It was weird to go to a muslim funeral when you’re not muslim anymore but nobody know you don’t believe in god. Everyone cope by saying he went to heaven, while I’m thinking he is nowhere.
“You don’t care what my biology is or what gender I am. You care that I’m not performing femininity to your standards.”
That’s a fantastic way of putting it. It reminds me of that 2016 news story from 2016 of a woman, assigned female at birth, who was forced out of a women’s restroom by 3 male cops. She didn’t present as feminine in her baggy Men’s section clothes, short hair, and backwards baseball cap and that was enough “proof” to call the cops and drag her off.
This is why TERF ideology is so self-destructive. TERF’s claim they’re “pro-women, pro-female empowerment, pro-keeping women safe” but put into practice, it harms AFAB women as well as trans women.
When women are told “you should conform more to patriarchal beauty standards or you deserve harassment”, forced to present their ID (containing their home address) to “prove” their gender, when the women’s restroom fills with male cops to drag out someone for being suspiciously androgynous.
That isn’t Feminist at all! It’s an anti-woman stance.
Excluding Transgender Women from Female Empowerment is Counter-Intuitive to the Cause! Trans Women are Women! Policing Gender Expression is Regressive!
Yeah. I listened to a self-identified Black butch lesbian talk about how a white woman called the police on her for being in the bathroom and the white male officer asked to feel her chest to “prove” she was a woman.
The Black butch - cis - lesbian was giving this talk at an anti-bathroom bill rally by the way. She was revealing this horrible story to the audience to make them understand what transphobia really is, and really does. And yes it is related to racism.
Struggling to see why I should feel sympathy for Alicent. Rhaenyra is the rightful heir who had consensual sex with someone she’s attracted to, she didn’t owe Alicent the truth - it was none of Alicent or Otto’s business. The fact we’re meant to be going “oh poor baby, she’s so upset” has me doing the exact opposite. She should get over to, it’s not like she told Rhaenyra about her secret meetings with the king either.
ohh Anon thank you so much for this ask (also sorry it took me a few days to reply). After last night I became a hardcore Rhaenyra Targaryen defender. You're right, Alicent was not sympathetic at all this last episode. I had the exact opposite reaction to her antics and I'm already annoyed by the justifications out there from some of her hardcore defenders. I was planning on doing a separate essay this week but since you asked I'll just go for it now.
So here goes.
In Defense of Rhaenyra Targaryen:
In this essay, I will......
establish that Rhaenyra never ever got a fair shot and Alicent is a jealous bitter woman who believes she's powerful but is truly just a perfectly crafted pawn of her father and the patriarchy.
I feel like a common theme among some of the viewers has been that Alicent's extreme actions this episode make sense and being upset at Rhaenyra is justified and a few times I sat there reading it trying to figure out if I watched the same show because it's just such a nonsensical conclusion to make.
let's start with the first complaint
"Rhaenyra's lie got Otto removed as hand"
Lie. OTTO'S OWN AMBITION IS WHAT GOT HIM REMOVED AS HAND. NOT RHAENYRA'S LIE.
Otto has had a conflict of interest this entire time. The moment he pimped his daughter out to the king to advance his agenda is the moment is job became precarious. The man had been plotting to have Aegon take the throne in place of Rhaenyra this whole time. He was always going to make a move to convince Viscerys to disinherit her and that move was always going to be extremely risky but I don't think Otto even realized how risky it was because of his arrogance and his belief that he could easily manipulate Viscerys. Daemon called this from episode 1 when he told Viscerys that Otto was a vulture preying on his weakness and Viscery didn't listen. The man was so blinded he didn't even realize Alicent was a carefully planned plot by her father until the last episode. Because he was so arrogant and he underestimated how much Viscerys loves Rhaenyra (of course a man who pimped out his own daughter would think other fathers don't give a damn about theirs) he didn't expect his actions would ever lead to Viscerys actually doubling down on Rhaenyra as heir. If it wasn't this scandal it was going to be another crafted up by him to get rid of her. So Rhaenyra's lie didn't directly lead to shit, besides exposing otto as the conniving schemer that he always was and he did that on his own. Viscerys didn't even believe Rhaenyra. Like I'm almost positive the man truly believes Daemon took his daughter's maidenhead so how can it all be blamed on Rhaenyra lying? Moral of the story is Otto would still be hand if he wasn't ambitious and knew how to mind his own fucking business.
Speaking of minding one's own business that brings me to the next complaint
"Rhaenyra lied to Alicent and Alicent was supposed to be her friend"
Somebody, anybody please tell me why who Rhaenyra decides to pussy pop for is Alicen't business? Why exactly was Alicent owed the truth on what Rhaenyra did that night and with who? Does Alicent have some sorta ownership over Rhaenyra's vagina? Not to mention Rhaenyra technically didn't even completely lie to her. She admitted they went to the brothel and she said that Daemon left her there and they didn't have sex, both of which were true events. Alicent asked her if she had sex with DAEMON. She never asked her if she had sex with anybody else. Rhaenyra didn't have sex with Daemon. Her sexual encounter with Criston wasn't her damn business and she never asked so how can you claim you were lied to.
Not to mention how is Rhaenyra being villainized for maintaining her own privacy when Alicent was the first one to deceive someone in his friendship? Did Alicent tell a grieving Rhaenyra that she was spending time with her father? No, she did not. Did Alicent tell Rhaenyra that she was sitting in meetings with her father who is straight up telling her he's working to replace her as heir to the throne? No, she did not. If she was such a concerned friend who valued transparency why has she never been transparent with Rhaenyra? When has Alicent ever divulged information to Rhaenyra that could work against her? So she's owed transparency but Rhaenyra isn't?
What good would telling Alicent the truth do for Rhaenyra? Would Alicent have been any less judgemental? She would still be looking at Rhaenyra like an unrepentant whore. If anything telling the truth would have done more harm than good because from Rhaenyra's perspective Criston could have gotten in trouble and now the mother of the other person threatening her succession would have information she could use against her. What was stopping Alicent from trying to convince Viscerys that his whore daughter is going to bring shame to his reign if he doesn't replace her with their son? So why tell her the truth? Why was she owed the truth in the first place?
If anything Alicent's behavior proved exactly why Rhaenyra shouldn't have told her a damn thing. She found out Rhaenyra had sex and decided to basically declare war like that's completely rational behavior over something that was already cleaned up nicely by Viscerys. Not a single soul knew Rhaenyra fucked Criston and Rhaenyra's betrothal to the richest house in the realm was already secured so what harm did Rhaenyra's sexual exploits bring politically? The only thing it hurt was her feelings and instead of trying to talk it out or calm down she decides she's done with rhaenyra and is gonna come for her birthright. All this over the fact that Rhaenyra had sex. BECAUSE RHAENYRA HAD THE AUDACITY TO MAKE A CHOICE ABOUT HER BODY AND NOT DIVULGE THE DETAILS OF THAT CHOICE TO PEOPLE WHO AREN'T OWED ANYTHING IN THE FIRST PLACE.
And this brings me to my biggest point. At this point, Alicent is willingly a tool for the patriarchy and that's her ultimate problem. She resents that she was dangled to viscerys and is a moist empty hole and baby maker. The only way she can cope with her own circumstances is by convincing herself that living within a strict patriarchal society is actually the best way to live a life. The freedom Viscerys allows Rhaenyra spits in the face of her only coping mechanism. Viscerys gives Rhaenyra a choice in her marriage. Rhaenyra gets to explore her sexual desire in the way men get to explore their sexual desire and even when it angers her father he doesn't discard her for her behavior, he actually protects her by making sure she doesn't have any unintended consequences that could jeopardize her status as heir and by brokering the perfect marriage agreement for her. None of this aligns with what Alicent believes is right according to the patriarchy. Rhaenyra is not doing her duty as a woman and is being protected and rewarded while she's doing her duty and is being ignored but instead of challenging her own belief system and the system as a whole in the way that Rhaenyra has done more than once, she doubles down on it. She holds on even tighter to the ideas of the patriarchy and starts to resent Rhaenyra for constantly reminding her of her own delusions that she willingly becomes a tool for it. She's about to do everything she can to destroy a woman who has the audacity to live her life outside of the narrow confines of what the realm thinks womanhood should entail WITH THE BLESSING OF ALL OF THE MEN AROUND HER so that she can be the righteous woman in the wings, the exemplary woman of the patriarchy who does the "right" thing by propping up a different heir solely because he has a penis.
Because that's really what all this hoopla comes down to. Daemon said it best. The men can run around in every brothel in the city, have as many mistresses and bastards as they want, and experience whatever sexual desire they want and no one bats an eye but women in Westeros absolutely can not. They can't be true heirs because they don't have a penis, they can't want to have sex, and they can't want anything besides to be a support for their husbands and nurturing mothers. The second they do anything outside of these limited things they are horrid women who can't be trusted with the realm. That's why some fans think Rhaenyra committed a horrible sin for fucking and not being transparent bout who she was fucking. That's why people think Rhaenyra is to blame for Criston's actions even though he had CONSENSUAL sex with her ONE time and she never ever gave him the impression it was some intense love connection. Deluding yourself to believe a princess and heir to a throne would ever reasonably give that up to be your poor and bored little wife is a glaring example of patriatchy-inspired delusion but Rhaenyra is the bad person here. She doesn't owe him a relationship, she doesn't owe him shit but she's at fault for everything. It's why you have people claiming Rhaenyra should be removed as heir because by the age of 19 she hasn't "shown she can be a good queen" even though her replacement would be a whole ass toddler who hasn't done a single thing so show he can be a better alternative besides being born with a penis.
It's not Rhaenyra's fault she is not brainwashed by the patriarchy like Alicent. It's not Rhaenyra's fault that Alicent has no real thoughts of her own, only the thoughts of the men around her that she's adopted as her own. Why should Rhaenyra have to play by Alicent's rules of who a woman should be and how she should behave? Fuck her and her precious patriarchy. Even if/when things go wrong for Rhaenyra I'll always be glad she didn't bow down and accept the confines Alicent and the rest of the realm tried to place on her. If/when she dies at least she dies as a woman who navigated a close-minded society on her own terms. That's better than going to the grave as a repressed and miserable obedient pawn for a patriarchy that will forget your name before your body is even cold.
What's funny about Orphan Black is that ultimately the show is a statement against genetic determinism. We meet so many different clones who are all genetically identical, but they're all so different in terms of their personalities, the lives they lead, what they care about, who they love... (Their physical health and attributes are of naturally similar, but that in itself doesn't determine how their lives end up.) In spite of the neolutionist specter playing antagonist in the background hammering on eugenicist ideas, the clones prove that genes for a large part do not determine your life. And while it's never made explicit, I kind of love that.
Many people in the comments are saying “trauma”, but this is actually a very normal occurrence. It’s called Childhood Amnesia, and it’s a process which, as the brain reorganizes itself for cognitive thought that is developed in late childhood, it changes the Accessibility of those memories during recall. Many childhood memories are available to the person, but they will not be remembered during regular recall activity, you have to “trick” your brain into remembering with different tactics.
This is because there are two parts to memories - their encoding and their recall. The encoding determines their availability, their recall determines their accessibility. The reason why trauma memory and childhood amnesia are different is in this distinction. Trauma memory is often encoded differently, bypassing to the limbic system where it is stored as intrinsic memory. It can’t be recalled because it was never encoded. Childhood amnesia, however, seems to indicate that the memories are encoded, but we lose access to them as we age. This is most likely due to the development of brain structures that fundamentally change our encoding and recall of memory as we get older.
This is an important distinction, because trauma memory is “stored in the body”, i.e. you get triggers that send your body into a cascade of uncontrollable feelings, sensations and reactions. Whereas childhood memories won’t generally do that, they are just recalled at odd times with odd associations.
reblogging this because I’ve legit seen people freaking out when they realised they can’t remember some of their childhood, thinking they might have some repressed trauma.
People on twitter are always like 'there's still people on tumblr?'... As if Twitter wasn't full of stolen text posts, gifs and art originally posted here
They think that they’re doing an archeological dig but really they’re just walking into our houses picking up random stuff and saying “Wow, what a beautiful post! Shame that the people who made it died a long time ago :(((” While we stare at them from our dinner tables
ppl are always like oh if i went back in time i would teach them all about electricity. well, i don’t know about electricity. i don’t know how to build a michaelwave. i would be the stupidest motherfucker in the 16th century. i wouldn’t know who the king is. i don’t know how to use a tinderbox. i can’t ride a horse. the only good thing about me is my immunity to super mega smallpox
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