#aliens are inherently gay

[snapewives-supremacy]

I love how mountains form. It’s like the Earth’s crust just said, “Screw boygenius! I don’t wanna Stay Down!”

[the-earth-priestess]

understand when i ship something it is never in a straight or neurotypical way

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Principle of Moments

start of a scifi space opera series

a teen girl in the far future where humans are oppressed learns she has a destiny & a lost sister and escapes

and a young time traveler who’s given up trying to find his father through time, and is about to settle in 1812 with the prince he loves, but is unwillingly thrust into the future

they both learn their fates are entangled by a prophecy, and have to race across the galaxy, followed by a galactic emperor and the legacy of heroes from an ancient religion

[jackienautism]

maybe i’m just being a Bitch about it but like … is anyone sad at how lesbian is mainly used as an umbrella term? like. we don’t even really have our own term

[emilyolixia]

you don’t go to space if you’re straight.

[aptericia]

Not proud to be here.

--

Ok, here goes draft like 5 of this fucking post. I spent 4 hours tossing and turning in bed last night thinking about this, and then this morning I found a tumblr post that really helped me understand what I was trying to say.

The post talks about how aromantic "advocates" claim that "aros don't take up resources, so there's no reason not to include them!" And if that's actually what people believe, I think I can finally articulate why it is that I feel so alienated in queer spaces.

It's because aspecs in general aren't "welcomed" by much of the queer community. We're tolerated. We perhaps get the luxury of not being contradicted on our own identities, or not being specifically kicked out of LGBTQ-only spaces, but that's the whole point: what we get out of the queer "community" is people NOT doing things, not actually doing things FOR us. And that, frankly, is not enough. We deserve conversations about us. We deserve to have others consider our feelings, even when making lighthearted jokes. We deserve varied, respectful representation in media. We deserve the active deconstruction of amatonormativity in society. We deserve to have space made for us, rather than at most being told we should "go take up more space!" ourselves.

Of course, the reality is that my being aspec is a personal matter that does not inherently affect anyone else. But the same can be said for literally any queer identity. Your being gay doesn't say anything about me, so of course I shouldn't hurt you for it, but why should I help you either? Because your happiness and comfort are important. The same goes for aspecs.

And most of the time, I don't even need anyone to make space for or expend resources on me; I can live fine in everyday, non-queer-specific places without mentioning my identity at all. But it's the queer community that claims it will make that space for me, doesn't, and then acts defensive and morally pure if I call out the hypocrisy because "we're queer too, you can't erase our identities to advocate for yours!!!!"

Again, this post isn't about specifics. I have queer friends who are incredibly thoughtful and supportive about my identity, just as I have non-queer friends who are. I find more solidarity in aspec-only communities, as well as trans/genderqueer ones, although there are still many exceptions. This post is also not about amatonormative ideology, which is extremely common from queer and non-queer people alike. This post is about the reason I've felt so betrayed by the queer community.

--

On a personal note, I remember being so excited when I started identifying as aromantic (and later asexual). Fitting myself into labels has been a lifelong struggle for me; to this day I still can't confidently say if I'm White or PoC, neurotypical or neurodivergent, abled or disabled, cisgender or not cisgender. I continue to struggle making friends because I don't fall into social cliques. To discover that I officially, certainly, was LGBTQ+ lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. And now I'm just so sad to find that despite that, I'm still stuck in the middle. I didn't get rewarded with a community. I still feel alienated from both queer and non-queer people. I know it was silly to get my hopes up when there's such vast diversity in both groups, but it really was a disappointment. Going to my first Pride parade last year was really the moment where I realized this.

[genderqueerdykes]

approaching transmascs from a standpoint that we will inherently be violent, shitty, unpleasant, and violate your identities is not the way to go. this grooms many trans men into believing they really are like this, and it makes the rest of us angry. masculinity and manhood are not inherently threats, don't treat transmasculine lesbians or trans men like they are threats on the queer spaces they try to inhabit.

trans men and transmascs are not an inherent threat to queer women or women in general. stop acting like you get a pass to stand with your hairs on end and tell us to just brave transphobia. my ex girlfriend told me to just suck it up that my roommate equates men to penises and said that he never wants to look at vaginas or breasts because he's a gay man while he sat next to me, a gay trans man.

stop telling trans men to suck up our trauma. stop telling transmascs our oppression isn't real! stop telling us we aren't being mistreated and abused! i don't have to just sit down and take being isolated and alienated. i don't have to accept being reduced to my genitals. i don't have to agree with bioessentialism because a cis man is incapable of getting over his own transandrophobia

let transmascs exist, let trans men occupy space, let us talk about our struggles. FUCK!

[hexhomos]

have u seen that artists r getting death threats on twitter over hc viktor as russian 😭

I have seen a literal friend of mine get stupidly angry comments from new age arcane fans who swear up and down he's been czech all his life and it truly boggles the mind. that's straight up not true. Viktor was created as a russian communist caricature by an american corporation. he was "villainous crazy russian guy" for twelve years, the funny harry lloyd czech impression only started out 3 years ago. We're just doing cold war propaganda all over again now???

viktor being russian =/= liking the ghoulish russian government. You aren't giving Putin an endorsement, you're drawing a cartoon faggot //russian immigrant allegory// who would get deported by the CIA during the first red scare. Viktor can be russian. there's gay and trans and disabled russian people who are discriminated against & very much at risk at at a home country that is hostile and controlling towards its own citizens, and when they try to get out of that oppressive environment there's all these preloaded notions painting them as "untrustworthy" or "inherently shady" thanks to the Russian Enemy american popculture slop archetype.

My own country has gone through decades of horrific dictatorship before! Through the hands of our own military forces and highly aided by the USA, profiting off our misery! Should our people as a whole be conflated with the military troops that abducted protesters into death-torture camps? Should our people as a whole be represented by the worst geriatric nationalistic bigots who can plant themselves in power? Is this how we look at the whole world? This is a dangerous line of thought. I get that a lot of arcane fandom is young but that is a rightwing calling card line of thought. If we're all to be represented exclusively by a sum of our Leading Cops, we're deep in the muddy shit. I don't even like these pigs in a good day. If you're an american saying this, especially? LOOK AT YOUR OWN FUCKING TROOPS. YOU'RE THE IMPERIAL CAPITAL. IT'S YOU.

It also stands out to me that viktor league of legends was perfectly fine as crazy evil russian stock villain n.99999 for 10+ years, but as soon as he gets an adaptation that depicts him as empathetic/altruistic and well intentioned all the way through, humanized like a proper human being... the americans in charge conveniently drop the 'russian' part of his persona. (but oh, they keep the red scare stuff. and they keep the stuff about communism being a path to certain evil, they just cut out the russian identification, so people have a harder time criticizing it.) I don't think that is a neutral decision, and its not one I'm interested in reproducing.

It's completely fine to have your own hcs, but I don't like the shallow conversations around this. Viktor isn't a representation of the russian government; but he is, fundamentally, a byproduct of how american propaganda rules the entire world and defines who gets to be alienated as the villain forever. We used to see this with china A LOT as well (still do!), and it only changed after a whole lot of effort, be it by chinese immigrants or the proliferation of media depicting them as whole, multifaceted people, distanced from the american-made boogeymen. The common citizen is not my enemy. It shouldn't be yours either.

[autolenaphilia]

It's interesting how intellectually inconsistent the arguments against "problematic" kinks like fauxcest, CNC and ageplay is. Like the anti-kink people get very heated about those kinks for "fetishizing/romanticizing" abuse. And the thing is, that's true for bdsm in general. It relies on roleplaying power inequalties, which would be very abusive if they were real.

That was in fact the argument of the 70s radfems who created the type of anti-kink discourse that relies on exploiting feminist concerns about abuse. They were against all forms of bdsm, including among (cis) lesbians. They used the same arguments we see against fauxcest and CNC today, for what is normal bdsm play.

And the radfems kinda lost this battle of the feminist sex wars, probably because it alienated a lot of the cis women they were recruiting from. Nowadays queer people of all genders do a lot of bdsm and anti-bdsm views don't get a lot of airtime.

Nowadays you see this anti-bdsm rhetoric mostly among proud terfs who use it to prove their hardcore bonafides. (Although I've seen some tenderqueers who admit that they think all bdsm is problematic too.)

And i think that's because the anti-kink people have decided to do a strategic retreat on this question. The radfems took a too extreme stance and alienated people who they otherwise could have recruited. So they have gone for easier targets. Kinks which are seen as extreme compared to "normal" bdsm, like fauxcest and CNC. And they target individual transfems accused of being into or even just "defending" these kinks with callouts and mobbing instead of condemning all the cis gays and lesbians into bdsm.

This leads to intellectual inconsistency. It's fine to play with whips in the bedroom,but doing CNC play is evil. One type of roleplaying abusive relationships is fine, but the other is bad. It's obvious hypocrisy to broaden the appeal of the message.

And of course, their transmisogynistic bias is obvious and I and others have noted this before. And even if the anti-kink people weren't transmisogynistic bigots, they will naturally target us for their moralistic crusade out of opportunism. We transfems are easy targets for callouts on these subjects, because transmisogyny primes people to easily view us as perverted sexual predators and those doing the callouts tend to have tme privilege over us.

And as I said before, the 70s radfems anti-bdsm position and their transmisogyny were intertwined. Janice Raymond literally diagnosed trans women in "The Transsexual Empire" with sadomasochism, something she views as inherently pathological.

And of course their arguments are bullshit anyway. Like sure a lot of kink fetishizes abuse, but I don't see that as a reason to condemn the people doing it. I don't see why I should care if someone gets off on a rape fantasy or CNC roleplay, because it's Not Real. I don't care about fictional murders for the same reason. Most arguments to the contrary tend to rely on the arch-reactionary concept of sexual degeneracy: "if you do enough fauxcest and CNC it will warp your mind and you'll eventually rape your relatives for real, or inspire someone to do so." It ignores the material societal conditions that lead to abuse in the real world.

[thydungeongal]

What are some good RPGs that would say are good examples of being queer?

Sorry it took me a while to reply to this!

Anyway, my favorite capital Q Queer RPGs are Monsterhearts and Dungeon Bitches. Monsterhearts is the subtler of the two, being basically a game about playing a CW style teen drama with monsters that is basically a genre mashup of Vampire Diaries, Ginger Snaps, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Jennifer's Body. The queerness is very much textual but it's more so thematic and symbolic. The game's themes are queerness and adolescence and growing up, the vehicle it uses to explore those themes is monsters, because queer teens often get made to feel monstrous for having feelings and desires that fall outside of the norm.

Dungeon Bitches by @cavegirlpoems on the other hand is much more explicit about its queerness, in the sense that the queerness is also explicitly and unambiguously written into the fiction of the game. It is a game that is very much grounded in the dungeon-crawling genre of fantasy but that asks the question of "what kind of people would actually get into the dungeon-crawling life" and answers that with "people who are otherwise marginalized in so-called civilized society, especially queer women." It's very much a game that uses the dungeon crawling lifestyle to present a dialectic between the "safety" offered by the closet and normative society, and the precariousness and danger and the undeniable thrill of living as your true self. It's a game that is resonant to me not only as a fan of dungeon crawl type games but also as a trans woman making her first small steps towards transition. It's a fucked up game for fucked up dolls.

There are plenty of other queer games too, including Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Queerz, Girl by Moonlight, Dream Askew, and many many more. I think Thirsty Sword Lesbians is the most well-known and I do own it and at the end of the day it kind of leaves me cold. It feels like it's trying to play things a bit too safe and at the same time I feel its politics of identity are just messy.

Anyway, this is something I've been thinking of for a while, but since I've been thinking a lot about queer games not only in terms of "does it have the Gay" but also in terms of "does it thematically intersect with questions of queerness," I have to mention Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by @anim-ttrpgs.

So okay having been involved in the community surrounding Eureka for a while there is something about that game that appeals to LGBTQ folks, especially trans women. Now, Eureka has of course been written primarily from the point of view of disability: the main writer is disabled and the game makes it explicit that many of the supernatural elements, including the monster investigator types, are symbolic of the experiences of the disabled. But because the experiences of marginalized groups tend to intersect a lot, many queer folks also end up seeing themselves there. Vampires in Eureka are written very much from a Christian folkloric point of view so that many Christians may see them as inherently anathema even while they may still maintain their faith; something that many queer Christians may resonate with. Similarly, one of the monster types, the Thing from Beyond, is all about being an alien shape shifter trying to navigate a society that is ultimately scary and alien to them. There's also Living Dolls up in that thang!!!

There is more to Eureka that makes it appeal to many queer readers, but the main thing is this: it is written from a point of view that is ultimately empathetic of the "freaks" and outcasts. And while it does approach these topics from the point of view of disability, it is also very open to queer readings.

And this is sort of a source of gentle ribbing within the Eureka community: that the lead writer ends up writing stuff that resonates deeply with his friends and fans of the game, a significant number of whom happen to be trans women, and that this has to be pointed out to him constantly. It's really sweet and funny. (Fun anecdote: when I first came out as a trans woman he approached me in my DMs asking "So you're a chick now?" followed by a 👍 emoji.)

And I think that's a fun contrast. Many games that ultimately do not touch upon queerness in any meaningful way in their themes or gameplay will still get lauded as queer because they will use identity as a coat of paint or a part of their marketing. And at the same time someone writing candidly about their experiences of living with disability via metaphor may end up accidentally writing something that actually resonates with the lived experiences of queer people.

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

"Queer-coding" is only useful for a narrow range of media and it'd be great if we could stop using it for literally everything

Here's my problem with it:

The term originated to discuss negative media depictions of cultural stereotypes for LGBTQ people in the United States. It is inherently tied to the conditions of media censorship at play in the USA during the 1900s, with the Hays Code restricting depictions of anything it deemed "immoral."

Now, for whatever reason, people are using it to refer to literally anything they see as "kind of gay."

The term begins with the premise that making the audience see the character as queer is the creator's explicit intention. The creator knows the stereotype, you know the stereotype, so they are using the stereotype to convey to you something they can't say outright.

However, you can see how this goes awry, right?

The second we cross language, cultural, or even generational lines, this gets messy.

What traits are deemed queer? What behaviors or characteristics are seen as gay? The reality is this is a huge spectrum, and every culture has a different relationship with queerness in its history. For that matter, every nation has its own unique issues with censorship. A viewer from the USA may interpret a Japanese character as exhibiting stereotypically gay characteristics, but does that mean the Japanese creator intended it to be taken that way?

But then, if we try to account for what stereotypes Japanese media might use for queer characters to ascertain what the Japanese creator might have intended, we arrive at the same dead-end: the implication that queerness is only really portrayed via (usually negative) stereotypes.

This suggests that if media does not contain enough "clues" to imply a character is queer to the broadest possible audience, a queer reading of their story is out of the question. "Queer-coding" is treated as a metric of validity, a way to "prove" queer interpretations are allowable, yet it is based in stereotypes, censorship, and presumption of authorial intent.

The way queer-coding is continually brought into discussions about art essentially creates an ultimatum: media needs to be "explicit" by using direct (usually English language) terminology, or characters need to engage in things like kissing, declaring one's love, sexual activity, etc., yet even those are dismissed at times.

This creates a dynamic where art which is intentionally subtle or multifaceted may be seen as exhibiting cowardice rather than artistic complexity. It implies that if something is not "confirmed queer," queer themes cannot be read into it, queer subtext cannot be interpreted from it, and queer people are not allowed to identify with it.

This limits art. This builds walls that diminish human connection; it creates a situation where queer people are discouraged from seeing themselves in media not explicitly designated for them. Because, obviously, queer people are a completely different species from "normal people," right? Their feelings and experiences are so alien and distinct, there's no overlap anyone else could sympathize with.

You don't need permission to see queerness in art. You don't have anything to prove. Queer interpretations are just as valid as any other, and anyone who tells you different is selling something.

As I spoke about in this post, authorial intent is not more important than audience perception, and trying to infer the creator's intentions is a fool's errand. Especially in a situation where censorship is supposedly at play, any public statement from a creator could be reasonably disregarded as dishonest, which leaves us alone with ourselves and the work.

Which, by the way, is the only real way anyone experiences art. It's not you and the creator, it's you and the work. When people try to infer authorial intent, they are not discerning real, objective truth. They are sorting available information through a filter of what they consider believable before arriving at a subjective conclusion, which they then project onto a mental image of the creator.

In literary analysis, we select a "lens" through which to view art. This means that we decide to accept certain ideas as given fact and explore what the works says once we look at it that way. For example, we could accept as fact the idea that a number of the core cast are queer in some way. It posits the question: once we dismiss heterosexuality and cisgender identity as the only options, what do we see?

This is an intellectual concept, but the reality is that everybody naturally applies their own lens to art when they view it. This lens is not nearly so rigid or clearly defined, but it is a lens nonetheless, defined by their experiences, values, and individual personality.

I would love for people to stop using the phrase "queer-coding" quite so freely. It centers a need for validation and hinges that on "what the creator intended."

If you want some ideas for different language about this, consider these:

A theme might be queer by exploring broad topics queer people often struggle with, such as secrecy, shame, or self-acceptance.

The subtext of something might be queer in that one could read a double-meaning or deeper implication to the narrative device or scenario.

A work might contain allegory, symbolism, imagery or parallels that could be interpreted with queerness.

I don't think it's interesting to try to "win" by convincing you I personally know what the creator intended. That leaves the art static, unchanging, and lifeless. I would much rather tell you how I personally see the art and why, because that dynamic allows all of us examine the work more deeply.

In the end, it is not an author's edict in some external statement that gives art meaning. It is the audience. Our feelings are what give art meaning, and connecting with other people about what it all means to us is what keeps art alive.

[yourlocalmeta1head]

I hate seeing these fucking videos of people who voted for Donald Trump regretting voting for him. If they had just done more research and didn't vote for him just because then the can "afford gas and groceries" they would've learned that if you are the average American your taxes will be higher and you will have larger bills. Donald Trump's tax plan does include a few cuts for the middle class but 83% of tax cuts that are included in Donald Trumps tax plan go to the people that are making over half a million dollars a year. Kamala Harris's tax plan would've been better because 100% of the tax cuts in her plan would go to members of the middle and low class.

Donald Trump has also reported "not being associated with project 2025" and "having nothing to do with project 2025" which is obviously false seeing that many people who are involved in project 2025 have served Donald Trump in one way or another. For example; Paul Dans, who is a former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personal Management under Trump is leading the project. In addition, Trumps campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has appeared in Project 2025 promotion videos.

Here are ways project 2025 could affect you and your personal life. Project 2025 would stop people from earning overtime pay. He wants to undo recent policy that made over 4 million people newly eligible for overtime. Project 2025 also wants to weaken child labor protections. In quote "The young people should be able to work inherently dangerous jobs" and work in rolls that are not allowed thanks to protections from the department of labor.

Project 2025 also says that they will quote "Secure the border, finish building the wall, and deport illegal aliens" Donald Trump is planing on doing mass deportations. He declared that once he takes office that he will use military to do mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

They want to make it harder for women to get abortions by removing it from laws and taking away approval for abortion pills. They want to stop some services that give out birth control and instead suggest less reliable methods. That might take away funding from clinics that provide abortions which could also affect other services those clinics offer. They want to promote traditional roles for men and women. They will take away protections and programs that help gay people, thus making it harder for them to be treated fairly and get the support they need. They might cut back on programs that help poor people get healthcare and other support meaning it could be harder for poor families to get the help they need.

These are some of the ways project 2025 will affect the climate. Project 2025 would rewrite the most legal tool we have for protecting wildlife in ways that would harm imperilled species. For example, it specifically calls for removing protections from gray wolves and Yellowstone grizzlies. They also propose to repeal the Antiquities Act, which would strip the president of the ability to protect the public land and waters of national monuments. Project 2025 would have agencies that manage the federal lands and waters to maximise corporate oil and gas extraction. Speaking of oil, the agenda directly aims to expand the Willow Project which the largest proposed oil and gas undertaking on the U.S. public land. This also calls for drilling into Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and mining into Minnesota’s Boundary Waters wilderness.

If you go to a public school congratulations. You are now required to take the military entrance exam. Page 134/ 135, "Improve military recruiters’ access to secondary schools and require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery—the military entrance examination—by all students in schools that receive federal funding." "Increase the number of Junior ROTC programs in secondary schools"

If you voted for Trump I promise you will regret it in the next 4 years.

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

Lumity: Controversial Opinion

I have a lot of mixed feelings regarding Lumity. As a young queer, it was important for me and my development. It did a lot for queer representation and the fact that Luz is human means people can’t deny the queerness of it like some tried to do with Ruby and Sapphire by claiming they were aliens so it didn’t count. It is a cute sapphic romance and was very groundbreaking.

That said, it’s not the perfect romance it’s stans make it out to be. In many ways, it’s a wish fulfillment story, Luz gets to be with the rich, popular girl and be the hero of the Boiling Isles. They had some problems that they never really resolved. Luz kept lying and keeping secrets even after promising to be more open. On Amity’s end, her bullying in season 1 was sort of retconned to her parents and Boscha forcing her to act that way when there were several instances of her being nasty to Luz or Willow for no reason. Them breaking up or even taking a break would have taught both consequences. Amity’s bullying did play a role in Luz keeping secrets and she never got called out for it and was woobified.

Hardcore fans may dislike this but them breaking up wouldn’t be the end of the world. It would teach queer youth that queer relationships can have their own issues and breakups like cishet romance and you have to accept that because sapphic relationships are not inherently more pure than het ones. I may be biased towards Lunter but the latter ending up together would show that M/F couples can be queer as well and that it’s not “gay erasure” for a bi woman to end up with a bi man. Again, it was a groundbreaking ship for representation but isn’t the perfect romance and not everyone who dislikes it is a homophobic “parents rights” activist.

[tainbocuailnge]

i watched fight club today. really not hard to see how this became such a cultural mainstay. i feel like the opening sections before tyler even shows up are possibly even stronger than the rest of it, this setup of this guy with his cushy office job and his pleasantly furnished apartment being so chronically unfulfilled in his picture perfect life that he ends up visiting support groups for the terminally ill to vicariously get access to a framework through which he's allowed to lament his life, but even within these support groups everyone's lament has to adhere to a certain safe image, the narrator fucking hates marla for doing the exact same thing as him because she's not even pretending to go along with the image of beautiful lament despite her being extremely suicidal and just as much in need of support, and when chloe complains about her struggle to get laid now that she's consigned to a beautiful tragic cancer death she is quickly pulled away from the microphone. everyone on screen is excruciatingly unfulfilled because so much as voicing your desires outside very rigidly defined frameworks of acceptability is severely frowned upon.

it's extremely obvious why the men who join fight club are drawn to the allure of a framework through which they're allowed to desire and obtain the experiences of the flesh. all of tyler's crimes involve the taboo of the flesh somehow. splicing porn frames into movies. pissing and nutting into the food he's serving. stealing liposuction clinic fat to make soap and explosives. and of course starting underground fight rings. because the physical is inherently transgressive to these allowed frameworks of success and lament. when tyler lists the rules of fight club all the men present giggle at "no more than two guys per fight" "no more than one fight at a time" because just the fact that they're all here gathering as unfulfilled men indulging in the taboo of high impact physical contact gives everything a (homo)sexual angle that they have to laugh off. because even here in their transgressive taboo secret club they have to adhere to what is allowed! they're not gay. they're manly men who want to fuck women. they are deeply unfulfilled and deeply desperate for a place to belong among other men. they are simply exchanging one rigid framework for another.

it's no coincidence that the first support group the narrator goes to is for testicular cancer either, all these men crying about how losing their balls ruined their lives not because they almost died but because their wives divorced them for not being able to impregnate them anymore, because it destroyed their masculinity and thus their value as human beings, and especially bob who used to be an accomplished bodybuilder but needing to get his balls removed lead to hormonal imbalances that lead to breast growth and now this once masculine ideal is nobody anymore because he's no longer a proper man. he's the only one in tyler's army who gets to have a name.

like specifically bob and sophie really stand out to me as very bold statements especially considering when this movie was made and also very clear signs of what its trying to say here. the extreme social and physical alienation of modern consumerist society and the way it intersects with harmful ideas of masculinity to create a genre of extremely volatile reactionary asshole. and also the fact that the reason the narrator even ended up going to this support group is because his doctor was calling him a fucking pansy for not just powering through his insomnia and telling him to have a look at these tragically emasculated men if he wants to see what's really worth pitying. and having your balls cut off repeatedly being used as the worst threat you could possibly make to a man in this movie because being emasculated is worse than death.

tyler constantly tells the narrator he needs to be prepared to die if he wants to be free, he needs to lose everything and destroy everything if he wants to become able to do whatever he wants, but it's only after the narrator kills himself -> kills tyler and the ideal of masculinity tyler represents that he's actually able to desire something without being told what to desire. the narrator doesn't know what he wants and can't tell tyler what he wants when tyler demands to know, because being tyler isn't actually what he wants once it becomes clear to him where that ideology will lead, but as long as tyler is looming over him as his concept of the ideal (masculine) self he still can't be or even conceptualise his actual fulfilled self. because tyler is taking up all his brainspace to be nothing but a volatile reactionary asshole at the center of a death cult. it's the least masculine man in the movie who gets to be named, martyred even, in the pursuit of tyler's masculinity, and he's named because the narrator realizes he cannot abide tyler's ideal of masculinity. anyway. good movie.

[gayfandomnerd225]

It’s funny to me how people are mad about Rose being trans because the idea of the Doctor is inherently trans. A person (arguably an alien although not the point) who changes identities every time they regenerate. Went from a man to a woman (12 to 13) then from a woman back to a man (13 to 14). And people are upset about 14 finding Isaac Newton attractive? Doctor Who is one of the gayest shows out there. I don’t need examples because it’s so obvious but I’ll just say this, there is a lesbian lizard lady from the 1800s in that show. But 14? Finding a man attractive? Unbelievable!

This is just genuinely hilarious to me that people are mad about this. That shows being fucking gay for YEARS, don’t like it? Don’t watch it, easy as that

[raddagher]

Arcane is over (😭) and I have some criticisms so here are my lists of who Won and who Lost in no particular order

LOST SEASON 2

1. Isha

Literally wasn't even mentioned after she died, like wtf was that

We couldn't have a memorial or anything? Come on

Her sacrifice was ultimately meaningless because Warwick got brought back anyway

2. Sevika

Didn't get a single line through all of Act 3

Where is my wife

At least she didn't die?

3. The entire Undercity, to be honest

Where did the independence thread go

Giving Sevika a council seat wasn't enough

I don't like that so many of them had to fight in Enforcer uniforms, that felt wrong

That was the MAIN CONFLICT for most of the show. It felt so weird to gloss over it at the end

4. Vander/Warwick

Gonna be real I wasn't super crazy about most of his presence here, I don't feel like it actually contributed much to anyone's development, except MAYBE Viktor's

We would not have lost anything if they didn't have the flashback scene with their mom

Super didn't like Jinx's ending as it pertained to him

5. Jinx

Hey I super don't like that every character who had a moment of suicide ideation or attempt ended up dead or "dead"

I don't like the way she "died" it didn't feel earned

I don't feel like the ending she got aligned well with her character at all. She spiraled and then just. stayed at the bottom of the spiral :(

They put a TON of family stuff in act 1 and 2 that didn't get resolution in 3

I think they kinda did my girl dirty I'm sorry

6. Loris

Clearly would have had more of a role if they didn't have to cut him for time

NEITHER WON NOR LOST SEASON 2

1. Vi

I want to say she won because she got to bang her cop girlfriend in a prison cell and the sex scene was good as hell but

She also was just taking massive L's the whole time

Like it never felt like she ever had any real wins other than that and that bummed me out

Didn't get enough time to be a dumbfuck with Jayce :(

Caitlyn

Didn't get enough proper resolution for her wonderful fascist arc

She felt a little dropped in Act 3 as well

Glad she got that Vussy tho, good for her

And I did like the vs Ambessa fight, that was also good

I honestly feel like Viktor and Jayce's romance was written better than her and Vi's, and as a gay woman who is constantly watching mlm relationships get so much more attention, it rubs me the wrong way

WON SEASON 2

1. Viktor (OBVIOUSLY)

The fucked up robot army. The religious imagery. The body horror. His robot alien design is scary as fuck. Absolutely incredible work

Got to be taller and stronger than Jayce hooray

They're canon. That was the gayest shit I've ever seen in my life

I do wish they had spent more time overall fleshing out more of the disability commentary, I feel like it was a little lacking in the end

Nevertheless BEAUTIFUL and HORRIFYING and TRAGIC

2. Jayce

See above

Yeah he also got to be a big hero and got to be resolved really well

Did NOT see his death coming that was crazy

They Magnus 200'd his ass, damn

He chose Viktor over everything I'm emo

They made a heart when they touched their foreheads together fuck OFF

3. Heimerdinger

Literally just living his best life

Love that he didn't tell Ekko he can't die, he just let the poor boy think he got fuckin atomized, king shit, that's hilarious

I would have stayed in that universe too tbh

4. Ambessa

The single tear over Kino. Her love for her children at direct odds with her need for control. Her arc was explored so well

Died a warrior's death at the hands of her brilliant daughter, I know that's how she would have wanted to go

Also was very hot in every scene. Good for her (and good for me)

She just got a lot of love from the writers and I'm very happy to see that effort put into an older Black woman character

5. Mel

Speaking of gorgeous Black women

I was so worried she was going to get dropped but her ending was SO good

Her glow up with the gold is fantastic, she looks amazing in the white hood

Love that they gave her abilities that would inherently change her priorities AND gave her the throne of Noxus, I have high hopes that she'll be prominent in another show in the future

They made her such a powerful badass but still let her be merciful and forgiving. Absolutely amazing. She is the wolf

6. Ekko (?)

On the fence about him

LOVED the au scene. Perfect

And I loved that our boy savior got to be the one that set off the bomb that stopped Viktor

But he was kind of dropped otherwise? Like what happened with his tree?

Generally wish he had more development and screentime in this season

But I'm happy he was so pivotal to the climax

AND I'm happy he got to kiss Powder. He and Jinx would never have worked out

7. Maddie

Haha I never liked you. Get fucked you horrible little bootlicker. Typical cop

8. Singed

How come YOU get everything you want?

Fuck you.

Basically all my criticisms boil down to it feeling rushed overall. It's clear that they intended to have more time, and that breaks my heart. We all know Netflix's reputation for cancelling stuff out of the blue, and I've heard that maybe certain parties were unhappy with the depictions of gay romance and realistic social revolution. Whatever the reasons, I wish they had a third season, because I think they could have solved every problem I have with it. Regardless, it's an incredible work of art and very likely one of if not THE best animated series ever made.