Same anon here with more- people need to stop conflating Aegon with Joffrey Baratheon.

Aegon has done some despicable things that I won’t make excuses for but he’s not the rabid dog that Joffrey was. Cersei, Tyrion and Tywin struggled to rein him in at 13 years old and once that crown was on his head a monster was let loose. Alicent can actually reason and get through to Aegon at pivotal times. Cersei could not do that with Joffrey.

Aegon above all craves Alicent’s approval and affection, he turns into a sniveling mess at Alicent’s scolding at his big age. Alicent is not afraid to tell Aegon exactly what she’s thinking. She doesn’t placate, pacify or coddle like everyone had to do with Joffrey because he was out of control, cruel AND stupid at the same time. Helaena is the most important person in the world to Alicent and Aegon is not going to harm the most precious thing in the world to Alicent. Helaena doesn’t have to fear Aegon bashing her head in with a rock or choking her after she has just had a stillbirth….

He called her an idiot at 14, yes it wasn’t nice but it was completely normal. At 14 I called my sister a cunt right across the dinner table, but I've also fought for that same sister. They are siblings and that interaction that made them seem more human as opposed to their 2 dimensional team black counterparts who always just smile and have kind words for each other- except when Jacaerys was beating the shit out of Luke on the beach, but no one is saying how miserable Luke was despite Luke actually seeming unhappy with parts of his life. He was even vocal about these things. Whereas Heleana who is a blunt speaker, has not said anything like that.

Helaena doesn’t look afraid of Aegon, she doesn’t look afraid of anyone in her immediate family (including Criston) as much as team black would like her to be. At the most Aegon ignores her, like she said. Honestly ignoring her is preferable to what Viserys was doing to Alicent. She had 3 children before she even reached 20. Aemond and Helaena are almost Irish twins. In the show Helaena and Aegon just have the twins who are maybe 4-5 years old, so Aegon is not forcing himself on Helaena.

We don’t know much about Helaena in the show because they decide to delete certain scenes and include other stupid filler scenes when they contain fan favorites…but Helaena in the book was happy. Her input towards the war was valued. She loved her children and everyone could agree she was a wonderful mother.

Her life isn’t perfect, there is no woman in that time period whose life is. Her husband is so far from perfect but that doesn’t mean Helaena lived a life of misery.

The book even says basically that Helaena died with Jaehaerys that night and Alicent didn’t kill Jaehaerys. That was Daemon Targaryen.

And when pointing the finger at Alicent, remember that she didn’t make Helaena on her own. She had a useless father who ignored her and her siblings her entire life. Viserys withheld his love from them out of some twisted loyalty to his first wife that he killed and his oldest child by this wife. These things would have a deep emotional impact on a person, it certainly has on her brothers. Stop letting Viserys off the hook.

(the way you called Joffrey a rabid dog omg I’m cryingggg😭😭😭😭 shxjskkzkvzlclwgzjpf)

but yeah, you are so so so right.

I hate it when people, mostly TB, compare Aegon to Joffrey. Like the ONLY two things they have in common is an ambitious (?) widow mother queen and also the fact that both aren’t very nice people. But that’s about it. Aegon at his worst doesn’t even come close to how horrendous Joffrey was on a regular day. Aegon never killed people for fun, he didn’t publicly humiliate Helaena like Joffey did with Sansa. And as I say, I am ignoring the fact that he’s a rapist because it was literally added out of nowhere, makes no sense, and has no relevance to the plot whatsoever. It was added purely to make Aegon and TG look bad. Canonically he is literally just a lazy alcoholic.

And I absolutely agree with what you said about Helaena. TB often say that “aLiCeNt MaDe HeR LiFe HeLl” but she literally didn’t? She would NEVER have her marry Aegon if Aegon was like Joffrey Baratheon. You can call Aegon every insult in the book, he was neglectful, he ignored her, he wasn’t really present in the lives of their kids, but he was NOT an abusive husband or father. And as you said, unlike Viserys, he never forced himself on Helaena. He wasn’t obsessed with the idea of having as many children as possible with her. Literally not at any point his nonexistent “abusive” behavior is shown, not even in the show. During the dinner scene Helaena literally jokes about her relationship with him, she seems comfortable and chill.

Sure, as you said, her life was far from perfect. In the books she does give birth at 14, in the show, since everyone is slightly older, she most likely was 16? Not that uncommon actually. She still had her mother, and her brothers, she has sir Criston. Aegon’s behavior was controlled by Alicent, so he would NEVER hurt her. If you remember how Alicent reacted to Aegon forcing himself upon Dyana (dumb scene overall but still) you can only imagine how she would react if he treated Helaena the same way.

It’s not Wednesday, but UH3 brainrot has once again consumed me.

I’m supposed to be catching up on Ace Alastor Week, and instead I’m writing ahead in the Season 1 fic.

Sneak peek below, heed the tags.

Content Warning: self harm*, blood, references to canon-typical violence, implied/referenced child abuse, inconsistent terminology regarding sex and gender**

*Whether or not this is self harm could probably be up for debate, but I, personally, consider it to be a form of self harm. Please put your own health and safety first; read with caution of feel free to keep scrolling. Stay safe, readers.

**Alastor sometimes conflates sex and gender because he just doesn’t think about or care what people have in their pants. He grew up in a time where the two were considered interchangeable; while he knows neither sex nor gender are static/that not everyone matches up with the gender they were assigned and will call a trans person by their chosen name/pronouns, gender them correctly, and treat them exactly like he’d treat anyone else, he still gets the terms a little mixed up from time to time. He wouldn’t gatekeep someone based on their transition status, because the physical state of someone else’s body isn’t his concern unless he’s actively in the process of killing them. And even then, he’s not focused on sex characteristics of any kind.

…

…

…

“And all this time, I thought it was mere population control!” Alastor ranted ino the private connection. He was pacing across his meticulously sound-proofed hotel room while his shadow flew from wall to wall.

“Well,” Lucifer began, but Alastor wasn’t done speaking and didn’t care for being interrupted.

“Ha!” Alastor laughed, threading a hand through his own hair. “Can you blame me?” he asked.

A rhetorical question, but Lucifer gave his best attempt at answering. “It is p-”

“They’ve got no style, no finesse! And barely any skill!” Alastor’s shadow curled its claws into fists, and Alastor removed his hand from his hair to keep himself from pulling it or digging his claws into his scalp as he felt the urge to do the same.

“Year after year, decade after decade, it’s nothing but artless, soulless slaughter!” Alastor laughed again, manic, hysterical, and lacking any and all joy. “Is it any wonder I assumed it was simply a mindless masacre?”

“Alastor-”

“Entertainment…” Alastor dug his claws into the inside of his palm, attempting to ground himself with the pain.

“If killing Sinners for one’s own entertainment is so damned Holy, then why is he in Heaven while I’m down here?” Alastor demanded, static rising in his voice. “Why, one could argue that he’s worse than I am!”

“He’s certainly killed more Sinners than I have by now, considering how long the Exterminations have been in effect.” Hell’s history books were patchy at best, and Lucifer only talked about his – and by extension, Hell’s – past in vague, non-specific terms, often while drunk or sentimental. Or both.

Alastor’s claws began to draw blood. “And from the combination of what Charlie and Lilith and you have all told me, he’s a vulgar, disrespectful chauvinist!”

The pain no longer felt like an anchor. It was fuel on the fire that was the rage burning within him, the wrath he felt at the injustice of it all.

“My mother raised me to be a gentleman,” Alastor said. “Any disrespect I show is based on a woman's actions, not her sex. But Adam expected Lilith to bend to his whims simply on the basis of her gender! He talked down to Charlie, likely on the same logic!”

“And yes, I kill because I enjoy it, but I’m selective with my victims! I enact vengeance on behalf of the weak and vulnerable! In life, I corrected the injustices of a corrupt system, and in death I punish those already Damned by their sins!”

Blood was seeping through Alastor’s knuckles. He pushed his claws deeper, sinking them into the meat of his palms.

“So why…?” There were bloodstains on the carpet. Niffty would be quite upset if she learned that the blood was Alastor’s rather than one of his meals’.

“Why?” Alastor repeated, barely audible above his own feedback. His cheeks were wet. He must have gotten blood on them at some point.

Everything was silent for a moment, save for the static Alastor couldn’t reign in.

Then, Lucifer spoke. “It’s complicated,” he said, quietly.

Alastor made an animalistic sound deep in the back of his throat, something between a growl and a whimper. But he let the Devil speak.

“I don’t know the particulars, but murder and vengeance are both Damnable sins.”

“Then why isn’t he Damned,” Alastor said through gritted teeth. “Why hasn’t Adam Fallen?”

Lucifer sighed. “Nepotism?”

Alastor laughed. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you!”

“What the fuck do you mean by that?” Lucifer asked, his volume increasing. “My Father kicked me out of Heaven for falling in love with Lilith and for daring to dream of a world where humanity wasn’t bound by eternal ignorance.”

“And he gave you a kingdom!” Alastor swung his arms, flinging blood across the room with the sheer force of the movement. “He let you and Lilith elope when he could’ve smited you both! Do you think he’d give the same courtesy to his other angelic children, or do the rumors of you being his favorite son hold true, hm, Lightbringer?”

The radio began to smoke and glow with a faint golden light.

“Get that name out of your fucking mouth, Alastor.”

Alastor ignored him, ignored the projections of his power.

“My father never would’ve shown me such benevolence if I’d disobeyed him the way you did yours.” Alastor moved to inspect the bloodstains on the walls. “And the best thing he ever gave me was a lesson in the inherent cruelty of man.”

Youre Part Of The Secret Squadron- Or Are You? Were Henry and Patty Actually Captain Midnight Fans? Is 7 Year Old “Henry” Brenner?

So, I talked in this post about some of the stuff re: the idea of Patty and Henry and Brenner somehow being mentally connected (and I also currently have another drafts in the works about it).

And now, I want to talk about Captain Midnight.

So, Captain Midnight’s story came in many forms, including the original radio show, a tv show, and a series of comic books.

And as we know, in TFS, Henry and Patty are both fans of Captain Midnight/they’re both “part of the Secret Squadron”.

However, their interest in Captain Midnight struck me as a bit odd- even though Patty asks Henry if he’s a “bit old” for Captain Midnight, I’m actually thinking that Henry and Patty might be a bit too young.

Why?

Well, the original Captain Midnight radio show only ran from 1938 to 1949. Whereas TFS Henry and Patty are 14, meaning they were born in 1945, making them 4 years old when the radio show ended.

And the TV show ran from 1954-1956, which IS more feasible for Henry and Patty but still a little odd.

And finally, the comic book series ran from 1942 to 1948- and Patty and Henry seem to be big comic fans based on their conversation about other comics + based on that opening scene of Mr Newby confiscating Patty’s comic- and while yes, the comics wouldve still existed in 1948, their run was over when Henry and Patty wouldve been 3 years old, so it’s not like it was a currently running comic series during TFS/it wouldnt have even been currently running when they were old enough to read.

And while it’s not at all out of the question for them to have been Captain Midnight fans, it’s just something that struck me as a little weird- Captain Midnight was a just little before their time. Especially since in-show Henry is never shown with anything related to Captain Midnight- there were lots of opportunities to give him a Captain Midnight comic, or to show him drawing Captain Midnight during that scene where he’s drawing with his crayons in the living room etc, but they never referenced it at all.

This also brings me to 7 year old Henry- we see him open up his Captain Midnight Spyglass on his birthday, and we see him do the Captain Midnight Salute:

However, like I’ve mentioned before, that little guy doesn’t look like Henry- his hair is DARK brown instead of blonde:

But he DOES look quite a lot like Brenner- the dark brown hair and the blue eyes, just like Brenner.

Especially when we look at 15 year old Brenner- look at 7 year old “Henry’s” hair, it’s slicked over in the same way that 15 year old Brenner’s hair is:

AND, they specifically showed footage of 7 year old Henry’s birthday- and they ALSO brought up Brenner’s birthday, his 15th birthday was the same day that Brenner Sr embarked on Project Rainbow.

AND, I talked in this post about all of the stuff in TFS that conflates Brenner and Henry.

AND, jumping back to Captain Midnight, Brenner being a Captain Midnight fan makes way more sense because a.) Brenner wouldve been born in 1929 and 15 in 1944, making him the perfect age for him to have grown up at the peak of Captain Midnight’s popularity, and b.) Captain Midnight was a WW1 pilot, and Brenner Sr was also involved in WW1 in addition to being involved in WW2 by the time TFS rolls around.

Brenner is the PERFECT candidate for being a Captain Midnight fan. And I’ve been wondering if that 7 year old “Henry” is actually 7 year old Brenner.

And considering all of that PLUS what I mentioned in the beginning of this post re: Brenner and Patty, and considering all of the simulation stuff with TFS and the fact that NINA involves memories, PLUS the fact that when I brought all this up on discord, James mentioned all this vs the fact that El seems to have possibly have some of Brenner’s memories in NINA, as during that scene where El runs down the hallway, there’s SO many similarities re: Brenner’s shots vs El’s shots.

Plus what I’ve been working on re: the moving dead bodies analysis + the fact that multiple of the closeup shots that El supposedly saw of the bodies are the same shots that Brenner saw:

Considering all of this, I’m wondering if Patty and Henry are Captain Midnight fans because Brennner’s memories re: Captain Midnight (and other memories) somehow ended up in their brains, especially considering the talk about how Henry and Patty are “connected,” versus Brenner constantly telling Henry to “connect”:

Brenner, were you the real Captain Midnight fan? Are Patty and Henry connected to Brenner’s brain somehow?

YOU DID THIS @ragingcitrustree

Ben Shapiro: I could not be more excited to speak with Max Anders—well, as Max knows. Before the show, we talked for an hour about interesting things. We should have caught that on tape. But now we’re actually going to get the chance to do it live. Max new book, if you haven’t bought it yet—everybody on the planet has bought this book. I was walking through the office today; we didn’t have a copy in the office; the person at the front desk had a copy of your book just sitting on her desk. 14 Words: How To Strengthen and Empower Our Country’s Blood and Soil . A fantastic book, obviously topping all the bestseller lists, all over the world. Max, thanks so much for joining the show. I really appreciate it.

CEO of Medhall, Max Anders: Thanks for the invitation.

BS: Obviously your prominence has just blown up in the last year and a half. We were talking before the show about why that is and why there are so many people suddenly very angry about you. I noticed there was an article in the Brockton Bay Gazette suggesting that young, angry white males—you are now their leader. So congratulations.

MA: Oh, yes.

BS: I wanted to ask about that: why do you think that, number one, your profile’s become so big of late? And number two, why do you think it is that so many members of the left are so angry about that? Why are they characterizing people who listen to you as "angry" and "enraged young white men"?

MA: Well, we can look at the characterization to begin with. I think it speaks to the pathology of the radical left, instantly. They’re absolutely incapable of viewing the world except through group identity terms. If someone comes out and disagrees with them, then they have to characterize them by their fundamental group attribute, whatever that happens to be. Maybe it’s gender, because that’s a favourite, or maybe it’s race. So "angry young white man"—there we go: sexist, ageist, and racist all at once. They’re angry, young, white, men. Well, it has to be that way, if you’re going to play the leftist game, like New Wave does, because that’s the only way that you can look at the world. It’s strange that they would attempt to make them reprehensible on the grounds of race, age, and sex, since that’s precisely what they stand against, hypothetically. But if you can’t make your enemy reprehensible along some dimension, then you have to contend with them seriously. And so if I’m not an alt-right fascist like Hitler or supposedly Allfather, which was how I was characterized in Canada—because the radical leftists can’t even get their bloody interests straight: "he’s like Hitler or Allfather." There’s no obvious difference between them, right? It’s just another attempt to pillory, as far as I can tell. I think that it’s dreadful. I really think it is.

There was an article written by, I believe, The New York Review of Books, which was just republished in The Globe and Mail, talking about the emergence of hyper-masculinity, and how I was somehow responsible for that or contributing to it, like Mussolini or Crowley Brothers. I read that and I thought, "ok, so what are you doing? I see: you’re conflating masculinity and hyper-masculinity at the same time. Then you’re virtue signally by being against hyper-masculinity. But really, what you’re trying to do is bring down whatever it is that’s masculinity. And what masculinity is, in this frame, is something like competence." And so it’s part of the radical leftists’ general war on competence as well, which I think is one of the most pernicious elements of the culture wars—the dissolution of hierarchies; the assuming that every hierarchy has to be based on power and serve the needs of your group, whatever that happens to be; that there’s no such thing as competence. And then the other thing that’s reprehensible about it—because that’s not enough—is that it’s just wrong.

So I was in L.A. about a month and a half ago. I was downtown L.A, and downtown L.A. is kind of rough, because you know what hero runs that city. I was wandering around with my wife, and this young guy pulled a car up beside me and hopped out. He was kind of a stylish looking twenty-one-year-old Latino guy. No Alexandria shirt but even then I was like, “oh no, here comes trouble”. But he was all excited. He asked me who I was, and I told him. That’s what he had presumed, so he was kind of excited about that.

He said, "I’ve watched all your lectures, and it’s really helped me. I’ve been straightening out my life and trying to get my room clean"—he laughed about that—"developing some aims and trying to tell the truth. I’ve really fixed up my relationship with my father." Then he said, "wait, wait. Just wait a minute." I thought, "sure." So he went back in the car, and he got his father out of his car, and he came over with his dad. They had their arms around each other. He said, "look, we’ve really improved our relationship," and they’re both smiling away. That’s… Man, if you’re going to target me for that, just go right ahead.

BS: Yeah. It sounds real "white supremacist."

Stayed up ’til 2AM finishing ’25 despite knowing today is full of air flight. Bless my own fool heart. Thoughts:

- I did not anticipate the barricade to go so hard. It’s bloody and frantic. The battle is more or less constant, the timeline compressed, which works fine. I find the gore makeup surprisingly effective, & props to all the actors playing dead who get stepped on during the action.

- A great number of women and folks in working men’s clothes throughout the crowds as the city riots—the movie is grasping something here that the novel doesn’t.

- Le Cabuc! The movie gives a disproportionate (I don’t mean this negatively) amount of time to this sequence and I think it’s worth asking why. Le Cabuc’s role is to illustrate corruption—the conflation of government with criminal—the demonstration of how official narratives are constructed to damage the image of revolution. His inclusion is sharply political, critical of government and police, and the emphasis here surprises me in the context of a film that eschewed Hugo’s preface and has overall gone soft on law-as-unjustice. It’s clever to use Éponine investigating the corpse to show his police identification and explicitly tie him for the viewer to his previous appearance as Claquesous. Less effective: when Enjolras shoots him he’s holding the firearm at a peculiar angle and it looks like Le Cabuc dies promptly of being shot in the foot.

- Éponine. Bless. Her death scene is so drawn out, she slumps and comes back, it’s a tragicomedy. Not a scene that translated well across the century. Still made me sad as hell, this Marius didn’t deserve her. Also, Nivette looks great in drag.

- boo, no martingale.

- yes, “Vous m'ennuyez. Tuez-moi plutôt.” Listen, I’m a Valjean/Javert guy, the inclusion of this line gave me joy, I can’t help myself. There are a few choices in Toulout’s performance throughout the barricade sequence that I feel ambivalent about (he wanders into the mostly empty Corinthe to have a brief nap, eyes fluttering shut as he props his chin on his fist, clearly contrary to the Brick, in which characters are almost never allowed to rest; he fights when caught—common adaptation choice, it makes more psychological sense even as it undercuts an aspect of the character, namely that Javert does *not* make sense), but overall an enjoyable apostrophe in among all the death. Gabrio’s “get going!” gesture after he frees Toulout cracks me up, I wish I could gif it.

- Are y’all Enjoltaire people satisfied with this rendition of “Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk”? There wasn’t much space to breathe life into their dynamic, but it hits the essential point (which is the permets-tu, yeah?).

- I take back my words about Thénardier as pitiable—or, maybe he still is, but in the sewers the menace becomes primary. Creepy fuck.

- When they emerge from the sewer, as Valjean takes a rest and after he checks for vital signs, he clasps his hand over Marius’—it’s an oddly gentle gesture, even sweet, and it forefronts the kindness Gabrio has imbued the role with. He telegraphed his hate of Marius earlier but maybe dragging a guy through the sewer puts a little tenderness in your heart, if only for a moment.

- Javert shows up, we get his “Qui êtes-vous?”—the movie has become very invested in cleaving to his book dialogue, curiously. He doesn’t clamp his baton in his teeth but he does get right up in Valjean’s dookie-smeared face (gross).

- The “Javert Derailed” sequence—really interesting choices throughout. There’s liberal use of intertitles to describe his inner state as he chews the scenery, more than is the film’s usual, including at least one that is arguably a restatement of what’s been acted out on screen and therefore works to particularly emphasize the point to the viewer (iirc it’s a slightly abridged “Il était forcé de reconnaître que la bonté existait. Ce forçat avait été bon. Et lui-même, chose inouïe, il venait d'être bon. Donc il se dépravait.”). He does not write a suicide note in this version even though there’s screen time enough for it, oddly. Also oddly (somewhat comedically) as he’s visibly having a breakdown in the police station a man sits at the back of the room and smokes a pipe, unmoving—a concrete representation of the system and its indifference to its even most loyal of agents, perhaps? Anyway, good job, ’25, you thoroughly derailed this poor fuck.

- The remainder of the film feels rushed, and I wonder if the creative team wished they didn’t have to play it out. If only they knew a half dozen future adaptations would call on the “too fucking sad” principle and cut off even before the wedding, eh? In a peculiar choice we spend some time looking at a book, not an intertitle, on which is written the passage excusing Cosette’s lack of attentiveness during Valjean’s decline, almost as if to say: listen, this is in the novel, we can’t help it. I’d quote but—working on phone, here. Valjean’s death makes me want to cry, I’m attached to Gabrio’s rendition of him, Milovanoff revives herself for a pitch-perfect take of Cosette’s sweet prattling attempt to speak him back to life. Fuck this story (I love it).

Overall? 9/10, an entertaining film with a solid cast, moments of brilliant acting, good choices where abridgment of the original material is concerned, attentiveness to the source without slavishness to it. Loses a point for failure to lean as heavily into the politics as Hugo does (also a bit more Catholic than the original—I forgive it). Normally I wouldn’t so entirely judge an adaptation for its relationship to the Brick (most of them deviate greatly enough that it’s kind of futile), but ’25 seems to have the primary intent of putting on screen what’s on the page, so I’ll meet it where it’s at.

it’s obvious i haven’t taken my adhd meds in a few days because my brain is screaming every interest i have ever had and telling me to look for a tag for it to follow and then that leads me down a rabbit hole of other tags then i’m reminded of other interests and i’m having to keep up with all these things being said at me to follow. then there’s the adult voice telling me i need to stop worrying about tumblr tags and look for a job and how maybe my father was right that i am a disappointment and i’ve ruined my life. and i’m also listening to taylor swift’s new playlists so i’m thinking about grief and relationships and how maybe i’m not lovable and the idea that anyone could ever fall in love with me seems impossible. also i want to do my affirmations and meditations and visualizations but my brain has too many thoughts and i want to learn witchcraft and i want to go to this witchcraft store i found and the solar eclipse is happening on monday and do i need to do something special for that to get my desires??? also what am i going to eat for dinner? i don’t feel like cooking but ordering out is expensive but ordering out is easy and i just need to eat. and i’m spending money but not doing anything to earn money and i had a therapy session today where i realized that yes i do feel younger but also i feel small/inferior because the world feels too intimidating and judge mental so maybe i’ve been conflating “inferiority” with “immaturity”. and i also have part 2 to my autism testing tomorrow and it’s like if i am diagnosed with autism, then that gives me answers but i’m also still dealing with the disappointment, grief, sadness, anger, frustration, stagnation, trauma and anxiety regardless of my diagnosis. and how will i ever live a life that can support me and my needs and wants when capitalism and politics and mental illness is such a blockade to living a peaceful life and everything is scary and i wish i was a fairy living in a little mushroom house and i have over 500 books on my want to read list on goodreads, i have over 2000 movies in my watchlist on latterboxd, over 1700 videos on my youtube watchlist, over 1000 videos in my subscription youtube video playlist i want to watch, i have easily over 100 tv shows i want to watch written down, and i have no idea why i exist but there’s so much i want to do and it feels overwhelming and now it’s past 6pm and the whole day is gone but what did i accomplish today except another day of yearning for relief?? i guess i’ll just go through the rory culkin tag and listen to taylor swift and hope for a tomorrow that feels more organized even though my brain only knows how to be on a loop of dread and exhaustion

Snippet from 'lay-on-the-floor-and-scream dot excel' please ❤❤❤

As you might have guessed from the title, this is my 'good data management solves the Clone Wars' AU! Work had me pretty agitated when I put it together, so it's more canon-divergent than originally intended, but hopefully it still holds up.

I started off thinking that the clones, coming from Kamino, would be pretty used to keeping extensive documentation on themselves/each other.  Multiple sets of books, even—the sanitized ones they show the longnecks, the informal tracking of things nobody else cares about, the multiply-encrypted ones with the honest data about how their siblings are doing—as automated and redundant as possible, and while yeah it would be difficult to maintain during wartime, they are 1) the best-trained military minds and logisticians in existence and 2) absolutely not going to pay less attention to their siblings when they’re in more danger. 

For this fic also I focused in on a worldbuilding thing that I actually thought was true a million years ago before I’d ever gotten into any Star Wars nonsense, which is that Lightside users are a sort of filtering system for the Force.  That the Dark was an agent or consequence of some sort of metaphysical entropy—the constant descriptions of it as cold and oppressive really reinforced that one for me—and Force-sensitives would dedicate themselves to opposing it on behalf of the universe.  So they’d be agents and sources of the Light, not only directly combating Darksiders (and more prosaically evil people) but also through meditation (and to some degree intrinsic aura) functioning as something like metaphysical space-heaters.  I was thinking of them kinda through a D&D lens, like galactic paladin-monks.  It made sense to me. 

Under this system, then, not only would things feel cold and depressing around a Sith, but the world would be warmer and more comforting around a Jedi.  To, say, a statistically significant degree.  You see where I’m going with this—what if there was a sweet little chart that proved, mathematically and objectively, that puppy piles around the Jedi general improve the quality of life/life expectancy of everyone involved? 

Such a chart could also indicate a general getting closer to a Fall (Krell more cleanly than Anakin, since Anakin’s baseline will be skewed after the Tusken massacre, and conflated by Obi-Wan and Ahsoka’s recurring presences) or various other ongoing issues in a battalion (Corrie Guard, my beloveds) but we have to start by convincing our ascetic galactic paladin-monks of the efficacy of wartime cuddles. 

Cody hums faintly, and still does not continue.  Obi-Wan has years of practice and does not need the Force to tell him to be patient, that if he pushes Cody now he might miss his chance to hear something important.  The Force tells him anyway.  “General.”  Cody begins again.  “You know the kark you make up so you don’t have to directly answer a direct question?”  Obi-Wan narrows his eyes.  This conversation could be about many things.  The Force tells him yes.  It is unhelpful.  It seems he takes too long to answer, and Cody continues on, delivering further defamatory accusations in his polite semi-formal voice.  “As when you refuse mandatory post-mission checkups, and Helix hunts you down and asks if whatever put the holes in your robes put any matching holes in you, and instead of telling him what he certainly knows, you spin a charming tale about some other poor sap who possibly got shot but is probably fine regardless, no need for any medics who may or may not exist to get involved?” The Force says yes.  Obi-Wan does not roll his eyes, because he is a master of the jedi order and also of himself.  “I’m familiar with the rhetorical construction of a hypothetical situation, yes.”  He replies primly.  “Good.  I’d like to discuss a situation with you, sir, with the understanding that everything I describe is purely hypothetical.”

(also as you can see this is a very fun Cody for me to write, because he and all the rest of the 212th have gone their entire wartime experience with Obi-Wan layering peace/comfort/reassurance over them like a mantle, so he’s a lot more comfortable speaking his mind and I get to lean into my favorite codywan bitch4bitch relationship dynamic from the jump)

Live reading blog (is that how you call it?) of Inmortal Longings

Chapters one to eight

chloe gong describing cities >>>

August is blonde???

3 pages in and i’m confused

the whole body hopping schist is so interesting

ok i like how she built this thing with the eye color

Wait so he’s just throwing things as if it’s normal?

ok so they exhiled him from his body

really liking the social commentary

yay sapphics!

so she’s responsible for the Er massacre???

Wait i thought King Kasa had betrayed Calla or smt but she just wanted to destroy the monarchy ( iconic of her btw)but i thought there was personal spice here

Can you tell i’ve never read Marc Anthony and Cleopatra?

I don’t really get why it’s a show, especially if the regular citizens are the ones watching. But maybe they’ll explain that later idk

Anton and August were best friends???

There are so many aspects about the body hopping, i feel like i have to write things down

ok so we also have the Sicans, i still dont know what the Crescent Society is

Ohhh they’re about to meet

Not Anton flirting with Calla while they’re trying to murder each other

So Pampi’s gonna be trouble

Can 15 yo compete???

Why did i never think about how the body hopping might conflate with trans identities until she mentioned it?

ok why is my gender identity so similar to Calla and how did she put that into words???

Does this make Calla genderqueer? i’m saying yes

The Crescent Society liking Calla is definately plot relevant right?

Don’t tell me Eno is dying

Why is Anton still throwing things?

I like Felo

He clocked her already?

wdym you can’t go in an out of san-er? that’s messed up

August’s whole “when i am king” optimism is so strange and i have toughts

what the fuck it’s wrong with King Kasa?

If i sound stupid i apologize, this book is known to ruin people’s reading cromprehension

hi, it’s the hofas/gun control anon here! thank you for such a well thought out answer :) and i’m sorry my response is so long!

first, i do agree with how nesta and az’s different opinions do match up with their experiences, so that does put their conversation into more context. i definitely agree with what you said about how the conversation kind of just blinked and moved on immediately - but i feel like this is a problem in a lot of sjm’s books, where she’ll bring up a complicated political issue that has interesting implications in her fantasy world, but then just move on immediately without actually wanting to delve into the hard, uncomfortable parts of it.

while i agree that it probably wasn’t meant to show sjm’s gun views herself, and i firmly subscribe to the belief that depiction doesn’t equal endorsement and authors should be able to examine the nuance of lots of different social issues and perspectives without readers conflating it with the author’s own opinions, i do think this scene does exemplify a major fault in her writing in that all of the complicated topics surrounding oppression and sexism and all the isms in her stories are tackled in a moderate, “safe” way. so i completely agree with everything you said about respectability politics! as a side note, i’m currently reading babel: or the necessity of violence by rf kuang which has this quote that i really liked: “This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”

so like, while yes, i don’t think it would be fair to try to determine sjm’s exact views on gun control laws from her fictional characters’ discussion of it, i do feel that it’s representative of the very white feminist-esque views that she perpetuates through her writing, rather than delving more into the dynamics of structural inequality and taking an intersectional perspective. i do think how an author chooses to write about social issues can be indicative of their own personal views, rather than what words are actually on the page. and what gets me is that the potential is there!! like she creates such complex, rich worlds with such unique characters, but i feel like sometimes she just glosses over the harder stuff. i am very curious how she will decide to resolve the illyrian plot - i am truly hoping she doesn’t take a white savior approach with feyre or nesta, or just having devlon killed off, as it wouldn’t actually fix the sexism ingrained in their cultural norms. 

i wonder if sjm writing in this way (like respectability politics) has taken a turn for the worse since throne of glass? i def agree with everything you said about bryce and cc, but i feel like it was the opposite with aelin. like aelin was never opposed to using violence in order to fight back against oppression, esp coming from her own background as a slave. i haven’t read tog in a while so maybe nostalgia is blinding me and it had the same issues, but idk. 

i’d love to know your thoughts! I

Hello! Here is the original post for anyone confused.

i do think this scene does exemplify a major fault in her writing in that all of the complicated topics surrounding oppression and sexism and all the isms in her stories are tackled in a moderate, “safe” way.

I totally agree with this. I think that she does sometimes lean into more complicated topics, but that would mess with the HEAs she wants to write, at the end of the day. And she seems to be working through some difficult topics in her writing, but then... idk, gets bored with it? Which really highlights her privilege, to me, because she can think about these things, but never too deeply, not if she doesn't feel like it. I don't wanna get too much into her personal life or politics but CC as a whole has really made me wonder about her!!! I have some big questions, but it's not my place and I don't think it's very respectful, so I'll just leave that there. Like if she came out publicly posting a "Blue Lives Matter" graphic then I'd get into it, but she's private and I respect that.

That quote from Babel is *chef's kiss*, perfect. That's exactly what I was alluding to and a big problem that I had with hoeab. That I was waiting to get addressed in hosab. And then was waiting to see if it ever got resolved in hofas. Surprise! No. Nope. We're just going to go with this cognitive dissonance around people's actions and beliefs and just... hail Bryce as a hero, I guess. Even though she truly doesn't give a fuck unless she gets pulled kicking and screaming into giving a fuck. (I'm sorry my anti Bryce just spilled out, my cup is too full of it.)

I was talking to @gimme-mor about the series the other day and she had some great thoughts about why Bryce may have been so dismissive of other people's struggles (ones that she, I thought, should have empathized with) but I'll see if she wants to add on or make a post about it. :) I'll just say that her original idea that would have explained Bryce's attitude, in her opinion, did not pan out.

Sometimes, I think we are in love with the potential of sjm books, more than the actual payoff. They hit the right beats just enough and with just enough oomph that there is something there. Or maybe that's not totally fair because I do give some of her books 5 stars still, after multiple rereads. But she doesn't always follow through to the same extent that she did in HoF or acomaf! But I do wonder if we think about all of these issues far, far more than she is.

i wonder if sjm writing in this way (like respectability politics) has taken a turn for the worse since throne of glass?

I was actually saying something similar to this to someone the other day. Because yes, these are different stories, and different characters, but you have to wonder, with a different political climate than existed in 2012 or whatever, or whenever she was a teenager in the early 2000s, how much that influenced her views and the way that she wanted to write these kinds of stories. Again, it could be that she is just writing a different kind of story! That she wanted to explore different kinds of characters. But Bryce being a discount, knock-off version of Aelin doesn't make that seem likely. IDK!

Because I still have shit to say, apparently.

The thing that’s been really frustrating me about how the Adam/Eric break-up played out and how people have been reacting to it, is that I think there are two entirely different things at play here, and conflating them creates confusion.

The first thing is Eric feeling the need to break up with Adam because he feels like he can’t be his true self with him. And this might be controversial, but I think Eric had every right to do that. No matter what, everyone always has the right to break up with someone if the relationship doesn’t work for them.

The second thing is that, for the moment (we’ll see how a potential season 4 deals with this), I get the sense the show wants me to believe that objectively speaking, Eric was correct in thinking he couldn’t be himself with Adam, that he was losing himself because of Adam. And that’s the thing I have a problem with.

People have already talked about how Adam never once tried to get Eric to be anything but his true self as far as Eric’s behaviour and style goes. And while, yes, he wasn’t out to his mum yet, he was out to literally everyone else in their lives—and all he was asking for was a little time to gather the courage to come out to his mum too. But the thing I want to talk about is how, after a whole season of Adam going out of his comfort zone in various ways (and not just for Eric, but for his own sake too, like asking Ms Sands for help in getting better with school), Adam says he didn’t think putting make up on and going to a gay club would be his thing, and Eric immediately, without even talking to him about it, decided that was a fixed point of Adam’s character and that meant Adam wasn’t the guy for him.

And again, I’m not actually saying Eric was wrong to feel that. I’m just saying that, based on Adam’s pattern of behaviour, I wish the show wouldn’t act as if it was an objective truth.

Because the thing is, Adam doesn’t like poetry. That’s not his thing either. And the second Eric actually used his words and told him that he liked it, Adam went and not only read a poetry book, but actually put real, impressive effort into writing poetry himself. All because Eric told him he liked it.

What I’m saying is, the idea that Adam wouldn’t agree to go to a gay club with Eric (with or without putting make-up on himself), if Eric actually expressed that it mattered to him, just doesn’t work for me.

So, yeah, Eric broke up with Adam because he wanted to fly while Adam’s still learning to walk and, you know what, that’s fair enough. But it seems to me that the only reason Eric didn’t think Adam was ready to fly is because he never actually paid all that much attention to Adam, and all the ways in which he already wasn’t the person Eric thought he was. (See also Eric’s dismissive laughter at the idea Adam could ever write him poetry, when in fact, that’s exactly what Adam then did.)

Also, I really could have gone without the idea that not wanting to go out to a gay club while wearing make-up means Adam isn’t ready to fly. It probably means he and Eric aren’t compatible, sure, but it’s not actually a sign that Adam isn’t on Eric’s evolved level of queerness yet. Shockingly enough, it’s possible to be a fully realized queer without enjoying the club scene!

Idk, I just wish the break-up happened because Eric realized they weren’t compatible because they enjoy different things. Presenting it as an issue of Adam not being on Eric’s level of queerness yet really left a bad taste in my mouth, especially as it was used as a way to sort of excuse Eric cheating.

And I know Adam loves Eric and is devastated by the break-up, but the main reason I’m okay with it is because he deserves better than someone who not only constantly pushes him out of his comfort zone, but then completely fails to even see the progress he’s making.

‘For some reason, everyone seems to think I’m boho,’ says Jemima Kirke, sitting down in a corner booth in the dimly lit Manhattan bistro where we’re meeting for lunch. She’s just come from her Telegraph Magazine photo shoot, which involved Kirke wearing ‘lots of florals and prairie, flowy stuff’.

‘I often end up wearing those kinds of clothes in magazines,’ she says, adding that her personal style is more minimalist. As if to prove her point, she is now dressed simply in a cream wool jumper, baggy black trousers and boots, her dirty-blonde hair spun into a loose bun. Her ears are scattered with mismatched gold studs and hoops; her wrists and fingers covered in finely drawn stick-and-poke tattoos. ‘Maybe it’s because I played a character [who liked those clothes]?’ she muses, scanning the menu. ‘Since when have people presumed that a character you played is who you are?’

The character she’s referencing is Jessa Johansson, the impulsive, chaotic, self-absorbed and, yes, bohemian 20-something Kirke played in Girls, HBO’s era-defining comedy-drama about a quartet of female friends rolling around New York in pursuit of purpose, love and, ultimately, themselves.

The show, which was created by Lena Dunham (who also starred in it), ran for six series from 2012 to 2017 and made an undisputed star of Kirke, who previously had only one significant acting credit (a role in Dunham’s acclaimed 2010 film Tiny Furniture). Not long after Girls debuted, The New Yorker described Kirke as ‘one of the best actresses and stars… on any screen in a very long time’.

Five years on from its conclusion, however, Kirke, 36, is tired of being conflated with a character she has long left behind. Returning home after the final series wrapped was ‘like hitting land’, she explains in her throaty, transatlantic drawl (Kirke was born in London but moved to New York at the age of 10). ‘You just want to cry and fall on the couch,’ she adds. ‘I was ready to move on.’

Today, Kirke is deliberately picky about the work she takes on and tends towards projects with a definitive end date. Much of this is to minimise time spent away from her children, Rafaella, 11, and Memphis, nine, whom she shares with her ex-husband, Michael Mosberg, a former lawyer. The pair live ‘down the street’ from one another in north Brooklyn in order to facilitate their co-parenting arrangement. (Kirke’s house, she says, is ‘extremely colourful, very 1940s’. Her bed is ‘pink, velvet and shell-shaped’.)

‘The kids are the priority and I have to make sacrifices around them,’ she says. ‘You’d think going away for months for a shoot would get easier, but it actually gets worse because I’ve already missed all that time with them and now I’m adding to it.’

This internal battle reared its head when she was first approached to star in Conversations with Friends, the much-anticipated TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s debut novel. Kirke was sent the script while on set in Wales for the Netflix show Sex Education (she joined in series three as Hope Haddon, the authoritarian new headteacher of the fictional Moordale Secondary School) and didn’t immediately respond. She’d never read the book or watched Normal People, the lusty, wildly successful BBC Three adaptation of Rooney’s second novel, which, on its launch in April 2020, catapulted actors Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones to stardom.

‘I was exhausted and hated being away from my kids,’ she says, staring into the distance. ‘I wasn’t in the mood to do any more work so I kept ignoring the email. Finally, I looked at it and said, “I’ll do a Zoom audition once I’m done filming.”’

She was eventually offered the part of Melissa, a haughty yet captivating writer locked in an unfulfilling union with her actor husband, Nick (played by Joe Alwyn). Both in the book and on screen, the plot unfolds from the perspective of Frances (Alison Oliver), a 21-year-old university student who, along with her best friend and former girlfriend Bobbi (Sasha Lane), finds herself unexpectedly involved in the aforementioned marriage.

The series was shot last year from April to October, with much of the filming taking place in locations across Ireland. Did Kirke sit down with Rooney to discuss the author’s vision for Melissa? ‘I’ve never met Sally Rooney,’ she replies crisply. ‘She was never on set, not once.’

At times, she says, she found the role ‘a stretch’. In what way? ‘It’s remarkable that someone of that age [Rooney] has so much discipline and focus, but as I was finally reading the book, I was thinking, “This is marriage written from the perspective of a 22-year-old.” I don’t think that’s good or bad. Her writing is beautiful but there were moments when I struggled to make something work.’

How did she find solutions? ‘I did a lot of writing – stream of consciousness – until I could find a link,’ she says, explaining that she takes a notebook with her on set to jot down thoughts about her character. ‘If I’m playing a wife in a troubled marriage, I won’t think about my own marriage because then I’m putting myself into it and that’s not the job.’

From its early episodes, the series paints a pessimistic view of monogamy. Not only are Nick and Melissa depicted as living separate lives, but Frances and Bobbi scoff at the idea of marriage as something dull and restrictive that only bored, older people embark on. Kirke is currently in a live-in relationship with Australian musician Alex Cameron. In true celebrity style, she instructed her agent to arrange a meeting with him after seeing his music videos, and the pair began dating. Since then, Kirke has directed and starred in several of his offbeat videos. After experiencing both marriage and its dissolution (she met her ex-husband at a rehab centre where they were both receiving treatment, before marrying him in 2009 and separating eight years later), does she share the show’s cynicism when it comes to long-term love?

She narrows her eyes, chewing the question over for a moment. ‘No. But I do think this idea of permanence is old-fashioned,’ she says. ‘Marriage can be something you go through on your journey. You were really in love at that moment and you had a party and a big dress. You committed to each other and that was your intention but life changes and that’s OK. It wasn’t a failure. I’ve had friends getting married who ask, “Do you think I’m making a mistake?”’ She shrugs and laughs. ‘Maybe! But do you really want to get married? Yeah! So do it. I don’t see what the problem is. The perspective of marriage as something super-permanent and spiritual is really antiquated.’

It’s a characteristically considered response from Kirke, who speaks slowly and deliberately as she pieces together sentences that she feels accurately represent her views. It’s not that she’s cautious, rather that she has no interest in following the crowd when it comes to her opinions – or anything else, for that matter.

‘It’s very counterintuitive for me to sit down with a person and pretend to have a conversation but really be performing. I try to be clear with my words because I want to be clear with myself,’ she says, tucking into roast Brussels sprouts and tuna tartare. She’s on day two of a paleo regime, which is part of a bigger attempt to take care of herself after five months of ‘being immersed in the mundane and my job as a mum. It was a guilt move after being away for so long filming and I definitely overdid it,’ she sighs.

Since she first hit the spotlight, Kirke has been branded a wild child by the media. While that may have been the case in earlier years, today she comes across as a homebody (‘I have no problem saying no to events to stay at home with my kids,’ she explains) and somebody deeply in control of her life. She’s engaging and professional but has no truck with niceties. When I ask who she is still in touch with from Girls, she shrugs. ‘Just Lena but I haven’t spoken to her since she got married [to the British-Peruvian musician Luis Felber in September last year].’ The curtness of the reply implies that the cast is no longer close and Kirke has no interest in pretending otherwise.

Born in Westminster to Lorraine, an interior designer who used to run a vintage-clothing boutique in New York’s West Village (it supplied some of Carrie Bradshaw’s outfits in Sex and the City), and Simon, the former drummer of rock bands Free and Bad Company, Kirke comes from an artsy family. It was a loving, creative home (when, aged seven, Kirke showed an interest in painting, her mum turned their wine cellar into an art studio) but, as a teenager, Kirke recalls being left to her own devices. ‘They never spoke to me about sex,’ she says of her parents. ‘I’m not angry about it but issues weren’t always addressed directly. I didn’t have someone guiding me on those things.’

She plans to correct this with her own children. ‘I try to bring them [difficult subjects] up when there’s an opportunity. So when I hear something or see a behaviour I’m worried about, I use it as an opportunity to insert some of my beliefs. But not too much. That’s how you f—k up your kids – you give them your beliefs and they don’t have their own.’

Kirke’s maternal grandfather was the banker turned billionaire property tycoon Jack Dellal, famous for his love of gambling and flipping properties at speed (in 1987 he bought London’s Bush House for £55 million; he sold it two years later for £130 million). Her cousins include shoe designer Charlotte Olympia Dellal and model Alice Dellal (whom Kirke counts as one of her best friends), and she has two sisters – Lola, an actor and ‘country musician’, for whom Kirke has directed music videos (they also played sisters in the 2019 film Untogether), and Domino, a Brooklyn-based singer, actor and doula who was hired by comedian Amy Schumer when she was pregnant.

Not long after the Kirke brood upped sticks to Manhattan, Jemima started at the liberal Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn where, as well as befriending Dunham, she was close to the model and Boardwalk Empire actor Paz de la Huerta. The pair shunned school social events, preferring to hang out in tattoo parlours and, when they could blag their way in, bars. ‘This actually used to be a cool spot in the early 2000s,’ she chuckles, gazing around the restaurant. ‘It was where we came to drink at the start or end of the night.’

She went on to study fine art at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, but was suspended for missing classes. It was after graduation that she finally honed her focus, producing a series of watercolour portraits (predominantly of women she knew) that drew comparisons to American painter Alice Neel. But recently painting has tumbled down her list of priorities. ‘I haven’t really done it in the past two years because of all the jobs,’ she says wistfully. ‘I really miss it.’

Kirke has been very open about her earlier life experiences, from going to rehab at 19 to being raped by a drug dealer in her early 20s (something she only made public in 2018, after Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against then US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh).

Around this time, she became pregnant by her then boyfriend and sought an abortion. In order to afford the procedure, she refused anaesthesia. She later recounted the story for a campaign by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

A couple of years ago, she posted a photo on Instagram to mark Mother’s Day, thanking her children’s nanny. ‘I can’t stand playing with children so you’ve saved them and me a whole lot of boredom,’ the caption read. ‘I got so much shit for that,’ she says. She’s referring to a flurry of comments that branded her admission – and approach to parenting – ‘sad’ and ‘shameful’ (there were also positive comments praising her candour). ‘I think it’s because she [Kirke’s nanny] is black. I was thanking her for doing everything I can’t do and that references a specific role that slave women had to do as caregivers. I get it. I understand.’

Kirke did win major family plaudits when she FaceTimed her daughter from the set of Conversations with Friends with Alwyn and his girlfriend, Taylor Swift. ‘I was having drinks with Taylor and I told her my daughter is a fan and she said, “Why don’t we call her?” I said, “I don’t know if we can cold-call my daughter. She might die!” But we did and she just started sobbing. I felt bad and she texted a few minutes later saying, “Can we try again?” She was crying and laughing and covering her face. She didn’t know what to do.’

We return to the subject of social media and how Kirke decides what to post. The mark of ‘an intelligent man’, she says, paraphrasing F Scott Fitzgerald, is the ability to ‘hold on to two opposing ideas at the same time and still function’. It’s a philosophy that she fears we’re losing sight of in our internet, cancel-culture age. ‘I don’t think you’re obligated to commit to a point of view or role,’ she says. I ask whether she considers herself British or American. ‘I don’t identify as anything,’ she replies. ‘I don’t feel straight, I don’t feel gay.’ She pauses and rethinks. ‘I guess I identify as a woman and an artist and a mother. Just the fundamentals.’

For all of her progressive thinking, she isn’t sure what she makes of some of the changes that have occurred in the entertainment industry in the wake of the MeToo movement. Many shows, including Sex Education, now have on-set intimacy coordinators to support actors filming sex scenes. For Kirke, this is a complex development. ‘I haven’t worked with one yet but what I love about this,’ she says, leaning forward animatedly, ‘is that they choreograph it [the scene]. Back when I was doing sex scenes [in Girls], they weren’t as directed as conversational scenes. You always felt a bit lost– not lost maybe, close to home – I don’t know. I can totally understand how some people could be uncomfortable with that, but I wasn’t. It was more exciting to me – not necessarily sexual or a turn-on, but I was curious to know what it would be like to be naked and doing these actions in front of the sound guy and all these different people.’

She wonders whether the quest to make everyone on a set feel comfortable risks compromising the spark of a project. ‘Things are much more sanitised and everyone is protecting their arses,’ she says wearily. ‘My view is that you don’t always have to be comfortable on a movie set as an actor. I don’t know where to draw the line but it’s definitely a blurry one. [As an actor] you’re supposed to be present in your emotions in that moment… I think maybe we are making discomfort into a negative thing.’

Alongside its ardent millennial following, Girls had its fair share of detractors, whose criticisms ranged from the reasonable (the show’s central cast was almost exclusively white) to the ridiculous (a woman of Dunham’s body type should not be allowed to take her clothes off on screen). How would the series be received if it debuted in the current social climate?

‘It would definitely get grief,’ she says. ‘I think Lena made something without fear and she wouldn’t be able to make that today. She would be too scared.’

Earlier this year, Dunham remarked that she could envisage a Girls reboot happening at some point. Would Kirke sign on? ‘Yeah!’ she replies before lowering her voice. ‘For the right amount of money.’ Where would she want us to find Jessa? ‘I don’t want to give anyone another opportunity to equate me with her, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a couple of kids, maybe from two different dads. Maybe she’d be raising them on her own with a nanny who she insists on referring to as her personal assistant.’

And with that, Kirke stands up, throws on her coat and explains that she needs to go home to ‘meet the housekeeper’. In a matter of seconds, she is gone. She may not enjoy the comparisons to Jessa but she does share one undeniable trait with her on-screen alter ego: a single-minded resolve to do and say whatever she wants without worrying what anyone else thinks – even for a second.

im really confused on how people say both that there are rules to witchcraft and how to interact with the spiritual world while also saying its all up to your beliefs and you dont have to do certain things if you dont want to. I'm confused as to where the line is drawn here.

I think about this, like, a lot. Someone responded to one of my posts with a "lol! Whatever, witchcraft doesn't have any rules!" and, like, maybe their version of witchcraft doesn't? I could have responded to it but I didn't because I didn't think they wanted to have an actual conversation about it, I’ve found that most people don’t.  But since you seem generally interested, let's talk about this. The first two things to understand are that there is no one way to practice witchcraft and that everyone comes to witchcraft for different reasons. Most existing magical traditions do indeed have rules or at least existing structures and ethics, that's what makes them a tradition and most of these are religious in nature if that helps you understand more of a context of rules. Not like Christianity where you go to hell or whatever if you break rules, more that they are guidelines to follow. These witchcraft and magical traditions get passed down and that keeps them in the same form.

The elephant in the room when we are discussing modern witchcraft is WIcca, which is a specific neo-pagan religion beginning in the middle of the last century. It was originally initiatory based, meaning you had to study to be initiated into a specific existing  group of the mystery religion. Wicca is even conflated with witchcraft where some people use it interchangeably. Wicca is pretty much how witchcraft entered the modern mainstream and there are several varieties even in Wicca. This led to several books being published but all under the idea that Wicca was a witchcraft religion. There was lots of this in the 90s and many books that claim to be witchcraft are based in Wicca. So, the "rules" of Wicca permeated modern witchcraft because it was the most visible. Not to say that there weren't other magical traditions existing like Traditional Witchcraft, Appalachian folk magic traditions, African Diasporic traditions (the ones that actually identify as witchcraft), and other traditions. These all have rules and connections to land and culture and community.

The second part I said was that we all come to witchcraft for different reasons. For some it is seeking religion, some it is community, some it is a general interest in the occult, some it is a drawn to alternative spirituality, and for some it is self-care, some it is a deep love of science and a search for ways to see the world differently using our brains. All of these reasons are valid and each of those reasons would look for something different in a practice they see to enter or build.

So, I think the "no rulez!" crowd are doing some knee-jerk reacting to what they perceive to be Wiccan like the "Wiccan Rede" with the phrase " An ye harm none, do what ye will" . "rede" literally means advice, not a rule. Or "the three-fold law" that suggests whatever you send out into the world you will get back x3. Which, again, is more like advice but also started specifically Wiccan and has permeated into general pagan spaces. Not all witches follow it, but it doesn't stop some Wiccans from assuming everyone does.  I generally don't take the "no rulez!" crowd very seriously. I'm an agnostic secular witch witch with a background in philosophy and religious studies. I may be silly in a lot of places in my practice like making a pizza with a specific magical purpose in mind, but I also take building my practice very seriously. It's not so much "rules", but my practice is based on my own ethics and understanding of the world around me, including my politics as an anarchist. If you are not entering a specific existing magical tradition. building a practice requires work to figure out what that means to you. I have deep cultural roots in the DIY Punk community. It helped form my ethics and cosmologies. Do-it-Yourself punk is about creating your own communities, making your own music and art, not waiting for people to give you permission to be creative, supporting other people who do the same, and doing these things because you love them. There are fashion punks who show up in a costume with no real attachment and maybe just like music and getting drunk. Maybe there are witchcraft practices with "no rules!", but I guess I see them like the fashion punks who may stay that way, may move on quickly to something else that suits them better, or may grow and change in their experience. Honestly, when someone says "lol, there's no rules in witchcraft!" I pretty much assume that I'm not going to get a very thoughtful conversation out of them so I tend to avoid it.

So, where does that leave you? If you want to enter a witchcraft tradition that has an existing framework, you can do that. If you want to make your own, you can do that too, but it will be a lot more work.

1) Love ya blog already I need more black x readers on my dash

2) Is it possible to get some fluffy headcanons about dating Zenitsu and introducing him to black culture? (I hope that made sense this is my first time ever sending in an request liek this)

Thank you, also yes it makes sense! I’m excited to get my first request and I’m glad you feel comfortable about asking for a scenario! That’s what this place is for, helping readers feel comfortable.🤎🍫

Zenitsu x Black!Reader

(A bit long)

“In the mid-16th century, a significant number of Africans came to Japan as crewmen, servants or slaves on European ships. Their presence generated great interest and wonderment. But along with the presence of white Europeans, it influenced an evolving discourse on race among a people who had previously divided humankind into three civilized nations: Japan; China, and India, and miscellaneous barbarian people. Their skin color caused Japanese to link them with the inhabitants of India yet their treatment by the Caucasians who had brought them to Japan implied that they were an inferior people who ought to be despised. During the Tokugawa period, (1603-1868), the increasingly critical, even hostile view towards India and Buddhism had a negative impact upon all peoples considered dark skinned. Thus, black Africans, and other peoples with whom they were commonly conflated, were alternately honored, tolerated and disparaged.” (Leupp).

- This would change years later as you set foot in the final selection.

- You succeeded honing a unique breathing style; executing it with expertise as your sword was cloaked with green ribbons of ectoplasm.

-You took in the scenery of the beautiful vining plants with cascades of blue to purple flowers. They felt ever so alluring to the fate sealed for an examinee’s failure.

- As you caressed the velvety petals between the pads of your fingers, you heard a blood curdling scream nearby.

- Of course it was as expected due to the exam you were taking, but the primal cry bypassed your eardrums to the lining of your brain; coming from a place of terror, telling of a mind in absolute fear.

- A boy ran under the safety of the wisteria trees, as they are poisonous to demons, thus the creatures must stay on the mountain top.

- You looked at him as he ducked his head into his body with his hands covering the back of his neck. His trembling form curled into a ball, hearing as he talked to himself in a whisper.

- “I don’t know if I’m ready. I won’t be able to catch up to the other slayers. I’m going to die...I’m going to die...in fact I’m already dead.” He spoke in self doubt and despair, his mind already subduing to the pressure.

- You walked over to him and crouched to his level. You reached your hand for his shoulder, lightly prodding your fingers against the yellow fabric of his haori.

- He lifted his head at the touch of comfort, turning towards the direction of someone’s hand.

- “Do not cower.” You tell him. “We are to fight to rise above demons. To prevail against the monsters who try to level us to the bottom of a status quo. But we are strong, we will not submit to them, we are more powerful if we band together and fight as one. What’s your name?”

- He froze when he saw you; paralyzed in surprise and silent panic. Under the moonlight, the moon bounced off your melanated skin. The light shined under the construction of your cheekbones, defining the muscles in your cheeks and showing your risen smile of your full lips. Your kinky hair huddled in profusion as they defied gravity. Then it was your eyes.

- He couldn’t stand eye contact but yours captured his into a trance, stuck in the mental state of high arousal as nervousness washed over him like a wave.

- “Z-Zenitsu...Agatsuma.” He finally spoke. “Zenitsu Agatsuma, my name is y/n l/n. They will remember our names and I will remember yours. Would you like to fight by my side?”

- Despite his rosy cheeks by your presence, he nodded.

-After you two became demon slayers, you caught the eyes of many people.

- To be honest, it wasn’t common to see black people during the time. No one was used to your skin full of the sun’s rays or your voluminous hair that others described as being “all over the place”, “showy”, “lazy”, “a distraction”.

-Nevertheless, Zenitsu warmed up to you and found you an easy person for seeking comfort. He hated himself for cowering, running away and sniveling but your calming voice reassured him that everyone is scared of something. That we were born with survival instincts necessary to respond to fear when we sense danger or feel unsafe.

- Not only did he constantly want comfort and motivation, but he was curious. He knows little to nothing about black people because of his lack of seeing one.

- He found your beauty intimidating and overwhelming; the transformations of your hair, your curves, the vibrancy in your walk and the way you talked. You expressed yourself fearlessly, not boldly, but such as being able to remain calm without altering under an opponent which helped your teammates stay levelheaded during battle.

- One day, you two shared a conversation. It was about your past missions and some of the funniest looking demons you came across. It suddenly faded into the awareness of how people looked at you like you were an alien.

- You only shrugged it off with a laugh but it lured Zenitsu back into curiosity. He wasn’t sure how to word it; “How come your skin is so pretty?”, “How is your hair different from the others?”, “How are you so magical?”

- Once your talk came to an appropriate pause, he hesitantly asked a question, “H-Hey, erm, y/n, can you tell me about yourself? Like your ethnicity or who you are as of people?”

- You smiled at his big brown-golden eyes showing his intrigue. It was almost the biggest he’s seen you smile before it elicited your sweet laugh.

- “Well, it’s really a long story but my favorite is to study about my culture. There is a such thing called ‘Black is beautiful’, which included identifying and expressing yourself by doing your hair in a myriad of styles. Using a grooming tool like a pick, which is a type of comb, customized with a black fist was a way to proudly assert political and cultural allegiance to the black power movement. Black writers used their creativity to support a black cultural revolution. Soon enough, we rose into mainstream like music entertainers, sports figures and in stereotypical roles on television. We increasingly demanded more roles and more realistic images of our lives, both in mainstream and in black media.”

- You doubted Zenitsu understood what you were saying so you showed him pictures from school books and showed him videos from a film projector. He could hear the thrill in your voice as you spoke and explained things to him.

- Learning these things from you, he fell even deeper into his crush for you, telling you out uniquely from other girls.

- Sometimes, he watched you braid your hair into protective styles or listened as you sang a song to him that was picked up within your clan. You explained that as slaves, black people prayed and sung joyful songs to keep our heads level headed with what was going on.

- But you felt bad since you thought you were blabbering on about the things you were interested in, instead of finding out the things that Zenitsu would want to hear.

- So one night, while getting ready for bed, Zenitsu wanted to confess to you. Although he is aware of his desperateness of wanting someone to commit his love to, he could no longer take ogling you day to day without the imagination of what your lips felt like or what it would feel like to be ultimately comforted by cuddling and sharing kisses. He wanted you more than anything.

- That night, you two were unbeknownst that you wanted to talk to each other about something. While everyone settled in to go to bed, Zenitsu bumped into you while you were in your pajamas. He blushed at the sight of your hair being braided into cornrows; openly showing your face to him.

- “Zenitsu, what a convenience, I just wanted to talk you.” You chuckled. “Heh heh, I-I had something to say to you too.” He stuttered. “Ok, come in my room.”

- He followed you in, adjusting the collar of his shirt as he felt his body temperature escalate. “You can go first.” He said, clearing his throat. “Well, I just wanted to say, I don’t want it to seem like I’m making you bored, ya know about the things I talk about. I wonder if it’s fair to talk about them to you or if I could be scaring you. History is just a nice thing I like to talk about, one of the things I favor most.”

- He looked at you in shock, “Oh no! I-I don’t mind at all of you coming to me about that. I want to be a person you can come to talk about anything to. I-If anything, I see you as a really pretty person. To see you idolize people and—because of them—feel empowered to show your beauty means a lot to me. As long as it means you will continue to appreciate who you are as a person, I love that about you, y/n.”

- He lost himself in his words and felt himself carrying on and on. You stood in silence, completely surprised how he confessed his feelings to you. “I really really like you. You’re so unique from everyone else, you help me feel better and saved me from getting my ass killed god knows how many times. I...I...”. He felt his nerves come to him, cutting his words short as he looked at you with fear.

- He suddenly watched your lips stretch into a smile, feeling himself freeze in place as you walk closer to him.

- You say to him, “Although people may think you’re a coward, no matter how many times you may break down into tears or feel scared, you are just as much brave. You have the biggest courage of everyone to overcome your fears and take a leap.” And you gently captured his lips with yours, comforting him just as he yearns.

Hopefully I answered just as you requested. As well as having hope that everyone else enjoyed this scenario🤎🍫

Hm. So I really desperately want the Loki show to be good but I saw a new interview with the writer and I have to say. Some of it really concerned me.

"Taking an organisation that is so soul-crushing by-the-book, so to speak, in their managing of time and dropping the most chaotic character in all of the MCU smack-dab in the middle of that is just amazing juxtaposition". 

Really? Name one prank Loki has ever pulled on screen.

The issue here is that Loki isn’t the most chaotic character in the MCU. By any stretch the imagination. This interview seems to have conflated comics!Loki and MCU!Loki, even though they are quite different characters. Even the most cursory watch of Thor 2011 and TDW should reveal that. When in the MCU has Loki’s motivation ever been about chaos or pranks??!

In Thor 2011 he was simmering with very legitimate hurt and resentment (neither of which have anything to do with chaos OR pranks!) but what ultimately drove him to action was the extremely valid fear that Thor would start a war. He used trickery not for fun but to try to delay Thor’s coronation and thus forestall violence. Things don’t go as planned, resulting in the unravelling of his life and culminating in his SUICIDE ATTEMPT at the end of the movie.

In The Avengers he is being mind controlled and forced to conquer earth. His truer self wants to escape Thanos who has been torturing him. In TDW he wants to escape the horrific prison he has been confined in, alone for all eternity and also to avenge his mother. (I think there is compelling evidence that he also is planning to die in combat because he doesn’t want to return to prison and prefers death). In Ragnarok his motivations include avoiding Thor’s rage, escaping the clutches of the Grandmaster (a terrifyingly powerful being who vastly outclasses him in terms of raw power), and protecting the Asgardian people. 

Even Thor is more chaotic than Loki in the MCU. He tends to charge into things without always thinking first, and is far more mercurial. Think of how he started a war over an insult in Thor 1, or how he initially attacked the Avengers. The actual agents of chaos and wacky hijinks in the MCU tho are neither Thor nor Loki, but rather the Guardians of the Galaxy. Maybe the Loki writers watched the Guardians movies by mistake? (Pro tip: if the character speaking looks like a raccoon, it’s not Loki.

Loki stabbing Laufey according to this interview: “it was just a prank bro!”

“Loki is proper and pompous, Owen is folksy and down-to-earth – so right away, energies clash in a way that’s harmonious.”

Um??!? Ok first off. Owen Wilson = real person. Loki = fictional character. So it's weird to juxtapose them, but I’m going to assume he meant to say “Mobius.” Also ??! Loki is...neither of those things? This quote sounds like what would happen if someone who had never been to the UK or seen the Loki films looked up "what is a stereotype about British people?" and just made that Loki's character. 

All the tremendous nuance and depth and complexity and pathos of Loki’s character, and what they come up with is the generic “pompous and proper”??Also, the incorrect assessments of Loki’s character aren’t even consistent. How can he be both an agent of chaos AND super prim and proper?! Those things are contradictory. 

And seriously. WHEN is Loki pompous and proper? Is this referring to Loki’s speaking style? He uses the same Asgardian speaking style that Thor uses. It’s more formal in Thor 2011, Avengers, and Thor: The Dark World, and a little more casual in Ragnarok because of a change in writing style. (Though even in Ragnarok while they speak more casually they never use earth slang like “gonna” or “crap.”)

Anyone who had seen Thor 2011 would remember that THOR was the arrogant and pompous one at the beginning of the movie, and that this was meant to contrast with Loki who was very quiet and internalized and repressed. Loki’s whole origin story happened because no one listened to or respected him so he resorted to desperate measures to achieve what he believed was right (the prevention of a war!) and then had a mental breakdown due to the way circumstances unfolded. 

And, yes Loki carries himself like royalty. But that’s not because he’s pompous. It’s because he IS royalty. He's literally a prince! Loki doesn’t have a high opinion of himself at all. One of his major issues is that he’s consumed by self-hatred. This again feels like they’ve conflated comics!Loki and MCU!Loki. 

It’s weird that I have yet to see any of the show writers talk about even 1 aspect of Loki's character that they like or find sympathetic or interesting or emotionally compelling. 

(Also. Mobius is a bureaucrat who works for a heartless organization that murders people for the slightest show of noncompliance. And he apparently doesn’t care that Loki was tortured by Thanos. That doesn’t make him “folksy” or “down-to-earth.” It makes him complicit in atrocities.)

"and my goal from day one was to tell a story of Loki that had never been told before"

This again ties back into Disney’s bizarre new positioning that this show is the first time Loki has been out of his comfort zone, which utterly ignores the fact that in his every appearance so far Loki’s story has been defined by lack of control. Loki being in the power of people who use him, lie to him, mistreat him, threaten him, gaslight him, and/or scapegoat him is hardly new. It’s what’s been happening to him in every movie. 

Patrilineal Jewish girl, Sephardic culture

@feminismandsunflowers said:

hi! my character is a patrilineal Jewish girl in the usa, she didn't convert but still considers herself Jewish. her mom is Christian. her g-grandmother/father were undocumented refugees from Europe (antisemitism) and her g-grandmother was v closed off abt her origins but my character's dad thinks she said something abt being Sephardic. her fam has a fair amount of Sephardic culture. but could she claim Sephardic culture to any extent if they don't know? trynna get a handle on how to present her.

"My character's dad thinks she said something about being Sephardic"

and

"her fam has a fair amount of Sephardic culture"

are inconsistent statements. 

The first statement sounds like the only indication Dad has of which Jewish culture they are is a statement he's not even sure about ("thinks"?) and the second statement sounds like Dad considers himself Sephardic and practices Sephardic traditions.

So, to me personally, this would depend on the level of Sephardic cultural practice she grew up with. If she grew up with those traditions and Dad sharing them with her, then yes, that's who she is. If Dad isn't even sure he's Sephardic and what she practiced in her upbringing wasn't distinctively Sephardic in any way, I have a hard time seeing why she should claim the culture if she's not even sure if her ancestors were Sephardic.

Disclaimer that the Reform position is to 'count' patrilineal Jewish people as long as they were raised in the traditions. This is not the Orthodox position but I am Reform.

--Shira

I'm also a bit confused about this situation. I think it would be helpful if you start by specifying where in Europe the family comes from and what anti-Semitism they were fleeing from. I'm Ashkenazi and not the most knowledgeable about Sephardi history, but as far as I know it wouldn't make sense for a Sephardi family to be seeking asylum from the pogroms in Russia or Poland, for example. I guess it could make sense if they were from Spain, France or Italy, but we would have to know more, and I'm wondering if this isn't a 'trace your logic' situation. Why do you want them to come from Europe? *Quickly cracks open a Claudia Roden book* Sephardi Jews have origins in many North African and Middle Eastern countries, such as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq just to give a few examples. If you want Sephardi characters, why not represent those cultures instead of re-hashing the same Euro-centric Jewish stories?   

In terms of whether she could claim Sephardi heritage of any sort if they don't know, I'm interested in what Sephardi followers think. Religion-wise, I don't think there would be too much of a problem with it. Yes, Sephardim are more lenient on some things and stricter on others, so by picking the wrong one she may be following some of the rules wrong, but that's just a matter of tradition really. If someone was a ba'al teshuva and had no way of finding out which population their family came from, I imagine a rabbi would advise to choose one and stick to it without worrying too much about which one. I don't know 100%, though. 

Culture-wise, I don't know if this is what Shira was getting at but I wonder if it would be cultural appropriation due to Ashkenazi Jews being more likely to be white-passing and getting more media representation. Is Jewish lineage enough to claim Sephardi traditions and culture, or do you need to know for sure that you're Sephardi - that will be for Sephardi followers to decide. 

To build on Shira's disclaimer:

I'm Modern Orthodox and I would describe your character as someone who is not halachically Jewish, i.e. not in Jewish law. In most situations, this would be a technicality for me and I wouldn't hesitate to treat her as Jewish if she identifies as such. In particular, with her family history it makes sense that she considers herself ethnically Jewish and the legacy of discrimination is part of her identity - that's not something we can erase or overlook. It would be different if my kid wanted to marry her, I think (not that I ever plan to be one of those parents who would disown their kid or something for marrying out but I'm not going to pretend I completely wouldn't care, either). Then I might be hopeful that she may formally convert, especially if she had always lived as Jewish anyways.

 Other things she may experience if she hangs out in Orthodox circles: a few people might act like jerks and be iffy around her like she's 'not really Jewish', probably the same people who are pro-Trump and mansplain why women's exclusion from parts of Orthodox worship is actually protecting us. On the subject of women's exclusion, if you have any male characters with a similar parental background, they can't get an aliyah in shul or count towards a minyan - the character you're describing couldn't anyway, though. 

Hopefully if your other Jewish characters are nice people, they take to heart the teaching that you should rather throw yourself into a fire than humiliate someone else in public. When I was a student, there was a patrilineal man in our community who once entered the shul just in time to be the tenth man, making a minyan. A Chasidic man in the congregation quickly stood up and said "Oh no, I left the gas on!" and left. That way no one had to make a whole song and dance about the other guy not being allowed to count. Patrilineal Jewish followers, feel free to add more! 

-Shoshi 

I'm going to add some things here, about the terms Sephardi and Ashkenazi, that I think might be partially tripping the author up.

Sephardi and Ashkenazi are terms used to describe the traditions that a person follows. Those traditions are heavily linked to the land where they rose up, and to parentage, as people are typically encouraged to follow the traditions they grew up with. However! Converts exist, and converts are usually encouraged to join in on the traditions in their community. So, as an example, a person can be from anywhere in the world, of any racial or ethnic background, convert in a Conservative synagogue, and follow Ashkenazi traditions. A person can be from a place that is usually seen as very Ashkenazi-heavy, like Germany, and then end up converting in an esnoga (synagogue) in Spain, and practice Sephardic traditions. Either of those converts might have children, and those children will take on their minhagim (traditions), and will be a part of the culture their parents joined just like their parents were.

It can be confusing for many people because the terms are so often conflated with ethnicity, which is in turn conflated with genetic lineage. The trouble is, the groups they describe are older than the modern, western conception of race, and ethnicity,  and we don't completely fit into these categories. Ashkenazi Jews don't all come from Europe, even their ancestors might not. In the US it's been estimated that at least 12-15% of American Jews are Jews of Color, and those JoC are very, very often Ashkenazi. Some converted, some didn't, but they are still following the traditions, and are still Ashkenazi.

So it's fair to say that the traditions of Sephardim grew in the Iberian peninsula, and North Africa, but they also moved along with those Jewish people as they dispersed, and were expelled. Jews from Portugal fled to the Azores, but also to the Netherlands, where there is a large Sephardic presence, right in the middle of a space that is assumed to be all Ashkenazi! Scores of Jewish people from Morocco moved to France. Then too, people marry folks from other groups. Often they will pick one family's traditions to follow, but sometimes they mix and match, and sometimes they end up moving somewhere else and taking on those traditions.

Because so many people have traditions that match their genetic background we've begun using the term Ashkenazi to mean strictly white, European Jewish people. Sephardi we have taken to mean strictly white, Iberian Jewish people (which doesn't even include the massive number of North African Sephardim). We've forgotten entirely to cover Mizrahim (a tradition associated with the Middle East), or the Romaniote, or Cochin Jews, or any number of other groups. Yes, genetic background accounts for a large portion of those people, but it doesn't map completely, and it's important not to forget that.

This complexity is why the statements Shira drew attention to:

"My character's dad thinks she said something about being Sephardic" "her fam has a fair amount of Sephardic culture"

Don't make sense. You would know you are Sephardic, because it's something you do first, and may be, secondarily, directly linked to something in your ancestry.

Finally, since you are showing a patrilineal Jewish person, I really encourage you to show them consistently engaging with their Jewishness, and actively participating in Sephardic culture. I'm the Conservative one here, and my movement, and Sephardi tradition (there are no movements for Sephardim, just varying observance) don't allow patrilineal descent to give a person Jewish status halachically. This is not something I endorse. Patrilineal descendants really struggle outside of Reform communities, to be seen as Jewish, and often to just be treated with respect, so it's important that you give this character every opportunity to participate, and show who they are.

-- Dierdra

Hi, Dr. Reames! I just read your take on Song of Achilles and it got me thinking. Do you think there might be a general issue with the way women are written in mlm stories in general? Because I don't think it's the first time I've seen something like this happen.

And my next question is, could you delve further into this thing you mention about modern female authors writing women? How could we, beginner female writers, avoid falling into this awful representations of women in our writing?

Thank you for your time!

[It took a while to finish this because I wrote, re-wrote, and re-wrote it. Still not sure I like it, but I need to let it go. It could be 3xs as long.]

I’ll begin with the second half of the question, because it’s simpler. How do we, as women authors, avoid writing women in misogynistic ways?

Let me reframe that as how can we, as female authors, write negative (even quite nasty) female characters without falling into misogynistic tropes? Also, how can we write unsympathetic, but not necessarily “bad” female characters, without it turning misogynistic?

Because people are people, not genders, not all women are good, nor all men bad. Most of us are a mix. If we should avoid assuming powerful women are all bitches, by the same token, some women are bitches (powerful or not).

ALL good characterization comes down to MOTIVE. And careful characterization of minority characters involves fair REPRESENTATION. (Yes, women are a minority even if we’re 51% of the population.)

The question ANY author must ask: why am I making this female character a bitch? How does this characterization serve the larger plot and/or characterization? WHY is she acting this way?

Keep characters complex, even the “bad guys.” Should we choose to make a minority character a “bad guy,” we need to have a counter example—a real counter, not just a token who pops in briefly, then disappears. Yeah, maybe in an ideal world we could just let our characters “be,” but this isn’t an ideal world. Authors do have an audience. I’m a lot less inclined to assume stereotyping when we have various minority characters with different characterizations.

By the same token, however, don’t throw a novel against the wall if the first minority character is negative. Read further to decide if it’s a pattern. I’ve encountered reviews that slammed an author for stereotyping without the reader having finished the book. I’m thinking, “Uh…if you’d read fifty more pages….” Novels have a developmental arc. And if you’ve got a series, that, too, has a developmental arc. One can’t reach a conclusion about an author’s ultimate presentation/themes until having finished the book, or series.*

Returning to the first question, the appearance of misogyny depends not only on the author, but also on when she wrote, even why she’s writing. Authors who are concerned with matters such as theme and message are far more likely to think about such things than those who write for their own entertainment and that of others, which is more typical of Romance.

On average, Romance writers are a professionalized bunch. They have national and regional chapters of the Romance Writers of America (RWA), newsletters and workshops that discuss such matters as building plot tension, character dilemmas, show don’t tell, research tactics, etc. Yet until somewhat recently (early/mid 2010s), and a series of crises across several genres (not just Romance), treatment of minority groups hadn’t been in their cross-hairs. Now it is, with Romance publishers (and publishing houses more generally) picking up “sensitivity readers” in addition to the other editors who look at a book before its publication.

Yet sensitivity readers are hired to be sure lines like “chocolate love monkey” do not show up in a published novel. Yes, that really was used as an endearment for a black man in an M/M Romance, which (deservedly) got not just the author but the publishing house in all sorts of hot water. Yet misogyny, especially more subtle misogyny in the way of tropes, is rarely on the radar.

I should add that I wouldn’t categorize The Song of Achilles as an M/M historical Romance. In fact, I’m not sure what to call novels about myths, as myths don’t exist in actual historical periods. When should we set a novel about the Iliad? The Bronze Age, when Homer said it happened, or the Greek Dark Age, which is the culture Homer actually described? They’re pretty damn different. I’d probably call The Song of Achilles an historical fantasy, especially as mythical creatures are presented as real, like centaurs and god/desses.

Back to M/M Romance: I don’t have specific publishing stats, but it should surprise no one that (like most of the Romance genre), the vast bulk of authors of M/M Romance are women, often straight and/or bi- women. The running joke seems to be, If one hot man is good, two hot men together are better. 😉 Yes, there are also trans, non-binary and lesbian authors of M/M Romance, and of course, bi- and gay men who may write under their own name or a female pseudonym, but my understanding is that straight and bi- cis-women authors outnumber all of them.

Just being a woman, or even a person in a female body, does not protect that author from misogyny. And if she’s writing for fun, she may not be thinking a lot about what her story has to “say” in its subtext and motifs, even if she may be thinking quite hard about other aspects of story construction. This can be true of other genres as well (like historical fantasy).

What I have observed for at least some women authors is the unconscious adoption of popular tropes about women. Just as racism is systemic, so is sexism. We swim in it daily, and if one isn’t consciously considering how it affects us, we can buy into it by repeating negative ideas and acting in prescribed ways because that’s what we learned growing up. If writing in a symbol-heavy genre such as mythic-driven fantasy, it can be easy to let things slip by—even if they didn’t appear in the original myth, such as making Thetis hostile to Patroklos, the classic Bitchy Mother-in-Law archetype.

I see this sort of thing as “accidental” misogyny. Women authors repeat unkind tropes without really thinking them through because it fits their romantic vision. They may resent it and get defensive if the trope is pointed out. “Don’t harsh my squee!” We can dissect why these tropes persist, and to what degree they change across generations—but that would end up as a (probably controversial) book, not a blog entry. 😊

Yet there’s also subconscious defensive misogyny, and even conscious/semi-conscious misogyny.

Much debate/discussion has ensued regarding “Queen Bee Syndrome” in the workplace and whether it’s even a thing. I think it is, but not just for bosses. I also would argue that it’s more prevalent among certain age-groups, social demographics, and professions, which complicates recognizing it.

What is Queen Bee Syndrome? Broadly, when women get ahead at the expense of their female colleagues who they perceive as rivals, particularly in male-dominated fields, hinging on the notion that There Can Be Only One (woman). It arises from systemic sexism.

Yes, someone can be a Queen Bee even with one (or two) women buddies, or while claiming to be a feminist, supporting feminist causes, or writing feminist literature. I’ve met a few. What comes out of our mouths doesn’t necessarily jive with how we behave. And ticking all the boxes isn’t necessary if you’re ticking most of them. That said, being ambitious, or just an unpleasant boss/colleague—if its equal opportunity—does not a Queen Bee make. There must be gender unequal behavior involved.

What does any of that have to do with M/M fiction?

The author sees the women characters in her novel as rivals for the male protagonists. It gets worse if the women characters have some “ownership” of the men: mothers, sisters, former girlfriends/wives/lovers. I know that may sound a bit batty. You’re thinking, Um, aren’t these characters gay or at least bi- and involved with another man, plus—they’re fictional? Doesn’t matter. Call it fantasizing, authorial displacement, or gender-flipped authorial insert. We authors (and I include myself in this) can get rather territorial about our characters. We live in their heads and they live in ours for months on end, or in many cases, years. They’re real to us. Those who aren't authors often don’t quite get that aspect of being an author. So yes, sometimes a woman author acts like a Queen Bee to her women characters. This is hardly all, or even most, but it is one cause of creeping misogyny in M/M Romance.

Let’s turn to a related problem: women who want to be honorary men. While I view this as much more pronounced in prior generations, it’s by no means disappeared. Again, it’s a function of systemic sexism, but further along the misogyny line than Queen Bees. Most Queen Bees I’ve known act/react defensively, and many are (imo) emotionally insecure. It’s largely subconscious. More, they want to be THE woman, not an honorary man.

By contrast, women who want to be honorary men seem to be at least semi-conscious of their misogyny, even if they resist calling it that. These are women who, for the most part, dislike other women, regard most of “womankind” as either a problem or worthless, and think of themselves as having risen above their gender.

And NO, this is not necessarily religious—sometimes its specifically a-religious.

“I want to be an honorary man” women absolutely should NOT be conflated with butch lesbians, gender non-conformists, or frustrated FTMs. That plays right into myths the queer community has combated for decades. There’s a big difference between expressing one’s yang or being a trans man, and a desire to escape one’s womanhood or the company of other women. “Honorary men” women aren’t necessarily queer. I want to underscore that because the concrete example I’m about to give does happen to be queer.

I’ve talked before about Mary Renault’s problematic portrayal of women in her Greek novels (albeit her earlier hospital romances don’t show it as much). Her own recorded comments make it clear that she and her partner Julie Mullard didn’t want to be associated with other lesbians, or with women much at all. She was also born in 1905, living at a time when non-conforming women struggled. If extremely active in anti-apartheid movements in South Africa, Renault and Mullard were far less enthused by the Gay Rights Movement. Renault even criticized it, although she wrote back kindly to her gay fans.

The women in Renault’s Greek novels tend to be either bitches or helpless, reflecting popular male perceptions of women: both in ancient Greece and Renault’s own day. If we might argue she’s just being realistic, that ignores the fact one can write powerful women in historical novels and still keep it attitudinally accurate. June Rachuy Brindel, born in 1919, author of Ariadne and Phaedra, didn’t have the same problem, nor did Martha Rofheart, born in 1917, with My Name is Sappho. Brindel’s Ariadne is much more sympathetic than Renault’s (in The King Must Die).

Renault typically elevates (and identifies with) the “rational” male versus the “irrational” female. This isn’t just presenting how the Greeks viewed women; it reflects who she makes the heroes and villains in her books. Overall, “good” women are the compliant ones, and the compliant women are tertiary characters.

Women in earlier eras who were exceptional had to fight multiple layers of systemic misogyny. Some did feel they had to become honorary men in order to be taken seriously. I’d submit Renault bought into that, and it (unfortunately) shows in her fiction, as much as I admire other aspects of her novels.

So I think those are the three chief reasons we see women negatively portrayed in M/M Romance (or fiction more generally), despite being written by women authors.

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*Yeah, yeah, sometimes it’s such 2D, shallow, stereotypical presentation that I, as a reader, can conclude this author isn’t going to get any better. Also, the publication date might give me a clue. If I’m reading something published 50 years ago, casual misogyny or racism is probably not a surprise. If I don’t feel like dealing with that, I close the book and put it away.

But I do try to give the author a chance. I may skim ahead to see if things change, or at least suggest some sort of character development. This is even more the case with a series. Some series take a loooong view, and characters alter across several novels. Our instant-gratification world has made us impatient. Although by the same token, if one has to deal with racism or sexism constantly in the real world, one may not want to have to watch it unfold in a novel—even if it’s “fixed” later. If that’s you, put the book down and walk away. But I’d just suggest not writing a scathing review of a novel (or series) you haven’t finished. 😉