#otherwise it just looks like an excuse to romanticize abuse

[lucent-nargacuga]

.

[plusvanity]

Yesterday, I wanted to say that people who blocked me did the wiser thing, but today, I want to touch on a recent issue, a hugely (intentionally) misinterpreted and degrading problem.

The controversies that people started to spread about me literally make me sick to the stomach.

They don't give a fuck about my countless explanations of how this ship is my comfort ship, designed to help me heal from severe abuse, self hatred, body dysmorphia, depression and anxiety.

I try to switch from unhealthy coping mechanisms to something that is both productive, helpful and most of all, harmless (because it's imaginary).

They felt the need to turn something that I created as my own personal fictive escape into a gross sadomasochistic, abusive and extremely toxic 'excuse' for 'why is this ship and not that?'. My guts twist for seeing such cruel assumptions when I have one thing that makes me happy (a story, a healthy narrative) viciously turned into a gruesome scenario that is not what it is at all.

The fact that they accuse me of shipping fair-skinned, blonde people is also the biggest hypocrisy that they could come up with when they themselves forget that Øystein's natural hair is blond and his eyes are blue in their own double-standard ship.

The fact that accuse me of romanticizing self-harm while they themselves 'like' (I have proofs) and approve art of EuroDead self-destructive romanticism shows their duplicitous and impostor nature. This is not to be taken as an insult, but an obvious fact concluded by their behavior.

My ship has little to do with physical looks and everything else to do with the in-depth psychology. It's not me, PlusVanity who says that there's a gigantic overlap between highly-autistic traits and trauma response (in personality disorders), it's Freud, Jung, Lacan's teachings and many other's scholars, neurologists and psychiatrists came to this conclusion many many years before you and I were even born. If you, dearly-opinionated friend, think that you can prove to these honorable psychoanalytical figures (and me, of course) otherwise with credible and well-documented research and not your 'I don't like that just because' synthetic opinion, I will gladly listen to what you have to bring up. I am well-versed in the philosophical and psychological domain, and I can provide solid arguments to everything I claim.

It's more than just unfair to point the finger at me, accusing me of a ludicrous sadomasochistic and 'subliminal racial element' in my art just to satisfy your late frustration with an ' good-enough explanation' for something that you never even bothered to look into because otherwise you would know that you are wrong. I'm not spiteful, I'm just pointing your flaws in logic as straightforwardly and inconsiderable as you seem to point mine, but it's not like you will actually try to understand what I'm saying because this must imply 'admitting defeat' and a kick in the ego, so you don't even bother with my transparent explanations. That's alright.

This message is for the people who are open and mature enough to read the motive behind my art and writing. This monologue is not for the ones who blindly accuse me of horrible things or a hidden agenda that I don't have or try to promote.

If you think that you know better than me, you simply don't. Why might that be? Because I am the author, because you don't think with my brain and you have no access to what I stand for, other than my words and actions and neither my words or actions stood for any type of abuse or political extremism.

You also put words into my mouth by calling me a fan of Varg, when I'm most certainly not, but I mean you hate me, of course you will say such things. Everyone who's following me knows that I not only hate Varg, but mock him daily for his spiteful persona.

I do not engage in any drama, I am not here to fight anyone.

I will only have civilized conversations (if openness exists). I am here to be and share with my friends the one thing that makes me happy. To subjugate me for simply having a different view than yours is tyranny and black and white extremism.

Pairing real people is morally bad, but this includes all real people. Not just Varg and Pelle, but Øystein and Pelle too. Doesn't sound fair now, does it? I understand why.

Anyone is free to believe anything, but a conspiratorial opinion will never compare to the ultimate truth that only the author can provide.

Please block me if you wish for. This is a far more mature approach than lurking here or sending hate. I hope this is constructive.

To sum it up, I'm beyond hate and ingoing frustration. I will gladly wish my late-proclaimed haters a wonderful day even if they roll their eyes. 🖤

You cannot change options, you can only provide your insight.

Be kind, be open, be alright 🖤

I wish this post can be shared so a lot of people can read this 🙏

[aliciavance4228]

Am I the only person who thinks that Asterion is misunderstood?

Asterion (the Minotaur) is supposed to be a dreadful monster, yet I cannot help but think that he was a victim all this time. And look, I'm not saying that he did nothing wrong or that he's an woobie since he killed people, but he was a victim as well.

His entire existence was supposed to be Poseidon's punishment towards Minos for not sacrificing a bull. He was cursed from the moment he was conceived. Then Minos decided to throw him into the labyrinth which is described as a ‘cage with convoluted flextions that disorders debouchment.’ Not only that he was perceived and treated as a monster for his appearance, but he was also isolated from humanity all this time. And I don't recall any part of this myth which states that he received any food besides those people who were anually sacrificed for him. Otherwise he would starve during the whole year. Yet people really do have the audicity to consider him a complete monstrosity. Has anyone considered that if those around you perceive you as a monster, treat you as a monster, throw you in a giant cage (in this case a labyrinth) as if you're a monster, and leave you no other option but to act like a monster, you'll ultimately become one? And look, I don't negate the probability that he might've been violent and blood-thristy from the moment he was born, but I'm more inclined to believe that he suffered a lot because of people's treatment towards him, and that him becoming brutal and aggressive was just a consequence of this sort of abuse. I almost pity him. Asterion is basically proof that cruelty gives birth to more cruelty. He's some sort of a child of identity crisis: rejected by his family, rejected by his step-father, rejected by society, and finally, forced to reject his own humanity. But everybody remembers him just as the creature Theseus victoriously killed.

The Media doesn’t help us in this regard either. In the original Greek Mythology he's described as having only the head of a bull, otherwise he was completely human. And yet this is how people are depicting him:

Remember how people are portraying Medusa as a beautiful woman with a snake wig? It's a similar situation but reversed.

Furthermore, everybody reffers to him as "The Minotaur", and many people don't even know that he has an actual name. These aspects lead to this character being more and more dehumanized. And yes, I know that idealizing or romanticizing a character and excusing his bad actions is not the solution either, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot try to understand that said character.

[bananasfosterparent]

I definitely think there are more AA enjoyers out there (including some Spawn fans who claim otherwise, remember how many of them were salivating over AA's sex scene in the beginning but now they're all saying they actually hate it because he's dissociating in it) but the thing is AA fans have become the fandom's punching bag which makes it really difficult for a lot of people to publicly come out as liking this route without potentially being called delusional, told that you may end up being abused irl and other crap like this because how can you not see his toxic and abusive behavior. It also doesn't help that even one of the writers who worked on his character claimed that players who chose this route only saw him as a sex object lmao

I know there are spawn fans who like AA because every time I see AA romance scene posts in places like OnlyFangs and the Astarion facebook groups I'm in, I ALWAYS see comments like "I can't ascend him but this is so hot!!" or "thank you for posting this! I'd never do this to pookie, but I have to admit this is got me🥵🥵🥵" or panty dropping gifs and things like that. So they can thirst after AA (but we are the only ones sexualizing him, remember!), yet simultaneously talk about how much they hate that version of him. It really makes no sense. Just enjoy all of Astarion! No guilt, excuses, disclaimers, or abuse required!

It's really unfortunate. I understand why some AA fans keep quiet in the fandom. There are a few people in one of the AA discords I'm in, who are only active in that discord and nowhere else in the fandom because theyre just tired/afraid of the negativity. That's ridiculous to me! The fact that people literally can't even comfortably just exist in the fandom without the fear of being bullied for NOTHING.

I have been told I'm "romanticizing abuse" directly and indirectly more times than I can count and it doesn't get better with frequency. And when you factor in that many AA fans ourselves have had experiences with abuse and trauma, it's just such a poor taste statement that literally has 0 ground. I mean, if any romanticizing of abuse were happening, wouldn't it be Larian doing it anyway? Aren't they the ones allowing the romance to continue after ascension with positive dialog choices, and sharing the AA kisses on Valentine's Day posts? Why not come after them instead of fans? If the relationship between AA and his Consort was "written to be abusive" then shouldn't Larian write that so clearly that literally no one can argue about it and there is no doubt in anyone's mind? So why then, is that not shown in the game? And why come after the people interpreting the story differently instead of the company for not making the story's message so airtight, it can't be argued?

Hint: because it's not written to canonly be an abusive relationship, that wasn't Larian's intention and nor should it be. The intention was to create an evil romance route and that's exactly what it is. Anything outside of that is up to YOU.

I think that's where the superiority complex steps in though. That whole "you AA fans just aren't media literate and clever enough to understand the deep, meta meaning of this cautionary abuse tale!" thing.

It also feels like an underlying misogyny thing too. A majority of Astarion fans in general are women and AFAB people. I see spawn fans always calling us "AA girlies" and I never see the reverse. And when it comes to AA fans, it feels a lot like a "let's save/educate the poor naive girls from themselves and their foolishness." When many AA fans aren't even female and certainly aren't naive or young impressionable people looking to have a real life AA.

As for the Co-Writer Who Will Not Be Named... that whole situation is a perfect example of someone abusing their position/influence. They knew players would take their word as law, without actually thinking about it in the context of it being a rolepaying game. So their opinion and agenda is taken as a canon fact when they only did minimal writing AND they can't speak for anyone else's Tav/Durge but their own.

Saying "When Tav ascends Astarion, it means they only see him as a sexual object." is just like saying "Tav keeps Astarion a spawn because they want control over him." Can you roleplay both of those things? ABSOLUTELY. But for most Spawn fans, I'm sure that is NOT why your Tav did it, especially if they're romancing him.

What Welch said is exactly the same type of statement. Their position and professional contribution to the game holds no water in context of their statement being universally applied to all Tavs and Durges that ascend Astarion. It may be how they see it, it may be the impression they tried to get the dialog to convey, but it's all up to each individual player how it's interpreted.

[miraculousalt]

The way Marinette fans or jus general ml fans really will use feminist movements like #metoo or the uprising of female abuse victims speaking up against misogynistic prejudice they face an suffer under to explain why Marinette has every right to reject Chat Noir the way she does is all really great an progressive unril the very same people will 80% of the time then turn round an honest to God explain or even DEMAND that Marinette doesn NEED to stop hitting Adrien, tying him up or otherwise physically restrain or use him and doesn't NEED to ask for consent in anything including KISSING or other sexual activities (you people aren't even attempting to hold Marinette to somewhat of the same healthy standards you make sure Adrien never EVER gets to break, under no circumstances) - even when they are DEPICTED IN A LOVING Relationship - because "its nothing serious.", "she isn't actually hurting him", "he deserved it he annoyed her!" and "that's slapstick comedy, it's FUNNY" is outright one of the most disgusting double standards this fandom glorifies into all heavens.

The way people will show ZERO self-awareness of what they're doin and excusing here an that this is EXACTLY how our real society treats (domestic) violence against men by women would be almost hilarious hypocrisy to point out if it wasn actually as downright depressing as it truly is.

Don't bring feminist movements into the conversation regarding Chats behavior towards Ladybug when you straight up support the characterisation of Marinette Ladybug bein seemingly incapable of NOT physically violating her boyfriend/husband/partner who has suffered under excessive abuse for all his life the moment she sees him transformed (or evn worse as CIVILIANS). Because therefore his "protective suit" can be used to all max as justification as for why Marinette apparently isn being abusive or treatin him badly, including taking advantage of him and his non existent boundaries thanks to his abusive home and the established Ladynoir dynamic that sometimes hardly let's Chat be more than Ladybugs tool to use so she can look cool and strong.

Don't bring up feminist movements when yall think the appropriate way for Adrien to react when he made Marinette angry is submitting and cowering in fear bc you somehow have convinced yourself that boys and men (even the ones, or ESPECIALLY the ones, you are in a romantic relationship with) getting scared of you when you're in a bad mood is you being EMPOWERED instead of you actively refusing to stop being outright abusive.

Canon Marinette is a flawed person but in the end of the day that still remains in at least some sort of limitations to not cross every line, but FANON Marinette Ladybug? That's so fucking often a glorified domestic abuser yall romanticize in a relationship with an abuse victim. But sure. That's alright for you, cuz yall don't truly believe that women can be abusers of people they love once you LIKE them as "strong, empowered women". And men can't truly be abused by women bc they just "respectfully drink respect women juice" in each an every conflict they have cuz men NOT havin to follow a women's every dominatin lead or dare to even expect of HER to do better and stand accountable for her hurtful behavior n be TRUTHFUL is toxic for you people.

I feel so fucking sorry for every male domestic abuse victim of their female abuser, who had to endure their pain an suffering getting invalidated, spit on and even JUSTIFIED as a womans natural unproblematic right by this fandom bc yall are really out here not thinking twice about the horrible implications of making Marinette Ladybug "lovingly" physically assault Adrien Chat for girlboss points or shits n giggles at every turn. No matter how fucking unnecessarily violently executed or even entirely unwarranted in the first place. You just don't fucking care.

The way this fandom has Marinette physically and emotionally violate Adrien Chat however extreme and even unwarranted as she pleases and then you people have the nerve to romanticize that abusive shit by having Adrien be INTO THAT and LIKE IT in a loving relationship while he never once gets to defend himself - bc now that would glorify domestic abuse right? - is the most backwards and hypocritical "feminist" characterisation teh show has to offer but yall truly make it into glorified abuse bc "woman strooooong and in control, its PROGRESSIVE! 💅��He respects and admires her strength an authority, he doesn mind getting put in his place à bit rougher by her bc he supports her as the powerful woman leader she is 😌."

Even the Marinette fans who claim to feel for Adrien in his abuse (or even ADRIEN FANS) turn around and laugh at or completely write it off when Marinette gets characterized in Canon and ESPECIALLY in fanon to basically just violate, assault, humiliate, insult and dehumanizes her male love interest for her "empowerment". Because yall claim to be so feminist and progressive but it's so fucking obvious that you only care about how WOMEN can benefit the best from everything. You want revenge porn that's all.

Adrien, his abuse and male abuse victims of any kind are a mere afterthought for you (sometimes not even that) in the feminism you believe in and s4 made that so fucking clear. 95% of this "progressive" Fandom wouldn't hold a female abuser accountable for her actions, even if it were to save the male victims life, the moment the woman isn't a 1 dimensional, obvious monster. If a woman has ONE sympathetic emotion in her portrayal yall will excuse and justify her getting the male victim served to her obedient an perfect an pretty on a silver plate.

95% of the miraculous Fandom has lost their fucking right to claim they care about abuse victims, because no you fucking don't. Not when it's a man and the scenario is coincidentally layed out perfectly to have the woman benefit on every level from the man getting abused, neglected and taken advantage of to 17 hells. Then youll look for n max out every excuse an justification on every meta level available to belittle the disgusting treatment the men went through.

YOU don't give a FUCK about abuse victims and their life's and pain the moment they are male, and s4 has an still IS now in s5 having you publicly blog that into the open internet because THAT'S how little you truly think of male abuse victims. Miraculous is a girl power show, so you will not think twice about dehumanizing and victim blaming boys for woke and even TOXIC feminist points, cuz the last thing you would ever do is hold women girls to healthy standards too in their dynamics an relationships with men boys under a feminist narrative.

"Feminism" for you is an excuse and Marinette fans in s4 proofed that in every way possible.

[stranger-nightmare]

And so begins the barry simps simping for the joker and wanting to be “his harley” as if we don’t go through the same discourse every time there’s a new iteration of the joker that romanticizing that relationship or even just sexualizing it isn’t gross because of the relationship being inherently abusive.

Listen to be perfectly frank as far as am I’m aware we’re strictly talking Joker looks / aesthetics here. No one has glorified the character of the Joker and his behaviour bc we all know he sucks and is an asshole. But also so are a lot of other characters that people find hot, like Sebastian’s character from Fresh, as far as I’m aware, or even his character from 365 or whatever that movie was, from what I’ve seen they’re real assholes but people still simp for him bc he’s attractive, no one is out here saying his behaviour is okay or excusing it.

Look I get where you’re coming from but ultimately this guy is fictional and there’s no harm in people saying they’d fuck him bc it’s just not gonna happen really now is it? As far as I’ve seen most people do recognise this about Joker and again I’m emphasising that we’re just talking about looks and fucking him, no one’s stating we actually want to date him or be in a relationship with him or whatever.

Just let people have their fun. Otherwise I’m gonna need you to keep this same energy for every single problematic character we come across.

- Hope��

[ari-the-rockstar]

If you hurt a bear repeatedly and the bear mauls you that is 100% your fault. You behavior absolutely influences other people's behavior saying otherwise is gaslighting. Just because a behavior pro social and socially acceptable doesn't mean there are no consequences to it.

yes, but i was not hurting a bear. i was trying to refute someone promoting a serious mental disorder who thinks that having it is "hot" and "quirky." joke or not, it's disturbing. my behavior was leaving a few replies on someone's post. i did not abuse someone else.

The queering if neurotypes is good, because disabilities are a social constructed. Many neurodivergent people are disabled only artificially by society. The romanticization of disabilities are just people waking up to how society not there neurotypes disabled them and how impairments and disability isn't the same thing.

that is true. disabilities are only socially constructed due to the fact that having a certain disorder causes harm to oneself or others in our society. romanticizing it is not good, because the society still exists. most people are not going to bend over backwards for a literal narcissist, abused or not. i know i won't.

"what can a 15 year old do" You do your part, you work on your own basis and you hold the people around you accountable. You learn to see mental health symptoms as morally natural and educate yourself why the medical model is bad. Disability is a social responsibility not a personal responsibility. disability is everyone responsible.

i don't and will never see NPD as morally natural. someone else's disability which has a very high probability of causing harm to me is NOT my responsibility, because i have a responsibility to take care of myself and myself first. nobody is responsible for the pwNPD's disorder except for their abuser(s).

Also I never said NPD can't be abusive just that there symptoms are not. People with NPD can still hurt children for the same reasons empaths do. As a system I understand first hand how our society hates children. Many ND symptoms look like bad behavior on face level but are caused by totally different processes. It is important for society to understand this neuance because feelings are social construct and not biological essentialist in nature. Are moral system is built in the idea that neuronormativity is good and neurodivergent is degenerate and bad. No one is entitled to neuronormativity.

that is very true, yes. many ND symptoms look like bad behavior on face, but you have to realize that pwNPD have a very dangerous disorder that could cause great harm. saying "not all narcs" implies that some DO abuse, a great percentage actually.

At the end of day neurodivergent people must be liberated form the medical model by any means nessary. We don't have luxury of feeling concerned about our oppressors' feelings when our oppressor will not think twice in acting in traumatizing ways towards NDs.

Ableist fill our jails with mentally ill people, criminalize drugs, send cops to shoot mentally ill people, gate keep education form mentally ill people, force mentally ill people to be homeless, hurt children to the point of developing extreme trauma disorder but we as a society is more concern about people with ND being "abusive" then addressing the systematic violence against them that cause maladaptive coping skills. When the "abuse" was caused by neuronormative society.

pwNPD can also abuse neurodivergent folk as well. if a group of people with a specific disorder with very specific ways of abusing people DO cause trauma, it's okay to talk about it and spread awareness even if it hurts their feelings. and pwNPD should also realize that a lot of abuse survivors are hurting, and if they aren't abusive they wouldn't feel bad.

now, i do think that some mentally ill people should be in jail. if a schizophrenic murders someone due to his schizophrenia, he needs medical treatment AND jailtime. murder is murder, there is no excuse; just like that there is no excuse for abuse. drugs should 100% be criminalized (with the exception of medical LSD and marijuana). for your other points (gatekeep education from mentally ill people, force them to be homeless, hurt children to the point of developing a disorder) i agree, that's wrong.

i do have concern over pwNPD being abusive, because just because a neuronormative society abused them that way, it does not mean that we cannot talk about narc abuse. their trauma and abuse is theirs to work out; mine is mine to work out--and there should be resources for us BOTH, even if mine was done by a pwNPD.

Once society protects children and learns to accept the ND system then we discuss holding NDs accountable for their behavior, but it gaslighting to do so when society has their boot on NDs people and children necks.

i once met a teenager with diagnosed NPD and she was a vitriolic bitch. accused me of doing shit i NEVER did. i blocked her rightfully and when people asked about her i told them what she did and said.

we can both protect children AND hold abusive narcissists accountable for their behavior. abuse =/= a right to do whatever u want. even as a teenager.

To not speak out against child abuse is to side with child abusers.

To hate cluster B or systems is to side with child abusers.

To be intolerant of child trauma symptoms is to side with child abusers.

People like you are like bi standers who let a man poke a bear with a stick. Then when the bear mauls you blame the bear and not the man poking the bear with a stick.

Abuse requires a power imbalance. If not so than outing rapist would be abuse, killing Nazis would be abuse. Killing killer cops would be abuse. Abuse is not when someone hurts you. Abuse is violence from a place of power or equal footing design to gain power over someone. If one group benefits form the oppression of another group violence from the oppressed group isn't abuse.

Want to criticize cluster Bs DO SOMETHING ABOUT SYSTEMATIC TRAUMA FRIST.

[awrestlinggirlwholoves80sbands]

Alsgskshdh thr audacity of that anon... Buge misogynist problem

Anyways, he should know that one of your friends (me) is a dude who was abused by a woman and I can say you've never ever blamed me and would probably kill my ex lol

She is lucky I live here because otherwise off with her head!

But yeah anon tried to make it about gender, being a bit biphobic (because that "Doesn't matter if you are bi or hetero" sounds to me like you think I'm not really bi but maybe it's just me) while the issues was to show how BOTH of them where toxic and I want to say that because I don't want people to romanticize couples and thinking they did nothing wrong. It's what I call an aesthetic couple : they look great but unfortunately they don't work.

I talk shit on Stephanie too because she cheated on Axl, she took advantage of him in a dark period of his life but Axl was no saint and as much as I would give my life for him, I will say that.

Like I will say that abuse had no gender and using the excuse of abused men to hare on other people, doesn't help them.

Thank you so much for this ask, hon 💗

[succ-season-4-when]

E6 really got me feeling some kind of way.

I don’t think the writers intended to leave this impression with this episode, but this kinda just hit me.

Anyway, this is gonna be a long one.

At the start of S1, Ken was more hurt than angry as Logan listed reason after reason why he wasn’t fit for the CEO position (yet), even when he waited his whole life for this moment: picked the major for it, went to one of the best schools in the country for it, worked under his dad for years and years and years and years…

All that, and he still lended Logan a hand so he wouldn’t fall flat on his face at the RECNY ball, only shut the door when Roman came to see him after the no-confidence vote, and felt the need to defend Shiv over Logan’s typical verbal abuse at Austerlitz when he was high as a kite; even the hostile takeover was a well-priced offer that Logan had to consider selling WR for.

Ken worked for Logan as an intern and went to his company straight out of school, and how old was he in S1 E1? 38, 39? He was set up to be the successor, and yet the shareholders hated him; he kept upping his bid on Vaulter even when Lawrence trash talked him on his addiction issues; he angled for tech in WR and genuinely likes people who work in tech, and yet the Roy name and the Roy money made sure everyone in that circle hated him and what he metaphorically stood for.

This is a guy who cleaned up the mess he made trashing the bathroom in a brief breakdown despite knowing that the house has live-in maids looking after it.

And after everything Lawrence’s said to him, he still wanted to help Vaulter get back on its feet when the founder bullshitted him on their stats and was burning through WR’s money.

That was his ideal back then: to be able to invest in a tech startup / company you like and to stick by them through thick and thin because you really do believe in them.

And so he’s spent most of his adult life playing second fiddle to an old man in a company known for legacy media and political propaganda (plus parks and cruises), not being taken seriously by anybody at all: he’s a shadow of Logan Roy, only known to the public via his addiction issues on tabloid magazines or his incompetence relative to Logan.

For all he knew, he deserved the CEO title at least—otherwise, what did he spend his life doing?

And this is where it gets interesting: less than 24 hours after he delivered the bear hug letter, he drove under influence and his passenger grabbed the wheel and swerved them into a river.

That accident pretty much drove the point home: to him, his career was worth more than somebody else’s life; it actually might be worth more than his own life to him at this point (again, I don’t see the writers implying this anywhere in recent episodes, it’s just a very unfortunate position he’s placed himself in).

As Naomi quoted in S2 E5, "[m]ine honor is my life; both grow in one. Take honor from me, and my life is done."

(If anyone's read Richard II, please share your thoughts on this.)

So, excuse my lengthy summary on Kendall’s life story, but here’s where I finally understood why someone like Kendall could think it’s a story about comeuppance and getting what you deserve: it’s easier to cast Logan as the villain than to admit that your entire life was based on a lie he entertained, and that maybe your dad never loved you at all (and you spent most of your life pretending otherwise).

You can’t romanticize a bitter old man abusing his children any more than you can defeat him.

The power struggle, the money, the competition…Logan was the person who made it life or death for Ken, and is trying his best to do the same for Shiv.

At a certain point, Ken knew what he was willing to do; I wonder if Logan’ll get Shiv there as well.

I’m not going through the same analysis for Shiv’s life in S1 and S2 (that’s a separate post entirely), but I’ve to write about her relationship with Logan.

Something Shiv and Ken both knew good and well was that Roman could not possibly be the successor, so when Ken seemed like he was out of the picture in S2 E1, Shiv accepted Logan’s CEO offer.

After all, she sees Kendall as a “busted flush” and had seen him unfit as the successor back in S1 E2 (although her opinion of him probably solidified some time even before that).

Shiv and Ken also thought that Logan loved them the best he could: that despite everything, he wanted them around, wanted to love them the only way he knew how, that they were special to him in their own way, “pinky” and “number one boy”.

And isn’t it true in some ways, if Logan thought about giving them the title, if Logan asked Shiv’s opinion on Rhea, if Logan still considered Kendall even after his stint in rehab…when Lady Caroline’s the other parent, it’s very hard to distinguish the kind of attention that is love from the kind that isn’t.

Logan’s particular brand of charm doesn’t help this either: when he plays the father role well, his children often forgive him for whatever wrongs he’s committed prior.

They all thought he loved them because they were his children, but as Kendall found out, he loved them because they acquiesced and rolled over for him, because he could hold their mistakes over their heads when they couldn’t do the same to him; he loves them only when he wields power over them.

In other words, Logan loves his children like Uncle Noah loved him and Ewan.

Just because he didn’t abuse them as badly as Noah did to him and Ewan doesn’t mean his love was unconditional; which is to say, it wasn’t real.

Kendall saw this firsthand, and Logan’s words touting him as “a good kid” in S3 E4 was just adding insult to injury.

If he accepted Logan’s deal in S3 E1 or in S3 E2, that’s no doubt all he’ll be, and if he comes this far and fails, then he’s nobody at all.

For Shiv though, she’s had no reason to believe Logan doesn’t love her: she’s been out of his sphere of influence her entire career and Logan’s been the one compromising.

His threats never hurt because he was never in the position to threaten her, and when his tactics didn’t work out, he still had to play nice to her at family events.

It was respect she earned, and she thinks it’s worth more than love to someone like Logan.

Kendall was forced to challenge him while Shiv knows she can challenge him from the start because she’s spent most of her life doing it.

That’s why what happens in S2 and S3 truly did hurt her: if Logan’s trust and attention were so easily earned, how can she guarantee that the offer he made was real? Hell, what makes her so different from Rhea and Kerry?

At the end of the day, does she want to bet her future on her current position as one of his underlings? She’s where Kendall was, and it’s starting to wear her patience thin.

But, despite everything, this is where her intelligence does come through: with no experience in business, she’s handled an executive position well, and Logan treats her like he treated Roman and Kendall, which is to say that he’s playing her as he considers her competence—she’s secured her executive role in the company, but it also might be all that she ever is.

It’s starting to become obvious that Logan needs to die for one of them to succeed him—will we see patricide some time in the future?

[junebuggeryy]

For the trope thing: enemies to lovers and/or cute innocent looking creature is actually a monster/mighty horrific looking monster is actually a sweetie? 👉👈

Enemies to Lovers

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

okay OKAY for this one, my personal answer is a bit complicated because i've found different people have different definitions of enemies to lovers?

seeing the worst sides of someone first and then slowly learning their depths and learning to appreciate a worldview that you had previously misjudged? SUPERB. a rivalry that consumes you and stretches to bind you to someone, as you both push yourself to surpass the other? EXTRORDINARILY GOOD. ongoing tragic villain/hero will-they wont-they, with sexy homoerotic duels full of swordplay and slow eye contact? i mean this in an ace way but HHHHOYAH

i thiiiIIink, however, my main complication in deciding whether this trope is My Shit is dependent on 1. what are the power dynamics at play here, and 2. is the writer self aware about that? because otherwise, there's a couple renditions of this out there that skirt a little too close towards romanticizing/excusing abuse for my personal comfort. and let me be clear, i definitely don't think all antagonistic ships or enemies to lovers counts as abuse! in fact, there's a lot that involve the two characters showing great respect for the other’s boundaries! ive read plenty of analyses from people that insist the trope is not abuse, and who want to put a fine line down on the category! neither do i think that depicting relationships with a past of violence, or with aspects that skirt towards abuse is an inherently bad thing!

there's room for nuance, and i do think enemies to lovers can be a fantastic way to explore that nuance! i just feel the need to put that asterisk down there, mostly because know that a lot of my personal writing is dedicated to exploring power dynamics, in relationships or otherwise, and so when you add a certain level of intensity or vitriol to it- idk, it's just something i try to be aware of. boy ive been on this one for a while. anyway,

Cute innocent looking creature is actually a monster/Mighty horrific looking monster is actually a sweetie

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

bro

bro. i am touching your face. i am cradling it in my hands. i am leaning in so close to you, bro. bro. i exclusively wrote this trope for years. i could wax poetic for hours about the benevolence of monstrosity, about gargoyles on churches protecting their sanctuary, about the safety and privacy of shadows and the beauty of the grotesque. monstrosity as safety, monstrosity as community in rejection, monstrosity as a recognition of injustice from a judgmental society.

true evil never looks like evil. it's friendly, it's something you invite inside, it's something designed to let your guard down. true evil wants you to think it's innocent, it wants to sit at your dinner table and break bread with your mother and make you laugh while it drinks your wine.

if your first instinct is that something is innocent, examine it. if your first instinct is that something is repulsive, examine it. who decided that, anyway? who does it benefit for monsters to exist?

[guiltycorp]

honestly watching succession on-going while also checking up on tumblr posts about it makes me think so many things... about the way we here in one breath claim that ‘oh yeah these people are terrible people’ and in another still find a way to romanticize and halfway excuse the unapologetically horrible actions of pretty unlikable characters and it makes sense, right? sure, the show is all about the rich republican family who manipulate the political landscape shifting it closer to alt-right, but the political and corporate intrigue plays a second fiddle to the interpersonal drama, which is written just... deliciously, honestly and! and i think the reason why so many of us on tumblr are capable of rooting for our despicable little meow meows  is because it’s not about characters we can really relate to there’s a big layer of separation from any one of them, and most of the shitty things they do are incredibly removed from us like, most of us here are simply not that bad? threatening an abuse victim if she dares to speak up, backstabbing your family for money, shredding documents related to systemic company-approved abuse, propping up alt-right politicians, treating your employees like shit etc etc we can all name the ‘bad things this or that character did’ but it’s unlikely that we are culpable of anything similar (likely because this isn’t the website for rich ppl in power lol) at the same time, who among us doesn’t have mommy/daddy issues and relationship drama, sexual and romantic difficulties, dealing with authority etc? every time kendall gets sad because his life isn’t like what he imagined his life should be like we relate and pity him, every time shiv is shut down by men in power we think ‘oh a similar thing happened to me yesterday’, when tom is unhinged and looks for attention in loveless places we feel sad for him because we’ve all been lonely  trying to baby-trap your wife just before you go to prison is kinda creepy, sure, but it’s so sad that she doesn’t even care! i also had a girlfriend once who didn’t care about me much, wow, poor tom!  gerri was the one who advised tom to hide evidence and to silence concerns over sexual harassment suuure but awooga older experienced woman character alert! love her, want to bed her!  so... we don’t get to relate to the negative qualities and actions, but we DO relate to the pitiable and the attractive and so we pity and love them reminds me also of south park and bojack and house of cards and how these shows, too, were of interest to people with all sorts of different opinions  it didn’t matter much that south park was written by so-called centrists and bojack largely by left-leaning writers from diverse backgrounds only by finally giving bojack a wrong-doing that was so cowardly and self-serving as to dissuade even the most staunch defenders the writers were able to finally convince their audience of a thing that was evident from s1 (that this guy sucks and wont really change lol) i wonder if succession will end up doing the same in the end, if it will finally be done with the coy neutrality of presenting different opinions through the mouths of the characters and try for a more black/white approach otherwise it will end up a show with both the people who share the writers’ views on corporations, nepotism and media control AND with republican fans who love and celebrate the 1% and what they represent oh and it would still be a good show and i would probably still like and appreciate it for what it is, let’s be clear! after all the audience aren’t babies and all that, the creator shouldn’t have to spell out what’s good and what’s bad yeah yeah just, there’s a lot of fun morality stuff to think about when you portray bad people

[ouranor]

I saw your latest hanyo no yashahime post because I followed the tag and I have to say as a victim of grooming myself, I would rather be aggressive towards the adult Sessrin shippers,I do think some of them have pedophillic tendency’s, I know you hate that word being thrown around but how else would you describe people enjoying seeing sexualized fanart/actual porn of child Rin and sesshomaru. And a ship is just a ship yes but when large amounts of people try to normalize grooming I draw the line

Dear Nonny

First of all: I’m so sorry that you had to go through such a horrible experience and thank you for sharing this so openly. I’ll do my best to explain my point of view about the current chaos and how to navigate it as best as I can. In order for me not to repeat myself too often, I‘ll assume that people reading this will also have read my previous post that prompted Nonny to message me.

About the ship itself:

As far as the ending of the manga goes, Rin and Sesshoumaru are blank slates, leaving lots of room for interpretation. What is true for both characters is that neither of them have any romance set up, because neither Rin nor Sesshoumaru are anywhere near ready for any kind of romantic relationship (no matter with who) at that point in time. Rin because she’s a child and Sesshoumaru because he’s an emotionally stunted and immature mess of a man (which is why I find the sequel‘s premise incredibly unbelievable. There‘s no way Sesshoumaru was ready to have half-demon children and this is a flat-out character assassination for Sesshoumaru but I DIGRESS). In the manga, not a single trace of romance can be found, and thus not a single trace of grooming. Giving a growing child a new kimono is not grooming, it‘s common sense.

Now, most people that oppose SessRin do immediately jump to pedophilia and grooming for multiple reasons and, while I don’t ship SessRin, reducing the ship to assumptions like these is not an okay thing to do. I firmly stand by this statement and I’ll do my best to explain why.

Now, because this will be important to understand the thoughts I‘m conveying, please remember these key points:

1) Explaining does NOT equal excusing. I will never make excuses for people that romanticize children in romantic relationships. All I‘m doing is do my best to cut through the very emotionally charged and hardened fronts in this ship-war.

2) We NEED to separate the ship from its shippers. SessRin is an extremely difficult ship to write that needs to be treated with much more care and awareness than most other hetero-ships, but because people abuse Rin as their Mary-Sue and don‘t give the characters actual care and love, you end up with terrible fanfiction that depicts SessRin as „a given / destined / Rin‘s the closest vagina in the near vicinity“. And yet: Sesshoumaru grooming Rin is not the ONLY possible continuation of this ship. I‘ll get back to this in a bit.

3) Grooming is a choice, pedophilia is a mental disorder. While the two overlap at times, they are NOT the same. I’ll broach this issue near the end of this post.

Now, to get the worst out of the way, I’ll agree to this: The interpretation coming from the loudest and most aggressive shippers (Celestia on Twitter is an excellent example) is highly problematic and, as mentioned, shows a lack of comprehension regarding subtility and a lack of emotional intelligence. They‘re very black and white and they romanticize the characters as they were left in the manga, saying (among other things) how Rin is Sesshoumaru’s soulmate and understands him like no other, in spite of being a child, and THAT raises all kinds of alarm bells. Because this is exactly the rhetoric used by predators towards impressionable children. People claiming that this isn’t the case are being willfully ignorant and I usually don’t tolerate such people and use the block button generously.

But this is the WORST manifestation of this ship. Notice how I say the worst, not the ONLY.

Unfortunately, this worst interpretation usually comes from the laziest and most aggressive shippers that simply lack the creativity to imagine anything else. I’ve read many a SessRin fanfiction that built this relationship up in a believable way, taking its time and addressing the potential pitfalls, unfortunately this type of dedication or writing talent is not easily found in a fandom as vast and trope-y as Inuyasha. But I‘ve also read a ton of fanfiction where SessRin is a „logical conclusion“ because the author is actually writing an InuKag fic and has no idea what else to do with Sesshoumaru and Rin, hence: Another pairing to make babies with, yaaaay. SessRin happens by proxy, which is a huge NO-NO. This echoes one of my mantras: In order for Sesshoumaru to even get into a romantic relationship (NO MATTER WITH WHO), there is an entire story and development that needs to be told first. The same goes for Rin because again, by the end of the manga, she‘s not much of a character at all. “Why do you even read SessRin if you don’t ship it??” I hear you ask (not you, Nonny, I mean this and the following in a general sense). Because I keep saying that every ship has its merit and I’m interested in the stories that can be told. I keep saying that all ships are legitimate and I don’t want to miss out on any potentially amazing stories, especially because those were seriously hard to come by back in the day (anyone remember the 2000’s? Anyone?). I’ve read fanfiction from literally every Inuyasha ship under the sun. So if I see the tell-tales of a bad SessRin fic, I leave the author and their world behind and move on to something else. I’ll use this short interlude to say this: It has become such a horrible trend in fandom to put the sole responsibility of one’s fanfiction-experience on the author instead of taking responsibility for the content one might consume. There’s an incredible lack of self-sufficiency, a lack of ability to just move away when people read something they don’t want to read without taking personal offense. Now, I’m not saying that you have to be like me, but at least take responsibility for your own experience. ANYWAY, back to the topic at hand.

So again: In order for Rin or Sesshoumaru to get together romantically at any point in the future, a LOT needs to happen first. A lot of development, a lot of questioning, a LOT of build-up, because this relationship needs a heck of a lot more explanation than most other hetero-ships out there, but most fanfic writers and shippers are too lazy to set this up properly, leading to problematic romanticization, sugarcoating and hand-waving away of serious subjects that need to be addressed. Most of these types of SessRin shippers I see are found on Twitter and Tumblr (many are Spanish, too, wth is up with that), as mentioned, and they are are extremely questionable, seeing no issue at all with this ship, and here’s my opinion on why that is: Given from what I’ve seen, these types of shippers equal Rin with themselves. If you read how they justify this ship, it has nothing to do with her being a child, and everything to do with the blank slate that she is (like Bella Swan in Twilight). Rin has endless potential and it’s much easier to project ones own fantasy on a character that has yet to BECOME an actual character you can write a love story WITH. Of course, shippers don‘t realize this, because projection is usually done on an unconscious level. But to someone who’s been observing in this fandom and lurking for years, this seems incredibly obvious. Neither Rin nor Sesshoumaru have any agency, because they’re fictional, and that’s why SessRin is such a ticking bomb, always has been. They can be turned into whatever you want.

Now, that’s of course what fandom is for: Fulfillment of fantasies and works depicting any dynamic from fluffy to dark. But here’s the second main problem: Because SessRin is usually depicted as your typical, trope-riddled “male is alpha, woman is beta at best” romance, it falls right into heteronormative standards. Heterosexual relationships are TEEMING with extremely lazy writing (and normalized abuse, but that’s a subject for another time) and for some reason, I’ve observed how hetero ships have this insane entitlement to “purity”. What I mean by that is that hetero-ships are much more likely to attract fans that need their ship to be canon, otherwise they can’t function. This is EXACTLY what happens with SessRin. If you just had SessRin shippers doing their thing, I don’t think we’d be in this situation. But because of the sequel and its excellent marketing strategy, SessRin shippers are full of hope and, worst of all, grasping at straws and lording their ship’s superiority over everyone else with renewed fervor. If Takahashi/Sunrise weren’t such absolute cunts (pardon the language), we’d not be in this situation. Because SessRin is now a “possibility” in the sequel, people suddenly see the fulfillment of their own personal fantasies within reach. Let me repeat: This is about the fulfillment of their OWN PERSONAL fantasy and has nothing to do with Rin. She just happens to be the female character that’s closest to Sesshoumaru. The fact that she’s a child does not factor in this particular scenario, even though it SHOULD.

So again: The ship is fine on its own, because it’s literally a blank slate that you can go in ANY direction with. It’s the people that desperately grasp for canon and have decided that SessRin is a foregone conclusion WITHOUT any build-up or explanation that are the true problem. They look to the sequel and their own interpretations to justify their lazy and problematic interpretation of the ship. They make the ship into the potential grooming/pedophilia shitstorm that many “antis” are caught up in, but that’s not the ships fault.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the grooming and possible pedophilia.

I’d ask people, after reading all of the above, to remember this: If there is any grooming at all, it has yet to happen, because NOTHING has happened between Sesshoumaru and Rin after the manga. Hell, they didn‘t even speak to each other in the charity chapter. They are still the same blank slates now that they were back then. Whether or not grooming happens is in the hands of any creator that decides to take their dynamic further.

As for pedophilic tendencies: I will not deny that there are traces of that in SessRin shipping (some prominent people also ship Zabuza/Haku from Naruto which is telling), but I swear to you that 99% of SessRin fanfictions I’ve read do NOT depict Sesshoumaru with a child Rin (except for 1-2 dark fics that portrayed the dangers of a relationship with such a power imbalance, which are extremely important works as well imo). Same goes for the art. This again because Rin is not treated as a proper character, but as a vessel for wish fulfillment.

I have said many negative things about the shippers that are triggering the entire fandom at the moment, but people that oppose this ship need to be honest with themselves and acknowledge that them jumping to the conclusion of “SessRin ALWAYS equals grooming and pedophilia” also lack creativity and the ability to differentiate between different paths and outcomes. Accusing others of pedophilia is inappropriate and uncalled for, not matter how upset you are. I too have had to learn and accept that pedophilia is a mental disorder and needs a proper diagnosis and treatment. What happens because of a mental disorder should never be excused, no matter if it’s depression, bi-polar disorder or pedophilia, but what we can hopefully all agree on is that mental disorders are not something you choose.

So the only thing I can say to you, Nonny, is this: If you see something that looks like pedophilia or grooming to you, absolutely do report it. As someone once told me: The block button is a form of self-care. Use it! I have done the same over the last couple of days and it’s cathartic. If something triggers you, avoid it and find someone/somewhere to vent to if necessary. Your feelings are extremely valid, your aggression towards others (if you have shown any, that is) is not. Your experiences were horrific without any shadow of the doubt, but the way this possibly influences how you react to and treat others is absolutely something that is YOUR responsibility.

What I would, again, ask all of the people aggressively opposing SessRin is that you reconsider your stance on pedophilia. Its potential consequences are inexcusable, but accusing other people of being pedophiles because you’re jumping to conclusions is in extremely bad taste and leaves you not only on the same intellectual level as the shipper you’re accusing, but possibly even lower than that because you’re cherry-picking which potential mental disorder you’re discriminating against. It’s a free world, of course, but I’m sure we’re all trying very hard not to be hypocrites.

I wanted to TL;DR this entire post, but there’s honestly no way to do that without skipping over important parts. So thank you if you’ve made it to the end of this massive ramble. I understand that this is a very delicate subject and I am open to any and all people that would like to discuss this further. Special thanks go to Nonny for giving me the opportunity to talk about this more. I hope I answered your question, even if it might not have been what you wished to hear. Have a wonderful day and please take good care of yourself!

[script-a-world]

(sorry this is long) I'm creating a fantasy matriarchal society that's a combination of like America post WW2 and like the amazons/valkyries crossed with magical girls. I could use some help figuring out the gender dynamics, since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them. I'm trying to figure out if it's better to have the men be primary caregivers (1/?)

since there’s no reason to assume that the gender that gives birth has to be the caregivers) or if I should go the “matriarchal society would value childrearing above other jobs” route. Some thoughts I had: Women are the main magic-users in society (magical girl/amazons blessed directly by the god who rules the city with power)and that perhaps all young women are expected to go through military service of some sort before becoming matrons, politicians and doctors. (2/?)

Maybe women are associated with Life and Death and “important duties” that revolve around them, including duties regarding both killing and saving lives. So healing, leading armies, fighting, hunting, childbirth (possibly care?) and politics are feminine jobs, while “lesser duties” that revolve more around menial labor are relegated to men (manual labor, maintenance, ‘uneducated’ jobs, support jobs like scribe and secretary, cooking, cleaning, perhaps some jobs like fashion design or art). (3/?)

Do you think this is a good balance? What are some other ways I could divide gender roles? The world situation is a magical land with about early 20th century level tech (trains and private schools and like phones/radios).Also, what is the best way to objectify men in this society? I was thinking of making it so men are seen as useless/only for the purpose of providing sexual pleasure and siring children to women. (4/?)

They don’t’ actually create children or take the ‘important jobs’ (the poor dears just don’t have the brains for it, they’re too simple and direct, men don’t have the emotional maturity to handle serious issues, they lack empathy, they only want sex anyway so it’s not like you need to worry about their emotional needs, etc). I’d love some suggestions on how a society like this might work or if there are other ways to divide the gender roles, (5/?)

as well as some ways men might experience objectification in society. How would fashion be different, and how would this society put pressure on men to look or act in certain ways (and women as well). Any suggestions? Thanks, and sorry for the long question(6/?)

Mod Miri Note: If you have a question that requires multiple asks, please use the google form! That way there’s no risk of parts of the question being lost.

Tex: “Do you think this is a good balance?” No, I do not. I disagree with the notion that a group of people ought to be objectified, neglected, abused, pigeon-holed, or otherwise mistreated under the guise of inversion as a way to tout a certain prescription of thought. I think this methodology perpetuates stereotypes, and with stereotypes come all the -isms that are used as excuses to treat people poorly just because they’re different from the originating group.

I’m going to be radical and say “none of the above”. There’s a few reasons for my answer, but aside from the brief overview in the previous paragraph, let me go through and try responding to all of your points in a more precise manner.

Let’s start with American culture post WWII - and I’m going to assume that, because of this choice, you’re working from an American perspective. This is important! But I’ll handle that detail in a bit.

Post-WWII culture is heavily influenced by WWII culture. For women, this meant enlistment in the military, as well as filling the gaps in the domestic labor force left by men being shipped off (History.com, The Atlantic). Their service in the military - quite often voluntary - was as critical and crucial as their domestic work (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2, Wikipedia 3). They usually received lower pay than men, true (though interestingly the women in the UK were often treated better; Striking Women), though governments of the time admitted that without women the war effort would have crumpled.

Rosie the Riveter is a popular piece of propaganda (where it was also considered patriotic for women to join the workforce and military service; National Women’s History Museum), but don’t let that dissuade you from thinking that women were not recognized for other types of work during the war. Many women in the US were recognized for their military service (USO), and other women’s histories endure today - Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Wikipedia), Vitka Kempner (Wikipedia), and Virginia Hall (Wikipedia). I’m going to toss in the official synopsis of Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in her own military to round things out (The Royal Family), complete with a picture of her in uniform (Wikipedia).

Many women after the war went back to strictly domestic duties, and I think that parallels their wartime efforts - both situations are of the “all hands on deck” type, but the play of gender roles here means that the duties of a functioning society are divvied up by different functional spheres - and make no mistake, men and women relied on each other equally as much to cover the gaps, despite the sexism inherent in modern Western society. The difference between war and non-war time cultures was that the latter wasn’t necessarily cultivated by patriotism that could unite the different “factions”. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History gives a thorough examination of this topic.

The following era - typified by the birth of the Baby Boomer generation - saw a marked increase in economic prosperity (Wikipedia). With that came increased social mobility for women (Citation 1), usually catalyzed by the actions of their fathers (Citation 2). This may typically be achieved by consistent, conscientious public policy formation (Citation 3). In short, many cultures - if they haven’t already - are realizing that it’s good for business to let women control how they participate in society and the flow of money.

In the US, this was precipitated by the boom of social development (American History; archived version). Aside from the Truman administration negotiating price fixing to prevent inflation, a significant factor was the passing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (AKA the G.I. Bill). This primarily benefited the Greatest Generation, though other pertinent legislation by the 79th Congress benefited the Silent Generation onwards: the Fair Deal, Revenue Act of 1948, Taft-Hartley Act, Employment Act of 1946, National School Lunch Act, and Hobbs Act.

It’s debatable how well this impacted long-term economic development, considering the almost immediate rise of McCarthyism in the US in 1947, which was heavily intertwined with the Truman Doctrine that precipitated the Cold War. The results of the war, at least economically, were… mixed (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2). I have no doubt that this impacted the social mobility of women in all affected countries - which is all of them, but I’m sure hairs could be split on this if you wish.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s tackle the Amazons.

The modern, popular interpretation (that is slow to be shaken by archaeological evidence) is mostly mythological (Wikipedia). While some ideas are thrown in the way of a Minoan Crete ancestry to the myth, there are more similarities drawn to the Scythian and Samartian cultures on the Eurasian Steppe (CNET). It’s possible that instead of the equally-extreme pole end of the gender dichotomy that is patriarchy-matriarchy, the Scythians just scandalized the Athenians with a comparatively more fluid society (Smithsonian Magazine).

As for Valkyries… there’s been a revival of them in pop culture, probably as a net-casting to see what’s out there aside from Amazons. TVTropes covers the many, many ways media utilizes them as a trope, to varying degrees of mythological and cultural accuracy. As they state, valkyries are a form of psychopomp, as they decide who among the battlefield’s dead will go to Valhalla (ruled by Odin) or Fólkvangr (ruled by Freya). Freya seems to have assumed the “type” (as opposed to characteristics salient to a particular individual) of a valkyrie, as the female counterpart the warrior archetype. To wit, Freya herself may be a type (Wikipedia).

Here’s where the issue gets thorny - modern popular understanding of valkyries, and by extension Scandinavian women, is skewed through the modern lens.

@fjorn-the-skald has a lovely series called Viking History: Post-by-Post, or An Informal Crash Course & A Historical Guide to the Vikings, that typically focuses on medieval Iceland. In his post “Lesson 13.c - Women in the Viking Age, Part III: Were Women “Vikings”?”, discusses the particular penchant of modern times to romanticize and/or skew history to their own biases - in this instance, how medieval Icelandic women functioned in their culture, as well as how valkyrie myths play into this.

The TL;DR of that is: “viking” women were a societal anomaly, the battlefield was a male domain (and they were expected to die on it), a woman’s prowess of the domestic sphere was highly respected to a level often equivalent to men, and the domestic sphere was the sphere of commerce. Scandinavian culture prized strong women, just as they prized strong men, and their culture rested upon the concept of different genders having their own distinct, complementary, and equal domains.

Fjörn builds upon this history in an ask about gender roles outside the usual dichotomy of male-female. Valkyries, and shield-maidens, may be classed as a third gender in medieval Scandinavian culture, because women were temporarily occupying the male role in their society. While valkyries are of divine origin, shield-maidens are not, though they seem to have taken on a supernatural bent by performing feminine qualities while living in the male sphere (something that they can literally wear, by the donning of their armor).

That probably comes across as distasteful to, especially, a modern American perspective, but many ancient cultures are like that. There’s a footnote on that ask about links to a contemporary perspective of same-sex relationships, as well, to round out that talking point.

With those historical and mythological details discussed, let’s move on to magical girls.

Interestingly, the genre and trope derive from the American TV show Bewitched (Nippon.com). Its evolution reflected Japan’s changing tone about female sexuality, focusing on girls.  Magical Girl doesn’t seem to be intended to attract the male gaze in a sexual light - and in fact was generated as a form of female empowerment by by way of growing up (TVTropes), but it seems to happen anyways (TVTropes).

Magical girls, as a genre, originated in the 1960s - the archetypical Sailor Moon encompasses not only magical girls, but also the kawaii aesthetic. Kawaii, incidentally, followed after the magical girl trope, and plays upon women performing as girls in society.

As magical girls are intended for young girls, a demographic known as shōjo, it is considered a subgenre of the target audience. Please note that shōnen'ai (Fanlore) and yaoi (Fanlore) are also subgenres of shōjo.

For some context, the adult female target audience is known as josei, the young adult men is known as shōnen, and adult male audience is known as seinen. Many manga and anime are often misattributed to the wrong category, so it helps to know which is which, and why.

Kumiko Saito argues (through an unfortunately paywalled article that I’m more than willing to disseminate to those without JSTOR access) that magical girls reinforce gender stereotypes as well as fetishize young female bodies. She argues this point more eloquently than I can, so I’ll be quoting a few sections below.

Page 148 (7 of 23 on the PDF):

The 1960s “witch” housewife theme waned quickly in the United States, but various cultural symbolisms of magic smoothly translated into the Japanese climate, leading to Japans four-decade-long obsession with the magical girl. Bewitched incorporated the concept of magic as female power to be renounced after marriage, thereby providing “a discursive site in which feminism (as female power) and femininity has been negotiated” (Moseley 2002, 403) in the dawning of Americas feminist era. Japans magical girls represented a similar impasse of fitting into female domesticity, continued to fascinate Japanese society, and came to define the magical girl genre. In direct contrast to the American heroines Samantha and Jeannie, however, whose strife arose from the antagonism between magic (as power) and the traditional gender role as wife or fiancée, the magical girls dilemma usually lies between female adulthood and the juvenile female stage prior to marriage, called shõjo. In other words, the magical girl narratives often revolve around the magical freedom of adolescence prior to the gendered stage of marriage and motherhood, suggesting the difficulty of imagining elements of power and defiance beyond the point of marriage. In fact, these programs were broadcast exactly when the rate of love-based marriage started to surpass that of miai (arranged marriage),4 which implies that the magical girl anime, founded on the strict ideological division between shõjo and wife/mother, may have been an anxious reaction to the emergent phase of romance.

Page 150 (9 of 23 on the PDF):

The combination of magical empowerment and shõjo-ness framed by the doomed nature of transient girlhood naturally created ambivalent, messages in Akko-chan as well. In the societal milieu in which Japan was undergoing the politically turbulent era of Marxist student movements at the largest scale in the postwar era, Akko-chan’s super- human ability to transform into anyone (or anything) is quite revolutionary, implying a sense of women’s liberation. Despite this potential, her metamorphic ability never threatens gender models, as she typically dreams of becoming a princess, a bride, or a female teacher she respects. The use of magic is also largely limited to humanitarian community services in town. Akko-chan’s symbolic task throughout the series focuses on how to steer her power to serve her friends and family, leading to the final episode in which she relinquishes magic to save her father. Akko-chan embraces the cross-generic mismatch between the radical idea of empowering a girl with superhuman ability and the hahamono [mother genre] sentimentalism idealizing women’s self-sacrifice. All in all, the new setting adopted in this series, that a mediocre girl accidentally gains magic, became a useful mechanism for the underlying theme that the heroine is foredoomed to say farewell to magic in the end. This rhetorical device transforms latent power of the amorphous girl into the reappreciation of traditional gender norms by equating magic with shõjo-hood to be given up at a certain stage.

Saito discusses the thematic shifts in the magical girl subgenre in the 1980s to a more sexualized view, and the according rise of both an older audience and otaku fans, the latter of whom, she clarifies, make a habit of recontextualizing canon to categorize characters into stereotypes that are stripped of the majority of their original context.

On pages 153-154 (12-13 of 23 on the PDF):

The conventions of the magical girl genre transformed significantly against this paradigm shift. Both Minky Momo and Creamy Mami originally targeted children, recording a decent outcome in business and eventually leading to the revival of the genre. Because the plots are directly built on the genre clichés, however, the jokes and sarcasm of many episodes appear comprehensible only to adult viewers equipped with the knowledge of the Töei magical girls. The intrigue of these programs largely lies in the way they parody and mock the established genre conventions, especially the restrictive function of magic and the meaning of transformation. The genre is now founded on the expectation that the adult viewer has acquired a diachronic fan perspective to fetishize both the characters and the text’s meanings.

Creamy Mami presents the story of fourth-grader Yū, who gains magical power that enables her to turn into a sixteen-year-old girl. Yū’s magical power is more restrictive than Momo’s, for her superhuman capacity simply means metamorphosis into her adult form, who happens to become an idol singer called Mami. Given that the magic’s ability is self-oriented cosmetic effect and bodily maturation, the heroine’s ultimate goal by means of magic is to grow old enough to attract her male friend Toshio, who neglects Yū’s latent charm but falls in love with the idol Mami. The series concludes when Yū loses her magic, which correlates to Toshio’s realization that Yū is his real love. Mami’s thematic messages teach the idea that magic does not bring much advantage or power after all, or rather, magic serves as an obstacle for the appreciation of the truly magical period called shõjo. The heroine gains magic to prove, although retroactively, the importance of adolescence preceding the possession of “magic” that enables (and forces) female maturation.

It’s noted in the article that the 1990s-2000s period received criticism for showing a physical maturation of girls, so codified euphemisms via garment changes such as additional frills and curled hair were used instead. This “third-wave” magical girl challenged standing norms of its predecessors by doing things such as likening adult responsibilities (“childrearing and job training”) as a sort of game, as well as the transformation implying that the character’s power is in being herself, something that juxtaposes previous norms.

Due to shifting power dynamics and other changes in Japan’s culture, it became more common for boys to become magical girls as well, further separating the magical girl concept from a strict reflection of gender roles. As such, Japanese culture - insofar as my English-based research can guide me - no longer immediately implies a direct and distinct correlation between magical girls and the female gender.

An analysis of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (PMMM) by Tate James (2017; PDF) discusses an additional dimension of the magical girl genre. Two pertinent points of the piece is that 1.) PMMM dismantles archetypes pitting women against girls, and 2.) PMMM reinforces the gender stereotype that the best type of girl is a passive girl.

Now for the issue you’ve raised about who ought to be the primary caregiver of children.

Consistent, immediate, and continuous interaction between a mother and her child benefits both of them (Citation 4, Scientific American 1, Live Science, Citation 5, Scientific American 2, UNICEF, WHO). Mothers have a distinct neurobiological makeup that predisposes them toward caring for infants (Citation 6), and likewise infants have a predisposed preference to their mother’s voice and heartbeat (Citation 7). I would like to think that is sufficient evidence as to why nearly all cultures encourage mothers as the primary caregivers.

This said, cultivation of a father-child dyad is immensely beneficial to the child (Citation 8, Citation 9), and can alleviate the effect of maternal depression on the child (ScienceDaily). Partnered men residing with children have lower levels of testosterone but a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and adiposity (Citation 10). It’s interesting to note that higher prolactin levels in the mother’s breastmilk has a correspondingly higher level of sociosexual activity with their partner in cotton-top tamarins, which stimulates pair bonding (Citation 11), as well as in other species (Citation 12).

Paternal postpartum depression is recently recognized in fathers, to severe and reverberating deleterious effects on themselves and their family (Citation 13). Screening tools for detecting depression in Swedish fathers is not sufficiently developed, and many men may be passed over despite reaching cut-off suggestions in other criteria for depression (Citation 14).

It has been observed that while human mother and fathers have the similar oxytocin pathways, the exhibit different parenting behaviours when exposed to elevated levels of oxytocin - primarily that fathers will react with high stimulatory behaviour and exploratory play (Wikipedia).

Men being socialized in a culture of stoicism and an encouraged reaction pattern to violence have poor mental health that can culminate into death and other long-term effects (Citation 15). Suicide in the US is currently the leading cause of death at time of posting this response, that the total suicide rate increased 31% from 2001-2017, and in 2017 male rates were nearly four times higher than females (NIMH).

On the topic of magical culture: it’s incredibly difficult to research because it’s a component of overall culture, and one that’s not typically available to strangers/foreigners/the uninitiated. As such, a lot of authors default to what they already know. It’s not a bad thing, but if someone wants to reach outside their comfort zone, they’re going to have some trouble.

I’m going to go off the three, four-ish, cultures you’ve already come to us with: American, Scandinavian, Scythian/Samartian, and Japanese just to round things out.

For a very, very rough overview of America, we have:

Native Americans of the contiguous US

Hawai’i

Alaska

Whatever the colonizing peoples brought over (including, but not limited to, English, Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, German, and Italian)

Whatever the myriad cultures of Africa brought over as slaves

Hispanic

NB: I’ve put Hawai’i and Alaska as separate items because they’re not part of the contiguous US.

European settlers were of a few groups:

The merchants working on charters

Indentured servants from the merchants’ homelands

Slavs

Immigrants in post-colonial eras

This is an important distinction because 1.) contemporary culture matters a lot politically, 2.) how people came to the US determined how they and their family were treated, and 3.) the contemporary job culture determined their social class.

(Slavs, as a note, are the origin of the English word “slave”, something that Western Europeans historically liked to propagate.)

I’m not going to go into the details of everything the US has to offer in terms of cultural diversity aside from a nudge in the direction of Santería. What you pick up to research is up to you.

Scandinavian folk magic is known as “trolldom” (Swedish-language Wikipedia), and the region was known for their cunningfolk. Please note that klok/-a, klog/-e, and related words relates to the English word cloak, and these people are so named because wearing one was an integral part of how they interacted with the supernatural.

The InternetArchive has a book (albeit in Swedish) about the history of magic in Sweden, which is available in multiple formats. If you’d prefer to have something in English, you can either buy this book, or inform your library you’d like to them to buy it for you.

I’m a little surprised you hadn’t mentioned either the völva (Swedish Wikipedia, English Wikipedia) or seiðr (Wikipedia), as they’re quite a well-known part of Scandinavian folk culture. Fjörn, as always, is my first stop for this area of research, with the post “Lesson 7 - Viking Spirituality”, the Víkingabók Database, the tag of Old Norse words, and the post “Norðurbók: A List of the Tales and Sagas of Icelanders” as incredibly good starting points. I encourage you to peruse them, especially because the words you learn will help you be more precise during research.

The Scythian culture is quite far reaching, as they had occupied most of the Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age, and much of this area can be found in modern-day countries such as Russia, Iran, and China, among others. Because of how far their peoples spread out, the Scythians intermixed with their neighbors, and as such there are sub-groups to the culture.

The Sarmatians were more Russian, as that’s where a large amount of their territory laid, and were absorbed into early Slavic culture. Both their and the overall Scythian language group is eastern Iranian.

In order to help you orient yourself, here’s a map from Wikipedia:

Description: Historical spread of Iranian peoples/languages: Scythia, Sarmatia, Bactria and the Parthian Empire in about 170 BC (evidently before the Yuezhi invaded Bactria). Modern political boundaries are shown to facilitate orientation.

Japanese magical culture is intrinsically tied to their religion, and as such it would be beneficial to read about Shintoism and Japanese Buddhism. The wiki for Japanese mythology is a thorough primer, though if you get stuck, then I’m sure @scriptmyth would be glad to help you on not only this culture, but others.

As for the jobs you’ve proposed - I’m going to jump right into scribes because the irony of that is it’s historically a male-dominated job, and is the progenitor of jobs such as “public servants, journalists, accountants, bookkeepers, typists, and lawyers”. It is, with even greater irony, European women that are noted in Wikipedia, and that medieval women are increasingly thought to have played an integral part in manuscript writing (New Scientist, Science Advances).

I’m not the best person to ask for medieval culture, unfortunately, so you’ll need someone more knowledgeable than me on the subject to direct you to the finer points.

The wiki for women in war links to a lot of lists, so I would suggest poking around for historical references by era (that will likely lead to by culture) to orient yourself on how women have participated in war in the past. There’s quite a bit of mythology to be found there, as well, so if you pick up some specific goddesses you get stuck on, then pop over to @scriptmyth.

Likewise, the wiki for women in government is an interesting read, as is women in positions of power. Since both are primarily modern-times oriented, I would suggest looking at the list of queens regnant for a more historical perspective. I would have difficulty giving you more than that, as you would need to pinpoint your reference cultures first.

As history often neglects women’s contributions to society if they weren’t a ruler or similarly powerful ruler - and, frankly, that frequently applied to men as well the further back you go - I’m going to toss a couple of starting points at you for the area of medicine:

Women in medicine § Ancient medicine - Wikipedia

Women in medicine - Science Museum: History of Medicine

One thing to keep in mind is that as goalposts changed for medicine - the standardization of knowledge and the need to attend a medical school to be legally allowed to perform medicine - the availability of women to participate went down.

Another is that medicine, historically, relied upon herbal medicine, and Wikipedia itself notes that there’s a heavy overlap with food history - something that’s traditionally a domain of women. This abstract by Marcia Ramos‐e‐Silva MD, PhD, talks about Saint Hildegard von Bingen, and the first page available tells you that medieval women were in charge of quite a lot despite not being allowed to participate in the male-dominated sphere of war. The Herbal Academy dips briefly into not only the saint, but other historical aspects of herbalism that might interest you.

The wiki of women in the Middle Ages, along with that of Hildegard of Bingen, nicely rounds out this particular topic.

I need to bring out the fact that Ancient Egypt was and is well-known for the equality and respect afforded to their women - in the interest of staying on subject, particularly in the field of medicine (Ancient History Encyclopedia). Isis was well-known as a goddess of healing (Wikipedia), an aspect she has in common with goddesses in many other cultures (Wikipedia). As an added side-note, Merit Ptah in her popularly-known context has been concluded to be an inflated misunderstanding - and misconstrued interpretation - of a historical figure with significant fabrication (LiveScience, Oxford).

The presence of women in medicine fluctuated in every culture, an in ancient times often shared some correlation with the use of magic (Citation 16). Healing, historically, has a high correlation with the supernatural - and if you care to look, women are usually responsible for the domain of the supernatural. (Or at least the feminine part, which was complementary and complemented by the masculine part.)

I’m going to hop back to politics real quick to bring up abbesses, particularly the social power they exercised as women heading religious orders. An article by Alixe Bovey for the British Library gives the TL;DR of medieval women and abbeys, though if you’d like something with a bit more detail, Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Edna Power is also available.

Abbeys, with their rise and fall, are important to modern American culture. Midwives, to be even more particular, have the most direct impact. In Western Europe, a midwife may under certain circumstances perform baptisms. This was a debated topic of its time, as baptisms were rituals of the Church, and the Church had strict regulations allowing only men to perform their rituals.

During the 1500s - and up to the 1800s, in some cases - midwives were defamed to be witches. You’ll notice that this corresponds to a standardization of medical knowledge, with its corresponding legal restrictions on who may practice medicine. For the Church, the politics playing behind the scenes of midwifery and female physicians fluctuated with their observations about women’s power relative to their own (Citation 16).

Malta is an excellent case study of this phenomenon (Citation 17), and encapsulates the movement of witchcraft accusations that took place throughout this period - something historians noted as corresponding to the rise of Protestantism (ThoughtCo). There’s some debate that the increasing orientation to wages in contemporary economy facilitated this adverse behaviour against women, as well as various other social pressures as politically mitigated by the Catholic Church (Wikipedia).

As the practice of medicine was segregated according to sex - male patients to male physicians, female patients to female physicians - there were proportionally fewer men in trades such as midwifery than women despite the medieval shift toward male encroachment of territory (Wikipedia). This corresponding money- and thus male-oriented intrusion into the female sphere of medicine can be seen with the invention of the obstetric forceps (JSTOR). The rising culture of appropriation constituted the witchcraft trials that, incidentally, influenced American culture during their colonization years.

A pertinent name to remember for American history of the witchcraft trials is Margaret Jones, a Puritan midwife and the first person to be accused of witchcraft in the trails taking place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Wikipedia).

The Salem Witch Trials, as an offhand note, could well be an anomaly due to ergotism (Citation 18).

One thing I’m willing to bend on - a little bit - is manual labor, but mostly because you’re describing something very similar to what’s already been invented: corvée labor. There’s plenty of other forms depending on what culture you’re going for, though unlike what you’re proposing, does not necessarily imply the direct and permanent subjugation of people.

I will absolutely quibble with the idea of “uneducated” labor equating to “less valuable” labor - universities offer non-vocational degrees, typically in the areas of research and/or religion, and guilds were created as a means of quality control (that unfortunately got out of hand and committed crimes such as rent-seeking). Women in guilds were a thing, vulnerable to the same fluctuations as their other occupations outside the house.

If we are defining “uneducated” labour as “menial” labour, then this set of occupations inherently varies by culture, as does its relative weight of importance. One example of this would be writing; it may be menial but important, whereas holding negotiations could be a “major” role but wouldn’t exist without the support of workers “less than” them.

Correspondingly, gender divisions may not necessarily mean an assignation of “lesser” or “greater” when compared against each other. In medieval Europe, at least, the creation of textiles was split along the general lines of spinning and weaving. Women held the former (hence “spinster”), and men held the latter. Spinning was often not formalized into guilds then, but it was an important cornerstone of the economy that could support entire families. A guest post on The Freelance History Writer’s blog seems to indicate that this gender division was due to influence by the Bible, which seems to corroborate with the history of both professions as detailed on Wikipedia - the further back we go, and also the less connected to Christianity, the more textile work women presided over. This granted them greater control over their presence in society, since the selling of textiles was useful leverage to support themselves and others.

A similar discrepancy can be found with agriculture. Hamer women in Ethiopia are traditionally the one to cultivate sorghum, a cornerstone crop to their diet, and they exhibit preferences in which varieties they grow according to criteria such as which is easiest to grind and long-term storage feasibility (Citation 19). Accordingly, there’s been an increasing orientation around the growing of crops rather than the pastoralist habits of their men, with trading standards occuring at one goat for one Dore (“pile of maize or sorghum”) (Citation 19).

A study examining the male sphere of hunting within a society discusses the various cultural implications of defendable vs non-defendable meat sharing, with respect to how the meat is distributed and its corresponding social range (e.g. immediate social circle vs entire community), something I find interesting given that the kilocalories obtained from meat is roughly equal to that of the female sphere-acquired agriculture/gathering (Citation 20). The division of labour along gender lines when it comes to food flow in a community seems, historically, to be both comparable and compatible to each other - a recurring theme with many of the topics I’ve already covered.

Gender roles in their historical perspective - especially the further back you go - are often complimentary to each other, and are an economical way to divide up the burden of maintaining a society to a functional level. There are plenty of exceptions to this (see: third genders), as well, and many cultures exhibit the idea that a productive person is good for society; their roles may look a little different from the person next to them, and not only is the work considered equal in terms of importance, but also with a bit of poking around, you’ll find that few cultures have harsh punishments for anyone “stepping outside” their predicted roles.

Men are already objectified plenty. That their treatment by society looks different than women’s, or other genders, is by no means an excuse to sweep things under the room and pretend that they have it best - or worse, purposefully ostracize them in a fictional work to further mock, ridicule, and isolate them. This contributes to the societal issues in your culture that you wish to address, and stems from a uniquely pervasive perspective from modern American culture that differs from many other cultures in the world.

TL;DR - The way you wish to objectify men is already being done, especially in American culture. It is harmful, and will have an impact that will reach further than you might anticipate. This approach is counterproductive to your goals, and the cultures/media you cite either directly contradict your beliefs of said sources or otherwise undermine your beliefs. It is vastly more productive to take a deeper look at the origins of the issues you wish to address in your writing, as well as the reference material that you wish to use. Learning perspectives outside your native culture will benefit you immensely, and the results could surprise you.

Citations

Citation 1 -  PDF - Doepke, M., Tertilt, M., Voena, A.. (2012). “The Economics and Politics of Women’s Rights,” Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-372, 07.

Citation 2 - PDF - Fernández, R.. (2014). “Women’s rights and development,” Journal of Economic Growth, vol 19(1), pages 37-80.

Citation 3 - PDF -  Duflo, E. (2012). “Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4: 1051-79.

Citation 4 - PDF - Crenshaw J. T. (2014). “Healthy Birth Practice #6: Keep Mother and Baby Together- It’s Best for Mother, Baby, and Breastfeeding.” The Journal of perinatal education, 23(4), 211–217. doi:10.1891/1058-1243.23.4.211

Citation 5 - Faisal-Cury, A., Bertazzi Levy, R., Kontos, A., Tabb, K., & Matijasevich, A. (2019). “Postpartum bonding at the beginning of the second year of child’s life: the role of postpartum depression and early bonding impairment.” Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 1-7.

Citation 6 - PDF - Bornstein, M. H., Putnick, D. L., Rigo, P., Esposito, G., Swain, J. E., Suwalsky, J. T., … & De Pisapia, N. (2017). “Neurobiology of culturally common maternal responses to infant cry.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(45), E9465-E9473.

Citation 7 - PDF - Webb, A. R., Heller, H. T., Benson, C. B., & Lahav, A. (2015). “Mother’s voice and heartbeat sounds elicit auditory plasticity in the human brain before full gestation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(10), 3152-3157.

Citation 8 - PDF - Pan, Y., Zhang, D., Liu, Y., Ran, G., & Teng, Z. (2016). “Different effects of paternal and maternal attachment on psychological health among Chinese secondary school students.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, 25(10), 2998-3008.

Citation 9 - PDF - Brown, G. L., Mangelsdorf, S. C., & Neff, C. (2012). “Father involvement, paternal sensitivity, and father-child attachment security in the first 3 years.” Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 26(3), 421–430. doi:10.1037/a0027836

Citation 10 - PDF - Lee T Gettler, Mallika S Sarma, Rieti G Gengo, Rahul C Oka, James J McKenna, Adiposity, CVD risk factors and testosterone: Variation by partnering status and residence with children in US men, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Volume 2017, Issue 1, January 2017, Pages 67–80, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eox005

Citation 11 - PDF - Snowdon, C. T., & Ziegler, T. E. (2015). “Variation in prolactin is related to variation in sexual behavior and contact affiliation.” PloS one, 10(3), e0120650.

Citation 12 - Hashemian, F., Shafigh, F., & Roohi, E. (2016). “Regulatory role of prolactin in paternal behavior in male parents: A narrative review.” Journal of postgraduate medicine, 62(3), 182–187. doi:10.4103/0022-3859.186389

Citation 13 - PDF - Eddy, B., Poll, V., Whiting, J., & Clevesy, M. (2019). “Forgotten Fathers: Postpartum Depression in Men.” Journal of Family Issues, 40(8), 1001-1017.

Citation 14 - PDF - Psouni, E., Agebjörn, J., & Linder, H. (2017). “Symptoms of depression in Swedish fathers in the postnatal period and development of a screening tool.” Scandinavian journal of psychology, 58(6), 485-496.

Citation 15 - Pappas, S. (2018, January). “APA issues first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys.” Monitor on Psychology, 50(1).

Citation 16 - PDF - Kontoyannis, M., & Katsetos, C. (2011). “Midwives in early modern Europe (1400-1800).” Health Science Journal, 5(1), 31.

Citation 17 - PDF - Savona-Ventura, C. (1995). “The influence of the Roman Catholic Church on midwifery practice in Malta.” Medical history, 39(1), 18-34.

Citation 18 - PDF - Woolf, Alan. (2000). “Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials. Journal of toxicology.” Clinical toxicology. 38. 457-60. 10.1081/CLT-100100958.

Citation 19 - PDF - Samuel, T. (2013). “From cattle herding to sedentary agriculture: the role of hamer women in the transition.” African Study Monographs, Suppl. 46: 121–133. [Alternate PDF link]

Citation 20 - PDF - Gurven, Michael & Hill, Kim. (2009). “Why Do Men Hunt?.” Current Anthropology. 50. 51-74. 10.1086/595620.

Further Reading

Harry S Truman § Domestic Affairs - Wikipedia

Marshall Plan - Wikipedia

Interstate Highway System - Wikipedia

Medieval Icelandic Law (The Grágás) – Women’s Rights: On Reclaiming Property during Separation. By @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s Library

“Notes on Valkyries and the like?” by @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s chronological tag on women

Epigenetic correlates of neonatal contact in humans - Development and Psychopathology

Feral: So, obviously, everything Tex just said- round of effing applause!

I do want to hone in on one specific part of your ask, “since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them” and direct you to this blog post on Mythcreants specifically addressing the Persecution Flip Story and why it’s not a great idea from a social justice perspective.

Happy reading!

[battlestar-royco]

as someone whos survived abuse its usually pretty obvious that people who claim they use fiction to "explore" (wtf does that even mean) things like abuse and rape don't really care about the topic at all and have never really experienced that sort of trauma in their lives, instead using it as an excuse to romanticize it. to them it's a game, some sort of oddity they can tour without putting thought into, rather than giving the topic the respect it deserves.

I think there are some examples of good portrayals of abuse but most writers for whatever reason simply do not understand what abuse even is nor do they understand the weight of it and how it should be handled. They romanticize, sexualize, and glorify it; they make torture porn of it; they use it to prop up mediocre characters as saviors; they use it add an edge to a relationship etc. Honestly, so many writers would do better to take even just a seminar, but ideally a class, on abuse: what it even is (because some people do not know), how to identify it, and then how to portray it without making it some sort of sexy or edgy element to a story. Otherwise you get really damaging pieces like the love triangle in Twig Lite and Re////yl//o. To this day I meet women/girls who tell me “I used to look up to [xyz toxic male love interest/toxic ship] and that’s the kind of behavior I wanted from my boyfriends.” I remember when I used to think that certain ships were totally okay and super attractive, even though now I look back on them and find them fucking creepy and disturbing. We deserve better than that.

[vexus-u]

Some things about the world that I think it is important to remember in fandom right now:

People who create art are not responsible if bad people are somehow influenced to replicate immoral acts they portray. For the same reason that arguing against video games depicting violence in case it causes violence is bunk, so is arguing against fiction writers portraying problematic relationships bunk. People have their own responsibility to be good people, and it’s their responsibility to know the difference between write and wrong, not random people whose media they consume.

Fiction can, of course, be critiqued on its tendency to romanticize problematic elements. However, this is not a critique that is applicable across the board. Romanticisation implies a context that does not contain pointers to a potential portrayal of problematic dynamics, and presents them to a general audience in a context where it would be expected that you might encounter content that would be considered to be problematic in the real world. Tagged fanfiction published in niche online communities, where one has to actively search for a particular type of content to find it, is not such a context. The framing of most fanfiction is upfront about the content that it contains and implicitly assumes that readers should understand what that means and have sensible moral opinions about it. Ensuring this beyond correctly including tags and warnings is not the responsibility of creators.

Fictional characters are not real. This means more than “they do not exist as beings on the physical plane”, it means that fictional characters are groups of concepts and traits that are not inextricably tied to one another. No “version” of a fictional character is in any way more real or valid than any other, including the interpretation of the original author. They’re all fake. With respect to shipping discourse, it is in no way more problematic to re-imagine a young character as older, and subsequently ship them with an older character, as it would be if the author wrote about them getting older and subsequently forming a relationship. Neither interpretation is real. Neither versions have any baggage necessarily attached to them. These are just thoughts and ideas, and you shouldn’t let your attachment to a particular narrative line make you treat them as otherwise.

It’s okay not to like things. It’s okay to hate them, and be disgusted by them. It’s okay to not look at them and wish that never existed. That’s fine. That does not mean that a thing is intrinsically bad for existing. That does not mean that the creator deserves to be harassed. Such attitudes are reactionary and reductive, not to mention harmful and, at worst, abusive.

You cannot read minds. Do not presume that you know why a person might be attached or interested in a piece of fiction, or a fictional element. You do not know, and you are not entitled to that information.

Violent retribution is not okay even when it is directed against people you don’t like. All people are people, even when you hate them. You can’t opt out of your objections to retributive violence and coordinated abuses when you personally dislike the people that it is aimed at. These are universal principles.

Think about why the people you feel comfortable with attacking for creating media you dislike are often overwhelmingly women, queer people, and other minority groups. Is there perhaps an institutional reason why you feel more comfortable directing abusive attacks at these people? Perhaps it feels like they are less likely to have recourse? Perhaps people who face abuses from society are more likely to find value and catharsis in works that you find unpleasant. Food for thought.

You know what this is about. Please calm down. Stop, and think about how nuance is good and black and white morality is bad. Think about how analysis of whether a work has a positive or negative influence goes deeper than “is this thing that it depicts bad”. Think about why conservative hand-wringing over things like depictions of violence in media has always been deeply short-sighted and aggressive, and why that sort of moral grandstanding has always done little except to make vulnerable people more acceptable targets. Think about why forming your community identity around hating outside groups of people who commit thought crimes, who find value in the wrong things, is always going to hurt people more than it helps them. Think about the comparative upside of empathy, nuance, and not holding people responsible for the actions of others, or for imagined crimes that have not been committed. Think about how you don’t have any true insight or entitlement to how people create and consume media and how, even if you did, none of this would be an excuse to abuse people.

If you want an excuse to abuse a person because having an acceptable target feels good, perhaps it’s time to take a step back and think about what the real problem in the situation is. It’s easy to create a black list of people that are okay to hate based on their thoughtcrimes. It’s hard to have empathy and evaluate situations on a case by case basis, and assume that most people are good people. But it’s also much, much braver.

[blindrapture]

jsyk, @/just-antithings is an 'anti-anti' and supports romanticization of pedo culture and r-pe

I wanted to make sure, so I checked the blog. Someone answering asks about fanfic culture and shipping, who is against the harrassment of child sex abuse victims for participating in shipping culture. (There’s a good deal of fanfic out there about child sex abuse written by child sex abuse victims. I hope I don’t have to explain why this is necessary.)

Yeah, uh. I hate antis, too, buddy. Now I’m gonna go on a rant, and you can dismiss me, go put me on some list, and be very annoyed and flustered.

Why am I not surprised? “Pedophile” applied as an excuse to dismiss fanfic made by queer people, and it sounds convincing because it’s for a good cause. Romanticization is an actual tool in art, you know, it actually does things beyond providing fodder for accusations. The “This is not a pipe” painting romanticizes pipes, as it’s pointing out that there are things a real pipe can do that the painting cannot (until you realize that it’s actually romanticizing paintings more). A “No smoking” sign romanticizes cigarettes (presents cigarettes as being something serious enough, passing one in the street, to warrant a sign, as opposed to other airborne public health hazards), and this is related to why smokers are biologically primed to want a smoke upon seeing those signs. Both of these examples are vastly different from the other, and yet they both give the net effect of something getting romanticized in the abstraction process.

If you don’t want romanticization, don’t single the thing out and only talk about it, even in an accusation. The net effect of how the internet works as an extension of our abilities is you’re painting a sign with every nonfictional post you make (and a painting with every fictional), so you’re doing yourself a disservice by dropping this accusation so completely out of context, not even giving me your context, your blog name or your colour scheme. I’m doing us all a favour and airing out the room, posting this publicly, letting the contents settle into a symbolic context where they can be handled better.

First there were the fanfic authors. Usually queer and trans folk, often of colour, often exploring kinks that society would otherwise give them shit for, and even often victims of the things they write about. And, no, the “kink” wasn’t usually pedophilia. Maybe it was in your circles? But generally, fanfic authors don’t want anything to do with pedophiles. Hence why they don’t talk about them or accuse others of being them. You don’t speak of the devil unless he’s already in your life, because speak of the devil and he will appear.

Then came the bigots. They hate stumbling upon a story about their favourite fictional characters actually being gay, or trans, or black, or lovers, or being victims of terrible things. Even when the original property is a kid’s show and nobody’s making them read any fanfic, they still object, they hate that it’s even possible to stumble unto stories they dislike. And to make matters worse, they found out that the internet community supported these fanfic authors! I mean holy shit, what an outrage! How do you combat that? How do you shut down voices for good, how do you end an argument and not allow any chance of losing?

You call people a “pedophile.” No need for evidence. No need for any basis in fact. Anyone who dares to challenge your accusation now looks like he’s defending a pedophile. Now the word “anti” has been redefined to mean “opposed to pedophilia,” when actually it was meant as similar to “terf.” (After all, a terf, too, can claim they are opposed to pedophilia-- they just need to point at a trans woman who’s just turned 18 and still loves a 17-year-old. Those little details don’t matter! The conversation has already been shaped. Anyone defending that trans woman now looks like they defend pedophiles. The terf wins the argument!)

So, uh. Look. That’s where I come from. I don’t know where you come from, I don’t know anything about you, you’re just an anonymous series of words on a screen. As a result of your anonymity, your words are effectively public domain, I can play with them and interpret them literally however I please, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I can make it sound like you’re defending pedophiles, and it’d be in your best interest to not clarify your identity, because you don’t want that image connected with who you actually are, do you? That’d be horrible of me to do. That’d be verging on harassment.

I know you’re not defending pedophiles. Well, no, I don’t know that, I literally cannot know that, but I trust that you’re not defending pedophiles, how about that? I trust that you honestly believe whatever it is this person has done wrong was something that happened as you understood it, and I definitely trust that whatever it was was a bad thing, that our moral systems are similar! However, you have given nothing, no evidence, no links, no screenshots, no examples. You have only given an excuse and a blog you dislike.

Please, if you actually give a shit about stopping pedophilia, send me another ask and actually explain yourself? It’s not enough to just give an excuse. You’ve got to actually give a shit too.

Just so you know.