#HOW ABOUT THAT EPISODE FOLKS !!!!

[dolly-is-cool]

he is holding a knife.

[ipusingularitae]

also, i think it's very interesting how that friend of vi who she met on the streets of piltover immediately gets out when he sees caitlyn is accepting what ambessa is proposing. he gets that it's not about saving people, that what ambessa wants (and caitlyn is going to do) is targeted violence, on top of a structural system that created this mess in the first place. she's now only seeking revenge.

and can we talk about how Vi and Caitlyn on the lore were always Vi punching and asking later, and Caitlyn being the most "careful" one, and now in Arcane we're seeing the absolute opposite? i think that's so fascinating to watch because, especially with the little lore we have, when making headcanons, a lot of ppl put vi in this position of carelessness and caitlyn reasoning her. but right now we're seeing the complete opposite because Vi had years to put her anger out in prison (bc of very unfortunate situations), but caitlyn not only is a person that is out in world while in her anger phase of grief, but also is on an authority position and has free access to weapons and is being manipulated by someone who is exploiting her anger to the extent of using outside army

[blindmagdalena]

internet friendships are very cool and fun but also it's a huge bummer how easily people can completely vanish and you just never know why

[artfulacrostic]

memes for The Bad Batch, 2x03 "The Solitary Clone"

*SPOILERS*

[heartless-aro]

Does anyone else find it sort of upsetting how widely popular House M.D. has seemingly become in online queer spaces with how violently acephobic and intersexist it is? Like, I don’t want to pretend that it’s only queerphobic towards aces and intersex people, because the show definitely engages in its fair share of early-2000s-typical casual transphobic and homophobic language, and I do think it’s pretty biphobic that, from what I remember of the show, they made 13 (the one canonically bisexual character) a promiscuous party girl tm.

But the show is extremely vitriolic towards intersex and asexual people, and I wish that the people who treat it like a haha funny toxic yaoi show would at least fucking acknowledge that. The show actively reinforces the ideas about intersex bodies which are used to justify the nonconsensual mutilation of intersex children. And the way the show treats asexuality is abysmal. I saw someone on here once say that it’s “funny” that House is canonically aphobic, as if it’s just a joke that the House episode about asexuality actively supports the idea that asexuals are all either liars or medically unwell and in need of “fixing”. Why is pro-conversion therapy rhetoric suddenly funny when it’s directed towards us?

I’m not saying that no one is allowed to enjoy the show at all. Hell, I used to really enjoy it too, at least before I got to the asexuality episode (shortly after finding out I’m ace and before I had ever seen even a single other representation of asexuality in mainstream media). But like. Can people at least stop outright ignoring the absolutely detrimental effects this show had on the ace community and the intersex community?

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Me reading the description of episode 30: oh, that's fine! that's not so bad! i can deal with that!

Me after listening to episode 30:

[redrobin-detective]

So watching the newest Spy x Family, I see everyone squealing over Uncle Franky (don’t get me wrong I am too) but I also think his outsider’s perspective is kind of sad. When Anya is waiting for Yor and Loid to get home, the line he says there struck me.

“Hey, do you like your mom and dad?”

Like that’s a weird question to ask a young child who, hopefully, should love their parents. But Franky I think is acutely aware that they aren’t Anya’s real parents and the Forger family is fake. Franky has worked with Twilight for years, knows him very well and has presumably seen him make and drop identities like one would an article of clothes. We’ve even had Franky directly accusing Loid of being too clinical, focusing only the mission. I think Franky believes that once Operation Strix is completed, that he’ll leave and Anya and move on to the next assignment.

 I think that idea has colored a lot of Franky’s interactions with Anya. Yes, he’s also a big kid and wants to run around and be silly. But I also believe he’s trying to give this girl a sense of happiness and family presumably before she’s dropped off at the nearest orphanage once her usefulness is outlived. Like we all know Loid is catching feels but he’s a Good Actor and it might not be readily apparent to his coworker. Idk it must be so sad for Franky to watch this little family interact, to sweep up a child so clearly desperate for love and family in a spy operation, only to realize it won’t last.

[gettownsburnmoney]

so much happened this episode and yet the thought that i'm left with is

i can't believe this was the episode with the butter jellies

[bathroomcorpse]

likeeeeeeeee......

[queeratlast]

Episode 1 - La Maupin

Take a closer look at the illustration we discuss during Episode 1, which focuses on Julie d'Aubigny, or La Maupin as she was known - an incredible figure whose life blurs the boundaries of fact and fiction. See end of post for references.

The image (shown above) is an illustration by Aubrey Beardsley made for Gautier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin A Romance of Love and Passion. It has several queer connections in its own right.

The book

Mademoiselle de Maupin A Romance of Love and Passion was published by Theophile Gautier in 1899. The story was inspired by the life of La Maupin, but rather than attempting to be a facts-based portrayal of her life, it takes her identity as a cross-dressing swordswoman and runs with it. The story centers around a young couple, Chevalier d’Albert and his mistress Rosette, who have both fallen in love with the dashing "Théodore de Sérannes". Unbeknownst to either of them, Théodore is in fact a woman in disguise.

While d'Albert has a sexual identity crisis (a classic trope: the Li Shang of the 19th century, if you will), Rosette attempts to seduce "Théodore" in a very erotically charged scene. Finally, the truth is revealed and "Théodore" reveals herself to both her lovers, spending half the night with d'Albert and the other with Rosette. The reader is left to draw their own conclusions about what could have transpired between the two woman, something that could not be explicitely written at the time.

In the morning their mysterious lover has gone, leaving only a note:

Comfort poor Rosette as well as you can, for she must be at least as sorry for my departure as you are. Love each other well in memory of me, whom both of you have loved, and breathe my name sometimes in a kiss.

Theophile Gautier, Mademoiselle de Maupin: A Romance of Love and Passion

In 1922, the novel was condemmed for its portrayal of adultery and homosexuality by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

The artist

Aubrey Beardsley published six illustrations for this work in 1898 - he had originally intended to illustrate the entire novel, but the project proved too intensive and costly and was abandoned. You may well recognise the style of the illustration - Beardsley was a very well known artist from the 19th century whose distinctive art nouveau style was inspired by Japanese woodcuts. He was deliberatively provocative: as Tate Britain put it, "his works explore the erotic and the elegant, the humorous and grotesque."

His works explored sexual freedom and gender fluidity, and he loved to include provocative elements in his drawings. Some of his drawings were particularly explicit and "obscene" - so much so that they couldn't be published, but were instead distributed to private collectors through discrete channels. Beardsley was part of the asthetic movement, a group of artists who strove to create art freed from Victorian notions of morality and rigid establishment ideas, to create a "cult of beauty."

As part of this movement he came into contact with Oscar Wilde, and Wilde comissioned the young artist to illustrate his play Salomé. Beardsley's drawings were incredibly erotic and upturned conventions for portraying women in the era. This was a daring take for a play already in hot water for its depictions of biblical characters. When Wilde was arrested on charges of gross indecency, Beardsley was dammed for his percieved association with the playright. A mob attacked the office of the magazine Beardsley worked for and he was forced to resign from his position as editor.

"I have one aim – the grotesque. If I am not grotesque, I am nothing"

Aubrey Beardsley, 1897

References and further reading (and listening!) for this episode:

Illustration:

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/aubrey-beardsley/exhibition-guide

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/an-introduction-to-the-aesthetic-movement

https://archive.org/details/mademoiselledema00gaute/page/n1/mode/2up

La Maupin's life:

Dictionnaire Des Théâtres De Paris, Volume 3, 1757

Women In Men’s Guise, Oscar Gilbert, 1926

Gallant Ladies, Cameron Rogers, 1928

By the Sword, Richard Cohen, 2002.

https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/julie-daubigny-la-maupin-and-early-french-opera

https://www.historicmysteries.com/history/julie-daubigny/26646/

https://kellygardiner.com/fiction/books/goddess/the-real-life-of-julie-daubigny/

https://podbay.fm/p/bad-gays/e/1679976000

https://clairemead.com/2022/06/17/la-maupin/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0cncgq8

[cat-dragron]

Now that episode 8 is out o have to make that Murder Drones video essay holy shit.

Like from the overall character arcs to the music and it's leit motifs to the use of color there is just so much I would love to talk about honestly!!!

God im so glad that a show like this got to exist and he made.

[shy-sapphic-ace]

Here is a (first draft of a) song for my (hypothetical) Dracula musical: The Bloofer Lady

Sung by: MAN 1, MAN 2, WOMAN 1, WOMAN 2, LUCY, MOTHER, CHILD, OTHER PEOPLE IN THE CROWD ACTING AS A CHORUS

— • — (this is just an outline, not proper stage directions or anything)

(A crowd of people, looking over news articles and talking together)

CROWD: Have you heard the news?

Have you heard the news?

There’s a monster on the loose!

The bloofer lady’s on the loose!

MAN 1: In the past few days

We’ve had the strangest cases

WOMAN 1: Children, nightly, disappearing

Then found again by morning

WOMAN 2: And with a wound in their throat

Above the collar of their coat

MAN 2: She lures them away into the shadows

And what happens then, who knows?

CROWD: Have you heard the news?

Have you heard the news?

There’s a monster on the loose!

The bloofer lady’s on the loose!

(Another part of the stage(?), where Lucy stands in shadows, her dress torn and hair loose, beckoning to a young boy who advances towards her)

LUCY: You sweet thing, come here

Nothing, nothing, nothing to fear

We’ll play together, as I feed

Come here, and let me make you bleed

(Lucy draws the child into the dark)

MOTHER (arriving onstage, distressed): My son, my son! He’s disappeared!

MAN 1 &2: Another victim, as we feared

MOTHER (sobbing): Oh, please, anyone! My son!

WOMAN 1&2: The bloofer lady’s taken another one

CROWD: Have you heard the news?

Have you heard the news?

There’s a monster on the loose!

The bloofer lady’s on the loose!

MAN 2: Children have made it into a game

MAN 1: Giving her “bloofer lady” as a wicked name

WOMAN 2: Don’t let your young ones out of sight

WOMAN 1: Lest they disappear into the night

MOTHER: Help me find my son, anybody

Save him from this bloofer lady

MAN 1: It’ll be too late for that now

MAN 2 & WOMAN 1: But let’s search for him anyhow

(A few people search the stage)

CROWD: Have you heard the news?

Have you heard the news?

There’s a monster on the loose!

The bloofer lady’s on the loose!

(WOMAN 2 finds the child lying on the ground by a bush, goes to help him up. He looks dizzy and confused, blood on his neck)

WOMAN 2: Oh! You poor child, come!

(to the mother) Is this your missing son?

MOTHER (seeing the child is hurt): Oh, God have mercy, this can’t be true

What creature did this to you?

CHILD (spoken): … It was the bloofer lady, ma. She wanted to play.

(His mother draws him close and sobs)

MAN 1&2: Watch your children, keep them near

Darkened nights are something to fear

WOMAN 1&2: All our young ones are in danger

When our streets are roamed by a monster

CROWD (more hushed this time): Have you heard the news?

Have you heard the news?

There’s a monster on the loose!

The bloofer lady’s on the loose!

(The crowd slowly disperses and the stage empties)

[haaam-guuuurl]

BABE WAKE UP THEY'RE FINALLY LETTING RHAENYRA TARGARYEN KISS WOMEN ON TV

[corpsentry]

there’s something so epic about hetero chinese period dramas and i think one part of it is that there is absolutely nowhere in the narrative i could exist.

lately i’ve been on a western media detox— i’ve cleaned english language music out of my playlists and have never been able to stomach western dramas anyway, so that part is easy— which might seem funny, because if i’m in singapore and i hate it and i won’t touch american music then what’s left? the answer is the false binarism of chinese period dramas, at least for me. the badly written ones are misogynistic and stupid and the better ones are less of those things, but regardless the world that emerges is clean-cut and easy to parse. there’s someone to root for and someone to hate. there’s a girl and a boy. there’s the comedy and the drama, the sheer thick drama, the music that signals to you precisely how to feel before the scene even starts going

try to jam a fifth culture transnational transgender they/them with 2 mental illness and 1 autoimmune disease into this world and it simply doesn’t work. and that’s kinda epic lolzers! it’s like watching high fantasy, or super hardcore sci-if. it both represents a simulacrum of the real world and is so far from the reality you know that you understand it as a hypothetical universe, one that disincludes you on principle. i exclude myself from the story and in doing so fangfei from moyuyunjian’s steely gaze becomes all the more important. i give so many shits and laugh and yell and spectate. but i am safe from the eyes of its inhabitants. if i entered the story it would break. so i sit outside of it, clapping by myself

in other news, we gave up on mysterious lotus casebook 16 episodes in. there are many character archetypes in these shows that i can no longer stand; the salacious sexy seductive supervillain lady is not necessarily one of them but the way they did miss ‘this man didn’t even Look at me when all men fall at my knees so i hated him’ ‘no one is allowed to steal buttchin from me’ jiao was way up there. surely a woman can have multiple personality traits and yet you would think from this drama that that is not at all true. and the strange harem that grew around li lianhua despite his absolute loser attitude— like i get it, he’s the gintoki of this show, that’s hot, but the way the women who were into him were written made me want to Eat Horse. it bothered me that di feisheng and lianhua’s homo as fuck dynamic was so intriguing and them + fang duobing was a winning trio but all the women in the show were written like complete fucking ass, and one of the big antagonists being a woman, the stakes throughout were not only lost to me but also Pissed Me Off. also, that case about the corpse flowers dragged on forever and all my pocky wilted

I Just Think, women deserve better in these damn stories. make them slutty as hell, sure, but make them other things too and i mean this in the most generous sense. slutty and proud. slutty and weird. slutty and oblivious. literally anything at all so they don’t come out cardboard flat from all angles. this is why i have a personal vendetta against the ditzy clueless female protagonist as well because if everything stems from the fact that she doesn’t know shit it’s like please someone Please tell her shit i’m on my hands and knees begging. give her more to chew on she’s dying of boredom over there

this is why i liked the so called antagonist of blossoms in adversity best (spoilers ahead). he was cruel as hell to huazhi and gu yanxi’s only parental figure. he was paranoid and selfish and lonely and craved a son’s love from the one person he couldn’t hold onto. in the end he is pushed further and further by huazhi, who won’t give in, to isolate yanxi from the people he loves and to lash out at those people as a way of punishing yanxi. and when he dies it’s because of his own distrust, his own negligent parenting, his absent cruelty from decades of insomnia and lack of faith in his people. but he cries for yanxi, and there’s something so human about that. to think of evil not as a first principle but rather an adjective for a verb that is set in motion by other events. to be honest, i haven’t seen such thoughtful writing in any chinese period drama before or after that and i strongly suspect i will never see such writing again in this genre but man, it was so fucking good (spoilers end).

in the meantime, i’ve dragged my mother to moyuyunjian/the double for the return casting of liu xiening and wang xingyue who are Eating so hard. they’ve got wang xingyue done up with the sluttiest makeup and liu xiening is breaking my heart with her pout and her Sassy Mean constitution and this is a revenge story, yes, but it’s a double revenge story. it’s a grief story. and fangfei is carrying more on her shoulders than lingbuyi imo, and doing so with much more grace too. her step mom’s a dick but she’s a smart, 5d chess playing dick who wears hot shades of green so i’m personally interested enough to keep watching (something lotus casebook DID NOT accomplish with their epic female antagonist…. mein gotte). and the princess too. unhinged as hell but god, so charismatic. and beautiful, with scary big eyes and the sweetest head tilt. fun fun fun! that’s fun character writing right there. the comedy might be too straightforward for my tastes but everything else is kind of hot and sexy And after the coming of age ceremony when jiangli appeared amidst the flowers i felt my throat close up even though we saw her for all of one (1) episode). i was like yes. they got me alright. i Care now

really that’s all that matters isn’t it. we want stories about people we care for. we want to give a shit. why else would we listen to the stories of other people. we are looking for us and the people we love in them

oh also moyuyunjian soundtrack goes hard as hell i love a little three step waltz. here’s a pic from the ‘gym’ for ur time. guten night

[cryscendo]

kurt hummel in every performance

1x18 - Laryngitis

Rose’s Turn - Kurt Hummel

“You don’t have to work at anything, Kurt. Your job is to be yourself. And my job is to love you no matter what.” — Burt Hummel

[buoyantsaturn]

stooooop why can't I stop thinking about lost </3