#the fact it’s a pattern is what makes it abusive💖

[sammygender]

i hate this stupid ass fandom cause i’ll go ‘dean’s behavior towards sam is often abusive’ and people will get annoyed and talk abt how people are so sensitive and block me like oh my god i’m not saying it as a criticism i’m not even like insulting dean and i’m certainly not saying it in a way that means u shouldn’t like him i adore dean it’s just true………….

[monstermoviedean]

omg hiiiiii arden (sending this as a real ask instead of a message in case other people might find it interesting) did u notice a pattern during ur rewatch of season 3 in regards to specific writers and the misogyny of that season ??? (like how anti blackness often comes from sera gamble etc) or was it kinda the same all across the board ??? my friend who is watching for the first time just got to season 3 and if there IS a pattern i figure it would be a fun fact to share w her while we are discussing :)))) p.s. ily and i love all ur rewatch posts they’re always so interesting to read 💕💕💕 hope your day gets better MWAH

first off i am publishing this because i want everyone to know you are an exceptionally lovely and kind human and this is just one of many examples of you being just outstanding. ily thank you i'm crying a little 💖💖💖

short answer: no, i haven't noticed a specific pattern, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist! (much longer answer below, which was written during several work breaks and is probably incoherent. mostly about ruby and bela and how s3 goes out of its way to be shitty to them for being women. cw for brief mention of abuse)

long answer: i will fully admit that part of the reason i bully gamble so much is because of confirmation bias. i mean i also think she deserves it but i am actively watching her episodes through the lens of "what shit is she gonna pull this time." and then i feel vindicated when she pulls shit. i only say this because i think it informs my answer to your question, because i don't specifically watch spn and look for the misogyny. not because it's not important (it is!!!) or present (omnipresent!!!) but because i think a lot of what there is to say has already been said by others better than i can, and also out of self-preservation. the misogyny in spn is an endless shit mine and sometimes i feel like diving into it and sometimes i just can't.

all that being said! reflecting on s3 in the wake of this question is really really interesting. i think in terms of spn's standard misogyny, season 3 is pretty average. you can expect to see "pretty" young white women get brutally murdered and have little agency or substance, in the same way that all of that happened in. well. all the other seasons. i'm going to call that baseline misogyny. the baseline misogyny in s3 is pretty consistent within the season (between writers) and within the show (between s3 and other seasons). s3 is cool/weird because they only had a handful of writers, and i think they all make some contributions to baseline misogyny (kripke and gamble at the high end, edlund and humphris at the low end).

what's weird/interesting about s3 is it doesn't have just baseline misogyny, it also has special misogyny, reserved for special female characters. because s3 is the season where they started yelling LOOK we have GIRLS on the show about BOYS aren't we amazing??? and then they immediately invent a new type of misogyny for them. s3 has two (maybe 2.5?) special female characters who get special misogyny: ruby and bela, and possibly lilith.

special misogyny is when they go above and beyond to criticize and/or punish a female character for something that a male character would do and no one would bat an eye at. special misogyny is when women get condemned for very normal stuff. i think lilith being portrayed as extra special evil when she's just doing normal demon things counts as special misogyny, but since she's only in like 1.5 episodes i'm iffy on counting her.

the baseline misogyny for ruby and bela is that they both are called bitch way more than is necessary, both have their motives questioned above and beyond men, and both die bloody. standard spn fare, standard baseline misogyny.

ruby's special misogyny is that she's One Of The Boys But A Girl, and that makes her incontrovertibly evil and different and bad. obvs we know s4 ruby is evil but s3 ruby is actually shockingly helpful and doesn't do much to earn criticism apart from existing. ruby pitching the boys shit is treated as more irritating/less forgivable than when, say, bobby does it. she's sarcastic in a way that we are supposed to read as bitchy, because she's a woman. in jus in bello she's also portrayed as weak for being afraid of lilith, when fucking everyone is afraid of lilith. she's also an accessory to dean's death scene.

all of this would be pretty standard, except that ruby is super powerful and super helpful. she gives them the knife, makes them colt bullets, saves their lives repeatedly. it's very clear that she could kill them at any point if she wanted to. and yet! she still gets killed just like any other rando in bitch-on-bitch violence. we're not supposed to trust her because she's a demon but i feel very very strongly that if she was a male demon she'd be portrayed as more sympathetic.

the other thing with ruby is that there is this half a second at the end of malleus maleficarum where her humanity shines through and she and dean start to bond. she tells him she used to be human and that hell makes you forget and that's! fucking incredible!!!!!!! thank you bedlund! and then they never bring up her humanity again. and dean goes back to calling her a bitch. again i think if she were a man she would get more than that one split-second chance at a redemption arc.

bela's special misogyny is that she is Evil and not even for a "good" reason. i fucking love bela and i need to say that at the outset. i LOVE that she outsmarts them and makes them fail and shoots sam (sorry sam no offense). LOVE IT. but all of her actions after her first two episodes are framed as Morally Wrong. she's not just a thief she's a great thief and a proud thief and that is presented as bad and evil. how could a person do such a thing how can she live with herself etc etc. meanwhile dean and sam have an astronomical body count but that's fine because they're heroes!

i think ruby is fairly consistent through s3, but bela shifts dramatically. bela is introduced as a great thief having a great time and being great at everything. it's a little shallow but it's fun and it's different! and she really shines in red sky at morning where she has the impala towed, masterminds a brilliant scheme, and objectifies dean.

(tangent: red sky at morning is the only episode written by a one-off writer in season 3 and is also the ONLY episode to be written by a black writer. his name is laurence andries and i'm immensely grateful to him. and i wonder if he would have gotten more episodes if he'd 1) made bela a bitch or 2) been white. ANYWAY.)

and after those two episodes of bela being a fucking badass who beats the winchesters, the show just completely destroys her. in her last episode she's pathetic and desperate and alone and begging for help and crying. very damsel in distress, which is pretty fucking insulting. and we learn literally moments before she dies that she's a damsel in distress because she's about to go to hell for murdering her abusive parents, which had never been hinted at before in the show. they drop that bomb as an excuse to kill her and then they do kill her, and the tone is of satisfaction. dean hangs up on her as she cries as the hellhounds claw at her door. we're supposed to believe she's getting what she deserves.

it's the same with ruby! when ruby dies we're supposed to think "well she shouldn't have been a demon" when she said herself she used to be human and all her actions appeared to the audience to be helpful to the heroes. on a show where the tagline could be "since when do we get what we deserve?" these two are killed for no reason and we're supposed to think "yeah they deserved that. fuck them."

i think ruby is pretty consistent across her episodes, and kripke is probably responsible for the laying of her foundation. but bela...bela's first two episodes are written by edlund and andries and they're standard misogyny at worst. she takes such a turn in her last four episodes and you know who wrote or co-wrote all of them? you know who wrote in the weird inexplicable pointless scene where sam has a sex dream about her? you know who made her an abuse survivor and had the heroes mock her for that? and then killed her? yeah. yeah you do.

genuinely, truthfully, i didn't even realize that the bela turn can be attributed to one person until i'd written almost this entire post. i went to check bela's episode list to see if i was forgetting any Misogyny Moments and well. when you look at the episode list.

in conclusion.

(also i have no idea at this point if i answered your question so please let me know if i can be more clear/helpful! this was really fun for me to think about and i appreciate the prompt MWAH!)

[obirains-archive]

Fir, fern, and bonsai for the floral ask? ❤️💐

Mia ! ! ! 💕💖💟💓💕💗💞 

fern: if you could turn to anyone for guidance, who would it be?

The lion turtle from AtLA!!! I find Aang’s character arc so, so compelling as someone who really struggles to maintain a balance of I think is right and what I fear is necessary. The idea of the lion turtle not only understanding Aang’s reluctance to take a life (which is a totally valid concern that too often gets dismissed and even ridiculed by the fandom!) but also equipping him to administer justice while still solidifying the value of his ideology, and the legacy of his people is just *chef’s kiss*

bonsai: what is something you could spend hours, even days doing?

I haven’t worked on language learning much in the past few months, but there have been stretches of weeks where I didn’t do anything in my free time but take grammar notes, make flashcards, and practice speaking alone in my room like boo boo the fool I’m hoping to take it back up during the schoolyear!

fir: which tropes/archetypes do you find the most and the least compelling?

I'm a simple girl who enjoys a good hero's journey, as well as a good corruption arc. Dorian Gray? Beautiful. Azula? Stunning. Anakin Skywalker? Here for it. I’m also a hoe for masculine men who are willing to be emotional with one another (RE: the Lord of the Rings). I know morally gray protagonists are super in right now but I’m such a slut for people who are flawed but genuinely always try to do the right thing (RE: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Aragorn).

On the other hand I really despise the super badass woman who rejects all traditionally feminine things, as well as the bad boy -> sad boy trope. In my opinion the first isn't really a character, but a shallow reaction to the damsel in distress trope that was and is designed to give men a feeling of power and importance. So there came the badass fighter lady- but incidentally the only qualities that make up her character are qualities men will respect :/ I think AtLA's Suki best summed my feelings on it: "I am a warrior, but I'm a girl, too." I'm all for women being good fighters and mechanics and strategists! But when Hollywood writes them it's still for the male audience imo lmfao

Okay i started on the bad boy trope and then couldn’t stop so, trigger warning: rape and also I’m coming for Kylo Ren’s throat and also the whole ass sequel trilogy, y’all. Reylos, read at your peril. Mia, I am so, so sorry for hijacking this lovely ask :/

Bad boy -> sad boy trope is at best lazy writing and at worst an implicit affirmation of rape culture (and so I don’t understand why it’s so prevalent in the romance genre which boasts of so many female writers!). The bad boy is a young (usually aged 17-35), very conventionally attractive male who exhibits patterns that range anywhere from socially unacceptable to explicitly abusive. He often receives a half-assed "my mom died" and/or "my dad was an abusive alcoholic” which is meant to explain his behavior. If this were followed by an exploration into consequences and familial patterns, I’d be on board. But usually it only results in his love interest “understanding” him more deeply and writing off his abuse tactics because, in a way, it’s not really his fault. Besides, he’s still young, and wants to do better. It’s rarely addressed again. 

Fact: while everyone needs to feel loved and no true love is truly wasted, your love will never fix the Bad Boy. The only thing that will is years and years of therapy. 

Unfortunately there are too many good examples of the Bad Boy -> Sad Boy trope, but this is a Star Wars blog so I’m gonna talk about Kylo Ren again. Sure, he got a “redemption arc” (which was such bullshit and an insult to all redemption arcs. It’s not even an arc; it’s a fucking U-turn in the middle of the last installment of a trilogy. Make. An. Effort.), but he had his ardent fans and defenders long before TRoS, even after TLJ when he made the choice, of his own free will, to continue his path to the dark side and the legacy of murder. 

(Side note: remember when Snape got a semi-redemption in TDH and people got pissed at Rowling because it seemed like she excused his horrendous behavior? I’ve been saying this for years and I’ll say it again: if Snape were a younger, more attractive man portrayed by Adam Driver, he’d have an army of supporters. I’m not saying Snape was a good person, or even that Rowling pulled off that redemption. But Kylo Ren committed crimes 1000% worse than Snape ever did. Given that they were both in their thirties when they died, you can’t even use age to defend Kylo as a lost, immature young boy and demonize Snape as a grown-ass man who should have known better. The only real difference between them is that Snape struck us as an unattractive, older man whose flaws struck a personal chord in readers (many of whom undoubtedly had a teacher who picked on students out of spite), and Kylo Ren is played by Adam Driver and I guess mass murder is a less personal crime to many audiences? The double standard simply disturbs and distresses me.)

The fact that Rey ends up falling in love with him, too, is perfectly on brand for the Bad Boy -> Sad Boy trope in the worst way possible. The first hints came in TLJ, when Kylo’s tragic backstory based entirely on some of the most blatant character assassination i’ve ever seen in my life holy shit elicited her compassion. This was followed by Kylo choosing the dark side of his own volition (not Snoke’s influence! After that choice, he should not have been redeemable), and then, of course, Rey falling in love with him sometime during TRoS. Given that torture scene in TFA, their “love story” made me (and still makes me) sick to my stomach. That scene screamed rape metaphor: Rey restrained and stripped of her agency, Kylo “You know I can take whatever I want” Ren forcibly penetrating her mind in what we know to be an excruciatingly painful process, obviously without consent. The fact that Rey can use her miraculous Palpatine Force powers to fight back doesn’t mean a damn thing; for all intents and purposes, it was rape, clean and simple. Never, by the way, do we see Kylo having to atone for his actions. Never does Rey hold him accountable for what should have been an extremely traumatic incident (I mean, yeah, she relates to him like you would a villain, but not as if he had targeted her personally and taken advantage of her, which he did, dammit).

I’ve also seen the argument that more or less divides Kylo Ren and Ben Solo into two different people, as if Rey’s love story is with one and not the other. I’m aware that this depends on your interpretation of what the dark side actually does to you. I’m of the opinion that the dark side doesn’t kill you like Yoda and Obi-Wan say; there’s too much evidence, for example, that Darth Vader was still Anakin Skywalker- twisted beyond recognition, perhaps, but still one and the same. A love story with Ben Solo (especially given the timeline of the sequel trilogy) is necessarily a love story with Kylo Ren, a rapist and a mass murderer who happened to be portrayed by Adam Driver. 

For whoever made it this far: I do not hate you if you support Kylo Ren or if you ship Reylo. But I do find them extremely problematic. If you take issue with any of my points, I’d rather you message me privately rather than reply to or reblog this post. Thx!

[tohruhondaas]

Hi parental abuse tumblr, I need some advice: is my mum abusive?

A little backstory I’m 27 next month, female and still live with my parents. I’ve always thought my parents were great, sure they had a few problems, but no body could be perfect. But after following a few abuse tumblrs I’m seeing some patterns. I don’t want to go right off the deep end and call my parents straight up abusive, so I want some advice. I’m just gonna list a few things I’ve noticed and any advice would be wonderful

My mum hates my pixie cut and has said multiple times that she wants me to grow it out so she can ‘take over it’

Makes s-h jokes even though I told her I s-h when I was in college (she reacted poorly and didn’t try to help. I regret telling her even now)

Completely ignors the fact I’m on antidepressants (for other reasons)

I don’t tell her about my mental illness because she brushes it off or she doesn’t understand (physical pain is worse than mental. My dad was on antidepressants for a while and it’s never mentioned)

When I was a teen she bought me clothes I didn’t like (or until I caved) to change my style

She hit me when I was small (back of the legs, hands and backside)

Shows no interest in my hobbies/interests (and has said to me point blank that she doesn’t care) unless it concerns something she likes

If I call out what she says hurts me she will tell me it was a joke

I have told her things in confidence only for her to tell my nan/aunt it over the phone

They don’t say sorry to me - for hurting me or being in the wrong

It doesn’t seem like much - this is all I can remember at the moment - so I hope I’m not overreacting. Thank you 💖