#the fucking gender essentialism in those discussions man

[pikachu-surprised-face]

"Female characters can certainly have characteristics found within The Hero's Journey, but it would be difficult to apply characteristics found within The Heroine's Journey to a male character because they generally can't and don't relate."

"The Hero already has power as a man. The Heroine battles not only the conflicts at hand within the story, but is also dealing with the prejudice of being a woman."

ah yes. men just don't know what it's like to aspire to be in a more priviledged position, quite possibly requiring a betrayal of the self, eventually reclaiming initial values, skills or attributes.

men?? dealing with prejudice?? not having power?? has never happened, ever.

just. women can relate to element's of the men's journey, but men could never understand those female woman elements of a story. men and women are just so different, lol. men could never relate. I am a progressive btw.

[strawbeerossi]

A Helping Hand

Pairing: Gender Neutral!Reader x Spencer Reid

Description: You have an issue with staring at your professors hands.

Content/Warnings: Course language, Reader has some perverted thoughts, hand kink, finger sucking, sexual tension, fade to black sex.

Word Count: 0.9K

Kinktober Day Sixteen: Quirofilia

Navigation || Kinktober Masterlist || AO3

Spencer Reid had sexy hands. That was a given. The prominent veins in his hands made you drool, wanting nothing more than to suck on his fingers or have that same hand wrapped tight around your throat. 

It was easy to discreetly stare, mainly telling your professor you tended to zone out quite a lot. It wasn;t exactly a lie, yet you didn’t describe the fantasies of having him shove two fingers in your mouth to keep you quiet while brutally assaulting your sex in his office after class. The vivid thoughts of feeling those large hands gripping your hips or bringing it to cover your mouth had you in a spiral.

You didn’t ever expect to feel these feelings towards a man who was old enough to be your father, however you weren’t going to complain. He was an attractive man and he knew that, carrying himself with a form of confidence that didn’t make him arrogant but made him self aware as to why so many people audited his class over the thousands of others that were probably more aligned with their interests.

You liked how patient he was, even despite his time in prison. He always had a smile on his face when discussing lesson plans, talking with his hands and it was truly the cutest thing you’d seen. He always enjoyed when he was rambling during his lectures, dumping every ounce of information on the subject with everyone else. 

Today was no different, Dr. Reid going into the intricacies of triggers in budding unsubs as well as what could be a trigger and what wouldn’t be. It was admittedly a boring lesson but thankfully, he was excited about the topic to ramble for the full hour of the lecture.

You’d been ‘zoning out’ the whole lesson, practically drooling over the sight of his hands as he did many gestures for his talking points. You could only imagine the trigger it would take to have those hands gripping your body, pulling you flush against him in the front of the empty classroom while he wandered your body with care, wanting to feel every dip and curve.

You were staying after class today, mainly to discuss a research paper that he’d given at the beginning of the week. As soon as the class was being wrapped up and you got the opportunity to catch your sexy professor alone, you jumped to it. “Dr. Reid,” 

Most of the girls in the class looked at you with annoyance, having similar ideas to you in order to have a fraction of the man’s attention.

“I was wondering if I could discuss my paper with you, I’m struggling to differentiate between triggers and stressors.” You didn’t really have trouble with it but he didn’t have to know that. With his million dollar smile, Spencer was gesturing for the page in your hand, which was essentially just a layout. “I can help you with that, you know, I figured you would have no trouble with the assignment. You know you are one of my best students.” He spoke as he was letting his eyes glance over the handwritten notes you’d had.

His eyebrow raised, looking back up at you. “You’re confused? These notes are perfect and you have a clear layout for your paper. Why would you pretend like you had no idea what you were doing?” 

Fuck. You handed him the wrong paper, it was supposed to be the one filled with mixed information.

“O-oh, I..” You paused while looking over in his direction while your cheeks were heating up from embarrassment. Spencer seemed to catch on though, chuckling. “You know you could’ve just asked to speak to me. I would’ve accepted it. Now, why are you really here?” 

“I, uh, well I wanted to just talk to you about the assignment.” You let your shoulders sink.

“You are a horrible liar. Let’s not forget that I am a profiler. Seriously, is everything okay?” The paper in his hand was being handed back to you, a soft squeak leaving your lips as his hand brushed against yours. “It’s nothing! I should go!” You panicked, ready to run out of the lecture hall before Spencer was grounding you by wrapping his hand around your wrist. “I notice the way you stare at me. Was this just an excuse to talk to me?” Instead of seeming uncomfortable, he looked intrigued. “Come here. Please.” He spoke while letting go of you.

Now you could run, however his voice was luring you closer, now standing on the other side of his desk. Your gaze trailed to his hands briefly, making your professor lift his hands up, almost as if he was giving you a better look at the large, veiny hands. “Quirofilia, or the attraction to hands, is actually fairly common in terms of attraction.” He caught you. Fuck.

“I-is it?” You asked, the male nodding as he offered a smile and brought his hand up to cup your cheek. “Very. Some people like being scratched, others like being caressed, sucking fingers is also another very popular method.” He listed off his facts, his thumb running alongside your jaw. This wasn’t real, was it? No, it couldn’t be. It sure as hell felt real, especially when the pad of his thumb was swiping over your lower lip.

You didn’t see a point in denying such an open invitation, your lips closing around his thumb once you’d taken it into your mouth. “You’re a finger sucker.” Spencer concluded, chuckling as your cheeks hollowed as you sucked and swirled your tongue around his thumb. “And a very eager one at that. Come here.” He murmured, now pushing the things on his desk out of his way, gesturing for you to perch your body on the desk as he was moving to run his hands over your clothed thighs.

“Let’s explore this kink together, shall we?”

[in-depth-transsexualism]

I need some of y'all need to get real about the trans men/transmasc male privilege discussions. Because I was literally the “girl” with long hair wearing frilly outfits being told by people online and irl that I had male privilege.

The "trans men and transmascs all have unequivocal male privilege" is so fucked to me. You've essentially told a young me that I'm not really a "man" and not even a "trans man" because I haven't gotten on hormones and passed at all. Is that not it's core transphobic? I thought my own mere self identification was "valid?" What happened to trans men who are feminine are "valid?" Also the very things you expect me to do to "earn" my title, I didn't get any tips from the likes of y'all jumping to tell me about this so called "privilege" I have. When I looked up "trans men" in the search bar, you know what I saw? Not resources on how to afford HRT and where to find binders, but discussions of passing trans men and male privilege. No, I did not have "toxic masculinity" when I had long hair and wore dresses and told people that the "I hate men" and "kill all men" comments made me uncomfortable. I WAS A SCARED TRANS KID, I WAS A TRANS YOUTH. I see the "protect trans kids" t-shirt you wear. I was constantly told by people close to me that I was incredibly kindhearted, only to be told, suddenly told, after I came out I needed to be "a good man." That if I had an issue with that rhetoric I was toxic. I strive to be a good person, regardless of my identity, I always have, but suddenly now as a "trans man" I'm not doing enough. If I squint it looks no different to me than being told being trans is a sin from my own Church Priest. Because that's the only thing that's changed about me.

When I pass? It mostly happens in the dark or in a way when I'm read as a twelve year old effeminate boy. I had someone come up to my friend while we were talking in the dark telling her he "wish he could have me." Within the years I've been out, I've been raped, explicitly because of my gender identity, dealt constantly with "jokes" about hurting me and lots of other shit.

What are you doing about those issues?

Some of y'all need to get so real. Get uncomfortable with cisgender privilege, get uncomfortable acknowledging there are people in your community who are less fortunate than you. And as a disclaimer, I'm not saying these conversations about passing and male privilege aren't worth having. I'm saying they both A, require more nuance, and B as a participant, you need to think about why you're having them. I think they're a shield for some of you to avoid facing something. Maybe it's the non-passing trans men that make you uncomfortable because of your internalized transphobia, maybe it's cisgender privilege, I don't know.

[dykefever]

hii so i’ve seen the term gender essentialism thrown around recently in regards to certain portrayals of r/s and i think it’s often a term being used incorrectly. discussion under the cut in regards to this xx

the textbook-y definition is: Gender essentialism refers to the belief that gender is a discrete and dichotomous social category (i.e., one can be either a girl or a boy, but not both, nor somewhere in between), and that gender is inborn, biologically determined, immutable, and informative of categorical properties.

i’ve seen this term being used to say that drawing sirius a certain way (ie. ‘too’ feminine and ‘looking like a cisgender woman’) is gender essentialism as it’s kind of inserting a cishetero lens on a gay male relationship. i’m afraid that well. that’s not quite correct. assuming things like facial features, hair length, amount of muscle, height, certain personality characteristics like being submissive, signify a specific gender and are assignable to that gender is gender essentialism. and i see this happening every few months or so in this fandom.

i think there is a conversation to be had about writing queer relationships with a cishetero lens and i think it’s one people are trying to have, however it’s not quite the one happening now. the one i often come across and seems to circulate in this fandom edges close to terf-rhetoric and is what we’ve seen terfs in this fandom say before. i’m absolutely not saying people that have been speaking on this recently are terfs, i really genuinely don’t think so. i just think there’s been some issues with the way we are talking about characterisations and gender. i also completely understand the frustration of the trend of a certain depiction of a character taking over the fandom, especially when it’s one you don’t really prefer!

i also think people are trying to have a conversation about the weird r/s dynamic of sirius as whiny and annoying remus and making him fed up with him. i hate those characterisations too! they feel extremely far away from who the characters actually are and it just seems kind of mean! while i think perhaps these portrayals are influenced by those kind of sitcom-esque nagging wife/annoyed husband dynamics, it’s still not gender essentialism nor, i would argue, placing a straight relationship dynamic over a queer one. straight relationships aren’t actually this dynamic, at least not normal, healthy ones, and women aren’t inherently whiny while men are inherently stoic and reasonable. associating women and men with certain characteristics and applying this to characters and people is what gender essentialism is. now, someone might write with the intention of placing sirius or remus in the man or woman “role” but the solution is not to write it inverted, or to write them both as what society calls masculine — it’s to call into question the very idea that a woman is submissive and a man is dominant, that these roles have to exist in a relationship, and that if there is someone submissive or dominant in the relationship that this automatically places them in a gendered role.

there’s also the role of misogyny in associating women with certain characteristics that people dislike such as whiny, childish, overly sensitive and desperate for attention. seeing men depicted in such a way and thinking that this character is now, essentially, a woman, is very much wrapped up in misogyny and transphobia and is phenomenon that needs to be frankly killed lol.

in my opinion, the whiny sirius vs annoyed remus makes me think of a child and their parent, not a man and a woman, and that is in fact super fucking weird but that’s not what this post is about so i digress.

i’m not the most eloquent when speaking on these things but i just wanted to make a post about this as i pretty frequently see something along these lines come up when speaking on how these characters are written. am open to discussion of course and welcome trans people to add their thoughts/correct me on anything!

[captainofthetidesbreath]

it's truly abysmal how shipping fandom has reduced the concept of compulsory heterosexuality / comphet (in all its complex, at times fraught, history as a political and theoretical concept) down to "a character I want to be in a femslash ship is not in a femslash ship"

the concept exists as a radical feminist, typically political lesbian and feminist separatist (more on that later), critique of real-world patriarchy and male power over women's sexuality, agency, creativity, freedom, and relationships in a way that prevents women from having fulfilling, enriching, and dynamic relationships with other women of all types for the purposes of isolating them and forcibly re-focusing their energy into controlling heterosexual relationships and reduces women solely to objects for male desire and power

compulsory heterosexuality also is actually not a fully accepted critique or lens, particularly in the way that it is applied and articulated within political theory, as it's been criticized for its generally rigid adherence to gender binary and conceptualization of strict gender roles and for its lack of intersection with individuals who function or identify outside of gender binary. it has also encountered criticism in how it articulates sexual orientation and politics through gender alone, and does not make a lot of room for other axes of sexual identity, politics, and other factors of identity.

it is also important to understand that the the concepts of "compulsory heterosexuality" and "heteronormativity" are actually somewhat different concepts discussing a similar area (different emphasis, different history, different political associations), and that the concept of compulsory heterosexuality is a core and critical tenet of the feminist separatist movement and political lesbianism, which urges that all women (even those who are not wlw) should and must choose to eschew all relationships with men in all contexts.

in that context, with the relationship of compulsory heterosexuality to feminist separatism and political lesbianism, it actually does worry me that many shipping fandoms who are fixated on this concept constantly say essentially "icb this woman is attracted to a man at all, it's comphet" bc there is a very real connection between this concept and the idea that all women should simply choose never to fuck men, that women have a political responsibility to excise men from all aspects of their lives, to view all men as their enemies, and that any woman with any relationship (of any type) with a man is complicit in her own oppression (which, I won't unpack here why this is horrific, bc this is too long as is and too concise articulation will be misconstrued, but it is Yikes, to put it lightly).

I do actually find it alarming how some shipping fandoms that constantly cry "comphet!" are consistently incredibly angry about the idea ANY woman will have a relationship with or be attracted to a man and believe that EVERY woman should choose to be a lesbian and eschew all relationships with men in the exact political pattern.

the concept of compulsory heterosexuality in queer and feminist spaces is actually very complex, and at times very fraught within the academic and political discourse, and it's actually really insane and in some measure alarming what shipping fandom is doing with it

[blurredcolour]

The Hunter's Moon | Part Three

The Hunter's Moon Masterlist

Summary: Your new neighbour becomes an ally against the town thugs, on more than one occasion.

Pairing: Werewolf!Austin Butler x Gender Neutral Reader

Warnings: Language, Street Harassment, Discussions of Violence, Mentions of Alcohol, Suspense, Threatening Situations, Discussions of Fear, Cycling Accident, Wounds, Blood, Pain, Supernatural Themes, Suggestion of Mature/Explicit Themes - 18 + Only

GIF Credit: @karamelcoveredolicity

Author's Note: Inspired by the headcannons of @sassy-ahsoka-tano, written with her blessing. Stuff gets pretty spooky in this one, I hope you like it!

Song suggestion: Paranoia by NEONI, MUTINY by NEONI

Word Count: 3461

—☽•✧•◐•✧•◯•✧•◑•✧•☾—

Early September

You did not see much of your new neighbour over the next week. You had chalked it up to his preoccupation with unpacking, settling into his new home. The first Monday in September brought no break to the heat. The library was closed Sundays, as were most things in the town, and Mondays. This left you with only one option for running errands, so you had driven into town Monday afternoon to stock up on essentials and some extras.

You had parked on Main Street, grabbing some reusable shopping bags to take with you. Pausing at the corner to check for traffic, you had tensed as you heard the sound of a motorcycle approaching.

“Not today, please…” You had muttered to yourself, but your eyes had widened as the rider that came into view was not the one you were dreading.

A tall, slender, yet powerful man astride a beautifully engineered motorcycle – it somehow evoked old Hollywood. You stood rooted to the spot, watching him roll past you toward the hardware store a few blocks down. The slice of the tanned skin of his neck between his helmet and a leather jacket, the glint of the gold chain peeking from under the collar of his white shirt, the long slender fingers covered in black leather and wrapped around the handlebars, the tight jeans that seemed almost painted onto the muscles of his long legs.

Those jeans…You stared after the rider as he turned a corner and swallowed. That very well might have been Austin, but you had no proof of it. You jumped as a car honked and snapped your head to look at the worn silver Oldsmobile, sweet Mrs. Parkinson waiting patiently, waving you to cross before she drove on.

You offered her a wave, cheeks flushing as you had most definitely been caught staring, hurrying across the road and into the bakery. Leaving the shop fifteen minutes later, however, your fears had come true. Three Harley choppers driven by three over-grown frat boys pulled up to the curb in front of you. Your blood ran cold despite the heat of the day as Toby Anderson, local mechanic and town thug, climbed off his bike grinning at you.

He was not a tall man, but what he lacked in height he had tried to compensate for with muscle. He was built like an ox; thick neck, broad shoulders, bulging muscles. His dark hair was coarse and cropped short. You drove your feet forward, walking quickly, hoping against hope that he had not seen you. You were not so lucky.

“Well, well, well if it isn’t Lannet’s Falls finest piece of ass.”

Your shoulders went up defensively, head bowed to try and somehow become less visible. But you could hear Toby, flanked by his loyal followers Chad and Lincoln, following you toward your next stop. You could hear their heavy books clomping along the pavement.

“Today might just be the day, boys. The day when this fine thing lets me treat them to the fucking they deserve. Show them all they’ve been missing.”

You propelled yourself into the liquor store, knowing the owner was not a fan of the pack of brutes. You had been able to waste a good thirty minutes in there, leaving with a few more bottles than intended, but from your vantage point it looked as though they had found something else to do with the excessive amount of time they seemed to have on their hands.

Once again you were mistaken. You stepped out of the shop to a taunting wolf-whistle to your right.

“Looking for a party, hmmm? Why don’t we take all that alcohol back to my place and have the best time of your life?”

You had somehow managed to look both ways before jaywalking across the street. Just one errand left – the order waiting for you at the butcher shop. The local butcher was of the highest calibre, specializing in meats and plant-based alternatives alike. You had almost reached the door when it was suddenly blocked by Toby’s solid bulk. You took an immediate step back, heart racing, frozen quite like prey that had just come face-to-face with a predator.

You had been on the verge of giving up, of using your lunch break tomorrow to close the library and run over to pick up your order, when someone called your name from further up the block. Someone with a warm, sweet, rich voice. All eyes, including your own, had turned to look at Austin as he jogged over.

—☽•◐•◯•◑•☾—

Austin had seen you. Well, more accurately, had smelled you as soon as he rolled into town on his Triumph Bonneville – made famous by the likes of Steve McQueen, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Clint Eastwood and of course, Elvis. The silhouette was iconic, and the long lean lines and vintage flare suited his style better than an over-powered Harley Davidson.

The way your eyes had caressed every inch of his body had set his heart racing. He’d parked a few blocks out of sight, trying to focus on taking deep breaths, trying to regain control. His head had snapped up when Toby’s disgusting comments echoed down the street, jaw clenching as he felt fury at the idea of anyone addressing you in such a way.

He had watched that man and his idiotic friends hound you, feeling a sense of pride at the way you had stubbornly gone about your errands despite their harassment. He had been loathe to announce his presence to them, to you. He had been avoiding you, filled with dread at what might happen if he let his attraction to you get the best of his ability to reason.

But when that meathead had blocked your path, and his friends had blocked your escape from behind, simply watching over you was no longer an option. He had shrugged out of his leather jacket, holding it over his left shoulder hooked onto the index and middle fingers of his left hand. He had stepped onto the sidewalk, calling your name, as he jogged over at a human pace.

“I’m so sorry I am late, thank you again for agreeing to come shopping with me.” He came to stand at your side, correcting his posture to his full height, ignoring the glares of Chad and Lincoln. He looked down at Toby. He was calm and cold.

“Excuse us, we have some shopping to do.” He spoke with crisp civility.

Toby had jutted his jaw forward, eyes burning as he looked up at him obstinately. The unspoken challenge, the silent threats; the air grew thick with tension, with the possibility for violence.

Everyone jumped as the door to the butcher shop swung inward, the bell chiming, as the butcher had grown tired of the showdown outside his shop.

“Are any of you intending to make a purchase from me today?” He’d asked tersely and you had bolted into the shop through the gap made as Toby turned to look at him.

Austin followed you, shoulder bumping into Toby’s as he forced his way past him. The butcher let the door shut and walked around behind the counter to serve the two of you. Austin glanced at you frequently, jaw unclenching as your heart rate slowed and the scent of fear stopped rolling off you in bitter waves.

—☽•◐•◯•◑•☾—

Austin had appeared, just when you really needed him, and stood beside you. Once the two of you were finally safe inside the store, you had been able to take some deep breaths, asking the butcher for the order you’d called in last week.

As Austin perused the butcher’s products in the display case, you had let out one final sigh of relief as you saw Toby’s pack drive off toward the highway. He had looked to you at the sound, offering a small smile.

“Thank you” you said quickly, shifting the bags on your arm as you finally registered the way the handles of your overloaded liquor bag dug into the skin. You set it down on the ground carefully to give yourself a break.

He had shaken his head in response. “Just glad I was there. So, what would you recommend here?” He asked, fingers stroking his jaw.

You smiled softly and stepped closer, pointing out a few things in the case. The butcher rang up your order and you paid, waiting while Austin picked up a few things. He smoothly assumed the burden of the heavy bag without you noticing until the two of you turned to leave.

“You don’t have to do that…I’m just over there” You pointed to your car, and he simply held the door open for you in reply, carrying it over for you to load it in. “Did…did you want me to take your bag in the car? I saw you…come in on your motorcycle.” You blushed a little as you recalled the way you had looked at him.

He grinned smoothly and held it out to you. “I would appreciate that, actually.”

You beamed in triumph and added it to the cooler you had brought to fight the effects of the heat wave. He had parted ways with you then, claiming to have more errands to run in town. You had swallowed, confused by his abrupt departure. It proved to be a habit as he’d left just has quickly after picking up his shopping bag from you later than evening.

You had attributed the enigma of your neighbour to his celebrity status; he probably was just fiercely protective of his privacy and free time. However, the warm glow left by him coming to your aid in front of the butcher shop took up permanent residence in your chest. It was a memory that frequently replayed in your mind’s eye, queued up and ready any time you let your mind wander.

The persistent summer-like temperatures had allowed you to continue commuting to work by bike. The uphill climb in the morning was bracing, woke you up. The downhill glide was a treat at the end of the day. You had been coming home later and later each night that week, dirty from the dust and grime of the basement. Since arriving you had managed to clear out the old holding cell. In its former life, the building that now housed the library and small museum had been a sheriff’s office. Once the gold rush had passed, and the town had shrunk, policing had been based out of Placerville.

Opening up a particularly decrepit banker’s box Saturday night, you had found a leather-bound journal, pages yellowed and curled with age. In dainty cursive on the first page, it read:

Diary of Udolhpia Nerissa Lannet – 1856

“Holy shit” You had muttered to yourself. If this was authentic, if, this could be the journal of the town founder’s wife.

You had settled onto the stone floor, back pressed against the brick foundation wall, reading the faded ink of the meticulous journal. She had written an entry every day, though the length of her accounts varied. As the building of their homestead on the shore of the lake progressed, the entries grew notably darker.

“…The howling of the wolves has infected his mind, infected our home…”

There had been attacks on the settlers higher up the valley, above the falls. Udolphia didn’t spare any of the grisly details, writing of torn limbs, gored entrails. The behaviour of her husband, Reuben Lannet had become increasingly erratic and troubling, until the entry in the spring of 1857.

“…He has fallen, our fearless leader, my Reuben. Fallen in search of that cursed queen of poisons…We will simply have to forbear life without him…Rely upon my young Rhett to hold this group together against the forces of evil in the woods.”

It was the final entry. There were still empty pages in the diary, but her unbroken record of daily life came to that abrupt end. The sound of your unsteady breaths echoed off the brick walls of the basement. The unsettling words had put you on edge and you swallowed dryly. You shifted stiffly to stand, groaning at the discomfort in your butt from sitting on the floor so long. You pulled out your phone to check just how long it had been and swore thickly to see it was just after nine o'clock.

“God what a nerd, staying late at work on my Friday.” You muttered bitterly to yourself, trying to break the silence with inane chatter. Heading back upstairs, you had put the journal into the safe under the counter. You would catalogue the entries next week before sending it out for verification by an expert.

You shook your head, trying to dispel the fog of wolves, death, gore, and evil from your brain. The hyper-religious revivalist missionaries had a remarkable taste for the overly dramatic. There was no need to get wrapped up in it. You stepped out of the library into the full dark of night, locking the door with hands that wanted to shake despite your best efforts. You grabbed your bike, unlocking it from the streetlight, before sitting astride it. You turned on your headlight and took a steadying breath.

“Twenty-three minutes. An easy glide down hill” You spoke to yourself encouragingly in the deserted street. 

You pedaled toward the bridge, tensing as the light of the full moon was disappearing behind infiltrating clouds, the darkness of the night deepening without its luminescence. The rumble of thunder ricocheted off the surrounding mountains, tightening your grip on your handlebars as you turned right onto the road home, letting gravity pull you lower into the valley.

“It’s just a creepy night, you’re just overreacting from creeping fucking Udolphia’s journal.” You chided yourself, clenching your teeth as the low cloud rolled across the road. Trees to the left, a sheer drop into the river to your right.

But the howl, the chorus of howls, drew a whimper from your lips. Your feet pedaled impotently, the incline of the road already had you speeding downhill as fast as the bike could manage. But the agency of doing something soothed your fear a little. The sound of your terrified breathing filled your ears until…until you thought you could hear the scrape of claws on the pavement behind you, the huffing of exertion as something ran after you. Several somethings.

You broke into a cold sweat, willing the bike to go faster, forcing yourself to look ahead.

“Don’t look back, don’t look back…” You chanted under your breath.

If you didn’t look back it couldn’t be real. The evil in Udolphia Lannet’s trees could not be here, now. The howls of her wolves could not infect your mind.

You almost had yourself convinced. Almost. Until something collided with your back tire. The scream tore so savagely from your throat, you would not have been surprised if you had tasted blood. In your nearly hysterical state, you overcompensated, losing your balance, and slammed down onto the road. The unforgiving asphalt chewed up your palms and the exposed skin of your arms and legs.

Momentum rolled you into the ditch, adrenaline drove you to scramble to your feet, evolution screamed at you to run. The searing pain in your flesh drew your focus and you took a moment to breathe. Wolves would outrun you any day…climb! You looked up to the trees and lurched forward, crying out in agony but still making progress towards the nearest tree. You grasped at a low hanging branch and wailed in frustration as it snapped off the trunk in your grasp.

The sounds of snarls and snapping jaws closing in behind you made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Flight had failed. Fight was the only option left to you. You grasped the broken branch in your wounded hand tightly and turned to face your fear at last. Your back pressed against the tree tightly, facing the three wolves, their teeth bared, hackles up. The one in the centre, the black one, was the largest. It was flanked by two grey wolves. You held out the branch threatening, shaking.

“Fuck…” You whispered to yourself. The situation looked quite hopeless.

—☽•◐•◯•◑•☾—

Austin had done all he could to reinforce the wall anchors for the chains, to strengthen the lock on the secure room. He still had his doubts, not entirely confident in his own work, but he was out of time. The Harvest Moon would be rising in a few hours. He had stripped off his clothes, locked himself in the room, and secured the collar around his neck.

The shift had flowed over him like water, much easier when he didn’t fight the inevitable. First order of business was to indulge in the raw T-bone steak he’d bought with you at the butcher shop. He had gnawed it right down to the bone before settling onto the plush mattress, licking his chops. His eyes had been about to droop contentedly when a scream…your scream…ripped through the peace of the night. He was immediately driven to his feet, growling and struggling against the chains. Despite his fears about the strength of the wall anchors, it was actually the chain that failed, links warping and snapping under the violent pull of his wolf form.

He slammed his body into the door, driven wild with the need to find you, to get to you, to protect you. One last collision with his frame and the door swung open. His claws dug into the treads of the stairs as he scrabbled out of the basement. Flinging his body through the plate glass window in the dining room, he landed on the back porch before bursting into a run.

The air was electric, full of the violent potential of the gathering storm, of the wolf pack cornering the human on the road. Your scent led him straight to you. He charged down the hillside behind you, launching the rest of the way to land firmly between you and the trio of thugs. He recognized them immediately…was mentally accosting himself for not recognizing their true nature sooner.

His fur stood on end as he stood firmly planted in front of you, teeth bared defensively. The black wolf, Toby, stopped sniffing at you and growled menacingly, pacing back and forth, trying to find a way to get to its prey. To you. Austin’s eyes never left him, never broke eye contact, never backed down. He lunged forward, snarling and barking, taunting Austin to attack, to break the stalemate.

Austin planted himself at your feet, partially sitting on them, clearly stating his intention to protect you. He would not be drawn into anything reckless that would leave you exposed to the others in the pack. Headlights flashed on the road, making him wince a little at the sudden brightness, but he stayed rooted to the spot in front of you.

An old, beat-up pickup truck careened down the road, excessively loud banjo music blaring from the open windows as Jonah Lannet drove recklessly down the highway. The pack scattered, too visible to the road. They raced off through the trees, back towards town. Jonah noticed nothing, not even your bike as he ran it over, speeding along into the night.

—☽•◐•◯•◑•☾—

You made a noise of utter defeat as the universe had seen fit to add insult to injury by destroying your bike. But…it had sent you help. You looked down to the excessively large wolf sitting at, and on, your feet. Sandy fur that looked remarkably soft for a wild animal. It would have been described as blonde if it were a human.

It looked back to you at your exclamation, and you had gasped involuntarily at the startling blue of its eyes...the intelligence that seemed to lay behind him. If emotion could be attributed to animals, which you firmly believed it could, you would have described this one as sad. It moved to stand sniffing at the wind before looking back at you once more. It took off then, scattering the debris on the forest floor as it disappeared back up the hillside from where it had come.

You ambled forward, wincing as the pain in your limbs was vibrant now that the immediate danger had passed. Staggering to the road, you grabbed the warped remnants of your bike as the clouds burst into a full-blown thunderstorm.

“Great. Just fucking great.” You snarled to yourself and hobbled the rest of the way home.

—☽•✧•◐•✧•◯•✧•◑•✧•☾—

Read Part Four

The Hunter's Moon Masterlist

Tag List: @karamelcoveredolicity, @mymamalife, @thatonemoviefan, @bxxbxy, @lumosllwyni

[roughscribs]

Just read an ask about someone being confused on “whose the seme and the uke” in my school president….first of all pls stop using these stupid fucking terms outside of Japanese media. ABEGGGG. It’s cringe (not the terms themselves just the usage of them outside of Japanese media used by non Japanese ppl) u are cringe. Secondly why do y’all HAVE to apply these damn roles to every gay fucking couple. Pls shut up. There is no top or bottom submissive or dominant dynamic in a nonsexual couple they’re children my guy…Pls shut tf up. Like how do y’all make the most nonsexual most innocuous BL into something sexual?? Like y’all can’t just enjoy a cute love story without wondering whose fucking who????? Like pls. Shut up. Like this why ppl say straight women who consume bl are fetishizers bc y’all can’t conceptualize gay ppl outside of sexual contexts. Tinn and gun are NOT a sexual couple in the series. But here u mfs are sitting here looking at two teenage boys and essentially going “hmm I wonder who the man and woman is” like???? Jesus. I knew there was a reason I didn’t associate with this community while I continued to consume queer media.

Like I understand that these heteronormative dynamics still play a huge role in bl. But it’s up to us as consumers to change the language we use as a community in the hopes that the content will change also. Bc why are y’all still analyzing these couples who clearly break these dynamics with these same dynamics?? Top and bottoms do exist, switches also exist. But when y’all get a couple who don’t adhere strictly to these definitions y’all still try and force them into those dynamics???? Why???

Like I know the BL industry is a far cry away from introducing sexual fluidity and other sexual orientations into their story lines aside from gay/straight/bi. But ace ppl still exist and it’s weird it’s y’all’s first instinct to assign a sexual role to any bl character immediately even when they haven’t expressed any sexual desire or sexual interest in the narrative yet. Both Tinn or gun haven’t expressed any sexual desire and yet here y’all are being weird and discussing a nonexistent possible sexual relationship and forcing gender roles on them.

[fancoloredglasses]

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Making it fun to yell at the movie since 1975), Part 1

[All images are owned by 20th Century Fox Disney....wait, really?! Anyway, please don't sue, kill, eat, or...whatever they did to everyone at the end...me]

WARNING: This review is NSFW, as it deals with sexual themes. You’ve been warned.

Are you OK with this? Good, then let’s continue.

(Thanks to 20th Century Studios)

In 1973 a little-known actor named Richard O’Brien decided to write and compose a musical stage production as a way to explore his own questions about his sexuality. Two years later, it was adapted for a movie…and late-night movies (especially around Halloween) haven’t been the same since.

While the movie wasn’t well-received as far as ticket sales went, when theaters started doing midnight showings of the film it developed a cult following, as well as becoming a banner for the queer community, with patrons of both genders dressing as the cast, as well as in their best feminine intimate wear…

(Thanks to Liverpool Echo)

…and talking back to/over the movie (a la MST3K) and bring props to display/throw (much to the employees’ chagrin. After all, they have to clean it all up after the movie’s over). Most theater-goers have a “script” of how they choose to do so (of course, if everyone has a different script in their head it can get very chaotic) If you’re curious, there are several versions online. Here’s one such example.

This review is going to be done slightly different than most, even the one that was essentially a musical in that I will be going over the songs after the clips (as most of the plot is driven through them) and will be including audience partici…

SAY IT!

…pation lines (at least the ones I do) on occasion. These will be done in chat font, as above.

(Word of warning, despite whatever I may say at the movie, it’s not intended to be mean-spirited. I’m just going along with the show)

So, without further ado, let’s get on with the show! If you would like to watch the film, it's behind your favorite paywall, or if you want the full experience, find out which of your local theaters is showing it on Halloween!

(Thanks to Dr. Frank-N-Furter)

So just whose lips are those? Well, scuttlebutt says that Mick Jagger volunteered his, but was turned down. Instead, those belong to Patricia Quinn (who plays Magenta). However, the voice is not Quinn’s, but O’Brien’s. Now, if you actually paid attention to the opening credits instead of just responding to the song, you’ll know exactly who is playing what. However, I will clue you in when they make their first appearance anyway.

Now, back to the movie as we dissolve to a church…

These lips died for your sins!

…where a wedding has just transpired (This is where the audience should start throwing rice at the screen). The photographer gets a photo of the happy couple and the family.

Now I have their souls!

The groom has a quick chat with his best man, Brad Majors, ...

ASSHOLE!

...played by Barry Bostwick (who was the mayor in Spin City) as the bride throws the bouquet

Hey, who has herpes?

…where it’s caught by Brad’s girlfriend, Janet Weiss, ...

SLUT!

...played by Susan Sarandon (who was half of Thelma and Louise)

This inspires Brad to sing to her. Before we get to the song, I have to wonder…

…who the hell puts a billboard in the middle of a cemetery? OK, on to the song!

(Thanks to Goldie McDuck)

OK, that’s an efficient church!

Those who are observant will recognize the church workers as O’Brien, Quinn, and Nell Campbell (AKA “Little Nell”). We’ll be discussing them later. For now, we go to the expository section of the film, narrated by “the Criminologist” (played by Charles Gray, who played Blofeld in a number of James Bond films)

…and has no fucking neck!

The Criminologist explains that, after getting engaged, Brad...

ASSHOLE!

...and Janet...

SLUT!

...decided to visit their old friend and former professor Dr. Everett Scott. He then foreshadows that the night is going to be memorable, but not in the way they’d hoped.

Speaking of the lovebirds, they’ve gotten hopelessly lost. Even worse, Brad’s car gets a blowout! Brad remembers passing a castle.

Castles don’t have phones, asshole!

Brad and Janet trudge through the rain to the castle. As the weather worsens, music starts to swell…

(Thanks to Gothic Witch Chick)

(Quick note: Susan Sarandon had pneumonia during filming. Props to her for doing this number in the rain in her condition)

Does the castle have what they need or is this the end for the happy couple? Tune in for Part 2 and find out!

[queerasaurus-rexx]

you cannot decouple bio-essentialism from racism. racism is rooted in bio-essentialism. racism is rooted in the belief that other people are lesser/not deserving/dangerous because they have darker skin.

even feminist bio-essentialism.

terfs and gender criticals will swear up and down that they aren't racist or fascist despite the fact that their rhetoric is straight up recycled from both. (see the 'trans people are unhygenic' situation where people of colour straight up called them out for recycling racist rhetoric and then they tried to side step by saying 'well i know a lot of trans people who don't wash i didn't mean it like that' and like? no? we're not fucking stupid, we know what you meant.)

this is why i don't believe them when they tell me they're people of colour and they're standing up to the racist trans agenda. maybe it's just me being an internet old, but i've just seen way too many people suddenly drop an 'but i'm [insert non-white race here] so actually you're the racist' card when they get called out (and then they turn out to be white).

it just gives me a headache.

it's completely possible some of them are women of colour.

but you aren't going to convince me by 'no, you'-ing me.

not to mention, the belief that all men are bad includes, and often rings harder against, men of colour. you know, those people who already don't benefit from the patriarchy because they aren't white. men of colour already have to deal with people automatically assuming they're predators, that they're coming for your mothers and your sisters and they're daughters, because they aren't white men.

it's basically saying

'no, i'm not racist! i buy into this predatory stereotype because he's a man, not because he's black/asian/native/hispanic/etc.!'

no matter how many 'white men are bad too!'s you include, men of colour will always face the brunt of feminist bio-essentialism.

i am only speaking as a white person, though. there are depths and layers to this discussion that are not my place to comment on.

[youturningintodust]

I will never not be baffled and disappointed that even in a chat group entirely centered around talking about Xena: Warrior Princess -- and one that billed itself as "the gay subtext one" that mocked "maintexter homophobia", even --

I still faced negativity for:

being transmasc/genderqueer and not hiding it

rejecting/gently mocking the idea of my having a hetero relationship with a cis man, basically mildly showing my homosexuality rather than being a full bisexual

as an extension of 2 -- being uncomfortable with male main characters (i.e. Joxer) continually sexually harassing female main characters. talking about it. (everyone else tolerated this and froze out my comments. in a fandom for a lesbian-couple-centered show?!)

Most members of the group were bi cis women, gender-conforming and while there was one who was nice and normal towards me, the rest just went silent and got weird whenever either of the above were just like... Not hidden. Not stifled.

I remember one or two talked about being in a hetero marriage with a cis straight man, and that that was their "only exception" and if they were single again tomorrow -- that they wished they were with women.

One of the Big Names there, in a "TMI" convo, admitted that she only felt comfortable talking to women when she was drunk, and barely even then. She also referenced "fucking (women) through men in a threesome", which to me those two put together shows strong fear of doing things that people like me (fully gay, butch, masculine to the point of trans) are known for doing: using a strapon to fuck your female partner yourself. Of course someone who secretly desires to do this would have that kink, if they were frightened to even talk to women.

Essentially, half the discomfort was deep jealousy. Because they did not have the bravery to live the life I was living. The repression there was SO REAL.

It also taught me how much fandom is an expression for painfully awkward, self-closeting women. (i.e. not forced to be, by abuse or shariah law or something.) One would say things randomly like "omg they're so gay" and I thought it was just fangirling. Later, she said that that was code for "I felt horny when I wrote that". This explains soooooo much about how online fandom works to me that I just didn't pick up on before. I was always feeling more of a nonsexual, sentimental, romantic emotion or just...general enthusiasm for the story's gay writing or whatever. Not something sexual.

Just. So many layers to that scene. Makes me glad I'm not a part of it.

But sad that it didn't work out in the end.

Right before I ended up leaving, a member joined whom I remembered from an older chat group. She would predate on the teens in the group, asking highly personal questions, preying whenever someone said something about their IRL that sounded sad (zeroing in on them at that moment and asking a lot about it). Like. Abuser behavior. She was in her 40s-50s, original era X:WP fandom. I almost publicly called her out, but my rep was already in the trash for just...being transmasc. So again I felt that I couldn't.

Just a shame. A literally lesbian-populated fandom that couldn't survive without it, for a show with multiple trans actresses in it and one actual trans episode, which embraces cis women characters' masculine side and puts it on proud display... which embraces their homosexuality (for Gabrielle) and bisexuality with a strong gay lean (for Xena).... Shouldn't be the place where this kind of shit is allowed to fly.

There was just so much petty, high-school-girl behavior and energy, too. Not possible to have direct conversations, seen as rude if you tried, meanwhile they were all headfucky and game-playing.

No place for a stereotypically blunt butch that likes healthy, direct discussions about life, fictional themes, and keepin' it real. Too below-the-surface, catty, etc.

Just. Ugh.

[listlessnessss]

Instead of amab/afab and msoc/femsoc, which has some people really hashtag triggered, i'm going to just be more brutally honest and call things, people, and experiences malebrained/fembrained because it gets to the heart of what people are gesturing at when they say amab/afab, doesn't correlate 1:1 to assigned sex, and can be changed if one so wishes. now that type 2 trans people are transitioning because they genuinely want to and now we know that gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender stereotypes are different things, we see a mix and match resulting in, for example, fembrained ftms.

Now to discuss a recent twitter dot com controversey. (I unironically think twitter is the most toxic place on the internet, because more people inc normies use it, and are not anonymous and can receive public figure status). a tguy made a comic about his experience with toxic masculinity and the QRTs essentially showed him toxic masculinity proper (ie. you're not a real man statements) and the leftist internet would 9/11 itself if those insults and behaviors were happening between or directed towards cis men. okay like yes i do think there can be a bit of a malignant learned helplessness among ftm-spectrum people due to fembrained upbringing and socialization. (see how much better it works) BUT this does not mean men should not be fembrained, and when you're criticizing feminity, you're missing that positive femininty exists within any and all genders. The malignant learned helplessness thing is much overplayed by people who have a bone to pick with ftm-spectrum people in the first place, and by the more normie "TMAW" cis contingent...

Such malignant learned helplessness is a highly specific negative trait correlated with a small but real percentage of ftms (and cis women, but curiously nobody seems to have a problem with them behaving like that... transphobia. I gather that people find it uncanny and offensive, or unfair, in some way when people who behave like this identify with manhood, and I'm a cis they them woman who's crypto so I don't really get a say in the social dynamics... but.) But it is not characteristic of nor necessary for transmasculine self-identification. The transandrophobia crowd would do well to listen, at least sometimes, to cis feminine and or gay men, on some issues. If they want their own tguy space, I think that's fine, too. I'm really live-and-let-live on these types of social issues. But people should be able to make a kind of informed consent when it comes to their behaviors, to fully weigh the pros and cons with the understanding of how such behaviors will be received by the outgroup and within the ingroup.

I do agree that there's some lack of guidance/theory/writing on the effects of toxic masculine expectations and the norms of the "universal malebrained" and how they can negatively impact ftm-spectrum people's understandings of themselves. I myself saw myself to be at the bottom of this kind of totem pole, an anomaly, a shut-out, and knowledge of social uncanniness has served as the limiting factor for my self-understanding moreso than fears about physiological uncanniness (although I am for sure bonepilled, too). The solutions on offer are to 1.gaymaxx(?) (say that you're this way because you're a gay man), 2.identify with lesbianism and gain social support there, 3.be proud of looking/seeming trans. Some of these solutions are good, but they cannot with 100% accuracy lead to an elimination of 'negative feminity'.

You're free to tell me I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about... but food for thought on how msoc/femsoc, amab/afab, etc, are just more fembrained ways of saying "malebrained/fembrained". I think it is absolutely possible to psychologically transition from one into the other and to understand how you are received. Being fembrained has, for me, been not an innate quality which myself nor anyone else possesses/lacks, rather, a logic about oneself which external forces have tried to pressure me into internalizing, and which I have, in different circumstances, found myself embracing or resisting. My fembrain is an elaborate social mask.

Ultimately, it's far more important to resist characterization of that twitter guy as not-a-man (definitionally, transphobia) than to offer bizarre explanations for the complex motivation behind such backlash against him from within the ingroup.

[uncloseted]

Have you seen the What Is A Woman documentary by Matt Walsh, or trailers of it? I saw trailers and was absolutely shocked. What do you think about this?

I think he's essentially being a troll under the guise of "just asking questions" and "just looking for the truth". Just from the trailer, it doesn't seem like the edit was done in good faith with the intention of having a real discussion about what womanhood is, but rather with the intention of making trans people and their allies seem unreasonable and unhinged.

I can tell him what a woman is, at least in my view:

In order to "be a woman", a person must:

1. Identify as a woman and: 2. have a cluster of biologically female sex characteristics, either naturally or artificially, or gender dysphoria resulting in a desire to acquire those sex characteristics AND/OR 3. socially inhabit womanhood through gender expression or gender performance, or have a desire to socially inhabit womanhood

But like, that's not the answer Matt Walsh wants, right? He doesn't want to discuss the nuances of gender theory or the fact that biological sex is a cluster concept rather than a binary one. That's a boring documentary and one that nobody would watch. He doesn't want someone to grill him on what he thinks makes him a man, and the shortfalls of the argument that he presents. And he's not really interested in uncovering any sort of "truth". He just wants to make trans people look bad so that he doesn't have to contend with their presence in society.

"What is a woman" is kind of a bullshit question in this context, because who the fuck cares how you're defining the metaphysical concept of "womanhood"? What matters is the political and social ramifications of who is accepted into "womanhood". In the words of Contrapoints, what trans women share is not an ideology of what it means to "be a woman". They share a common set of political struggles against discrimination, against harassment, against excessive medical gatekeeping, against exclusion from public life.

Walsh is painting himself as having "legitimate concerns" that stem from not having a definition of womanhood, but are really just poorly researched "concerns" about trans people. In the trailer, someone (I'm not sure if it's Walsh?) says, “I care about the truth, I care about children, I care about the women who are having their opportunities stolen from them.” But that by itself belies a (willful) misunderstanding of nearly all conversations that are happening around trans people. The children are fine. Doctors who deal with trans children, teenagers, and adults are following strict guidelines based on scientific research that includes the emotional, physical, and psychological well-being of trans and gender non-conforming kids. There are no five year olds who are being prescribed medications or having body parts of theirs "chopped off". And there are far more cis teenagers who undergo elective breast augmentation or gynecomastia surgery than trans teenagers who do. But it's not really about the children, is it? It's not about, "gynecomastia surgery is dangerous" or "in the future, this teenage girl might regret getting a boob job because she thinks it will make her look sexier to men". Matt Walsh doesn't give a single fuck about either of those issues. He cares about making trans people look like the bad guys.

The "women having their opportunities stolen from them" is the same bullshit. They're not advocating for women in any other arena. They're not interested in advocating for women to get equal opportunities to their male counterparts via maternity leave, or passing additional laws about equal pay, or bias in hiring practices.

And when have any of these individuals ever given a single thought to women's sports before it became a convenient political football? These older, cis, white men who are suddenly so goddamned concerned about fairness in women's sports aren't buying tickets to women's sports games. They're not advocating for equal pay between men and women's sports. They're not encouraging more colleges and universities to have women's sports programs. They don't even want to have an informed conversation about what constitutes fairness within these sports. They're not interested in looking at the guidelines that the International Olympic Committee or NCAA have put out on trans athletes in different sports and identifying where they think these policies have gone wrong. And they don't seem to want to talk about the cis women who have lost out on opportunities because their levels of testosterone were deemed to be too high, despite the fact that they "care about the women who are having their opportunities stolen from them."

And that isn't even to speak of the way that this is essentially a slippery slope argument to begin with- really what it's saying is, "well, if we let trans people compete, then there will be lots of trans people competing, and then there will be so many people with a biological advantage that women are edged out of their own sports." But that's not where we are currently, and it's really just speculation that that might happen... especially since we do currently let trans people compete on the professional level in many sports, and there hasn't exactly been a "trans wave" of athletes showing up to dominate. There are under 100 professional trans athletes in the US, not all of them trans women, and they're not exactly picking up gold medals at an unprecedented rate. The only trans people that I could find who have actually won anything is Lia Thomas, who won the 500-yard freestyle event at the NCAA championships and Andraya Yearwood, who won high school state titles for the 100-meter dash and 200-meter dash. And is it not possible that maybe there are just two trans women who happen to be very good at their sports regardless of their biology instead of because of it?

All of this is silly. These are all false flags to make transphobes' unfounded concerns seem legitimate. In reality, all people like this care about is villainizing trans people for their own gain because it's the easiest way to get attention without actually having to be thoughtful or interesting.

[yellowspiralbound]

So I saw the Prom this weekend. Great musical, highly recommend. Anyway, there are a few songs that get talked about a lot like "Just Breathe" which you may recognize from the line "Note to self, don't be gay in Indiana." "Love Thy Neighbor" is in my opinion, the most talked about song because it's absolutely SCATHING. Seriously, Google it. It's essentially a massive "fuck you" to conservative Christians in the form of campy musical theater.

However, there's a song on the track that I think deserves so much more discussion and that is "Barry Is Going to Prom." Yeah, you read that right. The comic relief song about the middleaged gay man attending a highschool prom.

"Barry Is Going to Prom" explores a piece of queer existence that is never really talked about: the bittersweet feeling a lot of older queer people get when looking at the younger generations. One one hand, they're so ecstatic that things are different for us. On the other, there's a not insignificant amount of jealousy. The concept of prom is one of those things that generates this feeling (and not just in older queers; younger people who attended prom while dating someone they didn't love, or who were unable to bring their significant other due to societal pressure, or who attended prom as the wrong gender feel this too).

"Barry Is Going to Prom" is devastatingly sad when you look just below the surface of "haha old man going to prom" and understand that feeling. Barry sings about how he had his tux picked out and the limo rented for his own high school prom... and then he didn't go. We never actually find out why Barry didn't go, but that's not really the point. He even says in the opening lines of the song that going to prom shouldn't matter. And yet it matters so, so much. And then, he talks about calling his mother and telling her he's going to prom despite the fact that he has been no contact with his mother for over a decade due to her rejection of his homosexuality.

It's such a good song and I feel like it really captures the way a lot of queer adults feel about prom (the event, the musical, and the true story the musical is based on). It was easily my favorite song on the track.

[seawitchkaraoke]

The first time I watched hairspray I was really confused why Edna was played by a man - I was like ?? is this supposed to be a trans woman? Huh? And my google search just told me that the role is ‘‘traditionally played by a man’‘ so I essentially went huh okay weird one of those weird theater things I guess, whatever

Well youtube randomly pushed You Can’t Stop The Beat back on my dash and of course I watched it and almost cried but well. It also made me think about this again. And man this isn’t a proper meta bc I haven’t actually watched the movie in ages and have never seen the musical live but

Edna isn’t a trans woman. If she was there’d probably be a lot of discourse about casting John Travolta to play her (largely justified, though ppl do sometimes miss some nuance in these discussions re ppl not being out yet). But she’s not. Fuck man, no one was probably even thinking about trans woman at all when they first cast a man for that role.

What Edna is, is a woman who is derided as ugly and fat who struggles with that quite a bti, who does not fit societies beauty standarts and then throughout the story becomes more confident and self assured and in You Can’t Stop The Beat finally steps on stage (literally) and sings ‘‘You can’t stop my happiness ‘cause I like the way I am’‘

And I think for that casting a cis man really works.

Because, yes fatness is one aspect of what is often seen as ugly in people (more strongly in people perceived as women than men? idk? possibly). But manliness specifically is something that is seen as ugly in women.

How many women (both cis and trans!) struggle with being too tall? too muscular? too hairy? with not being curvy enough or their faces being too hard or their voices being too deep? Many do. Many many many do. My mom always hated being as tall as she is. I struggled a lot with ‘‘looking like a man in a dress’‘ whenever I tried on dresses as a teenager (I still sometimes do! My brain still sometimes gives that as an immediate response when I try on a dress that doesn’t flatter my body type! Even though I’m nonbinary now! Even though I rationally know men can damn well put on dresses and look great in them!)

John Travolta isn’t playing a trans woman in the movie hairspray, he’s playing a woman who is fat and mainly looking and self concious and derided as ugly by the villians of the movie. And she’s relatable! To trans women? Sure! Bc trans women struggle a lot with passing aka not being feminine enough. But also for cis women bc they struggle with that a lot too! And even for some nonbinary ppl bc sadly we can’t escape all the gender specific beauty standarts drilled into our brains even if we escape gender itself

I just think it’s really fun and interesting how much Edna being played by a man does for the show. People notice, people are confused, I googled what Edna’s name was for this bc I couldn’t remember and literally the first autocomplete it gave me was hairspray ‘’john travolta why’‘ yeah why indeed. I still don’t know why they originally did that but I like it

[solena2]

Just saw someone claim that saying “not all men” and saying “hating men is bad because all gender essentialism is bad” are inherently the same idea and didn’t want to derail the post, but I think there’s a genuine discussion to be had here, so

Hot take, apparently, but the problem with “not all men” rhetoric has nothing to do with the factual accuracy of the statement. Like, we can all agree that not every single man, (or the majority of men) assaults women, right?

The problem with people saying “not all men” isn’t that the statement they’re making is wrong, it’s that they’re engaging in bad faith and obfuscating the actual debate. Because no, not all men, but also “every man has assaulted a woman” was never the point the opposing movement was trying to make. Dudebros just acted like it was because there’s no way to oppose the statement “assaulting women is bad, actually” without sounding like a tone deaf asshole, so they built a strawman to mock instead.

But the post that prompted me to write this wasn’t written by a dudebro. It was written by a terf.

And the problem with terf ideology, also known as the core of terf ideology, is that they really do believe that all men are bad, inherently, by virtue of being men. They view gender as a moral alignment, with men on the “bad” side and women on the “good”, and any deviation from that binary as misguided at best and malicious infiltration at worst.

Which is why they hate trans women, view trans men as confused, and either treat nonbinary people as “women-lite” or, more often, refuse to acknowledge them entirely.

So why is that a bad thing?

Because being real here, that’s a question that needs answered. The seeds of terf ideology grew in fertile soil, and knowing what led to that is important. Knowing the conditions under which radical feminism thrives is what gives us the insight to root it out early.

The same time that “not all men” rhetoric was popular with the right, significant parts of the left were beginning to respond with “yes, all men”. Partially out of frustration at first, I think, at least for those unfamiliar to such statements. (As many of us were, at the time.) People embracing the “man hating lesbian” stereotype and similar things used to discredit them. Going “you know what, maybe I do hate men, maybe I should hate men, maybe everyone should.” because they were hurting and tired of being hurt and when sexism is such a prevalent issue it is genuinely difficult to oppose the statement.

It’s very easy to take a hatred of misogyny and translate it to a hatred of men, because misogyny is synonymous with men, right? Built by men and perpetrated by men and kept alive by men.

So shouldn’t men be sorry for it? Shouldn’t they attempt to atone, whether or not they, personally, have bought into it? It’s certainly true that all men benefit from misogyny, so shouldn’t all men be treated with suspicion?

It’s easy to see why terfs believe what they do, in the end. Their beliefs are based in personal pain and anger and trauma so often.

The problem, as it often is, is that it’s not that simple. “All men benefit from misogyny” is not a true statement, and “all men benefit from misogyny and need to atone for it” is worse.

Any man who’s been called a fag, for example, is not reaping the benefits of misogyny. Any man who doesn’t fit in the cookie cutter mold and is punished for it, whether that’s a drag queen or a gay man or a cis straight man who just likes the fucking color pink, men are just as socially shackled by misogyny as women are, top of the gender bullshit food chain or not.

Misandry is just as bad as misogyny ideologically. The reason it’s rarely as much of a problem has nothing to do with the inherent qualities of womanhood. Systemic misandry isn’t often a problem because we haven’t historically had much of it.

Feminism is not and never has been an attempt to invert the status quo, place women on top, and call it a day assuming the exact same bullshit won’t arise. Feminism is a fight for equality, a fight where we try to liberate everyone, lift everyone up instead of pulling each other down.

We are not crabs in a bucket.

“Trans-exclusionary radical feminism” is what happens when someone decides pulling other people down is easier than lifting them up.

It’s an ideology built on assuming you’re the only victim that matters.

You’re not. Oppression isn’t a competition.

Stop trying to pull us back into the bucket. It does nothing constructive for anyone.

[blood-starved-beast]

Today seems to be a Shadow Campaigns posting day but - I just love the way Winter is written with regards to her gender and sexuality. Besides the fact that Winter is first and foremost written as a competent, multifaceted yet flawed person is not lost on me and definitely a lot the heavy lifting as to why her character is good imho. But!! Just how Wexler handles the whole "hiding gender in otherwise sexist society preventing this job option" thing with her is just *chef's kiss*

The books make it clear first and foremost why this is a thing that Winter must do early on in Book 1. There are creeps in the army like Davis, and then you have the Gallants like Marcus who would do nothing more than shield women such as Winter from the horrors of war. Winter especially early on is constantly agonizing about this and worried especially about discovery. And that bleeds into her relationships with her fellow rankers at first (but also justified, as they are Exhibit A of why she's doing this in the first place) and even when she's Sergeant a bit and even later as a General. She isn't as personable directly with people cause she spent so much time guarding this secret and keeping herself closed off. She's not gonna change over night! (Sidenote: Jane being introduced both complicates and intrigues all of this. Fascinating. Also Cyte helps lower that guard as does Bobby and all the Girls' Own). She cannot fight back when the rankers pick on her cause if she gets dirty they might discover she doesn't have a dick! Or bathing, or even something simple as recursive crossdressing are things she's thinking about.

There's how Winter constantly is turning and turning in her head about her gender and how comfortable (or not!) she feels about her gender. Cause Vordan has pretty traditional roles when it comes to women (while simultaneously showing that while those roles existed in ideals, they don't always plan out in practice, especially not amongst the lower classes). A question Winter always asks herself or is presented with is what does she plan to do post-war? It's agonizing for her, cause at one point she's comfortable where she is! She's alright being some nobody dude ranker if it means stability. The alternative is maybe housewife? Does she want that? (No.)

It says so much that she thinks this way - she was raised by Mrs. Wilmore and the Prison after all! What comes to mind for her is very limited. It almost comes off as seemingly trans egg in a way. Her experience is so defined by these traditionalist roles - she cannot conceptualize herself outside of them, lowkey resulting in someone who is implied transgender but cannot 100% be identified as such cause of said cultural context. It's a fascinating way to handle a character as being a product of their society. Just love that.

And it plays into how she explores her sexuality. We learn in book 4 that homophobia in some capacity does exist in Vordan. Albeit in a different histocultural context than irl. Winter isn't really aware of that, cause that's something prudish you-will-be-sold-off-in-marriage-to-a-man conservative Wilmore Prison wardens would never discuss. She essentially roles into her relationship with Jane, never really questions it, while simultaneously being the most Lesbian imaginable. And man, it's lowkey hilarious how this aspect of her both strengthens and lowkey doesn't help her disguise - she is so unconcerned with things like dicks or heterosexual innuendos or anything else a straight person might pick up. Being so fucking gay and horny probably has heteronormative people in the army who aren't close to her being like - hmm she can't be a woman she's clearly into women like a guy. Except she is not. She into women in a clearly and distinctly homosexual way that's just one facet of her character.

Also really like that she's casually horny. Staring at Sothe undressed, being jealous of various people, staring at tits on statues and art, casually offering to do it with Cyte no questions asked. Also I love how when presented with how homophobia is normally described here (the Tyrant's Disease - ok but Wexler explain how that came to be??) she's like "Huh. idk I like women not gonna change" which happens in book 4 when she's already had a good deal of character development and confidence in her competence. Good for her! Anyways this horny aspect of her character is handled so well and so not titillating to the reader - she's not a creep but she is a lesbian with eyes ok? She's not blind or asexual. You don't realize how rarely even in literature outside of x content it is to see sexuality explore casually like this and not like, described as weird.

Also I really love how natural Winter's gender reveal is handled in the books. It's something that happens gradually over time. She either meets people who know her beforehand, or the circumstances change so that Winter becomes more relaxed in her gender without extreme repercussions. Normally these kinds of "oh you're a girl!!" reveals are done with much drama and while that can be done interestingly it's clear it wasn't something the books wanted to tackle and smartly didn't. It also adds to general pragmatism of the books as well. Pretty sure all or most of the army that interacted with Winter likely knew in some capacity that she's genderqueer (without knowing the term) by the end of book 4, but cause of circumstances (and how war does build camaraderie amongst same-side soldiers) there's this general acceptance of it. Winter is so competent and respected by then, no one is gonna speak out against her even if she is trans or a woman hiding. It wouldn't be right, a ranker might say.

IDK idk I've rambled enough as is. There's so much more to discuss of course (how the Infernivore and her gender both parallel and reinforce her arc about coming into her own skin as a person), how these tie into the themes of the Shadow Campaigns and its worldbuilding. The way the ending (to me) leaves it open about whether Winter could be an Egg even if she accepts herself as a woman at this moment. But I'll stop for now. Anyways if you managed to get here please read the Shadow Campaigns. It's not perfect but it's definitely fun and interesting and competently written.