Y/N walked into the kitchen and found his mother at the icebox, putting away the milk. She gives him a small glance. "I presume Polly's on her way back to New York City?"
"Yes. And I'm so jealous. She has... freedom, a career, a man she loves. That's more than any one of us here can say."
"Don't pick a fight with me, Y/N. I'm not in the mood. I'm not in the mood."
"So when are you going to stop?" Y/N asked her. Stop sabotaging our family?"
"Oh, is that what you think I'm doing?" Alice Cooper asked.
"Well, isn't it? You know what? You are a sad, lonely woman. And it is all your own fault. It's never been about Betty and her desire to have sex, or Polly's desire to be a burlesque dancer, or dad's secret love affair with Frank Andrews. Or with me wanting to be with Archie, no, it has always been about you. And I'm sick of giving you control over my life because you will ruin it."
"So what? You want to go? Fine. Go!" She tried to push past him, but he blocked her. "Oh, you should know that Archie and I are going to elope. And maybe I'll get a job where I can take off all my clothes. Then what will you tell your friends? Your son is queer and likes to be in the nude?"
The sharp smack to his face made Y/N gasp, but he wasn't surprised as he turned to his mother with a hand on his cheek. "I'm surprised it took you this long to do that." He walks out of the room.
EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt
love when men cry about body hair bc "it's hygiene" and yet 15% of cis men leave the bathroom without washing their hands at all and an additional 35% only just wet their hands without using soap. that is nearly half of all men. that means statistically you have probably shaken hands with or been in direct contact with one of these people.
love when men say that women "only want money" when it turns out that even in equal-earning homes, women are actually adding caregiver burdens and housework from previous years, whereas men have been expanding leisure time and hobbies. in equal-earning households, men spend an average of 3.5 hours extra in leisure time per week, which is 182 hours per year - a little over a week of paid vacation time that the other partner does not receive. kinda sounds like he wants her money.
love that men have decided women are frail and weak and annoying when we scream in surprise but it turns out it's actually women who are more reliable in an emergency because men need to be convinced to actually take action and respond to the threat. like, actually, for-real: men experience such a strong sense of pride about their pre-supposed abilities that it gets them and their families killed. they are so used to dismissing women that it literally kills them.
love it. told my father this and he said there's lies, damned lies, and statistics. a year ago i tried to get him to evacuate the house during a flash flood. he ignored me and got injured. he has told me, laughing, that he never washes his hands. he has said in the last week that women are just happier when we're cooking or cleaning.
maybe i'm overly nostalgic. but it didn't used to feel so fucking bleak. it used to feel like at least a little shameful to consider women to be sheep. it just feels like the earth is round and we are still having conversations about it being flat - except these conversations are about the most obvious forms of patriarchy. like, we know about this stuff. we've known since well before the 50's.
recently andrew tate tried to justify cheating on his partner as being the "male prerogative." i don't know what the prerogative for the rest of us would be. just sitting at home, watching the slow erosion of our humanity.
Part of what embarrasses me about the “humans are space orcs” brand of tumblr writing is… look, what if aliens read it? The aliens would say, “Wow, so many of your kind hoped to meet other life so that we could… validate you as special? We hoped to meet other life so we could try to solve unsolved questions in mathematics together.” And we’d have to beg them to stay and try to solve unsolved questions in mathematics together. Basically it would be super awkward
i think the reason why Reflection & mulan as a trans man is impactful to me is the fact that mulan appears as a woman and has the social role of a woman. i love rep of transmascs who are fully transitioned/present masc or male! but ive thought a lot about the erasure & invisibility of transmascs throughout history. the bits of our history we do have tend to be people who had the ability to pass as men, but there were undoubtedly so many trans men&mascs who lived as women, who could not pass well enough to live full-time as a man, who were wives and mothers! and idk i find it really impactful to read Reflection as the pain of a trans man in the closet, or who doesn't even realize that being a man is a Thing they can Do. i love how it touches on the pain of failing to be a woman. i think part of it is how often people want to dissociate trans men from misogyny, or at least control how we are "supposed" to relate to it. again, the mainstream (queer) narrative around transmasc history (and present) is trans men who could/can pass as cis men, who live their lives fully stealth. but there are and always have been many transmascs who live as women, most or all of the time, and who have to struggle with the demands of misogyny to be good daughters/wives/mothers, and the knowledge that to be a trans man would make you such a disgrace and disappointment ("if i were truly to be myself, i would break my family's heart"). i think its important to give a voice to the trans men past and present who live as women and their gendered experiences! i desperately want to give a voice to every trans man throughout time who lived and died in a dress, who had children, who thought they were the only one or who didn't even understand what or why they were.
obviously mulan does crossdress and does pass as a cis man, but specifically "Reflection" to me means a lot because i love how it can be read to be an expression of closeted transmasculinity. with transmascs, the bits of history we do get are constantly scrutinized by everyone; there's an unspoken rule of "cis woman until proven otherwise, why do you want to erase women?" and again! thats just when it comes to "women who crossdress" situations! people are so stingy when it comes to who they will "allow" transmascs to claim, seeing a "feminine cis woman" expressing transmasculinity feels transgressive in a very good way to me. also, i think we need more recognition that there are a lot of feminine women who really wish they were men (because they are), and its important to represent that experience and make it clear that being feminine (while presenting as a woman, or in general) does not mean you can't be a man.
i’m drawing icarus and apollo waltzing for my illustration class and my professor told me to make the dip more dramatic because “the sun god should not support icarus in his fall” like you fool. you absolute buffoon. you think apollo didn’t support icarus? you think apollo didn’t shine down on icarus every day, even in that accursed tower, offering him what little warmth could be found in such a prison? you think daedalus would’ve founded a temple to the sun god if he was malicious in his compliance in icarus’ death? icarus wouldn’t have flown so close if the sun wasn’t so welcoming, so loving, so captivating. if the sun was cold and uncaring, icarus would not have burned. it was not apollo’s fault icarus fell. he could not curb his warmth, just like how icarus could not curb his curiosity. apollo loved icarus as much as icarus loved him, and that is why their story is so tragic. apollo was not a malicious force in icarus’ death, the fates were, and that was out of both of their controls. do not slander his name like this.