#you think the opinions of misogynistic men are new?? let me tell you that it was old 2000 years ago

[bibxrbie]

high pitched screeching: IM GOING TO THROW MYSELF OFF A BRIDGE!!!!!

[thegeorgiatennantblog]

*Clanking pots and pans together *

I have a message for all the tin hatters and misogynists in the Tumblr fandom.

28th August, The Year of Our Nerd 2024

To Whom It May Concern

It has been precisely one year and one month to the fact that I first came across this malady that has been plaguing our fandom. Other fandoms have been more or less unfortunate in this regard. What started as a lighthearted joke has now turned into a toxic, vile, festering wound. For a long time I either ignored these blogs and their opinions or very politely tried to dismiss them. For an even longer time I was made to feel that I was in the wrong. After all we live in a free society and all of us believe int he idea of freedom of speech, freedom to hold whatever views and beliefs, and freedom to express those views and beliefs. But the very same citizens of these free society's in today's world are also facing a dilemma: how far does this right go? Is it unconditional? Is it absolute? Or does it qualify to some form of check or some form of necessary derogation under exceptional circumstances? When do those circumstances arise?

Most of us have come to an understanding in regard to the question, though all of us may not agree to it: it is understood that where your right to exercise your freedom offends and restricts my right to do or causes in any way for me or anyone else to feel endangered, then that is where we draw the line.

Reading @do-angels-dream-of-starry-seas 's post today I have come to the conclusion that the time has come to draw that line. It is a question on where we stand as a fandom if we let such bigotry and such hate prevail any longer.

I want to let everyone know where I stand. I have nothing against fanfiction. I have nothing against RPF. People have been creating RPF since time immemorial. If not for RPF a large amount of literature, film, music and other forms of art would not exist. Shakespear's Histories are essentially RPF, Hamilton is RPF, Netflix's The Crown is RPF, Le Morte d'Arthur is RPF, Baz Luhrman's Elvis is RPF and so is Andrew Dominic's Blonde. You may like some of it, you might dislike some of it. You might even be vehemently against some of it. But that's all it is at the end of the day; fiction. It doesn't hurt anyone. The real problem arises when people start becoming unbale to differentiate between fiction and reality. And that's no better than thinking that just cz someone played a serial killer in a movie means they're evil irl too.

It becomes suffocating for others to exist in these spaces when the delusion that the RFP is real transcends to take an even worse shape namely hating the real people involved in said person's life. How could you justify hating on their real life partners just so you can satisfy your delusional belief that these men are actually in love with each other.

Maybe it springs from a need to justify our lives in terms of conspiracy theories in this growing pandemic of untruths and fake news. Maybe it springs from some deep rooted internalized misogyny. Who can say?

Before I move on I want to highlight some problems with the wntire tinhatter discourse.

The existence of a PR. I want to clarify this here and now. PR works for important, famous, insanely rich people whose global fame makes their identity a part of the public domain so much that their entire image needs to be curated to meet certain requirements. PR works for Taylor Swift and Leonardo DiCaprio and Barak Obama. Who is does NOT work for are people who are only locally well known, live reasonably ordinary lifestyles, and have a painfully insignificant following outside their own cultural context.

The idea that one picture or a five second video can tell the truth about someone's entire personal life. It cannot. It never will. Body language is not even a science. Body language is misleading. Facial expressions are misleading. I am writing this right now with the most bland expression on my face. People around me think I'm writing an email. My internal emotions right now are another story. Moreover no one owes anyone any sort of information on their personal life, their love life, their mood, their life choices or whatever. Their lives are not public property. Please respect that.

The women are the villains. This blatant misogyny has become intolerable as the days go by considering most of these posts are written by women themselves. The whole controlling wife, poor meek guy trope is so fckng infuriating. When did we wake up to a world where women hold the reigns and an adult white upper middle class male cannot tell her that he wants a divorce. I thought this only happened to unprivileged women in third world countries who cannot file a divorce bcs then she will be left penniless and socially disgraced. The women baby trapped them. Of course they feel responsibility for the kids now. Child birth is the second most painful experience after being burnt to death. No woman does it for the pleasure of it nor for some strategic benefit that it will serve her. And giving birth to not just one but many. And then raising them. That's not easy! Secondly, having children is a mutual decision and process. If only women could make babies, we'd get rid of men for good lol! (this is a joke plz don't @ me) If someone decides to have children with someone, and we're not talking just one accidental pregnancy or sth... we're talking several kids over the years.... then they probably have that level of attachment, love and commitment to their partner. It's just common sense.

Absolute cynicism. Anything Georgia and Anna do is met with cynicism and their words are deliberately twisted to mean the opposite. While D and M will be applauded for speaking up for a cause, when G and A do the same, they are shouted down as pretentious or that PR made them do it. When D and M show affection towards each other that's all real and true but when G and A show affection to their partners it fake and a PR stunt. Moreover, the way they interact with their partners is also completely misunderstood. Anna is more private and subtle about her gestures of praise and affection. But from what she does show publicly we know that she absolutely adores her partner and her kids. Georgia on the other hand has her own way. She teases, makes jokes, pokes fun at him, but she's also literally the woman that is being ultra-horny for him on Twitter and Instagram in front of everyone else. And I think that comes from the fact that they were friends first and lovers second and they have maintained that playful friendly relationship with each other. Still, she is accused of never being appreciative, being cringey, possessive, creepy and always bringing him down. Oh, and we never talk about how Michael next to never promotes Davis's achievements. In fact, no one else I know does it. Literally the only person is Georgia jumping up and down going "This is my partner! Have you seen them! Have you seen how awesome they are! I love them!" Not just that, these tinhatters have such double standards that while D's neurodivergent traits are being praised, G takes the rap for it. She's a careless mum, an unworthy partner; none of her professional achievements matter. She is fighting her dyslexia and neurodivergence to achieve something but the tinhatters will make ableist remarks to bring her down. But they don't just stop there. They accuse her of abuse, rape and cyber harassment. Pray that she doesn't find out because accusing someone of that can get you behind the bars hon!

I know that none of this is going to disappear over night. We fight the fight every day and we hope that tumblr goes back to being the safe space it once was. But till then, it is important that we stay strong and stay together. I have had people come into my ds with links and other stuff that made me want to jump off a cliff. I have been subjected to some horrendous lies, all in a bid to 'convert' me. Sadly that's not happening babes.

So I just want these tinhatters to know that if you're here, then we're here too. And no matter how much of this toxic bile you keep spewing we'll keep washing it away. And that @dtmsrpfcringe and @goodomenswarning don't have to do it alone. If you wanna go at them then come at me bitches!

And I'm not scared to call y'all out @ingravinoveritas @letscoffeebreak @nightgoodomens

@invisibleicewands @climb-dtennant-like-a-tree @thetardisisbluandroseistoo and others but mainly you guys cz you're the ring leaders. Go on block me if you want to I don't care! Or better, send me some of those creepy asks you guys send Tori. At least it would take the burden off her!

Oh and, before I go, @dtmsrpfcringe you're a champ and we love you and we stand with you!!!

Yours Sincerely,

Meena. x

curator of TheGeorgiaTennantBlog

[beauspot]

The Bear Season 2: And Why I’m Fucking Annoyed (Full Spoilers below)

*Long Post*

The Bear is something truly special. When it dropped in June of last year it wasn’t a major hit right away. It was a sleeper and it grew its fanbase over time. If you were here this time last year you remember how small the fandom was posts on every platform could barely reach 200 interactions, but with the Golden Globe wins and the word of mouth this fandom began to grow and expand, because season one of the show was just so good.

Season 2 however is an interesting piece of media. I am well aware that I have some bias in this department and I can’t view this season objectively, but neither can the rest of you so I’ll say what I want.

To start off I really enjoyed some of the episodes this season, the first two? Excellent. The Marcus Episode(with my husband Will Poulter at his side)? Fantastic. The Richie Episode? Perfection. And let’s not even talk about Fishes, which was beyond words. I genuinely went into this season wanting to like it and praise it the way I did the previous season because I thought it was good. The writing—which is spectacular in nearly every other place—takes a nosedive with this romance plot. I still do think it’s good, but I can’t act like this whole season hasn’t left a sour taste in my mouth, because it has. Because the show runners are lying racist misogynistic nasty assholes who bullshitted us for nothing.

Toward the end of last year/beginning of this year Chef’s Kiss fans words made their way to some journalist who then asked about the potential for it with the actors and the writer( in an article stupidly named “don’t worry the bear doesn’t want carmy and sydney to kiss, either” the writer of which goes on to ship carmy and marcus so clearly they have excellent taste 😒) who all shut it down. Fine. That’s fine. That’s their opinion and it doesn’t affect us. What bothers me is the words of the co-creator Chris Storer who said this 👇🏾

He went on to say the show was also just meant to be focused on these people doing their jobs. So fine. We said even if it won’t be canon there’s no way they would bring in a new love interest cause that’s not “the vision” they have for the show, right?(He also goes on in the pic above to act like we couldn’t separate our love of the plot of the show from the ship which is…infantilizing and annoying) continuing on though, he also said this

He thought it would be cool to see a show with no romantic plot. Mind you this statement was made in January and the show starting filming in February. So unless they want me to believe they added this romance plot as some last minute thing (which very well could be the case as Claire has quite literally no personality outside of being pushy and being Carmy’s girlfriend) they knew they were having a romance plot in the second season and chose to lie about it. So the actors, the creator, basically everyone who was apart of this project said that Syd and Carmy were a weird ship (a strange thing to say to your, at the time, small audience even if that’s how you felt) just for them to turn around and have Carmy with a new love interest from school and have Sydney and marcus develop feelings for one another in the second to last episode? can y’all be fucking forreal for one minute?

Suddenly all you “yesss let men and women be friends, not every show needs romance” ass bitches want to ship something. I can tell you know Syd and Carmy have chemistry otherwise you wouldn’t have been shaking in your boots hoping the writers wouldn’t get them together. There was some dumb post i saw rooting for Claire and Carm but then adding ‘no one was better than platonic Sydcarmy’…

I see you.

I spoke about this before, but this constant sidelining of black women in these types of shows irks me. Sydney is basically hunting Carmy down for 85% of the season because he can’t do his fucking job he’s so consumed with Claire. And I know people are gonna say i’m being overdramatic, but it’s so clear they just did not want their main white boy to be with a black girl. Something that happens over and over and over again so many fucking times you can just lose count. Carmy, who in season one was so in tune with Sydney’s emotions he quelled his own anger and anxiety to ask if she was ok now ditches her at their restaurant to go help some girl he hasn’t seen since high school. He ditches her to go to a party then has the nerve to bring up Claire’s helping to inspire him.

Like yeah no shit Sydney is sorry that she’s there, y’all are opening a restaurant together which could fuck both your lives if it fails and Carmy is off doing god knows what instead of his job!

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!? And yeah, Carmy fucks it up at the end with Claire but that doesn’t negate the rest of the season. Chef’s Kiss shippers are strange and delusional and the show doesn’t need romance and then Claire is half naked in Carmy’s apartment? Look Carmy deserves happiness, his life has been basically nonstop stress and trauma since he was a kid and him ending the season thinking he doesn’t deserve fun or love is heartbreaking because it isn’t true, he deserves all the love in the world especially since he is actively trying to break the cycle (along with his sister). That doesn’t negate the fact that he agreed to being partners with Syd and then left her to make decisions on her own about a business they agreed to start together. Which is why he apologized and rightfully so.

And I know for a fact annoying Sydney and Marcus shippers are going to be like “well ackshully they are clearly setting up Sydcus this season so how can they hate black women.” I love Marcus as much as the next person and honestly after I saw where the writing was going I was like fuck it why not at this point, but if Sydney and Carmy’s shippers were living off crumbs Sydney and Marcus shippers were living off the memory of food. But sure that ship had development.

also no i don’t fuck with that syd and marcus ship because why the fuck are you snapping at sydney cause she rejected you and it wasn’t even really a rejection that was very incel core and it’s not about being upset half the kitchen is always screaming about something, it’s why he snapped at her.

I’m just angry so yeah fuck this show.

I’m genuinely contemplating if I want to watch the next season at all. I said if they wanted to go no romance, fine go no romance, but to not only lie about that but bring in some whole new girl we don’t know and throw the black girl to the closest guy despite the fact Sydney and Carmy are more alike than anyone else? You clearly need to do some introspection and think about why you can view Sydney and Carmen as friends but get sick at the thought of them being more.

There is a possibility (a slight possibility) that they are playing the long game we wanted, but i am wary because they lied and put a manic pixie indie girl in as a love interest this time and it sucked. But then I remember the scene with Syd and Carmy under the table and how open and honest they were with each other and even though their relationship wasn’t the best this season I can see it’s potential, because that one scene had more chemistry than all of that other ships other scenes combined. I don’t know.

This got me thinking though Will Poulter romcom when? I will be seated. Also the consensus on twitter is that people really didn’t like Claire and thought the show should have ditched their plot all together so that’s nice. A lot of people seem to think this is a setup for sydcarmy and idk, maybe i’ll rewatch when i’m more calm.

[radfem-rage]

im new to this politics stuff and im listening to both sides so I can makeand you seem to be well versed in this

so whats your opinion on trans people and their rights

im willing to learn

Yo! I’m all for trans people having human rights, they’re human just like me, and no TERF wants to take their human rights away.

However, the thing is that trans people already have human rights. So their “trans rights are human rights” is pure and utter manipulation. They do not fight for human rights.

What they want right now are privileges and complete and utter obedience from sane folks. They want to make it illegal for people to refuse to affirm the feelings of the mentally ill and have you fined for it too if you try. They cannot accept the truth and basic biological facts and try to cancel free speech.

Trans “women” want to continue to invade lesbian only meetings and force their girldick in everyone’s face, the same happens to gay men who want to date other men. They have “manginas” forced into their face, but do not deal with this shit as much as lesbians. Men always get respected after all, even if they put on a dress.

Male privilege never leaves. Men continue to invade women’s sports and are praised for it. They win in beauty pageants with their typical “I feel like a girl and nobody sees me like one” sob story. They invade women’s restrooms and nothing is done because “women get raped anyway so let’s make it even easier.” PCOS and pregnancy support groups are full of men who jerk off to our stories and we are now forced to use gender neutral language in these groups for problems ONLY WOMEN experience. Female sex erasure happens all the time. Last year trans people got a woman’s history museum in Denmark (Køn) turned into a gender museum.

Every female badass in history (for example Joan of Arc) is getting transed, any woman who was gnc and wore pants in order to be seen as fully human and not be stuck as a pregnant housewife indefinitely is now a man apparently. Trans people think only men can be badasses and women who were not gnc were completely fine with their oppression. Insulting.

Rapists now have their pronouns respected in court, which means women are forced to call their attacker “she” and “her” in court or face consequences. The absolute disrespect trans people have for women astounds me every day.

So… what do I think of these people? The assholes that are erasing women’s rights and tell me to k*ll myself because I refuse to clap along like handmaidens? Not much good. They happily piss all over women’s rights and are the biggest threat to it in the 21th century. I do not want them to die, but I do not like them, they’re all sexist misogynists.

I do have a lot of sympathy for detransitioners, like women who foolishly believed they could escape misogyny by slapping he/him pronouns on themselves. Thank you for your question! ✌🏻

[yourmisogynistfriend]

✨The story behind my blog name✨

Come sit on my lap, sweetie, and let me tell you why I decided to call myself yourmisogynistfriend

Well first it’s because the old name was due to be changed. My previous name was truegirlssftagain. This name originated of my first blog I created at 17, which was named onlytruegirls (yes, I know I was underage when I created this blog, thanks for noticing). I only reblogged pics of hot girls in bikinis or naked. The name was because I wanted to show what true girls were supposed to look like. This was obviously a very restricted point of view, but I was young. Anyway, this concept of « true girl » sticked with me over the years. But at one point I realized it was a little bit cringe and dumb for a blog name. I always tried to not appear as a tumblr dom and this blog name clearly didn’t helped.

So I have been thinking about what my new name could be. I always thought the fact I post very misogynist stuff while being a huge feminist was pretty ironic. Yes, I am feminist. I believe in gender equality, I believe women are equal to men, I get mad every time something happens in the world against women. Anyway, I’m not here to convince you about how feminist I am. But I once remembered an event that happened to me and I thought it was pretty funny.

During a class in uni, we had an activity about history of feminism, the group was split in two based on our last names and my part of the group was made of four women out of 20 people. To talk about feminism… See how ironic this is? Let me tell you that the women of my group, who are personal friends, were not feeling very comfortable to talk among a group of men. Well after the activity, my girl friends told me I was the only man in the group they trusted to not make misogynist comments (and some others really said some borderline stuff). I was the only man they wanted to hear give his opinion on the subject. What came to my mind at this moment is « good thing they don’t know about my tumblr blog! ».

So, let’s get back to when I decided to choose a new blog name. I remembered that moment and was thinking: « I’m actually a real feminist, a man whose presence makes women feel safe, whose opinions about feminism are welcome by women, and yet my blog is about objectifying women ». It’s hell of a duality! I thought it was a good idea to exploit this experience I lived. So I decided the new name will be about the fact that even your feminist friends may be fantasizing about molesting you. Even the most feminist person you know may be daydreaming of legalized rape and free use in public.

I thought about calling my blog yourfeministfriend, because that’s what I am. I am a feminist friend and yet I fantasize about misogyny. But the name was already taken. I decided to call myself yourfeministbuddy, and it worked… for a week. My blog got deleted. I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence or if feminists found and mass reported me. Just in case, I didn’t take any chance and decided my new blog would be yourmisogynistfriend. This way, nobody can report me saying my blog name is a lie, even if the dual effect of my blog name and my blog content is gone.

And yes, one of my girl friends who made that comment about me, who feels safe with me, she’s hot and I’d love to make her choke on my cock and make her my little toy like she’s truly meant to be. But she’ll never know.

Sorry if it’s a long story for your silly little brain, but I think it’s worth the effort of reading it all.

[darkwitchhideout]

Taylor swift: Through all the damned seasons

Taylor Swift has emerged as one of her generation’s most prolific and authentic music artists. Swift’s rise to fame however, has been marked with numerous challenges — from facing misogyny from within the music industry to battling over ownership of her own work.

Recently, a very casual tweet of mine got traction from very unfortunate ends of the internet; one that loves to berate women over breathing, let alone having an opinion. To paraphrase, I had raised a proposition: “I think it is perhaps somewhat of a red flag when a man violently hates your interests, especially music. It is one thing to not hold regard for something and another to grow violent and spiteful in that dislike, or look down on you. And yes– this is related to men who will act high and mighty when you state your love for Taylor Swift’s music.” The response was extremely divided — mostwomen vehemently agreed that they had suffered through misogynistic encounters based on their likes and dislikes, and most men vehemently denied that any such discourse was significant. I muted the tweet because it was swarming with people, more specifically, men, telling me I was childish and immature, and that Taylor Swift made generic breakup music and deserved to be berated– as did I, for listening to her. Well… the shoe unquestionably fits the (un)intended audience here.

For anyone who spent much of their teens and now their adulthood listening to Taylor, you know it’s nothing new to get a scoffing remark over. “Come on? Her? All she does is date people, break up with them, and use it as an excuse to make shitty music.” Trust me, it sets your nerves alight to be near a music elitist, especially one that merely seems to berate music that is popular amongst young women in specific to give themselves a masculine ego boost for days. And Taylor herself is no stranger to misogyny in the music industry, excruciating controversies and very publicised feuds at merely the cusp of her adulthood– yet, she has always risen and resurrected herself as a person and an artist, continuing to grow.

Misogyny is rife in the music industry, and always has been. The time Taylor debuted, around 2006, and her rise to fame with her second album Fearless in 2008, was marked by a wider sociopolitical landscape for women that was very different. The industry was ages more exploitative than what we see now, and the social climate allowed it to be so. There was also a noticeable lack of female representation in key decision-making roles within the industry, such as producers, executives, and managers. This lack of representation perpetuated gender biases and made it difficult for female artists to advocate for their rights and creative visions.

Taylor herself has faced numerous instances of such attacks. She started her career in the early 2000s. Tabloids were horrible — I stumbled on a 2007 article from Kathleen Devon titled “Girls Gone Bad: Celebs and Kids.” To quote a segment from it that took me back to the good old era of flip phones and low-rise jeans: “Are we raising a generation of what one L.A. mom calls “prosti-tots,” young girls who dress like tarts, live for Dolce & Gabbana purses and can neither spell nor define such words as “adequate”?” That rancid air of ice-cold 2000s misogyny hit me right in the face. The article goes on to lament the love young girls have for Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and how it is desecrating ��sex, love and lasting commitment.” This is the environment Taylor stepped into.

She stepped foot into the industry with country music in her debut album, working with the Nashville Music Row songwriters. The country music industry had a noticeable gender imbalance with a predominantly male-dominated industry. Female artists often had to fight harder for recognition and airplay. However, when she moved away from this genre, she faced angry music listeners and country music enthusiasts blaming her for “abandoning” what had given her the fame she had.

The most popularised of the misogynistic tirade, however (that still has no lack of memes circulating around the internet) was 2009, when her music video for “You Belong with Me” was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper and musician, Kanye West, who stepped on stage, snatched the microphone from her, and said: “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!”, in reference to Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies.” Taylor was 19 at the time- a very young girl, relentlessly bullied by peers that were supposed to be her guiding light. However, when Beyoncé won Video of the Year for “Single Ladies” later in the show, she called Taylor Swift back on stage to finish her speech.

This feud continued on, having highs and lows, and almost always seemed like a bemusing one-sided attempt. In February of 2015, Kanye spoke to Ryan Seacrest about a possible collaboration with Taylor and said: “Any artist with an amazing point of view, perspective, fanbase, I’m down to get in the studio and work. I don’t discriminate,” and merely a year later, put out the song “Famous” which takes a dig at her and explicitly says, “I made that bitch famous.”

A confessional poet, especially confessional poets that are women, are incessantly scrutinised. They have revealed what they want to, through symbols and metaphors, in their work. It’s all there for someone to find solace in; yet we need to know more because we think she owes us an explanation about her life. We think we can love her, hate her, dissect her, scrutinise her, because she has allowed us a window into her life.

I am in no denial of Kanye’s musical prowess as a rap artist; I have enjoyed his music for years and “My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy” is a revolutionary, genre-bending work. However, to claim he is the key to Taylor’s success is confusing at best and disrespectful at most. There is a lot more to this feud, including a social media campaign against Taylor, a leaked phone call from Kanye West’s (now-ex) wife, Kim Kardashian, a naked sculpture of Taylor Swift featuring in Kanye’s music video (without Taylor’s consent — she later termed it revenge pornography) and as of the complete leaked call in 2020, which proved that the young Taylor laughing nervously when she was told about the song and saying she needs to “think about it because it is absolutely crazy.”

Taylor however, faced the misogynistic tirade through the years without allowing herself to be ostracised — she empowered herself, and insistently resurrected herself as an artist. In her acceptance speech for the Grammys in 2016, she told the audience: “I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame… someday when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you that put you out there…” As a young, rising artist, she did deal with the event with none of the grace she owed her bullies, and she has been very vocal about gender equality, the Roe vs Wadeoverturn and about not shaming women for their personal life in light of what she has faced in her personal life and how it impacted it.

Then there is the issue of the media’s insistent fixation on her love life — it is not only pervasive, but also invasive. Every song that she would come forward with would be listened to so the listeners could find some symbolic representations of her trysts and scream, “See! This is a woman that is serial dating to include these poor, victimised men in her songs!” Gossip columns loved to know about her life, paparazzi hounded her, and her life was incessantly torn apart to become tabloid fodder. This reminded me of when I did my research on Plath, Sexton and other confessional poets — their experiences with uncomfortable questions by reporters that probed them to reveal more. A confessional poet, especially confessional poets that are women, are incessantly scrutinised. They have revealed what they want to, through symbols and metaphors, in their work. It’s all there for someone to find solace in; yet we need to know more because we think she owes us an explanation about her life. We think we can love her, hate her, dissect her, scrutinise her, because she has allowed us a window into her life. Now we must climb in and rummage her personhood instead of being spectators to what she has allowed us a glimpse into.

I wonder how Taylor felt — this young girl, stepping into an industry and being welcomed with rigid, patriarchal structures, and being constantly objectified like an antique shop curio — her love life seemed to overshadow her accomplishments as a singer-songwriter. It reinforced the idea that a woman’s worth is tied to her romantic relationships rather than her talent or achievements. Meanwhile, her male contemporaries got a clap on the back and cheered on. It’s almost as if dating women for men is conquest, and for women, is disgrace.

If you were on Tumblr, you might remember a very specific GIF that gained traction amongst feminist circles, regardless of whether they listened to Taylor or not. An interviewer asks Taylor why would a man want to date her if he knows she will write songs about them as jabs later on? She aptly replies: “…I’d just figure that if guys don’t want me to write bad songs about them, they shouldn’t do bad things.” As a poet myself, I have faced that lingering question.

You fell in love and wrote a book about it? Think about the man; he will forever be haunted by the fact that a girl immortalised that relationship in the form of writing. Well, if he didn’t want me to write about it, perhaps he shouldn’t have given me the words to put that humiliation into words. Comme ci, comme ça.

However, this is not a trajectory of the insistent harassment Taylor has put up with — this is also to see how that impacted her music and made her grow as an incredible artist, capable of exploring multiple genres. She has herself described her artistry as being a “music chameleon.” She self-identified as a country musician until 2012, when she released her fourth studio album, Red. After her success with pop and releasing albums in that genre, she stepped into experimenting with indie-folk and indie-pop — mild, subdued and emotionally evocative in “folklore” and “evermore.” With her latest release, “Midnights” in 2022, she goes back to pop but in an experimental tone — it is subtle, nebulous and mellow. Clash magazine commented on her career as being “one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing.” Taylor cannot be boxed into a genre — she is just her own identity with her own ideas. What makes her artistry so special, however, is her lyrical ability. It is as if her lyrics trudge their own pathway to find their sound, rather than the other way around, and perhaps that is what makes her music resonate so deeply.

My favourite Taylor albums have to be a tie between “folklore” and “evermore” — in a piece titled “Growing Sideways” by Stephanie Burt and Julia Harris, they write, aptly: “The Taylor Swift of evermore is our pop Heraclitus: nothing here happens for the first time, everything’s a return to something, a rewrite, a re-take, a retraction, a chance to remember and do it again.”

It also means a lot to me because she takes back from the tabloids and paparazzi who hound her lyrics for trinkets of her romantic flames and instead carve out an entirely new pathway of story-telling through her songs. Her grief and loss become theirs, her angst is emulated through these figures, and they stand as a testament of her creativity. In “Bad Songs About Bad Things”, Summer Kim Lee gives Taylor’s narrative pathway in these albums a vivid description: “Writing is revenge without the need to ask for permission or apology… ethics is pushed aside for the political act of refusing to give in to gendered expectations… The personal is political…in folklore and evermore, Swift creates characters from which to write stories other than her own… seek out the fantasy of the folkloric rather than empowerment through the exposure of herself and others.”

It is as if Taylor stepped back from the idea of dissecting her own life and instead conned in on intimacy, relationships, and personhood from the viewpoint of a by-stander, and sometimes, a stranger stepping into another’s shoes and becoming imbued in their trajectory. This is what makes it haunting and charming at the same time.

However, while Taylor recorded her albums, she was also battling with Scooter Braun over his 2019 purchase of Big Machine Records, which effectively gave him ownership over Swift’s masters — which tied in with his affiliation with the Wests. Taylor vehemently opposed Braun’s “manipulative” bullying, and the fact that her unreleased work was released without her consent, as well as him profiting off her masters without a dime going to Swift herself. She then re-released her recorded albums to gain back ownership over them — Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) in 2021 and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) in 2023. All three peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first ever re-recorded albums to do so. She opened up the industry to conversations about artists’ rights, the ethics of ownership of creative rights and intellectual property and for artists to negotiate for greater ownership of their music.

It is her authenticity that cultivates a sense of community — her vulnerability and openness in addressing both triumphs and tribulations in her life allow others to feel seen and understood.

I do sometimes come across the question, or question myself — why do so many women from so many different ethnicities and cultures and differing values find solace in Taylor’s music; a white woman penning down her experiences in her life? It took me back to the time I stood in my university’s restrooms after a tiring day, washing my face and someone played “exile” as they re-did their makeup. We all looked at each other with little grins as soon as we heard the first lyric, a sense of bonding and sisterhood. One of the girls’ spoke up about not having face wash and being annoyed — and despite my own nervousness with social contact, I handed her my bottle and we again smiled at each other. It’s all the little things that make up the joy of being a woman.

I think it is because she does not overstep her boundaries — her experiences are her own and she puts them forward to validate them and anyone else who may find solace in them, rendering her in a position where she does not overstep her boundaries. Summer Kim Lee, in “Bad Songs About Bad Things”, quotes Jean-Thomas Tremblay, who in an essay on New Narrative, describes it as “the assumption that impersonality, once intensified, will turn into commonality.”

It is her authenticity that cultivates a sense of community — her vulnerability and openness in addressing both triumphs and tribulations in her life allow others to feel seen and understood. She also stands as an empathetic storyteller, one that is able to vividly capture emotions and experiences in her lyrics allowing listeners to connect with her songs. This allows her to transcend cultural and racial boundaries and allow her to foster a bond with her listeners that transcends geographical boundaries.

I was not a girl that grew up dating or having any romantic affiliations, and still don’t — I always found myself hyper fixated on my career. And yet, Taylor’s music allowed me a glimpse into another life, another time, the ghost of a memory I might have had in another life. This is why her music stands special to me. I, too, was a young girl once that lamented how I wore t-shirts and all the popular girls in high school wore the preppier outfits, and I was not even on the bleachers because who wants to see high school basketball and football? And now it’s listening to Seven, revelling in the fact that all my friends who are women are just like me and that is something to celebrate; because within us, we will always have love and memories of each other because of it. It is realising that I do not want to not be like other women — it is indeed one of the few joys in my life to be just like them, and the only reason a cashew man might term you different is because you’re not the bland caricature of a one-dimensional person they hope to project on you. I am, indeed, wondering if I would “get there quicker if I was a man.”

[r7-b7]

White Man fantasy authors that just really aren't all that worth the hype

In my personal opinion

Now that we can say (without extreme fear of death threats) Neil Gaiman's work has always had an undertone of misogyny, racism and creep--

Let's talk Lev Grossman!

The Magicians (spoilers ahead) was the first fiction book I had picked up in a couple years and I regret it everyday. Quieten is insufferable and what the fuck was the entirety of Alice's character and story? Why the fuck did I waste 17 hours of my life listening to an audiobook about a white boy complaining and fucking his girl and hearing his girl get fucked then she just dies for plot. Her entire character revolved around her brother or her boyfriend. She was so much more than that.

Back to Neil Gaiman: The next book I read after The Magicians was American Gods. Just...yikes to that book. Also, the way Anathema was described in the Good Omens book.. And just Stardust in its entirety... Growing up I watched that movie dozens of times and read it once--it wasn't lost on me that there weren't many non-scorned, non-sexualized, non-abusive or abused, or unfucked ALIVE femme characters in his work. Bilqius, Laura Moon, Yvaine, Anathema, Nina, Madam Tracy, War as seen in this annotation below.

Image Description: a screen shot of the Good Omens Kindle E-Book page 111 with the highlighted passage: "Is bloddy important strategically, Ferando Chianti! I drew big map of the island and is right in the middle, which makes it pretty bloddy strategically important, I can tell you." "Ha!" said Fernando. "You might as well say that just because Little Diego's house has a view of the decedant capitalist topless private beach that it's strategically important!" The pianist blushed a deep red. "Our lot got that this morning," he admitted. There was a silence. In the silence was a faint, silken rasping. Red had uncrossed her legs.

The passage is followed by the annotation saying "wtf is this even"

End of image description.

Alright hold on, this one isn't going to be taken well....

George Lucas, Dave Filoni, John Favreau, Stan Lee.

It's just their own fanfiction with no growth. It's the same parallel for the 150th time with a white male protagonist, a petite love interest, a best friend who is either a droid, an animal, or a token poc. The femme characters---good lord. Same with Grossman and Gaiman, nearly impossible to find one non-scorned, non-sexualized, non-abusive or abused, or unfucked ALIVE femme character. Shmi, Padme, Satine, Barris, Ventress, Yadle, Steela Gerrera, Mary Jane, Pepper, Rogue, Mystique, the list can go on.

Their man characters usually always harm loads of people and especially the femme characters closest to them before they can stop and think about their actions. Why reinforce that harmful trope?

The male violence apologist godfathers. Child slaughterer? He's the chosen one, he's misguided and most of the franchise is dedicated to him. War profiteer and creator and seller of weapons as well as responsible for so much innocent death and egregious property damage? Hot playboy with the best lines who most of the franchise was dedicated to.

Their stories are just So White™. It's just White Knight™ over and over again. The Western bs always gave me such an ick.

I remember being 10 and being like "wow Iron Man is actually really racist..." They really pushed that Islamophobic narrative hard.

Also, George Lucas telling Carrie Fischer "there's no underwear in space" so she doesn't wear a bra in A New Hope? Gross. That's not just "something from another time.. it's was the 70s!" -- no it was gross then when she was 19 and it's gross now.

So yeah I put them all together in one because they are in the same vein of misogynistic white men who get away with their racist microgressions because they built and extended an ultra popular fantasy world with a theme park.

These dudes just thought up a fantasy world, we can all still take what we want and leave the rest. We don't have to be grateful to them or like their work to run with our own creativity with their characters/places/things. We are also very much allowed and should to think critically and critique work, especially when it reinforces harmful tropes or is just plain shit but somehow gets turned into a multimedia affair. But again, we can still enjoy fantasy and take what we want and leave the rest.

There's so much more for each of them and more authors but who has the time of the patience anymore. I don't. Not for this post.

I like to think fan fic writers and artists liberate our beloved characters from them so they can live the lives they deserve. So thank you fic writers and fan artists. You create the world we wish to see.

[radfemsiren]

I am from France and we've been living in quite an odd time regarding Islam. Muslims are an oppressed minority, our police forces are prejudiced against them, but I feel scared about the rise of Islam in my country as a woman.

I am tired of people slandering our laws about religious free areas that represent the state. Separation from religion is a good thing and leftists have forgotten it here, and foreign news twist it to make it seem like we only ban Muslim attires everywhere when it's any religious signs only in places that represent the state (like public schools and public hospitals).

Leftists in general have become... honestly more American in their discourse. "If it's an oppressed minority then they can do no wrong" kind of thinking. But the thing is I can very much see that muslim men come from places that are incredibly more misogynistic than here, and that they've been raised to consider this their religion, to never question it and to use it to their advantage. Like, muslim people are present enough for me to form an opinion like that, I have spent my childhood with at least half of them as the people I saw, and it is really bad and going unquestioned. This whole thing would get me killed in leftist spaces, the most common defenses are "but catholic men and atheist men are bad too!" except that catholics have been shrinking as a group here and atheist men are awful but don't have misogyny as a religious dogma they can spread.

Overall I'm worried. Some people say we're gonna be majority muslim next century and I worry about how this will affect women and the laws that get passed. Leftists approve of anything muslims do because they're oppressed here, and this includes turning any criticism of religion into some choice feminism bullshit. They constantly say women want and choose to be exploited that way and it is gut wrenching to hear. I'm worried about the increasing population of muslim men who are taught to see me as an object so vividly and I'm worried about my rights being threatened by them. I'm worried about my safety as I've had multiple bad encounters with those misogynistic men irl and on online French spheres. Those spheres are now filled with those same men who simply justify sexism by saying they're muslim and its in their culture, or muslim women who talk about marrying as soon as they turn 18 or even arranged marriages gleefully.

Hm I’m Arab-American so I’m not super educated on issues happening in Europe considering Muslim immigration. I’ll have to research more into it to form a well informed opinion on the situation.

What I can tell you is there are many Muslim and ex-Muslim women who are critical of male supremacy in our cultures and religion, and I recommend reading about and interacting with irl, radical feminists from our cultures to help your fears. Finding allies and understanding there are many like-minded women that share your goals makes the heart at peace. I love Nawal Elsaadawi, she is the Simone de Beauvoir of Arabia and close to my heart because she is Egyptian like me lol. The fall of the Imam is good if you want written work expressedly against Islam.

I think cultural relativism is dangerous and all women must be protected. We shouldn’t shy away from calling out misogyny everywhere it rears its ugly head. As long as we are educated and well informed with our criticism, I see no issue with calling out patriarchal oppression from other cultures. I got an ask calling out why I don’t also speak about misogyny against black women, and I thought about it. I think many of us, including myself, try to stick to our own community and what we are familiar with in our feminism, and we should move away from that. Let’s all educate ourselves on the different forms of patriarchy around the world and work hard to end it in all the forms it comes in!

[i-need-some-advice-on]

Hi hi I'm the anon from the AITA ask. I ran into an issue... It's gonna be long, strap in.

I'm in an online study group with people of various ages, mostly older people catching up with life and a few young adults. We have this young lady, let's call her Molly, she's always online and constantly helping out others who miss classes or don't understand study material etc. Everyone dotes on her but at times I think these grown adults depend on her too much for even the simplest tasks.

Molly happens to be a huge people-pleaser. She's "blessed and so grateful" if you link her a PBS channel, she says "agreed, you're so right" about contradicting opinions, she says "you all know so much better than me I am graced by your presence" if you give her a tip on writing. Completely unironically and no it's not the friends being dramatic thing, she's in fact new to the internet outside of facebook. You can also tell when she lies to make everyone happy.

I've had experience with this kind of people and over time this has become one of the worst kinds of people in my eyes, I cannot deal with them, but I still try to be considerate. This study group has a bunch of garden variety misogynist men who take advantage of her eager to please nature. She's also got a lot of internalized misogyny to work through because she always finds problems with the women in our group. And Molly uses this kind of weird overly emotional speech with tons of emojis after every couple words, which everyone calls cute.

Today I had a slight falling out with some of the men in group who tried to make a really nonsensical and insulting joke about a privacy concern I had raised, and I noticed Molly laughing at my comment with some others. When I called out everyone who laughed at me, casually I have to mention just a "what's so funny?", she got defensive and started to profusely apologize with her emojis and saying things like "omg nooo 😭 I didn't mean you hurt you 😱 I apologise for everything 🤗 that happened 😥 Please 🙇‍♀️ you have 🥺 to understand 😭💔🙏" after giving an excuse that had nothing to do with what was said by me or the guys who were joking.

Molly has a tendency to be overbearing, sending me classnotes and schedules personally despite me never needing or requesting them. I've communicated multiple times that I appreciate her thoughtfulness but I'm also up-to-date with all things study related. She's much younger than me and I'm a busy working adult, so I'm not exactly the best candidate for her to befriend. I also prefer to keep to myself and discuss stuff with my own friends, and leave the young people to do Their own thing, have fun use emojis whatever. Keep this in mind because now:

She's been constantly PMing me apologizing with a hundred emojis, it's getting harder for me to read let alone take her seriously. I clarified what exactly happened and what exactly she did that annoyed me, told her to slow down the emojis for a bit so I can read her sentences, tried to communicate that she needs to be sincere and she has read none of it. She's still going at it like all she needs is a "It's okay you're forgiven". And I don't know how to avoid her, we're not allowed to block classmates or switch anything.

I need advice on how I can maintain my distance and still help her be more genuine about everything, less lying less "politeness" and "respect". Clear communication is getting ignored, and I do mean clear, I'm autistic and I can't sugarcoat or twist words.

Thank you for reading through.

.

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Hi, you can call me Pronoun Anon. I briefly mention sexual trauma and stalking. I'm not sure if this is the right blog to ask but you always answer people in such a nice and nonjudgmental way, I wanted to come here for some advice and opinions.

I have never questioned being anything other than a cis female and go by she/her pronouns. A few years ago I was targeted by an abusive stalker ex and had some other traumatic incidents where guys disrespected my boundaries and made me feel uncomfortable. I also faced a lot of misogynistic comments (guys telling me they could do whatever they wanted to me and that my thoughts didn't matter since I'm just a girl and can't have my own thoughts anyway).

Basically because I'm a girl and they wanted me and I didn't feel the same way, men made my life a living hell and I went through some of the worst mental health periods of my life, including having to go to the hospital. These were guys I met at public events, saw me, felt attracted to me, and wanted to pursue something more than just friendship, and wouldn't listen to me when I said no. Not even in a rude way or anything but just me letting them know I wanted us to stay friends, and them arguing with me that "guys and girls can't be just friends" and continuously trying to pressure me into romance and sex with them while ignoring my discomfort.

I stayed out of public events for a while, but now one is coming up that my friend invited me to (it would be my first one in four years). And… I kind of feel inclined to have people call me by they/them or it/its in public? I haven't had anyone try it out on me but I feel like it might be more comfortable. (I'm also interested in some neopronouns I feel connected to, but feel like even they/them and it/its may be hard for people to get used to, or seem "snowflake-y" to people who already know me as a cis girl who wants to change pronouns now)

I don't get bothered by she/her because it's what I've gone by my whole life both offline and online, and have always thought of myself cis, but when I'm in places where there are men around me looking at me in a prefatory way, I want to "detach" myself from that, and not be "seen as a girl" (I also don't wear feminine clothes anymore, and stick to more androgynous fashion styles).

I also feel like it's a matter of kind of wanting a "fresh start" from my old self. Like people remember me as she/her so this kind of gives me a chance at a new identity (I also plan on going by a different nickname in public, since my old nickname was very unique and recognizable).

Just wanted some thoughts on this because it might be impacting my near future and I'm not sure what exactly to think of it. Like Idk if it's even "reasonable" to begin with and I don't want to start telling my friends to call me by different pronouns in public if it's going to seem weird or fake. Does where I'm coming from make sense?

Hi anon,

I'm so sorry about what you've been going through. That sounds really distressing to experience, and I hope you've found some healing.

If using other pronouns in certain settings is what would make you feel more comfortable, then that's a perfectly valid reason to use them. It's also okay to use more than one set of pronouns - you can use they/them, it/its, or whatever other pronouns you had in mind along with she/her pronouns.

I think it's absolutely understandable to want to detach from feeling preyed upon, especially in public settings, and I totally get how femininity can be tightly interwoven with that feeling. I also used to be a cis girl but after some sexual trauma by a boy I started exploring my gender expression and I found that "dressing masculine" actually made me feel safer because I didn't feel targeted. I write about this more in detail in my expose, so if you're interested to hear what I wrote, feel free to ask.

I also just want to say that I really resonate with the idea of a fresh start and a new identity. I changed my name to something more masculine (although I tend not to tell the internet what it is) and in my experience I do feel that it has served that purpose for me, so maybe that will come to fruition for you as well.

There's a common misconception that pronouns indicate gender identity, which isn't necessarily true. Like you can identify as a cis girl and use they/them pronouns, you can identify as a trans man and use she/her pronouns, whatever makes sense to you. So while it's perfectly okay to explore your gender identity, you can use whatever pronouns you feel comfortable using, even if you continue to identify as cis. If people find it weird or fake, then maybe those people don't deserve you.

Ultimately, don't let other people's treatment of you stop you from going out and enjoying yourself.

I hope I could help, please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[talkingpointsusa]

Tim Pool waxes poetic about biology, "sneaky fuckers", and masculinity....it's about as dumb as you might expect.

This promises to be painful (Photo credit; Timcast on Youtube)

If there is one lesson we all learnt on this blog in 2023, it's that Tim Pool might be one of the dumbest political commentators in recorded history. I figured what better way to wring in the New Year than watch one of his recent videos and fact-check them and laugh at the stupidity along the way!

Tim has thoughts on masculinity in this episode, unfortunately they are all very stupid ones. So, let's get into it shall we?

00:00, Tim Pool: "Oh boy we got a viral video of a young woman saying that when she went on a date with a bro, a mans man, and he paid the bill, whoo, she got all hot and bothered and felt the feminism leave her body."

Alright, so this video was making the rounds in the griftersphere recently. It was a video of some woman saying that after she went on a date and a guy paid the bill, she "felt the feminism leaving her body". The opinions of griftersphere commentators have been mixed, for example professional sociopath Matt Walsh didn't like it and said some predictably dumb crap about how woman are only motivated by money or something. Tim likes it because it lets him rant about "masculinity" for 20 minutes.

First of all, there is absolutely no way to verify the legitimacy of some anecdote that an influencer said in a TikTok video, that's why you don't see legitimate news organizations covering this story (that and the fact that nobody outside of these losers care).

Secondly, who the hell cares? This may come as a shock to Tim and Co but some random woman on TikTok isn't the net voice of every single woman on the planet.

Gee, it's almost as if women are all individuals with their own thoughts and feelings and stuff. But that can't be true! Woman all like the same things because some woman on TikTok told a probably made up story for likes.

How long is this crap I've decided to watch anyway? Can't be more than five minutes right?

Christ....

00:19, Tim Pool: "It started making me wonder about maybe the reason a lot of young women have these politics is because they aren't around actual men."

This take is stupid on multiple different levels.

So, according to Tim feminists are feminists because they haven't met the "right guy". To reach this conclusion you have to be extremely ignorant of feminism and really women in general. The feminism movement is about equal rights for women, some examples of some of the things a feminist might strive towards would be ending gender pay gaps or reducing sexual violence against women. Saying that women are feminists because of a lack of masculinity is essentially reducing all the challenges that women face due to a misogynistic society while also saying that women don't have autonomy outside of the men that they are around.

Tim is also categorizing men into "real men" and "fake men". This mindset has been pervasive throughout our society and has done nothing but damage the self-esteem and mental health of young males who don't fit that extremely linear idea of what a "real man" is. The fact of the matter is that not all men fit that idea but that's ok, there are many different paths to being a good person and if you are a good person that's all that matters at the end of the day.

0:52, Tim Pool: "I think a lot of younger women are surrounded by these low-t loser guys who are super effeminate and think that the media tells them what women actually want, in that they go on dates and say 'do you wanna split the bill?' and women are like 'sure'."

Some people are just naturally born with lower testosterone levels than other ones and that's ok, you can't just categorize somebody as a loser just because they have lower testosterone or are more effeminate.

Besides, the ideas of masculine and feminine men are just made up social constructs anyway. The day we start to judge people by their character and not these constructs of masculinity and femininity is the day society improves as a whole.

The media is also not telling men that they should split the bill, I'm pretty sure it's still considered good form for a man to pick up the tab on the first date.

01:21, Tim Pool: "Now in biology this term is called 'sneaky fucker', I am not making that up, it is quite literally the actual academic term."

The term is actually "kleptogyny" and the term sneaky fucker is more just an expression used to describe it (although I've also heard it applied to kleptogamy, shows how relatively obscure and unused the term sneaky fucker is in academia) . Tim is also using it completely incorrectly.

kleptogyny is a zoology term where males with less attractive characteristics copulate with a female in a harem while the male who is running the harem isn't looking. Couple problems with Tim's usage of it here.

The most obvious issue is that women aren't herd animals who don't have individual personalities outside of the pack, women have individual personalities and sexual preferences. Some women might like quote on quote "effeminate" men and some women might like the type of men that Tim seems to think that every single woman is into.

This term only applies if Tim thinks all women are dumb herd animals and if that's the case he's a detestable person. I personally think what's going on here is a little of Tim being a misogynist and a bit of Tim being a dumbass talking shit, not that that makes it any better.

1:30, Tim Pool: "So in biology they have this idea of the attractive male, the female seeking the male. Ah cardinals cardinal, you've seen cardinals, beautiful birds, very red. Ah but alas only the males are red. Why? The bright colors are to show off and attract the female. The females tend to be brown, more plain looking. But there's another reason why the males are bright red, to attract predators. You know I wondered about that, it's winter, there's snow everywhere, and there's these red birds everywhere that easily stand out. Because when the predators seek to strike they are drawn to the male and not the female and the female has the babies, the babies survive."

I am slightly used to Tim Pool's inane ramblings after I listened to one hour of him for this blog and it nearly broke my brain, however I ask again; WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?! Why the hell are we talking about cardinals?!

This kind of stupid tangent is how Tim distracts from the fact that his points are completely ridiculous and have no basis in facts or even basic reality. While he isn't one in the kleptogyny sense, Tim Pool is a sneaky fucker (as are all of the grifters and hacks we talk about on this blog).

Anyway, he's right that scientific evidence backs up male cardinals being red to attract mates but he's completely off base about it being a way to attract predators. I found absolutely nothing saying that which makes me think that Tim just pulled that "fact" out of his ass.

How is this supposed to apply to human males by the way? So we're supposed to wear bright colors to attract females and uhhh....hope those bright colors attract muggers and criminals so that they kill you and the females babies are protected? Stepping in and protecting your partner is something I can get behind but dressing up like a pickup artist and not fighting back against an attacker are both stupid.

02:12, Tim Pool: Now in biology you also have the concept of the sneaky fucker. That is, there is a high value male that dances for the female, you know (how) birds do those dance, I love watching those nature videos where the birds are like they dance, it proves their value or whatever. But then you have the very strong males and they win over all the females and reproduce. The sneaky fucker is the lesser male who in the middle of the night sneaks in a lay to pass on it's genes."

I mean, kind of. Kleptogyny isn't necessarily sneaking in during the middle of the night, as a matter of fact it's mostly scene when the alpha male of a pack is distracted by another rival.

This again doesn't really apply to human males unless you assume that women are all attracted to the same type of male and that human males are sorted into objective categories of good men and bad men.

What would a human example of kleptogyny even look like? All the made up examples I could think of were dumb because they immediately remove any and all human agency from the equation from both the males and the females. It also ignores the existence of LGBTQ+ people who aren't only interested in male + female like straight people are.

02:44, Tim Pool: "I'm imagining this, I'm wondering I should say, if this young woman, she looks like she's in her 20's, has only been around sneaky fucker types. Male feminists, low-t weak men lacking passion and ambition. Men who don't get up, don't exercise, don't improve themselves and she thought 'this is what men are'."

So, those types of men don't apply to the definition of kleptogyny. The closest application I can think of would be a man who slips a woman a date rape drug while her boyfriend is distracted and rapes her and that's WAY too evil of an act to simply be labeled as kleptogyny.

Come to think of it, paying for a meal isn't even an alpha male move in Tim's imaginary cartoon version of reality. Any male can do that, even the ones that Tim described.

What's wrong with male feminists by the way? Would Tim rather we go back to the 1950's style "get back in the kitchen" way of treating woman? Not every male feminist is a whiny loser like Tim seems to think.

Tim's thought process whenever he sees a male feminist seems to be "Respecting women? Psh, loser."

3:04, Tim Pool: "Perhaps one of the big reasons many women are claiming to be LGBTQ is because they're not feeling strong attraction to males because they're not actually encountering real masculinity for which they're attracted to."

That's not how sexuality works. A woman doesn't become attracted to other women because she hasn't met the kind of male she'd be attracted to. The internet exists for one, odds are those women would find footage of the type of guy they are attracted to and realize that they are cis women. It's also extremely unlikely that those women would be alive for 20+ years and never meet the kind of male they would be attracted to. For this to work you'd have to say that you can just switch your sexuality whenever you feel like it.

Man, Tim is truly one of the dumbest guys in the griftersphere.

Tim then plays the TikTok so the next couple comments are him reacting to it.

04:43, Tim Pool: "Ok, I'm gonna pause right there. I've never had that negotiation about who pays, never. That's just me. Every date I've ever been on, every time I go out, I just throw my card down."

Congrats Tim, do you want a medal? Seriously, most guys do this, it's the polite thing to do. Paying for a meal on a date isn't some alpha and macho thing to do.

I doubt this TikTok's legitimacy the more I watch it. You're telling me that a lifelong feminist suddenly decides that she doesn't believe in feminism anymore because a guy paid for her meal at a restaurant? That's extremely stupid if true, which again I doubt it is. Her usage of the term "liberal snowflakes" at the end of the video also indicates to me that she's trying to appeal to right wing grifters like Tim for attention.

08:22, Tim Pool: "I'm not gonna speak for every single woman, women like different things."

"That's why I titled my video 'Women LOVE masculinity NOT male feminists', because I'm not speaking for every single woman."

By the way, the reason that you are seeing large time skips is because Tim spends a lot of this episode talking about nothing. Here's an example of what most of this episode is like.

12:04, Tim Pool: "If you ask a lot of guys, they'll say they don't like makeup. I don't know if it's the majority, but most of the people I know don't like makeup. Me personally, I think it's gross. I really find it gross and then I hear this from women all the time, they're like 'You don't really find it gross, your just saying that' ladies it's gross. I do not like makeup, it's gross."

Guys, I am just gonna go out on a limb here and say that Tim thinks makeup is gross. He's so subtle about it thought that it's honestly hard to tell.

12:38, Tim Pool: "Women dress up not for other men but for other women."

Tim doesn't really elaborate on this beyond "Oh yeah, I hate makeup so every other guy probably does as well so that must mean that women wear it for other women." He also contradicts this later in usual Tim Pool fasion.

13:10, Tim Pool: "Here's what happens. You get a woman like this and she says 'Look at the guy I'm gonna date with'. The other women say 'He's not socially acceptable because he's a Trump supporting chad bro' and they're like 'Oh, better not date that guy because he doesn't have social status.'"

In the history of things that has never happened with women, this is one of the most never happened things.

What does the guys politics have to do with this by the way? We don't even know what this alleged guy looks like, forget who he's voting for in the next election. For all we know he could be a democrat Biden loving male feminist who just happened to pay for her meal, maybe he doesn't have strong political opinions at all.

This is absolutely just Tim catering to his fanbase of conservative MAGA guys. "Hey guys, guess what? YOU'RE the hot chad-bro's because you like Trump or whatever."

13:54, Tim Pool: "Because I think what women are attracted to but what is socially acceptable is split, and so you have women on social media being like 'No no, Dylan Mulvaney, that's the person you wanna be with!'"

Tim Pool is legitimately obsessed with Dylan Mulvaney to an almost unhealthy degree. He manages to mention her once every other video.

By the way, who died and made Tim the expert on women and how they interact with one another? I don't see how women in a certain social group would know a guys politics unless he's extremely obnoxious about them and that's a total turn off.

15:32, Tim Pool: "100 men 100 women, 99 men die, that one man can make a whole bunch of babies in 9 months. A lot of work for that one guy but it's possible. 100 men 100 women, 99 women die, your done. You get one baby in nine months, ya ain't gonna be having a lot of babies, that woman's gonna be working more than any woman's ever worked to save their village. For this you have the expendable male, if a man dies society can still survive."

This is ignoring a lot of things, for example what if that one male is impotent? Or what if out of those 100 women, some have fertility issues, some miscarry, and some are LGBTQ+, the number of babies is slashed pretty quickly. Maybe this mythical village that we shall call "Strawmanville" could call in more women or men from neighboring villages and as a result they have more people to help with population growth. Or maybe the residents of Strawmanville can go to another village, get engaged, and then come back and repopulate Strawmanville with their new spouses.

That's not important though because this viewpoint is also harmful for both men and women. It makes men completely expendable and worthless in society and women only worthwhile for child rearing. Since our planet has 7.8 billion people on it, the situation that Tim is describing will never take place and thus has no bearing in reality.

Tim talks about how wolves were domesticated, it's super long and rant-ey so we'll skip straight to his point.

18:22, Tim Pool: "So how does a dog come to be? Social pressures created social behaviors, environmental pressures created social behaviors. The same is true for human beings and eachother. Human's that would send their women to go hunt likely would not last that long, so women end up not hunting."

Interesting that Tim would bring up women hunting since there is actually evidence that contradicts his statement. For example, a recent study found that 50% of prehistoric big game hunters were in fact females. Another paper published by the peer reviewed journal PLOS ONE showed that 79% of past and present foraging societies have had female hunters.

In essence, women have hunted for centuries.

19:09, Tim Pool: "What colors women wear, dresses, yeah that has nothing to do with social pressures."

Wait a minute, wait a minute, back up the bus. Didn't Tim say a couple minutes ago that women "dress up for other women"? So which is it Tim? Does the way a woman dresses have nothing to do with social pressures or is it influenced by the social pressures of other women?

Whenever I watch Tim Pool I find myself wondering how he is able to get away with being this bloody daft on his own show to an audience of over a million people. Do people just have that little critical thinking?! I just don't understand why he's successful.

On the Daily Wire side of the griftersphere I kind of see why they all have some success. Matt Walsh just allows people to indulge their personal prejudice with the thin veil of an "intellectual" (read: narcissistic ex shock jock) saying bigoted linguistic vomit and Ben Shapiro at least pretends to be a legitimate political commentator, Michael Knowles is simultaneously dumb and boring but again at least he kind of tries to make sense and not many people watch him anyway. I don't know enough about Candace Owens to comment, but we will talk about her at some point. As for the others we have talked about so far; Ezra Levant is just the Lite Canadian version of Alex Jones and Charlie Kirk and Dave Rubin are also really dumb but for different reasons and at least they can stay on track most of the time.

Tim? He's annoying to listen to, goes on long and stupid-ass tangents about nothing, and regularly contradicts himself over the course of single episodes. I just don't get it!

19:16, Tim Pool: "But of course, the reason why women weren't working, the reason why women weren't voting was absolutely because men were involved in external affairs and war, conflict, hunting, et cetera, and women stayed in the camp raising children because they're the only ones who can."

Of course, how could I have been so foolish? Here I was spending my life thinking that the reason why women weren't working or voting was because they literally weren't allowed to, boy was I sure wrong there! The reason was because they were in "the camp" where they belong raising children.

This is so idiotic. If I were to directly talk to Tim about this episode I'd ask him if he thinks women being allowed to vote is a good thing or not, because it sounds like he doesn't from where I'm sitting.

Conclusion:

Alright, so what have we learnt? Well, as is always the case when I watch Tim Pool stuff for this blog, I feel like I actively have lost brain cells watching this video. I certainly have learnt that Tim possesses the amazing talent of being able to stretch out coverage of a TikTok video into 21 minutes and I learnt that he likes saying the word "fucker".

[mahiiragi]

This !! The last kataang interaction before the kiss was a fight, and even before that it wasn't going very well for them: Katara actively avoiding talking about Aang's romantic moves, he exploding a little makeshift volcano in her face accusing her of "playing games" with him, she gently turning him down because of the war and confusion about her feelings, Aang kissing her without her consent and she reasonably getting angry at him... And they never talk about any of that or about Aang running away when she has abandonment issues or about him sacrificing the avatar state for her when Katara has hope in the avatar to save the world more than anything.

And in between the fight and the kiss we get a lot of Zuko and Katara moments that might suggest a future relationship: blushing when June suggests them being a couple, Iroh thinking they make a good match in the Sozin's comet book, Zuko jumping in front of lightning to die for her (I am of the people who believe Zu would have done that for anyone of the gaang, but he still asked specifically to her to come and the scene still was about Zuko saving her) or just Zuko and Katara's relationship as friends and supportive of each other being highlighted more than any other in those last episodes, so some people naturally leaned towards zutara in that lapse of time.

The kataang kiss at the end feels so abrupt because of that: they fought in the last scenes of them together and they never talked about the issues in their relationship and rather than seeing how Katara feels about Aang instead of just how Aang feels about Katara (one of kataang's faults is that it is very Aang-centric, specially in the romantic aspect, in my opinion), we were shown Katara building a strong connection with Zuko, so for many it was an "hero gets the girl" situation instead of the result of three seasons of development. In short, in the last half of season 3, the kataang relationship became strained while Zuko and Katara were getting all buddy-buddy.

Katara and Aang have a really cute dynamic and work well together, the love they have for each other is palpable (being it platonic or not) and a romance between them is totally plausible, but it definitely should have been developed better. And Katara not being left out and reduced to just the "avatar's girlfriend" in most of the post-series content would have been great too.

Out of topic, but I will forever complain about her not having a statue in republic city while everyone else in the team and the cabbage merchant had one, about her not going to her own granddaughter's ceremony declaring her the first master airbender of a new generation, about her not being in Yakone's trial when she was the only one known to resist bloodbending and the second bloodbender to ever exist, about her apparently not accomplishing anything remarkable after the war and supposedly letting Aang play favorites and take just one kid to vacations?? This girl encouraged revolutions and fought with tooth and nails against the patriarchy and to preserve her culture, for the people, for freedom and justice and you want to tell me she just became the best healer in the world (when she didn't even want to heal in the first place, she wanted to fight and fought for that right) and banned bloodbending (when it can be used for good, too, in medicine and wound treatment, one would think the best healer in the world would think about that)??? Even her kids talk more about Aang than about her. We are told she did a lot of good after the war, but we never really see that.

Let Katara become a world-changing politician and be the terror of misogynistic reactionary old men 2024

i really don’t wanna be a hater because i honestly can see the potential of kata@ng, i love their friendship and i enjoy cute shippy fanart of them on occasion, and most importantly i’ve been into ATLA for way too long to still care that much about ship wars at this point, but–

i just keep thinking, why was this literally the last time in the entire show that aang and katara had an on-screen conversation? like… the episode before this is the one where he kisses her right after she says she’s confused and it ends without them having resolved this issue, then we get this scene where they have a fight which ends with zuko putting his hand on katara’s shoulder to stop her from going after aang so he can figure things out on his own. which really stood out to me on my latest rewatch because my dad, who was watching the show for the first time with me, had made a couple of shippy comments about zuko and katara before but for whatever reason it was this moment that made him say “yep, they’re a couple. those two are falling in love”. even though he had previously been liking kata@ng and rooting for them to get together!

and it’s after this that we get the classic “she’s not my girlfriend!” moment between zuko and katara, we see katara comfort zuko when he’s worried about facing iroh, see zuko ask katara to help him confront azula, see zuko jump in front of fucking lightning to save katara, see katara take down azula and heal zuko, and then… we see katara and aang hug and kiss in the final minutes of the show even though the last time they kissed she was reasonably unhappy about it and never got an apology for that entire situation (at least, not one that we got to see) and the last time they spoke on-screen was an argument between them.

like i’m sorry but the kata@ng development in book 3 just feels really odd to me for an endgame couple. she didn’t even smile after the kiss in day of black sun despite the fact that she was originally supposed to. i genuinely think they could’ve had a really sweet and meaningful romance that i could’ve rooted for (even though i’m sure i still would’ve forever been a zutara stan–i do multiship sometimes) but instead of having positive development in their relationship toward the end of the show, they argue and seemingly stop talking while zuko and katara get a bunch of moments together?? idk it just… doesn’t feel like the kiss at the end was earned or built up to very well as a result of this, but that’s just my personal opinion.

[dramioneficrecommendations]

I rarely get personal here, but I’ve seen people talking about shipping Dramione and not shipping them any more, and it prompted me to share my thoughts.

First of all, don’t put the equals sign between racism and pureblood doctrine, or shipping Dramione and a Nazi man/Jewish woman’s romance. Apart from huge ideological differences between the two, the biggest and most obvious contrast between them is that racism is real, and the Holocaust really happened, whereas pureblood supremacy only exists in the books and has never hurt anyone in real life because — what a surprise — witches and wizards aren’t real, and Voldemort had never been born. So please stop diminishing the tragedy and suffering of millions of people to justify your opinions and dislikes.

Don’t tell women what they can and cannot read. So many people think themselves woke and their actions politically correct without realising how terribly misogynistic they are in fact. Let women choose what they read, let them make a decision on their own, and don’t assume they can’t tell a difference between reality and fiction. Because — NEWS FLASH — they’re perfectly capable of differentiating between the two!

If you want to hold fictional characters accountable for their actions, at least be consequential and hold all of them accountable for what they’ve done, not only those who fit into heteronormative culture. Don’t omit LGBTQ+ characters, judge them too, they’re capable of making bad things as well and their being in a non-heterosexual relationship or being part of LGBTQ+ community doesn’t undo their deeds in that fictional world. The same goes for fictional women. Don’t excuse their actions if you decide to play morality police. HOWEVER. In the end, it is a fictional world, and they are all fictional characters, so you can root for them even if they’ve done horrible things (yeah, you can root for Lord Voldemort for all I care), just don’t be selective about your judgement to fit your agenda/make others feel guilty about who they like or ship.

Don’t make others feel guilty about or ashamed of who they ship. And don’t feel guilty about or ashamed of who you ship. There’s nothing wrong with you even if you like the most vile and twisted fictional characters.

Now on a more personal note. Why do I ship Dramione? Most of the time, I don’t know, I don’t think about it, I just do. Obviously, I love their dynamic, I love the enemies to lovers trope, and I love their bickering. Deep down I’m a hopeless romantic and love the idea of star-crossed lovers. And I simply enjoy brilliant writing that Dramione authors offer to fans. But if I reflect upon my reading choices, I believe they’ve got something to do with the fact that most men in my life have repeatedly disappointed and hurt me, and I’m not sure if I ever will be able to build a romantic relationship with another human being, especially a man. In fiction, everything is possible (and when you think of it, in reality too; life writes the craziest, most improbable stories). So let me have one of my favourite book heroines fall in love with a man who had been a prejudiced arsehole but redeemed himself and now loves her unconditionally and is someone she can always rely on. Let me have my imaginary utopian world in which a man is capable of a profound change.

And yeah, I read dead dove fics too. He that is without sin among you and has never seen a horror or a thriller, let him first cast a stone at me. (Don’t take this too literally; it’s not a sin to enjoy dark stories.)

Long story short: SHIP AND LET SHIP. Shipping should be about having fun. If you don’t like it, don’t ship it, but don’t try to take away fun from ships other people love, and don’t try to make them feel guilty about their favourite pairings.

And I can’t believe how some people still don’t get this.

[governorofclowntown]

If I didn't already agree with you, I would after reading that. And please don't apologize for the length, I enjoyed every second. No such thing as too many Star Trek thoughts in my opinion. If anything, I should be the one apologizing for somewhat unintentionally hijacking this post in order to write like a whole essay which is only tangentially related. It's still ultimately in defense of Turnabout Intruder though!

To preface this, I think you articulated my own personal interpretation better than I could. I believe that Janice Lester's character is an example of how psychologically harmful misogyny can be—to all women, but especially those who are prevented from self-actualization as a result of societally enforced gender norms. I think her instability should not be taken as an indictment of all women's capacity for rationality but as a natural consequence of her immense internalized misogyny.

However, part of what makes this episode fascinating to me is that I sincerely doubt the all male season 3 writer's room was capable of intentionally creating that kind of nuanced commentary on the insidious nature of misogyny. Especially given their sub-par track record. That being said, I do believe they accidentally stumbled into it despite themselves.

The best way I can think to explain myself is by referencing that part in Metamorphosis where they assign the nebulous alien cloud entity a gender. With a single sentence, they simultaneously reinforce the bio essentialist belief in the innate gender binary and imply that gender transcends one's physical form. As progressive as Star Trek may have been for it's time, that time was still the sixties; I think the latter interpretation probably never even crossed the minds of the writers. Yet, to a modern audience, it is a viable interpretation.

So although I find it highly implausible that the man who wrote that episode intended to endorse such a radically progressive (for the time) idea, I think nonetheless it undeniably happened. I don't believe that that interpretation is "wrong" just because it wasn't intentional. Wether or not Janice Lester was supposed to be a complex character doesn't change the fact that I perceive her to be. It's like the old saying goes: Spock's gay—wether or not all those times they implied he was uninterested in women were actually supposed to be interpreted as him not being attracted to anyone at all.

TLDR: I think Turnabout Intruder is under appreciated because some people look to the creator of a piece of media as the ultimate authority on how to interact with or interpret said media. IMO, allowing oneself to find new meaning in something, even if it might stray from the "intended" or agreed upon message, is fun and cool. Especially when it comes to TOS because why should anyone let a bunch of old, cis-het white men tell them what to think.

(also, if you do ever feel like sharing those transgender thoughts, I'd absolutely eat them up. orrr if you want to talk about the more egregiously misogynistic episodes. i'm looking at you elaan of troyus. literally had to stop watching after like five minutes because the vibes were so rancid.)

i must admit that turnabout intruder is one of my problematic faves too.

if you feel like elaborating, i’d love to hear your takes!!

I would absolutely love to elaborate! To preface this I’m exceptionally bad at writing out my thoughts so apologies if this is a little all over the place. Also this got way longer than I expected and I still don’t feel like I covered all my thoughts so sorry for the super long reply.

The tl;dr is that I think the episode is trying to show us, in Star Trek’s exaggerated way, that experiencing misogyny and internalizing is bad and that is the fault of the how society treats women and not, you know, women.

I’ve only seen the episode once so I think I definitely need to watch it again to fully sort out my thoughts. For some context I recently did a full tos watch, I mostly watch tng as a kid and a few random tos eps, and as I was making my way through I thought a lot about how the like for what makes something socially progressive shifts over time. There are a lot of episodes and themes that we have to look at through the culture context of the late sixties.

That being said I think one of the places tos, and basically every other show, really falls short is how it understands and represents gender. For me this is most clear in how every alien has the same understanding of sex and gender as humans but that is for a separate rant. This is about gender by way of misogyny. So without further ado here is my defense of turnabout intruder.

Before I watched turnabout intruder my understanding of it was that it was bad in the not well written way and bad in the misogynistic way. I think it’s important to know that I do not think this episode is free of misogyny, few tos episodes are, but I think if we all up on our critical thinking caps we can see that there is *gestures vaguely* something worth talking about.

When I finally watched it I was expecting it to be much more misogynistic than it was so I really psyched myself up, but I genuinely don’t think it makes it on my top three most misogynistic tos episodes. The only part that really made me cringe was when Scotty is talking to Bones about how he’s never seen Kirk so hysterical. I think that the use of the word hysterical is totally unnecessary to what Scotty is saying and only serves to make that line overtly misogynistic.

I think the thing that makes me not label Janice’s who character as just a poorly hysterical woman who’s purpose in the narrative is to remind us that women aren’t fit to lead because of emotions or whatever is that, at least to me, she seems more complex than that. The thing that leads me to believe that the writers had some idea what they were doing is how Janice clearly has the most intense case of internalized misogyny I may have ever seen.

The episode doesn’t want us to come away from it believing women aren’t fit to lead because they’re emotional. It want us to understand that misogyny is so poisonous that a lifetime of experiencing it can drive you to hate yourself so much that, in the case of Janice you would do nothing short of murder to escape it.

I was going to add a bit at the end about Kirk as a victim of abuse but I can’t organize my thoughts about that very well right now. Other people have written much more eloquent post about this, but I’ll say that the thing that stuck with me is that his masculinity is never brought into question. No one on the ship thinks less of him because a woman hurt him and I think, although it’s not the focus of the episode, it’s something that’s important to mention.

I have somehow managed to leave out all of my transgender thoughts from this so perhaps if I have the energy for that at some point I will make a part two with that.



[ghostonly]

Stop making jokes about trans men’s patchy facial hair

Yes, this is @ other trans men as well

I know you think:

It looks stupid

They should just shave it off until it’s growing in evenly

It makes them look like a 12-year-old boy

And I’m telling you I do not care. Your opinion is shitty and when you voice it, you are being shitty.

Here’s why:

Trans men are not here to look attractive, aesthetic, pretty, or manly

Trans men are not objects and laughing at them if/when they decide not to shave off patchy facial hair because it’s unattractive is basing your respect on how attractive or cis passing they are

Most trans men have lived their lives being perceived as women into adulthood and have been victims of abusive, misogynistic beauty standards. We don’t need more of that shit during transition. No one should have to put up with that, but it seems like peoples’ outcry about misogynistic beauty standards starts and ends with cis women and I’m tired of it. The abuse extends heavily to trans women and men alike, trans women for not fitting the mold and trans men for trying to break free of it.

Trans men do not owe you shit and you being shitty about the way they look seems to imply they should be dressing and presenting for you

The trans men who let patchy facial hair grow without shaving it are probably not doing it because they think it looks ~ * Sexy * ~ or something. It’s because it helps dysphoria. I don’t care if you’re cis or trans: if you’re openly shitty about someone’s method of relieving dysphoria, you’re being transphobic. (and if you’re quietly shitty about it, you need to assess why that is)

Not to mention the hypocrisy within the transmasc community surrounding this specific thing. I have known someone who openly mocked trans men who don’t shave their new facial hair while, on other occasions, went so far as to use mascara on his face to make it look like he had stubble. Like, are you kidding me? We all do weird shit to make ourselves feel more comfortable in our bodies. Quit being an ass about people choosing methods that you yourself wouldn’t.

[moka-suwi]

5: Balneae

Training of PPC agents can be anything from nonexistent to months-long. Upstairs has a long history of sending agents into the field relatively untrained, possibly because they are of the opinion that if an untrained agent can survive his first mission he didn't need extensive training to begin with, and if he can't, he probably wasn't agent material. Training of a PPC agent may consist of: - Giving them a weapon and pointing them at a Mary Sue. — Revised Handbook of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, 2010.

Anis had insisted on waiting to leave until some of the men had agreed to step in for archery training, which took a bit under a week. The agents’ departure was much better prepared this time, much to the displeasure of Murderhorse, who quite literally ran circles around the pack bosk. This wasn’t a problem to anyone with PPC portals, and in the time it took to get them out of view and get the kaiila to cooperate, the pair had moved way ahead in space and time.

“Let’s say this,” Anis said while pulling Me out of the backpack, “is valid for charging purposes.” They then stuffed me back in, and added with a grin: “But no one said anything about not just reading the Words.”

Mallory’s groan turned into a sigh of relief at those words. “So…” She replied. “What do we do after that?”

“Umm… Are you interested in a somewhat intimate dream sequence?”

“No.”

“Then there’s an assassination attempt on her right afterwards, and then she kills the real chief in a duel.” A shrug. “It’s a whole thing, but I think the charges would be redundant. Up to you.”

Mal pouted, pondering the choice for a second. “Mmmmeh, nah. More first-person shit after that, then?”

“Yeah, then uh.” Anis read further ahead, and frowned. “Okay we’ll have to be there for that one.”

“She’d give anything to see him again,” the redhead proclaimed, looking down at the entrance to the ornate wagon. The pair somewhat regretted not packing a See-Through Device.

Mal grinned. “Good news, your husband’s here! Bad news, there goes your soul, your true name, I dunno, your fucking literal ass—”

That got a chuckle out of Anis. “Anyway yeah, they almost fight each other, and then touching reconciliation moment, but then it turns out it’s only been like thirty minutes in their homeworld. They just blame that one goddess and call it a day.”

“I mean, I’d believe that. I’m more concerned about how that means… Basically no stakes whatsoever.”

Anis nodded. “Yeah she basically just… Gets whatever she wants, just like that. Ah –” they cleared their throat – ““I had to kill three thousand men to unfuck this one tribe.” She said bluntly. “And it’s still not really done; that was just lancing the boil. ’Catch, the men of this world are slavers. All of them, from what I can tell, or at least most. They keep women as sex toys.”

Mal blinked, twice. “An… Entire planet of DMBs?”

“Of what?”

“Designated Misogynistic Bastards.”

“Yeah basically.”

“Well, that’s one way to make your protag look good.”

“Mm. Oh,” Anis added, “we’re just about caught up. Just listen.”

The tent wasn’t exactly soundproofed, and the agents could faintly hear half of the conversation inside; Anis simply repeated Systlin’s lines.

“So you’ve been gone months, but it’s been but moments at home.” “Thank the gods.” Systlin’s voice was muffled by his chest. “I’ve been so, so worried, about you and Serra.” “It’s reasonable then to assume that however long we take here, little or no time will have passed at home.” “Thank the gods.” She said again, fervent. “Well.” He said. “We might as well make a proper job of it then. Why don’t you show me around, Ubara?”

Quite unfortunately, the moment the couple exited the wagon was also the time the narrative chose to switch back to first person. The agents opted to, instead, focus on the sudden sparring session. The narrative, beyond all the homoeroticism (“Well, it’s horny low fantasy, I don’t think that’s chargeable”), only described the characters’ skills as excellent, and yet a measure of actual skill was still obvious.

“We are not going head to head with either of them.” Mal’s lighthearted tone betrayed some worry.

Anis acquiesced: “With the god thing, I’m not even entirely sure the portal into the sun will work. You’ll have to figure something out.”

“Yeah, it’s— Hey!”

“What? You’re the weird esoteric assassination girl.”

The Sue and her husband finally finished their third bout, and immediately started making out, in a way that was so well described by Me that even Mal couldn’t escape it. “My wagon, I think,” Sys finally said. “You can leave the boots on.” “Only if you leave the sword belt on,” Foicatch replied, and there they went.

“Well, that was…” Anis turned to Mal, who was apparently trying to disappear into the fabric of the roof. Or choke herself with it, they weren’t sure. “Yeah basically. Portal back?”

The woman raised her head back. “Well, I guess if we’re past the weirder bits of that—”

“A wagon is not really the most sound-proof of dwellings,” I opined.

Mal wordlessly grabbed the Remote Activator. As the pair left through a floating blue doorway, Jane wondered if that was even the weirdest thing she’d seen lately.

The next two chapters were, to put things plainly, about Foicatch having sex with Tarl Cabot. Anis tried to crack jokes about how weird a way to solve that plot point this was, but quickly gave up once the muffled noises coming from Mal became distinctly more electronic.

“Aaaanyway, there’s a timeskip and then they raid the city of Turia. How about we go do some tourism before they get there?”

Mal’s eyes focused back onto them. “Huh?”

“I’m just saying,” they replied with a slight grin, “cities imply proper sanitation.”

A sigh of relief. “Oh fuck yeah.”

Some rummaging through their supplies and a portal later, the agents found themselves under the shadow of implausibly large walls. Another one, and they were on top. Before that could register to anyone who might have been there, a third portal brought them to a rooftop of the inner city. From this vantage point, the pair looked on at the people on the streets, then at each other, then at the people again.

“... Well, fuck.”

Karn of the caste of Scribes wasn’t sure what he expected to happen today, but it certainly wasn’t this, which was a strange floating rectangle, appearing in front of him, and two strangely-dressed people coming out of it. One, he could recognize as a woman, albeit one who was wearing neither collar, nor Robes of Concealment. He met her cerulean gaze, but she immediately squeezed her beautiful eyes shut. He would have taken some time to appreciate the blonde’s beauty, were he not baffled by the other, who was a… He wasn’t sure what the red-haired one was, but it was wearing similarly odd clothes, along with a pair of strange darkened spectacles, and wielding a short, black, stick—

FLASH.

“Alright,” Anis said. “You were on your way to the least frequented bathhouse you know of. That you’ve still heard good things about. You’ve certainly not seen anything out of the ordinary on your way there. Have a nice day!”

The bath turned out to be some sort of high-status exclusive club business, to the point that even that man in the blue clothes was refused entry; but that was nothing that some strategically applied neuralyzing couldn’t handle. It was indeed devoid of customers at the moment, and what little “staff” remained past the lobby were keen on not asking any questions – the smiles and knowing nods were somewhat unsettling, though.

The agents thoroughly washed off the grime and remaining smell of burning corpses by themselves, the solid quarter of an hour this had to take being spent in complete silence. Finally, as they soaked in a cool pool of water, Mal spoke.

“So, uh… Elephant in the room: they’re—”

“The slaves are canon,” Anis acquiesced. “Clearly.”

“For fuck’s sake.” She leaned back, as if to hit the back of her head against the edge of the pool.

“Yeah. Not unexpected of low fantasy, but… I’m not sure we’re morally in the right here.”

Mal nodded in acknowledgement. “The PPC’s saved plenty of terrible continuums. If she’s still making things worse…”

“Is she, though?”

Another moment of silence—

“What is the meaning of this? You will let me through!”

A man’s voice. Anis leaped out of the pool, with Mal following after grabbing her glasses from the edge. She immediately found herself facing the person who had just run in – smaller stature, head shaved, wearing white robes.

Mal apologetically raised her hands: “Oh sorry, didn’t mean to—”

“Knife!” Anis shouted, throwing themself at the scholar. A strike to his hand sent a grey glimmer flying, a punch connected with his head, and a kick pushed him to the ground.

Hastily putting on her glasses, Mal spoke again: “Anis, why’d you…”

A sickening noise echoed across the room as her partner soccer-kicked the man’s head, leaving his neck at a concerning angle.

Mal couldn’t help but shout. “Anis, what the fuck?!”

Anis gave her a serious-business stare as they walked back up to the knife. “I know that was risky, I wouldn’t have done that if I—”

Mal was growing increasingly panicked. “Did you just kill him?”

Anis’s tone remained flat. “He had that look. Like he didn’t know if he wanted to fuck us or kill us.”

Mal paused for a second, then took a deep breath. “Oh, God,” she sighed.

“Save the mental breakdown for later, we need to go.” With that, knife in hand, Anis made a run for the changing room, and Mal followed. A short corridor, then the warm pool, then—

Two men in white robes, rummaging through the agents’ clothes. Behind them, two of the bathhouse’s slave girls. The scholars abruptly stood up and took a step back – one had grabbed a pair of black throwing knives, and the other wielded a still-collapsed telescopic baton. Anis dashed off to the side from the doorway, pulling Mal along.

The men and the agents observed each other for a second. The man with the knives was clearly intimidated, and possibly panicking, but Anis figured they wouldn’t be able to disarm him quickly enough—

With a scream, he threw the knife in his right hand at the pair; it harmlessly bounced off the wall next to them. Well, that makes things easier.

Mal eyed the one with the baton. He obviously didn’t know how to use the World One weapon, and she needed to at least distract him until Anis finished off the other; but she was unarmed. A look around the room – some glass vials on the table over there, maybe if she threw them—

The older-looking of the slave girls pulled on a towel rack, and a metal bar effortlessly came off. In the same motion, she struck the scholar on the back of the head. He screamed, flailing his arms and somehow managing to open the baton.

Mal gave a surprised look at the girl, who simply answered with another knowing nod; she held up the bar in a vertical position and carefully threw it at Mal, who managed to catch it, then pulled another one out and positioned herself to protect the younger girl.

Anis approached the other scholar, maintaining a guard stance and holding their knife up in front of them. Their opponent’s grip was unsteady, showing lack of experience— Low strike. The agent’s forearm bashed against the man’s striking hand, followed by a slash of their knife, and as he cried in pain the other blade fell to the ground. Anis followed up with a stab in the torso, then another, then a front kick to the other side of the room.

With that out of the way, they turned to assist Mal, who was swinging a long metal pole at her opponent. As they were about to run to her assistance, she managed to strike the man’s neck with some force, and he fell limp to the ground.

“Praise the Ubara Sana!”, the older slave girl shouted.

“Mal, get the weapons,” stated Anis as they searched through the clothes basket, sighing in relief upon feeling the Remote Activator at the bottom of the pile. “You two should run, we’ll make our own way out. Hide somewhere safe, and stay away from the walls.” A beat. “Thank you for the help.”

As the girls ran out of the room, the agents finally portaled back to the safety of their base camp.

In some weaker canons, places that existed outside of the narrative for a period of time could, so to speak, uncouple themselves from the pace of the Words. A blatant charge of time distortion when a badfic did it, but PPC agents themselves were no strangers to their hiding spots remaining unchanged through long time skips. This was as such not one of the reasons why the agents, upon getting dressed and leaving the tent, were surprised to find a squad of the Ubara’s cavalry, kitted for war, waiting next to the camp.

Their leader, a dark-skinned woman who looked in her mid-30s, spoke. “There you are! We were starting to think something had happened to you, but we didn’t wanna disturb.”

Anis was a lot better at hiding their surprise than Mal. “Been a while, huh? What’s all this for?”

The woman grinned. “We’re about to sack Turia! Wanna join?”

The agents took a long look at each other. They were getting dangerously embedded in the fic’s own narrative, by the looks of it. Actively helping with the attack of Turia, even as nameless background characters easily compatible with the Words, could be a step too far.

And yet.

“Fuck yeah.”

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