#part of it is just misogyny

[marchlione]

another bone i have to pick with atla fic writers, writing katara in a way that makes her out to be a totally unreasonable bitch who goes out of her way to hurt zuko or refusing to treat him is completely ooc. katara, no matter how much she hates someone, always tries to help, it is the core of her character, no matter how angry she is, no matter how much she can hate, she always, always, chooses compassion and forgiveness. This is a choice she makes even when confronting her mother's murderer. She could have killed him or done any number of things to him, but she didn't. In her own words, Katara will never, ever turn her back on someone in need. That is Katara's greatest strength and what makes her my favourite character.

In the beginning she, like Sokka, is helpless to the dangers her tribe faces. When she, Aang and Sokka travel to the North Pole, she is yet untrained, and if caught or attacked, she doesn't have much in the ways of defending herself, but despite this, she goes out of her way to try and help other victims of the war in any way she can. After being trained, she has the power to defend herself and others. She even gains the ability to blood bend. With all this power that she didn't have before, she could have gone the way of Jet and exacted her revenge in anyway she could, without considering how it hurt innocents. She could have done a lot with her bloodbending. But she didn't. She draws a line in the sand, she chooses "good", she chooses to be compassionate, even when it would be so much easier to hate, and hurt, even when it would make far more sense to turn someone away. Katara is the first person to give Zuko a chance, despite the fact that he has been chasing them from the moment Aang came out of that iceberg. Zuko had been pursuing the gaang the way Azula hunted them for far longer, even if he didn't deprive them of sleep. He at one point caught her and tied her to a tree. Katara had so many legitimate reasons to hate him and turn him away and not trust him. And we know she is capable of hate, we know she is capable of hurting. But she doesn't. That's the point. That is who she is.

So making her a petty bitch going out of her way to cause bodily harm to poor baby zuzu, is extremely disingenuous. We, as the audience, know Zuko's arc, we've seen his journey, we've watched him realize the harm the fire nation causes, the atrocities they've committed and resolve to no longer be a part of that and eventually accept that he has to actively make the world a better place. We know that his betrayal under Ba Sing Se was him backsliding, and was ultimately what sealed the deal in terms of him coming to realize the full extent of the fire nation's corruption. But their world didn't sit around "waiting for him to switch sides, and had to plan for a future where he didn’t" (quote from 'There Within' by Avataraccount on ao3). And a direct consequence of Zuko's betrayal was Aang's near death and destruction of the Avatar cycle. Katara was the one who worked tirelessly to keep Aang alive, to keep the world's last hope alive. She was the one who had to directly face the devastating consequence of her choice to trust Zuko in the caves. So when Zuko comes back and reiterates the spiel he gave her (albeit with stronger and firmer conviction but that makes no difference to someone who has heard a version of it before and watched him go back on it), Katara is well within her rights to not trust him. Making her distrust seem like it is childish or selfish is ridiculous. As is trying to justify it as her "character flaw". Katara is learning from what she deems as her mistake from before. In fact, she's making the smart decision!

[trans-androgyne]

Well if your pronouns include “he” now, don’t you know you don’t need safe spaces? After all they give you full gender rights under misogyny, and you’re suddenly more likely to be violent sexual and queerphobic. I’m just affirming your gender after all, so I can’t be transphobic /s

[blueskittlesart]

deeply refreshing to see someone critical of Swift who also like, genuinely likes her. Like i'm neutral to positive on her, but the online discourse has been absolutely rancid. flipping between "Taylor Swift has never done anything wrong ever and she's a fucking genius" and "Taylor Swift is the worst lyricist of all time and also a bad person" is exhausting, so thank you for like. nuance or something lmao

not to make it serious for a sec but i genuinely think that being able to like things that are bad is really important. like I think that it's an important skill to be able to look at something and see what you personally enjoy about it and then take a step back and acknowledge that objectively it's flawed. and to also be able to acknowledge that liking something isn't necessarily an identity or a moral stance. and i think that fandom space in general could really benefit from more people taking the time to learn how to do that. it's okay to like things that are bad

[sergle]

what I was talking abt earlier. we have fully looped back around and away from feminism, societally, whereas before it was very Feminism 101 to acknowledge that many parts of existing as a woman in a misogynistic society are painful and upsetting. not that being a woman is Inherently Negative in a bubble. but that living on this earth, in the conditions we're living in, is hostile to women. and that gender is a performance. that many of the Staples Of Femininity as accepted by society are things that you have to create and perform and mold artificially and aren't inherent, that COMPLAINING about day to day difficulties of existing as a woman is something that you're allowed to do. acknowledging these basic, again, feminism 101 things, that something tied to womanhood is more time consuming or more expensive or more dangerous Because Of The Problems. does not CREATE the problems. that when women complain about having to perform femininity, they are not, in fact, oppressing themselves. the call does not come from inside the fucking house. saying that you HAVE suffered does not fucking equate that you believe you SHOULD have suffered.

like I could talk about this for hours. how braindead and one-dimensional the Takes are getting. "being a woman is looking in the mirror and going fuck yeah i'm a woman" damn. I guess any negative experiences you have by living in a misogynistic world... are your fault if you are anything but positive? "you don't actually want liberation" we've fully gone back to telling feminists "you WANT to be oppressed" when anything negative about our society is pointed out. it's not real until I say it out loud, I guess, and then I'm actually the one who caused it. if anybody expresses any unhappiness with how they're treated or the status quo or the language and culture surrounding womanhood and femininity. they've created it, right that second. they invented it just now. it wasn't a problem before somebody complained, right? also trans women aren't braindead zombies who just follow the flow of whatever cis women around them say. I am pretty fucking sure they are very much aware of pain, and are MORE than aware of the swirling torrent of misogyny and standards of femininity than anybody else. actually. and I am pretty sure someone complaining on tumblr that being a woman means always putting on a performance is going to make someone change their mind about transitioning. also "performing femininity" as a necessity to being treated well as a woman is not fucking NEWS to your Local Trans Woman. I AM PRETTY SURE SHE GETS THE CONCEPT. using trans women as a scapegoat for this braindead perspective on gender politics is spineless, meritless, and pathetic.

[nothorses]

I think these conversations would go better if we conceptualized terms like "homophobia", "transphobia", and "misogyny" not as the "basic" oppression that you start with until you sprinkle intersectionality on top, but rather as names for where more complex experiences overlap.

"Transphobia" is not the "base" we start with and build on with other experiences; it's the place where more specific experiences overlap. It's the middle of the venn diagram where "transmisogyny", "transandrophobia", and "exorsexism"/"nbphobia" all overlap with each other.

It's the thing we all have in common; not the thing that some people get extra special versions of while others do not.

[altocat]

More cringe memes. Lucrecia Edition.

[fromtheseventhhell]

One major factor missing from most debates on Arya and Lyanna's beauty is that they're being judged by their society's extremely patriarchal values. In both looks and personality, that context is essential to understanding how others perceive them. George explores the misogyny experienced by non-conforming women, especially with Arya, and it's interesting how he plays with that regarding their physical beauty.

Her mother used to say she could be pretty if she would just wash and brush her hair and take more care with her dress, the way her sister did. (The Blind Girl, ADWD) "You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert," Ned told him. "You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath. She would have told you that you have no business in the melee." (Eddard VII, AGOT)

These two quotes offer a nice summation of this idea. With Arya, her supposed lack of beauty is defined by her being a non-conforming wild child. Her hair is messy, her face is dirty, and she's often in "lower class" clothing while engaging in unladylike activities. None of this says anything about her physical beauty but it tells us everything about how she's perceived. Arya could be pretty...If she conforms to society's standards for a highborn Lady. With Lyanna, however, we get the opposite. Where Arya is judged based on her personality, Robert's romanticization of Lyanna is rooted solely in her looks. He doesn't know anything about the person she really was. There is an assumption that, because she looked a certain way, her personality must fit and Robert imagines her much softer and more passive than she actually was.

That Arya isn't pretty or Lyanna wasn't wild are two perceptions that George specifically pushes back against. This is where people miss the brilliance of them being linked as literary mirrors; it is largely about us learning more about Lyanna, but it touches on more than that. The significance of them being written as wild, willful, and with their own beauty is that George isn't writing his female characters around patriarchal expectations. When people debate their beauty, that's often the trapping they fall into. Beauty and non-conformity are treated as mutually exclusive factors when the story itself never makes that point; this is also the logic that leads people to the (incorrect) conclusion that Lyanna and Arya aren't meant to be similar. Arya's self-esteem issues around her looks and being a Lady make this a topic certain to be addressed in the future; George has made it a part of the story. The conclusion shouldn't be that "looks don't matter", but that looks aren't indicative of a character's value, personality, or morality.

[jacksprostate]

Things I won't forgive the fight club movie for regarding the character of Marla Singer, entry C:

The manic pixie dreamgirlification of her own struggle with life and death. The narrator gets to have a serious issue driving his alienation but Marla gets her cancer removed so her pithy statement about the tragedy of death being that she doesn't fall over dead randomly is just a bit Offbeat And Interesting And Edgy haha! She's a real tourist, really, nothing ever stated to be wrong about her. Sure she overdoses. Sure you can see she's got a shit life. But she doesn't get backstory. She doesn't get a life beyond fun little statements that, when her own reason for saying and thinking them is removed, mostly just reflect the narrator. In the book, it is very, very clear. Marla does what she does because she has cancer and is afraid of The Slow Death. The Wasting. The Struggle. By taking that away you even reduce her suicide attempt. It puts it all in this context of nothingness. Sure, you can assume a depth, but I don't think we should be uncritical about the fact that they chose to remove it. Marla Singer is more than an object that bothers the narrator out of the support groups and gets fucked by Tyler Durden. Marla Singer is a person in her own right in the book, and in the movie she's just... not.

[dyketubbo]

not to be a woman womaning all over the place but i feel like if you genuinely like. do not have friends that are women then you have something to work on. if you cant think of any female characters that you treat the same way you do male characters then you have something to work on. if you cant handle even seeing "i dont like being called a guy/bro/lad/etc because it doesnt feel gender neutral to me" but can understand when one of your masc besties is uncomfortable with being called girlie or sister then you have something to work on. if your default in regards to how you handle other people and even characters is to assume masculinity then you have something to work on. if you cant even let women and otherwise feminine people speak about our experiences without bringing up how you suffer too then you have something to work on.

it doesnt matter if youre queer or a poc or a minority in whatever which way, if you do not include women in your life and cant even stand a fucking inch of genuine feminism (and i dont mean terfs but god is it fucking agonizing that thats all you people can think of when you hear feminism anymore) where the point is to treat women, all women, equally then you have something to work on. listen to women, even the ones whose experiences completely dont align with yours (hell ESPECIALLY the ones whose experiences completely dont align with yours). just like how we all have to check ourselves for racism, ableism, queerphobia, we all have to check ourselves for misogyny too. stop acting like it got solved at some point. it still exists and it exists within you and you have to actually fucking work on that. "women should be included in your life and you should listen to them" shouldnt be a hard goddamn pill to swallow.

[a-sketchy]

man i think yosuke is like, more obsessed with the idea of women than he is attracted to them as people. i don’t think he’s so far gone that he doesn’t think women are people, and i do generally interpret him as being attracted to women, but i think the concepts are a little separated in his head, and a little mythologized. like for example, there’s such a visible shift in his behaviour when he’s thinking of chie as a person and when he’s thinking of her as a girl. like, i think he considers chie the person as someone that’s ultimately really important to him, a good friend that he cares about a great deal, but is also super irritating and not his first choice of person to spend very extended amounts of time around. chie the girl is a Girl. and yosuke Likes Girls, as like a relatively important part of his identity, so he hits on her despite having less than a snowball’s chance in hell. i don’t think he’s even all that attracted to her specifically, he’s just attracted to the concept of girls that’s been built up in his head

[autismserenity]

pretty please, my fellow progressives

Could we please all keep in mind that the concept of "The Jews In General, or A Specific Type Of Jew, Controls Education, Government, Media, and/or Banking", is a longstanding antisemitic trope?

And most of all, that it is false??

No, a marginalized group does not also control education, the government, the media, and/or banking?

No, Jews do not secretly control these things and just pretend to be marginalized? No, Jews have not secretly been accumulating power since the Holocaust, granted by too-generous gentiles, out of pity?

No, it isn't better if you just mean a specific subgroup or kind of Jews. It's still specifically Jews.

It's like when people who hate trans/queer people are fine with rich white cis gay men. So they think it's not bigoted to blame "people with blue hair and pronouns" for the downfall of society.

We all know this means, "I only see some of you as human like me. You have to speak and act a certain way to count. Everyone in your group has to pass a test to get into the Good group."

Doesn't work.

Sure, it gives them plausible deniability to the people who matter to them. But everyone else can see exactly how they feel.

We've all known for years that it's bad to think of a marginalized group as having some "good ones." Rein it the heck in, please.

Because YES, all of those examples are ones I've seen implied, or stated outright, over and over, within the progressive community. This month alone.

[r0bee]

Seen people talking about how Lloyd and Kai fans are winning with Dragons Rising but barely anyone is talking about Nya fans. As a Nya fan I need to acknowledge that I'm winning so hard rn my girl is finally getting the screen time she deserves

[fernsnailz]

When I finally have a reason to hate the gay YouTuber I always hated teehee

yeah that's what i've noticed a number of people saying 💀 i had watched a few of somerton's videos last year while i was finishing school and i thought they just weren't really for me - i thought his delivery was a bit too dry and his writing lacked much of a central idea/thesis, i never really left any of his videos feeling like i learned anything. now i know why i guess

[gayleafpool]

ppl hate crowleaf for the wrong reasons i personally think it’s great for what it is: an unhealthy relationship leafpool felt pressured into bc it was a way for her to get away from a life she was unhappy with and a future she was nervous about. and then it doesn’t work out because she can’t give crowfeather the level of devotion he expects from her and in the end she doesn’t win because there was no way for her to win. like that’s the tragedy of it. unhappy in the clans and unhappy away from them. and she still gets punished for it for the rest of her life for daring to go against what it expected of her. is the relationship healthy or good for leafpool? no. was it important to the plot and did it raise interesting questions about leafpool’s life and how she was always going to have a life of misery no matter what she did or how hard she tried? yes

[txttletale]

🔥TERFs

i think TERFs are very similar to incels in that they're a specific manifestation of a broader societal phenomenon (misogyny/transphobia) that have an outsized online presence so people significantly overestimate their political significance

[metaladam]

Still uncertain which dad im gonna write but if I do write Crimson? Y'all better not cancel me for writing him like he is in canon!