#that quote that says : women have no idea how much men hate them

[iceyrukia]

A guy acting decent in front of their wife/girl isn’t a perfect indicator of a man’s lack of misogyny because the moment when a woman messes up or upsets them men always have misogyny in their arsenal to fall back into in as a way to punish women. That’s the male privilege that all men have and can utilize it at any given moment.

[vickyvicarious]

Hello! I was wondering what you make of Seward's phrase "is it possible that love is all subjective or all objective?" I've seen people allude to different meanings on the phrase but I can't quite figure out what it means

I wanted to wait until after 11 October to answer this ask, just so I didn't have to spoiler for the context of my reply. Which is that... my instinct is to oppose Jonathan and Seward's loves for this one. Specifically, in their reactions to the women they love becoming vampires. (I'm choosing Jack specifically to talk about because we get in his head more than we do for the other suitors, though by actions one could argue they fall more on the same side as he does.)

Firstly, let's take a brief moment to talk about the specific words used. Subjective generally means dictated by personal taste, and objective would be based on fact or truth. So, a love that is all one or the other could be very different depending on what the person you love is like. For example, an objective love would appreciate someone's virtues, while a subjective one might find things to love even in their flaws. Or on a larger scale, and much more relevant to how the phrase is used in the book... what would happen when the person you love is becoming a vampire, a creature that is factually and objectively evil and wrong? How would you react, how would you feel?

It depends on your type of love.

Jonathan's love is all subjective. Even though he absolutely hates and despises vampires, once he knows Mina is at risk of becoming one he resolves to join her if need be. He sees her rejected by God when the communion wafer burns her forehead, and he says 'actually no, I think the holiest kind of love is the one that would lead me to join her in her unholy state'. Even when Mina outright appeals to him to kill her if she is too far gone - an appeal to his objective understanding, for him to express his love in a way that confronts the truth of what she would become - Jonathan remains silent and in doing so refuses to make that promise. It's implied that he would be willing to fight the other men in order to protect her, even though they are his allies and friends. His beliefs warp around the shape of his love. He will destroy himself and others for the sake of his love, even if he knows through painful experience how objectively evil vampires are.

Jack's love meanwhile is all objective. Even though he didn't fully understand what a vampire was, he began to lose his love for Lucy as soon as he saw her acting in that way. In fact every time she was acting out of character to be more vampiric before her death, he seemed to notice and be a little put off by it, even though he didn't really seem to realize so much at the time. He outright says this quote when he is watching vampire!Lucy and realizing that he doesn't feel as horrible about mutilating the body of the woman he loved as he would have expected. When he learns Lucy has become a monster, he begins to feel repulsed by her - a process completed when he sees her up close and outright says his love for her is gone: "At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight." His determination to destroy the Thing she now is completely separates her in his mind from her living self. His love gives way to the objective facts. He will help to kill her, and gladly, because what she has become disgusts him... because what she has become is objectively evil.

Obviously, their experiences are different, and perhaps it's not quite such a true binary. Mina's gradual transformation, combined with Jonathan's pre-existing knowledge, is quite different from Jack's abrupt introduction to Lucy's vastly changed self and to the idea of the supernatural at all. But for the purposes of examining this quote, I think it works quite well to set them up at opposite ends of that scale.

.

It's also kind of curious because it calls back to another great line of Seward's: "(Mem., under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?)" The context of that line is Seward struggling to resist his dark impulses with regards to his treatment of Renfield. And he says this after having noticed himself actively doing something he says he'd normally avoid like the pit of hell, so that means he was approaching it until he caught himself. This is a struggle he repeatedly faces with Renfield, finding himself longing for a cause that he would consider it worthwhile abandoning his morals for, so that he could just give in to these urges.

But while Jack Seward is the person most drawn to the darkness, as we get introduced to the vampires are representatives of the ultimate darkness he backs firmly away. It's only in isolation that he feels so attracted to amoral experimentation; when together with his friends he pulls himself back to be more firmly opposed. His treatment of Renfield is a mess the entire time, don't get me wrong. He never really does right by him. But he doesn't seem to feel that same urge to push him in such a cruel way merely for his own interest/satisfaction. It becomes in the service of a greater goal, the objectively good idea of fighting Dracula. (Again, not saying his methods are good, but his motivation shifts.) He's always been conscious of an idea of what is right to do and he actively tries to follow that, with much greater success when not left to his own devices.

Meanwhile Jonathan has never felt such an intense draw to the darkness. He survived months alone surrounded by evil influences, and it only increased his determination to remain himself/human. He hates the vampires and he feels no true allure to the idea of being like them (outside the allure everyone feels when being hypnotized by them, etc.). He wanted nothing more than a normal happy life, he never longed for a cause that would be worth throwing his morals away. And yet, when Mina begins to turn we see Jonathan decide that this is the circumstance under which he will not avoid the pit of hell. This is the cause he can dedicate himself to as fully as any madman. Jonathan never felt the need to philosophize about trying to avoid such things before he was exposed to them by others, because he has no inherent urge to seek them out. But he also lacks that restrictive hold when a reason does come along.

(To visualize: if there's a pit, then Jack is the person who keeps wandering closer, desperately wanting to lean over the edge and see what's inside. Knowing this about himself, he's tied a rope around his waist to ensure he doesn't slip too far. Jonathan never even went near until he abruptly decides to sprint up and swan-dive straight into it when he thinks Mina's fallen in.)

[littlesparklight]

What are the specific sources that say Helen went willingly with Paris? Was discussing with a friend but all I could remember was Sappho fragment 16? Ty!!

Let me start with a quote from the preface to Ruby Blondell's Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation:

"Though her [Helen's] departure is typically referred to as an "abduction", none of our sources claims that Paris took Helen by force against her will. Her complicity is essential to her story."

I could, in short, give you almost any and all sources possible, anon! Even the late sources like Dictys and Dares include mutual attraction and desire, even when Helen is, actually forcibly taken. And sure, some might protest about Aphrodite's (implied, usually) forcible meddling in Helen's psychology, but that is never what we really see and that is, secondly, not really how personal responsibility, even in the face of potential/actual divine interference, works. (In that case you'd have to absolve Zeus of a lot of his escapades.)

Anyway, I'll try to give you a selection, vaguely arranged in chronological order.

The Iliad - I could pick several different lines from here, and they'd all be from Helen herself. Sure, if one's interpretation is that she is not honest about what she's saying, you might not agree, but I'm going to insist on allowing Helen the agency she is claiming for herself. So, here, from Helen's conversation with Priam in Book 3:

"Honored are you to me, dear father in law, and revered, and would that evil death had pleased me at that time when I followed your son here, abandoning [...]" (trans. Caroline Alexander)

Elsewhere Helen uses "I went". But for this the pertinent thing is that "had pleased me" because the clear implication is that what pleased her back then was Paris, not death.

The Kypria; fragmentary, here's a quote from Proclus' summary: "Aphrodite brings Helen and Alexandros together. After their intercourse, they load up a great many valuables and sail away by night."

That "brings [them] together" isn't a language of force in the terminology used, and it's clearly both Helen and Paris who takes the valuables, not Paris alone. In fact, lets compare a directly comparable sentence from the (much) later Bibliotheke, Epitome 3.3: "Alexander persuaded Helen to go off with him. And she abandoned Hermione, then nine years old, and putting most of the property on board, she set sail with him by night."

'Persuasion', 'she abandoned', '[she] put most of the property on board', 'she set sail'. You see the point here. Helen is not baggage that Paris has picked up like an inanimate object and left with, no matter what its will. She is doing things.

You already mentioned Sappho 16 yourself, so let's turn to her contemporary Alkaios, fr. 283 (taking the translation of the quote of this from Blondell's book): "... and [Eros?] excited in her breast, the heart of Argive Helen; and driven mad by the Trojan man, the host-deceiver, she followed him over the sea in his ship."

The rest basically reiterates these opening lines, and you can see some of the similarity to Sappho 16, but Alkaios is a lot more condemnatory. Of Helen and Paris both.

Euripides next. Iphigenia in Aulis: "[...]and he, finding Menelaus gone from home, carried Helen off, in mutual desire, to his steading on Ida." (Agamemnon speaking.) and "[...]that Hellas might exact vengeance on the one who had fled her home to wed a foreigner." (The chorus speaking.) Trojan Women: "Their captain too, whom men call wise, has lost for what he hated most what most he prized, yielding to his brother for a woman's sake—and she was willing and not taken by force—the joy he had of his own children in his home." (Kassandra speaking.) I'm not going to quote all of Hecuba's speech in the agon against Helen, but her whole argument is that Helen went willingly... and some of Helen's own arguments are less to deny this idea of mutual desire/having left willingly and more to say Aphrodite is impossible to resist (but then we have to absolve Zeus, for Helen uses his vulnerability to Aphrodite as her thrust for as to why she should be excused).

Herodotus in his Histories is another that speak of abduction out of one side of the mouth and implies something far more willingly/mutual with the other (from 2.115):

"gave wings to and were gone with her"; the phrase really is that, quite literally, and I haven't been able to find anything that actually discusses this. (Another translations goes with "did stir her to desire" which, while that isn't what the text literally says, does, like, get the idea of something mutual happening/the usual focus on Helen's desire for Paris across to us better.)

And for something a little later, Gorgias' Encomium of Helen: like Blondell points out in her book, Gorgias' suggestion of actual force/violence as a potential factor in Helen leaving Sparta is quite singular. (In fact, all of his arguments turns into force/violence against Helen and make her basically an object who doesn't so much have no agency as no will or personhood that might react independently at all.)

And Ovid's Heroides certainly has Helen inviting Paris' attentions, even if she does so in a circuitous manner, circling up on saying "yes, come here, now that Menelaos has left".

Anyway, I could probably have gone on, but there's a couple sources, at least!

And I'd like to point out that whether one wants to insist that Aphrodite's potential direct influence means any "willingness" of Helen's is meaningless or not, there's a whole galaxy between "Helen went off with literally no thought to what this would cause or to her daughter and Menelaos and her family, and didn't care about the consequences/intentionally meant to cause all this destruction to both sides" and "she cares about this, and is/will be conflicted over it, yet is also attracted to and leaves with Paris".

Like, just because she wasn't violently kidnapped against her will, and was/is actually attracted to Paris (which she is still in the Iliad! That is part of the point of her confrontation with Aphrodite!) and so on, doesn't mean there aren't a lot of nuances (as the Iliad itself shows) that can be put into Helen being attracted to Paris and leaving willingly in some manner.

[velvetvexations]

I'm putting these asks in as text because my inbox is so packed rn lol. Love you Velvet Nation!

i swear to god cisfeminist spaces are the worst. a lesbian was asking why straight people have such bad sex (for the woman in the relationship, regarding the orgasm gap) and everyone jumped onto how testosterone is the reason for it (as in testosterone makes you want to orgasm in 3 minutes with no regard for extending sex outside of wanting to orgasm), even a trans woman saying the sex is so much better with oestrogen in her system. and me and a few other transmascs pointed out to this trans woman that it was probably because she was running on the wrong hormones, and any of us transmascs that dared to say we have extremely fulfilling sex that is infinitely better than the sex we had before we started T was absolutely shat on and berated for “speaking over women” even though we were just sharing our experiences, it’s just that those opinions went against the bioessentialism held deeply by the community

Yo, that's fucked? What the hell? Do people seriously earnestly not get how they come off here?

aside from OOP ignoring all of the black transmascs and other transmascs of colour in the discussion around transandrophobia (including a trans man of colour coining the term), i wonder if they believe we’re making up black transmascs because the transradfems i’ve seen so far have been overwhelmingly white. maybe because radfeminism is inherently racist or something… and their bible is written by a middle-class white woman with no perspective on transmisogynoir and this reflects upon a lot of the discussions of transmisogyny to this day…

Radical feminism is inherently Karenesque. They cross the street when they see the PoC transmascs they spend every waking hour slagging off approach on the sidewalk.

I just really want to chill and watch anime together with you some time, your taste is based as fuck

It sure is!

most bizarre thing i have seen today: a transradfem who clearly believes 100% closeted and non-passing transmascs have privilege over cis women but dancing around actually saying it because they know deep down it might get them backlash from the less radical transradfems

I don't even think it would.

I am still very "read another fucking author" at all the transfeminists who only ever quote Julia Serrano, but finding out she *also* hates the terms TMA/TME made my fucking week. Like, the transradfems' hero doesn't even agree with them!

A lot of them didn't even read Whipping Girl.

Can confirm male/female socialization is not actually a consistent thing because I was literally too autistic to internalize any gender roles, at least in relation to myself. Just. Never learned! Like water off a ducks back

High five!

Really if you take a character who presents as one gender and transition them some trans person is going to be mad about it cause they saw themselves in the original conception of the character. It's inevitable.

Yeah, that is the unfortunate truth of the matter.

That second paragraph is literally what terfs say about trans women. Turning that on trans men doesn't make you any more feminist it just makes you transphobic. (This is directed at the op of that post not you velvet)

Radical feminism is so fucking easy to recognize no matter how repackaged it is.

Racist feminism anon here: see this is the reason I feel like shit for having any critiques of feminism whatsoever. Like hashtag Not All Women obviously but literally these specific women aren't listening to marginalized men. We're not talking about whatever cis white able-bodied Elon Musk fan they think stands in for "men" in this situation. They put "valid concerns" in scare asterisks as though the very idea we have any is laughable. And no actually racism is not a "secondary manifestation" of misogyny and while transphobia stems from misogyny it shouldn't be treated as secondary for any trans person. How the fuck are we supposed to point out that white woman separatism leaves behind men who actually do suffer under patriarchy when it gets telephoned into "you stupid fucking bitch shut up I'll fucking kill you"

The point is making it so you can't.

BTW, I didn't get to edit it into the post before they blocked me, but they were reblogging Actual Nazi shit, like, the OP of the post was progressive but our dumbass here didn't notice that "if there was no hope their propaganda would be unnecessary" is (a) a popular Nazi thing and (b) added to the post by a literal Nazi.

It never does, they're fully removed from this plane of existence.

Note: At this point I kinna forgot I wasn't screenshotting these

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I can't believe someone who's BFFs with a tankie is a hypocrite.

You're the second person to apologize for using that format and it always makes me think of the clown-names drama every time.

[genderkoolaid]

hey! if you have the spoons, would you happen to have any posts/anecdotes refuting this thread? https://www.tumblr.com/neondyke/719263498717233152/nonhoration?source=share

so. one of my big problems with how we talk about TERFs is the sort of conspiratorial energy some people have towards them- not in that TERFs don't lie about their beliefs, but the idea that all radical feminists are part of this huge conspiracy where none of them actually believe any of what they say. The idea that no TERF actually, genuinely cares about women, or gender non-conforming people- or that none of them hate men.

Just because TERFism is misogynistic, harmful to GNC people, and often allies with conservative men, does not mean every TERF hates other women, GNC people, and likes men. Its vital to be critical of what TERFs say vs what their actions say- but we do ourselves and them a disservice by shoving our fingers in our ears and essentially saying that no TERF can be genuine, and I actually know what they really believe in their hearts. This is especially important when you aren't interacting with high-level TERFs (especially those making bank off public appearances & books & shit), but like. regular smegular everyday women who got radicalized, or people who are on the verge of being radicalized and are put-off by people who seem to be incapable of seeing TERFs as having genuine beliefs.

I say that all because the idea that TERFs aren't misandrists, that they don't really hate men, is just straight-up ridiculous. It assumes that radical feminism was born exclusively as a reaction to trans women, that none of its theorists or activists were genuinely trying to apply Marxist analysis to gender/sex dynamics and create a better world for women. Which ignores other parts of radical feminism, like their anti-sex work rhetoric/whorephobia. (If you have access to JSTOR, I recommend reading "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism" by Ellen Willis, a former radfem; it dives into the problems with 60s radical feminism from an inside perspective).

I absolutely think TERF hatred for trans women is not exclusively a result of their misandry. This is because all transphobia is systematic, and everyone born and raised in transphobic society has transphobia woven into their thinking. So if you are a cis woman, probably one who has had traumatic experiences with misogyny coming from cis men- probably one with some interest in leftism, who is annoyed by liberal #girlboss feminism which feels lackluster, who is envious of the subversive, direct-action, "tear the system down" feminism of the past- and you have an unexamined, ingrained bias against trans people, well. TERFism will provide explanation and affirmation for your trauma and the promise of the radical feminist action of your dreams to allow you to lash out at your oppressors with the logic of the guillotine. Your unexamined bias against trans women will mean you don't see their transmisogyny as unreasonable, and even if you never really thought about trans women before, its gonna be real easy for you to accept them as a threat to Real Women.

But to assume that every time a TERF says "men" or "male," she means "trans woman," is just ignorant. TERFs are surrounded by cis men, because they live in the same society as us. They see cis men acting misogynistic, many of them have been personally hurt by cis men, they very much mean "cis men" when they say things like "all men should be castrated" or "all male babies should be aborted"- how exactly can you talk about males as a sex and never refer to cis men? When they talk about how using dildos or any sort of penetrative sex is patriarchal and Bad, that's not because they hate trans women, its because they see anything that could be associated with maleness as bad.

Here's a quote from Sylvia Riveria's very important work "Queens in Exile, The Forgotten Ones":

"Oh, yeah, we mixed with lesbians. We always got along back then. All the division between lesbian women and queens came after 1974 when Jean O'Leary and the radical lesbians came up. The radicals did not accept us or masculine-looking women who dressed like men. And those lesbian women might not even have been trans."

TERF hatred for transmasculinity goes back far before ROGD and the idea of transmasculinity as a social disease affecting "innocent young girls." Here's a quote from Leslie Feinberg's Transgender Warriors:

"A view that the primary division of society is between women and men leads some women to fear that transsexual women are men in sheep's clothing coming across their border, or that female-to-male transsexuals are going over to the enemy, or that I look the same as the enemy."

If TERFs have no real hatred for men or masculinity, why did/do they attack butches & transmascs? Why, before ROGD was the trendy way to attack transmasculinity, did they specifically attack us for being too masculine and therefore imitating the oppressor? The idea that trans women are the only ones blamed by TERFs for ROGD is also false- adult trans men, especially those with any public influence, are frequently blamed for "preying" on young "girls." (Also, fun fact: that last quoted paragraph ends with: "Trans people of all sexes and genders are not oppressors: they, like women, rank among the oppressed.")

Lastly, I feel like we- all trans people- have an issue of trying to match our genders & the way our genders do impact how we are treated, with the way our sexual/gendered misgendering also impacts how we are treated. For example, I am often frustrated by trans men who are resistant to talking about how trans men face misogyny because "it feels like misgendering." I don't think we can really deal with transphobia unless we cope with the fact that we are trans people- we are socially placed between genders and punished for that, and that means that we will be attacked because of our relationship to our gender assigned at birth (although not exclusively). See this post for more of my thoughts on that.

Obligatory "please don't harass any of the people in the screenshot above, just block them & move on" notice

[roseworth]

What drives me nuts about this idea that we just need to be nice and understanding to sexist men and coddle men's feelings so they don't become violent misogynists is when they use the argument that "men are just reacting to feeling unappreciated and feeling lonely and hated" like damn women have never experienced anything like that ever in human history? Have feminists not been reacting to centuries of gendered oppression and disrespect? Why are men the only ones allowed to react, and to much less I might add. Even in "woke" spaces a lot of people have this idea that women as a group just SHOULD tolerate more disrespect. Women can handle it, because to a degree they deserve it. But God forbid anyone ever makes a man feel lesser. Basically: "She was asking for it."

YES!!!!! THIS!!!!!! fuck

it’s ridiculous to act like any of the “alienation” that men face is anywhere near the oppression women have faced for centuries. loneliness and self-hate are not male-exclusive feelings, but men are a lot more likely to become nazis for it.the whole “male loneliness epidemic” comes from men blaming women for how they feel, and how women are bitches for making them feel that way. then when women don’t care they get blamed for not being empathetic and talking to them anyway. not to mention that they’re convinced that male loneliness is a male-exclusive feeling just because they don’t actually see women as complex humans with emotions so they don’t understand that women also feel lonely but manage to feel it without blaming an entire gender

i saw a quote once that basically said “women who say they hate men will avoid them. men who say they hate women will kill them.” and!! yeah!!! acting like misogyny and misandry are comparable issues is ridiculous. and yet somehow people try to claim there’s a “sexism” problem in feminism because some feminists go “too far” when they say they hate men. because obviously women should be welcoming men into their spaces with open arms and never challenge them, because if a woman points out that the patriarchy benefits men they’ll get upset then they’ll have no choice but to become nazis

[glasskey]

I’m Gonna Cut Your F#cking Heart Out - The June Osborne Hit List Pt 1.

You guessed it, time for our girl to finally get her own playlist. She’s been busy to say the least, so there’s certainly surplus to requirement here. Let’s start with some of her most memorable hits from The Handmaid’s Tale season 1.

Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum (Don’t let the bastards grind you down)

The infamous words of defiance and hope scrawled on the inside of June’s wardrobe from the previous Handmaid, who tragically, ultimately, let the bastards (Fred) grind her down. It was fitting that at the beginning of season 1, June had absolutely no idea what these words meant, but by the end of S2 she’d plastered them across the wall of her prison in foot high letters. Suitably she found this secret call to freedom destroyed upon her unceremonious return at the beginning of S2. We watched as Aunt Lydia and Serena proceeded to join forces to crush her spirit, leaving June catatonic and bleeding in the garden bed. It seemed poetic that June had to ask Fred their meaning, for their very essence incited rebellion and he was after all, her jailer. His response that it was a joke, indicated that the very concept of kicking against the system was laughable. It was a message contained in one of Fred’s boyhood school books, signifying a long since dead rebellious youth. Here in Gilead these words belong to June and she treats them like a prayer for strength against the resident “bastard” Fred, and his unending onslaught of rape and obsessive creepiness. The moment Fred is confronted by the words on June’s bedroom wall as he is held at gun point by Nick, is juxtaposed with his demise in that dark forest at the hands of Nick and June. The phrase signed off across his hung lifeless body marking June and Fred’s separation and the end of a sinister chapter. In her testimony June had asked for justice for the nameless, voiceless many and here it was at last, for the previous anonymous Handmaid who had hung herself in despair in the Waterford's attic.

Standing there in her room staring at those words, Fred of all people should have understood their subtext, but consumed with obsession and arrogance, he chose to ignore them. How was he to know they weren’t just a good old fashioned fuck you from Osborne, but also a prophetic warning.

What else is there to live for?

As much as I hated Fred, he did get some of the best lines and this one scene has three of his greats. This quote from Fred and the philosophical debate he has with June is one of my favorite Osborne moments. It encapsulates the difference in nature between their respective two worlds. Fred’s musings about life pre Gilead come loaded with allusions to men and women’s displacement from their traditional roles. Fred, and later Lawrence, argue that as these lines blurred and women attempted to exceed their “biological destinies”, men felt they lost their purpose and society crumbled. Fred believes that the sole purpose of humanity is to breed and perpetuate the human race, anything else such as love, is nothing more than sentimental garbage invented to facilitate this process. “Now you’re free to fulfil your biological destinies….what else is there to live for?” he asks “Love” June replies almost astonished at his ignorance. To her the answer is so self-evident and obvious; because unlike Fred she’s actually experienced it, and isn’t the emotional equivalent of a cavernous black hole. He scoffs dismissing it as lust, and she unfortunately overestimates the length of the leash Fred has her on. She drops the careless quip; “Maybe for you, but not for me”, questioning both his emotional depth and the authenticity of his feelings for Serena. He is less than amused. He proceeds to give her a not so subtle warning by telling her exactly what they did to Emily. It’s clear that in this world women’s needs or pleasure are not only irrelevant, but a hindrance to the cause.

Fred then drops what is possibly my favorite line for this entire series; “Every love story is a tragedy if you wait long enough”, it speaks volumes about the deterioration of his and Serena’s relationship. Once loving and affectionate it has become bitter and resentful within the bounds of Gilead, for in Gilead, anything beautiful decays. These words are both heartbreaking and loaded with foreboding, and it’s poetic that upon leaving his study she runs straight into Nick. The similarities and differences between Fred and Serena’s and Nick and June’s relationship are played out time after time throughout the seasons. This moment in particular leaves you wondering, will the other shoe indeed drop? Or are Fred and Serena actually the antithesis of what Nick and June will eventually become? Fred’s a cynic, he’s a monster but he can also recognize that Gilead comes at a personal cost to June and here we see the closest thing to an apology or at the very least an acknowledgment from Fred: “Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some.” It is notable that June, quotes this back to Nick in season 2, reluctant to abandon both he and Hannah in a place where love is not a purpose but merely a device.

What are you gonna trade us for? Fucking chocolate?

Here June gets her first lesson in just how much of a commodity women have become, on a global scale, even to other women. Alma lets her know from the very beginning the seedy details of the deals that are actually being made, and it sure as fuck isn’t for oranges. June unfortunately thinks that the Ambassador has some sort of interest in June’s imprisonment and if she only knew the appalling conditions June was being kept in she would undoubtedly do something about it. She’s wrong. When they first met she dutifully kept her trap shut, but then Serena had to go and parade all those children around in front of her. The spoils of Gilead and the consequence of the Handmaids enslavement. When the Ambassador turns up toting a tin of choccy to thank June for her candor about life in Gilead she lets her know exactly what being a Handmaid is all about, complete with the eye gouging and cattle prods. Contrary to belief she hasn’t sacrificed herself to the glory of Gilead; she was kidnapped, enslaved and her own child stolen. The Ambassador is of course horrified but willing to do exactly jack shit about it lest it endanger her trade deal for a shipment of Handmaids.

June’s suitably stunned and angry; she’s demanding some answers. Turns out the Ambassadors country desperately needs repopulating; although I was challenged to see what shipping over some fresh wombs would do without the whole Gilead old timey scrub down to go along with it, as this actually seemed to be the secret sauce. June accuses the Ambassador of trading the Handmaids for chocolate, it’s a stab at her moral fiber; chocolate serves no purpose but pleasure, it’s a trivial luxury, and as such she must view these women as mere chattels to trade them for it. If these people want to start trading red tags, June will make sure they see exactly what it costs them personally, and it’s a lot more than oranges and chocolate.

I’m sorry Aunt Lydia

Here we see the birth of Mayday or rather June’s true baptism as its unofficial leader. When faced with the prospect of stoning Janine to death, June chose instead to give Aunt Lydia the equivalent of the middle finger in front of her peers, complete with a smug “I’m sorry Aunt Lydia.” Much to Aunt Lydia’s horror her buddies all followed suit…..it was enough to make a cuddly old fascists blood boil. As the Handmaids walked in lockstep back to their respective homes, there was an undeniable new confident swagger to them. Nevermind, Gilead will shortly torture and terrify that out of them, but the damage is done, the rebellious rot has now set in for good.

Janine was the best behaved one out of the bunch and even she ended up a stone’s throw away from a salvaging; it could have been any one of them and they all knew it. In your run of the mill dictatorship, unquestioning loyalty is bred through fear and the reward of remaining alive. However, Gilead seemed to have made the fatal mistake of punishing it's innocent, leaving the Handmaids to reach the logical conclusion that they were fucked either way. Regimes such as these are ripe for rebellion. Gilead had unintentionally turned their handmaids attire from a ritualistic binding into a rebels uniform in one fell swoop, and unfortunately no amount of stylistic alterations were going to change it back now. This was the moment that the Handmaids realized that they had nothing to lose, and there’s nothing more dangerous than solidarity amongst those who are willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause.

While we all wait faithfully for S6, I'll be back with more playlists. See you then.

[menlove]

yknow your fantastic post about closeted paul and how he's (probably) come to accept his queerness/bisexuality, but simply keeps it private for multiple reasons? what would you say was john's case?

(i personally believe he was a closeted gay man but idk how to Phrase Things. Sigh.)

oh i 10000000% believe john was a gay man with a lot of Problems. like. i know, i know, in later life he talked about liking men & women & we have that hysterical "john lennon's bisexual guide to gardening" quote but likeeeeeeeeee.... idk. here's my Speculations under the cut

several things, to me. yes, he fucked a lot of women (a lot). but of the 4 of them, during the beatles years he really didn't.... have any steady girlfriends. it's not like he was the only married one and it's not like he had any hangups about cheating, so it's really not that. the ONLY rumor there is was one that he "dated" an older woman (blanking on her name rn) and even thennnn those rumors were, afaik, just based on the fact that he was kind of sad when she died & that he viewed her as a mother figure. which is... i mean that's not convincing like at all to me.

the Three Biggest Relationships in his life w women were cynthia, yoko, and may pang. the rest were women he fucked around with as one night stands. again, as far as i'm aware. and cynthia..... well it's not really hard to see that he very much (unfortunately) did not give that much of a fuck about her. it's the most classic case of comphet i've ever seen. he dated her bc he was supposed to & then he married her bc she got pregnant and he was supposed to.

and yoko....... lord. i won't deny that he loved her. but it was, from literally everything we've seen, a very obsessive love that had less to do w their personal chemistry and more to do with Circumstances. and even with her, there's sooo many quotes of him talking about how he liked her bc she looked like a man, or looked like him in drag, or acted like a bloke/best mate. that's. not to doubt him but that's just not something someone into women says lmfao.

and that's not to mention the whole debacle w probable conversion therapy. and like. this is no hate to yoko & again i believe she was a flawed individual just like any of them were & we have truly got to embrace her morally gray status just like any man bc we can't demonize OR idealize women when women are Literally Just People. but from some of her quotes & outside sources she was very uncomfortable w the idea of his queerness. and hell, there's the "you think of rock hudson when we do it" line, which is both honestly pretty fucking homophobic but also very indicative of where john was, sexuality wise

and as for may, that whole situation was honestly so fucked up and tragic for Both of them that getting into it would take a novel but like. that wasn't exactly his first choice in partner

and in his quotes about Being Into Men, what he says is basically that with women he is fine fucking without an emotional connection but w men he needs that emotional connection & he hasn't found that with a man. which i think is him bullshitting, btw, but the core of it there that he can't fuck a man without emotions is... well that's really telling. it seems like sex with women to him is just sex, whereas sex with men to him is a deep, emotional thing. and that's, again, just not really something someone into women would be saying with their chest

i'm pretty sure he Also has a quote about never having found a woman attractive which is just telling all on its own

and as for Being Into Men...... well he talked about it himself. but also, there's at LEAST stuart, paul, and brian that would go right at the top of the list for me of men he had an incredibly close & intimate relationship with, one-sided or not. i don't think it's incidental that he referred to paul constantly as his other partner in life, his other marriage, etc while like. literally barely ever mentioning cynthia. like it's super telling, the johnandpaul of it aside, that he talks more about his Boy Best Friend when talking about past marriages than his literal wife lmfao

i think he had a LOT of internalized homophobia & anger with himself over it ("scared of his inner fag" as he said). bc of that, i don't think he let himself get as close to the men he was probably in love with as he wanted to be, or even let himself acknowledge just how emotionally attached he was to them. by the end of his life, i think he WAS coming to terms with liking men, at least. was he coming to terms with Not liking women? i don't know. probably not, although i know his and yoko's marriage was in a rough place by the end of his life so who knows really.

i would hope that if he'd lived that by now he would've found peace w his sexuality, bi or gay, but that's not the world we got unfortunately

[your-queer-dad]

Hi. I just wanted to say 2 things. Sorry about how long this post is - you don’t have to read it all if you don’t want to. At least I’ll have typed out what I’ve been keeping inside so long.

First, you’re a really good person. I’m sure you know that already, and have been told that already, but from a young person to you, thank you so much. You are such a blessing.

I want to preface the second thing by saying that I have no idea where to go for support. My parents are wonderful people, but I’m not ready to come out to them or anyone else because my overall community doesn’t feel safe.

I know that at least one of my uncles doesn’t support LGBT people. One of my former classmates didn’t put in a yearbook quote indicating she was gay because she was afraid of her parents seeing it - and we’re part of a similar community. I have reason to believe other people in our community, even family members, may feel similarly.

At my former high school, my classmates often said transphobic things (one of my friends even said that one day, when I was absent a student gave a presentation promoting debunked rapid onset gender dysphoria - although thankfully someone pushed back) and although I’m not trans, not only is that behavior crappy and must have made my trans classmates feel bad, but it indicated an environment that I didn’t feel safe in.

I want to be clear that my high school wasn’t an awful place - we had an LGBT club and an out teacher who wasn’t harassed by anyone, to my knowledge - but all those other elements, and the world outside my school, still existed. I didn’t know if it was safe to be out.

It’s also my fault I feel stuck, too. Everyone assumes I’m straight, and it just feels easier to go with the flow. To pretend that I’m definitely going to have a boyfriend. To pretend that I’m not a woman who loves women as well as men.

This anxiety is so stifling, but it feels terrifying to think about being out. Even typing these words makes my hands shake and palms sweat. I don’t want to live in a world where people debate whether I can marry, whether I can exist, whether I am human - I hate it. I hate this nervousness. I hate that now, even though I’m going to college, I may not have the courage to be myself on campus.

So, after all of that, I guess I just need to ask: is it possible to find support? How do you learn to love yourself? How do I find a community?

Sorry for the long post. Have a good day.

Hey kiddo! It's alright, I don't mind the long post and thank you so much for reaching out! Yes I think it's possible to find support and your community. I hate it too, that we have to fight so hard for something that's so such a basic human necessity like the right to be ourselves. But finding support is possible, it just isn't always in the way you expect. There's lgbtq people everywhere, who feel like you, and who wants support too. Sometimes it comes when you least expect it to. But you will always have your community online, and your international community here for you, even if you don't see us everyday, we're here (and we're queer!). Learning to accept and love yourself is the hardest and the most worthwhile journey you'll ever go on, and there isn't a rush to start it until you're ready.

- dad x

[astridthevalkyrie]

chand ko chakor dekhe, tujkho naseebo wala (the bird looks at the moon, a lucky one looks at you) | hawks x reader | chapter 2

“You’ve died twice? From clocks?” “I know you’re not blind to the rocks and debris flying literally everywhere! The world would be better off without you in it!” you scream at the villain. The machine is even louder as it breaks and jams into the ground. “Flying building pieces or something, I don’t know—one hit me yesterday. The first day I got knocked into a wall, and then I woke up hugging my body pillow. Same thing the next day. And the next, and the next. Did my number three pro hero partner save me? No, he let me get stuck in a fucking time loop!” Or, you’ll do a lot of things with infinite time on your hands, but falling in love with Keigo Takami isn’t one of them.

a/n: you know it's a good writing kick when i'm updating despite no one liking this but me LOL

warnings: afab reader with she/her pronouns. FOUL language, reader curses so much, and just general rudeness, lots of death because reader is morbid, reader slutshames hawks

1

“So how many times have you told me?”

“Jesus, you must be allergic to asking original questions.”

Hawks levels you with an unimpressed look. “I’d say something about how I obviously wouldn’t remember my past self’s questions—”

“‘But you’ll probably make fun of me by repeating verbatim what I’m saying.’” You smirk at the pained look on his face that accompanies your air quotes. “Yeah. Now you’re going to try and think of an original, out of the box question to ask, which, if you can believe it or not, varies on how I move or what I say. I look right, you ask me what past you has said so far, but if I look left, you ask me about how I’ve been keeping myself entertained.”

After a long pause in which you think about how much you hate this fucking coffee, Hawks says, “You’re going to be a pain to talk to.”

“I’m a goddamn delight. You’re the one I’ve had to convince of this six whole times.”

“But you keep tellin’ me, sweetheart.” Ew. Ew. “Why is that?”

“I told you, you’re a constant everyday. Besides me dying.”

“You die—”

“Yes,” you sigh impatiently, “I never get through the day without dying. The longest I’ve gone is till 4 PM.” Gesture to the clock that you know is five minutes ahead. “So, one hour left to go! Yay me.”

Now you both only stare at each other, which is new, since Hawks can usually never shut the fuck up. There’s a question you want to ask, have wanted to ask for the past few days you’ve told him (with some breaks in between because come on, you’re not a walking Wikipedia page for fucking time loops and Hawks has no idea how to not be a pain) but you’re not going to because. Uh. Insecurity or some shit. 

Taking a long swig of his yucky strawberry bright pink dark-as-his-soul drink, freaky golden eyes observe you. You only darken your own gaze. What is this? A death match? Well, you’ve died several times and he’s still stuck at zero so. You know. He can suck your dick.

“Why don’t you ask me some questions?” he finally offers, and when you narrow your eyes, he grins cheerfully. “C’mon, songbird, you know you want to.”

“What’s the ratio of men you’ve been with versus women?”

“Four to nine. Challenge me next time.”

What a smug little shit. “Slut. How crazy do you think I am right now?”

“Not any more than normal.”

“How do you not sweat in that oversized jacket?”

“Bird stuff. And style takes priority over comfort.”

“Wild.” This is boring. Fucking boring, you’re bored, and you could die at any time. How boring does something have to be for you to not be nervous about death? Goddamn. 

You’re nearly beaming when a gunshot hits the ceiling, only for your happy mood to be replaced by a horrified one when a literal mini feather takes the robber out of the store and knocks him against a lamppost. What the fuck. What the fuck, dude.

The waitress who makes the least shitty coffee in the whole cafe has tears in her eyes. “Oh, thank you, Hawks! Thank you! I was so scared!”

“When?”

A fat tear catches on her lip as she quivers. “W-what?”

“When were you scared? He dealt with that in a second! The asshole didn’t even give you time to be scared!”

“I’m fast,” Hawks winks at her, stepping too close for your comfort. Slut. WHORE. “Oh my god,” he snaps his fingers in realization, “you knew that was going to happen. You’re a bad person.” For some reason, that thought is abso-fucking-lutely hilarious to him. “You were so about to let this store be robbed.”

“Um, no. For your FYI—”

“Redundant—”

“The same things don’t happen everyday. I mean that stupid fucking shit for brains asshole clock bitch always shows up, but the cafe has never been robbed before. That’s just the universe trying to kill me. Look.” You stomp out, waving away the waitress who seems too hesitant to tell you that you have to pay they can put you in jail give you a life sentence it won’t matter now innit and kneel down by the robber.

“Aha! One more bullet. This was my death instrument. But you interrupted.” 

SCARY shimmery golden eyes get closer closerthanhewastothewaitress until you’re knelt up against the same lamppost that gave Mr. Robber a concussion. “So I saved your life. Do I get a thank you kiss?”

“You get a choke on my balls, man. Also, you’re being, like. Really casual about this. Consistently. You’re telling me to try stuff and I’m trying the stuff, like I watched the Bill Murray movie and I gave myself a really good orgasm, and none of it worked, but if I didn’t know better I’d say you were living this with me.”

“Nah.” The corners of his lips quirk up genuinely. “I’m just trying to match whatever you’re giving me. You’re not panicking, so I’m not gonna be the one who tries to push you over the edge.”

“But I am panicking. Like, it’s whatever because I can’t stop it, but Hawks, I’m still...” You blink, looking at him, for the first time, with a defeated look. “Stuck.”

The pro catches your chin before it falls, forcing it up to meet his gaze. Ugly, lemon-colored eyes. Lips that at least four men and nine women have kissed. You wonder if Hawks is into degradation. He looks like he has a praise kink.

His hand encircles your wrist, he leans in, and then he blows a cherry on your cheek.

“Gross, dude, you’re gross!”

“Tell me everyday.” he replies cheerfully, “not that I’m gross.” You’re going to tell him exactly that everyday. Even when you’re not in a time loop. If you’re ever not in a time loop. “But about what’s happening. I’ll help get you unstuck no matter what.”

Why. You’re not gonna ask that. You’re just gonna accept the help that he owes you for not saving you the first day. And fuck that little butterfly-flutterfly shitstain feeling that’s usually reserved for your pussy that’s creeping up higher and twisting into knots in your stomach.

(The only time you’ve ever felt it with Hawks in the past was that one time he was fucking stuffing his gob with cheap street vendor fried chicken and when he swallowed he. Groaned. Out loud. All disgusting and unghhhh and shit.  And your womanly wiles liked it. The fuck.)

“Fine.” Your palm touches his cheek right as the robber comes to, taking the gun that you cleverly left at his side and blowing a hole in your head. 

—————————————————

You will not be telling Hawks you died while caressing his prickly bird face.

—————————————————

In three days actuallynodaysatallhowSPOOKY, it’s 4 PM, and you and Hawks are at the top of the highest building in the city. 

“You never did ask.” Hawks looks and sounds like a villain, surrounded by so many feathers pointed outward. You feel like a civ too, in the middle of it all, standing helplessly. But you’re not scared of him. If you weren’t sure you could take him? Then maybe. Are you sure? Maybe. Whatever. You can work on that confidence todaymorrow.

“Ask what?” The way your hands are up as though you’re ready to fight invisible demons would you make you fucking cackle if it was anyone else.

“Why my questions are different depending on the way you turn.”

You release a heavy laugh, eyes darting around like a madwoman. What will it be? A comet? A criminal? The building itself crumbling? You’d think a person would know what to expect after…nineteen? twenty? however-many-the-fuck-days. “You shit. That’s why you’ve been telling me to ask you stuff each day. Clever little birdbrain.”

A fly barely gets into the fray before a crimson feather wraps around it and tosses it to the side. Hawks does many things, but taking chances when it comes to doing his job isn’t one of them, apparently. Not that this is his job. Or at least you didn’t ask for it to be if he’s making it his personal mission to ensure you live that’s on him and only him.

“So why?”

“Oh, I’m not gonna tell you.”

“What!? Why not?”

“Because now there’s at least one piece of info that you won’t know and can’t parrot to poor tomorrow me.” He grins, showing you his stupid pearly whites. “Sucks to suck.”

“Fuck you.” You flip him off. “I’ll just manipulate it out of you tomorrow.”

Hawks’ voice comes out in a song—only this bitch would somehow find a way to one-up you when you’re literally immortal. “No, you woooon’t, songbird. Oh, hey!” He holds up his phone. “4:01!”

“4:01?” Your eyes bulge.

“Four o fucking one!”

“4:01!” you shriek happily, throwing yourself into his arms. Hawks squeezes you tight, burying his face in your hair like you two are the parents of some graduating high school student who was also the class president as THOUGH your combined genes would ever create such a genius. 

Hawks is warm.

A plane fucking crashes into you. He’s miraculously spared.

Bitch.

[blueberry-ovaries]

MISC. TAG GAME:

thank you for the tag @ronald-speirs, @panzershrike-pretz @malarkgirlypop and @grumpy-liebgott !!! sorry it took me so long!

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited?

oooh okay so recently i came back from europe, and i literally loved it so much! i oddly enough LOVED vatican city! and i absolutely adored venice and paris! however, london was also really nice! (i cannot decide i’m so sorry😭)

Something you’re proud of yourself for?

Honestly, going to University! Even when it’s hard and i hate it and have no idea what i’m doing, the fact i made it into university is something i’m very proud of!

Favourite books?

the picture of dorian gray - Oscar Wilde

a good girls guide to murder - Holly Jackson

5 survive - Holly Jackson

the outsiders - S.E Hinton

of mice and men - John Steinbeck

Something that makes your heart happy when you think about it?

my dog :) - his name is cisco and he was free to a good home and under fed, and now he gets treats every time we leave the house and sleeps on the bed

Favourite thing about your culture?

about being Australian? I would suppose our love for sport. We play so many sports over here and we support the aussies even if we don’t like the sport! For example the Matilda’s, our women’s soccer team! Soccer isn’t as big as AFL over here, but i’ve never seen so much support behind Womens soccer, let alone ANY soccer, as we’re very proud of our sporting teams!

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched?

close to two years ago? i’m not too sure, but i watched BoB first!

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite?

I have not! but i am trying to get my hands on the Dick Winters and Ron Speirs books!

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them?

Babe Heffron! and the “are you serious?! only the goddamn nuns call me Edward” BUT the scene with Gene in the fox hole where Babe mocks Gene calling him Babe is a very close second

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?

i have been known to dabble in other fandoms on other apps in fanfic writing 🤭

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?

ANDREW GARFIELD!!! and i am The Amazing spider-man enthusiast!!! (plus hacksaw ridge is a masterpiece)

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?

Some quotes my dad likes to tell me when i’m really anxious over university/ actively having a panic attack are:

“you can only do what you can do” - which pretty much means that all i can do is my best, and the rest will sort itself out, there’s no use stressing over situations i have no control over.

“how do you eat an elephant?” - which basically means, to tackle something large you take it one step at a time, ergo - to eat an elephant you eat it piece by piece

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?

Oh God, i’m not a very interesting person 🧍🏼‍♀️

I got swooped by birds in a century once and have hated birds ever since

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?

i do not have a beta reader 🤭 so position is potentially open 🤭

Three things that make you smile?

- sunsets! i LOVE watching sunsets i just think they are so pretty!

- rainy days (only when i’m inside) But i love rainy days, when i can sit by a window to read or do homework etc. I just think there is something so beautiful about rain!

- chocolate chip cookies :) my FAVOURITE cookies! i do not care if they are basic i love them sm

Any nicknames you like?

most of my nicknames :) But especially the nicknames that my parents give me :))

List some people you love to see around on tumblr:

i’m so sorry if i forget anyone @malarkgirlypop @ronald-speirs @ronsparky @mads-nixon @panzershrike-pretz @executethyself35 @next-autopsy @winnielefou @1waveshortofashipwreck @footprintsinthesxnd @caffeinated-fan @dontirrigateme @softliebgott @xxluckystrike @easycompany123 (+ all my mutuals who i have not tagged, love y’all i just have shocking name recollection)

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse?

i mean it would depend on what kinda zombies?? But most likely keeping friends and family alive.

Realistically, dying. i’m not dealing with all that.

Favorite movie?

mulan!!! i LOVE mulan (clearly… i’m literally writing a fic with mulan ideas)

Do you like horror movies?

i got a live hate relationship with them. Like i HATE religious horror with a passion, it freaks me the fuck out, but the conjuring series has great story lines?? However i watched the nun once and i swear to god i almost shit myself whenever k had to leave my room at night?! I was CONVINCED that motherfucker was gonna be in my house.

NO PRESSURE TAGS: @mads-nixon @easycompany123 @executethyself35 @montied @ronsparky @dontirrigateme (plus everyone else who would like to do this! consider this an offical tag!)

[rowrowronnie]

SOFIA DESERVED BETTER!!! And Arkham is hella scary. Wonder how Edward is doing in there

omg.. this is Literally what i'm saying!!!!!

i rewatched the episode today and there is so much to add to the idea of women being called hysterical or crazy for observing things-like the fact that this isn't just perpetuated by men! it's also perpetuated by women!! the ending with magpie comes to mind first and foremost (magpie angrily denying her, shouting that she's her friend, when sofia calls her out on her keeping watch on her) but you could also make an argument for her relationship with carla (her being one of the family members who wrote affidavits against her) likewise the little bit of interaction/ denial she had with summer gleeson in her finding hard proof that her father murdered those women (the whole "baseless conjecture", "reporter desperate for a byline" thing... but honestly i feel that was more said out of her trying to rationalize the evidence and protect her family first and foremost tbh).

misogyny has deep, deep roots, and like any marginalized group, some tend to succumb to the idea of what's right in the opressor's point of view. It's easier. it's simpler. what more, they indulge in perpetuating this cycle of hate because they want to be liked by the opressors. there's a twisted concept of "exchange", ("i agree with you, therefore you will like me") which isn't even reciprocated! it's one sided!! there's nothing to be gained!!! and we see that bc carla def went all the way to snoozeville central, and she isn't coming back..!

in calling someone hysterical or crazy, you reduce them as a whole. you delegate their observations, their whole thought process to something unworthy of logical human thought. women over the years have been subject to this treatment because of misogyny, because of the male understanding of women and their lack of empathy towards those who they see as more "emotional", and therefore, less capable of rationality. i think it's so incredibly smart to have sofia's character be encapsulated in this sort of message, to have her revolve and act in conflict towards this, because it's taken so literally! the message isn't subtle at all!! like, Every Time she kills someone, it's because she doesn't want to be seen as crazy or hysterical, because that's the legitimate source of her trauma!! and that's so tragic!!!! like!!!!!!! what!!!!!!!! reevesverse i love you so bad!!!!!!!

anyways.. sorry this is so long i am just. that episode blew me away dude i genuinely hate when characters just Suffer.. like i love it but i also hate it at the same time!!! it's awesome!!! i love feelings!!!!

but yeas.. eddie poo is most definitely suffering i know he absolutely hates it in there. but at the same time there is definitely a righteousness, like he's Smug too. this man probably feels a mix of horrid defeat, likewise horrid pride. defeat because his boyfriend bestfriend crush batman actually hates his guts but also pride because he succeeded in becoming a symbol for quote unquote "truth" (the protests at alberto's funeral had his symbol!!), in becoming more than he is, and transcending past his physical form! if that isn't religiously charged i don't know what is!

[specialmouse]

forgive me if i say (insert linguistic faux pas here) but i think there's a schism rn between younger (i.e 30 and younger) trans women and cis women (and other people who grew up as women but might not be now, i'm just gonna say cis women, include yourself in that if you want or don't) because terfs have in large part succeeded in conflating radical feminism with bioessentialism and transmisogyny/transphobia. so when someone, such as myself, talks about hating men and hating the porn industry and talking about how bleak it is to grow up "biologically female" (i don't know what word we have for this that hasn't been called out in some way, if i put something in quotes just replace it with what you find appropriate, i'm not trying to dogwhistle here)--it may sound to trans women that i'm a terf because terfs tell trans women, this is what we're about, and if someone says these things, it means we hate you. no the fuuuuck it doesn't! fuck you!

but then having trans women see me say those things and call me a terf for saying them just deepens that divide, and i think if i hadn't grown up listening to trans women talk about their experiences and knowing how terfs are made, it would push me further into terf territory. and i haven't even been raped, i haven't been indoctrinated into the violence of mainstream straight pornography, i haven't even grown up with intensely misogynistic men in my house like a lot of other cis women i know have. so when they talk about those experiences and they see a trans woman say fuck you terf, and they don't have the knowledge of this artificial divide, they think, well fuck i guess i am! it's so fucking. stupid.

this isn't to say trans women shouldn't call out transmisogynistic ideas within what the cis woman is talking about if they're present but just a cis woman talking about the misogynistic porn industry or hating men or wanting to be completely away from men doesn't make her a terf or terfy or anything inherently. and i've talked to cis women who have had those interactions online and they say, "why are they protecting men so much? it doesn't make sense. why aren't they on my side?" and while it's not trans women trying to protect men and there's more layers to it, that's the way these women see it, a lot of them aren't familiar with terf and other transmisogynistic ideology. what we need to do is just unequivocally denounce misogyny and transmisogyny in all forms and understand how deep each of them go, AND understand that just because you (trans woman or cis woman) don't have the experience of the other that it doesn't mean it's not a) a pervasive societal issue affecting many people, b) something worth having a civil discussion about

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

"Men are the problem with the gaming community"

*Sigh* people make it really hard to not discuss this stuff. Really and truly is love to never talk about men's and women's issues at all. Because it's always stupidly divisive. What's more, I two to be as middle of the road as I can be on all of this. This despite having claims levied against me that I hate women. I don't. Not even remotely. However, I can't ignore stuff like that above quote because I have nephews who I want to grow up in a world where they don't have to feel like predators and evil people for just existing.

This video showcase a woman talking about how "men are the issue with gaming communities and she feels physically unsafe in gaming lobbies"

First of all, no you don't. You have a mute button and a block button. Hell you have a MUTE ALL button in most lobby based games. But gaming started as mostly a male thing. Contrary to what a lot those that won't agree say, having never had to make a shift towards advertising to men and boys because it has always interested men and boys. That's not to say in any metric that women were never interested in video games at all but that number was significantly less. Men involve themselves in a lot of banter and generally trash talk one another quite a bit. And the important point about all of that is the fact that men have a tendency to speak incredibly harshly when they don't mean it. Because they know how they talk to one another that's why whenever you hear some of the most vile stuff in a Halo or call of duty lobby, people will literally start laughing. Because it's so offhanded and unhinged that it's funny. And 99.99% of the things said in a call of duty lobby outside of maybe making plans with IRL friends tends to be random nonsense.

But the fact of the matter is men don't make gaming communities worse. But a lot of men are not going to temper their speech just because women are in their spaces. Yes, gaming is very much a shared space and that has been something that men have wanted for a long time. Having said that however men have wanted their cake and eat it too in this particular instance because a lot of women that end up as influencers like the one featured in this video tend to be the worst kind.

Because not only did she blame all men for being evil effectively, but she also went out of her way to say that she wanted to make sure that her and her partner did not have a cis male child. She wanted to make sure that they do everything in their power to make them trans or gay. With someone coming around to try to say that it was a joke but had none of the signs of a punchline. Not just that but she sounded 100% serious in saying it and did not have a joking tone or demeanor at all. As such I'm going to take her at face value because she's not a known comedian like Ryan Reynolds who does dry humor. The difference is he's funny. Joking about making your kid trans or gay so they don't end up being cis or straight isn't a joke and it's not even remotely funny.

However I should say this. I do not believe in any capacity that gaming should be a male only or completely male dominated by force space. However people need to understand that men and women fundamentally communicate differently. Even as young as teenagers and before. That's just truth.

But I also want to add this, the idea of men patrolling other men and gaming spaces just seems and feels dishonest to me. If you can't stand the heat get out of the volcano. (I feel like the proper version of this phrase would be in poor taste). Men do typically patrol other men and manners that actually matter. But you need to realize one very specific thing. When men stand up to other men for shit talking women, especially in places where it is typically male-dominated, the end result is that man getting absolutely eviscerated because he is seen as a white knight. Because I don't know about you but the women that I know in gaming spaces can give back as well as they can get. And they shit talk like one of the guys. And honestly I have a lot of respect for them because of it. Because if you can't handle it maybe the spaces aren't for you. Or you can play without voices on lobby.

But this very much sounds like a case of invading a space and demanding it changed to cater to what you want. Yes, there are men out there that are complete shitheads. And I'm not going to say that that's not the case. And if one of those people in game finds a way to stalk you or otherwise that's something entirely different. And in cases like that you will have men stand up and figure out how to communicate with this person and deal with them. But people need to very much understand that there is a difference between bullying/harassment, and trash talking. And when it comes to FPS games and fighter games trash-talking is par for the course.

[titsgirlbuffy]

any thoughts on how spike and angel show their genders when they where human vs vampires

Yes!

So it's really fascinating to me what bits of how they present themselves do or don't change through the centuries. And I can't tell which bits of this is for, like, internal reasons, and what's a response to the changing cultural ideas of what makes a man.

We've talked before about how Spike (as a vampire) seems to see himself as a masculine object - talking about himself as the corpse of a man (like in Once More With Feeling), like he's being animated by his obsession with Buffy as much as he is by the vampirism. And with the whole "I know I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man" thing too, for Spike the vampire there's this recurring thing of A Man being not something he Is so much as something he'd like to be.

I've only seen the one scene of him as a human man so some of this was outsourced to @transangelus who's watched Buffy many times. But the thing about human Spike is he also tied a lot of himself to the women in his life, clinging both to his mother and to the women he tries to seduce with terrible poetry, even (especially?) when that's unsuccessful. Spike as a human man is... not wholly successful just in general, actually.

From an article on Victorian masculinity and how it affects our present understanding, "Victorian public school boys were strong, stoical and athletic – ready to die for their country, but not to talk about their feelings." Now, that sounds like pretty much the opposite of what we've seen of William Pratt, a man who was:

Not a successful poet

Wrote primarily about his emotions

No indication that he was good at sports

Not physically intimidating

Left handed

Bad at seducing women

Bullied by other men

Defined by his relationships (and lack thereof) to women

I don't think I'd say Spike was "womanly" as a human, but he wasn't living up to what it meant to be a "man".

A lot of that is tied to not being physically powerful and not having a girlfriend - the reverse of which is pretty inherent to his vampire self. But somehow, as a vampire, he's Still drawn to nonconformity, wearing his woman's coat (stolen from Nikki Wood's dead body in the 70s), painting his nails black (the most masculine colour he could have chosen but like... this is during the era of "metrosexual", when even the fact that he puts products in his hair could be taken as a non-masculine trait), naming himself after a Thing Of Violence rather than keeping the cool manly William the Bloody, generally doing non-masculine stuff he wouldn't have had a chance to do as a human man. I think the main difference between his modern vampire self and his Victorian human self is that now the non-masculine facets of Spike's presentation are a choice rather than a failure. Every time he insults a man for being effeminate, it feels... well I'm not sure Exactly how self aware Spike is, but it feels like he's trying to get under their skin more than legit pick on them for being girly or gay yk?

Angel's pretty similar in some ways. Seen as a failure by his parental figure - that failure being tied to masculinity (direct quote from Angel's human father: "It’s a son I wished for – a man – instead God gave me you"). But from what we saw of Angel as a human... unless I'm missing some history info about 1700s Ireland, there's nothing non-masculine I can see! Angel as a human:

Used a man's name (Liam - the Irish version of William, interestingly)

Kept his hair long (in fashion at the time)

Regularly had sex with women (from an article about masculinity in this time period - "From around 1720 [...] the dominant, hegemonic man is no longer defined by his house-holding status and his good domestic and Christian order but by the fact that he desires and has sex only with women.")

Angel as a human didn't seem happy, or even content, with his masculinity. He sought for it and, like Spike, was accused of falling short. And I hate to say any bullies were right, but I Do think the "not a man" accusations were speaking to something inherent about Angel rather than any failures to live up to a cultural standard of masculinity.

Vampire Angel is interesting. I mean, taking the name "Angel" (not the most masculine of names) is one thing, but even (especially?) while soulless his masculinity is... not quite right, I'll say.

Angelus kept his look pretty much the same throughout his relationship with Darla - and while that shifted from being classically masculine to being more effeminate as the centuries passed, since he was going around with a 1600s women (who wouldn't care about such things) and acting as the family patriarch, any nonconformity was way less of a big deal. But once he gets a soul? He goes right back to forcing himself into cultural norms.

In the 50s he cut his hair and dressed like a greaser. In the 70s he kept it long but started wearing low cut shirts and leather jackets - possibly his least conformative souled era and it went badly enough to send him back to eating rats in the sewers. In the 90s and early 00s - with a brief break for Angelus to wear some eyeliner (imitating Spike? Imitating what he believes to be corruptive?) - he puts on such a strong facade of masculinity that the man posing as his Swami asks "Why do you hate yourself?", before saying that Angel consists of "The image you work so hard to create and the real you." (personal note - Angel refers to his demonic side as "it" during that conversation). Combined with how many times he's given the opportunity to take on something feminine and either Immediately reacts with fear and anger, or tries it out very happily before someone else sees or questions? Plus the refusal of the titles man, boy, Mr..... I can only see Angel's masculinity as an intentional facade covering something he's terrified of. Two things, actually. The internal calls to the feminine and to the demonic.

So... yeah! TL;DR - Human!Spike = struggling man tied to relationships with women, Vampire!Spike = successfully nonconforming corpse seeking personal masculinity in relationships with women. Human!Angel = successfully masculine in theory but somehow still not allowed into male socialisation, Vampire!Angel = deeply concerned with emulating an ideal of the Normal Man, repressing womanhood and evilness as if they equally reveal him as something other than what he strives for

[thethirdromana]

Do you have any thoughts on Dorian's protestation that he's not responsible for the vices of his peers, vis à vis the ongoing question of how responsible Lord Henry is for Dorian's *all that* ?

I started writing a nice short answer to this, then it turns out that in fact I have many thoughts, all a bit disconnected from each other. Sorry about that.

So TPODG is all about layers upon layers of influence. Dorian's influence on his peers is one of those layers; so is Lord Henry's influence on Dorian; so is the influence of the "poisonous" yellow book on Dorian; and above all of that, there's Wilde's influence on his readers and artists' influence on their audience in general, which the preface primes us to start thinking about.

Dorian's influence on his peers One thing I've just spotted is that Dorian disclaims his responsibility when it comes to corrupting men ("what is that to me?") but hedges when it comes to corrupting women ("You go too far"). Maybe that's because he is more responsible - I think the implication of chapter 12 is that Dorian had consensual affairs with Lady Gwendolen and Lord Gloucester's wife, but it's ambiguous.

There's a whole bundle of things that are probably too much to get into here: the fuzzy line for Victorians between being the victim of sexual assault vs being a willing and eager participant in an affair; Victorian feelings on female agency in general; and whether you could show a respectable noblewoman willingly committing adultery in a Victorian novel without being condemned for obscenity (see reactions to Jude the Obscure, for instance). I'm not sure which of these things were the greatest influence behind the choice of vices that Wilde implies.

Lord Henry's influence on Dorian Basil is the moral voice of the novel, and Basil thinks Dorian's influence is his own fault. But equally, Basil has heard all the same things from Lord Henry as Dorian has, and even quotes Henry in Chapter 12 ("I remember Harry saying once that every man who turned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by saying that, and then proceeded to break his word") but Basil remains a good man. So the very existence of Basil is an argument against the idea that Dorian is responsible for his friends' vices, or that Lord Henry is responsible for Dorian's.

The yellow book's influence on Dorian The book has a poisonous influence on Dorian... but Dorian "never sought to free himself from it". He is corrupted, but only because he lets himself be corrupted. He has agency that he declines to use. He could read something different! The novel concedes the point that what you read influences your choices, but not that this exonerates Dorian. (And interestingly, it's always the fault of the book, as if it were an independent actor, not the fault of the writer).

Wilde's influence on his readers The collected reviews and letters about TPODG, including Wilde's defence, are a fun read (nb spoilers for the ending):

(Wilde's replies are, above all, spectacularly snobbish. I'm less surprised that they hated him after reading them.)

It includes the critics who managed to miss the point spectacularly:

The "moral," so far as we can collect it, is that man's chief end is to develop his nature to the fullest by "always searching for new sensations," that when the soul gets sick the way to cure it is to deny the senses nothing, for "nothing," says one of Mr. Wilde's characters, Lord Henry Wotton, "can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."

I mean. Guys. How much do you have to not get it to think that Lord Henry is a character we're supposed to agree with??

There's a three-way argument about the influence of the novel, where the options are:

It has no influence beyond what you bring to the table; it's art for art's own sake; there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Wilde makes that argument in his letters, though I always feel like there's an undercurrent of irony there.

It has a negative moral influence; it's corrupting and should have been censored. This is the view of the Scots Observer, among others: "Mr. Oscar Wilde has again been writing stuff that were better unwritten."

It has a positive moral influence; its moral is good. The Speaker thought so: "[Wilde] might fairly have insisted on the particular proposition—that the teaching of the book is conspicuously right in morality. If we have correctly interpreted the book's motive—and we are at a loss to conceive what other can be devised—this position is unassailable."

I think TPODG exists more to have this argument than to win it. No matter what your view, the different layers of influence in the novel give you something to argue with. I enjoy that a lot, and I suspect Wilde did too.