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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 4 years ago

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“Elliot Page doesn’t remember exactly how long he had been asking.

But he does remember the acute feeling of triumph when, around age 9, he was finally allowed to cut his hair short. “I felt like a boy,” Page says. “I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mom if I could be someday.” Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page visualized himself as a boy in imaginary games, freed from the discomfort of how other people saw him: as a girl. After the haircut, strangers finally started perceiving him the way he saw himself, and it felt both right and exciting.

The joy was short-lived. Months later, Page got his first break, landing a part as a daughter in a Canadian mining family in the TV movie Pit Pony. He wore a wig for the film, and when Pit Pony became a TV show, he grew his hair out again. “I became a professional actor at the age of 10,” Page says. And pursuing that passion came with a difficult compromise. “Of course I had to look a certain way.”

We are speaking in late February. It is the first interview Page, 34, has given since disclosing in December that he is transgender, in a heartfelt letter posted to Instagram, and he is crying before I have even uttered a question. “Sorry, I’m going to be emotional, but that’s cool, right?” he says, smiling through his tears.

It’s hard for him to talk about the days that led up to that disclosure. When I ask how he was feeling, he looks away, his neck exposed by a new short haircut. After a pause, he presses his hand to his heart and closes his eyes. “This feeling of true excitement and deep gratitude to have made it to this point in my life,” he says, “mixed with a lot of fear and anxiety.”

It’s not hard to understand why a trans person would be dealing with conflicting feelings in this moment. Increased social acceptance has led to more young people describing themselves as trans—1.8% of Gen Z compared with 0.2% of boomers, according to a recent Gallup poll—yet this has fueled conservatives who are stoking fears about a “transgender craze.” President Joe Biden has restored the right of transgender military members to serve openly, and in Hollywood, trans people have never had more meaningful time onscreen. Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is leveraging her cultural capital to oppose transgender equality in the name of feminism, and lawmakers are arguing in the halls of Congress over the validity of gender identities. “Sex has become a political football in the culture wars,” says Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU.

(Full article with photos continued under the “read more”)

And so Page—who charmed America as a precocious pregnant teenager in Juno, constructed dreamscapes in Inception and now stars in Netflix’s hit superhero show The Umbrella Academy, the third season of which he’s filming in Toronto—expected that his news would be met with both applause and vitriol. “What I was anticipating was a lot of support and love and a massive amount of hatred and transphobia,” says Page. “That’s essentially what happened.” What he did not anticipate was just how big this story would be. Page’s announcement, which made him one of the most famous out trans people in the world, started trending on Twitter in more than 20 countries. He gained more than 400,000 new followers on Instagram on that day alone. Thousands of articles were published. Likes and shares reached the millions. Right-wing podcasters readied their rhetoric about “women in men’s locker rooms.” Casting directors reached out to Page’s manager saying it would be an honor to cast Page in their next big movie.

So, it was a lot. Over the course of two conversations, Page will say that understanding himself in all the specifics remains a work in progress. Fathoming one’s gender, an identity innate and performed, personal and social, fixed and evolving, is complicated enough without being under a spotlight that never seems to turn off. But having arrived at a critical juncture, Page feels a deep sense of responsibility to share his truth. “Extremely influential people are spreading these myths and damaging rhetoric—every day you’re seeing our existence debated,” Page says. “Transgender people are so very real.”

That role in Pit Pony led to other productions and eventually, when Page was 16, to a film called Mouth to Mouth. Playing a young anarchist, Page had a chance to cut his hair again. This time, he shaved it off completely. The kids at his high school teased him, but in photos he has posted from that time on social media he looks at ease. Page’s head was still shaved when he mailed in an audition tape for the 2005 thriller Hard Candy. The people in charge of casting asked him to audition again in a wig. Soon, the hair was back.

Page’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame. The actor, then 21, struggled with the stresses of that ascension. The endless primping, red carpets and magazine spreads were all agonizing reminders of the disconnect between how the world saw Page and who he knew himself to be. “I just never recognized myself,” Page says. “For a long time I could not even look at a photo of myself.” It was difficult to watch the movies too, especially ones in which he played more feminine roles.

Page loved making movies, but he also felt alienated by Hollywood and its standards. Alia Shawkat, a close friend and co-star in 2009’s Whip It,describes all the attention from Juno as scarring. “He had a really hard time with the press and expectations,” Shawkat says. “‘Put this on! And look this way! And this is sexy!’”

By the time he appeared in blockbusters like X-Men: The Last Stand and Inception, Page was suffering from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He didn’t know, he says, “how to explain to people that even though [I was] an actor, just putting on a T-shirt cut for a woman would make me so unwell.” Shawkat recalls Page’s struggles with clothes. “I’d be like, ‘Hey, look at all these nice outfits you’re getting,’ and he would say, ‘It’s not me. It feels like a costume,’” she says. Page tried to convince himself that he was fine, that someone who was fortunate enough to have made it shouldn’t have complaints. But he felt exhausted by the work required to “just exist,” and thought more than once about quitting acting.

In 2014, Page came out as gay, despite feeling for years that “being out was impossible” given his career. (Gender identity and sexual orientation are, of course, distinct, but one queer identity can coexist with another.) In an emotional speech at a Human Rights Campaign conference, Page talked about being part of an industry “that places crushing standards” on actors and viewers alike. “There are pervasive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that define how we’re all supposed to act, dress and speak,” Page went on. “And they serve no one.”

The actor started wearing suits on the red carpet. He found love, marrying choreographer Emma Portner in 2018. He asserted more agency in his career, producing his own films with LGBTQ leads like Freeheld and My Days of Mercy. And he made a masculine wardrobe a condition of taking roles. Yet the daily discord was becoming unbearable. “The difference in how I felt before coming out as gay to after was massive,” says Page. “But did the discomfort in my body ever go away? No, no, no, no.”

In part, it was the isolation forced by the pandemic that brought to a head Page’s wrestling with gender. (Page and Portner separated last summer, and the two divorced in early 2021. “We’ve remained close friends,” Page says.) “I had a lot of time on my own to really focus on things that I think, in so many ways, unconsciously, I was avoiding,” he says. He was inspired by trailblazing trans icons like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, who found success in Hollywood while living authentically. Trans writers helped him understand his feelings; Page saw himself reflected in P. Carl’s memoir Becoming a Man. Eventually “shame and discomfort” gave way to revelation. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” Page says, “and letting myself fully become who I am.”

This led to a series of decisions. One was asking the world to call him by a different name, Elliot, which he says he’s always liked. Page has a tattoo that says E.P. PHONE HOME, a reference to a movie about a young boy with that name. “I loved E.T. when I was a kid and always wanted to look like the boys in the movies, right?” he says. The other decision was to use different pronouns—for the record, both he/him and they/them are fine. (When I ask if he has a preference on pronouns for the purposes of this story, Page says, “He/him is great.”)

A day before we first speak, Page will talk to his mom about this interview and she will tell him, “I’m just so proud of my son.” He grows emotional relating this and tries to explain that his mom, the daughter of a minister, who was born in the 1950s, was always trying to do what she thought was best for her child, even if that meant encouraging young Page to act like a girl. “She wants me to be who I am and supports me fully,” Page says. “It is a testament to how people really change.”

Another decision was to get top surgery. Page volunteers this information early in our conversation; at the time he posted his disclosure on Instagram, he was recovering in Toronto. Like many trans people, Page emphasizes being trans isn’t all about surgery. For some people, it’s unnecessary. For others, it’s unaffordable. For the wider world, the media’s focus on it has sensationalized transgender bodies, inviting invasive and inappropriate questions. But Page describes surgery as something that, for him, has made it possible to finally recognize himself when he looks in the mirror, providing catharsis he’s been waiting for since the “total hell” of puberty. “It has completely transformed my life,” he says. So much of his energy was spent on being uncomfortable in his body, he says. Now he has that energy back.

For the transgender community at large, visibility does not automatically lead to acceptance. Around the globe, transgender people deal disproportionately with violence and discrimination. Anti-trans hate crimes are on the rise in the U.K. along with increasingly transphobic rhetoric in newspapers and tabloids. In the U.S., in addition to the perennial challenges trans people face with issues like poverty and homelessness, a flurry of bills in state legislatures would make it a crime to provide transition-related medical care to trans youth. And crass old jokes are still in circulation. When Biden lifted the ban on open service for transgender troops, Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che did a bit on Weekend Update about the policy being called “don’t ask, don’t tuck.”

Page says coming out as trans was “selfish” on one level: “It’s for me. I want to live and be who I am.” But he also felt a moral imperative to do so, given the times. Human identity is complicated and mysterious, but politics insists on fitting everything into boxes. In today’s culture wars, simplistic beliefs about gender—e.g., chromosomes = destiny—are so widespread and so deep-seated that many people who hold those beliefs don’t feel compelled to consider whether they might be incomplete or prejudiced. On Feb. 24, after a passionate debate on legislation that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people, Representative Marie Newman, an Illinois Democrat, proudly displayed the pride flag in support of her daughter, who is trans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, responded by hanging a poster outside her office that read: There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.

The next day Dr. Rachel Levine, who stands to become the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate, endured a tirade from Senator Rand Paul about “genital mutilation” during her confirmation hearing. My second conversation with Page happens shortly after this. He brings it up almost immediately, and seems both heartbroken and determined. He wants to emphasize that top surgery, for him, was “not only life-changing but lifesaving.” He implores people to educate themselves about trans lives, to learn how crucial medical care can be, to understand that lack of access to it is one of the many reasons that an estimated 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, according to one survey.

Page has been in the political trenches for a while, having leaned into progressive activism after coming out as queer in 2014. For two seasons, he and best friend Ian Daniel filmed Gaycation, a Viceland series that explored LGBTQ culture around the world and, at one point, showed Page grilling Senator Ted Cruz at the Iowa State Fair about discrimination against queer people. In 2019, Page made a documentary called There’s Something in the Water, which explores environmental hardships experienced by communities of color in Nova Scotia, with $350,000 of his own money. That activism extends to his own industry: in 2017, he published a Facebook post that, among other things, accused director Brett Ratner of forcibly outing him as gay on the set of an X-Men movie. (A representative for Ratner did not respond to a request for comment.)

As a trans person who is white, wealthy and famous, Page has a unique kind of privilege, and with it an opportunity to advocate for those with less. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, a large-scale report from 2015, transgender people of color are more likely to experience unemployment, harassment by police and refusals of medical care. Nearly half of all Black respondents reported being denied equal treatment, verbally harassed and/or physically attacked in the past year. Trans people as a group fare much worse on such stats than the general population. “My privilege has allowed me to have resources to get through and to be where I am today,” Page says, “and of course I want to use that privilege and platform to help in the ways I can.”

Since his disclosure, Page has been mostly quiet on social media. One exception has been to tweet on behalf of the ACLU, which is in the midst of fighting anti-trans bills and laws around the country, including those that ban transgender girls and women from participating in sports. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says he will sign such a bill in the name of “protect[ing] young girls.” Page played competitive soccer and vividly recalls the agony of being told he would have to play on the girls’ team once he aged out of mixed-gender squads. After an appeal, Page was allowed to play with the boys for an additional year. Today, several bills list genitalia as a requirement for deciding who plays on which team. “I would have been in that position as a kid,” Page says. “It’s horrific.”

All this advocacy is unlikely to make life easier. “You can’t enter into certain spaces as a public trans person,” says the ACLU’s Strangio, “without being prepared to spend some percentage of your life being threatened and harassed.” Yet, while he seems overwhelmed at times, Page is also eager. Many of the political attacks on trans people—whether it is a mandate that bathroom use be determined by birth sex, a blanket ban on medical interventions for trans kids or the suggestion that trans men are simply wayward women beguiled by male privilege—carry the same subtext: that trans people are mistaken about who they are. “We know who we are,” Page says. “People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Even if Page weren’t vocal, his public presence would communicate something powerful. That is in part because of what Paisley Currah, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, calls “visibility gaps.” Historically, trans women have been more visible, in culture and in Hollywood, than trans men. There are many explanations: Our culture is obsessed with femininity. Men’s bodies are less policed and scrutinized. Patriarchal people tend to get more emotional about who is considered to be in the same category as their daughters. “And a lot of trans men don’t stand out as trans,” says Currah, who is a trans man himself. “I think we’ve taken up less of the public’s attention because masculinity is sort of the norm.”

During our interviews, Page will repeatedly refer to himself as a “transgender guy.” He also calls himself nonbinary and queer, but for him, transmasculinity is at the center of the conversation right now. “It’s a complicated journey,” he says, “and an ongoing process.”

While the visibility gap means that trans men have been spared some of the hate endured by trans women, it has also meant that people like Page have had fewer models. “There were no examples,” Page says of growing up in Halifax in the 1990s. There are many queer people who have felt “that how they feel deep inside isn’t a real thing because they never saw it reflected back to them,” says Tiq Milan, an activist, author and transgender man. Page offers a reflection: “They can see that and say, ‘You know what, that’s who I am too,’” Milan says. When there aren’t examples, he says, “people make monsters of us.”

For decades, that was something Hollywood did. As detailed in the 2020 Netflix documentary Disclosure, transgender people have been portrayed onscreen as villainous and deceitful, tragic subplots or the butt of jokes. In a sign of just how far the industry has come—spurred on by productions like Pose and trailblazers like Mock—Netflix offered to change the credits on The Umbrella Academy the same day that its star posted his statement on social media. Now when an episode ends, the first words viewers see are “Elliot Page.”

Today, there are many out trans and nonbinary actors, directors and producers. Storylines involving trans people are more common, more respectful. Sometimes that aspect of identity is even incidental, rather than the crux of a morality tale. And yet Hollywood can still seem a frightening place for LGBTQ people to come out. “It’s an industry that says, ‘Don’t do that,’” says director Silas Howard, who got his break on Amazon’s show Transparent, which made efforts to hire transgender crew members. “I wouldn’t have been hired if they didn’t have a trans initiative,” Howard says. “I’m always aware of that.”

So what will it mean for Page’s career? While Page has appeared in many projects, he also faced challenges landing female leads because he didn’t fit Hollywood’s narrow mold. Since Page’s Instagram post, his team is seeing more activity than they have in years. Many of the offers coming in—to direct, to produce, to act—are trans-related, but there are also some “dude roles.”

Downtime in quarantine helped Page accept his gender identity. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” he says.

Page was attracted to the role of Vanya in The Umbrella Academy because—in the first season, released in 2019—Vanya is crushed by self-loathing, believing herself to be the only ordinary sibling in an extraordinary family. The character can barely summon the courage to move through the world. “I related to how much Vanya was closed off,” Page says. Now on set filming the third season, co-workers have seen a change in the actor. “It seems like there’s a tremendous weight off his shoulders, a feeling of comfort,” says showrunner Steve Blackman. “There’s a lightness, a lot more smiling.” For Page, returning to set has been validating, if awkward at times. Yes, people accidentally use the wrong pronouns—“It’s going to be an adjustment,” Page says—but co-workers also see and acknowledge him.

The debate over whether cisgender people, who have repeatedly collected awards for playing trans characters, should continue to do so has largely been settled. However, trans actors have rarely been considered for cisgender parts. Whatever challenges might lie ahead, Page seems exuberant about playing a new spectrum of roles. “I’m really excited to act, now that I’m fully who I am, in this body,” Page says. “No matter the challenges and difficult moments of this, nothing amounts to getting to feel how I feel now.”

This includes having short hair again. During our interview, Page keeps rearranging strands on his forehead. It took a long time for him to return to the barber’s chair and ask to cut it short, but he got there. And how did that haircut feel?

Page tears up again, then smiles. “I just could not have enjoyed it more,” he says.”

#suicide m #transphobia m #Elliot Page #transgender #representation #celebrities #actors #tv #movies #rep #trans #transmasculine #nonbinary #queer #long post

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with-my-murder-flute · 4 years ago

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Hi everybody, thanks for the asks letting me know I made the top of @yusuftiddies’ list of Homophobes in TOG Fandom, you can stop sending them now.

So.

I can make mistakes and fuck up and own that. I am serious about listening to marginalized people. But... in this case, while @yusufstiddies generally describes factual events that happened and factual posts that exist, I have to say that I can’t actually apologize for the things I’m called out for because I don’t think they’re homophobic. The things he criticizes me for are things that come from a lot of personal experience as a queer bisexual cis woman, as well as a lot of reflection, research, and study. I believe in them really strongly and stand by them.

I’m really sorry if this makes TOG fandom too hostile, because it is not my intention to make this place so unpleasant that anyone feels driven out. I understand if my stance means people no longer want to follow me/read my stuff/participate in projects I’m involved with (though I’d rather hand off the Research Hub to someone else than see it go down with me). I’m posting this so people can know where they stand before they decide whether to keep interacting with my blog, or “deplatform” me as @yusufstiddies recommends.

I would recommend, for anyone who doesn’t want to see my posts, using Tumblr’s new post content filtering feature. If you type a username (like star-anise or with-my-murder-flute) into it, Tumblr will hide all posts featuring that specific string of characters, and therefore any post or reblog of mine.

To address the accusations against me:

I am an anti-anti: Yes. I’ve reblogged posts of mine about this before. I care passionately about preventing child abuse, but I think there are better ways to prevent child abuse in fandom (like concrete harassment policies so predatory behaviour can be reported and stopped early, and education about digital consent and healthy relationships) than attacking people who write “bad ships,” not least because the first people it hurts are abuse survivors trying to work through their trauma, and because the research says you cannot actually tell who’s a sexual predator based on what they write about. Fiction affects reality, but not on a 1:1 basis. My mainblog, @star-anise, has a really extensive archive of my writing on the subject.

I said cishet men aren’t more privileged than gay men: Kinda. What I actually did was question whether Every Single Cishet Man benefits from more privilege than Every Single Gay Man. If a man is cishet but gets beaten up because people perceive him as gay, he’s not exactly feeling the warm toasty glow of heterosexual privilege in that moment. Oppression is complicated and there are times when someone’s lack of privilege on one axis is way less important than someone else’s lack of privilege on another axis.

The post above also includes me reblogging someone else’s addition about how straight men can be included in the queer movement: I’m queer. @yusufstiddies has made it very clear that he isn’t comfortable with the word “queer” and doesn’t like it. Therefore I think it’s understandable that he might not understand that the queer community sees ourselves as a coalition of people dedicated to dismantling the structures of sex and gender that oppress us, not a demographic of people whose gender identities or sexual orientations can be neatly mapped. However, I would say that doesn’t make queer theory inherently homophobic.

There are also some related points @yusufstiddies didn’t level at me specifically, but I would like to address:

The constant focus on the unsafeness of cishet people:

I’m not cishet. I’m a bisexual woman who’s dated women. Sixth-light is a queer woman married to a woman. This is not an issue of non-LGBTQ+ people blundering their way into something they don’t experience the daily consequences of. This is an issue of people from WITHIN the LGBTQ+ community who sincerely disagree with @yusufstiddies about the pressures we experience and how best to deal with them. I think that even if @yusufstiddies were to filter his fiction input to only LGBT-written work about LGBT experiences, or even only trans-written work about trans people, he would still find a lot of things he finds upsetting or transphobic, because sexual and gender identities are really diverse and not everything will suit one person.

The contention that saying “’Queer is a slur’ is TERF propaganda” is transmisogyny because it dilutes the definition of “TERF”:

People who point out the phrase is TERF propaganda are not calling every person who says it a TERF, and we are not trying to argue that telling a queer person that queer is a slur is inherently equal to the kind of damage a TERF does when she attacks a trans woman out of transphobia. Queer people being able to use the word “queer” does not have the same importance as trans women being able to live, work, and survive in public. Rather, we are literally saying, “This is a thing TERFs say when they take a break from attacking trans women and try to recruit new members to their group, so it’s in our best interests to not give it too wide a currency.”

Some people have experienced the word “queer” used as a hateful word hurled against them and don’t want to hear it ever again. I get that. It happens. Where I grew up, “gay” was a synonym for “shitty” and it took me a lot of years out of high school before the word “gay” wouldn’t shoot my blood pressure through the roof. I actually do understand that and think that’s valid (and again, support using post content filtering for that word).

One of the things I do at @star-anise is argue with young people who are headed into full-on transmisogynistic TERF territory, and work at reeling them back and deradicalizing them. I use a tag called “weedwhacking” so my followers can filter out the sometimes lengthy back-and-forths we get going.

Something I’ve learned, interacting with so many TERFs and proto-TERFs, is that one way they frequently get recruited into harassing trans people was through discourse around the word “queer”. For one, it encouraged them to want to distance themselves from any perception of LGBT people as “weird” or “not normal”, which led to seeing trans people as “weird” and “not normal” and therefore not good members of the “gay pride” community. For two, repeating “queer is a slur” predictably causes a lot of queer people to react in a defensive manner, so by teaching young or new people to say it, TERFs can set them up to feel alienated from the larger LGBTQ+ community and more open to TERF propaganda.

The next issue isn’t mentioned in the original callout post, but I think it’s key to this entire issue:

@yusufstiddies has made several posts about what cishet people should and shouldn’t write. For example, cishets shouldn’t write Nicky experiencing internalized homophobia. Another is a detailed post of things cishets shouldn’t write about trans people, including which sexual positions only trans people are allowed to write. I would imagine that part of his frustration with fandom has been the lack of traction those posts have gotten. I know I very deliberately didn’t reblog them.

That isn’t because I don’t agree that the things he complains about are rarely handled well by cishet authors. I agree that there’s a lot of bad fic out there that contributes to negative stereotypes against LGBTQ+ people and is basically a microaggression to read.

I have two very deeply-seated reasons for my position:

LGBTQ+ identities are different from many other political identities because most people are not born identifiably LGBTQ+. It’s something we have to figure out about ourselves. And one really important way that we do that is using the safety of fiction to explore what an experience would be like, sometimes years before we ever admit that we fit the identity we’ve written about. So banning cishet authors from writing something is really likely to harm closeted and questioning LGBTQ+ people. It will lengthen the amount of time questioning people take before finding the identity that really fits them, and force closeted people to be even more closeted.

There’s a lot of undeniably shitty stuff in fandom. However, I fundamentally believe that trying to target the people creating it and forcing them to stop doesn’t work very well, and has the serious byproduct of killing the creativity and enthusiasm of the rest of fandom and resulting in less of the actual thing you like being produced. I think that it is infinitely more productive to focus on improving the ratio of good stuff in fandom than trying to snuff out every bad thing.

Like I said: I understand if this means former followers, mutuals, or friends no longer want to interact with me. I’ll be saddened, but I’ve obviously chosen this path and can deal with the consequences.

I wish this could have worked out differently.

#my stuff #the old guard

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hotcoffeecoldmornings · 5 years ago

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(This shit is long so bear with me.)

Can’t Eat, Can’t Sleep, Reach for the Stars

I haven’t felt this way in awhile. This ‘can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series kind of love.’

It’s hard to describe. The last time I was all-consumed like this by a TV show and a ship, that TV show was The 100, that ship was Clexa, and my world was, quite honestly, turned upside down by it.

I used the first two seasons of The 100 as background noise as I wrote my Master’s Thesis in 2015. To be honest, I didn’t really know exactly what was happening until Bodyguard of Lies (an episode anyone reading this post probably remembers well) came on. And a passionate kiss between two world leaders left me speechless and shocked. I was blindsided by it, unaware that that kiss would be the beginning of not only finding myself, but also accepting myself, and then finding a chosen family I never knew that I needed because of it.

There’s been alot of (okay, not a lot, but more) f/f ships on TV since then. Maggie and Alex. Nicole and Waverly. Elena and Syd. Kat and Adena. Anissa and Grace. Stef and Lena. Karolina and Nico. And the list goes on… While each of these ships is equally important, and each one represents another push towards more inclusive storytelling, there was never a ship that hit me as hard as Clarke and Lexa did.

Until now.

Harold, They’re Lesbians

Gay. Witches.

Motherland: Fort Salem said the words. And I fucking came running.

Okay, so it took me a few weeks… Thank you, twitter timeline, for finally getting my ass on board. It’s not that I didn’t want to start the show. It’s that my anxiety-ridden brain had other plans for me in mid-March. Like spending the majority of my time researching a global pandemic and then crawling into a depression hole because of it… Or something like that.

But nonetheless, I’m here now. And I’m fucking staying.

I knew I’d love this show. The concept of witches peppered with the idea that sexuality is irrelevant is honestly my one and only weakness. So I went into episode one with high hopes. And I sure as hell was not disappointed.

Episode 1 gave me even more than I could’ve asked for. We meet three uniquely powerful individuals, who all come from three uniquely interesting backgrounds. Abigail Bellweather, born into a lineage of the most powerful and elite witches Fort Salem has ever seen. Tally Craven, the last one standing in her family’s long-line of service, selflessly choosing to say the oath when she didn’t technically have to. And Raelle Collar, who has an unparalleled set of powers, combining her mother’s Christo-Pagan ways with those of the seeds learned at Fort Salem.

Rounding out that already brilliant cast is Scylla Ramshorm, the ‘sexy weird’ Necro who may or may not be evil (but we love her all the same). General Sarah Alder, the original witch who signed the Salem Accord, selling out every future witch to the United States Army, and whose ego quite often gets the best of her. And Anacostia Quartermaine, the Bellweather Unit’s Drill Sergeant who has a peculiar fondness (and leniency) for Raelle Collar.

The fact that this television show is entirely female centered (like, we’re talking 60 seconds of male screen time in the pilot), is what separates this show from most. Men exist in the world of Fort Salem as characters to exclusively propel the female leads forward, which is a stark contrast to the majority of shows right now. And not only is the entire main cast female, the main lead is gay. And honestly, the sexuality of every character on the show is questionably debatable as well. Except for Abigail, who quite clearly is into any and all men, and Tally, who grew up on a Matrifocal Compound and ended up in Fort Salem as a virgin. Which, of course, no shade to her, but it did strike me as odd when Abigail immediately assumed Tally’s virgin-ness when growing up in an all-female world was brought up.

So let’s start there, shall we?

The Heteronormative Narrative (or not…)

Something I did find puzzling about Motherland: Fort Salem (and the only thing, really) is how they portray sexuality, relationships, and love. In regards to sexuality, Eliot Laurence, the creator and executive producer, has been incredibly forward in interviews with the narrative that ‘your sexual preference doesn’t matter in this world.’ Which I appreciate to the fullest, trust me. But pardon my slight hesitation when I hear that line, because I think we’ve all been burned by it once before.

Motherland: Fort Salem has done a tremendous job of this. They’ve allowed characters to own their sexuality without question. It was never a thing when Raelle started dating Scylla. At Beltane, everyone went off with whomever the dance paired them with - even if that meant the same gender, and even if that meant three or four or five of them. Sexuality, in regards to same-sex partners, is never a character arc in this show, and it’s never there to create a plot point.

HowEVER, there were a few things I noticed that confused that fact.

Like I said about Abigail in the very first episode, when the Bellweather Unit is meeting for the first time, why was Abigail so quick to question Tally’s virginity after learning she comes from a Matrifocal Compound? If there are no heteronorms in the world of Motherland: Fort Salem, then why is it assumed that losing your virginity is related to relations with a man? Even though Tally is (well… was) a virgin, why would that question be brought up? If roles were reversed and it was Raelle living on the Matrifocal Compound, the conversation would’ve gone strikingly different, and it would’ve supported this heteronormative narrative that I thought we were trying to avoid. I’m just going to blame this one line on how badly Abigail wants the D, so sleeping with a woman wouldn’t even cross her mind.

But then what about the idea of this ‘five-year marriage contract’? It’s simply about producing a child, so I assume a woman could never have that sort of thing with another woman, and that those women could never add to their lineage (unless they entered into a five-year marriage contract simply to reproduce). Doesn’t this, alone, signify a heteronormative world without even meaning to do so? While they accept LGBTQ+ relationships, how do they actually fit into the society and culture that this show has created? Wouldn’t the gay witches be seen as almost inadequate in carrying on the gene if they don’t have a child? (AmI just thinking too much into this...?)

But then again, the whole concept of ‘love’ in Fort Salem is rather insignificant itself. As Gerit mentions, no one is supposed to spend their life with just one person. Witches are committed to one another in five-year partnerships to reproduce, and then that’s it. So in a way, I understand that nobody, no matter what their sexuality is, really gets to experience this fairytale ending that we’re used to seeing in a (*cough* heterosexual) ship on TV. And in a way, I also think that’s what makes this show all the more fascinating. Eliot Laurence gave everyone a level playing field by just removing the idea of a happily ever after altogether. In Laurence’s world, witches are meant to train and fight and die for their country. Love is their weakness. But what’s so compelling about that is even though love is their weakness, he made sure that love also manifests into their greatest strength.

From what I’ve seen in interviews for Laurence, every single thing has a purpose. So I’m quick to let this go, and see where he takes us. He’s been building this world inside his head for nine years, so I know that there’s so much more to this story than what can be told in a 10-episode season.

But Back to the Lesbians

Anyway, back to love. Specifically gay love. I wish I could put into simple words my obsession with Raelle and Scylla.

From the incredible chemistry that Taylor Hickson and Amalia Holm share on-screen together to the directors and writers who’ve portrayed their love story so magically, Raelle and Scylla are truly something special. They’ve taken the place of a ship this queer fandom lost when Lexa was killed. It’s a ship that you want to hate, because every part of this story tells me to hate Scylla. She’s Spree. She’s vindictive. She’s dangerous. Yet every part of my brain tells me to love her. And to love them together.

I don’t like easy stories. I want stories that make the ending worth it. I want hardships and pain and hurt and work when it comes to love. Which is why I like the story of Raelle and Scylla. There was a spark between them in their very first scene together- a spark you could feel through the TV. It was believable and real. They come from similar backgrounds of loss and solitude, and that’s what originally bound them together. And over the next seven episodes, we watched their relationship grow. We saw their vulnerabilities, their growth, their passion. But now we’re going to see the hardship. The pain, the anger, the betrayal.

I appreciate that they’re not skimping on telling any part of their story. The two are special together, and so far, this show has proved that.

She’s Special

I want to break down Raelle Collar before bringing up anything else, because, well, obviously she’s the main character, but she’s also got a lot going on. The fact that Raelle channels her power through something other than the typical ‘seed’ is something that will be of importance to why she’s so powerful. Petra Bellweather, herself, claims that Raelle’s mom, Willa, used unconventional methods that delivered incredible results. “She was the fixer every unit wanted to deploy with.”

While all witches in Basic Training are learning about utilizing their extra set of vocal cords to create magic songs, Raelle can do it in a way that’s reminiscent of where she grew up- Chippewa Cession. In the very first episode, she makes note that her family was there before it became a Cession. Aka, before the land was given to the Chippewa tribe in exchange for their magic.

Raelle comes from a line of witches that all have more unique abilities than what’s taught at Basic Training. She uses a combination of Native American spirituality/Christo-Paganism skills during her days at Fort Salem, which brings up questions (and judgment) from other witches. It seems as though that kind of magic was the way witches used to do things before Sarah Alder released her song into the world and created a vocalizing army with it. Raelle’s peers look disgusted when they see her still using the same ways witches once did. It’s particularly noticeable when she heals people, and recites Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The entire theme of the Book of Matthew, in regards to Christianity, is about prayer. Asking and receiving. That God will provide you with what’s needed, and nothing more. But when it comes to Paganism, it’s about the law of attraction and return in our universe. It outlines that there is no life without balance - that all prayers can be answered, but they’ll be answered with things that are taken from elsewhere. All prayers almost have a consequence. Just like all magic has a consequence.

Raelle’s power, at least what she knows of it up until now, is based on a consensual balance, bringing the theme of Paganism’s Matthew 7:7 into the type of witchcraft she practices. She can heal someone, but what she heals them from will be transferred onto her. Balance. Consequence.

Bringing General Sarah Alder back into this, this is the same type of magic that she traded for back in the 1700’s when she granted the Chippewa Tribe the entire length of the Mississippi River. In exchange, she gained the magic that could keep her eternally young. But just like the magic that Raelle does, this age defying practice has consequences too, and requires balance. Every 50-60 additional years that General Alder adds on to her endless life, a young witch must be sacrificed to take on those years, and must stand by General Alder the rest of her short-lived life.

But where does the balance go?

Adil is such a great addition to the cast because he sheds a light on something so crucially ignored on campus. All magic has balance. This is teased throughout the season, like when General Alder hits turbulence on her way to The Hague and jokes (but not really jokes), “I assume I have one of you to blame for that.” Or how Raelle soaks up her ‘patients’ illness. But it’s not truly smacked in our faces until Adil says it.

As Abigail is flaunting her ability to *one day* “grind iron into ore and mountains into dust,” Adil drops a truth bomb on her. “All that weather you fight with has a cost. Floods. Failing crops. Famine. Every war, people starve.” She’s quick to reply that the good they do far outweighs the bad. But to who? Certainly not to Adil and his people. Meeting him is going to give our recruits a serious insight into just how consequential their ‘work’ can be. He’s going to play a crucial role in realizing how manipulative and egotistical General Alder has been.

Not only is weather an issue, but plagues. “Like the one attacking my sister.” Adil and Khalida come into the storyline because Khalida is sick with a deathly black webbing wrapped around her body. When they first make it to the Military Outpost (somewhere in the dessert between Russia and China?), the Soldier who meets them at the gate yells, “they’re here.” So were they expecting them?

Raelle eventually is the one who heals Khalida, (by using her Christo-pagan means) but instead of taking up the illness like it usually does, instead, it infects the giant mushroom that Raelle touched earlier.

The balance of Mother Mushroom.

I go back and forth between theories for the giant mushroom growing under Fort Salem. But today, I’m convinced the mushroom is attached to General Alder’s vitality. And consequently, the entire vitality of Fort Salem as well. In one episode, Berryessa reminds us that all life on campus is directly connected to Alder. And if what Scylla says in My Witches, that “life becomes death, which becomes life again,” is relative to the life on campus and how General Alder parallels that, then this theme of balance throughout the series is more prominent than we realize.

The giant mushroom living under campus is clearly important. It has hands and replicates faces and takes on diseases and Izadora is not a fan of anyone touching it. So yes, you could say this fungi is a main character now.

But. Why?

“In the kingdom of plants, mushrooms occupy the underworld. Nothing ever really dies.” Mushrooms have an entire underground network of language to one another. And they are responsible for the breakdown and decomposition of death so that organic matter can become something else. Necros have an obvious connection to this ecological process too, so they must have a connection to the continuous process that General Alder goes through to support and sustain life on her campus.

I think that the “Mother Mycelium” signifies each and every consequence that Fort Salem has accumulated. It holds the hurt and death and pain and regret of everything General Alder has created. And now that the Mushroom is infected with whatever plague Khalida had, I think it’s going to wreak havoc on Fort Salem. Magic is based on balance, and I think massive consequences are coming to make up for years of disparity.

One last thing on my mushroom-thoughts, is when Helen Graves said “the dead make excellent eyes and ears.” An underground network of mushrooms all connected to recently dead organisms would certainly be a great way to gain insight too. Scylla mentions that she needs something recently dead to grow her deathcap, so does this Mushroom need to be constantly “fed” with death to continue the creation of life?

Does Alder know about that? Are the mass-murders that the Spree are doing related to this? Killing hundreds of people at a time would definitely be a good way to keep the mushroom o’ death fed. Is Alder behind the Spree!?

Sexy Weird

Speaking of Spree... Can we talk Scylla now? First of all, what the hell is this girl’s timeline? When we first meet her, she’s a cadet (second year) in War College already, meaning she would’ve had to enlist on Conscription Day the year before Raelle. Yes? In Mother Mycelium, we see that she *might* (still don’t believe it) have been the person behind that first Spree attack on Conscription Day of this year (so when Raelle, Tally, and Abigail enlisted), so was she at Basic Training for an entire year before deciding to become Spree? Did she enlist knowing that she would eventually be Spree? Does this ever get addressed in the show?

Since we’re here, I might as well say there’s no way Scylla did that. I’ll never believe it. And I’m using my one semester of Greek Mythology in college to tell you why (who knew that class would eventually come in handy)

In My Witches, when Tally, Abigail, and Glory first meet Scylla, Tally makes it clear that ‘Scylla’ is a Greek name. Okay. Greek. Cool. Mythology. Let’s go. I already knew that Eliot Laurence doesn’t waste any minute of screen time when it comes to plot development and storytelling, so my meta brain did a little digging.

In Greek Mythology, Scylla was a sea-monster who haunted the rocks of a very narrow strait, opposite of the whirlpool of Charybdis. The monster’s purpose was to lead ships and boats towards the whirlpool, which was lethal to all who attempted to pass. Scylla was used to lure boats towards Charybdis, but was never meant for actually destroying them. Scylla was a fear tactic, not a murderous monster. In poetry, it’s often said that Scylla isn’t a monster at all, just born into a monstrous family. In conclusion (from my 4 months of Freshman-level Greek Mythology and a little refreshment on Google) I think Scylla is simply being used to lure people to the Spree, but not actually doing the mass-murdering that is being shown in the episode.

What I do know is that Scylla Ramshorn is absolutely Amalia Holm. Mainly because I refuse to accept that Raelle is falling for the red head (sorry, red head). But also because at the end of the Pilot, when Scylla (in red head disguise) looked into the mirror, the balloon was her reflection, and it followed everything that she did. But in other scenes, when Scylla’s face is the normal Scylla face, she can see her own reflection. So the redhead girl is unimportant. Plus, IMDB says she never appears again this season...

We Are The Spree

As much as I hate to believe that Raelle’s mom (or Aunt!) is alive and leading the Spree, the connections between the two entities do add up. Both (Spree and Collar’s) are against the authority and power that the Witch Army has over populations of witches. They’re both against General Sarah Alder. I believe they both use spoken word magic rather than just vocalized magic. When the Spree carry out their attacks, they’re whispering words under their breath, not singing any song. Which is reminiscent of how the Collar’s do magic. Additionally, it would make sense as to why the Spree would want Scylla to bring them Raelle. And I still can’t get over the conversation between Raelle and Tally when Raelle explains her family’s combat charm. “A bowerbird’s foot. They love anything blue.”

Blue? Why. WHY.

Maybe Willa Collar was captured by the Spree? Or the Aunt was? Or the Spree needs Raelle to heal someone?

One last weird very unthought out theory goes with the other Biblical verse Raelle recites - Isaiah 43:2. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” The fact that all Spree attacks have happened with something to do water- in the snow, at the pool, on a cruiseship. And the fact that the last line of that verse is literally, “you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” This type of witchcraft has to relate to how the Spree does magic. Right??

Now I’m re-talking myself into the fact that the Collar’s might be somehow leading Spree...

But who’s ‘we’?

If the Collar’s are in charge of Spree then this next theory would actually check out.

Anacostia has been a little more over-bearing with Raelle than any of the other girls. On multiple occasions, she’s said how Raelle is gifted. In fact, they all have. Even Abigail in Hail Beltane mentions that “Raelle didn’t go outside of canon, she’s naturally gifted.” They all know she’s gifted. It would make sense if the Collar’s were the ones running Spree, and that Anacostia, aka. General Alder’s head bitch, was sent to protect Raelle from ever joining them. Alder wants to capitalize on the powers that Raelle has, and keep them in the Witch Army.

But I also think Anacostia could be playing General Alder. There have been too many times where she stares at Alder just a little bit too intently, and I can’t stop thinking that she might be in some sort of rebellious group too. Maybe a certain cell of Spree?

Because you can’t deny that Anacostia has also taken in interest in Scylla, particular to keep her away from Raelle. When Anacostia first caught them flying high on Salva, she told Scylla to stay away from Raelle, and it seemed as though she (tried) to use some sort of coercion magic while doing so. When Anacostia then saw them together at the Bellweather wedding, she almost sounded shocked, “I expressly told you to stay away from her.” Did Anacostia attempt coercion magic on Scylla and it didn’t work? And if she did, why didn’t it work?

That entire exchange felt odd yet familiar. Like the two have history. “Your name wouldn’t have been on the list. You’re not supposed to be here.” Particularly the “you’re not supposed to be here.” Did Anacostia know about the attack on the Bellweather’s? And did she think it would be threatened with Scylla there? Or did she know that Scylla was supposed to bring Raelle to the Spree at 6pm. And was sent to make sure Scylla never completed that task.

I found it interesting that Anacostia was never seen fighting off the balloons like every other Witch was when they appeared. And her being at the actual wedding felt odd too. Especially if she’s General Alder’s right-hand (wo)man, because last time I checked, Alder and Petra Bellweather weren’t on the greatest terms. In fact, none of the General’s are on great terms with Alder.

Since we’re now on Bellweather season...

Camarilla. No, not Carmilla.

There’s certainly a second threat in this show. And they were the ones behind the attack at the Bellweather’s. Not only has this already been proven by Jessica Sutton on Twitter (lols) but the clues were literally all there. They didn’t use any magic to fight. They had to use a mechanized sound machine to stop Abigail and Petra from using their powers. Then they covered themselves with gasoline and lit themselves on fire before the mother-daughter duo blew them away. It wasn’t Spree. But it was meant to look like Spree. And I think the balloons were simply a distraction, so all efforts and power would be outside fighting off the balloons while the civilian waiter’s could attack.

But who is doing this?

It’s been brought up that there are alot of humans who don’t agree with the Witch Army that Alder leads. Even the President of the United States is hesitant about them. “You, too, are bound by rule of law to the will of the American people, who have elected me to represent their interests and protect them. Don’t you forget it. Or you may find yourself reminded.” Then Tally gets confronted later in that episode by a civilian who says, “It’s witches who are committing these attacks. It’s your kind of people .” And then even later in the series, there’s talk of a “growing debate in congress to revoke the Accord and disband the army.” So you could say there are definite opinions about this Army by civilians.

In A Biddy’s Life, there’s a shot when Raelle and Scylla are in the room with weapons once used to kill witches. There’s an undeniably important shot of the Camarilla Scythe. Camarilla, itself, is defined as a small group of people acting as private advisers to a ruler or politician with a shared and nefarious purpose to carry out secret plots.

Since civilians are the ones that are most opposed to the Witch Army, it makes sense that maybe the President, herself, is the one behind these attacks. She’s trying to take down the most Elite of the Witches (the Bellweather’s), hence inhibiting the Army from being as successful as it’s been in the past. And what better way than to kill the most elite witches of child-bearing age.

While this theory checks out, I can’t help but to also think that Petra Bellweather could be behind the attacks. I know, it’s a stretch, (specifically because it’s her own family that’s being targeted) but I do love that ‘good powers, bad people’ trope. And what better way to make sure nobody questions your efforts if you’re the last one they’d suspect? Petra Bellweather has been itching to boot Alder from head witch honcho for awhile. Since killing Bellweather’s is the ultimate attack against witches, this would be a great strategy to showcase that Alder is inept in dealing with these enemies, creating a fall in power. And eventually, a rise in another. A Bellweather.

Okay, I know what you’re all probably thinking. “So you’re saying that she wanted her own daughter killed!?” Not necessarily. When you watch Bellweather Season, and specifically the wedding scenes, they put an insane emphasis on timing. And I don’t believe that that’s just because of Scylla trying to get Raelle out of there by 6pm. When you watch the sequence back, the Bellweather Unit was supposed to be having their interview with the Dean of War College, starting at 5:30ish. If the interview took a good bit, say 30-45 minutes, this would strategically put Abigail not in the line of fire (aka Charvel’s room) at 6pm when they struck.

But on the complete other hand, Abigail was supposed to be up with Charvel at that time helping her get ready. Meaning if it wasn’t Petra Bellweather, someone perfectly timed both Bellweather’s of childbearing age to conveniently be in the same place at the same time.

Then the fact that Scylla was meant to leave with Raelle at 6pm (the exact moment the waiter’s and balloons struck), can’t go unnoticed. Did they want her to leave with Raelle at 6pm because the Spree knew about the attack? Did someone warn them? Does this explain why Anacostia was shocked to see Scyalla. “You’re not supposed to be here.” Why wasn’t she supposed to be there????

I’m just going to tap out of this theory now.

But One More Thing

This might be a totally aggressive theory, and I have to credit the initial spark of this idea to my girlfriend, because during my 67th rewatch of this show, she brought up something I’d never thought of before. She asked me what Scylla’s purpose of attending the wedding was, and if the person she was supposed to bring to Penelope Road at 6pm really was Raelle?

This got thinkING. What if it was someone else???

When you look back at all the times Scylla spends talking to her balloon mirror, they never actually say Raelle’s name. Sure, we’re meant to believe that Raelle is the obvious target. But what if that’s a cover?? What if she’s using Raelle to infiltrate something else and get to someone else??

It would make sense to use Raelle to target Abigail instead- an elite Bellweather. Like I said, this is a very unlikely theory but it would definitely be a shock to literally everyone (except my girlfriend apparently)...

Has the entirety of the show been leading us down a path to distract us from something else going on!? With every other ounce of brilliance here, I wouldn’t even doubt it.

In Conclusion

I went into this show expecting to be seen and represented as a queer woman, but what I actually got was so much more. What I got from this show is the realization that me being queer doesn’t have to have anything to do with me being a woman at all. My strength, and will, and mistakes, and growth, and grace, and support, and passion, are what make me a woman. Each of our stories are deserving enough to be told just because we are women.

I’ve struggled with that fact my entire life - my womanhood.

Femininity, feminism, and female empowerment are all things I’ve only recently connected with. I was raised in the culture of traditional gender roles. My dad went to work and my mom stayed home. It’s not that I was necessarily taught that men and women must occupy those roles; it’s just that’s all I knew. To even further confuse my adolescent existentialism, not only was my mother a stay-at-home mom, she was also in the Marine Corps. And she never really understood the fact that not all women are as strong as she is.

My mom’s a badass, don’t get me wrong. She’s one of my hero’s. She came from a family who didn’t have much, and after realizing that she couldn’t afford to go to college, she enlisted instead. Six years later, she went to Penn State on a full-ride. She’s worked for every ounce of success that she’s seen, and she’s worked her ass off for it. But because of that, she struggles with the idea of feminism.

I can’t blame her too much. I understand the mindset she’s coming from. Growing up with that being instilled in my mind was hard though. Because it was expected that I, too, grow up to be a strong independent woman.

I graduated in the predominantly male industry of agriculture (I want to be a farmer, okay!?). All through college, grad school, and post-grad school, I worked on farm after farm after farm. And it was there that I was introduced to the idea of toxic masculinity. I tolerated comments that I won’t even say out loud. I’ve “accidentally” been touched in more ways than I care to count. And what I hate the most about it all, is that I fucking tolerated it. I’d laugh it off, and then I’d walk away, mortified at what I’d actually just put up with. And while by no means do I blame my upbringing and home life on this, I do blame the upbringing and home life on the female characters I saw on television. If Brooke Davis was constantly and overly sexualized in high school then I guess I was supposed to, too. Right??

Sure, I still hear comments that I wish I didn’t. But I’m also surrounded by people and characters who taught me to never put up with the shit I once did. Female characters are portraying a storyline that people take more seriously now. They’re persevering. And that jumps off the screen in Motherland: Fort Salem.

It’s taken me a while to realize how Raelle and Scylla have affected me as much as Clakre and Lexa did (two characters who literally awakened my sexuality). But I think I get it now.

I love both Raelle and Scylla. Each one. Individually. As witches. As warriors. As females. As humans. As strong female characters. So, in a way, watching this show has awakened something else in me that I’ve also been suppressing all along. My femininity. My strength. My perseverance.

Sure, Raelle and Scylla are my favorite ship right now, but it wasn’t them being together that made me fall in love with this show. Oddly enough, it was them being apart. It’s the fact that each one stands on her own as a unique and beautifully complicated story. And it’s the fact that I, too, am deserving of a beautifully complicated story.

Last Section, I Swear

Motherland: Fort Salem is a magical mix of intense story building, relatable character development, and fascinating cinematography, all while being told through a gender and sexuality normative opposite of what we’re used to seeing. It’s a show that encompasses female strength unlike anything I’ve experienced before, where men are the background noise who aid in pushing the plot forward. It’s a show that deserves another season. And another and another and another and another.

It’s a show I needed ten+ years ago, at 18 years old, freshly out of high school and wondering why the fuck I never had crushes on guys like everyone else my age did. It’s the show I needed so I didn’t always wonder why I was so obsessed with Peyton Sawyer and Summer Roberts and why I was the only one I knew who thought Torrance and Missy should’ve ended up together. It’s the show I needed to learn that my femininity doesn’t make me any less tough than my male counterparts. It’s the show I needed so I never put up with anyone’s shit. It’s the show I needed to teach me that I am storm and I am fury.

It’s the show I needed then. But it’s also the show I’m so happy that I have now.

#motherlandfortsalem #motherland fort salem #raylla #clexa #motherland fort salem theory #scylla ramshorn #scylla #raelle #raelleandscylla #raelle collar #lgbtq #this is so long i'm so sorry #abigail bellweather #tally craven

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