The reddest video EVER is out now. Directed by Blake Lively who SMASHED it just like I smashed this cake.

But then she comes to Bly because she wants to make a difference for kids, especially kids who need good adults around them the way she did after her dad died and her mom checked out, and she finds good adults of her own, people to make her family and Jamie who she’s determined to try with despite her guilt about moving on and she does, she does make them all her family and she loves them so much that she sacrifices herself in a different way, not by denying herself but by accepting another person, accepting Viola’s rage into herself and using her love to protect everyone from it.

“If that’s rape, then I would be a rapist,” whisper the men to themselves.

masculinity is not inherently toxic. it hasn’t been poisoned or corrupted. it is a neutral concept, a kind of gender presentation, and it doesn’t make you a bad, unhealthy, or toxic person to be masculine.

Like when white women fake cry to win arguments, or to appear to be the victim (despite how much damage they may have caused), or when female abusers point to their femininity as a reason they couldn’t possibly be hurting anyone. Or when the girls in school weaponize their performances of femininity against more androgynous, less traditionally attractive, or more masculine girls.

Plenty of cis women have a similarly toxic relationship to femininity as cis men do to masculinity. A good example of a less material expression might be the tendency to self-martyr, using the “caregiver” role to guilt trip and gaslight, and abuse in a more manipulative, emotional/mental way than the physical aggression more typical with toxic masculinity.

for example: i am disabled. have two abled siblings. we are all adults; they’re a lot older than me. my siblings both have children. i get a lot of assistance from our parents. right now, i can’t work. right now i can’t go out into public spaces comfortably on my own (i can, but it’s hard and i prefer to have someone with me). that means i can’t shop for groceries alone; i can’t go out on necessary outings alone.

it looks a lot like i’m “coddled” and babied by my parents because of this, and my siblings are both so angry over it. they get so angry that i receive assistance. they talk about how they never do (which is extremely untrue). they talk about how unfair it is; about how i’m taking the easy way out. but they are abled. they have children and jobs. they take care of themselves extremely well–especially compared to me.

i get it. really i do. but look:

nobody who receives special assistance enjoys it. nobody likes being stared at while they get help. we all want to be able to say yes, i have a job; yes, i can take care of myself; yes, i am abled. but not all of us can.

i am an adult who is often seen as a child because of the assistance i receive and the life i lead. of course i don’t like it. nobody would like it. i hate “taking the easy way out” as my siblings and so many people refer to it. i want to be an independent human being. i want a career and a life. but right now i can’t; some people never can.

tl;dr some disabled people need help, and that should be respected. we aren’t taking anything away from abled people. we are getting the help we need to survive.

post from brittney johnson (@/sunnybrittney on ig), current glinda s/b and the first Black woman to play glinda on bway