#Sexism CW

[probablybadrpgideas]

So! I was going through the Champions RPG Villain sourcebooks to compare descriptions of male and female villains.

In case you are wondering, slight over half of female villains had some variant of "attractive" in their appearance section, while only around 1/6th of male ones did. But you know, comics are weird about women and so are games based on them, this was ten years ago, more at eleven.

No, the reason I bring it up is because while there were twelve male villains whose appearance section explicitly called them unattractive, there was only one canonically unattractive female villain.

Here she is:

And you can tell the person writing these descriptions has never been on tumblr, right?

-Pencil

[dathen]

Another day, another “why didn’t Victor just make a woman with missing body parts to gift as a custom-made wife-slave to his other creation :// worst human being in history!!”

[fictionkinfessions]

Everyone who kins a female character from a source where the story or the fandom only focuses on the men, I am buying you candy and hanging out and listening to you talk about yourself for as long as you would like to. Your experiences are still interesting and relevant and you were still a person who mattered, even if the ao3 stats or even the most common kincalls don't reflect that.

c

[edgebug]

people who don't want trans women in womens' video game or chess tournaments really are saying from the bottom of their hearts "trans or cis, doesn't matter to me 😤 I hate ALL women 🤗" and tbh thats progressive... equality win!¹

_______

¹ This post is a joke.

[seventeendeer]

I'm rewatching ATLA for the second time in my adult life, in part to try to honestly engage with it as a valuable turning point in american children's animation, and also in part to try to pin down exactly what it is that makes me dislike the writing so much

I was prepared to have to dig deep, but actually for starters it might be the fact that the show tries to get across a message about "girl power" within the first 4 episodes, then spends AT LEAST 7 more episodes reducing its female lead to a nurturing mother figure who only exists to be absurdly supportive of her little protagonist boyfriend she met two days ago (because her "womanly intuition" tells her he's Really Important). when she's not babying her love interest, she's giving pep talks to strangers (where she's always right) or nagging her older brother (where she's right unless the writers are feeling vindictive).

it's incredibly bizarre to me that katara is remembered as this layered, interesting, feminist character when, from my perspective, it's clear right off the bat that the male writers have no interest in portraying her with any sincerity. she's idealized to the point of parody, unless the story calls for her to be taken down a peg, in which case she's immediately made to grovel for her mistakes. her dead mom is brought up at every other opportunity as a token attempt to make her character seem interesting, but over the course of 11 episodes, there has been no indication that the writers think her taking on a maternal role after her mother's death is anything less than a virtue and a matter of course. more often than not, her constant emotional availability, wisdom and "gut feeling" are favorably contrasted against other characters portrayed as more wary, practical-minded, or logical.

fans (RIGHTFULLY) criticize how korra was treated in the sequel series, but katara is subjected to the same shitty sexist writing, just on a less dramatic scale (and there's plenty to unpack there about how korra being louder, more confident and gender non-conforming painted a bigger target on her back in the writer's room). these are writers who want to be feminists, but can't handle a female character having too much personality outside of her role in the male characters' lives, so they either inhibit their development or get retroactively angry at their own creative decisions and decide to punish their female characters for their own choices - dark-skinned girls especially.

I'm curious to see where the series goes from here. still trying very hard to keep an open mind, but it's an extremely sour first impression.

(among many others. I don't like this show.)

[spooky-donut-ghost-house]

How far must one reach to say that Steph was wrong to beat up her ABUSIVE father because he was being beaten for 10 minutes and was defenseless boo fucking hoo the man did far worse to Steph I'm sure the asshole can handle getting his ass beat for 10 fucking minutes

Just say you hate women and fuck off

[thenearsightedmicroraptor]

AtLA's writing has many, many issues, a lot of them being way more serious offenses (sexism, racism, being painfully centrist, favoritism within the narrative, etc etc etc) that I think smarter people can and will and have put into words. Those are uhhh much more important pieces of critique. I'm gonna touch on something much more mundane, because I haven't seen anyone else talk about it.

I did enjoy certain aspects of AtLA, but the whole thing was still a weirdly frustrating experience.

Now, my wife has been giving me some running commentary on the production behind AtLA, and I've learned that many things were not set in stone while they were producing the show. They were keeping their options open. And I think that's one of the fundamental things that makes this story feel so clumsy to me. They don't know where the hell they're going with all this. They want to be a serialized epic, but they're tossing around ideas and concepts like 14-year-old me trying to write my first fantasy story. Each episode is floating around in its own slurry, sometimes connected to previous events by some kind of tether, but rarely by more than that. At the same time, each episode only very rarely displays the tight focus that a more episodic show requires, which means the whole thing is an inconsistent mess.

Character arcs start and stop and hesitate and stumble. Themes are picked up and dropped again. Character relationships don't get the time they need to feel realistic, because the writers don't know what they want to commit to. Plot points get invented and removed and forgotten, as needed. Character traits and roles are set in place without the viewer ever getting to see how we got here, and it happens with enough confidence that it really feels like the writers think they established it, but it's in some cut draft that they never actually put in the show.

A good story is consistent in its goals. If you have a story about certain themes, and about certain characters, and where life takes them, you need to have some sort of feeling of where you want them to go, and how they get there. They don't have to be set in stone, but whatever changes you decide to make will affect the story you want to tell. Changing things up, steering a story in a different direction, can definitely be done, and be done well, and be better than your original plans, but AtLA does not feel like it has a plan at all. The writers put down new elements like they're unaware that it will change the fabric of the whole. The result is that each episode does not feel like it is part of the same story. The result is when you try to mend a shirt using the wrong kind of patch; the seams will not hold. You're gonna ruin the fabric further. The result is a story that feels ruled by the whims of the authors, rather than any kind of internal logic. The result is a puppet show where you can very clearly see the hands moving the dolls around. A story where things do not feel significant, because you know that half of the threads they add will not being woven into the story proper, no matter how significant they seem in the moment.

And on TOP of all of that, they decide to tackle themes that they are wayyyyyy too dumb for.

In other, plainer words: Shit's badly written, man.

[swamp-spirit]

"Playful insults/competition/ribbing" are tricky because they're a breeding ground for "my conversational preferences are correct". Anyone who thinks you go too far is 'too sensitive', anyone who goes too far for you is 'just being mean'.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how a 'sense of humor' is often an intentional method of exclusion. I remember not applying for a job because the posting pretty much said "has to be okay with bigoted jokes". Discomfort with mean jokes is often used to soft-gate the targets of those jokes as too sensitive and unable to 'handle the culture'.

But I'm also aware insults and bragging are important parts of a lot of communities. Hell, playful insults are a big part of most of my friendships and 100% a part of my marriage, and, again, my sensitivity is not actually a valid metric for how people should communicate.

So I've been thinking about 'playful' insults, the functions they serve, and whether I consider those positive.

Some Positive Things

Show of Familiarity - All playful insults depend on knowing the boundaries of this particular community/person. Most people are fine being teased about a typo and not about their grandmother's death, but there's always going to be somebody who's been humiliated for their 'stupidity' and is deeply hurt over being teased by a typo, but thinks jokes about their grandmother's death are cathartic and hilarious. Ribbing can almost be a flex of closeness and communication. It can be affectionate, highlighting 'negative' traits you enjoy. It shows you know what's off limits, and have the communication skills that, if you miss, a casual 'hey, too far' will be listened to.

Diffusion of Tension - On familiarity, joking about something can often remove the fear around it. For example, openly cracking jokes about my disability keeps it from being a taboo subject people avoid. It can also be used to highlight the absurdity of insecurities. An outsized reaction to a minor mistake can be used to say "look how absurd it would be to care about that mistake".

Playful Competition - Some fond trash talk can be part of the fun for some people, heightening the wins and being a fun way the clash wits with a friend. This works best when skill levels are similar, the trash talk not attacking a genuine lack of skill, and staying relevant to the game instead of attacking the person.

Reclaiming Control - I'm clumsy and not great at social cues. I've been in some embarrassing situations because of it, but turning those situations into a joke gives me power over them. Hand-in-hand with diffusing tension, plenty of people want to be able to joke about their traumatic experiences, or even just their embarrassing experiences. Friends sharing in these jokes are not putting their friends down, they're respecting how somebody wishes to frame their own narrative.

Some Negative Things

Conformity Policing - 'Playful' humor is often used to embarrass people breaking the unspoken rules of 'normal'. This is often used in a very gendered way, which also has the splash damage of framing who is inferior by default. A space that is constantly mocking guys for being "pussies, little bitches, like a girl" hurts both men who fail to fit masculinity and makes it clear this space does not see women as worth respecting. What's 'too far' is also used to enforce group values and can be used to exclude. For example, some POC might find jokes about their race diffuse tension, but a workplace where race jokes are 'part of the culture' is going to feel more hostile to people who've had traumatic experiences related to their race or are the only person of their race in the office. Even if they 'make fun of everyone', it's used to create a pressure that those most affected need to leave or pretend it's fine, and pretending it's fine will be used to justify the behavior.

Lack of Accountability - Something being 'a joke' can give license to say things without consequences. Even when the insult comes from a genuine place, being offended or hurt is a sign that you are 'too sensitive'. Plenty of people have lifelong insecurities from things that were brought up 'as a joke'. It's especially tricky because the person saying the insult may or may not mean it, so the target can be left wondering if there was ill intent or the person thought it was funny. Remember: It's not a joke if you mean it.

Addressing Grievances - This is a bit like accountability, but comes from a different place. Bringing up a genuine issue 'as a joke' is sometimes seen as a way to bridge into a heavy subject in a gentle, low-tension way, but it almost always backfires. It undermines the person's ability to trust your 'jokes' and makes it hard to have a meaningful conversation about resolving the issue without an awkward shift in tone.

Compulsive 'Truth' Seeking - Some people see negative feedback as 'real' and 'honest' and feel compelled to accept and seek out harsh words. It can become a form of emotional self-harm, and it's important to acknowledge that trying to get people to "do their worst" is often rooted in attempt to push or numb oneself in a way that might not be healthy.

At the end of the day, it really comes down to familiarity and knowing was is and isn't acceptable to the person/group/culture, but that takes two things.

First, if people don't feel comfortable saying somebody went too far, if that's "ruining the fun", then you aren't actually staying in the lines of acceptable. If "anything goes" is the only right answer, there will always be people pressured into hearing things that genuinely upset and hurt them long term for the privilege of being deemed 'able to hang'.

Second, you have to consider what culture you're building. Even if everyone involved is having fun, who might not feel comfortable getting involved? Who listening are your jokes at the expense of?

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Why does this dead Prince look so much like Taylor Swift?

The dead prince is me, the picture is one of my "I'm a woman and this is what I look like" posts

[fatexbound]

Considering how badly Naoto was treated in Inaba, I think the same can be said for Haru, although it's not touched on a lot because she's introduced so late into the game. Most corporations are male-oriented in Japan, so having a woman take over is a first.

They all had their doubts at first, but no one dared speak up when Okumura was alive because he actually have some amount of faith in her running the company. We won't talk about Sugimura being an obvious piece of shit who definitely needed to get his ass kicked.

A restraining order is always a good start.

[frankbeetle]

this fucking image of crane what is his issue, ban him from talking, he’s talking about poison ivy btw

from the batman of arkham

[the-official-legacies-blog]

Alright fellas, I apparently have to say this:

CW for possible sexism, enbyphobia and boundary violation

Please do not send me asks like this. I have three reasons for this:

1) I am a minor

2) Asks like this one make me feel uncomfortable

3) Asks like this one aren't even relevant, and they feel mildly sexist, transphobic, and enbyphobic. Like why the hell do you want to know a nonbinary character's breast size?

Asks like this make me think that someone is gonna draw NSFW of my characters, and I am extremely uncomfortable with that thought, especially since I'm mildly sex-repulsed.

I have deleted this ask and blocked the anon, this post is a fair warning about what will happen if I get asks like this one.

[fictionkinfessions]

and for the record, i would've gotten an abortion if i had the means to. everyone saying i wouldn't because i'm "meek," "small," or are depicting me as some fragile damsel in distress is wrong. i did Not want that baby

anya, mouthwashing

x

[greenflamethegf]

Look guys, my first hate mail. This is how I know I am getting popular.

also, I am blurring most of it because I don't feel like exposing any of ya to it. (and this is a note to hater, this first and last reaction. Unless I decide to mock you)

ugh, tumbler rapports are broken... one time I really to need this website to work

huh, or maybe it did go thought?

[seventeendeer]

sorry I keep making fun of ATLA but this rewatch is killing me

losing my FUCKING MIND over the fact they merged the "girls can actually fight so good exactly like boys, just look at katara kicking this old sexist guy's ass!" episode with the introduction of YUE, ONLY GIRL OUTSIDE OF KATARA IN SEASON 1 WHO SHOWS UP FOR MORE THAN ONE EPISODE, WHO IS ABOUT TO BE FUCKING MURDERED

[ladyloveandjustice]

I know she's reacting like this because of his last-timeline murder of Mihui (and because he touched her fucking hair without her permission wtf) but I would react exactly this way to anyone who dared insult Rina in front of me.

YES MAKE RINA BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THIS INCEL. PLEASE, WE DON'T HAVE TO WAIT.