PodHoe

UR GIRL IS GONNA HAVE A RADIO SHOW

You can catch me on The Abyssal Hour at 11 pm on Friday nights on 89.7 FM if you're in the central Maine area. If you're not local, we also have a webcast.

I'm extremely excited to start this trainwreck.

this isn't meant to be @ anyone. I've wanted to rant about this for a minute.

In defense of Harry Dresden, a kinda toxic hero—

I've had several instances where I recommended the Dresden Files and got replies like 'oh I tried that but the main character seemed kinda chauvinistic' or 'those are guy books.' I'm not gonna argue with that assessment. I agree that Harry has some prevalent issues of the toxic masculinity variety. He admits as much. He doesn't do much about it in the first 17 books but he admits it.

I do get annoyed when I interact with guy friends who read him as a perfect role model. There is a toxic fandom element out there, not unlike with Star Wars or Harry Potter. People who got the wrong message from a complicated piece of media. I was actually dating the guy who introduced me to the series as way of excusing some of his toxic behavior, which he had directly based on Harry. I started reading the series to try to understand why he thought that was a good idea, and after reading it we had a talk about why it probably wasn't. He's living his best life with his soon-to-be husband now but we've stayed in touch just to chat about new Dresden books when they come out.

It's not only okay to read and enjoy books with problematic characters, I think it helps people develop a greater appreciation for nuance. Even when the actions of those characters aren't immediately and unequivocally condemned by the narrative, enjoying a 'problematic' book isn't an inherently bad thing. But Harry usually does get kicked in the pants for his bad takes and that is a reason I enjoy the series. Yes, he has chauvinistic views, but those almost always come back to bite him. In fact it's hilarious to me how many times the scenario: 'Hitting on a hot dame? Whoops she's a fae queen who just stabbed you.' plays out. It's not hilarious to Harry but unlike the Supernatural bros at least he learns from his mistakes and starts to get suspicious of supernaturally hot women pretty quickly.

As far as female rep goes, it does go borderline on the 'strong yet sexy female character' tropes at times but ultimately it's leagues better on that front than adjacent media like Supernatural, Libriomancer, or any series I've read about Druids where every dame in the book is apologizing for being an inhuman supermodel while still being an inhuman supermodel. Women in Dresden Files have a huge amount of depth and agency, and only about 7 out of 10 are supernaturally hot. Their narratives are rarely centered but oh well, some stories are allowed to be about guys being dudes. Dudes and their supernaturally sexy male model besties.

Harry is very much meant to be a hero character in the story but we mainly get that from the way other characters interact with him. Usually when he's confronted with the fact that other characters see him as a hero it makes him uncomfortable. Internally he's hugely critical of himself. He's also deeply introspective and empathetic, which would be good things for men to model. Anyone reading Dresden Files and going 'aha, see—toxic masculinity is based actually' is thoroughly failing at media analysis. Which is the norm, granted, but don't blame that on Harry. Heck, one of the central themes is him being at war with himself and his baser nature, both in a relatable real-world sense and as a guy with the potential to be a mega powerful dark wizard.

Personally Harry's struggles helped me to unpack a lot of the feelings I was having about religion as I tried to distance myself from evangelicalism, but maybe that's just me. These thoughts aren't perfectly refined and I wanted to go into the cop worship issue to but I can't waste another hour on this.

It was vital to me that I made this post

the u.s.s. horrible unending nightmare 💥 (once again from the incredible @hehearse)

hate it when I'm eating and my stomach starts growling

if you could wait a fuckin second man big changes are coming I promise

Listening to podcasts while going about my day feels so powerful. They don’t know there’s gay people in my ears

yippeeeee

*piles podacst recommendations on you* *piles podacst recommendations on you* *piles podacst recommendations on you* *piles podacst recommendations on you* *piles podacst recommendations on you* *piles podacst recommendations on you*

I spent twice as long thinking about whether I should actually post this than I did taking the time to make it~ But I know everybody missed Elias Bouchard and the BPM so....

The way the TMA fandom treats Martin honestly baffles me.

Like, he is not just a soft uwu tea boy, y'all. We all remember when Annabelle straight up called him out on feigning his awkwardness and incompetency, right? We all remember when he was actively encouraging Jon to go on a murder spree, right? Even in season two, we all remember when he was fully prepared to just beat the shit out of Michael in the tunnels until Tim stopped him, right?

Hell, even in season one, the dude is not THAT incompetent. Jon is just an asshole and an unreliable narrator.

The dude is a compulsive liar and manipulator. He's counting on you to underestimate him and see him as a harmless, sweet guy who can do no wrong because as soon as you underestimate him, he's got the advantage.

He's also petty as hell! He asked Jon to kill a man because he woke him up!

I want to make something clear too btw: I absolutely love his character because of all of this. I absolutely adore how fucking insane he is. He may be nice and makes good tea, but he will also slit your throat without a moment's hesitation if you mildly inconvenience him. He is an enigma and it's great

in all seriousness, i think the key to martin's deal is that his moral code tends to be vibes and category -based (ie, "these people are ok to hurt, these ones are not"), whereas jon's tends to be based in concrete rules he sets for himself, eg "i am going to trust people" and "using my powers makes me worse".

which is to say, he tries his best to be kind and just and moral (especially when confronted with a person who is clearly upset, which is an indicator of which category he should put them in), but when someone or something doesn't ping him as "a person," he throws all that out the window. he defines avatars as "monsters, probably," so he sees nothing wrong with treating them as such. and when confronted with an avatar that DOES ping his "person" radar, like jon, and to some extent annabelle, he just....ignores the contradiction for the most part. this is also why he doesnt really care about other universes, if they aren't people he can talk to and get to know, they aren't really real to him.

I think the hot new trends for this summer should be reading comprehension and critical thinking skills

when you walk in and they have this on their wall

you know the panties hit the floor