#gender dynamics

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

One takeaway I had from “A Quiet Place - Day One” was that it made me realize we usually don’t get this character dynamic from the leads. While it’s not uncommon to have a story about a cynical, depressed protagonist who rediscovers their humanity by meeting a well-meaning, good hearted stranger, it’s usually the opposite in terms of gender. It tends to be the man who is depressed and the woman who pulls him out of his funk. For example, “The Last of Us”.

So it’s pretty neat that Lupita got to be Joel Miller while Joseph Quinn got to be Ellie Williams.

[viragoposting]

Butch Culture Vs Virago Culture, What's the Difference?

While butch is often associated with masculinity, it's not a requirement for the identity. Same goes for Virago! The key difference is the approach to gender roles in relationships, and sexuality. Viragos are diverse set of bi/het women who either identify masculinely and/or like feminine men! The only key factor is chivalric approach to relationships or taking on a dominant role a man otherwise would have. Common signs: Enjoying feeling "Stronger" than your partner, Enjoying being the taller partner, A strong desire to physically/emotionally protect them etc.

[blackdragontavern]

"Though she says them not."

There is a distinct contrast between the masculine and feminine archetypes of "Wisdom" in Norse Myth.

Odin (The Masculine): Wisdom is a hunt. It is active. It requires sacrifice (the eye), travel (the wanderer), and pain (hanging from Yggdrasil). It is loud and desperate.

Frigg (The Feminine): Wisdom is a state of being. She sits on Hliðskjálf. She spins the clouds. She already knows.

The line from Lokasenna, "Frigg knows all fates, though she says them not", is often read as passivity. But Castle argues it is discipline. To see the train wreck coming and remain the steady anchor for your family (the Aesir)? That requires a strength that Odin’s frantic wandering could never achieve.

[inthemoodforblastt]

You know that movie Legends of the Fall? The one that’s basically three hours of melodrama about three brothers, where Brad Pitt is in his absolute prime as a sex symbol. He plays the middle brother, the wild one, the hypermasculine “man of nature” type who hunts bears and lives in communion with the wilderness and all that. Then they go off to war, the youngest brother dies, everyone is traumatized forever, and the youngest brother had a fiancée, played by Julia Ormond. Then both the older brother and Brad Pitt fall in love with her.

And the older brother is the serious one, the stable one, the one their father never respected because he saw him as weak, too civilized, too bourgeois, not masculine enough compared to all the horseback-riding, cattle-herding, ultra-toxic macho nonsense represented by Brad Pitt’s character. And of course Julia Ormond falls for Brad Pitt because he embodies this whole primal “unga bunga masculinity” fantasy. But Brad Pitt’s character only really wants her temporarily. He fucks with her a couple times and then disappears to go live his grand adventurous life. Meanwhile she ends up marrying the older brother, who fully knows she doesn’t truly love him, but absolutely adores her anyway and devotes himself to her happiness while she spirals deeper and deeper into misery because Brad Pitt never truly chooses her.

And honestly, every single time I watched that movie —as a teenager and later as an adult —I kept thinking: how the fuck are you not obsessed with the older brother instead fucking dickhead? (spoiler: of course she doesn’t because the novel was writted by a man so male gaze)

Like genuinely, in what universe are you choosing Brad Pitt over a man who is basically husband material incarnate? He’s the one who handles every family crisis. Every disaster gets solved by him. He’s emotionally stable. He wants commitment. He doesn’t ghost you, manipulate you, fuck with you and disappear. Julia Ormond’s character is literally psychologically falling apart through half the movie and he stays. He stays through every breakdown, every episode, every emotional collapse. He’s handsome, he has gorgeous eyes, he’s elegant, he has a proper profession, he probably smells like soap instead of horse sweat and wilderness dirt every day. Meanwhile Brad Pitt is out there behaving like a man who would absolutely give you emotional trauma and then vanish into the mountains for six months.

Because to me Brad Pitt’s character in that movie is very clearly a male fantasy filtered through the male gaze: this romanticized hypermasculine destructive figure women are socially taught to desire because he represents danger, freedom, dominance, emotional unavailability, all those things patriarchy codes as exciting. Meanwhile the older brother, because he’s emotionally responsible and stable and domestic, gets framed almost like a loser or a “safe option,” when realistically, if that exact same character had been written by women and for women, he would basically be treated like the fucking GOAT because female gaze fantasies want THOSE men 100 times better than the wild fuckboy.

People genuinely do not realize how much of what women are “supposed” to desire in media has historically been filtered through male fantasies about what an attractive man should be, rather than through what would actually make women emotionally fulfilled long term. That movie always drove me insane because it treats the stable emotionally devoted man like the boring option while romanticizing the emotionally unavailable chaos goblin just because he’s beautiful and wild. And the funniest thing is that the movie itself kind of proves your point accidentally, because Brad Pitt’s character ultimately settles down with a much younger woman who idealizes him and demands less emotional accountability from him, while the older brother is the one capable of sustaining actual love, patience, care, and emotional endurance. But the narrative still frames the former as the great tragic romantic obsession.

I swear, there are some things in fiction I will never emotionally understand and men writting female characters and female fantasies are one of them.

[selkiesholto]

I LOVEEE YOUR BLOG + SONG OF THE SEAAA YAYYYYYYY

Its been soo so long since ive seen it but i remember loving it!!!

i noticed youre a selkie!! how did you figure that out :0? i wanna know if im a selkie too! if i can at least!

yayyy another Song of the Sea fan!!! I'm so glad I'm reaching my target audience hehe (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

My answer to this is pretty long so I'm putting it under here! ⬇️

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

I identify with selkies for a few reasons! They have lots of different stories but the main premise of their being is something I really identify with.

A selkie takes the form of a seal in the ocean, but sheds their skin/coat to assume a human form among land. If they have their coat, they can travel freely between the two places. They're also described as beautiful and attractive by humans they meet. However, when a selkie loses their coat (or has it stolen/hidden away) they're stuck in human form and filled with longing for the ocean.

I see the selkie legend as a direct parallel to my gender identity - with the land being my AFAB body and the sea being my masculine self. There are elements to being feminine that I like, but right now (pre-transition) I feel stuck and not masculine enough for my liking.

Once I'm able to move between those gender presentations freely–like a selkie between sea and land–I think I'll be much happier and confident that I'm being perceived in the way I want to be. I get a lot of comfort out of the idea that I will find my coat or make my own soon, and be freely myself!

Also, I've always loved the ocean and felt connected to it, especially when I'm at a beach or on a boat. So that helped me figure it out too. Even if there's a similar land-based creature, I wouldn't feel as connected to it as I do with something from the sea.

Alsoo, trans people and selkies are both prettyyyy. Coincidence, I think NOT! 🤭

That's how I came to identify with them. If you're okay with reading old stories that have darker elements/themes, researching selkie stories can give you a better sense of the selkie legend to see if it resonates with you! If not, feel free to use my description as a reference. Wikipedia is a good place to start/read summaries of the texts without it being too heavy.

I hope that answered your question! Sorry for the longer post, I've never been asked that before and was very excited to answer :))

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

[the-most-humble-blog]

💀 When Your Sith Lord Dad Overshares at Brunch

Listen, I was just trying to enjoy some goddamn pancakes when my estranged Sith Lord father decided to drop the most cursed knowledge imaginable. “Ahsoka wasn’t a virgin,” he says.

Okay, weird flex, but fine. I try to let it go, pretend I didn’t hear it. But no, no, no—he wasn’t done ruining my fucking morning.

“Trust me,” he says, then whips out his phone like some galactic Reddit mod and shows me a pic. For a second, I think it’s a Sarlacc pit. My brain desperately wants it to be a Sarlacc pit. But it’s from ‘Ass-soka’ herself.

IT WASN’T A SARLACC PIT.

I have seen things no Jedi should see. Things not even the Dark Side could prepare me for. I will never know peace again. The Force is not strong enough to erase this memory.

🔥 REBLOG OR JOIN ME IN THIS TRAUMA 🔥

💀 REBLOG IF THIS PIC JUST LOWERED YOUR MIDICHLORIAN COUNT. 🚨 FOLLOW FOR MORE UNHINGED GALACTIC HORROR. 💬 COMMENT WITH YOUR THERAPY FUND DONATIONS.

📢 TAG A FRIEND WHO NEEDS TO SUFFER WITH US.

🚀 DON’T LET THE ALGORITHM BURY THIS—LET THE WHOLE GALAXY FEEL MY PAIN. 🚀

[alethianightsong]

Random Friend texting me: "What's on your mind?"

Me: "Female deer can't usually grow antlers so the Antler Queen, clearly female but wearing a crown of horns, represents the genderfluidity of nature but also the switching of gender dynamics that the girls have undergone since they're no longer a gaggle of helpless suburban girls but a savage pack. Hunting is typically seen as a masculine task but turning raw flesh into a meal is cooking aka women's work. The girls have emphasized their consumption of meat, a typically masculine food, but not as a show of power or ego. Consuming meat is about finding nourishment in a brutal act, perpetuating life with another death. Deer are seen as noble majestic animals but are also frequent prey. Unlike rabbits-- characterized as expendable and weak-- deer are more respectable, so they get the 'honor' of having their skulls/antlers memorialized as decoration. Most men hang up antlers as a way of saying 'look how we conquered nature' but the girls wear the antlers to say, 'look how the wilderness allowed us to survive under its gaze.'"

Random Friend: "...I'm revoking your Paramount+ privileges."