#the complicated women podcast

[dalinar-tightbutt]

"average dnd player plays 4 characters a campaign" factoid actually just statistical error. average dnd player plays one character per campaign. Emily Axford, who has played 50+ characters in one campaign, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[majorkphob]

The Wanda who got away....

[dropping-out]

I can appreciate, so so much, I can appreciate a nuanced discussion about Caramelinda. In fact, I think they are necessary when it comes to uplifting storytelling about complex women. I still don’t understand how so many people are putting her in such a positive light. Is it because we are so desperate for lesbian/female rep? I’m just so lost. I do NOT understand why so many people are using her grief over Lazuli and her running the kingdom alone as an excuse for her truly unforgivable behavior towards her husband and daughters. A) she absolutely 100% chose to stay and chose to be the political mastermind. Why are we taking away her autonomy by insisting otherwise? B) if that’s somehow not true, and she chose to stay and she does love her kids redeemably and if she’s so goddamn emotionally intelligent (AS BRENNAN SAYS SHE IS), how dare she say "i cant help but wonder if you died thinking that I did not love you” BRUHHHHHH YOU SHOULD NEVER EVEN THINK THAT IS A POSSIBILITY. You should never have to wonder if your child thinks you love them. You know, 100%, you have done something absolutely FUCKED UP if even a piece of you thinks that. Your child should FUCKING KNOW if you love them. C) her whole funeral speech is fucked like truly “oh my mom was bad to me and so did the same to you my b” like huh?????? How is your funeral speech about a lesson you never learned???? D) she treated Theo like shit for truly no fucking reason E) i can absolutely understand the anger at Amethar for the other marriage and all of that that’s so fucking valid, what is frustrating is how poorly she treated saccharina as a person about it. It’s so clearly from a POV of jealousy and fury at the loss of her precious political power. and if it’s all about that, she throws her love for lazuli and how she was just stuck with amethar in his face ALL THE TIME! It’s true hypocrisy!

Anyways I don’t understand how after having these discussions people are so quick to be so supportive of someone who was truly horrible to others especially other women on this show and then to have fans say all of that is justified because she loved someone before.

As someone who has a mom who does love her and I know she loves me, there are things she has said to me about her life circumstances (that she has created for herself) that I may never forgive. It sucks to see that behavior treated as “not that bad.” And this is like super personal and I don’t expect others to feel this way, just something to put onto the internet because where else

[jesuisnilunnilautre]

put miao-shan on the complicated women podcast. she would cremate me on the spot but fig is immune to fire i want to hear what she has to say.

[itsybitsyspecter]

I really hope the complicated women podcast covers Wanda Childa

kipperlilly?

[adaine-party-wizard]

WHOEVER DID THIS I LOVE YOU

[chushanye]

I love Kristen Applebees so much. She finds out she's expelled and is really calm about it, but she decides to make a strategic decision to trick her wack-ass cleric teacher into believing she is rejoining his church to find out more about the mystery. fake crying and everything. locked in. she's absolutely eating up her presidential candidate rival. is powering through emotional regulation when talking to her family. and i think "wow she's so fucking cool"... after watching her perform the worst flirting to get a girl to tell her information for that very same mystery. and then i think, "god she's the biggest loser to ever live" what a weirdo god bless

[gunnerchanel]

get paula donvalson on the complicated women podcast

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

"we need more complex female characters" some of you can't even handle kristen applebees

[samcarter34]

Since people seem to once again be having trouble remembering the order of operations, let me just remind everyone:

The ability Laudna possesses to feed Delilah is Hunger of the Shadow. In the fight with Bor’dor, Laudna used that BEFORE Orym’s head nod. Bor’dor attacked them and her response was to do the thing she knew would give power to Delilah. Matt even makes the sound of Delilah’s heartbeat.

The spell she used after the head nod? Whither and Bloom. The same spell she later attacked Orym with, which isn’t even a warlock spell.

And speaking of the head nod, you want to know what’s it’s prefaced with? ‘Laudna you can do whatever you want.’ And Marisha responds by saying that Laudna is ‘barely present’ because she’s having ptsd flashbacks to all of the times something horrible happened to her and she couldn’t do anything about it. So she kills Bor’dor because it makes her feel in control of the situation.

And yeah, the 4SD where Liam says Orym thought Delilah might come back. Except y’all somehow took that and made it seem like he’s the one who shoved Laudna over the edge when what actually happened is that Laudna flung herself off it because betrayal is triggering to her.

And the sword. The sword which apparently wasn’t triggering enough that Imogen contemplating whether the Vanguard were good guys didn’t cause any reaction. Or for that matter, make her object to Ashton’s ‘this is permission statement.’ But she saw Orym wearing it, got uncomfortable and then all it took was one sentence from Delilah for her to decide to steal it. Delilah, who mutilated her, murdered her, has been possessing her for decades, and who basically held her soul hostage when BH wanted VM to resurrect Laudna. But what Delilah didn’t do? Tell Laudna to steal the sword.

I wasn’t around for campaign 1, but in campaign 2 I definitely noticed a trend that people who were all ‘I love women! Female characters rock!’ would, the second one of their alleged faves did something controversial (or just something they didn’t like) would find a way to shift the onus onto someone else so she could remain blameless. And that is definitely continuing this campaign, and if anything is getting worse (which, not to get into speculation, but I wonder if it’s because all of the female characters this go round are more traditionally feminine than last campaign.)

I think the reason Orym’s been getting raked across the coals so hard by certain parts of the fandom is actually because of this. Because Imogen’s repeatedly gone ‘what if the Vanguard have a point’ and Laudna agrees with everything she says, whereas Orym’s been pretty consistently ‘no, the murder cult that murdered my family are bad guys.’ And well, can’t go around admitting that our faves did something wrong.’

And so we have a situation where Laudna attacks Orym, but somehow that’s Orym’s fault because the possibility of Laudna doing something wrong ruins people’s lesbian cottegecore fantasy. But the thing is, that whole thing was all Laudna. She chose to listen to her first murderer when Delilah said ‘maybe it’s cursed’ and then she chose to blanket the room in magical darkness (sorcerer ability, not warlock) chose to cast an area of effect spell to destroy the thing Orym was using to sheath the sword (sorcerer spell, not warlock) and, upon hurting Orym, chose not to drop said darkness, which meant Orym couldn’t see who attacked him. And when she got caught, she tried to downplay what she did, tried to say that because she didn’t mean to hurt him it didn’t count, refused to apologize for actually hurting him, kept shifting her argument (and even low key got called out on it by Imogen when she asked Laudna why she’s want its power inside her if she thinks it’s so evil.)

There is an alternate universe where Laudna wakes Orym up and they have what probably would have been an intense discussion about the sword (and that might even have been what Marisha was aiming for before Delilah got involved) and THAT truly would have been the ‘both sides are equally right’ scenario, but that’s not what we got. And you can say Orym shouldn’t have taken the sword unilaterally (but somehow Laudna’s allowed to unilaterally steal and absorb it?) or that she’s being manipulated by Delilah, but the fact is that Laudna’s an adult and is responsible for her own decisions. Yes, Delilah is a powerful and malign presence that they all downplayed/ignored, but, to use Marisha’s addiction metaphor, making amends with those you’ve harmed is a part of recovery for a reason. Because ultimately, you are the one who did that. Yes, it does immensely suck for Laudna that she’s been handed the cards she has been, but it’s up to her to make the best play she can.

Wow this got long, but my overall point is that Laudna is a character with her own agency and makes her own decisions (well, Marisha makes them, but at this point y’all should know she’s not conflict averse and is willing to have her characters make controversial character choices). And really, take all that away, what’s left? How much onus can you take from a character before you might as well go look at a painting?

[nenekkasa]

oh kipperlilly... emotional regulation meds and a proper therapist could have saved you

[majorkphob]

At the end of all of this, we’ve found that Kipperlilly Copperkettle is neither our perfectly prim feminist icon nor our irredeemably evil pariah. Rather, Kipperlilly Copperkettle is just another…. Complicated Woman.

[sorala]

if i had a nickel for every time an intrepid hero made up a piece of media as a recurring bit on the fly to help their character be a deceptive little shit only to later reveal that their character was secretly the creator*s of that piece of media in disguise all along I'd have two nickles which isn't nearly enough it's such a funny bit

[scalematey]

gonna be real some of the people being like “oisin did nothing wrong he’s my soft little blorbo and he’s being manipulated by kipperlily” while being like “kipperlily is the worst person in the world and legitimately evil for hating her presidential campaign opponent and experiencing petty jealousy”. you guys smell a little of misogyny

[pgranateseeds]

Cippergililly Kepperpetal

Kipperlilly Copperpetal

Copperlilly Kipperpetal

Kipperface Pennybottle

Kipperlilly Copperkettle (ding ding ding)

[islandoforder]

on a train to the seaside, crocheting a sundress, and listening to the complicated women podcast which is real and on spotify