there's something so personal about Fitz Vacker being 'girl coded' bc of his upbringing and the way he's perceived and how he's been socialized. I personally see him as a straight cis guy- but there's something so identifiable about the way he's perceived as 'hysterical' or 'hyper-emotional' when he reacts totally normally to high stress situations. How he's always expected to be palatable, easy to digest, to carry the burdens unique to him, that will always go unacknowledged. How he can never just be. Everything is a carefully crafted performance piece.
It's the way the foxfire girls sexualize him, (Which also happened to Keefe) how Sophie is always concerned and commenting on his looks. How he's treated like a trophy, something to attain, something to be experienced and then left behind. The way people hate him for his success and hate him for his failures. How he must feel like a piece of meat.
he's beautiful. but nobody cares what goes on underneath.
Something about the way he can never be just good. How his effort and accomplishments are always tied back to his father's name and his appearance. Nothing about him is acknowledged for its own merit. There's always some excuse for why he shouldn't deserve it, that he's had it 'too easy', that it's because of daddy's 'money' that he is where he's at.
Nothing about Fitz is ever allowed to be about him. He's expected to be the 'perfect victim', seen and not heard, any issue he voices is dismissed because he's seen as a 'protected class'... but if he was so protected, why does he never feel safe?
it's something about the way he's always watching himself in 3rd person. it's something about the way he's told to trust the adults in his life that have thrust him into a box that is impossible to maintain. The way he's always been told 'This is who you are. This is who you will be.'
how It wasn't his choice.
How he's so jealous of his care free best friend who doesn't exist in his world, who will never know quite what it's like. It reminds me of being a girl and watching my guy friends just not understand.
How they are free to fuck up. How the phrase 'boys will be boys' sticks to them like putty, and molds to any situation to justify them. That's their lot in life.
While this constant anxiety, looking over your shoulder, running from vultures... that's yours.
i don't know. It's something about Fitz Vacker being girl coded that just gets to me.
i think it’s really extremely misogynistic to think that fitz’s “emotional outbursts” *cough* TANTRUMS *cough* are experiencing girlhood. I have recently started rereading kotlc (i’m currently on everblaze) and fitz uses every possible opportunity to flex his knowledge and power to sophie. It’s only when he is demoted to second most talented telepath that he starts w his power withdrawal symptoms. I am a girl, i am a woman, and never ONCE have i thought that anything fitz does is ok. It’s not ok to break everything in my room, it’s not ok to yell at my friends because i’m hurt, it’s not ok to try to bully a 12 year old as a 15 year old into thinking she’s stupid and ridiculous, he is the epitome of manhood of raging toxic masculinity. He is the epitome of having all of the power and seething as he realizes a girl raised by humans has surpassed him in every single way. I didn’t even read this whole thing because it angered me so much.
The misogyny in even the first part of this (the only part i read) is insane.
Hey, I'm not really sure who you're arguing with--the point you're rebutting, that Fitz is experiencing girlhood because of his outbursts, isn't what OP said at all.
That's why they've put 'hysterical' and 'hyper-emotional' in quotations like that--to show that it's not actually true, he's just being labeled as overreacting and too emotional similar to the way girls' experiences and feelings are often dismissed as hysteria/overreactions on account of their womanhood. That's the comparison being made in the first part.
Additionally, OP never argued that breaking things, yelling at people, etc. is okay. That's a completely different point; they're not using this girlhood comparison of being dismissed (in instances/contexts they've gone on to explain beyond the first paragraph) to say everything he's done is okay.
Since gender is an amorphous social construct, I think he can embody both girlhood, as OP has posited, and toxic masculinity, as you have, too. They're not mutually exclusive and multiple perspectives can be simultaneously taken
I understand the rebuttal you're making, but it seems to be a misinterpretation, and your not even reading the whole post you're replying to doesn't help that. Just positing something of my own :)
i URGE you to touch grass… assigning “girlhood” to a man is the most misogynistic thing ever. especially since op wasn’t headcanonning fitz as trans or nb. cis men don’t experience girlhood. fitz is a prime example of toxic masculinity.
and fitz is overreacting in a lot of scenes. it’s not the same as when women are dismissed or thought of as hysterical because that is a gender and power play.
also let us not forget that a lot of fitz’s outbursts come from a place of jealousy towards sophie and she’s the one that’s affected the most when he does break down. Only on tumblr i would see ppl defending a fictional misogynist and justifying his behaviors by saying he’s just a girl ❤️🤞🏽
