#i am not into women

[sprontisdabest]

this girl is one of my best friends for 4 years. how do i stop her from this.

[hamletthedane]

The movie Wicked is proof that any source material can be vastly improved by simply making the intense female friendship much gayer + the mutual male love interest both wildly bisexual and lowkey down to just be their third

[catmask]

not gay not bisexual but developing a new sinister sexuality where im looney toons level obsessed with a single guy and put him into contraptions

[transassdemon]

[My art, don't steal, tag if reposting]

[teaboot]

transandrophobia isnt real the way transmisogyny is real because thats not how intersectionality works. transmisogyny is specifically the intersection of oppression transfemmes face of transphobia and misogyny. for transandrophobia to be real, androphobia itself would have to be real. men are not an oppressed class. there is no systemic disenfranchisement men face for being men when living in a patriarchal society. transmascs absolutely face transphobia, and there are certain aspects of transphobia that may be different between transmascs and transfemmes, but that is not transandrophobia.

This is a fantastic explanation for why the term faces skepticism and I appreciate it because it's finally made the argument against it click for me

The remaining issue is, I don't have a different word to use when I specifically reference "transphobia that is distinctly directed towards trans men in ways that combine transphobia bioessentialism and mysoginy, that is similar to but also slightly different from that which is directed towards trans women" that still acknowleges that trans men are not women

IE, "You're not a man, you just hate facing oppression as a woman", "You're not trans, you just have internalized mysoginy", "You don't have to be a man to accomplish your goals, You're just pretending to be one so you don't have to face female gender discrimination", "Transitioning to male means you're eager to oppress women", "Now that you're a man you don't have to deal with mysoginy or gender-based violence", etc

I think the men's rights movement is bullshit, don't get me wrong, but walking around being an openly trans man, emphasis on trans man and not just man, seems to read to a lot of people as "female gender-traitor pervert", and I don't have the VOCABULARY for that experience

[vita-divata]

Finally got the time to fuel my new hyperfixation yippeee <3

[riverthebooknerd]

"but why do you even ship them-" IT BRINGS ME JOY AND WHIMSY!!!!!!!

[bethanydelleman]

I was talking about a historical male author I dislike because I found his works misogynistic and the person said, "Oh, well I suppose you don't read Shakespeare either." and I was like, "Shakespeare? SHAKESPEARE?!?! Of course I read Shakespeare, that man loved women."

Shakespeare wrote a wide variety of fleshed out female characters. He wrote Damsels in Distress, Cross-dressing Girlbosses, and Complex Female Villains. He wrote a woman who refused to sell her virtue to save her family and then shamed her brother for suggesting it. He wrote Taming of the Shrew and it's opposite, All's Well that Ends Well, in which the wife hunts down and tames the husband. He wrote men who are good because they listen to, trust, and defend women. He wrote women of all kinds. He wrote women who drive the plot and women doomed by the narrative. He wrote women in love and women who pathetically follow a man who doesn't like them and women in hatred. He wrote sensible women and silly women and everything in between of all ages.

I wish modern authors could write women as well as he did.

[oomox]

Leonard Nimoy, from I Am Not Spock (1975)

[gay-otlc]

A very strange feeling that comes from being a trans man is like. I am fundamentally the same person after coming out that I was before coming out. There are some differences (I'm happier and more comfortable in my own skin, for instance, and everyone changes a little bit over time) but overall I still have the same personality traits, same values and morals, etc etc. But after I came out, people who thought I was a perfectly okay and decent person switched to thinking I'm dangerous and untrustworthy, even when nothing about me had changed except the gender label they know me as.

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[juney-blues]

when you're part of a group with structural power over another goup, you really do gotta just learn to say "i am not exempt from 'fuck 'em' when relevant" whenever someone expresses frustration with you or people like you.

[muffinpines]

I drew this after finishing Harrow ages ago and just ..forgor to post it ..my designs have changed a bit since this but HERE

[arekayic]

and what if i said he’s hot

[thiswildernessismyhome]

just. the way that everyone wrote lilia off as some harmless unserious weirdo in the way so many older women get written off. when in fact she was an incredible brilliant badass

[wis-art]

Lucy celebrating her 31st birthday!

(I am manifesting getting to live to 30 as a trans woman)