#dt-anon

[aq2003]

some things about that podcast episode

david having a religious phase as a teenager bc he felt bad about his siblings rejecting that part of his parents' lives and he wanted approval from them

him finding it hard to say "i love you" to his parents even when they were dying bc while the love was understood implicitly that wasn't the kind of relationship he had w them

georgia mentioning david being a very openly affectionate parent by contrast and how their kids normally go to him first when they've gotten hurt

"what allows you to be vulnerable?" "i think it's knowing that you're loved, isn't it? it's the feeling that beyond a doubt it isn't conditional"

[dysansohmin]

what do you think abt DT now?

(sucking down like an entire liter of water) hold on

I am not through 7.2 yet, but I suspect that's not going to effect my answer here very much! I've definitely had some time to sit and think about it, and my major takeaways are:

The format of main expansion story content has changed. I am not holding out hope for it to come back. The sidequests were crazy sparse, and Tural suffered for it. As overwhelming as it can be to get to a new area and see 50 sidequest markers, many of which are gonna feel like a chore to clear if you are rushing - every one of those is a character beat, a little nuance to the setting, a chance to pause and look around the environment. I think that there's a bit of rose-colored glasses about what I'm about to say next, and it's a sentiment I've seen expressed a lot, that previous expansions were **edgier** in that, we got allusions and direct plot-handling of lots of nitty-gritty everyday life shit. Dawntrail is the tail end of that progression, with like. The standard of living and intercultural conflicts in Tural being ironed over entirely, this sense of an absurd & universal standard of living, that Tural feels very much akin to Living Memory as being like, a perfect little facade. I am anticipating that this may be challenged, but I think it also may not be! (Much like EW's Garlemald segment, another bugbear for people with this opinion). I am frustrated that Alexandria is getting the goods when I was so excited to see what they did with Tural. There's a good chance Tural will continue to be a playground for a scavenger hunt, and Gulool Ja Ja's legacy will continue to be that of like, a beloved righteous superpacifist or whatever! We might never get Whalaqee either! I'm doing the Wachumeqimqi quests rn (I hate it I hate how they named it I hate it) and the fisher one is like. I don't want to be herrrrrre Then again, I am enjoying observing what the devs dive into and what they don't. I would love to peek at the JPN script, but my Japanese is rusty and elementary, so. I would LOVE to know if the Shock and Awe flyer in Living Memory was a localization insertion - it's one moment that comes to mind as "oh they are working with what they have to inject some interesting complexity." Woulda loved to see more of that in Tural proper and not have it all penned off in War Criminal Infinite Growth Torment Nexus Electrope Land. It made me yearn for Stormblood! I'm very excited to revisit Stormblood now! I don't think I appreciated Stormblood properly the first time through! I say this knowing that the Stormblood localization DOES make me want to claw my own eyes out every 20 minutes, and by GOD does Stormblood have its own issues about many of the same things- I think the localization HAS gotten better, and I think that there is a general move in fantasy games right now to tamp down on the colonial legacy of fantasy RPGs. I think Dawntrail is situated in that context. I feel they tried very hard to be respectful, and what we got is shallower for it. It's really hard NOT to read that next to, say, Veilguard as a State of The Industry thing. Anyway, this was the expansion with the graphical update, so it makes sense that there was less time/resources devoted to quest design and writing. But it's also a bar-set, and I understand how game studios operate.

I will be playing MSQ much more slowly going forward. Even with how sparse the sidequests were, completing them in time with MSQ as they unlocked left me with a MUCH more favorable impression of DT than most of the people I saw rushing through it. My full-game playthough on Evka, I am totally adjusting my approach to match how I played DT: clear every single area of quests before moving onto the next. This has helped me a lot with my FOMO about the game, and really helped me slow down and read closer. This approach is helping rekindle my appreciation for ARR. It puts me in a more receptive mindset for things like the interminable Tombstone Shaaloani bit, or the post-Titan wine fetching. And it requires patience. If I start feeling impatient, I stop playing. Believe it or not, I was like, not tremendously impressed with the post-ShB patches because I felt like MSQ was just rehashing. I remember sitting there looking at Ardbertlidibus like, "fuck man, power of friendship. we get it." I took it too fast, and I was impatient to be Caught Up. I genuinely wish I could replay ShB for the first time and NOT just mainline the primary story, because if I was close-reading I would have gone totally insane about this game like, two or three years earlier.

The on-level content's never been more fun. I loved the dungeons/raids this time around. They have really honed in. There's less though! There's less combat! There's less gameplay and more story, which is wild, considering how little story there is. This was a sparse expansion. But I'm having a blast with what was there, and did ultimately feel satisfied. Again, this is where I'm setting my bar for expectations going forward, if I'm pleasantly surprised than that rules. I like that they're getting goofy with dungeons ago. Much as I groan when I drop into Strayborough, it's fun, and it puts me in mind of things I liked about ARR dungeons. I also love how they continue to play with duty support as a diagetic tool. This is now approaching 100% on being a wonderful MMO for people who want a single-player experience, which is a weird sentence! Even though I like the social aspect, I appreciate being able to drop into a new dungeon as a healer and getting to learn the mechanics myself firsthand, instead of being obligated to spoil myself with a dungeon guide to ensure a zero-death run. Environmental design also wowed me. There is a great mix of detail and traversability. I do miss the little tiny tableaus and unused locations of HW & StB, having a multilevel space to poke around. I am not a huge fan of DT's "split the zone in half so we can use it twice" structure. I want those zones to become unsplit, at some point in the story, if that's the case, and have an available instance where a previously untraversable area becomes so. At least an interactable, like an NPC who will ferry you from one side to the other? But the zones were gorgeous, the settlements had tons of fun little details, Tuliyollal is, again, the most impressive hub city in the game. (Sorry Crystarium!!! SORRY!) There were places that could have used polish to match it - The settlements Urqopacha felt much more living than Kozama'uka, for instance.

Previous expansion content is starting to suffer. I have NO idea how they are going to manage further re-balancing. Many of the jobs are no longer any fun to play until like, 80 for me. This problem is only going to get worse, and it's going to require major overhauls more and more frequently, and those overhauls are going to simplify rotations and pare down interesting toolsets. I worry!

This game is going to be about itself for the rest of its lifespan. Shadowbringers was the thesis. Endwalker was metatext. Dawntrail is the rehash. It will be all rehash from here on out, mark my words. Unless they are willing to pull back the stakes and refrain from parallels and drop us back into something like HW or StB (which I desperately hoped DT would be!) It's going to be the Azem show forever. Which, again, means the story is now much less important to me in terms of perceived quality. I'm just hoping they get silly with it? I made a post about shark-jumping. I will be clapping like a seal as this story calcifies and crumbles under its own live-service weight. All that lives must someday die. Except our subscription based MMO, which you can play forever. The tension is impossible to reconcile, and this is the way of episodic stories. It's going to get funny. I'm ready.

I... Understand the beef with Wuk Lamat. The data doesn't lie. My girl Lamaty'i has an ASTOUNDING amount of dialogue. Record-shattering. My girl Lamaty'i cannot stop fucking talking. Hear feel think. Big bug. Oh no she's seasick again. I think Sena Bryer's been an absolute trooper, I think this is a star role she should be proud of, and I think she's settled into the character nicely. And also, I get it. Lyse didn't deliver the entirety of the StB script. If this was Alphinaud I'd be seething. But, and here's the kicker, here's why I love her: kibty.

I still hate that fucking train! THE TRAIN IS ONLY A METAPHOR FOR SOCIAL PROGRESS INSOMUCH AS COLONIZATION IS. YOUR WALKABLE CITY LIGHTRAIL IS NOT AN UNCOMPLICATED GOOD, AND ALSO NOT COMPARABLE TO A "TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILROAD." TRAINS ARE NOT LEFTIST, WHATEVER THAT MEANS. ARE WOMEN BOURGEOIS ETC & also KOANA WAS SO HIGH ON ADOPTEE RECONNECTION HE SUDDENLY DECIDED HE LOST HIS PARENTS AS A SWADDLED BABE, WHICH. OKAY Subjecting me to the entirety of Smile for the first time during the inspirational train sequence probably didn't help me suspend my qualms long enough to huff that Spirit O' Progress. And I had source Jeryk & Train Friends ON my Dawntrail bingo card. I wanted to see it. I asked for this. (head in my hands) Actually, this is something I haven't talked about: I feel really conflicted about Smile! They tackled a lot of kinds of American music for this expansion and normally I would be really into gospel being one of those genres - but god is it a stinker. god does it suck. fuck. I really wanted Alexandria to be a little more experimental for the soundtrack. The gamer EDM thing is low-hanging fruit, imo. I wanted to step into Solution 9 and be as wowed as I was in Tuliyollal, I wanted like, avant-garde jazz or funk or blues. (Hang on I just imagined electroswing S9 and had a coughing fit.) I was even hoping for like, some disconnect between the sonic/visual environment. Haven't fought Dancing Green yet, so I'm excited to hear that track but. They could have been more textured with this. Vanguard having that dubstep breakdown over the Shaaloani music got me READY and then S9 let me down. Every time I go turn in materia clusters it's like stepping into an elevator. Snooze!

In sum: Still unhappy the game has contented itself to discard Tural as a backdrop for inter-dimensional Alexandrian drama. I think Tural was fun, and am sad it did not get more room to breathe. WRT writing about nations, peoples, colonization, technology: there is no winning, but there is trying. I felt like I could see things there that did feel like earnest attempts to engage - traditional ways of life being upended, lost knowledge & skills, indigenous ways of teaching, sharing economies, etc. And also, these themes are being evoked in ways that naturalize them in a way it's fair to file under "a bit noble savage-y" & are divorced from their relationship to colonialism. Why did all of the Hanu forget about the harvest festival that has ensured their livelihood for years on end, and had to be instructed on it by Wuk Evu? Well like, you know. That's how these stories usually go, isn't it? The lazy youth spurn their elders' knowledge, and there is no particular outside force that threatens to destroy indigenous technologies, and no purpose to those technologies being supplanted, Koana just happens to be the World's First Turali Sharlayaboo and the steam locomotive is a net good and obviously no one on the entire continent could have figured out A Balloon without the Studium's help... Hey what's this plot about a moneylender? You know, unless the Hanu were ALL play-acting for Wuk to teach a lesson, as in the quest chain that also occurs in Ok'hanu, and like the cooking contest in Yak'Tel and, well. That's not how it panned out! The Blessed thing was! like. La raza cosmica had to be on the mind, yeah? But... I can't even really articulate anything about the Mamool Ja because the logic of that story section is so alien and inarticulate itself. I think the Yok Huy were underutilized. I think blue-eyed-babyfaced Christopher Columbus in his magic avatar forest hut was weird. I FEEL LIKE I WON'T HAVE AN INFORMED OPINION ABOUT THE POLITICAL BAGGAGE OF DAWNTRAIL UNTIL I REPLAY ARR-StB! Genuinely! I need a refresher! This is a game written by a Japanese team which featured an entire expansion about occupied China! And I was, again, rushing through that! I think a lot of the people speaking about Dawntrail ALSO rushed through that! Because the playerbase EXPLODED with EW, and this is the first expansion where many people have been around for the full dev cycle. But anyway, This was a fraught setting, and it seems like they're eager to abandon it now that it's set up Azem's Weird Cup. That makes me sad, even despite all the failings, because I think they failed in interesting ways, and they were always going to fail, and they were always going to do some things right, and there is no ONE way to talk about these issues, yeah. Biggest gripe is still Xak Tural and the way it was handled, and choosing the spaghetti western vibe over like, the cultures indigenous to the American southwest, that hadn't changed. I wanted to see it. I still want to see it. Me and Erenville are going and you are all invited. But pulling away from text and into Me The Player My Experience: I'm sitting pretty tight with FFXIV. I think I'm in this longhaul style, and again, I am satisfied with it as a game. There is NO way they could have kept up those chops. We got a pretty incredible first run, and I will feel fondly about it as a piece of writing for a long time. And I don't feel like I'm settling! I'm having fun! Higher quality fights in lower quantity is FINE by me! And my favorite thing in this type of game remains the busy work & grind, and the outfits and the decorating. My gameplay experience has not suffered, I am in fact having way more fun now than I was pre-EW.

In sum in sum: I think FFXIV is still pretty good, for an MMO. The format of an MMO is at odds with nuance. The format of an MMO is at odds with a story about grief and mortality. That FFXIV has received its accolades and is being held to this standard is, frankly, insane, what a crowning achievement in narrative design within these constraints. I don't mean to sound like I'm shoveling garbage in my mouth but I don't think I could have taken another ShB/EW type deal. Now, if they would just Slow the Fuck Down and make something that is not trying to match Endwalker's pacing... & I still don't know what Solar Bahamut is. And that scares me.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

Would there be any kind of a relationship between Nightmare and Killer that would be acceptable to you? [platonic or romantic?]

I like what @signanothername does with them right now.

If I were to consume any kind of romantic Killermare content or anything related to that ship, I’d trust ano to depict it both seriously and in an interesting, complex manner, if ano ever were to do so. And I trust id enjoy it. But i vastly prefer their depiction of killer & nightmare, outside of the ship.

I honestly don’t care to see a romantic relationship between these two at all, not just because of..everything, such as the massive power imbalance in more ways than one, but because I honestly personally don’t see these two being interested in each other like that at all.

I’m also just tired of every single dynamic involving Killer being romantic or sexual in the fandom, especially with Nightmare—to the point it overshadowed the fact that Nightmare is Killer’s trafficker, kidnapper, and conditioner for years now. That relationship on its own is rife with potential without having to sexualize it or make it romantic.

Torture and abuse and conditioning are horrible things, but it also generates..intimacy, I suppose, for lack of a better word. Familiarity, maybe a sense of control or power in that familiarity. A sort of dependency. Someone who knows you because they are changing you to suit an image and use they want, and you have to know them, if you want to be useful enough to see tomorrow.

Even if Nightmare isn’t the same as what Killer had with Chara/the Player and how he views them, Nightmare is still an important figure in his life that casts a huge shadow everywhere he goes; and in the same way his relationship with Chara and the Player will effect his relationship with and views of Nightmare, his relationship with Nightmare will effect his relationships with people like Delta, Cross, and especially Color.

Me wanting different kind of relationship dynamics with Killer is another reason I prefer the whole “killer being cross’ protective asshole older brother” thing with cross and killer that ano is doing.

[cecoeur]

you're so real for that post about liam though, bc as soon as i was done jumping around my living room in excitement about max winning the wdc, i checked where liam finished and couldn't help but feel so angry bc what has liam proven over daniel?? he's been outpaced by yuki by a huge margin and is always getting into some sort of incident with others on track (he touched esteban's car today) and yet f1tv were trying to praise his performance today when in reality he's an average driver.

The thing with him is that I could have accepted if he was the choice for 2025. If the end result was them reverting to a "junior team” and Lawson getting the seat, so be it. If that had meant the end of Daniel's career in F1 I would have been mad at Red Bull for still ultimately screwing him over but I would have enjoyed the hell out of those last 6 races and celebrated him, his career, and the joy he brought to so many people. I honestly probably could've gotten over being angry at Red Bull and wouldn't care about Lawson one iota because even now my feeling about him there in 2025 is...good luck (and he'll be there in 2025). He can have that seat and whatever unfortunate end comes with it because the trajectory of that team and anyone in it does not look promising. I hope for his sake he learns from others and doesn't hitch his wagon to the Red Bull dream because historically that has panned out well for very few drivers.

What I'm mad about (now and forevermore) is this season and the insistence that Daniel HAD to be replaced with 6 races left. I'm mad that they claimed he wasn't performing consistently to the standard they wanted but is also the only driver held to any such standard. I'm mad that the response from the media to literally every other driver struggling is, "oh you just have to feel for him" when Daniel was the subject of a witch hunt the entire season. I'm mad that they drove him out of this sport and did so quite gleefully. I'm mad that they continue to rewrite his career and accomplishments and erase his very existence within the Red Bull team and "family". I'm mad that he should've gotten to end his career on the track in Abu Dhabi at the end of the season with friends, family, former colleagues and with fireworks and burnouts and celebration for him and his career and what he brought to the sport but instead his career ended in Singapore in the dark of parc ferme as he sat alone struggling to get out of the car while fireworks popped in the distance celebrating someone else. All so lawson could get 2 points in 4 races for "the good of the team's future".

[valyrfia]

but how is the charles edit compared to other drivers? did they just portray them all favourable this season?

oh definitely not. Carlos probably got the most favourable edit overall because of the whole Williams signing plotline, but I'd put Charles up there, Lewis got a favourable edit and Max got his usual vague-eldritch-horror-who-won't-sit-for-interviews one. Oscar got a super favourable edit (it's implied multiple times he's a better talent than Lando) and Lando, although getting probably the most screentime by far, got quite a bad edit along the lines of "he's not ready or talented enough compared to contemporaries for the championship". George got one of the worst edits I've ever seen on DTS, even with the attempt to humanise him in the Singapore ep, he just comes across as unlikable by the clips they chose/how they paired them (for example, he's seen as the instigator of mind games against Lando pre-race with how certain shots are paired with voiceover). The rest of the drivers I think got appropriate edits, apart from Ollie Bearman who really got shafted.

[slutforpringles]

https://x.com/Max33Verstappen/status/1823629090370310275 If this set is from then i will kms because that would mean max in the first one is talking to daniel while doing a photo shoot

Oh that'd actually be incredibly sweet!! And also makes sense timeline wise because it'd have been from either Hungary or Spa, so part of their attached at the hip boyfriends (teammates) reunited phase from Goodwood through to Spa leaving together in the helicopter!! I'd probably guess Hungary given the heat. But honestly I am just glad it's not Singapore, because I don't think my poor little heart could've taken that.

[thebad-lydrawn-sanses]

lemme think abt this... oh, i know what to do! *THE ANON HAS FORCE FEED DREAM THE POSITIVITY APPLE OF THEIR OWN.* GOOD LUCK TO YOU MR NOOTMARE... *rolls away*

Ink: AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE ANTIVOID WITH ERROR??

[raceweek]

watching ep 4 of dts and at the end of the episode when james is like "when we looked at the performance I think you were fastest on track" its sending me because you can see on the screen he was saying that in abu dhabi, like girl what the car was slow that whole weekend 😭 no wonder alex sounds like hes about to score a podium in his press interviews every week

everyone like james vowles most supportive team principal he’s so encouraging etc etc. what if he’s just a gaslighter

[useless-germanyfacts]

Hey, wie seht ihr das: Irgendwie finde ich, dass Deutsche, die längerfristig im Ausland nicht bei Wahlen in Deutschland dürfen sollten. Wer hier nicht lebt und daher die Auswirkungen der Wahl nicht erleben muss (ob positiv oder negativ), sollte auch keinen Einfluss haben?

ich glaube deutsche die nicht in deutschland gemeldet sind haben sowieso keinen besonders riesigen einfluss auf die wahlen weil sie jedes mal erst nen antrag stellen müssen um ins wahlregister eingetragen zu werden und von den paar millionen machen sich denke ich mal nicht ganz so viele die mühe

[inchidentally]

https://x.com/lawyerofoscar/status/1761844422780588152?s=20

Lando? Oscar?

(Looking at Oscar's cap, it's something between Monaco and Barcelona)

LOOK AT THEM

perfect angle to imagine Lando's big grippers grabbing Oscar's tiddy

[alittledizzy]

"At this time in my life I had very little experience with girls other than toxicity and abuse"

It makes me so sad every time he refers to this and how cruel everyone is regarding it

At best people outside of the fandom outright dismiss that he could have been abused by a female partner, at worst they actively make fun of him for it. It's shitty. It's fucked up. He was a teenager. He was heavily insecure. He was verbally, emotionally, and physically abused. He was cheated on repeatedly and not in a flirty e-sex way, in a she actually went and fucked other people while they were a couple and lived together way. He was, I heavily suspect, taken advantage of financially. And there's no way that wasn't the root of his desire to be genuinely liked by people and for acceptance, something he's widely and very publicly been denied.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

When you think about it, Cross and Killer have a lot in common.

Like, they both killed all their friends, they both have Charas with very questionable morals, they both are capable of being redeemed if they try hard enough, they both have different souls than normal monsters, they were manipulated by Nightmare, both have alternative versions of themselves as best friends and, most importantly, ...they both like chocolate.

It's because of these similarities that I believe that, if they tried, they could empathize with each other and have a strong relationship.

Actually, Killer doesn’t seem to have any preferences or likes about food at all—or if he does, he either doesn’t know them or refuses to say what they are—he just avoids the ones that trigger him, such as ketchup, potentially spaghetti as well.

He’ll take “hot melting chocolate” over ketchup, and he’ll take ketchup over being someone’s friend, but it’s not a favorite. Killer has stated he dislikes everything when asked about favorite foods, and stated that he doesn’t eat.

Which, sure enough, seems to have remained consistent—as rahafwabas never draws Killer eating anything, but he does drink a mysterious smoking beverage from a cup from time to time. Also that one red, mysterious liquid that seems to imply that Killer drinks the human blood he jars for scientific research purposes.

I’m personally of the opinion that their differences would be much more apparent before any empathizing happens—and Killer will not be open or vulnerable with Cross, nor trusting, right off the bat, and thus will not tell him anything about himself besides what he allows Cross to see or know. Or whatever Cross has managed to learn on his own, or from those closer to Killer.

I do think Killer likes his privacy, and genuinely prefers that people know nothing about him that he hasn’t allowed them to know—he prefers to control the information, control the narrative, control his narrative. Maybe it’s even the closest he gets to feeling shame, if something about himself slips out, more than he intended.

I can see Cross trying to understand him, trying to get Killer to admit to things, trying to relate to Killer and show him they’re just as similar as they are different, but Killer’s kinda “stonewalling” him at every turn and just generally resisting the idea of being known or related to, as if resisting the idea of “being controlled” or “overtaken”—even subconsciously— wanting to maintain his own sense of control for a feeling of interpersonal safety, or from a sense of indifference to the idea of social relationships.

[yago-undertale]

Real

-ss!rem

[valyrfia]

How is charles and ferrari overall portrayed in the rest of the season? I only watched monaco

I'm only about halfway through but there's a line in Carlos' episode where they try and say he can sometimes measure up to "one of the best drivers currently on the grid" (paraphrased) and they flash to Charles. In general this season Charles is shown very much as a WDC in the wings (which is accurate to how the media in general has started to portray him, everyone is starting to feel like a Charles championship is sort of overdue now). Charles got a very positive edit overall this season, I suspect there's a Charles fan that's been assigned to DTS at Netflix

[aq2003]

Can I dump on you some fandom musings? So I’m a fairly new Tennant fan and I’m not all up to the whole lore, but it was my impression just from the general fandom chat that there is some ambiguity when it comes to DT and sexual/gender topics. Like, many fans seem to think or jokingly imply at least that he’s either not all straight or not all cis, and it can assume many forms, from fans who clearly just hate his wife and want him with Michael Sheen to fulfill their fanfic dreams to fans who want to self-identify with him to the max, like if they’re gay/bi or not cis themselves they would like DT to be somewhere on that spectrum himself. The latter is at least understandable to me, unless it goes overboard into actually imposing on him this preferred identity and getting mean if the reality disagrees, the former is straight out delusional thinking mixed with undisguised misogyny, imo.

What I get from the source himself though, after reading up a bit, observing for about a year and listening to the latest podcasts, is this: I can’t see how anyone can realistically assume that he is not straight. Lol. Like, if we listen to the man himself and see what is publicly available, he’s as cookie cutter straight as dudes go. I mean, his first crush was Madonna for god’s sake (and he said this before, not just in the podcast, in case some people want to invoke the so-called PR). And his three known girlfriends (known to me, but at least they’re actual acknowledged girlfriends, not tabloid suggestions) are: Anne-Marie Duff, Sophia Myles and Georgia. All three could convincingly play sisters lol. Or, with good make-up – Madonna. The man clearly has a type (nothing to be ashamed of) and his type is that of about 90% straight dudes: petit blonds. There’s just no ambiguity here if we don’t engage imagination or rumors, all of which could be 100% fan made.

It’s a bit harder to judge when it comes to the cis topic. Mostly because it’s something that only the subjects themselves can acknowledge or not, there are no outside factors that can serve as a definitive ‘proof’. But here we have his preferred pronouns, which are he/him.

Mostly, my conclusion is that in all these fan speculations, whether malicious or totally benign, there’s a lot of latent/internalized homophobia, even if fans themselves are gay/not cis/genuinely progressive. Because after checking available facts I can’t really see where these assumptions about DT could come from other than him going against many gender/straightness stereotypes of so-called toxic masculinity. And many fans who genuinely think they don’t have these ingrained stereotypes and even fight against them, actually do have them as it turns out. DT fits a lot of those not-straight stereotypes, like his love of colourful clothes, his many close friendships with women and gay people, his love of camp, of course his support for LGBTQ+ people for many years, even his physical attributes: thinness, gracefulness, delicate features, his damn manner of sitting… The amount of gender envy he invokes, his whole non-toxic deal.

Many things. Lots of tiny green flags for not straight and/or not homophobic people, which in fact shouldn’t add up to form ANY conclusion about his actual sexuality/gender expression, but somehow still do. I could’ve understood this in so-called tinhatters because they seem generally insane and malicious, but I realize that quite often I see it even from normal fans, even if expressed in mostly playfully suggestive ways that you can’t really pin down as statements of fact, but which still impose a particular identity on a living person who never admitted such identity and in fact stated the opposite several times, both in word and in deed.

It’s not the worst thing that could happen of course. But I personally wouldn’t want to impose an identity (or question their clearly stated identity) on a real human, even if it would be comforting for me personally, and it’s exactly what this suggestive attitude from the fandom made me do when I first started to get into DT (through Much Ado). I actually thought he was an out bisexual, and may be a non-binary person, because fans were very suggestive in this area as well. It’s actually when I saw that he stated his preferred pronouns in the Macbeth program, when I learned that it was never stated otherwise before, and I started digging for what else wasn’t true.

It’s just that I don’t think it’s OK to impose sexuality/gender on a real person based solely on vibes, even if playfully and in a benign way, it’s my little pet peeve. Because if we do that, logically we can deny gay people their sexuality as well (vibe check failed) or disbelieve trans people who pass insufficiently for us…

Sorry about writing a whole essay, it’s because English is not my native language and I can’t be concise and efficient when trying to make a point. I like your art and general style, so I decided to dump it all on you, sorry.

first off thank you for liking my art i grow at least 10 times in power whenever someone compliments it dhdgwhwjw soon i might be able to draw a background on my own

i think where more of the well-meaning ppl come from is that one interview w arabella weir where he said that people assuming he's not straight doesn't bother him, which i feel like is a pretty healthy mindset for someone to have (especially in 2008) bc it helps takes away the stigma around queerness in that it's not something to be afraid of being labeled as. but then also you can tell even from the brief description arabella gives of her friends' attitudes that the reason people kept assuming he was gay was bc of some really toxically masculine/homophobic attitudes so ...idk lmao. i never really gave it a ton of thought. for me at least i just take him at his word and i don't look into it or make any more assumptions bc i don't know him. like his dating history or whatever matters a lot less than him outright saying "i'm an ally not an active participant"

[demonstars]

sorry I keep sending pics of rabbits but

https://x.com/ShouldHaveRabit/status/1884068065018810803

sylvee

never apologize for this. This is perfect