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the point of fanfiction is that you can write whatever the fuck you want forever and no one can stop you. #thepower

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here. take this quiz i made. [jumps out of the window]

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"Is there anything so undoing as a daughter...?"

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We never really talked about it but The Ugly Ducking that grew up to be a beautiful swan was still probably pretty fugly from a duck’s perspective

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i mean this in the nicest way possible but some of you need to learn how to be annoyed

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good boy,good girl

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I finally finished the second half (Johanka's half) of the A Woman's Lot DLC from Kingdom Come: Deliverance. While I didn't find it as emotionally moving as Theresa's half of the story, I still thought it was a great addition to the game's content. And it got me thinking a lot about Johanka as a character.

Even before this part of the DLC content, Johanka was a character that fascinated me. On my journey through KDC, I've stumbled across quite a bit of vitriol on the internet about this DLC, and particularly about Johanka. People on Reddit openly state that they chose to kill Johanka early on, or that they hoped she would burn at the stake, or that she deserved the worst possible ending in this DLC, and I feel like much of this hatred towards Johanka stems from her frustrations with her life and her circumstances.

One of the interesting things about Johanka is that when Henry first reunites with her at the monastery, she isn't openly fawning over him or all that pleased to see him, unlike most of the other Skalitz characters. She's not unhappy to see him, she just has bigger issues on her mind. And I can't really emphasize that part enough because to me her circumstances are more than an excuse for any harshness or rudeness on her part.

Imagine Johanka's situation, if you haven't already. Her home has been ransacked and all her family killed. She fled on foot and, with nowhere else to turn, followed the wounded to Sasau and decided to try to take care of them. She's separated from the few living friends she has, as well as the man she'd set her heart on. At the monastary, she finds very few people willing to help, partly because she's a woman and is unwanted there, and partly because of the rampant corruption at the upper levels of the monastary. The one monk who is on her side is more of an apothecary than a healer. She watches some of the last people she knew in Skalitz withering away and dying, despite her healing attempts and her loud requests for help. Then, between all that, she starts being harassed and pressured into a sexual relationship by a man who is not just her social superior, but who also has some influence over the resources she's so desperately trying to gain for her patients. And then Henry comes waltzing in, utterly clueless about it all, not having even wondered about the injured from the attack, and Johanka, by this point, is probably on the verge of a stress induced breakdown.

I think where Johanka is concerned, it's important to remember that as a woman in the 1400s, she has extremely limited choices in regards to her life. Think about the young men of Skalitz and where they ended up. Matthias gets a job in Merhojed as a stablehand. If he doesn't have the best conditions or the happiest time there, at least he can get a respectable job and survive. Matthew and Fritz get to sort of loaf around and become grifters. Even when people offer them work, they have the option of ruining their chances and going back to just hanging around a tavern. And then there's Henry, who's done so well for himself that he's been taken into the service of a powerful regional lord, as well as the confidence of pretty much all of the other most notable noblemen in the area.

One of the reasons I like this whole DLC so much is that it shows very powerfully the differences in the choices between a man and a woman of the time. You've got Theresa, who takes the most traditional and secure role of a woman in the time in being taken under the wing of whichever male relative she can find. This is interesting partly because through her half of the DLC we learn that she is probably more level headed than any of the young men from Skalitz, and braver than many of them. If she'd had the choices they had, she could have done better than any of them except maybe Henry. Another woman who takes a role in the DLC is Adela, the bathmaid. She has one of the few actual jobs available to women of the time, though this one comes with obvious social, personal, and physical consequences. The only way she is able to escape her place as a bathmaid is when a man comes to escort her away and protect her, and even then the position she gets at the monastary is probably precarious and temporary considering how Johanka's half of the DLC ends. Then there's Johanka, who has no male relatives to shelter her, and instead decides to make herself a place at the monastary despite all the forces against her, and to selflessly do her best to provide for and care for the injured. It's understandable that she's a little bitter and stressed when Henry arrives. Though we know Henry's been through a lot, he must seem pretty well taken care of and largely free compared to Johanka. And even if you can't excuse her less than cheery demeanor in the beginnning, she does apologize to Henry for her brusqueness.

Besides her frustration, the other big issue people seem to have with Johanka is her relationship with the Custodian, Baron Sebastian vom Berg. People are upset that on the one hand she complains about him, but that later she accepts his advances and even claims to like him. The people complaining about this seem to have an inherent lack of understanding of the power dynamics at play. The Custodian is a noble with great influence, while Johanka is, in her society's eyes, a nobody. She's a refugee from a pillaged town, she's unwanted by most at the monastary, and she has no male relatives to protect her. This is about as precarious of a position as a "respectable" woman could be in. Until Henry shows up, no one even tries to protect her, except maybe Nicodemus, who clearly has little actual power. She turns the Custodian away many times, but eventually over the course of the game she does give in to him. Without even considering the massive social imbalance between them, vom Berg also has influence over the resources of the area. He can directly impact the survival of Johanka's patients and old neighbors. And I'm sure with the kind of stress Johanka is under, it was easy enough to convince herself that she might enjoy the attentions and gifts of a powerful man, even if she didn't actually want them. It was easier to just give in and convince herself that one thing in her life was fine, though even Henry can see through this and realize vom Berg didn't give Johanka any real kind of choice. And despite all this, Johanka still chooses to sell his gifts and give it all back to her patients, rather than keep them for herself.

Though we can see Johanka at times throughout the main game and the DLC being proud, irrational, and dramatic, it's clear that she's a good person at heart. She obviously cares deeply about her patients and is distressed by their situation. When Henry offers to help, she makes it very clear that he shouldn't get involved if he doesn't know what he's doing, as she doesn't want him to cause any more harm than her patients have already suffered. Even in The Madonna of Sassau quests, she doesn't let the feeling of possibly being chosen by the Virgin Mary make her cruel or greedy. She doesn't request gifts for her help or words, and the ones she is given she uses once again to help those in need. People ask her for blessings, and she never pretends that's a power that she has. The only help she claims able to give them are words of wisdom from her visions, or more direct influence from Henry's hands. In this questline, Henry has the power to be far more corrupt and cruel than she does. Johanka is clearly intelligent as well, as she comes to the monastary with no official training in healing, and she learns to take care of those around her with little assistance until Henry arrives.

In the end, I think Johanka is a great character. She's complex. Like a real person, she doesn't always make perfect decisions and she isn't always blandly cheerful. But everything she goes through is reflective of real situations women in the time would have dealt with: from struggling to find a place where she can survive, to being pressured into an unwanted relationship, to coming into conflict with the church.

And one of my favorite things about her is that she's just Henry's friend. So many of the named women in the game exist mostly as romantic options for Henry, and that's never even an option with Johanka. Their friendship is purely platonic, and if you choose to help her it's entirely out of the goodness of Henry's heart. And it makes the ending to the DLC, if you do your best to help her, feel that much sweeter.

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Lupita Nyong’o US (2019) dir. Jordan Peele

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i hate this weird trend in fandom where subtext is seen as a Bad Thing and is only done if the creators are too cowardly to commit to showing something. i hate to break it to you but nuance and layers are what make stories interesting, if you have no subtext then you have a very flat story

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love how when i get a new interest, i’m like “oh god it’s happening again” and i’m stuck like that for about a week until everything explodes and any interest i’ve had prior is completely dwarfed for an unknown amount of time

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Saturn peeking behind the Moon, seen from the top of the Mauna Kea Volcana, in Hawaii, in September 2024. Do you realise a person on Earth took that picture. Wow.

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it's literally so insane how bad at therapy most therapists are. i have been in therapy for over 10 years and i have only had like one therapist that really helped me but she was part of an intense outpatient program i had to go to (or else i would go to the psych ward) so i only had her for a month. like it's insane how dogshit most therapists are at their job. like. they also most of the time have no class awareness or, like, any outside knowledge of the real world. i had a therapist reprimand me for giving a homeless friend money. i had a therapist call me a doormat and laugh at me when i told him about an abusive situation i had recently gotten out of. i had a therapist straight up try to convince me of incel logic and he literally tried to argue that i should have seen how "men suffer more" because im a trans man. like. hello. hello. why are we giving these idiots psych degrees.

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gender essentialism is soooo funny bc it's like "this is what women are like" and you're like "I've met women and many of them, if not the majority, have not been like that" and it's like "well women SHOULD be like that" and you're like "why should women be like that" and its like "because that's what women are like"

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wizard college is going to kill me I swear to god. I just saw someone without a component satchel reach into their pocket and pull out a handful of LOOSE tapioca to use as a substitute for blood in their fell ritual. and it worked. I've never been so fucking mad.

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We will literally never progress past biphobia until people realize that bisexuals in het relationships are still having a queer experience by virtue of being bisexual, we do not magically oscillate between gay enough and too straight. I’m going to maul someone to death.