#Learning more about women’s oppression fucks me UP

[mommyhorror]

What else are women supposed to do except go insane? Like genuinely curious

[princessefemmelesbian]

Transandrophobia truthers are so damn racist and white oh my fucking god y'all actually piss me the fuck off every time you tokenize Black and brown men for your stupid as fuck "mra but make it trans-inclusive" ideology created by a creepy guy with a corrective rape fetish(something I'll never let up on for as long as I live, btw). If I ever see another one of y'all say "Black and brown men face discrimination because they're seen as overly masculine and that's why masculinity in men is oppressed in this society" I will literally kill myself. Stop using Black and brown men as brownie points for your bullshit arguments about misandry being real when you don't have the slightest idea how racialized oppression works. White boys are so annoying and dumb istfg.

@punkeropercyjackson @punknicodiangelo @pinkpinkstarlet

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Hey. Hi. Hello. Today I learned about the existence of 15th century Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain and that she apparently has a surviving work of erotic poems.

Please. For Christmas. For Yule. Please tell me more because I can't read Welsh.

Heh heh. Oh, Gwerful Mechain is the absolute best.

(Quick housekeeping to keep the post manageable - I previously wrote about things like cynghanedd and cywydds and englyns and such here, so check that if you need an explanation.)

What's fun is that we don't know a ton about her, because not a lot got written down about people in her time. Her surviving work covers a 40ish year span at the end of the 1400s to just into the 1500s, but we don't know when she was born or died or anything like that. We know her parents' names? And that she was from Mechain, hence the bardic name. And that she married a guy and had a daughter, something which actually does mark out her body of work as different from her contemporaries; being a wife and mother, she couldn't do the usual bardic role of travelling the country to spread news and play at courts. This means she doesn't have any of the praise poetry that a lot of male bards produced about the lords that hosted them.

But, there's stuff we can piece together about her. For one thing, she was not just literate (not a universal skill for anyone at that point, but especially for women), but she was astonishingly well-read and had what appears to be a classical education, given her poetic references and traditional Welsh meters. For another, her work often had recurring themes of religion, sex, and women's rights, sometimes all at the same time.

At the point Gwerful was active, Welsh bardic culture heavily featured ymrysonau. An ymryson is like... well, I hesitate to say "sort of like a rap battle" after the way everyone and their dog now thinks that's what the Mari Lwyd does, but they were like a cross between a rap battle and the publication war between two rival academics. A bard would write an englyn and publish it in the local parish newsletter. Another bard would see this, and write their own englyn about how stupid the first bard's englyn was, and publish it in the same newsletter. The first bard would see this and retaliate. The second bard would retaliate to that. And on and on it would go, like a printed tennis match for all the parishioners to enjoy, until someone wrote a conclusive verse OR until someone went "Lol, you got me good there" and bowed out with dignity. Sometimes, these things were fucking vicious; but other times, they were just banter between two bards who knew each other and were enjoying the chance to keep their poetic skills in tip top condition.

Now, Gwerful was an active and enthusiastic participant in ymrysonau. We have many examples of her work from these. There are two of particular note that I'll list here, each against a different bard:

Dafydd Llwyd o Fathafarn. Mathafarn and Mechain are not so distant from one another, so no real surprise that these two locked horns a lot, but the impression I always got from their ymrysonau is that they were good mates, actually. These fell into the 'banter' category more often than not. Dafydd was a Welsh Nationalist who was hoping for a Welshman to rise up and throw off the yoke of English oppression, and most of his work is about that, but he turned up the filthy erotic shit for any ymryson with Gwerful because BOY HOWDY was that her specialty. IIRC she did occasionally poke fun at his Welsh Nash leanings, especially his obsession with Mab Darogan (OLD Welsh idea that translates to the Son of Prophesy - the Arthur-style figure that will one day drive out the English overlords), but mostly their ymrysonau were incredibly beautifully-written odes that could be summed up as "Dafydd, my man, my good friend, I mean this sincerely: suck my entire clit".

She often won.

Ieuan Dyfi. God, what a fucking asshole. This one was not banter. Gwerful played for blood with this prick.

We actually would know nothing about Ieuan Dyfi if not for Gwerful Mechain, because it was her poetic response to him that meant his only surviving poems made it to the modern day; that, and the record of him being brought before a church court where he admitted adultery with Anni Goch, a married woman. Oh, and the record of him being brought before the law courts at Liverpool, accused of domestic abuse and gambling? If I remember right?

Two things to know that set the scene for what came next:

One of Gwerful Mechain's surviving poems is an englyn considered to be possibly the oldest extant poem about domestic violence written by a woman: I’w gŵr am ei churo (To the husband who beats her)

Dager drwy goler dy galon - ar osgo I asgwrn dy ddwyfron; Dy lin a dyr, dy law’n don, A’th gleddau i’th goluddion.

There are a lot of translations for this one to try to keep its poeticness, but this one is pretty good:

Through your heart’s lining let there be pressed, slanting down, A dagger to the bone in your chest. Your knee smashed, your hand crushed, may the rest Be gutted by the sword you possessed.

She has others, too, that deal with sexual assault, and something scholars often note about Gwerful is her remarkable knowledge of the law as it pertained to women's issues. So she was not, you see, a woman with a high view of a man accused of domestic violence anyway.

But then Ieuan Dyfi wrote five poems about Anni Goch, the married woman he'd fucked, each more "Wow dude, she said no" than the last, culminating in I Anni Goch; a full cywydd of misogynistic Medieval-incel bullshit about how false and evil women are, which listed all the false and evil women of history including classical and mythological figures.

And. Well. Gwerful had some views.

Her responding cywydd - I ateb Ieuan Dyfi am gywydd Anni Goch - basically blasted the guy back into his own impact crater and disintegrated him. What she did with it, essentially, was to mirror his cywydd. Where he'd gone "Isn't it so true how great men throughout history have always been brought low by women, amirite lads? Here's examples", Gwerful went "Isn't it so true how 'great men' throughout history have behaved appallingly and fucked up through their own actions and then somehow managed to blame women, amirite lads? Here's examples." Where his examples had been historical figures, so were hers. Where his had been classical, so were hers. Where he went Biblical, so did she.

And what's so interesting about that last one is how pointed she was with it - for some reason, in his big list of evil women, Ieuan Dyfi did not go for the most obvious and low-hanging of fruit (no pun intended) - he doesn't cite Eve. In response, Gwerful also sidesteps the most obvious and low hanging of fruit - she doesn't cite Mary. In so doing, she makes it clear that she doesn't even need to.

There is no record of him responding to her. IIRC, there is a record of him doing three years in prison.

But! Outside of all of that, the big thing Gwerful was known for was her erotic poetry. You'll be unsurprised to hear that it wasn't written for shits and giggles - much like today, women of the time were told that most of their value was in their looks, and they had plentiful insecurities about their bodies. Gwerful wrote her erotic stuff to confront those insecurities and shine a light on the issue. There are so many examples of this, but far and away the most famous is definitely Cywydd y Cedor - roughly translated, 'Ode to the Vulva'. Though I have also seen it titled Cywydd y Gont - Ode to the Cunt. It's such a shame that the English language is literally, physically not capable of cynghanedd, because it means unless you learn Welsh you will never understand the beauty and the lyricism of the piece, and how it elevates and undercuts the content at the same time; but it's a joyful, masterful, irreverent work that uses the fancy language male poets were forever dedicating to the rest of a woman's body and applies it squarely to the vulva. In fact it basically opens with "Men are cowards, describe more cunts or gtfo" before launching into its main subject matter. The last line is pro-pubic hair, too, like I really must stress how much Gwerful Mechain would have to offer Tumblr if you could speak Welsh. This is probably her most widely translated piece, though, you can definitely find English versions. Although you can tell how blushing and reticent the translator is - and therefore how sanitised their translation is - by whether they've called it Ode to the Vulva/Cunt, or Ode to the Pubic Hair.

Needless to say, the original is not sanitised.

(Actually, I should also say - this one is also a response piece, probably, but in this case to a bard who lived a century earlier - Dafydd ap Gwilym, the absolutely legendary and uncontested king of Welsh romance poetry. He wrote a poem called Cywydd y Gal - Ode to the Penis. I have only just put two and two together on that.)

As a final note, I should say that my personal favourite Gwerful Mechain poem on this subject, mind, is actually I'w morwyn wrth gachu - to the maiden who is shitting. It's an englyn written in Gwerful's customary high poetic form, but it is what it says - it describes a woman taking a shit, and farting as she does. Beautiful and magical and disgusting and banal, all in one go:

Crwciodd lle dihangodd ei dŵr - ’n grychiast O grochan ei llawdwr; Ei deudwll oedd yn dadwr’, Baw a ddaeth, a bwa o ddŵr

Funnily enough, it's hard to find a good translation for this one lol.

My attempt:

She crouched where her water escaped - creased From the cauldron of her heat; Her two holes were arguing, Shit came, and a bow of water

Eh. It's so bland in English. Honestly, if you could read Welsh...

Anyway, if anyone reading this can read Welsh and wants to read some of Gwerful Mechain's stuff - including some of the pieces she was responding to in the ymrysonau - you can find a load here. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed!

[certifiedsexed]

hey there! i don’t mean this in bad faith at all, and i’m not trying to use a term that’s a fascist dogwhistle. i promise i’m just confused😭

so i’m not a guy, nor have i ever been perceived as one, but in one of your recent posts, you said that men can’t experience oppression solely based on the fact that they’re men. which was kind of confusing to me — i don’t think you’re wrong, i think it’s me but i don’t know how to get to how you see it like that.

because in my experience, men can experience oppression because they’re men, although i don’t know if i’m saying that right or conflating the meanings of certain terms. i’m probably wrong, and would just love some clarification?

for example, my brother and i were always held to different standards growing up — it was expected of me to always cry and be emotional, and i was a ‘stone cold bitch’ if that wasn’t the case, but if my brother wanted to show negative emotions like sadness he was treated like there was something wrong with him too. and i know it wasn’t my brother — i spend a lot of time working with my high school’s diversity team, and in a lot of the events we organise, guys talk about how they feel enormous pressure to be angry and never sad, and to have stereotypically masculine interests and never deviate from that norm.

i also know men who’ve struggled to get jobs such as teaching as those are viewed as ‘female’ jobs and it’s a common view that men who want those jobs are ‘only in it to be around kids’. i’ve heard many women around me perpetuate sentiments like that, so i know they’re not making it up, even if it isn’t equal to the systematic oppression women face in almost every aspect of their careers.

i’m not providing these examples to prove you wrong, since i do think you’re right. i’m hoping that a window into the way i’ve always thought might help you clarify this in a way that can help me to change my mind, since i just think i’m lacking some clarity or context here. i think i’m conflating abuse and stereotypes with oppression, but i’m really not sure. any advice would be really appreciated!

i’m so sorry if this comes off badly, i don’t mean it that way. i’m just trying to learn, i promise i’m not trying to promote the kind of hate and close mindedness you’ve been seeing in your inbox as of late.

Hi! As always, I do not mind answering genuine questions!

The things you're talking about growing up and seeing boys around you pressured to present only certain emotions, that's part of the patriarchy!

Certain emotions are supposed to be "feminine" and thus boys shouldn't show them, while girls are often always considered "emotional" in some fashion. That's not oppression based on those boys being men that you're talking about.

It's the backlash that the patriarchy, and by addition trans/misogyny has on men. It's boys being pressured not to show certain emotions because those emotions are "feminine" and they're supposed to associate feminimity with weakness and shit.

What you're talking about there is also trans/misogyny!

The idea that men who do things perceived as feminine are predators, the idea that specific jobs are "female" jobs [while even in those specific female jobs, men are generally paid better and find it easier to get into those jobs than women trying to get into traditionally "male" jobs"]

[Though obviously this varies based on race and whether they're trans, etc, etc.]

To be a little more clear, all of the things you're talking about don't primarily affect cis men/boys. They fuck up transfems, because it's trans/misogyny.

You're right! It's not systemic oppression.

You might wonder if it's social oppression, which is also a no. Social oppression would require a historical/systemic oppression behind it. But that doesn't exist in this case.

What it is is the common issue oppressors run into. While they benefit greatly from oppression, there is also backlash they face from their own systems of oppression.

Like white people who fall into suicide cults trying to work towards white supremacy, or TERFs who fall into groups where they slowly pick each other off as they discover they're not all exactly the same and wind up accusing each other of not being "real" women, systems of bigotry simply do not work out perfectly even for the oppressors.

They never do.

To create the patriarchy, you must establish trans/misogyny, you must establish intersexism and you must push people to conform to those ideals, even if they hurt your own.

It's similar to how white supremacy can harm white people, despite white people obviously not being oppressed racially. The backlash of oppression hits even the oppressors sometimes.

Suppression, as a term, would honestly work far better to describe what you're talking about.

So yes, it's stereotyping, yes it's abusive to tell your children not to show/feel their emotions but it's not oppression based on these guys in your life being men! It's part of how trans/misogyny, transphobia and intersexism are enforced.

I understand exactly where you're coming from! It doesn't sound bad and I genuinely don't mind answering questions! Especially since you've got some good ones!

I'm not sure if I rambled too much to explain this properly but I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions and/or need me to clarify anything here. <33

[dykeulous]

1.) for the love of science, please, please stop using the theory of gendered socialization as some “gotcha” against all female people. stop trying to constitute that just because a person who happens to be female is only empathic because they’re female. stop making us all look bad, stop proving the dumbasses who say we’re trying to claim all women have some universal spiritual bond that connects them & that we’re using the theory to constitute & declare all women as inherently this and all men as inherently that, right. stop misunderstanding the theory. yes, socialization has impacts on how someone turns out as a person. yes, socialization does influence personality, and yes, the reason why women are more likely to be empathic is because of socialization, not because of some inherent biological magic; however, this doesn’t mean that having basic human decency & choosing not to be a piece of shit is somehow alien to male people. this doesn’t mean that women should throw away all their learned personality traits & tendencies. just because empathy is more forced & pushed onto women, doesn’t mean women need to get rid of that. instead, women should work on unlearning passiveness & unhealthy self-consciousness– female people should unlearn the process of female socialization that taught them to think low of themselves, that taught them to constantly feel like a burden, that taught them not to have any boundaries & to stay quiet and meek– empathy & human decency are not something to be thrown away. those are valuable & natural human traits.

2.) the trans movement is not inherently anti-feminist. the commodification, commercialization, and pinkwashing of it is. if we look very closely, trans people a lot of the time agree with the core elements of radical feminism; they just phrase their beliefs differently. there are gaps within ideologies, and both sides can be obtuse as fuck. both sides can be annoying & unwilling to learn. both sides can do legitimate harm in the real world. both sides need to learn from each other & stop vilifying & caricaturing the other as some pesty inherent danger that should be hidden from the rest of the world. gender critical women and trans rights activists need not always be “at odds”. we can, and we will, bridge the gap; no matter how many times annoying people like you fly around our ears like & whine. buzz all you want. there are people out there working on bridging the gap & are efficiently doing so. if you want to lock yourself up in an echo-chamber while also insisting trans people are doing that very same thing, then well done. have your hypocrisy cake and eat it 🤷🏻. me personally, i’ll keep having meaningful discussions with people who don’t necessarily share the same worldview as i do. nevertheless, radical feminism does wonders for trans people, and there are so many radical feminists out there insistent on proving that. if you’re going to sit back and whine about “men in dresses”, “those disgusting tranzes invading women’s spaces” and “moid xys fetishizing women”, while not doing anything whatsoever to improve the conditions of your local women– then don’t bother calling yourself a feminist of any sorts, yet alone a radical feminist. gncphobia does not look good on a person claiming to be pro-feminist. seriously.

3.) “no one is arguing that we should make trans-identified people’s lives worse” this is just, like, blatantly untrue. bans & limits on self-expression, bodily automony & self-determination, do in fact, harm trans people, a deeply vulnerable & targeted group in many societies. the same societies that tend to be extremely intolerant of trans people are also extremely intolerant of women. this is not a coincidence. it’s not a coincidence that the worst misogynists are also very often transphobic. it’s not a coincidence that conservatives, the people working to tangibly oppress trans people, are also anti-abortion, anti-divorce, pro-nuclear family, and anti-lgb. it’s almost like, hey– trans people are oppressed on the gender axis! and if you’re going to say that you said this in regards to radfems; you’d also be wrong. i will agree that tras often unrealistically portray radfems as fashies capable of systemically oppressing trans people, and that they very often create conspiracy theories on how “terfs are running the world” & “terfs control the governments”, exaggerating the “power” radfems may have– but this does not mean that there are no transphobic radfems. i’ve seen many deny dysphoria being a thing, many are unnecessarily & inhumanely cruel to dysphoric people & constantly try to purposely trigger someone’s dysphoria, many are exceptionally cruel to trans men (which is funny because they like to claim we are their “lost sisters” or whatever), many straight up mock surgeries & call people “mutilated” which extends to the hatred & bigotry against detrans folk. you cannot complain how trans people refuse to excommunicate genuinely awful people in their community if you yourself are going to ignore the genuinely awful people in your own community. you just cannot.

4.) “we are pro gender abolition and they are pro gender”– i mean, making a wild claim like this just proves you’ve locked yourself up in an echo-chamber. you sound exactly💯 how those tras who portray radfems as The Incarnation of Devil Himself sound like. you believe you know everything about a group & the group’s beliefs without conversating with anyone from said group. that’s exactly how many tras behave, making up wild claims & false caricatures of radfem beliefs, exaggerating them up to the point of nonsense. like, i’m sorry– but i’ll call bullshit on the “they are pro gender” stuff. i just cannot bring myself to believe that a group uniquely oppressed by gender is capable of meaningfully supporting the existence of it. sure, there are trans people who will vocally say they are against the abolition of gender because they personally feel it helps them because want to assimilate/it helps them express & understand themselves or whatever– but this doesn’t erase the reality of gender inherently repressing & oppressing trans individuals. certain, individual trans people can do & say wacky shit, they can hold horrible and stupid beliefs– but this does not reflect the universal reality of trans existence. trans people deviate from the gender binary. trans people do not fit into the system of gender, and as such, they can only benefit from the abolition of gender. gender hurts us in a very specific way, and we are going against the very existence of it, just by existing. this isn’t to say some trans people aren’t genuinely dumb & misogynistic/bio-essentialist/neurosexist/assimilationist/homophobic/awful/whatever– i’m simply saying that we as a group do not fit into the gender system– obviously, we still have to prove that we truly are against it, but we defy traditionalist way of thought merely by existing. of course, we still have to do actual work to be considered activists, and we aren’t immediately some punk blood-pumping political figures simply on the basis of not fitting in.

5.) any person who sends rape & death threats to anyone is despicable. the phenomenon of this specifically happening to radfems is real, but we cannot base our moral beliefs & opinions on an entire group off of this. oftentimes, it’s not even actual trans people sending the threats, it’s cis people [particularly cis men to be clear] who want to speak over us. calling out homophobia & misogyny in the trans community is a worthy endeavor & definitely, desperately needs to be done. being hateful and assuming all trans people are this disgusting caricature in your head, is not. again, we will bridge the gap, and there’s nothing you can do about it. activists of all kinds will come together & reshape the world from the roots of it. they will pull out all the toxicity & take down all the oppressive structures & institutions, stomp on them violently & mercilessly– they will rebuild the world from its’ roots, all over again.

[dropoutconfessions]

this is for the owner of this blog. why tf did you reblog plaidos. do you even know who she is and the kind of damage she's had on the trans community? she answered an anon about someone clearly pretending to be a trans woman working for dropout (because they use the language "members" (proven that dropout cast doesn't refer to themselves as that) and mentions a "dropout show" (... dropout is not a show. it's a host of multiple shows)) who had 0 proof. she's so reactionary and her logic is easily dismantled, she contradicts herself all the time (the post you reblogged she goes on about how "trans women aren't marketable" which is why they're not in dropout. there are so many other trans people in dropout, but in the comments of another plaidos post she said "persephone was so popular when she was in d20". literally took me 2 minutes to find the contradiction. not to mention the graph she reblogs with an elusive "tme vs tma rep in dropout" with no stats and no classification of what tme and tma means, no clear answer on where the many appearances and shows specifically made for and by drag queens, and then complained that lumping every genderqueer person who likely came out after being hired equaled to more than one subset of trans people.

i'm so disappointed. so much for this being a safe, apolitical space. plaidos has done irreperable harm to me and my transmasc brothers and to see a DROPOUT GIMMICK BLOG reblogging her baseless and clearly incorrect accusations proven by literally just KNOWING about dropout. but instead, you've made your blog an unsafe place for anyone who isn't a white transfem by showing you're in agreeance with plaidos.

you want links to posts? go to her blog and search the #dropout tag. there's your links.

Okay so I just would like to say a few things in response to this. first, I reblogged like, one post, and not even directly from her. I do not do an insane amount of research into people I reblog from to check if everything is kosher, which I assume no one else does.

If y'all expect me to check that much, stop sending me asks about how I haven't posted your asks yet. I know everyone assumes its because I dislike their post personally. It's not. It's cause i have a really really busy life rn. I mean this with all the kindness in my heart, I do not give enough of a fuck to block most of your opinions from making the stage short of you using slurs or straight up lying.

Regardless, she passes the tests. She's not anti-trans mascs and I feel like this is the result of bad faith readings and people assuming trans women are the enemy. Also taking any mention of oppression that doesn't apply to you as a personal attack.

I looked her up and the first thing i saw complaining about her called her a slur, so not a great start gotta say. If any of y'all use this word as an insult, stop, it's categorically not okay.

Also, there can be a lack of trans women, and also you can like persephone valentine. 3 trans women on a network with like a fuck ton of other queer people is also not very many, when you take into the fact that twice as many TME trans people have been on multiple episodes of dropout shows, that's not a contradiction. You can be popular and also unmarketable, that's like every remotely famous TMA, and honestly trans people in general have a harder time. That's not contradiction, that's us going "yippee a single fucking crumb of transfem rep" in 2021 and then being drip fed with game changer, um actually, and dirty laundry occasional appearances for the next 3 years.

If you want a definition for TMA and TME, like a formal one, not just what the acronyms mean, do your research on it. You wanna know how I learned about the fact that they refer to specifically institutional transmisogyny? FROM PLAIDOS'S BLOG. Do you actually, like, look at her posts? or just the ones cherrypicked to make her seem anti-transmasc because of bad faith interpretations? She's very clearly aware of the oppression trans mascs face, it's called transphobia. Transmisogyny is specifically the oppression trans women face given the fact we are seen as a subhuman third gender on an institutional level.

so much for this being a safe apolitical space

I never said it would be apolitical. In fact, safe and apolitical are contradictory. We're trans. Our very existence and identity and lives have been made political, and will be political for the entirety of our lifespans. I'm not going to lie down and pretend otherwise for the comfort of the world and I am honestly disappointed that you, as a fellow trans person, are encouraging that behavior in any way.

The entire "not an ask" tag, is for me to talk. It's mine. My space. You cannot divorce this blog from my influence because it's my goddamn blog. I am not a jukebox or a puppet for you to get your fandom stuff. I am a woman with her own damn opinions and a large enough follower count for my push for trans rights to largely get slightly less ignored than they do on main.

I have been following dropout / collegehumor since the All Nighters. The only subject I am more knowledgeable about is probably Alpharad or Paper Mario. I know dropout. I know statistics, I'm majoring in it. I've known about this issue for years now. But until this blog, until very recently, I didn't have a platform for it, so I just shut the fuck up. I'm not doing that this time. I'm going to be a very jaded women because some of the men who are supposed to be my brothers are acting like this. Like we need to shut up and not complain. No. Fuck that.

I do not think Dropout is the bad guy here. As of now, I'm holding out hope. I personally, am not boycotting them (yet). I am holding out hope that they respond, and then I'll wait a few months because I know things are recorded in advance and hiring and vetting processes take time. But I would like a change. Because outside of a spike in 2021 (when the seven was released), transfem appearances on dropout hasn't really changed for the better, at all.

but instead, you've made your blog an unsafe place for anyone who isn't a white transfem

Oh damn I guess I gotta leave, since my blog isn't safe for me. Since yk. I'm not white. I'm a stone cold desi bitch and I will live and die that way. Thanks for assuming I'm white tho, really showing that "white people are the default" world view you've got going there.

Do you want to know why, everyone assumes only white transfems have this take? Because so few of you, actually listen to transfems, ofc you don't notice, that transfems of color, have the same fucking opinion.

I want it to be clear. I love trans mascs. My partner is transmasc. Some of my best friends are transmascs. I don't hate trans mascs. I don't even hate you. I just kinda hate talking to you. And everyone, regardless of gender, like you. The type of people who heard, that transfems are oppressed in a way transmascs aren't, a way cis women aren't, and somehow turned that into a personal attack. You took a single fucking critic against Dropout, and decided to be guided by hatred.

This is my problem with the fandom. Transfems bring up one little thing: they'd like to be more represented. Nothing about Dropout being evil, nothing against Sam Reich or Brennan Lee Mulligan, just the fact that they are cis white men in positions of power being a valid part of the data. And you started attacking us. We're receiving death threats because people are whiteknighting a comedy company that is visibly entirely unaffected by our actions.

I have one question for all of you. Why aren't you in the comments and reblogs of all the confessions tagged negative dropout post? You want to defend this company, I better see an uptick in notes on those posts. Otherwise shut the fuck and let us beg for a bit more representation in peace.

If you have a problem with that. Leave. I don't want you following my blog if you so desperately need me to be silent on the matters that affect me and the people I love. And that includes you. The day the world comes for your throat, I'll be there. I have come to accept that I won't get that same treatment. But don't you fucking tell me not to stand up for myself. Cause I'm standing up for the both of us when any of us need it.

[watcherintheweyr]

Can they make a post with their opinion on young alicent please? (English is not my first language, I hope I used the pronouns correctly. If not, I apologize)

Hello! I’m sorry this took me so long, I had written out this entire response and somehow tumblr fucking ate it.

So for starters, you didn’t quite get the pronoun use right, but that’s totally fine and I really appreciate you trying! Pronouns and the english language are a bitch to learn. So when someone’s pronouns are ‘they/them’ those pronouns only replace gendered pronouns- (he/his/he’s/she/her/hers/she’s). Non gendered pronouns (you/your/you’re/yours) are entirely fine. So this would’ve been ‘Can you make a post with your opinion on young Alicent?’. If you were then to talk about me, it’d be ‘I asked watcherintheweyr to make a post about their opinion on young Alicent’ or ‘Watcherintheweyr made a post explaining their thoughts on young Alicent because I asked them.’

Don’t feel bad pls- the English language is a total bitch, and genuinely you put more effort into trying to get it right than a lot of native english speakers who I interact with. And I really do appreciate it.

anyways, on to your question!

So while I have a lot of sympathy for young Alicent in a lot of ways- I don’t like her, and I never did. For starters, I absolutely despise that the show isolated Rhaenyra and made Alicent her only friend and companion, which was untrue in the books and also makes no sense for how royalty works. Rhaenyra, as the only princess, would’ve have a sizeable ‘household’ of young ladies around her age. Those girls would’ve been essentially her helpers and her companions- she would’ve been in lessons alongside them, and they would’ve worked together in matters of court, politics, and events. Canonically she had a gaggle of young girls she was very close to- to the point that when (SPOILERS) Rhaenyra is murdered by Aegon, her ‘youngest and gentlest’ lady, Elinda Massey, purportedly gouges out her eyes from the trauma and horror.

Also, I despise that Laena Velaryon’s story and importance in Rhaenyra’s life was sacrificed for Alicent Hightower- including their deeply hinted romantic connection.

Anyways, moving on. Alicent Hightower.

Ultimately, I think that Alicent is a tragic example of what happens when you buy into oppressive regimes- further and enable them because you think you’ll be rewarded for sacrificing others to those regimes, and realize far too late that you won’t. She has 100% bought into the Faith of the Seven and Otto and Westeros’ sexism, and she serves that system in the hope that she’ll be rewarded for it, for playing by the rules and sabotaging the power and autonomy of other women- especially Rhaenyra. And all the seeds and groundwork are THERE from episode one if you pay attention. Alicent is a self-righteous hypocrite and not nearly as intelligent as she thinks she is- and she is also a victim of Otto, Viserys, and the patriarchy. I also think she was never a good friend to Rhaenyra- and that she never really knew Rhaenyra.

(This post is going to be VERY long, so buckle up)

In episode one, we see very quickly that Alicent doesn’t understand Rhaenyra well, if at all. She makes the comment that Rhaenyra is ‘disagreeable’ when she’s worried- and is promptly baffled that Rhaenyra’s worry is not her position or about being ‘overshadowed’ for a son- that Rhaenyra genuinely hopes her father will get the son he’s wanted for her entire life, and that her only true worry is her mother. Emma D’Arcy and Milly Alcock both press that Rhaenyra is fully aware that due to her gender that she isn’t ‘enough’ for her parents or the realm, that she’s seen as lacking or deficient. Alicent doesn’t seem at all aware of this. Furthermore, Alicent’s question is… Odd. At this point in the story, Rhaenyra is only ‘a’ princess. She isn’t the heir- Daemon is. The only ‘overshadowing’ that could occur is Viserys’ already fleeting and inconsistent ‘love’ becoming even less present. And Rhaenyra is already expecting this; but Alicent presses more of Rhaenyra’s ‘position’.

Now bear in mind- in the past 10 years, 14 year old Rhaenyra has had to watch her father insist on and continually risk her mother’s life and health, and she’s had to mourn 5 siblings- some born, others not. So Rhaenyra being ‘disagreeable’ when she’s worried makes sense. But when she doesn’t budge on not wanting to talk about/prioritize her ‘position’, Alicent gets huffy and makes to leave. She then appears to be entirely stunned when Rhaenyra verbatim recites the current passage of history that they are learning from their Septa. This piece of information is given to us to set up and establish Rhaenyra’s clever mind and interest in learning- of the 5 episodes we have of Young!Rhaenyra, she is shown to be actively listening to and learning from her superiors in just about all of them, reading and learning from books in 3 of them, and utilizing courtly intrigue, manners, and speak in 3 of them to shut down opponents or disrespect. And yet Alicent is entirely taken aback by Rhaenyra doing this; which again lends itself to the idea that she doesn’t actually know Rhaenyra very well. In the script, at the end of the episode, it’s also expressed that Alicent doesn’t seem to understand Rhaenyra being stressed/worried about her investiture as heir- in her eyes, Rhaenyra now has everything anyone could want. Meanwhile, Rhaenyra has now been revealed the truth of why Aegon conquered the seven kingdoms- and has now been entrusted with learning to rule and govern the kingdoms, and to nurture and protect the legacy meant to fulfill this prophecy- and she is shown to be very aware of and affected by the weight of this.

Alicent, meanwhile, has become a pawn in her father’s bid for power, and a victim to his ambitions, and to Viserys’ sexism and passivity.

In episode 2, Alicent has been seeing Viserys in secret for six months- and notably, it’s 6 months into their meetings that Viserys expresses that he wishes for her not to tell Rhaenyra, as he doesn’t think she would ‘understand’. We see that she is harming herself and Otto doesn’t appear to care about it in any way more meaningful than why she would do so when she’s the most beautiful girl at court- a thing to be envied and admired. We also in this episode see how fully she has bought into the realm and the Faith’s sexism. When Rhaenyra comes to Alicent about her fears of the plots of the lords to marry her father off again now that his period of mourning is coming to an end, and as such they would be plotting to supplant her. She is struggling, because it’s shown that she is trying to act as heir, to learn and participate- because she WANTS this, wants to be heir, wants to do it and do it well- but Otto undermines and humiliates her, and Viserys simply lets it happen- practically enables it. She expresses her fears of these plots and her frustrations and desire to be the heir, to be more and grasp for more than she would’ve ever been allowed as ‘Viserys’ little girl’.

And Alicent’s response is to dismiss Rhaenyra’s fears- to tell her friend and the named heir to the throne that it ‘isnt their place to question the plots of kings and men’. Because Alicent does not believe women can or should hold genuine power- like she says in episode 9, women are meant to ‘gently guide those who [rule]’. And she does this while she is actively a part of one of those very plots that Rhaenyra fears. Now, bear in mind; I am fully aware that Alicent is a victim to her father’s ambitions, and Viserys’ complicity. It’s not Alicent’s fault what these men do to her. And it’s understandable why Alicent wouldn’t want to tell Rhaenyra, in a lot of ways.

That doesn’t change that both Alicent AND Viserys broke Rhaenyra’s trust and hurt her- and she is shown later to be trying to create distance from them- because they have both shown that Rhaenyra cannot trust them. Viserys because he’s self-serving and blind, and Alicent because her ultimate loyalty and obeisance will always be to her father, not Rhaenyra. And Rhaenyra is keenly aware of this after the reveal, even though it is never made clear to Rhaenyra that Alicent wasn’t seeing Viserys in secret of her own volition. That doesn’t change that for six months, since the *night* of Aemma’s funeral, Alicent was seeing Viserys in secret, whilst dismissing Rhaenyra’s fears of that exact sort of plot to her face. That doesn’t change the fact that Rhaenyra has every right to feel hurt, feel betrayed, and not want anything to do with Alicent- or Viserys, beyond what she cannot avoid.

On a note that’s entirely personal, while I know that Alicent was attempting to share something important to her with Rhaenyra in an attempt to help her feel better, to me, Alicent having Rhaenyra partake of her faith felt… strange. Rhaenyra, who named the dragon she shared a cradle with after a goddess of Old Valyria and who has no idea how to pray in a Sept to the Seven, clearly either is not religious or follows Valyrian faiths- and considering her Valyrian marriage to Daemon, it’s likely the latter. Personally- I would not want a friend of mine to try and have me participate in their religion, and I wouldn’t push them to participate in mine either. For me, that was just uncomfortable; but again that’s a purely personal issue.

In episode 3, we see these traits of Alicent’s repeat, as well as her inability to introspect or consider someone else’s feelings. Immediately in the Godswood she uses her ‘weight’ as queen to disregard Rhaenyra attempting create space and distance between them. And while yes it was on command from the King- the way Alicent does it is almost… Smug. She then attempts to tell Rhaenyra that ‘things need not be this way’- as Rhaenyra, upset, goes to change and ready herself for the hunt, despite the fact that this is the last place she wishes to be. Alicent is upset at the loss of her friend, and likely lonely- but she disregards Rhaenyra’s feelings entirely. This is further compounded by the scene in the carriage.

Despite the fact that she and Alicent are not friends, nor truly even speaking, Rhaenyra, who watched her mother struggle and suffer pregnancies, and lose multiple babes and her life, expresses concern that Alicent is traveling in her condition. In an incredibly clumsy attempt to soothe her concerns, Alicent makes the comment that ‘Aegon came quickly and without fuss.’ Again; i understand that this was a very clumsy attempt to ease Rhaenyra’s worry, however everyone in that carriage sees how poorly the comment lands, and Alicent makes no attempt at apology. ‘Aegon came quickly and without fuss’ is.. very insensitive to say to the girl that lost her mother to the childbed, and especially when you are quite literally sitting in that mother’s place- when you’ve replaced her because her last child killed her and died alongside her. If she had made any attempt at apology (the way Rhaenyra did when she saw a comment she made while expressing her frustrations hurt Alicent in e.4), that would be one thing; but she doesn’t.

Rhaenyra is heir- and canonically the only duty she has balked at is marriage. She is currently desperately holding on to being ‘the heir’ with everything she has- because it is all she has, the only thing that doesn’t make her replaceable with the new family that Viserys is building with Alicent- and as such it’s understandable that she doesn’t wish to go to Aegon’s second Name-day celebration, as she is keenly aware of the thing Viserys is blind to and that Alicent is passive to; the realm considers a 2 year old boy child more valuable and more worthy than the 17 year old princess who has actively been learning to be and acting as heir for three years at this point. Alicent’s uncle, Hobart Hightower, welcomes them by crying out ‘All Hail Aegon the Conqueror-Babe, second of his name!’ and neither Viserys nor Alicent does anything. Hobart is not corrected, nor taken to task, and the crown is rabidly enamored with the two year old child all because his genitalia makes him more ‘valuable’ than Rhaenyra. By calling Aegon ‘second of his name’ Hobart is saying the quiet part out loud- the realm all expects and wants for Aegon to be heir, for Rhaenyra to be set aside. Alicent is the queen- but she doesn’t care enough to correct her uncle, either because she does already think her son should be heir or because she doesn’t think it’s a woman’s place to correct a man.

Later in this same episode, she gives an incredibly half-hearted defense of Rhaenyra when Otto begins to speak literal treason- but she does bend to his will yet again, and goes to Viserys with the intent of pushing Aegon’s claim. She is aware in *episode 3* that her father is conspiring against Rhaenyra’s ascension, and she never says a word of it to Viserys or Rhaenyra, because she is Otto’s creature first, and because she agrees- Rhaenyra is a woman, and thus cannot and should not rule.

Episode 4 and 5 really bring Alicent’s hypocrisy and self-centeredness to a head and set the stage for the cruel abuser that she becomes. She is the story of a victim-turned abuser, in the end.

It starts out more positively, with Alicent and Rhaenyra attempting to rekindle their friendship, and discussing Rhaenyra’s tour. Alicent expresses an almost childish lack of understanding of the truth of Rhaenyra’s courtship tour- calling it romantic, seeing it as something dreamlike. Rhaenyra exposes the cold truth of it- after we had earlier seen that none of the options she’s offered (that we see) are actually suitable. She uses courtly manners and speak to have Lord Dondarrion essentially take himself out of the running, by getting him to speak of his age and simply agreeing with him- and is then presented with a literal child. She is fully aware that every man ‘courting’ her doesn’t love her, doesn’t want HER. They want her valyrian blood. They want their children to be dragonriders. They want proximity to the throne and power. Rhaenyra has to choose a consort; and the consequences if she chooses wrong are disastrous. She could choose a man who turns her into what Viserys did to Alicent and Aemma, she could choose a man who utilizes Westerosi patriarchal views and values and turns her into a puppet queen so that he has the actual power, or she could choose a man who is, ultimately, weak- and thus would not be able to support her claim, would not be able to support or defend her when she ascends. She expresses these frustrations- but when she sees one of her comments hurts Alicent, she immediately holds her hand and squeezes in an attempt at comfort and apology.

Alicent expresses that she has found that she has few friends, lately; and this comment is.. Interesting, in what it says of Alicent. That even at the height of female power in the realm, she cannot inspire loyalty or affection in those around her, that the only prospect she has for a friend is her childhood companion. Rhaenyra expresses a hope to grow closer again as well; but well.

Immediately we shift to the scene in the Godswood where Alicent confronts Rhaenyra with her father’s accusations. She comes into the confrontation immediately condescending and judgemental, looking down on Rhaenyra’s rebellious and adventurous nature, as well as her ‘queer Targaryen customs’, and the ‘crimes’ of which she is accused. Because remember; at this point, Alicent has bought entirely into the way the realm and the Faith views women; women who follow the rules, subservient and obedient, never reaching for more, sacrificing and doing their duty, are good, should be rewarded. Anything else is morally deficient, wrong, lesser. Given this and how she approaches the conversation; it is entirely understandable that Rhaenyra doesn’t trust Alicent, and relies on misdirection and her mother’s memory as well as their former closeness to protect herself, because through this entire conversation, it is obvious that if she knew the truth, Alicent *would not protect Rhaenyra.*

Now remember, Alicent speaks with Viserys in ‘defense’ of Rhaenyra- and she knows FULLY well that Viserys doesn’t believe that nothing happened, that Rhaenyra is restless, chaotic, and willful, and that she would have done as she pleases. (Made worse by Viserys bemoaning that Rhaenyra is ‘just a girl’ when 5 years ago he married Alicent and has had 2 children by her at this point and will have 2 more- plus he has been pushing and pressuring for Rhaenyra to marry for at least 3 of those years.)

Later, when Otto is dismissed, Alicent states what we all know to be true; he got himself into this position, because he kept pushing for Aegon to be made heir, to the point of committing treason and spying on the princess, salivating for a moment where she misbehaves that he can use against her. Here we see Alicent begin to believe the seeds Otto has been planting; that Rhaenyra would kill her siblings to secure her ascension. (Remember, the whole reason of the juxtaposition between the boar and the white stag in episode.3 is to directly contradict this. Rhaenyra attacks and kills the boar only because it harmed her and her knight. Killing the white stag would have helped her- it would have made the lords of Westeros see her as chosen, especially since she caught and killed it the day AFTER Aegon’s name day, and it revealed itself to HER [symbolizing that yes, Rhaenyra is the rightful heir and the RIGHT heir]. Killing it would have given her legitimacy beyond legitimacy and silenced MANY of the tongues that are conspiring against her. However she shows it mercy- despite the fact that its’ death would have served her) Despite having once ‘loved’ Rhaenyra, and ‘known’ her, somehow these lies make sense to Alicent and she believes them. (Furthermore, she somehow is shocked in ep.9 that the reverse is true- that to secure Aegon’s ascension, the easiest and most acceptable route to all the men around her who wield the true power, is to kill Rhaenyra and all of her children).

When later Larys mentions the delivery of a tea to Rhaenyra’s chambers on orders of the king (despite, again, her KNOWING that Viserys doesn’t believe nothing happened) she decides to look further into the matter; even though clearly Viserys wishes it dead and buried, left behind in the dust of her father’s departure of the capitol.

In ep.5, when Alicent discovers that Criston Cole slept with Rhaenyra, it all comes to a head. Despite the fact that Rhaenyra didn’t ‘lie’ (she did not sleep with Daemon), in this moment, Rhaenyra has solidified herself in Alicent’s mind as morally deficient, as less, and it infuriates her. The fact that Rhaenyra has taken charge of ehr body and autonomy in a way that Alicent would never have dared infuriates her; because a part of her had always accepted and even wished for what she assumed would be the order of things. That Rhaenyra would ‘sacrifice and do her duty’ and lay down to suffer the whims and wills of the men around them at Alicent’s side. That they would be united in that suffering. That they would be defanged and declawed the way the Faith extolls women must be, to ‘gently guide’ the men in power alongside them. (Ironic considering how later Alicent utterly fails in ‘guiding’ every man in power around her.)

Alicent has followed every rule and every tradition, does her duty no matter the discomfort, and the fact that Rhaenyra is daring to grasp for more, for power of her own, for happiness and autonomy, and isn’t being punished for it infuriates her. Infuriates her to the point that only Rhaenyra’s trasngression matters. To her, it doesn’t matter that Criston Cole broke his vows and slept with the princess because he valued desire over duty (as explicitly stated by Fabien and by ep.4’s directors)- he is a man. Only Rhaenyra must be punished. It doesn’t matter to her that Rhaenyra has bowed to her father’s will and that the choice of who she will be marry has been taken away from her so that he can use her to fix the political wounds he has caused; from this point forward, nothing Rhaenyra ever does will be enough for Alicent. Supplying heirs to the throne and Driftmark? Not enough- especially since Rhaenyra doesn’t assault her gay husband to do so. Acting as heir and putting forth wise, responsible suggestions in politics and problem-solving in the small council? Absolutely not, especially since in Alicent’s mind Rhaenyra has no business ruling over the men in the Small Council. Ruling from the heir’s seat of Dragonstone in preparation for the throne? Not enough. Offering apology when the poison that Alicent has been feeding her children about Rhaenyra and her children causes a fight between the children where her son is injured after throwing around death threats and claimed a dragon without the King’s leave (which IS established to be necessary in Jaehaerys’ reign) Not enough- she must have Lucerys’ eye as well. From this point on, *nothing Rhaenyra can or will do will ever be enough.*

And the irony is that her own hypocrisy never takes herself into account. She uses a dress to declare war at a wedding; insulting the Velaryons and her stepdaughter, and she faces no consequences for doing so, nothing for the disrespect- but only Rhaenyra ‘never’ faces consequences, right? Criston Cole murders a knight of the kingdoms and strikes the future king-consort to the Kingdoms- and Alicent protects him from every consequence, brings him into her own household as her own sworn knight.

In essence; young Alicent is a victim of the Faith, the Patriarchy and the men around her; but all of the seeds for the abuser that she becomes are there. She’s a hypocrite, blind to anything that doesn’t fit the narrative she wishes for, and to a degree, very narcissistic, and not as clever or as powerful as she thinks she is.

Mind you her being self-serving or self-absorbed isn’t some unforgivable crime; but in juxtaposition to how Rhaenyra expresses concern and care for her at multiple points, it just sits very poorly, for me.

Moving on;

Alicent, when younger is… Deeply interesting, deeply flawed, and incredibly tragic. Her younger self sets the stage for how her story ends; (SPOILERS) with her outliving all her children and grandchildren, all of them dead for her grudges and ambition, with her mad and alone.

She’s also, in some ways, very clever; she’s observant, knowing much of the court gossip, even potentially dangerous secrets in e.1 (speaking of that one Lady’s ‘swollen belly’ aka suspected pregnancy). She’s very duty-oriented, though mostly because she wants to be rewarded for how dutiful she is. She’s subservient to the men around her due to how Otto uses her, and short-sighted. I don’t think she’s a particularly kind individual, but I think she did have the POTENTIAL to be kind. She’s a little boy-obsessed- she was confirmed to have had a crush on Daemon and on Criston, plus how she viewed the courtship tour as ‘romantic’, but she’s also so obsessed with Rhaenyra that it blinds her to the truth both of herself and of Rhaenyra- obsessed with an image of Rhaenyra that isn’t actually the truth. She takes solace in her Faith, it seems, more than anything else, and she struggles to connect to people around her in meaningful ways. She has moments of deep insight- such as how she told Rhaenyra that any effort in hers and Viserys’ relationship would have to come from Rhaenyra, as Viserys, a man, is useless to ‘the language of girls’. She doesn’t like risks (no interest in flying with Rhaenyra) or adrenaline, and likely pursues only more ‘feminine’ pursuits- canonically we know Rhaenyra loves to ride horses and to fly Syrax, to hawk and hunt, loves fashion- even in the book I’d say Rhaenyra is a ‘fashionable’ tomboy in a lot of ways. But we don’t really know.. ANY hobbies of Alicent’s. We don’t know her passions, we don’t know her interests outside of the Faith and the ambitions of her family.

We don’t know her relationships with her children or motherhood- though we know she’s jealous of what a good mother Rhaenyra is.

Honestly it’s a shame. S1 really needed to be 20 eps- 10 with the younger versions of Alicent and Rhaenyra, and 10 with the older. It would’ve let us KNOW the characters more and get far more invested in their fates.

Anyways this… is a novel. But I hope I answered your question alright lmao. I think Alicent as a character is very interesting- but good lord I don’t like her, and yeah I didn’t like her younger version either.

[drdemonprince]

As a straight woman reader I feel very jealous of your sexual exploits because I don't feel like I could ever safely have those kinds of encounters with men. I had a lot of casual sex in my youth and unfortunately I've found that straight men tend to treat women's receptivity to casual sex as a green flag to treat us disposably and ignore boundaries (and that's just standard vanilla sex - I don't want to think about how some of the kinds of anonymous/blindfolded encounters you've talked about would go even though in a vacuum they sound fun as hell). And it's so dumb because they could all be having way more sex if they would just act right instead of letting misogyny horribly infect everything.

I also think it is important to point out that queer men have very deliberately created the spaces that allow us to have anonymous, kinky, sometimes risky sex with one another while looking out for one another, and that we had to do that due to structural homophobia and the AIDs crisis.

The fact that I can have wild, masked sex on a bed in the dark in a bathhouse with a blindfold on and condoms spread beside me is because I know am in a space where employees are monitoring the halls continually, prophylatics are freely provided, testing is freely provided on site, trans people are welcome explicitly by policy, an explicitly sexual atmosphere has been created, and a whole culture of norms and nonverbal signals have been established. This has taken a lot of money and decades of work to build and maintain.

Gay and bisexual men have had to build places to have sex with one another that are both private and secure, and that bring a large number of us together -- due to structural homophobia making it illegal for us to even have sex until the early 2000's. We have had to respond to the AIDs crisis and Monkeypox and numerous other sources of danger and violence within our communities by promoting harm reductionist sexual health policies and by learning to look after one another.

Straight people do not have such comraderie. Misogyny is absolutely a major factor -- but the privilege straight people have and the immense isolation that comes with it is a factor too. Queer people have had to pool our resources to create the spaces we need as an oppressed sexual minority.

Now, there are hardly ANY such hookup spaces for queer women because they do not have the money and resources and structural power that men, including many queer men, do, and because women's sexual agency is so absolutely neglected and penalized by our culture.

And I do think straight men unwittingly fuck up their chances of getting laid by being inept and/or predatory -- if they hadn't been so shitty as sexual partners I might not have ever transitioned! and I recommend transition to anyone who wants to have better sex with men and finds doing so appealing. But ultimately things are as they are due to structural issues.

[noturlondonboy]

Headcanons for genderqueer Kate coming out to Yelena?

I feel like queerness in general is still a bit of a learning curve for Yelena considering her oppressive upbringing (but that’s my headcanon! All good if you don’t see it that way)

No you are so correct my friend let’s see what I can cook

WALL OF TEXT GO

-we could start on her coming out as gay first honestly. She’s not exactly nervous about it but she’s already crushing on Yelena and doesn’t really know how to go about it

-plus the internalized homophobia is strong and horrible. Yelena knows about Gay People, yea, but she’s convinced herself that nobody she knows personally is queer and there’s no excuse for her to be attracted to women

-Kate decides to just casually drop it into a conversation by mentioning a past girlfriend or a woman she thinks is really pretty (cough cough Florence Pugh)

-Yelena is just giving her A Look and asks is Kate is attracted to women, and her tone isn’t exactly very nice because she’s freaking the fuck out on the inside

-Kate gets all quiet and nods and gets ready to be rejected in some form or another but Yelena is completely silent and just leaves

-she goes to Natasha immediately and kinda just has a meltdown because she realizes that yes, she is massively into Kate and yes, it feels awful and wonderful at the same time and she’s terrified and wants to run away

-Natasha says the right things but is also just kinda like “…you know that I’m dating Wanda/Maria/Peggy (choose your favorite) right?”

-she eventually decides that she needs to see Kate and apologize for how she left and heads back to her apartment

-Kate meanwhile is NOT having a good time. Miss girl is kinda just crying on the couch with her dog because she’s just like me actually

-Yelena knocks on the door for the first time in her life because she feels bad. She calls out for Kate when she doesn’t respond, but still the door doesn’t open for her and she knows she doesn’t have the right to pick the lock like usual

-she apologizes through the door and explains why she reacted the way she did and that she doesn’t think Kate is disgusting and maybe lets it slip that she’s kinda into her

-which of course prompts Kate to open the door immediately

-Yelena can see that she’s been crying and nearly bursts into tears herself “oh malen’kiy yastreb… I’m so sorry”

-unclear who moved first but suddenly they’re kissing and obviously it’s the fucking best cuz duh

-they’re dating for a whileeee before Kate starts to explore her gender. (Pretty similar to it went in some of the other posts I’ve made) but it makes her panic a little when she realizes that she should probably talk to Yelena about it

-Yelena knows something is up but doesn’t want to push it

-Kate is trying to work up the courage to just blurt it out but accidentally goes “would you still love me if I was a worm” and Yelena just goes of course stupid because Kate asks her that like three times a week

-except when she looks over at her Kate is on the verge of tears and looks so distressed and disconnected and something is clearly actually wrong

-Yelena asks if she’s ok and Kate just shakes her head and starts crying and Yelena is kind of expecting the worst because yes, Kate gets upset about things, yes Kate has cried before and struggled and had a hard time but this is clearly different

-“I don’t think I’m a girl, Lena”

-Yelena does NOT know how to respond to that but she can see that Kate is kinda goin through it so she just nods and says ok and they cuddle

-she takes the night to think about it, and meanwhile Kate is just panicking and stressing and trying not to cry herself to sleep but it also feels so good to have finally just voiced it

-they talk in the morning, and Yelena apologizes for not really saying anything but assures Kate she still loves her and doesn’t want anything about their relationship to change

-she’s never given gender much thought in the first place and she’s gotten so much more comfortable with stuff that’s lgbtq related and honestly if Kate needs something to be different in order to be comfortable Yelena will make it happen

-Yelena would explode buildings and dismantle governments for Kate Bishop ok

[queerbeverage]

It's cool that for you gender is just a funny little cloak you can don whenever you want to, and you don't feel as dysphoric when getting misgendered, and that you use the bathroom that has the shorter line.

However, have you maybe for one second considered all of these things are privileges people like me do not have? When i go into the women's bathroom, i might get kicked out or assaulted. My specific kind of gender will not be acknowledged, because anything feminine is immediately seen as threatening. Idk, i feel like a lot of trans people and especially transmascs never learn to respect other trans people who may have different experiences and get oppressed in different ways. It's not enough for you to be trans, that does not make you a feminist by default! It does not make you understanding & accepting of other identities! That is still work you have to do yourself!!!

And frankly i am tired of getting kicked from communities and socially murdered because a transmasc decided i was too weird/didn't fit into their transmisogynistic worldview/any combination of those two; and watching my sisters get ostracized with no support system over the most basic of differences. It gets even worse when we call this shit out, it's immediate social murder, everyone turns away and abandons you.

DO. BETTER.

Educate younger transmascs, be vocal about transfems, stop attending events where no transfems are and either work to make those spaces better or hold space and grace for the transfems in your life. I am tired of my sisters being hurt so badly in the places they're searching comfort in. DO BETTER!

Transmascs & trans men who are vocal about these issues, i love you. Your voice is important in this, and it's imperative that if you notice one of your TME friends act like this around transfems to speak up. To them, your voice carries a lot more weight than ours does (as sad and shit as that may be). Just like feminist cis men, you can help a ton by just calling out bullshit in your communities.

Please, i'm fucking tired of being hurt by the people that should be my brothers and siblings.

[daenerysstormreborn]

Also something that drives me fucking wild is seeing people refer to Dany and Arya’s roles as patriarchal or wish-fulfillment for men. Just yesterday I saw the phrase “patriarchal power fantasy” used. I need everyone to sit down and think about what “patriarchy” means.

For the purpose of this post, and any other post I make, please know that when I say “masculine” I am referring to stereotypes associated with the male sex and when I say “feminine” I am referring to stereotypes associated with the female sex. Masculine =/= male and feminine =/= female.

Patriarchy does not refer to masculinity. It does not mean that masculine people are in power (I wouldn’t go as far as to call Dany or Arya masculine, but bear with me). Patriarchy refers to systems where MEN are the sex caste in power. Men. Not masculine people. Under a patriarchal system, women are oppressed regardless of whether or not they conform to femininity, although the less a woman conforms, the more she is punished for it. Dany and Arya’s arcs are inherently ANTI patriarchal on the simple basis that they are female and they defy what is expected of women in Westeros. They can never represent male power fantasies because they are not men. Referring to their arcs as male power fantasies is telling on yourself. You are revealing that your view of women and what we want and fantasize about is narrow. Why would you assume that only men would desire to travel across the sea and learn the ways of a secret society of assassins? Why would you assume that only men would want to wield the power of dragons and amass loyal supporters?

You are part of the problem by assuming that the desire for power is a male trait. Yes, we stereotypically associate that with men. That stereotype, and what we consider masculine and feminine as a whole, almost exclusively exist to uphold the patriarchy. Women are expected to be peaceful pacifists, complacent, quiet, because that keeps us under the boot of the male caste. Consider why so many “strong” female characters are less feminine. Is it because people feel the need to make them more like men in order to be “strong?” I say no. At least, not most of the time. If this is what you think, you’ve got the order mixed up. Skirts, dresses, and heels are impractical for fighting and limit movement a lot. Thus, it wouldn’t make sense for a competent female fighter to be wearing them. These things have been forced upon women BECAUSE they are impractical. A woman who keeps her hair short and wears no makeup and wears pants and no heels is not trying to emulate men. She is shedding femininity because femininity is impractical and time consuming. Consider WHY so many traits associated with power, leadership, and combat are considered masculine. It’s the enforcement of the patriarchy. Female characters who chase down these things and embody these qualities and do not conform to femininity are not basically men. They are women who are rejecting the system. This is antithetical to the patriarchy and to male power fantasies.

In summary: a female character who has an arc typically associated with male characters can never be a male power fantasy BECAUSE she is female.

Obligatory note that women who do conform are not lesser and their stories are not less important—they just do not challenge the patriarchy.

[velvetvexations]

Over on bluesky there's a circle of trans femmes who like, abjectly refuse to accept material reality.

The most recent example was the "cissexual" incident. A girl says that we need to start differentiating between trans people who medically transition and those who don't, and that those who don't are "cissexual transgenders"

While I personally believe the girl that started all this was acting in good faith initially, but she likewise refused to accept the words of a literal historian telling her why we left those terms in the past where they belong and the harm they brought (because it creates a hierarchy of trans people) and start blocking people whenever the lightest pushback hit.

So of course this turned into every uninvolved trans femme going "Stop making up a tranny to be mad at when we're trying to describe our material reality and listen to what we say" and "Its transmisognynistic to block trans women" when everyone decides to just start blocking problem starters because nonbinary people apparently aren't allowed to be upset at the use of "cissexual" and intersex people aren't allowed to be upset about it, and anyone who complains is just a dirty theyfab who is the reason why transphobes are taking away HRT.

When like.... the same women who are saying this shit are constantly firing off with some manner of dumb ass take that they shot off because they're shut-ins who only engage with political theory they learned off sixth hand from another woman who probably didn't even read the books they're talking about in the first place.

I'm not going to pretend that a lot of trans women/femmes getting blocked by non-trans women/femmes somehow has nothing to do with transmisognyny but, when every other week a girl fires off with some shit like

"Aces don't experience oppression and if you said that you got raped for it you're lying for attention"

or

"Writing bisexual characters in a het romance is conversion therapy and is not in any way considered queer art, especially if they don't fuck on-screen."

Then you're going to find yourself blocked by a lot of people for your dogshit takes! It has nothing to do with being a "mean tranny"!

I didn't think it was humanly possible for me to hate transradfems more and now I know "cissexual" is a thing and I just. I just hate them all so much. I hate them. God how I hate them with my whole entire heart.

[mareastrorum]

and 8.? Very related, might be the same thing.

1. the character everyone gets wrong

It's hard for me to gauge how many people actually hold a particular fandom opinion about a specific character. A lot of the C2 characters fit here, as do some C3 people, so I'll go for one that isn't discussed as often.

I think a lot of people get Caduceus wrong because his arc was fairly subtle in the stream. He went from a passive believer in the Wildmother to a cleric acting upon the world in her name. In the beginning, he was always looking for signs and waiting for someone to tell him what to do. He liked that.

But in a world like Exandria, Caduceus needed to become someone who would make decisions and choose a path, and he did. He was the first one to learn about Cognouza. He insisted on learning more about it. In every discussion, he insisted every time that it was aberrant, wrong, and had to be stopped. Early Caduceus never would have done that, but by the time the Nein got to the end game, he was ready for it.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

I'm going to be honest, I almost went with a tamer answer, but this is the "choose violence" ask game, and it’s Indigenous People’s Day, so here's the answer that's going to invoke carnage.

The Nine Eyes of Lucien was a terrible book. It sucked for many reasons, but the key one that has soured more as time goes by is that Brevyn Oakbender is a white savior.

First: what is a white savior? A white savior is a trope in western media where a white character saves a minority character (or a group) from the plight of being naturally inferior. It’s been around for a few hundred years now, and it gained prevalence in the U.S. in the slave trade era. A more well known historical example is the poem The White Man’s Burden, which was one of many works justifying colonization because white supremacists reasoned that was how indigenous peoples could be included in the modern, proper, Christian culture of whites. For those who don't want to click links, here's the first stanza of the poem:

Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.

Man, that sure would be on the nose for tieflings, wouldn’t it?

More recent works involving the white savior trope tend to focus on middle-class white characters (especially women) acting charitably towards minorities (especially Black characters) as a way to highlight how good white people are for fixing the problems minorities face. Most importantly, there is little, if any, criticism aimed at white characters or the systems of oppression that benefit them and which caused the problems in the first place. Instead, those social ills are typically reframed as failures by individuals, who are also conveniently minority characters. It's just that the "it's because they're not white" part isn't said aloud much these days.

Not every white character in a story about minority characters is a white savior. The purpose is what matters. Characters are narrative devices to tell a story, so why is this white character in the story? What do they add to the plot, characterization, and themes? If the white character is constantly portrayed as superior and benevolent towards the inferior minority characters, and the plot progression is directly tied to the decisions, actions, and roles of the white character, then that is a white savior story. A lot of stories about white people standing up to racism, bigotry, and systemic oppression tend to fuck this up because the creators choose to make the white character the hero. White savior stories are about how great white people are, not about the minorities they deign to help. It is not something an author does accidentally. It takes effort to structure a story that way.

In all honesty, this trope tends to fly under the radar because most audiences just aren’t examining things critically or from a critical race theory perspective. I wasn’t even sure that had been what I’d read until I read through TNEOL a second time the following week. I first noticed this because each time I read a derivative work of any kind (even licensed ones or adaptations like novelizations), I am extremely critical of new characters. Why did the author add someone new? What does this character add that could not be achieved with pre-existing characters? There is always a reason for it, and it’s not always bad, but that reason informs my opinion of the work overall.

In the case of Brevyn Oakbender, the only unique trait she added that could not have been achieved with a pre-existing character is that she is blonde, blue-eyed, light-skinned—white. Literally everything else about her personality, behaviors, roles, and actions could have been achieved with any of the other Tombtakers because almost all of their facets were unknown in canon.

If Brevyn was only supposed to be a self-insert, it really wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Representation is generally a good business decision in media, especially when the target audience matches with that background, and—let’s be real—white people are more likely to buy books featuring white people. While I won’t presume to map Lucien onto any particular minority group, a tiefling with purple skin and red eyes is definitely not an analogue for a white character, and neither is Cree, a black-furred tabaxi. While Tyffial, Zoran, and Otis are arguably white (lighter skin tones, specifically), they are also “other” enough (elf, goliath, halfling) that it wouldn’t give some white audience members that same feeling of having a main character who they can reflect themselves onto. But, wait: why not use Jurrell? The only thing set in stone about Jurrell was the name and that they had died after Lucien (which wouldn’t be too hard to set up as a tragedy appropriate for the book). But Jurrell isn’t a very white name is it? Enter an Aryan girl with a clearly white first and last name. If that was all there was to it, I’d have chalked that up to PRH setting expectations to achieve sales and not thought all that much of it. That level of incidental white race emphasis is just business in the U.S.

Except that in TNEOL, Brevyn is also responsible for every positive development in Lucien’s life and is the catalyst for the plot moving forward. Lucien only causes problems and Brevyn solves them, right up until she dies for him.

Lucien’s canon backstory isn’t touched upon in the stream except for the most recent 2 years. The stream only covers that (1) he grew up in Shadycreek Run, (2) people were unkind to him because he is a tiefling, (3) he somehow joined the Claret Orders and became a ghostslayer, (4) he led the Tombtakers away from the Orders, which had become “clouded”, (5) the Tombtakers were active for about 5 years before Lucien died, (6) they did illegal acquisitions, bodyguarding, and thieving, as well as expeditions into Molaesmyr, (7) Vess DeRogna hired them to escort her to Eiselcross and the ruins of Aeor, (8) during that expedition, Lucien kept a book that Vess felt was rightfully hers, (9) after agreeing to a trade for the book, Vess DeRogna killed Lucien during a ritual to travel to Cognouza, (10) Lucien’s soul was shattered and eventually reconstituted once Molly died, and (11) he is the Nonagon chosen by the Somnovem. Everything else was implication at best or unknown.

As a prelude: It’s not reasonable to constantly attribute all plot developments to the protagonist. Overdoing it can come off as very “Mary Sue” because the protagonist would somehow be the only person in the world that can make change happen. It’s also a little strange for a character not to want to settle into some type of normalcy. Even in a TTRPG story, there has to be some goal, and it might be as simple as securing a “wander the world and do quests for money” type of life. Plot stagnation is about whether the story is moving forward, not whether the characters have something to do with their time. Thus, external forces must be a catalyst for changes in at least a few situations to avoid both Sue-ishness and plot stagnation. Among many options, new characters are often introduced to move the story along when an existing character otherwise would not take action. They might be a quest giver, a new ally/rival/enemy, or a new party member. Thus, it is perfectly reasonable to expect some plot developments to be attributable to characters other than Lucien even though he is the protagonist in the book, and it’s totally reasonable for a new character to come in and handle some of that.

So here are the plot changes caused by Brevyn:

She heals Lucien from a potentially lethal injury, and he falls in love with her at first sight;

Brevyn's mother provides Lucien with room and board (which had not been offered previously), thereby side-stepping all survival issues caused by being a poor, homeless orphan in Shadycreek Run;

Lucien and Cree join the Claret Orders based on Brevyn’s recommendation;

Lucien, Cree, Otis, and Brevyn leave the Claret Orders to work for the Cerberus Assembly (specifically, Vess DeRogna) because of a referral extended by Elias de Corvo specifically to Brevyn;

Tyffial, Jurrell, and Zoran—who had been squatting in Brevyn’s mom’s home—teamed up with the group to steal Brevyn’s mom’s bones from a crypt, and that incident is the reason they came together and are named the “Tombtakers”;

Lucien doesn’t lose the Somnovem’s book during a cave in, resulting in him becoming the Nonagon.

For a story where Lucien is supposed to be the protagonist, that’s an incredible number of key plot advancements that were directly caused by a supporting character. The same supporting character. The sole white character. That's also not getting into the little details like she's the reason that Lucien uses twin black scimitars, that he wears shirts to show off cleavage, that he likes butterfli— wait, I said I wasn't going to get into those details. Moving on.

Why weren't any of those plot developments a result of actions or choices by Lucien or any of the other Tombtakers? I’ll briefly examine each of those, because these choices matter. They weren’t made in a vacuum, but Roux insisted in her interview that she had broad leeway to do with the story as she pleased. She made conscious decisions about what the story would be. So what does that tell us compared to the alternatives she could have chosen?

The meet cute over a trap bomb was why Lucien was interested in Brevyn in the first place, and their romance was barely touched in the book other than some flirting and brief references to how Lucien felt about her. The result is that it felt like part of a checklist, which is disappointing given how much set up was done to explain why Lucien got a bomb to the face and Cree didn’t. We also know Cree as the cleric of the Tombtakers, but Brevyn is the one that heals Lucien. We could hand wave that away as Cree not yet developing those abilities, but there’s also the simple fact that blood hunters don’t have healing abilities. So not only does Brevyn have skills that the reader expected from a different character, she is also an exceptional character with abilities not available to others like her. And sure, Lucien could have fallen in love at first sight in some other way, but this set up emphasizes his carelessness and helplessness, and it establishes Brevyn's unique level of charity, empathy, beauty, and skills right off the bat.

Next, we address the fact that Brevyn and her family gave Lucien a modicum of stability. How Lucien survived as a destitute orphan on the streets of Shadycreek Run could have made for an interesting backdrop to a lot of character development, especially the negative aspects of his personality. The only real reasons not to use that to frame Lucien’s character development at that time are (a) word budget within the novel, and (b) what themes can be explored in that circumstance. By introducing a white family to house Lucien, the situation becomes “good-hearted white people extend a hand of charity to a murderous, reckless colored boy” instead of “destitute boy struggles to survive after escaping abuse and is refused aid because of racism.” Neither makes Lucien look good, per se, but one definitely makes white characters look good, and it saves on word count. It also conveniently lets Roux minimize the issue of racism in Lucien’s background.

Given that the Claret Orders is a secretive group, it makes sense that the most common way that anyone would be recruited is a chance encounter with an existing member. There is no LinkedIn or job board recruiting people to undergo a secret ritual and learn to fight monsters. Conveniently, Brevyn is already a member and was visiting her mother at the exact time that Lucien showed up with a hole in his face, and somehow, she came to the conclusion that referring him and Cree to join the Orders was a good idea. We don’t know why she thought that because the book didn’t elaborate. Another option could have been another character meets all three of them and recruits them together. Any of the other Tombtakers could have been used for that purpose, and it would even start the thread about how they fostered that connection into their eventual mercenary group. However, that might have required some exposition or side plot, and then Brevyn wouldn’t have been elevated over Lucien or Cree by age, experience, and competency.

Once at the Claret Orders, there had to be a reason that Lucien and the Tombtakers-to-be chose to leave. In the stream, Cree had said that Lucien led them away and alluded to some sort of disagreement between the group and the Orders, but that was done away with. Instead, Lucien languished at the Orders and had no plan for his future, then left once Brevyn received a job recommendation from Elias de Corvo, and she asked Lucien to come along. Why pass up the other Tombtakers for this? Why couldn’t it have been a job that turned into a new path? This retcon is particularly disappointing because Lucien’s acquisition of skill and experience as a blood hunter would have been a good point to seed character development, both for a coming of age timeline and in this early arc of the novel. However, this was another opportunity to cement how charitable and respected Brevyn is, and that was more important to Roux than any of the other threads to be explored in that section of the book. After all, Brevyn was recommended by the most famous blood hunter in Exandria to work for the most powerful group of mages in the empire, and most importantly, none of the other Tombtakers were—especially not Lucien. The white girl is superior yet again.

The Tombtakers’ group name is a pretty obvious reference to grave robbing, and the fact that Lucien was pleased to refer to the group as that in the stream suggests that he liked the name. It came off as tongue-in-cheek and demonstrated a lack of shame from each of the members. The origin could have been an inside joke, a petty rebellion against the need for a mercenary group to have names, or any number of reasons. However, the origin Roux chose is that the group formed by stealing bones from the Jagentoths, not because they actually rob graves as a profession, nor because of anything to do with pillaging the heritage of elves in Molaesmyr. After all, that would be villainous, and Brevyn—a white person—is a member, so the Tombtakers needed to be neutral or good, not evil. Thus it’s a kind-hearted mission to put a white woman’s remains to rest and help the grief-stricken white protagonist side character. Because the key part of white savior stories is that the white savior is good, and that cannot be maligned by a negative reference to grave robbing.

The problem with adding a new Tombtaker is that the character also needs to disappear before canon events and there needs to be a reason that no one refers to that person by name in the stream. Thus, it was obvious from the start that Brevyn would either leave the group on poor terms or die. The former would require more plot and word count, so it’s no surprise that we got the latter. Lucien discovered the Somnovem’s book in the ruins of Aeor, but subsequently the group had to flee a cave in. While running, Lucien (a dexterity-based ghostslayer, which is a subclass with the signature ability to literally move through solid matter—like a ghost) tripped, then Brevyn grabbed him and dragged him along (because we need to know that she is not only stronger than him, but she is also more agile and faster), and he dropped the book. Once they got to an apparently safe location, she ran back, grabbed the book, and was crushed by the cave in. Even Brevyn’s death was orchestrated to emphasize her martyrdom and consideration of Lucien, who inexplicably failed at the exact things he should excel at. Out of all the ways Brevyn could have died, Roux chose to have her die in a way that makes her look good and Lucien look incompetent. It couldn’t just be that he discovered the book that would doom him; his interest in the book had to get a white character killed before he ever opened it, which conveniently doubles as a justification for the Tombtakers resorting to villainy. Now there’s no need to explain why such a positive influence in Lucien’s life had not prevented any of the canon events. Instead, it implies that things wouldn’t have gone so badly if the white character had still been around to guide everyone else.

Of course, later, both Molly and Cree attempt to invoke Brevyn's memory to dissuade Lucien from his path as the Nonagon, because obviously there's no other positive role models in his life. In fact, they also argue that if he would just mourn her properly, that would help him realize he's on the wrong path—positing that even his decision to try to take over the world is also because of Brevyn. Specifically, the lack of Brevyn and Lucien's inability to cope without her. Finally, even his decision to stop the fight at the very end is also tied to her memory. The white girl isn't even there for any of that, and Roux made absolutely sure that we knew that every positive choice Lucien made or could have made was because of Brevyn.

There isn't a single decision that Brevyn made in TNEOL that was wrong unless we conclude that her decisions to help/save Lucien were wrong. Wow. Wait a minute. In fact, that's objectively correct. If Brevyn had just let Lucien die or not given him a helping hand at any point in the story, the whole plot with Lucien as the Nonagon never would have happened, and the world would have been saved by his sheer incompetence. Let me rephrase that: the only wrong decisions the white character made were to help the non-white protagonist.

WOW.

So, hey, if you are an aspiring writer who happens to be white, and you plan on writing a story about characters that aren't white, maybe don't insert a white savior. Just don’t do it. That'd be great if you could avoid being that blatantly racist. I would truly appreciate it. If you manage that, then congratulations, you have already managed to write a better story than New York Times best-selling author Madeleine Roux’s The Nine Eyes of Lucien, because at least you aren’t resorting to white supremacist tropes to appeal to a primarily white audience in the 2020s.

In closing, the common fandom opinion that TNEOL was a good story is wrong. TNEOL sucked, Roux is either racist or happy to use racist tropes for money, and I feel bad for the CR team that this is what they got for taking a chance on a villain novel.

Happy Indigenous People’s Day. :D

Choose violence ask game.

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

Was she or was she not born with a vulva?

That's all I care about. Whether a condition she has should or should not disqualify a certain woman from a certain sport is a different conversation.

But if she was born with a vagina, I don't care if she has a Y chromosome ffs. She's a woman. Before the discovery of chromosomes, women and girls were identified by vulvas. Does material reality matter when it comes to womanhood and oppression, or does it fucking not?

You can't see chromosomes. You can see genitals. No, not at all the time, and yes, we can tell by secondary and tertiary sex characteristics the vast majority of the time. But not all the time. Some people genuinely look androgynous or even like the opposite sex. It's rare, but it happens.

Some women have gotten by in history by posing as men. I, a fertile female, have been mistaken for male when I've let my upper lip hair grow! If we looked back through history and exhumed the bodies of women who posed as men, say, Dr James Barry, and found that she had XY chromosomes, does it make her less of a woman in history trying to practice medicine in a time when women weren't allowed to? Whose accomplishments were discredited when they gave her an autopsy and found her to be female (because she had a vulva)? Is it really just misdirected misogyny if a baby is born with the very female organ that men try to control, if it turns out she's actually a male who didn't develop properly in the womb?

Personally, no, I don't think so. Those are my sisters. They are not whole ass men developing a fantasy of what being women is and playing at being women and invading our spaces and taking up our resources. They are not even like David Reimer who was born as an intact male, had his genitals destroyed, had to use a colostomy bag, and whose parents attempted to raise as a girl. They were born and treated as girls.

Tell me, if you heard right now about a woman from 200 years ago who posed as a man to get an education, fight in war, etc. and never had any children, you wouldn't be happy to learn about her, you wouldn't see her as an icon. But it's entirely possible the reason she didn't have children and was able to pass as a man is because she was technically male with a DSD! So is that suddenly not a woman's accomplishment? How is that different from transing historical figures? Shrodinger's female accomplishments until a chromosome test?

An XX female with an SRY gene activated will develop as an infertile male. Is he one of us because of his fucking chromosomes? With a whole ass penis?

Like, come the fuck on. A lot of people here lately seem to really want to be the "TERF" stereotype. Literally seeing people arguing that being born with a vulva doesn't count because of neovulvas! Are you fucking kidding me?!? What happened to the vagina and clitoris being organs whereas neovulvas are an open wound that doesn't and can't function as more than a hole? Suddenly it's similar enough that only chromosomes count? Come off it!

Again, I'm not talking about whether a woman with XY chromosomes should be playing in certain sports. I don't know enough to have a fully formed opinion on that.

It's the way people are insisting on calling them men that's pissing me off. You do not know enough to do that. If they were born with malformed penises, fine! Have at it! But we have no evidence of that. All we know is that they *probably* have XY chromosomes. That says nothing about whether they have Swyer Syndrome, CAIS, or another XY DSD I'm not aware of where the babies are born with female genitalia.

Just, enough. If you want to talk about whether the tiny percentage of women with XY chromosomes have automatic advantages (I think they likely do, but again I don't know) over non-DSD females, talk about that. You can do that without calling women with DSDs men.

[possiblyunhinged]

Honestly, there’s always been an unsettled feeling in my stomach when it comes to the way progressive men talk about capitalism. There’s such a fixation on class—with blinkers on. Seldom do they acknowledge how race and sexism shape these power structures. And when conversations turn to violence against women and girls? Progressive men are often nowhere to be seen.

I’ve written on and off this website since I was 13 years old, and most of the “engagement” I’ve experienced has been from men; some even became my IRL friends... well, apart from the 40-year-old man from Maryland who would ask for pictures of my legs and attempt to groom me. Back then, I wrote a lot about capitalism because, let’s face it, I’m a one-track record. But whenever I shared something about being assaulted or anything remotely feminist? The men who constantly engaged with my other posts were nowhere to be seen.

This trend has followed me throughout my life. At university, the men I knew would happily perform progressiveness—until it came time to reckon with their own role in systems of oppression. And I say this as somebody who really struggled to come to grips with my own privilege. I understand the simmering discomfort people feel in conversations such as these.

I saw myself as someone who grew up in poverty, had undiagnosed autism, lived in a domestic violence household, and was homebound due to agoraphobia—so how could I possibly be privileged in any understanding of the world? It took me a lot of time to read, listen, and sit with uncomfortable truths to understand why I was contributing to something so painful for so many people. I found it deeply embarrassing to be confronted with my ignorance and, in many cases, to realise how I had chosen it when I had the option to learn. It emboldens people’s oppression when “good” people do nothing.

I started truly engaging with the words of women of colour, in particular, and even now, I have to constantly poke myself on the shoulder when it comes to topics about justice. I remind myself to think about how these structures of oppression, more often than not, are even more pervasive when considering the influence of racism. I learned to sit with that discomfort and hold myself accountable—and to this day, I’m checking myself and making a deliberate effort to be conscious of race.

If the core reason you care about critiquing a capitalist system is because justice matters to you, then that same principle should apply when thinking of the experiences of women and people of colour. If your moral foundation is strong, why would it crumble when confronted with forms of oppression that capitalism exploits and deepens? It shouldn’t be about appearing virtuous—it should just matter because it’s morally wrong.

I just wish men were truly there in the conversations. I wish that, instead of relying on women to exclusively speak out—and then becoming the recipients of relentless trolling and pushback—men would take on some of the burden. Every day, women navigate the behaviour of men they don’t know. We’re not avoiding certain routes because they’re inconvenient or “dangerous”; we’re avoiding them because if we’re attacked, raped, or harassed, we’re left wondering: will anyone stop them? Will our screams even be heard?

Too often, it feels like when we speak about the violence we endure, society’s response is to hold up a sign that reads: “Please shut the fuck up, you’re making us uncomfortable.” It doesn’t inspire much hope, to put it lightly.

And men may roll their eyes reading that. But even when women are murdered by their partners—when their bodies are blended or dismembered—they are rarely given the dignity of their name being used in news articles. Instead, the narrative focuses on the man’s shockingly “unlikely” profile as a suspect. Maybe it’s because our understanding of why violence against women and girls is so pervasive is chronically outdated. There isn’t a “type” of man who does it. We just choose to ignore sexism at its molecular level, to overlook its breeding grounds, and to use the inevitable results—women being killed, harassed, and stalked—as opportunities for collective sighs before continuing to do nothing.

We’re seeing young men becoming more radicalised, with a clear political distinction forming between young men and young women. Teachers are reporting shocking levels of misogyny in classrooms, and the impact of this is devastating. Silence isn’t achieving anything.

But, of course, the problem isn’t the influencers feeding them hatred or the systems failing them. No, it’s apparently young women’s fault—for not sleeping with them, for having “unrealistic” standards, or for waiting around for Jason Momoa. That’s the rhetoric these young men are being fed, and it’s both laughable and terrifying.

When my abusive father left our family home, one of the first concerns people raised was about my brother. “Who would he be without his dad? How would this loss affect him?” We acknowledge the enormous influence men have over other men, especially young men. We recognise the importance of mentorship in helping boys and men craft fulfilling, positive lives for themselves. Yet, at the same time, we accept silence from men when it comes to educating young men about sexism—a silence that enables systems of misogyny to persist.

And what is the cost of that silence?

Who pays the price?

I feel like I write something like this every so often, and the feeling is the same—exhaustion. Whether I’ve wanted to participate or not, men have truly been centred in my life since day one. Whether that’s my dad or feeling dutiful to men who hurt me because I was brought up being told their feelings were silent killers—so how dare I inflame them by not being docile or thoughtful to that, regardless of the pain inflicted on myself.

It just feels to me that society has collectively decided that women are simply collateral damage in an issue they don’t have the bravery or commitment to address. Clapping when a billionaire falls victim to a system they benefited dearly from, before a deafening silence when, yet another, woman is murdered by a man—and not thinking for a second why her name hasn’t even been used—is worrying to me.

Above all else, it makes everything else stink of disingenuous bullshit.

[edwinspaynes]

I recently took up rereading the ACOTAR Christmas novel given the season.

For context I read the series way back when it was first debuting, enjoyed them but never reread them again.

I was very young mind you.

But when the series exploded after covid it felt a bit overrated but I didn’t really mind it.

After rereading it at a way more senior age then I initially read them, I found that they were really not as well written as I initially thought. But maybe I was too young to figure that out.

What are your main gripes with the series? I know you recently read ACOSF.

I DNF'ed ACOSF actually, I couldn't do it.

I dislike the characters besides Nesta and Gwyn. By this, I mean ALL of them. Rhysand hits the same Bad spot as other manipulative male characters for me, as does Cassian. I think most of the ships in ACOTAR, like most of the ships in ToG, are REALLY abusive.

SJM's depictions of sex are also so ridiculous and imbalanced. She seems to think this is kinky, but if that's what she's going for, the kink is EXTREMELY undernegotiated. I personally think it's got nothing to do with kink but is instead a reflection of how the men in the world she's build view women. And the world she's build makes that Okay, that women are there to sexually serve their men and are all Happy About It.

Also since you brought up the novella - what the fuck is Rhysand cumming uncontrollably to the projected thought of his unborn baby??? That was SO INSANE and has stuck with me in the worst way.

I also find SJM's world building to be a study in how not to build a world. It's inconsistent, it's flat, and it's so thin and flimsy. Also, why wouldn't anyone want to be a faerie? A well-developed fantasy world needs to give each creature its pros and cons.

For example, in TSC, Shadowhunters are the 'ruling class,' but they're culty and overly bound by their rules to the point that individual Shadowhunters feel like they have little freedom. They also die A Lot. Warlocks have magic, but they're very oppressed by the Clave AND their powers have a lot of limits. Immortality is both a blessing and a curse. Vampires and werewolves are strong, but they are in constant conflict - and vampires can't go out in the sun while werewolves are bound to pack structures.

But in ACOTAR, being a faerie affords you ridiculous strength and stamina, limitless power, and.... there are no cons! Why is anyone upset about changing? It's unclear!

I also don't like the inconsistency. Like, in book one, Tamlin is The Man. Book 2 works SO hard to assassinate his character and for absolutely no reason besides SJM thinks Rhysand is Hot Shit. I do appreciate Tamlin apparently "trapping her" and "treating her like a breeding mare" when Rhysand literally does both of those things regularly and actually makes everyone smell her pregnancy hormones (wtf) in ACOSF.

They're literally studies in How Not to Write Books, and I have actually learned a lot about What Not To Do from SJM.