#but i'm here and i have a shovel.

[scribefindegil]

Lorraine Baines McFly and Female Autonomy

Hello. I have spent the past month slowly losing my mind about Lorraine Baines McFly, Marty's mom in Back to the Future, so I am finally trying to articulate some of the reasons I'm so feral about her.

There's a quote from Lea Thompson, the actress who played Lorraine, that goes, "The three parts that women usually get to play are virgins, whores, and mothers, and in Back to the Future Part II, I got to play all three." While this is commentary on Hollywood and the limited roles that fictional women get forced into, I think it's also interesting to think about it in terms of how these roles are reflected onto actual women and used to limit their personhood and confine them to a very narrow range of acceptable behaviors . . . and then in turn to think about how the character interacts with these roles on a Watsonian level. They're affecting not just Lorraine the character as she was written, but Lorraine from an in-universe perspective trying to navigate life as a woman in a patriarchal world. Some of the sexism she faces is a deliberate narrative choice and some of it is a result of the writers' blind spots, but for the purpose of this essay I'm less interested in teasing out which threads are which and more in looking at it holistically.

Because the thing about Lorraine is that she's aware of what the acceptable roles and behaviors for women are, and the versions that we see of her across the various timelines alternately fight against and capitulate to these constraints. What is a woman allowed to be? How much is Lorraine willing to break from those restrictions? How much does she allow other women to break from them? Does she resent her role or embrace it? I have a lot of thoughts specifically about how the different iterations of her interact with concepts of female agency and autonomy.

(Putting this under a cut because it is. Long.)

I started thinking about this when I was talking with my partner about 50's Lorraine. She's extremely active and driven and planning to Get What She Wants (in a way that is very scary, if you are Marty) . . . but at the same time she's clearly aware that she isn't supposed to be. A Good Fifties Girl is demure and passive. Lorraine isn't--but she's still trying to toe the line. I think constantly about the scene where she shows up at Doc's garage to be like "I followed you home . . . so that I can ask you to ask me to the dance." The girl can embrace borderline stalking but she draws the line at directly asking a boy out! She's exercising a lot of agency but views doing so as rebellious and subversive--and risky.

And I also want to talk about the whole "boy crazy" thing because like . . . society (especially in the fifties) tells women that the most important thing they can possibly do is find a good man and become wives and mothers, that this will define the success or failure of their entire lives (and given how many things were unavailable to single women at the time this is in many ways true) . . . and then relentlessly mocks and punishes anyone who actually takes an interest in pursuing this instead of just sitting back passively and waiting. She is trying to do what society says will make her happy! And even her desire for a white knight is very much based in the reality of her situation! She's getting sexually harassed at school and around town and she's doing exactly what she's supposed to and standing up for herself and saying no and fighting back--and this is not enough. She does need backup! Biff harasses her in the middle of a crowded cafeteria and Marty is the ONLY person who does anything! No fucking wonder she latches onto him as hard as she does! (There's. I promise this is related but there's a BttF parody musical on YouTube where when Strickland comes to break up the lunchroom fight he says, "Now, I can excuse sexual harassment, but LIGHT SHOVING?" and like it's a haha funny joke but also?? Yeah?? That IS how it works. The way Lorraine's being treated is so overlooked and normalized that the authority figure isn't going to step up the way he will when it's a physical altercation between two guys. Screams.) I wonder if part of the reason she stuck with George in the original timeline even though they didn't have a lot in common is that "I have a boyfriend" is a boundary that some people might actually take seriously whereas "I'm not interested" is not.

But. In general 50's Lorraine is very much about grabbing as much agency as she feels she's allowed to . . . and then Twin Pines Lorraine is what happens when she regrets the result of those choices (because while we don't see it, it's pretty obvious that in the original timeline she pursued George as aggressively as she pursues Marty in the new one), and so she decides to deny, not just her own agency, but female agency as a general concept. She leans so heavily on the idea that her relationship was "meant to be" because it absolves her of any culpability in creating a life she's unhappy with. She's rewritten her own past to view herself as a passive participant in something inevitable. (Exactly the view of womanhood that she was fighting so hard against in the 50's!) And she extends this idea of female passivity to the women around her: telling Linda that she should sit back and wait and a relationship will "just happen," actively resenting Jennifer for doing something as simple as calling Marty on the phone. It's a really interesting form of internalized misogyny, perpetuating these sexist ideas as almost a misguided form of self-defense.

And then for Lone Pine Lorraine this is completely flipped! She loves Jennifer for the same reason she disliked her in Twin Pines: because she reminds Lorraine of her younger self. And like . . . this is something of an extrapolation, but while obviously her husband and kids are still very important to her, it also feels like she has interests and friends and other things going on in her life, whereas part of the isolation of Twin Pines is that her life has shrunk down to the point where she's ONLY a wife and mother with nothing else to define herself by. And it also matters that in this timeline she has a partner that supports her, not just in the big dramatic moments (although also that), but you can easily see the dance as a catalyst for George actually learning to listen to her and stand up for her about smaller things as well. George McFly feminism arc. (I'm being slightly facetious but like. George starts off kind of shitty. The spying is actively Bad and I hope Marty chewed him out for it offscreen, but also his reaction to the harassment scene being "I think there's someone else she'd rather go with," implying that he sees what Biff is doing as like. Normal flirting that he expects to work. He doesn't GET it. Unsurprising because he is. A teenage boy in the fifties. But I do believe that saving Lorraine was something of a wakeup call and after that he listened to her about things that make her uncomfortable and gave her the support that she needed. Which would also give her a lot more freedom in this timeline because she has someone with more societal power who has her back!)

And then. Hell Valley.

If Lone Pine is the version of Lorraine who has the most freedom, the most opportunities to make decisions based on what she wants instead of What Is Expected Of A Woman, Hell Valley is the opposite. The things denying her agency in Twin Pines is largely societal forces (and herself); in Hell Valley she is actively being denied autonomy by her evil husband who functions as the personification of a bunch of sexist ideas.

She's been objectified to the point that she doesn't maintain control over her own body; Biff pressures her to get cosmetic surgeries so she can continue to look attractive to him because that's the only value he sees in her. Her physical appearance is entirely tailored to his preferences.

Biff's view of Lorraine is wife-as-possession. He treats her like a prize he's won and her kids like parasites. And he is NOT subtle about this. But Lorraine is still desperately clinging to the idea that she's wife-as-family. She calls Biff "your father" to Marty when he arrives, and talks about "our children" because she wants so so badly for this to be something different than what it is. It's especially terrible because this is a timeline where she got seventeen years of being happy with George, she knows what she's missing, and she keeps trying to force this new relationship into a similar mold even though Biff is openly contemptuous of her and especially her kids. It's been twelve years and she's still trying to pretend. To call back to that Lea Thompson quote: it's obvious where Biff thinks Lorraine fits on the virgin-mother-whore axis, while Lorraine is actively trying to centralize her motherhood partially because the kids really are that important to her and partially as a defense mechanism.

(And it's also such a bleak cautionary tale about how fragile women's stability can be when they're dependent on their husbands; Lorraine was happy with George and had a fair amount of freedom, but he was the only one with an income so when he died she was suddenly forced into a truly horrific situation because she had no other means to support herself and her three young children. Especially given that the Hell Valley universe is also worse in some broader political ways that mean there were probably even fewer social supports available than in real life 1973)

And god. It kills me the way that we see her lash out, the way she's clawing for autonomy when she threatens to leave . . . and then exactly how Biff levels all his axes of control against her. It's very interesting that his first tactic is consumerist (Who will pay for all your things? Who will take care of you?) and that doesn't work even though not being able to support herself is a very real concern. It's only when he threatens her kids that she folds. And then she immediately crumples and pivots to rationalizing Biff's behavior and blaming herself for her own abuse (in a way that is both HEARTBREAKING and also? surprisingly sympathetic and realistic for an 80's movie?). It's similar to the passivity we see in Twin Pines, but here we see exactly where it comes from. She doesn't have any way out so she has to pretend. It's the only way she can keep going. She has these flashes of rage but they're immediately snuffed out by despair and denial.

There's not a lot of talk about Lorraine and what there is tends to reduce her to "well she's Marty's mom" as if she's a boring character who doesn't have a lot going on. But even though most of her role in the movies has to do with her relationships with the various men in her life, those relationships are really interesting if you actually pay attention to them! She's not just (in the 80's) a wife and mother--she's someone who has a complex relationship with marriage and motherhood and the societal expectations surrounding them. She's not just (in the 50's) a vapid boy-crazy girl--she's doing her best to go after what she wants in a world that doesn't want her to (the fact that one of the things she wants turns out to be her time-traveling son from the future is unfortunate but not something she has any way of knowing!). She's stuck in a society that doesn't want women to be people, and she knows this, and because we see her across two different time periods and three different timelines you can watch how sometimes society grinds her down until she gives in and tries not to be a person. And also how, sometimes, she fights back.

[ecos-syscourse]

Imagine you're trying to get a gem (understanding) out of a hole covered in rocks (misunderstanding, bias, misinformation).

What would you do to get the gem out?

You take the other rocks (misinformation, bias, misunderstanding) out of the hole, maybe with a help of a shovel, that are in the way of getting to the golden rock/gem (understanding, person switching sides). Gently, because if the rocks bump into each other, it could damage the gem, and possibly break it.

What would you not do?

- throw a shovel at the hole

- unleash a horde of fiery ants at the hole

- laugh at the hole after attacking it

Now then, let's say the gem is uh. oh. my comparison to rocks doesn't work for this.

nono I'll roll with it

The rock is scared of being saved. This is strange, it's not used to being out of this hole. Being out of the hole is different. It doesn't make sense to them. They've always been in the whole, why would they leave?

The rock may paint itself a different color, to make you think that it is right to be in the hole. It may pretend to be dirt. To be something it's not.

It could try anything and everything not to be removed from its hole, even if it would be better for it to be out of it.

This is called a defense mechanism.

Or, that's what I'm pretty sure it's called.

When the gem is doing this, please treat it gently. Do not attack it with fire ants or a shovel. It may seem like it's not, but it is showing weakness.

It doesn't have any good defenses left, so it's trying it's best to find anything.

FOR THE LOVE, DO NOT HIT IT WITH A SHOVEL OR ATTACK IT WITH FIRE ANTS.

BE KIND.

IT IS SIMPLE: BE KIND.

IT TAKES ZERO FUCKING DOLLARS TO BE KIND AND UNDERSTANDING

Remember: you are trying to get the other person to change sides. not for the rock to damage itself. not for the rock to be buried deeper.

hitting it with a shovel will only bury it deeper.

fire ants and termites or whatever bug will break the rock.

[sciderman]

Hi, I would love to ask more in the "ask blog", I just need to know, what are the current events that are going on?

Are they still on the plot on St Valentin, or is the theme with Harry the main conflict?

the main theme in the blog is whatever you ask about ! that do be how it works

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: NEVER WHISTLE AT NIGHT: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, ed. by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

This has a bunch of authors I already love in it (Stephen Graham Jones, Darcie Little Badger, Waubgeshig Rice, and Rebecca Roanhorse!!), and several authors I've been meaning to try (like Tommy Orange, Nick Medina, and Kelli Jo Ford, to name a few), so I'm really hyped for them all to be together in one volume! Plus dark fiction is very much my jam (especially when it comes in a bright and colorful package).

[paradife-loft]

intended to make chocolate/chocolate chip cookies today to remedy the tragic lack of desserts currently in my house.

swerved at the last minute into impulsive baking experiments, and now I have a batch of chocolate-matcha cookies instead.

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out!

[servuscallidus]

I'm dying to talk about incest in Hamlet as something non-diegetic but that becomes relevant as a reading only as an answer to the freudian reading, which I think is reductive and not too interesting, but since everyone and their mothers (heh) keeps bringing it up, I posit that the incestuos desire is towards the fathers. And anyway it doesn't really matter because it's all a product of patriarchal society, something that Freud and nearly every Hamlet critic willfully ignores

[hickeygender]

man. i know it sounds counterintuitive considering my situation, but I'm finding the body horror aspect of the terror cathartic. like yeah, they're having a yearslong slide into full-on bodily rebellion and all the horrors present therein. the loss of autonomy, the new skin blemishes and hair changes, the weakness, the deficiencies, the frailty, not sleeping, sleeping too much, utter exhaustion, being unable to eat, losing weight rapidly, constant muscular tremors, brain fog, praying it stops, ignoring it until your haggard visage and wrecked body is unavoidable in the mirror, the fear, the fear, always fear, and you know it's bad, but there's no answers for far too long, and when (if) you get them a cure is questionable and your body might just kill you anyways. yeah i've been sick since sept '23 and have paid thousands of dollars in medical bills. these two things are entirely disconnected i'm sure.

[sevicia]

I would say good morning but if it were a good morning I'd be with my imaginary boyfriend who thinks I'm sooo cute and kisses me soooo sweetly and I'd be across the globe as far away from my house as possible. Also it's 12.12 so it's not morning anymore. Nothing to smile about in my life.

[transingthoseformers]

I think TFP Impactor with TFA Shockwave's claws would be hella cool. Also, you know what, just make him Megatron's brother. D-17.

I see fics occasionally that portray the strength of the twin bond and how similar they are based on when the spark split, so have the spark split early for them. Fraternal twins instead of identical twins like the Lambo twins, you know?

The way I've thought about D-16 having a twin/brother

[deadn30n]

i was wondering why i was trembling/shaking so much only to realize i haven't eaten since like 3pm yesterday LOL uhhhhh

[phoenixwrites]

One of the most alarming things this year is when a fellow fandom friend gently told me I'm a "Big Name Fan" and she had never seen a BNF not get some kind of stupid harassment after a certain point.

It had not occurred to me that I was a 'BNF' and it still is trippy to think about--I constantly think I'm the lurker on livejournal, just quietly doing my own thing while others don't even notice my movements.

But...I mean, I have been on here since 2012 writing fics with decent responses, so...maybe she's right. O_O

[snapbackslide]

if anyone got tips pls share with the group 🫶🫶🫶🫶

[kingskrazzyart]

Well, if you hate winter, you know how much of a pain it can be to constantly have to shovel your drive way. And if you don't get snow, you get seasons of heavy hurricanes and typhoons. Harsh weather conditions destroy homes, harm our communities, and take more money to repair damages than some people can afford. That's why you should help @ma7moudgaza2 and his family

Here's their verification || Verification 2

Mahmoud and his brother, Muhammad, are campaigning to buy supplies to survive this winter season. Their current goal is to buy covers and blankets to keep themselves warm because Surviving genocide is just as important as escaping it. Their family consists of 20 people-- that's an entire classroom of people! The money will be used for the supplies mentioned previously along with food, wood for a chair, clothes, and a shader to prevent their tent from sinking. For more details about how the money will be spent, click here. These people are your neighbors, graphic designers, phone repairers, and some maybe could've been your friends. If your neighbor's work blew up, wouldn't you want to help?

Pictured: Muhammad's work before and after the war.

"...I lost all of my work, leveled it to the ground, and completely destroyed my dream. As this war continued for more than 10 months, what I had saved was not enough for me. From money to buy my basic life, I am now without money and without a source of income, which the occupation has completely destroyed." -Message from Muhammad, read more here

Click here to see Mahmoud's work portfolio

The family has been a recent victim of *fraud* and had their campaign money STOLEN! Every cent you can donate matters! If 2500 people who reblogged this donated 10 USD then they'd reach their goal! If tumblr can come together for a fake movie, we can come together for this! We got this!!! Donate to their campaign and Paypal!

[sheyshen]

started trying to shovel out of the driveway but it's so packed in there i end up having to shovel the same spot like 3 times just to get it clear. managed to get the front of the driveway and front door clear before my back started really fighting it. ugh. well that's like a quarter of the drive done and we hit subzero tonight :(

[giftedeath]

more tags

she who hangs out a lot in cemeteries › ic.

i make a mockery of death and a spectacle of survival › hc.

death is your gift › study.

i may be dead but im still pretty › visuals.

nobody asked if i was ready › aesthetics.

if the apocalypse comes / beep me ! › answered.

why are you full of rage ? / because you are full of grief › meta.

i. suck the rot right out of my bloodstream › spike.

i. there's an ache in you / put there by the ache in me › dawn.

i. i am the shape you made me › giles.

i. a mother's shame can haunt a daughter's body › joyce.

i. my reflection and i were like rival animals › faith.

i. i was missing not a place but a person › willow.

i. he is my brother and i need a shovel to love him › xander.

i. everyone i love is not here › tara.

i. you are the only people i'd surrender my softness to › anya.

i. of course we were no full moon › oz.

i. as a penance / a lesson / a source of profitable humiliation › riley.

i. the kind of dream people have only when they're seventeen › angel.

dawn : there's an ache in you / put there by the ache in me

giles : i am the shape you made me

joyce : a mother's shame can haunt a daughter's body

faith : my reflection and i were like rival animals

willow : i was missing not a place but a person

tara : everyone i love is not here

xander : he is my brother and i need a shovel to love him

anya : you are the only people i'd surrender my softness too

oz : of course we were no full moon

riley - as a penance / a lesson / a source of profitable humiliation

angel - the kind of dream people have only when they're seventeen

spike - suck the rot right out of my bloodstream

what i am aches in me

the shame of being seen consumes me

[yamujiburo]

HANAMUSA (JESSIExDELIA) MASTER POST

I probably should have started doing this forever ago but I wasn’t sure how long I was gonna stick with drawing these comics. But I guess we’re in it now! This will be continually updated~ EVERYTHING UNDER THE CUT

BEFORE YOU START:

This post is required reading about Team Rocket’s ages since that’s usually a question that comes up a lot LOL. As for Delia’s age, she is said to be 29 in Takeshi Shudo’s (original writer on Pokémon) novel that built out the world and characters of the anime.

Next, I feel like this chart helps give the vibe of what these characters relationship is (all just headcanons except for their names and ages)!

WHERE TO START:

Here’s a post I made detailing how Jessie, James and Meowth initially start living with Delia. It also goes into what each character does in this AU. Before going into the post, you might enjoy this fanfic my girlfriend commissioned! It’s based off of said post and is a more enjoyable read.

Here’s also a list of headcanons!

COMICS:

Here’s all the comics I’ve done! The order of most of them are pretty ambiguous and up in the air but I put them in the order I kinda see in my head! There are some that do take place before Jessie and Delia start dating though! Also a few comics that have several parts but the “next” and “prev” links will be in each comic. So I’ll only link the first part of those ones in this masterpost.

Pre-Relationship

Fast Food

Ophidiophobia

Boss 🌟NEW🌟

Whipped

Making Eyes

Hairbrush

Inquiries

Separated

First Kiss

Dating

Big Bed

Tattoo

Crumbs

Pet Clown

I’d Like To

Jessica

Lipstick (not a comic but some fun extra dialogue for this)

Glow

Sleeptalking

Official

Early Relationship

Stare Down

Shovel Talk

Invisible Walls

Date Help

Date Night

Face Blind

One Motto Away

Babygirl

Snowgasboard

Delia’s Got a Cold

Mr. Jessie Ketchum

Peek-At-Chu

Hands Off Pikachu!

Wine Nights with James

Beauty and the Beach

Turning Point Arc

Sunscreen

Where Do Babies Come From

Head Scritches

Love Life

Ugly

Ace Trainers

Pikasitting

During Relationship

Mother’s Day

Father’s Day

Gift for Delia

Gift for Jessie

Jessilina Fan

Crossdressing

Type

Hickeys

Journey Arc

Tone

Cooking Twerp

Son

Cooking Advice

Serperior Facts

Cassidy’s Cabin Arc

Father/Son Bonding

Worry 🌟NEW🌟

Later in Relationship

Uniform

Paparazzi

One Upping 🌟NEW🌟

Hand-Me-Downs

Glasses

Study Help

Happy Valentine’s Day

Wrapped

Daddy Daughter Double Battle

Splinter

Married Life

Wedding

Arbok/Weezing Reunion

Snake Eyes

FAQ:

There's a hanamusa section in my FAQ!