#and honestly i do see the representation improved in more ways than just queer but i don't know the data on those improvements

[mejomonster]

The thing is. Representation in media did change things. I grew up in the 90s and 2000s, where the only place you could see shows or movies with queer people was on Cable television on the gay channel or the sex-allowed channel. There was The L Word, and Queer as Folk, and those weren't on the main channels. On the main channels, shows were still getting told they couldn't show a clearly queer character (Xena, The Next Generation, DS9 had to fight to get the 1 queer kiss, Buffy the Vampire Slayer had to fight to eventually get to show Willow and Tara kiss). Then of course there was the majority of characters being men in TV shows, and characters being white. But I'm going to focus on the queer rep thing because that's what I can for sure say has changed a lot.

By the time we get to 2010s, it was actually NORMAL enough for queer people to be in shows on mainstream channels that I could actually choose to ONLY watch shows with a queer character. And most straight people probably watched at least 1 show with a queer character. And that normalized seeing queer people for them. It made straight people start caring LESS if they saw a queer person on TV. Yes, people still probably wrote into shows and said "you better not show this!" but shows knew it was not going to kill their profits to just show queer people, so they didn't cancel shows over having a queer character or SHOWING some queer person kissing someone. (Showing interracial relationships was also a steady thing like this... Sonic 2 has a black woman and a white man together in a HUGE mainstream movie for kids! Fallout show has a black woman and a white man married as one of the main relationships! There was a time when your show got cancelled if you even tried to show a black person and white person kissing. Representing stuff shifts what society views as 'normal' and tolerates. Show enough interracial couples in media, and the main bulk of society stops caring enough to fight to get something cancelled by avoiding it, stops caring enough about avoiding it to care that it exists and fight it's existence).

We get to now. Now a straight person can watch a show like Interview with the Vampire, or Arcane, and the fact there are queer main characters are NOT something you even need to warn the straight person about. The straight person may seek out those shows ON their own, like them for their own merit as a show (or not like them on that merit), and that's it. No more concern that just including a queer person will drive the average straight person to avoid your show, or that it will be such a high risk the channel will want to prevent the queer character existing. (Except hey for stuff like Disney which... still overwhelmingly seems frightened...) I'm just saying. We came SO far in 30 years. In the beginning shows fought to show whatever little they were able (and most shows avoided showing queer people altogether for fear of the risk). And now it is such a SMALL risk that shows expect the average straight audience member to not care if they see a queer person. That's a huge difference tbh. When I was a teenager I feared just being OUT might expose me to most adults attacking me verbally, or more. Now as a queer adult, I expect most Average straight people to not care about my sexuality or at least not verbally (or physically) attack me for it if I'm just mentioning who I dated once/that I went to pride/that I'm bi. That is a huge difference after years of normalization. Yes, there's still jerks who will attack me, but its such a shift that I don't automatically have to assume every straight person by default will likely attack me - I can actually assume some won't! Nothing changed in their lives, in the past 30 years a lot of them didn't make more queer friends or anything. But they just don't care as much that some person different than them... exists.

We are to the point where a straight person, who is not queer and doesn't know queer people, may actually choose to watch Young Royals or Heartstopper or Red White and Royal Blue JUST because they like teen drama, or romance genre stuff. That's a huge fucking shift from the days when straight people would not even run into queer content unless they specifically got cable, and sought out the very rare channel that showed mostly queer content. There's way more 'stuff for average audiences' now that includes queer people, and more 'stuff for queer people that's also X genre' that average straight audiences actually are willing to check out because they like X genre and seeing queer people is not an immediate reason to avoid the media for them.

[anistarrose]

A while ago I saw a post that started out wishing Lilith's aroace identity got addressed onscreen, and I was like "yeah I totally agree, a voice acted stream reveal is many steps above 'some writer tweeting it after the show ends' but it would've still been far more exuberant and impactful to see it in the show." But then OP continued by saying there's nothing in Lilith's arc that reflects aromantic experiences, and look, I'm biased as the Lilith icon person, but like. Your experiences are not universal.

And... that's okay! My experiences aren't universal either. But as an aroace, I do have to say: Lilith does reflects one type of aroace experience, and that's the chronically ill aroace experience in particular.

It's the way that she's an adult who needs care from others, but first moves back in with her sister, and then moves back in with her parents, instead of moving in with or seeking out a romantic partner.

It's the way she grapples with independence and individualism, struggling to unravel "what she wants" from "what she needs in terms of support" and from "what society revolving around the Emperor's Coven has tricked her into conflating with self-worth".

It's the way she looks at her reflection and asks: "Am I broken?"

Not all aroaces are disabled and chronically ill. Not all aroaces have (or want) intense platonic friendships or close sibling relationships, and not are able to heal from trauma by living with their family. These are all arguments for more variety in aroace representation, to say nothing of a-spec representation as a whole — that just doesn't mean aroace characters with these traits don't represent anyone.

And this is also a chance to touch on a distinction that I feel isn't drawn often enough when talking about queer subtext of any form: I don't think Lilith, if you're only looking at the show itself, is a strongly or undeniably aroace-coded character. But she's absolutely a character whose arc is enhanced upon learning that she's aroace.

So don't get me wrong: I would like more than this. Lilith is like a baby step in terms of a-spec representation in animation — a meaningful step, but a small one. But for a series where each season except the first was heavily impacted (read: compressed) by the cancellation, and the unaffected first season was also the only one Lilith spent as an extremely polarizing villain, you can see how the crew could've gone in with extremely conscientious intentions and wound up having to make a tough call, right?

I don't even necessarily think they made the right call, I'm just willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they tried. It feels like they put more than just some performative 30 seconds of thought into imagining how a disabled aroace with serious self-worth issues would interact with the world and improve herself — or, at least realized after some experience writing Lilith that being aroace fit her, and let that inform much of her Season 2 arc.

Like, maybe I'm personally extra desperate for disabled a-specs in media, but honestly? Lilith is a well-written one in all aspects but the lack of an onscreen "I've never felt attraction to someone" — and you don't have to agree with me, but I'll die on the hill that that all counts for something.

No hate to OP — if you know what post I'm vagueing about, be chill and normal about it, please. It's fine for some people not to feel represented, and put their thoughts out there — but it also seems that I, as a person who feels very represented, should put out some of my own thoughts for balance.

[meetmydad]

long ramble about chihiro

trying to write my thoughts about ttyd remake making vivian canonically trans, acknowledging and improving her original transphobic (?) depiction instead of ignoring it, and how that makes me wonder what would happen to chihiro if thh ever got a remake, and i simply cannot come to a conclusion. the problem with ever trying to get to the bottom of how i feel about chihiro is that chihiro didn't live long enough to even get to the bottom of how they felt about themselves.

like ok if you take the game 100% at its word, ignore the transphobic trope that chapter 2 is rooted in and just accept it as a story, chihiro is a boy and all of his other mental issues stem from not being validated as male, and so he presents as female to escape that constant invalidation. and THAT reading is much closer to an allegory for being transmasc than it is to being transfem. this is so clear to me, i really don't know if i can ever personally internalize chihiro being a girl, because the story so strongly drives home that he's unhappy being seen as a girl. he's unhappy introducing himself as a girl, it weighs on him seeing other girls be confident in their identity because he CAN'T be, and the girls trying to include him as one of them only hurts him more. and if we read chihiro as transmasc whether literally or allegorically, the fact everyone switches to he/him pronouns for him post-mortem is now a gesture of respect.

so i don't think a modernized version of thh could or should make chihiro canonically transfem. it would mean changing absolutely every part of his writing, and like personally, again if you can just accept that the writing is problematic and engage with it anyway, i do really like chapter 2 and i love mondo and chihiro as characters and it's the most tragic chapter of the game to me. and i think that making chihiro canonically transfem would require so much rewriting that this chapter would need to be completely redone. so again what i'm trying to figure out here is, if we aren't completely scrapping what's there and are just trying to modernize the writing for a hypothetical remake, what DO we do with chihiro?

i don't know. i think personally i would keep the story the same but like, when the characters express transphobic sentiments (which they will, because they're all shitty teenagers) have there be pushback from other characters. like just give SOME of the characters a more empathetic understanding of gender identity. and just. make the transmasc allegory more clear honestly. that's what would make the most sense to me.

i want to say like 'and also make celeste canonically transfem to balance it out' (because she's the other character whose existing writing most strongly COULD suggest being trans with minimal changes) but that doesn't sit right because she. yknow. is the coldest killer we see. and also if she's trans then the plot requires deadnaming her. the thing about danganronpa is all of these people are kind of terrible and it's a terrible situation and probably almost any explicit queer representation you could make canon will end up being 'bad rep.' chihiro is bad transfem rep because she's revealed to be biologically male and then referred to as male post-mortem as if that's all there is to it. chihiro is bad transmasc rep because he was too used to presenting as female and was scared to come out. celeste is bad trans rep because she kills people. sakuraoi is bad wlw rep because one of them dies by suicide. there is no happiness here. obviously you can headcanon any of the other characters like makoto as queer but i'm focusing mainly on the ones who are already written in a way that implies it (within the actual game. there is also byakuya's whole thing in the togami novels. and honestly i think a lot about closeted transfem byakuya and closeted transmasc chihiro and... all the shit that happened and the shit byakuya says about chihiro. and again byakuya is such a terrible person in the game if he WERE canonically transfem or genderfluid it WOULD be considered bad rep. but like. i think about it)

in a way though that's part of what appeals to me about danganronpa. the characters are bad AND the writing is problematic and the result is like... weirdly human to me. and i kind of hope that if there ever were to be a modernized rewritten release, it would keep that quality of genuine human shittiness. i mean hopefully one day queer 'representation' will be so normal that we don't have to think of it as representation anymore. trans people being onscreen won't be that noteworthy, and we won't have to decide if a character like chihiro is acceptable or not, and we won't have to try and solve the question of chihiro's identity. they can just be a tragic hero.

anyway outside of this post i don't know how i'll refer to chihiro. probably stick with they/them so nobody gets mad at me. i just have a lot of thoughts. hope that all made sense

[total-drama-brainrot]

Marathoned through what I can find of season 2, here's my thoughts so far:

Nichelle is a queen, an icon, literally the first total drama character to show self-improvement and character growth without being an antagonist. Can't wait to see her continue to show up everyone, though I wish we got to see her form actual friendships instead of just girlbossing 24/7.

Mkulia is more canon than literally all of the relationships. They're so fun to watch as antagonists, and I can't wait to see where the cheating arc goes. The fact that they've shared confessions since they formed their alliance? The lesbians are eating good this season. Also Julia in particular is just really well written and voice acted? She sounds like an actual teenager her age. It's 👌 chefs kiss.

Speaking of the cheating arc, the rift between Bowie and Raj because of the team's under-the-table methods is such an on-the-nose way to play it. The "boyfriend kisser" arc of World Tour handled a literal cheating scandal super poorly, but this season is handling its' 'cheating' scandal really well in terms of how it dissolves trust in a relationship. Can't wait for Bowie's guilt to reach it's apex, we never know what he'll do when it does.

Raj really does see the best in Bowie, unfortunately his glasses are a little too rose-tinted to see that Bowie is more than happy to continue enabling Julia and MK, so long as they keep winning. I'm not sure if this will lead to a breakup or a heart-to-heart, honestly this series could go either way, but it isn't called Total Drama for no reason. Keeping my fingers crossed that it'll work out.

Another relationship I unfortunately saw coming from a mile off is RipAxel, though I can't say I'm upset about it. A lot of people saw Axel as queer, myself included, and Ripper is, well, Ripper. But they had a season one Duncney vibe going on in Axel's brief run last season. Something about the misogynistic guys (Ripper called himself an alpha at one point?) and the competitive latinas 🤷‍♀️.

Their actual dynamic this season is different enough from what I thought it'd be that it's refreshing. I guess it works in a very Roger and Jessica Rabbit type of way (if Jessica Rabbit was a butch teenager), and if you're third eye is opened enough to see it as yuri it's a win. (The poetry scene was really sweet, in a way.)

Prialeb came out of nowhere though. For a character who was essentially a Justin clone last season, I really do like the direction Caleb's character is going in. He's got that competitive mindset, and is trying to flatter Priya into an alliance by being friendly/flirty, but the narrative doesn't really make it clear if he's aware that he's manipulating her Alejandro style or if he really is just oblivious enough to see his approach as platonic/friendly. Holding out for some aro or ace (or aroace 🤭) representation with Caleb if they go with the second narriative, but the "only ever had one girlfriend" line hints more towards him being gay than ace.

I'm predicting Priya's foil being her crush of Caleb. It's gonna lead to her elimination. I love the fact that that, despite being hypercompetent thanks to her upbringing, she's terrible with things like relationships and feelings.

I'm super happy that Emma and Chase ended things again. They're terrible for each other. Also, Emma was way less likable this season? IDK if that's just me. Chase was never likable but he's at least funny to watch, especially when he's taking Ls.

Lauren's antagonist arc is brewing at Playa Des Losers (if that's still a thing?) so she's definitely coming back in the merge Izzy style. That, or she'll pull an Ezekiel and sneak back onto the island.

Millie's brief character arc about learning not to take advantage of people was cute, if undeveloped, but I can't say I liked her this season. Damien didn't deserve what she did, but he did need the reality check it gave him. And some therapy to help his fear of everything- the guy's an anxious wreak, and it's not so much endearing as it is pitiful to watch.

Wayne and Raj are my two beautiful sons who deserve the world. Zee has been delightful as always. No need for elaboration.

Chris is delightful this season. All of his lines are great, and what little we see of Chef is golden too. Good job to the writing team for our favourite geriatric couple.

My only real gripe with this season, which has been more and more apparent since season 1 back in 2007, is that the characters don't really feel like they're in a summer camp. Back in the OG island we had character interactions and dynamics outside of challenges that helped set the tone of the series; it felt like they really were teenagers at a summer camp, the challenges and eliminations came second to the character plotlines.

Whereas now, most of every episode is based in the challenge itself. Every elimination is based around something that character does during a challenge. Most meaningful interactions happen during a challenge. It feels more like a gameshow than the reality tv it's supposed to imitate. The only non-competition based conflict we get to watch is Emma and Chase's thing, which is more akin to influencers beefing than two teenagers at a camp having a rocky relationship (see: Duncney S1, Gwent S2 briefly, whatever happened with Gwourtney). I wish we got to see more of the character as they are, than the characters while they're actively in a challenge.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

So with Clementine Book Two coming out in October, I decided to do another reread of Book One. Though, I'll be honest, the bigger reason for this reread was out of spite; I follow Tillie Walden on instagram, and while I don't go on there often, I usually check her page when I do so I can see any new artwork or Clementine updates. Her latest post is from one of her other graphic novels, and I guess I just... don't get it.

I don't understand why people are like this:

This is on a post that has nothing to do with the Clementine comics. As for ones that are about Clementine-

Those are just a handful from a few Clementine-related posts, but there's so much of this all over Tillie's posts and I don't understand.

What does this accomplish? Other than making you look like an asshole? Like... no one is impressed by this. No one is applauding you for repeatedly commenting "lol we didn't want a forced gay romance ew," which by the way? Repeating that in every single paragraph you comment? Tell me you're homophobic without saying you're homophobic, y'know?

There are legit criticisms to be had of Clementine Book One- The pacing is all over the place where it starts very slow and then goes into whiplash mode after Amos dies. Georgia as a villain is a weak point in the story. Clementine naming her leg after Kenny is a bit icky considering in canon, he physically and verbally abused a disabled person with a brace on his leg in S2. I don't think there was much thought behind that decision past "Hey, the fans like Kenny," and I think that's worth pointing out as "Hey... maybe don't?"

Some of the dialogue is a bit stilted, but some of it is actually pretty good. My personal favorite is when Clementine and Amos are fixing a roof-

Amos: Lord, this roof is... Clementine: ...fucked? Amos: SHH, don't say that! It's... troubled.

I'm sorry- that's funny! And it actually says a lot about who these characters are and the kind of friendship they have.

And yeah, Ricca is just okay. She's clearly the love interest, and I'm hoping we get more development of her character. And yes, the "baby" thing is still weird.

There's a lot about the art style that I'm not crazy about, specifically Clementine's face and expressions, and I hope to see an improvement in that for Book Two.

And then the obvious: Clementine leaving because she was unhappy and felt everyone thought she was a liability doesn't match up with the end of TFS.

I don't think it's mean to say that Tillie wasn't the best fit for this project, but that's on Skybound. They're the ones who reached out to her and hired her. I think Tillie's a great artist and her graphic novels have great queer, wlw representation in them. Just because she wasn't the perfect fit for Clementine that doesn't mean she's bad, it means that maybe she should've been considered for a different project.

And honestly...? Y'all, Book One isn't THAT bad. It's not great or anything, but the comics can't take the games away from you. If you want to say canon ends with the TFS, then that's where it ends. That's where it ends for me; these comics are more of a "what if" scenario than anything.

No one is forcing you to accept this as canon, and if you're so pathetically butt hurt over the existence of a comic that you feel like you have to go on Tillie's instagram, the artist who is only doing the job she's obligated to do, and comment shit like this on every. single. post-

Maybe, just maybe, you need to go outside. I'm serious.

This isn't the only comment about grooming on Tillie's posts, or that I've seen on reddit. Like... do you understand what grooming actually is and how serious it is? Or are you just using it as a buzzword that you know is bad and triggering as a means of insult and convincing others that she's bad, too?

Also, I don't think you really understand how creativity and writing work. Maybe it's just me, though I doubt it, but when I create characters or write already established characters in my fanfiction, they all have a piece of me that's apart of them. My life experiences and who I am as a person influences everything I write, and that bleeds into the characters, for better or worse.

What, you think Louis having a random pillow collecting problem was something I just pulled out of my ass? No, it's because I have a pillow collecting problem! Do you know why I've always had a such a hard time writing for Violet? It's because I see a lot of myself in her and that scares me and I'd rather just not unpack all of that, okay?

I mean, how many times on this hellsite have you come across someone saying, "lol my otp is just Person A is my type and Person B is the one I project onto" and it has thousands of notes because, on some level, we all get it.

Tillie has talked about Ricca before and like most creative people, she's drawn from her own life to create her characters. Ricca isn't some self-insert character just because they both wear glasses, I'm-

You are just being an asshole! I just- I'm getting pissed off because this shouldn't even be a thing. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS? WHO HURT ALL OF YOU?

I love Clementine, too! She's important to me! I have replayed TWDG more times than I can count! I was pissed about the comics in the beginning! You can go back on my blog and I probably said stupid shit, too!

But Clementine isn't real. She's a fictional video game character. She isn't going to reward your bullying or white-knighting because she doesn't exist. You're not doing this because you're a "true fan" that loves Clementine. Honestly, if you were a true fan, you would know that if Clementine was real, she would find you and this behavior disgusting. Tillie Walden is a real person and I don't give a flying fuck if you hate her work. By all means, hate the comic! Criticize the comic and Skybound for continuing the series, but leave Tillie out of it.

And I think the part that sucks the most is it doesn't matter what I say, you can't rationalize with irrational people intent on being assholes so they're not going to stop.

I guess what I'm trying to show with all of this is when Book Two comes out, and y'all start reading it and making posts... please don't be these people.

Whatever you may feel about Clementine Book Two, try to remember that Tillie Walden is a real person and she's just doing the job that Skybound hired her for. Tillie's an artist just trying to live her life in Vermont with her wife and their cats, and she's gotta deal with all of these people harassing her posts. She can't even post something non-Clementine related without a bunch of #notmyclementine shit in the comments.

I don't even know what else to say... Uhm, I guess if anyone from those screenshots sees this, then... I don't feel that bad about calling you an asshole. We all learned in kindergarten to treat others the way we want to be treated, but maybe you were sick that day, I don't know. Go outside. Get your life together. We have a short time on this planet and maybe you should try to actually accomplish something while you're here. Eat a kitkat or something👍

[namtanlovesfilm]

axelle judges non bl shows > To The Moon and Back

/!\ SPOILERS AHEAD

summary: Matalada is a naive and kind girl who was raised by a community of queer drag queens. When she meets Pennueng, a doctor who was raised to be nothing but perfect his whole life, sparks flies and opposites do, as always, attract.

where to watch: dramacool

grade: 8,5/10

pros:

this story was so fucking down my alley, bro. minimal drama and pure character development & analysis for 21 episodes? sign me the fuck up!!! the themes were so beautiful, about forgiveness & growth, chosen family & kindness always winning... I ATE THAT SHIT UPPP!!! such a heartwarming & honestly important lakorn for choosing depth above drama.

this is the least toxic lakorn couple I've ever seen, apart from maybe the one in to me, it's simply you which I also loved! they just truly love & respect each other and were written incredibly well. even though they're vanilla af, I didn't get bored at all?? LOVE THEM!

bruh, the characters!!! truly the first time in a lakorn where I truly love not only the main characters, but the entire cast. pennueng is so fucking soft, mata is legit the queen of my heart, trichat owns me entirely and is one of the most complex & interesting ever in my eyes, pang was also super complex & badass, and matalada's entire family????? are my family now. I absolutely adored them, and it was by far one of the best queer representation in lakorns!

the chemistry was beyond incredible! the main ship is perfect & truly feel like soulmates, and the side ship was SO HOT & iconic together, I was stanning! two different vibes but they both ATE!

the acting was PERFECT! everyone did an amazing role, james jirayu perfect in the role of the sad & stilted doctor, toey jarinporn impressed me so much for the first role I've seen her in, she was perfect for mata & absolutely made this role hers, the pang actress was great, I loved seeing the dad actor in a queer role, he honestly ate, the aunt vee actress ATE, especially considering it's her first role ever, the grandma??? fucked me up, I cried so much in her scenes lol. but the one who impressed me the most is ryu wachirawich. I only knew him from 9x9, but BITCHHHHH. he absolutely BODIED trichat & made him his in a way that has made me an immediate stan even though it usually takes me 2 to 3 roles to stan someone! he was so good & I'm looking forward to his next roles!

cons:

I was so confused by trichat ending up with riri. while I liked them together & they had been built up to have some tension since their first meeting... obviously trichat & pang should've ended up together??? in fact, I was certain they did??? didn't they mend things together & go on a double date with the main couple??? that whole thing was so confusing bc tri & pang had been far more developed and also built up to be soulmates like the main ship, so I was so disappointed by this choice of ending. ESPECIALLY since riri is canonically queer & used to like mata, so I wish we'd have seen her end up with a girlfriend, which would've added to the representation of the show.

similarly, I think the whole tri x pang storyline was made overly complicated for no reason. what was actually my favorite ship of the two quickly became a bit slow & repetitive after a while, and I believe they could've conveyed the same type of story better.

I wish we'd have seen at least one queer character get a love interest. this lakorn focuses more on the 'identity' aspect of queerness rather than the 'sexuality' aspect, which I found very interesting & worth exploring, but considering half of the characters are queer & they're basically the only ones ending up single feels kinda weird. just something they could've improved.

would I rewatch it: yes!

It was honestly such a joy to watch a lakorn where the couple is not toxic, people's decisions make sense most of the time & that actually created realistic and beautiful characters, not caricatures. I loved every moment of it! I cried, I laughed, I screamed... definitely one of the best lakorns out there & truly such a gem to watch!

[elvenbeard]

I read your post about headcanons about Kerry's sexuality, and I totally agree with what you said about headcanons not taking away from representation, but I'm curious what your view are on mods that change a character's sexuality so anyone can romance them? I know there is, or at least used to be, quite a bit of debate around that. You don't have to answer if you don't want to, I'd hate to start any discourse drama on your blog. I'm just curious because I'm not even sure where I stand on the matter, and have been back and forth on it for a long time.

It's all good nonny! I have been asking myself that lately tbh, and I know I've been back and forth on it myself, too.

In this moment in time, I am completely indifferent on the existence of mods that do stuff like that. I don't condone or like them, but I'm not gonna do anything about them either. I know years ago in the Dragon Age fandom there was huge discourse and drama around a mod that made Dorian (canonically gay, his whole character arc revolves around that fact, just in case you're not into that series) available to be romanced by a female Inquisitor. And back then I was absolutely livid. Dorian was (and still is) one of my fave characters in the DA universe. And honestly, I couldn't even tell you now if anything ever came off of that whole drama (but I doubt it, cause it rarely does) - that's how pointless Internet drama really is. In the worst case, the person who made that mod got driven out of fandom entirely and now has negative associations with the queer community as a whole.

Do I think that mods that change a queer character's canon orientation are amazing? No, not really, and most of the time, especially in Dorian's case, they make no sense at all for the characters' arcs. I personally would never wanna play them and I'd also rather not know why some people make them.

(I'm completely biased here btw, because I do not feel as negatively about mods that change a canonically straight character's orientation to something queer. Simply because I'm queer and greedy for more representation, because there cannot be enough XD Does that make me a hypocrite to some people? Maybe, but honestly, I don't really care. And as I said in my post, and as you mentioned, even the "straight mods" do not take away from any queer representation that canonically exists.)

The thing is, me and others screaming and yelling about "straight mods" (or "bi mods" for characters that are explicitly gay/lesbian) is not gonna change a thing, mods like that are always gonna exist. Content I don't agree with is always something I can come across at random, and I keep finding new things that make me go "nope!" regularly. And even if I'm not screaming and yelling, and instead try to be reasonable, talk objectively with the mod makers as for xyz reasons their mod is not good in my eyes... I'm too old for that shit XD I'd rather use my energy and limited time to make a lot of gay stuff featuring my favourite queer blorbos instead of arguing with strangers why a straight!Dorian or bi!Judy or straight/bi!whoever mod is bad. Fandom should be a hobby, not activism, and you can go about fighting homophobia in a lot better ways than arguing about who certain pixel people would like to bone or not.

I wish there were - or maybe there are and I haven't figured it out yet - ways to filter stuff I don't wanna see on Nexus for example like there are on tumblr, ao3, any other social media site with a good tagging system and means to block tags or phrases or users. Curating your own experience and finding people who share your interests is so important and has really improved my time in fandom a lot over the last years. And it's good to have friends you can rant to about stupid things that upset you in private, definitely XD

So, on that note, ship whoever you wanna ship in this context, but tag it so that people who don't wanna see it can avoid it and don't get mad. Also sorry this got long and slightly off topic, I'm a chronic rambler.

(also, if anything's unclear, feel free to reach out again! sometimes I don't express myself as well as I think I do XD)

[nolabballgirl]

Im a white girl and im just learning here so forgive me if im slow on this. But i don't understand why druck is put on a pedestal with regards to how they've tackled race/developed their characters of color. Druck also tends to dismiss race entirely (Sam, David, Fatou and Abdi) or make the trauma of characher their whole character (Ava and David) or underdevelop characters when they've had space to do more (Amira, Sam & fam). So why is druck deemed better than other remakes in this area?

hi, Anon! thanks for your ask. okay, so for me to answer your questions, you have to accept two premises:

neither skam nor any of its remakes (including druck) are perfect.

when a remake acknowledges audience pain and admits that it has made mistakes, hires writers of color, and then greatly improves upon its mistakes, that has to be commended.

so, let's break down race and representation for the remakes. and as you will see below, the remakes are so egregiously bad when it comes to race and representation, that when you compare druck after jünglinge took over, it's on a separate level altogether and that's why i believe druck is deemed to be better when it comes to race and representation. (also, i'm skipping skam nl and skam austin from this analysis because who knows how those two would have ended up...and begoña owes me a heart to heart after she ruined by beloved skam españa, but let's be real, eskam had a long way to go too.)

druck -

well, from the list in your ask and from the hard work that skamofcolor put in, druck is a remake with one of the most racially diverse main cast members in both the old and new gens as well as the most characters of colors in side characters as well, so that's an improvement compared to the other remakes. but you're right, there were a lot of missed storylines they could have tackled with the old gen.

druck's sana season (amira mahmood) does not put their sana through weeks of torture or ruin the girl squad in the process. (and as a muslim, i will say their handling of islam was the best among the remakes but i digress...) however, amira did not get her full 10 weeks of screen time and the show missed a huge opportunity diving into shared microaggressions and racism that sam, abdi, etc. also faced. and druck was ripped for it! for cutting amira's time and playing it way too safe and not giving sam her fair due, among others.

now, here's where druck does something that no other remake has done and honestly, this is where i think most of the praise stems from. they listened to the criticism! wait, showrunners and writers can do that?! do you mean we are not just yelling into the avoid? not only have the writers said the ways in which they could have improved (even after s6 they discussed audience perceptions and overestimating how ava/mailin would be received, etc.) but they also hired JÜNGLINGE to bring the new gen to life. if you are unfamiliar, this is how they describe themselves:

JÜNGLINGE is a film collective of mid-twenties raised in the hybrid cultures of post-migrant Germany. We believe that young, European film needs to tell queer, diverse and most of all – specific – stories about growing up and living together in our societies.

so looking at that progress over time from druck s1 to druck s6, i can't help but give them them props for such a marked improvement. in fact, i don't think ANY single skam season covers race and ethnicity as well as s5 and s6 did. sure, they were not perfect (see point 1 above), but my god, the strides that these two seasons made. so much so that in s6, we had a non-white interracial couple as main, who were both unapologetic about their ethnicities and upbringing and culture (Gambia and Vietnam). and having fatou/ava's friendship be so prominent, listening to them talk about black hair, and referencing nazis in germany - yes to all of this!

and let's talk about ava! what an amazing character who was allowed to be angry, giggly, happy, sad, and express herself, without falling into tropes like imane from skam france, and so many people can relate to her struggles with white liberal mailin. there was a sensitivity there that's so rare in these remakes. and what druck couldn't do with amira/kiki, they were given room to explore here, and i really do feel that it was an important story to tell, especially in the age of whitesplaining, white feminist tears, and white liberals talking over women of color.

skam france -

eight seasons in and skam france is STILL mistreating its characters of colors and not given them their full due. now with bilal literally taking a back seat to jo (look at the YouTube header for crying out loud!) but ever since yann in s1, skam france has done such a horrible job with its depiction of POC, especially black characters. daphne is one of the most racist vildes and the treatment of imane (even beyond her season) has been vile and unfair.

and you would think that post s6 and after a new showrunner and writing team was hired on, that there would be improvements (similar to what druck did above), but no! look at how both aurélien and judith were treated in s7, and after a strong opening for s8, it looks like bilal is now taking a backseat to jo, and once again, skam france and its new team are prioritizing a white character over a character of color.

and has there been any acknowledgment by the skam france team of the criticism over the years? rather, david has often doubled down in the face of fan critiques - just an unwillingness to listen, and so we are left with this as a result.

skam italia -

say what you want about skam italia but when it comes to race?well, they certainly take the cake for the whitest remake, so much so that swaths of fans will refuse to watch this remake for the "wana" debacle, and rightfully so. (whitewashing of the sana casting) and remember how people tried to defend this casting decision? but don't forget that italy has a higher percentage of muslims living in the country than norway does! give me a break.

and how can i forget how hajar brown was dragged after she, as a woman of color, deemed to shade and criticize casting decisions for this remake?

wtfock -

do i even need to get into wtfock and its representation on race?! i mean s4 and s5 are arguably the two worst seasons of any skam remakes period. and the complete lack of acknowledgment from the showrunners after the torrent of criticism they received. the egregiously racist writing. i am a defense attorney by profession, and even i am struggling. there's seriously no defense for them here...

so given all this above, i hope this explains why i value the steps druck has taken, especially in s5 and s6, to tackle and improve their depiction of race and representation.

[soupthatistohot]

Why do I write primarily mlm fanfic?

This was something I asked myself the other day. I am a girl, I think I'm queer (but I am attracted to men, whatever I am), so why do I fixate on mlm relationships? Why do I never feel compelled to write wlw or even just some good 'ol straight stuff? I brought this up to a few friends of mine who also watch anime. One of them said that it’s because lots of popular media only really focuses on developing their male characters well, and I think this to be a very suitable explanation (as well as the fact that I’m queer and thus gravitate towards queer stories).

Take Sk8 the Infinity for example. I could count the number of female characters in this anime on one hand, and one of them is a robot. The others are supporting roles who only serve to support the male main characters. I love Sk8 very much, and with the possibility of a 2nd season I’d love to see a prominent, well-developed female character (but if they make her Reki’s love interest I will literally stab someone). But as the anime stands right now, there are no female characters that aren't just basically plot devices.

Another show I love dearly, Yuri!!! on Ice, is much the same. While there can be more of an argument made here because 1) competitive figure skating is split up between men and women, and 2) I believe that the story Yuuri and Victor is absolutely meant to be a romance, so having the two men as the focus is somewhat necessary, there's an overwhelming lack of fleshed-out women in the story. All the female characters are supporting members that only exist for the benefit of male characters. Yuuko and Minako support Yuuri, Lilia exists so Yuri P. can improve, Mila is just... kind of there, and Sara's whole character is centered around her brother being overprotective of her.

Okay, so let's look at something a little less... fruity. Horimiya. I've only watched the anime, so if there's stuff I miss from not having read the manga (yet), please forgive me. I still think this is a valid perspective, though, because if there's female development that the creators decided was so unimportant that it could be cut, that still supports my point here. In my opinion, Miyamura is a lot more developed than Hori. He has his tragic backstory of being a loner, and having his secret piercings and tattoos and all that. A lot of the story ends up focusing on his side of things... despite the fact that Hori is the protagonist. The story follows her perspective for the most part, we learn things about Miyamura as she does, yet I feel like she's a bit dull. She has a uncommon home life and has to take care of her younger brother, that's her big bad secret? I get that it's kind of unexpected since she's the pretty, perfect, popular girl, but I still feel like it's a tad anticlimactic. It's hardly ever addressed beyond the first few episodes, too, and it just kind of exists as a fact within the story. Even beyond our main couple, it seems like the other female characters development and stories are all focused on the boy they're interested in (except for Sawada, but she's there for like a couple of episodes and then doesn't really show up all that much again... and her crush on Hori is handled really weird, I didn't exactly love it). Remi's entire character is pretty much centered around her boyfriend, and Sakura and Yuki are basically competing for Toru. Meanwhile, the guys have story beats themed around the girls they're interested in, but I feel like it's not as obsessive or dramatic as how the girls are depicted.

So, we're given these female characters, who are really watered-down and honestly kind of boring, and we're not super compelled to write about them. When we are given flat female characters, there's nothing to work with. It's more fun to use the characters who have had development and play around with the "what ifs" and our own personal headcannons. The characters who get this special treatment are primarily male. And while I commend a lot of shows for developing their male characters in such a way that doesn't exactly fit with society's idea of masculinity (ex: Reki's insecurities and depression, Yuuri's anxiety and femininity, Miyamura's isolation and depression), in the end these characters are still boys, men, males.

I also think mlm is so prominent because of both straight girls and queer people. For straight girls, it can often be fetishization (forgive my generalizing, I'm sure not all straight girls are like that, but an overwhelming amount definitely are). I think one of the best examples I can give for this is Phan. This is a bit different since it's not anime, but instead real people, but if anything that really drives home the point even more. The way Dan and Phil were (and probably still are) treated in the fandom internet space is disturbing, to say the least. Their audience, while much of it was queer, was also made up of an overwhelming amount of heterosexual girls who not only shipped them intensely, but also often sexualized them. And look, there's nothing inherently wrong with being a straight girl and writing smut, but it gets to a point where it can be kind of weird if its excessive. Like, if that's all the relationship is really about, and if the people you're writing about are real human beings, that's definitely overstepping. I will admit that I had a Wattpad and that I wrote Phanfic way back when, and this is something I'm not exactly proud of. Granted, I did not write anything explicit, it was still super weird, whether or not I was queer. And I'm not saying all the problematic aspects of the Phandom were because of straight girls, because what I contributed was arguably problematic, and I did not identify as straight at the time. At the same time, though, there were straight girls who wrote exclusively smut (or "lemons" as they might've been referred to at the time). There were those who analyzed every post, every bit of information they could find about these men on the internet. They obsessed over the fact that they occasionally shared clothes (which is fairly common for roomates of similar sizes to do), and gathered evidence to support the theory that they shared a bed. It was bad. It was invasive, and it got to the point where it wasn't about the people, it was about the fetishized fantasy these girls made up in their heads about these real, actual men.

Dan and Phil's online presence kind of disappeared for a few years... and I don't blame them.

Getting back on track, mlm is prominent for queer people because it's the LGBT representation they so desperately want to see actualized in media. If a show doesn't make their favorite queer ship canon (and they often don't), they'll do it themselves! That's what fanfic is for! I also know that queer people project onto these characters a lot, and that writing about them is almost like a form of therapy. They see these characters as queer, and they see themselves in these characters, so they write about these characters experiencing similar emotions to them. The thing is, the most compelling characters are male, so those are the characters they end up focusing on, even if the person in question is strictly sapphic. My best example is how I project onto Reki. Personally, I end up thinking of him as (and thus end up writing him as) having some internalized homophobia around being bisexual. That's literally what I am currently going through. I can't project this onto any of the female characters in Sk8, because I couldn't see them going through this experience because they're not developed enough to.

Despite all of this, I still enjoy all of the shows I mention a lot. I think it's just an interesting topic that I was thinking about. I'm not trying to bash anything that I used as an example, these were just my personal observations based off of what I know about these shows and their fandoms. I do, though, believe shipping real people isn't super cool, and I stand by that as someone who used to do it. I'm not going to stop you... I just think it's intrusive and inappropriate to pretend like you know enough about influencers to dictate who they should be involved with romantically. Their love life is, frankly, none of your damn business.

So, long story short, we should make anime (and popular media in general) less misogynistic.

(Also, please leave Dan and Phil alone, they deserve privacy)

[popculturebuffet]

The Owl House: Enchanting Grom Fright: Happy Valentine’s Gays

Happy Valentine’s Day owl ladies, gentleman and non-binary folks! It’s time to finish off this holiday in proper style with a LONG overdue review of enchanting Grom Fright and even longer overdue coverage of the Owl House.  The Owl House was one of the best debuts of last year if not THE best, only in contention because Close Enough also started last year and looks to surpass regular show in terms of quality. But with stunning animation, tons of representation, and colossal worldbuilding. And given how i’m on record for thinking Star Vs went so far down the tubes they bumped into where Cthulu is sleeping, it’s nice to have another magic based show that seems to be on the right track: carefully building i’ts world, supporting cast and for today’s topic main romance. It also rather than just obliquely hint one character was bi and the other pan, actually goes out of it’s way to have a bisexual protaginst with a gay love intrest. As my good friend @jess-the-vampire has brought up quite a bit, star had plnety of options. .but no willingness to actually campaign for any queer rep, the way Gravity Falls head Alex Hirsch tried to, he still gets credit for trying, and Owl House creator Dana Terrace gets full credit for. 

Terrace got her start working on Gravity Falls in line production before working her way up to directing for ducktales, being instrumental in how Webby was animated and how she moves and acts, and being the director for several classic season one episodes including “Woo-Hoo!”, “The Spear of Selene” , “Day of the Only Child!” which was one of my faviorites from season 1 and “The Beagle Birthday Massacre!”. And while I can’t 100% confirm she’s the only part responsible for starting Weblena, given she was director on an episode where a lot of the romantic subtext was in the visuals, she certainly helped so thank you Dana. Thank you a lot. Their adorable. Point is she’s a talented lady and wasn’t satisfied with directing, so she pitched her own show, combining tons of ides and stuff including of all things, Pokemon Red. I checked the article wikipedia had sourced, it was one of her happy childhood memories as it was one of the last things her dad gave her. Awwwwwww. That’s as sweet as it is painful. She’s also currently dating Alex Hirsch, something I was entirely unaware of but find also adorable. Point is i’m glad I looked into her as she’s a very nice person, and very much my kind of weirdo and i’m happy for her sucess and her singuarly weird show that sprung from that sucess. 

Now that part of it’s out of the way the episode itself was an uphill battle as you’d expect. As anyone familiar with this blog is aware, but just in case your new, you tend to hear me bitching about Disney’s handling of queer represntation a LOT

For the most part Disney’s pretty bad at it: There was the string of “FIRST GAY CHARACTER IN AN X” they had going for a while.. that consisted of a character I dind’t realize was gay, a kiss I didn’t see, and a talk with a character who I honestly wouldn’t of been looking for had disney not patted themselves on the back with some giant sized hands because htey saved some pym particles for that occasion. Ducktales was unable to have Penumbra come out as gay more clearly because I don’t know Ducks can’t be day.. but they can be IMPLIED to be gay or pansexual as hard as the crew possibly can so they win anyway. Pixar was able to have a gay lead character for one of it’s sparks shorts out and even focused on him coming out of the closet and it’s very good and something I WILL give Pixar credit for... but not Disney Plus who go out of their way to not mention the lead being gay.. despite the fact the short opens with a gay space cat riding a gay space dog out of a rainbow and then it being revaled our lead is in a relationship not long into the short. My point is the idiots who won’t watch this for having gay characters are just going to turn it off, who cares what they think, why are you like this Disney. They need to do better, and be better and i’m getting tired of this shit.

That being said... this episode is a step in the right directoin as despite having to get past one obstructive asshole, not her words but damn if it isn’t the truth, as the rest of hte execs were fine with having a gay character, Terrace fought hard for it and WON, having a clearly gay character, and a clear road to a gay romace as the lead one, all because she wanted some representation in her works. So to honor this, I present this review in honor of love, effort and saying screw you to not having represntation because money. Join me under the cut and allt hat. 

We open in the owl house, in the owl house, duck dodge push and shove, it’s how we show our love in the.. you get the point. Luz is learning yet another Rune, this time plant runes.. and already something I love about the series pops up: the fact Luz’s rise in skill is gradual but noticable. Each spell noticably improves in potency with time,  going from simple lights to shaping them into simple constructs, and learning to control or time her spells and glpyhs so they launch she she says so, with each one getting more powerful the more she learns. And on top of that osmething I just noticed on rewatch of this episode is her tecnique in finding them evolved, something I dind’t notice the first time because I hadn’t fully caught up and checked this one out to see if Disney would actually let them go through with it.. and they did. Point is her first spell is found by accident, her second by realizing how her magic works fundemntally, both require skilled deduction and on the fly thinking and casting, so she’s already pretty skilled.. but now sh’es ACTIVELY seeking out a new spell here for the first time. She knows how she gets them, she knows each school is tied to a form, and she likely got the plant from williow since that’s her thing and she’s a saint. A demon but also a saint. They can have those too. It’s what I assume relicor is. 

I miss that goblin demon bat man. Point is it shows an evolution in Luz’s thinking: while it’s a subtle thing she took a more proactive approach this time even if it took a lot of practice.. and it pay soff as by the time of her next rune, while it’s once again sorta handed to her she has less time to learn it, almost none, and finds it singed onto a ball.. and learns it effortlessly to the point where by the next episode it’s a crucial plot point. IT’s subtle but clever character progression, and stuff I really enjoy, showing our hero going from a bit inept but not helpless or incomptient.. to a force to be reckconed with and far more clever and strategic than yo’ud expect given her sometimes reckless and almost always happy go lucky attitude. 

Luz worries teaching King about the internet was a bad idea because he gets excited about a literal cat fight which .. yeah... it was a bad idea but not because of that.. but because next he finds someone saying the earth is flat and she wisely yanks it away. It’s.. very sad that the absolutley maddening and easily debunked flat earth theory is still RELATIVLEY more sane than the stuff we’ve had pop up during the trump era and the cornoavirus pandemic. 

But one of the main conlficts of the episode pops up as Luz’s mom messages her and Luz can’t bring herself to tell her anything and just sends a thumbs up.  I do think this episode helps even things from the pilot a bit as it was a bit lopsided: While I got that Camillia was genuinely struggling with how to deal with Luz, and was offered an out and had to take it... the fact she sees NO problem with the normalcy camp, which comes off intentioanlly or not a sa parallel to conversion camps or camps to make autistic kids “Normal”. And as someone whose both bisexual and autistic, I naturally relate to luz way more as someone whose intrests sometimes just don’t quite fit with everyone else, and who dosen’t get how bad some of their actions were.  THat’s why this episode feels like a necessary course correction: Luz is shown to genuinely love her mama and feel guilty.. but we see camilia genuinlely loves and supports her daughter a bit more. While it was clear from the pilot this shows it more, with her genuinely just wanting to know her daughter’s okay and checking up on her, and giving me the feeling that possible consequences or no if something bad WAS happening or she didn’t hear from her for a long time, she would’ve drove up there to get her. It feels like the writers realized the implications they accidently created and wanted to fix it, though I can’t say for certain. But if so good on you for course correcting, not every show does that. 

But King encourages her, telling her she’s doing the right thing by lying and to “trust the demon on your shoulder”. Keep this in mind for later, but that joke is great on it’s own. But soon i’ts time for school and Hooty.. barfs out Luz’s books for her. 

I haven’t been this disturbed since.. (Looks at the clock) About 2 maybe three hours ago when I watched a man have, if apparently shorter than the oriiginal cut as I wanted to see everyone else’s reactions dammit, sex with hiis car which was possesed by the mad ghost of his dead wife. Because that’s the kind of stuff i’m into when i’m not reviewing stuff. And before that Tinky.. just everything about tinky. 

I do not have enough time to get into TInky here or why he exestially horrifies me. Or why Jeff blim is a living god. I will save that for a proper review if I have the time tomorrow. Point is I saw a lot today and that still tops it. Willow and Gus are likewise grossed out and want to leave. 

Cut to school where Luz wonders what’s with all the decorations.. that remind me of this honestly

And frankly given the whole state of the boiling isles it REALLY wouldn’t surprise me if the decorations were indeed well cooked faces. But i’ts Grom time, which means elaborate gromposals (Some Dude asks Skara out with a beating heart and an elaborate medical proposal.. which.. points for effort. And for using an actual heart. Couldn’t get one for mine. ), dancing and someone being chosen for Grom Queen. WHich Willow hints isn’t as nice as that sounds. Before we can get into that though Amity bumps into them and gets into a tizzy before meekly greeting “Luz.. and Co”. which.. not going to lie.. is my faviorite gag of the season. Just htw way she adds them and just the way Willow and Guz both smile widely at it as if to say “That’s us!”. Amity drops a note and snatches it back. This will be important later, you all know why, point is Amity becomes Grom Queen.. and is heavily depressed with Luz following her to find out why.  At the gym.. she does indeed ifnd out why: Turns out Grom is not some mutation of an earthname but is based around a horrifying entity lurking beneath the isles, Gromethious the Fear Bringer, who emerges from his slumber once a year and must be fought back and brings out his target’s greatest fears. Just like groundhog day only with less time loops and rodent abuse. Amity is scared of hers, and i’ll obviously get into this more later, and Luz simply suggests asking bump to opt out and Amity appricates the support. Awwww. 

Luz heads home and we find out Eda is chaperoning and King is mcing. Eda is also rocking a suit. Just damn girl, damn. But Luz considers taking her place.. and gets laughed at, with Eda assuming she’ll have to save her and King just being kind of a dick. I mean he’s a loveable thoroughly cuddly dick but he’s still a dick... just more like a stuffed plushie of one.  So basically exactly like Tinky. Look I mention him more than once in this review he dosen’t put me in the bastard box. It’s a great system.  Naturally this makes Luz more determined than ever to prove herself and she finds Amity in the night, with Amity having been unable to get out of it.. and Bumps a resonable guy, he just wants a substitute and no one wants the job.. except Luz who galdly volunteers and insists ntohing scares her before the giant spider on the back of her head proves otherwise. Because of course it does, spiders are fucking terrifying. Kill then all.. except the pokemon ones. Galvaltula are sweethearts. As are Ariadoses. Sweethearts who can elctorcute or poison you but still. 

So the next way Luz begins preparing.. and by that I mean it’s time for training. Sadly we don’t get an episode of Luz and Amity getting trapped in an 80′s fashion montage... I mean yes Rise of the TMNT also did that plot the same year, but we had two diffrent plots about someone getting trapped in an eldtrich sitcom and a THIRD this year, all entertaingly unique. Though we do get Luz pulling out an otter suit that’s adorable and she sadly still hasn’t worn yet. “This one says i’m an otter, with a dark side”. She also got thrown out of a school dance for.. wearing an otter suit. Okay the other things we saw in the pilot were understandable but htis is just.. baffling. Who cares what you wear to a dance as long as it isn’t horribly racist of nothing at all. 

Damn you flanders and your glorious ass. Point is Amity shows up and threatens hooty’s life because.. he’s hooty. The fact he isn’t dead already is a testiment to how badass he is and how much money he’d cost Eda to replace. Owl Tubes don’t come out of a stygian hole in the unvierse every day you know. That’s only every three years. It’s basic styigan owl tube science. 

But Amity wants her to be ready and that she’ll have to face her greatest fear.. and cue hooty popping up, poking amity in the face and asking if she wants to know her greatest fear. Really he can clearly hear everything in the house given he heard that, so he heard the death threat he just chose to ignore it. That.. was a mistake. And by mistake I mean we get a hilarious cut to the outside of the house as Luz tries to stop her love intrest from murdering her second mom’s tube monster. The result is some bandages and an eyepatch. To be fair that last one was just flaring up from a  previous beating. 

For this solem task of training, Amity has brought in her local disaster bisexuals.. aka her twin siblgins Eldric and Elmyra, whose greatest fears are dying alone and being stuck with Eldric. Both understandable. They conjur luz’s greatest fears which are.. some of the funniest shit I heard all year.. and also very relatable. Human souls in cat bodies, which is genuinely terrifying good job Luz, Jerks on the internet who mansplain things, relatable, and soy milk. 

But Amity knows this is just the openign act. it needs to be something deeper.. so while Luz dosen’t realize it’s probably her mom issues she brings up her issues with her other mom: that Eda dosen’t think she can do this. Hence we get a giant eda putting Luz in a babychair. Before we can unpack how wrong that sentence sounded, Eda comes out, and marvels at how hot giant her is. But she’s quickly distracted from sex with a giant version of herself, which is not an easy feat, by the relization “Wait Luz is going to fight grom isn’t she.. fuck i’m going to have to save her”, though Luz holds firm on doing it to prove she’s fine and dosen’t need to be saved constantly. it’s a good conflict. Eda IS right that Luz is not ready for this alone, that she’s overcompensating and that Eda would, in normal circumstances be the one to rescue her. As we’ll see it’s not her who does it but still, were this any other foe she probably would be. But Luz’s motivations are equally understandable: She wants to help her friend not have to do this and she wants to prove she can do it. She just wants her mentor, the only person in her life up to meeting her that GNEUINELY supported her in magic to respect her. To have faith in her and actually see how far she’s come. And given how her own mother writes off her dreams, if not unrealistically, and before this she had no friends or support system to speak of outside her mom, it’s easy to see why this is so improtant to Luz: she just wants to make the one person in her life whose ever support her actually think it was worth it when in truth Eda already thinks it does and just dosen’t want her to die. 

She’s just not good with talking to her or not condescending to her as her own ego is stacked sky high, probably because the whole curse thing meant Eda was an outcast by default and the system wants to either chain her to one form of magic and one only or shackle her to them as a hired goon. Her ego, while justified, is also a defense mechanism: a way to shield herself from the fact almost no one cares about her and one of the few people who DOES, dosen’t care what she wants or needs. Once the curse happened she lost just about everything and had to rebuild and thus build up walls around herself and kept everyone else at arms length till Luz changed her for the better. It’s just a tragic clash of two wills both with similar problems but both unwilling to talk about them. 

But with time up, our heroes need to get to the diggity dance. So they indeed do and we get some fun sight gags, Willow makes corsages,  that one girl with the cresent head somehow ended up with Mathomule and is not happy, as anyone who ends up with him should. And it’s time for Luz to face her destiny.. in a tux with a tutu because of course, and Amity likes it because also of course. 

IT’s time to rumble, with King getting nervous due to eda’s prodding about mcing since his co-mc gus is really good at it, and introducing our champion.

No wait sorry he’s still trapped in Mojoworld. no it’s still Luz who shows off a seasons worth of skill by easily dispatching the first few fears and saying to grom let’s finish it.. before grom puts a tentacle on her head. 

It’s to downlaod her fear.. which is Camillia. Granted we could all see it coming but still Luz obviously can’t fight her own mother or her own overwhelming guilt.. her mom did hurt her.. but she gets why and just loves her and wants her to be proud but dosen’t know what to do: tell her the trutha nd possibly loose a happy and fufilling life or wait until it all blows up. It’s a painful choice. So luz and king end up running. King runs first because he can’t handle it and Gus talks him back into the groove while Luz runs away because she can’t fight her own mom, understandable, and Gus encourages king to lead the crowd which he does. Amity and Eda follow Luz. 

So Luz is backed down, facing down a monster tha’ts going to go on to everyone else next if she fails... and Eda prepares to interfere.. but it’s AMITY who faces her fear and dives in. And we find out just what her fear was as grom turns into a humanoid shape and rips the letter in half.. it was a grom invitation. Though conviently the who it’s adressed to was ripped out. 

And yeah not going to save this one: It’s Luz. You know it I know it I didn’t even hide it in the intro. Even before the reveal in a bit it was obvious. But it also makes perfect sense. I’ve avoided talking about her character arc up to this point because I was waiting for now. Amity’s growth is the third major arc of the season behind Luz’s slow learning of magic and eventually induction into hexside and eda’s curse, which I lump in with Lilith chasing her since both were mildly entertwined and then entirely are once the reveal hits in the finale. When we meet her she’s an outright bully.. but we slowly see there’s more there. That she’s not really HAPPY or content, is contstantly under pressure by her family name, is outright bullied by her own siblings who don’t understand her. So Luz coming in, seemingly only being intrested in magic because i’ts neat.. understandably bothers her. She’s not a great person, bullying her old best friend because tha’ts what’s expected and being close with outright bullies because of that.. but it’s through Luz she starts to grow, realizing Luz is genuinely nice and genuinely sorry for any trouble she caused Amity, and evne then both cases were causaed by Amity’s own dickishness and outside forces, so it’s easy to see why she defrosts faster. Her siblings realize they’ve genuinely hurt her, and actually try to be good siblings from then on and help her, and slowly Amity learns to truth luz, trust in her, and accept her... and thus accept her feelings for her. There are gradual hints she’s growing attracted to her.. but her walls had to come down first, and it wouldn’t of worked from the outset. The show cleverly has the two build a genuine friendship, two opposities who work well together, so when feelings do happen it feels natural. It’s not “I’m in love with this person because I have to because you can’t be friends with someone your attracted to” bullshit or anything like that, cough star vs cough, it’s just well built catching feelings. I’ts how this kind of thing SHOULD go: niether went in intending for this to happen.. it’s just happening. 

And Amity’s reluctance is painfully understandable, as Luz is the ONLY friend and support she has. Sure she and willow are patching things up, but WIllow would understandably choose luz over her and she’s terrified of loosing the one good thing in her life. Of course Luz would either say yes, and probably will some day, or let her down gently, she’s nice.. but it’s also understandable to be afraid that someone won’t take the reveal well. I’ve been there trust me, it’s easier when you let it out even if you get rejected, but I get it being hard to let out because you don’t want to loose a friend. I did not, and niether would she, but I can see why she wouldn’t want ot take the plunge. At least not yet. We’ll see this summer hopefully. 

But we do get a shiptastic, gorgeously aniamted scene of the two dancing an fightin gin perfect synch, combinging luz’s new use of plant magic with amity’s mastery of abominations resulting in the two utterly decimating grom, likely in part because with two fast moving targets he can’t get a lock on and likely nees more fear and mass to attack multiple targets at once. Or just more tendrils. it’s a quick, beautful sequence that’s utterly glorious, being framed as romantic as any hetero scene of the type and rightfully so. A triumph and well deserving of this praise. 

Our heros have won, get crowns, and King gets praise. All is well.. except Luz drops the crown once she gets home because she feels like she failed and feels lost about her mom.. though at least king gets it “I’m king and queen, best of both things!”. You tell em sister. 

So we end with Luz genuinely responding to her mom, with some montage stuff as we see Gus and Willow poke a fear blob, willow fears bugs, understandable and Gus fears clowns... 

Also understandable. Though I didn’t put up a bug picture because

And Amity looks out folornly into the night. Camilla responds to Luz.. and mentions letters.. which while Luz brushes those off.. we see someone sent them. And by someone I probably mean king since we now know only eda and him had acess to the portal, and given he was actively encouraging her to lie.. yeah i’m supscious. But we’ll see next season. For now this episode is fan fucking tastic, showing off tons of character development, being representative and sweet as all hell.. and being really funny. Tons of great gags in this one including the turtle guy from an earlier episode being forced to be adisco ball.  This is easily the series best so far and if you haven’t checked it out, please do it’s fantastic as is this show. Check both out. Until the next rainbow i’ts been a pleasure. Tommorow more disney shenanigans this time with pete. And also more of this possibly we’ll see what I get done. 

Goodnight everybody!

[joekabox]

Haven’t posted my thoughts on Magic: the Gathering in a hot minute, so how about I do that, given the buzz surrounding the new Innistrad set.

Honestly, the stuff we’ve been shown as upcoming has me really excited. Innistrad legit feels like a return to form for the plane, while still keeping the events of Eldritch Moon canon and a big lingering threat in the background, without having the eldritch themes overtake the classic feel of Innistrad this time. 

Kamigawa seems like a fresh idea for the franchise, being the first real sci-fi adjacent setting we’ve really ever gotten, and the idea of seeing how a plane evolves in 2000 years has me invested, especially when there is promise to respect the canon of the plane, and that there are real Asian writers working on the set. 

And the story, from what I understand, actually seems to be not half bad at the moment, which is always a great thing.

Now the bad.

For every cool thing that seems to happening in regards to lore and care given to sets and stuff, Wizards of the Coast has done nothing to curb the idea that all they care about is money, given how they are creating and distributing product, and I’m still not looking forward to Universes Beyond creeping into non-standard formats, which given I only ever play Commander, bothers me.

UB doesn’t bother me near as much as it did at announcement, but I think there is a fair and legitimate argument to be made about my following thoughts: I got invested in the game for the lore of Magic: the Gathering, for its characters, its settings, and its themes. I sit down at the table, and expect to see those things, because that is how the game was advertised to me when I got into it, and how it’s been for over 20 years and my entire time as a player. “You are a Planeswalker.” That is legit the sentence that sold me on the game, the idea that I could play as my own planeswalker, and for a bit, pretend I’m someone I’m not. While the game on its own is amazingly put together, the rules and gameplay are utterly dwarfed when it comes to my love of the flavor within the game. That is why I play.

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with crossing over with other franchises, I don’t personally feel like sitting down and experiencing that. That is not why I bought or play the game. When I put money into this game, I want the experience I paid for, which had been the same up until basically now. I want to be a planeswalker, within the setting sold to me at the start. There is nothing wrong with my opinion on this, just as there’s nothing wrong with people that want to play with those cards. Both ideas can exist in tandem. 

I think a good analogy is, well, any other piece of media to exist. While there are absolutely people that bought Skyrim to mod in Thomas the Tank Engine, there are definitely people that didn’t, and they have the choice to play their way. If someone likes Iron Man but not Thor, they aren’t required to enjoy and watch the Avengers. The only difference is that Magic is a multiplayer game, so the opinion of my potential opponent matters as well as mine. If I legit just want to play a game for the game and ignore the lore, I don’t really care what cards they play with, but if I want to play for the reasons I got into the game in the first place, to feel like a planeswalker, if only for a moment, then I’m not going to disrespect my opponent by sitting down to a game I won’t enjoy and not being a fun opponent for them. There’s nothing wrong with that, and if I can’t find people to play with because of my feelings, that’s my problem, not theirs. 

Really the only people I feel like blaming are Wizards of the Coast, not because they’ve ruined the game, not that at all, but because they once again seemed to care more about the money here. Something I’ve stated in the past is that, honestly, I like the potential from crossovers. Magic has the best rule set of any tcg I’ve played, and I want to see other properties use it, and how they can play with the themes and ideas the rules allow them to. My issue is that Universes Beyond feels like an afterthought, in a way. It feels like they were so preoccupied with the potential money they’d get from both brand holders and interested players that they didn’t think about how these mechanically unique cards would affect non-standard formats, and did nothing to prevent them or limit them within those formats. Or how players invested in the lore and “You are a Planeswalker” branding might feel, but I realize we’re a minority so that’s not the biggest deal.

I’ll go ahead and back Mark Rosewater up in his belief that making these cards silver border would have made the general fanbase treat them as lesser or even fake cards, because given how people I know personally have treated silver border cards in the past, I feel he’s absolutely right. However, I honestly don’t understand why it wasn’t possible to have a specific Universes Beyond format for things like Commander, that just says anything goes, and then Standard Commander (not sure if that name works, given the standard format), where Universes Beyond cards aren’t legal.

Anyway, Wizards of the Coast has yet to do anything to prove they aren’t capitalist, money hungry people, and my issues of poor representation, queer, racial, or otherwise within the game, while improving ever so slightly, are still not improved to a degree that feels more than peppered in to shut people up. So, while I’m interested in what’s coming out within the game, I still don’t feel super comfortable giving WotC much money. I’m interested in these things because the lore seems fun, which as I’ve hopefully made clear, is what I enjoy in the franchise. Let me openly support the things I do enjoy, in hopes I can see more of it going forward.

I might dust off my fanwalker to engage with the improving lore soon, but I still don’t plan on jumping headfirst into Magic for the reasons I’ve listed and others I’ve listed in the past.

[sailorbadger]

Book Review - 6 modern female-led Robin Hood adaptations

In the past 8 months or so I have read/watched/listened to over 30 different Robin Hood adaptations. Over the summer I found myself reading almost exclusively adaptations that were written by women and centered women in the story one way or another. (I also found out that “lesbian Robin Hood” is a whole genre on its own.) I decided to write short reviews for 6 of these books since I know I have followers that probably share my enjoyment of this particular niche. 

This post includes spoiler-free reviews for the following books

Outlaw and Scarlet by Niamh Murphy

Nottingham: The True Story of Robyn Hood by Anna Burke

Hood by Jenny Elder Moke

Marian, Princess Thief by C.K. Brooke

Heart of Sherwood by Edale Lane

The rest of the post will be under the cut since this is quite long.

Despite the fact that I read other books that could technically fit this same category, I decided to focus on these six in my review because these ones are easily accessible to most of my audience (meaning that they are in English and new enough - the oldest one being from 2018 I think - so that you should be able to find them easily). 

I tried to keep these reviews relatively short and spoiler-free. That means that describing specific plot points is impossible because in most of these, the basic premise is the typical Robin Hood origin story. I tried to focus on my general feelings about the books and the characters and their relationships. 

I won’t be doing any numerical ratings. I know that the order in which I read these impacted on how I felt about them. If I had read them in a different order, I would probably feel differently about some of them. That’s why it’s difficult for me to give any real ratings. The reviews are not in any real order either, apart from my favorite being the last one.

These reviews are also about 75% serious and 25% not serious. When my friend and I started to go through all these different Robin Hood adaptations, we made a bingo card that features tropes/themes/details found in a lot of different versions of the story. I’ll leave quick comments on the reviews on how each of these did, but I won’t go too much into detail on those.

Niamh Murphy: Outlaw & Scarlet

I grouped these two books together because they are the first two parts of a series. My understanding is that the author does plan on eventually releasing more, but since Scarlet was released this year, it might take a while. If a third book does come out, I might read it, but I’m not in a hurry to reread these two.

Outlaw tells the story of how Robyn, the daughter of a baron, ends up becoming an outlaw. If you are familiar with at least a few Robin Hood adaptations, you will know how it goes. There are no big surprises, but I suppose the purpose of this story is to introduce us to the characters and set the scene for the later books. Scarlet continues Robyn’s story and introduces a new character to the story. (I won’t go too much into details on the second book to avoid spoilers, since its plot does not follow familiar beats as much as the first one.)

Besides the books on this list, I have also read/watched/listened to several other Robin Hood adaptations as well, and when it comes to plot, Outlaw lands in the “uninteresting” section. There was nothing new or exciting there, and seeing that I have spent most of the year in a Robin Hood -bubble, I was left wanting more. Scarlet was a slight improvement seeing as Outlaw was mostly a very generic Robin Hood origin story. Together they still feel like this is just the beginning of a longer story, so I hope that if a third book comes out we get into the real action.

Outlaw is marketed as a “lesbian retelling” of the Robin Hood story, but compared to some of the other titles on this list, I was left wanting more. The romance aspect is barely there, so if you’re going to pick these up for Robyn and Marian’s relationship, prepare for slow burn. 

The characters didn’t leave a huge impression on me. I do have to say that the Sheriff’s wife was interesting and I wish we had gotten more of her. Other than her, I felt that at times many of the characters could have been from any adaptation. 

Overall, there wasn’t anything really wrong with these books, but they just didn’t entertain me as much as the others. I feel that if I had read these before all the other ones on this list, I would have enjoyed them more. Outlaw and Scarlet are a good read for someone who wants a basic Robin Hood story with a lesbian lead. I still think that marketing the first book as a “lesbian retelling” is setting unrealistic expectations for some, but I hope that in the future the series really earns that title.

I completely forgot to fill out a bingo card for these two and at this point I have forgotten many of the details so unfortunately we’ll never know the result. Most of the tropes hit were so general they probably weren’t on our card anyway.

Anna Burke: Nottingham: The True Story of Robyn Hood

Out of all of the books in this list, Anna Burke’s Nottingham is perhaps the most explicit in its queerness. Although the story obviously doesn’t use modern labels, I would say that it includes representation for (at least) lesbian, bi and trans character(s). None of this feels too out-of-place, and instead Nottingham offers a (mostly) historically accurate Robin Hood tale with a queer main cast.

The plot mostly follows your typical Robin Hood -formula: After a hunting accident, Robyn becomes an outlaw, surrounds herself with loyal friends and helps those in need. This aspect of the book doesn’t offer any new ideas or challenge the existing ideas about Robin Hood as a story. However, it focuses more on the characters, so it doesn’t really need anything new. Marian especially has to come to terms with her feelings towards Robyn and women in general. I do have to say though, that the romance between Robyn and Marian happens a little fast - they only meet a few times before falling in love. [Insert joke about lesbians moving too fast here] It didn’t bother me too much, but I do wish there had been a little more buildup. 

From this list, I read this book the most recently. It may be that I was just so burned out from reading all these Robin Hood -stories but I didn’t connect with the book that well. I enjoyed it, but I wish there had been more of that fun sense of adventure I look for in these stories. 

I would recommend Nottingham to anyone who wants to read a story that manages to be historically accurate and use the Robin Hood mythos to its advantage while not shying away from its portrayal of queerness. Although it did not hold my attention as well as some of the other books, it is still written well and has a good story.

This book didn’t get a bingo unless you interpret “lähentely* which is uncomfortable for the audience” as the sex scene (there is sex in this book but nothing that explicit, I would say high T/low M in Ao3-ratings) being uncomfortable for the reader OR the third person in that scene being uncomfortable. About half of the bingo card was still filled.

*I couldn’t come up with a good translation for this word, it means something along the lines of making moves/coming onto someone/making advances, though for this bingo I use it to generally mean anything flirty/intimate/sexual/etc.

 Jenny Elder Moke: Hood

This book was the first one on this list I read. Compared to the other novels, I would say that Hood is the least like your typical Robin Hood story. The book follows Isabelle, Robin and Marian’s daughter, who has to find her father in order to save her mother. The adventure is brand new, though there are still familiar characters and the basic concept of Robin Hood is honored. This is a story about the next generation of outlaws, so if you’re looking for something that focuses on characters from the legends, you may be disappointed.

Speaking of the characters, I loved Little, Patrick and Helena. I could have just read a book where this group of young outlaws has adventures and been satisfied. Unfortunately I didn’t connect well with the main lead, Isabelle, and the love interest, Adam, felt like a very generic hot guy from a YA novel. The romance itself is practically non-existent, and honestly I could have done without it. Seriously, I had completely forgotten about that whole thing until I started writing this review. This story is more about Isabelle’s relationship with her parents, which I like. She also gets to build genuine friendships with the other characters. I just wish the book had been a little longer so that it could have spent more time developing some of these relationships.

Had I read this book when I was a teenager, I most likely would have loved it a lot more. It is YA, and at times it really shows. As far as Robin Hood stories go, I generally enjoy the “outlaws being outlaws in the forest” content the most, and unfortunately this featured surprisingly little of it. It still offered its own take on what could happen after the legends everyone knows, even if it doesn’t add much to the legends themselves.

It is important that I mention here that if Allan has a child in an adaptation, this child must be named either Allan jr. or Alana. This book fulfills this basic need for me and I am satisfied. It also checked most of the boxes on the bingo, and I almost filled the whole sheet. So somehow, despite not really following the typical Robin Hood formula, Hood managed to include all the important tropes.

If you are a teenager who enjoys Robin Hood -stories, I would definitely recommend this book. It’s not the best YA novel out there, but it’s a good standalone story. I think that for adults, this can be a good read if you are a fan of Robin Hood -stories and/or enjoy this type of YA anyway. I wasn’t sure what type of book this was when I started reading, but if you just prepare yourself for a fun adventure aimed at young teens, you can enjoy this. It’s very quick to read, I think I read it in one day.

Also, I must quote a review I saw on Storygraph (imagine this is in all caps) : “hjsxhfjsdksfjk???????????? Patrick best character no cap”

C. K. Brooke: Marian, Princess Thief

In Marian, Princess Thief, Robin Hood doesn’t exist at all. Instead the story follows Marian, who in this version is a princess, who escaped an assassination attempt and is now living in the forest as an outlaw with six other women - the genderbent versions of the Merry Men. Eventually there is a romance in this book as well, but the biggest force carrying through the book is the friendship between the women. If I had to describe the novel in just one word, I would say it’s lovable. If I had to describe it in two, I would say it’s dissappointingly heterosexual. 

Maybe the fact that I found a genre that is basically “lesbian Robin Hood” has ruined me, but how can you write a story that features seven women living in the forest as outlaws, and not one of them is queer? This is entirely a thing that bothers me personally, and the book doesn’t need queer representation to be good, but there is no reason to not include it. Headcanons can fortunately go a long way, but I’m just saying that you could easily keep everything about Scarlett’s backstory the same except make her a lesbian. (In fact, I’m 98% joking when I say that her not being a lesbian is a homophobic choice. I will elaborate on this if you ask me but I won’t go too much into it here because I would have to explain things about other adaptations as well.)

As for the straight romance, I can’t say that I was feeling it. I could see the points where I was supposed to feel something, so maybe it’s just the fact that I’m aspec myself, but I didn’t care that much about it. Still, it was refreshing to see a story where the romance doesn’t overshadow the friendships between the women, and instead they are valued just as much (if not more) as the romantic relationship. The story doesn’t dig too deeply into the characters, but I still loved all the women. (I don’t care about the male lead. But I know others who would.)

I think the biggest “problem” this book has (apart from not making Scarlett a lesbian) is that the ending feels just a little bit rushed compared to the rest of the novel. I still think that the novel achieves everything it tries to do, but I could have used one more chapter to flesh out the climax.

The bingo card wasn’t even close to being full, but you know what, Marian, Princess Thief is good enough as it is and doesn’t need to follow all the familiar tropes. Still, how hard is it to include a bird?

This was a very quick read, in fact I basically just read it all in one go. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to read something lighthearted and, like me, is often disappointed by the lack of women in Robin Hood stories.

To end this, I will leave you with a translated quote from my WhatsApp commentary: “What is it that in all these Robin Hood stories these old dudes are all after these young maidens like get yourself a hot milf and leave the kids alone”

Edale Lane: Heart of Sherwood

Heart of Sherwood is my favorite Robin Hood -novel that I have read so far. It has just about everything I could want: good characters, a fun sense of adventure, political scheming, great relationships (both romantic and platonic) and a good ending. I was less than two chapters into this book when I knew that this would be a difficult one to top.

The premise of this book is very similar to Burke’s Nottingham: both follow the story of Robyn becoming an outlaw, making friends with the other Merry (Wo)Men and developing a relationship with Marian. I don’t want to compare these two stories too much, but I did prefer the more lighthearted tone of Heart of Sherwood. This was also the first book where I was actually invested in the romance. Normally in pretty much all Robin Hood adaptations, the relationship between Robin and Marian doesn’t interest me greatly; I don’t mind it, but it’s not something I have too many personal feelings about. However, only a few chapters into Heart of Sherwood I thought: “If these two don’t get a happy ending I’m going to jump out of the window.” (I won’t spoil where this threat ended up going.)

One thing I appreciate about the romance in this one is that Robyn and Marian already know each other, so I didn’t have to deal with a romance that develops too fast. The novel also had other things to offer besides being a “lesbian Robin Hood” story, so I didn’t feel like I had to enjoy the romance to enjoy the whole story. I was very invested the whole way through, and out of all the books I’ve reviewed here, this one made me the most emotional. 

As a fan of the BBC show, I do have to say that this novel had a very similar vibe; there was a good balance of action and humor. Maybe that was a part of why I enjoyed this so much. I was also able to predict exactly how certain things would end up. I kind of wish I would have been more surprised. 

This novel is well paced, it is exactly the right length for the story it’s telling and overall I can’t really find things to complain about. If I wasn’t petty, I would give this book full five stars, but because I am petty, for very personal reasons I’m giving it 4,99999… stars. As for the bingo, this one filled most of the sheet.

I’ll end this review with this random line I had shared on WhatsApp for some reason: ""Does this mean I am dead?" Alan asked in jest. - - - "Nay; same annoying jester, alive as ever, and likely wanting for a pint about now."”

Conclusion

Writing these reviews was surprisingly difficult because most of the stories follow the same formula, so commenting on anything that moves away from said formula could be considered a spoiler. Hopefully if you read this far you were still interested enough in at least one of these books and feel inspired to read them. I would happily recommend any of them, and if you want to know my more detailed thoughts on them, feel free to message me. The same applies to all the adaptations I’ve gone through. I have Thoughts that I’m dying to share. 

[crispyjenkins]

I... I felt I was all alone being uninterested in kid fics so I'm very happy to see it's not just me. (Sorry I'm going to rant for a bit) It's probably linked to the fact that I personally don't want kids but sometimes... I just want to see people able to be happy without children? Even if they don't dislike kids or anything! And sometimes it straight up makes me uncomfortable to see kid fics for this exact reason. (Also it depends on the fandom but SW is definitely one where I generally dislike kid fics, which I think wasn't improved by all the Luke-as-Rey's-father thing)

HI I'M HERE TO VALIDATE YOU

and i have a whole fecking lot of feelings about this topic in particular, this is gonna get a little wordy, but i've tried to organise it somewhat

First: i don't want kids. i'm fairly to extremely confident i'll never want kids. partly because I do not have the mental/physical capacity to devote the time and energy and emotion that children deserve and need. someone on tumblr said it ages ago, "if I don't WANT a kid, if i'm just indifferent, im not going to have a fucking kid until i actively want one", because children are sentient beings and not cute things to make you happy or feel more put together.

Okay, second: i very rarely see parenting written well (and i don't mean about perfect or unproblematic parents), i would even go so far as to call it trivialising. or maybe just completely unrealistic? it's either all honeymoon-period schmoop (which is not necessarily a bad thing) or it's hardly even about the kids and at that point, well, what's the point? especially if the kid is an oc, they can't just. exist on the sidelines of their parents life.

Third: if the kid is a canon character, their entire personality gets nerfed into one or two traits and are shoehorned to fit the narrative the author is trying to tell. this is a complicated issue because i sincerely believe in fun for the sake of fun and interacting with your fandom however you want, but i also just. kids deserve better?

Fourth: on that subject, i most often see the child in question be an oc. again, they're given one or two traits, but are then just a prop for whatever plot is happening to the actual ship. maybe i'm missing something, but i don't understand why you wouldn't use a canon character in the first place? very few fandoms don't already have paternal/maternal/parental relationships to play around with, ESPECIALLY if the author has already made it an au!! i'm not going to pretend a big reason i don't seek out kid fic isn't because they're almost always modern aus, which i already don't like. maybe this one is more petty, but i think kid characters deserve more time and attention put into them as characters, and tbh i've never once seen it done with an oc kid.

Fifth: if it's about adoption, i only EVER see babies (esp in modern aus). the implication that kids aren't adoptable past a certain age is horrendously damaging and i'm so uncomfortable with it that this is another reason i don't seek these stories out.

if it ISN'T adoption, then it's either a) cis mpreg, which is so incredibly transphobic and weirdly fetishising and blehhhhh, or b) transmasculine mpreg which i've. literally never seen written by a trans person so like... aight.

Sixth: the parents are out of character. i've talked a little about woobification before, about the hyperfeminising of one half of the ship and the hypermasculating of the other to fit the mother/father binary that is also inherently transphobic. the characters are sort of just replaced with an honestly hurtful binary rooted in systematic misogyny at the complete sacrifice of their entire personality, and it’s honestly exhausting as both a trans person and a romantically queer person.

before getting into prequel star wars stuff, specifically with mando ships, i don't think i even once read a kid fic where the parents felt plausible and in character, especially if it’s put into a modern au, and i've been reading fanfiction for a decade.

Seventh: i really don't know how to word this part without airing out my own trauma, but back to the trivialising bit, the way authors tend to write this honeymoon-phase type of parenting makes me feel really gross? maybe that's petty or very specifically personal, but the way kids are only in scenes to prop the parents' storyline hits a little too close to home. i'm the third child and the middle child, and that so many "takes" on parenting implicitly hold up the notion of kids only being worth mentioning/caring about/developing is when it's important or relevant to the parents. i dunno, kids deserve better than that.

Eighth: okay finally bringing this back to star wars. i blacklist any parenting anything from any ships from the Original Trilogy. for the prequels, I exclusively read adoption-based stuff, partly because I don't really have any cishet ships i read specifically about, but also because that means the rest is mpreg.

now, i've been positively spoiled by Mando and/or Jedi ships and their culturally important adoption. like i get to read stuff where the parents feel in character? and aren't one dimensional binary caricatures? and the kids are treated as characters and not plot props? AND they're usually older than ten?? to be fair, there are ships i still don't read kid fic for, CodyWan for example, for many reasons i actually haven't covered here, and Boba and Anakin are given the most justice as adopted kids (that i've seen; fingers crossed for more ahsoka and twins content) so there's a massive disparity in representation (which is a star wars-wide issue) but this is also the first time i've even wanted to write child characters.

your bit about characters being happy and having fulfilling lifelong relationships without kids is so incredibly important to me, because it feels exactly the same as an ace person constantly being told i'm missing out. so i'm also wary of fixits centered around parenting, or even "adopting the clones" themes because it's. there's so many more facets to family than parent and child, and i dunno. this is the second time i've written all this and i haven't slept yet so i don't even know if I'm making sense anymore so just basically

i feel you, anon. i'm exhausted by having to blacklist or exclude so many tags just to find content that doesn't make me uncomfortable, and i'm so so so happy to be in the prequels corner of the fandom, because i'm also seeing this problem improving as i watch it. so i have hope, but right now, keep kid fic as far away from me as possible.

(you are correct, the luke and rey dynamic was bullshit and has set us back a lot, though maybe not as much as the fandom's frankly horrifying reaction to kylo ren and blaming all his faults on leia, but that's another topic entirely)

i'll also add that i'm fucking terrible with kids, and reading how they're treated by authors upsets me greatly

[thealternatemind]

some thoughts on widojest, vaxleth, and biphobia in fandom culture

i avoided getting into critical role for a very long time cuz ppl always said that it was homophobic because of the semi-relationship between vax/gilmore. but let me just say that calling that situation homophobic is biphobic. as a bisexual person, seeing a character that is openly bisexual express interest in men, women, and all those in between, is INCREDIBLY important. it normalizes bisexuality because the amount of times i see non-bisexual ppl in the LGBT+ community claim that we’re “not gay enough” is ridiculous. vax is definitely good bi rep.

i hate that i avoided critical role for so long because of that lie saying it’s homophobic. it is a beautiful show filled with wonderful representation. are we going to forget about tary? vex? beau? yasha? molly? sure, the representation isn’t perfect, but at least they’re trying and improving! that’s more than we can say for a lot of media, and we shouldn’t disregard the representation because it isn’t squeaky clean.

and now this whole thing/fan reaction with widojest? i’ll be the first to say that i’m not the biggest fan of the ship, but it’s also not my choice. it’s liam’s choice because caleb is his character. also, as someone that plays d&d, i can tell you that characters take on minds of their own. conscious choices can’t always be made regarding a character’s emotions or feelings. as much as it seems like liam made the decision for caleb to be in love with jester, as someone that plays d&d, i am quite certain caleb made that choice himself. in my experience playing characters, they take on minds of their own, and they just happen to take residence in the player’s mind. even if this weren’t the case though, liam still knows caleb the most.

even though i’m not in love with this ship, i’m happy for the people that like it because it’s not us against them. we all love the same show, so why are we fighting over this? we love it. we should be happy for each other but sad for ourselves.

i interpret caleb as bisexual, and i interpret his interactions with essek to be flirtatious, such as many other queer fans do. HOWEVER, this is not the same situation as vax/gilmore, who went on at least one (if not more, i haven’t watched c1 all the way through) on-screen dates. shadowgast, as much as i love the ship, has little-to-no canon confirmation outside of off-handed hints and comments in the game and on talks. also, vax ending up with keyleth was still totally valid because HEY GUESS WHAT HE’S BI. not to start discourse or anything but to say that this is bad representation is super toxic to bi ppl because telling us we can’t be bi if we’re in a m/f relationship is just wrong.

but anyway, everyone comparing the widojest situation to vaxleth is getting on my nerves because:

vaxleth was not homophobic

widojest is not the same situation as vaxleth

it isn’t homophobic either

saying that both are homophobic because you don’t want to see a m/f ship hurts bi fans

if you want to disagree with me, that’s fine. however, i think there’s something rly important that i need to say in regard to what i’m witnessing in this fandom.

you don’t have to like a ship. that is okay. you don’t need to make it “problematic” in order to dislike it. in the end, expressing your dislike of vaxleth and widojest because you believe them to be “lesbophobic” (because it interferes with beaujester) or “homophobic” comes off as, frankly... biphobic. while trying to come off as woke, it just comes off as regressive and hurtful.

some may argue that it’s not progressive for a bi person to be in an m/f relationship, but i completely disagree. part of being bisexual is the attraction to all genders, and not portraying so is honestly a disservice to the sexuality. also, as i mentioned earlier, there is a huge trend is saying that bi ppl in m/f relationships are actually in “straight” relationships and that it’s not “gay enough.” projecting these feelings onto media and saying this to bi fans deeply hurts them. there are already enough bi ppl out there, including myself, that feel insecure in queer spaces regarding their attraction to the opposite gender, because they’re afraid of receiving comments such as ones like those.

but anyway shipping should not be this big of a discourse, and frankly, it shouldn’t be this deep. it’s okay to dislike a ship without making it problematic, especially if making it “problematic” is hurting bi fans, like myself, in the process.

widojest stans, i’m happy for you. i hope that you’re able to enjoy this confirmation despite some of the negativity i’ve seen. don’t forget to love each other ❤️

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Manga Series Review - Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl

The tenth and final volume of Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl is finally out in English, and honestly, I expected this moment to feel more climatic. This long-running series debuted in 2013 and quickly became one of the most consistently popular Yuri works in the current era. However, perhaps because of its relative longevity, it always felt like the background; The consistently safe and trope-filled home I could return to after exploring new and exciting Yuri works. There is often something comforting about home, and many of the cute kisses and relationships featured are joyful and entertaining.

Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl is a Yuri manga series by Canno. It follows numerous couples at Seiran Academy, a fictional middle and high school with a sister university. The common themes and tropes of the Yuri genre riddle the work. Some are seen in individual couple’s stories, while others, such as the all-girls school, style of uniforms, and repeated girl meets girl then love narrative. While these tropes are by no means a negative, being a fan of this genre would be impossible if they were, they are such old hat for Yurijin that they become dull, and Kiss and White Lily does little to forward or subvert them. In this way, the series feels like a showcase of the genre, a series I can thrust at people and say, “you want to learn about Yuri? Then read this” (an honor I usually reserve for Whispered Words). In short, the series is enjoyable but tiring and predictable.

Before I get into the spoiler-filled breakdown of each couple, there are a few overarching elements to note. It is achingly sweet, not in a heartwarming way, but an “I just a bit down on cake and have a cavity” way. Nothing in the first few volumes has any real consequence or impact; it is just cute and stupid. Now I like cute and stupid, but it has to be fun and enjoyable to read, and at first, this is not. Many characters lack chemistry, and often, the drama is caused by their own nonsensical choices rather than from the complications that come with relationships or friendships. If I do not like these characters together, I do not want to see them hugging and kissing and being cute.

You may have noticed that I spoke of how I enjoyed the series but then went on a rant about how weak the plot is. Fortunately, as the series goes on, the writing improves drastically. Characters who are in or are moving towards relationships, mostly, have compatible traits, and with stakes grounded in some form of reality. The What’s Behind the Story!? Sections, single pages devoted to the perspectives of random other characters and couples, are another welcome addition. Here, the lack of consequence or chemistry works, as each is given only a few moments to give a one-liner or snapshot of service. 

The artwork in Kiss and White Lily suffers from a similar problem as the plot. It is too adorable for the sake of being adorable. Kurosawa reacts with a huge smile and sudden anthropomorphic ears far too often in the early volumes. There are other inconsistencies also, mainly in tone. For example, in the first volume, there is a moment where one character is being introspective and dramatic, when suddenly, in a moment of metaphoric imagery, another is holding a gun to her head. This scene is awkward and unnecessary. No other moment uses such visual tricks to illustrate emotional conflict, and it is completely removed from the rest of the work. Finally, the artwork is cluttered. Almost every panel has so much crammed into it feels overwhelming.

However, just as the problems with art and story are similar, so are the solutions, time. As Canno continues, the art drastically improves. It takes on a more consistent tone, relies less on visual tricks, and quickly becomes one of the series’ highlights. Seeing the characters be gentle and affectionate will put a smile on all but the most begrudged reader’s face, especially with the more likable characters. Canno also makes frequent use of beautiful double-page spreads, many of which I have bookmarked so I can refer to them when I need a smile.

Now that I have gotten those points out of the way, I can get down into the meat of Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, the couples. There is an explosive plethora of pairings in this series, and I love it. Each feels unique, has a compelling story (mostly), and a satisfying conclusion. Every reader will easily find their favorites or see their own life reflected in one of these cute couples.

Ayaka Shiramine and Yurine Kurosawa are the principal couple of Kiss and White Lily, and their courtship spans all ten volumes. Unfortunately, they start out as one of the weaker couples in the story. Shiramine is the model student, working hard, helping out at the school, and getting high grades. However, she is consistently ranked second in all tests (teacher’s side note here, publicly posting student’s grades has been shown in research to be horrible for student achievement by multiple studies) behind Kurosawa. However, unlike Shiramine, Kurosawa does not try at all; she usually sleeps through class and does not participate in school activities, and succeeds only by her “genius.” Kurosawa’s effortless achievements anger Shiramine, and she confronts her about it. However, Kurosawa is pleased by the notion of Shiramine beating her and begins to aggressively pursue a relationship (the aggressive gay woman is the worst trope. Consent and enthusiasm are a central part of romance).

In what seems to be a running theme for this series, Shiramine and Kurosawa’s relationships improve as the books go on. First, Shiramine becomes less of a stereotypical tsundere character, as her motivation for being the best is revealed, a cold and frankly awful mother who scoffs at her daughter’s achievements. Likewise, Kurosawa, who starts incredibly inconsistent, moving from peppy to cruel to bored within the span of a few pages, settles down into a more calm character, with her enthusiastic love for Shiramine intact.

The beginning of their romance was weak, mainly due to their personalities and lack of chemistry, but the end conclusion was incredibly satisfying. Kurosawa realizes that she came to love Shiramine because she thought the perfect student could beat her and make her a normal girl, not a genius. However, in the end, she realizes that it was not their grades, but the ways Shiramine drew her out of her shell and THE FRIENDS SHE MADE ALONG THE WAY that made her a better person. Shiramine changes too, becoming more courageous and finally standing up to her horrid mother, thus breaking the spell the woman had over her and freeing Shiramine of her burdens.

In the final volume, Shiramine realizes that she likes being with Kurosawa and that their rivalry was her favorite part of the school. These feelings are all admitted in a fantastic speech she gives to the incoming students. I was smiling throughout the whole second half of Volume 10 as their relationships reached its inevitable conclusion, and for that, I offer praise.

Mizuki Senoo is the star of the track team where Moe Nikaidou, her longtime friend, is the manager. These two are one of my favorite couples, but they also have the most problems of any. Both girls are entirely captivated by and devoted to each other, so much so that they become codependent. However, the way they address this codependency is horrible. Moe suddenly stops talking to Mizuki, which severely distresses the athlete and leads to poorly written angst. There is no logic, only nonsense choices made for the sake of plot. Of course, they resolve the issue, everything is happy and pleasant, and they decide to be together forever. And then (and this is my favorite part) they graduate and go to university and live together! This action is perhaps the one time that Kiss and White Lily manages to forgo the conventions of the genre and begins to approach queer representation. Mizuki and Moa are no longer bound by the walls of the high school, the confines of Catholic school style uniforms, the tropes of Yuri, but they are free adults who love each other and are together. It is a perfect ending, which does not excuse the atrocious middle. 

Volume 2 introduces to Chiharu Kusakabe and her roommates Maya Hoshino and Ai Uehara. These three are close and live together perfectly. However, as Maya is older than Ai and Chiharu, she will be graduating soon and leaving them behind. Chiharu struggles with her conflicted feelings for her senpai, with whom she has fallen in love. On the one hand, Chiharu wants Maya to be happy and go to a good university; on the other, she selfishly wants her to stay close. Chiharu begins to close herself off, but then she meets the stubborn (idiot) Izumi Akizuki.

The two girls start a sort of reluctant friendship, where Chiharu waits outside the school each morning to chastise Izumi for riding her bike, which is against school rules. However, Izumi does not stop riding her bike, and Chiharu never reports her. They grow closer, and Izumi helps Chiharu reconcile her relationship with Maya. Eventually, they start dating. It is all cute and wholesome. As these two get together early in the series, the reader has lots of time to enjoy them being together as they appear frequently. The conflicts in their relationships are grounded in reality, and working through them together has a clear positive effect on the character. The only complaint I have is that after they start dating, they mostly keep it a secret for no reason.

Towako Mita and Yukina Ooshiro are one of the worst couples in the manga. They are the only members of the gardening club, although they eventually recruit Kurosawa. As the club is so small, it is always on the edge of dismantlement, as the student council wants to move resources elsewhere. While Ooshiro works to save it, Towako is actively working behind her back to end the club. Her reasoning, she does not want things to change. That’s it, full stop, it is complete nonsense. Of course, they make up and decide to be together with an equally illogical apology. If characters are going to hurt others and then be forgiven there must be effort, reason, and care put into them, traits all lacking in this story. It is all awful.

The fourth volume is a mix: containing some of the series best moments and its worst, by which I mean, most boring. Moe and Mizuki’s romance reaches the spectacular crescendo previously referenced. But, half the volume is spent depicting Kaoru Machida, Kohagi Inoue, and Momiji Shikama. The relationship between these three is focused more on friendship than sexual or romantic desire (cough cough S). Actually, I do not mind this at all, but they. Are. So. Boring. I honestly forgot they existed in the first draft of this review and had to reread Volume 4 to remind myself of them. The fact that I am writing about this process instead of the actual characters says a lot about their lack of appeal.

Sawa Itoh and Itsuki Nishikawa are equally forgettable. They are easily the most mundane romantic couple in the series. The two knew each other long ago, but Sawa forgot about their friendship, much to Itsuki’s disappointment. However, they bond again as high school students and vow to make up for the lost time. Their story ends with Itsuki confessing her feelings for Sawa. Sawa returns those feelings in kind FIVE VOLUMES LATER. That is far too long to wait for a dull ending. NEXT!

Ryou Hiramu, Nina Yuunagi, and Amane Asakura make up Kiss and White Lily’s only three-person relationships and is one of the best. Polyamory is not everyone’s cup of tea. Still, in the context of fiction, their relationship works well and develops excitingly, complete with a healthy dose of melodrama. Hiramu begins to grow close to Asakura, much to the anger of Asakura’s roommate Yuunagi. Yuunagi wants Asakura all to herself, a point made abundantly clear to Hiramu. However, things get more complicated when Hiramu realizes that Yuunagi is an online friend of hers.

Yuunagi feels incredibly lonely, and her only real friend is Asakura. But, when Hiramu shows her kindness, Yuunagi begins to fall for Hiramu. Yuunagi feels incredible guilt over this, swearing that she should only need Amane and not wanting to compete for Hiramu’s affection. Their tale ends when a distraught Yuunagi runs away before being confronted by Hiramu and Asakura. There, in a tearful confession, she released her jealousy, her guilt, and her confusion. Despite being overblown, it is one of the most relatable and truthful emotional moments in the manga. The solution, Yuunagi does not have to choose; she can have more loves. It is a mature answer that, while not ideal for most, makes sense here and is healthy for all the characters.

The next volume focuses on Haine Aoi and her close in age aunt Aika Yukimura (who is more like her sister). Before anyone breaks out the pitchforks or plants this volume next to Citrus on their bookshelf, the relationship is not sexual. This intention is explicitly shown in a scene where Aika contemplates kissing her sleeping niece (creepy) but decides against it, saying, “I don’t actually want to kiss her.” This moment deliberately and awkwardly setting the parameters of their relationships as not sexual. However, there are clear romantic implications. As the two struggle with the idea of drifting apart as most “sisters” do, they decide that this will not happen to them, and they will only grow stronger together. Ultimately, they declared themselves to be soulmates, albeit platonic ones.

This relationship is the most divisive of the series. There will be some, such as myself, who can acknowledge the apparent class s ties and the familial relationship yet can still enjoy the wholesome and grounded story. However, many others will understandably have difficulty overlooking these aspects of the narrative. I invite readers to give this volume a look and decide for themselves. Even if it turns out that Haine and Aika’s storyline is not for you, Shiramine and Kurosawa are at their best here and will save the volume for you. However, whether or not you like this couple, can we all agree that the decision to feature a major story act about a piano player (Haine) and NOT include a piano duet is INSANE!! Canno is not at all coy with Yuri tropes in this series, and this exclusion will not stand!

Nagisa Tatsumi and Hikari Torayama are rivals, opponents in the student council president election, and secretly roommates. The two live together by necessity, with their adorable kitten. Neither one can stand the other. However, when given the opportunity to separate, they decide they would prefer to continue living together. There is not much here. Even though one is labeled as “nice” and the other “mean,” Nagisa and Hikari have the same personality. The other “tsundere” type character in Kiss and White Lily, Shiramine, works because she is given time to grow and develop as a complicated character and because she is paired with someone different than here. Unfortunately, aside from some cute trope-filled moments like an accidental kiss, these two are insignificant. But. perhaps I am too hard on them, as I am conditioned to expect Yuri featuring characters named Nagisa and Hikari to be far more dramatic, grandiose, and interesting

Asuka Sakurada and Mikaze Hagimoto are the final couple introduced, as the next and final volume is only concerned with wrapping up previously established relationships. A shame, as they are the single most problematic and dysfunctional couple presented. Sakurada and Hagimoto are both cosplayers, which is how they meet, and the younger Hagimoto quickly asks Sakurada out. Sakurada is awful. She is cruel, detached, and rude to almost everyone. After an injury forced her to repeat her final year at Seiran Academy, causing her to be somewhat jaded, to say the least. What little the reader sees of their romance, which last all of a dozen pages, is appalling. Sakurada is mean and unaffectionate, and Hagimoto attempts to force her into activities she does not want to do. They break up quickly, and the rest of the volume plays out like a tragic love story, as Hagimoto pines for her senpai, and Sakurada says dramatic lines about how she “can never go back.” Of course, by the end, they have made up and are together again.

Not only are we giving this vile relationship, but excellent moments of emotional distress are wasted on them. For example, Hagimoto delivers a tearful and moving speech on a train platform. There is also a rare moment of clarity from Hagimoto, where she realizes that she did nothing to make the relationship work, followed by an admittance from Hagimoto that she just wanted to be more like Sakurada. Now, characters realizing their mistakes and faults to move forward and become better, as individuals and a couple is incredible; however, there needs to be a solid foundation. The unfortunate truth is that such tragic and dramatic relationships take time and investment. The reader needs to want to see these characters get better and make up, something notably lacking here. This awful partnership tarnishes the beautiful scenes present.

Fortunately, Volume 9 is not a total loss, far from it. Shiramine and Kurosawa complete their personal arcs described previously in this review, thus clearing the way for Volume 10 to finally have them get together, perform a quick survey of the other characters, and tie up any dangling story threads in a bow covered with cute kisses and gentle service.

Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl is an incredibly mixed bag of a series. It gives a wide variety of couples and tropes for the reader to enjoy, but many of the relationships suffer significantly from weak characters or uninteresting storylines. Its mediocre start does not help the series. Early outings are noticeably lacking in all categories from plot to artwork, which provides a difficult barrier for entry. However, there is a lot to love here. It is a spectacular showcase of Yuri and an absolute classic of the genre’s current era. Kiss and White Lily is THE YURI MANGA, a title that bears both the great and terrible of the genre.

This series concluding publication feels appropriate for the genre’s centennial. The tropes it features, which have paraded the genre for the past hundred years, will not go away. But, the conclusion of Kiss and White Lily feels, at least for the moment, like their last hurrah before stepping back to let a new century’s worth of newer and queerer works make their mark in the genre.

Ratings: Story – 6 Characters – 4 Art – 7 LGBTQ – 8 Sexual Content – 2 Final – 5

Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Vol. 10 review copy provided by Yen Press ( @yenpress​ )

You can get the series digitally and in print today: Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Vol. 10 - https://amzn.to/34k8sAj

[itsclydebitches]

Wait what was the mess with Ilia/queer representation? I don't usually look into these things so I probably didn't hear or see people talking about it

Happy to explain! First, the obligatory disclaimer: Ilia is a complicated case and, like anything else in RWBY, her place in the show is very much up to interpretation. I think her character arc, particularly in relation to her status as a queer character, is an absolute mess but I know others are of the opposite opinion. Many of the “flaws” I point out are perceived as her greatest strengths. So it’s subjective.

That being said, I wrote a little bit about this during Volume 5 when it was all going down. A simplified list of the primary issues includes:

Introducing your first, long-awaited queer character as a villain (even a sympathetic one)

“Redeeming” her in the span of one episode in a way that provides no punishment/responsibility/growth in the face of the horrific acts she committed

This character is left behind by the story at the end of the volume, presumably never to be seen again outside of, perhaps, a final battle that includes the whole cast

Tying her queerness directly to her villainy

It’s this last point that I take the most issue with. See, the fandom is right to point out that Ilia has motivations for her actions established throughout the volume, namely the death of her parents and the general racism that is still pervading Remnant. Ilia says multiple times throughout Volume 5 that this is why she’s going after Blake and her family. Because she honestly believes that they are a threat to the faunus’ progress. However, just because a character says something doesn’t make it true. Take Yang in the same season. She says she doesn’t want/care if Blake ever comes back to the group, which anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the show knows is BS. Rather, Yang’s emotions are functioning on multiple levels. A part of her really doesn’t want Blake to return because she’s still furious with her, whereas a larger part of her wants them to reconcile. Now, apply that logic to Ilia. It’s absolutely true to say that she’s motivated by activism and the death of her parents, however, her confrontation with Blake reveals that this isn’t the only reason for her attack. It is, arguably, not even the primary reason. Ilia gives a speech about how they need to be doing more for the faunus, how she doesn’t like to hurt people but she can’t deny that it has gotten them results. Yet when Blake challenges this part of her identity - you’re not a killer - the conversation unexpectedly takes a turn. When pushed to explain how she became this way Ilia does not reiterate her thoughts on racism or the trauma of her parents’ deaths. Instead, she starts talking about her unrequited feelings for Blake: 

Suddenly, Ilia’s motivations have changed. Or rather, they’ve become more complicated. Both sets of motivations exists, but this is the one she admits to under duress, framing it as more “true” than what she’s been saying prior to this conversation. Now, Ilia shows personal motivations rather than just the generically good rhetoric of I Want To End Racism Because It’s Bad. Having Blake down on her knees, shipping her off to Adam, and killing her parents is explicitly connected to the (perceived) problem of, “You didn’t love me.”  Blake is positioned as responsible for who Ilia became: You want to know why I’m like this? You were too busy looking at Adam. I wanted you to look at me that way but you didn’t. That’s how I learned that we can’t always get what we want. So now you don’t get to have what you want (your parents’ safety, distance from Adam). You get to feel what I felt when you didn’t love me back. When Blake poses the question of, “Why are you like this?” Ilia’s answer is “Because I’m queer, have unrequited feelings, and that taught me that life sucks. Now I’m returning the favor.” 

Suddenly, Ilia’s actions are removed from the (already ethically dubious) logic of treating Blake this way because she believes it will help the faunus in the long run and instead are implied to stem from a desire to punish her for not reciprocating those feelings. In this moment Ilia moves from a misguided activist-turned-terrorist and instead becomes a misguided lesbian seeking revenge. She might not admit it - she never explicitly says that she’s punishing Blake for not loving her - but that’s the implication by taking the conversation in this direction; by having Ilia answer with her sexuality rather than her activist views. By drawing such an overt connection between these actions and Ilia’s admission, these things - the impending death of Blake’s parents, kidnapping her, sending her back to her abuser - are framed as things that she “deserves” according to Ilia. If you’d just looked at me with love from the start we never would have ended up here. This falls into a number of horrible tropes including, but not limited to, The Predatory Gay, The Psycho Lesbian, and The Queer Character Falling For Their (Presumably) Straight Friend.

Now, the takeaway here is not “You can never write villainous queer characters.” More often than not any statement beginning with “You can never write ____” is going to be a bad take. Indeed, there are tons of queer/queer coded villains who I adore. That doesn’t mean I want media to perpetuate that long, stereotyped history though. “But Clyde,” the world says. “That doesn’t make any sense. How can you both want and not want this setup?” To which I respond with the iconic words of Jane Lynch:

People’s identities are made up of multiple parts and those parts can read the same writing choice in different ways. As a queer person who loves the ~drama~ of a flamboyant villain I want that entertainment (like Watts). As a queer person who is disgusted by the implications tied to that trend (you’re evil, you’re unnatural, you’re sick, you deserve to be punished, to be killed) I don’t want to see our only queer character be a villain. Which is what Ilia was at the time of her reveal. She was all we had and we didn’t know if RT would ever going to give us anyone else. That was just awful to watch and worry about. It didn’t make me happy. Which sounds like a shit thing to say - This isn’t your story! It doesn’t cater to you! - but after years of waiting for queer rep it felt like a kick in the teeth to get this character in this way and leave her behind when we had a cast of five main women right there, any of which could have been queer. Ilia’s reading was made worse by the lack of rep surrounding her, but to be frank things haven’t improved much. I adore Saphron and Terra, I think they were really well done as characters, but they’re still very minor characters and we can’t ignore that, like Ilia, they were left behind by the story. Blake and Yang are not canon yet, leaving all the hints at their relationship sitting in the limbo of, “Is this just queer baiting?” If you’re someone who pays attention to queer coding, a lot of queer-coded men have been killed off in this show (Roman, Ozpin, Clover). We supposedly have one trans character… whose identity thus far only exists in a tweet.

Kudos to RT for hiring a trans voice actor - they absolutely deserve recognition for that - but it’s still not enough in this day and age. It’s 2020. Queer coding, queer minor characters quickly shuffled off screen, and queer “rep” in the form of paratextual info simply doesn’t fly. We decided that in the most vocal terms possible during the Harry Potter era, a fandom that took over most of the world and, thus, had one hell of an impact on media going forward. No, it’s not rep if you say Dumbledore is gay in an interview but never work that into the story. It’s not rep if you say May is trans on Twitter but don’t work that into the story. Not unless both characters are supplemental additions to a canon already filled with a variety of queer rep. “It’s so cool that this character is also queer! I get why you didn’t have time to work that in, so it’s a good thing we have those five other characters to identify with.” RT might do that in the future. Blake and Yang might become canon in Volume 8. May might be confirmed in the show. Saphron and Terra might unexpectedly arrive to become a part of the story again. We simply don’t know. But as of right now Ilia is one of only three in-canon queer characters out of a cast of ten bajillion (approximately lol) and out of those three she is the only one who was developed into a well-rounded character. That means nearly the entirely of RWBY’s rep rests on her shoulders. I think her queerness is fine for a cast already full of queer characters. There it functions as good diversity - “Some lesbians do join extremist groups and blame unrequited love for their murder plans!” - rather than representation for lesbians/queer people as a whole - “It’s a good thing we have these three other heroic lesbians in RWBY to balance out the message Ilia sends!” But since we don’t have that the takeaway is just what we’ve seen for decades: Queer characters are villains. Queer characters are violent and predatory. Queer characters are written out of the show.

Historically, Ilia’s characterization has problems on its own, but those problems were very much exacerbated by making her the first and, at that point, only queer rep. I - and no doubt others - would have been far more receptive to her as representation if we’d already gotten queer heroes prior to her introduction. And again, that’s a preference. Some fans want more queer villains as a way to say, “Anyone can be queer.” For me though, I’ve seen enough Ilias throughout my life. I’ve seen enough versions of my identity painted as unwanted and dangerous. I was expecting RWBY to do better and I hope that they will do better in the future.