#LMFAOOOOOO NOT ME SPENDING AN ENTIRE HOUR ON THIS

[caseyjonesisinthehouse]

alrighty bucko, strap in because i've been dying to explain this allllll day and you're gonna get an entire ass essay.

ok, here we go.

in the first verse, we get

A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I'm the queen

This doesn't resonate with me personally, but lord knows that for a lot of people being trans is an isolating experience. the "queen" bit can be taken one of two ways- either its Elsa saying she's become the queen she always knew she was at the cost of ppl around her becoming openly transphobic and socially "isolating" her,

OR people are still seeing her as the "queen" even when that's not who she is

(just real quick, i'm trying to keep this going both ways bcause idk if elsa is transfem or transmasc. considering the next verse tho, im leaning towards transmasc. ik this song is abt ice powers and she literally makes herself a dress, but shhhhhhhhhhh ignore that)

ok, next verse.

Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I tried Don't let them in, don't let them see Be the good girl you're always meant to be Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know Well now they know

This one is packed FULL of stuff that can be taken in a very trans way.

"Couldn't keep it in"- I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but for me personally it was so so hard to keep my transness under wraps once I realised I was nonbinary.

"Don't let them in, dont let them see, be the good girl you're always meant to be"- This particular line strikes me as rly transmasc, as its Elsa basically saying she's """meant""" to be a girl, but at the same time rejecting that idea.

As well as this, both the "conceal dont feel" and "dont let them in" lines are closet experiences- not wanting people to know you're trans bcause you don't know how theyre going to respond or bcause it could be dangerous depending on the situation.

And then, the first chorus.

Let it go, let it go Can't hold it back anymore Let it go, let it go Turn away and slam the door I don't care what they're going to say Let the storm rage on The cold never bothered me anyway

This entire chorus is essentially Elsa accepting that she's trans, and deciding to embrace it. In particular, the lines "I dont care what theyre going to say" and "The cold never bothered me anyway" feel like she's rejecting the transphobia around her, and going "yknow what? who gives a shit what they think. I'm going to live my own life."

next verse!!

And the fears that once controlled me, Can't get to me at all! It's time to see what I can do To test the limits and break through No right, no wrong, no rules for me I'm free

This? This is pure gender euphoria. This is realising you can present however the fuck you want, use whatever name and pronouns you want, and pushing the boundaries of what you want to look like. I don't have a lot else to add here- if you know what it's like, then you know.

Then to another chorus.

This one's pretty similar to the other one, but there is one line i want to touch on.

Here I stand, and here I stay Let the storm rage on

She's gone through the gender euphoria, the joy of finally knowing who she really is- and this is her digging her heels in. This comes up again really soon, but this is her first defiant stand, saying "I am here, and I'm not backing down, no matter what anyone thinks." (again, with the "storm" being the transphobia/judgement from others)

The next verse is almost exclusively about ice stuff, but there is one SUPER important line in there:

I'm never going back, the past is in the past

Once you know you're trans, and you know who you are? You never want to go back to how it was before. I sure as hell know I never want to go back to how things were pre-transition.

And lastly, the final chorus:

Let it go, let it go And I'll rise like the break of dawn Let it go, let it go That perfect girl is gone Here I stand, in the light of day Let the storm rage on The cold never bothered me anyway

To me personally, the line "I'll rise like the break of dawn" is beautiful in its own right, but it's also really powerful as a statement- rising above the challenges you've faced, and coming out of it more beautiful and powerful than ever before.

As well as this, "That perfect girl is gone" REALLY speaks to me as a transmasc moment. Like I said before- acknowledging that she was a girl, and in the same breathe revoking it and standing against it.

The last three lines work hand in hand to send a really powerful message: "I'm here, I exist, and I'm not backing down or giving up for anyone."

Soooo yeah, that's my in-depth reasoning on why I think Let It Go is super trans. Like any piece of media, this song can be interpreted in nearly any way, but seeing it as being about coming out just really resonated with me and i love it so much now because of that.

my hot take of the day: Let It Go from Frozen is a song about coming out as transgender.

That is all

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: Unrequited

Next up, @infantbluee, @kallie-flower, @nori-wings and @thiefofblood (Souly on Discord) came to answer questions and spread the love for their Resbang, Unrequited! Here’s some of what went down:

Q: How did you guys come up with this idea? I remember you threw a ton of ideas around and settled on this one. Can you take us through the process? >:)

kallieflower: Oh god. We went through SO many different ideas. We wrote like what? 40k for our first idea before we scrapped that?

b l u e: Then like 30k for the next one that we also scrapped.

kallieflower: WE KEPT TRYING TO WRITE SHORT THINGS BUT IT DIDN’T WORK. Soma just does not work as shortfic.

b l u e: Even our final bang ended up being a 40k two-shot lmao.

Q: So what was it about this final idea that made u guys decide, YES, this is it???

kallieflower: The first idea was a Madoka Magica AU that exploded into a mess because magical girl worlds take a loooooottttt of work. The second fic also exploded into something big.

b l u e: We were going to stick with it though. We were. We had it all ready for check-in and everything. But then like two days before, kallie went, "okay so I love our fic idea and all but what about this." Me, on three hours of sleep: "I effing hate you." Then we stumbled through our first 3k and sent it to the mods like the gremlins we are.

kallieflower: We didn’t expect it to get so big either but c’est la vie. Chloe almost killed me like 48293783 times during the process but I think we managed alright.

b l u e: You're lucky I love you so much.

Q: Did you guys start writing straight from the beginning of the fic or did you write a specific scene first?

kallieflower: Actually we didn’t start from the beginning haha! Or well, our idea didn’t start from a plot. We just wanted to write Maka cursed. We wanted to write her with no inhibitions in love, like she might’ve been had she not been so hurt by her parents’ separation. And since there are witches in the SE universe, we had fun with that instead of making it an AU.

Q: Do you write linearly at all or did you jump around a lot?

b l u e: Surprisingly yes. Aside from my dream sequences.

kallieflower: Your dream sequences were our pit stops. We just had to actually do the writing to get there.

b l u e: Hahaha our writing process was.... Unique.

kallieflower: That’s one way to put it lmao.

nori-wings: It was a mess, but we love it.

b l u e: WE are a mess so it's just us in fic form.

kallieflower: God yeah. For one thing, this fic was like 90% chloe with me just making her do crazy things I wanted to happen.

nori-wings: And 5% of what the artists wanted to happen.

b l u e: YEAH hahaha that was kallie too tbh. She was like, "me as a witch would not understand anything about my magic at all and would curse people for kicks, so let's do that."

kallieflower: We would have a general plot of how we wanted to go and what points we wanted to hit. Chloe would start to write it, but then I would be like “WAIT WHAT ABOUT THIS.” And then she would pretend she thought I was a total nuisance but we all know she’s too soft and sweet to ever say no to anything. Also our artists were such a LOVELY help too.

b l u e: We wanted as much of their input as possible and we wanted to make this as much of a collab as we could. The train scene at the beginning of the third chapter was all nori because she was mad at us for only torturing Soul and wanted Maka to cry too.

Q: Nori/Souly did you have a favorite piece of art to make?

the monkey chain (soul): The skating scene was my fave. I also accidentally changed the part in the fic with the skating since I didn't ask what kind of skates they were supposed to be kfljgdf.

b l u e: LMAO it's our fault though!!!! We were Too Slow.

nori-wings: Black*Star dragging Soul and Maka is my favorite, it was super fun to draw.

b l u e: When you sent the first wip of that, I think I cried for days. It was better than my dreams. You were both so fast GOD, it takes me seventeen years just to sketch a pic.

kallieflower: For real tho. We don’t deserve artists.

nori-wings: They are exaggerating, it was a quick sketch that I made on a post it lol. It took me a week to draw it in digital.

the monkey chain (soul): I had free time since we moved and were without internet for a night so I had a ton of time to finish my pic.

Q: Did you have trouble meeting the deadline?

kallieflower: Trouble is putting it lightly lmao. We died. Many times.

b l u e: I don't trust fast writers. Clearly they are superhuman. It wouldn't have been hard if we didn't spend so much time drowning in memes and shitposts that we neglected to write.

kallieflower: I blame the internet.

Q: Were there any scenes that you guys really struggled with writing?

b l u e: The beginning, definitely. Everything else flowed out pretty quickly, but the beginning made us want to cry into our pillows and smash our keyboards.

kallieflower: I think there was a period of time where Chloe was like, “I will physically pay you money to write this scene so I don’t have to.” But yeah, the beginning scenes were definitely hardest to write. I think we rewrote them like a million times.

Q: Nori and Souly, was there a part of your art that was trickier to do?

nori-wings: I think painting Soul and Maka's kiss, because I wanted to use as few colors as possible and I played a lot with shading, or at least I tried haha.

the monkey chain (soul): Uhhhh not really for me? My pieces were relatively simple and probably the most issue I had was drawing Maka's skates and figuring out what Soul would be wearing.

b l u e: I cried when we got paired with souly.

kallieflower: Chloe literally fangirled to hell over getting souly as our second artist. And we were very lucky to get nori as our artist too because we already became really close friends through the zine and talked all the time. Our resbang just gave us an excuse to move all our blabber to a personal server lmao.

nori-wings: Yeah, they asked me to be something like a beta but I ended up being their artist.

kallieflower: We joked about it beforehand too and were SO happy it happened. We were so blessed with support and love this year. We never would’ve finished without the help of our artists and betas.

nori-wings: They are making it sound nice, but we wouldn't let them drop out.

kallieflower: LMFAOOOOOO. Nori likes to be sassy but she’s one of the softest of us all

b l u e: We legitimately would've dropped out if not for our artists.

kallieflower: “Do it for our artists” was our mantra through the whole process when we wanted to quit. Peer pressure makes diamonds, maybe.

b l u e: I mean, it didn't feel like that when we were bullshitting our way through our next 5k before each deadline, but it be like that sometimes.

Q: What was your favourite scene to write?

b l u e: My favorite to write was definitely the nightmare demon scene.

kallieflower: Because she’s a sadist and likes angst. Chloe likes to make people feel pain so her favorite scenes were definitely the angsty ones.

b l u e: FDSJFKDSF

Q: For errbody: what do you feel like you improved/grew in this resbang, writing and arting-wise??

kallieflower: For me, I definitely grew in writing skills even though I didn’t end up writing much of this bang (chloe, bless your soul for carrying me this year lmao) because chloe is SO GOOD at writing that it made me want to be better, learn better, do better.

b l u e: Kallie made me work harder than I ever have my entire life and it paid off SO MUCH. I very much only ever write ventfics.

the monkey chain (soul): I feel like I Peaked with Maka's outfit in the skating picture, like I don't pride myself in outfit design much these days but Maka's outfit came out so good. I didn't expect it.

Q: Were there any parts of Unrequited that really pushed you out of your comfort zone?

b l u e: Writing with someone else was such an experience.

kallieflower: We definitely had to compromise a lot in terms of writing. Like I wanted Soul to walk in on Kid touching Maka’s scar and Chloe immediately said “fine, but only if we make Kid a gardener” and if that isn’t a super fair trade off, idk what is. Chloe and I work so well together so that was easy. And we like a lot of the same things.

b l u e: There was a little adjustment [with adapting to different writing styles] but not much, because despite what kallie says, she's actually so freaking smart and talented it actually makes my eyes water.

Q: If you had the time to do something differently, what would you do and why?

b l u e: Everything. Jk no but really. There's just a lot I wish we could've elaborated on. And more suffering to be had of course. I just wish we had more time to elaborate on Spirit and Maka's mom.

kallieflower: Oh god yeah. Maka did not get enough of a backstory in the manga or anime and that makes me sad always.

Q: What made you both decide on the outcome of the curse? Did the witch know how it was going to affect Kid?

b l u e: We actually knew the outcome from the very beginning when we decided what kind of curse it was.

Q: Okay SO one last question for the crew. What is next!!!! >:)

nori-wings: Next collab is me writing and Chloe as my artist. (She just doesn't know it.)

b l u e: FDHDJFKSDDSF

kallieflower: OMG PLS HAHAHA. I’d be all over that collab. Chloe is working on a soma longfic she won’t let me beta because she’s Secretive. And I am trying to work up the energy to use my keyboard again after the hell that was finishing Resbang.

Thanks to the crew for stopping by! Stay tuned for more transcripts!