#also i think dennis quaid might have ruined shrimp for me for life

[yepthatsacowalright]

Comparing and contrasting I Saw The TV Glow and The Substance is really interesting to me.

One is the horror of not changing. Keeping yourself trapped in the wrong body, because it’s what the world tells you you should do.

One is the horror of changing everything. Forcing the wrong version of you out of yourself, building a literal closet to hide your true self in, because it’s what the world tells you you should do.

And I think, because both do such a viscerally good job of articulating their lived experiences, both together shed light on how these two groups are pitted against each other.

What one needs in this world to exist as themselves is the opposite of what the other needs, and transphobes feed off of that. They encourage cis people to project their personal horror story onto someone else’s life and decide they are destroying their bodies, not learning to love themselves enough, instead of stepping back to see the throughline.

Killing yourself to be something for someone else instead of yourself is the horror story, always.

What that means and looks like for each of us is different. Polar opposite sometimes. And that’s okay.