Women can be heroes without excuses

I am so tired of men writing women
when you can just see they sat down and thought about why this character has to be a woman
and came up with lists that are just... ugh.

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I would very much like it if required warnings went on all the stories. So the one I just read would be all Major Character Death, because they take a one way trip on purpose and kill themselves after saving the world, and Rape, because ... ? And dead lesbian again. And dead mothers. And... I think the author reckons they're telling an inspiring story about deciding to save the world even though it really and sincerely sucked for the people doing the saving. But why is that the story?

So I'm left with the feeling the warning label is
women, written by men, who think they need a reason.

(no subject)

The problem with Reverse Flash - not that there aren't a lot of problems, but the problem for him achieving his goals his way even - is summed up by him saying he's out to get back everything that was taken from him.

Because nobody took it from him. In the timeline as it exists in season one, nobody but him took it from him. He lashed out and trashed the foundations of his reality, and lo, his reality was indeed trashed.

The thought that could have saved him - at any time - is 'oh, hey, my bad, I did that'.

If he never has that thought, he's trying to fix the wrong problem, and it doesn't matter if he's a super powered genius if he can't see that.

And that is what is so frustrating, because he so very nearly has a point, but he fucks it up right there.

Which is pretty classic abuser stuff. Being a twisty manipulative asshole who never saw a problem he couldn't pin on someone else. It's always someone else's fault, and then he sets out to destroy the someone else.

And he will forever wonder why it never makes his problems go away.

Even though he's had fifteen years of evidence that the Flash was not the problem, because without the Flash, oh hey, everything is worse.





... to be fair, from what I've heard of future seasons, Barry trashes the foundations of his own reality too.

But Barry is very much a guy who will think 'it's my fault' from a standing start, so he is very much ready to take responsibility there.

His misattribution is that victim blaming thing he only does to himself, where everything a villain does against him is somehow Barry's fault, even when he was a small child and logically not really responsible for much of anything. It's a weird way of feeling in control. But it seems like it's part of why he keeps reaching out to his villains, because if they're his fault, they can be his fixing too.

... but that part won't work until he can see their real motives straight either.



Flawed characters, the makings of tragedy.

... even when the tragedy is they stay assholes...

(no subject)

I have been reading more about Norwich, and therefore the economics of several centuries.

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All of this is mostly a couple afternoons wiki wandering.

Now I want to get some proper books with sources and further reading and so forth.