#and the worst thing is: this kind of thinking is so internalised in my brain that I *still* sometimes think like this too.

[running-in-the-dark]

a couple days ago I was talking to someone and mentioned that I had to go to the ER recently, and why (pain because of my gallbladder). and literally the only thing this person said in response was 'and you've lost weight too, haven't you?' (their tone made it very clear that they thought this was great)

yeah I mean, barely being able to eat for like a week because you're in too much pain kinda does that. but why is that the relevant thing here? why do people think that is an acceptable response?!

[shizunitis]

Whats the worst SV take youve seen?

this has turned into something entirely too long, and the subject kind of got away from me, so i’m adding a cut. yapping king of shizun city, you understand. anyway:

a rather demoralising and shocking opinion i saw, when i first got into the fandom (having just finished reading and letting the story stew in my brain for a while) was the “luo binghe is selfish and hysterical”. two other ones which kind of baffled me were, “shen qingqiu is clearly stupid and short-sighted” and “shen qingqiu isn’t attrated to binghe.” and there were some rather callous comments about shen yuan’s internalised homophobia that i like to think were just worded poorly and i was being overly-sensitive at the time.

i never got into discussions over fandom wank, cause it’s a waste of time and energy and a brand of silly i don’t enjoy, but it was kind of like getting cold ice thrown over my head for no reason.

why couldn’t they understand who these characters fundamentally are? why was it so hard to empathise with the choices these characters made?

i suppose the main things is, i don’t really understand why one wouldn’t even attempt to see things from the characters’ perspectives, mostly. that’s what i usually try to do, and it was a bit of a culture shock to see how some people online engage with media.

like, isn’t that the point? to see characters different from us try to navigate their version of the world? to empathise? why do we have to be so cruel even when engaging with fantasy? why fight tooth and nail to bend the characters this way and that, just so it’s more palatable, so it fits certain tropes, so it’s more relatable? do you have to see yourself in something to appreciate it? i mean, yeah, kind of, i guess. but. at times, it feels like people are trying to distance themselves from the art they’re enjoying because one thing didn’t cater to them. if that makes sense. i hope it does.

just. why comment, with your real fingers, and project onto my real screen, vitriol for a character who 1) is not real, 2) cannot hurt you and 3) you clearly don’t care to explore and understand in good faith? why are you here if it doesn’t serve you? isn’t that just sucking the joy out of everything? you can always let it go?

“internet etiquette” is a weird term to me because i’m weird, but it does make things easier when you’re polite and curious rather than. whatever some people are doing. et cetera.

admittedly, that’s more of a me probably not understanding something. that’s always a very real possibility, and i can be uncharitable at times, especially when i’m tired. alas, it’s my blog, i very rarely am not tired, and i’m too many words deep to stop at this point. i get to complain how i want.

back to the main point: both luo binghe and shen qingqiu are characters that were written very well, and clearly have a lot of soul and thought put into them. their motivations are not hard to figure out. (especially in binghe’s case, but shizun’s aren’t that difficult to parse if you think for a bit.)

the comments weren’t especially vicious, save for some outliers which i suspect had more of a personal bias, and i did manage to eventually find my way to a corner of fandom that can, in fact, read. but i do wonder, sometimes, how some of these people would react to the actually toxic, one-dimensional yaoi filth i read.

just. you are reading a master-disciple fantasy romance, in the end. being shocked and horrified when the master-disciple fantasy romance has master-disciple fantasy romance tropes in it is a bit silly.

anyway. i hope the first people i encountered in the svsss/danmei fandom are well, and that they’ve since started reading/watching works with characters they enjoy seeing, rather than powering through something they clearly don’t resonate with.

also, that they’ve learned to be nicer, maybe. that would be good. would help them, i’d like to think.

i’m sorry if this was not a good answer anon, but you understand, surely. i’m very small and very new to things. trying to figure them out. thank you for the vent material

[nashiriel]

Not the original asker, but I would love more adventures with bb!luke and his dragon! I love luke being able to claim the cannibal because he tried to take his eye out, because the cannibal clearly took it a lot better than aemond. I was a bit confused tho by what rhaenys meant about being cruel or kind in not saying laenor would have given luke seasmoke? And why she knew daemon wasn’t enough? sorry if that’s a stupid question because I really liked the chapter!

Thanks so much, anon! I’m really touched that you liked the fic enough to leave this ask and that you’d like more of that verse!

Obviously the premise is inherently a bit cracky, but yes, the Cannibal definitely had a more 😍 reaction to Luke’s willingness to resort to knife crimes at the first opportunity than Aemond! Grey Ghost owes his life to the Cannibal’s utter WTF reaction when he looked down and realised that he did indeed nearly suffer GBH at the hands of a chubby-faced little moppet. But I don’t imagine Aemond will be amused when he hears Rhaenyra waxing lyrical to a raging Alicent about just how her little darling won his own massive weapon of mass destruction.

In terms of Rhaenys:

Whilst Rhaenys’ suspicions about their parentage means she has some bitterness regarding Rhaenyra’s sons, she is well aware that Laenor loved them dearly.

So her not voicing that Laenor would have obviously sent Seasmoke rather than the dangerous Cannibal could be due to kindness (“I won’t puncture the wishful thinking of a grieving child that his dead father is still watching over him and loved him enough to send him the dragon he’d wanted his whole life”) or cruelty (“I won’t acknowledge to this grieving child that my son loved him so much that he would readily have given him his own dragon if he could”).

As for Daemon, a large part of Luke’s anger in that snippet is the dual trauma of unexpectedly losing his father whilst also being expected to accept Daemon as Laenor’s replacement with absolutely zero time to properly process the loss. Whilst he might otherwise have internalised his turmoil a bit more and settled down given time, the sudden connection to the Cannibal means that his emotions have a sudden outlet in a murderous dragon who is capable of squaring up to Caraxes.

So the normally insecure and meeker six-year-old Luke is suddenly not responding well when a man he barely knew before he unexpectedly married Luke’s mother and took his father’s place is telling him to calm down and control himself, forming a very dangerous feedback loop with the Cannibal. Hence Rhaenys recognising that someone else - like an authority figure Luke already knows - very much needs to step in.

He also mentally ties Laenor’s death to the other traumatic events of that night - getting it thrown in his face that Laenor might not actually be his father by someone Luke thought a friend, having that friend nearly brain Jace with a rock and losing the friendship through knifing his eye, having Aegon who Luke might previously have looked up to calling him a bastard in a hall full of people…

To Luke’s childish, grieving mind therefore, he lost Laenor partially because he might be a bastard, and he’s already aware that people questioned his status as a Targaryen because he didn’t have a dragon. Thus there’s the subconscious, irrational, guilt that if Luke had only been able to claim the Cannibal beforehand, things would never have gone so badly wrong and Laenor would still be with them.

Which is then also feeding into the Cannibal’s behaviour. He’s already the absolute worst dragon Luke could possibly have; it is very much the potentially centuries-old massive dragon currently calling the shots in that relationship, and because he has absolutely zero experience in having a rider or being around humans in general, he essentially regards Luke as an extension of himself and reacts to any attempt to take him away or even to merely get close to Luke as he would another dragon trying to steal his kill.

And while Luke may be a little frightened and frustrated by this…not only does he finally have an unquestioned symbol of Targaryen heritage in the dragon he longed for, but it’s a dragon so big and powerful that he won’t ever have to fear him dying like Laenor. He knows in his very bones that the Cannibal would rather burn the whole island to the ground than leave him, and for an unsettled, grieving child, that’s actually a very compelling notion. So that too is influencing the Cannibal’s apparent disregard of Luke’s commands, and one can really pity poor Rhaenys for the absolute mess she’s now taking on.

[funnywormz]

Did we ever get that rimmer gender analysis you promised us 🥺🥺🥺 if we did I missed it and I'm so sad and crying

I'M SO SORRY IT TOOK ME LIKE A WEEK TO ANSWER THIS ANON.......i can't quite remember, i think i may have done a small post abt it but it wasn't as detailed as i wanted??? sorry my memory for most stuff is pretty awful rip........

since i'm thinking abt it again now i will put a little rimmer gender ramble under the cut!! it's kinda repeating stuff that i've said in other posts but it's how i feel abt him and his identity, i hope you like it!!!! apologies if it doesn't make sense my brain has been full of sludge lately

OK SO. i think that masculinity has always been a very important part of rimmer's life, but a very toxic form of it. it's clear that his parents prioritised his brothers over him partly because they embodied more traditionally masculine traits, like confidence and physical strength. growing up, rimmer got the message from his parents that to be masculine was to be admired and loved. his parents abused him, and his brothers bullied him, and i think that although rimmer resents them for it he also sees it as being his fault?

i think it's because of this pressure he felt to be gender conforming growing up, that he feels he needs to force himself into some kind of macho man role. he fails at it miserably, and it's obviously not his true self, but he tries to keep it up because at his root, rimmer really does just want to be loved. growing up his parents showed him that their love was conditional, and he assumes everyone else is that way too, so he tries to shape himself into someone he thinks is lovable. unfortunately it only leads to unhappiness for everyone involved bc he's obviously putting up a front but he resents anyone who tries to pry it away.

rimmer's attempts at masculinity are clearly ridiculous, to the point where the show makes fun of him for it too. he's a coward, he's very petty and picky, the show takes every opportunity it can to have him crossdress, and it's sort of a running joke that lister's dick is bigger than his. to anyone around him, it's pretty clear that rimmer is often trying to pretend that he's someone he's not, and the show makes it a comedic thing a lot of the time.

rimmer doesn't know it's obvious, though. he's certainly not good at reading or understanding other people (i also heavily hc him as autistic but that's a post for another day), and i think a lot of the time he assumes he's successfully fooling everyone when he isn't. rimmer also has a longstanding habit of lying and then doubling down when he gets caught in the lie, even if it involves him doing something he finds unpleasant. i think his gender is one of those cases. his attempts at masculinity are "lies", but when that's pointed out to him he refuses to admit it even when it's clear he's putting up a front. admitting that he's not masculine would be, in his mind, admitting that he isn't worth his parents' (or anyone else's) love, and he can't stand that thought.

it's pretty telling, though, that whenever rimmer's inhibitions are removed or part of his hidden inner self is revealed, it's often feminine. when rimmer was infected with the holovirus, it seems like practically the first thing he did was put a dress on. wearing gingham dresses is NOT a universal holovirus thing. dr langstrom definitely wasn't wearing one. that's a RIMMER thing.

when the crew meet the "low" versions of themselves in demons and angels, while all of the other characters get relatively generic "evil" versions of themselves, low rimmer is basically wearing sexy lingerie with a dominatrix look and openly flirts with lister. considering that the lows are all meant to express the parts of the characters that they hate or view as the worst parts of themselves, i think it's a very direct (albeit unintentional?) way of showing rimmer's internalised homophobia and transphobia towards himself.

it's ALSO telling that rimmer specifically accuses ace of doing both gay and feminine things, like "wearing women's underwear" and "whipping the house boy". after all, ace IS rimmer. rimmer resents ace for being a better version of himself, and the most cutting insults he can think of for HIMSELF are insinuating that ace is gnc. stinks of projection to me. i think kryten agreed too, in dimension jump he almost seems to point out that rimmer is projecting before he's interrupted.

for most of the series, rimmer is, to me, someone who is miserable abt being potentially queer and is attempting to suppress it. however, the promised land changes this.

in the promised land, rimmer initially resents his status as a hologram, but by the end of the movie he wears it as a badge of pride. likewise, his hero-sona the "mighty light" is kinda campy, he's wearing sparkly tight fitting clothes with expertly styled hair and all. you could definitely read the promised land's rimmer arc as a metaphor for him accepting himself for being queer, but i would argue there's a self acceptance there that goes deeper. perhaps he's finally accepted that he can be admired AND be more feminine. it's not a big step forward but it's SOMETHING.

rimmer's identity as a hologram is also something tpl reckons with. rimmer fully grapples with realising that his "true" self is dead, that he isn't "real". i think that gender could be a part of it. the movie doesn't touch on it at ALL, to be clear, but as rimmer learns to be confident in who he is now and embrace his status as a hologram, i can't help but feel that his connection to strict gender roles must have also lessened. after all, gender and sex are very human concepts, and he isn't human anymore. being a hologram, he could change his body and voice any time he wanted (or at least any time holly felt like being nice lol). him being a man seems sorta irrelevant in that context. he's out in the middle of space with the last human being left alive. i don't think that a strong sense of gender identity could even really be possible for him when he's so isolated from the world that invented those things, and when he has the ability to play around with it so easily.

this last part is definitely projection, but i just feel like being a hologram has gotta eventually lead to a more nonbinary identity. so much of what we consider sex and gender to be is tied up in our perceptions and interactions and what we feel is expected of us. rimmer doesn't have that anymore. human society is gone, he isn't even human himself........ his parents are dead, too. why should he keep on playing this charade with himself that he doesn't even believe in?

i'm not necessarily sure that canon rimmer would have the self reflection abilities to realise any of this stuff, but in my mind he becomes more comfortable with being nonbinary and queer after tpl. it feels like a natural progression from accepting his status as a hologram to accepting the other parts of himself he used to hate, y’know?

ANYWAYS, i think that's all i can really say on the topic at the moment. this post isn't really an analysis, more of a word vomit about my personal headcanons and things i've noticed. still, i hope you enjoyed reading it and knowing my thoughts about the Rimmer Gender Situation lol. if anyone wants to add anything feel free, but please be nice

[tinzealography]

15.05.24

I've been on annual leave from work since it's my birthday this week. In about half an hour in fact, lmao

Anyway despite that it's been quite the bummer week. I caught a cold right at the beginning of my leave which my partner now has too, so we've been mostly spending the week so far exhausted and unable to go anywhere or see any friends because I don't want to pass the cold on. We were due to have the usual birthday meal with my family this evening but that got cancelled for the same reason and moved to next week.

Normally I'd be sort of glad to not have to see family but it's a bummer regardless, I guess in part because this just defers the amount of stress to be dealt with to a later date, and also despite that it would have actually been nice to do some socialising and be celebrated a bit I guess lol

Anyway all the time laying about doing precious little has given me far too much time to think, which I'm learning is the worst thing for me as I ruminate myself to death, get stressed, and then it becomes a vicious cycle. This is exacerbated by the fact I've opted into counselling that my work provides, and I had the intake meeting for this a couple days before I went on leave. It was needed, and definitely helped to voice out some general things I've had on my mind for a few months now, but now I'm in the period of waiting to actually start the counselling (the waiting list is several months! Go NHS).

The theme I keep coming back to in therapy sessions and just generally in life is that of being too much and not enough. I was constantly nitpicked on from all sides growing up about being too loud, too boisterous, too insular, not social enough, not reserved enough, not ladylike enough. There was never a balance and vacillating so easily from one extreme to the other in people's esteems of me quickly became something that I internalised before I even had the ability to consciously be aware of it.

I try not to be bitter about that but I can't lie that I am and that all of this leaves me extremely embittered and unsure how to go about resolving it. I desperately want to achieve a sense of calmness within myself and not feel chained to past grievances but it feels like they're hooked into me and I'm just. Angry. All the time.

I don't think I'm a particularly outwardly angry person but the more I think about it the more I see how anger and resentment colours so many of my interactions and thought processes when interacting with the rest of the world. I feel like an open wound and even if crying or having a breakdown can give temporary reprieve it feels like the wound is never really lanced and there's always infection deeper down that hasn't been reached and excised. It's frustrating.

This is all extremely vague and disjointed but to be honest it's just been that kind of week. Hopefully I can come back to this later with some more clarity and sort my thoughts in a way that's more coherent and (hopefully) more useful than the incoherent brain vomit this is

PS my boys were very cute this week please enjoy them sunning themselves and being perfect

[emilypemily]

i have a semi-commitment to not posting about discourse unless it's deeply unserious or only something i care about (gauntlet is the worst gladiators event and i'm sick of it's staying power) but i've been meaning to write about something minorly annoying to me for a while now, like i made a note on my phone in january about it and everything

which is basically about some reddit comment i read (always a bad start) about how this user thinks that people shouldn't read colleen hoover books because they are deeply problematic and could encourage bad behaviour or set bad expectations or cause harm to the reader due to it's bad messaging

and to be transparent, i haven't read any of her books because i find the covers uninspiring and whenever i've read the blurb of one (we get them in at work semi-often) they just don't sound that interesting to me, but i do feel the need to defend the 'right' (in quotes because who genuinely cares) to read like, bad or offensive books. like i just don't think that anyone has become uniquely maladjusted because they read a rubbish book.

like you're not morally wrong for reading or enjoying a book with problematic messaging and i think when we worry about that kind of thing you kind of mb down the reader's ability to recognise that a story is just a story. like most, dare i say all, people reading a book know it's just a book. which isn't to say that you can't criticise a book for being bad or offensive because art and literary criticism are important, and thinking about the things you consume is important and honestly just interesting, but to say 'i don't think anybody should read these books because it might affect the way they think' is just really silly to me.

i feel the same way about films. going 'you should never ever ever watch this film because it is offensive to xyz' just feels kind of too mary whitehouse to me. maybe a caveat might be 'don't pay to see it, just stream it illegally' but even then it's rarely that serious. your brain isn't going to rot just because you watched offensive films or read offensive books. i'm not saying that your particular media diet doesn't at all affect your thinking, like if you are purely watching gb news you certainly might come out stupider, but a reading a twilight or 50 shades or colleen hoover book isn't going to seriously damage the way your experience relationships.

maybe i'm differentiating here between fictional content and like, right wing commentary media diet, and i should just focus on fiction. my point is that again, pretty much everyone knows fiction is fiction, and saying 'don't watch this it's bad!!!!!!!' is honestly just kind of disrespectful to people's intelligence. and sometimes films and books are fun to consume because they are offensive and ridiculous, and watching and even enjoying something does not equal endorsing the behaviours of the characters within that thing, or even the filmmakers. or writers, in the case of a book. also you can check out at any time if you're not enjoying something. again, who cares. and i think there's a lot of worry about the way teenagers consume and internalise things and i think people always sort of forgot what it's like to be a teenager. i also think people sort of forget that you might in all honesty forget half the shit you read or watched or listened to as a teenager and that a lot of if does not make any sort of lasting impact.

i don't think i'm saying anything coherent or interesting and this probably all sucks but i just think there should be less worrying about what other people are consuming, and less calls for people to stop consuming it.

i suppose an objection is when money is repeatedly spent. like, if you enjoyed the harry potter books, i do not think it is Morally Wrong to rearead them, because if you enjoyed them in the first place you probably still already own copies of the books, so who cares if you reread them or not. but if you continue to give jk rowling your money i do think maybe you should stop doing that. but like, idk man buy the dvds or books in a charity shop or ebay and rewatch/read at your leisure, who is that hurting. but you probably don't need to keep funding jk rowling's bank account. same thing applies to boycotts. i am not saying 'who cares what you spend your money on', because money is power, and money speaks. but 'reading a bad book will not rot your brain' is the general point. 'people that read fiction books know that it is fiction' is the other point'. and perhaps the last point is 'sometimes things are enjoyable because they are offensive and bad'.

[deardiary07]

Dear Diary,

We're getting closer and closer to the date of my parents' wedding and I'm scared. That's doesn't mean I'm not excited, I'm happy for them, really. But I can't stop wondering if maybe I'll look bad on the day, maybe my hair won't cure the way I want it to, maybe my acne will show through the make-up, maybe I'll cry and ruin her big day.

I'm desperately trying not to argue with her as we're leading up to the day. I'd hate to give her a fake smile and bitter-sweet eyes while thinking that she does not deserve to be this happy. Not after how she made me feel - how she makes me feel.

I've decided to try and explain how I feel sometimes, so hopefully, the zero people reading this will understand how my mind works.

I like to quietly self destruct, if someone says or does something I'm not happy with, I'll internalise the feeling until it leaves or worsens, and I take it out on some poor person.

My brain often feels scrambled. Majority of the time there's just me, but if I'm overwhelmed it feels like three other voices are shouting at me to make a decision. There's one that goes for the worst choices, it would tell me to hurt someone or myself, I hardly ever trust it.

The second is a type of reasonable one, I guess. If the bad one tells me to do something, this one will chime in with why I shouldn't do it. She is the main reason I don't act on all my thoughts and instead self destruct quietly.

The last is a kind of therapist one. She will whisper and tell me it's okay as I hold and rock myself while I'm crying. She'll pat my hair and tell me, "Just eat one more thing, you can do it."

(It may sound like some type of DID, but I promise you it isn't. These are just versions of myself my brain makes when they're needed. I give them genders because it's easier for me to differentiate that way. The bad one is a boy while the other two are girls. I hate this, however, because then it means that every horrible thought is my fault and that im pathetic enough to pat my own hair as i sob violently on the bathroom floor.)

The former comment may make it seem like I have an eating disorder, but it's nothing like that at all. It's really hard to explain, but sometimes I just feel like i can't eat. It especially sucks because I'm either super hunger or not hungry at all.

I really had no reason to write today other than to get the wedding thing off my chest. I've had a good day today aside from the tiredness. I may write soon though.

Kind regards,

- River

[hamletteprinceofdenmark]

I know what I’m like. That’s the issue.

This line will probably live rent free in my head forever. I’m not kidding. It is such a perfect encapsulation of c!wilbur’s character that I stay up at night thinking about what goes on in cc!wilbur’s brain to come up with a line like this because it is flawless.

c!wilbur is extremely introspective, to a degree where it’s actually harmful to his mental health. He spends so much time in his own head tying himself into circles and paranoia about everything from his (rock bottom) self worth to what he thinks everyone else is doing and thinking (about him or against him) that he rarely takes the time to be present and in the moment and actually listen to the people around him and to what’s actually happening.

This tendency for internalisation and isolation - particularly when not in a good headspace - was only exacerbated when he died and spent thirteen years in limbo. Now he really didn’t have anyone to talk to but himself. I know we all joke about Schlatt, Mexican Dream, and Wilbur having endless poker nights but let’s be honest, to be in limbo is to be alone.

So on top of all the stress and self flagellation c!wilbur put himself under in l’manberg and pogtopia, where he wasn’t able to get out of his own head despite other people being there and trying to help him, he’s now spent thirteen years by himself with no external input at all, with nothing to do but scream and think about the past.

Because here’s the thing, here’s the genius in the line, c!wilbur does know himself, but he only knows the very worst version. He is his own worst critic. So much of how he thinks and his perspective is blown way out of proportion, because he doesn’t allow for other people’s perspectives to hold any real value for him.

c!wilbur’s flaws have always been tied to self worth, and in particular being the kind of person who ties their self worth to external achievements. He thinks if people see “the real him” they would hate him and be horrified. So that’s not allowed. Let them see the mask of The President. Let them see the symphony of L’Manberg. Let them never see him for what he really is. Importantly, this is also a self worth tied to a man who does believe he is smart! That is not in question! It is one of the very few things that aren’t! So he clings to it! His own thoughts, how he sees things, are given a very high value because it’s one of the very few things he allows himself to give value to.

So in the end what you have is a young man with rock bottom self worth, who doesn’t trust other people’s opinions, and has just spent the last thirteen years (and more!) obsessively going over everything he ever did and picking it apart, primed to find and exaggerate every flaw.

He does know what he’s like. He knows what his version of himself is like.

He both does and does not know himself. That is the issue. That has always been his issue. And precisely because of how he thinks he knows himself, he can’t know himself and can’t see himself clearly.

And it is this inaccurate perspective that motivates his actions, which causes all his problems.

Do you see?! Do you get it?!

That is the issue.

But not for the reason he thinks.

[cupidlakes]

looking at the twitter reactions i see people going like "oh my god why would someone edit that :o" when it was hundreds of people who liked tweets like that! like you guys made it popular! i hope they learn from it but honestly idk... they're still going to make weird twink jokes or gay jokes or whatever without using actual slurs because they're so dense about normal people boundaries :/

this is what i meant saying i hope the op doesn’t get witchunted because it literally is a community wide issue and i have a big problem with people laying the blame on one persons doorstep only to hypocritically continue on with their own weird behaviour

i really don’t like the people who were switching up, be honest and admit anyone (on twitter) could’ve made the same mistake with the way everyone on there toes the line with their jokes and literally just learn from this

this is all reminding me of fairly recently when this one big acc got absolutely slated for quote on quote “fetishising dnf” (they didn’t even ship dnf btw just made a few jokes) and they were 1) a whole 15 years old, that kind of negative attention is awful for your mental health at that age and 2) everyone was doing the SAME thing

once again, the kind of jokes people make about george, dream and the dream team as a whole have been normalised because of their more lax boundaries like yeah it was pretty far but realistically on the daily you see ppl saying stuff like “dream could call me x slur” it’s endless. you’re obviously gonna internalise that this is normal behaviour and partake in it without thinking anything of it

i want the community on twitter as a whole to realise cc’s are gonna see what you’re saying period. it just doesn’t hurt to think about your jokes and comments don’t constantly try to push it, be thoughtful use the common sense in your brain

they’re still people! and also other people see what you say if we’re talking about how people treat george in general with the near constant “bottom, twink” etc. comments

e.g hi i’m mlm and i personally don’t like when people call george a twink/bottom to me or in my inbox because guess what i don’t know you and i don’t know how you genuinely view gay men and mlm but based off the way i see you treat and talk about someone you perceive to be mlm (or even just joke about being mlm) i’m gonna assume the worst

anyways once again i genuinely just hope people learn from this

[guineapigsinwinter]

A Goat’s breaking point.

“Hey, hey look that’s not going to happen to Legoshi okay? He’s got a whole pack of dogs who care deeply about him, waaay more siblings then anyone would ever want and friends who care about him. It’s going to be rough for him for now but as long as everyone makes it clear they still care for him he will be fine in time got it? Hell he’s even got the most handsome tiger in school crushing on him who couldn’t love that?” Els replied eagerly, returning the hug as much as she could.

That.. that was true. Legoshi had plenty of friends. People who would help and support him. Not fuck him over continually like Bill did. Even if he was as handsome as Els said. “I’m not gay Els. I.. I can’t be okay? I’m a man. I’m not like Tao, I’m masculine, I’m a large carnivore. I’m not a bottom Bengal. I’m not a faggot.” Bill couldn’t help the sneer that overtook his voice with the last two sentences, the derision at the two worst things it was for a guy like him to be.

His right cheek suddenly stung, whiskers protesting at being forcefully flattened as the sound of a loud slap echoed in the bunk.

“Don’t you dare say that word again Bill do you hear me? And just what the hell do you mean not like Tao? You mean kind and actually using your brain? Or not fucking clawing his crushes back open on stage Bill? I’ve sat back and watch this… this arsehole version of you grow for years Bill and disgusting you have been at times I figured if it was how you coped with your insecurities and sexuality that was fine.” Els said firmly, her voice still quiet but tight and filled with anger.

Gulping, she continued as Bill stared, trying to remember the last time he had seen or heard Els truly angry. Maybe that time his cousin had beaten him and Tao up and she had attacked the older tiger with her art folder two years ago?

“But if you are going to start attacking guys because you don’t know how to deal with your emotions for them in a healthy way, start fucking use that kind of language about Tao, because that is what you just did Bill then I am not standing for it you hear? You two are like brothers to me but if you think I’m going to let you start mistreating Tao because you are too much of a coward to admit you are gay you have another thing coming.” Els’s words came out fast and furious, tears of rage in her eyes as she glared up at Bill’s face.

He… he’d never wanted to make her cry. Make her tremble and bubble with rage like she was. Never wanted to .. to imply that was what he thought of Tao. Was it? But.. … The idea of the mocking little comments Tao got, the occasional sneers or attempts at fag bashing the panther had received ever since he’d accidentally come out several years ago being directed at him… Bill wasn’t sure he could take it. He tried to act brave, shouted a load about being tough and protective but.. was he actually?

Sniffing, Els slid out of the bunk, smoothing her uniform out as she stood. “Just.. Look you know my mum would be happy to talk to you, nothing official if you need help Bill but you can’t go on like this. I know the guys shouldn’t have outed you like that, you know they are likely kicking themselves over it now but.. but please promise me Bill you will actually try and face your feelings please? I don’t want to see where you are heading Bill otherwise.. it scares me.” Els said sadly, her voice wavering ever so slightly as her eyes bore into his as she spoke before she turned and left the room. So thoughts on this? Trying to portray Bill’s internalised homophobia but also the point that makes him actually realise he has to accept it, courtesy of everyone’s favourite Angora Goat.

[saturatedsinset]

if you get a chance to see the elite segment from dynamite this week: i gotta know your thoughts on the hangmatt confrontation. like kenny and hangman has been Too Much for me already, but truly matt's audacity to want to get at hangman by himself is off the charts

i'm putting this under a readmore because it got away from me a little bit but! tldr: matt sucks so much because kenny sucks and it's about the cycle of toxicity in friendships

so i woke up to this before i got up for the day proper and it sure was A Way to start my day. anyway i've kind of said a little of this in tags already but i think it's very. funny? something. that matt conceives of friendship in the same terms kenny does, ie as a game of domination over another person. kenny has to feel like he can control the people closest to him and because matt's been in that insular toxic environment for so long (and also because he's the worst) he's internalised that as like. How Friendships Are. we're good wrestlers and we win and we give you purpose, hangman, how could you leave us? for people who don't do those things? like matt's very. kenny being controlling is fine (to him) because it gives him purpose, he knows what he's doing, etc, and he can mostly ignore the Bad Parts of that because he can mostly ameliorate them by just doing what kenny wants - which is why it's so interesting to see when and why the bucks choose to dig their heels in/say no/push back and how they eventually capitulate to what kenny wants, because they always do - and he's a deeply selfish person so he can't conceive of adam. Not seeing things that way. of adam seeking validation/friendship as not dependent on wrestling success. even as adam has difficulty accepting that from the dark order because he's so used to that being The Way Relationships Are.

it's also very funny(?) that matt is very clearly trying to use the same manipulation tactics on hangman that kenny uses on him - @cuil-meleth made that gifset of the parallels in how kenny talks to matt and how matt talks to hangman - but hangman, like, has friends now who don't manipulate him constantly so he can see that it's. maybe bad, actually. to be treated like that. also matt is just much worse at manipulation than kenny is like i think matt's a very straightforward character in that the things that are important to him are 1. his brother 2. kenny 3. winning at the wrestling and that's, like. that's him. where kenny is a better manipulator not because he's necessarily more complex but because he's better at using the things your brain tells you against you. because his brain is always telling him things that aren't, like. true. so matt's trying to replicate the kind of manipulation that works on him - because he'll always choose kenny over almost anything else. maybe even over nick, one day. (i can only hope) - but hangman isn't falling for it because matt's worse at it and also because hangman isn't the same kind of invested.

i think matt's promo voice is also really interesting because like obviously we have the layers of promo as performance, promo not as conversation but as dramatic monologue, but the intonation used is always really interesting to me? so when hangman talks it's very, like. he's performing to a crowd, he's exaggerating his gesture, he's speaking very loudly, there's a Drama to his tone, but he's more. it's more believable to me that he would also say something like this at normal volume in normal conversation. part of that is that hangman's the babyface, he gets to be the voice of reason, the straightforward hard-working man, but part of it is also that matt's promo style is, uh, different. by which i mean. just insanely annoying. on purpose, obviously, but god does he suck. so he's Performing Disgust at hangman for leaving them, for drinking, for hanging out with the dark order, but he's doing it in a way that's even more exaggerated than is strictly necessary to play as a promo. it's heel work to be sure but it's really interesting to look at the contrast there. i'm not sure i had a point. uhh i hate matt jackson

matt approaching hangman alone is fun especially because of that bte ending bit a couple [weeks/months] back where he's like Sadly Watching Hangman Have Fun With The Dark Order and on his way to make amends and clearly now he's abandoned that to just fully commit to being theeeeee worst. the worst. like it's fun that matt feels entitled to approach hangman alone because he clearly thinks he, matt, has some hold over hangman that hangman is doing a very good job of ignoring. obviously it's also fun given the whole hangman/bucks feud around revolution 2020 and the fact that matt very obviously still feels slighted by that (i mean, fair, it's not like hangman wasn't being shitty)

uhhhhhhhh so i sure did have some thoughts. didn't expect to write an essay but here you go

[possiblyimbiassed]

John’s wedding is a crime scene - Part V

I’ve already talked a lot about what ‘crimes’ might have been committed in Sherlock’s ‘reality’ around John’s wedding in TSoT, so now I think it would be interesting to analyse some events that might have lead up to these ‘crimes’, and also how Sherlock might interpret them in his Mind Palace. 

This idea occurred to me after a new discussion surged regarding Part IV of this meta series - a discussion which you can find here (X). (To anyone who prefers to start from the beginning of the series, here are the previous parts: Part I, Part II, Part III). In one of the additions, @lukessense was talking about TLD and asked the following questions:

Sherlock gets beaten by John, because he blames him for killing Mary and asks him if this is a game to him (Sherlock thinks he ‘killed’ Mary because he…flirted with John? Or what is the game here? The game of not confessing? The game of unanswered questions about their feelings?).

These things have been puzzling me too, and I’m not sure about the answers in any sense. The following is just my very subjective opinion, and there could certainly exist a lot of alternate explanations. But I’ll try to lay out my view of it all here - in an emotional context - and see how S4, in particular TLD, can relate to John’s wedding and to other events before it.

The Macho Game

Continued under the cut

First of all: what is ‘The Game’ we see played out in the show actually about? I think The Game is basically between Sherlock and John and it’s about not admitting to (romantic) emotions; it’s a sort of ‘macho’ game where the first one to show the ‘weakness’ of being in love with the other one loses. They can dance around each other for ages, but none of them will lower their guard first and risking the harsh destiny of unrequited love and abandonment and consequently be seriously hurt (’killed’) - risking to have their heart burned.

In Sherlock’s view, to fall in love is to lose all power and control over your own life - hence the constant death metaphor for it in his mind. To confess to feelings is to bare your throat to the attack of the ‘enemy’ - and the enemy is Love; in Sherlock’s eyes the culprit of much of the suffering in this world.

Why is this ‘game’ so important to maintain for Sherlock? Because emotions is such a scary, unreliable and stigmatising thing, especially between two men, and they have to be kept at bay. I think Sherlock is against them on the surface because they interfere with the logical reasoning in his work, but in reality he’s scared as h*ll of them because of his childhood (and maybe youth) traumas. I would guess something really bad happened to him, probably involving Victor Trevor and maybe also his parents.

Sherlock’s aim is to be on top of all that, to never feel doubt of his own capacity and to never give in to the dangerous dominance of emotions. His way of doing this has unfortunately been to repress all affectionate emotions which he sees as a threat. But this ’strategy of survival’ has also damaged him gravely. And inside himself, a part of him is still fighting against it.

My view of John is that he has probably been raised in a homophobic and even abusive ‘macho’ environment/family and been taught to look down on LGBTQ people, hence his gay sister’s problems with alcohol. He’s a very reserved guy who rarely talks about how he feels. He struggles with the duality of his sexual orientation and with fear of society’s condemnation of the gay side of it (”people will talk”). He may think he has a ’liberal’ view of these things (”...which is fine, by the way”), but John also believes he needs to live up to conventions and social expectations, at least on the surface, in spite of never actually having his heart in it.

John engages in this ’macho game’ with Sherlock because he’s also very confused about his own emotions. On one hand he’s both sexually attracted to and deeply in love with Sherlock, but on the other he’s afraid of what these feelings are doing to him. He thinks there’s ’something wrong’ with him for feeling this way about Sherlock. But he’s also an adrenaline junkie; he can’t resist danger. His worst nightmare is to openly confess his (romantic) love to Sherlock, only to then be abandoned by this ’un-feeling psychopath’ and left with the stigma of coming out, but with no-one to support him. I see it as unlikely that John will make the first move to break this ’dance’, unless he has reason to feel sure about Sherlock being there for him.

False conclusions

Now, even if S4 is all composed of Sherlock’s dreamed/imagined scenarios inside his Extended Mind Palace, I don’t think we can interpret everything we see in them as his ’gained wisdom’. In science, scenarios are never more accurate than the data you put into the model, or than the algorithm you use to run the scenario. And these being dream scenarios with no support in ’reality’ (in this case John’s blog) prevents us from using common logics to interpret them; the metaphors are mixed and many-layered. And all the events we see in S4 are fabrications, but maybe partly based on things that did happen before, which Sherlock’s brain now uses in ’new’ situations for the purpose of analysis. Also - and this is important - some of it may show us Sherlock’s mistaken conclusions - he might actually be wrong. :)

As for the hug scene in TLD, I think Sherlock still believes that John really wants to be the guy Mrs Het Norm Mary expected him to be, but he can’t and that’s why John starts crying at the end of the scene. When the truth is that John just can’t play this ridiculous game anymore; it has made him a liar and a cheater and it’s eating him up from the inside (and destroying his character on the meta level).

This has most probably to do with internalised homophobia, but I don’t think Sherlock has realised this just yet (because they both have it internalised). If Sherlock and John had sex on the stag night, then yes; maybe Sherlock (subconsciously) believes he thereby destroyed John’s protection from exposure. He ‘killed’ Mary, he ’broke the spell’ by making John cheat on her, and the result is a depressed John. 

All of this is conclusions that Sherlock reaches first in TLD, after having run this whole scenario about John’s psychological motivations. (And I don’t think Sherlock is aware that his brain keeps running scenarios; he thinks everything in S4 actually happens). I have tried to describe my view of TLD in my meta series ‘What happened to Sherlock’ (X). All seems back to normal after the hug scene, but the problem is that TLD still ends with John being shot, so the problem has not been solved. Which propells Sherlock into his next mental scenario, TFP, where he finally has to confront his own emotions and traumas.

But I think the hug scene in TLD is false - at least partly - because it shows us a John whom it is very hard for Sherlock to comfort because of John’s self-loathing. I actually don’t believe the ‘real’ John would tell Sherlock that “it’s not okay” when Sherlock for once is there for him emotionally and actually offers him something as intimate as a hug. The ‘real’ John would take this opportunity without hesitation and hug him back. But Sherlock misinterprets his own data; he thinks this is all about John’s love for Mary, and his mourning after having lost her. While in ‘reality’ (where Mary may not even be dead) I think John is hoping for precisely this; he’s waiting for Sherlock to show his cards first. But this would mean that Sherlock first has to embrace Sentiment. 

All in all I think Sherlock is a very empathetic person who cares deeply about people, especially those closest to him; he is by no means a ‘psychopath’. In fact he uses empathy as a method of crime solving; he puts himself in another persons’ shoes to see what he would do in that situation (and this comes directly from canon). This way he often manages to reason backwards to reconstruct what has happened. The problem with Sherlock’s analyses, though, is that he actively tries to avoid considering emotional aspects. His fear of certain emotions sometimes leads him in the wrong direction. 

Why the beating?

So what about John’s beating of Sherlock in the morgue in TLD, where he blames Sherlock for killing Mary? This scene is outright horrible to watch and very difficult to understand. Disarming Sherlock and make him drop the scalpel is one thing, but how can Sherlock even dream that John would assault his best friend and kick the sh*t out of him while lying defenseless on the floor? For something that he didn’t even do? This is so absurd that I strongly suspect something else is going on. But here we must remember that this nightmarish scenario, as well as many others, might be based on things that have actually happened before; things that might have lead to the oddity of John’s wedding becoming a ‘crime scene’. 

So let’s use Sherlock’s empathy methods on himself here, and try to analyse how Sherlock might have interpreted certain things that lead to the situation in TSoT. Because I think this is basically what Sherlock’s brain is trying to do in TLD, even if he still doesn’t actually ‘get it’. :P Which, by the way, is smoothly illustrated by this interchange between Mycroft (= Sherlock’s Brain) and Mrs Hudson (= Sherlock’s intuition? His heart?) in TLD:

Before beginning I want to point out that in my view most of the things we see happen in the show (especially after TSoT) represent Sherlock’s lively interpretation of what John has written on his blog. So in order to understand the beating in TLD, the first thing I would do is look for any kind of beating accounted for by John on his blog. And yes; there is of course this one in the blog post The Empty Hearse (X):

John actually admits publicly that he did beat up Sherlock in a restaurant, and then he goes on to wave the whole thing away without even a shred of remorse. Trying to look at this through Sherlock’s logical eyes (where emotions are repressed), I get the impression that John thinks this was a perfectly OK thing to do, after Sherlock’s little ‘joke’. It’s as if John were saying, in big macho style: “Don’t mess with Captain John Watson, Sherlock, because this is what happens, see? Sneaking up on me like that, you’ll get what you deserve.” 

In fact, this whole blog post stands in stark contrast to what John had written about Sherlock when he thought he was dead. Instead of honouring Sherlock’s memory, now he talks about “Sherlock Bloody Holmes” and “I know he's a psychopath and I've accepted that, but...” And also that “he hadn't trusted us enough to tell us what was really going on. Not sure I'll ever truly forgive him for that”. And “he comes back into my life which means I find myself being attacked, kidnapped and stuck in a bonfire”. In this blog post, the only redeeming quality that Sherlock seems to have in John’s eyes, apart from his crime solving, is that he offers John a chance to help with it, which means danger for the adrenaline junkie. “He’s like a drug”. And John finishes with stating that Mary “is the best thing that's ever happened to me”, addressing it directly to Sherlock with a smiley.  What is Sherlock supposed to make of all this?

I can understand that John is upset and appalled by Sherlock’s seemingly heartless nonchalance in just appearing before him like a ghost and behave like John’s years of grieving were all but a joke. But once he had assaulted the guy (thrice, if we are to believe the show’s version), why still this intense resentment? Why wasn’t it even enough to ‘vent’ by hitting the guy? Hadn’t he begged and hoped that Sherlock by some miracle would still be alive? 

Apparently, now that Sherlock is back from the dead, all John’s emotional defenses immediately snap up again like a protective wall and the 'macho game’ is on once more. But unfortunately I don’t think Sherlock gets this, because it’s about Sentiment, and it has to do with him and John. Sherlock probably wouldn’t look at it that way.

But my point is, that this is what Sherlock’s subconscious is trying to tell him through the comatose scenarios in TLD: ‘Mary’ is dead because Sherlock has effectively destroyed John’s heteronormative façade. 

And when did this happen? Well, it probably began when Sherlock suddenly returned from the dead; by that he managed to explode John’s carefully crafted little bubble of ordinary life. Or - more accurately - he blew up his little bubble of heteronormative life; he started to ‘kill Mary’. Hence John’s deep resentment; he was losing ‘the game’. But the biggest blow would have happened around John’s wedding, I think. Because if they actually did end up in bed after a wet Stag Night, this would have been the ultimate proof, wouldn’t it? The final evidence that Mary was not the best thing that could have happened to John, that this was just some BS that John was trying to hide behind. 

John’s cover would have been blown, but he still proceeded to marry Mary Morstan as if nothing, making Sherlock feel like a trash can, only worthy of abuse. I even think there is some more evidence of this in John’s comment to his own last blog post about the Mayfly Man:

So John tries here to legitimise his own conduct, right? A married man who wanted some one-night stands. It might be significant that Sherlock doesn’t even comment on this blog post, but after the wedding he simply hacks the blog. No wonder that Sherlock’s scenarios in HLV, TAB and S4 would be dark and cynical then, is there? No wonder Sherlock calling himself “a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high“. No wonder him calling it “surgery” when Mrs Het Norm ‘Mary’ skillfully cuts out his heart.

But the thing is, that John’s useless marriage could most probably have been avoided if Sherlock had been frank and honest to John about his feelings for him in the first place. And it’s still not too late; the ’crime’ can be reversed. I still have good hope that Sherlock will eventually reach that point in S5 by finally recognising the importance of emotions and take on the real criminal here: homophobia.   

Tagging some people who might be interested:

@raggedyblue​ @lukessense​ @sarahthecoat​ @gosherlocked​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @sagestreet​ @tjlcisthenewsexy @loveismyrevolution

[amwritingmeta]

15x14: Striking A Balance

This is late. I fell behind. Life happens. I still haven’t watched 15x15. Gah! But now to some thoughts on 15x14...

I thought this was a great episode the first time I watched it. Then I thought it was a bloody fantastic episode the second time I watched it, and the third time… well, it just gets better and better. I’m thoroughly looking forward to the final six. I hope you are too. 

I hope you’re as well as you can be and that you’re not living in a stress bubble. They’re the worst. I’d hand you a big old needle if I could. Maybe this meta can be some sort of needle (for popping), because at least I don’t feel the ending of this show is anything we need to stress about. I do believe it’s going to be utterly spectacular. *all the faith*

So I spent a chunk of lockdown watching this show of ours. I started at 12x19 (that episode still makes me tremble with its sheer brilliance) through to 15x13, and felt an overwhelming satisfaction at the evenness of the storytelling for these last three-ish seasons. 

A brief breakdown of three years of meta writing would be: Dean has been pushed to face, recognise and dismantle his internalised toxic masculinity traits aka his Shadow (which has been the root of unhealthy coping mechanisms and an inability to put down boundaries, communicate openly and handle his emotions), he’s been pushed to see the strength and power of his feminine traits (his nurturing side, his compassion, his protective nature) through being put in situations where he’s had no choice but to open up to being honest with himself, in turn bringing him on a course to him handling his emotions better, as well as the narrative giving us moments where he’s gotten the chance to acknowledge and embrace his neglected inner child. 

Yes, Jungian doctrine runs like a river through it, what can I say? I’m a fan.

With Dean as our protagonist, Sam and Cas are both on mirroring journeys, though Sam is Dean’s mirror opposite and Cas is Dean’s mirror likeness. It doesn’t take away from the individual journeys of Sam and Cas: it’s just that their choices and their progression are not determining the course of the narrative. Rather, their choices and progression work to underline and highlight Dean’s growth. Sam and Cas are main characters, but they’re not driving the core of the plot. 

Make sense? Cool!

Especially as this also means that Dean’s progression is pivotal for all three of them to actually reach… well, since it’s a word used twice this season why shouldn’t we just go with it? — completion. 

Which is why my eyes are happily peeled for Dean having moments that display a deepened sense of self-understanding (like his prayer to Cas, where Dean put words on the anger he’s always feeling and how he doesn’t know why or where it’s coming from) (an enormous step toward actually dealing with that emotion) (as self-deception through denial caused by fear of weakness tied to fear of rejection and fear of failure — that’s a mouthful — has always formed Dean’s biggest internal obstacle) because neither Sam nor Cas should, when we look at the narrative as a whole, be able or allowed to reach full completion (or individuation, to use Jungian terms) without Dean getting there first, or at least being shown to be well on his way to getting there.

This episode then is more of an epicsode, because, man, do we get to explore balanced!Dean, and it’s all through Jack: the narrative representation of Dean’s inner child.

Oh, yeah. Way I see it, Jeremy Adams brought us right back to the threads he was pulling on in Scoobynatural. *bless his brain* Only this time he’s pushed it a step further and rather than Dean simply facing his inner child—as (14x16 whoops I mean) 13x16 opened up that can of worms—now, in 15x14, Dean is forced to properly acknowledge and embrace that inner child. I mean. The mind crackles. The feels are cascading like a waterfall over a great cliff. The excitement, people, is real.

Let’s dig in!

Sam and Dean

They were glorious this episode!!

So Sam ended up tortured a little, but that was because he was shooting first, asking questions second, and sure, Mrs. Butters had gone a bit crazy, but as he learned: it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her nature, the crazy had been torture-nurtured into her.

And Dean was faced with yet one more reminder of how kindness, compassion and protectiveness can go haywire when there’s influence from toxic masculinity (aka Cuthbert Sinclair) pushing someone into a position of mistrust, insecurity and need for control. 

Let me reiterate the fact that when I’m talking masculine/feminine I’m not tying these concepts to gender, though of course these concepts have been tied to gender traits to the point of brainwashing people into thinking they should dictate what is male and what is female. (mental) Rather I mean all of our internal masculine/feminine traits that need to find balance if we are each to feel happy and content as human beings. 

It’s Tao, and it’s Jung, and it’s beautiful. Is all I’m saying. 

Digression.

My point is that in spite of sorting stuff out in their individual arcs, the brotherly relationship was depicted awesomely this episode, with Dean being 1000% supportive of Sam going to get itches scratched with Eileen, to the point of feeling he would rather just handle the sudden turn of events and this new threat by himself, than disrupt Sam and Eileen’s fun times (and by “fun times” I mean sex), and Sam going along for the joyride of holiday celebrations, home cooked meals and the supportive, warm and caring mother figure that they’re both, again, missing in their lives.

Sam was submissive this episode, following Dean’s opinions on how to best handle Jack (even with Dean being disastrous in the past when stating what Jack needs) which is somewhat frustrating, because Sam has so much more in him, but he also got to show that humongous heart of his, where he understood the root cause of Mrs. Butters’ behaviour and showed compassion, rather than judgement. His compassion has always been one of his most formidable strengths. 

And, of course, Sam had to ride sidesaddle this episode because if he was putting up any sort of protest—regarding accepting Mrs. Butters as part of the bunker or how best to deal with Jack— Dean wouldn’t have gone through the push for progression, delivered through the representation of his inner femininity that is Mrs. Butters, but primarily through the representation of (and here we go into the deeper digging) his inner child—Jack.

Dean and Jack

You know, end of the episode Dean states what is evident throughout: he’s trying. 

In the opening scene he asks Sam if Jack’s come out of his room, and then he’s the one who goes and knocks on Jack’s door to warn him about Mrs. Butters, placing trust in Jack that he can handle it and will call them if anything gets weird, and he cajoles Jack to come out with the promise of snickerdoodles. All of this subtly shows us that Dean knows what Jack is suffering, and we can be sure of that because we know he’s been there enough times.

The guilt, the self-blame, as well as the self-doubt underpinning it all, making it difficult to forgive. 

Because, thing is, Jack is struggling to forgive himself. To accept that it was an accident. He’s waiting for Dean’s forgiveness to give him a marker for whether it’s okay for him to even begin to forgive himself, which is understandable on all the levels of his character progression, but especially when looking at him as a representative of Dean’s inner child.

So then, why is Dean acknowledging, embracing and nurturing his inner child important?

Because, when looking at the narrative from the angle where it’s filled with symbolisism to do with Dean’s internal journey (and by extension the internal journeys of all the characters), then Dean’s progression, and especially lack there of, has been closely tied to the fact that he never got to be a kid. 

He had to grow up fast, got responsibility put on him that was way out of proportion for a four year old child, had to be a father and a mother to his younger brother, and learned to repress and suppress his childish urges, wants and needs through unhealthy coping mechanisms in order to dress himself in the image of the strongerst person that he’s ever known: his father.

(which is a misnomer because there was plenty of weakness to John Winchester) (especially how he was a highly emotional man who spent the years after his wife’s death driven by grief, but hammered it into his eldest son that emotions are weaknesses that will get you killed and you should control them to the point of barely being able to recognise them anymore) 

It’s imperitive for Dean to deal with the neglect he suffered in his childhood, rather than ignore it, if he’s ever going to be able to let those wounds heal over. And letting them heal over is important because pushing down trauma leaves it room to influence our choices and to keep us in old patterns of behaviour. Because self-denial and self-neglect is where our Shadow lives and thrives—our unconscious gaining power over us and dictating our behaviour even as we’re unaware of it.

Remember how Jack swallowed Michael? Remember how Michael was Dean’s Shadow representative? It’s not by accident that what Dean has left to confront, fully, is self-trust, self-forgiveness and finding his way to real self-love, symbolically given to us in this narrative through his treatment of Jack.

Because Jack is the final piece of Dean’s internal puzzle: his inner child in need of some real TLC.

So then, what does Dean need in order to be able to show Jack aka himself some real TLC?

Mrs. Butters

Ah, yes, of course what Dean needs most is to engage with his internal femininity. 

Mrs. Butters represents Dean’s suppressed and repressed longing for more in life, for a home, for love, and the only reason there’s been a need to suppress and repress this longing is to due with what he was taught as a child and throughout his formative years, actively by his father, and unconsciously by the way he was never taught or shown how to deal in any type of healthy way with the loss of his mother. 

Mrs. Butters as our representative of positive femininity then shows us as the audience how Dean, in his heart of heart, wants to believe that he can have good things in his life. That he deserves them. 

Mrs. Butters shows us that what Dean needs is to allow himself to feel joy, without expecting it to flip at a moment’s notice into feeling loss. 

And yes, I realise where the episode ends, but perhaps the feeling of joy wouldn’t flip if the lesson was learned in full and Dean knew how to trust and simply let go of the undercurrent of fear that the flip is lurking somewhere just around the next bend. 

What this episode shows us is that he’s just not quite there yet, but omg the threshholding is intense.

Because Mrs. Butters underlines that what Dean needs, more than anything, is to practice trust. Dean needs to practice opening up. Dean needs to practice letting go of his need for control. 

He can still be in charge of a situation, without thinking it’s all on him always.

Now, the episode highlights this in a rather glorious way, by trapping him in a room, under threat, knowing Sam is about to walk into the situation, and deciding not only is he not going to call Sam for help, he’s not even going to text him a heads up.

Look. This might be a plothole here. Jeremy Adams might have been so focused on the joke of Dean not wanting to interrupt Sam’s sexy times that he didn’t realise the implactions of Dean not even sending a text to warn Sam that he was essentially heading home to a dangerous situation, yeah? 

But the rather lax attitude of the brothers this episode: letting Mrs. Butters stay, and both of them neglecting the need for them to look into her backstory further, because they both got so distracted by holiday celebrations and her amazing cooking, combined with the hopscotch way they approach getting rid of her, all this is intentional enough for me to lean into the reading of Dean’s need to practice trust being explored in awesome ways.

Because Dean needs someone to take the load off, and Mrs. Butters does this in spades. 

What with how she brokers zero arguments, immediately getting him to clean up his language, and I mean, Dean then defying this is a moment of awesomeness and of course we all want him to continue being midly CW foulmouthed, but for all intents and purposes, he succumbs to her chastising quickly, and she gets him to open up to the joy of the moment via holiday celebrations, and, to top it all off, she gets him to eat healthier.

The fact that she’s introduced folding his underwear, and then goes on to tell him that she wouldn’t have had to if he’d just done it right to begin with, is fairly epic. (verrryy epic) As is her giving Dean the nightshirt from Scoobynatural. Obviously! He’s wrapped in hugs! Purple hugs! And having Dean dressed in purple and eating vegetables in the same episode is enough to make one’s head explode.

*head* *ex* *ploded*

Balance. Is why my head is exploding. The purple and the vegetables are indications of growing internal balance. *yes please and thank you!*

I loved them celebrating Sam’s birthday and Dean having specific requests for his, Mrs. Butters dismissing him with how she thought he’s too old to want to celebrate. It was such a moment of reminding Dean that he’s not supposed to regress, he’s not to forget that he is, in fact, an adult, and nurturing his inner child is about letting go of the need for the childhood he never had—which is keeping him from properly having the adult life he deep down yearns for. 

(and then this reminder was followed by a moment of kindness) (as there already were rice crispie treats waiting for him) (and his eager little face!) *heart eyes*

There was so much to love about Mrs. Butters, though!

Like the big bowl of crispy bacon on the breakfast table and her encouraging Sam to enjoy the world he’s fighting for, the waxing of Baby (!!), the introduction of the monster radar, finally getting the telescope—pardon me, the interdimensional geoscope—given some attention, Dean blowing a door down by using the grenade launcher (symbolically tied to self-liberation), the fixing of the TV in the Deancave (with thanks to Jeremy! he who breaketh he too shalt fixeth), the fact that Mrs. Butters is a straight-up anti-Nazi killing machine and that her violence stems directly from her need to protect her home and the people she cares about.

Yeah, there’s so much good in her that her not ending up shot, even though she tortured Sam, is not very surprising and I really enjoyed the fact that her story ended on a compassionate note of understanding, and that, if she hadn’t longed to go back to the woods, the boys would have wanted her to stick around. 

Forgiveness—looking for it, or needing it— is a clear thread through this episode.

As For the Deeper Symbolism

Dean starts out cooking, wearing his new favourite garment—an apron. Now, I could tie that to Dean embracing his inner femininity and the rest of the episode working to underline this fact to us, but that’s just my reading of it, so who knows what the deal with the apron actually is. I do love it though, and it’s put in dialogue twice so we were definitely meant to make note of it.

The cooking ties him directly to Mrs. Butters, of course (or her to him, if you will) and creates a bookend for the episode, where Dean starts and ends the episode wearing the apron: first presenting Sam with a burger (meat man!) and then presenting Jack with a birthday cake. 

This bookend is also tied very strongly to Jack. 

Dean asks about him in the opening scene and we learn Jack is holed up in his room, the episode going from having Jack hiding himself away, ashamed and self-hating in his room, to him sitting opposite Sam, expressing concern that they’re putting all their bets on him and he’s not sure he’ll be able to kill God, Sam offering assurance and Dean, through his cake-baking and happy birthday wishes, offering forgiveness and support.

It’s awesome! Beyond awesome! It’s bloody brilliant, is what it is!

Especially when looking at the implications it holds for Dean’s inner work: his inner child starts out locked away, fearful and despairing, being brought out of that room through the kind and supportive side to his internal femininity representative, only for that representative to turn around and step into the shoes of the toxic masculinity traits that have always been the source of Dean’s self-hatred, distrust and lack of faith in himself, and once being granted honesty from the ego (Dean’s consciousness admitting that he’s trying, he’s angry, maybe always will be, but he’s trying) his inner child ends up with the ego showing that inner child how much it matters, that it’s trusted, cared for and loved. 

*brains on ceiling*

Now, as mentioned briefly, the narrative gives us Dean’s inner femininity (Mrs. Butters) influenced by what is a clear toxic masculinity/Shadow character (Sinclair) and shows us why Dean is still wary of his inner child, still not entirely trusting, and it makes all the sense, especially now that the inner child has swallowed up the Shadow and incorporated it into himself. 

Mrs. Butters’ mistrust of Jack becomes emblematic of Dean’s own mistrust in himself, but his inner child knows better and Jack’s continous denial of Mrs. Butters’ accusations underscores this fact. There is self-trust within Dean. Stronger than the lingering mistrust.

All of this inner work for Dean and Sam’s the one who gets tortured?

Well, I can see good reason why Sam is Mrs. Butters’ favourite and it’s to do with how he’s so closely tied to Dean’s purpose in life. Mrs. Butters is a reflection of Dean, and as she moves into Protector of the Bunker she’s also a reflection of any lingering toxic masculinity within Dean, and how it’s always been trying to find a way to sink its claws in Sam, but Sam has never bought into the toxic masculinty spiel, and because of that he’s needed in this instance, to see through the behaviour, to push for compassion, to break through the brainwashing that Mrs. Butters is under, to point out how she was used, taken out of her true nature to do someone else’s bidding.

The most thrilling part is that it’s Dean who delivers the biggest missing piece to Mrs. Butters’ puzzle: the true nature of Jack. 

Because, looked at symbolically, Jack’s ability to save the world represents Dean’s inner child’s ability to save Dean.

Because if any side to Dean were to destroy/thoroughly repress his inner child, he’d be lost. He would never be able to heal. 

The fact that Dean gets to be the one to do this, to talk a representative of his own inner imbalance down, makes me giddy. 

He would not have been able to do this a season ago. He was barely able to do this at the beginning of this season, because he was so full of anger.

That anger, after voicing it to Cas, doesn’t hold the same sway anymore.

He freely admitted to Jack that he’s still angry, and perhaps he always will be a little angry, but he is trying, and this, to me, is enormous. He expressed his emotion and he’s in zero ways allowing that emotion to control his actions anymore.

And, hey, we got Dean, wearing purple, assuring Mrs. Butters that Jack is a good kid.

It’s just… happy happy joy joy!

And a standing ovation to Meagen Fay. She really helped make the episode compelling to watch, balancing Mrs. Butters’ homely and darling characteristics with the darker and MoL compelled Protector of the Bunker that slowly, but surely, reared its not-as-darling head. Kudos!

Right. I could write about this episode some more, because layers, but it’s time to leave off. One thing before I go, though: I loved that we finally had them talk about that big-ass telescope. And I love that it’s not a telescope, because it makes sense. They’re underground—how would they see the stars? I figured there was some sort of skylight somehow that would open or something but meh, dull. This is so much better! And I loved that the green colour of warning was actually to do with the fact that they’re now not being able to see anything through it, rather than the colour having to do exclusively with Mrs. Butters. Utterly brilliant! And… oh dear, what horrors lie ahead??

Now to go watch 15x15. 

I’m not biting my nails. 

At all.

[fairycosmos]

3. I know i have to 'get out there' but it's hard when you've felt your whole life that nobody likes you. i literally only have one friend. i just feel really hopeless... i feel like im not meant for this kind of life, everything feels wrong and like im waiting for something's never gonna come, some kinda magic. i want of life of adventure and paint and write but instead i have to study because i'd feel like a loser w/o an education. i dont mind working i just dont want to study.

hey love, i'm really sorry to hear that. i think it's totally normal to be disappointed and even more so to be unsure about your future - it's not an indicator of failure, it's a natural part of growing up and finding your place in the world. i'm probably ignorant and don't know what it's like to actually be in your shoes, so i apologize if i come across as frustrating at some points. this is just my perspective. but i'm wondering if maybe taking more time away is an option for you? maybe working somewhere, focusing on your mental health for a while.... because the thing is your level of education has nothing to do with your worth as a person, and even more than that, there's no set time scale for this sort of thing. you could go back to college at 35, and it wouldn't matter. your life doesn't have to follow that stereotypical linear trajectory we're all forced to chase, in order for you to find happiness and success. and you don't have to justify your own personal choices to anyone, least of all to yourself. i just think it's important to try to focus on the factors of living that are in your control, that will bring you a sense of stability and peace. i know it's hard to let go of the internalised capitalistic idea of having to prove yourself through academia and getting a 'good job', but it's always useful to remind yourself of just how exploitative and made up that entire construct is. you're here and you're experiencing the world and with that you are fulfilling your point, you are doing enough. you are enough. everything else is background noise, that we're forced to muddle through, but background noise nonetheless. you don't need anyone's permission to prioritize your own needs and wants.

however, if you're dead set on studying this topic you don't like (which, i totally understand why you'd make that choice bc i know it's not that simple), then i reckon it's alright to just let yourself feel shitty for a while. any sadness, anger, disappointment, pain you feel about it is to be expected - and even though it fuckin sucks to have to carry it, its intensity definitely won't last. one way or another, you will adapt and so will your ability to cope. just don't use those emotions as an excuse to engage in self destructive behaviour, cause that'll only perpetuate the cycle and keep you in a dark place. having to force ourselves to do shit we hate is always going to feel like an everlasting burden we're never going to escape from, even if that's not the case in reality. and i had a lot of experience with that in school too - the main tactic i can remember making a difference, was like you said, finding little things to make the weight of it more bearable. i think that often starts first and foremost with our own mental health before anything else, because it controls the filter through which we see the world. if you don't like it in yourself you won't like it anywhere. when it comes to your social anxiety, are you receiving any support/would you be open to that? i think consistently seeing someone while you're in school - whether that's a counselor, a therapist, attending a support group or even just calling a hotline to begin with - could really help you manage the stress you're so afraid is waiting for you. having someone to talk to and learning why you are the way you are, and what tools could help you specifically in terms of coping mechanisms and finding a support network can honestly do wonders for your self esteem and the way you approach others. and of course it takes time, maybe that brand of self care is a lifelong process, but it's still important to engage with it. so balancing school with prioritizing your own wellbeing might be something that lightens the weight of the experience. anxiety tends to have us anticipating worst case scenarios and drawing on old insecurities to convince us we'll be alone and in pain forever, but what you've been through is truly not a mirror image of where you're going. making friends especially as an adult is fuckin hard, and struggling with it doesn't mean there's something irreparably wrong with you. just means it's hard to get to know ppl, but that's not a personal failing on your part. it's just a fact. most of them are too worried about their own 'flaws' to take note of yours. but that doesn't mean there aren't ppl out there you haven't met yet who will love you, even if that's hard to believe rn. also a side note, it could be a good idea to build up a routine where you're engaging in something that actively makes you happy at least a few times a week. can literally just be watching netflix, or taking up a hobby, meditating, going for a walk - i know college is v busy and it may not always be possible, but having small pockets of deliberate down time to look forward to is crucial. im not saying it'll cure everything or anything, just that it might make it all feel less overwhelming. but lastly, i want to say that it's ok if you give it a go and then decide you can't do it. that's an option, too. it doesn't have to be black and white. don't fault yourself for not wanting to spend 3 years doing something you hate, but also know that it's possible to get through it if it's a means to an end for you, especially if you seek the help you need. and whichever choice you go with, neither of them are 'wrong.' it's just your path.

anyway, i'm sorry this got super long. i think discussing it with someone you trust might be a good move, just to know that they have your back whether you work through uni or not. you're honestly doing so much better than you realize and i'm proud of you for continuing to try and strive despite how painful it all is. but i really hope that you can catch yourself when your brain is being unnecessarily unkind to you, and that you can then make the conscious choice to change the narrative and approach it from a place of patience and self appreciation. i think your life is still worth living even if it doesn't match up to where you think you should be, which is something i've been trying to accept lately too. that so much is beyond our control and we can literally only focus on the silver linings of the factors that are in our hands. that we can still be okay, living like that. and none of this is permanent, not the way it often seems like it is, but especially not the confusion. it just takes time to live the answers to all the existential questions you have. take it a day at a time. ANYWAY im rooting for you with all my heart and if you want to talk about this properly feel free to message me!! my overarching point is that you're not as alone as you feel. and you won't be in college, and you won't be if you look for work instead. so many of us understand where you're coming from. much love to you, take care 💗💗

[notalittlebutalottie]

Heyyyy you said you wanted an anon ask that gets you talking paras, here’s a controversial one (because let’s be honest it’s the controversial ones that warrant discourse)

What according to you are Caroline Forbes worst character Flaws, (and not character flaws that are labelled to her like controlling neurotic insecure, but flaws you found as the show progressed, like for me I always found her to be a massive slutshamer and a tad hypocritical here and there) since you’re writing is all about complex layered characters who’s flaws and perfections don’t binarily vilify or hero-paint them but only humanise them, I’d really like your opinions. ❤️

OH wow! I kind of expected that post to just float into the wind but this is a nice surprise and I’m more than happy to discuss! I’ll start off by saying: I stopped watching the show (properly - I obviously know what happened but can’t bring up dialogue or anything) past about...season 5? So take that as you will. I also am more than happy to discuss my own stories and the characters in that (because, like, I wrote it so of course haha)!

I don’t know how I feel about suggesting that the show is as smart as I’m about to imply but my feelings on the slutshaming? They very much relate to that flaw of insecurity and her past experiences. Things like insecurity really don’t just go away like that. Even when you think you’ve overcome issues, they’re still within you. When you’ve been insecure for so long, it really becomes ingrained in you and you start to just project it as a result. So the short answer, I suppose, is: projection, which does fall under hypocrisy.

I’ve covered this sort of topic in PK but I think Caroline has internalised a lot of hatred and as a result, projects that onto others. Caroline has spent so much time putting high expectations onto herself that, well, why shouldn’t other people do the same? She felt attracted to Klaus but felt that it was wrong, that she should be ashamed of herself for it. Therefore, why wasn’t El*na ashamed of being with D*mon? From the moment Caroline met D*mon onward, she went through a lot of trauma and she was alone for most of it. One of the biggest ‘symptoms’ of PTSD for me has been resenting people who haven’t experienced what I have and are just (in my eyes) living life, doing fine, keeping it together without so much as a thought. Caroline sees El*na as just that. To her, El*na got to transition with a large and immediate support system, she knew what was happening to her when she transitioned and then she gets into a relationship with someone who has caused Caroline a lot of pain.

This isn’t me saying: aw poor Caroline she’s been insecure and been through a lot and therefore, should not be criticised. Just because there’s a root to her hypocrisy/judgement doesn’t mean it’s suddenly excused. It’s a flaw and should rightfully be criticised but this is why I think she displays it. And I think all of this internalisation and projection really combust when she does turn off her humanity (something that I honestly did not enjoy when I did watch the scenes of because they seemed to make it about SC’s development more than her own personal development). But all I can do is analyse and I can’t say that this is what was going through the writers’ heads because I think the show did a terrible job of exploring relationships past the surface.

Anyway, I know this seems like just one flaw but I think it is her biggest. I do hope this made sense because it’s late and my brain is fried.

x Lottie

P.S. If anyone does want to talk about any of my WIPs or finished works or drabbles, whatever, I will jump at the chance.

[a-room-of-my-own]

quillette[.]2019/11/04/meet-the-gay-activists-whove-had-enough-of-britains-ultra-woke-homophobes/ 🙌

Are gay people allowed to meet and organise in defense of their interests? A hard yes, you might have thought. But some apparently disagree.

Witness the response to the London-based LGB Alliance, a newly created British group that asserts “the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people to define themselves as same-sex-attracted.” The group’s creation has sparked vitriol, not from the traditionalist Christians or social conservatives who might have opposed such groups in the 1980s or 1990s, but from the self-described progressive left.

Readers who aren’t steeped in the most fashionable iteration of identity politics might now be scratching their heads. Unless you’re taking cues from Leviticus, what could possibly be wrong with saying it’s okay to be gay?

The answer is that, in acknowledging the reality of same-sex attraction, you are indirectly acknowledging the reality and importance of biological sex as a driver of attraction. You are also indirectly acknowledging that members of the opposite sex are not members of your dating pool—even if they tell you that they share your gender identity. Which means you have effectively pled guilty to that grave modern thoughtcrime, transphobia.

If you are not on Twitter, have not set foot on a college campus in the last few years, and don’t read woke web sites such as Teen Vogue, where this sort of thing is taken very seriously, you may imagine that I am engaged in some kind of Swiftian send-up of identity politics gone amok. After all, just about every single person reading this knows quite well how sexual attraction works. But I am quite serious: Activist groups that brand themselves as mainstream representatives of the LGBT community not only preach the idea that true attraction is based on gender, they also have sought to de-platform and mob anyone within their ranks who points out that this idea is completely divorced from the way the human brain actually works. In this make-believe world, to be gay—in the way gay people actually experience being gay—is to be a transphobe.

This is not an entirely new development. As gay-rights groups pivoted to become “trans-inclusive” in recent years, this de facto homophobia has emerged in plain sight. Rather than simply combat violence, bullying and discrimination against trans people, and press for better health care and representation for them—all noble and important goals—those groups have taken on an ideological mission. One might even call it quasi-spiritual: They have replaced biological sex with gender identity—an indefinable internal essence that one demonstrates outwardly by adherence to masculine or feminine stereotypes—throughout their literature and activism.

Stonewall UK, for example, was set up in 1989 to fight Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988, which banned schools from “promoting homosexuality” and “pretended” (i.e., gay) “family relationships.” But that same group now defines gay and lesbian people as those who are “attracted to the same gender” (my emphasis), and that evidence of transphobia shall be taken to include “the denial/refusal to accept someone else’s gender identity.” The logical consequence of these distorted definitions is to define same-sex-attraction as bigotry. In 1988, it was conservative homophobes in government claiming that homosexuality was a dangerous, counterfeit identity. Now the homophobes are the progressives running organizations that claim to champion the interests of lesbians and gay men.

Of course, doctrinaire trans-rights activists might attack straights with equal vigour—since straight men and straight women are just as focused on the reality of biological sex as gay men and lesbians. But all bullies seek out the weak and vulnerable, which is why they now rail against the LGB Alliance with more fury than they direct at society as a whole. That’s why the LGB Alliance’s launch meeting was an invitation-only affair, held at a secret location—the sort of security precaution that one might implement when moderate Muslims break away jihadists. “This is an historic moment for the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual movement,” tweeted Allison Bailey, the criminal-defence barrister who chaired the event. “LGB Alliance launched in London tonight, and we mean business. Spread the word, gender extremism is about to meet its match.”

Based on the reaction from defenders of the new gender orthodoxy, you would have thought Bailey were a Cossack leader announcing a pogrom. “This is frightening and nasty. There is no LGB without the T,” tweeted Owen Jones, who is perhaps Britain’s best-known gay journalist. (This is not new behaviour for Jones, who often starts pile-ons against anyone he regards as transphobic—especially women.) Anthony Watson, an advisor to the opposition Labour Party, said he was “horrified and disgusted,” and described the Alliance as a “#hategroup.” Linda Riley, the editor of Diva, a lesbian magazine that proclaims itself “trans-inclusive,” adapted Martin Niemöller’s famous 1946 confession, First They Came, Tweeting, “First they came for the T…”—thereby suggesting that refusing to prioritize the artifice of gender ideology over inborn sexual orientation is the first step toward some kind of real or metaphorical Holocaust.

Trans activists also used a despicable tactic that now has become a common feature of these cultish campaigns: attempting to beggar those they disagree with. Gendered Intelligence, a non-profit group that works exclusively with trans people (and apparently sees no irony in attacking an organisation focused exclusively on the rest of the LGBT grouping), urged followers to write to Bailey’s law chambers in London, “expressing your concern with the barrister in question and with the new group.” This same mob also sent equally spurious complaints to JustGiving, which hosted the Alliance’s fundraising page. The company panicked and temporarily suspended the Alliance’s account.

The original mover behind the Alliance was Kate Harris, a lesbian and veteran civil-rights campaigner, who a decade ago was a Stonewall fundraiser. She had become increasingly enraged by the harassment of lesbian women that was tolerated, even encouraged, by such groups. Harris and Beverley Jackson, another veteran campaigner, had been writing to Stonewall executives for months, seeking a discussion about the malign impact of gender-identity extremism. They asked Stonewall’s chief executive at the time, Ruth Hunt, whether she was worried about the enormous increase in the number of teenage girls attending GIDS, Britain’s gender-identity clinic for under-18s, and what she would say to the growing number of “de-transitioners”—people who abandon their trans identity and return to an identity corresponding to their biological sex. Many of these girls (as most of them are) describe themselves, with hindsight, as having been motivated by internalised homophobia.

“What upsets me most is that this is all based on the legitimacy we created,” Harris told me. It was this anger that inspired her to gather a group of notables, some of whom had been involved in Stonewall during its early days, to draft an open letter to the group’s current management and board for publication in the Times of London on October 4, 2018. The signatories included Simon Fanshawe, one of Stonewall’s founders, novelist Philip Hensher, actor James Dreyfus, feminist campaigner Julie Bindel, and several trans people who regard Stonewall’s divisive approach as likely to harm the interests of the trans community in the long run.

“We urge Stonewall to acknowledge that there are a range of valid viewpoints around sex, gender and transgender politics, and to acknowledge specifically that a conflict exists between transgenderism and sex-based women’s rights,” the authors wrote. “We call on Stonewall to commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate.”

In response, Ms. Hunt pretended that the letter writers were inventing some kind of non-existent tension. “The petition also asks us to acknowledge that there is a conflict between trans rights and ‘sex based women’s rights,’” she wrote. “We do not and will not acknowledge this. Doing so would imply that we do not believe that trans people deserve the same rights as others.”

A year after this fruitless exchange, it had become clear no change of direction was forthcoming. Ms. Hunt had stepped down, and Stonewall was looking for a new CEO. One potential candidate who was approached by a recruiter disclosed that exploratory questions about whether it might be possible to soften the organisation’s dogmatic position on gender were dismissed out of hand. Many of the signatories of the 2018 open letter decided it was time for a decisive break from an organization that, while pretending to represent L, G,B and T alike, had come to prioritize the most extreme T faction.

Despite all the harassment to which LGB Alliance already has been subject, the group still got off to a flying start. Its JustGiving page has been reinstated, and is on course to hit a £25,000 initial target. The attacks on Bailey sparked widespread outrage and sympathy. Gendered Intelligence deleted its outrageous tweet about her. (Such a personal and highly politicized attack is unlikely to have gone down well with the Charities Commission, which regulates non-profits). Even fans of Owen Jones think a witch hunt against Bailey—a black lesbian from a working-class background—was a low blow. Several publications have written about the LGB Alliance, painting it as everything from a saviour of left-wing politics from its own worst elements, to a front for U.S. evangelicals seeking to export America’s culture wars. The articles in praise were pleasant to read; those lambasting the group neatly underscored the urgency of its mandate. All in all, the Alliance can be said to have arrived. So what next?

Like many of us, Bailey saw parallels with the actions of an abusive spouse. “Just think about what this means LGB,” she Tweeted. “The T has said that this is a marriage that we cannot leave, even if the T becomes abusive. If we try to leave, we will be threatened. If we do manage to leave, we will be starved of cash.”

On its agenda will be protecting women’s sex-based rights—including the right to have certain services offered in spaces free of male bodies. The group will also be campaigning against legislative changes that would compromise female safety.

Stonewall and other trans groups frequently misrepresent Britain’s Equality Act of 2010, which states clearly that single-sex spaces and facilities are perfectly lawful provided they are a “proportionate means to a legitimate aim.” They insist, falsely, that separately stipulated protections against discrimination and harassment for trans-identified people ensure that they can access all spaces intended for the opposite sex. Under such false guidance, Girlguiding UK and Sport England have gone “trans-inclusive,” a euphemism used to describe policies that enable males and females to “self-identify” into spaces intended for the opposite sex. Anyone with even the faintest grasp of biological reality will see immediately why such policies impact most heavily on girls and women.

The Alliance also will lobby for a change of tack at GIDS, Britain’s gender-identity clinic for under-18s, which is under fire for being too quick to affirm children’s claims of a cross-gender identity. It will disseminate unbiased information on the risks of transition and the evidence that gender confusion in children usually resolves itself during puberty, so that young people and their parents have an alternative to a gender-identity narrative based wholly on mechanical affirmation of a child’s claims. It will also seek to give a voice to detransitioners, whom trans activists often accuse of never having been trans in the first place (a claim that completely contradicts these same activists’ insistence on a policy of unfettered self-identification, which equates thinking you are trans with being trans).

If the Alliance flourishes, it could help forge a new consensus on trans rights, one that doesn’t rely on a denial of the reality of biological sex or sexual orientation. And who knows? If sanity prevails, the LGB and T communities may one day find rapprochement.

Helen Joyce is finance editor for The Economist.