#and this weird narrative where lesbians had it better

[tohabo]

Outside of the plagiarism James Somerton was just so shitty at making content, the little things he wrote where blatant lies and misinformation, most times it served as a way for him to create an alternative version of our history where gay men were the ones that suffered most, in fact his mentions of ace people read as him accepting them as long ad they stayed ont heir place as less important and less oppressed than gay men.

Not to mention those deeply pathetic rants about “white straight women” and the disgust he feels for them, the superiority he feels he deserves.

James somerton was a liar, a thief and a misogynist

[dapperapple]

Mike's crush on El does not necessarily contradict him being gay rather than bi

I wanna start off by clarifying that if you see Mike Wheeler as bisexual rather than gay, THAT'S 1000% VALID don't let anyone take that from you babe

this is just my perspective as a lesbian who thought she was definitely straight until the end of 10th grade (age 16, a bit older than Mike and Will are in canon)

I was rewatching a lot of scenes from the show, mainly s2 and s3, to see if I thought that Mike's feelings for El came across as weird/forced or if their relationship felt off

and honestly it left me (a Byler shipper) pretty confused at first

because YES there are a lot of odd things about his feelings and their relationship

BUT ALSO

there are a few moments that are so cute and feel so genuine I didn't know what to do with them for a sec

mainly all the scenes where they're together at the Snowball dance

because that shit seems real to me, it's cute as fuck, that is a Mileven win right there if there ever was one

and honestly, the forehead touch when she and the Byers are about to leave, and again when they reunite in s4

dude that shit is so sweet okay

(Mileven shippers are valid even if I disagree with it for the narrative)

ANYWAYS here's where my personal experience comes in to help out with my confusion over this

Mike in s1 feels the most obviously comp-het to me

because I had a big crush on a boy in kindergarten, another in gr2/3

I didn't even know what gay people were, I knew girls liked boys, so if a boy was my friendly, and nice to me instead of mean, I probably would've liked him or thought I liked him

Mike in seasons 2-4 reminds me of myself in gr7/8

the most intense crush I had on a guy was in gr7/8

I was more used to being friendly with guys at this point but this guy was becoming a close friend of mine

a cute confident guy who was nice, funny, and taking an active interest in me as a person was like wooaahh

I really do believe that Mike unintenionally idolized El, putting her up on this pedestal, with his self esteem all wrapped up in her liking him back

but I also don't think that's his fault, when you're young you don't know any better

the pressure to date starts to increase a bit, and low self esteem is kicking your ass

I did the exact same thing with the guy I liked, I had this whole other version of him in my head and I started liking him less and less the more he didn't act like that ideal

(insert Mike's behavior towards El after she assaulted Angela)

even after I figured out that the kind of person and the kind of connection I wanted in a relationship was something I was far more likely to find with a girl, I still thought I was straight, so it just made me kind of sad

like- I had resigned myself to the fact that I would struggle to find a guy that I TRULY liked

maybe it was lingering internalized homophobia, idk, I had lots of gay friends, but I just hadn't felt that way about any girl at all before, I didn't think I was capable of being attracted to girls

and then there was her

we became very close friends, she was such a kind person, so fucking funny, an incredibly skilled artist, and absolutely gorgeous

and it finally clicked

finally my mind registered the fact that I COULD be attracted to girls

I still consider her my first love

and then there was no turning back

WHICH IS WHY

I wouldn't be surprised AT ALL if it takes Will coming out to Mike/the party in order for him to consider Will romantically

not because he isn't already in love with him subconsciously

but because I don't think he has registered it as a possibility for EITHER of them

moral of the story:

COMPULSIVE HETEROSEXUALITY IS REAL GUYS AND IT CAN FEEL MORE REAL THAN YOU'D EXPECT

especially since when you're young, the differences between boys and girls (both physically and how we're socialized) are much less apparent

MIKE WHEELER I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE (because me too!!)

[adorawasright]

ppl tend to act like you're exaggerating for disliking spop, since they love arguing "but it's a show about (romantic) love and redemption! you're just mad to see lesbians winning <3"

but the thing is, c//a ISN'T the only issue with spop.

it's all the "friendships" where the characters don't like each other OR WORSE, the "cool and popular" characters bully the ones that are "weird", "annoying" or "different" overall (read: entrapta and kyle).

most romantic relationships weren't written well or were downright forced, such as g/limbow, s/corfuma, and especially r/epkylonnie (rooted in bullying of all things!). even the healthier ships like s/pinnetossa or bow's dads were sidelined. they only gave spinnerella and netossa screentime in s5 bc they wanted to parallel them with adora and catra.

the diversity isn't even that good, honestly. the characters of color receive little to no love from the show and from the fandom. BOW, my god, he's not only the black best friend character, he also has no meaningful character arc. he's just there for the plot, he changes his personality and morals when the plot wants him to (especially to make catra look better). although glimmer was probably one of, if not THE best character in the show (saying this with s4 in mind), sadly s5 only shoved her with bow romantically since they were reduced to wingmen and not adora's actual best friends. and if i talk about the other characters of color, such as micah and castaspella, we'll be here all day, and i've written about it in other posts.

other than that, disabled characters (hordak and shadow weaver) are the villains, the canonical trans/non-binary character was deceiving the good guys by pretending to be a little girl, the themes of war were never taken srsly, only when it was convenient, and in the end the creator dared to sum everything up by "it's catra's and adora's show!!!".

yes, there were elements in spop that i loved, like the original best friends squad and entrapdak, and i liked the narrative of abuse when it DIDN'T spit on adora's face. i loved seeing her standing up to shadow weaver and catra for what she believed was right. like it was so inspiring! i would've loved this as a kid!

this show had so much potential but they teach the worst messages to kids, especially "they hit you because they secretly like you". that fucking sucks. i don't hate lgbtqiapn+ rep - the rep here is BAD. and again, the grievances ppl have with spop are BEYOND the romance!!!

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Allura

Lots of people (myself included tbh) ship klance (Keith and Lance). In s8 the creators made Allura/Lance canon (but then they killed her off and left the ending ambiguous it was weird). Anyway the fandom treats her like she's the most terrible bitchy woman ever but all she wants to do is end the war and avenge her destroyed home planet. Yeah she wasn't always the nicest or always the best, but you could argue some other characters in the show aren't either and they aren't treated near as bad as allura. people really just hate her bc Lance liked her. I don't think allura/lance are good together, but I still liked her as a character and thought she was interesting and had a lot of growth during the show. she DEF is not evil like some people portray her as in fic or talk about her in captions on posts. I've seen people say that they HATE her and that she's the worst and I'm like ??? let her live (well sort of ig she is dead now). lots of fic writers use her as the villain which is so interesting to me bc the show literally has villains like use them. anyway allura so perfectly fits the bracket description she deserves better.

I hate to acknowledge my time in this fandom but I hate the way the fandom treated her more. Allura was treated like shit no matter what side of the Great Ship War you were on because she was always a threat to the biggest ships (klance and sheith). At best she got put into Background Lesbian or Consolation Prize Shallura (Space Mom-zoned) (She was not a motherly figure btw. She was just Black). At worst she was violently demonized for being ~racist~ (kinda not cool with the alien race that blew up her planet for a few episodes), complete with misogynistic language hurled at her (she got called a bitch sooo much). Allura was a good and cool character and the show did her dirty but the fandom was somehow worse.

i apologise for speaking the dark magicks, but amidst the voltron fandoms many, many transgressions, there were a particular subset of people who just hated this girl. the infamous klance wars of the 2010s kept this perfectly fine childrens cartoon character in the sights of shippers everywhere, and she (and her voice actress im sure) were subjected to years of petty squabble blown up to global perportions. ive seen hate, ive seen rants, ive seen fanfics that made her homophobic. girls been through the ringer, and even though voltron was never the show its fandom wanted it to be, i believe allura deserved better

Mary Morstan

a controversial one i know, but it’s tumblr. how could i not? anyway shoutout to the writers for CANONICALLY killing her off for the non-canon ship. she was so cool honestly poor girl

Oh god where do I start? Constantly being turned abusive? Killed off (in canon!)? Constantly being removed from fic? I cannot stand the way she's treated, but it's 100% impossible to find Johnlock fic without the "umsympathetic Mary Morstan" angle. It's infuriating!

The fandom insulted Mary at every conceivable turn, refused to acknowledge her narrative importance or impact on the other characters, called for her death repeatedly, and even SENT DEATH THREATS TO HER ACTRESS because she had the AUDACITY to be a morally gray female character who was married to John (they did not care about the moral grayness of the male characters, but she was irredeemable, apparently-presumably because she was a "threat" to the main fandom ship). And though she was definitely sacrificed on a SPECIFIC mlm ship altar, she was still tangentially victimized by OTHER mlm ships too! For example, this fandom was willing to make up a character WHO LITERALLY DID NOT ACTUALLY EXIST to ship with different male character (who was morally...way worse than she ever was), as well as create swathes of content about two men who had maybe one canon interaction in the whole show, before even thinking about the possibility of making content for this character or even just talking about her in a way that wasn't overtly misogynistic and degrading. When Mary died in-story (in what, in my opinion, was an unnecessary, bullshit way), her death was, to this fanbase, not actually about her and was just seen as "proof" that the two male leads would now get together (they didn't). And this STILL continues to this day. People reduce her to "selfish bitch," completely ignoring any of her complexity by claiming that she's incapable of caring about anyone (despite helping to save lives on more than one occasion, as well as dying in an act of sacrifice) and insisting that any of her positive qualities MUST be completely fabricated. I've seen a lot of female characters get mistreated by fandom for a mlm ship's sake, but I don't think I've EVER encountered an example as bad as this one.

[manygeese]

Part two to my playlist as Percy Jackson characters

PERCY JACKSON SHIPS AS SONGS FROM MY PLAYLIST

now with ratings! if you don’t agree, feel free to leave reasons that u do like the ship but please be civil abt it 👍 Warning i have not read all the books

these aren’t strictly canon guys and if u don’t like on of the ships ignore it and read the ones u do like :)

PERCABETH

PercyxAnnabeth. I can’t rate them anything but 10/10 I think because they are the foundation

“Stand By Me” by Ben E. King. Represents their loyalty to each other even as the world is going to hell :) “Nobody touches her” anyone?

FRAZEL

FrankxHazel. I think it’s cute but the age gap is weird but I like the devotion. Not my favorite but wholesome. 6.8/10?

“She’s Got a Way” by Billy Joel. Very wholesome, very pining-coded, very devoted. Reminds me of how Frank is over here like “I would kill myself for you” about Hazel in SoN

SOLANGELO

Will SolacexNico. I think it’s cute but I have not read the novel about them and have only read up to SoN bc my library doesn’t have MoA. 8/10, what I’ve seen in fanon is rlly cute

“Romeo’s Tune” by Steve Forbert. Very young love. Very frolicking in a grass field with my beloved.

JIPER

JasonxPiper. I don’t like it, it’s giving comphet. Literally built on a lie but they are besties. Romantic- 2/10. Platonic- 8/10.

“Our Last Summer” by ABBA. Again, young love, but more like a fling. Very reminiscent but also sweet. This is if I HAD to give them a romantic song.

VALGRACE

LeoxJason. I love it so much it is canon in my mind. The fanart for these silly little guys is so cute but also they are the next Romeo and Juliet. I look at them and I go “OOF” in a good way. 10/10

“Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin. They’re always waiting for the right time but it never comes 😔. Sorry in my mind they are happy and live in a cottage. This song is optimistic though!!! Don’t think about it too hard

PIPABETH

PiperxAnnabeth. I think it’s cute but I think I haven’t seen them enough to really think about them. VERY COOL THOUGH!!! 7/10.

“High on You” by Survivor. They lift each other up and make each other better! Also matches the energy I think they’d have- hardcore, like U-Haul lesbians hardcore

VALDANGELO

LeoxNico. I think it’s sweet. I see it as a “getting together romantically after years of friendship” thing. They’re very similar to each other and they’d definitely bond over their pasts! 8/10

“Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone. They back each other up and give each other unconditional love, help each other unlearn bad habits, help each be better and all that :)

JASICO

JasonxNico. Again, haven’t seen a lot of canon content about them but I do know Nico gets outed to Jason and I think they’d just be friends after that. Like I don’t think Nico would be 100% comfy in a romantic setting? Romantic- 5.9/10. Platonic- 8/10.

“Sleeping With the Television On” by Billy Joel. They’re unsure of themselves, too shy to make the first move on the other, etc. Pushing each other away and all that pining jazz.

JERCY

JasonxPercy. They’re bros. All the way. I could see how it could go from bros to boyfriends, but I’m stuck in the bro mindset. Romantic-8/10. They could have a lot of fun banter. Platonic-10/10.

“If It Wasn’t For The Nights” by ABBA. They need each other, but they get mad at each other a lot :( Narrative foils!!!!!

RUEGARD

Clarisse LaRuexSilena Beauregard. Tragic, the parallels to Patroclus and Achilles and PARALLELING! Amazing. Personally, I really like the poly ship where it’s Clarisse, Chris, Selena, and Beckendorf (cuz i love Beckendorf and I think they’d be a great support system for each other). By themselves, 9/10. Points deducted cuz they only really interact in TLO.

“Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel. The title should explain everything.

VALZHANG

LeoxFrank. In the same vein as Jercy because they’re bros. I think a poly relationship between Hazel, Leo, and Frank could be sweet too. But by themselves, romantically, 7/10. Platonic- 10/10, would shenanigan together.

“It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones. They both give off very “jealous of their partners” vibes. Also they like the dance.

Reblog with any other ships you like! I might do a part two :)

[gotta-pet-em-all]

Okay, so it seems like rotomblr broke… again? And I can’t see any of the past posts, so I guess I’m redoing our intro.

Hi, we’re the Fluffstep system! Collectively, all of us respond to Fluff online. If you don’t know who’s talking, chances are we don’t either. Dissociation is a bitch and we tend to be blurry anyways, we’re still figuring it out..

In rough order of appearance, here’s who we have!

Elle + Bryelle: Both of them have the body age and appearance, although Bryelle has longer hair and Elle likes the current length better. They share memories better than anyone in the system, so if you’ve talked to one, the other will remember what happened. We think they split initially from trauma, although we’re a mixed origin system. Bryelle helps us with organization and talking to people, and Elle is good at taking care of our pokemon and talking to the therapist. Bryelle is somewhat high strung, while Elle has defeatist tendencies. 

Firestar: Fictive from Warrior Skitty; he doesn’t front a whole lot but he’s great at emotional support and hyping us up. Also, he had a thing with Graystripe back home. Please do not approach us with Firestar ship discourse, this is what happened to him and he doesn’t want to engage in that. He’s post-canon, but with some divergences.

Linnea: We think she’s about eight or so; we’re not sure when she split but we were pretty young. She’s not great at emotional regulation, so please be extra kind when she’s in front. Linnea’s job is to monitor our body and make sure everything’s running smoothly. She’s a bit of a crybaby and has been trying to get us to buy her more plushies. Linnea, we love you but the bed isn’t big enough.

Max: She’s a walk-in, not positive when she showed up but she’s been blurry and has the worst dissociation. We’re trying to get her to front more, and she’s coming out more now that we’re out of Plasma. Cool lesbian who’s in her mid twenties, by our best guess. She’s the best at cooking and taking phone calls, but sucks at sending emails.

Dragonite: She showed up around puberty, and holds most of the deviance. We try to keep the blog safe for work, but Dragonite… if you are a minor, please block the tag #Dragonite speaks. We appreciate her doing the exploration for us, and breaking down some of the sexual shame we have! But she lacks restraint in many ways.

Zor: a zorua/zoroark shifter. We really don’t know where it came from or what it wants, and we’re still working on communication. Far as we can tell, they like raw meat and having messy hair. They probably won’t type anything. 

Snowkit: he’s still miffed that he never earned his warrior name; we suspect he might be a little younger than the body age. He escaped his narrative to haunt us specifically, and is the disability advocate for the body. He doesn’t front a lot due to sensory issues with sound, since he’s Deaf and the body being Hearing is weird. 

[floodonthefloor]

Omg, I love how the votes are relatively evenly split if you add up porn / mostly 1 but both and plot / mostly 2 but both… delicious.

Also, this is such a weird coincidence because I was literally thinking about this last night (as a floodonthefloor scholar, lmao). I think ‘pedestal’ has been your most popular fic so far for four key reasons, but the main reason primarily being that you’d already built up a loyal readership from your existing fics and also started engaging on social media a lot more by the time ‘pedestal’ dropped. So by that point you already had a lot more people actively waiting for a FOTF fic specifically rather than just a Rhaenicent fic they happened to vibe with the sound of. And then that hype spawns more eyeballs/engagement.

The other three reasons I think, are

1) ‘pedestal’ is quite a unique situation / world to place them in. I don’t think I’ve come across any / many other fics where they’re lawyers? And there’s obviously a huge market for lawyer-focused narratives when you look at wider pop culture. Whereas other concepts like in world / divorce / corporate / sporty settings are quite common — although NOT to suggest that any of these settings aren’t original or exciting because they absolutely are, and as you’ve expertly shown yourself. No two interpretations of Rhaenicent are the same! But yeah, I think the unique offering - coupled with how them being lawyers actually really suits them both as characters - is a big appeal.

2) People will always absolutely fucking eat up an enemies to lovers. No trope does it better. And back to my last point, I think the fact they’re both lawyers in ‘pedestal’ makes for a really interesting and fun launchpad for that as opposed to what readers have perhaps become more accustomed to.

3) The sex, obviously, lmao. Life is hard and you’re insanely good at writing lesbian sex so that’s absolutely going to be a huge draw for people. But I think ‘pedestal’ does have that extra plot-driven edge because the sex doesn’t feel that sexy when it’s not rooted in an existing dynamic, which you’ve built fabulously.

And to that point, I’m a ‘both but more porn’ if having to choose person, but with the massive caveat that sex scenes aren’t interesting to me unless they’re in context. Like I absolutely eat up your fics because they’re so utterly engaging and sexy. You do both beautifully and, as an aside, so happy that more and more recognition seems to come your way each week for your talent :)

u guys are so smart and insightful i love these. thank you

[ninja-muse]

As you can maybe tell by the three reviews I posted in July, it was a good reading month! Overall, at least. I still had a couple “this was fine” and one DNF, but there were a lot of hits and I read more books than I have the last few months.

So, highlights: The Hollow Places was fantastic, as was Bookshops and Bonedust but for very different reasons. If you’re worried that Baldree won’t be able to repeat the magic of Legends and Lattes, stop now. It was pure cozy delight. March’s End didn’t get a review simply because I already had three coming, but it was also very good. It examines family dynamics and the realities of a portal fantasy world in a very complex, adult way. The characters are believable if not necessarily likeable, the world-building is great, the writing is strong… all the things.

But between March’s End, The Hexologists, and The Hollow Places, I needed a lot of lighter books to balance, as you can probably tell by the rest of my list. I enjoyed pretty much everything! I’m just sorry I didn’t like the Sanderson more but I guess that’s a sign he isn’t an author for me since I didn’t like the last book of his I read either. I’m also a bit sorry I couldn’t get into The Atlas Six because so many people love it, but I dropped it in a Little Free Library and it got snapped up almost instantly so hopefully it’s found a better home.

So that was my unhaul of the month! I … did not do well with my book haul, or perhaps I did too well with it. The Odyssey and Thud were both damaged books that came in at work and I couldn’t say no. Thud has some wear to the cover; the Odyssey has some uncut and weirdly bound pages I’ll need to slice open. (Have I read and do I own other editions of both? Absolutely.) Love in the Time of Serial Killers was an unexpected rebound—I originally got it as a reading copy and passed it on to a coworker, who sent it back when she’d finished.

And then, well. There’s a new bookshop opening in my metro area. They’ve taken over from a used bookstore and have to sell off its stock before they can properly move in their own. I had to go help out, right? I couldn’t find anything in their SFF section I wanted but still left with three books: Gaudy Night, Evelina, and a collection of Molière. I went with friends, the same day we saw Barbie. ’Twas a very good day, all around.

And last but not least, I have started on one of those long, dense reads that will last ages. I’ve had Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century on my shelf for years and made it a goal to finally start it this year, since it’s totally up my alley but also huge and academic. There was a point in July where I didn’t want epic stories, light stories, or narrative non-fiction, so I figured that was as good a time to start it as any. I’ll probably read a section or two a month, whenever a similar mood hits.

And now without further ado, in order of enjoyment…

The Hollow Places - T. Kingfisher

Kara moves into her uncle’s museum of weird after her divorce, only to discover another universe behind a wall.

9/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (gay), disabled secondary character

warning: body horror

Bookshops and Bonedust - Travis Baldree

Viv is recuperating from an injury in a sleepy town, where she finds a struggling bookshop, new friends, and a mystery. Out in November.

9/10

🏳️‍🌈 main character (sapphic), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (sapphic)

March’s End - Daniel Polansky

The Harrows have been tasked for generations with protecting a fantastical other world, but now the family is fracturing and that could endanger everything.

8/10

major 🏳️‍🌈 character (lesbian), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (sapphic), African-American secondary character

warning: toxic family dynamics, commentary on colonialism

Imogen, Obviously - Becky Albertalli

Imogen puts the A in Ally and that’s fine. Then she visits her best friend in college and meets a girl….

8/10

🏳️‍🌈 main character (bisexual), main character with anxiety, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (nonbinary, pan, lesbian, bisexual), Jewish secondary character, Brazilian-American secondary characters, secondary character with ADHD, Japanese secondary character, Black secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author, #ownvoices

warning: biphobia, discourse

The Hexologists - Josiah Bancroft

The Wilbys get more than they bargained for when they’re hired to find a lost royal heir and stop the king from baking himself into a cake. Out in September.

7.5/10

possibly biracial main character

The Bookbinder - Pip Williams

When World War I pushes Peggy out of her routine, she’s forced to choose: a life binding the books of the Oxford Press or a life studying them?

8/10

major autistic secondary character, disabled secondary character

warning: war, injuries

The Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel - KJ Charles

Rufus is the new Earl of Oxney, saddled with a crumbling estate and a bitter family. Desperate for a good secretary, he hires Luke—who has a hidden agenda which doesn’t involve tupping the boss. And yet. Out in September.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (demisexual-gay, gay), main character with dyslexia, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (gay), minor Black British character

warning: toxic family dynamics, abuse

Weird Rules to Follow - Kim Spencer

Mia starts to notice that she and her best friend are living very different lives, with very different expectations from the adults around them.

7/10

Ts’msyen protagonist, Mexican-Canadian secondary characters, Ts’msyen secondary characters, Gitxsan secondary character, Ts’msyen author, #ownvoices, 🇨🇦

warning: racism, alcohol abuse

A Man and His Cat, Vol. 3 - Umi Sakurai with Taylor Engel (translator)

Kanda begins to deal with his emotional baggage, with the help of his cat and a fellow teacher.

7/10

Japanese cast, Japanese author, #ownvoices

Bookshop Cinderella - Laura Lee Guhrke

Evie is quite content as a spinster with a bookshop. Duke Maximilian has wagered he can make her the diamond of the season. This is a strictly platonic alliance, of course.

6/10

The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England - Brandon Sanderson

An amnesiac man wakes up in a country that may or may not be Anglo-Saxon England with an exploded guidebook. Good thing he has ~*~Mystical~*~ ~*~Powers~*~™.

6.5/10

Persian secondary character, Chinese-American secondary character

Picture Books

The Skull - Jon Klassen

Otilla finds a large house in the woods inhabited by a talking skull, so she helps him in return for shelter.

🇨🇦

DNF

The Atlas Six - Olivie Blake

Six ambitious magicians compete for a coveted place at the Library of Alexandria.

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (multisexual); Black-British, Cuban, Japanese, and Persian main characters; Filipino-American author

Currently reading:

Kill Show - Daniel Sweren-Becker

A teen goes missing after running back to her school bus for a bag. Forget podcasts: time for the reality show! Out in October.

warning: missing child, murder

The Wager - David Grann

A secret mission in the Age of Sail. A shipwreck and a mutiny. The perils of the sea—and your fellow man.

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

Stats

Monthly total: 11+1 Yearly total: 75/140 Queer books: 4 Authors of colour: 2 Books by women: 7 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 1 Off the TBR shelves: 1 Books hauled: 6 ARCs acquired: 4 ARCs unhauled: 6 DNFs: 1

January February March April May June

[wodania]

honestly no i don’t think it’s weird at all to be upset about the exclusion of satin in the show.. if anything though as a gay guy im pretty glad they didn’t have him if loras is any indicator.. imagine them with a fairly effeminate gay coded character? no thanks 🫣

Loras was a sign of the end times 😭 I think I’ve made a joke before that if JonCon had been included he probably would’ve been written like one of those modern family dads and I feel more and more right each passing day.

Gonna rant a little (a whole shit ton like it’s really long I’m so sorry I got carried away) about gender and sexuality in ASOIAF/GoT here because I’m a lesbian and obsessed with analyzing these things :

tldr; D&D set up gender roles/rules where there weren’t previously any, and removed and added character traits as they saw fit (especially looking at feminine = gay and masculine = straight). If a character did not fit their perceived mould, such as Qarl the Maid, Jon Connington, and Satin, and could not be altered to fit that perceived mould, they were cut entirely. They also, in a possible attempt to be more relatable to a gay audience, introduced systematic religious homophobia where it was not previously, brutalizing their gay character. They wrote them as stereotypes and ignored them if they could not possible be shaped into one of their stereotypes.

GRRM obviously plays with gender roles and dynamics with his characters, yet D&D makes it so black and white. Gay people are all effeminate men. Hell, even Asha/Yara falls into this. She and her lover Qarl are a major fuck you to westerosi gender roles and expectations. He’s an effeminate man and she’s a masculine woman in a dominate powerful position. Yet he’s removed from the show. Absolutely no hate to queer “Yara”, but it is interesting in hindsight how that ended up working out. Had she been written differently, I’d argue that bisexuality compliments her character - if it weren’t for the history D&D has. When they do play with gender roles, it’s so tacky and one dimensional and ends with weird, nonsensical scenarios of female badassery with none of the development present in the books. Then, on the other hand, any vulnerability or deviance from societal expectations that male characters experience are wiped clean. Jon Snow is made into a generic fantasy hero type. Men who are seen as “weaker” or more “submissive” are brutalized on screen as torture p/rn, as shown with Theon Greyjoy. And men who are gay must be effeminate or promiscuous in one way or another. Loras deviated from that, so he had to be stripped of his defining traits and turned into fan service. Satin deviated from that even more, being a sex worker, and was stripped from the show entirely. Loras didn’t sleep with men enough, and the show writers wanted to change that. But Satin slept with men too much, and was in too close of proximity narratively and physically to fantasy hero Jon Snow. They wanted gay sex depicted in an easily digestible way for their perceived cishet audience, and found the idea of a boy selling his body to survive abysmal and not appropriate for such an audience, though they had no problem exploiting female prostitutes for the pleasure of the viewers . And in a weird attempt to be “relatable” to modern audiences, d&d introduced a self imposed barrier: homosexuality being illegal. Likely thinking that gay audiences would love to see their favourite gay Loras Tyrell brutalized and spat upon, D&D did exactly that, failing to realize that gay audiences would much rather see a queer character existing in a dark fantasy without their sexuality being what puts them in danger, compared to seeing something they already witness every day (religious-motivated violence and persecution) thrown into the show. Like it’s such an insult to the source material, especially considering that the 1990s book that hardly makes explicit references to the relationship of Loras and Renly does a better job at making them likeable, well developed characters than the “modern” 2010s tv drama. The flower crown, rainbow, cutesy edits dating back to the early days of Game of Thrones is a far cry from the depiction of politically savvy Renly and brutal and bloody Loras in the books. And the show just kind of encouraged that view of the two, as the cutesy gay boy fan service, hairless as a newborn baby and scared of blood. On the topic of JonCon, it would have been near impossible to introduce him and have him fit this set rule of “effeminate men = gay” and “masculine men = heterosexual”. JonCon is an intimidating, stone faced character who’s demeanour is hinted at being similar to that of Tywin fucking Lannister, as Tyrion almost accidentally refers to Jon as “father”. Aka, Jon is scary af. He’s older, grey, potentially dated the ugliest man in Essos who was also significantly older than him, and is also a father. Hardly a character that can be put into the set limiting roles of the show.

I’m honestly going to stop myself right here this is getting too long and I should just sit down and write an essay 💀 like genuinely I should write a paper

[haze-of-hyperfixations]

Hi! 👋 Do you have any lgbt+ hcs for asoue or atwq? 🌈 :)

Hi! 👋

Thanks for the ask!! Here's some of my headcanons:

ASOUE:

Violet - bi. also i think it'd be funny if she had crushes on both Isadora and Quigley, and made some comment about "hey, maybe i have a type. or something." meanwhile her siblings are like. violet. they are identical.

Carmelita - aro. doesn't realize this until way after canon (assuming the entire unfortunate gen survives for the sake of both the post and my feelings) because she genuinely never considers that romantic attraction is like. a real thing. she thinks everyone's just being weird about dating because they're just weird like that. and she's totally better than them anyways, so she doesn't really give it any more thought for a while. she basically avoids the entire self-questioning stage like that, and it isn't until a while after canon, once she's kind of had a redemption arc and kind of formed some kind of connection with other characters, that she's just arguing with someone one day about something to do with romance, and the other character is like. uh. actually that's not universal and i think you might be aro. and she kind of has to process that for a few minutes. but she ends up basically going "oh, so it's not everyone? it's just me? that's awesome." also modern AU Carmelita would make those posts that are like, pink hearts and sparkly, elegant cursive saying stuff like "romance is dead and i killed it." (i just googled it, it's called aro lovecore.) anyways, post-canon aro Carmelita. :)

Isadora - trans girl. and she's unsure of her specific orientation, but knows she definitely likes girls.

Quigley - ace. questioning both gender and romantic orientation, but probably somewhere under the nonbinary umbrella. and possibly bi. listen just let the kid figure stuff out post-canon. where's that post that goes "i'm probably nonbinary but i have a job so idc about that right now". that's Quigley but the job is not dying and processing childhood trauma.

Sunny - post-canon, older Sunny also gets hit by the aro headcanon beam. i just think it'd be really neat.

not a lot of thoughts on the sugarbowl gen, except possibly pan Beatrice Baudelaire and aro Sally Sebald? idk, I think about the unfortunate gen a lot more, ha.

ATWQ:

Moxie - possibly arospec? okay, admittedly i just thought of this headcanon now. but arospec Moxie would add an interesting layer to her dynamic with Ellington and Lemony. especially if you interpret the Lemony/Ellington as onesided, with Lemony being the one with the romantic feelings. because like. platonic jealousy over your best friend's crush (who doesn't reciprocate, but maybe she does, but who even cares? not Moxie.) is an interesting dynamic. because Ellington Feint contrasts her in a thousand narrative, thematical ways that other people could write about better than me. but Lemony's also kind of infatuated with her, and she gets that slightly romanticized place in his narrative that Moxie doesn't. and of course that could lead to additional resentment. and some of it's jealousy, some of it's anxiety, some of it's frustration, but the whole thing could lead to really interesting internal conflict. especially after Lemony leaves, and the other kids have to figure out a new sense of normal after all that. idk. interesting thought.

Ellington - lesbian. also just thought of that one now, so idk. but i've been kind of on the fence for a while about the Lemony/Ellington thing and all it's ambiguity. my current headcanon is that it was onesided on Lemony's side, and that Ellington didn't have any romantic feelings for him. and i need to reread the books, i love them so much and it's been a little while, but yeah, Ellington being gay is a neat concept, i think.

in conclusion, i think basically all of these characters are Very Much Not Straight, but the ones listed were just the first ones i could think of!

thanks again for the ask!! have a great day, and happy pride month!! :)

[lovebugism]

omggggg pls tell me more about lesbian Nancy

thanks for asking anon! i will take any and every opportunity to talk about nancy being a girl kisser

i think nancy's entire story screams compulsory heterosexuality. she's got white, wealthy parents who i'm pretty sure support reagan if i remember correctly. this tells me they had conservative-leaning values that nancy likely grew up around. also hawkins is obv a pretty small town, so she's in an environment where being gay wasn't socially acceptable. this led her to suppress her sexuality and dating steve <3

i won't touch on the barb and nancy thing bc i haven't seen season one in Forever, but i do think their relationship was fulfilling in a way her relationship with steve never could be. we know this because obv she didn't love him, she just thought she had to because being with girls wasn't even in the question.

this leads us to jonathan. if u ask me, the Only reason these two are together is because of 1.) shared trauma and 2.) because she is so scared of ending up like her parents, she wanted someone who was on the exact opposite of the social spectrum. jonathan was just a poor, weird kid who knows her darkest secrets and has fought monsters with her. he was different and made her believe she could be different too

these are obv just my opinions but i think about season 2 a lot when it comes to nancy potentially being a lesbian. at the halloween party with steve, she talks about "pretending" and it all being "bullshit." then at murray's he tells her smth about "not being her true self" (or smth along those things). ofc it doesn't Have to mean she's gay but... she's gay u feel me?

i just think nancy wheeler is so obviously written by men and it's forced her into a love triangle and caged her in this heterosexual narrative. if we look outside the drama out of it all, i feel like there's no real meaning to her liking men.. if that even makes sense lol? her being gay would do so much more for her overall narrative than just choosing jonathan/steve in the end.

and obv it's entirely possible nancy is, in fact, not a lesbian. but i really do hope by the end of st5, she realizes that's she's good on her own. bc i really don't want to have to sit through 8/9 episodes of her and jonathan and steve caught in a will-they-won't-they. or worse, one of them sacrificing themselves to save her, bc this will probably be steve and if i have to lose steve he better go out swinging (literally) to save the kids he unofficially babysits.

anyway. thanks for coming to my tedtalk. nancy wheeler likes kissing girls, pass it on.

tldr; nancy wheeler is a comphet lesbian. she liked steve bc she thought she had to. she liked jonathan bc it made her feel like she could be more than a rich white girl from the suburbs. let's cross her fingers and hope she's not with a man by the end of st5, whether she's attracted to them or not <3

[arwainian]

Reading This Week 2024 #26

blah (having a slow morning because i drank a lot of wine with a friend last night)

Finished:

the road to heaven, as paved by bad intentions by ineffmoth on ao3 i enjoyed this svsss porn-y modern au way more than i think i had any right to, but i think it was exactly the amount of Being Weird About It that I was seeking in my tag dive

A Transmigrator and a Time Traveler Walk Into the Bamboo House by VeryCharismaticDragon on ao3 as established in my notes last week, I think the first half of this is better than the second half, but I still had enough fun to finished it

"The Mermaid" by Kathleen Jowitt, narrated by Heather Rose Jones, aired on the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast

"Talking to Ghosts" by Caitlin Flavell, narrated by Heather Rose Jones, aired on the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast further historical lesbian short fiction that i get to listen to through a cool podcast I like. these little bites will simply keep showing up in my weekly recaps until I run out of backlog

"Historicizing Unreliable Narration: Unreliability and Cultural Discourse in Narrative Fiction" by Bruno Zerweck really interesting article about how "reliability" is culturally defined, and so the like label for a unreliable narrator comes out of differentiating it in a time where the narrator of a novel was not expected to be a character/expected to be objective, but now after like postmodernism took hold, "unreliability" in narration- ie. the representation of events within a text being from a particular perspective that lacks omniscient information and which is informed by the opinions of the protagonist, where we commonly understand that we likely wont get the full picture or a perfect recounting of events- is the norm

"The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto" by Sandy Stone you saw me post an extended quotation from this, you know I liked it!

"The Rise of Fictionality" by Catherine Gallagher a good read in combination with the Zerweck article above, telling a history of the rise of novels as fiction: texts that are neither true histories, nor fully fanastical stories that aren't mean to be taken as truth, defining fiction in the novel sense as stories told to be realistic and believable, but which the reader is still not meant to be tricked into taking as fact

"The Right Language for Rape" by Nina Philadelphoff-Puren like a linguistic analysis of how victims of acquaintance/date rape defined their experiences in the moment and afterwards, coining the term "discourse maintenance" to describe the ways victims chose to act as if they were not about to be or being sexually assaulted in an attempt to resist the transformation of their situation from "bad date" into "sexual assault". i have a lot of notes on this one. i'm not sure i agree with some of the conclusions in its final paragraphs but the body of the text I think was really well argued/explained and gave me a lot of thoughts to work with, primarily the way testimony obliterates that transformation, reading the discourse of rape backwards over the original discourse of romance, rather than demonstrating the temporal shift between them. i'd recommend it?

Frequency by cryptocism on ao3 and now for something completely different! finally finished reading this longfic about comic book characters that I don't know much about, but that's okay because the end notes of every chapter literally cite every comic event that it is referencing and building the canon of this Inertia redemption arc around. it was very good

Started/Ongoing:

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian this is All Vibes. not extremely compelling to me, but I do enjoy a Cat Sebastian romance so I am reading it at the pace that feels right for it, which isn't too fast

Reading Plans: pretty much the same plans as last week: articles, queer lit book club pick, stuff i need to grab from the library hold shelf in the next two days, etc but I'm also going to make an attempt to read through the fanfic tabs I have had open on my phone for way too long this week, which I already made some progress on with Frequency?

[dats-hq]

Saki, 2/12/16/20

2. When I truly started to like this character

So I was already primed to like Saki a lot just because I loved her character design and thought she seemed neat from the 2018 trailers, but obviously that didn't make me as normal about Saki as I am now.

I wish I had a text dump of the game so I could pull up the exact lines, but basically the part where I started to truly like Saki was in the first Free Action section of Part 6 where you can talk to her in the waterway about how she's feeling after seeing Wendimon kill Shuuji. Up until this point, it was clear that Saki put a lot of effort into masking her true feelings from the group, and we had even seen her try to distance herself from her own emotions in Part 3 and 4 with regards to losing Professor and Ryo.

In Part 6, though, it suddenly seemed very clear to me that Saki actually didn't know her own emotions herself. She'd worn masks for too long. Seeing this only a few minutes after watching Shuuji unravel from a similar internal conflict, and less than an hour after the revelation of Saki's chronic illness, made a lot of things click into place for me. I'm actually not sure if it was written with any specific intention that you have this realization here, but hey! I did, and it created a compelling narrative to me!

By this point, I had enough trust in Survive's writing that Saki's illness wasn't some irrelevant, edgy detail. It had to be connected in some way to her larger character. More than that, this was clearly a part of a larger theme of internal vs external self that extended beyond just one of two subplots.

(Side note, I actually do have some quibbles with how Survive depicts disability with the whole game in mind, but that's a different conversation.)

12. Sexuality headcanon

If the question is just what her sexuality is, I'd guess bi, though lesbian isn't out of the question. What I headcanon much more strongly, however, is that Saki herself is not sure yet. She doesn't exactly struggle with it or anything, she just doesn't give it a lot of thought. She likes who she likes, and she figures the details will just work themselves out.

16. Childhood headcanon

I think I've alluded to this a few times before, but I think Saki was diagnosed at a very young age. In the Wrathful Part 10 flashback, we see her doctor mention that her illness isn't affecting her too badly at this time, which to me implies that there have been at least a few extensive periods of time where she was either doing better or worse. Moreover, in Saki's prequel story, we see that Saki is well aware of how to emotionally manipulate her mother by playing up her illness. She had to have been living with this for quite a while in order to get a sense for which approach would work when with her mom. She probably even has a different strategy for her dad.

I think this provides an interesting foundation for why she is so distant from her true feelings.

(And yes, I know that Saki was partially expressing authentic anxiety to her mom in that phone call, but consider how much avoidant behavior with her doctor got her into that position in the first place. The distance from her own emotions is often layered in ways Saki refuses to acknowledge.)

20. Weird headcanon

Damn, I have a lot of these.

I think one of her (extremely tertiary) concerns about surgery was visible scarring and that was partially reflected in how she felt toward Veggiemon and Blossomon at first. Though, by the end of the game, she's full-throatedly announcing her love for Blossomon in Talk convos, which I like to think implies that in the routes she survives to get surgery in, she embraces the scars.

In the hypothetical multiversal Digimon tamer conference I half-jokingly think about a lot, she ends up in the Plant Girl room since there's not actually that many repeats of Palmon, Floramon, or Lalamon. Anyway she'd get into an argument with Mimi about if Palmon or Floramon were cuter, but lowkey get mad when she saw how cute Yoshino and Mimi's evolutions are compared to hers lol. Gets along well with Catherine though.

If she tried hanging out with Miu and Minoru outside the context of Kemonogami business, it would be very awkward at first but eventually they'd go to a zoo or something and have a good time talking about random shit while looking at animals.

She is NOT a natural blonde.

[drewzelle]

“nine mutuals you want to know better” tag game!

Tagged by @sarenhale ! I didn't have access to my computer the past couple days so I'm a bit late, but this was a lot of fun!! Thank you for the tag <3

Last Song: lately I've been relaxing to the Hollow Knight OST (City of Tears best track) but in terms of lyrical music, I recently rewatched the music video for "Little Dark Age" by MGMT because its vibes are fucking impeccable and mesmerizing (I can watch it on repeat for hours)

Favorite Color: purple is my go-to answer (especially blue-ish purples), but I also really love dark greens and desaturated earthy colors so much

Last Movie/TV Show: I feel like I haven't been watching movies lately (I'm more of a show person because I like longer form narratives) but I think the last one I watched was "Better Off Dead" while I was visiting my family for the holidays. It was a weird/surreal but good time! As for shows, I finally got around to watching Scavenger’s Reign!! Every aspect was just amazing, especially the worldbuilding and visuals. 2D animation is probably my favorite medium, so I'm really glad we're seeing more animation for adults that wants to tell a story instead of being a delivery device for lame sex jokes and cringe humor. OH ALSO DUNGEON MESHI!!! For a lot of the same reasons! Excited to watch the new episode tonight :>

Sweet / Spicy / Savory: I have a HUGE sweet tooth, so if I had to pick one, that would be it. Savory foods are great and I love them, I just have a leftover "now's your chance!" impulse from not being allowed much sugar as a kid that I can't seem to get rid of. I'm also weak to the "I deserve a lil treat" trap if I've got a bunch of sweet snacks around, so I have to be careful. As for spicy….I am SO completely unable to handle spicy food it’s almost funny, but really it’s just tragic because I LOVE cuisines known for being spicy, like mexican and thai. If I eat out, I always have to be like “can you please make it mild?” and even then, if it's not seasoned for the babiest of babies, my mouth will burn and my weak, white-person tummy will hurt.

Relationship Status: I keep forgetting I’m getting married in less than six months. My partner and I got engaged like two years ago and have lived together for almost five, so my brain just defaults to "there’s probably a guy nearby" and doesn’t think much deeper on it than that.

Last thing I googled: "morels" because I was discussing mushrooms with my friend and those are some cool lookin' guys! Shaggy ink caps too!

Current Obsession: …….One Piece 😅 I was a big fan as a teen but only got as far as the Skypiea arc before I fell off reading/watching it. The hype over the new live action version reminded me the series existed, so I’ve been not so slowly making my way through again, picking up where I left off. I love how absolutely bonkers, there-are-no-rules, anime-ass-anime it is, but also how genuine and heartfelt it can be. I also enjoy how character-driven so much of the plot is which works because of how interesting the characters are (Chopper, Robin, and Franky are my favs). I just got to the timeskip, so I’m maybe…halfway through? between this and BG3, RIP my free time lol

Last Book: I've been reading through Seiji Yoshida's "Houses with a Story" (slowly, because I want to really take it in and savor it) and it's been a delight. Very relaxing and inspiring :> (up next, I finally got copies of the Locked Tomb series, so soon I will be enjoying The Space Lesbians)

Looking forward to: Being able to organize and enjoy my "new" office space after some hectic days! My partner and I realized we barely spend any time in our bedroom except for sleeping, so we swapped my office into the bigger room in our apartment! There were some complications with getting the internet working on my PC, but we finally got it all smoothed out. Now I finally have all my books and sewing/crafting/creative stuff in one place without it feeling cramped or hiding things away in storage :>

Thank you again for the tag! I'm tagging @justagoos, @icicleteeth, @lunarliart, @saltsparkle, @fael-draws, @juliedillon, @ninamodaffari, @crabdominalpain, and the final slot for anyone else who wants to join in - but please don't feel obligated, this is just for fun! :>

[sprooknooky]

Irene and Wall for the character ask?

Thank you for the ask!! Two of my favorite guys ever!! This ended up being really long...

Irene:

favorite thing about them:

Just her <33 She’s like my favorite person. Sorry real life friends, Irene is my best friend and has been since I was twelve years old.

Really though, I actually enjoy her part of the story (ignoring the sequel). I love that she’s a weird old lady who invented dragon slayers and lives in a castle across the ocean from her daughter that she just assumes is dead. Fuckin amazing. She’s flirty. She’s really hot and she knows it. She’s traumatized as hell. Good for her.

least favorite thing about them:

This kinda goes for every woman in Fairy Tail, but I hate that she’s used for fanservice, especially in the sequel, but also how they changed some scenes in the anime to showcase her massive tits. Like really?? She’s better than this. Let her wear clothes. Please.

Also, I really love super overpowered characters, but for a lot of Irene’s attacks, pure plot armor was used to beat her. Like why is she able to summon a meteor? That part is so dumb. Just let her be an enchantress. It just feels weirdly inconsistent to show that she’s powerful. We already know she’s powerful. Whatever. I’m salty.

favorite line:

Irene says some absolutely batshit stuff but I may have to go with this one. I like how sarcastic it is. She’s such an asshole (affectionate).

Also fun fact: they forgot to color the collar of her top in this panel!

brOTP:

Irene and Bloodman!! I know they don’t interact at all in canon but I love that they’re on the same team during the war. It sparked something within me. They’re both super old and have to put up with Zeref’s bullshit and would bond over that. <3

OTP:

Irene x Anna! They’re old and traumatized and totally knew each other 400 years ago. Also, Irene is a lesbian so I like it a lot better than Irene x Zeref or Irene x Acnologia.

nOTP:

Ehhhh Irene x Acnologia gives me bad vibes… I understand the appeal I guess? She created dragon slayers to help the dragons and he became a dragon slayer and killed all of them. But MAN is it toxic. They both deserve better.

random headcanon:

I think I’ve said this one before but she watches so much shitty reality TV. Like the dating shows where people are on an island and have sex and there’s drama for no reason. She loves that stuff. She makes fun of it daily.

unpopular opinion:

She shouldn’t have been back in the sequel…. I love Irene. So much. But she really didn’t add anything meaningful and didn’t need the ending they gave her. It was just really dissatisfying in my opinion. I feel like a lot of people didn’t mind her being back, but it really doesn’t make sense.

song i associate with them:

Never Love an Anchor by the Crane Wives thanks to @pencilofawesomeness ‘s post here (it’s so cool!! I hope you don’t mind the tag)

favorite picture of them:

She is SO PRETTY but also so silly and I’m struggling to pick just one…

But probably this one :)

-

Wall:

favorite thing about them:

I love their silly little personality. I enjoy deranged little guys in general but I like that he has a weird lawyer thing going on. He says “indeed” a lot and stuff like “case dismissed” and it’s so funny. Their title is the adjudicator. Why is he a lawyer??? And the best part is he can rewrite his own personality. So he wrote himself to be this way. That’s amazing. Go little funky robot guy go!!

least favorite thing about them:

I feel like Wall was really doomed by the narrative. He should have had so much more screen time. He just has so much potential. Why introduce a species of robot people as well as alchemy just to kill the guy off? It just makes me sad because they’re so fun.

favorite line:

This is just so badass

brOTP:

Wall and Dimaria are menaces <3 I love that they tease each other in canon and they definitely spar in their free time. Everyone hates it when they’re together because they’ll just gang up on people and make fun of them. It’s great.

OTP:

I don’t think I ship Wall with anyone… they give me aroace vibes.

nOTp:

I think some people ship him with Neinhart? That’s kinda weird in my opinion. Don’t they hate each other? I dunno, it just feels wrong. Besides, Neinhart is too stupid to get any bitches. (Full offense to Neinhart.)

random headcanon:

He was broken out of jail by the empire and that’s why his outfit kinda looks like a prison jumpsuit.

unpopular opinion:

I don’t think I’ve seen enough people complaining about red lightning but it should not have killed Wall. Lightning is lightning regardless of color or strength or whatever. I would have much preferred Wall die by being outsmarted. I also really hate Laxus fighting Wall at all… I think it would have been so much cooler to give the Thunder Legion a better fight against them! Anyway, I don’t know how unpopular that is, but it’s all I have right now.

song i associate with them:

Hmm… I can’t really think of one right now. I’ll update this if I remember anything though.

favorite picture of them:

This one’s pretty rad :D (Or the one I used for his quote)

[yurisorcerer]

So, I've been sick the past couple days. This led to me watching the Code Geass compilation movies. I don't know, the brain works in mysterious ways.

God, Code Geass.

This was another one of those anime things that was just omnipresent for a while in the late '00s. I think it's held up a lot better than its one-time sort-of-rival Death Note, but that's a very low bar to clear (I do not like Death Note at all). Code Geass, or at least the refracted form of it presented here in these recap movies (and going off of my own memories of the original show), is a series I like but don't really....respect. I don't personally get that feeling super often, usually it's the other way around.

It's hard to pin exactly why that is. It's not the campiness---I love that stuff---and it's not the characters, most of whom I genuinely really like. I think it's down to the narrative and what comes out of that narrative. Code Geass' themes and *especially* its political ideas are very....haphazard? They're definitely there; the idea that power corrupts, the question of what it means to deceive, political ideas about war, genocide, colonialism, and so on, but they feel surprisingly incoherent for a show whose central premise builds off the fact that it's taking place in an occupied country. There's a very strong FEELING of there being a big struggle between ideas, but I think that feeling is mostly illusory. The show's characters end up being defined more by their personal connections. Even the proposed duality of Lelouch as the pragmatist and Suzaku as the idealist seems to exist mostly to be taken apart over the course of the story.

On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing? Maybe---intentionally or not---that's what we should be taking out of this, that big ideals tend to falter in the face of the much more immediate pull of the people we love and hate? I don't know, that feels like giving the series a pass in a way I'm not sure I'm totally onboard with.

I'm spending a lot of time criticizing it here, but I do actually like this series. I think for its faults it works really well on a moment to moment level and it hits just an absolute ton of my personal buttons; big mecha fights, rapidfire mind games, and a generally theatrical sense of characterization.

The movies also change a few things from the original series. Mostly these are for the better; Shirley survives the entirety of the recap films, for example, and the entirety of Mao's character and plotline are---thank fuck---ommitted. Some of them I don't really get; Nina is less driven by being a Crazy Lesbian TM which is a good thing for sure, but also the motivation that makes up for that (mostly just being a hysterical racist) clunks off the narrative in a really uncomfortable way, since the series doesn't really address it. Ech.

Also the pacing of the three films both individually and in aggregate is absolutely horrible, like, people complain about pacing in stuff *all the time* but this is some of the worst I've seen in a modern anime production. An advantage the original series had was that, for all its weird detours about, say, Kallen's mom being a fantasy-drug addict or whatever, you got to spend more actual *time* with the characters, so they felt a bit more fully realized. This is definitely a case where the recap films do expect you to be familiar with the original despite making some of those changes. Which is itself fair enough in of itself I suppose, they are called RECAP films after all, but it did make me cognizant of the fact that like, it mostly sort of smears over the reasons people got super attached to characters like (again) Kallen, or Jeremiah. They both get plenty of screentime in these movies and they're absolutely great in what time they do get (and this is the case for a number of other characters as well), but the sheer difference in how these things are structured vis a vis the original show does reveal a few shortcomings of the format. IDK, I feel like I'm writing in circles at this point and again am coming off as more critical than I want to be.

Let me talk about something I think really shines in the movies. You know who's great in these films? This fuckin guy.

Lelouch is, to me, a hysterical fucking character. Bundle of contradictions, impossibly cool loser, gay as hell but always ends up with a woman because Reasons. When I was a youngish teen and watched Code Geass for the first time I had zero idea who Char Aznable was, but, like, this is pretty uncontroversial, right? Lelouch Lamperouge is the millennial Char. He is our forefathers' accomplishments handed down to us as farce. I absolutely hate him, and I hate that I still think he's as super fucking cool as I did when I first watched this story at age 14. My favorite scene in all three movies combined was when he got stabbed in the heart and died, and many of the other scenes I really liked involved him doing something extra. I'm going to bet his death doesn't stick, given that the sequel film to this trilogy (which is an original story!) is called Lelouch of the Re;surrection. What is that semicolon doing there. I'm the last person on earth who should be talking about semicolon placement but come on.

Some other thoughts:

When I was in high school I got into an argument with a friend over whether Kallen's knightmare frame (god, the mecha are fucking called knightmare frames), the Guren, was the coolest giant robot of all time. I don't stand by that assertion itself, but I do think its big hand weapon the Wave Surger is one of the sickest fucking things in this or any mecha series

For being in large part about how colonialism sucks, this series sure isn't in a hurry to visit any part of the world that's actually affected strongly by it IRL, huh? I get that there are Watsonian reasons for this but c'mon.

Kallen and Lelouch's romance in this is even less convincing than it was in the original series which is honestly impressive

Opposite of the above, I find Lelouch / C.C. a little more believable this go-around. Not sure how much of that is it being meaningfully different here vs. me just changing as a person as I've gotten older vs. who knows what else

the entirety of the World of C stuff is still so fucking bizarre to me. it's been years and I still cannot figure out for the life of me why that was how they chose to resolve that whole thing. It feels deliberate, though, because it's not really altered in any major way here and Gorou Taniguchi did something similar in Back Arrow (it kind of fit better there because that show is just weird as hell to begin with, but still, the similarities are striking).

the battles in this are really grandiose and cool and carried the movies for me when the plot did not

I love Kallen so much you guys, you don't even understand

the above bullet point again but about C.C. this time

I miss the gratuitous Pizza Hut advertisements so much. I don't know why. The fact that I do feels like a sign that something is deeply wrong with me.

They cut The Table Scene. Because of Woke, I assume.

god this got long for me just basically being like "I like this but it has a lot of problems." Whatever, no one reads these LOL