#in the show and how fucking easy it is to have queer and trans characters on screen and just let them be. im gonna ugly sob

[p4nishers]

can we talk about how much queer and trans joy was this season? maggie and nina. they/them muriel, saraquel, beelzebub, even GOD. "you're a good lad" "im not actually, either". that one shopkeeper and his non binary spouse, played by a non binary actor. beelzebub and gabriel. shax, nina and maggie all thinking azi and crowley were together. also yes i'm gonna mention: crowley and aziraphale's kiss. it's just, i get that everyone's hurt and so am i but can we please focus on how beautiful this season was to us? we got so much and i'm so happy, despite the ending.

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

Just to minimize my chances of being genuinely misunderstood OR deliberately misinterpreted, and crucified for something I don't think, How Dare You Say We Piss on the Poor website etc...I'm gonna say this right up top. I absolutely understand why people don't like Thessaly as a character, if anyone does completely unironically stan her as some kind of feminist hero who Did Nothing Wrong uwu, I personally see it as a bit of a red flag. I don't like terfs real or fictional. In a vacuum, I could even completely sympathize and agree with the people who want her cut.

HOWEVER.

It's really something to me to see people clamoring for her to be cut, because she carries and expressed an ugly indefensible prejudice (transphobia) in words towards (1) person. Meanwhile Hob fucking Gadling enacted one of the most violent forms of antiblack racism I can even think of against thousands no, millions of people, the ripple effects of which still affect billions more today. Just a little light idk, profiting off the fucking slave trade and had to be told by someone else that it was bad...and he's a fan favorite.

People are saying Thessally being Dream's love interest reflects badly on him or is somehow endorsement by the narrative (?!?!?!?!?!? Didn't she (SPOILER ALERT AS IF IT MATTERS BY NOW) help participate in his extended assisted suicide? She's not painted as a great person to me just another character what are y'all SMOKING whatever fine. It's fine this is fine.) But shipping Dream with Mr. Former Slaver is not only not verboten or frowned on widely in the fandom but its THEE most popular pairing by far. So...why the difference?

Like where are the same fans who are saying Thessaly shouldn't just be more clearly shown to be wrong, she shouldn't even be in the show at all when it comes to Hobert's crimes??? Yes, transphobia is indefensible. Isn't racism?

And I hear the cries of "it's fiction!!!" Already rallying (if anyone who needs to hear this even sees it lol) to which I say:

HORSESHIT. I KNOW you don't, deep down, really agree because if you did, why get upset about Thessaly being included??? Why does what she said to one person matter if it's Just Fiction You Guyze. Fictional characters are allowed to do bad things and fiction isn't reality sweaty....except when you only apply that standard to fictional racists you like and simp for, but fictional transphobes you don't are SO HARMFUL they shouldn't even be portrayed in fiction.

Like. Give me a big fat BREAK. This looks like bullshit, no? I'm sorry, but I'd love for someone to try and give any other explanation besides one personally offended you or hit home for you, and the other doesn't.

And if that bothers you or you feel like it says something negative about you...idk what you want me to say??? You can't control how other people perceive you and that's how people outside this majority-of-the-fandom bubble see it. You don't need to respond, I just wish and genuinely hope this gives you a moment to think about why fans who ARE bothered by both (and not just paying lip service to being bothered by the one but railing against the other) are so frustrated with people saying everyone is welcome but in practice only bending over backwards for the comfort and emotions of themselves, and people they can easily relate to.

You don't have to like Thessaly (I don't. I find her an interesting antagonist, I don't stan her. And frankly imo likability is not. the point of her character) but you'll pardon me for feeling more than a bit cynical and side eying people's motivations for what seems a...pretty obvious double standard, on what fictional crimes related to real world issues matter to y'all, and which clearly don't. Either actually bring the same energy to the table for fictional people who committed atrocities, even if against a group you're not part of and thus don't feel the need to empathize with, or just carry on, but accept that you don't have the SLIGHTEST room to talk about cutting characters who do immoral things. And you also need to accept that you look like a hypocrite when you do.

[luunamoona]

the way community handled queerness is honestly so peak. like, there're 3 main moments i can think of in the show where queerness was apparent and mentioned: advanced gay, queer studies and advanced waxing and britta's pitch in emotional concequences of broadcast television.

in advanced gay, the cornelius hawthorne is seen as a villian for having traits like being abusive towards his son, pierce, him being really racist and him being homophobic. this acknowledgement of homophobia being a bad thing is definitely good for the early 2010s, as many shows treated being queer as a joke back then. also cornelius being fucking murdered at the end of the episode solidifies the fact his actions were deemed immoral and he therefore had his comeuppance.

community only ever uses queerness as a punchline in the context of troy and abed's relationship, the punchline usually being "look at how romantic these 2 friends are how silly", which could be seen as homophobia as the same context with a man and a woman would be treated differently by the showrunners as it'd be turned into a romantic subplot.

the next example i have is from queer studies and advanced waxing. having the dean tell richie and carl that he "isn't openly anything and gay doesn't begin to cover it" is much more progressive than many other media at that time, and even now, as they'd usually have the queer character just be gay for convenience. this need for convenience is commented on in the episode with richie and carl basically coercing the dean into adopting a label that is inaccurate but convenient for his straight peers. back to my previous point, presenting queerness as being more complex and having more nuance than just gay and straight is something that is very useful to queer viewers as it presents an option beyond these 2 ends of the spectrum. unlike what other shows may do with this concept, community treats it seriously, showing the dean's inner conflict with presenting with an identity that isn't his, with lines like "i feel sick". (also side point, the line "i make gayness look like mormonism" goes so hard)

finally, there's britta's pitch in emotional concequences of broadcast television. in this, the dean protests britta's decision to make him transgender and not "all this other stuff". something i love about that scene is the ability to critique queer represention without insulting it. as a trans person, i've seen a good amount of transphobia is television. this isn't one of these times. being able to have trans identity be a part of the punchline without it being insulted is something that is apparently very hard for screenwriters of sitcoms to do, so i commend them for being able to do that. as well as this, this scene acts as a criticism of how basic queer representation in media is, how they like having one distinct, easy to understand label to give their token character, ignoring "all this other stuff". it's telling us that, like in queer studies and advanced waxing, queer idenity isn't black and white, it's a wide spectrum of identities that comes in many, many different colors.

all in all, community's representation of queerness and how it treats insults to queerness is something a lot of other shows should try to strive for. in my opinion, it has some of the most nuanced takes of queer identity and representation out of any sitcom that doesn't have queer people as a target audience. it feels very fitting, since the show is literally called community and it about a group of misfits who bond over their shared messed up-ness. this show is all about finding your people and accepting everyone, as pierce says in for a few paintballs more, "flaws and all". i think the showrunners had an impression this show would speak to a lot of queer people and i love that they were able to make us feel welcome just as greendale does to the study group.

[lastoneout]

Honestly, I don't say it often bcs I know how this site is but I really do think for a lot of survivors of abuse, especially abuse that went on for years and years, sometimes the message "it's not your fault, you didn't do anything wrong/to deserve this" while ABSOLUTELY TRUE* isn't actually super helpful. For a lot of us there's a LOT of guilt tied into it, and even if things were truly out of our hands we will not be able to accept that we are truly blameless, at least not at first, and maybe for some of us not ever. So being told "no dw you didn't do anything wrong <3 <3 you're innocent" feels...idk like some toxic positivity style lies. It doesn't make me feel better, because I still do feel like there were things that happened that were my fault, that were in my control, even an ethicist or god or whoever could look me dead in the eyes, weigh all the facts, and assure me of my complete innocence, and I still wouldn't believe it. (Tbh, you have to be ready to forgive yourself and trying to force it early does more harm than good.)

And I occasionally see movies and shows and stuff get roasted all to hell for having the audacity to go with a different message, to offer abused characters not a platitude about how they are innocent and should forgive themselves asap, but instead say "so what if it was your fault? so what if you fucked up? you're still alive, you still have time, your mistakes(or perceived mistakes) don't make you irredeemable scum who deserves to suffer, it's okay that you fucked up, what matters is what you do next, and even if the horrible thing was your fault in one way or another or you did actually hurt people, you still did NOT deserve to be hurt in turn" because people think that is like, admitting that the person in question is at fault when they almost always aren't....but as an actual survior, I'm sorry, you can tell me I'm innocent till the cows come home and I won't believe it. What I need to hear is that even if it was my fault I didn't deserve to be treated that way. I still deserve help. I deserve to keep going. I am not forever stained by my mistakes. I deserve a future free from this pain.

I think before we look at things in this like...grand moral way where we try to make sure we're sending the most Correct and Healthy Message Possible, sometimes it's worth asking if that message is actually the one the people it's about need to hear. I'm sure for some people it is very freeing to be told it's not their fault, but that kind of message does not resonate with me. And I, as well as people like me, deserve to expirience stories about us that are cathartic, that resonate, that make us feel seen, and to not have to see everyone and their mom throw a fit because what helps us is "problematic".

Anyway this has been mulling around in my head for a while and I def have a lot more to say about the way guilt manifests in trauma born of abuse, but yeah I just feel like this is something that should be talked about when we bring up abuse narratives and how well written they are and if they send the Correct Message, because the "Correct Message" is never going to be the same for everyone. And that's true of ANY demographic you could choose to represent!

Like some disabled people might enjoy the "magically healed" trope while others find it offensive. Some trans people like stories where transitioning is easy as drinking a potion or getting a fancy futuristic surgery and some find that that trivializes their struggles. Some queer people want stories where there's just no homophobia at all, others find that a world without it feels fake and patronizing. Some women do want to read stories about how keeping hearth and home is noble and empowering and others want read about women who have other jobs and never have kids or get married. For some of us "you're beautiful no matter what" is lovely and some of us just want to be told being fat and hairy and having acne and scars and shit is normal and fine. Or, like the last post I reblogged says, sometimes "you're not a burden" doesn't hit as well as "being a burden isn't a bad thing". No one type of representation is ever going to work for everyone, and that doesn't mean one type of rep is objectively wrong and the other is objectively right.

So yeah, the next time you find yourself angry because you think a story is sending the wrong message about a marginalized or harmed group, maybe stop for a second to ask yourself if it's actually harmful...or if you're not the person who the story is speaking to, and if there's someone it is talking to who desperately needs to hear what it has to say.

(*Getting ahead of this now: Do not put words in my mouth. I am not saying that any abused person in any way deserved their abuse or was at fault for it happening, that is not up for debate. The fault is always in the hands of the person who chose to hurt them. I'm just saying it's nuanced and complicated and guilt is a huge fucking issue that survivors have to deal with all the time and it's not wrong to acknowledge that some of us are always going to feel like we did something wrong and not be eased by being told otherwise even if the person saying it is 100% correct and/or means well. I do not have time for people who are going to willfully misinterpret me. You will be blocked.)

[ihopesocomic]

It's such a shame how many good brother-brother duos or sister-brother duos there are compared to sister-sister duos

I know it stems from writers always feeling the need to add a man in every woman's life

A lot of writers can only make a character who's a sister if she's a sister to a brother and it's a real shame

Honestly I think Nothing from MP is a pretty good example of that

Look at her relationship with her female siblings/cousin vs her male siblings/cousin

Fire ended up being horrible and Feather is a toxic positive "lemme make you feel bad for wanting to change your ableist name even though it literally doesnt effect me" dirtbag

But Nothing had a better relationship with vs her younger sisters/cousins

Farleap and Silentstalk bullied her and Feather's sisters thought she was weirdo though they like literally never interacted

It's just always suspicious when a writer seems to prioritize a female character's relationship with guys over her relationship with girls

Like their gender shouldn't matter but they'll always pick their male characters first

The sexism in writing still to this day is wild. Especially where so-called independent creators are concerned. Because I thought the whole point of being indie was creating stuff you wanted to see in mainstream media but didn't get, but a lot of it is just more of the same crap you get from bigger productions. So either people want more sexism, or its just baked into their brain and they don't even realize it.

A lot of better stories out there are about brothers (well, I could argue that a lot of it is lazy and that there is no point to the characters being brothers, especially when strong emotional friendships between men are practically nonexistent in media.) and anything having to do with sisters is as I said, either petty nonsense or there's no point to being sisters at all.

And then there's as you said, an inherent need by creators for women to have men be relevant in their lives when that same standard is not applied to men. You can throw a rock and hit a movie or show with a female pov where her only motivation has to do with a man. Father, son, brother, husband, boyfriend, abuser. Whatever.

That's not to say any of these are bad stories. But when its the majority of supposed woman-focused media, it loses its edge as woman-focused when the women in question are focused on men. The writers either consciously or subsconsciously don't get that women have motivations beyond men. This even happens with lesbian characters, where men should have even less relevancy? LOL And it doesn't even matter who the writers are, whether they're men/women, cis/trans, straight/gay, everyone does this. You'd expect better from queer creators but even then there's a clear preference. And they're wont to bring up that "gender shouldn't matter" but only when it pertains to asking why they're so opposed to women being the focus. Its quite interesting.

MP is in an interesting position of hating both men and women at the same time while not commenting on how the patriarchy has negative effects on both men and women. Not an easy feat but Tribble sure made it look easy. She made Feather Nothing's prime motivator for leaving the pride, and while I have my own criticisms of Nothing's "subtle" motherlyness towards Feather, that wasn't extended to the female cubs. Fire is Nothing's other motivation for leaving the pride, and then he turned out to be a wannabe dictator. Quickmane was shown to be a sympathetic and caring mate who definitely wasn't homophobic, but had no qualms about killing children. And then there's alllllll the women who are meant to be oppressed to the same extent as Nothing, but they all somehow manage to be even worse because the narrative wants us to side with them.

And even Nothing's abusive relationship with Quickmane as we've stated in our review is arguably less fucked up than the relationship she has with her own mother. Because we know what they think about each other, and Powerstrike still insists that Nothing's existence is a burden on her soul or whatever. Like what the fuck is up with that?? I'm sure they could've made Powerstrike less-bad than Quickmane, was this some sort of weird equalizer of the sexes? And you can count Nothing's relationship with Sharptongue if you're so inclined to, but even if you ignore everything else she did, Sharptongue would still be the only positive female influence in Nothing's life. But not a key motivator in Nothing's story. Like not even a little bit.

[little-fandom-dump]

‼️OFMD S2 SPOILERS (1-7)‼️

ok but on a real note

it’s been said before but i will never stop saying it: i am so incredibly grateful for this fruity little pirate show, about how boldly and unapologetically queer it is!! david, rhys, taika, every person cast and crew- the decision to not only keep queerness in the story, but to focus the entire narrative around it- the jokes that are not made at the expense of queerness, but are crafted lovingly with the beauty of it?? the easy acceptance of jim’s gender? the drag night and the crew’s immediate loving support of lucius and pete’s engagement?? even while they’re being tortured!! the relationship developing between archie and jim, the way they’re as fiercely protective of each other as ed and stede are of each other? the fact we even get to see two older men have a loving sexual encounter- and have one of them bring his partner breakfast in bed the next day? the fact that said sexual affair was not dismissed or played for a cheap joke- but as a means to develop stede and ed’s relationship with each other (and ed’s relationship with himself)? izzy saying openly to stede he loves ed?? izzy sharing a tender moment with stede after ed leaves him?? supporting him?? singing fucking la vie en rose for the crew’s little party with his beautiful little voice?? izzy being so purposefully kind and trying to repair what’s been broken despite his heartbreak at watching the man he’s in love with be with another, a man who is just better for ed and helps him to become the best version of himself he can be?? the different kinds of queer relationships shown, all beautiful and with their own triumphs and issues? the sheer diversity of all of the crew members and supporting characters??

there are One Million things i could go on about, but i’m just. so so thankful i get to live to see things change, to see acceptance and representation and a story so focused around queer love. fuck. as an aspiring filmmaker who’s trans, queer, and indigenous- it makes me so happy and emotional and hopeful. i love this show, y’all.

[cowbilover]

lo and queer masc/man rep

or therefore the complete lack there of. which is incredibly insulting considering how common and prominent it was in original myth (although not always perfect but what greek myth is regardless of straight or gay). also i will be using queer in place of LGBT+ as an umbrella term so if you're not comfortable with that then sorry.

now rachel has made attempts at including queer rep through hestia and athena as lesbians and morpheus (and maybe chiron? idk) as trans women. which could be a whole separate post on its own with the problems that arise with them, but seeing as i am not a lesbian or trans woman, i will not be speaking on them in this post nor to the same degree if i do ever mention them.

what i am is a queer man, both bisexual and trans. i am also a big enjoyer of greek myth. i am not a big enjoyer of lore olympus nor of rachel's complete lack of representation when it comes to men like myself despite it being again very prominent within the original myths. now seeing how badly she has handled other forms of representation for other groups, i am partially glad she hasn't tried. but while i am a little happy, i am more so overall upset and annoyed at this. it comes off as nothing more than simple erasure.

the closest we've seen of rep for queer men/mascs is aged up storge who is more feminine then other men in the story, but this has not been explicitly confirmed therefore i will not be including this. besides men can be both feminine and still cishet. finally storge is a minor background character with little importance, so even if rachel did decide to make him canon queer we likely would not see much of that.

his brother eros is another annoying case as he is unarguably coded as a gay best friend stereotype. but without being gay. he is fashionable, witty, intelligent, dramatic, and always serves as a shoulder for his straight friend to cry on. but again he is not even fucking gay. he is married to a woman with a child. while i would like to see better representation then the gbf stereotype it is still insulting that rachel while coding eros to act like that couldn't even do the bare minimum of making him bisexual.

now it has been pointed out to me that names of male lovers to gods have been used and slapped on female nymphs. krokos (one of persephone's dead nympth friends) was a male spartan lover of hermes, and ampleus (the name pysche took as a nymph) was a lover of dionysus. now i am not upset that rachel didn't include the original stories since the story is already messy enough. i am upset that she took the names of two queer men from myth and slapped them on two woman. one of which ends up marrying a man, and the other dying. a quick google search could show that these names belonged to male lovers of gods, and so to me it comes off as at best lazy and at worst erasure.

i won't be discussing much of dionysus since he was only recently introudced. nor of apollo since the erasure of his queer identity is only one of many problems that occur with his character and how rachel wrote it, which could constitution a completely separate post.

i will be discussing hermes though. as both a character that we have seen a lot of, and as one that has not been completely villainized by the plot. he had an incredibly early appearance in the webtoon and had a handful of myths where he had male lovers or expressed homosexual love. but not a single mention or even passing comment has ever been made about this. it would be incredibly easy for rachel to just throw in one allusion to any of his male lovers (besides krokos who has been turned into a nymph for some reason) yet this never happens.

zeus is another character we have seen a lot of, especially in regards to his many affairs. all of which have canonically been with women. despite the many affairs he carried out with men. one of the most famous being ganymede and the foundation for the myth behind aquarius and the cup bearer. again it would not be so incredibly difficult for rachel to add any allusion to his male lovers. yet again though, nothing. (i will come back to this post after some fast passes become public and i can discuss his treatment as a pregnant man)

poseidon also had a couple queer lovers but besides the reference to the fact that he has a polygam "pod" we haven't actually seen any of his partners besides his wife.

the way rachel draws men with all perfect six pack bodies is also something that annoys me, and i'll be discussing it briefly here. people always comment on the lack of body diversity for the women in the comic but for the men it is much more severe. hermes, thanatos and eros who were all shown to be more skinny and not completely jacked in the beginning of the story are now all ripped with washboard abs. the men are all built like brick walls and it is just upsetting to see as a trans man who does not fit into that category. it sends the message that to be attractive a man must be perfectly fit. not scrawny or skinny or god forbid even fat.

also again as i said in the beginning many of the myths for queer men were just as fucked and problematic. it’s greek mythology it’s inevitable. but i’m more upset over the fact that if rachel can modernize and (attempt to) make hetero myths less gross, then where is that effort for homo myths

overall despite the overwhelming amount of queer man/masc rep that exists within the source material, rachel utilizes none of it. there has not been mention or allusion to a single queer god, forget any trans god. to me it comes off as purposefully ignorant and as erasure of queer men/mascs. which is fucking annoying considering how many of us see ourselves for once fucking represented in these myths. she has plenty of opportunity to include rep for people like myself but continuously chooses not to, instead adding another hetero-centric plot line for no reason. it is tiring and annoying to see so many gods that were queer in their myths not be represented as such. i will not make assumptions about why rachel chooses not to include this kind of rep, i will simply say to me it comes off as blatant erasure.

i could go on, and probably will come back to this post but for now i have said what i have wanted to say.

[clockworkouroboros]

Now that the 60th anniversary specials are all out, I guess I'm gonna share my thoughts about them all, because it's the internet or whatever. Overall, I do think there's a lot of good in these specials. The fan service is absolutely there, but it's been done in a different way than some of the past special episodes, and it really acknowledges I think the many different kinds of Doctor Who fans, from the people who just watch the revived series (or even just bits and pieces of the revived series) to fans of Classic Who and even those of us crazy enough to get into the extended universe. I mean, featuring Beep the Meep and the Toymaker as your two Big Villains is both ridiculous and speaks to the nature of Doctor Who fans that we were all so excited for them. So. A lot of really nice things about these specials all around.

In The Star Beast, we got a really nice blend of nostalgia for the original Tennant era with new, interesting characters and a healthy amount of fan service towards Beep the Meep's half a dozen fans. Between those three things and RTD's obvious love letter to and heartfelt (if perhaps a little clunky) support of queer (and especially trans) people, it's easy to look past the episode's flaws; namely, that it's very light on the plot, and the handwavey bullshit that retcons Donna losing her memories completely undercuts the emotional heavy hitting of Donna losing her memories. You mean it was *always* that easy? Fuck right off.

Wild Blue Yonder really brought in, for me, more than a hint of Wilderness Years Who. The bottle episode slightly claustrophobic feel, the terrifying unexplainable Not-Things, the goddamn salt—I thought this story was the strongest in the set. I think RTD, like many writers, has a tendency to try and make things bigger and bigger and bigger, when really, his best stories tend to be like this. Consider Midnight as another example—brilliant, terrifying, and also very similar to some of the more experimental stories of the wilderness years. If I had a complaint about this story, it's that I would want it to play into more of the sense of sensory deprivation that stories like Midnight and Scherzo did. But honestly, that's a nitpick. It infuriates me a little bit—RTD likes to go in for some spectacle, as seen in The Star Beast and especially in The Giggle (and also the s3 and s4 finales, and also DT's regeneration story, and also and also and also)—but some of his best work is done when he doesn't allow himself the spectacle and instead really pares everything down to the barest of bare bones.

And, honestly? The Giggle was a bit of a letdown. There are so many ways you could bring the Toymaker into Who again, and he ended up sort of being an afterthought. Neil Patrick Harris was obviously having a grand old time in the role, which is great—so why not give him a little more to chew on? I thought there was a lot that was great—Donna and the Doctor in the Toymaker's domain, as an example. I think, building off of Wild Blue Yonder, coming back again and again to just how much the Doctor has been through and how that has affected them, was also a really nice thing to include, and something that I wish had been brought up more during Thirteen's run, because she really went through it.

But that also brings me to my biggest issue with The Giggle, and that is the way David Tennant's Doctor (Fourteen? TenThree? TenTeen?) has been written in a way that still is overshadowing Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor. This was honestly one of my biggest concerns as soon as Tennant's return was announced, and one of RTD's past issues in Who has been his chronic overshadowing of characters of color in favor of a white fan favorite. (Martha and Mickey both get this treatment.) The regeneration scene pissed me off in a way that I didn't think Doctor Who could piss me off—generally speaking, I'm pretty level-headed about most Doctor Who things because this show is ridiculous enough that you sort of have to just roll with it. I already adore Ncuti's Doctor (from his extremely limited amount of screentime), but I can't help but feel that he's been cheated out of a proper introduction because he had to share his limited screentime with David Tennant, the most popular Doctor to ever exist in the show's 60-year history. Likewise, because of this ridiculous Journey's End 2: This Time It's Stupider nonsense, I'm genuinely concerned RTD will randomly bring DT back for some fun multi-Doctor fanwanks, and sort of write all over the first Doctor of color's era with David Tennant. Not that that will happen (I certainly hope not, anyway), but the fact that he's leaving it open as an option already has me worried.

So. Yeah. Maybe I'm being harsher on RTD than I would otherwise be, because the nostalgia for having him back is so ridiculously high that it's driving me a little insane, or maybe these are genuine issues. I'm not upset that he's back, but these specials—and especially The Giggle—left me extremely wary that we're going to get the same exact issues that he brought to Who in his first run. Overall it'll be fine, and again, I did get a lot of enjoyment out of these specials! There's a lot about RTD's writing that is objectively both good and consistent. That doesn't mean I'm not holding my breath going forward.

[ksfoxwald]

Wheel of Time - Thoughts and Spoilers

Not quite caught up on Wheel of Time, but my thoughts through episode 3:

The Seanchan design is so extra and it's absolutely perfect

Uno was... not enough of a fan favorite I guess? tbh I don't have strong opinions on him, and he's kind of one of those characters that didn't really have any relevance past book 2 but RJ kept writing obligatory scenes with him bc that man did not know how to just let characters go, so it's probably best to have him go out with a bang and be unambiguously dead in a very dramatic way.

I'm glad they did let him say "fuck" before he died, though, having a character whose only personality trait is that he swears all the time in a world where the worst swear is "bloody" is weaksauce.

Elayne is such a delightfully earnest but not in touch at all princess, I love it, it's like the perfect balance of clearly privileged but still honorable without being all "not like Other Nobles."

actually all the characters' personalities pop more in the show, like RJ never really gave his characters more personality than Stoic Man and Scheming Woman; and when he tried it was just a sort of weak, washed out personality. In hindsight I honestly don't know why I liked those books so much. I think some of it was because the world was so vast and the characters were so bland it was easy to insert your own thoughts into it.

the fake out with the Arches was so good! like it honestly caught me by surprise, thinking this was just another alteration the show made. I kind of thought Egwene was going to activate her dream magic and rescue Nynaeve, but I guess it did follow the book fairly closely after all, just with more drama.

speaking of dream magic, I like the way they seem to be playing Perrin's wolf-dream powers more as visions overlaying the real world instead of extended dream sequences, which also seems like it's easier from a production standpoint but also makes the wolf magic feel more grounded.

and speaking of Aes Sedai ceremonies, I appreciate the lack of gratuitous female nudity. In fact they seem to have upped the gratuitous male nudity quite a bit. The women and queers took over that world and made it their own and I love it

Just, the casual way that the showrunners decided that queer people exist, and also that people fuck without being weird and repressed about it is so refreshing.

speaking of weird repressed sexuality, the design for the Seanchan channeler whatsits is so much more creepy and so much less fetish-y than the books and I love it. (I do also wonder if from a cinematography pov it was decided it was too difficult to have people on leashes and get good camera angles)

Rand in the psych ward was a good touch, it was so nice to see him actually doing things instead of sitting around angsting, and being kind and caring and having a personality, even if there was an ulterior motive. Also having him meet Logain this early instead of waiting twelve books was an excellent choice because I spent those twelve books frothing at the mouth wondering when the two were going to meet; the setup with the scene in the cage and the actual payoff of them meeting for the first time in the books was such a letdown, this was so much more dramatic and fulfilling.

not having Logain at the White Tower is going to make the attack on the white Tower interesting, though. And Min also left. Maybe they'll wind up back there somehow? Because I did like that awkward little travel party. And it throws off my trans channeler fic that I may or may not actually have written down somewhere, but oh well.

I like show!Min a lot, she's a lot sharper and more bitter than book!Min, but she also has even more lesbian energy than RJ's Only Woman In The World Who Wears Pants (Gasp!) and I don't see her pairing well with Rand. But also Rand hasn't actually met any of his love interests, so I'm curious to see how the show decides to play it. Maybe they'll lean into the polycule aspect and have the girls get together with each other too? They do seem to be foreshadowing that (hello Alanna)

Wheel of Time Books: you know that Alanna...has two Warders... two men at her beck and call... if you know what I mean ;)... haha no of course they don't... unless ;) Wheel of Time Show: they fuck. they're fucking. they have bisexual fucking threesomes all the fucking time and they're so fucking horny in front of everyone and we fucking love it. And they bring her snacks.

I kind of wanted to see Mat beat up Galad, but maybe they'll work that in later.

[gadunkie]

spiderverse 2 sucked shit and was performative twitter.com fuckery. hi reddit in this rant Im going to talk about why I think the second spiderverse movie gave me a queasy uneasy feeling after I left the theater. spoiler warning and all that.

Ive been seeing a lot of praise for this movie lately and a lot of fan stuff and while that is cool I think spiderverse 2 really doesnt deserve it. to me it feels like baffling performative bullshit where they checked off certain "woke" categories and forgot about everything else. Im bad at formulating rant posts so Im just gonna randomly bring up my feelings on certain things.

ok so first of all the number one thing that pissed me off was the in-movie dialogue of people telling miles, the first black spider-man, that he was never supposed to be spider-man in the first place. that is incredibly tone deaf, especially when the first movie's message was that anyone could be a hero, regardless of who you are. you could argue that this story beat is used to reinforce that message being that miles' reaction to that line is rejection and finding his own way to become spider-man after all. but thats stupid because, again, anyone could be a hero no matter what, even if theyre not supposed to be 'canonically' a spider-man. what this tells me is that theyre going for the same fucking message, again, but this time its padded out in 2 movies rather than the one that weve already seen.

second, and this one was much more brief, there was a disabled spider-man amidst the roster of the multiverse spider-mans whose only line of dialogue was making fun of their own disability. thats some travis mcelroy bullshit, I thought we were past the point of making disabled character's only personality being their disability. to me that was also incredibly tone deaf and just completely unneeded.

third, there was an Indian spider-man by the name Pavitr Prabhakar whose only personality was that he was Indian. of course theres nothing wrong with Indian culture or just being an Indian person, but to me its like if they had a Japanese spider-man and made them only talk about katanas and sushi. theres no way that indian people act like that and constantly boost about their own nation, it just rubs me the wrong way and makes them feel less human.

fourth, that "gwen is trans" shit is utter queerbait, I cant believe anyone is fucking falling for this shit. it literally infuriates me that I see fellow queer people look at the most basic off to the side decoration in a room / police officer's uniform and jump to the conclusion that what we are seeing is trans representation. like sure she could be trans! but it can also be read as her just being an ally, same with her father. "what ally has a trans flag in there room?" are you fucking kidding me? like are you being serious? hey heres famous content creator Ludwig, who is cis and has a trans flag in his room:

fucking anyone, literally anyone could have trans iconography anywhere in their house regardless of their gender. side bonus, heres how you can have a real confirmed trans character in your art without it being bait! - have them taking transition medication in a scene - have them wear gender affirming clothing, like chest binders - have them tell another character that theyre trans - have them literally look into the camera and say "Im trans." crazy how easy it is to do all of these things and yet gwen did none of it! dont fucking search for crumbs and pretend that its a feast.

fifth, theres a character called spider-punk who goes by Hobie and his entire character is being a punk and making fun of The Establishment™ and Capitalism™. I thought he was dumb because it just reminded me that anti-capitalism is just a form of entertainment now and not a real message to start a change.

sixth, there was so much fucking nostalgia pandering and repetitive dialogue. there were many scenes showing footage of older movies, cartoons, or real life actors that were only there to be pointed at the screen by audiences. next, the dialogue was so expository that any time miles' parents were on screen they would only talk about miles and how worried they were about him. I swear to god that 70% of spider-man 2099s dialogue was about his disturbed past and wanting to capture miles. at several times throughout the movie I thought "ok I get it" and hoped that were was something new to be seen in the next 5 minutes, which wasnt the case most of the time.

seventh, evil miles was fucking stupid. you cant just reveal such an easy counterpart villain and expect me to believe that he has any bearing on the story whatsoever. that shit was so laughably bad that I can easily imagine him getting defeated in the same old hero vs villain shit in the next movie. here let me have some fun and say that miles is going to do the most predictable "Im going to fix you to become good" trope only for evil miles to deny it and fuck off forever in some weird way.

anyway this post is already too fucking long so Im just gonna add personal peeves onto it because Im on a roll. I had a hard time paying attention to several fight scenes because they were mixing with too many visual styles, like the vulture scene at the beginning of the movie was too disorienting for me. I think there shouldve been subtitles, sometimes characters were inaudible for me and the audio mixing during some scenes didnt help either, unless there was a slow moment in the film I just couldnt understand what the characters were saying.

I thought the movie sucked so bad that what they got right in certain aspects (cast diversity, parent and child struggles, etc.) felt like nothing to me after how they treated the parts that Ive listed. its like they fucking checked off a Progressive Bingo Sheet and left everything else in the dust.

I left the theater disappointed and feeling worthless because all I felt was that these movies were just trying to sell me something and didnt push for a change like the first one did. what a fucking shit show.

conclusions. if you liked the movie, awesome Im glad, and you should decide for yourself how you feel about it and what it means to you. Im simply just putting my frustrations into a little text post because that is how I feel. Im not in charge of your enjoyment and you should decide that on your own regardless of my opinions. be responsible with your enjoyment.

but I wont, if you try to argue with me on any of these topics then Im blocking you forever and if you dare type "let people enjoy things" on my post then Im killing you,

[weirdcat1213]

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, can I ask, what are your top 7 favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series/etc) and your top 7 favorite (fictional) characters from any media? Why do you love them all? Sorry if you've answered this questions before......

Hello :D

omg i get to yell about things I like, exciting!

first im going to go with my top 7 in no special order cuz I would never be able to decide

Trigun (98, manga and stampede): I've talked WAY to much about this one but holy shit has impacted my life. The story, the characters, the pain THE SWEET SWEET PAIN MY GOD. It just mixes a lot of tropes/themes I really like. And we have 3 versions of it! How cool is that?

Steven Universe: again another classic. Discovered the show when I was young and it just grabbed my soul. Very formative and influential while I was growing up. So soft and p a i n f u l l as all thins should be :3. Plus the music is a banger. Like to this day ik songs from it. Favorite one is change btw.

Legend series (book series): no one paid attention to this series because it came out the same time as divergent and hunger games and other big titles. But I was! And it's still one of the best book series I've ever read. It totally has the 2013-2015 vibes (except for the latest one in the series, rebel) but it's....honest. not only because all the struggles in the book are real but also because the author really believes in her characters. She created them but also let them become people. Plus the writing is amazing and her description of specific moments and emotions UGH I have a huge post about it because of how cool it is. I still remember opening the first book and getting SLAPPED by the first line. Yes it's that good.

Signalis: newish game :D saw lesbians, saw violence and I was on board but I never thought the game would make me think and stare at the wall that much. So far I've played it 5 times and going for a 6th. It's so abstract and no one can decide on what's true or not but that's part of its beauty. Really clever and interesting game. Nothing is real, only lesbians with guns.

Our Flag Means Death: cool show that was about queer NOT IN THEIR TEENAGE YEARS??? IN THIS ECONOMY??? AND NOT ABOUT AIDS (sorry pose I still love you). Of course it won me over because of the queerness but also the characters themselves. It was nice to see myself in a lot of them, personality and racially wise. The fun gay pirates came to my house, destroyed my life and also gave me life. Easy as that.

Pose fx: don't like the main writer of the show too much but the rest of them ATE WITH THIS. A story about black queer woman PORTRAYED BY BLACK QUEER WOMEN. It deals with the aids crisis through the lenses of trans women and gay men but the thing in that show that blew me away was the love for femininity and the community they created around it. They actually took their abandoned and traumatized selves and became someone. They formed families that actual give support and I'm a sucker for found family. I've cried many times because I wanted Blanca to adopt me. 10/10 show about overcoming shit circumstances and the importance of community. What if I cried again.

Houseki no Kuni (manga and anime): weird manga that I've been following for YEARS because its so fucking good. The anime is beautiful and captivating af and honestly the whole thing needs to be analyzed by a Buddhist. it makes me want to learn about that religion so i can understand more. but yeah its sad, its hype, and once again its about gay rock MMM my favorite. you dont know the hours i spent looking for videos/animatic about it. hard to explain but i like to describe it as "human growth: the manga/anime"

Maybe it seems like I don't watch many movies and it's kinda true! I'm more of a shows person. but there are movies i like. maybe another day

Now onto my favorite characters but again I can't decide so this is in no special order. Also because I can't decide I'm giving the spotlight to characters that are not from the media mentioned above (for example if you dont see vash in here is because i yell about him enough like. 3 times minimum per month). Because I can. Because I'm normal about media and stories i like.

1.Steven (su): MY BOY MY MOON AND STARS. ok a lot of this list is about characters i relate to, but this one is the og. this mf is one of the kindest, awesome yet misunderstood characters of all time. theres so much rage and trauma in this little guy but there are many other feelings that get lowkey explored in the main show until BOOM the emotions explode in su future. its amazing how complex my son is. im so lucky that i got to grow up along side him in a way. and in another way it was nice to see myself kinda represented in him? fun times.

2.Tifa (ffvii): PRETTY RECENT BUT SHES THE COOLEST. ejem sorry. i love cloud, zach and the others from the game but tifa doesnt get the recognition she deserves. she survived so many tragedies and became stronger because of it. not only in body but also in mind. however she also became cautious and tries to not explode in front of others. she tries to be a safe place for people, even when shes scared. i think thats pretty admirable of her. i would say more but i dont want to risk spoiling the game but there are little moments and scenes where she just tries to be there for people because she has no one in her life anymore and fuck it makes me sad. also shes pretty hot-

3.Elektra (pose): MY QUEEN. shes just. evil sometimes. shes really a bitch to most of the characters but DAMN SHES COOL WHEN SHE IS. elektra knows she was born with a huge disadvantage in life so she grabs power like a mf and bites it. i kinda aspire to be that, to not let anyone get in my way. she just really speaks to the part of me that has bigger ambitions. but shes also smart and caring (when shes not being a bitch) and every time the world puts her down she stands up and kicks the world again. she's the power of femininity itself and yes i also think shes hot (i mean look at those cheeks of thunder) but shes like a fucking storm in a person and how i can not love that? We love poc people in power.

4.Phos (houseki no kuni): This fucking child (they're a child in my eyes) is so important to me for weird reasons. I got deep into hnk when I was in my sabbatical year. It was a time where I didn't know where I would go and phos seemed to be in a similar place. To this day it surprises me how ichikawa managed to create a "simple" character and then by all definitions made them human. I like their journey, the transformations they went through, the stages they went to cope or to confront their situation. Plus the design is pretty affff

5.Edward Teach (ofmd): I just.....really connected with this guy ok? The feeling of always being at the bottom so if you are going to rise your only option is to make people fear you but that's not true BOY HE LEFT NO CRUMBS WITH THAT WHOLE THING. he was just really cool when he entered the show and then it was "oh this guy is really fucked up actually" and he's so funny and MORE OLD POC QUEERS? FUCK YEAH. but i guess what puts him on top for me is how he explored himself and his needs. All that while being funny and tragic and gay. Really cool.

6.Anthy (revolutionary girl utena): MY DAUGHTER RRRRAAAAHHH. Anthy is a really tragic and complex character. to this day i cannot put together every reason why shes my favorite from utena. Shes tragic and my god the things she goes through break my heart every time I think about it but...shes also incredibly strong and funny and a weird keeping animals in her room. The creators did an excellent job showing her lack of agency and how she already had given up, but also showed her humanity and wish to retain things in her life that gave her joy. And movie anthy? That girl is a no nonsense girl. She will get her girlfriend no matter what from the people who abused her. She left that fucking school as a mature, smart and kind adult. We fucking stan.

7. Richard (requiem of the rose king): another recent acquired son. Idk why this one hit so much and honestly for how short the manga is (79 chapters) they did such a good job with him???? Banger themes and metaphors, banger character moments, banger GENDER moments. I've seen a few people not being able to take him seriously but idk, ir sounded honest and serious to me. A kid who has been told since birth they were a demon became one to survive but not really. Because no one with his wish can fully be a demon. Idk maybe it's cheesy but his quest for love and acceptance was a banger in my eyes (please read the manga. We can leave the anime behind). Also I like him cuz he's cool and is a character I CAN ACTUALLY COSPLAY THANK GOD-

AND THOSE ARE SOME CHARACTERS AND SOME PIECES OF MEDIA I LIKE :D IF ANYONE WANTS MORE PLS ASK.

[the-path-to-redemption]

Chapter 2 rant will be out later, but I just...God, fucking queer rep in RWBY is a living nightmare and I just have to throw some thoughts out as a queer person.

You have a Nazi lesbian (Coco) who admits to check out women without their acknowledgement behind her sunglasses (ew tf). Another lesbian who's a terrorist (Ilia) and her main motivation was jealousy? Despite being part of an oppressed group? A singular catty gay man (Scarlet), and while that isn't necessarily bad, fucking hell it's still very annoying that he's the only gay person and is just written as an asshole. Background lesbians Saffron and Terra, not bad but again, bare minimum. A trans woman whose VA was treated like dirt. And 3 nonbinary characters, two of which are talking animals.

Like, how many characters does RWBY has? And this is it? This is the line up for queer rep that got you all foaming at the mouth for? This is below minimum effort, and it took them YEARS to actually confirm any of them as queer. RT was an independent company, they're not The Owl House or Legend of Korra where queer rep is constantly being squandered by higher ups, they just didn't want to.

And Blake and Yang...fucking hell. Preface, I have no problem with the Butch-Femme relationship between wlw characters. That's real life, I've seen plenty of gay couples where they didn't have a problem addressing themselves according to heterosexual labels (i.e. a gay man calling himself the wife). It still doesn't erase the fact that they're gay, and it's part of the identity.

What I fucking hate, HATE, is that neither Blake or Yang were written as the masculine queer woman initially. Both of them are femme, or were femme, but ever since the baiting begin Yang has been designated as the "man" of the relationship. This just felt extremely weird, since now you have Blake barely taking care of herself in dire situations and Yang standing up to her. Not very "we protect each other" like they claimed in Vol 6. Queer representation should not take away the characters' already established traits for them to be queer, that's lazy writing that reduces them to being nothing more than their sexuality.

All of this felt hollow; the queer characters are stereotypes or just assholes, and aside from their sexuality there's little to no substance to them. If you want substance, you have to spend time and money looking at supplementary works instead of those substances being written in the show.

What was Scarlet's life like? His relationship with Sage and Neptune, or his complicated thoughts about Sun? What about Saffron? What does she think about the rest of her family? Of the Arc family name like Jaune did? Speaking of Jaune, it's so easy to just let him be gender nonconforming back in Vol 2. But no, he must be masculine because God forbid a man wears a dress without transphobic jokes being made at his expense.

TLDR: RWBY's queer rep is boring at best, abysmal at worse. The characters felt hollow, and the effort that went into making them queer is nonexistent. And personally speaking? If South Park managed to support gay rep in the 90s, an independent company that created a show decades later have no excuse of not trying to say "this character is gay" from the get go.

[dichromaticdyke]

re: skwisgaar attraction myth debunk turned feminist critique (AMAZING post btw) - feel free to ignore/not respond if it's too much/incomprehensible (english is fake)/rambly

honestly i feel like said post gets into the lesser discussed aspect of the mtl fandom as i believe a lot of us want to view it as different than other fandoms with a majority male cast; but it's not. this is a fandom full of misogyny-affected folks, especially of tme persuasion, who never outgrew or if new, elect to partake in, ye olde fandom habits of internalized misogyny shining through like it's their goddamn guiding light.

i dont know exactly how to phrase this in a demographically correct way, but it feels like despite the mtl fandom being overwhelmingly queer and a lot of the misogyny-affected tme folks being trans... the "i'm not like other girls" mentality was not broken out of; people decided "i am not a woman" and suddenly unpacking internalized misogyny wasn't a thing they decided they had to do anymore!

like. it feels like mtl fandom is about being "quirky" and shipping dethklok together but god forbid you wanna focus on the women in the show; abigail, amber, trindle, etc. it's... a tale as old as time (as those of us who have been in fandom spaces for a while would know) and it's so fucking saddening.

i've seen media analysis and critique of this show (MOSTLY YOURS!!) but more often than not it feels like the fandom doesn't want to delve into that either; they like mtl on the surface level. because it's edgy. because it's metal. because it's funny. because they find xyz member of the cast sexy. and i feel like this interwined internalized misogyny being projected out via mtl fandom behaviors with this complete lack of regard for the quality aspects of the show and the depths of the characters within it... i dunno. as i said, it's saddening.

...again, i hope this wasn't too word salad-like, or rambly, or long, or anything, but oh my god your post got the gears turning in my brain head so full of all the thoughts ever-

and yet again, AMAZING analysis, incredible dedication, and fantastic feminist critique.

don’t worry darling this wasn’t too long of an ask and i find it VERY intriguing.

because yeah i do absolutely fall into both camps of this to an extent. i love shipping the boys and talking about them, because i do love them as characters, but yeah it’s so easy to fall into the trap of not caring about the female characters in the show. and i would agree, again to an extent, that the female characters were not given much care or time from the show to properly be explored in a meaningful way (though, how much of that was a deliberate choice by the crew and how much of that just happened due to adult swim meddling in the latter years, we’ll probably never know). i always find it interesting, for example, how fandom will latch onto magnus but not care about abigail, despite abigail having more screentime and having a major impact on the plot of the show (had the band never broke up over her, salacia wouldn’t have attacked when he did, forcing them to finally learn about the prophecy and the doomstar arguably before they were ready, AND without salacia’s attack, the revengencers wouldn’t have been able to catch dethklok at the funeral and kidnap toki and abigail). of course with abigail, it’s not just misogyny playing a role there, but racism too, though luckily there have been some people calling out fandom treatment of her.

i’ve talked a bit before about how much it sucks that abigail wasn’t given really anything to work with, but it also makes sense given that the show is from dethklok’s point of view and they don’t really care about her either. that’s why it feels so strange (and SHOULD feel strange) to see nathan proposing to abigail in aotd—we didn’t know anything about her because he didn’t know anything about her, and that was kind of the whole point of that arc in the movie. women are objects to dethklok, and because of that, they become objects in the show, and i do think the statements “this is a deliberate critique of misogyny reinforced both by powerful men and metal culture” AND “this is a result of the crew failing to create and integrate meaningful female characters into the show” can both co-exist. honestly, i think mtl has a lot to say about gender (idk how much of that was intentional, but i’ve been thinking about it for a While and want to make a long analysis post or video about it at some point).

regarding the fandom spaces i mean. fuck, you’re talking to a decently popular lesbian mtl creator. i have one foot in the camp of being a misogyny-affected person (tme also, for reference) who makes up a majority of the fandom, but also the other foot is in the “not attracted to men” camp. as much as i like the shipping and smut writing for funsies, i genuinely feel like there’s more to this show than most people give it credit for. i have written so many analyses about it (with plans for more) for a reason. i’ve been in online fandom spaces for about half my life now, and no other piece of media has made me have this many fits of divine madness.

all this to say, yeah, it’s a silly adult swim show, i’m sure 95% of what we see on screen we’re not meant to think too much about. but the reality is that, the text belongs to the readers once it is out in the world, and the way readers respond to it can reflect internalized biases or thoughts. that’s not always the case! sometimes i just wanna see two silly long-haired men kiss because i think it would fix them. but you don’t leave your biases and oppressive thoughts at the door once you enter fandom. and i certainly don’t leave my literature MA or gender studies degree at the door either!

[lolotr]

10 fandoms 10 characters tag game

rules: name 10 of your favourite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people to do the same

Thank you @courfaeriedust for tagging me!! It's been so long since I have been tagged in something like this that when I saw the post on my dash I didn't even bother to check. It took the notification for me to figure it out lol

Here we go, in no particular order:

1. Kaleidotrope (podcast). I, too, will begin here, since it's been four years and I'm still not over it. As much as it pains me, I think I will pick Drew, but mostly because I resonate with him so goddamn much. One of the running themes of this list will be trauma.

2. Call Me Katie (web series). Bates, it's obviously Bates, it could never be anyone other than Bates. My disaster bi, the boy who helped me start to realize I'm queer, with his dumbass puns, his neediness, his obsession with vlogging and pizza... I could go on forever.

3. The Adventure Zone - Balance (podcast). Hoo boy. How do I... Magnus? Or Lup? I'm gonna go with Magnus, if only because he is the one who never fails to make me cry. Travis (and Griffin) does such beautiful things with this character and role plays BRILLIANTLY. well, they all do. gosh jeez this is hard

4. Lord of the Rings (books, movies). Never mind, this is super easy. Samwise Gamgee. Next fucking question.

5. Rusty Quill Gaming Podcast. AHHHHHGGGGDKEKXJDI Zolf or Sasha???? At this very moment Sasha. She just-- I just-- my stabbing girl. My damaged, stabbing girl.

6. Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus (book serieses). (These are the two in the verse I've read so far.) It feels like a cop out, but I think Percy. It was between him and Annabeth, and I absolutely love their dynamic, whether it's before or after dating. But Percy is so smart and capable in certain ways and so utterly stupid in others (I have a theory that both he and Annabeth take hits to their mental stats when they are within thirty feet of one another). He's loyal to a fault, he's obsessed with blue food, he fought the god of war at 12 and won, he dove into Tartarus rather than be separated from his girlfriend/best friend again, he even has ADHD. Truly the character of all time.

7. Avatar: The Last Airbender (TV show). Zuko. I love the whole gaang but his character is done so beautifully and complexly. Like that is how you do a redemption arc, people. From the very beginning. And you do not make it easy for this sixteen year old who has committed war crimes, no you don't.

8. The Hunger Games (book series). Peeta. I live that he is optimistic, kind, and principled, but not naive, oblivious, or weak. His flaws are the same as his strengths: he's self sacrificing, self effacing, loyal. Everyone rubs Katniss's nose in the fact that he's good except him. But also, he's not perfect, and there's a lot of complexity tied to the fact that everyone thinks he's better than Katniss in every way, but he's mostly just better at hiding the darker parts of him. I love that we see nothing but the darkest parts and he's able to come back.

9. Dames and Dragons/LegendLark - first campaign (podcast). Fran. Again, I adore everyone, including NPCs, but I have such a soft spot for her. Noel plays her so beautifully and isn't afraid to make her jarring, make her part of the inner conflict of the team. I love how she's grown, and I'm excited and scared to see how the show wraps up.

10. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV show). This is tough, because some people's characterization varies so wildly sometimes, but... Giles. I'm going with my sexy dad who cares so fucking much about his adopted child(ren).

I had a lot of trouble with this list, because I've been in fandom since I knew what it was. I picked things that I still enjoy, and also things that I still enjoy talking about/analyzing. Because that's how I show love.

PIKACHU, I CHOOSE YOU: @all-chickens-are-trans @chaotic-gay-is-my-alignment @sonseulsoleil @yeahdefnot @greatestvoyageinhistoryofplastic @rovermcfly @the-vaudevillain @anywhoozles @wire-smith @cantdance anyone who wants to! Sorry if I tagged anyone who's been tagged already, I was doing this on mobile and couldn't be bothered to check

[mikkaeus]

detransition, baby - a review

apparently the “first book written by an openly trans woman to be published by a big 5 publishing house” but that was from a goodreads review so dont quote me on that

disclaimer im am? mostly cis at this point in time

i really enjoyed this book. i loved how unapologetically queer it was. i loved the writing style and overall tone (more on this later*). i cant imagine what the experience must be for the average cis person that has never thought about Gender in their life. 

the one-line summary of the plot is that Ames (detransitioned trans woman) accidentally gets Katrina (his gf) pregnant and proposes that his ex gf Reese (trans woman) to be a coparent because he can’t stand the idea of being shoehorned into the role of a dad and all the gender fuckery that entails by virtue of Katrina’s cishetness. 

the book follows the reese and amy in vignettes from various periods of their lives, as well as the ongoing story in the present with katrina’s pregnancy. the timeline is meandering as it frequently recounts memories from the present, but i didn’t find it hard to follow.

our lovely cast:

- Reese: cynical & confident as a self-described trans elder. she desperately wants a child of her own. she’s emotional and impulsive and has several toxic relationships with men prior to and after her long-term relationship with Amy. her view on womanhood is fucked up, but understandably so. A lot of people on Goodreads, at least half of them TERFs, took issue with this particular section (which is funny, because the author knew exactly what would happen). 

After all, Every woman adores a Fascist. Reese spent a lifetime observing cis women confirm their genders through male violence. 

....

Liberal feminists — especially the trans-hating variety — would have a field day with her. ... But you know what? ... Why should the burden be on her to uphold impeccable feminist politics that barely served her? ... So yeah, Stanley, bring it on. Hit Reese. Show her what it means to be a lady. 

- Amy/Ames: a baby trans when she initially got together with reese, who was as much of a mother to her as she was a partner. she has never been able to break the habit of using maleness as an emotional shield, and one resulting casualty is her sex life — the inability to make herself vulnerable makes sex unsatisfying for both her and Reese. ultimately, their relationship breaks down and in the aftermath, Amy detransitions to Ames. 

- Katrina - late thirties, chinese/jewish, cishet, divorcee. this is her first venturing into queerness. she’s also Ames’ boss, but this dynamic is not explored at all tbh she might as well be his coworker. 

*THE PROSE! As I said earlier, I loved the writing style. It’s easy to read but embellished and ‘literary’ enough to be fun. Not sure of the right word to describe the tone but something like blasé/snappy/honest/blunt? it is also very funny. 

Ames pondered whether he ought to cancel his subscription to HBO in order to afford this sperm bank. He couldn’t fully comprehend the enormous weight of fatherhood and generational lineage, but he could easily comprehend how much he did not want to cancel HBO. 

...she welcomes Reese with a hug that, in its unexpected affection, Reese would put somewhere between suddenly discovered long-lost relative and cult leader thanking you for your impending sacrifice.

is this a Queer Misery book? i don’t think so. all the Bad Things (transphobia, homophobia, dysphoria, and so on) feature insofar that it is a book about the messy lives of these trans women. i didn’t find it depressing. 

are the characters likeable? storygraph says “it’s complicated”. personally, i was emotionally invested in them at around the 50% mark. as someone who has never wanted children or been interested in motherhood at all, and also never been particularly moved by those who were, i was really hoping that things would work out for reese.

the question of race. amy and reese are very white and this is underlined in the book in a sufficiently self-aware (on the part of the author) way. i dont think this detracted from the book. more thoughts on this here. 

sEx? some people have said there was a lot of sex in this book but i personally didn’t really think so (by the standard of fanfic at least). i guess there’s a decent number of talk about sex but not that many sex scenes? 

is co-sleeping with your baby bad? the science says yes! sleeping in the same room is not the same as sleeping in the same bed!! this is the most problematic part of the book 

unfortunately, (MINOR SPOILERS)

I didn’t get the happy ending that I had desperately hoped for (though i probably should’ve clocked something when it ended at 12 weeks post conception). Instead, we got an ambiguous ending that I guess could be seen as hopeful. I’m the type of guy that wants closure in all my stories but alas. 

[calliopesburn]

So you mentioned queer film and docs in some of your tags, may I ask if you have any specific recommendations?

thank u for asking i have SO MANY!!!!!!!!!!

i haven't actually checked but im 99% sure all of these films were definitely directed and likely also written by queer people; for context this top list is all new so look for film festivals that might be screening or streaming these virtually / below i added some older films that are more easy to find

New from the past year or two:

the one i mentioned in the post is one i definitely recommend - it's called Nelly & Nadine (doc) - two women fall in love in a concentration camp, survive, and live happily together - the documentary gets made when a queer grandkid finds old stuff and is like hrmmmm

Rule 34 - one of my favorite films ever honestly - a black sex worker (in brazil) gets into criminal law school (paid for by her sex work) and witnesses her own life and identity being constantly debated in the classroom while continuing her sex work and beginning to explore BDSM at night - she becomes increasingly erratic throughout the film in a way that culminates beautifully (talk about a chaos queer) an incredibly commentary on women's agency

Before I Change My Mind - i think it takes place in the 60s - a non-binary pre-teen kid moves from america to a small canadian town and struggles to make friends for .02 seconds before they set their sights on their crush and become a member of their toxic friend group - puts a whole new spin on 'coming of age'

Compulsus - a woman starts hunting down men who sexually assault women (from the descrip it says it never shows the actual assault that leads her to start striking back, only her committing violence)

Tahara - first of all the stop motion kiss scene still has me reeling. two jewish bffs attend a funeral and things get real awkward when they kiss 'for fun'

Framing Agnes (doc) - gender case studies from a 50's UCLA clinic are re-enacted by icons like Angelica Ross - incredible history

Wildhood - a two-spirit teen falls for another indigenous boy while he journeys with his brother to find their mom

Anything's Possible - Billy Porter's directorial debut - a muslim boy falls for a trans girl and takes his shot even though he knows people will freak out (and they do) but it's really affirming and supportive and lovely and funny <3

Esther Newton Made Me Gay (doc) - ok wanna talk about queer history?? Esther Newton was the first person to ever write about drag culture from an anthropological perspective PERIOD. i think if i remember correctly she was fired from parsons, and was on very thin ice for a long time with her career - but even still she wrote and paved the way for queer academia - writing about fire island, cherry grove, the drag scene, and more!!!!! she also identifies as a butch lesbian/between genders and this film is so incredible for the lesbians - you really need to hear her talk about gender, about butchness and femmeness - ALSO you get to see her childhood growing up in the early 1900's as a queer person and it's incredible, you'll cry but like in a GOOD cathartic way

Sleep With Me (series) - a soapy sapphic thai romance between two disabled women - one in a wheelchair and another with a rare sleep disorder. this will literally give you every cute soapy sapphic moment you could ask for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Girl Picture - lesbians watch this one!!!!!!!! this is a ROMANCE!!!!!! there were scenes where i was like omg!!!!!!! when you never realize how desperately ur craving a certain style - just watch the trailer please ; also asexuals u should watch this one too :) (just to be clear though the asexual character is straight, not the sapphic romance)

Mama Bears (doc) - this doc will also make u cry but in a really fucking good way. this is a doc on christian parents who used to be conservative and homophobic before changing perspectives after their kids come out. most notable is Kai (though she also chooses the name Esther for herself <3, based on her favorite person in the Bible), a trans girl who talks about coming out to her mom as a girl as young as 3 years old, and in spite of the abuse she was put through, she kept saying it and her mom eventually realized she could either lose her "son" forever, or accept and love her daughter. im tearing up writing this - her mom gave up her entire family to literally save her daughters life - and she did.

Nana's Boys - two black men are about to get engaged when the city goes on lockdown and their relationship is put to the test - truths come out and the gorgeous twists and turns of their relationship really shows the gentleness and supportiveness of queer relationships (it's called nana's boys because they were both raised by their grandmas <3)

Unidentified Objects - a lovely film about two neighbors who take an unexpected road trip - their lives of course changing forever as a result. one of the characters is a gay little person who's mourning the death of a close friend and the other is a sex worker who is looking for the aliens who took her when she was a kid (yes that's literally the plot) it's wonderfully well written and has one of those endings that'll send you reeling

New - haven't seen but on my list:

The First Fallen - a narrative story that follows a group a friends as the first wave of the AIDS epidemic approaches in Peru <3

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (doc) - you'll likely hear about this as its Laura Poitras' new film, it's about Nan Goldin

Stupid for You - a sapphic girl musical????????????????????

Way Down - an episodic on a bunch of friends trying to be musicians - the lead is non-binary in a romance with various ladies and i think everyone else in the band is queer too

The Blue Caftan - a tailor in morocco lives happily closeted with his wife until they hire a sexy assistant

The Inspection - a gay man enters the military and finds unexpected support and family

El Houb - can only remember that it's a muslim guy who comes out to his dad but is a dark comedy (he literally runs into the closet at a point in the film)

My Emptiness and I - a newly out transfemme woman navigates life and dating and surgery

Moneyboys - two gay men in i think taiwan?

so in general i highly recommend paying attention to queer film festivals - newfest, frameline, and outfest are the major US ones (they only stream in the US but im pretty sure you can use a vpn) inside out is a canadian one; most of them stream now!!!! like 80% of their films are available to stream for a short duration so sign up for their email lists and mark their festivals on your calendars because if you pay attention to these you'll start to see actual queer stories written and directed by queer people!!!!!!!!

also consider watching shorts programs - some of the most impactful films ive been seeing have been shorts (there's one called Dress Up that has been glued into the back of my skull for like 2 months) and shorts are basically seeing into the future of queer film and a lot of them are amazing so highly recommend!!!!!!!

-

For things currently streaming or easy to find and download:

Fantasy of the Girls (2017/2018 depending where you look) thrilled to list this one as it's actually the film that made me realize im a lesbian :) full film is also on YT

The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love dir Maria Maggenti (1995)

Saving Face (2000) and The Half of It - dir Alice Wu

The Watermelon Woman (1996)

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (late 90s i think)

Fire (1996)

Desert Hearts (1985)

The Velvet Vampire - feels like jennifer's body but in 1971 with a vampire who wants to have sex/kill both ppl in a married couple (dir. by a woman; haven't seen this yet though)

Chutney Popcorn (1999)

Paris is Burning (1990)

Brother to Brother (2004) (anthony mackie)

Pariah

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (a sad one but chloe moretz dated the girl from the film and the director is queer - incredible film)

Lingua Franca

Fire Island

Naz & Maalik

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson

Firstness

Firebird

See You Then

Ammonite

No Hard Feelings

Shiva Baby

Flee

Passing

--

so in general i highly recommend paying attention to queer film festivals - newfest, frameline, and outfest are the major US ones (they only stream in the US but im pretty sure you can use a vpn) inside out is a canadian one; most of them stream now!!!! like 80% of their films are available to stream for a short duration so sign up for their email lists and mark their festivals on your calendars because if you pay attention to these you'll start to see actual queer stories written and directed by queer people!!!!!!!!

also consider watching shorts programs - some of the most impactful films ive been seeing have been shorts (there's one that has been glued into the back of my skull for like 2 months) and shorts are basically seeing into the future of queer film and a lot of them are amazing so highly recommend!!!!!!!