#monstrous motherhood and all that

[jack-o-laa]

Where are my greek myth enjoyers⁉️

[cassieoz]

Birthing Retreat

Emma rested in the warm water as she looked out of the majestic valley views. It had been a long year and she needed this well deserved holiday.

As she continued to enjoy the spa treatment, one of the consultants arrived and offered her an intense full body massage.

She reached out on one of the massage table as the consultant went to work as he worked on every single muscle in her tense body. His fingers were incredible. She moaned and yawned deeply and soon found herself sound asleep.

When she woke, she found herself relocated on a large pioneer bed and her core was full and heavy! She looked down surprised as her middle began to twist painfully. Emma gasped loudly, clutching onto the large pillows at her head.

The pain radiated rapidly downwards as she began to pant and moan heavily. Emma blew out over and over again, gripping the pillows tighter. As the pain peaked strongly, her hands flew to the quilt. She grunted loudly and began to push!!!

Two attendants entered the room. One supported her between her legs and the other held her close at the headboard.

Emma cried and bore down frantically. The head was coming fast. It was big and stretching her painfully as the pains throbbed violently at her lips. She strained down hard as the attendants encouraged her full and loud participation.

An hour later, Emma was quivering wildly on the bed, sweating and screaming like a madwoman as the head pounded her through the most intense crowning pain. The attendants continued to support her through her intense ordeal. They were calm and allowing her to freely push and feel the entire labor experience at her own pace.

Another hour passed! Emma roared out at the monstrous head squeezed through her swelling lips. Push after push, scream after scream, the enormous crown thrusted forward. Emma rocked wildly on all fours, feeling the pressure of each contraction, forcing her closer to delivery.

Straining down with howling cries, Emma thrashed forward until the most powerful explosion between her thighs. A gigantic baby was lifted from between her legs. The attendants congratulated Emma on her new role of motherhood.

Emma smiled down at her 14 pound baby! She had booked into this retreat to achieve the biggest birth experience ever! She was overjoyed at the entire process. She rocked her son in her shaking arms as the attendants left to attend other clients.

[justrustandstardust]

in honour of geto's birthday, i want to talk about the fandom discourse that paints him as a mother. he definitely has a degree in motherology (with a minor in babygirlism), but i also think it’s possible that gege is genuinely using his character to say something interesting about motherhood and maternity.

this post is inspired largely in part by @virgobingo's thoughtful meta on geto and monstrous femininity, which you can find here. i want to extrapolate from the trope of monstrous femininity and extend it to monstrous motherhood. (which @virgobingo also touches on; you should really check out their meta— it's awesome!)

geto's character is immediately established in a protector capacity, which is intensely reminiscent of the tropes that mothers embody in media. his whole thing is that the strong must protect the weak; it's his core belief. his character is premised around this belief, much like the way mothers' constitutions in media are premised on the principle that they'll go to any length for their children.

we're repeatedly shown his caring side during hidden inventory— he cares for riko, he expresses concern for gojo, he even asks about kuroi after he finds out toji supposedly murdered his best friend. it's made very clear that he's an outwardly caring person with a strong sense of duty. in this way, he parallels the textual role of mothers, whose function is to care and provide above all else. the repeated emphasis on his caring nature is what directly likens him to maternity, whose characteristic trait is tender love and care.

he also houses curses in his body. he unleashes them from inside of him, almost like children leaving the womb. these curses obey him and operate according to his will in a very parent/child dynamic. they are powerful, but they can only do what he tells them to do. he uses them to fulfil his duty according to his core belief: to protect the weak.

when he defects, his ideology fundamentally does not change— it just inverts. instead of the strong protecting the weak (the weak necessitating their strength because they can't protect themselves), now the strong must be protected from the weak (because the weak leech the strength from the strong, therefore rendering them weak).

nothing really changes; he still cares —fiercely— it's just in the opposite direction. he takes the tropes associated with motherhood and inverts them— he'll do anything to protect those under his care, including killing, because he wholeheartedly believes in fulfilling his duty as a protector (like a mother). his unwavering conviction and willingness to die for his beliefs (which are directly about those he's protecting) is the most flagrantly maternal thing about him.

toji's worm calls him "mommy" and it's not wrong. he takes in daughters and becomes the central figure of his "family"; his emphasis on family throughout the story (even as a youth) also speaks to his maternity, as mothers are often written as the binding emotional centres of familial structures.

after he dies, his body is taken over by someone who is Iiterally a mother. he embodies monstrous motherhood during life and after death, leading us to the question of what gege is trying to say about all of this. is caring too much a bad thing? does caring in one way open the door to caring in another? what happens when a mother's love, supposedly strong enough to lift fallen trees off their children, goes in the “wrong” direction?

there's also the fact that geto is male. i think gege is also asking us to reckon with how the tropes of maternity have been confined to women, showing us that these intense convictions and the depth of care attributed to mothers can apply to anyone, even (especially) if they are distinctly masculine. in doing this, he's also expanding the conceptual definition of motherhood, suggesting that mothers can exist beyond their provident care and one-dimensional duty to their beloveds.

geto's monstrous motherhood is an explosive reclamation of agency in a trope where women have been historically limited by the categorical imposition of maternity. it seeks to disrupt not only who we consider to be mothers but also what we consider a mother to be. perhaps the monster is not the maternal figure whose love turns vicious or violent, but us, who monstrously imprisoned them in the fixed role of "mother".

[greenqueenhightower]

Touch Has A Memory: Alicent x Aegon Ending Scene in 2x05 Analysis:

Alicent and her boy Aegon are so intertwined in life. The root and the fruit of her troubles, he was born a carrier of Alicent's trauma and flaws. He has been broken and so has she. He is now burned by dragonfire, lying on his father’s bed, the same bed that bore his illness and took his life. Alicent is holding his hand. She is perhaps thinking of everything she ever said to him. Will he be able to see her again? To speak? To walk? To rule?

She looks upon Aegon's face as he sleeps. It no longer resembles the face of her son but her dead husband's monstrous face. She hesitates to touch it. She reaches for the side that still reminds her of the soft skin he once had as a baby. Her fingers rest upon his cheek softly, offering a comforting caress. Alicent doesn’t bear to see him like this for long. And yet, this gentle touch, this motherly affection, is enough to revive him. Will she ever know it’s all been for her sake, all he ever was, all he ever did?

Alicent exits the King's chamber, her devastation and heartbreak still showing under her mask of empowerment. That's who Alicent is. Vying for the regent position provided a necessary distraction and an escape. How would Aegon’s permanent maiming add to her tally of “sins”? She does not want to dwell on how her words compelled him to seek his own glory and burn for it.

Alicent isn't the average Westerosi type of mother. Even if she feels it deeply, she cannot have an emotionally exposing moment with Aegon. She can't bring herself to cry beside his body but she will put her own body as a shield in front of his if need be. She will try to safeguard his position by seeking power for herself. She will distance herself from weakness and disempowerment as an antidote to how Aegon’s weakened and debilitating state makes her feel. She will bury all her pain, sorrow, and agony under her own ambitions. She will not live up to the ideal standard of motherhood, even in her grief for what befell her son.

It's the second time Alicent is called to play the part of a nurse, but the power imbalance is against her. When she faithfully nursed Viserys, she relished in the potential his absence gave her in heading the small council. Aegon's predicament does not allow her that level of control.

Aegon has proven how deeply attached he is to Alicent. He calls her "mother" fondly, almost self-soothingly. When he called her "mother" in front of the small council in 2x01, he did not mean to undermine her. Aegon sees the word as an endearment and wants to draw closer to Alicent, even if he doesn't know how. He wants her to be proud of him. The term is often infuriating for Alicent, as her stare at 2x01 reveals. Alicent hasn't yet reconciled herself to the idea that she is his mother nor has she accepted that she has been unable to deviate from this word being her only definition. Especially in front of the council, Aegon's address of "mother" is a painful reminder of a title she didn't choose herself, and can't easily be proud of. In her mind, motherhood began when she got raped and birthed unwanted children. Subconsciously, even unwittingly, Alicent resents the term and with it, she resents Aegon who desires intimacy by using it.

But for Aegon, Alicent is and will always be his "mummy." The first person to offer him comfort, to stay up at night beside his bed when he was sick, the person he sought after being hurt or lonely. It is deeply tragic and devastating, therefore, that Alicent misses her son's tender call for her. She exits the room just seconds before she discovers just how deeply her son loves her and the effect that her own love and care, no matter how faulty, has on him.

Her touch on Aegon's cheek has a memory. For Alicent, it probably brings memories of Viserys, or her son when he was younger. For Aegon, the first emotional comfort, touching and being touched by his mother, remains the ultimate memory of selfless love, which stays with him life long, and is so powerful that he wakes up from his coma seeking her tender touch, this intoxicating drug, again.

[sugar-grigri]

because I’m so obsessed with your analysis posts I have to ask. How do you imagine a Love Devil to work? Would it be a primal fear? What kinda powers do you think it would have?

What would Love Devil look like?

That's a great question, because it requires imagination...

The devil of love is already powerful, and although love is a positive emotion, it's also a primary cause of despair. Exactly as Makima explained, a car in itself isn't scary, but accidents feed that fear. It's the excesses of love, crimes of passion, fits of jealousy, break-ups, one-sided love and the fear of commitment that feed the fear of love.

I think we can consider it a primal fear, something ingrained in the human psyche as old as humanity itself.

Above all, the fact that Pochita is so in search of love shows that he himself is subject to this demon.

In terms of the demon's design, it would be something offbeat. Demon designs don't necessarily follow what they represent (demon of justice, falling devil). It could be a slightly monstrous butterfly being to express the butterflies in the stomach, as Fujimoto seems to like to match his demon designs with sayings, expressions, symbols, etc.

Like it could just be a monstrous heart, a bit like Miura in Berserk represented God. It's a powerful image, and a little disturbing.

It could also be a shapeshifting demon - there hasn't been one yet - that takes on the appearance of the loved one. The loved one terrorizes us, and would then do us harm, which would reinforce broken hearts, and therefore the fear of love.

In terms of powers, maybe something like hypnosis, blindness, like when you're in love, you lose your sanity a bit. So whatever the demon says, we find ourselves obliged to do it. And even when the demon doesn't give the order, it's often unbearable to have to slice a demon in half when it takes on the appearance of a loved one.

It's a classic way of looking at the love demon, but it's also so difficult! And sometimes I suspect Pochita is one. He's the symbol of a love that links species, and being loved, the symbol of a cuddle, is what he was looking for.

Everyone calls Pochita "Chainsaw Man", but... doesn't that explain the fear he represents? His chainsaws could well be symbolic, as could the powers of the fire demon, those of justice, those of the falling devil...

He's not necessarily the chainsaw devil, at least that's not what explains his power, superiority and fear of other demons.

Fake CSM could very well be the real chainsaw demon, not an imposter. Pochita would be something else. We have to question what CSM is, especially after the last chapters 150/151.

What is Chainsaw Man? Why can't he represent love with his chainsaws, the instrument of maternity? Motherhood is the union of two beings, after all.

[twinwound]

It's hard to escape the conclusion that Ovid's stories of mothers who engage in son-slaughter are graphic fulfilments of the patriarchal fantasy which asserts women's causal contribution to man's death as well as his birth. Their inner psychic turmoil, leading to a renunciation of a maternal 'love' in the service of paternal power, is yoked symbolically by Ovid to the unconcealing of all that was supposed to remain inside, repressed, hidden from view (...) it is as if the body's inner uterine spaces, the viscern, are turned outwards to engulf and reconsume the men who emerged from them. The monstrous wombs of Ovid's murderous mothers seem to epitomize (by representing in reverse) the abjection of the maternal body as irredeemably, terrifyingly "other". The abject, for Kristeva, is an inassimilable or excessive component of the superego that is radically excluded and draws me to a place where meaning collapses', where insides and outsides are terrifyingly conflated. The original object of abjection is the maternal body, on whom we existed in a necessary, but potentially overwhelming dependence (...) In Kristeva's account, the abjection of the maternal body is a process that is necessary for the formation of human subjectivity in Western culture.

And yet I want, perhaps improbably, to resist such a determined conclusion, even though Ovid's text clearly flirts with and is seduced by the fantasy of demonic, dismembering mothers, and the supposed necessity of their abjection. Alongside their viscerality and bodily interiors, I've drawn attention to these women's internal dilemmas, articulated through rhetorical debates with themselves, debates which are contrary to the model of maddened maternal speech usually perceived by critics in Roman epic-rational, eloquent, thetorically coherent in their own way. They may be frenzied, but these women do not at least at this point 'wail'. Their debates are particularly Ovidian reflections on agency and the limits of language: "I want to act and I cannot," as Althaea says, "now pietas and the name of mother break my resolve". The primary metamorphosis in the cases of Procne and Althaea is thus not of shape but of psyche: they experience a radical switch from joy to grief to rage, but express this painful metamorphic process in terms of a certain loss of self and the struggling emergence of another. Split between words and action, conjugal and natal identities, Procne and Althaea engage in projects of self-fashioning, exploring a notion of the self in progress or flux. Which should come first, sisterly or motherly love? Passion or reason? Living kin or the dead? Like Medea, Ovid's mothers who kill their kin are radically unsettling because they do not so much reject their motherhood outright as choose, according to social and rhetorical context, to generate another identity out of what they perceive as their degraded maternal bond. The causal relationship of maternity and death is presented here not as inevitable and 'natural', but as the anguished offspring of masculinist violence, patriarchy's guilt coming back to haunt it.

'Matermorphoses: Motherhood and the Ovidian Epic Subject' from Reproducing Rome: Motherhood in Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, and Statius by Mairéad McAuley

[laniusbignaturals]

OBSESSED with your posts 💗💖💗🐥 do you think edward & joshua grew to be the men that they are due to their upbringing? when looking at them both, i’m reminded of leopold & loeb and how much of their wealth and sense of superiority played into the assholes they became—and why they ultimately believed they could get away with committing the perfect crime

this doesn’t make much sense sorry lol but the tldr; i’d love to read your thoughts on these two bone heads and their parents 💗

Content Warning: discussion of cult tactics, abuse, neglect, infanticide and general harm unto infants, pregnancy complications, emotional inc*st and inappropriate age gaps. This is also just a complicated read with a lot of moving parts, so be prepared for that.

No need to apologize! That’s a very astute comparison. If there’s a deviation between Leopold & Loeb and Edward & Joshua in terms of their social background, it would probably be that the former (to my knowledge) grew up in similar environments, while Edward and Joshua were raised in ostensibly very different cultures which they coalesced into one far more monstrous entity.

“Ostensibly” is carrying a lot of weight there. The Followers don’t necessarily embody these qualities, but historically, academia in the west has represented a font of organized racism and misogyny, legitimizing and promoting ideas that we nowadays look back on as cruel and ridiculous, like phrenology and such. (I fully accepted the popular hc of Edward’s family being from the ruins of USC partly for this reason, on top of the Trojans reference.) The fact that Caesar sprung from the only organized academic body in the wasteland can be taken as a continuation of that ugly tradition, and the Mormon Church’s ties to colonialism and it’s status as a modern day cult speak for themselves. Honest Hearts doesn’t engage with Mormonism critically, so the way Joshua’s upbringing in such a setting impacted him has to be inserted by us the players.

There’s a few articles you can read about the practices that make the modern day Mormon church a cult, and the impact these practices have on children raised in this environments. But some core tenants that seem relevant to Joshua’s growth are the instillment of fear and uncertainty into every aspect of one’s life, especially family and community, the hyperfocus on “cleaning” (both physically, to ensure members are always busy, and mentally/spiritually, as an exercise in paralyzing self-doubt,) and of course a tremendous amount of restriction placed on gender and sexual expression from an early age.

And this is draconian institutional abuse, not responsibility or healthy self-reflection or what have you. It’s a small wonder Joshua has something of a martyr complex when we meet him in-game: having been brought up in an environment that encouraged close surveillance over all human impulses, no matter how natural or innocuous, and never experienced a version of accountability that wasn’t a smokescreen for torture and control, all his desires need to be neatly wrapped up in diversion and justification to avoid giving credence to the idea that he’s sullied, disgusting, subhuman, unworthy of love. These themes of being taught that the loss of autonomy is virtuous/necessary so that the sufferer begins to perpetuate it themselves, and of being perpetually denied stability in spite of a seemingly endless mandate of labor, are the ones that I try to carry over into his mother’s story.

Her name is Dinah Graham, née Gardner. I work on her characterization with @dustwhirlsandrainbows. She has five co-wives.

She was very close with her mother, whose name was Madeline Gardner (née Talmage.) She, along with the rest of the community, raised Dinah to idealize a version of motherhood that revolved around obedience, self-sacrifice and participation in the colonial machine. Dinah’s mother died as a result of pregnancy complications, (as many women and children do in Quiverfull-esc religious sects,) altering but not deconstructing the way her daughter engaged with the edicts of their community.

Like her mother, Dinah got married at a very young age. She named her firstborn daughter after her mother: Joshua was her second child. She was close with her husband’s second wife Abigail, who struggled with her fertility, but by the time the third Rebecca came along her husband was beginning to be less considerate towards her, which caused contention between them. The fourth abandoned New Canaan, to be subsequently treated like she’d never existed, and the fifth wed Mr. Graham when she was a teenager. He married the sixth soon after Joshua founded The Legion, which should tell you something about the way Mr. Graham related to his children.

Joshua bonded less with his father and more with his maternal Grandfather, Dinah’s dad and Madeline’s widower. He also becomes closer with his second-to-last stepmother Elizabeth after he returns from the burning: since he left New Canaan when her children were infants, they weren’t as affected by their relation to a war criminal as his other half/step siblings. She also had personal history which made her particularly sympathetic to his plight, but that’s another post. I usually use Laura Galán of “Piggy” as a fancast for her in her youth.

Ingrid Torelli of “Late Night With The Devil” is a good representation of how I imagine Dinah in her youth, especially with the off-putting, ragdollish body language. She’s playing a 13 year old here, but the actress is 18. Dinah was in that age range when she got married to Mr. Graham, who was a couple years older than her. Saint Olga of Kyiv bears a close resemblance to her in adulthood: fittingly, since she’s the patron saint of defiance, defense and vengeance.

Wives were offered to men in New Canaan as rewards for good service to the church, and conversely, to be married to an accomplished clergyman was considered an achievement for young girls. As such, Mr. Graham was generally inattentive to the welfare of his family, and put his myriad of children and step-children into the position of constantly competing for his attention and favor, which was connected to their social life external to the household by virtue of his own status. The vastness of their family is part of the reason why Joshua always references them in such nondescript terms: he had siblings, half siblings, aunts, uncles, stepmothers and step-grandparents, etc. His children suffered as a result of the infighting, resentment and awkwardness between their mothers, and some of them came into the family with pre-existing issues which caused them to lash out at the other kids.

(For example, during Rebecca’s previous marriage, her youngest child had been a victim of infanticide by a co-wife who was going through pregnancy induced psychosis. The incident caused her then-husband, Mr.Ballard, to abandon New Canaan, opening Rebecca up to be wed again. Her two surviving children, Jobe and Ethel, were left severely traumatized, and Jobe actually pressed Joshua’s hand to a hot pan when they were both still young. He’s become less aggressive by the time Joshua returns from the Legion, but his actions are re-contextualized by Joshua’s botched execution, so. There’s that.)

Here’s a good representation of Joshua’s relationship with his daddy.

It’s also an excellent segue into talking about Edward!

So there’s a theory that the breakdown of Joshua and him’s three decade long relationship was due in part to Edward’s personality changing from his untreated brain tumor. And while that idea makes the storyline more interesting, I think the game offers a more explicit example of a shift in Edward’s neurology within his stated backstory. The implication of Caesar’s mother taking him to The Boneyard after his father’s death is that whatever home they had been living in was destroyed in the same incident. Raiders don’t attack for no reason - maybe they were landholders. The loss of that kind of generational wealth would certainly contribute to that sense of aggrieved entitlement we see Edward display so aggressively in game. Growing up in the Boneyard, he wouldn’t have any direct connection to whatever rural culture they’d previously been apart of, except that which he would get through his mother. Maybe that’s where his need to assert himself as a supreme intellect comes from: insecurity about the fact that his people were (in his mind) uncultured and uneducated.

But the transition from one setting to another is less important than the circumstances in which that transition occurred. Having a parent killed and a home destroyed, then being taken on foot to another settlement by the remaining one, would represent an extreme disruption to the established patterns of safety in which infants are supposed to exist. “Neural development occurs most rapidly in early childhood and is shaped by experience,”and reactions to trauma in small children with limited expressive & defensive capacities are markedly similar to signs of cognitive impairment in adults: symptoms like the loss of previously established movement and language skills, detachment from & disinterest in their surroundings, appearing “frozen” or sustained periods of blank staring, sleeplessness and nightmares, etc.

The sleep one is sticking with me. Insomnia can cause brain damage even in adults subjects, and babies with undeveloped brains are far more vulnerable to serious consequences from such disruptions. Consistency and routine are also important to a young child’s ability to rest: not only having it disrupted by an incident of violence, but being uprooted and taken to a new place in the immediate aftermath, could’ve severely damaged his ability to cope with the stress of that situation as it was happening, let alone in the years afterwards.

And that’s why I think going through something that would’ve been taxing & traumatizing for a grown adult as a baby with an extremely delicate brain is much more likely to have had an adverse impact on Edward’s neuroanatomy - and subsequently changed his personality for the worse on a physiological level - than a tumor that popped up when he was well into manhood. It’s difficult to ascertain, since two year old children don’t have full personalities in the first place. He essentially lives his whole life in the aftermath of that event.

These two themes - of the psychological interplaying with the physiological, and of growing up in reaction to traumatic experiences that preceded all other sense of identity - are the ones that I try to carry over into my writing for his mother. There’s also comparison & contrast made between Edward’s family and Joshua’s, my attempt to explore how people in vastly different situations can end up in similar circumstances. A key difference is that the Grahams are much more thoroughly influenced by their community and extended family, while the Sallows are more self-contained.

I call Edward’s mother Clarice. I’ve put down a frankly obscene amount of plotting, backstory, and analysis for her (and her associates,) but very little actual writing, unfortunately. Her full name is Clarice Belinda Sallow. She was born to Earl Sallow and his then girlfriend Lola on a ranch not far from the dilapidated USC campus, on October 28th of 2189, the same year the NCR was founded. A charming but emotionally unstable philanderer, Earl had several other illegitimate children by various women, but he didn’t pay any of them half the attention he paid Clarice. Clarice was Earl’s only daughter, and as such he (subconsciously) saw her birth as an opportunity to mold a woman from scratch, suited to his needs and incapable of abandoning him. Lola fled the family when Clarice was a toddler on account of Earl’s habitual adultery and intense jealousy, leaving her to be raised exclusively by her father. She spent her childhood performing the duties of a wife, tending the ranch, cooking and cleaning, washing and mending, etc.

Though Earl never SA’d his daughter, his emotional attachment to her was wildly inappropriate. He leaned on her for support, barred her from an outside education, and kept her largely isolated from other children, especially boys. He also dictated the clothes she wore, her spending habits and personal interests, and kept her on her toes with guilt trips and episodes of rage. The most aggressive of these incidents was when Clarice got her first boyfriend at the age of fourteen. When her father found out, he threatened her in extremely graphic terms which I can’t repeat on tumblr, and assaulted the kid she’d been dating.

Earl died after a grueling battle with spinal cancer in 2209, when Clarice was twenty years old. The last year of his life was painful and lonely, and he had little contact with anyone but Clarice. (This sounds cathartic on paper, but the legacy of this period is just further damage to his daughter’s mental health, so. Don’t cheer too loud.) In the aftermath of her father’s passing, Clarice was severely distraught, lacking a tangible identity after spending her formative years so devoted to one man. She fell in with Earl’s friend and neighbor, a carpenter named Frank Abendroth (nicknamed “Roth”) who managed his affairs after his death. Roth ended up abandoning his own family and bringing Clarice with him to a settlement in the north. There, he took a second mistress, an east coast transplant named Vanessa.

Roth and other businessmen in the USC area had had a handshake agreement with the local NCR which allowed them to store raw materials like lumber off the books, so they couldn’t be taxed for importing them. Roth assumed that the authorities in the north operated on the same terms. They didn’t, and he was arrested for customs fraud and sent to prison when Clarice was about twenty one. She found out she was pregnant with his child soon before, but was spared having to tell him by his arrest, and Vanessa helped her get an abortion. Together, the two girls went in search of Clarice’s oldest brother Paul, who was living in a flophouse in a semi-urban mining town. They moved in with him and quickly became enmeshed with his friend group, which included a bounty hunter, his wife, and her longtime friend, a native of the Boneyard named Roy Tillman.

(Never thought I’d get the chance to post this incredibly niche meme, but here you go.)

Leaving out some major life events for brevity (and because I might end up changing them,) Clarice eventually married Roy, and they settled on her father’s ranch before it was burned down. Theirs was a common law marriage, since Roy had already legally married someone else when he was younger, though they’d long since separated. That, (and the fact that property ownership in the wasteland is easier to prove when you share the surname of the former owner,) is why Edward has his mom’s last name.

Roy was something of a slimeball, being influenced largely by the opportunistic bastard trope and a willingness to tacitly profit off of, if not participate in, unjust systems. He spent a long time working as a moonshiner, outselling his competitors by producing cheap rotgut liquor. He met Paul when the latter was a bouncer at a dogfighting ring where he liked to gamble. His first love, the bounty hunters wife, had been a victim of labor trafficking, and Clarice also had unusually low standards as a result of her past. But whatever else Roy was, he was also markedly less dangerous and unpleasant than his male peers, causing Clarice to see him through rose tinted glasses and feel as if she owed him something. She gave birth to Edward when she was thirty five, and died of cancer around the age of fifty seven.

On that note, fun fact about the USC area: they, as a community, consumed irradiated food in huge quantities. For some families, it was all they ever ate. This practice began before the NCR was around to incentivize widespread sharecropping and educate wastelanders on the specific dangers of an irradiated diet. USC was landlocked and ecologically devastated, with the remnants of pre-war urbanization making it difficult to institute sustainable livestock farming. So eating radioactive food with every meal started out as a matter of desperation, when the area was still widely impoverished. By the time Clarice was in her teens, the practice had evolved into more of a rural masculinity ritual, the sort of habit meant to affect that one was tough and down to earth, (like beer, whiskey and meat in the South.) Earl partook, and he taught Clarice to partake, and Edward came out of Clarice.

That’s why they all get cancer.

As other people have discussed, Edward’s father’s murder at the hands of raiders and the destruction of their pastoral, patriarchally inherited land makes for excellent propaganda, and he’s used to using those events as a rhetorical tool when trying to recruit people. On an emotional level, Edward tends to look on his father with ambivalence or active disgust. To be killed in a failed attempt to defend their home, leaving his son in the care of a woman who was significantly younger and weaker than him, is a massive blow to the image of the kind of man Edward would like to believe he came from.

His relationship with his mother started out stable if not healthy, but became more fraught as he entered his teens. From the start, Clarice was deeply afraid of recreating the pseudo-incestuous bond her father had with her, especially after Roy was killed and they were left a family of two, much like she and Earl had been. Lacking positive examples of what parenting should look like, she embraced an authoritarian style of motherhood with firmly delineated parent-child roles, and had periods of neglect and abusiveness, like breaking/hitting things in rage when he was around or giving him alcohol to put him to sleep. Though these behaviors cooled as Clarice got older, and her life become more anchored, Edward resented his mother’s growing inability to (in his mind) justify her misgivings as a domestic authority by remaining a strong, imposing figure worthy of obedience. Part of the reason he accepted the assignment to the Grand Canyon was because Clarice was nearing the end of her life, and he didn’t want to be around for her demise.

Clarice’s face is square, and like her son she has a hooked nose, broad shoulders, brown eyes and blonde hair - a combination which is very difficult to find representation for when hunting for fancasts. But Olga Mironova in “Come And See” looks similar to her, as well as Leah from TLOU2, Kirsten Dunst in “Melancholia,” and Tammy Barnes from Far Cry 5. The woman in the black and white photograph is Andrei Tarkovsky’s mother. (Final image is from this gif)

[femsolid]

"When I say there is an all-out global war being waged against women, there are always some people who shake their heads and say, "Really, Sonia! War is a very big word. Obviously, things aren't good for women, but you mustn't overstate your case. If you exaggerate, nobody's going to believe anything you say. Why not tone it down a little?" I tell these people how fervently I wish war were too big a word for what happens to women in this world every day, how I can't wait for the day when war is too big a word and I am overstating my case. But the fact is, war is far too small a word. There isn't a word in the men's dictionary monstrous enough for what happens to women on this planet, and has happened unceasingly for thousands of years.

Men speak humorously, or so they say, of "the war between the sexes" - a transparent and guileful attempt to mislead us into thinking that there is a natural enmity between women and men, and that the "sides" are evenly matched. Nothing could be further from the truth on both counts. The "war between the sexes" is man made, and it is not between anybody. It is against women. We know that to be born female in patriarchy is to be born behind enemy lines.

But because everything associated with women is degraded by that association, something subversive happens to the glorious male vision of war when we insist on calling women's lives with men on this earth "war." War, to the patriarchal mind, is heroic, grand, full of magnificent courage and color, camaraderie, idealism, moral and physical strength - the whole shot through with religious fervor: God is always on our side because we are right and good and noble. The Old Testament is all the proof one needs that war in patriarchy is the holiest of holies.

Then feminists come along and sully that splendid word. What could be less noble and heroic and grand and magnificent than the furtive ugly sneaking weak and cowardly acts of rape and battering and incest and pornography-inspired sadism, and sexual harassment and pauperizing and sterilizing and obligatory motherhood - to name just a few of the less heroic aspects of this most invisible and vicious and widespread and prolonged and prototypical of all wars in human history. No wonder people become alarmed, even outraged, when the holy word "war" is used for the disgustingly two-bit work of bullying and brutalizing women into submission. Even to use the words "war" and "women" in the same sentence makes a mockery of all they reverence.

Yet, the screams of women, their moaning, the crying of the women of the world, past and present, echo through the chambers of the unconscious in every human being alive. On some level, each of us knows what is going on, but it is as if we have signed a pact not to let on that we know, have sworn to keep it secret. What else can account for the public aghast when one minute fragment of the hidden hoard of evidence escapes into public awareness?"

- Going Out of Our Minds by Sonia Johnson

[megarahmoon]

Name change!! And I am so happy with it. You already know my BP as Monty, but I've decided to name her after one of my most loved goddesses, Tiamat. This is going to be a bit long winded because I'm obsessed with ancient goddesses (and goddesses in general) and I love to share their ancient history because not many people in this modern world know too much about goddesses and gods.

In Babylonian mythology, Tiamat is a primordial mesopotamian goddess of the ocean and personification of chaos. evidence of Tiamat is the oldest known. It dates back to 2000 B.C.E. from Sumer and Babylon. At the beginning of Tiamat’s story, she personifies young and fertile motherhood, giving birth to a multitude of deity offspring. During this stage, Tiamat is described as calm and loving, she gave birth to the first generation of gods, but when her offspring turn murderous, killing her husband Apsu, Tiamat enters her second phase — her anger transforms her into a vengeful monster with five independent heads. Ultimately, this stage is Tiamat’s undoing, as her need for revenge and her formidable power leads her into battle with the storm god, Marduk, who split her body in half, the top portion of her body becoming the sky and the bottom became the earth and her tears created the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. She is considered the Mother of All and all Babylonian gods are her descendants. As described by the New World Encyclopedia:

“The entirety of the material creation was thus generated, with half of her body as the sky, the other half as the Earth, her ribs (or thigh bones) as the vault of Heaven and Earth, her monstrous udder as the mountains, her weeping eyes as the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates and her poisonous spittle as the earthly moisture (clouds, winds, rain, and fog).”

Tiamat’s multiple personalities represents the many stages of in a woman’s life, as well as prescribed gender roles relating to power and sexuality. Society negatively stereotypes older women, ultimately punishing them for their independence and ambition. Tiamat’s violent end is identified with the often complicated role powerful women face, both in ancient and modern times. Tiamat has the appearance of a dragon or a serpent. Sometimes, she is multi-headed, due to the modern influences from the Dungeons & Dragons, though there is no image dating to Mesopotamian times which has been identified as depicting this goddess. She is the elemental powerful force of chaos, the Mother of Everything, the self-procreating womb, the source of all life and all manifestation. Tiamat’s themes are history, change, spirituality, fertility, birth and creativity. Her symbols are reptiles and seawater.

I've always wanted to name my own snake after Tiamat and I should have just changed her name years ago after my brother gave her to me ✨

[msweebyness]

MiracOlympus- Extras!!!

Here’s a special bonus, with some extra characters of importance! @artzychic27 @imsparky2002

Gabriel: Cronos

The god of time and the former king of the titans, and father of Adrien (Zeus), Kim (Poseidon), and Nathaniel (Hades). He locked his sons away in Tartarus as children to secure his power, but was defeated and imprisoned by them. Nath makes time every week to go down and troll him.

Emilie: Rhea

The former queen of the titans, ex-wife of Gabriel. She despised him for imprisoning her sons and helped overthrow him. Still mothers the heck out of her boys (and the new gods in general), regardless of how powerful they are.

Anarka: Leto

Goddess of motherhood and mother to Juleka (Artemis) and Luka (Apollo). Will eff you up if you mess with her kids, and vice versa. Still a chaotic free spirit.

Jagged: Aeolus

God of the winds and father of Luka and Juleka. Serves as mentor and teacher to the four young wind deities, telling them where the winds are needed that day. Still loves music.

Clara: Euterpe

Muse of Music, and eldest of the nine. Her younger siblings all adore her and she helped them all to embrace and master their special talent.

Vivica: Calliope

Second eldest muse, muse of poetry and epics. A bit shy, but loves to perform with her siblings.

Lucien: Zelus

God of envy and jealousy. In love with obsessed with Marc (Persephone), and couldn't handle it when he chose to be with Nathaniel. (Mylene (Demeter) feckin' HATES him, and has threatened him with a pitchfork more than once.)

Emani: Dolos

God of manipulation and control. Former lover of Nathaniel who would do anything to have him back.

Duusu: Argus

Marinette's (Hera) sacred peacock, and beloved companion.

Liiri: Aetos Dios

Adrien's sacred eagle, who carries messages for him and serves as a companion.

Xuppu: Delphinius

Immortal Dolphin, and Kim's best friend. Was his wingman and helped him get together with Ondine (Amphitrite).

Kaalki: Pegasus

Immortal winged horse, famed mount of heroes. Found as a foal and reared by Max (Athena).

Socqueline: Heracles

Greatest mortal hero who ever lived, had the strength of a god. Wore a lion pelt.

Aeon: Helen of Troy

Most beautiful mortal woman who ever lived, kidnapped as a teen by the Trojans for their prince. The Gods sided with the Greeks in the war to bring her back.

Jess: Atalanta

Mortal hero who could run as fast as the wind. A renowned hunter who killed a monstrous boar terrorizing her kingdom, and she refuses to marry unless you can beat her in a race.

Fei: Hippolyta

Queen of the Amazons, and total badass. Has never lost a battle with any mortal that dared challenge her.

Master Fu: Chiron

Immortal centaur, the wise and kind teacher of the greatest heroes.

Bustier, Mendeliev, and Winters: The Moirai (aka the Fates)

Winters- Clotho, Bustier- Lachesis, Mendeliev- Atropos

Three incredibly powerful goddesses who decide the fates and lifespans of all mortals.

Baark: Cerberus

Three-headed, enormous guard dog of the Underworld. Nathaniel and Marc's fluffy baby girl child.

Leave your thoughts in the comments and reblogs!

[lady-corrine]

But somehow it is Rhaenyra — Rhaenyra who was forced into her marriage with a gay man, Rhaenyra whose sons were recognized and accepted by Laenor and Corlys as true Velaryons, Rhaenyra whose sons were, above everything else, her heirs, through her and her alone — that is the villain and the monster, and unworthy to rule.

That's it. Right there.

Greenies don't seem to get (or just ignore) that Laenor was A GAY MAN. Not straight. Not bi. But GAY. He had ZERO attraction to women. And Rhae knew and accepted that and CONSENTED for Laenor to have his lovers while she had her own, which LAENOR ALSO CONSENTED AS WELL.

As heir, Rhaenyra NEEDED to have kids. Regardless on if she was traumatized by child birth to her grandma and mom BOTH dying in childbirth. (Greenies also seem to forget that Nyra NEVER wanted kids as well. They make excuses for Alicent that she was a teen mom and probably didn't want kids, esp at 15 or 16 which is why she is so bad at parenting while Nyra is shown to be loving while previously never wanting marriage or motherhood) and since Laenor didn't desire her, she found a LITERAL plan b.

She couldn't trust anyone else bc the court was already hostile toward her for being a female heir so whose to say one day the bio dad would get tired and claim them????

Sorry for replying so late 💜

They just ignore it to fuel their hatred for Rhaenyra. Because just like you said, Laenor was a gay man, and, even more, the book makes it clear that Laenor never showed any interest in women:

This brings into discussion two separate, albeit very much connected, things:

First is how the whole council (and Viserys first and foremost, of course, since his word was final) was an idiotic group of idiotic men that placed Rhaenyra in an impossible situation from the very beginning. This wasn't a case of not knowing Laenor's sexuality, of some plot trying to keep the truth hidden until after the wedding, of pretense or lying — no, Laenor's sexuality was known to everyone. It was known he didn't express any interest in any women, it was known he was gay and had male lovers.

And yet the whole council simply went: you know what would be completely ideal for Rhaenyra? What would make her position so much easier? A man that loves her and is in love with her and actively asked to marry her and sought her hand in marriage? No. They decided that, somehow, the perfect answer is Laenor.

Which brings us to the second point of all this: for Rhaenyra to have those silver haired children that the Greens and Velaryon extremists cry about like they are some medieval peasants, it would have meant for her to rape Laenor. To not care at all about Laenor's feelings and desires and just repeatedly, robotically, force him and herself to sleep together until they produced a child.

But above all else, they hate that Rhaenyra actively sought to have pleasure herself when having sex. To not just sit there and endure it and count the seconds until it was finished.

They would rather see Rhaenyra as this monstrous gorgon that abuses her husband to fulfill her "duty" (someone take away this word from the greens). As this robot that clenches her mouth and suffers sleeping with her gay husband. And somehow this, for the Greens, is the better decision that proves a better character. This makes a better heir to the throne in their vision 🥴

Rhaenyra did the best she could with the horrible circumstances she was given. She allowed Laenor freedom, she allowed him to be with whoever he wanted. Jace, Luke and Joffrey were raised with love and not wanting for anything in terms of affection. And, mind you, the scrutiny was never on Laenor for his lovers. It was still always on Rhaenyra.

[steelycunt]

Hey, you seem really well-read, would it be alright if I asked for a book rec - something gothic that explores complex relationships and monstrosity, ideally with transformation as a theme, I’m not sure if this is the kinda thing you might have read but I’m looking for something to read that will go well with Carmilla by sheridan le Fanu for my English lit NEA and every book recommendation quiz/website seems to insist on asking things like ‘what’s your ideal reading location’ ‘pick three words to describe yourself’ ‘pick between [3 generic y/a main character archetypes]’ and I am at my wits end 😭

agh hello my love! i am flattered that you thought of me! to be honest i'm not really massively well-read particularly in the gothic genre so im not sure how much ill be able to recommend...im guessing youve probably considered frankenstein by mary shelley already? if not i think would fulfil your monstrosity and complex relationships themes quite well from a birth/motherhood perspective (i havent read carmilla but its a vampire novel if im correct? so maybe the idea of monstrous motherhood/creation ties in there) and of course its a pretty famous classic gothic. otherwise in the gothic strain maybe a bit of a reach but perhaps wuthering heights? might tick the boxes in terms of complex relationships and though monstrosity might be a stretch theres certainly an element of characters being terrible/being demonized/a degree of nature v nurture. to a lesser extent but along a similar vein theres also the picture of dorian gray...im not sure if you're purely looking for classic gothic or you could perhaps compare with a more modern novel? when i think of complex relationships and monstrosity one that comes to mind is we need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver, though thats a modern novel and it lacks the gothic elements youre looking for. also i have not read it but theres interview with the vampire lol. sorry all ive got is pretty mainstream recs youve probably already considered...but i know my followers and mutuals are a well read bunch so i invite anyone who might have other suggestions 2 leave them in the replies!!

[moranice-solvej]

Answer the Questions and Tag 5 Fanfic Authors

Thank you for the tag, @rifle-yes <3

1. How did you get into writing fanfiction?

Got introduced to fanfic through an old forum dedicated to a TV-show I was low-key obsessed with as a teen all the way back in 2008. Around the same time I started to get an urge to express myself in writing as I was an avid reader and always had a vivid imagination, so the sheer fact that people just wrote stories to celebrate their favorite stories captivated me.

Since then, there were many attemps to write fanfic and original works alike, very few completed, and only my obsession with Rogue One that started after watching the movie and reading the novelization had put me on the path of publishing my writing and finally being able to complete writing projects.

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

Started in a TV-fandom a long time ago, but never had anything I wanted to publish, so mentally I don't even count it. None of those scraps of written down ideas remain; I deleted them and never once looked back. That leaves Rogue One and technically Star Wars as my sole writing fandom. I dearly love many other shows and movies and games, but none of them make me want to write in their universes.

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

Technically 16 years. Yes, comprehending this number makes me terrified.

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I used to read tons of fic before I came back to writing in earnest. Now most of my free time goes into writing.

In addition to that I have ran into a loathesome problem of not being able to find stories that I'd love to read. The ceiling has gotten too high. Now that I can finally shape the kinds of stories I want to read to life, I crave more stories with such premises, themes, writing styles, and character archetypes, and these days I struggle to find them in fanfic and in original books for that matter. My gremlin brain simply cannot connect to the vast majority of tropes that dominate modern-day fandom and culture. :(

Thus, I'm firmly in the mode of be-the-change-you-want-to-be-in-the-world and producing stories for myself to satisfy that need. Even if it routinely takes me over a year, usually two to finish a single story with a monster wordcount and create something I can one day re-read with glee.

5. What is one way you’ve improved as a writer?

I am now able to move an idea from a general concept and a set of pivotal scenes to a fully-fleshed out story and actually finish it. This used to be my achilles heel for ages and it feels mightily gratifying to finally get rid of it.

6. What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Origins of blood transfusions in human history. Plus a large variety of niche questions of when thing a or thing b was first invented. Most of the times the setting of my current writing project allows me to disregard our reality and wing it for the sake of the vibes or plot, but I still like to research what we as a species develop and when to try and create a somewhat believable ancient fictional world without modern technology.

7. What’s your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I have a soft spot for readers who pick on teeny-tiny details of my writing and show their appreciation for it. I end up with monstrous word counts because I'm an extremely context- and detail-oriented writer, and knowing that my passion for it is noticed and enjoyed brings me joy in return.

8. What’s the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

My current project centers around a warrior woman in her mid- to late forties who makes peace with her trauma of motherhood and loss, finds new friends and love and new home, defies her nation's traditions and becomes the force of change for her people that will bring them out of stubborn isolation and little by little shatter their callousness and mold it into empathy.

I am well aware that the sole audience of this story is myself and my best friend whom I'm lucky to have along for the ride, but it has took over my heart and it will not let go until I finally bring this epic saga to a close.

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

I am simply incapable of writing a traditional short story. Every one-shot I ever made was a stepping stone in a larger verse, and even so the smallest one is over 8k words. Anytime I try to write something small, I either need to put it down because it gets out of hand, or I need to finish it and by that time it grows into a monster.

My last attempt to write a short story within a story has spawned an epic saga that currently sits at roughly 380.000k words and will likely end up over 500.000k words when I'm finally done with it.

10. What is the easiest type?

Monster-sized epics. I think my creative brain cannot function in any other way but go-big-or-go-home.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I've used MS Word for writing ever since I got my first laptop and keep at it. Started using Scrivener lately for establishing character sheets and writing down my notes.

For years now I write almost exclusively over the weekends, with occassional editing in the evenings after work. Between working, needing to keep my apartment clean and myself fed, and dedicating time to mastering my fourth language, I have no brain for creativity after I'm done with all these chores and I use whatever remains of my evening to read, or watch shows with my best friend, or do some gaming.

12. What is something you’ve been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

In the story I am currently writing, one of the secondary main characters is an ex-slave and a rape survivor. There is no shortage of hurt/comfort stories about a female character's experience with such kind of abuse, and in all my years of reading fic and books I often find that trauma stemming from it is either glossed over or healed through the power of true love. Even when a story follows a road to healing, it often ends in sunshine and rainbows after the all the travails. Well, for a long, long time now my gremlin brain wanted to explore what such trauma can do to a stoic male warrior, as well as to study how sometimes there is no easy healing from such ordeals, how deep these souls scars lie, and how they will keep poisoning the relationship he will pursue down the line and present major obstacles to both non-sexual and sexual intimacy with the woman he falls in love with. I'm a sucker for happy endings and I will not turn away from it, but this is going to be a scarred happy ending because those ghosts are never going to stay completely quiet in his soul.

I am daunted by the prospect of writing this spin-off like I've never been before, scared of not doing it justice, but something in me has latched onto this idea and really, really wants to at least try it.

13. What made you choose your username?

I needed something unique as a username and I have a habit of making up new names out of thin air for my writing. I liked this one and it had stuck. :)

If any writers who follow me would like to join in, you are welcome.

[buckybarnesss]

May I purpose a fourth woman haunting the Teen Wolf narrative: Talia Hale?

Arguably, it was her Alpha spark that really started all this. Laura inherited it, Peter lured/killed Laura to get it and turned Scott with it, Derek came back to find out who had it and inherited it himself.

She was the one to tell Derek that just because they were predators they didn't have to be killers. In season 2, Deaton says he promised Talia to protect Derek because he was her emissary. She was deeply entwined with the Alpha pack, mostly Deucalion. She was there at the nemeton after Derek killed Paige and took his and Peter's memories of it, furthering the plot to frantically find it in 3A. Derek and Peter risked their lives to find her claws in 3B, so that Derek could hear her again. She was there to tell Malia's bio-mom, the Desert Wolf, the joy of motherhood. She helped hide Malia and cover up her adoption. She took Peter's memories of Malia, paving the way for Peter's attempt at a redemption arc in 6A (when he wakes up from the Wild Hunt after Malia calls him Dad) and Malia to find her identity beyond Peter and the Desert Wolf during season 5A.

(There was a bit in a fanwiki that said Talia might have been Peter's main guardian after losing their parents according to a flashback, but I don't actually know if this really happened)

The speculation that Talia may have been Peter's guardian is due to the fact they brought back Michael Fjordbak for Visionary. Michael had played a younger, more high school aged version of Peter in season 2 as part of his manipulations of Lydia. This led to him appearing much closer to Derek's age rather than Talia's.

Ian Nelson would've been about 18 playing young Derek, Michael Fjordbak was about 24 playing Peter and Alicia Coppola was about 45 as Talia.

This along with Peter and Cora's comments in the episode about werewolf aging led to speculation that there was a significant age gap between Talia and Peter. My personal opinion though? It's Peter's vanity. We have to remember he's telling a biased story in Visionary. Peter's age from Monstrous and the plaque from the basketball trophy place him roughly about 35 years old which is much more reasonable and seems more in line with Derek's comment about getting him thrown off campus.

I've always considered the Hales as ghosts in the story itself. The destruction of the Hale family by the Argents upset the balance of nature. Deaton alludes to as much. It's like the genocide of the Airbenders in ATLA or the loss of the Jedi in Star Wars. It's a crime against nature and left a gaping, bleeding wound behind.

I think we could consider Talia as haunting the narrative too for all the reasons you said. I say Laura haunts the narrative because her murder was the inciting incident that kicked off the events of the show and due to how often we revisit her death. I think of Laura's death as immutable, fixed point. Malia being found and returned to her family is even an inverse of Laura's fate. One Hale girl died in the woods and another was returned.

Talia is a character I desperately wish we'd gotten a bit more on. It still chaps my ass that the person who speaks most on her is Gerard Fucking Argent. Arguably the architect of her death.

@dear-massacre and I have come up with the theories that she wasn't necessarily as benevolent as we are led to believe.

[autolenaphilia]

I’m very happy to see some discussion on my dash of the original Frankenstein novel. It's one of my favourite books. And it reminds me how much i hate the anti-science reading of Frankenstein so much. You know the one. Frankenstein’s crime is that he strives for knowledge and power that belongs only to God/nature. The quest for knowledge man is not meant to know, power man is not meant to have. It’s a downright reactionary argument. And of course 70s hippies recuperated anti-technology/science arguments from conservatives and made them supposedly “leftist” or “progressive, as I discussed before. So naturally we get cringeworthy “feminist” anti-science interpretations of Frankenstein. It tends to go like this: Victor is suffering from womb envy. He can not create life the natural way, so in his hubris he does a monstrous imitation of it via technology.

Of course, there is an obvious bio-essentialism to this feminist interpretation of the novel. Womanhood is identified with a (fertile) womb. And there is a kind of cultural feminism to this interpretation, where gender roles are reaffirmed but the feminine role is upheld as superior to the male one. So women are identified with motherhood and nature, and men with science and technology, but it’s feminist because science and technology are seen as evil.

So if you are capable of critical thinking, you might notice this kind of “feminism” smells terfy. Like actually gives off terf vibes, not in the “talking about misogyny is terfy” sense. And you’ll be right. So let’s talk about Mary Daly, who was one of the original terfs. The foundational statement of it as an ideology The Transsexual Empire by Janice Raymondoriginated as a dissertation with Daly as a teacher.

Daly’s book Gyn/Ecology explicitly makes the above “feminist” reading of Frankenstein as part of her broader anti-technology argument, where ecological destruction is due to “male” technology inherently being a destructive “boundary violation” analogous to rape. I discussed before how it’s a “feminist” and “environmentalist” restatement of reactionary catholic writing.

In Daly’s reading Victor Frankeinstein’s “character illustrates the hysteria of the manic mother-mimer who experiences his inherent male sterility as unbearable barrenness.” And in that “hysteria” he tries to become a “technological father” and “scientific sire.” In Daly’s words, “The Frankenstein phenomenon is omnipresent in… phallocratic technology.” And she of course takes this argument to its natural transmisogynistic conclusion, arguing that “Transsexualism is an example of male surgical siring which invades the female world with substitutes.”

This conclusion is not an aberration, but inherent in the anti-technology and anti-modernity premises Daly works from. If technology is evil and produces only destruction and abominations, perversions of what is natural and thus beautiful, medical transition technology is not an exception. The transsexual body is thus a disgusting aberration. Transphobia and transmisogyny follow naturally from an anti-technology stance.

That is exactly why reading Frankenstein as an anti-science text is dangerous, especially if you argue for that reading as progressive and feminist. There is certainly space for that reading in the text, but it remind us of the dark side of romanticism. Not the gothic horror side of romantic literature, but the reactionary irrationalism and anti-science currents that inflamed so much romantic nationalism and lead to the nazis, who were violently transmisogynistic. If that is all you get out of Frankenstein, that science and knowledge is bad, that is not a progressive or feminist statement, but a reactionary one.

And it’s worrying that a lot of supposedly feminist writers do run with that interpretation, making a repudiation of “male technology” central to Shelley’s novel as a feminist text. It’s even become part of how Frankenstein is viewed as the orgin of science fiction as a genre. The excellent essay Mother Frankenstein by Sabine Sharp has an excellent criticism of such “feminist science fiction history-telling.” In order to refute misogynist claims of science fiction as a male genre, Frankenstein is viewed as the original science fiction novel, and it was written by a woman. This is despite the history of the genre, and indeed Frankenstein’s genre placement being far more complex than that. In such a history, earlier books viewed as science fiction are often dismissed as “fantasy” while carving Frankenstein out of the gothic horror genre.

As Sharp explains “The recognition awarded Frankenstein by feminist science fiction critics is often accompanied by readings of the text as a critique of science, technology and progress…. Science fiction is shown to have a foundation in challenging not only the male dominance of literature – Mary Shelley being one of few women writers in her day – but also of science. “

This reading of Frankenstein and it’s implications for the SF genre are of course bio-essentialist in a Daly-esque manner. “Frankenstein’s spawning of a new genre thus also bolsters a critical feminist position on reproduction and production. Just as Victor Frankenstein is seen to misappropriate the supposedly female reproductive role, so too are subsequent male science fiction writers seen to adopt and dominate the field of science fiction, failing to pay due respect to their maternal ancestry.“

Sharp also criticizes the cultural feminism of such readings of the novel and genre. “This reading of Frankenstein also consolidates the view of science as an inherently masculine realm, a false and shallow substitute for pregnancy and birth” Sharp paraphrases the argument of feminist sf-writer Pamela Sargent who already in 1975 pointed out that this view “has problematic consequences for women’s engagement in science, technology and science fiction.“

So to the extent we read Frankenstein this way, it has to be a very critical reading. But that is not the only reading possible of the text. The interpretations I quoted so far have focused on Victor Frankenstein, and his motivations and hubris in creating the monster. It’s Victor who sees his creation of the monster as his major tragic mistake.

It’s telling that the movie adaptations which focus on Victor’s hubris in playing god and creating life, reduce the monster to a largely non-verbal shambling mess. The epitome of this is not Boris Karloff in the 1931 Frankenstein film, but Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein from 1957. There Victor as portrayed by Peter Cushing becomes the 20th century pop culture stereotype of the mad scientist villain, fanatical and ruthless in his quest to create life. And the result of his efforts is a gruesome, non-verbal, violent stitched-together mess of a monster.

Yet the monster of the novel is a very complex figure. “Adam” is a highly intelligent and complex character whose monologue dominates large parts of the novel. And of course he is not born evil and violent. He is born innocent, a “tabula rasa.” and then he is made cruel and evil by being completely rejected by humanity, including Victor, his father. He does horrible things, but is also sympathetic.

In the original novel, the complexity of the monster as a character provides room for an alternative reading to the anti-science one. The tragedy of the novel is not that the monster is created, but that Victor abandoned him immediately after creation. It’s that act that puts him irrevocably on a tragic path. His flaw is not one of hubris, of creating life, but an inability to take responsibility for what he created. Victor’s refusal to raise his child turns the child selfish and violent, and with disastrous consequences for both of them. Victor Frankenstein is the ultimate literary deadbeat dad. If you wish to apply it to present-day concerns, take it as a condemnation of men who won’t pay their child support, not scientists doing in-vitro fertilization or trans healthcare.

The monster as a character opens up more interesting themes than the anti-science one. He is not some pale imitation of humanity, he is very much human in both his desires and flaws. The monster is in fact an exploration of the human condition. How the monster is born innocent yet made cruel reflects Shelley’s beliefs about how humans are born a “tabula rasa” and then made evil by how they are treated by a cruel environment. His confusion and rage at his abandonment by his creator is very much an analogy for the human relationship with God. The monster explicitly compares himself with Adam, and Victor with God. The novel is an expression of the questioning of Christian belief in God during and after the age of enlightenment. Frankenstein very much deals with “god’s silence” as Ingmar Bergman would later put it (Bergman could have directed an excellent Frankenstein movie adaptation). How if God exists, he seems to abandoned humanity, allowing humans to suffer. Frankenstein anticipates the existentialist writers thinking about how to live in a world without Christian faith.

The monster is not a mindless thing, but a very human figure. We are meant to see ourselves in him.

And of course, in response to how the figure of Frankenstein’s monster have been used against trans women, we have reclaimed it. The pivotal text in such reclaiming is Susan Stryker’s My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage.

“The transsexual body is an unnatural body. It is the product of medical science. It is a technological construction. It is flesh torn apart and sewn together again in a shape other than that in which it was born. In these circumstances, I find a deep affinity between myself as a transsexual woman and the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Like the monster, I am too often perceived as less than fully human due to the means of my embodiment; like the monster’s as well, my exclusion from human community fuels a deep and abiding rage in me that I, like the monster, direct against the conditions in which I must struggle to exist.”

Stryker’s essay is a classic work of transgender theory, of trans women speaking about their own experiences. Just it’s influence on trans readings of the gothic is immense. I provided links to interesting works in this post, but this is the one you should read.

So after all that, let’s return to applying Frankenstein and its themes to present-day trans people. The monster is again an analogy for transness. Victor creating the monster becomes an analogy for doctors doing medical transition. And again it’s not there that Victor makes his mistake, but in afterwards abandoning his monster, and the continuing rejection by humanity the monster experiences. The message is not that creating life via science is bad, it’s that rejecting and mistreating the life created afterwards is evil. And if trans people are the monster in this analogy, the message is clear. It’s not medical transition that is evil, it is the transphobia and transmisogyny trans people experience afterwards, the rejection of trans people by cis people that is the true evil.

[ananke-xiii]

(Mothers)Of Gods and Monsters

The (male) fears and horrors surrounding pregnancy are self-evident in both Eve's and Kelly's story.

One of the most striking things to me is the fact that they are both single mothers and mothers without men are always considered a threat to male authority. Therefore, they both must die.

What sets them apart, however, are two opposite yet very connected, harmful and mysoginistic beliefs: that of the male seed forming and causing generation and that of the maternal immagination.

The first, in Kelly's case, creates demigods who have the capacity to become Gods by themselves; the second, in Eve's case, creates monsters that will always be connected to their monstrous mother.

Both characters seem to share the somewhat contagious "power of touch": Eve touches you and you become a monster; Kelly touches you and, via her kid, you see visions of the future. They can also both resurrect but only once and only with their children's help. Interestingly, Eve can be killed with phoenix's ashes which is a well-known symbol of life, death and rebirth. Ironic.

They are both associated with the mother of the narrative which is Mary Winchester, Eve very much visually (that scene with Dean-as-food telling Eve-as-his-mother to "bite him"... what was that? That is years on the psycoanalyst's couch) while Kelly only thematically. They're also indirectly connected to AU!Michael doing... whatever the hell he was doing in s14... because he represented a twisted conflation of the theme of terrifying motherhood in his pseudo-god-like creation of super-monsters.

Another thing they have in common is... Castiel.

In "Mommy Dearest" Dean asks Cas if "mom[Eve]'s making [him] limp" where "being limp" is a metaphor for being de-powered but it's also signalling deviancy and anomaly. Interestingly, when Cas tells Bobby that Dean's "crippling and emphatetic response" is dangerous he's basically saying that Dean's been crippling him. So it's not just Eve who's making Cas "limp", it's Dean too. The most famous character who has a limp is none other than Oedipus. Oh-oh. Someone will make a "huge, tiny mistake" this season.

In the episode both Dean adn Eve also try to emasculate Cas several times but in different ways. Dean by basically calling him a baby in a trenchcoat who whines and Eve, who's compared to an angel and who displayes the name-tag of "Angela" on her uniform, contributes to that by calling Cas "flaccid".

On the other hand, Cas is almost willing to surrender his power to Kelly. He has no limp and no crippling emphatetic response anymore: he's free to move as he pleases. When Kelly abducts him and steal the Impala he says he could stop her but he doesn't. He lets himself be physically moved by Kelly. Not even just physically, they literally relocate together in another state. Unlike with Eve, Cas is so energized with Kelly that he ends up revisiting outdated notions about paradise and destiny and, really, it's season 12, Cas, come on.

Both Kelly's and Eve's arcs are connected to major Castiel's deaths. In the after-life they are both waiting for him. Sort of. Castiel has matter to settle with both of them: in Kelly's heaven he's reminded of the promise he had made and which he had failed to keep. This, among other things of course, will prompt him to make the deal with the Empty. Not to mention Purgatory where we know Eve is waiting for him to avenge the death of her children and all Cas did in s6.

There is so much more to say! The thing is that when talking about monsters... one cannot simply not talk about mothers too.