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rjalker · 6 months

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yeah, Doctor Who has a canon trans character now, cool, great, but are we gonna talk about how blatantly transmisic the "male-presenting" statement is, or are we just pretend that biological and gender essentialism is fun and cool now?

Explain to me how the Doctor as played by David Tennant is "male-presenting" without being transmisic. Go ahead and try. I'll give you a hint: you literally can't. It's literally just transmisia and biological essentialism.

And this is why the terms "female presenting" and "male presenting" have been shit since their fucking inception as labels for you to apply to other people. It's literally just misgendering people masquerading as being progressive.

Once a-fucking-gain. Just because a man is playing the Doctor does not mean the Doctor is automatically a man, any more than a woman playing the Doctor makes the Doctor automatically a woman. That's not how gender works. That's literally biological essentialism and transmsia. Do we have to have this conversation again?

Or does Doctor Who think the only trans people who exist are ones who "pass" perfectly as the gender they identify with? Do these people think all trans people magically transform into "their real body" the moment they come out as trans? Do they think nonbinary people all use she/her or he/him pronouns and "look right" for those pronouns???

So did Russel T. Davies just, decide not to hire a sensitivity writer, or what? It's 2023, there's a fucking canon trans nonbinary character in the episode. How is this much transmisia still allowed to get to the final cut???

#sigh #Doctor Who #Rjalker watches Doctor Who #Doctor Who: The Star Beast #DW spoilers #Doctor Who spoilers #transmisia #exorsexism #biological essentialism #gender essentialism #Doctor Who transmisia #Doctor Who exorsexism #Doctor Who bigotry #Doctor Who biological essentialism #Doctor Who biological essentialism 2: Electric Boogaloo #RTD2 #RTDWHO2 #RTD2spoilers #The Star Beast spoilers

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metamorphicrocky · 6 months

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doctor who coming back in the year of 2023 when terfism and biological essentialism and transphobia are on the rise and making one of THE most hyped up episodes by bringing back fan favorites david tennant and catherine tate. all about being trans

showing rose being bullied and her grandma struggling to get it right but still being supportive. and shaun and donna being the greatest parents by being ready to burn the world down to protect their daughter. the doctor asking for the meep's pronouns AND IT'S NORMAL???

and all of that is brilliant to see rose as a trans character and it is important to the narrative. BUT THEN. ROSE BEING TRANS SAVES DONNA'S LIFE BY TAKING HALF OF THE METACRISIS. BECAUSE THE DOCTOR IS MALE AND FEMALE AND NEITHER AND MORE. AND THAT IS INTEGRAL TO DOCTOR WHO AS A WHOLE. and it saved donna's life

to see doctor who be so BLATANTLY trans and nonbinary at the core of the series. the multiple references to the fact that before fourteen, thirteen was a woman. so to see this? trans people stay winning. thank you doctor who for doubling down on the importance of the doctor being trans because oh my god I am so emotional about this

#YES I CRIED REALLY HARD #it was so unexpected in a good way and it got a little complicated and wonky with the word usage but OUGH. it got the right point across #doctor who #dw spoilers #dw specials #doctor who spoilers #doctor who 60th anniversary #fourteenth doctor #donna noble #rose noble #shaun temple #sylvia noble #the star beast

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hello-nichya-here · 5 months

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Did Sia insult topic of autism somehow?

Oh honey, it's sooooooooo much worse than that.

Sia wanted to make a movie about an autistic girl that manages to connect to people/feel safe and confident through music. So far, nothing outrageous, just a simple concept that would obviously put Sia's music front and center while doing something nice and educating people on autism.

There was controversy about her not casting an autistic actress as it would have been nice representation, but she could have totally gotten away with that since, come on, hollywood hasn't even figured out Rain Man isn't exactly true to life, they're not ready to have an autistic person playing an autistic character. Baby steps.

The real problem started when Sia started promoting the "charity/support group" that was helping "educate" her on the topic to make the movie. The "charity" in question was Autism Speaks - which is absolutely HATED by the autistic community for things like:

1 - Spreading the myth that autism is a mental illness that one can develop/catch like the freaking flue and potentially be cured of, instead of a neurotype, aka something starts in the woomb and cannot be "cured" because to do that you'd need to replace someone's entire nervous system, which is impossible.

2 - Using that myth to get outrageous amounts of money from people so they "search for a cure" - that doesn't exist and will never exist because curing autism is biologically impossible, AND despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of autistic people don't even want to be "cured" (plus, since said "cure" would essentially mean giving the person a new brain, it leads to the question of "Would I even be the same person, or would that just kill and replace me?")

3 - Using the myth of "We don't know what causes autism" (we do, it's genetic) to, of course, get MORE money from people so they can "do research to find the missing puzzle piece" (if you ever see autistic people complaining about a puzzle piece being used to represent the condition, that's why, it was started by Autism Speak's massive disinformation campains).

4 - Falsely "confirming" things like soy milk cause autism with one of the world's most ridiculous "research", losing only to "vaccines totally make kids autistic, buy MY vaccine instead, guys, I am totally not an unbelievably biased person, it's ALL the other doctors/scientists lying to you. GIVE ME MONEY!"

5 - Pushing the narrative of "autism is inherently a tragedy" to distract from the fact that all the money they waste on stupid shit could be used to help autistic people and their families. Instead, they focus on creating more and more panic, making parents in particular despair even more - to the point that one of their "awareness videos" includes a mother talking about how she wants to murder her autistic daughter and then kill herself... while sitting right next to said daughter.

6 - Promoting ABA "therapy" - which was created by the same guy responsible for the attrocity that is gay conversion "therapy." Both have led to unbelievably high rates of confirmed PTSD and suicidal ideation in patients (victims), and ABA in particular has been compared to literal dog training. Very fitting since it was created by a guy who famously did not believe autistic people truly counted as thinking, feeling human beings, and said as much several times. Despite that, it is still praised by some utter bastards because "it makes the patients act less autistic when they're not crying in the corner or trying to jump out a window"

So yeah, working with these guys is a genuinely horrible thing to do since they're basically a scam/hate group pretending to be a charity - and people were STILL willing to give Sia the benefit of the doubt, since Autism Speak uses all their resources to make sure they're the first thing people see when looking up how to help autistic people.

Lots of Sia's fans, both autistic and allistic, warned her repeatedly, politely, that she needed to supporting them IMMEDIATELY as their goal was the exact opposite of the one she claimed to have - aka raise awareness through an accurate portrail of autism. People were even kind enough to name organizations like ASAN as replacements to help her fix any damage done to the project.

And instead of being a decent human being, Sia decided to cry on twitter about how the mean retar-I mean, autistics were bullying her even when she was so kindly using them for her vanity project.

Because yes, that's how the movie turned out. An unwatcheable piece of garbage, with the autistic "character" being so fucking bad even the people who actively use "autistic" as insulted being offended on our behalf - and of course, she was used just a prop to show how awesome Sia's character was.

Seriously, it was so bad the actress playing the autistic girl was sobbing in between scenes because she knew how it was horrible and she didn't want to insult anyone, but Sia is literally her godmother and helped her career by putting her in nearly all her music videos so she felt obligated to go along with it.

So yeah, fuck Sia and fuck Autism Speaks.

#asks #sia #ableism #autism speaks #actually autistic #aba therapy

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terfandproudofit · 19 days

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Women legitimately cannot do anything without being somehow criticized for it. These are just a few examples of what I mean:

If a woman doesn't shave the hair on her vagina, which grows naturally since she is a mammal, she is considered lazy, careless, and unhygienic. However, if she does shave the hair on her vagina, she is deemed a "slut" or "ran through," meaning that people (men, specifically) assume she only does it because wants to look good and sexually appealing for the men she has sex with.

If a woman appears traditionally "feminine" (wears makeup and dresses, has long hair, etc.), then people (men, specifically) automatically assume that she is submissive, unintelligent, and wanting of male attention, whether that attention be romantic or sexual, and that she could never be anything without a man in her life. However, if she appears traditionally "masculine" or somehow deviates from the traditional image of a woman (exclusively wears pants and shirts/suits, has short hair, etc.) people (men, specifically) tell her that she is trying too hard to be something that she will never be and is making a fool of herself because no man would want a woman who looks or behaves like a man. (In other words, no man would want an intelligent, independent woman whom he could not control and manipulate.)

If a woman wants to be sexually active, she is often considered (by both men and some women), in some way or another, a desperate whore. However, if she does not want to be sexually active, whether that be because she simply wants to remain celibate or because she is waiting until after marriage, she is often considered (by both men and some women) "boring" or is pressured to be sexually active by people who tell her that her life could be so much more enjoyable if she was sexually active or that she is too old to shy away from sex. (I have heard from several women, in real life and on the internet, that they have been encouraged by doctors to be sexually active.)

I absolutely fucking hate how normal and socially acceptable misogyny has become. We (biological women) are essentially regarded as subhuman in so many ways. I am aware that we "have it better" than women did in the past in many ways, but misogyny still exists and impacts us every single day in so many disgusting, dehumanizing ways.

#radical feminism #women's liberation

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transmutationisms · 5 months

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I read your review of Poor Things and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the section in Alexandria? It was horrifically executed on many levels but narratively, that part of the film is about Bella learning about class structure. She rebels against the cruelty of society through charity then by working as a prostitute, during which time she has cruelty inflicted upon her instead. Finally, she realizes that God’s creation of her was ultimately cruel, and then she runs away with her ex-husband-father only to realize that her prior self-mother was fundamentally characterized by cruelty, especially to her “lessers.” She then decides once again that she does not want to be cruel, but then she achieves this by taking God’s place as the doctor-patriarch and ruling his household with a new pet goat. The entire film is also about Bella learning about feminism: the arbitrary oppression of women is not only nonsensical, it’s bad! But then the ending has her reproduce almost all those power structures and cruelty she claims to reject, and has the unfortunate consequence of positioning her as ultimately equally cruel/callous as God, the guy she meets on the boat who shows her all the starving people, and her former self-mother, etc. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on why this is or like, what the director’s message was beyond self-contradiction and taking cheap shots at starving people?

so i would quibble a bit with the idea that bella's experience in the maison-close is exclusively or even primarily portraying sex-for-pay as a site of cruelty. i think it's more depicting paid sex as work, and work as unpleasant and repressive, and that's why the maison is the site where bella gets involved in socialist politics—if moral philosophy is the arena by which she responds to the injustice of the poverty in alexandria, then labour politics plays the analogous role where the maison is concerned. her problems there aren't inherently with the idea of being paid for sex, but with specific elements of the work arrangement (eg, she suggests that the women should choose their clients, rather than vice versa). ofc she has some customers who are cruel or thoughtless or rude, but i didn't read the film as suggesting that was universal to sex work, and the effect of the position is more to demystify sex, for bella, than to convert it into being purely a site of trauma or misery. now i don't think this film offers a particularly blistering or deep analysis of sex work or socialism or wage labour, dgmw, but i do think the function of the maison is different narratively to that of the alexandria section.

anyway to answer your actual question: yeah so this is really my central gripe with the film. lanthimos (slash his screenwriter tony mcnamara) spends much of the film gesturing toward bella's growing awareness of several hierarchical structures that other characters take for granted: the uneven nature of the parent/child relationship (god took her body and created her without asking); class stratification (alexandria); the 'civilisation' of individuals and societies via education and bio-alteration (bella's talk about 'improving' herself; her 'progression' from essentially a pleasure-seeking child to an educated and 'articulate' adult). these three dimensions often overlap (eg, the conflation of 'childishness' with lack of education with inability to behave in 'high society'), though, most overtly, it's in that third one that we can see how these notions of improvement and biological melioration speak to discourses about the 'progress' and 'regress' of whole societies and peoples, and voluntarist ideas about how human alteration of biology (namely, our own) might produce people, and therefore societies, that are better or worse on some metric: beauty, fitness, intelligence, morality, longevity, &c. this is why i keep saying that like.... this film is about eugenics djkdjsk.

the issue with the alexandria section to me is, first, it's like 2 minutes (processed in the hollywood yellow filter) where the abject poverty of other people is a life lesson for bella. we're not asking any questions like, how is that poverty produced, and might it have anything to do with the ship bella is on or the fantastical lisbon she left or the comparative wealth of paris and london...? secondly, everything that the film thinks it's doing for the entire runtime by having bella grapple with learning about cruelty, and misery, and the kinds of received social truths that lanthimos is able to problematise through her eyes because she's literally tabula rasa—all of that is just so negated by having an ending in which she bio-engineers her shitty ex-husband, played as a triumphant moment. i don't even inherently have an issue with the actual plot point; certainly she has motive, and narratively it could have worked if it were framed as what it is: bella ascending to the powerful position in the oppressive system that created her, and using her status to enact cruelty against someone who 'deserves' it—ie, leveraging her class and race within the existing social forms rather than continuing to question or challenge them. if that ending were played as a tragedy, or a bleak satire, it would at least be making A Point. but it's not even, because it's just framed as deserved comeuppance for this guy we were introduced to in the 11th hour as a scumbag, so it's psychologically beneficial for bella actually to do the sci-fi surgery to him that literally reduces him to what's framed as a lower life form. unserious

#the favourite and the lobster also have some troubling body and disability politics and i think this is a throughline with lanthimos #but this one is particularly egregious to me given the ending lol #poor things

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fictional-orphan-smackdown · 1 day

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ROUND 3, MATCH 5!

All propaganda and what each competitor is from under the cut

Trafalgar D. Water Law (Once Piece)

Law is a genocide survivor who saw his parents' dead bodies along with experiencing a whole bunch of other messed up stuff (his sister burning to death, the people of his country being shot for being poisoned by their own government, being terminally ill, escaping the genocide by hiding under a pile of dead bodies, etc etc). After all this shit, he eventually got forcibly adopted by this one guy and dragged around the world looking for a cure for his illness. Right when Law started to trust and love his new caretaker, he is also brutally murdered in front of him. Law's life goal for the next decade is to get revenge on the person who killed his adoptive father. Vote for him bc he needs a goddamn win for once in his life. He is the people's princess and the narrative's favorite punching bag. Also, his depressed, PTSD-ridden autistic swag and scoliosis realness have captivated me body and soul

His biological parents were killed (before his eyes, by the governement) when he was 10(?). He then joined a bunch of pirates, knowing he wouldn't have much time (and will) left to live anyway. There he was sort of adopted by the Big Bad Pirate's brother, who managed to save his life, only for said brother to be killed (more or less before Law's eyes, by the Big Bad Pirate), when he was 13. You could say he was orphaned twice.

He’s literally got the double orphan special (Parents died and then the guy who took him in after them died too) that’s a 50% increase in orphannedness above your standard orphan. He’s also cool as fuck.

Law's parents were already on death row along with him and his younger sister due to a disease that shortens the life span of a person. The disease can only be passed down genetically and has afflicted everyone in the town that he has grown up in. Due to the sudden outbreak and unknown nature of the disease to the rest of the world panicked and the government closed off his city, killing everyone there. That is how his first set of parents died when he was 10, I think. Still then Law would later join a pirate crew where he would eventually be taken away 2-3 years later by Corazon, marine working undercover as a pirate in order to take down this brother, who is the captain of crew Law joined. Corazon took him in order to cure Law's disease which he still had and to get him away from Doflamingo, his brother. Over the course of 6 months the two became close with Corazon essentially becoming a father figure to Law. I am simplify this but at some point of Doflamingo catches on to Corazon being a double agent and finds him. Doflamingo then proceeds to find Corazon and shoot him in front of a chest that Law was hiding in.

Law has faced many hardships since he was a child, but used his experiences to become an extremely powerful doctor. His pirate crew theme and his Devil Fruit ability are all owed to his adoptive father. Law acts really gruff and serious most of the time, initially seeming like a cool, calculating character and feared swordsman… but one second around the Straw Hats and you quickly see just how silly he really is. He hates bread. He collects coins. He is obsessed with ninjas and superhero comic books. In one arc he just fucked around with his powers and INVENTED harpies and centaurs. Oh, and his First Mate is a polar bear. What could be better than that?

The government ordered to kill everyone in Law's country due to everyone getting "fantasy lead poisoning" disease, which was wrongfully thought to be contagious stroked. Law's family was living at the hospital when they got attacked, his parents (who were doctors) got killed and the hospital got set on fire with his little sister inside. He managed to fled the country hiding in a pile of corpses and ended up joining a pirate crew lead by Doflamingo. Law knew he had the disease and it was going to kill him in three years. Doflamingo's brother, Rosinante took Law hospital to hospital to find a cure but they always rejected him thinking the disease was contagious. Then they learned that someone had offered Doflamingo a devil fruit that could grant him immortality. The fruit could also cure Law so Rosinante stole it and made Law eat it. He then made sure Law could escape Doflamingo and got killed by his brother.

dude spent his childhood getting thrown out of windows, while dying from a deadly disease (that was eventually cured) but while he was still showing symptoms of the disease no one would go near him out of fear and disgust, save for his father figure.

nothing can ever go right for this man. its fucking hilarious in the series and makes for some wonderful angst content. i want everyone who has not watched or read One Piece to know that, for half of his 'main' arc, he's carried around like a potato sack by MULTIPLE people. he is a damsel in despair. he didn't even need to be carried, he honestly could've walked, but he had to save that energy so he could take the like 17 lead bullets out of him. he's always getting shot or thrown out a window and he's severely injured more often than not. he's also a doctor/surgeon, one that should be able to cure incurable diseases, yet his pathetic loserboy ass is too busy being emo to worry about the several gunshot wounds and internal bleeding. god help this man but also don't because honestly it's really fucking funny

Ok, FIRST, when he was a tiny frog-disecting little kid, him and his family and island contacted a disease equivalent to cancer BUT his fam didn't die from that. No, no, his parents got gunned down by the military and his little sis was burned alive with the rest of his house, so, yeah, very traumatic, horrific in a way that makes you very angry at yourself and life and want to oh I don't know, kill everyone and everything possible until the day you die, which won't be long because you have cancer after all. Later, after joining a mafia/cult/gang, Law meets Corazon who after like 2 years kidnaps him to try and get him healed and so they spend the next 6 months bonding, WEEEEEE!! Wait, no, NOT weeee because Cora who is now his father-figure DIES having protected and saved him, and thus bruv becomes orphaned not once, not thrice, but TWO very traumatic times! If this isn't an orphan, idk what is……

Anthony Lockwood (Lockwood and Co)

Lockwood (he's known by his surname mostly) is the mysterious, daredevil and charming founder of Lockwood and Co., a detective agency specialised in protecting people from angry -and sometimes sort of hungry- ghosts in a world where they're rampant. His agency is starting small despite Lockwood bragging it's the best in London but get more and more recognition as the series progress and the agents composing them meet success (when they're not on the verge of dying). Lockwood has open manners but hid his painful past from his coworkers to protect himself. He and George, the first teenager he recruited, are quite stunned by Lucy, a country girl who fled to London after disaster striked in her hometown. Thanks to her talent, she quickly becomes known as one of the best ghost fighter in London and finds her place in the small team despite having the same determination to hide her past than Lockwood, which draws him close to her, making George jealous, but Lockwood's manifest good skills in leadership and the three of them become fast friends while unravelling secret truths and risking their lives repeatedly

He has a lot of trauma and a lot of pain but he always smiles and always has a warm and polite attitude; he’s so protective of the ones he loves that it overrides his suicidal tendencies; at the end of the series he starts to heal from his past; he’s hot but has only two braincells.

#poll #one piece #trafalgar d water law #trafalgar law #trafalgar one piece #trafalgardwaterlaw #lockwood and co #anthony lockwood

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electronicdelusionstarlight · 10 months

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You know, I was just thinking about the UA entrance exam.

Specifically, how terribly designed it is, but not for the reason they seem to give in the story itself.

Like, here's how it is: Aizawa is shown criticising the UA Entrance Exam once, during the Sports Festival. And the ONE criticism he makes, is that the use of Robot enemies during the exam would disproportionately affect people whose Quirk work against biological opponents, essentially.

His one criticism, is that the exam is not designed to also cater to people like him, and that's it. The way therefore it's set up, it'd be logical to assume he'd ask for a restructuring to the exam to remove the Robots and substitute them with live enemies, possibly Ectoplasm clones.

This is never brought up again, aside from maybe a stealth bring up during the mid term exams when they switch the exam from fighting robots to fighting teachers.

The exam is, and I just got to it myself while watching this video about how Copaganda paints police training and the relative risk police officers face on the job, set up in a very specific environment:

An empty town, where what is essentially a murder spree is taking place. The ONLY entities in the place, outside of fellow examinee, are robots that have been literally designed to attack everyone on sight, and that need to be destroyed to pass. The points granted from saving people are hidden, so they can be more "genuine" of course, and are, ultimately, also part of the problem.

Because here's the fucking thing.

When the fuck is that ever going to happen.

When the fuck, is a superhero, after their 5 years of Hero training in high school, then entering the work force without a need for a decree in higher education, ever going to find themselves in an environment where they can use LETHAL FORCE on civilian targets? With no restraint or care for collateral damage?

And where they are ENCOURAGED to kill as many criminals as they can, and NOT collaborate with other heroes? Because that's another thing, you need to steal points from other people to pass, by culling the number of limited robots, much like heroes are paid by the arrest and by popularity.

You do understand how fucked up that starts to sound right? The other, the enemy, is reduced as a caricature Droid from star wars, there only to kill and destroy, and against whom your only TWO methods of defeat are outright destruction or sneak attacks on their off buttons.

And here's the cherry on the shit too, because, AGAIN, when is that EVER going to be the case?

Do you know how many heroes show up in the first villain attack in BNHA?

Five.

Two are engaging a purse snatcher, three are doing crowd control, the Slime Villain, who may I remind you was guilty of robbery at a convenience store before he got the hostage, gets THE NUMBER ONE HERO, as well as those same FIVE heroes involved, of which only BACKDRAFT is actually doing anything.

Now, imagine you are a hero school, and you produce 40 heroes a year, just like every other hero school out there. How many of those heroes will see active duty, if the rate of crimes demand FIVE heroes to react to ONE criminal?

And people will say "but EDS, this mentality is later rewarded when All Might retires and it all falls to shit," Except NOT REALLY, because that's an externally forced situation caused by, and I can't stress this enough, a hundreds of yeas old NEET boomer who read too many Doctor Doom comics as a kid and decided to become a supervillain, the riots, the open air warfare, is only caused by AFO forcing the hand and inciting popular unrest, which is an unrealistic thing to expect off any society.

In one of the movies, Class 1-A is sent to open an hero agency on a small island with barely a village on it. 20 Heroes. Until the movie truly picks up, the best they do is help kittens from trees, and Bakugou, the sort of person for whom the Entrance Exam was designed, is useless, left in his tent like Achilles, the perfect cowboy cop who peeked in highschool and didn't realize just how much paperwork and dead time his dream job actually entailed.

So that's the ACTUAL Issue with the entrance exam. It take no account for any other mean to beat the robots but brute force, it takes no account for collateral damage, or the sanctity of life of your opponents, and it tests nothing but how good at ending lives you are.

Which is a problem when you're picking future heroes.

#mha critical #ua critical #bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #UA Entrance Exam #bnha critical

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itsernestok · 6 months

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This OC is essentially my take on "What if Bruce Wayne had another biological son, one that wasn't raised as part of superhero stuff?"

The backstory is mainly that Darren, not yet knowing he's a Wayne, went ham against someone who would've been a supervillain if they weren't stopped sometime while he was at the local grocery store, getting injured in the process. During the subsequent blood tests, the doctor finds out that Darren is a biological son of Bruce Wayne, in part because Bruce Wayne got injured at a club in the same town as the playboy billionaire philanthropist the public knows him to be. (The injury wasn't intentional, but Bruce definitely let it add to his cover.)

Sometime after the friends of the would-be supervillain find out that Darren is Bruce Wayne's son, they put some money together to send Darren approximately 2800 miles away to Gotham, making him Bruce's problem and not theirs.

Darren packed, and promised his mother, Brenda, that he'd write a letter a day or so after he made it to the mansion, in part to make sure she knew he made it there safe, and in part to get her the mansion's address, facilitating the sending of what he wanted to pack, but couldn't.

And then there's when he got to the mansion...

Damian: Identify yourself.

Darren: I should've figured I have a half-brother.

#batfam #oc #long post

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fae-only-reblogs · 24 days

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My Little Nightmares headcanons

This is probably messy to read I apologize! Remember these headcanons are just for fun & while some of them might have roots in canon they are ONLY headcanons! ❤️

The sound of Nightmares 🎧 (TSON)

- Sisi & Otto were foster kids adopted by the same family (no biological relation)

- I don't personally think Sisi/Cici is Six but I lean of her being the RCG from VLN

- Sisi could be an entirely different character to begin with

- Noone is blonde

- Children in the Waking world are still super small just as in the games

Very Little Nightmares (VLN)

- the pretender has parents

- IF the pretender & RCG do have a time loop situation it's of the easiest to be broken

- RCG & The pretender are friends! Then eventually they'll become friends who are also girls and beyond that who knows!

- The pretender is porcelain but can still grow

- The pretender gave RCG the name Rain because children who enter the Nowhere eventually lose their memories from the Waking world.

- The pretender's parents are out on business, somewhere. Either in the pale city or some location from TSON 🎧

LN comics

- The long haired girl & the boy in green are siblings

- The hunched back girl has powers of some kind (shown off in the comics but unsure what kind of powers they are exactly)

- ⭐ refugee boy & his sister as well as the hunched back girl were born in the Nowhere (More on this in a bit)

Little Nightmares (LN)

- The Lady & Six are the same person (time loop)

- There were four previous ladies before the current one (Lady Six). But these four were different individuals filling a title rather than the same person completing a loop four different times!

- Lady 1 passed her powers to lady 2, from her to Lady 3, and I believe Lady 4 wasn't killed but sent to the flooded parts of the Maw to become the granny by Lady 5 (or the 1st version of her anyways)

- Lady 5/Adult Six & Six have been in their own time loop for quite awhile. Maybe it's because the Nowhere finds their time loop particularly entertaining or the supply of (misery/souls/meat/whatever else the Nowhere sustains itself off of) has been significantly more than what those past four ladies could provide it. Time loop = entertaining & or Time loop = efficiency.

- The Lady is close with the doctor, the teacher, the hunter, and the barber due to having their portraits hung around the Maw.

- Children can't permanently die & we'll just essentially respond unless 1 of 3 events occur: 1) The soul reaches a breaking point/corruption & just can't continue. 2) They get taken out by a power strong enough to perma kill them - the pretender's ability to just evaporate you completely as in VLN. 3) The Nowhere consumes them in one way or another

- The flashlight girl is the daughter of the Lady (Adoptive or biological)

- The flashlight girl's model is taller than Six & Seven's models so I think she's closer to her teenage years 13 years old

- Not many HCs on Runaway kid other than his 'name' is Seven & he's 9 years old

Little Nightmares 2 (LN2)

- Mono & the thin man are the same person (Time Loop)

- The Thin man is one individual rather than a role to be filled (like the Lady)

- The thin man is a TV show/Radio host

- Thin man & The lady still keep in contact somehow (I like the idea of messaging birds)

- The hunter is Six's adoptive parent

- Spoon girl & Lollipop kid are friends! She 100% protects him from the monster's every time

- Mono came from an orphanage that caught fire (based off the LN2 comics)

Misc

- ⭐ Non hostile adults exist in the Nowhere (Refugee boy comes from a village after all) These villages were probably formed by children who were able to grow up without becoming monsters or puppets to the Nowhere (The Lady/Thin man)

- The Nowhere probably isn't fond of anything that isn't misery so I think these villages could make deals with powerful entities or the Nowhere itself so that the entity gains something for protection (probably a child sacrifice- yeah....)

There's still more I can put here but that can come later once I've posted all my drawings I've been doing for my main blog! Thank you for reading!

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mintedwitcher · 5 months

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The more I think about the whole Tentoo/Rose thing the more annoyed I get so I'm putting y'all through it too.

Rose didn't want to go back to Earth 2. She didn't. She spent all that time (we don't know exactly how long, but if we base it on real world timing of the seasons, at least 2 years) trying to get back to her Earth, back to her Doctor. She didn't want to go back, but the Doctor didn't even consult her about that. She was unceremoniously booted out back to the parallel Earth and told to babysit the Metacrisis Doctor, who was for all intents and purposes, essentially a biological mistake. And a genocidal one at that.

The Doctor tries to dress it up prettily for Rose, saying that "Oh well this one can be in love with you and live a human life with you, etc etc" but really, it wasn't about giving Rose a happy ending. He doesn't even say goodbye, he just leaves while she's too distracted snogging the new guy to notice (which, by the way, what the fuck?).

He also tries to guilt her into staying on Earth 2 with the Metacrisis by invoking nostalgia. "That's me, when we first met." Basically, "Get on with it, fix him like you fixed me."

It's not sweet, it's not romantic, it's not sacrificial. It's insulting.

And that's not even getting into the complexities of the metacrisis itself as a biological fact. Donna's mind started to burn almost as soon as they left the parallel earth. Human with a Time Lord consciousness. Gee, who else fits that bill I fucking wonder? So how can we actually know that Rose and Tentoo actually lived happily together? How can we know that his mind didn't start burning out as well? He's human. He's got one heart, no regenerative abilities, a human lifespan, and a Time Lord consciousness. He didn't have another Time Lord around who could block/erase the memories.

So, not only did the Doctor lock Rose away on a parallel Earth with no way back, against her wishes and with no thought whatsoever to the consequences, but he also locked her away with a version of himself that most likely died horribly and painfully very shortly afterwards.

And all of that, just to avoid guilt. To avoid accountability for what he had created.

#doctor who #tentoo #rose tyler #tenth doctor #the more I think about it the angrier I get #why does nobody talk about the consequences of this???#listen i love ten but oh my GOD he had such a fucking god complex it was actually unhinged #(oh hey look more reasons why fourteen IS NOT TEN)#do you really think fourteen would've done that to rose? really? no fucking way

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leohtttbriar · 10 months

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julian being this deeply compassionate and self-assured person who knows how good a doctor he is and then being put in a situation where he does in fact fail--however brief that failure is--and this failure is actually just one turn in the dialogue between the value of life and the value of pain so he's left no only with the medical facts of the case (he didn't cure anyone of the blight) but also this philosophical-question-come-life answered with a very simple but devastating "death is the cure" conclusion---

that context makes this moment a bursting kind of powerful to me because dax doesn't say "keep trying" or "you can't blame yourself" or anything else that might have induced the same plot-concluding actions on julian's part. she takes a soft swipe at julian's sometimes exaggerated self-perception and then takes a larger swipe at both his somewhat childish despair as well as the simple yet devastating "death is the cure" ethos that julian had been trying to prove wrong the whole episode.

it's not about whether julian is smart enough or whether a life of suffering is still worth living, but about the idea that there's no such thing as a false hope. the world (galaxy, universe, etc) is too big to conclude that any hope false through and through. there are countless imagined invisible planes where people and other beings have been populated as a matter of habit (heavens and places of spiritual origin and trees and turtles and so on) because there is no grasping at everything at once and it is this very rational truth that undercuts the battle of ethics in this episode. to be a living being means to be conscious of this enormity. so the people who think that after a certain stage of the illness there is nothing for them but pain have also performed a certain arrogance--this arrogance can be self-preserving and a good thing and also never rob someone of their own autonomy--but to call "death" the best treatment for an illness is arrogant all the same.

and then the fact that julian doesn't find a cure but a vaccine, which is nothing but a biological contract with the future which, like all futures, is fundamentally unknowable--it's an almost perfect ending and bolsters dax's moment above.

it's so fascinating to interrogate these questions of knowability through not just science but medicine because you just cannot escape the personal even as the personal is essentially narrow. like the whole point is to use that narrow field of vision for the benefit of everything beyond.

#ds9 #julian bashir #jadzia dax #star trek

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rjalker · 6 months

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Anyways, it's 3AM now, and I'm going to bed, but before I do, I want to say one last thing.

Sincerely, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, fuck Russel T. Davies for introducing millions of cis people to "x-presenting" terminology, and in the most fucking harmful way possible too. I hate what is going to happen next in cis people's perception of trans people.

Hey cis people reading this? Do not ever, ever refer to anyone as "male presenting" "masculine presenting" "female presenting" "feminine presenting" or any other variation unless that person has explicitly asked you to beforehand. Please. If you care about trans people please erase these terms from your mind right now.

Dear trans peole reading this: The exact same thing goes for you. The Doctor as played by David Tennant is not "male-presenting" until the character fucking decides that on screen outloud. The Doctor as played by Jodie Whittaker is not "female-presenting". These are not terms you get to assign to other people, they are terms you can choose to identify with.

Do not normalize this language. It is literally just exorsexism and transmisia and misgendering pretending to be progressive. Do not legitimize that bigoted line by repeating this language. I will scream for all eternity.

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darklinaforever · 7 months

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For people who say Tentoo isn't the Doctor because "he would be half Donna's" on pretext he "sound / look like her", specifically because of this moment :

Well... admire almost the same scene down to the head movements, but with different dialogues :

As for the "Oi", yes, often said by Donna :

youtube

Now admire the 10th Doctor who has also already used this expression :

youtube

The only thing the Doctor did in relation to Donna was echo Donna's tone of voice. Which, if you know the Doctor Who universe, is not the first time this has happened :

Oh, and he also stole her this expression :

youtube

Which can either always be explained by the voice thing we just said (the most logical). Or maybe it's because the Doctor is simply imitating the behavior of his companions... Hello Clara :

You could even theorize that Ten's tongue tics come from Rose (I mean... David Tennant outright said that Ten imprinted on Rose. So thinking that isn't that crazy) :

I'm not even the only one who thinks so :

The tone of voice and the expression "Well isn't that wizard ?" are literally the only noticeable changes and they are minimal compared to the other regenerations ! Other than those two things, Tentoo acts like he always acted as the Doctor / Ten (including the way he speaks) :

Even in official audios with Tentoo (from what I know), those two things are literally always the only differences ! In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's even just the famous expression "Well isn't that wizard ?" which is listed as being the only difference in Tentoo since Metacrisis / Regeneration (don't hesitate to correct me about this subject in the comments if I'm wrong ! I really need to listen to these audios). Which is logical that he only has minimal changes, since the essential symbolic goal of Tentoo was that the Doctor no longer changes, to remain Rose's Doctor :

Afterwards the only thing Tentoo lacks is having said "Allons-y !", and "Molto Bene !". And since he keeps his "Oh yes !", "Oi !", "Brilliant !", "Ha !" even "Well...", and according to the "Empire of the Wolf" comic, he also kept "What ?!" (Oh, and also his glasses) So, I think it's pretty obvious that he kept it "Allons-y !" and "Molto Bene !" too. (In addition to having, as shown above, kept all of his physical ticks)

Ten himself doesn't say all these expressions in the episode JE. He only says "Brilliant", and that makes sense, because we're not going to make a character say all of his cult quotes in one and the same episode. The individual being doesn't work like that. The only reason why Tentoo throws out so many of these expressions is precisely to make the public understand that he is still the Doctor we knew ! But obviously that wasn't enough for some...

Beyond that to return to Donna and the Doctor, they have always looked alike anyway. What are two more similarities ? Evidence from one of my old posts :

And why does it look the same ? Because brotherly relationship :

What the metacrisis essentially allowed was to make them real brothers and sisters at the biological / DNA level. And I don't know if you have brothers and sisters, or if you know someone who has brothers and sisters, but similar ways of speaking in tone, and having expressions in common, that happens a lot among brothers and sisters. The fact that they literally only have one expression in common is a miracle. And then frankly a minimal addition when you consider how similar the Doctor and Donna have always been.

Essentially the Doctor didn't want to change, he wanted to remain Rose's Doctor and he did. He remained the same physically, in his vocal expressions and body gestures. But ironically he added a little of the impulsivity of his ninth incarnation with whom Rose fell in love, and finally definitively concretized the brother/sister bond he had with Donna, from a human point of view, on the biological plan. But since the body has no real importance for the Doctor, he kept something more tangible from her, namely, a fondness for the way she spoke (as he did with Rose, but in a less present way), especially since he will technically never be able to see her again. And all that, well it’s very beautiful.

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kunikinnie · 1 year

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hii could i request hc s for yosano, kunikida and chuuya with a s/o who has a small child (like 4yo) just lots of fluff kinda found family vibes (completely ok if you don’t wanna write it tho, you can just ignore it i’d totally get it)

a/n: sorry this took such a loooong time but no i did not ignore this this is sO CUTE HAHA i don't usually write for Yosano but i gave it a shot anw tho it might be ooc :')

with an s/o who has a young child

featuring: Yosano, Kunikida, Chuuya x GN!Reader

Yosano Akiko

She's the quickest to come to a decision when it came to entering both your lives. Perhaps it's her age or simply her disposition, but taking care of the two of you isn't a hurdle for her at all.

She loves teasing and spoiling you but especially your child. This is why they love her so much that an outsider might think that she was the biological mother. They're that close.

Going out to buy stuff is their your favorite activity together. Whether it's just groceries or more clothes, home decor, and toys, the three of you will go at the same time.

One of her qualities that was extremely useful when dealing with your child was her patience. It's probably not just due to her background as a doctor, but her life experience is just a huge factor altogether.

When it comes to protectiveness with the small stuff, she's not as intense as the other two on this list. Of course the child's safety is of utmost priority but injuries and the like are normal and, in her opinion, necessary to build their character. (And also there's her ability when it comes to it, so the confidence goes up tenfold)

She's not afraid to be more openly affectionate with either of you. She knows you two need it and nothing makes her happier than seeing you two happy and loved.

Kunikida Doppo

He was pretty hesitant to start a relationship with you at first. It's not that he doesn't like that you have a child, it's more of he's not sure if he's ready to play the role of a father as well. But he knew there was no going back once he's formed an attachment to your child.

It was easier to win over the child than it was you for some reason. As much as he likes children, he wouldn't say he's an absolute natural at handling them. It was a big relief and advantage for him, then, to have them on his side.

Theirs is a pretty standard father-child relationship - not that it's a bad thing. Kunikida is 100% dad material even if he's not quite at that age yet. He's quite protective, lectures (nicely and softly) often, etc.

His teacher side will come out as well. Explaining the world to them is essential for their development (or so he says). Plus children are naturally inquisitive so he answers their questions adequately most of the time. Goes in depth with them, too.

He's the least likely to go on frequent one-on-one dates with you. Don't get me wrong, he loves you very much, but compared to the other two he's more than content to spend with you two as a family. It's also because he's so concerned that something might happen to your child that he'd want to be by their side as much as possible. (Ofc just tell him if you want to go on dates more often he'll definitely listen)

Overall, he does his best to be a good partner and father. He may be strict with you at times, but that's only because he loves you two so much.

Nakahara Chuuya

Similar to Kunikida, he was worried that you being in a relationship with him might not be the best for you and your child. But his mind changed when he was once welcomed into your loving home: what emerged was the overwhelming desire to protect it.

Hence the spoiling. Lots of spoiling. Whether it comes to buying you two things or giving in easily to your demands, it's just so hard for him to say no. He doesn't want either of you to go through the poverty he went through.

He's such a sweet guy that I can't even begin to describe it. Every present and favor he does for you is done thoughtfully, and he definitely puts so much effort in becoming the lover you've always dreamed of.

Even if he doesn't visit often due to work, it only makes every moment more special. Your child looks forward to being with him (even if only to sleep together). They love sleeping on top of him to prevent him from leaving too soon and most of the time, it works.

You love seeing them play together. Chuuya's good at it, but most of all his inner kid comes out and it's such an adorable sight you can't help but let them indulge in it. The best part is watching him try to mind his language around them. The one time he let it slip and your kid copied him, he was mortified (while you were thoroughly entertained).

The mafia life is far away from your home. He rarely ever talks about it let alone think about it whenever he's with one or the both of you. During these times he's just himself - not a mafia executive, not the boss's underling - he's just Chuuya.

taglist: @irethepotato, @kisara-16reblogs, @thatdazaikin, @dazaee, @menshusband, @celestair, @bloobewy

#bsd #yosano akiko #kunikida doppo #nakahara chuuya #yosano x reader #kunikida x reader #chuuya x reader

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 months

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By: Lauren Smith

Published: Mar 8, 2024

Recently leaked files confirm what many gender-critical voices have argued for many years: that so-called gender-affirming care is causing children lifelong harm. New documents expose how the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has routinely put children in harm’s way in the name of trans ideology.

As the global authority on gender medicine, WPATH has shaped the policies of hospitals and governments across the world. Its ‘standards of care’ guidance was treated as the gold standard for dealing with gender-confused youth by NHS England until recently – and it still is by NHS Scotland to this day.

Founded in 1979, WPATH is essentially a trans-activist lobby group masquerading as a scientific organisation. It has long advocated for an ‘affirmation only’ approach to treating children with gender dysphoria – in other words, medicate first, ask questions later, if at all. It has even argued that there should be no age limit on when minors are allowed to transition. In fact, its most recent guidelines recommend that children should have access to irreversible surgical procedures, including double mastectomies and phalloplasties. And this is just what WPATH has been willing to say publicly.

Now, leaked videos, emails and discussions on internal message boards have revealed the true extent of WPATH’s recklessness. These files were released this week by writer and journalist Michael Shellenberger and his nonprofit group, Environmental Progress. They paint a truly horrific picture of the danger that WPATH has exposed children to.

The ‘WPATH Files’ prove that, behind closed doors, doctors, psychologists and other medical professionals associated with WPATH are fully aware that children cannot properly consent to gender-affirming care. In a chilling video from an internal WPATH workshop in 2022, panel members discuss how hard it is to receive informed consent from their young patients – something that would ordinarily be required before any medical procedure. Canadian endocrinologist Dr Daniel Metzger tells the panel that he often has difficulties explaining the effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children who ‘hadn’t even had biology in high school yet’.

One thread in the WPATH internal messaging forum reveals that even a developmentally delayed 13-year-old was seen as a suitable candidate for gender-affirming care. A physician assistant and professor at Yale Schools of Medicine discussed in the thread how the child was already on puberty blockers, but wanted to know if it would be ethical to allow them to progress to hormone therapy.

One problem that Metzger and his colleagues routinely face, according to the leaked workshop video, is trying to get young people to grasp that puberty blockers and hormones would likely affect their future fertility. Trying to convince 14-year-olds to preserve their eggs is like ‘talking to a blank wall’, Metzger says, to which the audience responds with nods and knowing smiles.

The WPATH Files also reveal the dire consequences such a blasé attitude to informed consent can have on child patients. Many kids who receive gender-affirming care at a young age grow up to regret the toll it takes on their ability to have biological children. In the leaked video, Metzger refers to a 2022 Dutch study, which found that 27 per cent of young people who underwent early puberty suppression and cross-sex hormones ended up regretting their lack of fertility. At an average age of 32, 44 per cent of biologically female and 35 per cent of biologically male patients say they would choose to preserve their fertility if they could turn back time.

Fertility issues aren’t the only problem facing the young people who get pushed down the path to transitioning. The WPATH Files also go into detail about some of the horrific side effects of hormone therapy and surgery. For females, these include vaginal atrophy (the thinning and inflammation of the vaginal walls), pelvic inflammatory disease (a potentially deadly infection that requires a hysterectomy to treat) and, for males, erections ‘feeling like broken glass’.

WPATH doctors even admit privately that hormone treatment can cause cancer. In one exchange from the internal WPATH forum in 2021, doctors discuss the case of a 16-year-old biologically female patient who developed liver tumours after a lengthy regimen of hormone therapy. Another doctor revealed that a female-to-male trans colleague developed an aggressive type of liver cancer after taking testosterone for about a decade.

For WPATH, potential side effects like liver cancer can’t be allowed to get in the way of a child’s gender transition. ‘At the end of the day’, one doctor is quoted as saying, ‘it is a risk / benefit decision’. Supposedly, if a child does not get the hormones they want, then they will commit suicide.

But this dilemma between ‘suicide or transition’ is not based on any evidence. It is a myth promoted by trans activists. As Mia Hughes notes in her report on the WPATH Files, several studies have found no evidence for a reduction in suicide risk after transition. On the contrary, some have found an elevated risk of suicide post-transition.

But it seems that, as far as WPATH is concerned, once a patient leaves the clinic, he or she is no longer the doctor’s responsibility. As one doctor put it, ‘as long as [the patient is] capable of making that decision of sound mind while informed of the risks, then that may be all you can do’. In other words, these healthcare professionals are attempting to wipe their hands of any responsibility for any negative effects that transitioning might have.

As WPATH president Marci Bowers puts it, ‘patients need to own and take active responsibility for medical decisions, especially those that have potentially permanent effects’. This might be true when adult patients are electing to have risky and non-essential cosmetic surgery. But we are also talking about children here – indeed, vulnerable children, usually with multiple mental-health difficulties – who have been told by medical professionals and other supposed adults that receiving this treatment will ‘fix’ them.

Unfortunately, to anyone who has been paying attention to the trans debate, these revelations may not be that surprising. We have long seen the warning signs that children are being harmed by this dangerous ideology. And worse still, we have seen adults in positions of authority either encouraging this harm, or standing aside and keeping silent.

We saw this in 2022, when Dr Hilary Cass published her damning interim report on the Tavistock Centre, the NHS’s specialist gender-identity clinic for children and young people. The review found that the Tavistock’s approach to treating children was ‘not safe’, and that there were a myriad of potential harms caused by puberty blockers that were not being properly acknowledged by staff. As a result, the Tavistock was ordered to be closed down.

Whistleblowers, media investigations and lawsuits had tried to draw attention to this for years. Yet the Tavistock remained operational, and is still only due to shut its doors this month. Trans ideology has so infected medical institutions that doctors, nurses and therapists feel they have no choice but to transition every child who claims to be born in the wrong body. And they fear that refusing to do so will see them branded as ‘transphobic’. Or, worse still, that not agreeing to prescribe gender-affirming treatment will lead to a child ending their own life.

What the WPATH Files make clear is that those who claim to care most about the plight of ‘trans youth’ are all too often the greatest threats to their safety. They are willing to sacrifice the health of deeply vulnerable children to the cult of gender affirmation. The treatments they tout as ‘life-saving’ and ‘life-affirming’ can actually be ‘life-ruining’. Gruesome side effects from cancer to infertility are dismissed as necessary evils on the path to transitioning. This is the opposite of compassionate.

It is time to bring an end to this dangerous medical experiment.

#Lauren Smith #medical scandal #medical corruption #medical malpractice #medical experimentation #The WPATH Files #WPATH Files #World Professional Association for Transgender Health #gender ideology #intersectional feminism #gender identity ideology #queer theory #gender lobotomy #gender affirming care #gender affirming healthcare #gender affirmation #affirmation model #religion is a mental illness

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mindibindi · 5 months

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Was it Perfect? No. Was it Joyous? Yes.

Okay, I did a bunch of shitposting yesterday but now it's time to collect some coherent thoughts on what I liked and didn't about "The Giggle", the Doctors' bi-generation and RTD's HEA.

───── ⋆⋅*ੈ⋆｡✶.ೃ࿔𖦹 ✩₊˚⋆ ─────

Donna: I would’ve liked Donna to have a little more to do in the final ep. She just worked out the arpeggio thing and followed the Doctor round trying to have earnest conversations with him. When she was sat with the Doctor and the Toymaker, I kept thinking she was gonna insert herself into the game and insist she be dealt in too. Instead, it became another case of supernatural male genius vs supernatural male genius. Maybe this is me being greedy though. Because the last ep was ALL DT and CT and the whole anniversary season has been very focused on Donna and the Doctor. They had to make room somewhere for a fabulous villain (which he was), a new Doctor (also fab) and the UNIT ensemble (fab-est of all), so I guess that meant a little less Donna.

Donna did have some great moments, including annihilating those creepy puppets (which made me lol), meeting Mel and refusing to let the Doctor die alone. I do think Donna should’ve been the one to lust after 15 (much like she did when meeting Captain Jack), but maybe this older, settled version of Donna is less thirsty. As for UNIT, no doubt she will be fired regularly but then promptly rehired because she’s so indispensable (and beloved). Best of all, I love the idea of her, Shirley, Mel and Kate going out for post-work drinks while Donna’s two husbands wait at home, tapping their watches and wondering where their ginger chatterbox has gotten to.

Male Parthenogenesis: Now, RTD knows his DW lore far better than I do and apparently there is some precedent for this. But I still say the metacrisis from ep 1 could have been used to better effect in this episode, with Donna essentially healing the Doctor with her excess regeneration energy and Rose creating the new Doctor with her share of the metacrisis/regeneration energy. Because, modern understandings of gender and deep-dive fan knowledge aside, Doctor Who pretty much revolves around the idea of male parthenogenesis, man birthing man, passing on history, tradition, power, experience and greatness. Socioculturally, asexuality is fairly unfamiliar to us, but we are all indoctrinated with patriarchal, heteronormative narratives from birth. And historically, men have expressed their fear and envy of the power and potential of women/pregnant people by attempting to steal it for themselves, control creation myths and birth male gods and monsters. All the while, they completely disavowed (even denigrated) the role women/pregnant people have played in birthing this world. Through the lens of heteronormativity, regeneration offers men and boys eternal power and godlike creativity. So yeah, I would’ve liked a grown woman/mother and a trans girl just coming into her power as a woman to get a little of that regeneration action that usually belongs to the boys (with the exception of 13). Not because women and birth parents are defined by this biological function but because the male urge to own and control birth, creation and reproduction still has very real-world impacts for girls, women, enbys and trans people.

Bi-generation: So. The big question is: Does bi-generation diffuse the power and pathos of THE Doctor? Yes. Does it follow that this is a bad thing? No. Not necessarily, not in my mind. I am not a fan of showrunners rewriting known history for shock value or fan service, but I’m not sure this is either. I understand the argument that there is power and meaning in the idea of death and rebirth, letting go and moving on, changing and learning with experience. But for all of that to be owned and embodied by one usually male/male presenting person and played by a popular, powerful cis-het male actor is a problem embedded in this show from the get. NuWho has consistently made an effort to alleviate the inherent power imbalance built into the format, distributing the incredible power of the Doctor amongst a community of extra/ordinary human beings. Some showrunners have been able to do this better than others. That said, we’ve also had a good long stint of the Doctor being a singular, tortured genius who no one quite understands, no one can ever really equal. Whatever gifts companions and their families bring, the Doctor will always be bigger, older, wiser, eternal. But, through the magic of bi-generation, his power can be shared, his centrality dispersed, his reach limited, his experience idiosyncratic, and his knowledge discrete.

Over the years, the Doctor has accrued a lot of trauma and tragedy and suffering and longing, all by virtue of this incredible power. This burden was never been more wetly portrayed than by DT so it’s fitting that he be the one to release both the power and the burden of the sad, wet, lonely Timelord by SHARING IT, by becoming plural rather than singular. It may not feel satisfying, partially because it feels unfamiliar. The trope of the lone tortured genius is recognisable and relatable. We know it well, from so many narratives. Personally, I can’t imagine Ncuti Gatwa as a lone tortured genius. I want him to have a new joyous start. And hey, if you miss the tortured Doctor then 15 has all of time and space in which to once again start accruing trauma and tragedy. But I think it’s good, and time, for 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 to drop their load and come down to earth. No longer a god, an avenging angel, an objective overseer, but essentially, a human being. Which is kinda what he/she/they wanted to be all along. This IS the death of one version of this show, one version of this character, but it isn’t being offered without regeneration and rebirth right there on the horizon.

Happily Ever After: RTD is not like other showrunners. He’s a bold and marvellous beast who isn’t afraid to change things up, especially when they’re not working or have outlived their usefulness. We’re often told that happy endings are trite, trivial, insignificant, unrealistic. Drama, tragedy, sorrow and suffering: that’s where all the weight and meaning of life lies. And look, RTD can write tragedy and pathos as well if not better than the best of them. He could have given us “Journey’s End” or “The End of Time” redux. He could have given twisted and complicated and harrowing. He chose not to. Because, unlike SO MANY SHOWRUNNERS, RTD knows when to write an ending, when to resolve tension, when to heal wounds. It’s common practice, especially in the American television industry, to just…never end, never resolve, never stop, never state, never land. To just flog a creative horse until it drops dead. (At least, this was the television I grew up with; streaming services have altered this model somewhat.)

Doctor Who is exactly the kind of intellectual property that could’ve (and could still under Disney) fall victim to the capitalistic urge for moremoremoremoremoremoremore, despite the fact that such endlessness eventually exhausts creativity and, with it, audience interest. A capitalist never wants the revenue stream to end. But a real writer, a true creator is bold enough to know where to place a well-timed full-stop. In my opinion, RTD read the room and wrote an ending. An ending that the show and the world needed. An ending that shared power. An ending that celebrated ordinary humanity. An ending that healed trauma and prioritised love. An ending that still allows for new life, new potential, new discoveries, new structures, new understandings, and new joy. All of that is totally on-brand for RTD. Those themes of multiplicity, humanity, healing, love and possibility pervade the 60th anniversary specials from beginning to end. They were built into the fabric of each episode. And they’re also the very essence of Doctor Who.

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