#LIKE WE KNOW ITS AN ALLEGORY FOR BEING QUEER

[hobbitunderthemountain]

I AM NOT IMMUNE TO CRYING AT THE END OF NIMONA EVERY TIME

[frobby]

Im back in the trenches defending another otokonoko from people claiming that they are a trans woman even though they are explicitly stated not to be

[mccoalminer]

Imagine being so far down a bigotry rabbit hole that you think people hating you must be because you're Not Part Of A Minority Group. Imagine being too self absorbed to consider the much more simple and plausible possibility that people hate you because you're... yknow... being an asshole. voldemort deluding himself into believing everyone hates him because he's straight and not because he's a white supremacist, mass murderer, literal personification of evil, etc

Girl help I'm being demonised and dehumanised for *checks notes* not being trans. Nothing to do with the hate and vitriol I'm spouting ahaha

She ain't even subtle anymore lmao

[kookygobbledygook]

Some people have been saying this, but I don't think it's been said enough and I'm just going to add my voice to the mix.

Nimona's nomination is being framed as an example of "Look at what Disney missed out on!" and I get it. It's a nice, tasty schadenfreude situation and we all like to see The Mouse get taken down a peg.

But I think we need to be very clear; Disney did not miss out on anything because they were never going to take that sort of risk.

Disney was never going to release anything close to the Nimona we got. It would have been sanded down until anything obviously queer or controversial was as faint and unnoticeable as possible by the casual viewer. And then they would still be too scared of any potential backlash. So they would have given the film a limited release at theatres, with no advertising, or social media or support.

Like what happened with Strange World.

You remember Strange World, right?

No?

That's because no one does.

And I believe that was deliberate, because that way Disney can go "Weeellll... obviously we would LOVEto take more risks and have more inclusive stories but that's clearly not what the public wants!"

Look at the original concepts for Wish. The evil royal couple? The peter-panesque star boy that would have made the gen zers go feral the same way millenials went feral for Jack Frost? These could have been the best things about the movie, and even they were scrapped, and replaced with something more homogenised. And those ideas are nowhere near the level of the concepts and discussions Nimona brought to the table.

Disney can barely have explicit gay people. Nimona has a gay south Asian man in a relationship with an east Asian man. As a protagonist! But more than that, you think Disney could ever come up with a relationship as complicated and difficult as Boldheart and Goldenloin's? They would never have the guts to show one love interest cutting off the other's arm in a straight relationship. Let alone a gay one! And then for them to be on opposite sides of the conflict, shifting between feelings of betrayal, and questioning each other motives? That's some adult dark shit for a kids film.

Asha as a character was forced into the quirky girl role that Disney has already flogged to death with Anna and Rapunzel. You ever think they would allow a Disney princess to be as dark and violent and nuanced as Nimona? You ever picture the titial character of a Disney film AS the third act conflict, rampaging through a city in a self destructive rage? Nimona is anti authoritarian, vengeful, bloodthirsty, a pretty explicit trans allegory, and even, by the climax, openly suicidal. You KNOW that terrified Disney.

I had a thing about the Director here too but I was shocked by how long that got so I'll have to save her for a different post.

My point is the things that make Nimona art, that make Nimona a great story, that make the film important and Oscar worthy, are all things that Disney has become too chicken shit to produce. If Disney had released a film called Nimona it wouldn't have been Nimona. I fully believe that if the film hadn't had been 90% finished it wouldn't have been shelved. It would have been lobotomised and vivisected. Everything special and vital about the movie and its message would have been removed, and no one would have known what could have been. Once again we would have gotten scraps and been thankful for them.

It makes me think about films like Wish (and others we don't know the name of, and never will) and think of what they could have been if studio's like Disney were braver and let their artists make art, instead of content.

tl;dr Disney didn't miss out on Nimona because they are incapable of making Nimona. If they had produced it the real Nimona wouldn't exist. We didn't miss out on Nimona. And that's purely by luck.

[specialagentartemis]

Friend Like Me: Murderbot's Relationships With Other AIs throughout The Murderbot Diaries

It’s important to me that the thematic core of The Murderbot Diaries is not only about determining what it means to be a robot person in a human world, but about showcasing so many ways to be a robot person in a human world.  And about building relationships with other robot persons to support that self-actualization as both a robot and a person.

So often, in science fiction about robot personhood, the robot character is the only robot in the cast.  Not only that, so often the robot character is the only robot they know.*

When media thinks about AI personhood, or Ais as characters in society, the AI character is often alone.  Alone, and different.  It’s a potent allegory for what it feels like to be an outsider, to be “other,” to feel “off” from the people around you.  Whether a sympathetic friend or a scary unknowable villain, a lot of people can relate to feeling like that.

The Murderbot Diaries is doing something interesting, then, by showing us our protagonist Murderbot, the prototypical robot-among-humans, the robot as a parallel for queer and neurodivergent and outsider-cultural experiences in a world of expected norms, the robot with human friends, the one robot member of an otherwise all-human team… and it can’t live like that.  So it leaves.

So far, the series feels split into two halves: the first four books, about Murderbot learning different ways to be a robot in relationships with humans, and the next three** about Murderbot learning different ways to be a robot in relationships with other robots, and a robot in a mixed society.

In All Systems Red, Murderbot starts off painfully alone. It repeatedly sees other SecUnits as enemies, and believes that SecUnits can't trust each other because they're all under control of humans. It has a very low opinion of SecUnits, including itself.  Murderbot hates being used by humans for violence or for petty reasons, and admits that it wants to half-ass its job.

In Artificial Condition, Murderbot meets ART, a university research ship who loves its crew and loves its function.  It is also free to be a snarky asshole, as Murderbot repeatedly notes (and assigns in its very name).  This relationship to humans—genuinely caring for its crew, genuinely wanting to participate in its research and teaching function—is a very different relationship than Murderbot has had, though ART still needs to keep its intelligence and personality hidden from most humans for its own safety.  Conversely, this is the book where Murderbot meets a ComfortUnit that is blatantly being abused and misused by its human owner, and it hates her.  The contrast between ART and the ComfortUnit displays very different ways of Ais relating to their human “owners”—and what it means for them to get what they want out of life.

In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot confronts this theme most directly, with the bot Miki.  Unlike the implications of secrecy we get from ART, Miki is not hidden from anybody; unlike with the ComfortUnit, Miki is a respected and equal member of its team.  Murderbot has a very hard time believing that Miki is anything but a patronized “pet bot” to these humans, despite the evidence that the humans genuinely consider it a friend and teammate.  Miki has never been abused, and never had to hide.  Murderbot has a hard time accepting that this is a way bots and humans can relate to each other.

But Miki is still, in the classical sci-fi robot-on-a-human-team way, unique; it expresses to Murderbot, “I have human friends, but I never had a friend like me.”

This is a much better way of being a robot among humans than Murderbot has seen before, but it’s still not the ideal Murderbot wants, either.

Exit Strategy brings the theme full-circle and the quartet to a close.  Murderbot faces off against a Combat SecUnit (or CombatUnit; Wells seems to change her mind about this).  The Combat SecUnit represents everything Murderbot has rejected being, everything it has overcome on its journey of self-actualization.  During their fight, the CSU rejects Murderbot’s offers of freedom, money, a fake ID, the opportunity to get out of its situation the way Murderbot has; it ignores the offer.  Murderbot asks the CSU what it wants.  The CSU replies, “I want to kill you.”  The CSU represents the kind of SecUnit Murderbot does not want to be, the kind of robot it used to think it would inevitably be but has now seen so many other ways it can be.  Murderbot says in the same scene, “I’m not sure it [the offer of freedom] would have worked on me, before my mass murder incident.  I didn’t know what I wanted (I still didn’t know what I wanted)…”  But at the same time, the confrontation makes it clear: Murderbot knows some things it doesn’t want, and the CSU is embracing everything Murderbot doesn’t want about being a SecUnit.

If this quartet is about what it means to be a robot, and to be a robot among humans, then the next set of books (Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, and System Collapse) is about being a robot among other robots, and a robot in a society that supports both humans and robots.

Fugitive Telemetry makes this most obvious, with its plotline about the free bot community on Preservation.  Murderbot is uncomfortable around them in a similar way that it was uncomfortable around Miki.  The Preservation bots are happy, fulfilled, responsible, mutually supportive, and have a meaningful community with both humans and each other that does not match Murderbot’s experiences of what being a bot, or being a bot among humans, means.

Network Effect brings Murderbot back into contact with ART, and introduces a new SecUnit, Three.  Murderbot navigating its relationship with ART as a free agent and after a perceived betrayal is a huge part of the book.  Murderbot’s disembodied-software-fork Murderbot 2.0, freed from much of Murderbot’s organic anxiety, shows itself much more willing to be social with other bots and constructs.  System Collapse follows, bringing further depth and complexity to Murderbot’s relationship with ART and expanding its interactions with Three, and furthers Murderbot’s integration into the casual bot-human community that is ART’s crew.  It also shows that Murderbot’s willingness to trust and even form tentative friendships with other AIs and systems, like AdaCol2, has expanded.  The way it extends the governor module hack to the opposing SecUnits is informed a lot more strongly by Murderbot 2.0’s interactions with Three than its own previous clumsy attempts to reach out to the CSU in Exit Strategy, or abrupt dumping of the hack on the ComfortUnit in Artificial Condition.  All of these plotlines emphasize Murderbot maturing into not just being a person among humans, but a person recognizing its place and obligations within society that includes both people like and unlike it.

The models of the many ways to be a robot person, and significant relationships and interactions with other robot persons, were and are crucial to Murderbot’s development, sense of self, articulation of its desires, and sense of belonging in the world.  Murderbot isn’t alone, and it’s not the only person like itself that it knows.  When offered a place in society, it is not the only person like itself in that society.  Meeting other AIs, forming relationships with them, was crucial in helping it articulate what it wants in its life.  Its human friends are incredibly important to it!  That doesn’t stop being true.  But so are its AI friends, and the other AIs it passed through the lives of.

This feels like one of the most honest and affirming depictions of what it’s like to feel “other”—that being around only majority people unlike-you, even the ones you like, even your friends, even the ones who mean the best for you and ask you what you need and do everything they can to provide it, can still be exhausting and alienating.  Meeting other people like you—even if they’re like you in unlike ways, and have different ways of moving through the world—shows you the many ways to relate to the rest of the world, to be in the world.  The many ways to relate to other people and to yourself.  The Murderbot Diaries opens up a world where that can be true of bot/construct/AI characters, when so often in sci-fi, their loneliness and alienation is where the metaphor stops.

- - -

*Lt. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation is probably the most famous example; the only positronic android like himself in existence, barring his evil twin who mostly just needs to be stopped.  Others coming to mind include Becky Chambers's A Closed and Common Orbit, in which the AI character is trying to understand who she is in the context of being surrounded by humans; Alien, the secret android crewmate among humans is a threat, and in the sequel Aliens, the android crewmate is earnestly trying to prove he's not; Space Sweepers has a ragtag crew of several humans and a robot; most of the stories in Isaac Asimov's I, Robot are about a singular robot in a human facility.  The setup "Human crew with their ship AI" is fairly common in sci-fi, from 2001: A Space Odyssey with its tragically antagonistic HAL9000 operating on a logic that would never occur to humans, to Wolf 359 and The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet where the ship AIs are struggling to determine and articulate how they want to relate to their human friends.  Even in Ancillary Justice, Breq is alone and having to pass undercover as human cut adrift from her previous life as a ship's AI. (I know this changes later but I have not actually read the rest of the trilogy)

**as of System Collapse

[enduringmoth]

thoughts on marvin's abuse, care's existence and paul's transness

taking a break from my usual bg3 posting to talk a little bit about my newer hyperfixation through the lens of queer allegory

necessary author's note: i am an afab transmasculine nonbinary person. obviously, while i do believe my transness does lend my opinion authenticity, at the same time, being trans myself does not mean i can't be transphobic -- so if any of the contents of this post set off alarm bells, please tell me.

trigger & content warnings: child abuse, kidnapping, torture, general petscop badness. obvious spoilers for petscop in its entirety, as well as references to the recent youtube deepdive by nexpo.

TL;DR -- perpetuating the idea that someone can force someone else to be a different gender than they are is harmful to trans people. however, all things involve considerable nuance. to pretend that marvin's actions could not have influenced paul's sense of self in the slightest discredits paul's lived experiences, and i believe a more trauma-informed dialogue about paul could be worth exploring as a community.

my preferred theory explaining petscop is that marvin tried to make care more like lina through abuse and "failed". after this, care would eventually end up in lina's home, and transition to paul.

(simply to make all of this less confusing, i'm going to call paul pretransition "care", though i will avoid pronouns. this is not me trying to invalidate paul, it's just so i don't have to keep saying "paul before he transitioned" or similar phrases.)

it is not a result of marvin's "failure" that care transitioned to paul. but i do believe there is a link between paul's perceptions of self and the trauma he endured pretransition -- and discussing these things gives us a deeper understanding of paul and his history.

obviously there is no "canon" answer to petscop. but im seeing this theory discussed a lot within the tags, and i personally agree with it -- i just feel some of those who are saying we cannot consider marvin's actions are not necessarily accurate, either.

what i am positing is that while marvin certainly did not make paul trans and i would never claim that he did, we understand that marvin's abuse of care -- his cruelty towards care, his warping of care's perception of appearance and self-worth -- is certainly a factor in how paul must see himself.

marvin's treatment of care was poor enough that paul struggles to recall that time of his life. he thinks they are different people -- and in a way, they certainly are (and i've seen DID theories for them which i also enjoy because of this) -- and has clearly repressed what it meant to be marvin's child.

marvin locked care in a basement for six months. that is no small amount of time, and it likely had no small amount of affect on paul. we can assume based on the implications of some school scenes that marvin was trying to convince care to be more like lina during this time. care escaped, and returned home -- though eventually, we know from belle's dialogue that paul would find his way to lina.

"do you remember the day you were born?"

paul's "birth" occurred after marvin's abuse, and though it was not a result of it, there is something almost poetic about following the thread of paul's life from care to his authentic self that plays as a foil to the heinous rebirthing practiced by marvin and rainer.

contrasted with what happened to belle (and seemingly others), paul chose (a form of) rebirth -- transition. marvin tried to make lina be reborn through care. instead, care resisted -- and he would eventually become paul, and that strikes me as so narratively compelling. it's not to spite marvin and please don't think i'm saying that, as care was naturally always paul -- it is simply self-discovery at its most raw and beautiful, and i love it.

the above is why i love petscop as a queer allegory. taking ownership of one's future and selfhood, even when others are trying to tell you who to be.

and that's why i think saying marvin made his afab child transition in rejection of martin's quest for lina -- or that marvin tried to make his amab child transition to care/lina, as nexpo posited -- is so wrong, and harmful.

yet, paul's trauma is real. it happened. and it's a part of him that should be able to be discussed for what it is.

as someone with extensive trauma history, i can tell you that my gender expression and personal identity are in some way connected to pieces of trauma, because those pieces are part of me. i am not trans because of my trauma, but my gender and my trauma are parts of me at the same time -- i am not each of my pieces, but a sum of my whole.

the point i'm trying to make here is that while i think nexpo genuinely missed the mark here with this whole "care never existed, marvin tried to make paul a girl" thing, i do think there needs to be room for a trauma-informed discussion around paul.

i hope that all made sense. if any of this is harmful/transphobic, please let me know. i genuinely love this game and i think it's so fascinating to discuss. /gen

[brella-boi]

Its close to the holiday season so this is on my mind but it always baffles me when families say their children (whether adult or not) are "hard to get gifts for."

What do you mean theyre hard to get gifts for?

And it usually boils down to not that child being actually indecisive, the child probably knows what theyd like, but now that they no longer write santa letters families decide they need Different Stuff because theyre No Longer Baby.

And i know theres going to be people saying "we just give candy" or "we send each other wishlists" which is FAIR and healthy to do. Communication is a must!! But thats not what I mean. What I mean is families stop listening to the childs hobbies.

There are parents who see their children playing games and suddenly decide thats toxic and put a boundary that theyll never buy their child a game. Or anything to do with games. There are people who decide that a persons infatuation with soft toys or artistic dolls is immature so dont you dare participate in their collecting hobby. There are families who hear people say "this is my hobby" and decide that its cringe/immature/stupid/worthless/disgusting and ignore anything to do with it.

And of course... If the person doesnt match their assigned gender, then suddenly the family scrambles for what gifts theyre supposed to get for their afab niece that doesnt include jewellery or a perfume or a dress, or they still get it and the receiving party has to deal with the fact that their families last resort is gendered products- even if they dont identify as such. The family sees it as being picky and not knowing what they want, surely THEY know better.

And its. You know. After years or such treatment the child is simply going to start shrugging instead of actually saying what theyd like or what they had their eyes on. This 70 buck game couldve been a nice easy gift, but its not because the person has already bought it because they know no one else is willing to consider it a gift. Theyre not going to wish for a limited edition plush or figurine from their favourite series because its seen as cringe so they already bought it themselves too. Theyre not going to wish for a comic or manga or self published stories.

And then theyre silent and shrug. And the families relationships suffer too because theyve ignored every hobby this person has. The person that has been othered and considered weird and picky. The person whos hiding. Always hiding and masking.

And theres an allegory for queerness and neurodivergence here, but thats for another day

[devine-fem]

Why do you ship damian and Jon? especially still as they are now in canon, I’m genuinely just asking…

This is a loaded question.

Firstly, my introduction to younger heroes was through Super Sons and I didn’t immediately ship them until I entered the fandom and had all their content clash together consistently in my head and it slowly made me realize the potential of the characters and what I was reading.

I’m more of a Damian Wayne enjoyer than anything in the batfam, he’s my favorite Batkid, then its Jason and Cass. I really enjoy his character and I also really relished in the potential Jon had with Damian and how he was a genuine friend.

I really do think that if done right then Damian and Jon being in some sort of relationship would not only be excellent representation but also, could fix a lot of troubling aspects of their character. Like their mantles and how their characters function in canon. Their relationship could be catalyst for them seeking a new mantle.

It’s more so built off of the mutual friendship they have for each other and how much they care about the other person.

A lot of people expect me to consider older Jon because he’s canon but no, I don’t like Jon’s age up for many, many reasons so I choose to ignore it.

Whoever chooses to get mad at me for it are hypocrites because you cannot honestly tell me there aren’t stuff about your favorite character that you don’t choose to ignore… every character in dc has done something problematic and if you didn’t ignore something, they wouldn’t be enjoyable.

People only want me to take in older Jon because they either hate the ship or weirdly enjoy Jon’s pseudo-relationship and feel threatened over Damijon even though it’s an entire fanon ship and can’t do anything to harm canon in the first place. You guys have the canon ship, why do you have to feel so threatened?

On Damian’s part, there’s flatline but I don’t personally feel threatened by his relationship/romance with her… she’s a fine love interest and I really enjoy her allegories of death, it’s interesting to think about and how that correlates with Damian’s grief with Alfred. There’s no reason for me to get so up and arms about Damian’s canon romances… it’s fandom… I think I would even like them a lot at some point when Nika gets some more content in the future. I also fear for her because she’s so new and has potential to become a character we grow to hate once other writers get their hands on her… (I have more thoughts on this but that’s all for now)

Jay… no… I’m sorry, there’s no appeal with him and Jon and with how it came about… I don’t find it likable.

Like I don’t actually want Damijon to be canon ever, really, it’d be a nightmare in the longrun with how these writers handle queer relationships.

And yes, people are always like “Damian and Jon had an age gap even before the age up-“ Dude, their ages were infamously inconsistent in comics that weren’t Super Sons, sometimes they had a 1-2 year age gap if you put them on a certain timeline in canon. Super Sons is what established the age gap, and even after Jon was aged up, till Taylor took it, they still had an inconsistent age gap. Jon’s age was inconsistent and Damian was also aged up but people tend to forget that.

Jon and Damian don’t have canon birthdays and didn’t know each other for that long before the age up. The age gap is probably much smaller. Even Taylor sometimes refers to it as “2-3 years” but he’s never consistent on any basis so…

I simply just think they’re 1-2 years apart in my head, or sometimes 3 as well. But I also, don’t consider them being in a healthy romantic relationship unless they are adults. No one should consider Jon and Damian actually being able to hold a relationship while they are young, it wouldn’t work. Any shipping I do while they are younger, is because that's where they peaked and it’ll be entirely innocent.

If they were to be in a relationship as they’re older, I seriously do think they can be incredibly happy together. I feel they are somewhat the perfect person for the other.

Thanks for the ask.

[williamrikers]

The Undeniable Queerness of Enchanté the Series

(thank you @ranchthoughts for letting me ramble about this in your inbox before turning my thoughts into a post)

there are bls and then there are bls. right? there are dead fish kisses and there are characters who kiss each other like their lives depend on it.

and enchanté firmly belongs in the second category. 1,500-word essay under the cut.

there is such a consistent and tangible queer undercurrent to everything that's happening on this show and i'm not just talking about the fact that several scenes look like they could be the opening scene of a gay porno. or the surprise bondage. or force in drag. or proposing marriage in front of the eiffel tower. no, there's this aching, desperate desire underlying everything. theo has--in addition to his main love interest--four very hot gay suitors who all very obviously desire him carnally... this is some sort of gay manic pixie dream boy wish fulfilment fantasy and i am absolutely eating it up.

there is a vibe to the show that @ranchthoughts called "fanfic-like", and i would argue that that's because enchanté is actually fanfiction of the little prince. (i'm planning on making a separate post soon about how the book was referenced on and used as inspiration for the show.)

enchanté is fully aware of its own fictionality. it is on-the-nose fictional. but that's what makes it so much fun--it's not trying to be something it isn't.

take the reading memories segments in episode 4 [3/4] for example: these scenes were incredibly cringe, like, full-on bad-green-screen terrible-costumes-and-wigs hilarious-acting cringe, but fully aware of their own cringe-ness. (also, gawin was both in drag and naked in the same scene as two different characters, like. get on enchanté's level.) (incidentally, can anyone tell me what character aou/phupha was supposed to be? i got detective conan, monkey d. luffy and momotarō for the others, but i'm stumped on phupha's character.)

and that self-awareness makes it camp! there is such a level of camp to the whole show which feels extremely intentional (especially in the first two thirds), almost like a meta-commentary: "this is the genre. we know it's stupid but we love it here", and i adore that. they know the tropes, they know the bl landscape, and they're just having fun with all of it.

and the whole set-up in itself is a queer allegory, isn't it? theo and akk are "from different worlds", so to speak, hindered in their love not just by their complete inability to communicate but also by their forced separation as children. when they meet again, theo doesn't really belong anywhere, he's an outsider both in france and in thailand, he is unable to act the way thai society expects him to act (e.g. failing to show the proper respect to the seniors), unable to get his parents to understand him while being actively lied to by them (the whole ocean of miscommunication in that family deserves its own post), harboring feelings for his childhood friend his whole life but unable to voice them in a normal sort of way, instead falling back on concocting the most convoluted, immediately backfiring plan to try to make akk jealous and get him to confess his feelings first.

theo is fundamentally isolated because he grew up between two cultures, and neither one quite fits him: when he's in france, he is comforted by thai food and the only people he's close with (his grandmother and sun) are from thailand like himself; but when he's in thailand, he can't quite get used to the social conventions and makes social blunders, he is very slow at writing in thai.

it's such a poignant queer allegory in my opinion. they didn't end up making as much a point of it on the show as they could have, but it very much informed my whole reading of the show and the characters. there is a sort of inability to articulate his experience surrounding theo that makes him even more isolated and screams "baby gay in need of a community" to me. having akk share his experience at the end is something that i'm not a big fan of for other, unrelated reasons (might make a separate post about enchanté's ending and why it fell flat for me), but when looking at it through this lens, it is the only way for akk to really get theo, to really understand his struggle on a fundamental level.

which brings me back to that desire i mentioned earlier: theo desires akk, very much so, there are a whole handful of scenes where akk gets close to him and theo closes his eyes, expecting to finally be kissed by him, but more than that, he desires understanding. he often brushes off his own difficulties and has a tendency to be emotionally clueless (for example about his parents' divorce), but what i see most in his character is the desire to be understood, to be seen by akk, for akk to see him for who he is and to love him for who he is. (akk, of course, has been doing both of those things all along. he's constantly taking pictures of theo, he's watching him through his window--with theo's full knowledge--he is always looking at him, he's always loving him.)

it's not inherently queer to want to be loved as we truly are, i believe heterosexual people experience this, too, but in the context of queerness itself, being perceived as queer by other queer people is indeed a fundamental aspect to experiencing queer love (maybe not in gay for you bls, but i haven't heard of much gay for you happening in real life). not to be unscientific about this, but the vibes of the perception aspect of enchanté are just very queer to me, you know?

oh, and speaking of desire: enchanté in general is very physical. there is a level of intimacy between the actors and the camera that seems incredibly intentional: there are several shower scenes, scenes of theo and akk shirtless, TWO (2) nude gawin scenes (though one of those is sadly a fake-out and he is actually wearing shorts), many, many scenes that include bare feet, which is not something i see super often in bl, at least not to the point that i notice the frequency of it.

enchanté is very rooted in the physical reality of desirable bodies: theo is allowed to openly, physically flirt with saifa, even though that's not even his endgame love interest, phupha uses physical touch in his pursuit of theo, natee shows his obsession with theo by drawing his face/body about a hundred times, and akk and theo are wholly unable to keep their hands off each other. i've joked about the intricate rituals, but seriously, they are constructing so many intricate rituals. there are two separate scenes in which they make up excuses to kiss each other's elbows/arms/backs. they keep touching each other in a thousand ways, in every possible way they can that is still plausibly deniable as physical desire--until they kiss while watching that movie and then it's just a game of chicken of who will confess first. because their physical attraction to each other is undeniable. it's obvious. this was really refreshing to see in a genre that so often plays with the blushing maiden trope, and one character is so often made to pursue the other: on enchanté, akk and theo are equally horny for each other. it's not their lack of physical attraction that keeps them apart for so long.

(sadly, the show then shies away from actually getting very sexually physical: after their desperate, stunning, amazing balcony-kiss, they aren't allowed to be horny for each other in the last two episodes, when they're actually in a relationship. this is just one of the many aspects that i didn't like about the conclusion of the story, because you simply cannot tell me that these two as we got to know them in episodes 1 to 8 would really be as chaste with each other as they're shown in episodes 9 and 10.)

leaving that aside for the moment, let's talk about that kiss. as mentioned right at the beginning, when these two kiss each other on the balcony, it's desperation in its rawest form. these two--and especially theo--crave each other. theo kisses akk like he will die without him. theo kisses akk like he can finally breathe. theo kisses akk like he never wants to do anything else ever again.

i'm a bit obsessed with book's acting here, because of all the kissing scenes i've seen him in, i think this is THE most desperate one. force plays it a bit more subtle, but book's expression is full-on anguish. theo waited his whole life to be kissed by akk, and book portrays that so beautifully, with such depth. it's one of my favorite bl kisses for sure, it's played with so much heart, so much feeling, that it's hard to even think of kisses that compare, apart from the bad buddy episode 5 rooftop kiss.

anyway, all of this to say that enchanté to me is deeply, lovingly queer, and it's a shame that so many people are sleeping on it. (and that includes myself, i was wary about watching this show for a long time because i'd heard so many negative things about it.)

but i'm here to tell you: watch enchanté. it's wonderful, it's hilariously funny, it's endearing, it has book and force in it, and it is extremely queer.

[terranceholdsapencil]

I just watched space babies and Im gonna put some moments under the cut that are just so,,,

DOCTOR WHO SERIES 14 EPISODE 2 SPOILERS‼️ "Space babies"

-lets make this episode into one big exposition/lore dump so everyone knows whats going on

-RANI MENTIONED

-dinos <3

-ruby stepping on an actual butterfly and 15 blowing life into it again 😭 that was so stupid I absolute love it

-"One day this is wyoming"

-"Aha! Is that like a, uh, matter transporter like in star trek?" "hehehE! weve gotta visit them someday."

Im not even much of a star trek fan but I could totally watch doctor who with my star trek-autistic dad if there was a crossover. Also a crossover would be bangers.

-"Most of the universe is knackered, babes" fair.

-something about "the question is, why did I run?" "cause it was scAry!" "It was new. I LOVE meeting new things, so why did it give ME the shivers? I couldn´t run fast enough I was like 👏 WOOSH!"

I was like *clap* WOOSH!! (New stim unlocked)

-"So, this place, grows babies. What for? FoOd?" "fOo- who-whOT. FOOD? Theyre not tOmAtOes"

The way he said tomatoes is very special to me. As well as the general absurdity of that whole moment, actually

-giving her phone the space-time-signal boost!!! THAT MADE ME SO HAPPY TO SEE ON SCREEN AGAIN

-space babies. First I was a bit annoyed and baffled by the way he kept saying space babies but eventually he said it so often I just went "SPACE BABIES :D"

-ruby and 15 handling the space babies??? 😭 Man that was so pure

-maybe thats growing up queer and autistic but this line killed me

"Nobody grows up wrong.

You are, what you are, and that is magnificent"

Okay Im just gonna sit down and CRY because I really needed my comfort character to tell me this. Im not ready for it yet but I still need it. Ill get back to this once Im at peace with myself. To heal.

-"because I, am absolutely lovely, arent I? 🥰"

-"And do you wanna know my secret?

Theres no one like me in the whole, wide, universe. No one like me exists, and thats true of everyone. Its not a problem, captain pops. Its a superpower 💪 High five!"

-i absolutely laughed out loud and almost woke my father when ruby tried to calm the space babies and 15 kept scaring them.

"Theres no such things as the bogeman. That thing, was more-- sort of like, a, uhhh," "BOGEYMAN!"

-"That should recalibrate the whole shebang"

-abortion allegory got like super spelled out at one point and that was a bit awkward but I have no strong opinion on it, because the point they make still stands.

"Hang on. So, the planet down below will refuse to stop the babies being born, but once theyre born, they dont look after them??"

-the way jocelyn said 'because its terrifying" after 15 said "and WhY was I so scared?"

Also: "Yeah but Ive met a million ugly bugs, *I´m* and ugly bug, ThAt THIng, made me run, I just wonder why" youre not an ugly bug gorgeous

-"babies with a flame thrower?!" Was possibly the stupidest thing Ive ever seen and Im so happy cause that is exactly how doctor who works. Babies with flame throwers. Who even thought of that.

Also reminded me of the fact daleks had flame throwers at one point

-"The teaching software, it told a story!" "it invented the bogeyman!" "For the babies 🥺" "For the space babies 🥺" (i love them)

-snot monster

-it did confuse me how familiar they seem already. And that he basically gave her a tardis key before she even really agreed to travel with him. I LOVE them dont get me wrong but that felt too quick

-seeing mum at christmas <3

-"tell your mum not to slap me" someone has never recovered from jackie and sylvia

-ohhh dna scan

-probably something I forgot but:

Episode was fun. Too exposition heavy at times and structured differently from 'normal' who. But fun. And also super silly. And we LOVE super silly.

Space Babies. Space babies with flame throwers.

[flfverse]

hihi this might be a stupid question but I thought I’d ask anyways: did you come up with the bdsm AU?

If not, do you have any fic recs with the same ‘verse?👀

If you did, do you have plans to write more fics in the same verse, outside of the ones you’ve written?

Sorry if this is overstepping at all, I just adore this AU and am a curious fellow🙈 No pressure to answer🫶

not overstepping! i am also a curious fellow, and you’ve given me an opportunity to Talk History.

see, i did not come up with the BDSM AU, but i’ve read it for years and became fascinated with how people played with it. i love fandom history, so i eventually started to wonder where it came from and how it evolved.

the first BDSM AU was written by Xanthe (who has a website you can read all her stuff on, xanthe.com, and it also has an faq about her original world, super interesting) back in 2006. now, it’s possible that other people independently came up with a similar idea earlier than this (indeed, theres an early 2000s fantasy book series with a Vaguely similar premise), but everything i’ve ever found cites Xanthe as the first to do it in fandom and the one to popularize it, so we’re going with that.

the fic series was Stargate: Atlantis fic (john/rodney, for those familiar) with the basic premise of “alternate universe where being bisexual and kinky is the default.” no biological factor! just a different balance of sexualities. i only read part of the very first fic because they’re quite long and i don’t all the way jive with Xanthe’s writing style, so take this with a cup of salt, but they also lacked the dystopian edge many of the modern fics have. let’s be honest—like many fic tropes, it was mostly an excuse to write smut :P.

now, while Xanthe was quite a big name, and did have people spinning off and writing their own versions of her world, it might not have gone anywhere was it not for Helenish. Helenish took issue with Xanthe’s spin on the world and thought that she hadn’t fully explored the worldbuilding potential. she wrote Take Clothes Off As Directed, which i’ve recced on this blog and in the notes of Free Falling, because it is PHENOMENAL. it kept Xanthe’s premise and used it to explore a sexism allegory, very very similar to my stuff and other current popular BDSM AUs.

people began writing in Helenish’s ‘verse, some minor drama broke out between the two writers and their followers (presumably minor—much of this happened on Livejournal, which famously and tragically had many accounts wiped in 2007-2008, especially accounts that posted queer stuff or nsfw stuff or, in cases like these, both. so it’s difficult to figure out what exactly was happening in fandom around then, especially if you’re me and never used LJ and don’t know how to effectively navigate it)

annnyway, the thing took off, made its way to other fandoms, more and more people wrote their own versions, etc. over time, people began combining it with Omegaverse fics, since the two are pretty similar; when those fusions were pulled apart later, they affected one another; this is where BDSM AUs became more biology-flavored, and where we get certain Omegaverse tropes like “omega drop.”

if it wasn’t obvious, i’ve done a lot of looking into this, and i hope to do more soon and eventually put all that info to good use in some form of project—not sure what yet. i’m also not at allll biased between Xanthe and Helenish…..genuinely, Xanthe did a good thing and wrote a LOT of influential fic, we’re just…very different writers.

but ANYWAY, yeah, definitely not my idea, i’m building on the backs of thousands of writers before me. and it’s awesome.

i DO have a fic rec list somewhere on this blog, but i’m actually in the process of updating it! the goal is to get around 40-50 fics on there and i’m pretty close, so keep an eye out (it’s just taking a long time because i have to read fics to know if they’re good enough to rec….and then i just read fanfic for 6 hours….and then i reread some of them because they’re just really good….)

not sure what you mean by the third question—i don’t currently have any plans to write an AU outside of FLFverse, like a different fandom or plot or anything. i’ve thrown around the idea of what i affectionately call the SLSverse (that’s “seems like soaring,” get it, synonyms?), which would be what-ifs or AUs of the AU, but not its own thing.

within FLFverse, yes, i plan to write more fic XD. 2024 has been the roughest for my writing since probably 2019, which really sucks, but what can ya do. in truth, when i started writing Free Falling and Cross the Line and all those in fall 2023, i was hours from home/friends, unemployed, borderline flunking college, and like, big depressed—i had a ton of free time! and FLFverse was approximately the only thing i cared about. now i’m home again and have a job and am doing More Okay at school (academia and i are not friends), and i have other big fun projects to split my time between. i’m pretty determined to at least finish FF, even if it takes me another 10 years, and along the way i’ll write whatever oneshots strike my fancy.

so, yeah! that’s what’s up. thanks for the ask and giving me an excuse to yap about this AU <3

[hanzajesthanza]

I love your blog and recently watched your amazing YouTube essay! In a nutshell it blew my mind. Having the historical context of 2th century Polish history leading up the the publication of this work, in addition to your detailed analysis of Orwellian and Huxlian societies has helped me gain a whole new level of understanding and appreciation for The Witcher.

I read the books years ago and am beginning a re-read. Being someone who didn't receive the most thorough education on reading media critically or analytically as a younger person, and now trying to redress this fact about myself as I read works like this going forward as I approach middle age (I'm a bit of a "late bloomer" in several aspects of my life including building this skill set), I unfortunately missed a lot of allegory and subtext in my first reading. I enjoyed it mostly fannishly and getting into the characters at that time in my life. Your analysis has been really helpful on this journey of getting back into the books.

My question for you is that I've seen a few random references online to people theorizing that the Dopplers are an allegory for the LGBTQIA+ community. However, I've not been able to find any detailed analysis of this possible allegory and only finding people mentioning it in passing on forums and such.

As a reader who is also part of the LGBTQIA+ community, I would love if Sapkowski had intentionally injected allegory and commentary on queerness and the othering of our community in his work, but I'm reluctant to get excited about something that might not actually be there.

Of course I know a lot of these things are up to the interpretation of individual readers. But I'm also extremely curious to know what you think. Are you of the opinion that there is any queer subtext or allegory in the Witcher saga?

Thank you for your time if you get a chance to answer my ask! And thank you as well for your beautiful work on this series so far, I'm really looking forward to more!

thanks! and honestly, though i'm younger i also have a mixed relationship with reading and media literacy. so you're certainly not alone, also related to witcher/all things fantasy and pop culture, i think it's normal to engage with it for only the characters and story, especially on the first read.

as for LGBT subtext in the witcher...

the first thing to acknowledge is that LGBT subtext is preceded by actual LGBT text in the witcher. we already have some lesbian, gay, bisexual characters and relationships, and at least one trans or gender non-conforming, androgynous character.

the second thing to acknowledge is that this text isn't particularly meant to empower or represent, either in a positive or negative light. it's less about actually being LGBT, and more about how LGBT identities have been represented in the genre.

usually, it goes along with the regular practice of the witcher, its "guiding principle" as i might call it, being to subvert reader expectations, parody, or satirize elements and popular tropes of the fantasy genre. so, for example, mistle rapes ciri not because sapkowski wanted to depict lesbianism as predatory -- he wrote it because he was familiar with the trope of female heroines in fantasy being ahem, "claimed" by male warriors, and wanted to subvert this trope by having a woman do it instead.

so, we get a lesbian relationship, that, like the M/F relationships he was referencing, begins with a rape and turns into a romance by the end of it. this isn't to say that this is a logical sequence of events, but just that it was inspired by other texts -- it was never intended as commentary on lesbianism itself, but instead, of some fantasy texts that sapkowski had criticism of.

speaking of the author's perspective... i'm certain that if he was asked about any of this he would say he doesn't have any opinion, but this is just what i'm collecting from reading him... i'll go from best to worst.

(ŚKA = Świat króla artura, HiF = Historia i fantastyka, RZwSJ = Rekopis znaleziony w Smoczej Jaskini)

the good: his opinions on same-sex female relationships are... neutral to somewhat... positive? he seems to correlate lesbianism with feminism (aka political lesbianism). though he's denied identifying with feminists and feminism, saying that he does not intend to appeal to feminists or read feminist publications, in ŚKA and HiF he starts explaining unprompted ideas about the prehistory of matriarchy, associations of magna mater, and the relationship of wicca... and in RZwSJ includes an entire paragraph with recommendations of fantasy featuring lesbian relationships.

so i think any opinions he has about lesbianism are entirely conflated with his ideas of female power and worship, and/or as previously mentioned, challenging fantasy tropes - both are huge themes across all of his writing. which... i guess is a good thing?

however, i think that this interpretation of lesbianism through the lens of politics can be problematic because he fails to understand that a lot of lesbians like other women for kind of the same reasons straight men like them: because they are fucking hot. (but i guess he did acknowledge this a little with philippa and her countess, so whatever)

i'll also allow myself a small tangent about neratin ceka here, because i feel like his representation was not bad at all, and yet he's entirely missed whenever these discussions about sapkowski's views on LGBT happen, probably because no one read as far as past chapter 2 of tower of the swallow.

we even get the joke cliche of "i'm a bad guy, but i'm not a bad guy" with stefan skellen, who fantasizes about banditry and rape, and wants to kill ciri out of reasons of state, but, when he's told that ceka's gender doesn't really matter unless he wants to marry him, its his being a good soldier which counts, skellen's like, "yeah, ok, that makes sense to me, you're right." so the story doesn't make a joke about him at all, only for a moment raising the "what's his gender??" question in the mouth of a villain -- other than that, neratin ceka is treated by the story just the same as all the others of skellen's hanza (well, except for the fact that he was an imperial spy... but see, he was given an interesting role in the story).

anyways, here's the bad: LGBT characters being the butt of a joke, and not even "characters" but the concept of, for example, the only representation of fat GNC women being antagonistic, stupid, and gross (season of storms, the guardswomen of kerack), or homosexual quid quo pro committed by the guy who is so fucked up evil he will do anything to get political influence, including gay sex (season of storms, sorel degerlund) or attempted homosexual rape (narrenturm, the werewolf), or... homosexual sex slavery (lux perpetua, szarlej trying to "buy" reynevan).

it's... cringeworthy. though i will say the last one i mentioned here read like a monty python sketch rather than punching down, it is more making fun of the discomfort of the slavers themselves at the idea of homosexual desire and sex (which is ironic, because... they are slavers).

with an overview here, i feel like in terms of same-sex male relationships, more often than consensual relationships are jokes about rape, situations like pederasty, actual rape but this time treated as a serious threat (it was either in warriors of god or lux perpetua, one of the times in which reynevan was kidnapped). ... i don't know if i can name one positive, romantic gay relationship from any of his writing (whereas i might be able to name a couple of lesbian ones)

at the same time, he's never said that being gay is wrong, immoral, or espoused fears of gay people taking over, which... is notable as we look amongst his contemporaries in the polish SF/fantasy space of the 80s-90s. (that, and that he's so staunchly pro-choice). but that also doesn't make him some champion of LGBT rights, lmao.

when it comes to the subject, i think he is mostly just a contrarian who seeks to challenge conservative sensibilities and what is considered socially acceptable... so this sometimes results in accidental representation, and sometimes it results in offensive situations or "jokes". i don't believe he has an agenda either way for LGBT rights or condemnation, he generally is against oppression of any sort, but he doesn't put himself on the frontlines of advocacy. and at the same time carries his own biases of LGBT topics, some of which i don't agree with. (ik you didn't ask for this whole review, anon, but i wanted to include it to clarify the topic).

so, finally, about eternal flame.

i wrote this out years ago (with more of a gerlion spin to it, and i kind of roll my eyes at it now) but the basis of the dopplers as an lgbt allegory analysis is that:

dopplers are entirely innocent beings which are persecuted for no reason other than they're different, so they change shape amongst society to remain undetected --

and they've done this successfully, so much so that at the end of the story we realize that more people than one might have assumed, including chappelle, the head of the church of the eternal flame (coughs, catholic church, coughs) who was persecuting the protagonists for relation to a scandal involving a doppler, is in fact a doppler himself who took the persona after the real chappelle died two weeks ago.

so... i think that if one chooses to see it, they can -- though i probably wouldn't argue that this is a certain meaning, it's only one possible interpretation.

and again, it's not like positive representation, hah, i think one can draw their own conclusions from that short summary (especially the part about high-ranking priests being gay... hmmm...), but the fact that the dopplers are innocent and being persecuted and tortured for no reason, and we hear tellico's side of this at the end of the story putting them in a sympathetic light, and the entire moral of the story being acceptance of the other (with tellico even being adopted as dainty's cousin, lmao) i find it palatable because of that.

sapkowski has also denied that he includes any allegories in his writing, but because this doesn't make sense when looking at the first/second nilfgaardian war, i think to interpret this more as there is no specific representations of people or historical figures in his writing (the quote went something like "please do not look for the alter-egos of stalin or bierut amongst my characters...") rather than allegories to real life events or social realities, because those he certainly does include.

[comesitintheclover]

This is a love letter to being trans and to other trans people

this is for my t4t first kiss and being seen as a boy by those close to me before I cut my hair and the world started catching up.

this is for the first time a stranger called me a man unprompted being a day I was wearing earrings and bejewelled clips in my hair. For not having to change who I am to be a man.

this is for the trans masc lesbian who taught me how to break in my docs. the gemstones of community collected through time

this is for helping each other bind and songs by indie girl bands about wanting to be a boy, Kate bush singing about not being seen as a boy when she’s riding white horses and I don’t know what she means but I feel it in me and I’m sixteen and binding for the first time and everything feels magical.

this is for my trans brother putting trans stickers in public bathroom stalls and me seeing them at school and feeling less alone.

this is for me falling in love with the ways your voice and your body are changing with every T shot, falling more for you, and falling in love with what I will get to do one day.

this is for the YouTubers who I rewatch, those who show their bodies to the world and face the endless bs to help their trans siblings. The posts and forums that I have screenshotted. For the strangers who helped me find myself and will never know how comforted their words made me.

this is for the flamboyant album by Dorian Electra and splendor dysphoria by Superknova. For the trans musicians and artists and authors who inspire me forever and ever. Who create little infinities of bliss in their 3 minutes of song or few square inches of book pages.

this is for the overlap of identities and the love of body hair and all the butterfly themed stuff I have because they’re a transgender allegory. this is for waking up and touching my chest because it was just a nightmare and the surgery went well and this is my chest now (and it’s like it’s always been)

this is for feeling so proud that I didn’t back down when I could have stomached it because I’m so happy now I didn’t realise how much it hurt before.

this is for finding ourselves while governments uses us as its favourite chewtoy. for reading banned books. For seeing the world change. For the better and worse. For all the highs and lows. this is for you yelling back at that stranger “not a girl!” And me startled and anxious by your side and a bit starstruck. Falling a bit more in love. Writing 500 songs about it, maybe

this is for you telling me it’s okay to just try a new pronoun as we sat on the baseball benches that may. For us with our then-long hair in the sand that summer grinning about being boy-girl-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-boys. For wearing suits during spirit week. For the sopranos in suit and tie at the choir concert. For the beauty and joy of trans existence.

for the pronoun pins they made at the library. That my brother painted on a bottle cap for me. for getting to give my brother new nicknames from his new name.

this is for the trans people who have given me community and offered me a place to sleep and reignited my faith in humanity

this is for the queer youth group in the new town I lived in this summer. For seeing trans and queer people who were older than me. With white hair. For being cared for, for seeing a future that isn’t lonely. For the road trip we took and doodle the younger kid drew of us all. For spaces that our queer elders have created for us and and we will care for in turn 💗

this is for when you took me to the trans beach day for our third? last? date and I didn’t know what pronouns to put on my my-name-is sticker and I was scared I was an imposter but everyone was so kind and I saw life life life, joy joy joy. More people than the kind that get on a for you page or got cooked up in my feverish brain during lockdown. It was a new welcoming into the world and reality is always so much more beautiful than whatever one dimensional hope I could dream on my own.

this is for the binder I got that summer now neatly folded in the memory box at the top of my wardrobe with old poems and letters and that photo of us at pride when I finally decided I could go too 💗, too high up for me to reach this January with new scars across my chest.

it’s for the way we take care of each other. My friend who made me spaghetti and lent me his mastectomy pillow. For my bff crocheting me trans coloured flowers and a teddy bear. Telling me there’s no such thing as fish or men, helping me through post-surgical depression.

for how we change as time passes. For how we reconnect with new names. For how we may lose each other but still wish each other well with this journey. for poems about god and grapes and wine you collaged onto your bedroom wall. For the genderbendy collages I kept hidden in my closet.

for cutting off my tits to feel comfortable in skirts again. For being understood. For laying on the living room floor years ago telling you I see you as you even if they don’t. And you saying “what do you see though?”. For the hard bits. The times I’ve fucked up. For calling the help line. For your drag king/thing makeup. For the day I learned the word tomboy.

this is for us sitting on the summer sidewalk talking about missing T shots and microdosing and how it’s all gonna be okay.

this is for when you pointed at that statue of apollo and said you wished you looked like that and I bit my tongue because that was your journey to have not mine. This is for being mooned at a queer show. for being offered a cigarette in place of a kiss. for knowing I'll support you no matter what. for joking (kinda) about getting free the nipple tattooed of my post-surgery chest. for being both a woman and a man because I can.

this is for the beauty of the transgender experience, for not understanding gender but feeling it anyways. For becoming because you can, because the world is more open and joyful in a lot of ways now. It’s for coming back to school after quarantine and never being the only kid using multiple pronouns in each class. It’s for hope. It’s for life being more than death. It’s for the beauty of creation and the infinite shapes it takes. It’s for deciding the masculine is not alien. It’s for getting tipsy in the uni lounge and comparing how we think about our genders and feelings so cozy and there being no absolutes. this is for life being confusing but beautiful anyway. For not being able to decide wether to grow my hair back to my waist or to buzz it again. For the joy of waking up with hair short enough to stick up crazily. For you giving me an undercut with stationary scissors when I was 16 there was nothing better to use.

this is for gender being silly fun and profound all at once, all the time.

this is for the day I felt shit going into the woman’s bathroom and I saw this:

this is for @boy-gender happy birthday! Thank you for helping me out with my fears about top surgery and listening to me rant about gender. I hope you have a wonderful day!

[jewishvitya]

CW - talking about antisemitic depictions and about the house elves and the depiction of slavery in the books.

I'm having a frustrating day with a lot of physical pain, so I'm not the best at judging currently if I should be posting all of these thoughts. It's a response to multiple arguments by rude anons that I blocked (not for being rude, for being transphobic), but the arguments themselves stay on my mind and I just. Need this out. Ignore this, it will be all over the place, I'm basically venting. Hoping it'll be the last bit of HP criticism I post.

I'll tag it for you to block, as usual.

I've been asked what I expect of Rowling, since my criticism of the goblins included the books. She already wrote the books, they're printed and they're out there. She can't just change them, criticism does nothing because she has no path to correct her mistake.

First of all, with her transphobia - as far as I'm concerned she has blood on her hands at this point. The way she emboldens transphobia endangers lives and erodes queer rights. Anyone who contributes to the current push against trans people is complicit in trans genocide - and she made herself a symbol of that movement. Even if she did a 180 on her issues with Jewish stereotypes, she wouldn't redeem herself.

But she isn't the only one who wrote a story and then realized that her story has deep issues. What does it look like, if an author doesn't want to perpetuate those?

From what I know of Tolkien (and I know nothing LOTR or anything, just heard this from other Jewish creators who discussed this issue, treat this paragraph like I'm repeating a rumor) - Tolkien did stumble on an antisemitic depiction while writing his dwarves. Then he course-corrected by creating a more complex and nuanced picture of the society in his future works. Basically, he leaned into the idea of his dwarves as a Jewish allegory and made it a better and more respectful allegory. They have wonderful cultural details, like having foreign-language names used outside of their community - and names in their own native language that they call each other. Half of my family comes from France, and my mom was born there. She had a Hebrew name and a legal French name. That's extremely common among Jews in some areas of the world.

This response is what I would have expected if an author cares about being respectful of Jewish people. Acknowledge the issue, and try to do better.

But what if the issue was brought to your attention after you completely finished your story? In that case: "Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was writing an antisemitic narrative with my depiction of this fantasy race." Support the voices criticizing your work, and apologize. Let it be an example of tropes to avoid, and encourage others to be careful of the same pitfalls.

What you don't do, is act horrified and say "Oh, how could you, I never intended to make the goblins an antisemitic allegory! Surely if I don't mean it, it can't be hurtful!"

Also, if you truly care, you don't then abuse the memory of the holocaust when you write spin-offs of your original story, including its imagery to support a bigoted villain's argument.

Marginalized people understand that not everyone knows what we do. The stereotypes and the harmful ideas that weaved themselves into popular culture are about us. We know that it's invisible to people who aren't the target, and as a result aren't forced to learn these things. To many people, it's just a trope they're used to seeing. Like villains have hooked noses - it's practically a shorthand for an evil character.

All the stories we tell are based in some measure on stories we heard. Narratives and tropes feed off each other between different pieces of media. It's easy to pull together a harmful narrative without realizing, when the tropes that make it up usually go together, and are so common they're everywhere. So we know a person who means no harm can create something really hurtful, without knowing it.

That's why we criticize media: we want you to see and be aware.

In addition to this, I've been accused multiple times of ignoring the fact that these books discuss bigotry and condemn it. I'm not ignoring it, I know they do - or they try to. But Rowling wrote a story against racism without understanding it and without interrogating it in herself. She only knew to condemn it when it's rude and violent and outright hateful. Not the foundations of it.

So, sure, say she didn't mean to write something harmful. What does she do when she learns she did? Nothing. And not just about the issue of the goblins - about everything. I detailed the problems with her depiction of lycanthropy, but she did the same thing with the house elves.

There's lore about creatures called brownies. They'll perform chores for you, but they'd rather not be seen while they do. If you try to pay them, they'll get offended. If you give them clothes, they'll leave. This is a very partial description, but you can see the inspiration here.

And then she turned them into a slave race. They're bound to their enslavers, possessing powerful magic but using it in their service, forced to punish themselves for disobedience and endure extreme abuse. Kreacher actively wishes to have his head put on display when he's too old and weak to be of use.

To show the reader the horrors of freedom for an elf, JKR turned poor Winky into a depressed drunk with no purpose in her life. Winky's story is horrifying.

Only Dobby takes care of Winky for that whole year. She never recovers during it. Then she's made to witness the interrogation of Barty Crouch Jr., which upsets her and causes her distress. As a result, she hears about Crouch's death through a toneless forced confession - and the interrogation continues around her. That same day, she watches the last member of the household she loved have his soul taken by a dementor, and then she's left alone with the body while Dumbledore argues with Fudge. Only after, he sends Madam Pomfrey to do what she can for Winky, and take her to the kitchens where Dobby will take care of her again.

And Rowling wrote all of this. Did she think this is an example that even compliant house elves suffer and get neglected, even by the sympathetic wizards? Was this a lesson that even those who don't seek freedom suffer and lack agency in this system?

No. Rowling turned it into a cautionary tale against freeing slaves. Unless they're "weird" like Dobby.

Maybe she didn't try to be racist, but this fits disturbingly well with the arguments against ending slavery in reality. That enslaved people will turn into aimless drunks. That they need to be enslaved to have purpose. That those who want freedom have something wrong with them.

And I know this was criticized. What was the response to the criticism? Nothing direct as far as I know, but after all of this - there was an article published on Pottermore to argue that Winky's story is a warning against freeing the elves. It was taken down fortunately, but after this article the arguments against freedom are no longer the opinion of characters within the world - it's a message given to us by real people.

She doubles down. Every time. People keep yelling that she had nothing to do with Hogwarts Legacy, she's not responsible for the way it builds on her original canon. Well, she seems to approve of it. It continues painting the same line with the same brush - just bolder.

She doesn't care about the racism, she doesn't care about antisemitism - she just wanted to use the nazis as her easy villains. She doesn't have the imagination for any other kind.

[randomtvpollsjp]

Anybody who walks out of the theater and says, “Barbie  is anti-men” lacks media analysis skills. So let’s do a what I thought no one would have to do for this film—an unnecessarily deep dive. But it seemingly needs to get done for this crowd.

Shall we?

(And spoilers)

In Barbieland, men are seen as nothing but accessories to all of the exceptional women. Even the least exceptional woman—Stereotypical Barbie—is more exceptional than the average Ken.

(The exceptional Kens like Sugar Daddy Ken and Earring Magic Ken as well as Allan are othered within the hierarchy of Barbieland, a clear allegory for non-conforming/queer men. Even Weird Barbie is othered by the Barbies for her non-conformity but at least has a house)

Contrast Barbieland with the (still surreal) Real World, where the gender roles are often reversed.

In the lead up to the 2016 US Presidential election, for example, there were still people saying that they couldn’t vote for a woman.

That was it. Not her policies. A woman.

The film goes out of its way to prove that Ken—despite being cis/White/straight and male—cannot get EVERYTHING he wants without qualifications and experience. But he DOES get a basic level of respect that he never got in Barbieland from Barbies and the power structure they benefit from.

At one point, the film has a line where a man says, “I’m a man without power. Am I a woman?”

In the film’s Real World (and ours), women often struggle to get power. And so do men! But women face social barriers that men simply do not.

Meanwhile, despite being “everything”, in the Real World, Barbie’s a sexual object to men and almost immediately assaulted; and vilified by girls/women for setting unrealistic body standards. And is torn to shreds by Sasha, the girl she thought she had to help.

Ken takes patriarchy back to Barbieland and the Barbies—unable to conceive of a world like the film’s version of the Real World—basically short-circuit. The Kens, meanwhile, having always been second-class citizens, relish in the new idea and hierarchy.

But, as the film establishes, Kens don’t have an education or qualifications. They can’t even build a wall right because they weren’t conceptualized to be useful/given the tools to be.

Ken’s job was literally Beach.

They’d have actually destroyed Barbieland.

Similarly, nobody is saying you should just appoint women in our world into positions of power, just to appoint them. But we ARE saying that there are qualified women who deserve to be in places that they aren’t because they’re not men.

And that’s wrong.

By the end of the film, Barbie realizes that she actually owes Ken an apology. Yes, Ken tried to overthrow the Barbies. But Ken was reacting to Barbie’s rejection in a toxic—yeah, I said it—way.

And reacting to their society too, even if he doesn’t really know it.

The Kens had a point. The Barbies HAD mistreated them. Barbie didn’t even know where Kens lived in Barbieland, after all.

And to not acknowledge their point is to also not acknowledge the real world point that women are often mistreated in our world just for being women.

I’ve seen some people brandishing stats about how women USED to be marginalized. But now they aren’t. And can do anything. And earn just as much as men.

And yet, Forbes reports that only 10% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEO’s.

Anyway, so the film ends with Barbie telling Ken that he needs to define himself independently of being with Barbie. Which is analogous to how women in the workforce and getting educated/qualified in our world, allows them to be financially independent of men.

In Barbieland, Barbies have always been autonomous and allowed to be independent of men. And have flourished. And President Barbie promises to allow Kens to take part in the running of their shared society. Because everybody deserves to be seen and heard.

There are valid criticisms to be made about this film ranging from how its feminism lacks intersectionality; to how Mattel’s own workers in developing nations are often underpaid and overworked; to consumerism being the main tool of empowerment that Barbie (the toy) endorses.

But it’s one film and I understand that it can’t address EVERYTHING. It chose to stick with gender broadly.

And I think it successfully lands that point.

[justafilmfan]

August Movie Reviews

I haven’t been in the mood to do full reviews for a bit so here is a list of everything I’ve watched in August and what I thought!

Re-animator (1985) dir. Stuart Gordon: 5/5 ⭐️ this movie was so much fun! A really campy and beautifully done take on Frankenstein, two grad students (with homosexual undertones) brings people back to life with beautifully done practical effects. Will definitely be rewatching soon.

Bride of Re-animator (1990) dir. Brian Yuzna: 5/5 ⭐️ I can’t decide if which of these movies I enjoyed more, they were both so entertaining but personally the design of the undead bride is absolutely breathtaking and one of my favorite designs of all time. I can’t recommend this movie enough, such a fun watch.

The Truman Show (1998) dir. Peter Weir: 5/5 ⭐️ I am dumbfounded that this movie is classified as a comedy and not a horror comedy, the plot of this movie is genuinely one of the most terrifying things I can think of. (Heed caution watching this movie if you struggle with de-realization) This movie terrified me, made me cry, and had me clapping and cheering at the end. Fantastic movie.

The Return of the Living Dead (1985) dir. Dan O’Bannon: 5/5 ⭐️ As a huge lover of zombie movies I’ve got to classify this as my favorite zombie movie of all time. It’s super funny, the characters are awesome, and the zombie design is fantastic. The Tarman is my favorite zombie design ever and I LOVE how we get a reason for the brain eating from the actual zombies themselves. If you love campy 80’s horrors and zombies this is a must see.

The Evil Dead (1981) dir. Sam Raimi: 5/5 ⭐️ I am a huge evil dead fan so I am biased when I say I love all the evil dead movies. I love a gory horror movie that does not take itself serious at all. It’s so funny and campy and is just a fun watch if you can enjoy a movie without needing to dissect it. The gore and practical effects are so gross and awesome and the demons are a great time.

I Saw the Tv Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun: 5/5⭐️ Everyone should watch this movie but if you are transgender you HAVE to see this movie. It portrays the horror, damage, and suffering that living your life in the closet can do to you. I could spend hours dissecting this movie and relating it to the trans experience but I guarantee if you relate to having grown up in any capacity as the wrong gender you will be bawling by the end of this movie. An absolute must watch.

Sleepaway Camp (1983) dir. Robert Hiltzik: 5/5 ⭐️ I love a fun slasher movie that takes place at a summer camp and this one does not disappoint. While trying not to give too much away if you haven’t seen it, some people believe this movie to be transphobic, and while I understand where they’re coming from I completely disagree. I consider this movie to be a trans allegory showing how dangerous it is to someone’s mental health to force them to be someone they’re not and the damage it can inflict to them and others. Great movie with a great ending.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) dir. Yorgos Lanthimos: 5/5 ⭐️It took me two watches to really appreciate this movie and I can’t fully talk about my thoughts without spoiling it, but this is a great psychological horror with such weird characters. If you’re watching this movie and wondering why every character is SO strange, talks weird, moves weird, and acts weird then just know that is absolutely intentional! Great watch and I recommend a few watches to really absorb the movie!

House of 1000 Corpses (2003) dir. Rob Zombie: 4.5/5 ⭐️ My boyfriend called this movie a love letter to horror and I have to agree. This is a fun campy horror that really has a lot of fun in its character designs and creative kills. It’s both very comedic while being disturbing and bizarre. (And Captain Spaulding is obviously queer coded, just how I like my favorite horror characters to be). A fun watch for any horror fan.

Blackfish (2013) dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite: 4/5 ⭐️ I know I am 11 years late to watching this movie, and although not the best documentary I’ve ever seen, it got its point across very well. I had known about a lot that was in this doc but I still learned a lot that I hadn’t known. A very heart wrenching story about animal abuse at Sea World but with must know information. Even though it brought change (sea world is no longer allowed to capture or breed Orcas) I’m still distraught that Sea World is still operational to this day.

Lisa Frankenstein (2024) dir. Zelda Williams: 5/5 ⭐️ this movie is absolutely fantastic. Campy, funny, aesthetic, and romantic all wrapped in one. The characters were written in such a fun and in your face way. If you were ever “the weird girl” this movie is absolutely made for you. I love Lisa’s character so much and I love how throughout the movie she worked to be herself despite everyone BUT a dead guy wishing she were “normal”. Cinema is so back, this is the kind of movie I want to see.

Edit* yes technically the truman show is classified as a comedy *I* don’t consider it a comedy but I didn’t make the movie lol (well i guess technically a psychological comedy drama but yeah)