#once again thinking about the rampant misogyny of it all

[altruistic-meme]

once again thinking about how the fandom treats Kristina like she’s the devil incarnate and often refuses to see the same amount of depth in her as they do the other characters

once again thinking about how there are less than 25 fanfics on ao3 currently tagged “Good Parent Kristina” and over 100 tagged “Bad Parent Kristina”

once again thinking about how i can hardly ever find a fic, even that isn’t under the bad parent tag, that doesn’t have Kristina acting like a horrible terrible villain

once again thinking about how just because the way that Kristina behaves isn’t “Perfect Ideal Mother” this means that she must not love her children at all and will actively never choose their happiness or ever consider their feelings 

once again thinking about how Linda’s problems parenting are constantly ignored just because we do see her show affection to her kids, and apparently that’s the only thing that’s needed to make a good parent and any absence of this makes you a terrible parent and person

once again thinking about how Ludvig shows little interest in understanding Wilhelm, actively ignores what he says at the table, never speaks up for him, and yet the fandom would constantly rather make him a perfect and loving parent over Kristina, who we see doing what she thinks is best to protect her son, implying that she fought with the royal court to make sure Wilhelm would stay heir (something that, despite his outbursts, Wilhelm has said he wanted, if only to honor Erik), and specifically stating that she loves him and has no problem with his queerness, or with him liking Simon, aside from the scandal of the video.

once again thinking about how people will give August the benefit of the doubt, talk about how his character is deep and complex and how much they love that about his character, but absolutely refuse to see any deeper meaning or possible feelings in what Kristina does because clearly she’s just a horrible person and there is no depth to her at all 

once again thinking about how much of my own mother i see in Kristina and how much it pains me to see people saying that Kristina is an irredeemable villain who only exists to bring pain to her son because i know my mother loves me even when she makes mistakes and says things that hurt sometimes, because i know my mother is also human and thus not perfect. 

[just-antithings]

I was once part of an fancop group (not by my will, shockingly), and most, if not all of them were TERFs. I'd like to talk about my experience as someone from the sidelines.

The ex-friend that dragged me into it said "Oh don't worry, they just don't like BAD Trans people!" And that already made me raise an eyebrow, but I stayed and watched, I hardly interacted because I was secretly proship anyways.

But the kind of blatant Transphobia, the rampant misogyny, and the Nazi/TERF dogwhistles left and right, AND clear racism.

They would pick smaller queer artists or POC and get any information they could on them, they would purposely out the queer ones if they were in a red area, and the POC ones were met with ""anonymous"" slurs in their DMs or asks. (They would make fake, blank accounts)

These people would boast and cheer over how they got these people to feel so bad they either quit their socials, or worse.

Sometimes these campaigns would go on for months on end, and it was clear their goal wasn't to "protect children".

So, there's my experience. It makes me sick thinking about it again, but I'm so sick of fancops.

The ones claiming the term fancop is "racist" really need to check themselves and what people they're choosing to buddy up with. Fancops ARE racist.

.

[atopvisenyashill]

So I came upon your blog while looking through the asoiaf tag and explored it a bit. Would you please explain to me how are you against Targaryen incest, but find Jonsa fine? I’m genuinely curious, as I’ve just started reading the books (I’m half-way through a storm of swords) and find nothing fine about any form of incest, whether it is or not considered as such in-universe. I also find little to no Jonsa moments. Could you help me? Thank you!

okay so first of all i got sent an ask forever ago about what the appeal of jonsa is and i’ve been working on explaining basically where i see the plot going and why it’s thematically relevant and is2g i’m still actually putting it together it’s just doing that in a middle of a reread is tough bc my ideas are kinda all over the place lmao (just like this ask is about to be sorry!) (also once again, sorry if my tone comes across very weird, i swear i reread like twelve times to make sure i don’t sound too snarky and wasn't just vomitting up a thousand words of nonsense lmao!!).

BUT. Well there’s three points to this: what the characters may feel, what i feel about jonsa, and what i feel about targ incest. so first the characters:

I think it’s important to point out that first cousin marriage (and auncle/nibling marriage, esp if it’s a “half” relation) are not considered true incest in westeros and in many parts of our world. rickard and lyra, ned’s parents, are cousins. joanna and tywin lannister are first cousins. jonnel and sansa and edric and serena are uncle/nieces, and you’ll note that when alys karstark comes to jon for help, he is disgusted that her uncle is trying to steal her inheritance and not that he’s her uncle attempting to marry her. i point this out because not only is there nothing legally stopping a jonsa marriage, the characters themselves may also see it that way (as not incest). and if your next point is “well they grew up thinking they’re siblings” my answer is - yes and? One of the influences on this series is Mervyn Peake, who wrote gothic medieval stories, and both incest and pseudo-incest is very much a big part of gothic stories! A lot of the storylines in this world are dedicated to exploring incest as a force of socialization and romanticism, from Naerys pleading to live “as brother and sister” and Aegon insisting “we already are” to Alysanne’s “Alyssa is meant for Baelon” to Jaime’s “he heard none of it" in the sept. I don’t think it’s that far of a stretch to posit that two characters we have POVs for will fall in love and grapple with what that love says about them, about society, about their role in the world - and in fact, about half of Jon’s most popular ships are between him and a female relative. Sansa makes more sense to me because she’s closer to his age than Arya, has a more troubled relationship with him, is involved in the political aspects of the story just as much as he is, and isn’t likely to immediately start setting people on fire after they meet.

Now as for me, basically - i think both types of incest are the result of socialization + extreme trauma, and I fully expect that if Jonsa goes canon it will have a tragic ending. I think Jonsa takes some of the inherent misogyny of targ incest and plays around with it - Jon having significantly less societal privilege than basically every other Targaryen and what that means for Sansa as an heiress - but just because I think an exploration of that dynamic will be interesting, doesn’t mean I don’t expect it to be rife with problems.

because the problem with incest is the power dynamic ultimately, and you cannot escape that power dynamic bc people don’t exist in a vacuum. For all the Starks have some fucked up skeletons in their closet, Lyanna doesn’t show up in Ned’s bed naked and ask him to stop her betrothal to Robert, does she? This is the fundamental difference between targ incest and Jonsa or even Lannicest; Lannicest is rampant with toxicity from both of those deranged weirdos but they feel entitled to each other's bodies because of their own trauma surrounding their tumultuous childhoods (and probably some normalization of incest from their parents and proximity to Aerys/Rhaella/Rhaegar), but no one is saying "Jaime you are owed Cersei's body" or "Cersei your womb belongs to your brother and your brother alone." So I don't feel the need to sit here and go "Lannicest is toxic" like yeah? Clearly, lmao, these two feel like they are so damaged, and made so special by that damage, that they can only love one another, that's not what anyone would call healthy. I don't think it's necessary to sit here and explain that dynamic has abuse problems; it's right there in the text!

"well what about the power dynamic between jon and sansa?" YES WHAT ABOUT IT. that's the point! i'm interested in how a dynamic that is inherently abusive will play out between two people who were raised to believe some types of incest are okay but not others, who are victims of abuse and societal alienation themselves. because at the same time that i condemn targ incest, there are obviously real feelings and genuine care in these relationships and in these people, because again, people don't exist in a vacuum. daemon backs rhaenyra into this corner and then crucially does not kill any of her children because he realizes that's a step too far, she'd never forgive it, perhaps even because he grew to love them (i mean, Lucerys and Joffrey likely barely remember any other father but Daemon!). maegor is a monster who very specifically never harms rhaena's daughters! aemon is a useless pos but it seems likely he had a hand in raising naerys' son to be better than aegon because he could see the harm he and his brother were doing to naerys even if aemon was too much of a coward to actually stop that harm in any meaningful way! the difference, to me, is that jon will see that this relationship built on trauma and grief may be the only love he and sansa will ever allow themselves to feel but it is not healthy for them, and jon will leave! and sansa will realize she is not the impassive, frozen, detached symbol that the men around her want her to be, but a living, breathing person with her own wants and desires and agency, and will let him go!

Ultimately, while i think romanticizing and sexualizing the taboo is fine and even healthy, for me, there has to be some acknowledgement that you are in fact romanticizing the taboo. This is why the shitty dudes in asoiaf work for me in a way shitty dudes outside of asoiaf don’t usually - my general bitching about parts of the narrative that don’t click for me aside, there’s firm condemnation of the people engaging in these behaviors, from cersei sexually abusing lancel to sandor creeping on sansa. just because the narrative also shows us and wants us to feel empathy for sandor and cersei and why they’ve become bad people doesn’t mean what they’re doing isn’t bad. that’s what i like! i don’t want a story that holds my hand and drags me to the moral nor do i want a story that presents a god awful person who is supposed to be morally upright and not mean for us to dig deeper into them!

(this is why i like the pt but not the st of star wars, if you want an example - for all the prequels are um. flawed. lucas has an overreaching story about the effects of war, slavery, and interpersonal abuse that he’s dedicated to, and we are meant to be horrified by anakin choking padme just as surely as we’re meant to mourn their relationship and love for each other when palpatine gleefully tells anakin she’s dead and ani destroys the room in grief. vs like. what were the sequels even fucking doing man).

So the thing here is that I actually do in fact find Targaryen incest interesting while being morally repugnant as a practice, and I'm positive Jonsa will play around with both the morality of incest and the romanticism of it in a way that I find just as interesting, varied, romantic, and fulfilling as like, the Jaime/Cersei(/Brienne/Tyrion) mess or the Daemon/Rhaenyra/Laena/Harwin debacle! I like incest and I also hate it! I contain multitudes!

[homiro]

I don't give opinions because I don't have the mental sturdiness to deal with being misunderstood either by accident or on purpose. And some people seem unable to disagree with other people's opinion without immediately jumping their throats, making assumptions, and overall implying that the person is stupid. And I already know I'm stupid, I don't need any more confirmation of that. So this is ranty vent where I ended up calming down by thinking about how much I love martial arts, especially boxing.

So this isn't an opinion, this is a vent. I felt the same about Caster Semenya and once again we're seeing the same fucking bullshit with Imane Khelif. Let's get Phelps out the way, frist. That guy is a giant, he snatched all the medals when he competed, nobody said a damn thing. Why? He's a cis white Anglo-Saxon male. Case closed.

But transmisogyny is rampant in official competitions, especially the Olympics. Trans people are not even allowed to compete. LET THAT SINK IN. TRANS PEOPLE CANNOT COMPETE. NOT EVEN IN FUCKING CHESS. I'm not even following it, I'm just seeing the shitshow from the news and posts on here. And I'm not talking about Caster or Imane BECAUSE THEY ARE CIS WOMEN SO THEY ARE NOT FACING TRANSMISOGYNY. They are facing misogynoir, that is, misogyny specifically targetted at black women. Because it's more vile than regular misogyny since black women are stripped of their femininity because they don't fit the European standards for what a woman looks like. And that is because transphobic ideas of what a woman is are rooted in WHITE European standards. Short, white, straight nose, light eyes, straight light hair, etc, etc. You know what I'm getting at. The real and most ideal woman for a transphobe seems to be Aryan. There I said it. Transphobia is rooted in white supremacy and the idea that women MUST be short, white, and frail. Transphobes and incels share a lot of the same ideas of what constitutes a "woman of value", whatever that fucking means.

And to show why this upsets me so much, and why this isn't an opinion coming from the outside and why I'm so fucking angry I needed to say something, I'll share some things.

Look no further than k-pop. The guys are called women because they're pale and wear makeup and are slim and I've seen AND HEARD racists say they can't tell if an Asian person is a man or a woman. Not only about East Asian people, but also South Asian people and Brown people. And it wasn't being said to me or around me but within earshot and I am blessed and cursed with very good hearing.

I have seen several videos of black women saying that transphobia affects every woman, not just trans women, and especially it affects women of colour. One of them is Brazilian and got hit with some transphobe saying he could see "his" dick under "his" dress on the subway. There was no dick, she is cis. This motherfucker just looked at this black woman and decided that she wasn't womanly enough. And that is not transmisogny and she clarified that. She said that transphobia affects everyone, especially women of colour who don't fit the white European standards for what a woman is.

And now me. I'm pale but Mediterranean. I am AFAB and I bleed. I have an intersex condition, and it affects my ability to fucking bleed for months at a time, but it happens. This intesex condition doesn't affect my ability to lose or gain weight, but it makes me have male pattern baldness and facial hair along with thick, black leg hair and arm hair. My chest is mostly flat. This intersex condition isn't what made me trans, by the way. If that were the case, everyone with it would also be, and that is really not the case. People with this condition by and large are AFAB and undergo female HRT, which was what they immediately suggested when I got diagnosed with it. Needless to say I didn't accept it. I recurrently get mistaken for a transfem and it leaves me torn because okay so I don't look cis, and to me personally, that's nice especially because I can't be subjected to transmisogyny and can easily embarrass the transphobes, but considering all of the above and the fact that transphobes think trans women are all ugly, it's bad. Not because of me, because I know I'm ugly, but because they're implying by extension that trans women are ugly, which is simply fucking wrong.

I think the most horrible incident that happened to me and honestly I fear for Imane at this point, was one time when I was at the pool and this cleaning lady looked at me "funny" and when I went to take a shower there (it doesn't have booths there), she randomly popped up and I saw her look at what the fuck I had between my damn legs. And I was startled and she quickly pretended to be looking for a bucket. But no, trans people are the perverts and predators and creeps /sarcasm. I haven't returned there yet and this happened over a year ago. And it's important to say that the locker room was empty save for me and this transphobe. And all this to say that while I'm a trans man, I relate to these women because I've been subjected to similar shit, only that wasn't that dangerous, so it's personal and it makes me really mad. And I will repeat that this is not transmisogyny because I cannot be subjected to that since I am AFAB. And I will reiterate that these are not opinions, this is a rant and a vent based on facts and personal experience.

I'll just put four pictures here of four boxers, and allow you to have silent reactions to them and their stats:

Top to bottom, left to right:

Imane Khelif (Algeria) - Lightweight (60kg/178cm; 132lbs/5'10'';

Lin Yu-Ting (Taiwan) - Featherweight (51kg/175cm; 112lbs/5'7''.

Claressa Shields (USA) - Light Middleweight, Middleweight, Super Middleweight, Light Heavyweight, and Heavyweight in Boxing - (currently 76kg, 173cm; currently 168lbs, 5'6'';

Savannah Marshall (UK) - Middleweight, Super Middleweight in Boxing - 73kg/180cm; 161lbs/5'11''.

(The last two have fought against each other)

A tangent here since this isn't an opinion and looking up fighter stats calmed me down since I love martial arts. Height is not a factor in categorising people into weight classes. If transphobes actually cared about the arts/sports, they would know that reach advantage is a thing and is listed when you look up fighter stats. And reach advantage would be the arm length. That's why shorter fighters tend to prefer to fight inside their opponent's reach, that is close to them, because that puts them at an advantage since it's unlikely to get hit with a straight jab in the face if you can almost kiss your opponent's chest. And what's more, if you're a shorter fighter in a weight class where people tend to be taller and thus have longer arms (which is an advantage for them since they can punch harder from further away and step back to avoid an instant counter attack, in case that wasn't clear), it's good to master the clinch. The clinch is what they call when the fighters seem to be hugging and can't really fight, especially in boxing where blows below the belt are illegal, blows to the back of the head and neck are illegal, and kicks are also illegal (that's why kickboxing exists). Because it's close quarters and if you master it, it's a good way to catch your breath during a round, since being shorter against a taller opponent requires being faster and thus spending a lot of stamina faster.

I'm a big fan of Muhammad Ali and of Claressa Shields (and I'll admit my bias towards heavyweight fights, though I also like welterweight fights) and they both exude an amazing confidence. Muhammad Ali called himself the boxing GOAT and Claressa Shields calls herself the boxing GWOAT. And I personally agree with both. If this piqued your interest, look them up and see their wins. Claressa is too young to have a lot written about her, but Muhammad Ali was the one who started the boxing taunts thing, and it was pretty terrible at the time because people saw it as disrespect, but it wasn't. He was just a jokester and when George Foreman won against him and his family was mad at Muhammad Ali for what he'd said, he apologised and said he didn't mean to disrespect him (it wasn't anything super mean, he just said he was slow and fought like a mummy and then mimicked it. And that's because what distinguished Muhammad Ali from other heavyweights was that he was very fast). Muhammad Ali was so goofy that even after he retired because he had Parkinson's, he called his manager and friend out into the snow, and was really stubborn about it, much the latter's annoyance, and said "I'm the fastest puncher in the world" and the manager said "In the heavyweight class, yes" "no, any class" "that can't be" "want me to show you?" "sure" *Muhammad doesn't move* "well? where is it?" "want me to show you again?". Geeking out about my fave, sorry. Just to show that he wasn't a bad person (which is also corroborated by all the tapes he recorded for his daughter since he couldn't spend a lot of time with her and said that one day she'd maybe value those). Claressa has lost against Savannah, but I'm kinda torn towards the latter because she talked about this situation with Imane and the Italian. She's playing devil's advocate, but she did highlight that the qualification criteria for Olympic boxing is ridiculous, mostly because nobody knows exactly how they evaluate people, especially women. In regular, official competitive boxing, it's all very clear.

And finally, you want to see what I look like? I'll put that shit under the break so that you're not immediately jumpscared. My stats in boxing, based on AGAB, are: Junior Featherweight or Super Bantamweight (54kg/166cm; 119lbs/5'5''). And yes, I have training. Mostly boxing, but also Jiu-Jitsu and Muay.

The last one was when I had to present fem for a wedding. The others are how I normally look and I did the Joker makeup and a closet cosplay, because my hair pulled back looks like his and I joke that I'm getting jokerised all the time. Or rather, half-joke. This picture was never publicly posted anywhere before today. I wanted some body pics but only have that available on this PC. That one at the top is a vintage outfit. I lost a lot of weight due to trauma but my bone structure is still wide and "not-feminine", that is, I'm very fucking androgynous. I once tried asking for opinions on reddit and lol I got told that I was ugly in every possible way. The only positive comments were of people saying I'd look good as a guy lol And if you clicked this read more, sorry for the jumpscare again. I just wanted to showcase where I'm coming from. Again, not an opinion, this is a vent. That turned into a bit of a lesson on boxing I guess.

[ladyaj-13]

Thank you @ronniebox for the tag!

Rules: List ten books that have stayed with you in some way, don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard - they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

1. 'Witches Abroad' by Terry Pratchett

My first Discworld. I was immediately sucked in and knew it would be a new love. My dad bought me the book, and I remember starting to read it on a gloomy beach, laughing out loud and getting weird looks from my family. "You mean everyone brought potato salad?!"

2. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee

An assigned book in high school, but one of the only ones I've returned to multiple times. I say it's my fave when I want to sound intellectual.

3. 'Good Omens' by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Came for the Terry Pratchett, stayed (and re-read maybe 10? 11 times?) because it's utter perfection. My actual favourite book.

4. 'Take Six Puppies' by Bette Paul

I don't know how many times I read this as a young child. My copy was almost in pieces, and the dogs on the front were embossed so you could run your fingers over them. I actually can't remember it much now, except the cover, but my God. I loved this book.

5. 'Claudia and the Middle School Mystery' (Babysitters' Club #40) by Ann M. Martin

I must have had about fifty of this series. I absolutely adored them, and used to play 'Babysitter's Club' in the garden. This one was the first book I ever bought with my own money. I remember it very clearly, handing over a £5 note in Wetherly's bookshop and feeling incredibly grown-up.

6. 'Goodnight Mister Tom' by Michelle Magorian

A lot of kids books on this list...! Another that I read over and over again, so much that the cover fell off. I think it was actually my sister's, but I commandeered it early on and never gave it back, and last re-read only a couple of years ago. As I got old enough to cook, I would fry bacon and cut thick slices of white bread, with a mug of tea, to mirror Willie's first meal at Tom's.

7. 'All Creatures Great and Small' by James Herriot (the whole series)

As a child I gave up on the idea of wanting to be a vet pretty quickly (too many distressed animals), but still devoured book after book about animals (special mention for the 'Animal Ark' books by Lucy Daniels, which I would get off the shelf and mix-up so they could sit next to other 'friends' for a while... I was a weird kid 😄), and discovering this series hidden away in my family's garage was a goldmine. I later got an 'all volumes in one' massive hardback edition. It led on to reading Gervase Phinn's school series and Gerard Durrell's 'My Family and Other Animals' series.

8. 'Strange Weather in Tokyo' by Hiromo Kawakami

A bit of an outlier in that I've only read this once, but it seemed worth including as it really stuck with me. Not the story so much, not a whole lot happens, but the vibe. It inspired me to read much more Japanese literature.

9. 'Past Mistakes' by David Mountain

I'm a bit of a social history magpie (love a BBC documentary), and this book was so readable and full of titbits - all those things you think you know about history, turned on their head. Just what I want out of a non-fiction book.

10. 'Hogfather' by Terry Pratchett

Another Pratchett?! Yes. This one is seasonal.

Wow, wordy. I could have mentioned many others, such as Wild Horses by Dick Francis (see how I snuck this one in 😛). I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but it was the first 'grown-up' book I read. (My mum gave it to me because it was about horses and I loved horses... possibly I was a bit too young for the sexual content and rampant misogyny she must have forgotten it contained, but there we go.) I'll tag @lemonistas, @londonfoginacup, @incognito-insomniac, @astridcontramundum and anyone else who wants to!

[eroticcannibal]

I’ll just get this out of the way: I believe in transandrophobia or whatever people want to call it, I believe in listening to trans mens experiences.

BUT. I cannot stand most of the big people on here who discuss it for reasons similar to the recent post you made about how privileged women still experience violence.

I once saw a thread of trans men all saying that cis white women who fear violence and being kidnapped murdered, shouldn’t fear that, and that any cis white woman who is scared of misogynistic violence has just been brainwashed by mainstream true crime and crime shows, and a couple people said “lol they don’t want you why are you scared”.

I am a white cis girl (I’m also a trans guy but that’s not super relevant rn lol). I fully know my privilege and frequently have discussions along the subject of white privilege with friends of color. I don’t shy away from the topic.

but I have almost been kidnapped twice in the short 18 years I’ve been on this planet. One of my earliest memories is that experience in a shopping mall. Every cis girl I know, white or not, has had real life experience at least once with this kind of thing.

and when I saw that thread, it made me feel ill. To me it feels like so many other trans guys on here decided that the “being a man doesn’t make you bad” doesn’t apply to any other privileged group because they didn’t want to be seen as deniers of other forms of privilege. I also saw an entire thread where a shit ton of trans guys were literally saying that, because white cis women are the physical “vessels of the white race”, then apparently we are not at risk of domestic violence because cis white men need us to keep their dream of a white supremacist world alive. and many people responded with righteous outrage just to be dismissed as “well they are just trying to defend white women”.

the fucking rampant misogyny in these spaces is so fucking hard to deal with, and they complain all day about how people ignore issues men have, then turn around and act like one form of privilege means your other experiences of oppression don’t matter.

so long story short thank you for those posts I’ve been so ducking exhausted lately trying to find a balance between discussing transandrophobia with other transmascs, and protecting my mental health from all the misogyny in those spaces. it’s so fucking tiring.

U get it. U get it. And yeah this sickening attitude towards women is rampant in spaces that support the idea of transandrophobia (and honestly I think this most recent wave of "progressive" misogyny is squarely on trans men who believe in transadrophobia, and insay that as one of them) I wasn't sure if I was gonna call out that group specifically myself but since u bring it up!

Also I think we saw the same post cus that sounds like one of a few that set me off lol

Like im not even shocked at ur experiences there. I have experienced and seen some SHIT while playing the role of a white cis woman. And it was all normal. The women who raised me to always be on guard did that for a reason. The distrust of men among white women isnt from brainwashing, its from knowing half your friends were molested by their male relatives and seeing their mothers get beat every evening.

But also that other example you discuss... now I've not seen it in these spaces specifically but I have seen *some* people dismissing violence against white women due to something something white supremacy and just. Its truly sickening. Its evil. (And shows a fundamental misunderstanding of white supremacy, female subjugation is an intrinsic part of it).

And yeah like you say. Any time someone brings attention to any of this shit its "how dare you defend WHITE women". As if they arent still women.

And especially when the social space i occupy still overlaps with the experiences considered that of white women, when I'm facing these justified fears of violence (again) in my day to day life.... yeah. Its fucking exhausting. When the spaces that claim to support my experiences as a man dismiss my experiences and fears because those are the experiences and fears of icky white women. (When they arent even mutually exclusive categories, and even people like me and the most cis of cis women have more in common than difference)

[rjalker]

anyways whatever here's the review I left for the review someone else wrote for The Cloud Roads.

February 17, 2023 at 8:02 pm

Oh my gosh this essay is like a breath of fresh air. I loved reading The Books of the Raksura series, but it has soo many blatant problems I’ve never seen anyone except my literal twin discuss, finding this article was the highlight of my day.

I think this article is just a review for The Cloud Roads, rather than the whole series, but another thing I want to add on that I noticed continuing in The Murderbot Diaries is that Martha Wells does not plan ahead very well at all, with the tail ends of her series contradicting the first installment, and once you read the whole rest of the series and then reread The Cloud Roads, it becomes nonsensical and absurd.

(This is less of an issue with The Murderbot Diaries because they’re so short, but it’s still noticeable. We’re shown later that people on Preservation casually treat robots like people,,,but then why did they all just treat Murderbot like less than any other robot?

Even if they’re thinking of it as “just a robot” and “not a person with a human-like face”….the society they come from means they should have been treating it like a person anyways. They shouldnt’ need to see its human-cloned tissue face to think of it like a person. This is a pretty drastic contradiction to what we’re shown later, but it never gets brought up again and most people don’t even notice it, even though it’s a pretty ridiculously big plot hole once you think about it, considering how short the stories are!)

One thing I’ve never seen anyone else discuss is the transmisia–

(a different term for transphobia that’s not antagonistic towards people with genuine anxiety-induced phobias like agoraphobia, ecetera. The suffix “-misia” comes from the Latin word for hatred, which is also the prefix in “misogyny”)

–in the way Chime and River were treated by that narrative, as well as the inherently classism in the way River specifically was punished for “getting above his station”.

Chime and River are both very heavily trans-coded, not identifying with the genders and gender roles their society forces upon them, and both of them receive nothing but mistreatment and abuse for this fact.

We’re not supposed to think River’s a bad person because he went around abusing Arbora, supposedly the ones the Aeriat are meant to protect, we’re supposed to think he’s a bad person who deserves to be shunted to the bottom of the social ladder because he………..wants to be a consort? Meaning he’s basically transgender???? And this is why he’s punished and hated afterward by the whole colony, but not a single person had any problem with his behavior when he was going around beating the crap out of Arbora????

And then Chime, who’s literally magically forced to change sexes, who does not identify with the new sex and gender roles he’s been forced into, is treated like a whiny annoyance whenever he expresses discomfort with what’s happened or wants to find out if he can change back. Everyone, including Moon, just tells him he needs to stop complaining and get over it because his complaining is annoying everyone else.

I remember in one of the last two books of the series–and this ties in with the biological essentialism and gender essentialism rampant in this series—he’s not even allowed to do something as simple as help pitch a tent without literally being chased away by a snarling, “Real” Arbora.

Which A is just transmisia, he’s being excluded from activities he did before just because his physical sex no longer matches his gender identity, and also just drives home the problem between the Arbora and the Warriors that we’re just supposed to think is pefectly fine.

Warriors are constantly insulted and called useless and stupid because they don’t do anything to help out around the colony, but then literally they are not allowed to help. (And again, this is Martha Wells not planning things out properly. Why do the warriors even exist if they don’t actually protect the colony? 90% of the time it’s Moon, Stone, and Jade fighting, with the warriors not really actually helping in fights at all. Except of course for when, later in the series, Balm somehow manages to take down a Ruler all on her own with no problem despite the fact that we keep being told Fell are terrifying and deadly)

Anyways I’m getting off track.

The Arbora refuse to teach the warriors how to dress kills properly, then get mad when they don’t do it right. They call them lazy, then literally chase them away with LITERAL snarling when they try to help out. And Chime isn’t even a warrior, he’s a damn mentor, he didn’t ask to be magically changed into a warrior for no logical biological or storytelling reason!

Chime isn’t even trusted to visit other colonies libraries because of the stigma against “warriors”, and no one ever even aknowledges that he’s not a warrior. It’s biological essentialism and Martha Wells equating sex with gender and gender rolls, and we’re just supposed to be fine with it.

This is also a problem in The Murderbot Diaries that I hardly ever see anyone address – Martha Wells is still equating sex with gender, which is why literally every single robot character uses it/its pronouns and is genderless. Because she thinks that since they don’t have a sex, they can’t have a gender either.

All robots are assigned genderless upon construction, and this is just. How it is, apparently. Murderbot gets praised as being awesome trans representation, but it’s not even trans (unless Martha Wells retconns and changes its backstory), it’s literally a cis robot, whose gender is determined by its lack of sex, along with its sexuality of being aroace.

And I say this as someone who is aroace, and nonbinary, and uses it/its pronouns!

This would be fine if there were other robot characters who used pronouns other than it/its, who had orientations and genders that weren’t just “no”, and humans who were explcitly trans and nonbinary who get more than a few pages of “screentime” before being shoved out of the story forever, never to be mentioned again (Like Rami, the one human character who was explicitly nonbinary and used neopronouns, was!). It’s just a bunch of stereotypes and nothing else to makes it anything more!

This has lead to people who read these books to legitimately think that only fictional characters use it/its pronouns, so it’s okay for them to misgender Murderbot and me, the real person who uses it/its pronouns who’s trying to correct them.

Martha Wells definitely has a problem with bioessentialism, and with the rest of The Books of the Raksura, it becomes even more painfully obvious and racist. The fact that the Fell are portrayed as iredeemably evil….until the magical mixed-race kids, who have Good And Moral Raksuran Blood, teach them to not be evil….

Like, one of the well-respected and wise characters literally offers straight up eugenics as a solution to the problem of the Fell being so Inherently Evil, and we’re supposed to think it’s an awesome idea and nod along in excitement rather than be horrified. This same scene also confirms that the Raksura are practicing eugenics, strictly controlling who is allowed to have kids with who.

There is so much stuff I have to criticize about this series, this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg! And I loved reading them! Apparently being able to enjoy something for what it does right, and criticize it for what it does wrong, is an almost impossible feat, according to 90% of Martha Wells fans.

But anyways, thank you so much for writing this essay, this is everything I’ve been looking for and not finding since I read these books. Unfortunately the fandom on tumblr and the few other sites I’ve checked is absolutely terrible, people are just reducing the polayamory to a jealous love triangle, and whitewash the characters :| And The Murderbot Diaries fandom is even worse, oh my gods.

Please keep up the good work, and if you have read the rest of The Books of the Raksura, (It seems like this review is just for the first book, but I’m not sure) I look forward to any other essays you write about it! This is my first time visiting this site but I’m definitely going to check out the other stuff you’ve written!

[booksandabeer]

Daisy Jones & The Six - First impressions

I'm still sick in bed, so I just watched the first three episodes of Daisy Jones & The Six in one go. I'm also cranky and tired and bored, so here have some unfiltered opinions.

Overall, it's a fun watch, very entertaining, beautifully filmed with great production design and set dressing, some intriguing performances (Camila Morrone, who would've thought?), and way-better-than-expected original music. It's also a very safe show. Now, I haven't read the book, so I don't know if the show merely works with what's on the page or if they toned things down considerably, but everything here seems so carefully designed to not offend anyone. Every once in a while the show will gesture towards issues like drug abuse/addiction, racism, or the absolutely rampant sexism and misogyny of the Rock'n'Roll & Groupie culture of the era, but every time they're getting close to actually saying something about it, they back down again.

The thing is, I can't even really focus on the actual contents of the show because I'm so hung up on some of the visual aspects of it (also I'm on a lot of antibiotics and pain medication right now, so you know, please feel free to disregard anything I'm saying here). I said this back when I saw the first teaser for this, and having watched three episodes now, I maintain that everybody here looks too clean, too healthy, too put together--especially for people who are supposed to be drunk/high 24/7--and everybody's teeth and hair are just way too nice. Well, except for when they put certain actors in wigs... and then it's even worse. Like, really Amazon? ALL that money and you couldn't find Timothy Olyphant a wig that doesn't look like glued-together shavings of an old Chewbacca costume?

Also, and I'm very sorry but it needs to be said, Sam Claflin is all kinds of wrong for the role of Billy and should've never been cast in it. For one thing, he's visibly too old for the part; at one point, he's supposed to be around 21 years old, I think? Sam Claflin is a very handsome man, but he cannot pass as a guy that only *just* left his teenage years behind. And that's not on him. I like Claflin and I don't fault him for wanting to take this part (which actor wouldn't?), but I don't understand how seemingly no one with any pull in this multi-million dollar production looked at that casting choice and said "Uhm, guys? Maybe we should reconsider?" There are other problems with the performance, but I'm not here to bash one actor, especially one that I've generally enjoyed watching in other parts.

However, I think the even bigger problem is that I don't get the character of Billy at all, or more specifically, why everyone thinks that this guy of all people is some sort of hypermagnetic, genius Jim Morrison/Lindsey Buckingham hybrid? Because what I've seen so far looks more like a moderately ambitious, moderately talented guy who's simply in over his head and doesn't really care either way whether he makes it as a big Rock'n'Roll Star or not. Where's the drive? Where's the fire? I don't see it, which is kind of a problem when your whole show hinges on your two main characters being charisma machines that the audience is supposed to be absolutely enthralled by.

I would be really interested to know what people who have read the book think of this adaptation. Is it successful and true to the text? Am I'm just wildly off the mark here? Is it good, bad, or just okay? And most importantly, should I read this book?

Ok, going back to sleep now.

[bluejaybytes]

Your tag a few posts back, why do you hate the cat books?

Okay so to preface: I genuinely adore warrior cats. I do. It's been my "main" special interest since I was around 9. I have thought abour warrior cats daily since then. However these books straight up fuckin SUUUUCK. This isn't a matter of "Why aren't these childrens book for children appealing to me as an adult?", they are bad AS CHILDRENS BOOKS. I can forgive shitty writing, but warriors tries its HARDEST to make itself as unappealing and godawful as possible through bland worldbuilding and characters, and the absolute RAMPANT myraid of issues, with misogyny and ableism as the two most frequently discussed. Female characters are CONSISTENTLY written as being "unreasonable" when compared to their male counterparts, who may be on their level OR WORSE in terms of bad actions, but get excuses for their actions BY THE NARRATIVE ITSELF whereas the women don't. Disabled characters are treated as less than, once again, not just by the characters, but by the narrative. Firestar literally tells Cloudtail that Brightheart, his MATE and AN ADULT, is going to be his apprentice and responsibility because she's disabled, and that Firestar "knows" she'll never be a "real" warrior. This entire conversation happens with Brightheart present in the scene, yet she is never spoken to by either character. She is an object given zero agency in her own life because she is both disabled and a woman. Fuck, the ENTIRE FIRST ARC ends with the concept of "Our religion makes us moral", as Firestar is DIRECTLY TOLD by Barley that Scourge and BloodClan don't believe in StarClan and therefore don't feed or take care of the sick, young, or elderly. As it stands I refuse to read or engage with the current arc, as it's extreme misogyny is too much for me to tolerate without just pissing myself off.

From a story perspective, and putting aside the actual real problematic elements, the worst part of warrior cats is the lack of follow through on genuinely interesting concepts. We are consistently told StarClan is a perfect utopia and is never wrong (Which is a problem within itself), and then are given an entire arc abou StarClan making a mistake. Instead of an actually interesting discussion of how dead cats are just that, dead cats, and not mystical paragons, the books end with "Well that was sure a weird one-off occurance! Nothing about this system will change." Warrior cats has SO MANY good concepts and ideas and does NOTHING WITH THEM.

Now, the question is, why do I still enjoy warrior cats if I hate it so much? Well, frankly, that's because 90% of my engagement is taking the skeleton that is warriors worldbuilding and make 5,000 OCs. That and, there are genuinely really good aspects of warriors. Yellowfangs death scene, I feel, is actually an emotional and well written scene, and the forest fire directly beforehand is legitimately tense. Squirrelflight is a fantastic character! While I'm not a huge fan of her character in general, I think basically every concept behind Hollyleaf is incredibly interesting. There IS a lot there, its just gritting your teeth and sitting through a million pages ranging from "mediocre" to "ungodly boring" to "downright rage inducing".

Unfortunately all of my favorite OCs are also warrior cats and I own the official Squirrelflight plushie so uh. I'm not going anywhere!

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

@undianosedd 's tags

Transcript: ohh you're so right! like people praise women for taking semi nude photos all the time now (as they should)/ at every age even/ where's this kinda energy with men tho? It's really scary tbh how some people took dans photos because/ yes he is 32 but he genuinely looked good! like what fucked up standards you need to meet in order to post thirst traps on the internet/ then/ be underage?

Yeah the standard does seem to be "super skinny, very young to the point of passing as a teenager." I will say that older women (32 is not "older" but I am speaking more generally here) also get horrible treatment for posting anything like this unless they have managed to remain super skinny or get aesthetic surgeries (not shaming that btw, I am 100% pro aesthetic surgeries if you want them.) Like Dolly Parton trending the other day for the football half time show. Yes she is still a gorgeous woman, she looks phenomenal, but if she were to have a less flat stomach or more wrinkles, she would have gotten horrible comments about how she shouldn't be wearing that costume and how she's past her prime. Even Margot Robbie, one of the prettiest women ever, got called "mid," "chubby," and "too old" for the Barbie role.

This is partially why I brought up the possible homophobia actually. When it comes to women getting these comments, its 9 times out of 10 due to misogyny. Dan and Phil are men, but they are gay men and we all know how weird people get about gay sex, especially gay men. (Lesbophobic sexual bigotry manifests a little different from gay men's and its actually something I'm considering pursuing for research once I get to grad school). Dan started his career as a pretty androgynous, twig thin, emo twink. This isn't a bad thing, its who he was at the time. This also, imo, made people more "okay" with his more "risky" posts. He could be put into a more effeminate role due to his more androgynous look (think the "Tall Lesbian" memes). Again, this is not a bad thing and obviously people who look like that get hit with rampant homophobia (and transphobia) as well, but I think in a way his more androgynous look from 2009-2013 could protect him on a certain level. Those who found him attractive in his thirst traps could get away slightly from the fact that they are attracted to a man because he was an androgynous man - they're not /actually/ attracted to him, just his feminine aspects.

We actually saw a lot of this when Dan began gaining weight in 2013. The comments on so many of the old radio show videos are about how he's gaining weight, how he's bulking out more, how broad his shoulders are looking, etc. Its said a lot, but the internet really did watch Dan go through puberty (his voice cracks in 2010/2011 videos my beloved <3). By 2013-2014, he had mostly lost his androgynous look. Other than the sexy end screen dance and some videos' "unbelievably censored" bits, he also wasn't posting nearly as many thirst traps (like, I hate to bring them up because he has buried them, but the nakedbooths of 2009 are actually relevant here as they have more skin showing than the catboy photos but aren't met with the same vitriol) during this period. In this time, we were also fully in "no homo howell" mode to the point that there were genuinely people who thought he might be homophobic. Its important to remember that promiscuous photos are associated with femininity. When a guy posts a shirtless gym photo that is clearly supposed to be sexually arousing, that is "masculine" because he isn't posing in a way that is clearly sexually submissive and is a more subtle form of thirst trap. The subtle thirst trap is "masculine" while the more explicit thirst trap is associated with femininity.

This all compiles for the modern time where, when Dan - who is now much more masculine looking than he was in his late teens/early 20s - posts a thirst trap as a cat boy (a clearly submissive role), well that's blatantly "gay." If promiscuous photos on their own are already considered "feminine" (and as such flamboyant for a man), then one where he is posed with a collar on a bed with a bar implying the "submissive" role is going to get Way More Shit. Dan looks like society's idea of a man now, he is no longer forcing down flamboyancy, and is posed in a submissive manner in photos taken by his long term partner. The hatred is almost certainly not that he's 32 now, but that he's openly queer. People see queerness as something grown out of. If Dan at 21 with a naturally genderless figure wants to dress up as a woman for a skit, then that's fine because he still looks young and Kids Are Like That. But if Dan at 32, who looks 32, posts in the "womanly role" on the bed of he and his "actual soulmate," then that's him still being flamboyant and queer, and that's deemed wrong.

TLDR, I fully believe the issue isn't that he's 32, but instead that now they're faced with his queerness head on.

More serious response to people getting genuinely annoyed or insulting Dan for the photoshoot: if you had no issue with him as a 25 year old gyrating his hips for subscriptions (25 being an age which many would call "too old to still be thirst trapping" by many of the same people complaining about the catboy photos), but suddenly have an issue with a 32 year old Dan doing catboy thirst traps, then I think your issue is just that he's not an emo twink anymore so you aren't personally attracted to it and therefore it is "bad" in your mind.

Like, honestly Dan has done shit like this since Day 1, lest we forget the period where he was shirtless in literally every video, but if you only have an issue with it now that he's fully come into his adult body then maybe the issue isn't that he's "too old for it" but that he no longer fits what you personally are attracted to. Because, let's be honest here, 32 is not "too old" to be having sex or being sexually open. I'm probably asexual based on the everything about me and how I am regarding sex, but even I know the importance of not expecting sex to be reserved for people only aged 18-27 (which, btw, if you are one of those people, you're a creep!)

It's also really telling how people will be cool with guys in their 50s posting bikini shots of their 23 year old girlfriend but the moment two gay guys post photos from their bed that are promiscuous, everyone is suddenly worried about what age it becomes inappropriate to thirst trap on the Internet. Like, maybe you're just homophobic?

[newsfromstolenland]

I don't think I can fully put into words the irreparable harm that the psychiatric system in canada has done to me and many others

I want to talk about this, so for the purpose of organizing my thoughts I'm going to sort this into three parts: psych wards, substances, and the concept of functioning

Psych wards: I've known people who have had positive experiences in psych wards. but for the most part, I have heard of many negative experiences. in the interest of privacy for others, I will be basing this off of my own negative experience.

psych wards remove a significant amount of people's autonomy. most people can't leave without clearance from a doctor. there are cameras everywhere. rooms and bathrooms are often strictly gendered. phones, computers, and tablets are usually not allowed. personal items are limited and highly scrutinized, as is personal clothing. transphobia, racism, ableism, homophobia, and misogyny are rampant.

I was in a psych ward when I was 15. at the time I was a trans boy. because I refused to stay in a "girls" room, and they refused to put me in a "boys" room, they instead put me in the psychiatric intensive care unit with the adults because the rooms weren't gendered there.

In the psychiatric intensive care unit, there are cameras in the common area, bedrooms, and bathroom. every time you change or use the bathroom, you are monitored and recorded.

the staff regularly misgendered me, and refused to let me keep even an mp3 player.

the result is being imprisoned, having your privacy invaded, being misgendered and disrespected, losing your autonomy, being isolated from the world, and being stripped of any comfort items.

Substances: there's a lot to be said about the way substances are viewed in psychiatry. first of all, the use of non prescribed substances is vilified. even smoking weed is stigmatized, let alone using other substances. self-medication is treated as reckless behaviour, rather than an impact of a failed medical system. recreational substance use is treated as a moral failing. I once had a psychiatrist threaten to take me off of my medications unless I stopped smoking weed (and no, it was not because my meds interacted badly with weed). of course, all this meant was that I never told her the truth about my substance use again.

second, prescriptions are not given in an adequate way. there is a combination of over prescribing and under prescribing, neither of which are safe. for example, people are denied necessary prescriptions if doctors identify so-called "drug seeking behaviour". people are denied medical marijuana due to stigma. medical marijuana is also denied by places like CAMH, and instead significantly more dangerous drugs are prescribed. not so coincidentally, CAMH receives lots of funding from pharma companies, and not from medical marijuana companies. when I was in a psych ward, I had a prescription for a medication taken as needed when I had panic attacks. rather than giving it to me accordingly, I was given double the dose regularly three times a day. unsurprisingly, I became addicted to it and only recently (7 years later) managed to stop using it beyond when it was needed. on the other hand, when my ex was in a psych ward, they were denied their medical marijuana.

The concept of functioning: I've been a patient/client of quite a few psychiatrists and therapists over the years, and something that has come up a lot has been the concept of functioning. Being considered a functioning member of society is extremely arbitrary, but under a colonial capitalist system it typically comes down to working full time and building/maintaining a nuclear family. Obviously this is inherently harmful as a goal to set for mentally ill people, and creates feelings of self-loathing when we are unable to achieve it.

the mental health field's focus on neurodivergent people becoming "functioning" is not done for our benefit, the goal is not for us the function how we want to. the goal is for us to be able to work all our lives and contribute to capitalism.

I'm not trying to say that the mental health system never does any good. I now have the necessary medications to not struggle for every second of my life. my point is that many parts of our psychiatric system are harmful, exploitative, and dehumanizing.

something needs to change, and fast, or more people are going to be hurt by this

[immakuronaakuma]

Magical Girl Raising Project sucks so I’m gonna change it.

When I first heard the title, I thought the show would be about a project where girls with magical powers would be raised in some kind of environment, I was thinking a slice-of-school-life kind of thing. So here I go:

In my Magical Girl Raising Project Rewrite the story is exactly that, girls with magical abilities are selected by the show’s mascot, Fav, to take place studying and harnessing their magical abilities and potential before graduating, where then they’ll be granted their own magical uniform, weapon, and mascot all of their own choosing (it’ll work in a Tinkerbell sense, they may not seem to know it on the outside, but something in their soul can sense exactly what they want… maybe, I haven’t watched the first Tinkerbell movie in years.)

The main antagonist of the series are an anti-witch organization who view the magical girls as unholy creatures, looking to take control of the academy to… lessen the girls numbers (this is a decision I made purely to spite the show’s plotline of the girls culling each other in a death battle) just like in the show, they believe that too many women having power could destroy the world (once again, another decision I made to spite the show and also because the magic power is being given to women, which makes the anti-witch organization believe that it’s evil and satanic because it doesn’t require the influence of a man.)

Because of the rampant misogyny and danger the girls face, they’re magically transported to a far off school that’s as well guarded as Alcatraz Prison to keep the organization from entering, though that doesn’t stop them, as there are 4 magical girls that sneak in, “rouge magis” as they’re called (the rouges obviously being Swim Swim, the angel twins, and the dog magical girl with the big twist being that they’re close to the organization’s leader who was once a magical girl.)

The usual monsters of the week seem to come from the organization, usually monsters of dark matter brought to life by the organization’s propaganda and fear-mongering or just a member trying to kidnap one of the girls. Also, there’s a redemption arc for the robot magical girl and the dog magical girl. The robot was a product of the organization built specifically to follow orders and shut down the project, however their time within the school is slowly changing them and making them realize that they want to become a real girl just like their new friends. The dog one was just a really shy girl kidnapped by the organization and forced to play along until she was defended by Snow White and her friends, who officially welcomed her with open arms.

I wanna think of a name for it, but one thar I have come up with is “Mahou Shoujo Student Initiative”.

This all the ideas I have, but more is surely to come as think this through.

[abbatoirablaze]

Bringing Home The Gold, Chapter 3

Word Count: 1.9k

Warnings:  mentions of smut, more misogyny from Lance

“Fucking pathetic,” you grumbled, looking to Andretti.  You shook your head as you tried to apologize to the gorgeous Russian man in front of you, “I-I’m sorry about this.  Had I known that he wa-“

“It’s fine,” he replied softly.  He took your hand in his own and kissed your fingertips and you melted.  You know, until you heard the relentless pounding that was going on in the room beside you once more.  You rolled your eyes at the actions of your teammates, “We should have stayed in your room.”

“My teammates would not have done this,” he admitted while agreeing with you.  You sighed as he was pointing to the wall where Lance was making Hope scream his name, “this Tucker guy, he is not a mature one…is he?  He has been very childish since I started to approach you.”

“I don’t think mature is a word that Lance Tucker knows the meaning of.”

“I think he likes you, little doll.”

“Gross,” you cringed, “Andretti, stop.”

He laughed, jokingly probing your stomach with his hands, “I think the Lance Tucker has a very large crush on you.”

“Well, I have a crush on someone else.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhmm!” you nodded.  He smiled as you bit your lip, “he’s in this very room with me.”

“I think he likes you as well, little doll,” he said with a wink.  You smiled and playfully pushed him away from you.  He let himself fall dramatically to the floor and both of you heard the rampant sex in the other room stop, the noise ceasing to exist.  Andretti raised a brow, “I think he’s listening to us.”

“Such an immature weirdo.”

He got a devilish smile on his face, “would you like to be a little immature then too?”

You blushed, your eyes going wide as you immediately thought he was referring to having sex, “A-Andretti-I-“

“Relax moya kukla,” he said sweetly as he cut you off.  Your blush deepened as he crawled back up onto the bed, his calloused hand stroking your cheek, “how you say, we mess with him back.  Pretend to be having the sex to throw his mind off of it.  He will be a mess tomorrow for the events.”

“Are you trying to get the edge in the pommel horse?”

He laughed, shaking his head, “so you do know my weakness.”

“You didn’t even place last Olympics for the pommel horse,” you said, reminding him of his last stint in the Olympics, “do you really think he’ll become distracted hearing us ‘going at it,’ the night before the event?”

“Only one way to find out,” he smirked, offering you, his hand.  You bit your lip as you took it and he let out a throaty groan, pulling you to his chest.  The second time he did it, you heard the noise from the room beside yours cease once more, “Oh, JESSI!”

“Andretti,” you moaned, trying to stifle your giggles right after by burying your face in his chest.  He smiled and nodded forward, urging you to do it again, “OH GOD!  Right there!”

He stifled his own laughter as he helped you stand up onto the bed and the two of you began to jump on it, making it creak, “so perfect.”  

He continued to moan, and you lowered your voice, “say this next.  Say ‘say it!  Tell me what I am!’ He’ll lose his mind.”

Andretti quirked his brow at you, but moaned regardless, “Say it, moya kukla.  Tell me what I am!  Right now!”

“God,” you said loudly, whimpering, “God.  Of.  Gymnastics.  AHHHH!  Andretti!”

Jessi:  2

Lance:  1

Lance had been glaring at you all morning.  Andretti had stayed over, and the two of you messed with Lance all night, on and off pretending to have sex until the two of you actually fell asleep tucked into one another’s arms. 

Andretti was amazing. 

He was sweet, and encouraged you messing with Lance, especially after he found out about Casey and just what kind of person he really was. He said that a real man would never do that to a woman, and offered his services, however you may choose to use him.  

In the morning, when the two of you left your room, Lance was waiting there, stating simply that he wanted to ‘make sure you were okay.’

But you could see it in his eyes.  You noticed the jealousy as he watched Andretti press a simple kiss to your lips, wishing you good luck for the day. 

“You know he’s just using you, right?”

You turned around to see an angry looking Lance glaring at you.  You crossed your arms, “that’s rich…you know, coming from you…the king of using people.”

“It is my forte, isn’t it?” he asked sarcastically.  He leaned against his door and crossed his arms over his chest, “and I’ll tell you this right now.  The second that he gets what he wants his going to be over you.  And you probably just gave it to him last night.  Matter of fact, I can tell you gave it to him.”

“Oh really,” You reply with a glare, knowing what really happened between the two of you, “tell me, Lance…since you saw our interaction, did he get what he wanted from me?”

He scoffed, “to think you gave up your virginity for that Russian trash.  You know, he didn’t even place in the pommel horse last Olympics.  I doubt he’ll be able to accomplish it this year.  The pommel horse is my event.”

“Jealous, Lance?”

“What do I have to be jealous of?” he asked with a shrug, “so far, he’s nothing but a silver medal athlete.  Is that what you’re settling for, Jessi?  Silver medals?  Why not go for the gold medalist athlete?”

“Rich thing for you to say…this is your first Olympics...so far you have no gold, silver, or even bronze medals under your belt.”

“By the end of the day I will, and you’ll be begging to fuck me, just to get that Russian garbage out of your system,” he said with a smirk.  He leaned towards you and you felt the urge to cringe as he brushed some of the hair from your face, “if your nice enough like a good little girl, maybe I’ll even agree to it.  But I’m telling you right now…I want you on your knees when you beg for my cock, Jessi.”

“Dream on, Tucker.”

“Did you at least make him wear a condom? He asked as he backed away, looking at his nails in an uninterested manner, “don’t need an Olympic bastard being born nine months later…or is that what you’re really after?”

“Why don’t you mind you own business, Lance!”

You used it. 

You used the rage from the conversation with him and poured it into your routine. 

And it. 

Was. 

Flawless. 

Hope’s performance, however, was less than stellar. 

And it was proven when the scores came around.  As suspected, you dominated the floor routine, getting the gold.  And Hope, well, she ended up walking away with the bronze.  You wanted to feel bad for her, especially with all of the bragging that this was her event, you really did, but when the first thing she did was run to Lance, your stomach turned. 

You had warned her.

Hell, all of the girls on the team had warned her.  Everyone made her very aware of what he did to Casey and how he’d fucked the previous women’s coach which is why Adam was a man, and yet, she was running to him like a lost little puppy.   But once he saw the bronze medal around her neck, she no longer mattered.  He simply brushed her off saying that he ‘had to prepare,’ for the event. 

But all he’d done was stare at you, up until it was his turn.  Unfortunately, his ego was fed when he won the gold.  But you were proud when Andretti was right beside him, having taken the silver in that.  He taunted you as he passed, making sure you saw the gold medal around his neck. 

“Thought you said that I wouldn’t get it, sweetheart?”

“Go die in a hole, Tucker.”

“Your little boyfriend got the silver,” he scoffed, “pathetic…you know…gold medalists should be together, Jessi.”

“I am not interested in you, Tucker.”

“Shame,” he shrugged, “that Romanian girl that got the silver is pretty interested in me, and I’d hate to leave my bed open for the night when I could take her…you know since you’re still being an uptight cunt.”

“Go fuck her then, Lance,” you grumbled.  Andretti raced up to you after he finished one of his interviews, and you giggled as he swept you up in his arms, “you got the silver!”

“You got the gold!” he reminded you sweetly, “I told you that you would get it!  The routine was immaculate.”

“That extra stretching last night got rid of all the knots I had,” you playfully giggled, exaggerating what had actually happened.  He smirked, knowing that Lance thought the two of you had sex, “maybe we go celebrate my gold and your silver for the night?”

“I’d like that.”

That night Lance did end up pulling the Romanian girl that won the silver into his room.  Meanwhile, you spent the night in Andretti’s room, the two of you talking strategy over the following morning’s events, which for you was the balance beam, while he’d had the parallel bars and rings.  Both of you were excited, because they were things that you loved. 

The following morning, proved to be a good one when you won the gold in the balance beam, bringing your gold medal count up to two.  None of the other girls on the team so much as placed and Amanda had ended up breaking her ankle, making the small team of four even smaller, as both of the alternates had sustained injuries during training. 

By the afternoon, you were grateful to be off a podium and watching the men compete.  They were competing in the parallel bars and the rings today.  And you were excited, knowing that those were two of Andretti’s specialties.

“You came,” he called happily.  He had left his teammates, instead choosing to come over to you, where you stood with the rest of Team USA.  You looked excitedly to Andretti and nodded, “I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling nervous.  China has an intense competitor for the rings in Wei. 

“You’re going to do amazing, Andretti.”

“Congratulations on your second gold by the way,” he smiled, “hopefully by the end of the day I can match you.”

“These are your events,” you pointed out, as you stuck you tongue out at him, “you better beat my medal count and get two golds today to match your silver.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged playfully, “I’m not feeling very lucky today.”

You playfully pushed his shoulder and he smiled, so you wrapped your arms around him and pulled him into a hug, “you’re going to be amazing, Andretti.”

“I hope so.”

He looked down into your eyes and you felt your breath hitch.  Feeling bold, you leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.  Both of you melted into one another’s touch and your heart leapt as you felt his lips on yours. 

“If I win, I will be asking for a good luck kiss for every even after this,” he pointed out when the two of you broke away, “and if I lose, I am asking for a consolation kiss after.”

You smiled, a blush forming across your cheeks, “good…because I planned on giving you another kiss either way. “

Chapter 4

Tag List:  @lohnes16, @elbell20-blog

[mossmanismoss]

I agree that misogyny and blatant bias runs rampant in LO spaces (critical spaces included), but I see several areas that are just not true or are misinformed. Mainly regarding Hera.

1. Zeus's affairs.

Zeus constantly sleeps around because he has a severe sex addiction. Not just because he feels like it. He also feels guilt for doing it as shown in ep 94 and is also restated in recent chapters, in the episodes revolving the birth of Dionysus.

2. Heras affair.

Heras affair lasted from the end of the titanomachy all the way to Persephone's internship. It was on and off, and to say it was " just once" is blatantly false. She attempted to continue it in present time (ep 77). She has no remorse for any of this.

Even if it was only one time it wouldn't matter. It's still cheating. It doesn't make it any better than what Zeus is doing. Two wrongs don't make a right.

3. Heras racism towards nymphs.

Heras racism extends far. It wasn't just her "being rude to one nymph", as if that'd make it any better. Even in the first episode she expresses her hate for nymphs in a non specific way that could either mean Amphrite or Minthe. And this idea of nymphs being "trash" or inferior is restated over and over again by her.

That isn't even mentioning that nymphs and saytrs in LO are canonically a representation of Poc. Hell, don't even get me started on her whole thing with Echo. Where she discarded her like...trash, after using her. She actively finds nymphs to be nothing than individuals that she can ridicule, bully, and use before discarding them like nothing. Her racism is blatant and to ignore it is just erasing a large part of her character.

All of this isn't to say that I don't agree. Demeter is often hated for being a overprotective mother. I don't really agree on your bit about Aphrodite because she's hated by people because she had Eros drug Persephone and put her into Hades's car and also for her own racism towards nymphs, while being more hated by the narrative than anything.

But Hera is not a good example of this and neither is Zeus.

I think a better example you could have used is Hermes and Demeter. Both having done the same actions in the AOW. And despite preying on a young Persephone, Is given a pass in fandom spaces and it court.

Also I got more rants;

Why is Zeus(LO) held to this stupid standard of 'he isn't that bad' he can do no wrong bullshit while Hera, Demeter and Aphrodite are condemned for..idk being a little fucking mean and in Demeters case..BEING A GENIUNELY GOOD MOTHER???

Come the fuck on!

Let's go down the line shall we? So we can remember that Zeus fucking sucks and you people can get it together.

Zeus did a lot of good things, he helped his siblings escape Kronos, fought in the world etc.

But!!!! He constantly cheats on his wife, constantly lowballs her and talks down to her (season 1) , he doesn't give a shit about Ares (his legitimate son) but favors his bastard (Apollo) so much so that he IGNORED Heras warning about him! He ignored it.

He abuses his power constantly and continues to go out of his way with sleeping with women and barely tries to hide it (So much so that Thetis got it in her damn head to disrespect the literal Queen of the God's cuz Zeus let her.)

Oh Hera slept with Hades?? ONCE, compared to Zeus sleeping with..Metis (her mother) Thetis, Semele and DEMETER (Her sister) and Leto (Her best fucking friend.) And the nymphs in Demeters realm that came to her. Who geniunely cares?? Was it wrong, yes, would it ever actually happen? NO, actual Hera wouldn't do that dumb shit.

But she should be allowed one moment of respite when her husband continues to do the same damn thing!!

"Shes racist to nymphs"

..No, she was rude toONE nymph cuz to her that nymph was disrespectful and when you're a powerful goddess, beings below you (nymphs literally are, sorry. They are not as powerful and can die, unfortunately.) Get an attitude..the goddess while be just as harsh and rude and that's terrible but.

Yall think Zeus isn't the same?? Yall forgot the nymphs he screws off constantly? Leaving them in Demeters care cuz he doesn't care about them, how he just tossed Thetis aside after a while (..Lowkey deserved, she was a terrible friend and annoying as shit.)

But no Zeus has a reason for this right?? Nit like..Hera justifiably isn't a fan of some nymphs cuz most constantly disrespect her by SLEEPING WITH HER HUSBAND and then blatantly disrespecting her in general like she isn't the literal queen.

Where Zeus..just wants to get his dick wet.

And this is ONLY referring to Lore Olympus Zeus, not even touching on all the evil shit the Actual Zeus did.

As someone who loves Zeus and finds him to be interesting, ACKNOWLEDGE THAT HES A PIECE OF SHIT!! (that's just not all he is, he has nuance) like if you're gonna hate Hera for some shit, why praise Zeus for the bare minimum??

Zeus LOVES Hera but he still treats her like shit, LO has fucked up people's brains cuz too many people are just fine with Zeus being a whole serial cheater cuz Hera slept with Hades once. Shameful.

(HE cheated first, he started this whole nonsense. If you're gonna be a hater, do it right!!!)

[dhaaruni]

So... in the end, America is just as bigoted as it was in Reagan's day? Or Nixon's? (Not a rhetorical question; personally I've always feared that what Obama et al. did was never really *progress*, so much as just keeping marginalized people from suffering even worse treatment from an inherently conservative system that's getting better resources every year. Running twice as fast to stay where they were, so to speak)

I don't know if this logic helps but nowhere else in the world is much better unless you're a white person from Scandinavia who lives in Scandinavia lol. The way Europe treats immigrants, including legal immigrants, is much, much worse than how the United States does, misogyny is omnipresent all around the world (including in non-white countries cough cough), antisemitism and Islamophobia run rampant everywhere, and at least in the US, there are some pockets of liberalism. Sure, I may not feel super safe walking around at night in rural West Texas but in my corner of the Seattle suburbs or honestly even in my bit of Northwest DC, I feel extremely safe running to CVS at 10pm to grab allergy medication.

As for Barack Obama, I think his biggest theoretical flaw as president (not in terms of individual actions) was expecting this country to be something different than it is, and Hillary Clinton for one has always been very clear-eyed over what was and wasn't possible based on the country as it is and not as it could be. On the night Obama got elected, while people were lynching and burning scarecrow Obamas in large swathes of the country, he was all like "Whether or not you voted for me, we're all Americans, and there's so much hope for this country going forward!!!" Fast forward 8 years and the same country elected an outright fascist because it couldn't stand that a Black man had been president for eight years, and the concept of a woman becoming president as well was just too much to handle.

Was Obama perfect? No. I think he meant well but he did underestimate the repercussions of his actions on the Democratic Party. For instance, quipping about how (non-college) white people in those rural Ohio and Pennsylvania coal and natural gas towns (that he broke even in but HRC and Biden lost by 75) cling to guns and religion was actively bad given how badly Democrats began to lose that group in the 2010s when they're the group that decides the electoral college and makeup of the Senate. It doesn't matter whether or not that quip is true, it was sort of like the straw that broke the camel's back, and pissed off a whole lot of people off enough to stop voting Democrat altogether. As a result, we're now stuck with a 50-50 Senate and winning anything more is a massively uphill battle because at this point, non-college educated white people hate Democrats even more than they love their guns and religion. We can't make up that deficit with college-educated suburbanites simply because there aren't enough of them.

And, once again, American voters suck lol. Obama pushed the Affordable Care Act through without a single Republican vote, and we absolutely paid the price for that moving forward given how many Senate and House seats Democrats lost in the next decade. Is it fair that Americans punished Democrats for trying to give the country universal healthcare? No, but they absolutely did: Americans decided that Democrats were being mean to Republicans, and they didn't appreciate that because the majority of American voters don't think Republicans are inherently bad. And, demonizing the ACA as "Obamacare" worked because Obama's like the devil to these people, whether or not that's justified. If you look at how "Affordable Care Act" polls among normie voters in comparison to "Obamacare," you'll see what I mean.

Also, this screenshot is very telling:

Bernie Sanders was wrong, the majority of Americans don't actually care if Biden gives them free stuff if he's also giving free stuff to Black and brown people and especially if he's not being openly racist and misogynistic at the same time. These voters are just really annoyed our president doesn't constantly say degrading things to female reporters and doesn't embarrass the country on a national scale daily, and doesn't provide them sufficient entertainment, and they're egged on by our esteemed media superiors. Anyways, #DefundTheBeltwayMedia.

Like, sheer idea of Republican voters supporting Medicare for All, especially with birth control and abortion access included, is laughable since do these kinds of voters really seem like they want gender equality and racial justice? Like, Hillary Clinton was right; you really can't work with these people, and her mistake was saying that quiet part out loud and calling them deplorables (while being a woman that the media's had it in for since the 1970s obviously). All that we can do is triangulate them and get enough votes to pass legislation and make them deal with the changing world. Is that really condescending? Absolutely, but otherwise, the alternative is constantly negotiating with people that think that saying the n-word as a white person is totally fine so take your pick.

[pangtasias-atelier]

F/E/7 Thoughts

This one is way longer than the others since I distinctly remember fe7 muhc more since I played through it like 3 times before, once on ENM, half of EHM before my brother threw away my copy of fe7, and then ENM again when fe7 was released on the eshop. So I am much more opinionated since my feelings changed greatly after playing ector mode for the first time, especially hector hard mode. And to be honest, it was not a fun experience. The story is an enjoyable ride and feels more fleshed out compared to most other games. Plus, there is a lot of game to play and it makes it a fun endeavor to undertake to the point that 7 places very high compared to the rest of the series.

However, that’s when I think of eliwood mode. Playing hector mode definitely changes my feelings on the game and playing hard mode sours it further. Getting back to hector hard mode later, my issue with hector mode in general is that the story feels just lacking a lot more compared to eliwood mode. Like sure, Hector is a cool and nice guy and all, but he really feels like he should have been a side character and not a main lord. He has very little personal motivation in the story besides “I want to help my friend,”. The same can and should be said for Lyn but she at least has the more self driven reason of where her grandfather was attacked and nearly killed.

Rereading eliwood mode’s script and comparing it to hector mode’s script, the main story is practically the exact same but, and this comes to pure opinion, Hector is a much less interesting character to me. I get why people enjoy him, but it definitely feels most of it comes down to him ebing a ridiculously broken unit when it comes to early game since you get so many terrible units. Especially in comparison to Eliwood and Lyn who suffer from swords not having 1-2 range and being really frail to train up.

Speaking of the other two lords, replaying Lyn mode really reminded me of how rampant the misogyny was - and still is - because all of the critiques of Lyn being stubborn and hardheaded and annoying and whatnot just feel so unfounded for the most part. She’s not like a twist on the usual fe lord formula, she’s perfectly serviceable and that’s what she is. Lyn definitely isn’t as soft spoken as several other lords but people act as if she refuses to listen to anyone else. She’s a perfectly decent character and by extension, so is Lyn mode. Even taking out the fact that it’s a glorified tutorial, it’s only 10 chapters that are pretty laid back even on hard mode. (And it’s shorter than 3H’s 12 chapter tutorial that’s half the game and you have to play 4 times to change the most minor decision that changes nothing for 12 chapters lmao) Normal mode sucks just cause it’s forced tutorials.

And Eliwood is basically the usual fe lord and it just speaks to me more than hector. Which would mean Eliwo od mode is just fine but the game locks 4 different maps behind Hector mode because of absolutely no reason but to incentivize people to play Hector mode, which is only unlocked after beating Eliwood mode.Two fo the maps add zero to the story while the other 2 unlock what’s technically the best ending but it’s such a minor difference that it doesn’t really matter but if you’re playing Eliwood mode the you basically get fucked out of learning about Kishuna just cause the game realy wants you to play Hector mode. And that’s not even talking about how Hector mode also locks 2 characters behind it which sucks and rounds out the awful idea of locking content behind what feels like a lesser story.

Moving on from hector mode’s story and differences, my issue with hector hard mode is more of an issue with how fe7 treats hard mode even in eliwood hard mode. And that is the game lowers your deployment slots for most of the chapters. Which doesn’t really make the game harder. If anything, it makes it much easier since the game incentivizes you to focus your exp on less units. So, all it does is make you bench crappier units that you handicap using in favor of using Marcus or Oswin to round out having less slots. And it sucks because the fun from fe is getting to use a bunch of units, but you can’t really do that on hard mode. And it’s further hampered by the fact that you have 3 lords so you’re slightly incentivized to train them up for when they’re all force deployed. Like, I went through the difficulty of training up Rebecca and Canas to try and hopefully train them only to get irritated and look up to see why deployment slots were so strict and then bench them which only helped me in the long run cause I didn't have to rotate my main team just to train units.

As for specifically Hector hard mode itself, it’s actually pretty fun in spite of the lowered deployment costs. All the gameplay changes where different starting positions from Eliwood mode and different enemy compositions from even HEctor normal mode is a blast. It was fucking ridiculous to see the desert map in fe7 to suddenly have fog of war to mimic FE6 hellish desert map also having FoW. Which is hilarious that it only happens on hector hard mode. Not that the map is difficult. The only map that really changed up was Kishuna’s second map where they just flat out leave and so you have to deal with a bunch of siege tomes and status staves. Except you don’t have the most options to deal with it so it kind of just fucking sucks compared to say Thracia. Otherwise, most maps were a breeze to deal with. Even cog of destiny since knowing the spawn points makes it a breeze. And even Battle Before Dawn which everyone talks about was a nonchore. And that’s with me not having a torch item since I accidentally sold mine

Hector hard mode is a fun thing to try and my complaints are mostly minor nitpicks but it’s a fun and enjoyable ride even if the difficulty is over exaggerated. At the very least, there was a lot of thought put behind the game mode unlike most other fe game with tangible and notable differences that aren’t just more stats. Like, just let me play Eliwood mode with hector hard mode maps and normal mode deployment slots and I’d enjoy it like 20 times more.

Also, here’s the mvp who I let myself suffer through the game saving up my statboosters to create this monster. Besides NIno, the flyers were once again busted as all hell to use lol