#aka men (as in humans)

[aka-indulgence]

I don’t have a fancy Venn Diagram but here’s some of my fictional beloved(s) categorized

There are 2 wolves, Elegance and w h a t

[aliciavance4228]

"Medusa x Perseus" Why don't you guys ship Bellerophon with Chimera? Or Heracles with the Hydra?

[black-queen-rising]

The people taking this dialogue as a legitimate “character flaw” or literally just at face value at all and not as a continuation of the blatant disrespect the writers have not just towards Rhaenyra as the heir of twenty years, but towards anything that could even vaguely be construed as “women’s work”, is the most perfect encapsulation of just how entrenched misogyny is into the very heart of our pop culture and how the popularization of fantasy has managed to worsen our societal view of soft power by painting it as not only weak, but frivolously feminine, unimportant, and a waste of time.

Since the beginning of the show the writers have almost exclusively portrayed Rhaenyra as disinterested if not opposed to her role as heir, as a politician, and a woman in power broadly all against the original canon and all glaringly, not to make her look worse or better or likable or incompetent (they do all those things, almost every episode, with however they need her to affect the plot in that given moment because they’re incapable of having the characters drive it organically) because it’s not truly about her at all. It’s simply because they cannot fathom a story where a woman is politically adept and as a result either 1. evil or 2. boring, and that is fundamentally because once again they are so biased and against portraying anything that could even vaguely be construed as women’s work or at all “feminine-coded” in an even neutral-but-interesting way they do for (stereotypically) masculine-coded activities like sword fighting, horse back riding, dragon riding, hunting, archery, not to mention just the concept of the political conversations that drive these stories, let alone an actually positive way.

They have taken a story that at its core was always an indictment of structural misogyny and how it will literally cause societies to tear themselves apart over nothing. But because they decided at the outset they wouldn’t and couldn’t portray the structural part of said misogyny without scaring away their intended audience, and decided instead to base this all around ultimately meaningless ~team discourse~ (because literally everyone meeting their downfall as a result of the consequences of systemic misogyny is the point) their alternate path has been to over-exaggerate and ultimately turn to spectacle every single woman involved’s individual suffering at the expense of everything else about their characters. It doesn’t matter if that was the intent or not the principle result of this adaptation has been the continual disempowerment and degradation of women and their agency combined with an almost impressively voyeuristic portrayal of their suffering.

The women in this show are not allowed to have interests or hobbies unless it’s to serve to make them seem “bad” in someway, whether that be the discomfort around Helaena’s bugs, the total lack of any positive representation of Alicent’s religiosity, or how the women dragon riders are broadly painted as aggressive, violent, and unnatural. I don’t even have specific examples to list from the other “team” because in order to be portrayed as “likable” to the general audience the women of Team Black are barely allowed to have personalities, let alone distinguishing interests or characterizing hobbies. The agency and autonomy they have been stripped of, collectively, from both historical precedent and actual ASoIaF, is almost entirely in their refusal to allow women’s work to be portrayed positively. There are no balls, no sewing circles, no garden parties, no trappings of power and contests of will in the jewels and gowns Rhaenyra must now loathe to be (their deeply narrow and biased view of) “likable”, there are no female mentorships, and no female friendships, and at every chance they have had to portray these things at both a societal and personal level they have chosen to veer away and instead reinforce their suffering. They have removed women’s avenues and halls of power from this story, while making it very clear there are no others that exist in this world, and they cannot participate in the men’s; if they could this story wouldn’t exist. So we are left with a group of people who are supposedly driving this story, who this story is supposedly about, but they are internally and externally isolated, largely removed from the public eye, angry or distressed to be there on the rare occasions they’re present, disempowered, stripped of personal agency and will, and we’re still told they have power. But if we search for it the only logical conclusion is that any power which does not center on how much suffering they have been through, or how much more they may be dealt, is not only gone, it was never there in the first place.

I don’t enjoy Rhaenyra’s quasi domestic abuse any more than Alicent’s visceral sexual shame and I don’t enjoy the infantilization of Helaena’s character any more than the erasure of Rhaena’s and it is deeply concerning how many people look at these decisions, and nod their heads and say “yes, this is realistic, and not only is it realistic it’s, GOOD, because without horrific psychological and physical abuse and ultimately a complete reduction to every female character as peace loving victims of powerful men’s cruel machinations we could never even SEE how misogyny is so damaging.” And the mindset that drives people to claim that those of us who call out how this is, the definition of benevolent misogyny and say we’re crazy, that we can’t see the complexity, that actually we’re the ones somehow falling back into sexist tropes, or asking for a black and white story when instead the black and white has simply become an insultingly reductive view of evil men versus helpless women and when all else fails, accusing us of wanting a boring story because it’s either not focused on gratuitous individual female suffering, or is focused on the kind of political power every single featured female character on both sides of this conflict wielded in the original book instead of evil man conversations and eviler man dragon-battles, is at its heart why we have come to a place in pop culture where one of its most marquee properties displays and embodies these problems so glaringly in the fucking first place.

[requiemforthestars]

Being back in the Dragon Age fandom has awakened something long asleep within me, which is a seething deep, feral hatred and disgust for Cullen and dismay at the way everyone in the fandom is head over heels for him. Literally it's as fresh as it was on the first day. Truly, things you feel at 15 years old do not wane.

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

Me @ Netflix if they cut Foxglove and Hazel or A Game of You or yassify any of the girls

[queer-reader-07]

wait wait wait wait. wait a whole damn minute. are people actually, unironically, seriously saying that good omens is queerbaiting???? even AFTER season 2??

DID WE WATCH THE SAME SHOW AND READ THE SAME BOOK?!??

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Really love how if even an X-Men writer says they didn't like the Krakoa era of X-Men and rightfully compares it to a cult, because when one does, X-Men fans act like the writer doesn't get x-men and is fine with oppression somehow.

[skunkes]

Al is big fave guy to see, I go wow he’s just like me, sorr 4 being a lebsain

i love feelings of this nature surrounding al, thank u

[darabeatha]

/ I THINK- I think I found a faceclaim for L.ucifer/S.atan

[saintsarefake]

[isekyaaa]

I am usually able to ignore a lot of things, but I really do dislike it when isekai manhwa use the term "tamed" in the title, like, "I Tamed the Male Lead" or "I Tamed the Crazy Duke." It just sounds so degrading to me.

[silvreflames]

things you'll be hard pressed to learn about nesta from nesta so i am telling you, pt 1:

the grooming she was made to endure at the hands of her own mother to prepare her for marriage, first in the hopes of securing her family's place in society and then in saving her family from poverty

[keets-writing-corner]

Brazilian folklore: this is how X came to exist. This is why X phenomena happens :). Snakes. This is why people disappear in the forest. More snakes. This is another reason why people disappear in the forest. YOLO SACI PERERE. Here is another reason why people disappear in the forest. MORE SNAKES

I love folklore so much because depending on the location and era it comes from it's either the most terrifying concept or the dumbest thing you've ever heard

[soapgraves]

half a mind 2 ask for klr discord but im shy. :,)

[harcove]

thinking about if astarion would actually even like my tav, saoirse, or literally hate her guts- thinking about.... if i understand him enough for the dynamic i've created to actually work btwn them or if im just pretending it would- THINKING-

[mrfoox]

I had to message an guy I went to three dates with in like 2019... And he went ahead and started an conversation like bro... I havent thought about you since our final date man