#telling women’s stories

[derrygirlstrash]

You're so right about Steven Moffat. Favorite Doctor Who era, for sure!

Thank you, it is something I completely stand by! Glad to speak for others! This fuckass website just doesn’t get it sometimes.

[fishareglorious]

kakania numero uno reverse 1999 character on the fact she makes a dig on the sex life of the guy she was dueling with at the moment. while also somewhat kinda maybe implying she fucked his wife

[inkskinned]

you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

[leashybebes]

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

tommy must live in a perpetual state of confusion over buck

do you think the longer buck allies the more tommy realises that "oh, he really is like this but he's definitely some flavor of queer"? because i see tommy maybe gently testing buck's jealousy to see what it'll take to make him break

oooookay once again this is not a snippet (sorryyyyy) but is more me attempting to understand wtf is going on in tommy's head throughout all this that he keeps "sure, okay"-ing himself into ridiculous situations with buck, so apologies for just unloading the contents of my brain on you

there are a few things i've been chewing on in terms of figuring out how tommy reacts to the buck of it all, which i hope will make it make sense that i actually don't think tommy pushing or testing for jealousy is on the cards in this fic (although i do love the idea!)

so first of all, this is a younger tommy than we've seen interact with buck in canon (of course), so whatever happened to make him Like That in the breakup hasn't happened yet (and won't, because i am a slut for a HEA). he's newly out and in my experience, a lot of newly out people, particularly people who are a bit older have something of a second adolescence. so yeah while this means he's incredibly horny (horny enough to let a self-proclaimed straight guy give him the absolute best sex of his life) it also means he just wants to have fun!! and buck is SO. MUCH. FUN. he's spent so long so tightly controlled that he's trying really hard to just go with the flow.

second, when i say newly out tommy, i mean newly out. like, it's one thing to "stop lying about who i am" - to me, there's a non-zero chance that just means "stop making up girlfriends" rather than "actually grapple with the life-long process of coming out (again and again and again)". so in my head (and it might come up in the fic, idk yet) the scene early on where he tells buck he doesn't want the cute girl's number because he's gay is probably one of the first times he actually said the words out loud. which ties into...

third, we know tommy was work friends with sal (at least and again, don't know that it'll come up in the fic but for the record, he 100% had a monstrous crush on him, like it made him ILL how much he wanted sal, i will hear no arguments), and that he developed good - again, work-based - friendships with hen and chim, but i feel like for a deeply closeted guy under dadt with a shitty childhood buck might be his first actual friend who knows all of him and likes him. spends time with him. doesn't care that he's gay. actively supports his gayness. doesn't recoil and in fact actively encourages tommy to talk about it. so i think tommy is just...deeply, deeply grateful for this confusing train wreck of a man

fourth, while i think there are definitely times that tommy thinks "he...he's flirting with me, right? is something gonna happen here?" this is a guy who has spent his entire adult life not looking at that kinda thing. not letting himself wonder if a guy (particularly a friend) is into him. or really, even if he's into them. he's really, really good at compartmentalising, and buck's pretty insistent that he's straight, so tommy's taking that at face value. hey, buck makes compelling arguments ("tommy, straight men have prostates too!")

aaaaand there we have the contents of my brain as it relates to one tommy kinard. even in my own incredibly stupid AUs, i am frankly obsessed. i want to gnaw on him. i'll settle for having buck do it instead.

[stargirlsfc]

"leah walks over the other day..."

"see this is what I mean– I literally told her the other day not to tell anyone"

[aalghul]

"claiming any writer ever intended to write that jason was sexually assaulted as a child is stealing from mia" is still one of the most ridiculous takes i have ever seen. by the way

[sapphoscreature]

I’ll see analysis on here of characters which is so interesting and insightful, engaging with the show. I’ll see interviews with writers which work in tandem with these analyses and think, yes, what a rich piece of work to engage with and digest.

And then I’ll come across a post completely misunderstanding a character based on a one-note reading of them which has thousands of likes and feel a despair so bitter and an anger so hot it really makes me question how people watch shows these days.

[backpackingspace]

I am once again thinking about how odysseus who witnessed the horrors that the captured women went through (one of his main duties in the iliad was taking the women back home and making sure they were as comfortable as possible and safe because he was the only one trusted not to violate them further due to his devotion to penelope. And in the odyssey part of the reason circe sent him to the underworld was so that he'd have to listen to all these women's stories (before he could talk to the prophet) ). Who was one of the few that saw women as people and respected their space and opinions. And was then put in those exact same situations. I don't have the motivation right now to do a full literary analysis of this (I'll site the sources too) but oh man one day I'm going to write a full essay on this.

[aliceisaperson]

Saw a video and it mentioned the Myth of Hades and Persephone being pretty toxic, and literally fucking all the comments were like “ummm actually Persephone fell in love with Hades and chose to go there willingly and they actually had a very healthy relationship and you’re wrong,” and I’m fucking BEGGING these people to research myths other than reading a shitty romance retelling of it. Because like the original myth is about a mother’s devastation over loosing contact with her daughter due to a decision the men around her made over her head. It’s representative of a situation many mothers and daughter had to go through back then. Idk just the fact that people are trying to change to myth into a romance has always been pretty disgusting to me, but that fact that people are now claiming that that’s the actual original version is pretty absurd.

[artemisxrose]

FUCK Liam Payne! I will no longer support OT5 and I don’t even want a 1D reunion anymore. It’s so disgusting how so many of you defend these boys actions, but especially Liam, in light of everything that has come out. Maya Henry has every right to speak about her experiences. And it’s gross that I’m seeing literal threads and tweets upon tweets of people calling her a liar and saying all these horrible things. You’re proving Liam right! “No one will believe you anyways and the fans will always defend us!”

Is that not absolutely horrifying to yall? That this man is weaponizing his fanbase against women that he has treated poorly? And yall continue to enable him! Everything Maya said in her recent TikTok was true! Yall defend this abuser because of boy band nostalgia? What the fuck is wrong with some of yall? It makes me sick. It’s always “believe women” “believe victims” until it’s your fave, right?!

We don’t know these people! “He would never do that…” YOU DONT KNOW HIM! These parasocial relationships are going too far.

What’s scary is based on some of the stuff Maya said, I wonder if this is only the tip of the iceberg with Liam. He’s probably done so much shit we don’t even know about. Maybe even the other boys???

I know I’m ranting and no one probably cares but some of the tweets I saw defending Liam were so triggering and upsetting. Trending hashtags like #FreeLiam and #WeLoveYouLiam when a woman CONFIRMED that he abused her is just so sickening. This is why women don’t come forward. This is especially why victims of celebrities and people in power don’t come forward. Because this is how they’re treated. Maya literally even confirmed that Liam and his team have tried to silence her and didn’t want the book to come out. I just… there are no more words.

This whole situation is so triggering… I’m so angry and upset.

Fuck Liam Payne and Fuck all of yall defending him.

[fictionadventurer]

I think I have accidentally become very protective of the story of Snow White.

[crow-caller]

This 1970s short story is about a black shelled lonely crab alien contending with human romance. I'm sure my enjoyment of it has no other factors...

(The Reality Trip by Robert Silverberg— i love my pulp short story collections, overall collection is quite eh so far, this story was a lot of fun, and then whoops, there's a sudden very racist one! I read a collection by Theodore Sturgeon before this so I'm still haunted by how much better he is than Silverberg at every turn.)

[kuro-anko]

The way the writers hate women should be studied.

[iamnotlookingidonotseeit]

hot vintage poll is making me realize my entire physical type in men basically comes down to intense eyes

[yourdeliciouspoison]

I miss you so much than the butterflies in my stomach and the demons in my mind.

[lagosbratzdoll]

This is a very very unfinished thought but I've been thinking a lot as I reread the books about how the women of House of the Dragon don't really get catharsis and how that'll likely be worse in S2. Say what you want about asoiaf but a number of named women there experience catharsis.

They kill their abusers (Lysa, Cersei, Dany). They regain some agency after a violation (Lysa, Cersei, Lady Stoneheart, Dany), and they refuse to forgive the people complicit in their subjugation (Lysa, Cersei, Dany, Lady Stoneheart, Jeyne Westerling).

Obviously, three or four isn't enough in such an expansive cast of characters but the point remains that they claw back their autonomy however they have to. They're allowed to be angry, bitter, unforgiving and cruel to their abusers in a way women in House of the Dragon just aren't allowed. They're allowed grief, grief that is violent and destructive.

The women of House of the Dragon don't get angry. They stand around and stare plaintively at the camera, they cry prettily, and they plead for peace and non-violence. They suffer and suffer and suffer and there's no relief.