#so many girls get hated on for the same flaws the men have

[juicygf]

let's be so fr, y'all would probably hate nico if he was a girl instead

[feministfang]

Beauty culture is extremely normalised to the point women who refuse to conform to beauty standards because they love their natural selves get labelled "pick mes" by none other than self-proclaimed feminists themselves. Patriarchal society has conditioned women to be insecure about each and every feature of their faces or bodies it has deemed as a flaw due to which the idea of a natural looking woman is someone hideous and unattractive for many young women.

These insecure women have build up this one image of a natural female appearance in their minds which they describe as unattractive, and as a consequence, women who naturally do not fit into that unattractive-labelled box get hated on. I am sure we all have encountered at least one gossipmonger in our lives who would assume every woman who does not fit into that box has done something with her face or body because ‘ain’t no way a woman can be naturally beautiful’.

*Woman with rosy cheeks exists* — ‘Oh she must have applied makeup’

*Woman with no dark circles exists* — ‘hey what concealer do you use?’

*Woman with a smooth skin exists* — ‘drop the skincare routine!’

*Woman with big lips exists* — ‘definitely lip filler’

*Woman in her thirties exists* — ‘Botox! Botox! Definitely cosmetic surgery! She doesn’t look like a grandma!’

*Woman loving her natural self exists* — ‘How dare you think you’re not like other girls! Pick me!’

Women get bodyshamed if we do fit into the "ugly-looking" criteria. Women get hated on if we do not. Women are supposed to be hideously flawed if they defy beauty culture. Women with even one less flaw must admit they obey beauty culture. No matter how many times you ditch the beauty standards, you will never escape this nonsense.

I have a message for these insecure clowns:

There is nothing imperfect about you. What’s considered perfect and what’s considered imperfect on a woman is all a patriarchal set up to push us into being weak and desirable for men. Women’s insecurities have risen up along with the rise of feminism to ensure that independent women rejecting traditional gender roles are still submissive and pleasing men. Don’t waste your hard-earned money on expensive cosmetic procedures to look pretty because you are already naturally beautiful. And it doesn’t matter if your natural self is socially desirable or not, women don’t owe beauty to anybody. Please think critically of why you feel insecure about something and why do you even call it a flaw.

But on a strict note, in case you still got time to take out your brain back from the patriarchy’s washing machine, at least refrain from pulling us all down to the level of extreme self-hate where you stand. All women are perfect already. There’s no serious requirement of hiding anything or changing ourselves. But i understand if you cannot relate for now! What you see in others is a direct reflection of yours. But just because you think you are hideous does not mean every woman thinks the same way. Self-love is our only beauty routine so let us love ourselves. 🩷

[genderqueerdykes]

i think people who doesnt like men and despise them are just traumatized. i mean its the experience of being mistreated for years that it makes them unable to trust men again. their reactions is maybe too harsh but i can see it being "i just doesnt want to be hurt anymore"

i agree with this take and i don't care if that bugs people

it is okay for a person to say that they have experienced trauma due to the current patriarchy we live under. it's okay to say that. however it's not okay to project one's trauma with those specific things on to every man they encounter. we must not project our trauma on to people who are not hurting us. it does not help us heal. it keeps us trapped in the cycle of negative thought loops, paranoia, fear and disgust

i agree with you completely, people who take this trauma to the extreme without reflecting on their experiences and admitting that the trauma was at the hands of that one person, those people, or that organization just lose they ability to trust an entire gender and decide that pathologically avoiding and hating men is the way to move on and cope. it's not, it never is. to avoid one's trigger for the rest of one's life is to not going to help someone get over it. it has to be addressed at one point or another

there are many men out there who are horrible but there are horrible people of any gender. our current patriarchal society is flawed because we designed a structure built around worshipping men and placing them in positions of power over everyone, especially women, but only if they fit into a narrow box of what a man 'should' look, act and sound like. we torture men, women and everyone else in this society.

men are forced to be the 'perfect' man in order to be validated and accepted as 'real' men. men cannot have long hair or else they 'look like a girl' or are 'too faggy'. men have to be physically fit or else people are ashamed of them or tell them they are unattractive. men are forced to be the 'man of the house', boys are forced into this at young ages. men are only allowed to dress in certain ways depending on one's culture. in the US men have to wear very plain clothes with muted colors. gestures and mannerisms are also scrutinized as well as career choices. only 'masculine' career choices are approved of

we place insecure men into positions of power and tell them to control everyone and make sure that women don't get those same rights and abilities and that's a huge issue but not every man is doing this. our issue with men is systemic due to the patriarchy we live under- men are not genetically or inherently violent, evil or shitty. we are grooming men and certain men catch on to the programming and take it very seriously and many wish to live outside of it in order to be themselves

the way we treat women in this patriarchal society is abysmal. it is shameful to behold- yes women are treated in an absolutely subhuman fashion in most regards of life when it comes to what we experience. it's maddening. but we have to understand that if we stop programming men to behave this way, this will not continue to happen anywhere near as badly as it's happening right now

the average man you meet on the street is likely not a danger to you at all whatsoever. most people aren't. most men don't really want to be a macho stereotype. most men just want to go about their own personal interests. it's okay for them to do so its their right. opening up one's self to average men who are honest and in touch with their interests is pretty eye opening- men also come in all kinds just like anyone else. men can be gentle and caring just as much as they can be difficult to be around. men are people

i agree with you. people project their trauma of what theyve gone through on to people who have not hurt them and it's not a good way to approach community and how one interacts with the world. it's fine to call out men when they do something shitty, when they're misogynistic, when they're being violent, but we also have to let men be gentle, quiet, caring, creative, passionate, loving and so on. because men are capable of those things. it's that simple

hope you have a great day, thanks for stopping by to chat

[sugarcubetikki]

Okay. I am annoyed by the everything so I’m gonna go ahead and debunk all the arguments against the Francesca X Michaela storyline.

In case you weren’t aware of all the complaints going around, here they are:

they’ve completely changed the storyline from the books! francesca’s infertility storyline was sooo important and now it won’t happen!

eloise would’ve made more sense as the queer bridgerton, her and cressida or some other female character would’ve been great over francesca.

by immediately making francesca attracted to michaela they downplayed john and her’s relationship that was built up this season, they cheapened the book storyline into a cliche love triangle!

michael was the best book hero ever! I can’t believe they’ve changed him to michaela.

I am taking all these criticisms/complaints at face value and ignoring any lesbophobia undertones (for now) just to prove how flawed they still are on their own.

Firstly, saying that Francesca’s infertility storyline has been ruined is far from the truth. Instead it can be done in a different way. Think about Francesca in a queer relationship and wanting kids in the kind of society she lives in. It basically mirrors the infertility storyline from the books except her struggles would become representative of the struggles that queer people who want kids face. If they went for this storyline in her season, I think it would be really really nice, we’ve seen a straight infertility storyline play out so many times, this would be great.

Secondly, I am so tired of hearing that it should’ve been Eloise over Francesca. I don’t think Eloise would’ve made more or less sense as a queer women. I think any and every character has the potential to be written as queer or straight. Being an outspoken women with little interest on marriage shouldn’t make Eloise more queer. I also really liked the idea of a potential Eloise X Cressida romance but that does not mean Francesca cannot be queer. In fact, I’m excited to see this introverted autistic queer girl rep! Francesca, go prove we exist.

Thirdly, Francesca’s season hasn’t even happened yet! Getting mad over one scene of Michaela, saying that John and Francesca’s relationship has been downplayed and that we’re in for a cheapened love triangle story is so unreasonable. It was a single scene and people are choosing to get mad over something that hasn’t even happened yet? Besides, if this storyline plays out, it wouldn’t mean that Francesca shouldn’t have been made queer but simply that the writers didn’t write the storyline to your liking. The fact that there’s this much outrage over this is so ridiculous to me. Wait till her season. We have no idea how they’re going to play out the storyline just yet so stop hating already (there may be some lesbophobia implications to this claim which I have spoken about below).

Fourthly, I know it’s not a nice feeling to not get the chance to see a beloved book character onscreen due to this gender swap. It may feel unfair but I mean but…give Michaela a chance? We haven’t seen her personality yet and we don’t know how Masali will bring her character to life. If your qualms are that the love interest is no longer a guy you can fetishise and fawn over, then well…log out of the internet, rant to a friend and stick to the books. Let the sapphics have their wlw romance that we rarely get these days because we keep getting cancelled since streaming services hate gay women. And no that is not an exaggeration but our plain reality. So let us have this.

Finally, to end things off, let us address the lesbophobia aspect to this separately because it is 100% worth mentioning.

The treatment towards queer women onscreen is hardly the same as the hype around queer men.

We can see it in the way streaming services and the internet hype up gay romances whilst sapphic romances are largely ignored and cast to the side (just to make it clear I have nothing against people enjoying mlm romance I enjoy mlm romance all I’m saying that it’s a real shame that wlw romance doesn’t get the same amount of appreciation).

The response to Francesca X Michaela has been largely negative and it’s frustrating. Outside of the cosy gay rabbit hole that tumblr is, there’s just outrage over this storyline/pairing for a number of different reasons that well…all feel ridiculous.

Bridgerton has gone off the books many times yet there’s more outrage than before when it comes to Francesca X Michaela?

Fans are getting a lot more defensive of John and Francesca’s relationship despite knowing he was never going to be endgame all because of Michaela? I’m sorry but I’m sure that if Michaela was Michael and we got the exact same scene with Francesca, do you think there would be as much outrage over John and Francesca’s relationship being downplayed? No. Let’s be honest. People wouldn’t be as mad because there’d be an attractive man involved.

I think the sapphics deserve so much more and better treatment from fellow non-sapphics. Instead of a show of appreciation, we keep getting unreasonable amounts of fire onto this storyline that hasn’t even happened.

What’s worse is that I know that Francesca X Michaela’s romance could follow the story beats of previous seasons that were eaten up by fans and still be bad to people because sapphic romances are just judged more harshly as straight audiences refuse to connect with them. If their romance isn’t phenomenal and just good, then it won’t be enough which is just frustrating.

So yeah, the hate towards Francesca and Michaela is unwarranted and unjust. People need to calm down and realise that their claims are contributing to lesbophobia whether they realise it or not.

[pacific-rimbaud]

i was reading your thoughts on how fans felt about l&oha and while i concur it is a perfect piece of work in my head and have reread it 5x, i wonder if you think fans tend to be harsher/more critical of hermione and let draco slide? i see it a lot in fics where he's more of an alphahole type

Oh, man. Okay. The can is open, the worms are loose. Rant under the cut.

I'm actually going to set men aside entirely. Just. To the side with you. I desperately need more realistically complicated men, too, but that's a whole separate discussion. Right now: women.

There must be whole dissertations out there on the phenomenon of readers hating female characters with negative traits. I'm a fandom old, so I didn't grow up identifying with Hermione, and wouldn't have even if I'd been young enough to. I did that "which character are you" test just now and my top three matches were Janis Ian from Mean Girls, Jughead from Riverdale and April from Parks and Rec, which, massive grain of salt, etc. BUT gives you an idea. I am not a Hermione and never was, so she's never been a comfort character or self-insert for me. Some of my favorite fictional women are Sophie Hatter (mean, irrational, petty, old and mostly loving it), Harrowhark Nonagesimus (evil stick), Phryne Fisher (zero fucks to give). What I like about Hermione is how imperfect she is. I'm a "cleverest witch of your age I've ever met" truther (book!Lupin is absolutely saying "you're the canniest 14 year-old child I have personally met, saying this as a guy who doesn't get out much," not "you are a once-in-a-century genius"), and from my perspective, she's often wrong and often a dick, and not in a fun and fiesty burn-down-the-world BAMF way. Which. Good for her! Be human.

And that's the thing. I personally don't want Hermione to be perfect, I want her to be what I think she is, textually, which is intelligent, hardworking, loyal, competitive, compassionate, controlling, belittling, rude, petty, insecure, vindictive, volatile. She has the right to be that way, because she's human. The desire for perfected women (or unapologetically and unstoppably awful ones, another brand of female power fantasy) is not limited to Dramione fandom. I think it's amplified in DHr by many readers who DO identify as former gifted children, books-as-coping-mechanism kids and Strong Female Personalities who felt marginalized in childhood and want to see Hermione have it all: she's slim, she's tiny, she's fragile as a bird, she'll break your neck, she'll step on your throat, she'll tear down the system, she'll heal all wounds, she does not need help, she holds all the knowledge, she holds all the cards, she is forever wronged, she can do no wrong, her vagina is tight, her nipples are hard, her hair is on point, her waist is tiny, her tits are bouncing, her ass is in the style of Now. And like. This isn't at all unique to DHr and Hermione. It's pervasive in fiction written by and for women. Female power fantasies are obviously feeding a massive hunger. It's just not what I personally want. Personally, I find it alienating and uncomfortable, which I know equates to, "That is wrong and shouldn't exist" to a lot of people, but that's its own tale as old as time.

There's a disconnect that happens too often where a reader wants one (1) thing from their fiction, and receives something else, even when the contents are clearly labeled on the tin. In this case, wanting a female power fantasy and encountering a woman who's written with flaws makes people upset. And maybe if we could be more honest with ourselves about what we're looking for when we read, work to accept that not everyone wants the same experience, and learn to close a book when it's not working for us and say, "No shade, this isn't for me," it would be less upsetting when we encounter a character who isn't written to meet our personal expectations. I will open a book, realize the FMC is a female power fantasy archetype and close it, because that's not what I show up for. I like my women gritty and weird and foolish and vulnerable and liable to hurt people and feel terrible about it. Give me all the exhausting chatterers and evil sticks and jocks with swords and their hearts on their sleeves (their hearts ripped out), give me shy Anne Elliot and her suitcase full of regrets and the ugly fuckup who never has a glow up, give me dirtbag stoners and Fleabag and Alicent Hightower apologetics and every role Natasha Lyon has ever played. It's not a moral high ground, it's about a preference for seeing actual, demeritus flaws on the page and on the screen. Blame that woman. It's her fault. She has so many faults. Then show me how to forgive her so I can figure out how to forgive myself.

The thing is, I love women. I love women so fucking much. I want to be around them, to get to know them, to read about them, to watch them on TV and see them in films. And personally, I like them ugly. Physically. Spiritually. Morally. Give a woman a Bad Personality and watch her succeed in the most self-injurious way possible, fuck you. Give her a gaping chest wound and line it with teeth. Stick a piece of grit in that girl's tightly sealed shell so that a pearl is her only option. Make her love other women, make her fuck it up, make her have to earn them back.

Thankfully I do feel like we're getting more ugly women in fiction, especially BIPOC, queer and marginalized women who deserve gross, weird, nasty representation and not just didactic moralism, patronization and misguided sainthood. Some readers won't want that, and that's fine. Again, personally (it's all so personal, please, please remember that when you hit that comment button), I'm here for it. If you write about women like this, know that you have a thirsty reader here. I'm swallowing them up. I'm smacking my lips. I'm smashing my mug on the cafeteria floor and calling for another.

[wistfulcynic]

it’s more than a little disturbing to me how many people loudly proclaim how much they hate or don’t care about Nate and his character journey, while with the same breath proclaiming how much they love Jamie’s. “Oh boo hoo, Nate has daddy issues,” i’ve actually seen adult people actually say. “So does Jamie and look at him!” 

Similarly: “Nate’s gonna be saved by the love of a woman? How boring and cliche!” 

Or: “Nate doesn’t have to be such a jerk. He has Ted as a role model. He should know better!” 

to anyone capable of saying that, you’re absolutely right. You don’t care about Nate or his journey and that couldn’t be more obvious. What’s interesting though is why. 

because here’s the thing about Jamie, and also about Ted. Two things they have in common--a massive ego and a rock-solid sense of self. 

remember Jamie in like the second episode of the whole series? “Coach, I’m me. Why would I want to be anything else?” 

yes, Jamie has a shit dad and he’s had a shit time of it in many ways because of his shit dad. But what Jamie has never had to face is a crisis of identity. He knows who he is and he knows his value. He can take hits and come back from them, he can acknowledge his mistakes and learn from them because at his core he still and always has that knowledge that he’s a superstar. 

then there’s Ted. Anyone who doubts that Ted is a full-fledged egomaniac, ask yourselves how much confidence it takes to preface every single useful thing you have to say with a meandering, folksy anecdote and be absolutely certain that every single person you speak to is going to not only put up with that but actively listen. That’s the kind of confidence that can only come from a particular kind of privilege, and while Ted also has been through tough times and experienced trauma he's a white man from a place where white men are at the top of every ladder and he has very clearly never doubted who he is or the value he possesses. 

Nate can't be Jamie and he can’t be Ted. Not just because it’s ridiculous to expect different humans to behave identically in situations that are only vaguely similar, but because Nate’s core problem isn’t that his dad withholds love or that the hostess at a restaurant is snide to him. 

his problem--which incidentally we’ve been shown from the absolute very beginning--is that he doesn’t have any confidence. He doesn’t know who he is, and the who that he thinks he is, is a who he doesn’t especially like. Nate can't be Jamie because to him every mistake he makes reduces his worth, and he doesn’t have that superstar core to shore him up. Nate can’t be Ted because the entirety of his lifetime experience has assured him that no one wants to listen to anything he has to say. Nate can only be Nate because he is Nate, and the only thing that he or any of us can be is ourselves. 

and yeah, who Nate is isn’t always especially pleasant. He’s shown he can be mean and he can be spiteful. So what? He’s flawed, as all the characters are. As all humans are. Plenty of us have meanness and spite in us, that doesn’t make us irredeemable monsters. Nate’s journey is about realising his value and finally receiving recognition for it. He’s a clever, capable strategist and a talented coach. Now that he’s finally seeing and being seen for that, he’s finding in himself the capacity to recognise and work on his flaws. Which he is doing. It’s not about getting the girl or finding redemption through the love of a woman. It’s about having the confidence to trust that another human is going to see him and like him for who he is. 

Nate isn’t flawed in a sexy asshole way like Jamie or a folksy wholesome way like Ted. He’s flawed in an uncomfortably human way that probably hits too close to home for many people. Jamie and Ted are larger-than-life characters. Nate is one of us. So in a way i guess it’s understandable that people have a harder time forgiving him his trespasses or “caring” about his redemption. 

on the other hand, however, you all might want to ask yourselves why you’re so willing to extend endless grace to the hyperconfident white men while offering the anxious brown one none at all. 

[womendeservehumanity]

So I’ve encountered incel tiktok and it’s reminded me that sympathy for men is futile

So this video shows up on my fyp and it reminds me that I do truly hate men only a fraction as much as they hate women because I actually felt bad for this guy. To sum the video up since tumblr only lets you upload one video, he responds to this comment by saying he was given a horrible set of cards. He’s ugly, short, low iq. And that he’s bound to be working wagie jobs for the rest of his life. I’m thinking that he’s just one of the many members of the working class tired of an existence that seems pointless. But then I look through the comments on this video and he keeps completely dismissing any comments calling him good looking or saying that it gets better as cope. And that’s when I start thinking yeah this guy def is some blackpill woman hating loser

So I see he responded to a comment and this was the video. What a confirmation! This is rhetoric I see blackpillers/incels spew a lot recently because they literally just regurgitate the same shit in their echo chamber. There’s a meme that went viral that was like “women being able to detect autism in a guy vs women being able to detect a man that will abuse her”. It’s actually insane how much contempt males have for abused women because they only see them as potential matches that chose an abuser over them. They see it as some brutal confirmation that nice guys finish last because women would pick an abusive man over them. As if abusive males are coming up to women like “hey bitch I’m gonna beat the shit out of you come suck my dick” and women are like “ok 😍” when in reality they are very covert first opting to charm and love bomb a woman and once the security of a committed relationship is formed, that’s when the abuse happens.

Also these tards obviously don’t understand the psyche of abusers. They don’t enter relationships with the intention of beating women. That’s not their thought process when meeting a woman so acting like there’s a certain type to sniff out is disingenuous. I will say though. A lot of women do ignore red flags in a man because there ARE certain traits that abusers have. But a lot of that is due to women, from childhood, being conditioned to see the good in men despite major flaws and to give them chance after chance. It’s not because the guy is a tall Chad. Which is what they’re saying in the comments and it’s making my blood boil because the idea that the average abuser is this uber attractive, chiseled god is objectively untrue. Just watch the fucking news. But here are some of the replies to this video that genuinely made my stomach turn. Idk why I’m even shocked atp. I know how much men hate women but Jesus

And if you don’t know what total Stacy death means. Stacy = female version of Chad but incels tend to use it interchangeably with all women. And total Stacy death calls for the extermination of all Stacies (most likely women in general). This was originally inspired by white supremacists saying tnd which calls for the extermination of all black people

There were many more come comments but it was too exhausting to screenshot. I thought this guy was trolling because he’s actually not bad looking and literally looks like the average Mexican guy in Cali (who is also short lol) and they have no trouble dating. But I think he’s very off putting and has some type of social disorder. What I found so crazy is that all of the sane people telling this dude to stop being so self depreciating and fucking weird and then maybe he’d find a girl were getting dogpiled onto by his incel simps. That they’re lying and coping for saying he’s good looking. And you know what I’m glad he feels this way. I’m glad he’s given up on pursing women and as cruel as this sounds, I hope he stays true to his plan of k’ing himself in the future. One less danger to women.

But seriously “the blackpill” is some of the most birdbrained shit. It’s like “women want to date people they find attractive” and that’s supposed to be some type of mind blowing matrix-like truth. No fucking shit. Literally almost every human regardless of gender and sexuality operate with that idea. Did you go up to the women you went up to because you thought she had an oh so great personality? No you went up to her because she was attractive. Women are the ones that have to do the actual rejecting the most since they’re approached more often than not. But men literally select women they find attractive and disclude women they don’t. They just don’t have to be blatant about like women do. As someone who goes OUTSIDE and goes to college, most couples are average looking people dating average looking people because most people are average. It’s not a bunch of women with Chad while all the other men are left with no one. Hell if anything I’ve seen many above average women with average and straight up ugly males.

Anyways. It breaks my heart seeing the original video and all the women defending and supporting him. He’ll completely ignore that and focus on anecdotes that feed into his self depreciation and hatred of women. Women please stop extending kindness to males. The sympathy you feel for them is foreign when it comes to you. They’re literally in the comments calling women trying to reason with him that looks aren’t everything gaslighters and liars. There is nothing you can say to these males that will stop them from hating you. There is nothing you can say to them that will change their deluded minds. Instead of trying to “fix” them while they revel in the abuse and death of women, let them wallow away in self pity and pray they contribute to that rate 🙏

And radblr. Pls pls report this sick fuck’s account. I already blocked him but his username shows up in the video.

[lousyglitch]

Scott pilgrim takes off inhabits the same artistic space as the matrix 4, or even the final fantasy 7 remake. I mean this as a good thing. It has the distinct touch of an artist that made something that defined a generation revisiting the art that outgrew them a thousandfold with more maturity and different interests.

These interests usually skew meta, they're about what drives someone to revisit something made by a past version of oneself, about the experience of suddenly gaining more influence than anyone could reconcile, where criticisms of your work (which you also, no doubt, have many) become synonymous with criticisms of your culture. If you've been here a while, you probably know (and are tired of) what I'm talking about, manic pixie dream girls and aloof average male protagonists, toxic nostalgia, pick your theme and it's a video essay title.

Imagine having every read of your 2004 funny video game-coded coming of age comic reverberate infinitely toward every direction, people saying your main character taught a whole generation of men to be self-absorbed while the exact opposite type of people rant about how your secondary lead "ruined a whole generation of women" because of hair-dye or whatever. Imagine Edgar Wright makes a movie adaptation of your cute little comic that somehow launches the careers of half of the current celebrity pantheon simultaneously. How would that change you?

Well, for one, it makes you less relatable. The truth of an aloof nerdy guy dating in his early 20s is a lot more universal than the truth of an artist in his 40s forever defined by the event horizon of a thing he wrote half his life ago. The matrix 4 couldn't stop talking about how it feels to have created the matrix. The final fantasy 7 remake can't help but to constantly examine what it means to remake final fantasy 7. It's easy to see why someone would hate that indulgent meta trend, I'll probably never write a generation-defining story, why would I care about the first world problems of someone who did? It can feel distant, and at its worst it can feel insulting. Like it's pointing the finger at the fans, whispering 'you did this to me'. I get that.

I get that, but I love it.

It's the fundamental difference between wanting something that is like something you liked, and wanting someone that is from the same creator of something you liked. The difference between feeding the mona lisa into an AI and finding a new authentic da Vinci. You can't make something entirely new if you religiously stick to using the parts of something that's already there. The human behind the work will always have influences you didn't realize, thought patterns and aesthetic preferences that weren't entirely clear in their previous work, no matter how much you deconstruct it. More importantly, the human will also change, and this organic self-continuity will reflect on the art. I don't want the creator of something to hold their own creation with the same zeal as its fans, because someone who did that simply wouldn't have been capable of creating the original piece in the first place.

I don't want a product, I want art.

Scott pilgrim, the original, indulges the most earnest impulse we have-- that of self-mythologizing, of creating a narrative off of our own lives. To depict the mundane as fantastic, interpersonal relationships as adventures. It resonated with so many people because it was earnest, and it was also picked apart to hell and back because it was earnest. Its flaws were on display, and not just the ones it intended to show. But in my opinion, the opposite impulse, that of washing off everything that could be criticized and presenting the cleanest possible image of yourself through your art, is just... bad. it makes for bad art, or it just freezes you. The very first hurdle of creating anything is getting over that, then maybe the spotlight will fall on you. If it does, you'll get everything you ever wanted, but everyone gets to see through you.

So, how do you revisit something like that? You have two options. Either you take all the pieces and try to reassemble them exactly how everyone remembers it, signing your name as a formality, looking at a mirror in which you no longer see yourself, or you talk to it. You dialogue with your own work, with who you used to be. You travel in time and talk to yourself. You question them, acknowledge them but also teach them a thing or two. You don't respect the product, you respect the feeling. You find the same earnestness that made you put pen to paper for the first time, and you point it towards your new loves and fears. Maybe you make it less about the main guy, take the chance to develop your secondary characters, maybe you give the girl more agency. Maybe you summon the future and refuse its answers. Maybe you fight yourself.

That's the harder choice. It submits your new self to the scrutinizing eyes of a whole new generation, it risks alienating the people who identified with your previous piece. It's riskier, probably less profitable, and by any pragmatic lens probably a bad idea. But it's the only way you can make art. It's truth, the truth that got you there in the first place.

It's how you get it together.

[separatist-apologist]

I just read an article in that guy who murdered two women. Absolutely horrifying. All the booktok crazies fawning over him reminds me of the women that would write letters to Ted Bundy while he was in prison.

I wasn't gonna answer this because I felt like I said what I needed to say and like, I was just preaching to preach but THEN while I was asleep, an anon came into my askbox to accuse me of not being a girls girl while intentionally missing my point. I blocked them before I thought of a good comeback (tragic) but like fellas is it anti-feminist not to stan a man who killed two women because (and this is so important to me) he hates women?

I'm gonna put the rest of this under a cut with a heavy trigger warning for domestic violence, I just want to say it and then I think I'm done talking about it because it's genuinely so disheartening.

Anyway, I think sometimes I get nervous to answer these kinds of asks because as a therapist I should know better than to speculate on people and what they're going through and whatever else, but as a person, its like...do you want to be picked that badly?

I think we all know by now that I work in DV and all the people fascinated with men like this fuck me up because like..."oooh what makes him tick, I want to talk to him, why did he do it-" and for me, I sit on the opposite end talking to survivors of violence asking the same questions with hollow eyes, with shaking hands, with safety plans meant to buy them just enough time to get out of their house so they aren't killed. I still think about some of the people I spoke with who didn't survive it.

When I was in grad school, I took a summer internship at the local DV court helping survivors with orders of protection. The system was set up better than a lot of other courts, but its still the legal system, you know? With all its flaws. My job was to flag for lethality based on what I was reading in the OPs and then reach out directly to survivors to help them navigate the process, connect them with resources, and sit with them in court. And I still remember this one particular woman who's situation was so desperately dangerous. We did a safety plan- and at that level, a safety plan isn't like, "remember to take your keys and wallet with you when you go", its "don't go into the basement or bathroom if he's in the house with you because there are too many hard surfaces, exposed pipes, and basins of water that making killing you easier. Go to a bedroom or closet because strangling a person is really hard and takes time," like THAT kind of safety plan. Anyway she thanked me, I remember this so well, she said thank you and I told her I'd call her the next week with an update and over the weekend he bludgeoned her to death.

And I guess I just don't think there is anything fascinating, interesting, or otherwise unique to men like this (obligatory yes I know women kill/abuse too). They're everywhere. I saw another post about how some podcaster is trying to get him on to talk to that guy and its like, why don't you just call up one of your friends' exes. Like. If you've got more than one female friend, you've probably got a friend who has experienced violence at the hand of a male partner, call him. Talk to him. Ask him why he did it, let him give you his made up story about trauma and sadness and oh life is hard because whatever whatever.

That's my thing. Books, movies, tv- they're not making people like this, and I'm not condemning people for what they enjoy in fantasy spaces. I am condemning it when you bring it out of those spaces and side against the women who were violently murdered because, and this is so important to me (did I say this already??), he HATES women. You are not special. You cannot fix him. He's not smart, or interesting, or fascinating and the having an attractive face is literally just chance and not something inherently moral.

And like, lastly, when you prop these men up and give them a platform, you signal to EVERY man just like him that there is something special and tragic about him. You let him play the victim, you let him rewrite the narrative, you shift the blame of his actions off of him and onto the people he hurt. Like with this particular man, you also side with a white supremacist so what are you saying to all your BIPOC/Jewish friends/mutuals, you know?

Anyway. That's my self-righteous rant, I guess.

[depravitycentral]

ty for making some of these boys virgins 😭 its a peeve when they try to justify characters being these sex gods when majority of these anime boys have never held a girl's hand in canon. Like you can be a virgin and still know how to fuck/dom but soooo many girls dont get that so they keyhole these men into being hedonistic. Like no hate to them but thats so ooc - nyways i really love your work and immersion! <3

Yes yes yes! That's a bit of a pet peeve for me too, though I understand why other authors do it! Especially in the context of yanderes, where they're supposed to be intimidating and all-consuming and suffocating.

That's not to say that there aren't characters out there who are sex gods - they're few and far between but they do exist, through a combination of experience and raw, natural talent. (And, more often than not, a bit of luck, too.)

Plus, the depth of their feelings for you and the intense, pathetic desire to please you certainly doesn't deter them from trying their best every time they get you naked and spread out before them.

Let's discuss!!

Some are simply experienced enough to know what most women like. It's not a matter of raw ability but rather that they've had enough partners to know what to do - and, more importantly, what not to do. Trial and error has led to them having a pretty consistent routine they undergo in order to get their partner off, knowing that they should spend a while with their tongue against your clit or thumbs brushing against your nipples in order to get you fully ready, often even giving you an orgasm before they get to the main event. Fucking you is good, better than any woman they've been with, but your body is more or less the same as theirs's - except, they're trying even harder with you, putting to use every scrap of information they've learned and observed from every sexual encounter they've had. Their ultimate goal is to turn you into a moaning, shaking mess, and they're quick to adapt to whatever seems to get you feeling best.

The biggest concern with this category, however, is that they tend to be a little overconfident - because they feel they have a wealth of experience, they aren't especially open to criticism or advice. They'll adapt to you, sure, but don't tell them they're doing something wrong, or that something other women have loved doesn't actually feel all that good. Don't insult their skills, because while they no longer care if their past partners enjoyed their time together, it still stings their pride. Instead of listening to your advice, they'll choose to keep going - doing the thing you claim to dislike more and more and more, feverishly trying to convince you that it feels good, you're just not opening yourself up for the opportunity to feel good, that's all. Really, you should be more receptive - after all, they know what they're doing, and do you? Do you really?

A few yanderes that come to mind fitting this category include Koutarou Bokuto, who, despite still having some misconceptions about the female body (he gets terminology mixed up mostly, confusing your clit for your vulva and so on, making any moaned directions aimed at him difficult to follow), has always been able to show his partners a good time. Besides, even if he underperforms, those biceps and muscular thighs normally have women overlooking any of his flaws.

Hizashi Yamada, similarly, always leaves his hookups smiling, making sex a generally pleasant, satisfying experience. Though, no matter how good his skill with his tongue or cock is, his incessant talking throughout the process can leave some late nights turning a bit sour. It can ruin the mood, sometimes, and while there are times when you find his excessive praising and moans of fuck baby and love it when you take me so well hot, most of the time they just deter you from truly losing yourself in the moment. (He always sounds too awed - he's not growling these things or saying them with much of a dominant lilt, rather just warbling and genuinely praising you, which can sometimes leave you feeling a bit uncomfortable.)

Shalnark, when he's trying, can be a great lover - he's especially tuned in to his partner's emotions and reactions to his touch, but the trouble with him is his effort level. Of course, he's in love with you, scarily so, but sometimes he can be a bit selfish, and chooses to take the easy way out and just whip out the vibtrator rather than manually finish you off. This tends to happen when you've been putting on an attitude or you haven't been especially receptive to his affection, and it's in moments like these where Shalnark's pettiness shows itself. You won't hug him or snuggle with him in bed? Then why should he fuck you into an orgasm? But when he does care, well, it almost makes up for all those times he taps out after he comes. Almost.

Some have learned that they do one thing particularly well, and are humble enough to recognize that they should focus on that. As much as they wish they were as well rounded and talented at everything between the sheets, they each have one tried and true weapon that they can use in a pinch to make sure the sex ends on a good note. It's very dependent on the yandere, but they have some redeeming trait that always comes in to save the day, something that can normally get you gasping and trembling if they work at it long enough. Unless they're particularly pent up (or particularly desperate to show you how good they can make you feel), they tend to try and utilize other methods of pleasuring you before they fall back and rely on their specialty. It's more of a confidence thing than anything else, because while they're grateful that they have something to offer you, they want to improve their skills in other areas so that they don't need to rely on just eating you out or rubbing at your clit or fucking you senseless. They just want to be good for you, really, but when they get desperate, they'll always transition to the one thing they know will work.

The one thing that deters this category from being desirable is that in-between period when they're trying new things out. Often, it's not super successful; they're really good at only one thing for a reason, and while it's not necessarily bad when they try to mix things up, it's certainly not going to leave you breathless and wanting more. They just don't have the proper experience (or experience where they were aiming for pleasuring their partner rather than just themselves) to really feel confident and sure of themselves when they're trying something new, and it translates into the way they always hesitate just a bit, or the way they go either way too slow or way too fast. Eventually, though, they'll always return to their fail safe, so it doesn't matter too much - just be patient and get through their attempts, and you'll be rewarded.

Tetsurou Kuroo, while certainly not being a sex god, is remarkably quite talented with his tongue. He's got very good control, and is able to make very precise movements, especially when they're preformed against your clit. He actually really loves to eat you out because he really, really likes the way your cunt smells, but he's always wanted to get better at actually fucking you, because all those fantasies he's harbored since the very beginning of his obsession with you almost always involve you coming undone on his cock. His thumb isn't as talented as his tongue, though, and so even if he rubs it while he's pounding into you, he'll always have to finish you off with his mouth. (At least he gets to taste the intoxicating mix of your slick and his cum - a sign that at least he made you feel a little good.)

Enji Todoroki is the opposite of Tetsurou - he's had lots of practice with actually fucking, and his hips and thighs have enough muscle that he can spend hours rutting into you at the same pace, angle and force, effectively battering your poor pussy in the best way possible. He's pretty receptive about following whatever set of those three factors you like best (though he shines best when he's fucking you nice and slow, deeply and meaningfully when he's got you folded up in a mating press), and while he does prefer being inside you over everything else, he desperately, desperately wants to get good at going down on you. He'd never really bothered when he was Rei, but with he actually wants to taste you, and the thought of you creaming all over his face (or, even more, squirting on his face) is enough to get him half hard in an instant, licking his lips and spreading your legs before you can even protest.

Phinks Magcub has thick, sturdy fingers, callouses dotting them and a few scars left from particularly nasty fights. He's got good stamina and can spend long periods of time moving his fingers the exact way you like them, never tiring of feeling how warm and spongy your walls are, always with a flush on his cheeks and the slightest bit of awe in his eye when he looks at you. He likes fingering you, watching you fall apart for him when he grinds the heel of his palm against your sensitive little clit, but he really wants to learn how to make you come on his cock, because there's nothing more intimate to him than the idea of him fucking you well enough to make you flutter around him. He knows most women can't come from penetration alone, but he's nursing the hope that maybe, if he gets good enough, you'll become one of those few.

Some possess natural ability between the sheets, even if they don't have all that much experience. It's like they intuitively know what to do, how to move their bodies in ways that get women moaning and gasping. Part of it is because they're good at observing, diligently watching the expressions of their partners and making note of what gets them grasping at the sheets the hardest, or what makes them clench down the tightest. It's more methodical than anything else, but the end result is the same. They almost always get their partners to orgasm, through sheer determination and attention to detail.

The one unfortunate side to this category is that they're the kind that care most about actually making you feel good - to the point where they will force the sex to continue, not willing to stop eating you out or fingering you until you're making a mess and whimpering their name, for better or for worse. It's almost disturbing, their eagerness and commitment to getting you off, and while you're grateful that they care so much about making sure you enjoy yourself, there's something genuinely unsettling about it. When all is said and done they tend to look worse off than you, their faces bright red and slick smeared all over their lips and chin, a small smile sitting on their lips that feels out of place with how swollen and puffy said lips are. But they're trying, and it's the thought that counts, right? Besides, at least you have something to look forward to when they slowly pull down your pants.

Keiji Akaashi is a wonderful example of this; he loves the way you respond to his fingers, how you bite your lip and keen his name, voice all airy and gaspy as he curls them just right, making you see stars. He's committed to you, and while his skills weren't particularly strong in the beginning of your 'relationship', Keiji is a quick learner and was able to pick up on exactly what you liked pretty fast. He's a little unnerving when he's concentrating, though, because he's deadly silent and just staring at your cunt, a combination that leaves you squirming in more than just pleasure.

Pakunoda is another one who possesses some natural talent in the bedroom - she takes everything slow and really takes her time with you, always making sure to draw out every sensation that she can, just because she wants you feeling the full breadth of pleasure she's offering you. She doesn't mind long, drawn-out session, even preferring them, and so while it takes a long time (sometimes long enough for you to consider just calling it quits), she'll eventually get you off. She just likes to be meticulous about it.

Shouta Aizawa is basically a virgin when he develops his infatuation with you, having only slept with one or two women when Hizashi and Nemuri take him out drinking and he indulges just a little too much. He makes up for it, though, because he's quite talented with his tongue, and he's good at holding back his own pleasure and delaying his orgasm until you've reached yours, elongating the sex and making it so that you have enough time to actually let the pleasure build to the point of spilling over. He refuses to come first, and while sometimes it happens despite his best effort, he's got a strong sense of determination and will get you moaning his name and gushing all over him.

But, quite frankly, managing to qualify as one of the categories listed is not an honor most yanderes get to enjoy. Most are fine, thoroughly average in bed, maybe managing to make you come without the aid of a toy sometimes, but there's not a whole lot of consistency.

Others, however, are especially dismal; sex with them probably isn't something you look forward to too much, because while it can feel good, more often than not it's fun for about five minutes and then you're ready for it to be over. Not that you'd tell them that, though - not if you value whatever semblance of freedom you've managed to ascertain, and especially not if you value your ability to walk normally the next day. (They'll substitute in fucking you hard for fucking you well, which, as expected, doesn't have the results they wish for.)

Some are fully, utterly convinced that they are in fact a sex god - despite their shortcomings. Maybe it's a result of previous partners lying and building their confidence, or based on total delusions, or even a stubborn bit of pride unwilling to let them believe they could fail at something. Regardless, it leaves them in a position where they only sort of understand what they need to do in order to get you feeling good - there's an attempt, most of the time, but they normally don't have the patience or stamina to last long enough to reach your orgasm. They'll just be finding a good rhythm when they're fucking you, rolling their hips just right, before deciding that it might be better to flip you over, or that the angle is starting to kill their back and they need to change it up. Honestly, it's frustrating more than anything else - you're always so close, before it's snatched away from you without a care.

Tomura Shigaraki, unfortunately, is a victim of this mindset. He's watched enough porn to feel like he's got a good, general grip on what should happen during sex, fully believing that while some of what he's watched is obviously fake (he's not stupid - he knows how difficult and unlikely getting a girl to squirt is, even though he'd kill to get you squirting for him), he's picked up tips on the more realistic aspects of porn. (He hasn't, and it doesn't work - jackhammering into you like a rabbit doesn't have the affects he's expecting, because instead of moaning his name and gushing around his cock like all those pornstars do, you just seem to wince and beg him to slow down.)

Nobunaga Hazama, too, can't seem to fully grasp the fact that he isn't the best sexual partner. He tends to get overly excited, always eager to see the way you're responding to his touch, and the moment your expression or voice lulls in any way, he's moving on to the next thing he can do to get you screaming his name, even when the new thing is the exact opposite of what you need to get off. He just doesn't really have the patience to successfully make you come most of the time, and even if you gently correct him, he'll just shush you, telling you with conviction that it'll feel good soon, that he knows what makes you feel good, so you just need to sit back and take it.

Yuuji Terushima is simply too hyperactive and excited when he's in bed with you to stay focused on one thing at a time - similarly to Nobunaga, you'll be constantly changing positions or switching from fucking to grinding to oral and back again to really make any progress towards your orgasm. The one thing Yuuji has going for him, though, is that he actually does possess skills in the bedroom - he is genuinely good at going down on you, that damn tongue piercing always adding an extra layer of stimulation and making your head spin. He's good at aiming when he's fucking you, and it's his only saving grace - if you go at it for long enough, you may end up managing to come, but it's never a guarantee.

Some are just too unsure of their skills, and it's reflected in the way that they can't commit to one single thing. Frankly, they're not even that bad at touching you - they don't suck, often just the opposite, but their lack of experience and confidence between the sheets leads to fleeting touches and lots of unsure, half-hearted attempts at making you feel good. They don't expect you to be able to come from just a few thrusts of their fingers inside your gooey, warm cunt, but when you don't, it still doesn't make them feel any better. They're overwhelmed, frankly, and they feel such intense pressure to make sure that everything is perfect that they end up floundering, too scared to choose one single thing (fingering you, eating you out, fucking you, or even just grinding against you) and see it through to fruition. They're just nervous - it's palpable, really, and with time you can slowly coax them into feeling more confident and comfortable, but they'll never be able to fully shake the feeling that they're not good enough to really satisfy you in bed. It's sad, more than anything, and the longer you let the problem go unaddressed, the harder improving their skills will be.

Machi Komacine is afraid of intimacy, and because she herself relies quite heavily on toys whenever she gets in the mood to get herself off, her own fingers aren't too used to the motions and movements required to properly touch you. She hasn't had to sink her fingers inside herself for years, really, always replacing them with the pink plastic vibrator or dildo, but she's much too embarrassed to admit that to you. (Though, she's even more embarrassed to actually try and learn/practice on you - poor Machi, because she's even too emotionally closed off to properly discuss it with you.)

Kei Tsukishima, in his defense, is scared that he'll hurt you. He's got this unreasonable worry that he's not good enough for you, and while he hides this well in how he interacts with you, it becomes very obvious the moment that either of you are naked and yearning for each other's touch. He's just very unsure, and the weight of knowing that he could displease you or leave you unsatisfied leaves him wanting to just not even bother trying, too pessimistic to see a solution in which he'll actually manage to make you come.

Shuichi Iguchi, similarly to Kei, fears hurting you, but he's more crippled by the knowledge that he's never intimately touched someone before, and the omnipresent paranoia eating at him that wonders how you could ever find him attractive. He's too scared of your rejection to really put himself into a situation where he can put his 100% effort into anything sexual with you, so for now he'll settle with fingering you for a few moments, then kissing you (his fingers having slipped out), then simply pressing his cock against your folds, unmoving, just feeling.

So really, there's a whole variety of bedroom skills - it's more about the combination of your specific likes and dislikes in bed alongside their strengths (or lack thereof) that decides whether the sex is good. But, quite frankly, it doesn't really matter - the likelihood of you being able to escape any of the yanderes listed above is quite low, and gets even lower when you consider whether they'd be able to track you down and snatch you up again. So really, it doesn't matter whether they're a sex god or not - you'll never be sleeping with another person in your life, and they sure as hell won't either.

(Thanks for the ideas anon! This style ask is always fun to answer! I hope this doesn't set off your ick about pigeonholing characters as sex gods - they aren't perfect, I promise!)

[patrochillesvibes]

Hey so i remember coming across a post which says that TSOA's patroclus is not too different from the og illiad one. Is that true?/genq

First, I want my readers to go read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. When you’re done, come back to this post and read under the cut.

Great! Now having read over 350 pages of a pedophile who lusts after prepubescent girls and tries to explain how his love of them was pure and consensual, I’m assuming you now understand the concept of an unreliable narrator. If you don’t and believe Humbert Humbert at face value, consider killing yourself. The world doesn’t need anymore pedophile apologists.

For the rest of you still alive, keep reading.

Point 1

Patroclus is, at his core, an unreliable narrator.

How do we know this?

The ending scene is Thetis visiting Patroclus and asking him to share memories of her son, Achilles. Being a goddess, she cannot visit her son in the Underworld. She only has his memory to comfort her in his grief over his death. Patroclus, is one of the last people alive she can share memories with.

Thus, the actual book, The Song of Achilles itself, is Patroclus sharing his memories with Thetis.

Now, consider a loved one of yours who has passed away. Got a person in mind? Great. Now I want you to think about them. And also consider the last time you exchanged memories about them. Mostly good memories came to mind, right? Perhaps you skipped over their flaws or reworked them in your grieving mind as having been not so bad? Many cultures have superstitions and cultural/religious practices about being nice to the dead, so I’m not surprised that you only thought of good things.

(But honestly, a loved one doesn't need to be dead for people to wear rose colored glasses and miss red flags and excuse bad behavior etc. It's called bias, sweeties.)

My point? Patroclus told Thetis mainly good things about her son including even embellishing a little. It’s in our grieving nature to do this.

This is why you can’t trust Patroclus.

Patroclus, for a variety of speculative reasons that I don’t want to get into here, will tell you he is ugly, weak, stupid, and a poor soldier. He will tell you he was always respectful of women and didn’t believe in war. He will paint himself as innocent of war crimes. And he will do all of this looking you directly in the eye.

You cannot trust this self-image.

Patroclus has very little screen time in the Iliad itself. We get even less insight into his internal thoughts and motivations.

Because TSoA Patroclus is unreliable at best and we know very little about Iliad Patroclus, it is unfair to say there are exclusively two separate characters and incompatible. It is unfair and even ignorant (from lack of anything below a surface reading of the text) to say that TSoA Patroclus is “out of character.”

Point 2

I have a second point as to why I think TSoA Patroclus and Iliad Patroclus can be read as the same. The majority of Antis hate Patroclus because “MM made him a women.” Here’s a collage I made of quotes from some of the Antis.

Now, why on earth is Pataroclus considered a woman? Or in some cases a related degrading term, twink?

Let’s see...

He wants to be a doctor instead of a soldier.

He is anti-war.

He is soft and emotional about his love for Achilles, even deigning to cry.

All thing are more associated with female characters.

Why? Toxic Masculinity.

It is not masculine to cry. It is not masculine to deeply love your partner. It is not masculine to want to not fight in a war. It is not masculine to have low self-esteem and lack confidence. These things are all unnatural and abnormal for a MAN™ to feel, especially soldiers.

So when you read The Song of Achilles and your takeaway is “Patroclus is a twink” or "Patroclus is a woman/Achilles' wife/Achilles' bitch," you are reinforcing gender stereotypes and gender roles. Nice work 👍

I pity people who have this sexist take on men.

Side Comment

Many patrochilles fans see the main patrochilles works (The Iliad, TsoA, Hades Game) as interconnected. TSoA is the story of the life of Patroclus and Achilles before the war. The Iliad follows and specifically tells the tale of the 9th year of the war. Hades Game picks up after their deaths.

But at the end of the day, your Patroclus hc is whatever you want it to be. You also don't have to like any of the patrochilles media out there. I myself FUCKING LOATH The Iliad. But please don't bring your racist and toxic takes into your defense. If you don't like a thing, just say 'I don't like it' full stop and move on.

[psalmsofpsychosis]

"#Alfred basically catches a lamb and goes

#''you're a beautiful wolf; i know you are; now you're gonna bite my hand until you draw blood so we both believe it;

#because that's the way we know how to be men.''

#and then 10 years down the line he looks at Bruce and he whispers in horror; ''that's a wolf''

#GIRL YES HE IS; YOU MADE HIM ONE. IT WAS YOU"

Your tags are so- Idk I don't have the words. No wait I DO-

THIS IS FREAKING BEAUTIFUL OMG

The way Bruce wasn't born with sharp teeth and claws to defend himself against the world. The place he was born into removed any need to grow them, but at the same time the place he was born into was the catalyst for him to turn into stone. Hard, unyielding to pressure and with its own jagged edges that you can hit until your knuckels bleed.

But the thing about stone is that you can chip away at it until it looks like what you want.

So Bruce was a lamb at the beginning, possessing talc for a heart, easy to rub to dust, but after the murders, he was molded into something different. He grew teeth and claws so big and strong it became difficult to be gentle, his heart was rubbed to dust and reformed and compressed and rubbed to dust and reformed and compressed until it turned into a diamond.

Alfred taught him how to be a wolf but didn't account on what would happen once Bruce's claws were bigger than his own.

CAN YOU TALK MORE ABOUT BRUCE AND ALFRED'S DYNAMIC PLEASE? You're literally rearranging my brain chemistry as I'm typing, wow. This feels so freaking strange. Thank you so so SO much

I wish you an AMAZING day

GOOD MAD MONDAY NOON TO YOU ANON YOU'RE KILLING ME. Like i'm over here lying face flat on the ground, head fucking full 99 thoughts per second this ride is going straight to hell—

You actually made them sound a lot like the Pygmalion myth, which is so right and true and also a very delicately apt interpretation of the way Bruce and Alfred's dynamic unfolds, particularly in Bruce's childhood, and particularly as portrayed in the Gotham series (which is my all time favourite Bruce&Alfred dynamic anyway, so excuse me for being annoying and immediately nosedive down that rabbithole)

See, to me the thing is, i dont think Bruce and Alfred understand each other at all. They're cut from very different clothes, and Alfred doesn't understand what Bruce /is/, but he understands what Bruce /can become/, maybe even what he's supposed to become, Bruce is the fifth element to him. Combine that lack of understanding and all the love and affection Alfred holds for Bruce and of course he makes a project of perfection out of him; Alfred molds and makes Bruce. Batman as a persona and as a purpose precisely exists *because of the way Alfred raises Bruce*, this is something that Gotham TV puts extra emphasis on. In many ways Alfred does carve Bruce into an idea of perfection, *his* idea of perfection, and Bruce lets him too. This is where stuff get a bit complicated though; Alfred is someone who struggles with his own humanity and darker side. He's so loving and loyal, but he's also bitter and mean with a vicious bite and he handles Bruce with such cold hands sometimes, and he hates every second of it, he hates his own humanity. So he pushes Bruce to get rid of his too, and they have this constant push and pull because Bruce has those exact traits. they're similar not in what they own about themselves, but in their shadows, when the sun shines on them their flawed humanity has the exact same shape and they both don't want a shadow; eventually the way they resolve this is by standing back to back and protecting each other and now they share their shadows and it's not so scary anymore. The Pygmalion myth as a parallel interpretation of their narrative fits so darn well because you are right, Bruce is made into stone and Alfred sculpts him to something beautiful and almost horrifying, almost inhuman, he sometimes forgets that Bruce is a person and not an idea, and it shows. But Bruce breaks mold, he always does, he forces Alfred to live with his own humanity and Bruce's, and this brings up a lot of grief for Alfred, but he loves Bruce so he finds a way to live with it and he does.

The Lamb/wolf metaphor is a different face to this same transformation process; in the early years Alfred has little space for Bruce's terrifying softness, but neither does Bruce. Bruce is scared of his own vulnurability and tenderness, this lamb *wants* to become something else, something less weak and helpless, something that could've saved his parents. He doesn't want to become a wolf persay, but the thing is, he has the makings. This is the reason Alfred can bring it out of him; he very much has the makings of a wolf. to juxtapose it with the pygmalion allegory; you cannot carve out of the stone what is not already in it. (this does bring up the question wether Bruce was ever a lamb at all, but that's a different topic for another day✨️)

anyway yep, i love your mind Anon, and thank you for the question! Hope you have an absolutely wonderful day too ❤️❤️

[arizonatea-and-nikolatesla]

Hazbin hate and bigotry

(This probably is rambly because it’s almost 2 in the morning and these are half asleep thoughts)

Maybe this is just a me thing- or maybe this is glaringly obvious, but it’s so strange to me that a lot of the fandoms that get the most hate are ones where non-conforming people make up a lot of the fandom.

Steven universe and Hazbin Hotel/ Helluva boss are the first things that come to mind. Women, LGBTQ+ people, and neurodivergent people are a huuuge part of the fandom. Do they do some questionable and problematic stuff sometimes? Yeah- but what fandom doesn’t?

Things like Fnaf, Star Wars, etc. that have a large male audience are rarely treated the same way. Even though they used to be considered “uncool”, you were just nerdy or a little weird if you were into them(especially if you were a dude). Now a days people generally would think you’re a dick if you’re making fun of people for liking these things.

There were way weirder cartoons on back when Steven universe was airing. There are weirder things on now- the boys, Rick and Morty, both shows I do enjoy, but If their audience didn’t have a large amount of members that were/are cis men- they’d also either be ‘weird’ or at the very least not as well liked.

Even shows that are popular- think shows enjoyed mostly by women. Twilight, the vampire diaries- they’re generally considered cringy by people who don’t enjoy them. And men will make fun of women for enjoying it- this is less obvious than my previous examples because a lot of women who are considered “normal” like these shows. That doesn’t stop them from getting made fun of for liking them, or judged- mostly by men. A lot of the hate I see for something like twilight outside of men just calling it dumb is actually well structured analysis of the books and movies, not just bullying.

I don’t think I’ve seen many shows that can get away with marketing to young adults who aren’t men. They are either blasted on the internet like the people who like them are some kind of cringy freaks (Steven universe, Hazbin hotel, etc), or they fade into obscurity or get canceled (inside job, tuca and birdie).

If something is weird- it has to be for men, or it’s suddenly a crime to enjoy it.

P.S.

This is also seen inside fandoms that have become more socially acceptable. When people are nerdy in ways that aren’t necessarily ‘cool’ or generally accepted they are often bullied by not just other people, but people in the fandom. Honestly even when more diverse people get INTO fandoms some fans go crazy. “Omg girls and gay people like Star Wars?! They’re ruining the movies!” By simply existing or posting silly little fan art videos on TikTok because they’re enjoying their media and not just letting their eyes glaze over while they watch a movie.

P.P.S.

This is of course not to say these shows or some of their creators don’t have flaws- obviously they do. However people often magnify these flaws in order to have a ‘non-bigoted’ way to make fun of people who don’t fit into their world view.

You’re not a good person if you bully neurodivergent teenagers off the internet because they like something you don’t. Do some self reflection. You can not like something and just choose not to engage with it.

P.P.P.S

The leopards will also eat your face, btw. (For those of this who it applies to. You know who you are.)

[gulfportofficial]

Every time I rewatch SATC I think about what Emily Nussbaum described as a "failure of nerve", specifically that as it gradually became aspirational, about fetishistic wealth, it became destined to have the kind of "romantic" ending it originally critiqued. It's a shame, because having an entire show set around a woman who is legitimately kind of a jerk because of how self-involved she is - the first HBO antihero, as Nussbaum also pointed out - and the variously jerky women she is close with is legitimately quite awesome. Obviously there are many extremely reasonable reasons to critique the show even if it had remained skeptical - the radiant whiteness of it, the material excess, the patriotism, the embrace of punishing feminine signifiers as feminism, the fact that it is dated enough that a storyline about Miranda having to wash skidmarks out of Steve's undies meditates on "how intimate is too intimate?" and not "why doesn't an adult man wipe his ass properly?" to gloss over but a few - but god do I love a woman asshole on TV. We really get so few of them. The thing about Carrie "Maybe the fight between marrieds and singles is like the war in Northern Ireland" Bradshaw is that she is very much a huge asshole, but also her taste in men is horrible, like sympathetically horrible. She dates men who are absolutely awful to her and rationalizes and romanticizes their crap behavior because of misogyny. She is so aggressively and intentionally Not Like Other Girls that she excuses being abused or treated poorly by men in exactly the way every Other Girl on the planet is treated. She stalks people, in particular the wife of a man she cheated with! She goes through people's stuff! She drunk dials! She literally cannot fathom that she is not the center of the universe! She sucks! I would hate to be her friend in real life! But by GOD I love to see some lady asshole representation with an added bonus of legitimately feeling compassion for the asshole in question. Also, and I will not start this shit again, I promise, but she's also a realistic TV smoker, and I enjoy that very much. SATC is of course a flawed creation, but I for one like it, and at the risk of being set on fire, I like the new one too. The new one is also, of course, flawed, in some of the same ways and some new ways too. But once again, I will make a lot of allowances for a woman asshole on TV. I fucking love women assholes, I just really do.

[11queensupreme11]

Your favorite and least favorite things about ror and pjo?

PJO

favorite things:

pretty much the entirety of the first series!

i love how rick was able to perfectly (imo) entertwine the ancient greek world with the modern world

i especially love how most of percy's journey was similar to the ancient greek heroes' journeys in the myths

THE FACT THAT PERCY REJECTED GODHOOD TO TRY AND GIVE DEMIGODS AND MINOR GODS A BETTER LIFE HE'S SO SWEET I LOVE HIM OMG

no seriously, i LOVE how instead of being selfish and becoming a god, he tried to actually fix the root of the problem so no other child would ever go through the same things his generation of demigods went through THATS HOW YOU END AN OPPRESSIVE REGIME, I'M PROUD OF YOU PERCY

everything about the last olympian. he writes war and battle SO well, my heart was literally pounding throughout the whole book!!!

the character deaths.... they gutted me, but they were executed so well

least favorite things:

the gods weren't very similar to the mythical counterpart.... like how pjo!poseidon was a chill, mostly nice guy whereas in the myths he was a rapist psycho.... and how pjo!ares was implied to be abusive towards clarisse whereas in the myths ares respects women and killed his daughter's rapist (tho i get why he couldn't do that since this is a kid's book)

the entirety of heroes of olympus 💀

no seriously, i didn't like any of it

the lost hero and the son of neptune were okay, but after that things started getting messy. probably because of how many main characters he had to write about

the plot was very very.... weird??? especially around the part where they were looking for the physician's cure. a side quest took up a major chunk of the book

BLOOD OF OLYMPUS WAS SHITTY OMG

the final battle against gaea was so lame!!!! the seven weren't even fighting here, only a few of them were!!! the fact that piper was able to put her to sleep too even though rick literally wrote a list of ways charmspeak would fail AND GAEA CHECKED EVERY ONE OF THEM???? yet piper succeeded anyway???

no seriously, i was expecting the last olympian kinda shit in blood of olympus, but i got NOTHING

rick's shitty view of 'feminism' wasn't feminism at all, it was more misandry (the hunt) and piper ESPECIALLY had some glaring internalized misogyny

i get he was trying to make her a feminist icon, but he really failed with piper. piper clearly hated femininity and looked down feminine girls AND SHE WAS PROVEN RIGHT because 99% of her enemies (major or minor) were girls that were comfortable with their femininity and rick had her triumph over them every time

rick's favoritism over piper. her charmspeak worked on opponents that it shouldn't have worked on (gaea and khione), every other female character suddenly gets downgraded whenever she's around (drew, aphrodite, annabeth, the entire fucking aphrodite cabin, etc), none of her actual flaws were called out (this is mostly because rick never intended for her internalized misogyny and obsessiveness to be her flaws, they were created by accident and noticed by the readers).... and you get the point

ROR

favorite things:

the character designs are sooooo 🤤

99% of the characters have 8 pack abs OR MORE

THE GORE!!!! WOOHOO I LOVE THE VIOLENCE (in the manga at least.... the anime censored it smh 🤦‍♀️)

there isn't really much worldbuilding yet but i love what we've been given so far!!!!

the fact that the mangaka was able to create a universe where ALL the gods of ALL the pantheons are in it and it doesn't look like a hot mess??? much respect!

THE FACT THAT FAMOUS HUMANS ARE FIGHTING TOO!!!

THE MATCHUPS ARE AMAZING LIKE IMAGINE BEING TOLD NIKOLA TESLA WAS FIGHTING THE DEVIL

the death scenes!!! yes they're tragic, but they're so well done!!!! the way lu bu's men rallied up to join him in niflhel, the way every human grieved when adam, their father, died, how tesla's last words were to give hope to humanity, I LOVED IT ALL 😭😭😭

least favorite things:

i really need them to explain wtf a demigod is cuz i get how humans are considered demigods (they're humans with the strength of a god) BUT I REALLY NEED AN EXPLANATION ON HOW THE VALKYRIES ARE CONSIDERED DEMIGODS 💀

the gods were.... kinda underwhelming. they seemed more like superhumans than actual gods. poseidon didn't use his water powers? hades didn't summon the dead? no lightning from zeus? most of the gods were fighting physically and not using their actual powers which was kinda...... meh

the list of fighters for both humans and gods.... the gods literally have 5 greeks and 3 norse gods whereas the humans have 4 japanese fighters 🫤 i'd like a lil more diversity

the way the fight scenes are animated in the anime..... they are so bad..... like SO bad 😭😭 my jaw dropped when i watched them

the censoring of the violence and gore in the anime 😔

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 1

Propaganda why Feyre Archeron is insufferable:

"She is Miss Perfect Special Never Does Anything Wrong. Rhys with her is like Gordon Ramsay with children, EXCEPT SHE'S A GROWN ADULT. I didn't hate her tooooo much in books 1-3 (she was barely tolerable), but in the novella, she becomes this housewife First Lady type character who is fine doing paperwork after stating previously that she wants to be doing something more "important", and living in a McMansion. THEN THE FIFTH BOOK STARTS WITH HER HAVING AN "INTERVENTION" FOR HER SISTER, WHICH IS BASICALLY FEYRE TELLING NESTA THAT SHE'S GRIEVING INCORRECTLY. Bitch, who are YOU to tell someone that THEIR grief is making YOUR life uncomfortable?? "Wah wah the social implications" you're the literal queen, no one cares that your sister is embarrassing you.

Imo, Feyre is also the result of a lot of internalized misogyny on the part of the author, bc she has two men in love with her and gets along very well with every other male character that's not "evil", but many of the female characters are antagonistic or unhelpful towards Feyre, seemingly apropos of nothing. It's giving "I'm not like OTHER girls". She also very clearly doesn't want children but then miraculously changes her mind bc apparently female characters can't be fulfilled without children. 🙄

Oh and btw Feyre also manages to get the powers of EVERY fairy court ruler at the end of the first book. I DO NOT use the term "mary sue" lightly, as that label has been used against feminist characters a lot, but Feyre exemplifies the Mary Sue trope."

"SHES SO ANNOYING AND SO SO STUPID AND BY THE END SHE JUST BECOMES A COMPLETE DOORMAT AND LETS RHYS WALK ALL OVER HER tbh im more mad at the author for butchering her but she's still annoying as all hell"

"Thinks she’s the victim of everything. Destroys an entire Court. Forces an intervention on her sister who is grieving differently than Feyre is."

"She's the WORST. She's an asshole to her family but thinks she deserves to be worshipped by them because she hunts or whatever, feels entitled all the time, is ableist to her dad, is fantasy racist and turns from being racist to not being racist in a BLINK, is ridiculously overpowered and treated as oh-so-special by every single other character ... I hate her and I wish she would die. "

Propaganda why Tim Jackson Drake is insufferable:

"he is so generic the only thing distinctive about him is his rich white boy privilege and arrogance and yet the writers go out of their way to frame him as extraordinary and outstanding from every other character he appears beside which is crazy because he is just a less likable version of dick grayson and his character only works when the reader is reminded at every turn that he is a child so all his flaws are supposed to be endearing even when they negatively affect others"

"Other characters (including a murdered child) are bashed to prop Tim up as a good Robin. He's also constantly sexist and classist. He cheats on two women at the same time and is ultra smug"

"oh man. i've had enough of this duckboy (as the protag, he's tolerable in yj and stuff.) like when tim is the protag every character in the story becomes Worse. lady shiva gets nerfed. steph is turned into jealous hormonal catfight girl. helena is dumbified and too womanly to function (they have a nice dynamic as long as tim isn't the protag). cassie and tim were great in yj98, but as soon as he is The Protag then she is his best friend's girlfriend and they're barely friends anymore. cass is turned into a rapist. dick is turned into a lazy mediocre robin. jason turns into fucky wucky dumb brute yaoi stalker boyfriend who is suddenly obsessed with tim's awesome skills. 10 y.o. damian somehow deserves to be put on a hitlist because he's a savage and tim is civilized. Sometimes the story is bogged own with tim's internal or external lectures about their flaws and how they need to be better (better like him), except for dick HMMMM wonder why that is. probbly wouldn't be so bothered if tim wasn't crammed into the spotlight of every crossover in the 90s and early 00s and then so much of dc and the fandom wave it around as the peak era of comicbooks. like im sorry. he is not a relatable protag. like the editors literally told newspapers that he was created for gen x white dudes who blow their money on comics and merch, the info is on wikipedia."

"His definitive writer is a conservative Republican. His series is full of moral PSAs, *dumb* *hormonal* girls getting into catfights over him, and blatant sexism and racism. He gives anti-marijuana speeches to a standing ovation, he lectures about how babies need a father and a mother, and sex is for marriage. Other characters suddenly become stupid around him so that he looks smart. The other characters talk about how he is the best, nicest, smartest Robin ever and ALL the others were dumber and meaner than he is, even the one that mentored him. He as a grown adult man is canonically still bitter about "his" child sidekick role being given to an actual child (fans pretend he is the victim of this on both sides—nope he's the adult fighting a child for the child sidekick role, no adult wanted to replace him). Did I mention that this character is the amazing pure white boy, and his 10-year-old successor is painted as a savage Arab terrorist who needs to be put in his place? T*m is a 5'9"+ adult grown man, not a delicate sensitive baby boy."

"White twink rich boy who always has to be smartest bestest boy even when he is a part of a whole group of smartest bestest ppl (aka bat family as a whole, like he's literally THE Mary sue of a group of Mary sues) at expense of literally everyone else"