#but holy shit the intense sexism in this show

[vague-humanoid]

Why is NCIS obsessed with Israel?

@el-shab-hussein

[t0ast-ghost]

S3 EP24 (The Turnabout Intruder) I can’t believe I’m here. At the end. This is the last thought post.

Let’s go already:

- Awww they’re beaming down together

- Leaving Kirk alone with a woman…

- An episode directly calling out sexism? More likely than you think?

- “We would have killed each other.” “Might have been better.” Hot

- Is this set on Friday cause that’s pretty freaky

- I’ll miss you Star Trek opening (I’m going to rewatch this show idk what I’m talking about)

- Obsessed with Kirk talking that way omg

- Something about transitioning or whatever

- They should know it’s not actually Kirk cause he didn’t do his dramatic ass communicator flip

- The actress doing a great job at playing Kirk (just body language at this point but it’s already spot on)

- Kirk’s ass uhmmm

- Woah Bones is going to riot! There’s so much medical malpractice happening here

- Nurse Chapel with brown hair <3

- Lester is fucking up so bad impersonating Kirk. Like she didn’t even cross her leg over the other when she sat in the captains chair and she isn’t properly listening to Spock’s infodump :(

- Bones gets to have his riot. Wait. How does Lester know to call him Bones?

- Bones why would you lean over Kirk like that

- Kirk storming out of his own damn room

- Kirk’s ass analyzing something or other or what-

- She is so good at playing Kirk

- Guys. Listen. She is my queen. I love her. I adore her. And more than that I think she’s the coolest motherfucker alive.

- If I was Kirk I’d have slapped Coleman. No hesitation.

- Kirk’s gotta get in contact with one of his boyfriends

- Kirk is so good at putting on his charm. Like he’s so quick to panic about the ship but the charm is quickly regained

- *smashes the glass and cuts through restraints* bad fucking ass

- The boyfriends are ✨worried✨

- McCoy and Spock look so pretty

- Bones is going to kill Kirk. His blue eyes are murderous

- Spock using his ‘I’m that bitch’ privileges to get past security

- “Don’t get dressed yet.” McCoy out of context 1969

- SHE DID THE PERFECT KIRK SMILE

- A CALL BACK TO A PREVIOUS EPISODE?!? Tholian web mention?!? Woah.

- THATS GAY HOLY SHIT THATS GAY

- “Doctor McCoy may be of help.” Yeah go get your other boyfriend!

- The guard stopping them from exiting and then Spock looks over at Kirk like, ‘the audacity of this bitch. Should I just nerve pinch him, captain?’

- LMAO HE DOES NERVE PINCH HIM AND FAILS THE FIRST TIME WHAT A LOSER

- eugh Lester shaking Bones’ hand is so unnaturally uncomfortable

- Can’t bring Kirk to Bones, bring Bones to Kirk

- WAIT NO SPOCK AND KIRK ARE CANONICALLY HOLDING HANDS OMG

- McCoy’s eyeing Spock like what the fuck is happening to our boyfriend

- “Why…? Captain.” The spite Spock has

- McCoy hates being used against Spock like this

- How can William Shatner make those clicking noises with his mouth so casually

- “But her intense hatred of her own womanhood made life with her impossible.” This is like lady Macbeth

- Spock getting mad oooooooh

- Ohhh my god it’s so fundamentally sexist how Kirk is now ‘more emotional’ which could be a character choice but it feels so over the top and more like a ‘she’s a woman so this is how she acts’ choice

- Lester hates being a woman so much because of prejudices and stereotypes that she now perpetuates those same things onto others

- I love how many episodes have mutiny

- THEY GOT CAUGHT IMMEDIATELY LMAO

- “The penalty: death.” WHAT

- SULU AND CHEKOV CONVERSATION! They’re amazing

- Spock was just like, ‘we gotta be ready to slap a bitch’

- “Kill him!!!” no murder tonight for you Lester

And that’s just how they end the whole fucking show huh

I’m not sure if I’ll ever do something like this again for a show but this was a blast and I enjoyed every second of it. Thank you so much to everyone who has followed along. Every comment, reblog, and like has been appreciated.

However, I will be posting some bonus thoughts so keep a lookout for those :)

And as always Masterpost

Teleplay by Arthur H. Singer

Story by Gene Roddenberry

[crystallineandsibylline]

Tag game!

I was tagged by @hey-blackgothguy​

Rules: Tag folks you want to get to know better

Last song: arsonists by ethan bortnick. i really can’t get enough of that guy, his songs tickle my brain in the exact right way

Last show: currently watching The Last Of Us. holy shit dude. like, i watch every single thing pedro pascal is in, and this is my favorite performance of his, right behind wonder woman.

Last movie: recently wrapped up a marathon of all the hunger games movies. pretty good!

Currently reading: revisioning activism by david bedrick. it’s full of essays about leftist points of interest like racism, sexism, fatphobia, ableism, and how a lot of leftists are generally fucking up without realizing it (my words, not his) he offers a lot of different viewpoints without suffering any fools, and i normally get my hackles up when i see white men speaking on these issues…. but the way he speaks, specifically, is a balm to my soul that i didn’t know i needed. he also does a lot of work about shame/unshaming, and that’s how i found this book of his. it should be required reading for leftists.

Current obsession: the unconscious mind/the shadow and how to dance with it, basically. i’m a hypnotist, and am currently actively working on becoming a BETTER hypnotist, and i’m in this intense study program right now that’s got my brain churning all the time about how to understand itself. also, psychedelics, for parallel reasons.

What hobby/craft are you working on right now? i’m crocheting a shawl! my mom gave me some yarn recently and it’s this beautiful two-strand fluffy stuff that’s got rainbows going both ways. weird to explain, but it’ll make sense when i finish it 😁

i wanna hear from @bekkathyst , @letsboldlygomotherfuckers and @lynnkie !

[aeide-thea]

i have no idea what prompted this but Baby Sister decided she wanted to check out the west wing, so i’m now rewatching it for the umpteenth time (though to be clear none of my watches has ever actually made it past season, like, 5 maybe? it keeps losing me when sorkin leaves and people start doing things that are wildly out of character for them) and (1) christ does the sexism get more unwatchable every time but also (2) i adore so many of the characters but especially CJ and toby, god, why do i not have friends like this!! what a tauntingly golden yet deeply problematic fantasy it wants to sell me! :(

[if-one-of-us-falls]

A few days ago I saw some screenshots from Charlie Kaufman's 2012 Chaos Walking screenplay (posted by yer-nothing) and got intrigued, so last night I read through the whole thing and we need to talk about this.

Let me start off by saying that I'm not a big cinema buff and don't really know how screenplays work. I'm a huge fan of the books. I haven't seen the new movie yet (which, to my understanding, has a completely different screenplay) but I've watched every clip that came out and I might compare them to the Kaufman screenplay at certain points. Also, this post contains spoilers to the Kaufman screenplay and to The Knife of Never Letting Go!

I reread TKoNLG recently so it's fresh in my mind (as if it ever leaves lol) and I was impressed by how loyally the screenplay follows the book. Not only does it keep most of the scenes, but it also depicts them very closely to how they happened in the book, sometimes beat by beat. Most importantly to me, everyone is kept in character. So much so that reading the few little bits that were added and did not appear in the book made me smile because I could totally see the characters behaving this way. Kaufman understood the story and the characters he was given and expanded on them with a very light touch rather than trying to rewrite them completely - which was my #1 problem with what I've seen from the movie.

Todd is very obviously not aged up in this screenplay. Not only because he states it in his mantra, but also because he acts like book!Todd. Same with Viola. Kaufman really nailed their dynamic and the way their relationship evolves over the course of the story. A lot of Todd's narration in the book was turned into bits of Noise, and while I'm not sure how that would work on screen, I think it was done beautifully and kept the spirit and the context of the book. There is still a little bit of the romance set-up (with Todd clearly thinking about Viola being pretty etc.) but it's quite subtle and in-character, not as pushy as the movie clips felt.

Ben and Cillian still don't get a lot of screentime, but you really can't miss that they're a couple and their relationship to Todd and to eachother is established effectively.

The character who was changed the most has to be the Mayor. The screenplay gave him the power to direct Noise at Todd from a distance and basically speak to him all the time, and his intentions towards Todd are very clear and blatant. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it is intriguing (and more than a little creepy). I suppose that Kaufman's purpose was to set up the Mayor as a more prominent character, since Aaron is the main villain in book 1.

One of my favorite added moments was the Robert Frost joke. First because it was so in-character, but also because it shows them finding common ground despite their differences. Todd doesn't have Viola's education, but instead of making fun of him for not knowing the poem the screenplay lets him come up with his own poem, which feels exactly like something Ben would have taught him. And he shows that he cares about Viola and asks her to explain rather than letting her dismiss what she said as a stupid joke. And they trust each other enough by that time that her explaining doesn't feel condescending to him like it did before. I loved that.

I actually wasn't too fond of how Kaufman rewrote the scene in the cemetery where Ben explains what really happened in Prentisstown. I think it was important in the book when Todd was the one to figure it out, and letting Viola explain felt weaker to me. But what really bugged me was changing Ben's hope speech to talk about love. It wasn't really the point in my opinion, and he barely even met Viola anyway. Overall I guess it just felt a little too Hollywood-y (can I really be surprised, though?).

Of course, a few scenes and Characters had to be cut. The most sorely missed one was Wilf, but at least the screenplay still had the Sea of Things. Sadly it didn't have gorgeous visual of them laying in the cart and riding through the song of Here, and Todd's journey to rescue Viola after Aaron took her felt a little shorter. Viola's fake accent and calling herself and Todd Hildy and Ben was cleverly integrated into the Carbonel Downs scene, so at least that wasn't lost, but that part did feel a little rushed - we didn't get the full extent of how angry VIola was at their sexism and the tension of Ben facing the Law wasn't as intense as in the book (but it might just be that it was only a screenplay. )

The scene where Viola reads Todd his ma's book was beautiful (though a little bit of comic relief was inserted that I think I'd rather cut off). The moment where Todd looks at Viola and realizes he can read her... holy shit. That was powerful. I could almost hear the background music.

Aaron was as crazy as he was in the book - which is great - except that his ranting took a bit more of a slut-shaming angle which felt just a little bit off and distracting from how scary he is.

I really liked the circular ending and the visual elements, but I'm not sure how I feel about everything that happens in that scene. I guess it comes down again to the Mayor being so blatant. In the book, this scene is our first real introduction to him, but the Kaufman screenplay is not attempting to maintain that sense of dread and mystery. I wonder what a sequel would look like since getting to know the Mayor was such a big part of book 2. Anyway I'm sure If I were in the theater when Todd's Noise said "Listen, Viola: I have hope for us" I would break down crying, if I wasn't already.

Overall I really loved that screenplay. It captured the spirit of the book. Not to complain about the movie again, but I wish I could see the Kaufman screenplay getting produced. This is the movie I wanted. It feels like such a waste of potential, but I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to at least read the screenplay.

Anyway if anyone has thoughts about this screenplay or Chaos Walking in general I would love to hear from you! I can't believe it existed since 2012 and I only found it now.

[nny11writes]

For the fic writer ask game: What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write? (Feel free to rant :) )

Hahahaha, sorry were you looking for one trope? 

I’m usually so positive so now you’ve done it. You’ve unlocked me complaining about random shit that doesn’t usually matter. Because the damn busted wide the fuck open! Okay, so I’m going to approach this as outside of smut fics with intense kinks I can’t stand (vore, foot fetish, scat play, etc), because that’s me getting squicked and/or triggered and not just tropes that I wish would die in a fire.

My only disclaimer up front is that if you love most of these (hopefully it’ll be obvious which ones I will not forgive/excuse you from), that’s awesome! Go for it! Read it, write it, print it out to loving re-read and paste on the walls! Fandom is, in large part, about finding your niche and enjoying what you enjoy pretty much shamelessly. So I’m not passing judgement on anyone who enjoys reading or writing (most of) these.

CW: rape, sexual assault Also I’ve had a shit few days, so if you don’t want to read someone just being negative and bitching this is probably not the post for you friend. But it all below a cut so people can avoid!

Crossover Fics/Rule 50

My main gripe with this is that without fail a series I love get crossed over with a fandom I either don’t care about or hate. Every time I’ve tried to force myself to read one it’s never worked out for me. Sometimes fics aren’t properly tagged and I’m getting into the setting only for other characters from another fandom to suddenly show up and literally I instantly loose interest. The closest I got to writing a crossover fic, was on FF.net where I had all the characters I wrote for “talking to me” when I hit a big wall of writer’s block in the hopes that writing something so different and strange for me would help. It didn’t. It was interesting for 0.2 seconds to wonder how characters would interact, but then I instantly lost interest because I end up leaning so heavily of character tropes to make it work which, for me, isn’t fun to read or write.

Like, just write fusion! I like fusion! I’m currently writing a SPOP-SW fusion! It allows me to play with characters in a fun world that I already understand, but without the frustration of characters becoming more 2D or very OOC (or both) to force them to interact with one another. Rage Fics

Honestly? If you write and post rage fics, fuck you. Full stop. Fuck you. 

I’m about to tangent, but I swear it’s related. This is the equivalent of someone tagging a character or ship or fandom they hate in a post bashing them or blasting them to hell and back. Fucking beyond rude and obnoxious. That’s what rage fics are cranked up to 11. You are 100% allowed to hate on fandom/character/ship/trope/whatever the fuck, but when you do that shit you are forcing people who enjoy the media to see/interact with your BS because you fucking tagged it to show up where we are. A great example here in SPOP is Catra. I love her! I understand why some people don’t, and they’re 100% allowed to hate her and resent that so many people like her. Recently I went to the Catra tag to find art and fic, maybe some of the top notch meta this fandom puts out if I was lucky, and got stuck seeing post after post after meta post comparing her to another character in the show to explain why she’s an awful person, badly written character, and anyone who likes her (but didn’t like the poster’s fave) was an idiot/asshole/troll/bitch/dumbass and you know what? I went from having a decent time decompressing after a shitty day at work to getting fucking sent around the sun with stress. Like, bro, I’m here to ENJOY myself thanks, and when you tag things I go to for fun and fluff when I’m out of spoons and ready to snap to ranting about hating it, you make me want to scream.

Y’all don’t know how many people are lucky that I write up responses in word so I can get it out of my system and then just DELETE the whole fucking thing. Rage fic is that same fucking set up, but instead of being a relatively quick post (where I can block the poster here on tumblr), it’s a fanfic that people are going to continue to click into over and over and over again for fun only to get body slammed. There’s no way to warn people on AO3 if something is a rage fic beyond not leaving a kudos and dropping a comment. I don’t know a lot of people who read comments first so it doesn’t always work. 

If you post rage fics, grow up. Stop that shit. Fuck you. Instead, try not purposefully interacting with fandom that makes you so mad that you think doing this is an appropriate reaction. Block tags, block users, regulate comments, go whole fucking hog. You should be able to enjoy fandom too! But if you can’t do that without tearing down other people in fandom then you make me want to beat you over the head until you self-isolate to play by yourself in a different sandbox. Seriously. Fuck you if you do this.

Troll Fics

Did you think I came on strong for rage fics? This is worse. 

If you do this? Fuck you. You get NOTHING but my pure rage and if I find this shit I will report you however I can and then shout from the rooftops about it. And I’m sure if you do write troll fics because you enjoy being purposefully offensive and triggering then you’re probably delighted that my reaction to just thinking about this is wishing I had the power to fuck up your life. 

Like, the ONLY thing I can say for rage fic is that at least typically the person writing it actually enjoys some aspect of the fandom or fandom in general. 

Troll fics are just meant to be offensive on purpose and if you write and post that you’re a bad person. No exceptions. You can make different choices and work to become a better person or a good person, but right now, right this second as you do it? You’re a bad person. You should probably figure out why you get so much joy out of posting things with the sole purpose of hurting/triggering/being cruel to others. And you might need help to do that. I legit think you should reach out to people with different opinions from your own to try and break out of it. Get a therapist. Do fucking something worthwhile, because posting troll fics is not worth anyone’s while. Fuck you. Rape as a Backstory

I hope I don’t have to fucking explain why this makes me want to literally explode. I’m purposefully not writing that as R*pe so that people with rape tagged don’t see this.

If you think that rape is the only way to push your story forward or is a great way to give a character “free and easy trauma”, literally stop. Just. Fucking. Stop. There are other ways. Really look at your work, really think about /why/ it’s so important to you that the character /has/ to be raped. Most of the time the real answer is you don’t have a reason you just chose it because you either don’t care, think it’s not a big deal, or never considered other possibilities. There are stories where rape does need to be included, stories that address the topic kindly and/or tag appropriately for it. I’ve read some of these that were really amazing, both short (<1k) and long (>100k) because the author actually took a hot second to address the topic in an intelligent way. Whether that was to dive into how it’s harmful, address their own trauma, or (honestly) even for the smut porn of it but with all the proper tags on it. If you have it to be purely enjoyed by yourself and/or others with dubcon or noncon kinks, cool, good for you, TAG IT APPROPRIATELY. Fucking bless writers who still use “Dead Dove/Do Not Eat” tags y’all are doing great work. But the vast majority using this trope? 

They aren’t that, they aren’t anything like that at all, they aren’t always tagged correctly or at all and that’s by design, it’s often for shock value or a quick ‘well that’s why they’re anti-social’, it’s sometimes used as an excuse for one character to swear off sex until the “right person” comes along to “cure them”, and they shouldn’t have ever been posted.

Redemption Equals Sex/Sexual Karma

I know this is spring boarding a bit, but please stop writing these two tropes. 

I’m exhausted  y’all. And not just because I’m asexual. This trope is disgusting and usually comes with heaps of sexism, racism, and homophobia. If you want to write smut please just write the fucking smut. I’m literally posting smut fic and am planning to work on another one tonight! JUST WRITE SMUT WITHOUT MAKING IT DISGUSTINGLY ANTI-MINORITY GROUPS AND PLAYING INTO HARMFUL STEREOTYPES.  If bad guys become good(ish) guys because a woman saw past their barriers, took care of them, are a surrogate mother, and then had wild and kinky sex with them then it’s a bad fic. Likewise, if a character is punished for having sex, or is sexually assaulted to show that they’re now bad then it’s a bad fic.

If a character’s suffering is rewarded with sex to “cure” them and “make them better” then it’s a bad fic.

There are so many ways that this shit becomes a seriously harmful fic.

Please. Please, stop doing this. I am on my knees. Stop!

I am sick of ‘Draco’s in Leather Pants’ (can’t fucking believe I’m whipping that term out again holy shit what year is it) getting redeemed because they slept with someone and now found a reason to care. Sex leading someone on the path towards redemption is so EXTREMELY rarely handled in a way that’s well done. Just. Don’t. Be an unapologetic villain lover, slap them in an AU where they aren’t a pure villain, but don’t do this. Like I wrote above, I’m also just sick of (usually, but not always) dudes who put rape in to punish (usually, but not always) female characters or to punish weak/pushover characters (usually, but not always males). And equally tired of traumatized characters “casting off their shackles” to enjoy wild and kinky sex because someone with a magic dick/strap/fingers/tongue “showed them it’s okay” and “made it all better”.

Just, don’t. Be a fucking decent human being and don’t.

Character/Reader Fics

I...I really just don’t get this? It’s very uncomfortable to me and I’m assuming that’s due to me being aroace, I can’t read them and if I try to I either become so uncomfortable I stop or so rage filled I stop. 

I don’t mind 2nd person stories, but most of the ones I see are character/reader fics and it’s...like, it’s just bad. Not “cringe” just enjoyable for me. I can’t explain why I hate this so much considering I do enjoy some 2nd person fics. Idk, I really don’t have the words to explain why these bother me so much. :\

I ain’t got an alternative, if you like these you like them, and if you don’t you just don’t. Thank you for tagging so I can avoid. Have fun on your own! Song Fics and/or Audio/Sound Cue Fics

Sorry guys, I just hate it. I can’t really read a fic and listen to music at the same time, it becomes background noise 100% and detracts from both for audio cue fics.

Fuck, just realized I don’t know if people know what those are. Audio/Sound cue fics are fics where you’re reading along and all the sudden there’s a link or URL that you’re supposed to follow to help set up the next scene/enhance it. Hate it. Hate, hate, hate. It detracts from your story and makes it weaker while being annoying and breaking me the reader out of my enjoyment of your story. Hate! Telling me in the A/N that this (or these) are the song(s) you listened to while writing, song(s) you based the story on, or even that you think they’re good songs to get you in the mood for the story is totally okay! I’ll probably ignore it unless I went head over heels for it, in which case I WILL go back and listen to all of them. (Why hello Rhythm and Blues, you punched me in the face and I now listen to every song even vaguely mentioned in the story or A/N, you’re that good, it’s so fucking good guys, I can’t stop talking about this fucking series it’s just so good?????????) Song fics are also typically in this boat for me. And I want to be really clear, not fics where a character is singing in the fic with lyrics written out. That doesn’t bother me, that song is now effectively part of the story and draws me in. But if it’s paragraphs of description before suddenly cutting it’s annoying. Why, oh why, do I put up with this misery? Still looking for a reason For now it is a mystery to me Why, oh why, do I put up with this misery? Still looking for a reason But for now it's ancient history to me

So yeah I’m making an example to complain about the example. 

But question. 

Was that needed? 

All I did was make overly explicit my feelings in this text that was already there in what I’d written. Song fics feel to me like writers who aren’t confident that their writing is good/understandable/relatable and so they are desperately throwing someone else’s creation into their own in the hopes the reader will get it. Friend, I promise you, we’ll get it without the song! The song lyrics detract when they’re just floating out there, and have taken goods fics and made them frustrating. Either that or you think you’re so amazing that your shit don’t stink and the rest of us idiots can choke because of your brilliance. I’ve found several song fics that if I copy and paste them into a word document and delete the song out, I really enjoyed the fic itself on it’s own merits in a way I literally couldn’t with the lyrics in there. Again, if you are weaving music into your fic, weave it in. Have characters sing, write the lyrics out as a character is listening to the music, quote the song in your fic (preferably without it being super obvious. I’m not saying my take on that was the best, but I did write a Catradora fic on giftly request based on a song and I 100% used lyrics from it in my prose and built my whole plot around it without breaking out to quote the song explicitly), just do something that’s not, like, punching me in the face because “clearly I couldn’t get it” or from a fear that “they won’t understand”. At best you seem insecure and unsure about your story, which is fantastic without the song. At worst it seems like you’re saying your fic is so beyond the average reader that we would never understand your vision without someone else’s original content in it.

[serenagaywaterford]

It’s fucking crazy how in a show meant to wake the general populace up, people really do seem to hate majority of the female characters. Note it’s only the complex ones, because god forbid Margret Atwood wrote them as shades of grey and not as definitively “evil” or “good”.

I’ve been in quite a few shitty fandoms in my day but I’m not certain I’ve been in one quite as overwhelmingly tone deaf as The Handmaid’s Tale fandom. I have never seen so much hypocrisy and virtue signalling and fake wokeness in a singular fandom with source material (in terms of the original novel and S1/2 at least) that directly opposes those things. Like I was in GoT fandom for a while and holy shit the misogyny there. So, I know what it looks like. But the thing about that hellplace was that there was still a fairly recognisable and approachable faction that loudly and actively spoke out about the sheer number of issues with GoT (racism, misogyny, etc.) I feel like those people gave up on the show about mid-run, and GoT was left with a bunch of idiots and “libfems” by the end.

The thing about THT is that it appears to be 95% idiots and fake-woke “feminists” I put it in quotes cos they are NOT feminists. They just like to identify as that cos it’s trendy. They have no idea what feminism is if they centre Nick in the THT narrative, or refuse to engage with any female character other than June or Emily in any rational way and instead wish rape, violence, torture, death, and/or intense suffering on any female character (or apparently actor who plays said character!) they personally dislike because they don’t have the braincells to understand what Atwood specifically was trying to do.)

When THT becomes all about a MALE and his precious fweelings, and his uwu luv stowwy wiv Jwune and all they focus on is how “cool” June is for bullying other Handmaids into suicide, and how “awesome” she is for being 1000% selfish and self-absorbed and not caring at all about all the other women (esp. poor women of colour) she tramples on to get what she wants, that is NOT GOOD. This is a character who purposely and actively manipulated a domestic abuse victim to go back to her abusive, violent, cheater, rapist husband for June’s own ends. (And surprise, surprise that blew up in her face and people really take June’s side 100% on that cos “Serena deserves Fred” aka “Serena deserves to be beaten, raped, and abused by her husband because she’s a bad woman who has done bad things herself”. When you are saying a woman, no matter who they are, deserves to be beaten and raped and imprisoned in that situation, you are not a feminist because that isn’t justice for Serena’s crimes. That is torture.) Nothing June did in S3 was heroic. She is almost no better than the woman she hates at this point. I see very little difference between June and Serena anymore, and yet… YET fans think the sun shines out of June’s ass and Serena should be raped to death (aka “Wouldn’t it be soooo cool if Serena became a Handmaid?! Omg so cool! She deserves it! Hurr durr I am FEMINIST!!!!”).

O.o

There is zero nuance in THT fandom. It’s fine to dislike female characters. It’s fine to be critical of them. It’s fine to like male characters (I guess…). But centring men in a woman’s story and then parroting Gilead’s ideals unironically while calling yourself woke? It’s terrifying. 

June is so gross in S3, and when she isn’t being awful, she’s written as some child-crazed, hysterical woman. The writers’ full sexism and internalized (or externalized lol) misogyny on clear display. And the fans just LAP IT UP with no critical thought. No complaint. Like, “Yes, this is what a woman should be!” nevermind the entire purpose of the commentary in the novel (and S1) was that women are MORE than just hysterical, overly emotional baby-machines or housekeepers. Women are not mere resources to be harvested like cattle. Women have more personality than just “ME WANT BABBY!!!” Women are resourceful and complex and not all good, not all bad. Women are conflicted and conflicting. Meanwhile, now the show presents women almost identically to how Serena Joy wrote about them, and how Gilead has identified them, and the fans are like “Yeah! This is fine! I don’t see any problems with this at all!”

And if you dare say, “Um, guys, that’s a pretty bad take. Do you understand what you’re actually saying?” you get called a “rape apologist!!! HURRRR!!!! WHAT ABUT 2x10!!!!!” And it literally doesn’t matter what you challenge these fans about, whether it’s Nick, the themes of THT, Serena, June, etc. They see you are a fan of Serena and suddenly the discourse deteriorates completely to “Nazi!!!! you’re a rapist nazi sympathizer!!!!!!!!!” 

So, there’s no point in talking to any of them. Yeah, cos I’m the one saying women I don’t like deserve to be raped and beaten until they die as slaves in an oppressive fascist regime. (That’s actually you guys, jsyk.) My favourite was being compared to an MRA. Like, do you people even read what you write? 

I’m not the one talking non-stop about how great Mr. Soggy Pancake Man is and how we must protect this precious bean in a story about massive female oppression uwu. “BUT WHAT ABOUT NICK?!?! MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER!!!” I hate men, lol. I can’t count the number of times I’ve literally said, “I don’t give a shit about ANY of the men in THT. I only care about women and you people are misogynistic pigs for the way you talk about women.” yet I’m a Men’s Rights Activist?

What I hear when I go into the tags: 

“All women are awful harpies and stupid or boring except this specific one cos we want her to bone the Cute Boy we’re obsessed with and she’s just basically a self-insert for our own lonely fantasies and we need to only hear about the Cute Boy, not these annoying women. If a woman character interferes or challenges my heterosexual fantasy OTP in any way, that woman must suffer and die, and I’ll laugh and cheer as that happens, especially if she’s beaten by her husband or loses her mind/commits suicide! They deserve it! Also, who really cares about all those other women’s stories elsewhere in the world. BORING! My white saviour self-insert main female character can do no wrong because I am perfect! I’ll even go out of my way and actively search out people who aren’t doing anything to me, aren’t talking to me at all and just keeping to themselves, and send online threats, hate, and insults to anybody who doesn’t agree with me about how great Mr. Stale Bread is and they’re Nazis for not agreeing with me.” 

And I’M the MRA? I’m the crazy one?

No self-awareness at all. No nuance. No critical thinking skills. And a HELL of a lot of projection that they don’t even seem to know they’re making. There are grown ass women (like 40 YEAR OLDS!) who worship Nick Bland’s ugly dick, online bullying literal minors who don’t subscribe to the Serena-Hate groupthink. It’s a cesspool. THT fandom fucking SUCKS. I’m gonna guess it’s these same morons who wished that Yvonne would lose her baby cos you hate SERENA. Like, if you don’t think this is disgusting, I don’t know how else to get it through to you that something is VERY WRONG with the vast majority of online THT fandom.

99% of this fandom doesn’t seem to give a fuck what Atwood was trying to say in her novel, or what the show intentionally set out to do challenge and prove. Anyway, anon. I feel ya. I hate this fandom which is why I never check the tags anymore, never go on Twitter, unfollowed the Insta, don’t go on FB, and stick with my very wonderful small group of non-crazies who also appreciate the complex, difficult character of Serena here – and block everyone else I can because I just don’t have time for that kind of constant drama and aggravation from ignorant people.

Wow. Okay. Sorry. Rant over.

[annarosewriting]

I Have Seen That Look Before.

I’m assuming we’ve all seen That Video™ now. 

The one of the white supremacist, Nazi trash, rat-faced, piece of shit kid looking at Nathan Phillips, the Omaha Elder and veteran. 

I have seen every conceivable angle of that video. I can’t get on Twitter without seeing that fucking waste of skin wearing that ugly ass hat with That Look™ on his face as Nathan Phillips stands strong. 

Every time I see that video I feel white hot anger boiling in the pit of stomach as I watch Nazi’s surround Nathan Phillips and the other individuals from the Indigenous People’s March. The very same people that we have stolen land from, then built a pipe on said land and have treated inhumanly for far too long. 

There are plenty of elements to this video that stoke the fire of my anger. 

There’s the complete lack of human decency and respect. The fact that this is the America that we live in, and will continue to live in!, until something drastic happens. The fact that individuals who claimed to be Christians were the ones doing this. There’s also the frustrating knowledge that these assholes will live their whole pathetic lives and will, most likely, face no repercussions and will never understand why their actions are so vile. The one detail that really sucker punched me in the gut was That Look on that fuckers face. 

I have seen that Look so many times in my life. 

I have had so many men, men that I love and respect and others that I don’t know from Adam, give me that Look. It is that, more often than not, accompanies gaslighting. It is a look that partners with the mindset of someone who knows they have more power than I and they will use it to harm me. Whether physically, mentally, professionally or emotionally. 

It’s the look of a man that does not care about the human being standing in front of them. 

It’s a look that ensures the person they are trying to intimidate knows that this is a game to them. This is sport and they know they will win because they wholeheartedly believe in their wicked ways. 

It’s the same look I would get whenever I would stand up for myself or others. The look that says, “I know I’m protected because this system was built for me, by me. I cannot lose and you are nothing.”  

Here’s the thing, this is my experience. I’m a white woman who grew up in an upper-middle class family who is college educated. I am incredibly privileged and my experience with events like what happened to Nathan Phillips is NOTHING compared to the hatred that is directed at POC, LGBTQ+ and other minorities on a daily basis. 

But I do know one thing. I’m angry. 

And I’ve been angry for a long ass time.  

Every time shit like this happens, every time another piece of shit Republican passes a law that will further endanger minorities, every time another disgusting, old ass white man sexually abuses a woman, every time Louis C.K. rears his unfunny, irrelevant dough face into the public eye, every time Buzzfeed breaks a news story about how poisoned Donald’s campaign was and still is, it is another piece of ammunition I use to keep me angry. 

And I’m tired of hiding my anger. 

When I was younger I never hid my anger. Then I realized that’s not a great way to make friends or get jobs so I scaled it way back. I swallowed that shit down, I sat on it and let it fester inside of me until it rotted me from the inside out. 

But now, I am angry all the time and I’m going to make sure everyone knows. 

I don’t care that my anger “scares people.” 

I’m done giving a fuck that my anger “is unattractive to men” because holy SHIT could I care less about whether or not men are attracted to me. 

I’m upset that I let people shame me and made me believe that my anger was “too intense.” Sorry that my anger is “too intense” but the racism, sexism, bigotry and other repugnant actions that run rampant in this country is a little “too intense” for me so I would really appreciate it if it would stop. 

I’m sick of listening to people say that “we shouldn’t fight their hatred with more hatred and anger!!! We should fight it with love!!!!” 

Sure! I would love to do that! I would love to live in that fantasy world but that strategy didn’t work for us so I’m ready to punch some goddamn Nazi’s, be angry and fight dirty. 

And yes, it’s draining. I have so much anger in me some days that it turns into an overwhelming exhaustion that makes me want to lie down, close my eyes and wake up in 40 years. 

It makes me weary to my bones every time I open up social media to see how people are being awful and to see how many others are championing their disgusting actions. 

It’s enough that more often than not I think, “why even bother? The whole system, the whole fucking country is poisoned and it is so difficult to find the good when the overwhelming majority of people are either indifferent or are too steeped in their own bigotry to change. Why keep fighting. Why keep being angry.” 

The best I’ve come up with is, angry people change things. Anger is a motivator. It helps me get back up again and again; even when it would be easier to stay down. 

For me, a lot of it starts with small actions. It starts with me, calling people out for their shitty behavior. With sharing my experiences as a fat woman. It starts with listening to others, learning from them and their experiences. It starts with me checking my own internalized misogony, racism and prejudice so I can unlearn these things to help create a more open, caring and respectful world for everyone.   

It’s waking up and moving through the world with intentions of helping. To speak up for the causes that matter to me and shutting the fuck up when other causes are more important than mine. It’s knowing that I need to show up for others but not making it about me. It’s about learning how to be a good ally for others. 

It is immeasurably difficult to get up in the morning when the world is going to hell in a hand basket and especially so when That Look™ is being directed at Nathan Phillips and I cannot escape it. 

But we are doing a huge disservice to everyone by just laying down and giving up. 

I cannot give up. Changing this shit starts with me and I’m not going to let Donald supporters win.

They already won once. I refuse to let them win anymore.  

If the only reason I get up in the morning is fueled by spite? So be it. 

All I know is, Nathan Phillips refused to be cowed by That Look. And neither will I.   

[crazy-pages]

Proved Wrong In The Worst Possible Way

So a little while back I posted something decrying the extent to which some subcommunities of Tumblr hunt down and attack stuff which might vaguely resemble pedophilia (teenagers writing fanfics about people their age, age gaps between consenting adults, stuff like that). I said that while a deeper exploration into what should or should not qualify as problematic activity is warranted with stuff like sexism, racism, and homophobia, where there’s intense societal pressure to normalize problematic behaviors, that’s not really necessary for pedophilia. Because unlike other social ills, pedophilia is one thing our society Does Not Tolerate. 

Well, I still stand by some of what I said. I think doxxing teens writing smut about their age group is wrong, I think what a thirty-something does with a fifty-something is their own business, people who are into size differences aren’t pedophiles, and I don’t think you should send death-threats to someone who praises a show’s presentation of a highschool-aged romantic pair (I’ve seen that happen and I still can’t understand what the person sending death threats was thinking). I still think Tumblr’s anti-pedophile community is just seeking out easy and available targets rather than seeking out deserving targets. 

But holy fucking shit I no longer believe our society doesn’t tolerate pedophilia. Not after seeing Roy Moore’s supporters pull this shit (x). Apparently people in the US will excuse pedophilia if the Senate power balance might be affected. 

I just ... I need to go lie down. 

[elizas-writing]

Movie Reviews: Get Out

I’m not usually one for horror, but I can make some exceptions. It often depends on the stories, themes, characters, and how much I can stomach gore and violence. This movie was no exception as it was a horror-comedy with themes of anti-black racism directed by Jordan Peele. Oh, this has to be fucking good. And thankfully, I was right. By the way, wanted to go for a gif that wasn’t too flashy and headache inducing. Plus Daniel Kaluuya is so handsome.

It’s a new step in their relationship as a photographer, Chris, goes with his girlfriend, Rose, for a weekend trip to meet her parents. Problem? He’s black and worried about what his white girlfriend’s parents will think of him as she hasn’t told them yet about his race. Rose reassures everything will be fine, but as they arrive to her parents house, something seems off, both by the family’s behavior and their black servants. And the longer they stay, the more Chris’s suspicion rises as he puts the pieces together about this odd white family.

Pretty much think of Stepford Wives but with racism instead of sexism, and that’s your movie. While this is a horror-comedy film, I was actually surprised going in how subtle the comedy was. It drove from the little things the family said and did that were off to portray a black person’s paranoia when surrounded by white people. It’s actually a lot more effective that way because it forces you to pay attention to the dialogue and pick up on the microaggressions that would usually fly over your head, but a black person could easily recognize right off the bat as ridiculous. It makes the audience (especially white people who may not be as aware as they think) think critically about how these interactions are unsettling and can induce some level of paranoia for a black person. It’s all cleverly snuck in and given what I picked up on, it’s freaking hysterical.

Another great thing about this was how the white people were portrayed. One might expect “Oh, they’re just going to be right-wing conservatives or something and say one dumb thing right on top of the other.” Actually these are people you could consider moderate or even liberal. They seem well-intended and try to reassure that they love black people and aren’t racist-- there’s even a joke about how the dad claims he would vote Obama for a third term--, but they but end up doing more bad than good and just say some more word-vomit. Again, it’s simple microaggressions that would usually fly over anyone’s head, but most black people can see the implications and how what they say can be taken the wrong way. The movie’s all about build up as this family (especially their black servants) just get weirder and weirder to the point where it’s just uncomfortable, and you’re screaming at Chris to run like hell. It really got me on edge, and I wanted to see him make it out in the end.

Chris, played by Daniel Kaluuya, is also a wonderful protagonist to follow as he starts putting the pieces together, and even how he reacts to this white family. Sometimes all he has to say is just in a look, and you know what he’s thinking. He contributes greatly to the “show, don’t tell” aspects of the film as he’s just as puzzled by this family as we are, and we feel his fear and paranoia when things start getting out of hand.

There’s even some freaky stuff about Rose’s mother and hypnosis which she uses on Chris, and his mind is sent to “the sunken place” and it’s a wonderful visual to see his internal struggle to break free. I won’t go further than that without spoilers, but those are some wonderful scenes to pay attention too, and check out Jordan Peele’s Twitter with how he intended the sunken place to be, because you can see all the meticulous planning he put into this. These are more scenes where Kaluuya just shines as you see all the emotion he can put in his performance, sometimes without a single line of dialogue.

And when it switches to the horror, holy crap, it’s terrifying and intensely messed up. Again, no spoilers, but when you see this family’s true intentions, it’s probably the most fucked up thing you’ll ever see. The last half hour is just pure intensity that will have you screaming, cheering and maybe even crying a bit. I was really anxious at the end, but it was such a relief when it was all over.

This movie is worth the Rotten Tomatoes score it has. There’s a lot of little details to pay attention to, social commentary to take away as it is relevant to current events, and a freaking great combo of comedy and horror, even if one is a lot more subtle. If you’re willing to learn more about anti-black racism and want the shit scared out of you, Get Out is your movie to see.