Martha Jones (Doctor Who) vs. Helen of Troy (Greek Mythology)
Martha Jones
Helen of Troy
Remaining time: 6 days 18 hours
Propaganda below the cut:
Martha Jones:
She was the first main Black companion on Doctor Who…I'll just talk about the fandom racism/misogyny itself and not the racism/misogyny in the show itself. She was subject to overt and subtle misogynoir from the fandom, especially since she came after white fan-favorite companion Rose Tyler. People disliked her for having a crush on the Doctor, which Rose also had, and was unfavorably compared to Rose. There's a lot more, but I don't want to write a whole essay.
She's a medical student, and incredibly smart and capable! In her stories, she's incredibly compassionate to those around her, and offers emotional as well as medical assistance. Also, she has incredible style!
Martha gets absolutely shafted by the fandom, most of whom cannot seem to forgive her for not being Rose Tyler. That she dares to leave the Doctor and live her own life is apparently an act more evil than any the Daleks could dream of. A lot of fans insist that Martha's race has nothing to do with why they dislike her. A lot of fans are fucking liars.
Martha is competent and intelligent and screams way less than usual for a companion so she is clearly excellent.
I think fandoms been very racist and misogynistic towards her, relagating her as some spineless woman always pining after the doctor instead of a badass MD who saved the day many times
Not only misogyny but racism too. Martha is an incredibly smart and brave character who doesn’t get half the credit that the Doctor’s other (WHITE) companions get. She gets dogged on by the fandom for a lot of reasons that are overlooked or forgiven when Rose Tyler does a lot of the same things.
She was the only RTD companion who wasn’t given superpowers in order to save the day. Girl saved the world with nothing but gumption and a good pair of walking boots.
I still see hate fics for her in the big year of 2026 please god she's not getting in the way of your ship she walked away from that bum ass alien 15 years ago
So many fans consider Martha a "rebound" companion for 10 and say that she only cares about impressing him or something. Completely ignoring the fact that she was charmed into coming with him! Just like everybody else who travels with the Doctor. She also canonically SAVED THE WORLD by giving the people something to believe in and got to leave on her own accord without something terrible happening to her. She's also shown to be incredibly smart and talented, quickly adapting to situations even if she might be freaked out at first.
And after she leaves she gets to work with UNIT (and im pretty sure she also appears in the Torchwood spin-off series) and eventually she ends up with someone who understands what she's been through.
Martha is SO MUCH MORE than just a rebound companion or a girl obsessed with the Doctor. Sheis (at the time of meeting her) being trained to be a full on doctor who has incredible will power and a clear desire to help others.
Helen of Troy:
many people blame her for so much shit she was Not responsible for. the trojan war was not her fucking fault people!!! also multiple translators have made her call herself a slut or a bitch even though she never refers to herself that way in the ancient greek text :/
give my girl a fucking break!!!! please!!!
COSMIC PUNCHLINE TO EVERY JOKE IN LITERATURE ABOTU HOW WOMEN ARE EVIL. AND WHAT IS LITERATURE IF NOT ILIAD FANDOM. ALL LITERATURE
SHE MAYBE DID ALL THAT BUT I LOIVE HER ANYWAY
I really love Helen as someone who always shows up with a Point Of View. Like she’s reduced to an object a lot (famously as Paris’s reward in the myths or “the face that launched a thousand ships” in pop culture, or even in other stories like the one about her getting kidnapped by Theseus as a kid :/) but she’s always got something
In the Iliad she’s sitting on the walls of Troy, almost a decade into this war, lonely and wondering if her brothers are on the battlefield. She’s getting kidnapped by Aphrodite to go comfort Paris (and telling her she knew it was Aphrodite because the boobs on her disguise were too good!!!) and fucking hating it but not wanting to be attacked by a god. In the Odyssey she’s just fuckin drugging people??
She’s tragic and she’s weird and she’s probably doomed by her own nature as a demigod. And i just think she’s neat :)
The fact that everyone calls her Helen of Troy (the place where she was held captive by a prince that kidnapped her) and not of Sparta (the place where she was queen alongside the man she chose as her husband, having been given more agency than almost any mortal woman of her time by having been given a choice of who she wanted to marry thanks to her divine heritage as a daughter of Zeus) says something on its own tbh
Hen Wilson (9-1-1) vs. Edelgard von Hresvelg (Fire Emblem)
Hen Wilson
Edelgard von Hresvelg
Remaining time: 6 days 18 hours
propaganda below the cut:
Hen Wilson:
Constantly overlooked by the fandom in favor of men, and when people do focus on her it's all about how she helps the m/m ship du jour get together, or supports them, or guides a man in his sexuality discovery. People outside the fandom are constantly being bombarded with the noncanon ship between two white (passing) men, and never even hear about the Black lesbian main character. The OG animals facts girlie but everyone gives that trait to her (white) male coworker.
BADASS Black lesbian firefighter who joined the crew at a time when it was rife with racism and misogyny. Had to fight three times as hard to earn her place and boy did she! Multifaceted, makes devastating mistakes, lashes out, is sososo compassionate, funny, and the smartest character on the show! And her wife is so hot
Hen is a main character who has been in a lesbian relationship since the very first episode(!!!), and yet it's only when the white male lead comes out as bi that fandom celebrates how wonderfully queer the show is and put his face on all the fandom Pride events and artwork! I guess it's not queer rep until it's a white man doing it…
Hen is brave, kind, has a huge heart, makes mistakes, loves, laughs… She's such a wonderful and vibrant character and she doesn't deserve to be overlooked by both the writers and the fandom!
Fandom turns her into a cheerleader for their fave m/m ship, usually Buddie but sometimes Bucktmmy (the latter being especially crazy considering her history with Tommy). Fans also hated on her for what she said about feeling like no one supported her after Bobby died because Buck made her fill out a grief checklist one time, even though that speech (while maybe not super supported by the previous episodes) had very clear subtext about her being the only black woman at her workplace.
Hen is a friend to all animals and is extremely messy in her personal life, two great qualities for any character.
fandom refuses to give her the same rich inner live her male coworkers have, because she's just allowed to be the mothering, wise, funny black woman. it's not that fans hate her, they proclaim to love her, but everytime she gets a storyline they complain. everytime she behaves like a human being, with flaws, on the show they complain. anyone's guess whether that's misogyny, racism or misogy-noir
Henrietta fucking Wilson, smartest person you'll ever know (except for her rocket scientist wife) is a firefighter/paramedic, she is badass, she's a mom, she's a lesbian, she's a great friend and she has this incredibly dry wit sometimes. she has flaws, she's stubborn, she tries so hard not to burden anyone that it's burdening, she makes decisions and takes the fall for them. she!!!
This is a complicated answer but here's my thesis. Hen (main character) is sometimes (sometimes!) not served that well by the canon, and I think it's because they are (since s1) afraid to let a black lesbian character be too messy. But this is about fandom, not canon. And she does have some really juicy storylines. And what I have noticed is that fans love to hate the show and they like to say Because Hen Has No Story as one of the reasons. And then when Hen has a juicy story, many of these some fans will insist it's Bad Actually and will come up with some of the most convoluted nonsensical reasons the storyline is objectively bad, when they are in fact clearly just upset their fave didn't get more attention that ep, but they can't say that because that would be racist and they are Not Racist, you see. So some really fun and interesting stories gets crickets at best and torn up and discarded at worst and sucks.
She marches to the beat of her own drum. She's compassionate and kind and brilliant. She's Judging You. She is SUCH a good friend. She is constantly celebrating people and making sure they feel appreciated. She had a really cool villain foil in s5 and nobody ever talks about how good it was. She loves animals. She's had to carve out her place wherever she goes. She has excellent intuition and she's daring and kind of egotistical about her ability to save lives with risky ad hoc medical hail marys. It's hard to sum her up, she's been here 9 seasons. In some ways the family dynamics of the team started with her.
I am a big gay dyke and I've had multiple (three) people recommend me 911 (before I started watching) on the basis that there is queer rep and the queer rep in question that three (THREE!) people went out of their way to mention to me (lesbian) was BUCK. NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT THE LESBIAN!! WHO WAS IN IT AND MARRIED FROM THE BEGINNING!
Edelgard von Hresvelg:
DIMITRI FANS BLAME HER FOR GENOCIDE(?!) AND RUINING HIS LIFE AS HIS EVIL STEPSISTER. SHE WAS LITERALLY SEVEN
she is one of the most interesting, complex, and tragic figures in the game, but people frequently flatten her into a militaristic fascist and treat her as unrepentantly evil because she’s the main antagonist on most of the game’s routes, even though it’s clear that many of the other characters agree with her goals, just not her methods.
she is a beautiful, tragic, complex woman, and the single most interesting and nuanced character in the game. if she wasn’t, the game’s entire plot would fall apart.
All of Dimitri's short comings and mistakes are waved away/excused as being symptoms of his PTSD. Meanwhile Edelgard's trauma and the clear signs of her C-PTSD are ignored to instead label her as an irredeemable bitch.
Edelgard comes from a game where every main character is meant to be morally ambiguous but hmm for Some Reason edelgard isn't given the same grace as her male peers, I wonder why. If she were a man, she would dominate the fandom with no competition. Like it is that obvious.
Also, she gets hit with the misogyny mallet on both sides like most women, the "she's the source of all evil in the world" and "she did absolutely nothing wrong!" which while well meaning, still reduces her character down. She DID do wrong things, they all do! That's the Point. She's meant to be as complex as her male peers but fandom refuses to give her that complexity (and again, they would be frothing at the mouth over her and her complexity if she were a man)
She is from the "choose your favourite war criminal" game, they're all supposed to have very questionable flaws. But she isn't given nearly as much grace by the fandom as the popular male characters are.
people who learned about greek mythology due reasons that DONT involve having read percy jackson at 12 freak me out, like what the FUCK was going on in your life that you found out that zeus turned into a pigeon to woo his wife like HOW
'Broken Tablet' is a game where one artist draws an artwork, then blurs it and sends the blurred image to the next artist, who draws what they see. And here’s what we’ve got!
Here's a short post with my thoughts on the project's organization and progress. Thanks to all the participants for their wonderful work!
The participants in order:
Fonserel (Tumblr, Twitter, Telegram channel)
JackAl ( - )
Lutyashka (Tumblr, Twitter)
Dani (Tumblr)
Griddle ( - )
Gemini (Tumblr)
Toooceanblue (Tumblr, Instagram)
Kadzu (Tumblr, Bluesky, Twitter)
Poster (Tumblr, Instagram)
Undermoon walker (Tumblr, Telegram channel)
Lookserratic (Tumblr)
Squonk (Tumblr)
Portulaca (Tumblr)
Livmor (Tumblr)
Karakuliii (Tumblr, Telegram channel)
Bespoke horror (Tumblr)
If you've changed your username or social media profile during this time, or if the links in the post aren't working, please write me a private message, and we'll resolve the issue. If you asked to participate but do not appear on the list for the second wave, please write to me. If you are on the list, I will contact you soon :)
additionally, trans women are the same sex as cis women
Sex as an “objective” and “scientific” means of categorizing people is misguided at best and an active tool of transphobia at worst. Saying that a trans woman is in a separate category from cis women just because she was CAMAB is twerf ideology in the dressings of science to make it sound objective and undeniable
literally my favorite kind of posts are ones that are like "i never see positivity posts for [group of people that society is built around catering toward]"
When a woman was announced to play the doctor the backlash was immense. I don’t know if it was as mainstream anywhere else in the world, but in the uk given it’s like one of the countries primary shows it was inescapable. Discussion on why the doctor shouldn’t be a woman on the fucking news. Like cmon
origamiaround
snowghoul
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