#damn kinda feels invalidating when you deny that existence even though it happens

[grumpydevilfellow]

Whether you like it or not. Stating misandry isn't real and mocking not all men is counterproductive to social justice in general and also lowkey racist because yall don't even consider where POC men stand in the patriarchy in their country. As a Black man in the US I am very low on the patriarchy and receive little to no privilege. But whenever these conversations pop up it's like I and my struggles don't fucking exist because suddenly opression Olympics and women have it worse always.

Which isn't always true because white women have literally used their privilege to have cops murder black men! Is that not a combination of racism and misandry mixed together where actual harm is done to the victim?

But yall will get real silent after I mention that part because you know I'm fucking right and it throws your backwards ass generalization out the window.

i wish there was a way to say "alot of feminist/lgbt spaces are weird about gay men/trans men/masculinity in general in a way that feels very unproductive/counter-productive" without implying that i think women are actively oppressing men or that misandry real because those are two very different conversations actually.

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

Thoughts on Bangel and BTVS in general?

Bangel: 

Bangel are perfection in my eyes and one of the best love stories written on television ever. They’re the Romeo and Juliet whose story is actually a million times better than the original story of Romeo and Juliet - star-crossed lovers that were never meant to have their happily ever after but that were genuinely soul mates and fiercely in love. 

I don’t think any relationship has evoked the emotion in me that Bangel’s has because it’s just so damn tragic. When it comes to love generally people view death of one half of the ship as being the most heartbreaking thing that can happen, but Buffy and Angel proved that that isn’t true. Meeting the love of your life and soul mate and never being able to be with them because of circumstance is actually in some ways much more tragic. Their love isn’t unrequited, they both love each other and want to spend their lives together but they just can’t because of who they are and the way the world is. And no matter how much they tried to deny that or work around it, in the end they realised that they had to simply accept it and try to move on. 

What I love about Buffy and Angel is that even though they accepted that they couldn’t be together, they never truly stopped loving each other or yearning to be together. They accepted that they would be a part of each other and their love would always exist in the same way they accepted they couldn’t be together. It’s a truly transcendent love, which is why whenever they saw each other they always immediately fell back into a natural rhythm of just being two people deeply in love. 

A big part of what makes me love Bangel is also the chemistry between Sarah Michelle and David Borneanaz. I don’t think I’ve ever seen chemistry like that between two actors before. When you’re watching them on screen it’s just the most believable and real thing. I think they connected in such a profound way and that really brought the Bangel relationship alive on-screen in a completely unique way to any other TV relationship. And Sarah in particular is such a talented actress that I could literally feel her heartbreak over losing Angel pouring through the screen and into me. The scenes in 2x14 and 3x20 where she cries over Angel actually make my chest feel weird. And don’t even get me started on the ending of ‘I Will Remember You’. The desperation, passion and heartbreak in that scene is too much to bear. 

BTVS:

When it comes to BTVS as a general show, I don’t necessarily feel as strongly about it as I do Bangel. The first time I tried to watch it I didn’t manage to get past the middle of season 1 and the only reason I got that far is because I forced myself. When I tried to watch it again, I did eventually get into it (but it took me a while to warm up to it) and then ended up watching 4-5 episodes everyday for weeks until I’d finished. 

I do like BTVS, but I don’t love it. It’s not a show I’d class as being one of my favourites or one I’d go back and re-watch (except for the Bangel scenes, because you know, it’s Bangel). The reason for that is that I’m not a huge fan of the main characters and I hugely disliked the progression of Spike and Buffy’s relationship in the later seasons. 

With the characters, I only liked Willow for the first few seasons but when she broke up with Oz and started dabbling in magic I took a dislike to her, I was never fond of Xander or Anya and found them annoying, Spike was okay sometimes but I was never comfortable with his relationship with Buffy and felt he overstayed his welcome, Tara was always so bland and boring, Cordelia was annoying and a character I never took to (although I feel like she had a lot of potential and I’d probably love her on ATS, which I still have yet to get around to watching) and although I appreciate Dawn now, when I watched the show she also annoyed the hell out of me. 

That leaves Giles, Buffy, Oz and Angel as being the only characters I actually like. And there were times when even Buffy annoyed me and Angel was bland and boring with all his brooding and what not. 

I’d definitley say that the earlier seasons were better mostly because all of my favourite characters were still around and I was much more invested in the plots and what happened to them. When Giles, Angel and Oz left the show I could feel their absence and my enjoyment of watching the show decreased slightly. I also massively missed Bangel being on my screen post-season 3 and was bored out of my brains having to watch her relationship with Riley (let’s be real here, watching paint dry would’ve been more exciting). 

When it comes to Spike and Buffy, I have to admit that when it came to the point where their relationship started to develop (season 6) it got very, very, very hard for me to watch. I’m very tough skinned when it comes to what I watch, I’ve been a huge fan of horror since I was a young teenager so have watched every gruesome, violent and twisted movie you could ever imagine and excluding ‘I Spit On Your Grave’, I don’t think anything has actually made me feel as damn uncomfortable as watching Buffy and Spike’s relationship (particularly when it comes to shows). Everything about it was just bloody awful and although I appreciate the writers for portraying Buffy’s relationship with Spike in season 6 as being largely tied to her depression, it didn’t make it any less difficult to watch and was kinda invalidated in season 7 when they chose to ignore that and basically romantisise them. Nothing about watching that unfold was enjoyable and as someone that was never overly fond of Spike’s character anyway, he had way, way, way too much focus in the later seasons, when in reality he was a villain that should’ve been killed in the early seasons. 

Putting characters and ships aside I respect and like BTVS for being a show that had a strong, multi-layered and well written female lead (who until this day still remains to be one of the best written female protagonists of any show I’ve ever seen) and for exploring real, complex and dark themes such as death, grief, depression, homosexuality (though not always in the best way, but this was the 90′s so you have to give them their dues), love, identity etc. Buffy’s battle with depression in season 6 was, from my perspective, one of the most realistic depictions of depression I’ve seen on TV and her grief following Joyce’s death was too and even Willow’s dark arc after losing Tara was a realistic view of what grief can do to a person (although I personally hated that plot). 

These are the elements of the show that stick in my mind and cement BTVS in my head as a great show. And of course, I have to take my hat off to Whedon for creating one of the best love stories on TV. 

send me some asks that are like “thoughts on ______”