#and it’s one of the most comforting thing about reading queer narratives from the past

[himblebo]

I feel so fucking seen

[phregnancy]

Sometimes I read bottom Dan fic from a few years ago and I'm like "who are these people?" lol. It's like people totally disregarded Phil's personality in order for him to fit the stereotypical mold they'd cast him in. It was the same for Dan tbh. Lbr the only reason why people thought Dan was the bottom is bc he's younger and more outwardly feminine than Phil. The idea that bottom= submissive and top= dominate is flawed anyway, but also...Dan is not submissive. He's quite bossy and controlling. In the past, I'd even say he could be domineering. I don't see their dynamic as even being Dom/sub tbh. It's more of a playful power struggle. Except Dan fights by asserting dominance and Phil fights by being cute and whining until Dan gives in or being an absolute menace and annoying Dan into submission lmao

rewriting this for the third time because my app keeps refreshing </3 but i agree with alllll of this. putting it under a cut because i got way off course and went on a tangent lol

someone recently said that they can tell who of us have been actively engaged in diverse irl queer communities (clubs, bars, sports leagues, activism groups, etc) vs who of us haven’t and i’ve been thinking about that a lot in regards to this. obviously nothing wrong with not engaging with your irl queer communities, some people don’t have access or don’t feel comfortable or simply don’t want to and all of that is fine - but you do have to work harder to unlearn a lot of heteronormative concepts like these and you have to familiarize yourself with queer culture and history (outside of social media). people’s outward presentations of masculinity and femininity have nothing to do with their sexual preferences, and dan has shared that exact sentiment in so many words (wondering if people think he’s a bottom because he’s slightly more feminine, and then discouraging that narrative as a whole). i also think there was a lot of hyperbolizing with their masculine and feminine presentations, because for a long time dan really was not that feminine and phil really was not that masculine. they were both emo nerd boys who played video games and drank too much soda. even now with personas like sister daniel, that really is not the height of femininity in queer culture or drag culture.

i think there’s also something to be said about people’s lack of familiarity with queer culture showing in people’s thoughts on them being in an open relationship and also 2009 bottom dan.

i don’t particularly care about the open relationship discourse one way or another, but a lot of mlm relationships are open. there are studies and statistics on this, gay men are the most comfortable and open to open relationships. if they hooked up with people when dan was touring or even just someone every now and then, it wouldn’t be as shocking as some people make it out to be. i also think there’s a problem with people conflating open relationships with polyamory, and those two things are often very different. people in open relationships tend to be committed to each other, but will sometimes want to have noncommittal sex with other people. polyamory is having multiple committed relationships (romantic or sexual). clingy phil and possessive dan having noncommittal sex with other people wouldn’t change that they’re still clingy x possessive. and if you’re actively engaged in irl queer communities vs online echo chambers you’ll learn this.

i’m getting way off course here lol but then in regards to people thinking 2009 dan was bottoming as a default, that’s been a pet peeve of mine since forever because it shows a lack of familiarity with mlm relationships. it’s extremely unlikely that dan’s first gay sexual experiences were being on the receiving end of anal sex, that takes time to get used to (with yourself and with a partner) and often isn’t most men’s first gay sexual position. they also weren’t together long enough until phil got his first apartment to have dan be familiar enough with anal to take phil’s dick every time he visited. i know everyone thinks little twink dan taking phil’s big dick is so hot, but big dicks can be painful and are something you work yourselves towards. and y’know, who knows what actually went on in that bedroom so much cherry everywhere, but i do think we should dispel some of these beliefs that again are playing into heteronormativity (little feminine dan taking big masculine emo phil)

dan has always been bossy and controlling and he was quite confident with the people he was comfortable around (phil + other youtubers + his audience) and then grew to be a confident person in general. i see them as a real brat x brat relationship with them being bratty in different ways (bossy/teasing vs whiney/pushing buttons).

here’s my last thing (thanks for reading this novel if you made it this far) - there is a difference between knowing all of this, and still just preferring bottom sub dan x top dom phil because you think it’s hot, vs believing there’s no other dynamics that could exist because of heteronormative stereotypes that you are actively playing into. like what you like and have fun! but please work on educating yourself and unlearning heteronormativity. sorry for the spiel!

[merrysithmas]

i really like reading your thoughts on "girl"! i was just wondering what you think might happen after paul passes? do you think people will start to examine the relationship between them as something more than just songwriting partners? i mean nothing really changed when yoko said john was bisexual (and some fans still don't believe it!). in my wildest dreams, paul's estate will drop a posthumous tell all book and we'll be left with so many questions lol.    

John himself said he was queer several times - I remember watching an interview with him when he was saying being an artist in a capitalist world requires money and that if he wasn't famous he'd need to have married "a rich old lady or man" to be a songwriter.

He also said he hooked up with Brian in Spain (Yoko confirmed he told the press they did "do it" and she was seemingly applauding his bravery in saying so).

Lennon remarked that he was "afraid of the fag in him" which made him act on his anger and set off his worst most fearsome temper explosions.

Also I think there was a few "tell alls" where past friends reported that he was open about his queerness & confirmed hooking up with Brian in frustration.

May Pang wrote that he told her he considered (lol) an affair with Paul. He spent two years in gay clubs in LA.

Yoko also confirmed he was bi (as far she she knew, maybe later on had he not been murdered he'd have identified as gay or pan).

Elton John said he and Lennon did "naughty" things together and laughed about said things with Sean, his godson. Julian Lennon did an interview where he said he "agreed" that John and Paul were in love during the Get Back film period.

Lennon also contributed a first-person poem the First Gay Liberation book.

Those are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head. He also seems to have had a relationship of some kind with Stu (conjecture) and an obvious-departed-from-platonic dynamic with Paul which is easily, easily an emotionally romantic affair at least (which isn't the half of it).

Anyone who denies his queerness does a great disservice to his memory & the incredible poignancy of his songs in this context during his time period. Artists have been reworking the lyrics and wording of their queer songs to appeal to an unaccepting general audience for commerciality FOREVER and to assume this was not done by Lennon, who is "confirmed" queer (if you needed to hear it from Yoko for it to be true to you) is truly delusion.

I think after Paul has left us people will feel more comfortable analyzing their relationship in a queer sense and I do think at some point it has likely been engineered that something to that effect will be officially announced or endorsed in some regard by their Estates (to generate continued moneymaking lol and interest and enigma). I feel like that's something that could happen, reasonably, after Yoko is gone and her hold on the Lennon narrative is diluted into Sean's POV & the McCartney family has the freedom to speculate or give their personal feelings on the life of their beloved father in retrospect. There's also the chance Paul could say something or leave something to that effect before he leaves us.

I feel like Paul would never say anything otherwise because John never got to endorse any release of their personal history before his tragic and senseless murder in a time period where being gay was still treated with such bigotry and cruelty (the 80s). I feel like Paul's great respect for Jane Asher and their relationship is a testament to this because he has never spoken about their relationship out of respect for her - for the exact reason that she has never spoke publically about it herself.

Paul is a pragmatic and private person and I feel like he knows the majority of the ignorant world isn't ready to hear the biggest band in human history was founded on teenaged homoromantic affection/gay love. But maybe one day, it will be.

This is speculation on my part but Paul also probably doesn't want Yoko to know anything because either she is willfully ignorant or John truly wasn't honest with her and Paul feels it's something she doesn't deserve to know - especially if it's something John kept private & only between he and Paul. It's something he always has that's over and beyond what Yoko and John had & he seems to treasure those specific things no matter what they are. Obviously... Paul still doesn't care for Yoko and he is probably extremely fatigued of the fact that she has been the managing agent & author of John's estate for 40 years (when in the late 70s she and John seemed on unsteady terms as per other parties) and then treated Julian with such disregard. Sean on the other hand seems to have grown to love Paul, but we'll see lol.

I also feel like Paul probably has a few "surprises" for Beatles fans lined up for after he and Ringo are gone - he just seems like that kind of person and wants the Beatles to continue on in great esteem for many many years to come.

thank you for your ask!!

[denimbex1986]

'When the losses and grief of the past are too great, the present becomes populated by ghosts, those ghosts that you call to yourself in your memory and then can't get rid of. “All of us Strangers” is a tale of ghosts and suffering, a great inspection of modern man and his way of mourning.

And it is one of the most tender love stories in modern cinema. The fact that it is the affection between two men that is illustrated here in a subtle, at times reverent way is important and also not. Being gay is a significant but not the only theme in the Andrew Haigh-directed film. With Adam (Andrew Scott) and Harry (Paul Mescal), the two lovers, it becomes clear what a challenge intimacy, understood as mutual recognition and acceptance, means - beyond sexual orientation.

Meeting the dead parents

The two men are neighbors, both residents of an anonymous high-rise apartment building in London. Harry makes very direct advances to Adam. At the beginning it's just a flirt, you spend a night together. Adam is a screenwriter, working on a script about his own story, his youth in the eighties. He regularly drives out to the suburbs to his parents' house. There he miraculously meets his parents, who died in a car accident when he was twelve years old. Adam's puberty, his queerness, his life as an author - his parents missed all of this.

Who is this couple, played by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy, who live as if the eighties never passed? Are they projections of the son, on whom the unresolved grief is playing mental tricks? Are they ghosts, stranded in an intermediate realm of nostalgia? Are they actors in Adam's script scenario, which takes shape in concrete reality, just as an artist's imagination can become real, as concretizations of a poetic higher truth?

The puzzle is not solved. This is the film's outstanding aesthetic achievement: despite all its openness to interpretations and readings, it shows something very directly, namely what grief is like. That the injuries, the missed opportunities, the unspoken insults of yesterday help shape our today.

Catch-up coming out

Adam visits his parents three times, who now get to know their son as an adult. They didn't know he was gay, and his coming out is the cause of many touching, painful moments. “Aren’t people being mean to you today?” asks the mother, whose world is that of the Thatcher era. “No, things are different today,” says the son with a mixture of indulgence and amusement. “They say it’s a lonely life,” worries the mother. “If I’m lonely, it’s not because I’m gay,” Adam replies.

Andrew Scott plays this man in his mid-thirties as a self-confident man who is at the same time hurt by loss and loneliness. The longing for closeness and comfort from parents is covered with a fine veneer of disappointment. His polite way of tutoring his father and mother about life in the 21st century is mixed with defiance and resentment.

The conversation with the father, who suspected that his son was gay - "you were pretty tough as a child" - but didn't stand by him and forced the boy to perform rituals of masculinity (sitting with his legs apart, playing football) is one of them moving highlights of the film. Because the father regrets his lack of sensitivity and solidarity, and in turn longs for closeness to his beloved, but always estranged, son. Rarely has one seen the high moral and emotional demands that a serious reparation must achieve illustrated in such a way in a film.

Parallel to the journey through time and memory, Adam and Harry get closer to each other in the present - although present is a questionable term in this narrative that weaves the levels of time and imagination together. Harry, for his part, is hurt: by the averageness of his family, which, in its bourgeois saturation, has to repress and marginalize the queer. Harry seems lost, one wandering through nightclubs and casual romances. Adam's affection could be an anchor in this life weighed down by self-doubt and fear.

Virtuoso camera work

In his brilliant portrayal, Paul Mescal shows us the breaking points of modern manhood. How difficult it is to appear cool and at the same time remain sensitive, casual and yet serious and authoritative in personal matters. Jamie D. Ramsay's camera work is masterfully tailored to this differentiated game: primarily in close-ups, he literally brings us closer to the characters and captures their ambivalent nature in precise images.

“I know how easy it is to stop taking care of yourself,” Harry says at one point. This describes a burden that burdens every fragile, fundamentally damaged person: the effort to lead a middle-class, conventionally successful life. The encounters of today and the connections of yesterday: Both represent social, mental and psychological challenges. In order for the present to succeed, the past must, if not cleaned up, then at least be recognized and accepted in its formative effects. “All of us strangers” demands this project from its heroes and us, the audience. And this impertinence is cinematic bliss.'

[emotionallychargedtowel]

I finally got a chance to watch episode 7 (well, it hadn't been delayed for that long, but I was in quite a bit of suspense!) and I have a lot of thoughts about this! I'll probably do another post separately but I wanted to start by responding to/expanding on what @bengiyo discusses here.

First off, Ben, I've really been appreciating your discussion of this show and it's helping a lot as I work out my own thoughts about it.

I think looking at Ryunosuke through a second lead lens makes a lot of sense. He's not a conventional second lead but he functions like one in improtant ways. It's also true that he doesn't pose much of a threat to Kazuma as a rival for Ren's affections. Though there's one important area in which Kazuma would be justified in feeling jealous. Ren has been open with Ryunosuke all this time while keeping Kazuma in the dark. It's a kind of intimacy that Kazuma and Ren haven't had.

It's also true that Ryunosuke's hatred of Kazuma is very understandable. Ben, I think your characterization of how Ryunosuke views Kazuma is spot on. But I want to bracket the sexual orientation piece of things for the moment. In which case, the argument looks a bit like this:

Ryunosuke hates Kazuma....From his perspective, Ren threw himself on the sword of homophobia so that Kazuma could remain naïve and innocent....[Kazuma] seems completely untouched by what happened when Ren and Kazuma were 15. He doesn’t read as queer to Ryunosuke or Ren. If I was Ryunosuke, I would also doubt that Kazuma doesn’t remember anything about what happened or has no idea what could have happened to Ren.

So far, so good. This is not only how things are bound to look to Ryunosuke, but aside from the part about doubting his lack of memories/awareness of what happened, it's how things seem to look to Ren as well. (Ren has actually been assuming Kazuma remembers a lot less than he does, so if anyone gave Ryunosuke that idea, it was him.)

In Kazuma, everything Ren sacrificed is validated. He suffered so that Kazuma wouldn’t, and he succeeded! Kazuma is fine! He went back to the US and had a normal experience in high school as a member of the football team. He went to school and became a talented professional.

Although there's not an explicit shift here, I think we're sliding into a description of Ren's perspective rather than Ryunosuke's, though I could be mistaken. This might be how things would reasonably look to Ryunosuke. But if Ren is spinning this kind of narrative, he should know better.

If Ren thinks Kazuma has

had a safe and easy life since the incident ten years ago, he should ask himself this: From the outside, what would most people assume his high school experience was like? From the outside, what does his current life look like?

When others, including Kazuma, hear about Ren's high school life, they hear that he studied abroad and won lots of awards. It sounds like a privileged life where he learned to make a living doing something he's passionate about. His present-day life looks great too. He's extremely well-liked, attractive, and seems confident and comfortable in social situations. He's also highly successful in his work. He's already the head of a department despite being in his mid-20s. He sounds like he's had a really good life.

Of course, if you learn more about Ren, you find out that he's struggling a lot more than he seems to be at first glance. He lost his first love under traumatic circumstances. He's convinced himself that the one time he was intimate with Kazuma, it was a coercive encounter that was damaging to him. He's been carrying all of this around for ten years. He also hasn't been able to have sex since his first time with Kazuma. When he tries, he has severe anxiety/panic symptoms and has to stop. Even when he manages to get past this block with Kazuma, he can't bear to let him see his face or hear him make a sound. He's suffering a lot. It's heartbreaking.

If Ren's real experience is so different from what others expect, why wouldn't this be the case for Kazuma? This is something that ought to have occurred to him.

Kazuma didn't have to face the same difficult transition Ren did when he returned to the US, but he was still torn away from a home where he was happy and a best friend he loved--all immediately following a life-threatening illness. When he reminisces about high school, he mentions having friends he ate burgers with and playing football (I'm not sure if this was American football or what we'd call soccer). But there’s also plenty of reason to believe he had difficulties. Kazuma has always struggled in social situations, as Ren knows well from their time in middle school. Part of the impetus for their friendship was Ren helping Kazuma out when he was overwhelmed and anxious around their classmates.

Kazuma has also shown that he still has difficulties with social situations in the present. (I keep thinking of him at the award celebration, sitting at a table alone watching Ren talking to a clump of admirers.) Kazuma is also dealing with a boss who was clearly a massive prick even before we found out he was a rapist. What Ren doesn't know, but might be able to guess, is that Kazuma seems to be quite socially isolated outside of work as well. He's lonely. Even before the friends-with-benefits arrangement gets started, even when all the contact they had was brief hallway chats and quick work lunches, seeing Ren was the biggest highlight of Kazuma's daily life--and there didn't seem to be any other highlights worth noting.

Ren has no way of knowing that Kazuma is estranged from his mother, but that's another reason he's isolated and deprived of closeness and social support. They're both basically bereft of family. Ren can't be expected to guess this, but he at least ought to realize it's possible, since he knows from experience that some people are abandoned by their family, and they tend not to advertise that fact.

If Ren was thinking this through, he would realize that the sacrifice he made for Kazuma didn't ensure his happiness, and keeping things from him in the present isn't protecting him either.

Now, back to that sexual orientation piece I had set aside.

He doesn’t carry the scars of growing up queer and feeling different that so many of us wear. He doesn’t even think of himself in terms of queerness. He only thinks of Ren. He is a BL protagonist.

It's true that Kazuma has that oddly specific sexual orientation that only seems to occur in BLs where a young guy is attracted to one singular human being in the whole world, another young man (who for some reason, often seems to be allowed to be a regular gay dude). It's hard to imagine a justification for this other than straight-up homophobia. I'm not sure why it's better to love one man than to have the capacity to love men more generally. I read somewhere that in the beginning of the genre, part of the appeal of yaoi was the idea that the love between these characters was particularly "pure" in some way. Maybe this level of devotion to one person is supposed to indicate this sort of "purity"?

I can't help contrasting the use of this trope in Tokyo in April Is... with its use in Utsukushii Kare. It's certainly questionable there as well. But I think it mitigates how problematic it is by giving this weird sexual orientation to someone who is already incredibly weird. Hira is already established as a deeply strange person before he says that Kiyoi is the only person he has ever been attracted to. It makes it seem less like this is the best way for a person to be when it's a massive oddball who has this tendency.

Kazuma's version of this doesn't hold up as well in comparison. When Ryunosuke says to him, "You're not even gay!" Kazuma replies, "That doesn't matter!" (At least Hira had the decency to say "I don't know" when asked if he "like[d] men" in Utsukushii Kare.) He goes on to say that "Regardless of gender, I have no interest in anyone other than Ren. Ren is the only one important to me." Of course, I don't know how much translation choices played into the wording on all of this. I'd be really curious to know. But interpreting it as it's worded here, it does seem like Kazuma is treading dangerously close to "gay for you" territory, if he isn't already there and just not quite announcing the fact. (I wish there was a separate term for the "you're my sexual orientation" trope so that it would be easier to discuss. Maybe there is and I just don't know about it?)

At the same time, I think the show as a whole has a saving grace in this department, and that is the use of Ryunosuke as a foil to Kazuma. Ryunosuke is a reminder to the audience that Ren could be (and seemingly is) loved by another gay man, one who isn't conflicted about his attraction to Ren or making some kind of exception. Ryunosuke is fully aware of both what happened in the past and what's going on in the present in a way neither Ren nor Kazuma is, showing more clarity about their situation than either of the other two. He voices the fact that it's kind of fucked up that Kazuma feels so entitled to be with Ren despite not identifying as gay or bi himself. In these ways and in others, he presents a contrast that calls Kazuma's BL-centric sexuality into question.

Ryunosuke is understandably irritated by this and feels compelled to challenge and provoke Kazuma. Guys like him can be dangerous in our community....Has he ever considered what Ren suffered? Does he know what Ren gave up for him?

I'm pretty fascinated with the way that Ryunosuke not only acts as a foil to Kazuma but actively calls him out. And when I say he calls him out, he not only doesn't pull any punches, he adds a thick layer of contempt and some really personal jabs for good measure. Which, again, is understandable. It's natural to have a bias against anyone we don't know who may have wronged someone who's important to us. Add to that the bias anyone would have toward a rival, especially a rival who your crush has been pining for in your presence in the most excruciating manner for a decade, and of course he's angry.

He really gives it to Kazuma with both barrels. When they first meet, the way he hangs all over Ren while mad-dogging Kazuma with fixed, unflinching eye contact is something that is going to stick with me for a while. When they meet at the coffee shop, he really goes for the jugular when he mentions explicit details of all the sex with Ren that he's never actually had (but wants Kazuma to think he has). That's all dramatic window-dressing, though. (I say this with love, as someone who eats this kind of jealousy stuff up with a spoon.)

When Ryunosuke really lets Kazuma have it is when he tells him everything he didn't know about what happened to Ren after their last moments together. It's interesting. This is both exactly what Kazuma needs, and what he has been seeking the whole time, and at the same time is so deeply hurtful that Ryunosuke could be motivated purely by spite in telling him.

Is he, though? I guess I don't think it's 100% spite. Maybe he's at least hoping this could be good for Ren in some way. When he says, "I'll end this nonsense between you two," it could be interpreted as helpful, hostile, or both. He seems to sincerely want the "nonsense" and needless misunderstandings to stop. But at the very least, I think we can all agree that he doesn't mind in the slightest that sharing this information involves making Kazuma cry.

Maybe the most scathing moment is when Ryunosuke asks Kazuma, "Weren't you just avoiding the truth?" This clearly gets to Kazuma in a big way, and for good reason.

Is this accurate, or fair? That's really hard to say. There's no way some part of Kazuma hasn't been avoiding the truth. If I knew someone who had a wristband (or other wrist covering of some sort) that they never removed, the possibility of scarring from self-harm would occur to me pretty readily. I don't know whether the real meaning of his last name change should have occurred to Kazuma or not. There seem to be cultural factors there that I don't fully grasp. But it's possible he should have thought of this too. The significance of Ren suddenly, with no prior plan, studying abroad seems like it should also have occurred to him. More than anything, you would expect that since Kazuma's last memory before his hospitalization was his tearful postcoital moment with Ren, he'd realize that Ren probably had to call for help from the love hotel in order to keep him safe, which would have involved a risk, if not a certainty, of being criticized or punished by their parents.

Kazuma definitely seems to have been in some degree of denial. But honestly, denial is a pretty omnipresent part of the human experience. We're all in denial of something at any given time. Our mortality, the amount of suffering in the world, and just how little control we have over bad things happening to ourselves and the people we love are some big areas most people are in denial about almost all the time.

When people are relatively healthy, it's not too hard to do good reality-testing. In other words, we can usually tell when an idea or perception isn't in keeping with what we know about real life. But reality-testing tends to suffer when people are distressed. Sometimes we have to be in denial about important things to survive. In any kind of extreme situation, as our reality-testing suffers, our capacity for denial grows.

So I think that Kazuma was avoiding the truth, and he knows it. But just because someone avoided the awareness of something unpleasant doesn't mean they did it knowingly or willingly. My guess is that it would have been extremely difficult, if it was even really possible, for Kazuma to see everything really clearly at such a young age and under such distressing conditions. Once he wasn't actively recovering from a crisis anymore, he would have been more able to see things more clearly. But often, once we form a distorted or avoidant way of looking at an experience, it's really hard to change. Without the new information Ryunosuke confronts Kazuma with, maybe he would have had an epiphany after a while. But it would have been hard to get there.

I feel like I should note here that I don't think we can trust Kazuma when he makes statements about how badly he has failed Ren, how he should have done x or y, or how to what extent he knew better all along what was happening and how he ought to respond. Basically, I think we have make allowances for his harshness toward himself. When Kazuma says he deserves a given amount of blame for something, we should shrink that amount down considerably given his propensity for self-criticism, rumination, and taking on too much responsibility for others.

That's actually the grain of truth in Ren's distorted image of Kazuma. Ren thinks that a desire to protect him was the only reason Kazuma had sex with him ten years ago. I think it's pretty clear it wasn't, though it may have been the initial impetus. It makes some sense, at least, that Ren views it that way. But it's less reasonable that Ren seems to think that Kazuma has been having sex with him on a nearly daily basis for months just to be nice. It's just an absurd claim on its face.

That said, even if it's not reasonable, it's pretty understandable. When the stakes are high, it's pretty amazing how much human beings are capable of distorting reality to suit our beliefs. In this case, Ren has a massive case of internalized homophobia that was almost certainly worsened by being condemned and abandoned by his parents and other important adult figures at such a formative age. It's no wonder he views love and intimacy as a burden he puts on Kazuma instead of gifts to be shared.

But I digress! Basically, the idea that Kazuma is such a martyr that he'd have that much personally unfulfilling sex as a favor for a friend doesn't hold up to scrutiny. But the grain of truth in this idea is the fact that Kazuma is very giving, hard on himself, and interested in taking care of Ren.

In episode 7, he castigates himself for not asking Ren questions. But he asked all of the questions he knew to ask. He asked why Ren's last name changed. He asked what happened after he fell unconscious ten years ago. He asked about the wristband. He asked everything that, if Ren had answered him, could have resolved the misunderstandings between them. He could have been more persistent with his questions, certainly. But Ren was so resistant when Kazuma asked about any of it. Just as Ren lived in fear of losing Kazuma, Kazuma lived in fear of losing Ren. I'm sure it seemed as if Ren might not want anything to do with him if he kept pressing for answers to his questions. And it's possible that he really would have run away had Kazuma pushed harder for answers or sought his answers elsewhere. Ren was deeply afraid of what would happen if Kazuma were to find out the truth about him (as Ren sees it). I can completely imagine Ren running away if it seemed like Kazuma would find out the truth imminently.

Of course, Ren is extremely hard on himself too, maybe even more than Kazuma. Kazuma takes too much responsibility for others and rakes himself over the coals if he thinks he hasn't been perfect at caring for the people he loves. Ren is hard on himself in a different way--frankly, he hates himself. He seems to expect that if he's truly known by the person he loves most, he'll be not only rejected but despised. And it makes a kind of sense. Whether you label his version of what happened between him and Kazuma in the love hotel as "forcing [him]self on" Kazuma (as he put it when he confessed to their parents), coercive sex, sexual assault, or even rape, at the end of the day Ren thinks he sexually violated the love of his life, the sweetest, most sensitive person he has ever met, and that must foster a downright lethal level of self-loathing.

(And again, circling back, Ryunosuke has been witnessing all of this for a decade now and thinking about how it's all because of this Kazuma. I'd be pissed too.)

The overlap between Kazuma's and Ren's self-critical tendencies actually explains a lot about the barriers keeping them apart. There are plenty of BLs (and other similar types of stories) that feature one character who feels so inferior to the person they want to be with that it creates a major impediment to their getting together. But what's less common is a situation in which both lead characters feel that way about each other in different ways.

Ren's inferior feelings seem to be fueled by a combination of guilt for what he thinks he did to Kazuma ten years ago, internalized homophobia, and comparing himself unfavorably to an idealized version of Kazuma. By the end of episode 7, Kazuma has some newly acquired guilt toward Ren for what he sees as not seeking out the truth as intensely as he should have. But his feelings of inferiority toward Ren were already in place from the moment they met. He sees Ren as a "dazzling," remarkable person. This is related to Ren's popularity and social skills, both of which Kazuma lacks, but it's bigger than that. It's not entirely dissimilar from Ren's image of Kazuma as the purest sunshine puppy ever to walk the Earth. He thinks of Ren as inherently special in a way that shines out of him and makes people love him wherever he goes.

Neither of them thinks that they're worthy of the other one. I'm pretty sure neither of them has ever told the other how they see them, either! Neither of them has the slightest inkling. Let's hope that once the dust clears after Ryunosuke's big revelation, they might actually tell each other how they really feel.

Someone had to spill the beans eventually in order for any of this to have any hope of being resolved. I'm glad Ryunosuke got to do it, and got to give Kazuma a little payback for all the years of having to witness his crush pining for an unseen doofus.

Tokyo in April Is...: Bursting the BL Bubble

I haven’t had a lot of time today to read other takes on episode 7 of Tokyo in April is… but I wanted to talk about Ryunosuke and how he bursts the BL bubble around Kazuma in this episode and talk about the righteous anger he has for Kazuma.

I just wrote about Second Lead Syndrome in Korean dramas in a post about Jun & Jun, and I think I have a better grasp on Ryunosuke for this show. Ryunosuke hates Kazuma. He only knows Kazuma through Ren, and Ryunosuke clearly loves Ren. From his perspective, Ren threw himself on the sword of homophobia so that Kazuma could remain naïve and innocent. He has watched Ren continue to suffer for ten years and has tried as best he can to be there for Ren. They have tried multiple times at being intimate and it always ends in failure. From a shallow BL perspective, the height difference between them is perfect!

Then, he meets Kazuma, and he is…exactly the kind of boy that Ren would feel protective of. He’s kind and obsessed with Ren. He’s tall, beautiful, and athletic. He is made of sunshine. He seems completely untouched by what happened when Ren and Kazuma were 15. He doesn’t read as queer to Ryunosuke or Ren. If I was Ryunosuke, I would also doubt that Kazuma doesn’t remember anything about what happened or has no idea what could have happened to Ren. I also get how Ryunosuke would be even more upset.

In Kazuma, everything Ren sacrificed is validated. He suffered so that Kazuma wouldn’t, and he succeeded! Kazuma is fine! He went back to the US and had a normal experience in high school as a member of the football team. He went to school and became a talented professional. He doesn’t carry the scars of growing up queer and feeling different that so many of us wear. He doesn’t even think of himself in terms of queerness. He only thinks of Ren. He is a BL protagonist.

Ryunosuke is understandably irritated by this and feels compelled to challenge and provoke Kazuma. Guys like him can be dangerous in our community. What if he has gay panic later? What if he’s a Russel T. Davies character? Has he ever considered what Ren suffered? Does he know what Ren gave up for him? Ryunosuke has been beside Ren for a decade watching him have panic attacks any time he tries to be intimate, but this jock is the one who finally gets Ren out of that block?

Kazuma cannot remain in the bubble if he’s going to be with Ren as far as Ryunosuke is concerned. He reveals the sordid details of what Ren suffered and forces Kazuma to see the cost of his naivete. I’m not unsympathetic for Kazuma, because he’s been trying to understand what happened for over a decade. Still, I completely get Ryunosuke not accepting that Kazuma didn’t know anything.

This episode left us at a cliffhanger about Ren’s safety, but I genuinely think he’ll be fine based on my reads of Japanese media and dramas. The biggest struggle this episode was in Kazuma having to wiggle around one of Ren’s strict rules to help him. He has to see the ugliness of what Ren suffered and recognize that he’s in a different narrative than he thought.

Ryunosuke is the kind of romantic rival I like, because we know he has no chance. Still, his love for one of the leads forces his rival to change and face something that he wouldn’t otherwise.

[jaggedteeth]

as the u.s. tour comes to a close, i want to take a moment to talk about a phenomenon i’ve seen taking place within mcr internet fan spaces these last few months, my thoughts on it, and how i think it relates back to digital media literacy.

(before we start, i want to make it clear that i’m just some guy and i am definitely not the most qualified person to talk about this, but i think some of the things in this post really, really need to be said. my hope is not necessarily to change your mind or to “get you on my side,” but to encourage you to think critically and independently, even during your daily scroll on social media.)

————

so, what is this ominous phenomenon i’m talking about? i’m referring to some of the comments i’ve seen mcr fans make regarding gerard’s gender—specifically the public, speculative, and seemingly unironic ones that attempt to put a label or a semblance of a label on his gender nonconformity.

(i think now’s a good time to mention you should read this entire post before engaging with or commenting on it. stay with me. we’re in this together.)

here is a post that i think does a good job of explaining this a little more in-depth for anyone who’s out of the loop.

regardless of my personal opinions on all of this, i understand why it’s happening. much of mcr’s fanbase is trans and/or non-binary, and seeking out representation from familiar, comforting figures is not out of the ordinary. i don’t think anyone involved means harm, and this isn’t a callout post. i’m just adding to a discussion i think has been largely one-sided up until recently.

————

what is the point of me making this post? to put it bluntly, i disagree with how much of the discussion around gerard’s gender identity and expression is being conducted.

(again, please stay with me.)

what is it, specifically, that i disagree with? is it the celebration of gerard’s gender nonconformity? is it the possibility they might not identify, partially or wholly, with their gender assigned at birth? is it the joy their gender expression has inspired in many mcr fans?

no. it’s none of those things; not even close. i can’t even put into words how i, a gender nonconforming trans man, felt when gerard wore his cheerleader dress in nashville. it was a special moment and i was so happy to see him happy.

but something that bothers me about the “gender wars” narrative is the idea that anyone who’s not all-in is, if not an outright transphobe, someone with deep-rooted biases they need to work through. i haven’t seen this from everyone, but it’s floated around here and there.

nuance in conversations like this is incredibly important. the human experience is rarely black and white. and i believe the notion that it must be, especially when it comes to topics such as queer identity, largely stems from closed-mindedness and fear, conscious or unconscious.

i have certainly witnessed people online assert that gerard must be cis, and there’s no way he can’t be cis, implying if he ever identified as anything other than cis that would be bad and gross and weird. i strongly disagree with that viewpoint because it’s transphobic and gerard is a real person who none of us know personally who can do whatever the fuck he wants. in the same way, i disagree with the viewpoint that gerard must be trans, and there’s no way he can’t be trans, implying anyone who disagrees is a transphobe who refuses to pay attention. because gerard is a real person who none of us know personally who can do whatever the fuck he wants.

i’m aware gerard has also made comments in the past about his journey with gender identity, the connection he feels to women and femininity, and even his experimentation with drag while he was in college. he’s said he should be referred to with either he/him or they/them pronouns, he’s an earnest supporter of the trans community, and he’s historically rejected the sexist shithead rock-dude stereotype.

i’m not here to downplay any of those things, nor am i trying to invalidate anyone who has taken comfort in or identified with those things. just a couple of points i would like you to think about, though:

some cis people also question their gender identity and/or use multiple sets of pronouns for a multitude of reasons (i’m not saying gerard has to be cis, i’m just giving you an extra viewpoint to chew on);

i’ve personally met plenty of men or male-aligned people who strongly identify with women and femininity. i strongly identify with women and femininity and i’m still 100% a trans man and will throw anyone who tries to tell me otherwise directly into the sun (again, i’m not saying gerard must be a man or male-aligned);

gender nonconformity and transness are complex, nuanced topics. labels can be useful, but they are not a be-all-end-all;

and i’m going to be blunt here—assuming and/or declaring someone is transfem when they haven’t publicly referred to themselves as such, just because they are comfortable discussing their own femininity and sometimes have a feminine presentation and feminine mannerisms, is basically an upgraded form of gender essentialism and completely disregards the existence and experiences of amab cis-passing queer people and gender nonconforming people. i understand it’s a tough pill to swallow, but intent doesn’t always equal impact, and just because someone may not see it that way doesn’t mean that’s not what they’re doing.

even if gerard is transfem, he’s still a real person who has a right to privacy and autonomy, and he never has to publicly label himself if he doesn’t want to. no one is entitled to seek out the details of his identity, but least of all us, a bunch of strangers on the internet who will probably never have a full conversation with him.

not one of us is an “authority” or “expert” on gerard way or my chemical romance. we can learn about the band’s history and public personas or laugh at the funny, quirky parts of their lore or cry when we think about how far they’ve come in the public eye, but what gives us the right to dig into every tiny crevice of gerard’s work and interactions and public existence searching for “clues” as to whether or not he’s trans? what gives us the right to label his gender identity for him—a process that is incredibly personal? i know “parasocial” is basically just another hollow internet buzzword at this point, but let’s not forget the very real consequences that parasocial relationships can certainly have.

do i think it would be fucking awesome if gerard came out as trans tomorrow? absolutely. do i also think it’s fucking awesome that they’re an older gnc person? that so many queer people have discovered and accepted themselves in part because of them? that they now exude joy onstage and bravely dress and act the way they do? one million times yes. and we can celebrate those real, concrete, factual things without tinhatting, overstepping boundaries, or jumping to conclusions. if they were to come out as trans tomorrow, that wouldn’t invalidate any of my arguments or make the behavior i’m critiquing acceptable, because the point isn’t about whether or not gerard is trans, the point is about how some of mcr’s fanbase is treating them.

gerard has uplifted and respected us time and time again without even knowing us as individuals. so i want you to take a moment to sincerely reflect and ask yourself this question: where is our respect for him?

————

alright. i’m glad you’re still here. let’s talk about what can actually be done about this.

i think a lot of this problem boils down to a lack of critical thinking. yes, that’s thrown around a lot as a clapback on this website, but i don’t mean it as an insult. we’re all guilty of not thinking critically, myself included. especially in the age of the internet, it’s impossible to be perfect all the time, when we’re bombarded with information from every angle.

this is why learning about and consistently practicing media literacy is so important. it’s something i’m passionate about because i’ve seen firsthand, time and time again, how it can make or break a person and their worldview, to the point that i spent hours writing about it for my upper-level journalism courses (before i dropped out lol) and worked for two semesters as an editor for a college newspaper.

if these conversations about gerard were happening in private group chats between friends who already know one another, my opinions on the topic itself would still stand, but it wouldn’t be any of my business and i obviously wouldn’t think to write an entire post about it. but everything changes when these discussions are had on a public platform with little regard for nuance.

“misinformation,” or the unintentional spread of false information—not to be confused with disinformation, where the person spreading it knows what they’re saying isn’t true—might not be a totally accurate descriptor for some of what’s going on here, honestly. none of us can prove what gerard is thinking or feeling. but based on what we do know, what he’s publicly and concretely shared with us, i think it’s as close as we can get. a lot of the posts i’ve seen don’t read to me as “hehe funny celebrity headcanon that’s obviously just for fun.” or even “i relate to this person’s art and/or publicized experiences, but i understand i don’t know them and at least some of that is just projection.” rather, they seem to make invasive leaps and use inaccurate vocabulary while simultaneously taking themselves very, very seriously, and that concerns me more than if a random tumblr user was just trolling to start fandom drama or something.

to put things into perspective, this is why every single one of my journalism professors drilled it into my head that you have to get your news from multiple sources. those sources must have differing perspectives and you need to look at every single one with a critical eye, no matter how trustworthy they may seem (listen, i get it’s way more complicated than that and i could go off on a whole other tangent about the glaring problems with mainstream news media in the united states and not in a cringefail right-wing way, but this is an mcr blog, so let’s just focus on the basic principle here).

obviously, i don’t think anyone should engage with transphobes unless it’s for the sake of making stronger counter-arguments, because their beliefs are provably harmful and false. but someone making good-faith criticisms of speculating about a stranger who has not publicly come out as trans and/or non-binary is markedly different. i’m not the only person who’s written something like this, and i encourage everyone to seek out similar posts and think about the points they’re making, even if you don’t agree with every single one of them.

this speculative commentary on gerard’s identity has spread like wildfire and created a polarizing echo chamber, from what i’ve seen. i understand why. but it’s still deeply worrying to me. seeing as this is primarily happening on tumblr, i’m concerned less because i think gerard will ever see or care about these posts (that’s obviously still important, though), and more because of what this says about how people in mcr fanspaces view celebrities they feel strongly about and engage with information they see online at large.

please do research on digital media literacy, and please use reputable sources with authority on journalism and communications to do so. don’t take what you see on social media at face value. don’t trust any one social media user to feed you commentary or shape your viewpoints, and that includes me. read with a critical eye. think about the possible implications and intentions behind the words other people use, big or small, and why those might be there. be aware of your own biases and blindspots. remember that you’ll never be perfect, not even close. and while you’re at it, learn more about the experiences of gnc people, and the experiences of queer people of all different ages, backgrounds, cultures, races, identities, perspectives, lived experiences, etcetera. if you can, engage in diverse irl lgbtq+ spaces. they put things into perspective in a way the internet never will.

but i still use tumblr in 2022, so what do i know?

————

if there’s anything you think i overlooked or misconstrued in this post, tell me! i want this to be a living, breathing conversation, not a monologue. these are important issues and they deserve our time and attention. thank you so much for reading.

[lithopsy]

Controlling the Narrative: Analysis of Taylor Swift's "...Ready For It?"

I wrote a short personal essay about my time in the closet, the inherent queerness of Taylor Swift's Reputation, why I will defend the album to my last breath, and why I think that track one could be about bearding. (2,186 words)

Personal note: Throughout this essay and analysis, I use the word “queer” to describe members of the LGBT+ community for ease of language. While I, personally, am not entirely comfortable with the reclamation of this slur in all contexts, especially by people who are not members of the LGBT+ community, I have found no better alternative for this purpose. This serves as a disclaimer and a warning for those who are also uncomfortable with its use.

When Taylor Swift dropped her sixth studio album Reputation in 2017, I was a nineteen year old Baptist seminary student coming to terms with my identity as a lesbian. I made a lot of strong choices that year; I went no-contact with my childhood best friend, I secretly dated a woman who was five years older than me and lived in a different state, and I ultimately dropped out of seminary college over a winter break. I felt like an outcast and I had trouble relating to straight Christian girls while I was actively losing my religion.

After Taylor dropped Reputation, I felt less alone. All of the gossip and personal drama that surrounded this tumultuous time in my life started to feel much less like a personal failing and a lot more like a Reputation Era.

I leaned into it. I blasted I Did Something Bad in my car after arguing with a conservative professor, posted lyrics from Look What You Made Me Do to my Snapchat story where I knew my ex-friends would see it, and — though I wasn’t able to swing body guards carrying me out of my apartment in a suitcase — I became elusive on campus. Hiding in my dorm room, leaving home, and losing friends all while listening to Reputation, I was able to come to terms with the idea that being my most authentic self might cause some people to dislike me.

Because of this, Reputation has always been a queer album to me. It’s always been about building a life that you’re proud of despite hatred and judgement from people on the outside. It’s always been about telling lies and crafting narrative for the sake of one’s personal safety. It’s always been about secret, and often forbidden, love. Whether or not Taylor herself is queer (and I personally believe that she could be), she understands the experience of hiding her ‘true’ self and she understands the danger of being authentic in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I’m turning twenty-four this week and I am out to my friends and family. I am happy and surrounded by a bright community of people who I don’t have to lie to. Being that I am no longer Baptist and quite comfortable in my lesbian identity, one of the few things that connects twenty-four-year-old me to nineteen-year-old me (and thirteen-year-old me and sixteen-year-old me, etc. I am a life-long swiftie) is my love for Taylor Swift's music.

Out of excitement for Taylor’s tenth(!!) studio album Midnights, I’ve been listening to her music pretty constantly over the past month. And, due to a rise in #gaylor-ism online, I have been revisiting her old lyrics with a fine-toothed comb and a queer perspective.

To be fair, I did a bit of this when Reputation came out. Posting something to the effect of “dress is the gayest song on rep” to my close friends Snapchat story during release week. But my current life experience and knowledge of LGBT history and culture deepens my readings much further now.

To start, many of her love songs — even songs from her country eras, though these are sometimes overlooked by queer fans who prefer her pop — are gender-neutral. She uses the pronoun “you”, speaking directly to her love interest, more than any other pronoun. While this stands as evidence of queerness alone to some gaylors, it is, at the very least, a happy coincidence for swifties who don’t date men.

What I’ve become most obsessed with, though, lately, are the songs in which she switches between “you” and “he” or “him” throughout. I wondered if, as an experiment in lyrical-analysis, I could extrapolate some deeper meaning by imagining that these two sets of pronouns delineate between two muses. Track one on my beloved Reputation, “…Ready For It?” is a perfect specimen for this and is the subject of my experiment for the end of this essay.

Before I begin the analysis, a disclaimer. LGBT people who read their own experiences into Taylor’s work get a lot of guff online for doing so. Often, gaylors are criticized for “outing her” or “speculating about her sexuality” or “assigning labels to her”. So, before anyone gets mad, I am not doing that. At the end of the day, I don’t think Taylor Swift’s real life sexuality has anything to do with the experiment I’m about to do. You don’t have to know who any of her songs are about to relate to them. It is also my personal belief that alternate readings of texts are valuable, even if there is no objective truth to them.

For my purposes, though, I’m not going to name names or speculate about who I think these disparate muses are, and I am not going to tie anything to specific events in Taylor’s life. I don’t know her like that and I think it only complicates analysis here.

(However, in this vein, Taylor Swift is a multi-million dollar brand and I am not not doing these things out of some desire to protect her honor or maintain any parasocial relationship with her. Most of the time, speculation about her on the internet is harmless and serves as free publicity to her. People who shame gaylors for “speculating about her sexuality” are usually doing so because of an internal homophobic rejection to the idea of her being queer. I’m neutral to a little harmless speculation, when it comes to Taylor Swift.)

-

[Verse 1]

Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him Wonder how many girls he had loved and left haunted But if he’s a ghost, then I can be a phantom Holdin’ him for ransom Some, some boys are tryin’ too hard He don’t try at all, though Younger than my exes but he act like such a man, so I see nothing better, I keep him forever Like a vendetta-ta

What’s interesting to me about this description of The Man (capitalized because I’m using The Man in place of a name, not to be confused with “The Man”, track 4 on Taylor’s album “Lover”) in this song is that it has nothing to with him on a personal level or how he treats her as a partner. It lacks the intimate descriptions of the relationship or individual’s characteristics that are present in most of her earlier love songs. She’s singing in a fast-paced lower register (we’ll come back to this) about how this man appears to other people. He’s a heartbreaker, he’s effortlessly cool, he’s independent and ideal.

Showing my hand, I want to analyze this song as if the relationship with The Man is a fake, public relationship formulated in order to hide some part(s) of Taylor’s true self and the relationship with The Listener (“you”) is a real, yet secret relationship. I think that this is, at least in some form, an intentional choice made in the song. Whether the listener and the man are the same person is up to interpretation, though. While I personally am going to be making the argument for the song being about bearding, I think it’s possible that the same separation could exist within a relationship between Taylor and one man with whom she has a clearly delineated private and public relationship with. (I’m not going to pander to this point because it’s probably been done, but I think that this is a valid reading.)

[Pre-chorus]

I-I-I see how this is gonna go Touch me and you’ll never be alone I-Island breeze and lights down low No one has to know

I think the pre-chorus reads as a general statement and could be said to both The Man and The Listener interchangeably.

The line, “Touch me and you’ll never be alone” could speak either to her own loyalty in a private relationship or a material benefit of being publicly affiliated with a woman as powerful as her. 

“No one has to know” speaks to the private nature of either relationship, that there is some planned duality or arrangement with The Man or a secret relationship with the listener.

[Chorus]

In the middle of the night, in my dreams You should see the things we do, baby In the middle of the night, in my dreams I know I’m gonna be with you So I’ll take my time Are you ready for it?

The chorus is the first full pronoun switch, Taylor begins speaking directly to The Listener while singing at a higher register than the rest of the song. The delineation between each set of pronouns is accented by the production as well as the architecture of the song itself. The chorus is the most important part of any pop song, it’s also where she’s carefully placed her secret love.

The lines, “In the middle of the night, in my dreams/You should see the things we do, baby” speak to a private relationship that, for whatever reason, isn’t possible within her current circumstances.

In footage of the songwriting process, Taylor sings the original lyric, “In the middle of the night, in my dreams/That’s when I get to be with you, it’s so sweet”, which isn’t entirely relevant to analysis about the finished song but, I think, lends credence to the idea that this muse is an unattainable other relationship, different from the one referenced in the verses.

“I know I’m gonna be with you/So I’ll take my time” reads, to me, like Taylor is reminiscing on a past relationship with The Listener that was tumultuous and full of uncertainty. When she fantasizes about being with this person, she fantasizes about stability and asks them at the end, “Are you ready for it?”

Are you ready to commit to this, should I change my plans?

[Verse 2]

Knew I was a robber first time that he saw me Stealing hearts and running off and never saying sorry But if I’m a thief, then he can join the heist And we’ll move to an island, and And he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor Every lover known in comparison is a failure I forget their names now, I’m so very tame now Never be the same now, now

This verse, in comparison with verse 1 places Taylor and The Man on equal footing, positions them both as killers and thieves, pulling something over on everyone else. I personally think that this is euphemistic language to describe that there is something fundamental about Taylor that she shares with The Man, she recognizes him as like her and he recognizes the same in her. Possibly, they are both gay, possibly they have some similar experience in the industry or shared feelings about fame.

With all of Taylor’s references in this era to her fame and success being a gilded cage, “And he can be my jailer” raises red flags to me. The Man being someone who keeps her inside the cage aligns very well with the narrative of a fake public relationship that hides her sexuality and keeps the status quo.

“Burton to this Taylor” references the volatile public relationship between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who met on set of the film Cleopatra in 1963. The couple was married and divorced in 1964 before getting back together for just ten months in 1975. The relationship was a messy public spectacle and the reference in this song alludes to all of it: the acting, infidelity, and public drama included. The imagery is incongruent with the tender love song to The Listener of the chorus, but, in my opinion, this line is the most damning evidence of the idea of bearding in this song. Paired with the “jailer” comment, it fits perfectly the narrative of the spectacular public relationship between two actors. The relationship isn’t successful or ideal, it’s a distraction.

I think “I forget their names now, I’m so very tame now” references another frequent theme in Taylor’s work: a rejection of her ‘crazy’, ‘promiscuous’ image. She’s forgotten the names of all of her exes and we should, too. And while the Reputation era is anything but “tame”, she’s going to change the narrative that surrounds her dating life.

[Refrain]

Baby, let the games begin Let the games begin Let the games begin (now) Baby, let the games begin Let the games begin Let the games begin … Are you ready for it?

It’s the opening song of an album that is about her Reputation in the media. She is playing with the media, controlling her own narrative. “Let the games begin” walked so that “Every bait and switch was a work of art” (willow, evermore) could run.

[givemearmstopraywith]

technically i dont have anything against fanfic as long as its kept in its proper place but objectively i think that considering it a form of literature by arguing that its more inclusive than mainstream lit is incredibly insidious and ignorant. for one thing it is stripping both writers and readers of their ability to engage critically with texts in favour of reducing all text down to core parts- is it queer? is it diverse? does it fulfill the right quota of moral markers for me to consume it and reassure both myself and the audience of my reading that i am the “right” kind of consumer? 

this is problematic for a number of reasons, including that it presupposes that the value of all art- not just fanfic- is based on moral content and its ability to be consumed morally, which is not a new way of thinking but, when it has been shown up in the past, has usually developed alongside moral panics. attributing a moral value to a work of art, which is not created out of morality but out of creativity, is the first step towards censorship. we see this in a variety of circumstances throughout history, none of which are things we should try to emulate.

for another its insulting to the queer and bipoc writers who pursue traditional publishing, and do so successfully. when i see arguments concerning the importance of fanfic, it very typically falls into the rhetoric of the fact that it represents the stories of underrepresented or historically marginalized groups, but what actually are the most popular fanfics on ao3? according to screenrant the top five are:

castiel and dean winchester

sherlock and john watson

derek hale and stiles stilinski

bucky barnes and steve rogers 

draco malfoy and harry potter

what i am seeing is that fanfic is primarily concerned with white cis men. there is not a single person of colour or canonically gay person in that entire list. and yes, you may argue about the transformative power of fanfic, but creating a fantasy narrative in which a white cis male fulfills a certain number of quota in or outside of a fantastical narrative (you can’t tell me that a/b/o developing in the spn fandom was a big win for gay people) is not progressive, nor it is actually addressing issues of systemic oppression. especially when the consumption of fanfic, outside of fanfic, seems to turn into people who almost exclusively consume only YA lit because its more “diverse” that literary or adult fiction, which is completely and categorically untrue and symptomatic more of laziness on the part of the consumer than it is a lack of representation in publishing. 

there was a tipping point in fanfic culture in the last decade or so where it ceased to be a collaborative safe space for people and instead became a crutch which is now being used to bash anything deemed morally subversive or averse by what appears to be a consumer base of people who reduce all art and text down to consumable parts according to a fairly benign standard of morality. it is turning the act of reading from something which is meant to broaden and transform experience into something which feeds itself the same formula repeatedly in favour of keeping personal experience almost entirely in stasis. fanfic is not transforming literature, it is rather disturbingly allowing consumers to not interact with anything unlike themselves while simultaneously having the more disturbing effect of bringing continual attention to massively successful, corporatized storytelling like marvel and harry potter instead of the truly marginalized stories and diverse authors people claim they want to read but simultaneously claim doesn’t exist for their consumption. 

what it comes down is that people dont care about diversity: they care about what keeps them comfortable.

[vickyvicarious]

Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

[rainbowsky]

I feel like it would be better if everyone could just concentrate more on the projects GGDD are bringing out ( SDC and OOL for example) and less on political issues that's out of our hands. More of that positive engagement is what we need

If you prefer to look away from politics that is your right, but that's not something you have the right to ask of others. Especially considering that I tag every political post that I make, so there's no excuse for people seeing things they don't want to see (if you want to avoid political posts from my blog you can filter the "your political disengagement is a weapon against you" tag).

You have created a false dichotomy here anyway, because people are focusing on both. People are enjoying and loving GG and DD and their projects, while reflecting on politics surrounding them.

I believe personally that in order to have a truly balanced and healthy perspective on GGDD one must do both. However, not everybody is up for that emotionally or psychologically, and that's totally fine too.

I'm going to go over some points that I made about this topic a while back. This is a slightly revised version of what I've said in the past. I hope after reading this, Anon, you can understand why I don't find the approach you've proposed acceptable.

“BXG should stay away from politics”

While I understand some people get involved in fandom strictly for the enjoyment and escape, I don’t think it’s appropriate for those people to try to dictate how others approach things. As a politically-minded person, the idea of ‘staying away from politics’ - especially the idea of pressuring others to stay away from politics - goes against some of my most deeply held values.

There are also some fairly glaring problems with the idea that BXG should stay out of political discussions.

1] Making it socially unacceptable to care about politics is a means of ensuring people remain uninvested in what happens in the world.

‘Politics’ is a word that is often used to emotionally distance people from things that directly impact them. Labeling social issues as ‘politics’ and then making 'politics’ a dirty word is a psychologically manipulative practice that frames important, life-changing issues as tedious, negative and inappropriate pursuits. People might as well be saying, “Don’t trouble yourself with how the world is run, with how people treat each other, with what you’re allowed to do, say or think, with who is in charge of things or what decisions and actions they impose upon others.”

How convenient for the powers-that-be. How convenient for the status quo. A population that has a distaste for 'politics’ has a distaste for concerning themselves with their own interests. A population that has a distaste for politics will not only avoid thinking about how things are run, they will dissuade - often vociferously - other people from thinking or talking about those things as well.

When you make it socially unacceptable to think about issues that matter, you ensure that the people will never really question what’s happening, or demand change. You will ensure that people do not inform themselves or reflect on and develop their own ideas and values. You will ensure that people who try to stand up for themselves in a broader way will have little support, and will face bullying and stigmatization for their efforts.

2] Disinterest in politics reflects a level of privilege a lot of people don’t have.

When an issue of injustice comes up and someone’s response is, “I don’t want to talk about politics,” or “Let’s try to stay away from politics” in a very real way the message they are communicating to others is, “Whatever is happening to those people, I don’t care. My conversational discomfort in this moment is more important than the injustices those people are dealing with.”

The fact is, our actions and choices are inherently political. They reflect and often reinforce the sociopolitical structures we live within. The purchasing decisions we make, the media we consume, the ideas and policies we legitimize via our behavior - all of these things are political whether we know it or not.

The big difference between thinking of ourselves as political and thinking of ourselves as not political is that apolitical people are able to move through sociopolitical structures completely unconsciously, while others don’t have that luxury. Poor people, racialized people, immigrants, targeted minorities - none of these people have the luxury of ‘not caring about politics’. Their lives often depend on being deeply invested in what happens in the public and private sphere.

If you’re able to ‘not be interested’ in politics then you are a fortunate person indeed.

To people faced with injustice and inequality, politics can often be a question of their very right to exist, let alone thrive, in this world.

3] Editing politics out of discussions about GG and DD is a lot like erasing their queerness. It adapts them into a narrative that, while it may feel good for some fans, isn’t real.

It may make some fans more comfortable to edit out the parts of this fandom that are confusing or unsettling, but fans who prefer their perspective to be balanced and based on reality will just have to accept that this fandom will sometimes force us to reflect on things that aren’t so pleasant.

GG and DD are living under an authoritarian regime. They are frequently called upon to perform and present propagandistic ideas and projects. All of this just goes with the territory. If we refuse to explore and understand the political elements surrounding GG and DD we will be missing important context about them and and their lives.

The politics are relevant to the fandom. They are relevant to what we discuss, how and why. They are an inextricable element of GG and DD’s lives, and that necessarily makes them an inextricable element of any meaningful discussion of them and what they do.

4] If you share their propaganda posts and projects, you ARE being political.

I really feel the need to point out this obvious fact, because there appear to be some people who really don’t get it. GG and DD’s propaganda posts and projects are inherently political.

It is hypocritical and unreasonable to spread that propaganda and then tell people not to discuss it.

Having said all of that, there are simple ways to co-exist even if we disagree.

There are a lot of reasons why people participate in fandoms, and not everyone is in a mental or emotional place where they want to be exposed to political discussions, which can be stressful. Fandom can be a form of escapism, and a way to enjoy something light and fluffy without having too look too closely at the cracks in the facade.

That is a perfectly legitimate position to take on things, and people who don’t want to take part should be free to filter those things out of their feeds. Tagging political or stressful posts is a must.

However, what isn’t legitimate is telling other people that they shouldn’t be thinking about it or discussing it, or claiming that it doesn’t belong in the fandom. Respect needs to work both ways, and space needs to be given for people to pursue fandom in the ways that work best for them. 

BXG are a broad category of people with a broad range of interests, motivations and needs. It is possible for all of this diversity to harmoniously coexist, but that means respecting each other and working together. Tagging posts that we know some fans would rather not see is one excellent way of doing this. And that includes tagging posts that contain propaganda messages or projects, which can be offensive or triggering for people who have grown up under authoritarian regimes.

***

I also want to add a personal note here.

There are a lot of troubling things happening right now. A lot of people are feeling unsettled about it. One of the main ways in which people process and come to terms with difficult experiences is through talking about it and exchanging ideas with other people who care. It would be a huge disservice to a lot of fans who are struggling with what's happening to say, "You're not allowed to think or talk about this. Let's focus on other things."

One of the primary purposes of my blog from day one has always been to try to be supportive, particularly of marginalized people or people who are dealing with adversity. I want my blog to always be a place where people can feel safe to talk about the things that are on their mind.

[aparticularbandit]

3, 17, 19 please!

DEEP FIC WRITER ASKS

3) what fic are you emotionally attached to?

Luisa and the Fox. ...I feel this one might be expected at this point, so I went through and looked at all my other fic and like. Of them all, this is still the one to which I'm the most emotionally attached. >.>;;

17) What’s the best engagement/interaction/feedback you’ve received from someone who’s read your work?

I was actually afraid of getting this question because like. How do you quantify best engagement/interaction/feedback? SO OBVIOUSLY ALL OF YOUR COMMENTS I NEED YOU TO KNOW. FIRST OFF. But actually, I honestly think it is less the comments/etc. than it is, like, getting to know other writers in the different communities and making friends? Which is...the interaction bit? So becoming friends with you and Belle and Cait through Roisa stuff (or Skylar through Agatha stuff) - and like getting to pop into people's DMs or discord or whatever and just rant and ramble about ships AND CAUSE EACH OTHER PAIN is. the best interaction I get from people who have read my stuff. ^^

19) If you could write an ideal fic, what would it include?

Pain, obviously. ;) No, it would - I've reblogged a thing about narrative distance recently, I think - yeah, this post - and my ideal fic would play with the concept of narrator as distinct from character POV so that you've got the narrator who's telling the story to you who can occasionally comment on things or speak directly to you, the reader, without it feeling weird, in a comforting sort of way. But also the ideal fic would employ second person (kind of like in What Dreams May Come with Viola or in Finding Family with Agatha (when she was stuck in Agnes)), which I'm not sure is compatible with that sort of narrative voice.... It would probably include some super in-depth world-building but not, like, Tolkein world-building, but taking our world and making one difference and then extrapolating from there (like with the soulmate timer stuff). It would be queer, but not necessarily lesbians queer (although there would probably be wlw stuff in it, tbh). A lot of angst. A snarky anti-villain turned anti-hero. A woobie destroyer of worlds. Someone who has turned evil because of tragic past reasons. One character could potentially be ALL OF THE ABOVE. Like I have a character type and I acknowledge this. But also you're gonna have the mom friend. Not the happy perky sunspot but the, like. LET ME USE MADOKA AS AN EXAMPLE. THERE WOULD BE A MAMI, THERE WOULD BE A KYOKO, AND THERE WOULD BE A HOMURA. :D ...okay, in ouat terms. There would be a Mary-Margaret Blanchard (but not necessarily Snow; I will maintain they are separate characters and I like MMB better) and there would be a Regina. ...uh, that's missing a character. There would be a Dottie Underwood. She's the closest to a Kyoko parallel. xD Lots of discussions of mental illness. ...potentially different versions of the same character - whether that's multiverse or time travel or clones or etc. (Or it would be a fairytale. Actually, the ideal fic would be a fairytale.) ...I'm gonna stop there. XD

[olderthannetfic]

i can tell who your tog anon is by the content of your last post. so could anyone in tog fandom who’s had the misfortune to live through the top/bottom disk horse that’s been running off and on since this time last year. those of us who arent part of the debate are tired of it. we just want them all, on either side, to stop

it’s not about racism. it’s about a bunch of people seeing kinky stuff that isn’t tailored to their kinks, taking offense as loudly as they can, and then trying to control the fandom narrative by being assholes to anyone who doesn’t agree with them. lgbtmazight was one of your anon’s backers and abettors. they and theirs have made a lot of people unhappy and scared, poc and MENA people included, so i’m not surprised that now the tables are turning they’re feeling a bit worried. they started this shitshow. without them and their friends, the tog fandom would not now be the trashfire it is

i’m aroace. most fic is written by allo and amatonormative people for allo and amatonormative people, and i deal with that every time i go looking for fic on ao3. a lot of fic, explicit and not, is repulsive to me in ways that would never occur to anyone not aspec. i accept that, and i don’t expect any writer to accommodate me for things that would never occur to them and would also be completely contradictory to their own needs. if i click on something that offends me or makes me feel sick i take responsibility for my own experiences and click back out

problematic content exists. so do tags. it’s pretty easy to avoid the content you don’t want see, these days, if you pay attention. and sure, there are racist fics written for tog. there are racist fics on the top!Joe side of things. there are a number of them on the bottom!Joe side as well, and some others that are neither. on the whole, though, there isn’t a huge amount. certainly not as much as one sector of the fandom would like everyone to believe

the person you’re talking to is one of the main bottom!Joe stans. they don’t seem to comprehend that there are people who write a specific character topping because they’re their fave and they identify with them, and they are themselves tops. the discoursers make it all about supposed straight cis women wanting to write a gay couple the same way they would a straight couple. of them wanting to write the partner they identify with on bottom, because of course they are straight cis women and of course the “receiving” partner must be who they identify with. which is a very binary, very ignorant way of viewing the matter

in addition to being aroace i’m afab enby. i’m trans, i’m queer in all senses of the word, i’m kinky as hell in some very weird ways, and i’m an exclusive top. it’s safe to say that i have very different wants and needs from my fic reading and writing than pretty much the entirety of tog fandom, especially given that there are only three tog fics aside from my own that i haven’t backbuttoned out of. i also identify with Joe, so even though it’s not guaranteed that i’ll write him topping since i hc both him and Nicky as vers, there’s a good chance he will top, no matter whose pov i’m writing from. i’m not going to change my tastes; i’m old enough to understand them and be comfortable with that side of myself. i’m not going to apologize for it, either. i don’t know because i don’t interact much within the fandom, but there are probably a lot of people who feel this way. people who are fed up with /both/ the bottom!Joe and the top!Joe stans

i will say, though, that the bottom!Joe side of the fandom has been colonized by Len and her clique, and they’re where most of the toxicity originated. i’m sure your anon saw many people reblogging the call-out post from you and rushed over to your asks to try to do damage control as best they could, as they have with many other blogs in the past. from what i’ve observed, they harass via anon, they don’t act in good faith, and i sincerely hope you don’t become one of their next targets. i’ve been unpleasantly surprised to see the discourse trickling over into blogs i follow that i’d thought were exempt; i admit i’ll be sad if yours becomes the next platform to be absorbed into it

--

Oh, nonnie, when is my tumblr not consumed by discourse?

Don't worry, once I watch the Sarah Z video and post what I think, she'll probably start vaguing about me and then my inbox will be full of Sarah stans screaming at me again instead of TOG anons. Haha.

You could be right about exactly who this anon is. (I wouldn't know. I just read the fic in this fandom. I don't socialize over it usually.) You could be right about their motivations. That's certainly the read I got from their first messages to me. But IDK... I profoundly disagree with their analysis, but I don't think you should discount the possibility that they're some rando lurker you've never heard of and that they're operating in good faith. They don't need to be intentionally misrepresenting things for me to disagree with them.

[denimbex1986]

'What if you could have one more conversation with a lost loved one? What would you say? Would it help you move on or just entrench you more in the past?

Writer/director Andrew Haigh’s brilliant “All of Us Strangers” (★★★★ out of four; rated R; in select theaters now, nationwide Friday) is both lyrical fantasy romance and masterfully told ghost story. To call it haunting might be trite but also spot on: With a terrific performance from Andrew Scott as a queer screenwriter at a crossroads, “Strangers” is the sort of cinematic balm that not only touches your soul but takes up prime real estate.

Adam (Scott) lives an isolated life in his weirdly empty London high-rise apartment complex, noshing cookies on the couch rather than working. He decides to travel to his childhood home in the suburbs, a trip where he runs into his dad (Jamie Bell) and mom (Claire Foy). Mind you, they died in a 1987 holiday car accident just before Adam turned 12, but he finds them again – at around the same age he is now – full of questions for their now grown-up boy.

Adam visits often and engages in the heartfelt conversations they would have had if his parents lived. He comes out to his mom, who’s stuck in a 1980s mindset and worries about AIDS, and has an emotional and honest conversation with his father about childhood traumas that leave both of them in tears.

At the same time he’s opening up to them, Adam finds the creative juices flowing again and also begins a relationship with his downstairs neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal). At first, Harry shows up at Adam’s door with booze, with Adam rebuffing his advances (and almost immediately reconsidering), but he begins to lean on Harry for comfort, support and the occasional ketamine-fueled night out. But what throws Adam is when these two different relationship journeys begin to tie together and unravel in delirious fashion.

Haigh, whose film is an adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s novel “Strangers,” fills the screen with warm, colorful textures, and many of the characters are seen in reflections, be it on a metro train or in a home, which adds to the film’s fanciful reverie. (It also uses Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "The Power of Love" to interesting narrative effect.) Adam and his mother even have a conversation about whether what they’re experiencing is real and how long it will last. “I don’t suppose we get to decide when it’s over,” she says, one of the film’s most touching lines.

“Strangers” isn’t the first to mine similar metaphysical ground – “Field of Dreams” did it magnificently as well, though this movie goes further in reconnecting a son with the mom and dad who suddenly weren’t in his life anymore. They ask Adam about the circumstances of their demise, and he’s extremely caring in those moments, though he's more open with Harry about how their deaths led to his solitude. The film tackles the way people relate to their parents, face loneliness, come to grips with their sexuality but also struggle with thinking that the future doesn’t matter.

Scott is the perfect conduit for such a thoughtful exploration of feelings, and it’s a star-making role for an actor who should already be one after his deliciously demented Moriarty on TV’s “Sherlock” and delightful Hot Priest on “Fleabag.” As Adam, Scott captures the boyish glee and wonder of seeing his parents again around a Christmas tree yet also the panic and worry that only comes when you truly care for somebody.

While examining love, grief and the phantoms we carry with us, Haigh leaves much of his sweetly elegiac character study to a viewer’s interpretation. Everyone will read different things into what it really means from beginning to quietly stellar end, and in that sense, we might be “Strangers” but we’re all human.'

[mcmactictac]

is wolfstar canon

Hello and welcome back to another episode of I analyze your favourite ships and let you know if they’d be canon if a coward wasn’t writing them.

I have read all the Harry Potter books and watched all the movies, I have not read All the Young Dudes but I have consumed lots of mauraders content so I’m really hoping all of these points I’m making are canon.

Let’s start with Remus Lupin. That’s a queercoded bitch if I’ve ever seen one. Now I’m always a sucker for queer coding within magical worlds, as there’s a lot of really subtle things to do with it. Now with Remus being a werewolf, there’s a lot to examine there. When examining queer coding we will ignore the shitty implication that it’s a disease that can be given to you by others because that’s dumb and Rowling sucks. We do not stand for homophobia in this household so I want to make extra clear I don’t want to imply any of that.

That being said, being a werewolf is a thing Remus is ashamed of and feels the need to hide. He hides it from everyone around him because he doesn’t want them to look at him differently. You also have to keep in mind the time period this would be set, being gay can be incredibly unsafe and life altering in a negative way. So he hides it to protect himself, despite the fact he is a child struggling with all this internal self loathing. The constant narrative of being a monster that just pushes you further and further into hiding because you have no idea what would happen if they found out. And eventually he finds close friends who figure it out and they support him, they want to help so he feels less alone. And yes he has this outlet now but it’s still a tightly guarded secret. Something he’s only open with to the people he trusts. His lycanthropy is a clear parallel to being gay and although I hate the implication that it’s a “disease” like. Metaphorically most of the things you look for in queer coding are right there.

You also have to keep in mind that Remus was literally never in a relationship and showed no interest in anyone until like the end with Tonks. And it’s pretty clear to me that Rowling threw that in so people would stop saying he was gay. I like Remus and Tonks and the dynamic they have but like. They seem more like friends, the age gap is weird, there’s no build up, it doesn’t make sense for Remus’s character and it’s just like. Not great? Tonks and Remus are great friends but I don’t really see them together romantically.

I’m going with the fact that Remus is just straight up gay. Tonks seems like a cover, and if I was a person who wasn’t a coward writing this, Remus and Tonks are both aware neither of them are straight and are covering for each other. It’s giving me very “let’s get married so you don’t get drafted to the front lines even though we arent in love” like people did during like the Vietnam war. They get along really well but Remus has no romantic chemistry with any woman ever. That is not a straight man.

Sirius Black. This is another fun one. Since the start of his time at Hogwarts he is marked as “different” from the rest of his family because he isn’t a slytherin. We need to keep in mind the Black family is very wealthy, has a high value on their reputation, and are basically just racist, homophobic and classist people. Difference is not accepted, and Sirius already starts out by breaking that mould. Now l honestly don’t remember how much of his interactions with Marlene are canon so I don’t know if I can argue that but like. Yes I am thinking about it, much like JJ, Sirius overcompensates with being a huge flirt with everyone despite having no real feelings attached to any of them. Throughout growing up he continues to break away from his family, and break away from their problematic views. Being raised in an environment like that instills a sense of fear around you. So even if Sirius knew when he was younger, it’s likely he denied it or never said anything because of fear. By the time he leaves he’s pretty much kicked out of the family. Through his school we can also see how supportive of Remus he is, trying to help him and make him feel as comfortable as possible. Giving him support and love he was never given.

If a coward was not writing this Sirius black should not be straight. I’m not certain if he would be bi or gay, but he for sure likes men. It would fit well and be interesting for his character and story.

So how do they work together? Objectively, really well. I’m going to look at this through a canonical lense, so trying to keep what I can of the story but adding these sexuality headcanons in mind.

Remus and Sirius were ABSOLUTELY together in school. I don’t think they were public about it in the slightest. But this is another gay person you’re close with, you care for who fiercely cares for you despite your family or your “disease”. Remus was totally out first, but just to the Mauraders. Sirius never really comes out. He probably tells James first, mentions it quietly one night after thinking about his family. He knows James will be ok with it because he was always ok with Remus. And James is supportive and never says anything, never treats Sirius any different. That’s still the man who is basically his brother. But he sees how Sirius looks at Remus the same way he looks at Lily. He knows, even if they never tell him. But if anyone were to know, it would be him.

They have the chemistry, the stories line up, they’re good friends and it would make sense. Because of the time period it’s quiet and guarded, a relationship kept from prying eyes. They might love each other but they don’t want anyone to know about their relationship because neither of them are really comfortable or ready being out.

Now after school there’s probably a bit of a splitting apart, knowing they can’t maintain what they had forever. The future isn’t made for them and they know that. And then James is dead, and Peter is killed and Sirius is in prison and Remus is forced to pull himself together and do the best he can to move on without them. Now if we were in a timeline where Sirius didn’t go after Peter, and him and Remus could potentially take Harry? I don’t know. They sure as hell wouldn’t let the Dursley’s take him, but dumbledore also isn’t going to just let them live in peace. They would have to go totally off grid, making sure Dumbledore never took him. The priority here would be keeping Harry safe, not on their own relationship.

Now after POA is where things get messy. Because you essentially have two years here before Sirius dies. Even though Remus knows he’s innocent he went 13 years thinking he wasn’t. That trust isn’t going to magically return overnight, he’s going to have to unlearn all of the wrong things he figured out over the past decade. And this Sirius is different. This Sirius doesn’t need a relationship, he needs support, love and someone to help him. And Remus is there for that. They both still care for each other but they aren’t at a point where they work anymore. They just appreciate the comfort that the other provides. Remus takes care of Sirius the way Sirius took care of him so many years ago. It isn’t about a relationship, it’s about love. That love for each other is still strong, and it’s still there. Nothing is going to change that, they’ll always be a part of each other.

So no I don’t think they got “back together” before Sirius died. Or even if Sirius survived, before Remus died. If by some miracle they both survived the war down the road? Maybe. They’d still have that tight bond with each other and over time and as they heal it might develop again. But no I think they only really “dated” in high school. But that love for each other never really went away. It’s still a huge part of each of them, and even if they aren’t in a relationship that doesn’t mean they aren’t in love.

So in summary:

-Remus is gay. His story is queercoded but in a homophobic way.

-Sirius likes men. It further distances him from his family and is something he has a lot of internal problems with

-they’re secretly together in high school. James probably knows but he never pushes

-post POA they don’t get “back together” but they are still fiercely attached and care about the other deeply. The lack of a relationship is not an indication of no love. They don’t really care about labelling it as much they’re just Remus and Sirius and they just. Need each other

-if allowed to survive till the end they may get back together

So I would say yes, Wolfstar is canon. We have nothing to prove none of this didn’t happen. They could have been together in high school and Harry would never know. And even if the relationship fizzles out, that love is always still there and that never goes away.

If you’re still here this is part of a series I’m doing, and I’m going to be doing this with a bunch of other stuff! It’s all going to be under #deathoftheauthorbirthofthemcmac so if you like this one I’ve got a jjpope one up and more to come!

[ladyloveandjustice]

Belated Spring 2020 Anime Overview: My Next Life as Villainess

For the Spring 2020 anime season, I mostly watched continuations of shows I was already into. The one new show I did pick up was My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! follows Katerina Claes, a spoiled young noble girl deviously scheming to win the heart of a prince- oh wait, never mind, she hit her head and remembered her past life! Turns out she’s an eighteen year old Japanese otaku chick who died and got reincarnated as the villainess in her favorite otome game. 

If you don’t feel like reading the wiki article, an otome game is basically a female- targeted dating sim where you play as a blank slate main character and date a bunch of pretty boys (and sometimes girls, but usually only if you go outside the mainstream ones), unlocking their backstories and collecting all the romantic endings.

Having played this game, Katarina is well aware that the Villainess character- who constantly tries to interfere with the game’s heroine and whichever boy she’s pursuing- is either exiled or killed in all of the games endings. And now she IS that villainess, living in the world of the game and all its characters! Does that mean she’s doomed to a horrible fate? What’s a girl to do?

Well, if you’re Katarina, what you do is be supportive and kind to the people around you and in doing so accidentally get every single character in the game to fall in love with you. And yes, this includes all the boys the heroine is supposed to date, the other female romantic rivals the heroine is faced with and the game’s heroine herself.

That’s right, we finally got us some bisexual romantic comedy hijinx last anime season, my friends! My Next Life as a Villainess was the delightful little show I really escaped into during these anxious pandemic times . All these girls casually falling in love with Katarina without it being treated as ‘weird’ was what particularly drew me to this show and warmed my gay little heart to see. It was honestly the perfect fluffy, low stress watch during these high stress times.

Anime has long been oversaturated with ‘harem’ stories- where a usually unwitting protagonist somehow gets a bevy of beauties in love with them- but it’s still unfortunately really unusual to see bisexual harems, especially ones with a girl at the center, so right away there’s a big draw to this story that helps it stick out from the rest.  (And worry not, the story is largely focused on Katarina having fun with these pals-who-are-not-so-secretly-in-love-with-her, rather than having a ton the dubious shenanigans you see in more sexually charged tales.)

Harem protoganists also famously tend to have the personality of potatoes, being so painfully bland it’s unclear why so many people would fall in love with them in the first place. But that definitely not the case for Katarina. She’s brash, ridiculous, kind and INCREDIBLY dense, and that for a pretty dynamic combination in this setting! She does genuinely come off as a fun person to be around. Unlike a lot of modern isekai shows, she doesn’t stumble into having incredible magic powers or skills, so her compassion is genuinely her greatest strength and what saves the day and wins hearts time and time again.

Katarina’s five brain cells doing their weekly check-in

(The moment she won my heart was when she responded to a tragic Frozen style situation with her friend locking himself away from people because he believed his magic was dangerous by taking an axe to his door. My kinda girl!)

The premise also allows for some plausible built-in reasons for the characters to take such special notice of Katarina- having been raised in a different world, she isn’t beholden to all the social rules, class divisions and noble family drama all the other kids in this very specific midevial-esque fantasy world are so embroiled in. This combined with her naturally earnest, accepting and straightfoward nature means she’s able to cross boundaries and reach out to them in a way they aren’t accustomed to. She was significant in each character’s life because she genuinely was the first to show them acceptance and affection without pretense, if only because she isn’t even aware there was supposed to be a pretense.

Katarina’s focus on trying not to die and her fear she’s going to meet the same fate as the villainess in the game also at least gives some kind of a basis to her comical obliviousness to everyone being in love with her. She assumes that everyone has to be into Maria (the heroine) and terrified of her because that’s how the game GOES okay, that’s CANON! Of course, this logic stretches thin as time goes on and it would be abundantly clear to most people that things have diverged greatly from the game’s storyline, but the show makes it clear that Katarina’s determined, one track mind is as much a gift as a curse. 

Her bullheadedness when it comes to picking up how everyone REALLY feels about her is an intentional gag on the show’s part and even her love interests are well aware of what a colossal dumbass she is and not afraid to point it out!

My Next Life as a Villainess isn’t without its flaws, and the personalities/backstories of some of the ‘love interests’ Katarina gathers may be a stumbling block on some- mostly the male ones.  Geordo, “the black hearted prince” has a bit of the “ possessive shoujo bad boy” archetype about him, and though he’s far from the worst that genre of love interest has to offer (there’s not much bad he can get up to due to Katarina’s obliviousness, the lighthearted nature of the show, and his rivals constantly getting in his way), the way he refuses to break Katarina and his engagement off despite her repeatedly asking him to, as well as some of his lines here and there, are definitely NOT cute. 

Keith is Katarina’s adopted brother, but clearly has a thing for her too. On one hand, they only first met when they were nine and he fell for her pretty immediately. On the other hand, he still refers to her as “sister” constantly which is kinda eesh. 

The other two guys are all right- Nicol’s big thing is he’s inexpressive and doesn’t talk much which, considering show doesn’t spend much time inside his head, doesn’t make him a very interesting character in the ensemble (maybe he comes across better in the novels) but there’s nothing wrong with him. Alan is undoubtedly the Best Boy in my book. He’s another common trope- rambunctious and competitive with Katarina but clearly soft for her- but he’s done well and they have a lot of cute moments together.

I find the girl love interests to be a much more interesting group overall, though this may be my obvious bias talking. Sophia has the strongest connection to Katarina, their backstories being intertwined in a surprising and touching way (I’m told in the novels her affection for Katarina was treated as more platonic, but the anime definitely plays it up as having romantic elements). Maria’s original role as the game’s heroine puts her in the most interesting position (and would make her the most narratively satisfying choice of love interest, if the show was actually interested in choosing). And while Mary is comically tenacious in her pursuit of Katarina, she’s doesn’t ever act ‘sinister’ or overstep boundaries in the way Geordo does, her “scheming” only really amounting to straightforwardly asking if Katarina wants to ditch her fiance and run away with her. 

As I mentioned, one thing that really contributes to My Next Life as a Villainess being a relaxing watch is that the queer characters are treated with casual acceptance. Mary in particular isn’t subtle about her crush on Katarina, but nobody bats an eye at her and she’s completely open and comfortable with herself too. The observing maid notes that the girls are in love with Katarina with the same bland affect as when she notes she notes the guys are. And while the social practices of the nobles are pretty heteronormative- girls are always engaged in arranged marriages to guys, the guys are expected to dance with the girls (something Mary complains about!)- there’s apparently a booming queer romance novel industry that inspires our young wlw.

Katarina, having grown up in a different world, seems to be the one most prone to heteronormativity of her group. She never really considers  that a girl would ever fall in love with her, but is also never hostile to the idea. It’s telling that when Mary very clearly indicates her desired romantic partner would be a girl, Katarina’s the only one that gets tripped up and has to walk back her assumption that Mary would be talking about a guy. 

Mary LAYING DOWN THE LAW

Also, Katarina has  SEVERAL “she’s so cute! My heart is beating faster!” moments with the other girls, on par in frequency with her moments with the guys. This strongly hints she’s an oblivious bisexual disaster.

So, My Next Life as Villainess is a fun, frothy watch and the rare positive example of silly wish-fufillment that’s inclusive to a wlw audience. But is the actual plot good, or remotely complex? The answer to that is no, the plot is fairly predictable and one definitely shouldn’t got into this story expecting a deep examination of the nature of fate or anything like that.There’s no real explanation of big reason as to why why Katarina was reborn into this game world and so on.

 The antagonist that does eventually emerge plays off otome game tropes a bit, but ultimately isn’t that interesting or built up all that well. . The attempts at drama the show makes towards the end fall a little flat, especially since it tends to rely on very-late-in-the-game-exposition-dumps (dark magic isn’t even MENTIONED as existing in this world until like, the second to last episode where it becomes relevant and we get a vague infodump explaining its mechanics). The conflict honestly almost feels shoehorned in and the climax is pretty standard and doesn’t really utilize the big cast of characters all that well

But in the end, that’s okay! The show makes it abundantly clear from the beginning it’s not here to be Deep, but to be some silly fun. And it really fulfills that purpose well, from it’s catchy, peppy theme tune to its consistently warm tone. It MAY get repetitive at times for some, and I do have some quibbles- like how I found the childhood segments to be some of the shows best material and wish we could have stayed in that section for a bit instead of rushing through it, how I wish Katarina had kept her cute little scar, etc- but overall, it was definitely the soothing balm I needed during a very rough time and I absolutely recommend it if you’re looking for a chill, feel-good watch.

 And hey, a second season’s supposed to be on the way too, so there’s something to potentially look forward to!

[the-anastasia]

Bit of a longer post, but please read even if you didn’t watch the show.

It’s been a year since Supernatural ended and what’s been happening since is just so crazy to me (spoilers ahead). I’m not naïve enough to think homophobia is no longer prevalent in our world but this just feels surreal? For those who don’t watch, one male character confessed to being in love with another male character 3 episodes before the end of the series. That character was then quickly taken to Supernatural’s version of hell, a quick bury your gays so it does not have to be addressed in the last two episodes – but that’s not what bothers me most.

What’s crazy is that we all knew it was romantic, the actor said it was romantic (“what are they going to do, fire me?”), the writer of the episode said it was romantic, the script said it was romantic, yet people still no-homo the “I love you” but saying it was a platonic confession (what??). But even that is not what bothers me most. What’s been bothering me is how over the past year the narrative has been purposely taken from a romantic confession to “it’s open to interpretation”. This has been happening in all discourse of the show (at conventions, in interviews, online etc.). We are told that the great thing about stories and art is that we can interpret it in our own way. Though that is true and on the surface seems harmless, under this guise of interpretation, queer representation is now being quieted and muted. No one would be talking about it being open to interpretation if one of the characters was a woman.

Why are we doing this? Why are we more concerned with making people who are uncomfortable with queer representation feel comfortable instead of queer people themselves? Of course the obvious answer is that whoever is responsible for this new narrative does not want to lose any of their audience, lower ratings meaning less money. And unfortunately money is more important than diversity, equity, and inclusion. More important than the harm caused by being perpetually silenced. And harm it does cause, I’ve seen first hand the trauma and pain coming from this. Buy hey, as long as everyone is comfortable in their sexual hang-ups.

tl;dr Saying queer representation is “open to interpretation” is harmful to that representation. It would be mighty cool if we could all just not. 🏳️‍🌈