#Her role is also to protect rape victims

[ponhey]

Not to make fun of my parent, but when you name your child after saint "had her breast cut off and is often shown holding a plate with her own boobies" you CANNOT be surprised when said child come out as transgender and want to cut his breast.

Like, if you didn't want me to have top surgery, maybe don't name me after saint top surgery.

I know for her it was to torture and not very transgender, but that's why i'm doing it, to redo the error of the past, and i'm sure she's very supportive

[theoihalioistuff]

ARES IS NOT THE PROTECTOR OF WOMEN IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

He is never presented as such in any source, there is no evidence such a role was ever assigned to him in any account, and as far as I'm aware this popular yet unattested assertion is born from the echo-chambers of tumblr. In fact quite the opposite could be argued. TW for sexual assault.

This baffling claim seems to originate from a sort of shallow examination of the way Ares "behaves in myth", and the following arguments are the most frequently presented:

1. Ares protects his daughter Alkippe from assault, and is therefore morally opposed to rape. (Apollodorus 3.180, Pausanias 1.21.4, Suidas "Areios pagos", attributed to Hellanikos)

Curiously this argument is never applied to, among other examples: Apollo for defending his mother Leto from Tytios, Herakles for defending Hera from Porphyrion (or his wife Deianeira from Nessos), or Zeus for defending his sister Demeter from Iasion (in the versions where he attacks her), etc. The multiple accounts of rape of the previously mentioned figures did not conflict with these stories in greek thought: they're defending family members or women otherwise close to them. This sort of mentality is not uncommon even in contemporary times, e.g. a warrior may have no ethical problem killing men, but would not want his own family or loved ones to be killed. The same goes here for sexual assault.

2. There are no surviving accounts of Ares sexually assaulting anybody.

The idea that the ancient greeks pictured that, among all the gods, Ares was the only one who shied away from committing rape is baseless and borders on ridiculous. In this case absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The majority of surviving records regarding Ares' unions are presented in a genealogical manner, and do not go into details on their nature. This is the case for most works of mythography, where specifics of sexual encounters are to be found elsewhere. However, common motifs present in other accounts of rape also appear in stories concerning Ares' relationships, e.g. tropes like shape-shifting/the use of disguises, the victim being a huntress, secrecy, and the disposal of the concieved child, are to be found in the stories of Phylonome and Astyoche respectively:

Φυλονόμη Νυκτίμου καὶ Ἀρκαδίας θυγάτηρ ἐκυνήγει σὺν τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι: Ἄρης δ᾽ ἐν σχήματι ποιμένος ἔγκυον ἐποίησεν. ἡ δὲ τεκοῦσα διδύμους παῖδας καὶ φοβουμένη τὸν πατέρα ἔρριψεν εἰς τὸν Ἐρύμανθο

"Phylonome, the daughter of Nyktimos and Arkadia, was wont to hunt with Artemis; but Ares, in the guise of a shepherd, got her with child. She gave birth to twin children and, fearing her father, cast them into the [River] Erymanthos." (Pseudo-Plutarch, Greek and Roman Parallel Stories, 36)

οἳ δ᾽ Ἀσπληδόνα ναῖον ἰδ᾽ Ὀρχομενὸν Μινύειον, τῶν ἦρχ᾽ Ἀσκάλαφος καὶ Ἰάλμενος υἷες Ἄρηος οὓς τέκεν Ἀστυόχη δόμῳ Ἄκτορος Ἀζεΐδαο, παρθένος αἰδοίη ὑπερώϊον εἰσαναβᾶσα Ἄρηϊ κρατερῷ: ὃ δέ οἱ παρελέξατο λάθρῃ: τοῖς δὲ τριήκοντα γλαφυραὶ νέες ἐστιχόωντο.

"And they that dwelt in Aspledon and Orchomenus of the Minyae were led by Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Ares, whom, in the palace of Actor, son of Azeus, Astyoche, the honoured maiden, conceived of mighty Ares, when she had entered into her upper chamber; for he lay with her in secret" (Homer, Iliad 2. 512 ff)

In neither of these cases is a verb explicitly denoting rape used, though it is heavily implied by the context. The focus of the action is on the conception of sons, the nature of the interaction is secondary.

Other examples are found among the daughters of the river Asopos, who where (and here there's no confusion) ravished and kidnapped by different gods to different parts of the greek world, where they found local lines through children borne to their abductors and serve as eponyms. Surviving fragments from Corinna of Tanagra tell us:

"Asopos went to his haunts . . from you halls . . into woe . . Of these [nine] daughters Zeus, giver of good things, took his [Asopos'] child Aigina . . from her father's [house] . . while Korkyra and Salamis and lovely Euboia were stolen by father Poseidon, and Leto's son is in possession of Sinope and Thespia . . [and Tanagra was seized by Hermes] . . But to Asopos no one was able to make the matter clear, until . . [the seer Akraiphen reveals to him] 'And of your daughters father Zeus, king of all, has three; and Poseidon, ruler of the sea, married three; and Phoibos [Apollon] is master of the beds of two of them, and of one Hermes, good son of Maia. For so did the pair Eros and the Kypris persuade them, that they should go in secret to your house and take your nine daughters." (heavily fragmented papyrus. Corinna fr. 654)

"For your [Tanagra's] sake Hermes boxed against Ares." (Corinna fr. 666)

It seems that, similar to the myths of Beroe or Marpessa, the abducted maiden is fought over by two competing "suitors", and though we can infer that the outcome of the story is that Hermes gets to keep Tanagra, apparently by beating Ares in a boxing match, we don't actually know what happened or how it happened. In any case, Ares does mate with another daughter of Asopos, Harpina, who bears him Oinomaos according to some versions (Paus. 5.22.6; Stephanus Byzantium. Ethnica. A125.3; Diodorus Siculus 4. 73. 1). There is little reason to suppose that this encounter wasn't pictured as an abduction like the rest of her sisters.

The blatant statement that each of his affairs was envisioned as consensual is simply not true.

3. He was worshipped under the epithet Gynaikothoinas "feasted by women"

This was a local cult that existed in Tegea, the following reason is given:

"There is also an image of Ares in the marketplace of Tegea. Carved in relief on a slab it is called Gynaecothoenas. At the time of the Laconian war, when Charillus king of Lacedaemon made the first invasion, the women armed themselves and lay in ambush under the hill they call today Phylactris. When the armies met and the men on either side were performing many remarkable exploits, the women, they say, came on the scene and put the Lacedaemonians to flight. Marpessa, surnamed Choera, surpassed, they say, the other women in daring, while Charillus himself was one of the Spartan prisoners. The story goes on to say that he was set free without ransom, swore to the Tegeans that the Lacedaemonians would never again attack Tegea, and then broke his oath; that the women offered to Ares a sacrifice of victory on their own account without the men, and gave to the men no share in the meat of the victim. For this reason Ares got his surname." (Paus. 8.48.4-5)

As emphasised by Georgoudi in To Act, Not Submit: Women’s Attitudes in Situations of War in Ancient Greece (part of the highly recommendable collection of essays Women and War in Antiquity), "it is not necessary to see the operation of an invitation in the bestowal of the epithet Γυναικοθοίνας on Ares". The epithet is ambiguous, and can be translated both as "Host of the banquet of women" or "[He who is] invited to the banquet of women". In any case no act of divine intervention occurs, and the main reason for the women's act of devotion lies principally in recognising their decisive role in the routing of the Lakedaimonians. It's they who preside/participate in the feast of war, the men are excluded.

Also this a local epithet that isn't found anywhere else in Greece. As such it would be worth reminding that not every Ares is Gynaikothoinas, in the same way not every Zeus is Aithiopian, not every Demeter Erinys, and not every Artemis of Ephesos.

4. He was the patron god of the Amazons

He was considered progenitor of the Amazons because of their proverbial warlike nature and love of battle, the same reason he was associated with other "barbaric" tribes, like the Thracians or the Scythians. In this capacity he was also appointed as a suitable father/ancestor for other violent and savage characters who generally function as antagonists (e.g. Kyknos, Diomedes of Thrace, Tereos of Thrace, Oinomaos, Agrios and Oreios, Phlegyas, Lykos etc.). Also he was by no means the only god connected with the Amazons (they were in fact especially linked to Artemis, see Religious Cults Associated With the Amazons by Florence Mary Bennett, if only for the bibliography).

Similarly, Poseidon was considered patron and ancestor of the Phaiakians mainly because of their mastery over the art of seafaring (and was curiously also credited in genealogies as father to monsters and other disreputable figures).

On another note I have found no sources that claim he taught his amazon daughters how to fight, as I've seen often mentioned (though I admit I'd love to be proven wrong on that point).

5. Finally, the last reason Ares could never be portrayed as a protector of women is because of his divine assignation itself

The uncountable references to his love of bloodshed and man-slaying don't just stop short of the battlefield, but continue on to the conclusion and intended purpose of most waged wars in antiquity: the sacking of the city. The title Sacker of Cities as an epithet of Ares (though it is by no means exclusive to him) is encountered numerous times and in different variations (eg. τειχεσιπλήτης or πτολίπορθος), and the meaning behind the epithet is plain. Though it is hard to summarise without being reductionist, the sacking of a city entails the plundering of all its goods, the slaughtering of its men, and the sistematic raping and enslavement of the surviving women (to name only a small few of the literary references see The Iliad, The Trojan Women or The Women of Trachis). There is little need to emphasise that war as concieved of in ancient greece, especifically the brutal aspects of war Ares is most often associated with, directly entailed sexual violence against women as one of it's main concerns. The multiple references to Ares being an unloved or disliked deity are because of this, because war is horrifying (not because his daddy is a big old meany who hates him for no reason, Zeus makes very clear the motive for his contempt in the Iliad (5. 889-891): "Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar. To me you are most hateful of all gods who hold Olympos. Forever quarreling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.")

Ares was only the protector of women inasmuch as he could be averted or repelled (e.g. surviving apotropaic chants):

"There is no clash of brazen shields but our fight is with the war god, a war god ringed with the cries of men, a savage god who burns us; grant that he turn in racing course backward out of our country’s bounds, to the great palace of Amphitrite or where the waves of the thracian sea deny the stranger safe anchorage. Whatsoever escapes the night at last the light of day revisits; so smite him, Father Zeus, beneath your thunderbolt, for you are the lord of the lightning, the lightning that carries fire." (Shophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos, 190-202)

"And let no murderous havoc come upon the realm to ravage it, by arming Ares—foe to the dance and lute, parent of tears—and the shout of civil strife." (Aeschylus, Suppliant Women 678)

~~~~~

All that being said, this is a post about Ares as conceptualized and attested in ancient sources, made specifically in response to condescending statements about how "uhmmm, actually, in greek mythology Ares was a super-feminist himbo who was worshipped as the protector of women and was hated by his family for no reason, you idiot". It is factually incorrect. HOWEVER, far be it from me to tell anyone how they have to interact with this deity. Be it your retellings, your headcannons or your own personal religious attachments and beliefs towards Ares, those are your own provinces and prerogatives, and not what was being discussed here at all (I personally love art where Ares and Aphrodite goof around, or retellings where he plays with his daughters, or headcannons that showcase his more noble sides, etc.)

~~~~~

I've seen that other people on tumblr have made similar posts, the ones I've seen were by @deathlessathanasia and @en-theos . I have no idea how to link their posts, but they're really good so go check them out on their pages!

[a-room-of-my-own]

Edinburgh Crisis Centre designed to protect women who had suffered serious sexual violence is condemned for failing them in damning report

A controversial rape crisis centre “damaged” victims of sexual violence by hindering their access to biologically female counsellors, a damning report has found.

Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC), run by trans woman Mridul Wadhwa, was blasted for “many serious failings” including not putting the needs of survivors first.

The independent investigation condemned the centre for insisting traumatised rape victims, who can be as young as 12, must specify if they don’t want support from someone born a man.

More than 94 per cent of victims of rape are women and the perpetrators men.

Yet the review found ERCC failed to provided vulnerable victims with safe women only spaces, while at the same time opening up services to men.

The report said: “Putting women in the position of having to discuss whether the service they receive will be provided by someone who was born and continues to identify as female has caused damage.”

The review was ordered by umbrella organisation Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) in May 2024, after a scathing employment tribunal judgment ruled that ERCC worker Roz Adams was subjected to a “heresy hunt” for suggesting a rape victim should know the sex of her counsellor.

Although rape crisis centres are autonomous, they sign up to the RCS’s national standards, many of which the review found ERCC had failed to meet.

RCS said the review had found a “significant breach of its standards” and was “pausing” the referral of any new clients to ERCC until it implements the recommendations of the review.

Women only spaces are a required national standard yet they were not available from October 2022 until at least February 2024, when ERCC knew it was facing a tribunal and would be under scrutiny.

The review was heavily critical of Wadhwa, who self identifies as a woman but does not have a gender recognition certificate and is legally a man.

It found her be a domineering as chief executive who “who did not understand the limits on her role’s authority” and it said Wadhwa “failed to set professional standards of behaviour” within the organisation.

She was portrayed as incompetent, overseeing an organisation with systemic failures and a chaotic approach in key areas such as financial transparency, training and safeguarding for staff and clients.

Wadhwa was placed on leave from June this year, a month after she was blamed by the employment tribunal for being the “invisible hand” in the victimisation of Ms Adams for her gender critical views.

The reviewer, charity sector consultant, Vicky Ling, said she was also told victims were not using the service because they deemed it unsafe, given there was no guarantee of being seen by a counsellor born female.

And she recommended ERCC refer any concerned survivors to guaranteed women only services such as Beira's Place, the rape help centre funded by JK Rowling and condemned by Wadhwa as transphobic.

Wadhwa labelled rape victims bigots and transphobes if they doubted whether a man identifying as a woman should run a centre helping women recover from male violence.

She said any staff who did not think all trans women were women should be fired.

According to the employment tribunal, Madhwa was on a mission to 'cleanse the organisation of those who did not follow her beliefs’.

In 2021, Wadhwa caused outrage when she told listeners of the Guilty Feminist podcast that some rape victims were “bigoted people” who needed to “reframe their trauma” and be re-educated if they didn’t agree all trans women were female.

The report said Wadhwa’s controversial comments “caused damage to individuals and to the reputation of the organisation”.

The report said the work environment at ERCC was unhealthy and with high sickness rates and that staff were likely to be too scared to question Wadhwa’s “trans activist” approach.

It recommended an overhaul of the culture at ERCC including the establishment of policies which would guarantee there would be no victimisation of any staff who did not agree with trans-inclusion within the service.

[whatshehassaid]

“I LOVED HER.” “BUT SHE DIDN’T LOVE YOU. Not like he did. Not like I have”

That isn’t Armand saying Claudia didn’t love Louis. She did. What he’s saying is that Louis was so fucking focused on PINING for Lestats love, superimposing Lestat on Claudia AND Armand that Louis refused to accept love from them. Because he didn’t want Claudia. He didn’t want Armand. He wanted Lestat and he couldn’t have him (whether it be because Louis convinced himself Lestat was bad, or dead, or because Louis is in denial). He tries to make villains out of Armand and Claudia.

“Speaking of mistakes…”

“Vintage Lioncourt.” “I’m not Lestat, Louis.” “Okay….”

“Picked ANOTHER ONE over ME”

“It was NEVER ABOUT ME. Another chapter in the FUCKED UP ROMANCE OF YOU TWO”

“If you want to escape this cage of empathy I’ve trapped you in all you had to do was ask, Louis.”

“Imagine me without the burden of her”

Louis can’t face the fact that he was IMPLICIT in what happened to Claudia in Paris. She wants a companion in Madeline cause she’s not getting in from Louis.

I feel like we may be going the route of Armand and Claudia (probably immediately after the trial and before her death) bonding over their experiences. Not just to do with Louis and Lestat… but their childhoods… being raped… being used… being turned so young…

I’m not 100% on this but if they do include the head swap thing (which is still fucked up, I’m still upset at Armand for that) I feel like Armand will frame it or believe that he can save her if he can just give her a woman’s body to match her mind. And I feel like Claudia will jump at the chance. Again, not 100% with that and it’s STILL super fucked up.. but I think if that happens Armand (AT THE TIME) would believe he was helping her. Like how he “helps” his victims. How he was never helped as a human child and as a vampire. They relate to each other because they’ve never been someone’s first choice… and I think the moment Armand hears her say those words (“it was never about me. Another chapter in the fucked up story/romance of you two”) he’s gonna realize how much they really have in common and feel empathy for her.

It makes a lot of sense with how Armand’s character (especially in the books) is. He has a thing about consent (it’s a bit twisted because you could argue he assumes he knows what’s best for people… and acts accordingly thinking that he’s helping them) But he needs people to consent at least somehow. Even if it’s coerced.

That’s also why I believe after Paris… Louis initially agreed to have the memories of his role in Claudia’s death suppressed. He couldn’t handle the guilt that he didn’t care enough to save her. Armand just took it to the point of constantly suppressing the triggering memories. Plus on TOP of that I’m 100% sure Louis is schizophrenic and it’s causing blackouts.

Armand wasn’t really lying when he said that “I protect Louis from himself.” He WAS being honest. It’s in a fucked up way, but I believe it’s true.

And then with Daniel, that’s a whole other can of worms because I don’t think Armand wiped his memories right after San Fran. I’m starting to believe it wasn’t just Louis telling him to keep Daniel alive. The minute Daniel admits he finds Armand fascinating… and tells him “you can read minds right?” Alluding to the fact that he ISN’T LYING. Daniel is intrigued by Armand… and that immediately catches Armand’s attention. We’ve only seen up to Louis attacking Daniel from an unbiased POV (the tape recording). The rest is MOSTLY FROM LOUIS. Who had had memories taken whether by Armand or by the blackouts… and remember he has a habit of trying to make himself look good in Daniel’s eyes. He tries to convince himself constantly that he’s not a bad guy - but in reality…. He’s done some shitty things too. So it wouldn’t surprise me if some of that was also lies to Daniel. “You’re a liar Louis. Whether you know it or not.”

Something happened in those 4 days with Armand and Daniel that I’m not sure Louis realizes. He may come in and out of actual remembrance where he KNOWS Armand and Daniel fell in love… and he uses it against them both… and then goes back into not knowing what’s happening.

I have a feeling we’re getting the trial/claudia’s death/a reveal about the blackouts etc/the fire from ARMAND. Hence the “imagine me without the burden of her” line that Louis says. He would NEVER in a million years admit to saying that. Definitely not to Daniel.

The Merrick storyline plays into this here. Finding Claudia’s diaries… realizing that Louis really treated her badly and that she hates him for it. And Louis not being able to take it.

I also feel like Lestat and Armand have teamed up in Dubai without Louis or Daniel realizing it. They may be trying to help cure him with the help of Dr. Bhansali.

(Also, devils minion definitely happened in the past… you can just see it in the way Armand sometimes looks at Daniel - and in the books even though he was a stickler for rules… his only exception has ALWAYS been Daniel. He loves Louis, he wouldn’t have put up with any of this if he didn’t… but Daniel? Daniel is really the love of Armand’s life. And Lestat is Louis’. I need them boys to figure this shit out - and with the fact that Daniel wasn’t listed in the Talamasca victims folder? Even though he was attacked, held hostage and tormented… means he is probably in ANOTHER folder - *cough* ARMANDSPARAMOURS *cough* I hope they have Daniel find his name in there cause THAT is gonna be J U I C Y.)

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i think it is extremely weird that parts of this fandom have just definitively decided that the principle antagonist is an irredeemably evil monster because he has his minion burn down a brothel (where said antagonist was born and abused and watched his mother suffer and die) with people still inside it, then hires a bunch of sex workers to rape his rapist dad (who raped so many women that he lost track of who his victims were, and ended up approving of a marriage between said antagonist and his own half-sister as a result) to death

when the protagonist’s chosen means of killing the people who razed the only home he’s ever known and murdered his foster parents involves 1) choking a woman to death by forcing a table leg down her throat, 2) forcing that dead woman to bite off a man’s genitals, and 3) forcing that man to eat his own legs. this plus the protagonist’s multiple day-long murder-torture bender where he kills and tortures a bunch of other wen sect disciples in front of each other, and owns doing this because it was fun and would have been too boring to kill then quickly. like jiang cheng and lan wangji find wwx by following the trail of bodies he leaves in his wake ok, that’s pretty awful

if wei wuxian can do these things and and still be considered good, then that only makes it harder for me to understand why jin guangyao is denied goodness

fun fact: when i describe both of these characters to people who are totally canon-blind and know nothing about mdzs, cql, or any of the other adaptations, the initial response from most people isn’t “hmmm but what was the protagonist’s interiority while he was making that woman’s corpse eat that man’s junk? was he very sad about it? that will surely tell me whether his corpse desecration and autocannibalism is morally defensible or not.” most of the time what they say is “ray what the fuck are you reading, both of those guys sound like evil people, i don’t care what their motivations are! also get help”

it just seems weird!! that certain corners of this fandom have decided that goodness is not only a quality that wwx intrinsically possesses (something i don’t necessarily disagree with fwiw), but that he gets to be defined by this goodness above all else. wwx gets situated at the centre of all subsequent discourse as the moral lighthouse of the whole novel—even though he has done objectively heinous shit entirely to satisfy his own desire for vengeance. doing all of those things does not detract from his fundamental goodness, in their estimation. or if it does, it doesn’t detract enough to significantly impact his role for them as the goodness barometer in the novel.

and that’s fine with me actually! if this is where the bar for what it means to be good in this novel is set, then it should logically follow that jin guangyao’s heinous actions can similarly be ‘offset’ by paying the appropriate ‘goodness tax’ through his other canon actions (e.g., loving and remaining filial to his mother, saving and protecting lan xichen, saving nie mingjue, funding the rebuilding of the cloud recesses, caring for his orphaned nephew, etc). he has done yuckydisgusting things, yes, but so has wwx! and as we all know, wwx is not evil! so jgy isn’t evil either!

…but this isn’t what happens in these conversations, because jgy seems to begin all fandom discourse at a goodness deficit that is depressingly reflective of the goodness deficit he experiences in the novel post-canon. (or, honestly, at the beginning of his life as meng yao.) and unlike wwx whose character gets to be defined principally by his goodness in spite of his genuinely horrendous acts of violence, jin guangyao’s whole character becomes defined by his horrendous acts of violence in spite of his goodness, even though the text demonstrates clearly that their capacity for both good and evil is evenly matched.

tl;dr it would be nice if the goodness goalposts would stop moving around so much in these discussions. maybe we should just get rid of them entirely.

[lurkingshan]

On Guilt, Sexual Assault, and Me Too in Tokyo in April Is…

Content warnings for this post: rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment

Following TIAI’s fifth episode, I’ve been discussing with friends @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @ginnymoonbeam, and @wen-kexing-apologist what the show is doing with the sexual assault storylines. Given Ren’s own past with Kazuma and his interpretation of what happened back then, and given that he is now being placed at the center of a story about addressing a sexual predator in his workplace, there is some fair concern about what they are trying to say with the juxtaposition of these storylines, whether we are meant to read them as explicitly connected, and what we are to make of Ren being centered in a story about women being sexually harassed and assaulted. 

In chatting more with @bengiyo, we had some ideas about this we wanted to share (what follows is something we wrote collaboratively). Full disclosure: we have both read the manga this show is based on, and know where this storyline goes in the source material. That said, the show is diverging fairly significantly in tone as well as some of the pacing and story beats, so we are really just talking about what we’re seeing in the show at this point. So, here are a few questions we are pondering:

Why is Ren, a third party, centered in this Me Too story?

Given that this plotline is about Sanada harassing and assaulting women in the workplace, why is Ren, who has not been among Sanada’s victims, the one who is being asked to address it? 

We think the show actually seeded this fairly well. It was established in the early episodes that Ren is incredibly talented and well-respected within both this office and the wider industry. He leads the art department and is perceived as one of the most important people in the company, most notably when he all but carried the company through the marketing fiasco with the canceled ad campaigns. His coworkers like and trust him and look to him for guidance. We have seen him be the one to step in before when Sanada was misbehaving–intervening when Sanada was hazing Kazuma–and one can assume that is not the first time he’s been an ally to others in the office since we first met Ren and Sanada as they were fighting about another office skirmish. 

Ren is also an openly gay man, which makes it more likely that his female coworkers might trust him with something like this. He is not a threat to them, but he has the positional power necessary to take the risk of raising Sanada’s behavior to executives and can maybe actually get somewhere with it. We know from Ren’s conversation with Maeda that she did try to report this on her own, and as is all too common, she was dismissed and pushed out so that management could protect the senior man instead. While we might typically prefer to have the women who were victimized more present in a storyline like this, it makes sense that they need a powerful ally to do the heavy lifting on their behalf, and Ren is the best positioned character in this story to do it.

And the way we’ve seen Ren handle this situation so far affirmed that decision to trust him. He has put himself primarily in the role of a facilitator. He has been trusted with privileged information that he has divulged to no one (including Kazuma), he has used his connections to find them a lawyer and put them in contact, and he has reached out to another colleague who can help connect them with other affected victims to join them in building their case. He is doing all the right things, and while the story is centered on him, he is not centering himself in the situation.

Is Ren consciously connecting his interpretation of his first time with Kazuma with Sanada and viewing exposing Sanada as a path to personal redemption?

We are a firm NO on this one. It’s important for us to recognize that Ren has deeply sublimated his feelings about what happened with Kazuma ten years ago, and he is currently in a very different headspace about that relationship. While dealing with Sanada may inspire some complex emotions and act as a catalyst for Ren to open up more with Kazuma, there is nothing in the story telling us that he is explicitly connecting his past with Kazuma and the current situation in his head, and certainly nothing that makes us think his actions here have anything to do with a desire for personal redemption. Ren is helping his colleagues because he is a good person who has the power to do something, not because he wants to absolve himself of an old crime.

As far as Ren has reacted to this situation, he’s only focused on gathering resources and information, and connecting the victims to each other and representation. He is not speaking about this with Kazuma because that is privileged information and Kazuma reports to Sanada. When Ren thinks about Kazuma in this episode, it’s only about how long this separation between them existed and how he’s held the pain of that for so long.

Throughout this episode, each time Ren spoke to another man about the Sanada situation, his friend or colleague asked about Takizawa after they had resolved the discussion about Sanada. There is a line being drawn between Ren’s situation and Sanada’s, but the line may primarily be about the way SA elements have historically been used in genre as a way to advance romantic narratives for men. In this story, Ren and Kazuma’s relationship is broken at the point at which Ren and others believe that Ren assaulted Kazuma. This show presents SA as a gross violation and a crime, and so a stark comparison to the miscommunication inherent in the Ren-Kazuma relationship.

What are we to make of the juxtaposition of these story threads?

So if the Me Too storyline is not meant to be about Ren’s redemption (which is not something he actually needs, because he did not harm Kazuma in the way he thinks he did), then what are we to take from the way these two stories are playing out in parallel? The most important thing Ren is still holding back from Kazuma is the truth of what happened ten years ago and the guilt and shame he’s been holding ever since due to his false interpretation of the events of that day. He will only be able to let go of that by acknowledging what he believes to be true and finally hearing Kazuma’s truth in turn. The catharsis he needs is not about redemption, but rather an honest conversation between them to confirm what he is already starting to feel–that they have loved each other all along.

The Me Too storyline may contribute to that by giving Ren some space to reconsider his ideas about their first time together in juxtaposition to the stories he is now holding for his colleagues. He’s kept that locked in a box for so long, but being so directly confronted by other stories of sexual assault could give him the space to gently ease that mental door open and think about the differences between how these women feel about Sanada and how Kazuma clearly feels about him. That this is unfolding in parallel with him getting more comfortable and secure in his relationship with Kazuma is not an accident–it is in fact the very combination of the two that will allow him to unlock the box and build up his courage to finally address it. Don’t forget also that Kazuma’s mother has re-entered the story, which acts as a further catalyst for Ren and Kazuma to finally clear the air about exactly what happened ten years ago.

(I know we’re in BMF hours on the dash now, so tagging a few friends who’ve been watching along with us so this post doesn’t get lost: @troubled-mind @blmpff @wanderlust-in-my-soul @rocketturtle4 @nieves-de-sugui @colourme-feral @waitmyturtles)

[horizon-verizon]

While B&C is objectively horrifying, I’ve honestly never once felt any emotion when reading it… but Aerea’s death, oh my god, I was completely engrossed and taken back by the hideous, stomach-turning and repugnant description of her death.

👀

Aerea had to have had those fireworms crawl through her still-living body for days. Aerea's death was much more detailed, a lot more gory, and connects to one overarching and critical element, or "layer", of the ASoIaF series: the Targs' legacy with their dragons and the effect of the Valyrian's imperialism over Essos. Aerea's death brought a sense of doom because it alerted us and Jaehaerys of the Targs' vulnerability to forces that their own ancestors probably caused. And the account is very reliable, more so than most F&B accounts and certainly so for the Dance portion of the book. Its relater, Septon Barth, he's the one who tried to treat Aerea. And of all the "Faith-aligned professionals" we ever encountered in this world, he was the most dedicated to impartial study of the people and things around him. (Sincere about it, too, even though he does also factor in a few societal lens...because he still lives in Westeros and is still a septon.) So you know he was writing what he saw impartially.

Why do the Targs' relationship with their dragons & past AND their dragons' future matter? We (should) know and have read ASoIaF and read about Daenerys, how she becomes the Queen that she is meant to be to save the world. We have learned that something can hurt a dragon. We need dragons//fire for the Long Night & protect humanity. The Targs' assimilation into the Andal-FM pre-Conquest culture and subsequent refusal to better & truly incorporate their women into their politics--or just think outside of their own immediate needs for power, even with some being genuinely better people and leaders--have lead up to their own loss of said dragons, then their usurpation. It's a lead up to Daenerys in-world and re-contextualizes her role for the Long Night to come.

*However, reminder, yes the Targs' Conquest and reign still greatly reduced the thousands of years of constant warfare b/t the non Valyrian Westerosi former kingdoms. Two things, true at once.*

Whereas with Jaehaerys, the death served this one story to illustrate how far a specific group of people will go to destroy the other or get the other back for perceived/real wrongs done. Jaehaerys became a victim of a blood feud & another motive to keep that particular blood feud going. It's not even the first death, but a response to another's death done by the greens (Aemond), who decided to usurp the king-chosen heir, a woman, for their own ambitions. He is part of a succession of a drama. And while his 6 fingers generate some curiosity and inquiry as to what effects the magical connection to dragons have on disabilities/congenital conditions being more reduced--which Idk about, since the Westerosi have been marrying their cousins for centuries and most of the nobles we see aren't fugly nor have many congenital conditions to rival the Hapsburgs--this doesn't serve or inform us on the bigger story. Sad and tragic, but in terms of the scales of consequences, it had a simpler effect.

Ironically, he has less narrative importance than Nettles or Mysaria, whom some Rhaenyra & black stans try to argue was "just a plot device" 🙄 to use against Rhaenyra. Both within and out of Fire & Blood. Then there's the business of green stans being so overwrought & talkative over his death than the:

sack of Bitterbridge & rapes/murders (of refugees, of children, septas, old people, etc.)

sack of of Tumbleton & rapes/murders

Dalton Greyjoy's raping women and killing innocent peasants,

etc.

It is perhaps all of these that make Aerea's death seem both more harrowing and "important" than Jaehaerys'. Aerea's death is more shrouded in mystery, Jaehaerys' is not. Her death has a larger narrative purpose compared to his.

[evilsoup]

so like i know isekai is primarily associated with stories about how some nerd gets hit by a truck and the reincarnated into a d&d-derived fantasy world where people literally have "levels" and skill points but the protagonist has some cheat superpower that lets him beat up the bad guys and accumulate a harem of questionably of-age catgirls, elves, etc, at least one of which refers to him as "big brother" -- and deservedly so -- but there are actually some real gems in the genre, like the short and sweet 1999 series "now and then, here and now".

This is the story of Shu, a headstrong shonen protagonist (big-hearted, quick to charge in to fight for someone who's asked for his help, a bit simple but makes up for it with enthusiasm and fearlessness) who is living an unremarkable and comfortable life as a child in a small town in japan with conflicts like "my friend is annoyed at me because i don't take our kendo club seriously enough". He comes to the rescue of a quiet blue-haired girl who is being attacked by bad guy with futurey robots, and gets transported to a vast desert dominated by a bloated sun in which water is scarce, and gets forcibly recruited into an army of child soldiers (after being tortured for days, maybe weeks, to determine that he doesn't have the information the army needs).

The brutality of the world he finds himself in is a remarkably real-feeling depiction. There's a recurring "protector-protected" character dynamic of in which the protector character takes on the role of sheltering another and so is able to cope with the horrors they have experienced; we also see implied former relations of this kind which the "protected" character clearly chafed at and acted to get out of, as well as an example of the total failure of the protector-character who therefore can only long for revenge (and this is portrayed sympathetically), and of course the making-use of these relations by the army.

Unmarked spoilers from here, and trigger warning for child abuse including rape, as well as pretty unflinching depictions of massacres.

If you speak to any enlisted soldier you'll find that they actually fight for the men in their unit more than the official ideology -- though the latter remains important as it sets the boundaries of what one is allowed to say and do -- and if you read the operation manual of any army you'll find that the officers understand this perfectly and rely on it. This is depicted well here, and disturbingly: one of the sympathetic secondary-protagonist characters, nabuca (about 14), has a sidekick boo (i'd guess 9) who he tries his best to protect (along with the rest of his unit of children, of which he appears to be the NCO). Protecting Boo and the rest means ensuring that everyone follows orders and acts diligently -- including by escorting another character, Sara, to her rape and forced impregnation by another soldier at the order of the high-ups.

This is another strong theme -- the moral degredation of conditions of war, which often present situations in which there are no good responses.

The part that has stuck with me most is actually in the middle of the story, after Shu and some other characters have managed ot escape and found themselves at a hidden valley where there's a peaceful farming community -- made up of survivors of attacks from the army they've escaped from. There's a conflict within this comnunity as to what they should do in relation to the aggressors, Hellywood: Sis, who looks after a number of orphans, wants them to do nothing in the hope that they can remain hidden and provide a space for healing and in which the children can live as children; Elamba, who lost his entire family to Hellywood, wants revenge -- and to prevent any more victims in the future. Sis is the nicer person and Shu sides with her, but he can clearly see Elamba's case too: Shu was present for a Hellywood raid, in which they attacked a village and took the boys to be soldiers and the girls ot be impregnated to produce future soldiers; and for half the episode we follow Sara as she first tries to kill herself and then tries to induce an abortion by smashing her gut with a rock. I think it's impossible to see the depiction of the depths of her despair and not have a desire for revenge. To see that suffering and not seek justice is a moral horror. To endanger a rare space in which children are able to grow in safety into members of a functioning community is a moral horror.

The tension is ultimately unresolved -- it turns out that Hellywood is coming for them shortly in any case, and before that Elamba takes some rather unsympathetic actions that muddy the moral waters. But there's bravery in really sitting with the tension, as this show does.

There are only two real faults: i think it needed about one extra episode to deal with the immediate aftermath of the climax -- there's one character who makes a decision for which the bones are there, but for which there really needed to have been a bit more time to put meat on those bones; and the fact that there's a time machine in Hellywood is not properly addressed -- why do then have to stay in this shitty dying world rather than fleeing elsewhen..? But neither of these fundamentally doom the project, in my opinion.

I might write more about this, honestly -- it's a pretty obscure show, with exactly five entries on AO3 lmao (i mean, fair enough, it's a daunting one to write about) and i'd like to think i could help bring some attention to it. There's more that can be drilled into on this one i think.

Go watch it -- the entire series has been uploaded onto youtube. You need to watch it. You need to.

[bohemian-nights]

I can’t believe there’s excuses for what Rhaenyra says about Nettles, the only Black character in the Dance (“a common thing”, “low creature” and “you need only to look at her to know she has no drop of dragon’s blood in her”). Trying to pass it as her paranoia due to Mysaria and cheating doesn’t work. If you call a POC a racial slur, that’s racist regardless of whether that person did something to you. Rhaenyra isn’t Daenerys or Arya, she tried to murder a teenage Black girl. I am not here for any Rhaenyra’s stan trying to excuse or downplay a white woman’s misogynoir and classism because her sons died. Grief doesn’t make you suddenly racist, or compel you to say racist things. You were always that way. The grief just brought out the racism and supremacism that was always simmering beneath the surface.

Actually, Rhaenyra reminds me of the racist Southern plantation owner Mary Epps in the film 12 Years a Slave, who feels jealous and threatened by Patsey (played by Lupita Nyong’o) when her husband Ed constantly rapes Patsey and other female slaves. Mary hates and blames her and the other Black slaves for “seducing” her husband, while making excuses for his outbursts of rage, violence and lust.

And the fact that some of these people say that they like Nettles is what makes it worse.

(This also goes out to some of Team Green who any other time are capable of admitting that Miss Maegor is in the wrong, but suddenly when it’s a Black girl it’s all Missy Anne is a victim too).

If you actually liked Netty you wouldn’t downplay her hurt. You wouldn’t downplay how she was almost killed in her sleep by Missy Anne. You wouldn’t forget that she’s vulnerable. You wouldn’t forget that she is a too woman.

Any way you slice it, she being Black, homeless, a bastard, and the daughter of a whore, is the lowest person in the racial/social/class strata. You don’t like someone and ignore their identity and the role that plays in their treatment(both inside and outside the story).

Septon Eustace(the one who reported on what happened during the council meeting where Nettles death was given a death sentence) may be biased against Missy Anne, but remember who Nettles is.

Remember that even when he was defending her Corlys of all people still called her dirty and ill-favored.

Is it really so hard to believe that Missy Anne would call her a low creature without a drop of dragon’s blood?

Is the woman who ordered her head truly supposed to suddenly be a beacon of morality?

Murder is fine, but she wouldn’t stoop to racism. Eustace totally just threw in those lines for shits and giggles.

As if he needed to do such a thing when she was fine with breaking guests rights and murdering her in her sleep.

Missy Anne is in the wrong here. Not Daemon who was the one person(baring Maester Norren, shout-out to him, he seems nice) who didn’t have a thing to say against her and protected her with his life. Or Mysaria, who while is a conniving snake, she’s not the one who signed that letter.

Like it or not the moment Missy Anne ordered Nettles to be murdered she became the big bad wolf in her story.

The “mental breakdown” excuse is old. She was perfectly fine with Mysaria sleeping with her husband, but only flips out when a Black girl does it.

To not acknowledge that shows me that you value her feelings, personhood, and “suffering” over Nettles(and there are broader implications with that).

Rhaenyra is just like the women from old yonder. The only difference between she and a woman like Mrs. Epps is that she has more power yet she still chooses to punish Nettles rather than her husband. Point blank period she’s a racist.

Then again it’s not hard to see why these people don’t think Missy Anne is racist given how quick they are to say Nettles should be cut because she is Black, are comfortable with calling characters the N-word or comparing Black characters to monkeys, don’t see the problem with calling Dettles disgusting even though they ship an abusive incestuous relationship, yet somehow they aren’t racist a**holes.

Anyone taking these people remotely seriously, let alone viewing them as an authority on racial issues is out of their mind.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

The Problems with HOTD's Alicent

Hotd made a lot of interesting choices about their characterizations, especially when it comes to Alicent. First off, there's the obvious age change, which I know has been commented on a lot, so I'm not going to be talking about that in this post. What I'm going to talk about is the changes in her character itself (made supposedly in the name of feminism might I add) and why that hurts the story itself.

To start off: the constant victimization. Now, having Alicent being a victim of marital rape is not my issue, it was definitely not uncommon in the time period asoiaf is based on. My issue is turning it and her many other victimizations into one of her only personality traits. Literally Alicent's main traits are: Rhaenyra's former bff, victim of Otto, victim of Viserys, teen mom, and victim of Larys. Can everyone see the pattern? Victimization for the sake of it is disgusting and exploitative, and it's even worse when they, in order to fulfill the storyline created by grrm, turn her into an abuser herself. Like she has no development past the victim-abuser cycle and its depressing at best and enraging at worst. How is that feminist?

Now how does that hurt the story? Well I did allude to it above, but I say it clearly this time: it gives her no character arc and stunts one of the main characters which cripples any emotional tension the writers are trying to build. Rhaenyra in episode 8 may as well be talking to Alicent in episode 5, which is the last time we see Alicent develop at all. We see Rhaenyra change over the episodes, especially over the 10 year time skip, but Alicent remains the spiteful, paranoid girl she was at the end of episode 5. That's half the fucking season as a stagnant character! This wouldn't be so bad if she was a side character, like Harwin and Lyonel, but she's literally one of the main characters, how the fuck is this good writing?

Next change: turning Alicent's main motivation into protecting her children. This is something I like to call the Cersei effect: the belief that if your main female antagonist, just giving her the role of protective mom is all you need to make her nuanc3ed. Which is total bs and totally misses what exactly it was that makes Cersei an interesting antagonist. Actually they took more than just the children thing from Cersei, I think that's also where they got the marital rape, loveless marriage, and being called the ex's name from. But anyway, the reason this angle doesn't work (aside from it being fucking lazy) is because, in this story, Alicent helps start a fucking civil war. How the fuck does that protect her kids?? And on top of that, how does forcing your 13 y/o daughter to her 15 y/o abusive brother (and don't say Aegon wasn't an abuser yet, he was bullying and harassing Aemond long before the marriage) protect her? By keeping her close? What was she going to do, supervise them every time they're alone? Make sure Aegon is sober and not assaulting her? Basically what I'm getting at: Alicent's actions are completely counter-intuitive to her supposed main goal of protecting her children. And it shows since she had to live through all of them dying because of her and Otto's actions.

The reason that is harmful to the story is pretty much what I said above, but I'll say it more clearly here: if your antagonist/rival's actions are completely nonsensical with their goal, they are a bad antagonist/rival and the story is therefore lacking any real conflict. The only time Alicent's actions made some sense were in episode 7 when she attacked Rhaenyra, that was clearly years of resentment boiling over and anger over how Viserys reacted to her son's maiming. That is the only time I've ever found her compelling after episode 3.

All this to say: Alicent's hotd characterization makes no sense and it destroys any actual conflict beyond pettiness in the story, which completely ruins it. Thank you for reading this far, I know this was really fucking long.

[is-this-really--life]

I don't call myself a TERF. I think that term is stupid, quite frankly. I do actually think trans people are oppressed by patriarchy and it's strict enforcement of gender roles. I am not a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. Other people gave me that label.

I am a gender critical feminist. Also known as critical of gender: the system of roles and stereotypes that differentiate how we treat men and women. I think cis people uphold the gender system even more than trans people do in some ways. And I hate that they do.

I don't think trans women are more likely to be perverts or predators than cis men. I do think policies that try to get rid of sex as a protected class in favor of gender identity allow predators the *access* to be predatory. Ex. trans women in female prisons leading to cases such as Karen White, Janiah Monroe, Isla Bryson, Katie Dolatowski...

I also hate men. I hate the fact that I have to fear them and can never trust them and the fact that so many dehumanize women. Often for their sexual pleasure, but also in other ways. The female sex has been left out of power and recognition and respect in every field and nearly every hobby for centuries. We are raped and abused at higher rates in almost every culture. I dont believe the patriarchy victimizes men the same as women. Men benefit from the patriarchy, and they uphold it. Poor and oppressed men also uphold the patriarchy. Ask any poor & oppressed woman her experiences with her male peers.

This is feminism from a systemic lens. That is where my belief system is rooted.

For this belief system, I am told I am a "TERF." Because I am called "TERF," it is okay to call me a fascist, a nazi that deserves to be assaulted, raped, killed, pissed on, violated, hated, hated, hated.

This is *wrong*. This belief system is not what is harming trans people. Right wing enforcement of gender roles is. Hatred for gender nonconformity is. Lack of access to mental health resources is. Social norms are. Radical feminists are not your enemy until you make us your enemy. You have to stop hating people blindly.

[dontbotherwiththepronunciation]

.

Small thing that I find curious even if it doesn’t lead me to any real conclusions is Theon remarking on Kyra and Jeyne’s youth when the two are facing (sexual) violence. Kyra is supposed to be 18-19 at the time of her death, so almost an age with Theon, and Jeyne is around 13-14, a weird age in-universe where the perception of her age largely depends on her surroundings, and older than Sansa was when Theon deemed her “ripe for bedding”.

i don’t believe in or like the idea of Theon being one of the miller’s wife’s sons because, among other things, of what it implies to the age he first started being sexually active, but then again the entire thing about a girl “making a man out of him” and how he seems to tie his supposed adulthood to the loss of his virginity.

as said this has no real direction d it’s a weird topic for me, a prude, to approach but I just find it oddly endearihb in a very sad way because he has been on arrested development for so long to the point where his boasting of sexual conquests sounds even somewhat childish. And strangely he does seem to be more enthusiastic about sex when his role is less dominant and conventionally“macho’. He speaks of being the little spoon, of Kyra “wearing him out”, and is far more excited when Esgred speaks of wanting to be on top than during his encounter with the captain of the myrraham’s daughter, who is more or less fantasising of becoming his salt wife (and wow what a pov introduction it is to have him forcing her to swallow). It’s remarkable to me because I can’t help but associate some sort of vulnerability to his apparent preferences, especially with Kyra whom he otherwise doesn’t seem to truly love even if they seem oddly close (is she a satellite love interest because Theon doesn’t care for her or is it because GRRM doesn’t care for her?).

and then the funniest thing to me is that Asha, who sexually assaulted him, enjoys rape roleplay with her boyfriend of ~seven years in which she is the one playing the victim and he the aggressor just a few minutes after finding out Theon is being flayed. Oh and she also feels disrespected by, dislikes and rejects Tris because (among other things) he seems to think of her as “some innocent maiden who lives only in [his] head, a frightened child in need of [his] protection.”

[kyrieren]

Umbrella vs. Rain: The Driving Forces of Saezuru (1)

Note: My analysis relies heavily on visual elements.

It's impossible to overlook the pivotal roles of rain and the umbrella in "Saezuru". Rain cascades indiscriminately, looms around in moments of predicament, jeopardy, and inner turmoil. It embodies the cruelty and suffering that life offers, taking on a tangible form. On the other side of the frontline, the umbrella acts as a shield against the rain. Despite appearing small and insignificant compared to the rain, the umbrella is the one that the characters need – the manifestation of care, understanding, empathy, and love. Ultimately, it is love that truly shields them from the onslaught of the rain.

I. Rain - the befallen suffering

They are the most vulnerable, being bareheaded.

Rain is a character that makes its debut in the oneshot and is officially introduced by Yashiro in chapter 2 as the pitfall that is hard to get out. As long as you are alive, it seems impossible to do so, for suffering is life itself. This is true for Yashiro, caught in childhood trauma, burdened with unrequited love, and the ordeal of the yakuza world.

Kageyama

The first time rain appears is in the oneshot with Kageyama, bareheaded under the downpour at his father's funeral, which emphasizes his profound loss.

2. Doumekia & Aoi

Followingly, rain ensnares Doumeki and his sister, Aoi in its claws. Each of them is besieged by personal turmoil, yet they both converge at the crossroads of guilt. Doumeki wrestles with self-reproach for abandoning his sister despite her pleas, leading to the rape, while Aoi blames herself for Doumeki's imprisonment and his descent into the unforgiving world of the yakuza, a path of no return.

In this scene, Doumeki presents bareheaded to Aoi, when Aoi, despite having received an umbrella from Yashiro, discards it in confrontation with her brother - a stark visualization of their mutual vulnerability in this emotional tug-of-war. Meanwhile, at the page bottom, Yashiro stands unscathed under a black umbrella, impervious to the rain, playing the role of an observer amidst their turmoil.

3. Doumeki & Yashiro - The first time they have sex

Rain is also an indication of psychological hang-ups, which climb to the climax when they have sex for the first time. In this scene, Doumeki is carrying Yashiro upstairs to his apartment, both are exposed to the rain without the protection of an umbrella. Under the rain, they are defenseless and vulnerable. A predicament unfolds.

The mental wrestling is palpable for each of them. Doumeki's tender love is evident as he tries his very best to treasure Yashiro, which is demonstrated in his attempt to shield Yashiro from the rain with his jacket, though it's all in vain eventually. Despite his efforts, both of them end up getting soaked. This is when past and present intertwine, when the rain of the present drags Yashiro back to the fait accompli he's trying desperately his whole life to decline—he is the victim, the rape does ruin him, and he can’t confront his own emotions. On this page cover, though Yashiro is under the roof with Doumeki beside him, the rain still hurts him deeply.

Ironically and tragically, Doumeki's love and gentle care, meant to comfort and protect, inadvertently break through Yashiro's defense mechanism, causing him pain. This sabotages Doumeki's feelings too.

4. Douemki & Yashiro - the end of the Hirata arc

Last but not least, Saezuru's powerful closure of the Hirata arc is not completed without the attendance of the rain.

They try to save each other. From Hirata, successfully. From the rain, yes and also no. The expression on Yashiro's face is complicated. In the moment of suicidal attempt, he clings to the deceptive desire to "sully the beautiful", to "hurt those I hold dear".

It is a blatant lie, for although he doesn't need his own life, he has done everything he could to save Doumeki, the man he deeply loves, even if he has to be cruel to get him away. Nevertheless, eventually Doumeki still comes for him. That soft look on Yashiro speaks volumes when he touches Doumeki's wound. It could be either relieved or helpless, or both. In the final panel, injured and exhausted, they collapse, allowing the rain to drench them. Yoneda sensei cleverly emphasizes the imagery of grass. Grass, akin to a fragile baby bird, and flower representing beauty and life, which are associated with Doumeki in Yashiro's mind. However, Yashiro doesn't ever realize it is him who is truly beautiful and resilient.

As a plane passes overhead, a fleeting respite from the rain spares the grass before it resumes its relentless task.

The presence of grass in the final scene can be interpreted in multiple ways. It can be Doumeki, or it can be Yashiro. Grass can also be taken as a metaphor for life. Are the lives spared? Literally, yes, for the notorious rain to keep harassing it. So is it a no? Not quite. Just as the grass needs rain to thrive, Yashiro must confront the pain of the truth and the pain of giving up his coping mechanism, which has been engraved in his bones, so that he can finally be liberated and "live" to the full meaning of the word, not just exists in torment. However, among many paths to death, there is only one path to life. The outcome remains uncertain, but there is a chance, indeed, it's upon Yashiro to take it or break it.

In hindsight, rain is not such a villain after all.

Read the next parts here:

Part 2:

Part 3:

[jodiespolaroids]

New Jodie interview. Please someone drop the name of her pup.

It's behind a paywall, so if you want to read it, it's below the cut!

It was a gamble that few actresses would have dared to take. After four years making her name as the charismatic psychopath Villanelle in Killing Eve, Jodie Comer rolled the dice — and changed her life.

Having not acted on stage since she was 16, Comer risked her growing reputation to star in a one-woman show in the West End. Prima Facie proved a sensation and transferred to Broadway. And last year the Liverpudlian won the most prestigious theatre awards on both sides of the Pond — an Olivier and a Tony — and, aged 30, entered a new era. The Com-era, perhaps?

Today she is a fully fledged film star, taking her first leading role in The End We Start From — a smart, bold post-apocalyptic indie drama about a mother (Comer) and her baby (not Comer’s baby). The film already has nine nominations for the British Independent Film awards, and Baftas should follow.

Comer is in a car with a lively dog when we talk via Zoom. She is in a black hoodie, with her long blonde hair loosely tied, and seems extraordinarily calm — except when the dog leaps across the screen. Her Zen is worth mentioning because the last time I saw her was when she prowled the stage with fear and fury in Prima Facie, playing a barrister who defends men accused of sexual assault before she is sexually assaulted herself. One woman going full throttle in defence of all women.

“My sleep was all over the place,” Comer says of her stint playing Tessa. “It’s tricky when you do something emotional. You think, ‘OK, it’s not real.’ But there is some part that tricks your body into believing that what you’re saying and feeling is a real experience. It becomes important to take care of yourself. With theatre it’s kinetic. You’re sharing space with 900 people.

“It’s … it’s tough. But clearly something I love putting myself through.” She pauses. “Yeah, I underestimated Prima Facie. Totally. I just didn’t know what to expect.”

It was not her first ordeal either. She’s drawn to gruelling roles, from Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, in which her character, Marguerite de Carrouges, was the victim of a rape, to Help, the bleak Channel 4 care home Covid drama. There was also Free Guy, a video-games blockbuster with Ryan Reynolds, but when I ask if Comer is tempted to pick something else fun as a break from Prima Facie, she explains that having a laugh is not enough.

“I like to be in a difficult place,” she says. “A place of self-discovery. Where I feel challenged. With Free Guy that part of me that comes away from my work feeling that I had to dig deep was missing … I came away thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve had so much fun.’ And that should be enough. But I like anything that holds a mirror up to this human experience. It’s just what I’m drawn to.”

Which leads us to The End We Start From. The film is directed by Mahalia Belo and takes place in modern-day London, telling the tale of Mother (Comer), whose waters break just as Britain experiences mass flooding. Metaphors à gogo, but the film works superbly as an intimate study of how an individual deals with a global disaster. How can a parent protect a baby as society collapses?

Comer is barely seen on screen without a baby. The crew had to use several because strict rules mean each infant can only work for 20 minutes at a time. (There are agencies that expectant parents use to sign their unborn child up to a film company.)

We all know an actor should never work with children or animals, but a baby is a whole other, wriggly challenge. Comer really does nothing by halves. How hard is it to act with one? “It’s such a lesson,” says Comer, who is not a mother. Did it come naturally? “Oh God, no!”

“The smallest baby was eight weeks,” she explains, smiling softly. “At first my hands were visibly shaking. My younger cousins have grown up now, so I’m not around babies an awful lot. It felt like a huge responsibility. I thought, ‘Wow, they’re so fragile.’ But I became more comfortable, sometimes to my detriment! There are scenes where we needed a baby to cry but I was soothing him instead. The crew would shout ‘Stop!’” She pauses. “I was kind of falling in love with them.”

The film shows the thrill of being a first-time parent much more than the panic. As prep for Prima Facie Comer watched cases at the Old Bailey. What did she do for this? “My best friend had a baby before filming, so I was able to ask personal questions,” Comer says. “I also spent time with midwives — there is a birthing sequence and I wanted to know about the physicality, where you feel pain giving birth. Having not had a child myself, I wanted women to see the truth in what they saw.”

It comes as no surprise that Belo was inspired to direct her first feature film after giving birth during the pandemic. “Your whole body gets taken over by this beautiful thing,” Belo says about being a mother. “Every part of your body is different from then on and it’s not only that — all your relationships are different too. You’ve got this other sound going on, that’s about your children. I wanted to represent that.”

The End We Start From is a film so clearly made by a woman who has young children, you can almost smell the nappies. Post-apocalyptic films usually star a man walking in a desolate landscape alone with his thoughts, and a dog. So it is quietly revolutionary to focus on a woman and her newborn.

“I think so,” Comer says. “What I love is that it’s a woman who is the everyday hero — we always see men with a superhero quality facing this situation. But here it is a woman many will feel they know. She’s not scaling buildings, or jumping over bridges. The story is deep-rooted in her psyche and emotion. It’s refreshing.”

The film also grapples with climate change. “Endless amounts of rain — I can’t see anything out of the window …” Comer says with a sigh as she looks out of the car at a very wet Britain. Belo, who lives in east London, made the film as her neighbourhood in Walthamstow suffered unprecedented flooding. When she consulted flood experts, their conversations were bleak. “Sea levels are rising, rainfall is becoming more extreme. We are an island; things are going to go wrong and we’re not prepared. We know what’s happening.”

For some The End We Start From will just be a stirring story of the lengths that we go to protect our children. Others, though, will locate an edge that is common to so much of Comer’s work. It is another entry on a CV that is trying to make a difference. Does she think that art can actually change anything? “Absolutely,” Comer says. “When I read the scripts they provoked an emotion in me that felt important. I felt engaged and that’s the biggest thing now, isn’t it? To keep people engaged in what you’re saying, and so that you can change things. I witnessed conversations around sexual assault when working on Prima Facie and saw subtle shifts within the law.

“Women and men were telling me what that play had enabled them to do, whether it was to seek counselling or have a conversation with their family. That may seem like a very small change but it is mighty in somebody’s life. You can see what a profound effect watching a piece of art has on somebody. That means a lot to me.”

This desperation to make stuff that really matters is why Comer stands out. She also excels in the 1960s-set The Bikeriders, about gangs and masculinity, out in the summer, alongside Tom Hardy. If you were to put her in a bracket of skill and achievement right now, you could say that she is where Jodie Foster was as she entered her thirties. They share the sass, steeliness and spark that Foster displayed in the controversial courtroom drama The Accused — which deals with the subject of rape — a sort of prototype Prima Facie.

[cto10121]

Twilight Clown Takes—Part 6

In which Instagram vies with YouTube on which platform has the most clownery. Featuring even more Bella hate dumb, the ~~~Mormon influences in Twilight, and a lot of hate for Jacob/Renesmee, including a fundamental misunderstanding of imprinting. We feast tonight, on nom nom

Bella Hate Dumb

Tell me you don’t know Twilight is a romance without telling me you don’t know Twilight is a romance.

Of course Bella’s life is going to revolve around her romance with Edward because Twilight is a romance! Her ambitions (which aren’t really many—just the vaguest idea of being a teacher or a librarian) aren’t important—hell, you could say the same thing about Edward! His entire existence constantly revolves around Bella and he constantly ditches his own family for her—even going off to commit suicide because of her.

And yet Edward, for all of his many whinging antis, is never accused of being a weak character. Creep or abusive, yes, but not weak. Wonder why? (The answer is misogyny).

In every one of the examples Clown OP mentioned, the humans either have 1) supernatural or learned martial skills or 2) the monsters they are fighting against have weaknesses that humans can easily exploit.

In the Twilight universe, vampires are literally the humans’ predators with no exploitable weaknesses. Vampires are not harmed by garlic, stakes, crucifixes, or the sun, nor do they have need to stick to hunting at night. No human can outrun or hold their own against a vampire. A young and healthy Carlisle couldn’t even handle a weakened vampire. The only creatures that can hold their own against vampires are werewolves, either the Children of the Night or the Quileute shapeshifters.

Bella is neither of them, and until very recently only learned vampires are real. Very few humans know for sure of their existance. So no, you can’t use the “it’s not an excuse!!1!!1” excuse to justify your misogyny, Clown OP. You can bitch about how the vampires are overpowered all you like (I’ll even agree!), but Bella is not weak for not being able to fight against them. She literally cannot.

Bella literally relates her life to classic literature in every book (Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and Merchant of Venice), bitched about the thin selection of books at the Forks library, and nearly got raped looking for a good bookstore in Port Angeles (#relatable). She is a book girl, all right, and last time I checked, that is a hobby.

Also, Meyer hates Leah so much that she made her leave Sam behind and be free to become Jacob’s second-in-command and made Jacob learn to trust and respect her.

Because Bella’s insecurity is totally not a thing she overcomes and conquers by the end of the series and it’s not framed critically by the narrative. Because Twilight doesn’t totally show Bella’s parentification and how her parents just made her their parent. All these things just do not exist because to Clown OP only the first book and the dumb film series exist.

I literally read Life and Death not too long ago and there was essentially NO difference between Beau and Bella save in very minor details and (actually realistic) 2000s socialization. Beau’s “protectiveness” is largely emotional and ineffectual—it never actually serves a role in the story and Edythe dismisses it out of hand. He is not an active protagonist at all, or at least about as active as Bella is; he is still victimized in the latter half of the book and he even has to undergo a full vampire transformation.

Mormonism!!1!!1

Oh, God, where do I start?

��Humans who became divine—” And who lust for human blood to sustain them. There is already a creature who must drink blood to survive, so use it. Hell, Meyer didn’t even make up the whole “vampires are so beautiful/seductive/seemingly angelic” trope; that is your most basic vampire lore since Dracula.

“Bella’s aversion to drinking, smoking, coffee/tea—” Because a 17-year-old in the 2000s would totally smoke. Bella doesn’t go to parties, as she is de facto the parent of her family, so no, she wouldn’t drink and as the daughter of a police chief she would not have been raised to drink. As for coffee and tea, these are simply not mentioned—a far cry from being an aversion. Hell, no drink other than water and maybe milk is mentioned in the series. Does Bella even mention liquids???? She only seems to describe meals. As it is, Bella does ingest caffeine—she drinks Coke. Also, kind reminder that Bella has no religion.

“Rosalie/Leah feel incomplete not having babies—” Rosalie is a ‘30s girl who wanted to be a trad wife, which includes having children. Leah is worried that not having her period would make her unable to have children—not that she necessarily desires them, but it is weird and disconcerting not to have that option anymore. Moreover, Leah was getting ready to marry Sam, so she may have expected a life together with children. But it makes sense for their characters to be alike in this way, since they are mirror characters.

Meanwhile trad wife Esme is perfectly fine with adopting and caring for others and Alice doesn’t even mention that side of humanity at all. The Denali coven includes a trio of single sisters who loved having sex with human men so much that they decided to go vegetarian—they obviously are not obsessed with babies.

Jacob/Renesmee Hate Dumb

Apart from definitively resolving the love triangle, (thank God) Jacob’s imprinting on Renesmee stopped the Quileutes from attacking the Cullens after Bella gets bitten and changed—they have a law that prohibits harming a fellow werewolf’s imprintee. Moreover, it provides a much more firm alliance between the Cullens and Quileutes, thus resolving their rivalry/hate. But Clown OP doesn’t care about actual plot and theme resolutions, just the “ick” factor of the imprinting.

Meyer technically could have made the Cullens be forced to move after Bella’s becoming a vampire and have Renesmee and Jacob meet later. But I have a feeling that she didn’t expect to write more Twilight so she set up Jacob/Renesmee right away to dispel the love triangle once and for all. Given that Meyer got the idea of imprinting from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that may have been her rationale.

That said, Jacob imprinting on Renesmee was a key plot point in Forever Dawn, the original sequel to Twilight, which did not have the love triangle—Jacob was just a platonic friend to Bella. Again, for plot and thematic resolutions, and perhaps for future set-ups.

Friendly reminder that movie canon is not canon and will never be because, ha, fuck the movies.

But! This does give me a chance to talk about imprinting in the books vs. the movies. Not only does Jacob never say anything of this sort to Edward in the books, but he doesn’t even have a reaction when he learns Renesmee will be fully grown in seven years. Edward confirms he doesn’t care and his feelings towards Renesmee are strictly platonic.

I read the official Twilight guide’s entry on imprinting—written very neutrally and very careful not to say anything about romance—and it basically confirms this:

If the human is young, the werewolf becomes the perfect platonic playmate and protector. As the human ages and changes, the werewolf instinctively switches roles to fulfill the human’s needs.

This implies that if the human doesn’t want to make the wolf a romantic partner, then the romance will simply not happen.

So what this shows me is that imprinting is not inherently a romantic phenomenon. The fact that Sam/Emily, Jared/Kim found each other in early adulthood and developed a romantic bond was because of the needs of Emily and Kim than Sam and Jared’s. Soulmates, after all, can be platonic.

So if Jacob/Renesmee ever become a thing, it would be because Renesmee herself would want it. Jacob would be incapable even to wish for anything more. In that sense, imprinting is the exact opposite of grooming: It is literally giving all the power to the imprintee.

The movies, quite frankly, fuck all this up. From portraying Jacob’s imprinting as a vision of Renesmee growing up (🤮 and not in the books) to his “joke” to Edward (stupid and 🤮 and not in the books) to Alice suddenly being able to have a vision Jacob and Renesmee together on the beach (in the books she cannot see werewolves or hybrids; this canon was broken by the movies for the fight scene with Meyer’s permission). So no, that is not how imprinting works.

[malloryrowinski]

Throw rocks at me but holding women accountable for their actions and decisions is an important part of growing class consciousness. I'm not saying let's all go out and victim blame, but a lot of the discourse on here seems to be focused on the "women can do no wrong" principle, which is flawed.

We all agree that going up to a victim of domestic violence and saying "See? It's your fault because you didn't leave" is absolute nonsense and only protects the abuser.

However, (hypothetical scenario) if I move in with a man and notice that my dogs start acting strangely around him—showing signs of nervousness or fear—but I do nothing about it, and one day he kills them, I’ve failed my dogs. I had a responsibility, as their owner, to protect them, and despite noticing their discomfort, I ignored it. In this case, I didn’t cause the harm, but I played a role in failing to prevent it when warning signs were there.

If a mother learns that her husband or partner is abusing her child and does nothing about it—perhaps even covers for him—she, too, is complicit. While dynamics become more complex if he’s abusive to her as well, she still has a fundamental responsibility to protect her children. No, it is not her fault that her children are being abused; that blame lies solely with the abuser. But as the adult responsible for their safety, she has a duty to act.

Understanding this distinction between moral and practical responsibility is crucial. We’re not trying to blame women who’ve been manipulated or controlled, but when someone becomes aware of what’s happening and has the chance to make choices, there are certain responsibilities that come with that, even if things are messy or abusive. Recognizing this need for accountability is about empowering all women, fostering solidarity, and collectively breaking free from systems that demand our silence, tolerance, or complicity.

Imagine you're dating a guy and suddenly find out he's one of the 51 men on trial for the rape of a woman. There are three women in France right now who have their partners on trial for Gisèle Pelicot's rape who actively take their partner's side and defend him. An ex-wife told the court she wants to get back together with her ex-husband, who claims he didn't rape Gisèle, because “I didn’t set out from my house saying: ‘I’m going to rape someone. I don’t understand how she didn’t feel anything, didn’t realise.”. This woman's behavior is a stab in the back to a rape victim; When women defend male perpetrators, it's a signal to survivors that justice and solidarity are conditional. This betrayal compounds harm, leaving victims isolated and reinforcing a culture of silence and impunity for male violence. And also assures men everywhere that no matter how horrible you are and what crimes you commit, there's always going to be a woman ready to take your side (something they'd never do for us).

Of course, patriarchy and conditioning play a big part here, teaching women to internalize subordination, which can mean defending or excusing harmful behavior. This conditioning and the socialization we go through more or less since the moment we're born is the reason why women get trapped in these cycles of complicity. But these do not erase individual responsibility! Real change will mean balancing accountability with real support to help women unlearn and resist these harmful norms.

Or take a woman who actively recruits girls into the sex industry. Perhaps she was groomed herself, conditioned to see exploitation as normal, or even to believe that she was “helping” others survive. While her circumstances may explain her behavior, the harm she causes cannot be ignored. Her actions reinforce the broader system of exploitation and make it easier for others to justify that abuse as just another “choice” rather than exploitation. Her complicity not only harms the women she recruits but supports the larger, patriarchal system that profits from this exploitation.

Individual acts of complicity also reinforce structural patriarchy, delaying collective liberation for all women. When women protect male abusers or uphold harmful systems, they inadvertently strengthen the very structures that oppress us. There's a mutual responsibility women hold toward each other as part of a broader movement for liberation. Holding one another accountable is about solidarity, empowering women to confront patriarchal norms together.

This isn't about dividing women or blaming them for patriarchy; it's about helping each other break free from roles that keep all of us oppressed. Accountability, paired with solidarity challenges not only individual acts of harm but the structural forces that keep these cycles in place.