#the radical element

[books-to-add-to-your-tbr]

Title: A Tyranny of Petticoats

Author: Jessica Spotswood

Series or standalone: series

Publication year: 2016

Genres: fiction, historical fiction, anthology, fantasy, feminism, LGBT+, romance

Blurb: Criss-cross America - on dogsleds and ships, stagecoaches and trains - from pirate ships off the coast of the Carolinas to the peace, love, and protests of 1960s Chicago. Take a thrill ride through history with American girls charting their own course. They are monsters and mediums, bodyguards and barkeeps, screenwriters and schoolteachers, heiresses and hobos. They're making their own way in often-hostile lands, using every weapon in their arsenals, facing down murderers and marriage proposals...and they all have a story to tell.

[etawardana]

A Daydreamer

I may be a daydreamer. But if I am, it’s in the best way. It’s in the way that lets me imagine better things than what’s placed in front of me. It’s in the way that makes me go after those things, no matter what or who stands in my way.

The Radical Element, 1952: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – The Belle of the Ball (p. 209)

[theatresteph]

Just finished this incredible book of feminist short stories!!! The Radical Element: 12 Stories of Daredevils, Debutantes & Other Dauntless Girls is an awesome collection of stories about young women being radicals of their time, breaking free in whatever way they can, owning who they are, and just being inspirations!!!!

[spocks-kaathyra]

learned how to edit purely bc I need everyone to know this song and how well it fits Garak

[inksandpensblog]

I recently noticed a pattern in how I tend to write deaths, when I want them to have a perspective-shifting impact on the reader. There’s a specific element of body-horror that I implement in those deaths. I don’t consider myself a writer of horror, but looking at this it’s hard to think of it as anything but a body-horror trope.

When I want a death to radically alter a witnessing character’s understanding or journey (whether the witness has their perspective shifted upon the occurrence of the death or not), and I want the reader to be aware of this effect (whether they’re familiar with the dead character or not), I’ll write the corpse being desecrated in some way.

Could be harvesting of body parts or looting of belongings, could be improper or careless disposal, could be denial of rites, could be ignorant or malicious disrespect, could be negligence, etc. Sometimes the person isn’t even a corpse yet and the desecration of the body is a direct contributor in the cause of their death.

I don’t know if I can call it gore, because my focus is never really on the viscera of it; I’d almost say I linger more on the audacity, the appall that what is happening could and has happened. I can’t say it’s just for shock-value, either, because the means of desecration always adds credibility to some other element of the narrative.

I also don’t know why I developed this proclivity while writing stickfigure fanfiction.

Seriously almost every single one of my AVA AUs has a moment like this at some point in its storyline and I feel like it always stands out so much because it’ll usually be the only body-horror moment across the entire AU, why have I done this.

[batsplat]

casey saw this as patronizing or whatever bc he grew up pretty isolated and physical affection was not something he was used to past a certain point in childhood……

https://www.tumblr.com/batsplat/764372520458715136/qatar-2007-cheek-caress-arm-around-the-shoulder-as

(here, also here) I am always careful not to get TOO deep into making assumptions about the non-motogp relationships of these guys, especially when it's anything related to parental dynamics... have seen some interactions with his father on screen provide evidence for this thesis, but also don't want to read too much into those. but, well. in any case. there definitely is something to this idea that casey is just like... missing out on forms of socialisation that are basically second nature to valentino, to the extent valentino isn't even thinking about them that much. which probably gives us two rather contrasting experiences of that particular moment

we know for a fact that casey was a bit bewildered by how his competitors reacted after winning races... not that he necessarily has a PROBLEM with it but what's up with all these elaborate pre-planned celebrations when you haven't even won a title... and it's so telling that he frames it as a european thing. because it's not!! it's a valentino thing that then a bunch of other riders (including obviously jorge, one of casey's peers) adopted for themselves. but fundamentally casey has this tendency to interpret a lot of his general isolation and loneliness through the lens of cultural alienation, as a way of explaining to himself why he feels so separate from the rest of the paddock, and then he uses valentino as his primary frame of reference for what europeans are like, and there's just a lot of conflating going on here... and suddenly we're getting to the point where valentino becomes very relevant to casey's general feelings of isolation

and I do have like. a hot take about 2007. which I can't fully substantiate, but it's just where I'm at with the evidence and the vibes right now. and it's that valentino really isn't particularly hostile towards casey that year. casey does talk about valentino making some remarks about him in the press that he doesn't like - but it really isn't easy to find what those remarks actually were. like, actual substantial criticisms. if valentino made some remarks with nebulously bad vibes, sure, they might have gotten lost in the mists of time - but if he'd said anything more dramatic than some mildly snide remarks, surely there'd be some record of it. there's only really reporting of casey feeling that valentino's tone towards him in the press has gotten less friendly... which is probably true! but it's also worth pointing out that casey is... uh. a sensitive character. that season, he was reacting with rather a lot of hostility to any suggestion that the tyre difference between bridgestone and michelin might be helping casey out. which valentino did say! but he was consistently framing it not as casey winning because of the tyres, but the tyre different not allowing valentino to compete with him. and valentino does switch tyres at the end of the year, so crucially he does put his money where his mouth is - he's not just complaining for the hell of it, and it's also worth pointing out that subsequent events 100% vindicate that decision. it's completely understandable that casey will have been annoyed by that... and yes, plenty of fans will have gone further in suggesting casey really only was champion due to the bridgestones and some corners of the press were definitely very annoying... but like. in the grand scheme of things, this is still pretty restrained rhetoric on valentino's part, right? it's stuff you can take offence to, but you are setting the bar rather low there

which leads us to the next issue... valentino doesn't completely blank casey like he does some of his rivals at the height of those feuds, he's still willing to engage in small talk and all of that. yes, it's entirely plausible valentino cooled off a little interpersonally towards casey, but. well. they were title rivals. that's kind of... fine? controversial opinion alert, I suppose. it's at the very least expected, surely. obviously valentino had just gone through an unusually warm title fight with nicky hayden et al - but for the most part, consensus opinion is that you're not really going to be friends with the guy you're competing with for the highest prize in the sport. and you sort of wonder how many interactions they could possibly have had before 2007 for casey even to use as a baseline. like, sure, they'll have known each other a little bit... casey's spoken about how valentino would chat to him about stuff not related to motorcycle racing, which is very sweet and all. but presumably we're talking a few pressers and paddock run-ins, right? nothing all that substantial

and if you take those facts together, add in that casey had considered valentino one of his idols... you've got valentino not opting for open hostility in 2007. the lack of any valentino comments memorable enough to still be available today. casey's sensitivity towards criticism. valentino's tendency to cool off towards direct rivals. that they were still friendly enough towards each other at the end of 2007. how there probably weren't many significant pre-2007 interactions. casey repeatedly complaining about how valentino had cooled off towards him in 2007. and of course, casey's long-standing isolation... well, it does leave you with an interesting picture. at a certain point, I do feel like all of this raises an obvious question: if valentino isn't actively insulting casey and isn't just completely blanking him, then why does casey even care if things have gotten a little more interpersonally chillier between them? why does it bother casey that valentino isn't speaking as much to him as before?

and that leads us back to qatar 2007. because my best guess is that valentino wasn't deliberately buttering casey up as much as he just sort of overshot on his default charm and left a little bit too much of an impression on this lonely kid who was having things go his way at last. valentino wasn't being patronising... he just acts that way when he loses races, whether that's his personality or an awareness that charming your opponents can be a healthy approach or a combination of the two. and yes, whether you want to attribute that to his european inclinations or having had a healthy social life - valentino isn't a stranger to a caressed cheek here or there to show his appreciation. and... well, I reckon initially casey was just extremely charmed by the whole thing. by one of his heroes chatting to him as an equal, by the god of the sport warmly congratulating him for his victory - the full force of valentino's charisma crashing into this undersocialised kid who'd been written off as a surly crash-prone loner who was a bit of a handful to work with... all the while, the commentary is informing us that casey doesn't smile a lot. that he isn't known for his drinking prowess, even! we're being actively encouraged to read the moments in parc fermé in terms of how casey doesn't tend to be either particularly sociable or particularly happy. and, well, if you don't have any friends in the paddock, if you're not close to anyone, if you're kind of short on chemistry with other riders... it does take on added significance if the valentino rossi of all people turns on the charm in your direction. and it makes it all the more painful if valentino later creates a little bit of distance in response to your budding rivalry

there's an element of casey overthinking things because he can't quite reconcile the idea that valentino can be so vicious towards him with all the friendly interactions they've had, so he ends up retroactively assigning valentino ulterior motives for all the time valentino was perfectly pleasant towards him. but that's precisely BECAUSE these interactions held a little too much significance for him... more, certainly, than they did for valentino. what european hasn't caressed the cheek of a few of their future nemeses, right. valentino practically tackled toni elias in parc fermé two races earlier at estoril 2006, like he's all over the guy all the way to the podium. (elias is actually cradling his cheek on the podium, so valentino's certainly no stranger to the sensation.) valentino certainly can be a... tactile bloke, let's say. whereas there's a serious possibility that this is the first time casey has gotten his cheek stroked by one of his fellow riders in parc fermé

so yeah. my theory is that casey did take valentino's chilliness to him exceedingly poorly in part because of how those early interactions actually meant quite a lot to him. so to casey, valentino's behaviour towards him stood out in a positive sense... he wasn't necessarily suspicious of the qatar 2007 interaction while it was happening - but casey's a suspicious character, and he did quickly grow wary of valentino. and valentino was still charming towards him at times, and a little colder on other occasions... just playing the game, really, no complex or thorny emotions for valentino to deal with in this particular rivalry. and casey never quite managed to reconcile these different sides of valentino - and it made him revisit all of valentino's behaviour towards him in an attempt to try and establish some sort of consistency. it's easier to believe that valentino was only nice to casey because he didn't take casey seriously as a threat, rather than accept that valentino might still be able to warmly congratulate casey even while plotting to destroy him. if you caress casey's cheek, you'd better not be planning to be mean about him later

[womenaremypriority]

Do you ever think about how the old meme (dinosaur old) “hide your kids, hide your wife” was about rape? How a man crawled in a girl child’s room and tried to rape her and was turned into a viral meme? I do.

[righteousruin]

Oh Christ,

Steadfast belief in restorative justice is psychosis, Grant??

[radlymona]

I find this video essay really interesting. As a Greek person, my issue with their "re-tellings of Ancient Greek myths/legends from a feminist perspective" has never really been about the whole cultural appropriation aspect, but the fact that few of these re-tellings add new dimensions to Ancient Greek female characters. It's less Feminist and more "I didn't have a good original idea." If anything, sometimes they feel like mouthpieces for modern causes/rhetoric, or just so utterly removed from their context, that the names used are essentially a marketing tool.

[rocicrew]

the expanse is about naomi nagata actually. it is her story. a woman who had her agency taken away from her and was scarred so much at the beginning of her life that she run from causes and leadership and shut herself out from the world that slowly over the many decades reinvents herself and finds love and her place and faces her past and her regrets and finds a way to live forward anyway despite everything that happens. an oppressed woman who did care about her people but whose trauma made her shy away from violence having to be in constant battle with herself with how much action she can bear to take for her people and for the system. until enough is enough, and as much as she tries to hide she chooses to walk head in a leadership position and make the difficult choices she run from in her past and find a way to make peace with what acts of violence and to what degree she can handle giving when fighting back yet another totalitarian power

[etawardana]

My Own Space

I’ll carve out my own space.

The Radical Element, 1927: WASHINGTON, D.C. – Better for All the World (p. 161)

[jellojolteon]

Chemical element silicon.... We love her

She gives us glass, and computer chips, and flexible rubberlike sealants that have limited conductivity and nonstick properties... She has the range

[missandrisky]

The idea that my efforts would receive more praise if I took money from everyday people and broadcasted (see: exploited) the Women I help for views and engagement honestly encompasses all my issues with what respectability politics have done to social movements.

Ask yourself: why does Me taking money from sexual deviants and protecting the privacy of the Women I sponsor make you so uncomfortable? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not PERFORMATIVE.

[leliwardens]

okay i might still be a bit wishy washy but i think i have settled on a red/aggro city elf/non-dalish elf warden rogue that (ideally based on new info?) can be an archer that romances lace to try and get the most bang for my buck on a first playthru with my leliana/tabris worldstate for any unique dialogue or banter

[ripclaudia]

armand and daniel definitely make an appearance in TVL but its not a huge one. their roles become much more important during the events of Queen of the Damned and then afterwards. i suggest you read the books if you don't want to wait! they're pretty quick reads and i think you need to read about armand's sugar baby private island.

i've been a bit hesitant about reading the rest of them after finishing iwtv because the show does things differently and so far i have preferred the show's version. also i have heard the books don't exactly get better after iwtv. but it might be worth it to visit the rest of them too. i have read the devil's minion chapter though!! night island my beloved.

[roobylavender]

Saw a poll about immortality and the choices where different members of the bats and for Jason’s choice is was Jason (committed to haunt the narrative and will come back again and again) and for Barbara (she controls the narrative itself) and that was so poetic for like a poll answer but also it was like WAIT one haunts the narrative while the other controls it and I’m sitting here now just thinking about narratives.

they NEED to be in more stories together as direct antagonists (i use that term strictly positionally) to each other like bruce is a very big factor in the whole jason fiasco obv but i can't help but think we miss out on very crucial storytelling by failing to exercise jason as a force against barbara specifically bc she's the one with the foundations to understand him and yet her realm of control in the aftermath of that shared trauma is near completely antithetical to his own. there is so much meat there and instead we are stuck with writers trying to convince us jason secretly has a crush on barbara like i'm MISERABLE..