#imo all women deserve to be evil

[don1t1red]

I know that this is a very unpopular opinion but hear me out!

I think not enough people consider Corvo as an unreliable narrator. We see the story from his point of view and all we know about Jessamine Kaldwin comes from his perspective. So, to think on that, do we really know how good Jessamine was as the Empress? 

I know that she is usually portrayed as a good person if not a saint but what if it wasn't that way? A lot of people in the streets are indifferent towards her image, if not hostile; the situation with Delilah; how both Geoff Curnow and Corvo are treated because of their nationality; two hatters recalling how greatly Corvo dealt with workers uprising under her command  – a lot of things are a tell-tale signs that something is not quite right. 

And at this point I have to clarify that I'm not saying things like "boo no I hate Jessamine". No, it's actually quite the opposite, I love her character. But the way it is usually portrayed seems to be so dull and static. Let her not be a saint. 

Let her be manipulative. Let her tell Corvo that "he is not like other serkonans, he is sooo special and that's why he is where he is and not somewhere deep in the silver mine", while being (just as any nobility in Gristol) not very welcome to any outlanders. 

Let her be power-hungry and afraid to lose this power. Remember a bonecharm in her hidden room in the Tower? Who knows how it ended up here! Maybe she knew (or felt) that Delilah was coming, capable of overpowering and taking everything from her. Maybe Jessamine was so afraid to lose her posh life that she was ready to use some kind of a black magic! 

Let her be disloyal. Obviously, she and Corvo developed some kind of codependency. But along with that, she was the Empress so who could stop her from having an affair or two? And Corvo was just the safest option, with a way less unnecessary risks and questions. 

Let her be an imperfect person. 

Obviously, Jessamine could be easily born a perfect ruler and a perfect loving woman for her chosen one and her daughter. But maybe she had to learn it the hard way. 

Maybe she changed along with Corvo. Maybe the plague was a critical point for her character, maybe those months without Corvo made her rethink a lot of things. 

And isn't it tragic, finally understanding and becoming the Empress everyone wants to see in you, just to be killed the other day, because all those changes have been seen as a weakness? Have nothing but faith in your closest one, faith that these people will be more wise than she was? 

Give her some development, give her some motion! She could easily  be a saint, static point.  But in my opinion, she deserves to be not perfect but in constant motion. Trying and learning, understanding and making mistakes. She was too young when she became the Empress, she was a part of gristolian nobility, not so kind to anyone but themselves, she literally had no prerequisites to become a good person. And yet somehow she did. 

It's always so easy to be a "saint" from the very beginning. And it's always so hard to learn how to become one.

[margridarnauds]

The answer to the question of whether I love BG3 or hate BG3 is "yes"

[bittermarching]

If you go thru the notes of this post, almost all of the people disagreeing with OP are either (a) repeating historical revisionist lies ("gays owe TW everything! Stonewall my dude") or (b) ignoring the actual words in the OP and just wishing violence on lesbians "terfs". Which is just soo interesting that the "be kind/we're on the right side of history" crowd would respond to "we should focus on our issues and you focus on yours" with "well you deserve to be brutally murdered/how dare you refuse to worship the males that gave you your rights."

It's always the same shit. They don't know or care to learn about what we're actually saying because they heard thru the internet grapevine that we're horrible and irredeemable regardless of anything we actually say. And they're keen to believe it because it reinforces the existing worldview that women who refuse to capitulate to men are the worst kind of evil.

why are transactivists so hostile about drop the t? it’s good for us all. we can focus on our issues, and you can focus on yours. plus you don’t have to deal with us nasty lesbian “terfs” in your community c; it’s a win-win.

[johannestevans]

i've been listening to a lot more fat liberationist stuff recently and like...

so obvs i already had some backing in a lot of the basic theory, stuff like institutional anti-fatness in medicine, fashion, travel, etc, but like

so as a really thin guy who's always found it impossible to gain weight, its been unbelievably emotionally and mentally liberating to hear people talking really casually about the disability that's associated with thinness

so like being really thin, you lack additional joint and bone support - if you fall, you have less padding and less STRUCTURE to protect your bones from breaks and fractures, right?

obvs theres plenty of fat people that do have issues with bones and joints, im not saying thsres not, its just that normally i feel like im the lone person saying "being this thin is bad for me and is part of various health problems i also have"

and idk its just like. my whole life i was such a sickly child lmao

like i couldnt stand for long periods except "long period" would often be like. any period. i didnt understand how my peers were just standing for so long and just weathering that, bc to me it wasnt possible at all - i breathed badly, my joints were fucked etc

and looking back and realising as i get more disabled like the extent to which i was similarly disabled in my youth, and how i lacked the language to verbalise or sometimes even recognise my own pain and struggle

but also like

the treatment of me as so evil and lazy because i wasn't exercising, or because like. a PE teacher would pick me out as an example because i was so thin, and then be furious that i wasn't remotely physically fit, and that i was disabled

i remember multiple times esp from cis female teachers just. frothing rage at my diet and the things i ate, or when i wrinkled my nose at talk about diets, bc i was so thin so i had to be doing The Right Things, and if i was that thin and doing bad things i had to be punished

and its bc a lot of these ppl thought of fatness and being fat as a punishment, a target for abuse that people deserved, and bc i was a young disabled trans guy like. i deserved punishment for my laziness and nonconformity, and it became a lot about my weight

like expressing that i wanted to gain weight, that i was cold all the time, that i had no energy etc, that eating was hard but that i enjoyed food, all of that was met with such fuckin aggression and really sharp policing, esp from PE teachers and esp from women

and obvs all that is to do with the way that diet culture particularly targets women and those perceived as women, and the desire to engage in lateral violence to police others into complying with gender roles etc as they were upholding them

but idk like. fat liberationist politics is imo inherently tied up with disability liberation, because of the way that "health" is weaponised as a symbol of being good or deserving, and how fatness and disability are both used as targets and symbols of evil and punishment

MOST OF ALL for fat & disabled people

but for nondisabled fat people disability is often threatened as punishment - if you don't become less fat, you'll (deserve to) become disabled

and for disabled thin people, if you don't act less disabled, you'll (deserve to) become fat

and its not a punishment to be fat or disabled or sick. its just how some people are. its not BAD to be this way - and what makes things hard for us is not something inherent to the badness of our bodies, but instead the lack of kindness and accommodation anybody is willing to extend to them

[seikilos-stele]

The misogyny from David and Ben bothered me in this latest episode of Evil — I do like when the show tackles real-world isms and explores the trio’s blind spots, but I think until now they’ve managed to do it while still maintaining the trio’s care for each other.

Kristen as a white woman is ignorant about what David and Ben go through a men of color with the police, and she benefits directly from her whiteness when the police cover for her re: LeRoux. But she’s also outraged by the police targeting her friends, she doesn’t think they deserve it. When Kristen points out that the church exorcises far more women than men, David defends the church’s misogyny in the abstract — but he never applies that misogyny to Kristen or claims that she’s more emotionally attuned to the world than he is, more susceptible to evil. Ben has to take a stand about the jinn exorcism and points out David’s and Kristen’s Catholic upbringing sometimes makes them prioritize Catholic beliefs over other religions — but the three of them find a compromise and develop more respect for each other. All of these episodes explore the characters’ blind spots in a realistic way while still maintaining that they all care for each other; Kristen is willing to learn, David needs to be challenged, but it’s clear his misogyny comes partly from defensive being the only believer in a group of atheists. Just a few episodes ago, we had that excellent moment where David has to explain what a Black bluff is to Ben, since the racism Ben experiences as an Indian man is sometimes very different from what David experiences as a Black man: David has to subvert expectations by being successful and respectable; Ben has to subvert them by being working-class and down-to-earth. Society expects Ben to be a doctor or a lawyer, not a blunt contractor who works with his hands. He listens to David and learns. Kristen is outraged by police treatment of men of color and then has to grapple with exploiting her status as a wealthy white woman anyway. David internally struggles with the racism and misogyny of the church he’s devoted himself to while also benefiting from the latter. These are clever, realistic depictions of societal oppressions and how they impact a friend group who are all very different from each other but care deeply about each other and don’t like seeing anyone among them hurt.

This episode felt different. Unpleasantly so. I don’t think I would have minded if events were tweaked somewhat … if Kristen learned that the professor had sexually harassed someone else, and the guys initially dismissed it, their judgment clouded by their admiration for him. But the professor sexually harassed their best friend and Ben just shrugged and suggested he was joking; David breezed past it as irrelevant to their investigation. The love and care between the trio seemed to instantly evaporate in favor of making a point about how in #MeToo cases, men can even dismiss accusations from people they know very well. An excellent point, but at the cost of degrading the main characters’ relationship and (imo) edging David and Ben into OOC territory.

[snowblack-charcoalwhite]

I think that the misandry by the writers , especially Hess, is something that isn't discussed much. It's much deeper and dare I say, more sinister than just 'men bad women good' because the way she wrote the last episode shows that she wants to convey how Alicent's actions are commendable in a sense that her male children don't deserve her devotion and unconditional love anyway, while her only female child and grandchild do. It's framed as her liberation because she sells her own sons to another woman who is their enemy, but you know, it is good because Rhaenicent and reasons. As a woman, I'm appalled by this. What's worse is that I've seen takes here and on x like "Alicent regained her agency by ditching her sons for the woman she loves, her betrayal is understandable, go girl, you have my support" (and this one is tame compared to some others). Believe me, I'm not exaggerating. And I must be from mars because in my book that's not acceptable, understandable or commendable in any way, just the opposite. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the narrative and the writers' agenda support these vile and delusional takes. You don't even have to be a parent to see how evil and nonsensical this idea is, you just have to be able to understand basic human emotions and family dynamic. The writers and a big chunk of the fandom apparently don't.

Hello!

Thank you for this, really. The writers' (Hess' specifically) misandric agenda is absolutely crazy - and IMO crazy evident as well, so seeing so many people fall for it is baffling, sad and infuriating at the same time.

Don't they see that in HotD the women are the ones to blaim for something only when they side with men in one way or another? Don't they understand how forced, unsubtle and - because of that - cringe all the "you are a woman so you can't rule", "they don't respect me because I'm a woman" and "women suffer while men fight" are? House of the Dragon is one of the most force-feeding shows I've ever watched - and for some reason GA and even some people in the fandom believe it's alright. Media literacy is dead for real.

And the parent-children aspect of misandry you brought up is indeed one of the most atrocious things about the whole debacle. I am not a mother myself - but I have one, just as, I think, the majority of the viewers do. I refuse to believe that everyone who cheers for Alicent to abandon her sons has their own familial relationships so screwed that they are unable to understand the outlandishness of the opinion they are choosing to uphold.

Not to mention that in their quest for showing just how terrible Alicent's sons (minus Daeron - at least for now) are, HotD writers completely destroyed Helaena's personality, even the sparks of it she had in season 1. Now she is all about three things: bugs, clairvoyance and suffering (and I can't believe that the first point has been handled the best development-wise). Helaena is supposed to be good and kind: but what good and kind things have we seen her do? Taking care (kind of) of her crickets, offering a necklace in exchange for the life of her son (oh wow) and saying that she shouldn't really grieve for her child that much because the commoners' kids are dying all the time (how relatable for anyone who actually lost a child, right?). For most part she is just there, staring into the distance and saying something prophetic (or, again, suffering).

Just imagine a real mother saying to her son "You know, sonny, I love you, but you forgot to thank me for the pudding I made for your birthday plus you called my bestie an old cow - so I invited your school bullies to our house so that they could beat the shit out of you, you ungrateful jerk. They are in the backyard, go on, don't make your mommy wait".

Just imagine a real woman whose son has just been brutally killed say "You know what, there are so many children starving to death in the world. Why should I cry over mine?"

Honestly, I am beginning to think that people are steadily losing the ability to connect the things happening on screen to actual human emotional experience - as if the characters (in HotD in this case) are aliens to whom basic concepts that have been holding humanity together for millenia do not apply.

[alishaaxo]

I’m sorry ur dealing with stupid team black ppl that aren’t willing to listen to you, to read canon laws in the books, and that accuse u of being a misogynist over fucking fiction 🩷🩷 like I’m genuinely so annoyed for u and u deserve wag begged

thanks!

honestly the only thing between team green and team black imo, is that you are more likely to be team green if you think laws are more important and team black if you think the kings words is important!

like thats it!! i get ppl having a different opinion, but like thats NO excuse to start calling stuff like a simple opinion misogyny.

both fandom sides are heavily misogynistic anyway and thats a huge problem in of itself!

some ppl are preferring aegon due to misogyny’s sake but imo i feel like misogyny was more prevalent in the decision for the great council with rhaenys and viserys, cos by ALL RIGHTS, it should be her throne! but when it comes to rhaenyra-aegon, it has not only been established by the 101 great-council that men have precedent, but younger son over elder daughter has been followed for decades by the targs!!

also on a side note, its so weird to me how people treat the valyrians and first-men as super feminists compared to the “evil” andals, when like cregan stark literally usurps his granddaughter’s position as heir with his second son, just like jaehaerys i did!! the andals let women be heirs, like jeyne arryn, anya waynwood, tanda stokeworth and rhea royce (my beloved)!!!

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Since it seems, I need to point all this out... again...

Anonymous asked:

Like, I have no trouble seeing WWX as a good guy, or even the least bad in the cultivation world, but if he can subject a man to forced autocannibalism and orchestrate a scenario where a woman is made to put her mouth around his penis before biting it off, then he’s far from an ideal guy imo. There are things no one deserves no matter what they’ve done. Mxtx could have done more to distinguish his actions from the way XY subjects people to cannibalism and JGY forces women to rape his father.

I've answered a bit of this before, I will repost my response as well as respond further to my own view as to why I don't condemn him the same as Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang. As well as how it is a fandom fallacy he did the act to force Wang Lingjiao to do anything.

About the supervisory office:

First, let me at least mark the difference between “gui dao” and “mo dao” as it will be important for the courier station antics.

魔道 (Mo Dao): Lit. Devil’s way/path/truth

鬼道 (Gui Dao): The Ghost’s/twisted/sly, way/path/truth

心 (Xin) Soul/center/core/heart

心魔 (Xin Mo): Devil, Soul/center/core/heart

鬼 (Gui) lit. A ghost/demon/crafty/cursed

With these in mind, the way Mo Dao is crafted as a cultivator, is that you have to have a center/a core, that is innately tuned to be crafted as evil, hence, a corrupted core. To use real mo dao, it needs to come from within to manipulate, not from outer external references, it is the corruption of the self and the still living to craft evil beings.

To use real gui dao, it comes from the dead, the ghosts and the supernatural, in other words not of much of the self. It is using the outside forces of death and non-living beings to use techniques. It is simply using what already existed before to craft an entity.

Now, on to the Wang Lingjiao and Wen Chao scenes and why these distinctions are important and it was just Wei Wuxian manipulating the two’s already heightened paranoia’s to exasperate the negative energy they fostered between themselves.

1:

In that moment, as soon as she opened the chest, she was able to peer inside.

It was none of her beloved treasures, but the body of a pale, curled-up child!

2:

She snuck within the room once again, found a long clothing pole, and flipped the chest over. Inside of it, her treasure sat peacefully.

There was no child whatsoever.

Wang Lingjiao sighed in relief. With the pole in her hands, she squatted down. Just as she was about to brace herself, she suddenly realized that two bright spots were shining underneath her bed.

It was a pair of eyes.

That pale child from before lay prone under her bed, staring into her own.

3:

As he turned around, the rest of what he wanted to say stuck within his throat. He was staring at a woman in front of his door.

The woman’s features were broken, as though they had been smashed and then pieced together haphazardly. Her eyes stared in two different directions; the left upward and the right downward. Her entire face was horrendously disfigured.

Wen Chao, with some difficulty, was able to recognize her from her scanty robe. It was Wang Lingjiao!

4:

Still on the ground, Wang Lingjiao immediately picked up one of the stools legs, and frantically, she began stuffing it into her mouth, laughing all the while, “Fine, fine, I’ll eat it, I’ll eat it!

Haha, I’ll eat it!”

She had already stuffed a significant length of the stool leg down her throat!

Remember, that just before these confrontations Wang Lingjiao had already assumed that Wen Chao’s time was up as well as she herself making plans to run away. They had already turned on each other, as she was planning to move on to a more prospective target, and he wanting her out of the way as an annoyance.

As such, both have created a negative space for themselves, also, remember all of the talismans for protection that they had placed on the outside of the courier station, and their effects which had been reversed by Wei Wuxian. Their 风水(geomancy) physically and mentally has been disordered. Their harmony is broken. Thus, they have cultivated an outside force for Wei Wuxian to manipulate and turn the two against each other.

The above scenes are simply the inner hell they created from their own paranoia and negativity they trapped themselves in. Wei Wuxian only had to change a few character strokes on the protective talismans to sic them on each other while he was on the outside looking in.

5:

Wen Chao cried sharply in pain. It sounded piercing within the silence of the courier station.

Jiang Cheng asked, “Why is his voice so pitched?”

Wei Wuxian responded, “Of course it would sound like that with a certain something gone.“

Jiang Cheng replied in disgust, “You’re the one who took it? ”

Wei WuXian said, “It’s wretched if you think that. Of course I wasn’t the one who took it. It was bitten off by his woman when she went mad.”

There is no reason for Wei Wuxian to lie here, he has already proudly admitted to his tortures of Wen Chao before hand and his physical abuse against him and Wen Zhuliu. Wei Wuxian’s entire persona here was meant to be cruel and monstrous and he continued further torture of course, but it was added on to the existing abuse that Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao cultivated together already.

So, no, anon, Wei Wuxian was not a rapist in any capacity here. He simply played dirty tricks to make these two ruin each other even more by themselves.

Now, to the second part of your ask. Personally, I am content with the way MXTX portrayed the act of his vengeance as being different than Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang. Because ultimately, when he did choose to do this, it was for all the violence these two (Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao) reaped themselves, by the mandate of heaven and Chinese Buddhist belief, they have gathered their merits of "negativity" to face the consequences of their own actions. Cruelty is met with cruelty it has accrued. Nothing more, in Doaist terms, it is the way of nature righting it's harmony that humans are not made for. An eye for an eye.

The way of the world is for a human to be able to balance the self in it, and not for the world to cater to humanity. In this sense, the only ones who are in turmoil are those that have misrepresented their own words and actions (i.e. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian).

And, as I said, Wei Wuxian took revenge on none other than those that had wronged him. To Daoist principal that is as it should be. As for Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang however, they did not leave it to just that, they steeped in obsession of hate. To be doaist, you cannot place obsession, of any sort, over the tranquility of your own choices and way. They continued to cause ruin without the give. This has already set them apart as lost to the moral code of a daoist.

Daoism is not about the call of morality humanity is, it is simply the act of natural actions. Good and bad, are human and a fight that is constant to make peace with.

And for further details, let's get what geomancy is out of the way since it is critical to the usage of this scene and how the Wens there were easily turned against each other with just TALISMANS.

For starters, in China the art of geomancy is also divination , I Ching, specifically and has been used to say that by following the earth's natural patterns harmony can be achieved for life and home.

To garner negativity is to welcome negativity by being unaligned with those patterns. Which brings in the warding talismans that have been used all over by the Wens during this time. To shift the ward meanings is very simple and expounds the paranoia and hate that have already festered within this particular place. It has no Feng Shui based on natural energy that these people have. Harmony that is vital for daoism and cultivation has already been ruined and altered enough for it to be easy to manipulate through simple divination and the manipulations of the outside force that already is in existence.

Wei Wuxian already had the tools for all there to hurt themselves. Gruesome yes, but also in line with what is deemed as the energy accumulation and disruptions humans made themselves for revenge.

[lesbianboyfriend]

another nugget to consider for your sexual violence Buffy thesis:

In season 7, episode 8, we find out Spike has been killing and siring people. The official count is 10 women and then just however many men we see in the basement.

obviously the show has compared a vampires bite to sexual violence before so this is an instance where Buffy has given a second chance to the man who tried to rape her and there are now 10 dead women around him. And Buffy gives him another chance even after that.

in the story, he doesn't know what he's doing and is being influenced by the first evil but I think there's still a lot of messy messaging in how Buffy keeps this man alive despite his body count. She can forgive him all she wants but he repeatedly demonstrates how he is a danger to the women around him

okay you’re so right. spike occupies such a massive place within the sexual violence thesis. he’s the character that looms the largest as someone the audience is supposed to like while also being explicitly named as a perpetrator of sexual violence. + the whole vampirism as sexual predation thing is like, a key part of the thesis

now i think the scenario with season 7 is kind of like i mentioned in the original sexual violence post, spike has a soul now. ergo, he cannot (by the show’s logic) still be a perpetrator of such violence bc he’s #good now. and of course, there is the first evil to be reckoned with as a factor in it. which is i think where they get back to the, “see, the sexual violence this guy did was because of some intrinsic monstrous evil” once again cementing sexual violence in the realm of monstrosity instead of actually grappling with it.

to be honest this is where i think angel season 5 ALMOST did something really interesting with spike. we know that angel as a person and tv show operates under the realm of, trying to make up for what you did as a vampire despite the fact that it “wasn’t their fault” so to say. it reckons with those acts of (sexual) violence as something intrinsically horrible regardless of “fault”and asks the perpetrators to truly reckon with their actions and past…..kind of. as we’ll see

and like, spike’s whole thing is that he only really became good because of buffy. and he thinks because of that he intrinsically “deserves” buffy (which is a whole nother level connected to sexual violence as system imo). and BECAUSE he has a soul, he doesn’t actually have to grapple with what “good” means, because that’s not how it works in the buffy moral universe. but then angel season 5 separates him from buffy. and asks him to be good WITHOUT reward. WITHOUT the promise of buffy. particularly with him as a ghost, only able to manipulate the world if he wants it enough. and we see him “wanting” it in moments where he’s trying to do good!!! just for good’s sake!!!

……and then they reintroduce the fucking shansu prophecy and spike compares his/angel’s atrocities to a scared girl lashing out at her oppressors and they go to rome and try to separate buffy from her new boyfriend and all over again we see him (and angel!!!!) still having that sense of ownership over buffy, that they somehow “deserve” her for being good. and that while they may be reckoning with their pasts for being “bad” they don’t actually fully understand the system of (sexual) violence that their actions took place within. so they don’t understand or grapple with how they’re still upholding those systems. so kind of a flop there!!! but for a brief second i thought angel season 5 was doing something really cool. should have known better i guess

but yeah saying this all as a spike fan. an enjoyer of spikebuffy. the narrative does NOT at all reckon with his position as perpetrator of sexual violence and honestly the show and his character arc suffer for that. and quite frankly the fans who refuse to acknowledge it as part of his character are deeply annoying. lol. lmao even

[coolseabird]

What about you? Tell everything about the evil women you love!

Oooooh baby.

Lady Macbeth:

She's the template. She’s horrible truly. Has no issues with murder (until she does but mostly out of paranoia not moral issues with the act itself) and she drives Macbeth (and herself) to tragedy with her ambition. She sees herself as helping Macbeth to reach his full potential and that's she's doing it for THEM! Very nuanced character. I adore her. Girl boss 😌 I also loveeee this poster from the National Theater of Korea's production of Macbeth, this is her canon appearance to me now. Don't you want to do just a little murder for her? ���

Tamora (from Titus Andronicus):

She honestly is entirely justified in her desire for revenge at first. (Her son is brutally murdered and she's kidnapped by the Romans.) However, as she gains power and manipulates people and events more for her goals, her motives shift from vengeance to outright cruelty, and she becomes irredeemable. (Good for her) Also she (unintentionally) becomes a cannibal.

Edelgard von Hresvelg:

She's the villain to everyone else but she sees it as doing what is necessary. She's prepared to betray Dimitri brutally, she's the one who orchestrated an ambush on the others, and she's willing to drag countless others into her war to achieve her goal of dethroning the church. Ultimately though I'm still behind her 100%

Helga Sinclair:

She's a ruthless femme fatale, unapologetically in it for herself. I love her she never changes who she is even when she "helps" the others at the end it's just out of revenge. Also this scene changed my brain chemistry as a kid:

Brigid O'Shaughnessy:

Brigid O'Shaughnessy is the quintessential femme fatale. She lies, manipulates, and uses everyone around her, dragging the detective main guy into her dangerous schemes without remorse. She is so hot. (I love all golden age detective movie femme fatales... and she's the mascot for all of them)

Minthara:

Minthy...... my beloved. I love her more than words can express. She was an inquisitor who murdered unbelievers for TWO DIFFERENT GODS. (though one was a, uh, rather large brain borg cube thing but you know what I'm saying 🌀woooo you want to raid the grove so bad wooo🌀) She has a cut throat philosophy about life and has ZERO QUALMS about subjugating everyone else through brain parasites and conquering the world. At the same time though she loves those she cares about so deeply. She's a woman of extreme kindness and cruelty (when it's needed) and she will make you worse.

Lady Jessica:

I adore her. She raises her son to dominate others and she is totally chill with manipulating a whole people through religion to function as a weapon on her family's behalf. Not much else to say she's iconic.

Kreia:

Kreia's ultimate goal is challenging and hopefully destroying the Force itself (metal) and she will do anything to accomplish that. (murder) Beneath her objectively awful actions though, Kreia’s philosophy is good imo, it's that true freedom comes from relying on your own strength and rejecting breaking things down into black or white, good vs evil. So I wouldn't say she inherently is "evil" and she would probably laugh at anyone characterizing her as such. She's an anti-villain and you should side with her.

Olivier Armstrong:

She is an authoritarian power hungry general. She murders a man and buries him in concrete. (He deserved it though) She would 100% be a dictator if she could. I love her so much though because she has her own code of morality. She sees taking action on behalf of what you believe in as being honorable no matter what your beliefs are. If you want to not genocide people then you better damn well fight against those carrying it our rather than running away. Otherwise you're just a coward. What a queen.

Homura

What if Lucifer became the devil to save God from sacrificing himself for the sins of others? That’s Homura. (and the show isn't subtle about this haha, it's the actual metaphor) Her love for Madoka is so powerful that she’d burn the whole world to achieve her goal. She’s willing to kill, to doom humanity itself, all to protect the one she loves. Homura and Madoka are complete opposed as Homura would sacrifice everyone for Madoka, while Madoka would sacrifice herself for everyone. Selfish love vs Selfless love. Homura will happily become the villain if she has to. I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE MOVIE NEXT YEAR. HOW WILL IT END? I've been waiting a decade to see the conclusion.

Anyways, thank you for letting me yap about my favorite type of character <3

[yellowspiralbound]

Since season 3 of The Witcher Netflix comes out tomorrow...here are some of my concerns on adaptation from this season onward. Potential spoilers for the future seasons and definite spoilers for the books. Long post ahead.

The Hansa's Dynamic

I am so worried about how the Hansa is going to be handled in the show. Like shaking in my boots terrified. The showrunners already really messed up Dandelion & Geralt's dynamic...and that's one of the easier dynamics present in the Hansa imo. The dynamic is already going to be screwy because Cahir is a middle aged man and not a petulant teenager if he's present in the Hansa at all (though I think he will be since Emhyr called him and Fringilla out at the end of s2).

Emhyr as a Character

Speaking of Emhyr...I think they might attempt to give him a redemption arc, and I cannot emphasize how bad of an idea that is. They're going to retcon the whole "wanting to impregnate Ciri" bit, which I have mixed feelings on. Like yes, on one hand that's fucking gross but on the other hand, that bit is in there to show how fucked up Emhyr is and why Geralt needs to get to Ciri so quickly; it adds a sense of urgency to the Hansa's travels. If I see Emhyr sympathizers on my dash after this season I will lose my fucking mind.

Milva's Pregnancy & Related Scenes

I suspect that Milva's pregnancy is going to be cut entirely or play up the rest of the Hansa's concern for her as a weird "men think they can control women's bodies" thing which Milva will have to fight with them about so the show can be appropriately pro-choice without exploring any of the pro-choice nuance the books bring up. I can just see Regis talking to the guys about it being turned into a "the father deserves a say in a woman's choice to abort" scenario instead of the "I will give this woman her abortion regardless of what you all think about that (and I've made that VERY clear) but I think she's making this choice because she believes you all will abandon her/not support her if she wants to keep this baby and someone needs to make sure that she knows that won't happen" scenario that it actually is. This is also plays into my concerns about the Hansa's dynamic as changing that scene changes it irreparably.

Characterizing Nilfgaard as a Nation

Right now I feel like the show could go one of two ways 1) Nilfgaard is wrong in everything it does or 2) Nilfgaard is right in everything it does (if Emhyr gets a redemption arc). The show has already made a show of the Northern Realms' racism, which is book accurate mind you, but I fear this will translate to a sort of "Nilfgaard is the better nation as its less racist" scenario. While Nilfgaard is better in that aspect and a few others, it is still a militant slave nation. Nilfgaard and the Northern Realms both have their evils and their virtues; that's a big point in the books and the games. Neither nation is 100% good or 100% bad - they're just nations. I don't think the show will be able to handle that kind of nuance.

Jaskier & Radovid...

Apparently, Radovid is supposed to be one of Jask's love interests this season. Radovid is a massive racist, a war criminal, and a teenager. I'm sure all of that's going to be retconned but for fuck's sake just make a new character if you're going to age up and completely change the personality and insanity of an existing one. Important note: I am 1000% in support of queer Jask. I have never shipped that man with a woman in my life (even in the books and games) but for the love of God why did his LI have to be fucking RADOVID??

Mistle & the Rats

If they make Ciri and Mistle a love story, I am going to be disappointed but not surprised. Let me be clear: Mistle is a rapist and an abuser. I suspect they will change that to shoehorn in a queer relationship (even though Triss and Philippa are RIGHT THERE if they want a semi-canon wlw couple). The Rats as a whole are definitely going to be made into more robinhood-like characters because God forbid a main character like Ciri is morally grey or does questionable/bad things.

Geralt's Disability

If this season ends with the Vilgefortz and Geralt fight, as I suspect it might, Geralt will be disabled permanently by the end of this season. The dryads do not fix it. Magic does not fix it. Geralt becomes disabled and stays disabled. His disability becomes a hindrance during the books and the reader actively sees him grapple with the fallout of this. I do not trust this show to handle that - especially with how much more closed off Geralt is in the show compared to the books. If I had to guess, Geralt's disability will be handwaved away or mentioned in passing and never actually shown to impact him which is not cool.

[fillejondrette]

my white trans man cousin posted this, wondering what people think. the info available rn is vague but it seems that while imane khelif has always lived as a woman, it seems likely she has some sort of intersex or other condition. after all, she has been disqualified from previous competition on sex grounds. racism played a role in people’s reactions to the situation (portraying her as a monster, saying that she “obviously” looks male which I don’t think is true) but i also don’t think it’s fair to treat the italian boxer and her “white woman tears” as evil. khelif had previously been excluded from women’s sports so if the italian boxer thought she was fighting a male she’s obviously going to be upset about it. and she’s a professional boxer who’s been punched countless times, so if she says she felt she had to stop the fight for her own safety im inclined to trust her judgment. it’s unfortunate but entirely predictable that people have no faith that athletic governing bodies will exclude males from women’s sports, after years of men being allowed in just because they feel like it. imo the greatest blame for the situation should be on these athletic governing bodies. they need to develop consistent and transparent guidelines for intersex athletes. however, there is also a long-running phenomenon of people accusing women of color (esp black women) of being male when there is literally no reason to think that’s the case. anyone accusing serena williams of being a man is obviously just acting out of misogynoir. but im confused about the inclusion of caster senenya bc she was found to be genetically male. so it’s like….what point are you trying to make. i don’t think anyone should be condemning, let alone harassing, khelif. i’ve seen a total lack of sympathy for (potentially) intersex people. it’s a tough situation bc people deserve the right to keep their health information private but that information is sometimes necessary to ensure fair competitions. im certainly not claiming to know enough about biology or sports to make those calls

[nicnacsnonsense]

My version of a Wicked-style Maleficent would start with the same basic premise of the fae and humans are at war, and Stefan and Maleficent having a romance that ultimately ends with him betraying her so he can become the next king (but we’ll make his future wife the king’s grandniece or something distant like that to make her a weaker contender for heir). Maleficent does become more ruthless and merciless in the war against humans as a result of this interaction, but not full on evil or anything.

One day, a woman is brought before Maleficent after she was caught trying to sneak into the Moors. Maleficent recognizes her as the Queen and is about to sentence her to something brutal when the Queen is like, wait, no, please I need your help to protect my baby!

And Maleficent looks a little closer and yep there sure is a baby bump there. So she tells the guards to let the Queen go and conjures up a tree stump or something for the pregnant lady to sit down on, and then is like Explain Yourself. Why would you come to me for help?

The Queen is like, I didn’t know where else to go. My husband hurt you once; I’ve seen your beautiful wings he keeps mounted on the wall like a gruesome trophy. He hurts me too. And I’m so scared he’s going to hurt our baby.

Of course Maleficent is immediately on the Queen’s side, like stay here with me, Stefan is scum, I’ll protect both you and the baby from him. But the Queen is like no, I have to stay and do everything I can to protect my people, but I need to know my baby is going to be safe. And Maleficent is like I have an idea.

Now is when you get the christening scene, except the whole thing is a show, designed to get baby Aurora out of the castle without any attempts by Stefan to find her and without implicating the Queen. And now Maleficent has the heir and 16 years to come up with a plan to overthrown Stefan once and for all.

This is the women supporting women version of Maleficent we deserve, imo.

[vole-mon-amour]

3x08, part 1.

Opening the episode with literally Jamie's name is !!! I'm already smiling. My boooy. <3 A streak of four wins just bc Jamie saw the flaw in Total Football, fixed it, and there we go <3

I am so incredibly sad for what Ted has to go through. This SUCKS. Some other man is bad enough, but your fucking therapist is a punch in the gut. Especially when you still have feelings for the woman you love, but she doesn't love you anymore.

I don't UNDERSTAND! If TedBecca isn't supposed to be romantic like Hannah and the writers say, why this? Like, yeah, they've been to the same party, obviously. And the mention is casual, "they're brother and sister to me", but I still see the foreshadowing. Like, I'm all TedTrent and bi Ted, but ????

Mae is so sweet. What a woman.

Seeing wlw in s3 of Ted Lasso was the last thing I expected, but hell yeah. Please don't make Jack evil. Please. If they're gonna break up, let it not be a scandal and a mutual breakup or something. However, I can see Keeley staying with Jack and Roy telling her he has feelings for Jamie and they hit it off pretty nicely. But that's just my shipper heart's desire. We'll see bc I don't think this show might be that bold.

I wonder how many women actually sleep with their bra on. It's the most uncomfortable thing EVER imo.

Keeley is such an excitable puppy. Just like Jamie when with Roy. :)

I'm actually surprised about Nate and Jade. Like... it's almost a complete 180? Idk, I still dislike him. I think I understand the point, be kind and and not judgemental, all of that, but I can't with him. I don't like him and his storyline. A lot of screen time was wasted on him when imo when it could've been something way more interesting.

She might as well might be a butch bi.

Laughing. Trent with his what I almost sure is an empty mug, just for the drama of it. Doesn't matter that he 'drinks' from it after. Show me liquid in there or I'm not fooled.

S1 Roy would never, and I'm proud of his development. Ted is one of his people now, isn't he? A good friend for sure. It's also very interesting for me to watch in terms of Roy's other relationships and interactions. He already went somewhat there with Jamie in Amsterdam, "I was a dick today, I'm sorry" and how he realizes that he often releases his negative emotions on Jamie "whether you deserve it or not".

Crying with laughter. Roy is ready to "talk about it", but definitely isn't ready to do THAT. It makes me feel good for getting this part of a relationship right in my fic, lmaoooo. Also, where is Higgins?

A real conflict here, hehe. Hopefully, one day, he's gonna be ready to join them and talk about it. That would be fun to watch.

Higgins summoning succeeded.

What are you doing there, Helga soft boy, with your sparkling pencil? This makes me think of that "Jamie — Jamie" thingy. Yeah, no, Roy and Jamie are in love.

This is more like a soft howling/whining :')

Babe, wake up, new reaction meme just dropped.

He sure does, but he's still repressed about it.

Trent Crimm woof'ing with a soft look on his face can be SO personal. I love him, your honor. I wonder what he'll write in his book about that. I also wonder when is Roy gonna join them. Oh, i'l watch him barking and woofing, alright. Jamie wouldn't let that go, EVER. At the same time I feel like Roy would refuse to imitate barking & they would let him just bc that's Roy. A simple "fuck you" and that's ok.

The difference in body language, wow. Love hounds though? Nate, you need to get back with Ted then. Gosh, this entire storyline is SO awkward.

I think I'm still in love with her a little bit. What a woman.

[watermelinoe]

Sorry if you've been asked this before, but I was curious since you mentioned manga - what are some of your favorite shoujo works? Thank you in advance and have a nice day.

i have been asked this before but you have no idea how desperate i always am to talk about shoujo 😭 so i'm gonna split my recs up kinda by genre and i'll note whether it's completed or not, i'll try to include some of the more recent ones i'm reading

my fav shoujo manga is kimi ni todoke (completed), i especially love the female friendships in this manga and it's an incredible coming-of-age story, i think this one is more well-known but it deserves it!!

another well-known shoujo with a great female protagonist is of course kamisama hajimemashita (completed), i would die for nanami

something that i love abt shoujo is that the female leads may not be physically powerful but their actions shape the narrative and they are shown to be powerful because of their qualities, i think for girls you want to see girls kicking ass of course but you also want to see that girls are not passive, that they will do what they can and that their actions are powerful

my fav isekai manga, kanata kara (completed), has a protagonist like that, it's a really underrated gem that does a lot of world-building and the female lead even has to learn the language of the world she's teleported to, she can't communicate with the male lead or anyone else at the start, and i love her she's so clever and resourceful and compassionate, it's one of those "good beats evil" stories

i am so behind on it but i also love akatsuki no yona, incredible world-building, intricate character relationships and growth, it's so so good i need to get caught up, but if you like this one i also enjoyed kusanagi's other work mugen spiral (completed, short and cute demon/shrine maiden romance)

other recs: watashi no shiawase na kekkon is a cute cinderella story, colette wa shinu koto ni shita (completed but not online yet ;_;) is a touching persephone/hades style story where the female lead finds new appreciation for her life and her skills as a doctor, sayonara rose garden (completed) is a historical shoujo yuri where you really root for the couple...

isekai manhwa recs (somewhere between shoujo and josei imo) :

for better or for worse (completed) is classic shakespearian romantic dramedy imo, the miscommunications are a genre standard, it's fun and the female lead is drawn with fangs like a rough and tumble anime boy and i love that for her the villainess is a marionette, closer to josei probably, kayena is a certified Girl Boss and hellbent on revenge and she has a lady squad backing her up + devoted pretty moid a wicked tale of cinderella's stepmom, female lead is almost 40, lots of focus on the daughters coming of age and who they want to be, "cinderella" not wanting to be with the prince the villainess flips the script, i just really love judith she's so funny and she's athletic and accidentally kills a guy not-sew-wicked stepmom, snow white story, deals with misogyny and disordered eating and also it kinda looks like there's gonna be yuri on the side rn ?? two female characters confirmed to be into women master villainess the invincible, our girl is so badass.... and the original heroine is also bloodthirsty and she rocks too, also i personally think the male lead is hot tbh and usually it's just some guy to me the crow's prince is just really funny to me, how did they make that crow so expressive... and if i had a nickel for every isekai where the female lead spends a good chunk of it as a bird i would have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice but anyway the falcon princess is also a lot of fun with birds

and i'm also really into how to hide the emperor's child bc astelle is insanely cunning but the male lead does not deserve her at all

my anilist is miniblin and i have logged basically every manga i've ever read on there lol so if ur curious

[transmutationisms]

this isn’t rly a coherent point just a thought but i feel like the succession audience anon might be getting at the fact that the sociopolitical commentary of the show is lost as its audience increases? imo jesse’s political commentary is very clear but i also have my commie goggles on. but i know for a fact that the show is was not written nor marketed the way i’m consuming it. maybe jesse leans that way a bit but like he’s obviously descriptive and not prescriptive in his art so there’s that, and the constraints of tv are that it has to have broad enough appeal so you can’t be shoving your politics down the people’s throats necessarily. i think it is marketed to the brooklynite class you’re describing and i think they don’t fully get it and i also think as more people watch the more its themes are ignored in favor of stuff like omg who’d make the best successor, despite that not being what the show is about at all (also jesse has told us from day one who would make the “best” successor). idk like the people who get excited abt kendall becoming ceo you know? like omg it’s a win for him! like… are we watching the same show

ok i agree with a lot of this, and i am certainly also a known user of commie goggles lol. i think the fundamental limitation with the show is, like you said, that it's more interested in a descriptive mode than a prescriptive one, which means at its best it can nail character development and political satire, but it isn't really trying to offer any coherent alternative worldview. the portrayal of logan's gender / body politics is not flattering and doesn't flinch away from either the interpersonal trauma he inflicts on those around him or the broader political harm done by liberal capitalism; the show has also always been fairly sharp i think on the fascistic tendencies of capitalism and the way the latter turns into the former—again, shown both through logan's ideology of domination, social darwinist thinking, valorising certain types of bodies, etc, and through waystar's engagement with politics and politicians. however, i'd agree that this is all motivated by a description of the characters' worldviews and by satire of them, and we would probably see more of the cracks in the writers' and showrunners' politics if they tried to put forth some kind of more active alternative political platform.

that said, the fact that people miss these aspects of the show says as much to me about the political consciousness of viewers as it does about the intentionality of the writing. people with certain beliefs about masculinity are always going to watch 'fight club' and think tyler durden rules, no matter how effectively the critique is or isn't being made. similarly, people who think capitalism is a good or necessary system and doesn't derive value from fascism, or that succeeding in business is a matter of skill and mystical genius powers rather than a game of luck and accreting wealth, are always going to watch 'succession' and think that logan rules, or that the point is to identify the person who 'deserves' to take over waystar, or that capitalist electoral politics is a noble exercise in rhetoric that has simply been corrupted by a few evil apples, or what the fuck ever.

like, i'm not saying the writing is perfect or denying that it hits a wall in terms of actual radicalism. but i do think there are certain critiques the writers consistently and clearly make, often specifically via satire, that large swathes of the audience simply don't pick up on because they're approaching the text through their liberal capitalist ideological lens. you can see this, for example, in the journosphere's takes on the cruises storyline, which by and large completely failed to engage with the broader critique of capitalism as inherently producing death, exploiting bodies, and specifically preying on those deemed other or marginal—namely sex workers, migrants, women, etc. these points were very clearly made in the show and the meliorist viewpoint very clearly satirised (eg, in 'argestes'). ultimately, though, you can't rescue viewers from their own liberalism and you can't make them read the text from beyond those parameters. it's an issue of political consciousness, and although it can certainly be exacerbated by bad or milquetoast writing, even an explicitly radical piece of art will be interpreted through that liberal lens by people who are liberals (anyone remember the reviews of 'sorry to bother you'?)

i also would add that, in my opinion, this season has actually been more willing to overtly engage with the political threads than season 3. viewers can no longer hide behind the idea that the problem starts and ends with logan as an individual. matsson and his people have consistently been characterised as staking their own worth on their supposed biological superiority, with specific references to athletic ability, bodily strength, élite education that forms a class barrier, and the general idea of racial and genetic superiority ("nasdaq master race," "shallow end of the gene pool"). i'm aware there are many viewers, including on tumblr, who are not stringing these things together and seeing an overall discourse on capitalist eugenics and racism—but i do actually think that the satire here is being laid out pretty clearly in front of our faces. is this a show interested in exploring imaginative political alternatives? no, and you could convincingly argue on that basis that its fundamental stance is more self-satisfied snark than anything resembling actual leftist politics. i think, though, that this would be pretty evenly true since day 1, and that, at its best, the writing does hit on some key aspects of how capitalist spectacle functions, the power abuses it creates and enables, and how these things are inherent to capitalism writ large rather than being a unique pathology of the roys or waystar.

ultimately i love to see art that is actually communist / leftist in nature, is interested in alternatives to capitalism and ways out of our current political economic arrangement, etc. 'succession' is not that, clearly. part of the reason i do shit like blog about it is because it used to annoy me so much that no one was connecting certain more radical dots (like the obvious path from the show's historicised thinking -> a critique of capitalism as contingent) that are implied or allowed-for by the writing but never unpacked or explicated. so, often what interests me in the show is at least as much the lacunae left in the writing as the things it explicitly says. again, commie goggles. i also would tentatively agree with you that it's primarily marketed to people who are basically liberal and milquetoast, for reasons of profit motive, although again i honestly take in so little television advertising that i don't have much that's cogent to say about this angle of things lol.

i'm certainly not lying to myself that this show is any kind of radical statement of communist party values—i just also think that there are points of actually interesting satirical critique that the writers are very deliberate about, and that the guardian-new yorker-industrial complex is pretty much inherently going to miss these points or ignore them, for reasons that don't necessarily reflect one way or the other on the actual quality of the writing.

anyway, it was maybe goofy to write this out like an hour before the election episode airs, but these are certainly questions i will continue rotating after i see it lol.