are experiencing mental health problems, please seek out a professional avenue for help, or find some kind of healthy coping mechanism. You will thank yourself when you look back on it.  Thank you, for reading my preachy little blurb about why leaking brain badness is good sometimes. Please enjoy the showcase <3

IDEAS FOR SUBMISSIONS: The categories and subcategories are loose and unstrict, do what you want to with the prompts given, and have fun with it! 

Word prompts: Scene Word Generator   Fashion Prompts: Emo fashion board Scene fashion boards ART INSPO

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Poll analysis part 5

This one isn't so much related to fandom behavior. Overall, it's more about how certain characters or apparently where some people draw the line enough to have made a fuss in the comments or my inbox. I find it interesting where the standards are for some people and I mean I just drew the line at no sentient weapons or mechs

And when I say cause a fuss that would mean causing crap in the comments to messaging me asking me to ban characters or entire franchises because they're problematic for various reasons which I will get into. To flat out harassment of me for allowing these characters in my polls and the people who voted for whatever character they have a problem. It's the full spectrum of bad behavior. This is going to get weird

Izutsumi from Dungeon Meshi why is she the only character people are causing crap about for being 17? I have gotten so many messages about this one character. No one gives a crap about the other underage characters apparently, but the 17 year old cat girl is too much. And again, I think I would have gotten at least one message about one of the 15-year-olds but no just the underage cat girl. I am so confused why this is the line for so many people. When I say she has been a problem, she has been in two polls and she has been the source of 7 polite messages. 12 not nice messages full on harassing messages. Calling me a disgusting pervert for even allowing her in my polls. 11 comments that had to be deleted 12 tags/Reblogs that had to be hidden. All because they said something like she's 17 you perverts. I have set a new record for the amount of people I've had to block over a single character and she's been in two polls. I didn't get this much crap over the character that looked 12.

Kikuri Hiroi from Bocchi the Rock! My original problem character because of her Moe art style she looks 12. Even though she's 28, I've resorted to just putting her age in the post to avoid the things turning into a dumpster fire after that first poll.

Uncle Iroh was a character. I did not expect to cause issues because everyone loves Uncle iroh. Apparently some people find it weird that some people find him hot. Because multiple people have made a fuss in comments or in my inbox about how it's gross or weird to find him hot because he's a grandpa. Ironically, one of the people making a fuss about iroh really has a crush on Silvers Rayleigh the irony in that is hilarious.

Toji Fushiguro I've gotten a few messages about him saying he should be banned because he's a crappy father. A terrible person and anyone who finds him attractive should seek psychiatric help. People he's a villain calm down This is Tumblr. I feel like people have forgotten Loki mania where he was considered the god of Tumblr. I think Tumblr has a thing for villains. Look at the persistence longevity of the Hannibal fandom. So please calm down people it's still not a justifiable reason to ban a character from my polls.

Dracula from Castlevania because genocide and sexism once again I'm sorry people sometimes find villains hot. I'm confused about the sexism part. I think it's because of the way he treated Carmilla, But I'm still confused because that man loved his wife

Franken Stein from Soul Eater. I've gotten a message that he should be banned because he's a groomer. I watched Soul Eater and I'm also confused about this one. If any Soul Eater fans can anyone help me? I'm again so confused about this one. If anyone from Soul Eater should be banned for bad behavior, it is not Stein

Gojo, is a little bit of a headache character for me for the thousands of comments I've seen calling him the Blue-Eyed demon seriously Tumblr what has this man done to you? How did he hurt you? He is also a character I have had people message me asking me to ban because apparently he's racist. I'm so confused.

And to build upon this, someone sent an entire list of characters that should be banned because they have blonde hair and blue eyes because if they win that reinforces white centric colonial beauty standards I should have screenshotted that message. These polls are done for stupid fun and I don't think they are going to reinforce colonialism. In fact, many of you have told me they're going to kill the British monarchy and I think that's the opposite of reinforcing colonialism. That list is too long to post in its entirety here. Remember I said this was going to be a little weird.

Someone actually messaged me saying I should not put Victor from Yuri on Ice in future polls because he is not a good representation of the lgbtq+ community

I've also received similar messages about Grell Sutcliff and Yamato for the trans community

Dungeon Meshi You think would be free of criticism because it's so loved however Laios Touden should be banned because he's blonde with blue eyes and a bad representation of people with autism. I wish I was making this up. Marcelle and Falin are not safe either because some people have it out for blondes and they are also not good representation of the LGBTQ+ community

A bunch of Fullmetal Alchemist characters should be banned including Mustang, Hawkeye, Ed, Alphonse, Armstrong, Hughes basically everyone but Scar. Because those characters perpetrate and promote genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing, imperialism, the military industrial complex, colonialism, fascism, sexism, misogyny, and white supremacy. I honestly think someone missed the entire point of the show but that's just me.

Someone wants the entire Apothecary Diaries franchise banned because it's sexist, misogynistic and a poor representation of Chinese culture.

And basically any villain or abusive parent. Someone has complained about or pushed to get banned because it makes them uncomfortable. Because God forbid characters have flaws

So many One Piece characters are problematic just for being One Piece characters not for anything they've done in the story or their character arc or anything like that. It's really because I have a group of people that think I should ban the entire franchise from my polls because the one piece art style is misogynistic. Oh boy. I should have screenshotted some of the essays I received in my inbox. Some of you need to take a chill pill because if I get another essay about one piece being misogynistic because of the art style, I'm going to shame you by posting that crab publicly. Because I will admit the art style is not for everyone, but especially when it comes to the female characters. But those female characters are some of the best written you will find in all of Shonen anime. Plus if we really want to start banning anime franchises for being misogynistic, It's going to be a bloodbath. Because if One Piece is misogynistic for the art style, Naruto is misogynistic for the writing. And I could probably find something misogynistic about most Shonen anime. So again let's not even go there.

The only justifiable reason I would ever ban a character is if the fandom becomes so toxic it's no longer worth it for me to put up with the drama. Now all the blogs I have had to block have been dedicated to one of two things. Naruto or Dungeon Meshi. One of those fandoms I already refer to as my problem child fandom and the other one I hate to say is quickly becoming its twin.

So can we all just agree to calm down because if I banned everything someone had an issue with because it's sexist, misogynistic, racist, etc. There would be no characters left. So let's calm down everyone and please keep the complaints and the tantrums to a minimum. I am a fellow fan that runs this blog for fun and I'm very tired of this crap.

[twelvemonkeyswere]

Brienne and Femininity (and Masculinity)

I’ve been musing how one of the most important topics in Brienne's storyline is femininity, and even though her story isn't finished, we can fairly see what some of her major themes are around this—particularly, how performing or failing at performing femininity affects her both internally and externally.

Often I see people pointing out that, in spite of all of Brienne’s traditionally masculine ways—her clothes, her skill set, her body shape, to name a few—she does not fully reject femininity. That she likes little cute animals and fairy tales and wears dresses, and is shy and blushes frequently. This is an important point because, very often, fantasy settings made the assumption that a woman can only be taken seriously if she goes beyond “her womanhood” and acts and thinks “like a man,” as opposed to other girls who are too busy mending or wanting romance. Brienne challenges those tendencies that GRRM saw in his contemporaries. Things have changed a lot since (hello The Locked Tomb, for example), but you can still see where he is working from, and how many of the aspects of Brienne's story still resonate with more modern audiences because, well, sexism hasn't stopped existing. It's also important because the larger asoiaf and got fandoms often refuse to see this side of her, reducing her to a walking sword or a cardboard cut out of a pushover.

Now, my main issue here is that I feel several interpretations of Brienne have now gone on the other direction, and focus so much on Brienne PERFORMING traditional femininity—wearing luxurious dresses, using make up, accepting lavishing gifts, or wondering if she can be desired, for example—that we've gone sometimes on the opposite direction. I feel like many times we’re afraid or do not know how to approach characterizing her as someone who rejects aspects of femininity without making her into another “not like other girls” stereotype.

My two cents on the matter is that if we focus too much in what Brienne can't but "wants" to perform, we forget that she is, in fact, gladly rejecting some common impositions of femininity in her society.

Beginning with swordplay at a young age, for example, she was very glad to ditch a more traditional education in order to learn how to fight the way we know men are taught in asoiaf/got. She is also explicitly more comfortable in men's clothes. We all like the scene where Jaime makes an effort to give her a dress and she appreciates it, but we don't even find out what happened to the dress, because, presumably, the dress itself is not THAT important, at least not as much as the fact Jaime gave her gifts as a form of appreciation. Dresses have been used in Brienne's past to mock her (the event with the bear being the most recent one), and the important part is that Jaime is the only one who has given her one without that ulterior motive. The point of the scene is that where everyone undermines and underestimates her, he is acting the opposite way. We’re seeing how the relationship between them has evolved and that he is doing his best to mend what has happened and what he has done. She is given a dress and a sword as symbols that someone else in the story is beginning to appreciate her for all she is.

Beyond that, we even get details on the old shield Brienne got at Harrenhal, but not a word about the dress. Brienne explicitly doesn't really like being in dresses, she prefers mail and breeches, and feels more at ease in them than anything else. This is not her hating dresses because she is above them. I can’t remember well but as far as we know it’s just her preference: I don’t recall her saying she hates dresses, just that she prefers trousers. She must have been wearing dresses her whole life! It’s not likely she is unused to them. But we do know the act of being given a dress is important in Brienne’s story. The problem is not that they can’t make dresses for her, the problem is that everyone who forces her to wear a dress wants to signal how lacking she is as a woman, trying to fit her in a box too small for her real shape and then mocking her because she doesn’t meet their standard. The problem is they want to make her uncomfortable and they want to humiliate her, because she dares to exist in a way that doesn’t conform to patriarchal ideals. And the problem is that she likes to wear trousers and mail. She likes to wear masculine clothes, and they want her to be very aware of how much they disapprove.

And we also hear a great deal about marrying and having children out of duty. There's a certain loss she feels there because she believes that, at that point, all those missed opportunities will never present themselves again. All her life, she grew up with a dichotomy that dictated that the chance of having a family or children was through duty or none at all, because she is her father’s heir and—they kept telling her—nobody would want an ugly, masculine, temperamental girl as a wife. They could only want her for the money she brought. The point of the story is that, once again, failing the standards of femininity has forced her into a mentality where she thinks she can’t be loved because nobody would like who and what she is. But even then, even with that thorn in her mind, she still feels relieved she didn't have to perform these particular duties. The only thing she’s sad about is that she thinks she's missed any chance at having a family at all and will never know what that might be like. She doesn’t actively want babies or even to be married. She is still young, and at least to me, she seems to view these things in hypothetical rather than explicit goals or wants. She thinks that, at 20, there is no opportunity for her to experience these things because of how her society works. It’s the lack of choice that she mourns, down the line. But she rejects that particularly role that femininity imposes on her now. She didn’t want it, and she is happy it didn’t go through. She literally fought an old man to prove how much she didn’t want those impositions.

All this is interesting to me because Brienne also sort of thinks of herself as her father's son as well as her father's daughter. It almost slips her mouth once or twice. She is aware, I think, that many times the differences between a son and a daughter boil down not really to gender but to the sort of duty they perform. And she wants to do the sorts of things sons do, too. Men regularly learned to fight and wore the clothes she liked best and used hard-earned skills in a way she wanted to use them. There are layers to this (we’ll get to that in a bit) but she is, I think, very aware of her masculinity, and, if left to her own devices, she seems comfortable in it. The problem is she is NOT left to her own devices.

Most of Brienne's self doubt comes from outside forces. As a woman, they underestimate her. As a woman, they think she is stupid. As a gender non-conforming woman, every jape uttered goes directly to her womanhood. As a woman, if she looks the way she does and dresses the way she does and fights the way she does, when she expresses any vulnerable emotion, any shred of “femininity,” she is mocked for it. She likes dancing and beautiful things and pretty boys but a woman as masculine as she is is not the sort of person who gets to express those preferences without judgment from those around her.

The point is Brienne’s world wants her miserable either way: being unable to be a woman the way they demand of her, because she is too much “like a man” for it, or being unable to be a man, because she is too much a woman for that. The point is she can’t win regardless of what she does. Because that’s how sexism works.

But Brienne’s story is, I think, one about choices. The thing is that the world makes it harder for her, but she shouldn't have to be one thing or the other. She shouldn’t have to be defined by one or the other. If she wants to fight in the mud and smell roses and wear chain-mail and talk to charming men, she should be able to choose all of those things. I think it’s easy to focus too much in what aspects of femininity Brienne likes or dislikes instead of looking at what the story is proposing, which is to look at what Brienne,as a person, likes or dislikes. What she wants. Her parallel story to Jaime is about how the world will always try to put folks in boxes, especially those who, for some reason or another, do not easily fit in those boxes. The question is not “what feminine/masculine parts of Brienne is she happy performing” but rather “what does Brienne want, and why does she feel like she cannot get it and doesn't dare ask.”

This is also what drives her to servitude. There’s a phrase out there that says that if you don’t think you can be liked, you try to become useful, so at least there’s a reason to keep you around. It’s heartbreaking to see how Brienne’s vision of herself has been so skewed by the emotional abuse, parental neglect, and bullying she’s experienced since a young age. She doesn’t think anyone will grow close to her, so at least she can be close to people by serving them. She wants to put her skills to use, she wants to find a place where she fits, where she can be more herself, but she isn’t sure what that looks like or how to find it. She’s still searching, and learning many things on the way.

And Brienne is still very young. We can see her confidence growing and her worldview challenged and she is beginning to see the realities of herself and of the world around her through various trials by fire. Misogyny makes her feel incomplete, but we know the things she trusts about herself while simultaneously seeing the way she constantly doubts others. How she can't never express all of herself without constant judgment or mockery.

I feel like yes, the fact Brienne doesn't reject all traditional femininity is really important to her themes, but by extension, it's as important that shedoes reject some of those traditional expressions of femininity. What she is truly rejecting is imposition, not femininity. What she truly needs to embrace is freedom, not masculinity. She's making her own vows, breaking her own promises, going through her own mistakes. She is learning the hard way. Agency in a world of limited choices is one of Brienne's main themes too. There are moral issues that go deep within her story as well as examinations of the effects of war and the struggle to find authenticity and connection in a community that refuses to acknowledge yours, a community drenched in pretense and lost in performance.

And I think it’s easy to get too caught up in her wanting to be a girlfriend or a mother or wearing a dress that we bypass the whole conversation around why that matters at all. I feel like Brienne's success isn't going to come from her fully embracing all her feminine traits or fully accepting all her masculine traits but from being able, down the line, to be exactly who she is.

[theotterpenguin]

I really like the nuanced take about Zutara and why it makes some people uncomfortable and I can see both sides of it. I ship Zutara now but at first I didn’t and it made me really uncomfortable but I think it was just because of certain fan content I was coming across. Some people do portray Zutara in an extremely fetishized & creepy Stockholm syndrome way that makes Katara come off like some helpless damsel stereotype. It made me feel really gross thinking about as a young WOC but rewatching the show and seeing the true dynamic of these characters made me fall in love with them again. So I guess my feeling is that in canon i really love the dynamic but I hate the way *certain fans* twist it and refuse to acknowledge the racism & misogyny in what they’re doing

this is a complicated topic with many layers to it but first - i am sorry if you have ever felt unwelcome in the zutara fandom due to experiences with racism/misogyny.

it would be ignorant to claim that the zutara fandom is somehow uniquely unaffected by systemic racism or sexism, but it would also be disingenuous to claim that these issues only exist in certain parts of the atla fandom. racism, sexism, and general bigotry exist in every fandom due to institutionalized inequality in social structures. and to make it clear, i'm not directing this criticism towards you, anon, you are entitled to your own personal experiences, but i have seen a broader trend of people attempting to use fandom racism to moralize their position in ship wars, which is diminishing from the actual problem - the focus should be on acknowledging the existence of fandom racism/sexism, combatting implicit biases, and creating spaces that can uplift marginalized voices, rather than focusing only on optics in an attempt to gain moral high ground in a silly *fictional* ship war.

however, given all this, the reason that i am still in the zutara fandom is because i appreciate how many people in the fandom are dedicated to unpacking issues of racism and sexism and cultural insensitivity in atla's source material, which i personally haven't seen in many other sides of the fandom (that often sanitize what actually happened in the text to avoid acknowledging these issues in their favorite show). of course this is a broad generalization, but that's generally why i stick with the non-canon shipping side of the fandom because fans that are willing to stray away from canon are often less afraid to engage in critical analysis.

i also do think the zutara fandom has come a long way from the early 2000s when the show first aired. for example, when i first joined the fandom i had mixed feelings on fire lady katara, but i have since read some fanfics that have done an excellent job deconstructing some of the problematic ways that this trope could be interpreted and balancing respect for katara's cultural heritage and autonomy with the political and personal difficulties of being involved with an imperialist/colonialist nation. the fire lady katara trope, capture!fic, and other complicated topics/tropes are almost never inherently racist/sexist, but rather, their execution is what matters. and all this is not to say that issues of systemic racism/sexism do not still exist in this fandom, but it personally has not significantly negatively impacted my experience in the zutara fandom due to the wonderful content that so many other fantastic people produce, though everyone's mileage may differ with what they are comfortable with. anon, i hope that you are able to find a place in the zutara fandom for you! but i also know many people that have stepped back from other fandoms due to experiences with racism/misogyny, so i understand that decision as well.

on a final note, i think it's important to acknowledge that fandom doesn't exist in a vacuum and broader issues of racism and sexism are rooted in the media, the entertainment industry, and mainstream societal norms. while i do sometimes focus on fandom dynamics/discourse in my criticisms, i think it is equally as important to acknowledge how issues of prejudice and inequality are perpetuated through larger social structures, which is why it frustrates me when the atla fandom refuses to acknowledge the flaws of the original show, which has far more influence and social power over the general public than discourse over fandom tropes ever will. personally, i don't understand the phenomenon of holding fan-made material to a higher standard than mainstream media.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #4285:

People who try to desexualize female characters with hourglass/curvy figures by changing their body types or putting them in more "modest" clothing:

1) Are body shaming

2) Furthing the sexualiztion of woman's bodies

3) Treating clothes & hourglass/curvy body types as something inherently sexual

If you want to desexualize a character; put them in poses/situations that aren't sexual, have other characters refer to them as just cute/pretty/nice rather then sexy/hot/thick/etc, have them defend themselves or someone else defend them when another character tries to sexualize them and/or what they're wearing, don't have other characters lust after them/make comments on their body or clothes, focus on their personality and just who they are and not their clothes/body, etcetera etcetera, you should get the point.

Stop treating clothing and bodies as if they are inherently sexual by inadvertently saying they are sexual by removing those to desexualize.

This is coming from a woman who has a hourglass figure who is tired of both the constant sexualiztion in media and the quiet body shaming and sexualiztion in fandom btw

And while I can't fully speak on it, I'm sure my fellow ladies who have bigger rears, chests, or thighs but aren't exactly hourglass/curvy face a similar struggle.

Also this doesn't apply to people making adult content in their own private corners about hourglass/curvy bodies or clothing like thigh-highs/chokers/lace/leotards/etc. People are allowed to feel attraction be it romantic or sexual or both, just don't shame other body types that aren't your preference and don't treat body types and clothing that you're attacted to as inherently sexual—they're people connected to those bodies after all, and they're more then just the skin or clothes they wear.

I'm talking specifically to people who are trying to combat sexualiztion and sexism in fandom/media by treating hourglass/curvy bodies and clothing as something inherently sexual.

Oh and I almost forgot, this all applies to people who treat hourglass/curvy bodies as "unrealistic" too! No body type is unrealistic, because just like how some people are born with green eyes and some brown, you're born with a body type. What is unrealistic is expecting someone with one body type being able to magically get a new one through exercise or diets, not the body type itself.

[writing-for-life]

Nuance in (The Sandman) Fandom

Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

I thought a lot over the past few days, partly prompted by discourse on here, partly due to a couple of “interesting” asks and messages I received (the type you don’t answer). I *think* they might have been prompted by engaging in discourse on topics like anti-blackness/racism, misogyny/sexism, TERF characters etc in The Sandman.

Fandoms are always getting super sensitive if someone shines a critical lens on their favourite works, authors and characters. So to make this clear (in case it isn’t already obvious from my brain-rot blog):

I love The Sandman. I love Neil Gaiman. I have an extremely soft spot for Dream (and Desire btw, who deserves a lot more character analysis than just being summed up as “villainous, sexy bitch”. One day, perhaps ;)).

I can read The Sandman and just get lost in the story, even after decades and many rereads. 

But I can also view it through a critical lens—these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Not critical enough or too critical?

As fans, we can get trapped in certain thinking patterns, like:

“My blorbo can do no wrong”-syndrome 

“Characters with flaws are inherently problematic and imply authorial endorsement of those actions” 

“Characterisation and problematic subtext are one and the same” (aka overanalysing and looking for problems where there are none is the death of every story, but failing to see problematic patterns where they are clearly visible is a problem, too).

Don't say anything bad about my favourite character

I think this doesn’t need much further exploration. It’s not my personal way of looking at stories through permanently rose-tinted glasses (I always feel it stalls my experience, but my experience is not everyone else's). Some people prefer that type of escapism, and I’m good with that (although the downside is of course that by not willing to engage with issues, we can unwillingly perpetuate them). Live and let live, ship and let sail. But please, for the love of god: Don’t insult people via their inboxes or messages just because their opinions and preferences don’t align with yours. I’m not going to sugarcoat it or phrase it “nicely”: It’s infantile (and a form of bullying btw), end of.

How can you even like a character who's so horrible? And that author must be equally horrible, too

We have to separate flawed characters, even those who are written to be really problematic, from real-life endorsement of these actions. 

Author, narrator and character are three fundamentally different things, and don’t overlap as much as some people seem to think. 

We can write vile, despicable characters to make a point (for me, Thessaly was always a prime example for this, and I explained why here). We probably hate them as we write them. I don’t know what else to say, but this facet of writing seems to get more and more lost on people, and it’s a worry. Crying for sanitised characterisation is one step away from censorship. We explore what is problematic about people and humanity through story. That’s how we process and learn. It’s nothing new, but it becomes impossible if we can’t write flawed and even disgusting characters. 

Face value…

Since I’m mostly in The Sandman fandom, I often read that its ending is hopeless, and that’s supposedly the entire message. 

It is agonisingly sad, yes. But is it truly hopeless? I personally see it as quite the opposite, but of course that’s my opinion, coloured by my life experiences.

I also get that show-only fans often haven’t read the comics, or at least not the whole arc. And as such, their outlook from what they’ve seen so far (and choose to focus on) has to be different by default. I also understand that many people are quite new to the comics, even if they have read them in their entirety. I’ve sat with them for 30 years, and I still find new things on every reread (and I read it more times than anyone should 🙈), and I still don’t feel like I’ve understood it all. Perhaps because I still haven’t fully understood myself (and it’s unlikely I ever will). If there’s one thing The Sandman isn’t, it’s one-dimensional and easy to grasp in its whole depth.

I just wrote a ginormous meta on it, if you’re interested, it’s here:

Subtext, (not so) glorious subtext

This is where it gets complicated:

We shouldn’t mix up characterisation and story subtext. Overanalysing every line to death will always make us find something that’s “problematic”, when it really isn’t in the wider context of the story.

Zooming in is NOT always a good thing. Sometimes, we actually need to zoom out. 

But subtext *can be* (accidentally) problematic. Even in stories we love. And none of this negates what I previously wrote.

Stories have real-life implications of sorts, and we need to be able to talk about it. That’s where those slightly flabbergasting, hostile inbox messages come in, and I want to expand on that "topic of contention" a bit:

Neil himself confirmed that the Endless basically warp reality, and that this is why, after Dream’s failed relationship with Nada, many black women in his vicinity suffer terrible fates (Ruby and Carla in particular). And that this spell is only broken when he dies, and that it is the reason why Gwen doesn’t suffer the same fate. And said Gwen then gets used as a plot device to basically absolve Hob (who canonically really is a problematic character, whether show-only fans like it or not) from his slaver past. Once again, very clearly: No one is making this up. Neil confirmed it (for the comics, and that was over 20 years ago. It remains to be seen if his stance has changed as we move into that arc in the TV show).

I don't think it is correct to imply that Dream as a character is racist (I've read that, too) because he logically can’t be. He holds *all* the collective unconscious. He is also, strictly speaking, not white. He is everything and nothing, and he shows up in many different ethnicities throughout the whole arc, depending on who looks at him. But Neil played with a subtext here (reality warping due to a bad relationship which then affects everyone with similar physical traits) that will read very differently to a black person than it reads to a white person, and we have to understand why that is an *extremely* slippery slope.

Plus, we are supposed to see Hob, who *was* a racist at some point (you can’t not be if you’re a slave-trader—it’s impossible by default) as redeemed. And yes, he *does* regret deeply, good for him (and if I were saying this aloud, you would hear the sarcasm in my voice, because it is indeed all about him. We are to sympathise/empathise with him and his character growth while there isn’t much mention of the people he maltreated). But also: it was a black woman who basically forgave him (with dialogue that personally makes me cringe). And that black woman who offers forgiveness is not truly a black woman—she is a character written by a white man. And as much as author and character are not the same (see above), there is an inherent sensitivity in that power imbalance that we can't brush under the carpet.

I don’t think Neil is racist. Probably quite the opposite, and I can even see that his intentions were good from a storytelling point of view. BUT intention and impact are two fundamentally different things, and telling the story this way (comic version) betrays blindspots only white people have. Just like women have blindspots when they tell stories about men, and men have blindspots when they tell stories about women (and there are a few of those in The Sandman, too). And and and…

As storytellers, we can’t always speak from lived experience. It’s impossible. And that also means we occasionally make mistakes that look bad in hindsight, even if our intentions were good.

I guess the proof is in the pudding: What do we do when people who *have* that lived experience tell us it looks bad? If they inform us why it is hurtful, plays into old stereotypes etc?

Are we willing to listen and yield (both are the foundations of allyship btw), or are we insisting that our viewpoint as someone *without* lived experience is right? That lived experience extends to all lived experiences (sex/gender, sexual orientation, age...), and from all we’ve heard from Neil so far, it seems important to him to rewrite what he sees differently today. Whether they’ll always get it right for the show—we’ll see. At the moment, it looks a lot better than in the comics, and certain issues are already being handled with a lot more sensitivity, but a few problems remain.

Pushing back on criticism that comes from people with lived experience is problematic—I’d encourage us to think about what it looks like if a white majority in the fandom is basically saying that the opinions of POC are essentially “overreactions” (and yes, that happened).

It’s complicated. The Sandman was written in a different time, and I think we have to distinguish between things that weren’t really problematic at the time but have aged poorly (again, Thessaly springs to mind, and I have lived experience as a queer person during that time, so I can see it in context while at the same time acknowledging that I would make changes to bring it to the present day), and things that were always a problem due to blindspots. They were a problem in 1990, and if they don’t get changed, they are still a problem today.

This fandom is generally so much more open and nicer than others I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s infallible, because it’s full of humans. 

Nuance is sorely needed, in both story interpretation and interaction between said humans.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

I do know the type of guys this anon is talking about, and they are concerningly common in certain subsects of fandom(s). They sit and try to conflate fiction with reality by doing the following. They claim loli content exists because the age of consent in Japan is 14 (or younger)*, so that means Japanese law thinks it's totally fine for 30+ year old men to be with 14 year old girls. Some of them then go on to explain how the US law should be like that, or talk about wishing they could move to Japan. To state the obvious, this is deeply rooted in ignorance, racism, sexism, etc. The guys are creeps who want a young girl irl, since she wouldn't necessarily know the signs of a creep and wouldn't know he should be actually contributing as a partner.

The problem is: They'd be just as big of creeps if loli content didn't exist. They'd find something, anything, else to grasp at.

I really do not know how to explain it to people who are fortunate enough to not have dealt with an obscene amount of predators in their real life, but these people always find something to make them seem correct. And if they can't find something? They just lie. They sit and they make up whatever they want to justify themselves.

Because they are human, and humans always justify themselves; it's how our brains are wired to react.

Yes, some people who like loli content are predators. So are some people who like vanilla porn, who run churches, who volunteer at schools, who sit and scream on the internet about how evil x group is. Predators are everywhere, you cannot predict where you will find them.

All you can do is put safeguards in place, teach children the real behavior to be wary of, and make sure children have trusted adults in their lives to turn to when someone makes them uncomfortable.

*regarding consent above: Daddy G (aka Google) says it's 13-16 depending on the area, I'm not familiar with Japanese laws so I don't know specifics.

--

They just raised it to 16, but in practice, it was already often 18 due to other laws, and you can't get married without parental consent until 20 in many cases. (Laws vary by prefecture.)

[urtheoneiwant]

Buckle Bunny of Sorts │ Rhett Abbott

Genre: SMUT with some fluff

Summary: From the insistence of a friend, you spend a night out on the town. But you run into your long time crush, Rhett Abbott, and he has something to tell you.

Warnings: SMUT! 18+ ONLY! P in v, oral sex (female receiving), small spit kink, dirty talk, degradation, praise, kinda dom!Rhett and sub!reader, use of term 'buckle bunny', pining, revealing feelings, unprotected sex, pull-out method (be smart! don't use pull-out method as a form of birth control irl), messy sex, pet names (bunny, baby), a smidge of sexism from the towns people? Written as a fem!reader. Just nasty, nasty filth.

Word Count: 5.6k

A/N: My first smut! Please be kind, I'm still very new to writing and especially smut. But I loved Outer Range and I saw someone post about wanting to be Rhett's buckle bunny and couldn't get this out of my head. I didn't want country girl (as I call her) to be an actually buckle bunny since they are sort of frowned upon (but I say you do you). So this is the idea I came up with instead. It took me forever to write this, but I'm pretty proud of it. In conclusion, I love Lewis Pullman and the characters he plays. Go watch Outer Range if you like Lewis, he's amazing in it and it is such a great show! Now I have to go bathe in holy water :) Oh and feel free to send in any request or thoughts you have about Top Gun or other characters. There is a list on my page of the main fandoms I'm into, but you can send whatever you want it and I've might have seen/read it. And you can always reach out to me for whatever (rants, ideas, links to articles about be we're obsessed with) Thanks for the support!

SMUT BELOW CUT. 18+ ONLY. MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

(GIF is not mine)

Admittedly, you felt a bit stupid. In your head, this seemed like a good idea, but as the idea becomes a reality you mentally kick yourself for it. 

You’ve grown up in Amelia county your entire life. And in a place like this, people tend to stick to their roots, inner circle, and cliques. That being said, you knew just about everyone in your town, and definitely knew every boy your age. The problem was that they knew you too. Growing up you were definitely an outcast. Spending all your free time working to help pay the bills didn’t give you many chances to make friends. You were boring, safe. You knew it. You weren’t anything to write home about. At least that’s what you told yourself. 

Last week you sat with the one friend you managed to make throughout your time in school, Sadie, and spilled these thoughts to her.

“That’s bullshit honey, and you know it.” Leave it to Sadie to soften the blow. “I’m sorry, but you are beautiful, any guy would be lucky to have you. But you spend all your time holed up at work or with me. These guys haven’t got a proper look at you since you hit puberty, no wonder they don’t seem interested.” She lectured.

“Well, what am I supposed to do about that? Get all dolled up for a night on the town? Look around, it’d be ridiculous” You replied.

“Come on, let me take you out. Just throw on some daisy dukes, a risky top, and some nice boots. It’ll be fun. And I’ll personally beat the shit out of anyone who has anything bad to say. Please, please, please…” And you knew that when Sadie was like this, you had no choice but to give in. So you agreed, one night out. 

And that’s how you found yourself in your apartment letting Sadie pick out your outfit. She refused to tell you where you both were going, claiming that she didn’t want you to “get scared off.” And after opening the door wearing a pair of worn-out jeans and mud-covered boots, Sadie pushed her way inside to make you change.

She rifled through your dresser before holding up the tiniest pair of shorts you own. “No way, those are from high school. I don't even think they’ll fit. Plus it’s late out, why would I want to wear shorts?” You tried to reason with her, you really did. 

“They may not fit you like they did in high school, but that’s the point, honey. Just trust me this once. Everyone is going to be all over you.” She replied, and handed you the shorts. As you began to wiggle them up she quietly added “Oh, and Rhett’s going to be there.”

You froze in place, glaring at your friend. “WHAT? Oh my god. Oh my god. I can’t believe you.” Rhett fucking Abbott. The cowboy that you had been crushing on since middle school. Ever since the day he saw you walking home late after babysitting for a little cash and offered, no insisted, on walking you home. He was a few years ahead of you and happened to be friends with your older brother. Anytime he would come round your house to see your brother you would find yourself with your ear pressed to your door, trying to catch any of the words he was saying. Your eyes always seemed to wander outside your window to see if he was out back throwing a ball around with your brother. Once you even caught a glimpse of him shirtless after coming over to help your mom with some yard work.

Needless to say, your crush on Rhett didn’t get any better. In high school, you went out of your way to see him in the halls, or to accidentally run into him on your way home from work. You even went as far as to offer to tutor him in algebra, a class you yourself were failing. He wasn’t too keen on getting your help once your brother told him about that. 

Now, Rhett had grown up and you had too. You would see him from time to time at the bar you worked at, always polite and asking about your family. And even now, you couldn’t help the butterflies that erupted whenever he was around. Some crushes just don’t go away. 

“You’ve been into him since 8th grade! I can’t believe you haven’t made a move yet. It’s time to put your big girl panties on and do something. Hell, screw someone else for all I care. All I know is that if I have to watch you make puppy dog eyes at Rhett from across a room one more time, I’m going to lose my mind.” Sadie said. But that was the problem. No matter how many guys you went out with, or screwed, you always came back to Rhett. Honestly, you could see why it was so exhausting for your friend to watch all the time, it was a bit pathetic being a grown woman with a crush from middle school. 

Deciding to listen to your friend and do something about your pining over him, you buttoned up your shorts and turned to look in the mirror. Sadie was right, they don’t fit as they did in high school. Where they used to be a bit loose on you, they now held on to every curve you had. Damn, when did you get an ass? Swallowing your nerves, you shoved your feet into your white boots that only appeared on special occasions. To top it off, you threw on an old flannel opting to tie it up and undo the top couple of buttons to let a bit of your cleavage spill out. 

“Now, that is hot. He’s going to be drooling over you, just wait” Sadie hyped you up. She reached up and messed your hair up just a bit, giving it a wind-swept look before ushering you out to her truck. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After driving for a half hour, Sadie pulled into a dirt parking lot. You saw lights flashing, and heard cheering coming from the stadium seats. She took you to a fucking rodeo. Dressed in booty shorts. 

“This is a joke. I look like a goddamn buckle bunny for christ's sake.” You curse out to her. She has the audacity to simply smirk back and says,

“Bout time you start acting like one.” And with that, she was out of the car and walking towards the show. With no other option but to sit and stew in the truck all night, you reluctantly hop out too. You curse under your breath and begin to tell Sadie that this is the last time you go anywhere with her without knowing before what she had planned. 

Walking into the crowd, you felt your throat dry. You could feel people staring and you swore you heard a whisper that said “Is that Bruce’s daughter, Y/N?”. Suddenly, you became very interested in kicking the gravel under your boots. 

Sadie did her best to reassure you, grabbing your hand and weaving you to a back lot. The crowd was sparse back here, and it looked like most of the guys hanging around were bull riders getting ready. “I don’t think we should be back here,” you said into Sadie’s ear and moved to pull your hand out of her grasp. But before you could she whipped you back around.

“This is it Y/N. Scout out which one of these boys you’re going to be riding tonight” She said with a wink. You let your eyes briefly scan the group. None of them noticed you two seeing as you were tucked a ways away. You made out a few familiar faces but you had no desire to talk to, let alone seduce, any of these guys. As you opened your mouth to inform your friend of this, your eyes caught something. Not something, but someone.

Standing slightly turned away from you and chatting with some other rider, you saw Rhett. Maybe it was because you only got to see him in dim-lit bars nowadays, but you swore he somehow was more attractive than you remembered. 

He wore a blue flannel with the sleeves rolled up, allowing you to see the veins run down his arms. You got a flash of the tattoo on his forearm, the one you imagined so often at night when thinking of him. He had his chaps on, the fringe down the sides fluttering ever so slightly in the wind. His signature black hat was perched on his head. At that moment, you swear you could’ve died. 

You didn’t realize how long you had been staring until Sadie gave you a nudge. “Close your mouth or you’ll attract flies,” she said. It was then you noticed that you in fact had been standing there with your jaw on the floor admiring this man. Your eyes stayed locked on his figure as you gave him a once-over. God, he was gorgeous. Even with the layers of clothes he had on you could tell how lean and strong he was.

As your gaze made your way back up to his face, you were now looking right into his bright blue eyes. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He caught you. He fully caught you drooling over him. And just when it couldn’t get any worse, the fucker had a smirk plastered on his face and sent a wink your way. You averted your eyes and pretended you weren’t there, feeling a hot blush creep up your neck. But just when things couldn’t get any worse, you heard Sadie yell out, “Hey there Rhett”.

You silently prayed to the gods above that he wouldn’t walk over to you two, but it fell on deaf ears as you heard the crunch of gravel grow louder. Next thing you know he’s standing right smack in front of you. “Hi there Sadie, how’s your ma?” he asked, his southern drawl heavy.

“She’s well, thanks for asking. You know Y/N right? You were friends with her brother growing up” Sadie tried to segue. You forced yourself to bring your eyes up to meet his. 

“Well of course I do, how could I forget a face as pretty as that?” Your eyes snapped to meet his. No way, there was no way Rhett Abbott was flirting with you. He was just being nice, that’s all.

“Oh um, hi. Good to see you.” You muttered out, full of nerves. Sadie cleared her throat and you thought back to her earlier lecture. Maybe it was finally time for you to get out there. Stop playing it so safe all the time. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself. So with some more confidence mustered you blurted out “I hope you do good tonight. I’m sure you will.”

Without missing a beat he responded, “Oh now that I know you’re here I definitely will. Always ride better when I know a gorgeous girl like you is watching.” His words sent heat blooming between your thighs. Fully committing to the act you took a step toward him and leaned up onto your toes to whisper in his ear.

“Well if you win, we’ll have to celebrate. Why don’t you come to find me after you finish up? Let me give you a victory prize.” You did your best to put on the most sultry voice you had. And despite the confidence you were exuding, you were scared shitless deep down. As soon as the words left your mouth, you were off. You swayed your hips a bit as you went to find a seat, knowing that he would be looking.

You didn’t dare look back until you reached the arena seats. Sadie guided you to sit down amongst the crowd, all waiting for the show to begin. And just as she opened her mouth to ask you what happened you whisper out “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Oh come on, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad at all.” She whispered trying to not draw any attention.

“Oh no. It was bad. Very very very bad. Can’t show my face around here again bad. Have to leave the country bad.” You felt bile rise up in your throat. You turn to your friend and recount to her what you had just told the man of your dreams. It was like word vomit, you couldn’t stop freaking out and rambling. 

“Y/N. STOP. Take a breath. The worst case he says no, he leaves once he’s done tonight. At least you know you tried. But you’re forgetting that he could be just as into you. And from the way he was talking it sounds like he is. So it’s going to be fine. He’s fine, you’re fine. All we can do is sit and try to enjoy the show.” Sadie reasoned with you. And you knew she was right. So you sat there, ass freezing from the cool metal bleachers. The more you thought about her words, the more you were able to calm yourself down. What’s done is done, and you rather be rejected than never know. 

The soothing mindset you were in came crashing down the second Rhett’s name rang out. He was heading out for his final ride of the night. You felt your mind go blank and body numb as you focused on the arena in front of you. Honestly, you knew very little about bull riding but the way his muscles strained and body twisted was enough to keep you interested. Timed seemed to slow as you stared at him squeezing his hips to stay on the bucking bull.  

After what felt like minutes of him being tossed around, you gasped as he was uprooted from his saddle. You knew that was bound to happen with any bull riding venture, but it still startled you to see him thrown about like that. He was yanked up and led out of the arena until the bull was wrangled. When he walked back out, your tension eased seeing he was unharmed. 

You locked eyes on the scoreboard and nearly fell out of your chair when you saw his score. He won, holy shit he won. You were on your feet in an instant, screaming your head off. You felt a rush of pride for him, knowing how much his bull riding meant to him. Sadie jumped with you, and you were sure you were the loudest there. 

After yelling for much too long to be appropriate, Sadie gave your arm a tug. “Come on” and you, still being in a blissed-out state, let her take you back to where you first ran into Rhett that night. You looked around in the dark, eyes wide anticipating what would happen next.  A chill ran up your spine as you thought about your earlier promise to Rhett if he won. Startled out of your thoughts, you heard the sound of whooping and cheers from some men around you. Cranking your neck around you spotted him.

He was caked in dirt and his sleeves were hastily pushed up, hat askew on his head that was tilted back with a wide grin. Your mouth ran dry as butterflies erupted inside you. His eyes began to scan the small crowd of people before landing on you. Burning with embarrassment and admittedly desire, you shifted your eyes elsewhere. But soon enough, you heard that all too familiar voice. “Hey there ladies.” 

“Hey Rhett, congrats on the big win. Y/N and I were cheering you on” Sadie said. 

“Oh, I bet y’all were. Hey Y/N, can I talk to you real quick?” Rhett turned and asked you.

With a nod of your head, he gently took your hand and pulled you under a nearby tree. Still too shy to make eye contact, he brushed his hand under your jaw and turned you to look into his blue eyes. “You know I don’t expect anything. If you want to act like nothing happened earl-”

“No” you rush out. “No, I mean I want to. If you do.” Talking to just him and him alone felt so much easier. You felt your confidence grow back and expectantly looked at him.

“Well darlin’ I would want nothing more. You want to go back to your place for a bit?” He questioned, still being gentle with you as to give you an out if you changed your mind.

“Yes please,” you murmur. You felt as though you were floating when he wrapped a strong arm around your waist and led you back over to Sadie. 

“Hey Sadie, you alright if I take Y/N home? Just figure it would be nice for us to catch up.” 

“Oh, sure! By all means, go ‘catch up’” Sadie had the cockiest smirk plastered on her face, and while you wanted to be mad at her for it you also know she was the whole reason you were going home with Rhett Abbott tonight.

Walking out to the parking lot, Rhett keeps his arm firmly around your midsection till you arrive at his truck. He opens the passenger door for you before walking around and getting in himself. The roar of the engine coming to life jolts you forward a bit, remembering that you were in fact about to go home and get railed by the hottest cowboy you’ve ever seen. 

“What are you thinking about Bunny?” Rhett can tell you were getting lost in thought.

“What did you call me?” Surprised by the nickname and the way it made you clench your thighs even tighter. 

“Bunny. You look like a buckle bunny in that getup. But it’s cute, I like it on you.” He answered honestly. On any other occasion, you would’ve been pissed that someone thought of you as a buckle bunny. You grew up on a ranch in rural Wyoming, you were the farthest thing from a buckle bunny possible. But the way Rhett talked about you made you melt. 

“Oh yeah. Blame Sadie. Wanted me to get myself out there more I guess.” You replied chewing on your bottom lip.

“Well, it was definitely nice to see you outside of the bar you work at. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for the longest time but I felt weird bothering you at work.” You whipped your head around at the confession.

Staring at his side profile as he continued to drive, “That’s nice of you to say, but it’s okay you don’t have to lie.” You didn’t believe it. That a man like Rhett would be interested in talking to someone like you. 

“I’m not lying. I’ve always kinda liked you. But I guess I just never acted on them. And I know we’re on our way to your place so I can rail the shit outta ya, but I’m not just interested in sex from you. Let me take you out one night? It took me long enough to make a move on you, don’t make me wait any longer.” He said with the utmost sincerity. You were stunned. Shocked. All this time you two idiots both liked each other, and it was a rodeo and a plotting friend to finally make you realize it. 

“I would like that. A lot.” You smile up at him as you pull into the parking lot of your apartment complex. 

Cutting off the engine, Rhett runs around to open your car door. Always a gentleman. You laced your fingers with his as you tug him upstairs to your place. You feel him placing teasing kisses on your neck and jaw when he can reach you. You giggle, moving even faster to get up the 3 flights of stairs. 

When you reach the door of your apartment, you fumble around looking for your keys in your purse. When you manage to grab them, you pull them out with shaking hands cursing as they fall to the ground. Before you could bend down to retrieve them, Rhett already has them scooped up. He chuckles softly before resting his hand on your shoulder and rubbing your arm soothingly. 

“You don’t need to be nervous Bunny. But I want to ask you again, are you okay with this?” He asks kindly, eyes soft and hands warm.

“More than okay.” And you pull him down by his shirt to crash your lips onto his. It was messy and desperate. Teeth clashed and tongues battled for dominance. You slid your hands up Rhett’s neck and into the curls at the back of his head tugging softly. His one arm wrapped around you and pulled you impossibly closer to his body. You recognize the faint jingle of keys through your fuzzy headspace and realize he was unlocking your front door with his tongue down your throat. 

The door soon swung open and Rhett began to push your intertwined bodies inside. Stumbling in, you hear a door slam behind you before he has you pushed against a wall. His leg came in between yours, knee and thigh pressing up into your core. You let out a whine into the kiss, the feeling of him making you even wetter. In fact, you were sure you were absolutely drenched. 

Seemingly reading your mind, Rhett broke the kiss to ask, “How wet are you Bunny? How wet does the idea of my cock have you? Bet you were sitting in those stands all night just soaking wet.” You merely moan in response, your brain not working fast enough to form actual words. Rhett brings his lips to your neck biting and sucking hickies into your smooth skin. You run your hands down his back to the hem of his shirt. Too impatient to unbutton his top, he leans back and pulls it over his head. 

You knew Rhett was strong. After years of working at the ranch and bull riding, you expected him to be pretty muscular. But the actual sight of his abs, sharp and all edges, makes your mouth water. You tentatively place a hand on his toned chest. God, it looked like his body was made of chiseled marble. Under your hand, you feel his warmth radiating and the steady beat of his heart. When you force yourself to pull your eyes up to his, he says “Your turn.”

He places his hands on the bottom of your shirt, eyes silently asking if he could take it off. Your hands reach down and cover his, urging him to swiftly remove your top. His eyes immediately move to your breast, covered in the white lace of your bra (if you could even call the small scrap of fabric that). You hear a faint groan come from him before he ducks his head down. Placing open mouth kisses along the top of your tits, he brings his right hand up to palm your breast and roll your nipple. His mouth goes lower and latches onto the other nipple through the lace of your bra. 

Your fingers tangle into his hair, pulling him closer to you. It’s not enough. You’ll never have enough of him. Soft moans tumble past your lips and Rhett takes this a cue to keep going. Eventually he pulls off and uses a hand to unclasp your bra as it falls to the ground. Getting a full view of your tits, Rhett brings both his hands to them and gives them one last squeeze before kissing your lips once again. Getting frustrated and wanting, no needing, more you drag your hand to his ripped figure. Your fingers trailed down the wide expanse of his chest and trace down his happy trail until you reach the waistband of his jeans. Popping the button and pulling down the zipper, Rhett helps you by tugging his jeans down as fast as he can. He kicks them off, leaving him in his tight boxer briefs. A tent is growing in them and you let out a gulp at the size of him. 

“Don't be scared honey, I’ll stretch you real good before I fill you up” his voice fills the air. Excited at the idea, you grab his arm and drag him farther into your apartment and to your bedroom. You pull him in front of you and push him down on the bed causing him to look up at you. Reaching to your shorts, you nearly rip down your legs ready for him to touch you. Before you can pull your panties down, Rhett reaches out to them. He rubs his calloused hands over your hips and yanks you so you have no option but to straddle his figure. “Bunny, with panties like that I don’t think I could stand you not wearing them as I fuck you.”

You whimper at his words alone and he lets out a chuckle. He runs hands up your back and suddenly you are flipped over onto your back, Rhett now looming over you. Scooting down the bed, Rhett's face lands between your legs throwing them over his shoulders. He moans when he sees the wet spot that seems to be growing on your panties, landing wet kisses on your inner thighs. You think how could someone make a sound so beautiful. But you are quickly pulled from this as he tugs your pink panties to the side and takes in the full view of you. His eyes darken and he rasps out “Holy shit baby, you are so goddamn hot. I might come in my fucking boxers,” and he subtly grinds his hips into the mattress in attempt to get some much needed friction. Opening your mouth to make some teasing comment, you instead let out a cry as Rhett licks a bold stripe up your pussy. He lands on your clit, tongue moving in figure eights over top. For the second time that night, you find yourself pulling Rhett by his hair closer to you. He then alternates between lightly fucking his tongue into your dripping hole and brutally attacking your clit. The duality of pleasure causes your eyes to roll to the back of your head.

Rhett places the tip of his finger at your entrance, sliding it up and down through your folds first to get it slicked up. He breaches your entrance and your toes curl as he slides knuckle deep. “Fuck, oh my god Rhett please please, keep going,” pathetic pleas fall from you. You feel him adjust his thick digit in you until he finds that spongy spot that has your back arching. “Right there- right fucking there.” Any other night you would be embarrassed that someone has you so close to coming with one finger, but right now you could care less, only able to focus on the increasing burn in your stomach. 

You can practically feel Rhett smirk against you as he eases a second finger into you, again going directly to that sweet spot inside you. He begins to thrust his fingers in and out of you, still using his mouth to suckle your clit. You are screaming in pleasure, babbles of “please” and “don’t stop” leaving your mouth. The coil inside of you is close to snapping. You are so close, so unbelievably blissed out. “I’m gonna cum Rhett. I’m so close” you speak out in warning. 

But just as close to the edge as you were, all the pleasure you felt was quickly ripped from you as Rhett removed himself from you. You glare down, sweat dripping down your forehead. “What? Why did you stop?” you croak out, voice already strained from your screaming. 

“Oh Bunny. I want the first time you cum to be on my cock.” Rhett responds and leans up to place a hot kiss on your mouth. You deepen the kiss, wanting more of him. You can taste yourself on his mouth and soon he pulls back to say “You like that dirty girl? Like the taste of your sweet pussy? You should, it’s the best pussy I’ve ever got my mouth on.” You feel yourself clench at his dirty talk, managing to turn you on even more. You whimper and try to buck your hips up to encourage him to do something, do anything. Instead he just laughs, “Oh you are so desperate Bunny. Need me to fuck your tight pussy, make you cum so hard you can only yell out my name. Don’t worry Bunny, I’ve got you.” As he speaks he wiggles himself out of his boxers, hard cock slapping his tanned abs. 

He props himself onto his forearms and brings a hand to his mouth. Your eyes widen as he spits into his hand and reaches down to pump himself a few times. Noticing your reaction he looks at you. “Open your mouth” and you obey, sticking your tongue out for good measure. You feel something wet hit your mouth before you process that he just spit into it. Rhett Abbott just spit in your mouth. And you swallowed, savoring the taste of him. “Good Bunny” he says into your ear. 

“Rhett. Fuck me.” You whine out. Now it’s his turn to moan, finally sheathing his cock into your cunt. You gasp at the stretch and he waits a few moments for you to adjust. After a second you whimper out “Move please.” And Rhett doesn’t need to be asked twice, pulling nearly all the way out before slamming back inside you. The force of his thrusts push you up the bed despite Rhett’s bruising grip on your hips. 

“You feel so good baby. Squeezing me so tight. Best fucking pussy.” he praises and you clench around him. “Oh baby, you love when I talk dirty. When I tell you how amazing this cunt is. Going to make it mine, never letting anyone else near my pussy again.” You are pathetically whining and thrashing. Your nails are raking down his back, surely leaving welts in their wake. He clashes his lips onto yours and picks up his pace. The brutal fucking makes you feel like you’re floating. He licks into your mouth as you let out a steady set of moans and cries. 

Just when you think things can’t get any better, Rhett snakes his hand down to rub tight circles into your clit. Paired with his cock repeatedly hitting the sweet spot inside you, you know the knot in your tummy is starting to unravel. 

“Rhett” you whine, “Rhett, I’m so close.”

“Come on baby, make a mess on my dick. Wanna feel you cum” He responds. 

Clamping down on him, you are brought even closer to the edge. Eyes tightly shut, you turn your head to the side and let out a moan louder than you thought was possible. No one had ever made you feel this good before. You couldn’t even believe that it was the man you had been crushing on for years that was in your bed, in your pussy. And with that reminder of who it was that was fucking you better than you’ve been fucked before, you saw white behind your eyelids. As you reached your peak, heat spreading all the way through you, you couldn’t help but yell out, “Cum Rhett, let me make you feel good. Wanna be good for you, only for you.” 

Unable to resist your fucked out babbles, Rhett ruts into you. Once he knows you’ve finished riding out your orgasm he pulls out from you. Furiously fisitng his cock, he groans out reaching his own release. White ropes of his seed spurt out and land across your tits and you mewl out at the warm, sticky substance coating you. Teasingly, to bring two fingers down to swipe through his release and bring them up to your mouth. You suck on the cum from your fingers, loudly moaning at the salty taste. Both panting hard, Rhett adjusts your panties back, flops over and lays next to you. “Shit y/n. That was amazing. Was it good for you?” And you blink hard through your fuzzy mind searching for a response.

“So good. The best, I think you succeed. Definitely ruined anyone else for me.” Rhett laughs at that. Abruptly, you are filled with a new feeling. It’s warm, cozy. You blush and you realize just how much you have fallen for this cowboy next to you. 

You get lost in the idea that this is the start of something real between you two. No longer will you have to pine for him from afar. He likes you, he wants to be with you. You are consumed by him, forever connected you think. No matter what, he’ll always be there. He’s not leaving. And it’s that thought that brings you so much happiness and lets your body relax completely. 

A wet towel between the valley of your breasts pulls you from the daydream. Rhett has at some point gotten up and found something to clean you two with. You melt, heart softening at how kind and caring he was being. God, you were so lucky. 

The two of you cuddle up and spend the next hour talking about random things. Your favorite movies, what your go to karaoke song is, what you plan to do in the future. And it is easy, it’s the easiest thing you’ve ever done. And when your eyelids become heavy, you find yourself slipping into a peaceful sleep listening to the beat of Rhett’s heart. 

[comradekatara]

Re: Zuko sexism and fandom: I think that a LOT of people are just genuinely unwilling to actually view Zuko's bad behaviour as actually consequential. He gets "forgiven" by the Gaang and he has a big dramatic duel and then he rules the Fire Nation so it's fine actually. If it wasn't fine he wouldn't have been forgiven, like Jet! They use the lens of end-of-series Zuko, influenced by how the Gaang forgives him, to then retroactively handwave away his earlier behaviour and view it as if end of series Zuko is just misguidedly doing those things, rather than it being an actual expression of what he believes in and his morality at that point in time. Part of it is an abundance of sympathy and projection because he's the most explicit (and arguably only explicit, because other child abuse victims are never injured or attempted-murdered that we know of, and that's the bar for many viewers. Neither are any other than Zuko positioned piteously or as victims of Serious Injustice.) child abuse victim in the show and we see so MUCH of his internal struggle. For like a whole book. There's also a consistent trend of viewing the Fire Nation as Yes, Actually, being better than the other societies, they just shouldn't have tried to spread it via war, so yes Zuko is ✨indoctrinated✨ but in a feminist galaxy brained way not a bad fascist way. So the colonialism would've been fine if people had just agreed with how great the Fire Nation is! Pretty much the entirety of Zuko's bad behaviour is handwaved away as "he's a good guy who had a bad life! We forgive him for all of it, he's trying!" And to a lot of viewers, it's also "he's also hot and I've had a crush on him since I was like 14!". He's genuinely a huge asshole to pretty much everyone around him like, almost 24/7, for the majority of the show. And he has his reasons but he's still caused a lot of harm, and that we see? he's basically only revised his views on violent colonialism, making his Anger other people's problem, and some parts of racism. He only ever addresses what he's done to the Gaang and Uncle to. Does he buy Song another ostrich horse? Does he give Kyoshi reparations? Did he ever find out if that farming family with the kid Lee were harmed for harbouring a FIRE NATION PRINCE? What did he do to apologise to the Southern Water Tribe? Whatever he did to apologise to and thank Mai, if anything, I can guarantee it wasn't enough. That's just his personal stuff, never mind his policy choices as the New Fiery Dictator. It's so boring and frustrating how much people gloss over his jagged edges, because without those edges his narrative and how he fits into the world and story just collapses completely.

you’re so right about all of this. I think his final scene with mai is especially emblematic of how his resolution is framed as “and they all lived happily ever after” even though I remember perfectly well how he treated that poor girl so I’m just yelling at her to run away the whole scene. although I will say that stealing song’s ostrich horse was probably his most justifiable crime just bc if I was a disfigured burn victim and someone tried to touch my face without asking I’d also consider committing petty theft against them. ngl. he still does owe her a new ostrich horse though. and of course framing his ascension as some grand victory is thematically/telelogically appropriate, but I highly doubt he would be like. good at firelording. but that’s for another post. ppl really like smoothing out his edges and treating him as if he’s beyond reproach when everyone only finds him so compelling in the first place because his flaws are so obvious, so they assume he’s more “complex” than the other characters (and also more relatable, but that’s for another post too). it’s actually kind of funny if you think about it. “he’s the best because he’s so noticeably flawed and therefore so complex but also I love him so he doesn’t have any flaws actually and is probably a feminist socialist who loves eating pussy and listening to women.” and this is also lowkey how ppl talk about sokka too but at least sokka does actually do those things, zuko doesn’t even pretend to😭 anyway. i keep saying today that you guys couldn’t handle revolutionary girl utena, but you guys REALLY couldn’t handle revolutionary girl utena…

[leportraitducadavre]

It is quite striking how the main plot of Naruto focuses on the problems brought about by a military system whose foundations are intrinsically patriarchal and how much of the “feminist fandom” focuses on the little to no inclusion of women within that system, rather than its dismantling, which was proposed to and tried to be carried out by other characters such as Konan (to mention a female character as bringing Sasuke to the picture might “compromise” the fandom’s idea of “feminism” that upholds itself under the notion that only women can be part of it).

To quote @dushman-e-jaan:

What’s even funnier is that the military as an institution is deeply patriarchal: it’s patriarchy at its best. So wanting Sakura’s inclusion into its apparatus is just a dull, neo-liberal contextualization of locating a “middle-class side-lined girl” into patriarchy and its state strongholds, its militia arms, extensions that are extensively, liberally, and fully utilized to maintain state’s oppression. Something which we saw in the case of Ame’s mass-starvation, Uchiha Massacre, Hyuuga Clan’s slavery, etc. In this regard, to Sakura fandom, inclusion in this oppressive-apparatus is a power-fantasy, a means to cut in on the action not cut it out; so therefore, the question shouldn’t be as to why Sakura isn’t included; it ought to be that why should there be any expansion on the basis of inclusivity into patriarchal institutions in lieu of smashing these systems? However, Sasuke’s just a mean “terrorist” who made “weh-men tears” flow, so the misogyny is just Q-anon deep, and nothing but tumblr feminism can unfurl its insidious tentacles.

In lesser terms, the problem with this idea of “inclusivity” within an intrinsically repressive patriarchal system is that it is sustained on a smoke screen that hides the rottenest veins of the state, because then what is relevant is not the dismantling of an oppressive, enslaving, and genocidal political system, but the lack of female participation within that oppressive, enslaving, and genocidal political system. To this specific “woke feminist” fandom that is the real problem, that is the real issue within such a mindset.

Women are forbidden or diminished from positions of power in a structure specifically designed to oppress different groups of people to keep others at the top of the pyramid, and instead of seeing such a construction as a direct reflection of the real world’s dogmas and the characters that oppose them as real world’s feminist, you lot complain about the lack of female representation or “female power” within that maniacal structure! You’re more concerned about women not being “housewives” inside a military state that rewards blind nationalism and punishes criticism with literal genocide, than dismantling the entire structure upon which such a patriarchal notion is built.

[The idea that women cannot show off and are forced into a lesser role or have their capabilities diminished in pursuit of the enhancement of male abilities is absolutely in line with the patriarchal structure that Naruto's military system reflects. Even the "sexism" that Kishimoto reflects within the manga is consistent with the political system he puts forward and disputing it to make it more "feminist-friendly" does nothing but detract from its verisimilitude.]

Funnily enough, even when I point this out, they will find a way to twist it to their own benefit, because then Kishimoto is the one responsible for not “allowing” female characters to rise against such a patriarchal system (despite Sakura never suffering any of its worst consequences as she was taught by the Hokage herself, or even Hinata getting to be a slave-owner). Inclusivity is everything that this argument boils down to, your twisted wish to see women at every single panel whether it’ll be against or in favor of a genocidal state.

That’s what “woke feminists” taught you and that’s what you’ll defend with your breath, the problem gets again individualized and the real issue, the real problem that the plot is trying to reflect, gets buried upon piles of these arguments.

“The problem is about the military state that at its core it’s patriarchal” =/= “Then why did he write it as a patriarchal state?”

“The military state it’s patriarchal at its core so it’s the real world one” =/= “Then why didn’t he write female characters rising against it?”

“There’re characters that oppose such structure, which is feminism at its finest.” =/= “But they aren’t female.”

And so on… it’s impossible to “win” or get our point across as you move the end goal every time a new argument arises. It’s about fulfilling your power fantasies of invincibility rather than bringing down the patriarchal structure; just like with Naruto’s character, is about gaining acknowledgment within the oppressive system (becoming a renowned/desired individual) rather than dismantling the power sphere to guarantee other minorities’ safety.

Their idea of feminism comes down to women having a more important part inside that tyrannical paradigm, bringing the power scale towards them. It’s not about stripping oppressive institutions of their power, but rather having influence over such spaces.

This is an example of White Feminism’s victory; white feminism doesn’t want the oppressive structure to be questioned, they don’t want their faint position of power to be argued; they want to expand their influence and reach beyond the usual cultural “female” spaces, so they bring down the discussion to simpler topics, like the idea of female participation in such affairs; if they are involved, then it’s good if they’re not, then it’s not.

Even the fact that many of these "feminists" jump to the other side and incur either in the over-festivity of the capabilities of female characters (some being basic skills such as moving with speed) or in the minimization of such to compare them with the "better" male capabilities (which only serve in more violent, clearly patriarchal issues to which these people consider superior given a clear misogynist internalization of the little relevance of powers that are not aligned with the intrinsic violence of the military system) contradicts their supposed dogma.

Under this premise, and I repeat myself because I must keep my arguments as simple and repetitive as possible, the patriarchal system against which they claim to rebel is sustained and deepened since the women who claim to subscribe to the feminist movement have modified their bases to obtain greater relevance, greater individuality among the exploited community -they stop being oppressed to some degree as a reward for their contribution, they become what they swore to destroy in exchange for “inclusion.”

True feminism is about the dismantling of an oppressive structure, passing through the various spheres of repression; gender disparity is only one of many power relations to be questioned, not the only one.