#but do ANY of these people write meta about the girls?

[catcatb0y]

I have so much respect for people who just put their blorbo into every interation with other characters, as if everyone loves their blorbo and it's SO fun until half the fandom is blorbo-inserting with that one character you just can't fucking stand and every time you try to look for stuff of your own blorbos, they are THERE, HAUNTING.

[weirdmageddon]

i love these tags this person is so right

actually, can you imagine if dave was raised by B1 roxy?

i wanna get into this actually

(ok i had to spend a few hours rewriting this because IT DIDNT FUCKING SAVE AFTER FIVE HOURS OF WRITING WHEN MY COMPUTER UPDATED WHILE I WAS AFK so it would mean a lot to show this post some appreciation. i LOVEEE hearing what other people have to say)

even though these things mom does are presented in an extravagant, kitsch, jokey way, her intentions always came from a place of sincerity. she is simply Funnie

but rose reads too far into it and assumes things that aren't there, that her mother is passive-aggressively feigning interest in rose's interests simply because the things she does are so extra. "why do all of this if not to mock me"

im telling you right now if dave lived in this household he wouldn't assume antagonism, he'd go,

don’t forget who LITERALLY patented tangible jpeg artifacts as their post-scratch adult self and scattered shitty scummed up statue of liberties all over the planet. theres no way some of that overboard artful shit wasnt post-ironic / circling back around to genuine funny sincerity

dave's natural state is funny sincerity like roxy. he's had the natural capacity for this type of humor from the start and this is the direction he goes towards when he grows out of his brother's shadow by the end of the comic. dave and roxy share an earnest “so bad its good” type of humor

(lots more under the cut; the length of this meta analysis just got unwieldly with all the pictures and whatnot)

despite the alcoholism, roxy is a supportive mother. she's not the ideal guardian but hells of a lot more supportive of her kid than bro is. if she knew dave's interests she would totally indulge in them with some over the top silly goofy haha shit as a genuine gesture simply because she loves him

rose isn't too keen on it though. but she is more similar to dirk in her natural state of thinking of overthinking shit and assuming the worst, like the tags said

and yes dave got the sweet cuddly yet sometimes backhanded ouppy gene from roxy, probably even moreso lol

roxy's even said rose "sounds like girl dirk"

side tangent here, but this is something i wanna talk about.

i dont think bro should ever be in custody of children ever but if theres anyone who would be up to the task it's rose probably. i know she'd be able to keep up with him. not only does she have a defined personality (dave is more malleable and absorbs his environment like a sponge), if anyone can pick apart B1 dirk's batshit brain and probably be right on the money it's her. lil cal has been pumping patriarchal nonsense into bro's head and rose would be able to bring the fucking facts to the table without losing her own and being a living example of a badass little girl. i also don't think bro would try to force masculine roles onto rose like he did with dave, seeing as she is a girl, so she would actually have more of a leg up and get some passes that dave was never afforded. and rose wouldn't stand idly and accept any bullshit; she is no doormat. and i think this would earn bro's respect

but anyway, from this, couldn't we conclude roxy "sounds like girl dave"?

yeah okay. we havent even gotten into their penchant for funny typos or misspeaks, deliberate or otherwise

so, dave's environment

the sentiment "god you hope you can be as good as your bro at this some day" might have been genuine at the time when he idolized bro but of course he's not able to express that in any sort of sincere fashion because he's in dirk's fucking household. and this level 10 irony shit isnt doing dave any favors

his role models were the Internet and a vague idea of what Bro was like. So he built up his facade based on irony–not the literary definition of irony, as Rose might be quick to point out, but a popular concept of irony based on the idea that things that didn’t make sense actually made sense in some roundabout way. As a master of irony, Dave probably reasoned, he could see in a way other people couldn’t why a world that was scary and didn’t make sense really did make sense, and could therefore convince those people that he was superior to them. And he would wield his knowledge to maintain the appearance of superiority by calling everything ironic and pretending he didn’t care about things that didn’t make sense, and he would use walls of vaguely rhyming words to keep everyone at arm’s length so they wouldn’t discover his insecurities (source)

roxy's style is the embodiment of post-irony. being raised by mom lalonde would be like being raised by joel vinesauce ok

what can i say ….. (getting meta about this actually, hussie got these jpeg wizard wallpapers from a spyware website. link takes some time to load because internet archive)

rose is quick to read post-irony as actually being a joke/insincere, which in bro's case would be true. but i believe dave's natural instinct, outside of the influence of bro, is to read post-irony as genuine, which is exactly how mom serves it. we see this as early as act 3 from him; he understands her motives better than rose does herself:

and in act 6 intermission 2 i think it's pretty clear

but the thing is, it's always genuine from her. dave wouldn't have to second guess it because he's not one to naturally second guess someone's sincerity; that was learned due to his bro being virtually unassailable

there two types of ironies at play here:

seems like a joke, is actually genuine (roxy)

doesnt seem like a joke, is actually a joke (dirk)

you can make the argument that the second is is more psychologically destructive because it makes you question the reality of what is genuine sentiment and what isn't. dave never knew what was genuine and what was irony so he just sort of existed in this sincerity-ironic limbo and always did the opposite of what he genuinely felt on principle even if it always did originate from a genuine place.

"it just a joke bro i was just being ironic i dont actually x" is so much more trust-breaking and psychologically damaging than "wait are you being serious" / "i am being so fucking fr rn davy gravy" / "ok thats actually pretty fucking awesome. giant ass wizard statue" / "RIGHT"

how much about dave would change do you think? his character arc would be completely different for one thing, i think he'd have it good aside from mom's alcohol issues. he'd be left with the sweet and funny parts of him that we see at the end of the comic. the fake coolguy stuff is out, but this remains. this is dave in his element and we see it as early as act 1

he'd probably have no shades growing up in the lalonde residence* either cause those were given to him by bro straight out of the crater as an extension of his own cool image. and john gave dave ben stiller’s aviators for his 13th birthday to replace them so he could “spread his wings”

dave said he was wearing them for the ironies but i kind of doubt it. maybe post-irony but there was some reacharound to it being genuine because dave never put those pointy anime shades on his face again.

*though... it’s kind of hard to imagine him without his shades at all? B2 dave still got stiller’s shades from stiller himself so maybe getting them is a universal constant. i can imagine mom getting him them as a birthday gift cause shes pretty wealthy and probably could buy it out in an auction. but also itd be cool if john still gave him it as a gift

dave is actually a lot more genuine and easy to read than he lets on even when grappling with his upbringing with B1 dirk (again, see this post). this can be seen all throughout he comic but a good example is the evolution of thoughts about his interest in the preserved dead things in his room:

if B1 roxy was dave's guardian he probably WOULD have pursued paleontology because she wouldve indulged him in it and probably find it cool and worthwhile to pursue, instead of allowing dave to flounder under ironic detachment, being poisoned by irony to the point of gaslighting himself into believing he doesnt actually believe he thinks this shit is cool. even if it was indulged in this such a way; a superficially kitsch and ironic appearing presentation, it comes from a genuine place and inspires genuine interest. just read the comments.

basically, i think if B1 roxy raised dave, their relationship would have a surface level appearance of being bizarre or over-the-top but they’d have an unsaid mutual understanding that it’s completely in earnest and just build on each other's funny and absurd gestures of affection. rather than seeing it as one-upping each other, it'd more like collaboration of some silly bullshit that you take a step back and look at full and just say, "fucking incredible"

speaking of paleontology, mom had the proto-ectobiology lab. maybe they'd be able to use the equipment to appearify paradox ghost imprints of the dead shit to create paradox clones of things from the cambrian era??? sounds like a fun mother son bonding activity. and theyd actually put the sciencey shit in the household to use

oh god i know exactly the kinds of music shed listen too also growing up as a teen in the 80s. she on that (post)-punk/art rock/new wave/new romantic mtv stuff. XTC shit fr. this is a B-52S HOUSEHOLD. maybe the associates for the campy melodramatic flair. so he gets to keep the record on his shirt cause he is an enjoyer of the shit in her vinyl collection. dave would still gravitate towards musical expression and music itself but of more variety outside of just rap, with an 80s-90s, even 70s flavor due to mom’s influence. see this for perhaps a glimpse. ​she probably visited new york city a lot for business trips and because the music scene was cool as hell around that time, imports came straight from jfk airport, she probably got in on that a bit and have remnants in the form of vinyls and cassettes. in this way she could be distributing void to dave (influencing him with forgotten / presently irrelevant music). now he can REALLY rave about bands none of his friends have heard of. “hey davy grvay watcha listenin to” (he holds up vinyl cover) “omg snakefinger”

btw dave lalonde would look like this to me

[elizabethrobertajones]

kriles summer trust top is kinda problematic tho... lalafell r smol and should be wholesome.

Aw, come on.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree because within the fiction, lalafell are just as mean, gross and horny as anyone else. Gegeruju is a perv, and the whole Ul'dah Syndicate is full of evil little bastards. On the good side, lala are just as complex and grown up as anyone else - Tataru courts followers and dances in a skimpy outfit in the Forgotten Knight, Giott is a roaring drunk stereotypical fantasy dwarf (not to mention whatever the heck is going on with the Tomra and Komra dwarves in general tbh :P). And Lamitt's story was sweet but it did involve her having adult feelings for Ardbert.

Like, really, I can only think of 4 completely wholesome lala out of a cast of hundreds, and they happen to mostly be the ones we've interacted with a lot (Nanamo; Pipin who is a Heroic Knight archetype; Papalymo, who was a grumpy old scholar man; Krile). But that's more about them being main characters serving roles in the narrative rather than indicative of how lalas behave as a whole. In fact after going through ARR, meeting Pipin and finding One Good Ul'dahn Lala is an enormous relief (since the other one is apparently dead now).

And Krile is a main character now so she's allowed to step out of the shadow of being uwu cat hoodie girl who wasn't written with much depth outside of being serious and earnest and rather spooky; she's actually 22 years old according to the first wiki I found - regardless of if that's totally accurate she's definitely meant to be a peer of the other adult Scions and they all treat her like an adult. Her introduction cutscene has her ribbing Alphy as an older friend laughing at how a much younger one used to behave, so we're supposed to immediately understand on meeting her that she's post-teen since she knew 11 year old Alphy and was of course older than him since he was a freak entry into the Studium at that age. Probably a necessary writing moment because establishing lala's age with hilarious moustaches or deep voices or whatever is a part of how the game has to present them.

Out of the fiction, I know lalas are part of a much wider trope that people do find problematic as a whole (e.g. just because in universe Tataru has babes across the globe and that's normal to everyone involved, who are consenting adults in a world which wholly understands Tataru as a consenting adult, is it actually really creepy that it's happening at all because her body type is toddler-esque? Is it weird in general that lala emotes are SO baby in the same way miqo emotes are SO kitty?

ffxiv definitely goes waaay further into borderline creepy territory than many games with smaller fantasy races in it, when it comes to how lala look, so yeah I know it's a fraught area and can be discomforting to see the game present child-shaped people as having adult desires and a thing some people understandably set aside along with other elements as things they're not happy with co-existing in the game with things they really love.) We can absolutely talk about that on a meta level of how we relate to the game and feel about it, just like things we find racist or uncomfortable in other ways e.g. eng translation Hien's treatment of Yotsuyu being a really problematic point.

But, that's one thing, versus talking about us here in fandom and how we relate to it, and I think your ask is, well, really not very deeply considered on any level, but I think is talking about how we as fandom relate to lalas, based on an inaccurate reading of them in the game, meaning you're really not even analysing a thing about it and therefore your ask comes more in the terms of policing how we should FEEL about Krile's beach outfit, and dictating that we SHOULD find lalas smol and wholesome, and that therefore there's an inherent problem in anyone reacting positively to the outfit, rather than critiquing its place in the game in the first place. Having hit a cognitive dissonance in seeing swimsuit Krile existing you've come to me to complain it's problematic rather than taking any actual meaningful action. Ergo, this is a fandom problem to you, not a game problem. WE should find it problematic and say so, you are implying, shocked that so many people looked at a post about the beach outfits and no one commented as such.

Aside from lalafell being fictional and at no point other than the visuals are they treated as children (and emotes aside, playing through the MSQ as a lala wol you easily fall into seeing them as an adult because of course all the cutscenes share the same level of gravitas no matter what you're playing or what clown costume you have on any player), there ARE actually real humans who are built somewhere closer to lala than not, and would be drawn to playing any of the smaller races in a game (like, gnomes in WoW, halflings in D&D, etc) because that's just their chance at representation. And because FFXIV doesn't have anything other than precious moments doll-shaped people the look might be great in the sense that they have the proportions of a cherub statue and it is a lot harder to meet in the middle than a halfling (notoriously hairy middle aged bastards and much easier to read as adult, though that doesn't exclusively represent people who've had growth developmental differences), that IS still the only representative option some people have in the game and if they want to indulge it rather than play something else with proportions forced on them by many games, then what the hell is wrong with that?

And they WILL go to bat for lalas and get upset when people say that they have to be precious baby characters who act like children. I've seen that on tumblr: there's a whole lala community who keeps kinda low key and away from everyone else by their own admission BECAUSE as soon as they get too much attention they're deluged with hate for playing characters who have adult desires and dress fancy - or, you know, like any other random slutty elf WoL. The fact I wandered onto lala blogs at random and saw that complaint on the first pages should speak to how often they have to deal with it. And, again, within the fiction of the game their characters are completely 100% normal and doing what other lalas who are written by the game do as well. I KNOW those blogs are out there and they'd be scared of getting this exact ask, and it would greatly upset them and ruin their day and put them off having any interaction with the community, which fucking sucks. We're here to have fun!

That said I'm not a weirdo anti all up in others' business, it's also fine to just like lalas and stuff without some huge circumstantial justification like "they look like me" - or - "my IRL wife" or whatever - you can also just play a lala or ship with one and it's like, your business. If that's all you're doing and it's not a hypothetical child molester who also has a whole gallery of lala porn that the cops find when they impound the computer full of REAL CHILDREN stuff as well it's never going to be anyone else's business anyway, ever, and that's like, one hypothetical awful person for a whole fandom of normies who are just surprised by how much idk Pipin's deep voice rocked their world and changed their whole perspective on what a hot character was.

Like, granted, that one HYPOTHETICAL weirdo will make everything rancid because there are people waiting to jump on people who like lalas, but also it still won't actually change what other people are doing into being Evil just because someone who actually hurts children found lalas attractive too. That, again, was the hypothetical awful person's problem and not theirs. And in no way can we just casually imply ALL people who like lalas are just inherently going to be dangerous, like real children, or enacting a private psychodrama teetering on the edge of all that.

They could in fact be completely average and boring psychologically and also have a crush on Tataru. Or, I guess, normal amount of weird for a fandom, but basically average XD In a fictional world where these characters are treated as adults, even normal people will naturally end up drawn to them as adults because, well, that's the story that's we're all engaging in. It's not inherently a thought crime to do so, because, weirdly, thought crimes don't exist.

Also, of course, people will literally discourse that hobbits are child-coded and shouldn't be shipped or seen as sexy, despite the most famous halflings, who made the entire halfling race as a generic brand, all being middle aged, hairy, smoking, drinking, guys with normal adult desires and mindsets. I mean yeah Elijah Wood was 18 when they started filming LotR (over several years so he was Krile's age by the end :P) but also Frodo celebrated his 40th birthday before setting off on the Ring Quest in the book and he was the baby of the group aside from Pippin.

In any case, there's no fucking winning and so I can understand completely that if a fucking Hobbit from Lord of the Rings gets shit for being short, and people are getting called a perv for fancying Sam Gamgee, then why not just embrace it with a Lalafell because you're literally damned no matter what in the eyes of someone who won't meet a LOTR HOBBIT where he stands as an adult man.

There's some DEEP puritanical brainrot going on online and I don't want to be a part of it whatsoever, so it means accepting lala likers for the sake of protecting Merry and Pippin's right to be seen as hot, than like, I know which side of of the line I'm dragging my beach chair. It's not even a question. I'm defending people who think lalas are appealing.

ANYWAY none of this is my business, I don't even find lalas sexy, I just think Krile looks nice in her cute summer top and it's lovely that she's getting fashion advice from her besties, and there's a million reasons to be happy about that and for her as a character, and only miserable bastard reasons to go "aurgh aurgh it's problematic" and condemn the game and everyone who plays it just for enjoying something. Lalas are NOT smol and wholesome, they're short and people, and that's fine.

[glitter-stained]

Thinking about how some modern comics writers (Tom Taylor) write the batfam and why it doesn't sit right (this post centers around the robins because of their training but some of that reflexion would definitely fit for Barbara and Cass as well.)

The thing with writing a team of people with similar training and strength is you can't take the easy route of "well this one is the smart one! And this one is the flexible one! And this one is the strong one!" .... which is obviously reductive to all of their characters. Obviously, they have interpersonal differences; Dick, being raised as an acrobat, is the most flexible, but that doesn't mean that every single one of these little fuckers doesn't like to bend, twist and somersault to dodge bullets like an annoying worm on a string being flung around in the sky. They're Robins. Obviously, Jason is the bulkiest, but that doesn't mean they don't all go through hardcore conditioning -Tim is only considered "frail" when you put him between Bruce and Jason, this guy would bench-press you any day, come on. (And DC editorial can lie to us about the girls' weights and heights and make them at the limit of ed-territory even though they're doing parkour and hardcore martial arts every day but I know the truth, Steph's strong as hell, homegirl's got bazooka-level guns). Obviously Damian was raised in the League and is proficient in a bunch of martial arts, but they all received training from a bunch of different experts, including, for all of them, the same guy (that they are all so normal and chill about.) Obviously, Tim is the one who used detective work to figure out everyone's identity but you're kidding yourself if you think he's the only intelligent/detective one amongst the robins. Being smart and a detective is a defining part of all of their characterization, and so is being a leader and a strategist. And then of course with that kind of simplified characterization we end up with Steph being "the girl robin" and Damian "the assassin one/stabby one" and Duke "the meta one" (yes this post counts Duke as a Robin. They trained him and also just cause I wanted to. I love him.)

And even if we make an effort and try to dissect it "this one is the detective smart one! And this one is the strategist! and this one is smart in a more techy-way! And this one is the leader! And this one- hey what kind of intelligence do we have left..." obviously doesn't work either. Duke was a exhilarating strategist in WaR already, Jason's strategic work in UTH and detective in Lost Days is thrilling, Damian is a fucking child surgeon (do I need to develop how intelligent that kid is), Dick was the first leader of the Titans and is always doing detective work like, that's an inherent part of his character, Duke was a cute-ass baby doing puzzles and planning to defeat the Riddler himself, Steph literally became Spoiler to stop Cluemaster (girl knows to solve riddles that would make Nygma shit his pants), they've almost all lead a team at some point, etc, etc. All of this is great and cool and a character being great doesn't take away from the skills of another character! Stark contrasts cannot possibly be the only interesting team dynamics, especially since they already have their own teams of contrasting skillset and personalities.

Imo, best robin team-up dynamics is them stepping on eachother's toes with their plans, getting into rapid-fire brainstorming sessions where they're all finishing eachother's sentences, reaching a conclusion and saying it out loud at the same time, one of them having a crazy ass plan and suggesting it to the other and the other saying "i like the way you think" to that person who thinks exactly like them, getting mad at eachother for being stubborn while also being a stubborn little shit, pulling complicated acrobatics together, and just thriving solving a good old complicated mystery with other people who are just as competent and enthusiastic about detective work as them but not a carbon copy, with extremely specific strength and weaknesses and quirks (like Dick's ability to recognise heroin by putting it in his mouth, Damian's uncanny voice imitation ability, etc.)

Of course, this doesn't even begin to touch the family drama, but honestly we get so much family drama angst with no real consequence rn, I'd really love just a robin team-up, relatively low-stakes (aka nothing taking over the city, the world, no past traumas unearthed to haunt them or parental abuse or secret cults etc etc.) Just a very elaborate murder mystery and a good excuse for all the robins to be there and a story that works with their similarities and their potential (both comedic and in terms of plot) rather than erasing it. It would be so much fun!

[f1femslashfest]

Do you like femslash? Do you want to see more of it? Have we got the event for you!

Introducing Femula 1 - a Formula 1 Femslash fest.

Our vision is simple - we want more femslash in the world and we're going to do everything we can to make it happen. So we invite you to our fest all about it. Interested? More info below the cut.

Rules:

Only F/F content allowed. That includes ALL women and women aligned individuals.

All drivers and pairings are allowed. TP's and pit-crew are as well. They just have to be rule 63'd.

Any media types are allowed. If you want to make art, go ahead! If you want to write a fic, be our guest. If you just want to post meta about how you think a girl!driver would act, that's cool too! Any sort of rule 63 or femslash is welcomed.

Have fun! This is meant to be a fun fest to simply increase the amount of femslash in the fandom.

Timeline:

We have a collection on ao3 where prompts are being collected. You do not have to use a prompt if you have your own ideas, but we wanted to let people submit stuff just in case. Prompts will close on December 31st, 2024.

Content is due IN February. It can be any day you'd like. The idea is to post stuff during the month. If you submit your fic to the ao3 collection, we will be staging them to post throughout the month.

We will be opening up an existing fem!driver discord for people if they'd like to have a place to talk about femslash and their ideas. Our only rule there is that if you don't like, you don't engage. We all have our favorite drivers and we're going to be respectful.

We are tracking #F1femslashfest!

If you have any questions, please reach out to us here!

[phemiec]

Mouthwashing meta underneath the cut (tw)

What’s fucked up is that Mouthwashing’s main horror belongs to Anya. Anya is living the Shining and Alien and a thousand of anyone’s worst nightmares, in space, alone, with no one on her side, a ticking timebomb in her own body, and not any of the characters, or the narrative, or even the players, acknowledge that to the extent she deserves. Because she’s a woman she’s just treated differently.

Other people besides me have pointed out, that Anya not only told Curly, who failed her, she also told Swansea, who also failed her, and people like to paint him as better than Curly. They want to see the best in the men around her just like she does, but Swansea ALSO belittles her, calls her a “so-called nurse” and says that “even she can’t ruin [opening the storage unit] with her presence” when jimmy walks in on Anya talking to Swansea in the cockpit she’s crying, and placating and again, reacting in resigned acceptance, which implies that Swanseas response to her was something along the lines of “suck it up”. Swansea didn’t give her the axe, he did nothing to help or protect her, he kept the cryopod for Daisuke, he never considered her.

and it is very, VERY intentional on the part of the writing, that we never get to see Daisuke and Anya really interact. They could have had a friendly companionship, given their shared doodles and his concern on her being locked in the med bay, but we never actually see them talk to each other in any real capacity. and even if she had gone to him for help, there’s very little he could do as the youngest and least senior member of the Tulpar. And besides that, the only time Daisuke mentions women (who aren’t his mom), he’s talking about “hot bikini babes”. I’m not bashing him for that, taken on its own it’d feel like harmless bro low-level misogyny, but it’s part of how the writing is very intentionally alienating Anya constantly in so many little ways.

Anya is the ONLY woman on the ship, and all of the men on the ship either abuse, belittle, degrade, objectify and dismiss, if not her specifically, than at the very least her gender, and by and large we ignore that because Jimmy is so comparatively horrible. But there was no chance for Anya on that ship, she did everything she reasonably could have done, and the reason it’s so hard to conceptualize a believable fix-it for the plot, is that the men around Anya and the system they all exist in, would all have to change on a fundamental level for anything about Anya’s situation to change, and even if the ship didn’t crash, Anya, unlike the rest of the crew, would still be living a horror story.

She is the actual protagonist of the plot, she is the final girl who died first. We are denied her perspective just like she is denied agency, control, respect, etc.

[starryalpacasstuff]

Queer Indian Media: A Compilation

A couple of days ago, @impala124 sent @lurkingshan an ask about the lack of discussion about Queer Indian Media in fandom spaces. I wrote about it here, @neuroticbookworm here, and @waitmyturtles here (both of them have excellent points, I highly recommend you read their posts!). It's become quite apparent that people are willing to watch and engage in discourse about queer Indian media, it's just that the lack of popularity and accessibility makes it harder for people to start. So, I've decided to make a list tracking all of the queer Indian media I know of, and hopefully also any meta/discourse about it, which is an idea I've had floating in my head for months now.

This list is by no means comprehensive, so if you have recs, send them my way! Text me on DM, send an ask, tag me in your posts, whatever. And though it's not possible for me to watch everything on the list, I will be slowly going through as many of these as I can and writing about them, as well as hopefully finding more stuff and easier to access versions for the ones that are harder to access right now. This post is going to be a slow work in progress, but I'm hoping to update it regularly. So, if you'd like me to keep you updated, let me know through the tags/replies and I will tag you in future posts!

I've tagged the people who've recommended certain shows alongside each show. Everything on here is available online. The hyperlinked titles lead you to the media itself, meaning that it's available for free online with subtitles. Other details will be mentioned separately.

Disclaimer: The media I have watched/read have recommendation ratings (which will not always reflect my enjoyment of something, rather are based on how much I'd recommend it). While I did lightly screen everything on here, the criteria was 'has a trailer or otherwise showing queerness to be a central theme in the story' and 'is available online', so take that into account if you decide to pick something up, and definitely watch trailers and/or skim the wikipedia pages beforehand.

Movies

Fire | English | @neuroticbookworm 

Recommendation: 8.75/10 A 1996 movie surrounding a lesbian couple packed with commentary on religion, class, purity culture and more. Quick Pitch + Historical Context

Kapoor & Sons | Hindi | @neuroticbookworm

Available on Netflix, Prime, and paid on Youtube and Apple TV

Kaathal-The Core | Malayalam | @neuroticbookworm 

Officially on Prime, also available grey without subtitles

Meta by @ineffable-opinions

Super Deluxe | Tamil | @neuroticbookworm 

Officially on a paid streaming service called aha, grey on youtube

Dear Dad | Hindi | @neuroticbookworm 

Geeli Puchi (Ajeeb Dastaans) | Hindi | @blorbingqls @neuroticbookworm 

Available on Netflix

Cobalt Blue @blorbingqls

Officially on Netflix, also available grey without subtitles

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga | Hindi | @fallsouthwinter @usertoxicyaoi @neuroticbookworm

Available officially on Netflix, but can also be found grey in two parts without subtitles

Recommendation: 8.5/10 What seems like a typical bollywood movie about a man falling in love with a girl who's family opposes their marriage takes a turn halfway through when it is revealed that the girl has a secret girlfriend. The protagonist then resolves to help the pair by convincing the family to accept them.

Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish | Bengali | @silverquillsideas @neuroticbookworm 

I believe it's available on prime, but you might need to do some digging. Also available grey on youtube without subtitles (the movie is in part Bengali, part English)

Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhan | Hindi | @silverquillsideas @twig-tea @neuroticbookworm

Officially on Amazon, grey on youtube without subtitles

Maja Ma | Hindi | @flyingrosebeetle @silverquillsideas 

Available on Amazon Prime

Badhaai Do | Hindi

Officially on Netflix, available grey without subtitles

Loev | Hindi

Available on youtube with Spanish (I think?) subtitles

Margarita With A Straw | Hindi

I believe this is a cut version, it is officially on Netflix which is likely the uncut version

Recommendation: 9/10 A self-discovery story about an Indian woman named Laila with cerebral palsy with great rep and beautiful execution. Meta by @wen-kexing-apologist

Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui | Hindi | anon

Available grey without subtitles, officially on Netflix

Amar Prem Ki Prem Kahani | Hindi | @flowerbeasblog @aneechan

Officially on Jio Cinema, also available grey without subtitles

Time Out | Hindi

Available on Netflix

My Brother…Nikhil | Hindi

My Son Is Gay | Tamil

Hindi dub available on youtube without subtitles

Little Hearts | Malayalam | @ineffable-opinions

Available officially on Amazon Prime

There's multiple storylines, one of which is queer Meta by @ineffable-opinions

Moothon | Malayalam | @non-beingnary

This is grey on youtube without subtitles, it's officially on Amazon Prime and Zee5, both need subscriptions

Aligarh | Hindi | @ayoungroyal

This is grey with subtitles, it says the subtitles are in hindi for some reason but they're actually in English. Officially on several subscription platforms: JioCinema, Zee5, Amazon Prime, Apple TV

Sisak | Hindi | @blorbingqls

Shows

Romil and Jugal | Hindi | @anixknowsnothin

You do need a vpn if you're outside India to watch it with the above link, it's also grey on youtube without subtitles

Recommendation: 8.5/10 India's modern gay remake of Romeo and Juliet, five years before Bad Buddy Random thoughts

The Married Woman | Hindi | @a-not-knowing-bisexual-wizard

Dev DD Season 2 | Hindi

Legitimately no clue whether this and the prev are grey or official

Made in Heaven | Hindi | @flyingrosebeetle @non-beingnary @neuroticbookworm

Available on Prime

All About Section 377, Still About Section 377 | Hindi

The Story Tales S2 | Gujrati

Insomnia | Hindi

It's a streaming service I've never heard of before, not unlike Gaga, this is one of the darker shows on the list so please do check out the trailer beforehand

Amra 2GayTher | Bengali

Available on two streaming services here and here, both paid

Happy Family, Conditions Apply | Hindi | @non-beingnary

Officially on Amazon Prime, first episode available for free on the official youtube

As far as I know, it's a sitcom with a queer subplot, but I'm not sure how relevant it is to the story

Murder In Mahim | Hindi | @soberbutsleepless

This is grey without subtitles, its available officially on JioCinema but you need a subscription

Mini gls from @twig-tea (og post here)

Firsts S3 | @tinyreadinglifelight

Neverland

Maaya 2

Last two eps do not have subtitles but the story is followable

The ‘Other’ Love Story @/silverquillsideas 

Just Another Love Story

Books

Memory of Light

Recommendation: 5/10 A historical book set during the colonial era, the lesbian romance is mostly a subplot that loses its way towards the end. It's kind of a drag, but the history component is somewhat interesting.

Don't Let Him Know

Recommendation Rating: 7.5/10 with serious trigger warnings including rape. It's a brutally honest book designed to make the reader uncomfortable, so proceed with caution. I personally liked it quite a lot, but that's majorly because of how authentic the book felt.

Falling Into Place

Recommendation Rating: 8/10 A modern lesbian romance that follows similar beats to the typical thai bl/gl. A little underdeveloped in some places, but overall quite good.

My Magical Palace

Cobalt Blue

The Paths Of Marriage

Marriage Of A Thousand Lies

[stromblessed]

Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise

In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.

Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.

I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!

Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.

In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:

I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."

Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.

I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.

This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.

There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:

When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!

By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.

It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:

(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)

If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.

Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:

Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:

No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol

So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.

And yet no one spots that she's female.

Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.

Let me explain.

She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.

But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:

I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."

Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.

Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.

One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:

Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)

And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:

Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.

Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol

There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:

After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.

So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.

May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.

Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."

[mswyrr]

They spent the entire season showing the collapse of everything Alicent had invested meaning in and earning her final choice.

Things that came apart over the season:

-her father's role in all this; his approval (and fear of his disapproval) has driven her for her entire life! (bad move on multiple fronts, Aegon)

-her belief that she could do what this patriarchy promises and "influence" her sons toward a good direction (Aegon dismisses her but Aemond really drove the nail in with flagrantly slaughtering smallfolk and making his intent to force his sister to do it too clear)

-her belief that she had any allies and her skills in leadership and her track record of hard work actually meant anything to *anyone* (this was a cooperative effort by Aemond, Larys, and Criston - good work, fellas!)

-her belief that she could, if nothing else, at least protect her daughter (huge emotional pillar for her)

And if we look at her prior actions putting Aegon on the throne and protecting him with her life - both fit within those structures she had mentally and emotionally which this season ripped down.

I think the final one was the thing that took it over the edge, though -- the prospect of Helaena being used and hurt and destroyed as a person -- kind of like how degrading Aemond and his connection to his long-term sex worker was his final straw that made him want to kill and supplant his brother Aegon.

People keep pushing each other too far this season. Taking out the last thing that stands between them and a radical change. Pushing people until they're willing to lose things just to break the current dynamic.

Dae/mon pushes Rhaenyra too far, then the entire war does and she "breaks bad" in 2x07 (see my meta linked below for more on my pov on that); Aegon pushes Aemond too far; and the entire group of "green men" systematically pushes Alicent too far.

All the while, she had that offer from earlier in the season, when Rhaenyra risked everything to come speak to Alicent in her mind. She was mulling over it and thinking of what she could have said, should have said. At the same time, however, Rhaenyra was moving away from being that person [my meta argument on that here]. So the person she finally comes to make peace with isn't the same as she was in the Sept. And once again they tragically can't get on the same page. It does all fit together, even with issues in the writing.

And writing on Alicent's arc simply isn't as uneven as people are saying - the theme of people pushing each other too far and how they showed the pillars of Alicent's support crumbling were both clearly done.

And, yes - Alicent still has feelings for Rhaenyra and as all of this has been happening she's been having a midlife crisis and wishing she had just run away with her first love when they were girls. But that isn't her sole motivation!! It's just what comes spilling out of her because of the state she's in. It creates an appealing alternative to the hell she's living in at the Red Keep. But it wasn't THE single motivating factor.

On a show where fathers have behaved truly monstrously--up to and including their selfishness setting this civil war in motion to begin with--it's fascinating that people refuse to believe a mother can be pushed too far. That kinslaying and slaughtering whole cities and rejecting and humiliating her and threatening to mentally torture her daughter until she breaks wouldn't change her mind about her priorities.

The "green" side becomes owned by Aemond, a wilful (as far as she knows; I'm speaking of her pov here) kinslayer moral reprobate who is violent to his sister and wants to force her to do things that will break her mind. Alicent cannot expect that Aegon will be able to stop him. That's what the side is now, as far as she knows. And she thinks he's a monster who must be stopped, at any cost. That's why she told Rhaenyra "we both know what he is" about Aemond in the Sept. WHAT not who. Things like kinslaying and slaughtering smallfolk mean something to her. And her daughter is everything to her.

Team Green overall took her for granted and thought she'd always be their doormat, and Helaena too. And Alicent finally had enough. Again, given how monstrously the fathers on this show behave, I think they "showed their work" on her radical change of heart well. It's just some people believe nothing can ever justify a mother betraying her sons and I think that makes total sense, given everything.

Honestly, once Helaena was on the chopping block, it would have been out of character for Alicent *not* to do everything--destroy anything--to protect her daughter. She feels like protecting Helaena is the only good thing she's ever done in her life.

People can dislike the ending. It's always valid to dislike something in a story, it's fine. But disliking it doesn't mean it wasn't built up solidly, narratively speaking. The writers put a lot of work and narrative space into it, actually--this was one of the most developed parts of s2!--and weaving it into the season's larger theme of characters pushing each other to the breaking point.

[applestorms]

the misa post

adding a lil additional note here because this thing SPIRALED the fuck out, even more so than some of my usual essays. therefore, i will be going back to my roots by breaking this post down into two sections: misa and sexuality, and misa and romance/death. skip to whatever section, if you wanna. or don't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

misa and sexuality:

honestly, the way that misa engages with her sexuality in DN is such a fascinating topic in and of itself. i really have quite mixed feelings about it because while yes, to some degree the art and story does sexualize and objectify her, there is also an element of agency to it that i don’t often see people talk about…?

like, idk. misa is a model, she does act, her job primarily involves working in front of cameras. she’s selling her Image and her body and she’s well aware of how to market the appeal— we literally see her doing this during yotsuba, when they’re trying to free matsuda after he runs around like an idiot and gets caught.

i actually think it's quite interesting that she specifies being against nudity here but alright with swimsuits and lingerie— full nudity implies sex work, something that in the mainstream might be considered "dirty" or somehow less/not worthy of respect (even if that's utter bullshit). yet lingerie is fine, despite having similar implications of sexuality, blocking off the most private areas and thereby allowing profit off of the same concept but without the associated disapproval. you could read this panel as misa simply knowing her boundaries and what she is and isn't comfortable with— but i think it's interesting that you could just as easily read this as misa knowing what boundaries she is and isn't allowed to have, if she is to market herself as effectively as possible and maintain her public image.

off the top of my head i can only think of two major examples where it’s clear that misa is super overtly being sexualized by forces outside of her control/with no particularly meaningful justification, at least in terms of visuals. this panel, which managed to sneak in a panty shot:

which, weirdly enough was actually kind of foreshadowed by sayu earlier in the chapter:

(sidenote1: does light really not have any other fucking chairs? further evidence that he doesn't really connect with people pre-DN, if he's not really prepared to have any guests in his room. anti-social weirdo.)

and, of course, the classic torture cover from chapter 33:

though i must admit, it is difficult to find any image of a character getting tied up like this that doesn't have some implication of sexuality. bondage torture is just a classic like that. though the camera certainly doesn't help, L— and neither does the fact that light and soichiro are not put into an equally objectifying, sense-deprived contraption like this, and instead just get normal ass bare cells.

in many other cases however, misa herself is the one flaunting her sexuality, typically as a means of trying to appeal herself to light but sometimes i think you can definitely read it as misa just. dressing the way that she wants to dress because it's cute? like, okay, in terms of trying to appeal herself to light we've got this classic panel from after the timeskip ft. a particularly homosexual light moment:

but there's also plenty of misa moments that just look like this:

girlie is chilling. literally kicking her feet, stalking her crush in bed with her supernatural death god girlfriend.

to be clear, this is not to say that death note isn't sexist or has particularly fantastic writing for its female characters. rather, what i'd like to point out here is that there are different levels under which we can view and analyze misa's sexuality:

the base level, of a girl who is comfortable with her body and fine with wearing revealing clothing

the level above that, involving the fact that misa's job revolves around selling her image, of which her sexuality is a key factor

and then the uppermost meta level, surrounding the fact that misa is a character in a story not only written and illustrated by men, but sold in shounen jump, meaning that she is thus filtered pretty significantly through a quite literal male gaze

it both can be and is true that misa is simultaneously objectified for her body on multiple levels and a pretty fucking horny person herself (or at the very least, willing to push that for the sake of her own goals)

remember, misa is the one pushing for their "alone time" here.

just. idk. i suppose my main point here is simply that i think this is a topic that deserves to be looked at with more nuance. there is credence to both the claims that misa is sexualized in DN and that misa herself has agency in how she chooses to dress and present herself, and i don't think you can cleanly separate those two aspects without losing something significant.

honestly, when it comes down to it, my personal take is that the real problem of sexism in DN is less about the particular ways in which individual female characters are presented/traits they are given, and more about the broad strokes of how women in general are treated... if my post on that particular subject ever ends up seeing the light of day, i guess i'll link that right about here. anyways,

misa and romance/death:

if there is one thing that her parents dying, almost being killed by a stalker, and making contact with a shinigami teaches misa, it is that love is something you kill and die for.

i really don't think that you can separate out "death" from "love" when it comes to misa, not only in terms of general themes, but also when it comes to how she personally views the world. i mean, just look at rem and gelus— death literally loves her, and in the process of loving her, allows her to cheat her way back to life. ryuk calls light a better shinigami than the actual shinigami, but honestly, if anyone fulfills that role, it's misa— she's the one whose life gets cut down until others stock it back up, who has so little regard for life (both in terms of others' and her own), who gambles her time again and again and does whatever she wishes, when she wishes, how she wishes.

it's that second point in particular that really gets to me here. throughout the story, misa shows herself to be equally detached from both the world and herself— she kills without care, gives up half her lifespan without a speck of a second thought, throws herself into dangerous situations and pushes for what she wants even when she knows it's stupid and probably going to get her caught. i'm slightly tempted to say that death's love for misa is the only mutual love she ever has, but that has some implications that i don't think quite fit. misa doesn't get a kick out of killing, she is not (overtly, or very explicitly) suicidal in the sense that she constantly expresses a yearning to kill or be killed. it's more of a toned down attachment than that, which... kinda gets into my next point, on misa's relationships. namely, with two very important people: rem and light.

in terms of rem... i struggle to analyze this relationship sometimes in the context of canon because at times it just feels like there is so little to work with. but perhaps that also fits, in a way...?

one thing that i think the musical really got right about rem is the fact that she has some of the most genuine feelings of love in the entire series, just in general but also specifically in terms of how other characters treat/approach misa. again, misa is a person whose job revolves around people loving or being attracted to her. i have a very hard time believing that the person who tried to kill her was her first or her last stalker, but even without getting to that level of intensity, much of the love surrounding misa is superficial, distant. she is beloved for the image she fits and the role that she plays, but very few people (if anyone) are even capable of getting close enough to recognize the self she hides under that mask (assuming, of course, that she ever lets that core part of her out).

rem is perhaps one of those few people, seemingly having watched misa for years alongside gelus before breaking that parasocial divide and meeting her idol in person. yet, it's also that very period of watching that puts a strain on their relationship, in my mind...

to put it bluntly: apologies to any and all remisa shippers, but i simply Do Not see there being much canon evidence that rem's love for misa is in any way mutual. not only do i struggle to think of any notable scenes where misa displays even an inch of affection or care towards rem, but misa is also kind of horrifically apathetic to rem's death, iirc. i mean, in a way, she's basically the cause of it— in failing to remember L's name upon getting her memories back, she pushes the first domino in the line leading up to watari, L, and rem's deaths.

misa basically treats rem like just another stalker, accepting her love so long as it is somewhat distant or gets her what she wants.

but, like. as shitty as that is to think about, it does kinda fit that misa would treat genuine love this way. at no point does she push back on or try to change rem's mind about this, or even really say fucking anything in response to rem's overt romantic/threatening overtures about how she'll kill anyone who tries to hurt her. i'm kinda inclined to view this as misa's attempt at kindness, accepting the love of her fans for what it is but never pushing it in either direction. she neither demands rem's love, nor attempts to dissuade it— it is what it is, and what happens, happens. and if it results in rem's death, or results in her own... at least it all happened out of love.

now, in terms of light... i was gonna make this its own post but it's on topic, so i might as well just add it here.

it is simultaneously so, so sad and yet also so, so utterly fucking funny that misa is perfectly designed to be everything that light absolutely hates. like, to just list it out cuz i literally have too many points to simplify this down into proper paragraphs rn, misa is:

uncontrollable. supposedly, misa is a perfect little devoted disciple of KIRA, willing to do anything and anything for him as thanks for getting justice for her parents' killer. but like... we all know how this actually works out. misa does whatever the fuck she wants, usually with the thin justification that it'll help KIRA in some way, and light is left behind to deal with the clean up.

stupid. no, not really— but she at the very least presents herself as such, as a ditzy, silly little girl, willing to do anything for love even if it hurts her. really, all this proves is that she wears a mask, just the same as light, though in the process she manages to also reflects to his own sins back at him. misa plays stupid so that she can justify doing stupid things without having to feel bad about it (or get emotionally attached at all?)— light plays god, a being above human morals, so he can do horrifically immoral things without having to feel bad about it. equal and opposite, in the worst possible way.

powerful. and pushy. the only person more stubborn than light yagami is misa amane, etc. etc. just like KIRA, she is a key pawn that light must rely on logistically, but is disgusted with all the same. misa is not a god, not in the way that KIRA is— she's just another filthy criminal, uncaring about the horrible acts she has committed. but she fits herself into his plans in just the right way that he can't quite come out and condemn her directly, and therefore is stuck quietly stewing in his dislike of her instead.

a liability. related to this is the fact that she is essentially unkillable, at least as long as rem is alive. many of the points behind her being uncontrollable apply to this one as well.

feminine. in a way that light dislikes, but also cannot ignore. she's cute and hot in a way that light is supposed to like, if he is to fit in w/ his Just A Typical, Good, Respectable Boy routine, but also drives him up the wall— pitting his desire to be "good" against his desire to be a "boy," essentially. (this point in particular is taken from THIS POST, big thanks to shydroid3000 for the beautiful yotsuba light analysis!!!)

possessive. controlling, in a way, which is again ironically exactly like light himself. light Hates being controlled because it means there may be factors outside of what he has power over, a trait which becomes increasingly relevant in the latter half of the story.

untouchable. even after rem's death, light can never quite get into the right position to kill her. she's almost too effective, causing light problems (e.g. yotsuba) and fucking things up, but never in such a way that he can easily place the blame on her shoulders alone. she is useful, a necessary evil, outliving multiple gods.

and, above all else, ultimately...

(sidenote2: it's kinda interesting to compare misa to L in this regard, actually, especially in terms of why light gets so attached to L but hates misa so viciously, despite L also being quite a bit like light? i guess you could say that misa reflects back the parts of light that he doesn't like as much, or even more specifically that she reflects KIRA back at him, where L matches/opposes light in terms of what he sees to be his better traits— his intelligence, his social power, etc. something to consider.)

to follow up on the sentiments of this post: misa does not love light. she relies on him to fill the hole in her life, in her, as a quick fix to avoid having to engage with the deep-seated grief that haunts her, an answer to the horrifying question of why she is even still here, alive, so long after her appointed bell has already stopped ringing.

to tie this all together, then... i suppose it's fitting that both love and sexuality are are so essentially Empty when it comes to misa amane. ultimately, she is a character defined by a misery she never allows herself to show to the world, a girl stubbornly sticking to the first reason she managed to find for living. again, just like light, she is a character that never grants herself the ability to truly grow up, stuck in the same childish, immature cycles of thinking and methods of presentation she came up with when her life first failed to end. a tragedy in her own right, unable to even remember the face of the one being that genuinely loved her at the moment of her own true death.

born on christmas, dead on valentines. how fitting.

[relaxxattack]

Piggybacking off the last anon, what is it you like about Jane so much? I find my feelings on her kind of mixed but I lean towards positive.

okay i haven’t read act six in probably like 5 years so bear with me here. *cracks knuckles*

jane is sooo so interesting and it’s really a shame people miss like everything fun about her.

pre-scratch she used her detective work to literally succeed at tearing down the crocker cooperation, to the point that HIC has to fucking abandon ship and head into another universe to have another shot at her evil empire. pre-scratch jane is also fucking hilarious! if you didnt enjoy her antics with john as nannasprite you must just have no heart

meanwhile HIC breaches a new universe, and her FIRST fucking order of business is to NEUTRALIZE JANE CROCKER because of how goddamn detrimental she was to HIC’s plans the first time around.

not ONLY does HIC pump subliminal messaging and brainwashing into nearly every aspect of jane’s life, she also tries to straight up mind control her basically whenever possible! she ALSO sends assassination attempts after jane 24/7! (people will seriously try to say that jane lived a safe normal life… as if she wasn’t almost killed by walking into her backyard.) this is because HIC is fucking scared of jane, as she very well should be!

jane is also NOT a boring weepy annoying crybaby like everyone and their mother complains about. jane is literally the most fucking supportive friend and emotion-repressing dumbass you could ever hope to meet. jane combines john’s emotional repression and jade’s intentional cheerfulness together into one of the most fucked up cases of emotional repression in the whole comic

act 6 suffers from a LOT of shitty writing choices, but it’s not jane’s fault the whole act turns into a soap opera— and she’s ALSO not the only one who acts all soap-opera-y either! literally all of the alpha kids suffer from this, people just like jane the least so they project it all onto her. despite the fact that she did her very fucking best to NEVER talk about her feelings, to the point where she ONLY started telling people about shit when she was mind-controlled or took mind altering substances to make her do so! and you can say “ohhh that’s stupid she shouldn’t repress things in the first place how dumb” but, one she’s sixteen, and two, everyone eats that shit up when it comes from like. literally any other character.

people (cough hs2 writers) act like she would actually be “pushy” with a relationship on jake— as if she wasn’t literally the one who helped him make the decision to explore dating dirk?? because she thought it was the right thing to do???

jane is incredibly thoughtful and mature and people really throw all of those traits out of the window with preference for a version of the story where she Comes Inbetween Their Fave Gay Pairing as if she wasn’t, again, the one who got them together. jane is also extremely interesting in terms of queerness; she’s got the makings of a really interesting arc, not to mention she’s the only human girl that dresses mainly masc! there’s a lot there that people just don’t care to explore.

people just have less patience for the prospit kids in general. not to mention homestuck fans love to be misogynistic and berate jane for stuff they love the men doing, or claim she’s coming between them when she’s not, etc etc. and then because no one was writing fun meta posts about her, nobody ever rereads the comic to grab little scenes or lines to expand the online discussion about her! and then because there’s no discussion about her, people assume she’s boring and don’t go looking for bits to start discussing, which cycles on and on forever until we have the ripple effects we see of that misogyny today. which mostly consists of, “oh i hate jane because she was a villain is hs2”, or, “i know hs2 isn’t canon but i still don’t care for jane because she doesn’t do anything that interests me.” (and she’s only not interesting because of the cycle i mentioned before causing NO ONE to have meta discussion about her).

idk, it’s been a while since ive read so i could be talking out my ass but that’s what i’ve got.

TL;DR: jane is fucking COOL, she just suffers from intentional fandom ignorance. and she’s also a canonically hot, fat, masc woman, so i don’t know what else you could possibly want.

[brujahinaskirt]

Okay, I obviously made the above post as a leetle joke, but since it's getting not insignificant traction, I do want to offer a more serious note.

I love this about Arthur. It's probably my favorite thing about him, but let me use this fresh new RDR2 meta post to clarify exactly what I mean. Despite the aspects of his personality & appearance that are traditionally hypermasculine, and despite how often he is annoyed with people (especially incompetents or people who meddle with his plans), Arthur is decidedly NOT annoyed by the social performance of femininity or by traits that are/were frequently stereotyped as feminine. Ever. Regardless of subject. I might go so far as to say he seems to canonically prefer hanging out with women and with "feminine" men.

Your long-winded, bullet-pointed analysis is below!

The Girls. Most noticeably, Arthur actually sits down to talk with and actively confides in the camp Girls (Tilly, Mary-Beth, Karen) more than anyone else around. These three are the most traditionally "girly" (single, 20s, active, pretty, unattached, highly social, feminine, chatty) members of the gang, though of course they are still criminals and don't perfectly adhere to all period-typical standards of feminine comportment. He doesn't mock the girls** like he sometimes does with other auxiliary members of the gang (like Uncle and Pearson, playful or not). Notably, he doesn't even gently tease Mary-Beth for writing her "silly" romance novels, a highly feminized hobby which she speaks about in a self-depreciating manner, much like Arthur speaks about his own artistic hobbies. Rather, he talks to her about writing like a peer and encourages her to write more by going out of his way to get her a nice pen. Crucially, there is no canon romantic or sexual interest in any of the girls on Arthur's behalf. He just feels the most comfortable in their company and seems to value their advice/opinions on life the most. To me, this is much stronger proof than his forever-burning torch for the cultured & ladylike Mary, which is (or was once) rooted in romantic desire. ** Unless the player persists in Antagonizing them, and these lines (while sometimes shockingly cruel and offhandedly sexual in nature; see Arthur teasing Tilly about pursuing Javier) are largely about goading them for laziness or, in Karen's case, her alcoholism. That said, many of the Antagonize lines strike me as clumsily tacked-on & poorly rooted in canon, which could indicate: (1) an Arthur who is deliberately trying to be disruptive (a generous interpretation), or (2) writers instructed to add throwaway content that will make a certain type of childishly misanthropic gamer (think 13 y.o. boys) squeal in glee with relatively low impact on the overall story.

Campmates. Following the above point... who doesn't Arthur hang out with much? The manly men of the gang; the very people social mores suggest he ought to be hanging out with. Bill, Micah, Joe, Cleet, and even Dutch. (To some extent, this includes John and Sean, but I'd say John sort of lives at the edges of gang life anyway, and Sean is, well, Sean.) Conversely, which male gang members does Arthur hang out with a lot? Sweet little bookish Lenny, a wordy, positive-energy, breezy intellectual who has just barely become an adult. Introspective, soft-voiced, long-haired Charles, who is traditionally masculine by some standards (strong, usually calm, can be standoffish) but decidedly NOT so when his appearance/demeanor is judged by the white Christian American male standards that began to dominate masculinity concepts in the later decades of the 1800s.

Algernon. Oh, my, Algernon. Arthur clearly dislikes Algernon's fancy, loud, outrageous clothing. But weirdly, he seems to like Algernon, not just tolerate him. Arthur in fact goes through significant personal discomfort to avoid hurting Algernon's feelings (the awful hat, the POST.MAN. sobbing), and he immediately says yes to having tea with him without any awareness of a coming business proposition, though half the time Arthur clearly has no fucking clue what Algernon is talking about. I am left to conclude that on some level, he just enjoys hearing Algernon talk, which is word-for-word what he says while listening to the Girls argue about romance novels ("I just like listening to you [all] talk." Hello????). I mean, for God's sake, he meets the man while he's choking to death on a nut at a fancy party, and the second thing Algernon does is tell him he looks like a guy who wears a corset. If anything was going to set off the boiling defensiveness of a dude who worships masculinity, thirty seconds with Algie would have done it.

Margaret, Mistress of Fucking Danger. It's pretty clear Arthur doesn't like Margaret. But that has little to do with Margaret's femininity & cross-dressing (this doesn't faze him at all when Charles Châtenay does it; more on that below) and everything to do with Margaret's deceptiveness and highly selective memory. It's not until the bullshittery unveils itself that Arthur starts getting visibly pissed off at Margaret. Conversely, Arthur does seem more positively disposed toward Sally Nash. (That said, this quest has a lot of problems and poorly aged lines that are depressingly easy for a politically motivated jerkoff to soundbite and miscast as Rockstar being pro-bigot. Cue 800 heterobnoxious gamerbro ARTHUR MORGAN ULTIMATE ANTI SNOWFLAKE SIGMA MALE OF THE WEST YouTube videos.)

Albert, my beloved. Rather than goading him to man up, Arthur tries to persuade Albert (whom he very obviously likes) to pick safer animal photography subjects, e.g. horses, and doesn't insult him for his lack of wilderness knowledge (an aspect of traditional manliness that is highly relevant to Arthur's lifestyle). You'd think he would tear into him for this shortcoming, given that they share so many of the same interests and passions, and IMO his genuine eagerness to serve as Albert's protector and facilitate his art is highly convincing evidence that Arthur does not necessarily view masculinity as a net positive.

Arthur is a basic goddamn boyfriend-hater. He pretty much harshly disapproves of every husband, boyfriend, male partner, etc. in the game and is very, very vocal about it... except one extremely unlikely candidate: Beau Gray. Weak, dandy artist Beau Gray, whom Arthur takes one look at and promptly hands the only gun to Penelope. Arthur is curt and impish to Beau at times, but helps him in his relationship troubles willingly (without collecting repayment), and seemingly for no other reason than the fact he can see that soft, fearful Beau is genuinely head-over-heels in love with Penelope. Is he projecting his own young love for Mary onto them? Maybe/probably, but Beau could not possibly be more different from young Arthur, and Arthur seems to believe this difference will make him a good husband for Penelope. A good husband, in Arthur's view, seems to simply be a man who ardently loves his beloved, regardless of his ability to provide for/protect her, and whose only goal in life is to live that life at her side. This is completely antithetical to mainstream late-1800s views on what constitutes a good husband and what it means to be a man.

Châtenay. Arthur shows us some of the most obvious delight and mirth he experiences in the game when he's hanging out with Charles "Allo Boys" Châtenay, who is straight up in drag a third of that time. This baffles Arthur a little, but doesn't disgust or repel him. I've written about this mission elsewhere at greater length because it is one of my favorite disasters, but it's worth mentioning here too.

Trelawny. Arthur clearly enjoys Trelawny despite his grumbly claims to the contrary. Most of these "claims" are just Arthur's established way of affectionate teasing (he does much the same with Uncle and Pearson, both of whom he genuinely likes). His authentic gripes about Trelawny are all about a perceived flightiness/lack of loyalty to the gang, not about his flamboyance. And even these gripes are half-assed, in Arthur's usual way.

Bluegills & Daisy Chains. One of the most genuine moments of softness we have with Arthur in RDR2 is when he takes Little Jack out of the camp to go fishing. Arthur's usually a much truer version of himself when he doesn't have to play the Big Bad Gang Lieutenant role, but this moment of escape is especially important, and not just because Arthur reveals his fondness for children and his natural understanding of how to talk to them. I notice this: Arthur tries to gently teach Jack about fishing, and Jack is completely fucking uninterested. Jack prefers to make flower chains for his mommy. Arthur doesn't scold him for his drifting attention or his lack of attraction to masculine past-times; on the contrary, Arthur goes out of his way to encourage and protect Jack's natural sweetness and innocence. That's a wild stance for a murdering outlaw to have re: the "next generation" of his family. Hell, I've encountered far too many 21st century dads in my own family who flip their shit when their tiny sons prefer hanging out with women & partaking in "womanly" hobbies like art, cooking, and flowers rather than hunting and fishing.

"...and be a god damn man." This seems like classic masculine bluster on the surface, but what does this keynote line mean in the context in which Arthur says it? Well, it's complicated. This statement serves as (a) Arthur's goodbye to John, (b) Arthur's final call to action for John, and (c) Arthur's last wish for his brother's life. But it certainly does not mean standing and fighting or being tough; i.e., "dying like a man." In that moment, it means abandoning all masculine bluster and revenge fantasy, and running away: leaving violence and fighting and brotherhood and all that crap behind to simply be there (alive, present) for your wife and son.

The Best Women People. Who are the best people Arthur knows, by his own crystal-clear declaration? Abigail and Sadie. Sadie's a rough-and-tumble, super-violent gunslinger and Abigail's a stubborn thief & a former sex worker (in the time Arthur has known her), but they are also, critically, two wives: the most traditional feminine role for a woman of the time period (and indeed perhaps most of human history once the concept of "wife" subsumed that of "mother"). It's also important to note that Arthur doesn't truly give up on Dutch until Dutch abandons Abigail, which serves as Arthur's point of no return. The other men left in the gang at this point specifically note that she's "just a woman" and not worth going back for. Arthur is straight-up shocked by all of this; he obviously considers her among the most worthwhile and value-having members of the gang, and certainly one of the most core members of the gang. Without any hesitation or doubt, the instant it's clear Dutch is cutting Abigail loose, Arthur declares: "That's that, then."

tl;dr: Arthur unironically prefers hanging out with women and queens and I love that for them.

[batbusiness-schooldropout]

Unfortunately, I'm low on inspiration for our Girl's Night adventure. I shall leave off with what Bruce thinks is happening and what is actually happening. Feel free to take the story and do whatever you want with it, just tag me or something.

Bruce's Idea:

Conner ran afoul of some magic and is now up the duff with Tim's kid. Tim, being a paranoid gremlin, has called in a favor with Barbara and she is having a facility built for the purpose of caring for mother and child (Yes, Bruce does get a new gray hair everytime he thinks about what Tim and Conner have done).

Phantom is mostly likely hired muscle and a go-fer for the group. After the information about the pregnancy gets out, Tim receives a phone call, most likely about a health concern given his behavior and leaves. Probably to resolve whatever issues arose before returning and bold faced denying anything to do with the plot outside of threatening to explain in great detail how Conner's condition came to be

What is actually happening:

Someone was able to get a message to Oracle asking for help for 2 metas, one being very sick and the other injured. They said that they were being hunted by the government and that they needed to keep a low profile. (Ellie could also be heard shouting that if they were bringing a pity party, to not come at all) Oracle calls up her most trusted enforcers, Steph and Cass, who decide to disguise the mission as a Girl's Night that just took too long. Dick was invited because the "cruiser but secretly a bruiser" is a stick shift and only hipsters and old people know how to drive those.

After picking up Selina and the Fentons, they split into 2 teams with members coming and going to keep any one person from having a clear idea of what's going on.

One team is working on turning an abandoned building of some kind into a one room hospital. (Not important but they had to go out of their way to get old equipment because no one wants to risk any ectoplasm or magic mixing with new technology in unexpected ways. You wouldn't want the bed to start raising itself after all)

The other team is working on gathering intel on the GIW and sneaking any ghosts out that they can. The goal is to have everything ready to execute a raid within hours, if not minutes of the Anti-Ecto Acts being repealed.

Out of fear that the Justice League and its members might be traced back to the operation and jeopardize everyone's safety (if Vlad finds out what's happening, there's no telling if he'll possess a hero or not) Oracle tasks Tim with the civilian side of things. Some concerned reporters happen upon the Acts and write about them, and some equally concerned billionaires throw their opinions (and money) into the conversation, and public concern grows, and you know how this song and dance goes.

For better or worse, she also tasks Tim with ensuring that everyone, including the man himself, is too distracted to notice Bruce's finances. Since he's bank rolling the whole operation, even if he doesn't know yet. Tim decides to call Conner to unleash their greatest distraction plan. The old-fashioned "Teen Pregnancy Scare" tactic. The fact that they are both male barely slows them down or convinces anyone that they're lying.

Everyone looking at them is like, "I'm pretty sure you're lying, but with all the shit you all get into, I can't rule out honesty"

(Also maybe Ellie has to revert to a core and she needs someone to "carry" her. Before anyone else can process the information, Conner sees an opportunity for more chaos and volunteers. The absolute flabbergasted look on Clark's face when he sees a medical record detailing his progress was priceless)

[grenade-maid]

there's a lot of reasons more people aren't into yuri that are troubling to consider, but equally, I genuinely think it cannot be understated how much of it comes down to most yuri being boring as hell. Like truly. I've been reading the front page of Dynasty Scans like it was the newspaper for 15 years I am not exaggerating I can show you the download file data 15 years.

You know what the complaint about yuri by yuri readers was back in 2009?

"wow that really was just 5 volumes of them blushing at each other and then they don't even kiss"

You know what the complaint about yuri by yuri readers is today in 2023?

"wow that really was just 5 volumes of them blushing at each other and then they don't even kiss"

Don't get me wrong, Yuri has grown a LOT in that time, to the point that most people today wouldn't even understand a Maria-sama reference if it were dropped in front of them (thank God). It's expanded and evolved to encompass more stories about adult women, wider varieties of scenarios, a greater acknowledgement of real life lesbianism, and is more comfortable showing girls kissing with tongue and having sex.

Yuri Manga is maybe the best is it's ever been, and it's also getting the widest readership it's ever had in the English speaking world. The titles we carry at work are always on back order with long queues, and, when I've asked them, most weebs of all gender or sexualities report keeping up with at least a few Yuri series.

At large though? Most of it is still really boring. That's not a bad thing necessarily. I like it because it goes down easy. For the most part any series you pick is gonna be pretty chill. Even shit from Sal Jiang which is PRETTY EDGY for yuri is a pretty breezy read. More serious ones like How Do We Relationship? cover some pretty real subjects about how intimacy is actually quite difficult even when both of you love each other, but it's not like... Exciting. Yuri isn't where you go to pump your fist or get perched on the edge of your seat.

So when the comparison is made to yaoi, well, I mean, have you READ any yaoi? Even in some of the more restrained titles those boys are likely to be sucking and fucking balls and all within the first volume or two. There's gonna be drama, intrigue, shit is gonna get messy, passions are gonna get heated, clothes are gonna be ripped off, people are gonna get sold to One Direction, it's stuff you can sit down with a bowl of popcorn with you know? Stuff you can message your friend and gush Hey Can You BELIEVE? A lot of it is pretty trashy, but that's the appeal. The generic state of yaoi is torrid and exciting and sexy. Ultimately, as a species many of us like to see pretty people fuck. In yaoi you'll get that. In yuri you won't. Nothing wrong with that, but it is gonna be a major contributing factor to their relative popularity.

It's also worth making the comparison to hetero romance manga, which has undergone a renaissance of it's own in recent years. There's now a whole meta around crafting a handful of mean shitty grouchy dysfunctional bully women and flinging them at the protagonist of the day who, unlike in years past, may actually have a face and personality. Most of these are also very trashy and truly scrape the bottom of the bucket in terms of writing.

AND YET?

I would bet money on the fact that you'll have heard of these women and probably even have a good idea what they're like without ever having touched a page of their manga.

I'm sorry but the straights are whipping donuts around the yuri girls in terms of delivering a wide variety of weird compelling fucked up women. How many yuri leading ladies by comparison can you point to as standout recognizable characters even divorced from their story? There's definitely a few, but not many. I'm not talking quality or depth of writing, I'm talking straight up pure recognizability. There are many beautifully written women in yuri, now more than ever. I can't think of many who'd like, get a figure made or have their face splashed on merch, though.

I don't really have a conclusion here. I love Yuri a lot, but at the end of the day this is just kinda the state of things right now.

[olderthannetfic]

"Why I don't write F/F" thread proceeded just as unproductively as I expected. It wasn't about moralizing about the women not writing F/F, it was a question about why personal reasons for avoiding a configuration aren't reflected in opposite directions by other groups. Unlike race, gender has an almost 50/50 split, there's a scale to the proportions not there for other types of identity category. "The femslash police suck" is a factor I can understand. But why wouldn't "personal reasons I just don't feel it towards this configuration" end up an even distribution across the population? The expectation for women to write about women isn't a moral rule, it's that if you allow the logic "men in control of stories write about men (and that's why more mainstream stories center men)", then the flip side is, well, why people clamor for more women behind the camera and in the writers' room. Either accept the logic for both sides or challenge it for both sides. Instead we have the worst of both worlds, we accept it for one side and challenge it for the other. Where's the parallel universe where this imbalance somehow resulted in a different quadrant being the smallest proportion of ships?

--

Why wouldn't "personal reasons" be even? Because the kinds of issues people face based on their demographic aren't.

But I think the larger factor is how socialization affects choice of hobbies and volunteer efforts. Cis men and cis women, on average, go in for different flavors. The dudes tend to be more bothered by the idea of "not getting anything back" for what feels like work. When they do do unpaid labor, it's often the kind that accrues glory and career prospects rather than less showy social ties. Open source coding projects where they can be important, yes. Writing fanfic, no.

Looking up any analysis of volunteering and unpaid work that makes such-and-such a part of society function will get you a lot of discussion of this gendered difference. It's pervasive.

Of course, this is just a broad trend. Plenty of guys do write fanfic, and when they dominate a fanfic space, we see tons of fic focused on the female characters they find attractive, including f/f fic.

And if you're asking about cis gay men specifically... well... again, gendered socialization means that the issues faced by cis lesbians and cis gay men are not equivalent. The reasons and ways that people employ allegory to talk about things "too close to home" will likewise not be exactly the same. Traditional US gay male culture goes in for drag and for an obsession with Hollywood divas and The Golden Girls. Plenty is being mediated through female personas; it's just not translating into fanfic specifically. But most people making "Leave the fujoshi alone" arguments are not thinking about cis gays: they're thinking about people in messier identity categories.

The biggest difference is not behavior but simply that cis men are a small minority on FFN, AO3, and Wattpad, the three big fanfic archives. (Some ancient FFN research found that it was 78% female, and that's the archive known for having more men!) The places with more cis guys are much smaller and don't get talked about as much by most fandom history and fandom meta types from the AO3 side of things.

The reason cis men's taste in favorite characters isn't being "pushed back against" isn't a double standard: it's because:

Cis men simply aren't that relevant to site-wide trends on AO3

and

2. The reverse pattern does happen all the time with vanishingly little m/m and lots of f/f

You sound like you think we'd make this fanfic-specific argument about pro media. In fact, plenty of queer women are open that they produce original f/f but not f/f fanfic or they produce f/f fanworks but not fic. A lot of the "too close to home" arguments are specifically about the kind of id fuel, naked-in-public vibes of AO3-style fanfic. Writing that is less id-driven may not feel that same way. A given woman might have a much easier time writing a mystery novel about a lesbian detective who never gets laid on page than a steamy f/f bodice ripper.

The parallel universe you ask about exists. It's horny imageboards full of fan art of anime girls.

The reason you sound judgmental and are getting "unproductive" responses is that you're phrasing things as though we're refusing to solve a problem. In reality, we're attempting to analyze the situation that exists. It's a descriptive approach.

[burr-ell]

Ppl are so fucking weird about narrative meta and it's solely bc it doesn't cater to ships. The ship isn't the center of the narrative and therefore when we talk abt the story in broad strokes they take any neutral writing observation and treat it like bitter screeing and crazy hate even though frankly speaking I don't think pointing out patterns is emotionally charged

So this ask is almost a year old and I am VERY sorry to the anon who sent it, but it's also interesting to me to consider how things have changed in that time. I got this a couple weeks after Imogen/Laudna became canon and I had been subject to some stan harassment because I disliked it, and after a bit of conversation about the whole thing I just shrugged and moved on. And yet for a not-insignificant portion of the ship's fandom, it feels as though everything that has happened between Imogen and Laudna since then has been just...quietly ignored. (I distinctly recall one of the hateful anons I received lecturing me about how "Im*dna is the heart of the campaign", and uh...how you doin these days, bud?)

Like, I've very recently blocked the majority of loud stan voices on Twitter, but it's telling to me that so many people proclaim to be these deranged fanatics about the ship and yet hardly acknowledge anything that's happened. And it could be that it's because prior to episode 89 nothing interesting had happened, but they still had moments; they had that dance on the pirate ship and the lap pillow and the comforting after the shard incident. But you'd hardly even know those moments happened—everyone's pfp is still a screenshot of Laura from episode 65, the bios all still read #IMOGENTEMULT: "can i kiss you?", and all the fanart is generic hugs or kisses and the occasional buff cowboy Imogen with damsel Laudna. So many emoji combinations include the ring when it's been referenced more often out of game than in it!

And meanwhile, the people who were vocally critical of the ship—many of whom, I think it bears observing, are queer women, women of color, neurodivergent women, or some combination thereof—have been having the time of our lives ever since 3x89 and especially 3x95. We've been asking for conflict the whole time and finally got it and surprise! We're enjoying ourselves! I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone in this corner who's turned into a classic OTP-type shipper, but we're engaging with this narrative and are interested in where it goes because it finally gave us something to do. We're also focused on everything else in the campaign, because it has an intriguing plot, an engaging villain, fun worldbuilding, and five other interesting protagonists.

If you got into the campaign because you wanted to watch a good story, you may have had trouble in the beginning, but if you stuck it out you're probably having a good time vibing with the moon. But if you got into this campaign because you thought the most important thing in the world was making sure Imogen and Laudna end up in their skinnyass white girl cottage baking cookies and shopping for Zhudanna and exchanging the uwu softest of kisses and handholds? You'd probably like very much for the campaign to have ended in July 2023. But it hasn't, and I think the campaign rather forcefully demonstrating once again that it is out of the audience's control is a disquieting thought in those circles. And if you're the type of person who felt Imogen and Laudna's constant fawning and inability to have uncomfortable conversations was not only romantic but aspirational, you're not likely to want to sit with disquieting thoughts.