#it’s not even that i want to die necessarily

[f1ghtsoftly]

my head is scrambled but in Kate Manne’s “The Logic Of Misogyny” she put to words something I always, always knew was true.

Most of the time Men don’t hurt women for no reason, they punish women who assert themselves/their personhood. Misogynistic violence is a punishment, it’s a form of conditioning to get women to behave submissively towards men. To punish women for existing in public without male protection. To punish women for daring to think her intellect, athletic or artistic achievement could come before her sex.

I don’t present super femme anymore or hang around men outside my family basically ever-but when I did I was frequently targeted for sexual assault, usually by men who were frustrated they were attracted to me but couldn’t have me. They felt like I was taunting them-but asserting my right to exist as someone they were attracted to/without any sort of male protection or a male protection that didn’t involve sexual favors/submission. That wasn’t an accident, I’m sure if I meekly cowered behind a big boyfriend, I’m sure if I stayed inside, I’m sure if I didn’t assert myself as extraverted, intelligent, funny or charismatic those men would have left me alone-but that would have meant hiding myself from the world, hiding myself from other women and to me that was a bigger loss than a ‘lil danger. I made choices as a young person that I knew with certainty would bring me in closer proximity to men who wanted to hurt me, I decided that living a freer life was better than living a safe one. I don’t necessarily regret my assessment of patriarchy, I am sad that the price you pay for being an independent woman (in a social sense) in public is assault. I don’t blame women who think their safety is more important than making a statement. I’m sad for us both. I’m grateful I was able to find feminist communities because victimization isn’t just something casual you can shake off, even if it feels like men constantly target you/women in general.

Assault doesn’t just roll of your back either. It hurts. In the moment and for years afterwards it hurts. It’s always senseless. Always dehumanizing to the extreme. Always enraging. Always profoundly violating. Always a shock. I struggle to reconcile what I know about rape with what I know about people. I know people can be cruel, unthinking, insecure. I don’t know how someone can plot the rape of a friend or a stranger who has done nothing to deserve it. I don’t know how men can secretly tape their lovers, manipulate a young woman into sex she doesn’t want or do any of the things men do consistently or routinely. I don’t know how a boy could look at the face of his too drunk friend and go “this is my opportunity to have my way with her” instead of putting her to bed. Carelessness, thoughtless is easy to imagine. Conscious cruelty is not. Men know what they do and they either don’t care or like it.

I’m crying in a park in my Dad’s pickup truck. “There are worse things than this, you didn’t die-you’re alive” He says “this wasn’t your fault, I just want to keep you safe and what happened to you isn’t something I can control even though I wish I could”. “I’d feel better if you lived in Austin, because their self defense laws are better, there are lots of gay people there too”

He makes me laugh. I won’t move to Texas. He’s right, it’s not my fault, and helping me get better at self defense helps him feel like he can do something and while self defense does help-it’s not a perfect strategy. The misogynist’s prerogative is to snuff out the life force of the woman he interacts with, the only way to stop him from trying to do that is to become apart of the living dead. Even then, he’ll get your corpse.

There are worse things than rape in this life. A woman alive is better than a woman dead. I guess, but what life is it when constantly forced to battle for your right to live? When at a moments notice you can be filled from the inside out with death. Rotted from your insides out. I wish New York would let me have a gun. I wish I could make men afraid and polite in my presence the way I feel afraid and polite in theirs. I’m so tired of this.

[nervousyoungtwinfantasydog]

hey alexa, play “bodys” by car seat headrest

[mccoyquialisms]

wait, there’s for real, serious discourse about the bad kids killing the rat grinders? people realize they’re watching a show based on the “burn towns, get money, slaughter our enemies to save the day” game, right?

[roseworth]

grabs you by the shoulders and screams alex's death WAS misogynistic!!!! comparing it to uncle ben's death doesnt change that!!!!!!! the intention was for it to be an uncle ben death but the execution of it made it misogynistic because it was cruel and unnecessary!!!!!!!!!!

[kidatanaka]

tanaka & friends

[sanctiu]

jyuto really found this guy and just felt so bad for him he couldn't even arrest him

[usurabis]

the thing I love about sukuna is that he is a walking catastrophe. a calamity. a being of godlike stature and power. peoppe see him and instinctively fear him.

and yet, he is still just a guy.

he has hobbies and interests (food, poetry, murder, etc.), he has people he likes (well, one person I guess) and people he despises.

the way he acts towards yuuji is more like a middle school bully, if a middle school bully had unlimited power over life and death. honestly I think he'd be just as happy seeing yuuji stub his toe as he was laughing at him about junpei.

he's a master shittalker, and sometimes even does it to save face, but he's actually quite polite towards almost everyone. he praises almost all the people he fights (yuuji being the biggest exception). he seems to respect people who have the audacity to stand up to him and at least some strength to back it up (yuuji, once again, excluded). he'll still talk mad shit, though.

this is what makes him such a great villain to me. despite his canonically godlike power, he can't escape the remnants of his humanity. there's no question that he is evil and that it would be impossible to redeem him. and yet, his personality is very human. a horrible one, but human nonetheless.

[pinacoladamatata]

Man like. I really hope the theories about 'redeeming Solas' ending being to die/mirror his friend wisdom where he dies but will eventually get respawned as a 'new' him, aren't true. Because ngl that's. A very unappealing ending imo. Like that isn't worth the 10 year wait at all.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Something about this interaction between Harry & Janeway - specifically Janeway but it's notable that Harry's the one listening because I think, say, Chakotay or B'Elanna might push back against the idolization of this 'it was different back in those days' way of thinking.

[dramarants]

i only want love triangles if it's whatever fucked up polygon junmo kicheol and euijeong have going on

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.

Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.

Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.

And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!

Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.

[butnotbubblegum]

using the tags to vent my current emotional state into the void bc ig story feels like a bad plan for this, don’t read them if you’re having a bad day, they’ll probably not help in the slightest.

[sysig]

I am not immune to any cutes - including Rick and Morty cutes, unfortunately (Patreon)

[whotooklortan]

Was reading Villains Are Destined to Die and at first I was super happy as an autistic reader to have a female lead who was low empathy/self prioritizing until most of Eclies' plot started to play out. I think I wanted low empathy without the slavery and manipulation and lovebombing aspects, maybe. I'm only reading the manhwa so maybe the novel is better at handling it but honestly I switched up so fast the minute I realized Penelope was just fine with racism and slavery as long as it didn't effect her negatively.

[orcelito]

Ykno I'm so glad bc I never have to give another hour long presentation in this class again. I did it. I got it over with. But I will be getting the classmate review papers on Thursday and I'm very nervous about it actually. Part of it is supposed to be constructive criticism. Brother no criticism is constructive for me if someone criticizes me my brain implodes and I am certain I am a waste of space who has no skill whatsoever etc etc until I'm like OK well that's objectively not true. And I try to put it out of my head. Anyways I'm sure I did fine in general but my head is like "what if they all hated it and graded me terribly". Like it was probably a pretty average one actually. But it was such dense subjectmatter. And God my voice was not holding up for such a long presentation. I kept stumbling on my words near the end. So rough. God I don't want to know what they said but also I do and I know I'm going to be reading every last paper. I will just also internalize any possible criticism as a moral failing of the highest order. You know

[marsixm]

big spoiler cw for the finale- i understand why a lot of people didnt feel like it made sense for how ed was acting during izzy’s death scene, like it didn’t feel earned or whatever bc they’d been at odds w each other since last season, but for me, and understand i’m not saying my personal experience making it make sense for me is trying to give undue writing cred or whatever, but i had a very difficult relationship with my very transphobic/bigoted mother. she made my life a nightmare a lot of the time. but i had to care for her in death. i had to watch her die for months. it was a waking nightmare, and it had a profound effect on me. it was complicated. it made my relationship to my memory of her very complicated. (and even if it hadnt been a months long ordeal i was caught in the middle of i’d probably still feel similarly) and that’s how ed dealing with izzy’s death feels to me. just like him having to kill his father, it was the right thing to do, but it still left him with difficult emotions. when ed says “you’re the only family i’ve got left” to izzy, after all the bullshit they put each other through, i get it.