#the narratives in women's sports are just.
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The THING is. When people (I am including myself in this) try to talk about how "Why is there overall less of an emphasis on women's stories and female characters and f/f shipping, especially when according to the stats we see being shared, fandom is significantly populated by queer women, hmm this seems a bit strange," there's ALMOST ALWAYS this assumption that it comes from a place of gender essentialism or purity culture or hating every single man for existing or something. ARE there some people who mean that? Yeah, there are going to be people like that in EVERY group of people who try to talk about anything. But when people complain about this, it's most generally because WE EXPERIENCE STRUCTURAL MISOGYNY IRL, AND NOW WE ARE EXPERIENCING THE SAME SOCIAL EFFECTS WITHIN SOMETHING THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE "FUN." THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
And this goes for when people try to talk about racism in fandom spaces as well. And ableism. And transphobia. And any other form of prejudice you can think of. Is talking about this in one (1) context that is not directly political going to forever eliminate bigotry? No. Obviously not. But the thing about systemic bias and prejudice is that IT IS PRESENT AT EVERY LEVEL, EVEN THE "FUN" ONES.
#THERE IS NUANCE IN THIS CONVERSATION#fandom misogyny#misogyny in fandom#like...honestly I don't think the Main Problem re: ignoring stories about women or the women in stories is Fetshizing MLM™ actually.#I mean there's some of that that goes on. there's some of that that goes on in regard to characters of color or trans narratives or f/f#media too. there are people who dehumanize people through over-sexualization in EVERY context unfortunately. HOWEVER. I AM#wondering how much of that assumption comes from an attempt to explain the disparity between the focus on queer men#& queer women. personally I think a lot more of it is related to misogyny than we think it is but I'm not omniscient I'm just evaluating#things in accordance to dialogue I've observed and my own personal life experience which is ADMITTEDLY IMPERFECT AND INCOMPLETE#(you have NO IDEA how much shit I've gotten over the years simply for being a woman and no other reason.)#(and if it wasn't for being a woman it was for being disabled)#(and there's a particular intersection of THOSE things I feel like there could be more discussion about too)#and the thing about 'fandom isn't activism' is about how IT SHOULDN'T BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR REAL-WORLD EFFORTS.#it's about how YOU CANNOT ACTUALLY HARM FICTIONAL CHARACTERS BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT REAL.#it doesn't mean 'we never examine personal bias at all because this is a hobby'. I played soccer as a hobby once. I danced as a hobby once.#the sports and dance worlds are still affected by bias and prejudice and that should be discussed and evaluated accordingly#fandom is still MADE UP OF real people. and the people who create and/or act in the pieces of media that spawn fandoms#ARE ALSO real people. looking at the effects ON THOSE /REAL PEOPLE/ is still important in understanding structural prejudice and#oppression. (and...lbr. how many actresses and poc have gotten harassment and threats just for playing a character. for having the#audacity to exist in a popular piece of media as a woman or poc. because. the number is. distressingly high.)#(I myself have been the target of shitty forms of harassment just for DRESSING UP AS AN UNPOPULAR FEMALE CHARACTER AT A CONVENTION)#it might be one thing if all of this NEVER translated into how people viewed and affected real life people. if it ALWAYS stayed within the#context of playing around with fictional characters BUT IT RARELY DOES! IF EVER!!!#anyway I say nothing new but I saw something that made me angry. and until people Get It™ I am going to keep screaming about it#y'all knew what you signed up for :)#you know what I'm not even going to tag this with my general conversation tag for this phenomenon because I think people need to#see this occasionally
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The backlash to the snub of Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig (for directing) at the Oscars is bizarre for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that they're going with a "the Academy hates women directors!" narrative even though there is a female nominee for best director this year, Justine Triet.
But this one quote is just. Jokerfying
...Margot Robbie was kept out of Best Actress by Annette Benning's nod for Nyad. That's the one everyone hates and thinks is undeserving, too. But instead the stakes being Barbie Is Feminism And If It Loses Feminism Loses means you have to dismiss a film written & directed by a woman, and single out...Lily Gladstone? She's insulting a film about a real survivor of real Native American genocide to burnish Barbie. She's not only insulting actresses and female filmmakers in the name of feminism, and attacking sex workers, she's dismissing the stories of real women too
And, again: Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Anatomy of a Fall didn't keep Barbie out of Best Actress! That was Nyad! But that doesn't fit her narrative about how the Oscars only like it when women ~suffer~ so she has to bash *checks notes* the first ever Native American nominated for Best Actress instead
(To be fair I checked the article; she doesn't mention Nyad once; it doesn't mention Justine Triet once, either)
I mean the Academy did give it eight nominations. America Ferrera, Ryan Gosling, adapted screenplay and Best Picture. The Academy obviously considered it important. Ferrera's nom is likely entirely down to the monologue scene, too, so it's not like they're mad about that.
(actually a lot of people are going "hohoho, didn't it just prove the movie's point that they only nominated Gosling?" like. They very much did nominate America Ferrera, can they like. Read)
And her case doesn't make the slightest bit of sense bc, again, the surprise nom that deprived Robbie of a Best Actress nom wasn't a dark movie about feminine suffering, it was a Netflix sports biopic
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Exyblr Dashboard Simulator based on what I personally see on sportsblr:
1/?
👑 girlbossriko follow
how many bro jobs do you think it took before riko moriyama and kevin day realized that uh.....maybe this wasn't just a bro thing
👢exyinaphonebooth follow
how many times do they have to come out and say they're like brothers before you freakos stop shipping them
👑 girlbossriko follow
????? do i know u
#it's a tumblr post about two exy players that you'lll never meet in your life it really isn't that deep
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💃fox-me-up follow
ngl that newest fox is kinda 👀
#psu lb #exy lb
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👨🏻❤️💋👨🏻 talk-exy-to-me
The NARRATIVE that kevin day and neil josten have........son of exy! scouting the rookie-est of rookies from fuck knows arizona........no listen you dont GET IT winning is EVERYTHING TO KEVIN and he would risk it on the foxes? And NEIL? who has only played exy for a year! NEIL Gets his attention!!!!! And hes good and he's getting better every game and he keeps bitching about kevin's ex on live tv BUT WAIT!???? NOT QUITE WHAT YOU EXPECT! Bc then neil shows up with a number on his cheek BECAUSE WELL it turns out they've known each other since they were KIDS! how is everyone not insane w me THEY'RE LITERALLY PERFECT
#where r my fellow njkd truthers #how r u all not here with me this isnt even the start #kevneil #210 #psu #njkd
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☀️ usctrojanny
every smiley blonde striker (jeremy knox) needs a brunette wet cat emotional support backliner (jean moreau)
#jerejean #usc trojans #i'm just saying 🤷♀️
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👸🏻 kevindazed follow
did he just......
👸🏻 kevindazed follow
guys please tell me i'm not insane
👸🏻 kevindazed follow
HE'S NEVER BEEN????? SKIIING???? KEVIN WHAT DOES THAT MEAN ?????? KEVIN PLEASE
#i i'm going insane i will literally die if someone doesn't explain this to me HE'S NEVER BEEN SKIING?!!!!
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🧚 goalie-stan
oh....i'm feeling so weak......it'd sure be nice to have a big strong goalie (renee walker) hold me up (renee if you're free on tuesday i am also free on tuesday.........on tuesday this tuesday, any tuesday?)
#literally passing out just thinking about her holding me don't call don't text i'm busy
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🌄 softkevinday follow
do u think if u offered kevin day essential oils to heal his hand he'd beat you to death
#it'd be hard for him bc he only has one hand but he could probably do it #legally this is a joke don't do this
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🗣️ jeremyknoxes follow
feeling normal
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📜 realexyblog
actually exy rpf is fine, i asked kayleigh day herself and she told me it was fine
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🐋 sexyexy
'exy is a stupid name for a sport' have you considered that a) i don't care and b) it's named that solely so i can make sex jokes about it
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🏳️🌈 gay4stickball follow
is he, ya know *mimes jerking off* an ncaa exy player
#i don't believe that straight exy players exist
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🙈 ittybittyminny follow
Andrew Minyard!!!!!!! 🥰🥰 short king!!!!🤏🤏😋😋 Awwwwwwww the scrunkly!!!!! 🤗🤗🤗 My boinky boy!!!!!🥺🥺 Crinkly doo,,,,shronkle scrimblo......🥺🥺🥺 rb if you'd scrunkle!!!!!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
📖 sapphic-exy follow
he literally killed someone
🙈 ittybittyminny follow
And? God forbid women do anything
#also no proof he did that #yeah there's proof his twin bro killed someone but that's not the same bc theyre different people #almost killing someone doesnt count
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🐦⬛ edgarallenexy
got told i'm problematic for liking the ravens? THAT'S LITERALLY MY SCHOOL OH MY GOD
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🌸 softexy
Kevin Day - A Study
#kevin day #psu foxes #palmetto foxes #exy #web weave #poetry #psu foxes #palmetto #edgar allen
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#i'm not taking criticism bc i am on sportsblr and this is literally what it's like#all for the game#neil josten#kevin day#andrew minyard#renee walker#jeremy knox#jean moreau#aftg#the foxhole court#jerejean#kevneil#the web weave is the most accurate part of this post#exyblr#riko moriyama
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Team USA (AA23)
(Part of the Blind Items Series [can be read on its own])
Summary: Blind items is back with a new victim, Alex Albon and his American Mclaren race engineer of a girlfriend. With the news comes a very interesting Team Torque episode.
Logan laughed when he saw the tweet. He had been making fun of Alex for his newfound patriotism. Since Alex had started having feelings for this girl, he had been asking Logan for help trying to ‘woo’ her, as if Logan hasn’t actually lived in the US since he was twelve. But his teammate helped him, happy that Alex was not teasing him about America anymore.
Team Torque:
“Hello everyone, this is Team Torque with Alex and Logan. We are here with our very own special guest! She is a race engineer for McLaren”
“And you girlfriend.” Logan quickly adds.
“And my girlfriend. Thanks for the help Logan.” Alex says, sarcastically. “As usual, this podcast is a mess and will probably not be getting better so apologies for that.”
“We aren’t the best hosts.” Logan adds.
“No we are not. Moving on, would you like to introduce yourself?” Alex asks.
“Yes! Thank you boys. As they said, I am a race engineer for Mclaren.”
“And my girlfriend.” Alex interrupts, copying Logan's previous remark.
“And Alex’s girlfriend.”
“And a fellow American.” Logan adds.
“Would you boys like to introduce me instead? You seem to be so enthusiastic about it.” She jokes.
Alex had been begging for a while to have her on Team Torque. The team had said if they wanted a race engineer they should have one of their own but both him and Logan were insistent that she join them. After the rumors came out, Williams decided it was best if they brought her to gain control of the narrative again. It helped that she was already well loved by the Williams crew. While she would never help them, as that would be traitorous to her beloved team, she had made friends with a few of the other engineers and had jokingly been offered a job by James Vowles a few times.
“Sorry honey, we are just excited.” Alex said.
“Yeah! Team America back together.” Logan enthusiastically added. The two had become close since they met, giving Alex a taste of his own medicine by making fun of his ‘Britishness’. He wasn’t too happy at their joint effort to make fun of him but he supposed that it was a good thing they got along so well.
“Anyway, go on, say a bit about yourself.”
“Okay, as mentioned I am from the US. I was born and raised in New York.”
“Yuck” Logan teased.
“Don’t even start Florida man. I worked for Arrow McLaren’s IndyCar team in the same position, shoutout to my IndyCar family, I love you all lots. Then eventually Zak Brown asked me to come to F1 and I happily joined. Through working for them I met Lando who introduced me to Alex and a few years later we now both live in Monaco together.”
“How was the switch to F1 from IndyCar?” Logan asked.
“Rough at first. IndyCar has a much different sort of atmosphere than Formula 1 as well as fanbase. Plus moving out of the US for the first time was difficult. But it has also been such an amazing opportunity that I can’t complain too much. I am so happy where I am now.” Alex hadn’t known her when she had first gotten to Formula 1 but he had heard stories about how difficult it was. She had shared a lot with him but he also knew it was hard as he hadn't had to do the same. His experiences being a Thai and British driver had helped him understand some, but women were still such a rarity in F1, even if they preached gender equality in the sport, they didn't actually do as much as they could to make it a safe space for women to work. He also realized why she and Logan got along so well. Even if they hadn’t grown up close to each other, their shared identity of being an American in a primarily European sport had brought them together.
The interviewing portion stopped after there, as Alex and Logan were terrible interviewers, but the conversations were still entertaining and it had become viral once it was uploaded. Viewers were excited to see Alex and his girlfriend, as well as Team USA.
mclaren
mclaren williamsracing we will keep her if you don’t mind
alex_albon Idk you might want to keep an eye on her
williamsracing may the best team win ;)
logansargeant Team USA can't be stopped
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I just wish that more people could understand how common and dangerous this transphobic conservative "protect our daughters" rhetoric is.
It's weaponized against trans women and transfeminine people all the time. This is visible in bans against transfeminine people playing on girls and women's sports teams, and it's visible in bathroom bans.
However, it is also weaponized against trans men and transmasculine people in different, but less discussed, ways.
We're infantilized. Regarded as impressionable, lacking in self-awareness, and easily influenced. We are victims of our doctors, gender therapists, big pharma, liberal teachers, and social media. We are misled, brainwashed. We don't choose to transition, we are "transed". We have no true agency of our own, we're manipulated. (And if we are neurodivergent, that adds tax; we aren't competent, we aren't capable of understanding the significance of transitioning or of fully consenting to gender affirming care, we are exploited.)
The "permanent" and "irreversible damage" that conservatives refer to is nearly always loss of fertility. We are "poisoned" by testosterone, "mutilated" by hysterectomies that leave us unable to have babies and mastectomies that leave us unable to breastfeed. "Damaged" pitiable things that can no longer fulfill our true "biological purpose".
Or course all of this is bullshit. But this narrative is absolutely a driving force behind trans healthcare bans. It's the reason behind the outrage over a few pages in a body image book aimed at teen girls.
It's fucked that more people don't see this for what it is.
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hello hello . seeing as ur the adwd scholar around here. what exactly is the connection between the varamyr prologue and theon describing the dead girls + women that were hunted by ramsay as coming back as the dogs. is there even a connection. i apologise but thank u for reading this if u do <3
hell yeah there is! at least to me. So both of those are elements of what I would consider to be the central theme of a dance with dragons: the idea that the distinction between what is Right and what is Abomination is not a hard binary, but a gently sloping path that pulls you in. The boundary between the correct and the abject has dissolved because of everything that has happened in the series. (the spiral-shaped tragedy!!! the narrative bringing you around exactly back where you started and the only thing that is different is that YOU are worse!!) It’s almost winter. the world is not alive and not dead yet, but some grey clinging-on stage.
the book’s treatment of cannibalism is a big example of this: when we look at it on the outside, it’s this extreme abject societal taboo, it’s a line we do NOT cross. but for the characters in the narrative, it’s not. It’s just the thousandth moral concession that they’ve had to make to justify their own survival. The horror is in looking up and realizing that not only are you doing things that you would have sworn off as abominable, but that there was never a line to cross at all for you: it always felt justifiable. The boundary between the abject and the just is completely dissolved by circumstance.
Likewise, the boundary between what is a person and what is an animal in adwd is also just gone. We see a little bit of that with the cannibalism theme and Euron last book declaring that “men are meat.” At the start of his arc, Reek is somewhere in between a human and an animal, made that way through extreme dehumanization and violence. So I think the thing with Ramsay naming his dogs after the woman he killed is that it’s an example of the extent to which he dehumanized them. They were always just sport for him, and now they have to be sport forever because all that’s left of them after he has ripped them apart mind and body is that act of carnage. Even after they are gone, they are not at peace because through naming his gods after them Ramsay owns them forever.
I think the parallel with Varamyr is that he contextualizes his skinchanging as an act of domination, obliterating an animal’s mind in order to own its body. Which is why it is so extremely horrific when he tries to skinchange into a person. we find out he was already treating women like that, using his animals as a violent threat in order to assault them, because the important part to understand is that his violent dehumanization is not the crossing of any kind of threshold but just an extension of who he already was. Like Ramsay and his dogs, it’s a horror story about how there is no boundary between man and meat for him anymore.
TLDR: the entirety of a dance with dragons is about the collapse of the distinction between human and thing at the end of the world, which is what both of those orbit around.
#asoiaf#adwd#i read this and said well i’m not any kind of adwd expert and then wrote the longest post ever#DOOM SPIRAL DOOM SPIRAL DOOM SPIRALLLLL#valyrianscrolls
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This isn't quite as silly as wanting to ban trans women from chess, but it's close.
I say this with no intention of body shaming what-so-ever, but this picture clearly shows peak physical fitness is not an aspect of dart skills. And if they want to maintain the narrative this is all about a physical biological advantage, well... *gestures again at picture*
The reason sports like darts and billiards have gender categories comes down to social conditioning and misogyny.
There was an episode of Mythbusters that explored the concept of "throwing like a girl" and they found it had nothing to do with girls being unable to throw a ball, but rather they were not conditioned to do so from a young age. And when they found young boys who had never thrown a ball, they ended up "throwing like a girl."
And if girls are not introduced to things at a young age, they are less likely to excel at them later in life—as most elite level athletes start very young. So there ends up being a smaller pool of participants which makes it harder to develop elite competitors. Less funding, less training options, harder to find competitions, etc. And so there are only a few women who are able to compete with the much larger pool of elite-level men in these less physical sports.
And then there is the misogyny. Women and girls feel unwelcome in many of these typically male spaces. They get bullied and insulted and quickly lose interest.
I am reminded of this COD player who simply said "bless you" to someone sneezing and then was inundated with pure hatred from her male competitors. If you are sensitive to horrible men saying horrible things, skip this video.
Trigger warning for graphic hate...
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It's not that men are inherently better at chess or darts or gaming, they just have a huge majority which makes it statistically more likely that mostly men are the best of the best.
To conclude, the only reason to exclude trans women from darts or chess or gaming is... transphobia.
Plain and simple.
I also believe they shouldn't be excluded from any other sport, but that is a more complicated conversation I have previously addressed. This is much more of a "no brainer" than that discussion.
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I'm sure at least some of you have by now seen ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Madison Hubbell skating together:
And let's just get this out of the way: They're STUNNING! Absolutely amazing! And I am beyond excited about what's coming!
But here's what we're NOT going to do:
Especially on Twitter I've been seeing comments like:
"IRL YURI ON ICE!"
"Viktuuri paved the way!"
Or
"Yuuri and Viktor did it first!"
And it's disappointing.
When Skate Canada changed their rules to allow couples of all gender constellations in ice dance and pair skating it was a huge deal! And now that the ISU is allegedly considering following suit and therefore same sex couples maybe being allowed in international competition in the foreseeable future is even more HUGE!
What is happening right now in figure skating and ice dance is revolutionary and a big step forward in a sport that, even though it attracts a lot of lgbtq+ individuals, is still pervaded by homo- and transphobia!
This rule change doesn't just open up the field for homosexual romance stories, it also officially includes non-binary athletes, who are kinda existing in a grey area so far.
Plus, this isn't necessarily an LGBTQ+ issue. Another issue in pairs and ice dance is that is seen as inherently romantic...and audiences and judges hardly accept any other narrative. If you and your partner don't seem like you are madly in love, you don't have any chemistry at all and your presentation is worth hardly anything.
This leaves us with juniors and sibling duos skating routines with sexual narratives (not good) and skaters who are pressured to fit in a mold of what a figure skating/ice dance pair should look like and present as. And it doesn't really matter what they're comfortable with. It's what gets you points from the judges and praise from the audience.
Also there are much more women in the sport than men. This leaves a lot of women who'd like to compete in dance without a partner. Sure, there are solo dance competitions now. But it's not recognised by the ISU yet and also it clearly is not exactly the same as with a partner as things like lifts and partnered dance spins aren't possible.
While this rule change opens up the sport for lgbtq stories, it also helps to open up the sport to a wider range of performances and stories that aren't romantic or sexual in any way.
Putting the label "gay!" on a same sex couple in ice dance and pairs isn't necessarily helping the cause...and I admit that I am guilty here and I need to tone my excitement for that side of it down a little maybe 😅
So please respect the work that people in the sport have put in and the work Gabi and Madi are putting in right now to pave the way for this exciting rule change, and don't ascribe any part in it to Yuuri on Ice, no matter how much it may remind you of that end credit scene of Yuuri and Viktor.
Thank you 🫶🏻
Here's a few links for further reading on why this is a huge step forward that do a much better and more detailed job at explaining this than I do!
#figure skating#ice dance#yuri on ice#yuri!!! on ice#yuuri on ice#yoi#gabriella papadakis#madison hubbell
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Truly blessed to be alive at the same time as Simone Biles. Just learned she’s EIGHT YEARS past the average female gymnast retirement age and she is still improving and winning against much younger athletes + she’s likely preparing to compete in another Olympic Games in 2024.
A male gymnast could never achieve Simone Biles’ feats, they simply aren’t built for it. I appreciate how gymnastics is uniquely sexed because it shows women can dominate in feats of strength and physicality if the movements are designed to play to their physiological strengths.
But I really can’t stress enough how important her story is to young girls interested in athletics. Sports were so important to me growing up, but female athletes reach a point where they can no longer ignore that the boys are drawing bigger crowds, they are drawing more attention, they get the nicer locker rooms, nicer fields, nicer training facilities. You grow up and you realize there’s no place for you at the professional level, but there’s plenty of million dollar opportunities for the males. You realize the furthest you can go is college and that level of play for women only exists because title IX demanded it. You start to question yourself and your purpose. It often feels like the rest of the world is screaming at you that women’s sports are boring and nobody cares. You understand that men have a brute strength advantage that you can never overcome no matter how hard you train. People often insinuate this means women’s sports have no value, why would anyone want to watch the weaker sex compete? And it’s heartbreaking, because you didn’t ask for this female body with higher body fat percentages and lower muscle-building capacity to support the reproductive system, you’re just a kid who wants to play her favorite game. Your body feels like a curse. But Simone Biles tells a different story. What if athletics were appealing not solely because of the strength involved? What if factors such as flexibility, endurance, and balance were emphasized more? These too are athletic qualities!! These too are exciting to watch and difficult to master!! She changes the narrative that is subtly but pervasively shoved down our throats that sports=strength. Her technical skill is almost unfathomable and I could really go on all day about all the boundaries she’s broken in sports and how important her presence in sports media is. In summation: thank you for truly being the greatest of all time 🐐 SIMONE BILES.
#also ultra marathoners like#courtney dauwalter#out here beating the men because women are suited better for extreme endurance feats#radblr
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Anyways. Back before season three aired, my working theory for What Ted's Deal was - with his advice to Jamie, with the panic attacks that were layered Jamie and his son - that it would turn out that his late father had also been abusive, but that with his father's death Ted had never processed it.
Obviously the show didn't go that route, but in general these were the points that I was daisy-chaining together to build something of a narrative flow:
Ted preaches kindness and positivity but also struggles with his own repressed anger and inability to be direct in what he wants. He continually, pathologically, puts people before himself, to the point that it's becoming a breaking point in his marriage.
Ted repeatedly praises 'women' for being the more emotionally intelligent of the genders. He looks at toxic masculinity as not just a thing to be examined and overcome, but the root of why men struggle.
He himself is a product of the same toxic male behavior, and while he tries to lead by example as an individual, there's a part of that culture that he almost sees as... natural? Like a foregone conclusion. A lot of his methods for dealing with the team in season one happen within the same social boundaries he decries. If he can get Roy to step up, if he can get Roy and Jamie to stop fighting and call a truce, then everything else will fall in place, because men follow a hierarchical structure. This is How Locker Rooms Work, and-
I always go back to Jamie's first, open receptiveness to Ted's 'one in eleven' speech as the first sign that Ted doesn't know how to deal with things directly. This scene reads as Ted being very taken aback by Jamie's willingness to listen. It has shades of their later scene at the Crown & Anchor in it, with Ted being the one who pulls away from a conversation that has the ability of getting emotionally direct and real.
Ted's repressed anger. His shouting at Jamie in 1x06 over practice, but also his shouting at Nate when Nate tries to stuff the letter under his hotel room door.
Ted emotionally reaches for the bottle like. A noticeable amount of times. But especially when he's getting divorced.
Every Sunday afternoon Ted's father used to take him to a sports bar. From age of 10 til 16.
Ted's mom is completely incapable of being direct
Ted and his mom never processed or talked about his dad's death
Ted looks devastated when he sees Jamie with his father in the boot room, but ultimately walks away
Ted sends Jamie a token to show he's not alone (Ted soldier)
Next time Jamie tries to talk to Ted at the bar, Jamie opens with addressing the subject directly (the Ted soldier) and Ted deflects. Asks about City. Won't look him in the eye. Doesn't say anything to Jamie admitting he left City to piss off his dad. He just says that line about how sometimes having a tough dad is what makes you better.
He thought he knew what he was doing [about Jamie] but Sam 'went and unsettled it.' Some people aren't lucky enough to have good dads.
Ted welcomes Jamie back but keeps his distance (much more than in season 1).
Ted begins having panic attacks that feature Jamie and his son.
Ted admits panic attacks linked directly to his father's death.
So this takes us through season two, and at this point my working theory was what if it turned out that Ted most of Ted's Ted-ness had been an active effort on his own part to become something less like his own father? It would explain his disdain for male-coded behaviors while also explaining why he seems unable to truly break away from them. it would explain his people-pleasing habits (and meeting his mom and knowing she is also allergic to asking for things, I think this could still fit as a trauma response). It would explain his putting women on a pedestal, if he had a bad male role model to begin with. It would explain how his demeanor around Jamie changes so much when they have the 'tough dads' talk turning into something closed off when his body language with Jamie has always been open before (and there's a lovely parallel with how they're both sat at the bar in that shot too). Hell it would add additional weight to that talk if it turned out he was also speaking of himself. His panic attacks would make sense, seeing himself in Jamie but also his son and his own role as a dad.
That, plus Ted being a character we regularly see drinking something harder than wine or beer, usually when he's emotionally stressed. Plus Ted's dad bringing him to a sports bar every Sunday for years, and at a young age too. Plus Jamie's dad being an alcoholic. That's where I thought this was going- I thought it would turn out that the late Lasso had also been an alcoholic and a tough dad. It just seemed the obvious conclustion at the time, to make the Ted & Jamie parallel into a full parallel.
Then you add in the fact that Ted married his college sweetheart and then waited until they were in their thirties before having a kid (In the midwest. Where he definitely would've been pressured about it) and all of this to me added up to a troubled man who struggled with the idea of becoming a father long before he had a son. Someone who spent years creating a facade, pretending (like his mom) that things were okay. Someone who maybe never felt right blaming his dad for any of it, not when it became so clear at the end how much his dad was struggling.
Only to have that facade crumble the second someone else from similar circumstances showed up to challenge it.
His dad was a product of his time, the same way that Ted is a product of his dad, the same way men are just a product of toxic masculinity, and Ted doesn't know how to 'deal' with any of it but he'd thought he'd gotten to the point in life where he had some solutions. Only to find that those solutions didn't work when held up to a mirror.
So yeah. That was my theory. Then season three happened, and I realized that unfortunately my theory had a flaw. See, I was so busy looking for a Watsonian diagnosis that would make Ted's idiosyncrasies make sense, that I completely missed the fact that the problem was Doylist to begin with. The show writers never meant for us to read into all of that, because the show writers themselves didn't see anything contrary, worrisome, or tone-deaf about Ted's behavior. Not from a toxic masculinity standpoint, and certainly not from the standpoint of discussing abuse of a male character.
It's not Ted who dismisses Jamie's dad's abuse. It's the writers. Which unfortunately means, since Ted by extension is the show, that it is Ted. Which is why all of us are left watching scenes like the 'tough dads' scene or the Mom City scene and going-
What the hell, Ted?
#apologies if this is rather rambly#i think i lost the point a few times#anyways here. have an old theory that got axed with the rest of them#though I stand by the idea that Ted also had depression in season three#ted lasso#jamie tartt#ted lasso meta#cw suicide mention#for Ted's dad#cw abuse#for jamie and (in this version) ted's dad#this is the longer version of the previous post that I mentioned in the tags
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Boscha and the Collector; The parallels I did not fucking expect
In For the Future, we catch up with Boscha for the first time since Labyrinth Runners (and her only speaking role since Any Sport in a Storm), and she’s doing... well. She rules the Hexside survivors with an iron fist, a disguised Kikimora acting as her advisor, she has a cool new look, she’s revealed to be attracted to women, oh and also she is the episode’s most prominent narrative parallel to the Collector.
hear me out.
The Collector first and foremost is motivated by being lonely. They have spent milennia trapped in a void between worlds with no company other than themselves, desperate for any kind of company or outside stimuli.This ends up leaving them vulnerable to Philip, who pretends to be their friend and offers to let them out, but actually only wants them to use their power for his benefit. In short, the Collector is a lonely kid who’s vulnerability is exploited by an adult who only wants to use them for their own ends.
And then we have Boscha. Over the last few months in-universe, two of Boscha’s closest friends ditched her for new friend groups basically overnight. Then her entire world was turned on its head with the Day of Unity and the ensuing warping the Collector did to the isles, and she loses her two remaining friends who, to make matters worse, sacrifice themselves to save her, which I imagine left her with some survivor’s guilt as well. And with the adults taken by the Collector, Boscha is suddenly thrust into a position of leadership she was ill-equiped for.
Which is when Kikimora shows up. We don’t exactly know how she got into Boscha’s good graces, but going by the credits illustration and her actions as Miki, we can assume that she comforted Boscha through the difficult times and offered some sense of guidance and stability. Of course, Kikimora doesn’t actually care about anyone but herself, she’s just exploiting Boscha’s vulnerability to gain power for herself. Like the Collector, Boscha is a lonely kid who’s vulnerability is exploited by an adult who only wants to use them for their own ends.
Also both adults manipulating them disguise themselves as someone much younger to seem more trustworthy, Kikimora as a child named Miki and Belos as the middle-aged Raine.
And with that connection established, we can also see Amity and Boscha’s relationship as a parallel to the Collector and King.
When Amity shows up in the Boiling Isles again after being gone for months, Boscha immediately latches onto her. Putting aside the gay subtext (is it even subtext? This girl is hopelessly in love), Amity is someone familiar. Boscha has lost everyone and her world has been turned on its head, so of course she wants to reconnect with the one person who can give some sense of normalcy. You can hear in her voice how frightened she is when Amity is about to leave. But, of course, Amity does not reciprocate, and Boscha has to let her go.
Compare that to the Collector. When he’s freed, the Collector latches onto King, calling him his best friend. King was the one who freed him, and his first real friend given what a bastard Belos is, but the Collector also recognizes King as the son of the Titan, someone they always wanted to play with. Again, we have someone who has been alone for a long time immediately latching onto someone who provides a sense of familiarity. And like Amity with Boscha, King does not actually reciprocate those feelings of friendship. That’s not to say King dislikes the Collector, just like I’m sure Amity doesn’t hate Boscha, but he doesn’t see the Collector as their best friend, and mostly just plays along. However, unlike Amity with Boscha, King doesn’t really have the chance to stand up to and make the Collector listen.
TL:DR: Boscha and the Collector are both scared and lonely kids with too much power who latch onto any sense of familiarity and comfort, which leaves them vulnerable to being manipulated by powerhungry adults.
#the owl house#analysis#boscha#the collector#toh spoilers#for the future#can you tell Boscha is my blorbo?
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i love pixar's turning red. it is such a good representation of girls at that age. they don't shy away from depicting the awkward and weird parts. it is so rare to see a movie depict girls and their silly interests without condemning or judging them. they just let the girls be girly, noisy, and silly.
fuck the hate this movie got on its release. i could go on for hours about society's uniquely shitty attitude towards teenage girls and their interests. there are countless examples. remember the feverish hate for twilight, a series aimed exclusively at young women? what about the hunger games? teenage girls were the first ones to fall in love with elvis and the beatles, and critics treated them like a joke. that is, until adult men started liking them. funny how that works. justin bieber fans, one direction fans, vsco girls, girly girls, tomboys, emo girls, indie girls, bookworms. you will see every single type of girl being made fun of for every conceivable interest a human being can have.
at a certain age you feel forced to make an arbitrary choice. lean into your feminine side and continue to get mocked for 'being shallow', 'only caring about your looks', 'being annoying' etc. or lean into your masculine side and get called a pick-me or told that you just want to get with their guy friends. you like things that are popular? you’re basic. you like things that aren’t as popular? you’re trying too hard. it is the entire reason why so many girls internalize this misogyny, why they start saying things like "im not like other girls."
i certainly wasn't immune to that trap. i didn’t fit the mold and got ostracized for it. the only validation i received for the longest time was from boys, when i turned my anger back on girls and girlhood. i was sold that narrative so many times that i wore it like some sort of badge of honor. it took years to unlearn. i feel sad when i look back on my younger self. i was so sad, so angry, and so scared all the time.
we get insulted for being happy. we get insulted for being sad. we get insulted for being mad that we were insulted for being sad. we get insulted for trying to forget what happened and act happy again. we get insulted for feeling hopeless. they beat the confidence out of you very early.
and it angers me how the emotions of teenagers as a whole are so often neglected. when you're around that age and grappling with big emotions, you've quite literally never felt anything that strongly before. a failed test, a best friend's betrayal, being cut from a sports team. it all feels like a rejection of your entire person, your entire being. you haven't lived that many years yet, and it's the first time you've felt this horrible. you don't have anything to compare it to, and it feels like nobody else could have ever survived feeling this bad before.
it's not petty teenage drama. it's not immaturity. it is a normal human reaction to the worst pain you've experienced, and it is happening at a time when your body is going haywire and your feelings feel impossible to control. you don't know how to cope with it, you can't possibly know, because it's the first time you've had this bottomless well of pain tearing you up inside. you can't look back at previous times you've felt this way to reassure yourself that it will be okay eventually. the first time is the worst and hardest and you have no resources to get through it yet.
a lot of adults scoff at and dismiss the feelings of teenagers. "you're young, you'll get over it"' they've decided that because you haven't dealt with this feeling before that you must be overreacting. sometimes you are, and sometimes you're reacting exactly how any adult would. it's an absolutely shitty thing to express to anyone. a teenage girl's pain is not any less real than a 50 year old's pain. so what if it will get better? it doesn't matter that it isn't going to be the worst thing that ever happens; it matters that right now it very much is the worst thing that's happened.
yes, teenagers overreact over a lot of things that aren't as important as they feel. as if adults, who don't even have the excuse of inexperience with deep emotions, don't? no one should ever dismiss someone else's pain regardless of their age or circumstances.
im turning 20 in a few months. find the small joys of life, and don’t you dare let anyone take them away from you. if there is a teenage girl reading this, i love you, i am sorry, and it does get better.
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I truly wonder why non binary individuals are grouped in with women. I am a schoolgirl, being forced to share sports & changing rooms at my school with AMAB non binary people. I play basketball, and have to play with a literal 6'2 male identifying as a girl. My friend has lost her spot and has had it replaced by a non binary man in the schools tennis team. I used to be trans & nb supportive but this is too much. Its so suffocating. Sorry for the rant, I don't have people/friends who align with my beliefs and I just wanted to get this of my chest.
I think that grouping in non-binary people with women is a consequence of the whole "men vs. non-men" narrative: There are men, and then there's the rest.
Also, how do you have so many people who identify as trans in your school? Is your school like one of these super-affirmative schools? And what does your friend say to being replaced by a guy in her tennis team?
But I'm sure that someone in your school shares your opinion! You can't be the only one who's seeing this. Maybe try to talk to a person you trust alone, and start with something innocuous? Like "yeah, I really support xyz in her transition, but sometimes it feels like..."
anyways, I hope that this guy in your changing room gets kicked out sometime in the near future
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Can you elaborate on your tags about reading jk Rowlings original post?
Just that I admit that at first, when the JKR discourse started back in the day, I didn’t actually go and read the essay she published on her blog, which is the one that started the entire thing. I did go and read it, eventually, because I tend to like forming my own opinions on things. Personally, I didn’t see any evidence of transphobia. Same with her tweets. Sure, she’s a sarcastic troll some days because she’s, probably, tired of this topic. She was arguing there is such a thing as biological sex and people transition from one to the other in order to embrace living authentically. And that kids should be kids as they have no way to consent. They need to be left alone, or helped to make informed decisions they’ll not regret later in life. Perfectly fine and I’m very much supportive of that.
Everyone should love and live as they please, and no one has the right to ostracize them for it. What she called problematic was the complete denial that biological sex exists, hormone blockers in kids who can’t really consent, self IDing as a woman without actually transitioning and some trans activists saying a biological woman’s experience doesn’t matter. I don’t see that as being transphobic. Just logic and concern.
Over the past few days my partner and I went on a deep dive on this topic and found there’s plenty trans people agreeing with JKR. We’ve seen videos of trans women competing in women’s sports and winning, then commenting they don’t care at all about the medals and winning, but simply enjoy having a good time with their friends at the gym. Why compete in the women’s weight lifting category if you don’t care about winning then? Aussie surfer Bethany Hamilton was dropped by her lifelong sponsor in favor of a trans woman who previously competed, and won, in the men’s division. Swimming, wrestling, roller skating even etc. There’s trans women out there claiming they’re the ones who know what a woman is because they’re forced to think about it, whereas a biological woman is simply born and therefore, inferior. Others who claim they experience period cramps or that their genitalia is superior to a biological woman’s etc. As far as I’ve seen. JKR and other trans people have spoken out against these kind of situations, comments and claims. That’s why I think that cancel culture is so toxic. We need to look at the whole picture and stop claiming things are black or white or the damaging adage of if you’re not with me you’re against me.
I think a very loud minority, who doesn’t represent the entirety of the trans community, might actually be doing more harm than good. Not just to the trans community, who deserves nothing but acceptance and support and love, but the rest of the LGBTQ+ community as well. Pushing a narrative too fast, and forcefully, isn’t helping. It’s actually turning people against us and it’s frustrating and depressing. Denying actual biology and elbowing your way into biological women’s spaces won’t win you their love. Calling them birthing people won’t win them over. Calling them lesser won’t open doors either.
There’s a ton of material to be found on YouTube, there’s podcasts, articles etc. Personally, I think people need to sit down and talk and debate and be diplomatic. I’m not saying JKR isn’t without her faults but I do think she’s been demonized for speaking her mind and voicing her concerns about women’s spaces and kids. It’s as if people can’t have a healthy debate anymore. We need to cancel those who don’t agree with us. It’s the all or nothing mob mentality and, personally, I’m sick of it. This is a nuanced topic and should be treated as such. But now you can’t even be a centrist anymore. You have to be for or against and nothing in between. How about we look at what’s right or wrong, for both sides, and decide accordingly. Why this inane ideological war that radicalizes people who should be having a productive conversation instead.
#don’t come at me with your pitchforks or call me names#I won’t reply to that kind of message#be civilized and willing to engage in a healthy debate?#by all means
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There is this horrible conservative Karen in Utah who is on a school board and she posted a picture of a high school girls basketball team. One of the girls pictured was perceived to be particularly masculine. This Karen assumed they were trying to sneak a trans girl onto the team. She captioned the photo "girls" basketball with transphobic scare quotes.
But the girl was cisgender. And she faced so much bullying and threats to her safety that the school had to hire security for her.
The moral panic about trans girls and women in sports is going to mostly harm cis athletes. Because, as I have pointed out many times, there just aren't very many trans athletes. Missouri passed an anti-trans law for K-12 athletics only to discover it affected a total of 8 people. In the entire roster of 130,000 NCAA women athletes, only 100 are estimated to be trans.
This narrative that there are trans students coming out of the woodwork to infiltrate school sports has caused people to see trans athletes everywhere. They might even be convinced this is now a commonplace occurrence. But if the NCAA is a good statistical model, for every athlete they accuse there is a 0.0769% chance of them actually being transgender.
This idea that these people are going to protect cis athletes from the unfair competition caused by trans athletes is a farce. The majority of the time they are going to embarrass, harm, and possibly threaten the very people they claim they want to protect.
That doesn't seem worth it, even from their hateful point of view.
That is unless their actual agenda is to sow fear and hatred towards trans people and not actually to protect the fairness of competition.
Beyond that, while there have been some initial laboratory studies showing trans athletes who have gone through male puberty do retain some quantifiable physical advantages in a limited number of athletic movements, these advantages have yet to manifest in any statistically significant way in real-life competition.
There have been no world records that have lasted more than a few months. There have been no undefeated trans athletes. There have been no significantly long winning streaks. Every single trans athlete that I could find in my research has been defeated by a cisgender opponent. And I could find very few that even had a positive winning percentage.
In every metric I can think of that would fall under the umbrella of "unfair competition" I have yet to find an example. And if trans athletes truly are so "dominant" I feel like it should be much easier to discover.
The only trend I discovered that might be worthy of discussion is some trans athletes have performed at a higher level for longer. There have been some cyclists who could compete professionally into their 40s, whereas cisgender women typically age out before then. But I could only find a few examples of this and I think much more data would be needed to verify this is common. But I feel this would only be an issue in sports that have an age bracket system.
There are so many other problems within sports that truly need addressing. As of yet, I have not even seen an example of trans athletes being problematic to the fairness of competition. Sometimes they win. Most of the time they lose. And chances are, most cis athletes will never even compete against a trans woman in their entire career.
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