#and because both a man and a women could not fit there stupid gender roles then your the same.

[iceyrukia]

when you appropriate a gender roles applied to women and make it about men

[jynjackets]

Sorry to ask but why did you call Adria sexist? What has she done?

I don’t mind the question. I think it’s important to back up my claims so here we go.

If you watch her interviews, she's weirdly consistent about this really odd opinion she has about women.

Here she basically says men and women have different attributes when it comes to strength and toughness (which is sexist). Talking about her character that is known to "talk like a woman, walk like a woman," I don't even know what this means. But it comes off that she thinks there exists a single way a woman should act. Her character being a typical feminine-damsel type also implies her preference for this stereotype.

Reading through her other interviews she has a very narrow idea of what a woman should be, especially when it comes to ‘taking care of men’ and whatnot. I want to be clear it is one thing with having personal preferences to how you want your female characters to be presented, which is totally fine, preference is preference. But why this is problematic and moves past mere preferences is because she is saying one is better than the other. That women should be represented in this certain way.

She's done this not with just her latest character, but a lot of them.

Here she says her character is a "real woman" implying that there is a way to be an authentic woman as opposed to an inferior type. She also implies that her character is a real woman because she takes care of people. I don't feel the need to explain the issue with idealizing this.

It's again, her weird notion there's a difference between "tough" and "strong". Here she adds that women should 'own their femininity,' as if the opposite is what women are experiencing.

Not that this completely applies but it’s common for women who perceive other women to be adopting too ‘boyish’ of traits, to believe they are misogynists and rejecting their own kind. But this generally isn’t true— and the real issue with this is that it’s actually those that show conventionally masculine traits that are typically a minority and/or marginalized across women. Studs, butches, and tomboys helped pave the way and redefined culture for all women. In reality, they can be considered the epitome of feminism – proving that you don’t have to look, think, or act “like a woman” to be a woman.

It's, again, fine she may have had a preference. But to make a whole career where women are meant to be portrayed a certain way is such a red flag for me. Especially when she likens herself to them.

The rest of her snippets, to be very honest, it's just a bad fucking vibe I get from her, man. Like why would you say this?

and this?

"Sexist," one might say, might be a rather strong claim for someone who may, arguably, insist on a certain portrayal for women?

No, it fits because not only is this "preference" already largely overrepresented in media, but there are several ways of being sexist. The actress especially is exhibiting what is known as benevolent sexism, a more socially accepted form of sexism prevalent among both men and women.

Examples of benevolent sexism include:

basing a woman’s value on her role as a mother, wife, or girlfriend

focusing attention and praise on someone’s appearance rather than their other attributes

believing that people should not do things for themselves, such as manage money or drive a car, because of their gender

A lot of these can be done without intentional malice very easily! It could be seen as a complement telling someone "wow! I love your braids and lipstick, you really look like a real woman," or "my character is special and great because she is such a good friend and so loyal to this male character" without adding anything else. These, no matter the intent, are still very stupid and sexist to say.

I guess it's important to note where I am coming from and it is that I fucking hate toxic radfems. I hate how lesbian spaces drown out studs and mascs. I hate terfs and people who gatekeep identities because a certain representation isn't good enough for them. And while this actress's crimes are likely a misdemeanor compared to these awful gatekeepers, I cannot stand the stupidity of any hint of lateral violence. Especially when you’re relatively rich and famous you have a responsibility to not hold people back.

I can see that for others it’s not a big deal, hence “socially acceptable”. But it’s ideas she spouts like these that are poisonous to progress. The point should be that there should be no expectation for women. You can be anything you want because you want to. It's when I see comments to the things she says that make my blood boil like “yea! I love women who aren't so in our face ” (aka I don't want female characters with agency or opinions or as the lead) or “this is what a real woman is, sensual and feminine” (aka sexualized, long hair, tits, and ass).

I’m not above giving her the benefit of the doubt that she’s just kind of dumb. Like she’s not out here with a tradfem agenda or whatever. Outside of sexism she’s just bad at explaining anything. This is the last time I���ll probably criticize this woman because I already blocked her tag and she’s a flop anyway so she's easily ignorable. I really hate hating on women because they’re criticized enough, but there is a standard to be met when it comes to being aware and respectful. I wish I was cherry picking but I found all these interviews in like a 20 minute Google search and that's pretty damn telling of her career. She's also like 30 something years old. It's difficult watching a full adult infantilize her own character or see people believe she's "just naïve" when you can just say that they're being sexist.

[queerdo42]

I feel like a part of being transmasc is understanding certain feminine issues in your core but never again being able to speak about them.

I don't mean that trans women don't have a sense of that--they do, and honestly probably better than me. They fit into that societal box, in a sense, around sex. I don't mean gender, I mean appearance and the ideas that come with it from that from an outsiders perspective, rather than from someone who could understand.

But I, who escapes this reality in becoming a man (in a perfect world without transphobia), lose the voice I had as a woman. I never used it as a woman, because it was so attached to womanhood. But now that I have a new perspective by being gender diverse, it becomes both easier for me to accept that parts of me aren't attached to any gender, and also to speak on the things that I no longer attach to a gender.

But, either way, I am a man. A man who does not have an opinion on things to do with women. I, despite me honestly forgetting, have the potential to need an abortion. I, even if I'm just a dude dealing with other dudes, have a perpetual fear of men. A lot of people who were raised in female gender roles do, because that's what we're taught. That men are scary, that boys will be boys, that boys only want one thing, that men are stronger. And we are, even in feminism, struggling beneath the grip of men.

Men make a lot of sexual jokes around other men. I have to be okay with this because I am a man, and it's a part of being a man. Women get abortions, not men. Women help other women when there's a creepy guy, not a man. If he does he's white-knighting.

And I'm not criticizing any exact things in this post. It's just a weird, caged feeling of never being able to speak on what you know to be true, because you're either a man speaking over women, or a woman deep down who will never be a real man.

Gender is stupid and I have autism. Frick society. Rant over.

[imaginariaextraordinaire]

Episode 8 is one hella packed episode and it is an absolute joy to unpack it, beginning with this:

Clever, clever idea to have Ji-Woo repeat the line that Mi-Joo just said to indicate Ji-Woo is taking charge of things as far as Assemblyman Ki is concerned. It's also a good reminder of how tone and intent can change the meaning of a sentence even if the words are exactly the same (which is why we need good translators).

Seeing Mi-Joo stride across the screen with Seon-Gyeom behind her, it struck me that we've seen a variation of this many times before, beginning with the credit titles. While Seon-Gyeom is the sprinter, the one we see constantly trying to up the pace and charge ahead is Mi-Joo. She's always intent on moving ahead faster — perhaps to outrun the past that she finally makes peace with during the marathon? — while Seon-Gyeom moves at a slower pace, disentangling himself from the constraints of his troubled past and troubling father. The only one time we see him race ahead (in episode 2), we also see him come back and slow down.

What I particularly love about Park Shi-Hyun's writing is that in addition to all the layers and complexity she's written into the scenes and characters, she's also written a very, very funny show.

Both Shin Se-Kyung and Kang Tae-Oh do such a fantastic job with both the physical humour (without being over-the-top) and the timing that's needed to play up the wit in the dialogues. Not that Siwan and Soo-Young do a bad job — the scene in which Dan-Ah proposes to Seon-Gyeom is hilarious. My favourite is still May, who is very funny throughout this episode (the shot in which we learn she sleeps with her eyes open! GOLD).

The transitions in this episode are so well written. The insights from one scene ricochet off the next. For example, Dan-Ah in the scene at the bar — where she tells the bartender she can't risk keeping the book in her own study because she can't risk people guessing she has anxieties — gives us a look at the problems of the privileged. This is followed by a scene in which Yeong-Hwa and Mi-Joo discuss student debts, which is a relatable middle-class problem. This in turn is followed by Tae-Woong saying that he takes selfies because he's addicted to the validation he gets from the likes each of those photos gets him — a Gen Z problem. And so it is that we get a spectrum of problems that people face and hide behind performative façades.

The likes that Tae-Woong talks about pop up with manic frenzy at the end of the heartbreaking scene with Dan-Ah in the parking lot, presenting the viewer with a terrible contrast — driving away from him is the love and acceptance that he yearns for from a sister who (he hopes) knows him. All he has to hold on to is the superficial attention of the love professed by a fandom that doesn't really know him at all. Soo-Young's performance is fantastic in this scene, especially when she asks in a voice tinged with desperation why Tae-Woong keeps coming back to her despite her treating him so badly. For the first time, you realise how much it takes out of her to lash out at this desperately-sad boy. "It takes effort to hate someone," Tae-Woong tells her. My heart!

Another fantastic set of transitions comes later on in the episode, when Mi-Joo and May are unwinding at the end of a long day at the film shoot.

This is such a great example of writing inter-generational female friendships. When May remembers not being paid for working overtime, it's an acknowledgement that things are better for working women (especially in film) than it was before, but as Mi-Joo's experiences show, there's still a lot to be done because women are still driven by a certain insecurity and anxiety to push themselves way too hard (as we see a sick Mi-Joo do later in the episode).

Of course a man tries to break this gathering up — because he wants to go to bed. Superb excuse, particularly because these women are talking how much they have to work — and it is deeply satisfying to watch all three of them shut him down and establish their right to unwind.

This scene of female friendship is followed by one that shows the friendship between the three runners. Then we get to see a fight scene full of male actors. The machismo of that performance is a sharp contrast to the awkward tenderness of Woo-Sik and Yeong-Il's conversation.

While on the subject of toxic masculinity, this is the episode in which we find out Dan-Ah's father forged Myeong-Min's birth certificate to make him legally older than Dan-Ah even though he's actually 10 months younger than her. All to ensure he has a male heir. It's a nice detail that Myeong-Min's mother is the one laying out the memorial service for Dan-Ah's mother because it hints at a sense of solidarity.

Also dismantling traditional notions of masculinity is Seon-Gyeom, whom we see at his most domestic as he cooks and packs meals for May and Mi-Joo, and does chores around the house once they're gone. It's very much an inversion of the standard male-female gender roles with the woman going out to work and the man as the homemaker. To underscore this point, we see Seon-Gyeom consider the leopard-print shirt (that May and Mi-Joo hang to give strangers the impression they've got an alpha in the house) for a second before putting it away.

Speaking of alphas, Mi-Joo's really got a thing for wild cats. In addition to that shirt, her blanket is also a leopard-print and when we see her calling Seon-Gyeom, she's standing in front of a painting of a tiger. All these seem to be digs at her posturing that she's strong and invulnerable and I burst out laughing when Seon-Gyeom folds the leopard-print blanket while muttering, "I'd have guessed this is hers even if she hadn't told me."

As disinterested as Seon-Gyeom may be in films, they play a big role in sustaining him emotionally. In this episode, it's the film set that helps Mi-Joo and him come together after their stupid disagreement. Equally importantly, the film set is where he gets the time and space to reconnect with his mother.

Run On has so much fun being meta with the film bits. The film shoot within a drama is indeed an old fake.

There are two film sets we see in this episode — one with Ji-Woo and the other with Mi-Joo. While Ji-Woo's set feels relaxed, the one Mi-Joo's working in is chaotic and taxing. The two women are also at different ends of the professional spectrum. Ji-Woo is a star while Mi-Joo is not just working behind the scenes, but she's come to fill in for the person who was the juniormost member of the crew.

When pointing out the main players of their film crew to Mi-Joo and May, Hui-Jin describes the cinematographer as "a bit racist, but still a gentleman". (Mi-Joo's response is superb: "Weird.") It's an interesting choice to make the cinematographer racist because that's the crew member who decides how subjects and scenes will be framed. "Racist but a gentleman" feels like a precise summary of the orientalist perspective which (aside from being overwhelmingly masculine) shows the East through stereotypes that are often superficially beautiful, but also reductive and damaging. Not surprisingly, this cinematographer is the reason Mi-Joo flounders while translating on set.

The film set is also the first time that Seon-Gyeom sees Mi-Joo's vulnerable side when she falls ill. It's such a clever choice to have Mi-Joo stop performing in a setting that's all about performances. Not only does Mi-Joo give up the alpha act when she's sick, she admits to Seon-Gyeom that when she's feeling helpless, her instinct is to resort to a performative lie — calling out for mom because that's what she saw other kids do as a child in a sick ward (imagine how isolated and neglected she must have felt to do this. Also, she's felt this way so many times that this performance has become second nature to her).

The anecdote suggests Mi-Joo's mulish championing of her self has its roots in past incidents when she tried to fit and either failed or was rejected. And yet, for all her strength and confidence, she's chasing phantoms and has been doing so since she was a little girl. All because she was alone and didn't have anyone she could reach out to for help. Which is why what Seon-Gyeom tells her at the end of the episode is so relevant. He helps her to reorient.

To which Mi-Joo, bless her leopard-print-loving heart, responds with

But my favourite part of this episode is the conversation that Ji-Woo has with Seon-Gyeom when he visits her set. First of all, Ji-Woo is playing a "vegan murderer", which is brilliant as ideas go and it's adorable how delighted she is about her violent roles.

I love how Run On doesn't punish Ji-Woo for sacrificing her family life for her work. Instead, it holds out the possibility that it is ok if you have that imbalance. In this scene, we see Ji-Woo's family reforming at the film set with Eun-Bi sending the coffee truck and Seon-Gyeom showing up just because Ji-Woo asked him to be there.

The mother-son conversation gives us a glimpse of Seon-Gyeom's bleak childhood and we learn that everything Seon-Gyeom did for his father was actually him doing what his mother had asked him to do. It comes as a surprise to Seon-Gyeom that his mother has noticed what he's suffered and that she understands how he'd hoped silently suffering would keep the family together. It's almost as though he's feeling seen for the first time.

Much like Dan-Ah, Ji-Woo may seem self-centred because of her ambitiousness, but she does notice what's happening beyond the obvious, especially when it comes to people she cares about. Both women are up against the worst of patriarchy. Also, I love that when she's talking about motherhood, Ji-Woo is blood-spattered — after all, being a working woman and a mother in a patriarchal is nothing short of fighting a war.

In previous episodes, it seemed as though Ji-Woo was the 'bad' (or at least not ideal) mother while Director Dong was the ideal, modern mother. Yet in comparison to how Director Dong later reacts to her son coming out, you can't help but feel Ji-Woo, with her unconditional support for her kids, might just be the better parent. What is great about Run On though is that that the script doesn't pit the two older women against each other as competing examples of motherhood or femininity. The point is that everyone's struggling, making mistakes and trying to learn from them. Ji-Woo is doing that and so will Director Dong eventually.

Love that the scene ends with Seon-Gyeom effectively declaring himself his mother's son. Take that, patriarchy.

[coldmorte]

Hey! I really really like your blog and all the Dutch content, and I read your posts on Molly and Dutch and I just felt like sharing my thoughts :) If you don’t feel like it, just ignore this

I like Molly, even though I agree that she’s very much a snob and very paranoid at times.

It’s always felt very clear to me that Molly really, truly loves Dutch. And love makes you do stupid, desperate things (just look at Arthur).

Molly’s interaction with Abigail is about Dutch’s love for Molly, not the other way around. It’s Abigail saying that Dutch doesn’t love her and Molly lashing out (probably to protect herself from the truth).

This is brought up again in An Honest Mistake, when she talks to Arthur about Dutch, questioning how Dutch seems to him. When Molly says, “I really love him, you know,” Arthur averts his eyes and doesn’t look at her. I��ve always seen this as Arthur knowing Dutch doesn’t love her in the way Molly wants him to, if he loves her at all.

I’ve always seen Dutch as being kind of ahead of his time when it comes to certain progressive ideas (especially as it pertains to race), but when it comes to women, he’s very much a product of his his time. The way he talks about them and to/at them, whether it’s Molly or Abigail or Mary-Beth or Sadie, is often either dismissive or condescending.

While he doesn’t outright say it, the way he acts around the women at camp has always left me feeling like he prefers women (at least the ones he takes an actual interest in) to fit into the roles society has carved out for them; they have to be beautiful and docile and romantic-minded for him to take an interest.

You’ve said yourself, that Dutch deals with a lot of self doubt and that stems from wanting to be seen as a great and powerful man, who the people in camp can look up to, and women (especially young women) were (and to some degree stil is) seen as symbols of status. Molly is a beautiful woman from a wealthy family; she could have anyone she wanted, and she chose Dutch and ran away with him, leaving her old life behind – that’s the ultimate powermove on Dutch’s part.

I’ve always thought of Dutch as a romantic, the way he talks about love and how it’s the one thing worth living for, and I believe that he may have at some point actually loved Molly or at least convinced himself that he did, but the second he grows tired of her and realises that he doesn’t actually love her, he’s moving on to another, younger woman.

His inner romantic and his ego and need to be perceived as powerful are at odds with each other, and as the game progresses we see how his romantic and kind side wilt under the weight and pressure of his responsibilities as a leader and his need to be perceived as powerful and a great leader.

Those are my thoughts at least :)

Hello!

Thank you for the ask and the kind words! That really does mean a lot!! 💜💜💜

I am very grateful for your message, and no!!!! I don’t want to ignore it!! That wouldn’t be very fair of me, as I feel like you bring up some good points to discuss. Also, I appreciate the respect in your message and for taking the time to write so much out! I’d be happy to give you some of my time in return 🥰

(Warning: SPOILERS below)

I’m going to take your points one at a time here. So, starting with liking Molly, it’s totally fine! I don’t want to be too negative on my blog, and I don’t want people to feel like they have to think the same way I do. That wouldn’t be any fun, so it does make me happy that you can enjoy her character. I don’t want to take that away from you!! By all means, love her to your heart's content!!! ❤️

Furthermore, though I don’t personally like Molly, I don’t think she was a truly bad person. Just like every other character in the game, she had flaws and made mistakes. I primarily wish I could have gotten to know her better because she was presented during a very dark time in her life. I feel like this affected my perception of her, and I might have seen her differently, if I had gotten the chance to interact more with her character (especially outside of the RDR2 timeframe). Everybody deserves not only to love somebody, but everybody also deserves to have faith that the person they love can truthfully say the same back to them. I felt bad that Molly died such an unhappy, loveless death.

About the love Molly had for Dutch, I agree that she loved him. My point in bringing up infatuation was to primarily highlight the reason and the degree to which she honestly loved him. Did Molly love Dutch for the man he was, or for the idea of the man he was? Maybe, it was a mix? I am not sure there is enough information to give a conclusive answer to this (as I somewhat mentioned before).

To be fair, the same thing could (and should) be asked of Dutch. Did he truly love her, or did he just love the idea of having her at his side? Again, it would be fascinating to see the early part of their relationship. It would answer a LOT of questions. You mention that Dutch arguably saw Molly as a symbol of status, and I agree that it was very plausible. I think, to some degree, both Molly and Dutch saw each other as being favorable for what they represented, unfortunately.

In regard to the interaction between Molly and Abigail, I realize my response was unclear about this (that’s my bad). I'll try to write it better here, but this is really complicated to put into words! I'll do my best!!

What I said was that Molly got angry at people she “perceived” as challenging her love (this was subjective to her POV and not necessarily reflective of true reality). My original answer was not objective (nor was it meant to be - I was trying to write this part from her POV), and there are a few layers I want to analyze here. First of all, from an objective perspective, you are correct. The conversation between them was ultimately about Dutch not loving Molly the way she wanted to be loved. However, the first thing Molly did was state to Abigail that she loved Dutch. If she didn’t see this point as being in question, why did she feel the need to immediately justify it before saying anything else? To me, it seemed like she needed to actively prove that she loved him to others.

This was also seen with Karen and Arthur. The conversations with Karen were confusing because they didn’t have much context, but perhaps, that was the point - to show the extent of Molly’s paranoia (in other words, that there was no context and that she was imagining Karen to be against her out of insecurity). Molly continually complained that Karen said bad things about her, and she insisted that she not only loved Dutch, but that he loved her as well. Then, as you mention, Molly emphasized to Arthur that SHE loved Dutch (it was not directly about his love for her). Again, by constantly having to profess her feelings, it was as if she thought people were doubting her on some level.

But here is where the contradiction comes in - I believe that Molly was smart enough to know that this doubting wasn't entirely genuine. She knew it was never really her love that she should have been concerned about. Although, by focusing on herself, it was a way to deflect from her insecurity regarding Dutch and the fact that she knew, deep down, he didn’t truly love her (at least, not anymore). That’s why she got so upset when Abigail, for instance, brought this point up. As soon as the conversation shifted from Molly’s love to Dutch’s love, she lashed out and stormed away.

So, to try to summarize this all up, what I am trying to say is that Molly “perceived” challenges to her own state of emotions as a means of shifting away from her concerns about Dutch’s feelings. She knew her "perceptions" were really more like lies to herself. Molly wanted the conversation with Abigail to seem like it was about her because she felt she was more in control of that and could handle it better. From a neutral perspective, the conversation was definitely not about Molly - it was entirely about Dutch, which Molly knew (she just didn’t like Abigail directly pointing it). I hope my response makes more sense? Sorry, if I am still being confusing!

Now, as for Dutch and his progressive ideas, I think a lot of them were formed in his youth. Little information was given about his childhood, but he did seem pretty sensitive about the fact that he grew up fatherless. His dad died in the Civil War (a conflict primarily centered around the issue of slavery and states’ attitudes towards it), while fighting on the side of the Union. One reason Dutch was probably so progressive in regard to race was because of his anger over losing a parent to racially-motivated violence. Racism seemed like a waste of time and life, so he was bitter towards people who still harbored racist sentiments. He knew firsthand how destructive they could be.

Minimal insight was provided into Dutch’s relationship with his mother, other than the fact that it was quite strained and unhappy. He left home at a young age and essentially disowned her. He obviously didn’t keep in touch with her, judging that he didn’t even know she died until years after the fact. Could this have affected his attitude later in life (towards women)?

I suppose it’s possible. Maybe, Dutch would have looked better on women, had he been closer with his mother. I consider his attitude towards women as pretty average for the era. It’s not entirely fair to compare him to Arthur, who was very progressive for the time and definitely above normal standards. As you say, I think Dutch was a product of his time. In RDR2, he didn’t come across as physically abusive, nor did he overtly sexualize women. However, he did seem to expect women to act in a subordinate manner. It's not great (and I certainly do not agree with his attitude), but again, the contemporary standards in regard to gender roles did not exist in 1899.

Lastly, I COMPLETELY agree about Dutch being VERY romantic, sentimental, and idealistic. This wasn’t just limited to interpersonal relationships either - it also fit his entire perspective of America and the values he held dear. Just take a look at some of his quotes:

“The promise of this great nation - men created equal, liberal and justice for all - that might be nonsense, but it’s worth trying for. It’s worth believing in.”

And:

“If we keep on seeking, we will find freedom.”

In the beginning, he had such high hopes and strong faith that he could find a way to live free from social and legislative demands. Compare that to the end, where he started to say things like:

“You can’t fight nature. You can’t fight change.”

And:

“There ain’t no freedom for no one in this country no more.”

Dutch wanted to believe that there was a chance to live free from the threat of control, but as he started to lose people he loved and got closer to losing his own battle, he started to take on a much more cynical tone. He began to realize that his romantic notions and idealistic visions of life were not always obtainable - no matter how hard he tried to reach them - and it broke him. This change in his life outlook was kind of similar to his interpersonal relationships. When he realized they were a lot of work and not always happy/perfect, he seemed to grow frustrated. Love requires a lot of patience and energy. Despite full effort, love still does not always succeed.

Also, I just want to add that I think Dutch knew he had a problem with his pride, but he tried his best to maintain his tough, confident persona because he didn’t want to be perceived as weak. He definitely realized he messed up in putting his pride first in the end, but at that point, it was too late. Whatever was left of his idealistic aspirations in life died with Arthur up on that cliff.

Anyhow, I’ve said more than enough. I’d like to once again thank you for the ask!! I hope my response was worth the time to read and that it makes sense. Feel free to share any more thoughts you may have!!!

~ Faith 💜

[whatevencomesnext]

I was curious, so I looked up “future” and “futurism” on Tumblr just to see what would pop up. An awful lot of neon art and filters, some cool fashion, mostly aesthetic type stuff. I learned what “retrofuturism” is, and there were some older-looking illustrations, which was cool. One that caught my attention was these drawings of robot ladies by Hajime Sorayama. I’m linking to the post instead of reblogging it because uhhhh i dont want my vent blog to appear in the notes of the original posts I saw, lol. 

It looks really neat, like it’s really well drawn, and I looked up the artist’s website and… sigh. I can’t go anywhere on the internet without running into porn. I’m so tired of constantly seeing women objectified everywhere, but especially online, you can't go long without running into it accidentally.

Man… I’m so tired of this. Is this the dream, guys? Is this what the future is supposed to be like? I bet it’s a lot easier to rationalize objectifying women if you’re envisioning exaggeratedly woman-shaped hunks of metal that are designed to be sexy. I bet metal sex dolls won’t get mad at you for treating them like they’re less than human, like all those stupid real women do. 

Sigh. 

On the bright side, Sorayama isn’t the only Japanese futurist artist I found. Mariko Mori is a female artist who also deals with the objectification of women in her work, although she criticizes it instead of going along with it. She’s a performance artist who was apparently shocked when she saw “an educated woman who only served tea at the office” x Her pieces, Tea Ceremony, were a protest against the objectification of women in this way. She dresses both like an android and an office worker, and is ignored by the men around her. I like her work! 

One thing she said that I thought was interesting was the article I saw about her says this:

“Beyond the macho elements of society, Mariko Mori is interested in the identity associated with gender and its current processes of redefinition. She believes she has acquired significant enough experience to ‘understand that a man and a woman are different, so how we contribute to the society may vary, as our roles could be differentiated.’ But differentiation does not mean subordination. Tea Ceremony aspires to illuminate this issue, ‘to create a better world.’”

Differentiation does not mean subordination. Wow, that’s an awesome line. It’s so depressing to look at work like Sorayama’s and see sci-fi where women are objectified. No change from how things are, the porn/sex is just more accessible. I feel like it’s hard to find media that lets women be women, not objects or pseudo-men. What I mean by the latter is that, especially in media nowadays, movie producers will take a female character and give her “male traits” to empower her. The implication being that women are not good or strong unless they can act like men. And yeah, most traits don’t (and shouldn’t) fit into a f/m binary, but it’s stupid to sit there and say that women are just as physically strong as men when our bodies are built differently. Captain Marvel is a perfect example of this being done horribly, in addition to nothing in the story possibly being different if she was a man and not a woman, she is also not allowed to have any character growth or noticeable traits besides being really rude to most of the humans she encounters. Awesome, what a great female role model! As Galetea says more or less directly in these videos, this is sexism disguised as feminism. Instead of designing a weak stereotype, or an object, or a pseudo-man, why not just let a female character be a human woman?

Sigh. I dream of a future where women and girls are treated as equitably as men, where women are allowed to be feminine without it being portrayed as weak or stupid, where women are valued as human beings. Someday.

[violenceenthusiast]

Dean Winchester made me gay (but not like that)

Not to be sincere on main but with the Supernatural finale fast approaching I’m thinking about what this stupid, wonderful show has meant to me over the years, particularly as a queer kid.

I started watching Supernatural while season 5 was airing, at age 12. And the really wild thing is that I started watching before I was even on tumblr SO unlike most shows, I didn’t start watching based on whispers about queer representation– I just,, thought it looked like a cool show I might like.

So here I am, a middle schooler with no clue why the worst part of every day was getting dressed, why I felt funny? confused? nervous? when girls gave me hugs, why I didn’t quite fit in with the boys but didn’t quite fit in with the girls either, and so much more (aka standard Queer Kid Confusion lmao). 

Now here I have to talk about the netflix documentary Disclosure for a second (which, if you haven’t seen is one of those things everyone should watch). The doc is largely a timeline and analysis of trans representation in tv and film as narrated by people in the industry who are trans themselves (tight as hell). But there’s this one part where this guy is illustrating why queer representation in media is so important, and he tells us that “80% of people don’t know a trans person in real life” (paraphrasing from memory) so for many people, tv and film are their only point of contact and point of reference for what it is to be trans and/or queer. and then he delivers the real kicker– “the same is true for queer people”. When I tell you that rocked my world to hear him say that... because he’s right!! 

I was lucky enough to grow up in a pretty lefty, Jewish community but even then my information about queerness was limited to a) gay exists and b) gay is ok (in the abstract) but c) gay is the thing boys call each other when they step out of line. After all, it was still the 2000′s. I didn’t know anyone gay in real life, perhaps my only exposure to queerness was captain Jack Harkness when he kisses the doctor in s1?? but most importantly I didn’t know anything of the subjective experience of queerness.

And so I start watching this show. And there’s Dean. He loves powerfully and protects those he loves. He is strong and smart and clever and funny and accomplished but despite that is so so tied down by, and beholden to, what others (john, sam, society) expect of him and the roles he needs to play as a result (father, mother, brother, savior, protector, man’s man). He is proud of yet embarrassed by his interests that fall outside of these expectations– Sam, as the bookish one who ~went to college~ gets the reputation of the nerd but we all know the real nerd is Dean, with his cowboys, sci-fi, and chick flicks, his books and his movies and his music. AND on top of all that, he has nowhere and no one that’s just his, save perhaps for the impala but even that is not really his (yet). And for me, as a queer, Jewish, nerdy kid who didn’t know they were queer or why they didn’t feel they fit anywhere... Dean Winchester was everything. 

Enter Castiel. 

And my world expanded. I watched as Dean, a fellow aquarius (lol), found safety and home in Cas. I watched their uneasy alliance, backed by an unshakeable bond, turn to trust then to friendship and rapidly into something more, something ephemeral, something,, profound. Love fundamentally changed them both. Their love for one another specifically changed them both. I watched as they moved heaven and earth (and hell) for each other, literally. But most importantly I got to see it all through Dean’s eyes. Of course we see much of Cas’s experience of events but for much of the early seasons of Cas’s run on the show he (and his interiority) is kept from the boys, and from us, at a bit of an arm’s length. Dean is the main conduit for us as the audience, and he certainly was for teenage me. 

I watched as this scared man who had to grow up too fast found solace in another man, in a way that was (in many ways literally) alien to him. I saw his panicked moments and second-guessing and fidgeting and furtive looks and wayward glances. All the things that us destiel truthers (🤡) pointed to at the time were, for me, not simply about shipping but about seeing myself in Dean. Seeing my own reluctance to be near women, my own hyper-awareness about how close we were standing and where I was looking and how long I was looking for. My own discomfort in and eventual shedding of the prescriptive gendered roles and behavior I had been handed. Dean falling for Cas and the beauty of it, how naturally and how easily they fit together against all that was working against them.. it allowed me to see something in myself and for myself that I could never have imagined alone.

So for all the (rightful) criticism of Supernatural and destiel as awful queer-baiting, for me, a kid beginning to see themself for the first time through this story and these characters... it never hit that way for me. Literally what was I supposed to do but go stupid go crazy and think about nothing but Dean and Cas and Supernatural for the rest of forever?? I never in a million years would have expected or could have hoped for the 15x18 confession and I’m scared and excited for what will happen in the finale but no matter what happens... I’ll forever be grateful to this show for giving me the imagination to see myself as I am.

[alinaastarkov]

Motherhood - Arya, Daenerys, Brienne and Sansa

So this is in response to an ask I got and it ended up really long so I thought I would post separately. I’m not great at writing proper metas but this is my poor imitation of one at least, so here goes.

Motherhood and children are key parts of Arya, Brienne and Dany’s arcs. They all act as mothers to other characters in their stories and seem to have a natural maternal instinct that you normally don’t find in female characters who are gnc because men usually just can’t write strong women. Ususally female characters get the choice between children or having skills, but Brienne, Arya and Dany get both in their arcs. On the flip side, Sansa on the outside is a prime candidate for motherhood - she dreams of having children, is romantic, traditionally feminine, etc. But GRRM deconstructs these tropes by almost making her not very maternal at all.

Sansa outwardly conforms to patriarchal gender norms but she doesn’t take joy in or have the instincts of a mother. Her dreams were usually limited to marriage and not much beyond that. She’s growing out of her superficial desires, obviously, but she always thought about romance and being a lady, and having babies was a part of that because of the society she grows up in. She never wanted to actually care for children, she was just told that was an essential part of a “happy ending” and so she bought it. Her dreams about children were only ever about babies. She wants the fantasy, not the reality of raising kids. We can see with her behaviour with Sweetrobin - though it is improving - she really doesn’t have those motherly instincts and disdains the truths of having to care for someone younger.

It was more than Sansa could stand. "Robert, stop that." Instead he swung the doll again, and a foot of wall exploded. She grabbed for his hand but she caught the doll instead. There was a loud ripping sound as the thin cloth tore. Suddenly she had the doll's head, Robert had the legs and body, and the rag-and-sawdust stuffing was spilling in the snow. Lord Robert's mouth trembled. "You killlllllllled him," he wailed. Then he began to shake. It started with no more than a little shivering, but within a few short heartbeats he had collapsed across the castle, his limbs flailing about violently. White towers and snowy bridges shattered and fell on all sides. Sansa stood horrified, but Petyr Baelish seized her cousin's wrists and shouted for the maester. - Sansa VII, ASOS

Robert's lip quivered. "I was going to come sleep with you." I know you were. Sweetrobin had been accustomed to crawling in beside his mother, until she wed Lord Petyr. Since Lady Lysa's death he had taken to wandering the Eyrie in quest of other beds. The one he liked best was Sansa's . . . which was why she had asked Ser Lothor Brune to lock his door last night. She would not have minded if he only slept, but he was always trying to nuzzle at her breasts, and when he had his shaking spells he often wet the bed. - Sansa I, AFFC

Alayne understood all that well enough, but it meant that the burden of getting Sweetrobin safely down the mountain fell on her. "Give his lordship a cup of sweetmilk," she told the maester. "That will stop him from shaking on the journey down." "He had a cup not three days past," Colemon objected. "And wanted another last night, which you refused him." "It was too soon. My lady, you do not understand. As I've told the Lord Protector, a pinch of sweetsleep will prevent the shaking, but it does not leave the flesh, and in time . . ." "Time will not matter if his lordship has a shaking fit and falls off the mountain. If my father were here, I know he would tell you to keep Lord Robert calm at all costs." "I try, my lady, yet his fits grow ever more violent, and his blood is so thin I dare not leech him any more. Sweetsleep . . . you are certain he was not bleeding from the nose?" "He was sniffling," Alayne admitted, "but I saw no blood." "I must speak to the Lord Protector. This feast . . . is that wise, I wonder, after the strain of the descent?" [...] "Just give him a cup of the sweetmilk before we go, and another at the feast, and there should be no trouble." "Very well." They paused at the foot of the stairs. "But this must be the last. For half a year, or longer." "You had best take that up with the Lord Protector." She pushed through the door and crossed the yard. Colemon only wanted the best for his charge, Alayne knew, but what was best for Robert the boy and what was best for Lord Arryn were not always the same. Petyr had said as much, and it was true. Maester Colemon cares only for the boy, though. Father and I have larger concerns. - Alayne II, AFFC

In the last quote she says she has “larger concerns” than Robin’s health. All these characters are forced into motherly roles, even if they don’t like it at first, but Sansa is the only one of them who never actually feels that instinct to care for the child over other concerns. Not all people have motherly instincts so this is not a bad thing, it is simply a truth about her character. She does not have the connection to motherhood and children that others do.

Brienne, Arya and Dany on the other hand don’t conform to gender norms but they don’t disdain traditionally feminine women and all have super maternal instincts. Motherhood and children are an important part of all these characters’ arcs. With Dany, it’s blindingly obvious, and Brienne and Arya have this on a smaller scale, but they all care for and protect people like mothers. Sometimes this means being forceful to ensure they listen and are protected, but all mothers do the same.

The fire leapt from one house to another. Arya saw a tree consumed, the flames creeping across its branches until it stood against the night in robes of living orange. Everyone was awake now, manning the catwalks or struggling with the frightened animals below. She could hear Yoren shouting commands. Something bumped against her leg, and she glanced down to discover the crying girl clutching her. "Get away!" She wrenched her leg free. "What are you doing up here? Run and hide someplace, you stupid." She shoved the girl away. - Arya IV, ACOK

They found Gerren too, but he was hurt too bad to move. As they were running toward the barn, Arya spied the crying girl sitting in the middle of the chaos, surrounded by smoke and slaughter. She grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet as the others raced ahead. The girl wouldn't walk, even when slapped. Arya dragged her with her right hand while she held Needle in the left. Ahead, the night was a sullen red. The barn's on fire, she thought. Flames were licking up its sides from where a torch had fallen on straw, and she could hear the screaming of the animals trapped within. Hot Pie stepped out of the barn. "Arry, come on! Lommy's gone, leave her if she won't come!" Stubbornly, Arya dragged all the harder, pulling the crying girl along. Hot Pie scuttled back inside, abandoning them . . . but Gendry came back, the fire shining so bright on his polished helm that the horns seemed to glow orange. He ran to them, and hoisted the crying girl up over his shoulder. "Run!" - Arya IV, ACOK

"Mostly just roofs," Arya admitted, "but some chimneys were smoking, and I heard a horse." The Weasel put her arms around her leg, clutching tight. Sometimes she did that now. [...] "If we see any leg potion, we'll bring it," Gendry said. "Arry, let's go, I want to get near before the sun is down. Hot Pie, you keep Weasel here, I don't want her following." [...] "You leave Weasel alone, she's just scared and hungry is all." Arya glanced back, but the girl was not following for once. Hot Pie must have grabbed her, like Gendry had told him. [...] Lommy and Hot Pie almost shit themselves when she stepped out of the trees behind them. "Quiet," she told them, putting an arm around Weasel when the little girl came running up. [...] "She ran off when she heard you coming," Lommy said. "You made a lot of noise." And Arya thought, Run, Weasel, run as far as you can, run and hide and never come back.  - Arya V, ACOK

She would make much better time on her own, Arya knew, but she could not leave them. They were her pack, her friends, the only living friends that remained to her, and if not for her they would still be safe at Harrenhal, Gendry sweating at his forge and Hot Pie in the kitchens. If the Mummers catch us, I'll tell them that I'm Ned Stark's daughter and sister to the King in the North. I'll command them to take me to my brother, and to do no harm to Hot Pie and Gendry. They might not believe her, though, and even if they did . . . Lord Bolton was her brother's bannerman, but he frightened her all the same. I won't let them take us, she vowed silently, reaching back over her shoulder to touch the hilt of the sword that Gendry had stolen for her. I won't. - Arya I, ASOS

Arya with Weasel is such a strong example of her motherly instincts. Even though Arya is only 9/10 herself, she takes it upon herself to care for others even when everyone else is telling her not too. Like every other mother, she forces Weasel to do what’s best for her, protecting her even if it makes Weasel upset for a while. At least she’s alive and safe. And she’s good at being motherly too. Eventually, Weasel is actively seeking out Arya as her protector, clinging to her leg, and Arya holds Weasel so casually and naturally, it’s pretty much automatic. And her attachment to her “pack” throughout is just an extension of this because she is always “at the head”, the leader, the protector, the mother.

"They will not hurt me," she told him. "They are my children, Jorah." She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. She trotted, then cantered, then broke into a gallop, her braid streaming behind. The freed slaves parted before her. "Mother," they called from a hundred throats, a thousand, ten thousand. "Mother," they sang, their fingers brushing her legs as she flew by. "Mother, Mother, Mother!" - Daenerys IV, ASOS

Dany had left a trail of corpses behind her when she crossed the red waste. It was a sight she never meant to see again. "No," she said. "I will not march my people off to die." My children. "There must be some way into this city." - Daenerys V, ASOS

Safe. The word made Dany's eyes fill up with tears. "I want to keep you safe." Missandei was only a child. With her, she felt as if she could be a child too. "No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died, and Viserys … I want to protect you but … it is so hard. To be strong. I don't always know what I should do. I must know, though. I am all they have. I am the queen … the … the …" "… mother," whispered Missandei. "Mother to dragons." Dany shivered. "No. Mother to us all." Missandei hugged her tighter. "Your Grace should sleep. Dawn will be here soon, and court." "We'll both sleep, and dream of sweeter days. Close your eyes." When she did, Dany kissed her eyelids and made her giggle. - Daenerys II, ADWD

The motherhood part of Dany’s arc is pretty much undeniable. She is the mother to dragons, mother to all her people. She calls them her “children”, they call her “Mhysa” and their care is her primary concern. As seen in the last quote, she agonises over not protecting them well enough, she worries constantly that she is putting them in danger when all she wants to do is keep them safe. Missandei reminds her that she is their mother and she is protecting them as best she can, and like Arya and Brienne she acts motherly in a more personal sense here, making Missandei giggle. Without a doubt, Dany is the best protector her children could have asked for. Motherhood I’m sure will only become more prevalent in Dany’s story going forward.

So far he had been true to his word, and Brienne had been true to hers. Podrick had not complained. Every time he raised a new blister on his sword hand, he felt the need to show it to her proudly. He took good care of their horses too. He is still no squire, she reminded herself, but I am no knight, no matter how many times he calls me "ser." She would have sent him on his way, but he had nowhere to go. Besides, though Podrick said he did not know where Sansa Stark had gone, it might be that he knew more than he realized. Some chance remark, half-remembered, might hold the key to Brienne's quest. - Brienne III, AFFC

Brienne had been betrothed at seven, to a boy three years her senior, Lord Caron's younger son, a shy boy with a mole above his lip. They had only met the once, on the occasion of their betrothal. Two years later he was dead, carried off by the same chill that took Lord and Lady Caron and their daughters. Had he lived, they would have been wed within a year of her first flowering, and her whole life would have been different. She would not be here now, dressed in man's mail and carrying a sword, hunting for a dead woman's child. More like she'd be at Nightsong, swaddling a child of her own and nursing another. It was not a new thought for Brienne. It always made her feel a little sad, but a little relieved as well. - Brienne III, AFFC

One of the women was very old, one was heavy with child, and one was a girl as fresh and pretty as a flower in spring. When Meribald took them off to hear their sins, Ser Hyle chuckled, and said, "It would seem the gods walk with us . . . at least the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone." Podrick looked so astonished that Brienne had to tell him no, they were only three marsh women. - Brienne V, AFFC

"Podrick has never harmed you. My father will ransom him. Tarth is called the sapphire isle. Send Podrick with my bones to Evenfall, and you'll have sapphires, silver, whatever you want." [...] Brienne felt the hemp constricting, digging into her skin, jerking her chin upward. Ser Hyle was cursing them eloquently, but not the boy. Podrick never lifted his eyes, not even when his feet were jerked up off the ground. If this is another dream, it is time for me to awaken. If this is real, it is time for me to die. All she could see was Podrick, the noose around his thin neck, his legs twitching. Her mouth opened. Pod was kicking, choking, dying. Brienne sucked the air in desperately, even as the rope was strangling her. Nothing had ever hurt so much. She screamed a word.  - Brienne VIII, AFFC

Brienne is similar to Arya in terms of motherly instincts. She maybe begrudges her responsibility to Pod at first, but she recognises that responsibility straight away and takes it on nevertheless, protecting him, teaching him, encouraging him. Pod meanwhile seems to love Brienne, taking pride in being her squire, wanting to be at her side at all times. In the end, honour, quite possibly the most important thing for Brienne, is sacrificed to save Pod’s life.

It’s another deconstruction of classic fairy tale characters. Motherhood is associated with protection, and so the gnc women in the series taking on protector roles of the more traditional sense (ruling, wielding a sword, knighthood, etc.) are also mothers at the same time, and the classic princess is what she would realistically be like - superficial and largely without those instincts. It’s another reason to think Arya/ Brienne/ Daenerys will end the series with children of their own.

[someonelookingpraediti]

Currently Reading...

Life and Death - Stephenie Meyer

Day 1: Pages 1-15

Ok so before I start, some background. This is a gender-swapped rewrite of Twilight, released for the 10 year anniversary. The only thing I know about this book before reading it is that Edward is now called Edythe, and Bella is now called Beau.

Personally, I think the names were a mistake.

Edward is an old fashioned name that is still incredibly popular. Edythe is an obscure spelling of an old fashioned name that never came back into style. He should have been called Elinor. Especially since it would work with Bella’s Austen fixation, as Edward did.

Bella, short for Isabella, becomes Beau, short for Beaufort. I get the concept behind this one - Bella and Beau both mean beautiful. But Beaufort is a stupid name. I have never even heard of anyone being called Beaufort. She should have been Bram, short for Abraham. It has a similar feel to it as the original name, and there’s a cliché vampiric shout-out in there too.

Now, I’m also assuming that the ending has to be different too. Obviously it’s not possible for Beaufort to get pregnant with a demon baby in book four, so the smart thing to do would be to end this book with no room for a sequel. The two options I can think of are either they let James’ bite turn him; or Edythe accidentally loses control while trying to save him and kills him instead.

I like the ending where Beau dies. It’s poetic, it’s tragic, it’s Wuthering Heights. But Stephenie Meyer is a coward, so I think she's probably gone for the safe option of Beau becoming a vampire.

Now, to the book...

Ok, I’ve only just started and I am so done already. It’s like she’s literally taken each sentence, one by one, and made an effort to rewrite it slightly differently, like a teenager copying her friends homework, changing the answers just enough to look like she’s done it herself. For someone who knows Twilight as intimately as I do, it’s equally painful and laughable. How has the literal author managed to produce what is essentially a poor fanfic re-write?

Smeyer wrote this, apparently, to prove that this slushy love story isn’t about Bella being a girl who needs a man. She claims that she wanted to show that the story would be exactly the same if the roles were reversed. Immediately she fails.

Her sexism is obvious at every step, she’s so entrenched in gender roles, that she changes even small details about characters to fit her idea of how men and women should behave. It’s not “Billy Black”, it’s “Bonnie Black and her husband”. And he hasn’t “done a lot of work on the engine”, she's “had a lot of work done”.

And there’s this weird bit she’s added right at the beginning, when Beau arrived at the airport in Port Angeles, he bumps into a pair of scary bad people and they get unrealistically aggressive until Charlie shows up. The only reason I can think of this being added is if these are the people who will then attack Beau in Port Angeles? Which I have a lot of issues with if that’s what happens.

Beau doesn’t cry when Bella does, because boys, evidently, don’t cry. Beau is unusually tall, because apparently, good looking boys are tall, never mind that Bella was 5’4’’.

On page 14 we get the name of the book dropped in, as well as a new line, “it’s not like anyone was going to bite me”. Hilarious.

This is torture.

Day 2: Did Not Finish

Ok, yeah, I can't do this. I'm not finishing this book.

She literally changed "I'd always been a bad liar" to "I'd never been a good liar", like come on, either change it or don't.

I did skip ahead to a couple of places to see if my predictions were correct.

I was right about the scary bad people at the airport... we could tell they were bad because they had tattoos and dyed hair. I knew she was going to have to come up with some other reason for Beau to get attacked, because her odd Mormon mind wouldn't accept the fact that boys also get raped. Literally, that situation could have gone exactly the same, she did not need to change it to fit gender norms. But SMeyer added in a fun little twist - the reason they decided to attack him was because he was with Charlie at the airport, and they hate cops, of course! So..... it's sexist AND pro-cop? Good fucking job, Stephenie.

I also skipped to the end - and I was right, it ended with the bite turning him. Apparently their only options were to let the venom work, or kill him. I guess girls aren't strong enough to stop themselves feasting or whatever. Ok Stephenie. Ok.

So basically, this book is terrible. It could have been a masterpiece. It could have been a fragile, clumsy little human boy falling for a towering, statuesque vampire goddess.

I might just write a better version. Watch this space, I guess.

[parnelbedlam]

12th century England and the Wayhaven Chronicles

Let me preface this with I am not trying to bash Sera’s work in anyway. I am a fan of the Wayhaven chronicles and don’t want this post to be seen in the wrong light. I love seeing fanart and writings of the text and in no way mean to hurt anyone with this post, rather I’d like to help inform on this particular area.

I understand that this work is fiction, that it isn’t reality but does seem to reflect our world just with a hidden supernatural spin. As such it stands to reason that the 12th century in Wayhaven is the same as in the real world (or at least closely resembling). But because it is fiction it doesn’t have to conform to reality and thus this may all be moot.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about 12th century England please read on if not just ignore this post.

(any pictures used that are not credited are taken from the Historia Normannis re-enactment group)

So straight off the bat, regarding Adam/Ava and the 12th century there are some things about them that simply don’t fit the period.

Now to understand why I care about a few small details; I have been a 12th century re-enactor in England for the past 6 years (and a multi- period re-enactor for around 8) . As such while there is definitely much more I can learn I do have a fairly good grasp of the early Norman period (in England as least). My group aims to portray Norman life in England from peasants to Nobles and I’m heavily involved in the drapery.

1. Adam/Ava’s name is slightly off

So ‘du’ means ‘of’ in French but here’s where every English school lies to their students; The Normans aren’t French. Rather they’re Vikings who were given land by the French. Anyway with that bit of history out of the way the connective used for names by the Normans in England at this time isn’t Du but De so De Lacey, De La Ware ect.

Fun fact; Adam/Ava would have had several ways you could refer to them as last names weren’t what they are now as such they would have been refered to as Adam De Mortain, Adam Fitz[insert father’s name here] (Fitz mean son of) or Ava of (wherever they lived in England).

From what I understand Adam isn’t the most popular name in the 12th century, he’s much more likely to be named William, Stephen, Henry, Steven, Robert or Richard (note how many kings and royalty of the time have those names). Adam become more popular as a name around the 13th cen but this is something I would have to look more into to properly comment on so take it with a pinch of salt.

Ava is fine I think? Ada works as an alternative that’s the name I use on encampment. Some popular ones of the period are Matilda, Eleanor, Margaret, Isolda is another (Emperess Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine are some incredible women who do not get enough credit in history)

The doomsday book is an excellent source for understanding names in England at the time (it’s basically a survay of England and a portion of Wales ordered by William the Conqueror a couple of decades after he became king).

2. Gender Roles in Norman society

Norman society had gender roles, it just did. Less so for peasants (some crafts were seen as more a man’s domain or a woman’s but that’s about it, didn’t see many men embroidering and women doing blacksmithing) but very clear ones for nobles.

Noble women basically ran the estate, they had the keys for the coffers, the doors and handled the money. Their power and status was signified by a large ring of keys they would wear on their belt with the only other person having this being a steward. After all if you have lots of keys and those keys are made of say brass which is more expensive then cast iron you must have a pretty big estate and wealth.

Men in contrast showed this with a sword at their belt. Contrary to media swords were not something anyone had access to in the middle ages, they were expensive (think luxury sports car) and only really good for killing people. You can’t really use it to cut your bread or skin a rabbit, if you did have some extra money for wargear you would buy a helmet or some armour before you bought a sword. Even most mercenaries didn’t use swords, it was symbol of wealth.

Noble men were taught from an early age how to fight and were squired to knights to learn the ways of warfare (they didn’t just learn how to fight but it was a large part of their education).

Women didn’t fight on the battlefield at all, knight Ava would not have been a thing. Women did occassionally command armies such as if their castle was being besieged but they didn’t fight as knights. I know this was done so that there weren’t any differences between the characters of Adam or Ava but in reality it wouldn’t be a thing.

Some of the things both were taught though was horse riding and hunting, as well as poetry and music. There were pleanty of noble men who were troubadour and women who were trobairitz (travelling musicians/composers, not quite like how bards are portrayed as today).

3. Battlefield Etiquette and armour

Knights don’t kill other knights they took them hostage. This was because a dead knight was worth what he was wearing but an alive knight could be ransomed back to his family for much more. As such it was seen poorly if you did murder a knight when you could have taken them ransom (most knights would surrender if they felt they were in danger, people aren’t stupid).

Plate did not exist in the 12th century, what was worn was maille (or chain maille except maille means chain so it was just called maille). This is more so what Adam would be wearing;

What he’s wearing is a badded gambison under the armour to protect against blunt blows (like from a mace) while on top of that he has maille to protect against slashes (he’s also got his cloth undergarments underneath is all). The cloth on top is a surcoat and would be of your heraldry or your lords heraldry and basically signified to everyone else that you were a knight (so difficult to kill and very good at killing).

Underneath the helmet the maille overs his head and neck (called a coif) and then under that he has a padded arming cap. As such it’s a little difficult to wip your helmet off movie style and you’re face would be covered in oil and sweat, hair sticking to your head. Maille is really good at pulling hair out so you would always have something underneath it (ealier periods, like the vikings, who didn’t wear gambisons wore their tunic underneath).

4. Fashion

This is more just to give an idea of what fashion in the 12th century was like. Media tends to portray the medieval period incorrectly, as dirty and dull and with random bits of fur and leather strapped to people (really Vikings tv show? fur on the outside of your cloak to get wet?)

Much to the opposite, people in the medieval period were clean (they washed) they didn’t just leave dirt on themselves and given peasants didn’t have too much money they kept very good care of their clothing as they couldn’t just get another one everytime they ripped their dress or tunic (or buy the fabric to make another).

Bright coloured clothing was also very popular, it’s harder to dye clothing a bright or deep colour and some colours (purple and black) could only be achieved through using rare dyes. So if you had a bright dress it showed you had more money. Norman’s weren’t so big on jewellry so they showed wealth through their clothing; the colour, the embroidery, the quality of fabric and if it had excess fabric.

-----------

So lets start with Ava.

I’m going to assume that Adam/Ava’s family were upper nobility so had a fair bit of wealth behind them.

Firstly woman’s heads were covered, it was seen as immodist for a woman of age to show her ears (only harlots do that). Mostly what was worn was a wimple which is basically a linen head scalf like so;

But Ava is a noble so she has some other options open to her such as a veil (similar to wimple but flows down the back of the person) or the risque barbette which was very fashionable among the upper nobility.

(maniacal medievalist - wordpress)

Dresses covered the body and just barely touch the floor, low neck lines aren’t in yet so the only skin a woman would be showing is her hands and face (and neck if veil or barbette). You wouldn’t really be able to see her collar bones as that is about where the neckline of the shift and dress are.

Dresses were tight fitting and were worn with a shift underneath (made of linen and basically under garments), Normans (with more money) would dye the shift either white or a contrasting colour. The neck hem and wrists of the dress were often embroidered (if you were very rich you could embroider it with prescious stones and metal thread)

Noble women would often have long impractical sleeves that were embroidered and had a contrasting colour inside to show off their wealth (less wealth smaller bell sleeves). (If say hunting, tight fitted sleeves were recommended, bell sleeves are really impractical for doing anything)

Next we have Adam.

Men’s fashion in the 12th century was similar to women, they wore long tunics (longer the richer you were) with a linen shift underneath, they also wore linen braise (basically underwear) with tight fitting woolen hose (basically stocking). It was the fashion to show off your calves.

Men’s clothing was also embroidered and they wore hats or linen coifs on their heads (it’s only really recently in history where it has become the norm not to wear a hat). The neckline would also be about around the collar bones.

Also quick side notes; cloaks don’t have hoods, hoods are a separate piece of clothing that cover the shoulders

Rings aren’t popular yet, you’ll see much more metal studs on belts or precious stones on clock pins then you’ll see rings. Cross necklaces for men are common, rosaries on the belt for women (richer women would have precious stones on the rosary).

-------------

If you’ve gotten this far thank you for reading this, I do appriciate it. This post was made because while I love Adam/Ava and seeing fanart of Ava as a knight, but as a 12th century re-enactor the inaccuracies grated on me (something that plagues many re-enactors who care about authenticity in media, aka the Vikings and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are horrible representation of what the vikings looked like please stop media).

I hope this post has been informative of the 12th century, it’s one of the lesser known periods of the medieval age and there’s a lot of misinformation about it. As stated at the top this post is purely to help inform about the period and is in now way meant as an attack on the work, Sera or others.

I hope you have a good day.

[ursie]

Why do you keep calling Shatterstar gnc? He’s always been masculine? Just because he’s Bi doesn’t mean he has to be effeminate you know

Ok so I’ve gone back and fourth on how seriously I was gonna answer this so I’m sorry this took a bit to answer anyway here we go : I’m sorry if this makes no sense I’m tired

First off it’s important to remember in media what’s considered masculine and what’s not so while a lot of Star may be considered either or what’s important to remember is when him being a warrior, fighter/ect is being emphasized that’s them playing up traditional masculine characteristics and his presentation or softer moments is them playing up “feminine” characteristics (obv this is stupid but it’s also undeniably how people write characters 99% of the time)

Second off there is textual evidence he is at least viewed as gnc in universe in X Force-many comments were made about his makeup, hair (also I remember the pigtails) and general demeanor. Was it done in a ala homophobia way? Absolutely is it still canon? Yes (also so much worse now that it’s retroactively canonically homophobic as he’s literally Bi and definitely had a known thing w Julio at the time-so..way to teach him micro aggressions guys)

Now post x force in xfi he is drawn and written as far more traditionally masc, in appearance and presentation- even his body type seemed to change-as in x force he was described as acrobatic and fast, avoiding hits when he could in xfi he’s made into a brick house that just. Tanks hits-far more direct-even his fighting is made out to be more traditionally masculine

Now this could be broken down to character development (which we did not see and it’s important to note I can’t stress how ooc xfi Star is) but really it just reads as more homophobia as not only is Star aware enough of homophobia and gender roles to adapt to a more accepted persona (because the x force taught him homophobia) but also the writers at the time when he was canonically Bi went out of their way to adapt his character to both fit and avoid different stereotypes-he’s allowed to be a walking slutty Bi stereotype (which is literally so ooc) but can no longer be gnc-he’s allowed to be slutty and hit on women despite his relationship w Julio but he’s not allowed to present as anything less than “macho” in summary Star was just made palatable in all of the worst ways to straight audiences-they stereotypes they love were forced and the ones that make them uncomfortable were dropped

Later on we’re back to getting glimpses of less than traditionally “masc” only a warrior Star w him cooking for Julio and buying him a sweater in new mutants (which are not actually feminine traits but are presented as feminine/gay traits in media even lampshaded by what’s his name asking of his boyfriend bought his sweater to Julio (which he did-also another micro aggression marvel forces me to witness))

(There was that super racist x force run I didn’t read that came out around here-Star was back to being a super warrior macho macho man idk it was bad and the art was racist ignore it )

The slightly less masc Star is dropped in the Shatterstar solo where his character is p much completely retconned but also another more traditionally masc Star is pushed again w the crux of his problems w Julio being “they don’t fight enough”, the emphasizing of him still being a warrior despite how the crux of his character was trying to define himself out of that role assigned to him, there are definitely homophobic connotations to what’s her name (yes he’s Bi him having an ex who’s a girl isn’t the issue it’s the entire plot that is), and even weirder connotations with the use of his slave name/dead name as his go to name-he has only ever referred to himself as Shatterstar-that’s his name-other people either call him Shatterstar or Star-giving him a “traditionally masculine” name is certainly. A choice. There are a lot of problematic elements to the solo to unpack but the rest don’t really have to w the homophobia and forced gender roles Star seems to consistently face

Then in (new) xfi he’s gone something happened he’s on Mojoworld again he has long hair again (king) but his outfit is a wrestling one and his “masculinity” is once again emphasized with his being forced into being a warrior again just to like. Be on the island being tasked w immediately fighting Terry (I actually liked this scene but there were some choices about to consider especially about how the rest of the mutants still seem to view him)-and now we’re here where we’re right back to where we started w long hair, just left Mojoworld, definitely a warrior you can’t forget it Star. Only this time his identity isn’t up for interpretation or debate.

So long story short while Star may not be consistently gnc it was noticeable enough that once he was openly Bi they immediately started pushing for a more masculine Star and you can see the difference in characters as xforce Star and xfi Star might as well be different people. Stars ambiguous gender non conformity was enough that Marvel seems set on “fixing it” and writers are constantly walking a line in making sure he’s “not like those other gays” despite the fact that apparently he used to be. There is def canon evidence for a more gnc/less traditionally masc Star. No one is saying (but me) that he should be a Femme Bi dude they’re just saying they see him as gnc and like. Yeah he was🤷‍♀️

Also narratively him being Trans makes wayyy more sense also his people are machine made why do they even have different sexes or genders let alone follow the earths idea of it like he’s an alien., why would he care about the our perception of the sexes or gender- main point is he should be Nb and intersex but that’s another conversation

Anyway Star gnc king

Also yes just because he’s Bi doesn’t make him effeminate-he’s effeminate-not because of his sexuality - it is not his gender presentation despite how much it undoubtedly influenced it. People aren’t calling Star gnc because he’s Bi they’re calling him gnc because he used to look like this

[ajora]

When work is slow (usually when I’m waiting for someone to get back to me), I pull out my phone and see what’s on discord sometimes. Most times the connection is so bad that it’s 1x at 0 bars. Or a big X next to the absence-of-bars. Sometimes it connects but I can’t respond because I’m old and can’t thumbtype quickly, and then conversation moves on so quickly that I can’t follow up. It’s a pain and makes me want to ramble about FFV, but I’m kinda afraid to because I ship something a lot of people hate. Maybe I’ll take it all to Dreamwidth, where maybe 2 active people still follow me, but at least I won’t stumble into someone frothing at the mouth at how dare I ship fictional characters in a way they don’t like.

Anyway, it was an interesting discussion in that my experience with FFV was... I played the original game with fan translations. Then I used the game to brush up on my Japanese. When the PSX localization came out and people ragged on me for my IRC ident (I still have Faris there and am not letting it go ever), I kinda dropped things because the PSX localization was terrible. And yes the GBA localization is great, but it’s still a localization. Jokes got added where there were none. The localization was written to appeal to a Western culture and sentiments. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but...

Eh, I’m gonna put the rest behind a cut because I don’t want fights and arguments over opinions, especially because I am not going to share yours because my familiarity with the Japanese text is not going to gel well with English-only audiences. Also, being a lifelong anthropology nerd (and being part native Mexican), I’m a bit horrified by how Western (let’s be real, primarily US/UK) fandom insists they know better than non-Western fandoms. Your imperialism is showing, y’all.

Lenna’s often treated as boring and/or annoying by Western fandoms who aren’t aware of her background, how she shifts between formal and informal based on her temper, and focus on Faris because of course, Faris is cool and awesome and a lot of people have internalized misogyny and like to latch onto not-like-other-girls types. Someone on discord said Lenna was too passive, which I find bewildering because all the trouble she usually gets into is because she’s impulsive and barges forth and falls into it face-first. I love that about her.

Goddamn but I want to write up a defense for Lenna and how she drives much of the story, and why she too defies Japanese gender norms as a character who was originally designed as a tomboy.

I get why people latch onto Faris and project their own identities on her. Which... is half her problem, honestly. She never says she’s a man, she acts like one because 海ぞくで、女じゃあバカにされるからな (”because among pirates, women are [treated as] stupid/fools”). Her entire performance as a man hinges on social expectations of how men are supposed to act. She actually does say she’s a woman, in Japanese ( 女だからってバカにすんなよ! {”Don’t treat me like a fool because I’m a woman!”}), but it gets lost in translation for something flippant. Additionally, she comes from a long tradition of both East Asian women crossdressing as men to access male privilege, the Takarazuka Review, please compare Lady Oscar to Amano!Faris, and Mary Read and Anne Bonny, both of whom crossdressed. This is not to dump on anyone who wants to claim that Faris is ___, but... she’s a Japanese character, made for Japanese audiences as a commentary on Japanese gender roles (and this is a whole trope in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese fiction), and Western sensibilities don’t really apply.

Also, gender noncomforming women, nonbinary women, and butch women exist. I should know. I’m butch with a very, very tenuous grasp of gender identity in general*. Really wish people wouldn’t throw us under a bus for their trans-but-still-binary rep :/

Also, there was talk about Gilgamesh today in that discord chat and I really wished I could have popped up and said he’s a loving parody of samurai ideals--his bios in the Japanese texts point out that he seems to come from a land that prizes bushido, and that colors his interactions with the gang.

I really do want to talk more about FFV, but fandom is so much more vicious than it used to be and I keep expecting to be attacked every time.

Oh well.

* I had fits when I was younger over... maybe I was a trans man? but then I sat and had many, many long discussions with myself and how patriarchal society (rural Mexican Catholicism + 1980s Texas) made me think being a woman was so terrible and tried to shoehorn me into a role that didn’t fit. And then I discovered the internet and “butch lesbian” seemed to fit me perfectly.

[gayregis]

which characters are trans this is a scientific inquiry

all of them except vilgefortz and leo bonhart

ok ok jokes, ill go more in depth... some of this is taken from things ive written before but not posted. also for anyone reading this im non bee nary so know that im not trying to describe the experiences of different identities in first-person, i’m basing this off of both my own and my friends’ experiences... none of this is “OMG YES CHARACTER ANGST >:))” but rather depicting personal struggles in fictional characters, so just know that  the more difficult subjects that may be covered are not there just to see the character in pain, but rather to think about their eventual resilience against it and development afterwards

for geralt and yennefer i have more specific reasons why i think being transgender actually fits with their canonical characters & related story arcs, and then for the rest i have headcanons and maybe some reasoning but not a lot.

geralt: geralt already represents how a struggle with toxic masculinity and expectations of masculinity can influence one who wants to be seen as masculine to deny and bury their emotions. him being trans develops upon the aspect of his struggle with emotions, ive seen my friends who are transmasculine / myself when i used to ID as transmasculine struggle with showing emotions bc of feeling like you’re going to be misgendered if you shed a single tear. in canon, we already learn that kaer morhen has a bit of a macho culture (just fyi eskel and lambert and coen are trans too now, don’t go getting any idea that those guys are cis) and i believe that the “witchers have no emotions” thing is like 5% actual biology and 95% being raised to fight and not to feel. vesemir is a good father but he just wasn’t very emotionally nurturing, it’s the caste’s way of raising kids that geralt breaks out of.

i think geralt’s self-image also speaks a lot to the feelings of harsh internal transphobia. he constantly others himself from others and feels like people view him as different, which is metaphorical for any marginalized group under the sun, but also is very common for lgbt ppl. again this is smth ive really struggled with within the past few years so im just projecting/know what it feels like and feel that how geralt sees himself in canon is similar to a view suffering from internalized transphobia.

geralt's character already redefines manhood because he has to learn what it means to be a good father. and i think him being trans would be representative of his constant learning and growth as a person, yet also somewhat involved with his self loathing and feeling like just Him Existing is an affront ... but of course he unlearns this with time and love from others and all of his character development

yennefer: yennefer’s whole backstory revolves around defining who she is and defying the people who mistreated her and told her she was nothing. canonically yennefer of vengerberg is the story of the successful self-made woman... her life as janka she would rather forget, no one calls her by that name, and no one ever would because its not who she is nor who i think she ever was. 

shes incredibly strong-willed and knows what she wanted from life but some things are terrifying to reach out for, like love and acceptance. yennefer has a conflict with love and being loved because that was never a safe topic for her ... (also sapkowski handled this specifically poorly imo, but:) yennefer canonically struggles with being loved for who she is. i think she deals so much with her previous abuse and again, expectations from parents, and coming to terms with the fact that she survived it all. also this isnt even touching upon her arc regarding motherhood. wanting to give a child your everything and everything that you never had... the love and kindness that no one gave you...

ciri: ciri hesitated to ever identify with “girl” or “boy,” she’s also i think the representation of childhood in general, she’s naturally curious about gender presentation as she ages and just never really cares to commit to gender. i think she’d say she was a girl but only reluctantly bc she just doesn’t care much.

dandelion: [from his TV Tropes page:]

he’s an artist and a musician, he’s not gonna be cishet...

ok in a more serious context i think he’s a nonbinary guy, i think him being trans might explain why he has way more friendships than relationships with family members. dandelion, like yennefer, is also someone that had to define who he was for himself, i mean for one his stage persona of dandelion is entirely an artist’s creation/hyperbole of himself, i think he also had to think abt his inner identity too

his gender is also just “your friend that comes to your house and eats all ur chips and drinks all ur beer and passes out on top of you on the couch”

milva: ok unfortunately i currently think milva is the token non-trans friend (she’s nonbinary just doesnt think of herself as trans) but it’s only because her major arc in baptism of fire revolves around her pregnancy and miscarriage and just bc she is not trans doesn’t mean she doesn’t go through her own difficult struggling process surrounding her womanhood. she struggles enormously throughout the series and in her backstory with defining herself between two rigid identities: the feminine maria and the cutthroat milva. in her talk with geralt, she reveals how she feels trapped between these two identities and feels like they cannot coexist. i feel like she’s a nonbinary/gender non-conforming butch* lesbian whose struggles with sexuality intersect her struggles with gender and what it means to her to be a gnc woman. also you have to consider that milva was raised in a small village in lower sodden so she understood gender in the very strict roles ascribed to men and women, so she felt like she couldn’t be a woman unless she was this very traditional idea of what a woman is “supposed to be like,” which she’s both been trying to shape herself to be and also running away from simultaneously. she learns to accept herself within the hansa bc they love and support her for who she is, and she doesn’t need to be strictly feminine or masculine to be understood by them

* i know the terms nonbinary and gnc and butch didn’t exist in the 1260s tyvm, i’m just saying this as how i interpret her in a modern context

regis: gender is a human sociological construct so basically don’t ask him unless you’re prepared to listen for 20 minutes. vampires can exist noncorporeally so they can exist without gender, also i hc the telepathic vampiric language is nongendered as it’s a transmission of pure thought, will, and force, so it doesn’t even use any grammar. i also hc that vampires just appear the way they feel in terms of appearance and age (e.g., regis at around 300 when he died still looked 25 bc he was as stupid as a 25 year old, now he’s calmer and understands more, so he looks middle-aged). when chilling out with humans regis will be referred to as a man bc that’s just how he appears but it’s an identity he had to learn about and adopt, not something he was assigned. most vampires look androgynous anyways bc they just feel androgynous, how are you gonna feel a gender when you don’t know what a gender is... if you HAD to understand him with human labels / put it in a modern context (like if i was making an modern real life AU) i’d say he’s a nonbinary trans man. 

cahir: much like geralt i think cahir’s story is one of living up to expectations, but cahir’s actually takes it a step further because his major motivation in his backstory is trying to prove to his mother that he can be a good son that will make her proud and gain honor for the family... he seeks validation from external sources but faces ruin when he learns that war is not the way to prove one’s prowess and skill

angouleme: shes trans and i simply say so bc shes very cool and funny and i dont think a cis person could be this cool and funny. also i think the story of a runaway teen who was abandoned by her biological family and found solace in a new family is both very good and featured in a lot of trans ppl’s narratives. she kind of exudes this “im finally at a point in my life where i’m safe and cared for, i can start HRT now, let’s gooOOoooOOooo” energy. 

[persephonewing]

Choosing a New Name for a Truer Body: Introducing Persephone

After coming out as a Transgender Woman a few days ago, nothing has really felt the same. Or, in more positive terms, everything is feeling more real. I’m openly talking about being and feeling like a woman. How my gender dysphoria has confused and harmed me for the past twenty one years and all the many transitions (Socially, culturally, physically) that will and are currently happening to me. 

Upon this, just yesterday, me and one my best friends, Emma, were swimming at a nearby lake here at Eastern Washington University. We had been playing around with names. For a moment I was dead set on the name Camilla. It had a C in it, like my boy name so it felt familiar. It allowed me to feel comfortable, passable, and like a cis-woman. A simple name that no one would question, look at, or invalidate. In a way, the name Camilla itself made me feel like it would protect me from the cis, straight world but as all trans women come to know, I would never be accepted there. A fate Persephone came to understand too.

I expressed this to Emma on the trip. How I wanted to find a name. A name that really encompassed my story, my truth, and my unwavering love and comfortability in womanhood.

 Emma is an art history major and is just an overall intelligent girl. I asked her about names that would fit me in her realm of knowledge. Maybe some from the greek classics and/or greek myths. 

This is when she told me the story of Persephone, the greek goddess of spring and the underworld. I was in complete euphoria hearing the story and swaying on the surface of the buoyant, dirty water. I felt like a true women just then as Jalaja Bonheim’s writes on her website, 

“When women get together, they tell stories. This is how it has always been. Telling stories is our way of saying who we are, where we have come from and what we know. Women have always found sacredness in the midst of the ordinary, harvesting spiritual wisdom from the fields and forests of their everyday embodied experience.”

Emma went on to tell me the story and the raping of beautiful Persephone. I felt myself slowly being connected to this woman. To her entire experience. I felt myself slowly unpacking, relating, and bonding to this mythical figure.

Persephone is seen as a more vulnerable goddess. Where relationships are essential to her life, as they are to my own. Her whole life, a relationship has taken the lead. Most times over what she really wants and desires. She is known for putting the needs of others over her own, something I have struggled with my whole life. 

Her mother, the powerful goddess Demeter, is controlling and desperately wishes to be with her daughter at all times. Her rapist and husband Hades forces her for a third of the year to be imprisoned with him. She is even the goddess that welcomes the living and shows them the underworld and teaches them about life and death. Plus her constant affairs and dramas with the other gods all goes to prove that this woman takes the people and relationships in her life very seriously. 

This isn't to be confused with weakness, confusion, or stupidity as so many people try to say she is. She loves and she loves hard. She knows both love and loss profoundly. She knows the horror of powerful men deciding and controlling her every move. She knows what it means to transcend through death (her being brought to the underworld with hades) and to be born again as a more powerful, authentic, and understanding woman (when she becomes free again with her mother, picking flowers). She knows sisterhood, struggle, and lust. To me, Persephone is the definition of my womanhood. She embodies a lot of what womanhood looks like for myself and my life. 

The article “Greek Goddesses and the Wisdom of 7 Feminine Archetypes” by Ibtisaam writes about this group of vulnerable goddesses, saying 

“Vulnerable Goddesses (Hera, Demeter and Persephone)... Correspond to traditional roles of wife, mother, and daughter. They are the relationship-oriented goddess archetypes, whose identities and well-being depend on having a significant relationship. They express women’s needs for affiliation and bonding… each of them also evolved, and can provide women with an insight into the nature and pattern of their own reactions to loss, and the potential for growth through suffering.”

Focusing more about Peresphone the author writes 

“Persephone contains within her the dual archetype of the maiden (a young goddess, innocent and associated with fertility) and the Queen of the Underworld (“who reigns over the dead souls, guides the living who visit the underworld, and claims for herself what she wants”). To be the maiden has less to do with age than it does to do with “being the eternal girl who doesn’t commit herself to anything or anyone, because making a definite choice eliminates other possibilities”. While this allows for great adaptability, in order to truly grow, the Persephone woman must learn to make commitments and to live up to them. Failing this, she will forever be a victim of the will and power of others, becoming a long-sufferer or martyr. However, her descent into the underworld shows the possibility of pain forcing growth. As the Queen, Persephone symbolizes receptivity, intuition and empathy to the suffering of others. Thus, Persephone’s gifts include the cultivation of imagination and inspiration.”

As Emma contuined on with the stories I noticed many men started to take the form of Hades in my vision. My dad, my step-dad, my first love, my brother, and the male world at large. Hades had come to symbolize body dysmorphia and the privileged male world. 

Here is Persephone, me. A girl picking flowers, enjoying and comforted by her mother, resting in her beauty and strength. Thinking of nights with her sisters, of lust and love. A girl that wanted to see things, know things, teach things. A girl that wanted the comfortable, dramatic, and loving life as a wife and sister. Just a woman, end of sentence. 

Then a man comes. He corrupts, harms, and oppresses her. Steals her away from her mother and her sisters (stealing her away from her womanhood) and into a world of oppression, abuse, neglect, and pain. A world that some could see, as I do, as a males world. A world that I nor Persephone have been allowed to survive in. Hades kid-napes her, rapes her, holds her prisoner, and slowly tries to make her become what so many women fear to become: a shell of her former, womanly self. 

I felt a massive connection here, I knew what it was like to be taken from the world of women (as I was younger) and into the world of men (when I was older) and feeling completely  disgusted, unnerved, and wrong about it. 

But, Persephone is not weak. She’s smart. She was able to become free. Hades had fallen in love with her womanhood the moment he saw it and she knew that this was his biggest flaw. She had something that she could use. She decided to be his wife because even though he symbolized and represented the worst of manhood, she knew there would be freedom in having access to both worlds. In having relationships in both worlds. She does this even when others don't understand it. Even when people try to rob her of her femininity, she powers on as the undercover ruler of both worlds. 

I relate to this as a woman who consistently feels divided between these two spheres. 

My world of womanhood where I am truly myself, beautiful, and authentic. With other women who protect and respect and care for me. Who love me. Where I can flip my hair, cry, drink wine, and talk about struggle. And the other world, the underworld, where I am surviving, working, and grinding to change and mold into a body and life that is not mine. 

Persephone knows pain, hurt, loss, and grief. Her mission is to help every passenger, in both worlds, better understand themselves and the complexities of living life. This has always been my mission as well and hurt as been the greatest teacher to both of us.

Persephone symbolizes everything I have felt myself to be as a woman. Loving, forgiving, powerful. A woman who gets what she wants even when everyone thinks they have her in the bag. She knows growth and transformation. She is a woman that I have always felt myself to be. 

So now, with the thanks of Emma and research, I am changing my first name to be Persephone. A name that my younger self would've cherished. A deserving name for a deserving woman.

[nellie-elizabeth]

The Handmaid's Tale: Unfit (3x08)

Um. Well, that happened. That certainly was... something.

Cons:

Can we talk for a second about the utterly clumsy way this show deals with race? It makes me cringe every time. For the most part, they try to pretend this is a totally post-racial society, but obviously they can't pull that off. And then they have some casual moment where Aunt Lydia tells some other aunts that a certain couple doesn't want a "handmaid of color," so clearly casual racism is not only present here, but also condoned by the elite. Because, duh. Gender politics cannot exist separate from racial politics. And yet this show is not willing to grapple with what that means.

Especially considering June, who is the Whitest of White Feminists in this episode, and honestly, throughout the whole show. Her plot armor is seriously becoming a problem for me. June and the other Handmaids are open and unsubtle in their shunning of Ofmatthew, because they are all furious with her for turning in the Martha who was helping June. What happened to the first season, when the rebellion was deep, deep in the shadows? Now the majority of the Handmaids are allowed to be insolent. And then June is even more insolent, right to Aunt Lydia's face. She seems to think that her usefulness as publicity in the hunt for Nichole will protect her, and... that seems to be true, for some reason. But why? June could be flogged, or she could be castrated, or any other number of horrible things that would be invisible to a camera. June's cocky self-assured attitude is only made more frustrating by the fact that she seems to be right about being weirdly untouchable.

There were some things in this episode that I liked as individual pieces, but I'm still frustrated with these aspects as I look at the episode as a whole. For example, the idea of Ofmatthew cracking under the strain of her public shaming, in conjunction with her fear for her pregnancy, is a totally reasonable avenue to explore. But since we haven't spent any real time getting to know Ofmatthew, it feels instead like this big blow-out at the end of the episode is all just a part of June's story, instead of the story of a woman with her own story to tell. There was potential here, and there were moments that came close to tapping in to that potential, but the reality fell short. There are also two other reasons that the ending of this episode, particularly Ofmatthew's death, annoys me, and they are the two reasons discussed in earlier paragraphs.

1) We're seriously going to end two episodes in a row with the death of a black woman while June looks on, untouched by the physical consequences of her own actions? Yeesh. 2) She's pregnant. I give the show props for making me gasp when Ofmatthew got shot, because even as I critique this episode, I will acknowledge that I have very much bought in to the universe they've created. I was shocked that a pregnant Handmaid would be shot, because... it's shocking, and despite that moment of adrenaline, it's ultimately a stupid call for the writers to have made. Aunt Lydia is not as valuable as a pregnant Handmaid. Part of the visceral horror of Season One was the idea that the Handmaids would be punished physically and psychologically, but they never had to fear for their lives, because their bodies were far too valuable. There was something twisted and creative in how the system worked to break these women without ever being able to directly threaten them with death. And now, apparently we're just shooting pregnant Handmaids in the grocery store? That actually really broke me out of the moment.

Let's turn to the flashbacks for a moment. This is another instance where as a stand-alone thing, I quite liked learning about Aunt Lydia's past. I get the sense from other reviews that I'm in the minority on this, but I think Ann Dowd is so talented, and the story worked for me on the level of examining the early symptoms of Gilead, even before things had started in earnest. But on a macro level, these flashbacks still bothered me for a couple of reasons. For one, the themes explored in the flashbacks did not connect with the story in the present-day, other than that both were centered around Lydia. The flash-backs are about a woman who genuinely wanted to help people, turned bitter in part by her evangelical beliefs and in part by her loneliness. The present-day story is about June turning more and more ruthless, and Ofmatthew losing her grip on her sanity. What am I meant to understand by learning a bit more about Lydia's former life? And that's the second problem, honestly - from just this episode, I might get a good-ish understanding of who Aunt Lydia is meant to be as a character, but if you combine these flashbacks with what we've seen of her character so far, it doesn't really track. Aunt Lydia's characterization is all over the place. She seems to slide on the scale of devotion to Gilead depending on what the plot needs from her at any given moment. For a long time, I've held out hope that we would come to some sort of emotional core for this character and finally understand what makes her tick. But if these flashbacks were meant to provide that clarity, in my opinion they failed.

Pros:

Let's talk about June. Because on the one hand, I'm annoyed about the plot armor, as discussed above. And it's tempting to be upset and frustrated by how unlikable June is becoming. Last week, I certainly felt that way. But I'm trying to take the long view. Turning June into something of a villain is... well, it's not a totally crap idea. Maybe the final consequence of the torture she's been through is that there is no coming back for her. Maybe she'll keep being cruel and single-handed, focused on saving Hannah and nothing else. Maybe she'll nod sagely as Handmaids hold guns on her, and maybe we'll be hearing more voice-overs indicating that June is not only willing to inflict suffering on others... she's starting to enjoy it. I can't really sense what the endgame would be here, short of killing June off and letting the story continue without her. But that might not be as crazy an idea as it first sounds. This universe that they've created has legs. There are so many stories to tell. I'd be okay with telling those stories in a world where June is no longer at the center of them. Maybe that's not where this is going. Maybe I'll have to eat my words and be frustrated in the next couple of episodes at the direction the show turns. But for now, the idea of villainous June is kind of interesting!

One thing this show always does well is showing the creepiness of Gilead through the ceremonies. We have the birthing ceremony that ends in tragedy, as another Handmaid's child is stillborn. And then we have the shaming ceremony. It might be ridiculous to me that June doesn't suffer harsher consequences, but I do like the way Aunt Lydia's role in this shaming ceremony echoes her past as a teacher. The Handmaids are her students, parroting her words and internalizing the harsh messages they are forced to repeat, again and again. It's chilling, and it's meant to be, and it's a good scene, even with the flaws in the larger setup.

As I said, Ofmatthew unraveling and breaking down was actually an interesting idea, in and of itself. The acting and the pacing in that final scene was truly superb. At least in the moment, when I wasn't questioning the larger writing decisions going on, I was totally gripped. I thought Aunt Lydia might be about to die. I even thought Ofmatthew might actually shoot June, although I wasn't thinking June would actually die from it. And then when the shots rang out and Ofmatthew dropped, I literally flinched. I wish this story-line had explored more of its potential, but I did think this high-intensity scene worked really well on its own.

And again, I did enjoy the flashbacks for their own sake. I think it's interesting that Lydia was turned towards a darker, more cynical path because of her attempts to find love again. I read in another review that it seemed stupid to make Lydia evil because she was rejected by a man, but that's not the way I read the moment at all. She breaks so many of the rules she had set for herself on that New Year's Eve. She drinks, and she lets herself be comfortable, and she indulges her desires. Suddenly, she realizes that she's slipped away from the righteous path, and she over-corrects in a big way. That's interesting to me, and I hope that we can get some more clarity on Aunt Lydia's characterization moving forward.

I also like all the hints of the changing world. It reminds me of some of the Season One flashbacks. We learn that Child Protective Services has been replaced with privatized organizations, ones that ask questions like "do they go to Church?" in order to determine if a home is fit for a child. We see how Lydia is uncomfortable and judgmental of Noelle's behavior, and at first it seems perfectly reasonable, because she is neglecting her child. But there's something more dangerous underneath that, as Lydia is judging not only Noelle's parenting style, but her wearing of makeup, and use of profanity, and relationships with men. It all bleeds together, so you can see the sinister creep of Gilead's power beginning in these moments.

So... yeah. This is a very long review, and unfortunately a lot of it is less than positive. There are elements that have promise, and I'm giving this show the benefit of the doubt, because I believe it deserves that. But I'm also starting to feel like the writers need to re-evaluate some aspects of the story, and figure out how they're going to keep moving forward with June as a protagonist.

6/10

[tessatechaitea]

Review of The Twilight Zone, Season 1, Episode 19: "War Sucks"

When I write a review of a The Twilight Zone episode, I always change the title. Some of you may have noticed that because you're perceptive lads and laddies (are "laddies" women or just small lads? I guess I should have said "lads and ladies" but then I couldn't have made a parenthetical reference (which are my favorite kinds of references)). My title might be a little bit on the nose although I could have made it more on the noserer by calling it "Death Sucks." But the original title was "The Purple Testament" and if you're wondering what the fuck that has to do with anything, keep fucking wondering because I'm not going to be able to explain it. I mean, sure, Rod Serling explains it in his narration although that dumb ass says it's a quote from William Shakespeare's Richard III when it's actually from Richard II. The quote is "He is come to open the purple testament of bleeding war." So you can see why Rod Serling uses the phrase "The Purple Testament" as his title. Because the story is about war. But why the fuck did William Shakespeare use it?! How should I know? Do I look like a Shakespeare scholar? The one thing anybody would rationally think after reading just a few of my comic book or The Twilight Zone reviews is, "This idiot definitely isn't a Shakespeare scholar." What I know about Shakespeare could fit in a small book of dick jokes. Because that's what he was famous for, right? Dick jokes? I used to be able to quote the entire end speech by Othello where he's talking about not loving not enough but too much but I've gotten old enough to realize some things aren't important enough to keep taking up brain space. Now the only quote I remember from Shakespeare is "Out vile jelly!" from King Lear. It's my favorite quote to use when some other smart ass person at the party starts going on and on with things like "Life is like a box of chocolates, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" or "What is this dagger I see perchance sleeping before me" or "Alas, Poor Yorick! I knew him. Notice how I didn't say 'well' at the end of the quote because that's not actually part of the quote and also did you know the next part of this quote is where David Foster Wallace got his title for the book Infinite Jest?" So after they're looking smug and smart showing off their Shakespeare knowledge, I'll say, "Out vile jelly!" Then I make a grinding motion with my foot like I'm putting out Gloucester's eyes! Then I like to follow it up with "Did you know King Lear's daughters were all named after sexually transmitted diseases?" They weren't but a good percentage of the time, I can convince some of the people I'm talking to that Cordelia was actually named Chlamydia. So the story is a war story and Serling calls it "The Purple Testament" because that's a phrase that's used in a Shakespeare quote that mentions "bleeding war." That's as good as an explanation as you're going to get because I doubt there's anybody in the entire academic world that can tell me what the fuck opening a purple testament has to do with war. The best I can come up with (as an amateur Shakespeare scholar which I suppose I can call myself. You can call yourself anything you want if you just stick "amateur" in front of it!) is that it's either a meta-purple prose comment about Bolingbroke declaring war or it's a dick joke. Either way, it's King Richard saying Bolingbroke has a huge erection for bloody war. The good thing is that you don't need to know anything about Shakespeare to understand this The Twilight Zone episode. Serling only mentions it because he knows everybody is going to be thinking, "What the fuck does a purple testament have to do with this fucking story?!" The premise of the episode is that a soldier suddenly develops the power to predict which soldiers are about to die. It doesn't help to save them so it's not a power that really matters. At all. Which is kind of both the point and besides the point. See, this guy is fighting a war. Everybody around him could die at any moment. So seeing death in the faces of your fellow soldiers is just a thing you begin to live with. Actually having the power to see the light of death in their faces is just a metaphor for how much war sucks and a bunch of y'all are going to die. At one point, one of the characters actually says, "War sucks." And that's pretty much the only part of the script that matters. War fucking sucks, dude. Which one of these guys is going to die today? It's a mystery but you know it's going to be some of them! Does knowing which ones help? Nope! They're still going to die! So just suck it up and cross your fingers it's not you, even though it probably will be! War sucks! From the moment the soldier reveals his power to Darrin Stephens, the astute The Twilight Zone viewer knows that he's eventually going to look in a mirror and see his own death. It's the only twist available to the story at that point. The question becomes, "How will the soldier react?" Will he rage against the dying of the light which isn't Shakespeare at all? Unless that Dylan guy stole it from a Shakespeare play (which Shakespeare would have stolen from some other now unknown play anyway!). Or will he just take it in stride and go to his death like a man was supposed to in 1959. Quietly, staunchly, and without tears or complaints. Well, this guy just takes it. Just sucks it up like never you mind. He sees the light in his face. He sees the light in the face of the man driving the Jeep taking him away from battle. And he hears about how there are loads and loads of landmines on the road ahead. And he just sits down, shuts the fuck up, and acts like a 1959 man. What a fucking fool. It might not be dignified but I would have raised a bit of a fuss. I would have screamed, "I'm not going down that road! We're going to blow up! This guy driving is going to die! I'm going to die! I don't want to die!" But then I'd think, "What if not getting away from the front lines is why I die? Maybe forcing this guy to stay in camp with me is how we both die!? How can I be sure?!" Which is probably what the soldier in the episode already thought in his head. That whole mental struggle about how he's probably powerless to stop his own death symbolically took place when he smashed the mirror after seeing the death light on his face. That was the only time he allowed himself to not act like a 1959 man. Smashing the mirror was a bit hysterical and womanly of him and he quickly composes himself and goes off to die like a fucking idiot. I mean a fucking man. That bit where I called him "hysterical and womanly" wasn't me believing that, you stupid fucking people who can't comprehend anything you read because you just want to be angry at other people. It was satire about the way people thought in the mid-20th century about gender roles. Try to keep up, asshole. The most poignant part of the episode is when we learn Darrin Stephens believes the soldier when he leaves behind his family pictures and wedding ring as he goes off to die. He, too, takes all this shit in manly stride. I'm so glad I was raised in the 70s, the only decade when we all believed a human was a human was a human, no matter their gender, race, sexual identity, or ethnicity. Some younger generations today might not believe me when I say that decade existed but that's because they live in a world post-Reagan. He and his conservative asshat brigade were the huge pendulum shift away from a path where we were all beginning to get along with each other and into a world where we were all told to hate each other because everybody else was taking our jobs or giving us AIDS or stealing our VCRs or complaining to HR about how often we touch their bottoms in the workplace. Did I say a more on the noserer title than "War Sucks" would have been "Death Sucks"? Because I just came up with the on the nosiest title of all: "Life Sucks."