Adrastos

Doctor Who (Steven Moffat specifically)

Sherlock (Steven Moffat specifically)

Actually Steven Moffat is basically just this sentiment given human form.

A version of this happened with The Magicians, tbh. Though instead of expectation: men, reality: women it was expectation: smug nihilists, reality: mentally ill queer folks.

Arguably Game of Thrones.

If we broaden it outside of television…I think Star Wars falls into this, at least the sequel trilogy. Maybe the MCU as well. And I can’t help but think of every band that’s ever complained that their fanbase is mostly women. 5 Seconds of Summer comes immediately to mind.

In general, most white male creators seem to have this massively entitled mindset where they want–and think they deserve–the time, attention, and enthusiasm that creative fandom (i.e. the side of fandom more dominated by women) is known for.

They want our eyes for ratings, our word-of-mouth for free publicity, our metas for social media buzz, and our spending power for merch and cons. But they don’t want us. And they don’t really want the responsibility of telling a story to a thoughtful, engaged audience, regardless of that audience’s demographic makeup. They just want to be praised for whatever schlock they cough up.

Mind you it is perfectly possible to make the switch in marketing, but execs would rather throw it all out than have something that doesn’t perform well with male viewers. For example the Rey merch was not expected to be popular, for some reason, there had to be public outcry to get merch of one of the main 3 protagonists. A PROTAGONIST. The fact that she wasn’t a huge part of the 1st launch says a lot already.

And what happened when female fans got too invested in the Sequel Trilogy? The entire writers room didn’t necessarily lash out, but they sure forgot how to behave.

Young Justice

Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don’t want largely female audiences

#WhereIsRey (initial)

#WhereIsRey (ongoing)

Simply, they’re trying to assert a particular worldview via fiction, and upon getting confronted with something else, begin foot stamping. It’s not just men wanting male attention and gatekeeping. It’s that the fiction in the first place was an attempt to curate dominance and whoopsie! they miscalculated.

I’d also love to hear your thoughts, as I literally wrote it for communities like ours to read, so, thanks.

Also, the point of his commentary is not “we should kill off the violent ‘alpha’ assholes in human society.” That conclusion is reductive, eugenicist, and isn’t paying attention to his words.

https://annas-archive.org

https://sci-hub.se

https://z-lib.is

https://libgen.is

https://libgen.rs

https://www.pdfdrive.com

https://library.memoryoftheworld.org

https://monoskop.org/Monoskop

https://libcom.org

https://libretexts.org

http://classics.mit.edu

https://librivox.org

https://standardebooks.org

https://www.gutenberg.org

I just learned this fact and I can't help but share it with you!!!

In 13th-century European castles, separate fortresses were rarely built. Instead, one of the towers was significantly larger than the others and served as sleeping quarters for the lord or the king and his family.

Medieval life was full of changes and conflicts. Periods of peace were often interrupted by wars and sieges. To protect the ruler and his family, spiral staircases were built in the towers, winding clockwise. This design made it harder for attackers, as defenders could strike while using the wall as a shield, whereas attackers, especially right-handed ones, faced difficulties.

Additionally, the steps were uneven in height and length, making it easier for defenders, familiar with the layout, to move quickly. Attackers, in heavy armor and unfamiliar with the stairs, risked losing balance. This design significantly complicated sieges, particularly when climbing upward, giving defenders an advantage.

Dawdy also talks about bubble time, which is similar to Proust’s mémoire involuntaire: a moment in which “the past suddenly lives again, like a haunting.” THIS is part of what you are experiencing when you encounter an image, or an object, or a place that throws you back into a certain moment in time, a visceral memory evoked by some sort of stimuli.

See also lieu de mémoire, a term which is generally used to describe places where the past is held intentionally close to the present through a process of collective memory-making, but I would also argue that a computer room from 2007 can also fit the definition of "a physical place or object which acts as container of memory."

Liminal does not mean a place (or object) that feels like it belongs to multiple temporalities at once. Liminality is a sense of in-between-ness or not-belonging, whereas nostalgia relies on associations with other times and imbued pastness.

queer sex and more!

in an illustrated medieval travelogue (a german translation of "mandeville's travels"), bavaria/swabia, ca. 1476

I would bet the reason there's no mention of these things is that this isn't just unrelated marginalia -- it's a direct illustration of the text. I can't read the German, so I can't confirm this is the right page, but Mandeville does contain the following passage:

And in another isle be folk that be both man and woman, and they have kind; of that one and of that other. And they have but one pap on the one side, and on that other none. And they have members of generation of man and woman, and they use both when they list, once that one, and another time that other. And they get children, when they use the member of man; and they bear children, when they use the member of woman.

That's pretty clearly what's being shown above. If you look at the standing figures next to the pair having sex, you can see that they do have one breast each, and are equipped with both a penis and a vagina. We are probably meant to assume that the figures on the ground are similarly built, but we can't really tell because our view is obstructed by the one on top.

And there is scholarly writing about that passage and its relation to medieval conceptions of sex & gender. (A quick look through my university library's catalog turns up, e.g., M. W. Bychowski's "The Isle of Hermaphrodites: Disorienting the place of intersex in the Middle Ages".) There's no reason for there to be separate scholarship on this particular imagery, since it's just illustrating the literal text of the passage -- people might include it in an article about this passage, but they wouldn't discuss it separately from the text.

it inspired me to have a stab at transcribing the german text. here's what i got (don't take this as authoritative):

Ouch vindet man vil lüt da die baide gelider hant man und wiber gelider und manner und wiber natturenn Jch main die gelider zwischen den bainen und die selben lüt hant die ain brust groß und die andern clain als ain wip und ain man und so sy wellent so tragent sy kint als hie zu lant wib tûnt und machent ainandern zu tragent als hie zu lant glich ain man ainem wib tüt wenn sy wellent wenn sy beschlauffent sich mit baiden natturen

english translation (again, just my interpretation):

One also encounters many people who have both members, the members of men and of women, and the nature of men and of women. I mean the members between the legs. And those same people have one big breast and one small one, like a woman and a man. And when they want to, they carry children just like women do over here, and they make each other pregnant just like over here a man makes a woman [pregnant], when they want to, [and they do so] by sleeping with each other using both natures.

in a broader context, they are just one of many so-called "monstrous races" that were very popular in medieval times. the idea was that basically, if you travel far enough, you will eventually meet all kinds of freaky and curious half-human people, all with their specific lore, weird ways of living, weird phenotypes etc. (with these fabulous peoples, there's probably also a gray area between "what people actually believed in" and "what just made for a great story", but this is not the right place to tackle that question.)

here's a collection of these "monstrous races" in a book from 1493 (an edition of the "Nuremberg Chronicle"). you can see the blemmyes in the third row left AND our beloved one-breasted gender-non-conforming pals in the 5th row left! :)