#did you know like 90% of the time those men or women in question are also incredibly queer jsyk

[queermania]

Ok so I have a real question not trying to start discourse or any thing. If Dean knew how he felt about Cas slash knew he liked men why was he always so weird about gay people. I can see a reading where Dean knew how he felt about Cas but not one where he knew he was bi

this is totally a fair question and i don't think there's any one True reading or interpretation of the show/characters so it really just depends on what version of events resonates the most with you. the way the picture makes the most sense to me is that dean is a guy who was raised in the 80s-90s in a hyper-masculine environment with zero stability. i think all of those puzzle pieces slotted into place in his brain in a way that said "sex with men is okay, feelings are not." a furtive hookup with a dude in a seedy bar bathroom is fine. going on a date with a guy is prohibited.

and the thing is that this is kind of true for dean when it comes to women as well. a one night stand is a-okay. falling in love and settling down is not. so, you take that sort of mentality and then apply all the homophobia of growing up in the eighties and the nineties and a life lived out of a car bouncing between truck stops and, well, you get a dean who is absolutely flabbergasted when confronted with the fact that not only are you allowed to want something romantic with a man, you're allowed to say it out loud to other people. you're allowed to have it.

dean wasn't weird about gay people, necessarily. he was weird about people who were able to just be themselves. he didn't know that was an option. also, i don't know about y'all but as a queer person who doesn't necessarily read as queer at a glance, i too get Very Awkward when confronted with another queer person in the wild and it's not because i'm homophobic. it's because oh! new friend! must send telepathic signals that me queer too! my behavior around other queer people in queer spaces does not match my behavior around other queer people in random public spaces. i'm embarrassing and i see that part of myself in dean lol.

and dean being weird about other people making comments about his perceived queerness, to me, is a very normal reaction for a closeted person (or even someone who is selectively and/or quietly out). you can be perfectly at peace with who you are and still not want to be clocked. like???? homophobia is not a thing of the past. dean grew up during the AIDS crisis. he was, what? nineteen years old when matthew sheppard was killed? his reactions to people insinuating he might be anything even close to queer make perfect sense for someone his age, living the life that he did.

also, like, here's the thing: i realized i was queer when i was about eleven and i freaked out about it for about a day and then promptly suppressed the whole thing because of a deeply traumatizing childhood. being queer was the least of my worries and there was never any time to unpack it and deal with it so i just didn't. and then when i was about nineteen i started to have queer sexual/romantic relationships but continued to suppress the fact that EYE was in fact queer because, again, i didn't really have the space to unpack it. it wasn't until i was about twenty-three and surrounded by other queer people (in a platonic way) that i finally felt safe to fully admit to myself and to other people that i was in fact queer. and then i never really did a whole coming out thing. i just... lived my life openly as a queer person and let other people figure it out.

my point in all this is that i feel like my general experience/trajectory lines up really well with how i view dean's. he had a very traumatic upbringing so while he knew he was attracted to men, he had no time or space to deal with it. that didn't stop him from having sex with men, but he never really unpacked what it actually meant. it wasn't until he was older and had openly queer friends that he felt safe enough to fully acknowledge that part of himself. and then.. that was it. he just lived his life as a queer man. like, i feel like we actually watched that happen over the course of the show???

most importantly, i cannot handle any reading where everyone else knows dean is queer but dean does not know himself. i especially loathe the idea that sam Knows and has to explain dean's own sexuality to himself. that is so ugly. dean is a very self-aware person. you could even argue he is perhaps too self-aware at times.

anyway, this is all obviously just a watsonian explanation of dean's relationship to his queerness. it doesn't even touch on the doylist stuff but that's a whole can of worms i'm not really interested in opening on tumblr dot edu right now.

so, yeah. that's my personal reading.

#replies #anonymous #dw #queer!dean #mp

[grainjew]

On Gallifreyan Vestigial Gender

[this is the revised and expanded version of some rambling i initially did in my cowriter's discord DMs. i tried cite sources where i could, but a lot of this has been marinating in my brain since half-absorbing posts twenty pages deep into peoples' dw tags 3 years ago, and also i spend way too much time on the wiki, so please excuse anything i can't quite source, which is most of it. huge thanks to @oriigami for being my original conversation partner and contributing extremely to the concepts here, and to @bird-of-paradox and @waywren, neither of whom I am being allowed to @, for bothering me into not leaving it as unreadable discord screenshots]

-

There's this tendency among queer Doctor Who fans to look at Time Lord society, with its alienness and regeneration, and ask, frustrated, "Why do they even have gender?"

I sympathize with this extremely. I've been the one asking this question plenty in the past, and I do think it's a bit silly, and even sillier that the genders are "man" and "woman" and there are apparently two of them. But I also think that the section of canon most insistent about the Gallifreyan gender binary, the 7th Doctor novels from the 90s, also has the potential to be the most interesting about it.

Now, this is not to say that the text of those novels isn't weird about gender in a flawed, written by (as far as I know) cis people in the 90s way. But I think that you can extrapolate and queer what's there in very interesting ways, often because it's so flawed in the first place: Gallifrey, too, is an extremely flawed society. Decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core, as the show put it.

So, VNAs Gallifrey: living Houses and their female Housekeepers, cultural and literal planet-wide sterility, Loom birth, rigid overcomplicated bureaucracy, the enduring legacy of the pre-Rassilon Pythian regime. The gender binary as presented here goes something like

women: chaos/magic/psychic powers/superstition/the house (scary)/biological childbirth/fertility men: cold rationality/order/science/bureaucracy/loom-birth/sterility

The Pythia and the Lord President. Magic and science. The House and the Web of Time.

Obviously a lot of this is classic gender binary stuff. But let's put the exasperated question of "Why must we do the gender binary like this?" aside for a moment and think about Gallifreyan society instead.

Pythia-ruled and Time Lord-ruled Gallifrey have a lot of the same problems in the end, just wearing different faces: they're both very much totalitarian states that believe themselves to be above everyone else. But while the Time Lords observe and micromanage the Web of Time from their Panopticon, maintaining its integrity to their standards, the Pythians didn't have time travel, so this preoccupation with control manifested--as far as I know; this is the bit in the meta where I admit I haven't actually read Time's Crucible yet--as keeping the entirety of society in one psychic hivemind, leaving nobody any privacy, plus a lot of future-reading and prophecy and whatnot.

The main relics of that societal layout into post-Rassilon Gallifreyan society are the Matrix, which has every single dead Time Lord's brain in it and does their prophecies for them, just couched in a little bit more science than Pythian magic, the Houses, which are alive all around you and in which you're constantly being watched by the Housekeeper through her mirrors, and, of course, the gender binary.

The Pythia was always a woman. Women were the ones with vast psychic powers, with magic; women were the ones in charge. Pythian Gallifrey was a heavily gendered society. This is because Gallifreyans are a kind of bug /shot with the "irrelevant to the point at hand" gun.

And so, when Rassilon rebelled, he was very much playing the part of "opposite gender with opposite worldview." The Pythia had female magic and superstition; he had male science and technology. His most trusted Founders were either all or mostly men, depending on the version of events you prefer. (Personally I have my doubts about the Other.) Rassilon built his new society as a man, among men, in opposition to the matriarchs before him.

Gallifrey, despite the invention (or theft, depending on the story) of regeneration allowing people to trans their gender randomly and sometimes unintentionally, never left the gender binary behind.

The whole point of modern Gallifreyan society is that they're still stuck in that exact same moment Rassilon took over (and the Pythia cursed them to sterility, if thats the version you're going with). You could easily make an argument for this being some cycle of abuse type situation; Rassilon and co overthrew the Pythia and immediately did exactly what she was doing to them to the wider universe. I tend to read it as a regeneration: it's the same society, really. It just died and was reborn, and now it looks and sounds different.

-

The downside of trying to translate a discord conversation into a proper meta post is that sometimes making a coherent transition between thoughts is impossible. So to introduce the next bit of this post, I'm going to hand you off for a moment to this post about the 8th Doctor's "I'm not sure I've ever even been a man" quote from Interference. As op of that post says, the Doctor is genderqueer even by Gallifreyan standards- he's being questioned in that scene by another Gallifreyan, who doesn't understand his experience of gender.

The EDAs are full of "Eight is nonbinary" quotes, of course. Every queer fan who's ever engaged with them has a collection (and if anyone knows where that one google doc compilation that was going around awhile back went I'd be in your debt, because I'd love to know if my collection is missing any), but almost all those quotes refer to his genderqueerness in human terms, as observed by human companions, or in response to human assumptions. Except that one. Not only is Gallifrey's gender binary alive and well in a society where people can literally change their gender when they die, but the Doctor doesn't fit inside it.

All this to say that being a renegade Time Lord is a nonbinary thing to do. Especially the Doctor, with all sorts of weird Other Timeless nonsense in their biodata. Women stay on Gallifrey (or Karn!) and do magic and watch you. Men stay on Gallifrey and do science and watch other people. Renegades go out and do whatever they please. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

-

So. Gallifrey has a gender binary. It's vestigial, a remnant of an earlier iteration of society with a much sharper male-female divide, and it doesn't make logical sense for it to exist. So: How does it manifest? And what function does its continued existence serve in the interests of the status quo and ruling class?

Let's take a look at 7th Doctor novel Lungbarrow.

Lungbarrow introduces us to (among many other things) the living Houses of the Time Lord Families, and to the family structures within: the patriarchal figure of the Kithriarch, the always-female Housekeeper, bound in her ritual marriage to the House itself, and hordes of petty squabbling Cousins.

Kithriarch is already an interesting title. It's obviously a gender neutral version of matriarch or patriarch, but the role itself seems to be almost entirely a male sort of thing in opposition to the feminine Housekeeper.

The Housekeeper, meanwhile, seems to be in a direct conceptual and societal line of descent from the Pythian priestesses: she can see anything within her domain, she has a psychic connection to the House, from whom she cannot hide anything, she can command the wooden Drudge servants and other House subsystems, she prioritizes the House above all where the Kithriarch is supposed to prioritize the Family. Women are frightening and powerful psychics. They know everything you want to keep secret, and prioritize the collective.

(There's also something here about how Lungbarrow presents duelling dualities--the Doctor and the Master, the CIA head and the Lord President, the Kithriarch and the Housekeeper, the masculine and the feminine--but I haven't quite tied it into the rest of this yet.) (Although while we're mentioning the Master. He's girlcoded by Gallifreyan standards and the Rani is boycoded by the same. I will not be expanding on this at this time just trust me.)

I think Housekeepers and women who want to be Housekeepers try to keep their self-image as women strong enough that they never regenerate into a male body (whatever a '"male body" means, of course, but I'm not sure Time Lords have gotten that far in their queer theory yet). I also think that there are more female Kithriarchs than male Housekeepers, because Housekeeper is much more heavily ritualized role in keeping with the Pythia's more ritualized general vibe, but I do think female Kithriarchs are still few and far between.

I also think that these are probably the most explicitly gendered occupations on Gallifrey, although of course you'll see some drift. Most women are out there getting the same scientific, military, and bureaucratic positions as men. But there's this lingering specter of gender roles, a Pythia-shaped hole that exists around the concept of womanhood. As my cowriter put it when we were talking about this, an "ideal of womanhood. not ‘ideal’ as in desirable, [but] ‘ideal’ as in the quintessential image of the thing."

This is further amplified by the continued existence of the Pythians in the form of the Sisterhood of Karn, living in their perfectly functional all-women magic society just out of sight. Their presence at the edge of the Gallifreyan consciousness must haunt the Time Lords, as any imperialist power is haunted by its own past and its own ultimate impotence.

Because that's the other thing. Gender roles are, to quote my cowriter again, "stupid and antiquated and historically potent tools of authoritarianism." Of course the Time Lords have them. Have you seen them?

They're tools of control, of conformity, of idealizing the past. Of conservatism. Consider, to once more quote my cowriter, "the weird traditionalist psychosis of having gender roles in a society that can’t bear children."

The ideal woman on Gallifrey is still the Pythia, millenia or even billenia on. And the ideal man is still the Lord President Rassilon.

-

[thank you for your time! if you liked this please consider checking out my fic Something Old, which is about lungbarrow, the adventuress of henrietta street, and the gallifreyan concept of marriage, and in the writing of which i initially articulated most of the thoughts in this post. i've previously characterized it as a fic that's actually a meta post. and please don't be too mean to me for anything i got wrong in here! i'm just a little guy]

#zephflix original #meta tag #doctor who #gallifrey #gender stuff #a house isnt a home without invasive psychic contact -gallifreyan proverb i just made up #also i bet the shobogans have great whatever the gallifreyan equivalent of gay bars are

[recentadultburnout]

Info for writer in Thai series fandom: Pet name & tone indicator sound

Some words to call your lover

Sweet and polite

คุณ-khun or เธอ-tur with ฉัน-chan, เรา-rao or ผม-phom(offically this one is for men, but it did get used by women) are words that can be used with people who are not your lovers but are considered to be quite sweet to call your lover that. I already mentioned it in Chapter 4. Chan and tur are very popular choices for song lyrics.

ที่รัก-thirak straight up call a person "someone you love". Rak is love, so if we want it literally, it would be beloved or something along those lines. I never saw anyone actually use it seriously before. Just a parody of something, or like I do, to tease a friend. Or, if we count, I think I've heard a mom call her child "mom's thirak" before. We could add สุด-sud in the front, sudthirak, make it mean "someone you love most."

แฟน-faen Boyfriend/girlfriend but non-binary. If used as a pronoun, then it usually comes with those Thai sounds khrap/ka at the end. You probably need to draw the word out for good measure too. Its sound is the same as how the word fan in "fan club" is pronounced in Thai, so there are a lot of fan club or faen khrap puns/jokes used with actor shipping situations.

คนดี-kondee Khon is a unit of human in Thai, and dee is good. เด็กดี-dekdee Dek is a child, and dee is the same as dee in Khondee. I feel like both Khondee and Dekdee have a bit of a patronizing feeling. But not always in a bad way, though. Is that a thing? Like, if you used those words with someone sincere, you probably felt the urge to take care of them at least a little bit. You probably feel like they are a precious, cute little thing. Something like that The fact that Im 100% sure parents used dekdee with their children might factor into it. As for Kondee, I'm about 90% sure.

Dek means kid, but we use it quite loosely, so twenty-somethings get called Dek all the time, and if it were by an elderly person, then the Dek in question might as well be a mother of two.

พ่อ แม่-por and mae As in father and mother. Usually, it starts when a couple becomes parents. A fur baby will do too for some.

Insulting words as a pet name

เด๋อ-der clumsy, foolish, silly, awkward, stupid, dull, dump_ Those things mix together, but like, in a soft version. Usually used with something add to the front, such as ไอ้-Ai, เด็ก-dek, or some Thai's sound for tone indicator(?) to the back, or both.

อ้วน-uuan fat, chubby—อ้วน can actually be a parent-given nickname too. I know some women around my mom's age range whose nickname is that. Personally, if it says it in a particular way, I find it really cute.

เหนียง-niang double chin

เถิก-terk go bald,the description of a hair line that starts to recede.

ลุง-lung Uncle (the one that is older than the father) aka old man. Usually used by a noticeable younger person. Not that they actually date someone older than their dad, or do they?👀

เด็กโง่-dekngo Stupid child, but like, an endearingly stupid, childish person.

ดื้อ-due _Not obeying, refuse to comply_ often used to describe a child. I saw ดื้อ  get translated to stubbon a lot, but personally, I find that not quite fitting (not that I have other words in mind). It might just be a me thing, though.

Probably a full-on PDA couple, act cute to each other 24/7

เล็ก-lek Small,tiny

ใหญ่-yai Big,giant

This two are a pair. Sometime it will have something added to it, ตัว-tua which means self/person/body, for exemple.

Animal + small or pi/nong/por(dad)/mae(mom) + animal Something like, cat, bear, pig, dog

Ex:Pi Muu(pig)/Nong Miao(cute alternative way to call cat)/Miao lek(small)/Por Mee(bear)

บี๋-bie Short from baby

Repeating a syllable of a nick name two times for a lovey-dovey pet name is also a thing.

ไอ้ต้าว-ai tao Tao is a meaningless sound that was derived from a word that was a prefix "เจ้า-Jao." It is used to express that the speaker thinks the person being mentioned is cute/childlike. They most likely appear with a strangely sweet voice. Sometimes used for friendly mocking of someone for being childlike.

Eng sub-cute dimples = Ai tao dimples

หนู-nhu Nhu is something that is used with children, but it also can be for a lover. Can be innocent or quite sinful depending on the context. (This one is already mentioned in Chapter 4 too)

เค้า Kao and ตัวเอง Tua-eng are a pair. Kao is for calling yourself, and Tuaeng is for calling your lover. What is of interest is that Kao typically refers to the third person, and Tuaeng refers to "oneself." It kind of gets perceived as something silly that people in love do. There are some words that are born from distorted "tuaeng" that you can use for a lover too, such as using only the first word "tua", shortening the "tua" sound to make it sound like 'ta-eng, or combining the two sounds to make it sound like "teng". The "Kao" might be replaced by other words such as Rao, and it might help lower the silliness, or not? Lately, I have seen some traders (usually women small business owners) call their customers Tuaeng to make them feel closer to them. Not Kao, tho. I have yet to see any shopkeeper use Kao for "I.".

Kind of a little roleplay, but not really?

ป๋า-pa Dad as in father or 💰Daddy💰 as in sugar daddy.

An overly respectful way to call someone or use a title that the receiver doesn't actually own is also something I see and think is pretty cute.

Legal prefix

เด็กหญิง-dek ying 

abbreviation - ด.ญ.

For those who were assigned female at birth under the age of 15

Translate to - none

เด็กชาย-dek chai

abbreviation - ด.ช.

For those who were assigned male at birth under the age of 15

Translate to - none

นาย-nai

abbreviation - none

For those who were assigned male at birth, from age 15 onward

Translate to - Mr.

นาง-nang

abbreviation - none

For those who were assigned female at birth and marriage (optional since 2008),

Translate to - Mrs.

นางสาว-nang sao

abbreviation - น.ส.

For those who were assigned female at birth, from age 15 onward

Translate to - Ms.

Some words/phrase that relevent to love life.

เพื่อนคู่คิด มิตรคู่ใจ-phuea khukhit mit khuchai This is a phrase that describes a marriage partner as a friend ( phuea = friend) who will help you think ( khit), a trusting ally (mit ), and your best friend who you can rely on. I find it to be very romantic.

คู่ชีวิต-khu chivit life partner

คนรู้ใจ-khon ru jai person who knows your heart

ศีลเสมอ-syn samoe (like the name of a character from Cutie Pie)

ศีล Syn = precept

เสมอ samoe = same,equal

"Syn samoe" is a figure of speech that is probably roughly equivalent to "birds of a feather flock together." It is a concept that in order for one to be able to associate with others with ease of mind, one needs to hold the same moral code and values. If a person only holds on to one of the precepts, not killing, they wouldn't be suited to be with someone who also does not steal, not only as a lover but also as a close friend or someone close in general. And also the reversal, which is that if you can be close with someone, then you must be on the same level as that person, good or bad.

คนคุย - khon kui Person (you) talking to If A is Khon Kui of B, then they are getting to know each other with romantic intentions, but nothing is serious yet.

กิ่งทองใบหยก - king thong bai yok - jade leaf gold branch A very suitable match, used for those who are about to get married.

ผีเน่าโลงผุ - phi nao long phu - rotten ghost, decayed coffin When a couple is a very suitable match, but it's because they both are bad

ทองแผ่นเดียวกัน - thong phaen diao kan - the same gold sheet To become one piece of gold is to be connected by marriage. Ex: These two families are going to become the same piece of gold soon = someone from each of their families is going to marry the other.

ข้าวใหม่ปลามัน - fresh rice, creamy(?) fish A word to call a newlywed couple. Anything new is good, so in a period of newlywed bliss, everything will be good in your eyes.

ถ่านไฟเก่า-old coal Old flame, ex-lover who still might get back together

โซ่ทอง-gold chain A child is parents' gold chain that will link parents' hearts together forever. Basiclly, it is a concept that by having a child, the couple will be more committed to each other. Kind of scary if you ask me.

จีบ-jeeb _woo, flirt, spark, spoon, court, bind around_ I saw this translate to flirting most of the time, but while flirting is not serious, จีบ can be.

หยอด-yort is to put or pour it little by little in a narrow place; in some contexts, it means to drop in sweet words when you talk to someone, aka flirt.

อ้อน-oon is to plead, to implore, to cajole, to wheedle, to whimper. 

กัดก้อนเกลือ-kat kon kluea-to bite on a cube of salt Is to be poor. usually mean when your financial situation is likely to be better than it is if not for your choice of partner.

ป๋า pa - เสี่ย sia - เด็ก dek pa/ dek sia When these words are used together, pa or sia is an (usually) older, wealthy (this one is a must) man, and dek, which translate directly to child or young, is a (usually) younger person who got financial benefit from being in this relationship. Pa or Sia is a sugar daddy, and Dek is a sugar baby, basically. 

คบ-kob Is mostly used to mean dating, but it can also mean "associate" or "friend with", and it has been used for a variety of ambiguous speaking scene in drama and novels.

ชง-chong-brew It's kind of like creating an opportunity for someone else to say a pick-up line. Say things in order to push your friend toward the one you think your friend will like (whether the assumption is correct or not). Say a pick-up line or flirt with someone for the other person. GMM actors do it to other shipping pairs all the time. I find it quite funny, lol.

เพื่อน=friend But it can also mean accompany if you say it in some way. You could say that you want someone to go somewhere with you as เพื่อน and that would mean that you want them to accompany you, not that they are your friend exclusively. You can say it to anyone. friend, family member, lover, co-worker, etc.

Here Ayan say that he thanks Akk for นอนเป็นแฟน instead of นอนเป็นเพื่อน. 

นอน=sleep 

เป็น=as ,are, be, become, have, constitute, be able to 

แฟน=lover 

เพื่อน=friend

นอนเป็นเพื่อน=to go to bed with someone and keep them company

เพื่อน can also mean co-worker, school mate, 

slice-of-thai.com, thai-tones.com, [Learn Thai] Five Tones in Thai (Pronunciation Practice) <--Some of the links for the Thai 5-tone explanation.

I think it would help in the next part (and with the Thai language in general) if you could remember what tone is what.

The mid one, number 1, had no mark, and the other is as you can see in that orange band.

อา, อ่า, อ้า, อ๊า, and อ๋า is probably going to be the same when spelled in English (unless we make something up, like, อา=ah, อ่า=aah) but in Thai, you can see that the mark on top of them is different.

There are also a bunch of things that are relevant, like the way each type of Thai alphabet has its own base(?) tone in itself, making tone marking affect them differently. Ex: low consonant + dead syllable + short sound = rising tone (5) Even though it is written with no mark tone and so looks like it should probably be a mid tone (1), but we are not here for an actual Thai lesson, so you just need to remember that different tone is a thing and different tone = different mening.

Sounds that we use to indicate the tone of the sentence

****This topic isn't really an official and well-organized thing, plus my knowledge and ability to explain are quite limited, so maybe don't see it as a fact but something subjective?

If I put a check mark in the example column, it means it makes sense to put the sound in that row in the blank. Well, at least to me, it makes sense.

A sentence that has some polite words in it doesn't mean that it is in fact polite or that the speaker is being polite and proper. So while Khrap and Ka are polite, people still can and have used them to end a sentence that is so impolite you will get customers yelling for your manager to fire you for saying it.

Some of those sounds can also be paired with other too. For example, Na(4) and Si(2) can be paired with Ka(4) and Khrap(4), as well as a few others, and include each other.

Index

#thai culture #thai language #Youtube

[hello-nichya-here]

lmao you're so angry that you know shit about radfem so made an entire fucking essay of actually... PROVING IT??? of made up facts to make radfems look like a boogieman liberals wants us to make 😂 it's so pathetic omg, ok step by step:

1)lol what? radfem is about WOMEN, woman's safety, it doesn't matter who exactly was the abuser, what matters is to help female victim because it a movement about WOMEN. Take your head out of your ass.

2) Laetitia Ky, Artė, any south Korean radfem cuz any other type of feminisms won't work there hundreds of woc radfem here just 🗿

3) lol what? did you just imagined it yourself lol?? i'll repeat, radfem is about women well being, it doesn't matter who exactly was the abuser, what matters is to help female victim because it a movement about WOMEN not victims of abuse. and it just so happened that men commit about 90% of abuse, that's a statistic you can google go educate yourself

4) didn't libfem tumbler came out with this bs? it's the same labeling woman, putting them into unneeded categories that liberals like so much? i'll repeat, radfem is about women well being which means no separation from one another and no judgment especially about your sexuality. Take your head out of your ass.

5) ohhh yess we all just haaaaate ace.... no lmao. no one gives a shit, maximum is questioning the label itself cuz it's pointless, your asexuality is a low libido. no radfem gives a shit.

6) lmao where do you take this shit? 😂 can i take your narco dealer's number? also, oh what's this? several public researches that proves that TIMs exhibit a male-type pattern of criminality? rapes in prisons where trans women were sent? hundreds of assaults in public restrooms??? wow shocking!

7) you don't need to be saved, some therapy, cuz i doubt you'd like to be beaten/choked/ect in any other circumstances. another question does it not bother you that your partner would enjoy "playfully" hurting you? in short it's called coping mechanism to deal with abuse and trauma, go educate yourself

8) yeah for some reason we don't support child trafficking, rapes, murders, pedophilia and etc. that comes with prostitution. go watch interviews with those who escaped prostitution, they all hated it. they were abused and traumatized. Take your head out of your ass.

9) hun, we don't hate you we pity you at worst. it's not our job too look out for men, it FEMENISM it's about WOMEN and only WOMEN. adult human female, comprende?

and listen i may not be the best person in the world but at least i'm not spending my life chronically online writing incest fics ;) one again, pull your head out of your ass and educate yourself, here's some masterpost https://manlarp.tumblr.com/post/667874370724691968/accessible-radfem-ideology-masterpost bye bye :)

Saying "WE ARE ALL ABOUT WOMEN" doesn't change shit. You once again proved my point by saying that my experience with radfems spewing out abuse apologism towards me when they thought I was being abused didn't happen based on nothing but your favorite go-to defensive line. YOU didn't see it thefore it didn't happen to ME. Way to prove you guys don't try to silence women who disagree with you by trying to exactly that.

And yeah, I know there are woc of who are TERFs. There are also women who are even more misonygistic than some men. There are plenty of slavic countries where nazism is still a big thing even though Hitler hated slavs. Self-hating idiots have existed and always will. Doesn't change the fact that you fuckers are racist all the damn time.

"We don't care if people are ace, we don't devide women" literally a quick search will show that you guys do. A bunch of the anti-ace discourse was literally INVENTED by radfems, something they are very proud to admit. And plenty of queer radfems are biphobic all the fucking time, something I, a bisexual woman, have to put up with every single time one of your friends comes bother me. Go lie to someone else, bitch.

"Those who ESCAPED prostitution hated it" Yes, people tend to hate things they were forced to do. Doesn't change the fact that you guys are more concerned with making women who WANT to do sex work be labelled as criminals than with punishing human traffickers.

And once again, we have you being all condescending. "Let ME tell you what YOU want. Let ME tell you what makes YOU feel safe." And gotta love how you heard me say I'm kinky and immediately assumed I'm submissive, instead of a dominant or a switch. And then of course you have to go for the slut shaming of "You write kinky porn therefore you are automatically wrong."

"FEMINISM IS ONLY ABOUT WOMEN" Which is why it is dying. If your movement cannot accept that the world isn't black and white, and that societal hierarchies are much more complicated than just Group A is always the all powerful one and Group B always gets screwed over, it WILL fail because it will be ignoring real problems for the sake of keeping a narrative alive. Which is why nobody fucking likes radfems, and the world would be better off if you idiots were gone.

I don't need to read your bullshit, because you idiots will scream your nonsense at me all the time, like you just did. And not once have any of you ever said a single word that was worth listening.

Don't bother sending me more asks, I'll just block you. Go larp with your fellow radfems about every single woman who has a problem with you guys is "brainwashed by the patriarchy" because there's no way you guys could EVER be the problem and that your "activism" is as shallow, stupid and fake as you are.

#asks #fuck radfems #fuck terfs #fuck swerfs

[the-dog-watch]

The Wine-Dark Sea

As I referred to last time, this novel begins with a volcanic eruption in the middle of the ocean. It’s fucking cool, and also scary. But what the book is about is an even scarier natural phenomenon than that: growing apart gradually from someone you used to be close with.  That’s what happens to Stephen and his erstwhile pal Nathaniel Martin. This book is about FAKE FRIENDS. Don't you hate fake friends? Boy I sure do.

Because of the structure of these books I tend to take awhile to warm up to secondary characters. Not because I don’t like them but with Jack and Stephen sharing protagonist duties they kind of take up all the air in the room, so to speak, so that even I, a certified Minor Character Investor who has dreamt for years of being a Metal Gear Solid miniboss, tend to take awhile to warm up to the secondary and tertiary characters. Sometimes it takes a couple novels but then after that I’m like. I would die for you, Tom Pullings. He is 100% my fucking girlfriend. He’s everyone’s girlfriend. God we love Tom Pullings. 

One character I did warm up to right away when he was introduced, though, was Nathaniel Martin, who appeared for the first time back in The Ionian Mission. He starts as a chaplain and then when Jack starts privateering becomes the assistant surgeon to Stephen in the Surprise.

If I could once more compare our characters here to cartoons I watched in the 90s/early 00s: if Jack Aubrey is Bart Simpson (daring, occasionally foolish, troublemaker, bad boy) and Stephen is his BFF Milhouse Van Houten (nerd with deep seated psychological issues) then Nathaniel Martin is their Martin Prince: he exists to be a nerd AND a square, to give Stephen someone to talk to but also to stand near Stephen and make Stephen look cooler in comparison. Stephen is a nerd, of course, but he’s down with gay people, his views on women are more progressive than typical men of his time period, and he loves to get high; all of this contrasted with Martin, who’s a bit of a fuddy duddy with more traditional views on those sort of things. (Though, in his defense, he is sort of right to question Stephen on some things. Like the "loves to get high" stuff, for example.)

Like Stephen, he is a naturalist and he has one eye because he was observing an owl’s nest and the bird attacked him and gouged his eye out. Honestly, fuck all these soldiers and sailors with their battle scars, talk about an actual honorable wound in the line of duty. I’m also monocular and I like birds so this biographic detail was what endeared me to Martin from the very start.

Another thing I like about him is how his friendship with Stephen is contrasted with Stephen’s friendship with Jack. The thing is, Jack is sort of low-key loathes Martin a little bit?? They don’t outright hate each other, of course, but Jack finds him grating because of Jack’s habitual discomfort around clergymen, the fact that Martin’s a pretty poor musician whenever he tries to play with Stephen and Jack, and, most petty of all, the fact that Martin and Stephen get on so well. Jack is conscious that his dislike is unjust and at least partially fueled by jealousy; he’s aware that Stephen and Martin have a lot more in common than Jack and Stephen do. It’s a very middle school “my friend has another friend she likes more than me but GOD I hate her!!” type of dislike. A humanizing bit of frailty on Jack’s part.

Another thing about Martin that I like is that he does tend to call Stephen out on some of his shit, in a way Jack can’t or won’t. Martin is, I think, the only character we see who confronts Stephen about his laudanum use before the disaster in The Letter of Marque. Of course, a lot of good that does, since obviously Stephen was too self-deluded to actually listen to anyone at that point but, you know, it was nice that someone was there to stand in the background and be like uh. That’s a lot of laudanum dude. 

Honestly, Stephen could use that now! “Hey, that’s a lot of coca leaves, dude,” was literally my commentary through the entire second half of this novel, when Stephen gets to Peru and replenishes his stash finally. He sort of reminds me when an alcoholic quits drinking but they start smoking a lot instead. Call it harm reduction, I guess?? Friendship ended with DOWNERS, now UPPERS are my new best friend. Christ almighty.

Before the coca leaf binge, though, Martin is ejected from the book due to illness, just as the Surprise finally reaches Peru. It’s a very abrupt end to the character, if not to his friendship with Stephen; he’s not dead, but something about his exit has a very nail in the coffin feel to it. I’m of two minds about it; I’m somewhat disappointed that a character who has been around for so long, and was so important to Stephen, was just booted out of the novel with not much mention or ceremony afterwards. But I do like the realism how gradually the two of them drifted apart; Stephen starts to see that their interests and passions in life have diverged, but even in the previous novel, I think there was a clue that Martin wasn’t cut out for the seafaring life much longer:

“[Stephen said,] ‘Yet on the other hand I do not find that the turmoil of a ship prevents me reading: with a good clear candle in my lantern and balls of wax in my ears, I read with the utmost delight. The confinement of my cabin, the motion of my hanging cot, the distantly-heard orders and replies, the working of the ship – all these enhance my enjoyment.’

‘I have tried your wax balls,’ said Martin, ‘but they make me apprehensive. I am afraid that there will be the cry “She sinks, she sinks! All is lost. She cannot swim,” and I shall not hear.’

‘You were always rather apprehensive, Nathaniel,’ said Paulton, taking off his spectacles and looking at him kindly with his myopic gaze.” - 14-The Nutmeg of Consolation, ch.9, paragraph 94 

It’s funny; like Stephen, Martin is also constantly described by most of the sailors as a hopeless lubber, but Martin lacks Stephen’s occasionally troubling “if I die I die lmao” outlook on life that makes him weirdly suited to the naval life. Again: Martin’s a bit of a fuddy duddy. He’s no 100% perfect ride or die girlfriend like Tom Pullings. But then, who is?

Personal Ranking

The Far Side of the World (10) > HMS Surprise (3) > Desolation Island (5) > The Reverse of the Medal (11) > The Nutmeg of Consolation (14) > The Ionian Mission (8) > The Fortune of War (6) > The Wine-Dark Sea (16) > Clarissa Oakes/The Truelove (15) > Master & Commander (1) > The Surgeon’s Mate (7) > Treason's Harbour (9) > The Letter of Marque (12) > The Thirteen-Gun Salute (13) > Post Captain (2) > The Mauritius Command (4)

#recap post #aubreyad #stephen maturin #jack aubrey #nathaniel martin #love the title on this one #so romantic! #the wine-dark sea

[tiny012]

It was a question asking this question about what version is Naoko's "final" word on Sailor Moon.

Which to me I put Crystal for the simple reason it's a couple scenes (especially the last one in Cosmos before post credits) that are in there that I think it was something she wanted to do in the manga but didn't have time to do or clarify which Crystal does.

Which a person had to say this.

Which just had to put the 90's anime in it. You just can't not have a convo about the Manga and Crystal without dipping the 90's anime in there.

Which I already wrote post disagreeing about this anyway. It didn't play out better when it comes to the ending. (Which is here)

Which another person said this..

Always have to kiss the 90's anime ass but thankfully giving props to PGSM.

Then they got into a convo which I think need to talk about it.

I mean a team writers is what the 90's anime had but the problem was the fact it feels like they was not on the same page. Then the fact it's a magical girl show for girls and women and it's only 3 women in that writers room who wrote 46 episodes over the span of a 200 episode 5 season show.. Meanwhile it was 7 men who wrote 154 episodes and the movies over the span of 200 episodes.

Megumi Sugihara 31 Episodes

Genki Yoshimura -14 Episodes

Mutsumi Nakano-1 Episode

7 Males ( 154 Episodes plus 3 movies and specials)

3 Females (46 Episodes)

All for having a team of writers don't get me wrong but they need to be on the same page.

Meanwhile the Manga is written by one woman for 60 acts and story stories and PGSM was also written by one woman for 50 episodes and Special act. Which to me both of those flowed better and was a better structured story.

Like I keep saying about PGSM.

PGSM did what the manga didn't have tell to do and the 90's anime fail to do.

Also with Crystal as whole I love it at what it was trying to do but sometimes I felt like it didn't " get" what Naoko was trying to do. The writers didn't "understand" the manga.

But let me talk about this tweet specially

Umm

Manga/Cosmos

Sees Chibiusa leaves from the future after her training

Sees Chibs get greeted by her family with roses.

Something going on with the present which Chibiusa wants to go back but her mom says no by trying to protect her becasue she doesn't even know what the fuck is going on.

Diana goes back but something happens to her.

Chibs really want to go back which her mom finally agrees which shows that she's ready which she goes back with the Sailor Quartet who has finally awaken in the future.

Chibiusa and Sailor Quartet assist Usagi which the Sailor Quartet kills Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon.

Tells Usagi that it's not really girls and Mamo because they are dead.

Witness Usagi killing them and then witness Usagi and Galaxia fight.

Have a little convo with ChibiChibi asking who she is since she's showing she got power.

Sees Mamo being dropped into cauldron which she fades. ( Which this targets Usagi losing control of her power)

The Sailor Quartet talks to Sailor Moon Cosmos which she tells them about what Usagi just did in the Cauldron, a little about herself, and then sent them back to their time.

While Usagi, Mamo and Girls are in the cauldron, she tells them that she see them in the the future.

Hints at the Usa/Mamo wedding that she is pregnant with Chibs .

90's anime

Leaves after the Nehellenia arc in StarS and never to be heard from again which is offscreen about her leaving.

Like

This is the last time we see her in the 90's anime. Episode 172 The last shot and last line of Chibiusa in the whole series is in a circle after Nehellenia get her redo saying " I hope she will be happy." after that woman tried to kill her twice.......

Which episode 173 it is mentioned she went back.

Compared to ( Spoilers)

You are really pressed and say Cosmos is rushed when they didn't show her embrace Usagi, Mamo or everyone else but tells them " Hey I see yall in the future." after we see her in and out of that arc and seeing her growth meanwhile in the 90's anime she just leaves after the Nehellenia arc in Stars never to be heard from again? Which she doesn't come back to help at all. Which we don't know what's going on in the future?

Yall make it make sense.

#tanya rants about SM

[mermaidsirennikita]

Which are your favourite proposals in historical, modern romance and movies?

Omg, fun!

For movies, I immediately have to call out Crazy Rich Asians. The moment when the ring was revealed, I remember this audible gasp in my theater (including me and my mom). Such a great way to close a loop in a movie, while being super romantic and swoony.

Obviously, Pride and Prejudice 2005. I prefer the way Joe Wright did it not only to the 90s miniseries, but the book as well. The rain adds to the atmosphere and passion, the anger and tension is palpable, the way the mood changes when McFadyen goes "Mr. WickHAM", the almost kiss. So good.

For all that there is some content that hasn't aged the best, Colin Firth's proposal in Love Actually was primo. The language barrier was used perfectly, and of course the reveal that she'd been learning English while he was learning Portuguese.... adorable.

This is technically in a miniseries, but it's piggybacking off two movies, so I'll mention it... When Q tracks Shelby down in The Best Man: The Final Chapters and does a grovelprosal??? So good. Like, you watched these two, objectively the most caustic and like... edgy? People in the series, dance around each other with random hookups (and a secret baby lol) for years, and he finally has to completely debase himself in front of a bunch of watching women who are like, filming this shit, begging her not to leave... So fucking satisfying.

For books, I would have to say....

The Bride Goes Rogue by Joanna Shupe and The Duke Gets Even both have really good proposals, and neither one goes well for the men in question for very different reasons. Preston's in Bride is honestly a bad proposal because he's a broken human being who doesn't know how to accept that he loves Katherine and needs to be with her, and she's like "I deserve better than 'we should get married because we make sense and the sex is bomb'" and just sweeps out and leaves him like a broken man. Whereas Lockwood in Duke is completely in love with Nellie (him being like "I fucking worship you and am completely incapable of getting anything done when you're not here because it's like my arm's been ripped off or some shit" is.... amazing) and completely capable of expressing that love, but she cannot accept it. And he knows this. But he has to try anyway because he's SO in love with her.

Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall has a great one where Valentine proposes to Bonny when he's like, hiding in a tree or something. And he's basically like "listen it's Victorian England and we're both men so it can't be legal but I want you to be whatever a husband is for me and this is VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME TO EXPRESS". It's adorable.

Enzo like... grovelprosing to Gia in Mafia Madman by Mila Finelli is so deranged. It's like, a quick kidnap (that's their love language), a "I can't breathe without you FORGIVE ME", a negotiation of what she needs out of the relationship (a huge ring, a long engagement, maybe a vasectomy from him because she's not sure if she wants kids, and freedom to have her career) and him being like "YES FINE WHATEVER" because he's realized he needs her like air, lol. My beloved garbage people.

The thing in A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught where it's really less a proposal and more Royce taking Jennifer to the priest and being like "marry us, neither of you have a choice and I don't wanna be here either". And then he calls her a bitch. I loved that.

There are like... three? Proposals in Sierra Simone's New Camelot trilogy (one of which is accepted) and then sort of like an on the spot private spiritual wedding ceremony with what I guess is a proposal right before? And I loved all of it. There's so much angst and so much intense longing in those books. So many times for my boy Embry to get proposed to and go "I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH TBH".

OOOh I loooove the proposal in The Long Game by Rachel Reid. There's such a great buildup to it, and it's so romantic, and I also love that Ilya and Shane go from this big emotional sappy proposal to fucking on the floor immediately after. Good for Them.

#romance novel blogging #book recs

[the-siren-in-your-fridge]

as a fellow gender expansive person [and being intersex meself], who has been reading the wheel of time, I have thought about this, and I have investigated it deeply.

To put it quite simply, robert jordan did not know trans or intersex people existed when he built the world of the wheel of time. The way gender works in that universe is so painfully and pervasively binary that it's actually a little unsettling when I think about it for long enough, that there was a time where some people in our world really believed humanity was like this [though I don't know if he himself thought so]. Even the soul is gendered in the wheel of time, and the "channeling limb" is a part of it.

How I would change it would sound subtle on paper but truthfully it would change a major aspect of the tone of the books, and the worldbuilding: I would simply make the nature of one's "channeling limb" an inherited sex-characteristic, along with all the other gendered powers in this universe. This would essentially bring the gendered aspects of the magic system[s] in this world in line with our modern, scientific understanding of sex and gender, and open the door for the existence of trans, intersex, and nonbinary people, without completely removing it from the setting entirely. It would mean there would be a fraction of channelers of a specific half of the power, who appear, present, and maybe even identify as a gender other than the majority of their type. Spicier still is it would also mean that, very rarely, if one follows the logic of the "channeling limb" as a sex-characteristic, that there would be individuals who can channel both halves of it, whether separately or at once. Whether or not these people would instantly burn themselves out according to the magic system's canon logic remains to be seen. But there are parts of the worldbuilding that would inevitably have developed differently and appear differently than their current canon expressions if this were actually the case in the default Wheel of Time. The present-day Aes Sedai could not possibly be an all-female organization, for example, even though they'd likely be three quarters cis women at least.

I hope dumping this wall of text in your inbox is not an irritation to you. I just stumbled across your post and found you were expressing a sentiment I really sympathized with, as a current-day reader of this series.

I love this idea! I’m only halfway through book four, so I don’t know EVERYTHING about the magic system, (like I don’t know about gendered souls or the channeling limb thing) but based on what I know so far, it’s weird that it’s gendered. I’m glad other people enjoyed my take!

I can’t say I’m mad that a guy who started a fantasy series in the 90s didn’t know about all the nuances of gender stuff because back then he would have had to seek it out, and if he didn’t know any gender spicy people, he wouldn’t have considered it (unless he read Wrinkle In Time, for example, and was intrigued by the Happy Medium or something along those lines form another project). You don’t question the norm without prompt most of the time, especially if it’s presented like a truth if nature that will never change, but it’s still disappointing. And a lot of the men vs women stuff gets on my case soooo badly because outside of it being painfully binary, it’s just annoying after a while. We get it, they hate each other. Even when I remind myself “it’s this bad because a man messed up the male half of the power, it’s a world building thing, it makes a bit of sense” I still get mad.

But this series has some of the most intricate world building I’ve ever encountered so sometimes it seems odd that he hasn’t considered, even a little, spicing up the gendered magic. The story could remain the same if he did what you suggested or even what I suggested in one of my older posts, and making different aspects of the power inheritable would definitely make things more complicated, but also more logical. All natural things have exceptions and the power seems to be, for lack of a better term, a nature thing (seeing as the amount of people with the gene for it is shrinking because of men being gentled). It would also make Rand being the dragon much more important (not just a lucky gene toss up, a near IMPOSSIBLE gene toss up, this is Definitely The Guy) and makes the power much more generally dangerous, because if it’s not a simple male/female split among cis people, novices in the white tower could go insane at random and men who are gentled could have been harmless and the Aes Sedai have shrunk the gene pool even more by accident. It certainly ups the risk factor, and this doesn’t begin to cover non-binary and intersex people, who add to the punnet square of Power Having even more.

(This is assuming I understood what you suggested. It’s like the calico/ginger cat gene? Where most of the time it’s one way but sometimes not? And that doesn’t always mean the cat is intersex? Yay cats)

So yes, gendered magic systems are way cooler if they account for the actual nuances of gender and sex

#wheel of time #wot #gender #gendered magic #magic system #Robert jordan #transgender #trans #non-binary #gender binary #headcanon

[dg-outlaw]

Girl Action Figures Are Dolls and Dolls Are For Girls...

...and Being an X-Men Fan and Little Boy In The 90s (at least where I grew up).

So I was a big fan of the X-Men animated series when I was a kid (way back in the 90s). I even recall when the show came on during the early morning hours (6 or 7AM?) on Saturdays and I would set an alarm to wake up and watch it. This was a big deal because outside of recording a show on VHS or catching a re-run (whenever that might be), if you missed it, you missed it. There was no streaming, on-demand, DVR, or online pirating back then so to wake up early on a non-school day was something.

As a fan and little kid in this era, I was also the prime target for toy marketing and after this show came out I, and every other X-Men fan, had to have the action figures.

Having grown up with G.I. Joe, He-Man, Batman & Superman, Ghostbusters, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I was all in when it came to action figures and having hours of entertainment with all the adventures I could dream up with my toys. So when the X-Men came along, it was a no brainer that I had to add them to the mix and see what crazy crossover adventures I create with my imagination. Shredder versus Wolverine was always a classic matchup.

As I collect the men; Wolverine, Cyclops, Gambit, Beast, Professor X, and so on, I always hesitated at the toy store (Toys-R-Us for those that remember) whenever I saw the female X-Men. But it wasn't because I didn't want them. They were part of the team, no question about it, but my hesitation and fear was out of perception because a female action figure wasn't an action figure, it was a doll and dolls were for girls. At least, that was the general mentality I grew up with in the world I grew up in. It didn't help that I already preferred to play inside rather than outside, liked to draw, and had no desire to blow up my action figures with fireworks like most boys liked to do in that era.

So week after week I'd go by the X-Men figures and see Jean, Storm, or Rogue and I'd want them. My X-Men team was incomplete without them, but I feared how my family would look at me. Would they give me an odd look, would my dad tease me, would someone ask to pray for me at church? Would other boys find out and tease me?

I hated it.

Because it wasn't about having a "doll" (not that it should've mattered if it was), but rather about having what I wanted for no other purpose besides having the X-Men team. Full stop. And dammit, those amazing women were part of the team!

I don't know what happened, but one day I found the courage and grabbed one (maybe more than one. Hell, maybe it was all of them. I don't remember), and put them in the basket. Most likely it was my money as I often saved my Christmas and Birthday money for toy purchases outside of those events, so it was my choice as long as I had the money to pay for it.

Needless to say, the nervousness continued all throughout check-out and until I got home, but once they were unpackaged and joined the rest of the X-Men I felt good about it. I didn't have a ton of friends and mostly played by myself, so when it was all said it done Rogue, Storm, Jean, and anyone else went right into the box alongside Wolverine, Batman, Hulk Hogan, and all the rest. Over time I even forgot about it and just played with them all the same, realizing nothing had changed. Whether or not my family secretly judged me or thought things I don't know. But what I did know was that they were my toys and I loved them.

I say all this because this was totally unnecessary and looking back it all seems ridiculous, especially from a modern lens where there is so much support for kids (and people) to be themselves and to do the things that make them happy. Hell, that's part of the message of X-Men--people who aren't "normal" fighting for acceptance. And yes, I'm a cishet male so this isn't some coming out story or anything special like that, but it was significant to me because it was a moment where my little kid brain understood something that had been engrained in me, I questioned it, and then challenged it. The world didn't explode, I didn't become a different person (though maybe a bit more confident), and life carried on.

And I guess that's the message here as we enter a year of heavy politics and increasing pressure by certain people and groups who want to take rights away (more so than they have already) and further push toxic cultural and outdated "norms" for the sake of control and created division. We should be allowed to be ourselves and that shouldn't be weird, unless we delight in and want to be known as weird. Those things also shouldn't define us, unless we want them to. So as long as you're not legitimately hurting someone or yourself, go and be you, whether that be something major and significant or something as simple as owning a toy you think you shouldn't own.

#x men the animated series #the 90s #90s nostalgia #first world boy problems #toxic masculinity #there are no girl toys or boy toys - just toys #dg-outlaw rants

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

just some thoughts under the cut.

this is a mixed bag of a post.

it's true that the idea of a husband going to work and the wife just staying home is definitely a very very modern idea.

but the rest of the first paragraph is a bit questionable. the system before "the factory ate up humanity"? not sure what's meant by this. before the industrial revolution? before capitalism? what is the system that preceded these? you mean agrarian feudalism? where most people (like 90%, depending on the region) were farmers?

yeah most men, throughout history, did NOT "have his own business or enterprise". as i said, most men would have been peasant farmers. maybe a tiny percentage were lucky enough to be yeomen/freeholders. but yeah, men and women, for most of this period, would have both been doing lots of work around the farm. in urban areas, maybe the women would work as laundry workers, chamber maids, prostitutes, weavers, brewers, midwives, etc.

yeah if a woman was lucky enough to be married to a man who did operate his own enterprise she most definitely would have helped him with it but this wasn't a common situation. it'd be the premodern equivalent of being upper class.

in fact, this is one of the things that makes america so special because it actually broke this mold. from america's founding onward we have had a high rate of independent (family run) businesses, yeomen farmers, homesteaders, land ownership, etc. so yeah what she's describing here only would have really been relatively common in america (post-industrial revolution).

also, i don't know how true it is that people has less debt. debt has been an issue since time immemorial. but i also don't believe less debt necessarily means wealthier? in fact, in reality it seems like the opposite. many of the richest people in the world have lots of debt. most of the richest countries also have lots of debt. debt almost seems like a prerequisite for debt.

had more freedom? in what sense?

their work was meaningful? according to what metric? and compared to what? i live in a town that has a pretty strong manufacturing base and i know the factory works are very proud of and find a lot of meaning in their work.

they had more time with each other? perhaps.

"The "trads" lament that women must go to work instead of being with their families. But they have no problem with men suffering this fate. The reality, the true traditional reality, is that this "office work" is for neither man nor woman. It is an inhuman modern invention for organizing work and it serves mainly those who want to make money from interest."

i mean, yeah, obvious i support people in general, both men and women, getting more time to spend with their families. but like in "traditional" societies everyone is still working. even the kids for the most part. it's not like everyone is just chilling together all day. and even in premodern times there were still office jobs and clerical/administrative roles and bureaucracy and all that. that stuff isn't any more inhuman or modern than pretty much any other job short of hunting and gathering. like, i've seen people say agriculture is inhuman/unnatural. i personally think that's silly but you do you.

again, i'm in favor of reducing the amount of work people do and increasing time spent with family and for recreation and stuff. but this just seems no better than the idiotic prattle of other trads.

speaking as someone who has spent my life doing backbreaking manual labor and whose body is already breaking down as i approach the age of 30 i'd love having an office job. in fact in premodern times having an "office job" would have been "making it". the way everyone wants their kids to become doctors and lawyers and computer programmers, premodern folks wanted their kids to become priests and scribes and accountants and so on. there's a reason why people are leaving their "traditional economy"-based countries and rushing to becoming office workers in modern economies.

not saying office jobs are extremely fulfilling or anything. but digging ditches or pulling weeds ain't that fulfilling either. most jobs in general are just shit. lmao. if they were fun times you wouldn't have to be paid to do them.

[femmedesyeuxnoirs]

I used to be so naive about the goth scene here but now im like. Disillusioned by it all.

It feels like everyone wants to prove something to each other . Like pulling up at the club just to spend the entire time taking pictures so they can post them. Listen i know im one to talk about egoposting but it seriously feels like some normie influencer party the way everyone all the time just HAS to post. Its starting to bore me how people want to look like carbon copies of 90s-00s goths instead of putting something more personal into their look. Honestly im guilty of that too sometimes but its pointless to try and chase the past, i dont think i want to anymore.

And god the men. I dont know if other cities are teeming with just as many abusers and predators or maybe phx has more of them but its infuriating. I remember this creepy old guy at the bar that tried to grab my waist and follow me out to the patio sometime last year. Recently I went w some friends to a new afters venue and it turns out this creepy guy from the bar was the owner. I literally told these dudes and one of them was like “you just have to let him know your limits””did you tell him off”… questioning me in a kind of patronizing way. they basically dismissed it and said well he has a cool place he seems alright etc. Okay. I went to the dance floor with my other friends kinda pissed. the creepy owner approached us and im pretty sure he recognized me. Those same men to whom i told he was a weirdo wouldnt let me at least stand by them when they knew i was uncomfortable!! I honestly left that night so disgusted and angry. These men truly dgaf about the women here no matter how many times they say “ill mess him up if he fucks with you”. Its all for show. They dont care about our safety as long as they get to keep having their vapid fun

#i know its 4 am but im had a lot of caffeine and its made me really angry

[pebblysand]

Hi Pebbly! I just spend my last two days reading Castles in its entirety, and I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed it (if you define enjoy in the most liberal sense that includes feeling immense sadness and crying 5 times while also liking the little sprinkles of hope and humour throughout). My favourite parts were actually the politics, and I feel like the way you write Kingsley does not get enough credit at all. Actually the way you write all the politics deserves a lot more credit 1/2

two days? omg anon are you okay? 😆

jokes aside, thank you so so much for your kind words, this means the world - truly. i love it that people are still discovering this fic, it brings me so much joy! i'll answer your question on politics first, then address the "sex" under the cut to be safe.

how do you think the muggle English government justified the loan to the Ministry of Magic?

oh, i like your headcanon. i think in my head it was more, like, MI5/MI6 funding. the kind of funding where no one can really ask questions because #nationalsecurity, you know? also, probably "miscellaneous" expenses. there's a scene in peaky blinders where tommy talks to arthur about all the "olives" they're buying (where the olives are actually posing for the cocaine expenses for the club in the books), and i kind of think there's a lot of that as well. like: oh, the ministry of foreign affairs bought for £50,000 pounds of olives this quarter, you know? lots of canapés for cocktail parties lol.

[under the cut for your other question]

As a bi woman, the scene in chapter 16 where Ginny describes WLW lovemaking for Harry's sexual gratification felt a bit uncomfortable. It was not that big a deal, and did not take away from my overall readership experience. In general, I could understand that they are a straight couple in the 90s, but since you encourage discussion with your readership I thought I would bring it up. Still loved the chapter!

okay so first, thank you so, so much for saying this and for raising your concern, i truly appreciate it.

full disclosure, it is something that i thought about before publishing, actually. this scene sort of wrote itself (as in, it wasn't planned, i was just writing and it came up) and when i was going through it again when editing, i was like "ugh, idk," you know? like, not outright negative about it, but a bit icky. so, i (think i) get what you mean.

despite this, i landed on keeping it in for a bunch of reasons. i acknowledge the fact that these reasons may be "problematic" or imperfect, but here they are, regardless:

first, what you said: they're a straight couple and ✨it was the 90s✨. but, also people just have... fantasies. i think we need to acknowledge the fact that this (be it WLW or threesomes) is a pretty common one, not only amongst straight men. is this the result of the media often portraying WLW as a gimmick or a hot "phase" and sexualising a genuine sexual orientation for the enjoyment of the masses? sure, that's highly likely (😅).

but unfortunately, we don't all exist in a vacuum and the media does influence us, whether we like it or not. for all intents and purposes, harry grew up "muggle" so he would have been subjected to this in his broader environment. also, when you consider that ron literally has a book about "failsafe ways to charm witches," (so patronising and patriarchal - UGH), i would hazard that the wizarding world isn't that much more evolved, when it comes to these things.

i think we just live in an imperfect society where certain traits, sexual orientations, etc. are sexualised by the wider public. this feeds into our own fantasies which we generally believe are of our own making, but actually, more often than not, are very much influenced by the outside world. asking if those are "genuine" fantasies rather than just stuff we fantasise about because of the media, is pretty much the equivalent of asking if the choices that women make are ever genuine, because we're clearly all influenced by patriarchal structures in some respect. it's a headfuck and i think we just all need to accept that none of us exists in a vacuum, and we just do our best with the cards we've been dealt. so, does harry fantasise about this because society at large is generally exploitative towards WLW sex and that his brain sort of latched onto that because of that wider reality? probably. it's unfortunate, but it doesn't make that fantasy any less common, you know?

and, the thing is: fantasies can be imperfect. that's why they are just that - fantasies. there's a scene in one of the earlier chapters where ginny's like: "i'd have liked to do it under the cloak in a public place" (something along those lines) - and when you think about it, that's mildly problematic too if you consider, well, the innocent people around lol. and, given the whole range of problematic shit that people fantasise about, this is, well, not the worst, let's say. i don't think harry getting hard at the thought of ginny with another girl makes him a bad person. i just think it makes him - well, as you said, a bloke in the 90s, you know? he doesn't judge her for having tried it, doesn't think it's "gross" or whatever. he just gets pretty turned on by the thought of it and on an individual level, i think that's sort of okay.

this being said, i do appreciate the point (although re-reading this, i realise you didn't actually make that point, so perhaps this is just me talking to myself lol, in which case i apologise) of a wider, more systemic bi/WLW exploitation for male gratification. that is a very real problem in our society (unfortunately), as is bi erasure. so yes, that was a point that i made to myself when i was editing, which sort of fed into the aforementioned "icky" feeling. i think what made me ultimately decide to keep the scene in, here, is that no one is being exploited and no one's consent is being undermined. ginny is using a personal experience, sure, but that experience was genuine. i don't think she went into that experience thinking: "oh, this will be a good story to tell harry," you know? i think she was genuinely curious, wanting to try something out.

(as a side note, i've always sort of pictured ginny as "curious" in terms of her sexual orientation. i don't think she'd necessarily label herself as bi or queer or whatever, but i do think she'd be the type to think that no one is ever entirely one thing, that sexuality is a spectrum and that she falls somewhere on that spectrum. but i digress).

so, anyway, i don't think that WLW experience, for her, happened for the purpose of the male gaze. i think she was just genuinely into it in the moment. i kind of like that she got to question her sexuality a little bit as well, and although she decided she didn't want that again (which is totally fair), i think it was a good question for her to ask herself. i don't think the WLW experience itself was "for" harry's sake at all.

i also think that clearly, she modifies a lot of details (creative license, am i right?) so that in the end, what she tells harry is more of a story she made up on the basis of her own feelings, rather than about anyone else involved. it's also her own decision - harry doesn't really ask her to tell the "story" for the purposes of his own sexual gratification, she does it of her own accord because she wants to. so at the end of the day, this is just a girl playing with her boyfriend's fantasies in bed, which i don't think is fundamentally corrupt or exploitative. people may choose to dress up in a schoolgirl uniform to surprise their partner if they have a teacher/pupil fantasy, and while that is in itself a bit icky, it's also a safe way to explore that, you know?

so, is there a wider exploitation of the WLW theme in the media? sure. is it icky? sure. but then, i feel like we fall back onto my first point of: many fantasies are icky and no one is perfect and when you think about this one in particular, this is probably the best, least-exploitative way for harry to explore it. he's not watching hardcore, exploitative, WLW porn on pornhub, you know?

i also think that one of the factors i considered is that: straight men aren't my target audience, lol. i mean, maybe some straight men are reading castles (i hope they are, you never know) but... let's be real for a second, lol. so, i think, if my goal had been for this fic to turn men on with WLW sex, that would have been a different decision. here, i'm not trying to turn men on (i'm not even trying to turn women on, tbh), i'm just trying to show a couple exploring a fantasy together. so, while this cannot "excuse" everything, i do think it matters a little bit.

lastly, i ... like the scene. not for the WLW sex, but for what it shows of harry and ginny at that point in time. they're young. they're turning each other on. they're getting more comfortable around each other and being a bit vulnerable. harry's slightly embarrassed, which i think is a good thing for him. that scene goes to plot (it's sex, but it's also sex that doesn't involve actual sex, which becomes relevant later, as you know) and to character development. it would have been very difficult for me to achieve that with another scene. and, again, i feel like all fantasies i could have gone for have a degree of "problematic" built into them, because of the society we live in. the only one which truly wouldn't have been, would have been ginny talking about masturbating to the thought of harry in a closed environment which frankly i've already done a bunch of times (including one other time in this chapter). and, even then - did he ever consent to being masturbated about? as soon as you start talking fantasies, bring the wider world into the mix, shit is bound to happen, you know?

obviously, my goal isn't to make anyone feel uncomfortable/exploited. since you said it was not a big deal and didn't alter your overall experience reading the fic, i think i'm still leaning towards keeping this in, for the reasons exposed above. i think the goal of castles is also to show that life isn't perfect, and that people aren't perfect. i think this is... perfectly imperfect, you know?

but anyway, thank you so so much for reading, and taking the time to give me this feedback. i know this can sometimes be taxing. i hope you understand my reasoning and that this doesn't feel like i'm dismissing your concerns. trust me i'm not (again, i had very similar ones). it's just narrative choices being made.

#castles #asked and answered

[just-another-frender-blog]

Would you call Futurama a feminist show? I probably would with some exceptions. Leela and Amy are strong women, but it's so obvious that men are writing for these characters. They're nice to each other 90% of the time, but Amy makes occasional digs at Leela to remind us "haha lolz women hate each other for no reason!!" I hope the revival drops that bullshit. Also, they've been obnoxiously sexualized, and we've all seen the misogyny in "Amazon Women in the Mood" and "Neutopia" (admittedly, those episodes were misandrist, too.) In fact, "Neutopia" was one of the episodes that sexualized them, lmao. What tf was Leela wearing in that photoshoot?

But they're still strong female characters with their own agency and storylines. Amy is silly and goofy but in an endearing way, not in a "lol girls are so dumb" way. I feel like one of the Comedy Central revival's strengths is that it gave Amy more to do? She had multiple episodes centered around her. And Leela is obviously the badass starship captain. The way she defies Zapp's bullshit is hilarious, lmao. "Our love has had to endure your constant hatred!" The show never acts like she should "give him a chance" or whatever.

Leela also never takes any shit from the guys, and the joke is usually on them for being lazy idiots. I actually saw a guy on a Futurama forum (this was back in 2013) complaining that some episodes basically said "Women are better than men at everything." I wouldn't go that far, especially with the issues that I mentioned above, but Leela's definitely above it all, lmao.

Would I call Futurama a feminist show? That's an interesting question, and I don't have a straightforward answer. I know that Futurama mainly had male writers, though it did have a couple of female writers. I don't know if any of them returned for the Comedy Central reboot. There is only one episode where a woman is credited as the head writer: "Leela's Homeworld." It was written by Kristen Gore (Al Gore's daughter), and she did not return as a writer for Futurama when it was brought back. Disclaimer: everything I say in this essay is my personal opinion and my personal takeaway from the show. 

I see male writers say that they can't write female characters well because they don't understand the "female heart" or some bullshit. That's not true because there are plenty of male writers who can write them well. Hell, a lot of female authors are shit at writing female characters too. The majority of shows, movies, books, etc. have terribly written female characters. To the point where it's a big deal when I watch something that doesn't have terribly written female characters. I also see people praise shows they like for the bare minimum.

The problem with female characters that writers of all genders seem to have is that they write them as women first and characters second. Male characters are written as characters first; they are allowed to be complex. They are not defined by terms such as "strong male character" or "male love interest." There are a number of reasons why this is an issue when writing women, but the core of it all is that many people do not view women as being human, or as unique individuals. This has been a problem with gender constructs throughout history, and it affects the media we watch.

For a feminist show, the most important thing to me would be well-written female characters. There are a number of things that need to be considered when defining a well-written female character:

Does she have a defined personality?

Does she have flaws? What are her strengths?

Does she have a character arc with character development?

Does her character arc revolve around her relationship with another man (usually romantic)?

Is she written consistently? Is she written out of character to suit the plot?

Does she have meaningful relationships outside of her male love interest?

Does she have meaningful relationships with other women?

How often is she sexualized? Is that deconstructed or commented on in any way?

Does she have agency? Does she have control over the plot?

I think a lot of people get confused about this and think "oh physically strong female characters who beat up the bad guys." With these types of female characters, you get very bland "sexy, strong" types who end up with an unremarkable male protagonist. This is defined as the "girlboss and malewife dynamic," which is often handled very poorly in my opinion. With this type of dynamic, I generally see the male character get meaningful development, while the female character is there to be the love interest (but disguised with a feminist coat of paint). The issue with dynamics like these is that they are written to be power fantasies for male viewers at the expense of quality.

Movies and shows in more recent years have a problem where an unremarkable (but secretly really special) male protagonist is handed a femme fatale or a manic pixie dream girl on a silver platter. Think Emmet from the Lego Movie or Johnny from Hotel Transylvania. Thankfully, Leela and Fry's relationship tends to avoid this for the most part. I think the biggest reason is that David X Cohen said he really didn't want Fry to end up with Leela initially, but reconsidered later in the show. Leela was not created to be a female love interest for the male protagonist; as such, she was allowed to be her own character.

Let's talk about Leela, who really surprised me as a character. I didn't know anything about her before I watched Futurama other than her having one eye and that she ended up with the MC. When I started watching the show, I found that I really liked Leela; I liked her character design, I liked her voice, I liked her friendship with Fry and Bender, and I loved her personality. I was impressed that Leela had a very meaningful character arc that wasn't defined by her relationship with a male love interest (the bar is on the ground), and instead focused on self-discovery.

Leela is written to be a deconstruction of the "strong female character" archetype. She's the pilot, she's level-headed, she's intelligent, and she's talented. In addition to being Fry and Bender's boss, she's generally the one rescuing both of them from danger. She's the only one out of the trio who can fight, and come up with escape plans. The show also respects this aspect of the status quo; Leela's job is never taken over by a male character, whereas this would be the case in other shows.

Despite Leela's tough exterior, she has a soft side. She cares deeply about protecting the innocent, particularly animals and children. She cares a lot about fighting for the rights of oppressed groups and gets involved in politics. Out of all the characters, Leela fits a classic heroic archetype the best, a role rarely given to female characters. However, she's a flawed individual as well; she has a temper and a darker side. She can make bad decisions that occasionally harm others. This is why I think Leela is a deconstruction of the strong female character archetype because you don't often see these complexities with such characters.

Leela's character arc and character development are great. She's been made to feel insecure about her appearance and status as a non-human her entire life. Throughout the show, she learns to accept that part of herself and even embrace her uniqueness, learning not to change who she is (especially for shitty men). Leela unraveling her past, the circumstances of her birth, and finally reuniting with her parents is beautiful and is one of the strongest moments in the show. Leela struggles to develop a familial relationship with them as an adult and make up for the lost time.

I think my biggest issue is that I wanted more of this. I wanted more episodes about Leela's past, her childhood, her parents, her struggles, etc. because she is such an interesting character to me. In the CC revival, we got a couple of interesting Leela episodes but didn't get enough. And I noticed a lot of episodes about Leela weren't written with the same amount of care as the earlier episodes. Another thing I noticed about Leela's character in the CC revival is her relationship with Fry. She was written out of character to create relationship drama, and I personally never got a sense of what she really wanted out of that relationship until the very end of the show.

In the Fox era, a lot of episodes about Fry and Leela's relationship are very well written. In episodes like "Love and Rocket" or "The Sting," you get a sense that Leela does reciprocate, but she's not ready for a relationship with Fry, who seems to respect that. I really liked this a lot because Leela had a traumatic past, maybe needs to work on herself, and doesn't need a partner as immature as Fry. In the CC era, their relationship felt more one-sided on Fry's end. I wanted to know more about how Leela felt; I wanted her to have more agency. The CC era started slipping into the issue where Leela started to be written less as a character and more as a plot device for certain episodes.

Now, I want to talk about Amy. I really like Amy as a character as well. You get the sense that she is feminine, yet tomboyish. She's very intelligent but dorky and clumsy. In addition, she seems to be very comfortable with her sexuality, which is a welcome choice. She's adorable and I've always liked how she seems to be a foil for Fry. Amy is the second most prominent female character after Leela, and I think she has a lot of potential as a character. The problem is that potential is never utilized. I’ve noticed it’s common for authors to write female characters (a lot of minorities as well) with a lot of potential, only to waste that potential. 

I started showing one of my best friends Futurama right before I started writing for it. Amy quickly became her favorite character and she asked me which episodes were Amy-centric episodes. I had to tell her that there were barely any of them in the entire show despite Futurama having 140 episodes. Many episodes where Amy is centric to the plot are barely about her and barely develop her as a character. They are mainly about her relationship with other men as well. “Put Your Head On My Shoulders” is about her affair with Fry and “Proposition Infinity” is about her affair with Bender. “Where the Buggalo Roam” is about Kif’s insecurities. 

“Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch” is also about her relationship with Kif, but it’s still a fantastic episode for Amy. It’s actually quite progressive for the time (and for being an mpreg episode), and says quite a bit about how women are pressured into motherhood. We see how Amy doesn’t truly want that, and the show doesn’t demonize her. Instead, it sends the message that women should wait until they’re ready, or they don’t need to have children at all. I think Kif being the one to get pregnant is a nice touch in my eyes, rather than forcing the burden of pregnancy onto Amy. 

“That Darn Katz!” is a very mediocre episode, and it made me wish that there were more episodes about Amy like the one where Kif gets pregnant. I really enjoy Kif’s relationship with Amy a lot because he really respects Amy as a person. And then Amy truly loves Kif even if he isn’t a “conventionally attractive” guy. Their relationship feels queer to me due to the interspecies aspect and that Amy and Kif aren’t defined by rigid gender roles in their relationship. It’s honestly quite refreshing, even though the CC reboot messes up their relationship from time to time.

For the final part of this analysis, I really want to address Amy and Leela’s relationship with each other. I also think their relationship has a lot wasted potential, especially because we see how well this show writes male friendships. There are a lot of episodes about Fry and Bender’s relationship, and a great episode about Zoidberg and Farnsworth’s relationship. There is only a single episode about Amy and Leela’s relationship, and it’s a writer’s poorly disguised fetish episode: “The Butterjunk Effect.” This episode does a huge disservice to Amy and Leela’s characters by fetishizing them and turning them into abusive people.

Amy and Leela are at each other’s throats for petty and shallow reasons. Amy is constantly making fun of Leela’s appearance (something that Leela is very insecure about as I noted earlier), and Leela is incredibly jealous of the fact that Amy can get guys easily. Leela also makes some... interesting comments about Amy being more sexually active, as well as Amy’s race. I think it’s clear that Amy and Leela are both jealous of each other for one reason or another, which could be explored and developed, but it’s not. It’s merely used as a gag that gets old over time.

Instead, the audience is told that this is just what female friendships are like. Women are mean to each other and constantly fighting for the attention of guys, and are naturally shallow. The nature of to Amy and Leela’s relationship is not true to their characters at all. Amy isn’t a shallow woman, as shown through her relationship with Kif. Leela is gentle and strong-willed at heart, showing kindness to others even if it’s against her better judgement. See what I mean by female characters being written as women first and characters second? Amy and Leela’s relationship was the most disappointing thing to me when I watched Futurama.

I know that Futurama is older, but it’s not insanely old. There are plenty of ways Amy and Leela’s relationship could’ve been given a lot more depth. They could’ve had Amy look up to Leela. Leela is an older, cooler career woman who doesn’t take shit from anyone and outperforms her male coworkers. However, Amy is so starstruck around Leela that she constantly says the wrong thing, or she’s too flustered by Leela. Thus, Leela just assumes Amy hates her. Amy eventually overcomes her shyness and slowly forms a bond with Leela, who starts to mentor Amy in return. Leela begins to appreciate her relationship with Amy, as she didn’t have many close friends growing up due to the constant bullying. 

I’m not saying that’s the right way to fix their relationship, but I personally think something like that is more accurate to them as characters. And it’s not a perfect relationship at first, but they start to develop nice chemistry during the show's runtime. So my answer to the initial question about Futurama being a feminist show: it could be worse. Amy and Leela are great female characters and enjoy quite a few of the minor female characters. However, I also think that Futurama really fails its female characters as well, which is a shame. I’ve seen far more misogynistic shows, but I also think people settle for the bare minimum when it comes to female characters because it’s so common for them to be poorly written.

I have faith that these issues can get fixed in the revival. First, both Amy and Leela need individual episodes. Second, maybe they could actually examine Amy and Leela’s relationship, and help them come to terms with one another. Matt Groening’s current project, Disenchantment, has a great female lead. My other favorite adult cartoon, BoJack Horseman, has wonderfully written female characters. I resonated so much with Diane; it’s very rare for me to be able to relate to a female character. All of this gives me hope for future adult cartoons and Futurama’s revival episodes. They already have the groundwork laid out with Amy and Leela, they just need to be written with the proper care they deserve.

#futurama #asks #analysis post #long post #women in writing #turanga leela #amy wong

[nerdygaymormon]

Meeting with Elder Kevin Hamilton

I was invited by Elder Kevin Hamilton to meet with him when I next come to Utah, and this past week I took him up on his offer. 

We had a very friendly conversation. He spent 90 minutes with me!!! He was very generous with his time. If I wrote about everything we discussed, this might go down as the longest post in history, so I’m going to share the parts I think most interesting or important and it’s still going to be long.

————————————————————  

Elder Hamilton showed me the view from his office, overlooking the plaza and looking out at the Church Administration Building. He said the funny thing about being a Seventy is it’s like being called to the Quorum of the Anonymous. “Members don’t really know who we are or what we do, but they all know the people in that building across the way, and that’s how it should be.”

I commented that’s a result of hierarchy in the church. 

“Oh yes, the hierarchy is strong. You may not know this but the apostles’ job is to testify of Christ, it’s the First Presidency who runs the church, makes decisions about operations and policies.”

One thing he admires about President Nelson is how he’s not afraid to make changes to things that are hardwired into our traditions. They’re just policies, not doctrines, and he’s shown us they can be changed and improved. Things like moving to 2-hour church from 3-hour church. 

I chimed in, “or allowing single men over age 30 to serve in the temple, and women can be witnesses at sealings & baptisms. Those changes were meaningful.”

—————————

Elder Hamilton asked me to share some about my journey. I spoke about coming out later in life. 

He asked how my family accepts me. I replied that it varies a lot. For instance, my mother wishes I would go back in the closet and never mention it again. She feels I’m ruining her eternal family. 

On the other hand, my dad thinks he’s supportive but he doesn’t really get it. I’m president of the Florida chapter of Affirmation and I had setup an event in Orlando. As I’m headed out the door, my dad says hopefully, “Maybe you’ll meet a nice lesbian.”

Elder Hamilton laughs. I mean really laughs, for a whole minute. He finds this so funny.

Over the rest of our conversation, he two or three times dropped in the line, “or maybe you’ll meet a nice lesbian,” and we’d laugh.

—————————

Elder Hamilton asked me what my blog is called. “Nerdy gay Mormon.” He writes down the name and then asks, On which platform will I find it? “Tumblr.” He writes it down.

<gulp>

“Elder Hamilton, this is where I share about my experiences, my thoughts and my feelings about being a gay member. It’s not all sugar and spice. I share about differences and criticisms I have of church. This is a hard space to be in and I write about that.”

He understands it might be rough and tumble, he can handle that.

Later, as soon as I had an opportunity, I opened Tumblr on my phone and scrolled through what my last 20 posts were so I could see what it is he’s most likely to find if he actually checks out my blog.

—————————

Elder Hamilton had heard of Affirmation. He asked if Affirmation is affiliated with the church. 

I answered that the church did give Affirmation a donation from the LDS Foundation to fund suicide prevention efforts, but otherwise no, they aren’t affiliated. Affirmation is clear they want to interact with the church but not take its money. Affirmation wants to focus on being responsive to what the membership wants without concern of whether this statement or that activity might result in a loss of funding from the church. 

He said this is sensible.

—————————

I mentioned that I’ve been asked to be on a panel at the Affirmation conference, and I’m a little nervous, I haven’t had time to prepare.

He inquired what message I plan to convey. I replied that it depends on the question asked. I guess I’ll have to see what they ask in order to know how to respond. 

He remarked, “Yes, you respond to their questions, but think if there’s an overall message you’d like them to take home, something you can emphasize with your answers.”

I answered that it’s the children who have to make these hard choices, it’s not the parents’ choice. The person who has to deal with the consequences is who should get to make the decision, especially if we’re talking adults.

He granted this makes sense. He suggested that I could emphasize that parents need to love their children, to not make that love conditional. Kids need to know they can depend on their parents’ love, they shouldn’t be scared they can lose it. 

This was an excellent point, I used it in an answer at that session.

—————————

Elder Hamilton disclosed that questions on trans issues come up frequently and those have to be worked through, questions such as should a trans man be allowed into the priesthood quorum meeting or may a trans woman attend Relief Society. 

Sometimes they get asked to let trans girls go to girls camp. He said that “a biological boy is not going to be allowed to sleep in the same tent with biological girls. We have to use some common sense.”

I think the obvious solution is right there in his sentence--have a tent for the trans girls. That settles the leaders’ worry about what might happen at night, and allows these individuals to come and participate and not feel excluded & rejected.

—————————

Elder Hamilton had previously shared with me that his favorite uncle was gay, he’s passed away but Elder Hamilton still sees his partner. I brought that up and said that intrigued me, has he seen his uncle’s partner recently?

Elder Hamilton shared they had a family reunion this past summer and the partner was there. The partner is Danish, grew up Lutheran, but knows Elder Hamilton is a Seventy in this church. The partner asked, “When I die, will me and your uncle be together?” Elder Hamilton replied, “I don’t know.”

A niece was sitting nearby, she’s trans and not LDS, she queried, “Do you think when I die that I’ll be a man?” Elder Hamilton responded, “I don’t know. None of us really know what heaven will be like.”

I thought this was very human of him to not recite what the church might teach, but instead to humbly acknowledge he doesn’t know.

Elder Hamilton questioned me, “What do you think your life and eternity looks like?”

“I don’t know. How can I know that? People seek answers and come to church, but queer people find far fewer answers than others. I can’t focus on the unknown.” I went on to suggest if I stay on my current course that my life will get more and more lonely as my nieces & nephews go to college, get married, and start their own families. 

I notified him I didn’t want to offend him, but I believe I’m included in God’s plan, just not the church’s version of the plan. There must be an amendment or asterisks to the plan that the church doesn’t have.

Elder Hamilton observed that none of us really know what heaven is like. What he thinks heaven is like and what I think heaven is like are gonna be off. We’re going to get to judgement day and learn what heaven is really like and our desires are going to adjust to fit. Heaven is wonderful and we will be happy there.

—————————

Elder Hamilton let me know he spoke to a group of Young Single Adults and was asked when he thinks the church will accept same-sex marriage, as it did when it removed racial restrictions and polygamy?

He responded that the racial restrictions weren’t doctrine. 

He further answered that he believes God affirms marriage between a man and a woman, but makes exceptions for polygamy when He needs to build up a posterity. There’s about 3 million direct descendants from the polygamy of the early church, about 80% of them are active in the church. All the current apostles except Elder Soares and Elder Uchtdorf, are descended from polygamists.

Elder Hamilton doesn’t believe gay marriage is like the other two examples. “The Law of Chastity is doctrine.”

While I disagree with his characterization that these things are nothing alike, I sympathized that it was an unfair question to ask when he thinks the church would change on gay marriage. If the church ever were to make a change, how would Elder Hamilton know what that timeline would be?

—————————

Elder Hamilton casually noted that he knows of some people who do change and no longer experience same-sex attractions.

I thought, maybe that’s what they tell him, maybe it’s true, I don’t know. But I personally know hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of people who have wished for that so strongly, prayed so hard, done all that they can to change their orientation to no avail. 

What I articulated is, “I grew up with leaders saying if I had enough faith, then God would change me. I tried my very best to be so faithful, and I could never be faithful enough for God. My best was never enough. That was very damaging. I could never measure up, I was always deficient. It felt so defeating. I felt like if I can’t be good enough, then what’s the point?”

Then I conveyed my experience of being 19 years old and praying, “God, do you love me, all of me? Do you love who I am, and what I am?” Immediately upon saying these words, waves of warmth radiated across my body and I heard a voice proclaim, “You are not broken,” and that encounter sustained me for a long time. “But it is sad to think that someone who grew up in this church, went to Primary and the youth program, and didn’t know if it was possible that God could love me. We need to do better.”

—————————

Elder Hamilton reported that he used to be a mission president and several of his missionaries have come out as gay since returning home. He was speaking of how quickly they leave the church, and he feels his former missionaries need to spend more time addressing their faith, that they throw it away too quickly.

I countered that people don’t walk away from their faith casually, especially if this had been their life. These people served a mission, this is their community, their family life revolved around church. They don’t lightly walk away. They go through turmoil in determining if they should leave.

—————————

Elder Hamilton announced that he appreciates I don’t go around trumpeting that I’m a gay stake executive secretary. There was a guy in The Bay area (he means San Francisco Bay, as someone who lives by Tampa Bay I want to make that clear) who over and over again popped up in media saying he’s a gay ward clerk. 

“Okay, we get it, you’re in a bishopric. Lots of people are in bishoprics. It doesn’t give you any special authority on what you’re speaking about.”

I acknowledged that sometimes it comes up that I’m a gay stake executive secretary, others want to make a bigger deal about it than I do. 

I was requested to create a bio about myself for the panel I’m going to be on at the conference. I know being an active member is an important reason I was chosen to be on the panel. In the bio I put that “I’ve served for 9 years in stake callings.”

Elder Hamilton declared that was a good way to put it. “In our church, callings do act as shorthand to convey a lot of information quickly. If someone says they serve as an Elders Quorum president or a Bishop, you immediately can assume certain things about them. By saying you are serving in stake callings, that indicates you are temple worthy and all the choices you’ve made that goes with that.”

I explained that I do my best at my calling, I work hard at it, and it may come up from time to time in conversations or blog posts, but what I really want to talk about is the special work I’m involved in, and this calling helps that work to happen.

In 2015 it stung when the church inserted a new policy in the Handbook that classified all gay couples as apostates and forbade their children from joining the church. I yelled at God, and got a response—It’s fine to leave this church, but if you’re willing to stay there’s a special work for you to do.

There’s four parts to that work, one of which is help leaders better understand. I thought that meant I’d help a ward young men president understand. Never did I think I’d be sitting in the Church Office Building speaking with Elder Hamilton. 

When people want to speak to me about my calling, to me it’s only a tool that allows me to do this other work. My special work includes helping young queer Mormons accept themselves. If someone wants to interview me about being a queer Mormon, it’s that work I want to speak about, not my assignment in church.

—————————

Elder Hamilton commented that recently he was at a stake in the northwest and they have a gay stake clerk, or maybe he is an executive secretary. “Either way, you’re no longer a unicorn, you’re not the only one.” 

I countered, “Oh yes I am a unicorn. Two of us out of 3500 stakes, that’s still pretty darn rare!”

—————————

As we wrapped up, I reminded Elder Hamilton of my Tumblr blog and asked if it’s okay if I post about our conversation. He appreciated that I asked and encouraged me to please do so.

—————————

After the meeting, I sent Elder Hamilton a short email. “Elder Hamilton, Thank you again for meeting with me. I enjoyed your kind spirit. I left feeling uplifted and I appreciate that. As requested, here is a link to the affirmation conference happening this weekend. I hope things go well with your assignment this weekend”

He responded a few days later. “Thanks David, it was good to be able to see you. Please stay in touch. I am grateful to be able to call you a friend. Let me know if I can ever help in any way. Thank you dear brother.”

This was a good visit. I feel like we both learned some things and gained an understanding of each other’s viewpoint.

#Elder Kevin Hamilton #long post

[wench-and-jezebel]

The Musketeers Reaction: The Challenge

Jezebel (@typicalopposite) reacts [with occasional asides by Wench (@scripted-downfall)]

Now with BONUS: meta analysis :) (But Wench might post that separately later too... she hasn't decided)

[Oh, no, a prisoner transfer!  That always goes badly; just ask CTU (from 24)]

Well shit 

Well…. SHIT THIS MAN A BEAST [Yup!]

“Stay out of this, damn you”  Let us get our asses kicked by one man.. on our own  [Red Guards be prideful dumbasses]

Wot?  WOT?!  WHAT!?!  [Tenth Doctor-coded, you are]  ☠️☠️☠️ [But also, agreed.  They explicitly warned the Red Guard.  And then tried to help.  Not their fault the RG didn't listen 💀]  Right!?!

No one asked you, man child

WHAT, ARE THEY ALL CHILDREN??? [Yes]

OOOP- awwwwww  [Dangerous for him and Constance to do that in broad daylight tho]  

Well their relationship has escalated

[OH, LOOK, HER HUSBAND; WHAT.  DID I SAY.]  ☠️☠️☠️☠️ [Awkward, that is.]

Blech

Sweet lord  [Indeed]

Do they not get paid?  [Kinda but also... money got spent… It's not much, I don't think]

[They're Tinder-ing in church ☠️]  Im dying  [Porthos swiped right on the widow alkdsfj]  Trying to say something and these two are distracting me  [I adore them] Ok, so anyway… I’m guessing D’art does it, wins, and then becomes a Musketeer

Poor d’Art

Y’all two really trying to swindle money from grieving women… MEN  [Only one was grieving.  The other was having an affair, since those are highly common]  ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

Imma.  Oooop… Second-hand embarrassment  [She's covering for him :)]  ☠️☠️☠️

☠️☠️☠️ Oooop she ain’t grieving too hard  [I'm sorry, but they're kinda cute]  They are

“You’re cute”

☠️☠️☠️ Aramis is gonna get the money and Porthos is gonna get a wife  [adslkfjlksadjf]

Candle sniffer?  Is that a person?  ☠️☠️☠️  [Candle snuffer, dear]  I know 😂

["Too often, you let your emotions get the better of you"  "Can we just get on with it"  Sir, that.  Proves the point]  ☠️☠️☠️

Oooop, I see what you’re doing, Athos

Blech

[I love Peter Capaldi]

Oooop.  That might not go well

[Love lines like "I can see you are a man of quick intelligence"... they’re always passive-aggressive digs]

How did he not see him?  Or hear that?  They are quite incompetent

[OH SHIT I REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THIS]

Oooooop

“You killed my father”  [he’s making a habit of this]  “I mean, burned down my farm.  Prepare to die”

Well damn  [This has gone badly for young d'Artagnan]  d’Art, how do you really think this is gonna play out

[Of course Athos had to save him ☠️]  ☠️☠️

Awwww  [They turned it in a different direction, but I usually detest "I'm not like *you*" statements]

“Get some rest!”  How about dry off?

Bruh where did the rain go?

Bitch (Milady), why ain’t you ded?

[This is what I meant by “I remember what happens after this” btw]  Let me breathe on your mouth for a moment  [Shut up]

“Leave me alone, Athos”  Ma’am you came to him???  Womennnn

“I thought you had brains, but clearly not.”  Athos, what has he done for you to think that?  [alskdfjlsakdjf This is a valid question]

– – – 

Jezebel: Welp! First off the level of ack I feel about friends having to fight each other in a competition is like…. Skyrocketing.  Idk if it’s gonna be as awkward (they each think they will win, disappointment if they don’t) but I feel awkward about it lol!

Wench: You underestimate their loyalty, dear… I'm reasonably — like 90% — confident that they're only, like, half-competing.  Because this is the current main way they know to get d'Art his commission and he's running out of time.  And these three are, it's heavily implied, the best of the regiment so it’s kinda foolish to send a new recruit unless it’s more about getting him the commission.

Jezebel: Ohhhh they letting him win?

Wench: I suspect they've already gone to Treville and been like.  “Don't consider us for the tournament.”  I don't know for sure, but that's always been my interpretation.  Also, it's less "letting him win" and more "nudging him in the right direction and giving him sway with Treville."  Buddy's from Gascony and got that hot-headed pride thing going; he wouldn't accept their charity any more than he'd accept their money

Jezebel: Ohhhhhh! I see!!  I love them! 🙂

Wench: At least Athos, since he's heavily training d'Art to compete.  I'm less sure about Flort because they seem to kinda need the money 💀 

Jezebel: ☠️☠️☠️☠️  Gonna be another: (Athos) “We weren't gonna try to win” -> (Porthos) “Weren't we?” -> (Aramis) “Next time let us know” things

Wench: aslkdjflkadsjf Exactly!!!

Jezebel: It feels like as of rn they have put Milady in the ep…. Just so she’s in the ep ☠️ Not that I’m complaining she’s aight but she just seems random

Wench: You ain't seen shit yet.  Also, in case you missed this, they're Heavily paralleling Athos and d'Artagnan in this ep.  Her being there is definitely intentional.  

Jezebel: Yes! I have 😂 Athos even said it ☠️

Wench: Ma'am.  He said one overt "you're more like me than you know"; that is not paralleling ☠️  And, if it were, it’s not the extent of the paralleling either 

Jezebel: Aight lay me out the parallels 😂😂

Wench: I'll tell you in endpoint; it's easier to avoid mincing my words

Jezebel: Speaking of tho!  I LOVE ATHOS TRAINING DART SM OMG!!!  And Flort are just fucking chaos. ☠️☠️ I love them! Porthos trying to talk to the widow tho was fucking adorable

Wench: I adore them all

Jezebel: Ready?

Wench: Yup!

– – – 

Ooooop

Ma’am!

She is so pretty tho 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

Oooooop!  Oooooooooooooop!!

No, she didn’t

Oh nooooo  ["Who else is just going to walk up and hand me 30 livres"  Well, ya see-]  THIS IS WHY YOU ARE DUMB  [Constance was]  

PORTHOS!

OOOOP she’s giving him that look

[never trust "it doesn't matter"s]

HE BRUSHED HER HAIR BACK WITH HIS PINKY!?  THAT WAS ADORABLE

Ooooop!

[I kinda adore them; sorry to your Portamis plotting ☠️ ]  (Porthos) “What was I supposed to be getting again?”  (Aramis) “….. NOT THAT”

[Shocker, the marksman won the shooting competition alksdfj]  Aramis and that damn hat ☠️☠️☠️  [Oh, and the close-combat dude won the close-combat skirmish; who knew? :)]  OH THIS GIF SET!

Athos watching all proud  [*simultaneously* Also, in point of fact, I'm not actually sure Athos is competing at all]

Angry face

HE DIDNT FLINCH

“No control….”  Buddy. You knew this. Ahead of time. Why are you acting like it's new???

I see what you’re doing… Le gasp!  CARDINAL YOU ARE INSANE!  

PORTHOS!

Dawwwww

Ma’am!  SO ARE YOU 

Okay, not the last one.  But two out of three isn’t bad!

[Whoops]

Ma’am… It- Y’all- Sir.  THEY ARE SO PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER  [Because they're so dumb? :)]  Yes

OOOP

He gone beat the hell out of herrrrr… Those things were allowed back then

Oooop

OOOOP

[Protective!Athos unlocked asldkfj]  Ooooop!

Treville knows he’s letting the guy fight huh?  [Not saying :)]

POOR DART!  [Poor Constance]  I KNOW

💔💔💔💔  The break in his voice when he said I want you

POOOR CONSTANCE

“Her name’s Alice”  Oooop-  [Callback to your earlier “Aramis is gonna get the money and Porthos is gonna get a wife” !!!]  Jealous Aramis

The Musketeers are like WOT

[Bruh.  Swordsman???  It's a.  Sword contest.  I know Athos didn't seem to be competing in the initial bracket.  But also. If the point is to win. ???]

They look like guard dogs ready to attack

[Once again, a very Doctor Who score… (Again, same dude, but it especially shows here)]  lol!

There goes the hat

[Also, gotta love Athos getting ready to throw hands the second Treville's arm got injured alksdjf]  Yes!!!  [Man was taking off his cloak in 0 time]

Welp ok.  King making up for all the childish behavior

[d'Artagnan needed to have his heart broken to not let it sway his actions ☠️]  💔💔💔💔

Ooooop!  He’s doing the thing! The thing Athos did!  [:))))]

Whoooop whooooop!  [I must say.  It's.  It's kinda biased.  To have the King.  Judging an assessment.  Involving the King's Musketeers]  ☠️☠️☠️☠️

Oooooo!  Whoooop whoooop!

[Adore the fact that Athos gets to give it to him]

Ooooop!  She’s been had!  [Why is she surprised that the scheming, manipulating, control-freak Cardinal was being a scheming, manipulating, control-freak??]  ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️  [Also, I'm sorry, but the Athos/Milady storyline is something that is so delectably twisted I can't even... I'll explain some in endpoint]  ☠️☠️☠️☠️

“d’Art is the key”  ‘Cause he’s dumb

Sighhhh, womennnn

💔💔💔💔💔

Ack!  DON’T DO IT

HE DONE IT

HE DIDN’T DO IT

OOOOP!  She’s confused!

– – – 

Jezebel: Basic summary: Poor d’Art!  But also YAY D’ART!  But then poor Constance.  No really 💔💔💔💔 POOR CONSTANCE.  But Miladys face when he didn’t get in the carriage?  stunned 😀

Wench: Indeed

Jezebel: Also I didn’t absolutely hate the king this episode.  He seemed competent ☠️☠️ I retract my earlier statements about him 😂😂

Wench: Ma'am. He was still being the same childish king he's always been; he just happened to be childish in favor of the protagonists.

Jezebel: ☠️☠️☠️ ok fair

Wench: He just threw a competition as a way of proving that his men were better than the Cardinal's, and then he rigged that competition, and then he took the prize money on top of that laksdjf

Jezebel: This… is also true 😂😂  Anyway 😂 ummmmm… oh yeah! Porthossss 💔💔 he was so soft and non-tough-guy with Alice it was adorable.  And the “Who’ll look after you?” to Aramis???? 💕💕  (When she leaves)

Wench: Yeah  :) 

Jezebel: And Papa Treville! And how they all was like yeah fuck the competition soon as he got hurt! I love it!  And I did mention up there the look on Milady’s face when the lil dummy she was so sure she could seduce didn’t take the bait ☠️☠️ Now that may change I guess! But that was satisfying that he wasn’t like “well, bye, Constance; hello, Milady!”

Wench: This is true, and it's nice that he's not fickle... Fits in with his character, though, for the most part, so I'm not horribly shocked

Jezebel: Athos tho! I loved him this whole episode!  And his little "get down there before he changes his mind" (with a smirk)

Wench: Yesssss

Jezebel: Uhhhhh… the only thing I can say about Athos and Milady’s scene together was already said in the react, but how she was all “lemme stalk you” and then all “HMPH stop stalking me”... Like!?!?

Wench: You still don’t see the parallels?

Jezebel: Nope ☠️☠️ Just tell me

Wench: *sigh* Okay

Jezebel: 🙂

Wench: For reference, btw, we only have two more s1 episodes left.  Now, first, some contextual parallels: Have you noticed the running theme of scarring/binding/tying in Athos' and Milady's backstories?

Jezebel: Um. I- no? Maybe? You say that and all I think is her being hanged but I can’t remember where else it is happening or do you mean figuratively

Wench: Yes and no.  That’s the obvious example.  She was hanged.  She still "bears the token of [his] love" in the scar that remains.  She covers it up with a fine necklace --- a choker --- to obscure her past.  But less obviously... He still wears her locket.  She says that he gave her a necklace, and he still wears the chain that represents her around his neck.  Half the time he's drinking, his head is literally bowed by it.  Also, in his intro, the locket is the first real thing we see of his character.  He's hungover and drinking first, yes, but the second he gets his bearing/sits up, he pulls out the locket.  And that's before he even gets dressed/does his wake-up ritual.  Within that locket is a pressed forget-me-not (or an icon of the flower, but the point remains... a forget-me-not).  Additionally, the first time we see her, she's manipulating things so that he gets imprisoned --- weaponizing justice the same way she feels was done against her --- and quite literally manacled in the process.  Et cetera, et cetera.

Jezebel: Ok, so see! This is what I mean by I may see a parallel but would never see it that deep! I would see he wears her locket with a forget me not inside and be like ohhhhh he is like tormenting himself. And this I would not think about it again.  I would have never caught the choker being symbolic just that she needed something that fit to her neck… or she couldn’t hide the scar

Wench: And that's shown in their interactions too… In "Commodities," for example, when they both are back at Pinon: after she’s knocked him to the ground, she literally pulls him up to meet the dagger by the locket chain.

Still Wench: And yet it’s also why she can’t go through with killing him; she's so distracted by it that she takes too long and d'Artagnan shows up.

Jezebel: ☹️☹️☹️☹️ see now I caught that that threw her off ☠️☠️ I’m not fully unaware! 😂

Wench: Not surprised by this, but the scene still means more in context of the larger symbolism.  Then you've got the episode we just watched, where you have the alley scene, in which she literally tugs him closer via the chain.

Once again back to Wench: But even beyond the literal symbolism that's emphasized overtly on screen, it's their literal storyline… They're each orbiting the other, unable to let go completely but unable to forgive and forget and move on either.  Tied together by their mutual scarring --- whether literal or metaphorical --- and the literal ties that bind.

Jezebel: ☹️☹️☹️☹️ that is so sad and makes so much sense once pointed out omg

Wench: So.  Why have I spent so long yapping about this?  Because all of this context boils down to Milady deciding to sponsor d'Art.  And what does she do for him?  She gives him money, BUT.  Attached to that money.  Is nothing less than:

Still Wench: A necklace.  More than that, a forget-me-not pendant on a chain.

Jezebel: I meant to mention that more! I think I was like oooop or something but at first I thought it was THE locket! Like i thought she’d got it off Athos

Wench: It's not, but what it is is a cheaper-quality pendant.  It's not a locket; it's just an oval with a carving.  It's stark and cold, harsh and engraved.  Molded.  Like, one might say, a woman who's been through shit and decided to embrace the role of criminal she feels shoved into.  Athos', meanwhile, is a locket.  It's got the actual flower, soft and natural and encapsulated in time.  A happy memory encased in pendant form.  But it's also not intact.  It's old and withered and slightly tarnished: the necklace equivalent of that warm and happy glow they always use for the Athos/Milady flashbacks.

Jezebel: I am sitting here reading this like…. Bruh, these are blink and you’ll miss them moments and here she is just pulling full detailed parallels out of her ass…. But they make sense and make the characters so much deeper and sadder… ack

Wench: I'm boutta add a bit more, whoops :)  Because this shows up in the context of Milady offering to sponsor d'Artagnan, right?  She's offering him money.  But the chain comes with the money.  Her influence comes with the money.  They have to go together, or they don't go at all.  If he takes that money, he becomes even more indebted to her than he already was.  And he does take it.  And he takes the necklace (her "care," her influence, his debt to her) too.  AND… this is what gets him and Constance in trouble.  It's Bonacieux seeing d'Art and Milady together and discovering that necklace that prompts him to follow d'Art.  It's Milady's meddling influence that keeps screwing things up for them.  BUT it’s not all bad because, when the necklace goes missing and Constance asks about it, he dismisses it --- her influence, his debt to her --- as unimportant.  He lets it go.  She does it again --- not with a necklace, but still --- at the end: she offers him a ride in her carriage, and it’s just a simple offer, but with strings --- literally --- attached

Jezebel: (I was waiting cause it seemed you were gonna add more to that! Since he declines the offer)

Wench: Oh, no.  Nothing immediately attached.  But I will say... The more I (re)watch, the more I realize that she's got a lot of the archetypes of the devil figure.  (That's the character who offers a temptation but gets control of you in return)

Jezebel: Oooooo! 👀 I can see that

Wench: She consistently offers things to people --- love to Athos, power to the Cardinal, a hodgepodge of things for d'Art --- but it's not as easy as it seems.  With the sole exception of the Cardinal (because he's an unstable force that she can't fully manipulate), she gets nearly interminable power over the people who take her up on it 

Still Wench: Anyway, that's the main but extensive parallel between Athos and d'Artagnan in this episode.  Athos outright says, "you're more like me than you know" (paraphrased), and they show it, bit by bit, with this running symbolism.  They're alike, but not the same.  They have similar necklaces --- similar ties to Milady --- but not identical ones.  d'Art hasn't and never will have the same opportunity to be influenced by her as Athos did --- he first met her when she framed him for murder, so he's not quite as inclined to trust her as Athos (who met her when she was either not the same person or pretending to not be the same person, depending on your interpretation) --- but he's nonetheless swayed by her.  Similar, but not the same.  See?

Jezebel: Yes! I do! 😂 though I never would have before! So thank you 😂😂😂

Wench: :)  np!  Any overall responses though?  ☠️ I kinda took over

Jezebel: More of a question… Am I just seeing her look confused he didn’t get in the cart, or is that gonna play into this little “she can sway Dart to come to the Cardinal men” thing she had because she doesn’t have the hold over him she thinks?

Wench: Wot

Jezebel:

Wench: Hellooooo?

Jezebel:

Wench: Good night, dear

-- -- --

*the next morning*

Jezebel: I was falling asleep ☠️ but I can’t remember if you ever commented on if there was a point to be made about him not getting in the cart with her. Like he can resist her and she didn’t expect that, or something. And because it seemed like you hadn’t responded I was asking basically if I was looking too deep into it. Like sure maybe she was like: oh ok then. But to me she looked legitimately shocked, as this came right after her telling the Cardinal it would be easy to sway him in their favor. If that makes more sense ☠️😂

Wench: It does a bit, yeah, and, to answer…  I kinda adressed it, but only a bit, with the "She does it again --- not with a necklace, but still --- at the end: she offers him a ride in her carriage, and it’s just a simple offer, but with strings --- literally --- attached.”  It's another way of drawing him closer/getting him under her influence.  And she's feeling Really Confident --- as you said --- about her skill at influencing him.  But what he does is a) show loyalty and b) show love.  (Both for Constance, but still).  This is particularly important because, if you think back to the pilot when they *coughs discreetly behind my fan* laid together, he saw the scar around her neck, asked about it, and, upon hearing that her husband had her almost killed, offers to kill said husband for her.  So what we have here is a conflict between her influence and the other people in d'Artagnan's life, and she's been counting on her influence being strongest.  (Which is partly because that's how it worked with Athos... even now, buddy can't move on.)  But she just got proof that it's very clearly not.  He just prioritized Constance (someone who'd just broken up with him, too, and seemingly very cruelly, even if Milady didn't know that) over her, and that's a sign that maybe she's too used to her own allure working and she's misjudged d'Artagnan's character,  But it's just a minor thing, so it's not panic yet, just confusion.  Does that make sense?

Jezebel: Yes! 🙂

Wench: Good... I feel like half of this shit is not what it is in my head laksdfj

Jezebel: ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️ doubt it, because everything you say makes so much sense

Wench: ☠️😭

Jezebel: The emojissssss

Wench: Shut up  But I have had months to think about this.  And more since the book.

Jezebel: That was all I had for endpoint though! I just really wanted your two way more than two but I love it cents on that look

-- -- --

Wench edit, many days later: It's occurring to me that those "oop"s are very incomprehensible but idk what they referred to, so I can't put in signal phrasing... sorry :] (Blame Jezebel)

#jezebel (pr) #musketeers #the musketeers #bbc musketeers #bbc musketeers reactions #athos #porthos #aramis #d'artagnan #portamis #<very heavy this time #s01e08 #the challenge

[noyoucannotpushthevoid]

So, observation based on, admittedly, not the best experimental group: far too many variables, heightened emotions cause we're all stuck together in the middle of nowhere for 2 months, and lack of a proper control group; I am also not a scientist, I enjoy the subject only in very very specific circumstances

That being said, for a little more context I've worked at the same summer camp for a couple years now, though the 2 in person years are the only ones that are actually relevant. Due to the way the camp was originally set up, most of the campers are boys and most of my coworkers are men in their 20s (mostly white, but due to lack of information to compare to I don't know how much this actually impacts my observations. I just figured I'd note it because when I say mostly, I mean about 90% of the staff).

I was talking to one of my coworkers the other day. She's someone I consider one of my best camp friends. She is very adamant that she's never going to work there again. We were just kind of shooting the breeze and talking a bit about the summer, which was objectively incredibly traumatizing for many staff and campers. This led to me expressing frustration about when I would talk to some of my other coworkers I would be talked over and essentially kicked out of conversations about the event that I ended up being at the center of and still pisses me off and worries me to this day ('cause there are out of camp parts too. Unfortunately, it didn't stop when camp did). I'll be overshadowed because 'oh poor so-and-so had this comparatively minor but related thing happen to him'. I will not begrudge him that it was a horrible infringement on his privacy. That being said a conversation goes both ways and I'd also like to vent about that night. Especially considering that person and the group we're both in are some of the only people who will actually be able to understand what happened, why I acted the way I did, and not just stare at me in object horror.

Then thinking of "poor so-and-so" leads me to the point of this rant.

There is still one more bit of context though: I hung out with almost exclusively girls in high school. Therefore, I have had firsthand experience with the whole stereotypical "teenage girls are petty and catty and two-faced". And they did act like that occasionally, but did I also act that way in high school sometimes? Yea.

So, with all this context my ultimate question is, why have I seen that behavior a lot more in men in there 20s, rather than teenage girls?

"Poor so-and-so" and all of his friends spent the entire summer talking about people behind their backs, even when it made them hypocrites. Because of the fact that it's a limited staff most of his friends are the remainder of the men in their 20s. Given this though, let's compare since there were literal teenage girls on staff, most of whom didn't act that way at all. Everyone at that camp gossips, there's really nothing else to talk about in the end, but at least if one of the girls had a problem with me or with someone else, they'd either say it to the person's face or have someone else talk to the person...They'd rant and rave about it sure, but none of them would spread rumors or keep petty grudges.

Specific Comparison Examples: I shared a living space with "poor so-and-so" and a couple other men for part of the summer. And for the rest of the summer I lived with the women (none of this is related to why my living quarters were shifted, that's more due to space and new staff being brought on board who couldn't live with the women), whose living quarters were right next to the girls and had a shared bathroom with them.

Was I a dick that one time I stayed up til one in the morning playing a really loud game of dnd? Yes, unquestionably.

Was I also very obnoxious those couple of times I forgot to clear my hair out of the shower drain? You can guess the answer, it's just like all the others...yes.

But the difference is the girls, women, and I all had a sit down conversation where we went over things that the others did that pissed us off and set new ground rules. Versus the men telling me offhandedly to not be so loud again and me apologizing. Yet like 6 fucking months later every single fucking time my relationship with those men are mentioned it gets brought up as the reason why they still dislike me (there are plenty of other, more justified reasons for them to dislike me, I'm not an easy person to actually get along with. I definitely said and did worse things). I also never fucking did it again. I postponed the final session of that campaign for three months just so I would be respectful and not continue to be a dick.

It makes me want to scream.

TL;DR Why men in 20s act more like stereotypical teenage girls than teenage girls? And can the grow up and stop hating me for one minor thing I did 6 months ago? Like they're the adults, why are 7 14-17 year old girls far far more mature than them (I have my guesses for sure, but like it's not a good look especially considering the teenage boys, some of them, were also far more mature than these men. I was just comparing my experience with these men to that with the teenage girls whose stereotype the men embody)?

Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoyed your glimpse into the pit of bottomless rage that I am

#rant