#but the context of her character compared to how another trans character is treated in the show is pretty shit

[butterfly-ribbon]

thinking about the kamikou festival event again and how it conveys the tone and atmosphere of the school while showing the constant transmisogyny microaggressions mizuki lives with every day so well, and this phone call with an drives me insane bc even though an is genuinely well-meaning and is trying to ensure that mizuki knows that today is a safe day for her to come to school due to the circumstances of the festival, the way she words this is very discomforting bc she's basically saying "nobody is going to notice that you're dressed as a girl today bc everyone is wearing wacky outfits!" which carries the unfortunate implication that the way mizuki presents herself is equally wacky in a way that reinforces everything ppl say about her, but this isn't easy for her to push back against bc she doesn't have a good enough 'excuse' to do so when this is one of the few ppl who go out of their way to accommodate her even if they don't fully get it? it's thoughtful of an to want to reassure her but also it's another little thing that others fail to understand. she's trying to be kind but even then mizuki feels somewhat pushed into a corner. she's very bad at actively saying No. and an has removed her ability to misdirect here bc an is speaking with ambiguity.

mizuki also being too anxious about the idea of changing her clothes in school bc she's terrified of the possibility of being caught and thus having her body perceived by others... that's also another reason she'd hate being at school. gym and changing for it … i'd wager mizuki skips almost every gym class bc she can't stand the idea of being forced to change amidst boys, but she's also not allowed into the girls' locker room… literally only has the option to go to the roof if she wants to change. she's so hyper cognizant of her body and being seen … and the worst part is, she likes to be seen under her own circumstances and control (which is one of the many reasons she's very passionate abt fashion, and a lot of trans ppl in fiction tend to have an attachment to fashion and styling which makes a lot of sense bc of the element of control over one's appearance and making a self one can love). she really does. it just … happens that she knows she has so little control.

i've read the vbs main story (and a bit of their events but i need to continue whoops) and this makes me appreciate mizuki's brief interaction with kohane and an here more, bc it's obvious in this moment that kohane is just being her usual self—anxious around other ppl she's not familiar with and this is something she wants to improve upon (which as far as i can tell is the conceit of her character arc as an underdog of sorts compared to the others in her group). but mizuki assumes that she has to be uncomfortable with her specifically (presumably due to her transness) bc of her experiences, so she immediately feels bad about 'taking up space' and decides to make up an excuse to get away from the situation to give kohane the chance to comfortably hang out with her friend. and the fact that mizuki goes out of her way to say that she's going to find a place to hide alone is interesting bc the way it's framed it doesn't sound like it means much, but it feels deliberate on her part, like she wants an to know... mizuki's internal world and where we see she has internal bias and how she blames herself or assumes she herself is the problem if she can't make others comfortable, and she takes so much upon herself all the time bc she's used to constant microaggressions and either can't say how she truly feels or has to divest what she feels from its context to make it palatable. but of course kohane is not transphobic, she is someone who has trouble socializing with strangers bc of her own anxiety that has nothing to do with mizuki herself, but mizuki doesn't have access to this perspective like the reader so it's easy for her to assume that she's the problem. it's paranoia but it's understandable considering how she's treated by almost everyone...

[shana-reviews-tmblr]

Let me give folks some context here incase they read Ant's part and wondered why Lily liking Seth Macfarlane is a bad thing.

Lily's favorite ep of Family guy is the episode where Ida, Quagmire(the rapists) father comes out as trans.

according to Lily she loves that Ida is not portrayed as a sterotype and that her character is overall wonderful

to this i agree, Ida never acts like an insult to who a Transperson is nor does she act like a stereotype. (compare this to another transperson from S1 but i digress)

so what's the problem?

Lily neglects to ever really talk about how EVERYONE ELSE acts in the episode and how the humor treats Ida like a punching bag

Examples:

-Brian discovers he slept with a trans person after feeling proud and happy that he met a woman he saw as wonderful and intelligent who he felt he had a connection with. what does he do? he barfs for a full minute nonstop after screaming his lungs out in horror.

-Peter and Lois can't get it through their heads that Being Trans =/= Being Gay because they think that being a Trans person means you're actually a gay person who just wants to sleep with men.

-when Ida comes out to Glenn during the early half of the episode, the moment is treated as the worst revelation for Quagmire because his response?

"oh come on just say you're gay"

like seriously? being Gay is better than being trans? is that the joke? is that what you want folks to take away from this?

oh and let's not forget the shots taken at Gay people where after hearing all of Ida's shipmates make puns that "hint" Ida might be gay, Quagmire starts panicking.

and book ending this with Brian, after he finishes barfing, he takes a shower because apparently making out with a trans person made him feel "unclean" and he is visibly horrifying at having to think about how he made out with a trans person and when Quagmire learns Brian slept with Ida he went to beat his ass and how does it end?

Brian takes a shot at him by saying "I f***ked your dad"

after Brian showed so much disgust earlier at the thought of how he slept with a Trans Woman, he misgenders Ida on top of pulling a 180 and using him sleeping with Ida as a way to take a shot at Quagmire

Why? because now HE can benefit from that moment for one act of pettiness, using Ida as a means to take a shot at her son, who i remind you all at this point had long since came out with why he hates Brian and gave him the longest "reason you suck" speech.

Quagmire is no better than Brian, but for Brian to pull this shit just to get 1 shot at Glenn is beyond disgusting.

so yeah for this to be Lily's favorite episode says a LOT about her.

oh and just to add this to this, her other favorite episode on her top list is the episode where Meg, an abuse victim, called out her entire family for what they've done to her and how horrible they were and at the end was forced to set things back to how they were and resume her role as an abuse victim taking the blame and being seen by her family as a liar who made up stories about them to vent out and in Brians words "was a noble thing to do"

All I can say is that Lily more than likely will defend her takes saying she liked the moments Meg took a stand and that she liked Ida

but that does not make the episodes good nor does it mean they should be seen as something to enjoy.

for Meg's ep it's absolute garbage and because her taking a stand against her abusers is rendered pointless and having to "get bck in line" is treated as a good thing.

For Ida, at most her episode is a cynical view of trans people struggling because you could be wonderful like Ida, but the world will never accept you and you're there to benefit others when they see fit and at worst it's a thinly disguised story that thinks it's poking fun at trans people in a fun way when it's really showcasing how bad they have it and making it seem like it's not a big deal.

just, wow Lily way to show how much you care of LGBTQ rep and how they can be treated as well as how funny it is that an abuse victim can stand up for themselves but then has to get back in line and be the lightning rod.

Oh come on! So Avatar is just Dances With Wolves meets A Princess Of Mars with the prose of Robert Heinlein, that doesn't make it "hot garbage". After all, there's no such as an "original story". If you wanted an original story, you would need to go back in time to stop the Epic Of Gilgamesh being put to tablet or The Iliad being written to scroll. Regardless, Avatar is still a good, enjoyable movie.

..........

..........

..........

Lily Orchard, let me say this thing, this teeny, tiny, little thing, from the very bottom of my heart:

GO TO HELL.

[4kadhd]

I hate the way canon magne is depicted, especially when Tiger is RIGHT THERE. I hate pitting trans people against each other, but Tiger, a trans man, is drawn exactly like a cis man, with no """feminine""" features anywhere near him, while Magne, a trans woman, is literally drawn like the "big buff man in a wig and dress," stereotype, and it makes it very clear how little respect they have for transwoman. It fucking disgusts me.

Oh! I actually didn't know Tiger was trans!

Wow!

That makes magnes design worse actually like....okay now we know how homeboy feels about transwomen now.

Okok

[adamarks]

If one more person says simon snow should lose his wings i’m gonna lose my goddamn mind: a meta

Alright you guys, I’ve had ENOUGH. Simon cannot lose his wings unless you want him to break up with Baz, and this is why.

Let’s start with Baz.

This analysis is obviously Simon-based, and yes i’ll get there, but first we need to look at the biggest key we’ve been given to what Simon’s wings could possibly mean subtextually and metaphorically for the story at large. That key is: Baz’s vampirism. 

Baz being a vampire is constantly compared to/mentioned in tandem with his queerness in Carry On. In his first chapters, what are the three most important traits that we learn about him? 

he’s a drama queen

he’s a vampire

he’s hopelessly in love with simon snow

If you boil his character down until he’s basically just a stick figure, that’s what he is: an over dramatic vampire in love with Simon Snow.

We’ve all read the books, we all know this, and we all know he’s much more than that. What of it?

What’s important is that Baz’s vampirism is treated almost the exact same as his homosexuality. 

Hiding it from everyone, being ashamed of it, knowing what you are but being terrified of it. His dad being “definitely more disappointed in my queerness than my undeadness.” 

I mean, holy shit, let’s look at this bit in Carry on from Chapter 51:

“I think if I got married, to a girl from a good family, my father wouldn’t even care that I’m queer. “

This scene really hits, because how many times have you wondered “What if I was straight? Maybe this thing wouldn’t be as bad?” “What if i was just a straight poc?” “What if I was only gay and not trans?” “What if I was only disabled and not gay on top of it?” What if, what if, what if. Would my life be easier? you wonder. Would I get hurt less? Would people treat me better?

If Carry On is about self-realization, then Wayward Son is about the struggle of self-acceptance. 

Baz going to Las Vegas and meeting Lamb probably seemed familiar for some of you people that are LGBT+. It’s how you feel when you’re from a small town and you go to a big city like New York or Orlando or LA for the first time and you see gay people all around you. Flamboyantly gay! Gay people holding hands! Gay people kissing! Trans people that don’t fit the gender norms! Older trans ladies just walking down the street!

It’s exciting, it’s exhilarating. Your baby-gay brain is so confused because no one’s giving them dirty looks. They don’t look nervous or ashamed. Is this allowed?

The party in the penthouse is glamorous and beautiful and alluring and none of the humans there are scared or look like they’re in real danger. It’s because they aren’t. None of those vampires are there to kill people. 

This is where Baz’s fear of his own nature comes in. Let’s hear it for all you homosexuals in the crowd that are/have been terrified of being predatory. Of turning the gender you’ve been told all of your life you’re not supposed to want into pieces of meat. You feel ashamed for wanting physical intimacy. You feel wrong for wanting emotional intimacy. 

Lamb is the older gay that you meet/learn about/watch on youtube or whatever that makes you learn that no, you’re not inherently evil. Lamb is the queer history, the queer movies, the queer people that you discover that make you learn that “no, i’m not bad. I’m not broken. I’m beautiful. I’m beautiful.” 

Baz thinking the sight of Lamb drinking that guy’s blood being alluring and beautiful is crucial to his arc. Baz needs to see that all of him is beautiful. 

So homosexuality = Baz being a vampire? How in the flying fuck does this have anything to do with Simon?

Remember, Baz is our key. His struggles have been happening since book one. Simon just gained his “creature” status at the end of Carry On. He’s new to this. Which means we’re new to the subtext. Which means: let’s dive on into the next big point.

Our Big Bisexual Boy

Whatever label you choose to use for Simon is up to you. As long as we all agree he likes more than one gender then it’s whatevs. I’m going to be using the word bisexual for this meta, though. 

We’re all well aware that Simon is Struggling with his bisexuality in this book. 

“I still haven’t sorted out whether I’m still attracted to women or whether I ever was, or whether I’m some kind of Baz-only-sexual. But the cleavage at this place is abundant, and I’m not mad about it.”

(taken from chapter 21) 

Like....... y’know. We know. It’s... we get it. 

The important part of that quote is that it’s at the Ren Faire. The Ren Faire is the first time Simon’s had his wings out in public since god-knows-when, if ever. This is also the first time he really considers kissing Baz in the book. Kissing Baz in Public.

Any of you that have been to Pride probably got a little bit of the warm fuzzies during this scene. The faire brought back such deep memories of my first pride it was a little bit emotional. I talked to random people, people ran around in rainbow outfits. There was body paint! Stupid hats! Weird dye jobs! The classic pride-flag-as-a-cape look! I talked to so many people and 

“Everyone here is so friendly.”

(also taken from chapter 21)

Everyone was so nice to me.

Baz feels right at home; Simon is all smiles. The only one not having a blast is Penny and she’s (I’m sorry, Penny) the token straight friend in these books. 

I don’t know how Rainbow did it, but she made me relive my first pride through Simon, and I’ll never not be grateful for that. 

“Today I’m someone else entirely. Today I’m just a bloke with fake red wings.”

The Pride/Ren Faire parallels were pretty obvious, but I wanna get a little further into the whole “wings = being bisexual” thing. 

We’ve established with Baz that being a magical creature or whatnot is Gay, but while Baz is fully magical, Simon’s “half-normal.” Kind of. It’s a weird situation there but half-normal works for the argument. 

“’Smells like dragon... but also smells like iron. Another abomination!’” 

(chapter 35)

Now the word “abomination” is really fucking unfortunate in this context, but biphobia exists so idk man. I’m gonna start talking in gay/straight terms and I absolutely know bisexuality isn’t half-gay half-straight but we’re talking in metaphors and i’ll tie it together at the end so just stick with me, okay?

He’s part dragon, part Normal (kind of). Simon’s not like Baz where he’s absolutely, 100% a vampire. He has traits of dragons and humans. This is why it’s so bad that he hates his wings half the time. They are part of him. They may not be “normal” and he may have to hide them, but he can’t just cut off the gay part. Our queerness doesn’t define us, but it’s a defining feature. 

Penny says she wouldn’t be her if she wasn’t a mage. Simon wouldn’t be Simon if he wasn’t bi. 

The mistake Simon and almost everyone else makes during this book is that they think of his wings as these separate entities. There is no gay part and straight part of Simon Snow. All of him is Simon. From the tips of his toes to the tops of his wings, all of him is Simon. He might’ve discovered this part of himself during a tragic point in his life, but that doesn’t mean it has to be something bad. It doesn’t have to be something tainted. 

Sometimes you discover things about yourself during the hardest moments of your life. When you’re already down in the dirt, beaten and bruised, sometimes a mirror is put in front of you and you realize something. You realize you’re trans. You realize you’re gay. And sometimes you resent those realizations because they came to you at the worst possible time. “This is just one more thing on my plate,” you think. 

This series is about reclaiming the things that where taken from you by the ones that hurt you. 

Simon’s going to have to learn to love his wings, because even though they remind him of something that hurts-- hurts more than anything-- they’re part of him. They are him, as much as the rest of his body is. Simon’s going to have to forgive himself, and learn to love himself for all that he is. 

Because all that he is is beautiful. 

We all know it; it’s time for him to understand that.

All right, bitches. Let’s get to the bit we all REALLY care about. this is the one that really fucks me up my dudes. Because it’s Brutal. But anyways here we go.

His wings are the Big Baz Love 

What are the two things that Simon’s  considering cutting off in this book?

“That’s what I’m going to say when I break up with Baz.”

“Dr. Wellbelove said he could remove the wings. And the tail. Whenever I’m ready.”

(Chapter 2, Epilogue)

Yikes!

My guys..... Simon and Baz don’t kiss unless Simon’s wings are out.

I truly do not understand how some of you are out here saying Simon’s gonna lose his wings I really don’t. It’s stressful. I’m stressed. Ms. Rainbow Rowell, you have me stressed. 

His Wings! Are! His Love!

On Love’s Light Wings!

Goatman dances his nasty little fingers all over the bridge that is Baz’s ass? Wings out, uses his tail to help kill the guy. Lamb is hitting on Baz too much? 

“’Spell my wings off.’”

(Chapter 45)

In the airport, when a lady is giving them the “don’t be gay” stink eye he immediately checks to make sure his tail is hidden. 

Baz can’t spell his wings off, guys. 

Baz can’t spell his wings away.

“’Snow needs you to cast your angel spell on him. I hid his wings for breakfast, but they’re still there.’“

(Chapter 19)

In Chapter 41, the biggest kiss scene we get, Simon wraps his wings around Baz to hold him. He’s embracing him in his love guys. Guys. 

Have you people noticed how i’m suddenly less articulate? It’s because i’m in crisis. Set me on fire I wouldn’t notice. I’ve been living with this terrible knowledge.

The first scene we finally see them kiss is after the scene at the Ren Faire when Simon’s wings are finally out and he finally got to fly.

“Simon catches up with me and traps me against the car. He’s kissing me before I see it coming.” 

Simon is so dtf in this scene Penny throws a water bottle at them, and it hits him in the wing. 

“’So hot,’ Simon Says. ‘Got to see you fight without picking a fight with you myself.’

Bunce throws a plastic bottle over my shoulder, and it smacks Simon in the wing.”

(Chapter 22)

She had to smack him right in the love for him to calm down, my dudes, my guys. Do you realize how hard it was for me to annotate this goddamn book with this knowledge? Every. Single. Time. Simon stretches a wing or flaps them around it’s about Baz. It gets to the point where you have to put the book down or you’re gonna explode. 

Simon’s wings are always out around Lamb. He’s jealous as hell and he hates that motherfucker’s guts. The only real injuries Simon sustains in this book are to his wings and they’re almost always when Baz gets hurt too. 

When did Simon get his wings? Only a day after he first kissed Baz.

Simon’s love for Baz is so big and so obnoxious he can’t hide it. His wings and tail have spikes, because that’s all Simon knows. He’s rough around the edges, he’s been hurt, he’s been used.

He’s never been in love before.

His love is spiky; it’s loud. It’s hotrod red and you can’t miss it when it’s out. Baz can’t see it, because Simon’s tucked it away. He hasn’t flown with it. He hasn’t wrapped it around Baz in so long. He doesn’t know how to handle a love this big, where to put it, when to unfurl it. 

Simon gets jealous. He gets scared. He’s insecure. He wants so dearly to finally give to someone instead of feeling like he’s just giving in. Like he’s still just taking from Baz.

What do you do with wings? 

How do you find somewhere safe to fly?

The Resolution.

I said earlier that if Carry On is a story of self-discovery, Wayward Son is a story of self-acceptance.

Simon has to love himself, and learn that his love for Baz is a good thing. As he accepts himself (and his dragon powers evolve go read my dragon simon meta it’s good.) he’s going to start to shine. 

This is a story being told to us with nothing but love. This is a story about a boy that’s his own worst enemy-- as all of us often are. It’s so scary to accept our wings. It’s so scary to accept our fangs. Especially when they’ve come out of such a hideous occurrence. 

We need to accept these dark times and acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, we were made more beautiful because of them. Maybe the light we give after we’ve been in darkness is more vibrant, because we know how scary the dark is. The things that happened to us were horrible, and hideous, and terrifying, but we aren’t. We’re different from how we were before, but we’re still beautiful. 

Simon Snow is going to accept himself.

Simon Snow is going to accept his past.

Simon Snow is going to finally, finally tell Baz he loves him.

And for the first time, Simon Snow is going to see that he’s beautiful.

If you’ve liked this meta you should also check out this one where i explain how they’re finally gonna get their relationship together. Also the one about the scarf

Special thank you to @singerofsimplesongs for listening to me howl and screech about this damn thing. 

Tagging some people that might be interested!

@neck-mole @watfordwallflower @carrybits @theflyingpeach @fight-surrender @shitty-posty-times @wisest-girl @slaying-fictional-dragons @gucciglitzy

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me

I’m gonna miss writing about Amethyst.

As the most sisterly Crystal Gem, a firebrand in the new role of middle child after spending millennia as the baby of the group, Amethyst’s story is about growing from a wild teen to a responsible adult. Like Steven, she feels the need to prove that she’s a Crystal Gem too, but unlike Steven, she already is a Crystal Gem, so she carries a different kind of resentment as she continues to be treated like a child. It’s made even worse by her warrior instincts clashing with her small frame: she lives with the constant anxiety that she’s a mistake, a Gem who came out wrong and doesn’t belong in her family, so she comforts and distracts herself with hedonism and shapeshifting. Her problem goes beyond not feeling respected: deep down, she fears that she doesn’t deserve respect.

But she changes her mind.

“This isn’t normal.”

The Return and Jailbreak culminated the first act of Steven Universe, giving our characters subtle achievements (Amethyst and Pearl casually fuse into Opal, Greg reveals a deeper understanding of the Gems than we once thought, Beach City comes together as a community when Steven is in danger) and huge changes (Steven summons a massive shield, Garnet’s status as a fusion is confirmed, Lapis goes from prisoner to imprisoner). While not an official finale, Beta and Earthlings culminated the second act, narrowing the focus to five characters as they each reach one milestone or another: Lapis and Amethyst find a level of peace, Peridot defends her new home, Jasper succumbs to corruption, and Steven helps his friends but fails to help his enemy.

In a way, Change Your Mind culminates the third act with an even narrower focus. Sure, it gives big moments to a ton of characters (there’s fanservice galore, and we see the three Diamonds in particular take enormous steps), but we zero in on Steven in the same way the entire act has zeroed in on Steven, because this is a story about identity. It isn’t only about who he is, but who he wants to be moving forward, and fusing all the insights he’s learned from his human family, his Crystal Gem family, and his Diamond family into a song that encapsulates his growth over the course of the series.

We start in the most lifelike of the Diamond dreams, so real that Steven still sees himself as Steven rather than embodying Pink. Once again, this connection emerges from sleeping in a location where Pink once dwelled, but while he wasn’t feeling her impatience and rage in Jungle Moon, nor her hardening resolve in Can’t Go Back, nor her whimsy in Familiar, this time they share the same headspace when they’re both locked in a tower.

Considering how bombastic things get in this episode, I love how low-key this final dream remains until White Diamond interferes. We’re as lost as Steven at first, worrying about Connie and baffled at Blue’s recognizable mood but incongruous accusations, but as the truth becomes clear, he transforms into Pink off-screen without any fanfare, both in body and in mind: Steven isn’t questioning Blue’s warning about Pink Pearl, Pink Diamond is apologizing for her own behavior in Zach Callison’s voice. Still, looking down jolts him out of it, and after seeing the Crystal Gems poofed at the ball for a more definitive Steven memory, we cycle in Rose’s horror at her family launching a final attack on Earth. The rapid-fire identity shifts that follow inspired the most haunting piece of promo art for the episode, drawn by Rebecca Sugar herself, but I didn’t wanna display it without a seizure warning.

It’s excellent exposition, hitting the highlights of the Diamonds’ many wrongs and establishing Steven’s fraying sense of self in a way that’s both artful and brief; it’s important to remind younger viewers about the stakes, but Change Your Mind doesn’t pretend that anyone should be watching this episode without context, so it doesn’t prioritize thorough explanation. And despite how frightening the nightmare becomes, Steven gains a new sense of clarity after seeing the pattern laid out in front of him. The Diamonds are hurting him in the same way they hurt his mother, and if he’s going to help everyone, he needs to help himself.

When Blue Diamond returns to the tower in modern day, Steven isn’t afraid, and he isn’t alone. The first of many puns riddling the finale emerges (“Déjà Blue!”) before Connie proves why she’s the perfect partner for our hero, platonic or otherwise. He’s terrible at confronting the people that hurt him—this would require him to acknowledge he’s hurt in the first place, which he’s also terrible at—but if she was comfortable enough with confrontation to call out her best friend when he wrongs her, Blue Diamond doesn’t stand a chance. Connie comes out swinging, loading the bases with candor and sass despite Blue’s confusion over why a human even gets an opinion about this stuff, which makes Steven’s refusal to apologize hit the Diamond like a grand slam.

I love that Steven’s flat “no” takes Connie by surprise as well as Blue, because yeah, it’s uncharacteristically blunt for someone who’s spent his entire trip to Homeworld bending over backwards like he usually does to accommodate others. When he doubles down by explaining that he isn’t sorry about creating a show that celebrates queer characters whoops sorry I mean fusion, Callison makes it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, and this is what upsets Blue enough to inflict her tears on him. We’ll learn even more about Pink’s temper in Steven Universe Future, but the simple act of not bowing to authority makes Steven “worse than ever” in Blue’s mind: violence is more acceptable than insubordination. (Also, violence in cartoons is more acceptable than queer folks just sorta existing in cartoons, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Change Your Mind is about combating bigotry and cycles of abuse, and Blue is the obvious first test. She’s a bigot who doesn’t think she’s a bigot (compared to Yellow, who doesn’t care that she’s a bigot, and White, who’s quite proud of being a bigot). She passively perpetuates a toxic status quo (compared to Yellow, who actively perpetuates it, and White, who established it in the first place). It makes sense that she’s the first of the remaining Diamonds to change her mind, because all it takes for her to realize that something is wrong is thinking about it a little harder.

This doesn’t let her off the hook, of course: Blue’s sloth—the sin, not the animal—might not look flashy next to Yellow’s wrath or White’s pride or Pink’s envy, but she still chose to do nothing for thousands of years rather than contemplate how her actions and her society might have wronged Pink. If it was this easy for Blue to realize she was hurting Pink, it makes it that much more of an issue that it took her this long to figure it out. Unintentional bigots might be the “best” option by default, but they can be just as harmful as intentional bigots, and there’s a special sort of damage that can come from an oppressor who truly believes themselves an ally.

That said, while it’s important to acknowledge her blame (emphasized here when she only stops attacking Steven when he calls her out rather than the Diamonds in general), Blue is also a victim. She’s one of the most powerful beings on Homeworld, but she’s still trapped by White Diamond, and resorts to putting others down as a means of reclaiming a sense of that power. In the same way oppressed people often turn to sexism and racism and homophobia to make themselves feel bigger, Blue (and Yellow) reinforce White’s sweeping bigotry in the same way they echo her family-specific abuse. It’s not a good coping mechanism, in this show or in the real world, but understanding the problem is key to fixing it.

So it still feels like a victory when Blue turns, even though it should’ve happened ages ago, and even though she’s a tyrant. She isn’t just deciding to help Steven, she’s breaking out of that cycle in a way that allows for growth beyond our hero’s immediate concerns. Lisa Hannigan captures this transformation beautifully, shifting from manipulative whining about Pink’s behavior to a crushing realization that she’s the one who’s wrong. And even as she joins Steven’s side, she remains weighed down by her longstanding prejudice: Hannigan stutters as she refers to the Crystal Gems as his family, and her triumphant defense of Steven’s name to Yellow comes with the caveat that she’s still misgendering him.

But before we get to Yellow, we take a pit stop that grounds us back to Steven and Connie’s hunger. It may seem small, but this is a critical moment in establishing Steven’s humanity in a way the show has quietly done from day one: with food.

The very first scene of Steven Universe establishes our hero’s human half in a donut shop, upset about dessert. From there, the next five episodes drill in that Steven will take a unique approach to his magical Gem heritage, and they all involve food in a major way: Cookie Cats, then his father’s saying about pork chops and hot dogs, then the Cheeseburger Backpack (important enough to be the episode’s name), then the Together Breakfast (ditto), then creating a monster based on fries.

It’s not just Steven, either. The first few Connie episodes involve eating and drinking in ways that show hints of growth (worrying about trans fats, then sneaking food into movie theaters) and mark key moments in her life (sharing a juicebox, taking her parents to dinner). Lars’s development is tied with his love of baking, and on top of him and Sadie working at the Big Donut, the Frymans and the Pizzas are so tied to their food service jobs that it’s in their names. And speaking of names, we’ve got Vidalia calling her sons Sour Cream and Onion. It even extends to the Gems: Amethyst’s connection with Earth means she loves food, and Pearl’s greater distance from humanity means she can’t stomach it.

Food is fundamentally something that humans require and Gems don’t, and just like we saw in Lars’s Head, Steven’s physical body forces him to think about his own needs despite his usual focus on others. Both his humanity and his ability to stand up for himself are key to his eventual victory, and what could’ve been a generic transition between Blue and Yellow’s big scenes instead becomes a quiet Steven scene. Steven changing into his usual clothes (including his mom’s star) and Connie changing into her own outfit (including her dad’s jacket) is the perfect finishing touch before we dive back into the drama.

True to their natures, Yellow Diamond gets a starker introduction than Blue’s dream sequence: as the lights burst on, we get two shots focusing on a horrifying number of mutated Gem Shards floating around in the room, then the Crystal Gems’ thankfully intact gems in one big bubble, before panning down to the villain who caused all this pain. The menace is palpable before she even opens her mouth, but Patti LuPone’s low tone keeps the mood from boiling over just long enough that when she loses her cool, it hits like a freight train.

Blue’s passive bigotry endured because she lacked introspection, but Yellow’s active bigotry requires constantly justifying actions she knows are cruel by presenting it as a matter of superior reasoning. We’ve known from her first appearance that Yellow’s seething fury undermines her reputation for cold logic, and now more than ever the connection between her behavior and that of ���sophisticated” bigots is clear. You know the type: openly, smugly hateful, but couching their hate as something derived from some deep knowledge about the subject, whether in religious convictions or whatever “science” they can scrape together to confirm their worldview.

Sure enough, even in her rage, Yellow lays down what she sees as a rational explanation for why it was okay to mistreat Pink, and why it’s okay that they themselves are mistreated: if they make exceptions for anyone, even other Diamonds, they must make exceptions for everyone, and chaos reigns. Besides the slippery slope being a fallacy, her argument is punctured by Connie’s second big retort of the night, pointing out that this extreme conclusion of Homeworld Gems living free actually sounds pretty nice. But you can’t force this type of bigot to change their mind through reason; if such a person was actually interested in logical worldviews, they wouldn’t have become a bigot in the first place. You need to change their heart.

Fortunately, emotions are Blue’s domain, so she’s just the person to help. Unfortunately, in the same way she still can’t get Steven’s pronouns right, Blue lacks experience with healthy communication, and strikes a first blow against Yellow on instinct. The ensuing brawl is brutal, switching between the massive scale of two warring titans and the smaller scale of Steven and Connie scrambling to save the Crystal Gems as Blue and Yellow unload millennia of baggage on each other. It’s so important that Blue is the physical instigator here, as it fuels Yellow’s white-hot self-righteous streak like nothing else, and it keeps the fight from being one-sided all the way through: Yellow pretty much needs to be the one dealing the final blow for the scene to stick, so it gets balanced out by Blue’s opening punch.

Blue uses her powers on Yellow, and Yellow uses her powers on Blue, but Steven’s power is talking. So just like with Blue’s conversion, Connie gets the opening words while Steven gets the finisher. When he finally gets her attention after being ignored throughout the scene, he makes Yellow listen to him by using the same food-based expression I mentioned from all the way back in Laser Light Cannon. It’d pack a bigger punch if Greg said “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs” at literally any other point in the show, but it still does the trick.

Blue was emotionally ready to accept that Pink was suffering, but hadn’t considered the Diamonds’ role in that suffering. Yellow knew that Pink suffered thanks to the Diamonds, but suppressed her emotions to the point where she couldn’t empathize with her sister’s plight. Blue needed to be more thoughtful to change, and Yellow needed to be more in touch with her emotions to change, and thus the stage is set for the Battle of Heart and Mind against White Diamond.

Except that this isn’t the lesson of Change Your Mind. Blue and Yellow show that some bigots can be reached, which is great! But despite their differences, Steven uses the same basic strategy in both: he doesn’t let them belittle his identity, he confidently dispels their wrongheaded assumptions, and he gets help from allies instead of shouldering the burden himself. We spend the beginning of the episode seeing that in the right circumstances this approach can work, but from here we’ll see that with some bigots, it’s a non-starter.

So long as you can engage with bigots while maintaining your self-respect, it can be good work to try and help them see the light. It’s not an obligation, but if you want to change hearts and minds, Steven provides a good template for how to do it. Now the rest of the episode can focus on the bigger lesson: if someone refuses to respect your humanity when you’re steadfast and forthright, it isn’t your job to breathe in their poison, or to hold your breath until you asphyxiate waiting for change.

But more on that after the break!

I Can’t Believe We’ve Come So Far

As we reach the end of the original series, it would be criminal not to acknowledge three long-time storyboarders who are on their way out. This isn’t their final contribution to the series, as only one of Change Your Mind’s twelve credited writer/boarders didn’t go on to work on The Movie in some way (Christine Liu, whose tenure was brief but great), and Hilary Florido stayed on as a supervisor for Future. But I wanted to write the big sendoffs here, as this is the last proper “episode” that these three worked on as regular boarders. So it’s time to say goodbye to Katie Mitroff, Hilary Florido, and Jeff Liu.

First up is Katie Mitroff, who clocked two early knockouts with Alone Together and The Test alongside Florido. Mitroff’n’Florido went on to make other classics like Maximum Capacity and Joy Ride before the former teamed up with Lamar Abrams and the latter teamed up with Jesse Zuke for their next batch of episodes.

With Abrams, Mitroff deepened the lore of the show with We Need to Talk, Steven’s Birthday, Bismuth, Buddy’s Book, Three Gems and a Baby, and especially The Answer. She gave us the harrowing revelation of Back to the Moon, and the most ridiculous episode of the series, Restaurant Wars. Her final partner was Paul Villeco, finishing strong with The Trial, Back to the Kindergarten, Your Mother and Mine, Pool Hopping, What’s Your Problem?, Reunited, and Change Your Mind, 100% of which are either in my Love ‘em ranking or my Top Episodes. (Oh, sorry, spoiler alert I love Change Your Mind.)

It’s strange, because she didn’t work on any of the major episodes of Amethyst’s big arc at the end of Season 3, but Mitroff is one of my favorite Amethyst boarders: she’s the consistent thread between Maximum Capacity, Back to the Moon, and What’s Your Problem?, three cornerstones of the character. She excelled at going outside the show’s usual style, as seen in The Answer and Your Mother and Mine, and it’s no coincidence she helped animate Isn’t It Love? to bring Cotton Candy Garnet back for one last ride.

Katie Mitroff is an absolute rock star, I wish her well and you should too.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 13 of 26

Title: The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle #2) (1972)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult, Third-Person, Female Protagonist

Rating: 10/10

Date Began: 5/14/2021

Date Finished: 6/3/2021

Arha lives in an isolated community called The Place, the last bastion of worship for the ancient gods known as The Nameless Ones. She was taken from her family at a young age, and forced to abandon her true name, Tenar. Now she lives as The One Priestess, a title passed from one woman to another throughout the ages, believed to be an eternal reincarnation. Day in and day out, she performs complex rituals which have lost their meaning, and spends her free time navigating The Place’s vast underground Labyrinth. 

Everything changes for Arha when she traps a mysterious, artifact-seeking sorcerer in the maze. She’s been taught to mistrust the strange magicians of the west for her entire life. Yet she’s fascinated by this man and his kindness. Arha soon finds herself questioning her purpose in life and her isolated, lonely existence-- but escaping it is not as easy as it seems.  

Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. 

Content warnings and minor spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Animal death, child abuse, slavery, and death. Torture of prisoners. Mention of genocide. Some implied mind control. 

Usually when I really like a book, I can narrow down my reasons without too much trouble. Maybe the setting was cool, or the characters fascinating, or the writing style popped. Maybe all of the above! But my affection for The Tombs of Atuan is harder to articulate. I enjoyed the book, relished it even, but I’m hard pressed to say what in particular made me love it so much. For me it was one of those books that was much greater than the sum of its parts. 

The Tombs of Atuan is a stark contrast to A Wizard of Earthsea. While the previous book detailed a world-spanning adventure, this novel takes place almost entirely in a small and isolated setting. In fact, the first half seems like it’s from another series entirely. The tone is much darker. The novel is deliberate and slow-paced, which is something I usually don’t like. But Le Guin has such a way with words and character development that I was totally enraptured. There’s a heavy focus on Arha/Tenar’s upbringing and daily life in service to The Nameless Ones. This doesn’t change until Ged enters the story and (literally) brings the outside world with him -- and some much-needed context. 

Even beyond all that, the setting feels claustrophobic. There’s the bleak rituals and sacrifices Arha/Tenar must perform. There’s her terse, strained relationships with the other residents of The Place. There’s the inherent desolation of a small hamlet in the middle of the desert. Most of all, there’s Arha/Tenar’s exploration of the subterranean Labyrinth, and the sense of dark forces lurking in its depths. It’s noteworthy that The Nameless Ones never show themselves physically, yet they feel real and foreboding in how they affect and manipulate the characters. This adds a palpable layer of anxiety to the whole novel. 

When I read I usually can’t “feel” myself in the setting, but this book was an exception. In particular, there’s a scene near the end where Ged and Arha/Tenar are lying down in a boat, staring at the stars, and speaking to each other... and I vividly felt myself there in that moment. I have to credit Le Guin’s skill as a writer for making me feel that way; something many authors across hundreds of books have rarely accomplished. 

Another big strength of this book is the character development. One of my main criticisms of A Wizard of Earthsea was the dearth of interesting female characters. Arha/Tenar is exactly what was missing from that book. As The One Priestess, she holds a place of reverence among everyone else in her life. But this leaves her isolated, lonely, and trapped. She tries throughout the novel to fulfill her role as the cold, calculating woman she’s supposed to be. She’s prone to sudden outbursts of anger or cruelty because of her upbringing (and potentially the influence of The Nameless Ones; this is kept vague). Yet her kindness peeks through as she struggles with this aspect of herself, and ultimately breaks free with Ged’s help. 

I also like that Le Guin wrote this from Arha/Tenar’s point of view. The Tombs of Atuan could easily be just another Ged adventure story; he has a clear goal that’s in line with his character in the previous book. But Arha/Tenar’s perspective feels much more intimate. We see all her personal struggles and relationships, and her inherent familiarity with the setting adds a lot of nuance we’d miss through Ged’s eyes. It’s also interesting to see Ged from another character’s perspective, especially someone prone to mistrust him. 

And Ged himself is a great character; I can see why people like him so much. In particular, I love that he’s this this important and powerful wizard, yet his defining traits in this story are his patience and gentleness (things he incidentally struggled with in A Wizard of Earthsea). Even when Arha/Tenar captures and imprisons him, he treats her with kindness and respect. And it’s not a ploy to manipulate her; it’s because he genuinely sees her potential as a person and how they can help each other. I’m just a huge sucker for that kind of thing.

Finally, there’s lots of interesting thematic stuff that I won’t explore in detail, but might be interesting to analyze on a reread. Imprisonment is a big one; Arha/Tenar literally imprisons Ged, but is likewise imprisoned in her role as The One Priestess (something Ged clearly picks up on). Consider the literal role of a labyrinth; to trap someone and bewilder them-- and how Arha/Tenar spends so much time memorizing the one in this story. The power of names continues to be relevant; the protagonist is Arha for most of the story, but she eventually rediscovers her true name Tenar and uses that instead, in parallel with her character arc (this definitely wasn’t intended to be a trans allegory, but damn if it didn’t hit that way). There’s also the symbolism inherent in the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, the artifact Ged came to find. When Arha/Tenar joins Ged’s half to the one they find in the Labyrinth... right as the two resolve to work together and escape... Le Guin, you turned the MacGuffin into a symbol of trust! I’m going to scream! 

The Tombs of Atuan just slapped, what can I say? On the surface level it’s a fantasy novel, but it often transcends the label and provides a deeply human tale. It’s a beautiful piece of writing, and I found myself reading it slowly to savor every chapter. I’m curious how the remaining four books compare. 

[gascon-en-exil]

This past weekend I picked up another Steam dating sim, Full Service. I don’t think I could do a complete write-up like I’ve done for some others, but it’s worth mentioning some highlights and lowlights.

The Good

A lot of content for an indie erotica game, with seven primary love interests, over 200 CGs, and over twenty endings running the gamut from tenderly romantic to wildly kinky to dubcon/noncon scenarios. There’s more actual gameplay here than any of the dating sims I’ve previously talked about, with some light scheduling and resource management and a gifting/heart level system comparable to Fire Emblem support ranks or even more so heart levels in those old Harvest Moon games (are those still a thing?). The second playthrough adds more story content to better explore certain character motivations, and there are even after stories - epilogues, essentially - unlocked after perfect endings that catch up with the characters some time later and feature brief animated sex scenes. In the tradition of most gay dating sim protagonists that I’ve come across, Tomoki is fully vers, and his love interests are evenly divided by favored position: three tops, three bottoms, and one fellow vers with a little additional flexibility for certain scenes/combinations. Speaking from extensive personal experience I consider this much more reflective of how the gay/bi male population as a whole approaches anal than something like To Trust an Incubus contorting itself to ensure that every single guy is vers.

The premise is that all the love interests work at a spa/massage parlor that specializes in happy endings. All of them could be considered sex workers, and some of them have alternative sources of income in a similar vein, ex. modeling. This is not the easiest subject matter to write well without being either overly glorifying or overly preachy, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that for the most part Full Service walks the fine line between the two. It doesn’t shy away from the potential dangers and hardships of sex work (especially in some of the bad endings) or from the issues it can create with forming romantic connections, but it also remains generally sex positive and never condemns its characters for what they choose to do with their lives or suggest that they’d all be happier doing something else. The most judgmental the game ever gets seems to be a projection of Tomoki’s own prudishness...which comes off as deliberately hypocritical considering all the raunchy things he can get up to over the course of the game.

Speaking of sex positivity, it’s actually impossible to go through a full playthrough and only have sex with one person, and the fact that around half of the love interests’ development occurs outside plot events means that it’s quite likely that Tomoki will sleep his way through half or more of the spa’s masseurs before all is said and done. Furthermore, despite what I said in my Chess of Blades review about a poly relationship being beyond the scope of a typical dating sim this one pulls it off with one pair of love interests that Tomoki can potentially end up with at the same time.

While she’s not a love interest, there’s a trans woman in the supporting cast. Her full story isn’t revealed until your second playthrough owing to her major role in the plot, but I appreciated the depiction of someone who discovered her gender identity/presentation through her sexual relationships with men. Thara may not be the sort of trans character who would appeal to typical fans of either yaoi or bara, but having explored feminization kink in the context of sex work myself I thought she was a nice addition.

The Bad

So...voice acting. Most of the game goes for vocal work in the style of Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates, short clips that only somewhat match up with the text on screen and are meant to be more suggestive of what the character is saying. Those are fine enough if not always exactly on point, but then there are the perfect endings which are fully voiced. There’s a fair bit of variance in this game’s vocal talent and even audio recording equipment in one or two cases - sadly one of my favorite love interests has a noticeably lower recording quality to his audio, and it’s no more evident than in his perfect ending where suddenly he’s voicing full lines of dialogue - and then there’s the recurring problem these games have with fully voiced sex scenes and how generally silly those come off. I really have to ask: does anyone genuinely feel that full or even partial voice acting adds anything to the eroticism of such scenes? Props to the voice actors for doing their best with the material, but the sounds of sex are just not easy to vocalize unless you’re actually doing it - at least not without sounding ridiculous.

Harping on lack of realism in gay sex scenes has become rather passé, and I can overlook things like everyone being muscled and well-endowed, no one wearing a condom, or there rarely being any mention of artificial lube. However, there is one glaring issue that over and over shattered my suspension of disbelief, because it comes up in like 80% of the game’s sex scenes: these men have no refractory periods, at all. Almost every scene has all characters involved cumming twice, with only one or two lines of text between CGs as a break. Even worse than the inherent absurdity of a man cumming and then being hard again five seconds later is that it leads to the scenes coming off as quite predictable. With only a handful of exceptions sex scenes in Full Service consist of two NSFW CGs: a foreplay CG - oral, rimming, or some light kink like bondage or nipple or armpit play - and then an anal CG. There’s a lot of variety in positions and (tame) kink elements on display, but it’s undercut when almost every encounter follows this exact script.

On some subjects Full Service flirts with a particular kind of kink but can’t find it in itself to commit. Tomoki’s romance with his boss Rald is almost an instance of this, although they do end up having one of those (allegedly) scandalous workplace romances with its kink potential left intact. Less fortunate however are the twins Oki and Okan, who Tomoki can romance either individually or together in the aforementioned poly ending. The twincest is indeed hot, but it’s explained in supplementary material (if not necessarily the game itself) that two really aren’t twins or even related which annoys me as the same sort of cop-out as Coming Out on Top’s teacher/student romance. Here it’s a bit more forgivable as the reason Oki and Okan are more or less RPing as twins is tied into the plot.

The...Eh

Full Service’s setting is difficult to pin down. It’s clearly somewhat inspired by Japan and takes place somewhere in the real world as various other ethnicities get referenced throughout, but it’s all rather vague. I honestly can’t even tell if the developer is Japanese or Western, as there’s signs pointing to either.

There’s an annoying mascot character who runs a gacha for gift items - in-game currency only, thankfully - but the script knows how silly he and uses him sparingly in the plot and heart events.

One of the love interests is (so I’ve read) the protagonist of a completely different indie game, recognizable because he looks like a JRPG protagonist and has plot-convenient amnesia. He’s not a bad character by any means, just a big bundle of genre clichés.

With both Chess of Blades and Coming Out on Top I pointed out that best friend romances were a tricky business and tend to end up lighter on conflict. Full Service really yanks the rug out on that one, but it’s impossible to say any more without heavy spoilers. Suffice it to say Tomoki does have a best friend romance, but it’s hidden and hard to obtain and figures into the main plot in a thoroughly unexpected way.

What I said pertaining to second playthrough reveals also brings up another serious issue the game attempts to tackle, this one with more mixed results. It’s sex trafficking, which indeed ties into the larger sex work premise but in my opinion doesn’t land nearly as well as the rest in large part due to it being treated as a mystery and the centerpiece of many a lategame reveal. There are worse ideas for a source of conflict independent of who Tomoki ends up dating, but I’m still not sure about the overall execution.

So in summary? It’s not entirely my genre and there’s a lack of polish in parts, but a lot of gameplay for a dating sim and so, so much porn. Kind of middle of the pack for me.

[kob131]

 https://rwbyconversations.tumblr.com/post/626550438587678720/the-scarlet-letter-lets-talk-about-rwbys-male

Can’t even say I stan RT since I helped in developing your own break in RT’s abusive business practices.

So let’s start with a blunt statement: RWBY’s male LGBT representation has not been good. If the series’ handling of female LGBT rep is good (which… well there’s worse shows) and the general standard for how you write LGBT characters in a show like this, its handling of male rep has been… how not to. And Before the Dawn kinda solidified the idea in my head that the show’s handling of its male LGBT cast just isn’t good enough, either by the standards of when RWBY began in 2013, or today in 2020 when compatively massive steps have been taken over the past decade to show a more diverse list of characters… or at least a more diverse list of female characters.

So how do you make good male LGBT representation? If we’re talking about how something is done badly, you’d think some ground rules would be established. ... Yeah, he never does that.

It’s big romance is (unless the writers are very stupid) going to be between Blake and Yang, their first out character was Ilia, Coco got sent to the Book Dimension where she confirmed “I use my sunglasses to perv on women without their knowledge” which uh… yeah you can definitely tell RWBY is written by men… and Volume 6 had Saph and Terra being a good example of an LGBT couple without any real drama. In the last three years alone, the show has drastically increased its lesbian and bisexual characters, alongside even including its first out trans character in May Marigold (albeit only revealed on Twitter). In general, these depictions of sexuality have been pretty OK. Would have liked it if Ilia wasn’t immediately written out of the show after Volume 5 as it made her feel a bit more disposable than intended but whatever, subject for another day.

A. What examples do we have of Bumbleby being canon? One or two animation things and voice actors? Cool, when’s White Knight becoming canon.

B. I’ve heard Barbara say similar shit. Acting like that’s a male thing is fucking sexist.

C. I’m sorry but by every single standard of LGBT writing I’ve heard-wouldn’t they be considered tokens and flat caricatures? Since they’re so irrelevant and have so little character? They’re barely even characters INCLUDING their kid. 

Sorry but considering how there’s no ground rules made for what is good LGBT rep- I can only go off what others have said. And so many, OVERWHLEMINGLY MANY, people have said Saphron and Terra aren’t good. 

D. Okay the Illa thing is yet another example of why ground rules need to be set. Saphron and Terra BOTH are written out in Volume 6 so wouldn’t they get chewed out too? What makes Illa getting written out different or more disposable?

RWBY’s male rep though is a bit spottier. There’s the plant bois in Volume 5’s premiere, we nearly had Pilot Boi until some last-minute revisions, and… Scarlet.

Look about the same as the female LGBT audience to me. Why is this so bad?

“Why Scarlet’s a bad launchpad for male LGBT rep”

I don’t like Scarlet or how his sexuality has been handled. Scarlet’s homosexuality wasn’t revealed in the show, or by the writers, or even in anything that’s actually canon. He’s confirmed gay in his sole of dialogue in a non-canon fan anthology, where the manga’s Twitter team had to say that Miles suggested the idea and approved of it.

In short, Scarlet is Dumbledore’d, where his sexuality is revealed in out-of-show material and in a way that doesn’t make it supremely obvious (Miles himself never commented to confirm this so this news was limited in how far it could spread. I’m genuinely curious how many people still don’t know Scarlet’s gay), and Scarlet himself is a nothing character who was written out of the show after Volume 3 and only reappeared in Before The Dawn, half a decade after he vanished. Compared to Ilia, as this came out after Ilia’s entire arc in Volume 5, it’s not a great starting point for mlm rep. But things would have been forgiven if it had gotten better, if the show did have more male LGBT characters introduced, even just on the Saphron/Terra level of just being around for a few episodes before leaving. Then it would have been a misfire but then we could all say “Things got better.”

Why should I care?

See, part of the job of a critic is to make the problems understandable to the audience. I emphasized ground rules because it gives the reader a base level understanding of what constitutes as good in this case. Why should I think Scarlet is bad when Saphron and Terra are on the same level and you said they were at least acceptable?

It… didn’t. Which is why when Before the Dawn released in 2020, a full two years after Scarlet was first confirmed gay, while the franchise had more than doubled its wlw rep, Scarlet remained the one male character in the entire franchise who had a name and liked men. I remember vividly a fake leak for After The Fall which claimed Yatsuhashi would come out to Velvet and admit to having a crush on Fox. And I remember as well how many people were disappointed when it was said to be false, because it would have been nice for Yatsuhashi’s character, especially after the fleshing out he gets in the CFVY books. If Yatsu had come out as gay in the books I’d like his writing enough to say he’s a good case for rep, albeit with the caveat of “This is all in side material.” But in reality, the leak was fake and Coco was confirmed gay instead.

I remember the same leak. Yatsuhashi also disappeared at the same time and even if he was fleshed out-he’s still irrelevant to the show so wouldn’t he be bad? And if it’s about having fleshed out characters, why did Illa whose a fully realized character get shaded while effective background characters praised?

Unfortunately, Before the Dawn proceeded to ruin Scarlet and made me at times feel genuinely uncomfortable as a queer man! Let’s talk about that.

And people said the same about Saphron and Terra and people get backlash for praising them over other lesbian characters.

I hate Before the Dawn. It’s… bad. I read it while on a vacation and the only solace I had about the entire thing was that I’d bought an M&M chocolate bar. The bar was finished before the book. That bummed me out. It’s not a very well written book, the prose is very Early 2010s YA Writer, none of the characters are memorable and there’s various Fun Incidents like “NGDO using children as bait for Grimm,” and “Neptune’s hydrophpobia being used as a threat to torture him and the scene is played for comedy.”

A. NDGO is repeatedly shown to be massive assholes in the book.

And B. I can’t really find anything wrong there. In one of my favorite shows, Justice League Unlimited, criminals get threatened with actual torture and even death and it’s treated as a joke. Yeah the context is different in that the victim are criminals but both the villains and Neptune get over it so quickly I see no real problem here. Especially since Jaune’s own low self worth was a joke up to Volume 5.

Theo was cool. I can’t wait to see him as written by good writers, he should be a highlight of the Vacuo arc.

Don’t go blaming E.C. Myers for this- Miles and Kerry helped. You’d have to call them shit writers too.

I had two hopes for Before the Dawn- “Don’t be bad,” and “Let Scarlet and Sage be well written.” I’d liked how After The Fall had handled some of its characters (barring, y'know, Coco perving on women), especially Fox and Yatsu who were surprising in how much I liked them. I was looking forward to seeing Myers give Sage and Scarlet similar treatment- two relatively nothing characters meant he’d have a blank slate to write them however he wanted, he could give them unique personalties and if nothing else it could be cool to see their Semblances.

You know how frustrating it is to see people blame Miles and Kerry for shit that Monty had a hand in and may have even been responsible for?

Yeah well we finally found the flipped version-

Miles and Kerry worked with Myers on the book. Just as Monty is just as much at fault as Miles and Kerry, they’re just as much at fault as Myers.

And then I read the book. (Sage fans I am so sorry for you, you got baited harder than Johnlock fans)

I thought we were talking about male LGBT rep.

Scarlet’s a giant dickhead in the book. It’s his sole character trait and his inner monologues go on, and on, and on about how much he hates Sun, how he revels in mocking him. Most of his dialogue is sarcastic put-downs about Sun and how lame he is, and Sun is never properly allowed to defend himself or point out how going with Blake meant he was able to help save Haven Academy.

You mean like how character criticized Yang for being so reckless even though she was trying to save Blake?

It shouldn’t matter what the intent or results are- Sun and Yang still did bad things and affected the people around them. They should be criticized, especially Sun here since A. He’s still doing it in the book, B. He hasn’t had any real flaws in the show which means his dynamics and interaction are limited and C. This addresses what people bitched at him about in Volumes 4 and 5 thus robbing them of the excuse to chew him out anymore.

(hey remember when Sun in Volume 6 expressly says to Blake “I was a bad leader for ditching Neptune and the others, and I need to work on that” only for Before the Dawn to have him staunchly refuse to accept that he let the team down? I don’t think Myers did but I do)

Remember how characters in RWBY don’t always learn their lesson, especially when it’s related to mental issues like...say....losing their parents and trying to run from their problems?

Also remember how MILES AND KERRY ALSO HELPED WRITE THAT BOOK?

Scarlet being a ratty bitch would be one thing if, again, the franchise had done more rep. He’d still be a badly written character, but it wouldn’t sting as much. But because Scarlet is still the only expressly confirmed male LGBT character in canon (the book teases that Nolan is gay but there’s never confirmation either way beyond him smiling at Scarlet), it means that he has to represent that entire ideal. So when the one gay man in Remnant is being an asshole and a snide loser, that means that by extension, this is how the franchise sees gay men. And that fucking sucks! I wanted to come out of Before The Dawn singing its praises, I wanted to like the book, but it was a massive letdown, especially coming off of the other big 2020 RWBY controversy involving gay characters.

Fun fact: LGBT people can be assholes. 

In fact, Scarlet would be the ONLY LGBT character to be snide in the show. Kind of makes him unique in that regard. ...If he was an asshole in canon. When in canon, he’s portrayed as hurt and bitter over Sun’s repeated irresponsibility and doing what anyone would do in his situation.

So honestly, he’s pretty fucking human which I would praised BEYOND being LGBT.

Yeah. We’re doing this.

Remember, you choose to do all this.

Clover and Fair Game: Technically not queerbaiting. BUT:

But nothing. Once again, without any ground rules for what you constitute as ‘queerbaiting’- I only have myself to rely on. And just about every serious definition says Queerbaiting is baiting LGBT rep or pairings to get people to watch the show.

Issue? Not only was Fair Game not used to promote the show, there are other LGBT characters in RWBY. You can’t be queerbaited anymore than a straight person can be ‘straightbaited’ (We’ll be getting into SO MUCH MORE than this later...).

Let’s pre-empt this: Clover wasn’t queerbaiting, and Fair Game, while cool and I dig it, kudos to them for becoming one of the top 5 RWBY pairings on AO3 in one year that’s fucking impressive (I say with mild malice as an IronQrow main), never had a chance. The writing never seriously boosted it barring one interaction which was flirty (them talking in the lobby of the Schnee Manor), and everything else was out of show boosting through the social media teams and CRWBY hyping it themselves by saying they liked it. If you wanna blame people, blame the animators who went off-script with stuff like Kim Newman adding the wink as a deliberate nod to the Volume 4 waitress, or the social media team deliberately using the same policies for Fair Game as they do for Renora and Bumblebee.

So nothing I should give a shit about since marketing teams often work detached from the actual product and are notoriously CUTTHROAT.

It wasn’t Eddy’s fault that things escalated, and he himself has said that in retrospect, he should have warned people that this never had a shot.

But I can’t blame the Fair Game fanbase. Because Fair Game took off like wildfire. It came right as the fanbase began seriously asking for more male rep, Qrow’s pretty hot, and the Clover wink came right after the Great IronQrow Reawakening of November 9th, 2019. The rocket was primed, and they rode it to the moon. Finally, to these people, after seven years RWBY seemed to be doing something with mlm rep in show. People started getting into RWBY just for Clover and Qrow’s interactions. And if heroes were boring, Watts and Tyrian also had a fantastic dynamic that made Nuts and Volts one of the more popular villain ships overnight. Things seemed to be turning around! RWBY was remembering that gay men existed! You could hear the choir sing!

... You JUST said that show didn’t bolster the ship aside from one interaction (one that pales to the shit I use to say in private to fuck with people). It was obviously NOT meant to be a serious component of the show. If people got into a show for something it was never meant to stick to- it’s their own fault for when that part falls away.

… And for those people, that meant that episode 12 hit like Truck-Kun.

People got pissed. People were horrified. And it didn’t help that some members of CRWBY had said in the build-up that episode 12 would have some shots that made them nauseous (probably the Tyrian thumb thing) Out of context, it looked to these fans like CRWBY were basically laughing at their suffering, like they were saying “Lol, you thought you had a chance, get fucked, I hope your vomit burns on the way up.”

Yeah, Fair Game was never gonna be canon, and I think some people ran too far with it. But in the wider context of how desperate RWBY’s mlm community had gotten for basic crumbs of content? I can see why they’d run with what they had. The writers aren’t at fault for what happened, but CRWBY didn’t help matters. And that desperate mix of what felt like official backing from the crew, jokes about how cute the ship was, and the hope that finally the show would have onscreen rep? I can see why people ran with it.

Ah huh ah huh ah huh-

Now do that for the first three Volumes of the show with a bigger fan favorite, more build up and kill one half of it off at the end of the show’s big dark turn while the creators are even MORE unsympathetic.

Sorry but when compared to Arkos, this looks fucking minscule. And you invoked the Arkos comparison due to the numerous parallels. And just like with the Arkos fans, I’ll disregard this without a second thought.

‘But Mlm are STARVED for content-’

Then go somewhere else. I’ve been saying this to your Wlw AND Straight counterparts for years. You are not entitled to have ‘a meal’. The show didn’t advertise in universe around rep- That is not the point. This is like saying you hate nachoes because it dares to have chips instead of more toppings.

So why is the show more lackluster in depicting mlm characters?

I don’t think you ever answered that the question ‘is the show’s mlm lackluster?’ because you spent a third of this post talking about something you basically admit doesn’t count.

Money. Let’s be honest, most RWBY fans don’t care if the show doesn’t have good male rep. I’m willing to bet some of you reading this won’t care and just dismiss it as not being that big a problem.

I dismiss all the romance related shit as not being that big of a problem, so what?

I don’t think the writers care if the show doesn’t have good mlm rep because they’re not poaching that market. They’re after what they see as a bigger, more lucrative market, which in this case is female LGBT rep. That gets people buying games, watching shows, raising awareness and boosting awareness of your property, which means you make more money. In short: Two women kissing hits more markets and generates more attention than two men.

I’d believe that if not for the fact that there is barely any lesbian merch for RWBY, which would be the key way to cash in on that market and squeeze them for as much money as possible. In fact, there’s barely ANY shipping merch from Rooster Teeth. Rather unusual if they’re trying to cash in on a market.

‘Well what’s YOUR explanation?’

Easy: Misandry and moving goalposts.

Guys notoriously get shat on in the fandom more than women. Jaune is STILL being called a spotlight stealing MAry Sue and numerous people are siding against Ironwood because he’s a man. So making good male LGBT rep would just be inviting more pipe bombs in the mail.

And a large amount of people like to claim RWBY has yet to give GOOD female LGBT rep, constantly raising the bar to get what they want. And considering they make up the original hatedom in the show- they naturally hold more power.

Tl;Dr- You fucked yourselves out of good male rep by having male characters having any focus whatsoever be a death sentence.

Am I saying that Miles, Monty and Kerry deliberately sat down seven years ago and said “We’re not doing gay men because it won’t generate enough ad revenue and traffic to be worth the loss in revenue from homophobes?” No, that’s silly. But I’m saying that it’s less important for them, and it shows in the things that are small and add up. Things like Miles not verifying Scarlet’s sexuality or retweeting the manga account’s confirmation to spread the message (compared to how he enthusiastically confirmed Ilia being a lesbian himself during the Reddit AMA). It shows in how Pilot Boi would have been the first mlm character only to die in his second full episode until M&K were told about the Bury Your Gays trope. It shows in how Shannon believes that Ozma is “megaqueer” and Miles jokingly laughs it off instead of confirming it, leaving it to just be Shannon’s headcanon. It shows in how actor shipping is compared between the mlm and wlw ships, where Arryn and Barbara’s frequent pushes for Bumblebee are seen as “official confirmation that it’s endgame” while Michael and Kerry saying they enjoy Seamonkeys is treated as “well it would be cute if they did it, but they’re never going to.”

The whole point of AMA is answer questions, one of which was ‘is Illa a lesbian’ among SEVERAL others.

Yeah and Illa gets called a psycho lesbian. 

Yeah and no other voice actor headcanon has been accepted. In fact, Kara pushes for White Knight and the writers don’t even so much as acknowledge that unlike Shannon. Also I dunno what ‘megaqueer’ means but his only on screen relationship was straight so that’s probably why it wasn’t confirmed.

Not the creators, don’t care.

I’m not gonna say anything like “CRWBY are gonna have Qrow end up with a woman like Robyn out of spite against the bad apples of the Fair Game crowd.” I’m not gonna say that I don’t think CRWBY cares about male representation in the series. It is, however, definitely a low priority for them, and because that leads to gaffes like Scarlet’s writing in Before The Dawn being offensive in his depiction, it only makes the contrast between the sexes all the more painfully apparent.

Again, the female side ain’t much better. Fuck, the straight side isn’t much better. This was never a focus of the show.

I’m kinda tired of waiting for Rooster Teeth to show that they do care about mlm. I’m kinda tired of RWBY’s male rep being written like it came from a 1993 time capsule where I have to enhance the screen to see a guy holding a sign of Sun’s abs or be content with the only onscreen rep still being the plant bois in Volume 5. I’m tired of how often the crew dances around answering basic questions about sexuality (and age, and birthdays, and heights, and so on) by treating it as a spoiler question, as if just wanting to know what way people swing would ever be a spoiler. I’m just… tired of all this. When the best mlm rep in Rooster Teeth’s history remains the two dads in Camp Camp who show up in a few episodes, that should say something really bad about your company and your biases (To say nothing of the recent Red vs Blue seasons and their blatant queerbaiting for Grif and Simmons and the whole can of worms that is Donut).

And their best rep in wlw according to some people is a psycho lesbian. 

This is all just personal opinion that is next to useless without the basis needed for clear understanding. I don’t know what you would consider good male LGBT rep aside from a squeaky clean good guy...and many would decry that as condescending and unrealistic.

What can they do except ignore EVERYONE and just do whatever they feel like?

P.S. Someone’s representation is NOT their view on LGBT people. Especially since, as I have said, the reception of said rep can be outright contradictory.

I’d like to not feel like I’m borderline unwelcome because I’d like to see two men in this show kiss, and that the sole thing that represents people like me in this show is some British twat who complains about sand.

Oh fuck off. I’m also apart of a minority group (autists) and yet you don’t see me winging about how unwelcome I feel because there’s no autistic characters. I relate to characters like Ruby not because they have shallow autistic traits but because I constantly struggle with the same ideological dilemma Ruby does: the struggle to keep doing good in an uncaring, cruel world. THAT is what you should find relatable and welcome. Not something like sexuality.

I’d just like to feel like my sexuality isn’t a joke to Rooster Teeth (or at the very least, be like Donut and have it be a funny one). But at this point after the last few years? I feel like a very uncomfortable punchline to them. And it just sucks.

Cool-Welcome to club. You know, since EVERY sexuality has been used a punchline by Rooster Teeth.

Your sexuality should be the LAST thing that you use to find being welcome, especially with a god damn company. And you have no one to blame for your feelings but yourself here. 

Your post is damn near useless and I don’t even know how honest that RT stuff is considering Miles and Kerry get away while E.C. Myers gets blamed for stuff you don’t like.

[tired-bean-gab]

My Thoughts On The Last of Us Part 2

So, I finished the game a day ago and I know a lot of people have already gave their two cents on the game but I just wanted to post mine too. If you just want some general positive or neutral thoughts on it, you can read more below the cut. Naturally, spoilers ahead.

Full disclosure: I’m an asexual lesbian who is also a POC, but I’m not trans, so I can’t speak for the trans folk and thus will not be touching on how the trans representation was handled.

I’ve seen a lot of people who talk about the good things about the game first then the bad, but it feels kinda sucky to end on a negative note, so I’ll start with the negative then move to the positives. Yes, negative, not negatives. I only had one gripe after playing the whole game.

Negative

The ending. No, I do not believe that Ellie sparing Abby was the bad part, but rather, how it led to that point. Personally, I believe that a story should show all the important events and developments necessary for us to buy into the actions of the characters, and NaughtyDog did a fantastic job at making us feel the anger and frustrations that the characters felt, but it didn’t do a very good job at leading to the letting go.

So, for context, here’s how I followed both Ellie and Abby’s emotions and characterisations up until their final confrontation, and why both of their actions felt out of place from what we have seen up until that point.

Ellie

She’s uncomfortable with brutality. Yes, she talks big by saying things like “Give me an hour and I’ll make her talk”, but she doesn’t slow torture people for fun or gratification. This can be seen from how she hesitates before torturing Nora and how shaken she was after the fact, how her voice wavers when she tries to interrogate Mel and Owen, how she throws up after killing Mel and realising that Mel was actually pregnant.

She can go through with brutal acts when clouded by hate. As mentioned before, she is uncomfortable with all of these brutal acts, but she doesn’t stop after torturing Nora, and she still complains that Abby will be able to live even after Owen and Mel’s death.

She couldn’t let go of Abby because she is suffering from the PTSD of being powerless. This can be seen from how it was not the beating up of Joel that Ellie sees in her PTSD nightmare(?) but rather the fact that she couldn’t get through the door as she hears Joel crying for help from the other side. And this development is understandable, 2 times now, Abby has overpowered her while she was right there and Ellie was unable to do anything about it (Joel’s death and Dina getting beaten up).

Abby

I dare say that Abby is Ellie’s foil. She doesn’t feel uncomfortable from torturing people while Mel and Owen are shaken up from the Jackson event. She’s doesn’t see anything wrong with brutality as long as she feels that the other party deserved it, like how when her and Manny defended the WLF’s actions of shooting kids to death for attacking them when Mel suggested there could’ve been alternatives.

Abby’s characterisation is much like The Last of Us Joel. She’s cruel and unsympathetic to those she sees as her enemies, but kind and caring to those she sees as her friends. This can be seen from her treatment against Joel, Ellie, and how she talks about the Seraphites (I’m referring more specifically about killing the Seraphite kids that attacked first and broke the truce), versus how she treats the Salt Lake Crew, Yara, and Lev. This is very similar to how Joel treats everyone else (even Henry and Sam until Ellie convinces him to give them a chance) as compared to how he treats Tess, Tommy, and eventually Ellie.

She has a very “an eye for an eye” kind of view. This can be seen from how Joel killed her father, so she killed Joel, Lev and Yara saved her life, so she saved them, Ellie killed Mel, a pregnant woman, so she saw no wrong in killing Dina, another pregnant woman. She doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions and how it might be the reason things are coming back around to bite her in the ass.

So, the first thing I felt was out of character in the final confrontation was Abby refusing to fight Ellie. The last time we play as Abby, nothing was divulged about how Abby’s way of thinking had changed since she spared Ellie and Dina. And the last time we touch on the matter was when she was about to kill Dina, only to stop because Lev asked her to. Thus it just showed that Abby was stopping because Lev told her to. It doesn’t show us anything about her changing the way she thinks, nothing to show her reflecting on her actions and thus learning from her violence or changing as a person, so we have more reason to believe that she is still the same person from before than to believe she had a change of heart. While we can infer that she had changed off screen, I wish this development was shown onscreen instead.

Then when Ellie is choking Abby out, we see a flash of Joel sitting on a porch, playing the guitar and she eventually stops, thus letting Abby go, so I thought that the flashback gave her a reason to not go through with the killing. However, when the full flashback played out, I was more confused than before. If Ellie remembered that scene in that moment, it felt more like a memory that will fuel her to go through with the murder because Abby essentially robbed her of the chance to make things up with Joel. I get it, in a meta sense, we can see the line “I don’t think I can ever forgive you for what you’ve done. But I’d like to try.” as something directed at Abby instead. But I don’t think that would be the first thing Ellie thinks of when she remembers that scene.

So, these 2 things made me feel like all of the prior events were not utilised well to lead us to this final moment. I, the audience, understand cause I see from both character’s point of view, but the characters themselves do not. I don’t see either protagonist learning from the prior events that unfolded, each time something significant happens, they do not acknowledge it and still behave the same way. And so, if these events were not needed for the characters to act the way they do at the end, why show it to us?

What Could’ve Been Done Better?

This isn’t the only way to do it, but while discussing this with my brother, I realised, that to make the story feel like it was worthwhile and tie into their final showdown characterisations (without rewriting the whole story), there were 2 things they could have changed.

In the post-farm scene with Abby, show how Abby has changed to become less brutal, sparing people or not engaging in unnecessary fights. It can even be a brief discussion with Lev recalling a prior encounter.

When Ellie is choking Abby out, instead of recalling Joel on the porch, have her recall quick flashes of images of Nora beaten to death, Owen and Mel lying on the floor, Jesse dead, while they constantly cut back to Abby drowning, and finally showing Joel dying on the floor, paralleling joel to Abby, and have Lev beg for her to stop, and her recalling herself begging Abby to stop, paralleling her to Lev. So that it’s more obvious that this is the "I’m the monster now” moment, or, it could be showing Ellie’s realisation that doing this is not gonna make her feel better.

So, yeah, all in all I felt really sad that the ending didn’t stick and that it was in a way that made me feel like all of the previous events did not build the necessary character development for that final showdown to make sense. Because no matter how much I disagreed with Joel’s ending actions in The Last of Us, that action was true to his character, and it honoured all of the character development that happened throughout the game and it was one of the reasons that made it such a strong story even if its plot can be considered generic.

Positives

Alright, now that the bad stuff is out of the way, Imma fangirl about the good things :’)

The Characters

God, I love all of the characters in the game. They were such a good mix of flawed yet believable and it’s just, A+ writing there. Like how even though Owen is one of the more “morally upright” person, he was a terrible boyfriend to Mel and cheated on her while she was pregnant and even thought to leave without her. Or how Mel might’ve recognised that torturing Joel was not right, but hypocritical enough to still wish worse for him, only wanting to not be a part of it. Or Tommy, who we always thought was a loving and kind husband, but was consumed by hate after losing so much that his marriage suffered and he guilt trips Ellie to go hunt down Abby again.

I absolutely adored Jesse, Dina, and Ellie’s friendship, and Dina and Ellie’s relationship, their relationships felt really organic and I remember being worried and uncomfortable with how Dina and Ellie got together (after watching the trailer) cause I was worried that Dina was just rebounding to Ellie after breaking up with Jesse and how there would be so much drama between the three, but then Jesse, bless his heart and soul, was such a good sport about it, and Ellie’s journal hinted that Dina was always interested in Ellie but was just too shy(?) about it and Ellie ended up dating Cat so she didn’t pursue further (like, I legit wouldn’t mind having some DLC about that story, or maybe if the TV series touches on it ;_;). I also adore Yara and Lev’s sibling relationship and their friendship with Abby. How they learn jokes from Abby and see the good in her and help show her how an act of kindness can also create this cycle of kindness if she lets it. I love how much Yara and Lev look out for each other and how Yara came to terms with Lev’s identity and recognised how her prior actions to Lev was unacceptable and how much she tries to keep him safe.

PS. Yara deserved better ;_; her death broke me. Like literally she was the only one who discussed her mistakes as actual mistakes and did her fucking best to make up for it and kept trying to help people, even Abby, a WLF member who was the “enemy”. Everyone else had some sort of rose coloured glasses on when they talk about themselves like they were some sort of hero or the “good guy”. Like the only other TLOU character that ever did that was Marlene who recognised that what she was doing to Ellie wasn’t a good thing, but was willing to accept the consequences and view it as such. Even Jerry, the surgeon, talks like making a vaccine can justify all of their shitty actions (they don’t), but Marlene was disillusioned and I love her for it. I’m still so mad that Joel killed Marlene :V

Gameplay

Oh man, the inner game designer in me squealed like the little bitch I am while playing this game. Like, I don’t care how you feel about the story, the gameplay is FANTASTIC and I don’t trust anyone who says otherwise.

The Set Pieces

Jesus FUCKING Christ! Like, the game had so many set pieces that really let NaughtyDog flex their high-action Uncharted-esque moments, but also the slow narrative, world building moments from The Last of Us, and I just- they blew it out of the park ;_; They really knew how to work that intensity curve and make sure the players have the proper lulls and build ups to those mind-blowing moments that get your heart thumping. I legit cried in happiness when I got to the car chase scene with Jesse and it’s just *chef’s kiss*.

Boss Fights

The boss fights are so creative! Adding on to existing enemies but just giving a little twist to make them more interesting and yet they always make sense. At no point did I feel like the battle felt forced or made no sense or felt weirdly placed or “too convenient”.

Narratively Supported Gameplay

Oh man, I love how all of the gameplay always ties in nicely to the narrative. For example,

Ellie gets her revolver from Joel after his death and so the player unlocks the weapon while also tying it to the narrative.

You would read notes talking of the WLF vs FEDRA factions and in that area, you will find a room full of infected only to learn that it’s because Boris, an extremely skilled archer, poisoned his friends and trapped them in a room full of spores. You also learn from a note that Boris got infected while doing so, and later find an infected Boris to fight. After defeating Boris, you get your bow.

You find notes talking about a group of people who ran away from the WLF and later while trying to upgrade your weapons at a workbench, they will attack you thinking that you’re from the WLF.

Abby enters the basement of the hospital where the first wave of infection were taken to, which makes sense cause it’s a hospital and so it also makes sense that an infected at the highest level of progression into its infection would be there, because these infected have been growing in there for 25 years, thus leading to one of the most intense boss fights I’ve ever had in this game. NGL, my bro laughed at the face I made while fighting this guy. I nearly pissed my pants. Listen, I’m no good with horror ok? I’m a coward

And these are just to highlight a few!

Game Mechanics

I loved how they incorporated the rope into the gameplay without it feeling under or forcefully used. It made sense to use the ropes at the moments that you do and you can do almost anything you believe should be doable in real life with the ropes.

You can also smash most glass now, which is like, one of those “if this was real life, I would totally do this” things that we could never do in games, and I love it.

I love the ability to go prone and how smooth the combat can be transitioned from open combat back to stealth and hunting the enemies while they search for you. It’s so fluid that you’d think it’d break more times than it does, but it doesn’t! Like, never in my entire playthough did I break the game in combat (it only broke once throughout the entire game but I think it was cause I was diving into a prone to crawl through a hole while switching weapons and my character got stuck, but the checkpoints in the game are so well positioned and timed that I didn’t even feel all that frustrated to reload from last checkpoint).

Sound Design

Fan-fucking-tastic. Granted, sometimes it did seem like there were some missing triggers for audio or the wrong use of audio e.g. playing a loud splash when it’s just a small puddle you’re stepping into. But they were few and far between and overall the sound mixing was terrific. The sound design really sold the experience, like when you upgrade your weapon, fire them, run around, jump over things, land on different materials or if it was wet vs dry, etc.

I also love the way the sound transitions from diegetic to non-diegetic e.g. In Ellie’s first cutscene, when she plays that one note on the guitar and then it transitions into the intro title card and soundtrack? *chef’s kiss*

Graphics

All of the things that everyone has said about it tbh. Like, I’m really impressed at their ability to have dynamic lighting and real-time reflections with the water and glass panels while keeping it at a stable FPS (yes I know, it’s 30 FPS, but it’s still very impressive). Like, literally 90% of the game is wet environments, it’s so freaking impressive. I feel like Jackscepticeye actually gushes about this way better than I do X’D go watch his playthrough if you wanna see someone who is genuinely just there for the experience instead of venting/hating on it.

Representation

I love seeing so many POC especially asians in this game (I’m asian)! I feel like it’s quite rare to see asian POCs in American media so this was quite a treat (we had 4 that I can think of right from the top of my head!). I liked the representations we had. They felt organic, no one felt like they were the “token POC”. They all had their own agency, personality, and felt properly fleshed out.

Conclusion

The Last of Us Part 2 was a terrific game. The story honestly isn’t for everyone. I was quite prepared for this because Neil had said that the whole game was about hate, so I knew it would be nothing like the first game since the theme of love in the first game was what made me love it in the first place. But I implore you to be reasonable and healthy about it and not attack others for having a different opinion on the game.

[autisticlaezel]

As some of you may know, I recently left a Discord server centered around swtor and kotor.

I did this for many reasons, but the two main ones were thinly veiled lesbophobia, specifically in intra community discourse, and lack of mod transparency, specifically regarding how one of the other server members were kicked, and the mods refusing to provide example or evidence of the behavior they accused said member of, as well as low key mocking them by exaggerating their statements.

These things made me feel unsafe which took away the fun of participating on there, and I left with a message in the general chat that detailed this. As it turns out, a lot of other members of this server had felt the same, but had been too afraid to speak up, and when they did speak up about their own discomfort and experiences with lesbophobia on there, it was treated as a personal attack against the mods and derailed into something it was not.

I wasn’t going to bring this drama to tumblr aside from the occasional vent post that didn’t name-drop anyone, but it’s come to my attention that one of the former mods has made a callout post about me and several other people who came forward during the discussion sparked by my leaving, as well as they person who got kicked. I’m not going to sit around and let someone spread lies about me and people I care about on a public platform, and I’m certainly not going to leave the accusations in her callout go unresponded to.

I also want to let you know that this is the last time I’ll address the drama related to the discord server. It’s stressful to me. It’s stressful to everyone else involved. It’s not productive, and everyone gets hurt.

I’ll put my response under the cut as it’s going to be long and screenshot heavy, but for transparency’s sake, this is the callout post in question.

I’d like to start my addressing my distaste for the abuse analogy Irene chose to use in her post. It’s incredibly manipulative, especially considering that several of the people she has chosen to mention have talked to her about their experiences as abuse survivors in the past. As a survivor of relationship abuse (as well as other kinds of abuse), I take offense in being compared to an abuser for standing up for myself and bringing attention to something that’s made me feel unsafe. It’s cruel, it’s a low blow and I’m incredibly angry that she thought it appropriate to make.

I’d also like to point out that she mentions in her post that a lot of people who agreed with her left the server. I’d like to remind everyone that the debate she’s referring to was, in fact, sparked by me leaving due to feeling unsafe, and that a lot of specifically lesbians who felt the same way chose to leave as well because they were being continuously spoken over when discussing their concerns about lesbophobia.

This was painted as derailment of a conversation about biphobia in the server and as well as Irene’s callout post, despite taking place in an entirely different channel, at an entirely different time, without any references to that conversation whatsoever.

This is the message I left with, and I’d also like to point out that this is the only time I’ve addressed any intra community discourse on the server, and that Irene thought that that was enough to name-drop me in a callout post. That said, I do agree with the other people name-dropped on there. 

For the same reason, I’m really confused as to why Irene chose to name-drop Dani in her post. Dani too hasn’t participated in intra-community on the server before I chose to leave, and after I chose to leave, she agreed with me in an incredibly polite and diplomatic way, expressing her own discomfort with the lesbophobia happening in the server.

This is Dani’s reaction to my leaving, as well as the message that she left the server with.

Irene claims in her callout post that we (the people name-dropped) engaged in “the derailing and targeting of a transgender woman with rhetoric and arguments taken from trans-exclusionary radical feminism.”

It’s important to me to point out that the discussions she’s referring to was not about gender, but about the concept of monosexual privilege and why it makes people uncomfortable. That she neglected to mention that in her post, and that she chooses to compare someone asking her not to call them monosexual to terf rhetoric once again strikes me as incredibly manipulative.

I will, however, for transparency’s sake post screenshots of the part of the conversation that any of us actually participated in in full, because I don’t expect anyone to take my word for it.

I’ve also chosen to censor certain members’ names and icons. This is done because I do not wish to place the transgender woman in danger in case this post ends up being read by the wrong people. Her statements are the ones censored with black. The other names censored are censored about they aren’t actually related to this drama, and I don’t wish to bring them into it if it can be avoided. Last I’ve censored Shannon’s icon, because it’s art not created by her, and she doesn’t wish to drag the artist into this either.

Here’s the conversation.

I’m sorry that this is rather long, but I don’t want to be accused of taking anyone’s words out of context, and frankly, I wouldn’t put that beside her.

Next, I’d like to address another claim in her post. She said that, and I quote:

The conversation evolved to the point where a cisgender lesbian told the transgender lesbian woman who was targeted, quoting, “Do you know what it’s like to be shoved to the sidelines of the lgbt community!?!? Do you!!?” And, really, that needs no further elaboration from me here.

Not only does she misquote that someone, she also misgenders them. The person in question, Mac, isn’t cis, and while I’m not sure that Irene is aware of this, speaking on things that she doesn’t actually know is really harmful. This is the conversation that she’s referring to. I’ve chosen to cut out the parts that weren’t the exchange between Mac and the trans woman they were accused of saying that to because there was multiple conversation going on at once, and the others aren’t relevant to this particular point.

Here’s what they actually said.

Irene has also chosen to name-drop Leilukin in her post, which strikes me as very suspect. Leilukin has only addressed intra community discourse in the lgbt+ community to talk about her experience as a lesbian in a country where gay sexuality is illegal. It’s also important to note that she was promptly ignored, and that Irene never addressed what she had to say, and then went to name-drop her in a post about biphobia and terf rhetoric.

This is what she said.

I mentioned my distaste for how Appo got kicked in my leaving message as well. I’d like to clarify what I mean by that, for anyone who weren’t involved in the server or weren’t aware of it happening. Kicking a non-binary person from a server with the accusation of terf rhetoric without clarifying what was meant by that for several days, without providing examples, without consulting the community and without talking to them about it first feels very strange to me.

It felt very clique-y, vindictive and based on a personal dislike for Appo rather them actually having done something wrong.

This is what was said about them in the server after they were kicked.

There were no examples provided of any behavior on their part that had actually been problematic. We were supposed to take the mods’ word for it, without any clue as to whether it was true or not. It’s also important to point out that they never actually said that calling a character hot or declaring a desire to date them was inappropriate, rather, they’d raised concern about the idea of discussing things of a sexual nature in the sfw in general after it was revealed to us that one of the server members was 14.

After several people expressed their discomfort with the liberal use of “terf rhetoric” outside of discussions about gender, this statement was posted.

Despite this, Irene directly correlated “terf rhetoric” (once again, due to a discussion on monosexual privilege) with another member of the server’s lesbianism in private messages to said lesbian (Shannon), while being incredibly condescending. It’s also worth noting, since Irene brought age into her original callout post that this lesbian only recently turned 20 and that Irene is 26.

These are examples of messages that she sent Shannon.

It’s worth nothing here that Irene is a cisgender bi woman, and is here talking over a non-binary lesbian about lesbophobia.

I’d also like to provide a couple of examples as to what the several people felt uncomfortable with in regards to lesbophobia. Unfortunately, a lot of the issues brought up don’t make sense without the context or the fact that they were repeated constantly, but here are some that absolutely do. It’s also important to note that there are several examples of similar behavior in the screenshots from the conversation of monosexual privilege as well as the messages Irene sent to Shannon. Qionnuala is Irene in this case.

Here they are.

As a closing statement, I’d like to say that I haven’t enjoyed making this post. It’s been stressful, it’s been aggravating and it’s been sad. It is, however, important to me to address an attack made on my person by someone with no proof or motivation other than me and others being lesbians daring to speak up about lesbophobia on a discord server.

[frost-skyder]

Lombun (Art Theif) Using Alts to Harass Artist

Note: This person is harassing an artist they stole from, and has done so multiple times already, and continues to threaten them. They have block-evaded by making multiple accounts, but it’s obvious it’s the same person just on writing style alone and behavior.

Hey, so the asshole I talked about in this post is at it again block evading by making new accounts to harass the original artist.

The first account they used was https://www.deviantart.com/nikoruthewolf to pretend to be a friend and to block evade when their first account was blocked.

Using this account, they left a very disgusting note: 

Then chose to make another account directly using the user’s username to harass them:

https://www.deviantart.com/fablokiiisahypocrite/art/--798762781

They are again faking being the “friend” like most people do when they can’t face problems they’ve caused. They are comparing using and crediting a base to art theft that they did, which makes no sense, and are showing that they are lombun just from the writing style alone. Here’s the screens down below in case they get banned for their behavior.

Basically they are proving that they are a scumbag, again! 

Below is the initial reason and callout I had on tumblr before they falsely accused it of a DMCA violation and art theft:

Note: The purpose of this journal is to make people aware of the situation, and to avoid the user mentioned. Please do not go out of your way to harass this person, or even contact them. Block so they don't do this to your artwork, and don't promote their behavior.

I’m doing this from a limited machine so it won’t be as thorough as most of my user warnings, but the deviant :devlombun: is heavy reffing/tracing the artwork of another artist I know. It doesn’t matter if the work is old, it’s still theft.

Original:

Traced Version:

https://www.deviantart.com/lombun/art/Mountain-Mist-AKA-Mist-or-Misty-781415012

Screenshot in case they take it down:

Literally in several areas the lines line up. It's obvious they traced parts.

They’ve done it even more after looking at their tumblr. 

Originals:

https://www.deviantart.com/fluffomaru/art/Agent-Coulson-319821181

Stolen:

https://lombun.tumblr.com/post/183087921096/lol-the-green-ones-leg-is-broken

They are absolutely blatant.

Original:

Traced Version:

Another version they just posted:

https://lombun.tumblr.com/post/183226994546/really-ruff-one-handed-sketch-you-can-even-watch

Read the description on dA. Astounding.

It's almost like...you can trace off a screen, and off your other work...or fucking heavily reference from a piece next to you.

This one is just as painfully obvious. Before I made this journal, they took it down because people commented saying what they did wasn't okay, but I saved the responses and how they treated the original artist who just said they weren't comfortable with their artwork being heavy reffed and traced. What they said and did shouldn't be swept under the rug, and I wouldn't be surprised if other pieces from their gallery are also traced from other artists.

When the artist said they were uncomfortable with their art being traced and heavily-referenced, they went on a disgusting diatribe and tried to make it about ableism, phobia, and criticize the artist for their own style.

They threw in "a learning disabled person" as if what Lokii said had anything to do with their neurodivergency. Also tried guilt-tripping by saying that their lineart is given to students their mom works with. As an educator, I'm going to point out that none of us want stolen work given to our children. We want to promote artist integrity and literally you learn in school to not plagiarize. Besides sounding like an absolutely fake scenario, it isn't something schools would tolerate if they were aware.

They also continue to use the word "trigger" like a buzzer, when the artist never referred to themself as this. They said they were uncomfortable and rightly so. Nor were they even aggressive in their comment, and Lombun chose to lash out. They also chose to compare the artist's old work to a random toy they found, when neither of them look similar to each other. Besides them looking like a horse, the drawing and the toy look nothing alike. None of it looks traced, or even referenced. The only similarity is that the toy is arranged in a similar pose, which is a common pose for toy horses.

Then went on a spiel about how they are trans, bisexual, having a bad ex, that they are a rape victim, and other bullshit that has nothing to do with their tracing. They went on an absolute rant, trying to use every single "I'm in a bad position don't expect me to be responsible for my own actions" guilt-trip, throwing people in those situations under the bus as well. I'm trans, gay, neurodivergent, and also a victim of sexual coercion but that doesn't excuse me doing terrible things if I commit them? It's almost like your identity and trauma doesn't justify being a horrible person...

Oh, not to mention the threatening about taking it to other social media to slander them, again using "Triggered Hypocrite" as if that's an acceptable term to use.

This isn't even where they ended their horrid rant.

They derail about it solely being about the pose, when it is obvious they heavily referenced and traced. I this nothing to do with the damn pose. It's the fact that they obviously copied.

The artist never alluded to owning the pose, nor was that the original issue. They continue to make it about them being personally harassed, refer to the artist as being entitled and "crying in a corner" because their art was blatantly ripped off.

The only reason the piece was taken down was because a few people were willing to point out how terrible they responded, and how obvious it was that they copied. Literally the only reason this piece is down now. I'm thoroughly disgusted by all of this. Thank you to the people who chose to speak up and notify the artist that they were being copied, and thank you to those who saw what this person said, and didn't look the other way.

The reason I'm still posting this journal despite the artwork being taken down is because of the reasons below:

1. Tried to use being trans and neurodivergent as some sort of bargaining chip and as if that somehow came into play with their tracing. Not to mention using trauma to derail why the artist was upset.

  • Being trans and neurodivergent myself, I'm absolutely disgusted by this. Don't drag all of us down by fucking using our identity and mental health as some justification of your thievery, and make us all look bad by acting as if your divergency and identity is somehow connected with how shitty you're being.

Being LGBTQ+ or neurodivergent is no fucking excuse to be a horrible person.

2. Pulled comparisons that were not connected, nor made sense to try and shame the original artist.

 • The art pieces they compared looked nothing like what they tried to compare it to, nor was it blatant tracing and heavy referencing. They compared an old art piece to a toy which literally didn't look similar at all. They also tried to use this to somehow shame the artist and make it seem as if they were the ones copying? Basically a red herring technique to distract from their behavior.

3. Threatened defamation, used ableist language, and basically lied about what the original artist said.

 • They threatened to post what happened on another site, calling the artist a "triggered hypocrite." If they are neurodivergent, or actually know what trigger means at-fucking-all, they'd know that using it in that context is extremely ableist, demeaning, and in this case not even accurate. Using that term to try to cause harm to others or shame them is inherently ableist due to what the word actually stands for, and what it has to do with PTSD, neurodivergency, mental illness, trauma, etc. Basically they were purposely being disgusting and threatening to cause this original artist harm.

This kind of behavior isn't acceptable nor should it be tolerated. Theft is already disgusting, but how they went out of their way to reach this low is absolutely stunning and despicable. I suggest that if this person tries to watch you or favorite any of your things, block them immediately. If you find out their Toyhouse or other media, I suggest blocking those too so they can't see your older art pieces or your characters. It's obvious that they show no remorse for their actions, nor care about artists.

[lonelier-version-of-you]

Right. This is going to be a long post (I’ll bold what’s important, bold + italics what’s really important, and bold + headline the really, really important stuff), so if you find that annoying then I’m sorry in advance.

I’m also not going to state what fandom this happened in, although some of you might be able to tell. I don’t want further vagueblogging and harassment. Not towards me, and not towards the others involved. Hence why I don’t name names, to prevent anyone from harassing the people I mention, and why I try to be respectful when talking about them.

If you’re going to reblog this with commentary or whatever, please don’t. If you’re mad at me, just block me, it’ll be easier on the both of us. If you’re going to spread this post around, please refrain from reblogging it - link it to anyone if the subject comes up. I probably sound paranoid here, and that would be because I am. I have major issues with paranoia and that’s basically why I’m making this post.

But anyway, seeing as I wouldn’t be surprised if some people are gonna try to ruin my and my blog’s reputation now, I’d like to attempt some damage control and make some things very clear:

First, I am a teenager and a former grooming victim, and as such I would appreciate not being accused of “trying to defend gross relationships.” Thank you. 

I don’t expect people to know this beforehand, and that’s why I’m saying it now. Express whatever concerns you want, just please, please don’t try to imply I’m a pedo apologist. I’m not saying anyone has done this (they’ve done the “trying to defend gross relationships” thing though), necessarily, or that they’ve done it intentionally, just that some might try to, and I’d greatly prefer if they didn’t.

What happened was this:

Someone said (or actually a lot of people have been saying it, but I’ve kept my mouth shut in the past) that a character from a certain show shouldn’t be with another character due to their age difference.

Now, both characters are adults, fully capable of consenting. Read that. Read it again. It’s important.

The younger character is about 24-25, or possibly even a bit older. (The actress who plays her is 29, for what it’s worth, but I’ll be fair here and assume the character is younger than the actress, as she’s supposed to be a paramedic who’s just started her job/finished her training within the past year and as such would likely be younger unless she started her training late for whatever reason.)

The older character is about 34-35. (The wiki for the show says he was born in 1983-1984, and I don’t have an hour to check the episode they put as a source so I’ll assume they’re right. So he’d have turned either 34 or 35 last year.)

I can certainly see how this age difference might weird some fans out or make them uncomfortable. Fuck, it weirds me out, and also I don’t imagine such a relationship would last very long IRL, as while they are both adults, they are very much in different stages of life. I do not ship these characters. I find the older one extremely annoying anyway.

The younger character is heavily coded as autistic within the show, and has been essentially confirmed as such by the actress in interviews. She is also often referred to by the fandom as “precious,” “cute,” and similar labels that they rarely seem to use for allistic characters.

(“Essentially confirmed” meaning, here, that the actress was asked about this character being autistic and said “yeah, I thought of that too, it’s something I take into account when playing her”).

I, an autistic person, expressed my concerns about this autistic character being seen as a child by the fandom for this show, and how that could potentially influence people’s opinions on the relationship, and make them see the age gap as larger than it is.

What I got was this:

Someone, calling themself an “actual autistic person” (because I’m apparently not an actual autistic person because I disagree with them... No True Scotsman fallacy, anyone?) telling me (except they didn’t tell me, they vagueblogged me, and yes I’m aware that I’m vagueblogging them back) that, and I quote, “no one is treating [character] as a “small uwu child” because she’s autistic (no one’s treating her like that anyway but u kno lets just ignore that hey?)”

Even. Though. People. Are. Literally. Treating. Her. Like. That. Look at all the posts calling her “precious” and “adorable”, using all sorts of cutesy heart emojis, and generally just referring to her in a patronizing manner. Admittedly people do that for their faves regardless of neurotype, and I don’t really get it but whatever. But the thing is - yes, she is a sweet person or whatever, but none of the other characters on the show really get talked about in the same way. Definitely not as often.

One marginalised person thinking something isn’t an issue DOES NOT mean it isn’t an issue. I mean, this is how you get “transrationals” endorsing extreme transphobia despite being trans themselves. This is how you get gay Tories. Not that I’m saying the situations are comparable, just using some more extreme examples to prove my point.

Back to this specific person. They then go on to say “the age difference is fucking weird [...insert a bunch of attempts to calculate the characters’ ages here...] y’all cant deny that its weird and its kinda gross that you are??“

I never denied that the age difference was weird (or I did, sort of, but in the context I meant - and I think it was fairly obvious - I was saying “people are trying to make out like it’s pedophilia or something, please stop doing that”).

I also said very explicitly that I didn’t like the pairing, but this person seems to have ignored that in their reply.

Implying that I’m “gross” for having concerns about an autistic character being seen as a child is an obvious attempt to demonise me.

TL;DR: I defended an admittedly probably not very healthy ship, but one between two consenting, fully-grown adults.

I was trying to use the fandom’s reaction to this potential relationship as an example of how they tend to talk about one of the characters, who is autistic, in a way that I feel is somewhat ableist, and explain why I was concerned about that.

I was admittedly probably harsher than I should have been, and I regret that. I regret the whole post, and I regret trying to defend the ship, as the age difference is indeed unhealthy. But I have been demonised and painted as “gross” for that post, and I feel that’s unfair.

[willowrosenboob]

your response was very thought provoking. I think the main difference between our interpretations is that I don’t think that spike in the show actually identifies as a woman, but I don’t think that that’s a requirement for this reading. I really don’t think that the writers were interested even aware of the possibility of trans people existing (and they probably did know that trans people existed, but there are no mentions of it in the show, so I don’t think that they had any interest in examining what it means to be trans), so it’s much harder to identify any characters being fully uncomfortable with their assigned gender, especially when you compare it to the frequency of implied same sex attraction on the show. for me, a character on buffy doesn’t have to be literally something for it to be a main identifier for them. in the example of buffy herself, even if she didn’t actually demonstrate same sex attraction I would still read her as queer, because in the subtext of the show, buffy’s identity is treated as queer. to me she is both literally and metaphorically a queer character

and as for harmful stereotypes, I differ a bit in your interpretation of faith. I think that the stereotype of faith being a woman who sleeps around is necessary to interpreting her as a lesbian because the writers themselves had those beliefs too. they wrote a character who sleeps around, which they associated with bisexuality, and then they started adding other aspects of bisexuality (or lesbianism, depending on your interpretation) into the character. I feel like that is very similar to what happened with the whirlwind as well. the way people like joss talk about them, it’s like, “of course they didn’t care about being straight, they were evil and didn’t adhere to societies limits, so of course they were being gay too”. someone interpreting either characters I mentioned as bisexual isn’t necessarily them still holding these beliefs subconsciously, it can still be from the genuine textual clues, but if the writers only added in those clues because of stereotypes they believed in, or wanted to engage with, they you can’t disassociate them from one another. buffy is a show created in the context of our culture, one rife with inaccurate archetypes for what people should be, so analyzing it within that framework is kind of necessary

and those examples weren’t the same as gender, as I do agree that spike doesn’t want to identify as a woman in universe, despite me believing that buffy is a genuine repressed bisexual, but I’m struggling to think of any character who genuinely doesn’t want to be their assigned gender. many characters are uncomfortable with their gender, but it always harkens down to the expectations put upon them by the world. so in spike’s case, I fully read him as being a feminine aspect of buffy’s psyche more than anything else. he is a shadow self, and all of buffy’s other shadow selves are women, as shadow selves are typically depicted as. I don’t think the writers intended him to be trans, as I don’t think they actually understood what that would mean, but I do think they intended us to see him as feminine, and extrapolating that as him being a woman may seem a bit rash, but i still find it useful in distilling the feminine aspects of his character and how it relates to buffy

and I totally get why it may seem like us just applying stereotypes. in my circle of mutuals we make jokes about spike being a woman all the time, and it’s content made mainly for us, so we’re not gonna explain the subtextual implications every time, or whether we mean it literally or not, but I have heard what I consider to be really thoughtful interpretations of what it means to be feminine or masculine in the world of btvs, and how spike and buffy fit into that. maybe spike being a woman is a gross oversimplification of that, but it’s something I find both fun and interesting to the metaphorical makeup of the show

OK, this is something that I feel I need to address. Please don’t read this as an attack on yourself - I just want to make this very clear.

Spike is not a woman. He does not identify as a woman. He very clearly and repeatedly identifies as a man. The “female-coded Spike” take is a tumblr trend that I am seeing gain traction and it’s one that makes me more and more uncomfortable.

Liking poetry is not a feminine trait. Liking football is not a masculine trait. These traits may be traditionally aligned with genders because of the way that sexism and patriarchy forces certain roles upon people of each gender, and insists on their adherence to certain traits and avoidance of others. Being sensitive and liking soaps is seen as “unmanly” and being agressive and liking sports is seeing as “not ladylike”.

This, however, is bullshit. Interests do not have genders. Men can and should be allowed to be sensitive and like soaps. Women can and should be allowed to be agressive and like sports. The assignment of genders to these traits is arbritary and restrictive.

So when you say that Spike is a “middle-aged woman” because he likes poetry and soaps and spending time with his mother, you are in fact enforcing that restrictive binary. You are suggesting that liking these things in fact makes Spike a woman - that he cannot be a man and like these things. I’m sure that’s not what you meant to say, but that’s what you’re saying.

Please - I’m asking tumblr in general - think about this. Really think about why you see a man who likes poetry and paints his nails and feel the need to say “yeah they’re a woman”. It’s not fun, and it’s not progressive. It’s just stereotypes. It’s plain old sexism, wrapped up in woke language. And I really need you all not to do this.

[4tschan]

https://www.gofundme.com/tschanffs

Introduction

Who is Tschan

I am a 24 year old transgender Woman of colour a black woman although my jounerny began at birth chemicaly it has been almost several years now since i began my transition. I am a former model and now activist living in a now more conscious world aware of the narrative which however maybe revolutionary to see with my own eyes within my lifetime as many unfortunately have not, the beneficiaries only seem to lay with my caucasian brothers and sisters.

Growing up transgendered and being emotionally verbally and at times physically abused by those who are meant to love you the most I remember wearing my mother’s oversized jumper and pretending it was a dress using a towel or any cloth I could find to adorn and pretend this was my hair I remember saying aloud to my mother her mother uncle aunt and anyone who would listen that I am a girl and I want all the things that pertain to a young girl that I plan on marrying the only gay character called Tony if i remember correctly Tony from an early 1995 british soap TV show called eastenders because he was the only form to self identification of someone on the spectrum I could point at and say he is sort of like me but actually very very different…

And that being essentially beaten out of me (physically emotionally verbally mentally) and done so, so extensively that I had began to disassociate as a coping mechanism and just continued to disassociate from life as a coping mechanism and forget the very person the very essence of the person I was born to be. When puberty arrived and everyone was changing I didn’t change I grew taller but that was it my development was very late and that I’m now extremely happy about… my voice didn’t break or being to Crack until I was the age or around 17 I had no sexual desire whatsoever my body didn’t even attempt to grow bone or muscle density and I actually grew enlarged areolas / small painful fluctuating cup sizes at the age of 14. And when I took a visit to my doctors because it was so painful and enlarged lumps I thought I had cancer I was just told it was a reaction… which obviously it wasn’t it was hormonal.

At the age of 18 I finally sort refuge and escape from my family and was placed in supported lodgings with supportive gay foster father’s who actually to this day at that particular time were the greatest gifts I could have ever been given as they allowed me to be just that me and I had never had the freedom before and when I told them how I felt they directed me to the routes that allow me to be who I am today. Getting my diagnosis of gender identity disorder at the age of 18 was like having a huge weight being lifted off of my shoulders as for the first time I knew exactly who and what I was and that just not being an identity that existed solely in my head because previously it was too dangerous exist but something that was real that was quantifiable and that I could manifest. During my time talking to my psychologist and explaining my journey he brought up multiple flies you see growing up with a psychologically abusive and disassociate mother she took me to a few psychologists to try and have me diagnosed and put on mediations I never even required because she would rather me be anything other than what she feared the most… transgender. When my psychologist brought up my files and asked me date by date what happened when I was assented when my mother flagged me up I told him and he told me yeah there is a letter here written about your mother saying the issue doesn’t lay within Tschan “the issue is based on the mother and her refusal to acknowledge Tschan’s gender”… and that was a HUGE unbelievable mental weight lifted off my shoulders as part of the abuse i suffered and bullying in the home because i was fundamentally wrong and the abuse was and I quote… “deserved”.

I was also very early this year 2017 diagnosed with partial androgen insensitivity by my doctor who ran a lot of tests examinations and blood work as was getting corrective top surgery.

Dysphoria

What is dysphoria

Dysphoria is a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction. In a psychiatric context, dysphoria may accompany depression, anxiety, or agitation. People who have gender dysphoria feel strongly that they are not the gender they physically appear to be. For example, a person who has a penis and all other physical traits of a male might feel instead that he is actually a female.

That person would have an intense desire to have a female body and to be accepted by others as a female. Or, someone with the physical characteristics of a female would feel her true identity is male. Feeling that your body does not reflect your true gender can cause severe distress, anxiety, and depression. “Dysphoria” is a feeling of dissatisfaction, anxiety, and restlessness. With gender dysphoria, the discomfort with your male or female body can be so intense that it can interfere with the way you function in normal life, for instance at school or work or during social activities.

Gender dysphoria used to be called “gender identity disorder.” But the mismatch between body and internal sense of gender is not a mental illness. Instead, what need to be addressed are the stress, anxiety, and depression that go along with it.

What causes those to be transgender

Simple answer… and one that is rarely covered and if so not enough is: Biology, being transgender is biological. It’s based on the developmental stages in the womb and how the body and brain (structural white tissue brain matter and chemical composition) are chemically via hormones treated and allowed to develop.

A 2008 study compared 112 male-to-female transsexuals (both androphilic and gynephilic), mostly already undergoing hormone treatment, with 258 cisgender male controls. Male-to-female transsexuals were more likely than cisgender males to have a longer version of a receptor gene (longer repetitions of the gene) for the sex hormone androgen or testosterone, which reduced its effectiveness at binding testosterone.The androgen receptor (NR3C4) is activated by the binding of testosterone or dihydrotestosterone, where it plays a critical role in the forming of primary and secondary male sex characteristics.

The research suggests reduced androgen and androgen signaling contributes to the female gender identity of male-to-female transsexuals. The authors say that a decrease in testosterone levels in the brain during development might prevent complete masculinization of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals and thereby cause a more feminized brain and a female gender identity.

Dysphoria is something I suffer greatly from and can be quite an extreme example as I just do not have not and will never feel comfortable within my own skin tge only way to describe it is like having body dysphoria but solely based on gender and isn’t treatable in any form other than surgery and is something you have suffered from childhood that became progressive as a teen due to no early intervention and will never go away if not corrected. And the thing i hate the most about my body and the only thing I at this point NEED to change is my face… I HATE MY face and it’s controlling how I perceive and what myself to be perceived in a fundamental critical way.

The surgery I require is Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS)

What is Facial Feminization Surgery

Facial feminization surgery (FFS) is a set of reconstructive surgical procedures that alter typically male facial features to bring them closer in shape and size to typical female facial features.

FFS can include various bony and soft tissue procedures such as brow lift, rhinoplasty, cheek implantation, and lip augmentation. Faces contain secondary sex characteristics that make male and female faces readily distinguishable, including the shape of the forehead, nose, lips, cheeks, chin, and jawline; the features in the upper third of the face seem to be the most important, but subtle changes in the lips can have a strong effect.

Facial Feminization Surgery will not only reduce amd remove the male pysical characteristics but also drastically improve the quality of my life i could easily get a job anywhere and not have to worry about the whole trans thing being a deterant to employers or it being an issue… I will nolonger suffer from the lifelong prison that is dysphoria superficially I’ll always be the prettiest bitch in the room  (side eye) but most importantly I never have to disclose the situation or explain myself but only when and if I feel like it…

Although I am not ashamed of my past or what I am it would be nice to have the luxury to not be visible and navagate the world that isn’t always inclusive.

This is my final gender confirmation surgery.

I can actually move on and live my life fully

The surgeries FFS encompasses which i require:

Hairline Advancement Surgery:

This surgery is performed to lower the hairline, reduce the height of the forehead and correct the normal male temple recession to give a more rounded female hairline.

Forehead Reduction (Brow Bone Contouring Surgery):

Forehead/ brow ridge bone contouring is one of the most common facial feminization procedures which can be performed as standalone procedure or combined with another FFS procedures if needed.

Feminizing rhinoplasty:

Feminizing rhinoplasty surgery creates dramatic improvements towards a feminized appearance.

Cheek Implant Surgery Cheek Enhancement:

The cheek is important for feminization. Cheek enhancement is typically a procedure that can be performed either with fat grafting or with a customized cheek implant.

Chin Surgery (Shaping, Chin Contouring Surgery):

Chin reduction and contouring surgery results in a more oval, elegant, softer, and smaller chin. Jaw Contouring Surgery: This surgery helps soften the jawline tremendously. This procedure alone can transform a person’s face into a more feminine one.

Thyroid Cartilage Reduction: Adam’s Apple Reduction:

A trachea shave (thyroid cartilage reduction) is one of the most common surgical procedures performed on transsexuals. Reducing the cartilage in the throat to make the shape more feminine.

The surgeon i have choosen:

Dr. Harrison Lee

Post life

I just want to end this chapter and actually move on with my life and catch up on all the development years I’ve missed out on simply due to being consumed by my journey not only mentally emotionally financially and physically but also being a victim of circumstance (e.g.; abandonment and rejection, an abusive family, kicked out of education, homelessness, unemployment due to discrimination, being drugged and raped for 15 hours then being diagnosed with HIV because of that rape, harassment from the police and them sabotaging key DNA evidence with refusal to acknowledge a hate crime, the police dropping my case and my rapist continuing stalking me forcing me to move countries due to safety…) on a continuum being transgender woman of colour.

I want to go back to school, I want to work, I want to travel, I want to fall in love. I want to learn how to drive, I just want to be happy secure and most importantly just comfortable within my own body and I don’t want my physical attributes my medial past or what i am any longer deter from that.

Please help me,

Tschan :) X

https://www.gofundme.com/tschanffs

[spiralatlas]

PAX Australia 2017 Day 3

There are no notes for Day 2 because I spent it socialising a little and sleeping a lot.

Queer Coded: A History of LGBTQIA+ Gaming

David Gaider Q&A

Brian Fairbanks Talks about Addressing Accessibility Through Game Design

Misc: I spent a chunk of the day in the diversity lounge which was fun. I met some great people at the Gender Diverse card game, and got to the semi finals of the Xena Nintendo 64 Fighting Game Tournament (there were only three rounds, but given how much I suck at fighting games this was still a happy surprise, and a sign of what a random button masher the game is)

The gender neutral toilets near the diversity lounge were very well done, unlike GCAP the original signs weren't visible and "with stalls/urinals" was in small letters like an afterthought.

I didn't break anything on Day 3 but did break a mug the next morning. Also the cinema in the Crown Casino is surprisingly inaccessible.

Despite the various mishaps I had a great time and will definitely come again next time we can afford it.

Queer Coded: A History of LGBTQIA+ Gaming

I missed the second half of this to see David Gaider, feeling very annoyed at the programmer.

Anny Sims @ChattyAnny on twitter (I was too slow to get the others!) Keely Thirkell Hayley Williams Soap Pejovic

Most queer characters are just queer coded, with plausible deniability. "It's up to you".Tendency for queer characters to be villains. Indie games tend to be more queer friendly than AAA games.

Lesbians: First known queer character in games: 1986 Moonmist had side-character who was a lesbian murderer.

Other notable lesbian characters:

KOTOR 2003, Juhani, first queer Star Wars character

Gone Home 2013

Dragon Age Inquisition Sera (I thought Sam Traynor from Mass Effect 3 came first?)

Tracer from Overwatch 2016

Trans characters:

1988 Birdo from Super Mario Brothers 2 "A male who believes he is female"

Lots of others but all terrible. Jokes and villains. Trans women seen as threat. Poison from Final Fight 1989, "so you can hit a woman".

Krem DAI 2014 trans man, You can't go "Ok, cool".

Hainly Adams MEA 2017 trans woman. Tells you her deadname, this was patched.

Horizon: Zero Dawn 2017 trans man

Dream Daddy 2017 trans man. One throw away line about wearing a binder, had to be clarified by writers. Non binary people and cosplayers wear binders too!

How do you make it clear they're trans without them implausibly outing themselves or just having it be word of god?

Gay men:

1993 fmv Dracula Unleashed has speaking role

Tended to be background characters, jokes and villains again. No m/m relationships shown onscreen.

Dreamfall: the Longest Journey 2006 (not made super clear until 2015)

Steve Cortez Mass Effect 3 2012

Dorian DAI 2014

Dorian knew exactly what his sexuality was. Coming of age narratives get boring.

Bi Characters (no picture because they're invisible):

1993 Ultima 7 part 2 bi character propositions character regardless of gender.

"Slutty bisexuals". A lot of characters are playersexual and it never comes up outside the relationship.

Zevran DAO 2009

Borderlands 2009

Fable 2004 let player be bi, Fable 2 2008 added bi PCs

Playersexual:

Only queer in the context that they will date players of both genders, but you don't see that unless you play as both.

Dragon Age 2 2011, Anders only mentions his ex-boyfriend if you play as a male PC

Fallout 4 2015. Did have background queer characters.

Stardew Valley 2016

Non Binary:

1995 Chrono Trigger villain

Often robots, aliens or other non human

Frisk Undertale 2015

Life is Strange 2015

Zer0 Borderlands 2 2012

Turing Read Only Memories

Some games let you have gender neutral pronouns.

David Gaider Q&A

1999 Working on Balder's Gate 2, didn't talk about his sexuality at work. Figured he would always be writing stories for straight people.

He was shocked to hear Jade Empire was having same sex romance. Got to be lead writer on DAO after that. "So I can put same sex romances in, right?". More economical to have bi romances, but he would have been happier having some gay characters.

Feeling iffy about playersexuality after DA2, he asked for 2 straight, 2 bi, 2 gay for DAI. "Minority content" is weighed via the percentage of those who play it and those who appreciate it. Eg 5% play dwarves but most see it as a positive thing to be able to do.

Most of his time was spent on the actual plot but Dorian was the most personal writing.

He was targeted by Gamergate but it doesn't compare to, for example, how much Jennifer Helper was targeted.

10 years on Dragon Age was enough, his head would explode if he had to write another story about templars and mages.

How did you get the job: His story is very specific. He was managing a hotel and a comic book artist in his spare time. A friend was a character artist at Bioware but Gaider wasn't really aware of the specifics. Bioware told their employees "If you know anyone who does game related writing let us know", the friend gave them Gaider's LARP rule book without asking. Got a call, gave the stories he wrote in highschool, got offered a job. He said no, it didn't pay enough, but then he got fired from the hotel. It felt like a sign.  

Who do you think will take the romance torch from Bioware: he’s not sure they're giving it up? EA treats romance fans as a reliable audience who don't need to be advertised to, even though it's why a lot of people play in his experience (though obviously those are the kinds of fans he will tend to meet). There is an underserved audience.

Most proud of: Lots of stuff he's not proud of. Wishes he'd been more involved in community discussions early on. Proud that the team tackled issues as they started arising. Proud of the company for standing by them. Most proud of Dragon Age 2 despite the mixed response. They had very little time to create it. It’s like a very big first draft. They had a plan but didn't get to compare notes once things were written, so he had to trust the team would stick to plan as much as they could despite things being cut on the fly. Team said they were happy in a post-game survey, didn't feel he was too dictatorial.

What does your writing look like, a screenplay? A cutscene does. But it’s generally structured like a tree that expands and then contracts back to the core path before expanding again. Flow charts.

Favourite relationship in a game? Morden in Mass Effect. Cried more than in a movie. Tali was his space girlfriend. Of the ones he's worked on, Morrigan will always be closest. She represents Dragon Age to him. Joyous time working with Claudia Black, first celebrity he'd worked with. Flemeth was originally Arabic, but that actress couldn't do it so they got Kate Mulgrew. They stopped looking for an Arabic actress for Morrigan and looked for someone who matched Kate Mulgrew. Claudia Black's audition tape was her reading Smack That like a beat poet. Gaider was very nervous, he'd never spoken to any actor before. First rule he was told was don't compare them to another celebrity, so naturally he said "I had Helena Bonham Carter in mind when I wrote Morrigan". Claudia Black said "So you're saying I'm a cheap Helena Bonham Carter ;D". She would say "Does he want me to do it more like Helena?" during recording.

Has being so closely associated with diversity had downsides? He may be gay but he's still white and a dude. He feels like it's all he talks about conventions sometimes. Teams need to sit down and look at what they've made. Lot of things made individually without concern for the bigger picture eg only 15% speaking roles in DAI were female until they stopped and looked at it and fixed it.  

"We didn't think about it" is no longer a defense. He wants to help with that, but we should be helping other marginalised voices get into the industry and amplifying their voices.

Wishes it could just be expected and we didn't have to discuss it.

He likes dating sim mechanics in the context of a larger story. But he does like the idea of romance not being as tertiary as it's been in Bioware games, romance as part of the adventure eg a romantic adventure. He's not really interested in social sims or day to day relationships. "My idea of a spicy relationship is to have my life threatened."

Why do you think most AAA companies try to avoid discussions of lgbt stuff, why is it taking so long? Because it's Pandora's Box. There is more being added casually. But if they do nothing they get lumped in with the rest of the industry. As soon as they do anything there are 2 sides: 1. why are you doing this, you're politicising your game. 2. Why aren't you doing more, whatever you did is wrong and not good enough.

Not that flawed attempts should be above criticism. But by mostly focusing criticism on the games that did anything rather than nothing, people have increased the feeling that it's Pandoras box. He understands that it feels like those developers might listen to criticism but the dynamic is sending the wrong lesson.

My question: How do you think inclusion of non binary player characters can work with including gay and lesbian love interests instead of just having playsexuality? “We've thought about it”. He defined playersexual for audience, like Shroedinger's sexuality. He doesn't like it when the only way to have something show up is to have the character talk about it. eg asexual: character would have to sit you down and explain what asexuality is. Is unsexy as a feature. Explaining nuances of sexuality is off putting. If there was more nuance across the industry that would mean no one game has to do everything. Any one game can have only so much within it.

(This doesn't actually answer my question. I discussed it with my husband afterwards and even he didn't understand what I was asking, so I may have garbled it in my nervousness)

Are some choices "canon"? One of the features of Mass Effect and Dragon Age was the continuity of choices. No "canon" but there is a default. A lot of people feel like they have to play the whole series to get the full experience, was off putting, and he found the Keep a nightmare as a writer.

They had editors keeping track of which choices were incompatible. And that was just the third game. "Can you imagine for a fourth game? Phew! Not my problem :D"

Have you thought about the morals of gamifying romance, saying what people want to hear to get sex? Dragon Age didn't work that way, sex was not at the end. Some characters in DAI had no sex scenes, sex is optional for Dorian's romance. It's a game, everything is gamified, you can't simulate actual relationships. For proper reactivity you’d have to mark every response and keep track of inconsistency, but that’s too much work. Same with polyamory: too many variables!

Maybe get away from the approval system? Pay more attention to overall choices in major quests etc instead of individual lines.

Bi characters in DAI were bi from the start. Not the first thing that comes up during character creation eg Dorian started out as "the good Tevinter". Helps avoid too many assumptions based on sexuality. But once characters started solidifying they would think about who worked for what sexualities. There's no set way to write someone "as" bi, but the writer can have them talk about relevant things in other scenes. Sera's writer is a straight dude, he didn't want to write About The Lesbian Experience, and got lesbians in the company to check out what he was writing.

Have relationships gotten more or less complicated? In Balder's gate 2 there was a single sequence of romance scenes which you could get kicked off. Dragon Age had approval. If it gets complicated but the player can't see it or understand how reactions relate to their previous actions it just seems random or predetermined. Unless they say "I am angry at you because of X", but noone says that.

Brian Fairbanks Talks about Addressing Accessibility Through Game Design

lostandhound1 on twitter

His notes.

He's not blind himself, and while he obviously cares a lot about accessibility had an unfortunate tendency to treat disabled people as a separate, if respected, "Other" to himself and the audience, even though I was right there in a bright red mobility scooter. He advocated person first language, "a person with blindness" etc, but not all disabled people like it and it shouldn't be presented as unambiguous best practice. I'm building up the energy to talk to him about it.

He's a sound designer.

Audio games: designed for people with a vision disability.

Audio game jam: the games tended to be about blindness as a bad thing. It felt victimising.

How can we make people feel powerful?

He was inspired by his dog's amazing sense of smell. The mechanic is that you follow an invisible trail using sound cues, a humming noise that gets louder and quieter.

Sighted people struggle with extracting information from sound. The game is more difficult for sighted people.

He had to add fruit on the ground as an accessibility measure for sighted people.

All music is diegetic: happening inside the world of the game, eg characters are singing.

There's a lack of much budget for audio games, since they're never going to make much money.

In 30 years current 30-something gamers will need accessible games.

Accessibility tends to be added as an afterthought or accident.

For example Pokemon has unique sounds for materials, collisions, monsters that accidentally make it accessible.

Sony reader: US only

Microsoft narrator: good but hard to use as a developer

EA: Proactively adding blind accessibility

Fighting games are often in stereo, blind players can play and even win tournaments.

Demand more from your games.

Developers: find a consultant. Address accessibility early.

It's about empathy. People with disability deserve the same stories to take part in as everyone else.

gameaccessibilityguidelines.com

daisyalesoundworks

binaural sound is going to make a big difference

audiogames.net: where blind gamers go to play games. They're supportive if you ask for advice and feedback.

People don't mind if you don't do immersive, game specific voices and just rely on the screenreader

Sound designers need more love to make VR accessible.  

Braille games?? He doesn't know much about it.

Curb cut effect examples: curb cuts for wheelchairs but also useful for prams etc. Subtitles. Think about short term problems that benefit from accessibility as well eg the screen is broken, there's sunlight on the screen etc.  

Sounds of a blind person navigating their desktop. To me it sounds like a mangled garble of little bursts of cut off computer speech, here’s a description of what’s going on.

[radishsnakes-moved]

1) Sorry if I came off as rude or attacking you, that wasn't my intention, but I just think that calling shinoyama 'queerbating' is simply not correct. Yamagi's feelings for Shino were hinted at as soon as in ep 4 of s1, when he outright asked if Shino liked girls - girls specifically (why would he be interested in Shino's orientation if he wasn't intersted in him personally in the romantic sense?), then were made clear in ep. 7 with the heart grab scene and then further reinforced later on, by

2) showing Yamagi's evident disdain/jealousy every time Shino mentions girls etc. It was very obvious from the beginning that Yamagi is gay for Shino, so the only question left was whether Shino would ever find about Yamagi's feelings and reciprocate, to which episodes 45/46 gave us an answer. The 'let's drink till morning, the two of us' WAS, in fact, Shino's explicitly asking Yamagi out romantically. It just couldn't have been anything else in that context, when we know for a fact that Shino

3) does consider going out for drinks, two people only, as romantic (again, the AkiLafter scene in ep. 41, and Shino's 'don't you know what that is? go with her alone'). And then there's Yamagi's reaction - the wide eyes and the 'quit joking around, you don't even know how I feel' (plus his confusion about 'how Shino felt' later on when he talks to Eugene) which made it clear that's exactly the way it felt to Yamagi as well - as a date invitation, except he couldn't know back then that Shino was

4) serious. But Shino WAS serious - the fact that he grabbed Yamagi's hair out of his face to look him straight in the eyes before asking him out was a clear indicator of how serious he was. He wouldn't have given Yamagi false hopes otherwise, while being perfectly aware of Yamagi's feelings for him. And it's not only that, the entirety of Shino's body language towards Yamagi in all their scenes together in ep 45, his fond expressions, the looks and the smiles that we'd never seen on him

5) before that, the gentle tone of his voice, him calling Yamagi scary with evident fondness (it's actually a common motive in anime, to reveal that a manly man may not be afraid of enemies, war etc. but he's always afraid of his spouse), everything about those scenes screamed that Shino knew about Yamagi's feelings even before the big reveal and was totally on board with them. Ep 46 basically confirmed what was already obvious, that in the end, they both had romantic feelings for each other

6) and had Shino not died, they'd have ended up together eventually. They're basically as canon as an IBO couple can get and their not getting a happy ending doesn't make them any less canon (technically there's still a chance Shino could turn out to be alive, as they literally went out of their way to not show us his body). As for the other potentially queerbaiting couples, I don't think that orumika, gaeein or makugae are meant to be interpreted as romantic (even though I ship all three).

7) As for Aston/Takaki, in their case I do interpret them as romantic without a shred of doubt in my mind; after all, there was a canon blushing and Aston promising to protect Takaki and his happiness was a clear-cut romantic trope, and they just seem like your typical Gundam couple, but I guess it was probably too early to establish that explicitly in canon, as Aston was most likely not ready yet to realize what his feelings for Takaki really were. Anyway, they fit into the pattern of s2's

8) policy of killing romantic couples off (followed by Naze/Amida, akilafter and shinoyama, and maybe Mika/Atra/Kudelia in the nearest future). But that's just Gundam for you, to destroy a love before it has a chance to bloom. It doesn't really qualify as queerbaiting to me, as they do this to hetero couples just as much. As for Gundam 00, I don't think that anything has been confirmed when it comes to characters' sexualities and such, but it was easy to figure out from the context. I've seen

9) a post in the general tags listing all the characters considered to be LGBTQA, so, from the top of my head - most of the named innovades are gender-neutral, from what I've gathered, with the exeption of Anew and Ribbons, I guess? The situation with Tieria is more tricky than that, though, as it's been made clear in the show that he identifies as a man, and that's how basically everyone sees and treats him; it's been also said a few times in the show that only men can be Gundam pilots and

10) I think it's about the physical build rather than how someone identifies (thus the theory about Nena Trinity being, in fact , an actual trans-girls; I've read it once on tumblr and it made a lot of sense within the story, but I can't find the post anyomre; I guess the blog has been deactivated), but then the official materias list Tieria as gender-neutral too, so it's really hard to tell, especially given the fact that Tieria has the means to produce spare bodies for himself and probably

11) decide their gender as well? So yeah, the whole situatuon with Tieria is as unclear as it can be, but one thing clear is that he identifies as a man in canon and is canonically in love with another man (Neil) even if he can't classify those feelings yet (as his letter to Lockon would suggest). I think it's safe to say that Lockon is bi; he says something about being nice to women in the show once and he clearly feels something special for Tiera (that even Feldt has noticed) and calls him

12) cute etc. I think it's safe to say Lyle is bi as well, as he literally hits on Tieria in the beginning (only to be immediately shot down, because there's already one Lockon in Tieria's heart). Setsuna is pretty much considered to be asexual (but not necessarily as aromantic, as he clearly feels something for Feldt in the movie). Alejandro Corner is gay; he's explicitly shown to be sleeping with Ribbons in the Special Edition compilation movies. There could be more, but it's hard to remember

13) everything on the spot (I should try to look fot that masterpost in the tags; hope it's still there). As for other Gundam gay couples I personally consider canon, there's Trowa/Quatre from Gundam Wing and Dearka/Yzak from Gundam Seed. Oh God, this turned out so damn long and now I'm feeling bad for bothering you and making you read all this, but those Gundam discussions are always so compelling (hope tumblr doesn't eat any of the messages; I had them saved just in case though).

Don’t worry about it; I’m always happy to discuss Gundam! Admittedly, I don’t get as heavily into Gundam as I’d like to; 00 is my favorite series, but I’ve only seen the main 50 episodes, not the movie(s). As for other Gundam series, I’ve only watched the original, Unicorn, about 1/4 of Wing, a tiny bit of Age and Reco, IBO, BF, BFT, and F91 (IBO and 00 being my favorites of what I’ve watched). I’m going to try and address every point in this, feel free to shoot another message if I miss anything important!

Admittedly, in the beginning I didn’t pay attention to IBO while I was watching. I tend to have a one-track mind when it comes to anime I like, and when I’m obsessed with one, I usually can’t bring myself to care about another, so I didn’t pick up a lot of things.

ShinoYama is, in my opinion, the least queerbaity ship in the entire Gundam franchise; I’d go as far as to say it’s completely canon, and honestly, I feel like it’s the closest we’ve gotten to a gay ship being treated exactly the same as a het ship. Yamagi obviously had romantic feelings for Shino, and Shino didn’t seem to consider it out of the question. Had he survived, I actually think they might have gone canon. Sorry if it came across as me dismissing ShinoYama as queerbaiting; I think they’re the closest we’ll ever get to representation!

It could be me caving to heteronormativity, but I feel like AkiLafter was made more explicit than ShinoYama in the “he’s being asked out on a date” department. It was handled similarly, but I still get a different vibe from it. I could be wrong, though!

Body language and wording are always a part of ships in series like this. And I feel like they were all leaning towards romantic in ShinoYama; they were heavily implied to like each other romantically. But again, it’s always just implied. None of the explicit kissing and “I love you”s that you get with things like Lyle/Anew and Naze/Amida.

I abandoned MakuGae pretty early on once Ein was introduced, so I don’t know a lot about what hints may have been dropped. And Ein and Gaelio weren’t around each other long enough for anything to be solidified. Orga and Mika, however, I feel are at least slightly indicated to have feelings for each other; it may be completely platonic, but there is such a strong emphasis on all the times that they hold hands, if one of them had been female it would have automatically been considered to be canon, even with the MikaKuuAto situation going on; which I could talk about for a long time, but in short, it’s pretty much canon, though with the KuuAto being a bit more subtle than MikaKuu or MikaAto (I am acutely aware of how Kuudelia said she loves Atra, though; that’s not something I can overlook, I’m just comparing it to the explicit MikaKuu kiss and Atra’s request to “have babies with” Mikazuki). MikaKuuAto is an entirely different subject that I’ll save for another post.

Aston and Takaki were very much hinted to be romantic. All the tropes were there, all that was missing was explicit confirmation; and there’s not a doubt in my mind that we would have gotten that had they been a straight couple. My issue with all of this, if you can call it that, is that the het ships are always made more explicit than the gay ones, however “canon” the gay ones may be. The only problem in my mind is that so many het couples have been made concretely canon, while the only gay one we’ve gotten is ShinoYama. And though there’s an equal amount of killing off between them, you’re still left with more living het couples than gay ones. Equal killing of love interests is like the difference between equality and equity; if you take an equal amount from someone with everything and someone with almost nothing, that’s technically “equal”, but the person with less inherently loses so much more than the person with everything.

I admit it’s been a while since I’ve watched 00, so I don’t remember much about it. Nena being trans isn’t something I ever picked up on, so it could have been made more clear. I definitely headcanon most of the Innovades as some form of nonbinary, but I always based “canon” for that around what pronouns are used for the characters; and in all of their cases, it was always he/him or she/her. With Tieria, it was mostly a headcanon spawned from the episode where he crossdressed to infiltrate that party, and how easily the female form and voice came to him; hell, on Wikipedia’s “List of transgender characters in media”, Tieria is listed there. Later in Season 2, though, he’s portrayed as being a cis male, so that somewhat threw my headcanon of him being a trans boy out of the window. I also heavily headcanon Regene and Revive as trans boys, though solely because of their voices. Really, though, the pairs like Regene and Tieria or Anew and Revive; they’ve been stated to share the exact same genes, so in same-gender pairings, neither or both of them are trans, and in different-gender pairings, one of them has to be trans.

I do think it’s implied that Tieria loved Neil, but again, it was never made as painfully explicit as things like Chris and Lichty, Anew and Lyle, Naze and Amida, etc etc. Tieria obviously cared a lot for Neil, and never really got over his death; but I still feel that it was never made as clear as those other ships whether the feelings were platonic or romantic.

As I never saw the movies, I didn’t know about the thing with Alejandro and Ribbons; if that’s a thing that happened, then I definitely have to see the movies. And though I never fully watched Wing, I did pick up on something between Trowa and Quatre, but still; Never hinted at as much as Heero and Relena.

Wow, my response ended up almost as long as your questions. You don’t have to worry about bothering me; I very much enjoy talking about Gundam! If I missed any points you made, don’t be afraid to send me another message~