Well, you know... I realize this thread is rather dated... but then again...
So am I.
For those of you that know me, I'm Yvonne, last recorded Matron of Chat Whisper's Tuchuks, and a long time honored guest of Ubar Ragnar and MTC.
For those of you that don't know me, or worse, don't like me, I'm sure you'll come up with your own 'name' for me. When you do... just remember... you have to kiss your mother with that mouth, so be nice.
What do I, or did I, find irritating about Free Women in general on HTML Gor?
In years past... too many women crafted their idea of what a Free Woman is, by transposing Xena, Warrior Princess, into the picture.Now in fairness, everyone comes to Gor with misconceptions. The more humble and eager to learn among us, gradually cure those misconceptions, by reading the books and VERY critically considering the totality of the Gorean environment, and its diversity of culture.
But the Free Women who just couldn't resist letting their inner Xena out, getting into all kinds of hare-brained adventures that involved fighting transcripts, Ubars or other Leaders getting headaches reviewing said transcripts, and then... the INEVITABLE dung storm on the message boards... yeah... NOT a good look.
Both My time in the Tri Moon Panthers, and My native Tuchuks, it never ceased to amaze me... the thirst for adventure (adventure=trouble) that some had.
It was like, they woke up that day, and thought, "I think I'll go out and piss people off and end up with painful pointy things sticking out of my cold, dead body, and then complain because it's not fair!"
Such wasn't limited to the panther girls. Oh no! You could see this same nonsense play out everywhere!
I lost count of the times I thought, "Oh... here we go again. *sigh* If anyone needs me, I'll be taking a nap. Someone wake me after the stupidity meets the sharp objects."
Another thing that caused me to repeatedly headbutt the side of my wagon's platform, among the wagons, was seeing Free Women getting into snark-fests and territory wars with slaves. Didn't matter which tribe... wagon life is wagon life. And with wagon life, comes something called HARD WORK. And with hard work, comes the simple truth that many hands make for lighter work. Any Wagon Woman worth her salt, knows that, and knows that there's enough work to go around. That slaves can't do it all, and that SHE had better get off her duff and pitch in to bring that water in, and do all the other things we need to do to survive on the open plains.
Free Women and slaves HAD to WORK TOGETHER, or the entire culture was doomed to eventually die off over time.
The idiot known as Tarl Cabot... and let's be candid... he was an idiot from Earth who misunderstood more of what he was seeing, than what he actually DID understand deeply... referred to Free Women as dour and cold.
Now... hold up... read those last two paragraphs again.
What separates Free Women from slaves, among other things besides a collar... is that Free Women assume a RESPONSIBILITY for their home. Wagon axles don't grease themselves. Food doesn't cook itself. Water doesn't just magically appear out of nowhere. Bosk don't get milked by the milk fairy.
This is apparent early in the rearing of a Free Woman. As she grows older, she has to taken on responsibility to see to it, not only that her work is done, but that all of the other work for camp survival, is accomplished. She has to be TOUGH... and COMPETENT... to do that. She doesn't have time for BS. Junior high-schoolish snarkfests, jealousies and so on... Free Women didn't have TIME for that mess.
So when I'd see Free Women getting into snark-fests with slaves... I really just wanted to throw such a 'foot in the ass' party on them, that the Torvaldslanders came rushing down to see which of their Berzerkers got loose.
By the same token, that didn't mean that Free Women of the wagons didn't smile, laugh, joke, carry on, and have their pleasant relationships... with slaves... with other Free Women... or yes, even Men!
Free Women just knew how to balance all that with the matters of simple SURVIVAL.
Which brings me to number three on my list of things that irritated me about Free Women...
The excessively manipulative and selfish twits.We've all met Her... the Free Woman who is just BOUND AND DETERMINED to get crap started between people, while She enjoys the show and fuss about Her.
If you saw a Free Woman that looked like she fell off a kaiila at full gait... holding a broken nose, and cradling her groin... chances aren't unreasonable that another Free Woman caught her dead to rights, being a trouble-maker, and that there had been a reckoning.
On the other hand, if you saw that same errant Free Woman collared, stripped, and flying in a terrified sprawl toward the sleen pit... it's fair to say a Free Man figured out her nefarious game, and decided to bring it to a resounding halt.
A lot of the time, however, such errant Free Women would go 'undiscovered' for what they were, for an inexorable amount of time. They were by far and away the most irritating of all.
But they usually got theirs, sooner or later.
I wish you well!
Yvonne