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distort-opia · 4 months

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you know i often see people throwing around the claim "joker r*ped/sa'd barbara in tkj" (mainly to shame people for liking the joker or batjokes) even though alan moore has dedunked it at some point. like the only piece of media i can think of with joker as a rapist is the azzarello graphic novel which is shit and doesn't need to be accepted as canon. i know it's kinda of a touchy subject but i'd be interested to hear your thoughts

Well. You've pretty much said it, to be honest.

Even a cursory Google search will reveal that Azzarello's Joker (2008) is a one-off, non-canon story. The just as much stand-alone sequel, Batman: Damned has a grieving Harley Quinn almost force herself on Bruce, and yet I haven't heard people say Harley is a rapist. Hell, didn't Batman and Harley Quinn (2017) have Harley and Nightwing sleep together... with pretty dubious consent on Dick's side? And yet fans are able to acknowledge that these are not canon storylines and that the writer matters a lot-- in the case of the latter, it's co-written by Bruce Timm, who is infamous for his shitty portrayal of female characters (also see the animation Batman: The Killing Joke, in which Barbara very assertively has sex with Batman, because that's of course the only way a woman can exercise power). Actually, Barbara's character has suffered so much... there's even Batman Beyond 2.0 #28, in which Bruce apparently got Barbara pregnant, Dick's girlfriend at the time.

But we all dismiss these storytelling choices because we know they're idiotic. They go against the core of the characters, simple as that. Why is Joker not allowed the same? While what he canonically did to Barbara in TKJ was horrible, rape did not happen, and that's a fact. Any other implications of sexual assault can only be connected to Frank Miller's writing in the TDKR series (not canon), or that horrible (and again, not canon) book adaptation of TKJ by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips. Unfortunately, there are always some writers who think that it's just darker and grittier and cooler, more shocking to have Joker attempt rape or resort to sexual means of intimidation; though it's funny how it happens that these are also generally controversial writers for their sexist depictions of women.

But we do know why Joker is not afforded the same kind of treatment as other characters who got butchered by out-of-character stories, canon or otherwise. He's become the punching bag of the DC fandom; it's so easy to proclaim loud and proud these days how much you hate the Joker and want him dead. If you're an anti and looking to feel morally righteous and signal to your echo chamber how good and pure you are, it's a low hanging fruit to latch onto Joker and criticize him for all he's done. The problem, of course, is when these people start attacking actual, real-life fans over their fictional preferences, shipping or otherwise.

But to give a more general conclusion, and my actual opinion on the matter: Joker is a master manipulator. His main schtick is literally getting Batman to kill him by orchestrating all manner of situations; he manipulates his doctors, his henchmen, he manipulates Gotham itself through the media on countless occasions. The very reason why he did what he did to Barbara in TKJ was to manipulate her father into having a mental breakdown. Joker picks people to break and then breaks them psychologically, that is his MO. What he wants is to expose the people around him, he wants to show that deep down, everyone is rotten.

It probably becomes obvious why rape is inconsistent with this mindset. Joker isn't the kind of monster to make things happen by brute force, he's the kind of monster to manipulate people into the worst versions of themselves and then laugh at them as they hate themselves for it. He'll murder and torture and imply any manner of atrocity to make that happen, but the source of his glee is seeing people fall into the same dark pit, devoid of humanity, he's chosen to live in. (And don't even get me started on the fact that Joker was canonically shown to have been a victim of sexual assault himself as a child, in Batman: Streets of Gotham. As an adult, he's depicted as gruesomely taking revenge on the man who did it. Something tells me there's more than one reason why Joker would not resort to rape, and it goes beyond MOs or agendas.)

#I got a bit long but alas #this was prompted by whatever twitter meltdown is currently happening wasn't it #heard about it and heaved a long sigh. this is why I stay away from that hell hole #asks #long post #joker #rape mention #discussion of rape #fandom negativity

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neechees · 1 year

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I searched through your blog to see if you've answered a question like this before - if you have I missed it so sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself ^^

Are there things you see in Indigenous characters in media that you wish were less common ? What about things you want to see more in Indigenous characters in media ?

I dont think I have actually so you're fine! :)

So this is just my opinion obvi & some ppl might not agree with everything below, but here are some tropes or really common devices I see in Indigenous characters I hate and/or would like to see less of:

Interracial relationships but ONLY White person/Native person. I don't think this should stop or not be portrayed at all, but at this point it feels like we have more interracial relationships featuring a white person than we actually do depicting relationships between even Native people with each other. ESPECIALLY NATIVE WOMEN PAIRED WITH A WHITE MAN. God I am so sick of it, please give us Native/poc & Native/Native relationships for once, I promise it happens irl

That trope where a White person joins a Native tribe & essentially becomes one of them. For similar reasons as above, and again I don't think this portrayal should stop 100% & it's not necessarily "bad", but I'd like to see more diversity or a different approach to it. It seems like most of these are inspired by historical accounts of this happening irl, but most aren't historical depictions of actual historical people, which I actually WOULD like to see (White or not) more of, instead of just fiction. Also just kinda seems like wish fulfillment with White audiences who have a fetishization of Native people sometimes. Maybe I also hate it so much since it very often goes in with the white savior narrative too

Native women being brutalized on screen, oh my god. Seeing this over & over as a Native woman is literally so retraumatizing. A lot of times it gets to torture porn or voyeuristic, & wasn't even necessary to begin with. I don't care if it's to show how "bad" things are for us, I know, show it some other way.

White ppl making shit off of our Spirits & legends. Just leave us alone. They never get it right.

Just a lot of Native tropes in general because they're overdone. The Noble savage? Indian burial ground? Booooring. Unoriginal. Lazy.

Things I want to see MORE of:

This is just me because I LOVE history, but more historical Native settings BUT, set during Pre-colonization & precolombus. So many historic films about us are during colonization & being persecuted, & I think this is why so many Native people hate films with ndns set in history (in addition to making it seem like we ONLY exist in the past, which is fair), & other than that, makes it seem like our history begins & ends with being colonized

More badass Native ladies. I wanna see Native women who are femme fatales, wrestlers, assassins, martial artists, warriors, gunslingers, athletes, the works. I wanna see untouchable, dangerous Native women.

More fantasy & horror stuff I'm begging, I'm on my knees

The list for what we should STOP seeing in Native characters is honestly shorter because of 1. how severely underrepresented we are, and 2. Where we DO have rep has a lot of tropes that are very very overdone & constantly reuses those tropes, (besides the much lesser known, obscure stuff made by us for us, which isn't as high in number by comparison) so like the list for what we SHOULD try is literally so big I'll just end it here

#ndn

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dairy-farmer · 5 months

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Sorry if you've already touched on this, but what are your thoughts about the discourse/discussion about Tim in the comics and Tim from the lens of A03/fan fiction?

For example, I hear a lot from old comic fans about how the series with Tim dating Bernard was doomed to fail bc 'the writer wrote him like her fanfiction version of Tim and not the real character'. There was a lot of discourse with canonical announcing Tim as queer, and that's kinda all these older comic book fans seem to keep coming back to. Idk, there just kinda seems to be an underlying feeling of misogyny towards the female writers and anti lgtbq vibes that it's hard to hear like a real arguement against the series.

I guess as a long time a03/Fandom person, I'm so used to just creating another little reality for the things I disagree or want to explore with a character, that it's strange to see people so upset that Canon doesn't flow the way the want.

it's no problem!! and i haven't really touched on the newer comics all that much mostly because i also don't particularly like them, not for any specific reason-they're decent enough but i don't really think they're 'tim'-but i do know what you're talking about. on twitter and tumblr i see a lot of different takes regarding tim and how he's written in this newer robin series.

for starters: i get what you're talking about where criticism of the comics might partly because of anti-lgbt attitude. especially since tim getting confirmed to be bisexual made A LOT of people mad (including ppl who arent homophobic but are mad that it wasn't THEIR favorite robin who got confirmed queer like dick, jason, or damian etc). comic bros and even casual comic fans who had never even heard of tim or even gave a shit about him were now furious. and while there might be ppl with genuine critiques- some of hatred of the way tim is written in the newer comics you really have to take it with a grain of salt because it very well could be comic bros hating because "robin isn't gay".

same with the writer, meghan fitzmartin. in general, women DO have an uphill battle when it comes to working in comics because it is very male dominated. and it's no secret that a lot of comic fans are opposed to women writing in comics. so misogyny, and even jealousy also plays a role with how much criticism is ACTUALLY warranted. but that doesn't mean a woman in comics isn't allowed to be criticized if they do a bad job or do a botched execution when their job is supposed to be making good, enjoyable, stories that do justice to the characters. i do think meghan may have some decentish ideas but whether she genuinely has the writing chops to deliver on those big ideas is well...iffy. but then again i genuinely don't keep tabs on comic writers or they're projects so maybe that will change.

when it comes to the critique of tim being written like a "fanfiction" version and not a "real" version of him i do see what they mean.

when I think of fanon tim I think of all the mischaracterizations that have been popularized. a coffee obsessed gremlin that doesn't sleep who is deeply insecure and agonizes over his place in the family, thinking he doesn't belong. people LIKE that tim is portrayed like that (in fanfiction) otherwise that characterization wouldn't be so pervasive in fics (there's also the possibility that a lot of ff writers DON'T know any better because many don't read comics but they do read fics and so they base their portrayals solely off what they read in fics resulting in this racoon eyed, coffee loving character who they believe to be an actual portrayal when it's really just someone's idea/exaggerated interpretation of tim).

i really don't see a lot of that in meghan's writing, the issues with tim's writing with her are different. if anything WFA is the one that really have the 'written as a ff character' vibe. but that series is also SUPPOSED to be deeply unserious as a fun slice of life universe where nothing goes wrong for anyone ever as a soothing balm for the oftentimes depressing stories in batman comics.

but in meghan's writing I also don't see a lot of what i consider to be core tim values. is she the best writer for tim? no i don't really think so. but there is a certain degree of understanding for his character. I see the comics and I can recognize that it's tim. so it's not offensively OC.

a lot of complaints seem to stem from his relationship with bernard being too much of a focus. people say how tim does too much thinking about him when...he was a lot worse in the 90s with steph. I remember getting so irritated when entire comics of robin would be narrated by steph or about her, i'd be like 'I want to read about ROBIN and his adventures, not steph, why is she even relevant?'. but tim's relationships to other people are a core part about him so you just have to take it.

the part that i think is justified in critique is in talking about whether her writing of bernard dowd is good. that is a much easier thing to answer. and its that its not good writing. in fact it's a pretty bad, inaccurate portrayal of him given how he was written when we first knew him. he's sort of been...sanded down? kind of remade into some new, almost unrecognizable character that fits into what she believes would be a nice, wholesome, gay partner for tim. which is an issue for me because we have seen and know what tim is like in relationships. tim had tension with, disagreed with, got annoyed with, fought and argued with his other partners like stephanie and ariana. but he also enjoyed himself and was happy with them. there was a balance there of good and bad because tim's unique situation of being robin made it so there had to be good and bad. with bernard it's all very passive and easy. they don't argue, they don't really fight, or have any struggles in their relationship when trying determine compatibility. avoiding tension in the relationship when tim has a track record of it makes it almost seem like she's afraid of the risk of portraying a gay relationship in anything less than a golden light. which is not good writing. BUT it is also very NEW. so maybe that will change (but there's a similar problem with jon kent and his bf so idk)? i personally believe kon would've been a more ideal partner with their shared history, chemistry, tension, the fact that fans have wanted it for decades, and the fact that it would've been such a good addition to the arc of self acceptance for kon's character. and many of the issues that tim being with bernard wouldn't be a thing because tim and kon famously don't see eye to eye 100 percent of the time and so their relationship would struggle and grow as they go from friends to romantic partners.

ultimately in my opinion to write a truly good tim drake you need to be able to accurately portray the thing that made him such a great robin: his heart of gold. tim cares about doing the right thing SO much. he cares about helping people. he's not some cold, unfeeling calculated computer who uses people as pawns and abandons his morals at the slightest inconvenience or seduction to the 'dark side'. and he's not some coffee drinking hacker man that is 20 steps ahead and smug about it.

tim worries about people, he's upset at injustice, feels guilt at not being able to save people, is judgy, sometimes a brat, sarcastic, gets angry at people for throwing their lives away, gets very invested in things that catch his interest, is too curious for his own good, nosy. he lies through his teeth and then bats his eyes in sweet as pie innocence. will think VERY rude thoughts about people but will bite his tongue because he's a nice boy👼 but sometimes things slip out. he is somehow simultaneously able to be the 🥺 and 😈 emoji at the same time. his odds of making bad decisions increase by 100 fold if in the company of other stupid teenagers.

now i write tim as a very exaggerated version of that core self. that's what a lot of ff authors do. they choose a handful of traits they like best about him and spin entire fics about it. i don't think writing tim as a fanfiction version of himself is a bad thing because some fanfic is genuinely better than the source material and that comes from being very good at understanding the character. the tim of today can't be written the same way he was in his golden age, the 90s, because a lot of his struggles and hurdles that he dealt with in those comics are over. they're done. tim can't be 30 years old and still wondering if he's doing a shit job as robin. tim IS a good robin and he should be able to acknowledge that (funnily enough one of his clear acknowledgements of that is often wiped away by fics- that being the titans tower scene where jason asks if tim thinks he's the better robin and tim, without hesitation, says yes) a lot of older fans are clinging to problems that tim has already resolved. he's not thirteen and insecure about his abilities. he's not on his first relationship with someone (but he is in his first relationship with a boy). he's not still learning how to navigate his relationship with batman and the rest of the family or struggling to come to terms with his civilian and caped life. do some of those things still trouble him on occasion? yes but they're not the main focus anymore.

tim has to have new problems, new challenges, new growth.

i had some hope for new tim comics.

would i like to have seen more tim centric material or at least good stories. and often times in the new tim comics tim was exactly the same at the end of the issue as he was at the beginning. tim struggling with his identity is something that made an appearance in 90s comics a lot but I think for the newer ones that it would've been better received/more interesting if it were...written better?

idk. i don't know a single comic fan that loved every detail of their fav's comics. was it the best run? no. but it was okay enough i guess. it was lukewarm, not standing ovation worthy but also nobody should be throwing tomatoes at the performers either, it just earned a polite clap of acknowledgement which i don't think is a very bad thing but still i hope we get something better!

#answered asks #asks #anonymous

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ystrike1 · 1 year

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A Yandere Boyfriend's Sexy Punishment - By Natsuyoshi (6/10)

I've got beef with this one. Personal beef. It should be good, but if this isn't your first time you'll notice the quality issues. The yandere is a wishy-washy loser, which is a popular type of yandere, but the author isn't trying to write him that way. This author doesn't have the writing chops to pull off an intimidating yandere, and our protagonist is a blank space. Boo self inserts!

I said blank space...but Miu is kind of worse than that. She’s a Mary Sue in a smut story...which means she's a mild mannered, virginal, young girl.

...red flag?

Yup, your bad feeling does get confirmed near the end.

The beginning is so promising. Rei, Miu's hot boyfriend, corners her in the shrine he made for her. The dirty talk here is generic, but it's not that bad. Miu is...........

....she uh...just kinda lets Rei abuse her.

There's no real consequences for this.

She cries and runs away and stuff...but she doesn't really try to break up with him. She never calls the cops, even when he starts stalking her. He calls her 40 times a day but she never uh...asks for help??

Rei's backstory is one big excuse. He does awful things to Miu, but then he admits he was depressed. He was in a bad relationship before, and he knows about his own obsessive tendencies.

It's all very boring and...not a good reason for Miu to keep dating him.

He also tried to jump in front of a train. Miu saved him when she was in high school. She's been his ideal girl ever since. His dream girl. How sweet...wait not really the author ruins this later.

Miu tries to have a backbone. She says it doesn't matter if she saved him. He's still too forceful and aggressive. His shrine for her did not make her happy. She wanted her sweet first love...and instead she got...baggage...

Rei freaks out if she talks to any man. He hates her friends. He hates her family. He wants to chain her up. He wants her to have no life outside of him.

He makes her do embarrassing things when he's angry. He has an awful temper, and his personality flip flops alot. He's a very erratic loser yandere, but he constantly talks about how he's got Miu under his control...and she does do what he says...so as the reader I am left with a toxic dynamic that isn't very fun.

It's like a wet sandwich.

It's got all the toppings I ordered on it, but the texture is wrong.

Listen.

I don't think this author is a fan of male yanderes. That's my crazy theory of the day. Male yandere fiction is EXTREMELY popular now. I never thought it would get so popular when I started reviewing this stuff...

It really feels like this exists to fill a quota...

Part of the plot twist is Rei's abusive relationship with an older woman. She used him for money. She beat him, and she cucked him. This is unusual. I think we all know that most male yandere stories are a fantasy for women. It's weird to see a negative portrayal of a stereotypically evil "s***" character who is a w***** that wants cash.

My point is it feels like the author squeezed their ACTUAL fetishes into this yandere story.

The ending makes me even more sure.

Rei becomes a "redeemed yandere", which is a VERY UNPOPULAR type of yandere. He says he'll turn over a new leaf for Miu, because she saved him. He does not get punished in any way for tormenting Miu.

#yandere #male yandere #yandere male #yandere boy #recommendations #recs #rec #recommended

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mormonbooks · 2 months

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The Bishop's Wife Review

4/5 Stars!

This book was nothing like how I expected it to be and everything I needed and wanted it to be. I expected the kind of novel you could recommend to your mom for a bit of light reading on a Sunday afternoon. The Bishop's Wife. She's a mormon woman who is doing her best to take care of her ward.

I was pleasantly surprised at the moderately progressive tone the book took within the first few chapters (asking questions about the sexism in the church, the fear of judgement 'imperfect' families face, etc) but I soon realized that it there was much more. This novel is a deep commentary on Mormonism, digging into the deep and unpleasant parts, and asking difficult questions that most members like to avoid. It does it all through the eyes of a faithful middle-aged woman, who knows what she believes and uses her faith to bring justice to her community, even when she has to struggle against the church institution and her own husband to do it.

In my opinion, it's a great work of mormon feminism, that allows our culture to shine through in all it's glory and with all it's flaws. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, genuinely. The mystery is engaging, the community is loveable, the plot twists are gut wrenching. Truly a work of art. I'm excited to read more of Harrison's work

Breakdown under the cut

1. Well written - 5 Stars

Yes. The prose is beautiful. The plot is engaging. The mystery is complex and the new information always threw me. It was gut wrenching at times. It was comforting at others.

2. Fun level - 5 stars

It's a slow-paced story, with many moments that skip weeks or months where not much happens. But I enjoy stories like that. It gave breaks between the page-turning mystery solving moments.

3. Complex faith - 5 Stars

This is probably my favorite part of this book. The villains and the heroes are all mormons, and they all approach their faith and their religion in different ways. Linda obviously has more progressive views, and is enraged by the misogyny of many of the men in this story. Those men are not shown to be anamolys per se but they're also not shown to be the norm. Many women in the story have opportunities to voice their questions and doubts but it never makes them any less mormon. People exist all over the scale of mormonism and it feels like the most honest portrayal of our culture that I've read so far.

4. Homophobia scale - 3.5 Stars

It's not a major plot point, but it's mentioned that Linda's son Samuel joined the GSA at his school and she is proud of him for that. She also suspects that her other son might be gay, and worries about how that will affect his relationship with his father. I imagine this will be explored further in the series. It's refreshing that Linda is pro-LGBT but it also seems to treat the church's heteronormative stance quite naively and I'd love to see Harrison really dig into that topic in the future.

5. Mormon weird - 4 stars

Realistic Fiction, but definitely uniquely mormon. The characters in this book could not be swapped out with "generic christians." some of the problematic and dangerous beliefs are uniquely mormon, but so are the beautiful and comforting ones. There is a lot of discussion of the plan of salvation, that I appreciated. I also liked Linda's realistic approach to faith, and her honest moments of doubting, or referring to things as "legends" and "myths." Things don't have to be doctrine to be important in our culture

6. Diversity of characters - 2 stars

I don't think race is ever touched on in the novel, and they all live in Utah and have typical european-american names, so it's easy to assume they are all white. And despite being essentially a work of mormon feminism, a very small percentage of the speaking cast are women.

7. Other problematic stuff - 4.5 stars

I deeply enjoyed the novel as a snapshot of a mormon town, however that does mean that, despite her progressiveness, Linda has a realistic understanding of gender, as a middle-aged mormon woman. She has some beliefs and attitudes toward men that I found frustrating, although understandable.

Conclusion:

I gave this book 5 stars on goodreads but that was before I did my breakdown. I wish it had been more diverse, but I think Harrison explores race in the church in future novels. We'll see.

I LOVE Linda Wallheim. I LOVE the way Harrison talks about Mormon communities and Mormon faith and Mormon culture. I love how much this book made me feel. This is decidedly GOOD mormon rep, with all the determined faith mixed with struggles against flawed systems and truly terrible people. like. I cannot express how much I hate the villains in this book.

I can't wait to see Linda's next adventure.

#mormon representation #mormon #book review #lds #religion #linda walllheim #the bishop's wife #a linda wallheim mystery #Mette Ivie Harrison

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uwmspeccoll · 9 months

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Steamy Saturday

"Women who dare to live in that outcast world of 'twilight' love." "Val sensed something oddly disturbing about the girl. Not until later did she realize what it was -- and then it was too late!" "I love you, Val. I want to be your lover. . .. She brushed Val's cheek with her fingers. . .. Val's flesh tingled at the touch. For the briefest moment she closed her eyes. . .." ". . . a refreshingly realistic treatment of women who are 'different'."

Steamy, steam, steam!!

The sophisticated, witty, attractive, and popular airline hostess Val MacGregor meets her lovely, dark-eyed coworker Toni. Val is confident in her sexuality and enjoys the attention of men -- maybe too much -- but Toni soon shows her otherwise, and Val is awakened to her true desires. Such is the premise of American lesbian romance writer Paula Christian's first novel Edge of Twilight, published in pulp paperback as a Crest Book by Fawcett Publications in 1959. Remarkably, Edge of Twilight has a positive resolution of fully-realized lesbian love, unlike the tragic endings of most lesbian romance fiction from the period.

Paula Christian was the pseudonym for Yvonne MacManus (1931-2002), an American novelist, editor, and publisher who wrote in several genres under her own name but published lesbian romances only under her pen name Paula Christian. MacManus had been an airline crew member herself, flying out of what became Kennedy International Airport in New York, and Edge of Twilight is semi-autobiographical.

The book's cover art offers stereotypical 1950s butch/femme imagery, only this time it is a photograph, rather than being rendered by an illustrator. As a "pro-lesbian" romance, Barbara Grier, in her seminal The Lesbian in Literature, gives the novel her highest rating of A*** for its very sympathetic portrayal of lesbian characters. The National Organization for Decent Literature, however, disagreed. The organization would often flag individual passages they found objectionable in publications but in this case it noted: "Theme of book is hardly a subject for teenage perusal. A book about a pair of lesbians is hardly youthful entertainment. Pages and passages have not been marked as it is generally objectionable."

View other pulp fiction posts.

#Steamy Saturday #romance fiction #lesbian romance novels #pulp fiction #lesbian pulp fiction #Edge of Twilight #Paula Christian #Yvonne MacManus #Crest Book #Fawcett Publicatons #lesbians #homosexuality #LGBTQ+#romance novels #UWM LGBT Collection

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zevranunderstander · 9 months

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idk how to phrase this but like. people retroactively calling Fleabag a privileged, dissociative portrayal of feminism which is Bad, Actually, are lowkey deranged to me because, yeah, Fleabag IS about the expierience of womanhood. but like. through the lens of ONE woman? like, nowhere in the show is it ever implied that fleabag's expieriences are supposed to be universal, relateable core pillars to womanhood?

its almost like half of the population of the world is female and I think it's kind of weird that all stories about women always have to be feminist and activist, and can not just be an exploration of an imperfect woman, they have to be correct about *all* of womanhood?

i also think that the people saying this don't really understand the character of fleabag and i do think that the show is feminist in many ways, but even when no person working on this show would have had any intention of making this a "feminist story", i think that would have been their right to do that?

breaking bad, fight club, american psycho, lolita, etc. all tell the stories of white men who are objectively horrible people. and these stories still treat these characters with a level of empathy and understanding of how they got there and why they are like that. the stories don't excuse their behavior because of that, they are simply a fictional analysis of a person who is not virtuous or good in a lot of ways.

but women, people of color, disabled people, and other minorities are never given the same right to just tell a story about a character, the character has to be virtuous, a good role model, a representation of their whole group, likeable, flawed only in an "unproblematic" way, never make a bad decision, and its insanely limiting in what stories can be told by writers, when they want the approval of the general audience

and i so genuinely want more fleabag women, who may interact with feminism, but who are actual human beings in a real world, who have real flaws and who can be selfish and cruel, but who are still treated with empathy by the story

#myposts #anyways fleabag my beloved #like this 'fleabag is a bad feminist' yeah so? she says that as one of the first lines in the show #like does that make the show bad or what lmao #and like i LOVE the 'we're bad feminists' scene bc #like this woman asks who in the audience would give up time of their lifespan to have an ideal body #and only fleabag and claire raise their hands but genuinely you cannot tell me that no one else in the entire rest of the audience #would want that. like the woman in the front asks for a reason and that reason is that a lot of women would want tha #because they are socialized to be concious about being attractive and desirable and fleabag and claire are being honest #im not saying ALL other women in the audience lied but some probably did. right?#because they actually do want to look like 'good feminists' who are wholly unaffected by living in a patriarcal society #do i make sense? idk

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maddie-grove · 28 days

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The Top Twenty Books I Read in 2023

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949): I thought somebody would make me read this book in school, but no one ever did. Now that I've read it, let me just say...mark me down as horny and scared! No, I will not explain what I mean by that.

Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser (2017): In this examination of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life and work, Fraser skillfully weaves a portrait of two complicated women (Wilder and her daughter/editor Rose Wilder Lane) with an overview of large swathes of American history. The examination of how Wilder and Lane adapted Wilder's life experiences into autobiographical fiction and why they made those choices is particularly interesting.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022): This is a retelling of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, transplanted to Appalachia in the 1990s-2000s. Kingsolver retains the warmth and the pathos of the original, and the narrative voice is great.

Song of the Magdalene by Donna Jo Napoli (1996): Miriam, a Jewish girl in first-century Magdala, finds her life altered by unexplained seizures, which she must keep secret, and a first love that ends in tragedy. Napoli often brings it when it comes to thoughtful portrayals of disability and unexpectedly weird sensuality, and this novel is one of her best.

My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews (1982): Audrina Adare, a young girl with severe memory problems, lives in an isolated Virginia mansion with her domineering father and various deranged female relatives...and it gets worse. This is V.C. Andrews at her most deliciously perverse and lurid, and I was definitely rooting for Audrina to close the portal.

I Never Asked You to Understand Me by Barthe DeClements (1986): Faced with her mother's terminal cancer diagnosis and the unhelpfulness of most adults in her life, fifteen-year-old Didi ends up at an alternative school for truancy and finds a friend in Stacy, a would-be runaway whose home life is even more dire. This 1980s YA problem novel always gets me, thanks to the author's gentle, empathetic treatment of her messy teenage characters.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (2006): Jasons, a thirteen-year-old boy in early-1980s Worchestershire, copes with brutal grade-school politics, a tense home life, various small losses of innocence, and the odd supernatural event over the span of a year. My favorite stretch of the novel was where half a dozen scary/weird/sexually confusing things happen in the course of Jason taking one meandering walk through the countryside.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (1963): I'd been intending to read a Kurt Vonnegut novel since he died in 2007, so don't say I never follow through on anything. This book is extraordinarily fun and absurd, which just enhances the horror of the eventual climax.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905): Cash-strapped socialite Lily Bart struggles in turn-of-the-century New York society, mainly because she can neither fully commit to gold-digging nor figure out a viable alternative. Her crumbling state, both social and psychological, is horrifying yet fascinating to witness.

The Fell by Sarah Moss (2021): In November 2020, English waitress and single mother Kate breaks quarantine to take a walk through the countryside, with disastrous results. This short novel is lyrical, compassionate, and impressively stressful.

Old Babes in the Woods by Margaret Atwood (2023): This short story collection is split between vignettes featuring elderly couple Nell and Tig, and several standalones that vary wildly in tone and form. All are well-written, but I generally enjoyed the standalones best, especially the poignant "My Evil Mother," the chilling "Freeforall," and the thought-provoking "Metempsychosis."

Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott (2023): Pregnant Jacy goes with her new husband to visit his widowed father in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but a pleasant vacation soon turns into a paranoid nightmare. Abbott's lush descriptions--kind of sexy and kind of gross, as always--enhance a truly disturbing thriller.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925): This is another book I assumed someone would make me read in school, but I think all my teachers and professors were like "yeah, yeah, The Great Gatsby, we all know what that is." What you don't get from the Baz Luhrmann movie and pop-cultural osmosis, though, is the exquisite secondhand embarrassment of watching Gatsby pursue a married woman who is actually more into her husband, or just how fucking bizarre that husband is.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (2023): Single mother Louise is pulled from San Francisco to her hometown of Charleston by the sudden death of her parents and has to coordinate funeral arrangements with her ne'er-do-well brother Mark...and it gets worse. This isn't the best or the scariest Grady Hendrix novel, but the sibling relationship is compelling and it features the incomparable Pupkin. I love that fucked-up lil hand-puppet.

Seventeen and In-Between by Barthe Declements (1984): High-school senior Elsie Edwards is beautiful, brilliant, and talented, but she's still plagued by the lingering trauma of childhood bullying, her terrible parents, and her complicated feelings for her long-term boyfriend (slightly older and jonesing to Go All the Way) and her male best friend (also trying to figure things out, albeit through working in the lumber industry in Forks, Washington). The Elsie Edwards trilogy is great overall, and Elsie's struggle to figure out how to move beyond her unhappy past is especially moving.

Don't Look and It Won't Hurt by Richard Peck (1972): Carol, the sixteen-year-old middle daughter of a poor divorced waitress, gets a front seat to her older sister's disastrous relationship with a scumbag, experiences her own first romance, and sorts through her feelings about her strained family and stultifying small prairie town. This is a sweet, understated early YA novel that offers a look into the last few years before Roe v. Wade.

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (2022): In this memoir, McCurdy recounts her relationship with her controlling, abusive late mother and her dispiriting time as a child star on Nickelodeon. I really enjoyed her writing style--clear, conversational, and bracingly pissed off--and she offers some good insight into the acting industry.

Just Like You by Nick Hornby (2020): Joseph, a twentysomething black working-class Londoner balancing his musical aspirations with babysitting gigs and a job at a butcher's shop, stars a romance with Lucy, a fortysomething upper-middle-class white single mom and schoolteacher. This is a pleasant, easygoing love story with some insightful commentary on how ordinary people form political opinions.

The Fourth Grade Wizards by Barthe DeClements (1988): Fourth grader Marianne is distracted in class and adrift at home after her mother's sudden death, but she has a good friend in Jack, who struggles in class because he's hyperactive. You might ask why this list is so dominated by one 1980s middle-grade/YA author, and the answer is that I love her. Also, I did not read all that many new-to-me books last year.

How Do You Lose Those Ninth Grade Blues? by Barthe DeClements (1983): Elsie Edwards, no longer the emotionally battered class pariah she was in Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade but not yet the maturing young woman she'll become in Seventeen and In-Between, starts high school with everything going for her...except her horribly low self-esteem and her still-terrible home life. This is definitely the slightest installment of the trilogy, but it still makes an impact.

#reading #books

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worflesbian · 10 months

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I'm literally gonna be saying nothing new here but anyway. pausing the current ep to talk again about juggernaut bc smth @trillscienceofficer said made me think like. the portrayal and discussion of b'elanna's anger as a defensive instinct or a response to childhood bullying or a symptom of trauma in this episode is undercut by the bioessentialism present in the writing of b'elanna and klingons in general. although i noticed this episode barely mentions her "Klingon side" when talking about her temper, the point has been laboured enough in previous episodes that the idea of her anger as inherent to her biology rather than a developed threat response is kind of incontrovertible at this point without openly condemning established canon as "wrong".

which is frustrating for a number of reasons but one of them is the way this episode shows b'elanna as in conflict about her own capacity for reactionary violence - both in the story about getting revenge on her bully and when she defends herself from the irradiated malon, her anger is framed as a powerful tool for self-defence and as something that scares her in its intensity. i can relate to that, pretty deeply! but i know that my anger comes from issues in my childhood, whereas b'elannas's anger can't be meaningfully addressed in the same way while skirting around the established fact that it comes from her "Klingon biology".

on top of this is the disparity between how the crew treat b'elanna's anger vs what we actually see on screen: she is often shown making threats or mean comments but we rarely see her actually lose her temper, instead we're told about it by other characters who's testimony we have to rely on to believe b'elanna's anger is actually "uncontrolled". compare that to faith from btvs for example (my go-to) who in her very first episode is shown failing to kill a vampire (her job) instead letting the fight continue and escalate until she's uncontrollably beating on him in a clear state of distress. obviously voyager is a very different show, but the point stands that there's a difference between showing a character lose their temper vs consistently having it discussed in anecdotes, especially when considering the dual racial biases applied to b'elanna: her fictional Klingon identity (Klingons have been consistently coded as non-White and racialised in deeply harmful ways) and her very real latina identity (none of the people shown condemning b'elanna's anger are other women of colour).

so like obviously this has all been said before but yeah I think the idea of b'elanna having an inherent rage belonging to her "Klingon side" really frustrates the attempts made later in the show to make meaningful investigations into this aspect of her character and it's a huge shame because this could have been a Brilliant episode otherwise

#i have so much to say. little of it new #b'elanna #voyager liveblog #ghitlhpu'wij

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slasher-male-wife · 2 years

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About me and request rules

Hey I'm Ziggy and this is my blog where I obsess over men and sometimes women. I use he/him and I'm 18. I really like fall stuff, vampires, Halloween in general, and my special interest is specifically horror movies. My favorite horror movie is Texas chainsaw massacre. My side account is @slashers-offical-boyfriend and my non fan fiction account is @living-dead-author. Below is the information on my request rules and info. Enjoy your stay <3

Master list Ao3 account Depop

Taken anons: 🦝🌾🎟🐾🫀🤡🐚🍼👻♠️ 13 🎸🦇🦌🐝 🦕🎨

Requests: open

Match ups: closed

Do not interact with me if you are

Homophobic

transphobic

racist

Are a proshipper

Just a republican in general

Ed blog

Under 16

Terf/Swerf

Match up rules

Specify the fandom you want and your gender preference.

Include things like hobbies, dream career, ideal parter, personality traits gender identity.

Feel free to include anything else you think is important.

Make them as long as you think they should be.

Will do

Fluff

Light or regular angst

head cannons

drabbles

fics

gore

hurt x comfort

x gn, male, trans masc and ftm reader

Autistic, depressed, anxious, etc reader (I won’t write about mental health issues/ mental illnesses unless I have it myself or I feel comfortable enough portraying it)

Darker topics like past mentions of abuse, sh, kidnapping, murder, etc all with proper trigger warnings

poly stories and head cannons (unless you tell me you want them to be poly I won’t write them as poly)

Slashers in a Dbd setting if they're actually in the game

Yandere characters (I think I know how to write one)

Iffy (Not common or might not write about depending on the request)

character x character

suicidal reader

Characters hurting reader on purpose

Recovering Ed related things

Heavy angst (More likely to be written with a happy ending)

Age regressing reader (Only if it's sfw)

x fem reader (Won't be very common for now unless it's essential to the fic)

I won’t do

sexual fics or head cannons

Child reader

pregnant reader

parent reader

Pro Ed related anything

Characters

Horror characters

Scream: Billy Loomis, Stu Macher

Black Christmas: Billy Lenz

Halloween: Michael Myers (og or rob zombie), Corey Cunningham

The Boy: Brahms Heelshire

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Bubba Sawyer, Thomas Hewitt, Nubbins Sawyer, Chop top Sawyer, Vanita "Stretch" Brock

House of wax: Bo Sinclair, Vincent Sinclair, Lester Sinclair

Behind the mask: Leslie Vernon

House of 1000 corpses: Otis Driftwood, Baby Firefly

The Lost boys: David, Paul, Marko, Dwayne, Michael, Star

The Black phone: The Grabber/Albert Shaw

Spree: Kurt Kunkle

Friday the 13th: Jason Voorhees, Tommy Jarvis

Child's play: Tiffany Valentine

Re-animator: Herbert West, Dan Cain

Carrie: Carrie White

Saw: Amanda Young, Adam Faulkner, Mark Hoffman, Peter Strahm

Candy man: The Candy man/ Daniel Robitaille

31: Doomhead

Psycho: Norman Bates

My bloody valentine: Harry Warden

American psycho: Patrick Bateman

Hannibal nbc: Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter

Near dark: Severen

Laid to rest: Jesse Cromeans

Martin: Martin Mathias

The Collector: Asa Emory/The Collector

Thanksgiving: Sheriff Eric Newlon

The Walking dead

Daryl Dixon

Rick Grimes

Negan Smith

Glenn Rhee

Maggie Rhee

Dead by Daylight

Danny Johnson/Ghostface

Pyramid head

Any slasher listed in the above section that is in dbd

Interview with the vampire 1995

Lestat De Lioncourt

Louis De Pointe Du Lac

Call of Duty

Phillip Graves

Simon “Ghost” Riley

Johnny "Soap" Mactavish

Misc. Characters

Johnathan Crane/Scarecrow (DC, based off Cillian Murphy portrayal)

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archduchessofnowhere · 8 months

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I'm finally back home so more thoughts about Sisi & Ich:

This movie was screened as part of a German Film Festival and while I'd never been to one before I felt it was exactly what you would expect for a film festival. Like I can't imagine this movie doing well with a general audience.

The movie is so anachronistic (completely made up fashion, modern pop music, modern hairstyles, the actors look nothing like their historical counterparts) that it's really easy to forget this is supposed to be about Empress Elisabeth and Irma Sztáray; because of that I was able to enjoy it mostly as a story about a very toxic, manipulative and dependant relationship between two women. If you like stories about fucked up people doing fucked up things to each other "out of love" you'll like this one.

This, however, made me wish they had gone full AU because every time the story actually did adapt things from real history it did it in a way it annoyed me: so Elisabeth's eating disorder became in a full on screen portrayal of bulimia (something she never had), and her complicated but mostly amicable relationship with her husband was turned into an abusive marriage. From a historical perspective these were the things I disliked the most, since to me they felt tasteless and only for shock value.

Archduke Ludwig Viktor is a character here, and while the close friendship he has with his sister-in-law in this movie is completely fictional (Elisabeth had been fond of him when he was a child but they had a fell out years later and never again got along), I actually liked it; he is kinda like Ludwig II in Corsage but without the weird kissing scenes.

But the character that completely takes the spotlight is Irma. Sandra Hüller is fantastic as her, easily the best actress in the movie. She portrays both Irma's utter devotion for the empress as well as her rage against her in such a gripping way. Really I think the movie is worth it just for her.

Elisabeth, however, was a bit underwhelming. She feels like a manic pixie dream girl for most of the movie; it's probably on purpose, since we see the story through Irma's POV and she idealised her, but personally I couldn't really connect with her character with how unrealistic she felt sometimes. It was a refreshing take, I'll give it that: it's rare to see an elder Elisabeth who isn't a mater dolorosa who's always sad and miserable.

FJ was done so dirty, they just keep making him more and more evil lol.

Every time they made a joke about Katharina Schratt... keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth!

The England segment should've been cut out because it felt like a completely different movie that pops out of nowhere, and not only isn't even the right time (the England trips were in the 1870s), but also the only thing that achieved was making me loose my respect for Elisabeth's character (the squire was cute tho).

I've seen this movie as LGBT/recommended for LGBT folks so to not disappoint you I'll give you the heads up that the only gay content we get are two hours of unresolved sexual tension between Irma and Elisabeth (and also between Ludwig Viktor and a guy from Elisabeth's staff, the gays just weren't getting it in this movie). That being said Irma is clearly a lesbian (even tho she is never referred as such) and Ludwig Viktor is also openly gay, so there are LGBT characters.

These are just some of the things I have to say off the top of my head, but I'll try to write a full review this weekend!

#sisi & ich (2023)#tw eating disorder #tw bulimia

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