what-alchemy

obviously there’s nothing morally wrong with the projectionist lens through which a large portion of fandom operates but it does get kind of tiring to constantly feel like. hey guys what if we stopped talking about ourselves and instead talked about the character

and of course a degree of projectionism can be a very useful lens in certain circumstances, such as having unique insight into a character who shares certain aspects of your own experiences. but at the end of the day you still gotta recognize that there are going to be aspects of them that diverge from yourself

about to say something mean but i feel like every "male-specific" issue is something that also happens to women its just that a lot of you dont seem to see women as people

women are also feeling lonely and alienated from communities en masse women are also expected to stifle their mental health for the sake of perfomance at work, in relationships, for children ect women are also expected to work extremely hard to maintain a perfect body and perfect health and are punished for being fat/having hair loss/having health issues especially those that affect ones sex life women are also insecure women are also neglected by parents and teachers and authority figures women are also scrutinized for having emotions and punished for not meeting the gendered expectations of our class and expected to climb upwards and overcompensate while being punished for signs of poverty and we get the added bonus on top of, yknow, being women. your emotional issues are not a Crisis Attacking Manhood theyre the way our society is fucking built you just dont see women as people

Morticia and Gomez, but rocks. Gotcha

I'm in a little local cafe and the women behind the counter started griping to each other, "Oh Christ, Stephen's back again," "It's him, is it? I thought he'd stopped coming," "It's definitely him, look, it's bloody Stephen on a Thursday morning," "Do you want me to get rid of him or are you going to do it?" and so I was peering outside, trying to spot this nightmare customer, this pestilence of a person, this pox upon the cafe trade, and then one of the women from behind the counter ran outside, clapping two trays together loudly and yelling "GET OUT OF IT, STEPHEN!" and it turns out that Stephen is an absolutely gigantic fuck-off seagull who hangs around outside, menacing people for crumbs

men will do literally anything other than engaging in pro-social community-oriented behavior and then get online and complain about how masculinity is vilified and men aren't allowed to be heroes anymore

"all men really want is to feel like the hero" okay then volunteer at a food bank. get narcan training. step in when a woman is being harassed on the street. help out an elderly neighbor with shopping or home repairs. learn how to safely de-escalate fights. help your friends move. join or start your workplace union. become a big brother or volunteer coach for kids' sports. clean up your local park or get involved in some local conservation campaign. do your own damn dishes. notice what needs to be done and then do it. the world doesn't need heroes, it needs helpers. there are literally so many paths to finding a sense of self-respect and worth through pro-social behaviors that improve your immediate local community and help build your network of close personal connections. but these guys don't give a shit about actually contributing anything to the world. they just want to whine and fantasize.

their inherent lack of self-respect is belied not only by the fact that they can't imagine doing anything that contributes to building a better, more resilient society, but how they can't imagine that doing so might involve a lot of small acts and choices and not one big act of heroism that gets them on the news as Big Man Of The Year.